Thursday, December 06, 2012

DC Comic reviews!

After having so much fun with my Thought Bubble comics I am thoroughly thoroughly fed up with most of DC's products.  I don't feel interested and excited to read most of my weekly haul, I feel antipathy.  Maybe that's because when I buy ongoing series I know what is going to happen.  When I buy the odd off the shelf Dc book I have no idea of the backstory or anything and I am just thrown into a (for me) one off issue.

With that rather negative start, let's begin reviewing the last few weeks worth of books.  Spoilers ahead.
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Blue Beetle 13
This was an off the shelf impulse buy.  And was fun.  Jaime is in space and fighting other scarabs, and then meets someone who admires his control over the scarab armour, but looks creepy, and then is narrowly not met by someone who wants to steal his armour back.
I have no idea how we got to this set of events and I don't care.  I enjoyed this issue, but not so much that I want to buy issue 14.
The Superman 13 sneak preview remains as pointless as ever,


Animal Man 14
It's still in crossover hell.  It started as a really strong horror comic, without obvious links to the rest of the DCU, but now that he's joined up with Black Orchid, Constantine, Gorilla Grodd, a red skinned Beast Boy etc, it's lost some of the special feeling.  It's like it's brought back down to Earth (one) and it's lost the power of the horror, because Buddy Baker is forced to interact with other heroes.  I'll still keep it on my pull list though, because I think once the crossover is finished, it will go back to being a scary horror comic.

Birds of Prey 14
Better than I expected.  It took me ages to work out what was happening on the cover, and I'm still confused as to what part the dude is, and how Starling and Black Canary work.  This is a true Escher Girl image.  Having said that, inside the comic story was actually quite good, if not in any way memorable  An improvement on the previous couple of issues at least.  I do wish Batgirl wasn't in the team though.  She just doesn't seem to fit.

DC Universe Presents 14 - Black Lightning and Blue Devil
Hell yeah this was good.  I am definitely getting the next issue.  These were a couple of my favourite b-list characters pre the new 52, and this issues keeps the attraction and the style, even while changing the origins a bit.

Superboy 14
It's crossover hell again.  And Kon just keeps doing the same things he's done in all other issues. get pissed off and hits things.  Hopefully this will improve, but I'm not holding my breath.

Supergirl 14
And here I get sad.  One of my favourite iconic characters has been rebooted.  The artist, Mahmud Asrar, and the writer, Mike Johnson, are doing a fine story, but I'm not sure it's the story I want to read.  Or rather, I am still sad we lost the previous incarnation of Kara.   But perhaps I shouldn't compare the two at all?  Perhaps that is unfair.  I think it is.  This Kara is brave and bright, and far more independent than the previous Kara's.  She is definitely her own woman and not reliant on Kal at all.  She is more like Kara from Smallville actually (without the destiny nonsense and with more confusion).  I really like that she's got her own life, and that her friend is the Silver banshee (and I loved how Asrar drew the banshee).  In fact, Asrar is now one of my favourite artists.

This series has such a different feeling to the previous series.  Less superhero-ey, less comedic, and less young, actually.  Both in terms of the characters and the style of story.  It's sadder and more mature.  I will keep buying it, and I am enjoying it.  But every time I read it I struggle to work out my feelings for it.  It probably doesn't help that this is also stuck in crossover hell.

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