This is barely enough to warrant a Spoiler Warning

Well, I got Seven Soldiers and was planning to type out my insights. Then I read it, and realized it's going to need a digestion period. I'm still in a state of gibbering giddyness over the Granty-goodness contained within.

In the meantime, here's a panel that made me smile. Look at the face and hair just beneath Arthur's arm. Am I seeing what I think I'm seeing in ProtoCamelot?



I'm going to decide that I am, and that it totally makes up that issue of 52 I saw beach bunny fembots instead of lady mad scientists.

But the writer still has a strike against him for Lois Lane not getting to punch anyone in that All-Star Superman issue where she had powers for a day.

Bask in the Williams Art!

The Seven Soldiers preview is up. Shining Knight looks just as awesome as I remember.



I hope this means its actually coming out this month.

Shining Knight

I'd like to take you back in time to August 31st.

Seven Soldiers: Shining Knight #4
My first thought upon finishing this comic was "I'd like to have Grant Morrison's baby."
Then I realized that would make me fat.
Seriously, though, this Seven Soldiers thing is that good.
Morrison throws a plot twist in there that I, as a major fan of King Arthur stories, have seen at least once (I believe more than twice, though) before, and I never saw it coming. But it makes perfect sense, and totally redefines how you consider the characters.
I liked Justin before, but was iffy if I wanted this new Shining Knight to replace the Golden Ager -- as I am not an advocate of killing off characters that were created before my parents, and killing off the Golden Age Sir Justin was likely if they had a replacement. And I liked seeing Sir Justin in Stars and STRIPE. He was pretty cool.
But after this twist is revealed, I say kill him, or freeze him in ice again, or drop him in the timestream. Push him to the sidelines again, because Morrison's revamp is the Shining Knight I want to see around.
I want to see Sir Justin in Wonder Woman! Right now! Kill Cassie or Donna (again) if you need to make room, but do so post-haste!

The above is from my first set of comic reviews. Yes, I have done them on this blog! In fact, the main reason I started this blog was to write the above review.

(I'm going to spoil the ending to Shining Knight #4 in a big way, so if you're waiting on the Trade, stop right here until you're done with Volume 2. I'm serious here. Big Warning.)


All others, Read on.Standard Seven Soldiers Spoiler Warning



The basic plot of Shining Knight is this: Newly knighted Sir Ystin participates in the last battle of Avalon in the Castle Revolving against the Sheeda (Evil Fairy) Queen. He, carrying the King's sword Caliburn, falls into a flowing stream of water who turns out to be a gateway through time. He's plunged into a Modern City. Wierdness ensues. But, unfortunately, the Sheeda Queen is still alive and knows the young knight has that sword. So, she hunts him down and sets him against a corrupt Zombie form of Sir galahad, the Knight he squired for, for her amusement. During the battle, Ystin is revealed to be a female. The Queen laughs at her, but is distracted by other news. She leaves, ordering that Ystin be enslaved. Ystin kills Galahad, escapes, and sets out to kill the Wicked Queen.


You see, after I read Shining Knight #4 I hit the internet, eager for reactions to this revelation.

I was disappointed to say the least. Nobody else seemed to love it as much as I did. I felt a need to express my feelings.

I never once wondered what the "point" of the revelation was.

It had initially seemed to me to be a skillful way of highlighting Ystin's transformation over the series. I mean, internal change has happened. As of that battle, Ystin has accepted that there is no going back to Camelot, and has chosen to do what she can to help this world. This is a major character change, and he needed to ensure that it sunk in by making sure the Audience could never look at Shining Knight the same way again. What better way to do that than to reveal in the middle of a fight scene that the character is a different gender than they'd thought? It's guaranteed to change the viewpoint of the reader.

I also thought she was one hell of a character to add to the DC stable. Here is a time-displaced teenaged girl. Her origin is actually fairly simple to relate. She's distinctive in personality and interests from the other teenaged girl cliches we keep seeing. And, she's a brunette in a time of way too many blondes, so she'll be distinctive out of the armor.

But, a lot of people missed that. So, rather than just take my own enjoyment at face value, I found myself thinking carefully about the series itself.

It only enhanced my enjoyment when I reread it.

Knowing that Ystin was a girl, I noticed several things.

