Weekly Comic Review for 10/23/13

Here we go with another week of comics. I planned to get this done Tuesday afternoon but I guess it was just not meant to be.

Green Hornet Legacy #42 – After a major derail of it’s normal path, the title is coming to an end. After introducing so many characters recently, they all die in a huge battle royal. Pyramid, Blamazon, Killroy Styx, Doctor Creepy, Green Hornet 2.0 (again!), and El Gato Rojo. All of them are dead. One person returns though… Kato! After stressing that she’s been gone for 9 months, Green Hornet finally gets the hint about why she hadn’t returned and that’s where it all ends. I’m sad to see the title go but I wouldn’t want it to continue the way it was going

Harbinger #17 – After everything that has happened, we finally get the missing pieces filled in. It picks up at the end of the Harbinger War where Harada takes down the already weakened Renegades. He takes them back and stores them (along with the girl who made psionic cartoon characters) and puts them into a mental VR world. This is where the team was during the Perfect Day issues. Torque’s world was created when his mind ended up taking control over the world. We see Harada’s crew trying to take control of everything post-War which has Harada dealing with levels of stress and exhaustion. This could be dangerous since he’s the one keeping Peter under control. It’s not too exciting but it does answer a lot of questions.

Justice League #24 – Forever Evil tie-in – We start out with a quite interesting look at the history and origin of Ultraman. While there are similarities, the people involved are VERY different. Jor-Il and Lara are… to be blunt… assholes. Martha and Jonathan Kent seem like white trash and are afraid of the baby Kal-Il. It seems that the Lois of his world was actually the amazon Superwoman. While on Earth 1, Ultraman decides to see what the people he was used to from the Daily Planet on Earth 3 are like and he’s not impressed. He even crushes Jimmy’s hand. (I wonder how that will pan out in the future of the character.) One thing I did find interesting is that the Doom Patrol is around and it’s the original new Doom Patrol: Celsius, Tempest, and Negative Woman. (There is only a mention of them and a single screen view of them.) We end the issue with a battle between Ultraman and Black Adam. This should be a fun battle. I wonder if Earth 3 Kryptonians share the same weakness as Superman has to magic.

Justice League Dark #24 – Forever Evil tie-in – After the big battle, John Constantine finds himself alone in the House of Mystery. Well, maybe alone isn’t the best word. The rest of the JLD are all missing but the spirits of the house are keeping him company but that’s not a comfortable thing for him. We get to follow John through a mess of mental stuff until he finally wakes up the next morning to find the Nightmare Nurse. To help John, she grew her own version of the Swamp Thing. That in itself is pretty creepy. I’m wondering how this team will work out against all the bad guys. Hopefully it will make more sense than this issue did.

Red Lanterns #25 – Lights Out part 4 – Guy Gardner reveals to the other red lanterns why he joined them to call Bleez’s bluff but said he’s still one of them. This discussion concludes with Hal and the Green Lanterns showing up to get their help. This, of course, leads into the usual battle royal. *sigh* To get their help, Hal gives the Red Lanterns their own sector. Meanwhile, Kyle tracks down Atrocitus and ends up absorbing the Butcher before heading off to help Relic. I can’t wait to see how this ends in the annual

Teen Titans #24 – The Teen Titans spend the issue bouncing throughout time. Red Robin meets a young Bunker and puts him on the route to meeting the group for the first time. Kid Flash meets himself as he’s about to cause the deaths in the future. (I’m sure why Bar Tor has blonde hair but Bart has brown hair.) Wonder Girl even gets to meet Etrigan in the time of the Demon Knights. In the end, the Titans turn to Raven to hold them together and fall into the trap she was trying to set in the first place. This is all going do easily that it’s not even interesting. They are really ruining the Teen Titans for me.

T.H.U.N.D.E.R. Agents #3 – Noman gets his body back as Dynamite, Dynamo, and Lightning start to escape. They end up running into Iron Maiden and then into even worse. Meanwhile, the secret of everything that’s going on is revealed back at the home base. We’re 3 issues in and the story is still pretty vague and uninteresting. I think this is the limit of what I’m willing to give this title as much as I love my old school characters.

Wolverine and the X-Men #37 – Battle of the Atom chapter 9 – It looks like Molly and Xavier actually survived but… get this… Xavier can’t walk any more and is stuck in a chair. *headdesk* Really? These writers much really be running out of concepts. In the long run, all 3 teams of X-Men battle the future Brotherhood (the original future X-Men… yeah, this is getting confusing to explain…) at the site of the original X-Men’s battle with Magneto. All this causes S.H.I.E.L.D. to show up too. What a big mess. At least the book end issue is going to finish this all up before it gets even more complex.

Young Avengers #11 – Mother’s team tries to draw in the Young Avengers with Hulkling as bait. Wiccan turns Loki into an older version of his current self (but still without all his powers). Marvel Boy goes clean shaven. (Damn! I liked him with the beard!) Prodigy calls in some help in the form of just about every teen hero out there. And finally, the creators of this current series still fail to find the heart that the original series did.

Is it too much to ask for a good comic book lately? It seems that most have too much going on. I miss the days when a story could be told in an issue or two. Everything didn’t have to be an arc a dozen issues long. Where is the characterization? Comics don’t have to be 90% fight scenes in every issue. I just miss the telling of a good story.

And that brings us to what good stories there are — the Top 3. They’re not easy to pick either. My initial scan of the 9 titles gave me only Justice League. (I can usually pick at least 3 to work with so only finding 1 is pretty bad.) My second scan allowed me to pick Harbinger. Just to have a third title, I guess I’ll add in Red Lanterns. While it fell back on the “2 groups meet so they have to spend half the issue fighting” cliche, the way Guy is manipulating the Red Lanterns (and of course a major dose of Dex-Starr) make the issue not too bad.