One Heckuva Week...Reviews

Yet another pretty darned good week for Comic Bookery.

Brightest Day #20. Poor Arthur. He's just having a HECK of a bad day. As you all recall, Black Manta managed to cut his OTHER hand off last issue, and is just about to have his head join it, when Aquakid tackles him. Gosh, I just love that kid, he's a pretty good new character. Fortunately for him, Mera shows up with Aquagirl. Arthur is quite relieved, since Siren had told him that she was dead. Never believe the baddies.

So...it is the four of them against ALL the bad guys that have been released from the Bermuda Triangle. Arthur has Jackson cauterize his new stump, which had to hurt, but Aquaman is all brave and stoic about it. But Mera upstages everybody, by holding back ALL the water on the beach, although the strain of it makes her nose, eyes and ears bleed. Atrocitus would have loved it. Then she uses the water to grab all the evil guy's boats, and they all get flung back into the water, hotly pursued by our intrepid quartet. And Aquaman gets to do that humming thing and attacks them with an army of DEAD SHARKS AND STUFF! Jackson uses his power to seal them all in the Bermuda Triangle again, and Arthur forgives Mera, basically saying that the four of them are outcasts, but that they can be outcasts together. It's a rather lovely moment, which the Life Entity completely ruins by saing that Arthur has accomplished his mission...life returned...and Deadman shows up and Arthur is zapped and disappears in a blast of white light, leaving the rest of them all sad.

I'm beginning to wonder about the Life Entity. First the Hawks and now Aquaman...each blasted away just as they were about to score. He's got to be the biggest damned cock-blocker in the Universe!

Ivan Reis did the artwork and it is simply gorgeous. This was a REALLY beautiful issue,and things were just humming along. Next up...Mars!

Booster Gold #41

Rip threatened to take Booster back to stand trial for his crimes, which leads to a lot of confusion and recriminations. In the middle of all this, who should show up, but Doctor Nishtikeit, who has decided that he is going to be Booster's Nemesis...not to mention Arch Enemy. And he's doing a pretty darned good job of getting through Rip's defenses. Poor Rani is starting to freak and have flashbacks to when Booster saved her on Daxam, so he gets Michelle to get her out the way.

Meanwhile Nishtikeit is doing a remarkably good job of blowing stuff up, and even knocks Rip down and out. Booster decides that he's had just about enough...especially because Skeets gets blown up too. NOT SKEETS!!! Rip is rather surprised by how emotional Booster is over Skeet's destruction. And Michelle put on her suit and shows up to help. So...it's Booster vs his new Nemesis. Except that Booster can barely remember this guy, and thinks that he's just a jerk anyway. But Booster handles him pretty well, except that he kicks him in the calf before teleporting away, and making ominous promises about it. I'm sure that he's injected Booster with something that will come back to haunt him eventually. It is standard Bad Guy Procedure.

They pick stuff up, and fortunately, Skeets is put into a spare body, his main parts were undamaged. Rip keeps a lot of spares just in case. And believe it or not, Booster agrees to go back with Rip to stand trial. They sentence him to five years in a prison! Booster can't believe it, what about all the good that he's done, and Rip explains that they ARE taking that into consideration. But he's a good boy, and he agrees to go along with it.

So we end with poor Booster in jail and about to get a rather nasty new cell mate.

I'm horrified that they've locked up Booster, but quite intriqued about what is going to happen. So, a good book.

Doom Patrol #19

This continues the cross-over with the Secret Six from their book. The Six had been hired by a really revolting twenty-something with a lot of money and a turn for villainy. He wants to take over Oolong island and make it his own new Lair of Villainy. Except Veronica Cade already runs it, and has the Doom Patrol as her security. Naturally mayhem ensues. It's fun, although not quite as witty as Gail's version. It more or less ends in a draw because the volcano starts to erupt which puts a damper on things. The Six decide, the heck with it, they're going home, and the kid gets caught and taken care of, but the Doom Patrol end up fired anyway. It's a nice little book,and although I don't read it that regularly I am quite disappointed that it is going to be cancelled.

Fables #102

This is as good as usual. The Fables are going up against the Dark Man again, and have taken Pinocchio's advice to put on costumes and do it as Super Heroes, since Super Heroes ALWAYS win in the end. Ozma is skeptical, but admits that having an extra bit of confidence isn't a bad advantage. Bigby comes back and sees what Ambrose is up against in Haven. A nice issue that is setting things up for the big confrontation.

Green Lantern #62. Oh Hal. Never ever change.

Green Lantern Corps #57. Well! I did not see that coming!

Justice League #54. And now we have Eclipso showing up again. He's collecting all the characters that have shadow powers for some reason, so naturally we get the Shade and some other people. I was expecting him to go after Obsidian, but no, he wants Jade! Which is what ties it into the new Justice League, because really, they don't even show up in this issue. It is mostly set up as well, but it's not bad. At least I'm interested, and will keep on with it. I WILL say that I think the art is just gawdawful.


After all the hoohah about how great Batgirl was, I went back and picked it up, and I'll be dipped, but it WAS awfully cute.

I love weeks like this.