Reilly2040's Blog

Some good new comics this week along with Flash: Rebirth, the first of which is the long-awaited Power Girl #1.

Its no secret I’ve been looking forward to this. Power Girl’s been a fun character for a while, probably shining most recently in her pre-Infinite Crisis mini-series, that re-established her Earth-2 origin.

The series picks up with Power Girl having decided to rebuild her life on New Earth. After discovering (the new) Earth-2 has its own Power Girl (in the JSA annual) she’s realised she needs to build a life for herself outside of the JSA and so has set about rebuilding her Karen Starr secret identity, along with her Starrware company when New York is attacked by robots which seem to instil fear in anyone near them.

As an introductory issue this works well. I’ve only really read some of the early Power Girl stuff from the recent trade, and her later appearances around Infinite Crisis, but Jimmy Palmiotti and Justin Gray do a good job of quickly re-establishing the character, who she is, and her motivations following recent events. Her company looks like it’ll be a good backdrop as well, with it being a large R&D company attracting its fair share of experimental technology and nutter scientists.

As always, Amanda Conner’s art is perfect for this series. Her art was the real highlight of the mini-series and shone in the recent Terra mini as well. She’s got a great style which really brings out the facial expressions of characters and really adds to that fun feeling and the more comedic moments in the series. The colouring is really brilliant as well and adds a lot of extra pop to the art.

Things are going from bad to worse for everyone in the Invincible Iron Man title. Despite escaping Namor last issue, Tony is finding his Iron Man suit increasingly difficult to pilot as his intelligence deteriorates. To that end, he is trying to put together the parts he needs for a scaled down version, when he comes under attack from someone looking to cash in on the bounty Osbourne’s put on his head. Thankfully its a rookie, so Tony easily out maneauvers him and escapes.

The main focus of this issue I found was more on the supporting cast. We deal with Maria Hill having stumbled upon the Controller, and more interestingly, Pepper, after she’s been detained by Osbourne and HAMMER last issue. Osbourne is keen to get his hands into Pepper’s armour, however its automatically shut itself down. Here we learn that despite finding Tony’s armoury in Avengers tower, Osbourne and his team are struggling to unlock Tony’s technology, and so Norman is incredibly keen to get Pepper’s repulsor unit. Again, we see Norman start to loose his grip, as he’s quick to start threatening Pepper’s family when she rightly points out that Norman’s allegations of her suit’s weapons are empty.  Its a great scene for Pepper, as she comes across calm and in control, despite being surrounded by Norman and his troops.   Of course, Norman is eventually forced to let her go, as her suit contains no weapons, and Tony ensured she was registered before he lost his position.

As I’ve said before, I’m really intrigued by how Matt Fraction plans to wrap up this story arc.  It really feels like our heroes’ backs are against the wall here.   This series is doing a great job of showing the danger everyone’s in from Norman’s authority and in these days where you’re used to the safe knowledge that our heroes will win through, I think its a testament to Fraction’s writing that I really am seeing no way out for Tony.

The final issue I’ll mention was Strange Adventures #3. Adam Strange discovers that the Weird (or at least, a being that appears to be the Weird) is behind the missing stars. After finding himself overpowered, he makes a beeline for Comet to recruit his help.   Arriving on Hardcore Station though, Adam finds it not as easy as he thought, and soon finds himself beaten and mugged for asking about where to find Comet.  I must admit, I found this quite amusing, and it did help to underline just how dangerous a place Hardcore can be.  Heck, even Comet spends most of his time in the Hole these days.   We’ve very rarely seen him using his flat.

The mystery regarding Synar continues.  We know his plans have gone wrong, as his essence has ended up merged with the Weird’s physcial form.  However there’s also what appears to be the Weird causing Stars to vanish, and a more familiar Synar turns up at the end of the issue in Comet’s flat.   Exactly what the ramifications of the events of the end of Holy War were clearly have yet to be fully explained.

Meanwhile there’s some nice scenes with trouble brewing on New Rann with Sardath and Alanna starting to really question Adam’s sanity over the missing stars.   Fortunately when Prince Gavyn finally has time to look at the readings as Adam asked, he also confirms the stars are going missing.  Obviously its all related to Prince Gavyn and Adam being part of the Aberrant Six, but what exactly the Aberrant Six are, I presume is going to be key to this series.

I’m still greatly enjoying this series.    The reduced cast has helped immensely, bringing the story squarely to focus on Adam and Comet, the two characters I enjoy the most.  Its given the book a tighter focus that I think was maybe missing in Holy War, which just had too many characters to juggle.

