So it’s Grant Morrison week for sure. Between Final Crisis #1 and Batman #677, the display of sheer writing mastery Morrison brings to bear is staggering. In Final Crisis #1 Morrison manages to infuse the standard universe-shattering crossover structure with enough sheer humanity to overcome the cynicism with which one would normally view such events, in a few elegant opening pages explaining why stories of super-powered, more-than-human characters have such elemental appeal, tying deeply into the rich history of DC Comics’ seventy-plus year publication record without making it inaccessible or incomprehensible. The scene with the Monitors manages to make better use of the characters in a few scant panels than in the entirety of Countdown combined — and actually does follow up on a single plot thread from that series, making it not totally dismissable. (Perhaps its relevant storylines could just be retold in a single standalone 48-page book rather than force anyone to slog through all 51 issues + innumerable tie-ins and spinoffs of Countdown.) JG Jones’ art is pretty much flawless, although the Question does look a bit too much like she has a face in the panel where (thanks to Entertainment Weekly’s Final Crisis preview featuring excerpts of Morrison’s script) Grant clearly indicated no face. Minor nitpick aside though, everything on the page is exemplary — I just hope he can keep it up on time and this series doesn’t fall victim to the incongruous dropped-in fill-in pages that torpedoed Infinite Crisis. Because so far, Final Crisis is shaping up to be fairly awesome — and also kind of beautiful.
The striking Alex Ross cover (based on a Morrison design, I believe) that adorns Batman #677 leads in to the best work of Tony Daniel’s penciling career. Previously I’ve always found Daniel’s work on series like Teen Titans and Flash to be acceptable at best and fairly static, but his work has really risen to the level of Morrison’s writing quickly during his relatively brief tenure on Batman. While he could still stand to render depth a bit more naturally, for the most part he evokes exactly the right crossbreed between Jim Lee’s and Neal Adams’ Batman work. And Morrison’s script…uh, wow. As Batman R.I.P. kicks into high gear, Morrison deconstructs the entire basis of the Batman character in a few devastating pages (capped with an excellent silent Daniel full-page splash the original of which will surely bring a dear price at auction) — and that’s where the story really begins, rolling down a rollercoaster sequence of events that tie together plot threads Morrison has been weaving into the series since the beginning of his run. Parallels to the excellent Len Wein/Jim Aparo/John Byrne miniseries Untold Legend of the Batman abound, including the promised next-issue appearance of the “first Batman”, whose costume is prominently highlighted here, so hopefully a reprint edition is on the way, perhaps in one of those reprint specials Ryan Sook keeps doing great covers for.
Taken together, Final Crisis #1 and Batman #677 thematically show Morrison going deeply into the basic humanity of these superheroic characters, restoring some of the primal appeal that frequently gets lost amidst pointless revisions of continuity and whatnot, stripping back many of the barnacles of history that have accumulated on these properties over time — while also celebrating the rich mine of potential story elements provided by that selfsame history. Sure, if you know the entire history of DC Comics you might catch all the references Morrison makes in these two comics, including all the crazy 50s Batman stories where he fought aliens and had rainbow costumes and so on — but it’s not necessary, and it’s not the point. That background can enrich a story, but it can’t be the basis for it in and of itself, and it can’t really do more than provide a really good prefabricated background for a story. But done well, it can provide a fantastic stockpile of raw material to pick and choose among around which to craft an excellent story, and Morrison does well here.
I was reading the excellent Absorbascon piece “10 Reasons Barry Allen Needs to Be the Flash Now” the other day and it reminded me of this piece, which I posted on the old dccomics.com message boards under the title “Barry Allen’s return as the Flash is inevitable, and here’s five reasons why” in early 2001. I recall it inspiring some spirited debate in the typical style of the dccomics.com message boards, probably much of which was along the lines of “u r stoopid.” Unfortunately they’ve changed the message board system over there a time or two since then and they don’t have archives of the old boards. Even digging around on archive.org came up empty in the date range I needed, but I was able to find a file in my archives dated 5/5/2001 where I’d evidently saved the post and incorporated my replies from the thread at the end. Interesting to consider this in the context of everything that’s come since — at the time, the Wally West Flash series was in the mid #170s, Geoff Johns had been writing the series for mayyyybe a year, Scott Kolins had done about half a year’s worth of issues, Bart Allen was alive and appearing regularly in his own series as Impulse, Identity Crisis was over three years away — and Barry Allen’s actual return in Final Crisis was seven years in the future.
