Review: Green Lantern Corps #6

Green Lantern Corps #6 finishes off the Corps’ first story arc of the new 52 by wrapping up some loose ends and posing some important questions of morality for the titles main characters.

When we last left off, John Stewart and two other Green Lanterns had been captured and are being tortured by the Keepers on their home world of Urak. The Keepers watched over the Green Lantern Corps’ power batteries when they were tucked away in their subspace pockets, but since the Guardians decreed that all Green Lanterns are directly responsible for the whereabouts of their power batteries the Keepers have lost their purpose and their planet has fallen into ruin without the power of the batteries. However, due to their prolonged exposure to the batteries the Keepers are all but immune to the Green Lantern’s power rings.

DCnU Timeline v1

So DC gave us a “relaunch” where bits are the same, others erased, and the general timeline crunched down due to de-aging many (but not all) of the characters.  Due to this I at least am very confused on how everything fits in.  So with the help of the other bloggers, I’ve decided to piece together a timeline.

Review/RANT: Green Lantern Corps #48

* spoilers *

Review/RANT: Green Lantern #54

*spoilers*

Review: Brightest Day #2

*Spoilers*

Great Blogs of Fire!

It’s been a slow day at work today.  So I did a little surfing of the Blogosphere and I figured I’d share some of the better reads:

Damon Beres usese the Return of Bruce Wayne as an opportunity to write nothing less than a Comics Manifesto.

The Weekly Crisis takes on the Moments of the Week to hilarious effect.  (Or, if not hilarious, very funny effect.)

Final Crisis vs. Blackest Night – the debate rages on.  The Mindless Ones weigh in with one of the best comparissons I have seen.

Looks like Marvel got in on pissing readers off last week.  All Things Fangirl speaks out against last week’s revelation about Rogue’s sex life.

Every Day is Like Wednesday echoes a thought about the so-called “Brightest Day” that has been rattling around my head lately as well.

Let’s Be Friends Again has a clever little comic about the racism charges that have been levelled against DC lately.  I smailed at the title: Geoff Johns, you blockhead!

Comics Daily wonders Who’s Regressing Next.

I think it’s one of the signs of the apocalypse, but I have a new found respect for Shia LaBouf who admits he botched the last Indiana Jones.

Happy reading!

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Review: Blackest Night #8

Blackest Night 8 – First Impressions (Spoilers)

read/RANT has a full review of this issue coming up from my esteemed colleague, Cal Cleary.  Be sure to check back for that later on as I’m sure it will be far more insightful than my meager rambling.  But if you feel so inclined, please indulge me as I share my first impressions after giving BN 8 a rather quick read.

Top 5 Best Comics of February 2010

With March half over, I think now’s a good time for this list, yes? I read 17 comics in February, and these were the best.

Review: Blackest Night Green Arrow #30

After the first wave of fairly mediocre BN tie-ins, I’ve avoided most of the others unless they’ve spilled into books I was already reading like Secret Six.  However, I made an exception for this issue.  I have been a very vocal critic of Andrew Kriesberg’s run on Green Arrow and Black Canary since the very first issue.  And at long last, that run has come to an end.

JT Krul takes over as the new writer on this issue.  So the big question is: How’d he do?  Well, in my mind, there’s no doubt Krul is a vast improvement over Kreisberg.  For the first time in a long time, the characters feel somewhat familiar again.  And I really enjoyed seeing the full Arrow family together again.

Unfortunately, Krul has a lot of masters to serve in this issue.  Obviously, he’s got to squeeze in an obligatory BN tie-in without advancing any of the plot threads of the main title.  So there is no real forward momentum here.  Instead, we get a lot of internal monologue as Ollie brings us up to speed on all of the cast while his Black Lantern self tries to kill them.

Krul also has to deal with messes left by previous GA writers.  Most notably, he has to address Connor Hawke’s transformation at the end of Judd Winnick’s run.  Even so, Krul did a good job of making new Connor feel like he was still the same guy I was used to reading about.  And apparently he’s learned how to shoot a bow and arrow again.

The art by Diogenes Neves was really strong.  He managed both the action scenes and the character moments very well.  And the misty tone fit the dreamlike quality of a possessed hero’s internal struggle.

