Comics! 52, Wonder Woman, and screwing up!

Well, it was only a matter of time before we here at Stevereads were disappointed by more than one DC comic at a time. The company has lately been on an unprecedented roll, and such things always come to an end, or at least falter and fumble. Such is the case with the latest batch of comics purloined by Elmo from Pepito while he was sleeping.

It's not all bad news, of course. The Judd Winick/Scott McDaniel run on Green Arrow is still unflaggingly fantastic, for instance. Winick is so good at dialogue that the requisite action sequences - though wonderfully rendered, of course - feel positively redundant. Oh, make no mistake, there's a plot going on here - but even so, the prospect of Winick writing the chemistry between Green Arrow and Black Canary, who guest-stars next month, is mouth-watering in and of itself.

Same thing with the latest Green Lantern Corps, written by Dave Gibbons and drawn by Patrick Gleason - this title is as epic as it gets, convincingly so, driven by gigantic cosmic plotlines and delightfully rendered personalities. Gibbons has crafted an enormous plotline that fits the cosmic nature of his title perfectly.

But it's slim pickings elsewhere. The ongoing 'Trials of Shazam' title continues to be incomprehensible; Captain Marvel is the wizard Shazam? Captain Marvel Junior is a newer, skinnier Captain Marvel? No, no, no .... these old Fawcett characters aren't meant for any kind of radical change. And even if you DO subject them to radical change, you have to plan it better than our present writer - none other than the very same Judd Winick - has bothered to do. It CAN be done (just look at the huge improvements made to other Fawcett characters! The renovation of the Question over in '52' has been nothing but sure-footed, and what better improvement to the character of Blue Beetle could be conceived than a bullet through the head?), but it's not being done here.

Likewise the affairs over in Geoff Johns' Teen Titans, where Al Barrionuevo's pencils are so violently incoherent that Johns' writing can't do much more than offer a guided tour through a Kandinsky print.

So too the concluding chapter of Brad Meltzer's first arc on 'Justice League of America,' a decided epilogue of a thing in which we see our team first fully assembled, amidst much conversation, virtually none of stands in character (same goes for the artwork, in which every single person is of the exact same build and height, despite any sensible person's awareness that, of course, Wonder Woman is taller than, say, Green Lantern ... or that Superman is taller than, say, Speedy - now called Red Arrow).

Still, these things are comparatively minor compared to the grave missteps happening elsewhere in the DC lineup.

For instance, the latest '52.' The ball it dropped a couple of issues ago is here spiked, deflated, and ripped to leathery shreds.

The problem is Black Adam, of course. A couple of issue's ago he was captured by the mad scientists on Oolong Island, including the Marvel family arch-villain Dr. Sivana, who's been busy torturing Black Adam ever since. In this issue we see him clamped to a table being electro-shocked while Sivana gathers up his various devices, saying he's 'bored' with torturing Black Adam.

Sivana is exercising the better part of valor, because Oolong Island is being taken by the Justice Society. Just as he's leaving, he's snatched into the air by Atom-Smasher (or whatever he's called this week), who forces him to divulge Black Adam's location.

Which might not seem like a problem, but oh! It is! Not only is it completely illogical that Atom-Smasher wouldn't, you know, HOLD ON to Sivana one he caught him. No, the real problem runs much deeper: nothing should have happened to Black Adam in the first place.

DC has a limited roster of class-A powerhouses, after all. There are all sorts of characters in the upper echelon - Power Girl, Mary Marvel and Captain Marvel Junior, Grace over in Outsiders, Supergirl, Martian Manhunter, etc. But the class-A's have always been fairly limited; these are the characters whose sheer amount of physical power obliges the writer to re-work the normal storylines. Normal storylines like 'character gets captured by bad guys and has to be rescued by his friend.'

The list isn't long. Superman sits at the top of it, of course. Wonder Woman (when she's portrayed well, which we'll get to - hoo-hoooooooo, will we get to it). Captain Marvel. Darkseid. Alan Scott (for those of you holding out for one of the leotardy Green Lanterns, we here at Stevereads have only one word: oh please). Bizarro. Solomon Grundy (PRIOR to his idiotically wasted recent turn in Justice League). And, for better or worse, Black Adam.

Black Adam, who's therefore immeasurably strong, fast, and invulnerable. Meaning, you're going to have to do better than ordinary-looking metal shackles to hold him while you TORTURE him for DAYS. Meaning, it isn't possible for such a plotline to happen in the first place. Power Girl, yes. Martian Manhunter, yes. But not Black Adam, who's not only invulnerable (and therefore, you know, invulnerable) but also strong enough to make any kind of simple metal shackle a little silly.

What happened was the writers of '52' lost their nerve. They created a perfectly compelling scenario: what would happen if a class-A character were driven over the edge (note: NOT driven insane)? What would happen, in other words, if somebody killed Lois Lane?

If such a thing DID happen, it's a lock-solid certainty that Superman WOULDN'T a) be captured, b) be tortured for DAYS OFF CAMERA, and c) need to be helplessly rescued by other people. Not because he's Superman, but because he's class A - he represents simply too much power for such plotlines to make any sense. The writers of '52' had a chance to explore what would happen to the DC continuity if a class-A character went off the rails - they came close, but then they drew back.

Black Adam's sworn mission is to kill the 'people responsible' for the death of his wife and family. OK, fine - but the people responsible are the mad scientists who created the creatures who did those dastardly deeds. That is, the scientists on Oolong Island. Nobody else. And yet, at the end of this current issue of '52,' there Black Adam is, portentiously intoning 'They wanted a war - I'm going to give it to them.'

Given the events of this particular issue, the only allowable 'them' here would be the Chinese government, which covertly sponsored one of those evil scientists. That's tenuous - the scientists worked together, after all - but even if we accept it, why would Black Adam? He was being helplessly tortured while the JSA was discovering the link between China and Oolong Island - his only legitimate target would still be the scientists themselves, presumably starting with the one Atom-Smasher let go.

So: the next issue of '52' had better feature Black Adam squaring off against the Justice Society as they try to stop him from killing all the evil scientists they've captured.

Eddy Barrows' artwork, however, remains superb.

