The US Government has basically been one of the world's stock supervillains since time immemorial.
Fixed for accuracy.
Serenity Better Days #3--Ah, this was a darn good yarn. Makes me pine for the fjords of Serenity, when it was on TV. The characterization was nailed, even the obligatory cringeworthy (but vintage Whedon) parts. Whedon's genius has never been in his dialogue per se, but in his ability to make a viewer care about the characters. Not about the story, but about the characters. On the other hand, he can also plot out some great action sequences. My only regret was not getting to see a lot of this play out on screen. The actors were a large part of making the show what it was, which is why it's nice to see them rendered so well. That, and I'd love to see that the end battle scene play out on a screen. 9/10.
100 Bullets #91--SOMETHING HAPPENED IN 100 BULLETS! I haven't felt this good about 100 Bullets in at least 20 issues. On the other hand, Azz basically just confirmed that there's never gonna be anymore nice little one-offs with attache cases. Bummer. That was always the series' strongest point. 8/10.
Batman #676--Love that front page. I imagined Batman yelling that at Rich Johnston. And while I'm (as usual) concerned with where Morrison is going with all this, I'm intrigued by the Batman love interest, and by the Black Glove. 9/10.
Batman Confidential #17--Please, God, don't let Fabian's chapters in
Trinity be like this. This is the most blatantly contrived nudity in the history of superhero comics. I mean, I'm interested in the idea of an early Batgirl/early Catwoman clash, but it all just seems to be about surface-level character "exploration" and next issue's obligatory titillation. 4/10.
Booster Gold #9--Nice to see the JLI again, and to see that very interesting roster get some face time as a real superteam, rather than as a situational comedy team. Also fun to see pre-Infinite Crisis written so pitch-perfect. Of course, Johns was duty-bound to humiliate Batman once, which he did, as expected. But it was reasonably justifiable, in-story, and for once you could actually see the
point: Booster needed to be taking point. 8/10.
Gotham Underground #8--Damn, Frank Tieri needs to be put on a Batbook. And if Dini and Morrison aren't leaving Detective and Batman anytime soon, then just ****ing make a new Batbook for Tieri. Bring back Shadow of the Bat or something, and give it to him. This is just an excellent Batman tale. It's taken some very stinky
Countdown story elements and turned them into one of the best Batman stories of the last 10 years. This issue, and this miniseries, have covered every single angle of an essential Batman story, and have done it all without being contrived, while adding unique twists to really make the story classic. 10/10.
Green Arrow Black Canary #8--I don't know what Winick is setting Dodger up to be, but I have to admit that I'm interested. And I'm really interested to see what Winick has planned for the character he revealed at the end, [blackout]Plastic Man[/blackout]. 7/10.
Green Lantern Corps #24--I'm sure something was meant by Mongul's statement about Black Mercy being bred to spread hope, but more importantly, he has apparently turned them into organic Sin Corps rings. I'm not even sure what that means, but if the experiences and hallucinations of Sodam and Arisia are an indicator, it means that Black Mercies no longer show you your heart's desire, but rather your greatest fears and despairs. So there that is. As for the team, I know they want to get their people back, but couldn't the Lanterns have sent at least a couple guys to intercept a
massive cloud of yellow energy signatures moving really really fast into space? Doesn't it seem like that would have been a priority? I love the bug-Lantern. Little green atom-bombs. So cute. Also nice to see
Guy Gardner wryly remark on the excess of his teammates. 9/10.
Huntress Year One #1--I have to admit, Madison has gotten my interest piqued a lot more than I expected she could with a Huntress Year One story. I'm frankly not quite sold on the current spate of Year One stories, and while they've all actually been really good, I'm just not sure how necessary I feel they are. A preferable concept, for me, is the 1995 Annual concept: every book had a Year One story in its Annual. But the redeeming aspect of the Year One glut, and something I just can't argue with, is that the stories have all been excellent. This one doesn't fail to achieve that, at least not yet. 8/10.
