Comic Book Reviews for Recent DC Releases

"Yeah, can we just try to drive home the point that Aquaman's a total bad-ass every chance we can? Great. Thanks."

JUSTICE LEAGUE #14

Written by: 

Geoff Johns

Art by: 

Tony S. Daniel

Richard Friend

Backup Art by: 

Gary Frank

Cover by: 

Tony S. Daniel

Richard Friend

Have fans had enough shenanigans to last a lifetime with this hacked-together driftwood that DC is producing with recent issues of Justice League? You know you're in trouble when your main event story arc is so waif-like it feels like it's being bullied by the backup story with Shazam! (which for some reason makes one think there are sick times in store for the beleaguered Billy Batson). The art, as ever, is pretty in a refined sugar kind of way.

Honestly, there isn't much to say for the story of the Justice League up to this point. Stuff is happening, sure, but there's rarely any extension of tension in the content.  The whole thing feels forced like absolutely nothing else Geoff Johns has ever written, and much like the Star Wars prequels, these issues cannot be undone.  They're canon now, we can only move on.  It feels like Johns is removed even further from his comfort zone with the (temporary) removal of Hal Jordan from the team, and the focus on a (forced forced forced forced) relationship between Wonder Woman and Superman felt like it lacked the passion it might have had with, say, years of actual build-up, as it has been rumbling in the background of the main arc for a minute now.  But the final page/panel of this issue is the greatest and most frustrating tease of all, as it seems to imply that something has been going on under the surface of these hollow automaton pose-a-thon caricatures the entire time. 

But that's just a tease, maybe. Nothing to see here yet, kids, move along.

6.5/10

What is this goofy mess? Superman looks, like, twelve years old. Heck, Jason Todd has more crow's feet than him.

RED HOOD AND THE OUTLAWS #14

Written by: 

Scott Lobdell

Art by: 

Pascal Alixe

Cover by: 

Kenneth Rocafort 

A genuinely guilty pleasure of this reviewer is the smart and slick surprise sleeper, Red Hood and the Outlaws.  Whether taking on Obese Asian Mob Mistresses, fighting smoke ninjas, or taking on alien menaces, the jumping bean of the major arcs in this series seems to lead us into a nostalgic singalong.  With Starfire (amnesiac nymphomaniac alien princess) and Arsenal (that, um, goofy bro with the trick arrows and a big mouth) backing up Jason Todd (Robin II, aka Red Hood, aka dead man walking) in his misadventures, there's no way to successfully summarize the main thrust or moral to this comic book. And it wouldn't work any other way.  That... and Pascal Alixe's art could make anything look cool.

Red Hood and the Outlaws succeeds where many other titles along the same vein or corner of the DC New 52 essentially fail.  The failure of Teen Titans, or The Ravagers, or whatever other mess being spawned by Image-hacks of Christmas Past, is that the overarching plot crushes any real chance at characterization, which in turn kills investment in the overarching plot.  Instead of fleshed-out dialogue and events, flattened stick-puppets in flashy costumes react verbosely again and again to some (likely misunderstood) villain with nigh-infinite powers and an endless array of schemes within plots within schemes, amounting to bupkiss, since nobody involved is easy to access or relate to.  

In Red Hood and the Outlaws, we're put in third person limited omniscient perspective with essentially a cast of three characters, and each character's motivations are explored alongside the demons and angels of their personal backstories that inevitably pop up.

With this issue, Superman shows up and the standard superhero slugfest ensues. Except it doesn't feel forced or stupid. Scott Lobdell has grown increasingly comfortable with this comic, as evidenced by the spunky manner in which he chooses to approach it. It's not stale, it's not automatically painful, and where it lags, Pascal's art kicks in and distracts. Well played, overall, and consistent with what it promises.

8/10

 
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You know you're in trouble when the slobbering alien starts firing yellow dwarfs at you.

