I haven’t picked mine up yet - going Saturday.
Wonder Woman - So, it seems that the DMA is not just incompetent, but is, in fact, actively sinister. I still don’t like how Nemesis is being portrayed, but Diana rings true to me.
Teen Titans - That last page would have been pure awesome if the art wasn’t so wretched.
Tales of the Unexpected - Cris finally stops whining and does something other than watch Spectre’s torture and yell at people. Dr 13 continues to be pure crack. Nooooo…Captain Fear…Poor Infectious Lass…will never know the touch of a man (unless she goes back to the 30th century and finishes her pre-ZH character arc… Or comes to the real world, and meets me. Because, I mean…I’d so risk it. Took me an embarrassingly long time to get the joke of the deck of cards.
Gen[sup]13[/sup] - I don’t care what anyone else says…this book is great. I enjoy it far more than any pre-Worldstorm Gen[sup]13[/sup] other than Adam Warren’s AU stories (Grunge: The Movie and Magical Girl Pretty Roxy). ‘Oh, Shhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhheena!’ was truly brilliant. (And, oh, Ms Simone, you have the sharpest sense of irony, ever…yes, Caitlin, the fur bikini is so much less perverted and more civilized than the Gen[sup]13[/sup] uniforms… F’n hardcore, though.)
Trials of Shazam! #6 - This book is not interesting. And it’s presentation of the Marvels isn’t intersting. I’d far prefer that they just extend Shazam! The Monster Society of Evil, which actually does a good job of presenting the Marvel Family.
Wonder Woman #7 - Nemesis is very stupid; he’s walking with Wonder Woman – a tall, staturesque, raven-haired, ball-bustin’ beauty who is taller than him. While complaining about his partner – a tall, staturesque, raven-haired, ball-bustin’ beauty who is taller than him. This is obliviousness the likes to which even Lois Lane could never lay claim.
Teen Titans #45 - Good storyline, moving along nicely, good portrayal of Miss Martian and Eddie. Plus once it wraps up maybe no Deathstroke for a while, and they move on to another villain, yes?
52 #49 - Egg Fu… had an egg inside him??? Infinity Inc. are doomed in this incarnation, too. But at least Obsidian finally gets depicted as one of the JSA (along with Jakeem! dude, where you been?). Unlike in, say, the JSA book.
All-Star Superman #7 - I am really digging the DC books that are bringing the neo-Silver Age vibe out (“Quicksilver Age”) – All-Star Super, and Shazam! Monster Society, especially – more like this, please. And, hee, Bizarro is crosseyed.
Good gods, no.
Monster Society of Evil is AWFUL.
Cap’s a tool. Billy’s a brat. The Wizard’s an even bigger tool then Cap. And the villains are the most utterly uninteresting menagerie ever.
And making Cap and Billy different people prevents exploration of any of the interesting ideas that the in-continuity Cap did. And it makes them just Superman and Jimmy Olsen with a faster response time and more spectacular arrival. Which would be forgivable, if either Billy or Cap were characters I was interested in reading about, but, again…a tool and a brat.
To make it worse, the art’s not even up to the standards of Bone.
Tengu, I might agree with some of those points… but in comparison to The Trials of Shazam! ??
Freddy is more-or-less a cipher here. The villains are utterly uninteresting. Freddy will be the same person as Shazam – like Billy and Capt Marvel – but Freddy/Shazam will lack the dissonance between child-Billy and grownup-Marvel that exists in regular continuity. And, Freddy isn’t really a character I’m intersted in reading about. Plus the art on Trials isn’t spectacular, IMO.
What S!MSE gets is that the Marvels should be fun – they’re kids still (except Freddy). Mister Mind is creepier than his usual self, and we haven’t even seen Sivana do much of anything yet. Plus, talking crocs shouting “We’ve lost! Quick! Eat the children!” should be something that occurs in more books. Perhaps alongside some super-intelligent gorillas.
