Reviews: Week of 17 Feb 2010

After a long hiatus, Four-Color Coverage’s reviews are back!

Another week’s releases have made it to retailers’ shelves. Let’s dive in…

Batman #696 – Batman… breaking into the Mayor’s office? Okay, that’s nothing too out of character… but, beating the Mayor up!? That’s a little different.  Blowing up buildings in Gotham?!  Yeah, something’s up… but what is it?!

Blackest Night

  • The Flash #3 (of 3) – Barry Allen’s run as a Blue Lantern continues. Fortunately, he’s not alone; with Wally West at his side, he takes on deceased members of his rogues gallery… and his own grandson, Bart Allen, who has been taken over by a Black Lantern ring. Also, the living members of The Flash’ Rogues Gallery enforce their own style of justice upon .
  • Green Lantern #51 – Hal Jordan is the host to Parallax once more. His first target: The Spectre. Round Two begins here.
  • Green Lantern Corps #45 – Green/Red Lantern Guy Gardner battles Kyle Rayner, Kilowog, and a handful of other Lanterns. Fortunately, the Lanterns have Mogo on their side — but is even Mogo’s influence enough to help rein in Guy’s rage?

Captain America #603 -Bucky and Sam Wilson (The Falcon) come up with a plan to infiltrate the fake Captain America’s militia. And it seems as though the not-so-good Captain has a plan or two of his own.

Justice League of America #41 & 42 -I know that I dropped JLA and JSA only a few months ago, but I picked up these issues on the recommendation of Jeremiah, one of the employees at Dr. Volt’s. It wasn’t as bad as I remembered. No, it’s not entirely the League that I’d prefer reading, but it’s close… and the new blood makes it interesting. It seems as though James Robinson is building to something, but he leaves things just blurry enough at the edges to keep readers guessing “what.”  I’ll give the book a few issues to see if it hits its stride… and if it goes in a direction that I like. Otherwise, just like Snoop Dogg, I’m gonna drop it like it’s hot.

Spider-Woman #6 – Jessica Drew comes face-to-face with Norman Osborne’s strike force, The Thunderbolts. It seems as though the T-Bolts want to take Ms. Drew into custody; Jessica isn’t exactly down with that idea.

Superman/Batman #69 – This is a continuation of the “Our Worlds at War: Aftermath” story. It was a decent read, but it didn’t really “sing” for me.

Supergirl #50 – I’ve been looking forward to this issue – not only because it’s the title’s 50th issue, but because of the second feature, written by Jake Black (a local writer) and Helen Slater (who’s played both Supergirl and Lara Jor-El, Superman’s mother). The main story concluded the Insect Queen storyline; I was a little more than “slightly” surprised by the ending. The second story was a look at Supergirl from points of view other than that of her number one critic, Cat Grant. It also appears to be a sort of… stepping stone/springboard in the development of the character. Hopefully, the folks at DC use it as such, because it would be a shame for a good story like this to be lost in the proverbial shuffle. I also have to agree with something that Jake said: This picture, by Cliff Chiang, is my favorite panel from the second story. Yep, this issue was well worth the wait.

Tiny Titans #25 – Superboy returns! (And Match comes with him.) Also, the girls of the Tiny Titans find a box of rings… strangely colorful rings.

Uncanny X-Men #521 -At the end of the last issue, Magneto left Utopia to do “something.” Readers learn what that “something” is at the end of this issue. It’s not something that I expected… but I’m looking forward to seeing this seed bear fruit. And, at no extra charge: Fantomex!

Leave a Reply