After Wednesday Comics #1 and Green Lantern #43, everything is...

...forgettable. I was trying to remember what else I read and couldn't. I've already talked about Wednesday Comics in a previous post. Green Lantern #43 was simply amazing. This is prelude to Blackest Night and great lead into the series. It focuses on The Black Hand and his connection to the Blackest Night. Doug Mahnke's art is superb, this guy keeps getting better and better. I'm glad he's GL's new regular artist, I hope he's on the book for a long time.

Ah, now I remember: I also read Batman #688, Green Arrow Black Canary #22, Rebels #6, Red Robin #2, and Superman New World of Krypton #5. Batman was alright. I'm not a fan of Winick's writing, but it was solid enough. However, Mark Bagley is now on the book and absolutely hate Mark Bagley. He makes everyone look like teenagers. He made the scene about Dick complaining about the costume look like a teenager throwing a hissy fit. But I did like how Two-face realized it wasn't the same Batman. I'll definately keep reading this book as my issue is the art, but I do look forward to Tony Daniel taking over (especially since it looks like we'll finally see the Two-face Batman).

Red Robin and Rebels were both a good read as was World of New Krypton but I still can't really see the point of all of it, I just miss Superman being normal Superman. As for Green Arrow/Black Canary, if you've read my previous posts you know how I feel about the writer on this book. However, Bill Sienkiewicz doing the finish art on the Green Arrow story was really cool.

Finally, I picked up Brave and the Bold Vol 4 TP.


The Supergirl and Raven story was pretty throw away, the dialogue between the two was funny and witty but the action part was boring. The reason I picked this up was the second part of the book, which was a Green Lantern/Phantom Stranger/Green Arrow team up. David Hine wrote all three characters very well, the story was enjoyable and Doug Braithwaite art was very good. Green Lantern Orlan of Sector 3897 had a cool design and I'd like to see him in Green Lantern Corps. I wish Phantom Stranger would show up more often as he's pretty bad ass in this story.

Next week, Blackest Night #1!

Wednesday Comics #1

So I'm not finished reading my stack yet but I just had to quickly comment on how good Wednesday Comics #1 is. First off the format is as fun as I hoped it would be. It folds down nicely and fits into a normal comic bag. It looks really nice in said comic bag. Now fully opened, it looks very cool, it's easy to read, easy to turn the pages. I removed everything from the kitchen table and laid it there to read it.

Now for the content. I really enjoyed all the strips but one, that being the Wonder Woman. The art was beautiful but I found it hard to read. I'm going to give it another shot when I re-read. As for the others, my favorites were Kamandi, Adam Strange , Batman---WAIT! I was just flipping through it to see what my favorites were and I realized I was typing all of them. I do nearly love them all. They are fun. The whole project is fun. Each strip leaves me wanting more! My non-comic wife even thought it looked cool. My son will love that Gorilla Grodd is in the Flash episode. And yes I was smiling happily all the way through the Supergirl strip.

We were down to thirty copies when I left work today. USA Today was bringing in the normies. We have some more on reorder already but for you weekend people, I suggest you call or email us if you want one and don't already have it on your list. There's a very good chance we'll have none by the weekend.

Batman RIP

When RIP was first coming out, I wasn't reading much for comics. I was going through my comic dry spell and I had read some misc issues here and there and they made no sense so I complained as usual and left it alone calling the run the bad side of Morrison writing.

With my incredibly strong renewed love of reading comics--especially DC--I began to get curious about this series. Final Crisis was my favorite read of last year so I was on my Morrison kick once more. But it was actually Greg Rucka and JH Williams that made me do it. After reading Detective Comics #854 I really wanted to see more JH Williams art. After diving into what I had at home, I gave his Batman issues a read (collected in Batman the Black Glove). This story involved the Batman of All Nations and the obvious history here along with Grant's writing really intrigued me. The Black Casebook had just come out (the 40s and 50s Batman stories that were a big part of Grant's inspiration for his Batman run), so I picked that up and despite my normal distaste at reading comics that old, I loved it. Most likely it was that I just love seeing the creations or inspirations for writers and already having seen how he linked the Batman of All Nations in I couldn't wait to read more. I had originally scoffed at Batman of Zur-En-Arrh (the only RIP issue I had previously read), but now with the history in mind, I couldn't wait to re-read.

So I jumped head first into, blazing through his whole run in about two days. And as a whole and with the history in place, I absolutely loved the run. There so much story elements in even the first trade paperback that is still playing out in the new Dick Grayson Batman issues. As always with Grant Morrison writing, the more you put into it, the more you get out of it. It's not always easy reading, I generally have to re-read his comics to fully get it. And I like that. Makes that money spent worth it in my opinion. Even to this day I can still re-read the Invisibles and get something else out of it.

