Month 4: Rise of the machines

Action #4: The premise of this is great - Earth is being harvested by the same guy who put Kandor in a bottle last month - but the execution not so much. The main part of the comic is a fun read (although it does smack slightly of Disco Dad at times; "your favourite band is the Red Hot Chili Peppers"? Really?) but the worst part is undoubtedly that GMoz can't even be arsed writing it all himself.

"So, Steel's turned up to fight the Terminaut. At the end I want Steel there, but I don't care about any of the rest of it. I'm not bothered who writes it either. Sholly Fisch? Who he? He writes DC kids' books, huh?"

Is it just me who finds that lazy and slack? Oh and the next two issues are a different story before we come back to this one. Except that takes us to #7, where DC have already said Action and Superman are in the same time. So 6 years elapse between this issue and the next part. Hmm.

Animal Man #4: This continues to be a confounding read. The art is still sketchy - I love it when it's doing wilding impressionistic swathes of... weird... but don't get on with it when it's supposed to be real. In terms of plot, basically Maxine could have meant the last issue didn't need to exist, there's a sentient cat from The Red living with the Bakers now and Cliff might be dead having been eaten by Mr Potato Head. I already feel the groan for next month when Maxine makes it so it didn't happen. Poor Cliff. I hope he becomes the Kenny McCormack or Rory Williams of the Johnsiverse.

Batwing #4: I thought I had cut this but it appears the LCS still want me to take it, which isn't really a problem since the story has got better now the art has got worse. That said, you or I could write a SEKRIT ORIGIN OF AN ARFRICAN BOY GROWING UP WITH GUNS AND STUFF and it would look pretty much like this, except we wouldn't be getting paid thousands of bucks to do it. This is now not doing anything the recent run of Unknown Soldier by Josh Dysart wasn't, which was cancelled through lack of readers. HOLY BAT-FRANCHISE! It's the only explanation.

Detective Comics #4: The previous issues of this have been great, but this is a mess of ACTION shots and JUMPING and GRIMACING. Jim Gordon looks and acts like a stoner. The issue ends pretty much exactly where we were at the end of #1, which makes it feel like it's been kind of a waste of time. Looks like the Penguin next. My curiosity will keep me reading but this is a book on the brink of being dropped after this issue. Oh fickle me.

OMAC #4: In which Didio and Giffen embrace the fact they're doing nothing clever here and go all out for the Kirby. GIANT ALLIGATORS WITH ROBOT NUCLEAR HEADS! It looks like Frankenstein shows up next month and the books cross over. This seems to be a trend in the first of the #4s, setting up crossover events early. I suspect this is all pointing to a giant X-Over event next summer (the traditional point for EVENTs) during which the Johnsiverse will be re-integrated back into the 52niverse. Maybe. This is a blast in the meantime, as usual.

Red Lanterns #4: Atrocitus finds out about Bleez' possible deception that's been apparent from the start, given she's been in other books and it's been mentioned in the editorial, but being a creature of RAGE GRRRR reacts by throwing three other Red Lanterns in the sea like he did with Bleez to have more smarter ones. No, I don't understand how having more smart ones will help him if they were plotting against him even when they were stupid either. (He finds this out, by the way, in the time-honoured telepathic manner of biting their necks. Anyway, since the three he chooses aren't SEXEY RED ALIUMS (they are, in fact, a goat, a floating brane and MODOK the rubber ball aliums) they don't get nearly as much character development as Bleez does. In the end Atrocitus' nemesis and confidant Krona appears to have risen from the dead in a stunning cliffhanger. Or at least it would have been if Pete Milligan hadn't said it in the interview in the back of every book this month. You'd think they'd learn by now.

Stormwatch #4: Blah blah blah blah blah. The villain turns out not to be "The Dark Side" after all, but a city swallowed by an alien force which means Jack Hawksmoor can solve it in a page. Then Apollo gets blasted by the power of the sun and frees everyone by punching a hole in its stomach. All that plot takes about 2 pages, so G_d knows what fills the rest. Ho hum.

Swamp Thing #4: This trundles along being entertaining and pulling all the strands together, neatly tying up pretty much all Rick Veitch's writing on the book in a page. It's going somewhere, definitely, but the fact this issue has THREE different inkers can make you wonder whether you want to go there with it. There's a big Animal Man crossover soon, you know. That might be where it gets into fanboy only territory.