In the first issue, she finds a close female friend (Olwen) in the Sheeda lair. She attempts to help Olwen get free, only to be stabbed unexpectedly. Seems this was the woman she befriended at all, but a two-faced shapeshifter. She meets a twisted dead version of King Arthur himself. And of course, she meets the vicious Queen of Terror. A leering, scantily clad woman who would seem the ideal in feminine empowerment, as she's the ultimate ruler of her kingdom, but is in reality a corrupter and an exploiter of everyone and anyone she runs across. In the second issue, she falls prey to guilt and despair. Everything that has gone wrong is her fault and there's no place in this world. We see a prophecy by Morrigu that there would be an age where "women would be shameless, men strengthless." She meets a virtuous man who gives her some minor advice and then leaves to handle his own business. In the third issue she finally meets a pure-hearted woman, but this one wants to categorize her as a time-travel anomaly, and unwittingly brings disguised destruction with her.

In the fourth issue, all hell breaks loose. Her first love turns into a violent leering monster, her greatest secret is revealed to a crowd of spectators who are staring at her breasts, and there is blood everywhere.

At this point I stopped and thought to myself -- "Hey, wait a minute... This seems familiar."

"Aw, Hell!"

Yes, Ladies and Gentleman, Grant Morrison has managed to capture the experience of puberty for a young girl.

All of your female friends seem to become two-faced bitches who stab you in the back. All of your male friends turn into lewd brainless zombies who think of nothing but breasts. Older Men dismiss you. Older Women want to fit you into a potentially harmful little boxed personality. To top it off, your body has decided to completely betray you, becoming whatever shape is the least convenient for you, and an icky, disgusting embarrassing thing for about a quarter of each month.

So, what makes this a particularly feminine coming of age tale?

Well, there's the blood.

Particularly the feeling that everyone's attention is drawn to the blood.

Oh, and everyone's attention drawn to the breasts, also.

But most of all, it's what I mentioned above. Morrison clearly wanted us to never look at Ystin the same way again. Well, once puberty sets in, the change is far more drastic for young girls. Nobody ever looks at you the same. If you develop early, there's leering and jealousy. If you don't, there's an attitude that you are not good enough. You're no longer innocent after that age. You can't play with the same friends, or even the same games anymore. All of the adults you dealt with before react very differently to you. All of the rules have changed, right underneath you.

I never liked teenaged girl characters a lot. I despised both Wonder Girls, wanted to see the Spoiler killed, only knew PAD's twenty-something Supergirl, and could care less if Secret and Arrowette were dead or evil. Empress was cool, but that's more because she had smoky teleportation than because of her age and gender. I like Stargirl and Batgirl, but I wasn't even willing to give them a chance until after I turned twenty. I still have no attachment to Speedy, or anyone but Stargirl. And all of them, save Batgirl and Empress, look identical.

But I adore Shining Knight and I know I would have as a teenager. And I would've read her for the Camelot stuff.

Maybe it's personal. I'm fuzzy about a lot of "rites of passage" but I will always remember very clearly the first time an adult pointed out my breasts and told me to wear a bra, the first time a classmate pointed out my breasts, and of course, how big a jerk my first crush actually turned out to be.

So, everybody, get your soda cans, whiskey bottles, and water glasses handy and join me in a toast. Here's to a damn good mini-series, a wonderful new teenaged girl character, sixth grade, learning the truth about my first crush just in time, blood, training bras, tactless nurses who mean well, backstabbing girls who grow out of it, and wondering how the hell Grant Morrison knows what its like to become a young women.

Seven Soldiers: Zatanna

I just reread Zatanna.

At the risk of stating the obvious, I think it's about becoming a mother.
Spoilers here, so read on at your own risk.Standard Seven Soldiers Spoiler Warning

No, I'm not talking the literal physical pregnancy thing here. I'm talking metaphysically. We've all seen the spiritual trinity of Maiden/Mother/Crone applied to female characters so much that it's become cliche. But here's the thing, it's an accurate depiction of the phases of a woman's life applied through mythology. It's deeply a part of our subcollective cultural view of women.

