Batwoman is one of the most unique characters coming out of all these new books. First she’s a woman and gay. Kicked out of the military on the Don’t Ask/Don’t Tell policy, she puts on the Batwoman costume a couple years ago when Batman was lost in time and thought dead to help fight crime in Gotham. And this new series sets itself up well with a good mystery and interesting side characters which hopefully will be brought to its full potential. But the one thing that makes this book is the fantastic art. Surreal yet rational. Kinetic but still understandable. Even if you don’t read this book, flipping though its pages is almost worth the cover price.
Frankenstein: Agent of S.H.A.D.E. #1 - Written by Jeff Lemire (who I liked with his Animal Man comic last week) and art by Alberto Ponticelli, I was hoping this book would be good and I wasn’t disappointed. After I finished this, I thought “wow, that was a pretty cool Doom Patrol comic.” There are strange characters fighting weird monsters with mad scientists thrown in the mix. So, like Doom Patrol or B.P.R.D from Dark Horse Comics, I like the idea of monster secret agents fighting monster menaces. The art is ok. Ponticelli uses a rough style in his lines, but it’s consistent so I can live with that. And he is able to convey a sense of the darkness the characters display with his art. I think I’ll continue picking this one up.
Superboy #1 - Superboy was a comic I was getting before the reboot, but now I’ll stop. Not that there is anything wrong with the book. The writing by Scott Lobdell and the art by R.B. Silva and Rob Lean is good. But with so many new books, I can’t get them all.This story is one of the complete reboots without too many previous story elements carried over. We meet Superboy for the first time in a tube of liquid thinking to himself about his situation. We do find out he is a clone using both human and Kryptonian DNA, but the scientists studying him don’t know where the original human material came from. There is many plot point that need to be reveled in this book and I suspect the path to these revelations would be interesting. But this one just missed my cutoff for retention.
Green Lantern #1 - This is one of the big titles this week, but I have never been a huge Green Lantern fan. However, Geoff Johns is one of the top DC guys right now and the brain behind the previous Blackest Night/Brightest Day events. So I was expecting good stuff, and I wasn’t super impressed. I thought the story was good, and I did like the art by Doug Mahnke and Christian Alamy. But again, Green Lantern doesn’t really rank high personally as an interesting character for me. And this issue didn’t really change my mind.
Batman and Robin #1 - I collected Batman and Robin before the reboot and was looking forward to this new direction. In the old book, Bruce Wayne was gone so Dick Grayson (the original Robin) stepped up and put on the Batman costume. And for Robin, Damian Wayne (Bruce Wayne’s son) becomes the young sidekick. But in this new book, written by Peter J. Tomasi, has Bruce Wayne back as Batman and his son Damien is now his sidekick. And the dynamic between the two is less mentor and apprentice and more emotionally distant father and rebellious son. And I didn’t like it too much. I love Damien as a character, and I don’t like the direction it seems they are alluding to in this first issue.
Demon Knights #1 - Written by Paul Cornell with art by Diogenes Neves and Oclair Albert was a pleasant surprise. I have liked the Demon and bought several of his books in the past. But this book is a medieval superhero group book. After a brief prologue showing the fall of Camelot and how Jason Blood was tied to Etrigan the Demon, the story fast forwards a couple decades where we meet Madame Xanadu and Jason Blood are travelling and meet up randomly with a bunch of other immortal super-powered beings. I liked the art and the interaction between Blood and Xanadu (though its different to the fantastic Matt Wagner Madam Xanadu series which recently ended, I think Cornell’s version of her works well.) I’ll continue with this series for the first story arc to see how it plays out.
Red Lanterns #1 - Red Lanters are full of rage. They are the soccer hooligans of the ringed wearers. But their leader, Atrocitus, wants to change the rage into vengeance. Most of this book is a flashback into Atrocitus’ past to see how he became what he is and how he has reached the conclusion to change.I do like works by the writer Peter Milligan, but this one didn’t hit me. (Again, this might be my Green Lantern bias.) The artwork by Ed Benes and Rob Hunter is good. Red and angular, the rage is displayed on almost every page. Gritted teeth, clinched fists and glaring eyes are on almost every page. I kind of like the idea that an individual will try and redirect his entire being and drag unwilling followers along. But it isn’t enough to keep me reading this book.
Resurrection Man #1 - The owner of the comic shop said he was looking forward to this one. He liked the original book when it was released in the 90s. In it, the main character Mitch Shelly can not die. Instead he gets resurrected with a different superpower each time. And in this new version, the creative team of Dan Abnett, Andy Lanning and Fernando Dagnino has the same plot. But this time he is being hunted for his soul which due to his condition is very special. I liked this book. It isn’t really a superhero book nor a horror title. So I’ll continue getting it for a while.
Suicide Squad #1 - What’s with the cover of this issue? Who is that? Oh, it’s a new look for Harley Quinn. Cool. Written by Adam Glass and art by Marco Rudy, we meet a group of felons who are recruited in a very unique manner to head a strike force. A couple regular characters like Deadshot and Harley are here along with some silly characters like King Shark and a flaming tattoo guy. I guess, like all the other team books so far in this reboot, the story will be the relationship between the characters. And from this single issue, there hasn’t been any. If there weren’t 51 other new books this month, I would consider getting this one. But it didn’t make the cut for me to continue it.
Death Stroke #1 - Bad guys as main characters isn’t a new thing at all. But for this New 52, I think this is the only one where a super-villain is the title character. Written by Kyle Higgins with art by Joe Bennett and Art Thibert, Slade aka Death Stroke is hired to do a hit along with a new, young mercenary group. And he scowls and squints through the book like a Clint Eastwood clone in an eye patch. I was entertained with the decapitations and gore, but not enough to get the second issue. Though there was a cliffhanger, if Death Stroke isn’t plotting against the Teen Titans, I’m not going to continue reading this one.
Legion Lost #1 - The Legion of Super Heroes is from the 31st century or something way in the future. A group of legionaries come back to our present day looking for someone who is going to mess up the timeline. And once they find him, they get stuck. It’s a pretty cool idea by Fabian Nicieza and Pete Woods and it has potential to be really interesting. But I’m not sensing a really cool time travel type vibe from this book. Instead we get that this period is marked with great uncertainty. A way to eliminate the mind bending paradoxes and crosses a good time travel story should have. I’ll not continue reading this title.
Grifter #1 - I came into the book without any pre-knowledge of what it was about. I assumed that the main character would be a grifter of some sort, but other than that, nothing. With art by Cafu and writing Nathan Edmondson, the book starts out with a plane hijacking (Much like Hawk and Dove and Resurrection Man). During the mid-flight battle we get a flashback where the main character Cole Cash gets kidnapped and wakes up during some procedure. This allows him to hear their thoughts of the possessed people who are trying to capture him. But there was one thing I had to go back and double check. They mention three different time periods Cole was unconscious. It’s either 17 minutes, hours or days. I hope they will explain this, but unfortunately this book isn’t interesting enough for me to find out.
Mister Terrific #1 - This one the one book I was thinking I would like the least this week and I believe that my notions were correct. Mister Terrific is the third smartest man in the world and a founder and president of a high tech company in California. (How many super rich executives who are also super heroes are there in this new universe?) Written by Eric Wallace and artwork by Gianluca Gugliotta and Wayne Faucher, this read like a pretty generic comic to me. Mister Terrific doesn’t have any super powers other than is intellect and his tech. With a personal tragedy in his past to guide him into helping people, he fights to try and protect everyone. I can’t see how this one character can support a book for long. And needless to say, I won’t be picking it up further.
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