Thursday, December 13, 2007

Things That Made Me Happy...

... in my comics this week.

  • Once again, Hal Jordan shows that he's "Special Ops" with his out of the box thinking.
  • How Wonder Woman defeats Captain Nazi.
  • Getting to see the Joker beat the snot out of Booster Gold. Repeatedly.
  • Call me "Bob", because I, too, figured out where Ray Palmer was.
  • Wonder Girl versus the Female Furies.
  • Hippolyta's haircut.
  • Sinestro, not trying to win a war-- trying to win a debate.
  • Coast City gets a backbone and a personality.
  • So THAT'S who Supernova was working for. Zowie! Leave it to Geoff to clean up Brad's mess...
  • Kudos, Gail, for the new "myth" of the Queen's Personal Guard.
  • FINALLY, someone came out and said, "Jimmy Olsen must die!"
  • How many Guardians does it take to screw an Anti-Monitor?
  • Well, now we know where he got that shirt... .
  • Now that is the Global Guardian I've been waiting for, and in the exact dynasty where he's needed!!!
  • "Turtle-boy" Olsen.
  • Kane Miohai is totally hot!
  • Yep; that's the Bizarro Yellow Lantern.
  • The Dodsons' work on WW is OUTSTANDING. That is precisely what I, at least, need her to look like.
  • Prime fulfills his very important purpose.
  • I'm not surprised Peacemaker doesn't enjoy Lucha Libre.
  • Bludhaven's extreme home makeover.
  • Nothing I enjoy more than Per Degaton shooting a baby in its crib!
  • Marshmallow man? Funny.
  • So, I assume he's using that to heal her, rather than always using it as a bedspread... .
  • When Sinestro revealed his real purpose in forming the Yellow Lantern Corps, it chilled my blood, then inspired enormous respect, then made me very, very sad.
  • Hm. Well. I guess the Trickster's not playing a trick, is he?
  • I want an Orange Lantern ring!
  • Oh, Mary! Big mistake; black diamonds are a girl's best friend.
  • "Red Dawn"? Of course; it's probably his favorite movie.
  • Poor Hank. Pity.
  • Triplicate Girl is really exceedingly clever.
  • Do you think Prime is finally going to get his wish?
  • Always good to see Rip's chalkboard, but I have no idea who "Steve" is.
  • I was ready for the rest of it, but not for... the Black Lantern.

43 comments:

Anonymous said...

Green Lantern made me happy as (1) a single issue, (2) culmination of a great storyline and (3) laying the groundwork for more fun stuff to come.

Nate said...

Steve is the editor of the book.

Diamondrock said...

It was a really good week, wasn't it?

And Sinestro is far more clever and evil than I ever gave him credit for. He seems to know *exactly* what's going on. And that's terrifying...

CandidGamera : said...

Bedspread, Shirt, and Global Guardian throwing me this week..

Anyone else spot the resemblance of the Black Lantern symbol to Black Hand's insignia?

Scipio said...

Bedspread: Wonder Girl miniseries.

Shirt: Booster Gold.

Global Guardian: Wonder Girl miniseries.

Anonymous said...

How exactly does the Joker beat up Booster Gold? Booster has a force field, super strength, the ability to fly, and laser blasts. Booster should be able to defeat him in a nanosecond.

Anonymous said...

Poor Hank. Pity.

Oh yes. I just desperately wish the poor bugger could *die*. And the Black Lantern bit made me gibber.

I want an Indigo Lantern. They don't have a ring, they have a big stick. If the charge runs out you can use it to whack the hell out of your enemy instead. I approve.

Scipio said...

Compassion at the end of a stick!

Anonymous said...

Where did you spot Bizarro Lantern? I must have missed him.

-Phil

Scipio said...

John Stewart defeats him, without mention, in the big Green Lantern issue this week.

SallyP said...

I was hoping for an appearance of the Bizarro Hal, and by gosh, there he was! Heehee.

