Here 'tis.
Picked up the last issue of Gotham Central; the next issue of X-Factor (which was excellent), the next issue of Seven Soldiers : Bulleteer; and Outsiders - which had crappy art, but a good story, and hints that any lightning might be sufficient to transform a Marvel. Interesting.
More to come.
Legion of Super-Heroes #14: So, Jews are thirty feet tall in the future? And check out the attitude on Atom Girl! They’re building the world in an interesting way. Kick ass lettercollumn, as usual.
Aquaman #39: This book had been doing a great job of playing with elements from Infinite Crisis, but now it’s time to pay the piper. Arcudi tries to cram in the plot he had to defer, and now can’t finish properly thanks to the upcoming OYL retooling. And… Well it looked like it might have been good, but here it’s just rushed and comes off as wasteful kinda comic Black Manta! I’ve had it up to *here *with you. Fuck it, I’m just gonna feed you to the fish.
Bulleteer #3: I love Morrison’s take on the seedy underbelly of the Superhero community. And hey! Look who’s undead! Also, that purse/minature plane is just nifty.
Robin #146: Meh. Pretty good, but hardly great. Mia’s disease reference seemed a little ham-handed, though.
“Guys, can you tell me if you find ‘Luthor’s secret cure for HIV?’”
“Sorry, Mia. We’re superheroes. We don’t do things like cure diseases. We just beat up bad guys.”
**Y: The Last Man #42: ** Yay for monkies!
Rann-Thanagar War Special #1: The big death just seemed wasteful, and Ion’s just ugly. I found teh whole thing just underwhelming, much like the miniseries it followed.
Bulleteer #3: Dumb Bunny cameo! Yay! And a King Crimson reference for a title. I also liked Big Thunder’s offer of a “team up.” Heh heh. Gotcha: Stellamaris says an “x” word (mix) on page one.
Rann-Thanagar War Special #1: Well, this was pretty much as big an incoherent mess as the miniseries, wasn’t it? I expected more from this after the excellent DoV special, which capped off its own mini nicely. This one doesn’t cap much of anything off; it’s more like a little extra action to fit between IC4 and IC5. Yawn.
I haven’t read Aquaman 39 yet, but this doesn’t sound nearly so bad as Legion of Superheroes, just pre-ZH.
Several plots that looked like they would have been pretty good wrapped up way too fast, and another plot that had potential, but wasn’t given the time to develop it, introduced. The Legion did have a couple good scenes during ZH, but was really badly hammered by the reset.
Rann-Thanagar War Special - Meh. One of the few times ‘Refrigerators’ have been invoked of late that it actually has some merit. Jenny’s death wouldn’t have been a problem for me if it hadn’t been mostly a way to make Kyle Ion again. In all, pretty infuriating.
On the up side:
Local #3 - An interesting, if scattered, story. The narrating character makes several points I’ve made several times in similar conversations about creative growth. The brief glances at the other band members while he’s speaking ad quite a bit of depth to his comments (and vice-versa). I am LOVING this series - even if I’m not so much feeling the art.
Catwoman #51 - The fallout of last issue’s revelations is falling out quite realistically, and it’s looking like the growth she had before won’t be discarded as totally Zatanna’s doing.
Yes, it was nice to see someone back from the dead - or so it seems - in Bulleteer. It was even more satisfying to me to see Booster handing out awards at the convention. And was that Pat “Stripesy” Dugan at the table with Lil’ Hollywood? And hey, there was Etta Candy…
New issues of Powers this week, where the story takes a very interesting twist that thrills me beyond belief.
JSA Classified is also new, kicking off a new story arc. Guess what? You know how they didn’t use the Spear of Destiny against the Spectre over in Day of Vengeance? Presumably because it couldn’t be recovered form the sun where the Sentinels of Magic put it? Some nutbar managed to recover it from the sun without the Sentinels and is using it to cause havoc for the JSA. This just serves to underscore the stupidity of leaving the Spear out of Day of Vengeance. On the upside, though - the issue itself is a very good read, with some great dialogue.
Rann-Thanagar War : Infinite Crisis Special. Yes, the death seemed forced and pointless. I actually like Ion’s costume, except for the face-thing. In all fairness, this issue does resolve the “war” portion of the title, and refocuses the efforts of all involved. I’m satisfied with it in that regard. And hey, cameos by Ultra, the Multi-Alien, and Jemm, Son of Saturn! I wonder how they got out there. Then again, that Jemm - he’s truly outrageous. Truly, truly, truly outrageous.
I also picked up the DC Comics Encyclopedia, from Amazon.com, this week. Sort of a super Who’s Who volume, it came out in 2004, and has at least small entries for almost any character I could think of. Serves well as a sort of snapshot of the DCU before the hubbub of Identity Crisis.
