Right of Assembly (some spoilers, but not really)

So - Joss proves once again he can write for large ensemble casts. Everyone got their moment (or several) but the standouts for me were: Black Widow being a particularly Whedonesque sort of femme fatale; Bruce Banner as a rumpled genius professor whose laid-back manner belies the creature everyone keeps waiting to spring out; Agent *Phil* Coulson - oh, Phil, this was your finest hour.

Also liked: Loki's maniacal grin; Cap finally hearing a pop-culture reference he gets; Black Widow's interrogation technique; "You know, last time I was in Germany and a man was standing over a crowd, he and I ended up coming to a disagreement."

Stay through the credits - I mean *all* the credits.

Best Cover Copy at the Pulp Show:

Vengeance of the Black Donnellys: Canada's Most Feared Family Strikes -- From Beyond the Grave!"

Runners up (racy vintage paperback edition):
The Square Root of Sex

I Can Lick You Anytime

ETA - Also picked up a bundle of Margery Allinghams, including a Campion I hadn't read before - The Beckoning Lady. This is one of the ones that's not really a murder mystery so much as it is a novel in which there are some murders and some mysteries; it's also a delightful bit of fan-service - all sorts of characters from earlier novels get cameos. I do sympathize with the reviewer on Amazon who said "This was one of those odd books in which every word is written in English, but when they are all put together, make very little sense at all." In a story which is very much about old friendships, Allingham has accurately depicted how people who've known each other a long time tend to converse in short-hand and in-jokes, most of which are left up to the reader to translate (there's a part of the resolution I'm still trying to make head or tail of).