World's Finest #2 (Sterling Gates/Ramon Bachs/Rodney Ramos; DC)

Many a long year ago, I saw this movie based on the TV series Dragnet. The movie featured Dan Ackroyd and an up-and-coming(ish) Tom Hanks, along with Ally Sheedy, playing Connie Swale, a person whom Ackroyd's Joe Friday Jr and Tom Hanks' character need to protect. Friday winds up introducing her to his mother with a line something like, "Mom, this is the virgin Connie Swale." His mother responts with a very fixed smile, saying, "...You're joking." If you have ever read Superman/Batman: Public Enemies, or seen the recent animated film made from that story, then when you reach the end of this issue, you're going to have the exact same expression on your face, and the exact same phrase running through your head. (And no, I can't be more specific than that.)

The general shape of this edition of World's Finest seems to be to show a type of Superman/Batman adventure, entirely eithout either Superman or Batman. Instead, we get a Superman/Batman adventure filtered through their sidekicks -- or, more correctly, through their affiliates, since Superman can't reasonably be said to have sidekicks, and three of the four Bat people we're going to get are only somewhat affliated with the Bat currently, although all of them have been closer than they are now. Which makes the revelation of the broader story at work make a great deal of sense.

As far as the story goes, it's interesting enough. The Guardian (apparently no longer limited to Mahnattan) and Damian's Robin team up -- if that's quite the right word for it -- to thwart a plot by Dr Freeze and Parasyte. The plot itself is very lean, allowing the story to focus on the characters' interaction. The Guardian treats Damian like a snot-nosed upstart, refusing to call him "Robin" because he feels that it's a title you have to earn. (One wonders how he feels about the new Batman.) Damian, rather understandably, does not take this terribly well. It's very good character work. But still, almost all of that gets swamped by the last page revelation of ... well. Like I said, fixed smile and "you're joking" just about covers it.
Good; Recommended.

The Web #3 (Angela Robinson/Roger Robinson/Hilary Barta and Walden Wong; DC)
"Spinning the Future, part 3", in which the Web's roast chickens come home to roost, and he gets lodged firmly within the Bat corner of the DC universe. And, really, pretty much anyone with a quarter of a functioning brain cell could have told the Web that franchising his suit and his powers would not work out well. In fact, it works out Very Badly Indeed. Badly enough that he gets a visit from the Oracle and Batgirl, telling him to cease and desist. He doesn't, quite, but he gets close enough that Oracle significantly upgrades his computer capacity -- while also landing him with all sorts of spyware and the like that he seems not to know about. (Which, seriously, if he really doesn't know about or expect exactly that outcome, the man is too stupid to do what he does. Which he very well may be. The software also contains a rather painful, if alarmingly functional, version of Facebook.) The Web also winds up getting exactly what he thinks he wants, only to discover that it may not be quite what it appears to be. In the backup story, "The Hangman: The roar of the sea" (John Rozum/Tom Derenick/Bill Sienkiewicz), The Hangman investigates the unusual occurence of a person that appears to have drowned in a flood in the middle of dry land.
Good; Recommended

Detective Comics #859 (Rucka/Williams III, with "special thanks to 1Lt Daniel Choi for his generous assistance in research for this issue"; DC)

"Go, part 2: Seven Years Ago", in which we catch up with Kate several years after the attack in London, as a cadet at West Point. And pretty much the first thing she does is almost alarmingly stupid; we see her kissing her then-girlfriend while still apparently on the West Point campus grounds, out in the open. This, not surprisingly, results in her being called up on charges for a violation of the military code -- though, interestingly, her girlfriend is quite specifically not charged -- and as Kate refuses to lie, she's summarily drummed out of the army. We also see her telling her father -- and his reaction, frankly, is really wonderful (though his choice in engagement rings for his new fiancee turns out to be utterly misguided, though that's a side point).

We also see Kate's first meeting and subsequent relationship with Renee Montoya back in her pre-question days -- They meet very very cute -- as well as the issues that drove them apart. Interspersed through this story is Kate dealing with the apostates from the Religion of Crime, realizing that the prophecy was in fact very specific about what they were looking for, while seeming to be very confusing, and getting her blood and Alice's tested to see if her sister really was still alive. And finally, we see some of what inspired Kate along her current path. Overall, it's a very interesting story, although her inspiration to become Batwoman seems a bit ... shallow, honestly. Or if not precisely shallow, then at least not very well considered.

As usual, Williams' artwork is superb. The really fascinating moment comes when we see, graphically, the situation that partially inspired Kate to become Batwoman; the artwork goes slightly toward the unusual layouts that characterize the modern part of the story ... but only slightly, showing that the decision hasn't quite been made yet.

In the backup story, "Pipeline, Chapter 2" (Rucka/C. Hamner), Montoya starts investigating the bacground of the human trafficking group that she broke up the previous issue. She quickly discovers that it's a much bigger thing that it first appeared, and calls in the Huntress to help her. (Huntress, for whatever reason, has gone back to the costume that doesn't make her look like a stripper in waiting, which is appreciated.) Again, the brevity of the chapter makes it a bit frustrating; just when things get going good, it's over. The battle sequence is kind of awesome, though. Hamner does very good work, as usual; the last page is oddly much more stylized than what comes before -- though with that villain, I suppose you have to go for some sort of stylization.
Very Good; Highly Recommended

Madame Xanadu #17 (Matt Wagner/Amy Reeder Hadley/Richard Friend)
"Broken House of Cards, chapter 2: Popular Satanics"
In which Madame Xanadu winds up investigating a suburban Satanic circle wanna-be group, in her quest to help Elizabeth Reynolds, whose body is doing some really alarming things beyond her control. (The plagues of insects coming from her mouth would be the most appalling, I'd think.) She also runs into another detective -- not for a wonder, the Phantom Stranger -- who seems to be somebody that we're supposed to know, but who just isn't that familiar to me. In the end, the villain stands revealed, along with the reason that Madame's working ... well, didn't work. I have to admit, I really do enjoy how Wagner has taken this character out of the DCU and made her work on her own.
Good; recommended

Yeah, been a while, hasn't it? So let's see if we can manage a few short(ish) faster-paced reviews, just to get my hand back in, shall we? Let's shall.

Cinderella: From Fabletown with Love #1 (Chris Roberson/Shawn McManus; DC/Vertigo)
The latest in the Fables series spinoffs, we follow Cinderella, Fabletown's spy extraordinaire, as she sets off on her latest mission: to determine who's been sneaking magical artifacts from the fallen Homelands, post Fables war, into the mundy world and to stop them. She asks Frau Totenkinder for some help, for a price that's left unspecified for now but is certain to be fairly high. We also see that Cinderella runs a shoe shop in Fabletown, with her assistant -- who feels much more put-upon than he actually is -- trying to run a functioning business in the frequent absence of his leader. It becomes clear almost immediately that putting an even mildly ambitious person in that sort of position is the sort of thing that Will Not Go Well -- although, again, that's only set up in this issue, and we'll have to wait for the payoff. Overall, it was a lot of fun, consistent with the characterization of Cinderella as we've seen her in the main Fables series (I've said it before, but Prince Charming married three fairly awesome women). The only small glitch was figuring out when in the Fables timeline the story takes place, as it turns out to be very particular. It's after the Fabletown war, but before the arrival of Mister Dark, as the Underwood still exists at that point; I wonder if perhaps the series was maybe planned to come out about a year ago, and something delayed it. In any event, McManus' artwork maintains the overall look and tone of the Fables series while also being more or less its own thing.
Very Good; Recommended

Stumptown #1 (Greg Rucka/Matthew Southworth; Oni)
In which Rucka goes for the modern noir detective story. We start near the end, in which Dex is being shot by someone, and wind back to the beginning. Dex -- whose first name is apparently Dexedrine, which will tell you something about her background right there -- is a Native American detective living in Portland, Oregon, trying to care for her younger brother, whom everyone in the neighborhood seems to love. They're not so happy with her, however. Dex, it seems, has a major gambling problem. She runs up more than she can repay at the local casino, and gets roped in through those debts into trying to run down the daughter of the casino owner; said daughter has suddenly just dropped off the face of the earth. This being a detective story, we discover almost immediately that there are all sorts of things that Dex hasn't been told about what's going on. It seems to be getting set up to be a classic story of dames and double-crosses, only the detective in this case is a woman, which may or may not also truncate the classic "find the dame who then seduces the detective and then does him wrong" part of the story. (NOTE: I've seen some other reviews, and for reasons which utterly escape me, almost everyone is assuming that Dex is a lesbian. The only textual support for it seems to come from Dex commenting that the girl she's been asked to find could have run away with a man or a woman. It would not be unusual for Rucka to create a tough lesbian detective -- see also: Renee Montoya, Kate Kane's Batwoman -- but there doesn't seem to be a lot more there, at the moment.) Southworth's artwork is hard-edged, heavy-lined and dark, matching the mood of the story perfectly. For what it's worth, I'm glad that this is coming from Oni, which seems to aim for graphic novels and collections more than it does single issues. This story seems strongly like it will read better in collections -- though I assume those collections will lack the backmatter, like Southworth's explanation this issue of how he came up with the look and content of the art -- and may be a harder sell in individual issues.
Excellent; Highly recommended

Invincible Presents: Atom Eve and Rexplode #1 (Benito Cereno/Nate Bellegarde; Image)

In which we go into the past, before the Invincible War, and see how Rexplode and Atom Eve, a.k.a Samantha Wilkins, met. We start with Rexplode's story, which turns out to be very grim indeed. His family is grindingly poor, driving Rex to steal food. He's seen by a man who gets intrigued by his apparent talents, and who then follows him back to his home and makes a proposition to Rex' father ... who sells his son to someone he doesn't know, essentially for a few groceries. Rex is made to endure all sorts of body modifications, which allow him to explode things with sufficient kinetic energy. (He throws balls at his targets. A lot.) It becomes clear to the reader long before it dawns on Rex that perhaps, just perhaps, he's not working for the good guys that he thought he was. But before he can quite figure out what to do with this concept, he meets Atom Eve.

