Reilly2040's Blog

Gah, I’m going to be so skint!

Its been a bit of a shock, but the previews of the Blackest Night figures hit the web the other day, and brought with them some pretty big spoilers, in that we’ve seen our first look at two of the Black Lanterns: Martian Manhunter and Earth-2 Superman. I imagine that Kal-L at least is something that DC would have preferred to keep quiet, but then I guess its hard to balance those needs with the desire to also get an action figure out alongside the story.

I’m of mixed opinion as to Earth-2 Superman being resurrected in this way after Infinite Crisis, however its probably a bit premature to get worked up about it, since all we have is an action figure preview and we still don’t really know anything about the story itself. So I’ll probably talk more about that once the Blackest Night solicits start coming out and we get a clearer picture of what’s happening.  

However, the figures themselves look excellent. I’m definitely wanting most of those and its really nice to see Kryb being featured, since she’s only appeared in the GLC title and not the main Green Lantern book.

After the massive dissappointment of the last wave, which I skipped in its entirety (although I must try and track down a Sinestro Corps Sinestro at somepoint) its nice to see this varied lineup taking full advantage of the large cast of characters. 

It’ll be nice to have a new John figure to go along with the Hal and Guy figures.  No Kyle yet, although many are already speculating that since there’s no Orange Lanterns in this line up, there may be another set of figures we’ve still to see and those could include Kyle in his new outfit.  Of course, given the recent GL solicit, maybe we’ll also have a Blue Lantern Hal to look forward to?

Well, I say finale, but that’s not really the case, as it quickly became apparent that the New Krypton arc, was infact just the setup for the next year or so of stories.

Its not often I feel like this about most modern comic plots, but I really felt this could’ve been a bit longer.  I’d have liked to have seen more buildup to relations between the humans and Kryptonians breaking down.  As it was, the fact that Alura was a bit of a nutter just accelerated everything without the need for a gradual breakdown.

However I think this has been a really successful storyline, and I’m intrigued to see how things develop over the next year.  Obviously General Lane is as barmy as Alura, although I wonder if his resurrection will help explain this.  And the prescence of a planet of Kryptonians that Earth’s virtually on a war footing with opens up a lot of questions.

For me though, the interesting thing will be seeing how this all affects the character of Superman.  Ignoring how he’s really lost any special standing as the last son of Krypton over the last few years (and in fairness, its been done before: Lois and Clark back in the 90s had a planet of Kryptonian survivors as well), to me, a big facet of Clark’s personality has been his drive to keep alive Kryptonian culture, and his reverance (if that’s the right word) for it, with the fortress and the big statues of his parents.  That kind of thing.

However, in the post-IC DCU, Kryptonians are really not that great a bunch of people.  We know from Kurt Busiek’s Third Kryptonian arc that on discovering their powers under yellow suns, Kryptonians had formed a galaxy-spanning empire, which left them pretty unpopular.  Eventually they realised that having an entire galaxy hating you wasn’t a brilliant long-term plan, and came to the conclusion that the yellow-sun powers had perverted their race, resulting in them retreating to Krypton and becoming insular,  focused instead on science and arts, becoming the Kryptonian society we’re more familiar with.

However, memories run deep, and it was established that a lot of space-faring species still remember the Kryptonian empire and would be happy to see any survivors wiped out.  It strikes me that a planet full of them is going to eventually attract some unwanted attention.

We’re also seeing that history repeating itself.  With the powers of the yellow sun, Alura was pretty quick to declare Kryptonian’s superior to humanity, and that humanity ultimately didn’t matter by comparison.  And you can bet she’s not alone in that viewpoint.  The planet of New Krypton is a a powder-keg waiting to errupt, and I’m very interested to see how Superman intends to try to calm things down.  Especially with the reveal that Zod’s been freed from the Phantom Zone by Alura.

