I must admit, I really loved the way Johns dealt with the cliffhanger here. I’ve gone on about Johns writing of the Flash a lot here, and this is no exception with the neat little timejump trick in order to sever the rings connections.

The rest of the issue rattles along quite quickly.  Atom and Mera escape via Wonder Women’s ring (with the hint that her ring is glitching in some way), and then the Corps reform their plan, realising that one member from each Corps is not enough to truely recreate the white light, and they need everyone to head to Earth.  In the meantime others can be temporarily deputised, which leads to the fan-service everyone’s been waiting for, and various DCU characters being inducted into the various Corps.  Some work well and are logical (Barry as Hope I can see, Scarecrow as a Sinestro Corps member is a no-brainer and Lex Luthor being an Orange Lantern is a great moment).  Some however I felt were a little forced, specifically Mera and Wonder Woman.  Mera’s rage hadn’t really been teased much throughout the series until this issue (although Lord knows she got a lot to be angry about), and Wonder Woman I just thought would be a better fit for compassion than love.  The rest of the recruitments were well done I thought, but these two just seemed a little forced to me.

In fairness however, I’m not picking up the Blackest Night: Wonder Woman series and I know it expands on their conflict quite a bit, and I believe Aphrodite is involved with Wonder Woman’s recruitment.  Of course, at the time of recruitment, Diana is still a Black Lantern, so the Sapphire ring overcomes the Black Ring.  I thought this played well off of what happened with Kyle over in Green Lantern Corps, where again, we saw the Star Sapphire power being used to overcome death.  Given the tight links between the series, I can only assume this was a bit of deliberate foreshadowing to introduce that aspect of the violet light.

Largely this issue is a setup issue in terms of the new Corps members, so I thought it came across feeling a little light compared to some of the other issues in this series, but it now puts the Blackest Night event in an interesting place.  With January being a skip month, making way for all the one-shot resurrected books, we’re going to see Indigo Lantern Atom turning up in the Atom/Hawkman book for example.  I imagine the BN: Wonder Woman and Flash series’ third issues will also address their temporary status quo and show them dealing with their new powers.  In Barry’s case this should be interesting indeed, given we’ve seen the level of Hope required to properly wield the ring before, and Barry doesn’t strike me as quite the same type as Saint Walker.  I wonder if it’ll be shown as significant how the Blue Lanterns have tended to recruit manually rather than rely on the automated system.

And now I think about it, we know the violet rings come with a corrupting influence that up until now Carol’s been the only one resistant to.  I wonder if they’ll address this point with Wonder Woman as well.

Another good issue in the series, and I’m very intrigued to see what happens with the promise of all the Corps descending on Earth.  That promises to make for a very dramatic finale.  I also have to wonder if needing all the Corps also points to the rumoured “White Lantern” solution not being involved afterall.

For those that don’t know, its markedly different to their previously weeklies, which took the form of normal comics.  This time, they’ve launched something in broadsheet form, printed on newspaper (and nicely folded up to regular comic size for the benefit of the shelves).

Its a bold experiment.  We get stories from some of DC’s best creators using a wide range of characters, from the obvious Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman, Flash and Green Lantern, to Adam Strange, Catwoman and Kamandi.  However each week, we only get a single page of the story in each case.  It sounds really odd, but it actually worked very well, barring possibly the Wonder Woman story which tried to be too dense I think.

But for me, what really made this work was the style of story.  There was a very retro feel to the whole thing, in both the stories and the art style.  Completely moving away from the mainline DC comics, these are standalone stories, taking the iconic characters unencumbered by multiverses and the like.   There’s a distinct silver age, or newspaper strip feel to the whole project, and I loved it.

After Countdown, DC really needed to rethink what people would look for in a weekly comic, and I think they may have nailed it.  It’ll be interesting to see how the format holds up over the next 12 week.s

The biggest issue this week for me was probably Ms Marvel #37. It represents a huge gamble by Marvel, and I must admit, I’m quite surprised and unsure of this direction. The final issue of the End of Ms Marvel arc sees Carol, who’s powers have been increasingly unreliable, forced to push herself to her limit against her opponent. Doing so however pushes her powers over the edge, and unable to control the energy, she explodes and dies.