I really really wish that Kirkman would outsource every issue of the main Invincible title in which Atom Eve appears to Cereno so that she could get some more interesting characterization. She only appears on the last page of this first issue, but presents with a lot more attitude and is a much more interesting character, in a one page appearance, than Kirkman has ever managed. This was also true of the first Atom Eve miniseries that Cereno wrote. I get that in the main title, she's a supporting character, whereas Cereno gets to write her as the main character of his minseries, and so she actually has to be more interesting; she holds the center. I get all that, I really do. But Kirkman has only ever written Eve as an archetype of The Girl. You want her, but you can't have her. Miracle of miracles, you get her ... and then your enemy punches her guts out and kills her, motivating you to kill him (you think). But then, more miracles of miracles! she reassembles herself and she's back to life, and gave herself a boob job in the bargain! And yet ... somehow doesn't quite manage to be that interesting a character, despite everything.

Anyway, all that said, Cereno and Bellegarde do their usual excellent work in this miniseries, producing strong characterization and story and artwork. It's very enjoyable, and I'm really looking forward to the rest of the series.
Excellent; Highly recommended

Hector Plasm: Totentanz (Cereno/Bellegarde and others; Image)
Very different in feel from the first Hector Plasm, which told more straight-ahead stories. This one contains not only stories, but recipes, and songs (sort of). The quality does feel rather more variable than expected, but overall, it's still a very entertaining and interesting look at the character and his life and times. And also the occasional ghosts and skeletons and whatnot. One of the stories, "Hector contre la danse macabre", is meant to be read in conjunction with composer Camille Saint-Saens piece "Danse Macabre", with story beats coordinated to the music. Happily, Nate Bellegarde then put together this NOT SAFE FOR WORK piece (contains full frontal comics character nudity), synchronizing the visual and audio beats as intended.
Excellent; Highly recommended

World's Finest #1 of 4 (Sterling Gates/Julian Lopez, Bit; DC)
Adventure Comics 3/506 (Geoff Johns, Michael Shoemaker/Francis Manapul, Clayton Henry; DC)
Red Robin #5 (Christopher Yost/Ramon Bachs; DC)
I put these three titles together because the first two, between them, show how frustrating Red Robin itself is. All three involve Red Robin; in World's Finest, he teams up with Nightwing -- Chris Kent, not Dick Grayson, who's off being Batman -- to take down an operation by the Penguin, who has managed to kidnap Flamebird. (Side note: since I abandoned the Superman side of the DCU back when they were having a terrible time getting any of the Superman titles to ship, I had no idea that there had been "time storms" or some such, which propelled Chris Kent through about 15 years of physical development in only a few months. I also had no idea that he was Zod's son. It was fairly startling. But I digress.) In Adventure, Conner "Superboy" Kent, trying to get back in touch with his past, tracks down Tim and helps him out with a mess he's gotten into. And in Red Robin, Tam Fox winds up delegated to track Tim down, for no apparent reason -- seriously, Lucius would send his daughter after Tim, knowing the sorts of things he could be getting into? His daughter? Sorry, don't buy that. But anyway, there she is. And there Tim is, post mauling. (I will also just note that a biologically human vigilante without a spleen, doing the sorts of things he does, is taking one hell of a risk.) The thing is, World's Finest manages to advance the idea that Tim is still trying to find Bruce, searching for odd and obsure clues -- it feels like it takes place long after the current Red Robin arc has ended. And in Adventure, we see, for the first and only time so far, Tim articulate why he's chosen to be Red Robin, an identity for which he can only have the deepest loathing. Or, more precisely, we see Conner figure it out, and then he and Tim talk about it. We haven't gotten any of that in the main Red Robin title, and at this point, we should be.
World's Finest: Very good; Recommended.
Adventure Comics: Very Good; Recomended.
Red Robin: ... Meh.


Final Crisis Aftermath: Escape #6 of 6 (Ivan Brandon/Cliff Richards, Prentis Rollins)

One of the more headscratching things to come out of Final Crisis. On the one hand, it was different and experimental in a way that DC seldom is. On the other ... by the time you get to the end, all you can think is, "All of this is for THAT result? Why didn't they just ASK him?" In any event, the title ends in a way that seems to set up the new (and dreadfully misnamed, no doubt) Global Peace Agency, with Nemesis as its chief. It seems to be a replacement for the now-destroyed Checkmate, with a broader brief, and fewer checks on its power. Its brief is to prevent the next Crisis; it will, of course, utterly and absolutely fail at that. It is, in fact, failing at that at this very moment, with Blackest Night zombies running around all over the place.

A moment from the High Horse, if you will: One of the terribly frustrating things about DC's various crises is the really odd lack of followthrough in some places. For example, at the end of the Crime Bible: The Books of Blood miniseries, Renee Montoya was accidentally head of the Religion of Crime. And then when Final Crisis came along, she just ... wasn't, anymore, and now in Detective, Alice has come out of nowhere to take charge. At the end of Final Crisis, Renee Montoya had been drafted by Checkmate to be head of the Global Peace Agency, gathering the task force of 51 Supermen who were to defeat Darkseid, only to arrive and discover that Earth-prime's Superman was back and handling things just fine, thanks. And now ... she's not. It does seem that there should be some exploration of what happened and the effects before you go blithely off to the next thing. I mean, it wouldn't take all that much to tell us how she got out of all these commitments, would it? But I digress.
Interesting; no recommendation

Power Girl #6 (Jimmy Palmiotti and Justin Gray/Amanda Connor; DC)

Have I mentioned that I absolutely love this series? No? Well, I absolutely love this series. It manages to take on the sorts of Serious Things that a superhero story must do -- for certain values of serious, of course; New York getting levitated by a hyperintelligent ape's spaceship is only just so serious, after all. At the same time, it never loses its sense of humor and fun. Power Girl actually enjoys being a superhero. At the same time, she enjoys being Karen Starr, if not quite as much -- it's certainly the more aggravating side of her existence.

One of the things I've never understood about superhero comix is the secret identity thing. Take Power Girl, for example: six foot tall buxom blonde, never to be found in the vicinity of Karen Starr even when they logically ought to be. Just how hard can it be to make that connection? And in the last two issues, Palmiotti and Gray have actually played with that a little, having someone discover Power Girl's secret identity. She doesn't know who it is yet, though undoubtedly she will soon.
Excellent; Highly recommended.

Detective Comics #858 (Greg Rucka/JH Williams III, Cully Hammer)
In which we start seeing Batwoman's origin story, with perhaps a tiny bit of Alice's origin story and the modern story mixed in. We meet Kate and her sister Beth as children, and see their mostly happy home lives. Certainly, they're frustrated by their father's frequent absences, and also frustrated when they're made to move yet one more time, but still basically happy. That all comes to an end in London, where their family is attacked, presumably by the Religion of Crime, during the girls' birthday outing with their mother. She's killed, and it seems that Beth is killed as well. In the modern frame, Kate is analyzing some of Alice's blood to see if it's her sister or not, and ignoring her father's demands and pleas for her to talk to him. In the backup story, "Pipeline, chapter 1", Renee Montoya as the Question wraps up the first part of her investigation into a slavery ring, rescuing not only the girl she was after but several more. (One wonders what the rest of "Pipeline" is supposed to be, if chapter 1 ends like that.) I actually feel a bit sorry for Cully Hammer; he's been doing very good work on The Question backup story in Detective, but has been totally overshadowed by the amazing things that Williams is doing with Batwoman.
Excellent; Highly recommended

Wonder Woman #37 (Gail Simone/Bernard Chang)

You know ... I wonder if perhaps Simone is aiming at nothing other than an essential refounding of Wonder Woman's story with this arc. After all, Diana's last two origin stories don't really work any more; she's surely observed man's world quite enough (and the current setup of her story seems to assign that role to Hippolyta as a previous Wonder Woman, anyway), and she's no longer functioning as an ambassador. After "Amazons Attack", the Themiscyran embassy seems to be gone, and she's actually working for the US government. Which brings up the question ... what's she doing here, anyway? If the issue is that she's been expelled because she no longer thinks as her people believe she should, because she also worships unfamiliar gods, then that brings her story into alignment with the other two of DC's alleged Trinity: Batman and Superman both lost their parents to create themselves, as well, albeit at much younger ages, and Superman doesn't really remember losing his. In any event, this issue is sort of wildly unbalanced. I do wish the Donna Troy part of it would just end; having her made insane by Genocide, even though nobody else who contacted Genocide was, makes less than no sense. I'm curious about what's going on with the Amazons; parthenogenic pregnancies after all this time? And Achilles seems like an honorable man being forced to do progressively more dishonorable things; I suspect that he may wind up rebelling against Zeus and Ares sometime soon. (The Ares ghost thing was just ridiculous, really.)