My point is, what is the impact of all this going to be on Superman?  To be blunt, from what we’ve seen in this arc, and learnt from the Third Kryptonian arc, you can imagine that he’d be a guy who’d be pretty ashamed to be a Kryptonian.   Granted, this is stereotyping (we know Jor-El, Zor-El, Lara and Kara Zor-El are fairly decent Kryptonians at least), but would Superman really be that proud of being the last son of a race known for intergalactic conquest, and who caused all those problems on Earth within 5 minutes of arriving there?

 It was one thing when we discovered Krypton’s history as an empire builder before realising the error of their ways, and I thought that added an interesting new element into their history.  But when we’ve got that history repeating itself in the current DCU, then I think that’s got further-reaching implications.

For myself, I’d like to see the upcoming World of New Krypton series allow Clark to explore the positive aspects of Kryptonian society.  We’ve seen so many negative aspects recently, let’s see Clark meet up with groups of Kryptonians that want to seek peace with Earth and share technology and the like.  Let’s hope it gives us a balanced view of their society, rather than just Alura and Zod foaming at the mouth, and let’s Clark experience some joy in being a Kryptonian amongst his own people for a change.

It’ll be interesting to see how long this lasts as well, and the ultimate fate of New Krypton.  Something obviously has to happen eventually that will see the number of Kryptonians in the DCU reduced once again.  Or at least, that New Krypton will be moved off to its own corner of the DCU where it can be effectively ignored until a writer has an idea for it.  

As for the events on Earth, well I have to admit, I’m not really interested in the Mon-El stuff, or the Legion turning up in Adventure Comics (despite DC’s current love-in for the Legion, I’ve never really gotten them).  The Nightwing and Flamebird stuff does look interesting though, although with Zod and co free, and Ursa turning up in Action Comics, you do have to wonder if the Connor stuff was a misdirection, and instead Nightwing’s going to be a magically-aged Chris Kent, which for me would be a bit disappointing.  Although I like the character of Chris and would like to see him back, the tactile-TK reference was just too big a clue to it being a resurrected Connor to back off from.  However I’m still interested to see who these two characters are revealed as.

So for me, I think I’ll probably be limiting myself to the World of New Krypton book and Action Comics (at least for a couple of issues until I see where they’re going).  Supergirl I’m still undecided on.  There’s no doubt the book’s definitely a lot better for its recent creative reboot, but I’m still trying to keep a handle on the number of monthlies I’m picking up, especially with recent price increases, so Supergirl may be a casualty of that.

I was just going through the April Solicits on Newsarama and a few things caught my eye that I thought were worth mentioning.

First off.  The GL solicit features Hal on the search for Agent Orange, as the Orange Lanterns story gets into gear.  However there’s a specific mention of Hal struggling to get to grips with his new power ring.   This throws the current Rage of the Red Lanterns arc in a new light.

I’d assumed it was a no-brainer that Hal was going to knock back the Blue ring.   Maybe now we can guess he’s going to accept Ganthet’s offer?   I must admit, I really didn’t think Geoff would be breaking up the four musketeers, and would ensure they all stayed GLs for this storyline.

I’m a sucker for the space stuff in the DCU, so I’m looking forward to Strange Adventures.  However, seeing Bizarro in the solicit got me thinking.   Since its a plot point in the Superman books that he’s locked up in the Phantom Zone, and the people of Bizzaro World are wondering where he is, how’s he kicking around this book (or Rann-Thanagar Holy War for that matter)?

The post-New Krypton solicits look interesting as well, but I’m prepping a full post for the New Krypton stuff, so I’ll skip them for now

The Flash: Rebirth is, of course, a must-buy that month, however something I find very interesting is the solicit for the Impulse: Mercury Falling trade, also being released in April.   Could that be a hint as to something in Rebirth?

The Green Lantern Corps solicit also sounds good.  The idea of a riot and breakout in the Sciencells is an interesting one, and should make for an action-packed book.  Slightly less interested in the Sodam Yat/Arisia/Daxam storyline (I’ll be intrigued as to why they’re the only two GLs going though).    Its interesting to note that Sinestro is going to Korugar in search of his daughter.  Does this hint that she’s not a GL and could be someone new, or should we read into the fact that Natu’s name doesn’t appear in the rest of the solicit?

