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.

Reading Comics 237 "My third Forbidden Geek mystery box"

My third shipment from Forbidden Geek included a Lobo statue, Snyder & Capullo’s Batman Vol. 1 The Court of Owls, and the following comics:

Astro City #25 (Vertigo)

Kurt Busiek’s familiar act continues for another issue.  It’s the kind of storytelling that perhaps feels more impressive if you catch it when you’re younger, but begins to seem regressive the more experience you have.  Interestingly, the only time readers have really revolted was when Busiek was telling an extended Dark Age tale that was the only time he was building on the Marvels method that inspired the whole thing, the sequel he never got to write, which to my mind was perhaps the best Astro City ever got.  Perhaps most recommended to unsophisticated budding comic book writers who have no idea how character storytelling works.

Detective Comics #14 (DC)

The John Layman (Chew) era, little celebrated at the time but an excellent Batman experience all the same (I get that Snyder’s was sensational, but it wasn’t the only or even best example of the New 52), with Poison Ivy in the spotlight.  Layman’s Batman is the analytical mind you’d expect in a title called Detective Comics, and he’s constantly challenged by familiar foes in interesting ways.  Perhaps best represented by the “Gothtopia” arc that went unobserved as a crossover.  Also features early but typically sensational Jason Fabok art, before he got the plush Justice League assignment.

Blue Beetle #1 (DC)

From the Rebirth era, which until now I’d never read.  In fact I skipped the New 52 series, too, and in both cases it’s entirely down to simply not having the funds.  When the New 52 launched I’d just lost my job of five years and went unemployed the rest of that year (then got a terrible job and then got a slightly less terrible job that compensated for that slight increase by paying far less and giving me far fewer hours…).  Anyway, both series were based on an excellent pre-Flashpoint series I did read enthusiastically, spinning out of Infinite Crisis, in which the legacy is passed on to Jaime Reyes in the form of a magical alien scarab with a fairly unexplored link to the Green Lantern Corps.  In this Rebirth relaunch Jaime’s friends from the first series are still present with the same witty banter, but Ted Kord gets to be part of the narrative this time (remember: Ted famously was murdered by Max Lord just prior to Infinite Crisis; the best thing about the current Snyder act is the recent Dark Multiverse one-shot that posits a scenario where Ted shot Max instead).  At some point I’ll really have to catch up with all this Blue Beetle material.

Firestorm: The Nuclear Men #6 (DC)

Another series I was sorry to have to skip in the early New 52 was this one, as it, too, was a follow-up to an excellent pre-Flashpoint series I enjoyed immensely.  So of course I enjoyed this issue.  Ronnie Raymond and Jason Rusch apparently each have their own Firestorm bodies (one of the familiar gimmicks of the concept is that Firestorm combines two people, with one providing the body and the other becoming a mental sidekick).  In this tale they’re confronted by the Russian Firestorm, Pozhar.  I’m still pretty convinced that if handled correctly, Firestorm could handle a Geoff Johns level renaissance.

The Flash #19 (DC)

Featuring the tease for the debut of the New 52 Reverse-Flash.  The issue features pretty much the bare minimum input from Francis Manapul, who was responsible (with Brian Buccellato) for the best Flash New 52 material, which itself also influenced much of the current TV series.

Green Arrow #31 (DC)

From the Rebirth era, in which DC finally figured out that Ollie ought to be allowed to be awesome again, aligning more with what he was best known for, including associations with Black Canary, Hal Jordan, and the Justice League, all of whom prominently appear in the issue.  I just don’t get how the much-influential TV series never seemed to convince the company, previously, that they should pay a little attention to the comic, help it shine when not written by Jeff Lemire, misguidedly believing instead that Green Arrow should be a younger punk.  This is a character defined by being world weary!  One of the main beneficiaries of Rebirth.

