Issue Review: Supergirl 24

Inside the I'noxian collective, Kara's mind, no longer connected with her body, goes back to the time when she was a little girl.  But she knows that Cyborg Superman betrayed her, and she wants revenge.  As Zor-El, Kara's father and formerly Cyborg Superman, realizes what he has done, and finally remembers who he is, Brainiac attacks. Zor-El decides to go back to being Cyborg Superman, and to give Kara her body back.  However, Kara, enraged against what the I'naxians have done, breaks free on her own and starts tearing apart the planet.  A floating disk in the distance pulls Kara's body into it. Cyborg Superman is reconstituted and fights Brainiac.  Meanwhile, Kara, naked, awakens "nearby" surrounded by more floating disks. Delacore, the lead I'naxian, tells her to get away, and that her family wanted her to find happiness.  The I'naxian collective miniaturizes itself and escapes. Kara gets onto her space-bike and flees the scene, only to be stopped by the giant space oracle from several issues ago.

Statue 5: Batgirl - New 52 Covergirls series

Several months ago, I heard about DC's "New 52 Covergirls" line of statues, which includes two of my favorite heroines - Supergirl and Batgirl.  Both of these characters already had "DC Covergirls" statues in the past, featuring older "classic" costumes (I have reviewed the Supergirl version here).  Photos of the new Batgirl statue looked particularly good, with a flowing cape and having her in a great pose ready to throw a "batarang."

Today when I walked into the shop, I saw a box for this statue on one of the shelves -- it had just come in this week.  I was a bit surprised by this, as the DC website says the statue doesn't ship until end of September, but I was not going to argue the point.  I had no comics to pick up this week (I am not buying DC's "Villain Month" issues, and the Indy titles I currently pull at the shop aren't due out until later in the month), and was only at the shop to update my pull list (I added Ghosted and Miss Fury to it), so I decided to go ahead and pick up the statue today.

I have to say, when I took it out of the box, I was very impressed.  Whatever problems I may have with DC editorial and the content of their current New 52 line of comics, I have nothing but favorable comments to make in general about their statues, and in particular about this one.  This is a truly outstanding sculpt of Barbara Gordon as Batgirl, with the flowing fiery red hair, the swirling cape, the cocked-and ready batarang, and the deadly serious expression on her face.  She looks every inch the heroine from the comics. The statue is highly detailed and holds up to the closest inspection. The colors are excellent and the proportions look good.

One of the very best features of this statue is the cape.  It flows very nicely and looks realistic.  The way it seems to flutter around her legs is perfect given the position of her body, and provides the illusion of real kineticism.

Overall, this is one really gorgeous statue, and if you like Batgirl at all, or heck if you just like really well-sculpted superhero collectible statues, this one is definitely worth a look.  This is a high quality collectible that will look lovely on the shelf for years to come.  I highly recommend it to anyone who likes items such as this.  Just beware the wallet -- this statue retails for $99.95 + tax.  But it's well worth it, in my opinion.

My score: 10/10

Issue Review: Justice League 23 (New 52)

As the story begins, the Alfred Pennyworth of Earth-3 narrates a summary not just in the Trinity War but events since the start of the Justice League series.  While the JL was battling Darkseid, Alfred-3 escaped his world through the weakened barriers, accompanied by Atom. And while the JL was occuppied fighting normal threats, Alfred-3 was working to bring his master to this earth from Earth-3.  The three JLs, however, are busy fighting over Pandora's box, thanks to the evil leaking out of it. They battle each other in a superhero verison of the old schoolyard game "kill the guy with the ball", until they finally stop as they realize that the box is affecting everyone else mentally but Superman is being affected physically.  Firestorm concludes that there is Kryptonite inside him, and Atom admits that she put it there, inside his brain -- because she is not with the JL, but secretly with the people of Earth-3.  Cyborg's robot parts betray him at this point, and tear themselves away from him to become "Grid," a walking virus.  In the confusion, Alfred-3 grabs the box, which he reveals is from Earth-3, the "birthplace of evil," and the box acts as a portal. He uses it to gate his allies, the "Crime Syndicate" (an evil anti-Justice League from Earth-3) to our world.  Thus the "Trinity War" (Trinity for "Earth 3") ends and the Forever Evil story begins.