All that said, the one major knock against the most recent story arcs is that, the two issue thing with Black Canary aside, this thing with Alkyone and Achilles and Zeus' big plan is taking FOREVER. I have the vague, nebulous impression that it's in part because Diana isn't really doing anything with Final Crisis or Blackest Night, so she needed some sort of epic storyline to match the guys. (Yes, she had an important role, of sorts, in Final Crisis, and yes, there's a Blackest Night: Wonder Woman on the way. However, neither of those events is going to be reflected back in the main title, whereas Final Crisis rebooted the entire Batman line, and has had some interesting aftereffects over in Superman's chunk; Blackest Night showed up in this week's Red Robin, and is actually going to effectively suspend publication on Batman and Robin for three months.)
Interesting; no recommendation.

Something of a side note: it's fascinating to see how the solo-female superhero titles from the DC universe are doing relative to each other. Surprising, one way and another. From the Top 300 Comics for October 2009 chart from ICV2, the rankings for October for those titles:

#19 Detective Comics (Batwoman and the Question)
#51 Batgirl
#68 Supergirl
#76 Power Girl
#77 Wonder Woman

That Batwoman and the Question have been able to sustain Detective at a very high sales level is very impressive. That Batgirl is doing so well, relatively speaking, is baffling. (Something to judge by: Stephanie Brown is now outselling "Superman: World of New Krypton", Superman and Action -- though that may all be an indication of the weakness of the Superman franchise at the moment, rather than the strength of Batgirl.) To be sure, there's only a few hundred issues between Power Girl and Wonder Woman. Unfortunately, it does seem to show that people just don't quite "get" Wonder Woman these days; she really ought to be doing better.

Detective 854/855 (Greg Rucka/JH Williams III/Dave Stewart):

...Good lord, this thing is gorgeous!

OK, OK, story first: We finally get the Batwoman series that we've long been promised, as she takes over 'Tec in the absence of Bruce Wayne. And right away, we see her in action in a way that shows us both the similarities and differences between Kathy Kane's Batwoman and the other members of the Bat family. She brings Rush to ground in an alley somewhere, and demands that he tell her what's going on with the religion of crime. He refuses, because he knows they'll kill him. At this point, most likely, Bruce (and possibly Dick) would have threatened him with even greater bodily harm if he didn't tell; Batwoman instead promises him that she'll protect him, and for some reason, he believes that she can. It's oddly comforting and seductive at the same time. There's also an interesting encounter with Batman -- version deliberately unspecified -- in which he grumps about her hair length and then takes off.

Next morning, Kathy goes to breakfast with putative girlfriend Anna, who promptly dumps her because she's consistently unavailable at night; the last straw was that Anna couldn't reach her last night, and Kathy looks like she hasn't slept -- as indeed she hasn't -- from which Anna draws entirely the wrong conclusion. Kathy then goes back to her place, where her father the Colonel is serving as her version of Alfred. We get a bare hint of what happened to her back when the Religion of Crime originally kidnapped her and tried to sacrifice her -- a shadow of an origin story, as it were. Kathy pulls together the clues to discover where the heads of the Religion's covens are meeting their new head. Said person, it turns out, is the loopiest criminal in town since perhaps the Joker, which is saying something. She presents herself as Alice, of Wonderland and Looking Glass fame, and every line out of her mouth is a somehow nonetheless entirely appropriate line from one of Carroll's books -- though not always one of Alice's lines, I think. 'Tec 854 ends with Batwoman meeting Alice, and 855 is a hard leadout from that, essentially an issue long fight sequence of sorts. During the fight, Kathy discovers the hard way that Alice hides razor blades in her mouth when she's cut with one that proves to be poisoned with some sort of hallucinogen. She goes staggering off into the nearby woods; meanwhile, back at BatLoft Central, the Colonel sees on his computer that follows her that his daughter's vital signs have suddenly taken a turn for the worse, so he grabs a few semiautomatic weapons and heads out after her. Somehow, he gets where she is more or less in time -- there's absolutely no sense of how long things are taking, since Kathy is hallucinating and herself has no sense of time. She's also remembering some of what happened during her earlier kidnapping. The Colonel arrives and starts shooting -- somehow managing not to kill anyone, possibly deliberately -- but it looks like Alice and her minions are about to get the upper hand when something unexpected happens at the story's end. Honestly, the story is a bit of a sine wave at this point; an outstanding first issue followed by an OK second issue that seems to be concerned with a lot of backstory and getting a few things in place.

The artwork on this story is, from beginning to end, truly spectacular. Williams does some really interesting things with frame composition and line length to visually separate Batwoman from Kathy Kane. Batwoman's part of the story only rarely has square frames of story, and even when she does, the borders and gutters are all black to the edges of the page. Much more frequently, her part of the story has a very different framing and flow, with a surprising number of two page spreads with unusual shapes and layout. Because the rest of her art is so dark -- night time, black costumes, dark places, etc. -- the line weight on her part of the drawing is much lighter weight. Dave Stewart is doing some incredible things with color throughout both sections, the more faded colors of the background with Batwoman -- making her reds and blacks pop out of the page -- and the vivid colors throughout for Kathy Kane's section.



By contrast, the Kathy Kane sections are lighter, airier -- despite a much heavier and distinct line weight -- and have a more traditionally structured page visually.



Unfortunately, after six issues (I think), we get a planned break in both art and story, shifting to a different artist for a couple of issues before Williams comes back to finish the "Elegy" story arc, and then a shift again to another artist.

Detective also has a backup 8-pager, featuring the new(ish) Question, Renee Montoya, Kathy Kane's former lover. Montoya investigates the disappearance of an illegal immigrant whose brother paid for her to come north to the US. She vanished before he ever saw her. When Victor asked the person he paid to bring her where she was, he got a serious beatdown for his trouble, along with a warning not to ask again, at which point he went to the Question's website and asked for help. Renee begins to look into things, and of course not only do things look bad right off the bat, but the investigation hits a few hitches almost immediately. Since this is a shorter chunk of story, it's actually faster paced, hitting plot points a bit faster. Honestly, it feels like a comics version of a Republic serial, except that it's monthly and not weekly. Even with a less satisfying amount of story, it's still gripping and involving, and Cully Hammer is doing some really good artwork on this. (Something of a side note, but I'd really love to know how Renee got out of being the head of the Religion of Crime. At the end of "The Crime Bible", she's just managed, despite her best efforts, to land the title, so she's the head of a group that doesn't take no for an answer. And yet, as we see in the main story, that mantle's been somehow passed to Alice, leaving Renee improbably still alive and kicking.)

Highly recommended.

Wonder Woman 34 (Simone/Lopresti)

In which we finally finally get past "Rise of the Olympian" ... sort of. And past Genocide ... mostly.

Diana starts out this issue in the arctic, communing with a mama polar bear and her cub on what she's been through -- the fight with Genocide that she thinks is done (if only she knew), having to renounce her people, her family, her home. She is, for Diana, a bit down in the dumps, understandably. (More about that later, I think.) She goes back home, only to be alerted by the gorilla tribe in her apartment (that will never fail to be entertainingly weird, somehow) that Nemesis is trying to get in touch with her -- yet more unfinished business, she thinks. And it is, except that it's Genocide; apparently she's still alive, sort of. It's somehow involved with underground metahuman extremely extreme fighting, about which Diana knows nothing, so she asks Black Canary to help. And they then go jaunting off in relative disguise -- using, as Dinah puts it, the "second most famous bosoms in the world after Power Girl" (and that Diana doesn't know this, despite having been enbustiered in man's world for nearly 20 years in the current revision, is just mindboggling) as auxiliary weapons. They get to the site, and their disguise gets them into the fights, which they win more or less handily, after faking some difficulties. And then, at the end, someone who wants revenge against Diana, for something she did not in fact do, appears. Meanwhile, back on Themiscyra, the Olympians' attempt to take over from the Amazons is not going terribly well, so clearly neither the Olympian story nor the Genocide story is going to be done any time soon.

The story, compared to the past few months, is comparatively light and functional. It sets a few things in play and reminds us that a few other things need to be dealt with, while still giving us a break from the fairly dark storyline of recent issues. And the relief is much appreciated. (Something of a side note, but I wonder what the current story behind Diana's costume is? During the "bosoms" segment, Dinah teases Diana about her patriotic star spangled briefs, and Diana says that's a misinterpretation, that people just assume that it was meant to do with the US flag. However, in the original concept of the character, it was meant to do with the US flag; her costume was meant to echo American symbols, because she was being sent here as ambassador. Given that she no longer has an eagle clutching the second most famous bosoms, things have clearly changed.)

Now ... let me just say that I'm not a continuity wonk. Not really. But that said ... I do keep wondering when, if ever, this title will acknowledge that Final Crisis even happened. After all, Wonder Woman was the first of the heroes to fall, after Mary Marvel; her mind was taken over by Darkseid and/or his minions, and her body was used against people to enforce his orders. I'm not saying that there should be a full issue of Diana weeping and wailing and railing against her fate, but it does seem like there should be something. A memory of something she did that she regrets. People she's trying to help pulling away or hiding because they remember what she did -- maybe she even did something directly to them. Other superheroes looking at her warily. Something.

