Thursday, August 16, 2007

Things That Made Me Happy...

in my comics this week.
  • Well. That's one way to shut Brainy up.
  • I now officially understand why Black Canary is marrying Green Arrow.
  • The Amazon signifer.
  • NOW we know why they sunk San Diego. Nice one, Tad.
  • Okay, if there's ever been a more tantalizing page than the final one of Booster Gold 1, then I can't think of what it would be.
  • It's nice to see that, after 50 years, Krypto and Titano still can't stand each other.
  • Booster's sacrifice... and his price.
  • Grace, your weakness disgusts me. Just as I knew it would.
  • Well. Jefferson Pierce is not as smart as he thinks he is.
  • Clark Kent has a Merit Badge in sewing? Of course he does.
  • Catwoman continues to impress both as a character and a series.
  • Did we just see the departure for Zerox... from the Nanoverse?! 'Cuz that little girl sure looked familiar to me.
  • Okay, the only thing missing in that final panel of Holly and Harley is some D batteries.
  • I bet every single one of those ridiculous Rannian weapons appears in the Adam Strange Showcase I just bought, including the hilariously horrifying Aqua-Ray.
  • Batman versus Circe.
  • The Zatannacave. It's not at all how Dale Gunn described it!
  • Enter, the Clownfish. Don't expect to laugh.
  • "With the Absorbascon, victory was inevitable." It's just nice to have that in print, you know.
  • Supergirl's reading assignment.
  • Yow! I needed to see that even LESS than Red Tornado did.
  • Jimmy's new pal.
  • Well, at least we'll never see that harmonica again after this issue.
  • Hassan chop!
  • I never thought I be happy to see that particular group of jumpsuited goobers; but I was.
  • The Flashcave.
  • "Long live the real king." See; Rip Hunter knows Aquaman's not dead.
  • 31st Century perfume ads.
  • Ah, so the Kryptonite Man does have a weakness, courtesy of Stan Lee.
  • Robin versus the Robin Revenge Squad.
  • I expected to hate Flash 231; I loved it.
  • Now, that's taking tongue-piercing a bit too far.
  • Megistus, just in case you need to know, is the scientific name of the Kissing Bug; it's from the Amazon... or it that "Zamaron"...?
  • Young Superman as a cheftestant on Top Chef.
  • Really? Don't you think you should start with your own sister, first...?
  • My god, Daniel Acuna managed to make Wally West sexy!
  • "This isn't the greatest the League will ever be." See; Rip Hunter knows Geo-Force sucks.
  • Sure he's a good actor; but Batman's not fooled.
  • Well. That's an interesting pair of narrators! Does Brad know something about "Junior" that we don't?
  • Nice homage to the Last Superman Story, Kurt!
  • No matter how many struggling women J'onn J'onnz restrains, I'm sure it's never enough.
  • Pantha smiles; I counted one head squished, one exploded, and unnumbered decapitations on the Beltway.
  • The Pozner Suit? The Pozner Suit?! Very interesting.
  • Well. Now we know why Krypto usually just goes 'yip'.
  • Never, in all the hundreds of horror and Vertigo titles I have ever read, have I seen anything half as horrible as what Brad Meltzer had Roy do to his daughter.

36 comments:

Jacob T. Levy said...

Rip Hunter seemed smarter than he ever has before. Besides the comment about the League and "Long live the real king," things that made me hapy included "super-brat whining," "don't worry about countdown," and, especially, "that Kryptonian boy's tantrums, which I still find [too] ridiculous to believe. Punching history. Please."

Jacob T. Levy said...

whoops! Just saw that on the favorte quote poll.

Nate said...

This week Booster Gold was suddenly awesome again. I feel like I'm 14 years old again and giddy with excitement.

SallyP said...

Booster was just too much fun. And yes, that was a little more of Roy and Kendra than I really wanted to see. What the heck did they do with Lian? Is she locked in the closet or something?

And Flash was surprisingly good.

Patrick C said...

This was a great week for comics and I haven't even read JLoA yet! I figured I'd give Booster Gold a try, and it's getting added to the Pull list after one issue.

And can Waid and Perez stay on B&B forever? And I hope you're happy about the newest issue Scipio. Apparently Thanagar does win the war. Even if the Rannies have a book that tells them everything that has, is, or will happen, they can only force a stalemate.

David C said...

The only flaw in The Brave and the Bold is that whoever is responsible for DC's covers needs to be fired!

