SPOILERS…..obviously.

Walking Dead #60

Written by: Robert Kirkman

Art by: Charlie Adlard

The BIG 6-0. 60 is most notably the time in your life when you start to lose your hearing, and your eyes start getting worse, along with your driving skills, and you go hobble your way into your huge, boat sized Cadillac and break off the odometer at 25 in a 45 mph zone while heading to your local Walgreens and buy some of those huge, wrap around glasses that look like some kind of virtual reality visor. Yeah, its those years when retirement homes scare you, along with all that new fangled technology, and don’t even talk about those young punks with their “raps” and “skateboards”. But you know what isn’t getting old? The Walking Dead.

60 issues in, Robert Kirkman hopes to bring back the original antagonist of the series: zombies. While most of the series has been about the fact that the zombies aren’t the worst thing roaming the land, issue 60 tries to convince us that they are still a contender.

Last issue, we finally caught a glimpse of the “herd” of zombies heading after our intrepid heroes. Rick & Co. could defend against a group of zombies with little to no effort, but a herd comprises of thousands of zombies. Not a walk in the park.

So in this issue, we witness our car-less heroes running from the herd, trying desperately to get back to their loved ones in time to warn them of the incoming danger. While not the most illuminating issue of the series, this issue does help emphasize the immediacy of the undead flock.

I have always said that the issues that deal with the more humanizing aspects of the story are my favorites. Issues where the characters are just sitting around trying to gather some shred of hope while being surrounded and confronted by acts of horrific violence and sanity breaking situations. This issue still brings that to the table. One character in particular gets this in spades.

So all in all, this issue doesn’t reveal a whole lot, but it does hint at the herd arc coming to an end, but not before a little preview at the end of the book. With preview pages with phrases like “”The dead do not stalk” and an accompanying picture of shadowy figures hiding in the trees right above some of the main cast.

Yeah, I don’t really need to tell you about the art and the writing because it is just so good. It’s just a given with this series.
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Green Lantern #39

Written by: Geoff Johns

Art by:Philip Tan

Things just keep heating up in the Green Lantern ‘verse. Not only do we have the Green and Yellow Lanterns, but we have the Reds, the Blues, the Sapphires, and now the Orange. The Orange Lantern, or “Avarice”, meaning insatiable greed, has now been born and adding even more fuel to the upcoming event, “Blackest Night”.

This issue is mostly about the birth of the Orange Lantern, but it does reveal more about Hal Jordan’s inner battle between his green ring and his blue ring. Both rings are trying to consume Hal, while not as terrible as his fight with the red ring, the blue and green ring are merely in a symbiotic lock. Both rings are, as far as we know, for lack of better terms I’ll reference Star Wars and say that both rings are deemed “light side”. Both rings are fueled from each other and therefore need each other.

So with that power struggle going on, the Orange Lantern makes his way through space and greedily consumes whatever he can, eventually throwing a monkey wrench into the Green Lantern homeworld, Oa.

Destined to consume everything he can, the Orange Lantern finds himself in the midst of a very appetizing opportunity.

Once again, Geoff Johns shows us why he is a top nerd book writer. He just has a unshakable grip on the GL universe. Philip Tan’s artwork helps bolster this book. Crisp, detailing and down right fuckin’ purty art, this book is a must read.

With this book, the GL book is going full steam into the next Lantern war. If you haven’t been reading GL, now is the time to get in. With very little heavy continuity being used, and more about establishing new concepts, GL is very open doored.
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There’s a huge shakeup with the latest Punisher comics from Marvel. It took a couple months for me to finally comprehend the changes and see the final results on the newsstand as to where the Punisher books are standing today. Being a huge fan of Mr. Castle for the better part of the past 15 years, I thought it was my duty to do my best to clear the confusion of the changing in numbering and re-launches of new Punisher series within the past couple of months.

Punisher War Journal – Punisher War Journal was the series that saw Castle interacting mostly with superheroes and villains from the Marvel Universe. It was also the series that saw the Marvel events cross over into such as Civil War and Secret Invasion. Unfortunately, last month saw War Journal’s last issue (#26) released, which featured an interesting one-shot about Rhino stopping the Punisher from assassinating a group from recreating Stilt Man. Matt Fraction wrote the entire run of War Journal, and while I’m not a huge fan of the superhero side of the Marvel Universe, I did like Fraction’s take on how the Punisher crossed over with the likes of Spider-Man, Captain America, Rhino and others.

Punisher: Frank Castle (MAX) – The darker, edgier, explicit content-filled version of the Punisher that featured Frank going to war with gangs and thugs instead of superheroes underwent a name change. Starting with issue #66, the MAX Comics line of The Punisher will now be known as The Punisher: Frank Castle. This line will still be under Marvel’s MAX Comics branding and will still contain the uncensored language and gorier artwork that this line of Punisher comics has been known for. I would recap what happens here, but regrettably I am unjustifiably far behind reading through the MAX series. I own every issue of the MAX line, but am only caught up reading halfway through the Barracuda story arc at issue #33.
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