Pearl, Power Girl, Red Hood and the Outlaws

Pearl 1-12

This is Brian Michael Bendis at his most meandering.  None of his characters feel like distinct people - everyone talks with the patented Bendis patter without any real difference in personalities.  Which isn’t to say that it’s bad, just that it doesn’t really stand out as an IP that I need to revisit if there’s ever a second volume.  (The art by Michael Gaydos is super sweet, btw.)

Regret Buying: No

Would Buy Again: No

Would Read Again: Yes

Rating: Nice

Power Girl 1-6

Jimmy Palmiotti, Justin Gray, and Amanda Conner are a wonderful team.  Power Girl is just a ton of fun, even when the plot is entirely inconsequential.  

It got a cheap laugh out of me.

Connor is a master.  Amazing cat work.

Regret Buying: No

Would Buy Again: No

Would Read Again: Yes

Rating: Nice

Red Hood and the Outlaws 0-13

Well, I guess New 52 and Scott Lobdell ruined Starfire.  This mindless sexbot is not the person Dick Grayson fell in love with, and I’m not a fan.  Also, I still have no idea why this three-person team exists after reading fourteen issues of their adventures.  They have zero chemistry with each other, I don’t care if Kori’s slept with both Jason and Roy. Also again, I don’t remember Lobdell being this wordy or boring.  If this is what I have to look forward to when I go through his X-Men run, I’m in for a long slog.

The only thing going for this comic is the Kenneth Rocafort art, of which I’m a huge fan.  It’s why I’m not summarily dumping this whole run from my collection.  

Another Batgirl post for me.

Regret Buying: No

Would Buy Again: No

Would Read Again: No

Rating: Didn’t suck

Outsiders

Outsiders 34-43

Judd Winick’s One Year Later take on Outsiders sucks.  Indigo’s dead, Shift committed suicide, Captain Boomerang is randomly on the team, the fun’s been sucked out of the team, and both the Mali and Mallah and the Brain arcs plod along at a glacial pace.  I’d cut these in a heartbeat if it didn’t break up the run.  But these are ten issues I hope I never read again.

Regret Buying: No

Would Buy Again: No

Would Read Again: No

Rating: Stupid

Outsiders 44-49

Outsiders Annual 1

Checkmate 13-15

Things get a little better when Winick fills in the missing year.  The character bits still aren’t as fun as the first 25 issues of the series, but at least the plots are better than the One Year Later stuff - Grace and Anissa start their relationship, the Black Lightning prison break is pretty fun, and the Checkmate crossover is interesting enough.  I wouldn’t buy it again, but at least I’d reread it.

Regret Buying: No

Would Buy Again: No

Would Read Again: Yes

Rating: Fine

Batman and the Outsiders 1

Chuck Dixon reboots the title with Batman taking over from Nightwing.  With Winick gone, I had no reason to keep buying this.

Regret Buying: Yes

Would Buy Again: No

Would Read Again: No

Rating: Fine

Outsiders

Outsiders 5-33

Teen Titans 24-25

With this run, writer Judd Winick masters the key to a successful TV procedural: Excellent characterization and interactions between the ensemble cast.  As long as you nail that, the quality of the plot itself is almost inconsequential to the enjoyment that the product.  I just love spending time with this not-a-family team.  Things that stood out this time around:

The quality plummets dramatically when Winick makes room for a guest writer.  Peter Tomasi (so stellar on Green Lantern Corps) has a boring two-parter starring the original cast of the Outsiders, and Jen Van Meter is equally stultifying with his Infinite Crisis tie-in.

Winick collaborates with a number of pencillers, but unlike his run on Green Arrow, they’re all above average - Tom Raney, Carlos D’Anda, and Matthew Clark all do a great job.  The colors by Gina Going are also worthy of note.

Raney's anatomy and faces are always contorted, but they totally work.

Love the composition of the last panel by D'Anda

Excellent work by both D'Anda and Guy Major.

