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A very impressive week with no real clinkers. Spoilers and reviews follow…
Action Comics #837 “Up, Up, And Away! Chapter Two. Mild-Manner Reporter” (Johns, Busiek, & Woods)Clark Kent recovers from Lex Luthor’s beating before resuming his hunt for the criminal mastermind’s lair. He finds one buried in the subway system and has to call upon Hawkgirl and Green Lantern to save him from a bunch of thugs stealing copies of Luthor’s battle armour. Meanwhile, Luthor has been declared bankrupt and is conspiring with Metallo and a new Toyman to strike back.A nice continuation of the OYL plot and we see more of the fall of Lex Luthor. I’m not so sure I buy his transition from billionaire-inventor to Earth-One inspired super villain, but it at least seems to be leading somewhere interesting. (7/10)
All-Star Superman #3 “Sweet Dreams, Superwoman…” (Morrison, Quitely, & Grant)Superman’s birthday gift to Lois Lane is superpowers for the day, but their date is interrupted by a dinosaur invasion of Metropolis and the arrival of two time travelling heroes who challenge Superman for Lois’s attention.We really don’t get stories like this any more. Morrison and Quitely expertly replay a Silver Age tale with their own wit and style. I’ve been loving it that they aren’t condescending about the source material and manage to keep the vermilisitude going by playing everything straight. (8/10)
Blue Beetle #1 “Blue Monday” (Giffen, Rogers, & Hammer)The azure scarab plummets to ground near El Paso, Texas where it’s found be high school students Jamie, Paco, and Brenda. Jamie Reyes, is just a normal geeky kid with a mechanic father, a medic mother, and a bratty younger-sister. That is until the scarab crawls inside him and transforms him into the new Blue Beetle. His transformation doesn’t go unnoticed by Green Lantern Guy Gardner or more sinister hidden forces.Like most fans I was down heartened by the death of Ted Kord, but this new Blue Beetle pushes all the right buttons. We’ve go a post-Peter Parker hero whose friends’ Scooby Gang style banter will sooth old JLI readers – as will the Guy Gardner appearance. A great start to a new series. (7/10)
Green Lantern #11 “Revenge of the Green Lanterns” (Johns, Reis, & Campos)One year later and Green Lantern Hal Jordan has been plagued with a succession of attempts on his life. His pursuit of the Igneous Man into Russian airspace beings the ire of the Rocket Red Brigade. Three months early Captain Jordan and his crew had been shot down over enemy ground and been captured as POWs. A medal ceremony to honour them is interrupted by the crash-landing of a space craft carrying the Green Lantern Tomar Tu.This issue gives us our first look at the wider political state of the DCU with the new “Freedom of Power Treaty” and the reappearance of both the Global Guardians and the Rocket Red Brigade. The story certainly backs in a lot of details and it feels like a blast back to the old days of the 1980s GLC title. I like the tweaked Rocket Red design, but some of the early sequences are a little over crowded. A nice return from OYL, but just a little too much going on. (6/10)
JLA Classified #19 “The Hypothetical Woman Part Four” (Simone, Garcia-Lopez, & Phillips)General Tuzik continues his plans for world domination via the Conqueror Virus and his Hypothetical Army. He slowly takes over the Chinese Army and forces the Justice League to cross international borders to stop him.Jose Luis Garcia-Lopez’s art really lifts this story from being just another vanilla League story. The characters and settings are well written, but I can’t shake the feeling that I’ve read this story before. We learn a little more about the Hypothetical Army, but the only one that really catches my interest is Ghost Lion – he’d make an interesting addition to a team like the Elite. (5/10)
Superman/Batman #24 “With A Vengeance!” (Loeb, McGuinness, & Vines)Under Metron’s guidance Superman goes to the Source Wall to free Darkseid, but is double crossed by the tyrant and is left imprisoned there himself. Meanwhile Batman finds himself in a universe where genders have been switched. After making new allies he finds himself facing the Maximum’s in an arena controlled by the Joker.Another fun issue, but one that is way over due. I worried that this series would get the Planetary-syndrome where I just didn’t care any more, but the writing keeps its pace and you never feel like you’ve forgotten what was happening. Loeb continues to show skill in keeping so many ideas and characters moving at once. I would rate the issue higher if it didn’t suffer from being the penultimate part of a trade-length story. (6/10)
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