D_Odds:
Did Strange Adventures # 8 come out yet? My comic shop says it hasn’t, but DC’s web site hasn’t changed the release date (10/7) they’ve had for it.
Midtown Comics tells me they shipped Strange Adventures 8 this week. I received my books last night, but didn’t look through them.
Avengers: Initiative is the best comic book Marvel is putting out.
Remember Johnny Guitar a villain from the old Dazzler series? No. Nobody does, but in the span of 4 pages the writer makes you actually care the guy and when he dies trying to retake Prison 42 with the rest of the Initiative cannon-fodder you actually care.
That book has constantly had to work with cruveballs thrown by the larger MU and always manages to make gold.
I got Strange Adventures #8 on the 7th. It’s definitely out there…
I’ve been reading the original Kon-El Superboy run - picked it up secondhand, and finally have made time to go through it. It was interesting to see some of Kon’s old bad guys show up in the new issue of Adventure.
I’m surprised, but I actually liked Supergirl this week. Mainly because the characters such as Lois finally started acting like themselves, and they all basically stopped acting stupid ('cept for the bad guys, still). Still annoys me that a lot of the “tension” in this plot has come from stupidity – the Thara/Kara misunderstandings, worst.
BN: Superman was servicable, if somewhat lackluster. Ma Kent vs. Zombie Lois should have been less perfunctory. Psycho Pirate’s presence remains rather random… but so was Conner’s solution. Eh.
Brave & Bold… well, I’m a sucker for the Battle of the Bulge, so there’s that.
Justice League of America was … promising. After James Robinson’s tin ear on Cry for Justice, I had some pretty low expectations, but it’s not a bad start to a run.
Well, it’s better than either Cry For Justice, or the start (or end) of MacDuffie’s run, at least.
Looks like it’s a victim of C4J’s chronic lateness, though - or were Vixen and Plas injured by Prometheus somewhere else, that we should have seen by now?
Oh, and Batman being among the memorial statues OUTSIDE the cave is a little odd, since they’re trying to play things as Dick being the same Batman. (Which Bagley should know, since he’s been drawing Batman…if it was his error, bad show, Bagley…if it was Robinson’s…well, Bagley’s in the position to correct him on it, or just cut it out or move the memorials back inside (where they were in 52) on his own initiative.)
The crack about Young Justice made me laugh way more than it should have, since I…rather dislike that book with an irrational ferocity.
Blasphemy, sir. Blasphemy!
YJ is one of those books that was completely ruined by the hype.
I can see it would have been mildly amusing if I’d been able to go into it clean, but I was out of comics when it was originally out, and by the time I got into trying to read it, it was hyped as ‘the best thing ever’ ‘the definitive versions of the characters’ (and as a pre-existing Superboy fan…), etc.
Combine ‘I didn’t like it that much’, ‘everyone overhypes it’, ‘the people who overhype it also tear down books I do enjoy’, and I go into backlash mode.
All right, all right. I’ll let it slide… THIS time.
The statues were previously depicted as inside the cave, so I’m not sure what’s going on there. The League’s injuries definitely dovetail off of Cry for Justice, but I suppose Robinson knows where he’s going to leave those characters at least…
Man, if I ever met Willingham and Sturges, first I’d shake their hands for Fables, Blue Beetle, and House of Mystery…
Then I’d punch them in the faces for the mess they’re making of JSA…
I don’t like the artificial conflict they’re creating in JSA. Apart from that, I haven’t seen anything that makes me dislike what they’re doing, but that is a big part of what they’re doing, I suppose…
Three Blackest Night books this week - BN, BN : Titans, and GL. Some interesting stuff :
[ul]
[li]Atrocitus = the Tin Man?.[/li][li]What Larfleeze wants.[/li][li]Sinestro calls a truce.[/li][li]“He’s the Flash.”[/li][li]Make Dove, not war.[/li][/ul]
It’s the conflict, overwhelming everything - the utter artificiality of it, the knowledge of the nonsensical way the team will be split after this, and the character derailments in its service.
Power Girl, particularly, being completely out of line with her portrayal in earlier issues of JSA (right back to when Robinson was writing it), and in her currently running own headlining series. Rolled back to her ultra-bitchy JLE low-point.
Anyway, yeah, the BN trifecta this week was great.
So was Superman - though Sam Lane is one of the stupidest men on Earth. Did he really think Metallo, the Parasite, and Atlas would impress Mon-El?
I’m half-liking JSA nowadays, half loathing it. It’s weird. But the division within the JSA is wholly artificial, with personalities being changed willy-nilly just to set up the pre-ordained conflict. On the other hand, the personalities that haven’t had to be meddled with, are frustratingly consistent with prior portrayals.
I can’t figure out that abortion of a plot over in Superman/World Against Superman titles, though. Robinson is capable of better – New Krypton is fun – but slogging through the other titles is like being repeatidly punched in the face. General Lane as Snidely Wiplash is trite enough, but this issue was like a kiddie amusement park ride – trapped in a cart on rails as you wizz past disjointed scenes that someone apparently believes substitute for an actual story. Had the comic played “It’s a Small World” as I read, it would have been just about perfect.
Blackest Night I only wish they’d have spread the BN titles out over otherwise BNless weeks… it was a puzzle, whether to read BN or GL first. However, that storyline has picked up its speed and is chugging right along without weird digressions (like, Gen Lane giving a guided tour to his torture victim Mon-El) needed because they couldn’t figure out otherwise how to bridge from Point A to B.
Dove’s vision of Don Hall makes me suspect that some of the Black Lantern victims will be coming back… but we’ll have Hank Hall back as Hawk, not Hawk II.
Highly unlikely. Hank’s character has been thoroughly poisoned at this point - it’ll take a lot more than dying to redeem him.
This is beeing plotted by the guy who redeemed Hal “Parallax” Jordan, after all…
All Rebirth did for Hal was remove his culpability for what he did as Parallax - he had already been redeemed by his death and his time as the Spectre.
For the past decade and change, the only time Hank hasn’t been a villain, he was a corpse. And not a lively one, either.
Also, Hank Hall was pretty dull. Then again, Hawk and Dove never really lit up the sales charts. I prefer Holly to Hank, though.
I really do not like Gary Frank’s art. So many scary eyes.
I have never been as scared of Lex Luthor as I was during the conversation between him and Clark about Metropolis in the latest Secret Origins…and it was for entirely the wrong reason. The way Frank drew him, I could imagine him leaping out of the page to rip my throat out with his teeth.
Doom Patrol #4 with new Sinestro Corps ring! Awesome. The new promo rings are bigger than the GL : Rebirth ones from a while back. Not at all surprised that thie Chief’s primary emotion is Avarice. Somewhat surprised to see the Black Lantern up against Robotman.