Blackest Night #4 Annotations

Sadly, there's going to be a slight delay on the annotations for Blackest Night #4 (as well as Blackest Night:Titans #3 and Green Lantern #47, all of which I picked up yesterday.


It was my wedding anniversary yesterday and my wife and I are off for a week's holiday from tomorrow. I'll get the notes done as soon as possible on my return.

Friday Night Fights - Bat vs Punks

Despite the myriad costumed villains that plague the streets of Gotham, where would Batman be without a couple of generic punks to whale on from time to time?

And that's what he gets to deal with here while on the trail for bigger fish.

Two on one? C'mon, this is the Batman!

A Bat-boot to the solar plexus is going ruin anyone's night.

This admittedly straight forward beat down comes from the pages of the Batman: Prey trade paperback from 1990, written by Doug Moench, with art by Paul Gulacy and Terry Austin.

Remember to head over to Spacebooger and vote for the other fights!

Who'd Like A Cocktail? #58

As I was away last week, this week's Cocktail post is bumper sized double issue!

• Blackest Night: Batman #3 - hmmm, seemed to finish on something of an anti-climax, I think.
• Booster Gold #25 - genuinely touching moment between Batman and Booster and Rip Hunter's chalkboard was entertaining as ever!
• Blue Beetle co-feature - come on! Anyone really believe Black Beetle is Jaime from the future?
• Final Crisis Aftermath: Escape #6 - if I have to re-read all six issues to make sense of this, I think I'd be more inclined to read the whole of the Bloodlines crossover again.
• Green Arrow/Black Canary #25 - Green Arrow is apparently going to be an important character next year in the DCU; I kinda hope Andrew Kreisberg isn't writing him when that happens.
• Black Canary co-feature - well, that was a waste of ten pages.
• Green Lantern Corps #41 - oooh, just when things look their bleakest, the Indigo guy turns up!
• JSA vs Kobra #5 - as I've said all along, this is a really nice series both writing and art-wise and it'll be a shame to see it end.
• The Punisher #75 - crap - I missed #74! Still, nice collection of stories here and great to see the preview featuring Steve Dillon's artwork.
• Secret Six #14 - Catman shows he's still a bad guy at heart.

And what made me smile:

There were rumours for years about those two, you know . . .

And here's what I picked up this week:

• Blackest Night: Superman #3 - wow, Krypto really is a good dog!
• The Brave And The Bold #28 - you know, I think it took me until Flash took his mask off to realise that was Barry Allen! I'm so used to Wally being the Flash, I just didn't realise . . .
• Final Crisis Aftermath: Dance #6 - so, only FCA: Ink to go and then we can all put Final Crisis behind us.
• Justice League of America #38 - the new era starts here, then? So what have we got? A teaser of a hidden villain; a return to Happy Harbour to reconnect with the old League; lots of self-doubt; reference to the end of a mini-series that hasn't actually ended yet; a completely pointless attack by an old villain; a realisation this version of the League's not worth continuing with; and a tie-in to Blackest Night. For a new era, it all sounds quite familiar.
• Power Girl #6 - whereas this is still fun and fresh month after month! A situation that would normally turn into a fight is handled differently here and that's so refreshing.
• The Punisher #74 - I missed this last month so picked it up this week. Not the best storyline ever, but Parlov's art is still great.
• The Stand: Soul Survivors #1 - this is the first issue of this adaptation that's felt a bit weak - knowing the book as well as I do, the burgeoning friendship between Nick and Tom was a lot richer in the original.

And what made me smile:

Talking of friendship, watching Power Girl and Terra interact is fun enough but having Terra map out the formula for superhero comics? Marvellous!

Ambush Bug #7?! Bwah-Ha-Ha!

Ambush Bug: Year None #7 due next week!

Man, I love Keith Giffen.

Friday Night Fights - Two For One

Recently frustrated by Hero Sandwich pre-empting me by using a fight from Crisis On Infinite Earths that I had lined up (no hard feelings, Scott!) I figured I'd dig something else out from that series:

Earth-4 (remember that?) where the bad guys of Lex Luthor and Brainiac have taken over and who have they left on guard duty?

The Trickster and The Riddler?! What use are they going to be against anyone?!

Particularly when that anyone is a green, giant ape flying through the air! Oh yeah!

