Replacing items on the pull list

For anyone who has been following my blog, you may have noticed some changes to the pull list.  Many of the titles that were listed on my list half a year ago, are now gone from it, and new titles have been added.  The general pattern has been for me to drop a DC title and pick up a non-DC title by an independent company.  I'm going to summarize the last year in comic-book collecting and pull list modification below.

Issue Review: Worlds' Finest 15 (New 52)

Power Girl hurtles through DeSaad's boom tube in search of her friend Huntress.  She arrives in a bunker-like base, where she battles para-daemons and tries to beat Helena's location out of them. Meanwhile, DeSaad usess a lightning wand to try and extract fear and pain emotions from Helena, which seem to fuel his power.  He realizes Power Girl is in his base, and heads off to confront her, giving Huntress a chance to pick her locks and escape.  Huntress defeats a strong-man slave of DeSaad's and joins Power Girl in the fight against him. But DeSaad says he has extracted what he needs from Power Girl, and uses another boom tube to return them to England.  When they arrive, Power Girl says DeSaad has "screwed up" her powers -- her costume is torn and she is cut and bleeding (both of which should be impossible due to her Kryptonian physique).

NCN - 6/13/13

I was one day late for New Comic-book Night this week, because I have had to spend a great deal of time, including yesterday afternoon, at the new home, getting it ready for move-in. I wasn't able to get to the comic shop before they closed yesterday, so I went today.  I also picked up some digital stuff, including one that came out this week.  In the shop I picked up Katana #5, Thor, God of Thunder #9, and Batgirl #21. Digitally,  I picked up Worlds' Finest #13, plus some older back-issues (of Red Sonja and X-Men). There are no pictures this time -- my camera is in the new house and I'm still typing this in my apartment.

Katana #5 - I had already decided before picking up #5 that I would go no further with this series unless this issue was a substantial improvement.  It wasn't.  Although this issue was slightly better than #4, the story-line remains a haphazard mess with no sense of organization or forward momentum.  Random stuff just happens from page to page, with no clear cause-and-effect relationship among events.  It's entirely possible that writer Ann Nocenti is going to explain things later on, but as I have said before of other series that I've dropped (like Morrison's Action Comics and Remender's Captain America), if there is an underlying order to the chaos here, it has taken too long to be revealed.  I'm not going to wait half a year for the plot to start making sense.  To add insult to injury, the art in this series has just been downright awful -- sometimes I can't even tell what is happening in the panel, because it's drawn so poorly.  There's just not enough to recommend this series, and there are too many other potentially good ones coming out that I see no reason to continue wasting my time with it.  I give this issue a 5/10. Thus, I have now officially dropped Katana from the "potential pull list."

Thor, God of Thunder #9 - This series continues to pleasantly surprise and delight me.  Although I am not a fan of over-the-top violence, which Thor has in spades, it is handled well here, and the underlying story is compelling.  Despite the enormous potential for confusion that could result from telling a story with "Thors" from three different timelines, Aaron makes it work seamlessly, and the interaction between Thor's different selves is enjoyable to read. Ribic's art continues to look fantastic, more like oil paintings than pencil and ink drawings.  I have really enjoyed this title to date, and it continues to be solid. 10/10.

Batgirl #21 - Gail Simone turns in another wonderful story-line.  As usual, Gail's strength is characterization, and she does another outstanding job with Barbara in this issue.  Batgirl continues to struggle with the aftermath of (possibly) killing her brother James.  Her parents part company again.  And in the middle of all this, Batgirl has to battle the Ventriloquist in a rather gruesome fight.  Gail definitely has a taste for the macabre.  The art is decent in this issue, but I sorely miss Adrian Syaf, who did a much better job on just about every aspect of the art.  9/10.

Worlds' Finest #13 - Levitz turns in another decent issue about Huntress and Power Girl.  Desaad is going after them, apparently believing they may hold the key to getting back to Apokolips.  There's some great action as a giant blood-hound of Desaad's keeps attacking the two girls, and Helena does a great job of using the environment to fight him.  The dog can take Power Girl's best punches, which prompts her to wonder if she might be getting weaker on this earth.  I'm hoping this is not the case, at least long-term, because I see no reason why DC should want to weaken Power Girl.  The art in this issue was decent, but nothing spectacular.  7/10.

Overall, a pretty good week of comics.  Three of the four were quite enjoyable. And at least now I have made my decision about Katana, which I have bee vacillating over for the last couple of months.  This means there will be some room on my pull list. Katana's place will be taken next month by the new Red Sonja, written by Gail Simone.

New Comic-book Night - 02-27-13

It's "New Comic-book Night" once again (Wednesday). As happens sometimes, nothing on my pull list came out today, so I bought myself a bunch of back-issues. It's the end of the month and I had a little spare money in the budget (spent $50 less on groceries than I thought I would).  I'm still mostly getting my comics digitally, so I didn't need to go to the comic-book shop at all.  Instead, I went to +comiXology and spent about $28 on digital comics.  I pulled in quite a haul for that amount, since most digital comics are only $1.99, compared to $3.99 in most cases (or $2.99 for some books).  I can't snap pictures of online comics the way I can hard copies, but I decided to make a small collage of the ones I bought:

For those needing to squint, the top two rows are Earth-2 #4-6, #0 and Worlds' Finest #4-6, #0.  On the recommendation of my friend, +Stuart Johnson, I have started reading these two series. I read the first three last week, and now I am working on the next four.  These two series are only on issue #9, so if I keep liking them, I will complete these series and add them to my pull list next week.

The other issues showing in the image are the covers of Dynamite Entertainment's Red Sonja - She-devil with a Sword issues #7-12, which is the second story arc of that series.  I was a big Red Sonja fan back in the 70s/80s as a youth, so I picked up the first couple of issues on a whim, and it has turned out to be an excellent series. I will do a Year 1 review of it when I complete these issues.

Again this is quite a haul for $28, and I am looking forward to having lots of great weekend reading to do.  I'm also rather optimistic about adding either Earth-2 or Worlds' Finest to my regular pull list, since both are very good so far -- much better than the New 52 series I have dropped recently (Action Comics and Superman).  My "regular monthly pull list" might be starting to shape up, finally.