Issue Review: Worlds' Finest 15 (New 52)

Power Girl hurtles through DeSaad's boom tube in search of her friend Huntress.  She arrives in a bunker-like base, where she battles para-daemons and tries to beat Helena's location out of them. Meanwhile, DeSaad usess a lightning wand to try and extract fear and pain emotions from Helena, which seem to fuel his power.  He realizes Power Girl is in his base, and heads off to confront her, giving Huntress a chance to pick her locks and escape.  Huntress defeats a strong-man slave of DeSaad's and joins Power Girl in the fight against him. But DeSaad says he has extracted what he needs from Power Girl, and uses another boom tube to return them to England.  When they arrive, Power Girl says DeSaad has "screwed up" her powers -- her costume is torn and she is cut and bleeding (both of which should be impossible due to her Kryptonian physique).

Issue Review: Supergirl 23 (New 52)

Following the events of last month's issue, Supergirl flees from the population of I'noxia, who are capable of making all her memories come to life. At the behest of "Cyborg Superman," the I'noxians have become all of the superheroes and supervillains Kara has ever met, and proceed to attack her.  Supergirl battles memories of Wonder Woman, Superman, Silver Banshee, the Worldkillers, Superboy, and Simon Tycho, before finally being captured and imprisoned by Cyborg Superman.  He still plans to use her body, but first he has to cleanse it of Kryptonite Poisoning. The I'noxians do so, and then Supergirl appears to disintegrate.  As Cyborg Superman's "creator," the Brainiac, hovers overhead preparing to attack, Cyborg uses Kara's body to regain his own -- and turns out to be (apparently) Zor-El, Kara's father.

New Comic-book Night - 6/26/13

It's the final week of June, and a fairly decent week for getting new comics as well as some older ones.  This morning I had to turn back the keys to my apartment, and the c-shop is much closer to that than to my new home, so I stopped by there after bidding the apartment complex farewell, and before heading in to work.  Hey, it's summer, and I don't have any classes to teach...

I'm also not saving up for a house or trying to keep my bank balances flat due to lender credit checks any more, so that means I was able to un-clench the wallet a little bit, and pick up one of the last few Supergirl trades I've been wanting.  Actually, the next trade in order for the Supergirl series (volume 5, or series 4) that I'm currently working on should be "Who is Superwoman?" but the comic shop didn't have that one, so I picked up the next one in the sequence, "Friends and Fugitives." That one collects issues 43, and 45-47, but not 44, which was part of a different story arc (Superman: Codename Patriot). I don't want that whole other arc, just the Supergirl story, so I picked up issue 44 as well.

In terms of new comics, there were three this week. One currently residing on my pull list (Justice League), one that's been teetering on the edge of being on or off the pull list (Justice League of America), and a brand new issue 1 release (Batman/Superman).  And so, all told, I bought 4 comics and a trade today.  Below, I will summarize the three new comics -- Supergirl 44 and the trade must wait until I get the "Who is Superwoman" trade so I can read the stories in order.

Justice League 21 - The Justice League series has had a persistent Shazam! backup story featuring the retelling of the origin of Captain Marvel (I refuse to call the character "Shazam") for about a year now, but this month, Billy Batson takes center stage.  His arch-enemy, Black Adam (the first to wield the Shazam! power) has tracked him down, and now threatens Mary Bromfield and Freddy Freeman, along with the other foster siblings Billy has joined since being taken in from the orphanage.  Adam tells Billy/Captain Marvel that he can "transfer" the Shazam! power, and Billy gets the idea (aided by a magical genie that keeps appearing in reflective surfaces and giving him advice) to transfer that power to his foster siblings. And suddenly we have the good old "Captain Marvel family" of yesteryear roaming the pages of the comics.  I greatly enjoyed this sequence, because I've always liked Captain Marvel, Jr. (Freddy) and especially Mary Marvel, who is one of my all-time favorite female superheroes (right behind Supergirl and Wonder Woman).  Mary defends the city against the physical embodiment of the Seven Deadly Sins while Billy/Captain Marvel battles Black Adam.  The action in this issue is strong, but there's also plenty of heart, and there are some wonderful nods to nostalgia, including a nod to the old "Mr. Tawny" character.  Johns did a great job on this issue, and proves that the Marvel Family absolutely deserve their own series, rather than to be relegated to guest stars of Justice League.  I hope Cap gets a permanent position on the team soon, and I'd love to see Mary and Freddy rotate in as subs on occasion.  The art by Gary Frank is, of course, phenomenal, but then it always is.  This is a great issue... I'd say "JL is back" but I know it probably isn't, since next month we start another of DC's gawd-awful "events" (Trinity War) -- sigh. But for this issue, 10/10.

