Let's Get Comical!

Welcome to another edition of Let’s Get Comical!

Short week this week with mainly DC Comics offerings to read and review. Kind of weird that it worked out that way, but I guess that happens when Marvel releases all of their stuff three times a month. Of course, I’m still lazy/working/being social, so these reviews are a week late again!

Anyway, I’ll be reviewing five NEW DC Comics, along with older editions of Batwoman and Daredevil! You’d think I’d finally have enough time to read the 100 page Fantastic Fur #600, but nope, I’m lazy. I’m trying to save it for the week the next Action Comics is released, which is typically another light week in purchases.

Purchased This Week (1/25/12): Aquaman #5, Fantastic Four #602, The Flash #5, Justice League #5, Superman #5, and Teen Titans #5

Let’s begin with the older comics...

Batwoman #3

When we last left Batwoman, she was being dragged underwater by the Weeping Widow. She escapes the Widow’s death clutch only to reach the surface where she is discovered by Cameron Chase and other Paranormal agents. Chase, erm, chases after Batwoman, but Batwoman is able to escape, injuring Chase’s arm in the process. Batwoman returns home where she fires her sidekick, and later waits for her girlfriend, Margaret, to confront her as to why she skipped out on their date. Kate Kane (Batwoman’s alter ego) simply breaks down in tears. Meanwhile, Cameron Chase tries to interview Kane’s father, who is annoyed by Chase’s questions. He then reveals that he is disappointed with his daughter (Kane followed his footsteps into the military but was expelled from West Point for being a Lesbian), and asks Chase if her father would be disappointed in her for asking men questions such as that. BURN. Chase then calls her boss (some weird skeleton in a suit), who tells her to go after the sidekick next. That night, as Kate Kane sleeps, the Weeping Widow appears at her window, but Kane’s sidekick is watching from the rooftops. AWESOME stuff, as the story FINALLY picks up, and the artwork is still awesome. I have two more issues to read before I’m caught up, but I’m really getting in to this one now. Just wish we would get more details about the Weeping Widow.

Daredevil #4

This one was kind of short, as it came out back in August/September and includes a 9/11 tribute mini-comic. Daredevil recovers a flash drive from the middle of a lion’s den in the Bronx Zoo, which is later used in one of Matt and Foggy’s self-taught trials and prevents a man’s bar from being taken over by the Russian Mob. Matt and Foggy’s self-representation teaching business is a huge success so far, and Foggy gives Matt details about a new trial he might be interested in; a blind man fired from a job randomly. Matt goes to meet with the man, a young blind kid who graduated from Georgetown and worked in the International Affairs division of some corporation. He could guess peoples’ nationalities based on their accents alone, and one day apparently offended some Eastern Europeans and was randomly fired a few days later. Matt tells the kid he doesn’t have much of a case, but he knows the kid will be just fine. The comic ends with the two at a window and what appear to be sniper rifle infrared dots pointing at them. Intriguing stuff, really, although it was weird because I was more interested in the Matt Murdock story rather than the bland “Daredevil is blind but he has other senses” stuff.

And now onto this week’s newer offerings!

Aquaman #5

The awesomeness continues. We begin with Aquaman falling into the desert, which is obviously bad since he needs to be near water to live. The cool thing about this issue is that the story of Aquaman roaming the desert is intertwined with the setup of just how exactly he got there. In this case, Aquaman is called by scientists to investigate a weird sound emitting from the wreckage Aquaman brought back from the Trench. Aquaman examines it and determines that it’s from Atlantis, from the era just before the city was sunken. Just then a squad of soldiers (looking very similar to the Master Chief from Halo) attacks and steals the artifact, trying to flee on a weird spaceship. But Aquaman grabs on and goes for a ride, eventually making his way into the ship. He knocks one of the soldier’s helmets off, but is shocked when water comes out. Aquaman then cries out in horror that the soldiers are from Atlantis. The ship goes down in the desert, and we get back to where we started in the issue. Aquaman has a hallucination where his father warns him that Mera might not be fully over her past, whatever that means. Aquaman eventually finds the wreckage of the ship and sees a transmission talking about how the ship we saw in the Trench was attacked and that someone plans on sinking Atlantis. The creatures from the Trench attack, and the transmission ends. Suddenly Aquaman, about to die from dehydration, is spotted by a helicopter. It’s the U.S. Navy, and they heal Aquaman and send him home. But he finds a note from Mera saying that she went to buy food for Aquadog, and we end. Great stuff, as usual from this team. It reads very easily, and just flies by thanks to how fun of a read it is. Best comic of the week, by far, and it gets my highest recommendation. This is still my second favorite of the New 52s, behind only Batman.

