Who'd Like A Cocktail? #84

Robotman gets caught out staring at Saturn Girl's behind

• BLACKEST NIGHT DIRECTOR'S CUT #1 - finally got round to picking this up, partly to satisfy the collector in me. The cover gallery's nice, the script to issue #1 gives an insight into how comics are made and the unused scenes - particularly the Rainbow Raiders suicide - were interesting. Certainly not essential to the Blackest Night series, but an enjoyable add-on.
• THE BRAVE AND THE BOLD #34 - I'm sure some of us have seen this type of story before: a two parter involving time travel almost guarantees a couple of things 1) that the first issue will have odd, seemingly insignificant details dotted throughout (in this case the moving time sphere and the pink fluff) and 2) that the second issue will explain these as being caused by the same characters working behind the scenes to ensure their present selves don't see them. It's not a bad story, but neither is it anything above ordinary - it seems like an exercise for Straczynski to be able to tie up the various anomalies in an interesting way next month.
• GREEN LANTERN #54 - Atrocitus comes back, along with Red Lantern cat Dex-Star who makes a great entrance. The entities of the various Corps are named and shown to Jordan and the others and the mysterious cloaked figure frees Sodam Yat from Daxam's star. Oh, and Lobo turns up leading to a great next issue caption: Lobo punches people with rings. Hard.
• GREEN LANTERN CORPS #48 - Tony Bedard's first issue as writer isn't too bad; admittedly I don't think he's got Atrocitus's voice down yet but John Stewart's handled well.
• JUSTICE LEAGUE: GENERATION LOST #2 - well, I guess those first couple of pages answer the critics who wondered about how Max Lord would deal with the physical evidence of his crimes / existence. Nothing much happens apart from scenes where the main characters are all shown attempting to convince other heroes that they're right and being turned down. But hey, always nice to see Jaime Reyes's Blue Beetle.
• JUSTICE LEAGUE: THE RISE OF ARSENAL #3 - oh, you gotta go down before you can come up or some such other homily springs to mind with this. Arsenal goes back to the dope, then gets forced to go cold turkey and starts hallucinating his dead daughter Lian. One more issue to go.
• POWER GIRL #12 - I know this series is continuing, but this issue for me feels like the end. It's a wonderful, wonderful wrap up issue that still leaves plots not so much hanging as available. Having set the bar so high on this series, Palmiotti, Gray and Conner have almost guaranteed a slump in quality when Winick takes over next month but I don't want to tarnish this last issue snapshot with negativity about the new team. Power Girl has, for just over a year, been consistently one of the best books out there: fun, well-written, wonderful art, and characters that you end up caring about. There's no way Blackest Night could have made a cross-over into this world and as much as I enjoyed that series, I'm glad Power Girl never had to deal with it in these pages. I'm seriously going to miss this book even though I plan on sticking with the title if you see what I mean.
• PROJECT SUPERPOWERS: CHAPTER TWO #9 - okay, so all the heroes are piling on Zeus and after spending ages just growling Catman - sorry, Man-Cat finally gets to tear up the imposter Kid Terror who, paradoxically, may turn out to be just what they need against the mad god.
• TEEN TITANS #83 - oh god where do I start? I've stuck with different titles through rough patches before but I'm seriously considering dropping this until Henderson either leaves or is kicked off as writer. Changeling's yelling out "Raven!" every five minutes; Superboy and Wonder Girl are apparently splitting up because... well, I'm not sure, really; Changeling's yelling out "Raven!" every five minutes; Aquagirl fancies Superboy; Changeling's yelling out "Raven!" every five minutes; two doctors spout more pseudo-science nonsense than ever before; and why the hell would Changeling become a chimpanzee to mend a broken computer?! This is becoming a truly dreadful title with every issue, a car crash that I can't help staring at. Someone please tell me Henderson's going to be fired soon?
• Co-feature: COVEN OF THREE - not a bad start to a tale about three teenage magicians; always nice to see Traci 13 (even if she looks younger than when she was in Tales of the Unexpected a couple of years ago) and I wonder how Black Alice will be reconciled with her Secret Six appearances but this is still better than the main story.

And what made me smile will surprise no regular reader of this blog: Power Girl #12 just delivers so much this month like this -

and this - 

and this -

Once again a big thank you to Jimmy Palmiotti, Justin Gray and Amanda Conner for their excellent run on this book. Those of you who haven't picked it up can get the whole thing in two trade paperbacks with the second one out this year.