“Barry Allen’s return as the Flash is inevitable, and here’s five reasons why (5/5/2001)
Okay, I’ll admit I’m a longtime member of the Bring Back Barry Brigade, but here’s my two cents:
1: Everybody knows comic book characters come back to life.Did anyone really think Superman was going to stay dead?No.It’s an accepted fact.As far as Barry staying dead being a ‘tribute’ or whatever, I think staying dead for 16 years proves the point.This is the same kind of logic that leads people to make grim, humorless comics and then claim it’s more ‘realistic’.This is, in fact, one of the Great Things about comics: it ain’t real life.In real life, people stay dead, in comics they don’t if there’s a demand for the character.To pretend otherwise is ridiculous.The lame X-Men ‘deaths’ and the reader’s lack of respect for them is more a reflection of bad writing (rampant in the X-books), not an indication that dead characters need to stay dead.Look at how many times the JSA has ‘retired’, and each time is was presented as ‘for good’.Seems to be the JSA is doing pretty well right now for characters that were ‘dead for good’.Why?Good writing.
2: Since Barry’s heroic death, so many holes have shot in the story that his NOT returning is more unbelievable than anything else.First the (excellent) Secret Origins story that changed Barry turning into dust (as cited by an earlier post) into Barry becoming the lightning bolt that originally struck him, then Waid later adding his speed force angle leading to Barry joining the force, and finally Marv Wolfman letting us all in on the ‘out’ he left in Crisis in the new introduction.We were told no one comes back from the force, but Wally has done so, and clearly Wally’s not more powerful than Barry.All that’s lacking is a reason, and the obvious one is this — if an evil speedster tried to kill Linda, Iris, and/or Fiona, this would be enough to draw Barry’s essence out of the force, this type of thing being the most traumatic events in Barry’s life.This would also introduce lacking conflict to Wally’s character, him wondering if Barry only came back out of lack of faith in Wally.This could set up Wally becoming a ‘Dark Flash’ a la Walter West, with that great costume Walt sported.Also, for years it’s been accepted that despite the book continually claiming so-and-so is the one true Flash or whatever, the readers have no problem and in fact enjoy seeing Jay, Wally, and every Flash conceivable running and fighting alongside one another.One more Flash would hardly confuse the matter more, and might even add to the fun.Hell, I still miss Johnny Quick.My (and many fans’) favorite stories are the ones that had Jay, Wally, and Barry teaming up to solve a big case, and my favorite Wally stories are the ones with Jay and company.
3: Wally’s book has basically been turned into Barry’s book bit by bit over the years.Considering the original slogan, “The costume’s the same…everything else is different!” is now very ironic.They upped Wally’s power level, got him married to a reporter, brought back Iris, gave him a ‘Kid Flash’ of his own, brought back the original logo, brought back the original costume (every detail is now as Infantino designed bar the belt, and I think the wings on the boots), and most recently (thanks Geoff Johns) brought back the last missing element: the police work and supporting police characters.All that’s missing is Green Lantern/Green Arrow drawn by Neal Adams in the back of the book, but then that could never happen because as we all know Hal and Ollie are dead — oh wait, hey look, they were bought back!Like comic book characters always are!
4: The ‘death’ event is played out, and as many have observed, it doesn’t work anymore.No one believes it.The ‘Batman Dies’ event was played as a joke, assuming even the casual reader’s savvy enough to know going in Batman’s not really dying.
But what events are working, and bringing new, genuine attention to characters that have been lacking excitement for years?That’s right, BRINGING THEM BACK FROM LIMBO.Doubt me?Hal Jordan.Ollie Queen.And right this instant, Hawkman.This is what’s working.Crisis was great, but the ‘death of comics characters’ thing is over.The Crisis reissue has not only reintroduced Barry and the circumstances of his last appearance to thousands of new readers, but established (via Wolfman’s intro) that the death they see therein is easily contravened.
5: Comics’ audience size right now is terrible, and shrinking all the time.The number of people who have cable and receive the Sci-Fi channel is undoubtedly many times huger than the number of us who ever see those magnificent covers Bolland’s doing every month.We ‘know’ we’re the ‘real’ Flash fans, but those kids watching those Flash TV show reruns ‘know’ the Flash is…Barry Allen.DC thus once again blows another cross-marketing opportunity.If there’s ever a Flash movie, sheer economic forces will likely dictate that they bend towards the TV audience, not the comic fanbase, ’cause even if every comics fan out there went to see the movie it wouldn’t make it profitable.
I appreciate the countering arguments, but they sound weaker and weaker with every reiteration.Comics need to cut the crap if they are to survive, and this is an obvious hurdle: new readers don’t know who Wally is, even if it seems blatantly obvious to us.I don’t want to see Wally die, depowered, or become Kid Flash again, and lord knows I love the character too, but the problems are inherent in the fact that he’s not the Flash most people know.
Hey, at least I’m not demanding they bring Carmine back to draw the book!”
The Brave and the Bold #13: Mark Waid gets around to doing another classic done-in-one team-up. In retrospect I wish his entire run had been such, because it’s really where this series shines and let’s face it, his overarching plots for the longer runs were more than a little strained. This love letter to the Silver Age resurrects the Samuroids, among the most obscure Flash foes (they only appeared in one two-part story, in TheFlash #180–181, thirty years ago) and while admittedly I’m a sucker for a Batman/Flash team-up, Waid hits all the right notes here and Jerry Ordway is doing great work on art. It’s nice to see Batman take a back seat to someone else for once, and it’s nice to see Jay Garrick in a role beyond “the old Flash” or “the Justice Society’s Flash” for the first time in awhile.
