Best Comic and Stuff
Its Wednesday, which means its comic day! And the gods of comics socked my wallet hard this week.
Here's what I got:
Black Adam #2
Booster Gold #2
Countdown #33
Green Lantern #23
Justice League Wedding Special
Justice Society #9
Noble Causes #31
Nova #6
Stormwatch PHD #11
The Search for Ray Palmer #1
Trials of Shazam #8
XMen- Emperor Vulcan #1
Ouch. Lots of good books in there. Countdown continues to be a disappointment, but I am a lame fanboy and am still collecting it. However, if it continues to actually give me no information whatsoever, I might be able to break myself of the habit.
Because I have some time, I'll do a mini review of each book this week.
Black Adam #2 -Gory, gory, gory. This is still a good book to get if you want to see someone who won't let anything get in his way. Teth Adam is way more interesting without superpowers.
Booster Gold #2 - This is Geoff Johns week, with three titles hitting at once. Johns begins to hit his stride in #2. Most of the issue is fluff, but a personal moment between Gold and Guy Gardner makes it good.
Countdown #33 - The art was very hard to take this time around. The story not much better.
Green Lantern #23 - Johns' second title in the queue. "Hitting his stride" is the keyword for all three books. The Sinestro Corps War continues and the plot begins to congeal. Johns does something nice by having the guardians (the little blue guys) first kick out a few of their own members for being "too emotional", and then going to their book of laws and giving their lanterns the ability to use lethal force on Sinestro Corps members (which is a reaction very likley to be based on emotion: specifically fear, which powers the Sinestro Corps. Point Sinestro Corps.)
Justice League Wedding Special - This was Dwayne McDuffie's introductory issue into the Justice League. The first thing he does? Gets rid of Hal and pulls in John Stewart, which is fine by me. John Stewart in McDuffie's hands was always one of the more interesting characters from the cartoon series, which McDuffie helped write and produce. If this wasn't clear, this "Wedding Special" ended up being more of a "Injustice League" intro, which actually made the book more interesting. Finally, just to mention it, Dwayne took Firestorm (whose book he used to write which was cancelled) and nearly killed him in this issue. Hmmm.
Justice Society #9 - Geoff John's last book in the list. The characters have finally started to settle in and Johns gives us a nice scene at a Fireman's breakfast. Lots of character moments, lots of relationship building. These are the kinds of issues you need to develop the feeling of family that you can later exploit in a dramatic way when the danger comes in later. This is my favorite book of the week. And who doesn't like an Alex Ross portrait of Power Girl?
Noble Causes #31 - This book is a serious soap opera. For some reason, they used a somewhat italic-style font that really didn't do too much for my enjoyment of the book. You would think that the type of font they use wouldn't matter much in the overall scheme of things, but, being a long-time comic reader, I've been trained to think of italic-style fonts as being a type of font you use to make a word significant. It is also used to make the reader think that the words are being said in a different language. Or that it's an aside or thought that isn't said, but is sitting in the middle of a bunch of text, so it needs to be differentiated somehow.
Nova #6 - Just when you think things couldn't get any worse... it gets worse. Looking forward to seeing if this book can save itself from the corner its backed itself into.
Stormwatch PHD #11 - Some more character building moments, but I think the writer is starting to distance himself from these characters because the book is going to be cancelled and replaced with a Stormwatch Prime book.
The Search for Ray Palmer #1 - A Countdown spinoff. Better art, but, having read the Captain Atom miniseries last year, this issue is a pale echo of that series as our heroes find themselves in the ultraviolent Wildstorm universe. Speaking of Atom, Monarch shows up and reminds the reader that he isn't Atom anymore, which is lame.
Trials of Shazam #8 - This series is pretty interesting, but has taken too long and now is beginning to be part of the pacing problems DC is having amongst its titles. For instance, Freddy Freeman, who is going through a set of trials to become the next Captain Marvel, shows up this week in Black Adam's book with the full set of powers which he shouldn't have until the end of "Trials", which is ok, because Adam shouldn't have his full set of powers until the end of his miniseries, but he showed up early on in Countdown (several months ago) fully empowered so he could give Mary Marvel her powers. In any case, Trials is a good book, otherwise.
XMen- Emperor Vulcan #1 - I've stopped reading Uncanny XMen, but this miniseries is the continuation of the story I liked following in Uncanny, while Uncanny went to go flounder in crossover hell with the other mainstream X-Books. This book was the "setting the stage" book of the miniseries, and so had to do a lot of exposition about how we got to where we were and defining relationships between people. A good space opera style X-book, which is fine with me. I like Havok better in his old X Factor days, however.
There you go! More content than ever! Why I'm not drawing a gazillion people to my blog is beyond me! :-)
