So I really hope this game brings a similar great feeling of having captured what it would be like to be Spider-Man, to the next generation consoles.   And its got different costumes in it which catches my attention straight away.  Especially the unexpected appearance of Spider-Man 2099.   I’ve seen that the Scarlet Spider can be unlocked too.

Can’t wait for the first reviews and demos to appear.  The game’s got a lot to live up to, especially with the recent Wolverine and Batman games being great fun.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Well, the cover kind’ve gives it away.  My only niggle with this issue really, that a lot of mystery is given to who Kyle’s signalled, when Hannu is right there on the cover.  Kind’ve like trying to hide who the bad guys are in “Planet of the Daleks”, its a bit redundant.

Anyway, nit-picking aside, this is another solid issue in the story, and felt like a step up from last month.  Its mainly focused on two aspects, John and co trying to rally the people to help defend their world and rescue Stel, but also on Cyborg Superman forcing Ganthet to attempt to restore the Alpha Lanterns to normal.

We learn that when the manacled figure took the manhunters, they also told Henshaw that Ganthet (specifically) had the ability to restore an Alpha Lantern, hence Henshaw deciding to convert himself.  There’s some nice continuity with Ganthet pointing out he’d left the GLC when the Alphas were created, so admits he has no idea how to restore them.

This does raise the interesting question of why, specifically, Ganthet can restore Alpha Lanterns.  Is this linked to his experience as a blue Lantern and opening himself up to emotions in a way the other Guardians haven’t (a fact brought up when Ganthet feels grief for the Alphas who die during his attempts to save them)?  Or is the mysterious figure just playing Cyborg Superman and setting Ganthet up as he/she has a grudge against him?

Resolving the story of the Alpha Lanterns has been one of the big draws of this arc for me, and so this issue gives us some tantalising glimpses into it.  While Ganthet is trying (and failing) to convert Alpha Lanterns back to normal, Boodikka locates Kyle, John and Natu’s hiding place with Stel’s people.   This confrontation quickly escalates as Hannu arrives, prepared to kill Boodikka as he sees what she’s become as a perversion of his old friend.  During the fight, he smashes her power battery, which seems to remove the Guardian and Cyborg Superman programming and allow her own personality to surface.

This was all pretty interesting.  We’ve known for a while that the Alpha Lantern’s original personalities were still present (from the two-part Boodikka story in GLC, but had been increasingly overridden by their programming.  This now offers up the possibility that Boodikka can be restored if they can find some way to stabilise  her physically (since damaging the power battery also means she’s dying).  But this was also a great little character scene, drawing on the fact the Lost Lanterns had been held prisoner by the Manhunters and Cyborg Superman for years (and there’s not much really between the Alpha Lanterns and the Manhunters).  Drawing on this as a reason for Hannu to attack Boodikka so brutally was a nice touch, and you really got the impression this was something that had been brewing with Hannu for a while.   Despite Hannu being largely unused throughout GL and GLC, this one short scene really helped underline his personality for his further appearances (Tony Bedard has said Hannu will be one of the mainstays of his run).  I’ll be very interested to see where these characters go next.

Next month is the conclusion to the storyline, but so far I’m finding this to be a great start to Tony Bedard’s run. Assuming Boodikka is somehow restored next issue, I’m going to be very intrigued to see how, and if Ganthet is involved, if it gives us a hint as to how he might be connected to the person that is collecting entities over in GL.

This is an interesting title.  When first announced, it appeared it was going to be a Guy Gardner monthly, and indeed this first issue does come across a bit like that, with Guy taking centre stage.   However, what actually is happening is more GLC being split into two books, with Peter Tomasi taking Guy and various key members of the cast over to this new book while Tony Bedard continues with the rest of the cast.

Its interesting though, as this book really comes across more as a direct continuation of Tomasi’s GLC run rather than a new book.  Guy is the main focus for this book, but other central characters of Peter Tomasi’s GLC run are to appear.  We’ve already seen Sodam Yat in this first issue, and Kilowog and Arisia are promised (presumably as Guy puts together his new team).  To be honest, out of the two books, arguably GLC comes across as the newer title, with the new team of Kyle, Ganthet and John headlining.  However, Peter Tomasi is undoubtedly the bigger name in DC, and out of the GLs, it makes most sense for Guy to get the new book, so I understand why things worked out this way.