This is it. This felt like the issue a lot of stuff had been building up to, with Batman’s last stand against Darkseid.

However, that only takes up a couple of pages in a packed book. The story focuses on the big fights as the survivors make their last stand against Darkseid, and while the Bludhaven fight goes in their favour thanks to the Marvel family, Mr Terrific is nonetheless forced to sound the retreat, and plans are put into place to relocate the population to another of the 52 Earths in the multiverse. However, there are dire warnings from Metron if humanity attempts to break through the barrier between worlds.

If I come out of this issue with one concern, its that issue 7 is going to have to cover a lot of ground for one issue.  There’s the Dark Monitor who’s been hinted at, but not yet seen, humanity has to be saved from anti-life, and the fate (and new status quo) of the New Gods has to be setup.  I hope its not going to be too rushed.  Unlike Secret Invasion which I felt was over-stretched at 8 issues, I’m wondering if Final Crisis couldn’t have been longer.  Of course, we’ll find out whenever issue 7 hits the stands.   Some of these big things (such as the Dark Monitor) may be red herrings, or simply thrown in as teasers for future series.

But the bit everyone’s going to be talking about, is Batman’s last stand.  Forget RIP, or him being MIA after the helicopter explosion, here Batman comes face-to-face with the living embodiment of evil, and shoots him dead.  Batman still having the bullet that killed Orion is a nice touch, and there’s a nice moment in Batman’s acknowledgement that he’s finally up against a threat that he’ll happily put aside his vow against guns for.  The whole scene plays out as Batman getting one over on Darkseid, right down to his final “Gotcha” right before Darkseid’s Omega Sanction hits him.   

And while RIP gave us the powerful image of Nightwing standing with Bruce’s tattered cowl, here we get a truely iconic image of Superman standing holding Bruce’s charred remains. Of course, its a clear homage to the image in CoIE of Superman holding Supergirl’s body, and I think its as powerful because, like that original image, there’s such a strong relationship between these characters.

In fact, the whole buildup to that moment was incredibly powerful. While he’s been separated from events for most of the series (and its more than a little annoying that delays have meant that Superman Beyond #2 is now arriving in stores after this issue rather than before), Superman’s return to the scene is an incredible two pages, from the moment where he’s sighted by Wonder Woman, to him laying waste to Darkseid’s armies as he flies to find Bruce.

And a lot of the kudos for these moments surely has to go to Doug Mahnke.   While I admit I wasn’t too sure about his art in Superman Beyond, its excellent here.  And the fact he produced something of this quality despite being a last-minute replacement is a great achievement.

We’re now past the halfway point in the big Superman event: New Krypton. And so far I’ve been really enjoying it.

I admit, I’ve been skipping the various one-off specials as they didn’t really appeal, but I have been picking up the three main titles. I really love how quickly things have gone south since Kandor appeared on Earth. Its an interesting aspect of Kryptonian society that I’m sure is a new post-Infinite Crisis addition. That Kryptonians are largely untrustworthy. During Kurt Busiek’s “Third Kryptonian” arc, it was established that before Krypton was the more isolated, peaceful haven of science we’d known, Kryptonians had actually established a galaxy-spanning empire.

Basically, once they’d realised that the yellow suns common throughout the galaxy gave them super-powers, they quickly started taking the place over. It was only as the years went on that the Kryptonians realised this was ultimately self-destructive, and so had removed themselves back to their homeworld, under their red sun, and barred themselves for venturing out again, lest the yellow suns tempt them.

We’re pretty much seeing history repeat itself here. A large number of the Kryptonians, having found themselves free and with super-powers have automatically set themselves up above Earth’s native inhabitants. The big shock being that one of these is Alura, Supergirl’s mother. Meanwhile things are spiralling out of control with Luthor and General Lane taking the fight to the Kryptonians, in the form of reactivating Brainiac’s ship, and even the rest of Earth’s super-powered community is banding together, having realised that the Kryptonians have gotten out of control.

Its a really enjoyable tale. And while I still like the idea of Clark being the last Kryptonian, as brought in during the post-Crisis Byrne revamp, I must admit I really like this fresh take. Forcing Clark to face up to the fact that his own people, may not be that great.

