Reading Comics 243 “Comics Garage: First Box!”

 Having apparently ended my Forbidden Geek experiment only earlier this year (it feels like longer, although partly because it took so long to get that last box), I guess I was in the mood to try another service (or Amazon thought so, and I agreed). Like Geek, Comic Garage ships out assortments of random comics monthly. There are a variety of options. I opted, naturally, for DC titles, and ten comics per box. This is what I got in my first box:

Batgirl: Futures End #1

I’m pretty definitively determining that I just don’t care for Gail Simone. Most of the time I try to read her I hate the results. Somehow she even managed to screw up what so many other Futures End one-shots managed to accomplish, which was to give clever glimpses, well, into the future. The only worthwhile thing she does is gather the Batgirls together (and add a new one): Babs, Stephanie Brown, Cassandra Cain. But the other inexplicable thing Simone can be counted on is to screw up Bane, who was part of her Secret Six. She somehow takes Bane seriously for a change, but her idea of giving Barbara Gordon character development is to make her hulk out as part of a con job against him. I honestly have never seen Simone’s logic appear remotely logical. There’s a very real phenomenon called comic book logic, which I associate mostly with Marvel comics (and movies). Simone should probably just head over there. And stay there. She would be a killer writer for Squirrel Girl. That’s, ah, a whole other inexplicable thing...

Batman: Legends of the Dark Knight #121

As part of the “No Man’s Land” arc (loosely adapted as part of The Dark Knight Rises), Larry Hama (the G.I. Joe guy) tells a wimpy Mr. Freeze tale that’s about as generic as possible. I have nothing against Hama, but it at least seems like he was wildly out of his element. I have no idea how long he stuck around Batman at this time. Hopefully not very long.

Freedom Fighters #10

The newest (from last year) comic in the box is one I’d wanted to check out anyway. It’s written by Robert Venditti, another writer I’ve tended to struggle with. The only problem here is that this is toward the climax of the story (it was a twelve-issue series), so it’s all action. Most stories you really ought to be able to jump in and have a good chance to understand the tone of it, but unless it’s a movie it’s going to be hard to appreciate if it’s anywhere near the climax.

Green Lantern #53

The classic Ron Marz/Darryl Banks comics (receiving a lot of nostalgia recently, a quarter century in), at this point still featuring the nascent adventures of Kyle Rayner. This was prime comics for me at the time. If any era had been in a position to replicate the Silver Age generational shift, it would’ve been this one, which at least for a decade ended up being exactly the case. Wally was a new Flash, Kyle was a new Green Lantern, there was even a new Green Arrow, and of course there was the poster boy, Jack Knight. 

Reading this particular issue again was interesting. Kyle battles Mongul, the big brute Alan Moore created with the Black Mercy gimmick who later turned into Cyborg Superman’s key collaborator but somehow ended up taking an extreme backseat. He instead became a punching bag, here for Kyle and then again later for Wally. 

Superman sort of co-stars (Banks does not nail Mulletman), giving Kyle a mainstream link for the first time. But the big development is Major Force taking on the assignment that will lead to the most infamous moment in the Marz/Banks run (Women in Fridges, which coincidentally also gave Gail Simone her career; two wrongs don’t make a right). 

The thing is, this is the first time I actually found Kyle’s ill-fated girlfriend Alex almost necessary to sacrifice. Marz set her up as a way to establish Kyle as requiring a steep learning curve, but she actually sort of inadvertently made it steeper than it really needed to be. In hindsight it would perhaps have been better to have her be the classic archetype of girl who falls for boy after seeing in action as a superhero. Instead their relationship predates the costume, and she spends all her appearances questioning his pedigree. And in hindsight it’s pretty annoying. I guess it’s the difference between experiencing it as an adult rather than a teenager. That and knowing her ultimate fate. Ultimately Kyle’s journey becomes completely his own, and meeting Superman means more than what Major Force ends up doing. The intention to have him (and readers) shocked into character development becomes superfluous, especially because it happens so quickly. If the intention was to try and replicate Uncle Ben, then it backfired. Once she dies Alex becomes almost completely invisible to Kyle’s existence.

(Though if Jeph Loeb and Tim Sale ever returned to DC and did the kind of comics they did at Marvel, it would be really easy to guess what they’d do with Kyle, if they chose him as a subject.)

Martian Manhunter #11

In contrast to Freedom Fighters, this late-issue climax was easier to read, in part because I had already read and enjoyed this Mr. Biscuits, Williams/Barrows comic (though, alas, Barrows isn’t on art this particular issue). In recent years DC has been leaning heavily into J’onn’s alien nature (though, I guess, since the Ostrander/Mandrake series, so for some twenty years), and I think this was about as extreme, and awesome, as it’s likely to get. Really wish someone could manage to do it while also integrating him back into the rest of the DC landscape, though. Sort of like Aquaman, who only seems to look relevant if he’s worrrying about underwater politics. 

Nightwing #45

The classic Chuck Dixon era! This issue is part of a Birds of Prey crossover, “The Hunt for Oracle,” which is to say, the villains finally figuring out Oracle exists and maybe they should make that stop. The weirdest thing about recent comics is that Babs is Batgirl again. Naturally it was Gail Simone who wrote the initial stories, although it wasn’t until Burnside (and apparently de-aging her) that it was at all relevant. And as stupid as it was to cripple her in the first place, it was probably even dumber to un-cripple her, after years of developing an entirely new career, and apparently not even bothering to have her pass it on. In an era where if anything Oracle would have been even more relevant...

(Incidentally, I finally figured out where MCU Spider-Man came up with the “man in the chair” trope. I was rewatching Batman Returns and...it’s Alfred, of course.)

Robin: Son of Batman #1

Patrick Gleason started out this series as writer/artist. I think he did a brilliant job. It’s a direct continuation of his and Tomasi’s Batman and Robin, and is therefore a must-read for anyone bold enough to admit that those were the best Batman comics of the New 52. Fans still seem convinced Damian is a snot-nosed brat. I can only assume far too few have read this material.

StormWatch #21

Speaking of the New 52, I cannot fathom this series reaching anywhere near this many issues. And based on this issue, I wouldn’t have bothered reading anywhere near this many...

Action Comics #764

The Loeb/Kelly/Casey era! This was the bold break from the ‘90s triangle era, bold new writing and art styles that ultimately ended up remembered best by Loeb’s subsequent Superman/Batman. The Kelly in question is Joe Kelly. This issue is brilliant, a creative approach to the controversial decision the team had made to put relationship troubles into the married life of Lois & Clark. Superman spends much of the issue talking things over with Ma & Pa Kent, doing an extremely good deed for an old lady...and getting no closer to solving his real problem, alas. Plus Lex Luthor is up to something, but as far as this issue is concerned, I have no idea what. This is always a great era to revisit. They took huge risks, but not necessarily in bold dramatic arcs (at least, not all the time; this is also the era of “Emperor Joker,” after all).

Teen Titans #35

By the time the Doom Patrol shows up, I have to wonder why Geoff Johns never went and outright pursued a comic with them. He randomly brought them up in his Justice League, too, but didn’t go very far there, either. Maybe some day! This issue otherwise reads a lot like the Titans TV show (which I love).

I’ve read other comics since I last checked in here, but at the moment I figure it’s okay to leave them unobserved here. Will be back with more comics from Walmart...!

Superman #52 (DC)

I haven't been following the complete "Final Days of Superman," the Peter J. Tomasi epic that rounds out, as much as any other story, the New 52 era.  The conclusion speaks for itself, however, so I'm not too worried.

In it, Superman is confronted by a doppelganger it takes everything he has to defeat.  Quite literally.  This issue counts as the official second death of Superman.

This is as clear a metaphor of the New 52 era as there could possibly be.  Grant Morrison helped launch it with the second Action Comics #1, presenting a new vision of Superman.  A series of writers within the pages of Superman itself attempted to keep up, and none of them, and indeed including Morrison himself, proved to produce that definitive New 52 Superman in quite the manner fans found with Scott Snyder's Batman. 

So it's only fitting that, out of Convergence emerged a third Superman to contend with in this issue.  Technically, he's been running around the pages of Lois & Clark, but for all intents and purposes (because, I believe, he'll be the star of Tomasi and Patrick Gleason's Rebirth-era Superman), this is his debut, in this epic clash of Supermen.

The solar flare power Geoff Johns introduced, and which has been driving Superman comics ever since, becomes a crucial element in how Tomasi concludes his epic.  The would-be Superman, Denny Swan (a name that combines Denny O'Neil and Curt Swan, two iconic DC creators), has now superseded Ulysses, another would-be Superman Johns introduced and previously featured in "Final Days of Superman," can only be defeated by this new power.  Which, because of circumstances, will prove deadly, should Superman use it again.

Of course he does.  And the Convergence Superman chooses this opportunity to finally reveal himself to the world.  It's kind of perfect.

Helping pull all this off is Mikel Janin, whose work was fascinating within the pages of Grayson, and so it's great to see him given such an opportunity to truly let his work shine.  He absolutely nails it.  This is some of the best Superman art in ages.  He'll next be seen in the pages of Tom King's Batman.  Couldn't be happier for him.

With that, in a way, Tomasi closes the book on the New 52.

DC Universe Rebirth #1 (DC)

This is the biggest and most controversial comic DC has released in years.  It reboots the company back to pre-New 52 continuity (in some ways), and then it goes and shocks fans by introducing Watchmen's Dr. Manhattan into continuity.

For fans, it's the return of Wally West that's most rewarding.  This is a sequel, in a lot of respects, to Flashpoint, with Wally reminding Bruce Wayne of that letter Barry Allen gave him from his father.  Geoff Johns scripting the phrase, "My name is Wally West, and I'm the fastest man alive," is easily this particular comic book geek's favorite moment, because this was stuff I cherished in my earlier years, when I was devouring Mark Waid's run on The Flash.

