Gint's 3-30-16 Pull-List Review

A three-book week on the Pull-List is a rarity these days. Nice little cross-section of Marvel, Image and DC. A regular "Big 3" smorgasbord.

Third Place:

Darth Vader #18

The ol' bloom may be off the rose. Kieron Gillen was rocking and rolling like a champ but this latest arc is a snoozefest. Vader has been sent to squash a rebel uprising on some non-canon planet, and its just boring.

Star Wars stories have the ability to be good – sometimes. But mostly its just pointless stuff because if it doesn't happen in the movies, does it even count? This is a story that's trying to matter, but just doesn't have the weight of being something that I should care about.

I understand Vader's killdroids BT and Triple-Zero grate on the nerves of some hardcore Star Wars fans. Yeah, the idea of a murderous R2 and Threepio was silly at first too, and it still is, but something about the way they were written (or the way the other characters weren't) in this issue made them the most endearing.

Second Place:

Saga #35

I have a couple big takeaways from this issue. The first is that the trio of Marko, Alana and Prince Robot IV is great. If the entire book was just these three getting into trouble while Prince Robot is a salty dog the whole time, I'm in. He may be my new favorite character in the book.

The second takeaway is, when did Klara start speaking in mostly Wreath and broken English? Maybe I missed something along the way, but Klara used to be incredibly competent and put-together. But since the story took the time-jump ahead, she feels like a completely different character.

Like seeing The Will being a fat piece of shit, seeing this new version of Klara is disappointing. I understand needing to see a story and characters evolve, but I like the old Will and Klara. I'm hoping Brian K. Vaughan and Fiona Staples reset the table at some point and get us back to the versions of these characters that I loved.

First Place:

JLA #8

Everything mostly comes back together this issue, pulling all of the JLA into action except Hal, who's still somewhere in Krypton's past. I may have questioned Bryan Hitch's writing ability in the early going, but he really put all the pieces in place to dovetail in this issue.

There's still plenty of questions to answer of course. Superman seems to have been killed, Hal is still in the past, and Rao seems to have disappeared somewhere via the stones that took Hal and Barry.

I've been touting this book for a while. I'm thrilled to see Hitch will take over writing duties on Justice League when Rebirth kicks in. Unfortunately, it won't be this lineup. It'll include Jessica Cruz and Simon Baz, who I could really give two shits about. Until then, I'm going to continue to love this run.

Panels of the Week:

Really liked these panels of Triple-Zero activating some old battle droids.

-Gint