Grendel - Behold the Devil #7: Along with the revived Nexus, this series is a rare treasure: a return to the greatest of independent 80’s comics done by the original creator as good as it ever was. The rare Grendel stories completely written and drawn by Matt Wagner alone have always been the crown jewels of the Grendel saga, and they’re far too few and far-between for my preference, so this eight-issue series is a real treat in general. In particular, this issue is a joy for Grendel fans as Wagner sums up the entire history of the Grendel series, shows again why Hunter Rose is the one true Grendel, and draws many characters he himself never rendered as part of the series before. The real triumph is that while longtime readers will certainly be pleased by the book, Behold the Devil would work equally successfully as someone’s introduction to the Grendel series.Reportedly Wagner intended this to be read in collected form, so when Behold the Devil hits your local Borders in an attractive all-in-one black, white, and red package don’t miss it.
Countdown To Mystery #8: The last of the Countdown mini-series sputters to a halt. It’s a damn shame how this one ended up. The Eclipso section was always garbage (and this issue’s lame, cliched “Remember who you are!” conclusion accomplishes nothing but to dial Eclipso back exactly to the character’s original status quo and put everything else back exactly as it was) but Steve Gerber’s Dr. Fate was fantastic stuff, beautifully drawn by Justiniano. Unfortunately Steve went and died on us, the selfish bastard. Last issue’s Fate segment was weakly scripted by Adam Beechen from Gerber’s plot and here we get four different quick four-page wrap-ups to Gerber’s series proposed by Beechen (weak), Mark Evanier (quite good), Mark Waid (a fantastic tribute to Gerber and an excellent imitation of his classic style), and Gail Simone (mm, well-intentioned but trying too hard and a bit cloying). None are completely satisfying, but then nothing really could be. Let’s just agree on Waid’s ending as the “real” in-continuity answer and move Gerber’s Fate into the DC mainstream on the JSA — and maybe keep this Fate around for a bit, eh?
The Flash #240: I guess the “Dark Side Club” banner atop this issue heralds it as some tangential Final Crisis tie-in. I’m gonna go out on a limb here and say you can probably skip this one. Something does actually threaten to happen in this book in the last two pages, but since it involves one of Wally’s kids it’ll probably end up being nothing more than one of the kids’ power shifts that they’ve been telegraphing since the beginning of this relaunch. What with Final Crisis itself boiling along in the background (starting next week!) and the events of DC Universe #0, this series is looking more and more like it’s just biding time. I mean, seriously, The Flash isn’t even where you go to get good Flash stories anymore: last month, the best Flash story released was in JLA, this month, it’s in The Brave & the Bold (see above), and then there’s that whole DCU #0/Final Crisis deal. And here we get a corny TV villain Alan Moore did twenty times better in Supreme. Yeah, I’d say this is definitely just filler. But then, next week is a big week, and we’ll know more then.
Avengers - The Initiative #13: Christos Gage takes solo-scripting duties and the results are pretty much uniformly superior to anything in this title to date. This issue is funny as hell, and very clever and insightful besides. I gotta say, Gage isn’t yet writing a ton of mainstream stuff but he frequently impresses when I run across his work: his Deadshot mini was great, and if this title was this good every month, it’d be among my favorite Marvel books.
Fantastic Four #557: Mark Millar and Bryan Hitch’s FF is surprisingly terrible. Coming off of The Ultimates, pretty much the best work of either of their careers, this is, well…just pretty awful. I guess I’m glad Hitch found a way to draw faster again but his work really doesn’t look as good, and Millar’s plot is literally groan-inducing. (Trying to treat giant robots fighting with Kingdom Come-level gravitas was probably a bad idea.) I don’t know, maybe it’s just a bad match, where the creators and the characters don’t have the right chemistry. Too bad circumstances dictate against this team taking over All-Star Superman when Morrison finishes, though.
Mighty Avengers #14 : Brian Bendis follows up on the least interesting plot thread involved with Secret Invasion, namely, what’s goin’ on with the Sentry? The scenes in this issue with the undercover Skrulls meeting covertly were kinda interesting but otherwise, no big reveals or anything particularly rewarding, just a whole lotta Sentry. Nice art by Koi Pahm though, and I liked the cover though it has absolutely nothing to do with the contents of the book. I swear this had better end with the Sentry getting killed or killing himself (as hinted here) because seriously, the Sentry sucks and this much focus on him is just unnecessary unless he’s going away soon. Every story about him past the original, entertaining-for-what-it-was mini-series is basically “The Sentry’s crazy powerful!” “No, he’s just crazy!” “Huh, turns out he’s both!” Repeat ad nauseum. We get it, he’s crazy and also pretty stupid and easily fooled. Now he needs to sacrifice his life to save the universe or bring Proty II back to life or something.
