Reilly2040's Blog

Representing the first issues for both main Green Lantern books after Blackest Night, both of these came out this week in the UK (thanks to last week’s volcano issues).   This led to me reading them back-to-back and they provide an interesting comparison.

To me Green Lantern Corps felt like much more of an epilogue which was needed to Blackest Night, while the main Green Lantern book was, as is Geoff Johns’ style, more focused in setting up future plots and mysteries.

While Green Lantern played with the Hal/Carol relationship a bit more, I still can’t help but dislike the way Cowgirl has all but completely vanished from the book.  Granted she gets a name-check here, but a return of Hal’s civilian identity would be welcome.  I can only assume Cowgirl will be dumping him the next time he bothers to go see her, and Lord knows what his status is with the Air Force.

It is a tricky situation for Johns.  He spent much of the first part of his run re-establishing Hal on Earth, and building his relationship with Cowgirl.  The minute the Sinestro Corps kicked off the larger storyline, the cosmic stuff has taken on much more importance to the franchise.  I guess I’d just like to see Geoff address Hal’s civilian life, even if its just to draw a line under it, to allow Hal to move completely onto the cosmic side of the story, rather than leave it dangling.

For now though, we’re still in full cosmic flow, with the New Guardians, as Sinestro (presumably appearing after Blackest Night #0) interrupts Hal and Carol (nicely pointing out that Carol had said she’d give up the Star Sapphire powers but hasn’t) to tell them he’s found the white Lantern and its asking for Hal.

However for me, the best part of the book was the tease on Ryut at the beginning, which brought to the fore various dangling plot strands again.  Hector Hammond is revisited, and we find him conversing with a mysterious cloaked figure who is on Ryut and is wearing green energy chains.  This is the character that captured Parallax during Blackest Night.  I assume this will also dovetail to the real reason there was a massacre in Sector 666.  Was the Manhunter attack ordered by the Guardians to capture/stop this individual?  Did the Guardians decide the lives of the entire planet were acceptable losses, and then cover it up with a “malfunction”?

There’s also a real left-field element at the end of the book, where we find Guy, Ganthet and Atrocitous conspiring against the Guardians and the Green Lantern Corps.  Now, in fairness, Peter Tomasi established that Guy still has a partial red Lantern infection, but Ganthet’s dialogue about wanting to bring down the Green Lantern Corps has really come out of nowhere and threw me.  I really don’t know what to make of this scene.  I assume it’s going to be followed up in the other books, since Ganthet is moving to the Green Lantern Corps book (and I guess we can now assume he’s got his own motives for becoming a Green Lantern, and part of the draw of the book will be Kyle and John slowly figuring this out).

I’m really unsure about this idea of Ganthet having a big goal to take down the Green Lantern Corps as it seems to be at odds with the character’s other appearances.  Although I wonder if its more about dismantling the Corps as it is, specifically under the Guardians’ leadership (which we know from recent events is deeply flawed).

The other element of the issue I did like was the Luthor/Larfleeze scene.  I’d assumed Luthor’s connection to things would have ended with Blackest Night, although there’s an Action Comics solicit that suggests otherwise.  But the main thing I liked about this scene was again Larfleeze being portrayed in a scarier way, rather than as comedy relief.  The way he’s going around with Sayd, holding her with his feet is quite creepy, and I hope that Geoff has some plans for Sayd and the way she’s bound herself to Larfleeze like this.

As a setup issue, this issue worked well.  The opening pages gave us an interesting mystery, and while I wasn’t bothered about the Carol/Hal scene, it tied things into Brightest Day nicely with the Sinestro appearance.  However there’s a side of me that would’ve liked more of an epilogue to the previous story before moving straight onto the next big thing, similar as to what was done in GLC.  It is nice though to see the dangling plot threads being picked up and I’m definitely intrigued by this figure on Ryut.

*edit* the cloaked figure was, of course, on Ryut and not Ysmault as I’d originally said.

Progressing through the game of Star Trek Online, sees you move from different galactic sectors.  Starting out at the heart of the Federation near the Sol system, as you gain levels you move throughout the galaxy encountering the Klingon systems, Romulan Space and others.

