Who'd Like A Cocktail? #21

Slight change here to the (recently neglected) Who'd Like A Cocktail? post. Instead of picking out a single comic, I'm going to just run through my complete week's haul - damn it, why not?

Booster Gold #12 - who knew, indeed, that Batman was such a clothes horse? The Chuck Dixon story which, in two issues, has convoluted time more than Geoff Johns' entire run continues here but doesn't conclude, even though it finishes on a definite cliff-hanger. Connected to Dixon's recent sudden departure from DC? Possibly. Either way, I have to admit to being marking time until Dan Jurgens takes over as writer.

Dark Tower: Treachery #1 - I'm a big fan of Stephen King's Dark Tower books and the adaptations/extensions to the story that Marvel have published have been excellent. As with the earlier series, the art on Treachery is simply stunning, but I find myself wondering whether the team will stick together for the entire run. At this rate, they'll be working on Dark Tower comics for the rest of their lives!

Final Crisis: Revelations #2 - something else I'm a big fan of: crossover events. This joins another bunch of issues that I really have to get off my arse and note up for The Annotated Final Crisis site but, as I've mentioned before, work keeps getting in the way. The Spectre and The Question face off (as much as The Question can) as the world goes to hell with the events of Final Crisis #3. Not having read the recent Crime Bible: Five Lessons of Blood series, some of the references to The Question's recent activity are lost on me but this is still a damn fine read. The Radiant, the spirit of mercy, makes her debut but what really grabbed me was the revelation of Vandal Savage's part - an excellent surprise!

Green Arrow/Black Canary #12 - a whole year in and this title keeps dragging me along, unsure of why I'm still reading it. I guess it's one of those that I'm reading out of loyalty to the characters rather than the writer. Judd Winick seems to have taken forever to get round to resolving the mystery of who shot Connor and now that it's done, I wonder if the series will find a higher gear? Full marks to Mike Norton on the art front, though.

Green Lantern Corps #28 - I like Peter Tomasi's writing, though, and his tenure on Green Lantern Corps has been a solid start but most of this issue seemed like laying groundwork for the forthcoming Blackest Night event. A Lantern who can talk to the dead and the scarred Guardian who wants the corpse of the Anti-Monitor found, but wants it done secretly is a fairly obvious signpost. Having Ice turn up early on Guy Gardner's doorstep was a nice touch; I read Justice League when their whole tentative romance started with the obnoxious Gardner simply trying to get in her blue and white spandex pants. With the more mature, but still brash, Gardner now in place, I'm interested in seeing where it's going. Of course, that last glimpse of Ice with the power battery at her feet could mean that it's not Ice after all . . .

The Stand: Captain Trips #1 - like I mentioned above, I'm a fan of Stephen King's work and, of all of them, The Stand is probably my favourite book so I was really interested to see what was happening with this. The art is excellent and the writing's spot on. My one complaint is that it seems a little rushed. The Stand is a huge book and, having read it several times, I get the feeling that they're trimming a heck of a lot off it to make the adaptation work. Which isn't to say it's bad, but it is a bit rushed.

Trinity #15 - the mystical, tarot-card driven nonsense continues once more! Don't get me wrong, I'm enjoying the book, but it seems to be labouring the point a little . . . but then without the symbolism angle of Superman, Batman and Wonder Woman forming a trinity, where would the book be? What I would like to know, though, is where Batman's ears have gone? That scene a few pages in where the whole Justice League are trying to work out where the bad guys are? Batman's ears are little more than stubs at the top of his head! I demand Kelley Jones go round to Mark Bagley's house and show him how to draw a damn good pair of bat-ears! There's one hell of a fight in the back-up story, though, illustrated by Scott McDaniel and Andy Owens - whose work looks gorgeous - and which ends with Hawkman about to hit something very hard!