Also this week:

BIRDS OF PREY #75 - Ah, I see something important must have happened during the War Games crossover.  Nice try, DC, but I'm still not buying it.  Fortunately, most of the issue is about setting up the book's new status quo rather than dealing with crossover fallout.  And even better, the new status quo involves the book becoming semi-detached from the other Batman titles, from the look of it.  I'm all for that.  There's also a new cast member being introduced as the title ransacks the archives of unused female DC heroes and dredges up Lady Blackhawk (who, somewhat unusually, has Zero Hour as an operative part of her history - not generally a good idea, but if they're going the out-of-time route, I suppose I can see the point).  Not bad, but I don't like crossovers, and I really object to major developments in a title taking place in another book.  B

DAREDEVIL #66 - Beginning "The Golden Age", which seems to be working in three time frames at once - the Golden Age, the early Silver Age with the debut of Daredevil, and the present day, with the gang leader returning to Hell's Kitchen to find it overrun with Starbucks.  There's some chronological ambiguity here which leaves me a little confused - how long ago is this Silver Age stuff meant to be happening, and how old does that make Matt?  Otherwise, though, this is great stuff, and the black and white sequences in the 1940s really show off the quality of Alex Maleev's art.  A-

JLA #107 - The first Kurt Busiek/Ron Garney issue.  A few years back, this would have been billed as a standalone issue, which just happened to have a cliffhanger at the end.  These days it's labelled as part one of a storyline, which isn't really the best way to think of it.  It's a bit Astro City, with Flash and the Martian Manhunter sorting out a problem thanks to diligent performance of their dull administrative duties.  There's also a nice update of a fairly obscure villain who works rather better in the Internet age than he did when he was created.  Perfectly decent, albeit nothing unexpected.  B+

WE3 #2 - God, this is fantastic.  The plot is completely straightforward (and I'd love to know which Washington Post reviewer felt able to describe a comic about a cyborg killer rabbit as "realistic"), but it's all in the way it's told, which pushes the boundaries of storytelling and really sells the personalities of the three animals leads, even though they're ultimately just animals living up to their species' standard characters.  Still, if you can keep an open mind with the unusual visual techniques, it's not just for show - it really does convey something that you don't normally get, when the panel structure explodes into a cloud of tiny panels scattered across the page.  This is so far beyond anything else that came out this week that you wonder why anyone else bothers, really.  The sort of comic that reminds you that most books aren't even scratching the surface of what can be done, and does it to tell a story rather than to demonstrate a point.  A+

Last week's Article 10 is still up at Ninth Art.

Next week, Astonishing X-Men #6 wraps up the first Joss Whedon arc.  There's a standalone story in Exiles #54.  Jubilee #3 continues along the way to an early grave.  The completely unnecessary Sabretooth miniseries continues.  And Uncanny X-Men #452 begins "Chasing Hellfire."

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