Tpull's Weekly DC Comics Review

March 28, 2010 9:23 PM | Comments:

Batman: Streets of Gotham 10

by Paul Dini and Dustin Nguyen

Nguyen’s style is not growing or changing one iota during his run on this title, making it a gloomy affair to pick up and see the exact same washed-out style. Batman is shoved aside as Dini wastes page after page giving us a ‘secret origin’ of his latest creation, a boy who can trigger the Venom juice in his body. It makes him strong and allows him to look like an adult. How convenient. After all these years, it looks like a writer can just grab Venom and make it do whatever he wants. The kid, Colin, tries to go undercover to uncover the mystery of disappearing kids, and he meets Damian, who has had the same thought.

Zsasz needs more kids for his fights, so the two of them are conveniently scooped up, and Zsasz deigns to fight him immediately, without running him through a gauntlet of other kids first. Zsasz makes short work of him, and we end on Damian’s impending death, with Nguyen’s pencils making his face distorted and vacant. It could be any kid there; there is nothing that you could recognize as specifically Damian.

It is such a relief to get to the Manhunter portion of the book, which ha completely upstaged the slow, stumbling path of Dini’s story. Jane Doe pulls an explosive chip out of her neck and throws it into the courtroom, allowing Two-Face to escape. Gordon has good lines, and Kate is cut off from her costume, sitting in her briefcase. The final scene, where she arrives to check on the judge at his house, is gruesomely awesome, and much better than any page in Nguyen’s work in the front of the comic. Good job here by Marc Andreyko and Jeremy Haun.

Green Lantern 52

by Geoff Johns and Doug Mahnke

Geoff Johns is finishing his masterpiece. Here, he shows the origin of the universe, the real origin, not the lie that the Guardians have spread for eons. We see through Sinestro’s telling the beginning of willpower and the other embodiments of emotion, and Mahnke is with him every step of the way visually, providing captivating images followed by shocking action, as Sinestro is sliced in half by Nekron himself. Mahnke is really outdoing himself these days, and it is this constant improvement that makes Nguyen’s work on Streets of Gotham pale in comparison, where once it might have been enough. Artists are raising their game, and others need to keep up.

Katma Tui tries to tackle John Stewart, but he isn’t having any of it. Given his history with Xanshi, having Fatality right beside him is a nice touch, allowing them to speak of their past enmity. We also get a glimpse of Driq, and longtime fans will love that Easter egg. Stewart’s strike force makes it to the center of Xanshi, just as it threatens Earth. Their combined light disrupts the huge mass of black rings that form the nucleus of control over the planet, and they sever the connection, destroying the entire planet. That big of an effect, Nekron feels! He shouts in pain, with a lot of the rings that were deployed from the planet dissolving all around Hal and his faction.

We end with the white light sealing Sinestro up, as he declares himself the “true guardian of the universe.” This is the penultimate chapter, with everything ending in Blackest Night #8 next. This saga has been very satisfying, with each issue being a solid hit, adding to the fabric along the way. Can they successfully weave a satisfying conclusion with only one more issue to go? The odds look good at this point, with their track record. I have a feeling that Blackest Night will soon be held in the same high regard as Crisis on Infinite Earths.

Justice League: The Rise and Fall of Arsenal 1

by J. T. Krul and Geraldo Borges

I nearly didn’t get this one, but there wasn’t much of DC on the shelves this week. We start with a flashback, which is already tiresome for this particular sector of the DC universe. We get to see the extended behind-the-scenes DVD version of Prometheus’ fight with Arsenal. See, they didn’t have enough room to show it to us in JLA: Cry For Justice, so they show it to us here. Which is fine mostly, because the art is cool and the fight is cool… it’s just so old news at this point, and beaten to death. You’ve already killed Prometheus, so why bother spending half the comic showing the guy. He can’t impress us much anymore now that he’s got an arrow through his skull. It’s more like Faces of the Already-Deceased rather than Faces of Evil.