In spite of having to clean up after previous writers and mix in a tie-in, Krul’s run is off to a promising start.  I’m happy to report I’ll be checking out the next few issues of Green Arrow again.

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Review: Blackest Night #7

Coming off a semi-strong pair of issues, Blackest Night #7 is something of a mess, filled with almost-action scenes that cut in too late and then leave before anything is done.  To those reading all the tie-ins, this issue must have been fabulous: at least from what I can tell, Johns did his best to throw in nods to all the major running tie-ins.  Abandoning the obsessive, almost signature exposition that accompanies so much of Johns’ work, the unlucky reader is instead dropped in and out of situations that mean very little without rhyme or reason.  None of it is particularly hard to follow – all the Corps show up and fight Black Lanterns, the Earthbound heroes show up and fight Black Lanterns, Dove is alive now and fighting Black Lanterns (or, more specifically, she merely seems to exist in the general direction of Black Lanterns, and then they die) – but just because I understood what was happening doesn’t make it enjoyable.  Despite a questionable late-issue revelation about the origin of life, the issue is saved by the occasional inclusion of some excellent character work.

While Reis’ pencils are fine, the ceaseless black atmosphere continues to take its toll on him, detracting from the art as things tend to get muddy.  To combat that, of course, all the living heroes are coated constantly in monochrome neon lights, obscuring action but color-coding the story for us in case we forget Lex Luthor is supposed to be greedy just because he is now incapable of doing anything but screaming “MINE” over and over.  The best that can be said about this effect is that it’s certainly unique, so I suppose we’ll stick with that.

Blackest Night was designed to be just about the simplest book imaginable – larger-than-life heroes and villains thrown together against a common enemy, hell, the greatest enemy: Death itself.  To that end, while the green rings don’t make the Corps any Will-ier and the yellow rings don’t terrify whoever puts them on, the other rings all seem to rewrite their bearers into one-dimensional caricatures.  Unfortunately, by reducing the setting to caricatures fighting caricatures in a set of spastic action beats spread across multiple titles, Blackest Night has also managed to strip away everything essential to the story.  Johns is a gifted creator capable of so much more, but Blackest Night has collapsed under its own weight.

Grade: D

- Cal Cleary

Blackest Night #6

Blackest Night #5

Review: The Question #37

The Question #37 continues the trend of disappointing Blackest Night tie-ins that aren’t so much bad as they are incomplete.  Teaming up Denny O’Neil, renowned Batman-family scribe and writer behind The Question’s longest-running solo title, and Greg Rucka, the writer who shepherded Vic Sage to his ultimate fate and has written his legacy ever since, was a brilliant idea at heart, allowing the two eras of the Question to be reconciled a little more fully. Unfortunately, given a full issue to work with, O’Neil and Rucka, working with art team Cowan and Sienkiewicz, end up turning in what feels like half a story.

Cowan and Sienkiewicz turn in atmospheric art that works well in the build-up, but slows the action down a bit too much.  The three-way fight between these gifted martial artists (or the preceding one-on-one fight) should not be quite as static as it is, and while Cowan and Sienkiewicz have the bleak, oppressive “Blackest Night” feel down pat, they don’t quite manage to balance it with the actual content of the book.

Ultimately, The Question #37 feels more like the beginning of a very traditional arc.  The creative team is extremely comfortable with it, and it shows as the issue is quite polished, a smooth, quick read that builds off pre-established relationships without too much exposition.  Finishing the issue, however, just leaves you with a vague emptiness.  Reviving beloved fan-favorite titles from cancellation was a brilliant marketing concept, but a one-issue round of fisticuffs just doesn’t satisfy the same niche that these books did when they were alive.  Just like the Black Lanterns they came back with, this latest month of tie-ins has all the trappings of the beloved titles, but lacks heart.

Grade: C+

- Cal Cleary

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Review: Wonder Woman #40 & Blackest Night: Wonder Woman #3 (of 3)

Wonder Woman #40

Simone and Lopresti start their new arc, “The Crows”, with #40.  Featuring the Amazonian children fathered by Ares, Simone does a fine job setting up a new and fascinating conflict for Diana.  Much like all the best issues of Rucka’s run, Simone presents the heroine with a new kind of challenge: public relations.  Of course, there it was because Wonder Woman released a particularly incendiary book, while here, it’s the Crows’ supernatural influence to spread the seeds of war, but the fundamentals remain the same.

