Category Archives: Reviews
More DC Rejiggering Reviews
The second full week of new DC launches has come and gone, and I read through a few of the books. Unfortunately, I’m not rich enough to buy and read them all. And I’m not villainous enough to pirate these comics. So I’m just going to throw down with the books I legally bought and honestly read. I’ll be the Will Turner of comic books, not the Jack Sparrow. Since there are so many, these reviews will be a little bit shorter than my normal reviews. Consider them capsule reviews.
And none of them changed my opinion so far about DC half-assing this whole reboot/revamp/rejiggering. Some of the books were good, some were boring, and the best ones didn’t have anything to do with the new project.
Anyway, on with the show!
Batwoman #1
Batwoman: This was the best book I read this week thanks to amazingly beautiful art and a fun and exciting character. I’ve been a fan of Batwoman since she debuted, so I was eager to jump back into her adventures. This story picks up where we left off after Batwoman’s brief run in Detective Comics. A little time is spent catching us up to Kate Kane’s military origin, her possibly still-alive sister and the fact that she’s on the outs with her father; the same father who helped set her up as Batwoman in the first place.
Most of the issue dives right into the new adventure as Kate investigates a mysterious ghost woman who’s kidnapping children. She fought the ghost at the beginning, and then finds herself on its trail towards the end. Batwoman is written like a competent ass-kicker, while her civilian identity is a bit more personal. We also meet her love interest, Det. Maggie Sawyer from Gotham Central fame, and her future sidekick Bette Kane, her cousin and the superhero known as Flamebird.
I rather like the idea of taking the existing Flamebird, who has been around for a long time, and making her Kate’s cousin and potential sidekick. But Kate’s first going to make her earn that title.
The art by J.H. Williams the III is gorgeous. The art was the selling point on the Detective Comics run, and it’s a major selling point this time around too. Here, take a look.
I opted to not show you the pictures of Batwoman and Flamebird undressing. So Ha Ha!
The only thing that bugged me about this issue is the same thing that’s always bugged me about Batwoman: DC has never gotten around to fully integrating her into the DC Universe, especially Gotham City. If I recall correctly, Kate Kane chose the name ‘Batwoman’ to take after Batman. You’d think Bruce Wayne would have a thing or two to say about that…but it’s never happened. They’ve met, they’ve teamed up and he investigated her once…but we’ve never had the scene where they sit down and Batman tries to dissuade her from ‘joining the franchise’, as it were, or even becoming a crime fighter in Gotham. He’s usually on top of that sort of thing. Kate has met and hung out with Dick Grayson a few times, but still, nothing. Everyone just acts like Batwoman has always been around. It just sort of bugs me.
And one little note: this Batwoman solo series was supposed to be released months ago. But it just kept getting delayed, until DC finally just said ‘let’s make it a part of our September rejiggering’. So there’s absolutely nothing about this issue or this series that has anything to do with a rebooted DC Universe. Take that for what you will.
Batman and Robin #1
Batman and Robin: And so the horror of Robin and Tim Drake fans is upon us: Bruce Wayne is now accepting and welcoming his turdhead son Damian to be his Robin. The final shoe has dropped. Tim is not going back to being Bruce’s partner. It’s a sad day. And what’s worse, we’re losing the fun chemistry of Damian and Dick Grayson when Dick was Batman. I’d really warmed up to that duo. But it’s been cast aside to make way for Bruce Wayne as the one and only Batman. So what did I think of the first real team up of Bruce and Damian as Batman and Robin?
S’alright.
Definitely a fun Batman comic. We get some badass Bat-action, some cool tech, a nice save and some fun villains. We even get a mystery villain in the form of Nobody who’s slowly building himself up in the background. But the primary focus of this issue is Batman and the new Robin learning to work with each other. Damian was Robin under Dick Grayon’s Batman. But now Dick is gone and Bruce is back as Batman, and he’s decided to continue Damian’s training. Damian is Bruce’s son from…a really complicated back story. Basically, Bruce never knew he had a son until his mom suddenly thrust the boy upon him. Damian was raised by Ras Al Ghul and was training to be a ninja assassin.
