COMICS: Shameful confession

My shameful confession:

I really like Jubilee.

The comic, not the character. Or, not the character specifically, just what Robert Kirkman is doing with her on the new book. I don't really know anything about what I'm sure is the rich and fascinating backstory of Jubilee (she's basically a ripoff of Robin, right?), but Kirkman's using her well here.

This is more like Invincible than any of Kirkman's other books, and since Invincible is my favorite Kirkman book -- one of my favorite comics now being published, period -- that's just fine with me.

It's a very simple, character-driven high school story, with the whole mutant powers thing being very secondary (so far) to the daily interactions between Jubilee and the other people at school -- the popular, the unpopular, the faculty. There's a bit of intrigue with Jubilee's aunt, which seems to be coming to a head, and that's interesting, but it's not really what's got me hooked on the book; it's well-written and funny, with good characters, and that's what's got me hooked. It's far better than any of Kirkman's recent 2099 books, and it beats the hell out of his Captain America (one more issue of that and I'm done, this time for sure, I swear).

And no, I'm not kidding about any of this.

Or, as Dorian suggested at the comic shop yesterday, maybe I just like reading about teenage girls.