But back to the Batman story. The ongoing theme of the ultimate evil secretly plotting Bruce's downfall. Linking in the old history into current time, the possibility that it was Thomas Wayne behind it all, could Bruce be insane and none of it was real? I loved it all. My favorite being his back up emergency personality, Batman of Zur-En-Arrh, which is hilarious considering how much I hated it when I first saw it. And then there's the rebirth of the Joker. I can't wait for him to pop up in the new Batman and Robin to fight Dick and Damien. Grant did a great job, he had a plan that's still unfolding and I can't wait to see where it goes.

Happy 4th!

So another good week of comics. The new comics I read this week were Batman & Robin #2, Justice League Cry for Justice #1, Green Lantern Corps #38, Secret Six #11, Captain America Reborn #1 and Dark Reign Zodiac #1 (I guess this was last weeks). It was also a week of great covers with JL double covers and the GLC being my favorites.


Batman and Robin #2 was fantastic. Frank's art is just beautiful. The fight scenes are so fluid, the panel design dynamic but not difficult to follow. I love the double page spread of Batman fighting the identical circus freaks. Story wise, I'm really enjoying the human side of Dick Grayson. I like his self doubt and his frustration with Damien. My favorite line is, "...and I hate the cape..." Then there's good old Alfred, the backbone of the Bat Family, always there to keep them going, to remind them who they are and why they do what they do. I love Damien, I've always loved him. I know a lot of people have problems with him, but if you hate him because he's a brat then Grant's doing his job because that's just what he is. One reason I like him so much is because I have my own little Damien at home. If I were Batman, Carter would be Damien as Robin...my own little bratty maniac who doesn't listen to anything I say but is always punching the hell outta something.

And the last page...just plain cool.




I'd been looking forward to Justice League Cry for Justice for a long time. I was very happy with the book, but it didn't really progress how I thought it would. They haven't even grouped up yet, let alone a become a team. Just seems with only 7 issues, they started out really slow. Otherwise I really liked it. The art was suburb and the interaction between Hal and Ollie was very well done and really makes me want to read the hard traveling heroes books from the 70s. I like the use of the lesser known characters like the blue Starman and Congorilla. My only real complaint was there was no Batwoman yet. I was looking forward to more of her, especially in a team setting.




For Green Lantern Corps #38, the only thing I have to say is that the Guardians are a bunch of bastards! I hope they get whats coming to them in Blackest Night.




Now on to Captain America Reborn which left me saying, WHAT THE HELL? Time will have to tell on this story but so far to me, the explanation just doesn't fit right with the character and the kind of book it is. It also feels very unoriginal, especially with the recent events with Bruce Wayne Batman in Final Crisis. The books is written well and the art is good but I'm not so sure on this Steve Rogers thing. At least Bucky and Sharon are not making a deal with the devil to rewrite history so he's alive...

Needless to say, this week was a huge week. But that leaves us with a lot of good books to read. My top book of this week was Detective Comics #854. This was a great read with some of the most beautiful art I've ever seen, JH Williams has really outdone himself this time. The back up story with the Question was equally enjoyable.

Green Lantern #42 was great as well and my first read of the week. The ending was mean, leaving me yet again with question, why does anyone follow the Guardians of the Universe? But I think that's going to be a major theme come Blackest Night.

Gotham City Sirens #1 was a lot of fun. I'm so happy all the Batman Reborn books have been so good.

On the Marvel side, the few titles I did read were decent enough: Wolverine Weapon X #3, X-force #16, X-factor #45 and Dark Avenger Uncanny X-men Utopia. I think I've become too much of a DC head though.

Lastly, my favorite cover and my new favorite character of the week goes to Last Days of Animal Man #2, the Green Lantern Whale being my favorite new character!

I'm a little late posting this week but better late than never. My favorite comic last week was Batman Streets of Gotham #1 by Paul Dini & Dustin Nguyen. I really like the perspective the narrative was in and that they focus on Batman villains besides the big ones. The Manhunter back up was very enjoyable as well and I really like the DC has started doing this. At least when you have to pay $3.99, you get a second story.

I also enjoyed the Outsiders #19, Power Girl #2, Supergirl #42, Incognito #4, and Cable #15. All of them good solid reads. My only real complaint with Cable is it's feels like we've been reading the same issue for the last four issues. X-force vs Stryfe vs Cable vs Bishop vs Apocalypse with Deadpool being funny. Come on guys lets finish this up, let's reveal who or what Hope is. I personally think she's Jean reincarnated but we'll see.

But for the freak'n love of god, get Andrew Kreisberg off Green Arrow/Black Canary. By the time he leaves, he'll have run this title into the ground. I love Green Arrow, I love Black Canary. I like how they finally got them married, but why have the immediately put them into marital problems. Come on, read Final Crisis. See how Grant Morrison wrote them. That's how it should be. A kickass crime fighting duo, not whiny marriage problems and stupid super villains that are obsessed with Ollie and Dinah being jealous.

It grows...