Who Was Who Is Who #46

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 Tiger's chance.

THE TERMINATOR - as in Deathstroke before he really became known by that name. He's made it through into the DCU, helming his own title as well so he's definitely in place.

TERRA - poor old Terra didn't have a good time of it in the pre-Flashpoint world and ended up a traitor to the Teen Titans and then a Black Lantern. The new Terra, Atlee, was a nice addition to Power Girl's title but she's been lost post-Flashpoint. However, it has been announced that a new Terra will be in the forthcoming (this is written in early April, my friends) Ravagers series so while it may not be the same person, the name's in use.

Monday Memes #42

These covers not only fit into the Friendly Fire category but are also among my favourites in general:

The crossover between Justice League International (as it still was in the early days) and Suicide Squad show the same fight scene from front and back with the stars of the respective titles facing away from the reader.

And you just gotta love Guy Gardner's expression!

And okay, technically Silhouette is a bad guy in Ghost but she's still her sister; and yeah, Terra's mind is that of the Ultra-Humanite but I figured they were close enough to count!

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? #77

Kilowog comes up with an interesting expletive in Green Lantern #52

• Black Terror #9 - Phil Hester obviously learnt his writing skills at the Kevin Smith School of Getting as Many Words as Possible On To The Page; this all seemed a little crammed in, especially at the start, with no real pay-off except the reveal that Black Terror's secret wish was . . . a ghostly flying pirate ship.
• Green Lantern #52 - Sinestro the White Lantern; John Stewart being cool and collected; Nekron suffering his first real loss; and on top of that, the reveal that Compassion is a many-tentacled thing.
• Justice League: The Rise of Arsenal #1 - come on, did we really need to see what Lian went through?
• Power Girl #10 - the circle is almost complete as Ultrahumanite returns to give Power Girl grief . . . in the body of Terra! "The banana and bad behaviour", "What have you done with Terra's brain?" . . . damn I'm going to miss this team when they go.
• The Stand: Soul Survivors #5 - the adaptation gets to the halfway point and the good guys are on the move.

And what made me smile:

Power Girl's team have a little dig at themselves!

New Power Girl Creative Team Announced

Cover to Power Girl #13

And, for me at least, it's not good news.

Over at the DCU blog, the new creative team for Power Girl has been released - art wise, the new artist Sami Basri (whose cover for issue #13 is on the right) looks promising. It's nice and clean although they've gone for the classic costume rather than the latest Amanda Conner design but hey, it's not terrible.

Writing wise . . . well, there's where I kinda got dismayed. Replacing the fun and witty Jimmy Palmiotti and Justin Grey is Judd Winick.

Judd.

Fricking.

Winick.

I'm not a fan and nor are many of the commenters over at the original post linked above. The very first comment simply reads "Nooooooooooooooooooooooooo...." a sentiment I can heartily get behind.

I'm not a fan of his work on Green Lantern or Green Arrow - though I stuck out both runs because of the characters - and the Trials of Shazam left me cold. I'm just waiting for Power Girl's supporting characters to become relevant . . . we'll discover Terra is gay or PG's cat is HIV or Dr Mid-Nite's blindness is cause by global warming or something. I've nothing against serious fiction dealing with real issues but not in the pages of Power Girl, thank you very much.

Winick, of course, is also writing the up-coming Justice League: Generation Lost so of course he'll be tying Power Girl into that . . . which makes me wonder if this is the only reason he's managed to get this damn writing gig.

Damn it all . . .

Who'd Like A Cocktail? #72

I'm actually away this weekend but thanks to Blogger's scheduling function, I can still get my Cocktail post in!

• Battlefields: Happy Valley #3 - a sombre ending which came as no real surprise but was handled delicately and with care by Ennis who once more showed he's more than swearing and violence.
• Blackest Night: The Flash #3 - as much as the White Lantern (?) symbol over Reverse Flash's chest was intriguing, the most interesting part of this issue, like those before it, were the Rogues. It comes to something when the bad guys hold more fascination than the main character.
• Green Lantern #51 - more blood on Parallax's hands than the Anti-Monitor? Spectre, dude, the Anti-Monitor wiped out thousands of universes! Universes! And that bit with Hector Hammond? Can anyone say "groundwork for up-coming storyline?!"
• Green Lantern Corps #45 - the whole "battle your personal demons" thing was a little cheesey but it's good to have Gardner back at last.
• Justice League of America #42 - okay, a little all-over-the-place but not bad on the whole, though the couple of two page spreads weren't incredibly clear and I ended up reading down the page instead of across, but I'm liking the new villains.
• Magog #6 - tying in with Justice Society of America Annual #2 from a couple of weeks ago, this is Magog's side of things concerning the big JSA vs Magog fight along with the aftermath.
• Marvels: Eye of The Camera #6 - my god, this has actually arrived?! I'm not going to bother reading it until I re-read the earlier issues again, it's been so long.
• Power Girl #9 - did no-one tell Satanna that leopard-print went out with the 70's? Another damn fine issue where sub-plots from previous issues crop up again, making the story feel genuine. And hey, Terra's back to save Power Girl!
• The Stand: Soul Survivors #4 - damn, those were some big weasels!

