Weekly Crisis Comic Book Reviews for 10/10/07 - Updated

Welcome back to this week's Weekly Crisis Comic Book Reviews! I've done away with the whole volumes aspect in favour of a standard title. It just needlessly padded the length of the title for the column and I figured it was better to keep it simple.

This week sees a deluge of titles compared to the abysmal number of comics last week. I was away on business last week and didn't get a chance to update until the weekend. If you missed those updates, be sure to check out last week's Weekly Crisis Comic Book Reviews and Comic Book Moments of the Week. Once you catch up with those, get ready for this week's initial wave of reviews and make sure to check back later tonight for even more updates. For now, hit the jump for the current reviews.

UPDATE 1 - Added a couple more reviews. Still working my way through the books, but you can check out New Avengers, Black Adam and Superman after the jump. I'll hopefully get through the rest of this week's books by tonight or, at the latest, tomorrow morning.

UPDATE 2 - Finished most of my reviews for this week with Booster Gold, Green Lantern and Green Arrow and Black Canary as well as making Black Adam my pick for Book of the Week. I might add a few more reviews later today to round out the week.

One More Day continued this week and I might weigh in on the book, but I'm letting it stew a bit as it was not one of my favourite books and I don't want to just bash the hell out of it just yet.

One book I have to recommend that I haven't reviewed though is Atomic Robo #1. This is a new series about a robot created by Nikola Tesla in WWII to fight the Nazis. It's a six issue mini that you can read more about over at Major Spoilers or check back her later for my own review. If you can spare a few dollars, I think you will really enjoy this book.

Comic Book of the Week

BLACK ADAM #3 (of 6)
Written by Peter J. Tomasi
Art by Doug Mahnke & Christian Alamy

This book just keeps getting better and better. The fight with Hawkman, as depicted on the cover, is brutal and deadly and quite easily one of the best moments of the week for me.

As seen last issue, Faust has given Teth Adam the ability to transform back into Black Adam again. However, it requires channeling the last remaining powers of Isis, which are contained in her bones. The more he uses the power, the quicker it drains her body of the energies which are required to revive her. This becomes important later on. For now, Faust gives him a marking on his hand that will show him the way to Isis' amulet, which is all Faust needs to help Adam bring Isis back to life. This brings us to the main event - the battle with Hawkman.

Hawkman has been given a piece of the amulet for safe keeping. Adam tries to convince him to just let him go about his business of reviving Isis, but Hawkman cannot overlook the genocide Adam has committed after her death and proceeds to fight him. While Adam tries to simply leave, so as to not use up the energies of Isis his transformation requires, Hawkman will not let him leave and strikes him from behind as he is fleeing. Adam seeks to end it quickly and proceeds to beat down Hawkman over the span of 3 or 4 pages in a brutal fight that ends with Adam tearing the wings from Hawkman's back and letting him fall several 100 metres to the ground below, smashing into a car in a bloodied heap.

Learning from this encounter, Adam decides to forgo the use of his powers from now on unless absolutely necessary. However, while in human form as Teth Adam, he is shot multiple times by the mysterious group that Batman and Superman were investigating last issue with that sniper outside the Khandaq embassy. Talia al Ghul was present in this issue and alerted to the use of a Lazarus Pit, which was Black Adam's doing earlier in the series, and makes me think the League of Assassins might be behind this attack on Teth.

This mini-series continues to impress and is cementing Black Adam as one of my favourite characters. I'm kind of upset that he goes through all this and it's been revealed he gives Mary Marvel his powers in Countdown at the end of this journey. However, this does not detract from this book nearly as much as I thought it was going to. Originally, when he was revealed in Countdown and the ending to this series was spoiled, I wrote this book off prematurely. I'm glad I stuck with it as this is easily one of the best books coming out of DC at the moment.


GREEN LANTERN #24
Written by Geoff Johns
Art by Ivan Reis & Oclair Albert

The Sinestro Corps War has finally reached Earth and what does Johns give us this issue? Not the awesome scene pictured on the cover, that's for sure.

