Green Lantern, Blue Beetle, Jack of Fables, and others.
Most importantly to me, Action’s issue this week is a post-script to the crossover with the Legion AND to Countdown. We get a lot more background on the current state of DC’s continuity with regards to the Legion, WHY it’s so tangled, and appearances by four Legionnaires.
However, even more importantly than that, DC Universe Zero came out.
DC Universe 0: Would you pay 50 cents for a collection of trailers and teasers? What if they were really good teasers and capped off with a “oh no they didn’t!” moment. You know you would fanboy. Anyway, for what it was, this was really good. For 50 cents, this is well worth looking into.
As for the Big Deal, it was executed extremely well here. A real “wait, what? Oh, holy crap” moment. I’m hoping in the end it works out to something less straightforward than “he’s back” (and it’s Morrison, so that’s a decent bet), but it’s too early to speculate on the details and what the final status will be.
Blue Beetle #26: Epic fail. If you’re going to have dialog in a language the majority of your readership cannot read, then you have to tell a story that can be understood by the art alone. This didn’t happen. How Jaime won is incomprehensible without the dialog. More importantly, it was a ho-hum issue even translated. Jaime’s grandma was kind of cool, but really it’s the same cool that his mom has, only shorter and wrinklier.
Robin #173: Ah, Chuck Dixon. You’re like a rock. Not the most exciting writer, but so steady and consistent. Most decent writers have an average that they usually either dip under or surpass, but you Mr. Dixon, you live there. I kid, but this is pretty good.
Green Lantern #30: Now here’s some new stuff. I like the new twist on the death of Abin Sur. Johns is really making the Green Lantern mythos his own.
Action Comics #864: Eh. Batman’s a bit too much of a dick here, and not much is accomplished besides Countdown cleanup and unnecessary setup for Lo3W.
Legion of Super-Heroes #41: Chameleon is fun. Invisible Kid does something useful (then gets his ass kicked by rejects). Not bad, all said.
Boy, is that weird. It’s photorealism comic drawings of fashion models and old artist’s work with a running commentary from Sim and some interstitial material from Glamourpuss, her evil sister, and a Doctor.
DCU0 - I was spoiled on the big reveal (oh, thank you SO much, New York Times, felt like pissing off the fans of both big comic companies, huh?*) but, I gotta say, they did it well.
Green Lantern - Not a bad issue. I actually like the retcon to Abin Sur’s death. One teeeeny thing stood out, though… The bit where the other pilot calls Tom ‘Pieface’, and Hal did the ‘Oh, Eskimo Pie because he’s Asian?’ bit. Argh. Bit silly that the guy with the racist nickname for him actually knows what his background is, but his defender messes it up.
Teen Titans - Poor M’gann. Nice that it looks like she may win her fight with her evil self.
Freedom Fighters - I love the book, I love the characters, but I gotta say the image in my head of the League getting Red Bee’s message if they had failed makes me giggle. ‘So, uh, how many evil insect swarms are headed for Earth right now?’ ‘I think this makes three.’ ‘Man, we’re going to need a bigass can of Cosmic Raid…’
I’d really like the non-comics media to stop doing stories about comics… I can think of 4 in the last 3 years, and all of them are screwed in some way or another… This one and the ones about Captain America’s death spoiled BIG story reveals on the day the issue came out. Just before OYL/52, DC sent out a press release saying ‘we’re diversifying our universe’ and doing a few sentences each on Atom, Blue Beetle and Batwoman…Ryan and Jaime were all but ignored in any newspaper story I saw, but Kate being a lesbian was given the headline, resulting in at least one person bitching about DC sending out a press release about that, but NOT mentioning Ryan being Chinese or Jaime being Latino. :smack: And, much more minor than any of those, but the story I saw about OMD/BND suggested Peter and MJ were divorced, which is…at the very least, not a spoiler, but not exactly accurate. (Sorry for the rant, just had to get it off my chest.)