Other fans choose to see things differently.  Watchmen is kind of like a sacred totem to them.  Because Alan Moore is untouchable, Watchmen is untouchable, and so things like Before Watchmen and the appearance of Dr. Manhattan as a nominal villain are untenable to them.  To those readers, I suggest, first, to read Matt Kindt's brilliant Divinity comics over at Valiant.  They're the best Dr. Manhattan stories ever.  And yes, I'm including Watchmen.  Maybe it's because I came very late to the party, or maybe because The Dark Knight Returns reached me first, and I've had no problem ignoring what most of that comic is about except to know it's Old Man Batman (also, please direct your attention to Mark Millar's Old Man Logan, somewhat amusingly not to be confused with Marvel's several recent attempts to keep that one going).  I get that Watchmen was a pretty big deal, and that it introduced new sophistication to superhero storytelling.  But it's just not worth putting up such a fuss.  It's just not.

I've argued elsewhere that Dr. Manhattan is a deeply cynical person.  His decisions throughout Watchmen are cynical.  This makes him, in the hands of Geoff Johns, an improved version of Superboy-Prime from Infinite Crisis.  That's basically what Johns does in DC Universe Rebirth.  He improves on his own story.  It's highly likely that Johns will be telling more of this story himself.  He's uniquely suited for the task.  I'm saying right now, there has never been another comic book writer who so uniquely understands superhero storytelling, has proven to be such a master of it.  Grant Morrison is his closest competition, but has, time and time again, proven that he's more interested in standalone storytelling, things that are suited to their own logic, but without the ego Alan Moore brought to the same kind of storytelling, which is why The Multiversity: Pax Americana is already a better Watchmen story than Watchmen itself.

DC Universe Rebirth is packed with classic Johns character moments.  He can do this better than anyone.  If he'd been looking over the shoulder of everyone who wrote for the New 52 era, there would have been a lot fewer complaints.  But the whole point of the New 52 era was to present a fresh tablet for creators to reinterpret the DC landscape, not in a restricted sort of way, like Marvel's Ultimate line, but the ability to succeed or fail based on creative gambles.  I'd say the results speak for themselves, but there's been so much grumbling, about the "loss of everything that made DC great," that clearly they don't.

So we have Wally West return.  We have Green Arrow and Black Canary finally reunite.  We have Aquaman propose to Mera.  We have the Aqualad of Brightest Day return.  And yeah, Dr. Manhattan.  Like Manhattan, it's likely Johns will be handling the mystery of the three Jokers, too.  Personally, I just wouldn't like to see it any other way.  Scott Snyder teased a lot of things in his Batman, including the identity of "the" Joker.  This is a character that has undergone as many creative revamps as anyone else you could name in comics.  It's been speculated in the past that he periodically reinvents himself.  But for all these years, there's never been an official origin.  In that respect, he's the DC equivalent of Wolverine.

So I look forward to Johns exploring that.  Getting back to Aquaman.  And anything else he cares to explore.  He's stepping away from regular writing duties, as of DC Universe Rebirth.  It's sad, but it's also exciting.  It means people might finally stop ignoring his talent.  Everything he does will be a little more special, an event, like DC Universe Rebirth.

Let the fans who will complain, complain.  They don't get it.  It's fine.  They didn't really get it to begin with, either.

Quarter Bin 75 "Some old, some new"

This is a back issue feature.  The title is not always literal.

Recently I dipped back into the same comics pack source I hit a few weeks back, and came up with some stuff I'd already read, and some new stuff, too (hence, the title).  But let's just dive in, shall we?

Detective Comics #1 (DC)
From 2011.
These packs featured some reprints geared toward the release of Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice.  You can tell, because the reprints have ads for the movie littered throughout them.  I'm glad this was one of the reprints, because it's a reminder that Tony Daniel was still writing Batman at the start of the New 52.  He's one of the many artists DC has helped transition into writing.  He was Grant Morrison's artist from "Batman, R.I.P.," which led to him writing Batman before the New 52 relaunch.  He brought the same stuff to Detective Comics, including the character responsible for the Joker's grizzly new look ("look ma! no skin on my face!").  But fans by that point hopped on the Scott Snyder bandwagon (Snyder had been writing Detective Comics, so it was a flip flop that worked extremely well for one of them).  Daniel's work on Batman is by no means lousy.  But I guess it couldn't compete with Snyder's.  Like Snyder, he was keenly interested in creating new villains.  But again, I guess Snyder just did it better.

Batman Eternal #2 (DC)
From June 2014.
The weekly series Snyder and sidekick James Tynion IV launched featured some good storytelling, although perhaps it failed to be considered as iconic because its storytelling was less precise (I mean, like Geoff Johns on Green Lantern before him, Snyder managed to make a crossover arc of every story).  This second issue features Jim Gordon in trouble with the law.  The oddest thing is that Eternal really had nothing to do with Snyder's work in Batman itself.  They existed as two separate entities, and weaved visions that really had nothing to do with each other.  Eternal was a gimme to the fans, and Batman was busy making new ones.  I guess it makes sense...

Batman #41 (DC)
From August 2015.
Featuring the debut of Commissioner Batman, this was among the most recent issues included in the packs.  It still strikes me that Snyder basically parodied the whole "Knight Quest"/"Reign of the Supermen"/Doctor Spider-Man concept.  He knew from the start that fans wouldn't really buy Gordon as Batman, and yet went with it anyway.  Took real guts.  But by this point, he literally could get away with anything, and he knew it.

Batman: Arkham Knight #1 (DC)
From 2015.
Based on the series of video games, this is part of a series of mini-series that weave a story around them (like the following title).  Peter J. Tomasi, at his best, is among the best.  But he's not always at his best.  Sometimes, he's merely functional.  That's what he is in this.

Injustice: Gods Among Us - Year Two Annual #1 (DC)
From December 2014.

Injustice: Gods Among Us - Year Three #1 (DC)
From December 2014.
These are based on a fighting game, but the reality they pose might as well come from Batman's fever dream in Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice.  They posit a Superman gone wildly out of control, attempting to bring order to Earth as a despot.  The best story in these issues features Green Lantern Hal Jordan and Sinestro, in a dynamic that's reminiscent of how Geoff Johns depicted them.  Also featured: Detective Chimp.  But not nearly enough of him!

Justice League #1 (DC)
From 2011.
This reprint features the beginning of Geoff Johns' seminal introduction of the team at the start of the New 52 era.  I've been an eager champion of this from the beginning, but it was fun to read it again (and incidentally, this is the fourth time I've purchased this story; one time was in the collection).  After rereading Frank Miller and Jim Lee's All-Star Batman and Robin, the Boy Wonder recently, it was fun to see how Johns and Lee did a variation on the Batman/Green Lantern confrontation, and how it, and its relation to Miller and Lee's work, helped set the tone of the series.  Some really great stuff.

Justice League of America #1 (DC)
From August 2015.
I read this issue when it was originally released.  Reading it again was to find it better than I remembered.  I mean, I liked it then, too, but to read it from a time when I know Bryan Hitch will be handling the DC Rebirth Justice League is to know the title will be in good hands.  So that was good to find out.

Superman #32 (DC)
From 2014.
The start of the Johns/Romita era is an exceptional as I remember it.  Johns was truly at the top of his Superman game in this run, and he was no slouch the last time.  The Ulysses character apparently plays a role in Tomasi's "Super League" arc that's helping to round out the New 52 era.  He's basically Johns' new Superboy Prime.  That's good, too.

Action Comics #36 (DC)
From January 2015.
Greg Pak's Superman just doesn't do it for me.  Although I love Superman sporting a beard. 

Superman/Wonder Woman #1 (DC)
From December 2013.
I became such a fanboy of Charles Soule's at that time, it's fun revisiting some of that time.  I thought the concept of this relationship was one of the genius moves of the New 52, but I guess it was something DC was just as quick to shut down, because the "Truth" arc wasn't especially kind to it.  Doomsday was a busy monster at that time, too.  Since I didn't read further issues of this story, or the complete "Doomed," I only know so much of what the monster was up to.  I don't even know if the arcs were related!  Oh well...Oh further note is the course of journeyman artist...Tony Daniel!  He ended up bouncing from project to project.  But at least DC kept finding work for him!

Superman Unchained #1 (DC)
From August 2013.
It's funny, because ads for Man of Steel can be found in this issue, and so I guess everything comes full circle.  Snyder and Lee, reporting for duty.  But I'm not sure what either accomplished with this project.  Certainly there's evidence of more important work elsewhere in this edition of Quarter Bin...

Reading Comics 185 "I am being Broot, plus the end of Scott Snyder's Batman and the penultimate Geoff Johns Justice League"

Batman #50, 51 (DC)
These are Scott Snyder's final two issues of the most successful run from the New 52 era.  I've done my fair share of waffling on Snyder's Batman, but in the end I can agree that it was historic, and in a good way.  #50 counts as the end of Jim Gordon's run as Commissioner Batman.  Bruce Wayne, in an earlier issue I haven't read, finally reconciled himself with his Batman destiny again, and aided in the thwarting of Mr. Bloom's plans to deconstruct Gotham (via methods that made him a cross between Christopher Nolan's Ra's al Ghul in Batman Begins and Poison Ivy).  Along the way, Snyder brings Duke Thomas, the would-be next Robin who went on to somewhat fill that role in We Are Robin, back into the fold, providing sort-of closer to one of his signature creations (along with the Court of Owls and Harper Row) during the run.  #51 is a better issue, as it directly reflects on the very first issue by bringing back the "Gotham is..." newspaper column feature in the captions, along the way providing a hopeful interpretation of what Batman means to his city.  I think that about sums up what Snyder brought to the character, building on Grant Morrison's earlier Batman Inc. mentality and allowing Batman to be less grim, while still pursuing monumental stories (just about every story was a crossover arc).  This was something that was largely absent from of the New 52, a truly cohesive vision that looked like something new but was also, for those paying attention, something familiar.