Well, its here. With Barry Allen brought back in Final Crisis, DC lets the Rebirth dream team of Geoff Johns and Ethan Van Sciver loose on redefining the Flash family for a new age.

My first immediate thought was that it was nice to see they reverted back to the original cover. The replacement that was floating around in the solicits for a while just wasn’t as good as the original Moose-inked version. Its a shame Moose isn’t inking the series itself, but the inker they’ve got replacing him does a fine job.

I did have a look for the variant cover at my local comic shop, but sadly it wasn’t to be seen. I guess they held it back for their subscribers, which is fair enough.

Probably the most surprising thing about this first issue, especially given its the Flash, is the pace. Whereas Green Lantern Rebirth started out with Kyle’s ship crashing and various big events, the focus in this issue is very much on getting inside Barry’s head. Of course, unlike GL: Rebirth, Johns has the advantage that the actual resurrection is already taken care of. Barry’s been back since Final Crisis, so instead that allows Johns to focus on how Barry is coping with his resurrection.

Not well is the answer. There’s a great scene with Barry and Hal meeting in the Flash museum where we see Barry surrounded by people talking on their mobiles and about download speeds etc. Hal comments that Barry’s finding the world much faster than he’s used to. Barry comments that its just caught up, but you can’t help but feel Hal’s on the mark. Barry doesn’t feel at all at home in the modern world, and makes the comment that he wasn’t supposed to come back.

We also see other’s reactions to Barry’s return, with most overjoyed. However Bart’s not as impressed. There’s been a lot of comment about this scene online and how out-of-character Bart was. For me though, I was ok with it, since the point of the scene seemed to be that he’s more upset that Max is still trapped in the speedforce (foreshadowing a return?).  And I can just say how nice it was to see Bart with his proper yellow eyes again?  Not to mention the Impulse statue in the Flash museum clearly having the more cartoony look Bart had in that series (no surprise given who the artist of said series was though ).

As well as seriously getting into Barry’s head, we also see the setup for a lot of mystery in this series. At the beginning we see some Police forensic scientists killed by someone who then recreates the accident that gave Barry his speed, and also claims to be behind Barry’s resurrection. However, separate to this, a couple of kids find the Black Flash flying dead in a field. We then see Savitar free himself from the Speedforce through Barry, only to crumble to dust once Barry catches and touches him. Is Barry becoming a new Black Flash through the process of his resurrection?

Special mention must go to Ethan’s art in this series as well.  Its possibly some of his best work to-date.  There’s not been too much action so far, but the Flash museum scenes were spot-on, with you really feeling the hustle and bustle of the crowd.

There’s a few niggles though. Barry’s wife Iris took me a lot by surprise.  For years she’s been portrayed as in her 40s at least.  This always made sense to me given the character’s respective age to the supporting cast, but here she suddenly looks like she’s in her 20s.  I guess she’s a victim of comic book aging that has some characters age (Red Arrow/Arsenal, Tim Drake, Dick Grayson), while others have to stay more-or-less constant, but it really lept out in a way that others (Carol Ferris for example must be a victim of the same thing) haven’t.

While I was ok with the Bart scene, there’s some retcons being thrown around here. The Black Flash is dead, but Final Crisis established that the Black Flash was the Black Rider. Shouldn’t the Black Rider now on Earth-51 with the other New Gods, or are they back to being separate characters? Granted, this could be something that will be addressed in subsequent issues, but I’m combining it with the fact that the mysterious murderer now seems to be responsible for Barry’s resurrection. Now Final Crisis was quite clear on the fact that Barry was resurrected by the universe itself as a defense mechanism against Darkseid. However here, Barry rubbishes this himself, pointing out he didn’t do anything Wally couldn’t (perhaps true, but not the point here). So this leads me to feel that only a couple of months after it ended, Final Crisis is already being contradicted. Doesn’t exactly make you feel the series is that well respected.

There’s also this plot development with Barry’s father possibly killing his mother. It’s definitely something that screams “I’m new!!!!!!” about Barry’s backstory, however I’m not calling retcon on it yet. Rather I’ll wait and see how that storyline unfolds over the next four issues.

These are all minor things though. This is a very different feeling series to GL: Rebirth so far. Much more introspective, but also a compelling read. Geoff’s set up some interesting mysteries with this first issue, and I like that idea for a Barry Allen book. To focus on his detective traits. If we just wanted a book about a guy who runs really fast, then they could’ve just kept Wally as the title character. Very much looking forward to issue 2.

