Who'd Like A Cocktail? #229

Ladies and gentlemen: Hawkman summed up in four words.

WTF Was That All About? Part 1

Last week saw the final gatefold covers of DC's aborted WTF Certified event in April. The name of the now non-event was widely derided after it was revealed, and rightly so, but the covers themselves - the main cover supplemented by a surprise on the gatefold - was a neat idea. I tried to remain as spoiler free as I could, both in the run up to it when covers were being released on the net, and in my weekly Cocktail posts.

Now it's all over, I figure it's time for a quick look at the ones I bought. So, in alphabetical order...

Still Missing, Still Missed

With all the hoo-hah over Superman and Wonder Woman kissing in Justice League #12 this week, DC revealed a top ten list of their favourite super-couples:

There's some obvious ones there - Batman and Catwoman - and some that give me hope for characters we've yet to see in the New 52, specifically Mr Miracle and Big Barda.

But as soon as I read that, one couple instantly sprang to mind and it's a shame not to see them on the list:

You can keep Lois and Clark - Ralph and Sue Dibny were the best couple in the DCU and it'd be nice to have them back.

Who Was Who Is Who #4

So for want of anything better to write about on a Monday, and with DC's New 52 well under way (how long are they keeping that title do you think?) I'm going to go through all my copies of Who's Who and see who's made it over to the new DCU, who might make it and who hasn't got a Big Bear's chance.

BEAUTIFUL DREAMER - oh, Jack Kirby you old hippy. Beautiful Dreamer, along with the rest of the Forever People, are great examples of how embedding characters' looks, behaviour and speech patters in a particular time frame utterly date them. I can't see any of them coming back any time soon.

BEN BOXER - another Kirby character, this one's tied in with Kamandi and the Great Disaster so unless he turns up on Earth-51 as part of Mutiversity, I don't think we'll be seeing him, either.

BIG BARDA - with the first villain of the relaunched Justice League's title being Darkseid, there's a good possibility that the New Gods may be viable characters once more. That is unless some version of Final Crisis took place between the start of the League and the current Year 5 or so which is when most DC titles are taking place. If Final Crisis didn't happen (and I hope that's true) then the New Gods aren't dead - and yes, that includes Beautiful Dreamer - and so could be brought back, which means Mr Miracle and Big Barda could be back in business. I'm going for a possible on this one.

BIG BEAR - same applies here as with Beautiful Dreamer above: the Forever People really are just too dated a concept to be brought back, I think.

Who'd Like A Cocktail? #90

The new Rocket Red gets into the spirit of the JLI

• BOOSTER GOLD #34 - this may be the first time I've looked at Giffen's artwork and just thought "Ugh!" Still, the issue as a whole was great with Giffen and DeMatteis teaming up Booster and Blue Beetle once more, just like it was back in the good old days. Mr Miracle and Barda were welcome guest stars - they're sadly missed after the whole Death of The New Gods things and it was great to see them back. This book is easily top of the list right now.
• THE BRAVE AND THE BOLD #35 - I think this might be the first issue of this title that I've really enjoyed since Straczynski took over. Don't get me wrong, his earlier issues have been good, but with my fondness for weird and wacky stories, this stands out.
• JUSTICE LEAGUE: GENERATION LOST #5 - things get a bit serious as the reformed in all but name Justice League International agree to stick together and take on Max Lord. One very slight gripe: I know it's an artistic device but that last panel when they're all standing and looking out at the reader with grim expressions, having decided to get Max Lord . . . why aren't they stood around facing each other?!
• MAGOG #11 - sadly Scott Kolins's run on this title is being cut short as it's only got a couple of issues to run so it feels a little like marking time. I just wonder if James Robinson knows someone's going to make a mess of Opal City.

And what made me laugh:

The fourth wall gets broken, Dan Didio is confirmed as a character in the DCU just like Grant Morrison and John Ostrander, and the Inferior Five return to mainstream continuity!

Holy Spandex, Batman!

I'm not really worried about how many hits this blog gets - I do it for fun, pure and simple, much like the comics annotations sites. Since installing Google Analytics back in July, though, I have the ability to check various things like sites that send people my way (I just found out Darwyn Cooke's blog sent some visitors over at the start of December to check out this post which was nice) as well as the keywords they use to find my blog.

Not surprisingly, because of the whole annotations thing, most casual visitors come across Crisis on Earth-Prime looking for Blackest Night, Infinite Crisis or Final Crisis annotations so a large number of the individual posts that get looked at tend to deal with those.

The single post that gets the most direct hits, though, is an entry from Friday Night Fights back in October 2008. At that point still run by Bahlactus, the theme was Ladies Night - all the brawls had to feature women battling. Well over a year since I posted it, the entry called Friday Night Fights - My Spandex-Clad Butt featuring Wonder Woman, Big Barda, Huntress and Power Girl still gets hits - even a bunch in the last month! Apart from the main blog address, this post is the top landing page for the past year!

Now if only I could tell whether it was spandex or butt that was sending people this way . . .

Friday Night Fights - My Spandex-Clad Butt

More Ladies Night goodness with a trip down memory lane to the Justice Leagues event, specifically Justice League of Amazons which was simply an excuse to get a bunch of superheroines to battle it out. Hey, who's complaining?!

Wonder Woman tries to rein in Power Girl, Big Barda and Huntress but c'mon, who's she kidding?!

See these are among the feistiest ladies in the DCU and they're not going to hold back, oh no!

Oh my . . . is it wrong for me to want to see Power Girl pound on some bad guys with her "spandex-clad butt"?  Is it?

Only Bahlactus can tell!