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.