Justice League #33 - A Review

With the rest of The Justice League in the clutches of The Dark Knights, if falls to Cyborg to save the day. Yet doing so many require Victor sacrificing what remains of his humanity to fully empower the Motherbox that powers his cybernetics. Will he make the ultimate sacrifice for the sake of all reality?


Despite being largely devoted to explaining Cyborg's powers and setting up the next part of the Dark Nights Metal event, Justice League #33 is an enjoyable little book. Teen Titans fans will be glad to know the story also reaffirms the friendship between Cyborg and Raven (something missing in the Rebirth reality) and there's a sequence I'm fairly certain is a nod to one of the better episodes of Teen Titans Go!  The artwork is equally brilliant, with the colors of Arif Prianto and Jeromy Cox giving the pencils and inks of Tyler Kirkham and Mikel Janin an almost painted appearance at times.

The Final Analysis: 7 out of 10. It would have been higher if they'd confirmed the song Cyborg plays to inspire himself is "The Night Begins To Shine"

Batman: The Drowned #1 - A Review

The Dark Knights continue their assault on Earth 0, as Aquaman and Mera face off against The Drowned. Hailing from Earth -11, this Batman is a Batwoman. Fearful of the potential threat posed by the metahumans of her Earth, she set about killing them all. This led to her ultimately transforming herself into a water-breathing monstrosity in order to wage a one-woman war on Atlantis itself!


With this issue, the novelty of the various Dark Nights specials is beginning to wear thin. Dan Abnett weaves a great story and The Drowned is easily the most unique of the various dark dimension Dark Knights to date. Unfortunately, the plot is exactly the same as most of the other specials, with a flashback detailing the background of The Knight in question, a battle in the present against their Justice League counterpart and Dr. Fate showing up at the end to spirit the hero away when the Evil Batman proves to be too much for them. It's still a good read but one feels it could have been great.

The artwork is similarly conflicted. There's two great art teams at work here, though their styles are so different as to completely wreck the visual flow of the book. It would have been better to have one artist but everything looks good in spite of that.

The Final Analysis: 7 out of 10. It's good but it could have been better.

Earth 2: World's End #3 - A Review

The most aggravating thing about Earth 2: World's End is a lack of credits by page number for the artists involved.  This annoys me because I need to know who to blame for the fact that Dick Grayson is being drawn like a combination of Mr. Spock and Goku.

I could, in theory, look up each individual artist's name and try and compare this offending page to their other work on-line. But with nine credited artists on this issue alone, that is far more effort than I feel like spending on so mediocre a title.


Mediocre is a strong word, I admit, but it is aptly applied here.  There are many good things about Earth 2: World's End but any greatness is mitigated by the work of less-skilled creators.  The old saying about "too many cooks" has never been more aptly proven.

This applies to both the writing and the artwork.  I've enjoyed the work of Marguerite Bennett and Mike Johnson before and there are a number of well-written scenes with great dialogue throughout the book.  However, the actual plot, as paced by Daniel H. Wilson, leaves much to be desired.


Granting that there are a lot of subplots to balance out, I feel it would be more effective to spend each issue focusing on one or two subplots rather than trying to devote at least one page to each one.  We really need more than one page to convey the scope of Green Lantern's solo effort to rid Rio De Janeiro of monsters.

Earth 2: World's End #2 - A Review

Taken on the level of a summer blockbuster, Earth 2: World's End #2 is an enjoyable story. Building upon last issue's explosive climax, our heroes scatter around the world to deal with the reactivation of the four Apokolptian fire-pits and the emergence of four apparently dormant villains from that evil world.  The first one they encounter is K'li - a preteen girl who raises the dead and introduces herself as an avatar of War.


There's a lot of good action sequences here, but this book suffers in comparison to the monthly Earth 2 book.  There, we had amazing action but we also got a number of good character-building scenes. The closest we get to that here is the implication that Lois "Red Tornado" Lane really hates zombies because they remind her of her own status as a dead woman's spirit in an inhuman body.


As before, the artwork is all over the place.  There are a number of artists with a number of conflicting styles and the final effect is not a positive one. Stylized renditions of our heroes clash with more realistic artwork and naturalistic action scenes look awkward next to more forced poses.