Having recently made it past Commander level and to Captain and now Admiral, I’ve moved out from the Romulan sectors and am now in Bajoran and Cardassian space, which means visiting one of the most iconic locations in the shape of Deep Space Nine.

As a big fan of that show, just flying up the DS9 was another of those great moments in the game.  And once docked, while the station interiors are obviously limited, they’ve still recognisable.  Wandering around the promenade feels great despite the limitations and like the Guardian of Forever, and the earlier Deep Space K-7, its nice to have these recognisable locations in the game.

Its an aspect of the game I really appreciate is the feeling of progress.  In all MMOs, as you progress you move into higher level areas.  However what I like about Star Trek Online, is how those areas give you the feeling of moving from the core of the Federation (Earth and Vulcan) to the outer fringes.  Its not just that you’ve moved to a higher level area, but I do get the feeling that I’ve progressed to defending the outer edges of Federation territory.  Of course, that’s probably helped by a lot of the game’s population hanging around the central Hub in the Sol System, so the higher levels don’t have as many Federation ships flying around.

I’ve yet to progress to Borg space, which currently represents the last sector of the game, but I’m really intrigued to see what the developers have done with it.  There’s a real potential to make it a dark, scary place to be, where you know you’re out of your depth and in trouble, and I hope they capture that, and like Deep Space Nine, its an opportunity to create a really iconic location.

This week’s Doctor Who episode saw the eleventh Doctor’s first face off against the Daleks, but more than that, it turned into a relaunch for the Daleks themselves, to setup a new status quo for them in this new era of the show.

The premise for the episode was definitely a strong one.  The opening 10 minutes was deliberate homage to Power of the Daleks, with the Daleks back to being sneaky for the first time in ages, posing as robots invented by a human professor to help Churchill win the war.  Of course the Doctor knows the truth, but no one believes him.

Those opening scenes were hugely effective, and its been a while since the Daleks were this effective, looking quite freaky as they casually rolled around the background in the war-rooms, always keeping an eye on the Doctor and what he was doing.

If I had a complaint about the episode, it’d probably be that it all felt a bit too quick, and these opening scenes could’ve easily been played out more.  I wonder what this story would’ve been like if it had been stretched to two episodes, instead of the hurried reveal of the Daleks’ plan on Earth.

The plan itself was pretty straight-forward.  These three Daleks are the sole survivors of Journey’s End, with their ship having managed to escape back in time.  However, they also stumbled across the last remaining progenitor.  A device from the original Dalek Empire that will recreate those original Daleks and return them to greatness.  However, as these Daleks are “impure” the Progenitor won’t work for them, unless they offer it the Doctor’s expert witness as to their identity, hence their ruse on Earth.

As to why these Daleks are impure?  Well, we know they’re pureblood Kaled Daleks, as Davros himself created them from his own cells, but I guess he must’ve been tinkering with them again (as seen in Rememberance of the Daleks).  The Daleks are, as in that story, big fans of genetic purity, going so far as to have the new Daleks destroy these three survivors as their first act (tactically, surely a bit of a dodgy move given their limited numbers, but that’s Daleks for you).

And so the Daleks are reborn.  But not quite as their original selves, with the Progenitor obviously deciding bringing them back as 60s balsa wood wouldn’t be the best idea (especially with the Doctor standing right beside them).   The redesign definitely stood out to me as the one duff note about the episode.  I’m just not a fan.  The bright colours I thought were less effective than the metallic bronze we’ve been used to, but I could live with them fairly happily.  However, the physical changes I’m definitely not keen on.  Being taller makes them look a lot more imposing, but the midsection with the gun and plunger is a bit too bulky.  And that then pales in comparison to the bizarre new hump they’re sporting.  The lines of the design don’t flow nearly as well as previous models as a result, and I’m really confused as to why they were changed in this way.  I’m hoping there’s going to be a reason for the change revealed at somepoint, be it in the show, or a practical production reason.    I dare say the problems will be less obvious when the new models next appear, but for this story, standing next to the previous models did them no real favours.

