Comic Reviews Week of 8/12/09

Straight from my brain to your screen with an unfortunate lack of a filter in between, it's more reviews!


Blackest Night #2 (of 8)
Written By Geoff Johns
Art By Ivan Reis

Well, it's better than last issue, that's for sure.

This issue features a lot less whining and a lot more zombie killing, which is definitely a wise choice. Of course, it's not perfect, as the main action sequence in this issue involves zombie-Aquaman fighting the rest of the Aqua-family, and that kind of undercuts the epic nature of this story.

I guess my main problem is that the villains aren't really as scary or creepy as they ought to be in this sort of story. As DC has proven repeatedly throughout the years, no matter what you do, Aquaman is still kind of a joke, and he's one of the better dead heroes that Johns has at his disposal.

But given how much better this is than the first issue, things are looking up.



Green Lantern Corps #39
Written By Peter J. Tomasi
Art By Patrick Gleason

This is a tie-in where basically nothing happens. As a practical matter, it wraps up a couple of subplots that had been dragging along for a while, most notably Sodam Yat and Arisia's trip to Daxam.

Beyond that, this issue basically shows a very, very slightly different version of events seen in Blackest Night #1, adding only a scene at the end where, spoiler alert, a dead character comes back to life as a Black Lantern. Since next issue will most like recapitulate that scene on the first page, one could conceivably skip this comic entirely and not miss much of anything at all.




Titans (v2) #16
Written By Christopher Yost
Art By Angel Unzueta

This is another tie-in, but, in a tragic lapse of scheduling, it's a tie-in to Final Crisis, showing the effects of that crossover on Starfire. So, it's already a bit irrelevant for that reason.

Now, I'm in my early twenties, by the time I was reading comics, the heyday of the Teen Titans had already come and gone. For that reason, I've never been able to understand the appeal of this particular title. Still, I understand that many people not too much older than me do like these characters, and so, to them, I poise the following question: Do you really want to read a comic where Starfire has a session with her therapist? Really?

Now, in fairness, the session is mainly used as a framing device, but still....it's just not very good.


Adventure Comics (v2) #1
Written By Geoff Johns
Art By Francis Manapul

JOOOOOOOOOOOOOOHHHHHHHHHHHNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNSSSSSSSSS!!!!!!!!!!!!

It's kind of interesting that both halves of this comic infuriate me. You'd think at least one of them would inspire a feeling other than rage...but here we are.

The first story features the Connor Kent Superboy, and since this is a Superboy story written in the last six years it must, by federal statute, feature Superboy angsting about having Lex Luthor's blood running through his veins. At this point, I kind of hope that Lex Luthor has a congenital heart defect that he passed onto Superboy so that he'll have a heart attack and die.

The backup feature is about the Legion of Superheroes, because apparently the most marketable form for the Legion is one that features decades-old continuity and protagonists in their thirties. (Note: the Legion franchise may be doomed) They have a secret mission in the past....again, which is surprising given how shitty the last story that featured such a plotline was.

So this issue features the ressurrection of a long-dead title that features two stories that seem to be rehashes of other stories that weren't very good in the first place. This is why I feel like in ten years we'll be regarding Geoff Johns the same way as Chris Claremont and John Byrne...which is a shame.

Comic Reviews Week of 8/5/09

It's one of those weeks.


Justice League - Cry For Justice #2 (of 7)
Written By James Robinson
Art By Mauro Cascioli

There's really no getting around the fact that this comic sucks. Oh, it's better than the first issue, but that just means that it's awful instead of hilariously awful. I don't have good feeling about this series, since it has, so far, been superheroes whining at each other for the better part of two issues.

Anyway, this issue features the team slowly coming together as they begin to realize that these attacks are linked. Actually, they don't quite make it that far in this particular issue, but that's certainly where things are heading...albeit in the most glacial manner possible.

Also, after reading this issue, I have never hated Hal Jordan more, as Robinson somehow takes something like five pages to discuess why Green Lantern hated Batman, which is even less exciting than it sounds. At least last issue when the characters said stuff it was entertainingly stupid, this time characters are just boring.

Come to think of it, this is kind of like the exact opposite of Grant Morrison's run. Morrison's JLA was over-the-top, Robinson's is painfully low-key. Morrison's stories focused on action, Robinson's seem to be almost entirely character development. Morrison featured DC's most popular characters, Robinson includes characters like Congorilla. People liked Morrison's JLA, Robinson's....not so much.



Hulk #13
Written By Jeph Loeb
Art By Ed McGuiness

First of all, if last issue was #600, shouldn't this be #601? I mean, aren't you obligated to at least wait one issue before renumbering it again?

Anyway, at this point I don't think there's anything left to say. It's about big things hitting each other until the issue ends. I guess that's fine, it's better than most of what Jeph Loeb has written lately, but most of the better Hulk runs have offered something besides mindless action and this doesn't.

Also, I officially don't care about the Red Hulk who has done nothing interesting ever.


Captain America-Reborn #2
Written By Ed Brubaker
Art By Bryan Hitch

I don't get Captain America. I understand the concept of a guy who embodies all of the positive American ideals, which is what the Steve Rogers version of Cap is, but it doesn't seem like a very interesting character to me. At any rate, this is the miniseries designed to bring back the original version of Captain America.

