Another 3-week Doomino Effect

Yeah, so the bad news is that my new job keeps me busy enough that I’m horrible at keeping up with a weekly Doomino effect schedule. But the good news is, I’m bringing in more money, so I’m buying more comics to review!

So let’s start off with Green Lantern #25, the finale of the Sinestro Corps storyline. I’m having trouble with my numbering here, because by my count, it should have been part 10 (and DC seems to think so too) but it’s part 11, and it’s a SUPER SIZED FINALE, costing me $4.99.

But dang, this was a great issue. While I was very excited about this series, I was also very skeptical. With all the big guns that had been assembled on the Sinestro side, I was very afraid there was going to be some lame, cop-out ending.

But I buy it that the Anti-Monitor could be defeated, or at least slowed down, by the combined forces of the Guardians. I’m glad Superboy turned on the Anti-Monitor, and I’m glad that Superboy was written like an unstable psycho kid. Little problem I’m wondering about – if he was doing his old “I’m eating all the positive matter” thing, is there like a hole in Earth now?

The public support of Green Lantern gave me chills. That was a pitch-perfect big-screen scene if I’ve ever read one. Some readers might feel that was a bit cheesy, but I think sappy scenes like that can really work to balance the seriousness of the situation. Pushing that dynamic helps establish how far everything has moved in the other direction.

I was very glad that Sinestro took pleasure and even a feeling of victory at learning the Green Lanterns now had lethal authorization. The severity of that change had been somewhat glossed over in recent issues, and I was wondering if anyone was going to acknowledge the dark consequences of that. I wouldn’t have minded someone admitting that earlier, but saving it for the moment Sinestro learned it certainly didn’t take away from that scene.

There was very little I didn’t like about this series. I felt like it should be considered a textbook case of telling a large-scale superhero action story. You introduce a huge threat, you elevate that threat, and you have the good guys win, but you make sure that the quest for victory means something and changes something.

The Sinestro Corps was defeated, but the status quo in the world of the Green Lanterns has definitely changed. They can use lethal force. The guardians are freaked. And the stage is set for the rise of more lanterns.

Another slight problem I have with the aftermath, and that is the tease for 2009. In Blackest Night, Summer 2009, “the dead will rise.” Considering I just read the finale of a story that involved Hal Jordan battling Superboy Prime, Cyborg Superman and the Anti-Monitor, teasing me that the dead will rise is a little weak at this point.

Speaking of the Sinestro Corps, that leads me to Green Lantern Corps #19, the epilogue to the Sinestro Corps war. I wouldn’t have minded skipping this issue, but it was okay. Big events can use comedowns like this. I enjoyed the bonding between Gardner and Rayner. I also had no idea that Ice was alive again, and I very much enjoyed that one-page story of that Green Lantern taking a drink for each comrade who fell during the war.

Stuff like that really helps sell the seriousness of what happened. Even if the execution of this issue wasn’t top notch, the fact that DC considered these things gives me a sense of satisfaction. Buys some goodwill for the future, I suppose. Oh, and Mongul getting a yellow ring is pretty cool.

Speaking of flawed execution, Ghost Rider #18 suffered without Mark Texeira. Javier Saltares’ style seems to have evolved to mask the absence more than say the first half-dozen issues in the ’90s Ghost Rider. This was a pretty big issue in terms of The History of Johnny Blaze’s Ghost Rider, though, revealing that Ghost Rider was an agent of Heaven, not of Hell. It was Johnny’s death – and not his soul exchange – that sentenced him to Hell.

Give Satan credit for making sense. “It never seemed odd to you that a demon would spend all of his time chasing down and frying bad guys?” I don’t know what this means for Zarathos, the demon that was possessing Johnny Blaze all along. What I do know is that, once Daniel Way’s run concludes next issue, I’m done with this series.

Speaking of demonic possession and people not seeming to be as they are, that leads me to New Avengers #37. One of the things I love about this book – which is also one of the things I love about Lost – is that I can give it my complete faith. Every time I think to myself “Hey now, this doesn’t quite make sense…” the book is a step ahead of me, and the curious thing ends up meaning something significant.

Case in point, last month, I wrote “The last panel leaves me wondering, though. Who called Thor? Isn’t the Silver Surfer dead? Is Howard the Duck actually a superhero or was that just supposed to be a cute way of saying ‘they’re all here’ ? Solidarity, brother. Or something.”

The splash page with a whole bunch of heroes that shouldn’t be there bugged me, but I shrugged it off, willing to just let that slide because of how much I liked the rest of the issue. Well this issue, I find out that that was basically a hint that they weren’t really there. It was an illusion created by Dr. Strange to freak out the bad guys, since the good guys were pretty close to being outnumbered.

The storytelling, the fighting, the banter, the art — everything in this book is quite simply exactly what I want out of a comic book. And I love how Bendis is using a cast of nobodies to elevate The Hood.

And speaking of a cast of nobodies, that leads me to X-Factor #26. I feel bad for the X-Factor regulars, because they seemed to almost be given token subplots to just sort of justify this being called “X-Factor.” Because all the important stuff was dominated by Cyclops and Wolverine and Cable – a.k.a. the cool guys.

I wonder if it was a coincidence that this issue included both a close-up of the last New Mutants team and the debut of X-Force. Both had their own storyline justifications, but it kind of reminded me of reading New Mutants #100 16 or so years ago.

I’ve started liking Messiah Complex a lot more than I did the last time I chimed in, but it seemed a bit abrupt to me that the X-Men response to Cable having the baby was to send people out to go kill Cable. Cable took the mutant baby so that the teams of evil murderers wouldn’t have it. So Cable SAVED THE BABY.

