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New Comic Day!
Comics arrived! Yay! I readen them.
SOME SPOILERS. Especially regarding dead women and kitchen appliances.
IDENTITY CRISIS #3 - Better than #2. I am in two minds here. It's nice to see Deathstroke behaving as the threat he was always supposed to be (![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
grendelchild should probably pick it up for Slade alone) - he is that smart. Excellent use of a laser pointer, too. I'm not sure the writer's being quite so respectful to the heroes involved though - Black Canary's not one to stand there while somebody puts a bag on her head, and I doubt Wally would have impaled himself on a sword. (It was actually firmly established in last month's Flash, I noted as I flipped through it in the comic shop, that he does have the ability to "zone out" and let his superspeed carry him on autopilot when he runs from one side of the country to the other, or when he changes costume quickly. I doubt he would have shifted into that state for an attack, especially not against Slade, who he has fought before...). Finally I do not see that Kyle would try to punch the man rather than put him in a glowing green cage or whatever. But then, Kyle is going through a rough patch lately, as we shall see later.
I did like the flashback. It does explain how identities were kept secret for so long, even with bodyswaps and villainous scrying and all that went on back in the day. And I'm intrigued by where the Merlyn / Boomerang subplots are going. And I'm a completist. So I'm going to stick with it for the rest of the run. Fun fact: This is issue #3 of 7. Next month is Kyle's last in his own title. That means he may well feature in the mini beyond whatever finality occurs over in Green Lantern...
Shame about another girlfriend/ex-wife/whatever meeting a grisly end though. Alright. We get it. Let's see some dead boyfriends, huh?
JSA #64 - nice. I continue to love Geoff Johns. For a while people have been uneasy about whether the DCU events depicted in The Sandman were canonical, following that title's departure to (and founding of) the realms of Vertigo; this issue puts those doubts to rest by revisiting Hippolyta and Hector Hall's time in the Dream Dome. Yes, this is the Lyta ("Fury") Hall who lost her husband there, who (presumably) later called down her namesakes upon the Dream King. Whose son now reigns in his stead. The Sandman mythos gets tied closer together, as Sand - protege to the original Sandman, Wesley Dodds - masquerades as Sandman II, who was destroyed by Sandman III... there's a full circle of sorts going on. And Power Girl finally gets a picture for her family album; a little reward for those who are paying attention. Luff.
JLA #103 and #104 - Meh. Justice League: Support Group continues to fail to inspire. I'm sure John could do better than a glowing green sign saying "STOP" - he could tell the ring to immobilise everybody in the room until he got there. But next month - Wonder Woman - may be the last one, so it's not all bad.
No JUSTICE LEAGUE ELITE this month! Will have to have words with the lads at the comic shop.
TEEN TITANS #14 - nice doings. Johns again pulls some new deals out of the hat, hangs a lantern on what everybody's thinking and twists it around. Though it is quite clear who the villain of the piece is. I think I most enjoyed, though, the five-page scene between Robin and Superboy, just interacting and working things through. So many writers just overlook these character-building scenes.
From the looks of the villain, in fact, I suspect this entire plot arc may have been inspired by the simple fact that in early issues of Doom Patrol Garfield's skin was purple, and it was later changed to green with no real IC justification. This is exactly why Johns is rapidly becoming one of my favourite authors.
THE LEGION #37 and #38 - It turns out that "For No Better Reason..." is The Legion's swan song. Alas! But fret not - following a Titans/Legion special (ugh - I accept crossovers are a stock way to increase readership, but with the Legion they're always so convoluted, since they have to involve time travel unless a writer is particularly inventive) next month, they will be relaunching THE LEGION OF SUPERHEROES with Mark Waid at the helm. Don't know how long he'll hang around for, but Waid's rarely a bad thing.
The final issues of LEGION are reasonably well-written, although a couple of things - Brainy's implants, the exact nature of Canary's powers - are not fully developed and you get the impression they were expecting to have more time to dwell. The whole thing is wrapped up in a fairly random deus-ex-machina. It does at least imply that, yes, Canary's power-dampening ability was a conscious thing and had to be maintained. Maybe. I don't know, I shrug my shoulders at that point. Slightly disappointed in Devil's inability to tell when somebody is dead, but then how many denizens of the 30th century have actually seen a dead body? Oh, and yes, Karate Kid can take on an prison full of inmates single-handed, he just has to have advance warning. Told you so.
GREEN LANTERN #180 - Kyle's penultimate issue. Marz plays a couple of subtle games with his audience; being famous as the Refrigerator Killer he carefully draws the audience in, using a page-turn transition to give perhaps the most surprising empty fridge in comics history. HA HA SURPRISE! She's really in the oven. Yeah, like we didn't all know the mother would carc it when the visit was announced last issue. Suspense for me these days is not "Ooh will she die?" but rather "Hey, maybe they'll pull a fast one and not kill her."
