Who'd Like A Cocktail? #240

It's a fear a lot of men have, you know...

Who'd Like A Cocktail? #236

Some people just can't get the hint

Who'd Like A Cocktail? #232

Dr Thirteen proves smart men can be stupid too

Who'd Like A Cocktail? #228

Jonah Hex asks the important questions

WTF Was That All About? Part 2

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, continued from yesterday. So, in alphabetical order...

Who'd Like A Cocktail? #199

He doesn't, you know. It's down to all the preservatives. He's like a hot dog sausage; he'll last forever.

Who Was Who Is Who #37

So for want of anything better to write about on a Monday, I'm going to go through all my copies of Who's Who and see if I can predict who will make it over to the new DCU by the end of 2012, who might make it and who hasn't got a Reactron's chance.

PUZZLER - umm . . . who, now? Apparently an old Superman villain, "obsessed with games, tricks and puzzles" who was intent on outwitting Supes. Yeah, don't think we'll be seeing him.

QUAKEMASTER - pretty sure this is one Batman villain that we won't be seeing again.

QUEEN BEE - there's been a couple of versions of the Queen Bee: the original alien seductress and her modern-day JLA version along with the Queen of Bialya who caused trouble for the Justice League way back when it was funny. Will we see either in the New 52? I don't think so.

Who'd Like A Cocktail? #92

Hector Hammond's secret is out!

• GREEN ARROW #2 - well what do you know, looks like I was right. Isable Rochev turns out to be Ollie's mother after all. It's nice to see Green Arrow and Green Lantern palling round again, but wasn't Jordan all fired up a couple of months ago to bring Ollie to justice? Don't me me get Justice League: Cry For Justice out to double check, please.
• GREEN LANTERN #56 - hmm, is that cover and tag line reference John Carpenter's In The Mouth of Madness by any chance? Either way, Larfleeze makes a welcome return and Hector Hammond gets a makeover as all old GL villains do under Geoff Johns.
• GREEN LANTERN CORPS #50 - you know, if Cyborg Superman would just stop killing people, you could almost feel sorry for the guy.
• JUSTICE LEAGUE: GENERATION LOST #6 - despite the over the top build up from The Source blog the other day, this was something of a holding issue I felt. The team had already decided to catch Max Lord - remember that stirring last page from #5? To have Captain Atom suddenly have another, bigger reason to stop him sounds a little redundant.
• JUSTICE LEAGUE OF AMERICA #47 - the main story's meandering a little now; a few issues ago it really felt like this series was picking up again but it really sort of a mish-mash of things. A few fight scenes, some snappy dialogue, but I'm not getting a real sense of the characters or the plot if I'm honest. The back up featuring Red Tornado left me with a question, though. Just about every time a robot goes haywire, you can almost guarantee dialogue written thus: "1101011010100100" Am I the only one who reads that as "One one zero one zero one one zero one zero one zero zero one zero zero." in the voice of Bender from Futurama?
• TEEN TITANS #85 - seriously, I skimmed this entire issue. All I got was "Oh, where's Raven?" "Oh the Wyld's dangerous!" "Oh, where's Raven?" "Keys!" "Doorways!" "Clumsy dialogue!" I swear, if I didn't know JT Krul was coming on board soon, this title would be the first one I'd have dropped in years.
• Co feature COVEN OF THREE - nice, snappy fun featuring three of the DCU's lower level magicians facing off against some old JLA foes. This is good.

And what made me smile:

Larfleeze finds out about Santa - brilliant!

Who'd Like A Cocktail? #80

Power Girl delivers an ass kicking to order

Bumper crop this week following last week's volcano-caused delay.

