Comics I Read Recently

Thanks to holiday sales I actually had a glut of comics to read. So here we go.

Batman: Contagion:  This was really the first of three disaster stories that were pretty much back-to-back-to-back in the late 90s.  The idea was taking Batman out of his comfort zone of fighting criminals and supervillains and deal with disasters.  In this case the insane Order of St. Dumas featured in Azrael comics has loosed an ancient plague on Gotham.  Batman's allies Catwoman, Robin, and Azrael try to hunt down survivors of an outbreak in Greenland while Batman and Nightwing try to quell riots and such.  Robin comes back just in time to come down with the plague.  But it turns out the cure was pretty easy to find; Azrael had it all along and didn't know it!  So it was pretty underwhelming.  More so was the last 8 issues aren't even part of this story!  They're just filler added to pad the length of the book.  It's always annoying when companies do that, though I guess I got this cheap enough that it didn't matter too much. (2/5)

Batman: Cataclysm: This is the second disaster story that also began the year-long No Man’s Land arc partially used in The Dark Knight Rises. The eponymous cataclysm is an earthquake that destroys much of Gotham, including Wayne Manor—and the Batcave. The collected volume is a hodge-podge of stories from all of the Batman-related titles at the time. As you might expect it doesn’t really have much narrative focus. The whole “Quake Master” arc was kind of silly and I guess the answer to who that “person’s” identity was should have been somewhat obvious for long-time readers. (It was the Ventriloquist.) But mostly it was a different kind of Batman story. (3/5)

Justice League Elseworlds, Vol 1: Elseworlds are basically imaginary stories that are not in canon so they can do whatever they want. This volume has some related to the Justice League, though none were that good. The first one was I guess supposed to be some kind of adventure comic strip. It takes place in 1928 with Lana Lang and Clark Kent looking for Lana’s father, enlisting Bruce Wayne’s help. I didn’t really get what the core concept was supposed to be so it wasn’t that interesting. Another was an Old West version of the Justice League but it was one of those lame League incarnations without Superman, Batman, or Green Lantern. It was mostly Wonder Woman, the Flash, Martian Manhunter, Booster Gold, and Blue Beetle. One thing that was really dumb was Wonder Woman’s outfit. It was basically her traditional outfit only with pants, sort of like the lame David E Kelly pilot costume everyone hated. Why would she be going around the Old West in a bikini top? Made no sense. The story of them banding together to stop Max Lord was OK; it was sort of like League of Extraordinary Gentlemen—the movie version more than the comic version. Anyway, another story took place in some fantasy kingdom with these kids being transported there and meeting weird fantasy versions of heroes like Batman, Green Arrow, the Flash, and so on. Superman was actually the bad guy having been raised by Lex Luthor, the king or whatever of the realm. It was kind of lame, like if you remember that old Dungeons & Dragons cartoon show in the 80s. There was a Victorian Wonder Woman story included but I’d already read that one in its individually published incarnation. The last one had an interesting concept: what if instead of Superman and Batman you had Supergirl and Batgirl? Not through any gender swapping but just like Kara Zor-El or whatever her name is crashes on Earth and Commissioner Gordon dies in Crime Alley instead of the Waynes, so Barbara Gordon becomes the obsessive crime fighting vigilante. Sadly, though, the author does little with the concept of a world with female heroes instead of male ones. One misstep is having the “Justice Society” that’s Wonder Woman, the Flash, and some other heroes. They do nothing in the story and only dilute the concept. Basically all that happens is Batgirl and Supergirl are at first at odds when Lex Luthor is kidnapped and then they work together and find out that Luthor got hold of a dead infant Kal-El (you know, Superman) and used his alien physiology to create a bunch of advanced technology. There’s really nothing about the prejudice and sexism these female heroes might face or anything like that, which made it a hollow exercise. Overall none of these stories really did much for me. (2/5)

