Pandemic Comics #3 “Worlds Collide”

As stated previously, I bought two mystery boxes from the pandemic miracle that is Mile High Comics. Here’s the first reading results:

52 #32
Ralph Dibney reaches China! Significant for two things: Nanda Parbat, which will have greater significance for the Montoya/Question arc, and the Great Ten, a Chinese team of “super functionaries” that would later star in a...nine issue series I still think is criminally underrated.

52 #42
Ralph Dibney finally confronts Felix Faust! I like how getting two issues of this series (still my favorite comic of all-time, finally supplanting “The Return of Barry Allen”) ended up featuring Ralph’s arc in both, the way it ends (better) than how it began (still my least favorite part of the series).

World War III #4
I spent too much time undervaluing this 52 spinoff, but a reread in collection form finally began to turn that around. Martian Manhunter is firmly in the spotlight this issue, and it doesn’t hurt, him being one of my favorite undervalued characters in comics.

Adventure Comics #4/507
Superboy-Prime! The infamous indestructible lead antagonist of Infinite Crisis in his own Blackest Night tie-in!

DC/Marvel: All Access #3
Robin & Jubilee are star-crossed lovers! Still arguably the most amusing thing to come out of the three DC/Marvel crossover comics from the ‘90s (the third was Unlimited Access, though I guess it turned out to be otherwise, but lots of observers are arguing for another round to rally comics post-pandemic).

Amethyst: Princess of Gemworld #1
The character had a false-start revival during the New 52, but is staging another comeback as part of Wonder Comics. This was the ongoing series follow-up to her original mini-series, and annual. Honestly, I think if they named it anything but “Gemworld” the whole thing would work so much better. Maybe just give it an additional name?

Anima #0
At a previous point revisiting this series, I thought it was a lost gem (heh), and even tracked down a novel by one of the co-writers, but I found the results unreadable. Call it confirmation bias now, but I couldn’t get into this issue at all, this time.

Animal Man #42
Still weird to think it took so long to formally launch the Vertigo imprint, even though its formative titles were running for years already, including this one, famously begun by Grant Morrison. This issue: still branded “DC.” Also: follows the somewhat inexplicable trend, in my admitted small sampling, of not...really featuring...Animal Man? in his own series...

Aquaman: Sword of Atlantis #49
The last issue before the Tad Williams run I read at the time. People seem to forget what a mess DC had made of Aquaman (not in terms of quality but...just letting the dude exist) before Flashpoint. When he was formally revived during Brightest Day, it was probably one of the signal internal events that suggested, at least for DC itself, the need for the New 52 reboot. As far as Aquaman is concerned, the New 52 was indeed a smashing success. A decade after several rounds of agonized storytelling to untangle the lines, as it were, he’s standing as strong in comics, and movie! lore as he ever has.

Assassins #1
From the original Amalgam releases, combining Daredevil with Deathstroke (as Dare) and Catwoman with Elektra (as Catsai), pitting them against the Big Question (please tell me you can extrapolate that one), with glorious art from Scott McDaniel. By the way, Dare & Catsai are both women, and this was technically Amalgam’s response to the ‘90s “bad girls” craze (which would be completely inexplicable to modern observers) (even though it continues to this day, on a far smaller scale).

Astro City: Local Heroes #2
Being the most famous superhero, Superman has been copied a lot. Within Astro City lore alone, Kurt Busiek apparently couldn’t get enough with Samaritan alone. This issue features Atomicus, a blatant pastiche of the Silver Age Superman (ah, much like Alan Moore’s version of Supreme), which riffs on Lois Lane’s obsessive quest to prove Clark Kent is Superman’s secret identity, but with a more tragic ending. Aside from the fact that “Atomicus” is a terrible name, and his origin mirrors Captain Atom/Doctor Manhattan (which raises the question if Busiek thought Moore was riffing on Superman, too, or merely made the connection himself, as does the later Doomsday Clock), a good lost gem in Astro City lore.

The All New Atom #9 
Featuring Ryan Choi and writing by Gail Simone, which is more tolerable, for me, than average.

The Atom Special #1
Featuring Ray Palmer, and writing by Jeff Lemire, which is, for me, typically excellent.

The Authority #10
The team has literally taken over the US. And not being seen immediately as an evil coup d’etat. Yeah, not gonna buy that.