Weekly Comic Review for 7/4/12
OK. My eye is doing better and I was finally able to finish reading and do this up.
Before Watchmen: Ozymandias #1 of 6 – This book was drier than day old toast. It starts from when Adrian Alexander Veidt is born to when he first puts on the costume. It’s from his point of view as you see him grow up with his incredible intelligence. Overall, it’s too dry and not great reading. I definitely wasn’t impressed.
Danger Club #3 – OK. I missed number #2 when it came out (but was able to pick it up on the 4th of July dollar sale). As the start of last issue, we see Kid Vigilante get killed by an old hero who is now president. Then we flash back to where we left off. The kid heroes are trying to figure out how to save the world and pull themselves together. They decide to turn to the bad guys for help but someone has caused them to off themselves. As things work out, we get to the point where Kid Vigilante turns to the president (after visiting his hero brother who is in stasis). There, we find out the adult heroes are not out in space but have been killed by the president. (We don’t get to see them… yet.) There is still a lot more to play out on what’s been going on.
Dial H #3 – This issue, we learn a little more about the mystery of the dial from the weird redheaded chick, Manteau. (I’m not sure why her head doesn’t change when she uses the dial. Hopefully that will be explained and not just left as a character oddity.) Nelson also starts having “memories” that aren’t his own. And to make things even more interesting, he changes into a female character. As far as I know, no H-Dial user has ever changed genders. (Genderless, maybe but not the opposite.) Overall, with all the changes they’re making and trying to set up a new history for the H-Dials (Manteau and Nelson each have dials so who knows how many there are.), Things are really very confusing. I want to have hope for this book but I really wish we had the old Robbie/Chris/Vicki/Hero history back.
Earth 2 #4 – Things pick up with the train crash from last issue and we get the origin of Green Lantern. Unlike before where the hero started with the lantern and made a ring from it to have the power, he now gets the power and creates the ring with it to help focus the power. Alan is given the power from a green flame that is the embodiment of Earth’s energy and he’s been given the power since Superman is no longer around. The costume he creates looks a lot like a green version of Triumph’s old costume with Ion’s insignia on it. Oh, and to top things off, they killed his boyfriend. Hopefully he didn’t do up the gay thing and are just getting rid of it. It’s James Robinson so I have hope he has something cool in mind. Also, I was right about that being Hawkgirl that Flash ran into. To make things more interesting, he mentions Fate. (Whether it will just be “Fate” or “Dr. Fate” has yet to be seen as she could be just refering to him in the short form.) As the issue closes, we get to see some of what will be their first adversary and the counterpoint to GL, Grundy. (Again, I’m not sure if it will be Solomon Grundy or just “Grundy” as he referred to himself on the last page. Also on the last page, it seems we’re finally going to get to see the Atom next issue. Hopefully we’ll get some info on what’s going on with Mr. Terrific again soon too. This is really building up quickly and well. I can’t wait to see what the story is with Hawkgirl and if we will have Hawkman too.
Green Arrow #11 – It’s GA vs. some wannabe Robin Hoods, though on of them is pretty rich herself. Oliver’s support team has deserted him as has any level of decent art. Bad art makes it hard for me to read a comic and this one was nearly painful. Harvey Tolibao has taken on the penciling and this may be the final step towards me dropping the title. The story has sucked lately and now the art is too. I’ll be deciding soon if I’m going to give this comic a chance through the upcoming 0 issues.
Green Hornet #26 – It’s the Green Hornet vs his evil counterpart, the mayor’s office, and the police. That’s a pretty unbalanced battle if you ask me. Britt and Mulan try to get away and find a safe place (not too easy to do in Century City right now) only to run across the evil Hornet again. It looks like they may have one more friend to assist and that person may be the lately unseen Moonbeam. (Actually, still unseen as the only clue is Britt questioning if that’s him at the end. I guess we’ll find out next month. Looking forward to it.
He-Man and the Masters of the Universe #1 – DC Comics brings back the world of Eternia to comics as we get to see what’s been going on with Prince Adam errr….. Adam, the woodsman? OK. Something odd is going on here. He looks like the Adam we knew but he’s not a prince. We do see Zoar in falcon form come to him though and he has dreams of battling along side Teela, Man-at-Arms, and others against Skeletor and crew. Beastman is even after him. It should be interesting to see how this folds out and what’s going on with Adam right now. Does he have amnesia or has he never been part of the royal family at this point? I guess we’ll find out more next issue.
Hero Worship #1 – This is a new book by Avatar Press. In this world, there’s one major hero and that is Zenith. I’m not sure of all his powers but he can fly and is super strong if nothing else. The story is mostly through the eyes of the young goateed teenager Adam Robeson, who wears a WWZD (What Would Zenith Do?) necklace like a lot of the fans of the hero do. In this world, the hero is sponsored by a company and Adam is queued in on where Zenith may show and joins the crowd to see him. Later on, after some dizzy spells, Adam finds out that he can fly. Right now, there’s no explanation of how this happens. Hopefully the next issue will explain this. The one thing that really let me down in this comics was the use of the word “fag”. I guess it was in character for the one-shot character they used but there was a lot of other words they could have used instead. That really disappointed me in the comic and makes me question if I want to pick up the next issue to find out what’s going on.
Red Lanterns #1 – Fatality tries to bring Bleez around to save her and they have a bit of a cage match to fight it out. Meanwhile, Atrocitus keep tracking Abysmus and Rancor keeps trying to figure out what’s going on. Plus, a brief guest appearance by Guy Gardner and some Green Lanterns.
Stormwatch #11 – In this issue, we’re introduced to the Hidden People. They are a race that split from humanity back and very ancient history. It seems that they’ve had their crossed paths with older incarnations of Stormwatch and are after the Engineer whom they seem to have had some knowledge of. They’ve been working on some plans for generatons and they may be set to put the plans into action now. To make things even worse for Stormwatch, the next issue is advertized as the Martian Manhunter vs the team. Infighting can’t help now.
Well, I planned on finishing this last night but I’ve been able to be social lately and having a life finally seems to have cost me some free time. Still working on setting a normal schedule. Bu beyond that, there’s the Top 3 of the week to think of. Earth 2 is continuing to be a great book and is filling in the backdrop of the world at a nice pace without being too messy. Green Hornet is staying interesting an while this current story needs to end soon, I think it’s at the pace it needs to be to come to a conclusion before it drags on too long while still being interesting. Finally, we have He-Man and the Masters of the Universe. I really want to see what DC does with this property. I just hope they don’t mess it up.
Speaking of DC, in the back of this week’s issues, they have some of the covers of the 0 issues. I believe these will be following up the month after the original series his issue 12. Among the current titles shown are 0 issues for Phantom Stranger and Amethyst. I’m guessing that’s where we’ll be starting them since I believe the 0 issues are where the other titles are also ending. Hopefully the 0 issues will be interesting and worthwhile.