Another interesting point is the appearance of the new Nightwing and Flamebird. Specifically Nightwing, with some fairly unsubtle hints that he’s Connor Kent, somehow back from the dead after the events of Infinite Crisis. I know I can’t be alone in hoping this isn’t a fake-out. I’m really interested to know where they’ve come from as well. Clark was pretty tied up with his father’s death after Brainiac’s defeat, so I’m not sure he had time to arrange for this new Nightwing and Flamebird to guard the Phantom Zone projector from Zod’s troops. Nonetheless, it does make sense that they’re working with Clark.

Newsarama have just published some previews for March that drop some tantalising hints as to the post-New Krypton landscape in the DCU, and I’m very interested to see how this pans out.

A really solid week this week with DC’s releases. Green Lantern Corps means I’ll be reiterating my usual “Peter Tomasi rules”-type review.

We pick up with part 2 of the Sins of the Sapphires arc. However, the story actually opens with Kryb, the Sinestro Corps member being hunted by Kyle and co, and we find her claiming the child of her latest victims, one of whom is a Green Lantern. Kryb is a brilliantly creepy creation. Its a really terrifying idea that she’s going around snatching all these kids and killing their parents. I’m not sure what happens to the kids she snatches, but I suspect its not going to be pleasant. Seeing the GLs led by Kyle catch up to her is powerful, and you know they’re not going to be easy on her. Especially given that she’s just killed a fellow Corps member.

The main meat of this month’s story though lies with Guy, Sodam and Arisia leading the Guardians to Zamaron on a “diplomatic mission”. Of course, ulterior motives are abound, and the Guardians are quick to admit to Guy that this is also a spy mission to see exactly what the Zamarons are up to. Things get worse when later on Scar admits to Sodam that he’s there to level the place if things go wrong.

Of course, the Guardians are their usual selves, and are only there to get their own way: the Zamarons immediately ceasing tapping the love portion of the emotional spectrum. The Zamarons, unsurprisingly telling them to get stuffed. This, combined with recent events in the title involving Kryb and others, result in the Guardians passing their latest of the new laws, forbidding Green Lanterns to get involved in physical relationships. Yup, that’s going to go down well. The fallout from this one is going to make the lethal force law look like a walk in the park.

We also see that the Zamarons have been capturing the missing Sinestro Corps rings, along with a few of the female members of the Sinestro Corps (notably Karu-Sil, and Fatality) and are attempting to purge them of their fear and instill them with love. Its another plan that’s probably not going to end well. The fact that the Zamarons are basically brainwashing them is quickly picked up, and serves to underline how the “positive” side of the spectrum has its own dangers. We know from the previous Star Sapphire storyline that tapping a power from the extreme end of the spectrum will cause that power to consume you (something Atrocious and his Red Lanterns are actually relishing), so you wonder exactly how its going to backfire on the Zamarons.

Another great issue. This title goes from strength to strength, and is easily a match for the main GL book. I’m really looking forward to seeing this latest law from the Guardians blow up in their faces.

The other big DC comic of the week for me, was Action Comics and the latest part of the New Krypton saga. The action picks up where the last issue of Superman left off, with Doomsday (and the implication being that Sam Lane has purposely sent Doomsday into the fray) crashing the meeting Clark setup between the Kryptonians and the UN.

Of course, while Doomsday has fought Clark to a standstill in the past, this time he’s up against a large group of Kryptonians and gets summarily pulverised, and its announced Doomsday’s finally dead. However, given that Doomsday’s whole origin revolves around him dying, and evolving so it doesn’t happen again, I imagine the next time he turns up he’s going to be very nasty to go up against. Perhaps this is Geoff Johns laying the seeds for revamping the character, who’s been increasingly overused since his first appearance, and has as a result lost some of his impact.

