World War III, Nightwing Annual #2, The Flash # 11

World War III
Various

So the next big DC event has already fallen upon us. It's been 52 weeks since Infinite Crisis ended, and in those 52 weeks we've been slowly building to this opening salvo of a climax. This is where, in case you don't know, Black Adam goes freaking mental on the DC Universe. Now there's two ways you can read this, well okay, techinically three ways. You CAN get the entire story that you need in the pages of 52 issue 50. But there are also four specials that released the same week which follow Martian Manhunter during the event, and attempt to expand on some of the larger meanings of what's going on, as well as tie up the messy loose ends left over from One Year Later. You could also just read both and take the whole thing as it's own thing, like I've done here.

But if you were strapped for cash, what I would recommend is just getting 52 #50. I think the story is told better and more impactful in 52, whereas in the specials the point tends to be overly belabored as redundant as that sounds.

From my perspective, I enjoyed this event a LOT more than Infinite Crisis. Infinite Crisis, the big mumbo jumbo superhero battles just didn't have the focus and seemed just really quick and chaotic. Whereas here, they really feel very intense, and you really feel a battle of wills. I think Black Adam battling the DCU was better than all the battles even in Marvel's own Civil War. Of course it remains to be seen if World War Hulk, which is a similiar concept to Black Adam's rampage, can hit the same high note. I hope, and think, that it can.

For people worried about finding a jumping on point, I really think this beginning of World War III is where you want to be. Because leading out of this is the next big DC weekly book Countdown, and you can easily segue into that. And if you pick up the four specials, you can also kind of catch up to speed on the rest of the DCU and start going on those books.

Nightwing Annual # 2
Mark Andreyko-Joe Bennett

Yeah so I'm really not the biggest of Nightwing fans. I have never liked his costume. I've never really bought the central malaise of the character as it relates to Batman, and plus I routinely do get confused as to who and which Robin is which. So I was really suprised when I read this book and enjoyed it as much as I did.

It's basically a love story of sorts which follows the relationship between Barbara Gordon(Batgirl, Oracle) and Nightwing and what it has gone through over the years(including some really heinous stuff done by Nightwing to Batgirl, which I kind of wish I had read THOSE stories).

I'm still not terribly interested in Nightwing as a crimefighter or even as a leader of the Outsiders, but I don't know, I think maybe it's because I do love Birds of Prey that I liked this story? Yeah, now that I think on it, I think my interest in Barbara Gordon is why I enjoyed this so much. I do think the story is kind of centered on her, and I think that's why it works for me.

But yeah, really good book, and it does give a nice jumping on point to the rest of the series, I would think, I will definitely have to check that series out now. Marv Wolfman after all, I guess.

The Flash: The Fastest Man Alive # 11 Marc Guggenheim-Tony Daniel

The Flash is back! Remember when I was on about how I was excited for when the Flash book changed creative teams, in particular because I thought Marc Guggenheim was the perfect man for the job? Yeah, so I feel completely vindicated. We're FINALLY getting a book worthy of it's main character.

The art on this book is fantastic. There's all kinds of speed hijinks. There's the romantic drama that we've come to expect from the character over the years. And the Rogues Gallery is back in force. Yes, if you are at all a fan of the Flash, now is the time to get back into reading him. The dark days are over, hallelujah hallelujah the Flash is back!

Now we just need to wait for Gail Simone's run on Wonder Woman to start, and all will be right with the DC Universe.

New X-men 37; Amazing Spider-Girl 37, Spider-man and the Fantastic Four 1

New X-Men # 37
Craig Kyle, Chris Yost-Skottie Young, Niko Henirchon

This is the opening salvo of the forthcoming Magick arc in New X-men which is a part of the annihilation type story for Marvel Comic's Magic Wielders. It has art from Niki Henirchon, who draws all of the Magick related stuff in hell, while Skottie Young draws the rest of the action involving the New X-men.

