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This collection of odds and ends from the early career of Bendis (writer of Ultimate Spiderman, Alias, Powers and Daredevil) is exactly what it promises to be: a diverse anthology of short comic-form stuff from one of the best writers working in the business. There’s some biographical stuff (mostly in the form of amusing personal anectdotes), a few editorial cartoons, some collaborations and much else that wouldn’t really fit neatly into any category.

And while the caliber of the writing is no surprise, the caliber of the art — mostly done by Bendis himself — is. Being, as I am, a late leaper onto the Bendis bandwagon, I had no idea that he was also an artist — and a pretty decent one at that. I was a bit put off by the black-and-white, heavily-shadowed work of most of it (that just screams indie to me, like that black-and-white film stock that so many pretentious indie filmmakers insist on using), but that’s more my problem than his. He’s very good at it; I just happen not to favor that particular style.

All in all, though, I got lots of enjoyment out of this book, and just a tinge of inspiration. Which is really what I was after.

A simple — though hardly simplistic — title from the writer that gave the world Watchmen.

Tom Strong follows the century-long adventures of your archetypical Superman-type, from his origins at the end of the Industrial Revolution through his action-packed sci-fi adventures in the 50s and into the present for a few modern stories. Somehow, Moore manages to transform the ideas contained in this book, which on their own seem clichéd, corny and completely irrelevant (talking gorillas, mechanical men, high-tech Aztecs from an alternate earth), into a great read for any hardcore fan of the medium.

The faux history alone (and the period-appropriate artwork that accompanies it) is worth the price of admission. The well-written — familiar yet original, original yet not ludicrous — stories are just icing on the cake. I’ll definitely be coming after more of these.

I guess I’m doing the whole Warren Ellis/Wildstorm saga backward, because this one actually came first, followed by The Authority and then Planetary (which allegedly is due to start back up again soon). So now that I have a grasp on how the evolution breaks down, I’ll probably want to go back and read the others again, in order this time.

Ellis took over Stormwatch in the late 90s, and transformed it from yet another mediocre superhero team book (less interesting than those originating from DC or Marvel because you don’t have the instant name recognition of, say, Justice League) to the dense, conspiratorial work that I’ve come to expect from him. The instant Ellis moves in, you can tell he’s setting the stage for much grander things. The team is drastically shuffled about — sub-teams are created, new members are recruited and existing members are retired or killed off.

Most welcome, naturally, is the introduction of Jenny Sparks, whom we know will play a much larger role in things to come. All in all, Stormwatch isn’t the best Warren Ellis can do, but it definitely shows how a writer like him gets his foot in the door, and how any concept can be transformed into something more palatable in the right hands. Now if only they’d give me a crack at revamping Archie…

There’s not much here for the avid fanboy, apart from the drool-inducing tabloid-sized paintings by the inimitable Alex Ross. All Secret Origins is, essentially, is an oversized pamphlet advertising DC Comics’ most enduring characters. Not that I’m complaining — Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman and the rest never looked so good. The origin blurbs, written by Paul Dini (most famously known for his work on Batman: The Animated Series), do the trick without calling attention away from the art.

My only real gripe with this book is the odd sense of priority placed on certain characters. How did Shazam end up in here, for instance? Or Plastic Man? Still, I bought this for the pretty pictures, and in that, it does not disappoint. Secret Origins is well worth the $7.95 cover price, just so long as you know what to expect.

I haven’t actually finished these yet. They’re actually so good that I don’t want the experience to end with the fourth (and so far, final) volume.

The concept seems so simple — almost overly so — but works incredibly well in Busiek and his artists’ capable hands. Drawing on the familiar archetypes behind DC and Marvel’s most enduring characters, Astro City is, from page one, instantly familiar. It’s a city with a long history — as if a third major continuity existed side-by-side with The Big Two for the last half century and all the stories were just locked away in a vault all this time.

But what makes them so enthralling isn’t the dense complexity of a world already formed. If anything, it’s the exact opposite — the human-level universal truths — in the writing that elevates Astro City beyond the typical superhero offerings. It’s no accident that Busiek’s most well-known works prior to these were Marvels and Kingdom Come — two major graphic novels that manged to humanize these familiar pop culture characters in ways no one could ever do before.

