The Weekly Round-Up: 10/6-13/10

Hey there, people who actually read my my reviews! Looks like I missed last week's reviews. I'd apologize, but I missed it so I could watch Doc Halladay throw a no-hitter in his first post-season game, so suck it! Still, I guess I could talk about last week's comics along with this week's because that's just the kind of guy I am. So let's get started with what I read and liked (or maybe even didn't like) from the last two weeks!

First up is Shadowland: Spider-Man by Dan Slott and Paulo Siquera. Now, I gave up on Shadowland about a month or two ago because I just could not care less about it. Still, when I saw this I couldn't help but pick it up because Spider-Man and Shang Chi teaming up is totally awesome. The story centers around Spider-man and Shang-Chi facing off against Mr. Negative and his gang of unkillable demon gangster. Seems Negative decided that he'd take advantage of Daredevil's crazy Shadowland crap and make his territory bigger. Our heroes follow and decide to get into the mix-up between Negative's gang and DD's Hand Ninja. Honestly, I don't think this one-shot even NEEDS the Shadowland name on it because you could take out all the Shadowland elements here and it would still work as well as it does. This could have just been the "Spider-man and Shan-Chi One-Shot", which might have made it even better because it would mean I wouldn't have to buy into ANYTHING Shadowland related. Hell, this could have just been a one off issue of Amazing Spider-Man and it would do just as well. Anyway, if you're looking for some good ol' fashioned Marvel Team-Up-ing, then give this one a shot (see what I did there?)

Next up is Amazing Spider-Man: Back in Quack by Stuart Moore, Mark Brooks, Ray Height, and Joe Suitor, with a cover by Scottie Young. The best thing about this issue is the cover by Scottie Young. The actual issue itself isn't very good; the story centers around Howard the Duck and his lovely lady Bev being brainwashed by a company called "S.O.O.Ph.I." (which stands for "The Service Organization Of Philanthropic Individuals") and Spider-Man having to snap them out of it and stop S.O.O.Ph.I. from turning all of New York into a bunch of cynical sarcastic jerks. The story has a nice little moral about how being cynical doesn't make you cool and witty and how we should always just think for ourselves, which I think is a great message. Unfortunately, it accomplishes this through unfunny, stiff dialogue, a bad "Caturday" reference, a random quote that just comes out of nowhere, and a story that just feels garbled. There's one funny joke in the entire book, which is the "EMAX BLANDITRON" screens that are used for brainwashing. In a book starring Spider-Man and Howard the Duck, you should have more than one successful joke: the book should be stuffed with humor. This is just bad. There's also a Swamp Thing story which isn't too bad, but feels a bit out of place. The overall interior art duties are odd, half of the main story gets split with the second half looking so much better than the first and the Swamp Thing story looking appropriately depressing. Honestly, I can't recommend this to anyone: if you want a really good current Howard the Duck story, Marvel Zombies 5 by Fred Van Lente has him AND Machine Man and is totally awesome. You should go read that. If you want good Spider-Man, Amazing or Ultimate flavors should satisfy you.

Speaking of Amazing Spider-Man, that came out this week! Mark Waid's "Origin of Species" continues as Spider-Man continues to face down an onslaught of bad guys and in this issue he's gotten serious. We've got Spider-Man hunting down each and every masked criminal that has accepted Doc Ock's offer and he's showing them: a) why they call him the AMAZING Spider-Man and b) why you don't mess with him. If you like seeing Spider-Man kick ass for 22 straight pages of comic, then you might want to give this issue a read. Art duties are handled by Paul Azaceta and Matthew Southworth on pencils and the two blend so well together that I didn't even know that there were two different pencilers until I looked at the credits page. Maybe they're that good together of maybe Javier Rodriguez's coloring is that damned good, but either way I enjoyed the art here. There's also Stan Lee and Marcos Martin's back-up, which comes to a close in a way that I didn't quite see coming and that I really enjoyed. It's good to see Stan the man back on one of the books that made him the legend he is today and I hope he and Martin will team-up again some time soon to provide another fun little tale like this!