None of which has anything to do with events in this book.  So onto them

Mainly, the book is setup for the direction for this series.  To help differentiate it from the main GLC book, the focus is obviously going to be on the unknown sectors.  Guy’s noticed increasing issues with criminals using the unknown sectors, as they’re outside GLC jurisdiction, so he goes to the Guardians and proposes putting together a team that’ll be proactive about dealing with issues arising from those sectors.

Obviously, this’ll form the basis for this group of characters being separated from the main base on Oa, with characters we know will be focused on, like Kilowog and Arisia being amongst Guy’s recruits.   Presumably Sodam Yat will be joining up as well, since we see him on Daxam, and Tomasi spent some time investing in his and Arisia’s relationship during his run on GLC.

The unknown sectors thing I find slightly odd, as it seems to be at odds with what we know about the corps.  The entire galaxy is supposed to be divided into the 3600 sectors, so how come there are now these “unknown” sectors?  Granted, they offer up interesting story possibilities, placing the GLs in unknown environments, where no one knows or cares who the Green Lanterns are, but I just find it a bit odd these have just suddenly appeared.   I guess in New Earth continuity, the Green Lanterns only patrol a certain percentage of the galaxy (or I’ve misunderstood how things stood in the past).

The other main focus of this issue that gets brought up, is Guy’s deal with Ganthet and Atrocitus.  He’s clearly not happy with Atrocitus being involved, and having a team out in the unknown sectors is a part of their plan, whatever it is.  I guess its going to give Guy his own team who are operating outwith the Guardians influence in some way, which would explain him surrounding himself with experienced Lanterns who are his closest friends on Oa.  I definitely remain interested to see exactly what the nature of this deal turns out to be, and if there’s a reason given why Ganthet would go too Guy rather than Hal or Kyle (who he’s traditionally been closer to).

Finally, there’s the ending in the unknown sectors, where we see a pair of Green Lanterns, bringing in people they’ve caught to “Salaak”.  Except its not Salaak, and wherever they are, its not Oa.  Now, I’m unsure if this is a new enemy who appears to be controlling these Green Lanterns, but it does look a little like Bolphunga.  Again, I’ll be interested to see where this is going, however my only issue is that this “evil GLC” style story is currently going on in GLC with the Alpha Lanterns revolting.  It feels a little too familiar, however hopefully this new (?) enemy will spice things up once the story gets rolling.

Regardless, the action continues on from last month, with John about to be converted into an Alpha Lantern, while Kyle and co arrive to rescue him.  As part of the conversion, John’s mind is linked to Cyborg Superman’s, and it neatly allows Tony Bedard to fill the gaps of what he’s been up to since we saw his skull rescued by the Manhunters at the end of the Sinestro Corps War.

Of course, Cyborg Superman’s big motivation these days is his own death, so Blackest Night was a pretty big deal for him.  Seeing his reaction to it, including how his Cyborg body meant the Black Lanterns and Necron completely ignored him was a nice scene.

What happens next was interesting, as it throws another wrinkle into the ongoing Green Lantern storyline, as we see the mysterious figure from that book now has the Manhunters under his control (in exchange for pointing Cyborg Superman at the Alpha Lanterns).  Cyborg Superman also straight out mentions that Ganthet knows the figure.  Really at this point, if that figure isn’t a renegade Guardian I’ll be shocked.  Given what we’ve seen of the figure so far, I really have to wonder if this Guardian wasn’t directly involved with the Manhunters in some way.  We first saw him/her in sector 666, and now they’ve claimed the Manhunters for their own.  I have to assume its all linked to that massacre.