Green Arrow #4: Giffen and Jurgens don't make this much better. There's a character called Blood Rose, who seems to have become Asian since her cameo at the end of last month and her boss (who in one panel seems to have had the lower half od his body replaced by a chair) who tells her he is ABSOLUTELY 100% CERTAIN there is no link between Green Arrow and Ollie. She appears not to think so either, even after virtually watching him change into his costume in front of her. She also has super-strength, which she doesn't use until after GA's escape - which confuses him as much as it confuses us. In other news, Steve Jobs Ollie is setting up a games company. It's all go round these parts.

Hawk & Dove #4: This just doesn't get any better. Liefeld arguably gets worse. There's now something called the War Circle which may have something to do with all the avatars' owners ganging up on each other. Dawn might have eaten Swan off-page in the last issue. Swan returns the favour in this issue by pulling Deadman's face back like in gonzo pr0n, or on the cover of Gnaw Their Tongues' "All the dread magnificence of perversity". Then a helicopter turns up and they all go home, apart from Dawn who starts acting like Jackie Chan. Oh dear.

JLI #4: A couple of notable things happen in this issue. First, Godiva wanks off Batman with her hair. Second, they are all trapped in mud which absorbs their powers, however, not when it's cold so Ice freezes it and they escape. So why didn't she do that to start with? They then get beaten again and the robots from the previous issues start to work while our heroes are attacked by mud and midgets - in other words back where we were at the start of #3. So the only different thing that happened this month was Godiva wanking off Batman with her hair. I'll leave you with that thought of how far the Johnsiverse has taken us.

Men of War #4: "Next issue: Who is the enemy?" Aldo sez: who gives a fuck? This is dreadful hackneyed war writing, full of cliche tech speak and two separate strands just so we can see Rock dressed up in two different outfits, like some kind of 2D Action Man. Oh and what a surprise, there's magic/superpowers involved animating the dead, maybe. The backups this month is Skull Bots which would be less mature if written by the kid from Axe Cop. Ridiculous stuff.

Static Shock #4: Not even worth writing about. The mid-80s have so much to answer for, and this looks pedestrian compared to the worst excesses of that era. Flabby villain of the week nonsense.

Batgirl #4: This is a solid enough close out to the Mirror storyline. Babs works out the motivation and plot at about the same time as the reader, despite having much more information than we do, and we also get a whole pile of Babs Backstory including finding out she got out of the chair because of "a clinic in South Africa". Hmm. Babs' mum turning up at the end is a bit of a shocker though. Christmas wouldn't be Christmas without a bit of Dad Dancing from Gail Simone, and this month's is that bad guys have an app for their iPhones that lets them know where Batman is. I know, right? This story arc was good enough to keep me on board for the next one, I guess.

Batman & Robin #4: To be honest, I think most people had been sleeping on this Batbook and a lot might have cut it. This issue, particularly the final pages, shows they were wrong. Yes, it's a bit wordy but Nobody has turned by stealth into a great character. The next few issues are going to be the making of Damian, it looks like.

Batwoman #4: In contrast, this has got an easy ride because of how good it was. And it spectacularly fails to drop the ball here, with the strongest issue yet. Kate Kane's world teeters on the brink of complete collapse and I have no idea how it's going to pan out. And just to show all the SEXEY TIMES FUN doesn't just happen in other books, this has probably the most graphic and explicit sex of the Johnsiverse to date but will pass without comment because it's sapphic shenanigans. Oh, and it's intercut with a graphic fight, torture and bloody slashing. Still immune from comment? It seems so. If this was Catwoman the blogverse would be calling for everyone involved to be sacked.

Demon Knights #4: You know what the most under-rated book of the Johnsiverse is? It's this one. An absolute pleasure from start to finish as ever, and as usual Vandal Savage is the best thing about it. "Wake up!It is your comrades! Vandal Savage! Jason Blood! That tall woman!" This is the origin story of this version of the Shining Knight and comes close to out GMoz-ing Gmoz' take on it. Can we have more books like this please?

Frankenstein #4: The other Seven Soldiers character pulled through into the Johnsiverse still feels like an inferior BPRD but this is most accomplished issue so far, and makes me glad I hadn't cut it. Aquaman gets slagged off and giant monsters get killed. What's not to like? I'm hoping Ray Palmer is going to start playing a bigger part in this because he's the part which makes it work the best.

Legion Lost #4: You know what? Even I'm coming round to the idea that this book isn't really that great. We push the idea that the alien is partly Chameleon Girl and the main baddie becomes massively powerful at the end. But not much else happens really. Even this summary is boring.

Suicide Squad #4: Here's the thing. Without going into specifics, the Squad core team regularises and not in the way you'd expect. Also, King Shark actually gets clear-headed at one point. You really should still all be reading this book.