(Snyder returns in the DC Rebirth era with All Star Batman.)

Justice League #49 (DC)
Geoff Johns pens the penultimate chapter of "Darkseid War" and his run in this series, his last regular writing assignment for the foreseeable future, and he continues to drop big moments, such as the death of Moebius (the responsible party is hardly someone you would expect), setting up a finale in which all the remaining players must sort out their variously tangled relationships, enemies of so many orders that you kind of might confuse this for the best-ever X-Men story (or the rest of the Marvel universe lately, as has been heavily depicted in its movies, soon to be seen again in Captain America: Civil War).  So that's exactly what Johns has accomplished in this very DC series that has stood as the uncrowned monthly event series I've been describing since the first issue...

Omega Men #11 (DC)
The penultimate issue of Tom King's masterpiece sees war grow more and more entrenched, as the individual remaining members of the team rally the individual worlds of the Vega System to the cause.  This is where we get to see the results of what the rest of the series has accomplished, and my favorite moment comes from Scrapps, the dirtiest player in the game (no, silly, not Ric Flair!).  Scrapps is the girl I will probably have to go back and read to find out if King ever actually explored her background, but she's been the toughest soldier in an army that was packed with all kinds of muscle.  She confronts Broot's father, the pontifex of Changralyn (where Omega be praised), and utters the phrase leading the title of this column, "I am being Broot."  ("Broot" means heretic, by the way.)  It's a great moment, and points to what King, and DC, may have been intending all along with Omega Men, which was to present DC's version of Marvel's Guardians of the Galaxy, which a couple of years ago became a hugely successful movie, famously with the tree creature Groot, whose dialogue nearly exclusively consists of uttering the phrase, "I am Groot."  And as far as I'm concerned, that's exactly what King has accomplished.  DC has always been the thinking man's comic book company.  There are plenty of people who would love to dispute this, but they'd be wrong, and I'm not even just talking superhero comics (no other company has been able to so successfully juggle those and so many other genres like DC).  But even in terms of between DC and Marvel, DC's always been the more philosophical one, whereas Marvel has always tried its hardest to play the superhero game straight (again, you can see that clearly in the movies).  Right now we have a lot of fans who prefer the Marvel method.  When it swings around again (and it will), Omega Men will be waiting to be rediscovered.  And make a better movie...

Digitally Speaking...#9 "Final Crisis, Pandora"

Final Crisis #1 (DC)
From 2008. Fans have long had a contentious relationship with Grant Morrison's Final Crisis, the so-called conclusion to DC's Crisis trilogy, begun with the seminal Crisis on Infinite Earths from 1985 and Infinite Crisis from 2005.  Whereas Geoff Johns made considerable efforts to tie his sequel in with the Marv Wolfman original story, featuring direct, obvious consequences, Morrison was, well, Grant Morrison.  The greatest link he includes in his extrapolation of the Monitor concept originally featured in the first story, which like most of what Morrison does is greatly expanded in complexity although following the same basic model as before.

Their unifying element concerns the DC notion of the multiverse, which the first Crisis was meant to end and the second one bring back.  Morrison's task, if anything, was to solidify the functional convenience of having different realities present in the same story framework.  There's a Superman side-story that tackles this directly, but Morrison can be more accurately said to explore this idea by integrating some of the less fanciful elements of the DC universe, if "less fanciful elements" can be said to be found among superheroes.

So he sets about his grand vision of what happens when the bad guys win.  Johns himself has recently been exploring that in the pages of Forever Evil, and Marvel has done it, too.  The key difference here, as with any Morrison effort, is the execution, all the spinning parts, the key of which is the classic concept of Jack Kirby's New Gods.

Other than Kirby himself, who originally sought to create a whole mythology and self-contained epic in his Fourth World, aside from chief villain Darkseid's nearly instantaneous appearances as a foe to Superman and the Justice League, few creators ever seemed to know what to do with the New Gods, much less the fans.  They were never popular.  They were a tricky concept, basically two worlds filled with heroes and villains, diametrically opposed.

Morrison ends these worlds and transfers the battleground to Earth.  This debut issue touches on this, as with a number of other things, such as Anthro, whom the writer links with Kirby's Kamandi as well as the classic DC immortal Vandal Savage, who has been alive since he was a caveman.  The Green Lantern Corps is used as a police force.  Villains unite.  A major hero is killed.  Some of these things have been done before, and would be done again.  But not like this.

That's always the point you have to remember when reading Morrison.  Eventually, fans considered Final Crisis to be too outlandish, too sprawling, too ambitious, too convoluted.  But reading this first issue again, I can't help but see how Morrison's typical ambition seems to have once again reached a high note.  It may almost be worth considering this story outside of continuity, as a standalone epic, something that stabs into the sandbox without limits and sees how tall he can build the sandcastle before it all topples over again.

It definitely makes me want to read the rest of the story again.

DC Comics - The New 52 FCBD Special Edition #1 (DC)
From 2012. This is probably one of the happier things I've collected from comiXology.  Free Comic Book Day is basically a geek's own holiday, one I've enjoyed celebrated over the years, but every so often, that experience is compromised, include mine in 2012, the crucial one as far as the emerging New 52 landscape was concerned.  One of the major new characters introduced by DC for the relaunch was Pandora, who was a mysterious presence lurking around the corners in the early going.  This special was going to be her first spotlight.

As with most of the the big stories from DC these days, this was written by Geoff Johns.  The funny thing, this issue is probably one of his weaker, more simplistic efforts in some respects.  Usually Johns can be counted on for snappy dialogue, but there are moments where this story reads like amateur hour.  I can't really account for that.

Otherwise, it's full of his trademark big concepts and insights into the DC universe.  It's also a tease for the "Trinity War" Justice League crossover event.  Pandora herself, although narrator, receives minimal characterization, which is perhaps why her subsequent ongoing series has really been seen as anything important by fans.  Her fellows in the Trinity of Sin, the Phantom Stranger and the Question, are obscure DC icons themselves, and come off better.  Pandora is basically the character from the Greek myth of Pandora's box.

This is not to say that the character doesn't work at all, but this was, like I said, perhaps not the best example.  The character of Cyborg receives far better work, and he's not even technically in the comic.

Still, I'm glad to have read it finally.  In greater context it probably works better, which sometimes happens in comic books.  FCBD releases are meant to entice readers into return as paying customers.  This would probably have done the trick regardless of the few missteps, and that's all that matters.  It got people engaged with the New 52 concept all over again.  That's not a bad thing at all.

Quarter Bin #49 "From An Actual Quarter Bin, Part 3"

Comics featured in this column are not always actually from a quarter bin.  However, this is a rare occasion where they were, courtesy of a grand opening/preview sale for the second location of Escape Velocity in Colorado Springs earlier this year.

Blackhawks #1 & 2 (DC)
From November and December 2011:
One of the titles I was most looking forward to in the fall 2011 DC relaunch was Blackhawks, not because I have a particular affinity for beachfront property the classic Blackhawk concept but that it was being written by Mike Costa, who has earned my eternal respect for his Cobra comics over at IDW.  Those are some of the best things I've ever read in this format, and I'm continually surprised that their genius still hasn't been embraced by even a cult audience at this point.  They continue to be published because IDW itself has realized what it has, like Red 5's devotion to Atomic Robo.  (Seriously, people, Atomic Robo is fantastic.)  Yet I opted out of reading Blackhawks at the time based on an accurate and yet unfair snap assessment that it didn't properly evoke my Cobra memories.  The series was based less on the aforesaid classic Blackhawk (like a superhero version of the formative Air Force) and more a DC version of G.I. Joe.  Costa's Cobra (recently relaunched as The Cobra Files, for the record) is basically the antithesis of anything you might think about G.I. Joe.  It's all about espionage and deep character study, far less about war games.  Based on the original glances I took through its pages, Blackhawks looked like it was typical G.I. Joe war games, as if someone at DC had looked at Costa's name and only cared to see that it was associated with G.I. Joe and not what he was doing in the sandbox.  And to a certain extent, that's really what happened.  The thing is, Costa still made the most of it.  His Blackhawks are the good guys (until recently he only had token Joes in his Cobra), but in these issues (which I opted to sample based on the Collected Editions recommendation) there's a similar (if not exactly the same) focus on character rather than fairly generic action that I had expected.  Now I'm sorry I skipped reading this one.  It was quickly cancelled, and Costa was not welcomed back by DC.  Now I may even have to track down the whole collection.

Flashpoint: The Canterbury Cricket (DC)
From August 2011:
This is something I bought at the time and was forced to part with (along with many, many other treasured memories) when I sold my comic book collection last fall.  The whole reason I remain obsessed with the Canterbury Cricket is that it was the odd original creation during the Flashpoint event, and that seemed like something worth commemorating.  As his name suggests, the Cricket is British, part of the resistance movement during the Amazon/Atlantis conflict that was one of the many things happening in the background of Barry Allen's existential crisis.  He is also, as the name suggests, a giant cricket, although he used to be human.  One of the things fans of Marvel characters always say is that they're so relatably human, even the ones who don't look so human anymore like Ben Grimm a.k.a. Thing from the Fantastic Four.  And over at DC it's always been reliable that the characters who used to be human but aren't as much anymore get much better exploration, like Man-Bat, Blue Devil or even Jason Blood (the flipside of Etrigan the Demon).  Canterbury Cricket, as depicted by erstwhile editor Mike Carlin, is all about that, and what's interesting is that he views the transformation as a good thing, because he didn't like who he used to be.  It's a lot like Spider-Man but without the Great Guilt Trip.  I'd love for this character to appear again.