But hoo-boy, if this issue stumbled on the problem of handling an A-list character, the latest issue of Wonder Woman doesn't just stumble - it falls flat on its face and slides all the way down the hillside on its boobs.

You'll have seen the little news blurbs - Wonder Woman is currently being written by bestselling author Jodi Picoult. We here at Stevereads don't wish to generalize, but nevertheless: every single time a bestselling author takes over the writing chores on a comic book, they suck at it with an ironclad, forge-bellows level of suckery.

The reason is probably easy to figure: they think they're slumming, so they bring the middlingest of their game to the task, confident that it won't show. As any long-time comics fan could tell them if they bothered to ask, it shows. Oh, how it shows.

Not that Wonder Woman has ever been an easy job. Only comparatively recently has DC editorial policy seemed to give her the credit that's been due her for so long; only comparatively recently has she been consistently portrayed as entirely A-list, Superman's equal in sheer power (we here at Stevereads have a pet theory on the subject: we think the process was sped up by the overwhelmingly favorable response garnered by the 'Justice League' animated series, which gave its viewers a gloriously badass version of Wonder Woman - culminating in eight shiningly magnificent minutes in the second season of 'Justice League Unlimited' - eight minutes every fan of the character should waste no time in Youtubing).

Alas, what DC editorial policy giveth, Jodi Picoult taketh away. Her Wonder Woman simpers with chickchat, brims with bromides, and worst of all, is a weak-ass little girlscout who allows herself to be taken captive by the US government and callously tortured whenever she opens her uppity mouth to her male captors. Again, the easiest way to reveal the utter poverty of the storyline is to picture any writer writing anything even remotely similar about Superman.

Superman who, as a character, has been around the longest (with all due respect to the Shadow and Doc Savage), the one who started it all. For seventy years, Superman writers have had to test their inventiveness AGAINST the granite cliffside of his level of power. Ditto, come to think of it, for Captain Marvel writers down through the decades.

Not so Wonder Woman's writers, who, when faced with a thorny plot-challenge, have overwhelmingly chosen to simply dial down her power-level (or worse, dumb her down intellectually). A present-day comics reader would like to think such days were long gone, but it turns out that in Jodi Picoult, the '40s live on.

Fortunately, slumming, showboating bestselling authors never hang around for long. We can only hope that in the two or three issues remaining to her, Picoult doesn't a) contrive to permanently remove Wonder Woman's powers (so that she can for the eight hundredth time learn 'proportion,' 'balance,' or 'humanity') b) contrive an entirely new origin story for the character (aliens? mole people? clandestine MEN?) or c) KILL the character, probably at the hands of a gun-wielding lowlife.

Then she'll be gone, and some professional comic-writer will step in and take over, and with any luck, we'll all get back to a Wonder Woman who's as powerful as Superman or Captain Marvel, a character who's grappling with her role in Man's World, her diplomatic duties, her status as an ambassador of peace versus her status as a costumed crime-fighter.

Until then, it's this stupid, ineffectual little debutante in a tiara. In the meantime, at least Brad Meltzer's (gasp - another bestselling author) Wonder Woman over in Justice League isn't (yet) embarrassing herself all over every issue. Yeesh, but a sister deserves better.

Comics! 52, GLC, and JSA!

A comics-heavy time here at Stevereads, and it's Elmo who's to blame! Every three or four days, he slips me a small package of comics, and every such package manages to have stuff demanding to be written about. This time, it was just three issues - but they were three issues of such joy-inducing merit that we here at Stevereads can't let them pass in silence, even though some of you are, you know, girls, and so not interested in comics (especially with Kevin out there earnestly recommending crap).

Our first issue under consideration is the latest issue of 52, a rip-snortin hootenanny of an issue mainly due to DC's most consistently hilarious character, Lobo. The fun is increased here because in this series we've been presented with a Lobo who's convinced himself that he's converted to pacifism - we readers have known all along what a running joke that was, and in this issue it all comes crashing down.

In this issue Lobo and Starfire and Animal Man are brought into the presence of our new cosmic super-villain, the Lady Styx. Lobo's pretended to be turning the other two in for a bounty (in order to get them all inside Lady Styx's lair), but when he demands it, what he gets isn't to his liking one little bit. She tells him (through interpreters, of course) that he's not getting any bounty, that he AND his supposed prisoners are going to be chopped up into chuckroast and FED to her.

The killer part is that even that isn't enough to tip him over the edge. Sure, the idea of being served for brunch irritates him, but it's the final taunt that really gets to him:

"She says ... she says your god's ... gulp ... a big, fat prancing coward who licks his own! Just ... just like you, main man!"

Naturally, right after that follows a whole heaping LOT of decapitations. Lobo informs our villainess that he killed everybody on his homeworld AND Santa Claus (this last is true and hilariously so - the issue where Santa gets his smackdown is, quite possibly, the comic book comic highlight of the last quarter-century), and he proceeds to basically hurl her into a Sun-Eater.

There were other interesting parts of the issue, don't mistake: Animal Man DIES, for instance, and more importantly, we all get a GLORIOUS four-page demonstration that there should be a monthly Power Girl comic, and that it should be drawn by Adam Hughes. Not OUR Adam Hughes, who's perhaps the slowest comic book penciller in the entire world (we surely don't know any OTHER candidates, do we Kevin?) - no, some altenate-universe Hughes who pencils one issue in the same amount of time it took Jack Kirby to do Fantastic Four, X-Men, Thor, Sgt. Fury and His Howling Commandoes, and Rawhide Kid. Every month. For years.

But the main attraction here is Lobo handled exactly as he should be - hilarious, over the top, and as a guest star (his regular monthly role in the otherwise-fantastic and severely underrated 'L.E.G.I.O.N.' series very nearly torpedoed it).

The second issue of our trio is the latest issue of 'Green Lantern Corps,' written for adults by Keith Champagne and drawn with weird, wonderful nuance by Patrick Gleason.

We here at Stevereads are as shocked as anybody by how much we love this title - and not just this one! 'Green Lantern' AND 'Guy Gardner' are every bit as great, constituting a genuine high-point renaissance in the whole mythos of Green Lantern.

