Green Lantern #52

It’s the next-to-the-last chapter of the “Blackest Night” event. Sinestro, almost entirely to my surprise, is now the White Lantern, the embodiment of all life in the universe. This leads all the Black Lantern zombies to fly top-speed at Earth, hoping to kill him, pursued by all of the other Lantern Corps. Looks like they didn’t need to bother, though, ’cause while Sinestro is exulting in all his power, Nekron goes and cuts him in half — length-wise — with his scythe. Doesn’t seem to have killed him, though. And a group of Lanterns manage to blow up the zombie planet of Xanshi, drastically reducing Nekron’s power and demolishing most of the zombies. Can they all shield Earth from the wreckage? And can a reborn Sinestro still lead the forces of life to victory?

Verdict: Thumbs up. Not the best of these issues, though, but it still does a good job of getting the story points across. After all, the big moments will come with the very end of the “Blackest Night” saga. Doug Mahnke’s artwork is just entirely and unbelievably awesome — the big double-sized splash page of the giant Lantern-powered framework protecting Coast City from meteor fragments is fantastically beautiful. Definitely looking forward to seeing how this is all going to shake out.

Power Girl #10

Satanna has stuck a device on Power Girl that is about to use a gravity field to compress her into a small, dead ball. Luckily, Terra has shown up, knocks Satanna around a bit, and uses a particularly nasty threat to get her to release PeeGee. While Satanna makes her escape, Power Girl and Terra return to Kara’s apartment, where they meet up with Fisher, the kid who’s blackmailing Power Girl with photos of her real identity. He has a bunch of serious demands — he wants her to go with him to pick up his comics this week, he wants her to take care of some bullies, and he wants her to help him get a date with a girl from school. Okay, that coulda been a lot worse. Power Girl and Terra head off to Kara’s company for a few hours, then go off to see Fisher’s friends at the comic shop. After that, there’s another attack from some of Satanna’s monsters, and Terra starts acting quite a bit more bloodthirsty than normal. What’s going on?

Verdict: Thumbs up. Holy cow, I just love this comic to pieces, and there are only a couple of issues left before Jimmy Palmiotti, Justin Gray, and Amanda Conner leave it. We get all the great stuff we’ve come to expect from this book — lots of funny stuff, outstanding artwork, great action, awesome dialogue, the best facial expressions and body language and background details in the comic world. If you’re not reading this, I’m gonna chase you down and beat you with an aardvark, I swear.

Green Lantern #51

Hal Jordan has allowed himself to be possessed by Parallax again, to give everyone a chance to take out the Black Lantern version of the Spectre. Parallax dives down into the Spectre’s giant body to track down the real Spectre hidden within and imprisoned by the real Black Lantern ring. He severs the ring’s connection to the Spectre, freeing the Spirit of God’s Vengeance, but Parallax isn’t ready to give up Hal’s body yet, and he wants to try to kill the Spectre once and for all. Atrocitus briefly inducts the Spectre into the Red Lantern Corps before the Spectre and Carol Ferris break Hal free of Parallax. So in a straight up battle between the Spirit of God’s Vengeance and Nekron, the undead god behind the entire Blackest Night, the contest has to go to the dude in the green cape who works for God, right? Right?

Verdict: Thumbs up. Plenty of fun stuff here, great battles, all the stuff we’ve been accustomed to in the main “Blackest Night” books — and best of all is Doug Mahnke’s incredible, beautiful, disgusting artwork. From Parallax’s tour around the zombie Spectre’s rotting innards to Lex Luthor and Larfleez battling over the Orange Lantern to Parallax tearing the Spectre’s face off to Black Hand’s entirely unwholesome expression of pure bliss, this is a work of absolute magnificance.

Tiny Titans #25

And on the other end of the spectrum, we have the awesomely happy “Tiny Titans.” DC’s busiest writer, Geoff Johns, shares writing duties on this one and even makes a guest appearance inside. It’s the first appearance of Conner Kent as Superboy in the TinyTitansverse, as well as Match, Conner’s stinky bizarro-clone. I was also fairly gleeful to see another new addition to the cast — Stargirl from the various JSA comics.

