Reviews
End of the month, and more books than usual. This is not a bad thing.
Batgirl #45
You know...I'm not really sure that I'm feeling this. Babs is running about saving everyone at her friend's wedding, by supplying earring backs, and bowties, and guarding the ring. It actually appears to be an engagement ring instead of a wedding ring, which confuses me. She's snuggling up to her new beau, Luke Fox, when who should come slithering through the window, but...Dick Grayson!
Yep, he's not dead, and wants to make smooches with Babs, which doesn't go over really well with Luke. Dick steals the ring and goes prancing over the rooftops with Babs in hot pursuit.
Seriously? He's just being a royal jerk at this point. She has a responsibility to her friends, and he's being a prat. She eventually gets the ring back, he sulks, she makes it in time, and the wedding happens, but yeesh!
Oh, and there is some sort of cliffhanger with a...guy in silhouette.
I just wanted to punch the ostensible heroes in this issue, which is probably not the reaction they were going for.
Batman '66 #28
Now THIS book was great! Just in time for Halloween, Batman and Robin end up fighting the Scarecrow, who is going around scaring people as is his wont. They travel back to his boyhood home, and discover that he's using...something that causes the fear, but that the local people are immune to...from eating grits. I kid you not. It's all hillbilly humor, but it is a hoot.
Also, they battle Killer Croc, and capture him in the sewers, because that is what they do. Fabulous!
Robin: Son of Batman #5
Well, Talia is back, and she's scared to death. Damian and Ducard have been going around restoring all the relics and stuff that Damian stole during his Year of Blood, but now that he's doing that it has given rise to some baddies, and Talia is scared stiff. Damian's old mutant brothers help out, which is nice, , and as usual the art is amazing.
The Al Ghuls are back!
Section Eight #5
This book just keeps getting stranger and stranger, and who shows up but...the Phantom Stranger! A hip-hop version of the Phantom Stranger, and he takes Six Pack on a tour of Limbo for some reason, where he runs into his old dead buddies.
Then Superman shows up at the end. I honestly don't think that it is in my power to actually explain what happened here, other than trippy doesn't even begin to describe it. But it's kinda fun in a really weird sort of way.
Really.
Sinestro #16
Well, Sinestro decides to come to earth and hang out with Black Adam, who is running Kahndaq, and apparently running it quite well. They seem like frenemies, which is all that Sinestro really has anyway. It turns out that Adam fought some of the Pale Bishops waaaay in the past, and Sinestro wants some information. Also, Soranik thinks that Adam is hot. Which he is.
Then Adam and Sinestro go walking into some ancient tombs, fight off some ancient dead guardians, and lo and behold, come across the ancient mummy of a...Guardian? I mean Guardian as in little blue guy Guardian!
This should be very interesting.
I also got the cover with Sinestro as Grumpy Cat, and it's rather hilarious.
Angela: Queen of Hel #1
This is a bit convoluted actually. When Angela was stolen by the angels, Queen Freyja was so pissed, that she cursed all angels to serve as slaves in Hel when they died. Well, Sera died, so Angela decides to go to Hel and get her back. She ends up taking over from Hela, but that's not what we actually get, but a really really complicated flash-back with Angela fighting a Hierophant, and then fighting Sera who was pissed that when she died Angela didn't come and save her.
Well, since she didn't KNOW that she had to, I would say that perhaps Sera should cut her a little slack. Not quite sure where all of this is going, but I guess I'll be hanging around to find out for now.
Squirrel Girl #1
Another number One! Really, they just pick up from where they left off, mostly. Doreen, and her chums save some people from a fire, and move into their new apartment, where Doreen has a really nifty transporter to the New Avengers Headquarters. But that is all that it transports you to, which she finds to be a bummer.
Also, she and Nancy go and have lunch with her mom. Nancy isn't too enthusiastic at first, but she and Doreen's mom, Maureen, get along like a house afire! And then they are attacked by...Brain Drain! An old Hydra guy with a robot body and exposed brain! They beat him up pretty handily considering his robot body is all vacumn tubes and duct tape, and then realize that perhaps they over-reacted, and build him a new body out of Nancy's cell phone and talk to him for a while. He's really not all that bad, just confused.