Astro City continues with this vibe and proves that the superhero genre is far from dead. The stories are usually presented in first-person perspective, showing us new and fascinating angles of what we think we’ve seen a million times. And in this age of “there’s nothing new under the sun,” that’s really what top-notch entertainment is all about — examining familiar elements that we’ve long since taken for granted and finding new ways to make them interesting. In this, Astro City excels in ways that no other comic I’ve read has.

I checked this out primarily because of Brian Michael Bendis’ outstanding writing on Ultimate Spiderman — but it stood out on its own merits about five pages into the first book. These three trade paperbacks, which compile the first 14 issues of the Image series Powers, represent the perfect marriage of writer and artist — both the story and the artwork are clever without being complicated, innovative without being too “avant garde” (the occasional odd panel layout notwithstanding) and fun without being over-the-top.

The series bills itself as “crime fiction,” and follows two homicide detectives who operate within a typical “comic book” reality replete with heroes and villains with special powers. It’s not the most elaborate of setups, but the best ones usually are. Good comics are made not so much from the basic idea, but from the talent behind them — and that’s why Powers shines so much. In Bendis’ capable hands, the reader is left with an unmistakably distinctive continuity within the span of a single trade paperback. Oeming’s artwork, as I mentioned earlier, complements the writing, using the square-jawed simplicity of the Batman animated series as a springboard for a slightly darker (but no less entertaining) simplistic-yet-highly-expressive style.

These volumes receive perhaps the highest compliment I can give — they inspired me. Not so much to copy this specific style or tone in my attempts at comic writing, but in a broader sense. Powers showed me that a clear vision and consistency can make for some damned good reading, and I hope to implement this lesson into my own work in the near future. If I can be half as good as this stuff, I’ll be thrilled.

Given how much I enjoyed Ultimate Spiderman, I figured this other title — which pretty much covers every major Marvel character not touched upon by Ultimate Spidey and Ultimate X-Men (in which I have no interest) — would be equally enjoyable.

Actually, I didn’t expect to like it a whole lot, honestly — I was just bored one Saturday in the comic store, and Ultimate Spiderman’s reputation was enough to justify blowing a few bucks on this, the first collection of Ultimates chapters. Once again, thankfully, I was blown away. The writing and art is equal to that of its sister book, and the added dynamic of a team book makes for some very interesting conflict. Turns out all of these classic Marvel heroes — the Hulk, Captain America, Iron Man, Thor, Ant/Giant Man (he goes back and forth) and The Wasp — are completely dysfunctional. True, this sounds like a bad sitcom premise, but like most premises, it works in the right hands. This government-assembled super-team seems driven not so much by a sense of duty or honor, but instead by inferiority complexes, alcoholism and personal political agendas.

I won’t spill all the intricacies here, but I will say this: outside of the Hulk, I never particularly cared for any of these heroes before. I do now — at least in this version. Finally, something to keep me going in the 30 days I have to wait for the next Ultimate Spiderman. (God, I’ve become such a pathetic little fanboy of late, haven’t I?)

This comic kicked ass I didn’t even realize I had.

That’s especially impressive when you consider all it had working against it. It is, after all, a sequel to one of the most highly-regarded comics ever published — a fact which almost immediately sets it up for failure in my eyes. Then there’s the incredible stonewalling that took place between issues 2 and 3 — the unexplained 6-month delay that led many of us to believe that this thing wasn’t as well-planned as it should have been, and that its creators were desperately trying to throw something together to satisfy their publishing commitment.

And let’s not forget that the story centers around a totalitarian future, pitting the more liberal-minded characters against shady figures running a technology-based “utopia” in which the populace is fooled into thinking it leads a happy existence. A somewhat fresh (or at least not completely ruined) idea back in ’87, but not exactly the road less traveled these days.

