Who'd Like A Cocktail? #52

Here we are again for another round of cocktails:

• Blackest Night: Titans #1 - Black Lanterns! Ed Benes! Butt shots! Joking aside, not a bad start - the ghostly pram/stroller in Donna's room was a nice, creepy touch.
• The Boys: Herogasm #4 - 9/11's always going to be an emotive subject even when dealing with an alternate history of it. Ennis handles it very well.
• The Dark Tower: Fall of Gilead #4 - the centre cannot hold / Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world.
• Final Crisis Aftermath: Ink #4 - oh wow, it's the return of the long dead brother complete with super-villain name. And this series started off so well.
• Green Lantern #45 - oh boy is Agent Orange in trouble now!
• Justice Society of America #30 - Dr. Fate's back! Oh yeah! Could do without the bickering but I guess that's building to the JSA All-Stars series coming soon.
• The Last Days of Animal Man #4 - Jeez, poor old Buddy's getting put through the wringer here.
• Project Superpowers: Chapter Two #2 - you know, with such a huge cast in the Superpowers universe, it'd be nice if someone annotated it . . . Seriously, though, this is good stuff.
• Teen Titans #74 - poor Kid Devil, not to mention Kid Eternity.
• Wednesday Comics #8 - hmmm, toss up between Metamorpho and the Flash this week I think.

And what made me smile this week:

Heh - pink bunnies have never done it for me.

Blackest Night: Titans #1 Annotations

Notes are up over at the Annotated Blackest Night, along with the notes for Green Lantern #45.

Enjoy!

More Annotations Than You Could Possibly Imagine

Been a bit quiet here this last week, mostly due to me celebrating my birthday - I reached the grand old age of 40 last Tuesday and my wife and I have been out enjoying ourselves and will be for the next week as well.

Plus I've been working on something in the background that I've wanted to do for a while now - more annotations for more DC comics. I'll reveal all once it's ready, though that might be some time.

Anyhow, Blackest Night: Titans #1 hit this week, along with Green Lantern #45 so notes will be up for those as soon as possible over at the Annotated Blackest Night.

Who'd Like A Cocktail? #51

The weekly round up of what I picked up from my local comic shop:

• Blackest Night: Superman #1 - didn't Pete Ross used to be the Vice President? And now he's working in a general store? How the mighty have fallen. Either way, good opening issue.
• The Brave And The Bold #26 - great idea (ghosts killing ghosts) but utterly dreadful, leaden dialogue.
• Final Crisis Aftermath: Dance #4 - finding it hard to care what happens to the Super Young Team, to be honest. And am I the only one who reads @MOSEXSBAT as Mo Sex Bat?
• Justice League of America #36 - still the Royal Flush Gang? Still with the bad card puns? Still a boring fill-in story? Looks like it.
• Power Girl #4 - finally! Fun comics! Cracking dialogue! Excellent art! Power Girl and Terra hanging out together! Why do I think this title's going to get cancelled before long?!
• Project Superpowers: Meet The Bad Guys #1 - and the award for the longest title this week goes to... As with Brave and The Bold, nice idea but clunky dialogue.
• Punisher #73 - this story might just be rising above the raft of clichés it's built on, plus Goran Parlov's art is still excellent.
• The Stand: American Nightmares #5 - still a good solid adaptation.
• Wednesday Comics #7 - "Great Thanagar! Of all the islands in all the oceans on planet Earth -- why did we have to crash-land on Dinosaur Island?" - quote of the week comes from Hawkman, without a doubt!

And what made me smile this week:

Ah, Power Girl - this title's consistently one of my favourites thanks to Jimmy Palmiotti's and Justin Gray's writing and Amanda Conner's artwork. If you're not buying it, do so now!

Blackest Night: Superman #1

Notes are up over at the Annotated Blackest Night for Superman # 1.

Enjoy!

Well Waddaya Know?

I was right!

Back in May, I suggested that the new Batgirl might turn out to be Stephanie Brown, aka Spoiler.

Lo and behold, the Source reveals I got it right:

You are Batgirl and I claim my five pounds!

It Was All Hal Jordan's Fault In The First Place

As I mentioned yesterday, I've just posted some notes about the Nekron story in Tales of The Green Lantern Corps over at the Annotated Blackest Night. To get those notes done, I obviously re-read the story, the first time I'd done so in ages. When I did, I noticed something a bit . . . odd.

