Yes, it’s only technically still the week that these books were released, and tomorrow there’ll be a whole new bunch. But still, these are last week’s comics. So! Onward!

DETECTIVE COMICS 856: JH Williams continues to use this book as, in essence, an instruction manual for artists who really want to dazzle a crowd. Lots of eye-poppingly gorgeous two-page spreads, inventive use of panel layouts and a pretty neat division of art styles between the halves of the lead character’s double life (more dark and painterly and with more irregular panels for the Batwoman sections, more clean pen-and-ink and regular panelling for the Kate Kane moments) mean that this continues to be the most beautiful Bat-book being published at the moment (sorry, Mr Quitely). In terms of the story, in this issue we finally get a bit of light shed on what Alice’s nefarious plot actually involves, and it’s a bit of a let-down – such a crazy villain surely shouldn’t have such a prosaic goal in mind? That aside, Rucka keeps the plot rolling and even manages to give us some bittersweet moments that remind us that this book’s two stars are linked by more than their sexuality. The backup (Co-feature! Erm, Second Feature! Oh, come on, backup) suffers a little from being completely breakneck, without a second to catch a breath – with only ten pages to play with, there isn’t a lot of time to slow down the action, but a few more quiet moments wouldn’t go amiss. Not quite the strongest issue of this run so far, then, but still a hundred miles better than most Big Two books on the stands.

INCREDIBLE HERCULES 133: The headline character of this issue only shows up in flashback, as the seventh smartest man in the world gives us the Reader’s Digest version of his origin story and career highlights while reading up about the Hero’s Journey. Greg Pak and Fred Van Lente (who has been moved to a new, larger enclosure that was paid for by your donations) give us a story that’s great for new readers, I’ve no doubt (particularly given that Amadeus Cho’s backstory is to be found in half a dozen different titles), but for old hands who’ve been following the character since his debut this is little more than a clip show with a cute conceit. Still, the introduction of the sixth smartest man in the world at the end of the issue (and the fact that he’s not just an evil version of Cho) bodes well for a storyline to come that’s more in keeping with the standard of quality that this book’s had to date. That’s not to say this issue’s bad – these guys are skilled enough to make even a recap book worth reading – it’s just not quite up there with the rest of the run.

INCREDIBLE HULK 601: Speaking of Greg Pak, he finally manages to wrest the Hulk away from Jeph Loeb again and almost instantly, as if by magic, manages to make it a book worth reading again. The brains-and-brawn double act of Banner and Skaar (a character whose name never becomes less embarrassing and painful to type) are set on causing a bit of trouble, and Banner sets about hoodwinking six of the eight smartest people in the world into inadvertently helping him out with that aim. Ariel Olivetti’s figurework continues to impress, and if there was ever a character for whom his propensity for musculature was appropriate it’s the mega-Conan muscle-lump that is Skaar (nngh), but the constant Photoshopping of backgrounds is getting beyond annoying now. The promise of a fight with the Juggernaut in the next issue is enough to bring me back for that, but the first issue of this new direction doesn’t actually do much to demonstrate the, y’know, direction. The Savage She-Hulk backup strip isn’t the strongest work any of the creators involved have put their name to, but it’s always nice to see Michael Ryan’s art and the second-tier Gamma Squad are a nice surprise, particularly given that it appeared the concept had been entirely forgotten about.

DARK AVENGERS 8: Betrayals, revealed secrets, the highly ambitious plans of Scott Summers and what by my count are two and a half pages of the title characters of this book make up the penultimate part of the big summer Dark Avengers/X-Men crossover. I mentioned in my review of the last issue of Uncanny X-Men that it would be nice to see more of the Dark Avengers in this story, and that goes double for this issue, particularly given that this is meant to be the Dark Avengers’ book. Given that this appears to set up another major change in the X-Men’s status quo, I’d be a bit miffed if I were someone who was only reading the X-titles – not since Stephanie Brown and Jack Drake were both killed (yes, yes, I know) outside of the pages of Robin have so many important changes to characters’ status quo happened outside their own book, and it’s a little dissatisfying as a result. Also, I know this isn’t Uncanny and thus doesn’t have the little caption boxes introducing the characters, but if there are going to be so many interchangeable blondes there should really be some way of telling who any of them are, and Luke Ross’s Mike Deodato impression doesn’t help shed much light on that. A weak link in what has otherwise been a largely enjoyable crossover, mainly saved by the chutzpah of a Cyclops who’s laying down more smack than he has done in years.

AVENGERS: INITIATIVE 27: New artist Rafa Sandoval comes on board with what is literally a book of two halves, one much better than the other. That’s not to say the second half of this issue, with Hardball helping out the Shadow Initiative grunts as they strive to retake the 42 Negative Zone prison that was lost to Blastaar in War of Kings is bad – far from it, it’s a nice little slice of action that lets Sandoval stretch his muscles on his first time out – it’s just that the first half is so much better. The initial section of this issue deals with the life story of Johnny Guitar, a one-time Dazzler villain (and a real character to boot) and his partner Doc Sax, as the train with the Shadow Initiative. Told as a letter from Johnny Sax, this is a nicely judged story that hits the right balance between sad and touching, as Gage imbues a gag villain with more personality than a lot of other books would care to do – but then again, this is Avengers: Initiative, where there’s no such thing as a ‘gag villain’. On the whole, a pretty great first issue for the new creative team (although whoever took the decision to put four characters on the front of the issue who don’t appear in the book at all needs to ask themselves why they made that choice).

So, what did you read this week?