I’d guess that your store is hosting a Marvel’s New Year’s Eve Eve party.
Picked up Blackest Night #6 this week. Snoozeville.
Likewise snoozeariffic: BN: Weird Western Tales, BN: Suicide Squad, and BN: Wonder Woman. The latter was especially disappointing, as the prior had been pretty good.
JSA: All-Stars continues to suck what little life remains out of the JSA, like the twin leech to the other JSA title, really.
However, I liked The Great Ten on Thundermind. Even though his origin story does seem rather flippant toward the Budda. I’m not sure the a superhero with a Jesus origin fighting badguys with his Jesuspowers would go over very well.
Man, Lightray, I just don’t get your taste in comics at all. Blackest Night #6 was easily the best thing I’ve read all year - I loved it, cover to cover.
Speaking of Blackest Night… Go, Mera!
BN:WW was infuriating, on a couple counts:
1) Diana’s fighting off the black ring after being taken is even more ridiculous than Hal and Barry outrunning the ones that came for them. It would be ridiculous for anyone to have have done it, btw - I’m not saying Diana shouldn’t be able to do it, I’m saying NOBODY should have been able to do it.
1a) This kind of dents the ‘it’s not really them’ part of the whole story - though Diana’s a bit of a special case - one of only a handful taken by the black ring while technically alive - so that’s a rather more minor annoyance - though since we’re not likely to be given the same sort of scenes with the others taken in that way, it still makes Diana seem Oh So Special and Sue-y.
2) Batman/Wonder Woman DOES NOT WORK.
2a) If that lip-lock actually happened, rather than being an illusion cast by the violet ring that was coming to displace the black ring, she was kissing DICK, and since he seemed to be initiating, that makes no sense.
2b) Even if it was an illusion, Batman/Wonder Woman STILL does not work.
2c) It was stated in issue 1 and in BN6 that the love Wondie feels is generalized, not-necessarily romantic/sexual love for ALL living beings. Focusing it down to romantic feelings for Bruce undercuts that.
2d) Have I mentioned the 'ship doesn’t actually work?
3) Diana’s beating of BL-Donna was just…weird. The glee didn’t make any sense for real Diana, the beating itself didn’t make any sense for BL-Diana, and that’s not how the conflict between the two controlling entities was portrayed anywhere else in the book. Either the ring wholly had the upper hand, or Diana did - there was no influencing of the other’s actions.
3a) Why is Donna always getting beaten down by mind-controlled good guys, lately? This isn’t nearly as fun as Mary Marvel beating her senseless with Kyle Rayner, either.
Nothing really happened. The plot was suspended so we could get the powerups of a Johns’ pet characters as ringbearers. We learned nothing new about what was going on, and the villains did absolutely nothing but stand around in iconic poses. The entire setup last issue of “oh, crap, Superman &tc is a Black Lantern” got sidelined (and quickly undone, in one case).
So, yeah. Kinda dull. Would’ve been annoyed had I gone in last week just to get this.
Ok—all the Siege adverts say “7 years in the making”.
Why?
Disassembled was at the very end of 2004…like October/November. But even if you count 2004, that’s only 6 years. And that’s assuming you start counting from Disassmbled, which doesn’t make sense. Counting from New Avengers #1 with the intro of the Skrull Spider-Woman, I can buy. But that was even later.
So what happened 7 years ago from 2010?
Joe Quesada sold his first marriage to the devil in exchange for the EIC position at Marvel?
Disagreed on all counts. To each their own, I suppose.
After reading the latest World of New Krypton, I’m hoping the final issue will involve not just the Labour Guild getting a seat at the council table, but it’ll be the one formerly held by the Military Guild (who would, of course, come under the control of the other guilds). The identity of the murderer, given that there’s only one issue left, seems pretty clear… Anyone other than Councillor Zo - or his direct subordinates - just couldn’t be properly inserted at this point.
You don’t think it’s Commander Gor? I do. I also get Zod’s line about idealists making poor Generals, although I disagree. He put Kal in that position for precisely that reason.
The two of them are clearly in cahoots - honestly, Zod (!!!), Kal, and Nar are about the only members of the military guild I’d trust as far as I can throw them, right now.
I’d guess your guy’s the triggerman, mine’s the mastermind.