He’s since turned away from that lifestyle to join his father’s fight against crime. But Damian is still very rough around the edges. He disobeys Batman’s orders and uses excessive force. Batman hopes to train that out of him. Dick was doing a good job with it, and Damian had really grown to respect Dick…but all of that has been tossed aside. Damian is back to being an arrogant little jackass. Even when Bruce is trying to honor his parents, Damian just keeps making snide comments about the silliness of honoring the dead. At least Bruce makes the big decision to stop honoring the night his parents died, and instead honor their wedding anniversary. Interesting idea, but we’ll have to wait and see how it actually effects Batman.
Damian is all about combining kicks with one-liners
I understand why Damian is Robin. It creates a stronger central conflict.
Tim was a perfect Robin, but there was no conflict between him and Batman. They were a great team. And while that might be good for fighting crime, it doesn’t make for dramatic reading. So now Robin is a little pisshead and a handful for Batman to deal with. I don’t like Damian…but I can appreciate the idea behind him. I’m going to give it a chance.
But Tim will always be the best Robin.
Demon Knights #1
Demon Knights: The Demon Etrigan is going to lead a ragtag band of medieval heroes in what looks like it could be a fun, thinking outside-the-box sort of book. Writer Paul Cornell is much beloved by the fans, and he shows a lot of spunk in putting together this team and giving us one of the weirdest new titles in the DC Rejiggering. Demon Knights takes place back in the wizards and dragons sort of age, so it’s going to have to stand on its own. Based on this first issue, that could prove to be really cool.
Though not a team yet, it just so happens that Etrigan, Madame Xanadu, Vandal Savage (a good guy, for a change), Shining Knight and a few others all happen to be at the same bar in the town of Little Spring when the evil queen’s army marches through. The Queen and Mordru have some evil plan in place, and it looks like our heroes will have to band together to stop them. It’s a nicely simple premise, so there’s a lot to build up. What will make these characters decide to team up? How will they treat one another? Will Jason Blood ever find out that his girlfriend is having an affair with his demon form, Etrigan? That was a funny twist. Blood and Etrigan may share the same body, but they don’t know what the other is doing.
I’m definitely going to stick around to see how much fun this book can have.
Green Lantern #1
Green Lantern: Much like the Batman titles, those in the green Lantern family of books have not been revamped or rejiggered in any way. Ignore the #1 on the cover, this issue continues right where the previous Green Lantern volume left off before the new wave of changes. I have no problem with that (other than adding to my half-assed theory) because I have been enjoying Geoff Johns’ Green Lantern stories. He almost single-handedly turned the character into one of DC’s best selling titles. So more power to him.
In this issue, Hal Jordan has been kicked out of the Green Lantern Corps and villain Sinestro has taken his place. The Guardians booted Hal for insubordination, and the ring chose Sinestro for reasons not yet known. Sinestro is the best sort of villain, in that he doesn’t see himself as a villain. Even when he was leading the fear-based, yellow-uniformed Sinestro Corps, he thought he was working for the good of the universe. So even though he doesn’t want to be a Green Lantern, he’s going to try it out and see what he makes of it. Sinestro has been brilliant under Johns’ pen, so I’m eager to see him in a starring role.
Especially when he’s this badass.
Death to his...own team?
Hal is also a little more interesting. I’ve never particularly been a fan of Hal, and have never seen anything truly charismatic about him. Now without his ring, he’s stuck trying to rediscover his life back on Earth. When you’re a Green Lantern and spend most of your life out in space being a superhero/cop, civilian life on Earth just doesn’t matter much anymore. He didn’t need money in the GLC, and the Corps provided everything else. But now he’s alone, doesn’t have a job and can’t pay the rent. Poor schmuck.
I think it will be kind of fun to see Hal struggling to lead a civilian life. He blows his big chance with Carol (who is still, thankfully, Star Sapphire), and makes an idiot of himself at least once. So it has a lot of potential. Unless, of course, the final page cliffhanger resets the status quo before too long. We shall see. Green Lantern has come through the rejiggering unscathed.