Iron Man #29: Coming in the wake of the excellent runs by Warren Ellis and the Knauf father & son team, and in the month of Iron Man’s widest commercial succes, this Stuart Moore-penned part 1 of 4 is a bit of a letdown. The nanotech plot is right out of something Grant Morrison or Ellis would have done ten years ago, and the out-of-synch-with-current-MU-events setting makes the whole thing smell a bit much like a fill-in.
Captain America #38: Okay, yes, it was fairly obvious who the red herring “Steve Rogers” was, but the execution is so good the real enjoyment is in Brubaker telling the story. His Captain America is really just a flat-out pleasure to read, and the art fits perfectly, as always. Consistently one of the best books on the stands, and one that will really be rewarding to those who stumble across the collected editions in their local Borders or Barnes & Nobles. Just pure rock.
Amazing Spider-Man #560 : So judging from interviews the creative team behind the thrice-monthly ASM had a mission not to fall back on the same old Spidey villains and instead come up with some new menaces for Parker to go up against. This they have done. Unfortunately, all the new villains kinda suck. This issue’s Paper Doll is the lamest yet, and Dan Slott’s script lays it on more than a bit thick — the last-page reveal really isn’t nearly as shocking or unexpected as they seem to think, and the rest is forgettable. Ultimately the writing here can’t be called anything but lame, which is a bit of a shame as Marcos Martin’s art is more-or-less fantastic throughout.
DC/WildStorm DreamWar #2: Man, I generally like Keith Giffen’s stuff and it’s cool to see him write the Legion of Super-Heroes again for a couple pages, but I have no damn idea at all what the hell’s happening in this book. I guess I’ll keep reading and hope it starts to make sense soon. I wouldn’t recommend you start this one now if you haven’t yet though.
Back in the early boom days of the internet everything seemed to be based on some vague notion of giving stuff away for free and somehow, someway there would be a payday on the other end, whether advertising-supported or underpants gnome-supported. Wowio seems in ways to be a relic of that time, in that for no money at all you can sign up and download 3 ebooks in pdf format per day (including some indie comic books) , up to 30 per month, with the only caveat being a couple of pages of adverts stuck in at the beginning and end.
Of course, the selection is necessarily limited, but with some searching within your areas of interest you’ll find enough stuff to fill your download queue quickly enough. In the comics area, there’s not really any Marvel or DC obviously, but I recommend searching for anything by Steve Rude (Nexus) or Bill Willingham (Fables) to start off with. Oh, and definitely anything by Bill Mantlo, as that actually is some stuff Marvel put out and the mere act of downloading it somehow goes to contribute to Mantlo’s medical bills in his declining years by internet magic. Even if you’re not really one for reading on your computer — yet — you might as well grab a few things to stick on your flash drive or iphone or whatever: you never know when having something good to read on hand is gonna come in handy.
(I feel somehow compelled to point out that this is a genuine endorsement and I have not been in any way compensated for this, it’s my actual opinion. Anyway, what would Wowio have to offer me for my endorsement anyway? More free ebooks? Woo.)
Despite the fact that I’m a longtime Batman & the Outsiders fan, the series has never once in its publishing history ever gotten its balance exactly right.There is definitely a place for the book within the context of the DC Universe as well as an audience outside the typical hardcore comic crowd, but those handling the book rarely seem to nail it down.Oh sure, at times it’s been a decent comic with good art, especially during the Jim Aparo and Alan Davis years and the current Chuck Dixon/Julian Lopez series is far better than anyone had any right to expect, but the concept has always been more than a little ill-defined.
At the heart of the Outsiders concept is the unspoken subtext that it’s Batman’s last-ditch defense for humanity against superhumans. Therefore, for Batman to stock the team with the superpowered types — or to depend too heavily on superpowers to execute his plans — goes against the grain and never quite works.Nearly all members of the team should be normal or slightly enhanced humans who defeat superpowered enemies against incredible odds through superior planning, training, teamwork, and skill.The Outsiders is the Batman concept applied to a team book, and functions as a extended version of the ‘Batman Family,’ i.e. Bats’ inner circle of Nightwing, Robin, etc.The Outsiders are Batman’s team in Kingdom Come.The Outsiders are the team Batman assembles to take down Superman in The Dark Knight Returns, and the way that battle plays out is how a well-done Outsiders arc should read: a well-engineered plan in which the individual players are not necessarily aware of the part they play but somehow by following Batman’s plan they manage to snatch victory from the jaws of defeat (and occasionally the reverse).
The Outsiders are hardcore.The only group more intense should be the Suicide Squad. The Outsiders don’t have to get along or like each other, they just have respect each other enough to work together. Members should regularly be disturbed by the lengths to which they are forced to go to accomplish their mission goals, and float in and out of affilation with the team – at all times at least one member should be participating against their better judgement.
