This (or rather last - again) Week's Comics: Wonder Woman, Powergirl, Gotham City Sirens, Batman Detective Comics, Amazing Spider-man, Deadpool et al.

Also: Marvel Zombies 5, Secret Avengers, Amazing Spider-man Annual, Sense and Sensibility, Whatever Happened to Baron von Shock, Chimichanga.

Wonder Woman no. 44 written by Gail Simone, drawn by Nicola Scott and Travis Moore. This was alright, but nothing special. Simone does sort of seem to be floundering somewhat with Wonder Woman. Her talent is for dialogue and character, so what can she do with a protagonist who isn't fast with a quip, and has no personality?

Powergirl No. 12 written by Jimmy Palmiotti and Justin Gray, drawn by Amanda Conner. This was a pretty fun issue, but... ummm... about those first four pages... has... has Amanda Conner been watching a lot of Russ Meyer movies or something? Just... yeah. Oh, and I know this came out two weeks ago, but I somehow missed it earlier.

Gotham City Sirens no. 12 written by Tony Bedard, drawn by Peter Nguyen. I thought the Poison Ivy story was stupid last issue, and it's still stupid here. Why is any of that happening? It makes no sense. I liked that one scene where Catwoman's sister flipped out and murdered a cat and a nun, but apart from that, this was pretty standard.

Batman Detective Comics no. 865 written by David Hine, drawn by Jeremy Haun. God I don't care. This is such boring bullshit. It isn't badly done or anything, I just can't bring myself to care.

The Amazing Spider-man no. 632 written by Zeb Wells, drawn by Chris Bachalo and Emma Rios. This, on the other hand, was damn fine. It's just such a well told, tragic story. Normally I would be all, "fuck the Lizard. What a stupid villain. He's only one step up from the goddamn Vulture." But here, it just works. They've taken what was a really dumb idea for a bad guy and turned it in to something quite affecting. Good job.

Deadpool: Merc with a Mouth no. 11 written by Victor Gischler, drawn by Bong Dazo. This was reasonably good, there were some funny bits, but what was with the serious centrepiece? Why was the Zombie-Deadpool-Head talking about addiction?

Marvel Zombies 5 no. 3 written by Fred van Lente, drawn by M.W. Kaluta, Kano and Tom Palmer, and Felix Ruiz. I bought this book because it had Howard the Duck on the cover, and I thought to myself, "yeah, I could use some ridiculous bullshit." But what I got was something that took itself way too goddamn seriously. I mean, Howard doesn't show up until nine pages in, and before that it was just really boringly written medieval fantasy crap. I got bored with Marvel Zombies a while ago, and this really, really, didn't make me change my mind.

Secret Avengers no. 1 written by Ed Brubacker, drawn by Mike Deodato. This wasn't bad, although it was pretty wordy, and the dialogue wasn't very good. But it's a first issue, and what it sets up seems like it could be legitimately interesting. It gets a pass for promise.

The Amazing Spider-man Annual no. 37, written by Karl Kesel and Kurt Busiek, drawn by Paulo Siqueira and Pat Olliffe. There were two stories here, and surprisingly the one written by Kurt Busiek was the worse one. They were both reasonably good, but the Busiek story was so damn gimmicky. Spider-man meets Stan Lee. Kind of a dumb idea.

Sense and Sensibility no. 1 written by Nancy Butler (and Jane Austen), drawn by Sonny Liew. I picked this up largely because of the whole, "what the hell why is Marvel publishing Jane Austen" thing, but it was actually alright. It took a while to get used to (the old-timey dialogue married to some often quite cartoony drawings, and written in a modern looking font), but once I got past all that, it was actually alright. I've never read Sense and Sensibility in non-comic book form, so that might be helping my enjoyment, as might the fact that I do quite like Jane Austen's writing (especially Emma.) One thing that confused me, though, was why the characters kept randomly changing from reasonably realistic looking to weird, distorted cartoons with huge heads and tiny bodies. I really didn't understand what the hell that was about. Was Sonny Liew just getting really bored with all these drawing rooms, and just decided to screw around? Oh, well, it was alright.

Whatever Happened to Baron von Shock no. 1 written by Rob Zombie, drawn by Donny Hadiwidjaja. I picked this up because I thought to myself, "what's this? Rob Zombie has written something that isn't about hillbilly cannibals?" And, while it isn't about hillbilly cannibals, it is exactly as poorly written as if it were.

Chimichanga no. 2 written and drawn by Eric Powell. I quite like Eric Powell - he can be very, very funny when he wants to be. And he does want to be funny in this comic - about half the time. The other half is terrible, terrible 'satire' about the Pharmaceutical industry, which plays like a lame SNL sketch (I mean lame for an SNL sketch, all SNL sketches are, by definition, lame), or fart jokes. Lots and lots of unfunny fart jokes. There were some very funny jokes, like "The Amazing Randy, Man With the Strength of a Slightly Larger Man", and the image of Chimichanga eating an elephant was gold. But just lay of the fart jokes in future, alright?