Red Lanterns #1
Red Lanterns: For a comic about the angriest sons of bitches in the universe, Red Lanterns is very subdued. It’s even a little wussy, frankly. Basically the leader of the Red Lanterns, Atrocitus, spends the issue in deep contemplation about his past and his place in the universe. Now that the Blackest Night is over, and the man who killed his people is dead, what’s he got left to do? Atrocitus has always been more than just a mindless brute, but write Peter Milligan really lays it on thick in this issue. Atrocitus’ face has even been softened from its previous skull-esque look. He thinks about his family and wonders if his rage can sustain the Red Lanterns anymore.
When Atrocitus says that he and his hated enemy are like lovers…he completely loses all of his badass cred.
So the book suffers a problem in tone. The Red Lanterns are supposed to represent rage! Where’s the awesomeness? Where’s the viciousness? Where’s the hate-fueled horror spreading through the universe!? Sure we get some action in the beginning, and the other team members are a little rough on each other, but the book is far too subdued. And like I said, Atrocitus is a little too wussy. He’s doubting himself, and as we all learned in the Green Lantern movie this summer, that does not make for a compelling protagonist. At least in the end he gives himself a new quest. I think something about stopping evil through the power of rage. Hopefully that will be entertaining. I want to like this series, being a big fan of the colored Lanterns, but this issue doesn’t give me much hope.
At least it had a prominent role for Dex-Starr!
The Internet loves cats
Yep, an evil, vicious, blood-spewing, Red Lantern kitty cat! What started as a one-off joke in a single panel has erupted into a full-on fanboy craze. I’ve heard Dex-Starr called the DC equivalent of ‘the cake is a lie’, and that’s probably a little true, but I’m definitely still enjoying the gag. He’s a fun idea, and he’s a cool visual. I’m not ashamed to admit I have a Dex-Starr action figure. Now I just want a Dex-Starr plushy.
Superboy #1
Superboy: Here we finally have a full and complete reboot/revamp of the Superboy concept…sort of. The basics stay the same: Superboy is a clone made from the combination of Superman’s DNA and human DNA. In the old DCU, the human DNA was from Lex Luthor. In this issue, it remains a mystery. Hopefully it won’t just be Luthor again. In this story, a secret organization has bred a Superman clone named Superboy. He’s been raised in a lab, as well as through some Virtual Reality simulations that have him experiencing life on a farm and school in Kansas. It’s a neat little introduction, though they could have done more to make it feel more scientific, I suppose.
That’s a very minor grip. I liked this issue and I think I’ll pick up more of Superboy. I kind of bought this one on a whim, since he’ll be a member of Teen Titans. Plus the two titles are written by the same writer, Scott Lobdell, so it looks like there will be some connectivity. Superboy is written very bare bones so far, since he’s just a science experiment in a tube for now. So characterization is pretty light. But this was a solid introduction to the character and his circumstances. We also meet three scientists at the lab: ‘Red’, the head honco/cute nerd girl; Rose Wilson, the assassin-for-hire and Dr. Umber, the whistleblower. They should add some nice supporting stories. We get to know a little about them, and I’m sure more will be coming.
‘Red’ is going to be revealed as Caitlin Fairchild, otherwise known as Fairchild from Gen 13. I never read Gen 13, so it doesn’t matter to me. But it’s a cool new use for the character, at least, now that DC is combining the normal DC with Wildstorm.
So all in all, I think Superboy is off to a good start.
Key Largo, Montiego, Baby why don’t we go…
Nothing bad could possibly happen here.
Welcome to Banoi. If the natives had a term of their own for Murphy’s Law, they’d have called it that instead.
Dead Island is gorgeous, particularly if you’re playing in high definition. You can practically feel the wind brushing your cheek, the sunlight warm on your face…And, of course, the hordes of decaying undead rushing forward to tear you to bits.
Whatever CAN be infested with zombies WILL be infested with zombies
Dead Island more or less explains itself. You’re on a tropical island in the midst of a zombie apocalypse. But that’s not what you’re here to read about, is it? You want to know how it plays.
