Reilly2040's Blog

God I was in a ranting mood this afternoon. That’ll teach me to post while in work.

I was a bit harsh on Lord Havok in my last post I feel. Its not a bad book. It captures the 90s feel (presumably the decade these characters were from?) really well. The art’s nice and the story, with its Civil War spin is interesting. Its just not characters I particularly know or am invested in. Its not something I’ll pick up again (unless spoilers indicate some good Kyle/Donna scenes – but I think that’s unlikely since they’re not the stars of the book), but its not a bad book. Just one starring characters that I’m not too interested in. Hope it does well for the creative team though, they’ve obviously put a lot of good work in.

I also enjoyed Countdown this week. Going from the buzz online, I’m one of the few people left actively following this book.

Granted, some of the storylines I’m not fussed about, but the Challengers story I find interesting, and I’m intrigued to see the payoff for the Mary Marvel storyline. This issue was basically a big recap issue (presumably to help launch its rebranding as Countdown to Final Crisis). Things seem to be kicking off now, with the Monitors declaring war. Should be interesting to see what this means for the Challengers, surely their first targets?

Also worth mentioning that this issue seems to have put the kibosh on the fairly bad Kyle/Donna/Jason love triangle. Thank God. The only issue it worked in was Ron Marz’s Wildstorm one-shot.

I was all set to skip Lord Havok and the Extremists. I don’t like getting sucked in by tie-ins to big events. Infinite Crisis cost me a fortune, and I was determined to be pickier with all the Countdown tie-ins. I’m quite enjoying the Search for Ray Palmer, so I’m buying that (whenever they next release an issue – and here’s hoping it won’t solely feature a character who’s bumped off the following week), but I saw this and thought “That looks missable”.

So, I was all set to skip it, until I noticed the complete solicit, which said that Kyle, Jason and Donna would be guest starring. Now Jason hasn’t been interesting since the Annual which made his whole resurrection a laughing stock, and Countdown seems to just be continuing to de-fang a previously-interesting character, but I’m a sucker for anything with Kyle and Donna in it, so I resigned myself to picking this up.

God what a waste of money.

The Civil War parody was quite interesting, but felt a bit too obvious to me, and I thought it’d be more interesting as a Marvel What If?

Kyle and co only turned up on the last page, and the rest of this was just characters I didn’t care about. Kyle & Donna or not, I’m skipping this one next month. I daresay it’ll be some other people’s cup of tea though, but I can’t see why I’d stretch my budget to include this.

Fortunately Countdown to Adventure #3 was also out this week. As I’ve said previously I’m really enjoying this series and the characters. I’m not sure about the way they’re taking the Animal Man/Starfire relationship, but nonetheless its a great read, with some good art. The Forerunner backups are quite interesting as well, giving us a look at some of the other Earths in the Multiverse. Although to an extent I wish they weren’t. We’ve been seeing an awful lot of the other 52 Earths lately, and a part of me wishes they’d limit themselves more and just explore a few of the Earths, leaving the others unknown for other writers to play with over the coming years.

Saying that, I really enjoyed the Earth in this issue. The purely magic-based setup was really interesting. I hope we can see more of this one.

However, the issue of the week for me was easily JSA #10. The use of the Kingdom Come Superman in this is really interesting, and is also allowing Geoff Johns to continue the thread of Kal-L’s fate and (increasingly probable) resurrection. Seeing Power Girl’s reactions to this new Superman was a nice piece of character work, as well as seeing things from Superman’s perspective as well, coming from the middle of the Kingdom Come storyline (going from his dialogue), we are perhaps going to see the seeds of what led to Superman’s change of heart in that story and led to him working towards a better world. Geoff Johns has been doing really good stuff over in JSA. A title that doesn’t always seem to get the recognition of the bigger name titles, but none-the-less, more people should be buying.

Well, Newsarama have got the January solicits up and there’s some good looking titles that month.

In Green Lantern terms we’ve got our first (albeit hard to make out clearly) look at an Alpha Lantern from the arc in the main title. I must admit, I’m intrigued to see how this arc goes. I’m betting the Alpha Lanterns are some Ion-derivative, but given that Hal and John are against it, its a fair bet there’s something more sinister than the power-boost Kyle got. It looks like Boddika certainly is one of them. Will all the Lost Lanterns become Alpha Lanterns? I can’t see Arisia being involved (and she’s part of the GLC title anyway).

I’m unsure what to make of the GLC solicit to be honest. Now don’t get me wrong, I’m sure it’ll be a good story, and there’s only so much you can tell for a solicit, so there are a lot of assumptions involved. However, the image of Mongul with a Sinestro ring does automatically make me wonder how many GL foes are going to end up in the Sinestro Corps. I can’t help but think its possibly going to be too soon after the event to revisit it, and a couple of issues dealing with something else (or the fallout from the war in another way that doesn’t involve actually bumping into someone with a yellow ring) might’ve been an idea.

