You will almost certainly have zero interest in this if you aren’t into comics, but recently I’ve been enjoying watching the CCW TV Comic Culture Warrior youtube channel. Rather than bother to describe it myself I’ll just copy/paste their self-description below:
The CCW YouTube Channel features conversations between columnist/comic-book writer Elliott Serrano & comic shop retailer Jose Melendez, featuring reviews of their favorite comics, rants about the ones they dislike and talk about anything in the world of comic & pop culture. Elliott Serrano is a writer/columnist/graphic artist/geek who has been reading comics since he was 8 years old. Jose Melendez is a comic shop manager who has worked for several franchises in the Chicago area. Both of these comic-nerds have plenty to say about everything, especially when it comes to comic books.
So yeah, it’s a single-cam static shot internet TV show of two guys talking about comics, exactly what you would think it would be — but better. I find myself entertained by most of it, far above and beyond what I expected, frankly. I still have no interest in reading Serrano’s ridiculously-themed Ash Saves Obama comic (yes, there really is such a thing) but the guys have opinions that are well-reasoned and thought-out for the most part, and passionate and honest even when they’re not.
If the CCW TV dynamic — “snarky thin guy and generally more forgiving less thin guy perform cultural review in the Chicago area” — seems familiar, well, it’s because it was done to perfection by Siskel and Ebert, whose partnership created the template after which CCW TV is patterned. In fact, frankly, I’d like to see Serrano and Melendez adhere to the S&E model even more closely: very very often, CCW TV episodes take the form of its two leads in agreement, vigorously petitioning their audience to support a book they both like. However, as any At The Movies/And The Movies viewer could tell you, it’s at the points where the hosts’ opinions diverge that real onscreen drama occurs, allowing more topics for debate and discussion to arise naturally through conversation. And really, the joint admonitions and endorsements do get repetitive over time — “I like this book” “So do I” is just not an interesting conversation unless you wrote/drew the book in question.
Obviously, out of hundreds of ten-minute (for the most part) videos there are going to be ups and downs and I haven’t watched the majority of the older videos, but in my limited experience I’d have to say the magnum opus of CCW TV is theirthree-partreview of Batman: Battle for the Cowl #3, which was an utterly unnecessary, terrible comic DC put out to fill the hole in their publishing schedule while they readied Grant Morrison’s Batman & Robin and Greg Rucka/JH Williams III’s “Batwoman” in Detective Comics, both of which are pure awesome. Basically the awfulness of Battle for the Cowl #3 causes Jose’s brain to explode beautifully and horrifically, the scope from his rant expanding outwards from one shitty comic to indict creators, publishers, fans, and the entire comic industry, among others. His pain and frustration is palpably evident — these are guys who care about comics — but despite Jose’s often sneering tone, they never (okay, rarely) descend into easy kneejerk snark or glib fanboyisms. Plus, unlike 99.999% of comics reviewers, they aren’t absolute idiots with no taste, sense, or critical thinking facilities — always a nice bonus.
The TV show Heroes started up once more this week. I wouldn’t exactly describe myself as an avid watcher of the show during its first season, but I kept up with it enough that I watched the season finale the night it was broadcast. Then that finale hit, and when I describe it as “unsatisfying” I’m being charitable — it may have killed the show for me. I did watch the season 2 premiere when the show returned, but never managed to get back to it: the remainder of season 2’s episodes sat unwatched long enough that now I’m left with the decision of whether to bother even trying to get back into the show now that it’s back for season 3. I’m leaning towards the answer being “no” for one reason: Jeph Loeb.
This week, two Loeb-written comics came out, and both were ostensibly “finales” in their own way, Ultimates 3 #5 being the last of the mini-series and Hulk #6 being the end of the story arc. Now, in case you haven’t been keeping up, Loeb only uses one plot for his comics lately: someone’s been murdered and there’s a mystery. There are very well-defined rules for writing this type of plot, and it’s best to stick to them unless you’re a genius because otherwise your audience is likely to feel cheated and will not be back for more. Amazingly, Loeb manages to break those rules in both books. Suffice to say, he is not a genius.
