Gint's 8-8-12 Pull-List Review

Four books this week and each of them brought their own level of enjoyment.

Fourth Place:

Superboy #12

This is almost the type of story I want to read in Superman. Conner goes out on the town with some new friends who happen to be a Paris Hilton type and an NBA star. How he just happens to roll in such "elite" circles, writer Tom DeFalco doesn't seem concerned with. But if you can get over that its a cool story about Superboy trying to be a normal guy. I say guy, and not kid, because he's clearly written as over 21 in this book. I can't imagine DC would allow one of their characters to do a shot if he wasn't. But he also gives his new friends an unnecessary PSA about it too.

Turns out Dallas Sorrentino, the aforementioned Paris Hilton-type owes some bad people with superpowers some money. Conner helps out and the next arc is off and running.

Pencils are handled by Robson Rocha and Eduardo Pansica and nothing is over the top bad or good. The art team put together a nice book for DeFalco's first issue of Superboy.

Third Place:

Batman and Robin #12

This was a quick finish to what seemed like a much bigger plot. The setup of Terminus and his cadre of freaks physically affected by Batman gets wrapped up in a quick issue with Batman donning his augmentation suit to steer a dirty rocket into Gotham Harbor.

It was a fine issue, expertly drawn once again by Pat Gleason, but it felt like it was forced to wrap up in a hurry to make way for the #0 issues and #13. Granted, there's no saying we're done with Terminus, and Gleason and Pete Tomasi will surely delve more into the relationship Damian has with his "brothers," but I feel like we could have gotten more from this issue.

Second Place:

Voltron: Year One #4

Space Explorer Squadron 686 teams up with Sven's girlfriend's squadron on a mission. The problem is, Sven's team is going in with a counter-mission that he can't tell his lady or her team about.

Voltron: Year One continues to be a great book about the pre-Lion days with great, consistent art by Craig Cermak. Writer Brandon Thomas has been doing a great job in both of his Voltron books of taking what was a pretty light-on-story cartoon and building an intricate back story with quite a lot of depth.

Each issue sets up enough of the next so that I can't wait for this book every month. If you're not reading this book, you should be.

First Place:

Batman #12

For an issue that was really very Batman-light, this was a great issue. Scott Snyder and James Tynion IV use the entire issue, including the usual 7-page back up story, to tell the story of Harper and Cullen Row, their troubles growing up in The Narrows, and how they come in contact and eventually help the Batman.

The story is about two brand new characters and the Bat-character appearances are few and far between. A little Alfred here, a little Batman there. But the way Snyder and pages 1-21 artist Becky Cloonan tell it, that doesn't matter. The story is sharp. The characters are interesting and Cloonan's art is pretty awesome in a grittier Darwyn Cooke style. They make you invested in these characters right away. Though I don't really want to see someone else become Robin or Batgirl and the late 90s-early 00s had WAY too many supporting characters running around Gotham, I'm all in for another Snyder-Cloonan team-up for more of their story.

The only negative? Cloonan doesn't draw the whole thing. Andy Clarke is brought in for the last seven pages and his style really doesn't hold a candle to Cloonan's sharp work in the first part.

An excellent issue and a nice move by DC thinking outside the box by putting Cloonan, who's more cartoony style doesn't scream Batman, on Batman.

Panel of the Week:

The devil is in the details as the missing light switch cover in this panel earned Becky Cloonan Panel of the Week.

-Gint