In short, the Guardians have gather every Green Lantern on Oa - that's all 3,600 of them so you know it's going to be important. Hell, they even drafted in Charlie Vicker:

who seems to have a . . . close . . . relationship with Stel . . . which is fine, you know, I'm not judging - just going for the cheap joke.

Anyhow, like I said, it's an important meeting as evidenced by Tomar-Re and the other Honour Guards showing up:

I wonder why Guy Gardner and Kyle Rayner don't have those fancy red sashes now that they're Honour Guards . . . ?

Anyhow, like the bird-man says, "Time is of the essence!" There's no time to delay - things have to get going and, after the Guardians arrive, Jordan does just that. He gets going . . . at least his mouth does:

See, he's only just met Arisia who doesn't know squat about the Guardians or their history so Jordan fills her in concerning Krona, that bad guy who wanted desperately to see the origin of the universe.

And he takes three and a half pages to do it even though, as his good friend Tomar-Re said:

And what do the Guardians do when Jordan's babbling away about Krona?

Nothing!

They wait until he's finished!!

Sure, Guardian, explain the URGENT REASON you've brought them together after you let Jordan finish his story. Don't you realise:

It's so urgent you summon every Green Lantern, it's so urgent you bring them all to Oa all at once, it's all so very, very urgent but you let Jordan tell Krona's story for too long:

Not ready?!

Not ready?!


Who's fault is that?!

Hal Jordan - smug son of a bitch.

Nekron's First Appearance

I dare say it's no surprise now that Nekron has been revealed as the power behind the Black Lanterns what with the release of the cover art for Blackest Night #5.

To tie in with that, I've written up some basic notes about the Tales of The Green Lantern Corps mini-series from 1981 that featured his first appearance over at the Annotated Blackest Night.  You can find them here.

Enjoy!

Secret Six #15

Written by John Ostrander! Holy crap!

Who'd Like A Cocktail? #50

That's right - fifty of these damn Cocktail posts, my look at the comics I get each week accompanied this week by piss-poor graphics gleefully ripped from a copy of Crisis on Infinite Earths!

They were a bit infrequent for a while after I started them as both the single issue review and then a paragraph about every comic just took too much time to work through.  Since I started the weekly bulletted lists back in March with #27, I've not missed a single one . . . even when, like this one, I'm not actually here!

When this gets posted, I shall be visiting my in-laws with my lovely wife, so it's just as well I can post this now, on Friday, after having picked up my comics early.  So what did I get this week?

• Blackest Night #2 - damn, this is getting good! "Worlds have died. Worlds will rise." Oooooh, creepy!
• Blackest Night: Batman #1 - the Black Lantern Corps isn't fussy: they'll take any old dead second stringer (though I loved the Ventriloquist's ring-constructed Scarface!)
• Booster Gold #23 - c'mon, Dan - I know you want to keep the mystery villain hidden but in a room that well lit, how comes only his head is in shadow?
• Blue Beetle co-feature - thank you, DC, for the co-features and specifically for allowing Blue Beetle to continue; and thank you, Matt Sturges, for writing such a consistently fun tale.
• Chronicles of Wormwood: The Last Battle preview - more wonderfully irreligious escapades from Ennis; can't wait for the full series.
• Final Crisis Aftermath: Escape #4 - what's that? Was that the hint of a plot line? After two thirds of the mini-series is done they finally discover a plot line?!
• Green Arrow/Black Canary #23 - anyone tell me why Norton and Rubinstein are on the back-up story? Hey, least I'm not ragging on Kreisberg's writing for one issue of this title.
• Green Lantern Corps #39 - would have made a little more sense for this to be out with Blackest Night #1, I think, but still damned good. And glad to see Mongul's finally decided to rename his army.
• JSA vs Kobra #3 - not quite as effective as the first two issues, perhaps because of the tension between Power Girl and Mr. Terrific, but still a damn good issue.
• Wednesday Comics #6 - still plenty more hits than misses but Kamandi and the Flash top the list this week I think.

And what made me smile:

So there you go, a bumper crop for this week's Cocktail post. Here's to #100 round about this time next year!

Blackest Night #2 Annotations Published

Slight change of plans meant that I didn't go away for as long as I was expecting which means the annotations for issue #2 of Blackest Night are now done and up at the Annotated Blackest Night.

I've also written up brief nots for the tie-in issues of Blackest Night: Batman #1 and Green Lantern Corps #39 which you can also find over at the site.

There's a couple of characters I need identifying - check the Help Needed page and either post a comment here, use the Comments / Guestbook page over at the site or drop me a mail at jigsawmen [AT] googlemail [DOT] com.

