Great art as usual plus I'm beginning to think that the story of forgiveness and redemption which is surely following the Civil War will be far more interesting in terms of personal loyalties and private soul searching than the main event ever could have been.

You'd be forgiven yourself for missing some of the gentle realisations that must surely be dawning on Tony Stark during this issue amidst all the action (Go giant Wasp...Uh-Oh Giant Wasp just turned into giant carnage..bummer). Not only do the rebels, the outlaws, the free spirits, namely the New Avengers, stand in line against the threat of a world wide infection of Venomness with the Official, Autority figures of the Mighty Avengers (representing 'The Man')but after fighting toe to toe with those who are officially the good guys, they are allowed to walk away without a word or a challenge. Just look at Tony's eyes peering from the protection of his helmet when Ex-friend and fellow avenger of old suggests that it was his actions that led to the death of Captain America, someone they both had previously placed on a pedestal, as the epitome of all they ever hoped to be. It is this moment, captured in a couple of frames rather than the two page spread of Iron-Man asking himself if he'd been 'played' that is the bullet point in this issue.

Mind you someone is going to pay it seems, a certain Doctor Doom has, it appears, picked the very worst time to pick on the Avengers...Methinks he's about to have his arse handed to him on a plate!

I do enjoy reading the Mighty Avengers as a companion to both the Avengers Initiative and to the New Avengers, but as we no longer have to see both sides of the coin...we've made our minds up, not over who's right and who's wrong (that would be Spidey's crew right?), but over who's the coolest team, and that would be the New Avengers everytime! I wonder just how long Marvel are going to make us splash out on two (or more)Avengers comics a month before they kiss and make up and we have an amalgamate of the 2 teams? I'm looking forward to seeing who makes the cut in that book!

Thrud is tremendous fun and Carl Critchlow's art is brilliant. I was always a huge fan of Thrud from his days as a one page strip in White Dwarf magazine and was surprised to find him still going years later and finally appearing in his first full length book.

I bought the book out of nostalgia seriously doubting that I would still find him as appealing as I did when I was a teenager or that he would work in a book this length after the compact one page fun of old. He hasn't changed a bit and he's even better over the course of a full length story. I loved this! My only complaint if any is that this isn't a monthly title, the world needs more Thrud.

Go out and track down every Thrud comic you can you will be chortling for days after reading it.

THWOP! 'Right More Beer'.

All I want is a good old soopa-hero story. All these alternate realities and heroes are wasting the essence of comicdom. I have 2 rules of comics which are really simple and I wish both DC and Marvel would adopt them: No.1 When a character dies..they die! fullstop! (mind you I did like Kevin Smith bringing back Ollie Queen..but he's a favourite! lol). Think of the poor blokes who have to carve gravestones or sculpt memorial statues 4godssake! No.2 There should be only one earth! Get over it! We want great writers and artists, bringing us great stories which we can love, even if we miss an issue. I live in rural Scotland and getting every issue, even mail order is a tall ask. Phew! Next paragraph takes us on to the review.

Great..Superman Prime (or whoevever..one of them...a superbloke..not the real one)gets a bit ticked off in this issue. The Art is really good, the story is..I don't know I've forgotten after following '52' etc. and now this..God I wish Grant Morrison was handling this; if it was Morrisonesc I could take it..weird good...drawn out for no reason..bad! Yeh! Red Robin..I should be excited but the way DC are going, they'll just kill him off, then bring him back, then kill him off, then bring him back; who cares any more! It pains me to write like this because I deeply love DC comics and characters and have done for nearly 40 years, but it seems competing for sales with marvel drives their buisness now; the world is sadder for it.

Saying this, as I mentioned earlier, the art is superb. However I believe the best thing to come out of this story arc is 'Countdown to Mystery', which is awesome, not only does it feature some of DC's best characters: Creeper, Plastic Man, the new Spectre and the new Doctor Fate; but it has great great art, fantastic storylines (I believe that the Dr Fate is reminiscent of Morrison era Doom Patrol!)and offers the best hope for post countdown DC in my book...but I'm depressed in the knowledge that any day now they plan to make the storylines converge in a car crash of confusion and indifference...take me back to 1990 now.

Saying that...I will bldy well have to buy the rest of this series now, so that I'm all up to date with DC world (they're not daft). I hope to the almighty comic God that the next issue features 'The Pied Piper' and 'The Trickster'who have been the revelation of this series. I know that the Trickster is now dead, but that means nowt to the writers in DC land, although I suspect he's now part of a Pied Trickster amalgamate as that's a nice and easy solution. Cynical Moi?

The Booster Gold/Blue Beetle era JLA was the one I grew up with and I've always had a soft spot for the pair of rogues. They always add a air of fun to their books and I love the artwork by Dan Jurgans, so this should be a winner...however

Although I have found this series hugely enjoyable, largely due to Booster's antics always being able to muster a chortle or two, the writers, Geoff Johns and Dan Jurgans seem to be falling into that all too familiar modern trend with DC of meddling with past story lines (pesky kids). Both the 'Infinite Crisis' and 'Omac Project' stories get tampered with i this run of BOOster Gold. STOP THIS TINKERING DC BEFORE YOU RUIN A CLASSIC.

DC also seem unable to kill anyone off, please when you make a decision, stick to it. We not only meet 2 dead Blue Beetles in this issue, but the current one and one from the future!! I don't know about anyone else but all these alternate worlds, timelines and multiple heroes are beginning to all blur now. Get back to writing great stories without feeling the need to link them to any other storylines or publications (but then I guess thats how you sell books). Sorry rant over.

It looks like another Booster Gold will be joining the fray too if Rip Hunter has anything to do with it, he turns up at Boosters descendants home where he hands both a Booster uniform and a Supernova outfit out to Daniel and his girlfriend. I like Rip Hunter and I feel that Booster should have listened to him when he warned him at the start of the issue not to tinker with time and save Ted Kord. Rip is an expert on time travel after all and Booster is ..well...a bit thick, isn't he. Still Ted is his best friend and off he goes with the Beetles to save him. The future Blue Beetle explains away Rip's fears all very conveniently (I'm a tad suspicious of that one). Rip says that Kord's death is captured in 'solidified time' which can't be breached; Future Beetle says s'okay I have tech from the future that can make it malleable (a likely story). Off they pop for a showdown with the dastardly Max Lord (funny I never thought he was that bad back in his JLA days).

SPOILER ALERT! IF YOU HAVEN'T READ THE BOOK YET DON'T READ THIS BIT. Needless to say Booster's interference saves Ted, he deflect's Lord's bullet making it miss Ted but gets hit himself. Luckily his goggles take the impact allowing Ted time to graciously 'stick the heid' on Max.

I'm sure that now the dynamic duo are together again action, and arguments are going to follow with hilarious results (BWAHHAHAHA), but I would like to see a writer like Gail Simone (The All-New Atom) or John Rogers (The Current Blue Beetle)handle the material which is bound to unfold in the next 'Blue and Gold' run. These writers know how to handle characters as big and round and loud as these two and would give the characters room to develop without losing their humour. I pray that this next chapter is unfettered by constant links to other storylines and alternate realities and that Blue Beetle and Booster Gold are allowed to have a free flowing and simple plot line because as any fan knows with these two it's them and not the story arc that truly matters, but I fear the worst. I guess all I want is for the dialogue, or banter between the two of them to take me back to those great JLA stories I grew up with.

Ohhh...I just thought...they have to introduce Guy Gardner to this book, the potential for mayhem could be tremendous!