The surprise-factor here comes from the fact that the whole Green Lantern concept has always left us fairly flat. The rings can do virtually anything, yah, yah - makes for convenient exposition in the odd Justice League issue, but beyond that? We never really got it.

Clear now what the problem has always been: Hal Jordan. Hal Jordan, the handsome, wavy-haired Wonderbread so-called 'greatest Green Lantern of 'em all.' I see now that the problems I've had with the whole Green Lantern concept have derived from my boredom with just this one individual guy.

The central Green Lantern concept, though, the idea of a galactic police force, is and always has been rock-solid (naturally so! It was stolen from an impeccable source, and the first of you to name it gets a fun gift in the mail! Shall we call it a Steve-prize?). For the first time, the concept of the Green Lantern Corps is being given the gritty, operatic, thrilling treatment it deserves.

'Green Lantern Corps' is, at least for this current Champagne/Gleason 'Dark Side of Green' story-arc, the hands-down best title DC is currently publishing. You should go to your nearest comics shop and buy both issues of this arc and savor them.

This issue features a deliciously hissable new villain who rips apart Green Lanterns like CD wrapping, and it also features Guy Gardner, who, when handled correctly (here and in Howard Chaykin's recent two-part mini-series, he's handled perfectly), is the ultimate antidote to Hal Jordan-style bland perfection: he's the Ben Grimm of DC comics, wonderfully flawed and brutishly heroic.

But as good as those two titles are, neither one of them holds a candle to the second issue of Geoff Johns' relaunch of 'Justice Society of America.'

It's a little disenheartening, actually, watching this title unfold with such amazing confidence and vigor while Brad Meltzer's Justice League relaunch continues to struggle in its own mire, going nowhere.

Still, pity only mutes so much, and it doesn't take a bit from this magnificent issue. In the first issue, we saw the Society trying to pull itself together after the events of the latest Crisis ... recruiting new members, undergoing a new, mysterious assault (so far on one of its potential recruits, the lamely-named but wonderfully-rendered Mr. America), and grappling with the mysteries of its own new members.

This issue has too many good things to enumerate - Hell, the artwork alone is worth an aria of praise, and there are lots of other factors in play. Johns' writing is sharp and note-perfect, and the action of the plot is convincingly moved along on multiple fronts. As noted, there's a sad, melancholy comparison to be made between this title and Brad Meltzer's efforts over in Justice League - in both books, a broken team must gather old and new members in the shadow of a growing threat. In JLA, the gathering takes a comically long time, and the threat is almost instantly mockable. In JSA, the new recruits are in place at the end of the first issue, and the threat - well, the threat here is twofold: Nazis (considering that this is the team that actually fought in DC's WWII, this is a delightful given)(although please, Powers That Be over at DC - give us a JSA book SET during the war! It's been more than 20 years since you did, and all us fans are wanting to see these great characters in their prime) and a nebulous approaching future threat.

'Future' being the key word. Because of course the, as Elmo would put it, pants-wettingly good 'big surprise' in this issue is the final-page revelation that our Cosmic Boy is THE Cosmic Boy, and not the version we know from the Legion of Super-Heroes but the adult version we all saw in the background of our most holy text, 'Kingdom Come.'

'Kingdom Come' of course being the fantastic 'imaginary story' of a future DC universe in which the super-heroes have retired from the world stage and super-powered anarchy reigns unchecked. That graphic novel stands as one of the six greatest superhero books ever made (and the single best portrait of Superman - in words and pictures - ever made, with the possible exception of 'Whatever Happened to the Man of Tomorrow?' by Alan Moore, Curt Swan, and George Perez). In this possible future, we glimpse this grown-up version of Cosmic Boy in the backgrounds, and maybe we wondered what his story was (disregarding, of course, whatever story was given in any of the million pages of 'Kingdom Come's supporting materials over the years and concentrating only on what's in the book itself).

This issue's final page introduces the mouth-watering prospect not only of Legion involvement but of dipping back into that potential future universe.

In short, 'Justice Society of America' is ripping forward on all cylinders! We shall certainly report on its next issue!

It's been brought to our attention here at Stevereads that our thoughtless omission of the patented Stevereads comics-quiz from our comic book posts caused consternation in certain quarters. In truth, we omitted it in order to give Kevin time to re-assemble the tattered shards of his dignity, but we see now that we must serve higher ends than the self-regard of one bosom friend! So here are a few puzzlers for you all!

First: well, it seems that serving in the Legion of Super-Heroes can be hazardous to your mental health! Cosmic Boy is of course the nutjob in question in the latest Justice Society, and here's our question: name three Legionaires who've pulled a nutty! Your only restrictions? A: it can't be FAKE insanity, and B: it can't, of course, be Brainiac 5, whose predilection for insanity has been a standard Legion plot-device since the Crimean War.

Second: for all its strengths, this latest issue of JSA contains one salient MISTAKE. Be the first to name it and win a Steve-prize!

Third: Speaking of the Legion, who among you can offer decipherments for the largest number of Cosmic Boy's cryptic utterances? One in this issue is easy as pie, two others not so much so - any takers?

In any case, many thanks to Elmo for providing this wonderful little batch of comics! We should all give thanks that he's not Pepito!

Comics! Because Kevin and Elmo have got to read SOMEthing!

It's a curious phenomenon, here as 2007 kicks off: my arch-nemesis Pepito (who cares not at all for our petty Western holidays) continues to drag-line trawl the new release shelves of his local comic shop, but such is the generally high mean of comics quality right at the moment that even he ends up getting mostly good stuff.

It can't last. It's only a matter of time until the Superman titles, Teen Titans, Outsiders, Green Arrow, the Batman titles ... it's only a matter of time until they all drift, until they start to suck almost as bad as, say, Supergirl and the Legion.

But while this little golden period lasts, even Pepito will have trouble buying crappy comics on a regular basis.

Fortunately, he'll always have Marvel Comics to turn to. In other words, he'll always have the X-Men.

