Reading Comics #134 "Bull Moose Bargains II"

The second (possibly of two) batch of comics I got for fifty cents each at my friendly neighborhood Bull Moose:

Justice League #26 (DC)
I used to have an excellent track record with this series.  I'd like to think I used to be one of its biggest fans (a statement not to be misunderstood as meaning I decided at some point I don't love it anymore).  But I lost track last year and have had a hard time getting back into it.  The whole Forever Evil event was something I failed to follow monthly, and so I skipped the majority of it.  Unfortunately that meant skipping out on a lot of Justice League, too, because throughout the event this series was directly tied into it.  So I've slowly started making my way back in.  This issue features an origin story for Power Ring, which allowed Geoff Johns to write an alternate version of the classic Green Lantern origin.  Obviously he had great fun with it.  Obviously it made me wish all over again that he was still writing Green Lantern.  The other most interesting element of the issue, for me, was the page dedicated to Deathstorm, who of course is the evil version of Firestorm.  This made me nostalgic for the great Stuart Moore Firestorm comics.  Anyway, a lot of fans had a hard time with Forever Evil.  I still don't get that.

The Mysterious Strangers #4 (Oni)
A while back I wondered whatever would become of Chris Roberson, who was part of a flood of writers who fled DC over creative rights issues.  Well, here he is again.  I have to admit, he impressed me here, turned the Beatles into accidental harbingers of a near-apocalypse, based on their Maharishi period (John Lennon receives the brunt of the blame).  The Strangers who help prevent it are a little less distinctive than that, but it was certainly interesting to read another comic based on classic 60s rock (after the Hawkeye issue that spun off from the Smile! project that was such an issue between Brian Wilson and the rest of the Beach Boys).

Nova #5 (Marvel)
You may recall how much I loved the first issue of this series, and how disappointed I was that subsequent issues didn't seem to catch the same vibe (and how I love Starlight so much in part because it does).  The cover to this issue

via IGN

strongly suggests that Jeph Loeb, before he abruptly left the series, actually did what I'd hope he would, and return to the emotional crux of Sam Alexander's quest to reconnect with his father.  But it's basically a case of bait-and-switch, alas.  There's a stronger link to Nova's appearance in the Original Sin prelude.  I suppose there's nothing wrong with the series if it doesn't have what I want to see from it.  You can enjoy it for other reasons.  But for me, if it doesn't feature what for me is clearly it best material, then I personally have no reason to read it.  And besides, Loeb left.  I don't see a point in sampling it again.  Feel free to give me a heads-up if any of that changes in the future, if you haven't given up on it like I have.

Steam Wars #2 (Antarctic)

I caught the first issue back on Free Comic Book Day and was surprised to find that I loved it a great deal.  So when the opportunity came around to read another one, I figured I might as well, right?  As the title may or may not imply to you, Steam Wars is Star Wars as steampunk.  It's from Fred Perry, who otherwise is better known for his long-running Gold Digger.  Alas, once again I am quasi-disappointed.  It's not particularly that the second issue is worse than the first, but I guess, for me, much more so than with Nova, the magic simply wore off.  But we'll always have FCBD!

The Unwritten #51 (Vertigo)

This was a series that perhaps was impossibly high-concept when it debuted.  Mike Carey envisioned Harry Potter as if Harry Potter himself were a real boy whose life inspired his author to create a fictional version of him.  The author disappears and Tom Taylor (our Harry; it strikes me as funny that DC later acquired the services of a writer named Tom Taylor, current writer of Earth 2) has to put up both with his celebrity status and the apparently very real magical life his father left behind.  As I said, almost impossibly high-concept.  When it launched I was hugely intrigued, but I wasn't sure Carey pulled it off, or I simply didn't stick around near long enough to find out if he had.  It's a series I definitely want to revisit in the trades at some point.  And it's also a series that came to an end last year without my realizing it, right around the time of a tie-in arc with the more popular Fables.  Kind of an inglorious end, being told in no uncertain terms you're not as success as that, so we'll bring that in to make the point clear, and then we'll cancel you.  It does seem as if Tom became Harry pretty literally by the end.  I guess I want to see how that happened.  As convoluted as my relationship with Unwritten was, I'm sad to have seen it go so relatively early.  Vertigo already had a Harry Potter kind of comic years ago, before Harry even existed, in Neil Gaiman and subsequent writers' Books of Magic.  Because I'm obliged to reference either Geoff Johns or Grant Morrison as often as possible, I'd love to see Morrison do an out-and-out magic series.  The dude did make himself known as a practitioner of chaos magic at one point...

Wonder Woman #22 (DC)

Clearly these bargain comics were/have been a great way for me to catch up with some series and/or creators I've been meaning to revisit.  Some of them have been ones that in other circumstances I would probably have been reading religiously.  This is one of those series.  I've been impressed with the level of quality Brian Azzarello and Cliff Chiang have brought to Wonder Woman, not the least for the apparent fact that this is much harder than it seems.  When Orion and/or the rest of the New Gods was brought into the mix, I was beyond intrigued, so it's nice to finally read some of that material.  This is one of those developments that seems like it should have happened a long time ago.  Maybe it's because Jack Kirby created his Fourth World with Superman in mind that someone didn't think of it sooner (although for some reason Darkseid long ago made the jump to Legion of Super-Heroes lore with the "Great Darkness Saga," while this much more logical conclusion remained ignored).  Anyway, half the reason Orion joined the narrative was as a way to link the series with the rest of DC proper, which was always the one stumbling block.  As great as Azzarello's run has been, it's also been isolated.  Orion serves as a romantic possibility, and therefore default rival for Superman, which became a thing last year and then became a whole series (Orion/Big Barda Superman/Wonder Woman).  Wonder Woman as a result also boasted the distinction of getting a jump on the New 52 version of the New Gods, which is fast expanding this year (Batman and Robin, Green Lantern, Infinity Man and the Forever People).  I skipped out initially because I didn't particularly want to see just Orion hanging around.  I wanted to see the whole line-up.  Rest assured, they're here this issue.  

X-O Manowar #13 (Valiant)

This is the series that won Robert Venditti the right to write Green Lantern.  I've meant to sample it ever since I learned he'd be succeeding Geoff Johns (a very tall order, one he's sometimes seemed up to) in that regard.  X-O is one of those heroes who keeps getting revived in the hopes he'll be a legitimate alternative to the DC/Marvel big leagues.  This does not appear to have been the best issue to sample.