We finally get to the present, and give Roy the news that Lian is dead. So much for our hopes she might be the Franklin Richards of DC. With our luck, since she has no powers, she will probably remain dead, unlike everyone else who keeps coming back. The fun part is what happens next, as Roy is given a sedative to calm him down, triggering a mental visitation from an old buddy who died of a drug overdose. Will the medications Roy is receiving to heal the problems with his arm trigger a relapse? It’s one of the more realistic moments I’ve seen in this area recently.

If Borges remains on the art chores for all four issues, I would recommend this title. There is only so much Krul can do for flashbacks now; he’ll have no choice but to get on with the rest of the present story.

Superman 698

by James Robinson, Bernard Chang, and Javier Pina

Mon-el tries to rescue Superman, but he runs into some troubles on the way into Brainiac’s ship that Superman didn’t. Some of the species have been promised freedom if they will kill Mon-el. Brainiac and Luthor spend their time gloating basically, until Superman’s heat vision overloads one of the sensing devices, and his constant struggle finally gets him loose, in a very well-drawn visual. The background art starts to suffer later on, as the details fade to a fuzzy greenish hue. Luthor points a gun at one of the bottled cities and threatens to destroy it. Superman hesitates, and Luthor decides he has been offended enough that he’s going to destroy the city anyway. Kind of takes away his negotiating power though, doesn’t it?

He doesn’t get the chance, as Mon-el speeds in to take away the city. The final page mimics the cover, and there is something cool about seeing Superman side by side with Mon-el fighting the good fight. Probably just nostalgia, but I’ll take it. Nothing too extravagant or superb in this issue, but it makes for a solid link in the current storytelling chain.

Titans 23

by Eddie Berganza, Scott Clark, and Ardian Syaf

Following in the steps of Identity Crisis, Berganza looks at the past adventures of the Titans in a decidedly more violent, less kid-friendly way, and the original group of Teen Titans looks more like a vicious gang from Clockwork Orange than mighty super heroes. With a slight break in the reminiscing, we are told that Hawk and Tempest were casualties of Blackest Night, yet another tiring example of poor publishing planning by a major comic book publisher. Would it have killed them to postpone this issue by one measly week? No, they have to get this one out, despite being willing to deliver so many others late?!? They take steam out of Blackest Night #8. They also did not do themselves a favor by eliminating Tempest. Garth was one of the more-ignored characters in the DC universe, but one with some great potential.

Clark and Syaf do well on the art throughout, but what we have to put up with is not the greatest, because it’s basically a walk own memory lane, with Berganza re-writing history. In this revision, nobody ever liked Roy, the original Speedy. Roy actually calls Garth a freak when Garth tries to help on one occasion. This is the poorest in the entire family of ret-cons: the re-ordering of relationships. Unlike Kurt Busiek, who made sense out of the countless time-travel plots of Kang the Conqueror, or Geoff johns, who came up with a better reason for the yellow flaw in the rings of Green Lanterns, Berganza follows the lazy tread of James Robinson, who recently decided that Hal Jordan and Bruce Wayne never liked each other. It doesn’t fit with decades worth of stories, and this Titans revision doesn’t work well either.

It’s as if the Titans have gotten so boring, the writers so unable to have them do anything worthwhile, there is nothing left but to fabricate artificial tension between them to give the characters some tension to work with. The desperation of it works against Berganza, and betrays the glorious history of this small, tight-knit group. In this new history, virtually none of the group liked Roy at all, and were always getting in his face, telling him to leave, etc.

If you were a new reader, and had no knowledge of the original stories, this wouldn’t read half bad. Given what longtime readers know, however, it reads more like a pathetic betrayal and a waste of our time. They try to use this issue as a prelude to the mini-series, The Rise of Arsenal. It’s not a bad issue… it’s just… wrong.

Tpull is Travis Pullen. He started reading comics at 5 years old, and he can't seem to stop.