Annotations For Blackest Night #2

I know Blackest Night #2 has already landed over in the States but here in the dear old UK, I shan't be getting my copy until tomorrow.

Couple that with going away this weekend and the annotations for #2 will be up at The Annotated Blackest Night as early as possible next week.

Final Crisis Finally Done

Just a quick one - I've now migrated the Annotated Final Crisis to the new Google Sites platform; existing links should automatically redirect but you can go to the new site here.

I didn't want to publish an incomplete site so have worked my arse off this afternoon, typing up notes for the missing issues of Legion of 3 Worlds, Revelations and Superman Beyond 3D. Note these aren't full annotations, just précis of the issues.

Let me know what you think of the revamped site.

Who'd Like A Cocktail? #49

My weekly run down of the comics I get

• The Boys #33 - "Ith god b doth!!"  Garth Ennis does love a speech impaired character, doesn't he?
• Doom Patrol #1 - I've never picked up a Doom Patrol ongoing before and the only reason I got this was because of Keith Giffen's writing as I'm something of a fan. I'll definitely be around for the next few issues to see where this goes.
• Metal Men co-feature - ah, the JLI team back together, doing what they do best. Even if I hadn't enjoyed Doom Patrol, I'd probably picked it up for this anyway.
• Final Crisis Aftermath: Run #4 - easily the best of the Aftermath series, this continues to be great fun. However, I do have one demand for Mr Sturges: bring back Miss Army Knife! Coolest villain name ever!
• Justice League: Cry For Justice #2 - when I heard James Robinson was going to be writing this I was over the moon; having read two slow, stilted, poorly dialogued issues I fear for the future of the Justice League of America title when he takes over.
• Secret Six #12 - while I enjoyed this issue, I couldn't help wondering why Wonder Woman didn't simply use her lasso to get what she wanted . . . ?
• Strange Adventures #6 - alien fish and a giant slice of pepperoni pizza. Just when you thought this series was slowing down . . .
• Wednesday Comics #5 - still way more hits than misses; I think the only stories I'm not reading are Wonder Woman and Strange Adventures, both due to the artwork which doesn't really work for me.

And what made me smile this week? Actually, several things did:

From the Metal Men co-feature in Doom Patrol #1

Human Flame puns to the max in Final Crisis Aftermath: Run #4

I mean, seriously, would anyone mess with Artemis right now?

The big questions get asked in Metamorpho from Wednesday Comics #5.

Same Old Stuff, New Address

I've just finished the migration of The Annotated Infinite Crisis site from the old googlepages host to the new googlesites address.  There's an automatic redirect so any links to the old site will take you to the new one.  You can check out the changes here.

Over the next couple of days I plan to do the last few bits and pieces with The Annotated Final Crisis and get that migrated as well - then it's back to normal service.

Working Behind The Scenes

Been kinda busy over the weekend - I know you're all desperately waiting to find out just how many people Hitman killed, aren't you? - but that'll have to wait for a while.

As I've mentioned before, the platform I used to create The Annotated Infinite Crisis and The Annotated Final Crisis called Google Page Creator is being shut down. Google are pushing their newer platform, Google Sites which is what I used for The Annotated Blackest Night.

Sites created with Page Creator are due to be automatically transferred at some point but I figured I'd take the opportunity to make some slight tweaks and push them over myself. I've been copying files over from one to the other and hope to get the new Sites-driven pages up by the weekend so at the moment the sites look just the same. The original addresses should automatically redirect to the new ones once they're up and running.

Soon as they're ready, I'll drop a note here.

Who'd Like A Cocktail? #48

Been busy as heck all week, mostly with the Annotated Blackest Night, but here's my weekly round-up:

• Battlefields: The Tankies #3 - "Ye put one doon the barrel, son!"  Marvellous!
• Blackest Night: Tales of The Corps #3 - nice director's commentary on Blackest Night #0;
• The Dark Tower: Fall of Gilead #3 - poor old Cort buys the farm;
• Final Crisis Aftermath: Ink #3 - who'd have thought you could get closer with your tattoos?
• Justice League of America #35 - oh come on, another Justice League reboot and we get the Royal Flush Gang again?
• Justice Society of America #29 - Stargirl has a Highlander moment!
• The Last Days of Animal Man #3 - for a guy who spends all his time thinking about his family, Animal Man's family give him a rough time this issue;
• Teen Titans #73 - wait, Bombshell knows the chemical composition of mustard gas?!
• Wednesday Comics #4 - still delivering more pluses than minuses.

And what made me smile this week:

Heh!