Every morning brings the same question:

*What have I done with myself?

LAST WEEK'S REVIEWS:

The Black Diamond Detective Agency

Black Summer #0

And about a million fucking words on some Highlander anime. Gad.

*Kind of gentle on the pocket, provided there aren't a lot of Jack Kirby comics you've been itching to own -

THIS WEEK IN COMICS!

Jack Kirby’s Fourth World Omnibus Vol. 1 (of 4): Just in time for… whatever Countdown is counting down to, I suppose, unless there’s some other New Gods thing coming up, we’ve got this series of color hardcovers kicking off to compile the King’s biggest work at DC, arranged in chronological order of each issue’s release. It’s 396 pages at $49.95, featuring issues of Superman’s Pal, Jimmy Olson and the debuts of The New Gods, The Forever People, and Mister Miracle. I'll usually flip through these things to see how the reproduction quality is, so I hope there's no shrinkwrap. Not to be outdone, Marvel has Fantastic Four Omnibus Vol. 2 out this week for $99.99, an 832-page brick of Kirby’s work with Stan Lee, from Fantastic Four #31-60 with Annuals #2-4.

Tank Girl: The Gifting #1 (of 4): Revival of the week, from IDW, teaming original writer Alan Martin with artist Ashley Wood, and seeing the famed punk character transition into something of a curdled urban party girl for the 21st century (as opposed to, you know, a curdled punk party girl). Wood’s such a bizarre pick for replacing indelible original artist Jamie Hewlett that there’s an off chance the whole thing might come out fresh, and the series also marks a return to the short story format of the classic strips, with six tales in this issue alone. Preview here.

The Black Diamond #1 (of 6): Beginning a long-delayed pamphlet-format miniseries from AiT/Planet Lar, written by Larry Young himself, with art by Jon Proctor. Action on an elevated cross-country highway in the near-future. Big preview, if you scroll down.

Golgo 13 Vol. 9 (of 13): Featuring - Duke vs. corporate America in 1983, and Duke vs. failure in 1972, with Makoto Tezuka (Osamu’s son) on the character’s media image. As usually happens, this week also sees two other books from VIZ, The Drifting Classroom Vol. 6 (of 11) and Naoki Urasawa’s Monster Vol. 8 (of 18).

Thunderhead Underground Falls: A new graphic novel from Alternative Comics and writer/artist Joel Orff (of Waterwise), about a young man about to be shipped of to military duty in the Middle East. Some nice art.

Re-Gifters: The second Minx release, this one from Mike Carey, Sonny Liew & Marc Hempel of My Faith in Frankie. A teen romance thing about martial arts and surfing, from the looks of it.

Elephantmen: The Pilot: In which the usual ongoing Elephantmen series unexpectedly expands into a 44-page anthology for an issue, while remaining at $2.99. Featuring stories by Kurt Busiek & Stuart Immonen, as well as several others, plus pin-ups by more than one Image founder.

BPRD: Garden of Souls #4 (of 5): Miniseries.

Blade #10: Dying series.

Punisher War Journal #8: Another series.

World War Hulk #1 (of 5): Oh, here's where much of the attention will be focused this week. It's Marvel's big summer Event thingy for 2007, albeit a bit scaled-back compared to Civil War. Hulk smashes things across many a tie-in and supplementary miniseries, although writer Grek Pak and artists John Romita Jr. (pencils) & Klaus Janson (inks) are probably a sturdy enough team for the core book, all things considered.