I had three weeks of books waiting for me at the store, about $50 worth. I have an informal rule on comics pickup: if the amount goes over $30, I don't pick up any extra Pokemon boosters. Usually I don't run up against this restriction, but three weeks is kind of a long time to not pick up my books. In contrast, our latest grocery run was a full cart totalling $80 after coupons. Gives you an idea how things get budgeted around fourhman.home.

Superman #214. I tell you, I am so lost on this one. I think this is part 11 of a 12 part story, which is an absurdly long time to expect me to pay attention to it, especially when it's not that compelling. The truth is, I haven't cared much about the Superman books since they split up the triangle system.

See, at one point there was four Superman titles in regularly monthly publication... that's one title each week (plus they briefly had quarterlies and annuals to fill in the random fifth weeks of some months): Adventures of Superman, Superman, Action Comics Starring Superman and Superman: Man of Steel. Even though that was four separate comics, they all followed one central storyline. Each book had a triangle number on it, so you knew what order to read the books if you missed a week. So you had exactly one Superman plot that developed every week of the year.

I'm sure that was a pain to manage: four different books with four different creative teams. So they split them all up and now each title (down to three, Man of Steel was cancelled) has its own storyline. Which means I'm never really sure what damn Superman story I'm reading until I'm three pages into it. "Oh, this is the one where 50% of the world's population mysteriously vanished and Superman has been confiding to a priest who has cancer."

I really miss the triangle system. The weekly storyline made the Superman books feel more epic, they had more room to be consistent with characters, plus it was naturally easier to follow. If I remember correctly, they cited sales reasons as the chief factor to split the books up, but I believe it was just that they got tired of orchestrating the whole affair. Ironically, I've been thinking lately that I really don't need to get any of the Superbooks anymore, but that's a decision I should have made years ago when the triangles were dropped.

So this storyline with the missing people and the priest? It would have been over in three months back during the triangle days. Now it's been a year and I'm completely uninvested in it.

Flash #220. I hate Howard Porter's art. He was awful on JLA for years and he is still awful on Flash. He's one of those artists that just can't draw more than one female figure and one male figure. It's a good thing that there's plenty of distinctive costuming, because without that you couldn't tell any of his characters apart.

The writing has been on an upswing though. Linda is back. This issue starts a storyline I'm looking forward to, a war between two factions of the Rogue's Gallery. They've done a great job with the Rogues lately, solidly laying out what makes them different from other villain groups. And we're getting the new Captain Boomerang in action since the events of Identity Crisis. (One of my favorite bits in Identity Crisis was when Batman goes after Flash, insinuating that he isn't controlling his villains well enough.)

JLA #112. I hate the Syndicate. It was a mistake to resurrect the concept of an alternate universe of evil characters, even if it was for a special hardcover edition. But now they've leaked into the monthly storyline and it's another ho-hum worlds-in-peril dealie. When I think back over the most memorable moments in comics, it's always character pieces that I come back to, not the high-octane action junk that you get week after week after week. It won't be including any JLA issue in recent memory.

JSA #71. On the other hand, JSA does a much better job with characterization. And they do action as well. Maybe it's the characters' fault; maybe it's more difficult to do thoughtful, dialogue-driven stories with a team of icons... while in JSA most of the characters are comparative unknowns. For crying out loud, this issue's cover has the Golden Age Atom punching out Atom Smasher. Who vs. who? Back when JSA started, I kind of started getting it out of respect, and I fully anticipated it would end up a pale shadow of the bigger book, JLA. Not the case at all.

This issue continues a storyline where certain members of the contemporary JSA have to go back in time and confront their namesake counterparts. One of those go-to-the-past to save-the-future bits. Especially interesting is the modern Mr. Terrific - a black man, and as an atheist, one of my favorite characters in comics these days - having to travel to the racist 1950's to meet up with the original Mr. Terrific, a white man. Admit it, you had no idea they still did comics featuring guys named "Mr. Terrific."

Fantastic Four #524. 'Ringo is leaving, and that means the art is going to take a dive. Mike Wieringo is one of the best artists is comics today and his vision of the FF is the new standard as far as I'm concerned. That awful God bit aside, the 'Ringo/Mark Waid run has been great. They just finished a great storyline where Johnny was turned into Galactus's herald... and actually that was one concept I wish they would have stretched out for a couple more issues. I can't keep track of a boring Superman story for a year, but I felt cheated when they turned Galactus into a normal human for only one issue. See, this medium is driven by content.

Great issue, #524, albeit not as good as the last few months. Nice character squabbling, iconic cover, plus a visual farewell to the creative team at the end.

Countdown to Infinite Crisis #1. This is the big one. A major DC epic spanning the usual multi-hero, multi-book scope. I feel like we just got donw with Identity Crisis (which had an unfulfilling ending) and now we're already on to the next one. This book was hyped so cleverly they didn't even reveal the book's real title until the last minute... it was advertised as "DC Countdown" so as not to blow the reference to Crisis on Infinite Earths. In a text piece inside, they're calling this a sequel to COIE... but wasn't Zero Hour the sequel to Crisis? DC is really farming the word "crisis" these days.

Anyway, wow. Surprise, it's CHARACTER-DRIVEN; this whole issue is centered around an internal narrative from Blue Beetle. So you know it's good.

I'm not going to spoil it, except to say that this book takes a giant dump on the Giffen Justice League years. I'm not exactly thrilled with that, since the Giffen years are my favorite Justice League era. However, I do recognize a good story, and what would comics be if they didn't tell good stories? Well, it would be a lot like the entire run of the current JLA series, actually. I hope Infinite Crisis - and the myriad spin-offs, tie-ins, cross-overs and miniseries that encompass it - lives up to the stage set by this first issue.