Injustice: Gods Among Us - Year Three #20 - A Review

Things have gone from bad to worse for The Resistance. Caught between a furious Trigon and Mister Mxyzptlk, things already looked dire with Superman and his Regime forces hot on their heels. But now The Swamp Thing has shown up and he's not going to listen to John Constantine's lies anymore...


Apart from some philosophical musing from Constantine at the start, this issue of Injustice is all action.  The plot isn't advanced much but there are a lot of great combat scenes.  The best part is that the fights are quite unpredictable with some unexpected victories.


Pete Woods returns to the art duties after a lengthy hiatus from this book. You'd never know it, though.  All of the cast look true to form and the combat is well blocked visually.  Rex Lokus offers up an amazing display of color artistry and Wes Abbott does a fine job on the lettering.

Aquaman #14 - A Review

Despite being the first part of a multi-issue crossover with Justice League, Aquaman #14 doesn't feel like the start of a major storyline.  This is actually to the story's benefit, as this issue proves to be a wonderful jump-on point for those Justice League readers who haven't been reading this book.  Geoff Johns does an amazing job of establishing several important facts for new readers as well as establishing some trivia that suggests some major changes for the New 52 Aquaman continuity. 

My favorite sequence takes place in a brief interlude which confirms Black Manta's seriousness as a villain.  For all the grief Aquaman has received over how lame a superhero he is, I think Black Manta has gotten worse ribbing from the fandom at large.  After all, how lame do you have to be to repeatedly get your butt kicked by Aquaman?  In previous issues, Geoff Johns showed how Aquaman's true power has been frequently underestimated.  Now, he does the same for Black Manta, showing the lethal ingenuity of a man who - like Batman - must face all manner of threats with nothing but his fierce intellect, raw cunning and the best toys money can buy.


The main thrust of the issue centers upon Aquaman having a meeting with his brother.  Well, half-brother technically, but they address one another as brother.  One revelation we learn in these sequences is that Aquaman's brother rules Atlantis and Aquaman apparently refused the throne.  Those who have been reading Aquaman can't help but wonder how this jibes with the story in Aquaman #0, where it appeared that a young Arthur Curry was preparing to lead a violent revolt in Atlantis.  Presumably things came to a more agreeable end?


An early scene in this book holds a point of interest for long-time Aquaman fans as well as fans of the classic Teen Titans.  Arthur's brother makes mention of a boy with purple eyes named Garth and a prophecy which says that a boy with purple eyes will bring about the end of Atlantis.  This is clearly a nod to the original Aqualad, whose name was Garth and who did indeed have purple eyes.  Does this mean that Aquaman and Mera will soon be getting a new sidekick?  And if so, will the rest of the original Titans, absent from The New 52 thus far, be appearing soon?

You may have noticed at this point that I continue to refer to Arthur's brother as nothing more than Arthur's brother.  There is a reason for that.  He is not named once in the entire issue - not by his true name nor by the villainous nom de plume he went by in the old universe - The Ocean Master.  The artwork also makes a point of shadowing his face or obscuring it, despite his wearing a full helm that almost completely covers his face.  This is especially odd given that appears, unobscured, on the front cover.



The artwork of this issue seems somewhat uneven.  I suspect this is the end result of employing two pencilers and five different inkers.  None of the artwork is bad but the look between pages is inconsistent.  Some pages - such as the above throne room scene - are so heavily inked as to be almost completely black.  Others, such as the splash page below, seem overly stylized to the point of being cartoonish.  I half-expect the fish surrounding Aquaman to begin singing a jolly calypso number about the joys of living below the ocean.


Despite this, I'd still gladly recommend this comic to any curious parties.  If you haven't been reading this book before, now is the perfect time to dive in!

Superman: The Black Ring, vol. 1-2 - A No Flying, No Tights Review

SOURCE: Superman: The Black Ring, vol. 1-2


   

Once he was a respected scientific genius, a powerful CEO and President of the United States. Then he was a pariah, a wanted criminal and Public Enemy Number One. Now, having used his genius to save the Earth from alien invaders, thus earning himself a full pardon for his past crimes, Lex Luthor has regained control of the company he once built from nothing and reestablished himself as a power to be reckoned with in the world of legitimate business.

 It’s not enough.

