Thursday's Reviews

Once again, I got all of the fancy covers saved for me in my pull box.  And yes, they are certainly eye-catching.   I imagine that someday my grandchildren will be quite taken with them. 

We are now deep into "Villains" month at DC.  And while some of these stories aren't all that terrible, I find that really I do prefer to read about the heroes.  Except for the Rogues of course.  I love the Rogues.

Batman: Li'l Gotham #6

This was by far the best book of the week.  I simply love this book.  This issue had two stories, all dealing with the themes of Mother's Day and Father's Day.  It's a little bit late for that, but who cares? 

We begin with Damian and his friend and "sidekick" Colin, who have been having a good time thwarting crime, and then decide to go back to the Batcave and play videos, while mocking the costumes of past Robins.  Alfred makes them pizza.

Colin lives at an orphanage and would really like to be able to find his mother, and Damian decides to help him.  They need a disguise for Colin, who ends up dressed up like a totally cheerful Batman, and together they have oodles of adventures.  They don't find his mother, but he doesn't really mind in the end.

Next, Barbara and Commissioner Gordon go out to dinner, and end up at the same table as Talia and R'as   Al Ghul, which is...hilarious.  After a bit of snarkiness, they all end up fighting poisonous ninjas.  Naturally.  At the same time, Alfred is terrified for his kitchen, as all of the Robins are busy trying to make him dinner to celebrate Father's day, and only end up demolishing the place.  So they send out for Chinese food..

It is...happy, it is funny, it has characters that I love, and the artwork is sublime.  THIS is a comic!

Black Manta/Aquaman #23.1

Well, now that Aquaman is dead, presumably Black Manta no longer has a mission in life.  So he goes off to visit his dead father, and sees that Ultraman has pushed the moon in front of the sun, because sunlight stings or something, which of course sets off all sorts of catastrophes with the tides and such, and his father's coffin is washed away.  This makes Black Manta very very angry, and he decides he is going to go after ALL of the Crime Syndicate.  Which will prsumably make him a "good" guy.  At least for the duration of the Villains story anyway. 

Not a terrible story actually..in fact it was one of the better ones this week.

Reverse Flash/Flash

This is the story of the Reverse Flash, who apparently is Iris West's obnoxious little brother.  But they had a hard childhood with a bully of a father, so it is ok for him to be a jerk.  He ends up with the power of the Speed force and wants to go back in time to off his dad, but naturally things don't work out quite that way.  Again, not too bad actually, I'm slightly interested in where this is going to go.

Killer Frost/Justice League America

This is the new back story of Killer Frost.  Since I didn't really know the back story of the OLD Killer Frost, this made a certain amount of sense I guess.  It explains her fascination with Firestorm anyway.  You even feel a little bit sorry for her.  Sterling Gates is a good writer, and  Brett Smith does a nice job with the art.

Lobo/Justice League

I don't even know why I ended up with this, because this was pretty...terrible.  I don't like Lobo at the best of times, he was a joke character, and was mildly amusing back in the 90's for a while.  I rather enjoyed how he and  Guy used to interact when Beau Smith was writing.  But this was just...weird.

Mongul/Green Lantern

I don't particulalry like Mongul at any time, so this new origin of his, and his poncing about showing off his ship and evilness to some poor schlub of a commander left me cold.

Blah.

Riddler/Batman

Now this was a decent story.  I like the Riddler, and this is a bit of a continuation of what Snyder is doing with Year One for Batman.  He's clever as all heck here, if a bit on the obsessed side.  The art is nice, the story flows, there are actually some good riddles!

A pretty good book.

That's it.  Not completely terrible, not great, but about in the middle.  But Li'l Gotham was fabulous.