New This Week: April 13, 2005

Based on the NCRL list for this week's comics shipping from Diamond, here are a few things to look for at the local comic shop tomorrow:

Pick of the Week? Well, it's probably Flight, vol. 2 from Image--the first volume was full of gorgeous artwork from a variety of artists. But that's pretty expensive at $25, so if you're looking for something a bit less costly, I'd go with Marvel's She-Hulk, vol. 2: Superhuman Law; the first volume was much fun, and I've heard good things about the stories collected in this second volume.


In other comics:

Dark Horse has the first issue of P. Craig Russell's Conan & The Jewels of Gwahlur.

DC has the penultimate issue of Adam Strange (#7), and new issues of Fables (#36), Gotham Central (#30), Green Arrow (#49), JSA (#72), Majestic (#4), and Tom Strong (#32).

El Capitan has a new issue of Stray Bullets (#37).

Image has the second issues of Beyond Avalon, Flaming Carrot Comics and Mora, plus a new issue of Noble Causes (#9).

Marvel has new issues of Black Panther (#3), Mary Jane: Homecoming (#2), New Thunderbolts (#7), Powers (#10), and Ultimates 2 (#5).


Small week, actually, so maybe you can afford that Flight, vol. 2 after all...

Crisis on Infinite Crises

I had been contemplating writing something about the whole DC Countdown and Infinite Crisis and whatnot, not because I have any desire to continue to beat a dead horse, but because there was something I thought was blindingly obvious about the whole thing that I hadn't seen anybody else comment on.

Then comes today's Basement Tapes from Matt Fraction & Joe Casey, and now I'm off the hook.

Sayeth Fraction:

...isn't all of this prelude, and isn't the titular Infinite Crisis itself a move towards DC hitting some kind of candy colored reset button to set the wayback machine a little bit? Isn't this whole exercise in bleak and brain matter a journey back to The Way We Were?

They say a lot of what I wanted to say, except that they say it with more (and undoubtedly better) words than I would have. And more profanity. And more blue text. But they make the most reasoned analysis that I've yet read, so go take a look.

Favorite Fictional Librarians

Continuing our series of posts relating to National Library Week, today we look at my favorite fictional librarians:

Batgirl/Oracle: Yes, young Barbara Gordon somehow found the time to squeeze in a masters degree in library science in between being a super-heroine and being a state congresswoman. A literal Super-Librarian! Whoever's decision it was to make her an information broker to the super-heroes had one of the best ideas in super-hero comics in the past 20 years.



Rupert Giles: Father-figure and confidant to the Scooby Gang on Buffy the Vampire Slayer, here was a seemingly mild-mannered high school librarian who got to sing, kick a little ass and even get the girl once or twice. Also the source of some great library-related humor on the show.



Bunny Watson: Katherine Hepburn's character in Desk Set, the best-ever romantic comedy about library automation. She and her colleagues in the network's research library proved that they could out-think any computer when it came to meeting their patrons' information needs.