Hal Jordan and the Green Lantern Corps #35 (DC)

The Robert Venditti era continued in Rebirth with this series, which because I became disinterested in his New 52 comics I never really made an attempt to get into.  This issue is mainly Venditti deciding that Hal, John, Kyle & Guy are the Green Lantern equivalent of wrestling’s Four Horsemen.  For…reasons.  Although it ends on a pretty amusing note, as Ganthet taunts the Controllers, by pointing out they want to, well, control these Lanterns, which, certainly with Hal, has famously been pretty impossible.  The main difference between Venditti and Geoff Johns, whom he succeeded, is that while Johns tossed in a lot of bold new concepts, he did so in a manner that built on existing ones.  He seemed like a fan.  Venditti never really seemed to understand any of it.  He tossed in a lot of bold new concepts, too, but without ever really seeming to understand that there were existing ones.  He never felt like he connected with the material.  It’s just incredibly bizarre.  Now you’ve got Grant Morrison writing Green Lantern, and he admitted he was reluctant to do so because he never understood the concept, and yet to read the results is to see that he got past that.  A lot of readers are confused, they see nothing but 2001 AD, but I see storytelling that comes alive with possibility, grounded in tradition.  Charles Soule, when he was writing Guy in Red Lanterns, was much the same, and so too Ron Marz in the uncomfortable position of writing Kyle ostensibly when the tradition had been exploded.  Maybe not everyone will see it, but when you do see it, it’s hard to look past.  That’s me and Venditti’s Green Lantern in a nutshell.  Ironically readers rejected the New 52 era because that’s what they thought they saw everywhere.  As far as I’m concerned, Venditti was ground zero, if nothing else, of the perceived phenomenon.

Infinite Inc. #27 (DC)

Ah!  Irony!  This is a whole issue dedicated to the Crisis on Infinite Earths effect, helpfully further spelled out in the letters column, in which a reader bemoans the cruel dismantling of continuity in the form of Huntress being “murdered” because she couldn’t exist outside of her context (Batman and Catwoman being her parents ‘n’ all, on Earth 2).  And this was a whole series about the offspring of the Justice Society.  So eventually, Brainwave Jr. removes Fury’s memories of her parents (y’know, Wonder Woman and Steve Trevor).  Ironically, the reconciliation of canon effectively obliterated the Infinity Inc. concept, and Fury ended up a curious footnote, never to be revisited (at least as of now!), a curious appearance or two in the pages of Neil Gaiman’s Sandman that feel the more elegiac the more you’re aware of her publishing history.  A version of Huntress did return, eventually, an independent one with no background ties to Batman or Catwoman, although in the short-lived Birds of Prey TV series, she did.  Even better, this issue features a pre-Spider-Man, pre-Spawn Todd McFarlane, whose work is totally unrecognizable, if anything familiar to the Sandman style (just imagine!) with a few panels emphasizing shadow on facial features but otherwise looking fairly generic…

Red Hood and the Outlaws #11 (DC)

The Rebirth era, featuring Artemis & Bizarro, with the spotlight on Artemis (the Azrael of Wonder Woman lore) as she squares off with an Amazon of a spin-off tribe.  Lobdell’s Red Hood comics are another I want to catch up on at some point.

Suicide Squad #45 (DC)

From Rebirth, this issue features an apparent attempt to revisit the exact concept behind the team, as famously featured in the apparent infamous movie, villains being recruited by Amanda Waller for missions where their lawful participation will be disavowed, and if they go rogue the bomb in their heads goes boom.  So I guess if you need a random issue to remind you of all that, this one’s a good one to catch.

Superman/Doomsday: Hunter/Prey #2 (DC)

The second of three issues, the prestige format follow-up to the more famous death-and-return saga, Dan Jurgens goes bold, explaining Doomsday’s origin!  I’m glad this was the random issue I got, because I’d never officially read any of it, but had heard of the origin concept.  In hindsight it’s somewhat convoluted.  A better version would be something like Wolverine, a monster with a healing factor who constantly evolves from the horrible deaths it endures, reviving on its own rather than being constantly cloned.  I mean, how would a clone adapt to whatever happened to the previous body?  It’s new material.  Bad science, Dan.  But typical Dan Jurgens art, which sadly lost pretty much all of its impact and appeal after the sensational work of Superman #75, famously depicted entirely in splash pages.  No comic could ever justify that format again, and Jurgens himself really had nowhere to go but down.  This issue also saddles us with Cyborg Superman, who didn’t die in Superman #82, and so he just keeps coming back.  Geoff Johns later used him, too, but I’ve never been convinced that it’s a concept worth revisiting.  If he’s no longer pretending to be Superman, what’s the point? 

