Previews #248 ~ Comics to watch out for (one way or another):
p26: Star Wars: The Clone Wars #7 ~ The TV one-shot episodes featuring less-known characters are fun, but I don't feel like buying them, especially not when it's going to take three issues.
p67: Blackest Night: Tales of the Corps #1-3 ~ I'll take a look at the Star Sapphire one, but GL - for no perceptible reason - often seems to have an irritating undertone of misogyny, so I'm not really hopeful.
p74: Batman: Streets of Gotham #2 ~ I missed this last month (due to boredom with all things Batman), but there's a backup story featuring Manhunter as Gotham's new DA, which is a role her character could work very well in.
p84: Justice League: Cry for Justice #1 ~ Batwoman's on the cover, but not mentioned in the text as a team member; have to see what's up when it arrives.
p149: Liberty Meadows Sunday Strips HC ~ Liberty Meadows is one of the few things I'll buy hardcover for.
p151: Bomb Queen Omnibust HC ~ I've got the TPBs so I'll pass, but the first three series were very good, and it's oversized to show off the art.
Marvel p57: Marvel Divas #1 ~ Sounds like fun, but what happened to that similar-sounding 'Models Inc' they solicited a while back?
p192: Artesia Besieged #3 ~ Wildly late, but I cannot emphasise enough how outstanding Artesia is.
p205: Anna Mercury 2 #2 ~ I didn't notice #1 last month (or maybe I saw it and just assumed it was yet another in Anna Mercury's endless tide of variant covers); the first miniseries had potential, but was lazy with it in a way professional publishers should know better than to be, so I think I'll give this one a miss.
p220: Hexed HC ~ Sounds interesting, but I don't know about buying a hardcover on a whim.
p222: Tarot: Witch of the Black Rose #57 ~ Pooka's in trouble! Help!
p250: Voyages of the SheBuccaneer: Eye of the Jade Dragon #3 ~ Ahoy, I be buyin' this an' no mistake, me hearty!
And merchandise, the bane of my wallet's existence:
p130: Wonder Womam vs Ares statue ~ Looks quite good, but I don't fancy paying for Ares as well as Diana.
p133: Batman Family: Batwoman & Commissioner Gordon statue ~ Same as above, too expensive to buy when I only want half of it.
Marvel p119: Marvel Divas poster ~ Looks like a good deal to me!
p338: Battlestar Galactica Boomer & Athena action figures ~ A different Boomer to the one in the Boomer/D'anna two-pack.
p342: Marvel Select Arachne action figure ~ Arachne may annoy me, but she looks great.
p370: Street Fighter Chun Li action figure ~ I played SF2, so of course I have a crush on Chun Li.
p384: Star Wars Legacy Darth Talon minibust ~ Not a comic I read, but she looks damned good.
p386: Street Fighter Cammy 1/4-scale statue ~ Too expensive for me, but I really really really want it anyway.
p408: Capcom Girls Cammy figure ~ Cheaper than the 1/4 statue, but not as good looking either.
p409: Metal Gear Solid Boss action figure ~ Looks pretty butch, cool.
Atomic Robo and the Shadow from Beyond Time #1 ~ Red 5 Comics were kind enough to send me a preview PDF of this (although as you can see from the photo I bought it anyway), along with the entire first volume of Neozoic (issue #6 of which I reviewed here thanks to another PDF they sent; I plan on getting it in hard copy sometime soon anyway), the upshot of which was that I got to read the main story early. In short, Charles Fort and H.P. Lovecraft - yes, Lovecraft - drop in on Robo in search of help to avert the end of the world, and things get crazier from there. Robo's usual sardonic humour is there, but Lovecraft steals the show with a display of erudite old-world insanity that has to be read to be believed - I was giggling with every panel, and had to pause a couple of times to get my laughter under control. As usual the art is perfect for the script - same creative team as always, they're really good at what they do by now - and besides the main feature (22 pages) there's a five-page backup story with guest artist Lauren Pettapiece (different but fits well with the regular Robo style) featuring Tesladyne's resident badass psychopath Jenkins and a potted plant. Go to writer Clevinger's Nuklear Power page for a link to a 5-page preview of the issue to see for yourself (plus Clevinger's awesome webcomic 8-Bit Theater, if you haven't already read it), and remember to look out for Red 5's offering this weekend at Free Comic Book Day, which will feature a new Robo story, as well as previews of two new Red 5 books, Drone and We Kill Monsters.
