I’ve been worrying a lot lately in these posts about being imbalanced between Marvel and DC. The truth is I see the two as being mirror images of one another at this point. DC’s comics are showing strong in Rebirth, and their movies are failing miserably. Marvel is the reverse of that. Their movies are unquestionably solid, and their comics are floundering. There was only one Marvel book in my pull list this week. It was Steve Rogers: Captain America #3, and I’ve made my feelings on this arc pretty well known. So, rather than bash the book again, I’ll just say this book continues to stick me some place between rage and boredom. There wasn’t much happening in this issue. We got a Vader/Palpatine-like holographic dialogue, and the threat of Jack recovering from the fall and exposing Steve. It’s a little bit of plot progress, but given the fact that I detest the plot, there’s little comfort in that. Let’s move on now.

Nightwing came back to the fold this week with Nightwing #1. It was a little slow getting into it, but I think a lot of that is tied to an expectation of readers to have followed the Grayson series, which I didn’t. There are some okay moments with Barbara and Bruce where Dick says his goodbyes and prepares to leave for his overseas adventure. Those do a little something for fan-service, but they can’t quite carry the issue. When Dick meets with the “Parliament,” we’re spoon-fed a lot of the exposition, and it isn’t great stuff, but it gets us pointed in a direction. It wasn’t a strong debut for the title, but the ending promised enough to make me interested in the next issue.

Action Comics # 960 kept things going with the Doomsday brawl. The pace slows a little to give us some character moments as Wonder Woman shows up to help, and there was some good banter in that. At one point, we’re shown how Superman is counting the blows he’s dealt Doomsday (he’s up to 4-thousand-and-something), so I can’t help but wonder if even Jurgens suspects what he’s writing is more than a little bit tired. There’s still no development on the mysterious, non-Superman version of Clark Kent, and that’s beginning to annoy me. In the end, this issue served to move the threat from Metropolis to Superman’s family, and you could call that a raising of the stakes, but it took a little long to get there. This wasn’t a bad issue, but it is the weakest in this arc.

Detective Comics #937 didn’t tell us much more than we already knew. In this issue, we pretty much see Batman learn everything Batwoman did in the last issue, but we did get to see him fight back a little. I enjoyed that because while it’s clear this title is going back to highlighting the Bat Family, I hate seeing Bruce ride too much of the bench. This issue really just served to put the pieces in place and set up a dramatic confrontation between the Bat Family and the Colony, but the League of Shadows/League of Assassins bit is a pretty exciting hint at what may be around the corner. Tynion is pacing this arc fairly well, and Martinez and Fernandez (pencils/inks) are keeping it looking nice.

Wonder Woman #3 was the highlight of the batch for me, and the book officially made my pull list this week, where I had just been picking it off the shelf since Rebirth. We had a nice character moment with Cheetah and Diana in this issue, and while Trevor and his team’s story didn’t move much, it also didn’t slow down the rest of the issue. Sharp’s work on this book is gorgeous, and I have to say, while the writing has been solid, the art is making Wonder Woman one of, if not the single best looking comic in DC’s lineup right now.