Meanwhile, at DC, Batman is trapped in time and he's got 5 different books this week: I only bought one of those and that one is BATMAN: THE RETURN OF BRUCE WAYNE #5! This is the penultimate issue of Grant Morrison's insanely awesome tale of Batman in time and in this issue he's found himself caught up in an investigation of his own parents' murder. Things aren't quite what they seem though and a few threads that showed up in Batman RIP seem to be coming back. And to top it all off it looks like Red Robin and the Justice League have run out of time in their mission to stop time itself from being destroyed! Grant's writing the hell out of this series and I'm excited to see where this last issue will take us. Art in this book is handled by Ryan Sook and Pere Perez, with Sook providing some amazingly awesome noirish art and Perez taking over for the last 8 pages which include and crazy final page that has me pumped for what the next issue will bring.
Also in the Batman world this week is issue #1 of Paul Cornell's Knight and Squire mini! For those of you who don't know, Knight and Squire are the british Batman and Robin and they're awesome. And it's being written by (as I previously stated) Paul Cornell who is tearing it up on Action Comic right now, doing an amazing job with his Lex Luthor story. This first issue is a great little one-off introducing us to the world of British Super Heroes and Villains, who are all a lot more chill than they're American counter parts. "How much more chill" you ask? Well they all share drinks with each other in a magical truce bar once a month where nobody can fight because it's been magically made to keep fighting from happen. I love this issue and I love the idea of getting to see this awesome side of the DC universe. Jimmy Broxton and Guy Major, the art team on this book, manage to make this book all the better with they're combination of quirky art and awesome coloring. This is just an all around awesome book and if you're looking for another Batman book to pick up that isn't some lame tie-in than this is your book!

What else is awesome from DC? Why, it's Justice League Genereation Lost, issue number 11! What's so awesome about this issue? Well it's got the freaking Metal Men in it, and that's insanely awesome! That's right, Fire, Ice, and Rocket Red must work together to face off with the robot team, who Max Lord has had reprogrammed into thinking they're some magical fantasy world guardians of this princess. And then they combine into that robot thing on the cover and I can only find myself thinking one thing: Max Lord has had the Metal Men reprogrammed into thinking they're VOLTRON! If that's not awesome to you, than you need to find a new reality, because you suck at living in this one. With each and every issue, this series continues to be one of the best damn books I'm reading from DC and I can't wait to see where it goes next, because it's just fantastic. Thank you Judd Winnick for making what is officially THE Justice League book as far as I'm concerned. Now give me an awesome issue of Blue Beetle and I will offer up my unborn child to you as a token of my appreciation.

That's it for me talking about books this week, but this isn't the extent of what I got and enjoyed so here's a list of other titles that I'm enjoying that you should be reading: Invincible Iron Man (Matt Fraction is tearing it up on this book and Stark Resilient just keeps getting better!), Booster Gold (Those of you who miss Ted Kord should be reading this!), Green Lantern Emerald Warriors (It's got Guy Gardner kicking ass!), Green Lantern (The Blue entity shows up!), The New Avengers (It's crazy awesome!). There's also some Thor books, but you'll have to wait for some point this weekend for A THORSDAY REVIEW OF AWESOMENESS! See you then!

Green Lantern: Emerald Warriors #1: Hells Yeah, Guy Gardner!

Guy Gardner is probably my favorite of the Green Lanterns. From his days in the JLI to his current status quo as one of the more bad-ass Green Lanterns, the man has always managed pique my interest and keep me glued to the page to see whatever it is that he's up to. So naturally, when I found out that Guy would be the focus character of his own Green Lantern book (with Kilowog as his partner, no less) and that one Peter J. Tomasi was heading up the writing duties, I knew that if I only read one Green Lantern book, this would be the one.

This issue gets us started off with exactly the kind of thing I want from a book like this; Guy Gardner chasing a space truck through space on a construct motorcycle and then immediately proceeding to kick ass and take names. Great way to start off the first issue of a Guy Gardner comic! And then we immediately go into our regularly scheduled first issue; setting up our plot and the various threads that will be weaved within it. Is it bad? No. Is it boring? Again, no. But there isn't much happening yet, though what we are getting to see is pretty interesting enough that I'm definitely sticking with this one for at least another issue. My only real problem here is the lack of Kilowog in this issue, but it looks like that will be rectified in the next issue.

In terms of art, this is pretty standard. Nothing special, but not at all bad. There's really not much else to say about it other than that. Though I will note that that is an awesome cover. And I actually like the art here a lot more than what we get in the interior of the comic. Hopefully all the covers are this awesome.

