Archive for Family Dynamic

A Little More Politics for your Post-Election Hangover

DC Universe Decisions #4

The assassin targeting the presidential candidates has finally been identified — it’s Jericho, the Teen Titans’ body-possessor, and he’s somehow turned evil yet again. He’s also managed to take over Green Lantern’s body, so he’s got the Most Powerful Weapon in the Universe sitting on his finger. Luckily, Hal is able to expel him before he does too much damage, and the superhero psychic Mento determines that in the process of jumping from one body to the next, Jericho has managed to acquire traces of the personalities of hundreds of people, and it’s turned him into a psychotic loon. As for all the problems with superheroes endorsing politicians, Superman apparently solves it all by speechifying.

Verdict: Thumbs down. Supes comes across as an opinionless weasel, and the stuff with Jericho was just embarrassing. It was just a year or two that DC worked their tails off to redeem him into a non-villainous character, and now they’ve chucked him back down the hole again. This entire series was pushed as an explicitly political story, and in the end, it just ended up being dull, middle-of-the-road, and afraid to express any strong political opinions at all. What a waste.

Final Crisis: Rage of the Red Lanterns

Okay, Sinestro is going to be executed by the Green Lantern Corps, so they take him back to his home planet of Korugar because… I really don’t know. Anyway, the new Red Lantern Corps, composed of people who can harness great hatred and rage, is on the rise, and their primary attack appears to be vomiting blood on their enemies. Their members include Atrocitus the demon, Laira, a former Green Lantern, and a pretty blue kitty. The Red Lanterns jump into a fight between the Green Lanterns and the Sinestro Corps, and we get our first glimpse of the Blue Lantern.

Verdict: I think I’m going to give this a thumbs down, too. The blood puking is really pretty silly.

The Family Dynamic #3

Troylus, Terran, and Little Wing swing into action against Monstero and quickly find themselves over their heads. Luckily, their parents show up to help take down the villain. Afterwards, at Sloane’s birthday party, it becomes clear that he’s the only person in the family who doesn’t know that his sister and niece are Blackbird and Little Wing. And before anyone can spill the beans to him, a new villain appears — Replik8, a duplicater with a weird beehive hairdo.

Verdict: Ehh, not bad, but not all that great, either. The back-and-forth between the family members is grand fun, and I’m not sure we need quite so many supervillains anyway, especially when they seem to come and go so quickly.

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The Justice Kids

PS238 #34

Things are getting weirdly interesting in Wonderburg, home to PS238, the school for superpowered kids. Tyler Marlocke is currently in two different places at once — he’s locked in stasis to keep an alien virus from infecting the rest of the world, and he’s also running around town in a clone body that may be developing its own superpowers. He hangs out for a while with Julie “84” Finster and attends a cookout with Julie and her cousins, the Nuclear Family — Julie’s parents and the Nuclears don’t like each other much, so they spend most of their time arguing. And even worse, a bunch of imps and cherubs who only the kids can see are making the adults and some interdimensional crystal entities fight each other!

Unfortunately, when Tyler gets put into a crystal prison by the invaders, it gives his clone, which had apparently evolved its own sentience, the opportunity to throw off Tyler’s control and start taking action. And extra-unfortunately, the clone doesn’t seem to be a very nice guy. Julie is able to get the imps and cherubs to leave, and it looks like her superpowered blood may be just the thing to cure Tyler’s alien virus, but will Dr. Newby be able to formulate a cure in time?

Verdict: Thumbs up. As always, this comic is a ton of fun. Y’all should go pester your local comic shop for a copy — it’s definitely worthy of wider popularity.

The Family Dynamic #2

Tragedy Ann and Tom Foolery want to re-enact the Hindenburg disaster, but the Family Dynamic get warned off from helping because Pyralis’s flame powers could blow up the blimp. Instead, the unpowered vigilantes Blackbird and Little Wing take down the villains. It’s soon revealed that Blackbird is really Maeve Spencer, sister of Pyralis, and Little Wing is her extremely enthusiastic daughter.

Verdict: I’m still giving this a thumbs up, because it’s an absolute metric ton of fun, but I really, really wanna see some more effort on summaries and on reminding us of all these people’s real names. Yes, it’s a minor point, but this comic’s large cast — and all those Latin names for the F.D.’s super-names — really cry out for a few good summary panels to make sure we all remember who everyone is…

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Family Values

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The Family Dynamic #1

A new all-ages book from DC — this one focuses on the Spencers, a Canadian family with a secret identity as a superteam called the Family Dynamic. The dad, Pyralis, controls fire; Sirocco, the mom, is a wind generator; eldest son Troylus is a water blaster; and younger son Terran is an earth elemental. They all get their powers from a set of rings that have been in the family at least a generation or two. A lot of this first issue is focused on establishing the backstory, thanks to a news interview by a reporter who’s also a superhero in his off-time. And there are another couple of superheroes in town, a mother-daughter team called Blackbird and Little Wing. Add a couple of clownish villains called Tragedy Ann and Tom Foolery, and the stage is set for lots of superhero action…

Verdict: Thumbs up. This looks like it’ll be a lot of fun. Already getting some interesting conflicts set up among the various superheroes, and everyone’s personalities seem solid and interesting. If I’ve got a complaint, it’s that we just barely learn the characters’ real names — the names are buried way back in the story, when in the first issue of a comic, you should really make sure that all the characters have been properly and clearly introduced to the readers. But again, minor quibble there — the rest is plenty of fun.

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Young X-Men #5

The mask is off — “Cyclops” is really the evil cyborg Donald Pierce in disguise! As Graymalkin and Magma scare Pierce off and return Dust to her natural form, while Rockslide, Wolf Club, and Ink fight Sunspot and Cannonball. Eventually, everyone realizes they’re on the same side, and they track down Pierce so they can rescue Blindfold and Dani Moonstar. And though they’re able to beat Pierce in the end, he manages to kill Wolf Cub.

Verdict: Thumbs down. Aside from the story being a bit of a letdown, I’m disappointed that they killed Wolf Cub. Sure, it was telegraphed from the beginning — who else were they gonna kill? A brand new character like Graymalkin? The quirky blind girl with the wacky speech patterns? The charismatic rock-covered tough guy? The token religious minority? So if someone had to die, it was obviously going to be Wolf Cub. I’m just disappointed that they felt they had to kill him at all. He could’ve developed into an interesting character, with a little effort. And besides, I’m really getting tired of comics killing off characters for cheap shock-value.

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