I enjoyed the book personally, but that's because I like the idea of the forthcoming arc, and love Henrichon's art(Pride of Baghdad) but I will say that at times because of the scripting and art of Young and Yost/Kyle's portion of the book, I really didn't know what was going on. The other part of the story is just your basic dark and stormy night story telling session taking place at the X-Mansion, but they do such a botched job of using the space of the room, that characters will just appear seemingly out of nowhere, or you will think one character is in one place of the room, only to have them seemingly in another by the other end of a paragraph. I don't know exactly why it was so disorientating, but it was. I've read most of this team's run on New X-men and not this isn't something that crops up enough and with enough trouble, to affect the enjoyment of the book, just kind of a nit to pick in terms of the reading.

For me, while I don't like New X-men as much as Mike Carey's X-men I do like it and am interested in it more than Uncanny and Astonishing. So that would make it the second best X-book out there for my money.

Amazing Spider-Girl # 7
Tom Defalco-Ron Frenz


Gooood book. If you've got a hankering for old schoolish spider-man melo-drama and action like you grew up on, and not the annoying crappy current runs of Amazing Spider-man, then this is definitely a book to check out. Sure it's out of continuity, and it's about Spider-man's daughter, but it is probably more true to the old webhead than any actual Spider-man book not named Ultimate Spider-man.

The art even has that throwback quality to it, as well as the action. You see plenty of fights with roving discussions. Lots of power and responsibility fun times. And just in general it's everything you would want out of a Spider-man book.

You really do feel like you've picked up a book out of a time machine. It definitely doesn't feel like it's even from this era. Definitely worth checking out.

Spider-man and the Fantastic Four # 1
Jeff Parker-Matt Wieringo


Another fun spidey book. Seriously folks, there is life not involving Amazing Spider-man, Sensational Spider-man, and Friendly Neighborhood Spider-man, and that life is good. This is another book that captures the fun of comics old. It's not bogged down by having to be a serious statement on the human condition, or do something crazy and radical to try and attract new readers, it's just the Fantastic Four teaming up with Spider-man in a fun adventure.

The art isn't overly complicated, and carries the story nicely. Not going for anything epic here. This is definitely a book that goes in your fun read super-hero pile. It's not as fun as Spider-girl, but I think it should get even better as more happens.

In a lot of ways books like this and Spider-girl achieve what say, Mighty Avengers seems to be going for, but to much greater effect. Post-Civil War, there's a lot of palette cleansers out there, especially with World War Hulk coming up, that kind of smash comics back to fun mode for a little bit before we get back to the dramatic soap operatic tales we've become accustomed to.

Omega Flight, Civil War Fallen Son: Wolverine, Avengers Initiative

Omega Flight # 1
Michael Avon Oeming-Scott Kollins

Omega Flight is the progression of Alpha Flight, which is sort of a canadian avengers. Suffice it to say I've never really had any interest in this book, but I was kind of interested in the new lineup which includes Beta Ray Bill apparently.


The Book is definitely solid, with nice artwork, lots of action, and plenty of moxy. It's not entirely remarkable compared to the vast array of very similiar avengers books, in fact I'm not entirely sure why one would choose to read this given the...Four diffrent Avengers books that are going on right now?


But it's there and if you read a lot of books and want another decent to good one, this is definitely in that category.


Hoo0-rah Canada.

Civil War Fallen Son: Wolverine
Jeph Loeb-Leinil Yu

The Civil War Fallen Son mini-series done by Jeph Loeb, takes us through the grieving stages for the Marvel Universe with respect to the death of Captain America, with each character for each book emblomizing that stage. In this book, Loeb uses Wolverine to wrestle with denial.

Loeb as every review has probably mentioned, is no stranger to grief after losing his son. In many ways, for very sad reasons, he's the perfect person to do these books, and one would think even though this is a superhero story, it's also an incredibly personal and hopefully cathartic one for Loeb who is one of the best story tellers in the business.

After all that buildup, you're probably wondering if the book is any good? Well in short, yes. It's really very good. And as an opening salvo of this mini-series it's fantastic and leaves me very excited about the next. If you're following Cap's death, this and Brubaker's stories are musts. Even if you're really not, these books by Loeb are pretty self-contained, and really fantastic.

