Review # 37: "X-Factor - 'Happenings in Vegas' and 'Scar Tissue'"

About half-way through Peter David's run on "X-Factor" and we are already building towards the finale. Now THAT is episodic writing.

Review # 36: "Hawkeye - Volume 2: Little Hits"

"Hawkeye" is both heartwarming and heartbreaking. It's uplifting, then depressing. It makes you laugh, then stomps on your soul. I find myself not having much to say about it, though. Why? Because it speaks for itself. There's a unique feel that you just can't properly quantify.

Review # 35: "Wolverine and the X-Men by Jason Aaron Vol. 5"

While I appreciate Jason Aaron's ambition to make "Wolverine and the X-Men" a mixture of both whimsy and darkness (almost like Hogwarts with mutants,) there's always a line that can be crossed and things become too absurd. I think he may have done that here.

Review # 34: "Green Lantern: The Sinestro Corps War"

The odds were stacked against me fully appreciating "The Sinestro Corps War." First, it's a DC comic so a lot of the history is lost on me. Second, it had the difficult task of following up my reading of the Bendis/Maleev run on Daredevil. Third - while it came first - it has a lot in common with "Blackest Night," which I've already read. Despite those long odds, the second purely Green Lantern Corps story that I've ever owned knocked my socks off.

Review # 33: "Daredevil by Bendis and Maleev Ultimate Collection Vol. 3"

Brian Michael Bendis reached his peak in volume two of this set and is due for a comedown in volume three as his run concludes. Fortunately, the "Daredevil" narrative does not fall far.

Review # 32: "Daredevil by Bendis and Maleev Ultimate Collection Vol. 2"

Volume two represents the peak of Brian Michael Bendis and Alex Maleev's run on this book, putting it on equal footing with Frank Miller and Klaus Janson. With Matt Murdock's life in danger of going to hell, this raises the stakes by giving him much more to lose.

Review # 31: "Daredevil by Bendis and Maleev Ultimate Collection Vol. 1"

It's somewhat mystifying to me that Daredevil isn't a bigger deal than he is in the mainstream eye. While what was perceived as a mediocre-to-bad film hurt his standing, Matt Murdock has had more than his fair share of incredible runs and benchmark stories. These days the mainstream media is all over Frank Miller for his work on Batman, 300, Sin City and Wolverine. But you could make an argument - hell, I'd make that argument - that his best writing came within the pages of Daredevil. Yet, it rarely gets mentioned by the press.