It’s not enough because Lex Luthor was chosen to wield an Orange Lantern ring during the crisis that became known as The Blackest Night. Tapping into the unbridled avarice that dominated his heart, Lex Luthor briefly had access to the unlimited power he craved for so long. And now he wants it back.

Accompanied by his loyal lackey Spalding and a life-like Lois Lane android, Lex Luthor will embark on an epic quest to reclaim the power that was taken from him. This adventure will pit Lex against other arch-villains, such as the parasitic alien caterpillar Mister Mind, the telepathic Gorilla Grodd and the immortal tyrant Vandal Savage. Lex will even confront Death herself and maybe, just maybe, finally find a way to make himself more powerful than Superman.

It must have seemed like a mad idea when this story was first published as a series of monthly installments in the pages of Action Comics. Take away Superman’s main title for one year to devote a story to his greatest enemy and not even have the Big Blue Boy Scout show up until the very end? But mad ideas are the stock and trade of writer Paul Cornell, who had been delivering madness to the masses in his Doctor Who scripts and novels for quite some time before signing on with DC Comics.

Cornell portrays Lex Luthor as a figure much like The Doctor – brilliant, witty, and at least three steps ahead of everyone else in the game. He also gives Lex a companion of sorts in the form of a Lois Lane FemBot who plays the perfect Devil’s Advocate when Luthor needs someone to stop him from crossing the line. Despite this surface similarity, The Black Ring is not a cleverly disguised Doctor Who script. Lex lacks the Doctor’s benevolent spirit and his tale is ultimately about an angry man seeking godhood rather than a lonely god affirming his humanity.

Despite this heavy theme, there is much humor to be found in this series. Indeed, Gail Simone lends a hand to pen one of the middle chapters featuring her beloved Secret Six team, and the first volume features what has to be the funniest single page I’ve seen in any comic in recent memory. I won’t spoil the gag except to say that it involves combat spoons.

You read that right. Combat. Spoons.

All of this is ably illustrated by long-time Superman illustrator Pete Woods, whose work reminds me of long-time Justice League penciller Kevin Maguire. Crisp and clear, with an amazing array of expressions, all of the human characters in this series are clearly designed and crisply defined. Woods is also one of the few artists I’ve found who is capable of drawing gorillas that look both intelligent and savage at the same time.

Superman: The Black Ring, vol. 1-2
by Paul Cornell and Gail Simone
Art by Pete Woods
Vol. 1 ISBN: 9781401230333
Vol. 2 ISBN: 9781401232030
DC Comics, 2011
Publisher Age Rating: T (13+)
 

Legion Lost #1 - A Review

I’m not sure what to make of Legion Lost. It doesn’t feel at all like a first issue, much less the first issue of a book that is part of a line aimed at new readers. I did not feel welcomed or reassured as I did with other New 52 titles. I felt more like I’d walked into the theater in the middle of a bad play.

The action centers upon a group of heroes who travel back in time to our era to catch an escaped villain. Presumably they are part of the Legion of Superheroes, though that name is never used in the whole book. For a variety of reasons, they wind up arriving 30 hours after said villain but they do manage to recapture him… after he’s already enacted his plan to change their time by releasing a virus in their past. The issue ends with the team stranded in the past and some of their number having disappeared after their time machine broke down.

It’s really hard to care about any of these characters. There’s barely any introduction to the characters and there’s little attempt to give any of them characterization past “team hot-head”, “angry loner” and “sensitive girl”. And unlike previous Legion comics I’ve read, there is no helpful list of character-names, code-names and powers at the start of the book. I don’t think this sort of thing is a necessity for a team book but it really could have helped in this first issue. Characters address one another by first name while looking at entire groups and it isn’t clear who is speaking to whom in several scenes.

This brings us to the artwork, which isn’t anything to write home about either. The proportions and perspective are weird at times, with most of the characters looking very inorganic and posed. It’s not the worst art I’ve ever see. It’s not even the worst art I’ve seen in the New 52. It’s just… standard.

For the life of me, I can’t understand why anyone would want to continue reading Legion Lost after this first issue. The characters are bland and presented as being utterly incompetent, spending more time fighting one-another and repairing their broken equipment than tracking down the bad guy. Heck, they don’t even fight the villain! He just passes out after being confronted by a little girl and they retrieve his body while he’s out cold! All in all, this is a complete mess. If you haven’t bought it yet, don’t.