I actually got to pick my comics up on time this week! Woo!
Also : New volume of the Starman Omnibus!
I always hate being about 3-4 weeks behind in these threads, but I get my comics every two weekly and have a backlog.
I notice that there isn’t much discussion about the ones I read, so I’ll touch on them a bit.
Realm of Kings: Follow up to War of Kings. Hated the mutant angle, don’t like that now Darkstar is Marvel’s Jamie Reyes Blue Beetle, but really enjoy Nova and Guardians of the Galaxy. Personally, I can’t get enough Warlock, even when I feel the writing is off.
Marvel Ultimate: Personally, I like some of the differences, dislike others, and overall I enjoy the world they are building. Spider-Man needs to be taller and needs a better haircut. Geoff Johns has praised Ultimate X on Twitter. He must have seen more than issue 1, because I don’t see it yet.Ben Grimm and Sue Storm - heh. I wonder where they will go with that.
Thor: I think that Loki sometimes moves too fast for the way his character is portrayed, but the stories would have to drag out farther if he didn’t.
Dark Reign: Please tell me they kill Norman Osborn and Sentry for good. The politics are too heavy handed, even though they tend to pick on people and ideologies I dislike.
Ghost Rider: Just finished, tying up the Arch-angel storyline. Seems Mephisto is now out of play and not responsible for the Ghost Riders.
Dead Pool and Groo: I enjoy books that can make me chuckle and even occasionally laugh aloud, stories be damned. Which brings me to my final one -
P.S. 238: Buy this book. Buy the collections. Laugh. Enjoy. Write Disney nasty letters for stealing the idea twice.
Not a complete list of what I’m reading, but representative of ones which don’t seem to get much coverage in this thread.
Hmm, on preview, I noticed this list is almost all-Marvel. I guess DC gets more coverage here, as I didn’t feel a need to include them.
Not much to comment on these last few weeks…
JLA is actually getting good. Not going to be in my top ten any time soon, but it’s no longer risking getting dropped - unless it takes a lasting dip back to where it was, or Cry For Justice territory.
Adventure comics…BL!Connor’s comment about Kara was…unexpected to say the least. I’m not sure what it says that I was totally not shocked by the heart eating and sadism, but a comment about incestuous masturbation fantasies seemed over the line.
BN:Flash - What they did to Owen makes me sad - not what the Rogues did to him at the end, but why they did it. Dead Digger’s trick was clever and evil… [Edit - although, under the circumstances, the Rogues should have been smart enough to hold off on doing what they did.]
BN in general…I’m wavering on all the BNs who’ve gotten free of the ring control…the number of them is annoyingly high, as it counters the ‘it’s not them’ aspect, and dulls the swarm threat… Yet, on the other hand…they’ve all had reasonable (for a superhero comic book definition of ‘reasonable’) ways to do so…and I’m not counting the other ring for Wondie… Wonder Woman and Osiris are divinely empowered. Connor had the second corpse present - although how his mind came free enough to bring that plan into place is confusing. Bart had the speed force allow Barry to pull him out.
I rather liked the handwavy explanation they gave for Connor, if they remember it in the future. I’m dubious of that, though
[spoiler]DC writers use the “Superman mind-controlled” crutch to prop up poor writing all too often. And Connor is just about at the same place, where poor writers think that nigh-invulnerable = not possible to write interesting stories about.
It would be nice if, in the future, someone tried to mind-control Superboy and all this training against it was brought up to resist it. But, I doubt it will.[/spoiler]
Owen crossed the line. I wish the writer hadn’t made him do it, b ut there you go.
With one exception, all the people who’ve broken free were the ones who were taken while alive. Nekron’s hold over them is clearly more tenuous.
Enough already! I can’t afford the extra series, spoil what happened in BN:Flash! Please!
[spoiler]Well, there’s Barry and Wally fighting black lanternized Bart (and some others, like black lantern Zoom). It’s the least interesting part, really, as it’s an extended setup of “Barry only youuuu can save the day” stuff to showcase how Barry is really all about Hope for sure. They figure out that Bart can be rescued from black lanternhood via the Speed Force, and quicker than you can say technobabbledplotwavium Barry does so.
The living Rogues, meanwhile, are fighting the black lantern Rogues in the facility where (still-living) Zoom is being held. The living Rogues sort-of hold their own, but the black lanterns are either distracted by Zoom’s presence or by Nekron uploading new orders. Capt Cold takes the opportunity to put them all on ice, literally, and thus entrap them.