That one’s easy. I’ll assume most of you have played Valve’s unforgettable Left 4 Dead before. If you took that game, gave it a better graphics engine, made it longer and gave it a storyline, you’d have something very similar to Dead Island. This game also incorporates the particularly brilliant Dead Rising 2 addition of creating or modifying your own weapons. Cover a baseball bat with razors, create explosive ammunition, run an electric current through a katana-sword, or make a flaming axe–You can do it. Finding the components to do so, however, can be a long process indeed.
Dead Island takes everything that was great about previous zombie games like Dead Rising and Left 4 Dead, and blends it all into a gorgeous, fluid open-world experience. Quests in this game range from finding supplies for survivors to escort-jobs. And the escort missions, as opposed to many other open-world games, really aren’t terrible in this one. Each playable character has his or her own skillsets, and a level-up system that allows the characters to earn better, more effective moves or stats throughout the game, giving that RPG elements that we all love.
The game has its flaws, however. It lacks the nugatory fun of L4D, focusing on a much larger campaign, rather than smaller, more bite-sized ones that can easily be played with friends and strangers. Dead Island’s multiplayer is brilliant, with each player contributing specific character skills to the group, but it’s not a game that complete strangers are likely to play through together.
The game also has numerous glitches that act up from time to time. Walls and floors open into black, swirling limbos for no apparent reasons. Motorcars get stuck, the GPS leads you astray, and people that you try to lead to safety can sometimes lose track of where they’re supposed to go. And the AI, of course, can be truly idiotic (I like to forgive the designers for that, however. They’re zombies, after all).
I'd be suspicious, but everyone knows zombies are too stupid to write.
The game is tremendous fun in multiplayer, but single-player zombie-slayers will find this game enjoyable as well. Everything this game does well, it does exceptionally well. I found it monstrously addictive. Hack, slash, shoot, stab, and throw your machete into a running zombie like Jason Voorhees on his best day.
Best Day EVER.
It’s a bloody good time, if you’ve got about 20+ hours. My final score: 4/5.
Review: Dead Island
Zombies to the left of me. Zombies to the right of me. Zombies fucking everywhere, man! The resort island of Banoi is crawling with zombies! But thankfully I’ve got a Tijauana Machete strapped to a car battery, and they’ve got such squishy heads. Wave after wave of the undead are struck down by my mighty weapons and awesome throwing arm, but Dead Island is far from a perfect game – even though killing zombies is one of my favorite past times.
That’s where I’m a viking!
Dead Island is messy, more than a little annoying and the only real joy is just having another co-op game to play with my friends. There are a lot of good aspects to the game, like the large maps and the skill trees, but those are overshadowed by the fact that the basic act of killing zombies can be so damn frustrating!
Review: Ultimate Comics: All-New Spider-Man #1
Replacing Spider-Man with a half-black, half-latino kid is the worst kind of liberal garbage in the history of all comics! It’s a vicious, bile-forming, rage-inducing, anti-America affront to all that is good and decent in this world! Glen Beck was right in claiming this was just the liberal media’s way of sucking up to President Obama and the First Lady. We should all get pitchforks and torches and march down to the Marvel officers and burn them asunder!
Ultimate Comics: All-New Spider-Man #1
No, I’m kidding. It’s actually a pretty cool comic, starting off the new Ultimate Spider-Man with a slow burn introduction. It’s written by the master of the slow burn, Brian Michael Bendis, so I’m more than willing to give him time to work his magic. That’s how the original Ultimate Spider-Man started, after all, and it was a fantastic story back in 2000.
Glen Beck really did say that, or something similar. And his anger made Bendis smile. A lot of people were freaking out when it was announced that ethnically-diverse 13-year-old Miles Morales would be taking over for white bread Peter Parker. They’re fools. I’m behind Miles 100%, even if I think they killed off Peter while his story was still very good and entertaining. Still, change is good and I trust Bendis to tell us a good and entertaining story. I wrote a blog post about Miles back when he was first announced, and I said it might be cool to see the themes and style of Spider-Man told through the eyes and world of a new character. It’s not like this is the first time that any superhero, Spider-Man included, has ever been replaced by someone new under the mask.