Maybe this means we’ll start seeing some of the other JSA kids hanging around the treehouse, too.

Anyway, Speedy trades in a bunch of old junk at the pawn shop for a wad of bubble gum, and when Starfire and Stargirl pick up a bunch of multi-colored rings to share with their friends, they all get a big surprise:

The whole spectrum of power ring corps, all rendered in Tiny Titans awesomeness. I kinda saw that coming, but I also kinda didn’t see it coming, and that makes the whole thing even cooler.

Verdict: Thumbs up. Fun, fun, fun stuff. It’s great for kids, and it’s great for grownups, too. If you’re not picking this one up, you should be.

Green Lantern #50

The Black Lantern zombies are attacking Coast City, and the various power ring slingers — and their new human recruits, including Green Lantern Ganthet, Red Lantern Mera, Orange Lantern Lex Luthor, Sinestro Corps member Scarecrow, Blue Lantern Flash, Indigo Tribe member Atom, and Star Sapphire Wonder Woman — are busy busting superpowered zombies. But they’re all in trouble when the Black Lantern version of the Spectre shows up — he’s too powerful for any of them to take down. So Hal makes a pretty desperate gamble — from his time serving as the Spectre’s human host, he remembers that the Spectre was afraid of Parallax, the fear-based cosmic parasite that empowers the Sinestro Corps and formerly operated from inside Hal. So he brings Parallax back and lets it take him over. Why do I figure that’s going to be a bad, bad move?

Verdict: Thumbs up. I’m not real fond of the idea of bringing Parallax back for yet another round, but the rest of the comic is just too much fun. The return of Aquababy, Larfleez and Luthor brawling over who gets the orange rings, Scarecrow’s absolute glee over his ring, Hal’s brief service in the Black Lantern Corps (and that means the only rings he hasn’t worn yet are Indigo and Violet… and the inevitable White Lantern), and Doug Mahnke’s fantastic, gory, glorious artwork. Sure, some of the crossover books aren’t so good, but the comics carrying the main story? They’re still rocking.

Detective Comics #861

Batman and Batwoman are both on the trail of a serial killer who abducts college students, then cuts off parts of their bodies — hands in one case, the lower jaw of another. Batwoman encounters the killer, nicknamed Cutter by the police, and is able to save his victim, though he gets away. After the fight, Kate Kane visits her cousin, Bette Kane, college student and former Teen Titan, to see that she’s not in danger. Bette tells her not to worry, but we know how that’s going to turn out, right?

Verdict: Thumbs up. Good art, nice thriller, interesting mystery, and it’s always nice to see Flamebird, even if she’s running around as a college student instead of a superhero.

Madame Xanadu #19

A flashback issue, all the way back to the days before Camelot. We get to know Nimue as the adventurous deer-chasing girl she used to be and Morgana as a deceitful, conniving princess. We watch mankind grow from cavemen to more civilized people, even as Morgana schemes to put them all under her thumb.

Verdict: Thumbs down. Just didn’t feel a big thrill with this one.

Blackest Night #6

Nekron has managed to turn most of the resurrected DC heroes into Black Lanterns, including Superman, Wonder Woman, and Green Arrow. Hal Jordan and Barry Allen manage to escape the rings with their names on ’em, but there’s also a gigantic army of Black Lantern zombies on their way to Earth, including the entire planet of Xanshi. The power ring wielders on Earth realize that they’ll need every single one of their corps members to beam light at the Black Lantern power battery to destroy it, but it’s going to take a while to gather them all up. Ganthet rejoins the Green Lanterns — not as a Guardian, but as an actual ring-slinging Corps member. Then he duplicates each of the other ring-bearers’ rings (including Larfleeze’s, much to his greedy displeasure) and sends them out to find new members. No spoilers here, but this leads to a splash page that practically defines “Crowning Moment of Awesome.”