Flashpoint: Abin Sur - The Green Lantern #3 (DC)
From October 2011:
With the release of the woebegone Green Lantern movie in 2011, there was a good amount of bonus releases featuring characters from the franchise that year.  One of the things I loved about Flashpoint was that it found ample space to share this love, including several spin-off mini-series including this one featuring Hal Jordan's predecessor.  Abin Sur is one of the great characters in fiction who is technically dead the moment he becomes relevant.  He also had a comeback in Brightest Day, which ended at the end of the old continuity, otherwise he might have been the ultimate recipient of the fabled white ring of spectrum power.  He had another shot here.  Maybe I'm mixing up the stories now, but he ends the issue with a white ring here, too.  Throughout much of it he's also battling his doomed persona thanks to Sinestro.  In the lore Abin and Sinestro were actually pals.  Sinestro was in love with Abin's sister.  Like Canterbury Cricket I think there's ongoing potential in exploring Abin Sur's story.  It seems somehow wrong that with Green Lantern we not only get thousands of potential characters to follow but also a rich history that has barely been scratched.  You could go worse than to spend a little more time with Abin Sur.

Flashpoint: The Outsider #3 (DC)
From October 2011:
Technically the lead character in this one is in the title, another of the rogue genius manipulators who populate a lot of comics.  But this issue also features the Flashpoint version of Martian Manhunter.  Martian Manhunter is always fascinating.  His origins are unique and his relationship to humans is equally unique.  He's the real outsider here.  But what's perhaps more fascinating about the issue, written by James Robinson, is that it strongly evokes 52, the sensational experiment that proved weekly comics were possible in the modern era.  It weaves Black Adam into the story, more as a reference than a character, but that's enough.  I didn't get a chance to read most of the Flashpoint spin-offs (something I hope to rectify at some point), and this was in fact my first experience with this one.  It was a good issue to catch.

Flashpoint #5 (DC)
From October 2011:
I read the complete Flashpoint mini-series itself in 2011, and it was a highlight of my year, a year I was trying to quit comics.  It was a very good very bad thing to happen.  It was brilliant.  Geoff Johns had brought Barry Allen back in The Flash: Rebirth, and then spent about a year in the subsequent ongoing series before launching this event based entirely around him.  It was a little disappointing for some fans to think he'd be walking away after it (Geoff spent half a decade writing the Wally West version of The Flash), but he'd already accomplished the unthinkable.  Barry Allen's previous highlight was dying in Crisis On Infinite Earths.  He was made into the central character when Marv Wolfman wrote a prose adaptation of his own story.  It was Mark Waid who pushed the franchise into a more central position, but it was Flashpoint that made it possible for everything to pivot around the Scarlet Speedster.  Geoff envisioned the ultimate conflict between Barry and his nemesis Eobard Thawne, Professor Zoom.  Thawne tricked Barry into changing history and affecting an entire alternate reality.  Another of the side stories in the world of Flashpoint was that Thomas Wayne never died and it was him who became Batman.  This final issue makes this particular element so much more poignant when Barry has managed to correct the timeline, but with a message from Thomas to his son Bruce.  An animated movie based on Flashpoint is due to be released in July, and there has been some criticism (possibly only among Flash fans) that the Batman element has been retained as a key element.  It really should be.

Sovereign Seven #1 (DC)
From July 1995:
I read the complete Sovereign Seven as it was originally released in the '90s (fun fact! Power Girl eventually became a replacement member of the team).  It was a big sensation at the start, mostly because Chris Claremont was the writer.  Claremont made his name making the X-Men into legitimate icons in the '80s (the upcoming Days of the Future Past movie is based on one of Claremont's best stories, as was the Jean Grey/Phoenix arc from the second and third films).  He was a genius at team dynamics and mythology.  That's what Sovereign Seven was all about.  Each of the members from this team were exiled royalty from alien worlds.  The result was more fantasy than superheroics.  I suspect this may have been one of the reasons fans became disillusioned.  Maybe another was that it was difficult to tell how this creator-owned series related to the rest of the DC landscape.  Ham-fisted attempts at better integration (hence Power Girl) were made later, but by then it was too late.  Please note to creators of new characters in a shared universe: it's never a good thing to be isolated, and it's never enough to have cameo appearances in your own book.  You need to appear elsewhere.  You need to be accepted into the family in the family.  It might seem scary to lend your shiny new character to someone else so soon, but that's where the real strength of the concept shines.  Claremont further annoyed fans by ending the series by apparently suggesting his characters were fictional in their own world, too.  I think there's still room for a serious revival, and Claremont need not necessarily be involved.  Although it would be far less likely to happen without him.

Vertigo Preview (DC)
From 1992:
This was the most sensational discovery for me, the vintage preview book for the launch of DC's Vertigo imprint.  The flavor of what was to come had already begun in Neil Gaiman's Sandman and other projects, but this was the dawn of a whole new era.  There's an introduction from recently departed iconic Vertigo editor Karen Berger to kick off the festivities.  Then previews of all the books of the official freshmen class.  First off is Gaiman's own Death: The High Cost of Living, spinning off from Sandman.  Death is the ultimate Goth Chick, even better than the real thing.  Peter Milligan, long associated with Vertigo and another of the writers of the '80s British Invasion, is represented with Enigma.  The reliable J.M. DeMatteis is present with Mercy.  Anne Nocenti, one of the longest-tenured women in comics, has Kid Eternity.  Grant Morrison, of course, must be here too, and it's with Sebastian O, though he'd win much greater Vertigo acclaim with The Invisibles, in some ways his magnum opus.  Black Orchid is featured with Dick Foreman and Jill Thompson.  Animal Man, which Morrison had helped shape into the Vertigo groove, is here with Jamie Delano.  Doom Patrol, also shaped by Morrison into the proper configuration, is here with Rachel Pollack (Pollack and Delano and Milligan were all reliable Vertigo staples in the early days).  John Constantine, Hellblazer, is written by Garth Ennis with art from frequent collaborator Steve Dillon.  Ennis would stake his Vertigo fame with Preacher years later.  Milligan also has Shade the Changing Man.  Nancy Collins has Swamp Thing (in its '80s Alan Moore incarnation perhaps the prototypical of all prototypical Vertigo, besides '70s horror comics like House of Mystery).  Of course the coup de grace for this whole preview is an exclusive (i.e. original) Sandman tale from Gaiman, which is pretty much exactly Gaiman giving his pressing and introduction to the whole venture.  Pretty awesome.

X-Men 2099 #1 (Marvel)
From October 1993:
In the brief period where my brothers were the ones in the family who read comics (they were both older than me), they read Star Wars and X-Men and Batman comics.  They caught the 1992 bestselling X-Men relaunch.  I got to read a lot of "Knightfall" because they did.  One of them got the complete collection of the original zero issues from Zero Hour.  And then they stopped and scoffed at the whole thing, much like they did their appreciation of Hootie and the Blowfish.  I remained fans of both comics and Hootie.  A lousy psychiatrist would say I did that because I spend my life trying to catch up to my brothers.  I prefer to believe it's because I still appreciate these things.  Sometimes when someone believes they've outgrown something, they just never go back.  That's just how it is.  The discovery I most appreciate from my brothers is X-Men 2099.  The whole 2099 line was a brief experiment to revamp the Marvel landscape with new incarnations set in the future.  People still talk about Spider-Man 2099 (well, sometimes), but to my mind the money remains with X-Men 2099.  My perennial problem with X-Men comics in general is the same I have with all Marvel comics: they only pay lip service to the conflicts at the heart of their concepts.  X-Men 2099 is everything a mutant fan ought to love.  None of the faces are familiar but they're all engaged in the same tragic struggle you love from all the ones you do know.  Like the rogue members who began populating the comics you remember (Wolverine, Storm...Rogue), these guys were all outsiders even to each other.  Someday, much like my Flashpoint ambition, I hope to read the complete X-Men 2099.

Unbeatable Comics: Green Lantern

Green Lantern #10
writer: Geoff Johns
artist: Doug Mahnke

Green Lantern Corps #9
writer: Peter J. Tomasi
artist: Fernando Pasarin

Green Lantern: New Guardians #8
writer: Tony Bedard
artist: Tyler Kirkham

Red Lanterns #7
writer: Peter Milligan
artist: Ed Benes & Diego Bernard

The Green Lantern franchise may be a big question mark on the big screen, but in the comics, it's hard to think of a better era.

The latest issue of Green Lantern from Geoff Johns concludes the Indigo Tribe arc, in which we've finally discovered the origins and intentions of the mysterious compassion corps.  (In related news, I beg DC, beg, for an extended look at the life and career of Abin Sur, Hal Jordan's predecessor and originator of the Indigo Tribe, a theoretical answer to the Guadians of the Universe's plans for a Third Army.)

The Indigo Tribe lost its central power battery thanks to Natromo, the native of Nok who helped Abin Sur realize his vision, but its members prove more worthy of the cause than he realized, resparking their own rings with their faith and need for redemption.  The only ones who are able to walk away from the cause are Sinestro and William Hand, who inadvertently kills himself, only to be once again claimed by the black rings of death.  It's Hal Jordan who fights for Sinestro's future, because he's discovered his old foe just may be the greatest ally he ever had.

I haven't read a single issue of the other books in the expanded franchise of the New 52 since their September launches, part of my effort to save money I don't technically have.  I decided it was time to check in, and I discovered that they're doing better than I would've thought.

Pete Tomasi, for instance, so good in Batman and Robin, continues to be a worthy chronicler in  for emerald warriors in Green Lantern Corps.  In this issue, for instance, he helps me understand something I've been going through in my own life as John Stewart faces the consequences of owning up to responsibility, even when those who are to be his judges aren't likely to look after his, or their, best interests. having murdered a member of the Corps, he's once again in hot water.  It's not the first time his actions have resulted in jeopardy for his career as a Green Lantern, or a superhero.  In Cosmic Odyssey, he was responsible for the destruction of the planet Xanshi (where the character Fatality, once a villain and now a Star Sapphire and not to mention featured player in New Guardians, comes from).  He considers his actions justified because the murdered colleague would have betrayed the integrity of the Corps.  Guy Gardner, the most famous hothead in comics, is John's main advocate.  The Guardians don't want to interfere, since their plans no longer concern a Corps, but an impending Third Army.

