Thursday's Reviews

And the new books just continue to roll along. We had some palpable hits, and a few misses this week.

Batman & Robin #1

Tomasi and Gleason! Woohoo! Damian paired up with Bruce instead of Dick! Slightly less woohoo, but still not bad.

We begin with...something...picking off the various Batmen Inc., at least that is my assumption. Tough luck for the poor Russian Bat. Meanwhile, back at stately Wayne Manor...Bruce is brooding over a photograph of his parents. They're dead, you know. He hauls Damian out of bed, and they go off to Crime Alley, for one last pilgrimage, before it's demolished and rennovated, which is actually a pretty good deal, all things considered. Bruce has finally decided that rather than honor the anniversary of their deaths, he's going to honor their wedding anniversary instead, which is probably the most healthy feeling that he's had in a very long time. Damian is his usual sarcastic and snarky self, But Bruce seems to be...dealing with it. Oh, and the bad guys show up, siphoning off radioactive fluid of some kind, and Robin blows them up, and Bruce saves the block, and all KINDS of cool stuff happens.

This is excellent, as can be expected from these two creators.

Batwoman #1

It's been one heck of a long wait for this book, but it's probably worth it. The artwork is exquisite, naturally. Kate is still running about, although she's a bit at odds with her father at the moment, and seems to be trying to break in a sidekick. She's also trying to find out what is happening to kidnapped children. It's awfully pretty and a bit spooky, and just darned good.

Demon Knights #1

I wasn't going to pick this up, but then I heard some good things about it, and I am awfully glad that I did. It has Etrigan of course, AND Jason Blood, and Madame Xanadu, and Ytsin, and some other people, and Vandal Savage shows up and Mordu and there is sorcery and dragons, and...and stuff. There are some rather amusing moments in with all the mayhem, and the art is pretty and the story moves right along, and by cracky, I'll be continuing with this one.

Green Lantern #1

Oh...that was great. More anon.

Red Lanterns #1

Well...it wasn't terrible. I don't quite know what I was expecting. Dex-Starr shows up and shows off his catlike fury, which was fun. Atrocitus is worried that he's losing his edge. There are a bunch of other Red Lanterns, but they just frolic around being cranky for the most part. Bleez is back to being incoherent, which is a shame. Somehow she must have escaped from Zardor, when she had been taken prisoner in Green Lantern: Emerald Warriors, along with Sodam Yat, a few months back. How did that storyline end, anyway? Oh...that's right...it DIDN'T. Maybe we'll find out what happened eventually.

It was ok. Not great, not terrible.

Resurrection Man #1

Oh Mitch...I've missed you. I loved the original book, and I'm so happy to have it back. Mitch ends up on a plane for some reason, with magnetic powers. And a mysterious woman shows up, and everything goes to heck, and there are OTHER mysterious beings after him, and gosh, it's all just a lot of fun. And pretty decent art again, which is nice.

Suicide Squad #1

Urgh. I wanted to like this, I did. I love Deadshot, and I'm rather fond of Harley, and I even like King Shark from the Secret Six. At first I thought that it was going to BE like the Secret Six...but of course it's not. The Suicide Squad has been captured on their first mission and are being tortured and questioned and whatnot, and poor Savant, gives up and spills the beans, and gets dragged off, and that's the last they see of Savant. The rest of them don't crack however, and it turns out that the whole thing was just a jolly little exercise to see which of them was the toughest. And some thin attractive black woman shows up claiming in to be Amanda Waller.

Haw! That's not Amanda Waller. I don't know what they have done with her, but until she returns, I doubt that I'll be reading this book. And yes, Harley's new outfit is just as painful as it looks, and King Shark is suddenly a hammerhead, and has lost his wit and joie de vivre.

Sigh.

I also picked up Swamp Thing, from last week, and I should have gotten it last week, because it was pretty darned good. AND pretty art. We're doing quite well on the art this week.

I was going to pick up Mister Terrific, but I couldn't find it for some reason. Maybe next week, if we got shorted.

I still miss a lot of things about the OLD DC universe, but thus far, the new one isn't completely awful.