“Hell to Pay part 1”.  Johnny continues his quest to vanquish the splintered soul of Lucifer, infesting human bodies all over the planet.  Lucifer is just as funny as ever and I do enjoy the thick, dark humor of the book.  I’m just not enjoying this artist, so much.  Richard Corben’s art’s going to take some getting used to, as it’s frightfully ugly.  at least his humans are, anyway.  Ghost Rider and Satan look fantastic, like they stepped out of an issue of Heavy Metal.  There’s a flashback angle being told in this story, not precisely sure what the point of it is, yet.  Overall, this issue didn’t thrill me, but I’m still loving the book.

And to make things even more exciting, in the letters page they revealed that the unpublished Ghost Rider 2nd series #94 will FINALLY see print.  Until today, Danny Ketch’s Ghost Rider series ended on a cliffhanger.  Can’t wait to read that one.

Honestly, this title is only two issues in and already it beats the pants off of the regular Army of Darkness ongoing series.  Ash’s and Darkman’s alliance is a bit shakey at first, but they come to trust one-another through the course of this issue.  While issue #1 was mostly Darkman-centric, this installment draws the spotlight firmly on Ash.  Julia, Darkman’s one-time girlfriend and now the Deadite Queen, steals the Necronomicon from Ash and Darkman.  However, in reality, all she has is the cover.  The librarian Brynne Kelly switched covers when no one was looking.  Ash heads out for some recon and a few supplies and comes under Deadite attack.

I love James Fry’s art for this title, it beats the hell out of the cartoonish approach of Nick Bradshaw’s art from the other Army of Darkness books.  Darkman looks especially gruesome, as do the hordes of Deadites.

The story is really going places fast, working in equal portions of both Evil Dead and Darkman histories.  The cliffhanger ending, resurrecting a certain Darkman nemesis, should lead into an awesome third issue.

“Last Son part 2”.  This story is coming along quite well.  Richard Donner, Geoff Johns and artist Adam Kubert know how to craft an exceedingly cinematic story.  It feels like you’re watching a movie.

So Superman wants to adopt the mysterious Kryptonian boy, though Lois is having reservations.  Lex Luthor sends Bizarro to go kidnap the kid.  Bizarro has been incarcerated for a year, retrained by Luthor to be more brutal and psychotic.  Bizarro and Superman tussle, putting the boy’s life in danger.

I like this newer, meaner Bizarro.  Wacky Bizarro was fun for a while, but this evil version is what I’ve always wanted.  The name Lois selects for the kid, “Christopher”, is a bit of a heavy-handed dedication to the memory of Christopher Reeves, but whatever.  It’s just a first name.  What really got me excited, though, was the cliffhanger ending and the possible parentage of the Kryptonian boy.  I’m looking forward to seeing how that turns out.

The “robots in disguise” angle is still being maintained in this title.  The Decepticons’ methods are very…”unusual”, at least in regards for the Decepticons.  Instead of just hijacking power plants or hydro electric dams and causing general mayhem and panic, they’re maniulating Earth’s heated war zones and upsetting international balances.  They’re using “fake” humans to infiltrate the military as well as their own troops in disguise as fighter jets to frame America.  Very sneaky and un-Decepticon-like.

The humans have been down-played so far.  Verity and Jimmy hardly have any lines at all.  We’ll see how long that lasts.  There’s a spotlight on Jazz, Wheeljack and Ironhide in this issue, with Optimus still not really doing much.  The Decepticons despite their complicated scheme, only get a few pages.  The dialogue between Skywarp and Thundercracker was great, though (“Could be worse, I suppose…could be Starscream”).

Overall, I’m liking this arc better, but I’m still not “thrilled”.  We’ll see how that goes.

“Unstoppable part 1”.  Finally, everything is really coming together.  All that stuff about Colossus and the Breakworld mentioned way back in the first arc of the series is at long last coming to fruition.  We finally get to see the Breakworld-itself and get an idea of the trouble it’s in.

Basically, the X-Men and their enemies, Ord and Danger, have been “kidnapped” by S.W.O.R.D. (an off-shoot of S.H.I.E.L.D.) and are being taken to the Breakworld.  Colossus is supposedly destined to destroy the Breakworld, and their ruthless military forces are willing to destroy Earth if anything bad happens.  Then everything explodes.

More of Joss Whedon’s snappy dialogue and plenty of Claremont-era nostalgia (only written well this time around).  Astonishing remains the essential X-Men title on the racks.