This week is an AMAZING Best Bang Reborn #14 for comics out on October 15th. From Port Moodys Hourglass Comics & Toys comes the likes of Final Crisis: Rogues’ Revenge, Amazing Spiderman, Astonishing X-Men and Guardians of the Galaxy. This week I went with the maple leaf ranking best to worst, enjoy!

Final Crisis: Rogues’ Revenge #3 of 3 (DC Comics)
A great wrap-up to a delightful villain book. The Rogues make their mark on both the DCU, the current big bad with Libra & Darkseid and The Flash. I enjoyed everything on this book except for the second page, the credits big splash page where Weather Wizard’s wand looked all weird. Other than that, I enjoyed the book, the characters and how has me wondering how they will be handled by Geoff Johns in his upcoming Flash: Rebirth run. Good job everyone and finally a FC book worth noting!

Amazing Spider-Man #573 (Marvel)
New Ways to Die book six by Dan Slott, John Romita Jr, Klaus Janson was a great climax to the storyline with Spider-man and the Thunderbolts with Norman Osborn, Anti-Venom and Venom in a Scorpion suit. It was just great. End of story. Best Spidey line, “Again with the stupid belt. I’m so taking that away from you. I don’t care if your pants fall down and the whole world see your little goblin…” Slott has brought the classic Spider-Man back in my mind and I have to say that I am very much down with the new revamp of Spidey/Parker even though how it was handled was crap. The outcome for the book is just great. This is quickly becoming my favorite new Marvel title. Thank-you Dan Slott and AMAZING art by John Romita Jr. & Klaus Janson! Also Kudos to Dean White for colors and VC’s Cory Petit is doing a stunning job lettering the book!

Astonishing X-Men #27 (Marvel)
The Ghost Box storyline is now heading towards its big climax and what a mad story that only Warren Ellis could come up with. A whole world of Chinese X-Men living hidden and peacefully, building towards a great mutant dream until… M Day. Now its a hidden land full of dead mutant bodies. Interesting. One thing I am noting is that Ellis can handle Cyclops really well, I still hate him, but I did like everyone’s reaction to him swearing. Also I vote for X-Girl rather than Armor as the new Kitty’s name, why not? Didn’t Kitty have like a dozen names with all her various costumes way back when? Ellis — I hate you for this good book!

Guardians of the Galaxy #6 (Marvel) Secret Invasion tie-in, I guess
DnA are writing some great work on Guardians and I loved how this issue wrapped up so many little and large story lines. How this was related to SI with the likes of some rebel Skrulls hiding out to avoid being killed by the Skrull Empire is beyond me but this was a good solid issue. My biggest issue was with the cover art which had little to do with the actual storyline (plus had a male Starhawk rather than the female version that the team fights in the book, that kinda stuff bugs me).

Spider-Man: Brand New Day TPB book 1 (Marvel)
As I had said in this weeks review of Amazing Spider-Man, I am very much enjoying and getting into the whole Brand New Day mythos, stories and artwork. This book is not exception, great from start to finish with nice introduction of the Initiative hero of New York, the red-haired Jackpot (the speculation of it being MJ is fun), the mysterious Mister Negative and the threat of The Menace is all well done. I agree with Stan Lee, I am eager and excited to see what happens next for Spider-Man!

Captain Britain & M13 #6 (Marvel)
Blade continues his hunt on the vampiric Spitfire while the rest of the team deals with some strangeness in a small block of England which seems to be tied into the mindless ones and offers up a new (old) character to the mix — Brian’s wife, Megan. Interesting issue if not a tad rushed at times but still enjoyable as hell, I wish they wrote Alpha Flight this well!

Robin #179 (DC Comics)
The gang war continues while Batman is wacked out of his mind (or whatever happens/happened from Batman RIP — how this book fits in with that is beyond me) but Batman is now gone and Robin is dealing with the gang war in Gotham. It reaches its climax with the new Red Robin aiding in the manipulation of this gang war and using Scarab plus Spoiler/Steph shows some skin. Solid issue but again, how it fits in with things is beyond me, I am just going with Bruce/Batman has pissed off and Robin is dealing with things while he is gone (again).

