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Written by Jason Green Tuesday, 06 January 2009 10:55

This week's best bets include Jeff Smith's latest, a Warren Ellis finale, and one of Marvel's most under-rated titles.

RASL Vol. 1: The Drift (Cartoon Books)

112 pgs. B&W; $13.00

Bone creator Jeff Smith's new series finally gets collected. This is kind of a slight volume at only 3 issues, but what little is here is phenomenal stuff. This tale of a dimension-hopping art thief and the reptilian villain chasing him has something few other comics on the stands offer: the feeling that you never know what the heck is going to happen next.

Anna Mercury #5 of 5 (Avatar)

32 pgs. full color; $3.99

This week is heavy with material from mad genius Warren Ellis—issues of his other current Avatar titles Doktor Sleepless, No Hero, and Gravel all ship this week—but this is the pick of the litter. Ellis' story follows its own fascinating sci-fi logic, and Facundo Percio's artwork is detail-intensive but not over-labored...not to mention his take on the title character is sexy as all get out. The previous issue built things to such a head that you had to be almost sure things were going to end badly, but with the recently announced collection appending a "volume 1" to its title, it'll be especially interesting to see how it all plays out.

Eternals #7 (Marvel)

32 pgs. full color; $2.99

Not too many people are talking about Daniel and Charles Knauf's follow-up to Neil Gaiman and John Romita, Jr.'s resurrection of these classic Kirby characters, which is a shame because it's a solidly entertaining book. The Eternals don't have the worn down, been-there-done-that atmosphere of many of Marvel's most over-used heroes, and villain Druig makes for a fantastically malevolent bad guy. Even though this ish sees the departure of Daniel Acuña's fantastic art, it's still the perfect place to jump on thanks to the start of a new story arc and the addition of rising star artist Eric Nguyen, a frequent collaborator of Rick Remender on titles like Dark Horse's Gigantic and Image's Strange Girl. | Jason Green