Quick hitters comics I've read

Superman/Batman (volume 2) by Jeph Loeb & Ed McGuiness - easily the best read of the month...outstanding time-travel/alternative worlds story of three villains from the League of Superheroes time frame kidnapping baby Batman & Superman...lots of callbacks to various old-school DC history and a creative cross-over with alternative/parody versions of the Ultimates from the Ultimate Marvel universe...I'd read it before, and it's still outstanding...and then there's Superman/Batman #26 which wasn't collected in the original, smaller collections...touching story of Robin reflecting on how much he misses his friend Superboy...story written by Jeph's son, Sam, and drawn by twenty-six different artists in tribute to Sam who passed away before it was published...also has a shorter story of a young man named Sam who was Clark Kent's friend before he passed away from cancer...heartbreaking, touching, brilliant...easily five out of five stars...

Black Widow: The Finely Woven Thread - Good art, interesting story of character redemption, cliched use of main character's acceptance of a stray cat to parallel her journey of acceptance in finding a home...four of five stars...

Superman/Wonder Woman: volume 1 Power Couple - pretty good read of two characters who are more new to the world than I'm used to them being and trying to find out how to have a private relationship when they're the two most powerful people on the planet...the cover, however, looks like soft core porn and embarrasses me to even have in my library stack...four out of five stars...

Wolverine and the X-Men: Death of Wolverine - Oddly, no actual death of Wolverine takes place in this issue, just lots of building up to Wolverine dying and the aftermath of Wolverine post-death. Feels very much like an ancillary part of a massive summer cross-over...three our of five stars...

Batman/Superman: volume 1 Cross World - moderately interesting story of Batman & Superman from New 52 Earth 1 meeting their counterparts from Earth 2. Fights and cooperation and then fights ensue. Horrible artwork from Jae Lee...every scene seems to take place in a fog bank where the characters are in perfect focus but they are against a blank background...three out of five stars

Batman Beyond 2.0: Justice Lords Beyond - revisiting of the revisiting of a story line from the Batman Beyond tv show showing what happened after the last time the Justice Lords appeared in the comic which showed what happened after the Justice Lords appeared in the tv series...hard to follow the fight scenes between characters from the two worlds because the differences in costumes are too subtle...three out of five stars

Justice League: volume 2 Villain's Journey - Jim Lee's art annoys me with everybody having far too many lines and always looking either asleep or angry with no middle ground...too much yelling when they should just be talking...interesting premise (man turns into villain when his family gets killed in a Justice League fight)...poor execution...threads leading to splitting off of Justice League and creation of Justice League of America...three out of five stars...

Justice League: volume 3 Throne of Atlantis - Ivan Reis artwork is a little better, but the characters are still always angry at each other and prone to fly off the handle at the smallest slight...seems poor characterization because they aren't getting any better as 'time' goes on...two stories here: Cheetah vs JL and Atlantis vs JL...neither are great...minor moments of relationship between Supes & WW are more interesting...three out of five stars

Justice League: volume 4 The Grid - here comes the cross-over fight with the Justice League Dark & Justice League of America...not interesting...seriously, these people seem to fight each other at the smallest little provocation...they're like children with superpowers...the infiltration from the Crime Syndicate on Earth 3, however, is more interesting...sadly most of that is coming in the next volume...three out of five stars...

Incredible Hulk: Past Perfect - boring, jumbled mess of a storyline when Bruce Banner had contracted cancer and was dying...but of course, gets saved - weirdly by the Leader. Lots of different characterizations of the Hulk - grey thug from the 50's, brainless green brute, smart green brute...two out of five stars

Ultimate Comics X-Men (vol 3) - some sort of war between mutants lead by Jean Grey and by Kitty Pryde including an apparently conscious, mutant seed...dumb...two out of five stars