Here 'tis.
World War Hulk #4 was my only Marvel pick this week. It was… okay, I guess. Sad that it’s so relatively dense compared to Civil War and STILL feels like it drags…
I was just glad to see the Sentry get up off of his butt. Course he still hasn’t done anything, but he did finally leave his couch.
Mightiest cape in the Marvel U and they saddle him with crippling agoraphobia just to make him a deus ex machina. The Hulk should beat him simply by throwing him into an open field.
This is apparently International Lazy Art week, judging from New X-Men and Aquaman - on both books, the art is sloppy compared to the artists’ previous issues on the titles. (Countdown’s art always sucks, so it doesn’t count.)
On the other hand, the Black Canary/Green Arrow wedding special was beautiful - I wish Conner worked faster, and therefor got more work. I love her art.
Art aside…
Countdown to Mystery - I like the new Fate. I especially like that the helm has righted itself, and has gone back to being full-face. But the rest of his costume design, and his pose when the outfit first appears…my first reaction was ‘BEHOLD! The Crotch of Fate!’ Storywise…I read Day of Vengeance, I read Helm of Fate…I didn’t need the rundown of what the Helm’s been doing recently, but it’s nice that it was there for those that didn’t. Also, the irony of Kent’s reactions to DC and Zauriel amused me.
The Eclipso story looks interesting - if only for Spectre and Cris’s new ‘pal’.
BC/GA Wedding Special - Good, on the whole. Actually made use of the wedding, unlike the JLA Wedding Special, which was a plus. The visuals made it. Ollie and Dinah’s faces when they’re bickering at the beginning (and Ollie’s when he’s pleading for teh sexx0rz) were priceless. The spread of the wedding guests was entirely awesome (even with the fact that Tempest’s appearance makes no sense given his recent appearances in Aquaman, and that I can’t identify half the civilians there - I recognize Lois, Ellen, Oberon, Tuckman and Smalls, Snapper, Slam Bradley, and Connor’s friend whose name I can’t remember, but that’s it). My favourite bits - and there were a lot of good little moments like this - were Lois’s two scenes in the brawl. Girl can kick ass when need be, apparently - even if it’s only Black Tarantula and the Body Doubles. Since when does she carry knuckle dusters, though? (Spoilered, although the scene was kind of inevitable.)
Least favourite bit…no not the last page, it was Dinah’s lack of perspective when Roy dropped the ring during the fight. She shouldn’t have needed Ollie to tell her that she could grab it later, when they weren’t fighting for their lives, and even if she did, she would have listened, being Not A Bloody Moron, and all.
I LOVED Superman when he and Diana were talking. ‘It’ll be nice to get together for something good for a change!’ Times like that, I just wanna give Clark a big hug.
New X-Men - Art aside (And the fact that the first half was horribly sloppy was really disappointing. I only started reading New X-Men for the art!), there’s a lot to love in this issue. Even brooding Elixir got to be fun when Kitty came to check up on him. The ‘youngest mutant’ thing’s a little silly - I understand the reasoning, but I doubt the Purifiers, or any of the other anti-Mutant groups would be too terribly concerned with a difference of months, which is what we’re presumably dealing with for the likely candidates - but, hey, these are kids.
Line of Gold: ‘#$%^ Unicorns!’
Gutsville - Interesting premise, competently executed. I’m in for the ride, let’s see where it goes. I love that the people have developed idioms based on their unique circumstances.
Birds of Prey - Go, Helena. That is all.
Shadowpact - Art’s not lazy, for sure, but it’s also not my cup of tea. (This book needs a stable artist again. I miss when Willingham was drawing it. I liked his style.) One thing I did like about the art - one of the zombies in the first part had an autopsy incision! Not something you see every day.
'Devon’s not terribly interesting, yet, but, he has potential.
I dug the art on this week’s issue of Countdown, really…
Robin: Good as usual. I actually like Batman more after this issue than I ever did. This is where you see Tim Drake starting to be his own hero. Best line: “See you at the next double homicide?” “Count on it.” And it’s a oddly friendly warm bit of dialog too.
Checkmate: Eh, but twistish ending, makes me wanna see how far back it reaches.
I have a question about the GA/BC Wedding Special. No, not about the ending, because I know that will get resolved. My question is this: on the righthand side of the big splash page of the brawl, there is a female villain fighting a skunk. Where the hell did the skunk come from? It’s not Beast Boy; the skunk isn’t green and Gar is elsewhere in the page. Is it just a sight gag, like a skunk happened to be in the cave and took offense to the Injustice Gang’s raid? Because I’m willing to accept that, but I want to be sure.
Also, when Clark started talking about how “it will be so nice to get together for something good for once,” Diana should have punched him right in the arm for jinxing everything. It’s all his fault! Doesn’t he know better than to say things like that out loud?
Doctor 13: Architecture & Mortality TPB
HA! A hoot!
The skunk appears in three panels that I noticed, all fighting that female villain (not sure who she is). The one you mention, one a couple pages later where they’re fighting right above Power Girl in a bottom left panel where BC is reaching for her ring, and a middle panel two pages later, this time underneath Starfire and Monsuir Mallah.
