The Comic Book Day before Christmas

I wasn't going to pick up my comics today, but I ended up having to ride out and pick up a last minute gift card. I'm glad I did. The nice part was that while they had just had the busiest day of the year, they were empty when I showed up so there was no trouble chatting with my friendly LCS guy while I browsed. The other great thing was that it was a good strong week for me. I wish every week could bring me a really solid four or five good titles. As it is, I am pretty happy with what I get right now, but I still have those slow days.

My LCS gave us all a nice discount as a present and I bought the first trade of David Lapham's Young Liars. I am looking forward to reading this, and will post about it at some point.

The Umbrella Academy: Dallas #2 - Except for the awful scene of the guy who had his arms and legs cut off, I really enjoyed this issue. I love the characters, so any time we get to see more of them just being themselves, it's a good thing... We see more Kraken in this one and a nice dose of Rumor, including a cool full page thing by Ross Campbell. Ba's art is great as expected.

Runaways #5 - This thing keeps being just endearing enough to me that I can't drop it. I really love Ramos' art. I really love it. I have said it before, but I loved his art on the New X-Men, and i love this as well. It's perfect for the age of the characters and the tone of the book. This one had a lot of vehicular goings on, and the effects of the scatter spell have finally worn off, thank god. It was pretty fun, which is good enough for me.

Billy Batson and the Magic of Shazam #3 - Holy Cats Mike Kunkel can cram A LOT onto a page. Fortunately for me the amount of stuff on the page tones down a bit as this issue goes on, but the effect of it all gives the book a sort of hyperactive in a good way, kid vibe (Sort of like the adorable Mary Marvel in this same title). This issue brings us the inevitable... Theo Adam gets the magic word and becomes Black Adam! It's good fun and the art is great.

Atomic Robo - Dogs of War #5 - I guess it had to end some time. This was a pretty incredible mini series. The art is fantastic, and the writing was superb. The story and the backup stories were just good comics. It is great to see Robo at different points in his 'life', and see the way his attitudes have changed, etc. The ending of the book is done well, and says a lot about the character. In this issue Robo's upper half fights nazis while his legs relax in a crate...