Who'd Like A Cocktail? #52

Here we are again for another round of cocktails:

• Blackest Night: Titans #1 - Black Lanterns! Ed Benes! Butt shots! Joking aside, not a bad start - the ghostly pram/stroller in Donna's room was a nice, creepy touch.
• The Boys: Herogasm #4 - 9/11's always going to be an emotive subject even when dealing with an alternate history of it. Ennis handles it very well.
• The Dark Tower: Fall of Gilead #4 - the centre cannot hold / Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world.
• Final Crisis Aftermath: Ink #4 - oh wow, it's the return of the long dead brother complete with super-villain name. And this series started off so well.
• Green Lantern #45 - oh boy is Agent Orange in trouble now!
• Justice Society of America #30 - Dr. Fate's back! Oh yeah! Could do without the bickering but I guess that's building to the JSA All-Stars series coming soon.
• The Last Days of Animal Man #4 - Jeez, poor old Buddy's getting put through the wringer here.
• Project Superpowers: Chapter Two #2 - you know, with such a huge cast in the Superpowers universe, it'd be nice if someone annotated it . . . Seriously, though, this is good stuff.
• Teen Titans #74 - poor Kid Devil, not to mention Kid Eternity.
• Wednesday Comics #8 - hmmm, toss up between Metamorpho and the Flash this week I think.

And what made me smile this week:

Heh - pink bunnies have never done it for me.

Blackest Night: Titans #1 Annotations

Notes are up over at the Annotated Blackest Night, along with the notes for Green Lantern #45.

Enjoy!

More Annotations Than You Could Possibly Imagine

Been a bit quiet here this last week, mostly due to me celebrating my birthday - I reached the grand old age of 40 last Tuesday and my wife and I have been out enjoying ourselves and will be for the next week as well.

Plus I've been working on something in the background that I've wanted to do for a while now - more annotations for more DC comics. I'll reveal all once it's ready, though that might be some time.

Anyhow, Blackest Night: Titans #1 hit this week, along with Green Lantern #45 so notes will be up for those as soon as possible over at the Annotated Blackest Night.

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!

Blackest Night: Superman #1

Notes are up over at the Annotated Blackest Night for Superman # 1.

Enjoy!

Well Waddaya Know?

I was right!

Back in May, I suggested that the new Batgirl might turn out to be Stephanie Brown, aka Spoiler.

Lo and behold, the Source reveals I got it right:

You are Batgirl and I claim my five pounds!

It Was All Hal Jordan's Fault In The First Place

As I mentioned yesterday, I've just posted some notes about the Nekron story in Tales of The Green Lantern Corps over at the Annotated Blackest Night. To get those notes done, I obviously re-read the story, the first time I'd done so in ages. When I did, I noticed something a bit . . . odd.

In short, the Guardians have gather every Green Lantern on Oa - that's all 3,600 of them so you know it's going to be important. Hell, they even drafted in Charlie Vicker:

who seems to have a . . . close . . . relationship with Stel . . . which is fine, you know, I'm not judging - just going for the cheap joke.

Anyhow, like I said, it's an important meeting as evidenced by Tomar-Re and the other Honour Guards showing up:

I wonder why Guy Gardner and Kyle Rayner don't have those fancy red sashes now that they're Honour Guards . . . ?

Anyhow, like the bird-man says, "Time is of the essence!" There's no time to delay - things have to get going and, after the Guardians arrive, Jordan does just that. He gets going . . . at least his mouth does:

See, he's only just met Arisia who doesn't know squat about the Guardians or their history so Jordan fills her in concerning Krona, that bad guy who wanted desperately to see the origin of the universe.

And he takes three and a half pages to do it even though, as his good friend Tomar-Re said:

And what do the Guardians do when Jordan's babbling away about Krona?

Nothing!

They wait until he's finished!!

Sure, Guardian, explain the URGENT REASON you've brought them together after you let Jordan finish his story. Don't you realise:

It's so urgent you summon every Green Lantern, it's so urgent you bring them all to Oa all at once, it's all so very, very urgent but you let Jordan tell Krona's story for too long:

Not ready?!

Not ready?!


Who's fault is that?!

Hal Jordan - smug son of a bitch.