Comics are Awesome III

[Sparky Prime]

So John Stewart is going "back to basics as the military-trained, gritty, but heroic Green Lantern"? Guess that means his time as "Emerald Knight" is already over? That didn't last long...

I like how Jon, Kara, Conner, Kong, Steel and... whoever the "Twins" are are all getting somewhat matching costumes, but are still unique to each character. Not sure how I feel on Jon getting electrical powers though... On the one hand, I've always really liked the look of the electric Superman costume, and different powers helps to distinguish him from all the other Superman related characters, of which it looks like we'll have a lot of. On the other hand... Electric powers always seemed odd to me for Superman, or his son in this case, to have.

[andersonh1]

I'd rather see Jon de-aged back to being 10. They've made one bad choice after another for the character. Take him back to square one where he worked much better.

Justice Society of America #1 - takes a very different direction than the 2000s series. It's a multi generational murder mystery as a time traveler (I think it's Per Degaton but the story doesn't say) murders JSA members in different times. It follows up from The New Golden Age and puts Huntress as the main character. This is some version of Helena Wayne, the daughter of Bruce Wayne and Selina Kyle, as she was during the Bronze Age. The version of the JSA we see for most of the issue consists of her, Power Girl, Gentleman Ghost, Solomon Grundy, new character Harlequin's Son, Icicle II, Jack Knight's son Kyle/the Mist, and the daughter of the Red Lantern. The New Golden Age retcons a dozen new characters into DC's history, and they start appearing here. I'm not a big fan of the idea, but we'll see how it plays out. Johns adopts his old foreshadowing method by giving us various panels from future events at the end of the issue, though here they appear elsewhere in the book with various dates on them.

It definitely feels like a Geoff Johns book, and Mikel Janin's art is excellent. It's hard to judge the series at this point, but it's fine so far. I'm in for a few issues at least.

[Sparky Prime]

I'd rather see Jon de-aged back to being 10. They've made one bad choice after another for the character.

At this point, I'd love to see them pick a direction and stick with it for any of the Green Lanterns...

[andersonh1]

At this point, I'd love to see them pick a direction and stick with it for any of the Green Lanterns...

I agree, 100%.

[andersonh1]

Fantastic Four #2 - last issue we got a focus on Ben and Alicia, this time it's Reed and Sue, keeping a low profile after some unspecified disaster that Reed supposedly caused. They end up in a town populated entirely by Doombots, who don't generally realize what they are, and it turns out to be all about some elderly lady that Victor Von Doom had gotten to know when he was a college student, so he built these robots to look after and protect her. Feels a little too similar in some ways to last issue with the "mystery in a small town" angle, but it's different enough to be enjoyable. And I enjoy the Alex Ross covers for every issue.

[andersonh1]

Fun facsimile issue today: Whiz Comics #2, the first appearance of Captain Marvel. I've read the origin before of course, but this is the entire issue with all of the other characters (some of whom I can see why they didn't last long!). Other books this week: Fantastic Four #4, The Flash #793 and World's Finest #12, featuring a disastrous date between Supergirl and Robin which is just fun to read.

[andersonh1]

Shazam #1 - Mark Waid and Dan Mora, the writer and artist on World's Finest, are also on this monthly series which really is trying as much as possible to go back to classic Captain Marvel and leave New 52 Shazam behind. All the New 52 and Rebirth stuff still happened, but it's summarized and moved past very quickly, with the main character now referred to as "The Captain" rather than Shazam. The costume is also very much classic Captain Marvel. The discussion of his powers and how they work is spread throughout the book, and though we get some of the movie ideas included (such as the Rock of Eternity acting as the Captain's "clubhouse"), a lot more is drawn from the comics. The goal seems to be to go for offbeat, comic book craziness, such as the Captain rescuing a family of talking alien Tyrannosaurs and having tea with them at the beginning of the book. Looks like it's going to be a fun series.

The Flash #798 - Wally and Linda have a new son who they've named Wade. He's kidnapped right out of the hospital by Granny Goodness, forcing Wally to round up some allies for a trip to Apokolips to rescue him. Most of the issue is setup, but it's nice to see at least one superhero doing what most people do: growing up, getting married and having a family. So many of these characters remain perpetually single or adolescent that it's nice to see one who is allowed to move forward with his life.