Certain characters fit on the team and others don’t. As Batman’s ultra-elite covert strike force it’s always been a mixed grab-bag of second-raters and hopeless cases.It’s not a training camp, and neither is it a group of big guns.It’s a team of highly-skilled, top-of-the-class in their field types who don’t work well with others — and would prefer not to except when forced to by the Batman, who won’t accept no for an answer. The Outsiders are the group Batman has because it’s necessary, not because he subconsciously wants drinking buddies.Too many superpowers don’t fit the concept: Metamorpho and Martian Manhunter are both too ridiculously overpowered for the team.An Outsider should have maybe one or two powers like Black Lightning, but despite (or because of) his overpowered nature, Geo-Force is, always has been, and always will be a dud (sorry, Brad Meltzer).
Characters that work/would work as Outsiders: Nightwing, Batgirl (Cassandra Cain), Green Arrow, Katana, Black Lightning, Huntress, Manbat, Arsenal/Red Arrow, Oracle, Atomic Knight, Plastic Man, Terra (ooh, the irony), The Creeper, Black Orchid, Ghost Detectives (only occasionally), Wolverine (you know, in some crossover bullshit or something)
Characters that don’t: Metamorpho/Shift, Thunder, Halo, Looker, Catwoman, Martian Manhunter, the Eradicator, Geo-Force, Windfall, Faust, Wylde, Technocrat, Indigo, Jade, Robin, Spoiler, Capt. Marvel Jr., Starfire (good god no)
Action Comics Annual #11: Wow, the long-delayed conclusion to the much-hyped Johns/Donner/Kubert “Last Son” story arc. This storyline is so late in ending it was launched out of the end of DC’s big event like three events ago. Adam Kubert gets an F for work ethic — his dad, comics legend Joe Kubert managed to get more pages done last year and he’s technically retired — but what he gets on the pages here does look great. It’s not precisely consistent with his work in the previous chapters of this story, oddly; at times the art here resembles Walt Simonson’s work more than the style Kubert used when this story began. Writers Geoff Johns and Richard Donner (making his last co-writing appearance?) get some good bits in here, but the story is so cold at this point it’s nigh impossible to get too worked up about it. Good stuff, really, but you guys who managed to avoid it until now and then just randomly stumble across the collected volume at Borders will probably enjoy it more than anyone.
Avengers/Invaders #1: Uncharacteristically awful covers by usually dependable artists David Finch and Alex Ross herald this Dynamite-produced, packaged-for-Marvel 12-issues series with art by former JSA hotshot Steve Sadowski. Unfortunately, it looks like they went with the same reproduced-from-pencils method here that’s made made Scott Kolins’ work look like crap ever since he left The Flash. A good inker (like Sadowski’s former JSA partner Mike [Hernandez] Bair) would have straightened out at least some of the rough spots here and there, anyway. Disappointing overall; absolutely nothing happens that anyone with a vague idea of the overall concept of the series (’40s Invaders come to the present and meet the present-day Avengers, starting this issue with Spider-Man) wouldn’t predict. Still, I’m hopeful for future issues, as I’m enjoying the other two current Golden Age-meets-the-present series, The Twelve and Project: Superpowers — but frankly this series doesn’t come out of the gate with the same charge as those books did, even with the advantage of much higher marquee name characters.
Secret Invasion #2: Mm, this felt a bit light for a chapter of a big event book. Nice art, and what’s here is well done, it’s just not really enough of it to be satisfying. A few too many big panels and obvious reaction shots, not enough real content, and no big revelations. A bit of a step down from the excellent #1.
Mighty Avengers #13: Conversely, this Secret Invasion tie-in was densely satisfying, providing some really meaty SI B-story that seems likely to lead into more interesting areas than what happened in the main book this month. Even the appearance of Bendis’ intensely annoying amazing automatic foreshadowing plot device character Layla Miller doesn’t dampen my enthusiasm here. Still, I don’t know, I guess I’d like to see more of this stuff that’s been separated off into the Avengers tie-ins at least referred to in the main book once in awhile to break up the big fight scenes with random dinosaurs.
Invincible Iron Man #1: I’m still not convinced that a second monthly Iron Man book is necessary, but eh, what the hell — let ‘em cash in while the cashing’s good. Not overwhelmingly great but a good first chapter setup, with overall decent if distractingly obviously photoreferenced art. I think I still prefer the other Iron Man book, though.
