Comics are Awesome III

[Sparky Prime]

Green Lantern New Guardians #37
Kyle and Carol aren't sure how to proceed stranded on New Genesis when Metron shows up offering them a motherbox. He says he wants to restore the balance rather than help them. The boomtube takes them to John and Saint Walker and are quickly attacked by guards. Gaining their weapons, they attack Highfather and recover the White Lantern ring, but it doesn't have any power. Highfather claims he is now one with the Life Equation and teleports them away.
The attack on Highfather seemed like it came from no where and was rushed. I mean, the group suddenly just shows up where he is and attack. I'd think it'd be harder than that to get to him. Not to mention how fast Kyle gets his ring back, even if it is out of power. There are some hints that Kyle needs to be kept alive, which would indicate Highfather still has a reason to be keeping him around at least.

Sinestro #8
Sinestro seeks out an easy target among the New Gods to steal their Mother box. He finds that each is genetically linked to their user, but it is connected to a central unit that Sinestro believes he can work with. Noticing and following a Star Sapphire ring, he meets up with John, Kyle, Carol and Saint Walker. Sinestro tells them his plan is falling into place and then goes to talk with Highfather. With the power of Parallax, he believes they are on equal footing, but Highfather easily smacks the fear entity out of him. Sinestro quickly orders Despotellis to reprogram the mother box and when a boomtube opens, Sinestro makes his escape.
So I guess once again Parallax is free? There is no explanation what happened to him after he was smacked out of Sinestro. Also seemed a bit odd for Sinestro to meet up with the other Lanterns when that scene really didn't add anything to the story. As the annual explains, Carol's new ring came from the rings that had been stolen, which Guy and Simon freed in the Red Lanterns, though I think it would have been nice to get some indication of that here since that book hardly contributed anything to the overall storyline, while most of this issue at least sets the stage for the finale.

Green Lantern Annual #3
Black Hand revives various aliens from the Source Wall. The boomtube Sinestro took opens and allows them to invade New Genesis. The Guardians also reveal to Kyle the Life Equation cannot be taken from him, which is why Highfather hasn't killed him, and so Kyle enters a mental battle with him. The New Gods find they cannot stop the creatures, but eventually Black Hand looses control as well as they weren't actually dead in the first place. With the creatures now on a rampage in the New Gods flying city, Hal tells Highfather he's become just like Darkseid. Realizing his mistakes, Highfather releases his control of the Life Equation and Kyle is restored as the White Lantern. Kyle teleports the creatures away while Hal attempts to save the city, and is able to do so once Saint Walker is back as a Blue Lantern, having his hope restored now that Kyle is back as the White Lantern. The Lanterns offer to help rebuild but the New Gods say they need to do so alone. Meanwhile, a hand breaks through the Source Wall...
Seems like there are a lot of loose ends to the Godhead storyline and really rushed on the ending. Nothing was ever said about the Star Sapphire ring John very, very briefly wore. Parallax I presume is free again. The yellow ring Sinestro gave one of the New Gods isn't ever mentioned again. Black Hand leaves during the battle, seemingly starting to become alive again after his contact with the Source Wall. And we see the Guardians are still keeping secrets. It was nice to see Saint Walker return to his role as the Blue Lantern.

[Dominic]

Afterlife with Archie #7 - finally! This book took forever to come out. I got the awesome variant cover. The story is "Betty RIP" and of course she doesn't die, instead it deals with her recreating her diary and Polly is a slut who gets beaten by her boyfriend, Veronica a manipulative assface, and then hints at Betty and Archie getting it on in present day as our group spends weeks on the run outside of Riverdale, ending on Cheryl Blossom kills her incestuous twin brother Jason. Even though everything I just said was incredibly schlocky, the book pulls it off.

I just do not get the appeal of this book.

Much of that is probably my dislike of the zombie genre.

I suppose Veronica being a manipulative bitch is probably balancing out the fact that "Life with Archie" was set up so that whoever ended up with Veronica (Archie or Reggie, depending on the timeline) was better off over-all (and not just in terms of money). The idea of that series was the Veronica grew up to be more stable than Betty. (Only read a few issues. But, that was a definite theme.)

[andersonh1]

Batman ’66 #18
We get two stories for the price of one in this issue.

Batman and Robin vs. the Archer: much of the humor in this story is derived from quick comments by the characters, such as Robin commenting that Batman can hold his breath for 22 minutes, or the Archer’s flunky bemoaning the fact that he’s falling for his own con when Batman challenges him to a joust. The Archer is a Robin Hood wannabe who stole a bunch of police paraphernalia and has created a fake police force made up of criminals in order to go on a crime spree. Commissioner Gordon is ready to declare war on the fake police, but Batman has a plan which involves challenging the Archer to a joust (complete with “clangeth” and “whacketh” sound effects) while the Gotham corps of engineers build a wall around the criminals while the jousting is going on. Once the wall is up and innocent citizens are protected, THEN they can go to war on the fake police. All I have to say is those engineers must be very fast, and very quiet.