Stormwatch: Post Human Earth Division #15 (Wildstorm)
A big reason I love this book is that it acknowledges the WildStorm Universe now given that this writer also wrote The Establishment, I kinda expected this crossover to happen but with more characters. The Stormwatch team hooks up with John Drake, field commander of The Establishment, and find out a big scary thing that the team will need to stop now that the Soviet Union ain’t around to keep some dread naught monster in check.

Crossing Midnight: The Sword in the Soul #3 TPB (Vertigo)
A very intense story of a brother and sister on opposite ends of an ancient war. A great ending for the series to the point it made me wonder why Mike Carey is not writing these type of stories for Marvel with the X-Men. If you enjoy Japanese mythos than this very well may be a right up your mystical alley. I was sad that the series was over with this trade but after reading the story, if it continued, it would maybe have gone on a touch too long. Carey wrapped this book up very well.

Final Crisis: Legion of 3 Worlds #2 of 5 (DC Comics)
As much as I wanted to enjoy this issue, it seemed as though each panel, each page is just crammed with so much stuff. Most of the time I love this but the issue feels like it has SOOOO MUCH going on it doesn’t have time to breathe or even let the reader breathe long enough to catch their breath. I bet many readers love this but it got too much for me, I enjoy a nice balance in my books. Also I am completely lost on the whole Sodam Yat, last of the guardians of the Universe, that was kinda huh? for me.

Uncanny X-Men #503 (Marvel)
I said I was done on this book didn’t I? I had enough of Greg Land’s porn artwork? Cyclops looking like a male leads face after a money shot was getting to me, right? Then why did I pick this book up? It bugs me but I needed to see this one through and I had a moment of weakness, I thought to myself — it cannot be all that bad, can it? So many people like Fraction and Brubakers work, I must be the one f***ked in the head for not liking their work on the X-Men. Come’on, Robert, you used to be a HUGE X-Men fan. So how did this issue do?

Well, not great. It hobbled along with the team chasing down Empath and then taking a break watching Dazzler in downtown San Francisco only to run into Madelyne Pryor. Seriously if not for how Greg Land is “dressing” Madelyne Pryor (I do like her look), I would have hated this issue. Oh and Pixie beats up Empath. *sigh*

Justice Society of America #19 (DC Comics)
The Kingdom Come storyline continues along and finally we get some continuation from the JSA Annual with Power Girl plus half the JSA split in their regards to Gog and Magog. Wrap with the Justice Soceity Infinity come crashing in, the book was alright and often had the same pulse as before the whole Kingdom Come storyline but other times the pacing seemed off. I really just want this Kingdom Come storyline to end, its gone long in the tooth now for me.

Mercy Sparx #1 (Devils Due Publishing)
It was funny, when I was in my LCS – they asked me if I collect any DDP books and I was like NOPE then when they went to ring my books through, they lifted this issue up and I said, “I am picking up the first issue to see how it is, its a sexy Devil Girl on the cover.” which ended with “‘Nuff said!” reply. As for the issue, it was okay, nothing to write home about. The book is not as sexy as the cover aludes to, the character is seen in a billion books before – nothing much to sink your teeth into and the art is like someone trying hard to draw similar to Jamie McKelvie’s Phonogram or Cam Smith. Unlike something like Bomb Queen which juggles sexy, sex, bleeding edge with a good solid story each issue, this just didn’t. It wasn’t sexy enough to avoid the pale story and wasn’t strong enough in the story to miss any sexy artwork. I don’t know if I will pick up the next issue or not, it needs to get much better.

Mighty Avengers #19 (Marvel)
Did this story need to be its own issue of Mighty Avengers rather than being in the recent Secret Invasion: Captain Marvel mini-series? Like WTF?! Again I do not understand why Secret Invasion is another MTV movie trailer while the rest of the “meat” of SI is in other books? I know even Final Crisis is playing the same tune, doesn’t mean that I like it. This was crap and I am glad I never bought the issue.