A Quick Look at: Batman and Robin #7, Blackest Night: JSA #2, Teen Titans #79, Avengers: The Initiative #32 & Ultimate X #1.

Hey everybody, it's your insomniac buddy X here to bedazzle you with some of the worst work every to appear on the Internet! Since my body doesn't seem interested in sleeping anymore, I have decided to simply lay awake and read comic books for the better part of the night. Hey at least I'm accomplishing something, right? On the plus side, I'm very rapidly reducing the size of my comic book pile. On the negative side, no sleep makes brain work not so good, so I'm not even going to bother attempting full reviews for the 5 new comics I read through last night. Instead, I'll give a(very!)brief synopsis of what happened in the comic, followed by my thoughts on it. Lastly, I'll dish out my score, and a pic from each book, so if nothing else, at least these reviews should be WAY quicker for you brave souls to read through. All right, enough small talk, it's game time!

Batman & Robin #7: Writer: Grant Morrison. Artist: Cameron Stewart.

Batman arrives in jolly old England and, with some assistance from Knight and Squire, winds up finding an active Lazarus Pit. Dick decides to toss the corpse of who he thinks is Bruce Wayne in the pit, and waits for "Bruce" to emerge from it. Oh, and Batwoman also shows up... Don't ask me why.

You know, I'd been warned about this comic by a few of my blogging amigos, most recently by Jason Todd, who cautioned me that reading this comic would probably cost me several braincells. JT, YOU WERE RIGHT!!! I honestly haven't the slightest idea as to what the hell was going on here... Weird British villains, Batwoman in a coffin, Knight and Squire, Batman's corpse, Damian floating around in a tube... Wha??? Reading this comic made my head hurt, but at least the artwork was nice, I guess...

Score: 2 out of 10.Does anybody know where I can buy an English-to-Grant Morrison Dictionary?

Blackest Night: JSA #2(of 3): Writers: James Robinson & Tony Bedard. Pencils: Eddy Barrows & Marcos Marz.

While Mr. Terrific is attempting to create a light source that would defeat those dastardly Black Lanterns, the Black Lanterns decide to trick the JSA into allowing them access to Terrific's laboratory. Instead of mindlessly attacking the JSAer's, they pretend to be nice zombies, which allows Black Lantern Earth-2's Lois Lane access to Terrific's lab(thanks to Power Girl, who considers E-2 Lois her mother), where she gives her BL ring up to Earth-2's Superman, who was defeated in the Blackest Night: Superman mini-series not all that long ago.

I actually enjoyed this comic a lot more then most of the other BN x-over issues. It was nice to see the BL's actually come up with a plan other then, "Terrorize the heroes who were once their friends/lovers." I loved the fact that the BL's were smart enough to momentarily sacrifice themselves in order to gain access to the corpse of Earth-2's Superman. The next issue of this mini should be extremely interesting, since there should be almost no conceivable way the JSA should be able to take BL Earth-2 Supes, as well as the army of BL's knocking at their door.

Score: 8 out of 10.Jeez, how many times is Earth-2's Superman going to return from the dead?!?

Teen Titans #79: Writer: Felicia D. Henderson. Pencils: Joe Bennett.

Static reveals to the Teen Titans that he has to return home to Dakota(Umm, which one?), because a virus is striking the place. I'm not really sure how Static plans on fighting the virus, but whatever I guess. Upon arriving home, he refuses to tell anybody where he'd been, which leads to his friends and family acting distrustful of him. The Teen Titans eventually decide to follow Static to provide him with some emotional support, but before they arrive, Static uncovers a plot by a pharmaceutical company that was benefiting from the virus, and he winds up getting laid out by some big bruiser named Holocaust.

Eh, this was an OK issue I guess. Since I only know Static from the Terror Titans mini-series and the handful of Teen Titans books he's been in, it was nice to get a look into his life. I can't say he(or the vague Dakota)was very interesting, but since he's still a work in progress, I'm willing to give Static, this storyline, and the new writer the benefit of the doubt... For now.