Remember to head over to Spacebooger and vote on your favourite fight, folks!

This sole-socking-simian-smackdown was first shown in Crisis on Infinite Earths #9, cover dated December 1985, written by Marv Wolfman, with art by the wonderful George Perez and Jerry Ordway.

More Blackest Night Annotations

The notes are up over at the Annotated Blackest Night for Blackest Night: Batman #3 and Green Lantern Corps #41.

Enjoy!

Five Or Seven, It Makes No Difference

Taking from last week's Green Arrow/Black Canary #25:

So kids, can you guess what's coming next?

That's right, folks - just as The Last Days of Animal Man (from which all the other chapter headings are taken) is about to wrap up, Andrew Kreisberg takes us on yet another trip through the Five Stages of Grief.

Rather than wade through the next few issues of Green Arrow/Black Canary, you may want to save yourself the pain and simply read watch the Joker go through all five (plus another two for free!)

Five minutes sounds preferable to me.

Dead Books? Dead Good!

I am soooooooo looking forward to these!

No Cocktail Post This Week

I'm away for a long weekend so haven't even bough last week's comics yet, let alone read them, so no Coctail post today, I'm afraid.

Instead, here's a picture of a coctail bar.

Enjoy!

Friday Night Fights - A Faceful of Footwear

I think I robbed myself of last week's Friday Night Fight over at Spacebooger. I was leading 3 votes to 2 from Hero Sandwich and then had to vote for Hero Sandwich because Scott had pipped me to the post: he posted the fight I had lined up for this week.

Fred had the deciding vote and went for him . . . dammit!

Anyhow, here's this weeks from back in the days when Earth-2 heroes had their own comics:

That's Jonathan Law, aka the Tarantula facing off against fauna manipulating villaing Ramulus (no, I'd not heard of him either)

What is it with spider-based heroes and things going thwip!?

But always with one eye on the pay-off - Tarantula will send this guy to the cops as long as he gets to research his next book in return! Bloody authors will do anything for a book . . .

Make sure you vote over at Spacebooger - I won't be able to as I'm away this weekend but I'll be back for another round next week.

This old-school kick in the teeth first appeared in All-Star Squadron #54, cover dated February 1986, written by Roy Thomas with art by Mike Clark and Alfredo Alcala.

Who'd Like A Cocktail #57

Another shed-load of comics this week, including mucho Garth Ennis!

• The Boys #35 - we get the origin of Mother's Milk, a story which is just a bit . . . well . . . eeewwwww, really.
• Chronicles of Wormwood: The Last Battle #1 - another round of debauchery and devilry begins in fine form.
• Crossed #7 - this series keeps delivering shock after shock - Patrick's words to his mother? Jeez, that caught me by surprise.
• Doom Patrol #3 - man, Steve Dayton's messed in the head!
• Metal Men co-feature - veedle deedle veedle deedle veedle deedle veedle deedle! Heh!
• Final Crisis Aftermath: Run! #6 - the Human Flame stops running and takes on the JLA. C'mon, who did you think was going to win?! I've really enjoyed this series and can't wait for Sturges and Williams II to start on JSA All-Stars.
• Justice League: Cry For Justice #4 - five, Ollie? You had to wait until five villains had been tortured before speaking up? And even after that you still hung round with them? You're not the Green Arrow I know and like, Ollie. Despite that, this series (finally!) seems to be gathering some steam.
• Magog #2 - Magog's a "sucker for freckles" - who'd'a thought it?
• Project Superpowers: Meet The Bad Guys #2 - deathly white face? Check. Sideburns? Check. Thick black eye make-up? Check. Rides a bike? Check. Bad-ass attitude? Check. Look everyone: Lobo's in Project Superpowers as the Revolutionary!
• Red Tornado #2 - another good, solid issue though that cover is waaaaaaaay misleading!
• Strange Adventures #8 - everything changes but remains the same? That's the big finale? Not as satisfying as I'd hoped but still an enjoyable series overall.

And what made me smile this week:

Who said inter-company cross overs were dead!? That's the Human Flame doing his best jolly green giant impression in Final Crisis Aftermath: Run! #6

RSS Feed For Annotated Blackest Night!

