Crisis On Earth Prime: Who'd Like A Cocktail? #197

Sunday, 30 September 2012

Who'd Like A Cocktail? #197

Alien infiltration will start in the strip clubs, people.

Spending Sunday reading comics for over five years, now.

ALL STAR WESTERN #0 - continuing the trend for the 0 issues to relay a character's origin, here we get Jonah Hex's, a tale of a drunken, abusive father, a mother who abandoned him, and a surrogate family that cast him out. It's a harsh tale but told splendidly. If you're not reading this, you're missing out.

AQUAMAN #0 - after his father's death, Aquaman heads out to the sea, trying to find his mother and is eventually led to the New 52's version of Vulko. He tells him she's dead, probably murdered by Arthur's half-brother but at least takes him to Atlantis. It's not a bad tale but I have to wonder why Vulko is worried about Atlanteans watching him in one scene, later simply swims into Atlantis.

CROSSED: BADLANDS #14 - a new story arc starts with a bunch of wannabe writers spending a few weeks in the retreat of maverick writer Gideon Welles in the hopes of learning all they can from him. He gives them characters to portray at all times which are themselves stripped of all social niceties. Meanwhile in the town below, a trainload of Crossed comes rolling in. Not bad - I had toyed with the idea of ditching this title but this set-up at least has me interested for now.

FURY: MAX #6 - with the American-backed invasion at the Bay of Pigs officially a fiasco, Nick Fury and his fellow soldiers have to survive torture and shark-infested waters before they can get out of the country. Shirley, meanwhile, has to deal with Pug McCuskey abandoning her to the hands of the Cuban rebels and you just know that's not going to end well. A good, solid issue with great art from Goran Parlov.

THE FURY OF FIRESTORM #0 - not really an origin as such, more a regaining as both Jason and Ronnie, freshly escaped from Pozhar and the Zither Corporation slowly come to realise that months later, their powers are returning and, like it or not, they're stuck with each other. Really interested to see where Dan Jurgens takes this title from next issue.

NATIONAL COMICS: ROSE & THORN #1 - Rose Canton is a schoolgirl with a secret side to her called Thorn who takes over her body and uses it to start tracking down the people who are involved in the death (or at least disappearance) of her father. This causes problems for Rose when her shy, retiring persona is challenged by her schoolmates who have witnessed the wild side of Thorn. It's not a bad story on the whole but the art . . . man, it was ugly. I don't like knocking people's artwork (particularly as I have trouble drawing stick figures) but I really didn't like this, principally the faces of the characters. If this were to get a mini or ongoing, I'd think twice if the same artist was retained.

PHANTOM LADY #2 - Jennifer Knight gets rescued by her friend, Dane Maxwell, from the clutches of the Mafia before they head off to the countryside to try out Dane's inventions for the pair of them. There they become Phantom Lady and Doll Man before returning to Metropolis for revenge. It's another cracking issue with an appearance at the end by a villain who last appeared in Freedom Fighters, giving another tease that there might be a new team book in the future.

TEEN TITANS #0 - I guess as we saw the formation of the Titans in the early issues of the series, it shouldn't have surprised me to see that this issue was simply Red Robin's origin story, showing how he became Batman's sidekick (but was always called Red Robin) Not being reader of the Batman titles, this left me a little cold but the story itself was okay.

VOODOO #0 - the final issue shows how Priscilla was abducted by the Daemonites, experimented upon, escaped and ended up with the Black Razors. It also showed how her clone, Voodoo, was created and - of all things - sent off to dance in a strip club. Now that this title's done with, her adventures continue in Grifter, a title I'm not picking up. I'll miss this title on the whole, mostly for Sami Basri's art, but it was fun while it lasted.

And what made me smile: