Reviews!

Not a clunker in the bunch. This was a rather fabulous week, all things considered.

Let us begin with Batman & Robin #20. Finally...FINALLY we have Peter Tomasi and Pat Gleason back together again. Oh boys...I've missed you! This was a pretty darned good issue. We begin with Dick, Tim, Alfred and Damian making smoothies and popcorn in the kitchen, and then heading in to watch a 70" television screen. Bruce obviously doesn't skimp on the essentials. Oh, and Bruce does show up, and they all settle back to watch "The Mark of Zorro". Once Bruce removes Damian's i-pod earbuds, that is.

*sigh*

It was a rather special moment. And then we get Dick and Damian as Bats and Robin out doing their thing, before leaping into the car driven by Alfred, so that Dick can attend some opera. Alfred continues to be sensational, tying a bow-tie ONE HANDED, while maneuvering a car no less. He also mentions "What's Opera Doc?" which just makes my girlish heart go pitter-pat. And then some guy with angel wings ends up splattered all over the red carpet, which is something of a downer.

They scrape the poor fellow up and take him to the police morgue, where Robin is being snarky, much to the displeasure of Commissioner Gordon, who lets the little brat know that he doesn't much appreciate his attitude. Then they're back up on the roofs and Batman finds a suicide note inside a gargoyle's mouth. Oh, and Manbat shows up for some reason.

This was really really good.

Birds of Prey #9. Black Canary is having something of a rough time, since she was touched by Mortis in the last issue. She's busy revisiting every regret she's had...and she just happens to have a lot. I rather agree with Ollie's remarks however. In the meantime, the rest of them have been "kidnapped" by the Calculator and his henchmen and henchwomen. Zinda isn't making it particularly easy on the various henchpeople. I just love that woman to death. Hawk shows up and is obnoxious, but that's par for the course. Batman is surprisingly UN-obnoxious.

Canary in the meantime manages to break Mortis' little mind-whammy, which doesn't surprise me particularly, but it IS rather satisfying when she does it. Mortis certainly wasn't expecting it. And the hostages decide that enough is enough,and Dove goes to town. Then Oracle shows up in a black helicopter and gets blown up by the Calculator.

Yeah right. Again, this was a lot of fun.

Cinderella: Fables Are Forever #1

More of Cinderella, super-spy extraordinaire! I don't know that I would wear a bikini in the middle of a Russian winter, but that IS a nice hat on the cover. It's actually a bit of a flashback, wherein she's investigating some Russian Fables, who set up shop completely separate from Fabletown. It's here that she first runs up against another agent code-named Silverslipper. And who that actually turns out to be was a TOTAL surprise to me...and yet...it works and works wonderfully.

Excellent. As usual.

The Flash #9. The premise that leads to Flashpoint apparently gets its start here. They are reopening a bunch of cold cases, so Barry has to go into work on the weekend, so he misses the picnic, much to the chagrin of the rest of the speedsters, but at least we get to see Wally and family briefly. But they've found the body of an old man. Barry is quite startled to learn his identity from his fingerprints, as it turns out to be a kid named Elastic Boy. Boy? That seems...odd. And then some guy on a REALLY fast motorcycle shows up, and Barry chases him, till they finally catch up, and he's again QUITE startled at the identity of the rider.

I...am intrigued.

Green Lantern: Emerald Warriors #7.

Oh...my...God. Last week, over at CBR, Greg Hatcher wrote a rather interesting essay titled "Saturday's Irrelevant Relevance". He said among other things that one of the things that makes a comic good is that one moment, that "Fuck Yeah!" moment. Well, let me just say that this book had that moment.

In Spades. More tomorrow.

Justice League: Generation Lost #19.

I do have to say that the covers to this book have been uniformly excellent. And with a couple of caveats this is a pretty decent issue. In what seems to be a flashback, Jaime is talking to Paco and Brenda about the powers of the Scarab. Of course, he's actually providing information to Max Lord, who is having an awfully good time torturing our young Blue Beetle.

Meanwhile, the rest of the gang is happy that Power Girl is finally on board, but they want to have her go to the rest of the Heroes and fill them in on what is REALLY going on. And this time, it doesn't seem as though she's going to forget, which is a step forward. It's nice that things do seem to finally be coming together. Oh, and somehow between the last issue and this one, Tora decided to go with the bare midriff look. Yecchhh. For God's sake Tora, have a little dignity.

Back at the Checkmate lab, Jaime manages to get the Scarab rebooting, and sends out an SOS to the JLI, and manages to hold off a furious Max. It turns out that Max and Ivo have been hiding out inside what appears to be a giant Knight chess-piece under the Sea of Japan. So, our doughty heroes and heroines bust in, and Max does what he does best, and shoots another Blue Beetle in the head.

Again...yeah right.

I mean... I suppose that it IS possible that they have once again killed off both a minority and legacy character, albeit a very popular one. This IS Winick after all. And they show Booster cradling Jaime's body on the cover of the next issue. But it is all being just a little bit TOO telegraphed. In a way it is a little bit insulting...it almost feels like we're being taunted in a way. But I'm not going to start screaming...yet.

Yet.

And finally, Legacies #9. Our rapidly aging humble cop continues to tell the story of the DC heroes, this time focusing on Hal Jordan as Parallax. Superman is back, and Batman is healed, but Hal went bonkers, and Kyle showed up, and then there was Final Night and Hal re-ignited the sun, and then took over as the Spectre. It's not a bad little recap. What continues to baffle me however, is that the narrator seems to fluctuate in age so rapidly. Everyone else seems to have only aged a couple of years, but he's gone from being a robust blond cop during Final Night to a ninety-year old retiree in a flash. Seems a bit weird.

But still...an awfully good week.