Deathstroke #4: Deathstroke gets out of prison. Deathstroke kills some people. Deathstroke's mate gets offed. Reading this text is marginally less boring than reading the comic.

Green Lantern #4: Hal didn't die and is still in WUB with Carol. Sinestro gets tortured for a bit. The rest of the issue is clearly about some OBVIOUSLY HISTORIC Geoff Johns GL thing I never read about which gives us a pile of Sinestro backstory. Then Hal manages to fuck it up for him (by accident, OBVIOUSLY). BLAH BLAH WHO CARES.

Grifter #4: What the fuck has this got to do with the previous issues? They were all about the mystery of who Cole was. Now it's a gun-for-hire book that almost succeeds to be the worst Johnsiverse book that's had Green Arrow in it, and that's some claim. It looks like the daemonites are behind it all, probably. Woohoo, we're off into the Wildstorm universe again. Who cares.

Mister Terrific #4: Big brains are really useful in space. Still, the artist got to draw some cool aliens. Well not really because they don't actually look that cool. Michael uses his intellect once and mostly the aliens do things with each other that he's not that involved with. Dreadful stuff that goes nowhere and, again, seems unlinked to the previous issues.

Resurrection Man #4: Huh? OH LOOK BEWBS! The plot actually moves slightly forward in this, but only by essentially writing the previous two issues out (or at least making their content irrelevant). Thumb-woman from #1 turns out to be an angel, who (it appears) permanently kills our titular hero. Might be for the best.

Superboy #4: Superboy burns a Christmas tree with his heat vision and scares some carollers. Makes a change from punching the universe, I suppose. Anyway, the previous 3 issues may just have been a ruse to capture Fairchild. Superboy seems resigned to his lot and decides to work for the people who are the bad guysin Teen Titans. CROSSOVER ALERT. Again.