GREEN LANTERN NEW GUARDIANS #14

Written by: 

Tony Bedard

Art by: 

Aaron Kuder

Cover by: 

Aaron Kuder

Variant Cover by: 

Aaron Kuder

Good old Kyle Rayner. More approachable than any other Green Lantern in the sector, and possibly the savior of the entire universe, soon enough. For some reason I have a soft spot for Green Lantern: New Guardians. It's quirky and moves at a brisk pace, exploring the potential for cosmic DCU done right. The art is consistent and quiet at times, then dazzles with the technological wonders of computer content playing with the chromatic content generated in the Green Lantern sector of the DCU New 52. It feels less forced than some titles and characters, you aren't forced to jettison decades of hard-won memories in the nostalgia fields just to enjoy the actions taking place. Characters are explored, up-sized, fleshed-out, and turned around each issue, and the cast of characters is such that the protagonist of any story might be explored tangentially to the overarching plot, namely the Guardians of the Universe are evil as hell and have raised a Third Army, rendered Hal Jordan and Sinestro moot, and are even now finding new ways to make readers hate them every issue. It's all building up to something big, and the spine of that mega-event is New Guardians. Expect its spotlight to brighten soon.

8.5/10

The classic "Fat Mobster type strikes a deal with a Demon", you know, the usual. No bigs.

DC COMICS PRESENTS #14: Blue Devil & Black Lightning 

Written by: 

Marc Andreyko

Art by: 

Robson Rocha

Cover by: 

Ryan Sook

It's nice that DC has seen fit to use DC Comics Presents as a testing ground for all the characters that don't get their own continuous series.  Black Lightning had an interesting investment in the Final Crisis storyline of universes gone past, and Blue Devil found himself in the breakroom of the Justice League Headquarters not a few times over the years.  Now the two of them team up to stop a demon and his soul-trafficking mobster with a skin condition and a glandular problem. Overall the art gets kitschy when everything slows down, but in certain pages the kinetics of it give the action an enhancement. Not a bad story, but by the numbers with just enough developments to keep a reader reading. Maybe.

7.5/10

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Joker's back. And he's playing mind games with Catwoman to an absolutely ridiculous extent.

CATWOMAN #14

Written by:

Ann Nocenti

Art by:

Rafael Sandoval

Jordi Tarrogona

Cover by:

Trevor McCarthy

This issue of Catwoman is aggravating, due to its ties to the current crossover in Bat-titles "Death in the Family"... yet compelling in its own right. This particular issue goes with the new format of all Batman related titles, namely "Let's all have a heart-to-heart with the Joker", better known as "Death of the Family", wherein the Joker, having had his face surgically removed off-camera, somehow develops superhuman-like powers, not unlike Wolverine, where he can simultaneously be everywhere at once and at the same time develop elaborate death traps, break the neck of every policeman in a station save one, kidnap Alfred, recreate every single action he'd ever made up until this time and monologue until you want to claw his face back off. Here he continues with his amazing new Joker powers by conning Catwoman into paralyzing herself and get a bunch of bat-symbols all over her.  Nothing really feels like it's heading anywhere, and by the time we get to our stop on this ride, we may have already fallen asleep. Catwoman started fresh and still has a bit of that in it, but not for quirky cross-overs that feel like "talkies".

7/10

All the overlapping conversations of 100 Bullets are finally revealed in Wonder Woman, for some reason.

WONDER WOMAN #14

Written by:

Brian Azzarello

Art by:

Tony Akins

Dan Green

Cover by:

Cliff Chiang

Variant Cover by:

Cliff Chiang

Brian Azzarello is doing a good job with Wonder Woman and retooling the mythology of her new place in the DC Universe. The overall reverence for the gods and goddesses, fitting, one would suppose, is the circulatory system that makes this book function. Gone are all the mismatched peculiarities and baggage of the previous volumes, now at least her motives are clear and present. The interactions with all the offshoots of deity and godlings and established scions has been ongoing since this series began, and it seems to sit in its own remote location in the DCU New 52, far away from continuities that would muss it up. This is positive, for the time being, allowing Azzarello to enrich Diana in the manner in which she deserves. Where the Justice League's Wonder Woman feels more teeth-gritting and over-archetyped, the Wonder Woman in her own title is more regal in her bearing, fearless but not beligerrant, and overall inhabiting both her godly namesake and another thing entirely, a far cry from when she was a gimmicky drama queen or a murderous misandrist.

