Who'd Like A Cocktail? #143

Haven't we all, Guy, haven't we all . . .

While the rest of you are mourning the end of the DCU, I'm going to be dragging it out as due to last week's delivery cock-up and this week my comic shop suffering water damage I'm missing a couple of DC books, not least the last issues of Justice League of America and Power Girl. Still, here's what I did get:

• BRIGHTEST DAY AFTERMATH: THE SEARCH FOR SWAMP THING #3 - can someone let me know what the point of this was, please? I'll be darned if I can see it. Jonathan Vankin: another name on my "do not buy anything from this man" list.
• DC RETROACTIVE: GREEN LANTERN - THE 90's #1 - Ron Marz and Darryl Banks on Green Lantern again; halcyon days, my friends. While this one-shot's nothing brilliant in terms of plot (it's one big fight after all) it does show Kyle Rayner as he was, fresh and energetic, using the ring with the imagination of an artist to create constructs that simply worked a treat. It's an affectionate, uncomplicated and fun look back at the character the pair created and perhaps without intending to, makes the current Green Lantern titles look a bit needlessly grim. I'm looking forward to Marz and Sami Basri on Voodoo next month.
• FLASHPOINT: HAL JORDAN #3 - "Hal, drop a nuke on Britain and end the war." "Yes, Mr President." "Hal, don't do this, it's too dangerous." "I have to, Carol." "Then I'm coming, too." "Oh, okay." "Oh no, there's a forcefield over Britain which no-one knew about, apparently." "Let's eject from our planes and use the nuke to blow that up." "Oh, okay." "Sucker!" "Carol, you know he loved you all along, don't you?" "Thanks, Tom, that really makes me feel better."
• FLASHPOINT: KID FLASH LOST #3 - and a quick trip through the Flashpoint timestream for Kid Flash to leech speed from various speedsters and pass it on to Flash so that he can save the universe in Flashpoint #5 next week. That Flashpoint #5 reveals how the old DCU becomes the new DCU really means that whatever happens, Flash is going to fail. Sorry, Kid Flash, but your efforts were apparently worthless.
• FLASHPOINT: LOIS LANE AND THE RESISTANCE #3 - despite the Amazons on the cover having learned about protective armour from the school of Red Sonja, this is actually a pretty good wrap-up to one of the better minis. It'd be nice to see Britannia in the new DCU, maybe as part of Justice League International as she seems a much better character than Lionheart from years back.
• FLASHPOINT: PROJECT SUPERMAN #3 - whether matrimonially in the new DCU or physically here, it seems Lois Lane gets sacrificed so that Superman can grow and become a grim and gritty hero. No real need to kill her off which makes this a disappointing end to something that had been okay in previous issues.
• GREEN ARROW #15 - James Patrick wraps up his Green Arrow adventure in nice style proving that even heroes who kill can still inspire people to do the right thing. Good solid ending and it's almost a shame that we get JT Krul back in the new series next month.
• GREEN LANTERN: EMERALD WARRIORS #13 - another done-in one to end up a series, this was a slightly silly tale of both Batman and Guy Gardner investigating a crime on the International Space Station. Buy into that premise, though, and it's not a bad story.
• JUSTICE SOCIETY OF AMERICA #54 - the whole Society team up to defeat the bad guy uncharacteristically freed by Jesse Quick last issue. While the issue starts with a funeral, we're kept guessing as to whose funeral it is until the end though we're fed various red herrings. There's a great appearance by Mr Terrific (see below) and the book tries to end on as high a note as possible but with no revealed plans for the JSA in the new DCU, you have to wonder what's going to happen to these guys. It took me a while to warm to Guggenheim's writing but once I got there, I've been enjoying it and it's a shame to see this series end.
• TEEN TITANS #100 - Superboy-Prime gets the snot kicked out of him like we all knew he would and is imprisoned in the Source Wall leaving the Titans to all look wistfully at each other before flying off into the sunset. Beast Boy and Raven finally get together after spending months moping about but it's poor old Ravager I feel sorry for. Mistaking the situation with Superboy she ends up feeling crap, her negative self-image inadvertently reinforced by someone she found herself caring about. It's a shame we won't see the result of all that insightful psychological analysis I somehow came up with but there we go.

And what made me smile:

I have the impression that Terrific's mental degradation was to have taken a while to be cured but as the series ended, Marc Guggenheim just thought bugger it and cured him instantly!