Besides, I have a deadline, and even if I had a manifesto it's not like I could stick to it anyway.That said, I suppose this'll be a regular thing, the traditional weekly (or in this case, whenever I clear out the box) round-up, 'cause I loves me some round-ups. I won't post on or spoil a book until I've read it, of course, and I'll endeavour to keep any spoilage minor. Nor will I be doing much summing up, let's assume we've all read the same thing, and there isn't a chance in hell I'll possibly be able to write up all the books I've read. But by gum I'll try.
I'm not going to do a little fact box, I've written enough of those in day jobs to last a lifetime. Just the title and issue number, but I'll provide an image that links official source of that information if you simply must have it. Odds are, I'll mention at least the writer's name in the blurb. One other thing. I love artists. Clearly comics can't be made without them. But I tend to follow writers, so I'll probably only call out art if it's especially outstanding, at least at first.
The Stack So Far
Books are rated on a scale of 1-5
s. Note that I don't love everything, I just tend to buy books I'm pretty sure I'm going to like, which skews the pool a bit._______
52 #51-52
All right, I admit I totally lost most of those Booster Gold threads, and I knew next to nothing about Rip Hunter going into 52. I knew who Black Adam was, mostly from 90s JSA I must admit, and World War III--within the pages of 52, at least--was pretty strong. I get the Question, and Steel, and Ralph, even most of the lost in space types I have more than a passing familiarity with. Okay, not Jason Todd, much. Could have sworn that guy was dead, and in my defense I only started picking up Batman and Detective again when the new writers came aboard. But Booster, the Giffen JLA, I'm a bit behind.
But, but, I still thought these last two issues were a nice little finish...for all the 52 storylines I really cared about. The Skeets reveal was great (if not entirely unexpected--Bert was right, damn it) even if that villain's end got a little muddled in the time-and-space whiz bangery. That thing with that one zone they did? That's how you do a One Year Later explanation thingy (I can't have been the only one wondering how that one caped hero who's fond of blue and red could be stuck in that one zone if it had been eaten by a robot from the future, am I right?).
I admit I didn't really think we'd get a Lobo wrap-up. Yeah, I feared for Buddy. Strange got eyes, Montoya asks the Question, Black Adam gets his...escape at the last minute but with a nice twist someone should tell Gail Simone about...and Booster and Skeets got a happily ever after (plus a reunion of sorts with an old pal). And hey, look--it's Topper and Wife! And why the hell not.
DC appeared to let the overall 52 story get away from its original avowed purpose--to, at least in part, give readers the answers to their questions about the OYL reboot, which was addresses in the World War III issues still lining the shelves of my comic shop three weeks later. And even if the relative transparency of their motives hadn't overwhelmed it the minseries-born-of-maxiseries came pretty late in the game to not overwhelm the "real" end of the story here with its multitudinous and (to the "main" 52 storylines, somewhat superfluous) OYL tie-ins.
I count myself lucky for not making it into the shop last week. It helped make these two issues stand out and let me give these stories the focus they deserved.
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Runaways #26Sweet Christmas, that is an awesome cover. And the brilliance of it--the sheer joy of that cover--is that once you've read the issue, you actually know what Molly is thinking. And what she's thinking is also awesome.
Seriously, I have been waiting months, months that felt like centuries, for someone to do that to that phony running around in the not-written-by-Garth-Ennis-iverse, and Mr. Whedon, you have my sincere thanks. But before I leave that topic (the issue was about a lot more than whether "a soldier stands," as it were) I have to say that entire bit seemed to have been ever-so-slightly edited so that the li'lest Runaway's fist struck a bit north of where the writer had clearly intended. What I'm saying is, Marvel, you want the young readers, right, and you want the young readers on this book? Nothing makes a teenager laugh like a dude getting a boot to the junk. Nothing.
Right, the comic. So the kids are in New York, and you can tell because the War Journal Punisher is there, threatening to shoot kids because they work for the Kingpin, because that's the kind of guy he is--black and white, not a single facet or layer to him, except jesus christ he is not, at least not the one I read about every month in his real book.
But enough about the War Journal Punisher. The Faux-nisher. No, that sucks. The Punisham. Yes! The Punisham.
So there was a theft, and the Kingpin employs ninjas, and the Leapfrog is the most amazing thing ever built. And it's all awesome. When I'm talking about the Punisham...no....no, that's "B-Sharping" already...the Pawnisher? Fake Castle? The...WJP. There. The War Journal Punisher. So when I'm talking about the WJP being badly written, that doesn't happen here. Whedon treats the Punisher as he should be treated in a flashy, costumed hero universe, and he does it brilliantly and without making the Punisher look like an idiot, a tool, or a loser. Okay, a bit of an idiot, and something of a tool, but he's used well.
My, look at the time. The thing is, this is only the first of, like, three Whedon books I get to read this week.
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Buffy the Vampire Slayer Season 8 #3Ha! I fell for Willow's first line about Kennedy just like Miss Summers the elder did. I suppose that would have required an entire season of its own, though.
Everything about this book is clicking (with the caveat that I'm sitting squarely in seventh row center of this book's target audience), so much I'm afraid to talk too much about specifics lest I ruin any of it. I'll see how far I can get with vague...
-The first in media res spread of the fight promised by #2's final page.
-"You're so butch."
-The visitor in Buffy's dreamscapeopolis, or whatever it's called.
-The brief appearance by a couple of characters who I could have sworn were being published by another company. Funny and oogy.
-"I need mystics, NOW!" (or something like that.)
-The cover. I'm enough of an avowed nerd that the cover, yeah, that works.
-The last page reveal that's about as unrevealing as you can get. That's so meta I think it's actually meta-meta. Meta. Stop typing meta.
-And last but certainly not in any way least, Dawn's shoe.
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The Walking Dead #38I couldn't find a shot of this cover to save my life, and I don't have a working scanner yet, so here's a shot of the next trade and a link to Image Comics. The cover featured Rick and...uh...Mrs. Rick being all pregnant and amputated and concerned.
This is a housekeeping issue between what was a seriously intense arc in Mayberry (or whatever that town with the zombie pit fights was called) and what promises to be tribal apocalyptic warfare next issue. That means this issue is super-talky and super-duper-soapy. The only zombie I remember seeing was in the back-cover pinup, this was all preparations, contingencies, and unfinished business.
What can I say, I dug it. Maybe not as much as those issues that end with someone missing a hand or is tossed into a cage match or, y'know, runs away from/fights zombies, but in a story this long-term you need some downtime. I can't help but think this sense of security and being settled there in the prison is all mere buildup for tearing it away from our protagonists all over again, and I think it's a safe bet there will be a lot fewer of them wherever they hole up next.
I could be wrong. Kirkman could be moving into the apocalyptic part of the zombie apocalypse here, as small groups of survivors build their several and varied fortresses, becoming much more of a danger to each other than the rotting, slow-moving and utterly witless undead are. Then again, I think that's all part of the mind game Kirkman's playing. By taking this story so far beyond what's usually covered in your average zombie movie--even though it's beginnings are couched securely in that niche--he's sailing into areas that rarely get explored in that specific genre (and if they are, they're Matrix-ified like in Land of the Dead). I'm more than willing to keep going along for the ride, even when there are issues like this that require a bit more attention and patience.
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That's all I've gotten read so far, and I've got my own word counts to worry about. More later.
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