Lots of comic books over break...

Trying for quick hits here because I've been reading a bunch of stuff...

Superman/Batman: Supergirl is a pretty comic book - drawn by Michael Turner of Aspen and Withcblade fame. The storyline sontinues to work well with the alternating and intermingled internal voice-overs between the two lead characters providing a nice glimpse into their differing but ultimately similar thought processes. The storyline's simple enough - Supergirl's back, Darkseid kidnaps her, Superman/ Batman/ Wonder Woman/ Big Barda rescue her, Darkseid tries to get revenge. The pacing's a little quick as it moves sequentially through three or four major locales with little transition among them. The battle scenes are good, the dialogue's good, the art's good. High quality stuff from an excellent ongoing series.

Next volume in the series is Superman/Batman: Absolute Power - another time travel tale with villians from the future coming back to change their future world for the better. Another solid outing from the cooperative series that seems to be mostly out of continuity, letting us glimpse possible futures and possible pasts based on all sorts of butterfly effect kinds of things.

This one's only to be read by long-time DC readers, though, as there are a bunch of references throughout the volume to DC history that might not be appreciated unless you've been with the DCU for a while now. I especially liked the last page as the older Superman (or Earth 2's Superman perhaps) fades into the Wahtever Happened to the Man of Tomorrow Superman. Kind of a nice nod, but one that won't be appreciated by newbies. Sorry, Googs...

Now, if we could just get these two heroes together for a movie or something...

Spider-Man: Quality of Life is crap. Poor, predictable, easy to see coming storyline. Freakishly wasp-waisted villian is hired byh evil corporation to kill Friend of Spider-Man. The only thing worth mentioning here is that the entire mini-series was done by computer rendering. That makes it interesting but not good, and it certainly isn't good.

Spider-Man: Until the Stars Turn Cold isn't bad. The artwork's a little more cartoony than I'd choose, but the dialogue's snappy and well written. It's a part of Spider-Man comics that I've always enjoyed - the little smart-alleck throw-away line from Peter either when he's wandering the cityscape looking and thinking or if when he's in the middle of a fight with his most dire villian. It's the thing that redeems the otherwise dour Peter Parker (heck, nearly his whole family has died or been kidnapped a dozen times, and every villian seems to know who he really is). This volume's from the time when PP and MJ were separated with her out on the left coast trying to act in movies. It's an interesting dynamic that really holds this volume together.

The Incredible Hulk: Big Things isn't much of anything at all, really. Artwork: not so good. Conclusion to long, confusing storyline that I didn't follow: not rewarding at all. Blech.