You can tell I’m catching up with the posts on Newsarama…

Final Crisis kicks back into gear this week (and my wallet starts to cry for the rest of the month) with the release of Revelations #3, and Newsarama has a preview up.

I must admit, as part of cost-cutting I was going to drop this series.  While I quite enjoy the new Spectre, I’ve never really bought Rene Montoya as the Question, and Batwoman has never really done anything for me either.  I usually really like Greg Rucka’s stuff, but the Crime Bible storyline hasn’t been my cup of tea, and while I enjoyed issue 1 of this mini, I wasn’t as bothered about issue 2.  However, it looks like that with issue 3, it starts tying in to Final Crisis in a big way, so I’m definitely picking it up to see how the story unfolds.

I’d blogged previously about this one shot and how much I enjoyed it, so I was very glad to see the news on Newsarama that Twighlight Guardian was one of the two one-shots to get picked up for a full series.

Congrats to the creative team, and I’m looking forward to reading what comes next

On the other hand, that’s another monthly I’ll be picking up.  So much for cutting down

Unusual comics post from me this week, since its been largely Marvel stuff that’s been catching my eye over the last couple of weeks. However with GL and GLC due later in the month, not to mention Final Crisis kicking back in at the end of the month, I don’t imagine it’ll be long until normal service is resumed

Captain America #42 wraps up Brubaker’s The Man Who Stole America arc, as well as many of the plots he began at the start of his run. With Bucky just having publicly launched himself into the limelight as Captain America to stop the Red Skull’s daughter assassinating the presidential candidates, he has to ensure she’s stopped, while The Falcon and Black Widow attempt to save Sharon Carter from the Red Skull’s stronghold.

Its a nice tie-up to many of the plots Brubaker’s been running. It was nice to see Bucky and Black Widow hook up at the end, and it’ll be interesting to see how Sharon’s memory loss is dealt with in later issues. I also liked the Red Skull’s fate: that scene really captured his horror at being trapped as he is. There’s still a few outstanding questions however, the exact plan that the Red Skull had involving Doom’s time machine for example. It seemed to be key to transferring the Skull to a new body, but what exactly they were trying to do remained a bit vague. We’ve also still got the 50s Captain America out there. I’m definitely looking forward to seeing where this series goes, now that Bucky’s establishing himself as Captain America.

One of my other favourite series to rave about is, of course, Avengers: The Initiative. Following up on last month’s issue, the Skrulls have arrived at Camp Hammond in force, and with most of the recruits out fighting in New York, only a few trainers, and Ant Man remain. Its yet another great issue from Dan Slott, and I just loved Ant Man. I missed his solo series from a couple of years back, but I’m definitely going to have to check out the trades. I loved his reluctance to play hero, and how his first reaction to trouble was to hide. I especially loved how that proved to give him an advantage against the Skrulls as he remains undiscovered while they took down the other heroes. It’ll be interesting to see what he’s discovered about their plans.

Playing catchup here a bit. Wizard Universe has a great glimpse at some of Shane Davis’ Red Lantern designs for the upcoming special.

I love these small sneak peaks, and enjoyed the Final Crisis sketchbook in the same way. It looks like Davis has had as much fun designing Red Lanterns as Ethan Van Skiver did the Sinestro Corps, and similarly, it looks like there’s some pretty nasty characters here.

As I’ve said before here, I was a big fan of Mystery in Space, and Shane’s artwork on that series, so I’m really looking forward to seeing his work on Green Lantern. One thing you’ve got to say about GL is that since its relaunch, its been attracting some of the best artists DC have. At least, its certainly been attracting most of my favourites.

Geoff Johns has also been dropping some teases about the Black Lanterns, and confirmed that Ronnie Raymond (the previous Firestorm) is going to be a Black Lantern.   It’ll be interesting to see how the various DC heroes end up encorporated into the various Corps.   Something I suspect will play heavily into the discussions that had been mentioned before (by Dan Didio I think) as to whether Blackest Night is going to remain a GL-specific crossover, or be branched out into a DCU-wide crossover.   While the prospect of seeing various familiar characters recruited to the various Corps could be fun, I’d hope that even if it gets pitched as a universe-wide crossover, the structure is kept similar to Sinestro Corps, with the focus remaining on the GLs and only a strictly limited number of books containing the meat of the story.

