Trades:
Fables: Arabian Nights (And Days). God I love this book. Not as great as the Homelands trade (and I read this exclusively in trade), but thats because Homelands had the awesome Jack in Hollywood arc.

Decimation: Generation M Really only skimmed through it, but I dig yet another honets look at journalism through the eyes of the Marvel Universe. And Sally's line about looking like an ex-wife of Hank Pym is a killer

Supreme Power: Hyperion Emil Burbank is a fucked up kid

Comics

BEYOND! Issue 1: The Great Beyond. McDuffie/Kolins. Fun little story I picked up out of curiousity about Spider-Man and a gang of b-listers being flung into space for what-ever reason. They assume its the Beyonder's doing, do it's obviously not. Ending is a killer. Literally. Enough to keep me curious for issue 2.

52, Week 9 Dream Of America. Full Marks for bringing back the Sentinel looking guy and STILL NOT BOTHERING TO EXPLAIN WHO HE IS. I don't even know what the New Gods are. That would be enough for me to ditch the book, but Rucka brings back Montoya and THE QUESTION, and has them meet in a lesbo bar. Also, Batwoman.

BTW, full props to Dan Jurgens for managing to condense Identity Crisis into four pages and actually use the word rape in it.

But there was only really one reason I dragged myself into town this morning

Uncanny X-Men Issue 475: The Rise And Fall Of The Shi'Ar Empire, Part One Of Twelve. Edwin Brubaker/Billy Tan.

I liked Chuck Austen's run on X-Men, I even liked Milligan's run. In twenty two pages, Ed Brubaker made me give a shit about Polaris, which neither of them two had done. It's not epic, yet (Hell it's only the first issue), and I'm still not keen on the fucked up team (Warpath? Nightcrawler as leader?), but I'm excited about an X-Men book not written by Joss Whedon.

Btw, next week is X-Men 188, the start of the run by one of my favourite writers, Mike Carey, featuring an entirely different kind of fucked up team (Rogue, Cannonball, Iceman, Cable, Mystigue and Sabretooth), there's a pretty cool interview with Carey, who I believe will be spoken of the way Grant Morrison is now, here.

Saw the cover of Uncanny X-men 475. My first thought was : "heh.. l guess NIGHTWING's on the X-men, now" (take a look at Warpath).

New Gods are the Apokolips/New Genesis bunch. Basically Darkseid, Orion and pals. They have a reputation of appearing in Crappy Stories as far back as the 70's. But since they were created by Jack Kirby, creators seem to think they're more significant than they ever were and try to play them up as a Special Treat.

Personally, I think the only time they were done well was in the Superman and Justice League cartoons. I could watch those episodes again, but every New Gods comic appearance I've ever read has left me feeling "blah". I see 'em on a cover and think "well, that's one issue I can skip".

Supposedly the "Rise and Fall of Shi'ar Empire" story is going to last for a full year. I suppose that's a good way of running an ongoing X-title that won't screw up continuity with the others. I look forward to reading it.

11 Months. Much like when Morrison and Austen took over books at the same time - Uncanny and "___" X-Men are double shipping this month. What I reckon will happy is at the halfway point, Brubaker will stick in a standalone issue, much like he did in Captain America, with the Munroe issue.

Good times, good times. And while I'm still catching up, what's up with Rachel Grey in the X-Men?

I love me some fables.

And X Men in space doesn't sound too bad.

Xavier needs a telepath in the team. Also, Vulcan (the presumed villain, but he's a Summers, so it won't last) messed her up royally and she's out for REVENGE!