On the whole, I see little reason to pick up this book unless you, like me, are deeply interested in the final fate of Earth 2.  Even then, the lackluster artwork may drive me away from this story.  I really wish DC Comics would assign different art teams to individual issues rather than having multiple artists doing a few pages in each issue of these extended series.

Green Lantern: Prelude To The Third Army

Having little to say about this past month's Green Lantern comics that I have not said before, I thought perhaps it might be best to look at each issue and how it is contributing to the upcoming Rise of The Third Army crossover.



The main contribution of Green Lantern #12 is a rehash of the events of Blackest Night and The Guardians discussing their recent revelation that the greatest problem facing universal order is free will and how they will cope with everyone who has a decent chance of stopping them. It also establishes that Black Hand will have a role to play in the coming action and that Hal Jordan may soon be wearing another color ring yet again.




Green Lantern Corps #12 is primarily concerned with continuing the action sequence involving the jail break that became a prison riot in the wake of John Stewart's conviction of murdering a fellow Lantern several issues ago. Good stuff, as always. There's a lot of good action here and Tomasi does a good job balancing the protagonist time between Guy Gardner and John Sewart.



Our primary interest here lies in two points. First, the Green Lanterns all getting the same distress call through their rings from some being saying "Let Me Out!" The other is a scene toward the end, where The Guardians congratulate themselves on eliminating all of the Alpha Lanterns without having to get their own hands dirty, thus eliminating the one body in the Green Lantern Corps devoted toward rooting out corruption from within.


As usual, Green Lantern New Guardians #12 is the weakest of the pack. The plotline involving the need to stop the being Inviticus from destroying the Vega system is concluded and we finally get an explanation for how these "new Guardians" were brought together and who was responsible for stealing the various rings and manipulating everyone from the start.

It turns out to have been the enslaved Guardian Sayd, who now claims that Ganthet foresaw that one day they would need someone capable of channeling all the various Lantern energies and THAT was why he chose Kyle Rayner to become the last Green Lantern when Hal Jordan went nuts. My response to this is best summed up by the collected contents of the bull pens at the Fort Worth Stockyard.


As in Green Lantern Corps, all the various lanterns assembled receive the same distress call from someone demanding to be let out. Based on some dialogue from War Of The Green Lanterns, I believe this call to have been from the imprisoned First Lantern.



The issue concludes with The Guardians breaking up, but the preview ads for the upcoming storyline suggest that some of them will return and that Carol Ferris will be replacing Fatality, in a new costume that actually covers her body!

Green Lantern: New Guardians #11 - A Review

A FEW WORDS OF WARNING: This review doesn't really do much to talk about the book for those of you who haven't been reading the series before now. I apologize for that, as I usually try and sum up the story thus far for potential new readers. But honestly - I can't do that this time. If you haven't been reading this book before now, you'll be totally lost. So if you're really interested in learning about New Guardians, read this review instead. Thank you.


I want to love New Guardians. I really do. But it occurs to me with this penultimate chapter of the opening arc that the story is entirely dependent on established characters acting counter to their usual motivations and personalities. And I'm not talking about Red Lantern Bleez suddenly being more than a mad-dog murderer. That's all down to stuff that happened in other books affecting this one, which is a whole other problem. In this case, I'm talking specifically about Kyle Rayner.

For the entire run of this book, I've let a few things slide, figuring they were due to desperation and idealism. As wary as he'd be about it, I can buy that Kyle would put aside his differences to work alongside a woman (i.e. The Star Sapphire Formerly Known As Fatality) who was, for a while back in the Ron Marz days, his arch-enemy. He was a Blue Lantern for a while after all and believes in the power of hope and redemption.

I was able to accept that Kyle would bargain with an angelic being who said his ultimate goal was to destroy an evil-aligned star-system for the sake of recreating paradise for his chosen people and agree to become an assassin for said being, after having previously agreed to kill the angel. Much as Kyle hates killing, it's not like there was much he could do to fight Inviticus and it looked like he was going to have to kill Larfleeze anyway.




