Hal Pictures Green Lantern Butt's FOREVER!: Thursday's Reviews of Wednesday's Books

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Thursday, May 13, 2010

Thursday's Reviews of Wednesday's Books

Well, that was actually a pretty darned good week. I love good weeks. No more Blackest Night, but Brightest Day and now the Justice League: Generation Lost, is filling in the gap quite nicely.

Batman: The return of Bruce Wayne #1. Dammit. I enjoyed this. I had low expectations actually, because I'm not really that much of a Bat fan, but Grant Morrison put together an interesting little story here. It doesn't hurt that the art is awfully pretty. We have Cave Batman, doing his thing, and going up against none other than a very young Vandal Savage.

Heh.

Bruce gets beat up a bit, there's an eclipse of the sun, and a giant bat. Oh, and Booster, Hal and Superman show up looking for him, but he's already moved onto the next era. This was quite a good read, and I'm going to be sticking with it.

Birds of Prey #1. Be still my heart! The girls are back together, with Barbara, Dinah, Helena and Zinda. Hawk and Dove wander around for a bit too. An Arctic rescue, Zinda being AWESOME, and making sure that Hawk isn't "fancy". Can't blame her for taking precautions this time! The Penquin gets quite a surprise, and there is a new mystery villain! Even Benes on the art wasn't too bad. Gosh, I've missed Gail and the Girls.

Booster Gold #32. This is the first issue with Giffen and DeMatteis, and they don't go overboard on the Bwahaha's, which is probably a good thing, as events are fairly grim at the moment. Poor Booster ends up in the future on Daxam, retrieving a particular artifact, and happens to land on the exact day that Darkseid is destroying the planet. He's NOT happy about it, and only manages to save one little girl, whom he brings back with him. When he yells at Rip, it turns out that he went back on the wrong day, because he can't read his handwriting?

Oh good grief.

Oh, and Max shows up on Rip's screens, and neither one of them is too happy about it.

Fables #95. We continue to get a story about Rose and Snow when they were little girls growing up in the deep woods, and it is an interesting tale to be sure. Fables never ceases to engage me.

The Flash #2. Barry is rather surprised to be confronted by future versions of the Rogues,who are actually future cops, and want to take him into custody for murder. He manages to escape rather neatly, and is trying to figure out who killed the current Mirror Master. The identity on the fingerprints is quite a surprise! I'm rather enjoying this book.\

Justice League: Generation Lost #1. Well! Max Lord is back, and up to his old shenanigans. Well, not his OLD shenanigans, but his more recent shenanigans...before he was killed that his. Yes, Max is still evil. Damn it! Recognizing what a potential threat he is, ALL of the Superheroes are out looking for him. Booster wants to be the one to get him, but everyone else is busy underestimating him, to his chagrin.

Ice is having a bit of trouble adjusting to life after being dead twice, and really, who can blame her? Guy, get your butt off of Oa, and come home and hang out with Ice! But Beatriz is on the job, and manages to prod poor Ice into getting off her floor, and dressed and back to work, trying to hunt down Max, along with Captain Atom, who is busy throwing HIS weight around.

I'm a little confused here. Weren't Hawk and Capt. Atom bad guys until quite recently? But here they are, and nobody seems to care a bit. I'm sure that if all Max did was apologize and tell everyone that he was "under mind control...yes, that's it" everyone would just pat him on the head and say welcome back. Of course, Max is being something of a jerk, so that's not going to happen.

Max is laying some rather nasty traps for people, and of course Capt. Atom blunders right into one. Being a whole lot smarter than anyone ever gives him credit for, Booster figures out that Max is hiding in plain sight, and figures out that he's at their old JLI headquarters. The Cave one, not the Embassy. But Max was still a bit too smart for Booster, and uses some of the Ted's toys to depower his suit, and whacks him in the head with a chunk of rebar and concrete.

Ouch.

Max then explains to Booster that he misses him, and he's sorry about Ted, but that he's still trying to save the world from all those pesky superpeople. He stomps off, and Booster manages to get a message to Skeets, who comes a'running, along with Captain Shiny-Pants, Fire and Ice. This is the precise moment that Max pulls his little mind-whammy jammy, with the plasma and ice bath, and lo and behold, the entire world forgets all about old Max Lord. With the exception of the above mentioned old JLI'ers, who are now stuck with trying to catch Max all on their own.

This is good stuff, and I can hardly wait to see what happens next. All I can say, is that Guy had better show up.