That face in the final panel is perfectly hilarious.  Great work by ChrisCross:

I love the relationship between Shift and Indigo.  They are perfect for each other, so cute, and awesome as individuals.  It makes Indigo’s turn and death actually tragic, something that doesn’t happen often in comics anymore.  

They're just so cute!

This totally reminded me of...

...this

I found Sivana's plot utterly charming.  For once, we see where the money for an tropical island base comes from:

Regret Buying: No

Would Buy Again: Yes (No for the guest written issues: 26, 27, 32, 33)

Would Read Again: Yes (No for 26, 27)

Rating: Good  (Nice for Teen Titans, Boring for the guest written ones.)

New Comics, Outsiders

A ton of new comics!

Black Cat 6-10

This is just so much fun.  Jed MacKay writes super entertaining adventures, and while the artists constantly rotate in and out, they’re all up to the task of bringing out the humor in his scripts.  Not sure if I should get the last two issues individually or hope that a trade comes out.

Perfect art (Dike Ruan) and lettering (Ferran Delgado) in the first panel.

I loled at the bones line

Die 13

Definitely better in trade, but I’m going to stick with it.

DCeased: Dead Planet 3

The first DCeased issue that isn’t exceptional.  Just knowing that the New Gods are entering the picture bores me to tears.  (Unless it’s Tom King writing Mr Miracle…)

Fire Power 3

The intrigue builds.  Kirkman and Samnee know what they’re doing.

Hawkeye: Freefall 6

A way darker ending than I expected.  Matthew Rosenberg and Otto Schmidt finish up this series strong.  Looking forward to more from either of these creators.

Strange Adventures 5

Alanna is reading more and more like a Lady MacBeth with each issue.  But it’s also a little too blatant.  Trusting Tom King to know what he’s doing.

She's ready to rule the world and look good doing it.

Wonder Woman 761

Yeah, I’m out.  It doesn’t look like Mikel Janin is drawing any issues starting from here, and Mariko Tamiko’s story isn’t good enough.  I find Maxwell Lord as boring as the New Gods.  

Outsiders 1-4

Starting Judd Winick’s 50-issue run.  I remember really liking this, and so far things are meeting the expectations of my memory.  A fun group of characters, and I really like the new (to me, at least) characters - Indigo, Grace, and Thunder.  I don’t think I’ve ever seen them outside of this title.

Regret Buying: No

Would Buy Again: Yes

Would Read Again: Yes

Rating: Pretty good

Avatar: The Last Airbender

Avatar: The Last Airbender

I’ve always thought of Avatar as the animated version of The Wire: The show I haven’t watched that everyone says is the best thing ever.  My wife and I finally binged the whole thing over the last month or so.  My random thoughts:

• It’s not the best show ever.  It wouldn’t make my top ten list (not that I’ve compiled it).  But it is really good.

• Katara is the best.  She’s like the Rey of the Four Nations - Super capable, badass, and the star of the show.  

• Her romance with Aang is super forced, and doesn’t feel like something that would realistically happen between a 6th and 8th grader.  

• On the other hand, Sokka’s relationships w/ Yue and Suki totally work for me.

• As a whole, I’m surprised by how much I love Sokka - He’s the powerless Xander of the team, and his brand of humor could so easily have been annoying.  Instead, he’s hilarious and proves himself to be just as important a member of Team Avatar as the others.  Sokka’s Master is one of my favorite episodes of the show.

• Speaking of favorites, Blind Bandit stands out as the first episode that was truly outstanding.  Toph rules.  

• Appa rules.  Yip yip!

• As such, Appa’s Lost Days is the worst episode of the show.  I have no desire to watch Appa lost, scared, hungry, and alone.  

• Iroh is hilarious.  I love that the Order of the White Lotus is basically the old guy Avengers of the Four Nations.

• Azula’s descent into madness came far too quickly at the end.  Reminded me of Daenerys in Game of Thrones - There’s a way where it could have worked, but the execution failed.

• The final Aang/Ozai battle is totally Dragonball Z, in a good way.

• The musical score for the final Azula/Zuko fight is excellent.

