So.
Here 'tis.
We got Identity Crisis #5 and Firestorm #6 this month.
IC is being discussed in the IC ongoing thread, natch. Firestorm #6 is an IC tie-in - and unfortunately, aside from a moment with the Justice League, the Firestorm book has nothing interesting in it apart from the IC tie-in bits.
I want Ronnie Raymond back. Now. I’m dropping Firestorm with this issue.
3 more installments of **War Games ** this week, only two left! The issue of Robin was even more poignant since I read the new **Identity Crisis ** right before. Very, very good stuff. It’s looking less and less like Spoiler is going to kick it, regardless of what other sources may say.
Didn’t grab anything else.
Ulitmate Spider-man: Funny funny stuff! Harkens back to the days when JM DeMatteis would throw in a humorous story. He used to amaze me with his diversity. (“Brian Vaughn knows how to spell!”)
Maddrox: I never read mutant/X-books, but for some reason I just love Jamie’s power. Plus it’s written by Peter David, so it’s win-win.
OHOTMU '04 Wolverine: I only got this since I’m a stupid completist. See above that I am not a mutant reader. I really don’t care about Wolvie’s supporting cast. Ninjas bore me. That’s why I stopped collecting GI Joe back in the early 90’s.
Y- TLM #27: HOLY CRAP!!! (Yes, that is something you can say at the end of about 75% of issues in this series, but this time I really mean it.)
Hard Time TPB: Hard Time is one of the survivors (so far) of DC’s ill-fated FOCUS line. Two other Focus titles have been cancelled and the scheduled TPB for Kinetic, the other survivor, was scratched, so I think the writing 's on the wall. After reading this book, if Hard Time goes the way of its fellows it’ll be a great tragedy. It’s about a 15 year old kid who participates in a Columbine-style school shooting (which he claims he tought was a joke) and gets sentenced to 50 years in an adult prison. The first issue was awful – most of the characters were stereotypes and there was little of interest in the story. But once Ethan gets to prison in ish #2 the book improves in leaps and bounds. The prison is populated with a great number of believeable characters, all of whom are frightening as hell. You’re completely sucked in to the world Gerber paints here and you feel every horrible thing that happens to Ethan; he’s already been forced to give up most of his humanity to survive, but he’s kept just a little bit more than every other character, which makes him a true protagonist. Everybody should get this book, because it’s unlikely to be around much longer.
–Cliffy
Does anyone know when the next We3 is coming out? Seems like a delay, but I can’t even remember who’s publishing it.
Also, is anyone reading JSA: Strange Adventures? It looks interesting, but I haven’t seen anyone even mention it here.
Madrox - I think the series hit a nice stride with this issue. I mean, I liked it before, but now we’re actually getting the meat of the plot.
JSA : Strange Adventures - I think I’ve mentioned previous issues in this column. I enjoyed Johnny Thunder’s speech particularly. While it was n ice to see Wildcat and Atom in action behind German lines, it seems to reinforce the WW2 DC retcon - that the Spear of Destiny affected all metahumans, rather than just those susceptible to magic. (Probably because some editor at DC pointed out that Flash could’ve ended the war almost singlehandedly…) I know Sandman was busy, but why wasn’t Mr. Terrific with them?
Vertigo. (Morrison is DC exclusive for the time being, IIRC.)
Don’t know when it’s scheduled.
–Cliffy
Cable and Deadpool #8 - Deadpool’s dialogue and antics make this book buyable despite Cable’s yawn-inducing persona.
New Invaders #3 - I’ll give it an issue or two more - the art really sucks, but Blazing Skull’s dialogue and antics … hey, wait a second.
Manhunter #3 - Ron Raymond’s bane shows up to try and deal with our neo-hero, and nearly manages it. When did the Shadow Thief become a credible threat?
GI Joe : Reloaded #8 - A traitor in the ranks, and Baroness Backstory.
Fantastic Four #519 - Delightfully truthful yet misleading cover. Reed pulls a fast one on some aliens - only to find Galactus on Earth’s doorstep, looking for a new herald.
Conan #9 - Just a fun book. What can I say?
Teen Titans #17 - Okay, good book, but the really nice thing is it gives us some idea of the timeline for Identity Crisis. It apparently takes place after this book, which is after War Games.
Terra Obscura Vol. 2 #3 (of 6) - Good stuff.
Spectacular Spider-Man #20 (Avengers Disassembled Tie-In somehow)
Spider-Man now has organic webs!
Y’know, just like in those really popular movies! So what if the mechanical devices have worked well for the last 40 years… people know Spider-Man from the movies, now. Hey, it’s a good thing they just coincidently fire from the exact same place that his old mechanical spinners did huh?
Talk about fixing something that isn’t broke.
