Countdown #45
*
raises hand* Teacher I have a question. Why don't they just wrap Wonder Woman's lasso around Jimmy to determine if he's telling the truth or not? Instead of, oh I dunno,
pummeling him with an assortment of powers? (and speaking of which, shouldn't Vixen
not have her animal powers anymore? I really can't wait to see how the hell the poor schlub who gets to field the newsarama questions this week answers this one.) If Jimmy's telling you "My powers aren't there unless my life is in danger," how do you actually know that he's lying? Shouldn't you all at least make sure he's not crazy and does something to hurt himself?
Some magical lady turns the Atom into a monster. Look, I'm sure
some people might think this is the most coolest thing since awesome, but what in the heck is the point of all this? And the Bob gets mind-controlled or something and I really hope something at least comes out of this.
I do have to admit that Zatanna pwning Mary is pretty nifty. But then again, I wouldn't think it was nifty if they hadn't sailed over the shark and turned Mary into such a fcking annoying brat btch vaginal spore in the first place.
Oh cock, the Monitors are talking again. My goodness, an
entire page is wasted on telling us things that we already knew. Kyle Rayner is evil!...we already knew that. He's a blight on the multiverse!...still not telling us anything new. HE MUST BE KILLED WE MUST KILL HIM!...didn't you already exposition this? Christ.
(4 out of 10)
Avengers: The Initiative #5
If I were buying this book, I'd drop it after this issue. As it is, since I wasn't buying the book, I'm just gonna...not buy it some more.
Slott is a fine writer. He knows what his readers want more than most and he isn't afraid to give them what they need instead. And, of course, he has the tendency to be bloody hilarious. And this is a good book. For whatever else it fails at, it is a good book with a solid direction and big brass testes. And continuity. And characterization. And I suspect it will only get better.
And I can't stand a single one of these characters and I think the Initiative itself is the most abhorrent cesspool of organized crime since the Fox Network. The sociopolitical commentary is about as subtle as an army of polar bears in Texas and about as partial, too. At best it borders on tacky, at worst it's unskilled. The most likeable characters here are the guest-stars who have nothing to do with the organization itself. Half the time you find yourself rooting for the antagonists instead of the protagonists. And all this is done
deliberately so since Slott knows
exactly what this would make us feel.
Isn't this
exactly what so many of us ragged on Millar for in the Ultimates? Like, this precise
exact complaint? Sorry; actual quality of writing aside, this whole trick tasted bad when Millar did it and it tastes bad now too.
I'm calling it now, though: the Scarlet Spiders are clones.
(5.5 out of 10)
52 Aftermath: The Four Horsemen
Now this is sociopolitical commentary done
right. I had to suppress a giggle at Cale threatening the Chinese with supplying aid to Taiwan instead. See, that there's subtlety and skill, which pervades the rest of the comic as well. Which is helpful, considering this is basically one large commentary on Middle-Eastern affairs with, y'know, big DC superheroes thrown in. Giffen has been doing great work for Marvel lately, and it's nice to see that DC hasn't
quite alienated him completely with their wanton slaughter of JLIers.
The one thing I immediately liked about this was the fact that it showed Clark and Bruce doing their civilian jobs, and doing it well. We've been lapsing into the silver age lately with how Clark handles journalism; ie, clumsily and as a fifth-priority. It's about time someone other than Rucka remembered that this is a Pulitzer-winning reporter and novelist whose work is taught in college universities.
Speaking of Rucka and how glad I am that Giffen seems to be a fan, I've been looking forward to Veronica Cale and Wonder Woman's reunion for a long time now. I thought that her portrayal in 52 was...passable, but nothing particularly of note. Here, we get around to exploring her a bit more, and it's generally good. Her interaction with Diana is true to both of their characters, something that's become quite rare. I twitched in irritation at Diana calling herself a Princess...though I guess under NuDC continuity, if Hippolyta was never abolished the monarchy then...I guess...Diana is technically still a princess. I cant fault Giffen for being continuitous. Besides, it could permaybehaps be Diana scoffing at Cale calling herself a doctor. Permaybehaps.
The depiction of the Four Horsemen themselves is quite effective. That may be due to the fact that they themselves were pretty awesome villains to begin with, but once again I have to applaud Giffen on his subtleties. As we saw in 52, they are one of the truly legitimate big bad evil threats of the DCU and here we hear they haven't even shown their true power yet. The Big Three themselves have been hanging back a bit lately as far as their interactions and working together and all that, and it's gonna be nice to see them bust out with the thrilling heroics on their own terms here.