In New Guardians, meanwhile, Tony Bedard continues his own fruitful contributions to the franchise, playing in the expanded sandbox of the spectrum created by Geoff Johns.  In Green Lantern, Johns did away with the Sinestro Corps.  In New Guardians, Bedard gets to explore what happens to its remaining members, including Arkillo, who gets help from the Weaponer whose story Bedard himself previously explored in shaping a new ring and new battery to continue the legacy of the Yellow Lanterns.

Pete Milligan, meanwhile, is still working at Red Lanterns, including the first human to become a member, Jack Moore; as well as Atrocitus, the founder of the brood, who is currently seeking vengeance on Krona, the rogue Guardian, but instead running into the undead revenge of his own son; and Bleez, the new leader of the Red Lanterns who also co-stars in New Guardians.  Another crossover this issue is Guy Gardner, who once wore a red ring, trying to process the significance of Jack Moore, who is himself trying to figure out what his new life means.  For anyone who struggles to see the need for a series based on anger, this may be the issue to read.

I found quite a lot to like about this family.

Unbeatable Comics: Paul Cornell

Demon Knights #10
writer: Paul Cornell
artist: Diogenes Neves

Saucer Country #4
writer: Paul Cornell
artist: Ryan Kelly

Paul Cornell has been one of the best writers in comics for several years now.  One of these two books may finally help comic book fans realize that.

"Look!  It's a pirate sea serpent!"  Lines like that, combined with a guest character who briefly breaks into the heavy British dialogue used so well in Cornell's Knight & Squire, are just token examples what helps set his work apart.  The whole book demonstrates his ability to juggle both character and story, whether he's dancing around the nature of Shining Knight or once again using the juxtaposition between Jason Blood and Etrigan to convey the depth of relationships any good story should have.  By the time the climax of the issue reaches Zombie King Arthur, you realize anything can and will happen in a Paul Cornell story.

In Saucer Country, meanwhile, everyone's still trying to figure out if the alien abduction that serves as the crux of this book actually happened, but that's proving trickier than expected (which is exactly what Cornell's going for).  Arcadia Alvarado is currently governor of New Mexico, but she's going to be running for president, so there's good motivation for her wanting to know exactly what happened to her.  She's not the only one.

Her ex-husband Michael  is the one with the least amount of credibility, and exploring his side of events has been equally fascinating, especially since it's far less likely anyone will believe him.  Last issue we saw how he started to rationalize his experience by turning the aliens into rabbits, trying to cover up his own memories.  To retrieve them, he visits a hypnotherapist known for his radical views on alien abduction.  Naturally, when Alvarado's men hear his version, they're skeptical, or to be more accurate, dismissive.  Then Arcadia makes the radical decision to visit the hypnotherapist herself.

The whole point and approach of Saucer Country is that the truth is not a simple thing.  In The X-Files, it was famously declared to be "out there," and perhaps it is, but some people have to live with that ambiguity a little closer to home, with incredibly high personal stakes.  There's a lot of ways this can be explored.  Cornell has decided to let it speak for itself, and nothing about it is easy.  That's a testament to his ambition, and vision.

The thrill is always waiting to see what he does next.

Unbeatable Comics: Batman and Robin #10

writer: Peter J. Tomasi

artist: Patrick Gleason

"War of the Robins" would have been better than "Night of the Owls."  

Damian Wayne has been a little spitfire since his first appearance, and has successfully taken the Post-Crisis Jason Todd version of the Boy Wonder, the Robin readers actually voted to kill off, into the mainstream.  As a job description, Robin has been around for almost as long as Batman.  For most of this time, it was a role played by Dick Grayson, a character whose origin closely mirrored the tragedy of the Wayne family.  He was, however, introduced as a surrogate for the young readers comic books attracted, the original Spider-Man, a wisecracking adventurer who wore bright colors and didn't seem to notice anything dangerous about it.

Dick grew up with the rest of the comic book landscape, joining the Teen Titans and eventually becoming Nightwing.  He was replaced by Jason Todd, originally a surrogate for a surrogate, then modified into a daredevil who spit in the face of authority and paid the ultimate price, until several decades later, when someone figured out that his legacy could be more valuable as an active part of the mythos than if he stayed dead forever.  Then Tim Drake came along, and like the rest of comics at the time, seemed to have been born ready to accept the role, figuring out the secret identity of Batman and talking his way into the yellow cape.  Then he moved on, too, and was even momentarily replaced by Stephanie Brown, whose ambitions were greater than her experience.  

And then Batman had a son, and when they were reunited, Damian became the new Robin.  With all due apologies, no one will learn more from being Robin than Damian Wayne.  In Batman #666, he's portrayed as Bruce Wayne's truest successor, more fit for the grim responsibility of Gotham's protector than Dick Grayson proved in two separate cracks at the mantle.

All of this is important to this issue, because Damian has a chip on his shoulder the size of the Batcave.  He puts each of the previous Robins (aside from the near-apocryphal Stephanie Brown) on notice soon after Bruce has the bright idea to have a family portrait commissioned, out of costume, excluding Jason.  Yet there's trouble throughout the sitting (er, standing), and soon Damian gathers all the Robins, including Jason, and tells them he'll beat them at whatever they think they're best.  

That's the kind of hubris that defines the whole Dark Knight legacy.  The characters who don't behave this way are always learning how they're not truly a part of the family.  Nightwing has gone a long way to earning respect from his own publisher, for instance.  Tim Drake has only been welcomed back into the fold in the last few months.  This is the first time since 1993 that he does not have his own ongoing series.  Arguably, Batman and Robin is Damian's.  He's the common thread between the two incarnations of the series.  The first one featured Dick's Batman, after all.  Now, thanks to Tomasi and Gleason, we're seeing what Damian is like around his father.  Apparently not all that different.

This is yet another issue that makes this clear.

Have Muse, Will Travel

Baby did a bad, bad thing.  See, I was about town when I discovered there’s a new comics shop in Colorado Springs, called Muse.  It carries a wide assortment of titles and keeps older issues around for continuing titles.  See, this is bad because I had a chance to catch up with some stuff I’ve missed recently.  I quite reading new comics last year because I am not, as they say, flush with cash, and since I lost my job recently, I really ought to have repeat that feat, not gotten a bunch more comics…But I’m an idiot savant (or perhaps just an idiot), so I told myself, These are good stories and need to be read.  And so I listened to myself and here’s what I got:

DC UNIVERSE PRESENTS #s 6-8 (DC)

Readers of this blog may know that I have a soft spot for the Challengers of the Unknown, basically the DC equivalent of the Fantastic Four without fancy powers, who’ve gone through a number of incarnations the past few decades (including the excellent and seminal Jeph Loeb/Tim Sale version depicted in THE CHALLENGERS OF THE UNKNOWN MUST DIE!, and a Howard Chaykin cycle that’s very Howard Chaykinian), so when I first heard of the New 52 anthology title doing a Challengers story, I worried that I’d miss out, because Heroes & Dragons does not carry the entire New 52.  Muse corrected that but good, having the complete arc (which like I said is par for the course).  This version postulates the team as stars of a reality adventure show (playing fast and loose with the concept), but otherwise keeps the concept of risk-takers living on borrowed time intact (even if many of them actually die in the story), and to my mind is a worthy take on the team.  It reads as incredibly self-contained, in case you were wondering, which is only natural for a concept that has existed since 1957 but has never been popular, making every appearance special and finite.

THE LABYRINTH: A TALE OF JORGE LUIS BORGES/NEPOTISM (Spleenland)

Muse also had a small selection of local work, which is always nice.  This one was published in 2003, and comes from the mind of Geoffrey Hawley, reading like one of the best independent comics no one ever read, which is a shame.  The lead story is based on writer Jorge Luis Borges, a philosophical kind of guy, and is like a cross between Fred Van Lente and Jeff Smith.  There are a couple of shorter works as well, and they’re fine, but the lead story is the best thing here, easily.  

RED HOOD AND THE OUTLAWS #1 (DC)

The first issue of the series was always a curiosity for me, considering that’s when the Starfire controversy that still dominates its reputation came from.  It’s actually interesting, because Starfire receives a soft reboot in the story, revealed as having a short memory, basically, which explains at least why she’s ignored Dick Grayson since almost marrying him (but still doesn’t explain Dick’s silence on the matter since that time).  The issue actually revolves around Roy Harper, and Jason Todd’s rescue of him, which explains why they hang out now.  And anyway, I love this book, and it was just nice to see how it started.  I recently learned that Scott Lobdell and Kenneth Rocafort are taking over SUPERMAN, which might be what I need to finally read an issue of that series in the New 52.

THE SECRET HISTORY OF D.B. COOPER #s 1-3 (Oni)

I’ve got a couple of biographies waiting in development at Bluewater Press, and I mentioned that I was interested in doing something with D.B. Cooper, and although I didn’t received a favorable response on that, I was a little chagrined to learn of the existence of a series called THE SECRET HISTORY OF D.B. COOPER not so long after.  I mean, what are the chances that D.B. Cooper will have two comic books, much less one, on the stands at the same time?  Cooper famously hijacked a plane in the ’70s and got away.  I figured it’d be interesting to provide an account of the search for this bogeyman.  SECRET HISTORY is about an alternate explanation for why he’s been so elusive for forty years.  Stop me if you’ve heard this one, Chuck Barris.  It postulates that he’s an agent of the C.I.A. whose career as an assassin is aided by access to a pocket dimension where he uses a sword and fights monsters that are analogies for his targets.  The creator is Brian Churilla, whom I first encountered as artist of THE ANCHOR, which is almost exactly this book, but not as awesome.  I thought THE ANCHOR was awesome, by the way.  It was written by Phil Hester, one of my favorite comic book creators (though he doesn’t seem to get a lot of respect otherwise).  So I knew what SECRET HISTORY would look like, but I had no idea how it would actually read.  It’s like a mix between AWAKE, the short-lived TV series about a man living parallel lives, and THE ANCHOR (which I’ve already alluded to, and is only appropriate).  And it’s absolutely brilliant, richly layered and featuring a teddy bear as Cooper’s main companion.  It has quickly vaulted into my favorite books of 2012.