So Cable saved the baby from the Marauders and the Purifiers, and the X-Men’s response is “We must go murder Cable.” Wouldn’t be the first time I thought these guys weren’t thinking these things through.

Speaking of not really thinking about what you’re writing, that leads me to Justice Society of America #11. It’s kind of hard to believe that this is written by the same guy that writes Green Lantern. I think Green Lantern has been downright awesome lately. But this book is just stupidly lazy at points.

On page 2, the two Flashes are running on a treadmill. Wally (I think it’s Wally – I forget which Flash came back to life, and to be honest, I couldn’t tell you a thing that differentiates Wally and Barry) says “But the multiverse was destroyed a long time ago, wasn’t it? Erased from reality and our minds like it never existed?”

Then Jay says “Which is why, when this other Superman showed up claiming to be from a parallel earth, I wanted us to pull the cosmic treadmill out of the mothballs.”

Okay, let’s examine something here. Wally says that the multiverse was not only erased from reality, but erased from their minds. So he shouldn’t even be able to mention it, because the mere mention of it should make him say “Hold on, what am I talking about?”

Furthermore, Jay Garrick should not know that discussion of multiple realities means “Time to get out the cosmic treadmill.” He should, instead say “Why do I have this strange treadmill here?” That is, if the existence of the treadmill itself wasn’t one of the things wiped from history with the elimination of the multiverse.

It reminds me of one of my favorite Mitch Hedberg jokes, when he says “I saw this commercial that said ‘Forget everything you know about mattress pads.’ So I did. Then they spent the next 30 seconds trying to sell me a mattress pad. I said ‘What the f— is that?'”

Did the multiverse get wiped from everyone’s memories or not? Does everyone remember the crisis or not? Because I remember a time when it was A HUGE DEAL that Psycho Pirate remembered the crisis. It was A HUGE DEAL because HE WAS THE ONLY ONE WHO REMEMBERED! What Wally said was true – it was wiped from their memories. WHICH MEANS THEY SHOULDN’T REMEMBER IT.

Then on page 3, they run and run through the multiverse, and Wally says “But there’s nothing out here,” referring to the big blackness in front of them. And then like 2 panels later, he says “I’m no tsure where we just went or what we just saw – but something’s out there, Jay.”

Which is it? Is something out there, or nothing? So far we get a whole lot of stupid nonsense, and we’re at page 3. The rest of the issue involves some kind of abrupt jump into a big fight at the Statue of Liberty and for some reason, the good guy gets taken away by police. I feel like somebody removed the rest of issue 11 and stuck the second half of issue 12 on the end.

I mean, Kingdom Come Superman is here. Why are we having subplots of Japanese superfighting? This is disappointingly stupid.

Speaking of disappointingly stupid callbacks to past storylines, that leads me to Ultimate X-Men #88. I decided to start reading this series again after picking up the Ultimate X-Men: Cable trade not long ago. I didn’t feel that was disappointingly stupid at all – I used that segue to lead into how I’m glad that Ultimate Apocalypse is getting revisited after the ridiculously awful handling of Ultimate Apocalypse and Ultimate Nu-Metal Sinister back in the #40s.

Still, my major criticism of Robert Kirkman in Invincible applies to his work here too. You read an issue and it’s amazing how little actually happens.

Speaking of having renewed interest in a series I’d soured on, that leads me to Madman: Atomic Comics #5. I’m so glad I bought this issue, because this series was so bad that I was considering dropping it to protect my love of all things Michael Allred. But hooray, it finally got good!

Madman reunited with the Atomics, remarkably different personalities interact, strange people and things are encountered, and most of all, there’s a sense of wonder, adventure and amazement throughout all of it. There’s a freshness and an energy and there’s just that joy that made Madman comics fun. I’m so relieved for that to have returned, because I was wondering, “Is that something you can lose? If Michael Allred lost it, what hope do any of us have?”

Speaking of losing it, that leads me to Ultimates 3 #1. My god, what an awful comic book. I mean seriously, could there have been a bigger drop-off in quality between Ultimates 2 #13 and Ultimates 3 #1? So did Hawkeye kill Scarlet Witch? Is that what we’re supposed to assume? I don’t care if that’s reality or a red herring, because there’s no way I’m picking up another issue of this. It’s like we’re reading Ultimate Ultimates, and Jeph Loeb has decided to put a new twist on a new twist or something. This was just so bad!

No wonder Marvel has put such a marketing push behind it. They had to take a look at this and think “Well, gents, this turd isn’t going to sell itself.”

I mean, Joe Madureira’s storytelling is downright awful. You’ve either got to be awful or maliciously good to be able to make a well-trained human eye want to read right to left.

Speaking of publishers’ new universes, that leads me to ASSBAR #8. With each passing issue, I fall in love with this series more. How I hope that Jim Lee can keep up with a schedule. I’m a Hal Jordan fan, but I absolutely love the characterization of the Green Lantern as a dimwit, particularly for the scripted scorn it allows from the internal monologue of Batman.

I also enjoy the fact that Robin is called Robin for a reason other than being bright red like a robin redbreast or whatever. Miller again demonstrates that you can’t go wrong by giving mad props to Dick Grayson, even if you’re writing him as a 6 year old or whatever.

I also bought New Gods #3, Daredevil #102, Green Lantern Corps #18, Uncanny X-Men #493, X-Men #205, and Legion of Superheroes #36, but I really don’t feel like writing extensively about any of them. This is more reason why I need to get these reviews done on a weekly basis.