I mean, come *on*, isn't it obvious that instead of the pedestrian, redundant (from #1) and incomplete "Batman and Green Lantern," it had to be "Batman and... ????" With four guys in silhouette!

With a big box of cover text reading something like "These four strangers are the key to saving the UNIVERSE from destruction! But no one knows who they are? Can Batman solve the mystery before TIME RUNS OUT? Can YOU???"

Anonymous said...

Have to say the Black Canary miniseries was much more entertaining than I ever imagined it would be. I have no interest in Green Arrow, and simply could not figure out why Black Canary would possibly say "yes" to the proposal. Not only was the reason plausible, but the story also delivered some nice action, and some nice Dodson-esque artwork from someone I hadn't heard of before.

Issue 1 was in my pull box just because BoP is on my pull list. I was going to put it back on the shelf, but forgot, and I didn't notice I hadn't until after I started reading my books. Turns out it was a good thing.

Anonymous said...

I know that you've stated that the reason that you don't identify the comics in which the "things that made you happy" appear is to avoid spoiling them for others, but would it be possible to put citations in inviso-text or some other form of protection? Aside from the Paul Dini issues of "Detective," I've pretty much given up on modern DCU. However, your comments intrigue me and I might be willing to pick up a few of these books if I knew what they were.

Scipio said...

David, just let me know which ones intrigue you, and I'll tell you where they are from.

mando said...

yeah, i couldn't believe hot incredibly hot wally was looking.

wally's behind notwithstanding, the thing that made me the most happy this week was the typo in catwoman, with one of the bana saying they failed to envelope gotham in "a could of death".

Anonymous said...

Well, I'm with David -- I'd probably not wait for trade given these hints:
Krypto/Titano, Krypto saying "yip"
Batman v. Circe
Kryptonite Man's new weakness
...your own sister...?
Pozner Suit
and what exactly did Roy do to Lian, anyway? Does it have anything to do with Hawkgirl?

Anonymous said...

You are correct about the aqua gun -- read a reprint of the story many years ago in a "Mystery in Space" digest, along with a couple "Space Cabby" adventures (just in case you're under the impression that nobody anywhere has ever read "Space Cabby").

Care to guess how Adam Strange protected himself against a ray gun that can turn anything into water? (Hint: what's the one thing you can't turn into water?)

Orange said...

*looks petrified* What did Roy do to Lian? I need to know and won't get comics for another two days at least! I may die of suspense before that happens... (Ok, not really, but I luff Lian, and dun want anything horrid to happen to her)

Patrick C said...

What's a Pozner Suit? That one went over my head.

Anonymous said...

The ones that caught my attention were:

-Krypto vs. Titano
-Ridiculous Rannian weapons (though a gun that turns people into water sounds pretty dangerous to me)
-the Zatannacave and the Flashcave
-the Kryptonite Man's weakness
-the Last Superman Story homage

Baal said...

I loved Speedy III. Just gotta say.

Scipio said...

The Pozner Suit is the blue underwater camoflage suit designed by Neal Pozner that Aquaman wore in one miniseries that is longer in continuity. It was attractive but not easy to draw. Tempest's costume is a riff on in it.

The Pozner Suit appears in Booster Gold as something that WILL happen...

Krypto and "Titano" (or rather, a giant unnamed Kryptonite gorilla) are in Action.
The Rannian Aqua-Ray is in Brave & the Bold.
The Zatannacave is in Countdown and the Flashcave is in Flash.
Kryptonite Man and the homage? Action.

Captain Infinity said...

The Pozner Suit is the blue underwater camoflage suit designed by Neal Pozner. It was attractive but not easy to draw.

I constantly hear people badmouthing that costume but I always liked it. I'm glad to hear somebody else thought it looked good.

Anonymous said...

Scipio, as a man who owns both Adam Strange Archives AND the Showcase I can assure you most of them do.

Especially my faveriot.

Patrick C said...

OK, I was aware of that suit, just never realized who actually designed it. And it may not be that bad of a suit, but Aquaman needs the classic orange and green. That suit looked like one of Jurgen's Teen Titans.

Anonymous said...

Funny as it was, it wasn't the Booster Gold comic that made me laugh -- it was Geoff Johns' comments about it in the interview: "Die, Max, die!"

Anonymous said...