Score: 7 out of 10.Miss Martian has a migraine? I guess she must have read Batman and Robin #7 too!

Avengers: The Initiative #32: Writer: Christos Gage. Pencils: Mahmud Asrar.

This is a Siege tie-in issue, and it takes place before and during Siege #1, just so you know. Instead of turning tail and running from the battle against the Asgardians, Taskmaster decides to stay and fight, hoping he'll finally be recognized as an A-list villain due to his actions. The Constrictor and Diamondback are torn as to whether or not they should battle the Asgardians, and ultimately Constrictor is convinced to assist Norman Osborn's anti-Asgard crusade by the Taskmaster. Eventually Osborn takes the battle directly to Thor himself, and several of his heaviest hitters attack the God of Thunder, including Taskmaster. Diamondback can't decide what to do as she watches the battle, and before she can make up her mind, Osborn's forces have felled Thor. Besides that, the Avengers Resistance(think the former New Warriors)learn that Osborn was behind the destruction of Soldier Field in Siege #1, and they decide to attack Camp HAMMER while Osborn and his forces are preoccupied in Asgard.

Not bad, not bad at all. I've never made a secret of the fact that I've always thought Taskmaster was a WAY better villain then he was constantly being portrayed, so I was happy to see that he had a hand in downing Thor. The Constrictor/Diamondback love story is still rolling along, and since Diamondback kept wishing Captain America was there to watch her back, I've got to believe her relationship with Constrictor isn't all he was hoping it was. The Avengers Resistance taking on the nearly deserted Camp HAMMER is actually an extremely good idea, why not destroy the base of your enemy while he's away? All in all, this comic was quite good. As usual.

Score: 8 out of 10.Yeah that's right, the Taskmaster rules.

Ultimate X #1: Writer: Jeph Loeb. Pencils: Arthur Adams.

In this issue we meet Jimmy Hudson, who was given to James and Heather Hudson by Wolverine as an infant sixteen years ago. With Wolvie dead as a result of the Ultimatum storyline(really?!? They killed off their most popular character?!?), Kitty Pryde hunts Jimmy down, reveals to him that he is the son of Wolvie, and presents him with some of the Ol' Canucklehead's belongings. Among the belongings is a holographic message from Wolvie to his son, where Wolvie asks Jimmy to listen to an idea he had for him. With that, Kitty gives Jimmy the whole, "You're a mutant in a world that hates and fears you" speech, but Jimmy isn't fully convinced he actually IS a mutie, until he pops out three bone claws, ala Wolvie. However, Jimmy's claws wind up coating themselves with metal after they've been popped, unlike his old man. By now, the Hudsons track down Jimmy and Kitty, and needless to say, they are none to happy that Kitty told their son he was adopted without their prior knowledge. This issue ends with the Hudsons having to decide what to do now that the cat was out of the bag.

First off, up until about two years ago, I had collected every single comic book that came out of the Ultimate line of books. Ultimate Spidey, Ultimates, Ultimate FF, Ultimate X-Men, if it said Ultimate on it, I brought it. Then I began to read DC comics, and since I needed to drop some Marvel books in order to afford the DC comics, I ended up dumping all of the Ultimate titles. From what I've read about the Ultimate Universe since I stopped collecting, it's probably a good thing too, because it sounds like that line of books went to hell in a handbasket... I only brought this comic because I needed to add another $3 to my comic book order in order to qualify for free shipping, so needless to say, I figured I'd buy this series one time only, read it, probably not like it, and then forget about it... You know what? I was WRONG! I REALLY liked this comic! Jeph told a very simple, basic coming of age mutant story, and he did it extremely well. The story was well done, the art was good, the dialogue was solid, I liked the Hudsons, and most importantly, I liked Jimmy as well. Trust me on this one, nobody is more surprised by the fact that I liked this comic then me, it's been a while since I've really enjoyed Jeph's work, but if he can keep producing high quality stuff like he did here, I will happily stick around for the ride. So yeah, I'll definitely be buying issue #2

Score: 9 1/2 out of 10.I can tell you from experience, that hurts as much as it looks!