Probably the most hotly-anticipated comic of this week (at least for DC fans) was the JSA annual, featuring Power Girl’s long-awaited return to Earth-2.

Following on from the previous issue of JSA, Power Girl crash lands in Gotham City, and is promptly found by her old friend Helena Wayne, aka The Huntress. Initially reluctant to believe she’s finally back on Earth-2 Power Girl is nonetheless happy to hang around with her old best friend. Sadly Helena’s going through issues of her own, hunting down the Joker after he attacked her long-term love interest, Harry Sims on the night he proposed to her. The pair track down the Joker, but there’s a bigger twist around the corner, as another Power Girl turns up, revealing that she’s the Power Girl who’s been missing on Earth-2, and our Power Girl finds herself being hunted by the Justice Society Infinity (a nice blending of the JSA and Infinity Inc).

This was a great read, and a great exercise in nostalgia. You really feel for Power Girl, as she goes from being unable to believe she’s back, to rekindling her friendship with Helena, only to have it all torn away again.

Of course, there’s still a question hanging in the air at the end of this story. Which Earth-2 was this?

I took it on reading that this is the “New” Earth-2, spawned from 52. Admittedly, you have to ignore the panel in 52 which showed the characters in updated costumes and assume everyone was suddenly in a retro mood, but otherwise it certainly explains the second Power Girl turning up (in her classic outfit). If this is the case, then its a pity to see some of the updated costumes from that 52 panel go. I quite liked the Huntress outfit with the red in it.

The other theory doing the rounds however, is that this was indeed “the” Earth-2. We see a panel with the Spectre and Dr Fate, neither of whom are happy that there’s a visitor from a parallel world turned up, and one theory has the second Power Girl as a duplicate created by them to try and get rid of our Power Girl.

For now, I’m assuming that this the 52 Earth-2. Of course, it was heavily hinted in the Infinite Crisis trade, that the original Earth-2 might still be out there and was where the golden age heroes were being drawn towards. I’ve got no problems with there being two Earth-2s, although I think they would need to be merged in some way at somepoint to avoid confusion. The new Earth-2 is still missing a Superman, Lois and Wonder Woman, so there’s nothing to say that the originals couldn’t take up residence there, with the other characters assumed to be duplicates born during Infinite Crisis.

I think my brain may be starting to melt from thinking this through too much

Anyway, cracking read. Well worth picking up if you’re a fan of Power Girl.

Well, some of the others that caught my eye anyway

First off, Rann-Thanagar Holy War #6.  Its back!!!! Going from the cover, Adam Strange has his Planet Heist kit back.  Yay

JSA #20 features the New Earth JSA and the Earth-2 JSA with Power Girl torn between the two.   I’m really looking forward to this storyline, as is probably most of DC fandom.  But I’m still really intrigued to see how this Earth-2 JSA is going to be approached.    As I’ve mentioned before, the Earth-2 JSA shouldn’t be the Golden Age JSA, so I’m wondering how they’re going to reconcile this.   Earth-2 in 52 was shown to have some kind of link to events on new Earth (both Kryptonians missing), but it also showed differences to the classic Earth-2 we see here.  Of course, there was obviously something going on with Earth-2 during Infinite Crisis (it was the only unpopulated world, E-2 Lois and E-2 Wonder Woman seemed to hint at being drawn somewhere - in the trade at least), so I wonder if this story arc will start to address that.

Booster Gold has a new writer in October in the form of Rick Remender. I’ve not read any of his other stuff (off the top of my head), but I love the sound of this arc, with Daniel unwittingly being possessed by Starro. It sounds like the kind of light-hearted adventure that suits this series down to the ground.

The Tangent Comics crossover is another mini I’m really loving (although it has been pointed out that the JLA really didn’t come out of the last issue looking that great. Powergirl versus Powergirl should be an entertaining matchup and I’m really intrigued to see where this series takes the Tangent Universe. I’ve been really enjoying the trades they’ve been releasing and re-casting Superman as the villain makes a lot of sense for the character.

