This week's comic book reviews

So how did this week's comics stack up?


Thor #3. The great: the Olivier Coipel artwork. Majestic is an understatement. The good: Iron Man gets his tin-can ass handed to him. Plus another Norse god shows up, and Asgard is now the Norse version of Latveria, complete with diplomatically-immune leader. The annoying: Marvel's contractually-required real world referencing sticks out like a sore thumb. Setting this issue in New Orleans and having Thor confronted with the unanswerable question "Where were you superheroes when this real world disaster happened?" (a) jolts you out of the story big time by (b) reminding you that the real world has no thunder gods. This is escapist literature, people. In the Marvel Universe, the twin towers are still standing and New Orleans was protected by a force field.

Justice League of America Wedding Special. Didio's Law states that continuity porn is to DC as current events referencing is to Marvel, and this issue is nothing if not law-abiding. I pity the new reader because [s]he won't get the visual echo to Meltzer's Justice League of America #0 opening, the Infinite Crisis throwaway about Luthor, and a dozen other non-footnoted references. Which means that this comic is aimed squarely at DC's continuity-obsessed-fanboy base, patting them on the back for "getting" the in-joke references. It's also a prelude to the next Justice League arc, as well as a continuation of Green Arrow, the Black Canary miniseries, and the Black Canary Wedding Planner. So is it any good? Yes, but only if you can rattle off all the different people who've been Firestorm. Would I recommend it as a jump-on point for new readers? Hell to the no. DC is many things, but in its current incarnation it is so definitely NOT new-reader-friendly.

More as I read 'em . . .