There are so many X-titles, such a wide variety, all unified in one thing only: their suckiness. True, some suck worse than others - in fact, it's hard to say some of them suck completely, since they almost all sport absolutely first-rate artwork - but they're all so patently, pathetically adrift that I'm of a moral certainty that Pepito is the only person in the country who still buys them, and I firmly believe even he doesn't actually FOLLOW them (quick y'bastid, and without boning up: what's Mystique's hidden agenda? Why isn't Cyclops wearing his visor? Anything? Anything?).

Take the latest issue of 'X-Men' - it has absolutely first-rate artwork by the great, perpetually-underrated Humberto Ramos, but the issue's actual CONTENTS can be adroitly summarized by the cover - buncha grim super-types (including a rendition of Mystique that's so comically over-endowed Ramos should have been embarrassed to draw it), posing. The entire issue features nothing much more than that - at least, nothing comprehensible.

And how we wish we could say something different about Joss Whedon's Astonishing X-Men - it's been such a strong title and is still such a curiously readable one, but those of us loyal fans saw the same patterns when Whedon was giving us 'Buffy' so regularly (so regularly we forgot to be properly grateful, sniff! And now look at the miniscule progeny with which we must deal!) - he would go through a period of spectacular, prodigal creativity, and then he would ... well, he'd coast, custardize, even cannibalize.

Alas, he's at that stage in Astonishing ... the villains are a little too stagey, the dialogue is a little too arch, and as with all the other X-titles, the goings-on leave the reader with a profound sense of having urgently watched absolutely nothing get done. No dialogue is fruitless in Whedon's hands, but even so - one wishes for a new broom,

Things are no better in non-X titles - like 'Daredevil,' for instance, a title that could be the very definition of 'adrift.' This issue has like 30 pages, and every single one of them features nine neatly-cut little panels of FACES, just an endless parade of faces - Matt Murdoch and Vanessa Fisk, the long-lost wife of the Kingpin.

This is a charged history! This is a storied past! This SHOULD have been an enormously involving ... not one of Daredevil's great writers in the past (post-Lee, of course) has dealt with the formidable wife of the Kingpin, and one can feel what a Wein or a Gerber or a Miller would have done with the scene.

Here, it's entirely wasted. Matt talks, Vanessa talks, but thanks to the entirely static artwork and the go-nowhere writing, this issue yields nothing at all but information, and what the use of that, in a four-color comic?

And it's not just Marvel! Pepito managed to find crap even over at DC - no mean feat, considering what a roll their whole lineup seems to be on lately. Of course, he's aided in that aim whn the crap involved is particularly high-profile.

Which brings us to the latest issue of Brad Meltzer's Justice League. This is issue #5, but don't worry! Nothing much has happened yet. A freshly-sophisticated Solomon Grundy is still standing around menacingly, Vixen is still channelling animals off on the sidelines, and Red Tornado is still flesh-and-blood.

A far as I can tell, this issue features only one thing of any note: it gives us our first glimpse of pretty much the whole new League lineup (minus two rotten choices - Vixen and, apparently, Geo-force). There's the Big Three, naturally, but the rest shape up to be: Hawkgirl, Red Tornado, Black Lightning, Green Lantern, Red (ick) Arrow, and Black Canary. Not exactly an assemblage for the ages - that should be Green Arrow, and the team's token black character should be the Jon Stewart Green Lantern. Pulse or no pusle, Red Tornado is a loser of a character - that spot should be going to Aquaman, or Zatanna (or, for that matter, Power Girl, since all three of our D&D players agreed for three months running that she was a shoe-in).

Luckily, this haul had genuine highlights. Mike Carey's incredible 'God War' storyline in Utimate Fantastic Four continues to be the best science fiction being published. And Howard Chaykin's two-issue Guy Gardner mini-series concludes gloriously. Chaykin is such a talented penciller that it's easy to forget that he's also a canny, talented writer, a writer who specializes in heroes who are as flawed as they are noble.

He and Guy Gardner are a match made in comic book heaven. In this two-parter, Gardner is grating, bullying, and obnoxious - WITHOUT the Hallmark Moment at the end. He's a jerk, and he STAYS a jerk, and it's absolutely wonderful. And that 'absolutely wonderful' comes without any of the usual Stevereads caveats, because Guy Gardner - and the entire Green Lantern mythos - is currently experiencing the greatest creative period in its entire history. This two-parter is just delicious icing on the cake.

And of course there's the haul's highlight, so regular it's predictable: the latest issue of 52. It's spectacularly good, especially the central storyline involving Black Adam and his new family. This melodrama of power seeking to be good (the character of young Osiris has the potential to be one of the best, most conflicted super-'villains' in all of DC history) is extremely arresting, easily the best part of 52's slowly unfolding tapestry.

Comics! 52, FF, and more!

Four comics this week, all quite good (proof positive that they must have come from Elmo, since there's not an issue of gay-murderer Nightwing or Super-Linebacker, not a piece of crap in the batch ... hence, Pepito's hand is not seen) - and each yields a fervent PLEA to the funny book powers that be.

The current issue of '52' maintains that title's increasingly incredible run of great issues (those of you who a while ago gave up on this book should pick it back up forthwith ... not as some sort of 'prequel' to the current continuity, but because you'll scarcely read better DC stories anywhere on the new release shelves)(that last urging was aimed pretty much squarely at you, Kevin, ya snobby slug-a-bed!). It can't last, this run - next issue promises more of the idiotic new untrained lesbian Batwoman, and that CAN'T be made good.

But we can savor it while it lasts! This issue's hugely winning highlight is the whining, hapless Ralph Dibny's discovery of the hidden mountaintop city of Nanda Parbat.

I expected to be bored. I expected, in fact, to be FRUSTRATED and bored, since the Nanda Parbat stories I WANT to be reading star one of the greatest DC superheroes of them all, sharing all the elegant simplicity of the Hal Jordan Green Lantern, or the Barry Allen Flash - or indeed Superman and Batman: of course I refer to Deadman. And not whatever stupid-ass relaunch might be out there, but good old Boston Brand, wisecracking circus performer/ghost, who can slip his ghostly form into living bodies and take control of them. THAT character should be on issue #300 of his own title right now, but that's not the plea associated with this issue (well, it IS - I mean, it's always been a plea of Stevereads that Deadman be given the treatment he's due ... and yet, apart from that marvellous mini-series two years ago with its stellar artwork by Jose Garcia-Lopez, he hasn't received it).