Wonder Woman #31 ~ This issue sports a big reveal of Genocide's origin, in a sense, and kudos to everyone involved, the clues were there all along, but it was a surprise to me. Maybe it wasn't meant to be that much of a surprise, and I was just a bit dense, but either way it makes Geno more compelling as a villain than it was originally, and in the deeper implications of what we learn, the Genocide and Olympian halves of the current arc are unified into a single story. Meanwhile Achilles and Diana get to fight it out a bit (and he's interesting), and Alkyone (remember her?) makes a devil's deal with Ares that's both scary and completely in character for her - even noble, in its warped way. And Diana gets a shoulder to cry on, in the kind of scene that you rarely see in superhero comics, especially not handled this well - it's a beautiful moment, and ironically it's a moment of strength, not weakness. Oh, and the Manazons take the UN, in a display of mythic badassery of the kind that Amazons Attack tried for but completely failed. Gail Simone knows better - she knows how to tell a story to give it the ring of history and myth, to seem genuinely larger than life. It's difficult to see her mucking up the finale to this arc, and if/when it concludes as strongly as it's running now, it will be a landmark in the relaunched Wonder Woman's run.
Marvel Assistant-Sized Spectacular #2 ~ Normally I wouldn't have bought this - I don't mind anthologies (so long as they're handled properly, like the ill-fated and now dead Marvel Comics Presents wasn't) but since they, like comics in general, mainly feature male characters, I can't be bothered, and indeed that's exactly why I didn't buy issue #1 of this two-issue miniseries. But I got this one because, well, look at the cover - no, not the severe-looking redhead (though her story is fairly entertaining), the woman dressed as Galactus. That's got to be a story worth a look. And it is. Sandwiched between a Luke Cage story and the Elsa Bloodstone Monster Hunter one (the redhead), plus af ew pages of inoffensive but fairly ineffectual joking around with the titular assistant editors, 'Galacta' is a nine-page short story starring, yep, Galactus's daughter. How that works I have no idea. More to the point, it's written by Adam Warren, of Empowered fame (at least, I assume it's the same Adam Warren), and he puts his talents to good use. He's not illustrating his own script here (though Hector Sevilla Luhan puts in a good show artwise, with a manga-influenced style that should still be very palatable to western-only readers, and some really good work with lights and cosmic power flying about), but his skill with short comics lets him pack in a surprising amount of storytelling in just nine pages (plenty more than Elsa Bloodstone does, for one), making Galacta a comedic but engaging character. The six stories in this mini now get to fight it out in an online poll to see which one will continue - go here to vote, and of course I'm urging you to vote Galacta.
Ms. Marvel #38 ~ It's the first issue of Karla Sofen's tenure as Ms. Marvel (in her old costume, though made a bit more serious by covering over the original's exposed midriff - I can't decide if seriousness is a decent payoff for the air of goofy sexiness the old one had, but I suppose Karla's more a serious character), and while I still have my doubts, I have to admit, there's potential here. The majority of the issue is a flashback, as a government-employed psychic gives Karla a psych evaluation now that she's an Avenger, delving into her past in an oblique kind of way, as well as developing its own little plotline. As a character study it doesn't really commit itself exclusively to studying Karla, so while there's some interesting material about her past, it's not the comprehensive portrait it might've been. What's intriguing, though, is the intro sequence - it plays out its start way too long, but once 'Ms. Marvel' shows up to beat up the bad guys, and especially get some crowd reactions, you can see that there's the potential for a really interesting superhero in her. She kills the bad guys (just random mooks, of course), but semi-justifies it and gets a positive reaction from onlookers (it can be seen as a 'villain moment', but let's be honest, she's operating in the same grey area as heroes like Punisher). The thing is, if Reed (and Bendis, who presumably has his fingers in this storyline) can resist the temptation to make Karla just a villain, this could be a truly interesting story - for publicity and pragmatic reasons she's acting out the role of a hero, but will that have an effect on her, will the respect 'Ms. Marvel' gets from decent people be something that appeals to her? A villain wearing the costume as a shroud to continue being a villain isn't interesting - but a villain slowly discovering they might not want to be a villain anymore? That's a story.