As far as I can tell, the group of titles that really acknowledges that Final Crisis even happened are the Bat titles and, to some extent, JSA and JLA. Given that Bruce Wayne got removed from the field and the Marvel family were still suffering some of the aftereffects, they have no choice in the matter. And of course, there's the Final Crisis Aftermath set -- though, one might also note, the Escape title makes no sense so far as a Final Crisis related title, since almost nobody in it played any sort of major role. And, of course, in theory, that title should feed back into Wonder Woman at some point, unless maybe Escape is supposed to take place after they break up.

Buffy the Vampire Slayer #27 (Jane Espensen/Georges Jeanty): In which we continue with the slayers being alienated from society due to the success of Harmony and her realiy program. We also see Oz, who's settled down, gotten even more zen, met up with someone, had a kid. And we see Twilight and friends unsuccesfully trying to locate Buffy and the slayerettes for further beatdowns. And that's ... really about it, actually. It's an issue that's designed to get people to places for the next issue. OK.

In which we go over almost all of the "Battle for the Cowl" titles, allowing that there's at least one more tie-in title, "Gotham Gazette: Batman Alive?" to come out later this week.

Regarding "Battle for the Cowl" as a whole, one can but say: thank goodness that's over. But there were individual highlights, as well as many many many lowlights.

One thing that's never quite explained here or anywhere else: Batman has disappeared, and been rumored dead, many a time in the past, only to reappear with a (usually literal) vengeance. So what's so different this time? Why has Gotham exploded? Is it that it's on the heel of the massively upsetting Final Crisis? What?

Well, anyway. Overall, the Battle consists of three series and a plethora of one-shots (for reasons that surpasseth understanding, DC is flatly refusing to consider "Gotham Gazette" as a title, despite the fact that there are/will be three of them.)

Batman: Whatever Happened to the Caped Crusader, two issues (Neil Gaiman/Andy Kubert, Scott Williams, Alex Sinclair): I tell you true, people: I have no idea what that was, or what it was supposed to be. The only way I can relate to it at all is to think of it as Batman's way of thinking himself out of the life trap from the end of Final Crisis. Basically, he sees one version of his funeral after another, killed different ways by different villains, always falling defending Gotham. And then at the end there's a terribly ill-advised air on "Goodnight Moon". Seriously, I have no idea whether it was good or bad, because I don't know what it wanted to be.

Batman: Battle for the Cowl (Tony Daniel)

Honestly, neither awful, nor terrific, though there were both awful and terrific moments scattered throughout. Mostly, this title seemed to be about how Bruce's rather spectacular miscalculations brought ruin to Gotham and more specifically to Jason Todd and the other Bats. Bruce seemed to feel that Nightwing and Robin could handle crime in Gotham, and we find out in the third issue that he specifically directed Dick/Nightwing not to take up the cowl, that Batman should be allowed to stay dead. Unfortunately, he didn't take into account just how much he'd manage to terrorize the criminals of Gotham into behaving, just by his mere presence. Take that way, and all hell broke loose. Black Mask, a villain long thought dead, has come back and managed to destroy both the Penguin's and Two-Face's criminal enterprises. (Why he isn't dead, despite Catwoman having killed him, nobody knows as yet.)

Another of Bruce's fatal miscalculations was in sending personal "in case of my demise" holographic messages to all of the members of the Bat crew, including Jason Todd (who, when last seen, had decided to leave Gotham because it wasn't good for him. Why is he still here, you might be wondering. And well might you wonder!) Jason's message, which we see in the third issue, implies quite strongly that some truly terrible things happened to Jason before Bruce took him in -- not even addressing the whole death/buried-semi-alive/resurrected by a villain thing that he had going for a while. No, all of Jason's damage was caused by some horrific things that happened to him as a child which he has resolutely not thought about for most of his life, and which Bruce allowed him not to think about, because he's a firm believer in the "repress and take it out on any criminals that cross your path" method. (Seriously, to say that Bruce, Dick, Jason and Tim are all massively screwed up is a spectacular understatement -- that Dick has somehow come out of it all fairly well adjusted is something of a miracle. But I digress.) As a result of being forced to "confront" (if that's quite the right word) issues for which he is not prepared, Jason decides that he should become Batman the way he thinks Batman should always have been: fully armed, and entirely willing to take out them what needs killin'. Collateral damage to civilians not an issue. Along the way he manages to take out both Tim and Damien, leading to a final showdown with Nightwing.

The main problem with the "Battle for the Cowl" title itself was that it was relentlessly overplotted. There was just too damn much going on, with the destruction of Arkham (again), Two-Face and Penguin at war with each other, Black Mask dictating that war, the struggle between Dick, Jason and Tim to determine who should take on the mantle of the Bat. That latter should have been given a bit more weight; Dick winds up deciding to become Batman in essentially two pages at the end of the third issue, after having resisted all the way through. It's not that we don't understand why he does it, but after something over 70 pages of Gotham ripping itself apart, to have only two pages where the decision is made, with no real discussion, feels very ... anticlimactic.

Oracle: The Cure issues 1-3 (Kevin van Hook/Fernando Pesarin and Julian Lopez)

So ... yeah, that really wasn't very good at all.

The Calculator is searching for the antilife equation because he feels that it will return his comatose daughter to life. In a thread that I missed the first issue, but which becomes more apparent in the third issue, Barbara Gordon is searching for the Calculator and the antilife equation, not just to stop him from loosing the equation on the world again, but because, somehow, she feels it will restore her legs to her. Why the Calculator feels it will help his daughter, or why Babs feels it will help her legs, is never explained; we have never seen the antilife equation do any such thing -- in fact, it seems to be a rather effective way of taking over someone's mind or causing death (hence the whole "antilife" thing), but not so much with the resurrection and the healing. Most of the pursuit takes place in virtual environments, so that Barbara's lack of mobility isn't as much of an issue. (And the idea that what one does in virtual environments will be reflected in the real environment is very neatly handled. Being as most of what gets reflected is some spectacular murder and a very improbable attack on someone's immune system, it's hard to say that it's fun, exactly, but it is interesting.)

Babs does eventually defeat the Calculator, of course, and there is, inevitably, a twist at the end of the tale. The art, for the most part, is very good -- although there is a very odd focus on Babs taking a shower at one point -- but the story ... eh. It shows what Babs is doing during part of the Battle for the Cowl ... though when this is supposed to take place, considering that she's guiding the Network back in Gotham during all of the rest of the Battle, heaven only knows.

The Network (Fabian Nicieza/Don Kramer and J. Calafiore): A stunningly pointless one-shot, in which Hugo Strange tries to force the new and more murderous Batman to choose among a host of (innocent, as it turns out) accused criminals and others to save. Oracle activates the Network and sends out Huntress, Batgirl, Batwoman and others to take on the various situations. Huntress has shifted back to her old costume so that Oracle and Batgirl can call her a bat-skank. Cassandra Cain continues to speak in improbably complete sentences. Huntress decides to kill the accused criminal she's supposed to rescue, because they're running out of time, so why not kill a criminal? She's stopped by Cassandra, and Oracle discovers immediately after that the guy was innocent. So ... yeah, lotsa fun, really.

Gotham Gazette

Batman Dead? (Fabian Nicieza; Dustin Nguyen, Guillem March, ChrisCross, Jamie McKelvie, Alex Konat, Mark McKenna)
Basically, a series of quick shots across the city, different people whom the Bat has touched, in one way or another. Several people return to the city, including long lost Vicki Vale and also Leslie Tompkins, in what feels like an attempt to rehabilitate her from the character assassination perpetrated against her in the whole War Games mess. We also see Bullock and Stephanie and The Veil and a few others. Of all of them, only Leslie gets left in a situation that is both dangeous and unresolved through the entirety of the Battle -- one assumes, for the sake of argument that she'll get rescued during "Batman Alive", since that would be appropriate symmetry.

Commissioner Gordon (Royal McGraw/Tom Mandrake, Guy Major): In which Gordon takes on Mister Freeze and is awesome. Really, that's all there is to it. The story starts with Gordon being held prisoner, and the bulk of it is a flashback showing how this came to be. Among other things, Gotham's district attorney is murdered, which will eventually bring Kate Spencer's Manhunter to Gotham. But for now, it's just Gordon against Freeze, and Gordon realizing that, unlike most times in the past, Batman isn't there to save either him or the city. And then Gordon figures out what to do, and, as mentioned, is awesome.

Arkham Asylum (David Hine/ ): A shockingly very good one-shot story, in which Jeremiah Arkham -- and I was rather startled to discover that there was still a Dr Arkham around -- prowls the corridors of his now-destroyed hospital/prison, mourning its loss. He mourns his inability to save his patients, except for three people who were so very damaged tha tthey were kept in the basement cells, away from the other criminals, and so were left behind after the destruction. It's clear that these three people are going to become new villains for Dick's Batman -- the one without a face is especially creepy. A very very good story that shows the effects of the battle itself, rather than focusing on the effects of the death of Batman.