Last week brought us issue 6 of Secret Invasion. I’ll say this for Secret Invasion, they seem to be doing a good job of keeping the momentum going with releases.

To be honest, I found issue 6 a bit disposable. Whereas issue 5 felt like everything was back on track again finally, this issue seemed to largely serve to setup yet more big splash scenes. I don’t mind that for this issue, but if issue 7 doesn’t have a lot going on (and as the penultimate issue, I’d be surprised if it didn’t), then we’ll find ourselves back in the same situation as in earlier issues in this series, where one or two small things happening, doesn’t really seem enough to justify a whole issue.

We also finally get pay off for the Cap/Thor tease a couple of issues ago. Except that its basically a couple of panels with Thor commenting that Bucky isn’t Cap, and Bucky retorting that Thor’s supposed to be dead.

There’s also another reference to the Wasp, hinting back to the Hank Pym issue of Mighty (?) Avengers, and you get the feeling that whatever they’ve done to poor Janet, its going to be pretty nasty.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m enjoying Secret Invasion:The Event, but in many ways, the main mini-series seems to be in place largely for all the spin-offs to jump off from. Unlike Final Crisis, in which the story seems to be pretty well contained in the mini-series, Secret Invasion seems to require the tie-ins more to get more enjoyment from the larger storyline.

Singing the praises of Peter Tomasi’s work is a regular feature in this blog, and the latest issue of Green Lantern Corps is no exception.

If I was to make one complaint, then it would be that this arc felt a bit short. After the mammoth ring quest arc, the quick capture of the quintet was slightly jarring, but since we’ve got the Star Saphire arc kicking off next month, I won’t complain.

In truth, I’m looking forward to this next arc a lot. I liked the changes Geoff Johns introduced in the Green Lantern arc and I’m pleased to see them being picked up again. Not to mention, it’ll be nice to have an issue where the Sinestro Corps take a back seat. If you consider how much of this book was spent putting in place things for the Sinestro Corps arc (like Ranx) and now dealing with the fallout, I’ll be glad to see other factions in the Blackest Night getting some focus. Especially since I’ve been really enjoying the Red Lantern buildup over in Green Lantern.

This title was still good fun. I like the character of Saarek, and can’t believe I didn’t twig to how he could play into the Blackest Night until he was approached by the scarred guardian. There’s something going on there and I imagine it’s not going to be good for Saarek.

Nice to see Tora turn up on Oa as well. Nice and unexpected since our focus had been on Guy counting the days till their date

So this week brings us the penultimate part of Secret Origin.

I’ve been very hot and cold on this arc. The initial issues didn’t really work for me, and it wasn’t until Sinestro turned up that I started getting into this story. This issue is another great part of the Sinestro/Hal story. We continue to see them bond as good friends, as Sinestro forces Hal to take a good look at himself. Leading to a poignant scene between Hal and Carol as Hal’s forced to admit he’s never been there for his family, and making piece with the memory of his Dad.

There’s some good comedic interplay between the two GLs as well. The power battery scene from the preview is a great laugh, and helps to build the respect these two have for each other.

The only real problem I had with this issue is when Hal manages to save Sinestro by overcoming the yellow impurity. I’m really unsure where Geoff Johns is going with this. I preferred the Parallax retcon when the idea was that it was just accepted there was a yellow weakness, and no one could overcome it. Given that Hal overcame it here, you’re left wondering why he never overcame it again and got closer to figuring out what it actually was. I’m inclined to think this was something best left as it was. I have to wonder if its meant as an analogue to Emerald Dawn’s scene where Hal absorb’s the power of the central battery. An indication of just how good a GL Hal will become.

The issue ends with Hal and Sinestro recalled to Oa, as Sinestro’s lingered in sector 2814 too long and must face disciplinary action. There’s been no hint as to what’s actually going on on Korugar, and I must admit, I hope that it doesn’t come up in the next part. Whereas Emerald Dawn II had Sinestro being discovered shortly after he meets Hal, given the new relationship between them, I think it’d be more fun to leave that part of the story for a follow-up. Let’s have Hal and Sinestro as comrades in arms for a few months. Potentially, it could play that Sinestro’s dictatorship of Korugar comes about as a result of his run in with Atrocious and the Blackest Night prophecy.