DC Has Half-Assed Their Rejiggering
Granted, I’ve only read three of their new #1 issues so far, but everything I’ve read or heard about online has pointed to the idea that DC Comics has absolutely wasted a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. What could have been a bombastic and exciting revitalization of some of the most iconic fictional characters of all time has instead been a boring, run-of-the-mill bunch of superhero comics. Consider me, so far, unimpressed and more than a little apathetic.
But I’ll keep reading out of a general love of comics and extreme curiosity.
So far, I’ve read Justice League #1 (which I reviewed last week), Action Comics #1 and Green Arrow #1. There were many more new issues released this past week, but my comic shop was out of all the good ones. Plus I just didn’t care for the ones they had left, like Men of War or Static Shock. The three issues I did read, I think, provide a pretty clear look at some of the changes and styles of the new DC Revamp, or as I like to call it, the Rejiggering.
The new Justice League has their priorities straight - hot chick out in front
Justice League gave us a look at Batman and Green Lantern, two heroes whose lives have barely been touched by the Revamp. It was the very first issue of the Rejiggering, shipping all by itself in the very first week. You can read how disappointed I was with that comic in my review. Action Comics #1 shows us Superman’s new attitude. He’s sort of the same character, just dialed down a notch. And his classic relationships with the likes Jimmy Olsen and Lois Lane have been set back to square one. Green Arrow has undergone a complete revamp. He’s keeping the same color and bow and arrow motif, but he has an entirely new attitude and status quo.
So we have three separate takes of this new comic world: barely changed heroes, sort of changed hero and completely changed hero. And all three have been boring.
DC Comics has this incredible opportunity to reinvent its characters for new audiences. They’ve hyped this new Rejiggering all Summer long, and the comic community is on board. We were all ready to see what new and exciting stuff DC had to offer. Sure there would be some fans who would be bummed about losing their continuity, but we all knew that if the books were good, we wouldn’t care in the end. This was DC’s chance to reinvent its characters, to make them feel shiny and new. That’s what they told us would happen. But none of the comics I’ve read so far have felt ‘new’ or ‘exciting’. Sure, some of the ideas are new, but they aren’t utilized in such a way as to really take advantage of the hype.
The comics I’ve read have either done too little or too much. None of them have felt just right.
Revamps work. Ultimate Marvel was a huge success, when Marvel took all of its popular characters and revamped them into more modern takes on its classic heroes, while keeping them true to their character. But rather than go with a full revamping like Ultimate Marvel, DC has instead half-assed this project. Some continuity has changed, some has stayed the same, some has been tweaked; it would take an encyclopedia to fully understand it all. Some concepts are brand new to each series, while some of the more classic elements remain the same, and we’re just supposed to rely on our previous knowledge, I guess.
Take Action Comics #1.
It's a brave new world, where Superman wears a T-shirt and jeans
This is our first look at the new Superman status quo. You don’t get much more iconic than Superman. And here was a chance for writer Grant Morrison to reintroduce the world to its greatest superhero, to characters we’ve known and loved for decades. Would we see Superman’s first heroic rescue? What about his first time meeting Lois Lane? Would Morrison have an exciting new spin on the villainous Lex Luthor?
Nope! None of that!
Morrison throws us into a story that seems already in progress and just expects us to catch up. That can be hard, considering Morrison’s cerebral writing style. For those who don’t know, Grant Morrison is one of the most popular comic book writers. He’s known for far-out ideas that seem both insane and brilliant. Like ‘sentient metaphors’ or Batman of Zur-En-Arrh, the idea that Bruce Wayne hard-wired his brain so that if he was ever mentally compromised, his psyche would reboot into this safety personality, which is that of a really hardcore Batman. Crazy stuff. But it was awesome!