I suspect I’ll be eating those words come January though

Various other non-GL things catch my eye as well. I’ve enjoyed the first two issues of Countdown to Adventure a lot, so I’m looking forward to it. I notice that Adam Strange seems to be in his original outfit, as opposed to his Planet Heist makeover, so I presume he has to dig some of his old kit out of storage at somepoint. I hope he gets his Planet Heist look back at the end of the series though. A really good updating I thought.

I’m looking forward to seeing how the Black Adam mini wraps up and I’ve been enjoying it a lot more than I thought I would. I’m hoping it gives us some indication of why Adam’s powers seem to be driving Mary evil, and I can’t help but think something happens to his powers during this series that leads him to give them to Mary as an act of revenge against Billy.

Booster Gold #6 should be a good issue as well. I like how they’re dealing with the issue of Ted in this first arc and getting it out of the way. I don’t think anyone’s actually been expecting him to save Ted though, so I suspect this issue will be a bit of a tearjerker.

Picked up a good few comics this week, but my top comic of the week has to be the second issue of Countdown to Adventure. Its only issue 2, but its already got me hooked.

I was never big into Adam Strange or Starfire, and Animal Man completely passed me by. I didn’t get into their storyline in 52 (but 52 is a discussion for another time), but this series is really clicking for me. Having read Planet Heist, I now really like the Adam Strange character, and his storyline has me gripped, with his life on Rann going down the toilet. Can’t wait to see what happens. The central mysteries of the virus infecting people, and Animal Man and Starfire’s powers being wonky are really engaging as well. Kory trying her hand at a normal life is a really interesting story.

Kyle popped up again in the Challengers section of Countdown. I’ve always enjoyed the Earth-3 stuff in the past, so I enjoyed this sneak peek, and look forward to picking up the special next week. Still not buying the Donna/Kyle/Jason love triangle though. Its not been as believable in Countdown as Ron Marz made it in his Wildstorm special.

On a related note, I re-read the “Under the Hood” trades the other day that reintroduced Jason. He was so much more interesting in them than anything I’ve read him in since. I really enjoyed the story up until the “Superboy Punch” annual. They really ruined his whole comeback with that.

It does seem odd that the heroes are letting him run around as well after what he did in those stories.

Well, if anyone was following the Sinestro Corps War, and not reading the upcoming solicits to avoid spoilers, I sure hope they don’t read All New Atom, since Kyle, in his new suit and with a ring turned up this week (as part of Countdown’s Search for Ray Palmer storyline).

See, this is the problem with big company-wide events. They really muck up individual titles. I’ve seen it happen to quite a few Marvel books with Avengers Disassembled and Civil War, and its happening with DC as well.

Ok, I’m into spoilers, but I still find it disappointing when companies fling them about so blatantly. With Kyle heavily involved in the Sinestro Corps War, it seems to me that he should’ve been off limits for the other crossovers (in fact all the GLs should be, until its over).

Ah well, I’m quite liking the look of his new suit in that shot. The black background to his GL logo is nice. Hope that stays. Surprised they’re going with the Parallax-variant of his crab mask though. Wonder why they didn’t just use his original one?

Kyle’s dialogue about being able to open portals between the different Earths with his ring is interesting as well. Does this hint that he’s going to be more of a multiverse-agent for the GLC, rather than a standard GL (which would tie into some of the events of the Ion maxi nicely)?

Hopefully we’ll find out more in next week’s Countdown, which he’s slated to appear in. Saves us waiting till November/December for the GL titles to tell us

Right, I really should talk about something other than my Linux setup for a change

I picked up quite a few comics last week (by my standards). Countdown #51 was interesting. It didn’t blow me away, but it was a solid enough first issue. Largely I’m on board with it at the moment for Kyle and Donna. Although I’m definitely interested to see how they develop this new multiverse. I think its going to cause confusion having new worlds that are not the worlds from the original multiverse, but it’ll be interesting to see how its managed none-the-less. Key things I think I’m looking forward to are the inevitable JSA/JSA teamup, and also Kyle meeting the Jade on Earth-2.

Star Wars Legacy #11 was excellent. I’m not a huge fan of the Vong, as I got bored with the New Jedi Order books shortly before the halfway point. But I’m definitely intrigued to find out what they’re doing under the ruins of the Jedi Academy on Ossus.

Marvel Zombies: Dead Days was a disappointment though. Although not entirely sure about Marvel Zombies, I must admit to enjoying the first mini series, and the Army of Darkness prequel that’s currently running. However there’s something about Marvel turning them into a big brand that I find unsettling. At the end of the day, there’s obviously a demand for these products and Marvel’s in the business of making money. I can’t really argue with that.

But while I like the tongue-in-cheek tone taken by the two miniseries, this prequel took a more serious approach, and I’m just not sure how I feel about the Marvel icons being turned into monsters like this (of course, its not actually the Marvel icons we know and love). I think I definitely prefer the titles that are just indulging in some over-the-top black humour. Something about this one-shot just felt a bit unneccessary. We’d been told these things had happened. We didn’t really need to be shown it in wonderous technicolour.