Crisis On Earth Prime: Who'd Like A Cocktail? #99

Sunday, 26 September 2010

Who'd Like A Cocktail? #99

That's a president I'd vote for!

As I was away last weekend, you lucky people get a double sized edition of Who'd Like A Cocktail, the posts where I just babble away in bullet points about my comic books.

BRIGHTEST DAY #10 - Firestorm gets some really bad news - he's the next Big Bang just waiting to happen. I wonder if Damage will be jealous when he hears about that. The new Aqualad makes his appearance culminating in a very tense stand-off between Aquaman and Black Manta that really makes me think Geoff Johns could carry off an Aquaman solo-series. All told, another good issue.
DC UNIVERSE: LEGACIES #5 - they missed a great trick here, not having the original Crisis tie-in banner running across the cover! Of course, this being a post-Crisis depiction of Crisis on Infinite Earths, it isn't really a tie-in, but I'm nit-picking. Len Wein continues his stroll through the various ages of DC's history, stopping off at the big Crisis. This issue really is splendid, managing to focus on a normal family who observe some of the biggest DC events; sure it's been done before (Marvels is the obvious comparison) but that doesn't stop this being good. And hey, they got George Perez to do this issue as well!
GREEN LANTERN CORPS #52 - the Alpha Lantern storyline comes to an end as Cyborg Superman is defeated once more (I'd like to say permanently this time, but we know that's not going to happen) and the Alpha's have their emotions restored.
THE DARK TOWER: THE GUNSLINGER: THE JOURNEY BEGINS #5 - And so the journey that began a couple of years ago has come to the end of the bit where the journey begins. Or something.
GREEN LANTERN: EMERALD WARRIORS #2 - Guy Gardner starts his top-secret mission and, no surprise, his friends Arisia and Kilowog tag along for the ride. There's not a great deal that happens this issue, to be honest, as it seems to be setting things up, introducing Zardor of Kralok and his mental powers, along with bringing Red Lantern Bleez back into things.
THE BOYS: HIGHLAND LADDIE #2 - I love it when I'm right! Back in Cocktail #95, I wrote: "May I predict a hugely oversized adversary for Hughie, employed by the drug smugglers, who will also be quite humourous either in name and/or appearance?" and in this issue we meet the gigantic Wee Sarah. Still, Ennis's predictability doesn't prevent this being another top issue.
JUSTICE LEAGUE: GENERATION LOST #10 -Warning! The cover of this issue is not reflected in the contents at all! Warning! Don't get me wrong - it's another cool cover, but at no point does a Year One style Batman hang around a JL International embassy building. The faux-JLI continue their attempt to find and foil Max Lord's plans and, just when it looks like Batman's figured out something's wrong, Lord's global mind-wipe kicks in again.
JUSTICE LEAGUE OF AMERICA #49 - this seems like a done-in-one just to bridge the gap between the end of last issue and a big 50th issue celebration. Trust me - introduce a mind-manipulator in the first few pages and you can guarantee anything that happens after that is all in someone's mind. And since when did Donna Troy swear so much?!
POWER GIRL #16 - here we see the start of the fight which is going to dominate #18 featuring Power Girl's new nemesis, Divine. The rest of the issue's background on why she ends up in the Arctic in the first place. Having bashed Winick on this blog on more than one occasion, I have to admit to still liking this title; he's keeping it relatively light and the art's nice and clean so hopefully it's not going to go down the pan at any stage soon.
PROJECT SUPERPOWERS: CHAPTER TWO #12 - all the heroes get together to beat the crap out of the Claw while the Death Defying 'Devil is outed as being the Devil himself! Well, maybe. The next issue solicit says that Chapter Three, out next year, will be the last one. Surely Dynamite aren't just going to roll this series up and put it away?
ZATANNA #5 - another cracking issue of magical superheroics; this series just keeps on getting better. It's almost as much fun as the old Power Girl series was, just with more demons!