52 Pick-Up - Week Two, Part One

BATGIRL #2 - With this book, Gail Simone has created what is easily the best new villain of the New 52 titles - The Mirror. The name proves to be a fitting one as The Mirror's life is a dark mirror to Barbara Gordon's own, with a personal tragedy having driven him to become a killer whereas Barbara used her tragedies to become a savior. Simone continues to write Barbara as a smart, competent heroine whose mistakes come about through rustiness - not incompetence. There's a lot of great character moments here for Barbara, in and out of the cowl, as she goes out on a date and uses her own mad detective skills to figure out hust who The Mirror is. The art by Adrian Syaf continues to be top-notch, as before. This one is making the pull list.


DEMON KNIGHTS #2 - Already the buzz is that this will likely be the first New 52 title to be canceled - not because it sold any worse than any of the others but because the concept is just too "weird" to hook your average comic fan for long. The cynic in me fears that they are right but the rest of me doesn't care - the rest of me is too busy laughing as I imagine Vandal Savage, sounding something like Brian Blessed in my head, shouting "Die, tasty rare creatures! DIE!" as he beats a dragon/dinosaur to death with his own limb. Seriously - if you liked the same kind of crazy humor that Secret Six reveled in or enjoy fantasy of any stripe, give this series a shot. Another one for the pull list, however long it lasts.


GREEN LANTERN #2 - Picking up where the last one left off, Sinestro offers Hal a bargain. Sinestro creates a limited Green Lantern ring that only gives Hal as much power as Sinestro is willing to give him at any time. In exchange, Sinestro demand's Hal's assistance in liberating Sinestro's homeworld from the fear-empowered Corps that bears his name. Johns does a good job painting Sinestro, not as a power-mad zealot, but as a soldier who crossed the line in defending his particular definition of duty and has continued sliding down the slippery slope every since. This does not make Sinestro any less of an arrogant bastard but there is a nice character moment where he is clearly uncomfortable with people treating him as a hero, seeing his position as a Green Lantern as an unremarkable duty. Sadly, a lot of this nuance is sure to be lost on new readers but this is good stuff for us Oldbies. This one is staying on my pull, but I can't really recommend it to new readers.