9/10

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Penultimate Impressions to Avengers vs. X-Men (with Spoilers)

So, imagine for a moment that you're a nanoscout in an editorial bullpen at Marvel Comics. It's somewhere around the mid to late 1970's and you're dealing with a fellow that used to be a gofer but can call himself a writer now, really and truly.  This sparkly fellow, who lives and breathes these mutants through and through, is Chris Claremont, the originator of The Phoenix Saga, at his absolute prime. It's the prime of Miss Jean Grey as The Phoenix, as well, coming out of the darkness. Immense forty-foot tall avatars of Len Wein and Bob Harras are breathing down everyone's neck over the death of the Broccoli People, whose tiny fictional solar system was snuffed out by that fiery telekinetic redhead in shockingly descriptive detail not too long ago.  Claremont, glowing with all the vim and vinegar allotted to him in his contract (Stan Lee sits in an immense hot tub on the next level up in the building, charging outrageous parties to the petty cash box and using such contracts to light his expensive imported cigars) explains how the rehabilitation of Jean Grey will occur.

The sevenfold veil of Marvel editorial eidolons parts, and a booming voice issues forth, shaking everyone present to the rims of their bellbottoms, as a three-faced robed figure emerges in hard-light hologram.

SHE KILLED BILLIONS, the Living Tribunal states in precise monotone, SHE MUST BE PUT IN JAIL FOREVER OR KILLED. THE COMICS CODE AUTHORITY IS EXPLICIT IN THIS REGARD.

Claremont, crushed, rushes into his tiny office cave and hastily works out the final outfit Jean Grey will wear. It'll be the Shiar that pass judgment on her, yes, those pristine imperial scum.  She deserves a second chance.  He imbued her with powers after a creature that had resurrection built into its function, for crying out loud.  As ever, Claremont knows, the important bit is to approach these characters as if they were well established actors providing an excellent play. He had to have the motivations down, or it would fall flat.

Suicide by laser on the Blue Area of the Moon. Cyclops, crushed, to be consoled soon by a clone who he would have a son with.  That son would be thrust into a dark future where Apocalypse, genetic supremacist mutant, is destined to rule.  That son would return older than his father, much later, after Jean Grey's return ("Hey guys? She was on the bottom of this river! In an energy cocoon! Nyah.") to raise the first mutant born since M Day, when almost all the mutants lost their powers. That mutant's name would be Hope and the Phoenix would come for her.

But not without the process being drawn out among multiple titles for nearly a year.

These guys see Xavier rollin'. They hatin'.

It should be said, the maximized cross-over super-event Avengers vs. X-Men has gone directions that not all that many readers predicted (unless, of course, they proceed in that joyless endeavor of "reading ahead" in the various teasers and previews) but in more recent issues has come to the dilemma of all such major universe-rattling plots, the diffusion of tension.

Captain Britain, eternally upstaged by his betters

After the Phoenix is splintered by Iron Man's Phoenix Buster, five mutants are chosen to live in a Utopia and have their authority questioned by the entrenched power structures.  Find out what happens when heroes stop being polite, and start posturing in angry ideologies that shape the world.  The Real World: Marvel 616.

If you're just joining us, Emma Frost gently pushed Namor into attacking Wakanda to rescue Hope (and, um, drown thousands of innocent civilians in the process), and the Avengers did their best and take the fellow down.  Succeeding, Namor's portion of the Phoenix Force was transferred to the remaining four.  When, during a rescue mission, Spider-Man taunts Magik and Colossus into cancelling each other out ("I'll stop you... with the power of laughter!" or something to that effect), Cyclops and a newly rekindled (no pun intended) homicidal megalomaniac Emma Frost are the last... um, Phoenixes standing.

And that's the real shame of the matter.  The Phoenix has always embodied a fusion of opposites. The message that comes across in this crossover is that the pathway to hell is always paved with good intentions. With good must come bad, and with life, death.  To imagine that the powers would corrupt these noble heroes (who, admittedly, have been shifting more and more into a morally gray area) is to discount the efforts of Charles Xavier, for decades reiterating that peace and reason are the solution to the turmoil and murk that the 616 Universe often finds itself grappling with. And that's just the murk that results from convolutions of plot since Claremont started the Phoenix rollercoaster/death of Jean Grey/clone/future storylines that ground most plots into dust until more recent efforts gave the teams and characters new and more energized focus. Like a laser. Ahem.

The idea of Cyclops being a myopic self-centered god-like being is about as fun as it sounds.

