Green Lantern #52 Notes Done

A little later than expected (due to my doing a parachute jump last Saturday which was just superb, and then driving to and from London yesterday to see - among others - the great Alan Moore himself performing stand-up comedy!) but the notes are up for Green Lantern #52 over at the Annotated Blackest Night.

Typically, the last issue of Blackest Night is out tomorrow and I'm away for the weekend coming so who knows when I'll have chance to get the notes done.

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!

Friday Night Fights - The Winners

The winners of the previous rounds of Friday Night Fights will be up this evening at Spacebooger, preparing you, me and everyone else for next week's Prize Fight where everyone who won a round has to compete one last time.

Remember, head over and vote!

So Should He Call You 'Wart?

Last week's issue of Green Lantern Corps contained a conversation between Lanterns Kilowog and John Stewart which contained a line that made me wince and remember something from years gone by.

In the midst of the battle with the Black Lanterns, Stewart and Kilowog discuss the approaching planet of Xanshi which Stewart has a history with and is determined to stop. And then this crops up:

Now I don't know where you're reading this from (probably America as most of my hits come from the States) but here in dear old Britain, the word "wog" has something of a history and nothing about it is good. From the Wikipedia article on the word:

"Wog in the UK is usually regarded as a racially offensive slang word referring to dark skinned, non-white people from Africa or Asia. It can be applied to any darker-skinned people, but is particularly applied to Afro-Caribbeans, as well as immigrants from the Indian subcontinent. Use of the word is discouraged in Britain, and most dictionaries refer to the word with the caution that it is derogatory and offensive."

Now I'm not for one second suggesting that either John Stewart or through him the writer Pete Tomasi is referring to Kilowog in a derogatory or offensive matter; in all likelihood it's a simple mistake: Tomasi simply contracted Kilowog's name without realising the implications.

It's a shame, though, as it certainly jarred with me.

Twenty years ago (dear god, have I been reading comics that long?!) the same situation cropped up in Justice League America #45 when Blue Beetle approached Kilowog with a crazy idea (they did that a lot back then) which Kilowog was initially reluctant to go through with. The whole thing started with this:

Back then, writers Keith Giffen and J.M. DeMatteis used the same contraction and made it clear Kilowog wasn't in favour of it.

Shame Pete Tomasi hadn't read that issue.

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.

Notes On Green Lantern Corps #46 Published

Just updated the Annotated Blackest Night with notes for Green Lantern Corps #46

as well as updating the Character Map.

Enjoy!

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 . . .