Best Comic

Another week, another batch of comics. This week was expensive! Here's what I got:

Batman #669
Blue Beetle #19
Brit #2
Countdown #31
Countdown to Adventure #2
Four Horsemen #2
Iron Man #22
JLA Classified #30
JLA Classified #43
Justice League #13
Paralax #1
Starlord #3
Teen Titans #51


Some good stuff in there, and some less than good stuff.

Weekly Countdown Report: It's been 3 days since I've read Countdown, and I can't remember what happened. Oh, yeah... Mary Marvel turned some Turkish security guards into stone and Eclipso knocked off one of their heads. Note for people who didn't think Mary Marvel could turn people to stone: since she got Black Adam's power, which combines his and Isis's powers, Mary Marvel can now do magical stuff like turn Turks to stone, which I believe is a 4th level wizard's spell, along with advanced prismatic ray and polymorph: marmoset. Otherwise, I can't remember what happened in that issue.

Justice League was pretty good. The best part was John Stewart giving Black Lightning grief about the new haircut.

Paralax was slipped into my pull and I forgot to take it out before it got rang up. I wouldn't advise getting it, it's pretty whiny.

JSA Classified still has the crappiest art. There's one scene where Mr. Terrific is talking with several other JSA members who are all out of costume. I couldn't tell who anyone was.

JLA Classified is a psychological journey through J'onn J'onnz' mind. Not as bad as I thought it would be, but not great, either.

Anyway, the best comic this week was:



Blue Beetle!

This issue had great dialog! The relationship between the main character and his supporting cast is the best out there right now. It's kind of like Seinfeld, in a way. Seinfeld wasn't the best actor in his TV show, so he let his supporting cast outshine him at every turn while he played the glue that kept all of them together. The same goes for this comic. The superhero has some good lines, but his supporting cast outshines him at every turn. His high school friends, his love interest, his mentor, his parents, everybody. It's like a team book with only one of the team having super powers.

Congratulations Blue Beetle!

Best Comic etc.

I really need a better title.

So, this week was a good week in comics. Batman #668, Star Lord, Invincible, Astonishing X-Men, X-Men First Class, and The Order were all worthy contenders. Heck, I only got two books I thought was of less quality: the ever-worsening Countdown and JSA Classified (Starring Mr. Terrific).

Its more fun talking about the bad stuff, so a brief word on that: I'm not liking what Countdown is doing with Mary Marvel. Her previous character was pretty unique in the DC Universe. Sure, it was cornball, possibly a little too girlscout, but it was clean of the "I'm angry all the time because I'm so edgy" thing that Powergirl or Supergirl have currently. Maybe they'll bring the old characterization back, but it seems too easy to me to pick Mary out of a list of powerful B-listers that would be interesting to corrupt, because, in essence, she was the one who stood out as uncorrupt already. I think it's more interesting to take someone who is already fighting their corrupt nature and then doubling the forces trying to push them towards the dark side. Also, the whole Jimmy Olsen thing is getting tiresome, and the Trickster and the Pied Piper can only do so much to keep the book from being a total waste.

JSA Classified had some of the worst art I've seen in a while. Everyone looked like they were wearing those flesh masks that the Texas Chainsaw Massacre guy wore. Several people looked like they had no eyes. Terrific himself looked like one of those shrunken heads you make out of apples. I like Mr. Terrific as a hero, I've always liked science heroes, but the art really got in the way of the story, which was already perhaps a little too Hollywood to start with. I think the writer saw too many Wesley Snipes movies before he wrote it. Also, the writer just doesn't get how smart Terrific is: its his most distinguishing feature. Terrific just acts dumb all the way through.

Now that we've said all that, here's the best comic of the week!




Blue Beetle! As I've said before, this book has some of the best dialog out there. It's funny and it's fast and I love how the characters interact. In this issue, BB gets to join the Teen Titans to fight Lobo. It's funny, but not silly, and Rogers does the Teen Titan characters better than you see them in their own book.

Congrats to Blue Beetle! You rock!

Best comic I bought this week (BCIBTW)

I think I need a better name for this feature. I want it to say "out of the few comics I bought this week, I liked this one best. There may be better out there, but I didn't buy it."

Well, I'll figure it out.

This week, we have a tie! Once again, the comics this week were sorta lackluster. The two titles that managed to pull ahead were: The new Black Adam book, and Stormwatch: PHD.

Black Adam turned into, basically, a version of Vandal Savage in this issue where he tries to bring his dead wife, Isis, back to life. Using minions as meat shields and just meat (eww), he powered his way through this comic on sheer willpower and fierce determination. The comic follows the tradition of 52 in making the reader respect the ferocious passion of Teth Adam while still maintaining the fact that he is hugely unlikable as a person. This kind of juggling act makes the comic like a car wreck you can't help but watch: curious, but repulsed at the same time.

Stormwatch: PHD is always pretty excellent. The best part of the book is the relationship between the cast members. In this issue, our heroes try to solve a mystery, and get their butts handed to them when they finger the wrong supervillain. The dialog and the mystery keep the story flowing, giving us more looks into the souls of each of these characters, while ramping up the tension as they close in on their (innocent) subject.

Other comics I bought were this week's Annihilation selection: Nova and The Wraith. Both of these books felt filler-ish, with Nova getting assimilated by the borg-like Phalanx and the Wraith being tortured by the already-assimilated Ronan the Accuser. Wraith isn't really doing it for me. He's like a superhero I would have designed when I was 15. Hopefully, 15 year olds are reading this book and really liking this character. Me? I say "meh".

This issue was particularly bad, as it featured the Wraith's origin story. Basically, its a version of Conan's, from the movie: child witnesses his family and friends murdered, gets away only to get stuck in a place that is essentially hell, where self-infliction of pain is the norm as the residents of the place gain immortality, but also a kind of numbness that makes them want to hurt themselves in order to feel something. Anyway, everyone there goes insane except our hero, whose thirst for vengeance allows him to maintain his grip and search out his parent's killers. Ok, maybe the self-inflicted pain part kinda diverges from the "slave boy who grows big muscles" part of the Conan flick, but essentially, its the same, as the years of torture make the kid stronger than his foes.

The latest issue of Green Lantern also came out. I was right in my previous post: Johns is making each member of the Uber Sinestro team into a boss monster. Nothing was revealed, nothing got done in this issue except killing Jack Chance, who was basically the Green Lantern version of the Wraith. Oh, the irony. Oh, and we found out that Parallax kills...through psychoanalysis! Which is also funny because that's what the JLA had to use to defeat Kid Amazo in the end of this lame arc set in JLA classified.

Lots of irony this week. Maybe I should come out with the Iron Award!