Finally, the Superman titles explore the fallout of the Brainiac story, with 100,000 Kryptonians living on Earth.    Sounds like a really interesting story setup.  I guess I’ll be picking up the titles for a little while after the Brainiac arc ends.  It certainly gives them a lot of scope to really dig into where Clark sits in between both cultures.  Supergirl’s part in the story should be incredibly interesting, as I imagine she’s going to be really pleased to be around Kryptonians again (especially since this iteration of the character has really struggled to find her feet on Earth).

Yup. October’s going to be an expensive month for this DC fan.

Its no secret that the “Thy Kingdom Come” arc in JSA was dragging for me, and I was thinking of trade-waiting on JSA. However the Gog storyline has really turned that around for me.

I’m enjoying the idea of a God from the Third World having survived, and its a nice counterpoint to the fuss being made over the death of the New Gods of the Fourth World, and their rebirth as the Fifth World Gods over in Final Crisis. I’m also enjoying the idea that this is actually a benevolent deity. Ok, its probably going to go wrong at somepoint, but for now I’m enjoying how this series played against the expectations that the JSA would have a huge fight on their hands, and instead Gog is actually improving the lives of people around the world.

And we now know how Power Girl ends up on Earth-2, as Gog starts helping out the members of the JSA, including sending Power Girl “home”. (Interestingly, its mentioned that the portal was temporal in nature - perhaps explaining why the Annual has the golden age Earth-2 depicted, rather than the “52″ Earth-2?).

Another Geoff Johns title that’s turned around for me (ironically on his last issue) is Booster Gold. Again, I’d mentioned before how I just wan’t as into the Blue and Gold plot as I’d have liked to be, but I really enjoyed this epilogue issue. Batman’s talk with Booster was a great character defining moment, and the photos from The Killing Joke being used was a big surprise (as was the fact that Batman knew all along that Booster would grow into being a proper hero).

Rip allowing Booster a win was a great moment as well, as he manages to save Booster’s sister from her death (back in Booster’s first series), which is also nice as, having recently read that series, I did feel that we never got a chance to really know the character before she was killed. That and the reveal of Rip’s true identity has given this series a nice setup as a “family” book, moreso than other DC family books, such as The Flash. While Jeff and Geoff may be moving on, I hope we get an announcement soon as to the new creative team and permanent future of the title.

And that final page. Ted survived? Or someone else grabbed the Black Beetle scarab? Certainly it suggests that Ted managed to cheat death afterall.

My last Geoff Johns title this week was the second part of the Brainiac storyline in Action Comics.

This part continues from the strong part 1, as Kara tells Clark that everything he knew about Brainiac was wrong. Up until now, he’s only faced probes that Brainiac’s sent out, copies of his own program. She knows this as no-one has ever faced Brainiac himself. Clark heads out to try and find Brainiac, to see if he can recover the lost city of Kandor, as he releases it represents the chance for he and Kara to be around other Kryptonians. He finds Brainiac in the middle of attacking another planet, but it doesn’t go well.

What I probably love most about this reinvention of Brainiac, is how creepy they’re making him. Gary Frank’s art is adding a really alien air to Brainiac and his ship which is incredibly effective. I’m really enjoying this plot, and can’t wait for part 3.

Its also nice to see Supergirl interacting with Clark. I picked up her solo book for a while, but really the character was just awful, and I was really questioning why they’d brought her back to such a fan fare, when it was obvious they didn’t have a clue what to do with her. Geoff Johns has now spoken of the plan to bring her book more closely in with the other Superman titles, and if it means that she’ll be characterised more as we see here, then I think it’ll help a lot.

Well, I’m struggling to stay awake after a long shift at work, but I thought I’d still chuck up some comments on this week’s comics (at least the ones I’ve read tonight).