All three women of Seven Soldiers are making the transition from Maiden to Mother in some manner. Sir Ystin is making a physical transformation. She's growing from a child to fertile young woman (note the "I smell the blood of a womb" comment from Gloriana). Alix Harrower has actually regressed from a fully realized confident young woman (in the mother stage of life -- she's nuturing a marriage, her husband's dreams, and her own career -- which deals with autistic children) to a child playing dress-up. She's still midway through her series, but in order to survive you can tell she'll need to grow up by Seven Soldiers #1.



And then there's Zatanna.

When we meet Morrison's Zatanna, we can see that she's been trapped in Maidenhood for such a long time. She's trapped not only by DC's elastic timeline policy and our cultural obsession with youth in women, but also by her own nice in the DC Universe

DC's elastic timeline, as we all know, serves to keep up to 60 years worth of events trapped in a 10-15 year model. I call it elastic, because I think that at some point we'll find out in some future crossover that the Timeline in the DCU is actually stretching to fit all of stuff that's happening into just 15 years. Jon points out that everything that has happened since Zero Hour all fits into one year. That's a single comic book year stretched out to accommodate eleven years of publishing. (On the other hand, Kyle's quite a prodigy, isn't he? And he sure as hell can't have breached 25 yet)

Zatanna's physically trapped because we want our female superheroes to remain young, beautiful and sexual. There's a severe lack of Elder females in the Golden-Age set. While Ted, Alan, and Jay are around and showing their advanced years, the late Hippolyta was immortal and time-traveling to retain her youthful looks; Black Canary I is dead; Phantom Lady I is aged and retired; and Liberty Belle only very rarely surfaces. Poor Z has a double-dose of this trap, however, in that her "day job" is in show business. She's the Magician and Beautiful Assistant at once.

But the above can all be dealt with. The major problem as I see it, is that Zatanna is a legacy character, though we often forget it. She succeeded her father, Zatara, as the top-hatted backwards talking magic-user of the superhero set. Her place in the legacy-driven DC Universe was secured by her father's long-standing death and her own lack of a sidekick to replace her. Unfortunately, this leaves poor Zatanna at a loss. There is no aging in her world. Her Elder Statesman is dead and vanished, and she has no teenaged counterpart to outline the passage of time.



This is a big deal. Look at the Green Lantern franchise. Check out the the Showcase: Green Lantern stories of Hal Jordan. Compare them to the Hal we have now, and the one we had 15-20 years ago. Hal's matured quite a bit. Hal made a transition to a Fatherly archetype because he was given younger Lanterns like John and Guy to mentor. Early issues of Volume 3 illustrate this relationship between Guy and Hal beautifully. John and Guy were in turn able to mature because they had a hand in mentoring Kyle. Kyle, surrounded by a lack of other Lantern characters, was trapped in the rookie mold for more than a decade. Once Hal returned, and the Corps was restarted, however, Kyle was allowed to mature. Why? Because with a new Green Lantern Corps, he's surrounded by younger, newer recruits that enable him to become a mentor and grow past the Youngest Son archetype.

In Zatanna #1, we see these years of stunted growth pile up on her. She looks like a beautiful mess. The whole plot of the first two issues is because she's made a beautiful mess of her life. She craves maturity and stability, and having no family left, she does an ill-considered love spell and accidentally conjures up the villain of the first half. She then proceeds with a plan to gather her father's books, the last of his wisdom, and runs headlong into this monster she created instead. She's so devastated at this and her other past actions, and so drained of any hope for the future that she can't even get her powers to work.

She thinks she wants romance, but what she really wants is family. She particularly wants her father back. What she needs, though, is to fully grow into her father's shoes. But she can't do that, no matter how many times she saves the world, until she can fill the role of parent/mentor. She has all of this knowledge given to her by her father, and it's just there. She needs to pass it on. She needs to stop being a daughter and become a mother.

Enter Misty, the Beautiful Magician's Young Apprentice.

Look carefully at the art in issue one compared to two, three, and four. In the first issue, Zatanna is a lost little girl who never combs her hair. She's at the end of her rope, facing a nightmare she created, and utterly alone. Then Misty enters. Suddenly, Zatanna is responsible for another life. Not only that, here is a ready and willing receiver of all of that knowledge and wisdom her Father gave to her. She has her doubts about it, sure, but she ills the best role a person can. She accepts the challenge to teach and protect the next generation.

And Voila! Zatanna's confidence returns. You can see it in Sook's art on the covers alone. Again, she still has doubts, but the despair is gone. She may not have her powers back, but she's responsible for this.

