Weekly Crisis Comic Book Reviews for 10/03/07

Wow, a Saturday Weekly Crisis Comic Book Reviews. I have to apologize again for how late this week's reviews ended up being. I was called out on business at the last minute Tuesday and didn't get in until late Friday night. This should end up being a one time thing though and I don't expect any future delays to any of my reviews. Look for the Comic Book Moments of the Week tomorrow and everything to be back on track for next week. Again, my apologies on the lateness. Hope you enjoy the reviews.

Comic Book of the Week

GREEN LANTERN CORPS #16
Written by Dave Gibbons
Art by Pat Gleason & Prentis Rollins

GLC was easily the Book of the Week for me this week. After being delayed last week, the anticipation was nearly killing me and I was worried I might be putting this book on a pedestal and it would not be able to live up to my expectations. Thankfully Gibbons & Co put together an incredible finish to the battle over Mogo part of the Sinestro Corps War.

Picking up where we left off last month, Mogo is still in danger from the Children of the White Lobe and the sentient city, Ranx. Sodam Yat, another character listed as a key factor in the Prophecy of the Blackest Night with Mogo, is also still in the thick of things. This issue actually spends a lot of time focusing on the new character Sodam Yat. Up until this point he had been mainly a side character and I believe only mentioned by name 2 or 3 times at most and had never had any actual dialogue. They actually make him live up to his 'Ultimate Green Lantern' moniker without it feeling forced. I'm very hopeful he will be sticking around as a main focus in the GLC book.


If you don't know who Sodam Yat is though, he is a Daxamite Green Lantern. Daxamites are basically genetic cousins to Kryptonians and are an entire planet of Supermen characters when exposed to yellow sunlight with their only weakness being lead, which is the equivalent to their kryptonite. It's pretty easy to see how he received the 'ultimate' tag as it is pretty hard to imagine anything more powerful than a Superman with a GL ring at his disposable and that is basically what Sodam is.

The art in this issue is my only complaint. For having an extra week's worth of time, there is a noticeable dip in quality from the last several issues of this book. It still looks good and is better than most books can boast, but was something that immediately struck me. There's a scene with Kilowog that has his head looking like a big pink blob with teeth and almost no details despite him being the focus of the scene.

Despite the minor complaint with the art, this issue was nearly perfect and maintains the high standards of the Sinestro Corps War with an explosive finish to the Ranx / Mogo battle. I loved seeing the reactions of the various Lanterns as the rings revealed that lethal force had been enabled and many of them almost seemed to be in a blood lust afterwards. Not sure if it will relate to the Red Lanterns hinted at in Booster Gold, which is written by Green Lantern's Johns, or just a heat of the moment type response from everyone. Either way, can't wait to get more of this story.


TALES OF THE SINESTRO CORPS: CYBORG SUPERMAN #1
Written by Alan Burnett
Art by Patrick Blaine

Cyborg Superman was a vast improvement over last week's Parallax one-shot. It actually related to the Sinestro Corps War and gave us a recap of who Cyborg Superman is, his origin and what his current motivations are for joining Sinestro's Corps.

That said, the bulk of the issue was dedicated to retelling Cyborg's origin. They did a good job summarizing his origin and, as someone who knows who he is and his origin, I found it to be a nice quick summary that didn't seem like filler or wasted space. This is how the Parallax special should have handled itself. If it had dedicated a bit of time to showing what the Parallax entity was and recapping how it came about, I think that issue would have at least felt somewhat worth while.

On top of the origin, the book actually managed to deliver a bit on the cover with the Sinestro Corps' assault on Earth beginning in this issue. I was a little disappointed with how they handled the Manhunters here though. The Manhunters have been able to single handily take on Green Lantern and are almost always a threat to him in any large groupings. Here, the JLA sends out Black Lightning and Hawkgirl, along with some random Watchtower drones, and promptly tear through most of the Manhunters. If it was Superman or Wonder Woman, I could see them possibly taking them out with a bit of ease, but Hawkgirl destroying Manhunters in one hit with her mace is a tad disappointing for me.

