Weekly Comic Book Discussion 2/19/2009

Here it is!

New JLA, Trinity… last issues of Robin and Birds of Prey…

Lots of neat stuff.

Meh week for me.

MacDuffie is doing a crappy job of introducing the Dakota characters. I read the first issue or two of Icon and am vaguely aware of Static (who looked better in his pre-dreadlock days) so I have no clue as to what’s going on.

Help me out here, Dwayne. You want more exposure for these guys? Then TELL ME WHO THEY ARE? What’s their backstory? Who are the two cloud-people? Why does being around them make everyone else swear (Since when does Hawkgirl swear? Even @%^ type swearing). This is gibberish. There should have been a four page backup “Here’s the Milestone characters–background/powers/villians” thing in the very first part.

And by the way, can we kill the chick Dr. Light once and for all? Kill her, kill her kids, kill her husband? They went through all that effort in Identity Crisis and Infinite Crisis to rehabilitate the real Dr. Light, it’s a waste to have killed him and worse, let the boring chick take over his role.

Trinity-Good LORD! Could we be out of the 20-issue run of Planet Of the Super-Cavemen-Friends? Sheesh!

Wasn’t impressed with the ending for Tangent’s Reign. It seemed rushed.

JLA is beginning to annoy me - OK, someone at DC doesn’t want Kendra to be with anyone but Carter…it’s silly, but, whatever.

But making her and Roy act like bloody children to break them up is something else entirely.

(Kendra/Carter is still fucking creepy, though.)

Outsiders, I’m torn on. It was quite well written, and I’m happy the team’s out of Dixon’s hands (goddess, but his run was unreadable), but I have issues with this…

  1. Black Lightning, a loving husband and father, and member of the JLA; Geo-Force, a monarch that seems to actually take a part in ruling his country; Roy Raymond jr and Jack Ryder, two TV personalities - none of them can easily go ‘off the grid’.

Jeff’s justification for joining doesn’t ring true - I mean, I follow the logic, but this is a guy who took several years off, and only became a superhero reluctantly in the first place, so it doesn’t feel right for him; Brion’s ditto - breaking off for public heroics would be one thing, simply disappearing with little-to-no warning, personal connections or no, is another, it’s just going to look like he’s pissing off for no reason. Raymond’s flare up works for getting him out, and fits his personality as displayed in other appearances, but means going back on the grid when he’s inevitably superfluous (or, for a less meta consideration, if he gets bored, injured, or booted) is going to be, at best, difficult, therefor brings his intelligence into question. Ryder being a loony toon, at least works just fine for him.

  1. They’ve tried the Outsiders as an ‘off-the-grid’ team twice in the last 4 years, and it failed both times. This is so far better written than Winick’s take, and hasn’t suffered a creator change like this series did between 5 of a Kind and the first actual issue, so it’s actually getting off the ground, but…I’d think this would be a concept that would be left to air out the stink for a bit before trying it again.

  2. I really, really want an explanation as to why Raymond is Owlman - of all the names to pick up for the team’s detective, why go with the one used by the Bat’s evil extra-dimensional doubles?

Supergirl…I’m going back to my original guess about Superwoman - Lucy Lane - I originally guessed this a while back, but when the clues about Thara started getting dropped, I went with it. Reactron’s inability to nuke out her powers, and ‘who says I’m Kryptonian?’ makes me think Lucy all over again. She suddenly appears for the first time in a long time near the beginning of New Krypton, Superwoman has a connection to Sam Lane, she fits the physical description, and there are no more moments suggesting it can’t be her than the Kryptonian contenders. And now, Reactron fails to depower her? But it’s hard to tell, what with there being more red herrings than a communist fish market. We’ll see.
sure it’s NOT Allura.

The Origins and Omens bit bothers me - I don’t want Lana to kick.

By the way–Saturday after next is (I think) Free Comic Book Day. Apparently DC is releasing a special “Issue 0” for Blackest Night–given that it’s Johns, it’s bound to be good, so you might ask your Local Comic Shop to snag one for you (they’re not supposed to–Free Comic Book Day is supposed to be an effort by publishers to get people into comic shops…holding stuff is frowned upon. But if you’re a good customer and only as for one title, your friendly neighborhood comic shop person might hold one for you)

I think Free Comic Day is always in May.

(And it’s always Saturday…why the heck Saturday? That pisses me off.)

Why in the world would anyone want The Creeper on his or her team? He’s unstable, he’s not a team player and he’s not a powerhouse. And besides, he’s just plain creepy.

Maybe because some schools aren’t out for the summer yet? (Which I suppose raises the question “Why May?” Okay, I have no idea.)

Or possibly because Saturday is dedicated to almighty Saturn, patron deity of comic books, cartoons, and ostentatiously wasting time.

(Bold mine.)

That sounds like a good reason to have him, actually. The Outsiders are supposedly selected as equivalent to aspects of Batman. The ones who weren’t members of the original Outsiders are the only ones I can see how they fit into that scheme:

Alfred is the tactician and leader.
Owlman is the detective.
Creeper’s the one who scares the bejeezus out of the bad guys.

But the original Outsiders?

Black Lightning could be the one who gives them a connection to the JLA - if not for their off-the-grid thing.

Metamorpho, no doubt, has some chemical knowledge just to use his powers, but that’s still a much more narrow scientific base than Bruce had.

None of the others, I can shoehorn into ‘aspects of Batman’…at least not ones that aid in the crimefighting - Geo-Force comes from royal stock, where the Waynes are the local equivalent of nobility, and Katana is motivated by the loss of her family, as he is, but I don’t think building a team of characters who are heroes despite (potentially) having been spoiled, or broken, like him is really useful.

Well, Katana is a martial artist, so she does reflect some aspect of Batman. Personally, I think that the Black Canary would have been a better choice, but she’s obviously busy doing her JLA thing.

You raised a good point about the Creeper’s ability to instill fear, but frankly, I don’t think that outweighs his general lack of stability. Moreover, the fear that he creates is vastly different from that which the Batman instills. The Batman is an unstoppable, relentless force of justice. The Creeper, on the other hand, is more like a character from a schlocky black-and-white monster movie.