Gint's 10-2-13 Pull-List Review

Villains Month is over and its back to our regularly scheduled books for October. Can't say I'm upset because the villains books were essentially a giant waste of time.

Third Place:
He-Man and the Masters of the Universe #6

Keith Giffen is leaving this book at some point. I forget when. But he's setting up some great stuff before he goes. This issue felt very much like the Empire Strikes Back of this series. Meaning: no body wins in the end.

Art duties are split between Pop Mhan and Axel Gimenez and it works out okay. Its really Giffen's story and characters that make the book sing. Seems funny saying it about He-Man, but there's some emotional pages in here.

Hordak fucks everything up. He tries taking Castle Greyskull, but while the Masters are protecting it, he ransacks the rest of Eternia. King Randor and our heroes now have nowhere to go. Hordak gets Greyskull in the end. So I guess Hordak wins.

I'm looking forward to seeing the classic He-Man villains and how they're dealing with the Horde, so hopefully we'll get some of that in the next arc.

Second Place:
Green Lantern #24

Part 1 of the Lights Out crossover starts here. Robert Venditti and Billy Tan put the Corps in a really tough spot. Relic is pretty powerful and so far, looks unstoppable. He has the technology to drain power rings and entire power batteries, so it'll be interesting to see what the Green Lantern team comes up to shut him down.

Billy Tan's art is still hit or miss. Some panels look super sweet, other panels you question how he has a job. But so far he's been on time with no fill-ins, so two thumbs up.

Good stuff from the Lantern Team. I'm all in on Lights Out. Looking forward to Part 2.

First Place:
Forever Evil #2

You know, I don't know if my expectations were super low or if this is just a really good book. Issue 1 really sold me. #2 was just as good. Geoff Johns writes the Crime Syndicate as pretty scary, pretty fucked up people. But this issue we get to see a little bit of their humanity. They're evil, but there's also a method to their madness.

David Finch's art is bad. I don't like it. But I guess its working because this book is damn enjoyable. All the black and moody panels add to Johns writing of a hopeless situation. We also get to see the origin of the New 52 Bizarro. It MAY be the closest I'm going to get to my own version.

Where this book goes wrong is at the very end when (of course) Batman is the only remaining League member who has survived/escaped the Crime Syndicate's prison or wherever they're at. There ARE other good members of the Justice League. It doesn't have to be Batman all the time.

Great book 2 issues in. Fingers crossed that Johns is able to maintain this throughout the entire series.

Panel of the Week:

Billy Tan's pencils are good, but I think its the colors by Alex Sinclair that makes this panel pop.

-Gint