New Comic Day! January 5th edition.

Hey there X-Maniacs, it's time for the FIRST New Comic Day of 2011! Since I've been concentrating on doing full reviews and haven't done a Best of the Rest post as a result, I'll toss in a few comic related thoughts after the regular NCD post, and close with THE Random Scan of the Week. Okay, with the housekeeping out of the way, let's get into the brunt of this post... As always, before we get to today's books, let's take a trip ALLLLL the way back to last year and my last NCD post to see if I hit my comic review quota. Last week I promised, nay, I guaranteed a measly 6 new reviews. How did I do? I doubled that number and pumped out 12 reviews, as well as my 2010 review spectacular! Not bad. Not bad at all. Last week's Pick of the Litter was What If #200, and BOY did it live up to my high hopes for it, receiving a perfect score! With only 7 new books last week, I didn't pick a Runt of the Litter, but looking at what comics are due to be released this week, I'm sure there will be a Runt...

So there we go. Last week is out of the way, on to the books I JUST picked up at the comic book shop a few hours ago. Captain America: Hail Hydra #1, Weird Worlds #1, JSA All-Stars #14, Brightest Day #17, Generation Hope #3, Avengers: The Children's Crusade #4, Avengers Prime #5, Wolverine: The Best There Is #2, Thanos Imperative: Devastation #1, Freedom Fighters #5 and Superboy #3. I also picked up the Invincible Iron Man-Stark: Disassembled trade as well... If you can't figure out what this week's Pick of the Litter is, you must be new around here... It's the winner of my Favorite Mini-Series AND Favorite Single Issue year end award, Avengers: The Children's Crusade. NOTHING else will get read before that. This week's Runt of the Litter is also pretty easy, as it goes to the “winner” of my Worst Crossover Event award, Brightest Day #17. So that's 11 comics, meaning I'll try my damnedest to provide 11 fresh reviews come this time next week. But definitely expect a review for Children's Crusade #4 up by Friday at the latest, as tomorrow looks to be a bit too hectic for me to give that comic a proper review. That's it for the brunt of the NCD post, let's get onto the random thoughts/Random Scan of the Week!

Titans: Not That Terrible!
So last week I was complaining about that Titans series from the late 90's. And with good reason. It stunk! But low and behold, a new writer really turned that book around, as well as taught me a valuable lesson. One that I had already suspected... What is that lesson you ask? If you see the name Devin Grayson adorning a comic book cover, RUN! Run far, far away from it, because she is one terrible writer. The difference in quality from Grayson's Titans run to Jay Faerber's run is remarkable. I mean it's not like Faerber has made the series into the greatest comic book ever made, but he made it readable, which is all I really ask. After reading Grayson's work on Nightwing(UGH!)and now this, I can confidentially say that unless I'm tricked by magic gypsies, I will not ever knowingly pick up a Devin Grayson written comic ever again.

Still crossing that Border...
On a whim, I picked up Borderlands for my PS3 last week, and boy am I glad I did! I wanted a game that would hold my attention until school starts back up in a few weeks, and this game is doing that and more! I've sunk HOURS of time into Borderlands, and I'm still as hooked now as I was when I first started playing. Not only that, but I downloaded the 4 expansions packs for the game from the PSN earlier today, meaning I'll be engrossed with that game for several more hours, days and probably weeks. Why mention this here? Because if I slack off on reviews this week, you'll ALL know why!

The Random Scan of the Week!John Romita, Jr's Joker may just be my favorite version of the Clown Prince of Crime ever.