Comic Reviews
The Boys #40 - The story is starting to take shape, continuing last issue's revelation, and tying it into the larger conflict with Homelander and The Seven. The dark reveal of Homelander's is unnecessarily over the top. It's nice to have Darrick Robertson back on art.
The Amazing Spider-Man #623 - Spider-Man fights The Vulture. Decent fighting with The Vulture, tying into The Gauntlet and featuring an appearance by Elektro. Not a lot to do with Peter Parker or the supporting cast. Decent issue.
Demo-Volume II #2 - Very similar to the last issue. The story is an okay horror story. the art is sweet, expressive b&w.
Detective Comics #862 - The Batman/Batwoman "team up" continues (they never really appear together). Rucka's jumping back and forth between the two characters, showing how alike they are, works better than in the last issue. The art has grown on me, though it's no Williams III. The backup story is getting good, too, teaming up The Question and The Huntress with Oracle, making a fun, all-female team. I'm going to be sad with the next issue, which is Rucka's last.
Ex Machina HC vol. 02 - It's been a long time since volume 1 came out, so I reread that first. This volume had more heroics and less politics than the first one, filling in more of the time when Mayor Hundred was still The Great Machine. Usually TGM is messing up, which helps explain why he gave up the life. The political stuff shows the amount of work that being mayor of New York entails. I'm not sure what BKV is trying to do with the politics, though. Usually he gives both a liberal and conservative point of view, then changes the subject before Mayor Hundred makes a decision.
The Invincible Iron Man HC vol. 01 - 19 issues in a nice hardcover. There's basically two story arcs here. The first seven issues take place before Secret Invasion where Stark's tech gets out into the hands of terrorists. It's about his fears that the Iron Man tech gets used for evil and the sacrifices he makes to stop it. It reminds me a bit of an early Authority story.
The next 12 issues are post-SI, with Stark being kicked out of S.H.I.E.L.D. (S.H.I.E.L.D. itself becoming H.A.M.M.E.R.) and being replaced by Osborn. Stark has all the important security info stored in his brain, which he has to erase so Osborn doesn't get his hands on it. It's a story about the world's richest man on the run, going from hideout to hideout and scavenging tech, all the while slowly losing his mind, his memories, and his abilities to function. There's a cool parallel with Stark's devolving mind and him using progressively more simple Iron Man suits, eventually completely loosing his mind as he makes his way to the original gray Iron Man mk I suit. I liked this second arc better.
There's also two stories going on at the same time. One is of Pepper Potts learning to use Rescue, a defensive only Iron Man suit. The other is a spy story featuring Maria Hill as she tries to get some info to Capt. America and that eventually involves Black Widow.
The only thing I don't like about this volume is the coloring. It looks airbrushed and, especially early on, gives everything an unnatural sheen. It gets mellowed out by the end.