The Week of March 13 in Review – DC I Read Some DC – Part 3 of 5

So outside of my rant on the kid heroes I have decided this week to go old school and just spew out some commentary on all that I have read at this point. I actually managed to read most of everything this week. Just to keep the posts to a reasonable size I have decided to break out the books into my basic categories of DC, Marvel and Alternative.

Threshold #3 by Keith Giffen, Tom Raney, Phil Winslade and Scott Kolins is an amusing book. I have no clue how much longer this book can last. It is $4, it has no character that anyone outside of 40 plus years old would recognize and even I don’t recognize the new iterations of the characters. We have Captain Carrot, Tommy Tomorrow, Star Hawkins, Space Cabbie and the Star Rovers. All of these and other characters are running around as updated renditions with many jokes that I only sometimes get because I did not follow all of these characters. I would buy a hardcover collection of this material. DC has a wealth of stuff that would appears goofy by today’s standards but was a lot of fun to read back when I was a kid. We still have to add Space Ranger and Ultra The Multi-Alien and how can’t wait to see Adam Strange again. Hell if the amusement for me is marginal I can only imagine what other fans think. The over sales on this book must be abysmal.

Suicide Squad #18 by Adam Glass, Henrik Jonsson and Sandu Florea is losing my interest. I keep thinking back to the Suicide Squad by John Ostrander and Luke Ross for the most part and realize this book is inferior to that work. They had missions and actual objectives. This book is all over the place and the normal DCU problem I have keeps creeping into my enjoyment of the book. I think I know these characters and I don’t. Amanda Waller is not what she was, Harley maybe, Deadshot I have no clue. Regulus who has been built up as a bad guy is back already. We have had the “Death of the Family” interruption to the book. I’m a little lost and also a lot of don’t care. I may go one more issue, but I doubt it.

Before Watchmen Ozymandias #6 (of 6) by Len Wein and Jae Lee was a good issue but suffered from wrapping it up and tying back into Watchmen. The last panel is Ozy kicking in the door to kill the Comedian. Jas Lee’s artwork has been fantastic. His stylized panel design is interesting and often adds to the story. It creates a different narrative flow that suited the way the story was being told. I’m curious as to how Wein and Lee worked on this book as many writers give art direction by Wein grew up with the “marvel” method. We have one last Before Watchmen book left. I want to re-read Watchmen and then read the collected editions of these books down the road. Which is a vote to drop a book like Suicide Squad to give me more time to re-read and read other stuff I own.

Batman and Robin #18 by Peter J. Tomasi, Pat Gleason and Mick Gray was a great wordless issue. It was showing the emotion and rage that Bruce felt over the death to Robin. In many ways Tomasi had made this comic a Damian book and had built up the relationship between father and son. This book will miss Damian the most since he was the foundation character that the series was focusing on. I feel sorry for the DC writers who are constantly forced to adjust for crap out of their control, the new 52, the death of a character, two cross over events, a tough job to make all of that work.

The Green Lantern Corps #18 by Peter Tomasi, Chriscross and Scott Hanna was a clear miss. I don’t blame the creative team, I blame Geoff Johns who has been so fascinated with the “emotional” spectrum of power. The First Lantern is now running around gaining power by playing out various iterations of the characters. It is a stupid idea; the act of typing it out made me cringe. I’m looking forward to Johns being off the Lantern books and a new direction being set.

Batman and Robin #18 by Scott Snyder, Andy Kubert, Sandra Hope and Alex Maleev was another Batman beating up everyone while mourning over Robin. It was also Harper Row centric and setting her up to be the next Robin. How about we drop Robin all together for about five years? Instead we get Harper Row, She feels like such a shoe horned character into the Robin role. Originally Jason Todd had the exact origin as Dick (later changed and changed and changed again). Tim used his Detective skills to try and help Batman and his coming into the role was more of a natural feeling progression and that was changed. Damian was Batman’s son (never before actually called a test tube baby until recently I believe). And now, Harper Row is some street wise electrical genius with an awkward nose piercing, gay brother, tragic parent death and criminal father. Harper is now training to be an Olympic level athlete in her run down apartment. This is a totally believably scenario and of course she will fit in as the next Robin (sarcasm font please). In about two years Snyder could win me over as change is always a rough transition. I just wish Row being built into the next Robin was not so obvious.

Next Part 4 – Make Mine Marvel – Nuff Said.