Meanwhile, Owen had gone off with his black lanternized dad last issue. Turns out that Digger’s been conning Owen into feeding him. We see Owen toss Sandblaster into a pit with undead Boomerang, after establishing that the former is also a sex offender. Undead dad strings Owen along, claiming he can feel his heartbeat, etc., etc. (It’s really the evilest I can recall any black lantern; usually they’re more the scenery-chewing moustache-twirling ‘eeeevil’).
Anyway, by the end the other Rogues come looking for black lantern Boomerang, and find Owen. And Cold realizes what Owen’s been doing – and that he’s tossed down women and children, too… so they toss Owen into the pit with undead dad, and walk away.
undead dad: nomnomnom. Owen: o, i iz ded.[/spoiler]
Thanks, I needed that. That was nasty. And I am sorry to see it happen, he is a pretty good character. Of course, considering the body count that has already been ran up, how likely is it that nothing will change with Owen’s status by the end of the storyline.
His breathing status is likely to be restored.
He’s still going to have to deal with what he did. Hopefully.
Huh. I’d’ve maybe guessed someone else*, but if this’ll get the Superman books out of their draggingly annoying Gen. Sam Lane story arc, I’m all for it!
*Like, oh, Tyroc.
I do not get why I find Robinson so hot and cold; lately I’ve found his Super books dull and lifeless, but Superman this time around wasn’t too bad. Jeckie’s hybrid costume is utterly tragic, of course.
JSA also not as dreadful as it has been trending. But, of course, it’s hard to go wrong with Nazis.
Or zombies, over in BNland. BN Green Arrow was rather dull, and one of the few BN tie-ins not to reach a resolution. BN JSA resorts to a cheap deus ex machina resolution (that, of course, can’t be repeated).
Blackest Night itself actually moves too fast through some stuff that could’ve used more development – John Stewart’s involvement in the whole series has been no more than a few pages and splash panels, disappointingly. And Lex… sigh. Nonetheless it certainly got someplace interesting.
Batman and Robin, meanwhile, was wholly awesome. Knight & Squire, kickass Alfred, Dick and the redhead, Batwoman, and zombie Batman. All good.
I think I might’ve missed GLCorps #45… hm.
Is anyone reading Image United? I missed the first few issues. Is it something I should look to catch up on? I really only read Invincible in their lineup, but thought it might be a decent jumping in point.
I’m not - I gave it a miss, despite Invincible being one of my favorite titles.
JLA Cry For Justice goes back to how it started for the end…horrible, horrible trainwreck. It must have taken some effort to take Prometheus, whose powers are Mary Sue incarnate and make him even more Sue-ey than he was to begin with.
'Tec…not liking the main story much…too much Bruce without any good reason. It’s not…bad, but I’d like it a lot more if it just focused on Kate and Bette. The whole ‘Bruce fought this guy too!’ part feels tacked on. It’s not doing anything to contrast Batman and Batwoman in any real way. It’s not giving any insight into Bruce, Kate, or the Cutter that wouldn’t be given as well, or better, just by concentrating on one of them. So, it just doesn’t work. The backup, though, is still kicking ass. Renee’s reaction to Babs cracks me up.
Adventure - liked the Legion and Superboy/Mon-El sections, but the Car-Vex/Lane story was a chore to read…they’re both clearly insane, but not fun-insane.
First Wave was a good start. Interesting lack of Batman, given his position in the promotion, including the cover. I actually like this take on the Spirit (and Dolan), though I was a bit worried by it - it’s darker, sure, but compatible with Eisner - and Cooke, even. Certainly no Frank Miller’s Spirit, for sure.
Girl Comics has an…interesting title. But it’s surprisingly consistent for an anthology based around nothing but the sex of the creators. I was particularly fond of the Franklin and Valeria Richards story. The Punisher story could have been 2 pages long and worked better. (Also, a different last panel would have helped…that one made no sense.)
I’ve still got some of my stack left to read, so more comments maybe later.