In some ways, this issue does suffer.  Its very much the middle of the story, so aside from the Cyborg Superman/manacled figure scenes, there’s not many other big moments here. But the story has moved along nicely, and John is now free to team up with Kyle and Soranik to rescue Ganthet and somehow solve this whole mess.  And I really have to wonder whether or not the Alpha Lanterns will be returned to normal after all this, or if we’ll just see their original personalities restored, overriding both the Alpha Lantern and Cyborg Superman programming.

So anyway, on to GL #56.  The story with the entities rumbles on as the mysterious figure frees Hector Hammond and Hal heads out to find Larfleeze to ask him how he managed to contain Ophidian (who is trapped in the Orange Lantern).

To be honest, the reveal that Larfleeze had captured Ophidian was a bit of a surprise, as I’d taken it from the previous Agent Orange story that Larfleeze had just inherited everything.  However thinking about it, while Larfleeze found the Orange Lantern and its temple, its possible Larfleeze later trapped Ophidian.  However there’s still backstory to the Orange Lantern that we’re waiting on being revealed.

Another thing I enjoyed about this issue was breaking up the Hal, Carol, Sinestro team.  Don’t get me wrong, I’ve been greatly enjoying the characters.  However for me Hal was starting to feel a bit like a guest star in his own book.  As a result, the Hal/Larfleeze scenes felt more paired down to me, in a good way.

It is also interesting to note that Larfleeze is right back to being a mostly comic relief character as well.  Any hint of menace from his initial appearance now is lost in his writing letters to Santa and the like.  Not that this is necessarily a bad thing, as it does help make him distinct amongst the raft of new characters.  If you want menace, then Atrocitus and the Red Lanterns have that in spades.

However it will be interesting to see where Sayd’s been sent…

The hunt for the entities remains at centre stage despite the shift in cast for this issue, and I must say it was very nice to see Saint Walker again.  The Blue Lanterns were a big hit for me when they first appeared, but since then, they haven’t really been explored much at all, unlike most of the other Lanterns (barring probably the Indigos).  Especially now they’ve lost both their Guardians, I remain keen to see more of the Blue Lanterns.  However, I’m not entirely convinced its going to happen outside of Saint Walker and the Blue Entity.

It was also good to see Hector Hammond’s previous appearances pay off in this issue.  He’s been a nice lingering threat throughout most of Johns’ run, with red herrings early on that he’d be linked to the Orange Lanterns (of course he wasn’t, that turned out to be Larfleeze).  So here we get to see that pay off, as he frees and joins with Ophidian.  Hammond’s been a successful character in this run, well done as a creepy threat and its nice to see him take centre stage for next issue.

Overall, this issue grabbed me a lot more than last month.  I still feel a little close to burn out with the various new Lanterns and Entities, but Hal felt less overshadowed this month to me and the mysterious figure (who appears to be hot on the trail of the Predator in Las Vegas) continues to be intriguing.

I’ve been waiting on this series patiently since Dan Jurgens left the Booster Gold book, and it didn’t disappoint.   Despite the Batman tie in, and Superman and Green Lantern being along for the ride, this feels like a natural extension of the Booster Gold book, as Jurgens also works in Daniel Carter as Supernova to the story, an element that will be lost on anyone who wasn’t following the Booster Gold book (although who he is is explained in the book).

This first issue worked well to me, both as a continuation of Dan Jurgens run, and as a Return of Bruce Wayne tie-in, with the action picking up not long after the Archivist (a disguised Bruce Wayne), left the group on the soon-to-be destroyed Vanishing Point.  Escaping into the past (not long after pirate issue  of the other mini-series) the group then has to figure out how to get back and stop Bruce.

I’ve always liked the idea behind this series.  Given that Rip Hunter and Booster Gold are now the DCU’s defenders of the time stream, it made a lot of sense to me that they’d be involved.  However, I guess it also means the list of people who know the truth about Booster is expanding, with Superman and Green Lantern joining the group.  Its not been specifically covered in either series, but I assume there must’ve been a moment off-screen when Rip and Booster discussed letting the others know.   I wonder if anyone else from the League is aware of Booster’s status, or if they’ve managed to keep it quiet and limited to just Supes and GL?  Of course, Superman finding out is fine.  Hal?  Well, Green Lantern does help shift the books these days

Of course, that’s all by the by.  The appearance of Supernova was a nice surprise in this series, which I’d assumed would just feature the characters already seen in Return of Bruce Wayne.   Supernova’s not been seen in a while in the Booster Gold book, so its nice to see the character still active, and his time travel abilities make him a natural way to try and rescue Booster and co.