However, while I wasn’t keen on the revamp at all, some dodgy Dalek props are never enough to derail a whole episode, and so I was still a fan of this episode overall.  It had a great setting and once again Matt Smith shone as the Doctor.  There were some great set pieces with the Spitfire attack on the Dalek ship as well.

Of course, the most interesting thing about this episode, is that its really just a setup episode.  While The Eleventh Hour was about introducing the new Doctor, and The Beast Below allowed Amy to shine, this episode was focused on re-establishing the Doctor’s nemesis.  And that leaves me quite excited.  No more do we have the Daleks being completely and utterly wiped out only for a couple to have miraculously escaped when a return is needed.  The Daleks are properly back, and are out there biding their time and building their forces.   I hope this means we’re going to see a different take on the Daleks in the future.  More of the cunning they exhibited here, and less of the “throw fleets and fleets of Daleks on screen”.

For me, the Daleks best appearance in the new series remains their first.  In Dalek we got a proper showcase for them.  That Dalek was intelligent, cunning, lethal and scary as heck.  While having hundreds of Daleks onscreen at once does make for a great “oh %$#&” moment, it lingers less in the memory than that one Dalek, slowly working its way through Van Statten’s museum, killing everyone that it comes near.  I hope Steven Moffat’s view of the Daleks will bring more of the cunning we saw in the cabinet war rooms to their next appearance as well.

Alongside Brightest Day, this week also saw the release of the much-awaited Flash #1 from Geoff Johns and Francis Manapul.

Its safe to say, that much like many of DC relaunches over the last few years, this hasn’t been a smooth one.  Flash Rebirth came under heavy criticism for its slow plot, wide-sweeping retcons to Barry’s history and character and, of course, all the delays.   Put that on top of the controversy of bringing back a character who’s been dead for 20 years to replace the current, popular incumbent and there’s a bit of a hard sell to make sure people will accept Barry being not only back, but the Flash of the DCU.

This first issue however, was great and definitely a step in the right direction.  With Rebirth having handled all the muddy transition and setup for Barry’s series, this first issue is able to start fresh.  Its stripped down, featuring only Barry, allowing us to get to know him and Iris properly (as I’m pretty much expecting for the first year or so to be honest).  Of course, Johns is known for his treatment of the Flash Rogues gallery, and so its no surprise to see them front and centre of this first story arc, but with a twist, as these are Rogues from the 25th century, and appear to be lawmen.

Following on from their run on Adventure Comics, Geoff Johns and Francis Manapul are on top form.  While I’d loved his art on Adventure Comics, thinking it suited the Smallville setting well, I hadn’t been too sure about Francis Manapul moving to the Flash, but how wrong I was.  His characters are filled with expression, but he also does a brilliant job of conveying Barry’s speed, as he chases the Trickster, before disassembling his car in mid-air in a brilliant sequence.

With this new future versions of the Rogues turning up, its interesting to note that time travel is once again playing an integral part in Geoff Johns’ Flash.  Rebirth obviously had a time travel plot at its core, and the Secret Files and Origins book also highlighted various time travel aspects of the Flash mythos, namely the mysterious origins of the Cosmic Treadmill, Max Mercury’s time jumps, and the time travelling future Flash, John Fox (both of whom found their origins strangely retconned.  Although in John Fox’s case its possible he’ll be turning up prior to his appearance in DC 1,000,000).  With the constant references to Flashes being unable to change the past like Zoom, I think its obvious that this is going to form a major part of whatever big story Geoff is planning.

Overall, after a lackluster relaunch, this first issue is definitely what I’d been hoping for.  Accessible, fun and intriguing.  I like the setup playing on Barry’s real job as a forensic investigator, and Johns has quickly put in place an interesting work environment for Barry, with the cold cases and politics in Central City PD.   I just hope he doesn’t let it fall to the wayside as has happened in Green Lantern as I think Barry’s civilian identity holds as much interest as his secret identity as its been setup here.

With Blackest Night over, DC’s next spinoff series, Brightest Day begins this week with issue 0.