Where does Xavier really stand in all this?  He's been shuffled into the background of each and every X-Men title (notable exception being his visit to Wolverine's new school) for quite some time. Prior to the maddeningly and surprisingly dull Skrull Invasion, he had a place at the seat of the Marvel Illuminati, but perhaps, without crippling him again, or outright killing him (remember Bishop? How he shot Professor X once? How he's nowhere to be seen for any of this?), the creative teams have seen fit to stomp his dream of peaceful coexistence, the Utopia that the Phoenix Five would have had, if they'd been able to maintain control (insert What If? issue HERE), into so much dust.

There's a moment, and maybe you'll catch it. Here...

The only other time I've seen Cap cry is that time Red Skull gouged his eyes out on the steps of Capitol Hill.

Remember, Cyclops was Xavier's star pupil from teen years, and Wolverine the dangerous Giant-Size-come-lately rogue (much older than Captain America, even). For all the posturing done, it's been nearly but not completely subtle, the shift that those two characters have undergone in recent years, Cyclops the militant edge in league with Magneto, thrice-time reformed supervillain (himself plagued with legions of hackneyed clones), and Wolverine, the immortal-by-way-of-popularity, the killer with a soft streak, rebuilding the school and adding a Baby Krakoa.      

So, after so many years of Danger Rooms and such, when imbued with the Phoenix Force, Cyclops is corrupted.  So it goes. Emma Frost is to blame, perhaps.  Or perhaps these years since Jean Grey's final death, at the hands of a faux Magneto that ripped New York apart, had changed Scott Summers too much, and his investment in Hope was too great. Or perhaps the Phoenix Force is too much for oldboy. It works. It works on multiple levels. And for that, we have the current authors involved to thank.

What nobody mentions is, Hope's been listening to Wu Tang Clan during her training sessions.

Each issue of Avengers vs. X-Men is plotted by the same five writers that have taken turns scripting, issue by issue.  Jason Aaron's turn at scripting provided ample comfort with the mutants, and clean dialogue. Brian Michael Bendis took a more action-based "cinematic" set-piece for the scripts he ran on, which is his strength.  Ed Brubaker writes a mixed bag of events, zeroing in on key moments of characterization and domino toppling. Matt Fraction's comfort with the Avenger's end of the spectrum, especially Thor and Tony Stark, gives girth to his portion of the story. Jonathan Hickman, of course gives an intelligent weight to his scripts, packing in information that drives the story with a scale and complexity not unlike a decent Dune novel.

It's a unique opportunity provided by each writer to play to their own strengths, no doubt assessed and analyzed by editors (Jake, Lauren, Nick, Tom and Axel) prior to the plot points being anchored and assigned.  Of course, the rotating artists, the second generation powerhouses such as the Adam Kubert and John Romita Jr, even Oliver Copiel in conjunction with Mark Morales, transition less jarringly than one might expect, as the story unfolds, and it seems that in this project a good time was had by all.  Laura Martin and Larry Molinar do a fine service to color duties.  Overall, everyone did their job well and should expect a dump truck filled with money to be backed up to their brand new empty heart-shaped pools, hollowed out by fanboys that vainly wanted to believe, if only for a moment, that the X-Men, the eternal underdogs and demagogues, stood a chance against the mega-noble hardcases that raked in more billions than some counties (or countries) will ever even see.  If only this sort of care and attention was invested in so many titles as AvX houses (only a few dozen, modest by superhero crossover terms), then surely a new golden age, blessed by the ghost of Jack Kirby himself, would ring out over the dusty bins of bagged and sealed promotional materials and movies waiting to happen, in comic book shops throughout the country.

But.

This is all a build-up to the next big thing.

Dammit, why did Nick Fury's son have to look exactly like Ultimate Nick Fury, again? Really, people. C'mon.

There is always a follow-up to major cross-over events, no matter how the drab tangential storylines play out. Nevermind the plotholes and inconsistencies and linear gaps and Xavier mind-wiping everyone at one point, nevermind the characters in jail or out, or who got beaten up by whom or what dialogue did or did not happen when Gambit fought Captain America, briefly, for the rod of relevance.  There is more time travel yet to come. And more shifts in writing duties. Comfort zones shifting.  Golden ages packing their bags and awaiting the Silver Aeon, overseen by Rocket Raccoon and Groot for some reason, maybe a movie, maybe the recently shark-jumped and all pervasive trend of remaking and remaking and remaking until the whole mess is meta-regurgitation/vomit/feces.