I'm not too crazy about the art, though it does its job. I dunno, the crazy cheekbones and anorexia that a lot of these characters are having is not the most...attractive thing I've seen.
(8 out of 10)
Teen Titans #50
...Awwww.
This issue was pretty much one big aww. After the junk we've gone through with these characters lately, this was
desperately needed. The batplane "flashback" was seriously one of the most genuinely funny/bittersweet things I've read. On the one hand it highlights just how
horrible this series has been lately and how much better things were before. I mean,
literally better. On the other hand, I do feel like it's kinda heralding a return to those times. The tributes to Bart here feel truly genuine instead of the shloppy tacked-on funeral we got in Countdown. And the moment with Meggan was...pretty good. Using old events to enrich current characters? Totally approved.
It's gonna be interesting to see how Rose continues to deal with all this. She's obviously in de Nile, and I can't wait to see how she reacts when she meets up with Future Bart. At first I was wary of adding the Titans from Tomorrow into the mix here what with the team dynamic still so raw, but I completely see now what they're going for, here. The remembrances of old friends segue flawlessly into that reveal at the end thematically and purposefully.
The Blue Beetle scenes were kinda pointless, I have to admit, considering that they were just in his own comic. I mean, did we really need to waste pages telling the exact same story in two books? Countdown tries to pull that nonsense and fails. I'd rather not have that for this series.
Both Supergirl
and Wonder Girl are sorta likeable here. Always worth mentioning.
And props for Young Justice nostalgia which, awwww. I like the fact that at least someone finally acknowledged that Bart was a bit of a ******. Not to speak ill of the dead, but c'mon; he was a bit of a ******. And he was all the better off for it.
Looking forward to more of this book now that we're done with the Beechen-induced poopstain of which we shall speak no more. I had expected McKeever to be good on the title; all he has to do now is to keep it up.
(9 out of 10)
Shamazons Attack #6
Well...I was
almosthttp://forums.superherohype.com/showthread.php?p=12565385&#post12565385 correct.
I don't...well...what to say, really? This is really a fine time to reinforce the lesson that no matter how bad you think things are, they can always,
always get worse. I'd
thought that Frontline #11 was the single most offensively bad issue of mainstream comics I've read in recent memory, and then I read issue one of
this series. I thought that was rock bottom, until we get to
this issue. Make no mistake: this series epicfails on every single level: it was obviously editorially mandated which is the worst kind of mandated that anything could be; no single character is recognizable; no single event adheres to continuity; hard works that other writers have placed into these characters are defaced with no more regard than one might have for an irritating itch; a writer who is otherwise probably not too bad will now have
this on his resume; worst of all, it's
offensive. The heights of misogyny and social pandering that most people
mock these days is openly celebrated and glorified here by writers and editors
too farking stupid to know what they're doing.
What to say? Despite the fact that Pfeifer is
on record as saying that there is no mind control whatsoever involved in this story, Circe reveals here that she
did, in fact, twist Hippolyta's mind. If you think that makes the story better, I'm sorry to have to let you down: it doesn't. It in fact makes Hippolyta appear that much weaker because Circe didn't take over her mind or anything, she just
nudged it into being a bit more "tainted." So now we're to believe that Hippolyta
was in fact once loving and compassionate and good, but a little mental nudging -- not even full-blown mind-control, mind you -- drove her into her bloodthirsty cockhating. What's that supposed to mean...that she wasn't even all that good in the first place? The rest of the Amazons, incidentally, get no such excuse; they're just evil little btches who didn't muster up the spine to defy their queen and instead delighted in the murdering of children. The sortaplot arc from earlier with Artemis and Phillipus planning rebellion against their insane queen goes
absolutely nowhere and Pfeifer even
draws attention to the fact, specifically pointing out that while they
thought about rebellion, they didn't actually go through with it. Because...somehow they just didn't.
What else? Circe has been turned from one of the better Wonder Woman villains into a running gag, much like Deathstroke or the Skrulls. Incidentally, I love how she refers to herself as "tainted," considering that Heinberg and even Picoult spent a whole bunch of time informing us that she actually believes herself ethically superior and that it's just everyone else whose perspectives are skewed. No no guys, she actually thinks that she herself is corrupt! My God. Bees. The fact that this series can't keep continuity straight from anything more than a year old is one thing; the fact that it can't keep continuity straight with the
only other title that it needs to keep continuity with is a mark of ineptitude that I hoped never to see again in any comic book after the Xorneto clusterfck of X-Men: Reload.
