I have a suggestion: Why not do a top 5 Worst Books of the week (or month if you think one week is too less comic stack for this kind of judgement)? Would be interesting to see this ? wht do you guys say?

Honestly, I’d rather be positive than negative. I’ll point out a book’s negative qualities in a review, sure, but doing a column that focuses on them just seems unnecessarily mean.

Shame that Millar and Hitch are taking over.

I don’t know, I wouldn’t mind seeing McDuffie/Pelletier get a long run, but I’m really psyched to see what Millar and Hitch do. Millar’s UFF was some of his strongest work ever, and Hitch is Hitch. Plus, I may be wrong but I think they were offered the book ages ago, before McDuffie/Pelletier, so it’s not like these guys are being kicked off to make way for the cool kids (not that you were making this claim, but it would suck if that were the reality).

But I do think this was the best FF issue of their run. Can Pelletier lay out an action sequence or what?

I also got:

Local. The feel good story of the year!

The Order #1. Got it based on Panteon praise and despite my dislike of team superhero books and found it to be just interesting enough to pick up the second one next week. Getting a real Milligan X-Force vibe from it, which is not at all a bad thing.

No love for Ex-Machina Masquerade Special or the latest issue of Local? Did those series lost their charm as time went by?

I have moved to trade only reading on Ex Machina, as the delays have made it a frustrating single-issue read for me. But I still enjoy the trades.

As for Local, I’m not that big into Megan’s brother, so I was disappointed that he was the feature for the Austin issue. But I will say I enjoyed the issue quite a bit, it just didn’t make my top five.

My top five this week is:

1. Incredible Change-Bots TP - For all the reasons enumerated in my full review. This book is going to miss a lot of folks, I’m afraid, but trust me… it’s a lot of fun and worth special ordering.

2. Manhunter V.3 Origins TP - Truthfully, I had to give this one up so a customer could buy it, so I won’t be able to buy my copy until next week, but I read all these issues in single issue form and I know that the book just got stronger as it went on.

3. Brit - Lots of fun, and a nice benefit to have a book for those many weeks when Invincible doesn’t ship on time.

4. Green Arrow Year One - #4 is my favorite issue since #1, great action, a nice slacker to hero conversion moment and basically a good superhero action done up in action movie style. Diggle and Jock are a tough team to beat, no matter what the characters.

5. American Virgin - Kelly does a great job (he must if I didn’t miss one of my favorite artists, Becky Cloonan, *too* much) and Seagle’s story of the sexual culture in India is as fascinating as the other world sex culture that’s been going on in this arc. Best arc of the series thus far… I hope the trades are doing well, I don’t want to see this one canceled too soon.

6. Hellboy Darkness Calls #5 - Amazing art by Duncan Fegredo, great action and use of mythology too… love this book.

7. Fantastic Four #549 - Loving McDuffie’s take on this book, really enjoying Pelletier’s art… fun to see Black Panther and Reed Richards playing “two smartest guys in the room” Shame that Millar and Hitch are taking over.

8. Local #10 - As I said, not my favorite issue of the book, but still good art, good story and it was a kick seeing a couple familiar landmarks in the issue.

9. Walking Dead #41 - Crazy psychological shit going down in this book. Kirkman does *not* take it easy on his characters.

10. Didn’t get a chance to read, but I bet either Hack/Slash #4 or Usagi Yojimbo #105 would have made this spot.

Light week, but a really good week.

2. Fantastic Four- It’s too bad McDuffie is leaving in a few issues, i’ve been enjoying the hell out of his stuff here. Just a fun issue all around, it’s always good to see the FF in space.

3. American Virgin- Great art, great writing, more people need to read this book. Ryan Kelly does a kick-ass job filling in for Becky Cloonan.

4. Avengers: The Initiative- Best Marvel-U Avengers book without a doubt (and honestly, I enjoy New and Mighty every now and then), despite having about 20 characters and 10 different subplots I never feel lost or have trouble keeping up. Probably the best WWH tie-in stuff so far.

5. Ex Machina- I forgot how much I missed this book until I read this. I missed Tony Harris on art but John Paul Leon works pretty well here. I liked the sort of “Great Machine: Year One” thing.

6. Bioshock- Sure its not a comic but damn this game is fun. Seriously, if you have a 360 or a good PC buy this game. This the only game i’ve been motivated to buy this year and it’s totally worth it.

Action Comics despite coming out after All-Star Superman was pretty enjoyable, as was Hack/Slash. All in all, it was a pretty strong week for me.