Run Like Hell

Morning Glories #14

A story told concurrently with last issue, this time we focus on Zoe, Hunter, and Jun. After Hunter furiously tells off Zoe for being a shallow skank, Zoe decides to get her petty revenge by forcing him to pal around with her — because if she won’t, she’ll get her many male admirers to kick his butt. With the just-announced Woodrun, Zoe has decided she wants to win it, with the unwilling help of Hunter and Jun. But once the race actually begins, very, very strange things happen, and neither the students nor the teachers are prepared for what happens.

Verdict: Thumbs up. This felt like a very deeply unusual story. Lots of weird, moody teen angst, as you’d expect from this series, and lots of weird time travel stuff and just general weirdness — again, as you’d expect from this series, but they combine into something stranger than normal.

Blue Beetle #3

Jaime Reyes spends the whole issue trying to get his alien costume to let go of him so he can look human. La Dama slashes an injured minion’s throat so she can do some kind of blood magic. The Reach try to get a lock on where the Blue Beetle armor is. The Brotherhood of Evil get called on the carpet by a possibly new villain called Silverback. And I fail to be entertained by any of this.

Verdict: Thumbs down. This wholly unnecessary reboot of a character who wasn’t that old is just not hitting the cylinders like it should. I don’t understand why it’s important for us to understand what the armor is saying now. I don’t know why La Dama had to turn into a black magician instead of a somewhat sympathetic crimelord. I don’t know why there’s so little interaction between Jaime’s wonderful supporting cast. I want to see some improvement here fast.