Lucifer: Crux – Another strong installment as we start to move into the endgame on this title. The shit is really starting to hit the fan, and my mouth was agape at the big reveal of the other half of the army set against heaven. Nice to see Rachel Begai again – I was afraid Carey wouldn’t follow up with her. There are some quibbles – I wish there was a little more of an emotional impact for what happened at the end of the last TPB, but I understand how the crisis they had to deal with. All in all a good read, and you can see it setting up for a tremendous climax to come. (Carey’s ending the series with #75, so that’s two move volumes.)
Y - TLM #42 – I like these character history issues we’ve been getting recently. (I hope to see one for Dr. Mann soon.) That last page is great – triumphant, but at the same time I was freaking out because of what it might mean to our heroes. We’re starting to approach the end of the tunnel on this title as well.
–Cliffy
I picked up the New Avengers 15, Defenders 5 (out of 5) and the Sentry 5 (out of 8).
The Defenders was great with Dr. Strange showing once again why he is comics Sorceror Supreme. Fun dialogue and a new direction for Dormamau.
The Sentry number 5 was the best of the series yet. Robert Reynolds is profoundly demented. Dr. Cornelius is really developing in a good character with rare depth for a comic. The first 4 issues were fairly dry but this one was fantastic, if you haven’t picked up this series then this issue alone is worth the price. I have no idea how it’s going to end up but I’m enjoying it all the same.
What are some good online comic review sites? IGN and CHUD do weekly reviews but are hardly comprehensive. Is there any site that takes each of the weeks releases (really I only care about the Big Two) and gives a decent review of them?
Besides here in this thread of course.
I’m happy to answer questions about anything I buy - which is almost all DC, and then a little Marvel.
Ain’t It Cool News does reviews, a week after the fact; Newsarama.com may, but I’m not sure how you’d find it on their site.
I was wondering why Etta Candy seemed to be obscuring her name plate. She’s been in the series before, and identified as “Etta,” but I don’t think her full name has been mentioned.
Perhaps because it’s awful? 
Well, yeah, there’s that!
Didn’t I see Etta Candy, older but looking much healthier, in the pages of Wonder Woman? Oh, well.
As for Ion, I think Kyle just has to accept the fact that he can’t design a face mask for crap, and move on.
I like Local a lot so far - I think it’s the best thing that Wood has done, even if it is really just “Demo pt. II.” I think it’s really strange that the art is so similar to “Demo,” considering we’re dealing with two different artists. But while Demo was merely “Optic Nerve Jr.,” Local seems to find Wood’s writing just TAKING OFF.
What else - let’s see. Green Lantern #8; Angel : Old Friends #3; Red Sonja #5; ‘Super Real’ - an indie book about superheroics and reality TV. Art’s not great, but the writing amuses. Howard Chaykin’s City of Tomorrow TPB; Starman TPB - Vol 2; and Invisibles TPB - Vol 2.
Oh, and Fantastic Four #534.
LSH 14 - I really have no idea why people keep saying this book is going downhill. I really don’t.
I love this Vi. I love this Imsk.
Great lettercol. ‘Dude, what is WITH you?’ Val’s reaction to question 3 in the final letter was great. They need to give Conner the main book, IMO.
I’m glad Garth made the decision he did. IMO, despite Imra’s misgivings, this is the only thing the Legion COULD do here. This is what they’ve been fighting for - the UP agree with them (or at least claim to). If they refused now, they’d just look like the trouble-makers the SP have been making them out to be.
Bulleteer #3 - Not much to say, but…heh…Booster.
Marvel romance books: I <3 Marvel: My Mutant Heart and Marvel Romance Redux: I Thought He Loved Me -
M3’s cover broke my brain. Either luckily or unluckily, the Wolverine and Cannonball stories weren’t in keeping with the WTF nature of the cover. Doop’s, OTOH. Well, to quote it ‘You see something new every day.’
MRR was definitely the lesser, more uneven of the two books. While President Stripper cracked me up, the second story failed to live up to the promise of the first, and the third failed to hold my attention at all.
I liked LSH too. I agree with Tengu for the same reasons given in the spoiler box.
Where can I get one of those purse-planes, as seen in Bulleteer?
Green Lantern was good. I should probably spoiler-box this, so:
I wonder if Ollie’s revelation to Hal will finally be dealt with over in Green Arrow? Was Ollie’s call at the end a move to initiate that conversation with Connor, or was he simply following his own advice to Hal about spending time with family?
I used to go to thefourthrail.com, but one of the dudes retired, and I think half their heart is into it (no pun intended, as there are only 2 of them), but I thought they had a real good format and they conveyed their bias very well. All other review sites suck, the better ones are late. This thread is like better than 80% of them out there. I was so tired of getting late reviews that I just went to the fourth rail. Now, I’m not sure what I’m going to do. I guess I’ll review the ones I didn’t like before and see if they’ve improved.