In Ultimates 3 #5, we do at least get a partial, half-assed answer for who killed the Scarlet Witch in #1, although the explanation makes absolutely no sense, like the rest of this series. Worse, an out-of-nowhere last-page reveal confuses the issue even more: okay, so a robot went nuts and killed Wanda. And then…Doom was involved somehow? To what end? To top it off, the second ‘mystery’ in the book — “who’s the Black Panther” — is answered but not solved. We see, yes, as pretty much everyone guessed after the second (first?) issue, Captain America is the Black Panther. But why? “Uh, I’ll tell you later.” FUCK YOU JEPH LOEB. That is not an answer.
Hulk #6 is even worse, though. The entire story arc has been based around one thing: who’s this new Red Hulk that shot the Abomination? And this issue DOESN’T answer the question at all — or even promise that the answer is coming. It feels like nothing more than the second-season premiere of Twin Peaks, where the entire show’s audience collectively stopped watching after the program failed to deliver on its implied promise to answer their questions. There again, by the time the answer to the mystery was finally delivered, no one was watching.
Both books fail to deliver satisfying endings, even given my lowered expectations. And when I’m wondering whether the addition of a red-suited superspeed character is intriguing enough for me to catch up on Heroes, I’m going to remember that, and my season 1 disappointment, and I think it’s going to be hard to suspend my disbelief and have faith that it’ll pay off this time as long as Jeph Loeb remains a creative force on the show.
Besides, Dexter is coming back, and that always rocks. Forget the weak bullshit — life’s too short to watch shows that could be good, or used to be good, or might get good.
Final Crisis - Rogues’ Revenge #1& The Flash #242:Tom Peyer is one of those guys who guys like Mark Waid and Mark Millar or whoever always say is a great underrated writer who doesn’t get enough work, but man, he writes some bad comics. The Flash #242 is just awful in every way and demonstrates that the man just doesn’t get the series, the characters, or how to write an appealing story. Freddie Williams’ amazingly flat and static-looking art doesn’t help elevate the World’s Most Depressingest Comics Magazine, but there’s really no point getting too worked up as Peyer and Williams are just filling space as the Flash rejuvenation has gotten underway elsewhere, in books people are actually reading. Speaking of which, this week also brought us Final Crisis - Rogues’ Revenge #1, which is that recently elusive and rare item: a good Flash story! Of course, technically “the Flash” isn’t the star of Rogues’ Revenge, but outside of Librafrom Final Crisis every other character in this book is a Flash character. The best creative team of the Wally West Flash series steps right back into their roles as if they’d never left: Geoff Johns elegantly picks up some abandoned plot threads from his run on the book, explains away some of the idiocies of Countdown to Final Crisis and Flash: The Fastest Man Alive in a few panels, and reminds us why The Flash was where his writing was first widely hailed; I do wish Kolins had been forced to have his work properly inked, but he manages to evoke his previous work on the book quite well and his storytelling is stronger than ever here. I find it slightly odd that this was originally not planned as an official Final Crisis tie-in, because man, it’s hard to see how this could have much more to do with FC so far without having Metron and Anthro show up. Point blank, if you read and liked DC Universe #0 and Final Crisis #1 & 2, read Final Crisis - Rogues’ Revenge. And no matter who you are, skip The Flash #242 — and most likely, every issue of that series until such time as the changes currently occurring in the Final Crisis books filter into the regular monthly Flash series, whether that be the current volume, yet another new Flash #1, or The Flash v1 #351.
Mighty Avengers #16: This was kind of boring and lousy, actually. The Secret Invasion tie-in backstory of when Elektra was replaced by a Skrull turns out not to be that interesting or dramatic, at least to me. Oh well, they can’t all be winners.
I was watching the ‘History of the Justice League of America’ bonus feature from The New Frontier DVD when it struck me that with few exceptions, the JLA comic has always been something of a letdown. Even at its best, it’s rarely delivered on the promise it’s been dangling in front of the readers’ noses since even before there was a JLA book: “Just imagine all your favorite heroes in one book.” Even when all the characters are technically there, they’re not usually at their best, or the heroes are there stripped of the context of their own books — which reduces them to little more than a symbol of drama occurring elsewhere.
