Arrow: Season 2.5 #3 - A Review

Times are tough for Oliver Queen and company.  Money is getting tight and it's getting harder and harder to get all the wonderful toys Ollie needs in his crusade to protect Starling City.  And things are becoming harder still, with Brother Blood seemingly returned from the dead and leading a new gang.


The third issue of Arrow: Season 2.5 is largely a housekeeping issue.  Little happens here in terms of the long-term plot, save that Ollie learns about Brother Blood's return and we, the readers, learn the secret of Brother Blood's resurrection.  One wishes they had kept the secret going a little longer but the story doesn't suffer from the revelation.  And there's a fair bit of humor in the opening sequence where we learn just who has been providing Ollie's new trick arrows.  The issue closes with the first part of a Suicide Squad mini-comic that promises to be an interesting read, if only for the real world issues it is based around.


The artwork is largely competent but nothing special.  Craig Yeung continues to create some wonderful splash-pages and close-ups but his work loses fine detail in the mid-range.  The Suicide Squad story drawn by Szymon Kudranski isn't bad, though it is heavily shrouded in inks as is typical of Kudranski's work.  Thankfully, the deep shadows fit the story, so in this case it works.

Gotham: Episode 102: Selina Kyle - A Review In Random Thoughts

* (As Alfred catches Bruce burning himself) This would be an entirely different show if Alfred had just taken Bruce to a good child psychologist at this point.

* I am now going to call Riddler "Weird Ed" in honor of the equally awkward character from the Maniac Mansion games.

* I see the name of The Tick creator Ben Edlund in the credits as an executive producer.  And suddenly a lot of the choices this show has made make sense, re: camp elements.

* The shout-outs to the comics are much more subdued this time. Quick mention of Maroni - the gangster eventually responsible for creating Two-Face.

* So far, Falcone is the most likable character on the show by sheer virtue of being the one person who seems to honestly care about the city.

* There's Carol Kane as Penguin's mom.  Apparently she just escaped from the set of a Tim Burton movie.

* Mention of Arkham Asylum being closed down but The Wayne Foundation almost reopening it.

* Don't you just love how Barbara doesn't give a damn about the chance that their house line might be traced when she calls in a tip to the press?

* Do they mean for the mayor to look like Richard Nixon?

* For years, comic fans have debated whether the GCPD is mostly incompetent or mostly corrupt.  So far, the show is doing a good job of providing both camps with good case material.

* Although, after the two kidnappers manage to grab a whole bus full of kids in the middle of a depot swarming with cops in broad daylight, I'm firmly on the side of "mostly incompetent".

* Obscure Batman villain The Dollmaker got a mention.  And a thousand Arrow fans immediately begin working on fan fiction to justify making this one the same guy Quentin Lance put away.

* Thomas Wayne had a "no psychologists" clause in his will yet he was ready to start funding Arkham Asylum?  I'm thinking there's a story here.  At least, there should be.

* Alternatively, The Waynes are Scientologists.

* Oh yeah!  I guess Penguin still is in this show.  Huh.



THE FINAL THOUGHTS

For an episode titled 'Selina Kyle', there sure wasn't a lot of Selina Kyle, was there?  That said, I enjoyed this episode far more than the pilot.

All New Invaders #10 - A Review

When we last left The Invaders, our heroes were in dire straits. On a mission to rescue The Human Torch's sidekick, Toro, the group found themselves surrounded by the minions of a German terrorist and an army of Deathloks. Thankfully, The Invaders have a secret weapon of their own - the daughter of an old enemy, who has just discovered her heritage as an Inhuman!


There is a lot of material to cover in this issue of Invaders but James Robinson tackles the exposition with his usual aplomb.  More, he continues to offer a unique insight into each character and handles them in unexpected ways.  The highlights of the issue include a flashback where Namor testifies at the Nuremberg Trials and Captain America addressing the Deathloks, not as zombies, but as soldiers.  We're also given an interesting new character concept in the form of the new Iron Cross.


Steve Pugh does his usual stellar job on the artwork.  The story flows naturally from panel to panel during the conversational scenes but we're still treated to a number of spacious, poster-worthy panels.  No big splash pages, alas, but every page of this book looks amazing in spite of the smaller spaces that Pugh works within.

Red Sonja #12 - A Review

After 'rescuing' the finest dancer in the world from 'captivity', Red Sonja's current quest is done.  For a month she has traveled across the land, seeking six great artisans for a dying king's party with the promise of one-thousand slaves being given their freedom in exchange. Ah, but when do kings ever keep their word in the world of Hyboria?