Prepare yourselves for Marvel, now (sorry, I mean Marvel NOW!). It's recommended, if you are a diehard fan, that you insinuate yourself into a comfortable seat, and remember that it's been done before.  If you're invested in the stories, good, that means that the writers are doing their job.  If you're angry about creative team swaps, or ambivalent, don't flinch, not yet.  Be prepared to. This is the answer to New 52. If not, now, never. Avengers vs. X-Men merely paved the way. The appearance of a game-plan being in place is reassuring, even in the unlikely event of a catastrophic cosmic prolapse.

The story has not yet fully resolved itself. The proverbial "suicide shot on the Blue Area of the Moon" has not come. Yet. The Living Tribunal has not yet spoken the last words of the day.  The Watcher's patented "disapproving look" has not reached peak sadness. Yet.

It's coming. The next "Impressions of Avengers vs. X-Men" will be the last.

Sponsored by Rocket Raccoon.

Rocket Raccoon being the cornerstone of the Marvel Multiverse, after all.

Mainstream Reviews for Recent DC Releases

BEFORE WATCHMEN: MINUTEMEN

8/10

Not sure if Meta or simply well-played nose-thumbing.

Here we have a dilemma.  There are poignant ways to go about the process of homage, and it's a rare and delicate thing that DC Staffers or Corporate Masters have in mind for the controversial Before Watchmen series.  True, characters and plot-points in Watchmen were themselves derivative from previously created characters, and thus beholden to similar strictures of critique, but that is not to say that they are beholden to the exact same strictures as this series, indicative as it is of a more common malaise in this day and age: prequelitis.  

It's a polarizing issue.  On one hand, it seems like DC is cashing in, and some fearful pundits point to the injustice of Moore's (if not Gibbons) legacy being besmirched by inferior product. Another argument goes something like: "If the creator or creators of the project don't like it, they should look to how bad their predecessors had it. Besides, DC owns the characters, they can do as they like."  On yet another hand, there is admittedly rich territory to mine in the mythos that Moore laid out, perfect and self-contained as it is.  

This series was inevitable, however dubious it seems.  

I recently passed a copy of the graphic novel Watchmen to someone that had never read it before.  Our conversations concerning plot and character were in depth and appreciative of the aesthetics inherent in the comic's structure.  It's still a classic and deserves a classic's respect.  It's interesting to note that Alan Moore's manner of approach was then and in many ways still is a righteous example of the medium's potential unleashed. Pacing, segue, and breathtaking detail combine to create effects no camera could hope to capture, and no future savant could properly match.  This new reader asked about the movie, and then I told him about the Before Watchmen project, as magnanimously as possible. He then made the next logical cognitive leap and likened the project to Lucasfilm's dreadful prequel trilogy.  To an extent, he has a point, but the qualifier from the project, ambitious as it is, is this.  Each of the series are self-aware to a fault, and their style is distinct to each creator.  

The talent called out for these projects is solid.  The characters are familiar enough to the legions of fanboys turned pro calling the shots that a justifiable love becomes apparent, even if it can't match the stark intensity that Moore's project possessed.  There is plenty more to be said, but for the sake of some sense of brevity and in the interests of keeping from straying into either malignant critique or sycophantic praise, I'll give that the best example of the potential for the various series (thus far) is Before Watchmen: Minutemen, written and drawn by Darwyn Cooke.  Cooke's style is best suited for this particular trip back in history, with DC: New Frontier preparing him quite well for bygone idealism gone sour.   

JUSTICE LEAGUE OF AMERICA 11

7/10

Justice League of America, still in-fighting after years of teamwork and struggle. I'm falling asleep now.

Tedious splash pages and uncharacteristic actions lend a hot-headed spin for the whole team in Justice League of America (JLA).  The more I read JLA the more distant I feel from the characters I had become accustomed to for so many years, and more frustrated with their less charming simulacra.  My first true JLA experience was the first issue of Grant Morrison's supremely refined run, which took in all running plotlines at DC whole cloth and spun a series that lasted through multiple cosmic crises, without missing a beat on who these characters are.