Reading Comics 192 "DC Rebirth Week Five, Astro City"

Covered this edition: Astro City #35, Batman #2, Green Lanterns #2, Justice League: Rebirth #1, and Superman #2.

Astro City #35 (Vertigo)
Kurt Busiek's pocket superhero universe, which literally resides entirely within the boundaries of Astro City, has long been fascinating.  It's one of those self-contained concepts that could easily satiate a given reader's interest in superhero comics, whether they're jaded older readers, or younger ones who aren't particularly interested in tracking down multiple titles to try and catch up with something they've just discovered.  The series has been around, in one incarnation or another, for twenty years, and was clearly inspired by Busiek's interest in following up on his Marvels success, where he was able to look at the full portrait of a given superhero landscape and provide nuanced insight into it.  His Astro City work rotates from character to character.  This particular issues features Jack-in-the-Box, a costumed vigilante with an outlandish gimmick but who Busiek otherwise presents pretty straightforwardly, getting at the heart of the character's human struggles, which in this case mean the legacy the grandson of the original Jack feels increasingly as a burden he can never live up to, with his father and uncle having carried it on but a reckless decision in his youth cost him his chance to do the same.  Jack-in-the-Box joins the league of black superheroes who sport all-covering masks, so that you wouldn't know his race otherwise, but the comic spends probably more time with the mask off of any given Jack than necessarily caring about his costumed exploits, treating that as more a McGuffin than anything.  There's a letters column page featuring the letter of the month (a rarity in a DC title of any extraction these days), and also a preview of Paul Dini's Dark Night: A True Batman Story, which details his experiences recovering from a mugging, and that's part of the reason I bought this comic, because I've seen plenty of hype for the graphic novel, but none of the interior.  But it's always worth checking in with Astro City.

Batman #2 (DC)
Tom King's era continues as Batman introduces Jim Gordon to Gotham and Gotham Girl, the superpowered new heroes who are eager to lend a hand in the ongoing war on crime.  It's Batman's sense of mortality that permeates the issue, however, the lingering aftereffects of his near-sacrifice in trying to prevent a fatal plane crash last issue.  It's King's grasp of character that strikes this material as fresh.  At one point Alfred explains to Duke Thomas how a young Bruce Wayne became disenchanted when Alfred made a prudent judgment call.  For someone like Bruce, there's no such thing as prudence.  He doesn't have the patience for something like that.  The current Bruce abandons a lady mid-dance when he spots the Bat-signal in the sky, and the woman is positively baffled.  You can imagine how it plays out just by the way it's depicted: Bruce doesn't want to attend function; he reluctantly agrees, puts on his best game face; is positively overjoyed when he gets to go back to work.  For him, it doesn't even matter what other people are expecting.  That's Batman in a nutshell.  He lives by his own rules.  It's great when a writer like King comes along and knows the psychology that well.  For those looking for something a little easier to digest, there's the young hero Gotham discovering for himself Batman's classic disappearing act, or Gordon wondering how on earth a mask doesn't become uncomfortable in this line of work (casually sidestepping Scott Snyder's depiction of Commissioner Batman)...

Green Lanterns #2 (DC)
Sam Humphries keeps hitting all the right notes.  His depictions of Simon Baz and especially Jessica Cruz as novice Lanterns is the perfect way to explain all over again what the Green Lantern concept is all about, and how it can be a little hard to comprehend.  Jessica is so neurotic that Simon's confidence makes him seem like a veteran, even though it's just his different personality that's creating the effect, because he's just as lost as she is.  Returning the Red Lanterns to the role of the villain is also a good move.  Readers don't particularly need to know that in their late ongoing series, they became sympathetic heroes.  The idea of them existing to help people cope with powerlessness further underscores Jessica's feelings of inadequacy.  Just good stuff, and very, very good to see for a reader who hasn't had a lot of Green Lantern he found worth reading lately.

Justice League: Rebirth #1 (DC)
The Bryan Hitch era, as the headlining act of the franchise, begins as he brings the "new" Superman back into the fold, showcasing what a significant difference Superman makes both by his absence and presence.  That's something few writers have done, for whatever reason, but Hitch dives right at it, not so much at the cost of every other member, all DC icons in their own right, but in the role of leadership, which Superman embodies not so much because he takes charge but because he's capable of identifying what needs to be done, by example.  The whole issue makes the case for the team in general, as necessary guardians in the turbulent reality DC presents.  It does its job.

