How did I possibly miss Justice League at my shop? I'm really inattentive this week.
Countdown #31
A marked improvement over the last several weeks. It is still, but no means, a "good comic," nor it is even as good as it has the potential to be, but not really as stilted as we all know it could be.
What really helps is that someone finally remembered to bring a sense of humor. It's dumb, it's cliche, it's so juvenile of me, but I giggled like a ****** at Jason's crowbar remark and Serling's internet slang and A.N.U.S. It's the little touches that matter. Little touches like that which could have made such a difference before. Oh, sure, it wouldn't have helped with the
plot, but it would have made reading the plot so much nicer. Trust me, the plot
needs it. The decompression at this rate is flat-out fcking ricockulous. Someone on another board mentioned how the same exact status quo as was established at the end of this week as the one that was established fifteen weeks ago, and I just had to laugh/cry out loud at how freaking true that is.
And oh yeah, Mary Marvel killed someone this week with all the significance and care of someone ordering a sandwich.
(6.3 out of 10)
Annihilation: Star-Lord #3
Things move along in Annihilationworld. At this point I'm having a tiny bit of problem keeping up with the plot what with all the long words you have to read (what was the purpose of their original mission, again?), but the characterizations and narration are so strong that it barely matters. You get the basic idea of the story; you know when things are going right, when things are going wrong, and what the characters feel about it. I felt much the same away about the Ronan miniseries last year, and that turned out just fine. Plus, y'know, Groot.
The art is still...problematic. Well, mostly it's just problematic with Peter Quill -- still not looking anything remotely like what we remember him as -- but occasionally it's a problem with the other characters too. At some point everyone just looks
bored. Not bored like, oh the artist can't convey any interesting expressions, but bored like the artist is making a conscious effort into drawing the characters looking bored. It's...odd.
There seems to be a lot left to wrap up by the end of next issue, and I'm curious as to how Giffen's going to accomplish it.
(7.9 out of 10)
52 Aftermath: The Four Horsemen #2
Giffen should get to write the Big Three much more often. I wouldn't say he has a perfect understanding of their dynamic, but his take on them is a very tactile, unique, interesting relationship. It may come across as a bit cold and clinical for some, but I would argue that this is them at their most straightforward and professional with each other in face of a potential crisis (small "C," thankfully). The best parts of this comic are, of course, the parts where the trio interact with each other. And the plot is certainly interesting enough to justify it. The Four Horsemen have readily established their badass Big Danger cred, and it shows here.
I still like Veronica Cale here. It gives me all kinds of boners that Giffen of all people obviously found the time to read through Rucka's Wonder Woman run, and read through it
thoroughly. The bit about Cale always playing with her pearls is straight from issue 202, and even from Drew Johnson's sketch notes at the back of the Down to Earth trade. All
kinds of boners.
As for that ending...whu? Snapper Carr...? Buh? What? Huh? Ooooh.
(8.3 out of 10)
Teen Titans #51
Ha! I
so called it! I swear to Buffy I'm so awesome I don't even know what to do, I'm
just that awesome. All this really shows is that everyone should always listen to me because I'll turn out to be right a year or two down the line.
As for the rest of the issue, it's quite good. Much better, of course, than the horrible mess we had on this title pre-McKeever. The narrative does suffer, unfortunately, from a bit of jumpy "Okay here's what we need to say to move the plot bunnies along aaaand GO. Go NOW." By the time Kara and Cassie were fighting Starro I was like...what? Starro? Why are they...wait...future...does what? Maybe I'm just a bit inattentive this week.
Future Miss Martian is hella cool, incidentally, and I hope we see more of her business. If she has no fear of fire, she is potentially as powerful as Fernus, which means she's potentially the single most powerful thing on the planet.
And I can't believe someone finally remembered that Wendy and Marvin still live at Titans Tower. Wow, it only took like ten or eleven issues. Props to McKeever for actually bothering to read prior issues, unlike some other replacement writers I could name.
(7.8 out of 10)
Blue Beetle #19
Giganta's really getting around these days.
It's hard to explain what exactly is so awesome about this comic to someone who doesn't read it. Every single character is likeable. Every single subplot is interesting. Every joke hits its mark.
Yet it's not all crazy slappy cracktastic fun. Rogers balances fresh humor with action adventure with genuine melodrama and character development. Events from past issues actually matter to this one. Personality quirks and the decisions these people make make matter to everyone else involved. These characters are literally growing up in front of our eyes. This section of the universe is
fluid as opposed to static.
Progression instead of just change. Changes happens everywhere in comics. Progression happens not nearly enough.
