Brightest Day was a lot darker than I was expecting – particularly, the Aquaman stuff (which I liked the best, really).
War of the Supermen – my pain continues. shakes fist at Heavens
The Great Ten – I’m really liking this. I dig origin stories, and these are all pretty fun. Alas, it seems to have bombed, sales-wise.
Batman and Robin. Okay, I totally should have seen that coming. So obvious in hindsight, and yet so startling here. Damn Morrison.
Yeah, I just haven’t been keeping up with this thread like I should. One of the reasons I stopped doing the weeklys was because my time was evaporating to do them - guess it evaporated a little more than I thought. 
Some more reading out of the way…
'Tec - if you’re going to do a story where half the characters are psychologists or psychiatrists (including the narrator), would it kill you to glance through the DSM, or at least wiki the condition they’re talking about? While Dr Arkham quite possibly IS schizophrenic…that has little to nothing to do with the fact that he’s got at least two personae, who are completely separate, disconnected entities, which is what’s being talked about - that’s a classic case of Dissociative Identity Disorder. While Batman can be forgiven, both Arkham himself, and Alyss Sinnar (who refers to him as a ‘genuine schizophrenic’) should know better!
The Question backup was interesting, and if it changes Savage’s status quo, I won’t complain. (Though if it does make a permanent change to Renee or Helena, I will be.) (And since they’re acknowledging the connection of the early Vertigo books to the DCU again, I’d like to see Savage meet Cain of the Dreaming. The existence of both is easily explainable!)
Speaking of The Question, the bits on the last couple installments that happen on Oolong Island made the latest issue of Doom Patrol pretty funny. After explaining to Renee and Helena that she runs the island the way she does because science can only progress when free from oversight…she insists that the Chief’s research must be subject to oversight. (Also, the man is clearly part cockroach. He canNOT be killed…) I love the assassin, though…she’s nifty.
Thor and the Warriors Four - Huzzah, more Power Pack! (Huzzah!) All so very adorable and priceless. The scene where they’re all waiting to see their gramma was heartbreaking - Katie clearly didn’t understand, but the others did, and were dealing in their own ways. (I tend to react like Jack, personally.) But once the visit’s passed, I don’t think I stopped giggling through the rest of the first issue, and only during Katie’s story in the second. Thor’s story, in particular, cracked me up. Alex is becoming a bit of a Flat Earth Atheist, though. The backups are great, too. Huzzah, Herc! (Huzzah!)
In Daytripper, the Many Deaths of Bras continue unabated - although they’re starting to get a bit perfunctory and barely connected to the main story of the issue - issue 4’s was almost pure slapstick - it seriously felt like they got to the last page, realized they hadn’t killed him yet, then just used the first method of death that came to mind. Issue 5’s was a bit better (with the first issue’s), but after 2 and 3, I kind of came to expect a little more connection than some slight irony in his death.
The latest House of Mystery is an ‘exquisite corpse’ story. The results are interesting. (I think Kwitney may have ended her segment how she did just to force Sturges to get really creative with his resolution - it was certainly a sudden ending.)
I hate the Savage = Cain crap. I could buy it if Vandal Savage had been the inspiration for the story, but making him literally Cain, mark and all, fucks up his origin.
CURSE YOU, DC!!
Got the latest stupid Titans knockoff because it was Brightest Day (that strategy turned out fairly okay for Blackest Night)…
And it seems that DC does, indeed, have only one formula for Titans knockoffs: gather random nobodies you’ve barely heard of and don’t care about as the team, and then kill off a minor legacy character for the shock value. @#%&heads.
As I’m not getting that book, can you spoil what minor legacy character buys the farm please?
Doc Savage #1 and #2: I like the Doc Savage story so far, but this stupid Justice, Inc backup feature is boring me. DC, please get rid of the Justice, Inc feature and free up more pages for Doc and his Fabulous Five.
The All-New Atom (who’s name escapes me). The wonderful new kid that Gail Simone created and created in such a way that he’s still a useful character even with Ray back–he’s much, MUCH more athletic than Ray, also he has a sense of humor. I’m pretty pissed, to the point where Titans, which has been right on the edge of me dropping, just got dropped by me.
It was a pointless, stupid, irritating “Let’s prove how tough these lusers are” death of the sort James Robinson is infamous for–and it’s “funny” that they did it under a “Brightest Day” banner.
Micro-ultra-sonics (or whatever the hell it’s called?) What?)
I’ve now heard it referred to as “Whitest Day”. Since, of course, it wasn’t a white guy getting offed to demonstrate… whatever the hell it is they think these Titan storylines demonstrate.
[spoiler]It’s Ryan Choi, FWIW.
I’m guessing that micro-ultra-sonics is either: 1. crappy technobabble used before when Deathstroke took down the JLA (which I didn’t read), or 2. crappy technobabble invented on the spot for this chumpification.
And there are not enough eyerolls in the world for Deathstroke being a better combatant than Ryan at the subatomic level – because he fought Ray maybe, once.[/spoiler]
On the plus side, Birds of Prey restart was pretty good. And Adventure Comics wrapped so we’ll finally get to some actual LSH storylines. So there’s that. I suppose.
This week, DC demonstrates that although they’ve apparently based their sales efforts on big event crossovers… they still don’t know how to do 'em very well.
Brightest Day #2 was… um. I’m really not sure what that was, other than not very interesting. Utterly opaque unless you’re up on the backstory of all the participants, I’m sure. Weird recharacterizations of several characters. And completely missing anything on the teaser promised by the Aquaman cover.
The JLA Brightest Day tie-in was again a hot mess. I don’t know who the supergorilla or the starman are, and with the JSA tossed in, plus Jade’s and her father’s backstory tossed in, it’s just all a muddle. Worse, ends in yet another Kingdom Come riff. Oy.
War of the Supermen was a crossover miniseries that actually forgot to cross over with any of the Superman books. Thank goodness. It also forgot to have the eponymous Superman be super.
… On the gripping hand, the new LSH book was way better than I’d ever expected it to be. Plot twists aplenty, action, focuses mostly on a few characters while featuring others, and even fairly good at explaining for newcomers (could have used more backstory on the Green Lanterns, oddly). Even better, the cover art encapsulates the story’s events and is a completely misleading spoiler.
Poor Aquaman wishes his cover was as relevant a teaser.
Bit of news that may interest some - a new DC tabletop RPG is due out in August, from Green Ronin, the makers of Mutants and Masterminds.
Over the last week or so I’ve really gotten into Deadpool. I’ve read the two ultimate collections of Deadpool and Cable and have started the newest Deadpool series.
Any suggestions as to what other series I may like?
The good news is, there’s a lot of Deadpool material out there. I liked the character best under Joe Kelly and Gail Simone, but I don’t know if their stuff is in trades or not.