I'm not a huge fan of Brubaker's run on Captain America. On an intellectual level, I know that it's well-written, but it just doesn't do much for me. Given that everyone else likes it, and that I basically have no idea what I'm talking about, I blame myself for this.

In retrospect, I suppose the point of this review was to inform the reader that a) I don't like Captain America and b) I'm a moron. Mission accomplished.

Mini-reviews: When ten sentences are simply nine too many!

Agents of Altas #9: Not only does this issue feature better use of a man trapped in a gorilla's body than Cry For Justice, it also features better use of Bruce Banner than the Hulk. Kind of makes you think.

Amazing Spider-Man #601: Why won't the writers of Spider-man stop talking about One More Day? Seriously, why can't they just let it alone.

Exiles #5: CANCELLED!!!!....again.

The Hangman #1: Did it ever occur to anyone that the reason that some characters were abandoned in the Golden Age was because they weren't very good?

Secret Six #12: Every issue I like this series less and less, although I'm not sure exactly why.

Comic Reviews Week of 7/29/09

Let's do it to it:



Justice Society of America (v2) #29
Written By Bill Willingham and Matthew Sturges
Art By Jesus Merino

Now, it's always a bit tricky to complain about the first issue of a new writer's run because even great writers sometimes need a bit of time to feel things out. I seem to recall the first Geoff Johns arc in the Flash wasn't particularly good, and Paul Levitz's famed Legion run also had something of a false start.

That said, I'm not impressed. One of the reasons that the last volume of JSA was so good was the character development. Recently, however, that's fallen by the wayside as Geoff Johns felt compelled to create as many legacy characters as possible and jam them all into the book at once. And that'd be fine if the new characters were any good...but well, not so much. (By the way, in an utterly insane decision by DC, Magog is getting his own ongoing, if it is not dead within a year of its debut, I will resign from comic fandom in protest.)

This issue features the debut of the new All-American Kid and King, who are successors to two Golden Age characters that no one ever heard of, because if there was one thing that the JSA was lacking, it was that. (Although the smart money says that at least one of them will be gone by the end of the arc.) It's one thing to have a sense of history, it's another to have more legacies than Yale in the '50s. But this is Willingham and Sturges' first issue, so it's probably wise to wait a bit before dumping this comic.



Justice League of America (v2) #35
Written By Len Wein
Art By Tom Berenick and Pow Rodrix

That's a pretty misleading cover, although given the current status of this title, I can see why DC would want to do everything it could to promote this book. Anyway, this is a guest arc leading up to the new permanent writer who is....James Robinson....great.

Anyway, before that potential calamity strikes, the team consists of Vixen, Firestorm, Dr. Light and Red Tornado, with special guest star Plastic Man. On the one hand, there's a part of me that really enjoys this sort of underdog, makeshift team. On the other hand, that only works if such a team contains characters I actually like. While I do like the new Firestorm, my memories of Vixen and Red Tornado were poisoned by Meltzer's run, and I'm pretty sure Dr. Light is there to fill space more than anything else.

Actually, this whole comic is just filling space created by McDuffie's acrimonius departure, but by the standards of fill-in comics it's not bad. (Ironically, McDuffie was fired because he publicly complained about the quality of characters he was allowed to use.) So if you're a completist or just a comic fan with too much money, this is the comic for you. Otherwise, save your money.


Teen Titans (v3) #73
Written By Brian Q. Miller
Art By Joe Bennett

This is one of those 'next issue a Titan will DIE' type of story arcs, which works better than these arcs usually do for a couple of reasons. First, there's a good set-up with the Titans spending a night out on the town. This is essential because no one's heard of the vast majority of these characters, so you need to do something to get people to care when you kill one of them. The second reason is that almost all of these characters are expendable, so Miller can afford to kill one of them off without having to resort to some sort of easy out.

Mini-Review

Ultimatum #5: Some more people die in gruesome ways! How the hell this is supposed to reinvigorate the Ultimate Universe is beyond me, although it does raise the question: was "The Long Halloween" the biggest fluke in comics history?


Retraux Revieux



Written By Len Strazewski
Art By Mike Parobeck
Cover Date August 1992

Sometimes innovation just doesn't work out. For example, no one had ever tried to write a comic book about senior citizen superheroes until Len Strazewski came up with this comic. In fairness, it's not badly written and it's an original idea, even to this day, with the elderly members of the JSA have serious health problems and mainly being cranky old men.

Of course, the problem is that Strazewski takes the idea of elderly superheroes and then dials it up to eleven. Sandman has a heart attack within the first few pages, Dr. Mid-Nite is going blind and the rest of the characters are forced to confront their severely diminished capabilities. Again, that's new territory, but a comic about a bunch of old guys coming to terms with aging did about as well as you might imagine during the heart of the Image era.

Still, you have to give Strazewski a certain amount of credit. When Johns essentially took over the Golden Age characters a few years later, he mainly danced around the issue of the characters' age by killing off some of them and making the rest look and act decades younger than they actually were. (Right now the Golden Age JSAers would be in their nineties, as their participation in World War II precludes them from being part of the same sliding timeline as the rest of the DC universe)

It was a noble experiment that had not chance in hell of working, and it was unceremoniously cancelled after ten issues.