• Reading the summary, I totally thought The Ember Island Players would be a horrible clip show.  Instead, it’s the funniest, meta episode of the whole run.

• There are far too many plot holes for this show to live in the top tier of shows for me.  

• Cabbage Man!

• The hybrid animals are somewhere in the top ten best things about the show.  Turtle ducks!  Pig sheep!  Pig cows!  So inspired, brilliant designs, flawless execution.

• This really is a hilarious show.  The humor is top notch.

That’s all I’ve got for now.  I don’t need to rewatch it anytime soon, but I’m going to love watching this with my daughter when she’s old enough.

Omega Men

Omega Men 1-12

I didn’t think much of this the first time I read it.  I bought it coming off of reading Vision, my first exposure to Tom King.  I didn’t get it.  What a difference a couple of years makes.  The key for me was getting a few more Tom King stories under my belt (Batman, Mr Miracle, Heroes in Crisis, Strange Adventures, Up in the Sky) and realizing that Tom King comics all have a certain mood - There’s a dreamlike, ethereal quality to his tales, and I have to willingly sink into that mindset when I read his work.  

Much of it has to do with the pencillers and colorists that King collaborates with.  They add a hazy softness to the stories, and make me feel like I’m experiencing what I’m reading through a filter that makes me keenly aware that I’m observing while participating at the same time, just like in my dreams.  

It’s hard to explain.  King basically writes amazing lucid dreams, which somehow feels appropriate with his frequent themes of trauma and flashback

None of this speaks directly to Omega Men.  It’s good.  It’s an unflinching look at the cost of revolution, the price of victory, and the ambiguity of good/evil, right/wrong.  It’s about how today’s liberators are tomorrow’s tyrants, and how nothing ever ends, it only goes in endless cycles.  (I’m surprised that DC was willing to use Kyle Rayner to tell such a dark story.)

It’s not King’s best, but it definitely went up a few grades after the re-read.

Regret buying: No

Would buy again: Yes

Would read again: Yes

Rating: Pretty good

DC Box 6 summary!

Time spent reading: 23 hours 32 minutes

Issues read: 207

Issues cut: 24

Highlights (Good or better): Justice League of America 11, Offspring 1, Waid’s Legion of Superheroes 5-14, 21-30, Sanctuary, Omega Men

Project Summary:

Time spent reading: 29 days, 3 hours, 8 minutes

Issues read: 5931

Issues cut: 797

Nightwing

Nightwing 46-52, 54-59

Nightwing 80-Page Giant

Action Comics 771

Nightwing: The Target

Mostly Greg Land on art, all Chuck Dixon on writing.  Dixon continues to do a nice job of mixing short arcs with long-running threads that have continued from the very beginning of the series.  The result is a title that continues to entertain, but never exceeds those modest expectations either.  That said, sometimes all I want is comfort food like this.  I never got bored, always had fun.

Regret buying: No

Would buy again: No

Would read again: Yes

Rating: Nice

Nightwing 60-64, 67, 70, 71

But once Land leaves and Trevor McCarthy takes over, things go to shit.  I’m not a fan of McCarthy’s cartoony, ugly art style, and Dixon’s stories are barely enough for me to keep most of the issues.  (Might as well finish out his seventy issue run.)  I’m cutting the Last Laugh tie-ins and the first issue of Devin Grayson’s tenure.  

Regret buying: No

Would buy again: No

Would read again: Yes (Except for the cut issues)

Rating: Ranges from Fine to Didn’t Suck to Boring.  (Cutting 62, 63, 71)

Nightwing 101-106

Dixon and Scott McDaniel return to the title they started to tell the story of Nightwing: Year One.  It’s as good as the rest of their run, and a nice capper to my Nightwing collection.

Dick’s subway-top conversation w/ Jason Todd harkens back to a similar talk with Tim Drake back in issue 25.  (Also illustrating how Tim rules and Jason sucks.)

More awesome Batgirl action poses:

Regret buying: No

Would buy again: Yes

Would read again: Yes

Rating: Nice