There’s a big difference between this series and Booster Gold though.  In this series, things are being written from Rip Hunter’s perspective, which adds a fresh spin on things.  It allows more of an insight into his relationship with Booster, giving us the nice flashback to when he was a boy, being taken by his Dad (Booster) to see Dinosaurs in the past, but also serves to underline that he’s been trained in time travel and its complexities from a young age, and so is uniquely qualified to deal with the current situation, despite the presence of heavyweight heroes Superman and Green Lantern.

Another aspect to this series I like, is the way its plugging one of the gaps in the Return of Bruce Wayne story.  Prior to Blackest Night, Bruce was assumed dead by all except Tim Drake.  After Blackest Night, Dick tried to revive the body of Bruce, only to suddenly discover the body was actually that of a clone created by Darkseid.  So far, so good.  However then things suddenly jumped.  Now, granted Tim had discovered the cave painting Bruce made at the end of Final Crisis, but suddenly all the characters knew that not only was Bruce alive, but also that he was trapped, bouncing around time as a result of the Omega Effect.  It was a bit jarring with no real explanation of how they all found this out.  This issue though suggests that it was Rip and Booster who filled everyone in (or at least, they recruited Superman and GL, who told everyone else).

Overall a great start.   Perhaps Superman and GL weren’t being completely written in character, but to be honest, its not them I’m reading this for.  And as a continuation of Dan Jurgens Booster Gold, this is ticking the right boxes for me.

I have to admit, my gut reaction is that I’m not sure.  Admittedly, this is only a static, partial shot on a magazine cover, so of course this could all change when we get our first proper footage, but to be honest, I’ve never really understood why they felt the costume had to be all CG in the first place.  It just sounds needlessly expensive to me, versus making a physical suit.

Heck, they made physical Iron Man armour for those  movies and there’s probably a stronger argument for them being CGI-only.

Having said all that, the CGI should help underline that the costume is a ring construct, which could make for interesting visuals.

As for the costume in this picture, I’m really not sure.  Its instantly recognisable, but I’m not sure about the energy lines which cover the suit (although again, in motion they may help play with the fact the suit is a construct itself).  The mask also brings more to mind Parallax than Hal Jordan, but that’s just being a fanboy.  To be honest, its hard to really tell from this one picture.

So overall, not sure, but I’ll wait until we see proper footage.  That’s usually where movie costumes shine when under proper lighting and the like.

After Ganthet got a lot of spotlight last month, this month Tony Bedard highlights John Stewart incredibly strongly. And having touched on his background as an architect last month, here we get another side of John spotlighted as his marine background comes to the fore as he infiltrates Grenda with Boodika. Sadly, for John, its a complete setup, as he’s trapped by the Alpha Lanterns who’ve taken over the planet, but none the less it was a great spotlight, and after John being more or less ignored for years after Rebirth, its really nice to see him getting this attention.

Its nice to see Tony Bedard working in various pieces of backstory we’ve had over the years such as John’s architect and marine backgrounds (albeit, the marine stuff seems to be a post-Rebirth/New Earth retcon to bring the character in line with the JLA animated series), but its nice to see the nod to the previous Boodika story that was in GLC, as John queries why Boodika would give up her soul the way she did (interestingly, John’s feelings about the Alpha Lanterns seem to be mirrored by Cyborg Superman in his voice over).

The reveal of Cyborg Superman being behind the Alphas made sense due to his previous connection with the manhunters, but I’m still curious to see what he’s planning, and more importantly how this will turn out for the Alpha Lanterns. As they convert more and more Green Lanterns into Alphas, they’ve very much become like the Cybermen or Borg, and I have to wonder if there’s going to be a way to restore these Lanterns once this is finished, or if they are now doomed to remain Alpha Lanterns or be killed. Certainly Tony Bedard is doing a great job introducing new Lanterns we’re quickly made to care for before they’re immediately grabbed and converted.