Plus, Morrison is famous for what I consider to be the best Superman story of all time: All-Star Superman. In this book, Morrison took Superman at his most basic and told several fantastic and whimsical stories of the Man of Steel! He battled living suns, answered the Riddle of the Sphinx, revealed his secret identity to Lois Lane and interviewed Lex Luthor for The Daily Planet from prison.
The absolute best Superman story ever
So Morrison gets Superman. He gets all the classic Superman characters! I picked up Action Comics #1 almost exclusively to see what Grant Morrison would do with the canon Superman comic. Remember, Superman debuted in the very first Action Comics #1 in the 1930s. It ran for more than 900 issues before DC decided to do this revamp. So this is an iconic issue!
And Morrison throws us a jumbled mess of a comic that tries to cram in far too much, and wastes every opportunity it has to tell the ‘first’ Superman comic of the new Revamp.
The story begins towards the start of Superman’s superhero career. We’re told that he’s been around for six months now. So there goes all the excitement of seeing the world in awe at Superman. He’s been around for awhile, and the city of Metropolis absolutely hates him. The police department and the military chase him throughout the entire issue, trying to kill him at every opportunity they get. The issue starts with Superman arriving in his half-assed costume to crash some elitist party of some uncouth businessmen. Since this is the start of Superman’s career, we’ve been led to believe that Ma Kent (who’s dead in this continuity) never made him his classic costume. So he’s just thrown on a Superman T-shirt, a red cape, some blue jeans and a pair of work boots.
Superman jumps up to the rooftop party (he’s new, so he hasn’t learned to fly yet), and terrorizes Glen Glenmorgan, a very corrupt businessman. The cops show up and Superman just intimidates them, because this Superman is for the people. He knows that the law doesn’t count the same for the rich and the poor, and he’s here to represent the poor. So decides to scare some confessions out of Glenmorgan by tossing him off a building.
It's OK, Supes catches him
So the guy is scared shitless, but Superman lets him go. He can’t arrest the guy, after all. Superman just sort of scares him a bit then runs off with the cops in pursuit. As he’s running, Superman comes upon an old apartment building that’s being torn down – with the impoverished residents still inside! Superman grabs the wrecking ball and uses it to take out a pair of tanks that the military has sent after him. Superman gets zapped and blasted and knocked around, but he’s saved by the impoverished residents, who block the tanks and give Superman a chance to jump away.
Superman is really into catching things this issue
For you see, Superman isn’t as strong yet as he’ll eventually become. Not only can’t he fly, but he’s also not as invulnerable. He can get bruised and even bleed if he’s hit hard enough. This I like. I’m so far digging this new take on Superman. He’s got some growing up to do, some learning. And he’s kind of proactively badass. It’s just not very iconic, I guess is my problem. This is Superman we’re talking about. He’s supposed to be this world’s first superhero. But in this comic, there’s nothing special about him. Just a tough guy helping a bunch of people out or terrorizing fat cats.
We’re also introduced to Lex Luthor during all of this. And again, I’m less than impressed.
Buy Volt Cola! It's Lex Luthor guaranteed!
All we learn about Luthor is that he’s an expensive consultant to the military, who’s helping them to capture Superman. He’s behind the tanks, the use of the wrecking ball on the impoverished residents and apparently set up the Glenmorgan thing too. Lex also gives a cool speech to help us understand why he doesn’t like Superman. Have you heard the story of how when frogs were introduced to Australia, they ended up wiping out the native animals? I think that was on The Simpsons too. But basically Lex is going with the whole idea that an alien lifeform introduced into a biosphere will ultimately destroy that biosphere. I’ve always enjoyed the more intelligence based reasons for Lex hating Superman. Though in this comic, Lex is very ho-hum about the whole thing.
He seems far more interested in his soda.