Just as this event was firing on all cylinders, Johns decides to take a detour and deal with freeing Kyle from the Parallax entity through a rather cliched and dull inner struggle "You Can Do It!" manner. With last issue revealing the giant sea of yellow and Superman Prime finally joining up with the Corps as they invaded Earth, I was sure this would be an action packed war of attrition as the Sinestro Corps destroyed New York and took down all of Earth's heroes. Being slapped with this issue just felt like a huge let down and was a real disappointment for me. Even the arrival of the Anti-Monitor on Earth is done in a small little corner panel with little to no fanfare. I expected this huge battle where all the heroes stop and realize how screwed they are as the Anti-Monitor decended from his ship.

On top of this, the art was less than stellar. Reis has done much better work than what is featured here, although it might just be the colourist's fault. He has his moments, but scenes like the arrival of Superman Prime or the Anti-Monitor fall flat and do not mirror the gravity of the situation. He does a great job with the Parallax stuff though and the scene with John Stewart unloading into him or the huge splash page of Hal / Kyle Parallax represent the quality I am use to on this title.

Now don't let the overly negative tone of this reveiw so far fool you. This is still an excellent issue and a worthy addition to the Sinestro Corps War saga Johns is weaving. My biggest complaint is just with the timing of it and the placement of the story. Last month had Sinestro arriving at Earth. Last week had the war with Mogo and Ranx end and the rest of the GL Corps on their way to back up Earth. Along with that was the Cyborg Superman special showcasing the battle with Superman and Cyborg that ended with him defeating Superman. To have this lackluster issue that deals with an inner struggle just ruined all my expectations of a climactic battle and ruined all the build up of the last month's worth of books.

This comic still gets a must buy from me and you'd be a fool to pass it up. I may not agree with what Johns decided to do with the story at this stage of the game, but it's still a damn good book and one of the best on the market.


GREEN ARROW AND BLACK CANARY #1
Written by Judd Winick
Art by Cliff Chiang

Coming out of last month's Wedding Special, this week's GA & BC picks up several weeks after the death of Green Arrow. Dinah is becoming more and more brutal in her search for answers and nearly beats a man to death before Connor steps in to stop her.

The rest of the issue does a good job of recapping the cliffhanger death from the Wedding Special and showing the condolences of many of the heroes. The only conspicuous people shown are the Amazons asking Dinah to come join them away from the world of men. Winick doesn't beat around the bush or try to build up anything suspcious here and basically beats us over the head with this obvious clue.

After the recap, we get a nice exchange between Hal Jordan, Ollie's best friend, and Dinah concerning how she is taking his death and Hal suggesting she bury him already and how even his ring says it's really Ollie. Cue Batman, who arrives to show how much smarter he is than everyone else, even all powerful alien rings and modern science. After going through a barrage of tests with Dr Mid-nite, Batman reveals that it is not actually Ollie that died, but Everyman, a shapeshifter that had some face time in 52 and was apparently imitating Ollie here for some reason and undisclosed amount of time.

Going over possible grudges or people approaching her after Ollie's death, Dinah realizes that Athena and the Amazons are the only ones that have done anything suspicious since then. The scene then switches and we see Ollie caged in the air, still alive and surrounded by dozens of Amazons on Themyscira.

For those out of the loop, Athena is really Granny Goodness from Apokolips. My guess is she wanted to convert Dinah to her cause similar to Holly and Harley in the pages of Countdown by offering her a place with the Amazons after Ollie's death. Why she would want the all too human Black Canary is beyond me when she had an entire army of Amazons at her disposal for Amazons Attack before she wisked them all away and made them human with no memories of their Amazon lives.

I was really disappointed to see this become just another Countdown tie-in. I was expecting something related to Deathstroke at the very least. My recommendation is to just ignore this and read the reviews / summaries online. Not much happens and what little that does is not worth the cover price.