Lopresti remains an impressive talent, and he’s given the Crows a suitably creepy feel.  For a character so dedicated to spreading hope, love and tolerance as Wonder Woman, the Crows are a natural enemy, and one I hope Simone does not abandon lightly.  Coming fresh of the heels of a few excellent arcs, however, I think it’s safe to say that she’s earned our trust on the book.  The set-up here is more exciting than some of her recent arcs on the book, and it combines Simone’s excellent characterization with a quicker pace and some fun new enemies.  Definitely a winner.

Grade: B+

Blackest Night: Wonder Woman #3 (of 3)

Ah, Blackest Night: Wonder Woman.  You started so strong, a stellar display of a fine heroine confronting her past in a sensible, exciting manner.  But the more ties you had to the main Blackest Night mini… well, here you end.  Blackest Night: Wonder Woman is less a story than a series of three largely unconnected one-shots intended to fill in the questions the main mini never touched on.  If you very, very desperately need to know what Wonder Woman is doing between the panels of Blackest Night (the answer: fighting Black Lanterns), the mini is for you.  Otherwise, however, it largely squanders a pair of great talents on a middling-at-best issue with no real reason to exist.

Scott still turns in exciting, gorgeous work, though even she has trouble making Wonder Woman’s Star Sapphire costume look right.  Despite Scott’s work and Rucka’s talent, however, Blackest Night: Wonder Woman #3 remains a mundane, unnecessary tie-in, too bound by continuity to explore anything particularly fascinating but not nearly important enough to matter to the main narrative.

Grade: D+

- Cal Cleary

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Blackest Night: Wonder Woman #2

Review: Green Lantern #50

I admit, I’ve been rather hard on Geoff Johns’ work on Green Lantern over the last two years.  I won’t rehash all of the reasons why the War of Lights has left me cold.  I’ve written enough on that already.  Just read any GL-related article I’ve written since the end of the Sinestro Corps War.

On the whole, I’ve found Johns to be a mixed bag on this book.  No doubt, he’s had lots of cool ideas.  And he’s added to the GL mythology in a way that has the fans clamoring for more.  And yet, there’s almost always some “Johnsism” that makes his GL less than satisfying for me.

When I’ve written reviews of this book in the past, I think the reviews tended to be dominated by discussions of the lastest derailment.  Even if I made a point of saying I enjoyed the issue as a whole, readers certainly focused on the things I didn’t like.  And in fairness, I’ve probably given the negatives more space than I have the positives.

So let me say up front that Green Lantern 50 was the most enjoyable issue of GL in a long, long time.  Doug Mahnke’s art is the star here.  There were pages where I just stopped and took it all in.  I didn’t even care about the words on the page.  Mahnke is a great artists and he’s at the top of his game right now.  This issue may be his best work since Superman Beyond.

As for the writing, well of course there were some “Johnsisms” that really had me rolling my eyes or scratching my head in bewilderment.  It wouldn’t be a Geoff Johns issue of Green Lantern if he didn’t write things that were just plain stupid in an attempt to be cool.  That’s what he does.  But this time, I had to admit, some of the things that happened were pretty darn cool.

The big plot twist is spoiled for you on the cover.  Hal decides that the only way to defeat the Black Lantern Spectre is to free Parallax and to become his host.  It’s a bit of a WTF moment.  Surely there are other solutions that Hal hasn’t considered.  Doesn’t this seem like Shadowpact territory?  Why is Hal the only suitable host for Parallax and why is Parallax suddenly the only way to defeat the Spectre.

If this was real life, probably every one of Hal’s allies would have told Hal he was crazy and refused to go along with the plan.  But this is super hero comics.  So they go along with it.  And so did I as a reader.  It makes no sense, but I don’t want to read an entire issue of exposition that makes it make sense either.  So you just go along for the ride.

If you’re willing and able to do that, Green Lantern 50 is a heck of a ride.  It has the “epic” feel that the last issue of Green Lantern Corps was lacking.  Whereas GLC just felt like Tomasi pulling big plot twists out of his bag of tricks to generate buzz, GL 50 really feels like the culmination of all of Johns’ work on the title to date.