Nice acknowledgement of the Major Force resurrection boogaloo. ("I thought he was dead too, but he keeps popping up somehow.") Also, there's another nod to Marz' reputation when Kyle blows his late mother's house up, the fridge door is seen flying towards the camera. It's like a trademark now.
You have to question Force's logic here though. When asked why he murders Kyle's loved ones, he replies "Because it works." When? When has it ever worked? Yeah, it worked so well last time, you got your ass handed to you. And then murdered. From a certain point of view, yes, compacting women into household appliances is an excellent way to get Kyle to give you his power ring - business end first. I'm kind of hoping that's Force's plan - that he has some sort of power nullifier (or maybe a Plaht device) that makes him want Kyle to attack. But that aside, the only thing it seems to achieve is enraging the target. I suppose in theory it should break their spirit, make them slump to the floor with all the fight drained out of them, but in practice that rarely seems to be the case. Force is trying to be clever but just comes across as stupid and/or suicidal.
Of course, Kyle doesn't want to kill Force - right now he's not rational enough for that, he just wants to hit things. He's wearing an object capable of interstellar flight and object propulsion, so if he was coldly logical and really wanted to kill him, he'd just put him in a green bubble and launch him out of the solar system. Or split his atoms. None of this fisticuffs required. I'm always disappointed at how often the writers forget what it's been established that thing can do. That said, in comics even those things aren't necessarily permanent - space is a startlingly small place, and destroying the body just makes it easier since you don't need to actually retrieve it, just invent a way to reincorporate wherever you want.
Anyway. Deep breath.
JSA: STRANGE ADVENTURES #1 - Yee! I was never a big fan of Golden Age nostalgia; it strikes me as wallowing. But this is good stuff. Johnny Thunder's adventures in pulp fiction! Reasonable art inside and a fantastic painted cover. Also: AN ELECTRIC ZEPPELIN CREWED BY ROBOTIC ZOMBIE NAZIS. Where the fuck do I sign?
pax_draconis - Features non-euclidean tentacle beasts. Though may not actually appear as anything other than a work of fiction or possibly a flashback, and probably aren't central to the plot. Still. Squiddies.
And that's all I have to say on the matter. More next month, probably.
SOME SPOILERS. Especially regarding dead women and kitchen appliances.
IDENTITY CRISIS #3 - Better than #2. I am in two minds here. It's nice to see Deathstroke behaving as the threat he was always supposed to be (
grendelchild should probably pick it up for Slade alone) - he is that smart. Excellent use of a laser pointer, too. I'm not sure the writer's being quite so respectful to the heroes involved though - Black Canary's not one to stand there while somebody puts a bag on her head, and I doubt Wally would have impaled himself on a sword. (It was actually firmly established in last month's Flash, I noted as I flipped through it in the comic shop, that he does have the ability to "zone out" and let his superspeed carry him on autopilot when he runs from one side of the country to the other, or when he changes costume quickly. I doubt he would have shifted into that state for an attack, especially not against Slade, who he has fought before...). Finally I do not see that Kyle would try to punch the man rather than put him in a glowing green cage or whatever. But then, Kyle is going through a rough patch lately, as we shall see later.I did like the flashback. It does explain how identities were kept secret for so long, even with bodyswaps and villainous scrying and all that went on back in the day. And I'm intrigued by where the Merlyn / Boomerang subplots are going. And I'm a completist. So I'm going to stick with it for the rest of the run. Fun fact: This is issue #3 of 7. Next month is Kyle's last in his own title. That means he may well feature in the mini beyond whatever finality occurs over in Green Lantern...
Shame about another girlfriend/ex-wife/whatever meeting a grisly end though. Alright. We get it. Let's see some dead boyfriends, huh?
JSA #64 - nice. I continue to love Geoff Johns. For a while people have been uneasy about whether the DCU events depicted in The Sandman were canonical, following that title's departure to (and founding of) the realms of Vertigo; this issue puts those doubts to rest by revisiting Hippolyta and Hector Hall's time in the Dream Dome. Yes, this is the Lyta ("Fury") Hall who lost her husband there, who (presumably) later called down her namesakes upon the Dream King. Whose son now reigns in his stead. The Sandman mythos gets tied closer together, as Sand - protege to the original Sandman, Wesley Dodds - masquerades as Sandman II, who was destroyed by Sandman III... there's a full circle of sorts going on. And Power Girl finally gets a picture for her family album; a little reward for those who are paying attention. Luff.
