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Thursday, July 9, 2009

This Week's Comic Books 7-8-09

Speaking of the date, yesterday at 34 minutes and 56 seconds past the noon hour, it was 12:34:56 7/8/9. Cosmic moment! Anyway, among my purchases this week are an exercise in nostalgia, a prologue to another big "event," and the Superman book that actually stars Superman...

Wednesday Comics 1 (of 12): This would be the DC Comics exercise in nostalgia. It's supposed to remind you of the Sunday comics section you find in newspapers, even going so far as to be on newsprint instead of the glossy paper stock normally used for their books. It's folded up to be the size of a comic book but when you unfold it, it turns into a 14-by-20 paper, 16 pages, all but the back page featuring a single strip starring different DC characters, with different writers and artists for each. That in itself makes it a mixed bag. Since the stories are just starting this week, they have one page to grab the reader. Some of the stories grabbed me, some didn't. Some of the artwork looks great, some of it is confusing and flat-out ugly. I don't think I'll buy this again. I may just open it up and read the pages that interest me and put it back down. ;-)

Superman: World Of New Krypton 5 (of 12): And this would be the Superman book featuring Superman. As previously explained, he's now living on New Krypton. He's serving as an army commander under none other than General Zod. As a result of events occurring in issue #4, Superman is on trial for treason, with the death penalty applicable if he's convicted. Superman's defense strategy is very Superman-like, so what happens is not much of a surprise. What happens after the trial, though...ooooooh.

Green Lantern 43: ...and this would be the prologue to the next big event, "Blackest Night." In previous books it came to be that, instead of just being Green Lanterns, there are all kinds of colorful ring-wielding corps, and each color is tied into what's referred to in this book as the "emotional spectrum" -- green is for willpower, red for rage, orange for avarice, yellow for fear, blue for hope, indigo for compassion (hey, if all the indigo ring-wearers were females they could be the Indigo Girls!), violet for love. I don't really understand it because I didn't buy any of the stories that introduced all of this. Anyway, now there will be the Black Lanterns, dead characters who are brought back to life with black power rings and, presumably corrupted by the Blackness, will cause all manner of mayhem. Not sure if I want to keep up with this.

Red Robin 2: This is another new series that was spawned from the events that apparently took the life of Bruce Wayne. Since there's a new Batman, I guess the laws required there be a new Robin as well. Thus, the most recent Robin -- Tim Wayne, formerly Tim Drake until Bruce Wayne adopted him after his father's death -- now stars in this book. Tim's on a quest to find Bruce because he thinks Bruce isn't dead. They haven't really explained why he thinks that. Maybe it's because so many other heroes have died and returned, even without black power rings. Or maybe it's because he's acting so dark and brooding and borderline obnoxious, so much unlike how he's always been, that he's acting just like Batman did in recent years. Again, not sure how long I'll keep going with this one.

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