Number Of The Beast #3--Number of the Beast
seems to so far have spent three issues resurrecting The High. See, he didn't die, he was just captured after he hit the forcefield, and put into this Matrix-style VR simulation, along with hundreds of other heroes and villains, for reasons so far unknown. That's why we haven't seen the real WSU. This is setting up the return of the High and a bunch of other heroes, the ones that all "disappeared" over the years, as discussed in Revelations. And that explosion in the metahuman population is what brings on the future seen in the Armageddon one-shots, as near as I can tell. But I still don't know why the hell New Dynamix is important. 8/10.
Simon Dark #8--I really want this story arc to end, so I can stop reading this book (I'm a ****e, I know.) I can't stand Steve Niles, and I can't stand his Vertigo-like rejection of the mainline DCU in a book that is supposed to be firmly established in the mainline DCU. It's especially rankling because the entire thing should have just been a Hellblazer arc, truncated by a couple issues, enhanced by the presence of an actual multidimensional character in John Constantine, and then maybe spun off into another Vertigo title, and hopefully a title better than the current one. On the plus side, a character finally acknowledged the existence of Commissioner Gordon and Batman for the first time, which is interesting in a supernatural police story set in Gotham. 3/10.
Superman #676--A nice little shot of Alan Scott for those of us jonesing for the original Green Lantern. And a nice little shot of straight-up superhero Superman. I'm looking forward to James Robinson and Geoff Johns on the Superbooks, but it's a bit too often that Superman gets turned into a "concept" to be "explored" by such writers. I like a little Kelly-style superhero Superman every once in awhile.
Titans #2--Benitez is better than Churchill, but still kinda funky. He is drawing males well. OK, not
awesome, but fun. I actually like his goofy interpretation of Beast Boy better than any other artistic iteration of the character that I've seen. Wally looks pretty fun too. Nightwing looks appropriately dark by comparison. However, Donna looks like the same fashion model was swiped as reference for almost every shot. The first two times you see her face are almost identical. So to sum up, his males look pretty damn good, but all his women except Argent look like bimbos.
The story continues a formulaic approach to an essential Titans tale, with a few interesting twists thrown in. 6/10.
Project Superpowers #3--This story is soooooooooo confusing right now. I like the pretty pictures, and I like the characters, and I even like the characterization, but the plot is so byzantine and vaguely defined. I sort of knew where they were going after one issue, but it's gotten progressively obscure and twisty. 5/10.
Captain Britain And MI 13 #1--Wooo, Captain Britain! Woooo, [blackout]they're ****in' killing him! I really don't want a new Captain Britain, which is the obvious suggestion the story is making. Hopefully it's just a red herring[/blackout]. But a good book nonetheless. I'm quite looking forward to it. 7/10.
Genext #1--****tiest X-book on the stands. Hands down. Chris Claremont doesn't need to be writing kids anymore. He's not down with the lingo, or even the concepts. And anyway, who asked for
another irrelevant and ultimately unimportant future timeline? Besides the crazies who voted for it, I mean? 2/10.
Wolverine #65--Well, I'm feeling let down here, Jason Aaron. I was
reeeeeally looking forward to Mystique being dead. And I personally don't feel that you gave me a dead Mystique, although the ending is certainly ambiguous enough. Anyway, it's been a fun story for updating Wolverine to a post-Messiah Complex world (whatever the hell that means), and it's a pretty good ending. 7/10.
Wolverine Amazing Immortal Man & Other Bloody Tales--David Lapham sows the seeds for some very interesting Wolverine stories. I really hope he gets to reel these out and develop them some more. I was
much more pleased with this book than I expected to be.
X-Men Legacy #211--I've been pretty unimpressed with this title so far, but I feel like the concept could really improve, and it's starting to. It's finally starting to feel like it's actually taking place in the present, rather than just constantly flashing back. That was a pretty boring macguffin. I prefer the idea of Xavier slowly peeling back the layers of his past, although it certainly can't be expected to sustain a lot of readership for very long. Also, nice to see Gambit actually looking cool for once.
X-Men Origin Colossus--Pretty good story, I guess. I'm not
quite sure why it's necessary, to be honest, but I guess you gotta tell the story you wanna tell. 7/10.