No, our plea arises from this issue's amazing portrayal of one member of '52's Chinese super-team, the Great Ten of the Peoples Republic.

When we first encountered the team, we groaned at all the stereotypes herded together in one narrow space. Perhaps unlike the rest of you, we here at Stevereads number among our closest friends a native of China who would cringe equally at all the one-note caricatures it contained.

So imagine our pleasure when, in this issue, we learn that at least one member of the team, the lamentably-named Accomplished Pefect Physician, is revealed to have an actual personality, an individual back-story in which he's NOT just a mindless Communist party drone.

So our plea is this: more, please! Let's have a Great Ten mini-series, with equal complexity doled out to each member. With sufficient googling on the part of our writers, it could prove an educational experience for all the comic readers out there whose knowledge of China starts and stops with the Yellow Claw.

Up next is the third issue of Alan Davis' everything-but-the-kitchen-sink 'imaginary' Fantastic Four story, 'The End.' This is the third issue of six, so there's way too much going on to summarize here. Suffice it to say Davis is continuing to haul in as many characters from the FF (especially the Lee/Kirby era) continuity as he possibly can - Galactus, the Watcher, Ronan the Accuser, Black Panther, and the Sentry this time around. And as with the previous two issues, there's the distinct feeling that he's sending out invites before he counts his chairs, if you get my meaning.

Still, this issue has high points - Davis' artwork is stellar, and John Kalisz contintues to outdo himself with his coloring. And there's an intriguing attempt to explain something that's always confused me - why so many of the Inhumans wear masks (Davis comes up with the ingenious idea that it's done as a sign of public contrition, for still looking human even after exposure to the Terrigan Mists).

(There are low points as well, most notably the 'cliffhanger' ending ... our heroes are attacked by a Sentry! Now let's see ... the original Sentry was defeated by the Fantastic Four; THIS one is facing the Human Torch, the Thing, the entire Inhuman royal family, and oh yeah - the friggin Silver Surfer. Geez - I'm on the edge of my seat over here!)

And the issue features a great action sequence involving Sue Storm and the Sub-Mariner, which leads us to our PLEA for this issue: could we please have a Namor ongoing series again? It's been years since the last one flared out in a burst of incoherent Jae Lee nonsense - surely it's time for one of Marvel's flagship characters to have his own title again? (and while we're at it, could somebody really popular propose renovating the continuity of the original Human Torch? So that he's alive, fully powered, and starring in his own title too? Thanx)

The Justice League shows up twice in this batch - first in the fourth issue of Brad Meltzer's ongoing relaunch. As you-all have gathered, I'm growing a bit impatient with this title - Meltzer clearly mapped out in his head the big storyline he wanted to tell, but it turns out he payed virtually no attention to breaking that story down into individual issues that are compelling in themselves.

The result has been four issues that feel, each one of them, like prologues. This is very annoying - bad enough we all know this run is going to be graphic novelled before the ink is dry on the last issue, but it sucks to have that fact rubbed in our faces.

This issue is a typical mess. There's Starro. There's a new Amazo. There's the issue's big reveal, Solomon Grundy - only dressed in a suit, so you know he's REALLY dangerous this time (where do these size-145 large super-villains get their suits?). But none of it gels at all, and you're left at the end of the issue same as at the end of all the other issues: wondering when the story's going to start.

So our plea? Start the story, already! So far, it looks like the new League membership will consist of Superman, Wonder Woman, Batman, Black Lightning, Vixen (just as soon as she gets her friggin jewelry back), Green Lantern, Black Canary, Red Tornado, Hawkgirl, and Roy Harper, rather disasterously renamed Red Arrow (it's the color-league!) - but it still feels like we're light-years away from actually seeing them all together.

(the issue also features a little mystery: on the bottom of page 11, the panel where Black Canary is hunched menacingly over Professor Ivor is clearly drawn by Adam Kubert, not Ed Benes ... but he's not credited. What the eff?)

Our last comic this time around is Justice League Unlimited, and there our plea is pretty simple: everybody should read this title! Month after month, it's the happy little antithesis of the 'adult' team books: a jam-packed story, great art, and the whole thing wraps up neatly at the end of every issue. Speaking for those of us who remember when ALL comics were like that, it can be pretty darn refreshing.

And what would a comic entry be without a Kevinator quiz? Let's try two this time around, and see who steps up:

1) The Sub-Mariner and Deadman share, by my counting, three major things in common as characters ... anybody care to guess what they are?

2) Davis' idea about why some Inhumans wear masks is good, but three things in Marvel continuity contradict it ... anybody?

Comics! 52 and JSA!

Poor, mucus-sludged Elmo could only muster strength enough to feebly hand over two comic books this week, but oh! what a pair of comics they were!

The first of them was the latest issue of 52, which certainly cemented in my mind the truth of Elmo's earlier assertion that this title is the best thing currently going in comics. This issue is nothing less than epic in its scope and pace, and that would be marvel enough in a MONTHLY book ... it's nothing short of miraculous in something being put out every week.

This issue has it all - sprawling, epic Green Lantern-style cosmic action (and the welcome addition of a A-level super-baddie to the ranks, the power ring-chomping Lady Styx), intimate mustache-twirling evil from Lex Luthor, and the YET AGAIN death of Captain Comet (as all true comics fans know, our Holy Writ - i.e. "Kingdom Come" - the good Captain dies well in the future of our current continuity .... hence this issue's whole bit about 'jettsoning' his 'primary consciousness' ...).

Of course the issue's central knot is the great mass of clues offered us as to the identity of Supernova. Previous to this issue, we here at Stevereads had already taken a guess at the identity of the character ... and this issue's huge amounts of clues confirm our suspicions. There's only one DC character who could possibly be Supernova, and on top of everything there's an indispensible visual clue provided in this issue.

So we here at Stevereads hereby challenge the comic-geeks out there among you: well? You have by now ample clues! Surely one of you has seen the key detail? Surely one of you can tell me who Supernova is? As Ralph Dibny says in this issue, the answer's pretty obvious, once you see it from the right angle.