Batman Elseworlds, Vol 1:  Like the Justice League one, this contains a variety of Batman "Elseworlds" tales that feature a different kind of Batman.  And like the Justice League one some were meh and some were better.  The first "Holy Terror" envisions an America still part of the UK.  Bruce Wayne becomes a priest but when he finds out the government killed his parents, he adopts the Batman guise to find the killers.  And that leads him to discovering a whole mess of secret experiments on people like Barry Allen.  And he also finds the corpse of Superman.  It was OK but not great.  Another takes place in 1863 Nevada.  Colonel Bruce Wayne, Mark Twain, and Wild Bill Hickock try to track down a load of missing silver that might be used by the Confederacy.  It was lame and the half-Native American was borderline racist.  Batman/Dark Joker: the Wild takes place in a fantasy realm called "the Wild" where the "Dark Joker" is a sorcerer taking over the land and the Bat-Man is literally a human-bat hybrid sort of like Man-Bat.  It was kind of lame, like one of the dumb sword-and-sorcery movies they show on Rifftrax.  One with Batman and Houdini at the turn of the century was kind of fun.  Another casts Bruce Wayne as Victor von Frankenstein who reanimates his father's brain in a cobbled-together body, but his undead father goes around beating up highwaymen.  It was an OK concept.  There's another featured on the cover that reimagines a scene from Frank Miller's Year One where Bruce Wayne is badly injured after a night of trying to be a vigilante.  In Year One he's inspired by a bat to become Batman, but in this he's given a Green Lantern ring instead of Hal Jordan and so becomes Green Lantern.  Then he ends up combating Sinestro.  This probably would have been better if it used the more modern Lantern mythology than the dorky Silver Age/Bronze Age stuff where Green Lanterns can't affect anything yellow for instance.  The last one takes place in the late 30s but is actually relevant to now.  It's about industrialist Bruce Wayne becoming Batman to combat fascism in America, including a Ku Klux Klan simulacrum called the "White Legion."  This was kind of interesting though it would have been neat if there had been a sequel included to cover Batman, Catwoman, and Alfred in Germany in WWII. (2.5/5)

Dark Knight Returns: The Master Race: A little over 15 years after Frank Miller’s embarrassingly juvenile sequel to The Dark Knight Returns comes this third chapter. DC did the smart thing and let veteran writer Brian Azzarello “co-write” this project so that instead of embarrassing and awful it’s just boring and cliché. The eponymous “master race” is a group of Kryptonians Superman/Wonder Woman’s daughter convinces Ray Palmer (the Atom) to embiggen, except of course they turn out to be evil and want to take over the planet. Oh, wow, evil Kryptonians. That’s only been done 4698465 times before. This is largely a Superman story since Batman is too old and feeble to do a lot—until he’s mortally wounded and Superman dunks him in a Lazarus Pit, which is just a lazy deus ex machina. I mean couldn’t Superman have done that when Batman “died” in the original Dark Knight Returns? Anyway, Batman helps seed the clouds with Kryptonite at one point so it rains Kryptonite that weakens the bad guys. That’s not an original concept as I remember seeing a Superman (or Superboy?) comic doing that 25-30 years ago. Later, Batman unleashes some bats and many of the bad guys immolate each other with their heat vision. Derp. And then Superman reveals he’s just been “holding back” the last 30 years or so and beats the shit out of the Kryptonians that are left. Yawn. This was just a cash grab for DC and Miller. (2/5)

Batman/Judge Dredd: By now I think Batman has pretty much crossed over at one point with just about every other property: Aliens, Predator, Spawn, Ninja Turtles, and in the 90s or so there were a few crossover comics with Judge Dredd. The first involves “Judge Death” coming to Gotham and Dredd on his tail. Later Dredd helps save Batman from a bomb plot. The Riddler traps Batman and Dredd in a virtual reality arena in another issue. And the Joker goes to Dredd’s dimension to wreak havoc with four evil judges. It was OK but having not read a Judge Dredd comic maybe I didn’t get as much from it as I could have. There’s also an issue where Lobo chases a bounty into Dredd’s dimension. I haven’t read either of their comics so it was kind of meh to me. (2.5/5)

Superman Unchained: This miniseries was written by former Batman writer Scott Snyder. The gist is that for years the US Military has been hiding an alien called “Wraith” that has most of the same powers as Superman. Oh, hey, there’s another new concept! Together they end up foiling an alien plot to invade the Earth with help from Lex Luthor, Lois Lane, and Batman. It’s OK but another that doesn’t bring much new to the table. (2.5/5)

Batman Europa: In this miniseries, Batman and Joker are infected with a virus and have only a week to find the cure. They have to work together as they go from Gotham to Berlin to Prague to Paris to Rome looking for clues. The writer doesn’t really do much with the concept of Batman and the Joker dying and having to rely on each other. In the end they find it was Bane behind it for…reasons. And the cure is…each other’s blood. I’m pretty sure that’s not how science works. For someone dying, Batman manages to beat Bane pretty easily. Another meh miniseries no one really needed. (2.5/5)

Superman: American Alien:  This is essentially a Superman prequel.  The idea is to present seven stories from Superman's formative years, starting when he's a little kid learning his powers and moving on from there as he learns what it takes to be a hero.  It's not breaking a lot of new ground but it walks a good line between the misery and despair of Man of Steel and the Big Blue Boy Scout of Superman The Movie.  It also covers a little more ground than TV's Smallville.  There are cameos from familiar characters like Lex Luthor, Lois Lane, Batman, the Green Lantern Corps (not any human ones), Doomsday, and Lobo.  But Superman seems to have the same problem as Captain America:  besides origin stories and stories killing him it seems hard for writers to find decent stories for the character. (3/5)

Lost Light, Vol 2: A sort of hodge-podge of issues, mostly focusing on the mutinous Getaway, who is willing to do anything (seriously, anything) to get to Cyberuptopia and thereby become a de facto Prime. First Aid and the Protectobots try to stop him, but don’t. Meanwhile the female Autobots consider bringing the dead Skids back to life—but don’t. What sucks is you really don’t have a lot of the main characters in this, though I think they’re set to return in the next issue. (2.5/5)

Justice League 3000:  I actually read the sequel to this (Justice League 3001) over the last two years and then I finally got the initial 12-issue series on sale.  I thought reading this might help clear up some of the confusion from the other book, but...not really.   I guess since it's a comic book it just throws  you right into action and only later backtracks to explain who these new versions of Wonder Woman, Batman, Superman, Green Lantern, and the Flash are.  Basically they're sorta clones, only the DNA from the Justice League members has been implanted in living people and consumes them, transforming them into the superheroes of yore.  Except there are holes in their memories and they aren't really the same as before:  Wonder Woman is bloodthirsty, Batman has a sense of humor, and Superman is a douche who can't fly or use heat vision.  They've been revived to fight "the Five," who are five overpowered supervillains who have taken over the 31st Century universe.   The new Justice League does a pretty shitty job through most of the first 7 issues but eventually their creator rallies them to defeat the Five, at least temporarily.  With how overpowered some of these villains were, it made it hard to believe they could actually be defeated, even by Earth's Mightiest Heroes--or these guys.  But I guess it helped to clear up one or two things. (2.5/5)

Batman, Vol 3: I Am Bane:  Tom King's tremendous run on Batman continues.  After rescuing the "Psycho Pirate" from Bane's island in the previous volume, Bane is hot on Batman's heels.  Only now Bane is pissed off and full of Venom.  Batman needs 5 days for the Psycho Pirate to cure the former "Gotham Girl" so he needs to buy some time.  Meanwhile Bane captures the current and former Robins, Commissioner Gordon, and Catwoman.  The former three are hung in the Batcave, though not dead.  Batman holes up in Arkham Asylum with the Psycho Pirate and Gotham Girl.  To make it to them, Bane needs to run a gauntlet of Arkham inmates from Two-Face to Killer Croc to Scarecrow.  And in the end does so because he is Bane!  The only real fault I have with this volume is Batman doesn't really have much of a plan.  At one point Batman takes the Robins to Superman's Fortress of Solitude to recover.  Why doesn't he just take the Psycho Pirate and Gotham Girl there?  Or the Justice League's Watchtower in space?  Or ask one of the Green Lanterns to fly them to Oa or another planet?  Or why doesn't he just let Superman kick Bane's ass?  All Superman would have to do is fly Bane up into space and he'd die, Venom or no.  But I guess you can pretty much always say that.  At the end of the volume Batman pops the question to Catwoman, ending it on a cliffhanger. (3.5/5)