BOOSTER GOLD #3
Written by Geoff Johns & Jeff Katts
Art by Dan Jurgens

My first question with this great issue is what happened to Rip Hunter's beard? Did he just decide to shave it down to a bunch of whiskers? He obviously didn't bother shaving the entire thing off, so is this just an art decision or some kind of time hiccup we should notice or what? This isn't a complaint so much as a general curiosity though. Just something random that struck me the minute I opened the book.

As for the actual issue, this is easily one of the best books this week, let alone month. Booster Gold continues to impress me month in and month out. Not only is it genuinely entertaining every issue, but it is also one of the funniest books on the market. Skeets riding his own horse side by side with Booster? Pure gold. Booster's tale of Super-dickery from Superman where Superman tells him he is not good enough for a cape? That stuff is hilarious. Drunk driving / time travelling and getting rear ended by Flash and Kid Flash as they time travel with their treadmill? That stuff is too awesome for me to make up.

I love time travel books when they are handled properly and Booster Gold is definitely the best book I have ever seen handle the topic. Having Booster inadvertently be responsible for all of the random events in the DCU is a perfect role for him and I can't wait for the next issue. Do yourself a favour and go back to the shop and pick this book up. It's worth every penny.


X-FACTOR #24
Written by Peter David
Art by Pablo Raimondi

Peter David wraps up the Isolationist storyline with this issue of X-Factor. This storyline has killed my interest in this book as David moved away from the things I enjoyed in the book - the characters - and focused on a more generic action based story with an even more generic villain.

Josef Huber beats on Rictor, but none of his collection of all the mutant powers can damage him. It appears to be related to the Terragen crystal shards in his back, but no official explanation for it was given. Huber's mental block not allowing him to kill mutants made no sense either. He can put mutants in situations where they can die, but for some reason cannot outright use his powers to kill them? Okay...

The only thing that really happens in this issue is with Monet and Siryn. It turns out the grandparents they were seeking to reunite with their grandchildren were in league with Huber and the mutant hating parents of said grandchildren. Other than that minor revelation, this issue ends a rather disappointing arc for this once great title.

On the Endangered Species side of things, Beast and Dr Strange go on a spiritual / alternate reality journey. Not sure how Strange can traverse alternate realities, but I honestly have no major experience with the character to judge it. We basically see what looked like an Earth X reality and several others where we see Beast as a scientist, mystic, religious and other incarnations, all of which have failed to cure the "no more mutants" problem. This entire back up story has accomplished nothing outside killing another Guthrie kid several chapters ago. I just hope something happens that makes this entire story worth my while. As of right now, I wouldn't even recommend this if it was released in a collected edition once it finishes, let alone to buy multiple random books to get the entire story like it is now.


FANTASTIC FOUR #550
Written by Dwayne McDuffie
Art by Paul Pelleteir

What the hell did I just read? McDuffie just throws stuff at the wall here and hopes something that makes sense sticks. He's really had a roller coaster ride with this book. First there is the horrible Silver Surfer in an arm lock fiasco, then he rebounds with the Frightful Four story and just when things were looking good he does something like this issue.

Basically, Reed and Panther reuse the weapon that was destroying reality to...um...redestroy reality, but then Dr Strange shows up in an outside the universe pocket reality where he is fighting the antibodies of Eternity and Storm becomes the vessel to hold Eternity while Strange...uh...operates and excises a pocket reality or something...and then they have supper at the Baxter Building. Gravity was in there doing stuff as well as the suture of the universe or something. Watcher also retconned his secret identity, which makes me wonder if he'll help Spider-Man out. Oh ya, Silver Surfer does...stuff...here as well. I'm just gonna file this one under the WTF pile and slowly back away.


NOVA #7
Written by Dan Abnett & Andy Lanning
PENCILS: Sean Chen & Brian Denham

Nova finishes up his Annihilation: Conquest related tie-ins with another solid issue this month. While not as good as the action packed and emotional death of Ko-Rel last issue, this one does a great job wrapping up the loose ends and setting Nova up in his own section of the galaxy away from the Conquest storyline, which may be a good or bad thing depending on how you look at it.

This issue focused on the inner struggle going on in Rich's mind as we find out the World Mind has been struggling to fight the technophage virus. Apparently, with the death of Ko-Rel and the return of the excess Nova Force she possessed, the Worldmind is now able to contain the virus and allow Rich to regain control, if only he will fight back in an internal struggle that sees a blue Pikachu Nova Corps member, among others, battling the Phalanx virus.

Once free of the virus, it is revealed Nova has been depowered, as over 80% of the Nova Force is being used to simply contain and prevent the virus from taking control of Richard again. Hopefully this will only be a temporary solution and we will see him repowered once Conquest ends.

Finally, the issue has Nova plunge into a neutron star, creating a wormhole that will help him escape the closed off Kree space, but not before Gamora and Drax follow him through. The issue ends with Worldmind revealing they are in an uncharted part of space that even he has no knowledge of. Based on previews, we will be seeing some new and interesting space based civilizations and with Gamora and Drax, still Selects of the Phalanx, in pursuit and a depowered Nova, things should be really interesting for Nova in the coming months and I am definitely looking forward to it.

My only complaint is that I was looking for more insight into the Phalanx and Annihilation: Conquest in general with this final 'tie-in' issue. Seeing Nova, Gamora and Drax all written out of that major event, when they were my favourite parts of the last one, really disappoints me. Despite that, the issue was still great and did a good job setting up the next phase of the Nova title and wrapped up several aspects of the Conquest story.


NEW WARRIORS #5
Written by Kevin Grevioux
Art by Paco Medina

Last month, I gave New Warriors a Book of the Week award. Issue #4 really sold me on this series and I'm glad they did not try to pull a fast one and retcon the death from that cliffhanger.

This issue kept up the break neck pace from last issue and spent the majority of the time wrapping up the fight with the Zodiac. I was a little disappointed with the fall out from the death though. I really thought it would lead to the team being crucified in the media, but they seem to be using the team's victory, where the Initiative failed, as a rallying point in the media. Really thought they would have played on the death more on the political side of things.

As the cover shows, Sofia returns to her heroic roots and jumps in to help with the fight, which does turn the tide of the battle, but ends up with her being struck with a blast in the back. Contrary to the cover, she lives through the experience, but is still hospitalized. The rest of the New Warriors deal with the death of one of their own and, while I can't place him, another member, Skybolt, was revealed as a former X-Man, although only his first name of Vin is given. The girl that died was revealed as Chrisian's sister as well, which should help with identifying the two of them.

The issue ends with Night Thrasher disbanding the team, mirroring previous New Warrior teams, which have broken up 2 or 3 times before. I really thought they were going to reveal who Night Thrasher was with his big speech at the end along with the disbanding, but it looks like they will be holding off for another issue or two.


COUNTDOWN 29
Story by Paul Dini
Breakdowns by Keith Giffen
Script by Adam Beechen
Art by Carlos Magno

Another solid outing from Countdown this week. I am really enjoying the Challengers storyline and it has been the best part of Countdown over the past several weeks, which is surprising since I hated their part up until Kyle joined and they finally started exploring the Multiverse.

I was completely surprised they killed off Jokester already. After the excellent origin in last week's Search for Ray Palmer and his joining the group in Countdown, I figured we'd be seeing him for the next few months. They didn't even touch on the Atom mark on his neck, which makes his death even more pointless. I would have liked to have seen him and Jason interact more, as I enjoyed the interplay between them and the "shared" history with Joker having killed Jason on our Earth. Another minor complaint is how the 'evil' Monitor could hold his own against the Extremists yet the 'good' Monitor was easily captured, despite having Green Lantern and Donna Troy with him, who are both fairly strong and capable fighters.

However, the biggest thing holding this comic back for me is the other stories. The Rogues has faltered in the past month and very little has happened since meeting up with Flash. This issue has them in a coffee diner having a chat in full costume and with the chain binding the two of them together. How, exactly, are they trying to lay low or hide from the cops and superheroes pursuing them? I hope they just capture them in the next few issues and end this storyline or move it onto the next phase already.

The Holly / Harley story also continues along this issue. I honestly don't care for it and last week's Detective Comics did nothing to bolster my enthusiasm for this particular storyline. They basically just fight some sharks and make it to shore in the span of a few pages. They are finally on the island though and I hope the trials are over and they can just get on with the Granny Goodness / Athena plot.

Moving onto Mary Marvel, she pretty much goes bonkers and floods a small village and turns all their cattle into fish... Ya, it was completely random and made no sense to me either. Doesn't look like Eclipso had anything to do with her in the last few weeks since meeting Mary and I have no clue as to how this could be blamed on her corrupting Mary. Hopefully they can redeem Mary by the end of this as I am not getting the tragic villain angle here like I did with Black Adam in 52, who had his wife and family wiped out before losing it.

Jimmy Olsen continued his escape in the sewers below Cadmus. How Cadmus could have 3 million dollar robot security guards, but left the sewers connected to the lab for easy escape / access is a mystery to me. They have Jimmy meet up with the Newsboy Legion in the sewers and after a quick exchange, Jimmy leaves with them. Not sure what they were doing in the sewers in the first place or what they want with Jimmy and how they know all about the New Gods dying, but it seemed completely out of left field.

Finally, in relation to the cover, Karate Kid gets about 2 pages here and Brother Eye decides to attack him and lock down the facility to keep everyone there. I think Karate Kid has been on more covers than pages in Countdown and why they didn't do a Lord Havoc based cover is beyond me. Do people see Karate Kid as a big name and reason to pick up a book? Is he popular enough with anyone to warrant a purchase of a book based on the cover alone? Usually covers are different from the interior or hype up a non-existent event, like a fight between 2 heroes, but this cover, aside from being superficially related to a couple pages inside, seems like a poor marketing choice on DC's part.

As of this issue, Countdown has been really hitting its stride. This marks the third straight week I have enjoyed this weekly and most of the tie-ins have been excellent of late. I still dislike several of the storylines it is featuring, but they are all finally seeing some progression and I don't feel like I am being ripped off each week with 2 page non-stories that were recaps of other monthly books like earlier issues featured. If you were shying away from Countdown, now might be a good time to start considering jumping in on it, which is something I never thought I'd end up saying just a few months ago. Definitely not the best book on the market, but probably one of the most improved books and looks to be set to go higher.


RUNAWAYS #28
Written by Joss Whedon
Art by Michael Ryan

Numerous delays and a poorly executed time travel story has really killed my love of this book. Whedon writes some excellent dialogue and does a great job with the characters, especially Molly, but this book does not read like the old Runaways did. I honestly don't know if I will continue buying this book once he wraps up this arc at this point. And I still have to wait another couple months, until at least December if there are no more delays, to get the final part of this current story.

However, this issue was better than previous ones and built on the cliffhanger reveal of Gert's parents being present in the past. The team basically splits up and searches in various places for a way home. The only noteworthy one is with Chase and Xavin meeting up with the Yorkes and stealing their time machine. I didn't notice Xavin with Chase when he commandeered the time machine, but he wasn't present in later scenes, so I assume both returned to the future.

Apparently the Yorkes believe Gert is 14 years old, which places them several years before the first Runaways series. Their reactions and Chase going to the future have me wondering if this will lead to the return of Gert or if we will get a "time cannot be changed" type explanation to prevent a time travel retcon of the death.

For me, the potential resurrection was the only redeemable part of the book outside of the cute Molly moments, which have no real impact on the actual story. Seeing the Runaways like this makes me wish Vaughn would stop writing Buffy for Whedon and the two would just switch back and write their own creations.

SUPERMAN #668
Written by Kurt Busiek
Art by Rick Leonardi

I don't usually read Superman. I typically stick to All-Star Superman and Donner / Johns Action Comics. As the Bizarro storyline has not done it for me and the multiple delays on the Zod story have put me off on their work, I decided to take a chance on the beginning of the Busiek penned "The Third Kryptonian" story arc. I'm happy to say I was not disappointed.

The comic focuses on Superman following up on the Auctioneer telling him several months ago that there was a third Kryptonian on Earth besides him and Supergirl. He rules out people like Zod or his son, and Superman's adopted son, Chris as well as Krypto the Super Dog, as they were all off planet or in the Negative Zone at the time the Auctioneer showed up. He also rules out Power Girl as she does not register as Kryptonian since she is from a different Earth.

With the main players out of the picture and the basis of the story set, Superman and Batman focus on rooting out all alien presences on Earth in hopes of finding the third Kryptonian. This leads to a great scene with Superman introducing his adopted son, Chris, to Batman and Robin. I loved everything about this scene, especially the interplay with Robin and Chris and their relating to each other as adopted sons' of Batman and Superman. I also liked Batman's admission to researching ways of stopping Superman and his sharing that information with Superman in an attempt to help Chris fit in better with a power dampener. I think that was a perfect example of the "new" Batman post-Infinite Crisis and One Year Later. He's still a paranoid nutjob, but not a complete dick to his friends and it's played really well here.

The only thing this storyline has going against it is the mysterious "anti-Kryptonian" badguy Busiek has introduced. As I said, I'm not a huge Superman fan, but I believe this is a new player in the franchise and I just can't see this alien race that still carries a grudge against the Kryptonians even after the entire planet was wiped out and the race thought extinct. For them to actually be a credible threat to Superman is another problem as if they were strong enough to take on Superman and multiple Kryptonians on Earth, why didn't they wipe them all out when they were under the red sun on Krypton?

It's still early in this arc, so I'll let these complaints slide, but one of my major beefs with comics is the contrived villain appearing out of no where as a viable threat or mysterious person / friend / family member being revealed to the character despite not seeing or hearing about it for years our time. Hopefully Busiek will be able to pull this mystery villain from Krypton's past off in future issues as I am really enjoying the beginning of this arc and looking forward to more. I'm also glad to see more of Chris, as he had fallen to the wayside with the delays in the Zod storyline. Some great moments between the big two in this issue and definitely worth a read for anyone with even the most superficial knowledge of the current Superman titles.


THE NEW AVENGERS #35
Written by Brian Michael Bendis
Art by Leinil Francis Yu

Stupid cover and complete lack of 'Venomerine'. How could they waste such a cover on a talking heads book that does not even feature Wolverine or freaking symbiotes? ARGH, I hate shit like this. I pity the people that got suckered into buying this based on the cover alone as you were completely ripped off.

For the rest of us, however, we were treated to a villain's talking head issue. Unlike the typical hero version, this one comes off as a pleasant surprise and was handled quite well. It basically shows how The Hood became this new "kingpin of supervillains" and building of his new organization.

I really enjoyed The Hood miniseries by Vaughn several years back and this issue really did a good job of building upon what Vaughn started. Hood's rise to power was handled superbly and never felt forced. These D-listers he has assembled have all experienced their share of humiliations and with the various perks Hood has already shown them, such as the $25,000 joining bonus, I could see any of them joining up and working for him.

Bendis has gone on record saying he hates the Tigra character and I was a bit concerned when the solicits listed this as something horrible happening to her. I have no real affinity for Tigra, but comic book deaths for the sake of having a death typically piss me off. I was happy to see Bendis didn't go this route, even though Tigra did get a beat down from The Hood while Jigsaw, who Tigra embarrassed while breaking up his robbery at the beginning of the issue, filmed it for the rest of the villains under Hood to watch later.

While this was basically a talking heads issue with little to no action, I still enjoyed it more than the previous New Avengers issues. Despite the annoying, but awesome looking, cover that had nothing to do with the contents of the issue, I was quite impressed with this issue's focus on the villains, something we rarely get in comics these days. One of the best NA issues in recent memory and well worth a look for anyone interested in The Hood or the upcoming NA story arc.

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