Bouquets and Brickbats

Well, we are digging out a foot of snow from yet another storm...but fortunately, this one didn't hit until AFTER the UPS trucks had delivered my precious comics to the store. I have strange priorities.

Again, not a whole lot of books this week. There wasn't a Green Lantern book at ALL this month, although there was that extra one in December, which threw me off schedule. Still, it does seem like I haven't been getting as many books. Part of that is because Marvel keeps CANCELLING the ones that I like. And I've given up on a few others.

But anyway...

Fables #101

This was a rather sweet story, of a smart-alecky mirror, a smart-alecky talking head and a slightly befuddled former flying monkey. Against all odds, Bufkin has come through and put the Djinn back in the bottle and defeated Baba Yaga, and now he's on to perform more feats of derring-do. Or something. So he climbs out of the Business Office, with one of the barleycorn girls in his pocket to narrate. And climbs. And climbs some more. And oddly enough ends up almost in Oz. He thought he was going to go home to the Farm, but he just went...home. It is a charming and surprisingly NON-violent story, and really, I loved it. And it raises all sorts of questions about the Office, and the unexplored portions of it.

A nice fluffy pretty bouquet.

Green Arrow #8.

This is really growing on me. Just like the Forest in Star City! Haw!

Er...ahem. Anyway, the magical Forest seems to be expanding which has various groups worried, so STAR labs sows up, and Poison Ivy and Lexcorps and Doctor Midnite and Mr. Terrific. Ollie and Galahad are still lurking in the woods, when they stumble upon none other than Jason Blood! With all of his clothes on, which is a pity. But what is even more interesting, is that somehow, the Demon aka Etrigan has been separated from Blood! And is busy hunting him down. Ollie and Galahad gallantly move to assist, and end up encountering some STAR lab scientists and Midnite and Terrific. Naturally some brawling ensues.

Ollie is being a dick to Midnite and Terrific, but they're pretty well used to that. They DO try to reason with him, but this IS Ollie after all. Then they go back and try to fight with Etrigan some more, but then the Phantom Stranger shows up.

Oh, be still my heart! I LOVE the Phantom Stranger! Not too many men can carry off a turtleneck and a fedora, but he's one of them.

A nice green and grown bouquet for this one as well.

Justice League: Generation Lost #18

You know, I actually liked this. Ice wasn't portrayed as being a jerk, which made it tolerable. We have Power Girl fighting Captain Shinypants to begin with. He keeps trying to reason with her, to no avail,and then it dawns on him, that her dialog isn't matching up to his dialog...it all makes sense when he realizes that she's not seeing...or hearing...him at ALL! She thinks she's fighting Superman!

Oh that Max. What a Cad!

The rest of the team shows up, and it becomes clear, that she's seeing them as other people as well. She thinks that Fire is Supergirl, Rocket Red is Green Lantern, Booster is Batman and Ice is Starfire.

Meanwhile Max and Professor Ivo are busy torturing poor Blue Beetle. Max is disgustingly cheerful and smug about the whole thing, taunting Jaime and telling him that good does triumph over evil...but HE'S really a Good Guy here. Yeah, right. Oh Max.

Back with Peej, she's busy handing them their heads. Gavril, bless his heart is the one who figures out her weakness, which is her enhanced hearing, and he lets loose with some high frequency sound waves, the pain of which jolts her back to reality. Oh, and she remembers who Max is. Funny thing that...Max himself pointed out to Jaime that pain apparently overrides his mind-whammy. I see a clue!

The art was very pretty,and the story was good. Ice has a new costume for some reason. It's not bad, except I find the furry belt a little odd.

So...a bouquet! Who'd a thunk?

JSA #47

I keep telling myself to drop this book, and I can't quite bring myself to do it. It does advance the plot, but the plot is horribly disjointed. Manhunter is apparently going to show up, which is nice, Dr. Chaos is running around causing...well...chaos, and beating the JSA FAR too easily. The action just jumps from scene to scene to scene, with only a few panels devoted to each development, which I find disconcerting.

And some of the things that they are doing just don't make a whole lot of sense anyway. Mr. Terrific is getting stupid, Alan is paralyzed, Doctor Midnite is getting fed up, Fate is hauling Lightning's soul around some weird dimension...and so on.

No bouquet for you!

Wonder Woman #606

Well, this is just one long huge fight. There is a LOT of violence, and a lot of blood, and a lot of posturing. And they kill Phillipus, which pisses me off, but it's all in an althernate reality anyway, so who cares?

Not much of a bouquet here either.

Oh, and apparently one of the Fantastic Four dies. Yeah, it's the Human Torch. He's about the only one who hasn't died yet, so it was his turn. I give him about twelve issues, before his triumphant return. I haven't been reading Fantastic Four for quite a while, so I really didn't know all of what was going on, but I can say that Reed and Sue's youngest...whatsername, Val or something? Man, is that kid annoying.

Sue and Namor on the other hand, were pretty cool in this.

So brave the snow and get your books!