Wednesday 24 October 2012

Month 13: A New Hope

Batwoman #13: JH Williams is determined to leave Batwoman with a bang, clearly. This is basically 9 splash pages and a complete showcase for the artwork, but for the first time in months it feels like there's an actual story behind the issue. Batwoman and Wonder Woman go and visit the "Amazon Arkham Asylum" on a hunch and find out that although they're wrong in the detail their hunch was right. It does seem to be that Batwoman is being completely played though and not in control of what she chooses to do. I'm still not sure how WW's characterisation here, or in Justice League, squares with the Azzarello book but I've enjoyed reading this for the first time in months and maybe that's enough.
Birds of Prey #13: What is this, 'make all our books suddenly better' week? This is suprisingly readable and drawn well enough, ignoring the previous arcs to a large extent and just being a decent enough team-up book. Yes, the torture scenes (although not shown) feel a bit gratuitous but the pay-off of how Starling gets suckered into the trap which is no doubt going to form the next issue makes that fairly easy to forgive. A significant improvement and one hopefully they can keep up.
Blue Beetle #13: Has something happened when I wasn't looking? This is half-decent too, as the plot hurtles towards a conclusion. We end up on Reachworld and meet a similarly-minded Scarab guy (who I have no recollection of from GL:NG despite a box-out telling me I should) and they head off to destroy the Scarab planet. But OH NOES they're being chased by the guy from BB#0! Incredibly, this means one of the books from Zero Month wasn't a waste of time. Remarkable.
Catwoman #13: And just like that, Ann Nocenti gets involved and the week turns to shit. The overall plot isn't too bad (Catwoman playing a giant chess game across the city for unexplained reasons) but as usual the dialogue is dreadful and can't be saved by the art which has retreated to the T&A of the first couple of issues. How many gratuitous bra shots? Yet, curiously, I want to know what comes next. I suspect I won't be interested once I find out.
DCU Presents #13: Oh God, I'd forgotten about this. The Johnsiverse fucks up Blue Devil, as expected. This is a pretty basic "heroes mistake each other for the bad guys" tale - which is odd, because both of them are tracking drug dealers and not supervillains - and with a bit of background. Blue Devil is not Blue Devil yet, he's just a guy in a suit, but we do get a FWOOM and a different speech bubble, so maybe it happens in the last panel. There's a bad guy who is clearly NOT THE KINGPIN. Because Marvel wouldn't be happy if he was. Just like I'm not happy having read it. I'm more angry than disappointed, because I knew it would be like this.
GL:NG #13: So, we left Zero Month not in a zero, but firmly in main GL continuity... we're not really there, but maybe we are and there's just a gap of some description. I mean there must be gaps - in GL:NG #1 we see Ganthet give Kyle his ring and he immediately change into his costume. Yet, in this issue we learn about the girlfriend who designed his costume over a number of weeks (days? months?) after Ganthet gave him the ring. So is this a soft reboot? It can't be, surely, because Atrocitus refers to the events of previous issues (even if he wasn't in them - in fact, I'm not sure he can be in this based on what's happening in Red Lanterns). Anyway, Carol is making sure Kyle can channel the powers of all the other Lantern colours so he can be the best Lantern ever and get Hal back from the dead because he's the best Lantern ever Lantern Lantern Lantern Lantern AAAAARRGH MAKE IT STOP.
Justice League #13: The fallout from Super Horny Snogfest starts here! Or does it? It's the first page, but then never really comes up apart from to say "it was nice" as unemotionally as possible. Instead, we get Sadface about the relationship between WW and the Cheetah, who seems to be powered up in the Johnsiverse. Best of all, Superman seems to randomly hover in the JL Clubhouse. Anyway, Superman gets turned into a cheetah. Not, as all fans of Showcase Presents Superman would have wanted, a lion.
There's a pretty sadface Steve Trevor backup which is essentially Justice League of America #0 and seems to feature the Green Arrow from television's Arrow and not the one from the DC comic Green Arrow. Good. How's that there continuity working out for you?
LoSH #13: As ever, solid enough space opera. Nothing to write home about, then nothing to complain about either I guess. I wish it was better, but it's still fans only.
Nightwing #13: This is rubbish. Moving it back to Gotham has made it pretty redundant as a comic and it has to do a whole scene to remind you this is the one with the circus. It points out that the Joker is back, but then in a boxout says that it's just in Batman so Nightwing doesn't need to help take him down. I really thought beforehand there was a surfeit of Batbooks and this just proves it.
Red Hood #13: Irrespective of what's happening in Batman and Robin, the gang are still in space. But the Joker appears on the last page. Does that mean B&R is taking place after the other Batbooks? If not, then how does Damian encounter Jason in Gotham? Am I the only person that cares about stuff like this? This is a good book, whichever was you look at it, although this issue maybe isn't quite as thrill powered as the last half dozen have been.
Supergirl #13: Kara investigates the Shoe Shop of Solitude, which eats the guy from the first plotline. She then phones up the Byrne Banshee girl to boast about how totes amazeballs it is before the Shoeshop tries to force her into the Superfamily crossover (which, I'm betting, is going to contradict the Superman/Daemonite stuff which the Johnsiverse was founded on). I really don't understand why anybody would willingly read this.
Sword of Sorcery #1: Jesus, after 20 pages this Amethyst strip is interminable. File under "would never have been commissioned if someone hadn't read a one-line review of Game of Thrones in the NYT". The Beowulf backup, on the other hand, chunters along nicely and we get our first view of "iron trolls" i.e. robots. It wouldn't be enough to encourage me to pay for it, but it's pretty moreish.
Wonder Woman #13: Still maintaining a level of excellence that Johns and DiDio don't deserve, Azzarello mines an almost BPRD aspect to the book amid hints from Lennox (not Constantine or Gravel) what she should be doing and alongside a Gods' conference of War. Still well worth your time and effort.

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