• Battlefields: The Firefly And His Majesty #2 - ah, humour building up to what will be a horrible, horrible ending. Damn, this series is good.
• The Brave And The Bold #33 - as soon as I saw Batgirl I sussed what was going on but you know what? It worked. Easily the best of the Straczynski issues so far, this quiet tale was a little sad but handled really well. Plus it has the gorgeous, gorgeous artwork of Cliff Chiang.
• Crossed: Family Values #1 - another foray into the world of the Crossed, this looks to be as nasty as the Garth Ennis series; even without the infection, we're dealing with a incestuous rapist so things can only get worse.
• The Dark Tower: Battle of Jericho Hill #5 - the preludes are done as Roland is left alone and in search of the Tower.
• Green Lantern #53 - so, who's the short guy in the cloak at the start of the issue? The scarred Guardian somehow regenerated? And why is Lex Luthor acting like a real estate agent? We all know how that turned out in Superman Returns.
• Green Lantern Corps #47 - man, Arisia's pissed and the Guardians know it! For once, after the Lanterns stand up for themselves, it looks as though the Guardians might actually be learning how to deal with people.
• Justice League of America #44 - okay, this book is still a little clunky in places but it seems to be getting better on the whole.
• Justice League: The Rise of Arsenal #2 - poor old Roy; grief makes you say some pretty mean and stupid things to those you love, doesn't it?
• Justice Society of America #38 - the Joker begging to be executed alongside the Batman? That kinda makes sense!
• Power Girl #11 - I suspect this may be the last but one issue of fun, well-written superheroics from this title. Power Girl goes up against the Ultra-Humanite who's tucked up in Terra's body and while that battle seems resolved, there's still Satanna to deal with.
• Teen Titans #82 - I am a slave to various titles, I see that now. I have to pick them up no matter how little I'm enjoying them. Teen Titans is a case in point as the writing is just awful (Superboy and Kid Flash fist-bumping after saying they need to bury their friends? Ugh. Wonder Girl being a stroppy cow and not talking to Superboy even though he's just returned from the dead? Ugh.) and even the art's become worse - Raven gets kidnapped at the end and the last panel (complete with clichéd "Nooo!" from Beast Boy) is the smallest on the page? Come on, that whole last page was just too cramped and badly  laid out. Can someone please get another team on this book?

But this made me smile:

As much fun as Power Girl is, she can be as mean and brutal as she needs to be when her friend's in danger.

Who'd Like A Cocktail? #22

This week's post (actually last week's) is a bit late as I spent the weekend at a writers' convention catching up with old friends and getting very, very drunk with them.

The week just gone was a little light with only a handful of titles popping up. The Brave And The Bold #17 saw Marv Wolfman returning to Raven who's out to help Supergirl deal with the murderous programming her father implanted in her mind before she left Krypton. I don't follow her title so this was something of a surprise to me but it was made clear enough to pick up the salient points. Meanwhile another person with father issues is student Jonathan Mitchell whos dad turns out to be a bit part Justice Leaguer who tried to be one of the good guys but, due to his arrogance, ended up not really as one of the bad guys but more of a deluded fool. Mitchell is happy, if not eager, to embrace the powers he has while Supergirl and Raven try and sort out what's happening in Kara's head.

Dreamwar came to a close with #6, the two universe's heroes banding together to prevent a Sun-Eater from being birthed out of Earth's moon. The heavy hitters head skywards to try and work something out leaving Midnighter and Raven (she's getting around this month) to track down the spoiled brat behind it all - Chimera. Turns out he's been hiding not so much in plain sight but certainly without leaving his trailer, and with him forced to wake up at Superman's suggestion, the DC heroes vanish from the Wildstorm universe. As with all good mini-series, this one is left open for a return which, if Keith Giffen were writing it, I'd definitely be buying.

Reading a title because of the character can carry you through a period with a less than brilliant writer; reading a title because of the writer, however, might mean dropping the title once that writer leaves. That's the situation I'm in with The Punisher after reading #62. I've been a fan of Garth Ennis's work for years and his run on The Punisher was fantastic. Only a couple of issues in and Gregg Hurwitz's story of kidnappers and drug factories is good enough fare for a plot but I find myself wondering about his Punisher. Is it me or is Frank Castle just talking too damn much? Hell, even the narrative captions sound like he can't shut up for more than five minutes. I'll be sticking with this for a few more issues at least as this might simply be teething troubles . . . at least I hope so.

The Rann-Thanagar Holy War continues to rumble on with #5 beginning with a big old dose of angst and guilt as Adam Strange muses on the mistake he made which cost Starman his entire world. Deacon Dark ends up spurring on the holy war of the title, helping to engineer a battle between the two worlds which would end with their entire destruction. The heroes, though, manage to convince both Rannians and Thanagarians that their respective gods do not wish them to fight and the break off the battle and head home. Dark, however, gets his own god resurrected and the interference of the heroes causes the much talked about but seldom seen Lady Styx to turn her attention to Rann. It's all big, silly, space opera nonsense but, as long as you discard Jim Starlin's notion of Hawkman's origin, it's good fun.

Trinity #16 seems to be one big fight this week, with numerous heroes kicking supernatural butt as the Trinity themselves battle the three bad guys behind their troubles. Enigma being the Anti-Matter Earth's Riddler came as no surprise - Kurt Busiek loves the world that Grant Morrison created in Earth-2 - but one thing I didn't see coming was the hint that Despero isn't actually Despero. Meanwhile Hawkman (hey, isn't he on Rann at the moment?) leaps headlong into danger and ends up hitting some sort of temporal distortion that appears to have ruptured his past lives, separating them out from each other.