The Best and The Rest

So according to the State of the Union not only are we on a way to a great recovery, but we will put a chicken in every pot and cure cancer by the end of the year. I do not know why I watch this stuff as it is as bad as comic book solicitations. At least comics provided an entertaining week.

BEST

Batman and Robin #7 – Writer Grant Morrison, Art Cameron Stewart, Colors Alex Sinclair. A few people told me they thought this book went off the rails and that Dick trying to revive Batman did not make any sense. Personally I loved this issue. We start with Dick carrying Bruce’s body and then we jump over to England and Batman is fighting with the Squire. Six pages of non-stop action as Batman stops a bombing in the subway. As the rest of the issue unfolds we find the Knight and Batwoman are involved, Damian is having his back repaired by Talia via some wild surgery machine and we end at a Lazarus pit. Next issue it is Batman versus Batman. Whatever happened to Bruce we don’t know yet and this is not going to be Bruce. I for one, hope that we have not spent all this time and effort making Dick into the new Batman only to see it just end in another year. I trust Grant has better story ideas then that. I think what I like about Grant’s approach to this series is we are constantly moving forward. It gets a little confusing trying to keep all the pieces together since this is not the only book I read, but Grant is allowing his readers to fill in the blanks for certain story points. I think it is a good approach as we only get 22 pages a month and Grant has a lot of story to tell us.

Echo #19 - by Terry Moore. Echo has moved along at a rapid pace but the action is often either a big explosion or a quick burst of action and then it is over. In this issue we were treated to an assassin that was looking for Julie Martin and probably hired by Henri. I’m guessing since Ivy has failed they have moved on. The action sequence we see when he shows up at the biker bar is incredible. It is also so well choreographed that when they do the movie the storyboards are already there. Terry has given us characters we care about, a great story, some cool science ideas and now he has given us an action sequence that any action fan would love to see. This book is maintaining its quality and remains one of the best series on the stands.

Other Books I Wanted To Mention

The Atom and the Hawkman #46 – These books have been far from throw away issues that I thought they would be and in fact many have been very good. This issue is another good one and it ties tightly into the main Blackest Night series, which makes sense as Johns is writing it. One of the well done story points was the Indigo Tribe leader basically telling Ray Palmer to get over Jean Loring and move on. As his woe is me act was wearing thin and less then heroic it was a welcome change.

Justice League Cry for Justice #6 (of 7) – This has been a very weird series and the shifting tides of what was happening inside the offices of DC and the changes that were occurring are all over this series. So many elements have been changing on the fly and the lateness of the book has caused us to learn how the series ends before the final book comes out (the current JLA issue refers to the end of this book). I’m not sure what I think of the whole thing, but if at the end of the day if we can get a consistently well done JLA book I’ll be happy.

Green Lantern #50 – First off Doug Mahnke is a terrific artist. He also apparently can produce a monthly book with no problem. I hope DC has him locked up to a long term deal because he is one of DC’s major assets. The core of this issue is the fight against the Spectre and Hal makes a choice to become Parallax again to be able to take down the Black Lantern Spectre. While a very cool story and a left turn of an ending the true shock was not there for me because I know Hal will not remain this way. Still any good story’s ending can be known as long as the solution is well done it can still be a great success.

Guardians of the Galaxy #22 – This continues to be an entertaining book and with Brad Walker as the pencil artist it is an even better book. This issue has tons of actions and adventure and a great twist ending. Is my second favorite group book at Marvel with only Agents of Atlas beating it out for the number one group book.

Superman Secret Origins #4 (of 6) – This issue was a direct follow up to the last issue and a change from the pacing we were getting before with each issue jumping around in Superman’s story. Also the cover showed Jor-el and Lara so I was expecting more on his kryptonian side. With my expectations dashed, I was already a little down on the issue and thought that it was a little slow for a six part series that is telling Superman’s origin. Still we saw the first meeting with Lex Luthor and the origin of the parasite which was excellent.

Walking Dead #69 – This series is always good. It was funny talking about this issue to other local fans because since we are all familiar with the area around Washington, DC and we got distracted by the road signs that we think might have been screwed up. Still we are now at the new safe haven and get to see how a group of people are rebuilding the world.

Worst

Wildcats #19 – It was so bad I cancelled this title. After getting into this book with the post apocalypse stuff they just tried to merge the entire WU. I will try the Authority for a little longer, but this book was a convoluted mess. It was character overload to the nth degree and even a hard core Wildcats fan I know kissed this series good-bye.

It is impossible with a week that has so many books to keep this post down to a bare minimum but that is what I’m striving to get to in the future. The rest of the week should have 2 preview reviews and Gwen, Matthew and Thomm to round out Friday, Saturday and Sunday. Maybe we will get some extra posts in this week.