Worlds’ Finest Huntress and Power Girl #15

Worlds’ Finest Huntress and Power Girl #15 – really this whole Dessad thing was just a lead up for a Forever Evil Tie in?  That is seriously disappointing.  I was thinking this story was getting better until the “cliffhanger” ending.   I have made no secret that I am unhappy with how DC Comics and this creative team have treated these two strong female characters that are the stars of this comic.  I do not like how suddenly as if by magic they cannot win any situation; their base of operations, their friends dying with no second thought by the creative team to how this will end.  Well now we know why the creative team was happy to ruin a really good comic.  They had to set things up for a mega-cross-over comic event.  Lame.

Ame-Comi Girls #6

Ame-Comi Girls #6.  The ladies of the comic are all teleported against their will to confront a new evil.  Turns out it was the same evil the reader has known about for a while.  It is Sinestra who looks like the Yellow Lantern but acts more stupid.  She is out to destroy the universe and start something new.  The good ladies get a power boosts and their outfits turn white.  There is then a long boring fight with much talking about life death and the universe.  The good ladies all die.  Talk about a cliff hanger and as the comic says “I bet you did not see that coming.”  I have to say again the artwork for this series has seriously gone downhill and even through each character in this book are very distinct there are many pages where it is impossible to tell one lady from another.  This comic has taken a turn I did not think possible, it got worse.

Batman Detective Comics #23

Batman Detective Comics #23 was more of the Wrath storyline.  Frankly this story is getting old yet again Batman is not smart enough or quick enough to save the life of Police officers in Gotham City.  What is worse is Batman knows who the bad guy is and what he does.  Bruce Wayne cannot even beat the bad guy in his everyday man disguise.  So Bruce decides to sell Wayne Industries as a means to find out the villains evil plan.  This ends with Alfred kidnaped and the bad guy launching his attack on the city.  This story just feels so much like the long and crappy Mad Hatter story or the Court of Owls lameness.  The 2^nd story was much better though the Man-Bat story is drifting into the same old same old cliché of comic book land.  Even though the Man-Bat story is starting to lose focus and continuity it was still a better read than the main Batman story. 

Dial H #15

Dial H #15 continues the fight against the Operator and Centipede.  Just a few of the good guys seem to be left and are continuing to lose while taking their fight to the bad guys.  I am not really sure I like this story.  Dial H is much more interesting as a fight back on Earth against low level villains using random low level heroes from the rather impressive back catalog of characters from the DC Universe.  So to have this all the result of a war that destroyed whole worlds killing billions and billions of living creatures is very much against the spirit of Dial H.  I keep buying the comic hoping this story line will end and something a little less depressing will show up – one can hope.

Earth 2 #15

Earth 2 #15 was very disappointing.  We were promised at the end of the last issue a good fight.  Instead the good guys going after Steppenwolf are defeated worst yet we learn the story in a bad flashback.  The dialog is terrible.  If the good guys were going to lose at least we could have seen the fight.   So that part of the comic ends after much buildup in a very disappointing cliffhanger as the world army moves to be destroyed by the three new villains.  We then see Hawkgirl captured without fuss.  We then see the fight in Gotham continue only to be accompanied by dialog that even the writers of the X-Men would consider bad.  The fight is interrupted by the Red Tornado (one of many robots made apparently).  I was rather disappointed by this issue so much of the old plot lines abandoned so that the heroes could go to war and though the war buildup story we got was interesting.  But now the creative team is just jumping past this to something else.  So very disappointed.

Superman Annual #2

Superman Annual #2.  This was an interesting story, I was a little annoyed that the creative team chose to us a Noir style of conveying the story.  It was rather suspect when the first thing that happens is Lois Lane dies.  Then we a have an annual long story explaining how we end up with Lois Lane dying in Superman’s arms.  There is an innocent victim looking for help, Lois Lane does her reporter thing and then the big reveal.  It turns out Brainiac infected a number of random humans with a super virus that gives them powers.  This was a warning that Brainiac would be back.  Oh and Lois Lane is not dead maybe, but she has been infected by the Brainiac virus.  It turns out that this annual was actual just backstory and advertisement for an “event” in the normal Superman and Action Comics universe.   The entire story was suspiciously heavy handed and left this reader rather disappointed.