Batman #4: This is maybe the most prosaic issue of this book to date, but that's OK because it's quite nice not to be so thrill-powered for a change. We get a lot of dialogue about Young Bruce and some family history leading to BIFF! BANG! POW! Another great cliffhanger! Best BatBook of the bunch.
Birds of Prey #4: Eh? So knocking people out solves the walking bomb problems and handily resolves the DINAH MUST DIE! cliffhanger from the last issue. But it also makes her entirely redundant as a character as the plot is resolved without her and told to her in flashback. Anyway, the people blowing up thing is supposedly because of a new experimental anti-stroke drug (here's a hint, I suspect most stroke victims would rather have had the stroke than ended up spread across the tarmac and taken to the morgue in a couple of carrier bags) which is cured by new Doctor McHandsome. We end back up in the lair of the invisible robots (and Doctor McHandsome's handy new Invisible Robot Uninvisibling Machine) where they show off their new power of teleporting people (although they're not that good at it because Batgirl goes missing - someone more cynical might suggest this is just a normal DC art error though). Maybe somebody new will join next month? Maybe somebody else will read it next month?
Blue Beetle #4: Hooray! The crap villain from last month's reveal is just as crap as I thought he'd be! More sterotypical hispanic nonsense with marginal plot advancement (but maybe that's fine after last month's revelations about the baddie), although Jaime is more in control of the suit... until it skewers his best mate at the very end. Oops. Maybe it's got some magic make-better rays that haven't been shown yet.
Captain Atom #4: Find a copy of Watchmen. Read the Doctor Manhattan sections. It obviously must have been massively influenced by this issue then taken back in time by Rip Hunter or Booster Gold or somebody. I mean, what are the chances that two people could write something so similar? Even bits of the art are the same. I don't know who this Moore fellow is, but he's clearly a nobody compared to the giant of comics that is JT Krul. The villain for the next issue appears to have been a huge influence on Krang from the TMNT animated show (and taken back in time by Rip Hunter/Booster Gold etc). Hoo boy.
Catwoman #4: Mmm. Winicky. Selina meets an old friend, lots of people talk to each other, I still hate the art. This looks like the most unsurvivable cliffhanger in the who Johnsiverse thus far, and it's got some competition (Static Shock having his arm cut off, for one). This could be a really good book, but it just... isn't. Maybe it can pick it up, I don't know.
DC Presents #4: The 90s are back! Back! Back! This is like a third or fourth tier Vertigo book from the very early days (like Vamps or something like that) in an OOOOOOOOOH MYSTICAL SPOOKINESS LOOK THE PICTURE IS STRETCHED way. I just wish this Deadman story would be over, because it's not nearly as clever as it thinks it is. Actually, I did think it was over last month. Apparently not, and there is at least one to go. Wonderful.
Green Lantern Corps #4: OK, this is just stupid. We start off with a Lantern getting a mind-sword through the head JUST BECAUSE. It turns out the swords are a green, glowing, transparent sort of a thing keyed to individual people "just like your rings". ENOUGH HINTS YET? The captive Lanterns are walked across the Emerald Plains where there are hundreds of Lantern shaped indents. GOT IT FINALLY? Jonn Jonn'z turns up eventually and after slagging Guy Gardner off for not saving Mars interrogates the captive bad guy from the last issue. It turns out (DUH!) that they were the people who used to look after the power batteries before the Guardians were dicks about it, and are now just annoyed enough about it to commit genocide on random planets. Or something. They also patently did it on a planet that has the same atmosphere as every other planet in the universe simultaneously, as a pile of Lanterns manage to survive on it with completely exhausted rings (and therefore no life support system). Lantern Tongue has become Lantern Tail in the course of an issue. I just don't know what to think any more, it's like my whole life's fallen apart.
Justice League #4: CHOOOOOOOMM One of the worst kept secrets in the Johnsiverse comes to pass as Darkseid turns up. And this is a pretty good book outside of this, even if the majority of the fun elsewhere is laughing at Hal Jordan. Even Aquaman gets in on the act, and you've got to be pretty shit for him to take the piss out of you. I could almost get to like Cyborg out of this. There, I said it. I'll leave the last word to Aquaman's Amazing Parademon-Eathing Non-pathetic Sharks - OM NOM NOM.
Legion of Super Heroes #4: A thrilling end to the Dominators storyline, though it does sort of come out of nowhere. One minute Cham is wondering how to signal the Legion, a couple of pages later they just turn up. As a special Brucie Bonus, Braniac works out how Glorith's powers work. What's not to like?
Nightwing #4: Dick's conquest from last month gets all huffy when Babs Gordon turns up, with her big city hair and her big city clothes and her big city acrobatic abilities. They defeat Spinebender by electrifying him until he turns into glass (give me a break, I didn't write it). There's lots of rooftops and ropes and everything else that makes Batbooks good and this is definitely a solid enough title - just not a very popular one and might not be unique enough to survive future line-slashing by DiDio. A mysterious book turns up in the end, bringing the total for the Johnsiverse to about 6. This might be becoming A Thing.
Red Hood #4: This genuinely is just getting better and better. Starfire gets some character development and then mistakenly flies into the giant green glowing ring that couldn't be more obvious not to fly through if it had a giant sign marked DO NOT FLY INTO THIS GIANT GREEN GLOWING RING on it. Jason and Roy try to put the moves on girls in a bar and end up fighting a Bewbs Cop Alium with half a head (after Roy shot arrows through it). In his defence, I don't think he knew she was a alium before he shot her. I can't explain how I got to like this as much as I do. It's just FUN. Remember that, kids?
Supergirl #4: In contrast, Supergirl gets objectively worse. It's not awful, but it just doesn't seem to be going anywhere. Supergirl escapes and the bad guy is almost killed but gets saved with the technology of the bad guy from a couple of issues ago and not like Cyborg or somebody like that, honest. This needs to start improving.
Wonder Woman #4: This is more like it. Diana, Hermes and Zola go to an awesome metal show in London. Fortunately they do not pass go and go directly to Chaki's bed to wait for him, but have a squabble instead. Apollo and Ares plot something very carefully - so carefully that Ares is accused of being Greek's Obtusest God. Hera visits Hippolyta to have it out with her over Zeus shagging her (although why she isn't having the conversation with him or, say, Leda isn't mentioned) and ends up forgiving her by turning her into a statue and all her friends into snakes. Given that it looked like they were going to lez up at one point, it's a disappointing ending for all parties to be honest - but at least Azzarello is taking us back in the horror direction he promised.

All-Star Western #4: Just when you thought he was leaving, Amadeus Arkham is back after all and pair go off looking for a missing kid (although Jonah almost certainly hasn't told him about the money) but how can this be bad? It's a detective comic set in Gotham City. It ends with Jonah taunted for not being Superman by a guy possibly uglier than him. The new backup is a brand new character, The Barbary Ghost, and is about as good as the EL Diablo one was previously i.e. not that hot. I hate how few people buy this, but hats off to DC for sticking with it.

