Another day, another dollar to be wasted on baubles and trinkets. Not much on the old list this week, but we’ll see what we can scare up. Last week’s books were a slim batch. Halo 3 is totally pointless due to unforgivable delays. The game it was supposed to preface came out a year ago. Who cares anymore? They should have just stopped the “weekly” book and put it out in a trade instead. Astonishing X-Men was OK, but nowhere near the perfect tone of Whedon’s run. And Secret Invasion was cool, but I’m kind of just waiting to re-read it once the whole thing’s out. Issue to issue it has pacing problems, but I love the underlying story. And speaking of story, over the last two days I read the first 4 trades of Y the Last Man, and boy, it deserves all the praise it gets. I read Book One long ago, wasn’t amazed, but I enjoyed it. Well, once those gears get going, it’s quite a ride. Fans of strong plotting and character-driven storytelling should hop on this one. So, what’s up now, potna? Let’s do this thing. Here’s a few titles I might take home tomorrow.

Captain America #41 continues a tale that I would love to have read for the first time, all collected, in that recent Captain America Omnibus. Unfortunately, I didn’t. I read it weekly like a schlub. But this story is so long and strong (pause) that I bet the impact of an all-in-one read would be immense. I must say that I wish Steve Rogers would come back at this point…I don’t know if that’s in the cards, but Bucky still feels, well, temporary. This story wraps up soon, and let’s hope it does so with as much style as it’s had all along.

I’ve been reading a lot of Mark Millar lately, it seems. I just finished his unique and nihilistic graphic novel Wanted (made into something else entirely for the film), and it was imperfect and grand all at once. Now here comes Marvel: 1985 #4 to extend my Millar-fix a little longer. I had low expectations for this title, but so far it’s been pretty good stuff. Real world meets comic world. Thumbs up.

Well, uh…that’s it for the list. I may be looking into the new issue of Amazing Spider-Man (#568), which sees the return of John Romita Jr. in some capacity (art?), as well as a confrontation between Spidey and the Green Goblin-helmed Thunderbolts. Also of interest, Geoff Johns and George Perez begin Final Crisis: Legion of Three Worlds. Good creative team, so we’ll see. And last if not least, Vertigo will publish the first issue of Air, which is about God-only-knows what, but I always flip through the new Vertigo books.

Slim pickings, people. Time to go trade-shopping. Until next week…

Bagged and boarded,

Grip