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| The new Green Lantern ingratiates himself to the Justice League. Well . . . most of them. |
Welcome to your usual Sunday afternoon comics round-up.
EARTH 2 #6 - the heroes continue their fight against Grundy, hoping that Green Lantern can find a way to defeat him within the Gray, all unaware that former good guy turned unrepentant megalomaniac Mr 8 has released nuclear warheads heading for their position. GL manages to come through and stop both Grundy and the missiles but even though Hawkgirl helps save him in return, he still turns out to be "an ungrateful, arrogant ass."
Another cracking issue; just when you think the heroes are going to rally round together, slap each other on the back and set up the Justice Society, Alan Scott blanks them and decides he doesn't need them. Splendid stuff.
GREEN LANTERN #14 - confronted by the Justice League, Simon Baz tries to take the sensible approach and talk with them before Sinestro's spirit/essence comes along and spoils the moment. Managing to escape from the League, Baz meets with his sister who's found the address of the man who may lead him to the people behind the bomb that he's been framed with making and exploding. Elsewhere, the Guardians continue their evil plan, Black Hand raises his own Guardian and Jordan and Sinestro have their own problems in the land of the dead. Or wherever they are.
Good stuff; a lot going on with different plot lines all deftly handled. The only thing I didn't like was Baz's reaction after Sinestro caused his ring to malfunction. One moment he's being sensible and wanting to talk to the League, the next he's running from them. Why didn't he just sit down and say "Look, that wasn't me, let's talk about this," as he'd been ready to do just moments before? Apart from that, very good.
STORMWATCH #14 - Etrigan's unleashed in the East End of London and the whole of Stormwatch is needed to kick his arse, even though he's weakened. In the course of the battle, Etrigan realises Stormwatch is the metaphorical descendant of the Demon Knights which just serves to infuriate him, while the Engineer displays no interest in the safety of others over maintaining the team's secrecy.
This issue is very, very clunky - the dialogue isn't natural and just drips with exposition such as Apollo's "If it wasn't for the shield... made of solar power... my flesh would be falling off..." I've been pleasantly surprised with Milligan's writing up till now but this issue's just awful.
SWAMP THING #14 - Swamp Thing, grown to enormous proportions, deals with the undead Teen Titans before heading off, convinced that Abby is still alive somewhere in the world. Trouble is, she's at the heart of the rot, in her uncle Anton's castle and while Swampy and Deadman try to get there, they're captured by young William Arcane, armed with his control over the Rot and Aquaman's trident!
Despite the interminable Rotworld continuing forever, this was still a good issue.
WORLDS' FINEST #6 - Huntress attempts to make a withdrawal from the Wayne fortune before she's stopped by the arrogant and violent Robin of Damian Wayne while Power Girl adapts a satellite to her own uses, trying to track down Apololiptian signals anywhere on Earth. Alerted to Huntress's situation, she steps in to help, literally kicking Robin up the arse. When Huntress convinces Robin that they haven't been stealing from Wayne every week, Robin agrees to listen to them.
Not a bad issue, although PG's costume burning off every five minutes is starting to wear a little thin (no pun intended). Not reading any of the Batman comics, I've no idea how true to his personality Levitz's Robin is - does Batman really have a son willing to kill, or at least convincingly threaten to do so? One thing that should please some of the fans who decried Huntress killing off Helena Bertinelli was her stated intention to use the money she was stealing to "replace an identity I lost"
And what made me smile:
Swamp Thing gets his own Monty Python moment!
Most of my experience with Damien is in the Steph Brown Batgirl series. I never saw him kill anyone, but there was always someone (Steph, Grayson) around, and he was carrying swords constantly. He's definitely killed villains in the past (in the arc where Morrison brought him in, for one). He doesn't mind using excessive force, but from what I saw, the swords are his variation on Batman's interrogation by dangling people off rooftops. He uses that, and adds pointy things to the mix.
ReplyDeleteI agree with Googum at Random happenstance: Damien and Azreal would have gotten along like a house on fire.
Have to admit I didn't like this take on Robin - he seemed happy to bandy about the threat of killing Huntress pretty much from the outset. Being brought up by the League of Assassins'll do that to a kid, I suppose, but it didn't sit well with me.
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