Man-Bat (Joe Harris/Jim Calafiore): ... Yeah, so that was a waste of time. Basically, things happen to Kent Langston for no discernable reason, and with no discernable connection to the rest of the events of the Battle. As far as I can tell, it exists purely to bring Alfred and the Outsiders into the Battle. Since they only appear at the end, and in no other issue of the Battle so far, there's not really much point. It all ends in blood and tears, of course. Bleah.

The Underground (Chris Yost/Pablo Raimondi): In which basically all of Batman's gallery of rogues show up after the destruction of Arkham and Black Mask "liberating" (and that is not the proper word) all of them from transit to other prisons. And ... really, that's about it. Catwoman discovers that Black Mask is apparently not dead, and that's the only thing of any significance to happen in the story. There's nothing much to it.

Secret Six vol 2, #9 (Gail Simone/Nicola Scott): In which Catman, Ragdoll and Bane come to Gotham to thwart a conspiracy by ... well, we never quite learn who's behind it, but the idea is that they're going to kidnap the children of prominent citizens for ... well, we never quite learn that either. Nonetheless, it's a really good issue, as it shows Bane and Catman dealing with the conflicting impulses of wanting to both kill Batman and be Batman, and Ragdoll basically discovering that everything he says is some degree of double entendre. Everything nearly goes pear-shaped when Dick/Nighwing comes in at the end of Bain the others thwarting another chunk of the kidnapping conspiracy with malice aforethought, afterthought, during-thought, broken necks and other maimings. But Nightwing more or less realizes what's going on just in time -- more or less. This leads to the most impressive moment of fan-service I've ever seen regarding a male hero, in which Dick's fully clad but nonetheless impressive rear end is presented to the reader to be admired in all its bespandexed glory. (Seriously, it was blatant enough that I've seen straight guys noting the way he was displayed. And no, sir, they just don't like it. I can but be deeply amused. But I digress.) Fan service aside, it's not necessary to the greater motion of the Battle, but it's a very nice issue showing how Batman's presumed death is affecting people in different ways.

Azrael: Death's Dark Knight issues 1-3 (Fabian Nicieza/Frazer Irving):

The overall purpose of this series is to set up the new Azrael ongoing title. Unfortunately, I don't know enough about Azrael and the previous holder, or how Michael Lane was brought into the Bat titles as a GCPD officer who turns out to be the "Third Ghost", whatever that means. This is the one title where not knowing enough about what's happened both early in Morrison's run and before it is perhaps a handicap; there is a sense that a lot of history is being pulled into this story. That said, part of the confusion may be due to it being a slightly confused story; it essentially gets a reboot at the end of the first issue, when the first person selected to wear Azrael's armor and carry the sword gets killed.

Michael Lane gets selected to replace that person -- sort of; there are two competing factions trying to create their own angel of death for various reasons. Lane figures out, with surprising ease and for no real reason, where the Batcave is, thus producing a smackdown with Nightwing. His memory gets wiped (don't ask), and Nightwing and Oracle eventually decide to leave the swords and armor with Lane, to see what happens. There's also the rather surprising revelation of the leader behind one of the factions trying to run Azrael, and the reappearance of Ra's al-Ghul, who is Not A Happy Camper. And who can blame him: stuck in Arkham and drugged out of his mind, vulnerable to all the other psychos.

Irving's artwork on this series is simply spectacular; I hope he's the artist on the ongoing title, as his work has a very distinctive look, quite unlike anything else in the Bat-section, now that Simon Dark is gone.

And that's it for the Battle for the Cowl, with the exception of "Batman Alive", due out this week, and the next issue of "Batman" itself, which I believe comes out next weeik

Because, for some reason, there have been a boatload of new series/miniseries started in the last two weeks.

Hotwire: Requiem for the Dead, episode 1 of 4, "Read Me First" (Warren Ellis/Steve Pugh; Radical)

Alice Hotwire is a detective exorcist for a metropolitan police department that discourages the use of the word "ghost" in favor of "blue-light"; said blue-lights stopped going to wherever they used to go about fifty years ago, thus forcing the world to deal with them. The metro police department is also undergoing upheaval because two of its own have been pulled from duty thanks to beating up teenagers during a protest, triggering city-wide riots. Hotwire is suspected of being the person who took and released the video showing the police brutality, and is scrupulous in noting to almost everyone who asks that the rules do not allow them to ask if she was the whistle blower, thus making everyone think that she is. In the meantime, the blue-lights have been getting more frequent and stronger, and Hotwire is trying to find out why.

The story is immediatly involving and engrossing; you want to know what's happening and why it's happening. And I love the way it just takes for granted the existence of an afterlife without discussing the nature of what it actually was. After all, the ghosts can't know somewhere that they've never been, right? And it's fascinating to see how a highly technological and scientific world has adapted to dealing with metaphysical events in a very physical way. Steve Pugh adapted the script from a story by Warren Ellis, and has done very well with that; in addition, he did all the artwork, which is weirdly spectacular. It's not quite hyperrealistic, but it's close, while at the same time looking possibly painted as well as very designed in a high-tech way in spots where appropriate. Highly recommended.

Jersey Gods (Glen Brunswick/Dan McDaid; Image): Zoe is thrilled to have a boyfriend for a major holiday for possibly the first time ever. They usually dump her just before the holidays, for one reason or another. But Emerson will be different! He'll be there! Right? ... Well, of course not. Meanwhile, out in Deep Space, the science heroes Barock and Helius are clearing out an area of some stray asteroids, and planning their after-heroics drink on a planet that Barock hates, but is going along with because Helius loves. In the meantime, back in Cherry Hill, New Jersey, Minog -- think cross between Ben Grimm and Thor, more or less -- appears in what rapidly become the ruins of a mall. He's been dispatched to cause havoc on earth to draw Barock and Helius, who patrol that sector, because ... well, actually, we don't know why yet. And, of course, Zoe is in the middle of the chaos. The story is intriguing, mostly in that "what the hell is going on here" sort of way. Oddly enough, at the moment, the story doesn't match the solicitation copy, although you can see more or less how it might get there. The art is pretty much a full on Kirby tribute, and it's a good match for the story -- then again, Kirby pretty much defined the look of the whole "gods come down to earth and wreak havoc" genre, so maybe it would have looked odd if it wren't that style. In any event, it's fun and intriguing enough that it's worth coming back, if only to see just how they wind up getting to the house in the suburbs. Recommended.

Bad Dog #1 (Joe Kelly/Diego Greco; Image): ...Oh, my, that was fun. Bad Dog is the story of bounty hunters Lou and Wendell. As in the bounty-hunter genre from time immemorial (or whenever it was created), they're not exactly poor, a bit down on their luck, a bit hard edged. Oh, and Lou's a werewolf, who can control his changes enough that he stays a wolf all the time. Apparently, he doesn't think all that much of humans and likes the wolves better -- unfortunately, the wolves aren't terribly fond of him. Lou also has a head in a bag in his refrigerator, for some reason. It basically takes every cliche you can think of and sends them thundering down the pike. Greco's artwork is very good; for something that's both fairly brown and fairly dark, the colors come out surprisingly saturated and lush in places. Again, I'm looking forward to see where it goes. Highly Recommended.

Soul Kiss #1 of 5 (Steven T. Seagle/Marco Cinello; Image): Lili (don't call her Lilian) is headed to an interview for a spot at a university, which might get her away from the hell of a personal assistant's job in Hollywood, when her car breaks down in a desert. After an unfortunate encounter, she finds herself possessed of an even more unfortunate ability. What that ability is does not exactly get explained by the end of the first issue (though, again, the solicitation copy tells you more than the issue. Unfortunately, this one doesn't quite work for me, at least not enough to keep up with the pamphlets. It's not that it's at all bad -- the writing's fine, and I like the artwork. It's just not really engaging. Lili's not particularly likeable, but then, given what she's going to have to do, it really would be asking a lot for us to like her. But in that case, you need to grab the reader with the situation, with the action, and it's all been too oblique at this point for that to work. Drop, possibly to trade.

The Mighty #1 (Peter Tomasi and Keith Champagne/Peter Snejbjerg; DC):

DC tries, once again, to launch a title on the DC imprint that's not part of the DC Universe, instead of putting it on Wildstorm where you'd expect it to be. It's an understandable effort; there are smaller stores that, especially these days, won't take something that's not mainline Marvel or DC. Unfortunately, DC has terrible luck launching non-DCU titles on that label (or any other, these days, for that matter), and I'm not sure that this will end that streak. The Mighty is the story of a superhero -- apparently the only one on the planet -- and his team. A sailor gets washed overboard during an atomic bomb test at Enewetok, and the radioactive water gives him superpowers. He becomes the superhero Alpha One, then forms a support team, of which Captain Shaw is the leader and Gabriel Cole is a member. We see how being a member of this team affects Cole's life -- as you might expect, it interferes at awkward times -- and we see that he has some sort of as yet not quite explained history with Alpha One. We also get hints of the cost of being a member of Omega Team for other and past members. And then the event happens near the end that effectively kicks off the series.

I do think it might have been better as a storytelling device if maybe they'd started at the end of the issue -- or even the end of the event -- and then looped back to the beginning. As it stands, the story is a bit uninvolving. Moderately intriguing, yes, but it doesn't quite grab you. To be fair, it looks like this first arc is constructed as a straight-up mystery -- we don't as yet have a villain running around saying, "Ha HA! Look what I did!", so it's likely that Omega Team is going to have to do a full investigation to figure out where to aim Alpha One. That's a bit unusual in superhero comics, and mysteries do usually start a bit slow. Snejbjerg's artwork is good. I guess I'll wait and see the state of the budget and my level of interest next month before I decide whether or not to go for issue 2. No recommendation.