The final part of the issue deals with Cyborg Superman versus Superman. I was very surprised with the fight to be honest. Typically, DC does not allow Superman to be easily beaten or showed up in any title. So having Cyborg tear Superman a new one in this fight was very entertaining and caught me off guard. Usually the cover images are quite misleading, but aside from Green Lantern not showing up in this issue and being on the cover, the rest is pretty accurate, as Cyborg does defeat Superman and the Statue of Liberty was destroyed along with lots of collateral damage. Considering Cyborg was a strong enough opponent for Superman before joining the Sinestro Corps, I'm glad to see him take him out now that he has like 8 Sinestro rings, one for each finger.

This issue pretty much did everything right in my eyes. Solid retelling of Cyborg's origin to let people unfamiliar with Cyborg learn all about him in a quick and concise manner. Excellent progression of the Corps War storyline - something last week's Parallax failed to do. And, finally, the excellent insights into Cyborg's desire for a final death and his climactic battle with Superman capped off a great issue and a more than worthy addition to John's space epic Sinestro Corps War story.


MS. MARVEL #20
Written by Brian Reed
Art by Greg Tocchini

Another solid effort on Ms Marvel's part this month. Some very curious developments along the way as well. Sadly, there was very little Aaron Stack, also known as Machine Man, in this issue. His previous appearances in the last couple issues were some of the best parts of this series to date.

As for the actual story, last issue ended with Ms Marvel captured and the Puppet Master attempting to turn her into a slave with his puppet powers. This issue sees the continuation of this and, just as it appears he has full control over Ms Marvel, she turns blue and goes all psycho again, as she did in earlier issues in the series, and promptly frees herself from his control.

Later, when she finds out Arana was turned into a puppet and kidnapped by Puppet Master, Carol sets out to kill him for hurting Arana. Instead of stopping him from committing suicide with an explosive, Carol simply lets him do it. She survives the blast due to her strange 'turning blue' bit again.

I was surprised at this turn of events. Not the turning blue part, but basically killing Puppet Master. It makes sense from a character stand point though, as Carol was basically raped and mind controlled by her son Marcus in a very convoluted story from earlier in her career. Yes, her son. Look it up on Wikipedia if you don't believe me. So her not taking kindly to Puppet Master doing something similar to Arana, who is like a daughter to Carol, would probably elicit a response like this from Ms Marvel. Hopefully they don't blame this on whatever is wrong with Carol that keeps turning her blue. Speaking of which, that plot line seems to end the issue with a blue alien crashing into Carol's ship and confronting her. Next issue should put an end to this whole 'blue' plot line.

Again, this issue was very good. The killing of Puppet Master should end up with some interesting repercussions later in the series and it appears Aaron Stack and Sleepwalker will be sticking around in the book for the foreseeable future, as they are both still on her ship at the end of this issue, which is a big plus in my eyes.


COUNTDOWN 30
Story by Paul Dini
Breakdowns by Keith Giffen
Written by Jimmy Palmiotti & Justin Gray
Art by Jesus Saiz

Wow, I must be in Bizarro World as this is another decent outing from Countdown. While not as good as the last issue's fight with the Crime Society, this issue had some fun interaction with the 'perfect' alternate versions of Jason, Donna and Kyle on Earth-15. These are the kinds of scenes they should have had earlier in the book. I think everyone was probably expecting more Multiverse exploration and less of the 'See Some Other Random Book For the Full Story' stuff we got earlier in this series.

Speaking of Earth-15, I like how they used Zod as the Superman of this Earth. Not sure why it, but it struck me as a nice touch for some reason. The interaction with Batman, who is Jason Todd on Earth-15, and our Jason was pretty good as well and I liked the assorted Jokester quips from all parties, such as Batman's, "I don't like clowns" line. The whole Challengers story has quickly become one of the better parts of Countdown for me. Hopefully they can keep up this pace.