Verdict: Thumbs up. The whole comic is great, but that final splash page is just joyously cool. I hope they give out rings to every single DC character now. And yes, I’m pretty amazed that the core books of this crossover are still so blasted great. Sure, some of the secondary comics aren’t so hot (I’ve got two of ’em listed below), but the main “Blackest Night” is hitting on all cylinders.

Green Lantern #49

Half of this issue focuses on John Stewart running around on the resurrected zombie planet Xanshi. He runs into Driq, an old Green Lantern who was actually a zombie back before the Black Lanterns — he’s now half Black Lantern and half Green Lantern and looks even freakier than normal. He also runs into his late lover Katma Tui. There’s a great deal of military angst before Stewart wisely heads off to find backup. In the second half of the issue, Jean Loring miniaturizes the Atom and Mera and drags them into one of the Black Lantern rings to rant at them and reveal how Nekron was created.

Verdict: Thumbs down. Deadly dull.

Blackest Night: JSA #1

The Justice Society comes under attack from a bunch of Black Lanterns, including Wesley Dodds, Charles McNider (and his zombie owl, Hooty), Terry Sloane, Johnny Quick, the Earth-2 Lois Lane, and the recently-deceased Damage.

Verdict: Thumbs down. It’s a lot of hitting and yelling and angsting and dismemberment. It’s far too frantic, too chaotic to make any real sense.

Green Lantern #48

Basically, what happens here is that a bunch of representatives from the seven colors of rings run around fighting and arguing. We got Hal Jordan for the Green Lanterns, Carol Ferris for the Star Sapphires, Sinestro for the Sinestro Corps, Atrocitus for the Red Lanterns, Saint Walker for the Blue Lanterns (along with the Blue Lantern Guardians, Ganthet and Sayd), Indigo-1 for the Indigo Tribe, and Larfleez as the sole Orange Lantern. There is a heck of a lot of yelling and smacking people around and ring-slinging and all that jazz.

Verdict: Thumbs up. I know, it doesn’t sound like all that much happens, but there’s good characterization going on, beautiful artwork by Doug Mahnke, and a lot of behind-the-scenes plot development for the “Blackest Night” crossover.

Blackest Night #5

And speaking of “Blackest Night” — the “All-Lantern Corps” arrives on Earth, but with the death of Damage, the Black Lanterns have finally recharged their battery up to 100%, and their ultimate leader rises — Nekron, who’s some kind of undead god of the underworld. He’s raised the entire population of Coast City from the dead, but Barry Allen has some friends to call on for aid — the Justice League and the Teen Titans. Black Lantern Jean Loring grabs the Atom and Mera, and miniaturizes them into one of the Black Lantern rings. The All-Lanterns destroy Skar, the evil Black Lantern Guardian, then combine their ring power in an attempt to destroy the Black Lantern power battery — but that doesn’t work at all. And Nekron reveals one of his two secret weapons — first, there’s Black Lantern Batman, but more devastating is the fact that all of the superheroes who’ve risen from the dead, including Wonder Woman, Superman, Superboy, Kid Flash, Green Arrow, Barry Allen, and Hal Jordan, have only returned to life because Nekron let them — and that means he still has control over them.

Verdict: Thumbs up. And I really wasn’t expecting to give this a thumbs up. The All-Lanterns reciting their various oaths as they recharge their rings was dadgummed awesome, and the revelation of Nekron’s power over the risen superheroes was especially cool. I hope they can maintain this level of coolness for the rest of the miniseries.

The Goon #33

Not your typical “Goon” comic — this one is almost entirely wordless. There are word balloons, but they’re usually filled with other cartoons, symbols, and abstractions to represent what the characters are thinking or saying. A floozy sets her sights on the Goon and Frankie, a black-hearted villain runs amok with a meat cleaver, and a little kid thinks happily of robots and candy. All that plus notes from Eric Powell about burlesque, cage fighters, Cracker Barrel, the in-production “Goon” movie, and a bunch of prisoners with “Goon” tattoos.

