Last week's comics reviewed today!

Zatanna #2 I said earlier that when Grant Morrison is on he's on and he continues to bring the goodness with Zatanna and the rest of the Seven Warriors of Victory megaminiseries. This one has action, wry humor, great art and cool characters. I want a Zatanna monthly series!

Matador #2 The art in this issue is some of the best I have ever seen. In fact, Brian Stelfreeze's work on this comic deserves its own post. Once I get the scan-u-lator and the computerizor talking to each other properly I'll do that. For now, let me just say that his use of color is perfect for this story. He and Devin Grayson work very well together. The writing is good but it almost has trouble keeping pace with the quality of the art. The story and the main character got some more meat to them in this issue. It has turned from a typical "obsessed cop gets pulled from the case" story into an interesting study in the similarities between cops and criminals.

The Imaginaries #2 We've seen elements of this story before: Imaginary friend gets left behind by his kid. This comic handles the tropes a little differently in places and it adds a really cool setting and some very cool secondary characters such as Melee Mouse. That's one of the best names anyone ever came up with. Melee Mouse. I wish I'd thought of that. The art is very good and fits the story to a tee. I'll definitely pick up #3.

House of M #1 Not much I can say about this that you can't find elsewhere. I like the art and the Magneto angst. I am also a sucker for alternate-reality stories. My favorite DC stories were the various Elseworlds tales. Marvel's essentially doing the same thing with House of M and I think they're off to a good start.

However, I think they could have told the same type of story without being as arbitrary as they have been with HoM. The story as Bendis is telling it requires several well-established characters to either act completely out-of-character or to be temporarily stupid in order for things to work themselves out "like they're supposed to". This is weak storytelling.

There's also a lot of unnecessary talking in this issue. I don't mind talky comics. I do mind comics that waste space by showing panel after panel of the same characters rephrasing what they said two pages ago. We get it! Dr. Strange and Professor X, two of the most powerful people on the planet, are stymied! The situation is that dire! Move on!

The final panel has a nice little surprise for those of us who are Spider-Man geeks. I missed it the first time I read that page.

I'll pick up the 2nd issue because, despite its flaws, the story is interesting and I want to see what happens next.