Justice League of America 5 - Last issue's manipulative ending, which showed a clearly impossible event (Catwoman having her brains shot out) really pissed me off about this series, and the overall story was not as strong as the first three.  I had been considering dropping it if things did not get better this issue, but they definitely did.  We finally see the JLA fight as a team here, and work together to defeat the Secret Society of Super-villains.  The victory is more like a stand-off, with the SSV vanishing, but two of their number captured.  We get to see Star Girl really unload on a few of the villains here, which I greatly enjoyed -- I love her youthful energy and heroism.  Star Girl is proof that people who insist that all teenagers must be portrayed as recalcitrant bags of angst is just plain wrong. The art's a bit better in this issue as well. As a result, I give it an overall score of 8/10, and it remains on the "maybe" category -- maybe it will make it onto my pull list.  Once again due to Trinity War, I am going to have to wait... it may be October or November before I make up my mind, since I will be sitting out the entire DC line in September (right after Trinity War ends) over my objections to "Villain Month."

Batman/Superman 1 - Since the days of the original World's Finest Comics, the tandem of Batman plus Superman has always been exciting for readers. These two characters, who have such different styles and powers, can, when written well, truly complement each other.  Therefore, I picked up issue 1 of the newest version of World's Finest Comics, Batman/Superman, with great interest.  I'm sad to say, I was highly disappointed.  This story is typical of DC issue 1 offerings in the New 52 -- the writer and artist seem to have as their main goal, making the reader think "What the heck?" over and over again.  Honestly, I have know idea what the hell is going on in this issue. Many panels depict scenes that are simply incomprehensible.  The story doesn't make any sense, and it's clearly not supposed to yet.  Here again we have the annoying motif that I am expected to wait half a year or more, and shell out $4 per month while I wait, to find out what is going on (and whether I like what's going on enough to keep reading).  Sorry, DC, but that is not going to happen. I will give Batman/Superman another month or two, but if it doesn't become penetrable, and I mean post haste, I'm gone.  Which is a shame, since I like these characters enough that I really should collect a series about them -- but so far nothing offered for either Bats or Supes makes me want to spend my money.  My score on this one is 5/10, and that's being generous.

I also had a chat with the owner of my comic shop about my decision to sit out the whole of Villain Month, and he said that I am not alone. Many of his customers are adopting a "wait and see" attitude toward it.  For me, I'm not even doing that. I will not be picking up any print copies of DC titles in September. Instead, I will use September as "sample independent titles month," and if I like a few of them more than I like what DC has been putting out, I will be dropping some of the maybes, like Batman/Superman, The Movement, and possibly JLA.

New Comic-book Night - 6/19/13

Two items came out on my pull-list today, but only one that I collect in print - Supergirl 21.  The other (Wonder Woman 21), I get via ComiXology and I won't be putting an order in there until the weekend.  My camera and photography equipment are still buried in the pile of stuff that's heaped in my guest bedroom awaiting sorting and organization after my move, and it's only one comic, so once again I didn't take a picture.  I will briefly review Supergirl 21 below.

In the mean time, I got an e-mail from my comic-book shop regarding +DC Comics' "Villain Month" - a month-long interregnum in DC's entire line that will see the villains starring in the various super-books.  The general idea is that each arch-enemy or major villain who fights a given hero will be the star of that hero's book for one month  So, for example, instead of Superman starring in Action Comics, we get Bizzarro or Cyborg Superman or Lex Luthor.

