Wednesday, April 02, 2008

Mostly Belated Reviews

Countdown to Final Crisis 5-4
Week 5 was fairly good and the Kamandi Last Boy on Earth reference was cool. I never read that book, but the tie-in was nice. Week 4 saw the gang back on the right Earth, and Mary Marvel disappointing me by being tempted back to the dark side of the force, uh, wrong story. Well, she took back those extra powerful powers and is back in black. Meanwhile, Jason is back to being a complete jerk, so some things have righted themselves.

Countdown to Adventure 8
A satisfying conclusion to the Animal Man, Adam Strange, and Koriander story. These 3 deserve more team-ups. They're great together and Ellen Baker proved herself worthy of being married to a costumed hero. She really came through. I'm sorry to see this end.

Nightwing 143
I'll forgive this for having someone else on art chores because it was very nice. And despite Dick seemingly wrong about the villain, things worked out mostly okay. For this first arc by Tomasi, however, the key has been character, mainly restoring Dick to a skill level beyond mere competence, plus the little things. This issue had wonderful banter between Dick and Tim, and there was a much appreciated cameo by Roy. Nightwing is back on track!

Supergirl 28
Can this comic and this version of Kara get any more insipid? When Wonder Woman asks her why she promised to cure a boy's cancer, why didn't she just say, she had meant she'd save him from the disaster (quakes? I can't remember.) and hadn't known about the cancer and now she's stuck and can't disappoint him? At least, that would make her a more sympathetic character instead of foolish/stupid? And yet, there are moments that are actually entertaining. The scenes with Kara and Resurrection Man actually had me chuckling. But then she goes and acts even more stupid in breaking someone out of prison and, well, I don't know if this comic and this version of Kara can be saved, anymore.

On the complete opposite side of the DCU from Supergirl, comes Blue Beetle 25 (well, the entire run, actually). What makes the comparison work is that both characters are teens with superpowers. Kara's comes from the yellow sun and Jaime's comes from the alien scarab that has become his partner and pal. The Justice League shows up to help out, including the "Crazy One" GL (Guy), but with Jaime's family, friends, and his own smarts, he almost doesn't need the help. If this isn't the best supporting cast in comics, I can't think of what could be better.

Green Lantern 29
A retelling of Hal's origin as a GL which fills in what appeared in Green Lantern Rebirth. Green Lantern and the Lantern Corps have a long, complicated history and Johns is taking advantage of all of it, as well as adding to it. I'm really enjoying this book.

Uncle Sam and the Freedom Fighters 7
A bit of ick factor to this story. (Have I ever mentioned how much I hate insects, especially bees?) Renato Arlem's art is perfect for this book. It has a static feel to it in a way, but that suits this book that feels like a throwback to the Golden Age, with more modern sensibilities. The cover is striking, as is the final page showing Miss Cosmos.

JSA Classified 36
I've given up on this book featuring the less famous characters. This second chapter to Wildcat's current story featured a nice appearance from Catwoman. The flashbacks to Ted's past were nicely done.

Wildstorm Revelations 6
The mini-series concludes, but the story must continue, in Number of the Beast, when, presumably, we'll learn if the Wildstorm universe is destroyed. Or not. This might drag out for years. Always nice seeing Zealot and it looks like Savant finally knows the truth about his "sister."

Crossing Midnight 17
The next story starts where the previous left off, with brother and sister on a collision course, as he hopes to save her and she seeks to destroy him. I'm really enjoying this mystical/dark fantasy book.

Jack of Fables 21
A fill-in tale that didn't do much for me. The gang is putting on a play, or rather, the Pathetic Fallacy tries to but the cast has its own agenda. Or something like that.

5 comments:

  1. That's a nice healthy stack of comic books. I've gotta say that Countdown is annoying me. I've stuck with it all this time, and now they've gone and evilfied Mary again? Boo hiss!

    Nightwing has been consistantly good ever since Mr. Tomasi took over as the writer. I rather missed Rags Morales art this issue, but it was still nice. I love the cameraderie betweeen Dick and Tim. The final scene of them swimming out to get the Batplane/sub/boat was hilarious.

    Can't say that Supergirl does much for me, but I LOVED seeing Resurrection Man. I have that entire series. Maybe they could make him a regular.

    Blue Beetle was just...sublime.

    Green Lantern was nice. A lot of new people are probably picking up the book after the Sinestro Corp War, so it makes sense to have Johns do an origin for Hal. Not enough of Hal getting hit in the head, but I'm sure that it will come.

    JSA:Classified has been a nice story with Ted. I like Ted. I do wish that they'd do a story with Sandy though.

    Jack of Fables was ok.

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  2. Yeah, I read a lot of comics. ;) And I might have to cut a few, like Atom, because I'm adding others.

    I'm not all that familiar with Resurrection Man, but I did enjoy him. Of course, I enjoyed him more than Supergirl in her own book, which is probably not a good thing. ;)

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  3. The Resurrection Man series was really very good. Nice art, and interesting stories. There was also an absolutely hilarious Hitman issue that had Tommy and Nate shooting him repeatedly until he could come up with a power that was actually useful.

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  4. I might have to keep an eye out for back issues of Resurrection Man. And that plan sounds like what Kara came up with.

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  5. insects are hot!


    Just kidding ;)

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