It is hilarious and adorable and....adorable. God I love this book.
posted by SallyP @ 9:21 AM
12 Comments:
Apparently Dick is going after Kori AND Barbara since he's appearing in Starfire soon. Classy Dick. Although it sounds like Kori might chose her love interest over him too. Honestly I don't like how most writers are writing characters that aren't "theirs" lately. No one seems to know how to do team ups, etc. without making one or more guest stars look bad. Dick sounds like a horrible in this.
Geez, Batgirl sounds pretty awful.
Dick is really coming off as a major sleezebag in this, and I am not sure why the writers chose to go that route. I didn't know he was being a pill with Starfire as well.
Babes looked a bit like a pill as well. Why does DC think that having all the Bat characters be douche nozzles is a good thing?
I think it's a two parter in Starfire, their kissing on the latest cover. Despite the fact other writers depicted something bad happening with Kori not wanting to see Dick to the point she refused Jasons' offer to come into the manor.
From what I heard Babs looks like she's using Luke? She's had some horrible behavior in other books. She's screamed at Dick for doing another case when Joker was gunning for them, told him she's smarter than him so she knows who he should date and with others? She's been condescending to the TT, physically/verbally abusive to Jason for no good reason and lashing out at Bruce when he didn't deserve it.
Jason has been made into the class clown, a stereotypical Street kid, an overly naïve guy that seemed to stumble into his life choices and many other out of character portrayals. If writers are going to use this characters they should research and in this love triangle mess realize no one comes out looking good. At least Snyder admitted having trouble and no longer uses Damian for that reason.
Damian of all people is actually trying to right past wrongs in his own book. Naturally, being Damian... he has his own unique spin on things, but it is entertaining.
I think Damians' change makes more sense since he's had time with the family and fears going (returning?) to hell. Plus, like you said it's written better.
Great reviews Sally. I thought the characterization of Dick was a bit off putting too, maybe he was so guilty for lying about his death he just created the situation to deflect. But it seemed out of character for him, and out of character with how he acted in his own book. As to the Luke romance, that seemed to come out of nowhere and not develop organically to me.
I also agree with Erin about Jason Todd's characterization. It's like the writers have said 'we've got these serious Robins, we need a class clown one...' To be honest, I never thought they should have brought him back. That was a pretty powerful classic story they upended, which would have served to forever remind us of the dangers of what our heroes do, marking something important in our hero rivaling the trauma of their origin story. It would be like bringing Gwen Stacy back in Spiderman. Oh, wait...
Of all the people to pick for a Class Clown...they chose Jason? The kid has severe anger issues...at least that is the way that he always seemed to me. Not necessariy the class clown type. As a matter of fact, considering what they do, having ANY of the Robins as goof-offs would seem to be ridiculous.
Mista Whiskas: I respectfully disagree on it being wrong to bring him back. They never should have killed him in the first place. There were other stories of the dangers and lost of innocence. Aqua baby comes to mind which I still can't believe they did.
Sally: I think Jasons' a class clown in Batman and Robin Eternal. Every once in awhile someone tells me their messing up the characters in that book (I heard Dick's' messed up too) and he behaves in ways he doesn't in his own title. I've seen a few awful scans. Jasons' actually not angry like he once was. RHATO had him make peace with Bruce and let go of his anger to move on. Lately Roys' been going through some bad stuff and pushing Jason into going into business, testing out a flamethrower invention on Jason when he was in the shower, spending all their money, etc. Jason has gotten frustrated but he's been INCREDIBLY patient with Roy and done everything he can to make sure he's okay. True although the Robins tell their jokes their all highly capable.
I expect Ted and Booster to clown around. Not the Bat Family so much.
Erin, I appreciate the polite disagreement. I think a Robin is a more significant, archetypal example of the inherent seriousness and dangerousness of what our heroes in comics do, and given they'd already committed to the idea of having multiple and successive Robins that it was a more logical example.
Sally, that's a good point. Interestingly, I was reading a collection of the Wolfman/Perez Titans the other day where Robin (Dick) tells Beast Boy 'I was cracking puns way before you.' Maybe Dick should be the class clown (if any of the Robins has to be).
Having a young Dick Grayson as an eager, wise-cracking Robin is deliciously nostalgic...a reminder of when comics were more innocent, and the Joker wasn't a mass murderer, and nobody had their hands cut off, or died and came back twelve times and... well, you know.
I rather miss that. One of the reasons why I have been enjoying Squirrel Girl so much. The joy that has more or less disappeared from so many comics.
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