The Flash #5

This one finished up the Mob Rule storyline in kind of an odd way. Flash brings in ships and trains from Gotham, all containing supplies for Central City, still suffering from the detonation of the EMP. After rescuing Iris West from a prison breakout (in which Captain Cold escapes and promises to return soon, hint hint), Flash is assaulted by the Mob Rule clones, who take him to the secret basement lab of Dr. Elias, where Manuel (the original Mob Rule) plans to stabilize his clones using a weird device. But the device backfires and Flash has to contain the explosion by running around at the speed of light, hoping to launch the device into the atmosphere. It appears to work, but Manuel’s clones have died. An angered Manuel attacks Flash and Elias and then runs away to an unknown location, where he carves pieces of his arm off. The pieces slowly evolve into more clones. After Barry and Elias are discovered to be alive by police, Dr. Elias explains that Flash accidentally sent the device back into time; in fact, the device itself was the EMP that detonated and caused the blackout. Flash running causes breaks in the space time continuum, which explains why there were Soviet era tanks and Roman artifacts in the Badlands in a previous issue. The issue ends with Elias telling Flash that they have to kill the Speed Force. The issue ends with a hint at Captain Cold returning in the next issue. Like I said earlier, the story felt rushed, like an issue of Daredevil, like the writers just kind of consolidated things to save time and meet deadlines. However, the artwork is still amazing. I’ll give it a recommendation as this series continues to have its ups and downs, storywise.

Justice League #5

Huh. The last issue ended with the debut of Darkseid, as he kicked our heroes’ asses, and he does so again at the beginning of this issue. Superman and the Flash awaken from the rubble of a collapsed building and try to distract Darkseid, who simply shoots rockets out of his eyes. Flash is able to deflect the missile onto some of the weird flying creatures while the other missile goes right through Superman. But Superman is injured and captured by the flying creatures. Green Lantern awakes and tries to fight Darkseid, but Darkseid simply snaps Lantern’s arm and walks toward the city. Batman awakes and talks Lantern out of following Darkseid alone, and then reveals himself as Bruce Wayne (“Who’s Bruce Wayne?”), saying that only teamwork will bring down Darkseid, not individuals. Batman then allows himself to be captured by the flying creatures so he can rescue Superman. Meanwhile, Lantern, Aquaman, Wonder Woman, Flash and Cyborg (“We got this? That’s our battle cry?”) head off to fight Darkseid as Batman discovers that finding Superman might not be as easy as he expected. Honestly this issue was kind of a letdown compared to the last several issues. Instead of focusing on building the team it just focused on three of the League members. And there were only two instances of fun, witty dialogue between members this issue. Gotta go with a thumbs in the middle, as I didn’t hate this issue, but I didn’t like it much either.

Superman #5

Oh God. So this issue begins with the first few pages having 50 plus panels, all with at least 100 words of dialogue. STOP TRYING TO CRAM SO MUCH SHIT INTO THIS COMIC. Anyway, Superman absorbs a weird cyclone and starts acting weird as a result. Like, he destroys a bunch of robots, a giant gorilla that is not Gorilla Grodd (this one is called Titano), and blows up a bus of prisoners. All while being a giant dick! Well, he’s claiming that he is destroying everything to prevent “they” from destroying Earth. But he does so like a dick! Lois Lane is worried and calls in Superman’s Pal Jimmy Olsen to help her fix Supes. As various townspeople go on the news and plead for Superman to stop the madness, Superman kidnaps some dude and flies him up into the air and then drops him, to the shock and horror of everyone. But suddenly we see the REAL Superman, or what looks like his spirit, floating in orbit of Earth. So this other Superman is an imposter? Of course they don’t tell us. This comic sucked, and I assume the next one will too, but thankfully a new creative team takes over in Issue 7. ONE MORE ISSUE OF CRAP! In the meantime, fuck this comic. My main issue has to do with how much shit they try to cram into these issues. I mean, a gazillion panels, with character quotes that would suffice for a paragraph in a novel. But it’s all way too much for a comic book. Seriously.

Teen Titans #5

Now this one was pretty cool. The Teen Titans team up for the first time to take on the Superboy, a creation of N.O.W.H.E.R.E. designed to capture all metahumans. Now like Justice League, this one features a lot of goofy, snarky comments between members, as they all want to take down Superboy individually, rather than work together as a cohesive unit. This leads to bad things for Kid Flash, Bunker and Wonder Girl, yet it’s Red Robin who begins the process of taking Superboy down. See, Superboy uses telekinesis, so Red Robin simply talks to him about how N.O.W.H.E.R.E. is using him. It works at first, until Red Robin starts monologuing, allowing for Superboy to take him down too. Solstice is the last Titan remaining, but she is living proof of what N.O.W.H.E.R.E. does to harm metahumans, and is able to convince Superboy to back off. A disappointed Superboy ponders what would have happened had he not been forced to fight the Titans, thinking they would have been friends, and chooses to take down the secret N.O.W.H.E.R.E. portable control center nearby. Superboy flies off, leaving the Titans hurt, and we end with a preview of the next issue, which appears to be the setup for a new storyline. Nothing too Earth-shattering here, but it was a fun read, and much better than most of the comics this week, so I’ll give it a thumbs up.

Overall, Aquaman is really the only comic truly worth buying this week. Justice League was a letdown, while Flash and Teen Titans were just decent. Superman, however, was abysmal, and I guess I’ll suffer through one more horrific issue to see what the new creative team can do.

COMING NEXT WEEK (or later this week if I can get motivated!): Action Comics! Spider-Man! X-Men! And with only three new comics and two new comics, I guess I’ll finally read the 600^th issue of Fantastic Four!