Booster Gold #8
Actually the ninth issue; Booster and Blue Beetle find themselves trapped in that old standard, the dark alternate Earth, and team-up with Green Arrow and Hawkmans new Freedom Fighters to try and take down Maxwell Lord and Brother Eye (though to Boosters dismay, the Freedom Fighters consist of Pantha (also, Lord was apparently responsible for her origin too), Anthro, and Wild Dog, and thus are not a particularly good band when it comes to taking on the evil lord of Checkmate. Meanwhile, Rip Hunter takes Daniel and Rose with him to the end of time, which is where the Time Stealers are headquartered (in a location very reminiscent of the end of time in Alan Moores Tom Strong series), looking to take on the bad guys directly (Rose isnt thrilled that hes eventually going to be having sex with Daniel), though the bad guys know theyre coming (and, presumably, Rip knows they know). The rest of the Freedom Fighters all get slaughtered in the attack on Checkmates castle, forcing Booster and Beetle to retreat, and Booster decides that they need a better team to fight Maxwell Lord: more specifically, they need the old JLI. This continues to be a very good comic, although its disheartening to know that the writers will all be changing up after twelve issues (hopefully Jurgens sticks around).
Criminal #2
Brubaker and Phillips second volume of their acclaimed crime series continues, and Im still buying, although Im not really a big fan of crime comics, but I am a big fan of Ed Brubaker, and the series continues to be very entertaining. This issue focusses on Teeg Lawless, whose two sons, Ricky and Tracy weve already met in the preceding stories (well, Tracy more than Ricky). Lawless Senior finds himself back from Vietnam and in debt to the sum of fifteen grand to a local casino owner, and so has to find the money, in the process stumbling into some real trouble. Theres effective use of black panels to communicate Lawless alcoholic/drug-induced blackouts, leaving both him and the reader disoriented as to whats going on. This is another effective done-in-one story, with all the graphic violence and nudity we love and expect from mature readers comics.
Fantastic Four #556
One reviewer on ComiXtreme rather hysterically labelled this the worst issue of Fantastic Four ever, worse than any mainstream comic not written by Chuck Austen. What exactly is supposed to be so bad here is not at all clear to me, though its not a great issue by any means. After two issues where we mostly followed various members of the team (primarily Reed) around separately, mostly talking about stuff, we get an issue that is mostly action, as everybody (and I do mean everybody) tries to defeat the CAP robot. CAP goes on a rampage, slaughtering soldiers and trying to disarm the worlds militaries, killing anyone that gets in its way (although it doesnt kill the heroes, perhaps because theyre just too tough). In this issue, it fights three-quarters of the Fantastic Four, the New Avengers, the Mighty Avengers, the Young Avengers, some Initiative guys (including Gauntlet and Justice) and some spare anti-Regs (like Hercules), and jollystomps everyone, through no particularly specific display of power (it appears to be just a big, unstoppable robot with vague energy weapons). Theres absolutely no explanation for why all these anti-Regs showed up at the same time as the pros when SHIELD put out the call, but Im just glad we ducked another registration "debate" between Iron Man and Luke Cage. Having established CAP as basically unstoppable, its all up to Reed Richards tremendous brain to save the day, which he no doubt will next issue. Meanwhile, Johnnys new girlfriend (who has an absolutely horrible codename; Ill defend "Speed" in debates with Dread to the bitter end, but "Psionics" sucks) has a day job when shes not supervillaining, which is cute, and Johnny is desperately trying to keep anyone from finding out about it, which one would think would be particularly hard since hes starring in a reality show based in his apartment. This continues to be an enjoyable comic, and remarkably straightforward from Millar.
Justice Society of America #14
Much like the aforementioned issue of Fantastic Four this is pretty much all action, as the JSA finally does something after many an issue of mostly gabbing and introducing new members (not a single person joins the JSA this issue! Huzzah!). Gog, established as the forerunner of "Kingdom Come"s Magog, has a rather pointless fight with the Infinity Man (the killer of the New Gods), although it establishes the dynamic between the Fourth World and Gog, who is the servant of the last survivor of the preceding Third World. Sand is brought in (apparently, hes a member of the team still, although its very hard to keep track; this issue actually has an absolutely packed double-page spread with everybody in it, complete with names) to find Gog, but Gog kicks his ass and impales him with his staff, then teleports into JSA HQ and fights everybody for many, many pages; there are some cool moments, such as Mr. America stealing his staff using his whip, and throwing it to Amazing Man, who absorbs its properties. Ultimately, Gog clobbers Amazing Man and KC Supes, only to find himself facing Obsidian and Alan Scott, the latter now outfitted with his KC armour, which is one of my all-time favourite costumes, so its cool to see it brought in here. The series is starting to regain a bit of momentum now, after a long drag.
Wonder Woman #19
This I just found confusing, and I say that as someone who has enjoyed Gail Simones run for the most part. Last issue saw Diana brought to the Khund homeworld by the Khund to help fight the Ichor, a mysterious race that wants to destroy them on the basis of them being genocidal conquerors; the local Green Lantern, whose family died in one of their wars, is a-okay with this, and intervenes to stop Diana from helping. Diana fights him for a bit, but convinces him that death is not the answer, at which point it is revealed that, if I understand correctly, the Khunds only asked for her help in order to distract the Green Lantern while one of them set off a suicide bomb in the atmosphere that would kill everyone and prevent the Khunds from being killed by an outside power. Except, um, the GL has no interest in stopping the bomb until Diana talks him into it. Maybe Im missing something here. Apart from the plot, we get some more reliably good characterization, and Bernard Changs guest art is very good; I wouldnt mind if he stuck around, but Aaron Lopresti coming on next issue has me very excited.
Seriously, that's gonna have to be explained. 