And now, she's responsible for Misty. She has to handle it. And she's certainly capable. She's combat trained by the JLA, for heaven's sakes. She shouldn't be sitting in a support group when the end of the world is nigh! She should be stopping it!

Zatanna is finally allowed to grow to the next phase of life. She's passed her wisdom on. She has a protege` out there.

I'm afraid, however, that won't be the end.

You see, she's filling her predecessor's shoes in very direct way. Most of the other Soldiers are legacy characters, but only tangentially. Zatanna has directly taken over for her father.


And he died fighting the forces of evil.

Boobies! (And the Lack Thereof)

"Helligan's a tragic loss. Why's everybody's so excited bout her? Like Whip and Jackie and Dan and Vigilante? Yeah, she was cool. But she's a vampire zombie now. "Sky High" Helligan gives us a human and common sense perspective as to the levels of view shown here. She zooms out and sees the whole picture. Cue us to do the same." -- Chad (July 5, 2005)

The above opinion was expressed in response to Shining Knight #3, where FBI Agent Helen "Sky-High" Helligan came out of nowhere to help us piece together the reasoning behind there being two Shining Knights in the DC Universe, shortly before being bit by the Bitch Queen from Beyond the Vampire Sun for all of her trouble.

If you're up to speed on your Seven Soldiers, Read On

Seven Soldiers Spoiler Warning

As it's been over two weeks now, most of you following Grant Morrison's Seven Soldiers project know that Sky-High Helligan returned for a short swan-song in the Bulleteer #2, where once again she came to give us exposition and advice before croaking.

In case you haven't noticed, the Bulleteer is a hypersexualized character. Paquette was specifically chosen for his ability to draw cheesecake. Yet, Helligan, standing next to Alix, is far from sexualized.



She's a lovely woman, yes, but standing next to Alix, it's harder to realize. In fact, Alix's outstanding appearance enhances Helligan's normalness, and actually enables the FBI agent's skills and personality to shine. Helligan is a fine foil for Alix, also, drawing attention to the taller woman's naivete, and casting everything about her, even the way she stands, in the light of that characteristic. Helligan stands and walks like a real woman. She is serious and practical, and constantly using her mind. Next to her, Alix's posing is revealed as more than just the artist's style, and less than Morrison's metatext. It becomes characterization. Alix is new to this world. She's self-conscious. She's like an adolescent girl, trying to find her identity. She knows what superheroes are supposed to look like and she tries to fit the part with her posing and her wardrobe. On her own, she looks the part. She is a comic-book female. But next to a wise, self-possessed, professional woman like Helligan, Alix's true childish nature is revealed. It's a put-on. Alix has no idea what a real superhero would be like. She only knows how to look the part. That's fortunate, though, because that's all she needs to do for Helligan. Had Sky-High lived longer, they would have made an ideal team. Now, Alix will have to grow into her own.

Sounds good, right?

Surely, that's all there is to Sky-High, right?

No, that can't be right. Grant Morrison wrote this. There must be more metatext than just that.

One of the obvious themes of Bulleteer is what men value in women. That's how Alix got her powers. Her appearance was valued by her scientist husband. He wanted not only to preserve it, but to enhance it so he could live out his superhero fetish fantasies. To get the point across, Alix is hypsexualized in Bulleteer #1. It's not until the second issue, though, when you meet Helligan again that you realize that that's special to Alix. Most purely cheesecake artists pose all of their featured females provocatively. Paquette reserves these poses for Alix. And the more I think about it, the more I'm convinced there's metatext behind Sky-High's lack of hypersexuality.

I suspect it means that Helligan, or rather, what she represents, is not valued by men.

Her skills are not physical, they are mental. She is not a soft, feeling, social woman. She is not passive, nor is she passionate or fiery in her aggressiveness. She's a cool-headed, creative, analytical, intuitive and intelligent woman who gets excited and talkative about ideas. She's pure of heart without being an ingenue. She's worldly and knowledgeable, but not jaded. Indeed, all her knowledge, up until the unfortunate incident with the aforementioned Gloriana Tenebrae, just makes her more fascinated by her subject.