More than archetypes or stereotypes, the heroes of this particular group need to personify the super aspects of their superhumanity, with their years of experience backing up their every action, while embodying the human side in as elegantly as possible.  Stories with the universe's big guns need to reach far and they need to matter.  Instead, the plots plod along with no sense of potential as a crew of people that still don't seem to know each other at all simply deal with and react to matters that possess no sense of history or weight.  There's no drawing out of tension in the story, feeling like an overproduced jog through styles.  It often seems an excuse to needlessly splash-page, and smacks of Jim Lee's influence far more than the minutiae macro-scripting usually provided by Geoff Johns.  The first part of the series involved an invasion from Apokalips that occurred "Five Years Ago"... but what's actually happened in the time between then and now? Blackest Night? Brightest Day? Final Crisis, certainly not. Final Night? Zero Hour, perhaps, but Crisis on Infinite Worlds? Has Superman died? Did anyone even care? Who knows? I understand the draw to "here and now" the New 52 seems dead-set on, but what's happened in the past five years in the New DC Universe?

It seems the new reader gets less bang but more importantly the years-long loyal fan hasn't got much to go on, either. The entire team bickers and plays out their roles like rusty parodies of themselves.  There seems to be no breathing room for personalities in the larger-than-life splashpage world, so each character degenerates into their roles as near-stereotypes fused with near-archetypes.  Flash seems overly timid, while Green Lantern seems little more than a jock with a ring, whereas Superman is more like a quiet boy-powerhouse than a force of nature, and Wonder Woman is an unapproachable too-foreign hothead.  Batman? Oh, he just slinks around commenting on what useless twats he's working with, not much use or insight.  Cyborg practically runs the show in terms of being a linchpin of the team's dynamic, their teleporter, their go-to guy, but even that feels forced.  Perhaps Geoff Johns (and even a fan or two) remembers that the real linchpin of the team was and always will be the Martian Manhunter (we get only a brief glimpse of the one time the JLA attempted to recruit him, a two page firefight, but maybe since he's recently ditched Stormwatch he may yet show up again).

Recent arcs are general and truncated awkwardly. There's a "new" villain with a vendetta against the team, but the vendetta is vague and silly, his powers emotionally manipulating but ultimately empty, because the punch they're supposed to pack relies on content that no reader of this series actually has (yet, I know, yet).  This is the fundamental flaw and underpinning critique I have for the series (at this time).  Perhaps one sticks with this series in part out of a pouty nostalgia and partly in vain hope that the comic might accomplish a difficult task: feeling something for these newly-minted replicas of characters that knew and understood one another in a discarded universe and have had years, decades, almost a century of history together, up in a puff of comic fluff.  Perhaps what I want out of this series will take years to get to, or perhaps in the attempt to please everyone punches are pulled by editorial restrictions.  Johns is a long-haul writer and a capable scribe, so perhaps forthcoming events will shape/round out the missing back-stories, or maybe, just maybe, issue zero won't seem like filler.

DIAL H 3
9/10

It's all a conspiracy. No, really. Kinda. Mostly.

Complex, quirky, and variable, we have a comic here in many ways like a strange gem with a spirit of Bosch inhabiting it. Dial H is one of the more fascinating new series to emerge from DC's stables.  When a fat chain-smoking schlub named Nelson Jent uses an alleyway pay phone to get help for his friend (who fell in with a real bad crowd), he accidentally dials up powers from a vast array of quirky characters.  Bitten by a radioactive concept originating from the 60's wash of surreal characters (the original Dial H for H.E.R.O), the series has a bent to it that reminds one of Morrison's old Doom Patrol run, while simultaneously owning the bits of backstory that new readers and even some old readers are likely ignorant of.  The story by China Miéville explores a ground-level classic format, that unfolds like Japanese origami to reveal layers quite unexpected.  The protagonist, Nelson, plays out a perfect down-on-their-luck fool, and we root for him against all opposition, which itself truncates and expands and gains texture as the story plays itself out, in simple and complex strokes.  The art by Mateus Santolouco is a perfect compliment to the progress of the plot, intriguing and complex enough to revisit again and again.  Each character presented is so weirdly bent and surreal you have a giddy expectation of the next transformation. A fun read, and self-aware enough to pull off what seems at first blush to be silly and atonal in nature.