The Aqua-Ray appeared in one of the first comics I ever owned, a World's Finest comic from 1979 or 1980 that featured the super sons coming into existence and then committing suicide when they learned that their existence endangered all of reality.

Adam Strange was one of the four back up stories. The Aqua Ray and the blue creatures who wielded them fascinated me. Adam Strange presumably used the same tactic in both the Silver and Bronze age to defeat this mighty weapon.

Between this story, and DC Comics Presents #3 which featured Adam Strange and caused me to find out want Hiroshima was, I thought that Adam strange was a much bigger part of the DC Universe than he was.

Anonymous said...

Finding out where the comments refer to is part of the fun. Thanks as always, Scipio!

Note to DC writers: Having characters sleep with Speedy is not in the least bit 'edgy' or 'progressive' and only serves to make everyone involved look rather sad.

Anonymous said...

Adam Strange was one of the four back up stories. The Aqua Ray and the blue creatures who wielded them fascinated me. Adam Strange presumably used the same tactic in both the Silver and Bronze age to defeat this mighty weapon.

I never read the World's Finest story you mention, but in the original Silver-Age story, Adam Strange stopped the Aqua-Ray weapon with shields of ice. The ray, which turned everything it touched to water, didn't work on the shields because they were already water.

Nate said...

Everyone makes fun of the Superboy punches, but remember, this is Superboy PRIME

He comes from comic book reality where Superboy could do literally anything. He flew through time several times a year.

He would stop a bad guy, and on his way home, fix a broken toaster with his special "toaster fixing breath" just so a housefrau could make breakfast the next day.

Anonymous said...

Hey, I never made fun of Superboy Prime's reality punches. I thought it was a clever way to weasel out of twenty years of apathetic writers and lazy editors.

Scipio said...

I particularly remember one time where, in order to preserve his secret identity while in class at school, he...

blew the light switch off;

inscribed a message on a coin (was that with his fingernail?);

hurled the coin out the window into another dimension to another Earth's version on him, asking him to show up.

He was not only powerful, he was imaginative.

Anonymous said...

Never, in all the hundreds of horror and Vertigo titles I have ever read, have I seen anything half as horrible as what Brad Meltzer had Roy do to his daughter.

I couldn't agree more. Her ghastly fate could easily have been a plot in Garth Ennis's Boys.

It may be just me, but whenever Meltzer portrays DC heroes as selflessly heroic, friendly to each other, parts of a big family etc, they come across as cardboard-deep, creepy robot (underwear) perverts. As I said, maybe it's just me.

And another vote to inviso-text indicating the source of the things that made you happy and the favorite recent comic book quote. If and whenever it's convenient...

Derek said...

Scip, if you want to do inviso-text, here's how you can do it.

First, put this somewhere in you blogger template:

.inviso {
background-color: #FFFCCF;
}

Then, all you need to do when you write these posts is put on of there at the end of what you liked:

<span class="inviso">Booster Gold #1</span>

That way, if you ever change your blog's background color, you only have to change one extra piece of code to keep the invisible effect on your previous posts.

Anonymous said...

Inviso-text will make me lazy. Which is why they put the solution to the crossword puzzle on a different page.

MaGnUs said...

* Booster Gold is indeed teh awesome.
* The Pozner Suit was the only Aquaman costume that ever made sense.
* What Roy did to Lian was taking her to see her mommy in Belle Reve... and letting the kid wear a superhero (Speedy) costume!!!
* Brad is gone!!!
* Inviso-text, please.

Anonymous said...

What Roy did to Lian was taking her to see her mommy in Belle Reve... and letting the kid wear a superhero (Speedy) costume!!!

Letting your kid wear a super-hero costume is child abuse?? I'm in trouble over last Halloween....

Anonymous said...

Only when the costume is a Speedy costume. There should be a law.

Anonymous said...

Yes, well, I've seen a lot of kid-sized Black Spider-Man costumes advertised in catalogs for this Halloween, obviously inspired by this past summer's movie. Head to toe black costumes. For trick-or-treating. At night. Crossing streets.
I'd much sooner put my kid in a bright red and yellow Speedy suit, than that.

Patrick C said...

I'm wondering what he did to Lian that made her more interested in hanging out in the Batcave than a castle.

MaGnUs said...

Letting your kid wear a super-hero costume is child abuse?? I'm in trouble over last Halloween....

No.... taking your kid to a SUPERVILLAIN PRISON in a superhero costume is child abuse, or at least, neglect.