However, I cannot believe Kyle being as outright stupid as he's been portrayed in the previous few issues. Last time, what set me off was his not showing up in-person to aid the Blue Lanterns during the invasion of their homeworld. As I noted then, Kyle should know damn well from personal experience that Blue Lanterns can only access the offensive potential of their rings if a Green Lantern is present. This time, we have Kyle forgetting that the Orange Lantern constructs - though they may act like independent personalities - are still just constructs. So if you say something in front of a construct and the ring-wielder is focusing on listening through said construct...




To my mind, a superhero should not ever sound like a schoolboy who just discovered that people will pretend to be your friend in order to get something they want. At the very least, Kyle Rayner shouldn't.

At least the artwork by Tyler Kirkham is as good as ever. But that's cold comfort for a long-time Kyle Rayner fan like me who is sick of seeing the Green Lantern that got me into comics being portrayed as a green rookie (no pun intended) instead of the Torchbearer who kept the Green Lanterns going when nobody else could. I'll give this one more issue to try and make sense of it all since it looks like the storyline is finally going somewhere. But after that... I'm probably dropping it.

Green Lantern: The New Guardians - 52 Catch-Up

I haven't written anything about New Guardians since my review of the first book because this title is very difficult to review in a monthly format.  To say the story here is decompressed would be putting it mildly as most of the series thus far has seemed like one big extended fight scene, with a plot twist at the end of each issue changing the dance card for the next fight.

I'm not convinced this is entirely the fault of writer Tony Bedard, who has written many great character-analyzing stories in the past  Indeed, his first issue focuses upon Green Lantern Kyle Rayner and retells his origin within the context of the New 52 universe.  The problem is that the vast majority of our protagonists early on are either one-dimensional (the vengeful Sinestro Corps drill-sergeant Arkillo, the ever-optimistic Saint Walker) or largely incapable of normal speech (the Orange Lantern Glomulus, the Red Lantern Bleez).  There's not much for the readers, particularly new ones,  to latch onto in terms of personality and this series lacks a lot of the emotional punch of the other Green Lantern titles as a result.




The plot kicks off as Kyle Rayner is attacked - first by a series of rings belong to the other Lantern Corps then by various members of the other Corps who have come seeking the stolen rings.  Unable to convince Bleez (Red Lantern), Munk (Indigo Tribe), Arkillo (Sinestro Corps) or Fatality of the Star Sapphires (a.k.a. Yrra Cynri, though this name is never used, though she says she is no longer Fatality) that he is not responsible for the theft, things are looking grim for Kyle until the arrival of Saint Walker - first of the Blue Lanterns.  The two of them escape and plot a course to Oa, hoping that the Guardian Ganthet - who helped to start the Blue Lanterns and chose Kyle Rayner to be a Green Lantern - might have some answers.





A quick note about the art.  Regular penciller Tyler Kirkman is joined on issues #2-4 by current Green Arrow penciler Harvey Tolibao and the cohesion of the book suffers for it.  Ignoring my own personal dislike for Toliabo's style which has already been discussed in some detail in my Green Arrow reviews, the two artist's styles do not mesh at all and the designs for various characters look completely dissimilar from page to page.  Consider Kyle Rayner in the above scan (Tolibao) and in the one below (Kirkman).


Issue #3 opens with Kyle having been possessed by the rings and suddenly lashing out at The Guardians.  The rest of the Corps members arrive shortly thereafter and another fight ensues between the Lanterns and the Guardians.  This continues until the arrival of the one party conspicuous in his absence - Larlfleeze, a.k.a. Agent Orange.



He joins the fight in opening half of Issue #4, claiming  that someone tried to steal his ring too.  Having disguised one of his Orange Lanterns - the Slimer-like Glomulus - as a power ring, Agent Orange let it follow the other captured rings while his slave - the former Guardian Sayd - tracked the power that was stealing the rings in the first place to a gigantic orrery in space.





