Monday Memories #40 - JLA Incarnations #2

Each Monday this year I'll be taking a look back at a random comic, prestige format issue, graphic novel or collection of reprints from amongst my 3,000 or so comics that date from 1962 to 2003 - I figured anything in the last ten years would be too recent to hark back to.

The comics are chosen completely at random and apart from a four week lead-in period, even I don't know what I'll be looking at in the weeks to come!

Monday Memories #29 - Justice League Annual #1

Each Monday this year I'll be taking a look back at a random comic, prestige format issue, graphic novel or collection of reprints from amongst my 3,000 or so comics that date from 1962 to 2003 - I figured anything in the last ten years would be too recent to hark back to.

The comics are chosen completely at random and apart from a four week lead-in period, even I don't know what I'll be looking at in the weeks to come!

DC Superhero Redesigns

These redesigns by Michael Lee Lunsford attracted a fair bit of attention last week as people looked at them and either thought "Cool, nice work," or (as so often happens on the internet) "What are you doing? You've ruined her!"

  

  

I happen to like them, I have to admit. They're easily recognisable as the characters, they contain elements of the classic looks of each of them and they're a step away from the spray painted costumes most characters - male and female - wear in superhero comics these days.

Good work Mr Lunsford, I say.

There are a few other redesigns on his blog, including characters from other publishers but, being the slave to DC that I am, I picked out my favourites.

Monday Memories #15 - Green Arrow #2

Each Monday this year I'll be taking a look back at a random comic, prestige format issue, graphic novel or collection of reprints from amongst my 3,000 or so comics that date from 1962 to 2003 - I figured anything in the last ten years would be too recent to hark back to.

The comics are chosen completely at random and apart from a four week lead-in period, even I don't know what I'll be looking at in the weeks to come!

New DCU Team?

I saw this post over at Erin's blog and it intrigued me enough to comment on it over here. Erin found a photo from artist R.B. Silva which seems to depict an unusual grouping of DC characters:

and he includes a line about not being able to talk about it. The characters involved are Nightwing, Batgirl, Booster Gold, Hawkman, Shazam, Black Canary and Red Tornado.

• Nightwing and Batgirl on a team together? Sounds a little redundant to me
• Booster back in action is no bad thing
• Hawkman is, as far as I'm aware, going to be in the new Justice League of America
• Shazam is slated to join the ranks of the established Justice League
• Black Canary still heads up the Birds of Prey as far as I know
• Red Tornado is the one that piques my curiosity most - she's already appeared in Earth 2, albeit not active, and there's an embargo on the duplication of names between the two universes, over and above a handful of them, and the figure in that picture appears to be male. That also ties in with what T.O. Morrow said in the most recent Justice League issue.

Are we looking at an alternate League? Something that comes out of Trinity War? Or just an artist enjoying himself? I can't think of anything that immediately links these characters.

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.

Jurgens League #5 - Destiny's Hand

And here we go again, casting our eyes back over an older incarnation of the Justice League, this time from the early 90's when Dan Jurgens was in charge. With that in mind, I had to call this the

JUSTICE LEAGUE AMERICA #72 - 75, written by Dan Jurgens with art by Dan Jurgens, Rick Burchett, Bob Smith and Romeo Tanghal.

Who'd Like A Cocktail? #149

Adam One's a bit thirsty at the dawn of time.

What Oliver Queen Will Be Getting Everyone For Christmas

Over at Newsarama, there's an interview with JT Krul who's writing the new Green Arrow series. It doesn't give much away, although the line "Green Arrow has a brand new locale... and hasn't forgotten Dinah" gives me a bit of hope that in the new DCU, Black Canary and Ollie will get back together.

What caught my eye, though, was this:

"For the new 52, we'll be focusing on Green Arrow at an earlier part in his life as the emerald archer. He's still got a secret identity and he plays an important role with his father's legacy — Queen Industries. He doesn't run the whole place, but a corner of it called Q-Core, which is responsible for some of the more entertaining electronic devices in the DCU — like the Q-Phone and the Q-Pad."

Will we see any other heroes using the Q-Phone or the Q-Pad?

Keep an eye out for one of these in the new DCU . . .

(And you just know they'd be running Android . . .)

Justice League Detroit - No Place Like Home

Over the next few weeks on a Tuesday, I'll be working my way through the Justice League of America titles from 1985 to 1987, trying to work out if the Justice League Detroit era really was as bad as we think it was. Why am I doing this? Why the hell not.

JUSTICE LEAGUE OF AMERICA #246 - #250, written by Gerry Conway with art by Luke McDonnell and Bill Wray.

As we come out of the Crisis crossovers seen last week, it's been over a year since the new League was formed. The old guard had handed over to them, they'd started to come together against a powerful old League enemy and had managed to survive the Crisis. True, some readers were still vocal in their dislike but others were supportive.

It seems odd, then, that the first captions of #246 are these:

Conway seems to be admitting the Detroit League are not "the World's Greatest Heroes" and that those old guys might come back; his words could be taken as agreement with those who have been arguing that Vibe, Steel and the others are not worthy to be the JLA. Perhaps after a year of negativity, he's beginning to bow to pressure which might explain the next few issues.