[andersonh1]

Green Lantern #1 - not a spectacular opening issue, but it's pretty good in terms of story and art. The United Planets are running the Green Lantern Corps in the absence of the Guardians, and they've quarantined sector 2814, reassigning the various Earth Green Lanterns. Hal isn't having any of it and essentially quit, so he's on Earth, looking for work without a way to charge his power ring. Carol has moved on and has a boyfriend, and though she gives Hal a job, he blows that chance. Sinestro is hiding on Earth too, for reasons unknown. Hal ultimately gets a recharge from a guy wearing a suit of armor made from a Manhunter, so he's back in costume and smiling a lot, clearly enjoying himself. The GL uniform still has the "pants" look introduced in GL Rebirth, but the shoulders are back to the Silver Age look, judging by the cover, so there's a slight costume tweak.

We've seen Hal try to readjust to life on Earth before, both at the beginning of the New 52 when the Guardians had expelled him from the Corps, and during Morrison's run where he roamed around waiting for a chance to leave. So this isn't a new idea, with Hal having trouble adjusting to life on the ground after so long out in space. But the tone and circumstances are different enough, and after Hal spent the majority of his time out in space for most of the Johns, Venditti and Morrison runs, I can't say I mind him coming back to Earth for a while.

The John Stewart backup ties into the Emerald Knight one-shot and is better than I expected as John comes back to Earth to visit his family, while in another universe a different form of Green Lantern fights the Revenant Queen, who is looking for that universe's John Stewart. I still haven't decided whether or not I'm buying the John Stewart book, but it's possible.

[andersonh1]

Shazam #2 - the gods who make up the Shazam acrostic and who give Billy his powers are not happy with how they're being represented, and in some way they're manipulating him, making him look bad and act bad at crucial moments. I'm not sure I wanted to start the series with Captain Marvel, or "the Captain" acting out of character, might be nice to see him in character first. But this series feels like authentic Captain Marvel, even if the foster siblings are right out of the two Shazam movies (or probably the New 52 Shazam origin, which I did not read). Seems like a good mix of classic and modern, and I love the art.

Fantastic Four #8/#701 - FF has a George Perez cover, and a memory I had that the Thing used to smoke cigars is confirmed, since he's got one lit up on the cover. The FF are living in a small town with Ben's Aunt Petunia, and while on a shopping trip Alicia and Sue discover that people are forgetting people that they just met earlier in the day, and when they get home, Johnny has forgotten Ben and Reed. Turns out to be some kind of creature manipulating people's memories. Feels like a Twilight Zone episode early on, and I think the writer was going for small scale mysteries rather than the big cosmic stuff, at least for now. The lettering in this book is upper/lowercase, which always jumps out at me since I'm used to comic books being lettered all uppercase.

Flash #800 - Five stories about four Flash related characters written and drawn mostly by those who originally wrote the character. Mark Waid and Todd Nauck give us an Impulse story set between issues of his series. Geoff Johns and Scott Kolins have to focus on a villain of course, so they write a Hunter Zolomon story. Jeremy Adams and Fernando Pasarin, the regular team on the book up until now, have various villains sitting around a table telling Flash stories. “Flash Family” by Joshua Williamson and Carmine Di Giandomenico has Barry and Iris go on what looks like a date to the future where someone remembered they have children there. And finally the upcoming writer and artist when the book (sigh) goes back to issue 1, Si Spurrier, and Mike Deodato, Jr., give us a Wally West story. It's a pretty good issue, with a nice mix of creative teams, and I certainly don't mind seeing Wally get more focus than Barry. Jay Garrick is barely in the book though, which is an oversight I wish someone had corrected.

[andersonh1]

Green Lantern #2 - no sign of Sinestro this issue, though Kilowog is on Earth with Hal (and doesn't think much of Mountain Dew). It's confirmed that Hal created the ring last issue from willpower, the second time he's done that. I'm just amused that Geoffrey Thorne's attempt to give all the Green Lanterns the exact same rings has been tossed out already. Hal lost his chance at the piloting job after crashing the drone last issue, but he manages to go from the mailroom at Ferris to piloting the company jet in one day, which is just hilarious. And he meets Carol's fiance, who seems way too nice a guy to be seriously paired up with Carol Ferris. I can't see this guy being around very long. The way the narrative keeps shifting between the present day and a month ago is a bit hard to follow at times, but at least this feels more like a proper GL book than Thorne's series did, and Hal seems to be enjoying himself, so no gloomy morose superheroes here. And he "misses hijinks" so he uses the ring to scare the Demolition Team into surrendering to police when they try to escape through a cemetery.

The John Stewart backup still doesn't advance much, but it's only six pages or so. John is at home with his family, while the John Stewart from another universe that we saw during Dark Crisis is apparently real and facing the Revenant Queen. This doesn't interest me nearly as much as the main storyline, and I'd be happy to see it dropped and the book go down in page count and price.