Goes down smooth
There’s a brief interlude where Clark returns home to his crummy apartment. He puts a flannel shirt over his Superman T-shirt, ruffles up his hair and puts on his glasses. The transformation to boring old Clark Kent is nicely done. He chats with his landlady a bit and they talk about how he writes important stories for the newspaper. Not The Daily Planet, mind you. In this world, Clark works for its rival The Daily Star…for some reason. He pays the landlady his rent and then makes an excuse to take off. He calls his best friend Jimmy Olsen. Despite working for rival newspapers, Clark and Jimmy are apparently pals. I know the feeling, actually. One of my best pals works for my rival newspaper. Weird. Anyway, we get our first look at Jimmy and Lois Lane, who do work for The Daily Planet. And we learn that not only at Clark and Lois not married, but she’s barely heard of him.
Oh my God that hair! Look at his freakin' hair!
I have no problem with this change. If DC wants to explore a single Superman, I’m all for it. Spider-Man has survived the end of his marriage to Mary Jane (with tepid results), I’m curious what we’ll see with a new single Clark Kent. Though from what I understand, he’s still going to have some romantic tension with Lois, who’s going to be dating some new character. That will be all manner of blegh. Regardless, this was s stupid introduction to Lois and Jimmy. That right there is their first panel, our first look at the new them. They don’t even look like professionals, but I guess Lois is in reporter-mode. They look like college interns getting themselves into trouble.
Lois and Jimmy are on a train when Lois spies some known crook, Gus “Guns” Grundis. Lois, being the intrepid reporter, follows him onto the train and sort of slowly sneaks up behind him as the train starts rocketing forward. I guess she wants an interview? Or just to confront him? I’m not sure. Somehow we find out that the train is out of control. Something to do with Luthor and Glenmorgan’s plan, but it doesn’t make any sense to me. Somehow Luthor knows that Lois is on the train, and somehow they know that Superman’s going to try and save the train even though he’s already home and changed back into Clark Kent. And somehow Clark already knows that the train is out of control.
Thankfully, Superman saves the day and catches something else.
Speaking of Spider-Man...
In the end, it’s revealed that Luthor planned for this to happen and planned for Superman to get in front of the train. Because he alludes to the train being the ‘biggest bullet in the world’. The now weakened Superman is knocked out by the train and he’s taken into custody. The end.
Like I said, this issue was jam-packed with both the familiar and the new. All the classic characters reappear, but none of them are given a fitting introduction for a first issue. They just sort of appear as the story goes on, crammed into panels without any fanfare or importance. And this was a huge waste, in my opinion. Instead of wowing us with Superman or giving us a chance to either like Lois and Jimmy or hate Lex, they all just sort of appear. Instead of getting dramatic introductions as is fitting a new revamp and a new #1, Lex just sort of shows up drinking a can of soda. Boring. Dumb and boring. Grant Morrison wasted this great opportunity by giving us far too much to deal with in a first issue, with a lot of it already depending on our previous knowledge of the characters.
On the flip side, we have Green Arrow #1.
Green Arrow #1
As I said before, Green Arrow gets a complete revamp in this Rejiggering. He’s got a new status quo, new attitude, new costume and a new supporting cast. All that stays the same is the name, the color and the bow and arrows. But whereas Grant Morrison gave us too much, making it boring, writer J.T. Krul gives us too little, and a lot of it boring and underdeveloped or underexplained.
Though I will say that I liked Green Arrow #1 and might even consider picking up the series. The new status quo is one I can definitely get behind. In this world, Oliver Queen, the Green Arrow, is like a younger, more badass Steve Jobs. He’s the millionaire creative mind behind Queen Industries, which seems like some kind of Apple-esque company. People mention their Qphones instead of iPhones, and Ollie is working on some project called Q-Core. Then he uses all of these gadgets (plus the bows and arrows) to become a vigilante. He stops bad guys and saves people while living in a high tech world. This is an idea I can definitely get behind. Our world is obsessed with its nifty gadgets, like the iPad, so it seems fitting that we turn that sort of mindset into a superhero. The old Green Arrow was a liberal-douchebag with a host of bastard children, sidekicks, a stupid goatee and a Robin Hood fetish.