The Avengers: The Initiative # 1
Dan Slott-Stefano Caselli

This is a series wholly born out of the new marvel world created by Civil War. The intiative is about the government program that Tony Stark has implemented wherein superheroes become tools of the state, every state, and have to get trained and licensed in order to carry out government specified actions as an arm of the state.

If you can get over the fact that you are for all intents and purposes reading a book about tools of the government, it's a pretty okay read. Dan Slott is always good for entertainment. The problem I kind of have with this book isn't really directly tied in with this actual book. It's kind of a general marvel thing. I don't really understand why they had M-Day, which was the eradication of pretty much all the mutants from the marvel world, the impetince behind which was to avoid the kind of over-proliferation of hyper-powered individuals, such as they are creating in The Avengers Initiative. The Avengers: The Initiative is for all intents and purposes New Mutants but with Avengers instead of X-men. Which I guess if you're fine with that concept to begin with, then I think this may be alright. Though New Mutants were coming in against the grain of society, whereas Avengers are coming in as arms of the state. So it will be interesting to see how or if Slott wrestles with some of the more pressing political questions this book raises, while trying to forge his own ground with the book and truly make it something we haven't really seen before in the Marvel U.

Not a must own by any means, but if you are following Civil War fallout, it is integral.

Brave and the Bold # 2; Fantastic Four # 544; 52

Brave and the Bold # 2
Mark Waid-George Perez

Brave and the Bold was a book I had sort of enjoyed, but kind of ended up deciding it was mediocre enough not to worry about, but on a whim I decided to go ahead and read number 2, and I'm glad I did, because the second entry into the series is a lot better.

The second issue team up is Supergirl and Green Lantern, and grant you I am a big Supergirl fan(though her solo book is a big pile of poo right now), but still the book seemed a lot more lively than the previous entry. There was more humor. The action was better. The second issue seemed to do everything I sort of liked about the first book well. I appears it will be a good series worth checking out monthly, especially in kind of a slow time, like now.

The art still looks really great, though at times it seemed to get overly convuluted in the second issue, and seemed to get harder to tell what was going on, but all the same it was good and I look forward to reading the next entry, which will be Blue Beetle and Batman.

Fantastic Four # 544
Dwayne McDuffie-Paul Pelletier

Fantastic Four was a book my mom actually read as a kid. But I have to say, I've never really been at all interested in any of the dynamics of Marvel's First Family. The whole reason I actually picked this book up, was because it's the "new" fantastic four, with Black Panther and Storm taking over for Sue and Reed Richards who have gone off on a second honeymoon of sorts.

Is this book good? No. Not really. If you're a fan of some of the more scattered cosmological jargon in the Marvel Universe, this book might appeal to you. I couldn't really follow, or care to follow, half of what was going on and where. The Black Panther pointing the Ultimate Nullifier at the Watcher, is kind of silly, and sort of diminshes the history of that weapon.

I thought it would be interesting to see how the two new members who are also married now, played off of Torch and Thing. But really, they just felt like they were out of place. It would sort of be like replacing Robin with The Flash. Yeah the Flash is more interesting than Robin, and can do more things, but the chemistry isn't there.

I think I'll go back to my not reading the Fantastic Four mode, now, thank you.

52

My brief checkback with 52. This series has been amazing. I've loved every minute of it. The zaniness of some of the characters and things that happen from week to week are stupid grin inducing. Black Adam should have his own series in the DCU after this, if not that then he should be the principle villain in the DCU for awhile. I've loved all the arcs of the series.

I fully recommend picking this up in trade when it comes out. It's one of the top books put out by either of the two companies, and it is weekly, which is amazing.

I can't wait for Countdown which will be a similiar weekly series that guess what...counts down to the next major event.

52 right now is leading in DCU's next big event(which techinically already happened since this all takes place in the year between Crisis and One Year Later(I think just reading that sentence convinced anybody who may have wanted something to do with the DCU, to not, ha)) and it is SPECTACULAR. Geoff Johns and Grant Morrison are working on this along with several other top writers. It's amazing. You should be reading it. Or if not, you should be planning on reading it.

All the haters, are just haters. Love me some 52.