My goodness this WAS a heck of a week. Of COURSE "Red Dawn" is Guy's favorite movie. His "Wolverinesssss!" just cracked me up. Well, that and the University of Michigan logo.

Those guards of Hippolyta's are a little on the fanatical side, don't you think? Wonder Woman is getting better by leaps and bounds.

Poor Booster. Couldn't there have been a gentler way to get the point across to him?

And yes, Sinestro is VERY scary.

Anonymous said...

In ALL the times Booster Gold tried to save Barbara Gordon, he never ONCE thought of using his force-field to protect Babs or imprison the Joker?

Sorry, that's just stupid.

darknessatnoon said...

"How exactly does the Joker beat up Booster Gold? Booster has a force field, super strength, the ability to fly, and laser blasts. Booster should be able to defeat him in a nanosecond."

"In ALL the times Booster Gold tried to save Barbara Gordon, he never ONCE thought of using his force-field to protect Babs or imprison the Joker?

Sorry, that's just stupid."

Dear Anonymous but Clearly Obsessed Barbra Gordon Fans,

Correct me if I'm stupid (which I'm probably not), but the moral of the story was that nothing Booster could do would change the time-line. The little 'realist' detail of his force-field going on the fritz when a couple of thugs attacked him would seem to lend itself to this reading. Rip Hunter basically saying the same thing in the comic also lends itself to this reading.


Nanosecond. Heh.
Ahem. And that's the last comic book logic 'debate' I embark upon.

Scipio said...

"Poor Booster. Couldn't there have been a gentler way to get the point across to him?"

I hear you, but...

apparently not, since Booster still doesn't seem to accept the point.

Anonymous said...

Which makes me love him all the more, the big lug.

RE: Supernova's bosses....Scip, you pretty much echoed what most of us thought when reading that.

Jamie

Dave said...

Having long since given up on Countdown, I have to ask: Where was Ray?

Jacob T. Levy said...

Booster was a great comic, and the lesson was very effective.

But I can't help wondering how coherent it is with the rest of the series.

How can Barbara's shooting be solidified time, but not, say, Superman being Superman? Why are Rip and Booster automatically prevented from screwing up history, but the bad guys need to be actively opposed lest they do so?

Does the correct course of history automatically protect itself, or not, or when?

Anonymous said...

How similar is this Bizarro Hal to the one who appeared in The Greatest Bizarro Story Ever Told (DC Comics Presents #71)?

Patrick C said...

Yeah, the logic doesn't add up really. How could the bad guys stop Hal from becoming Green Lantern, but Booster can't stop Joker from shooting Babs. I guess it was fate or whatever that Booster Gold was going to go back and fix it. No matter how many times the bad guys screw up time, Booster will always be there to put it back on the right track!

I read Booster Gold, and I still don't get the shirt comment. Who got what shirt?

Rob S. said...

It's the Joker's Hawaiian shirt.

Marcos said...

Agreed on all counts. A good week - except - am I the only one who could totally do without the return of the Bracelets of Submission? Ugh.

Unknown said...
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Scipio said...

I don't know what you mean, Marcos. WW used both her bracelets and her lasso in the traditional ways.

I saw no reference to either the idea that shackling WW removes her powers or that the removal of her bracelets are required to keep her from going berserk.

Anonymous said...

JLA Classified... That was the book with Wonder Woman snapping without her Bracelets of Submission.

I think it was sort of a Silver-Age story because Qward was some kind of Anti-Matter opposite of Earth, not Oa like it is in modern comics...

Blue Lanterns are where its at!

Anonymous said...

I don't have the early issues of Booster Gold in front of me, but I think it was explicitly stated that the bad guys are able to do what they do because of holes in the space-time continuum caused by Mr Mind in 52 or something comic-booky like that. The shooting of Barbara Gordon was not caused by one of those holes, apparently. Works for me!

I loved this issue of Booster, by the way. Like the old JLI, it's good to have an issue here or there that takes a more serious tone. I thought the revelation (or callback, really, since it's a Silver Age conceit) that sometimes the past is what it is and can't be changed regardless of how painful it is, even in a comic book where time travel is possible, was pretty damn powerful.