Verdict: Thumbs up. A fun little experiment, and it still holds true to the spirit of “The Goon.” And Eric Powell’s post-comic notes are always fun to read — there aren’t many comic creators who sponsor burlesque dancers, cage fighters, and roller derby teams…

Detective Comics #858

We’re finally going to be treated to Batwoman’s origin. Most of this story is set 20 years in the past, when Kate Kane and her twin sister Beth were army brats living with their butt-kicking military parents. Unfortunately, the family gets moved to Brussells for an assignment with NATO, and one day, Kate, Beth, and their mother are all kidnapped by a terrorist group. In the backup feature starring the Question, we finally get the end to the first storyarc, as Renee Montoya escapes from the kidnapping ring and then tracks the smugglers down to a freighter preparing to sail with a cargo of abducted women. Can she manage to take down the whole crew by herself and save everyone?

Verdict: Thumbs up. The Batwoman story is simple and straightforward, and in a way, predictable. But it wouldn’t be a Bat-origin if there weren’t tragedy involved. And as always, mad kudos to J.H. Williams III’s artwork, which is richly painted in the present and more simply penciled — but still beautiful and emotional and thrilling — for the sequences in the past. The ending of the Question story is perfect as well — Greg Rucka wrote both, and he’s doing an outstanding job with this comic.

Green Lantern #47

The Blackest Night rages across the universe. On Ysmault, the homeworld of the Red Lanterns, four of the demonic Five Inversions have risen as Black Lanterns, and we get a rare bit of good news — the Black Lanterns can’t kill the Red Lanterns — since their rings keep them alive, tearing out their hearts doesn’t affect them at all. Things aren’t going so well on Korugar, where Black Lanterns Abin Sur and Arin Sur are giving Hal Jordan, Sinestro, Carol Ferris, and Indigo-1 a good fight. On the reborn undead planet of Xanshi, John Stewart is walking into one colossal ambush. And on Okaara, Agent Orange is badly outnumbered by Black Lanterns — and he may not want the help that’s on his way.

Verdict: Thumbs up. As dull as the main “Blackest Night” book was, this one is much, much more interesting and exciting. Though the Black Lantern zombies are everywhere, it’s all a great deal less silly here. It also helps that Doug Mahnke’s artwork is so freakin’ awesome.

Batman and Robin #5

The Red Hood and Scarlet have got the drop on Batman and Robin, who are trying to stop them from wantonly slaughtering criminals. They make their escape, and we learn that the Red Hood is actually Jason Todd, the second Robin, back from the dead, with yet another new costume, and the same old rotten attitude. For some reason, he now has red hair with a white streak down the middle. He looks like a younger, angstier Jason Blood. What the heck is up with that? Anyway, there’s a new villain who’s come to town — an assassin named Eduardo Flamingo, who just flew in on a pink plane from South America with a whole bunch of beautiful women — all of whom he’s killed by cutting off and eating their faces. And the guy’s gunning for the Red Hood and Scarlet.

Verdict: Thumbs up. Not real thrilled with the odd revamp of Jason Todd’s hair color. (And a tad disappointed that it’s Jason under the hood and not the Joker) But the rest is pretty good. Wow, who woulda thought a guy named Flamingo would be so creepy?

Green Lantern #46

Zamaron, the homeworld of the Star Sapphires, is under attack by the Black Lanterns and the Sinestro Corps. Sinestro and Carol Ferris are sniping at each other when Hal Jordan and members of the Indigo Tribe arrive. They reveal how to defeat the zombies — expose their rings to light from more than one color of power ring, and the Black Lanterns collapse. Unfortunately, that doesn’t stop everyone from fighting each other. And even more unfortunately, the Black Lanterns are able to resurrect the crystallized, embracing skeletons that the Star Sapphires revere, prompting the near-total destruction of the Star Sapphires.

