Weekly Comic Review for 9/26/12
Now to catch up on last week. I only had 2 books on my pull list but grabbed a few others.
Aquaman #0 – The story starts with with the death of Arthur’s father and the world talking about how he might be Atlantean. This leads to Arthur hunting down Vulko who ends up being his mother’s former adviser. Vulko fills him in on his history and leads him to Atlantis. A story of “this is your history” could be very boring but this story actually flowed very nicely and naturally. I normally don’t read Aquaman but this was interesting.
Hero Worship #3 – Adam makes his hero debut to the world as Apex. The Zenith Foundation has him doing all sorts of PR stuff but he wants to be a hero. He takes off to use his powers but things don’t go do well and he ends up getting some people killed when he tries to save them. This isn’t going to go well for him.
National Comics: Rose & Thorn #1 – The next one shot comes out and this time there’s nothing super-heroic about it. It’s just about a high school girl with 2 personalities. The suppressed personality is the more outgoing and is out to find out who killed the girl’s father. Given this is the age of social networking, Thorn starts communicating with Rose over “Facelook”. I had hope with the “Kid Eternity” story but things have been going down hill since then. It’s not a bad story but if these are attempts to see what will work for new comics, they are going in the wrong direction.
Phantom Lady #2 of 4 – We continue the origin of Phantom Lady and Doll Man. Dane saved Jennifer from the mob guys, makes her the shadow equipment as well as stuff for himself, and trains her on how to use it. Then we pick up where the first issue started with them taking down Cyrus’ team. He calls in some extra back-up though in the form of… get this… Funerella. Really? That’s the best Freedom Fighters enemy they could think to bring back? The name sucks and so does the look. Well, I guess we’ll see what happens against her next issue. I’m enjoying the repartee between Jen and Dane in this book. Just wish he had been included in the actual title.
Red Lanterns #0 – It’s finally time to get some real history on Atrocitus. His real name is Atros. We get to see the Manhunters go crazy and kill everyone on his planet, leaving just him (by mistake of course). He’s saved by “The Four Demons” who lead to him getting his power and to Ysmault becoming the planet of blood where he’d build the red core lantern.
Savage Hawkman #0 – I dropped this title a while back but thought I’d check out the 0 issue. It takes place on Thanagar and is narrated by Shayera who is the daughter of the king. It tells how her father got killed, how the Thanagarians lost their wings (tho Katar regained his through the nth metal covering his body, and how he gets hunted down because of an accident that caused the death of Shayera’s brother. Her just suddenly turning on him the way she did in the story seemed a bit crazy and the way his costume first formed doesn’t seem to fit great with the way he buried the costume in the first issue since it seemed to react then the way it does now. The issue leaves off with Shayera in a really ugly outfit confronting Katar. (I’m assuming this picks up from issue 12 which I haven’t read.) Overall, I’m not impressed and not going to pick up the title again after this issue.
Talon #0 – The next new title of this wave starts up. I didn’t read the Court of Owls stuff other than what happened in Nightwing so I don’t know what was shown about Talon before if anything. This issue goes all the way back to him being an abused child who escapes to the streets, joins the circus and gets recruited to the Court as an escape artist. Supposedly, this is unusual as they normally want outright killers. The fact that he has his own style outfit seems odd in a group that would seem to not want to encourage that type of individuality. Well, he’s mentally strong enough to escape the Court when he can’t kill one of his marks. He’s on the run from the Court who seems to still have plans for him as he takes down another Talon who tracks him down. It’s an interesting story and the character has potential. I’m not sure if I’ll follow up with it but I enjoyed this issue.
Teen Titans #0 – This issue is the story of Tim Drake. Tim had both parents in this world and is already a great gymnast. (Maybe even Olympic level!) He’s hunting down Batman’s secret identity but this time around (1) Bruce figures out what’s going on first and (2) Tim isn’t quite as good a detective as he gets easily misled. In fact, he does some real stupid stuff and almost gets his parents killed so they get put in protective custody and Time becomes Batman’s partner. He decides to be Red Robin instead of “Robin” though. Yes, more changes just to annoy people. After this issue, I like Tim even less than I have since the relaunch. I always liked him in the old universe because he was so smart but he seems to lack a lot in the New 52.
Yes, another week of mostly 0 issues and, again, not a spectacular week. I’m going to have to give my top 3 this week to Aquaman, Phantom Lady, and Talon. All 3 were decent books and more interesting than what the others had to offer. It’s interesting that I’ll probably only continue to buy Phantom Lady after this though. Not sure on Talon, but I might pick up the first issue to see where it goes as a regular series.