But as good as '52' was this week, it can't hold a candle to the week's best book, the first issue of the relaunch of 'Justice Society of America.'

The contrast couldn't be any starker, comparing this relaunch with that of the Justice League, which after three issues is already mired in inept, compartmentalized storytelling.

This first issue is a triumph almost from the first page - a triumph not only of plot and artwork (quietly stellar work by Dale Eaglesham) but of balancing the geek-fest wants of old fans with the expository needs of your potential first-issue-attracted new readers. A total stranger to the JSA would be pulled into this issue every bit as fast as a veteran of the last six relaunches.

This is the best JSA relaunch ever! (the only possible superior - and it may not even qualify, technically - would be the first issue of the Roy Thomas/Rich Buckler All-Star Squadron ... but since they've never been collected and happened before all of you were born, I doubt anybody will be able to comment on it). It's got everything: the old guard (Jay Garrick, Wildcat, and Alan Scott, at last back to being called Green Lantern) being saluted by the new (Superman, Batman, and Wonder Woman); the rebel-wildcard member, in the form of Damage; the requisite newbie to throw everything into contrast (guess Stargirl has seen too much, so the new newbie is the granddaughter of Ma Hunkle, gifted with her own tornado-y powers); the big mysteries (not only who attacked Mr America - wonderful to see that old character so forcefully revived - but also the new Starman, about whom more later).

And then there's the sweetest pleasure of all with any highly-planned and anticipated first issue: the cover. The artist always knows more about what's coming up than the writer is willing to reveal up front, and it almost always bleeds through.

This time is no different. Some things are obvious: of course Hawkman and Doctor Midnight and the new Johnny Thunder and Mr. Terrific will be on the team, even though they weren't in the issue (although we get a quick description of Mr. Terrific as 'the world's third smartest person' ... I confess, I wasn't immediately sure who the first two are - I assume Batman and Lex Luthor, but if so, THEN what are we saying? That the top honor goes to a BAD guy? Or is there somebody I'm leaving out?)

Other things are less obvious but equally welcome: good to see Power Girl in the picture once and for all (and FINALLY free of her creative quagmire - she's a Kryptonian, and that's that ... no more crapola involving feckin Arion or anybody else), and the presence of Liberty Belle is equally welcome - strong female characters are always a good thing, especially if they're not knock-off derivatives of male characters .... yes, I'm still smarting about that stupid female-Wildcat, but my objections apply across the board, up to and most certainly including any version of Supergirl.

But the sweetest things on the cover are the most mysterious. For instance, who is this person in the garb of the original Sandman? And to whom to those mysterious eyes belong, hovering over Wildcat's shoulder (I know, I know - the easy answer is Obsidian, but what if it ends up being something more interesting?)?

And then there's Starman! Of course those of you who know me could predict that this little strand would magnetize me attention: it's Legion! It connects one end of the DC superhero continuity to the other, and in SUCH a delicious way, since of course it's the JSA that holds claim to the 'star-somebody' title.

Because the new Starman featured in this issue is, as all you comic-geeks out there know, wearing the uniform of the Starboy who's a flght ring-carrying member of the Legion of Super-Heroes (well, except for that unfortunate homicide trial, but you've all forgotten that...). Thom Kallor, whose Dave Cockrum-redesigned costume (rest in peace, big guy - you pressed the 'reset' button on a whole lot of imaginations, and you did it all with an unfailing sense of humor ... you will be missed) is identical to that of our new mystery-hero. And that new mystery hero, when he plucks a plummeting helicopter out of the sky, comments 'it looked heavier' - a direct nod to Starboy's mass-changing powers.

And there are the coming attractions! The coming attractions, in which someone clearly Dawnstar (the tassles - and the mention of 'tracking' - give it away, if the wing-feather backdrop didn't) vows to find Starman - not Star BOY, so we-all are taunted with the sliver of a great big cross-time storyline, one featuring not only our JSA stalwarts but a version of an ADULT legion ....

Well, as admitted, the issue largely bears on card-carrying comic-geeks. But it allows newcomers (I know, I know - there aren't any of you out there, in all likelihood) to hop on board without feeling like complete feebs.

So there you have it! A very good (albeit slim) week in comics! But you're right: what would a comics-entry be without a couple of QUIZZES for the rest of you ignore and Kevin to egregiously fail? So here goes:

First - the whole Supernova identity-puzzle put us in mind of this; quick (and, as always, without Google) - name me five superheroes who temporarily masqueraded as OTHER superheroes, and of course include both code-names in each case (and, if you want to show the whole blogosphere how clever you are, feel free to add the REASON for the substitution).

Second, this first issue of Justice Society, while excellent, contains one enormous ERROR, continuity-wise. Can you spot it? And if so, can you explain WHY it's so enormous?

Now let's all gather out on the patio for cocktail weiners while Kevin hunches over with his head in his hands, periodically uttering high-pitched keening sounds ....

Comics! 52 and Action!

After waiting patiently for my archnemesis Pepito to fall asleep (which he eventually did, clutching his ragged Ricky Martin plush doll close to his heart, as always), I crept into his lean-to and snatched up a small selection of the latest comics to read and tell you all about.

(the sequel, the somehow getting them back into Pepito's lean-to without arousing suspiciion, is a trickier matter, but we'll manage it somehow)

The item on the top of the pile aroused some considerable misgivings - it was the second issue of 'Fantastic Four - The End,' and the misgivings came from our awareness that our freakish young friend Elmo seemed to LIKE the first issue.

So we read the second issue with more care, attenae attuned for the WORTH of the thing.

The first worth leaps off the page: this is some of Alan Davis' greatest artwork almost impossibly rich in detail and compositional excellence.

Beyond that, well ... there's always been a certain charm in 'imaginary' stories - plots set outside the normal continuity, where readers get to conjure on might-have-beens.

This present story is set in the future, on an Earth that's become a paradise since all the mutie-scum were eliminated (or not all ... you just KNOW how this thing is going to climax ... and if you don't, let me give you a hint: his code-name starts with 'W'), and it's got lots of interesting stuff in it. It doesn't yet exercise our passion here at Stevereads, but there are four issues left. We shall see ...

