the people who said Brook will not join because he will directly go back to Laboon have to explain someting to me : how will he do that? unless he suddenly and miraculously find an EP to reverse mountain he only have 2 solution :
1 he follow Luffy to the end of GL
2 he cross the calm belt and then pass reverse mountain again

and I also believe a squeleton will have trouble if he travel alone.
and please, he is NOT a swordman. he is a musician who use a sword to fight.
with the logic "he use a sword = he is a swordman", we have Luffy, Robin, Chopper : DF users… my god, Robin and Chopper must leave the crew immediatly ! !
and before someone says :" but its not the same DF", I will answer : " but it's not the same sword fighting style"

it seems to me that Robin knew about Laboon. not the story of the rhumba pirates of course but when Luffy said "the whale near the 2 caps at the entrance of GL", Robin seems to react to that. maybe I just imagined that, thought.

and stop saying brook won't join because he use a sword. to join he must only have a dream that isn't opposed to the dream of another SH. and brook don't want to be the best swordman in the world and will not be pissed because of zoro'dream. he can even teach him his technics to make him stronger.

as for the fight between Brook and Ryuma, I think that OZ will disturb it.
R : now I will cut your afro !
B : not the afro !!!!
O : meeeaaattt !!!!
R B : ????

@MonkeyDMalcolm:

Enies Lobbies completely discredits your argument luffy took at out least 5x as many people as the other characters i forgot the number of people he took out but i think it was 5,000 marines

quite the oposite in fact : I didn't said that the "monsters" won't fight others crew. what I meant was : Nami and Ussop and maybe Robin (given her powers) will probably have most of their "moments of glory" while fighting a great numbers of people.

EL exemples :
Luffy beating x1000 marines was'nt impressive but Nami zappings countless marines and holding against marines captains is.
Ussop on the roof of the tower of justice sniping marine soldiers was also impressive. (one of my favorite moment)

I think Ussop, Nami and Robin (yes Robin too) are more the "fighting crew" of the SH. what I mean by that is : their fighting abilities are very efficient when it comes to defeat many averages oponents in a short amount of time. Ussop is still the weakest but in the futur… I think it was Francis Drake who captured a warship with only a dozen of men : they sniped the crew until redition.

ps : Booke was black, it's 100% sure : the black guy always die first in fictions

about brook also using a sword, I don't see why it's a problem.

1. franky has guns in his arm, does he take ussop's place ? no
2. it's not the same sword, it's obviously a rapier, wich mean a completly different style. (by the way, rapiers do cut, they are razor. the fencing sword that doesn't cut is the "fleuret" - I'm not sure of the english word, my dictionnary say "foil"-)
3. Brook don't want to be the best swordman. I doubt he would care if Zoro is stronger than him.
4. I didn't see any single one reason for him not to join so far : he is alone with no place to come back and his dream is to leave this place with nakamas

about the last 2 pages, I don't think he attack by shealting his sword. it's more : he strike too fast to be seen, and then shealt. the wound apeared on his ennemy just when he finished shealting just to look more baddass.

@rizu:

Did Kokoro-san said that Floral Triangle is ascary place… and u know what.. every body know no one has return from the triangle..so, why should everybody still accross the triangle every years? more than 100 ship known to be missing there and maybe that scared people out and nobody trying to reach there for more than 10 years....

no, its not possible : don't forget they must follow a log post, they have to pass through the florian triangle to travel between W7 and Mermen Island.

What I'm waiting for is another ghost ship. and every one is affraid, including Brooke " haaaa ghosts…. wait I'm a ghost too !" the same way chooper called for a doctor in alabasta.

it's not really true because of eternal posts. Roger was on this path when he went to Skypia, but that doesn't mean he start on it, or stay on it. and Luffy can also take another one any time he find an eternal post.

in the real world, the captain was the symbol of the crew. so others member had the reputation of "being member of x crew". they didn't usually have any "bounty", except if they had done something criminal before entering the crew. well it didn't mattered because being a pirate means Death if caught, even if you were a nameless sailor.

ex : Blackbeard was unknown when he was Hornigold's first mate.

@gain:

but it's possible to speculate and make fun predictions… but you're right in that we won't be able to know exactly what happens until it happens....

no I mean we don't even know if the mermen island is the next arc or the second next. we don't know if they will fight the gouvernement or pirates or somebody else. we don't have the begining of informations.

I like to discuss things but I need a minimum of informations to do so.
Luffy's bounty will increase but Next arc ? can't answer at all.

it's impossible to answer this question without knowing what the next arc will be.