A good round of books this week with all four being solid reads.
Fourth Place:
Supergirl #3
As far as nicest looking books of The New 52 goes, Supergirl is right at the top. Mahmud Asrar, with Bill Reinhold and Paul Mounts on the art, whip up one nice looking book. Mounts' color is particularly impressive has he uses a watercolor style and an almost faded color palette. It brings a lot to Asrar and Reinhold's pencils/inks.
Michael Green and Mike Johnson continue to craft a really interesting story about Kara being trapped in a strange land, not even knowing the language. Superman appears and tries to help, but, her refusal to trust him and believe him when he tells her Krypton has been destroyed lands her in a bad situation at the end of this issue.
I would like to give Kudos to whoever created new villain The Brain, who is essentially a brain and nervous system inside a man-shaped gelatinous goo. Its equal parts, weird, creepy and awesome.
Green and Johnson are proving that the initial solicits' description of our new Maid of Might were way off and this is a Supergirl we can all get behind. (HEY-O! No pun intended.)
Third Place:
Green Lantern Corps #3
This month's issue gives us "guest penciller" Geraldo Borges. When I see "guest penciller" I expect it to be a treat. Geraldo Borges filling in for Fernando Pasarin is not a treat. Borges' work isn't bad, but it looks like someone trying to draw comic artwork. Does that make sense? The lack of Fernando Pasarin hurts this issue.
As far as the story goes, Peter Tomasi moves it along masterfully as usual. The team of GL's on the planet Xebel need help and and teleporting Lantern sacrifices himself to get them all out of trouble. BUT, he's not able to teleport John Stewart and a couple other Lanterns back home. So next issue I expect Stewart to be in some serious shit.
I would like full disclosure from out comic book publishers. I know we'll never get this, but I would really like to know why we get fill-in artist sometimes. Does Borges fill-in because DC wanted to give him a shot or because Pasarin is having trouble keeping on schedule?
Here's to Pasarin's return next month.
Second Place:
Justice League #3
I hesitated putting this lower than Wonder Woman this week, but if I'm going to be honest, Wonder Woman, and almost Supergirl, were better books.
Jim Lee draws a great book and Geoff Johns writes one. But I felt like nothing really happened in this issue. Wonder Woman and Aquaman show up and there's more fighting with parademons. The biggest forward-motion of the book is learning that Victor Stone's new Cyborg hardware is apparently connected to Darkseid somehow. BUT, I don't really give a shit about Victor Stone. Geoff Johns has a boner for him, so he's part of the Justice League. But so far, I still don't care. Maybe its just the familiarity of Cyborg, but he'll always be a Teen Titan and second tier hero to me.
And I don't like the way Johns writes Hal Jordan in this book. Johns has been writing Hal for so long now that I expect him to have a better handle on his character. Even though this is 5 years before the current Green Lantern book, Hal still feels WAY too juvenile to become the Hal we've known since Rebirth.
This was the book I wanted to absolutely not be able to wait for from month to month. But maybe those high expectations (like the ones I had for Club Dread after Super Troopers) have ultimately hurt this book.
First Place:
Wonder Woman #3
One thing that the storytelling of comics books can give us is a wider breadth of genre than any other medium. Comics allow us to have, in one universe, hell on one planet, Gods, demons, aliens, ghosts, vampires, magical beasts and any number of fantasy, horror, or science fiction tropes you've ever come across all in one place, playing in the same sandbox. It's akin to being a kid and having Luke Skywalker and He-Man team up against Megatron and Mumm-Ra.
This leads me to Wonder Woman's new origin. Spoiler Alert for those of you who feel you need it. Brian Azzarello writes out Diana's "made of clay" origin and makes it much simpler. She's the daughter of Hippolyta and Zeus. Simple. I know there are legions of Wonder Woman fans that are outraged at this revision, but it makes sense doesn't it? Wonder Woman's history is so tied to Greek mythology, that isn't it somewhat natural for her to be the daughter of Zeus?
Azzarello and artist Cliff Chiang are hooking up a great book. It feels new and interesting. A perfect example of what The New 52 set out to do.
Panel of the Week:
The very interesting creation, The Brain. Hopefully Green and Johnson will make him a recurring villain for Supergirl.
-Gint
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