Blackest Night!
So far, I’m intrigued.
Really liked the design of all the “Black Lanterns”. (… although, was that Ch’p in there???). Really thought that the Indigo Tribe bit in Tales was trying too hard to be enigmatic and mysterious. If they didn’t want to tell anything yet about the Indigos, they could’ve given something on a Star Sapphire (or, “the Predator”) or one of the Red Lanterns (like… DexStar!).
I didn’t get a ring. 
I support the Indigo Tribe! Superhero lesbian folksingers in space!
And the Sinestro Corps doesn’t get an animal member, it seems. I agree, I want to read RageCat’s bio.
Rage Kitty is Dex-Star. Or Dex-Starr. Or DexStar. Occasionally, Ruffles.
Actually, I find Johns’ willingness to embrace the goofiness of the GL Corps – like, Ch’p – to be one of the charming things about his run. Now, if he’ll just bring back Rot Lop Fan and the F-Sharp Bell Corps…
And unlike Morrison in Final Crisis and Batman R.I.P., he’s making it work. I’ve been looking forward to this event for quite some time and thus far it hasn’t disappointed.
Anyone else think that the cosmic stuff in both universes has been some of the best works. Between Green Lantern in DC and War of Kings in Marvel, there’s been some right solid scifi going on.
CREEPY #1 (Dark Horse) I was barely aware of the original CREEPY back in the 70s, but it was known for some fairly edgy writers and a lot of the old EC artists. This time around, most of the writing and art was pretty disappointing, excepting an old reprint of a Bill DuBay/Alex Toth (and frankly, they should have a lot more reprints in this anthology).
“The Curse, Part One” was a highlight; creepily suspenseful story by Joe Harris, moody and stylish art by Jason Shawn Alexander, about a Joe Sixpack who discovers one day that people will do whatever he tells them no matter how awful the consequences. After this story, the suckage starts to creep in. “Hell Hound Blues,” a morally instructional story about an alleged Blues fan who disrespects Black people, has slow pacing, tin ear dialogue and wildly inappropriate art by MAD veteran Angelo Torres. Later, there’s a muddily-rendered klunker about zombies at Auschwitz (What, the stuff that actually happened there wasn’t horrifying enough, so let’s add zombies?!), a cannibal epic that was too ugly to look at, and a Hilary Barta-drawn piece introducing new mascot Cousin Creepy (a goth chick in the Death/Abby Schiuto mold) which is the second story in the book to invoke the Robert Johnson/Crossroads legend. They close with the DuBay/Toth reprint.
The cover was okay, but really needed a scantily-clad woman on it somewhere. Bernie Wrightson drew a nice frontpiece with Uncle Creepy and Cousin Creepy. Small nitpick: Bernie, the girl needs clunky lace-up Doc Martens, not those things you drew.
I hope this gets better, or they scrap it and re-issue Twisted Tales or something. There are enough good horror writers and artists out there that there’s really no excuse for something this half-assed.
The Curse was, IMO, the weakest of the stories. Not even a very good setup for an extended story (I really hope they don’t make it an ongoing story through the whole series…).
All in all, it was better than the Tales from the Crypt relaunch…is that still going, does anyone know? I decided to give it a pass after the first issue.
Other stuff…
Wednesday Comics is better this week - still thoroughly unimpressed with the *Kamandi *feature - there’s a reason nobody does that kind of strip any more! Art’s nice, though - and Hawkman has officially dropped to ‘only reading it because I have the book anyway’ - the story and art are both beyond ‘meh’. Not quite bad enough for me to skip, but it’s certainly not what I read the title for.
Deadman, I didn’t like much last week, but has picked up this week. Adam Strange is very good - the designs are a neat change, and the story is well paced and interesting. Wonder Woman, the only issue I have is the typeface used for the dialogue - I’m finding it hard to read. Teen Titans, like Deadman, I was underwhelmed with last week, but switching to Robin’s POV this week seems to have helped. (Perhaps because he’s less verbose than Trident.) The art’s pretty awesome - I’m particularly fond of Nightwing’s design. Catwoman/Demon is serviceable, but not standing out, yet. Ditto Metal Men. Batman…story is looking OK, though paced wrong for a 12 pager. Not liking the art, a whole lot. Bruce, out of his costume, looks horrible. Superman, I’m not sure about. The first page looked good…this one is giving me concerns regarding the pacing.
Supergirl is a lot of fun, and Amanda Conner art is always a plus. Green Lantern, likewise is shaping up well, as a story, and the art is wonderful. Sgt Rock has me surprisingly hooked.
But the standouts this week - as well as last week - are Metamorpho, and Flash. Both play with the comic strip format for more fun than any of the others - I’m especially fond of the format of Flash, splitting it between a Superhero-ey Flash strip and a Romance-ish Iris West, subtly changing the art style, tailoring the writing, etc…it’s highly impressive - especially if they keep the superpowered aspects underplayed in the Iris strips, like they have these past two weeks. And Aldred’s layout of this week’s Metamorpho page is awesome.
I want a free issue of Element Dog.