1. The book needs to be published more often than monthly. At minimum, biweekly publication of JLA is a must. The unspoken truth is that JLA is basically ‘DC Universe Monthly;’ at heart it’s really less a book about the League than the milieu these characters all share. A large cast is necessary for the JLA book, but 22 pages a month is just not enough to have interesting character moments AND big action, to spotlight interesting second-tier characters AND deliver the DCU’s big guns in full flight. And while everyone loved the old JLA/JSA team-ups, when they came every year it never seemed like enough in-book time had passed for it be time again for them to meet up, especially as they were usually tied to a holiday theme. While JLA doesn’t have to tie in to every book, it’s one of the books that ALWAYS gets sucked into crossover events out of necessity, and a more frequent publishing schedule would help fit those promotional crossover issues in without regular readers feeling like the book was constantly being derailed (I’m still waiting for Dwayne MacDuffie’s JLA run to really get rolling, something like a year after he started writing the book.) JLA doesn’t have to be constantly tied in continuity-wise with what’s being contemporaneously published, but it is the spine of the DCU and must reflect the status quos of the characters’ home books eventually — just not in the middle of a story.
2. Snapper Carr is the JLA HQ caretaker. Look, the JLA needs someone holding down the fort 24-7, and no one really believes Batman is taking his proper turns at monitor duty. Snapper can live in the Hall of Justice and call people to solve problems as necessary. He’s got nothing else going on, and he’s part of the book. Deal with it. He’s also a magnificently flawed, human character with many layers of depth if one takes into account all the different ways he’s been used, from annoying teleporting superhero in Invasion to annoying overly-familiar secret agent guy in Four Horsemen. Just picture him as written by Ed Brubaker: he’s a guy who wants nothing more than to do what’s right and constantly fucks up by trying too hard to do just that. The book has always suffered from a lack of strong supporting characters, so the few that the series has managed to establish should be made full use of, including Snapper, Catherine Colbert, and whoever else hasn’t gone the way of Maxwell Lord and Sue Dibny at this point.
3. It’s not all just big action. The interaction of the characters can be humorous (Giffen & DeMatteis) or more soap opera (Gerry Conway) or both but there needs to be room for it. Romance is far more interesting against the backdrop of war, and humor more cutting.
4. It’s not really a book for hardcore comic fans. Oddly enough. JLA should not be steeped in continuity and references to out-of-print, obscure stories. It should always be as accessible as possible to the average reader, because let’s face it, juggling 14 characters is difficult enough without trying to make jokes only 5% of the audience is going to get. JLA should be a gateway drug to the rest of the DCU — the references should be the character’ current books.
5. Bold, accessible, detailed art is a must. Obviously George Perez cannot draw every issue of JLA ever published as would be ideal, but no weak art on JLA is at all acceptable at any time. It doesn’t have to have an A-list marquee artist — in fact the ideal JLA artist is a dependable, consistent, professional workhorse. Dick Dillin was the JLA artist. (Ed Benes is not.) The artist is not — can not — be bigger than the JLA, but the art must be at least B+ quality at all times and the book can not be late. Fill-ins are fine, and almost a given on a book like JLA, but on this book on-time regular publication frankly trumps artistic posturing.
6. Most of the traditional JLA enemies suck. Kanjar Ro? Despero? Hyathis? Quit trying to revamp the interchangeable alien dictator types, because they don’t work anymore. Yeah, you gotta have a fight against an Injustice League/Legion of Doom/Secret Society fairly regularly, but outside of that, JLA foes tend not to work so well in repeat performances. New, unknown threats are always more threatening to the established structure of the JLA because they don’t know what coming, and that puts them in more of an underdog position, if such a thing is even possible. They’re the redcoats, their foes are the terrorists, or possibly representatives of an enemy culture; take it from there.
7. It’s not the Equal Opportunity League for Bolstering Beloved Characters. Look, Brad Meltzer, I loved the Barr/Aparo Batman and the Outsiders too, but Geo-Force didn’t belong on the League roster. Vixen doesn’t belong on anything but a B-team, and Red Arrow…oh man. No. Come on. Black Lightning was a good addition, and could potentially be an anchor character for the JLA book…but it hasn’t happened yet. Regardless, yes, the book is a great place for second-tier characters to shine, but some characters need to join the team to find out they don’t really fit the team — like the Huntress, who was summarily fired by Batman. Not every story about a second-tier character has to be about them coming into their own and taking their place among the A-listers, because 1. it doesn’t work that way and 2. no one believes 95% of those stories will stick at this point.
