Picked up a ton of new books this week; the most I’ve had in a single trip in months, as a matter of fact. The weirdest thing is, there wasn’t a one of them that was a borderline title. Either I’ve officially trimmed all the fat out of my pull list, or today was an unusually strong day for quality material. Meh, it’s probably the latter.

New Avengers #11 - The first part of the new ‘Ronin’ storyline, introducing the character that may or may not be Daredevil. Bendis’ script is sufficiently clever enough that there may be an actual mystery to the new guy’s ID, though at this point most of the clues do point directly at it being Murdock in a different costume. Either way, this issue is yet another solid mix of talking heads and action, so I’m not complaining. Sidenote: this is one of two titles that has managed to start a friend of mine back on the road to reading the damn things.

Invincible #26 - The second part of Mark’s off-Earth adventures, reuniting him with his murderous father. Kirkman deals with the conflicted emotions Mark feels over seeing his dad snap, kill a buncha folks and try to kill Mark in a fairly understated and realistic manner. Ryan Ottley’s art, as usual, is rock solid - great to look at without being uneccessarily flashy. The book as a whole continues to move forward, mixing logical plot progressions with just the right amount of surprise developments and sub-plots. This is easily one of the best superhero books on the stands today, and possibly the most consistently entertaining comics of the last few years.

The Losers #28 - The biggest problem I have with this book is the art. There hasn’t been a bad artist on the book yet, but I just love Jock’s approach to the book so much that anyone else is a bit of a letdown. Still, Colin Wilson does a solid fill-in job, evoking a bit of a Carlos Ezquerra feel mixed with some of Jock’s style. Diggle continues to write a script that would completely rule as a weekly HBO series and will, hopefully, not be too gutted when the movie guys are done with it. My second biggest problem is a personal one - I wish I’d dropped the monthlies about a year and a half back and just gone with the collections. It kinda sucks getting bits and pieces of the story instead of nice, delicious chunks.

The Flash #226 - OK, I lied - as of this issue, ‘The Flash’ is now a borderline buy. To be fair, it’s the first issue after Geoff Johns’ run, and I think this was a fill-in story from writers Stuart Immomen and Kathryn Kuder. Even getting industry vet Steve Lightle on art really did nothing to save this from being a rather pedestrian tale.. I’ll stick around for a few more issues, to see what happens during and after the Infinite Crisis fallout, but it’ll have to wow me to keep me beyond that. Still, it has a f-ing sweet Ladronn cover, so it’s not a total waste.

Legion of Super-Heroes #10 - Waid and Kitson’s reboot continues to be a pleasant surprise with this issue being particularly strong. It’s honestly been a while since anything Waid’s written has been a “must buy” for me, but if he keeps it up, this may very well be the series that matches his run on ‘The Flash’ as a career high. Much like Brian Vaughn on ‘Ultimate X-Men’, Waid and Kitson are utilizing the clean slate they’ve been handed to it’s fullest, playing on longterm Legion fans’ preconceived ideas about the characters and team to twist and turn our expectations around while ultimately surprising us. Now, I did figure out the plot twist in this issue about halfway through, but that didn’t make it any less enjoyable or well constructed. Quite the opposite - I was hoping I was wrong and was semi-shocked when it turned out I wasn’t. Ten issues in and still one of the better superhero books on the stands. Never thought I’d see the LoSH in that sort of position again.

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