Hal, Carol, Sinestro, and Indigo-1, the leader of the Indigo Tribe, retreat to Korugar, Sinestro’s home planet, which has been taken over by the guy who’s trying to take control of the yellow rings, Mongul. Of course, there’s a huge struggle between Sinestro and Mongul. But the Black Lanterns are in hot pursuit, leading to the arrival of the newest zombies — some of the most important people in Hal’s and Sinestro’s lives.

Verdict: Thumbs up. The zombies are a bit less over-the-top, which is a good thing, because it gives our main players a lot of great chances to interact, conflict, and play against each other. The characterizations here are really wonderful, as is Doug Mahnke’s stellar artwork. And I gotta say, the best moment of this issue was the revelation of who the crystallized skeletons on Zamaron originally were…

Marvel Mystery Handbook 70th Anniversary Special

Like all the Marvel Handbooks, this is a collection of biographies and stats for various Marvel characters. The emphasis in this one, obviously, is on many of the characters from Marvel’s Golden Age during World War II. This includes everyone from well-known heroes like Namor, the Human Torch, and Toro to much more obscure ones like Philo Zog, Taxi Taylor, Flexo, the Phantom Reporter, Mister E, and the Black Widow, a Satanic superhero.

Verdict: Thumbs up. Lots of goofy Golden Age fun to be had here, and reading all of it will take days. Even with the sky-high five-dollar price tag, that’s a pretty good bargain.

Green Lantern #45

Most of this issue is devoted to the ongoing “War of the Light” — as Carol Ferris and the Star Sapphires fight Sinestro and the Sinestro Corps, as the Green Lanterns fight the Red Lanterns, as Agent Orange’s orange constructs attack the tiny Blue Lantern Corps. And in the middle of all the fighting, the Black Lanterns make their appearances. Among the newly risen are the entire destroyed planet Xanshi, former GL and Red Lantern Lara, former Yellow Lantern Amon Sur, and the Weaponers of Qward. The best moment, however, was Larfleeze’s somewhat panicked discovery that his own hideout, already littered with hordes of dead aliens he’d killed, was now a breeding ground for zombie enemies — and all of his energy constructs are far, far away…

Verdict: Thumbs up. Nothing real spectacular going on here, but the storytelling is solid, the dialogue is good, and the artwork is fun. Larfleeze’s “Yuh-oh” gets some extra prizes all its own.

Justice Society of America #30

Flash and Stargirl are the only Society members still standing against the army of supervillains. Since the bad guys are all refusing to attack Stargirl, Flash takes off to get help while Courtney lays some smackdown on some of the villains. Flash soon returns with the new Dr. Fate, and all three keep the bad guys busy ’til the rest of the JSA can recover. After that, the villains get their butts stomped good. Unfortunately, Mr. Terrific has been stabbed back at the brownstone and is near death, and the two new recruits, King Chimera and the All-American Kid, have conflicting reports of what’s been going on (actually, they have the only real clue about what’s been going on, if anyone would listen to them). And the stresses of the evening have Wildcat and Magog at each other’s throats.

Verdict: Thumbs up. Still not a great story, but it’s acceptable. It’s a bit frustrating that when the team’s looking for someone who tried to kill one of their members, everyone would just ignore the only people who were in the building at the same time. That’s a pretty obvious clue to overlook…

Dethklok versus the Goon

Oh, mercy. Someone up there must like me.

Who do we got here? We got “The Goon,” Eric Powell’s crude, hilarious, hyper-violent, horror-noir pulp, and we got Dethklok from Adult Swim’s “Metalocalypse,” Brendon Small’s crude, hilarious, hyper-violent heavy-metal cartoon. It’s all written and illustrated by Powell, with Small stepping in to help. We start out with an evil plot to control the world using William Murderface’s inbred brain, combined with a brainwashed Dr. Rockzo the Rock and Roll Clown (He does cocaine!) trying to kill Dethklok. But things go improbably awry, leaving Dethklok’s gigantic headquarters Mordhaus stuck in the same dimension as the Goon’s Lonely Street. So the Goon and his pals initially mistake Dethklok for some of the new girls at the local brothel before some hijinx get started. Skwisgar does the nasty with Mama Norton, Rockzo introduces Franky to cocaine, Dethklok plays a concert, and the Goon slaughters untold multitudes of Dethklok’s henchmen.

