August
26 Tough guys

Jack Cross #1

Creators: Warren Ellis, writer; Gary Erskine, artist

DC Comics, 32 pages, color, $2.50

So? Warren Ellis gets back into the black ops stories he loves to tell with Jack Cross, a kind of superviolent comicbook Jack Bauer for the post-9/11 world. While Ellis does this kind of character and subject frequently, he does it very well and this is an interesting book to watch for the ultraviolence and superslick dialogue. Gary Erskine does an excellent job of bringing the real-world setting to life in scenes that are alternately violent and talky. And while it's nice to have Ellis once again writing an ongoing book that he created, Jack Cross doesn't have the same thrill of discovery or invention that Ellis' infused into "Transmetropolitan," "Planetary" and "The Authority." The result is a book that will please Ellis' fan base, but so far lacks the excitement needed to break out in the current market. Grade: B-

Bunnywith 2: The New Batch

Creator: Alex Pardee, with Sam Kieth, Dave Correia, Eric Pigors, Scott Ferguson, Attaboy, Billy Martin, The Judge and Wayshak

Eyesuck Ink, 36 pages, black-and-white with color, $5

So? There are only a few books I keep handy enough to pull out on a moment's notice, and the first issue of this series is one of them because it remains gut-bustingly funny even after multiple reads and the second one will go right next to it. The premise is simple: Pardee draws a bunny (who has male genitals but no arms) and then draws the bunny with ... anything he can think of. That leads to a series of strange and hysterical drawings of things like "Bunnywith magical ability to shit rainbows"  or "Bunnywith skin pockets where he stores his four goldfish" or "Bunnywith enormous scabies under his skin." These are jam-packed on every page of this book, with a few contributions (some in color) from guest artists who take a whack at the concept. Hilarious. Grade: A

Teen Titans #27

Creators: Gail Simone, writer; Rob Liefeld, artist

DC Comics, 32 pages, color, $2.50

So? Rob Liefeld is such a lightning rod in the comics biz, it's almost impossible to not take a look when he draws one of the big superhero series. On Teen Titans, he and Gail Simone are stepping in for the first of two issues while regular writer Geoff Johns concocts the Infinite Crisis. That makes this a fill-in issue, and it unfortunately feels very much like it. Liefeld's art here likely won't convince those who dislike his style otherwise, but it is one of his better efforts in recent years and successfully avoids some of the strange inconsistencies of his past work. Still, the story moves far from smoothly and it's not always easy to tell what's going on. Some of the characters, including Hawk and Dove and the villain Kestral, don't get much of an intro in this issue and it takes a bit of deduction to figure out why they're in the story at all. This does have some strange nostalgic feeling for longtime Titans fans and anyone who was reading comics in the early 1990s when Liefeld and the Image boys set the comics sales charts on fire. Without those caveats, though, this is less than memorable. Grade: C+