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Good morning, my adoring destroyers! This comic (finally) concludes The Mission in Prague, with a conversation you'd think the two would've had at the end of Peach's Day Off, but know what? Dr. Felis can be a little bit thick-headed sometimes. There. I said it.
Also, to crush at least one fan's hopes, no, our next arc will not involve an Egyptian goddess on the Orient Express in space. I wanted to…blatantly steal the "unseen adventures" element from Doctor Who and it came down to a toss-up between that line and the "four things and a lizard" line from Blink. Also, if this paragraph made little-to-no sense to you, clearly you need to watch more Doctor Who.
So, hey, Wednesday was yesterday (oh god I hope that's not news to anyone) and my loving wife and I took a trip down to our not-exactly-local comic book shop to see the sights and buy some comics. Since I like reviewing things for you guys, here's what I read:
- Justice League #1 (Originally released 8/31)
Okay, I'm late on this one. Very late by reviewers standards. But know why? because I'm still new at this whole "buying individual issues" thing and I let everyone buy it before I stood a chance. I read the reviews online calling it slow-paced, decent but meh, etc. And y'know what? Maybe it's because I had a few weeks to lower my expectations, but…it was pretty solid. Maybe it's because I'm a nerd and was too busy focusing on some of the references/worldbuilding for the villain (sorry, I'm trying to keep things spoiler-free), but I thought it was a nice Batman/Green Lantern team up and…yeah, I can see it working as a build-up to the formation of the Justice League. I think a lot of why I liked it was I had enough time to distance the book from the "THIS IS THE ISSUE YOU HAVE TO READ! THIS IS WHERE EVERYTHING BEGINS!" hype it had upon its release.
- Batgirl #1 (Originally released 9/7)
Yeah, I'm behind on this one, too. Frankly, I had no reason to read this book, but I had no reason not to, either. Sure, nerds will debate about which one of Barbara Gordon's alter-egos was capable of doing the most good: Batgirl or her wheelchair-bound computer-expert Oracle, but since I never read any of the Bat-family books, I never felt like I had a stake in the argument. I mostly picked this book up on the sheer basis that I've never read a Gail Simone book, despite knowing her name well enough to know she's one of DC's best talents.
I thought this book was a good introduction to Barbara's new status quo, and I say that as someone who's basically coming in as a noob (see above). We get to see Barbara's trauma from The Killing Joke and her trying to deal with it and move on with her life. If I had to sum it up, I'd say the tone of Batgirl is…respectful. This book acknowledges and honors Barbara's time as Oracle (or I assume…her time in a wheelchair has been compressed to three years and I don't remember "Oracle" being mentioned, although I could be wrong as I have a bad memory) while showing Barbara's glee at being able to patrol and save people directly again. I'd recommend it, especially since it apparently didn't sell out last week.
- Superboy #1 (Originally released 9/14)
Okay, this is the cover of Superboy #1. I am a self-proclaimed nerd. Let's be honest, Superboy looks like something out of Tron. And when DC was announcing their relaunch comics left right and center, that was the first glimpse we had at the new Superboy.
And I hated it.
Seriously.
No, really. You have no idea. We're talking "Han shot first" levels of nerd-rage here.
Now let's flashback to last week. While I expressed some mixed feelings towards Action Comics #1, my wife's two-word review of the issue was "LOVED IT!" and she immediately expressed interest in reading the rest of the Super-family books.
And y'know what? She was right. I'll say it. While, yes, he does wear the Tron-suit in the issue, it is justified in-context (though he does have these S-shield-shaped signs on the back of his hands which…seriously, just…what?). This was also my first Superboy comic ever and, while I'm sure the whole "failed lab experiment" thing is old-hat to long-time readers, it still felt fresh to me. Plus there were a few very solid twists in the book that gave it a surprising edge.
- Kirby: Genesis #1 and #2 (Originally released 8/01 and 9/01, respectively)
These were the "random finds" this trip. I had heard about this project through the grapevine months ago and shrugged it off. If you're not familiar with Jack Kirby, he's one of the founding fathers of modern comics and probably creator of at least a handful of characters you already know. I shrugged it off because…well, I've read a solid chunk of Jack Kirby's Fourth World Omnibus books to know that Kirby had a certain style and voice that aren't easily duplicated. Then I read the free preview issue on Comixology and I got turned around. "Wow," I thought. "This could actually work." And after reading issue #1, I was ready for an entire line of books set in this comic's universe (also, an aside, I just found out while researching that Genesis is only an 8-issue miniseries. Man!). Genesis reads like a love letter to everything Jack Kirby brought to comics (see the final page for issue #2. That's Darkseid. They can call him whatever they want, they can color his skin all...not-grey, that's friggin' Jack. Kirby's. Darkseid.) while simultaneously bringing a breath of fresh air to absolutely everything. If I had to recommend a single comic based on this week's purchases, it would be this.
Well, that's (finally) all for this week, everyone. I hope you have a good week and I'll see you next Thursday!
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