The scenes on Oa as Ganthet immediately recruits Kyle and Soranik’s help were good. Here we see Ganthet’s distrust of his fellow Guardians once again, as he admits to Kyle they’d spend too long debating or ignoring the issue, and Ganthet knows something needs done (similar to when he broke ranks and formed the Blue Lanterns to prepare for the Blackest Night). Again, Bedard also brings up previous story arcs here by raising the issue of Kyle’s lingering feelings for Jade. I’m not sure where that’s going, but with Jade back amongst the land of the living, it makes sense that this would trigger some of those old feelings in Kyle. That said, I hope this doesn’t lead to the breakup of Kyle and Soranik. They’ve not been together that long, and frankly Kyle deserves a break when it comes to his love life. And with Jade being off in the JLA, its not like there’s a reasonable chance of the characters getting back together.

So far I’m really enjoying Tony Bedard’s take on this core cast to the book. In the space of only two issues he’s nicely addressed first Ganthet and now John, and I assume Kyle will get a little of the spotlight next month to round off the triumvirate of main characters. I’ve been really impressed by these two issues and I’m really looking forward to seeing what else Tony has planned for this book.

Its also worth mentioning the art in the book.  I don’t recall seeing any of Ardian Syaf’s work before (although I could be mistaken), but I’m really loving his work here.  I don’t know if they’re keeping him on the book long term or not (I’ve a funny feeling I read about another artist for the next arc) but I’m definitely enjoying what I’m seeing.   Green Lantern has really been incredibly lucky since its relaunch that it continually gets some of the best writers and artists DC has working on it.

Strangely then, we cut back to events seen in Brightest Day. Personally, I found these pages a bit annoying as they completely retreaded events from that book, not really adding anything, and the use of big splash pages to retell something that happened last week felt a bit like a waste. I appreciate that there’ll be people reading Green Lantern who are not reading Brightest Day, but I can’t help but think this could’ve been tackled differently so as to try and give the Brightest Day readers something as well. It’ll be interesting to see if this becomes a common issue as the story of the white lantern develops in both books, or if the storylines will diverge.

However, with that done, the larger GL-centric mystery from last issue of the mysterious figure collecting entities is brought back to the fore, nicely picking up on a major plot strand from Green Lantern Corps.  In that book, Sodam Yat had been forced to use the Ion power to transform Daxam’s red sun to yellow in order to allow his people to defeat the Sinestro Corps.   I’ve been waiting to see how this plot would play out (and had assumed it would form part of Blackest Night) so its nice to see it picked up.  Like the Mongul plot though, it also feels a bit of a shame that its resolved in a different book, and quite quickly.  For those reading Green Lantern and not Corps, Sodam’s situation with Daxam must’ve been quite puzzling.

There is though, the nice feeling of comeuppance.  The Daxamites have been portrayed as hugely xenophobic.  Murderously so, so to have them stripped quite brutally of their powers, as Ion is removed from Sodam and the sun turned red once again at least gives some resolution to that storyline.  There’s the niggling feeling that the super-powered Daxamites would’ve allowed for an interesting storyarc over in GLC, however I guess that’d be treading a lot of ground that the Superman books have recently covered with their big New Krypton storyline.

Very interesting is the insight we get into this mysterious figure.  We now know that despite the chains, they are not bound to Ysmault so may not be a prisoner in the strict sense I would’ve imagined based on last issue.  We can also now definitely see that they’re small of stature, which immediately suggests its a rogue Guardian.   Appa Ali Apsa leaps immediately to mind.  Of course, he appeared dead at the end of The Road Back, but that could be changed quite easily (and probably less dramatically than some of the retcons we’ve seen over the last few years).   The figure also displays a sense of justice in regards to the xenophobic Daxamites being stripped of their powers, and seems to almost care for Sodam and his sacrifice.  This could certainly point to it being a Guardian.  Why exactly they’re collecting the entities remains a mystery, but I would assume this is going to allow Sodam Yat to return in Peter Tomasi’s new Emerald Warriors book (since that’s the title featuring Arisia).