Superman #2 (DC)
I can't say too often how brilliant I think it was for DC to let Pete Tomasi and Patrick Gleason recontextualize their Batman & Robin work in the Rebirth era.  This was a dynamite team working in the shadow of Scott Snyder's work.  If readers sometimes wondered why Tomasi and Gleason were putting their previous charges into outsize adventures not typically associated with them in the modern era, it's completely justified with their new ones.  The young Jonathan has found an intriguing accomplice in Kathy, the figurative girl next door (insofar as adjacent farms can call have such things).  She's like his Lana Lang, knowing his secret and not being interested in anything else but the boy he otherwise is.  She and her grandfather lug Jon back home after he falls from a tree, which gives him a concussion.  His parents are necessarily alarmed, especially Clark.  It's a little odd seeing Lois as anything but a reporter (she writes fiction now; I don't know if it was a slip-up, but she gets a piece of mail under her given name, and it's not addressed, even though the family has been living under assumed names since emerging from Convergence into this reality).  Anyway, the big news occurs at the end of the issue, in which the Eradicator makes his New 52/Rebirth debut (coincidentally, I've just finished reading some of his original appearances).  But I love this series so much, already.  Seeing father and son, in the early pages, engaged in a rescue operation, and then disarming a monster, is everything Tomasi and Gleason couldn't do before, and everything I'd hoped they'd do in Superman.  For me, with just work like this, and King's Batman, and Humphries' Green Lanterns, the Rebirth era has already proven its worth, to a remarkable degree.

Reading Comics #133 "Bull Moose Bargains"

As you may recall, I was enjoying bargain grab bags from local entertainment franchise Bull Moose, until I learned they weren't doing them anymore.  But they didn't stop carrying comics outright (but I haven't gotten a chance to check in a few weeks, so I don't know what the prospects look like now).  Instead they started sticking their discounted comics in one of those old-fashioned spinning racks, so I now had the opportunity to select exactly what I wanted (from the available titles, of course).  Some of them were the same 2013 leftovers I'd find in some of the grab bags, and some of them were new releases (did they know???), all of them marked at fifty cents.  For the first of two trips in this new configuration to date, I scooped up nine titles.  And those were:

Astro City #10 (Vertigo)
When this series was relaunched last year, I was part of the I-don't-know-how-large contingent of fans who was happy to see it return.  The last time the title was in print it was the extended Dark Age arc, which apparently bothered long-term readers, but was at least a version of something creator Kurt Busiek had been intending to do ever since Marvels (twenty years ago).  I've never read Marvels, a giant love letter to (as you may have guess) Marvel history which quickly became known as painter Alex Ross's breakout project (some argue best work, but I hold that for Kingdom Come, which is the one he clearly drew on for the later Earth X comics).  Ross has done every Astro City cover since it launched in 1995 (so! Busiek wasted little time!), and Brent Anderson has been the interior artist.  This is a hardcore nostalgia comic in the Alan Moore tradition, with Busiek versions of pretty much every major superhero.  Did it really take this long for him to get around to a Winged Victory spotlight?  Winged Victory, you understand, is his Wonder Woman.  The story takes off of the Infinite Crisis era of controversy surrounding DC's Amazon taking the life of Maxwell Lord.  In fairness to Busiek, he does craft his pastiches into fairly distinctive variations, so that you don't necessarily have to be thinking WonderWomanWonderWomanWonderWoman while reading this issue (if you so choose).  It's a Winged Victory story, even if you know how Busiek reached this point.  All that being said, I cooled on the whole thing pretty quickly.  I keep wanting him to grab the brass ring, go for the gusto, but Busiek is determined to take a relaxed pace.  These are comics for Silver Age fans (early Silver Age, the lens of what would follow refracted through the 1950s).  Originally Astro City was one of the most acclaimed comics around, but even other readers don't seem as excited about it these days.  Good to have it around again, though.