Aquaman #4: This just in: Aquaman is still a dick. He kills an entire species (the one that all 4 issues of the Johnsiverse series have been about) because he can't speak to them with his mind control powers thing - although to be fair they are trying to eat him at the time. He then gets a dog. That can't swim. Jeez, I would have felt irresponsible if I got a dog and had to leave it in the house while I went to work. Still, Geoff Johns is going to tell us who sank Atlantis soon. That'll bring in the readers, huh?

Batman The Dark Knight #4: In which Batman explains to Wonder Woman that Flash is outrunning some poison, then has a nice ice cream. Alfred has a crying wank about the woman in the rabbit suit from the last issue, Bruce stands up the pretty girl from previous months and Deathstroke chops the batplane in half before the Scarecrow shows up (and is possibly revealed as the guy who's been making violent people violent) and quotes Neil Gaiman. Yes, I'm aware of how stupid that all looks but it's a really good read. Honest. You can trust this face.

Blackhawks #4: Is this sort of going anywhere? The past issues have made so little impression the plot read as follows: somebody I don't recognise has stolen something I don't recognise and fights him after being given a knife by somebody I don't recognise. She then hits him with a plane and is congratulated by somebody I don't recognise. In the mean time two people I don't recognise hit someone I don't recognise with a toolbox and steal a different plane which flies off into space. I'm sure they'll all be back next month and I won't know who they are then either.

Flash #4: This is still as gorgeous to look at as ever, and the plot seems to be racing towards a conclusion. We even have enough time for a flashback (no pun intended) to Barry's mum, reminding us that BARRY ALLEN IS TO BLAME FOR THE WHOLE DAMN JOHNSIVERSE IN THE FIRST PLACE. It turns out Barry is not faster than a speeding bullet, but his brain is. We find out why there seemed to be so many Manuels in previous issues. Iris smashes some ice. Are all my favourite comics secretly retarded when you actually explain them?

Green Lantern New Guardians #4: Speaking of which (and I don't mean favourite comics)... it turns out Larfleeze is so obviously confident because he has a pet Guardian, who may turn out to be female based on the descriptions. And a bit pervy, as she tries to fight all the other Guardians by attacking them with anal love beads while saying she's going to spit roast them. Kyle decides Ganthet, who he only met the other day but is "like a father" to him, isn't for him and decides to betray him and hang out with the cool kids like Bleez (who obviously doesn't share the sentiment as she buggers off as soon as she can), Arkillo and Munk. He's so clever.

I, Vampire #4: Absolutely beautiful, as ever. This is a really nice, almost self-contained story although Constantine's presence in it is utterly redundant. It does raise the question though of how all this vampiring has been going on in the mainstream Johnsiverse without the Justice League or, at a pinch, Static Shock getting involved and killing them. Still, this and Batwoman might be worth springing for oversized collections of in the future just to revel in them.

Justice League Dark #4: Is this Watchmen month? Dawn comes into her apartment and meets a sinister man in a trenchcoat eating cold baked beans directly from the tin. Anyway, all the sub-threads of this seems to be coming together and the team should actually form next issue, but I think we might also see another lover's tiff as Deadman's still trying to get into June Moon's pants and maybe Shade will have a crack at Zatanna while he's at it. I do like this, but I'm not sure why.

Superman #4: The villain is revealed; IT WAS SUPERMAN ALL ALONG! Presumably it was the other Superman that we see briefly while Clark is on the phone to Lois. Anyway, aside from the cop-out ending this is still far too wordy - although it's been cut back so at least you can see some of the art this time round. Really, this is just boring nonsense.

Teen Titans #4: The two halves of the team finally get together, although quite how the random street in the snow from last month gets you into a penthouse flat I have no idea (and to his credit, Scott Lobdell says he has no idea how it happened either). Wonder Girl and Superboy have a slugfest in Times Square (meaning we now have Gotham, Metropolis and New York in the Johnsiverse) and then everybody else turns up to join in. Kid Flash is still the best thing in it.

Firestorm #4: Wait, what? Qurac is back! It is the 80s after all! And now they have nuculer weapons! And now Russia has a Firestorm as well we can have a Cold War! Can we please get back to normal?

Hawkman #4: On page three of this there is a green woman who flies with blobs on her feet and talks through her arse. Is it just bad art? Probably, but nothing would surprise me any more. A complete mess, again.

Voodoo #4: Inconsequential stuff, as Voodoo breaks into a top secret faciltity (possibly to find out about Superman) then breaks back out again. She changes shape an awful lot of times including at the last into a dog. That's about as much as you need to know, frankly. Glad I'm not paying for it.