Helligan does her detective work by connecting her analytical deductions with creative leaps. She seems to be making things up on the fly, but is actually basing her conclusions on on an immense collection of knowledge, experience and clues. She's so good at putting together the "Big Picture" she's nicknamed Sky-High. The way she describes her cognitive abilities reminds me a lot of feminine intuition. A woman's gut instinct is based on a thousand unconscious clues. She reads people, she reads places. She factors in the wisdom passed down from the elder generation. She draws conclusions about the entire situation based on these subtle details. Traditional masculinity dismisses this ability, and the entire body of feminine wisdom that lies behind it, as silly or superstitious.

Alix, a young, physically fit, beautiful woman who worked with children, is soft-hearted and caring, but shy and gullible. She is womanly strength and beauty as defined by man. She's the heroic archetype of the Reluctant Good-girl hero. The Beautiful Young Girl (Bishoujo) archetype.

Helligan embodies the Wise-Woman archetype. Not Athena, but Metis the Forgotten Mother (which is fascinating given how much Gloriana resembles Medusa). It's not in her age but in her skills, her story role, and her group dynamics position. She is a creative thinker and an expert in metahuman affairs, she appears to dispense exposition, and she gives younger woman like her sister and Alix (and actually, Ystin to a point, since she was there to help), the benefit of her knowledge and experience. Hell, she even figures out where the Sheeda are from, and I'd lay money she's right.

Alix's sexualization, next to Helligan's lack of sexualization, just screams that the Ingenue is valued over the Wise-Woman from a masculine point of view. This seems to matter quite a bit to Alix, who's entire identity is based on her late husband actions. She's a portrait of womanly strength as painted by an adolescent boy. (The condition of the Mirror in the panel at right tells us all we need to know about that viewpoint) She can't see her own value to the universe, she only knows what her late husband wanted and is stuck with the hand he dealt her. Sky-High Helligan, on the other hand, is self-identified, a portrait of womanly strength as created by the whole of the universe and knows her value as it applies to the tapestry of life itself.

In the events of the Bulleteer #2, Helligan is slowly dying. Alix needs to carry her at points. But Helligan is still in complete control of the situation to her last breath. Alix feels helpless and worthless, "not like a superhero at all", while Helligan dies seeing the Big Picture and knowing what she's done for it.

Alix has none of Helligan's observation skills. If she had, she would not have powers. She would have seen her husband for the pervert he was, and realized his subtle digs at her age and appearance were signs he didn't really love her at all. It's too late to fix that now, but its fairly obvious that in order to survive, Alix will need Helligan's undervalued wisdom in addition to the physical powers she recieved from her husband. Hopefully, by the end of Seven Soldiers, Alix will have enough wit to be more than muscle and window dressing.

Comic Reviews for Sept 8th

Last week was a mostly mainstream week again. I picked up a couple of trades, but DC Crossover Crisis Mania is sucking me in like a Black Hole of Metaplot. I'm enjoying the ride, though. Hoping for a strange new world of wonders on the other side, as opposed to a bleak existance as a bunch of shredded particles like many DC fans are expecting.

Mild Spoilers Below

Superman #221 -- I'm the reverse of a regular fan here. I picked up Superman issues and The OMAC Project because I'd heard they would be tying into Wonder Woman. I was pleasantly surprised by the quality of the Superman books, and so this month I picked up the next issues of all of the Superman books to see how they were doing.
The last two issues (Action Comics #830 and this one) of the Superman line that I've read were narrated by supporting cast members. Out of 3 issues of non-Crossover Superman books in 10 years (Although to be perfectly honest, the last Adventures of Superman should count as part of the crossover), that's not promising.
Now, don't get me wrong, spotlighting supporting cast is wonderful at times. But I notice a tendancy to spotlight supporting cast as a method of characterizing the main character. Jimmy speaks about Superman in glowing generalized terms, and talks about learning from him -- "He continues to astonish me" "I learn about selflessness, decency, the sometimes unfortunate laws of physics, and most of all, the meaning of heroism."
To take an example I enjoyed more -- Lois in the narration of Action Comics #830 tries to impart a fraction of the wonder at being married to Superman to the reader. This is a really good piece of writing, so true to life that you could see the wife of a perfectly normal human being say it. However, preceeding this issue, it helps to highlight by repetition the deficiencies in that technique in Superman #221.