On the other fronts in Countdown, the Rogues story returned this week and made absolutely no sense. They decided to crash Green Arrow's wedding just to see if the heroes took their warning that Deathstroke and Ivy were going to attack it? Yeahbuwha? On top of that, they see a 'present' from the Joker in the form of a TV playing a recording. Fearing that it is a trap, they throw the TV at Poison Ivy so that it doesn't kill the heroes. This was probably one of the worst 'advancements' I've seen in Countdown to date and made less sense than usual if you ask me.

Jimmy Olsen was also in this issue and simply had his powers continue to malfunction. It looked like he split into multiple Jimmy's with different powers. Not sure if he recombined or not at the end as the art was a little awkward in these panels.

Karate Kid also showed up again and Buddy Blank has brought him to OMAC for a little chat where it is revealed he is infected with a future strain of the OMAC virus. Not much is explained for people not familiar with Kamandi or Buddy Blank or even OMAC and having these 'important' characters just show up randomly for major plot advancements with no explanation is one of the major faults in Countdown for me.

Finally, Holly and Harley are on their way to Paradise Island with Athena and basically get thrown to the sharks as a test of their strength. Not sure why anyone would do this 'test' though, especially Holly. At least Harley has the whole insane thing going on to explain her actions. Not sure why Holly would jump into shark infested waters here.

Luckily, Countdown spent only a few pages on these weaker stories and focused the brunt of its time wisely on the Challengers and Earth-15. Countdown still isn't the best book on the market, but it is definitely on the upswing and not nearly as frustrating to read as it once was.


COUNTDOWN PRESENTS THE SEARCH FOR RAY PALMER: CRIME SOCIETY #1
Written by Sean McKeever
Art by Jamal Igle & Rob Hunter

I wasn't sure what to expect from this issue. Based on the Wildstorm issue of the Search for Ray Palmer, I was expecting some throw away book with no actual story and basically another garbage book. On the other hand, McKeever is a much better writer than Beechan and did an excellent job with the Crime Society in last week's Countdown, which bolstered my enthusiasm for that book and raised my hopes for this one. Thankfully, McKeever did not disappoint and delivered a very solid read.

However, this book should have been subtitled, Jokester's Origin or something similar. There is very little Crime Society in this book and the brunt of the comic deals with telling how Jokester became the hero, which is a weird thing to say about a Joker-like character to be honest, he is today. The short story is, Jokester was a loser with a horrible act until he started focusing on Owlman, the "Batman" of the Crime Society, as the butt of his jokes. Once he started doing that, he became a huge star until Owlman had finally had enough and ended his career by disfiguring and hospitalizing Jokester.

With his career over, Jokester became a hero alongside the Riddler Family, which contained his daughter, Duela Dent, and his ex, Eve, who was revealed to have multiple personalities and one of the more dominant personalities ran out on Jokester after she became pregnant with Duela. Just when it looked good for Jokester, the Crime Society apparently murdered Eve and the Riddler and that is where we found Jokester in last week's Countdown issue when he met up with Bob and the Challengers.

It was a very entertaining read and I'm really enjoying the Jokester character. The book ended with Jokester jumping through the portal with the Challengers, but in the next panel, it is revealed Eve is still alive and I'm curious to see if this will ever be picked up on again or if it is just another tragic event for the Jokester. Seeing Duela again was a nice touch as well, even though it was in flash backs. I liked how she was talking about how she gets confused and can't tell the difference between her Earth and her trips to ours. My only question with this though is how this relates to the Search for Ray Palmer. It had absolutely nothing to do with that and Ray is not even mentioned in this issue. They should have just told this story in another tie-in, like a Countdown Presents: Jokester or something similar. In the end though, this is still a good book and definitely worth a read.

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