Batman: Streets of Gotham 10 \n\n by Paul Dini and Dustin Nguyen \n\nNguyen’s style is not growing or changing one iota during his run on this title, making it a gloomy affair to pick up and see the exact same washed-out style. Batman is shoved aside as Dini wastes page after page giving us a ‘secret origin’ of his latest creation, a boy who can trigger the Venom juice in his body. It makes him strong and allows him to look like an adult. How convenient. After all these years, it looks like a writer can just grab Venom and make it do whatever he wants. The kid, Colin, tries to go undercover to uncover the mystery of disappearing kids, and he meets Damian, who has had the same thought.\n\nZsasz needs more kids for his fights, so the two of them are conveniently scooped up, and Zsasz deigns to fight him immediately, without running him through a gauntlet of other kids first. Zsasz makes short work of him, and we end on Damian’s impending death, with Nguyen’s pencils making his face distorted and vacant. It could be any kid there; there is nothing that you could recognize as specifically Damian.\n\nIt is such a relief to get to the Manhunter portion of the book, which ha completely upstaged the slow, stumbling path of Dini’s story. Jane Doe pulls an explosive chip out of her neck and throws it into the courtroom, allowing Two-Face to escape. Gordon has good lines, and Kate is cut off from her costume, sitting in her briefcase. The final scene, where she arrives to check on the judge at his house, is gruesomely awesome, and much better than any page in Nguyen’s work in the front of the comic. Good job here by Marc Andreyko and Jeremy Haun.\n\n\n Green Lantern 52 \n\n by Geoff Johns and Doug Mahnke \n\nGeoff Johns is finishing his masterpiece. Here, he shows the origin of the universe, the real origin, not the lie that the Guardians have spread for eons. We see through Sinestro’s telling the beginning of willpower and the other embodiments of emotion, and Mahnke is with him every step of the way visually, providing captivating images followed by shocking action, as Sinestro is sliced in half by Nekron himself. Mahnke is really outdoing himself these days, and it is this constant improvement that makes Nguyen’s work on Streets of Gotham pale in comparison, where once it might have been enough. Artists are raising their game, and others need to keep up.\n\nKatma Tui tries to tackle John Stewart, but he isn’t having any of it. Given his history with Xanshi, having Fatality right beside him is a nice touch, allowing them to speak of their past enmity. We also get a glimpse of Driq, and longtime fans will love that Easter egg. Stewart’s strike force makes it to the center of Xanshi, just as it threatens Earth. Their combined light disrupts the huge mass of black rings that form the nucleus of control over the planet, and they sever the connection, destroying the entire planet. That big of an effect, Nekron feels! He shouts in pain, with a lot of the rings that were deployed from the planet dissolving all around Hal and his faction.\n\nWe end with the white light sealing Sinestro up, as he declares himself the “true guardian of the universe.” This is the penultimate chapter, with everything ending in Blackest Night #8 next. This saga has been very satisfying, with each issue being a solid hit, adding to the fabric along the way. Can they successfully weave a satisfying conclusion with only one more issue to go? The odds look good at this point, with their track record. I have a feeling that Blackest Night will soon be held in the same high regard as Crisis on Infinite Earths.\n\n\n Justice League: The Rise and Fall of Arsenal 1 \n\n by J. T. Krul and Geraldo Borges \n\nI nearly didn’t get this one, but there wasn’t much of DC on the shelves this week. We start with a flashback, which is already tiresome for this particular sector of the DC universe. We get to see the extended behind-the-scenes DVD version of Prometheus’ fight with Arsenal. See, they didn’t have enough room to show it to us in JLA: Cry For Justice, so they show it to us here. Which is fine mostly, because the art is cool and the fight is cool… it’s just so old news at this point, and beaten to death. You’ve already killed Prometheus, so why bother spending half the comic showing the guy. He can’t impress us much anymore now that he’s got an arrow through his skull. It’s more like Faces of the Already-Deceased rather than Faces of Evil.