JLA #103 and #104 - Meh. Justice League: Support Group continues to fail to inspire. I'm sure John could do better than a glowing green sign saying "STOP" - he could tell the ring to immobilise everybody in the room until he got there. But next month - Wonder Woman - may be the last one, so it's not all bad.
No JUSTICE LEAGUE ELITE this month! Will have to have words with the lads at the comic shop.
TEEN TITANS #14 - nice doings. Johns again pulls some new deals out of the hat, hangs a lantern on what everybody's thinking and twists it around. Though it is quite clear who the villain of the piece is. I think I most enjoyed, though, the five-page scene between Robin and Superboy, just interacting and working things through. So many writers just overlook these character-building scenes.
From the looks of the villain, in fact, I suspect this entire plot arc may have been inspired by the simple fact that in early issues of Doom Patrol Garfield's skin was purple, and it was later changed to green with no real IC justification. This is exactly why Johns is rapidly becoming one of my favourite authors.
THE LEGION #37 and #38 - It turns out that "For No Better Reason..." is The Legion's swan song. Alas! But fret not - following a Titans/Legion special (ugh - I accept crossovers are a stock way to increase readership, but with the Legion they're always so convoluted, since they have to involve time travel unless a writer is particularly inventive) next month, they will be relaunching THE LEGION OF SUPERHEROES with Mark Waid at the helm. Don't know how long he'll hang around for, but Waid's rarely a bad thing.
The final issues of LEGION are reasonably well-written, although a couple of things - Brainy's implants, the exact nature of Canary's powers - are not fully developed and you get the impression they were expecting to have more time to dwell. The whole thing is wrapped up in a fairly random deus-ex-machina. It does at least imply that, yes, Canary's power-dampening ability was a conscious thing and had to be maintained. Maybe. I don't know, I shrug my shoulders at that point. Slightly disappointed in Devil's inability to tell when somebody is dead, but then how many denizens of the 30th century have actually seen a dead body? Oh, and yes, Karate Kid can take on an prison full of inmates single-handed, he just has to have advance warning. Told you so.
GREEN LANTERN #180 - Kyle's penultimate issue. Marz plays a couple of subtle games with his audience; being famous as the Refrigerator Killer he carefully draws the audience in, using a page-turn transition to give perhaps the most surprising empty fridge in comics history. HA HA SURPRISE! She's really in the oven. Yeah, like we didn't all know the mother would carc it when the visit was announced last issue. Suspense for me these days is not "Ooh will she die?" but rather "Hey, maybe they'll pull a fast one and not kill her."
Nice acknowledgement of the Major Force resurrection boogaloo. ("I thought he was dead too, but he keeps popping up somehow.") Also, there's another nod to Marz' reputation when Kyle blows his late mother's house up, the fridge door is seen flying towards the camera. It's like a trademark now.
You have to question Force's logic here though. When asked why he murders Kyle's loved ones, he replies "Because it works." When? When has it ever worked? Yeah, it worked so well last time, you got your ass handed to you. And then murdered. From a certain point of view, yes, compacting women into household appliances is an excellent way to get Kyle to give you his power ring - business end first. I'm kind of hoping that's Force's plan - that he has some sort of power nullifier (or maybe a Plaht device) that makes him want Kyle to attack. But that aside, the only thing it seems to achieve is enraging the target. I suppose in theory it should break their spirit, make them slump to the floor with all the fight drained out of them, but in practice that rarely seems to be the case. Force is trying to be clever but just comes across as stupid and/or suicidal.
Of course, Kyle doesn't want to kill Force - right now he's not rational enough for that, he just wants to hit things. He's wearing an object capable of interstellar flight and object propulsion, so if he was coldly logical and really wanted to kill him, he'd just put him in a green bubble and launch him out of the solar system. Or split his atoms. None of this fisticuffs required. I'm always disappointed at how often the writers forget what it's been established that thing can do. That said, in comics even those things aren't necessarily permanent - space is a startlingly small place, and destroying the body just makes it easier since you don't need to actually retrieve it, just invent a way to reincorporate wherever you want.
Anyway. Deep breath.
JSA: STRANGE ADVENTURES #1 - Yee! I was never a big fan of Golden Age nostalgia; it strikes me as wallowing. But this is good stuff. Johnny Thunder's adventures in pulp fiction! Reasonable art inside and a fantastic painted cover. Also: AN ELECTRIC ZEPPELIN CREWED BY ROBOTIC ZOMBIE NAZIS. Where the fuck do I sign?
pax_draconis - Features non-euclidean tentacle beasts. Though may not actually appear as anything other than a work of fiction or possibly a flashback, and probably aren't central to the plot. Still. Squiddies.And that's all I have to say on the matter. More next month, probably.
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