Kick-Ass 3 #8 (Icon)
The big surprise was this conclusion to the Kick-Ass saga, begun in 2008.  I read the early issues, but lost track of it along the way, after it became a movie phenomenon I inexplicably still haven't seen (despite active interests in the careers of both Jim Carrey, featured in the second one, and Chloe Grace Moretz, whose whole career happened thanks to Hit-Girl).  It might have to do with the fact that the writer is Mark Millar, and for a time I kind of soured on him, not so much because of anything he'd done, but because of things Grant Morrison said.  Morrison and Millar used to be bosom buddies, but they had a creative falling-out, and Morrison subsequently expressed the kind of opinions about his former friend that, well, Alan Moore routinely spouts about Morrison himself.  (Guys!  Guys!  Can't we all just get along?)  Comics Reader readers know I've recently turned the corner on Millar thanks to Starlight, so I was more than ready to read how he ended Kick-Ass.  It seems to be exactly the way it should have, and that's fine.  The art of John Romita, Jr. remains integral to the whole experience.  Romita moved on to Superman with Geoff Johns immediately after concluding this saga, and of course I'm definitely there for that experience.  In this sudden Millar- and Romita-heavy season for my comics experience, it was fitting to catch their mutual landmark as it happened.

The New 52: Futures End #10 (DC)
Contrary to my own expectations, Futures End still hasn't become a new version of my beloved 52 experience.  I'm still keeping tabs on it (the Masked Superman was recently revealed to be Shazam, if you wanted to know), and of course September this year is a whole month dedicated to the event otherwise chronicled in the weekly series, with DC's line decked out in special issues looking at the futures of their stars.  Masked Superman Before He Was Unmasked has encounter with Lois Lane this issue, which is otherwise highlighted by (Big) Barda being asked to suit up again.  Undeniably awesome moment.  Barda is the Wonder Woman of the New Gods.  Come to think of it, I have no idea why there haven't been more Barda/Wonder Woman stories.  Somebody fix that, please?

Saga #21 (Image)
On the opposite side of my recent Astro City experience is Saga.  I lost track of both series over the course of the last year, but returning to Saga was to remember how much I love it.  In the current comics, Brian K. Vaughan is finally putting the spotlight on the Robot Kingdom.  Prince Robot IV (such a deceptively simple, awesome name; I'm a man of uncomplicated pleasures sometimes) has had a baby, and that baby has been kidnapped by a disgruntled Robot Kingdom janitor.  Alana and Marko are still in the thick of their soap opera (call it what it is) otherwise.  I'm once again addicted.

Superman/Wonder Woman #6 (DC)
I don't know if you remember, but I was wild about this series when it launched.  I thought it was a brilliant idea, long-in-coming for Wonder Woman to get a second ongoing series of any form (and now she has a third, thanks to the digital-first Sensation Comics), and it also happened to have part of the early comic crush I've developed over Charles Soule (who unfortunately has recently signed an exclusive contract with...Marvel).  This issue is one of the periodic General Zod stories DC loves to do, these inspired by the Man of Steel version Michael Shannon embodied more than Terrence Stamp in Superman II (but there have been lots of versions over the years).  Zod is presented as a formidable foe.  In fact, Superman/Wonder Woman in general seems to love thrusting its love birds in epic battles they can only hope to survive (although of course they will), valuing their link as warriors, a bond only they can truly experience together (which is the whole point of the relationship).  The art is from Tony Daniel, whom I've greatly admired since his "Batman R.I.P." days, and whose work continues to evolve.  He may epitomize what some fans have called the "New 52 house style," which basically folds around Jim Lee's work.  For a brief moment it seemed as if Daniel had in fact begun to pattern himself pretty directly on Lee, but as I said, this issue is proof that he's still in flux.  This is a good thing.  I still have great hope for his career.  Given the right project, his budding interests as a writer-artist could cement a real legacy.  Next project in that regard is the forthcoming Deathstroke relaunch (which I will be rooting for, obviously).