Depite all this, however, DK2 delivers everything it promises and more. It expands on the Superman/Batman rivalry that drove the original, and pulls in many (if not all) of the other major players in the DC universe. It serves up some great plot twists and inside (but not too inside) jokes. And, perhaps most provocatively, it forces the reader (me, anyway) to examine his own surroundings and wonder just how much our own world is becoming this otherwise tired cliche of the sci-fi future.

That’s perhaps the strangest thing of all — those stories usually annoy me, but something about this one hit really close to home. Maybe it’s the fact that the Attorney General is drawn to look suspiciously like John Ashcroft. Or that the government has passed something called the “Freedom From Information Act.” Or that there’s some question over whether the President was really elected… or if he’s even a real person.

I’m in a weird position in my life at the moment — as I continue advancing in my job in the Military-Industrial Complex, my trust in the current government is in rapid decline. DK2 was just the sort of thing to thrust that conflict to a new level. It doesn’t exactly make me happy or comfortable, but the best entertainment rarely does.

Marvel is giving all but the latest few issues of this title away electronically at marvelcomics.com, and that’s how I first got hooked. Believe me, based simply on the concept (starting the Spiderman saga at the beginning, making high school student Peter Parker’s first encounter with the enhanced spider happen in the early ’00s) and the title (“ultimate” is almost as annoying as “extreme”), I never would have forked over $3.95 an issue (times 23 issues and counting) to catch up on it. Boy, was I ever wrong.

Not only does this title manage to preserve the feel of the Spiderman mythos in a way even the movie couldn’t do, it also improves upon it significantly. No longer is Spidey fighting a random assortment of super-powered baddies. Instead, important groundwork has been laid early on — groundwork that more feasibly sets up the Green Goblin and Dr. Octopus (as well as several other staples, many of which have already been hinted at) as coming from the same corporate house of horrors that produced the original biting arachnid.

So the story already makes more sense. But beyond some excellent plotting, there’s a crucial element present in Ultimate Spiderman — incredible dialogue. Peter’s a high school kid, and his peers speak so much like real high schoolers that it actually annoys me sometimes. The pacing and humor of the dialogue couldn’t possibly be better, especially when it comes to Spidey’s all-important wisecracking. This was an element that was sorely lacking in the movie, in my opinion — the whole essence of the Spiderman character is that he’s this meek science nerd in real life, but when he puts on the costume, he suddenly finds the confidence to be the funniest hero in the Marvel universe. This book hits that nail right on the head, and manages to crack you up without completely losing the dramatic through-line that is the death of Uncle Ben and Peter’s struggle with adolescence. (In fact, some of the best humor comes from Peter’s pain, reinforcing even further the importance of this outlet in his difficult life.)

Okay, I’m starting to sound a little pretensious about it all, and I apologize. At its core, Ultimate Spiderman is a comic book — a damned good comic book. It’s everything it’s supposed to be — well-written, well-drawn and not so complex that you need a hundred backissue education to appreciate it all. I highly suggest checking out the available titles on marvelcomics.com so you can judge for yourself. It won’t cost you a thing, though chances are you’ll want to immediately rush out and buy more, like I did. Good luck finding the actual issues, however — this title is so staggeringly popular that backissues are scarce. Issue 1, published less than two years ago, is already selling for $200 and up. And worth every penny of it, as far as I’m concerned.

I love Keith Giffen.

Chances are, unless you’re a comic book geek, you have no idea who I’m talking about. So for those of you who actually don’t live in their parents’ basement, allow me to briefly encapsulate: Keith Giffen is a comic book writer who had this incredible idea that comic books could actually be funny. I’m not talking about intentionally funny books like The Tick (or Giffen’s own Ambush Bug, which Tales of the Odd can only dream of matching, quality-wise), but normal comic books. Like Justice League. Here we have the classic superhero team, consisting of some of the most powerful and popular DC comics characters. During a time at which every comic book insisted on being “grim and gritty,” Giffen instead injected a little everyday comedy into his characterizations. The result? Pretty average in terms of comic book stories, but outstanding in terms of the banter tossed between the various players.

This particular volume marks the beginning of Giffen’s reign on Justice League. I hope it’s not the last such collection, because I rather enjoy books that make me go “bwahaha.”