Good Reviews for recent Comic Book Publications

EARTH 2 #2   - 9/10

You've no doubt heard by now that Green Lantern is gay.  Interestingly, the DC Universe has run just a tad bit behind in the new trend of catering (pandering...?) to the LGBT community, while Marvel has had minor mutant Northstar outed for quite some time, and soon to be married (to a black human!).  The reaction from the Evangelical community to these announcements was almost as predictable as the cascade of reactions from internet trolls.  In all seriousness though, the sudden surge of "newsworthiness" of a comic book character's sexual orientation seems to have come about in the tumult of a cultural zeitgeist where many serious civil rights issues, mostly centered around marriage between homosexuals, are playing themselves out in political arenas.  This trend has come to a dramatic head with the latest issue of Earth 2, where a character (Alan Scott, no longer a World War II relic) proposes to his lover Sam.  James Robinson heads up the script, taking the Alan Scott character he's loved for so long ("old universe" issues of JLA written by Robinson gave ample stage-time to "the original Green Lantern's" convoluted family, including his gay son Obsidian, now clearly null and void), while Nicola and Trevor Scott move the story along at a brisk pace with clean crisp artwork.  Overall, the plot in this parallel universe seems to be portioning  itself out, the previous issue seeing the death of DC's "Big Three", and this issue featuring the dying god Mercury transferring his superspeed to shiftless loser Jay Garrick. The proposal of marriage comes only at the end of this issue, immediately followed by cliffhanger catastrophe.  This revamps the whole idea of "Golden Age" DC heroes as relevant to the standards and practices of a tolerant tomorrow, which is of course today.

RED LANTERNS #10  - 9/10

For whatever reason, the DC New 52 saw fit to give The Red Lanterns and Stormwatch their own series in the universal reboot. This has not been a bad thing, in most aspects.  With Peter Milligan and Miguel Sepulveda (both extremely talented individuals with proven track records) teaming up on scripts and art, respectively, this issue of Red Lanterns crosses over with the previous week's installment of Stormwatch #9 quite nicely.  One part slugfest (Midnighter punches a cat) and one part progressive character development (Atrocitus is not the one note character he once seemed), this expands the scope of these relatively "unknown" titles and gives more depth and dimension to the potential "cosmic" impacts as yet unexplored (outside of Green Lantern titles, gearing up to a major forthcoming showdown with the Guardians of the Universe) within the New 52.  Pacing is solid, and the two part story wraps up neatly, leaving the future wide open for further engagements. As with all titles floating in cosmic flotsam and jetsam, these two are best served when they ground their storylines in concrete character development.  And of course... epic fight scenes.

SWAMP THING #10  - 9/10

The fantastic world developed over the past year within Swamp Thing has expanded rather well from the mythos developed during the legendary Alan Moore years.  To a great extent, we have series writer Scott Snyder to thank for that.  Yanick Paquette's art, a fluid organic complication, lent itself to the progress of the series popularity, but we can see Francesco Francavilla's art has played a crucial part in this issue... adding a texture to a beautifully colored flatness, akin to Darwyn Cooke, with old greenjeans returning from a desert war with the Rot (and Lord of the Rot, Sethe).  This issue features the official return of Anton Arcane, the arch-villain of Alec Holland and friends in times gone past.  The build up for all of this is a matter of course, and the story's pacing matches the ambitions of the creative team.  We almost catch our breaths after the epic arc that brought us to this point, and we can see that the Parliment of Trees, torched and hacked and rotted through at roughly the same time as Alec Holland's brutal chainsaw murder, have been revived as saplings.  Needless to say, Abigail Arcane will be facing off in a Rot-infused family reunion next issue, and further down the line we can expect connections to the Animal Man series finally (after much build up) resolve.

MIGHTY THOR ANNUAL #1  - 8/10

This issue, written by J.M. Dematteis, with art from Richard Elson, deals with troublesome and very abstract cosmic forces set to undo all of creation, plunging Infinity into Oblivion.  Pulling plots from beyond the scope of most fanboy's memories, Thor teams up with The Silver Surfer to curtail an invasion from Outwhere by The Other, playing the long con game-within-a-game devised, potentially, by The Other's counterpart and polar opposition, The Scrier.  Old times with Jim Starlin and the cosmic Marvel pantheon are faintly conjured, and an especially nice spot is where the Scrier calls forth thousands of parallel reality Thors and Surfers to rally against The Other... but the high power levels involved deflate most possibilities for reader relation, and in certain areas the vast scope makes dialogue fall somewhat flat.  Self-contained, as Annuals often are, the story still feels constrained, but for anyone more interested in flash over substance it's a rollicking good time.