It's wasted characterization.

We really don't need to hear it.

He's Superman.

We know he's awe-inspiring.

We know he's a miracle.

We know he's a hero.

That's what makes him Superman, silly. Everybody knows that!

If we did somehow forget momentarily, and needed to be reminded, it would be far more effective to show us that he is an awe-inspiring, heroic miracle, or a miraculous, awe-inspiring hero, or a heroic, miraculous inspiration...etc...

Less is more for Superman narration. The splash that accompanies Jimmy's "meaning of heroism" comment (Page 6, Pg 11 counting ads), for example, is a nice piece of Ed Benes art that would stand up on its own as an example of Superman's heroic behavior. No need to stick cliched narration in the background to characterize Superman.

Or is this to characterize Jimmy? Well, I get that he's in awe of Superman and greatly admires him. Not only is that Jimmy Olsen's basic characterization, but its written all over his face in that very panel.

Anyway, I think Mark Veheiden overdid it on the narration for this story. I could have been a very nice Jimmy Olsen spotlight, if not for all of the little narration boxes gushing needlessly about Superman. If you read through the story and ignore all of the narration, the same point is made. Even better, because it is made without subjecting you to so many cliches. This is just more of the unfortunate wordy tendancy of comic book writers, most likely inspired by the success of Kurt Buseik's childlike wonder in and Astro City, and James Robinson's lyrical hero-worship in Starman. But those writers knew, for the most part, when to step back and let the pictures and dialogue tell the story. Their works were considerably more enjoyable for it.

This issue wasn't enough to justify buying another of Verheiden's issues for me. I'll stick with Action Comics, though, because Ms Simone has the golden touch right now -- which brings me to...

Villains United #5 -- The cover is very impressive. It features Deadshot and Catman fighting in free-fall. When you open the book, the first page is a splash that reinforces it perfectly, and helps carry the impression of a falling fast fight throughout the entire book. This is Gail Simone's writing -- being thrown out of a window and taking the bad guy (or, in this case, other bad guy) with you. Even the calm moments where people are planning or catching their breath are loaded with electric excitement. I ended this book unable to sit still for anticipation of the next issue.

I've heard Gail Simone's name thrown around on message boards for nearly every female character in comics, but the character this women needs to write is The Flash. Her pacing and energy are just what the Fastest Man in the World needs!

Ultimate Spider-Man #82 -- was ultimately unimpressive. More Black Cat? I can't bring myself to care very much. This book may be next on my chopping block.

Gotham Central #35 -- The only DC book without a Metaplot sighting! Of course, this is going to change in the near future.
I think Stacy's developing a little crush on the Boy Wonder here. That is so cute. I like Stacy here. A child-woman like her can get very irritating very easily, and dwnright offensive when handled badly, but in Gotham Central she's set off by the bleak landscape and contrasted by Maggie, Rene', Romy and Josie. Rucka plays her sweet nature up only rarely, and when it has a definite effect on the plot. He manages to make her very endearing and naive.
I also love Rucka's characterization of Robin. Tim Drake's a much more likeable boy here than we see anywhere else today. But he's still sly, he's playing Stacy's naivete to get a rare insight inside the GCPD. Not that I can fault him for it -- this mystery seems like a very personal attack on him on the surface (though I'm sure there's a completely different motive), and Bat-jerk has gotten them all kicked out of the precinct here. It would be a interesting replacement for the Batman-Jim Gordan relationship, if it were a Robin-Stacy relationship that got the Gotham vigilantes their inside info.

The Manhatten Guardian #4 -- This issue is all exposition, and takes us deeper into the mystery connecting the Seven Soldiers than any other issue in this series so far. He also made me seriously like Jake for the first time (I must admit, I was reading for the subway pirates at the beginning) here in the last two pages.
And now, for today's Sentance I Never, Ever, in a Billion Lifetimes Thought I'd Hear Myself Day: I badly want more Newsboy Legion flashback stories.
More Ali Ka-Zoom! In this, and in Zatanna #3, he was just plain cool.

Warning though, Guardian #4 is considerably more of a cliffhanger than Shining Knight #4 was. You will buy Seven Soldiers #1 if you enjoy this.