There was a big shock in this issue, in the form of the new Nightwing and Flamebird. Specifically Nightwing. Back in the Fortress of Solitude, we find a few of Zod’s troops trying to find the Phantom Zone Projector, so they can release Zod from his imprisonment (you know the whole situation with Zod is just going to get steadily nastier from here on), however before they can get to it, they’re stopped by Nightwing and Flamebird. However, the most interesting thing, is how they’re stopped. Specifically, when Nightwing uses his tactile telekinesis to dismantle one of Zod’s men’s gun.

Tactile Telekinesis is, of course, not a traditional Kryptonian power. The only character who’s shown it before is Kon-El, Superboy. And he only had it because he was an imperfect clone of Clark (infact, his DNA was a splice of Clark’s and Lex Luthor’s, however his Kryptonian DNA seemed to be becoming more dominant, with him displaying more and more of Clark’s powers, especially during the Teen Titans run).

Is this signalling that Kon-El has somehow returned from the dead, after being killed by Superboy Prime during Infinite Crisis? I for one would be very happy if he is back, but his death seemed pretty final. However, if its not him, then I imagine a lot of Superboy fans are going to be very unhappy about this tease.

Can’t wait to see what happens next.

Smallville’s one of those series I’ve got a love/hate relationship with.   Sometimes its really brilliant, usually when dealing with elements of the Superman mythos, and other times its a real chore to sit through (most of the Clark/Lana stuff).

Catching the teaser for next week’s episode on Youtube though, its hard not to be excited about this:

I really hope this doesn’t turn out to be another Zod, because that looks spot on for Doomsday.

Lots of comics worth talking about this week.

Following Brainiac’s defeat in the latest issue of Action Comics, and Superman rescuing the not-so bottle city of Kandor, this special kicks off a major arc linking all three Superman family titles (Action Comics, Superman, Supergirl) together.

Very much dealing with the fallout from the Brainiac arc, we see Clark struggling to come to terms with his father’s death, before realising he has a job to do. In that, the bottle city of Kandor has been restored to full size in the arctic, and its up to Superman to try and ensure the 100,000 Kryptonians there can manage their powers and help them to integrate with humanity.

Its a great issue. The scenes with Clark at Jonathan’s funeral and its aftermatch are powerful, and played to show just how hard this is hitting him. We see him fantasising about killing Brainiac, and there’s an emotional page showing Ma Kent sitting alone down to dinner. Things then switch track to the arctic, where Superman speeds over before the Kryptonians absorb enough yellow sunlight and their powers kick in. We know from previous arcs that Kryptonians have had a decidedly dubious history with their powers, previously using them to become an all-powerful empire, before they realised the errors of their ways and went into a self-imposed exile on Krypton, away from the temptation of yellow suns.

There are some ominous hints right away. The Kryptonians are already refering to Earth as New Krypton, and you don’t really get the impression they’re listening when Clark tries to tell them that the planet is called Earth. One Kryptonian accidentally kills an endangered blue whale as he is unused to his powers. Clark’s experience on Earth means he knows this is going to be a big problem, but its obvious that he’s a lone voice in the crowd, and the reader can see that this is all going to go bady wrong.

We’ve also got Supergirl reuniting with her parents in a nice scene. Supergirl’s been a problem character since she was brought back, with a muddled history a 20 year old character would be proud of. This is a good creative team, so there’s real hope that they can finally give this character some direction.

With some of Zod’s troops also present in the city, you know things are going to get a lot worse before they get better. And we’ve also got the thought-dead Sam Lane recruiting Luthor to prepare for the inevitable problems with the Kryptonians. This is going to get nasty.

A powerful and ominous start to this arc. I may not be a regular buyer of the Super-titles, but I’m really looking forward to see how this plays out over the coming months. The bottle city of Kandor is a staple of the Superman mythos, so it’ll be interesting to see if the city ends up shrunken again by the end of this arc, and if so, what the circumstances will be.

Ok, I’ll get the negative stuff out of the way first.

For me, there’s a lot about this title I don’t like. I’m not a big fan of the Legion. I’ve seen them in various guest appearances, but they’ve never done anything for me. So why, I hear you ask, did you buy it?

Well, its got Superboy Prime in it for one. For another its hotly rumoured that Bart Allen will be getting resurrected in this story (at least, the lightning rod is due to be dealt with). As I like both of those characters, that’s two big draws.