I even broke down and bought a copy of R.E.B.E.L.S, because it had a couple of new Green Lanterns on the cover...and darn it, it's a good book! Tony Bedardis going to be the new writer on Green Lantern Corps, and based on his handling of this book, I will say that it is in good hands.

I even bought the new Prince of Power book from Marvel, which continues the story of Amadeus Cho, who is still trying to find Hercules. It continues to entertain mightily. And while I was at it, I picked up numbers 1 and 2 of Thor and the Warriors Four, which teams up Thor and the Power Pack, because it is simply adorable.

So! A really really decent week all around! Not a clunker in the bunch.

14 Comments:

At 12:29 PM, Blogger Sea-of-Green said...

Interesting that Hal is included in the team going out to find Bruce. Hal's isn't exactly one of the first faces Bruce would want to see after being hopelessly time-lost -- unless Bruce is looking for something to punch. ;-)

 
At 12:40 PM, Blogger SallyP said...

Heh.

Actually, I was quite surprised to see Booster! I know that Bruce thinks relatively highly of him, but I didn't think that Superman or Hal would have given him the time of day.

 
At 1:45 PM, Blogger CalvinPitt said...

Weren't Hal, Supes, and Booster assembled by Rip Hunter? I thought there was going to be another mini-series about them being the Time Masters. So perhaps Rip insisted Booster be included. I can't figure Hal's inclusion, either, though.

About Booster Gold, when you say they aren't happy Max shows up on the screen, do you mean Rip and Booster aren't happy, or Rip and Max? I'm guessing the former, but I don't want to rule out Max being powerful enough to detect Rip Hunter's machines zeroing in on him.

 
At 2:43 PM, Blogger Saranga said...

captain shinypants. heh.

 
At 2:57 PM, Blogger SallyP said...

If you look at the picture, you can see the time bubble in the background, with someone...presumably Rip...in it.

 
At 7:12 PM, Blogger ShellyS said...

Haven't read them all yet, but BoP rocked for sure. I'm so glad it's back.

 
At 8:43 PM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

Don't read Titans: Villains for Hire unless you want all your happy shinyness scratched off.

I like that theory, Sea. They included Hal in the rescuing party because nothing soothes a tormented lost soul or says "Welcome home!" like punching a Green Lantern. Especially if you're Batman.

 
At 8:50 PM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

Oh, and I'm confused about why Hawk is running around free as a bird (hee) too. If poor Captain Boomerang gets KOd by Barry Allen and thrown into the pokey the moment he returns from the dead, why is the abominable Hank Hall allowed to roam at will? Considering how much crap Hal Jordan went through when he came back, I'm surprised nobody has gone after Hank for that whole Extant foolishness yet. If Atom Smasher and the Justice Society don't come calling at some point, I'll be very disappointed...

 
At 9:11 PM, Blogger Erin S. said...

Curious note: When you said it was the cave and not the embassy I had to take another look. It's the embassy but it SHOULD be the cave as Max claims that he marched Booster "right through that door" to join the league.

 
At 9:13 AM, Blogger Your Obedient Serpent said...

Arynne is absolutely correct. Titans: Villains for Hire was so abysmal that it managed to wreck any enjoyment I'd gotten from the other DC books this week.

It's not just that it was poorly-written and ill-conceived. It's that it managed, despite all that, to have far-reaching repercussions and to exemplify the Unfortunate Implications underlying Brightest Day and the rollback of the DCU to as stagnant version of the Pre-Crisis status quo.

 
At 11:45 AM, Blogger SallyP said...

Oh, I heard all about Titans, and I'm not touching it with a ten foot pole. Or even an eleven foot pole.

Bah!

Chris Sims was right.

 
At 6:18 PM, Blogger mathematicscore said...

Good choince on R.E.B.E.L.s, one of my favorite books out there now. A must for space cases!

 
At 8:36 PM, Blogger LissBirds said...

I liked Booster Gold on the whole, but I can't help but feel a little miffed that they broke a few of the time traveling rules set down in Juergen's run. No way would Rip have let him keep that little girl if it happened a month ago...

I forgot Rip Hunter is showing up in The Return of Bruce Wayne. Damn. This means I need to read it.

 
At 6:46 PM, Blogger Erin S. said...

LissBirds: Actually they left it rather vague if Booster could bring Rani back. It looks doubtful that Rip planned for this (Giffin even said the note was supposed to look more scribbled) but like Booster says solid time isn't supposed to work for the future. So basically Rani is an unknown element thrown into the mix. Rip doesn't tell Booster that she had to die so I assume it's not a problem.

 

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