Batman, Vol 4:  The War of Jokes & Riddles:  This is actually a flashback to something that supposedly happened years ago, though it's only been mentioned during King's run.  The framing device is that Batman is telling Catwoman the story so she can better understand him.  Basically the Riddler and Joker go to war, each recruiting villains to their side while Batman tries to put out the fires--sometimes literally.  The crux of this story turns out to be the secret origin of little-known villain "Kite Man."  He's as lame as that sounds, which turns out to be the whole point; the Riddler created a villain so sad that he thought the Joker would find it hilarious, but it turns out he doesn't.  The only problem is that it's unclear why some villains join up with the Joker and some with the Riddler.  I suppose that could have been explained if this were one of those stories to span the entire Batman line, but in just 5 issues or so it can't really go that in-depth. (3/5)

Totally Awesome Hulk, Vol 1:  Boy genius Amadeus Cho was introduced about 12 years ago in Marvel comics.  He's a big fan of the Hulk and now he gets to become the Hulk!  But he's not a dumb brute like the Banner Hulk.  Instead he maintains his brains (most of the time) and gets to make lame quips that don't involve "Hulk smash!"  There's not a very interesting story in this first volume.  A lady comes from another planet to find Earth's strongest creature and take it back to her zoo.  Eventually she of course finds the new Hulk.  And then in a couple of issues he joins the new Thor to fight the Enchantress.  Meh.  Pretty much if you've read any other of Marvel's new batch of heroes then you've read this.  (2/5)

Hulk: Gray:  This miniseries by Jeph Loeb with overly cartoonish art by Tim Sale retells Hulk's origin.  And that's about it.  Doesn't really provide any new insights into the character.  Pretty much a waste of time if you've read previous Hulk comics or watched the TV show or 2003/2008 movies. (1/5) 

The Mighty Thor, Vol 1: Thunder in Her Veins:  It would be a lot easier to follow the adventures of the female Thor if Marvel didn't insist on renumbering every year.  I mean this is at least the third #1 issue since she picked up the hammer.  And it's all a continuing story so it's kinda confusing.  Anyway, I think maybe this was the most recent #1.  Malekith the Dark Elf, the Enchantress, Frost Giants, and of course Loki are joining forces to take over the 10 realms.  (Wait, weren't there 9 before?)  Only Thor can stop them!  Maybe.  Meanwhile whenever she puts down the hammer, she turns back into Jane Foster, who's dying of cancer.  So, um, just don't put the hammer down?  But I guess that's hard when you're Public Enemy #1 of Odin and all those evildoers above.  Anyway, it was OK and not too hard to follow even though I haven't read the series since the first volume 1 with the female Thor. (2.5/5)

Detective Comics Vol 2: The Victim Syndicate:  In volume 1 of the Rebirth renumbering focused on Batman creating a team of his allies featuring Batwoman, Orphan, Red Robin, Spoiler, and reformed villain Clayface.  In a fight against a rogue US military outfit called "The Colony" Red Robin was "killed."  Most of volume 2 picks up after that with Batman closing out his team because of the loss.  Then the eponymous group calling themselves "the Victim Syndicate" show up.  They're people who were victims of Batman's war on crime, like someone who was tortured by the Joker and one tortured by Scarecrow, and one who was mutated by Clayface to be like him.  Then there's "the first victim" who dresses like a Cenobite from Hellraiser (something they also did recently in the miniseries Dark Nights Metal with the "Batman who laughs").  They poison Spoiler and turn her against Batman and the team--but also them too.  As for who the first victim is, we still don't know.  Someone with a face so gross they leave his/her mask on.  It was a pretty weak arc.  A couple of issues then involve "the Colony" coming back to try to rescue its prisoners and stealing some of the "monster Venom" used in "Night of the Monster Men" which like the Batman volumes is not contained in these because I guess it has its own separate trade collection.  Anyway, it was OK but not great. (2.5/5)