Fell #1 -- I started off not liking this (Despite the initial laugh at the first panel), but gradually changed my mind during the read. It was a good mystery, totally self-contained (in 16 pages!), that introduced enough of Detective Fell's little corner of the genre that I'd be willing to read more. And Ellis manages to do it without shortchanging characterization or plot for the sake of more setup. I'll buy a second issue of this. I wish there was more out like this.

That's all for now, I bought a couple of trades, but those are weekend reads. Until next time, I leave you with something fun to listen to:
Click on Instrumental when you go here.

Fork in the Road (Comic Reviews for August 31)

I have come to a division in my path tonight. I can either clean my apartment or continue to fiddle around on the Internet. There are other choices, of course. I could play with my cat, but he is very busy staring into space. Either watching a ghost, or a bug. One would be as welcome as the other, I suppose. I could also sort my comic books, but that comes suspiciously close to cleaning. I could sleep, but I've found sleeping at 330 in the morning screws over my work schedule.

Blogging it is, then. I wonder if anyone will ever see this. I'm not normally this depressing, but there's melancholy music playing in the background. Maybe I need a little food. Low Blood Sugar is really depressing.

That's better, a little beef jerky and a switch from Simple Plan to Bruce Springsteen.

Might as well post the first comic reviews. There will be mild spoilers below.
NOTE: These reviews are specifically directed at my sister, because she has given up on Comic Books, and I want her to know what she's missing.

Week of August 31, 2005:

BPRD: The Black Flame #1
Roger's losing it. Big time. He was such a sweet, well-behaved homonculus before that Captain Zombie jerk got ahold of him. Now, he's gone from herbal man to wanna-be undead marine. Not cool.
On the other hand, it is always good to see Liz Sherman light up a bunch of amphibian demon-men.

Astro City: The Dark Age #3
That was it? That was the big crime of the Silver Agent? That? There's a little suspense at the end there, enough to get me to pick up the next book -- because I want to see what happened, but it's not like I can't wait to see what happens.
I am giving Buseik until the end of the actual story here, but so far I am deeply unimpressed. This Astro City's falling short of par.

Flash #225
This run was hard to top, but I think Johns ended it on a high note. It was what we predicted to happen, but he managed to make it entertaining and tie up a lot of loose plot threads. It was a very solid ending to a wonderful run.
I have to say that for Captain Boomerang II's mother, I was disappointed. I was sincerely hoping it would be Jenni Ognats. The lady they picked, I'm not ever sure how he got speed off of her. Oh well, Speed Force logic, I suppose. It's been screwy ever since Mark Waid created it. At least we have a Capt Boomerang who makes sense as a villain.
Also disappointed I didn't get to see Fiddler, Shade, and Thinker interact one last time in Johns' run, but that's what happens when you run out of time.
Oh, and Kimmy -- Piper is not evil. You can pick up Johns' trades in good conscience.

They are worth it for Professor Zoom! Finally! A fast villain that Wally can't just outrun!

Green Lantern #4
I was underwhelmed by the first 3 issues of this series. I think it was Geoff Johns workload that caused this, because no sooner than he drops the Flash than VOOM! Green Lantern lights on fire!
This issue was so much fun! Hal Jordan vs Kilowog -- In a mud pit! Hector Hammond: Pervert! Sonar in Chains! Blood and gore!

And Hal punches more people!

I love that.

The best part of Green Lantern: Rebirth was Hal hitting Batman (Oh, and Kyle not dying. I like Kyle, he needs to stick around!) I'd been waiting for that since the birth of the Batjerk personality in JLA: Tower of Babel. I think Hal should punch Batman again.

I think Hal should punch more people overall.

Write a whole one-shot about it. Hal Jordan Punches the DC Universe!
I can see it now! Batman! Supergirl! Wonder Girl! Batman! The Joker! Lex Luthor! Batman! Dark Seid! Lobo!
He just tours the whole DCU hitting people, until he gets to the JSA HQ -- where he swings at Alan Scott--
And finds his hand stopped in mid-air. "Hal, we have to talk."

That would be beautiful, just beautiful.

JLA: Classified #11
Ellis' Perry White in Issue #10 was the best portrayal of Perry White I've ever seen. A cross between Jameson from Marvel and Rourke from Transmet. So entertaining that I think Ellis should be contracted to just write the Daily Planet scenes in all of the Superman books.
That said, this issue was just blah. That's all, jsut blah. Nothing really happened, I was hoping for more Wonder Woman dialogue, what with her on the cover, but was sadly disappointed. I'll be picking up #12, though, in hopes of more Perry.

