Booster Gold #5 (reviewed by Heather) ~ Well, I got played. I thought maybe they really were going to change Batgirl's past, but in the end it was a lesson from Rip to Booster on the immutability of certain events. Namely that one, and Ted Kord's death. The point was ovverwritten a moment later, however, with the arrival of...whoever that was. This is where my weakess in not knowing DC canon comes through - the big reveals of both the overarching villains (who shot a baby!) and the group at the end probably meant a lot if you knew who they were, but I have no clue.
Rip keeps getting more interesting - seeing him torture Jason with the Marquis de Sade's instruments was a revealing moment. For all the talk about the rules of time travel, though, Rip seems to be making them up on the fly. There's going to be conflict between he and Booster, I think, and it will be interesting. We got a taste of it in this issue, I'm just hoping for more.
My one quibble, again, is art. Booster switches back and forth between looking ten years younger than his present self, and looking oddly like the Joker. It was strange. If they could nail the art, this series would be great. As long as it stays at this sort of middling quality, it's a bit of a distraction - for me, at least. No idea what's coming next issue, but it looks like we may finally see Ted Kord. I'll be waiting anxiously for it!
Wonder Woman #15 ~ Issue two of Gail Simone's run, and she hits a home run. The only flaw in this issue is its opening, Diana - as Agent Prince - fighting Captain Nazi without her powers: it's not a bad fight, and shows Diana using her brains to get around her lack of powers when she's in her secret identity, but nothing Simone does can escape the fact that fighting supervillains without using your powers, as Diana must do as a DMA agent, is just plain stupid. Still, that's not Simone's fault - Heinberg saddled her with it, and I'm still hoping she can morph the 'Diana Prince' idea into something reasonable (like quit the DMA you daft superhero!). Even with that drawback, I'd give this issue 10 out of 10: the plot steams ahead, merging the flashbacks with the present action effortlessly, the characters are engaging and powerful, Simone's writing is masterful on all fronts, the Dodsons do their customary strong job on art, and while I'm handing out praise, Alex Sinclair wields colour palettes with great effect over several changes of environment in the issue, and the lettering by John J. Hill is versatile to the needs of the story, enjoyable to reflect upon in artistic terms, but quite transparent when you're reading the story, which is how I imagine it should be. And whatever it is that editors and associate editors do to help make a great comic, Matt Idelson and Nachie Castro are evidently doing it. In the space of two issues Wonder Woman has gone from an embarrassing mess for DC to one of the best single-character books I read, and if Simone can just get rid of the DMA angle - or, though I can't imagine how, make it work somehow - she could eclipse the competition completely.
Marvel Comics Presents #4 ~ I'm pretty close to dropping this. It's not that it's bad, though the now-complete Hellcat story turned out to be rather more predictable and lightweight than I'd hoped, it's just that it's not value for money. Vanguard continues to be the standout story I look for every month, but I'm increasingly aware of how its momentum is sapped by having to wait a whole month for the next eight pages of story. Weapon Omega continues to be pretty dull so far as I'm concerned, and - rather damningly - showed signs of padding this month, and when an eight-page segment is waffling on to fill in space, it's time to take a long hard look at whether it's worthwhile. This month's one-shot, an Outlaw Kid tale, was written and drawn well, but while I can enjoy a Western story when I see a good one, I'm no particular fan of the genre, and I'd have been perfectly happy having not read this one, good as it was. It's just not looking like it's worth my money to get an anthology title that destroys the momentum of the stories I want to read, and is half-full of stories I don't really care about. Next issue starts a Ka-Zar/Shanna story - I'll be removing MCP from my standing order now and taking a look at #5 on the shelf, and if it looks like Shanna isn't at her best (as she wasn't in the woeful Survival of the Fittest miniseries) I may well just leave it there.
Angelus: Pilot Season ~ I wouldn't say this issue impressed me the way the excellent Velocity: Pilot Season did, but I have no hesitation in giving Angelus my vote for the second of the two ongoing series that will come out of Pilot Season - and, with some relief, not just because it's the best of a mediocre lot. I'm not usually an art-first person, but Stjepan Sejic's rich, textured work really makes this issue stand out, and the particular methods he employs for specific effects - the Angelus spirit especially - seem very suited to the story being told. It's a good story, a touch predictable but not without some interesting thinking points, and while the Angelus spirit, while arguing with Tina, does seem to go from bombastic to introspective quite rapidly, better that than to pad it out, given that there's only one issue's worth of pages to work with. There's plenty of material introduced to build many future stories on top of, but this issue itself isn't without a solid storyline, and a decent sense of conclusion.
Dan Dare #1 ~ I read my fair share of Eagle magazines, during a relatively brief overlap between me being interested and newsagents here carrying them, but I was never what you'd call a huge Dan Dare fan. Still, I remember his adventures fondly, so I was excited by the prospect of him being revitalised, provided the new comic turned out to be good. Well you know what, it's better than good. Garth Ennis is a big name, but he doesn't rest on his laurels here - he gives 110% to turn in a debut issue that hits all the nostalgic marks it needs to to appeal to me as an old fan, while also advancing the old characters and situations into a compelling new reality some 20 years later, and presenting an exciting, adventurous, but also mature and relevant storyline that new readers should have no trouble understanding and seeing the worth in. To illustrate what I mean, my personal trainer - who doesn't read any comics and never has - and I had a half-hour debate today about the political and social arguments in this issue, once I'd summarised them, covering colonialism and self-determination over the past few centuries, whether there's a moral obligation to provide leadership where it's lacking, the pros and cons of social intervention, and global economic and political models. It's not a preachy or wordy issue, or one that sets out to be a manifesto in the guise of a story - these are issues that are touched on in the course of telling a lively, fun story, so that when you're done reading about heroes and alien armadas and spaceships exploding, you've got something to think about. Gary Erskine's art is likewise capable and versatile, and Virgin are crazy if they don't keep him on this book for the seven issues I understand it'll run - whether it'll continue after that seems to hinge on how popular this opening series is, and I shouldn't be surprised if it proves to be very popular indeed.