(9 out of 10)
Wonder Woman Annual
This book is full of the bad and full of the good. Bad parts first.
I seriously have no idea what the heck the point of the first seven whole pages was. As far as I can tell it's just a big ol' tongue kiss to every single Wonder Woman rogue ever. Except that it makes little to no sense from an actual Wonder Woman rogues perspective. Most of these characters are utterly Z-list, some of them have had a total of one appearance
ever, and I think maybe at most half of them have even appeared in her stories post-Crisis. A lot of their motivations don't even make sense anymore with WW's present incarnation. The fact is that Wonder Woman's villains are just not strong enough or well-known enough or even interesting enough to support seven pages of them talking at her in generic villain talk...stilted, badly-written, awkward villain talk at that. "...Made us more powerful than
ever/i]..." "...And promised us a world where we'll be the heroes." Bad enough that they're finishing each other's sentences, worse that the sentences are freaking laughable.
As for that full-page spread of all the heroes springing into action...I'm literally stunned at the lack of continuity here. Donna has a lasso for some damn reason, even though she's had no lasso for at least two decades now. Starfire is there, even though she shouldn't be at this point in time. Green Arrow is in his old costume. Red Tornado is there, despite the fact that he shouldn't be reassembled until after the new JLA is formed, which obviously happens after all of this. The list goes on. DC has no editors. They have no farking editors. I just can't even be bothered to care anymore. Oh yeah, and later someone spells "assaulted" wrong. Christ on a pogo, Heinberg.
So, the good part? Once we get all that nonsense taken care of and actually get back to the plot again, the story and writing inexplicably becomes good. Diana's character is powerful and consistent and sympathetic. Even when she's emo ("I'm not a person, I'm CLAY zomg teh existentializm!!!!1211" Didn't we get this squared away back in Eric Luke's run?), she manages to be emo with a lot of dignity and wisdom about it. Nemesis feels like a competent secret agent instead of a horndog played by Sean William Scott. Hell, even Circe comes across pretty well here, for once not being a massive psycho btch but actually having a helpful personality...good thing all that's gonna be robbed with she appears in Amazons Attack, eh?
People are gonna btch about the "big thing" here; namely, that Wonder Woman no longer has her powers when she turns into Diana Prince but only has her powers when she transforms into Wonder Woman. I can see why that would make people btch...I mean, did Heinberg just turn her completely into a Magical Girl here? But I don't...mind it...really. The primary reason why I don't...mind it...really...is that it fits with this story. It completely, flawlessly makes sense with Diana's story here, what she's been through in the past year, and where this would take her. "When I become Wonder Woman -- it's not because I have to. It's because I choose to. Because I want to." I do not mind status quo changes, even ones as significant as this, as long as they're true to the character and the overall ongoing journey.
...Look, out of all that shtty shts that DC has sh@t on her recently, this is probably the least possible shtty, okay? Besides, if it really doesn't work, then it's not as if it isn't the easiest thing in the world to undo.
And thus Heinberg's five-issue year-and-a-half run on Wonder Woman ends. In some ways, I really wish that we got to see what this would have been like if it had been on time and if he had bothered to continue writing it...because, as far as story goes, this really wasn't a bad Wonder Woman reintroduction at all. In other ways, I wish that DC had gone with a much stabler, more dependable writer for WW following IC, because if only this had been on time...if only the character had a solid direction right from the start and kept with it...maybe we wouldn't have had to deal with the waste of Picoult and the trash of Amazons Attack in the last few months. Simone has her work cut out for her to prevent a repeat of history.
(6.9 out of 10 for the issue)
(7.6 out of 10 for the entire run)
Uncle Sam and the Freedom Fighters #1
"No one knew or could have predicted that the Amazons would start a war, Sam." Yeah, meta-words to live by.
I'm not quite as enraptured with this as I was with the recent miniseries, which was ball-achingly awesome, but anyone who liked that series should check this out too, since it's obviously a really solid continuation of that arc and pretty damn good on its own, too. Red Bee's arc and new powers is nothing we haven't seen before in an insectoid hero, but her character and others' reaction to it is pretty interesting. Plus, she's like in a coccoon or something. Near the end, there seems to be some sort of team formed within the Freedom Fighters that bears some superficial resemblance to the Initiative, but the specific details are so frustratingly in this issue vague that I have no idea if it's supposed to be a good thing or not. Or I'm just really inattentive this week. Anyway, looking forward to the next ish.
(7.9 out of 10)
EDIT: Did I seriously just type "frustratingly in this issue vague"? Geez, that's like an omega-level fckup.