Of course, the issue doesn’t quite finish there. And, presumably in line with DC’s policy of adding value to $3.99 books, we get a several page preview of the new Power Girl series at the end of the book. Which I very much enjoyed.

However, while I really enjoyed it. It also felt a bit out of place. Given that Flash: Rebirth is an event book, I’d have thought the extra pages would’ve gone to making the main story a bit longer. Nonetheless I’m still really looking forward to Power Girl coming out, and this preview did look good.

The May solicits are up at Newsarama, and there’s some interesting things in store that month.

First up, it looks like there’s no issue of GL.  Well that sucks, especially with them building up the Blackest Night at the moment.  I daresay the issue will be more than worth the wait, but I hope its the last delay for a while.   They’d done a cracking job of getting the delays sorted out after Infinite Crisis with the one-arc-on, one-arc-off rotation for Ivan and a guest artist.  Its a shame to see them creeping back into the title (although, in fairness they’ve already hit the Rage of the Red Lanterns arc).

GLC sounds excellent though, with a riot in the Sciencells leading to GLs versus Sinestros versus Red Lanterns. Wonder how that comes about. I think I’m right in saying that as it stands, its only yellow Lanterns in the Sciencells at the moment, so either the GLs manage to capture some Red Lanterns at the end of the current story arc in GL, or the Red Lanterns attack Oa looking to get some revenge over the Sinestro Corps. Either way, we’ve just seen just this kind of showdown taking place on Ysamault (only with the two blue Lanterns thrown in). The idea of this conflict taking place on Oa itself adds a level of danger to things, but it’ll be interesting to see how it comes about.

Strange Adventures is another no-brainer for me. I’ve been loving Jim Starlins take on the other side of the DCU’s cosmic tales, so I’m interested to see where he’s going to take things in this series. The idea of Rann being rebuilt in secret that he setup in the last series will be interesting to see played out here. Its looking like it’ll be a reduced cast as well, without the Hawks, or Space Team from the previous book.

Another no-brainer is Power Girl #1. I previously blogged about looking forward to this series here, and so I’m glad to see it finally hitting the shelves.

Of course, we now know that my speculation about it being set on Earth-2 was way off, although how Power Girl’s trip to that alternate world will affect this series will remain to be seen.  I personally felt the Earth-2 stuff in JSA didn’t really work (I’m sure I’ve previously ranted about the mess Earth-2 is in the DCU at the moment) but if this series can do something good with that mini-arc, then so much the better.

Of course, in the comments we’ve already mentioned the latest developments in the Superman New Krypton arc.  Just what could have led Superman to the point of joining up with Zod’s army on New Krypton?  I’m really not sure what I think of this direction, but we’ll see how it goes.  While I appreciate them taking Superman off in a bold new direction, I’m not sure how much I’m actually interested in Superman taking a prolonged stay on New Krypton, especially if he ends up in their army of all things.   I’m going to give it a few issues though to see what I think of the direction.

Other things that caught my eye are the Battle for the Cowl books (most of them I’ll be skipping for budget reasons, but I’ll probably nab the Oracle mini, even if I’m terrified for what it’ll do to the excellent Birds of Prey series).  Flash Rebirth #2 finds Barry Allen hiding yet another Dark Secret.  Again, not sure what to make of this solicit.  Is it really necessary to have Barry hiding a dark secret?  Afterall, Geoff did that fairly recently during Identity Crisis.

Final Crisis Aftermath Run and Dance should be interesting as well.  I’m interested to see what they do with the Human Flame (although again, perhaps similar to the recent Rogues storyline following Bart’s death?), and The Super Young Team were a lot of fun in Final Crisis, so what happens to them next should be fun.

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.

Well, one of the early announcements at the NYCC was that Power Girl is finally getting her own ongoing series and it features Amanda Connor doing the artwork.

Brilliant. Sign me up. PG getting her own monthly has been coming a long time, and I love Amanda Connor’s artwork in both the JSA Classified story, and in the Green Arrow/Black Canary wedding comic (although I wasn’t a big fan of the story).

The really interesting thing is that the title will apparently be using events from the upcoming “Welcome to Earth-2″ annual as a springboard. Does this hint at the series being set on Earth-2, or just the her experiences there force Power Girl to take a fresh look at her life?