ACTION COMICS: Satisfyingly dense story, if a bit jumpy at a few points requiring you to slow down and read carefully, which is of course a good thing IMO. A relatively clear and uncrazy Morrison. Fresh take on Superman - not sure I like it, but I'm willing to give it a while to grow on me. Morales is very uneven as an artist, some very nice panels, some pretty ugly ones. Writing B+, Art C, Overall B.

JUSTICE LEAGUE INTERNATIONAL: Dense story, great roster of characters, very nice classic superhero team feel. If anything, its only weakness is that Jurgens' writing is maybe a bit *too* safe and inoffensive for its own good, so this isn't a book for readers who want something innovative. Lopresti's art is beautiful, definitely one of the better DC artists currently working. Writing B-, Art B+, Overall B.

BATGIRL: Another one with a dense story (maybe I keep saying this because I'm subconsciously comparing them against last week's JL) and an interesting new villain. I think Syaf is starting to evolve upwards from a midlist artist, very nice work here. Writing B+, Art B, Overall B+.

Overall I'm kind of happy, if apprehensive about the other shoe dropping, regarding how JLI and BATGIRL are handling continuity. They go out of their way *not* to contradict previous continuity so that you *can* assume previous stories still happened. Stuff like Barbara being 19 or something now, which I heard from interviews, isn't mentioned in the book itself, so it's just something new readers can assume, while old readers can still assume Babs is twenty-thirtysomething. In some cases you need to stretch your suspension of disbelief a little for that, but by and large, they're trying to humor both sides, which I think is nice of them. But I keep having this feeling that I'm just waiting for the shoe to drop for when they're going to contradict something explicitly.

Samy wants to see the following collected editions:
X-MEN: CLAREMONT/JRJR OMNIBUS, X-FORCE OMNIBUS VOL. 2, 
NEW MUTANTS OMNIBUS VOLS. 1-2, GENERATION X OMNIBUS
PUNISHER (1987) #1-18 OHC,
PUNISHER WAR JOURNAL (1988) #1-24 OHC,
X-MEN: REVOLUTION OHC
X-TREME X-MEN VOLS. 1-2 OMNIBUS, WOLVERINE: HAMA/SILVESTRI OMNIBUS,
LEGION ARCHIVES VOL. 14, KNIGHTFALL OMNIBUS
LEGION OF SUPER-HEROES: EYE FOR AN EYE DELUXE HC