In many ways, the first volume of "Aqua Leung" is the story of Namor's youth that you've always wanted to read, but free of the restrictions of a shared universe. It's big, bold, and should appeal to a broad audience: smart enough for adult comic readers, fast-paced and immersive for the (older) kids, and easily the best comic of its type since Jeff Smith's "Bone" wrapped up.

From its languid opening that lulls readers into a false sense of serenity to the surreal and emotional confrontation that wraps the story up, there's a sense of quality applied to the project that reminds me why I'm glad Top Shelf is out there, doing something distinctly different from Fantagraphics and pushing the medium forward in ways not as traveled by the other independent presses. It'd be easy to do much, much worse than using "That Salty Air" as an example of comics at their most literate and intelligent.

While offering customers a free "Marvel Adventures Iron Man" comic is not the worst thing in the world, I'm fairly certain that most retailers would have enjoyed having the option to sell them a high-quality, well-produced $3 book featuring the guy they went to see in theaters in addition.

6.
As mentioned earlier, "Ultimate Origins" #1 feels like the first 20 minutes of a movie that's not quite compelling for me to keep watching. I'm sure that it'll read fine when collected, but as an individual piece of serial storytelling, there's little to recommend it to those who aren't supremely curious about things, and I'm getting more and more tired of this approach. Writers and editors need to stop assuming that I'll read the next issue of their comic and instead give me a reason to read the next issue.

"That's the one."