Buy Pile Report

Well, I've finished reading through my pile (with the exception of Uncanny X-Men #496, check the previous post for why), and nothing really stood out for me.

The best thing I read this week was probably the Justice League: The New Frontier Special, simply because it piggybacks on a Fantastic older story without completely missing the point of the original (see the 10th anniversary of the Age of Apocalypse mini-series for an example of the all-too often mistake companies make in this situation). We get three tales in this book, two of which would have fit perfectly into writer Darwyn Cooke's original world.

The first story is far and away the best, showing the first brutal meeting between Batman and Superman. The second story was just a nice little tale of Robin and Kid Flash's first teamup, two characters barely touched upon in the original story. The third story, showing Wonder Woman and Black Canary crashing a stag bar in an effort to stand up for women's rights was just plain awful, but hey, you should happily take two out of three in a book like this. Personally I think that third tale was Cooke trying much to hard to touch on the one part of that era he didn't have a chance to originally. In the mini-series, he deals with race relations, the space race and communism, but not women's rights. Apparently he shouldn't have tried.

Green Lantern #28 was also solid this week. Geoff Johns continues to reveal the chilling lack of humanity possessed by the "Alpha Lanterns," as an indignant Laira is put to trial. Johns also introduces us to the very first Red Lanterns (the angry ones), and you can guess why he did this in the same issue as Laira's trial.

Personally I think the best part of this issue — and what will be the best part of the Green Lantern books for the next year or two — was the dialog between Hal Jordan and Sinestro. By halfway through the "Sinestro Corps. War" it was kind of obvious the Guardians were playing right into Sinestro's hands. The question now becomes, how far along has he orchestrated, and how far along past that will the Guardians go? Frankly, I am thinking we may be looking at a someday storyline of Sinestro re-joining the GLs, because they will have become what he always wanted them to be. Or Hal will intervene. Either way, it should be fun watching these two go.

Possibly the most important book to come out of "Messiah CompleX" debuted this week in Cable #1. First, the bad: 1) This first issue was very decompressed. Hopefully that's only because it was a first issue, but not too much happens here. 2) The idea of Cable getting into gunfights with a baby strapped to his chest is just too ridiculous.

Now, if you get past those negatives, there are so many mysteries surrounding this book that I am going to stick with it. Obviously, the first two of these mysteries is who is the baby? and who is right, Cable or Bishop? While I don't think we'll get the answer to either of those anytime soon, there are other questions I have, after reading this first issue. 1) Why did Cable only bring them 35 years into the future? (writer Duane Swierczynski had to have done this intentionally) 2) Is the Bishop attacking Cable a 35-years older than we know Bishop, or a likewise time-traveler? 3) Why is Cable trying to get to New York with the kid? 4) What was on Muir Island he was there to see?

Plenty worth sticking around for on this book.

X-Force #2 was also pretty good. I am curious to see where this book is going, since it seems the idea is unraveling already. Angel is learning Scott's secret, and Wolverine is clearly not going to keep on taking Scott's orders forever. Also, how many missions are really worth this team's intervention, anyway? But overall, we're getting a real interesting look at these characters.

And I don't mean looking at "Oh, Wolverine doesn't like leading!" again. It's been done. But the line from Warpath, asking Laura and Logan how they are unaffected by all that blood was a particularly strong scene, and a particularly strong idea. And frankly, watching what Laura has done in this series is pretty tragic to me and should be to anyone that read the two X-23 mini-series. This character has been shown to have the potential for so much more than simply a human killing machine, and yet here she is again. I am really looking for Christopher Yost and Craig Kyle (X-23's creators) to payoff her story here.

That's about it for this week. Here's the part where I would think of something snarky to close the post.