I am going to end the review on a positive note so Bruce Castle won’t call me a “hater” this month.  GL 50 was a fun book.  There, I said it.

read/RANT

PS. I’m going to rant in the comments section.  Don’t tell Bruce Castle!

Top 5 Best Comics of January 2010

I read 17 comics in January, and these were the best.

Review: Green Lantern Corps 44

I’ve had something of a like/”meh” relationship with this book.  Tomasi is a capable writer who delivers plenty of action and reasonably strong characterizations.  But I find his pacing is usually off by at least one issue for every story arc.  And while he frequently entertains, he never really wows.

To be fair, GLC seems to always draw the short straw when it comes to source material.  This is especially true with the Blackest Night issues.  Yes, Tomasi has done a good job of delivery buzz-worthy plot twists.  Kyle died!  (And was resurrected in the very next issue.)  Guy, consumed by rage, became a Red Lantern!  (And will likely be back to normal next issue.

There’s been plenty of carnage on Oa.  Lots and lots of cannon fodder got chewed up over the last few issues.  And the landscape of  Oa is changed.  But no one’s going to miss the characters who died and Oa will no doubt be rebuilt shortly after Blackest Night wraps up.

I’m not bored.  But I keep getting this nagging feeling that by the end of the story, none of the events of Green Lantern Corps are really going to matter much.  It’s almost like Tomasi was told, “You can do whatever you want.  Just be sure to trash Oa and keep the rest of the Corps busy for a while.”

Regular readers know I love Gleason on this book.  His art and my affection for the characters is what keeps me coming back.  Gleason’s take on a rampaging Guy was worth the price of admission alone.

All in all, this is an entertaining issue.  I just wish it felt a little more central to Blackest Night.  As it is, it feels marginalized.

Review: Secret Six #17

Beginning only moments after last week’s Suicide Squad #67 ended, Secret Six #17 is the second part of a three-part “Blackest Night” tie-in that follows a three-way conflict between Amanda Waller’s Suicide Squad, the Secret Six and the homicidal Black Lantern Suicide Squad.  The fight began last issue, and it gets complicated in this one – as Waller and Multiplex burn down the house of Secrets, Belle Reve turns into a bloodbath.  The Six and the Squad are too busy fighting each other to notice that the dead rise until it’s too late.  Simone and Ostrander pack the issue with quick, clever character moments in between fast-paced action segments that vary in style from a brutal martial arts battle between Bronze Tiger and Catman and a futile confrontation between Bane and the superpowered team of Count Vertigo and Nightshade.

Kudos go to colorist Jason Wright, who, alongside artist J. Calafiore, have crafted the most memorable and realistic images seen yet in Blackest Night‘s emotion-o-vision.  Seeing Deadshot on the ground, veins of powerful emotions surging up through cracks in his near-sociopathic emotional armor is a clever image that also fits with everything we know about the character.  Secret Six #17 ups the tension dramatically from the previous issue, maintaining a breakneck pace as it dashes towards next month’s conclusion.  Exciting, well-characterized and fun, it’s just another issue that suggests that Secret Six is one of the best books on the shelves today.

Grade: A-

- Cal Cleary

Suicide Squad #67

Secret Six #16

Review: Suicide Squad #67

The month of January will see the latest, and most ingenious, of DC’s “Blackest Night” cash-grabs as they go after that ever-elusive audience that absolutely despises what Big Event Mentality has done to an industry that can’t even approach affording it (so, uh, me) by reviving a selection of critically-beloved fan-favorite titles that were cancelled (or ended) some time ago.  This begins this week with Weird Western Tales #71 (which I will not be covering unless someone at DC wants to send me a free copy… please?) and Suicide Squad #67.  Co-written by John Ostrander and Gail Simone, Suicide Squad #67 has precious little to do with Blackest Night, and is all the better for it.

Instead, Ostrander and Simone use it to kick off a new Secret Six arc, featuring a three-way battle between the Suicide Squad, the Secret Six and the ‘Homicide Squad’, the Black Lantern members of each team, out for blood.  Though it seems like this could get chaotic and cluttered, especially given the size of each team and the B/C-list nature of its characters, but Simone and Ostrander handle it well, keeping things light and extraordinarily exciting, with the usual dark touch of humor.