Detective Comics Vol 3:  League of Shadows:  In the Nolan movies "League of Assassins" was changed to "League of Shadows" but in this they are actually two parts of the same organization.  The League of Assassins is the more public group that kills people for profit led by the eternal Ra's al Guhl.  The League of Shadows is a shadowy group (pun intended) that's intended for a more nefarious purpose.  It's led by the evil ninja Shiva who at least in the past was one of Bruce Wayne's teachers in his early days.  It turns out she's also the mother to Orphan, aka Cassandra Cain, whose father took her from her mother and raised her to fight instead of speak.  Cassandra was Batgirl during and after the No Man's Land arc around the turn of the century but disappeared in the New 52 reboot until returning a year or two ago.  Anyway, writer James Tynion IV does somewhat of what Tom King has been doing on the regular Batman title and humanizing the characters to make them more than 2-dimensional.  That makes this story better than it would be otherwise because it focuses largely on the conflict between Cassandra and her long-lost mother who's an evil psychopath and doesn't really want her. (3/5) 

Sins of Youth:  This was a fairly goofy "event" from 2000.  Imagine if you will Freaky Friday, only with superheroes.  The team of teen heroes known as Young Justice has been hounded by reporters and such and so they hold a rally that's also attended by the Justice League and Justice Society.  But a mischievous witch boy uses his powers and turns the teen heroes into adults, the Justice League into teens, and the Justice Society into children, pretty much flip-flopping the natural order of things.  Spin-off issues then pair off teen and adult heroes.  It's an interesting concept, but a single issue can't really cover much in-depth for the heroes.  Not like a book can, like my Gender Swap Heroes series for instance.  I'm just saying. (3/5) 

Seven Soldiers of Victory, Vol 2:  When I bought this, I thought it was the whole series, not just volume 2.  But it doesn't matter all that much since it's mostly unrelated stories.  There are seven main characters who each get 4 issues and then 2 bookend issues.  These 7 characters in some vague way all fight an invasion of evil "fairies" who come from a billion years in the future.  But the thing is that none of them really meet any of the other characters, though many are in the same city during a "Battle of New York" not all that dissimilar from the Avengers movie.  Anyway, this was written by Tony Laplume's hero Grant Morrison who I've said in the past can be either fairly mainstream and insightful or weird and off-the-wall.  Mostly this is the latter.  The Mister Miracle parts are sort of a prelude to Morrison's later Final Crisis, the unnecessary "Crisis" event only die-hard fans give a crap about anymore. The Bulleteer parts get a little icky as one woman's husband surfs a porn site for teenaged superheroes (underage?) and is trading emails with a woman who's really 26 but looks forever like she's 16.  The Frankenstein parts were almost the most normal. That's not unexpected with Morrison. (2.5/5)

Batman Vol 7: Endgame:  This arc near the end of Scott Snyder's run on the Batman title features a face-off with the Joker.  Having previously gone after Batman's "family," this time Joker turns the Justice League against Batman, though of course Batman is ready for this.  Then Joker unleashes a virus on the city that drives people mad, but the only cure lies in the Joker.  It's OK but there's not really much point when you know Batman and the Joker aren't really going to die.  After a brief run with Commissioner Gordon in a robot Batsuit, of course Bruce Wayne came back.  I don't think Joker has come back in the present, but it's only a matter of time.  Personally I don't see the attraction with the Joker.  He's more annoying than scary.  Those who say Batman needs the Joker should read Tom King's mostly Joker-free run. (2.5/5) 

Black Panther by Christopher Priest, Vol 1:  With the movie coming out Amazon had this free to read with Amazon Prime.  This run was from the 90s and takes place in New York, not Wakanda.  King T'Challa has been lured to New York and while he's gone a whacko named Achebe takes power.  To avoid a civil war T'Challa stays in New York.  He makes a deal with Mephisto (the devil), takes on some other bad guys, and reveals to the Avengers that he only joined them to spy on them.  Most of the story is told by bumbling State Department employee Everett Ross, who at one point is chased through the White House with a hockey stick by Bill Clinton.  I can't see that happening in real life unless Ross were a chubby woman. Parts of it are fairly silly but overall it's not terrible. (2.5/5)