Doesn’t matter. The story should be comprehensible and “readable” to someone with no Spanish, and the translation merely for the curious. That didn’t happen here.
I disagree. I thought it was awesome, and really put the reader in Traci’s shoes. I don’t speak Spanish, but I’ve lived in Texas all my life and am familiar with enough Latin root words that I picked up a fair amount of it. The rest came from context, and it was fun reading the translation in the back to verify how much I had understood, and sort out the stuff I didn’t get. This was probably my favorite book this week.
I liked the Dresden comic. It was written by Jim Butcher, and I thought he seemed just like he does in Butcher’s books and short stories. Are you talking about his physical appearance? They got the height about right, and he looked pretty much the way I always imagined him.
Brave and Bold 12: Not bad. I didn’t follow the whole arc. I could’ve done with more spoilerage considering that not everyone is reading Countdown.
Captain America #37: Not too huge a fan of this either. Why put Bucky in the suit when you-know-who will soon be returning (sorry, I don’t want to spoil). I was able to get my hands on the death issue when it first came out, so, I’m going to ride this until he comes back.
Cthulhu Tales: My friend reads this. I have no idea what he’s talking about so I picked this up. I don’t think horror translates well into comics, at least not since the OG House of Mystery. Apparently, I’m not in Cthulhu’s target audience. Art was ok.
Dreamwar #1: Ok, they have to put in a little more context. What’s Kid Flash doing there? Why are the T.Titans on a rampage? The art is good, though I think Batman looks anatomically incorrect on the cover (parallax view problem, I guess), as he is too wide on one side. I’m curious what Superman was doing in that quite though otherwise domestic violence scene went horribly wrong.
Did anyone pick up Caliber? It sold out before I could order it from my regular place. I was willing to pick it up for a $1, but I guess so were a bunch of other people. Is it worth going out and hunting for it? It’s an indy title, and it’s tough to find reviews.
I haven’t picked up anything yet, I just wanted to ask, is anybody really surprised that Barry’s coming back? (although for how long is a good question)
Thor: Ages of Thunder. Kind of a prelude to the Marvel Thor history that we know. The character designs, art (especially in the first story), and writing are great!
I agree with this - except for the living in Texas bit. Only at one point did I have to look at the translation to figure out what was going on - at the start of the fight scene when Parasite’s using Damper’s powers, and that was primarily because I couldn’t remember what Damper’s powers were.
I missed details - how, exactly, Jaime beat Parasite, exactly why his mum and gramma smacked him upside the head, the exact details (though not the gist) of the argument at the end - but the story made perfect sense.
Given who the narrator is on DCU#0, why does he start out saying “This is everything. This is me.” and seem to imply that he is the multiverse?
Action was a nice set-up issue, although the art kinda sucked. Sadly, it looks as though my favorite LSH of 5 Years After is no longer in continuity, alas.
LSH itself has pretty much become another re-telling of the same ol’ LSH stories we’ve seen several times before. Seriously, how many times have we seen the UP recruit a more-controllable squad of superpowered teens that must inevitably come into conflict with the Legion? I’ve long since lost count. In fact, it’s happened once or twice already in this continuity even.
Green Lantern continues to re-tell Hal’s origin in order to insert backstory for the upcoming Black Lantern storyline. But they’re doing such a good job at it, I’m not annoyed ('cause, really Hal’s origin isn’t iconic enough that I’m willing to see it over and over again as with Batman or Superman).
Only thing I picked up that I wanted to read was **The Initiative **. It wasn’t Slott’s best work-I think he was in a hurry. It felt too abrupt and the art felt off. Too bad this is the end, I’ve really enjoyed it. Also,
I can’t tell if he wanted Trauma dead and was forced to bring him back, or vice versa
Lightray, I think the point was that issue was that all of the Legions are in continuity which includes Five Years Later. It’s just that there’s a split point that we haven’t seen.