Who'd Like A Cocktail? #107

Because he's the Batman! Duh!

• THE BOYS: HIGHLAND LADDIE #4 - I really like Starlight. She's honest and smart enough to realise that something's fishy with how Wee Hughie got sight of that footage. And she's willing to put them both through the wringer in an attempt to salvage their relationship. Another excellent issue.
• BRIGHTEST DAY #14 - Deadman gets taught a lesson as we have a quick tour through his past and hey, what do you know, the resurrected Batman turns up. Oh, and Deadman and Dove get together at last - Hawk's going to be pissed!
• DC UNIVERSE: LEGACIES #7 - wait, John Stewart became Green Lantern after Armageddon 2001?! That makes no sense at all! Nice to see the highlights of the Death of Superman as well as Knightfall, though. And hey, Brian Bolland artwork on Camelot 500! Damn fine issue.
• GREEN LANTERN #59 - "You can't erase your crimes by putting on a ring." Ummm, isn't that kinda what you did, Hal? I don't see you serving time in a Sciencell for the death of Kilowog or Sinestro. Oh and I don't know what's funnier: Larfleeze stealing Flash's wallet or the fact that somewhere in that skin tight uniform Flash finds room to keep a wallet!
• GREEN LANTERN CORPS #54 - interesting bit of back story on the Weaponer and who knew that skinny Sinestro could fight so well hand-to-hand?
• JUSTICE LEAGUE OF AMERICA #51 - heh - the Atom explaining about parallel worlds to Alan Scott; like he needs a lesson on the Multiverse! Another big fight with lots of exposition.
• POWER GIRL #18 - you know, with the recent balls-up of Ice's origin over in Justice League: Generation Lost, I was expecting Winick to mess this title up as well. Thankfully, he's surprised me by turning in a decent story again of Power Girl vs Divine, but I'm still nervous about the long-term prospects.
• THE STAND: HARDCASES #5 - the Free Zone Committee are in place and everything starts to gear up now.
• ZATANNA #7 - a fill in issue is always a bit worrisome but Adam Beechen turns in a great one-shot issue. This really is a charming series!

And what made me smile:

I shall now be using this repeatedly for the Friday Night Fights!

Who'd Like A Cocktail? #103

Even demonic cat familiars like Lolcats, apparently

• THE BOYS: HIGHLAND LADDIE #3 - poor old Hughie's well messed up and the arrival of Starlight at the end of the issue probably means #4 isn't going to be a laugh a minute either.
• BRIGHTEST DAY #12 - I am so glad that the other green Martian didn't turn out to be J'onn's wife - that would have been dreadful. 
• DC UNIVERSE HALLOWEEN SPECIAL 2010 - another anthology title so a little hit and miss; the Scarecrow story was good, Wonder Woman and Deadman in their first real team-up worked but the best was Blue Beetle and Miss Martian.
• DC UNIVERSE: LEGACIES #6 - the tail end of Crisis on Infinite Earths, the formation of Justice League Detroit and the whole, sorry Legends event get featured in this issue.
• GREEN LANTERN CORPS #53 - despite being mostly one big fight, this was an okay issue with new villain the Weaponer kidnapping Soranik Natu and forcing Kyle Rayner to work with Sinestro. One query, though: the Korugarans that Rayner saves - why aren't they red skinned?
• JUSTICE LEAGUE AMERICA #50 - so if you're planning to totally wipe out one of the alternate Earths (off screen as well) why pick on the only one out of the 51 available that has any sort of real exposure? Bang goes Earth-9 and the whole Tangent heroes universe. And why were the Crime Syndicate after the body of Alexander Luthor? He's from the pre-Crisis Earth-3 while the Syndicate's from the Anti-Matter Universe.
• POWER GIRL #17 - so Divine gets her first full appearance and, unless I'm mistaken, she seems to be a clone of Power Girl herself.
• RAGMAN: SUIT OF SOULS #1 - I was hoping for a bit more than an origin retelling, maybe featuring the Shadowpact, but it wasn't bad.
• THE STAND: HARDCASES #4 - I'd almost forgotten this series was going on it's been so long since the last one.

And what made me smile:

The Daily Planet's post-Crisis headline!

Who'd Like A Cocktail? #99

That's a president I'd vote for!

As I was away last weekend, you lucky people get a double sized edition of Who'd Like A Cocktail, the posts where I just babble away in bullet points about my comic books.