Retroactive - The 90's Part 2

As DC Comics are celebrating the creators that made an impact in the 70's, 80's and 90's, I thought I'd wander through the same decades and pull out my favourite comic of each year.

And here we are, finally in the 90's.

Retroactive - The 90's Part 1

As DC Comics are celebrating the creators that made an impact in the 70's, 80's and 90's, I thought I'd wander through the same decades and pull out my favourite comic of each year.

And here we are, finally in the 90's.

Retroactive - The 80's Part 1

As DC Comics are celebrating the creators that made an impact in the 70's, 80's and 90's, I thought I'd wander through the same decades and pull out my favourite comic of each year.

Welcome back to the 80's!

Retroactive - The 70's Part 1

As DC Comics are celebrating the creators that made an impact in the 70's, 80's and 90's, I thought I'd wander through the same decades and pull out my favourite comic of each year.

Any excuse to look at old comics, eh?

Friday Night Fights - Who Brings A Head To A Knife Fight?

It's Friday - enable your fisticuffs!

Friday Night Fights - The Wedding Crashers

It's Friday and, as usual, Spacebooger demands pain!

Who'd Like A Cocktail? #87

Like you needed a reason not to piss Zatanna off....

• BATTLEFIELDS #7 - Anna Kharkova returns from The Night Witches, joining a fighter squadron, and was anyone surprised when the NKVD offcer turned out to be a coward?
• GREEN ARROW #1 - and we're back with the grim and gritty Green Arrow, newly separated from Black Canary and patrolling Star City's built-in-five-minutes forest. Oh, and the mysterious Isable Rochev? I'm going out on a limb and guessing that'll turn out to be Ollie's mother.
• GREEN LANTERN CORPS #49 - and the big bad guy behind the Alpha Lanterns' revolt is revealed as Cyborg Superman. And if Tony Bedard breaks up Kyle Rayner and Soranik Natu over this Jade nightmare Kyle's having, I may have to send him a harsh letter. Can't the guy have one relationship that doesn't go down the pan?
• JUSTICE LEAGUE: GENERATION LOST #4 - I thought it was kinda cool that it was Booster who worked out that Max Lord was behind the JLI getting together again, though the new Rocket Red seems a little . . . forced, I think.
• JUSTICE LEAGUE: THE RISE OF ARSENAL #4 - I for one won't be following Arsenal into the pages of Titans; that one-shot where Ryan Choi's Atom got killed off was enough for me.
• POWER GIRL #13 - the comic that I've been dreading for some time finally turned up: Judd Winick's first Power Girl issue. As expected, it was nowhere near as much fun as the Palmiotti/Gray issues that preceded it and, judging by the solicitations for subsequent issues, it's probably not going to be much fun either. That said, so far it wasn't dreadful; the art was kinda nice, for example, and the Justice League: Generation Lost tie in was no surprise. I guess we see where this goes.
• TIME MASTERS trade paperback - picked this up on something of a whim; I like Rip Hunter as a character and time travel's always a good plot device but it was something of a shame to discover Hunter's a bit of a dick in this story.
• ZATANNA #2 - quickly rising to the top of my list (despite being last alphabetically) Paul Dini continues to write a good fun series with some lovely art. Fuseli may sound like a pasta dish but the nightmare demon almost managed to give Zatanna a run for her money. Despite ending up in the top hat, I think he might show up again. And the ghost on the last page? That's not going to end well!

And what made me smile:

Some people will put any old crap on their blog . . .

Who'd Like A Cocktail? #79

Catman shows money is no protection in Secret Six #20

• Booster Gold #31 - the cover proclaims this issue is The End of an Era! as Dan Jurgens finishes his run as writer/artist on the title. It leaves things in a relatively tidy fashion for Giffen and DeMatteis to pick things up from next issue and starts to work in a little leeway with regards changing the past. Booster himself ends up feeling better than he has recently, Goldstar's back on the team and Rip Hunter's heading off to look for Batman. For me, though, the nicest touch was Booster visiting Siberia in 1908 to witness the Tunguska event without actually being part of it. Too often in time-travelling stories, the characters have to be revealed to be part of the event (witness Goldstar being the model for the Mona Lisa a few issues back) and it was just nice to have Booster and Rip watching something without the tired reveal of a twist. Anyway, sad to see Jurgens go but looking forward to Giffen and DeMatteis!
• Brightest Day #0 - a set-up issue as expected, this laid out the characters that have returned from the dead in Blackest Night, putting them in place for their individual stories that take place in either Brightest Day itself or other DCU titles. The ones holding most interest for me are Hawkman and Hawkgirl, Max Lord and the JLI, Martian Manhunter, Jade and the Green Lanterns, Firestorm and Sinestro.
• Green Arrow #32 - another end of an era as Green Arrow's story comes to a close. I'm a little peeved that he and Black Canary are splitting up again and that Ollie's becoming the lone hunter again but, for my sins, I'll be picking up the new series as well - it's the characters I follow more than the writer in most cases so I'll stick along for the ride. It was nice to see Canary vocalise what most readers have been saying, that Arrow's killing of Prometheus was nothing new and that he'd killed before.
• Magog #8 - as guest stars go, The Shield seems a little . . . C-list to say the least, and the Planeteers sub-plot rolls on.
• PunisherMax #6 - oh this is good! I don't know if the art of Steve Dillon just makes Jason Aaron channel Garth Ennis but this series is rolling along nicely. Bullseye's never a character I've had much to do with (not straying that much into the Marvel Universe) but this version works a treat!
• Secret Six #20 - hard to believe Catman was a joke character only a few years ago. Here he's driven, methodical and utterly ruthless. As the rest of the team go to help him, Bane and Jeanette look to hire others. I guess this means a second Six will be kicking around over the next few issues and when the originals return, there's bound to be a fight!

