Thursday's Reviews of Wednesday's Comics

Well, that wasn't a bad little week at all.  And also, Happy Vernal Equinox!  Snow is still covering the ground and it was about 29 degrees this morning.  Spring!

But anyway.

Batman '66 #9

God,  I love this book.  It is no coincidence that most of my favorite books as of late, Loki, Daredevil, Li'l Gotham, Batman '66, She-Hulk, and Hawkeye, are all fairly light-hearted in their tone.  True, there are still kicks to the face, but the atmosphere is much sunnier than the rest of the Comic World.  But I guess I am not their target afterall.  I'm just a girl! 

But I digress.

Batman and Robin are buried up to their necks in sand pit menaced by scorpions!  They have been put there by Zelda, the Escape Artist, in an attempt to figure out how exactly Batman gets out of those innumerable Death Traps.  Well...he IS Batman after all!  It's even better when they are hanging over a pit full of vipers, and she takes her attention off of him for a minute...and of course, misses his escape completely. 

Then Alfred's evil cousin Egbert is released from prison.  Naturally, being evil, Egbert bonks Alfred on the head and takes his place as Bruce Wayne's Butler, even answering the Bat Phone and telling Commissioner Gordon to bugger off, or words to that effect.  How they all managed to miss his egregious Cockney accent, is beyond me, but then I'm not the World's Greatest Detective.  They do figure it out eventually, and a comeuppance for Egbert is in store.

So...much...fun!


Batman & Aquaman #29

While this isn't fun, in the laughing-out-loud sort of fashion, it IS a pretty darned good book.  Batman is hot on the trail of Ra's Al Ghul, who has run off with Talia's and Damian's bodies, and is naturally planning all sorts of things.  Batman ends up underwater, with none other than  Titus along for the ride.  He's found a bunch of dead bodies chained up underwater, which Pat Gleason depicts with his usual verve.  Then Aquaman shows up.  He's been tracing the screams of whales to this very spot.  And he's not...happy.

Ra's notices their arrival, and makes a break for it, while throwing both henchmen and horrible horrible clones of Damian at the two of them.  And the reason for the Whale screams?  Ra's has been butchering whales, in order to grow his clones in their stomachs for some reason.

Eeeuw! 

Naturally, Aquaman is really really ticked. So is Bats. 

Ra's gets away, but Batman knows where he is going.  Paradise Island, no less, so he stops by and says hello to Diana.

Pretty darned good!


Batwoman #29

Kate, on the advise of Maggie, goes to see a shrink, and she's rude, combative and not open to any sort of advice.  A typical Bat, in other words.  She has figures out that the stolen paintings aren't worth much in and of themselves, but apparently have something else in common...or something. 

Wolf Spider is after the last two paintings, one of which is in Arkham...naturally.  The other is at the Kane Family Estate.  Naturally.

He goes after the Akrham one first, and takes care of some inept guards.  He does have good point about the level of professionalism among the Arkham guards.  Kate is there before him, and naturally they fight, and naturally he gets away and she's stuck with all of the newly released prisoners.  I could have told you that, before I ever read it.

It isn't a bad story, but it is a bit predictable.  But not terrible.

Green Lantern: New Guardians #29

Kyle fights X'Hal, who is not what she seems.  Other people fight too.  Carol is snarky.  The New new Guardians hover around and don't do anything.  The end.

I'm dropping this.  I can't believe I am saying this about a Green Lantern book, but I don't care in the least.  Kyle is boring, Carol is boring the Guardians are boring.  Apparently the Larfleeze book is also being ended, and I'm glad.  I love Giffen and DeMatteis, but I just couldn't get into that book either.  They were trying too hard, and it fell flat.  I may just see the issues with G'Nort however, because I love G'Nort.


Wonder Woman #29

Well, the First Born has killed Apollo, and destroyed Olympus, because that is the sort of thing that he does.  But before he died, Apollo restored her Godhood to Hera, which is a good thing.  He's busy killing the rest of them, when she shows up, and brings back the Amazons.  Woohoo!  And Diana figures that she had better stop fooling around and start being the God of War.

I keep waiting for that Baby to actually do something, but I guess that will come.  The art is amazing as usual, and I've been enjoying this take on the Greek Gods.  Diana is a bit of a player in her own book, but that is STILL better than what they have been doing with her in Justice League. 

Needs more Orion though.

Daredevil #1

Woohoo!  Waid and Samnee are back, and so is Matt Murdock, who is now camped out in San Francisco, and rescuing a kidnapped little girl. He is having a bit of trouble adapting however, to a new environment.  He knew New York like the back of his hand, and out in California, the buildings are lower, and farther apart, and it smells different, and it's a bit of a challenge. 

But it is a rollicking and edge-of-the-seat gripping kind of tale, and I loved it.  Gorgeous art, fun dialogue, and just a damned good book!

Thor: God of Thunder #20

We are simultaneously in the far future with cranky old All-Father Thor, who is fighting Galactus over a dead Earth, and in the present, as Thor teams up with the new SHIELD agent to fight Roxxon. Roxxon has been up to a LOT of very very bad things. 

Incredibly bad things.  And when Thor takes out a bunch of their installations through his carefully focused lighting strikes, Roxxon decides to strike back...and you see trucks headed to Broxton.  Uh Oh.

Beautiful art, and anothervery good story. 

And I FINALLY got a hold of the trade for the last half of Young Avengers, so I got to finally read the last issue, which for some reason, my comic book store never got.  And I'm glad that I did.  I...miss this series, although I am happily reading the new Loki: Agent of Asgard book.  But I really did love these characters, I adore Gillen's writing and McKelvie's art. 

If you haven't read this series, you really should.