Unusual politics, evil twins and retro lamos

Greetings our fine readers,
Here's FanBoyWonder's picks for the second of April.
Thanks to those who have taken the time to read and comment.
As we post this, we just finished viewing the lastest episode of Justice League Unlmited. Look for a post on it tomorrow.
Also, FanBoyWonder and his faithful Kemosabe are taking a road trip next weekend to Pittsburgh for the Pitttsburgh Comic Con. http://www.pittsburghcomicon.com/ Look for dispatches upon our return.
Now on with the pics

Green Arrow #61

The upshot from DC Comics: Ollie Queen's first days in office as mayor of Star City aren't going to be easy. The uphill battle of saving the town from criminals and shady corporations is hard enough, and now Deathstroke's shown up...and he's got Green Arrow in his sights! It's the rematch you've been waiting for since Identity Crisis!

We REALLY wanted to dislike this issue…in fact we were looking forward to disliking it. We haven’t made a secret our dislike of writer Judd Winick, as we summed up in our critical pan of his work in Outsiders and we hadn’t cared for the direction Green Arrow pre-Infinite Crisis and pre-One Year Later but to we enjoyed this issue in spite of ourselves.

Mayor Queen’s press conference was pretty entertaining; as the dialogue was sharp and visuals as provided artists Scott McDaniel with Andy Owens were perfectly in sync with the spoken words. The action sequence was okay but we find out that Green Arrow has been out of the public eye for the past year and this was his grand reentrance.

As noted in our comments about last issue, apparently Green Arrow’s identity is secret again…something that happened pre-Infinite Crisis but we are guessing this has been cemented by the expected retro-continuity that will follow IC.

But Green Arrow The Longbow Hunters writer Mike Grell had it right when he outed Ollie’s secret ID…. “That was supposed to be a secret?” everyone kept asking. But in the DCU if a pair of glasses works as a disguise, then perhaps the world wouldn’t make the connect between the only two guys in Star City with blond hair, of the same build and both with a Van Dyke beard.

We’re looking forward to the rematch with Deathstroke and for now we’re taking our readership on this book one issue at a time.

Nightwing # 119

The upshot from DC Comics: The streets of New York have never seen anything like the war raging between twin super-powered crime lords and...twin Nightwings?

We have to admit we were a little disappointed by this issue after such a promising start last issue. We see what writer Bruce Jones is trying to do but this is only his second issue and he’s moving too quickly to slip Dick Grayson into a new supporting cast.

With Jason Todd having identity thefted Dick Grayson, there are two Nightwings running around New York City. But hasn’t the hero framed for murder thing been over done…especially among the Batman family….such a story is also currently playing out in Robin.

We, like Dick Grayson, wish that the other former Robin had stayed dead. Visually, we like how penciler Joe Dodd with inker Bit (no first or last name…just “Bit”) hadn’t made the two Nightwings carbon copies of each other and has made them similar but distinguishable. However, they fall short on choreographing the abbreviated action scenes—not so many tight shots fellas. Pull back a little.

Another thing, we’re going to give Jones the benefit of the doubt but we’re not crazy Dick Grayson’s male model/metro sexual thing going on or with the new boss/ red-headed love interest Cheyenne. I hope we get to find out what happened between Dick and Barbara Gordon/Oracle sooner rather than later.

CAPTAIN ATOM: ARMAGEDDON #7 (OF 9)

The upshot: Distraught over his worsening condition, Captain Atom uses his draining power to look into the future...and what he sees will put him on a collision course with the Authority! And when Nikola loses control of the Void powers, will anything be able to contain this meltdown?

We’ve been picking up this series because we are fans of the old Cary Bates Captain Atom series and we are hopeful that this series will be the back to respectability to this underused character.

Writer Will Pfeifer has re-written somewhat how Captain Atom’s powers works but it seems to be a plausible extension so we’re not making a fuss. The art by Giuseppe Camuncoli and Sandra Hope is serviceable but the cover by Dale Keown gave us an unfortunate early ‘90s Image-comics-like flashback.

What we’ve been surprised to enjoy most of all is given that we know nothing about the Wildstorm universe, we are really seeing the story and meeting the Wildstorm characters for the first time just like Captain Atom.

But just don’t visit too long Cap, we miss you in the DCU. Come home soon.


CRISIS AFTERMATH: THE BATTLE FOR BLÜDHAVEN #1 (OF 6)

The upshot from DC Comics: The after-effects of INFINITE CRISIS begin to impact the DCU starting in CRISIS AFTERMATH: THE BATTLE FOR BLÜDHAVEN, a 6-issue miniseries written by Jimmy Palmiotti and Justin Gray (HAWKMAN) with art by Dan Jurgens (SUPERMAN ) and Palmiotti and covers by Daniel Acuña (JLA CLASSIFIED) shipping twice monthly beginning in April!

This book sucked ass so badly that we didn’t buy it…we didn’t need to. A quick lookie-lou in the store told us all we need.

This story is built around a fake city that didn’t exist before Nightwing #1 and whose primary guardians—Nightwing and later Robin—have gotten the heck out of town.

Who has come in their place? The Force of July???? FanBoyWonder has been reading comics for about 100 years and even we barely remember them—a bunch of lameo villains from the Batman and Outsiders days. Although Major Victory and the gang did die real good during John Ostrander’s run on Suicide Squad.

Written by Jimmy Palmiotti and Justin Gray with Art by Dan Jurgens and Palmiotti, the real battle will be to get any one to buy this crappy book. Do what you will but we’re saving our $2.99.