The Doomino Effect for the week of September 12, 2007

I sit here on the couch as my wife watches “Bring it On…Yet Again,” so what better time to get out this week’s comics and line them up, doomino style.

Speaking of bringing it on yet again, we’ll start off with Justice League of America Wedding Special #1, in which the villains of the DC universe have united to take out the good guys…yet again. Sort of like they did in Villains United, Infinite Crisis and Justice. You’d think the good people at DC would wait more than a year from the end of one of those stories before recycling it. Oh wait, maybe the creation of New Earth wiped those stories from existence, so all the villains don’t know that they just did this.

And maybe New Earth is to blame for the sudden shift in Lex Luthor’s personality. I mean, one of the intriguing things about Luthor is that he was able to always convince himself that he was saving humanity – working for the greater good. He’s never been so shallow and one-dimensional as to just be “We is bad guys, we be bad, take over world, blah blah blah.”

And what is with New Earth being the stomping ground for some of the stupidest ideas from Saturday morning cartoons? First they stick the Hall of Justice in Washington DC straight out of the Super Friends, and now the bad guys seriously have a Hall of Doom IN A SWAMP? I mean come on! I understand that everyone is nostalgic for stuff they liked in their childhood, but why do the readers have to suffer through it? I thought the stupid Darth Vader helmet in the swamp was stupid when I was a kid, when I wasn’t paying $3.99 a week.

But hey, I can be expected to pay $3.99 since this was a SUPER SPECIAL WEDDING ISSUE instead of just being JLA #13 like it should have been.

And speaking of events that jump around from series to series at the expense of the story being told, that leads me to Countdown #33. I had decided to drop the series after continuous frustration, but I just decided to go ahead and keep buying it to be a completist.

At least I didn’t buy it hoping it would be better. I liked Carlos Magno’s art – it was angular and full of motion and a rare treat in a series that’s usually packed with unfortunately sub-par visuals. Too bad he couldn’t resist a dozen or so Mary Marvel upskirt shots, though I guess Keith Giffen is to blame since he does the layouts. It just blows my mind that they would have Kyle Rayner in this issue. Maybe we can cross our fingers and hope that this is Kyle Rayner from another Earth, so it’s not just completely ruining the Sinestro Corps storyline, but I wish they’d at least give us a hint that such is the case, instead of just letting us all think they’re willing to castrate the biggest and best thing they’ve got going for the purposes of a completely meaningless cameo.

So speaking of the Sinestro Corps war, that leads me to Green Lantern #23. Hal Jordan uses some yellow rings, the Guardians decide to give the green rings lethal power BECAUSE THEY’RE AFRAID, and a half-dozen or so Green Lanterns are able to defeat the Anti-Monitor. At least the Anti-Monitor was allowed to do something more than stand in a big hole and look menacing from the waist up on the last page. This time, we were able to see down to his calves.

Weaknesses and impurities aside, I’m still loving this storyline, and Ivan Reis’ art is consistently amazing. I would say my biggest complaint is that Parallax starts to snap Guy Gardner’s neck, but he doesn’t quite get the job done, so we are treated to a sound effect of “SNA-” I hate to break it to Parallax, but sound effects don’t work that way. Let’s say, for example, I start to fall on my face. If I start to hear “THU-” that means I hit the ground even if I didn’t hear the “D” at the end. If the sound effect starts happening, IT’S TOO LATE. Guy Gardner should be dead, and DC letter Rob Leigh killed him.

Speaking of Guy Gardner and how he should be dead, that leads me to Booster Gold #2. I hate time travel. Rip Hunter is such a preachy, condescending prick, acting like Booster is a moron for not understanding the butterfly effect and how the tiniest events can have terrible ripple effects later on, but then he just sends Booster and his talking lunchbox into horrible temporal anomalies and just expects him to do whatever it takes to stop a tiny event from happening. AS IF a whole bunch of new tiny events and some pretty huge events don’t happen as a result of Booster’s “corrections.”

Still, it’s fun. Booster’s strategy for stopping Sinestro cracked me up, especially the offhand “Sinestro Corps” comment and how it inspired the big-headed pink man. Maybe Rip Hunter will have to find someone else to go back in time and stop Sinestro from talking to Booster Gold now.

Speaking of time and dimension hopping, that leads me to Justice Society of America #9, what is basically a water-treading set-up for the next issue (never mind that issue 8 was also basically a water-treading fill-in issue). Let me tell you this – if I’m ever trying to fight a fire, even if it’s caused by really strange phenomenon, if my schizophrenic teammate suggests creating a black hole, I’m going to say “Overkill, Starman. Go sit in the fire engine.”

But still, they needed something to bring Kingdom Come Superman into New Earth. Maybe black holes do that now. I should get one. With Kingdom Come’s sequel ready to launch (didn’t Kingdom Come already have a sequel?) I wonder if DC has any popular stories from the past that haven’t yet been regurgitated.

And speaking of popular things from the past, that leads me to Daredevil #100, packed with artists from Daredevil issues gone by. This was our Book of Doom this week, but I hadn’t bought comics by Saturday, so I didn’t make it in with the bunch.

I thought it was okay. Lately, I’d been thinking that maybe I was just getting tired of Daredevil the character, and the lack of enthusiasm I was feeling about the series was just some kind of Matt Murdock fatigue. But then last weekend, I made the mistake of reading one of the trades from the early Bendis era. It felt fresh all over again. The writing was was so crisp and I had forgotten how amazing Alex Maleev’s art was. The easy segue into Michael Lark – who’s no slouch – had made me take Maleev’s style for granted.

I’ll give credit where credit is due – this was probably the best justification of a bunch of different artists that I’ve ever read, and I enjoyed the inclusion of the old reprints and art stages (though I am admittedly a total sucker for art stages). But the simple truth is that I just don’t enjoy the Brubaker / Lark Daredevil all that much anymore. I’m just frankly tired of the “Someone from the past is going to get revenge on Daredevil by interfering with Matt Murdock’s personal life” cliché. It’s getting really old.

And speaking of getting old, that leads me to Ghost Rider #15, in which two baby angels are born and quickly start aging. That’s just part of it. The rest of it is Johnny Blaze’s hot naked girlfriend and Satan’s latest plan to kill a whole bunch of people. Johnny turns off the fires of lust so that he might burn rubber to Buffalo. This whole series is just Satan screwing with Johnny Blaze, threatening and killing a whole bunch of people in the process, all with a smile and a wink, and all drawn by Javier Saltares and Mark Texeira. That’s enough for me.

And finally, speaking of enough for me, that leads me to X-Factor #23. Much like Daredevil, this used to be one of those can’t-miss series for me, and much like Daredevil, I just find myself losing enthusiasm for it as time goes on. So…everything was all according to Mr. Huber’s plan. Everything. All 23 issues. Ok, thanks.

So is Cyclops dead or not?