A 'we shall see' response is also provoked by the third issue of the new Wonder Woman relaunch, which is the first issue of the run that has the distinct feeling of groping.

We won't nickpick that this feeling starts with the cover itself (as you can see from the accompanying picture, the background - Cheetah and her feline servants hunched menacingly - was added after the fact, and lamentably so, since climbing trees is not among the many talents cheetahs possess) - instead, we'll concentrate on the issue itself, which is frantically nonstop in terms of plot and virtually featherweight in terms of sense or momentum.

In the progress towards the extremely un-surprising climax (the sorceress Circe deprives Agent Prince of ... her powers! Why, THAT plot-device hasn't been used since the early 90s, and before that the mid-'80s, and before that the late-'70s, and before that the mid-'60s ... if we do it often enough, the readers will always remember that FEMALE superheroes don't really DESERVE their powers and must constantly have them taken away and re-earned), we learn one thing above all: writer Allan Heinberg hasn't bothered to sit down at his coffee table and actually PLOT OUT what he wants to do with this title. We'll have to see what comes of it all ...

Luckily, no element of 'we shall see' attends the new Geoff Johns/Adam Kubert relaunch of Action Comics! This is epic stuff, despite its colossal flaws. Kubert's artwork is amazing, and Johns' writing walks the fine line between humanity and iconography.

The flaws creep in around the basic premise of the plot - a boy from Krypton, found by Superman and sought by the rest of the world (including a Bizarro-manipulating Lex Luthor), eventually taken in by Lois Lane and Clark Kent as their 'foster son' ... as Lois herself points out, everybody in the whole feckin world is going to NOTICE the coincidence. Somebody needs to tell Johns that pointing out this fact isn't the same thing as CONSIDERING it, as a writer should.

Still, the issue has one great exchange. When Clark and Lois are hanging around the Kent family farm debating what to do with the little super-boy, Johns gives this neat little bit of dialogue to Lois:

"Clark, people like Ma and Pa Kent were put on this earth to be good parents. We weren't. You're here to save it. And I'm here to find the truth in it." Great stuff, even if the issue's sentimental climax turns things around.

But the pearl of the pickings this time around was the latest issue of '52' - starting with the fantastic cover, certainly the best cover '52' will field this year (and it gets my nomination for best DC cover of year period).

The plot - half of it, anyway - revolves around how the trio of DC's oldest super-heroes, the original Green Lantern, the original Flash, and Wildcat, react to the new wave of Lex Luthor-sponsored young super-heroes. The tone is controlledly bittersweet, and the best part of it is, it's offset by the issue's other plotline, featuring a group of mad scientists. This other plotline is openly and joyously feckin hilarious.

My young friend Elmo (you'll know him by the errant Owl-like tufts of hair emanating at random hours and angles from the top of his head) speculated the other day that this new format - a weekly comic actually done well - might be the future of the genre. If so - and if the quality remains this good - that might be a very interesting future. We shall see.

Comics! The Doctor is in!

A slim week for Pepito's stolen comics this week ... although not slim enough to prevent him from sniffing out at least SOME crap! He picked out this new J. Michael Straczynski hack-job 'Bullet Points,' after all ...

.... Still, some of the crap he picked out didn't LOOK like crap on the surface. This is certainly true of the latest 52, which was boring, hyperventilated, and completely unsatisfying.

I've noticed this about '52' - some of the issues (like the last one) work perfectly, managing to deliver an enjoyable comic book while at the same time being part of a much larger storyline. And some of them both don't do that and also suck. This was such an issue.

There's a lot of shouting in it - poor, bereaved Elongated Man gets the vengeance-inflicting powers of the Spectre just long enough to make the soul of his wife's murderer suffer for all e-teerrrrrnity, and Eclipso comes in for a bit, dunno why ...

But the issue wasn't a total loss: it had a wonderful backup feature detailing the origin of Black Canary, with rip-snorting good pencils by the mighty Howard Chaykin. Which made me wistful! Chaykin seems to be 'back' - willing and able to do mainstream comic work ... so why not a mini-series about the original Black Canary, the mother of the current one? That would be Canar-ific!

And even Pepito, with his crap-sense tingling, couldn't pass up the second issue of the great new Doctor Strange mini-series 'The Oath.'

The thing I love about this title is that its writer, Brian Vaughan, is smart enough not to re-invent the wheel. His Stephen Strange is looser and funnier than any previous incarnation (hands-down favorite line of comic book dialogue in 2006 happens in this issue: when confronted with a cadre of killer robots, the good doctor says "By the hoary #%*-ing hosts!" Hee), but he's still the same character Stan Lee and Steve Ditko created decades ago, and for good reason: that character works.

So, no 'he's really an alien' or 'secondary mutations' or any of that nonsense. This is still the man who was a brilliant but arrogant surgeon, who lost the skill of his hands in a car accident, and he learned the mystic arts from the Ancient One. In fact, this issue's best sequence is a flashback showing us just how big a jerk the pre-accident Stephen Strange was.

(and post-accident, as when the recovering Strange says he feels 'like suing whoever made seatbelts too damned uncomfortable for any reasonable man to wear')

Two things are certain about this mini-series: first, it will be collected in a nice trade paperback (so Pepito really shouldn't be buying it, but let's not tell him that)(he won't read it here, since this site has nothing to do with Menudo), and second, it will certainly re-launch a monthly Doctor Strange comic - let's hope the creators of the mini-series stay on board!

Let's finish up with some Doctor Strange trivia, to keep my little marmosets on their toes:

1. The presence of the Night Nurse in this issue raises the question: how many super-heroes have also been practicing members of the medical community? A full list, from memory!

2. In addition to his vast mystic abilities (learned from the Ancient One) and his considerable martial arts abilities (learned from who knows who - there's a great mini-series to be mined from the time when Strange and Mordo were students), Doctor Strange also has one other rather unusual superhero-trait. From memory, no peeking - what is it?

3. The good doctor knows at least one real-world literary giant - who can tell me who it is?

OK ... by the Vapors of Valtorr, by the hosts of Hoggoth, and by the Belches of Beepy, that's all for now!

comics! the sivana family!