That's the rub of this issue and the one flaw in this final chapter of the new Red Sonja title's second storyline. We've known that a double-cross was coming since the beginning. Hyborian kings are inherently untrustworthy. It is a fact that is as sure as water flowing downhill. As such, the sudden but inevitable betrayal robs this final chapter of the punch of the unexpected that fueled the earlier parts of this story.


There is little I more I can say about this final chapter of Gail Simone and Walter Geovani's second Red Sonja story beyond the fact that it proves to be a satisfying conclusion. While the resolution may be a standard piece of sword-and-sorcery, the build-up to this moment continually kept us guessing and every panel of it looked fantastic. I may be a brazen fanboy for saying such but that is not altogether a bad thing to be when you're enjoying a comic this well crafted.

Doctor Who, Series 8 - Episode 6 - The Caretaker

THE QUICK, SPOILER FREE REVIEW

A funny, enjoyable episode that does a better job of defining the cast than any episode so far this Series.



THE PLOT  

Trying to balance her job as a teacher, her night-work as The Doctor's assistant and her burgeoning romance with fellow teacher Danny Pink is beginning to take its toll on Clara Oswald.  She's actually relieved when The Doctor says he'll have to leave her for a few days as he goes on a deep-cover assignment.  That relief turns to horror when a staff meeting at work the next day ends with the introduction of Coal Hill School's new caretaker - John Smith.  And balancing all the parts of Clara's life becomes very difficult indeed, as The Doctor intrudes on her classes, work gets in the way of her trying to help The Doctor and Danny starts asking too many questions about her relationship with John Smith.



THE GOOD PARTS 

* This honestly is one of the funniest episodes of Doctor Who we've had in a while and very little of that humor is based in the RomCom shtick that Steven Moffat usually indulges in when he goes funny.  But what else might we expect from Gareth Roberts, who is one of the best New Who writers when it comes to presenting comedy and drama in equal measure with equal skill?

* The triangle between The Doctor, Danny and Clara is played off not as a romantic one but more as a disapproving "Space Dad" taking issue with his daughter's new beau.  Apart from The Doctor's muttered remark about making the same mistakes again (a reference to the rivalry between himself and Rory Williams and/or Mickey Smith, perhaps?) there is no suggestion of a pseudo-romance between The Doctor and Clara.

* Danny Pink continues to impress as a character and good on him for pointing out The Doctor's hypocrisy as well as his aristocratic tendencies. ("I'm a soldier but he's an officer!").  His sarcastic "Sir, Yes Sir!" act was particularly delightful.  A lot of play has been made this season of The Doctor's antipathy for soldiers and military thinking which has been somewhat perplexing given The Doctor's history with UNIT and his long-friendships with the career soldiers there (Come to think of it, The Brigadier became a math teacher for a time...) and Pink's assertion here is a brilliant explanation of that contradiction.  Like Jon Pertwee's Doctor, Capaldi's Doctor is a patrician who is only anti-authority when he isn't in the role of the authority.

* Alternatively, Danny takes Clara to task for her attempts to fragment her life by pointing out that - for whatever reason - she doesn't trust him enough to let him know everything about her.  More, this scene offers an analysis of Clara's character that has been sorely lacking until recently.  Clara has been unique among companions with a romantic interest in trying to hide that life from her significant other and Danny's demanding an explanation for why she feels the need to keep that secret is not unreasonable.  Again, this is played not as a suspicion of her cheating on him romantically but a pain born of the idea that she could/would not be honest with him.

* Everything with Courtney Woods aka The Disruptive Influence.  Most of what we see of her suggests a potential companion and The Doctor even notes that he may soon have a vacancy.  But Roberts wisely takes the time to show why Courtney isn't really companion material at the end as we get a scene that shows that, however prickly he may be at times, Capaldi's Doctor really does have one care to give.



THE PROBLEMS

* While not quite as bad as some of the Series 8 episodes in regards to feeling repetitive, a lot of the bits with The Doctor failing to fit in as he goes under deep cover do come off as a little too close to similar bits of business from Roberts' previous scripts for The Lodger and Closing Time despite the efforts at disguise this time being underplayed by Capaldi's Doctor.

* On that note, some of The Doctor's dialogue does seem to have been written more for Matt Smith's Doctor than Capaladi's, despite the performance.

* The Flip.  Just... The Flip.



THE FINAL VERDICT 

This episode provides high-quality character comedy while being a marvelous character study of both The Doctor and Clara, though one wonders how much influence Moffat had on the final product and how much the episode's few flaws might have been born of his hand.