Amazing Spider-Man #558: Regardless of the merits of the individual Amazing Spider-Man ‘Brand New Day’ arcs since Marvel began this thrice-monthly publishing schedule, I have to say I think the format in itself is a success (time to ditch the Brand New Day branding though, guys). While not everything that’s comes down the pike has been great, it’s all been decent, and when it comes out three times a month it’s easy to hang in there, since the stories don’t drag on forever. Hell, that whole dumbass Mephisto-retcon thing already seems like a long time ago. Especially now that they’re not locked to the 3-part story arc structure, there’s an energy and unpredictability about the book, yet also a certain, sort of ossified classic-DC sense of there being an inviolable set of standard situational story rules as well as a refreshing sense of disconnectedness from the rest of the Marvel line due to the necessary mechanics of publishing the book. This issue wasn’t great by any means, in fact it was kinda dumb, but I found myself not really minding. The maxim of the thrice-monthly ASM seems to be “Look, we can’t promise greatness, but we can promise consistent entertainment. And a lot of it.” And sometimes that’s good enough — that’s the case here, and I’m on for at least the next dozen issues or so.
DC Universe #0: This was a very effective job of weaving what were basically teasers together and making them all tie in thematically to an overarching story that was in itself a teaser. Writers Johns and Morrison did a good job making connections between the main story and the other bits in the book, though some of them were admittedly subtle and were only evident upon rereading. (The Red and the Black, anyone?) Don’t worry if you’re a tad confused at times, as this is basically a trailer: you shouldn’t expect to understand everything in this book yet even with a comprehensive knowledge of the DCU and recent events, as most of the stories teased have either not yet begun or just started. Myself, the only bit that didn’t really get me excited for what’s upcoming was the Wonder Woman segment; I dropped that book already and haven’t seen any reason to pick it up again yet. But holy shit I can’t wait for Final Crisis: Legion of 3 Worlds and Final Crisis itself. Other than simply getting people hyped, I think the point that was successfully accomplished with DCU#0 and its attendant publicity is that it’s not so much important whether or not Barry Allen is back so much as what they do with him. And frankly, for anyone but me and other freaks the return of Barry is not a big enough event it and of itself to be the climax to a story this big. The sense I get from this is more like “Yes, okay, Barry is coming back, we’ve hinted at it heavily enough that you all know it. But we’re not gonna make you wait until Final Crisis #8 to see it, he’s coming back soon — and that’s when shit starts to break loose.”
Joss Whedon’s Runaways is just not very good. In places the writing is absolutely cringe-inducing. If your comic is going to be horrendously late it could at least show signs of more than the absolute minimum of effort being spent on it.
I bet Adam Strange has a really bad credit rating on Earth and would have trouble getting a home loan or something.
On JLA Classified going away: editorial gave a lot of big-name creators runs on the book, and the only consistently good run was Giffen/DeMatteis’ last word on the JLI characters. The rest was uniformly boring, and average at best. Yes, even the reunion of the Stern/Byrne team; yes, that Simone/Garcia-Lopez nonsense; yes, the long-awaited Kid Amazo arc; yes, the Warren Ellis arc; yes, even the introductory Grant Morrison arc. So yes, the book degenerated quickly into JLA Inventory Drawer Adventures, but I can’t point the blame entirely at editorial on this one.
Speaking of squandered chances at writing the Justice League, while I do generally like Brad Meltzer’s work I am sorta pissed that in his Justice League of America #0 he brought up all these possible interesting and cool things he could have covered during his JLA run but then the two things he actually followed through on were “So Roy and Hawkgirl totally hook up” and “I always thought Geo-Force and Vixen got a bum rap.” And when Alan Burnett got a three-issue run recently he didn’t even bother to pay attention to any of the individual characters’ speech patterns. That must cut down on writing time, anyway.
The current DC Infinity Inc. book is bafflingly pointless. Infinity Inc. is the junior JSA, but since no one at DC seems to know that, the series has no hook and no audience. Even with Pete Woods coming onboard for art that thing’s gonna be cancelled within the year.
I like Secret Invasion but we’re only one issue in and I’m already getting really tired of dumb “hey look it’s this character if they were a skrull MAYBE THEY’RE A SKRULL but probably not” covers for random books.
Awhile ago in JSA Geoff Johns gave Batman a line referring to Dr. Mid-Nite that was something like “Dr. Pieter Cross believes himself to be blind. In reality his vision has increased to cover all spectrums, but he doesn’t realize it.” Then Batman doesn’t, like, tell him that or anything. What a dick. This was like four years ago and they never brought it up again, I assume because they realized it made no sense at all.
Mark Waid writing Superman as a vegetarian is one of those things where Waid fell in love with his own ‘bit’ despite the fact that it makes no sense and even contradicts his beloved silver age lore (beef Bourguignon with ketchup, anyone?). Maybe stuff like this is why Waid will never be put on a Superman title as the regular writer after all, he kinda seems to shoot himself in the foot a lot as a writer. The Brave & the Bold seemed like the perfect book for him, as did Legion of Super-Heroes, but even when paired with rock-solid artists Waid was only able to make those into B+ books at best. It’s been a long while since anything Waid wrote was in that A-level category.