The lovely people at Google Sites have finally sorted out installing an RSS feed for the websites, like the Annotated Blackest Night, using their platform.

If you use a feed reader you can now subscribe to the ABN feed either by using this link or heading over to the Site News page and clicking the subscribe button. Any changes I make to the site will then be sent straight to your feed reader.

Enjoy!

Friday Night Fights - Aquabatics!

More furious feet flying for Fred on a Friday! Over at Spacebooger, Fred demands a fight that ends with at least one foot to the face so here's what I've got:

Lured into a trap by the Joker and his partner Slade, Batman finds himself in a dry dock which, at the pull of a lever, the Clown Prince of Crime opens resulting in . . .

But this is the Batman, folks, a man who never doubts his own abilities:

All he needs is to pull himself up and out of the torrent that's raging against him and deal with his enemies. Can he do it?

Of course he can - he's the Goddam Batman! (And he also catches the Joker as well, but you guessed that, didn't you?)

This display of water-borne brutality was written by Bob Haney with art by Jim Aparo and first appeared in The Brave & The Bold #111 cover dated Feb-Mar 1974, but was scanned from The Greatest Joker Stories Ever Told trade paperback.

Blackest Night Annotations Done

Updated the notes for Green Lantern #46:

Blackest Night: Titans #2:

and the Black Power Ring Percentage Table, all of which can be found, as ever, over at the Annotated Blackest Night site. Enjoy!

Who'd Like A Cocktail #56

A bumper haul this week so let's get on with it:

• Amazons Attack! trade paperback - yeah, I heard it was a bit pants but what the heck, it's a corner of the DCU I wouldn't normally visit. It was okay, I guess - I like Pete Woods' work if nothing else.
• Blackest Night: Titans #2 - dead ex-husband and child or not, I can't help thinking Donna was a little too accepting of the Black Lanterns; the Hawks vs Dove battle heats up; and Titans Tower takes a tumble. This is good!
• The Boys: Herogasm #5 - oh The Homelander's plans get derailed and he's not happy about it; and the Boys themselves look to be in trouble.
• The Dark Tower: Fall of Gilead #5 - things are pretty dire right now as the tale approaches its end.
• Final Crisis Aftermath: Ink #5 - we get Tattooed Man's origin and this series begins to pick up again after a lull in the last couple of issues.
• Green Lantern #46 - Hal finally finds Carol's joined the Star Sapphires; old enemies team up; and Sinestro beats the snot out of Mongul. Cracking issue!
• Justice League of America 80 Page Giant #1 - I love the 80 Page Giants and really wish there were more of them. Sure the framing story here isn't exactly original - members of the JLA get thrown across time leading to crossovers with various DC heroes from yesteryear - but the majority of the stories are good fun (particularly the Green Arrow/Firestorm story)and it was nice to see Snapper Carr and Cheetah's fling from Final Crisis: Resist picked up on.
• Justice Society of America #31 - the lines are drawn more clearly for the forthcoming split and the villains attempt to reorganise. And that last page - anyone think that's for real? Cause I sure as hell hope not.
• The Last Days of Animal Man #5 - seeing Ellen supporting Buddy and helping him get back in the game makes me want to see a real Animal Man series up and running again.
• Teen Titans #75 - wait, what? Changeling's back?
• Ravager co feature - nice, taut story, nice art work, an interesting (and pissed off) lead character. And they say she can't carry a regular series?

And what made me smile this week:

Green Arrow cheerfully facing down Ra's Al Ghul from Justice League of America 80 Page Giant #1

Friday Night Fights - Lady Larcenist

Spacebooger demands a fight end in feet flying fury so that's what he gets here as I thank DC Comics for their wonderful Crisis On Multiple Earths series of trade paperbacks as they save me a shed load of money getting those early, hard to find Justice League of America issues.

This time round, it's Wonder Woman vs Superwoman

A little competition, Superwoman? Surely the Amazon Princess can give you more than "a little"?

Oh no! Who'd have thought a villain called Superwoman would have . . . super-legs?!

A super-catapult!? Whatever next?!

Merciful Minerva indeed . . .

This charming tale of girl on girl action 60's style was taken from the reprints of Justice League of America in Crisis on Multiple Earths Vol 1 and was written by Gardner Fox with art by Mike Sekowsky.