An Interesting Day at the Comic Book Store

Well, we are now into "Villains Month" at DC...and I have to say that it was...interesting to say the least.

I have been following the various news and blogs concerning the rather epic boondoggle over DC's lenticular covers for this months books.  I wasn't planning on getting any of them, because gimmicks don't really do all that much for me, and I figured that with all of the trouble in ordering, my beloved Comic Book Store probably wouldn't have them anyway, or only a few.

Well!

It's a good thing that I am a good customer...heck I am probably putting Matt's kids through college, because he gave me ALL of my books with the fancy-ass covers!  He did have a limit of only one of the covers per book, per customer,so that at least as many people as possible can have them, if they want, but I certainly wasn't expecting it.

And...heck, they actually are kinda...cool.

I did get Forever Evil, simply so that I know what the heck is going on, and it is a fairly typical Geoff Johns book.  The Evil version of the Justice League has popped up, due to Pandora's box opening a gateway between their universe and the new 52, and "our" Justice League has been popped somewhere else, so for all intents and purposes, the Bad Guys are now running things, and there are precious few heroes left on earth.

Lex Luthor isn't quite sure that he wants to be involved in all of this, but he is busy making an Offer That He Can't Refuse to a certain Mr. Kord.

Not Ted, but presumably his father?  Oh...Ted!

*ahem*

But all the Bad Guys show up and start recruiting MORE Bad Guys, and Nightwing does his best to help, but gets captured, and his identity is rather rudely exposed, which will probably lead to all sorts of problems.

It isn't a terrible book, and it does set things up for the latest little brouhaha.  I rather miss Ivan Reis and Doug Mahnke however.  David Finch is a decent enough artist, although I find that ALL of his women look Exactly Alike.  Exactly.

Fairest #19

This has been revolving around Prince Charming, whom it turns out is NOT dead, which is probably a good thing, and a young lady who went to him for help and is resisting his...er...charms, in order to save her village.  And who does it turn out to be bedeviling her village, but Bigby's reprobate Wolf brothers!  Charming manages to talk them  into helping him instead, but there are some problems along the way.

This has been a pretty nice arc, and the art is pretty, and I'm glad that Charming is back.

The Creeper #23.l

I'm not even sure what this is a replacement for, but it was in my box, so I got it.  And geez...this is creepy as all get out!  Dan Didio writes it, and it has to do with an entity that inhabits bodies, and the samurai who originally had Katanna's sword, and  Jack Ryder comes into it somehow, so I suppose this is the replacement book for Katanna, which I have not been reading.

It isn't bad, although I don't think it is quite my cup of tea.  But still, not a terrible read.

Darkseid #23.l

This is by Greg Pak, and whooey, it is actually pretty good!  It goes into how Darkseid came to be...well Darkseid, not to mention some of the other New Gods, and what is going on with Apokolips, and even ties in a little bit the previous Universe, that existed before ours, which incidentally is also explored in the Green Lantern book.

I've always liked the New Gods, and I've always had a bit of a soft spot for Darkseid, so I liked it.

Deadshot #23.l

This replaces the Justice League, or at least one of the Justice Leagues, and since I absolutely adore Lawton, I was happy as a clam to read this.  It has a new origin for him, which in a way rather echoes that of Batman, although he is poor this time instead of a bored rich playboy, and he is out for vengeance, which naturally he gets, and there is a fair amount of shooting, which also is natural.  But heck,Matt Kindt does  a decent job of it, and it has Keith Champagne, which automatically makes it a good read in my book.

I do miss his fabulous mustache however.

Grodd #23.l

This takes the place of the Flash.  After all the kerfuffle with the Gorillas an issue or so ago, they all got together and decided to coexist in peace, which is a nice thing, except that Grodd shows up and takes over and makes a bunch of gorillas and humans...Kneel before Grodd!  This made me chuckle.

The Rogues are supposed to show up next month, which is a good thing, because I really like the Rogues too.

Joker #23.l

I'm not exactly sure how I ended up with this book either, it is written by Andy Kubert, but I gues it is filling in for Batman.  I thought that the Joker had fallen off a cliff in the Batcave, but since he is pretty much unkillable, I guess he's  back.  This gives him a new origin, and a new sidekick, in the form of a gorilla.

DC sure loves its gorillas.  It was...ok.  I have to admit to being a bit tired of the Joker.  He doesn' seem to do anything very clever anymore except rack up huge body counts, which is tedious.  It was ok, but I don't think I'll pick it up again.

Relic #23.l

This was the replacement for Green Lantern, and it was...Good!  We finally get an explanation for what the heck is going on with the rings, and who Relic actually is.  He is from the previous universe, and manged to cross the wall, that is so often alluded to in the New Gods history.  They had the same light in the old universe, and they used it more or less in the same way, except he figured out that there was a finite amount of it, and that the old wielders were far too profligate with its use.  So now that he is in our much younger universe, he is trying to prevent the various corps from making the same mistake.

This is interesting, and a good job by Robert Venditti.

Two Face #23.l

Now this was a good Bat Book!   The Bad Guys are busy recruiting, and Two Face decides that he'll play along, but ONLY if he is allowed to use his coin, and ONLY if the new Bad Guys abide by the coin's decisions.  Naturally things don't work out quite the way that he plans, and there is a fair amount of mayhem.  I missed Pat Gleason, Guillem March is  not one of my favorite artists, but the artwork is servicable anough.

But man, this was good.

Ventriloquist #23.1

I'll say right off the bat, that this substitute for Batgirl scared the living wee out of me.  That is one helluva creepy villain there!  The new Ventriloquist wants an audience, so she lures the hungry and confused citizens into her theater, where they watch her show in mounting horror and unease.  A gang of thugs decides the audience is an easy mark and they show up and naturally mayhem ensues.

Creepy.  Seriously creepy.

This has been interesting so far, and I am looking forward to some of the books, mainly the Rogues and the rest of the Green Lantern books, but I'll be just as glad when we get the Heroes back.  And I do wonder what Lex is up to.