And what made me smile:

Bullseye does away with that whole "kill you with a toothpick" thing in splendid fashion!

Who'd Like A Cocktail? #76

Quote from Etrigan the Demon in The Brave And The Bold #32

• Battlefields: The Firefly And His Majesty #1 - the continuing story of the Tankies, I can't help but wonder if this relatively light hearted war tale is going to end nastily.
• Booster Gold #30 - Dan Jurgens's run is fast coming to an end with most of his loose ends wrapped up. I like his writing and his art so it's a shame to see him go but at least Booster, Goldstar and Rip will be in good hands with Giffen and DeMatteis . . . I hope! And hey, woah, hold on there - Hypertime?!
• The Brave And The Bold #32 - when did Aquaman go all Star Trek Vulcan on us? That whole "My thoughts are your thoughts... my will is your will." is straight out of a Vulcan mind meld . . . and I know that even without being a Star Trek fan!
• Green Arrow #31 - so here begins the Fall of Green Arrow who, annoyingly, has been turned into the same kind of jerk he was years ago: arrogant and selfish, unwilling to listen to his friends - I thought he'd grown out of that with the whole marriage to Black Canary? Oh, and now we dark Speedy? Poor old Green Arrow . . .
• Green Lantern Corps #46 - something of a holding issue to get to Blackest Night #8 but still a good read; could have done with more Anti-Monitor but that's just me!

And what made me smile:

Big on Star Trek references this week by the look of it! Never thought of Guy Gardner as a Trekkie but I can go with it.

Who'd Like A Cocktail #55

Double Sized Issue!

As I missed last week's comics due to being away I couldn't run through my usual Cocktail posts so here, along with this week's, are my thoughts on what I've been buying.

• Blackest Night #3 - oh, it's all starting to hit the fan now! And poor old Gen - I liked the last Firestorm series and to see her end up like this . . . almost brought a tear to my eye.
• The Brave And The Bold #27 - okay, a rather muted first issue from Mr Straczynski but nothing too terrible either.
• Final Crisis Aftermath: Escape #5 - the best thing about this issue? Those final words on the last page: "To be concluded."
• Green Arrow And Black Canary #24 - Cupid's kinda fun in a yet-another-Harley-Quinn kinda way but it's becoming grating. Nice to see Speedy back as well.
• Green Arrow co-feature - wait a second: Green Arrow thinks something's missing inside him so he has to go walkabout rather than discuss it with Black Canary? Didn't Mike Grell do this storyline years ago?
• JSA vs Kobra #4 - Mr Terrific lives up to his name as this continues to be one of the best mini-series out there.
• Strontium Dog: Traitor To His Kind collection - the second collection of the new stories of Johnny Alpha by John Wagner and Carlos Ezquerra.
• The Walking Dead Vol 8: Made To Suffer - I had to pick this up after the cliff hanger ending of Vol 7 and oh my word, what a story.
• Wednesday Comics #11 - just about all the stories seemed to be pausing this issue as though they're waiting for the final push to wrap up.

And what made me smile:

Nothing like the Flash preparing to punch someone's lights out!

And now for this week's comics:

• Blackest Night: Superman #2 - looks like the Psycho Pirate took no time at all in getting to Smallville straight from the pages of Blackest Night #3!
• Final Crisis Aftermath: Dance #5 - no surprises that Rising Sun's being mind controlled but the culprit kinda caught me by surprise.
• Justice League of America #37 - okay, hands up who thinks Amos Fortune's dead? Anyone? Anyone at all? And Mr Wein - can we please stop with all the puns?
• Power Girl #5 - still fun, still funny, still wonderful, still have doubts this will last long. Really - the last book I enjoyed this much was Blue Beetle and I was surprised that got past the year mark. If you're not reading this, you really should be - honest!
• Project Super Powers: Chapter Two #3 - oooooh, didn't see that twist coming - very nicely done, sirs!
• Wednesday Comics #12 - so that's it, all over. Could have sworn I read somewhere it was going to be 16 issues but hey, it was a nice run with, overall, more hits than misses. Hawkman almost got the Cocktail this week for "I had to whittle through."

but the Cocktail this week goes to:

Power Girl shows how to overcome a problem with x-ray vision!