THE TOP FOUR
Green Lantern 34
We're still in the Secret Origin storyline/prelude to the Darkest Night. I'm still loving it. The deepening of Hal's characterization and his relationships has been wonderful. And the art by Reis and Albert is a delight. Some of the face shots reminded me of Neal Adams' work. Which is a good thing.
Secret Six 1
Gail Simone at her best. This is one of the zaniest and deadliest casts in any team book and Gail's dialogue sizzles. The scene with Deadshot and Catman walking into a robbery in progress and the gang trying to lift Scandal out of her funk were both priceless. The art by Scott and Hazlewood is wonderful, and perfect for this book -- realistic with just the right touches of exageration. Nicola Scott is fast becoming one of my favorite artists.
Booster Gold 12
Whew. I feel like Booster's sister, trying to keep up with all the time paradoxes. Jurgens and Rapmund's art is nicely realistic while retaining a science fictiony feel and the guest appearances of Babs as Batgirl and a very pissed off Alfred in the Batcave were most welcome. Michelle made a lovely Batgirl. Booster as Elvis was not so lovely, or rather, perhaps, he was too lovely. ;)
Manhunter 34
With Kate guesting a few times in Birds of Prey, it made sense that Helena and Zinda would show up here to help out. I haven't been keeping up with the Suicide Squad, so it was nice to see them, too, and the guest stars help solidfy Kate's position in the DCU, along with revelations about her background and hints at something going on with Ramsey. The art by Gaydos is a bit rough for my taste, but the sketchy feel works well for this book.
FOUR MORE ALMOST AS GOOD
Not quite must-reads, the other books I read this past week were also entertaining.
Wonder Woman 24
I missed Lopresti's art inside, though the cover by him was lovely, and Chang's interior art was nice enough. The best part of this was Tom meeting Diana's mother. The movie-making storyline is okay, although the Hollywood scenes felt forced. Gail's doing a nice job with this book, but after her opening arc, the book hasn't felt all that special. It's a nice, dependable book right now, but without the pizzazz that her other books have, including Secret Six reviewed above.
Trinity 15
This has settled into a solid story, although in places it feels padded with exposition, especially what each of the characters of the Trinity are personality-wise, no doubt to help the creators reach 52 issues. But I'm enjoying the story and now even the backup is immediately relevant to the main story.
Simon Dark 12
I'm so torn about this book. It would've been a great 12-part series, and maybe if it weren't an ongoing, they could've kept the Catwoman title. But I am enjoying it and I really like Simon. There wasn't anything overly special about the story, but it doesn't suck, either. A nice bit horror in the mainstream DCU.
Green Arrow and Black Canary 12
Nice cover by Chiang. Decent art by Norton and Faucher inside. I want Chiang back on interiors. Now. I've read a bunch of reviews of this already, mostly by disappointed readers, and while I don't think it sucked as much as others do, I do feel it was a bit of a letdown. I have no problems with Winick's dialogue, even if Gail Simone and Geoff Johns, among others, can write circles around him (and Brubaker, Pfeifer, Andreyko, etc). And while I have no problem with Shado being behind the whole mess, the plot got so convoluted to allow for all the plot twist chapter endings, that what we ended up with was a mess that didn't make much sense. And where the hell has Roy been while all this was going on? I'm just saying. I hope the new team can do great things with this book, because these characters deserve as much.
Good Grief, I've read every one of these with the exception of Simon Dark. And all pretty good, I have to say, although Doctor Sivana's dialogue in Green Arrow and Black Canary sounded much too "hip".
ReplyDeleteSecret Six and Booster Gold were both a hoot however.
One of my minimal conditions for reading something is that it make sense when it's over. Either I can figure out what happened, or someone can explain it to me.
ReplyDeleteOn that standard, I'm dropping Green Arrow/ Black Canary.
There was a mystery, and there was a resolution, but the resolution didn't make any sense given that the mystery was "who used a giant space laser to steal Connor's soul."
Ragtime, I agree about the not-making-sense aspect ruining the story, but I won't drop the book because there is a new team coming on and I love these characters enough to want to see what happens.
ReplyDeleteI'm more likely to drop books that do make sense but are too boring or annoying, like Checkmate or anything else Bruce Jones writes. ;)