New Books

I guess I'll take a breather from my self-pity party, sobbing about glorious comical days of yore, by reviewing the NEW books.  And really, they are pretty good.

Batwoman #9

Dang, the art in this is just so pretty.  Kate continues to work with Cameron, and it is more of the same, but it IS good stuff. 

Blue Beetle #9

I read the first and second issues of the NEW new Blue Beetle, and decided that Jaime, Part II was Not For Me.  However, since Kyle is on the cover, how could I resist?  For some reason, Jaime is in New York, when Kyle, followed by Glomulus and Bleez show up, and they naturally have a bit of a misunderstanding, and Jaime inadvertently saves Kyle from a bounty hunter, and then advertently saves him from the same bounty hunter by finding his lantern.  Exactly why Kyle's lantern even still works after being spanked by the Guardians is a question that I cannot answer. 

Kyle is actually written well, which makes sense, because Tony Bedard is doing his book.  There are a few moments of levity when Bleez is sitting on Jaime and he insists to the Suit, that he is NOT aroused.  But the whole issue of the deep and abiding enmity between the Reach and the Lanterns is barely brought up, which is a dissapointment.

Not terrible.  But dang, I still miss old Jaime.  See, I KNEW I could wallow in some nostalgia!

Birds of Prey #9

Well, it ends up crossing over into the whole Owls thing going on in the Bat Books, which I suppose makes the Birds honorary Bats.  Or something.  They are having quite a bit of trouble with their Talon, so it is nice that Batgirl shows up and tells them how to defeat it.  Too bad it doesn't work.  Fortunately, Poison Ivy is still around, and saves their collective butts.


Green Lantern Corps #9

Well, the @#$% has well and truly hit the fan!

Justice League #9

Some guy is dying from some disease, and there is no cure, so he shoots his nice old doctor and decides to go after the Justice League. 

Bwhahah?

Somehow this half-dead guy is able to put the fear of god into a whole bunch of criminals, while simultaneously getting all kinds of information about the JLA, not to mention, torturing Steve Trevor. Incidentally, the press seems to be making mock of the aforesaid Steve Trevor, asking him how it feels to be dumped by Wonder Woman, which seems a bit personal and rude. 

Hal and Barry have some very nice banter about which one of them gets to play Good Cop/Bad Cop.

It's...ok.  There are some nice small character moments, but in the main, I'm not really buying this Graves guy as such a major Bad Guy. 

The backup feature with young Billy Batson is nice.  He's still pretty pissed about having to hang out with teh other kids, but he does come to their rescue at school, beating up some bullies.  Naturally, he is hauled in to see the prinicipal, and she crumbles under the abuse of the rich snotty father of the rich snotty bullies. 

The Shade #9

Now this was lovely.  Art by Jill Thompson, and a Tale of Times Past, which I ALWAYS love.  The Shade is hanging out in a nice opium den in Paris as he strikes up a conversation with  a young wastrel, who, it turns out has quite the tale to tell.  His old buddy summoned up a homonculus who ended up being a bit more than he could handle, and the said homonculus is going around committing all kinds of atrocities and then going back and telling young Caldecott about it. 

Shade decides to come to the rescue, and dispatches the homonculus rather neatly.  Turns out that the Shade is also young Caldecott's grandfather, and he has a rather sweet moment looking at his wife from afar.

Beautiful beautiful stuff.


Wonder Woman #9

And speaking of beautiful, he isn't Cliff Chiang, but Tony Akins does a servicable job of drawing this issue of Wonder Woman.  Diana, having been shot in the heart by Hades, with Eros's own Love Guns, is being primped for her forthcoming marriage.  The primper turns out to be none other than Persephone, who isn't in very good shape. 

Hades invites the whole family to the nuptuals, but only a few of them are coming.  The Greek Gods seem to have family...issues.  Strife and Ares have a fun moment, and she keeps popping up all over the place.  Hephaestus and Eros and Lennox all go, although Aphrodite declines.  And then Diana comes out, all dolled up, having been told to behave by what I presume to believe are the Erynies. 

She looks fantastic and is telling Hades that he's just the ginchiest, but he's not necessarily buying it.  Hades does seem to be something of a Gloomy Gus.

Good Stuff.