8. We get it, the Red Tornado is a robot with a soul who is conflicted about his humanity. MOVE ON.
9. No spin-off books. You want to publish more JLA books? Great. Put out JLA more often (see #1). There can’t be more than one JLA, and having more than one JLA book with a different set of characters can never feel like anything more than the B-team — Justice League Europe, or Justice League Task Force, or Justice League Elite, it all says “Just imagine, a few characters you give a shit about with a bunch you don’t!” Similarly, ‘casebook’ stories of the JLA a la JLA Classified are rarely interesting — it’s all about what’s next, and not one ‘untold story from the JLA casebook’ has ever read like anything but an unscheduled fill-in inventory story.
10. The JLA is not the X-Men. But the book could be written a lot more like that. A lot more. It would have a lot more successful for, oh, the last 20 years.
11. The JLA is the A-team. Every time they try to do a JLA book without most of thebig guns, people complain, “This isn’t the real JLA!” Guess what? That’s because it isn’t. I like Nuklon and Ice and Obsidian and all those other characters no one’s ever heard of, but if you have to explain to someone who a character is in more than two sentences they probably don’t belong on the JLA.
12. The JLA isn’t just the A-team. However, since the big names all have their own books, there’s the sense nothing really important can happen to those characters outside of their own books — which is something the JLA creative team and the creators of those individual characters’ titles whould work to overcome, incidentally — and there’s the sense that serious shit can happen in JLA to, say, Zatanna that can’t happen to Batman. And serious shit can happen to those second tier characters…as long as the writer hasn’t stocked the team with his beloved favorites that he can’t bear anything bad happening to (see #7). This is where publishing more-than-monthly comes in handy, because it allows for the occasional spotlight issue (not a solo issue — NEVER a solo issue within JLA, that’s simply false advertising, no matter how much you love Red Arrow and Vixen, Brad Meltzer) that highlight’s an individual character’s strengths without derailing an entire quarter’s output.
Internet advertising can be a confusing labyrinth to navigate at the best of times, but here at aaronpoehler.com I like to keep things simple. Basically, you’ll notice that on nearly all posts and pages at aaronpoehler.com there is a single banner ad. That banner ad is managed through Project Wonderful, which allows advertisers to bid what they think the ad space is worth and what they’re willing to pay per day. The highest bidder at any given time has their ad displayed sitewide here, across both blog pages and static website pages such as the vault of music reviews, so if your ad is the winning one at any given time, your ad will be seen by visitors to virtually all pages on this site (the number of which is in the hundreds right now). Advertisers are charged only for the amount of time their ads are displayed and there are no per-click charges, so it generally ends up being a good deal for all concerned — unlike many internet ad schemes which are easily defrauded through false clicks, which is why I’ve stuck with Project Wonderful above AdBrite or Google Adsense. Plus, it’s nice for me that I generally find the ads placed through Project Wonderful are interesting links to cool stuff I haven’t heard of, rather than the untargeted spammy links I seemed to get with the other services.
So if you’ve got a website, product or service you’d like to advertise here, go to http://www.projectwonderful.com/advertisehere.php?id=15866&type=1 and sign up today. There are a bunch of interesting demographic data and site statistics there for your perusal as well, and of course, right below these words should be an ad banner by the current highest bidder. I wonder who it is right now?
Booster Gold #1000000: Writers Geoff Johns and Jeff Katz conclude their run in style, putting a much-belated DC One Million tie-in, a welcome trademark Johns loophole resurrection of an unjustly-deceased character, one mindblower revelation that rivals anything in Secret Invasion, and a crisis of conscience on the part of the titular character into 22 pages of story so packed it has the feel of a silver age DC three-part ‘novel.’ The final two story pages (not counting the epilogue/teaser image) alone are absolute killers. I’m sorry to see these guys leave; between this series and 52 Johns has done more to rehabilitate Booster than anyone. Though I’m hopeful whatever regular writer comes on after upcoming Chuck Dixon’s fill-in run will be up to the standard set by Johns and Katz, in my heart I doubt it’ll happen (ironically, I feel much the same about Blue Beetle right now). Whatever comes afterwards, the Johns/Katz Booster Gold run was consistently good and is highly recommended as a trade paperback purchase once the whole run is collected, especially as a followup for readers of 52 — I would guess it’ll be two six-issue books.
