Here 'tis.
New issues of Black Panther and of Fantastic Four this week, both dealing with the FF’s new status quo. I don’t care for the BP title, much, but this issue wasn’t bad.
52 # 47: Finally some movement on plots other than the Black Adam one, although I’m disappointed that we still haven’t touched base with Booster/Rip/Skeets yet - it’s been 10 weeks now without a trace of them. Mini-Metal Men acting as Magnus’s conscience is a very cute idea. I don’t quite get what was the big lightbulb that went on in Whisper A’Dare’s head that Batwoman had another name - like, duh? You’ve been dealing with super-heroes for how long? And the artwork was awful, and looking at the “next in 52” box, I don’t see myself liking next week’s art much better.
JSA Classified # 24 - Waste of paper, like the prior issue. Ooh, spooky - no rational explanation for the vampire! Vampires have been real in the DCU for way too long for this to seem eerie to the reader or to creep out a DC super-hero in-story. And the art sucked on this one too.
And no Legion this week. Basically, not a great week for me.
Fables - Another good issue marred by the fact that it was the writing for this issue that had Bill Willingham be a dick to me.
Army@Love - New Vertigo title. Lotsa heavy-handed nonsense about war and sex. We’ll see where it goes.
52 - I agree with appreciation of the touching base on various plot threads. I liked the art just fine, though.
JSA Classified : Actually, I felt this issue halfway redeemed the last one - instead of getting the typical “skeptic meets a real supernatural entity” story, it was a little different. Art still sucks though.
Fables - I laughed. As fillers go, this is a good one.
Action - Good story (although one of the key details, assuming the story being told is true, makes current continuity all that much more confused), but I hate the art. Clark/Superman looks incredibly sad, even when he shouldn’t, and Martha Kent looks like she hasn’t smiled in her life. The big problem with Jonathan is a serious inconsistency with how he’s drawn (at a couple points, he looked a little like my maternal grandfather), which the others don’t suffer from, although he looks unnecessarily sad at points, too. But not always, like the other two.
Action - Really liked this story; hope they do more like this. The thing that struck me about the art is that they’ve retconned Pa Kent into looking like Bo Duke as seen playing Pa Kent on Smallville. 'Cept, more jowly. Still, it was a good Superman story.
JSA Classified - ugh. Stinky art, stinky story. Just stupid that Dr. Midnite is a skeptic about vampires – he’s been on a team with Dr. Fate, and had to deal with the Seven Deadly Sins, the Spectre, and who knows how many other mystical whatsits. He’d be stupid not to suspect mystical problems cropping up in his life!
Green Lantern – More stinky art. And the “Tales of the Sinestro Corps” epilogue was way more interesting than the main story.
52 – Although I liked the resolution, I’m hoping that this was the end of the Steele storyline. I’d rather they get on to wrapping up some of the others.
He looks like John Schneider when Kubert’s drawing him too. More like him, mostly because Kubert’s fairly consistent in how he draws him.
Sadly, nobody seems to be trying to make Martha look like Annette O’Toole.
(I can’t figure out who Kubert makes Clark look like, but he looks like SOMEONE - but not George Reeves, Christopher Reeve, Tom Welling, or Brandon Routh…)
Ultimate Fantastic Four continues… it’s okay, I guess, but this is the last arc I intend to collect.
Connor Hawke - Dragon’s Blood reveals a little twist in the set-up, and leads intot he final issue…
Catwoman - Gotta love the Luthor bot. Just… classic.
Blue Beetle - I like this title. Loving the Reach.
Wonder Woman - Not a home run, but a decent triple, at least.
Action - Yes, this was excellent filler. What’s the continuity problem, Tengu?
Batman - Booyah. After last month’s piece of trash, I’m glad to see such a strong return to form.
Green Lantern - Daniel Acuna’s art isn’t my favorite, either, but it’s not horrible. Still loving this title.
PS238 - Changed publishers with this issue, but still going strong!
Not so much a problem as a complication. It’s fairly easy to explain away, the explanation just needs either an otherwise unnecessary level of complication, or some fairly significant handwaving.
[spoiler]This Superman should never have encountered a Sun-Eater before that Jonathan wouldn’t know about - after one ate our sun, I doubt Clark wouldn’t have explained it to his folks.
This is a bit of an issue, if Pa isn’t extemporizing, and using the Sun Eater from Final Night as the inspiration for the monster.
Not a whole lot of one, however. The Multi-verse being back presents the easiest solution - assume the Earth-1 Legion of Superheroes was diverted to this Earth when they went back in time and recruited this Clark, instead of the Earth-1 Superboy. (A variant on the post-Crisis pre-Mordruverse version.) Then that Sun-Eater gets inserted into this Superman’s history.
This does, though, raise the issue of why they didn’t figure out it wasn’t the Superboy they thought it was (his history as presented so far indicated he never was Superboy, which would be a huge hint). And how the whole situation with Mon-El didn’t get complicated. Which is where the layers of complication or handwaving comes in. I’ll stick with the handwaving.
Or else insert another adventure with his space-ship,[/spoiler]
Silent War #3 is continuing to be an intriguing read. The element that I’m most grooving on is Frazer Irving’s art on the book. He did some work on Iron Man: Inevitable prior to this and I’m hoping Marvel keeps him around long enough for him to get a crack at Dr. Strange. I think the character and his style would be a brilliant marriage.