Which isn’t a problem for me, because I LIKE Freddy, and his supporting cast - except for the fact that I want Mary back. Like I said, abandoning what drew me to Captain Marvel in the first place (the ageing of Billy and the story lines it allows) would be forgivable if it was replaced with something I actually enjoy.
Judd’s done that - the heroic quest, Freddy’s character, Billy-As-Wizard, the Gods of Magic - whereas Smith hasn’t.
And the art is the best point of both books.
And the problem is, it’s NOT, IMO. It’s ANNOYING. Everything I liked about other recent takes on Cap have been dropped, and replaced with…nothing that appeals to me at all. Characters I actively loath (Billy, Cap, the Wizard), or don’t give a damn about (Mary, the villains), and a completely unengaging story.
I wanted to like Monster Society of Evil - I love Bone, and the old Fawcett Captain Marvels, while not my favourite take on the character, are enjoyable in their own way.
But Smith failed to capture what I enjoyed about the old books, while actively abandoning what I liked about the recent ones, and isn’t up to his own good standards on the art.
52 Week 49: I really love Will’s explanation about how the Metal Men work here. And they really shouldn’t have taken away his meds. Also, it looks like WWIII will be a bit more complex than “everyone dogpile on Adam”, which is good, since even without the Big Three, there’s more than enough firepower to take him down.
The trials of Shazam #6: Well, I like it. At least, I like the attempt to do something new with Captain Marvel besides making him an even more old-fashioned and goofier Superman. I admit that the execution is lacking something, but I’m still enjoying it, and I’ve always liked Howard Porter. Well, in any event, I think Mary Marvel’s part of Countdown is going to trace the new official version, superceding anything we see here.
Teen Titans #45: The treatment of Match irks me. Yeah, he’s a blasphemous inferior copy of the original bred for nefarious purposes, but you know, so was Connor. I don’t think he’d respond well to Cassie’s anti-clonism here. This book, despite the new team lineup kicking ten kinds of ass, has really been slipping lately. Either Beechen’s going to ruin the thing or is stepping in just in time. Also, I really thought the Batgirl thing was going to turn out to be more complex than that.
Green Lantern Corps #11: Between here and the Sinestro Corps backup over in GL proper (which also isn’t great, I think Johns might be a bit burnt out after Infinite Crisis and 52) they’ve been turning heavily to Moore’s work in GLC. This is a good thing.
All-Star Superman #7: I need to go back through this again. It threw mw for a loop since I wrongly assumed that Bizarro was both a known quality and more or less the same as classic Bizarro. He wasn’t.
Tales of the Unexpected #7: The Spectre story is really nothing special. Serviceable, but not great. The backup is one of the best bits of metacommentary I’ve seen ina good long time. Really, if you follow DC closely and haven’t been reading this, you’re missing out on a lot.
New Avengers #29: Seems to me Leinil Yu’s art used to be a lot tighter. Bendis, true to form, is taking four issues to tell one issue’s worth of story. Iron Man’s photo scan of Cage’s crew on the Raft included at least two people who weren’t actually there (Wong and Jessica), which was sloppy. And when Doc gave Tony’s crew those nightmares, was that Hank menacing Jan? This is still my favorite Avengers title, but something needs fixing fast.
GLC - Something interesting struck me. The mineral the Children of the White Lobe were trying to steal is called Tellurium. Which, like Promethium, shares its name with a real element.
Tellurium’s atomic number? Say it with me now! 52!
I have a hard time believing this isn’t deliberate.
52 #49 - Single greatest line of the series:
Will Magnus: Drop it. I have a Particle Wave Ray Gun and BiPolar Disorder!
Picked up Wonder Woman, Titans, Tales of the Unexpected, 52, GLC, New Avengers, Trials of Shazam, All-Star Superman, Gen 13, and She-Hulk this week…
Not really enjoying New Avengers.
I felt All-Star Superman was hopelessly muddled.
You’re not the only one. I did enjoy it, to an extent, but it felt like there were a half a dozen pages missing.
Grant must be back on the stuff. 
Also Got : Bomb Queen III, Fables, and JLA Classified.