Lastly, loath as I am to admit it, it does say “Final Crisis” on the front, and for my sins, I do find a tie-in hard to pass by.

So, I figured I’d check out the first issue at least.

However it does in many ways push a lot of the buttons for things I hate about tie-ins. For a start (and its a biggy), it doesn’t actually seem to tie in with Final Crisis at all.  From this first issue, I do have to think marketting it as a tie-in is a bit cheeky.  Giving DC the benefit of the doubt though, lets assume there is some kind of tie in in the upcoming issues (although I doubt it – seems to me that there’s enough story here without chucking the New Gods in as well).

Secondly if we assume that Bart does indeed get resurrected in this mini, then why?  Well, it gets Flash fans like myself to buy a Legion book, who might’ve otherwise avoided it.   But with Wally coming back in JLA, Barry in Final Crisis, and Bart coming back in Legion, you do have to kind of wander if anything big ever happens in The Flash book itself (at least Bart had the decency to die in it).

So, a tie-in that doesn’t tie-in, and using unrelated characters to pull in readers.  Not off to a great start.

(ok, I know Bart’s from the 31st century, and XS will be in this.   I’m also aware that I didn’t complain about Superman characters turning up as main villains in the Sinestro Corps War.  Its a fanboy rant, it doesn’t need to make sense )

But none-the-less, I enjoyed this book.  Its written by Geoff Johns, with art by George Perez, so you know you’re buying a quality book, and it does a good job of bringing everyone up-to-date with the Legion’s background.

For me, there was more than enough Superboy Prime action to keep me happy.  He’s been accused of being a two-dimensional character, but for my money, he’s at least entertaining to read here.  The stuff in the Superman museum worked well, and there’s a nice twist with Superboy-Prime being not quite the footnote he thought in history.

There’s also an interesting bit where Superman declares they must redeem Superboy Prime.  This raises a whole load of questions (chief among them, did Superman not read Countdown? ), but I’m choosing to take it as Superman seeing this as their only choice.   He knows Superboy Prime is nigh-on unbeatable.   He’s been captured and escaped before, and killing is obviously not an option.   So instead he’s choosing to reach out to that part of Prime that’s Kal-El, who’s the same as he is.   Its an interesting idea, that the only way to beat Prime is to make him realise what he’s become.  Although I don’t see how the character could ever be truely redeemed.   He’s just done too much to be forgiven for it.

So, despite the negatives, this book rises above them by being a good read.  I’m still onboard for the next issue, but for me, there’s still the thing of my not being a Legion fan.  In many ways I suspect this book would be an ideal trade-wait for me.  That way I could save money, and still read the Superboy Prime and Bart stuff (if Bart does come back – it could still be a twist).   However, there’s that part of me that wants to be there when Bart comes back.  And to see what happens to Superboy Prime.

Its already been touched upon in the comments section, but having read the full article on Newsarama here I’m really excited about this story.

So after the current Brainiac arc (which has been excellent.  Another good sign for this upcoming story), Superman will rescue the city of Kandor from Brainiac, and its population moves to Earth.   You just know that’s not going to end well.

The teaser image introduces things in a really dramatic way.  Suddenly Earth is going to find itself with 100,000 new inhabitants, all with the powers of Superman.   However, the real kicker is that some of those inhabitants are members of Zod’s army, who were in Kandor when it was taken.  You can bet they’re not going to be well pleased when they find out what happened to the General.

There’s also the relationship between Superman and Supergirl.  She’s going to be pretty happy to be around her own people once again, and you get bet Superman’s going to feel more isolated than he ever has, as his human upbringing will invariably bring him into conflict with the other Kryptonians.

There’s plenty to be excited about in the preview image alone with new Kryptonian versions of Nightwing, Flamebird and Superwoman.

Granted, this means that the Superman titles are going to become one long crossover again (such as during the 90s) but I like Geoff Johns response that they’re going to make people want to buy all the issues, rather than forcing them.  Certainly this story looks like it could do the job.