Seven Soldiers: Shining Knight #4
My first thought upon finishing this comic was "I'd like to have Grant Morrison's baby."
Then I realized that would make me fat.
Seriously, though, this Seven Soldiers thing is that good.
Morrison throws a plot twist in there that I, as a major fan of King Arthur stories, have seen at least once (I believe more than twice, though) before, and I never saw it coming. Bt it makes perfect sense, and totally redefines how you consider the characters.
I liked Justin before, but was iffy if I wanted this new Shining Knight to replace the Golden Ager -- as I am not an advocate of killing off characters that were created before my parents, and killing off the Golden Age Sir Justin was likely if they had a replacement. And I liked seeing Sir Justin in Stars and STRIPE. He was pretty cool.
But after this twist is revealed, I say kill him, or freeze him in ice again, or drop him in the timestream. Push him to the sidelines again, because Morrison's revamp is the Shining Knight I want to see around.
I want to see Sir Justin in Wonder Woman! Right now! Kill Cassie or Donna (again) if you need to make room, but do so post-haste!

Wonder Woman #220
Was depressing. I love what Rucka has done with her, he's defined Diana so incredibly well. This series has actually been fun for me for the first time in years. (Speaking of which, Kim -- I've got the first trade of Rucka's run for you, btw, and will be sending it to you with copies of all of the issues of Shining Knight as soon as I am awake when the post office is open).
A heavy issue was appropriate after what happened in Wonder Woman #219. And it was very good that, after Wonder Woman #219, Rucka had her running around not killing villains to establuish that she wasn't turning into Diana the Punisher. But this issue, and I think it was probably the art, did not carry the same energy as Rucka's others at all. Batman's reaction was disappointing (If you're collecting Batman sightings, don't bother, he's just in a couple panels -- but she's narrating to him through the entire story), but understandable. This was the least of his Batjerkiness this year.
I still advise reading it, because a poor Rucka-written issue of Wonder Woman is still better than any issue since George Perez left the book! This was just below Rucka's usual standard, and I think it's the somber art. Next issue, we are promised an OMAC tie-in, which much fighting and blood, so the energy and action should be back then.

I love Rucka's action-oriented Wonder Woman. I love what the whole DC line is doing with female characters. 2005 should be called "Year of the Woman" or something, because their females have kicked into high gear lately! I hate to say it, but it was certainly worth losing Sue to the Refrigerator to get a decisive Diana in this crossover. I will be supremely unhappy if they kill Diana ("I don’t give a damn ’bout my reputation") and replace her with Donna ("Who can turn the world the world on with her smile!").

New Avengers #9
Notable for a really neat scene with Emma Frost. Emma's inside Sentry's mind, trying to find his false memories. It's very cool to see her at work. I hope Joss Whedon isn't really turning her evil again, but I scanned Astonishing X-Men and sadly, it looks like it. It's a shame. She's a really good character, and I've loved her as a complex heroine since her Generation X days. I was very sad to see this, and couldn't buy Astonishing X-Men because of it.
Then I found this article that talks about her during Morrison's run. Now I'm angry. How is it just as DC is making its goody-goody women more of a presence in their universe that Marvel decides to make one of its most decisive females evil again? How screwed up is that? Especially after the Scarlet Witch debacle!
Plus, it worries me that the writer doing this is set up to direct Wonder Woman. I've got my fingers crossed, though.

Powers #12
Bendis is losing me, I'm afraid. Overexposure, maybe? Or he could jsut be overworked. This is one of the last Marvel titles on my pull list. They keep being replaced by DC stuff. Today, I was in the store and saw House of M #6 was out, but that the clerk forgot to pull it for me. I was reading ti for potential Quicksilver sightings, but I went "nahh..." and just left it on the shelf, in the middle of the crossover! Didn't even scan it.

Guess I'm getting over my completist issues. That's good for my wallet.

Supreme Power #18
JMS drops a bombshell that doesn't really get any reaction out of me. Compared to DC right now, this book isn't impressing me anymore. Won't be picking up the spin-off miniseries, or the relaunch.