Hiya, folks! Sorry you haven’t heard from ye olde webhead in a while. You’d think your friendly neighborhood webslinger’s excuse would be that he’s been busy fighting crime and all that exciting jazz. But no! The truth is Spidey’s been rocking a sinus infection for like four months now. Yeah, f*&king awesome, true believers.

The Mighty Avengers #1
Writer: Brian Michael Bendis
Artist: Frank Cho
The post-Civil War Marvel Universe trudges forward in this book about the adventures of the government sanctioned Avengers team: Iron Man, Ms. Marvel, Wasp, Ares, Black Widow, Sentry, and Wonder Man, which is a different team from the still-active other Avengers, which are in the monthly comic titled “New Avengers,” which does wonders for the Avengers’ already awesomely convoluted history, which can only be explained through a combination of pie charts, graphs, Excel spreadsheets, advanced trigonometry, the Lascaux cave paintings, and the W.O.P.R.

Anyway, although other folks seem to have enjoyed this first issue of the series quite a bit, I have to say, besides Cho’s pretty art, I found it essentially a parade of ok ideas surrounded by dialog so irritating and self-consciously cute that the book ends up taking a fateful dive into some kind of wince-inducing parody Bendisverse.

One or two nice moments, though. My favorite is when the city of Brussels is depicted by a drawing of the Eiffel Tower. Oof.

City of Others #1
Writer: Steve Niles
Artist: Bernie Wrightson
A cold-blooded assassin becomes entwined in a bloody supernatural struggle.

So, here we have a nifty pairing: Wrightson, one of the finest and most influential comic artists of all time, paired with Niles, a dependable-if-slightly-overrated horror genre guy with stellar ideas who tends to rely on cliche and take himself too seriously. This first issue of City of Others is a crowded, wobbly, unsure genre mash — gangsters + zombies + Hammer flick…? — but a decent read nonetheless that one hopes doesn’t get too gimmicky like the ending of the comic suggests.

Good opening scene and Wrightson’s work is wonderful as usual. Although I think the choice to go with just the pencils takes some of the edge off of his work — literally and figuratively.

The Brave and the Bold #1
Writer: Mark Waid
Aritst: George Perez
A loose, straightforward, and continuity-free superhero gasm featuring Green Lantern and the Batman trying to solve a perplexing mystery. Is it going to change your life? No. But hopefully you’ll have as much fun reading this issue as Waid and Perez obviously had creating it.

MORE REVIEWS AFTER THE JUMP!

Fantastic Four: The End #1-6 (of 6)
Writer/Artist: Alan Davis
Far, far in a utopian future, the FF are living their own lives separately from each other. But when a few of their old foes show up all at once, they’re forced to reunite against the combined threat.

This is like a certain breed of old superhero comic: some nifty ideas but kinda dull, overly talky, and based around predictable coincidences. Not sure what time capsule Fantastic Four: The End crawled out of, exactly — somewhere around Secret Wars II, I think. It’s not a stupid comic and Davis does a decent balancing act with the dozens of characters…even though 85-90% of them probably aren’t needed… But wow, it takes forever to get moving (about 4.5 issues) and then never really goes anywhere. Even a phenomenal final page can’t rescue the yawnfest of a story.

That said, like all of Davis’s books, it’s one of the most beautiful looking superhero comics ever produced. So, we’ll even this out with a mediocre ruling.

Shazam: The Monster Society of Evil #2 (of 4)
By Jeff Smith
Like the first issue, this second installment of Smith’s superhero opus can get a little precious. But overall this is a smart, exciting, and humorous book for kids — meaning, it’s a gigantic load of fun. Smith remains one of the best storytellers in the business.

The Spirit #1-3
By Darwyn Cooke with J. Bone and Dave Stewart
More straightforward and routine than I expected — Eisner’s Spirit was darker and more unpredictable than these first couple issues, for example — and Cooke, like a lot of creators these days, can get too cute and sentimental for his own good. However, the art is exceptional (of course), and each issue is an improvement over the last. Cooke’s ambitious goal is laudable: to build on Eisner’s foundation and create a believable, modern universe for the title character. One to keep an eye on.

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