Here it is. Wow, Countdown surprised the hell out of me. I haven’t been displeased with it as some have - found it fairly enjoyable fluff - but damn, Gotta like that climax even if it does probably spoil the final issue of Death of the New Gods.
B]Superman #675:** This is great. I really didn’t like Paragon last issue, but he does very well here. I love that Superman is faced with three fanatical Daxamites as well as Paragon… And really he’s just concerned with their safety. Alexandria II was a nice touch as well.
I may be in the minority here, but I enjoyed Busiek’s run on Superman (as well as the stuff he did for Action) immensely. Sure, Camelot Falls was a bit drawn out, but compared to Johns and Donner’s Zod story over in Action… Anyway, I liked it, as well as the Auctioneer story and Third Kryptonian saga, and a few smaller spots like that awesome Prankster story. But what really makes Busiek’s run a great one is how much he really *gets *Superman.He understands and loves this character. Morrison’s All-Star Superman is awesome, and in terms of plot far superior to Superman, but I prefer Busiek’s characterization of Superman. He’s just more human.
If Busiek understands Batman and Wonder Woman even half as well as he understands Superman, then Trinity is gonna be a work of art.
The Incredible Hercules #116: Hmm… Herc is great, Cho is great, even Athena is very interesting. But this one was a bit too dependent on knowledge of the Marvel Universe to really work for me.
Suicide Squad #8: Not bad, but kind of anticlimactic given that this is it for the Squad for the near future. It would have been a very strong arc with some more follow through.
The Flash #239: Ah. So that’s how they’re bringing him back. Very nice. Spin is a great new Rogue, and this is an interesting situation he’s caused. I like Mike, and his assertion that the majority of metahumans are just folks, but I’m sure his job is going to some how end up being evil or otherwise a bad idea.
Countdown to Final Crisis #2: Dini (and/or the other authors here) get the New Gods and understand how their story should end in a way that Starlin doesn’t. I also liked how the art got more Kirby-esque as the battle got more furious.
The Brave and the Bold #12: Pretty good, but in the end Megistus and the situation was just not very compelling. I did like the ending though.
Loved all six of those. Incredible Hercules especially.
Countdown: well, liked this ending better than what’s going down in Death of the New Gods – but didn’t they already kill Orion over there? and with all that came before, not one mention of Mary Marvel now?
Superman: other than the Camelot Falls storyline, I have liked Busiek’s run. and my annoyance with Camelot Falls was its clumsy attempt to hand Clark a moral dilemma – and, one that I really don’t see Clark angsting over, where I think Busiek didn’t get Clark’s character. seems like this run has been better with the short, one-off stories that look at how Clark interacts with the people around him.
Brave & Bold: would have liked this confrontation to have lasted a bit longer, maybe over another issue. a lot of the dogpile-on-Megistus seemed glossed over. no surprise – this was obviously a Challengers story – but it seems strange to have Supergirl, Power Girl, Firestorm, and Metamorpho here as no more than walk-ons. still fun, though.
Justice Society #14?: Sorry, it’s the one that came out last week. Pretty good issue, but not a whole lot happened, except at the end, and I guess it was worth it. The part that I didn’t like was that in the issue before, we see how strong KC Superman is, but apparently his universe suffers from the “hit on the back of the head = knockout.” I figured that KC Superman could handle Gog all by himself, like he did with Magog in KC. Really like the ending and the note about the next issue. I’m not sure what those “special guests” at the end are needed for, but I can’t wait to see.
Titans: Ok, who died? Didn’t these Titans die over the course of the last year? This was an uneven issue for me. I’ve collected a bunch of, pretty much all, Titans #1 over the years, including the original Teen Titans #1 (comic book shop was going out of business, it’s in VF condition). I figured, what the hell? Let’s pick up this one. I like Churchill’s art. However, even after reading all these Titans, I’m not that big of a fan. I’ll probably stick around for the first arc because I like Trigon.
That’s all I got for this week. Because of delivery, I’m running a week behind so I’ll just keep posting what I read as I get it.
Nobody in this book, save Power Boy has died, recently. Though the Titans East special pulled a fakeout on the team Cyborg was putting together (which this is the long belated aftermath to).
But at least one of them - Dove - has been confirmed as alive by an appearance in another book (Countdown to Mystery, Eclipso storyline), and two others (Hawk and Son of Vulcan) implied as probably surviving by Titans Tomorrow Today (though that’s time travel, which plays havoc with causality, so they could still end up dying).
Again, barely started on my stack:
Superman - I generally have to agree with Paragon, re: Superman’s handling of the priests. It was intensely naive of him to think talking would work. But, I have to give him credit for trying. The bits with Chris were great. I’d like to see him in 5 years (in continuity time) with some training under his belt.
Dreamwar - Well, this is…more confusing than expected. The Happy Harbour JLA, the New Teen Titans, and the pre-ZH Legion, from before Lyle died, and I’m not even going to try to guess when the JSA are from. And grok knows what’s going on with Superman on the last page. Well, it certainly has my attention, anyway. Hate the art, though. It’s like the bastard child of Cliff Chiang, Frank Quitely, and whoever did the new Super Friends designs - my first reaction upon seeing the JLA was ‘OMG, somebody drew the Super Friends pseudo-realistically!’ - with a dash of Liefeld just to make it that much worse.
Countdown - Now, THAT is interesting. Especially given what Morrison - and the teaser ads - have revealed about Final Crisis thus far. I suspect the Fifth World may be somewhat different than expected.
Robin: Still eh, I may drop this.
I agree about Suicide Squad. Ah well, there’s always Checkmate.
Batman & the Outsiders: I only picked this up for Geo-Force, who I like a lot. Not gonna make that mistake again, there’s nothing here worth my money.
The Initiative: Good. Damn good. If more comics were this good, I’d be a happy boy. Hell, this and Sinestro Corps were about the two best comics I’ve read this year. Ok, that’s not totally true, but it really is very good. Slott’s made some very interesting characters, and I want to see what happens next.
I gave up on BatO months ago. It was just wretched. Which pissed me off. Five of a Kind was great, and I was looking forward to Bedard’s Outsiders.
Dixon’s hadn’t lived up to the promise of Bedard’s. At all. And I’m STILL bitter about it.
OK, dug some more of my stack out:
Flash - There was nothing I didn’t like about this issue. But the fact that the Bat actually learnt from when they went to Wally about the kids? That was awesome.
B&B - I preferred the earlier team-up format, but this was OK. I’d like to see some fallout from the cloud, personally.
Salvation Run - Thunder and Lightning become the inevitable ‘Bad Guys Who Aren’t So Bad Who Get the Shaft’. Vandal Savage…is a disgusting piece of pre-human trash. I like.
I like Batman and the Outsiders well enough. Especially with the Dibnys.