Review:
Matt's Comic Picks--Joe the Barbarian #5, American Vampire 3 and Avengers #1!

The third week of the month is quickly becoming my favorite week as both of my favorite books come out--Joe the Barbarian and American Vampire. You people really should be reading these two books, they are some of the best books on the stands. So let's get right into them.

Joe The Barbarian #5

We're past the halfway mark on this eight issue mini-series. Joe and Jack have been separated from Smoot and Zyxy after a aerial battle with the Death Coats. The aerial battle is fantastic--Sean Murphy draws it so well. Joe and Jack venture into the ruins of The Forest City of Yalway and are stalked by something big and mean in both the imaginary world and our own. The action and suspense is perfect, but what will become of Jack after his battle with the beast? He gives us my favorite line of the issue with, "I've pretended to be a hero long enough. I hope my brothers are watching." I'll be really disappointed when this series is done but luckily I still have three more issues to go. This series has quickly become a Vertigo classic in my opinion.

American Vampire #3

Scott Snyder, Stephen King and Rafael Albuquerque continue to put out a great vampire comic. They've successfully made vampires cool again, keeping with traditional vampire lore but evolving it at the same time. In the first story by Snyder, Pearl has returned as one of the new breed of vampires. She's on a mission to hunt down each of the old time vampires that snuffed out her life. Meanwhile the old vampires worry about Skinner Sweet, hinting at story threads to come.

In the second story, Stephen King continues the origin of Skinner Sweet. He's escaped his watery coffin and is taking his steps towards revenge, starting off with the city of Lakeview. Both stories are packed full of some great gory violence and Albuquerque draws it so well. There's a number of really memorable scenes in both stories but two really stand out. In the first story, the picture Sweet had sent the old vampires. In the second, Sweet resting in the candy store with the shop owners arm around him. Both made me laugh out loud.