While I’m not a regular reader of the Ms Marvel title (just picking up the odd issues that look interesting), I’m finding this move a big gamble by Marvel. With Carol dead, Moonstone will become the title character of this book. Carol had only really recently been brought back to the fore-front of the Marvel Universe as Ms Marvel, so to replace her at a point where she’s just regained popularity seems a strange move. Granted we don’t know quite where they’re going with this plot (other than Moonstone taking over the book), but I can’t help but think this has the potential to backfire badly. The next issue stands to lose the Carol fans unless there’s a big twist ahead (while Carol exploded, we’ve seen energy-based heroes come back after dissipating before).

Of course, its also likely that that this is exactly the kind of thing they’re planning, and by using Moonstone and Dark Reign as a focus point in this way, they’ll attract a lot of attention to the title before Carol comes back.   Heck, I’m blogging about it, and I won’t be the only one

On the DC side of things, I picked up Oracle: The Cure #1, and Wonder Woman #30. Again, I’m unsure where DC are going with Barbara Gordon and Oracle at the moment, so that means I’m approaching this series with a degree of trepidation, however its a solid first issue. With only three issues in this mini, I would have perhaps expected a faster pace in the first issue and a bit more happening, but nonetheless its always fun to see the Oracle/Calculator rivalry. I’ve mentioned before how much I love just the concept of Oracle, and so the Calculator as the villain’s equivalent has always been something I’ve really enjoyed. Here we see them both attempting to track down the remains of the Anti-Life Equation from the internet. While Barbara’s motives aren’t clear (possibly she’s after it to make sure no one else gets it), the Calculator’s seem to be tied in with his daughter being in hospital. I’ll definitely be picking up the remaining two issues of this series to see where it goes (indeed, this is probably the only Battle for the Cowl tie-in I’m picking up).

Wonder Woman #30 continues the Rise of the Olympian storyline. While I freely admit I’ve just been buying Wonder Woman for this story, which sounded interesting, I’m very much enjoying it. Unsurprisingly Gail Simone brings her usual excellent grasp of the characters as she turns Wonder Woman’s world upside down. In this issue, the focus is very much on Wonder Woman’s rage at what the society have done by unleashing Genocide, and her fury is brilliantly captured as she tears through the Society’s headquarters (the highlight of the issue for me was probably the image of Faust putting on his coat the minute he saw Diana approaching on the security cameras ). While not appearing in this issue, I’ve been enjoying Gail’s handling of Diana, Donna and Cassie in this story. Its nice to see the three of them together.

My Marvel purchases are rounded off with War Machine #4 and Captain America #48. War Machine’s a series I’ve been enjoying a lot, although it has to be said, some of its been a bit daft so far, with Jim’s new ability to rebuild himself from nearby machinary (the half-tank War Machine was so over-the-top it worked, but I think I’d like to see this ability used in moderation throughout the run).  There’s heavy Dark Reign influence here as well, with Ares forcing Jim to examine his motivations for his recent actions in probably the most effective scenes of this series so far.  While it would’ve been easy to just through in Ares as an obligatory Dark Reign tie-in, Greg Pak really makes great use of him, as we see him break through to Jim in a way none of his friends have been able to since Jim became a cyborg.  Jim’s conversation with Bethany where he says he’s ready to become human again works well, as it contrasts nicely with his denial of his humanity throughout the opening issues.

Captain America continues to be one of the best comics on the market.  The finale of the recent storyline sees Bucky, Black Widow and Namor teaming up to rescue the body of the original Human Torch, who’s been turned into a bioweapon by an insane scientist, determined to reduce Earth’s population.  Again, like War Machine, its the character moments that probably best define this issue, with Bucky determined to try and face some of the actions he committed while the Winter Soldier.   Saying that, I’ll be glad to see him back and continuing to establish himself as Cap in future issues.  I’m really loving the pairing of Bucky and Black Widow in this title as well.  These two characters work well together, and I similarly love the way Ed Brubaker has weaved in events from World War II throughout his run.  Its really given the title a sense of its history and helped give it a unique voice.

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.

I’m quite surprised they’ve let us see that much of the issue, but I’m pretty happy with it. I was worried that events on Oa were going to be just a throwaway mention, so its nice to see them get so much focus. I’m assuming there’s a few more pages or panels to it than in this preview, as Kraken’s reveal seems a bit sudden here. Nice to see Guy and Kyle turn up in Hal’s defense.

I’m looking forward to seeing the pages in hand on Thursday, as the art looks very nice, although obviously a bit grainy due to just being a preview, so its hard to completely appreciate.   Can’t say I’m a big fan of that Wonder Woman cover though.  The likeness just doesn’t work for me.