Spider-Man can talk to insects
Never mind that Spiders and insects aren’t the same thing… close enough! They’re all bugs! Never mind that JMS already did the connection with spiders… aspect of Spider-Man with much better storytelling.
Let’s see… 2099, multi-titile crossovers, “This Changes Everything!!!” storylines, an explosion in number of titles, Rob Liefeld. Yes the 90’s are back for Marvel. And we all know how well Marvel did in the 90’s…
Okay, I’ve got that out of my system. Thanks. I’m better now…
Next week.
(Incidentally, we really shouldn’t be discussing Y: The Last Man #27 in this thread. If it didn’t come out last week and thus belong in that thread, it isn’t out yet.)
Lucifer #55 - another fine issue of comics wrecked by the black hole of talent that is Marc Hempel. Who the hell keeps employing this guy?
This week I had *Batgirl * #57, *Batman Gotham Knights * # 58, *Firestorm * #6 (because of the IC tie-in), *Human Target * #15, *Identity Crisis * #5, *JSA Strange Adventures * #3, *Manhunter * #3, *Robin * #131, *Teen Titans * #17 and Ultimate Spider-Man #67. Final score: DC 9, Marvel 1.
Wargames: Glad to see Stephanie might make it after all. I think she’s probably out of the hero biz for good, but that would be for the best. It warmed my heart to see Batman catch her and carry her to the clinic. Maybe it’s just because I have a crush on Batman (I could change him! 
), but it was nice to see him having a non-horrible human moment. See IC #5 for Batman involved in a horrible human moment.
Tim Drake is one of my favorite characters, so I was really intrigued by his appearances this week. In Robin, he’s trying to be the Happy Bat and wants to be responsible for Batman’s emotional welfare. In Teen Titans, he’s faced with his future self, the all-new Gun Toting Batman with Murderin’ Action. Uh-oh. And of course, he’s center stage in IC #5. I really like the art in that book and the whole scene in the Batmobile was absolutely heart-wrenching.
I dig JSA Strange Adventures. I heart the JSA in general. I don’t have that much to say about it, except that it’s a fun read.
Human Target: Does anyone else read this? I haven’t read every issue, but it’s an interesting concept. The main character can impersonate and flat-out become any person he wants, and he can be hired to do this. He’s currently posing as the pseudo-messianic leader of a religious cult. Amazing how much character development you can get from a person who’s always busy being someone else.
Manhunter: I’m not sure what I think of this book. Maybe Ms. Manhunter and Stephanie Brown can start an Unqualified Wannabe Heroes’ League.
Teen Titans: As mentioned above, the future looks like it’s going to suck. But it’ll suck in a compelling, burning folks’ arms off way.
Identity Crisis/Firestorm: I knew Jack Drake was toast the minute he got too much face time in the first two issues of this series. I am therefore unofficially the world’s 1,314th greatest armchair detective. I agree with everyone who says Jean Loring seems suspicious. Maybe it’s a red herring, but there’s something about the situation with her that tickles me wrong. I’m looking forward to reading the next issue of *JSA * for the Sue Dibny autopsy, hoping they’ll finally bring up her pregnancy again. It bugs me that they made a point of letting the readers know about it, then never mentioned it again. I’m also looking forward to next week’s *Flash * tie-in, where we learn presumably dark, possibly boomerangy secrets from Barry Allen’s past.
I haven’t been reading this new Firestorm series and I probably won’t, but at least Ronnie Raymond had a heroic death.
Ultimate Spider-Man: I’m glad they’re not afraid to throw in the occasional goofy-ass story. They really made the best of the whole body-switching scenario. I loved the part where Wolverine couldn’t figure out how to webswing properly. I don’t read enough **funny ** comics.
It’s been out for a week or two. I bought it this week, therefore I’ll be talking about it this week.
–Cliffy
Hey, this was a really good week for comics (first time I’ve been able to say that in a long time). I was going to write a ton of in-depth reviews for another site, but they closed down their reviews…that sucks.
Conan: Finally, Busiek gets it right! This was a great story (although the last page with the red headed chick sucked - seriously, decide if you want to be 2004 Conan or 1974 Conan) with great art. The only problem I had with it (aside from the aforementioned) was that there was something really funky going on with the lettering. Dark Horse really sucks at their prepress apparently as I’ve noticed the problems on a lot of their other books (well, OK, only the Conan trades).
Essential Tomb of Dracula: The end of the series (although there’s one more volume coming in January). I really hope you all have picked this series up. It’s really that good. Haven’t started this particular one, but damn I can’t wait to sink my teeth into it. It’s an even better value than the Cerebus phone books!