Final Crisis - Requiem: Did you read Final Crisis and want an expansion upon the Martian Manhunter scene? If so, here it is, though since it’s not written by Grant Morrison or Geoff Johns (or even Greg Rucka) you might suspect the validity of this one-shot tie-in. Honestly, Peter Tomasi hasn’t yet written anything I’ve read that’s really knocked me out, but he’s generally good for a B+ script — not in the Johns/Bendis/Morrison/Brubaker league or anywhere near it, but safely out of the Beechen/Jones/Winick/Bedard gutter. This alternately maudlin and morbidly violent tale sports knockout art by Doug Mahnke and should serve as an appropriate sendoff for J’onn J’onzz fans seeking such, but the story’s connections to Final Crisis proper seems secondary to the function it serves as setup for James Robinson’s upcoming Justice League book. Nothing too unexpected happens here, really, which is somewhat disappointing. Midway the book turns into a recital of events from J’onn’s history that’s actually pretty deadly boring, but the last-page nod to the Giffen/DeMatteis Justice League was cute. In the end, unless you really honestly truly care that much about the Martian Manhunter I’d say you could probably skip this one pretty safely.
Secret Invasion #4: As we hit the halfway point of Secret Invasion, the contours of the story are fairly well established — a certain amount of the “anything could happen” sense of excitement that the first few issues of any event book carries has abated, and the basic plot is pretty clear. This issue’s Black Widow fakeout with the green-eye motif was well-executed but the issue comes up otherwise short on big revelations. The first look at Nick Fury’s Secret Warriors was underwhelming (and the size of Nick’s gun recalls the bad old Image days) but the lead-up to the next issue works so well one is willing to forgive the lack of big surprises here. More consistent goodness from the Bendis/Yu/Morales team page after page, but ultimately it feels like more of a chapter than a complete unit of entertainment in itself.
I wasn’t too sure what to expect from this direct-to-DVD offering going in, as the stated intentions of the project seemed somewhat at cross purposes, combining influences and creative forces from many different areas — comics, animation, and film — in such a way that ‘too many cooks’ syndrome could easily have been a fatal flaw. Ostensibly, Batman: Gotham Knight bridges the gap between Batman Begins and The Dark Knight and is thus set in that continuity, but with scripts contributed by comics writers and then handed over to a variety of Japanese animators to render as they saw fit I was worried the end product would be disjointed beyond comprehension. Fortunately, while the individual episodes stand alone there is enough of a throughline connecting them to keep the viewing experience fairly cohesive despite the fact that Bruce Wayne looks like a teenage Asian boy in one episode and a 30 year old Caucasian man in the next. Over the property’s 70 year history the Batman has stood up to hundreds of differing interpretations, so none of the liberties taken here were too disturbing, though a few of the stylistic choices do beggar explanation, and the welcome presence of Kevin Conroy as the voice of the Dark Knight throughout was an absolute comfort. While not completely satisfying as a piece unto itself, many of Gotham Knight’s segments are pleasantly successful and overall the work is of a piece with the dark tone of Nolan’s movies. This isn’t a must-buy by any means, and nowhere near the quality of DC’s recent awesome animated offering The New Frontier, but it’s a worthwhile attempt to try something different with Batman and company and a good way for viewers to get themselves good and hyped for the impending premiere of The Dark Knight itself.
Final Crisis #2: As the behind-the-scenes stories of DC were seemingly beginning to outperform their fictional output recently, along comes Final Crisis #2 to remind us — and clue some of us in — that Grant Morrison’s had this thing pretty well set for awhile, and the story proceeds apace. This issue is a bit more straightforward than the debut (read: more action, fewer cavemen), and the overall thrust of the story becomes a lot more clear. Art is exemplary throughout, which is part of what made the announcement of Carlos Pacheco fill-in pages on #4 on so disappointing — it would be nice if DC could have just one big event book with consistent art and writing alike. Still, I enjoyed this issue from the awesome introductory Japanese superhero sequence to the last-page reveal and as the roller-coaster heads into the first big hill I’m digging the ride.
Green Lantern #32: In the more-than-capable hands of Geoff Johns and Ivan Reis this has become one of the most consistently dependable high-quality books on the stands month in and month out (more or less, with a few delays here and there), to the degree that it has become one of the few DC books even diehard Marvelites seem to pick up — and can pick up, thanks to the relative accessibility of the series. This issue is no exception, continuing the tightening up and recasting of Hal Jordan’s origin while tying firmly in to recent GL stories and effectively foreshadowing future events (Atrocitus’ oath is pretty goofy, though). A great book for pretty much anyone who likes good comics.