Overall, I suspect I’ve probably been a bit harsh on the early issues of this arc. I think that re-reading it, I’m going to enjoy it a lot more and that part of my bad reaction was that I felt that it was going to be too much of a diversion from the Blackest Night build up and I’d have preferred looking forward rather than back. Of course, as it turns out, this series is a key part of that build up, and I’m left a fairly silly-looking fanboy

Part of Top Cow’s “Pilot Season”, I picked up this one-shot after reading a few posts on the ComicBloc about it and being intrigued.

It follows the Twighlight Guardian. A regular girl who’s taken it upon herself to become a real-life superhero. Every night, she dons a mask, and patrols her neighbourhood looking for trouble, be it keeping an eye open for people casing houses, or helping old women change a flat tyre.

The story is told entirely from Twightlight’s thought balloons, and I found it a really rivetting read. You get drawn into her world, as she’s taken this role incredibly seriously. She has her neighbourhood mapped out on her wall, and every night she’s sure to pick a different patrol route to avoid the possibility of ambush. You get the impression there’s something really not right with this girl. While helping others is comendable, there’s obviously a larger story behind what’s driven her to do this. While, in real life, there are those real life superheroes who don capes and masks to help change tyres, hand out food to the homeless etc, you get the distinct impression that this character has gone beyond that somehow, and there’s some kind of trauma in her life that she needs to face.

Its an excellent read, and I’ll definitely be looking to pick up further issues if it wins the pilot season vote.

The great news is that the complete issue is now up on Newsarama (typically, after I just bought it ;-)). So if you’re interested, you can read the issue here.

Aint It Cool News has a great preview for next week’s GL #34 up here. I just love the interplay between Hal and Sinestro in this story arc. The dialog regarding power battery storage got a good laugh out of me

While this arc was a pretty slow start for me, its really picked up now. Can’t wait to pick up the issue next week.

The fact that I enjoyed Secret Invasion #5 has obviously given this series a shot in the arm for me, as while I doubt I’d have enjoyed these tie-ins a couple of weeks ago, I definitely did enjoy the background this week.

New Avengers revisits the Skrull Throneworld after the Illuminati’s disasterous retaliation. Here we get to see the Skrulls attempting to discover a way to infiltrate Earth undetected, and the throwaway comment from SI #5, where Reed Richards hints that its all his fault is addressed, as we get to see the role he (unwittingly) played in the Skrull’s infiltration. Its all still background that anyone just wanting to read the main series could cheerfully read though, but its interesting none-the-less. In retrospect, I think the best way (for me at least) to read this series would’ve been to get the main series, and then buy the trades of New and Mighty Avengers for the background. There’s been little in them that’s been vital to the main series, but they do provide some interesting looks into what went into the Skrull Invasion.

Mighty Avengers continues looking at Hank Pym’s replacement, and we’re introduced to an interesting idea. That replacing Pym seems to cause some instability in the agents, and there’s the clear indication that the Pym agents have a far higher tendancy to decide the whole thing’s a bad idea, than the other Skrulls. The Skrulls are putting this down to the fact that Hank Pym isn’t as great as he thinks he is, and this instability is bleeding over into their replacement agents, but you can’t help wonder if there’s something else to it. Despite his issues, there’s no doubt that Pym is one of the smartest minds in the Marvel Universe. He’s no Richards or Tony Stark, but then, the Skrulls haven’t replaced them. Maybe we’d see similar behaviour from Skrulls replacing the other big brains, and infact, the Pym Skrulls are onto something?

Avengers Initative continues to be one of the best SI tie-in titles I’m picking up. Here, we revisit 3D-Man, who survives his Quinjet crash only to be rescued by She-Thing, who he promptly recognises as a Skrull. Fortunately the Skrull Kill Krew are on hand.

Once again Dan Slott does a great job of bringing humour to the storyline, but not sacrificing the drama. We’re seeing Skrulljacket’s plan in the Initiative slowly being discovered, with 3D-Man realising the Initiative’s been compromised, then Crusader and now Ant Man has caught Pym in the act of conferring with other Skrulls.

The real fun in this issue is the Kill Krew though. I haven’t read their original appearances, but there’s a great element of dark humour in this group riding around the country killing off Skrulls. Its given me probably my favourite line of the week, when, on finding out there’s a Skrull in every team of the Initiative, one of them replies “I’ll tell you what this means…Road Trip!”