THE SHADE #s 5-7 (DC)

That makes twice this year I’ve miraculously been able to catch up with this series, which inexplicably has been all but ignored by pretty much everyone, even though it’s James Robinson at his finest.  Featuring a supporting character from Robinson’s STARMAN, the basic story is about trying to figure out who tried to kill The Shade, and why.  So far it’s caused a lot of introspection and revisiting of his history (and just begging anyone to care enough so we can read this as an ongoing series), and in these three issues a visit with Spanish heroine La Sangre, a vampire caught in the midst of an epic feud with the Inquisitor, with his own rich history.  This whole story is steeped in history, and maybe I love it because I love stuff like this and maybe not a lot of other people do, but I love depth in comics, and that’s what THE SHADE is all about.  These are the best issues so far, too, and that was a treat to discover, and what makes it all the more wickedly fantastic that I was able to catch them.  Our antihero would approve.

THE TWELVE #s 9 & 11 (Marvel)

The interval years since the first eight and then the last four issues meant fans of this J. Michael Straczynski/Chris Weston mini-series that reads like a modern WATCHMEN means that anyone who wasn’t already thinking about it was forced to do exactly that, especially now that BEFORE WATCHMEN has come upon us.  A comic book that seeks to explore the origins and motivations of superheroes cannot help but have comparisons to WATCHMEN, even if Alan Moore’s legacy became about deconstructing superheroes rather than building them up.  THE TWELVE doesn’t deconstruct or build anyone up.  It’s a version of the Captain America story where twelve heroes were put into cryogenic suspension in WWII and then reawaken in 2008.  It’s a story about generations, but really the changing of social mores and the ability to remain relevant, to understand oneself (very few of the characters in WATCHMEN seemed interested in that, but most of them thought they did).  Straczynski isn’t interested in creating individual narratives so much as weaving a tapestry.  I suspect the whole thing reads better in one sitting, but it also reads well in single issues, and that’s most of the point, that these are characters who figure things out in increments.  Both WATCHMEN and THE TWELVE have a thru-line of a character being revealed as murdered (the Comedian and Blue Blade, respectively) and then trying to figure out the who and the why.  Both stories are then about figuring out how the resulting revelation explains everything.  THE TWELVE has a couple of happy endings, where things end badly for just about everyone in WATCHMEN, where the illusion of control is key.  THE TWELVE is about the lack of control, and whether one can find peace with that.  Each character has some kind of reckoning with that.  You don’t need to know or care about WATCHMEN to enjoy THE TWELVE, by the way.  But it doesn’t hurt to love comic books, and good storytelling.

Controversies Edition!

ACTION COMICS #10 (DC)

Grant Morrison is probably the first writer after Geoff Johns to write the Justice League in the New 52.  Perhaps predictably, he goes against the grain.  This is the Morrison of JLA, but rather the one willing to subvert the mainstream, defy expectations, and end up with Superman as an outsider rather than the cheerful face of “normal.”  That’s about what Morrison has done with the Man of Steel since ALL STAR SUPERMAN, where he first postulated that Kal-El possesses a hyper sense of responsibility, rather than the more usual notion that he’s nothing more than a Big Blue Boy Scout.  He’s the one trying to get the team to have a little ambition, not to mention compassion, and if you really stop to think about it, it makes sense.  The rest of the team has very specific areas of interest and the one most identified as his opposite number is obsessive and controlling (that would be Batman, who even in Morrison’s interpretation of his best possible mode has established a network of allies that are most effective only in relation to him).  The thing that Morrison has been trying to stress in ACTION COMICS is the humanity of Clark Kent, which is an identity he readily sacrifices this issue (SPOILER ALERT, by the way), something he doesn’t even think twice about, because he’s more interested in his humanitarian mission than his own reputation.  Yes, he no doubt hears when Batman cracks that he’s going to be the League’s problem some day (and not in an IRREDEEMABLE way), but that’s not his problem, and he cares a great deal that his teammates don’t care about what he does.  That makes him irreplaceable.  Just like Grant Morrison.

AQUAMAN #9 (DC)

Okay, so this issues pretty much makes it official: Geoff Johns has gotten into GREEN LANTERN mode.  For the past few issues, he’s been exploring Aquaman’s association with a whole different set of superheroic allies from around the world, totally different from the Justice League, a lot more similar to him, actually.  He’s also brought back Black Manta, Aquaman’s greatest foe.  This issue, he inserts a key bit of mythology into their relationship, one that deepens both characters as well as the story I hope Johns will be telling for years to come.  I guess in hindsight it was clear that he wasn’t going to stick around THE FLASH with Barry Allen for too long, because that’s not something he did on that book (but definitely something he did in FLASHPOINT).  When he starts to shape an entire world that’s when you know he’s really invested, and that’s something he’s started to really get into here.  Here is an issue any self-respecting fan of superhero comics ought to read, because it’ll be important later.

AVENGERS VS. X-MEN #5 (Marvel)

This should be another of those moments, but owing to the length of the event book, the Phoenix choosing its new host becomes a little convoluted, leaving Hope behind and entering into a few of the X-Men, who are still contractually obligated to be diametrically opposed to the Avengers.  On the other hand, Matt Fraction does a good job writing Iron Man as he appears in the movies, so that’s something right there, right?

BEFORE WATCHMEN: MINUTEMEN #1 (DC)

The big controversy here is that someone other than Alan Moore, and without his consent, is playing in the Watchmen sandbox.  This is being viewed as a violation of creator rights, mostly because everyone really loves WATCHMEN (but not the movie, which I always found odd, because the movie rocks).  MINUTEMEN is the first of several mini-series, and is handled by nostalgia-rich Darwyn Cooke.  It concerns the first generation of heroes envisioned by Moore, essentially the golden age, the birth of superheroes, and narrated by Hollis Mason, the original Night-Owl and author of the fictional UNDER THE HOOD autobiography that served to give the original story its first measure of authenticity, the quality that everyone dances around when speaking about WATCHMEN.  At heart, the story of the Watchmen is about weaving a self-contained world where everything makes sense, even the bits that get swept under the rug, and so it’s about perspective.  It’s always seemed odd to me that fans of WATCHMEN seem to utterly lack perspective, including Moore himself, a man so steeped in his own favorite memories that he barely seems to exist in the present.  Cooke is very much like that, but like his art style, he’s far more whimsical about it.  Perhaps it’s because he exists to play in not just other people’s sandboxes but their memories as well, that he serves as the perfect introduction to the BEFORE WATCHMEN project, which seeks to expand the narrative back to the characters and not just their story, because as Moore so cleverly demonstrated in the first place, without them the story couldn’t exist.  He already took the liberty of modifying the creations of others to reach that point in the first place.  Now we get to see how strong his own creations were.

EARTH 2 #2 (DC)

Years ago I had the pleasure of meeting Mart Nodell, creator of Alan Scott.  He was a gracious man who didn’t mind signing comics that featured Hal Jordan and Kyle Rayner, even though they had nothing to do with his Green Lantern.  I’m thinking he would have been fine with a little reinvention of his own character.  You may have heard by now that James Robinson made Green Lantern gay.  This is no surprise on the part of Robinson, who’s incorporated gay characters in his other comics, and was made as an official press release only days before this issue was published, just to allay, or at least moderate, the reaction.  The whole EARTH 2 series is about redefining a whole generation of superheroes, some of the oldest in comics, by ironically making them once again the successors of Superman and Batman.  Robinson has handled it beautifully so far, with the second issue better than the first, with more time to explore his brave new world.  The character on the cover is Jay Garrick, the original Flash, now endowed with the powers of Mercury but an inexperienced hothead (like a certain Bart Allen!), and it’s not until the third issue that Alan Scott is supposed to steal the spotlight.  He’s already been cast as a key figure in the narrative, shaping the public reaction to the aftermath of a parallel version of what happened in the first handful of JUSTICE LEAGUE issues, where events turned tragic and created a bleak (brave?) new world with awesome consequences.  So he also happens to be gay.  Some observers are saying it’s convenient, that he’s an alternate version in his own pocket world, but I don’t think Robinson ever had the media in mind when he made his decision.  Oh, well, it’s just that much easier to ignore if that’s easier for you.  Except you’ll be missing out on a great read.

THE SUMMER OF SPIDER-MAN/ WOLVERINE: SABRETOOTH REBORN (Marvel)

This is another of those free preview flipbooks, showcasing a bunch of upcoming Spider-Man stories as well as the latest from Jeph Loeb.  The Spidey previews are a little awkward.  First there’s something from Dan Slott’s AMAZING SPIDER-MAN that involves the Lizard but has no relation to the upcoming movie.  It paints a pretty generic portrait of the Lizard and leaves anything human out of the picture.  Is that really the point of the character?  Then there’s SPIDER-MEN, from Brian Michael Bendis, a crossover between the regular wallcrawler and is Ultimate doppelganger, who happens to be Miles Morales these days.  The only problem is this excerpt is generic Peter Parker bemoaning his life, and only begins to suggest what will actually happen in the book.  This goes on for pages.  Finally there’s AVENGING SPIDER-MAN that’s supposed to sell you on the new, female Captain Marvel, but ends up doing a far better job for a character who doesn’t even technically have a name yet.  Get that girl her own book!  On the other side, Loeb and artist Simone Bianchi talk about their new Sabretooth project (they previously collaborated on WOLVERINE: EVOLUTION).  I wish Loeb hadn’t gotten so skittish about working with Tim Sale, but it seems these Wolverine tales are in that same basic tradition, character-rich stories that are probably worth checking out, even though they’re on the fringe of continuity.