Intended very much as a teaser, this issue covers all the returned heroes and villains, setting up their plots for the coming year, starting with Deadman, who is now returned to life, and possesses a white ring, which appears to be allowing him to channel the power of the white entity to bring things back to life.  He’s also hearing a mysterious voice, which we can only assume is the entity itself, as he is teleported around by the ring, checking in on each of the returnees.  Much like when Sinestro joined with the white entity, I get the impression that the white light is a power that tends to affect its wielder rather than something that can be controlled like the other lights in the spectrum.

The other characters visited looked interesting for the most part.  I was surprised to see the Kyle/Jade/Soranik thing dealt with so quickly (although as I mentioned before, Jade is heading off to JLA, so this was probably the only real chance to address it).   I still think Peter Tomasi is over playing the Kyle/Soranik romance a little though.  I like that they’re together, and I think they go well together.  I just don’t think we’ve really seen that they’re as close as everyone keeps telling us they are.  Although that’s possibly an issue with the fact they’re both part of a large ensemble cast over in GLC, so their relationship doesn’t really have the breathing room that the likes of Kyle and Jade had.  Hopefully its something Tony Bedard will address in his run.   Kyle’s death gave Peter Tomasi a chance to explore their relationship a bit, but I still think there’s quite a bit of work to be done to really establish Soranik as Kyle’s big love.

Talking of Peter Tomasi, his writing was felt keenly here, with Miri being namechecked as having given Hawkwoman a piece of the Star Sapphire, and Hal and Guy visiting J’onn in his tomb on Mars (which had been established in the Final Crisis tie-in).  These were little touches, but really helped add to the “one universe” feel of events.

For the other characters there’s some interesting things going on.  Both Aquaman and Jade still show signs of Black Lantern infection, although Aquaman’s could possibly be more psychological.  We see the plot thread from Blackest Night of the original Hawks being in the Star Sapphire battery being picked up, with a mysterious group having located their remains, which seems to affect their current incarnations.  We also see Maxwell Lord’s mindwipe which we know will be played out in the new JLI fortnightly.  It all looks suitably intriguing and I think its safe to say I’m onboard with this series for now.

The only story that didn’t really work for me was the Hawk and Dove one.  I know Dove’s the avatar of peace, but still the fact Hawk killed her sister I’d have thought was worth mentioning.  Granted, its a plot strand that could’ve ended up being too similar to the Ronnie/Jason Firestorm one, but it could also have been an opportunity to play out a similar story from two different angles.   Regardless, the fact its completely ignored bothered me, something only made worse by the shot of Hawk and Dove kissing in the final page teaser.  We know that both of these characters will be appearing in the new Birds of Prey series though, so I’m hopeful that Gail Simone will be able to use them in an interesting way, where hopefully it’ll be addressed.   One thing that was name-checked was Dove’s connection to the white light, so I’m guessing that means that particular plot thread will be a part of Brightest Day.

Overall, this was a really strong start.  Despite none of the returned characters being ones I’m particularly invested in, I was still suitably interested in what was going on, and I’m intrigued to see where some of the plot strands go.  Johns and Tomasi remain two of my favourite writers in DC with their Green Lantern output, so the fact they’re writing this series was always going to make it a big draw to me, regardless of its prominent place in the DCU.  It also looks interesting as it looks like they’re trying to combine 52 and Countdown, to provide a distinct story that also serves as the backbone to various events and books throughout the DCU.  It’ll be interesting to see how that works out, but with two of the top writers working on it, I’ve got high hopes for this series.

After the stonking opening of the Eleventh Hour, could the new Doctor Who keep up that level of greatness?

Well for me the answer was yes.

With the new Doctor firmly established in The Eleventh Hour, focus with this episode switched slightly more towards Amy, allowing her to firmly earn her place in the TARDIS by piecing together the clues of what’s going on.  Indeed, the Doctor encourages this in the episode, getting her to go after the girl on her own to ask her about what’s been going on.  Karen Gillan rises to this challenge ably and is definitely shaping up well as the new companion.

This episode was filled with great moments.  The Smilers, while perhaps not as scary as some were expecting, I still thought were quite freaky.  Liz 10 was a  lot of fun, and the reveal of the secret behind Starship UK was actually incredibly dark (did the video also contain the fact that those who protested were fed to the Star Whale?  I have to hope that part of things was omitted from the general populace).