Funny thing about Zod’s line about idealists - it was clear in the story about how he, Ursa, and Non ended up in the PZ, that he’s an idealist himself - a Knight Templar in TVTropes speak…an idealist who thinks his ideals justify extreme action.
Damnit, I forgot to pick up New Krypton this week; knew I forgot something.
I was surprised to actually like the BN tieins this week. BN: Secret Six was stronger than the intro in Suicide Squad. BN: Power of Shazam was kind of a poignant “what might have been” for the Osiris character. And BN: Catwoman was interesting, explained enough of the book for new readers, and seems to be forwarding the book’s own storyline, too.
Booster Gold finally gets to hanging storylines for both Booster and in the Blue Beetle backup. REBELS finally starts showing why the Omega Men are involved; also, Dox fun.
Action Comics still sucks.
With Adventure Comics I find that I’m going to miss the Superboy and his Dog stories when it goes all LSH, even though I’m a huge LSH fan. I like how Johns writes Conner, and Krypto has been freakin’ adorable.
Happy this week. 
The Siddhis are a real concept in Hinduism and Buddhism, and his powers are primarily actual siddhis in one or more of the systems of siddhis Wikipedia lists (though not all in the same set).
And there have been plenty of heroes empowered by the Judeo-Christian God (although they’re primarily Jewish, rather than Christian), and quite a few others whose powers come from Christian relics, though not directly from the big guy himself.
Onto this week, it’s nice to see the ‘I could cure cancer, if not for Superman’ nonsense shown for what it is in Adventure. And the whole thing with his sister is exactly what he’s been doing every time he’s said that in the past - except for the false hope part. That’s new. But the holding the world at ransom because they have the audacity to admire someone who gives of himself, rather than kowtowing to him.
There is a strange and conspicuous gap in Black Mask’s memories in Catwoman. Yeah, OK, they wanted to focus on Maggie, and that story was pretty damn good, but…forgetting the events leading up to the time she actually, successfully, killed him? His attempts on Holly? His torture of Slam? You’d think that his last days would be more significant to him than the time he pissed Catwoman off and actually survived it - if only because everyone assumed he hadn’t. (And he’d no doubt flash on Steph, even though she’s not terribly on-point in a Catwoman story.)
Big big news week for comics.
Simone/Benes returns this year on Birds of Prey.
Giffen/DeMatteis taking over Booster Gold.
Giffen and Winick doing a 26 issue, bi-weekly Justice League International title.
Levitz’s Legion is going to have two books. LSH, covering the adventures of the Legion going forward, and Adventure (not clear if it’s the whole book, or just a backup) with Superboy and the Legion’s early years.
Also, Marvel initiated a totally classless promotion - for every 50 unsold, destroyed Blackest Night Ring Tie-In book retailers send them, they will send that retailer one copy of Siege #3 with a Deadpool variant cover.
Yeah, that was kinda tacky. But comic store guy said they didn’t have any unsold – they were, in fact, backordered on some – just because everyone wanted those rings.
It’ll be interesting to see if Marvel ever lets slip how many exchanges they actually make on this…
Not only classless, but stupid.
BN in general, and the ring issues particularly, aren’t exactly shelf-warmers.
And, of course, to turn in 50 unsold BN ring tie-ins, you need to have 7 unsold copies of each (plus an eighth of one of them)… So I don’t think many stores, even among those who DO have unsold copies, will be in a position to take advantage of this promotion.
If you’re going to pit the competition’s best seller against what you hope will be yours, you should make sure even if you don’t win, you’re not humiliated.
Make it 7! 14! Even 21 is not too unrealistic! Or 50 unsold BN issues, without specifying being ring issues. Hell make it 150 unsold unspecified BN tie-ins! Make the event look like a REAL bomb, while not requiring an unrealistic number of unsold copies.
My understanding is that the first printing of those ring issues were sellouts almost everywhere, and even the second printings sold through well. So, yeah.
Too bad, because the one thing Marvel certainly needs to do is publish more comics with Deadpool on them. 
All of the Blackest Night tie-ins were pretty good this week. I’m actually finding the some of the better tie-ins to be more interesting than the main BN book.
I was really pleased to see the Phantom Stranger book. Made me happy.
Power Girl, though, was probably my favorite of the week.