Captain America #39: This is the Marvel book that’s so consistently high-quality month in and month out that even diehard DC fans pick it up, although actually this month’s art isn’t quite up to the level of excellence set by Epting/Perkins/Guice. It’s not damaging, fortunately, as Ed Brubaker’s script provides yet another great chapter in his continually unfolding megaplot. Recommended.
Superman #677: Starman writer James Robinson makes his return to regular monthly comics writing with this issue, kicking off in fairly consistent tone with what Kurt Busiek was doing immediately prior in this series. Promising, but nowhere near the level of awesome of Johns and Frank over on Action Comics nor quite as strong as Busiek’s work yet — especially considering Busiek’s Superman work is still around for comparison in the form of Trinity, which incorporates some plotlines Busiek had intended for Superman. Hopefully the promised upcoming reintertwining of the Super-books will be to the benefit of all, and in any case I almost always enjoy Robinson’s work so I’m looking forward to seeing where he goes from this fairly standard first act.
New Avengers #42/Mighty Avengers #15: More Secret Invasion “What really happened” Skrull infiltration backstories, for Spider-Woman and Hank Pym respectively. Interesting stuff, though I am starting to feel like it is kind of getting to be a bit much of this kind of thing and that Secret Invasion is a “one step forward, two steps back”type of event. Of these two issues, New gets the edge due to its slightly sharper script and beautiful Jim Cheung artwork, though Romita Jr/Janson/Palmer aren’t too shabby over on Mighty either. Let’s face it, if you’re buying one of these, you’re buying the other, and if you’re not buying one you’re not buying either — at least until the SI Avengers trades come out.
Whenever random play pulls up some hip-hop and I think "Hmm, music is hot but vocal isn't doing much for me" it's almost always the Roots. #20 hours ago
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You will almost certainly have zero interest in this if you aren’t into comics, but recently I’ve been enjoying watching the CCW TV Comic Culture Warrior youtube channel. Rather than bother to describe it myself I’ll just copy/paste their self-description below:
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The TV show Heroes started up once more this week. I wouldn’t exactly describe myself as an avid watcher of the show during its first season, but I kept up with it enough that I watched the season finale the night it was broadcast. Then that finale hit, and when I describe it as “unsatisfying” I’m being charitable — it may have killed the show for me. I did watch the season 2 premiere when the show returned, but never managed to get back to it: the remainder of season 2’s episodes sat unwatched long enough that now I’m left with the decision of whether to bother even trying to get back into the show now that it’s back for season 3. I’m leaning towards the answer being “no” for one reason: Jeph Loeb.
Final Crisis - Rogues’ Revenge #1 & The Flash #242: Tom Peyer is one of those guys who guys like Mark Waid and Mark Millar or whoever always say is a great underrated writer who doesn’t get enough work, but man, he writes some bad comics. The Flash #242 is just awful in every way and demonstrates that the man just doesn’t get the series, the characters, or how to write an appealing story. Freddie Williams’ amazingly flat and static-looking art doesn’t help elevate the World’s Most Depressingest Comics Magazine, but there’s really no point getting too worked up as Peyer and Williams are just filling space as the Flash rejuvenation has gotten underway elsewhere, in books people are actually reading. Speaking of which, this week also brought us Final Crisis - Rogues’ Revenge #1, which is that recently elusive and rare item: a good Flash story! Of course, technically “the Flash” isn’t the star of Rogues’ Revenge, but outside of Libra from Final Crisis every other character in this book is a Flash character. The best creative team of the Wally West Flash series steps right back into their roles as if they’d never left: Geoff Johns elegantly picks up some abandoned plot threads from his run on the book, explains away some of the idiocies of Countdown to Final Crisis and Flash: The Fastest Man Alive in a few panels, and reminds us why The Flash was where his writing was first widely hailed; I do wish Kolins had been forced to have his work properly inked, but he manages to evoke his previous work on the book quite well and his storytelling is stronger than ever here. I find it slightly odd that this was originally not planned as an official Final Crisis tie-in, because man, it’s hard to see how this could have much more to do with FC so far without having Metron and Anthro show up. Point blank, if you read and liked DC Universe #0 and Final Crisis #1 & 2, read Final Crisis - Rogues’ Revenge. And no matter who you are, skip The Flash #242 — and most likely, every issue of that series until such time as the changes currently occurring in the Final Crisis books filter into the regular monthly Flash series, whether that be the current volume, yet another new Flash #1, or The Flash v1 #351.
