Anthology titles--you either love 'em, or you hate 'em.

For my money, I'm closer to the "hate" side of the camp than the "love" side. No matter how good the stories are, I know that I'll have to keep suffering through consuming the tale in little bite-sized increments, instead of the more meaty full-issue installments I'm used to. I also know I'll have to wait a full month between those bite-size increments, which only adds to the frustration. And in the age of waiting for the trade, is there any doubt that most of these tales will be wrapped together and released in a collected edition eventually, making for a more satisfying, complete reading experience?

So, yeah. In general, not the biggest fan of anthologies. As anthologies go, however, you could do worse than Marvel Comics Presents 1.

The highlight of this issue for me was the stand-alone Spider-Man story, a goofy comic lark by Stuart Moore and Clayton Henry that involves (seriously) an intergalactic council of Spider-Men. It's light, it's incredible fun, and it's over before it can wear out its welcome.

Also fun was the Hellcat story by Stuart and Kathryn Immonen, and the other stand-alone tale, a Thing story narrated by Alicia Masters, written and drawn by Nelson.

The other stuff...eh. Very much trade-wait material. In the lead story, Marc Guggenheim has concocted a procedural superhero hook so brilliant, it's amazing it hasn't been done before...but with only eight pages, the story barely has a chance to get close to started. It feels more like the first eight pages of a full issue than a full story on its own. And the promised twelve-part Weapon Omega story seems as though it would only hold real interest for a fan of Omega Flight and/or Alpha Flight and/or Canada.

Anthology fans will find lots to like here...but the rest of us might want to wait till the whole story is available in one easy spot.

Grant Morrison on Batman.

Admit it--when you heard the news, you were a little excited. Maybe more than a little--you may have been flippin' ecstatic at the idea of comics' last great creative madman let loose in the mainstream DCU on the flagship Bat-title.

I know I was, and yet, as the first issues of his run played out, I remained...slightly underwhelmed. I was satisfied, certainly, and the art by Andy Kubert was nothing to sneeze at. Yet it felt like Morrison was almost getting himself warmed up over the first couple of storylines.

Then this Club of Heroes business hit, and it was absolute perfection. This issue is no different. What seems to be kicking Morrison up a few notches is his artist, J.H. williams III, who delivers these precisely and gorgeously rendered pages that feature all kinds of creative layouts. Williams is one of the most evocative, intricate artists working today, and his style fits perfectly with Morrison's story here.

As the mystery of who is killing the Club of Heroes wraps up, the resolution is a bit scattered--this is a bit of a riff on Agatha Christie, and so the ending isn't so much a pointing out of clues we all saw as it is a revelation of stuff no one but Batman knew. Still, the tone, the pacing, the dialogue, the visuals--this has been one hell of a ride. Morrison's full promise on Batman has been realized.