Category Archives: DC
Review: Teen Titans #25
You can always count on Teen Titans to have more than a few things wrong with each issue. Sometimes it’s an overabundance of editor’s notes pointing you towards some other series. Or maybe it’s a lot of long, boring, expositional dialogue. Or maybe it includes a few random cutaways to villains who will never appear again (the book loves to do that!). It’s always something with this comic. Teen Titans has been written by the same guy with what I assume is the same agenda since the start of the New 52, and writer Scott Lobdell hasn’t gotten any better. This new issue flings our heroes far into the future, into outer space, to meet a bunch of random space dudes and sort of maybe start to learn the secret origin of Kid Flash.
Teen Titans #25
Turns out he’s kind of a murderous monster with more blood on his hands than your average Manson. Our teenage heroes, ladies and gentlemen!
Comic Rating: 3/10 – Bad.
Sometimes I think I’m being too hard on Teen Titans, but then I read the rest of the comics I buy each week and the difference is staggering. Modern comics today usually focus on the character, and leave a lot of the exposition to the art. We readers don’t need to be spoonfed every little piece of plot. But Lobdell on Teen Titans looooves exposition. He loves having his characters explain everything as awkwardly and as stuntedly as possible. Teen Titans #25 is a fine example. And it’s made even worse by Lobdell doing most of the expositing via thought bubbles. Freakin’ thought bubbles! Those haven’t been in style since the 90s! But Teen Titans #25 is full of them, from multiple different characters. It’s deadening.
To say nothing of the actual plot and characters involved. Bart Allen’s origin has no connection to anything we’ve ever seen before in DC Comics or the Teen Titans – or at least that’s how it appears so far. So Lobdell is pretty much making it up as he goes along, whether it’s the names of random space mercenaries or space police agencies or futuristic technology. He’s on a roll just throwing out new ideas and concepts with absolutely no grounding, unless you count the Teen Titans themselves, who have never been particularly grounded.
Teen Titans #25 is another fine example of why this series is as dull and as flat as a piece of wood. Join me after the jump for a full synopsis and more review.
The 6 Coolest Native American Superheroes
We here at Henchman-4-Hire are firm believers that every holiday should stick to its designated time period. All those doors in The Nightmare Before Christmas exist for a reason! Christmas needs to wait its turn, because there’s a very important and valid holiday in November: Thanksgiving!
Even if we all can pretty much agree that the historical First Thanksgiving was probably nothing like what we were led to believe growing up. Pilgrims and Indians coming together in peace and harmony to feast on a big, plump turkey on November 28? It’s probably more fictional than Bigfoot. But let’s not worry about that now, let’s take a look at the 6 coolest Native American superheroes – and thankfully, not all of them are wearing super-powered feathered headdresses.
Everything Wrong with Man of Steel
It’s too bad the Cinema Sins people only stick to factual (and sometimes opinionated) errors, because I thought there was a lot more wrong with Man of Steel. Still, enjoy!
They forgot the biggest one! When Superman is holding Zod’s head at the end to keep him from killing that family with heat vision, why didn’t Zod just move his eyes to the side? When using heat vision, can you only look straight ahead? Is that a thing?
See, I could write for Cinema Sins.
Hench-Sized Comic Book Reviews – 11/23/13
The biggest draw of this week’s comics would have to be X-Men and Uncanny X-Men. Both are fresh of Battle of the Atom, and both get right down to business of telling entertaining X-Men stories. And the fact that both issues focus on lesser tiered X-Men is just a hoot. Let Wolverine have his solo titles, I want to read about Karima Sharpandar and Benjamin Deeds!
Not that the rest of this week’s comics are anything to scoff at. Avengers started to wrap up Infinity, while Wonder Woman is still in the early stages of her next story arc. One of the biggest issues this week is Batwoman, where new writer Marc Andreyko takes over from the bombastic team of J.H. Williams III and W. Haden Blackman. Unfortunately, Andreyko’s Zero Year tie-in leaves a lot to be desired. But like I said, both X-books are strong. Comic Book of the Week goes to Uncanny X-Men for an issue focusing on new recruit Benjamin Deeds, and his oddly The Graduate-esque team up with Emma Frost.
Comic Reviews: Avengers #23, Batwoman #25, Uncanny X-Men #14, Wonder Woman #25, and X-Men #7.
Robin Watch: Batsgiving
There hasn’t been too much Robin news lately – other than that day everybody mistakenly thought the new Robin was going to be black – but I’m still keeping a close watch on who might be the next Robin. As you may recall, the leading contenders are Carrie Kelley, an alternate reality version of the female Robin that appeared in Frank Miller’s classic The Dark Knight Returns, or Harper Row, the street-smart electrical engineer groomed by DC Comics’ current golden boy Scott Snyder.
Speaking of Snyder, he Tweeted a picture yesterday teasing the upcoming new weekly series Batman Eternal.
Why did they invite freakin’ Professor Pyg to dinner!?
The picture is full of Easter Eggs, like the little robin sitting on the back of Titus the dog, Alfred in a straight jacket, possibly a blonde Nightwing, and the first look at New 52 Stephanie Brown (she’s the one in the purple hoodie). So it’s definitely a neat picture. But our interest is in what it means for the new Robin.
If you look at everyone in the picture, you’ll see Harper Row plain as day in a very important position. I think Carrie Kelley might be that orange-haired woman sitting between Catwoman and Batwing, but it’s hard to tell. She’s not wearing her normally signature glasses. Heck, that might not even be Carrie Kelley.
But that’s definitely Harper with the blue streak in her hair sitting next to Red Robin. She’s the one sitting directly behind Batman. She’s also holding a drumstick in her hand, making her the only other person eating Thanksgiving dinner with Batman. She’s also sitting among Red Robin, (a possibly blonde) Nightwing and Stephanie Brown, so clearly that’s the ‘Robin Table’, as it were.
Maybe I’m reading too much into the picture, or maybe I’m reading exactly what Snyder wants me to read. His Tweet was bragging about all the Easter Eggs in that picture, after all, Easter Eggs for the Batman books in 2014. So I suppose we’ll still just have to wait and see.
This has been another edition of Robin Watch!
