I’m a happy man this week, because my two favorite books came out: Countdown to Adventure #4 of 8 with stories by Beechen and Gray and the Pick of the Week: Uncle Sam and the Freedom Fighters #3 of 8 with Arlem’s art conveying Palmiotti and Gray’s story well and the stunning as ever cover by Dave Johnson. You all have heard me rant and rave about these two series enough at this point, so it’s probably safe for me to focus on something else at this point, suffice it to say that you need go out and by Uncle Sam and the Freedom Fighters #3 right now, because an army of six inch tall people (made thus by military experiments) has declared war on the federal government. I was also finally treated to the tenth installment of Sinestro Corps War which is around 3 weeks over due with a different author and sentiment than earlier parts of the series. Tomasi did a good job writing it, because we never got Tales of the Sinestro Corps presents Anti-Monitor and it seems like the series is puttering out. I hope I am proved wrong, because it’s been a blast heretofore.

I was also sad this week because I was forced for financial and artistic reasons to drop three titles. I am no longer reading Chuck Dixon’s Batman and the Outsiders, Simon Furman’s Transformers: Devastation, or the X-Men Messiah CompleX miniseries. In Dixon’s there wasn’t enough Batman for my taste, Transformers has been washed up for years (if you really want to read something good by Furman check out his run at the end of the old Generation 1 comic in the ’80s), and the art and story in Messiah CompleX were not doing it for me. But for you, my beloved readers, I’m still going to try to keep my ear to the ground and eventually figure out what’s going on at Marvel, so don’t get discouraged. Market forces tell you not to buy unentertaining comics. You should listen.

What I really want to talk about this week is this publicity stunt DC pulled in relation to Greg Rucka’s 52 aftermath title Crime Bible Five Lessons in Blood #2: Lust (above). Following Grant Morrison’s suggestion that “the walls separating ‘our’ universe from the ‘fictional’ one of our imagination being, if not thin, remarkably easily moved through,” Newsarama and some other comics-related news outlets received a notebook by FedEx whose only identifier was a stamp on the inside that reads “Property of R. Montoya”–i.e., former Gotham City Detective turned masked vigilante, The Question, Renee Montoya.

The series is predicated on the idea that their is a worldwide religion based on crime whose holy text is called (shockingly) the Crime Bible. With books named after such famous criminals as Moriarty, the Crime Bible starts with Cain killing Abel. Adherents to the crime religion view Cain as their founding prophet. In the notebook, amongst other exciting doodads (like a set list from this Misfits-esque imaginary punk band), were there scans of pages of the Crime Bible:

I found this week’s installment in the 52 aftermath series to be limited by length. In it, week after week Renee visits a high end brothel near DC run by the crime religion. Every time she visits the same high end prostitute and never touches her until the 8th week. The shortness of the format didn’t lend itself to the drawn out feeling of lust that Renee was supposed to be experiencing. Other than that, the book was great. I’d say pick it up.

Next week: Justice Society and the genius of Geoff Johns (pt. A Million)

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