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| Yeah, you can joke, but here's why you don't want Ray Palmer ticked off at you. |
Well, that was a cheery little number, wasn't it? Despite the best laid plans, things go horribly wrong and the band that started out together end up together.
Garth Ennis wraps up the first Crossed: Badlands arc in suitable grim fashion. He said in an interview that he didn't want this series to ever be about survivors banding together and developing a cure for the affliction; it was about people doing what they need to survive against the most horrible circumstances and this first story thoroughly subscribes to that point of view.
I look forward to seeing what Jamie Delano does with this world next issue.
Vandal Savage is reluctantly let back into the happy band as the travel to Alba Sarum. Along the way, Madame Xanadu explains what's going on in the infernal ménage à trois that is herself, Jason Blood and Etrigan the Demon, the latter of whom has his own take on things. Before them, in Alba Sarum, Merlin the wizard appears to come to a sticky end at the hands of a Daemonite.
Yet another cracking issue with Cornell spending time with Xanadu's version of events just long enough to us convinced before Etrigan turns everything on its head. Or does he? Splendid stuff.
Frankie and his estranged Bride go after their surprisingly still alive offspring that Father Time had kept imprisoned without their knowledge these last few years. They track it to Castle Frankenstein, along the way revealing the reason the pair of them are estranged in the first place, and it's a reunion that doesn't end well for all concerned.
This is another splendid issue that not only highlights Frankie and the Bride but also gives time enough to Ray Palmer to stalk off in disgust at S.H.A.D.E.'s handling of the offspring.
I am so going to miss Jeff Lemire on this title.
Sinestro is imprisoned by the Indigo Tribe who attempt to force him to join them with some form of mind-wipe. Hal Jordan, meanwhile, tricks Black Hand into partially recharging his ring enough to escape his own cell and accidentally find his way to the Tribe's shrine to Abin Sur. And all this, just in time for the newly Indigo'ed Sinestro to arrive with the rest of them.
Despite Sinestro having been returned to the ranks of the Lantern Corps, there's a scene early on which shows that he is still the cold hearted bastard he always was and it's a nice reminder of his true nature. Sure, it's been fun watching him and Jordan banter about things, but this is a sharp reminder that he's actually not a good person at all.
Terrific manages to put an end to the threat to his corporation before having to deal with the Blackhawks who want to confiscate his wonderful toys and turn them over to the United Nations so they're not in the hands of a rogue superhero. Thankfully they try to do this with a news camera crew watching so Terrific is able to walk away only to discover that Karen Starr has previously nicked his technology to do with travelling to another dimension. No wonder then, that this ends with Mr Terrific heading into the pages of Earth-2 in a couple of weeks.
It's a shame that this series didn't do as well as it could have and comes to an end with this issue. Despite my disliking some of the art - Gugliotta seems to draw everybody with tiny legs - the series itself wasn't bad. Here's hoping Terrific has some fun on Earth-2.
Two very different people are after Mitch Shelley for two very different reasons. There's a private investigator who's able to get a sense of people via psychometry and a necromancer willing to kill innocents to fuel his magic. When they both manage to find him at the same time, a fight ensues that sees death and slaughter all over the place but this being the Resurrection Man story, that's not always the end. However, a last minute appearance by the Suicide Squad may confuse things even more.
While not the best issue so far, this one does offer Shelley the chance to discover who and what he was, building on the fragments that he's already garnered, and introduces a potential supporting cast in the PI Kim Rebecki.
Do I pick up Suicide Squad #9 to find out how things pan out, though? Darn crossovers . . .
When a Presidential candidate tells her advisors that she's been abducted and probed by aliens, they understandably freak out and plan to quit. When she tells them that she's not going to publicise it but instead use the threat to win the election they figure she may be on to something. Couple that with an apparently insane professor who sees visions of the Pioneer couple who somehow know the future and the candidate's ex-husband who's trying to discover if he's been abducted as well and this is not your average political thriller.
Splendid stuff.
And what made me smile:
What woman could resist the offering of a dead sheep?
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