Reluctantly, the assemble band of "New Guardians" as Agent Orange calls them agrees to investigate the orrery, as the party splits up to investigate the differing worlds making up the gigantic solar system model.  They discover several amazing things, such as an entire planet of Tamaranians (i.e. Starfire's race) and another world claiming to be Okaara - the world where Fatality trained as a hunter and warrior years earlier.  Perhaps most astonishing, however, is a temple depicting Larfleeze as a monster called "The Beast" - sworn enemy of The Archangel Invictus, whom the temple is devoted to.




In Issue #6, Invictus himself shows up and begins beating seven kinds of hell out of the team.  For a moment, it looks as if Saint Walker's desperate attempt to use his ring to relieve Invictus of whatever burdens he has might prove effective.  Alas, it turns out that whatever Invictus is, he is far beyond the ability of a Blue Lantern ring to manipulate.




Thankfully, he is all too eager to tell his story to our heroes before they die.  Thus Issue #7 opens with Invictus explaining his own history with Agent Orange and how - millions of years ago - Agent Orange was responsible for undoing all of the good works his people attempted to bring about in the Vega Star System.  If that sounds vaguely familiar, it should - Vega is one of the few systems Green Lanterns are not allowed to enter and the place has become a wretched hive of scum and villany as a result.




Trapped outside the universe after Agent Orange turned his own followers against him, Invictus is newly returned and constructed the gigantic orrery as a means of restoring Vega to its' former glory... as soon as he is done destroying the current inhabitants and Agent Orange himself.  In the middle of all this discussion, it is revealed that for all of his power Invictus is unable to take a power ring away from it's wielder.  This too leads our team to realize what most of the readers had already guessed - Agent Orange was lying his crooked yellow teeth off.  Eventually a truce is reached and Invictus agrees to let the group live if they will accomplish one task - Kill Agent Orange.

As Issue #8 begins, the team is split once more, as everyone parts ways to head to their respective homeworlds and recharge their rings.  The rest of the issue is not as action heavy as previous ones, mostly focusing on plot details as it sums up what we already know of the plot in this book and explains recent intergalactic events to those few people who are reading this book but aren't reading the main Green Lantern title. 





Chief among these events are Sinestro's rejoining the Green Lanterns and shutting down the fear-empowered army that bore his name.  These events are recanted to Arkillo by The Weaponer of Qward, who gives Arkillo a new yellow power ring and battery that will act independently of the old Sinestro Corps Central Power Battery.  We also learn from the Star Sapphire commanders that someone in this universe had to be working to help Inviticus escape... but they have no idea who.   




Issue #9 primarily focuses upon Saint Walker and the Blue Lanterns as they defend their home base from an invasion of Breach soldiers, a.k.a. The Outer-Space baddies responsible for creating Jamie Reyes' armor in Blue Beetle and for the first time in months, Bedard seems to be writing up to his usual standard.  The action sequences of The Blue Lanterns are excellent but what really sells the story is Bedard clarifying the powers of the Blue Lanterns as the story progresses.  The Breach, for instance, take the Blue Lanterns seriously as a threat even though they are thought to be the weakest of the various Lantern Corps.  While it is true that they lack the overt offensive capabilities of most of the other Corps, The Blues are far from helpless as Saint Walker demonstrates.




Kirkman's prowess as an artist is proven in this issue as is the skill of the coloring team.  It would have been all too easy for this issue to become a muddy mess of blues, since the Blue Lantern uniforms and the Breach Soldiers uniforms look fairly similar.  Still, inker Batt manages to keep things separated and Kirkman's designs are distinctive enough to be differentiated  from a distance despite having the exact same palette.  Thankfully, carefully applied glow effects mark the Lanterns easily enough.

Can I recommend this comic?  Yes, but only if you are already a fan of the Green Lantern mythos.  Ironically, this book is not newbie friendly despite the amount of pages Bedard's devotes toward trying to explain everything to new readers.  Bedard's also at his best when he is focusing on individual character conflicts rather than on epic action sequences, as the two most recent issues have shown.  This book has taken its' time getting warmed up but it's finally turned into something worth reading.  And Kirmna's pencils, as ever, make it something exciting to look at.