Overall though another good issue.  There’s still a strong feeling of a shared universe  and storyline between the GL books, with the GLC crossovers lately (Daxamites here, and the reprise of the Guy, Ganthet and Atrocitus scene in GLC) but both books are doing this while still building their own distinct storylines.    The white Lantern stuff I wasn’t sure about, and may be better left to Brightest Day, but the central mystery of the entities on Earth is strong, and it’ll be interesting to see how the team up with Atrocitus goes next month.

I’ve been meaning to blog about the current Iron Man storyline since #25, however a couple of things immediately jump out at me.

Firstly, its nice to see the issue of Pepper being Rescue being addressed.  To be honest, I really enjoyed her stint as an armoured hero during World’s Most Wanted, and her pain when she found out that she had to lose it all to save Tony was a great emotional moment from Matt Fraction.

That said, now Tony’s back, it really makes sense that she’d petition him for a new suit.  Tony’s arguments that he needs her running the company come across as a bit thin (he ran Stark Industries while moonlighting as Iron Man for years), so it’ll be interesting to see how this develops.

Another interesting thing is Tony’s assertion that he’s never made a suit to be primarily a weapon.  Granted Pepper immediately calls him on it with the Hulk Buster, but you just have to look at the cover of the book to see how much Tony’s kidding himself here.

Its also interesting though, as it once again seems like a bit of retconning (or at least, the character kidding himself).  Iron Man #25 for example had Tony playing up repulsor technology as this brilliant keystone power source, as well as telling Thor he’d never built his company up from scratch, and the big show of ditching the military contracts.

All these things work within the context of the story of course, but they also share the fact that they ignore past history.  Tony’s rebuilt his company from scratch several times over the course of the series, be it Stark Enterprises, Stark Solutions or now Stark Resilient (gotta admit, its not the best name he’s come up with either).  Repulsor tech was never that big a deal, and Tony cutting military contracts was a big thing from the get-go after getting caught by that landmine.

These things also have another thing in common.  They’re all big parts of the current movie series.  So its clear that the tail’s wagging the dog to an extent, and that in order to make the comics accessible for the audience who’ve found the character via the movies that these aspects are being brought in.   For the most part, I can happily live with it, and as I say, within the context of these books its well written and works.  But it’d still be nice if it died down a bit now this new direction was in place, and Tony claiming he’s never built the suit as a weapon is straight from the movies and blatant rubbish.   At least, as I say, Tony’s called on it, which does feel a bit like Matt Fraction throwing a bone to the longer-term fans who’re having to ignore continuity a bit for the sake of the movies.  And for that, I’m glad

And talking of War Machine, I notice aspects of the movie design have crept into his new armour.  No surprise though, and as a fan of the character, its just nice to see him having a recurring role in the books again lately.

Of course, its not like any of this is new.  Spider-Man gaining organic web shooters for example?  And it does make sense to capitalise on the movies in this way.  I can’t complain about that really, but its more just the way its presented with all this movie-based stuff suddenly appearing.

I will say though, fanboy continuity niggles aside, I’ve been very much enjoying this current storyline.  After all the Dark Reign stuff, Matt Fraction is once again showing his solid grasp of Tony’s character, and while its not original, its still always fun to see Tony flexing his mental muscles to rebuild his company.  The inclusion of the Hammer sisters has been interesting so far and yes, while its another way of referencing the movies, Justin Hammer was always a good nemesis for Tony, so its nice to see his daughters being established to give Tony a corporate enemy.  Something he’s not had as often as he maybe should have over the years.

One final niggle however.  I wonder when we’re going to get the new armour properly showcased?  I miss the days when the new suit would show off all its capabilities against Iron Monger or Firepower.  So far we haven’t really seen much of what this suit can do at all.