Oh, speaking of Legion: Here’s a real “haha what the fuck” moment — rather than actually write a review of Legion of Super-Heroes in the 31st Century #3, a kid-aimed comic based on the cartoon series, this guy decides instead to use the space to tell us over and over how much he’d love to fuck Infectious Lass, maybe with Saturn Girl thrown in for good measure. It starts off “Ever since I saw her in Superboy number two-o-one, I fell in love with…Infectious Lass. She looked exotically hot. She had the power to give you fever…” and goes downhill from there.
I just learned that Kobra was created by Jack Kirby. That makes him even cooler than the fact that he’s one of the only villains ever to have his own book. Kobra needs to be reimagined by Grant Morrison and, oh, let’s say Justiniano.
At this point, Vertigo has evolved to the point they should just acknowledge they can’t keep a Swamp Thing series running and give the character back to the DCU. I can see where enforcing the strict divisions was necessary at the beginning because otherwise Vertigo wouldn’t have been taken seriously as a separate imprint, but now the most successful Vertigo series have no connection to anything outside of themselves (or other Vertigo series) so letting the DCU stuff go wouldn’t hurt the company any. It’s not like Constantine is needed back in the DCU, but Swampy is. They don’t need to maintain character exclusivity to keep doing Vertigo mature-reader non-continuity reimaginings of DCU concepts anyway.
Neil Gaiman noted in the intro to the Legend of the Green Flame that there was a time when he was fast-tracked to be the new hot DCU writer–he was all set to take over Swamp Thing after Rick Veitch, but that all went to hell after they shitcanned Rick’s Swampy-inhabits-the-cross-of-Jesus-of-Nazareth story. And Sandman does feature a lot of DCU standards in its early years, from Oreo-chomping J’Onn J’Onzz to Element Girl and Lyta, Lucien, Cain, Abel, Matthew, etc. But sometimes I do wonder what we would’ve gotten had Gaiman done more relatively straight DCU stuff–obviously it’s unlikely we would’ve gotten an awesome Green Lantern Corps or Teen Titans out of him, but what could he’ve done with Arion? Amethyst? Hercules? Isis? Dare I say it–Shadowpact?
I get the impression Grant Morrison didn’t really explain anything about his plans for revamping the New Gods to anyone before this series was written, because other than New Genesis and Apokolips crashing into each other and merging into a single planet there’s really no setup for anything coming next other than some vague expository captions. And didn’t that planets crashing into each other and merging bit already happen once during John Byrne’s Jack Kirby’s New Gods run? Whatever, like most Countdown tie-ins the best one can say about this is that it’s over, which is kind of a shame because I was kind of enjoying its first couple of issues. Overall it’s certainly nothing approaching Jim Starlin’s best work though. It’s also a real cheat that they didn’t really end the story here and held it out so that something would lead back into Countdown. Mostly the feeling I’m left with is just “Man, I’m glad this crap is over.”
Batman #675:
Slightly off, weak fill-in art mars this otherwise sterling Grant Morrison-scripted issue ramping up to the much-ballyhooed “Batman R.I.P.” storyline. Grant really makes the Nightwing-Robin dynamic work well, though I’m not really buying the obviously Spirit-influenced Jezebel Jet character as anything but a plot point necessity so far — god save us from a spotlight issue exploring her inner depths though. Looking forward to seeing where this is going.
Checkmate #25:
I never totally fell in love with this Greg Rucka-scripted (latterly with Eric Trautmann helping out) series, as some issues packed all the excitement and action of a board of directors meeting and the large cast meant a lot of characters were defined by little more than a job description, a nationality, and an ethnicity. I’m sorry to see it effectively ending though, as Bruce Jones coming aboard to write means I’m dropping it like it was Jones’ amazingly awful Nightwing run. It’s a shame, as this series often seemed packed with ideas that Rucka never really got a chance to explore fully and which will now probably lay fallow until the property gets inevitably cancelled and re-revamped. Maybe it’s the fact that Checkmate is fighting Kobra throughout this fairly solid issue that makes me afraid this title is going to immediately turn into G.I. Joe next month, but if nothing else Rucka carved out a nice little niche for secret agent action within the DC Universe, assuming Jones doesn’t screw it all up.
Shadowpact #24:
As this series sputters to a close (I believe next issue is the last) it’s hard not to think that it’s amazing that it lasted this long while managing to do nothing but squander its potential. While the lead-in Day of Vengeance mini-series was surprisingly good, the ongoing has been a real waste of good characters. On paper it seems like it should work — Fables writer Bill Willingham writing (and initially, drawing) a group of magic-based characters within the DC Universe — and as a longtime fan of Willingham’s Elementals work I was hoping for a return to glory. Unfortunately, it seems Bill can’t write superhero-type characters he didn’t have a hand in creating (or defining, in the case of Fables) for shit. The series has been handed off to Willingham’s assistant Matthew Sturges to wrap up, like the turgid Salvation Run mini-series, and if Willingham didn’t have a handle on the book, Sturges’ awful, overly explanatory dialogue makes it clear he doesn’t have any better clue. Character from the past: “I cannot believe I’m in the future!” Character from the future: “Well, it’s the past for me.” No fucking shit. A magical imp says “Peace, out!” Really. Nonsensical plotting is made only slightly clearer by Phil Winslade’s decent art, and it’s nice to see Blue Devil maybe getting back to his proper status quo (though Sturges still manages to throw in completely ridiculous justification for the prototype of Blue Devil suit being more powerful than the second iteration), but it’s far too little to recommend this.
