Nine books this week. Are you kidding me?! Sigh... lets get to it.
Ninth Place:
Legion Lost #9
The Culling Part 3 of 4 is here! Did you read excitement into that? If so, its false. That's not to say The Culling hasn't been good, it just hasn't been great either.
Scott Lobdell, and Tom DeFalco in this issue have created a fine story of young heroes coming together in a battle to the death story. The guy forcing them into such drama, Harvest, seemed pretty cool until it turns out he has ties to the Legion and the 31st Century. I don't know what it is about the Legion, but anything Legion-related seriously turns me off. The only Legion I enjoyed was Geoff Johns and Gary Frank's from their Action Comics run.
Pete Woods in on art. Haven't seen his name or art on a comic of mine in a while. Woods is solid, but I've seen better from him.
So that's it for Legion Lost's involvement in The Culling. It will also be the last Legion Lost issue I buy.
Eighth Place:
Teen Titans #9
And The Culling is over. In a pretty entertaining fashion too. All in all, while The Culling wasn't the greatest crossover I've ever read, at the end of the day it was pretty solid. Ig Guara and Pete Woods made it more enjoyable. They're art is more up my alley than regular Titans' artist Brett Booth.
The Ravagers, Legion and Titans all end on cliffhangers that you can conveniently pick up in their own books. As I said above, I won't be picking up Ravagers OR Legion Lost.
The Titans don't beat Harvest, but they do save the day and he lives to be an indefinite thorn in their side. After destroying his hideout and lab the Titans escape and wind up on Mystery Island. Caps. Proper noun. Mystery Island, for as corny and silver agey as it sounds has some potential. Don't let me down Lobdell. I'll find you.
Seventh Place:
Superman #9
Well that was enjoyable. Easily the most enjoyable issue of Superman since the relaunch. Only took nine issues. Keith Giffen and Dan Jurgens do the heavy lifting on story and pencils and seem to get it right. Granted, there's a new villain named Anguish which is just as corny as anything Scott Lobdell has done in his books. But aside from that it was a pretty solid story.
Supes saves a wrecked Russian submarine that has some questionable cargo that no one knows about, then some other guy named Spence Becker gets outed on TV for being Superman. Its a pretty interesting twist that has the potential to play out very well.
I REALLY want to love a Superman book. Hopefully, much like Teen Titans this week, this is the issue that really gets this book in the right direction.
Sixth Place:
The Fury of Firestorm The Nuclear Men #9
The Fury of Firestorm The Nuclear Men #9
Nine months into the New 52 and I'm getting my first taste of the Justice League International. They assist the Firestorms in stopping a terrorist Firestorm in Paris.
Writers Joe Harris and Ethan Van Sciver augment the Firestorm mythos by adding the ability for the Firestorms to merge with each other to create a more powerful being. Jason does it (merges, not has coitus with) Therese (France's Firestorm) to create Wrath. Its a pretty cool twist to the mythos. Ronnie, however is still missing bumming around with Pozhar.
Yildiray Cinar, who's one of the most underrated artist in the business, has grown by leaps and bounds on this book. His pencils are sharp and he does a great job illustrating a lot of different characters and their powers in this issue.
Fifth Place:
The Flash #9
Maybe its because I'm not really interesting in Gorilla Grodd, but this issue seemed to be lacking a little something.
The bulk of the book centered around the Flash's dealings with the gorillas in Gorilla City, but the more interesting parts were the brief glimpses of Iris, Patty, Weather Wizard and others and Francis Manapul and Brian Buccellato moved everyone's story forward just a little bit.
By the looks of things, I imagine next issue we'll get back into more of the traditional story that I've been loving from these guys.
Fourth Place:
Green Lanterns: New Guardians #9
Tony Bedard introduces a new threat to the Green Lantern Universe: the Blue Beetle Scarab. But its apparently not THE Blue Beetle's scarab but a fleet of aliens that wield the same power. Its kind of confusing seeing an evil army of Blue Beetles, but hopefully Bedard will explain why this similarity to the Earth hero.
Tyler Kirkham, with a little help from Tomas Giorello deftly illustrate the potential fall of Odym, the Blue Lantern homeworld. The Scarabs, called The Reach attack Odym and only the Blue Lanterns are there to defend it. That's trouble because the blue rings are primarily defensive rings.
Bedard and Kirkham ad a couple new levels to the mythos that provides for a great read.
Third Place:
I, Vampire #9
The second arc of this book's run starts with Andrew and Mary holed up in Utah with thousands of vampires camping out with them. The problem is they want to feed and Andrew won't let them have anything but cow's blood. Meanwhile, Troughton and Tig go to find the Van Helsings, an ancient, secret order of monster hunters.
At the end of last arc Andrew got WAAAAAY more power than any one character should have and I wasn't sure how Joshua Fialkov would handle it. Fialkov handles it in a very interesting manner keeping Andrew's personality and demeanor the same.
Andrea Sorrentino continues to draw the hell out of this book and it continues to be one of my favorites on the Pull-List every month.
Second Place:
Aquaman #9
Geoff Johns and Ivan Reis continue to reshape Aquaman and add to his mythos to make him more than he ever was.
While Aquaman and Y'wara are off trying to find The Others (Aquaman's old crime-fighting buddies), Mera stays behind to question Professor Shin about Aquaman and Black Manta's past. Turns out Manta isn't really in the wrong for hating the King of Atlantis.
Ivan Reis and the art team throw down some great looking pages and Aquaman continues to roll along as one of the best books DC has to offer.
First Place:
Justice League Dark #9
I was really on the fence about getting this book. I didn't want to add something else to the ever-growing Pull-List. But something about Jeff Lemire, and Geoff Johns being involved spoke to me and I'm glad it did. This was a damn fine book.
John Constantine gets "the band" back together after Rise of the Vampires to go on a mission for Steve Trevor and the government-run A.R.G.U.S. They're to enter the jungles of Peru, rescue an agent (Dr. Mist) and recover an artifact that turns out to be the The Map to The Books of Magic. Not sure if this is a nod to Neil Gaiman's The Books of Magic. Being that John Constantine and Zatanna are involved in both, I'm guessing it is.
Its a great lead-off story taking this book in a new direction with amazing art by Mikel Janin. $oss has touted his work and with good reason. Along with the actual art, his page layouts look great. He puts some real effort into his work.
Jeff Lemire and Mikel Janin's first issue of Justice League Dark is a serious winner.
Panel (Page) of the Week
Mikel Janin uses in-story themes to help in the artistic designs of his pages. i.e. the spider webs splitting up panels in this one.
-Gint
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