Eureka #1 (Andrew Cosby and Brendan Hay/Diego Barreto; Boom!): Based on the SciFi network television series. If you haven't watched the series, the comic will be utterly baffling, since it doesn't bother to explain the characters or their relationships very well; if you have watched the series, it'll be a nice flashback to a time before this season, when Nathan was still alive. The story comes from Deputy Jo Lupo's past: a man has taken Carter's daughter Zoe hostage, and Jo is in the position of being the SWAT sharpshooter to take the man out. However, she recognizes him from her tour in Afghanistan, and is so shocked that she can't take the shot, so Carter winds up having to do it himself. This being Eureka, there's something special about the man, and everyone has to scramble to find out exactly what's going on. Barreto's artwork takes an interesting tack, vaguely invoking the actors without being too strongly character referenced. It's a fun read. Recommended if you watch the series; No Recommendation if you don't. (That said, I'm dropping to trade, because that's what I do with everything I'm interested in ehough to buy from Boom. Given that Boom only seems to publish miniseries, rather than continuing series, I've never understood why they persist in doing miniseries that much have seriously diminishing returns as they go on. But I digress.)

Final Crisis 6 of 7, "How to murder the Earth" (Morrison and a plethora of artists; DC):

Or, to give the issue the title it should have had, "Batman RIP, penultimate issue." I have certain very definite opinions about that, but I'll leave them aside today.

As far as the story itself goes, it's ... odd. Interesting and good, but odd. The rogue monitor came back to himself last issue, and looked like he was about to do something big; we see him again near the end of the issue and see, more or less, how he fits in. We also find out what happened to Superman when he got taken out of time back in Lois' hospital room, as well as getting a most startlingly literal deus ex machina. We see the continuing battle of Mary Marvel (whom Supergirl does not quite call a slut, after Mary specifically calls her one) versus Supergirl and Captain Marvel Jr and Black Adam and maybe a few other people. We get Black Canary and the Ray and Mr Richards the Tattooed Man on the JLA satellite versus the possessed Green Arrow, Black Lightning and more of Darkseid's minions. We get Renee, Ray Palmer and Ryan Choi in Checkmate's last bunker and Checkmate's endgame. We get Luthor, and we get the Flashes about to run to save the universe (again). We also get Batman vs Darkseid, in what may be the simplest and most direct scenes in the entire series to date. Of course, this also brings up the issue of when Final Crisis takes place, relative to RIP, but there's still really no way to tell at this point.

The artwork in this issue is, understandably given the raft of pencillers and inkers and colorists, all over the board; that said, it mostly works pretty well, even though the stylistic differences are pretty glaringly obvious.

As a whole, FC 6 is a spectular, profoundly irritating, kind of glorious mess, all of that concentrated in the final image of the issue. I'll certainly read the last issue, of course, but I can tell already that it's going to be a very irksome experience. I just hope it's worth the ride.

Wonder Woman 27, "Rise of the Olympian, part 2: A sense of loss" (Simone/Lopresti; DC)

...Yes. Well.

OK, I would like to make one thing perfectly clear: I am not a continuity wonk. I absolutely am not. As long as you give me good character and good story and enough to enjoy that particular tale, I could give a rat's ass. But this issue is so problematic on those grounds that I couldn't help but notice.

The story itself is simple enough. Nemesis, Etta Candy, Cassie and Donna all team up to rescue Diana from the situation in which Genocide left her. Genocide took Diana's lasso of truth, which in fact has more powers than that -- and for anyone who was paying attention, way back in the Captain Nazi story arc, this won't be a surprise. In the meantime, Athena seems to be dying or fading away, and Zeus takes the opportunity unleash his master plan ... and therein lies the continuity weirdness.

The roots of this weirdness go back to Amazons Attack and Countdown, with incidental involvement from DC Universe 0. At the end of Amazons Attack, the Amazons are dispersed through the world, and their memories removed by Circe. Except ... it turned out that "Circe" was really Granny Goodness, operating an apparently quite long range plan to get rid of Amazonian opposition prior to Final Crisis. As far as we can tell from Amazons Attack and Countdown, the Olympian gods had already been taken prisoner by the New gods before the Amazons were dispersed. The Olympian gods were gone for a very long time, even in DC universe time, before they got rescued by Mary Marvel as she started steppin' to the bad side. They shouldn't know what happened to the Amazons. By all rights, all they will know is that the Amazons have disappeared. (Yes, Zeus says "They will not remember. They have been altered, as have we," just before he recalls the Amazons. But how does he know any of that? Why would he? And how have they been "altered", anyway?) Yet the Olympians have been prepositioned, ready to take the place of the Amazons, way back in DC Universe 0, before we knew that the Olympian gods hadn't yet ocme back from ... wherever it was that they were. So Zeus has clearly had a very long term plan, based largely on information that he couldn't have had, gathered during a time when he was, as far as can be told, possibly not in this universe at all. How does that work?

Recommended, on the whole, but very confusing. The issue taken on its own is really pretty good, as long as you can ignore the really intrusive continuity questions. And I assume that the end of this arc will also go some way to explaining why the Olympian gods didn't do anything with Final Crisis; however intervention-phobic they may be -- and they rather clearly aren't -- having so many humans taken over by antilife is the sort of thing you'd expect to bring them out. Plus, a chance to do battle against the New Gods that imprisoned them; you'd think they'd have to be held back from that.

Anna Mercury 5 of 5 (Warren Ellis/Facundo Percio; Avatar): Anna vs. a giant cannon. Anna versus a giant cannon. Oh, and incidentally, the entire military of New Ataraxia. Seriously, people, as your big fight comix big fight goes, there's pretty much nothing about this that isn't utterly awesome. Highly recommended.

Manhunter 38, "Some Years later: Family business" (Andreyko/Gaydos, Calero; DC): In which Kate goes up against the Sweeney Todd-possessed Bones and Mrs Lovett during her son's graduation party, of all places. And in which Kate handles the issue of Ramsay wanting to be a superhero in pretty much exactly the way you think she will. The issue ends with a blurb on the DC Nation page that notes that the character will be back in 2009, so I'd imagine she'll be shifted to other DCU titles as desired. A nice way to go out. Recommended.

Detective Comics 852, "Last Rites: Faces of Evil: Hush: Reconstruction" (Dini/Nguyen; DC): In which we see what happened to Hush after "The Heart of Hush". Basically, he roams the world, reaping the benefits both of having Bruce Wayne's face, and of Bruce having disappeared after "RIP" (about which, of course, he knows nothing useful). It's a nice little setup for the next issue of Batman, in which we get to see what happens when Hush and Catwoman meet. Given what he did to Selina Kyle during the "Heart of Hush" it ought to be very interesting indeed. (I assume that Catwoman's issue is also going to be a "Faces of Evil" issue.)

Runaways: Dead End Kids (Joss Whedon/Michael Ryan; Marvel, trade paperback edition):

So it only took, what, two years and change for these six issues to meander out?

Anyway, the story picks up more or less at the end of the Brian K. Vaughn run. The Runaways are off in New York, looking to do a sort of contract job for the Kingpin, of all possible people, stealing a device for him. (And establishing near-perfect paradox in the process.) Needless to say, they have misgivings, and needless to say, things really don't go at all well -- although little Molly does manage to take out the Punisher. It turns out that Kingpin is having them steal a time device; moreover, it fits into the Leapfrog console as though it were made for it. The Runaways wind up travelling back in time to 1907 New York, meeting the mutants of that day, as well as a few other interesting people.

The trade this time is a full-sized book, rather than the digest format normally used for the title. In some ways, it's a bit annoying, since the set isn't likely to be shelved together. That said, printing the larger format allows the art to breathe, so to speak; and Ryan's art is simply glorious. Appropriate to the story and style, beautifully saturated, exquisitely drawn.

Highly recommended.

SuperTeenTopia: Invisible Touch (Kushin/Martinez/Abella):

The story takes place in a world where people have superpowers. Kevin, geek nerd extraordinare, keeps trying to get his best friend Cameron to join him on a super team. Cameron, being rather more sensible and risk averse than his friend, elected to try to keep to the sidelines. That somehow doesn't quite work, and he winds up getting drawn into Kevin's various rescues. This happens even more once he meets Diva, a young Hispanic woman with powers, who may or may not be infatuated wiwh Cameron. Along the way, they also meet Paige, a young woman from a deeply religious, fundamentalist family that seems to regard powers somewhat dimly. We watch the team as they slowly begin to build and become more familiar with each other, and as they go about living their daily lives.

Super Teen Topia effectively covers the same sort of ground as early Runaways, about trying to get to know each other and build a team, albeit entirely without the trauma of discovering that their parents are essentially the embodiment of alien-directed evil. Unfortunately, Runaways covers the team-building ground more compellingly, as does Freshman. It's not at all a bad story; it's just not anywhere near as interesting, comparatively speaking. Martinez' artwork is very clean and neat, and very traditional looking, which works for the story.

Overall, it's OK. Just OK.