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So it’s Grant Morrison week for sure. Between Final Crisis #1 and Batman #677, the display of sheer writing mastery Morrison brings to bear is staggering. In Final Crisis #1 Morrison manages to infuse the standard universe-shattering crossover structure with enough sheer humanity to overcome the cynicism with which one would normally view such events, in a few elegant opening pages explaining why stories of super-powered, more-than-human characters have such elemental appeal, tying deeply into the rich history of DC Comics’ seventy-plus year publication record without making it inaccessible or incomprehensible. The scene with the Monitors manages to make better use of the characters in a few scant panels than in the entirety of Countdown combined — and actually does follow up on a single plot thread from that series, making it not totally dismissable. (Perhaps its relevant storylines could just be retold in a single standalone 48-page book rather than force anyone to slog through all 51 issues + innumerable tie-ins and spinoffs of Countdown.) JG Jones’ art is pretty much flawless, although the Question does look a bit too much like she has a face in the panel where (thanks to Entertainment Weekly’s Final Crisis preview featuring excerpts of Morrison’s script) Grant clearly indicated no face. Minor nitpick aside though, everything on the page is exemplary — I just hope he can keep it up on time and this series doesn’t fall victim to the incongruous dropped-in fill-in pages that torpedoed Infinite Crisis. Because so far, Final Crisis is shaping up to be fairly awesome — and also kind of beautiful.
The striking Alex Ross cover (based on a Morrison design, I believe) that adorns Batman #677 leads in to the best work of Tony Daniel’s penciling career. Previously I’ve always found Daniel’s work on series like Teen Titans and Flash to be acceptable at best and fairly static, but his work has really risen to the level of Morrison’s writing quickly during his relatively brief tenure on Batman. While he could still stand to render depth a bit more naturally, for the most part he evokes exactly the right crossbreed between Jim Lee’s and Neal Adams’ Batman work. And Morrison’s script…uh, wow. As Batman R.I.P. kicks into high gear, Morrison deconstructs the entire basis of the Batman character in a few devastating pages (capped with an excellent silent Daniel full-page splash the original of which will surely bring a dear price at auction) — and that’s where the story really begins, rolling down a rollercoaster sequence of events that tie together plot threads Morrison has been weaving into the series since the beginning of his run. Parallels to the excellent Len Wein/Jim Aparo/John Byrne miniseries Untold Legend of the Batman abound, including the promised next-issue appearance of the “first Batman”, whose costume is prominently highlighted here, so hopefully a reprint edition is on the way, perhaps in one of those reprint specials Ryan Sook keeps doing great covers for.
I was reading the excellent 
The Brave and the Bold #13: Mark Waid gets around to doing another classic done-in-one team-up. In retrospect I wish his entire run had been such, because it’s really where this series shines and let’s face it, his overarching plots for the longer runs were more than a little strained. This love letter to the Silver Age resurrects the Samuroids, among the most obscure Flash foes (they only appeared in one two-part story, in The Flash #180–181, thirty years ago) and while admittedly I’m a sucker for a Batman/Flash team-up, Waid hits all the right notes here and Jerry Ordway is doing great work on art. It’s nice to see Batman take a back seat to someone else for once, and it’s nice to see Jay Garrick in a role beyond “the old Flash” or “the Justice Society’s Flash” for the first time in awhile.
Mighty Avengers #14 : Brian Bendis follows up on the least interesting plot thread involved with Secret Invasion, namely, what’s goin’ on with the Sentry? The scenes in this issue with the undercover Skrulls meeting covertly were kinda interesting but otherwise, no big reveals or anything particularly rewarding, just a whole lotta Sentry. Nice art by Koi Pahm though, and I liked the cover though it has absolutely nothing to do with the contents of the book. I swear this had better end with the Sentry getting killed or killing himself (as hinted here) because seriously, the Sentry sucks and this much focus on him is just unnecessary unless he’s going away soon. Every story about him past the original, entertaining-for-what-it-was mini-series is basically “The Sentry’s crazy powerful!” “No, he’s just crazy!” “Huh, turns out he’s both!” Repeat ad nauseum. We get it, he’s crazy and also pretty stupid and easily fooled. Now he needs to sacrifice his life to save the universe or bring Proty II back to life or something.
Despite the fact that I’m a longtime Batman & the Outsiders fan, the series has never once in its publishing history ever gotten its balance exactly right.