\n\nWe finally get to the present, and give Roy the news that Lian is dead. So much for our hopes she might be the Franklin Richards of DC. With our luck, since she has no powers, she will probably remain dead, unlike everyone else who keeps coming back. The fun part is what happens next, as Roy is given a sedative to calm him down, triggering a mental visitation from an old buddy who died of a drug overdose. Will the medications Roy is receiving to heal the problems with his arm trigger a relapse? It’s one of the more realistic moments I’ve seen in this area recently.\n\nIf Borges remains on the art chores for all four issues, I would recommend this title. There is only so much Krul can do for flashbacks now; he’ll have no choice but to get on with the rest of the present story.\n\n\n Superman 698 \n\n by James Robinson, Bernard Chang, and Javier Pina \n\nMon-el tries to rescue Superman, but he runs into some troubles on the way into Brainiac’s ship that Superman didn’t. Some of the species have been promised freedom if they will kill Mon-el. Brainiac and Luthor spend their time gloating basically, until Superman’s heat vision overloads one of the sensing devices, and his constant struggle finally gets him loose, in a very well-drawn visual. The background art starts to suffer later on, as the details fade to a fuzzy greenish hue. Luthor points a gun at one of the bottled cities and threatens to destroy it. Superman hesitates, and Luthor decides he has been offended enough that he’s going to destroy the city anyway. Kind of takes away his negotiating power though, doesn’t it?\n\nHe doesn’t get the chance, as Mon-el speeds in to take away the city. The final page mimics the cover, and there is something cool about seeing Superman side by side with Mon-el fighting the good fight. Probably just nostalgia, but I’ll take it. Nothing too extravagant or superb in this issue, but it makes for a solid link in the current storytelling chain.\n\n\n Titans 23 \n\n by Eddie Berganza, Scott Clark, and Ardian Syaf \n\nFollowing in the steps of Identity Crisis, Berganza looks at the past adventures of the Titans in a decidedly more violent, less kid-friendly way, and the original group of Teen Titans looks more like a vicious gang from Clockwork Orange than mighty super heroes. With a slight break in the reminiscing, we are told that Hawk and Tempest were casualties of Blackest Night, yet another tiring example of poor publishing planning by a major comic book publisher. Would it have killed them to postpone this issue by one measly week? No, they have to get this one out, despite being willing to deliver so many others late?!? They take steam out of Blackest Night #8. They also did not do themselves a favor by eliminating Tempest. Garth was one of the more-ignored characters in the DC universe, but one with some great potential.\n\nClark and Syaf do well on the art throughout, but what we have to put up with is not the greatest, because it’s basically a walk own memory lane, with Berganza re-writing history. In this revision, nobody ever liked Roy, the original Speedy. Roy actually calls Garth a freak when Garth tries to help on one occasion. This is the poorest in the entire family of ret-cons: the re-ordering of relationships. Unlike Kurt Busiek, who made sense out of the countless time-travel plots of Kang the Conqueror, or Geoff johns, who came up with a better reason for the yellow flaw in the rings of Green Lanterns, Berganza follows the lazy tread of James Robinson, who recently decided that Hal Jordan and Bruce Wayne never liked each other. It doesn’t fit with decades worth of stories, and this Titans revision doesn’t work well either.\n\nIt’s as if the Titans have gotten so boring, the writers so unable to have them do anything worthwhile, there is nothing left but to fabricate artificial tension between them to give the characters some tension to work with. The desperation of it works against Berganza, and betrays the glorious history of this small, tight-knit group. In this new history, virtually none of the group liked Roy at all, and were always getting in his face, telling him to leave, etc.\n\nIf you were a new reader, and had no knowledge of the original stories, this wouldn’t read half bad. Given what longtime readers know, however, it reads more like a pathetic betrayal and a waste of our time. They try to use this issue as a prelude to the mini-series, The Rise of Arsenal. It’s not a bad issue… it’s just… wrong.\n\n Tpull is Travis Pullen. He started reading comics at 5 years old, and he can't seem to stop.

Tpull's Weekly DC Comics Review

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