Agh! Stupid life in conjunction with City of Heroes! Leaves me no time for reviews!! Here's the rest.
Green Lantern Corps #23
Arguably my favorite DC book at the moment. Just when I begin to think that Tomasi is going from "super awesome awesomo" to just "really good," he reminds me that, hello there doofus, he
is the guy who wrote bloody Black Adam: The Dark Age after all.
Tomasi does the precise exact thing that a new writer coming onto a preexisting series absolutely should do: respect the characters and the tone of his predecessors. Fans of Gibbons' excellent prior run should be glad; despite appearances and early signs, this book is not "Kyle and Guy, intergalactic space cop buddy show." (Although let's just all take a moment to take in the awesome that is Kyle in this issue as compared to how he's been written everywhere else lately. Taking a moment? Taking a moment. Okay, now we're done.)
Nope, this book is in all respects about the Green Lantern Corps and the wonderful cast of characters therein. Even tonally the this book is so close to what Gibbons laid down that someone not paying too much attention might not even be able to tell between the two writers' works here. This is a true team book. It's more of a team book than most team books tend to be. Look at the current JLA or Titans or even the JSA in some degrees, their respective cast members barely even feel like teams and almost never act it either. Here, however, not a single member is left behind no matter how Z-list they may be in the grand scheme of things, from Iolande (Princess Leia with a power ring) to Vath (Rannian military guy, and btw I loved the Adam Strange cameo here; save him too, Tomasi! Save him like you're saving Kyle!), there's effort spent on them as individuals as well as on them as a squadron of Green Lanterns with their missions.
And since we all know that I'm only ever supernitpickycritical to things that I love, let's nitpick a bit: one thing I do fear is that Kyle's overall personality may be lost a bit. Look, Kyle finally showing some balls after all this time is awesome; I love Kyle's balls, you know me. But there's the great danger of making him almost too much of the perfect leader. You know the type, the sort of colorless Hal Jordan sort of character (Hey, Grant Morrison's words, not mine
) who's never wrong and always awesome at everything and flawlessly flawless to the detriment of other characters and himself...the sort of character that Kyle is very pointedly not and was created to counter in the first place. Ironically, it's the fate that I feared would befall Barebackin' Yat instead of Kyle. How do you showcase someone as a kickass veteran corpsman who knows the ropes without making him into a flawless Gary Stu pastiche?
(9.3 out of 10)
This is how.
Nova #12
Inarguably my favorite Marvel book at the moment. Lovable characters facing the odds and beating them? Check. Pitch-perfect writing? Check. Art that leaps from the page to smother you with the Pillow of Awesome? Check. Epic showdowns with Lovecraftian machine gods? So checked. It just keeps on coming, right up to the last page which leaves you with the sort of feeling you only get from reading the very best superhero comics. If you're not reading this, it's because you are crazy. Have that looked into.
(9.7 out of 10)
Wonder Woman #19
A pretty good issue. I can see why some people were confused by the plot -- Simone's plotting was never the strongest, even in her strongest work -- but I basically got it in one. I don't really care about the Khunds so much, and if I did I'd read about them in books other than Wonder Woman, but objectively I see what Simone did with them here as decent enough.
What I really like here is the work that she did with the Green Lantern, though. GLs sometime get nerfed and treated as disposable spacecannon fodder for your space stories, often even in their own books, and it's nice to be reminded once in a while: it's not called the most powerful weapon in the universe for shts and giggles. And even then I like that he got taken down (so to speak, 'cause he wasn't
truly taken down) in a reasonable and fair manner by our protagonist.
What I like even more is the work that she did with Nemesis. Simone has mentioned that she actually likes the Nemesis which appeared in Suicide Squad, and promised that we're going to see him in a different light than what we'd expect after...y'know...Picoult and Pfeifer. And I think we're beginning to see that here. Diana's superpower, at its core, is to reveal the truth about everything. Tom's one real superpower is, in essence, to deceive everyone. Something surprising is being set up here, and I'm looking forward to seeing what it is. With a bit of reservation, of course, I mean come on...this is after all Nemesis we're talking about.
(7.6 out of 10)