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The Doomino Effect for the Week of Mar 28, 2007

Hello everyone and welcome to this week’s Doomino Effect, where it doesn’t matter what you look like on the outside, but what you look like on the outside compared to what your neighbor looks like on the outside. We’re back on schedule and following the policy brought about by last week’s brilliant discovery that I don’t need to prepare and put the books in any kind of thought-out sequence in order to find the meaningful segues that give this feature its name.

Starting out, it’s Green Lantern #18 in which the Star Sapphire travels to earth. The Star Sapphire represents one of those great paradoxical superpowers in comic books. The naive young men reading the books instinctively think they’d love to have those superpowers, but then they realize the greater burden that comes with them. Sure, if you had the power of the Star Sapphire, as we saw twice in this issue, you’d have the ability to make beautiful women wake up naked with no memory of what they’re doing. Then, on the other hand, you’d want to make love to Hal Jordan. It’s a toss-up.

While I have loved what Ivan Reis has done on these pages with his intricately hatched linework, if we’re going to have a fill-in artist, I’m fine with Daniel Acuna. He’s got a unique, painted style that can still carry the story quite well as well as providing a sort of surreal, dreamy tone to the lustful mission at hand. The backup story, preparing us for the Sinestro Corps series, dips in to the history of some of the fiends with the yellow rings and it’s doing a heck of a job of setting the stage for a big ol’ fight between the green and yellow.

Speaking of backstory and fighting with green things, that leads me to Superman Confidential #4 where Darwyn Cooke and Tim Sale continue this story about sentient kryptonite. I’m not going wild about this story, but it’s fun. Lex Luthor looked way too much like the Kingpin. This will be nice if Daredevil is next in my stack. I’m really curious about how this Superman and Clark Kent in the same place scenario works out in the next issue. So far, I’ve been buying this just as something enjoyable to read, but now I’m actually looking forward to what happens next.

And speaking of next issue, that leads me to Godland #17. We covered issue 16 in our Book of Doom a while back, and I was intrigued enough by it that I wanted to give the next issue a try. I think that would have made it the first Book of Doom in which I stuck with something that I wouldn’t have done anyway. I think I got one page into it. I might come back to it someday, but at this point I consider it skipped.

Speaking of things that are skipped and eventually come back to, that leads me to Action Comics #847, which is a fill-in story while the Geoff Johns / Richard Donner / Adam Kubert storyline gets back on schedule. Let me say, if you have to resort to a fill-in while a creative team is behind on their duties, this is a heck of a way to do it. Dwayne McDuffie does such a great job acknowledging the story that’s going on and delayed that a less informed reader could be convinced that this was supposed to be a part of the bigger story from the beginning.

Alarmed by Clark’s absence, Jonathan and Martha Kent sit up at night talking so Jonathan can tell his wife about another time Clark overcame the odds. It’s a quality Superman story, it’s a touching husband and wife story, and it’s an excellent fill-in story, from both an emotional and utilitarian standpoint.

Speaking of single-issue stories, Daredevil #95 starts a new arc after last month’s standalone Milla tale. I can’t believe it’s possible but I think this book might actually even be better than when Bendis and Maleev were around. Brubaker has done a masterful job of reintroducing Melvin Potter, putting an evil villain behind a curtain, and cleverly setting up the readers to believe Melvin and then revealing a hint of the complex truth in the last panel. This book is just so good. Reading new issues of Daredevil makes me want to go back and read the old Frank Miller stories. There’s just something compelling about this character that so completely transcends a guilt-ridden ninja in red pajamas. Thank goodness such talented people want a stab at him.

And speaking of stabbing, that brings us to Wolverine #52. I’m still buying it, even though the first two issues were a whole lot of slash and punch and chop chop. I have faith that this is going somewhere, but if I’m reading the hints right, I sure don’t like the looks of it. So far, it reminds me of that final arc of the first volume of Powers, with all the monkey sex and whatnot, where two superhumans’ lives parallel as they live for centuries. I really don’t want this to resolve by suggesting Wolverine has been alive for 10,000 years or something. This character just really got substantially less interesting the more we’ve learned about his past. Maybe a bunch of writers and editors saw endless potential for new stories, but it just makes the guy so less mysterious. This of course would be obvious, unless the flashbacks asked questions worth answering, but so far, they sure don’t. I’m going to keep buying this book out of loyalty, but I know I’ll have no one to blame but myself when it’s an inkwashed turd.