Buy Pile Report

Well, after a week off, I am back. Did you miss me?

Don't answer that.

Anyway, I'm sure you didn't need my Tuesday night look at this week's comic book releases to know how slow a week it is, so you likely also don't need me to tell you this report will have to be brief. After all, I only picked up four issues today, and one of them was the either-you're-reading-by-now-or-you're-not "Trinity." Is that too many words to hyphenate into one sentence? Screw it, I've been off for a week, we're playing by my rules tonight.

Green Lantern Corps. #36 was without a doubt the best book of this slow week, even if a good half of it was just a couple of talking heads. Sinestro tells us all a story which will doubtlessly pay dividends once "Blackest Night" rolls around, the story of how Soranik is actually Sinestro's daughter (which, strangely, I wasn't surprised in the least to find out). And while I am looking forward to new-boyfriend Kyle Rayner's reaction to this news, the most intriguing part of this story was Sinestro's insistence that Father and Daughter would be fighting on the same side (and he said the same Corps.) very soon (presumably in "Blackest Night"), which just adds to the speculation that Sinestro will become a Green Lantern ally or a flat-out Green Lantern once again.

While the prison riot continued on Oa, we also took a trip back to Daxam, where Sodam Yat attempted to take down Mongol mano-a-mano but was denied access to the "Ion power." Which leads me to my one problem with this issue and my main problem with the Green Lantern books of late — what the heck are the rules of using these emotion-Gods like Ion and Parallax and why the heck are we bothering with them? I can only hope next's issue answers some of my questions as Sodam/Ion take on Mongol again.

Action Comics #877 was a slight step down from Greg Rucka's brilliant beginning on the book — and that doesn't even begin to worry about the fact that this issue's cover has absolutely nothing to do with the story, and I still can't make sense of what it's supposed to be. While last issue was a wall-to-wall action brawl between Thara, Chris and Chris' biological mommy, we get a lot more talking and storyline here, but not all of it is good. For one, Chris and Lois have a tearful reunion, only for as short a time as child Chris spent with Lois before he was aged, I just didn't buy all that emotion. And later, when Chris goes back to talk to his biological mother, he suddenly has a plan on how to deal with her non-violently, the likes of which would make Superman proud. As I said before, I just didn't buy it.

The rest of the issue is spent watching General Lane track the Kryptonian activity on Earth, and frankly, for the amount of commotion as Chris was making, I don't blame Lane at all for finding him and shooting him out of the sky. Heck, Lois was dumb enough to leave Thara out on her roof resting out in the open.

Greg Rucka's issues have all been examples of good, intelligent writing with not as well known characters, up until this point. Instead, this felt like he was doing anything he could to advance the story to where the Superman line as a whole needed it to be, and the book consequently suffered.

That's about it for the abbreviated Buy Pile Report. Now that my break is over, expect the next installment of the "Blackest Night Detective" coming real soon.