Matt Smith continues to shine as the Doctor, here showcasing a completely different side to his take on the Doctor.  While the Eleventh Hour contained a Doctor still quite reminiscent of his 10th incarnation, here he’s much more like a mad professor, with definite hints of Troughton coming through.  Its a take that I really loved, and I hope we continue to see more of this as the series progresses and Matt and the production team settle into who the Eleventh Doctor is.  Matt Smith brings a look of physical awkwardness to the role that plays into this fantastically as he spins around and jumps both mentally and physically from one thing to another.   I’ll be interested to see what the Doctor is like in Saturday’s Victory of the Daleks to see how the portrayals differ, but the feeling I got between the two episodes was very much an actor and a production team trying out slightly different takes.   In an interview with SFX, Mark Gatiss has described Matt’s Doctor as being very “boffiny” and that was very much the feeling I got from this episode.  Its a take that fits the Doctor perfectly, but it’ll be interesting to see if it ends up toned down at all or if its what the production team will run with.

That being said, mention has to be made of the superb “Nobody human has anything to say to me right now!” moment.  He may be a mad professor, but he’s still not to be crossed and had a nice echo of the 9th Doctor (to pick just one) there.  I could really hear Eccleston in that line.

And talking of the Daleks, I was very surprised to see them teased in this episode.  That was a nice surprise, and adds to the feeling that the Doctor is just having an incredibly bad day.  Steven Moffat raised the point in an interview, that since landing on the Planet of the Ood in End of Time part 1, events have flowed straight from one to the next.  Although looking at the preview for next week’s episode, both the Doctor and Amy have at least grabbed five minutes to quickly change their clothes.  Which makes sense really.  Don’t want to meet the Prime Minister still smelling of Star Whale vomit if you can avoid it.

This new series is so far going from strength to strength, with Saturday’s Dalek episode looking to be an absolute corker.   The tease and trailer in this episode, coupled with the interviews and clips available online look brilliant.  The Daleks are not just back, but they’re being sneaky in a way we haven’t seen them do since Power of the Daleks.  So far in the new series, they’ve usually relied on sheer numbers, or just being more powerful than everyone else, so to see the Daleks using some cunning should be fun indeed.

I can’t help but think there’s something I’ve forgotten to blog about.  Oh yeah, Blackest Night #8

Over the last few years, big comic book event mini-series have been a bit of a mixed bag.  Infinite Crisis flagged towards the end, and parts didn’t really make sense without the tie ins.  Civil War basically turned Tony Stark into Marvel’s most successful supervillain, and had some big inconsistencies in how the registration act was portrayed.  Final Crisis flopped badly having a slow pace and delays, and again really needed one of its tie-ins to make sense at the end (even though I enjoyed it), Secret Invasion suffered from a lot of padding as most of the heroes mucked about in the Savage Land for about 5 issues doing very little.

Blackest Night has bucked the trend though.   There was some definite padding around the middle (after Nekron appeared he didn’t really do much, and I remain unconvinced by the Deputies and suspect they could’ve been removed without changing things), however despite this it still maintained its pace well throughout the run.  Johns crafted an exciting story, and Ivan Reis art shone in every issue.

The final issue didn’t really provide much in the way of surprises, save for maybe a couple of the resurrections.    I’d speculated that the white entity wasn’t quite the solution to everything, and that turned out to be the case.  Instead harnessing its power to form a White Lantern Corps (with Hal at the lead obviously) formed from the (alive) heroes that had been turned into Black Lanterns.  Deadman turns out to be pivotal, identifying Black Hand as key to Nekron’s plans (and explaining why previous attempts to destroy the battery or Nekron failed).  The White Lanterns turn their power on Black Hand restoring him to life.  Black Hand then starts generating white rings, which firstly defeat Nekron and return the Anti-Monitor to life (severing Nekron’s power source).   Further white rings follow, resurrecting some of the surrounding Black Lanterns, giving us the characters we knew would be coming back.