Trinity of Sin: Pandora #2 (DC)
Ever since it became clear that the New 52 was launching with the secret lynchpin of a new character (who looks like part of the WildStorm legacy that officially became a part of DC canon at that time), I began rooting for Pandora to become an important, lasting creation.  This is a work in progress.  When she got her own book last year, I was rooting for that, too, but kept looking for a way in after I missed the launch.  Well, now I've finally read an issue, just in time for a forthcoming relaunch where the character and her Trinity of Sin cohorts (Phantom Stranger, Question) fold in together under the single, unspecified banner (it could certainly be worse!).  I think this is a good thing.  A character like Pandora kind of needs context.  She was built for context.  Unless someone literally spends a year or more exploring her own story, sending Pandora on random adventures will do her no favors at all.  This issue is a tie-in with "Trinity War," a Justice League crossover event that was supposed to be a big deal but kind of wasn't, a culmination of everything the New 52 was meant to accomplish to that point.  (Failure?  There are fans who've wanted the New 52 to be a failure from the start.  Is this how fans were after Crisis On Infinite Earths?  I hope not!)  The strongest element of the issue is its use of Vandal Savage.  Someone other than Ray Fawkes might have really played that up.  Fawkes is one of the writers who've benefited from the revised creative landscape DC has sought to establishment, and he's one I really haven't formed an impression of, so I hope this isn't completely indicative of his work.  I'd like to see better.

Wolverine #4 (Marvel)
Ah, Paul Cornell.  He's one of those writers who became an instant favor a few years back, and I became a loyal reader for a good long while.  But I wonder if he hasn't lost the thread of what interested him in writing comics along the way.  He's also known for his work with Doctor Who, and as an author.  And also for not really sticking around any one comic book project for long.  Maybe that's why I stopped trying to keep track, or found I didn't care when he started on Wolverine.  I kept almost checking out the run, but never quite doing it.  He's the writer who set up the Death of Wolverine event that...Charles Soule is finishing.  So I finally checked it out.  And...I really don't think I've missed anything.  Sorry, Paul.  Doesn't seem to be among your best.  When Cornell is at his best he's among the best.  So that's why I've been disappointed.

Wonder Woman #23 (DC)
If I hadn't gotten so horribly behind, I'd've been a loyal fan of the whole Brian Azzarello/Cliff Chiang run on this series, which is about to end.  It's brilliant, easily one of the best things that's ever happened to Wonder Woman, and for one of the biggest characters in comics.  This issue is part of the First Born arc.  First Born is a new villain to the mythos, part of the September 2013 Villains Month one-shot line-up and everything.  The one thing that can be held against the Azzarello Wonder Woman is that it feels completely disconnected from the rest of the DC landscape (which, I'm convinced, is half the reason Superman/Wonder Woman happened), and why First Born didn't at all become a household name.  I mean, H'El over in the Scott Lobdell Superman comics from around the same time had a better shot.  Wonder Woman from this era will become known for its particular context.  To read one issue is to read any issue, in some respects.  It's all one continuous story.  (Although I will be contradicting this gross simplification next time I talk about it, which is another tie-in to how Superman/Wonder Woman happened.)  This is a good thing.  I'm already hoping for a Azzarello/Chiang reprise somewhere down the line, an epic mini-series or even crossover event.  Hey, I can dream!

All-New X-Men #24 (Marvel)
This is another series I was once completely hot on but cooled over as time wore on.  This is the Brian Michael Bendis/Stuart Immonen series that spun out of AvX and famously sports the gimmick of having the original, youthful X-Men time-displaced to the present.  I'm about as all over the place with Bendis as I am with a handful of other creators.  He's kind of the Marvel equivalent, for me, of Scott Snyder in some respects.  When I love his work, I think he's brilliant.  But he's not always engaged in ways I think benefit what he's doing.  This issue is all about how he's reached that point again.  I thought the time-displaced heroes would be gone by now.  I really have no idea why they're still around.  In the early issues, All-New X-Men seemed primed to introduce a whole new generation of mutant heroes.  I don't know if I've simply missed that whole development, or if it's been abandoned, delayed, whatever.  That's what I think the series ought to be doing.  And as always, I want Immonen to be doing work that's far less busy.  He's the pen-and-ink version of Alex Ross at his best.  At Marvel he's simply never been given a chance to express that side of his work.  Maybe he's fine with that.  But for me, the same with Bendis, I'm...disappointed.  Bendis and Immonen could indeed be a dynamite combination.  But not this way.  Anyway, "The Trial of Jean Grey Part 5 of 6."  Blah blah blah, "Dark Phoenix Saga," I-can't-believe-we-didn't-remain-innocent-forever, forcing an unnecessary Guardians of the Galaxy connection.  (I never really got why the X-Men ever had to have anything to do with space.  Basically the complete opposite of what makes them relevant.)

Next time, fewer comics.  That's all I can promise...