But yeah, not sure why a skunk would be there. Were there any other shape changers among the heroes? I saw Martian Manhunter in the wedding shot, and didn’t notice him in the brawl, and he could change into a skunk and fight… but I’m not sure why he would, given his power level. :dubious: Either way, it’s probably a joke.
Countdown #32 - Art was better this issue, although still not spectacular. Much like the storylines… the Donna/Jason/Kyle storyline is just as uninteresting as it was in the first Search for Ray Palmer issue. The Piper/Trickster storyline has turned into a whacky sit-com; I’m almost expecting DC to put in a laugh track, since they’ve got all that room from skipping editor’s notes. And the wedding tie-in… wasn’t as painful as the Amazons Attack tie-in. Although they actually should have put Stargirl in, like on the cover, because who the hell thinks Kryptonian Supergirl is even going to be affected by alcohol, let along trying to sneak a drink behind the back of every superheroine around?
Birds of Prey #110 - I’m definately staying on even with Gail gone.
Flash #232 - Still not warming up to the art style.
Countdown to Mystery #1 - Interesting, if a bit too recappy. Fate’s costume… well, they’ve gotten rid of the gold highpants underwear-worn-on-the-outside, but there’s still something funky going on with his pants. And he doesn’t have a belt, so much as he has a giant-ass beltbuckle-ish thing stuck on to the front of his pants.
Tales of the Sinestro Corps: Parallax - All I could think reading this is that it’s trying to show the Kyle-fans that they’re not gimping Kyle to make Hal look good. And all I thought after reading it is that it was an effort doomed to fail. They would have been better served advancing the Sinestro Corps storyline, rather than this all-internal-dialog thing.
Phobia, formerly of the Brotherhood of Evil.
Aw, I forgot Booster Gold again.
Dynamo 5 #7 was great, got a Beowulf promo… I forget. Too busy to read 'em.
Flash #232 I love The Flash, I really do…but this art is God-awful. I also hate the idea of the kids even being there. I’m going to give it a couple more issues and if things get better, I’m dropping it.
Captain America #30 Now THIS is what a comic book should be. Great art, twists and turns galore, and Bucky beating the &*$@ out of Crossbones and Sin. Loved it.
I have to agree on the Flash art - Daniel Acuna is just wrong for the title. Fortunately, his stint is of limited duration. I think the next arc has a new artist, if I recall correctly.
The new Doctor Fate just showed up.
And he’s an ex-physician (shrink) & an alcoholic.
:eek: …Marvel Comics, much, dudes!?! :smack:
Oh, yeah! JLA/Hitman.
I’m probably the only one outside DC’s editorial offices who likes Acuna’s art.
I also love everything about the kids. Especially their powers being in the Jade tradition of ‘variant on Daddy’s theme’, rather than simply having Wally’s powers.
The evil vagina-monsters, however…
Catwoman and Robin - Liked both issues, but I specifically want to comment on the portrayal of Batman in both.
I love Batman here. He’s still Batman, but he’s also not an ass. He’s, actually…pretty nice. This is a Batman we haven’t seen in JLA for a long time, or in Outsiders, or even in Batman, and only gotten a couple glimpses of in Detective. The kind of character I can imagine adopting Tim. Who I can imagine being friends with Superman. The same can be said of his recent-ish appearance in Nightwing. Why that can’t happen as consistently in books he headlines (or JLA), I don’t know.
Checkmate - Got the last two issues at once. The first issue of Fall of the Wall is a nice setup. (And I’m looking forward to the title coming to pass. I like Waller, but she’d be better used out of Checkmate.) The previous issue, though, was one of my favourite issues of the series. I like seeing someone other than the court as the star (the one which featured one of the Pawns was good, too, for the same reason). And Draper’s cool. I love his interaction with Sasha, given their different experiences and opinions with man/machine interfaces.
Terror Inc - Got the first two issues at once, too. (I was on vacation. Robin was two issues at once, too.) Pretty cool so far. Definitely liking it better than the original book. The art, specifically, is improved.
Speaking of which, somebody (I’m assuming it’s DC-affiliated, but mebbe not) went and made a monster website connected to him and Checkmate. It’s pretty cool, check it out.
Here it is. The password is CASTELLAN (all caps). The user name is CARL DRAPER.
Oh, that is AWESOME. Makes me feel like Oracle hacking their system! Well, OK, it just makes Draper look vaguely like someone who shouldn’t be doing security. But it’s still awesome.
Regarding Countdown to Mystery does that last page revelation mean…
[spoiler]…that since Eclipso was the Wrath of God and got replaced by the Spectre that the Spectre is also part of Darkseid? It would be an interesting twist having it be the wrath of that particular god but it might be too disruptive for the character.
Or it could just be that someone forgot that Eclipso was the Wrath of God too…[/spoiler]
This doesn’t change the Eclipso entity’s origin. Necessarily. If it does it contradicts the Eclipso origin in this week’s Countdown. As per said origin, Eclipso is the former Spirit of the Wrath of God, imprisoned on the dark side of the moon when the Spirit of God’s Vengeance was created. It’s the black diamond in which Eclipso was imprisoned that’s of Apokaliptikan origin.