Weekly Crisis Comic Book Reviews for 11/12/08

Here's a couple of quick reviews to start you guys off. I'll update tomorrow with the rest of them. Enjoy!

ACTION COMICS #871
Written by Geoff Johns
Art by Pete Woods

When I found out this was actually Part 4 of the New Krypton storyline (didn't realize the Guardian Special was Part 3), I was afraid I may have missed out on the conclusion to the Doomsday fight that was promised at the end of Part 2.

Thankfully, the numbers don't matter because this is the true Part 3 and it picks up right where we left off with Doomsday interrupting the Kryptonian welcome party.

As expected, Doomsday is a push over and is promptly beaten into mush by the army of Superman-level Kryptonians, who all fly him to the Moon and pummel him into paste.

If the entire issue had been devoted to just this fight, I'd be a little disappointed with the book. However, Johns plays it smart and knows this fight lacks any real impact and gives it just enough pages to get the point across without dragging it out too much.

The rest of the issue is devoted to setting up the real conflict of this storyline - that of General Lane and Lex Luthor as well as the growing conflict between Zod supporters and the rest of the Kryptonians.

Regarding Lex and Lane, it looks like we got a repeat of the ending of the New Krypton Special with Lane recruiting Lex, again, before dragging him off to work on Brainiac as Lane explains the arrival of Kandor and the thousands of Kryptonians on Earth.

From here, we had some interesting insights into the minds of the Zod supporters that were trapped in Kandor. I really enjoyed the way they handled the car accident in the opening pages of the books and it goes to show that being super and being Superman are not the same thing as the two just ignore the primative humans and their problems, opting to simply fly away.

Finally, the issue ended with the two Zod supporters attempting to free Zod from the Negative Zone only to be taken down by Nightwing and Flamebird, who may be the original Silver Age versions or new Kryptonians taking up the mantles in their new home. One used tactile telekinesis to take guns away from the two Zod supporters (why they were using guns when they have Superman level powers is a mystery to me), so maybe they aren't Kryptonian if they have different powers than Superman.

I think the only real complaint I have for this issue is the art. After months of Frank's artwork, this decidedly inferior artwork was like a slap in the face and robbed the book of a lot of the impact it usually has.

Verdict - Check It. Another solid addition to the New Krypton story. It's a bit of a slow burn for the storyline, so I'll leave it as Check It, but I suspect it will quickly turn into a series of Must Reads by the end of this.


JUSTICE SOCIETY OF AMERICA KINGDOM COME SPECIAL: SUPERMAN #1
Written by Alex Ross
Art and Cover by Alex Ross

If you've read Kingdom Come before, this issue will more than likely read fairly boring to you. It's just a rehash of many of those scenes with a couple of modern / New Earth scenes to break up the flashbacks. Add in the fact this is all pencilled work, compared to the painted work of Kingdom Come, and you have a book that serves no real purpose other than to clue new readers into Kingdom Come Superman's state of mind and show them what kind of world he came from.

In fact, if Countdown was still going on, this could double as an Earth-22 Countdown Presents issue and no one would be the wiser.

In all honesty, I was so unimpressed by this issue, I don't even have the energy to really describe it to you. KC Superman talks about his world, decides to go see our Earth's Norman McCay, who was the narrator of Kingdom Come, and receives some moral advice that all evokes images of Kingdom Come, which are taken almost verbatum from the source material. There's some expanded details on how Lois Lane from Earth-22 died, but it's not anything we didn't know about already and still uses many of the KC images of the Joker at the Daily Planet and so on.

Verdict - Avoid It. Unless you absolutely love Alex Ross' artwork or need every Kingdom Come appearance possible, there's absolutely nothing here worth reading and there's nothing that furthers the current Gog storyline either. I asked why DC didn't hype this book more than it did in my previews this week and now I know why they didn't.


WOLVERINE #69
Written by Mark Millar
Art by Steve Mcniven

When I saw this cover, I thought for a moment that I had missed the last issue where we deal with Spider-Bitch and her attacking Hawkeye after killing the Kingpin.

It seems I didn't miss any issues and Millar simply glosses over that confrontation by having Logan drive in, grab Hawkeye and the two then leave town with Spider-Bitch's men in hot pursuit.

I was actually a bit disappointed with how quickly the whole Spider-Bitch thing was swept under the rug and Logan gripping the wheel and damning Hawkeye / Spider-Bitch for 'making him do this' at the end of the last issue was a really great moment for me and I was expecting some follow up, not a quick dash and grab to sweep that plot under the rug.

Despite my disappointment over the opening of the issue, the remainder was quite enjoyable as Hawkeye and Logan, fleeing Spider-Bitch's new army, which were formerly Kingpin's men, are swallowed up by the Earth as the Moloids collapse the ground beneath them all.

The image Logan, and we, see as the he wakes up was quite shocking and I was thinking the same thing Logan was when I saw it - that Hawkeye was getting eaten by Moloids. As it turns out, we were both wrong and, upon closer inspection, it was one of Spider-Bitch's men getting eaten and Hawkeye was relatively fine over in the Spider-Mobile. It is revealed that the Moloids slaughtered the entire group of Spider-Bitch goons as Logan and Hawkeye use the Spider-Mobile to climb the walls out of the pit.

From here, we catch glimpses of different parts of the mid-west as the two travel across the ruined America. One of the oddities we see is the giant corpse of Loki crushed by the Baxter Building. The only thing I can't figure out is how the Baxter Building got to Electroville, which, according to the map given, is west of Mount Rushmore and nowhere near New York, where the Baxter Building should be...

Other interesting tidbits included a Venom symbiote travelling about in South Dakota, Mount Rushmore having a giant skull (mabye Red Skull?) carved into it and dinosaurs roaming the midwest, all imported from the Savage Land and let loose when people didn't want them anymore.

The issue ends with Logan reaching his breaking point in a small bar in Iowa. He clearly doesn't want to be the man he used to be, but one of the patrons agitates him to such a degree that he's ready to pop his claws into the man's skull if he says one more word. This leads to him rushing out of the bar before he does something he regrets with Hawkeye chasing after him. Clint asks Logan just what the hell happened to him and Logan finally agrees to tell him, leaving us hanging on the edge of our seats.

Verdict - Check It. Delays hurt the book and the sweeping of Spider-Bitch's story under the rug really hurt the opening of the book, but, once I got back into it, it was still just as entertaining as always. However, I'm giving it a Check It as I feel it's best to simply trade wait this one out and enjoy the story from start to finish without the delays.

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