Batman Detective Comics Annual #2

Batman Detective Comics Annual #2 – This issue tells three related stories.  The first one is Batman tracking down a person who could make herself the perfect copy of a person but her copy was only a mask as she was no Clayface.  I am not really sure why but there is a one page appearance of the Wrath who saves the bad lady called Jane Doe.  She takes the identity of the person she copies and then does something bad, a bank robbery or jewelry store heist.  Batman figures it all out at the last moment and saves the day and Harney Bullock’s life.  The next story is kind of interesting in it appears to be Bullock going to confront Jane Doe about why she picked him.  But in the end it turns out to just Jane Doe being somewhat crazy.  The final story was kind of disappointing in that it is just Bullock feeling sorry for himself.  Apparently Bullock is unable to be the great cop that Jane Doe was while impersonating him.

All Star Western #22

All Star Western Featuring Jonah Hex #22 – I admit to not really being a fan of this story line.  Having Booster Gold show up in the past could have continued for another issue or two before wearing out the storyline.  But having Jonah Hex in the future and no one believing that he is a time traveler even after checking out his gun and clothes were authentic.  Not to mention if this is an unaltered timeline for the DC Universe time travel happens all the time so someone should be able to check his time particles or something to prove he was out of time and not just another Gotham nut job.  Why the JLA or Justice League or Superman was not called is just not believable.  I realize the writers were trying to contain the story but not having other heroes called just breaks my suspension of disbelief needed to read this comic.  What is worse is the fishy way Batman was finally contacted to see if Hex was telling the truth or not.  The escape from Arkham Asylum and eventual fight with the bank robbers was much appreciated as it got us the readers to some action.

Batman the Dark Knight #22!!

Batman the Dark Knight #22 – continues the Clayface is suddenly all powerful and unstoppable storyline.  Really the only person being fooled by this story is the creative team and maybe the people who thought a five issue Mad Hatter story was a great idea.  Because as a long time comic book reader I knew Jim Gordon would not just kill in cold blood a bunch of criminals with no real reason.  So it was obviously not him.  Just as it was obvious that Batman was not doing those bad things Clayface did while looking like Batman.  Just wake me when the Zero Year storyline starts.

Batman Superman #2

Batman Superman #2 was much better than the first issue.  It appears that our heroes Superman and Batman have been moved through time and dimension to a world that has other versions of Superman and Batman.  These versions appear to be older and wiser in addition to being married.  The story is still a little choppy in places jumping without transition.  But now that we have more of the players discovered things will hopefully improve story wise.

Batman '66 #1

Batman ’66 #1 tries very hard to recreate the corny but fun 1960s TV version of Batman.  I have to say the dialog was very close to the original and the story was enjoyable.   The TV aesthetic of deceptive cliffhangers does not translate as well to the printed version of the show.  But I was not reading this for a perfect copy of the TV show I just wanted to see if the writers and artists could pull off the 1960s flashback properly or not.  I have to say the art was really good and they even remembered to make the character look somewhat like the original TV actors.  So we had an amusing Riddler story with a guest appearance of Catwoman.  Though I must say during the action scenes Catwoman looked a bit more like the Black Widow than the ‘60s Catwoman.  Overall this was a very entertaining comic book – good stuff.

Batman #22 Zero Year!

Batman #22 Zero Year: The Zero Year idea is interesting and well written so do not take what I say next as saying the comic is bad it is actually good.  But I have to say we have already done the Batman Year One story, the secret origin and story before Bruce Wayne became Batman.  One of the things I liked about the New52 Batman was we did not need to repeat the same old stories.  I am also thinking that Red Hood One sounds a little too much like the Joker.   So I am rather disappointed that DC has gone to yet another gimmick to try and boost sales.  Instead it would be nice if the creative team was allowed to just make good stories and not constantly try to make the next great comic blockbuster.

Superman Unchained #2

Superman Unchained #2 : The Unchained book is a great idea.  It is Superman with different stories and at the moment we are still dealing with a younger hero.   Unfortunately while issue number one was entertaining, issue number two was just more of the same.  The world is scared of Superman, they all know he is just here to take over the world and kill all the humans.  This despite the fact that he has done nothing but be a good guy.  Lex Luthor has even been found to be evil and locked up in jail.   But that is all ruined with this lame terrorists group that is impossible to find or fight.  The “countdown” to save the people in the collapsing skyscraper was badly done.  This is Superman he is not going to fail.  If he was to fail it would not take this many pages, he would just wake up from being hit by the robot and it would all be over.  Then there is the Cock fight (really I’m not making this part up) with Lois Lane’s father.  It seems he has daddy issues and is taking his issues out by building super weapons to kill Superman.  After issue number one I was hoping that quality would continue but unfortunately the quality of the story failed immediately upon reaching issue two.  I hate to say it but even the art is just not up to the quality of issue one.  The art seemed phoned in.

