Jan 31st Comic RoundUp

posted by JediSheltie @ 5:32 PM

Hey, cool, the Action Comics Annual will fill the seemingly gaping hole in my monthly Superman fix this week! Oh, right, delayed... This week looks good, since it's on Midtown Comic's release list. So, until then, perhaps.

Perhaps the next actual issue of Action Comics will limp out sometime as well. I really didn't think they'd let it happen to Action, but once Action falls, nobody is safe. On the up side, Johns is leaving Teen Titans, though it seems to be so he can work on more new projects, instead of getting his 'minor' backlog cleared out.

Speaking of which...

Teen Titans #43

I've never read a Teen Titans comic, ever. Have no connection to the team other than seeing an episode or two of the animated series on Cartoon Network, which only annoyed me due to the faux-anime design aesthetic. I didn't even decide to pick it up because Johns was leaving, because I didn't find out until a couple days after I'd thought, “What the hell?” and grabbed it off the shelf.

So, as someone with a clean slate regarding the characters, looking at the start of what, well, DC marketing promises to be a “big arc,” what did I think? Eh, it was okay. As my primary area of comparison, Supergirl and the Legion of Superheroes, I found the characters less obnoxious and the general plotting to have a bit more gravitas. (Which is somewhat ironic, as the current Legion storyline has the entire planet Earth facing a mechanized Armageddon.) Granted, this is kind of a Star Trek II storyline, vs. the Star Trek I storyline of Legion. Which is to say, something with greater impact on a character level than on a “saving the universe” level.

Even being a more than a bit divorced from not just the recent, but long term history of the team, it was reasonably simple to climb on board the main plot train. Deathstroke, the old enemy from the past (the Khan role), is back with his own team of teens, whom he's calling the Titan's East, intent on destroying the “originals.” He blames them for the loss of all his kids, including the one that's a current member of the Titans, his daughter, who, inexplicably, seems to have her father's fashion sense... His other resurrected kid, Jericho, is also part of the Titans. I assume whenever the Titan's ever need new recruits, they look through all of Deathstroke's paternity lawsuits to find suitable candidates.

Johns propels the story well. Even the bits I wasn't all too clear on seemed interesting. I'd heard about the whole “evil Batgirl” thing, and that is explained in this issue. Granted, it's not a particularly compelling reveal, but there was a lot going on in this issue. Up next week evil Batgirl and... motivationally bereft Supergirl are going to go at it in Supergirl, so perhaps some additional back story will be found there. Daniel & Galphon's art is a solid, detailed realist take that I always enjoy.

All that being said, I might wait out the Titan's East story and then call it quits. Then again, I might do what everybody says they do, and “wait for the trade.”

JLA Classified #33

Nobody seems to have any trouble getting this out each month. Of course, that's what all patience-mongers plead about. Do you want delayed comics of quality, or crappy comics on time? I was a patience-monger, I really was... Action is starting to make me believe strongly in compromise...

JLA Classified is certainly an example of a regular comic that is currently not providing exceptionally stellar work in terms of storyline. This is hard for a guy who came to regular comic buying originally due to the Dan Jurgens' choreographed Death of Superman.

Jurgens' is scripting a story based on someone named Dan Slott's plot, so at least I have someone else to blame. Then again, the past couple issues of this “4^th Parallel” arc have produced some cringe-worthy dialog. This is a mostly Morrison era JLA, just with John Stewart as GL and no Aquaman (always a plus in my book). It's a story that evokes the time-honored tradition of DC mulitverses, in the form of a new “regular guy turned villain”, the Red King and his exploitation of 6 billion threads of reality.

The idea of “average guy / loser turns supervillain via deus ex machina” isn't particularly groundbreaking, though this particular loser is one of the better scripted elements of the story. His day-to-day ennui is transformed once he gets his hands on Dr. Destiny's Materioptikon after a JLA battle. Like a lot of guys, seemingly trapped in a mundane existence and waiting for something to simply happen to fix it all, he leaps at the chance once it appears. He wants to rule the world, but as the imprisoned Dr. Destiny points out, the JLA generally put an end to people with that ambition.

The Red King uses his newfound command of reality to engineer their downfall. This is the second installment of the arc, showcasing the first of the advertised “3” realities he will attempt to use to defeat the JLA. This attempt occurs from within, as a member of the JLA. He doesn't get around to betrayal by the end, simply explains how he becomes a member and attempts to “put the moves” on Wonder Woman. Suppose I can't really blame him. We're off to reality #2 next issue, so I guess this is some kind of “cliffhanger.”

I suppose I'll rationalize my continued pull of this comic as it is a regular monthly comic with Superman in it. I mean, that's gotta count for something in a time where books about Superman can't seem to achieve similar, apparently daunting, accomplishments.