Bram Stoker’s Dracula: Giordano with no inkers to mess him up! The story is probably too-faithful (i.e. I don’t think there was a single panel without a caption or dialogue balloon), but the art is awesome (great wash effects) and Thomas really pieced together a great adaptation.
Toetags: Crap. I expected more from Romero. Sigh.
Looking at the cover, it appears to be written by someone else from a Romero idea.
Do you think these changes are intended to be permanent? I have to hope they intend to get spidey back to normal at the end of this arc.
::hoping…::
I’m happy about the JSA, too.
Glad to see more Golden Age & Golden-Age-derived stuff out there.
My haul:
Identity Crisis # 5 - discussed elsewhere
JSA: Strange Adventures - Love this title. Love the JSA, great plot, intriguing villain, beautiful artwork.
H-E-R-O # 21 - Disappointment. As with the prior story arc, this feel very stretched out. They could have cut the slugfests in half and done these as two-issue stories.
Black Panther 2099 and Mutant 2099- Why in the hell did they bother publishing these if they don’t follow any of the established 2099 continuity? Just the first page exposition violates the setting of the old 2099 books. ‘There are Sentinels on every corner’
Lemme mentally check my collection, complete run of Spiderman 2099 no Sentinels, complete run of Doom 2099 no Sentinels mentioned, some issues of Punisher 2099 no Sentinels, a few issues of Ravage 2099 no Sentinels, an issue or two of X Men 2099 no Sentinels, 2099 Unlimited no Sentinels, World of 2099 no Sentinels.
There were several issues of Doom 2099 set in Wakanda. Black Panther 2099 ignores these completely.
I expected these specials to be a visit back to the 2099 universe. The seem to take place in an entirely different 2099 universe. What in the name of Stan Lee happened?
I know, it’s so baffling - the 2099 books were such a runaway commercial success, I’d think Marvel would be all over re-using the setting, rather than trying to apply the brand to something else.
Oooh… too much sarcasm, I feel lightheaded. 
Quite a haul for me this week. It the comics-related dept., I got volumes 1 & 2 of Dick Tracy tradepaperbacks written by Max Allan Collins reprinting strips from the late '70s; Smallville Magazine #2, and something that looks like a b/w anthology called The Comic Book Digest #1.
Identity Crisis #5 - I’ll comment in the appropriate thread. I will say though that I thought I’d see Spoiler die before Jack Drake would.
Manhunter #3 - The weakest issue of series so far IMO, after two pretty interesting reads. The previous issues gave us some backstory leaving some clues to Kate Spencer/Manhunter’s “origin.” This issue was back and forth between the Shadow Thief fight in progress and the flashback to the hospital.
Mild disappointment.
Firestorm #6 - Okay, I miss Ronnie, too. I kinda liked him in a weird way in that Ronnie was depicted as graduating high school the same year as me ('85) back in his old title. Still, I seem to be the only one I know who doesn’t think this title is THAT bad. Finally, we see Jason’s buddy Mick. If I do drop this title (which I’m sticking with for now), I predict it’ll be that the power-discovery thing is hapening wayyy too slow, and that Jason seems to be namby-pamby for the most part and arrogant the others, with no in-between.
Teen Titans #17 - I liked it. I took a step back and thought this sorta had Star Trek’s episode “Mirror, Mirror” flavor to it – only here, the kids meet their (possible?) adult-selves. Apparently the future is bleak (aren’t they all are?) This future has Renee Montoya as the commisioner now. Someone named Duela (who looks WAY too young to be Duela Dent) is running around as the Joker’s Daughter, who apparently at some point had killed off Alfred and Bette Kane, and is shot/killed by an adult Tim Drake who’s now clad as Batman. Lorena from the Aquaman title appears to be the new Aquagirl (Aquawoman?). This adult clan seems to be a violent lot as well, as Deathstroke is trussed up in their building missing one arm; seems Superman (adult Conner) had burned off his left one.
The “Batman: War Games” chapters stretched over 3 different titles this week. I was kinda shocked to see Steph still up/around somewhat. I kinda thought she’d be found DOA somewhere by someone in the Bat-clan.
Bought but have yet to read: Adventures of Superman #633, Batman Strikes #2, HERO #21, JSA Strange Adventures #3, Plastic Man #11, Toe Tags #1, Spectacular Spider-Man #20, Ultimate Spider-Man #67 and Uncanny X-Men #451.
Just some quick comments on last weeks’ stuff.
I liked Superman: True Brit. I didn’t like the price tag; it was a bit too steep. I did like Byrne’s art. I think I enjoy him more when he’s doing humorous stories.
I got Action Comics #820 & now have 555 consecutive issues of the title.
I did like the ending of the current Captain America. (So Diamondback really didn’t die.) I just didn’t like the way they pulled it off.