My Week In Comics 10-13-10

Recently DC Comics announced that they were dropping the prices of many of their books from $3.99 to $2.99. Seeing as how some of these are books that I buy, it pleases me. On the other hand, a lot of these books are also losing their backup story or "second feature," and the main story will include two fewer pages of story (in favor of more ads). The lower price is good, but I wonder if having two fewer pages will lead to better or worse books. Will plots be rushed or compressed to fit everything into one issue or will they get stretched into a two- or three-issue arc where not much happens in each book? We shall see.

Superman 703: It's been a while since this book came out, but Superman is still walking across the USA. He's gone from Philadelphia to Detroit to Cincinnati, where he's greeted by Batman, who thinks that Superman is having an emotional breakdown and needs to stop his walk, on the grounds that innocent people will get hurt. But it's not all walking and talking. In the town of Danville, Ohio, a chunk of debris from New Krypton has landed, and it somehow (seeds for future plots being sown) leads to a big fight scene and lots of destruction.


Batman: The Return of Bruce Wayne 5 (of 6): Another book that saw a delay, and this story is finally nearing an end. What's good here is we finally get an explanation of why Bruce Wayne's fighting through time to get back to the present will be so cataclysmic if he's not intercepted first. The bad is, once again, this leg of his journey. From caveman to pirate and a few other stops, now he's a noir detective and he's asked to help expose the killer of Martha Wayne, his mother. This whole thing apparently ties into other Batman plotlines, so it made little sense to me. I just keep telling myself, "It's almost over..."


Bruce Wayne: The Road Home: Batman and Robin 1 (of 1)
Bruce Wayne: The Road Home: Red Robin 1 (of 1): ...except, it's already over! Well, in these books, at least.
The delay in the B:ROBW miniseries means that these books, part of a whole mess of one-shot issues coming out this month, all feature events that occurred after the end of B:ROBW (not to mention the tie-in series, Time Masters: Vanishing Point, which is only halfway finished; but enough about that mess). Each of these one-shots features different parts of the Bat-family, involving assassination attempts on the mayors of eight cities around the world, with Bruce Wayne following each book's lead characters and making assessments and plans for his role, and theirs, in the immediate future. The fact that these books came out first aren't much of a problem, though.

Comic Book Guy: The Comic Book 4 (of 5):  Lisa (with occasional "help" from Ralph) continues to look into Comic Book Guy's death and finds his old journal, in which he revealed how he became CBG. Maybe. There were at least four origin stories in his journal. Meanwhile, Homer stumbles upon another secret club (just like the Stonecutters and its replacement, the No Homers) and Bart knits up a storm -- a storm of pranks.

Victorian Undead Special 1 (of 1): Remember the miniseries featuring Sherlock Holmes vs. zombies? Here's the first sequel. As London is being rebuilt almost a year after the zombie attacks, Holmes and Watson take on a new case. It involves the murder of a young girl and the possible involvement of a certain Dr. Henry Jekyll...and if you think the Jekyll and Hyde story is a bit much (like the zombie story wasn't?), this was just a tease. Next month a new five-issue miniseries begins in which Holmes faces off against...any guesses?