• BRIGHTEST DAY #10 - Firestorm gets some really bad news - he's the next Big Bang just waiting to happen. I wonder if Damage will be jealous when he hears about that. The new Aqualad makes his appearance culminating in a very tense stand-off between Aquaman and Black Manta that really makes me think Geoff Johns could carry off an Aquaman solo-series. All told, another good issue.
• DC UNIVERSE: LEGACIES #5 - they missed a great trick here, not having the original Crisis tie-in banner running across the cover! Of course, this being a post-Crisis depiction of Crisis on Infinite Earths, it isn't really a tie-in, but I'm nit-picking. Len Wein continues his stroll through the various ages of DC's history, stopping off at the big Crisis. This issue really is splendid, managing to focus on a normal family who observe some of the biggest DC events; sure it's been done before (Marvels is the obvious comparison) but that doesn't stop this being good. And hey, they got George Perez to do this issue as well!
• GREEN LANTERN CORPS #52 - the Alpha Lantern storyline comes to an end as Cyborg Superman is defeated once more (I'd like to say permanently this time, but we know that's not going to happen) and the Alpha's have their emotions restored.
• THE DARK TOWER: THE GUNSLINGER: THE JOURNEY BEGINS #5 - And so the journey that began a couple of years ago has come to the end of the bit where the journey begins. Or something.
• GREEN LANTERN: EMERALD WARRIORS #2 - Guy Gardner starts his top-secret mission and, no surprise, his friends Arisia and Kilowog tag along for the ride. There's not a great deal that happens this issue, to be honest, as it seems to be setting things up, introducing Zardor of Kralok and his mental powers, along with bringing Red Lantern Bleez back into things.
• THE BOYS: HIGHLAND LADDIE #2 - I love it when I'm right! Back in Cocktail #95, I wrote: "May I predict a hugely oversized adversary for Hughie, employed by the drug smugglers, who will also be quite humourous either in name and/or appearance?" and in this issue we meet the gigantic Wee Sarah. Still, Ennis's predictability doesn't prevent this being another top issue.
• JUSTICE LEAGUE: GENERATION LOST #10 -Warning! The cover of this issue is not reflected in the contents at all! Warning! Don't get me wrong - it's another cool cover, but at no point does a Year One style Batman hang around a JL International embassy building. The faux-JLI continue their attempt to find and foil Max Lord's plans and, just when it looks like Batman's figured out something's wrong, Lord's global mind-wipe kicks in again.
• JUSTICE LEAGUE OF AMERICA #49 - this seems like a done-in-one just to bridge the gap between the end of last issue and a big 50th issue celebration. Trust me - introduce a mind-manipulator in the first few pages and you can guarantee anything that happens after that is all in someone's mind. And since when did Donna Troy swear so much?!
• POWER GIRL #16 - here we see the start of the fight which is going to dominate #18 featuring Power Girl's new nemesis, Divine. The rest of the issue's background on why she ends up in the Arctic in the first place. Having bashed Winick on this blog on more than one occasion, I have to admit to still liking this title; he's keeping it relatively light and the art's nice and clean so hopefully it's not going to go down the pan at any stage soon.
• PROJECT SUPERPOWERS: CHAPTER TWO #12 - all the heroes get together to beat the crap out of the Claw while the Death Defying 'Devil is outed as being the Devil himself! Well, maybe. The next issue solicit says that Chapter Three, out next year, will be the last one. Surely Dynamite aren't just going to roll this series up and put it away?
• ZATANNA #5 - another cracking issue of magical superheroics; this series just keeps on getting better. It's almost as much fun as the old Power Girl series was, just with more demons!

And what made me smile:

I had no intention of picking up Knight And Squire but after seeing the preview in the back of Justice League of America #49, I think I may!

Don't I Know You From Somewhere?

Perusing the DC solicitations over at Newsarama the other day, I came across the description of Power Girl #18:

"Going toe-to-toe with her equal. Power Girl finds out that life isn’t always divine! Meet Divine: a powerhouse of a woman gunning to become Power Girl’s replacement!"

which was accompanied by the cover art:

Looks like Power Girl gets a new enemy who's equally matched. Fair enough - I'm all for building up her rogues gallery.

Looking at Divine (which, by the way, sucks as a villain's name) I found myself thinking "Where have I seen that particular ensemble before?"

A quick rummage through my trades and voila: Fatale from Inherit The Earth wearing an almost identical outfit, minus the gloves:

Now with the judicious insertion of the phrase "spandex-clad butt" maybe I can get this post to fight it out with (still) my most popular post in terms of hits.

I swear, if I was concerned at all about getting more hits to this blog I'd throw that phrase into just about every post!