However, this won't be a one-to-one correspondence. DC is still going to put out 52 titles in September during "Villain Month," but not every title will be published. To my knowledge, DC has not publicly admitted the reason for this, which is quite simple -- most of their "B-list" characters don't have an established arch-enemy or rogues' gallery in the New 52 (examples include Batgirl and Supergirl).  The A-listers, however, have many, many arch-foes (examples include Superman and Batman). Therefore, DC is giving the A-listers' series more issues in September in exchange for halting publication of many B-list titles for the month.  As a simple example, there will be four issues of Justice League in September, but none of Supergirl or Batgirl. Because these are not stories about the starring characters (at least, not directly), DC is copying Marvel's asinine "decimal point" numbering system -- JL 23 comes out in August, and 24 in October. So in September? We get JL 23.1, 23.2, 23.3, and 23.4.

Now that we understand what is going on during "Villain Month," I can return to the e-mail my comic shop sent me. Basically, their e-mail says that for the month of September, all DC comics on the pull list are suspended.  They are not, by default, pulling anything for anyone.  Presumably the reasons for this are two-fold.  First, if you "subscribe" (as they call the pull list) to get Justice League, you are technically subscribing to an issue per month.  They can't force you to take four issues in September just because DC decided to change the publication schedule. And second, there's no guarantee that people who signed up to read a monthly comic about Superman, by the Superman creative team, are going to want to buy an issue about Bizzarro, but a totally different creative team.

I was glad to receive this e-mail, because I had already been planning to go down there and ask them to not pull any of the "Villain Month" stuff for me.  But those guys know what they are doing, and they must realize a lot of people won't want to just buy their regular titles as if nothing out of the ordinary was happening.  So I have no pull list in September for DC.  I will still, of course, be getting Thor, God of Thunder and Red Sonja, which are not DC titles and therefore are not affected by the pull list changes.

I'll have a lot more to say about "Villain Month" and DC's other events in an upcoming post later this month, but now, on to my mini-review of this month's Supergirl.

Supergirl 21 - Last month, we saw Kara attacked by her own Sanctuary. Supergirl teamed up with her Earth-2 alter-ego Power Girl (also confusingly named Kara) to destroy it.  Now we see her flying through space on a galactic bike, which she has apparently stolen from Dr. Veritas.  Apparently, Kara is still "sick" from Kryptonite poisoning, although other than the statement that this is true, there is no evidence of it in this issue.  Kara finds a planetoid of some sort (from the double-page spread I would guess it is asteroid-sized) that is being attacked by a giant robot. She defends the city and the people thank her. Meanwhile she is being observed by a mysterious guy named "Delacore" who is able to shape-shift. Ultimately Delacore tells her that the whole world is made of a special clay-like material that can change into many other things. To demonstrate, he shape-shifts into a hero of Kryptonian legend.  Kara asks if the whole place could re-create Krypton, and Delacore says it's not really possible. But then the creature behind all this appears -- Cyborg Superman -- and asks Kara if she is really willing to do "anything" to make her wish come true.

Overall, I thought this was an interesting issue.  The art style is rather different, since it is done by Diogenese Neves instead of Mahmud Asrar.  Although I'm not a huge fan of Asrar (his sloppy-looking style has never been one I care for), Neves isn't necessarily an improvement.  The art was OK, but I think Asrar is better with facial expressions.  The storyline of the actual issue was interesting.  However, certain elements of the Kara story are starting to wear thin. For example, the Kryptonite poisoning has been going on since issue 18 now, and it's really enough already.  Superman's been exposed to Kryptonite before, and usually gets better fairly quickly. I don't understand why this "poisoning"being drawn out so much -- Supergirl was not exposed to the green K for all that long.  Additionally, the whole "Kara trying to restore Krypton" thing is wearing even thinner.  Every time it seems like she has finally accepted the fate of her home-world, the writers change their minds hand have her engaged in a hair-brained scheme to bring it back.  I had hoped that at least one good thing to come out of the awful H'el story-line was that Kara would finally accept reality, but here she is again 3 issues later, trying to get a world of shapeshifters to pretend to be Kryptonians.  At some point, she needs to get some closure and start moving forward.

Because the overall story was good and the art was decent, I give this issue an 8/10.  I deducted 2 points for the 2 tired plot elements -- the writers really need to wrap these up and start moving Supergirl forward.