In which, for some odd reason, a few series put out their next to last issue.

Manhunter 37 (Andreyko/Gaydos; DC): OK, so back in issue 36, they finished up the whole story arc down in Mexico way, and also briefly visited the whole thing with Ramsay having powers, and finally -- finally! -- got back to the storyline that started out lo those many issues ago, with some apparently insane supervillain blowing up abortion clinics. So, remember all that? Yeah, well, forget it. All gone, at least for the moment. We leap forward at least 15 years in the future, and Kate is still Manhunter -- and likely one of the longest served, given the history of the character -- and pursuing a woman who has apparently just stolen a razor of some note. Kate's almost caught up to her when another person in a ski mask tries to help, and gets thrown into a tree ... and calls her "Mom." Needless to say, this does not go over well. We find out all sorts of interesting personal history during that argument, including the fact that Kate's involved with a much younger man who knows her secret, and Ramsay's involved with a strapping young man. Dylan managed to survive being pursued by the Joker and his minions, despite losing a few body parts here and there. Nemesis and Obsidian have a most disconcerting child. And Nellie Lovett and Sweeney Todd manage to between them re-enact the hoariest of super tropes. I assume this issue was started after Andreyko and Gaydos got the word that the series was cancelled, and this took the place of a story arc that couldn't be compressed short enough to work. Any road, it's a lot of fun, and it looks like it's going to be one hell of a conclusion to the series.

Fallen Angel 32 (David/Woodard; IDW): In what I think is the penultimate issue of this series -- the last issue is either 33 or 34 and I'm not quite sure which -- the Angel and Mariah and Jude finally reach their goal, God continues to be a small child, and the final confrontation begins most unexpectedly. I have to admit, this did make me curious aobut the next issue. It looks like it's going to be an intense nearly full-length fight sequence, despite the unexpected ending to this issue. Former enemies -- or at least, people who formerly did not like each other -- will be joining together against Moloch to try to get Bete Noire back to something like what it once was. Ought to be fun to watch!

Brit 11 (Brown/Bellegarde; Image): In which Brit and Donald try to rescue everyone from ... well, the other Brit, a.k.a. the Emperor. Brittany still has this antenna thing stuck in her neck, though it apparently gives her a certain insight into what's going on, and Brit's son is still missing. Alas, next issue is "the big sendoff", in which all this stuff somehow gets resolved. I admit, I'll miss this title -- it was pretty much all fight comix fun, all the time, which isn't the sort of thing I normally like, but it worked here. Unfortunately, as Kirkman says, the title was done in by poor sales -- and for Image to cancel a title for poor sales means that it wasn't moving diddly/squat -- and I suspect he's right when he points out that a major cause was the fact that it scheduled monthly, but managed to publish only 11 issues in 19 months.

Helen Killer issue 4 of 4 (Kreisberg/Rice; Arcana): For some reason, my store didn't get this in when it was first issued, and I thought it had just been delayed, since I'd ordered it through Previews. Any road, it was worth the wait. When last we saw Helen, she'd been captured by the bad guy, and he was taunting Alexander Graham Bell and Anne Sullivan over the wireless, and then there was a horrible awful scream... which turned out not to be Helen. Josiah helps her get away, and then the two of them and Bell pursue Grey to New York and the Flatiron building, in hot pursuit of Grey, his gold-to-lead transmutation device with which he intends to destroy the world monetary supply, and the omnicle. And Helen, of course, winds up being awesome like an awesome thing of awesomeness, with or without omnicle. Rice's art is wonderfully dark and detailed, and Kreiberg's and Rice's story has cliffhangers and melodrama galore. Highly recommended; I hope Arcana plans to put out some sort of compiled form sometime soon.

Batman 683-684 (683, Morrison/Garbett/Scott; 684, Denny O'Neil/Guillem March; DC): Apparently, the print schedule for Batman got seriously jacked up by the repeated delays with Final Crisis. The title has now published, I believe, four times in the last seven weeks, with Detective coming out during one of the off weeks. It's understandable; thera are things that happen in 682 and 683 that bear directly on Final Crisis -- what appears to be a little throwaway comment about what happened with Batman after he was captured may in fact turn out to be something major -- and in turn, if you haven't read Final Crisis, 682 and 683 are just baffling. 683 shows the might of Batman's mind, in which he not only thinks his way out of a very interesting box, but manages to bring someone along for the ride, so to speak. 684 is a nice little conclusion to the two parter started over in Detective, in which Batman is still missing, and things are getting a bit fraught, and Millicent Mayne somehow still manages to be the Face of Gotham even without one. That said, aside from establishing that Batman is still gone, that issue looks terribly slight stacked up against the two preceding. The three combine to confuse the post-RIP/Final Crisis timeline quite thoroughly; we know that it's six months between when Bruce Wayne disappears and A Batman comes back, because that's implied in the RIP conclusion itself. It's not at all clear how long there is between RIP and Final Crisis, or whether the Gothamites even know that he reappeared to be captured -- after all, he was captured in battle against the New Gods.

Final Crisis 5 of 7 (Morrison/Jones/Pacheco/Merino; DC):

I hate Grant Morrison, sometimes.

See, here's the thing: I'd gone along quite happily ignoring Final Crisis, as, it turns out, pretty much the entirety of the DC universe had done to date. Oh, sure, there were a few throw away moments here and there, but nothing I really needed to pay attention to. And then came Batman #682, and all you could do with a lot of it was just sit there and scratch your head if you didn't read Final Crisis, because you really didn't have a strong clue what the heck was going on. So I girded my loins and picked up the previous Final Crisis issues and read the whole goddamn thing. (I will note, however, that he's an equal opportunity irritant. There's a near-throwaway line about "the Batman Psycho merge" that makes absolutely no sense if you didn't read the end of Batman 682.)

The really fascinating thing to note is that at one level, Morrison was definitely true to his word. If you've read his Seven Soldiers of Victory, that's almost all the prolog you need to this series. There's nothing of Identity Crisis, nothing of 52, and the only piece of Countdown hanging around is the weirdness of Mary Marvel. By contrast, we've got Frankenstein and Mister Miracle of the Soldiers playing a major role, Bulleteer whizzing around in the background, and I'm sure that I probably missed references to the others anywhere.

The essential plot of issue 5 is that Hal Jordan gets taken to Oa for trial because the Guardians believe that he attacked John Stewart, and basically all hell breaks loose. Back on earth, Checkmate and Mister Miracle try to fight the good fight with possibly indifferent success, and Dan Turpin seems to lose his fight to Darkseid.

I will say this about Final Crisis. The one line in the whole thing that would have caught me and gotten me to read this series, if one line could have done it, was where the guardians say, "You have 24 hours to save the universe, Lantern Jordan." I mean, seriously. It also gives a possible time frame to the last two issues: however long it's been up to this point, the universe gets mostly saved in 24 hours.

Detective Comics 851: "Last Rites: Last Days of Gotham, 1 of 2" (Denny O'Neill/Guillem March; DC): In which we begin to fill in some of the missing six months between Bruce Wayne's disappearance near the end of RIP and his reappearance in Final Crisis. (Morrison has been quite clear that the Batman of RIP and of Final Crisis are both Bruce Wayne, and we're explicitly told that Bruce Wayne/Batman disappeared for six months, so I'm assuming for the sake of sanity that he disappears for six months, comes back, then gets knocked for a loop again by the New Gods.) The story starts during "No Man's Land", and the great Gotham earthquake, "several years ago." Millicent Mayne, an actress, is refusing an offer of a bag of diamonds from a thug called Gracchus as the earthquake strikes. (O'Neill leave what Gracchus was requesting as an exercise for the reader.) The earthquake saves her from needing to respond. Several years later, when Mayne has become the beloved "Face of Gotham" for all her charity works, Gracchus decides that he's going to fix her face, and he throws acid into it while disguised as Two-Face. This basically brings the wrath of Nightwing and Oracle down on Two-Face, despite having not done what he was accused of. Overall, it's a really interesting issue -- I definitely like the looks of March's art, and the story begins to fill in an interesting gap. Recommended.

(Purely a side note: the publication of DC Universe titles are going to be fascinating to watch over the next few months. It's clear that Batman and possibly Detective may be the first titles to deal with Final Crisis itself -- Wonder Woman still has another four issues of the "Olympian" to go; Superman has nearly a year of "New Krypton" to get through, and heaven only knows what's happening with Green Lantern, but that set of titles is going to go headlong from Final Crisis to prep for Blackest Night. And it's not clear at the moment that Justice League is going to get there at all; they've got to get through pulling the Milestone characters into the DCU first. This month's DC Nation column refers to a hiatus that isn't even occurring for another two months, though I understand why it's in the February 2009 issue -- that is, in fact, when the hiatus for Batman and 'Tec is going to start. Regardless, reading mainline DCU is going to be very confusing, in some ways, for the next year or so.)

The War at Ellsmere (Faith Erin Hicks; SLG)

Jun arrives at The Ellsmere School, having won a coveted scholarship to the acclaimed private middle/high school. She's given up her family and friends in the clear-eyed recognition that without the sort of boost that Ellsmere can give her, especially academically, the chances of getting into the sort of college she wants later on are slim. Her father died when she was young, and her mother is a struggling hairdresser, so this is going to be her best shot. Her roommate Cassie is a somewhat flighty but very sweet person. However, Jun almost immediately joins battle with Emily, queen of the mean girls. Part of it is pure academic rivalry -- they've both been the best in school until now. Part of it is, frankly, that Emily is in fact very mean, and Jun tends to start things sometimes without thinking them through. Eventually, things escalate to a breaking point.

