Weekly Comic Review for 7/27/11

OK. Now that things are finally back to… well… close to normal on here. So, on to another week of comics.

Avengers Academy #16 – A “Fear Itself” tie-in. As Giant Man takes on the hammer empowered Absorbing Man and Titania, the academy kids work on saving people in DC. Hank stops the possessed villains temporarily by sending them through a gateway but gets knocked out in the process. Meanwhile in DC, Veil saves a child’s mother only to see her killed immediately after which pushes her over the edge. The characters are really growing and this title has officially made it onto my pull list.

Charmed #12 – The first story finally comes to an end with the defeat of the first witch. The new storyline goes on to the question of what actually happened to Pru and why she hasn’t actually been around. Sadly, I won’t be around for that storyline as the comic series lacks the interest of the TV series and seems much too drawn out.

Flashpoint: Hal Jordan #2 (of 3) – Hal and Carol take on a hydra-like creature created by the Amazons. How do you follow-up on that? You take the Green Arrow nuke and drop it in the middle of a war zone. Guess we’ll see how well that goes next issue.

Flashpoint: Kid Flash Lost #2 (of 3) – Bart is still fading out (a la “Back to the Future”) as he tries to get his world back. Though, with an issue ending with “The Death of Kid Flash?”, things don’t seem too good. I really hope they don’t get rid of Bart in the reboot.

Flashpoint: Lois Lane and the Resistance #2 (of 3) – It’s the resistance vs. the Amazon’s Furies. This leads to them running into Lois Lane and then some background on how Grifter fits into all of this. Finally, the resistance find out there’s a traitor in the midst.

Flashpoint: Project Superman #2 (of 3) – This issue focuses on Kal-El “growing up” and even includes Krypto and Lionel Luthor (looking just like the one on Smallville). Subject Zero and a young Lois Lane appear for an interesting closing sequence.

Green Arrow #14 – Following a conversation with Batman (which gets spread out throughout the story), Oliver heads off after Miggs.

Green Hornet #17 – The Red Hand kidnaps Mulan and puts her through a whole gauntlet after showing her that her father is at the end of it. Sadly, he actually isn’t there and by the time she reaches that point, Kat is worn out and easily defeated. The recording of all this is then sent to her father to bring him into the fray.

Green Lantern Corps #62 – Sapphire Miri shows Kyle and Soranik the images of their true loves. Soranik’s is Kyle but when Kyle sees his is Jade, he tells Soranik that he saw her in the image instead. When Miri goes on a rampage in order to pull the 2 lovers closer, the truth comes out and the relationship finally falls apart. I honestly didn’t think they were a great match to begin with so at least this will give some extra space going into the reboot depending on what they want to change.

Green Lantern: Emerald Warriors #12 – Something is attacking Lanterns on the way to Oa and Guy is sent to stop it. Taking a group of rough and tumble ring wielders, they track the creature to what the believe will be the next lantern outpost to be attacked. They find out they’re right when a giant space spider shows up and starts to eat them and it comes down to Guy and the one other lantern left to stop it.

Justice Society of America #53 – We’re counting down to the end so I guess it only makes sense to build up a story even more. A team of JSAers teamed with the Challengers of the Unknown check out a hidden city. Once there, they find out that all powers are being suppressed. Jesse has been worried about Per Degaton’s words of warning about how she will bring about this great doom through her own actions. So what does she think the best thing to do is? Break the tablet suppressing everyone’s powers and free the being that the tablet was keeping imprisoned. It’s no wonder heroes need the ability to come back to life when they do such stupid stuff all the time. *sigh*

New Mutants #28 – Dani brings in a Native American psychiatrist to analyze the team. Maybe the better phrase would be “to walk around and insult the team”. Either way, it’s a pretty uneventful and boring issue to mark my dropping the title. I used to love the New Mutants but this title has been sucking bad for a while.

Secret Avengers #15 – It’s another solo story, this time focusing around Black Widow. (Isn’t this what The Titans did right before it got cancelled?) Natasha goes to a rag newspaper to complain about the story they are running that Captain America is still alive. (This is a “Fear Itself” story following up on the killing of Bucky Barnes.) Overall, the story isn’t bad, going on about how all the heroes die but come back to life while normal people just die and don’t get that second chance. It’s a pretty interesting look at things from a character standpoint that readers always comment on.

Secret Warriors #28 – The last issue finally gets here and is, ironically, one of the best of the recent series. Nick Fury steps down from his running of things and hands things over to Daisy, putting her in charge of any Howling Commandos/Secret Warriors people still around. She pulls together the rest of the old team to join those who Nick still had in call his groups just as things come to an end. Who knows where this is going to lead in the future but it’s a set-up to something better than where things have been this past year just in time to end.

Teen Titans #98 – We’re sneaking up on issue 100 with the return of Superboy Prime. (Yeah, now they can actually use the Superboy name again and he doesn’t have to call himself Superman Prime as an “I’m great” sort of thing. Prime finds himself back on Earth 1 which pisses him off. So what’s the best thing to do? How about form an evil Titans to take on the regular team. There are people there to take on all of the members with bad guys like Headcase, Persuader, and Sun Girl returning. Also on the team are Indigo (Even if she wasn’t more of a Outsiders enemy, I thought she was destroyed.) and Inertia (Yeah, this isn’t the old one. He’s still dead. So who is this speedster?) which makes for an odd story. At the end, we get a couple more members to the bad guys’ team which will make things real messy — Superboy clones from his various incarnations over time.

Despite titles like Charmed and New Mutants which are being dropped after this issue, there are some good issues this month. It’s actually harder than usual to pick my Top 3 since there’s probably a half dozen that could make the list this week. OK. Let’s work this one out. I think I’m going to choose Green Hornet for a change as the story of Mulan’s fight is quite interesting this issue. Secret Avengers, for a book with little true action, is quite thought provoking seeing how civilian characters look at the whole “Yeah, they’ll just come back to life” thing. Finally, I think I’ll go with Green Lantern Corps and the resolution of Kyle’s recent relationships. It was a touch choice but I had to cut Teen Titans (the “bad guy opponent for each character” is a bit cliche), Secret Warriors (the last issue so why start here) and Green Lantern: Emerald Warriors (good but not strong enough). I have another week just waiting to be written up so I hope to get to it soon as well as write up a few more things. I want to get caught up soon because I have a vacation coming up that’s going to put me behind again. 🙁