WASTELAND #38 (Oni)

At this point Justin Greenwood has nicely settled in as the new artist of the book, and Antony Johnston is free to dive back into the mythology of the story, finally explaining the deal with Gerr, the assassin sent by Lord Founder Marcus of Newbegin to dispatch Michael and Abi, but only after they find A-Ree-Yass-I, fabled oasis of the Big Wet, the apocalypse that led to our little wasteland.  The bigger news is that next issue we may actually learn more about Marcus, Michael, and Abi, who share superhuman abilities, including the inability to age, that has kept them youthful for some hundred years.  But that’s next issue.  This issue finally provides closure to at least one long-standing arc in the series: Gerr has loomed as a threat over Michael and Abi for some twenty issues now (ever since BOOK 3: BLACK STEEL IN THE HOUR OF CHAOS, to be precise).  This is what THE WALKING DEAD should be like.   

Predator or Prey?

BATMAN INCORPORATED #1 (DC)

Grant Morrison’s vision of the Dark Knight finally returns.  For those unfamiliar with this saga, it began in 2006, with BATMAN #655, when Damian was first introduced into the mythos (having been conceived in SON OF THE BAT), adding a ripple of complication into Bruce Wayne’s life.  Damian is his child with Talia Head, daughter of Ra’s al Ghul.  Morrison previously put Batman through the ringer in “R.I.P.,” FINAL CRISIS, and THE RETURN OF BRUCE WAYNE, though he developed the budding Damian in BATMAN AND ROBIN, and brought Bruce back up to speed the original volume of BATMAN INC.  The culmination of Morrison’s run has concerned the emerging threat of Leviathan, who has necessitated the building of an alliance around the world of Batmen (including Batwing, who stars in his own New 52 series).  This issue is the beginning of the end, and reveals the identity of Leviathan, but doesn’t miss an opportunity for another rollicking (as has been the pattern for every issue of BATMAN, INC.) adventure, this time centering around a would-be assassin obsessed over his own son, even as he puts Robin in the crosshairs.  There’s a thousand things that would help you better understand exactly what’s going on, but Morrison helpfully frames most of it in pithy moments that ground the action, and leaves you begging for more.  Well, hopefully at least eleven more issues.

COBRA #13 (IDW)

Mike Costa and Antonio Fuso have been doing some of the best comics around for a few years now, and now they’ve folded both the villains and the heroes under their auspices.  I haven’t been able to read COBRA regularly for some time now, but clearly they haven’t missed a beat.  Ever since Cobra Civil War began (which, by the way, was an event initiated by these guys), the series has been able to dive still deeper in the rich psychology available with existing characters these stories have mastered.  The best example from this issue involves the confrontations Chameleon (who used to work for Cobra) has with defector (by matter of elimination in choices) Tomax Paoli (yes, the surviving brother of the two Cobras who seemed to exist to have silly names in some previous life) and other Joes who try and walk her through this process.  She has a violent reaction, but the situation plays out beautifully, as does ever other moment in the issue, and the series, in its several incarnations at this point.  If you’ve never read any of it, you owe it to yourself to correct this omission.  This is one of the best comics being published today, and that has been true for years now.

RED HOOD AND THE OUTLAWS #9 (DC)

This is the first issue where Jason Todd might once again be considered the villain he was when he first returned as the Red Hood, back from the dead and menacing Batman.  There’s good reason for that, because he’s back in Gotham for “Night of the Owls” in a story that seems like Scott Lobdell was both rushed into this moment and therefore wasn’t entirely prepared for it, and what he embraces it like he has the whole challenge of this series.  None of this should have worked.  After “Under the Hood,” no one really seemed to know what to do with Jason (COUNTDOWN TO FINAL CRISIS seemed like just another in the series of missteps, including an awkward stint in NIGHTWING), but suddenly the New 52 fresh start seemed like an excellent way to start over.  This is a series about a team that’s not really a team, just three characters running around together, and Jason happens to be at the center, and it’s Lobdell’s narrations for him that really makes everything work so well, what keeps me coming back.  Although it seems like barely the surface of the book’s potential has been scratched so far, it’s one of the best books to come out of the reboot.  I’m hoping Lobdell and Kenneth Rocafort stick together for a long time.  Then they can get around to telling that story where Jason gets to confront these Batman family chuckleheads on his own terms.  Except this time he’ll really get to make his point.

THE WALKING DEAD #97 (Image)

I’ve been meaning to read another issue of this one ever since discovering what a wonderful series the TV show has become.  I read a handful of issues fairly regularly a few years ago, but have never become a devotee.  It just never caught my imagination as something that needed to be read regularly to have processed and understood as a worthy enterprise.  Basically, it’s the same thing every issue, these survivors struggling to survive, without a lot of progress being made one way or the other.  This issue, it seems they’re finally at the point where they must decide whether they’re the predator or the prey.  Maybe that’s what Robert Kirkman has been driving toward.  You’d think after a hundred issues he’d have gotten around to something else, too, but maybe that’s what he really wants his fans to think about, the act of survival, how it changes you.  Maybe the title of this thing is more ironic than you’d think.

Many Happy Returns

ATOMIC ROBO PRESENTS REAL SCIENCE ADVENTURES #2 (Red 5)

I haven’t read a new Atomic Robo adventure science Free Comic Book Day.  Excuse me, let me clarify, FCBD 2011.  I didn’t read this year’s installment, because for the first time in five years, I missed FCBD.  Heroes & Dragons doesn’t participate.  I may ask them if they can at least get me copies of the free comics I wanted (the annual Atomic Robo offering, plus my regular dose of free DC).  Anyway, back to the matter at hand, I’ve just read Atomic Robo, which I’ve enjoyed doing for four years, give or take, now.  His adventures have been among the most clever material I’ve ever read in a comic book, as if BONE had never gone into deep fantasy, and remained lighthearted.  It’s primarily been the work of writer Brian Clevinger and artist Scott Wegener, but the distinctive appearance of the character has long inspired fan art, and so it was only a matter of time before Wegener actually gave way to other artists.  REAL SCIENCE ADVENTURES is essentially an anthology title that accomplishes exactly that, Clevinger delivering exactly the same kind of witty, sparse storytelling, and our first chance to see variations on the basic style already well-established (there are six paperback collections if you’d like to see for yourself).  There are clear parallels between Robo and Hellboy, but whereas Hellboy is involved in fairly steep mythology and franchise at this point, Robo is still his trademark blissfully carefree self, like the most pure form of what a comic book should be.  In fact, if that’s how you want to consider Atomic Robo, then I would encourage and endorse that view!

AVENGING SPIDER-MAN #7 (Marvel)

At the start of the year, I rather pithily dismissed the launch of this series, but now I get to benefit, so I’m going to quickly and quietly reverse my position, if only for one issue.  I’m a big fan of Stuart Immonen (and his frequent collaborator and wife, Kathryn), but until this issue I haven’t seen the Marvel version of Stuart Immonen compare favorably to the transcendent version I enjoyed at DC at the end of the last millennium.  I would go so far as to say that version of Stuart Immonen as one of the best creators of his generation, both as writer and artist.  The Marvel version of Stuart Immonen has tried a variety of ways to be the exact opposite of that Stuart Immonen, and suffice it to say, I really don’t see the point.  So it was with great pleasure that I saw this issue, which features Spidey teaming up with She-Hulk in a throwback adventure in so many ways.  It’s at once an argument that Stuart should do Peter Parker (he did Pete once before, in ULTIMATE SPIDER-MAN, but that was Bendis Spider-Man, not Immonen Spider-Man), and that maybe he wouldn’t be such a bad fit for She-Hulk, either (and yes, I acknowledge that Kathryn was the writer of this tale and not Stuart, but for me, when Stuart’s art is the art I best associate with Stuart, the whole story becomes associated with him).  So, Marvel, take note, or if you don’t, then at least let Stuart notice that at least some of his fans are.  This might have been a random issue of a series that doesn’t really seem to have a coherent point to it, but its significance is greater than you can imagine.

HISTORY OF THE MARVEL UNIVERSE (Marvel)

One of Marvel’s periodic attempts to chronicle its own fictional history in a journalistic fashion, this comic is also evidence that Marvel has produced many, many stories with a bare minimum of coherence, which may be fun to read at the time, but don’t actually make up a history that inspires a lot of confidence.  This is what people think of when they think of comic books, and maybe that helped THE AVENGERS wildly succeed as a movie, but it’s not a lot to take seriously, unless you don’t look very closely.  A DC version of this would read differently, is all I’m saying.  I know that MARVELS managed to make this kind of history lesson look remarkably impressive, and maybe the same thing could be done today with the same effect, but to see how many times Marvel has changed characters and attempted to kill them off, only to backpedal and still pretend that every single story its ever told actually exists in continuity, well…to a perpetual skeptic who can still appreciate the odd story, it just beggars the mind.  Fans really prefer, on general majority, Marvel to DC?  Maybe it’s because Marvel does the cliché comic better than anyone, I don’t know.  It’s not necessarily a bad thing, but every now and again, it’s probably worth living up to the hype instead of coasting on reputation.  Just saying…

JUSTICE LEAGUE #9 (DC)

Speaking of which, this is a book that many fans seem to assume is doing exactly that, when it’s doing anything but.  Geoff Johns has been building a coherent story since the launch, and this is an issue that really rewards faith in that, even if you haven’t always been, pardon me, a true believer.  His angle has from the start been about the world’s perception of the League which is why Steve Trevor is relevant as a character for the first time in decades, and why a new villain named Graves (for the moment?) may be the most significant new adversary for the team since Prometheus, emerging first as an anonymous cheerleader who literally wrote the book about the team, and then became embittered and disillusioned, an arc Mark Waid tried to do in THE KINGDOM, but which here may actually work.  The best comic book stories in this millennium will always tell stories on at least two levels: 1) from the ordinary perspective of the characters involved, and 2) from the greater perspective of how that story relates to the world the characters live in, which more or less means they work on objective and subjective levels.  There are many ways to do this, and Geoff Johns has perfected his, first with Green Lantern, and now with the Justice League.  Sit back and enjoy the ride.