Worlds' Finest Huntress and Power Girl #14

Worlds’ Finest Huntress and Power Girl #14 continues the downward spiral of a once really clever and interesting storyline.  Once Desaad entered the picture this comic just turned into a pile of stupid.  Suddenly the strong confident women who are the star of the comic devolved into incompetence.  They are unable to fix, stop or figure out what is going on around them.  Yet for five years they were on their way to running the biggest most technologically advanced company in the world.  The comic really feels like someone at the DC office decided oh we can’t have women doing well without a man to save them.  Disappointing.

All Star Western Featuring Jonah Hex #21

All Star Western Featuring Jonah Hex #21 started out strong with Booster Gold getting himself and Hex sent through time.  I really wish Hex had the time to actually kill Booster since he has been nothing but an unfunny pain the entire time he has been in the comic.  But instead Hex gets dropped into the future at some point and ends up fighting Batwing.  Even though this is the “future” and people (especially) the heroes should know of Hex no one does.  Hex ends up in Arkham Asylum despite his skills and abilities, basically he was railroaded by the story and in typical lame comic book creators desire to not work hard while getting paid end up with this lame cliffhanger of Hex being helpless.  But I’m sure in the first pane of next month’s comic he will again be in control of the situation.  Lame.  The Stormwatch backup story was entertaining, but as I predicted (I think) suffers from being a story cut in two that was too short to fill the space.  This story would have been much more entertaining if shown in full and not broken up.  Anyway, Doctor 13 had a little too much garlic in his system and that killed the vampire queen.  Despite my complaints this was an entertaining story – good stuff.

Batman Superman #1!

Batman Superman #1 was terrible; the writing was sloppy and inconsistent.  Having the two big guys of the DC universe team up in their own book should have had a better less stupid story.   At this point I’m just going to move on and not waste my time trying to point out the bad.  The good is we see Superman and Batman and apparently how they first met in the DC New 52 universe.  The writer seems to be trying to teach the reader something about bullies in an allegory.   But that does not really work when the fight setup is a fake.

Batman the Dark Knight #21

Batman the Dark Knight #21 is finally the end of the way to long Mad Hatter storyline.  Batman’s girlfriend died in the previous issue.   So for some reason Batman wants vengeance for her death and believes that Mad Hatter had something to do with the death.  So we see Batman “go crazy” he hunts down and beats up the Mad Hatter. Unfortunately this is not Frank Miller’s Dark Knight.  I have to say that nothing in this story needed to be covered over so many issues of the comic.  Not only was the story not original but it ended up as not mattering since the comic re-set in the last pane of the comic.  Anyway I hope no one else wasted their money on this comic the last few issues.

Detective Comics #22

Batman Detective Comics #22 seems to want to be the next Iron Man comic.  We have a mysterious high tech villain who is killing members of the Gotham Police Force.  The villain is foreshadowed by a meeting between Bruce Wayne and a new business man in town Caldwell who apparently has enough cash to just buy Wayne Tech.  But even before that we flash back to a previous story where the police thought that Batman was killing Police Officers and in fact this one police officer still thinks Batman did it despite evidence to the contrary.  Frankly at this point making the Gotham PD even more stupid is rather disappointing at this point in the history of Batman.  Anyway the backup story with the Man-Bat continues to be interesting and maybe it will actually go somewhere.  This story really should have had its own comic even if it was a one shot.

Dial H #14

Dial H #14 was very confusing.  The story makes no sense that suddenly the good guys are going from disaster world to disaster world fighting people convinced the main characters are vampires and destroyers of worlds.  I just think the creative team is just trying too hard.  After the chalk world story I was hoping the good weirdness of this comic would return and the comic would become good again.  I guess I was overly optimistic.

Earth 2 #14

Earth 2 #14 – I really enjoyed reading this comic.  The war with Steppenwolf and the country he seized.  Green Lantern, Doctor Fate and the Flash attacked first followed by a standoff with a “stealth force” of other super powered people.  They agree to work together when they are attacked by Steppenwolf’s hounds.  There was a very interesting conversation between Khan and General Foster.  Their talking was a bit of catch up as the Earth 2 storyline jumps ahead and character development for action.  So far this story continues to entertain.