Hicks draws the situation very realistically. Almost anyone who was in junior high or high school can remember having some sort of situation with others, some sort of competition, some sort of rivalry, people who instinctively disliked each other, sometimes for no good reason. Hicks' artwork makes it easy to distinguish even minor characters, and the expressions easily convey the emotions the characters feel. The school itself almost feels like a character, a heavy gothic presence around the girls. The mystical element introduced at the end is a bit ... odd; frankly, it feels like the sort of thing that might be setting up future stories at the school. It's properly set up by the story -- unlike, say, the Minx story Clubbing, it doesn't come winging in completely without warning -- but it feels a bit out of place. That said, I'm not sure how the situation could have been resolved without it.

Highly recommended, for anyone above the age of 12.

Batman 682: "Last Rites: The Butler Did it" (Morrison/Garbett/Scott; DC): The first of DC's major titles to acknowledge that Final Crisis exists, it's a more or less direct connection. It makes absolutely no concessions to anyone who hasn't read Final Crisis, so if you haven't read that title, you're probably going to be largely lost through this one. Mind, I think even if you have read it, you're going to be lost until the end; it's just that the end will make slightly more sense. Up until near the end, it's a fragmented tour through Batman/Bruce Wayne's past, sort of guided by Alfred. It's very confusing -- although, as a side effect, the identity of the Club of Villains' Dr Hurt is revealed, and Batwoman is apparently momentarily unretconned out of lesbianage. I think. As I said, it's all very confusing. (I think somewhere in DC continuity, the current Batwoman is supposed to be related to, but not the same as, the previous Batwoman. I think.) It's going to be very interesting to see where it goes from here. Also terribly surreal.

Gear School (Adam Gallardo/Nuvia Peris/Sergio Sandoval; Dark Horse): Teresa Gottlieb, 13 years old, is one of the students enrolled at Gear School, a military academy where students learn to use Gear -- basically, flying mecha/giant robots -- to fight in the endless war with the unknown alien race that's attacking the planet. Like other girls of her age, she's just getting interested in boys. She's got the odd rival or two. And unfortunately, she's not actually the best at running the Gear simulations, tending to crash things here and there. Teresa needs to pull it all together in a hurry, because the battle is going to come sooner than anyone expects. (One does wonder why anyone thinks it would be a good idea to combine angstful teens and appallingly powerful war machines, but whatever.) Gallardo manages to invoke the horror and chaos of war, yet manages to do it without quite getting anyone killed. Peris' artwork is both appropriate and evocative, manga-inflected -- big eyes, big head -- without reaching quite that degree of exaggeration. Strongly Recommended for ages 12 and up.

OK, so I am going to try (note the word "try") to review an average (note the word "average") of one title per day through the end of the year, for reasons that will become obvious around, say, February. So, to begin!

Batman 681, "RIP Conclusion, Hearts in Darkness" (Morrison/Daniel; DC):

...Huh. So Morrison did have a good reason for naming her "Jezebel Jet", after all. But, given context, he still probably shouldn't have.

That aside, Morrison does indeed seem to deliver on the premise of the arc's title, one way and another. It's not definitive -- and I would think that Warner Brothers would have had a massive snit fit if it had been -- but you really can't say that he didn't deliver. And it becomes even more apparent this issue that Morrison really meant it when he said that he viewed everything through RIP as one big book unto itself, with callbacks to everything that's come so far in this one arc. The Club of Heroes even makes an appearance, in a way that may be indicative of the way forward after "The Battle for the Cowl". Batman even gets "help" of a sort -- if that's at all the right word -- from the Joker, of all people. And Batman winds up going much much farther in his pursuit of ... well, in his pursuit than he's ever gone before. I will say that the revelation of the identity of the Black Glove himself, while tying in to the entirety of Morrison's Batman to date, does leave you sitting there scratching your head and thinking, "Huh? What?" And there's no real reason for him to have undertaken this horribly complex plot, other than "he's barking mad."

Morrison's been quite clear that RIP predates Final Crisis. Wonder what that means for the whole RIP idea, or, more precisely, what exactly he meant by it? The epilogue takes place well after the body of the issue, so it's clearly post-Final Crisis, and probably post-"Battle for the Cowl", for that matter.

Wonder Woman 26, "Rise of the Olympian 1 - Plague and Pestilence" (Simone/Lopresti): In which the Secret Society looses Genocide upon the world, the Olympian gods return to a nearly-destroyed Olympus, Director Steel goes more than slightly mad and has Traynor/Nemesis arrested, and there is the fight to end all fights between Wonder Woman and Genocide. But honestly, I kept getting distracted by the timing question. If I understand what I'm seeing -- and I freely admit that I might not -- then the Olympians are just returning home after Countdown. So how long has it been? Where have they been all this time? Why did it take so long? After all, they were rescued by Mary Marvel, and she's been back wreaking havoc for ages already. The fact that Athena is only just discovering that Wonder Woman is no longer her champion does argue for this being post-Countdown and not post-Final Crisis. That aside, I have to admit, I really liked the story as a whole, but especially the Traynor subplot, and the fact that his fellow soldiers were abusing him mightily and he just took it, but when they tried to take away the pendant Diana gave him, that got him going. Lopresti's artwork is, as usual, very very good. Recommended, but mildly confusing.

Flash Gordon 3, "The Mercy Wars, chapter 3: Arena" (Dineen/Green): I have to admit, I'm enjoying this series far more than I thought I would. It's mildly surprising that a comic book series was greenlit so soon after the television series, but I'm glad that it was. One thing that you get from this that you didn't really get from the TV series is that sense of high adventure fun. I mean, talking bipedal lions, landsharks -- well, technically, "shark men", but landsharks -- sword and sorcery and technology-a-go-go, Ming looks ... um, Mingly and not surfer-dudely (I know he was created as a sort of racist stereotype, originally, but somehow, in my head, he always looks like Klaus Kinski in the movie, and that's kind of what this ming looks like -- though everyone else looks distinctly different). Dale is exactly as competent, physically and otherwise, as you'd expect a federal special ops agent to be. Green's artwork is highly stylized and appropriate to the story -- also, very orange, for some reason. Highly recommended. Fun for most ages!

Galaxy Quest, "Global Warning issue 4" (Lobdell/Kyriazis): In which we get treated to a tour of Jason's recent past that winds up being slightly off kilter, for reasons that become obvious as we go on. Again, a series that's a lot of fun, if quite sincerely late to the table -- seriously, ten years ago, people. Anyway, it's overall the best issue of the series so far, but I do begin to wonder about the pacing of this series. The film, once the action got started, went charging forward without a let-up; this tends to have distinct rises and falls. There's only been one strong action beat so far, in issue 3; the rest have been largely character development. Which isn't bad, but it does take patience. There's also the fact tha tif you weren't a fan of the movie, you're not really going to enjoy the comic. But anyway, since I was a fan, it's been fun so far. Recommended for fans, no recommendation if you're not.

B.P.M. (Paul Sizer; Cafe Digital)
$15.99, 94p.
50 page preview online at paulsizer.com

Roxy wants to be a DJ. In fact, she is a DJ, but she wants to be a great one, not just a good one. She starts investing more of herself in finding out just how to do this, spending more time with her friend Atsuko, who is a very good DJ, with her friend Dominic who is both a DJ and a recording engineer. This causes conflict in her romantic relationship with her girlfriend Hannah, who wants Roxy to spend more time with her. At the same time, Roxy gets some unsolicited but very good advice from this guy whom she's never met before. After doing a little research, she discovers that he's Philippe Robicheau, a one-time luminary on the club DJ scene who self-destructed in a haze of drugs and sex, among other things. She starts working with him, absorbing his knowledge to make herself a better DJ. In the meantime, her relationship with Hannah pretty much implodes, and Roxy's forced to make hard decisions about her life. How much does she want to give to her work? How much to a relationship? Where does she want her priorities to lie? Just how much does she want this, anyway?

Sizer does a very good job of depicting how it feels to be a young adult, just beginning to take your work seriously, deciding just how driven you are and how successful you want to be, and what sorts of sacrifices it takes to get where you want to be. Roxy gets portrayed a bit inconsistently -- in most of her life, she's forthright and assertive, but when it comes to the breakup of her relationship with Hannah, she just takes the hits without pointing out that Hannah's doing the same thing that she's doing, prioritizing her career over the relationship. That really is the one character quibble I do have about the story. Sizer's New York is also very inclusive -- it takes place in a New York with all sorts of people, as opposed to the "Friends" New York, for example. The colors are strong and vibrant throughout, with a playlist running along the bottom of the book for evocative music. The one place where the artwork has a few -- a very few -- problems comes in his depiction of faces; there's something about a few of the faces where he's drawing them full-face or close to it where they look clunky and squished; a perspective issue of some sort. Again, that's in a very few places; otherwise, the faces are very expressive and distinct.

BPM is a very enjoyable read. Older teens and adults who like stories about music and the people who work in that world might like it very much. Highly recommended.