Looking at October's previews and... WHY THE HELL ARE THEY LETTING WILLINGHAM TOUCH BATMAN???

Ahem.

Just had to get that out.

Quick IC note: The narrator on the villains' sattelite is Merlyn the Archer, an old Green Arrow foe.

Do you think that will have meaning later, Victor?

I just got the text on the front cover of Nightwing. I don't usually pay attention to the cover art until after I read ...

Do all the Ultimate titles do like X-Men and not show scenes, just character poses on the covers? They're very pretty. But the X-Men art is very pretty inside too, this month especially.

I realise I can't forgive the art because I need the art to support the mood of the words. Even when I skim a comic page, and lose narrative because I'm moving too fast (text or image narrative), I need the mood to work for me. The mood in UX is palpable -- when Angel faces Sinister, or when Rogue gets a bead on Sinister, I look at the picture first, get an impression, read the text, and then look at the picture again, as best I can break it down. If the get-impression stage is broken by clumsy articulation or mucky colouring, it's probably too late for me.

The Nightwing cover cracked me up. The story -- well, I felt like it was just filling time until the crossover starts.

Teen Titans #13 just fucking ruled. Shrift totally could have written the part where Kon goes to Gotham looking for Tim and is all pissed when he encounters Steph-as-Robin. It made me squee a little. I totally loved Raven getting a tattoo. I have no idea why that particular part of the issue grabbed me. But it did.

IC #2 -- verrrry intriguing. I read it, then re-read #1, and then read #2 again. And I still have no idea what's coming.

Do you think that will have meaning later, Victor?

Possibly. It looks like tensions are set to boil between the heroes in villains--probably mostly in reaction to Sue's death and maybe the fact that multiple villains were lobotomized being discovered. I'd bet Merlyn's going to play a major role in there, somewhere.

Do all the Ultimate titles do like X-Men and not show scenes, just character poses on the covers?

"Iconic" cover art is all the rage right now.

I love the iconic look, except I have to pay extra attention to which titles I've already bought -- I have three duplicated Ultimate X-Men issues -- all Wolverine covers, because that's the sort of twitch I have.

In IC#2, I loved the Dr. Light is only NOW a moron explanation -- because I sure wasn't buying their fear of him. I thought the story was pretty horribly (as in well) done, and so was the tension it brought into present day. I can't wait to see who else has been neutered.

Unrelatedly -- in Nightwing, Dick gets a call, and in the last Batgirl (don't know when that came out), Batman ducks away for a second -- are those two related? I'm assuming with the multitude of Bat-titles each may have been explained elsewhere. What's the dealio?

Oh, and Batman has a pretty clear Rogue's Gallery profile -- his is the most distinctively patterned of the major heroes, isn't it? Apart from, I guess, the tendency for groups to face off with groups and solo or solo/henchman villains to go mano a mano with solo heroes.

Ita said this spoilery thing: I can't wait to see who else has been neutered.

Me either, but I'd place good money on the Flash's Rogues Gallery.

Which kinda ties to my last wonderation -- does Flash's gallery share a similar profile? Like, are they dumber than most's?

Oh, and Batman has a pretty clear Rogue's Gallery profile -- his is the most distinctively patterned of the major heroes, isn't it?

The Flash also has a fairly clear Rogue's gallery.

What kind of clear?