Batgirl vs. the Bookworm: the Batgirl stories have been pretty weak in this series, but this one is a definite improvement. The Bookworm attacks the library in order to get his hands on a book containing ancient and powerful spells. Which, as he recites them, appear to be the cast of the Batman tv show and part of the theme tune. Barbara Gordon is, of course, a librarian and is on hand when the attack takes place, so she intervenes as Batgirl and manages to reverse the spell and suck the Bookworm and his henchmen into the book, where she suspects he’s the happiest he’s ever been. And I love the cover where Batgirl is holding the issue of Detective Comics from the 60s where she first appeared.

Both stories are short and sweet, with plenty of the absurd humor that the book is built on.


Green Lantern Annual #3
The final chapter of “Godhead” brings together the cast of all the Lantern books and picks up where the last issue of Green Lantern left off in order to wrap up this storyline. I agree with Sparky that the ending feels a bit sudden, and in my opinion that’s largely down to Highfather’s sudden change of heart because he’s becoming like Darkseid, something it shouldn’t have taken him this long to realize. The pacing is a bit suspect, with the character beats that need development taking second place to the action.

Otherwise, I enjoyed the story quite a bit. The two sides at conflict have covered a lot of ground and come to an understanding by the end, which is always good to see. Hal gets to show out and be the big hero again by preventing a huge loss of life when the New Gods’ city comes crashing down. Saint Walker and Mogo recover their rings, and Kyle promises to stay in touch. A lot of plot threads from the last year are wrapped up, so we get a lot of resolution, which is always needed at the end of a big storyline. And whatever’s happening to Black Hand definitely needs further exploration down the road.

[andersonh1]

Green Lantern #38
There’s not a lot to say about this issue. It’s a breather after the big Godhead crossover that sees Hal head back to Earth after being in space leading the Corps since issue 21. I think he’s had one brief visit back since then, but we haven’t seen Hal spend any extended time on Earth in a year and a half. The Templar Guardians order him there after reviewing his successes and failures as leader of the Corps. They’re not too happy about how me recruited Black Hand for help with the New Gods, so they’re going to discuss that situation.

Hal heads to a bar near his old Air Force Base to relax alone, but first Guy Gardner then Barry Allen drop in on his evening. And then of course after a bunch of guy talk the three of them end up in the stereotypical bar fight and get thrown out. Then Carol shows up for a few minutes to talk to Hal about the fact that she’s in a relationship with Kyle, but thankfully it’s not an acrimonious discussion. A lot of this feels like something we’d see if this was a live action CW tv show or something. The plot is more than a little clichéd and nothing we haven’t seen many variations of in many places, but it does let us get a glimpse of these characters as people rather than costumed adventurers. And the artist this issue is a lot better than Billy Tan, so that's something at least.

[Onslaught Six]

Today I picked up Scarlet Spiders #1. I saw Ben Reily and Kaine teaming up on the cover and was like, yes, this will be worth it. Then I opened it to skim it and who turns out to be writing it? Mike goddamn Costa. So I can't wait to actually sit down and read it.

[Dominic]

Read the first two issues.

Costa seems to be doing a 90s riff with "Scarlet Spiders". Given his other writing, I know he can do better. And, we know he likes to do stylistic riffs (as evidenced by the naming convention for arcs during his TF run). The problem is that the 90s riff is *very* authentic. I found myself skipping parts of the story as they were not worth reading.

[Shockwave]

Read the first two issues.

Costa seems to be doing a 90s riff with "Scarlet Spiders". Given his other writing, I know he can do better. And, we know he likes to do stylistic riffs (as evidenced by the naming convention for arcs during his TF run). The problem is that the 90s riff is *very* authentic. I found myself skipping parts of the story as they were not worth reading.

What specifically made them not worth reading?

[Dominic]

They read like 90s "X-Men" comics.

It is a deliberate riff by Costa. But, he captures the feel of the 90s a little too well in this case.

Think "less obnoxious than Scioli, but still painful).

[Shockwave]

Alright, let me try this again: What specifically was bad about 90s X-men comics (I didn't read comics in the 90s so I genuinely don't know)? Without some sort of frame of referrence, I don't know why they're considered "bad". Was it the story? The artwork? Some combination thereof? And if so, what specifically about those were bad? Details, Dom, details.

[BWprowl]

I'm finding Scarlet Spiders entertaining enough. Not getting a real 90's comics vibe from it either, save for some truly unpleasant artwork. I'm able to look past it though, and the story's been fine so far, if not sock-rockingly amazing. Costa's got a good voice for the characters, and the setting's used well here. They are kinda dragging out the thin plot of "Figure out how clones work", to the point that I could almost see this pulled off as a 2-issue series rather than 3. Overall, it's entertaining in the moment, if not well enough to be memorable (to the point that I can already barely remember what happened in Issue 2. This is just a problem I have with some comics in general though. I struggled to keep up with ReG1 when it was coming out, since by the time the next issue came out, I had completely forgotten everything that had happened in the preceding one.)