On a different almost-comic-book note, though, I watched Justice League - Crisis on Two Earths earlier the week, and wanted to make a couple comments, and this seemed the most likely place to find those interested…
First…Batman’s voice could have been cast better - I have no problem with the rest of the cast, and I’m certainly not a ‘Kevin Conroy is the Only Batman’ person, by any means - Adam West, Christian Bale, Michael Keaton, Val Kilmer, Rino Romano - I have no problem with any of them. Baldwin just didn’t cut it, though. He sounded wrong, and…really feels like he’s phoning it in, most of the time. (Although he does have a good moment near the end, when he’s tearing into Lex, about having left the Quantum Trigger in the satellite..)
Second - that a lot of the CSA members powers work differently than their counterparts, I thought was pretty nifty, too - Black Lightning’s double has powers more like Static’s than BL’s; Vixen’s actually turns into animals; etc. Of special note is Superwoman. Making Superwoman a Mary Marvel equivalent, rather than Wonder Woman was an interesting choice, but I wish they’d made it a bit more explicit than simply having her lieutenants being the males of the Marvel Family. If I hadn’t seen McDuffie say that Superwoman is Mary before hand, I wouldn’t have picked up on that clue, and the actual Wonder Woman equivalent (who works for Power Ring) would have simply been confusing.
Third - I wish they’d gone with a different ending with J’onn’s side-story. Having him stay on that world to be with Rose (also, what a strange choice…) would not only have been a nice ending to their romantic subplot - which didn’t serve the characters or story very well as it was - but it would also have made the chances of CSA-Earth staying CSA-free a lot higher to have a high powered character on the good side. I understand the movie started life as a bridge between Justice League and Justice League Unlimited, but it’s no longer that, so there wasn’t really any reason not to change his arc - I mean, they subbed in Hal for John as the Green Lantern, so it’s clearly not happening in the DCAU.
Fourth - good LORD, the League are brutal in this one. Wonder Woman tossing Owlman out of his jet, then…not actually doing anything to stop him going splat, for instance. (Yes, Owlman had a glider built into his costume, but Diana didn’t do anything, even before he deployed it.) Batman’s killing of Owlman and Johnny Quick, though were what were really shocking. Not so much that he did it - though that he’d trick Quick into committing suicide, even to prevent Flash from doing the same, was, kind of - it seems a little OOC for the Bat - but, especially after the League’s discussion with President Wilson, I’d have expected at least a cursory ‘what the Hell?’ from them - or at least Superman - after what happened to Johnny came clear. I liked Johnny congratulating him for the play, though.
Cry for Justice is like a fanfiction attempt at making a mature, violent superhero story. Crisis on Two Earths is how a professional does it. Seriously, CoTE is in my top-two favorite DC Direct-to-Video movies - the only one that I might like more is the JLA : New Frontier one.
CfJ has basically guaranteed that I don’t care what happens to the Arrow family anymore. It’ll be years before the stink of this story washes off them.
CoTE - with regard to your points about Batman, Tengu…
[spoiler]Batman risked Johnny Quick’s life. I don’t think he necessarily expected the fight to take as long as it did, or for the degeneration to be as rapid as it was - he knew that the damaging feedback was likely, though, and wanted Quick to bear the brunt rather than Wally. It was a semi-callback to the teleporter test from the first part of the movie. The instant he got back, he told Quick to stop - hoping to spare him as much of the degeneration as possible.
Batman didn’t kill Owlman, though. Batman exiled Owlman to a place where he could be retrieved, if Owlman had deactivated his bomb. Owlman simply didn’t care enough about his own existence to enter the abort code.[/spoiler]
Best line ever :
“There is a difference between us. We both looked into the abyss. But when it looked back… you blinked.” 
Got the new Incredibles : City of Incredibles collection, in hardcover, from Boom! Studios.
Fun art, that suits the characters.
The writer, Mark Waid, really captures the personality & voice of the characters from the movie.
Truly, this is Incredibles 1.5. It will do, until the next film is made.
Point on JQ, but…[spoiler]He exiled Owlman to the lifeless frozen world Superwoman was going to send HIM to. Even if Owlman had turned off the QED, he’d have died a slow death on that world of starvation/thirst (presuming his armour kept him from freezing). That he was a nihilist and so didn’t turn off the bomb didn’t result in his death, it made it less painful…or at least faster.
So, Batman killed him, even if he gave him a choice about how he was actually going to go.[/spoiler]
BTW–fun quote from Evil Inc., an online comic strip.
A mad scientist, with the head of a fly, has invented his own Power Ring. But, instead of running off one emotion, it changes color to match your mood.
A Power Mood Ring!