When young Elmo presented me with this week's wopping-big batch of comics, I naturally inquired as to which ones were his and which ones he'd pinched from my nemesis Pepito's plywood lean-to.

In response to this perfectly natural question, Elmo said 'Eh ... snorf' and flitted off. So I pitched the comics all together, shook vigorously, and played a little game: see if I can tell which issues are crappy enough to be Pepito's!

Some of them are easy calls. Only Pepito would still pay good US money for Daredevil, for instance. Likewise only Pepito would think any good could ever come from the current Captain America 'Bucky's back - and Cap's got him!' storyline.

I can understand why Pepito would feel an imperishable flicker of hope about the Legion of Super-Heroes ... I feel it too, the unquenchable hope that this, the single greatest of all comic titles (don't even step up, ya miserable squadges! You KNOW I'm right, for all your Spawns and Magnus Robot-Fighters and Serbian Lesbian Cancer Patients), will somehow turn around and be good again.

Alas, no. This current re-launch (not just its current incarnation, 'Paris Hilton and the Legion of Super-Heroes,' but the entire Waid/Kitson run) was doomed at birth - mean-spirited, soulless characters (and ineptly drawn, needless to say - Kitson has absolutely zero vision and couldn't draw a convincing teenager if his life depended on it), the whole stupid parents-just-don't-understand premise, the weird plotting that has absolutely nothing whatsoever to do with any kind of heroism. I could kiss Pepito for his undying hope (except for his extensive facial boils, that is), but nevertheless: we should scrap this run of the Legion and start over. For a new premise, how about this: on a routine shuttle-flight, the galaxy's richest man is saved from mugging by three teens using their respective powers out of sheer, spontaneous heroism. The rich man realizes, in a sudden burst of inspiration, that these young people represent something that's sorely missing from the pasteurized, homogenized world of the 31st century (while maybe also realizing the tremendous marketing potential of the concept, being a businessman and all). The idea catches on, and the THRILL of the series is the birth of a new legend.

Wacky, I know. But it just might have some worth to it.

Certainly it was Pepito who picked out the new Midnighter series (great to see Chris Sprouse drawing a comic again, if only for a couple of issues - and you just KNOW it'll only be a couple of issues ... I tell you, I don't give a crap about 'artistic sensibility' - what so many comic book artists lack is just plain DISCIPLINE, the making-themselves DRAW PAGES every day), which is blandly bad. And Pepito probably plunked for the penultimate issue of Secret Six - understandably, I guess, since this title's been getting better with every issue and this issue is pretty good overall. But when all is said and done, all the characters are pretty much losers (like over in Checkmate, except for the occasional appearance by Alan Scott) and nothing in the storyline means anything.

Also certainly it was Pepito who bought the latest issue of Uncanny X-Men, despite the fact that the title has sucked like a sump-pump for about 30 years. This current storyline is just about as bad as it gets - an interminably convoluted storyline so unfriendly to newcomers it might as well have a 'keep out' sign on it, plus boring artwork, plus trite, stupid dialogue ('Die now'? Um, 'die now'? Hmmmm ... I seem to recall a major recent science-fiction movie where a villain uses that exact line; let me think, what WAS it .... Lord of the ... Lord of the something-or-other ...) and one of the most boring mutants ever conceived, a white guy who can throw around unbelievable amounts of nondescript energy with no apparent harm to himself. Yawn.

I guess I'm blaming Pepito for the first issue of the Alan Davis miniseries 'Fantastic Four: the End' - this is very, very familiar territory ... we've seen this exact same motif over at DC, when Alan Davis drew two different runs of 'The Nail.' Put things an undisclosed stretch in the future, have Alan Davis draw it impeccably, and haul in every character in the continuity. It ends up being boring because a) it's just an imaginary story, and they don't interest readers anymore (mainly because the current trend of story-arcs with writers and artists who OBVIOUSLY won't be staying for anything resembling a long-haul), and b) in order to make these things work, you have make virtually all the characters involved act in un-characteristic ways. Pepito was probably just fascinated by all the pretty colors.

It was certainly Elmo who picked out the latest issue of JSA Classified, which finishes up the two-part Bane/Hourman storyline. This conclusion is really good - sharp writing and more of Scott McDaniel's incredible artwork. Every time I see his fantastic work, I harken back to the glory days when month after month we got to enjoy it on Nightwing. Far be it for me to suggest locking an artist forever onto one title - he doesn't have to do Nightwing. As some of you may recall, my own first choice for his employ would be Batman - I thought his stint on that book was paradise itself. But I'd be willing to settle for something else - Adam Strange? Phantom Stranger? Any of you have suggestions?

And speaking of the Phantom Stranger, he makes a delightfully drawn appearance in the latest issue of Justice League of America .... and the sad fact is, it's the most exciting part of the issue. Much as we here at Stevereads had hopes for this relaunch, and much as we like Brad Meltzer personally, surely this issue is a good point to concede that this title isn't working? Or maybe that it's working extremely well for a 180-page graphic novel but not at all for a monthly comic. This current issue has one, maybe two sequences that are worth a single issue's cover price (although at least the Big Three's game of Dungeons and Dragons has been forcibly interrupted).

Luckily, we end things on not one but two strong notes, both certainly attributable to Elmo, not the despicable Pepito. The first is the Batman/Superman annual, which is freaking hilarious and should be read by every comic reader despite its hideous cover.

And even that annual is surpassed - as is every other comic this time around - by the latest 'Beast Who Came to Dinner' issue of 52.

This title is doing more and more wonderful things every week - warping the continuity, complexing everything up, and especially introducing - or more accurately re-introducing great, first-rate new characters.

And best of all, this issue - re-introducing as unlikely a concept as the brawling, uneven Sivana family, the perfect counterpart to the regal, austere Black Marvel family.

This is hilarious stuff, capped off with a beautiful closing scene between the teenage Osiris and a wonderful new character who will certainly be named after the ancient Egyptian crocodile-god.

A weekly treat - surely something Elmo would appreciate ... and something the felonious Pepito wouldn't know anything about ...