What else? That "twist ending" was more telegraphed than Lindsay Lohan. Not telegraphed in the sense that the series itself actually foreshadowed it in any tangible way whatseover, mind you; that would imply actual foresight here. No, it was merely telegraphed in the sense that DC had
spoiled the whole thing months ago to anyone paying attention. Here's a clue: GODS!
I hate this series more than I hate anything that both Marvel and DC has put out in the last five years because, unlike everything else that I hate, there's no way for me to feasibly ignore this.
(1.9 out of 10)
(0 out of 10 for the entire series)
Wonder Woman #12
Oh, it's not over yet.
It's interesting; as soon as Pfeifer here started getting away from the events of Amazons Attack and dealt with all that needed to be dealt with on that level -- summaries and whatnot -- it started showing signs of being good again. Diana with the DMA is not a bad idea in theory. As soon as we started actually seeing her do stuff there, we see a bit of the quality that
could exist in this title.
And then the
rest of the issue wastes pages after pages after pages after pages of Nemesis fighting Everyman, and we're right back to sucking hard. Seriously, Everyman sets off an explosion and Wonder Woman is somehow just gone from the comic for a dozen or so pages. Does anyone actually think that anyone would buy a Wonder Woman book because we desperately want to see what "Nemesis vs Everyman: THE RECKONING!!" would be like? Pfeifer was blatantly padding for space here while his hellish run ends, and it shows in both the writing and the art. The panel after Diana throws her tiara at Everyman is seriously the most stilted, most uncomfortably ill-fitting panel you're likely to see anywhere this month.
And gee, that ending. One of the only original ideas Picoult actually had -- Nemesis actually being smart enough (read: not dumb) to figure out WW's identity -- is entirely done away with in one of the more hamfisted ways
ever: the bee stings* caused him to forget about her identity. Wait, what? Wait, what? I don't know if Simone just wanted a fresh start or something, but...wait, what?
The only good thing that I can think of here is that it's finally over. This whole embarassing era of Wonder Woman work that started with Heinberg's delays that lead into Picoult's amateurishness and finally into this piece of sht. Simone at the
very worst I've ever read of her work would be a welcome reprieve, and I frankly think we're going to be seeing the best of Simone in this title so...yay for that at the least.
*excuse me -- "Stygian killer hornets."
(3.3 out of 10)
Outsiders: Five of a Kind: Wonder Woman and Grace
I didnt just arrive in the mans world yesterday, you know.
Worth bringing up just for this line alone. I really hope this is Andreyko taking a dig at the shttastic Wonder Woman adventures of recent memory. But then, it could also be Andreyko taking a dig at himself -- which is almost as good but not quite -- since the whole "she's not a fcking foreigner who just stepped off the boat!" complaint was lobbed against his own rendition of WW in Manhunter, as well. Mostly by me, it has to be said.
Decent enough issue. It follows up, unfortunately, from the cringe-inducing ending of Amazons Attack, but does okay enough with it. If were making Grace a Bana-Mighdall Amazon, might as well take it to its logical conclusion of bondage with Wonder Woman. Er, bonding. Which is written decently-enough here. The actual plot of there being that damned bomb is pretty ludicrous, but it did allow for some good character moments.
(7.5 out of 10)
Countdown to Adventure #1
Meh. Just...meh. DC tries to milk the success of 52's adventure trio in space and fails. The storyline is more average than outright bad and yet has none of the wit or charm of Morrison's depiction. It sounded like a gimmick from the outset and reads like a gimmick now.
Kory here is acting like a complete bimbo and quite frankly I'm glad that the Titans title proper is outright ignoring her little decision to not contact any of her friends to tell them that she's not, in fact, a corpse in space. The Rannians are all apparently complete fcktards who just stare and shrug when their new champion starts foaming at the mouth and punching people. By the way, who the hell thought this new guy, this..."Champ"...was a good idea? He's the most aggressively unlikeable substitute hero we've had since The Griffin and will probably be going through the exact same irritating story arc with Adam in Bart's place. Who the heck thought this was a good idea? Oh, yeah...Beechen. The man who thought Forerunner was the best thing since sliced hamster. He's rapidly becoming this year's Chuck Austen, folks.
Speaking of the Forerunner section of the story, I read three pages and then put the book back on the shelf. It doesn't even deserve enough of my time to dislike.
(4.1 out of 10)
Fallen Angel #19
Basically? Peter David having a barrel of fun. Shi sounds like the sort of character who I would roll my eyes at instead of reading about, and yet he makes it so very fun to read about her here. And then they beat the bad guy by dropping a magic rock on him. What more do you need to know? Well, there's lesbian subtext up the damn wall, but that's pretty par for PAD's course.
(8.6 out of 10)