Of course, Aquaman, the Hawks, Firestorm and J’onn weren’t much of a surprise.  Likewise Professor Zoom, who was guaranteed as coming back after Rebirth.  However a few twists were thrown in with Jade, Maxwell Lord and Deadman being brought back.  Maxwell Lord will be the focus of the upcoming JLI fortnightly series, and it’ll be interesting to see how Jade/Kyle/Soranik is addressed (although given we know she’s joining Robinson’s JLA I imagine that’ll quickly be done and dusted).

Deadman remains more interesting though.  He’s the only resurrected character shown wearing a white ring at the end, and with a white lantern turning up on Earth, its a safe bet he’s going to remain a pivotal character.

Of course, this is the nature of events these days, with quite a few things in the conclusion in fact setting up future storylines, be it Green Lantern or Brightest Day (which promises to follow the resurrected characters and explore the reason they were brought back and no one else).  However whereas in Flash: Rebirth this felt quite jarring in the final issue, here it still felt like we were getting a strong finale to the Blackest Night storyline.

I especially liked the comments from Hal that Nekron’s claims to be behind their resurrections weren’t entirely the truth.  It tied events in better with what we’d seen in the likes of Green Lantern: Rebirth and Green Arrow: Quiver (given that in both we see Hal and Ollie respectively have to decide to return to the land of the living).

Overall, this was a great conclusion to what was undoubtedly the strongest event from DC in some time.  The impact this will have on the DCU remains to be seen (dead being dead I don’t expect to last, as with the white power battery out there, I suspect that aspect of the story is still being played out), however as a mini-series it maintained a strong pace throughout, and kept up a high level of quality with the same creative team all the way through.  DC are obviously proud of the success of this series, and rightly so.

Its been like 2005 all over again.

I think its fair to say that fandom probably hasn’t held its breath this long since they awaited the first airing of Rose.  A new production team, a new Doctor, a new companion, a new everything.  And all hanging under the weight of the success of Russell T Davies and David Tennant.

Of course, Steven Moffat was a known quantity.   His episodes in the past had been uniformly excellent, so not much to worry about there.  But what would Doctor Who under his stewardship be like?  And after being so used to David Tennant in the role, would Matt Smith be able to win everyone over?

Well, much like when Christopher Eccleston left, there really wasn’t much to worry about.  Like David Tennant, after about 10 minutes in the role, Matt Smith had everyone convinced.  He played the zaniness of the opening scenes well (not just the fish custard scene, but clambering out of the TARDIS with the aid of a grappling hook as well, which I thought was a brilliant gag), only to turn it around to become someone not to be taken lightly when challenging the Atraxi at the end.

Steven Moffat’s first series opener was an absolutely corker as well.  Of course, the underlying threat of an escaped alien being hunted by its guards has been seen before countless times, but what really mattered here wasn’t the threat, but instead introducing us to the new Doctor, companion and new era in general.  And that he pulled off brilliantly.  Instantly recognisable to anyone who loved Russell T Davies’ era, but subtly different as well.  While many aspects of the traditional series opener runaround were present and correct, it also felt there was a bit more to this.  Amy’s introduction was beautifully put together, with her backstory interwoven with the Doctor nicely.  By having the Doctor first meet Amy as a young girl he has a profound, and not entirely positive impact on her life.  And by the end of the episode, he’s possibly derailing her life again, turning up 2 years later on the eve of her wedding (not that he knows this).   This has bound the Doctor and Amy in an interesting way.

Something that is made even more interesting by the closing scenes of the episode.

A crack similar to the one in young Amy’s house appears on the TARDIS scanner, and the Doctor switches the screen off before Amy can see it.  He also says he made a quick hop to the Moon and back to test the TARDIS, while we saw the young Amy Pond react to the TARDIS’ materialisation.  Now its possible that the last of these may have not been a literal scene, however it certainly looks like at best the Doctor is hiding things from Amy, and at worst outright lying to her.

Overall, I couldn’t be more excited for the rest of this series.  After the gap year its really nice to be looking forward to weekly episodes again, and the opener was so brilliantly strong its set the bar high for what comes next.  Matt Smith and Karen Gillan are off to a great start as the Doctor and Amy, and I can’t wait to see how their characters develop over the next 12 episodes, and what surprises Steven Moffat has in store for us.