And what made me smile wince:

Owwwwwwww!

Who'd Like A Cocktail? #58

As I was away last week, this week's Cocktail post is bumper sized double issue!

• Blackest Night: Batman #3 - hmmm, seemed to finish on something of an anti-climax, I think.
• Booster Gold #25 - genuinely touching moment between Batman and Booster and Rip Hunter's chalkboard was entertaining as ever!
• Blue Beetle co-feature - come on! Anyone really believe Black Beetle is Jaime from the future?
• Final Crisis Aftermath: Escape #6 - if I have to re-read all six issues to make sense of this, I think I'd be more inclined to read the whole of the Bloodlines crossover again.
• Green Arrow/Black Canary #25 - Green Arrow is apparently going to be an important character next year in the DCU; I kinda hope Andrew Kreisberg isn't writing him when that happens.
• Black Canary co-feature - well, that was a waste of ten pages.
• Green Lantern Corps #41 - oooh, just when things look their bleakest, the Indigo guy turns up!
• JSA vs Kobra #5 - as I've said all along, this is a really nice series both writing and art-wise and it'll be a shame to see it end.
• The Punisher #75 - crap - I missed #74! Still, nice collection of stories here and great to see the preview featuring Steve Dillon's artwork.
• Secret Six #14 - Catman shows he's still a bad guy at heart.

And what made me smile:

There were rumours for years about those two, you know . . .

And here's what I picked up this week:

• Blackest Night: Superman #3 - wow, Krypto really is a good dog!
• The Brave And The Bold #28 - you know, I think it took me until Flash took his mask off to realise that was Barry Allen! I'm so used to Wally being the Flash, I just didn't realise . . .
• Final Crisis Aftermath: Dance #6 - so, only FCA: Ink to go and then we can all put Final Crisis behind us.
• Justice League of America #38 - the new era starts here, then? So what have we got? A teaser of a hidden villain; a return to Happy Harbour to reconnect with the old League; lots of self-doubt; reference to the end of a mini-series that hasn't actually ended yet; a completely pointless attack by an old villain; a realisation this version of the League's not worth continuing with; and a tie-in to Blackest Night. For a new era, it all sounds quite familiar.
• Power Girl #6 - whereas this is still fun and fresh month after month! A situation that would normally turn into a fight is handled differently here and that's so refreshing.
• The Punisher #74 - I missed this last month so picked it up this week. Not the best storyline ever, but Parlov's art is still great.
• The Stand: Soul Survivors #1 - this is the first issue of this adaptation that's felt a bit weak - knowing the book as well as I do, the burgeoning friendship between Nick and Tom was a lot richer in the original.

And what made me smile:

Talking of friendship, watching Power Girl and Terra interact is fun enough but having Terra map out the formula for superhero comics? Marvellous!

Who'd Like A Cocktail? #51

The weekly round up of what I picked up from my local comic shop:

• Blackest Night: Superman #1 - didn't Pete Ross used to be the Vice President? And now he's working in a general store? How the mighty have fallen. Either way, good opening issue.
• The Brave And The Bold #26 - great idea (ghosts killing ghosts) but utterly dreadful, leaden dialogue.
• Final Crisis Aftermath: Dance #4 - finding it hard to care what happens to the Super Young Team, to be honest. And am I the only one who reads @MOSEXSBAT as Mo Sex Bat?
• Justice League of America #36 - still the Royal Flush Gang? Still with the bad card puns? Still a boring fill-in story? Looks like it.
• Power Girl #4 - finally! Fun comics! Cracking dialogue! Excellent art! Power Girl and Terra hanging out together! Why do I think this title's going to get cancelled before long?!
• Project Superpowers: Meet The Bad Guys #1 - and the award for the longest title this week goes to... As with Brave and The Bold, nice idea but clunky dialogue.
• Punisher #73 - this story might just be rising above the raft of clichés it's built on, plus Goran Parlov's art is still excellent.
• The Stand: American Nightmares #5 - still a good solid adaptation.
• Wednesday Comics #7 - "Great Thanagar! Of all the islands in all the oceans on planet Earth -- why did we have to crash-land on Dinosaur Island?" - quote of the week comes from Hawkman, without a doubt!