I was watching the ‘History of the Justice League of America’ bonus feature from The New Frontier DVD when it struck me that with few exceptions, the JLA comic has always been something of a letdown. Even at its best, it’s rarely delivered on the promise it’s been dangling in front of the readers’ noses since even before there was a JLA book: “Just imagine all your favorite heroes in one book.” Even when all the characters are technically there, they’re not usually at their best, or the heroes are there stripped of the context of their own books — which reduces them to little more than a symbol of drama occurring elsewhere.
Internet advertising can be a confusing labyrinth to navigate at the best of times, but here at aaronpoehler.com I like to keep things simple. Basically, you’ll notice that on nearly all posts and pages at aaronpoehler.com there is a single banner ad. That banner ad is managed through 
Booster Gold #1000000: Writers Geoff Johns and Jeff Katz conclude their run in style, putting a much-belated DC One Million tie-in, a welcome trademark Johns loophole resurrection of an unjustly-deceased character, one mindblower revelation that rivals anything in Secret Invasion, and a crisis of conscience on the part of the titular character into 22 pages of story so packed it has the feel of a silver age DC three-part ‘novel.’ The final two story pages (not counting the epilogue/teaser image) alone are absolute killers. I’m sorry to see these guys leave; between this series and 52 Johns has done more to rehabilitate Booster than anyone. Though I’m hopeful whatever regular writer comes on after upcoming Chuck Dixon’s fill-in run will be up to the standard set by Johns and Katz, in my heart I doubt it’ll happen (ironically, I feel much the same about Blue Beetle right now). Whatever comes afterwards, the Johns/Katz Booster Gold run was consistently good and is highly recommended as a trade paperback purchase once the whole run is collected, especially as a followup for readers of 52 — I would guess it’ll be two six-issue books.
I wasn’t too sure what to expect from this direct-to-DVD offering going in, as the stated intentions of the project seemed somewhat at cross purposes, combining influences and creative forces from many different areas — comics, animation, and film — in such a way that ‘too many cooks’ syndrome could easily have been a fatal flaw. Ostensibly, Batman: Gotham Knight bridges the gap between Batman Begins and The Dark Knight and is thus set in that continuity, but with scripts contributed by comics writers and then handed over to a variety of Japanese animators to render as they saw fit I was worried the end product would be disjointed beyond comprehension. Fortunately, while the individual episodes stand alone there is enough of a throughline connecting them to keep the viewing experience fairly cohesive despite the fact that Bruce Wayne looks like a teenage Asian boy in one episode and a 30 year old Caucasian man in the next. Over the property’s 70 year history the Batman has stood up to hundreds of differing interpretations, so none of the liberties taken here were too disturbing, though a few of the stylistic choices do beggar explanation, and the welcome presence of Kevin Conroy as the voice of the Dark Knight throughout was an absolute comfort. While not completely satisfying as a piece unto itself, many of Gotham Knight’s segments are pleasantly successful and overall the work is of a piece with the dark tone of Nolan’s movies. This isn’t a must-buy by any means, and nowhere near the quality of DC’s recent awesome animated offering The New Frontier, but it’s a worthwhile attempt to try something different with Batman and company and a good way for viewers to get themselves good and hyped for the impending premiere of The Dark Knight itself.
Final Crisis #2: As the behind-the-scenes stories of DC were seemingly beginning to outperform their fictional output recently, along comes Final Crisis #2 to remind us — and clue some of us in — that Grant Morrison’s had this thing pretty well set for awhile, and the story proceeds apace. This issue is a bit more straightforward than the debut (read: more action, fewer cavemen), and the overall thrust of the story becomes a lot more clear. Art is exemplary throughout, which is part of what made the announcement of Carlos Pacheco fill-in pages on #4 on so disappointing — it would be nice if DC could have just one big event book with consistent art and writing alike. Still, I enjoyed this issue from the awesome introductory Japanese superhero sequence to the last-page reveal and as the roller-coaster heads into the first big hill I’m digging the ride.
