Friday, April 01, 2005

New Comics Day!!! Finally!

Whew...lot's of reading in the past 45 minutes.

After yesterday's debaucle I was finally able to sit down and read this week's comics. Spoilers galore but if you cared you'd know most of them on Wednesday anyway.

Legion of Super-Heroes #4-
This issue was nice. Nice. Okay, it was really fun. I'm just not sure where it's going. It is very character based right now with almost zero semblance of being written in arcs. Which is good but...different.

This book makes me feel like I'm twelve again! Lot's of great action mingled with excellent character development and clever dialogue. I honestly feel like I'm reading issues of Classic X-Men in the top of a maple tree again. Yes, I did do those kinds of things when I was twelve and I'd still do it if I didn't think I'd break my neck!

A few gripes: Is Cosmic Boy Nightwing? I mean really. Not only do they look alike but they are essentially the same character! The Micro Lad gag was hysterical the first time I read it (issue 1). Now it's getting tired. Go back and show his origin and make one final reference to the joke and move one please!

Other than those few gripes it was a solid read with a touching backstory drawn by Gibbons. Why doesn't he draw much anymore? Good stuff.

The Flash #220-
Well, it took a lot to get me back on track after that two issue narrative abortion that was the Wonder Woman team-up.

In this issue Flash appears only in Flashback (sorry, that's awful) other than some really nice stuff between Wally and Linda (I originally typed "Iris," oops! A comic geek faux pas). The Rogues take centre stage here in this first issue in the Rogue War series and it's a doozy. Brilliantly narrated by Captain Cold there is a lot of cool stuff going on that should explode over the next few issues. I'm impressed.

I really love the new Captain Boomerang. Not that he's a refreshment from Digger but I am a major Suicide Squad fan and it's good to see a visceral and badass CB again.

A lot of the Rogues just don't do it for me but whatever. Between CC, CB, Mirror Master, Weather Wizard, Zoom and the Top (whom I assume will appear later) I'm covered for enjoyable villains.

The art is back on track. Porter was looking sloppy for a few issues there but he's back in good form on the book he was meant to draw.

Outsiders #22-
Maybe my favourite monthly book at the moment. Arsenal is quickly climbing the ladder as one of my fave characters. But he'd have to knock Deathstroke out of that place and with his solid portrayal in this issue he'll stay there for a while.

Batman is such a prick! I couldn't stand being in a conversation with someone who so obviously knows what is going on but only speaks cryptically. Him To Nightwing: "Stay sharp. Someone has taken great care to orchestrate this, and now it's begun to unravel. It changes everything." Nightwing should have turned around and given him the beating he deserves. It appears, to me anyway, that Batman is speaking about himself here.

The issue ends with a predictable plot development: there's a traitor on the team! Not too worried about how it'll end up as Rucka has Arsenal solve things in a very "Real World" way. He's locking the door and no one leaves until he gets to the bottom of it. My opinion: "Hey Roy! Start with Nightwing!"

The art by Shawn Moll is brilliant and is a perfect fit for this book. Let's hope he doesn't go the way of other Outsiders artists (no I don't mean Marvel!) and sticks around for a while.

While, for a team book, this issue read much like the "Arsenal and Deathstroke Show" with a little Batman and Nightwing thrown in for good measure look for the next issue or two to be very insulated in the team.

Countdown to Infinite Crisis-
Dav, you had to know that I would leave this til last.

In a word I'm impressed. But then again I'm a sucker for big events.

I had guessed Blue Beetle from the beginning (with a few deviations) and was not surprised to see him buy it. However, after reading Dav's last post, I had expected the other character that disappointed my tall friend was Booster Gold. I now can only assume it is Mr. Maxwell Lord.

I've never really liked the character of Lord and his apparent villainy comes as no surprise. I only hope that he suffers the same fate as BB. Let's face it...Blue Beetle hasn't done shit in a loooonnnnggg time. He was even ineffective in the last "Formerly Known as The Justice League" jaunt.

The scene with Batman was great! God, the JLA is so toast when Batman comes to call.

What was really nice was the way that BB looks at the DCU as an outsider of sorts. His awe over Superman, his love for Wonder Woman and Barbara Gordon, his disdain at being a second-stringer; these things all made him interesting for me. I loved the Giffen era of the JL but I've never really dug BB. Booster on the other hand I love. He's going to have someone's ass for this and I can't wait. The most heroic thing Blue Beetle has ever done is tell Lord to "Rot in Hell".

I'm a sucker for post-Crisis continuity and I'm totally impressed by the tying in done with this book and its eventual aftermath. I'm totally happy that this is not an event where the Anti-Monitor comes back to battle Pariah and Monarch over the use of the power of Parallax all for the use of defeating the attack of the Atlanteans (oops! wrong publisher). This is an insulated event from within the DC Universe and not from some outside interloper type only created for the series. It may also exist to clean up the universe but it's doing so in a violent, and rather like "Godfather," and epic fashion.

I'm not going to say much else about this book as it has been said to death on other sites and threads but I will say that the story equivalent of a miniseries in one book for $1 (40p over here) is a total steal.

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