Who'd Like A Cocktail? #193

Ummm, because he's a bloke?

Here's your usual Sunday comics round-up:

AQUAMAN #12 - Mera meets up with the Others and they all head off to find Aquaman who, despite his many promises, still hasn't killed Black Manta. Instead, there's a big fight and one of the Others sacrifices himself to save Aquaman which, honestly, is a bit of a stretch as the poor guy's been abandoned for years by our aquatic hero. And it all ends with yet another promise from Aquaman that Black Manta's going to die.

As fun as the early issues were, this is starting to drag a little now.

CROSSED: BADLANDS #12 - Edmund manages to get ahead of the Crossed and warn a bunch of bikers what's coming for everyone. Despite their scepticism, the bikers check things out and find out he's telling the truth. A quick call gets more gangs to come and help and they launch an attack with Edmund going with them. It all goes south, of course, but ends with Edmund being propositioned by some new guy.

Strangely enjoyable, on the whole.

GREEN LANTERN ANNUAL #1 - Jordan and Sinestro manage to escape the clutches of Black Hand while elsewhere the Guardians head to the never before mentioned Chamber of Shadows where they keep the First Lantern along with a bunch of proto-Guardians. These guard the First Lantern even against their now completely barking mad brethren. Being pretty much psychotic by now, though, the Guardians kidnap the First Lantern and imprison their ex-comrades in the Chamber again, after killing one of them. On their way back to Oa, they go via Earth and, surprisingly, help Black Hand kill Jordan and Sinestro before imprisoning him in the Chamber. They use the power of the First Lantern to create the first of the Third Army who has the power to assimilate others.

I've no doubt that murdered proto-Guardian is going to be resurrected by Black Hand and come back to bite the nutty Guardians in the butt at some point. This was the fun, huge plot style of story that Geoff Johns does so well. Unlike . . .

JUSTICE LEAGUE #12 - As the world sees footage of the League fighting amongst themselves, they take on the ghosts of loved ones but with the appearance of Steve Trevor, the masquerade is revealed and the League rally to defeat the so-called spirits. Graves is defeated as easily as he should have been five issues ago and Wonder Woman appears to be completely indifferent to Trevor's feelings. In order to fix the League's problems, Jordan offers himself up as a scapegoat and quits the League while Wonder Woman and Superman finally have that kiss.

It's nice to see the League acting like a team again, although they've only done it twice in the last twelve issues, both times at the climax of their little adventure. That would be forgiveable if the two stories weren't separated by five years.

JUSTICE LEAGUE INTERNATIONAL ANNUAL #1 - The JLI take down an African dictator before they get back together in the Hall of Justice to meet new members the Olympian and Blue Beetle. Turns out OMAC's been compromised by Brother Eye, however, and proceeds to kick the team all over the shop before Booster manages to better him. Then a mysterious, elder Booster appears from the time stream asking his younger self to prevent Superman and Wonder Woman from getting together but it's too late and both Boosters vanish from the present.

This is a bit of a mess, frankly, with the entire Dan Jurgens run on the series being disregarded just to set up the new Justice League of America title coming next year. Erin over at Exploring the Time Lab has an excellent write up of what's wrong with this issue here and snell at Slay Monstrobot... saved me the trouble of posting about the "undetectable" explosives here. What a waste of a series.

NATIONAL COMICS: LOOKER #1 - Supermodel becomes vampire and ends up protecting the innocent. Sounds like a pretty dumb conceit but this story actually works in equal parts to the witty, intelligent writing of Ian Edginton and the lovely art by Mike Miller. Looker sets out to rescue a model working for her agency who's been abducted by a creature who collects and eats the souls of others.

For a done-in-one this works a treat and it would be nice to see the same team on a mini-series or ongoing.

PHANTOM LADY #1 - The New 52's Phantom Lady, Jennifer Knight, makes her début attempting to infiltrate and take down the leading crime family of Metropolis, the Benders who were responsible for the murder of her family. Trouble is, she's having to sleep with the son of the man who killed her parents to do it, a man who's not above brutally beating her friend to reveal the fact that he knows she's investigating them. Jennifer's friend, Dane Maxwell, gets involved while he's attempting to prevent his shrinking ray and when the gangsters come a-calling, he ends up getting shrunk to six inches in height.

While not as much fun as many of the other stories Palmiotti and Gray produce, this was still a good story.

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And what made me smile:

See? Vampires can be nice.