Super Reviews

Egad but that was a delightful week.  Lots and lots and lots of books came in.  Interesting books.  Quirky books.


Action Comics #

I'm not completely positive, but I think that this is Grant Morrison's last issue of Superman, and it is a good one.  Ties up the lose ends, epic battle, and all of that stuff.  Krypto is in it, which is nice, although he is more wolf-looking than Krypto-looking.  Evil gets its comeuppance, Lex Luthor is  mildly amusing, and Superman is pretty awesome.

The back-up story by Sholly Fisch is rather adorable, and mostly wordless, but involves a museum, cute little alien kids, the Legion and bullies.  Rather sweet really.

I still rather hanker after young Superman in his work boots and jeans, because I find that new costume to be hideous...but what can you do?



Birds of Prey #18

Well, Canary is angsting a bit about her superpower being out of control, Barbara is hovering, and Strix is hungry.  Oh, and Mister Freeze is busy torturing a captured Talon, in order to find out some...stuff apparently.  It doesn't work, so he decides to go after the next available Talon, which of course happens to be Strix, and there is a fight, and Starling is kidnapped by Freeze.  In between all of this, Dinah wanders off to a diner and gets some advice from an old lady. 

I'm not sure why, but boy, this seemed to be a little thin of content.  It just took minutes to read, and all there was at the back of the book was more pages with ads for more DC comics.  I counted only 20 pages of story, and one of those was a two-page splash.  The rest was ads and filler, which padded the book out a bit. 

It was...ok.  Nothing mind-boggling.  Some standing around, some angsting and the surprise attack by Freeze, and a kidnapping.  That's it.


Constantine #1

Well, it isn't Hellblazer anymore.  John is still pretty much a bastard, and he pretty much sacrifices one of his acquaintances, and he's pretty cold-blooded about it.  Also, a bunch of former magical good guys are now apparently magical bad guys, who have been corrupted by the power of magic, which rather startled me.  I mean...Zatarra? 

I'm still not quite used to having John wandering around New York City.  It just seems a little off.  But not terrible by any means.  Just not outstanding either.

Gee...I seem to be fairly ambivalent towards my comics now that I am sitting down and writing about them.  I enjoyed them all well enough as I was reading them.


Fables #127

Well, Snow White has been kidnapped by Prince Whatshisname, who says that since they were pledged, it means that they are actually married, and all that stuff with Prince Charming and Bigby never happened. 

However, Beast manages to capture my heart, by outfoxing the Blue Fairy at the very beginning of the book, as she is coming for Gepetto, by claiming that Gepetto wants to marry her, so she can't kill him, and to send in a proxy to do her wooing.  The poor Fairy, who isn't the brightest pixie dust in the place, agrees, and Reynaud the Fox, is properly impressed with Beast's brilliance at stalling.  And you'll never guess who the proxy turns out to be, or why she is in King Ambrose's bath tub!

Snow White, isn't taking to her captivity lying down, but the Prince has figured out a way, to thwart any attempts at rescue, an attack on him, automatically hurts her.  She does figure out how to send Ghost after Bigby, and Rose Red is all set to storm the castle, with a pretty smart plan of her own...and then Bigby Shows up...
...and he's not happy at all.

This was pretty darned good.  It has been dragging a bit lately, but things have certainly picked up and gotten interesting again.  Plus I am a sucker for Snow White and Bigby anyway.


Green Lantern:New Guardians 318

Oh good grief.


Justice League #18

And a-recruiting we shall go!  Up on the Satellite of Love, the Justice League decides that perhaps Cyborg is right, and they need a B-team, so after a bit of back and forth, they haul a bunch of candidates up to look them all over.  We have a motley bunch, consisting of Black Canary, Black Lightning, Element Woman, Firestorm, Goldrush, Nightwing, Platinum, Vixen and Zatanna. 

That is a fairly catholic bunch, I must admit.  It is also nice to have a fair number of women under consideration, since there is only Wonder Woman in the first bunch.

Blue Devil is there too, but apparently he and Black Lightning are partners now, which I think that I may have known, but forgot about.  Goldrush is busy flirting like mad with Barry, who is acting an awful lot like Wally.  Platinum is losing her marbles,  Will Magnus hasn't done that great a job with her, and she certainly sounds completely robotic as opposed to the flirty and fun Tina that I am familiar with. 

Naturally a fight breaks out, and they decide that Platinum is nuts and won't be making the cut.  And the Atom shows up, except he is a she, by the name of Rhonda Pineda, and she's from Ivy , which is nice, but man, I was hoping for Ryan. 