And what made me smile this week:

Ah, Power Girl - this title's consistently one of my favourites thanks to Jimmy Palmiotti's and Justin Gray's writing and Amanda Conner's artwork. If you're not buying it, do so now!

Place Your Bets Part II

A couple of weeks ago I mentioned the upcoming tournament in Terror Titans and made some guesses as to who would win their fights. With issue #2 in front of me, I can run through the results of Round One and see how I did:

Pristine vs Offspring - Predicted Offspring to win - nope, Pristine won with what looked to be some big floating eyeball that went Fwapp!
Terra vs Zatara - Predicted Terra to win - got that right; that's the power of having a new mini-series out, folks!
Aquagirl vs The Face - Predicted Aquagirl to win - got that right as well; The Face (whoever the hell he is) was downed with a single kick.
Ravager vs TNTeena - Predicted Ravager to win - got that right but that was no contest; like I said a couple of weeks ago, this might be called Terror Titans but it's essentially Ravager's mini-series.
Hardrock vs Gypsy - Predicted Gypsy to win - my winning streak comes to a halt as Hardrock won just by flicking a bit of rock at Gypsy; can't see it myself but that's the result.
Young Frankenstein vs Son of the Fallen - Predicted Young Frankenstein to win - and right again as a big green fist to the face wins out.
Poprocket vs Star-Spangled Kid - Predicted Star-Spangled Kid to win - and got that right though it was made to look like a close call.
Sapphire vs Argent - Predicted Argent to win - but Sapphire won this one even though the artwork made it look like Argent won.

So I called five out of the eight fights correct - just over 60% isn't bad going but, of course, that has ruined some of my later predictions. Here's my new

Round 2

Pristine vs Terra - Terra to win; again, there's that mini-series and she'll go through to meet the lead of this series.

Aquagirl vs Ravager - my only surviving prediction and I'm still going for Ravager.

Hardrock vs Young Frankenstein - I'm going with Young Frankenstein.

Star-Spangled Kid vs Sapphire - I'm going to say the Kid's going to win this one as well as I still see him and Ravager in the final.

Place Your Bets

I'm going to forgo the usual Cocktail post this week to focus on something that appeared on the DC Nation pages at the back of several of this weeks' comics - the Dark Side Club Tournament that's upcoming in the Terror Titans mini-series.

I've not read anything about this so it kinda caught me by surprise, but I can't help run through it and try and guess who will win. So, here's my predictions, round by round:

Round 1

Pristine vs Offspring - Offspring to win; I've no idea who Pristine is which makes me instantly discount them as cannon fodder which, I'll warn you now, is going to be my reasoning for much of this round.

Terra vs Zatara - Terra to win; Zatara's a fairly well fleshed out character in the Teen Titans, but Terra's got a new mini-series coming up.

Aquagirl vs The Face - Aquagirl to win; The Face is cannon fodder again.

Ravager vs TNTeena - oh so easily Ravager to win; this mini-series might be called Terror Titans, but it's Ravager who's the star here.

Hardrock vs Gypsy - Gypsy to win; this is all about experience vs brute force.

Young Frankenstein vs Son of the Fallen - Young Frankenstein to win; cannon fodder rule comes into play once more.

Poprocket vs Star-Spangled Kid - Star-Spangled Kid to win; cannon fodder once more - I mean, come on: Poprocket?!

Sapphire vs Argent - Argent to win; cannon fodder again, you see

Round 2

Offspring vs Terra - Terra to win; Offspring's funny but, again, Terra's got that mini-series that'll carry her through this round at least.

Aquagirl vs Ravager - Ravager to win again; this is still her series.

Gypsy vs Young Frankenstein - Gypsy to win; she's got the experience but from a story point of view, her win will benefit her next fight if I'm right about the result of the last Round 2 match.

Star-Spangled Kid vs Argent - Star-Spangled Kid to win; his win will prevent an all-female semi-final.

Round 3 - The Semi-Finals

Terra vs Ravager - Ravager to win; Terra's new mini-series will be no good against the star of this mini-series so she's going down!

Gypsy vs Star-Spangled Kid - Star-Spangled Kid to win; two definite heroes fighting against each other, one of whom was in the JLA, the other is a new legacy character, will give this last fight a touch of drama.

The Final

Ravager vs Star-Spangled Kid - I'm going to go all out and bet that neither of them will win; by this point, Ravager will have realised just how evil the Terror Titans are and will work with Star-Spangled Kid to bring them down.