A great week for comics!

Besides being an especially great week for comics (not much in the way of new graphic novels though), amongst the releases was an especially higher ratio of comics that feature as the lead character, women. At the top of the pack we have the excellent Batwoman by artist J.H. Williams III and Greg Rucka (this issue concludes the first story arc, with the next two issues being a look back at her military training). The debut issue of Spider-Woman by Brian Michael Bendis and Alex Maleev (the creative team who did a great four year run on Daredevil) finally arrived and it was very good (although some of the coloring seemed off to me). The concluding chapter of guest artist Michael Wm. Kaluta's five issue stint on Madame Xanadu also came out and it was so wonderful to see Kaluta doing interior art again after so many years away. The usually better-than-average super hero comics that are Power Girl and Supergirl also arrived, with issues that were kind of just in-between chapters (the whole New Kryptonian storyline is going on way too long). Anita Blake is a vampire hunter / character (?) created by novelist Laurell K. Hamilton and another issue of said comic is also amongst the arrivals today (I don't read this comic, but it is from a very popular novel series - I guess I could have included Terry Moore's Echo in the photo here as that also came out and I do read that). To round off my roll call of comics that came out today that have a female character as the lead, there's Ms. Marvel (but I don't read that, not that that means anything other than I don't know what they're doing with that character anymore, having read it before and being lost / not caring).

I don't mention the slew of comics that came out today with female leads to prove that comics aren't just for guys because although comics aren't just for guys, having a female lead doesn't always mean that women are going to be more able to relate / care about that comic (I just thought that the fact / coincidence that so many came out in one day was amusing). Other comics that feature women as lead characters are: Wonder Woman, Gotham City Sirens, Batgirl, Sword (by the Luna brothers and is excellent) and titles such as Buffy, Witchblade, Fathom, Red Sonja, and Soulfire (and I haven't mentioned mini series with female characters such as Elektra and Marvel Divas. Definitely more female characters having their own titles than any other time in history that I can remember, with the best in my opinion being Batwoman, Sword, and Madame Xanadu.

Other good comics of note today: the first issue of Geoff Johns and Gary Frank's Superman Secret Origin (which is a Smallvillesque re-telling of his origin that gets going right out of the gate), Hickman's second issue of Fantastic Four, Simon Bisley drawing this month's Hellblazer, Invincible, and the final issue of Wolverine Old Man Logan (the best Wolverine story since the last time Mark Millar wrote a Wolverine story years ago called Enemy of the State).