Comic Book Moments of the Week for 03/11/09

Ghost Rider and Green Lantern Corps dominate the Comic Book Moments of the Week this time around. One is just made of pure win that makes me want to start picking up the book while the other is an amazing fight sequence that makes me wonder how they'll top it come event time later this summer.

Before I let you jump into the moments, just thought I'd let you know that we'll have some updates for you on the weekend. Never used to really update over the weekend unless it was something particularly noteworthy, but, with the addition of Eric and Matt last week, we've got some extra content for everyone that should fill those slots as we move forward. So, if you're having trouble keeping up, make sure to hit up our RSS feed or follow along on Twitter and never miss another update.

Hit the jump for the momenty goodness.

ACTION COMICS #875

Blatantly copying the text from my review to explain who these Phantom Zone criminals Flamebird and Nightwing are tracking down are.

• Tor-An - Nightwing and Flamebird captured this issue
• Jax-Ur - a rocket & missile engineer who accidentally destroyed one of Krypton's two moons and a populated moon of millions and the only criminal ever sentenced to spend all existence within the Phantom Zone, without the possibility of any kind of parole and is considered Krypton’s worst criminal.
• Nadira (last name obscured) - a petty criminal with telekinetic powers (oh the conversations she and Superboy would have had)
• Az-Rel - was a partner with Nadira and is a pyrokinetic
• Quex-Ul - the only innocent person ever sentenced to the Phantom Zone. Quex-Ul was put in the Phantom Zone for killing a herd of the sacred Rondors. Rondor horns had healing properties and were therefore sacred to Kryptonians. Quex-Ul was caught at the scene of the crime and was convicted and sentenced to 25 Sun Cycles in the Phantom Zone. Superman proved his innocence and released him and Quex-Ul in turn saved Superman from exposure to Gold Kryptonite. However, this information is obviously from the Silver Age and most likely his freedom will be ignored.
• Car-Vex - I actually know nothing about this Kryptonian. I imagine it's a new character created for this storyline.

Flamebird was revealed to be Supergirl's best friend, Thara Ak-Var (after some hair dye and a new ponytail). This moment, in particular, explains just how Chris Kent, Superman's adopted son from the Last Son storyline, became the much older Nightwing. I'm not a big fan of the hokey 'time messed up in the Phantom Zone, so he gets older' plot device, but the story was otherwise great, so I'm willing to overlook it this one time.


BATMAN: BATTLE FOR THE COWL #1

I want a Robin and Squire miniseries or ongoing. As Robin is a sidekick already, would that make Squire a super hero intern?

This is Tim Drake, Robin, dressed up in the classic blue and grey Batman costume. He looks a little too bulky / grown up compared to other Tim Drake impressions in my opinion, but was otherwise fine with the look.

That scared little boy is actually Batman's little brat of a son, Damian. Ya, he indiscrimently cut villains' heads off and was the head of the League of Assassins in Morrison's run, but, hey, it's "sushi time". Blah.

Solicits listed this gun-toting Batman as Jason Todd, so it's probably safe to assume this will be revealed in the next issue at some point. The only problem I have with this otherwise excellent splashpage was the Liefeld-ian guns Batman is sporting. Did he add the extra 'speed holes' to the four barrelled gun for any particular reason or is there some unwritten rule that any interpretation of Batman cannot use real guns?


GHOST RIDER #33

These next few Ghost Rider moments are so unbelievably awesome, I don't even know where to begin. Based on my limited knowledge of the book, Jason Aaron has been fleshing out the Ghost Rider legacy, similar to what Brubaker and Fraction did with the Iron Fist legacy, and the results speek for themselves. Yes, that is a WWII German tank with flaming treads piloted by a Spirit of Vengence and, yes, it is AWESOME.

One of these gangster versions of the Spirit of Vengence is called Big G. Words cannot describe how perfect that is.

These two Ghost Riders are actually from the future. Loved the bit about the Skrull invasion. The looks of the two remind me of the mutant gangs from Dark Knight Returns or something out of Blade Runner or Heavy Metal.


GREEN LANTERN #34

Left out one or two pages, but this is the majority of the Arkillo vs Mongul fight. My favourite bits are the attention to detail, such as the random Daxam's getting dismembered after being caught in the crossfire or the reuse of the flag turned spear after Mongul was stabbed the first time.

Was happy to see Tomasi didn't kill of Arkillo here. I imagine he'll simply use his ring to make a yellow tongue with his ring to speak in the future.

Kryb's (she's the crazy Sinestro Corps member that steals babies from Green Lanterns) babies are freaky and will haunt my dreams.

Scar, the scarred Guardian of the Galaxy, unshackled the Red Lantern being held in the Sciencells. Looks like he'll either be taken out or cause a riot resulting in the freeing of the Sinestro Corps prisoners.

One thing I've found odd is that there hasn't been a single Alpha Lantern post-Final Crisis. Did they get decommissioned? Killed off? Shouldn't they have been escorting Sinestro back in Rage of the Red Lanterns or be seen at some point during the past few months?


IMMORTAL IRON FIST #23

Liked the flashes of the original Immortal Weapons shown that sealed the 8th City off.

And here is that original Iron Fist ready to kick the crap out of Danny. I wonder if Danny will kill him and 'take his chi', similar to what happened after Orson died before Danny 'powered up' to fight Davos.


INVINCIBLE IRON MAN #11

JARVIS? Seriously? Can we just relabel this, "Iron Man Movie Comic", and move along? I've never seen such pandering and dismantling of a comic or character as I have with Iron Man post-movie.

I imagine Namor will just play both sides of the field her with his Illuminati and Cabal status, resulting in another non-fight alla the Iron Man/War Machine fight in this issue.

And will we ever get a clear idea of what the hell is up with Namor? Is he in Latveria with Doom or not? Did he disband his people and leave Atlantis or not? Why is he underwater on a thrown with the hologram tech talking to Osborn when he shouldn't be living it up in any kind of deep sea kingdom?

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