The best of the rest.

Well, another week has come and gone, which means it's time for my weekly back issue post. To be honest, I really haven't read all that many back issues this week, but I'll post some quick looks at the ones I have read.

Let's see, on the personal front, I'm still waiting for my poor doomed comic book order, there are only 5 weeks left in the fall semester at school for me and earlier today I met with my advisor and picked out my classes for the upcoming spring semester. After next semester, I should be only three courses short of graduation! Woo-hoo! OK, enough about me, onto the comics!

Infinity War #1-6: This was the follow up to the extremely well done Infinity Gauntlet from a few years earlier. Basically when Adam Warlock acquired the Infinity Gauntlet from Thanos at the end of the Infinity Gauntlet mini-series, he expelled all good and evil from his body so he wouldn't use the massive powers of the Gauntlet in a corrupt way. Unfortunately, the evil he expelled from himself grew to become the evil Magus, who along with an army of twisted doppelgangers of familiar Marvel heroes, decided to try to steal the Infinity Gauntlet from Warlock for his own nefarious usages. When I first read this story I couldn't have been much older then 10 years old, and back then I HATED this mini-series. I remember disliking the entire concept so much that after reading the first 2 issues I didn't even bother to buy the final 4 issues. Now, some 15 years later, I have to say, 10 year old me was an idiot! This story was WAY better then I remember it being! I can honestly say I'm glad I gave this mini-series a second chance. Score: 9 out of 10.

Batman and the Outsiders #4 &5(2008): Batman calls on Green Arrow to help him and his Outsiders discover what the evil Brother Eye is up to. Ollie rubs the entire team of Outsiders the wrong way and winds up throwing down with Batgirl. Plus OMACs show up. It's always hard to just read two comics in the middle of a storyline, but I have to say I liked the stuff that I did read here. Anytime Ollie is running around acting like an ass I'm happy! Oh, and I was pretty happy with the fact that Batgirl couldn't defeat Ollie in a fight. THAT was awesome. Score: 7 out of 10.

Astro City: Life in the Big City TPB(1996): This trade contained the first 5 issues of Kurt Busiek's Astro City. Astro City is basically a look at a world populated by superheroes, and digs into how the heroes deal with the citizens, how the citizens deal with the heroes and how they all live together in Astro City. The first five issues of this series were good, but they mainly served to set-up certain people, places and things. Since this trade was more or less a set-up issue, I can't say it blew me away or anything, it thought it was simply good. With that said, I'll definitely be trying to get my hands on the next couple of trades, because I want to see what Kurt can do once he's got all the set-up stuff out of the way. For a score, I'll go with a 8 1/2 out of 10.

Batman: Streets of Gotham #1 & 2: This was one of those series that spun out of the Battle for the Cowl mini-series from this past summer. The title of this comic should give you a pretty good idea of what this series is all about. We've got Batman, Robin, Commissioner Gordon, Hush masquerading as Bruce Wayne, and a couple of Batman's rogues thrown in for good measure. So far so good is what I have to say about the first two issues. Now, before I give the score, let me mention the Manhunter Second Feature, which closed out each of the first two issues of this series. I have to admit that I really haven't been very high on DC's Second Feature idea. Off the top of my head, I can't think of one single Second Feature that was worth the extra $1 they tacked onto the comics they appeared in. That all changed with this series. I absolutely LOVED the Manhunter feature! I think I liked it more then the main story! I'd always heard very good things about the Manhunter series, and now I can see why. I've got to see if I can score that Manhunter series off of eBay... Score: 8 1/2 out of 10.

That's it, another week in the books. If you want to comment on anything comic related, be my guest. Until next time, Long Live The Legion!