Calafiore does excellent work on art, capturing the eerie intensity of the Black Lanterns and the easy violence of… well, every character in the book.  The book’s many action sequences are quick and exciting, and Calafiore does an excellent job setting up the pace and keeping the action moving.  It may not be important to the events of the main mini, but it is nonetheless a thoroughly satisfying tie-in, keeping things quick and trusting the audience to catch up.

Grade: A-

- Cal Cleary

Read/RANT

Secret Six #16

Review: Blackest Night #6

After the bizarre camp of Blackest Night #5, I was expecting #6 to be a letdown.  Despite a few of those old familiar moments of Hal/Barry-wankery (Superman is standing 5 feet away from the ring, but it seeks Barry Allen out as the figure in the world who most inspires hope?), this issue was actually quite enjoyable.  Like the last two (and unlike, in large part, the early issues) there was some forward momentum in the plot, some threads finally converged, and, briefly, the book was about more than how awesome Hal Jordan and Barry Allen are.  It even manages a few semi-inspiring moments – seeing Ganthet don a ring, or seeing the new (and crazier) Rainbow Corps arrive at the end, just to name a pair of examples.

The book’s brightest moments are hindered by some inordinately clumsy set-up, but overall, Blackest Night is finally picking up.  It remains a deeply flawed book, but it has become an exciting, deeply flawed book, and if it is predictable, the predictability of the last few issues has made seeing the events come to pass all the more satisfying, rather than ruining them.  Reis’ art looks much better this issue as we step away from the drab black backgrounds in favor of a mish-mash of color in every panel.  Overall, the book’s improvement over the last few issues gives me hope for the mini’s conclusion.

Grade: B

- Cal Cleary

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Blackest Night #5

Blackest Night #4

Review: Blackest Night #5

Welcome back to Read/RANT, everyone – I hope you enjoyed your week off.  I know I did!  And while I traveled far and wide for my pre-Thanksgiving Break break, I’m back now and ready to review.  And what better place to start than everyone’s favorite book to see us read…

Blackest Night #5

Blackest Night #5 was, for my money, easily the strongest issue of the series to date.  Two major weak spots hurt it, but otherwise, it was a relatively exciting, action-packed issue that finally realized that Johns has no skill whatsoever with horror.  Instead, despite the grim tone and overly dark art, Blackest Night #5 was almost campy fun, and while the sudden tonal shift of the book from action-horror to action-dark camp may throw some readers off, it was a welcome, if strange, shift.

Johns had me seriously worried as the book opened, suddenly shifting to an introduction featuring characters we haven’t seen on a quest we knew nothing about.  While that’s just about always a bad narrative choice, and one that added nothing whatsoever to the book here, the extended introduction at least had the courtesy to be as cheesy and brightly colored as it could be.  The other problem moment is harder to mention without spoiling a major twist, so consider the remainder of this paragraph to be a spoiler: Batman’s sudden, bizarre, momentary resurrection, in which everyone was super surprised and called him by his real name before he vomited up a few Black Lantern rings with batwings that killed Superman, Wonder Woman (whose golden lasso immediately turns black, apropos of nothing at all) and pretty much everyone else except Hal and Barry before he promptly re-died.

End spoilers.

Reis continues to do fine work on art, though the book’s relentless darkness hurts his art far more than it helps.  His crisp illustrations often come off as muddied as everything that isn’t surrounded by an omnipresent black goo is instead coated in neon bright light.  Despite that, however, he is still doing a fine job, and the contrast between the lanterns’ lights and the muddy dark further aids the book in achieving its bizarrely over-the-top tone.

Blackest Night is still deeply flawed, but at least it’s become fun, a relatively enjoyable issue of so-bad-it’s-good storytelling with a slew of color-themed one-liners and minor art blips that cause Bart Allen to, despite standing only a foot or so away, only come up to Wonder Woman’s knees.  It also featured what was very probably the book’s strongest action segments and a few more hints to set up the upcoming big finale.  While it’s hardly A-list storytelling, at least it isn’t taking itself quite so seriously anymore.

Grade: B

- Cal Cleary

Blackest Night #4

Blackest Night #3