NIGHTWING #9 (DC)

Random attacks by the Talons in “Night of the Owls” continue, and for Nightwing, they’re surprisingly personal.  Kyle Higgins continues to exploit his opportunity to give the Grayson family line the same amount of depth writers have been giving the Waynes for years, so that Dick Grayson is no longer just the orphaned son of circus performers who served as a useful surrogate for Bruce Wayne’s war on crime, but rather someone with a rich history of his own.  In fact, Scott Snyder seems to have unwittingly ceded the most relevant part of his epic to his partner in crime.  This issue reveals both the strengths and the weaknesses in the concept of the Court of Owls, how random an opponent they really are, and how convoluted it is to make them relevant in the way they’re supposed to be.  Higgins, though, makes it work in surprising fashion, and it would do well for future Nightwing writers to remember this issue.  This is a greater concern than you’d think, because most new Nightwing writers tend to ignore what’s come before them (there are exceptions, but then if there weren’t, there wouldn’t be a rule).  What Higgins is really doing here is establishing once and for all that Dick Grayson is a viable character in his own right.  I for one hope that Higgins remains onboard for many years to come.

PETER PANZERFAUST #3 (Image)

I’ve been intrigued by this title ever since I learned of its existence.  This is the first issue I’ve actually been able to read, but I’m still infinitely glad and gratified.  Peter Pan as a cultural icon is fascinating, the first time in pop entertainment where a child is held up as an ideal, even if he’s a deeply flawed one, suggesting that youth and experience are not always mutually exclusive in surprisingly profound ways.  Of course, one of the distinctions in the traditional story is Peter’s relationship with Wendy, and by sheer coincidence, this issue of PETER PANZERFAUST, a vision of the character by Kurtis Wiebe that recasts him into WWII, is the introduction of Wendy into the narrative.  Sometimes luck really does work that way.  I don’t know how long this series can last, but I’ll be a faithful reader for as long as possible.

SAUCER COUNTRY #3 (Vertigo)

Not surprisingly, this is going to be a series that deepens its own mythology with every new issue, exploring and meditating on the same themes as they unfold, one narrative and vision, which just so happens to be pretty profound.  What is the proper relationship one should have with fringe experiences?  Like the TV show FRINGE, SAUCER COUNTRY does not have easy answers, but Paul Cornell wastes no time getting beyond that and plunging deeply into his story.  Maybe things won’t happen very quickly, but they’ll be interesting.

THE SHADE #8 (DC)

I’m still shocked that most fans have skipped out on this one, but pleased that DC saw fit to give James Robinson a full year to explore one of the more fascinating elements of his late, critically acclaimed STARMAN series, a reformed villain with a rich history and a thorny future, all of which is intertwined in this story.  I’ve missed three issues since the last time I was able to get my hands on THE SHADE, and you’ve got to know that ensuring I didn’t miss the rest of it was one of my primary concerns in opening a box at Heroes & Dragons. So then, here we go again.

Swear to Bendis, I'm Not Becoming a Convert

BATMAN AND ROBIN #9 (DC)

I feel like I’ve been reading a lot of this book recently for some reason, don’t know why…Anyway, this particular issue is the newest one and is a tie-in with the “Night of the Owls” event inspired by events in Scott Snyder’s BATMAN, and features young Damian Wayne getting to exert himself against a Talon and a bunch of army officers he’s attempting to rescue, one in particular who has become a target of the Court thanks to some unresolved business from centuries ago, the American Revolution to be precise.  If anything, Peter Tomasi helps make clear that the Court of Owls is basically a Freemasons type of secret society in this episode, even if he kind of stumbles in the few scenes not dominated by Damian (any scene with Damian is dominated by Damian).  Nothing overtly connected to previous issues occurs, but there are subtle connections.  Patrick Gleason will be back, and hopefully the regularly scheduled storytelling will also resume next issue.

CHARMED #21 (Zenescope)

My sister is kind of obsessive about CHARMED, the TV show, though she enjoys the comic book, too.  My access to the comic was severed last year when I backed out of my subscriptions with Midtown, so I jumped at the opportunity to resume access to this book, along with some others.  My sister seems content to read the trade collections (there are now three), so I’m actually wondering if I should even pass these individual issues to her anymore.  The comics tend to be a little less about the Halliwell sisters and more about the big stories, which I suppose might simply be a difference of the mediums.  Another difference?  Prue can finally return, as has apparently happened.  Prue was the sister played by Shannon Doherty, who left the TV show at the end of the third season, never to be seen again.  Hopefully Paul Ruditis nails this opportunity.  The current big story?  The sisters have lost their powers, while everyone else in the world now has them, and disaster has resulted.  And yes, this is when Prue returns.

DEMON KNIGHTS #9 (DC)

I’ve been investigating exactly the background Paul Cornell enjoyed before entering the exciting world of comics, and it was usually summed up with, “worked on DOCTOR WHO.”  Turns out he started out as a fan who got to write some fiction, book-form, and some of that led to work on the actual TV version of DOCTOR WHO, and he’s also got a few pieces of original fiction out there, but it may be safe to say that his name has gained greater recognition as he’s begun his career in comics.  Since coming to DC, Cornell has truly blossomed, certainly in his Lex Luthor arc in the pages of the pre-New 52 ACTION COMICS (must-read material), and now in the pages of DEMON KNIGHTS, a fantasy series that functions much in the same way as his acclaimed CAPTAIN BRITAIN AND MI:13, sadly cut short before its time.  DEMON KNIGHTS is what that series would have been like had Cornell been given complete creative control (one of CB&MI13’s most notable arcs was a tie-in with SECRET INVASION), and in many ways feels like what Grant Morrison’s SEVEN SOLDIERS OF VICTORY would have read like as an ongoing series.  Most of the characters involved have their own agendas, but their common destinies (as of this moment, since characters like Jason Blood/Etrigan and Vandal Savage are active in modern times as well) are currently involved in the continuing legacy of Camelot.  The famed wizard Merlin is a virtual stand-in for Walter Bishop from FRINGE, which I find utterly fascinating.  It’s Cornell’s ability to make anything fantastic to be relevant that marks him not only to be one of the best writers in comics today but arguably a threat to be the best writer of tomorrow.  If that’s not enough reason to read him now, I don’t know what is.

GREEN LANTERN #9 (DC)

The secret origin of the Indigo Tribe is exploded by Geoff Johns in this issue, and as usual, he manages to tie it in with the intricate mythology he’s both inherited and greatly expanded on within the Green Lantern mythos.  If you’re a fan, you know who Abin Sur is, and how he helped set BLACKEST NIGHT into order; now it becomes clear that he was looking past those events, too, and that’s why he helped create the Indigo Tribe, under circumstances and with a partner you’ll have to read this issue to fully enjoy.  Suffice it to say, but this is probably the most important issue so far in the New 52 era, and is probably the one that finally links the work Johns was doing previously with the soft reboot that “War of the Green Lanterns” helped usher.

MOON KNIGHT #12 (Marvel)

One of the things referenced in the letters column substitute from BRILLIANT #3 was this wrap-up of the series Brian Michael Bendis improbably agreed to do, handling one of Marvel’s problem children, a character who’s had multiple chances at ongoing series and pretty much failed at all of them, for decades now.  Bendis, so far as I can tell with this issue, seems to have concluded it makes sense to make Moon Knight actually seem crazy and isolated, given that his tenuous grip on reality has always suggested that.  If I’d known this earlier, I might have sampled the series earlier, but for many years now, I assumed Bendis was a Marvel stooge the company’s fanboys embraced simply because he was ubiquitous and seemed to write every other title for them.  Granted, a lot of his Avengers work (and there was an avalanche of it) definitely seemed to support that theory every time I sampled it, but there was other stuff that suggested he was more competent than that.  BRILLIANT nailed that for me, and so now I’m free to approach Bendis from a new perspective.  This is one of my rewards.

ULTIMATE COMICS SPIDER-MAN #10 (Marvel)

This is another.  I sampled the first issue of this second reboot of the Ultimate Spider-Man adventures (the first to not feature Peter Parker), featuring the introduction of Miles Morales as only the third new Spider-Man in Marvel history (I’ll give you a nickel for naming the other one, and I’m not referring to clones who may or may not answer to the name Ben Reilly).  It’s amazing how vividly inspired Bendis has been by his long tenure with Ultimate Spider-Man.  This alone has secured his status in comics history, and I’m kind of hitting myself for not reading another Morales adventure until now.  But this is a good one to jump back into with, as he finally learns the truth about Uncle Aaron, which is another of those brain-numbingly obvious superhero stories that few writers have actually done it.  Treat yourself and discover it for yourself.

WASTELAND #37 (Oni)

Another issue!  Concluding “Under the God,” Michael and Abi finally get to leave the Cross Chains town of Godsholm, sort of like THE BOOK OF ELI but with less Denzel Washington, and shev off back along their journey to A-Ree-Yass-I, along with Gerr, who will soon help all of us better understand what exactly is going on.  This is an epic adventure that may finally find its audience once it concludes so that there can no longer be any doubt concerning its brilliance.  Christopher Mitten may be working on other stuff, too, but this will be his legacy.