52 Pick-Up - Week Four

AQUAMAN #2 - Another solid issue, which gives a little more development to Aquaman's wife Mera, reestablished as a fiery redhead with water-control powers for those new readers who missed her star-making appearance in Blackest Night. While Johns' cracks about how Aquaman is perceived by the public at large in the DC Universe are starting to become wearying, the action of this issue - in which Cthulhuian horrors from the deep come to the surface looking for food - is well-executed and amazingly drawn by Ivan Reis. This is going on the pull list.


GREEN LANTERN: NEW GUARDIANS #2 -The plot thickens as Kyle Rayner escapes Earth and heads to Oa, taking with him six rings he doesn't want. He goes to seek the console of the Guardian Ganthet, who it seems has been radically changed by the other Guardians, his old personality having been entirely erased! Bedard does a great job pacing this issue, delivering some good action scenes while explaining away the special relationship between Kyle, Ganthet and The Blue Lanterns for new readers. The one stumbling block is that while Bedard has a good grasp on the character relationships, he fails to explain some of the special ring powers - such as the presence of a Blue Lantern super-charging nearby Green Lantern rings. This too, is going on the pull list.


JUSTICE LEAGUE DARK #2 - This issue wouldn't be so bad if I at least had the sense that it was building toward something. As it is, we get a lot of random scenes as our team STILL hasn't come together and isn't showing any signs of doing so anytime soon. The two pages with John Constantine, for instance, seem to have been accidentally pasted into this issue from this month's issue of Hellblazer, having no relation to anything else in the issue! Even the art - supposedly by Mikel Janin throughout the comic, looks totally different on those two pages. This one is off the list. Not even going to pick up the trades.

Green Lantern: The New Guardians #1 - A Review

Regular readers know that I first got into comics during the days when Kyle Rayner was “The Last Green Lantern” and Ron Marz writing of the character had a hand in turning me from a casual reader into the graphic novel guru I am today. While I like all of the Green Lanterns as characters, I’d probably choose Kyle as my favorite for sentimental reasons, having been a artsy, smart-aleck twenty-something with too much imagination when I first was introduced to the character. You can imagine then how much I was anticipating New Guardians #1, which promised to update Kyle for the new DC Universe.

Thankfully, Tony Bedard does not disappoint in this first issue. The flashback detailing how Kyle became Green Lantern is true to the original story and Kyle is quickly established as a creative, good-hearted young man. In fact, I think Bedard improved on this origin by having Ganthet (usually portrayed as the most kind-hearted of the Guardians who created the Green Lantern Corps) stick around long enough to give Kyle some basic instruction in using his ring rather than abandoning him to his own devices as per the original Emerald Twilight.

The rest of the issue establishes Kyle in his current position as the Green Lantern’s agent on Earth, while introducing new readers to the concept of the seven Color Corps – groups like the Green Lanterns, who draw their power from other emotion forces than willpower, such as hope, compassion or greed. While Bedard doesn’t profile all of The Corps in this first issue, he gives enough of a taste for new readers to get a feel for the Rage-empowered Red Lanterns, the fear-empowered Sinestro Corps and the love-empowered Star Sapphires. Old-time readers will be glad to see the Violet Lanterns being represented by The Villainess Formerly Known As Fatality, who was perhaps the most interesting new villain to come out of the original Ron Marz run on Green Lantern. Her inclusion here promises some interesting drama in the issues to come.

Tyler Kirkham is probably better known for his work on Witchblade, but he’s no stranger to drawing Green Lantern adventures, having been a regular penciler on Green Lantern Corps for much of the past year. Kirkham is a master at drawing weird-looking aliens that look like real, living beings as well as imaginative constructs – a must for any artist drawing a Kyle Rayner story. The inks by Batt are unusually thin but this only serves to emphasize the bright, vibrant coloring Nei Ruffino. This is a gorgeous book in every department.

I can’t say this is the best book of the new Green Lantern line as Green Lantern Corps was just a little bit more accommodating of new readers. That’s not to say that this book is bad – far from it! Bedard’s script does a wonderful job of introducing new readers to Kyle Rayner but falters a little on explaining all of the other Lantern Corps. Still, the artwork is gorgeous and I believe future issues (and the inevitable trade paperback collection) may help alleviate any confusion this first issue causes.