While I was saying last month that I was thinking of trade-waiting on JSA, I still ended up getting this month’s issue.  And I’m glad I did.   While the Kingdom Come stuff is stuff not working as well as I might’ve liked, the appearance of Gog, a soul surviving God of the Third World is an interesting idea.  Especially with us witnessing the birth of the Fifth World Gods over in Final Crisis.

Also I found it interesting that Gog seems to have been the mystery “burning man” from DCU #0.  Although I’m sure it was said somewhere else that that was supposed to have been Darkseid, the description also seems to fit Gog, going by what he said in this issue.

Unless its hinting to a parallel between Gog and Darkseid?   Its fairly cliche for these seemingly benign Gods to turn out to be nasty in some way.   It’ll be interesting to see how this arc plays out.

Meanwhile, over at Marvel, this week brought us Secret Invasion #3.  I must admit, this event is doing a cracking job of keeping the issues flowing.  The fact that the two Avengers books are so closely tied in is really helping keep up the momentum on this one.

That being said, I don’t feel either issue 2 or 3 has had the same punch as the first issue.  I’m really enjoying the story, but the main title’s been lacking that really epic feeling an event should have.    Saying that, I am pretty tired at the moment.

I don’t really buy the idea that Iron Man’s a Skrull.  While I thought Civil War was in many ways a badly-handled event, I’ve always felt that registration made a lot of sense, and the whole thing had left the Marvel Universe a more interesting place.   While it’d be nice to chalk some of Tony’s more dubious actions up to “he was a Skrull”, I think it’d be a real cop out.  Especially since the creators have said previously there was no unseen force manipulating the Civil War.   I think Skrull Spider-Woman is just messing with Tony’s head.

Did we really just see Echo getting killed off though?  That was unexpected.

Rann-Thanagar Holy War #2 didn’t grab me as much as the first issue (again, I’m knackered, so I suspect that is colouring my enjoyment of the books a bit tonight).  This felt very much like an issue which was just slowly moving things along, and introducing a main part of the mystery (the anomalies appearing over Rann).

I was really happy to see the Weird turn up though.  Admittedly, in light to the fact this series is a direct sequel to Mystery in Space, this makes a lot of sense.  But still, when he was revealed, I was slightly kicking myself for not realising who the ghost was.

My main interest in this series is still currently the Captain Comet plot.  We’re doubtless going to see him face something that forces him to confront his demons, but I’m interested in seeing where it goes with the subplot of him pretending to be his own nephew.

I’ll also be very interested to see if this series does resolve the Rann-Thanagar War, once and for all.  Its been running since Infinite Crisis, so Final Crisis does seem the logical place for it to draw to a close.  However, I do feel its invigorated DC’s non-GL space titles, and I’d like to see more of a cold war-style conflict replace the out-and-out inter-galactic war we’ve had for the last few years.

It would be good though, to have a series really focusing on the war.  While its been used to spark a few titles, it doesn’t feel like we’ve really delved into it in any way since the original mini.  A mini-series really playing up the fact that this is a huge inter-galactic war could be interesting.  There’s still some untapped story potential here I think, but I do also think it needs to move on soon, before it becomes stale.

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.

I’ve always been intrigued by the JSA title. Its always had really good write-ups, so I eventually bought the Return of Hawkman trade. Sadly, I was just confused by it. Admittedly I’m not really up on all the Thanagar stuff, so I wasn’t off to the best start. I should’ve probably picked up the first trade instead.

However, since the One Year Later relaunch, I’ve been reading Justice Society of America (as it now is), and I’ve been loving it.

My current favourite character is easily the new Starman. There’s an intriguing mystery surrounding the character, but I also just love the concept of a superhero who’s sectioned himself, but still leaves to go rescue people, just to head back to the hospital again afterwards. Its a lot of fun (and puts me in mind of Murdock from The A-Team). Definitely a title worth checking out.