Verdict: You gotta ask? Thumbs up. This ain’t deep storytelling, but if you love Dethklok and you love the Goon, you will love the bleeding screaming snot out of this. Powell is a lot better at drawing the Goon than he is at drawing Dethklok, but he’s absolutely got the cartoon’s brand of humor down perfectly. Tons of hilarious moments and lines here — I won’t spoil the best line in the comic, but you’ll know it when you see it. I also loved Murderface’s reaction after their manager questions the wisdom of promoting the band’s new album by shooting a thousand bald eagles out of a cannon and into George Washington’s face on Mount Rushmore: “Well, I’m sorry! I didn’t know you hated America!” And Dethklok’s concert is just brilliant, as is Franky’s critique of it — “What’s that sound?! It tells me my skin is alive and it hates me!”

Repeating for emphasis: LOVED IT.

Green Lantern #44

The Blackest Night has started, as one of the black rings revives the Martian Manhunter, who goes after Hal Jordan and the recently resurrected Barry Allen. Do they have a chance against a shapeshifting telepathic zombie Martian Superman? I wouldn’t bet on it. Meanwhile, the evil Guardian called Scar reveals to the other captured Guardians what’s going on — emotions are the cause of chaos in the universe, so she plans to bring order by extinguishing all emotions and killing all sentient life. And John Stewart is about to find out what happens when the black rings zombify an entire planet.

Verdict: Thumbs up. J’onn makes an excellent villain here — tossing buildings, shapeshifting, reading minds, and decisively knocking the stuffing out of a couple of DC’s heaviest hitters. The rationale behind Scar’s plot is good, too, and I’m looking forward to seeing what a Black Lantern Planet is going to be like. And yes, Doug Mahnke really is the perfect artist for this — he does great action, he does wonderful square-jawed heroes, and his monsters and zombies are the best in the biz.

Green Lantern #43

Wow, this one was just wildly creepy.

We focus on an old GL villain called Black Hand. Always a bit of a creepy kid, he loved his family’s mortuary business mainly because it allowed him to get, ahem, up close and personal with dead bodies. After accidentally acquiring a weapon from the demon Atrocitus that allowed him to absorb power from Green Lantern power rings, he became a supervillain in the strange belief that he should try to snuff out the green energy in the universe. After having a run-in with the Black Lantern power battery, he’s become aware of every important death in the DC Universe and has a voice in his head that tells him he can fix everything. After returning home to kill his family, he commits suicide and is then resurrected by a renegade Guardian named Scar as the first Black Lantern.

Verdict: Thumbs up. Again, wow. Yes, very creepy for Black Hand’s bizarre necrophiliac tendencies, but possibly more disturbing for his murder of his family and his own suicide and rebirth, rendered in close-up, loving detail by Doug Mahnke. Also especially good is the four-page sequence where Hand sees visions of the heroes and villains who have died, and the heroes who have been raised from the dead already. If they can maintain this level of creepy glory, “Blackest Night” may go down as one of the best crossover events ever.

Booster Gold #22

The Black Beetle has managed to kill Dick Grayson as Batman by going back in time and killing him when he was Robin in the Teen Titans. Booster and Skeets rush back to the time of the early “New Teen Titans” series in the ’80s, masquerade as security guards at S.T.A.R. Labs, and save Cyborg from the Ravager, Deathstroke’s son. Ravager gets away, with the Black Beetle’s help, so Booster and Cyborg recruit the help of the rest of the Titans. But instead of the Titans plus Booster vs. a Ravager who’s about to be killed by his own powers, they have to fight Deathstroke, Black Beetle, and a vastly energized Ravager… and the good guys don’t stand a chance.

Verdict: Thumbs up. This title has been through several months of sub-par stories, but this one is quite good.