The art is pretty. 

The backup with Shazam is a bit more compelling, the rest of the kids realize that Billy is Shazam, mainly because Freddy tells them so...and the evil rich father with the evil bully kids shows up with some cops, and does his evil business.  Black Adam is still looking for Shazam, and  Doctor Sivana shows up with the seven sins.

The art is lovely, and I have to admit that although I find this new version of Billy rather obnoxious, I am anxious to see what happens.

Justice League of America #2

Waller continues to assemble her team, Steve Trevor continues to sigh a lot, and the B-Team shows up.  Star Girl is bouncy and happy, Vibe is a bit out of his depth, Ollie is in the hospital, Katanna is cranky, Catwoman is flirty, Simon Baz doensn't show up because he is busy being dead with Hal,  and  Hawkman provides me with a genuine moment of mirth, when he shows up at the meeting covered with blood,which completely freaks out poor Vibe.  Hawkman calmly says that it isn't his blood, so what is the big deal?

Haw! 

Oh, and the President wasn't too happy about needing this second team, the purpose of which is to protect us from the first team, until J'onn saves him from assassination.  I wouldn't put it past Waller to have set up the killer in the first place, since that is exactly the sort of thing that she would do.  Also, the new League doesn't have a clue as to their real purpose, although I am pretty sure that J'onn knows perfectly well. 

It isn't a bad set up, and I'll be interested in seeing where they go with this.


Vibe #2

More Vibe stuff.  He uses his awesome power and catches a kid robbing a convenience store, which is very heroic of him.  Dale Gunn shows up, which is nice although there aren't any women fighting over him.  Waller continues to fight with Steve Trevor. 

There is an alien showing up, and Vibe is the only one who can see him, and it turns out that he is a messenger from the father of one of the prisoners being held in a containment unit by Amanda Waller.  So...Gypsy is...an Alien?

Seriously?

And we all end up at the same ceremony in Washington that we ended up at in Justice League of America.

Gypsy is an alien?


Wonder Woman #18

Now this book was pretty darned fantabulous.

Diana has found Demeter's realm, along with War.  Hermes isn't happy at all.  Diana still doesn't know why he has seemingly betrayed her, and he isn't being very forthcoming.  But he figures that her showing up with Ares is a betrayal of HIM. So naturally they fight for a while

Meanwhile the First Born is fighting Poseidon, and being quite a nasty boy.

Hermes is whipping her butt, when Orion shows up on his cool little sky-cycle thingie, and they fly around for a bit, chased by Hermes, until Diana slices one of his ankle wings off, which has to hurt.  Ares in the meantime has gone in search of Demeter, and they talk for a while, until he rips her stomach open and pulls out Zora's kid.

Poseidon swallows the First Born.  This is probably not as final as it looks.

Diana goes in search of Demeter, for fear that she is hurt, which rather startles Demeter, since she figured that anyone who was palling around with Ares would have left her for dead.  She tells Diana that Ares has split with the baby, which makes Diana very very cranky.  She and Orion have a heart to heart tal,and then off they go, and lo and behold...!

...Everyone, including the baby is hanging out at the apartment!  Zola, the baby, Ares, Strife, Hera, and Lennox!  Orion admits that he is happy that the kid is a boy,he would have hated to snuff a baby girl.

And we have a happy ending of sorts.

It won't last of course, but still...!  I enjoyed the heck out of this.

And in a weird sort of way...I can't help but  think that Orion looks a hell of a lot like Guy Gardner, and the way that he is fighting/flirting with Diana is a lot like the way they used to interact back in the old Justice League! So I am having twice as much fun.

Dang, this is a good book.

Finally...


Saga #11

I can hardly express how much I love this book.

WE have a sexy sexy flashback with Marko and Alana and quite possibly Hazel's conception.  Then back to the present, where their ship is in the grip of the vortex, space monster thingie, and they are stuck.  In the other ship,the Will goes jumpin out into space to rescue Lying Cat, which makes me SO relieved, since I really really like Lying Cat.  

The little slave girl he rescued is ok, and Marko's ex girlfriend is ok, and she's even happier now that the Will actually saw their ship.  On their ship, Marko's mother wants him to take the magic helmets and Hazel and escape, but he throws them into the furnace that powers their ship, which gives them enough power to escape.  Except that his father Barr has to use his power to hold the ship together and has the inevitable heart attack, which made me sad, because he was pretty awesome.

The art is fabulous, the dialogue is a hoot, and gosh, I love this book.

So...not a bad week at all.