Farscape: D'Argo's Lament #1 ~ I like the idea of setting this story back during the TV show's run - it lets us follow D'Argo and Jool, a fun pair of characters whose relationship never really got the screen time it deserved. Here they're off on their own (during the 'two Crichtons' period, explaining why the whole gang isn't around) and the necessity of finding a critical substance to keep Moya healthy leads them to venture into a tense situation fraught with politics they're unaware of - though amusingly (and frustratingly for them) everyone else seems to think they're already a part of the plotting, and regard them with suspicion and hostility accordingly. However, compared to the issues so far of the main Farscape comic series, this one's a bit off the mark. For one, it contains a number of things that are just a bit distracting - several character and place names are obvious shout-outs, with real names reversed to make 'alien' ones (it's forgivable on TV, but when you read a comic and see the word in front of you, that sort of thing just jolts you out of the story), and for another the primary aliens, a new species, don't look very authentic to the TV show - it's an example of the artist getting carried away by not having limitations on what can be drawn, and thus turning out something that Farscape on TV couldn't have done (at least, not affordably in the quantity they're used here), with the result that the new aliens just don't look like they belong in the universe we've watched for four years. Plus the art, though good (bordering on excellent in places) on foreground characters, repeats the most recent regular Farscape issue's flaw of having very sparse backgrounds, again unlike the TV show in many instances. The saving grace is that D'Argo and Jool's voices are authentic - I could easily hear the actors speaking as I read their dialogue - which counts for a lot, so I'll keep getting this in the hope that the other stuff can be improved.
Masquerade #3 ~ Yeah, I was right when I said a couple of weeks ago that if I missed this issue it wouldn't bother me; I got it, and I really don't care that I've read it. It's not that nothing happens - Diana's search for her fellow postwar heroes (which doesn't exactly flow well from last issue) continues and gets her into trouble, while the ongoing flashbacks plod on at a snail's pace about her missing sister... I'm sorry, but I'm not a fan of interleaved present/flashback stories, ever since the Angel TV series overused the idea years ago. Here, it's just that despite all the supposed exposition going on, and the fact that she's narrating her own story, I don't think anything of Diana - I don't like her, or dislike her, or care what happens, I really just don't think she's a real person. She does predictable things, and narrated generically about what she's doing - there's no life to her, nothing interesting. Maybe a story like this would work as a novel, where it'd have a lot more time to infuse her with fine detail, but as a comic it doesn't work.
Justice Society of America #26 ~ Yep, of course I got the cover with Cyclone on it - though it was a tough choice, with Stargirl on another and Power Girl on the third; they really should release this as a poster. More to the point, this issue is a swansong for this title's original team, Johns writing and Eaglesham drawing - I must confess I haven't been so enamoured of this book while Jerry Ordway has been contributing, and without him it suddenly shines again. There's no villain this month, no big plotline - it's just Courtney's birthday, and a chance for the JSA to let its hair down and celebrate, which in turn means an issue that celebrates everything we love about the JSA, and Stargirl in particular; it's set in her home, so the supporting cast from her original Stars and S.T.R.I.P.E. series all get some attention too, and it's great to see them all again. Starman's unique brand of humour is on show, but no one character dominates (aside from Courtney, of course), nor any particular storyline - it's just good old-fashioned day-in-the-life fun. Eaglesham's art is spot on, demonstrating yet again why he needs to be chained to the JSA desk and never let go. It's a fitting send-off for Johns et. al. - the next couple of issues are back to Ordway, so I'm hesitant, but then it'll be a new creative team, and hopefully they'll pick up the magic and make it work again.
Jungle Girl Season 2 #4 ~ Jana's in a bit of a fix, held captive by an army of mer-people and their prophet-type guy (a human castaway who gouged his own eyes out after going insane and joining them), who are busily trying to raise their god from slumber - your typical horror-from-beyond Cthulhu type entity, and bad news for all if it wakes up. Of course, being Jana and awesome, she's never at anyone's mercy for longer than it takes to snap her chains and start kicking heads; meanwhile Togg and friends are outside in their repaired submarine, with some newfound allies, kicking up the deuce of a storm in an aquatic battle royale to come to her rescue. As usual it's pulp adventure thrills and spills from people who know the tricks of the saturday-morning-serial trade, and employ them with considerable skill - there's never a dull moment, and Batista's art is equally at home with eldritch horrors from the deeps as it is showing off how sexy and awesome Jana looks while she kicks its eldritch ass. This, incidentally, is the issue for which there's going to be a special sketch variant of the Frank Cho cover, without the borders on the image, so... well, yeah, it's just an excuse to perve at Jana's backside, but nobody draws gorgeous and athletic women like Frank Cho; I've got my order in.