Of course no one will recognize that goatee, Ollie
So I’m definitely behind this new Green Arrow motif. He’s got some pals working in a computer hub and feeding him information while he’s out fighting crime. Ollie also tries to help run things at Queen Industries, though it gets confusing the difference between Queen Industries and Q-Core. I guess they’re separate enterprises within the same Queen umbrella company. But they don’t really explain it very well. Hopefully it’ll get a better explanation as the series goes on. Adding board room intrigue to a superhero title could prove to be a lot of fun.
Anyway, the boring part about this issue comes with the new super-villains. Ollie is in Paris – for some reason – and he’s tracked down a trio of super-powered bad guys in order to stop them from causing just a lot of general mischief. The trio don’t really seem to have any grand plan other than going to a party yacht and maybe roughing up the place. The villains are new (as far as I know) and they’re named Dynamix, Doppelganger and Supercharge. We also get to see Green Arrow’s cool new costume.
Can you spot the villains? Not really? Well there's a reason for that...
I like the costume. Apparently it’s based on the Smallville Green Arrow look, but I don’t care or can’t even really tell. It’s just a cool, modern take on something Green Arrow might wear if he wasn’t so in love with Robin Hood.
Anyway, the rest of the issue is an extended fight scene with Green Arrow vs. the trio of super-villains. Arrow’s team, Jax and Naomi, feed him information and help him take control of the yacht while he uses his various trick arrows to take down the three bad guys. But they are the most boring bad guys imaginable. My God are they dull. First of all, no costumes. Second of all, stupid names. And third of all, boring powers. Dynamix is really strong, Supercharge has electricity powers and Doppelganger sort of grows extra arms, legs and an extra face. They are nobodies. Complete and utter nobodies. They don’t look interesting and they don’t do anything interesting. Ollie even spends part of the issue telling them that they’re not villains, they’re losers.
I can't disagree with him
There’s a throwaway line or two about how these are ‘modern day’ villains, where the public sort of idolizes them as trashy celebrities rather than viewing them as criminals. They film their crimes and post the videos on Youtube, making them viral sensations. But nothing is done with that idea beyond a mention. For the spectacular first issue of the new Green Arrow series, DC gives him the absolute worst opponents. They have stupid super-powers, and if these nobodies can have powers, it sort of negates any importance having super-powers might have. Remember, as part of this revamp, super-powered people have only been around for about 5 years, and the world is afraid of them. Super-powers should be something special. But nope.
It gets even worse with the final page cliffhanger. When Dynamix and Supercharge get locked up, they get rescued by…an entire team of nobody losers!
Oh no! Not the League of Casually Dressed Hipsters!
Ugh. How boring! How super fucking boring! The writer, Krul, does a good job setting up Green Arrow’s new status quo, his look and his style…but he pits the Archer up against the lamest villains imaginable. No creativity whatsoever went into crafting these villains. Grant Morrison put more thought into the name Glen Glenmorgan than Krul put into creating any of these villains. Who fucking cares if they go after Green Arrow? How much you want to bet he’ll shoot arrows at them and call it a day?
Along with the board room drama from earlier, we’re given a few more peeks into the world behind the mask. Ollie isn’t CEO of Queen Industries, but he’s in charge of Q-Core. Again, I don’t know what this means. He pals around with Jax and Naomi out of costume, and explains to Jax why he’s Green Arrow. In the original stories, he was a drunken playboy who got lost at sea and had to play Robinson Crusoe for awhile, then came back to civilization with a bow and arrow and decided to do some good. This time, we just get some vague allusions to some earlier event.
At least the beard is gone
So all in all, Green Arrow #1 is an OK start to the new series, it’s just got some incredibly boring elements to it. Had Krul given us some real villains, this book might have been great. Instead, it’s merely OK.
But in summation, neither of these issues, nor Justice League #1, lives up to the hype of a revamped DC Universe. Nothing feels iconic. Nothing feels grand or exciting. It just feels like business-as-usual. That’s not what I expected, that’s not what DC should have done. This is the biggest publishing even they’ve done in years and they’re falling flat on their faces!
I’ll stick with it for awhile, probably, and I’ll review any other new issues I already plan on picking up. We can check in on Batman, Aquaman and the Teen Titans later this month!