Marcos said...

Scip: JLA:Classified. WW was struggling to avoid a berserker rage because the Qwardians had removed her "bracelets of submission" (so named in the comic).

Anonymous: it definitely had a sliver-age feel to it, but AFAIK the JLA:C stories are still supposed to have happened in the past of New Earth...

Derek said...

"AFAIK"? Okay, now people are just making up acronyms to confuse me.

The ending to the Sinestro Corps War was just about perfect, I thought. Despite the fact that I apparently read the three Green Lantern books in reverse order.

(If a comic says "Finale!" in big red text on the cover, you're supposed to save that one for last, right? Maybe I'm weird...)

Scipio, have you been reading Salvation Run? I have, but... it's definitely suffering from a lack of Gail Simone, if you know what I mean.

Anonymous said...

AFAIK = "As Far As I Know".

As to Booster Gold and changing history, I get the feeling there are events in history that are not directly changeable ("solidified time"), while others are. If it were not possible to change the past at least some of the time, time travel as practiced in the DC Universe wouldn't be possible. Booster did change a number of things, after all: he made the Joker use up a vial of acid, he made the Joker's thugs waste a tranquilizer dart, and Skeets destroyed some rope owned by the Joker. I think some additionaly furniture got busted too.

What remains unclear is how the universe and the time stream decide that Babs's shooting may not be prevented, while it's okay to break some more of Commissioner Gordon's furniture.

Maybe this was best explained on an episode of "Doctor Who", where the Doctor stated: "people assume that time is a strict progression of cause to effect, but, actually, from a non-linear viewpoint, it's more like a big ball of wibbly-wobbly timey-wimey stuff". He said this in the context of trying to trigger a set of events that would produce a coherent time loop such that "causes" in the future would create "effects" in the past. And maybe that's why Babs's shooting is a moment of "solidified time": if you don't have that, you don't have the work she did as Oracle, and that changes history so extensively that Rip and Booster won't be in a position to go back.

David page said...

good week this week though the less said about how zoo crew ended the better...

Scipio said...

"JLA Classified... That was the book with Wonder Woman snapping without her Bracelets of Submission."

Oh, dear.

Yes, well, that's why "Classified" isn't continuity. Um, I guess.

Scipio said...

"
Scipio, have you been reading Salvation Run? "

nope@!

Anonymous said...

I know who "Steve" is --he's the one entity in the universe whom God didn't create, according the the homophobes.

Lord, that joke never gets old.

--Josh

Rob S. said...

Zing!

Poor Steve.

MaGnUs said...

Sinestro freaks the shit out of me too...

acespot said...

I loved "Booster Gold" finally fixing Meltzer's mess as well. Now it all makes sense! Well, kinda.

Anonymous said...

I want an Orange Lantern ring!

I did a little internet research on this. Orange is supposed to be the color of greed/avarice? How do they figure that? Maybe I just feel slighted because it's my favorite color...

Marcos said...

Well, the traditional color of greed/avarice is the same as the traditional color of envy . . . and it was kinda taken...

Anonymous said...

Yeah, I don't know how they arrived at green for willpower. Well, I know why it is that, but how do they make it fit in?

Of course, as a great American icon said in song: "Green can be big like an ocean, or important like a mountain, or tall like a tree..."

Marcos said...

How do they make it fit in? Editorial fiat. :) I mean, once they embarked upon this emotional spectrum explanation for the GL power, they didn't really have much choice for what green represented...

MaGnUs said...

I love the emotional spectrum thing, but it's a bit like Rainbow Brite...

Anonymous said...

I'm just wondering where the Rainbow Raider fits into all this.

Anonymous said...

I'm pretty sure that "Steve is watching" was referring to Steve Wacker....

Jamie

Anonymous said...

Or possibly to the only character whose history was more convoluted before CoIE: Steve Trevor!