So there we have it, a decent first issue; I'll definitely be coming back for more, but I'm still not entirely sold yet (though I'm going to say it's a safe bet that I'll be sticking on this one for the long run!) And with a next issue promise of "Poozer Hunting" I'm going to say it's a safe bet that Kilowog will be in the next issue.

Brightest Day #5: This may be it for me!

There comes a time where you find yourself getting fed up with a story that's taking too long to do anything and you just can't take anymore. Well, I've gotten to that point with Brightest Day, the latest is DC's year long event books. I think this may be the point where I check out, folks!

The problem with this series isn't that it's necessarily bad; in fact, I prefer a good chunk of the stories in here. But I just can't stand this awful Hawkman/Hawkgirl story line. It's boring, time consuming, and overall just drains out the enthusiasm I have for the rest of this book. I just can't bring myself to care for these characters and I hate this book for trying to make me do so.

Still, the Aquaman and Deadman stories are actually pretty interesting. Outside of the hilariously relevant "Aquaman tries to stop the BP fiasco" moment in this issue, the Aquaman sections of this book really have me interested. The Deadman story is still good, too. Unfortunately they're simply the side dishes on the plate of steaming crap that is the Hawks. They may look delicious, but there's still a steaming pile of crap there to ruin it all.

Overall I find myself reluctant to even give this book one more shot; Martian Manhunter is the subject of the next issue though, so I find myself conflicted on the subject.

Night and Day: Action Comics #890 and The Flash #3

Alrighty folks, time for a two-fer review on this fine Saturday night. Since they both feature something I want to talk about in length after and they both allowed be to use a cliched title, I'm going to review both Action Comics #890 and The Flash #3!

We get things started with Action Comics, which I immediately want to note the distinct banner on the cover. This isn't a Brightest Day book, no this is a Blackest Night Aftermath book, which is what I thought Brightest Day was, but I guess not.

This is a book I've been excited for because this is the time when Action Comics begins following the adventures of Lex Luthor and his quest to regain the powers he had come into during Blackest Night. Yes, he's looking for the power rings, but not the ones you might think he'd be looking for the Black Lantern rings. Why he would want them, I don't know, but he's doing everything in his power to find them. On a disturbing note, Lex has what appears to be a Lois Lane android, which is just plain creepy, though I'd also gamble that it's a sexbot, which is awesome. The issue ends with a twist I did not see coming and boy am I excited to see what's coming next.

Meanwhile, back under the Brightest Day banner, we've got the Flash #3. This new Flash title is something that I'm finding myself fall in love with more and more each issue, if only because Francis Manapul is a beast. His departure from Adventure comics was the first factor to bring me down the path of dropping that title and his name showing up in the solicits for this title was one of the factors that had me itching to pick this book up.

This issue starts us up with Captain Boomerang discovering that he's got a new ability tied into his black lantern revival, before we go back to where the last issue left off. Barry's DNA is showing up on the forensics tests and Forrest thinks Barry has become sloppy, taking the opportunity to chastise him. From here we see Barry and Iris meeting for coffee, which is quickly interrupted by the Renegades, who give chase to Barry.

This leads to a few really cool sequences with Barry using his speed to save Iris and put on his costume. Good to see Manapul and Johns doing this awesome stuff here, though we don't get any sequences as awesome as the Flash dismantling the car and putting the building together that we got in the first two issues; those were awesome. We close the issue with Captain Boomerang showing up to show off his new powers and I'm excited for the next issue.

Overall, both of these are good single issues, but I find both have a common element that I'm feeling conflicted about; the black lantern rings aren't as gone as we think. In Action Comics we have Lex searching for the rings and building a map that may just lead him to finding what he needs to get one for himself. In Flash, we've for Captain Boomerangs new power. So it seems we're not quite done with the Blackest Night stuff just yet and I'm torn on how I feel about this. On the one hand, I was done with Blackest Night 3/4 of the way through the event itself. It was one event book that I'm just glad to be done with. On the other, DC's books have been doing some interesting things with all this. We've got Captain Boomerang's powers, Max Lord seems to be effected with it, and even Firestorm and Aquaman are having side effects of being Black Lanterns who got revived.

Honestly, as long as DC doesn't drag this out too long (though we've got about another 10 months of this so I won't hold my breath), I'll be cool with all this. As things stand right now, I'm intrigued.