Amazing Spider-Man & some other comics from last week...

I haven't really been reading The Amazing Spider-Man since Peter Parker and Mary Jane's marriage was removed from continuity. I thought it was especially annoying that their marriage was written out in such a way that they have no recollection that they were ever married. Well finally, after a few years of Peter and MJ not being married and not remembering that they even were, Marvel (Joe Quesada specifically), is addressing this whole affair with a new story called One Moment In Time. The first part of this storyline didn't do anything for me a couple of weeks ago, but the second chapter that came out this week, while not perfect and I'm sure isn't going to end in a way that puts Peter and MJ back together, does cover some good ground on the whole "we can't be married because my enemies will go after my loved ones" territory and the art by Paolo Rivera is really good (I've liked Quesada's art before, but his art segments in this story arc do nothing for me - fortunately he only does a few pages). I'd put Paolo Rivera up there with Marcus Martin and Javier Pulido as the best of the Amazing Spider-Man artists from the past few years.

The newest issue of Brightest Day #4, "The Secret of Life" is the issue that really amps up where this comic is going, further spotlighting Boston Brand (Deadman) as a big part of everything that's to come in regards to the White Lantern. While Brightest Night isn't as all out charged as Blackest Night was, it's still very entertaining and has mostly great superhero art.
This past week's i,Zombie #4, "The Magical Memory Tour", is also a big chapter in this new Vertigo series about a young woman who will become a full fledged zombie if she doesn't eat brains once a month. I've enjoyed i,Zombie up through this issue, but agreed with some people that it needed to kind of get in gear, so I'm here to say that if you're on the fence with this book, with this newest issue that lays out some of the bigger picture of this series, you should be able to determine whether this book is going to do it for you for the long haul or not.

Other entertaining comics from this week:

Superman: The Last Family of Krypton is an Elseworlds (meaning it isn't in "regular" Superman / DC continuity) written by 1970's Superman veteran writer, Cary Bates and drawn by Renato Arlem. I thought this would just be a good solid Superman story, but about six pages into the story I got the sense that Cary Bates was doing some thinking outside of the box writing, with a story about Krypton still exploding, but this time Kal-El's parents join him to live on Earth. Jonah Hex #58, which is almost always solid, had an above average story this month, titled "Every Bullet Tells A Story", that kind of was a story from the perspective from a bullet. Gail Simone clocks out a good western story with her trademark odd humor, featuring Deadshot, in the newest Secret Six #24, and Paul Hogan and Chris Sprouse's Tom Strong And The Robots of Doom, at the halfway point of this mini-series, is still shaping up to be counted amongst the best Tom Strong stories. The newest issues of Red Robin and Red Hood The Lost Year are good chapters of those titles (you have to give books / entertainment points for being consistent) and Avengers Prime #2, while not as solid as the first issue, does feature some of Alan Davis' best art in years (and even his okay art is better than almost any ten other superhero artists). Irredeemable, a story about a superhero who has become a supervillain, is on issue sixteen and I'm happy to say this is still a comic book title that will surprise people who only think of writer Mark Waid as someone who just writes adventure comics with a silver age tone. The second issue of Neal Adams' Batman Odyssey arrived this week and although I thought with the first issue that this was a Year One (or Year Two) type of Batman story, I'm a little less clear with this issue, but I was still entertained and think that more people would be as well if they just looked at Batman Odyssey as a good story unto itself and not worry about where it fits into continuity (I realize that Batman is a character in a shared universe, but really, someone of Neal Adams' caliber should just be allowed to tell whatever kind of story he wants to tell).

The above is a small example of why I'm moving Alternate Reality Comics to a bigger space - there's just too many good comics and graphic novels coming out!