July was an exceptional month for reading. For the first time since January, I am completely caught up on new material and the Reading Project. (It also tied January as the most productive month of the year, for what it’s worth.) I am hesitant to say that it won’t be a problem keeping up from here on out, but with my books getting cut drastically come September, obstacles are seemingly fewer.

Here’s July:

Action Comics #901-902
Adventure Comics #527
All New Batman: Brave and the Bold #8
Brightest Day Aftermath: The Search For Swamp Thing #1
Green Lantern (Vol. 4) #66
Green Lantern Corps (Vol. 2) #60
Green Lantern: Emerald Warriors #10-11
Hulk-Sized Mini-Hulks #1
Steel #38-44
Superboy (Vol. 3) #39-45
Superboy and the Ravers #9-15
Superboy Annual (Vol. 2) #4
Superboy Plus #2
Supergirl (Vol. 4) #9-15
Supergirl (Vol. 5) #64-65
Supergirl Annual #2
Superman #712
Superman/Batman #84-85
Tiny Titans #40-41
Young Justice (Vol. 2) #4-5
Showcase Presents: Superman Family Vol. 3

Total: 50 comics, 1 trade (Year total: 248 comics, 8 trades)

I started the Showcase volume back in May, but just finished it up. It was an excellent volume, though. It is, maybe, my favorite Showcase Presents volume so far. It is certainly my favorite of the non-pure Superman volumes. There are many classic and iconic stories in it.

The Reading Project is coming along nicely. I’m more than one-third of the way through now. STEEL and SUPERBOY AND THE RAVERS will be dropping off soon, and YOUNG JUSTICE will be added. None of those are likely to happen in August, but we will see. While we are on the subject, SUPERBOY AND THE RAVERS is a fun title. It’s unfortunate people pass on it because the dated (and kind of silly) title. Coincidentally, this era of Kon-El also gets passed on because of a dated costume and haircut. If you haven’t read it, you’re missing some fun stuff, folks.

HULK-SIZE MINI HULKS was… interesting. I don’t normally read Marvel titles outside of trades, but this looked cute. And it was, but also rather repetetive. It was also odd that the creators names were on every page.

My award for Best Book of the Month (which isn’t a real award, but I’m deeming it such for this post) goes to SUPERMAN #712, written by Kurt Busiek. It has taken its place as my favorite story of Kurt Busike’s run, topping out “The Best Day” from SUPERMAN ANNUAL #13. Not only was it an excellent done-in-one, it was extremely touching story. If you are a dog owner and don’t feel at least a twinge of emotion reading this, I might be lead to question your humanity. I might be sharing my thoughts on it more in an upcoming episode of “The Thrilling Adventures of Superman,” so keep an ear there.

And speaking of done-in-ones, GREEN LANTERN: EMERALD WARRIORS #11 was a nice one, with Guy Gardner in the lead role. Though I like him more these days than ever before, I never cared just a whole lot for Guy. That’s not to say he’s a bad character… just not my flavor. However, I enjoyed this story… even more because it was a self-contained, one-issue story. Comics need more of those these days.