Legen-wait-for it-dary Comic Book Highlights of the Week 5/21/09

While I was able to review Battle for the Cowl #3, Bleach, and Code Geass here at the Legacy and post reviews for the Comic Book Cartoons and Superman/Batman #60 over at the Rokk's Comic Book Revolution I wasn't able to find time the past few days to post reviews here for the other comics I got this past week. I've been busy working on this redevelopment project the past few days so I haven't found the time to do much blogging after Memorial Day. Still I thought I would post the weekly comic book highlights of the week though I should be able to post reviews next week and I'm thinking of reviewing the first part of "American Son" from Amazing Spider-Man. Also before going into the highlights for the week I thought I share a cool thing I saw yesterday while driving home: Optimus Prime on the Luxor Casino.

I was a bit surprising seeing Optimus their promoting the upcoming movie as it was the first time I saw it and I just wondering how long its been up their for. Anyways here are the comic book highlights for this week:

Cover of the Week: Superman/Batman #60

I really like Francis Manapul work and I thought he did a great job with this cover and I like the little touch of Batman's cape having Gothropolis on it.

Amazing Spider-Man #594 Highlights

Spider-Man pulls of his best Daredevil impersonation as he allows his Spider-Sense let him know were the new Vulture will attack from.

I guess this is the marriage that is being advertised in the future issues of Amazing Spider-Man. I wonder since Aunt May has always been like a mother to Peter doesn't this marriage make Peter and J. Jonah Jameson Jr. brothers now? I hope the marriage does happen just to see how Peter and JJJ Jr. interact as brothers.

I am really excited for "American Son" and can't wait to see Spider-Man finally tackle his number one villain now in control of all of the security for the United States.

Battle for the Cowl #3 Highlights

Hm, so with so many heavy hitters they still can't fight off a gang war that is against mostly villains and gangs with no superpowers.

This dialogue was probably the best dialogue Tony Daniel provided in the whole mini-series.

I still don't get why it wasn't Two-Face or Penguin who blew up Gotham City as Black Mask didn't appear much for supposedly being the villain of the series, or at least second villain.

Even though I still question the move to make Daniel the writer of the series I love all of his artwork for this series and that is one of the things I would not question is the man art abilities.

So I guess this is were the Robin mantle switches hands right.

Here it is three issues to get to the outcome most, if not all, Batman fans predicted: Dick Grayson as the new Batman and Damien Wayne as the new Robin.

Captain America #50 Highlights

What better way to spend your birthday than being chased by guys on rocket packs while shooting rockets at you.....

how about being attacked by Nazis on your 18th birthday.

Even though this was mostly a filler issue it was nice to see Bucky get a nice moment with his new family.

Just an example of the phenomenal work by Marcos Martin. Marvel needs to put Martin on the Avengers or another Spider-Man story.

Superman/Batman #60

Interesting combinations to create the Justice Titans.

Well at least we learn their names, to bad other than Night Lantern the Justice Titans weren't given much dialogue in this issue.

It was obvious we would see an amalgam of Lex Luthor and Joker but Manapul does great work with the character design.

Wolverine: Weapon X #2 Highlights

Even in the Marvel Universe Wolverine is the most overexposed superhero. That's saying something.

Ron Garney did a great job illustrating this fight sequence between Wolverine and the Adamantium men. It should be one of the fights of the year.

While this is an overused splash page I can't wait to see how Wolverine is able to take each one down in the next issue.

Battle for the Cowl #3 Review

Creative Team
Writer & Artist: Tony Daniel
Inker: Sandu Florea
Colorist: Ian Hannin & JD Smith

Story - Last Man Standing

Review
Finally the new official Batman has arrived and unlike how Didio and others in DC want to think that it was a surprised to the readers which character ended up taking the Batman mantle (read here) it was not. In the end Tony Daniel's Battle for the Cowl is just one predictable roller coaster ride that had absolutely no surprises for the reader. The truth about Battle for the Cowl is that it was everything that I was expecting it to be: a summer popcorn for the brain blockbuster movie that is nothing but stalling on DC's part to set up the new status quo of some of the Bat-family characters. And really there wasn't much more than that for Batman fans to expect as in this new Event-era that comics are in now most of, if not all, these event mini-series have been a big let down one way or another. It is really just to bad that Daniel's writing could be half as good as his art as his art was phenomenal during this series.

The one thing I will credit DC and Daniel for is making Battle for the Cowl very accessible to new readers in order for them to get into the Batman books. Even though I am still a new reader to the DC Universe in general I will say that other than Spider-Man I have been reading Batman comic books the longest and as a long time Batman fan, relatively, I do sometimes forget that comics need to be new reader friendly as at times many stories will get convoluted with the history of the characters that it is hard for new readers to get into. But something like Battle for the Cowl is actually a good jumping on point for someone like my little cousins or some of my friends to read and get these characters and why they are taken the roles they are taking next month. So in the end while I would recommend new readers to get Morrison's Batman and Son, The Black Glove, and R.I.P stories on trade paperback as well as maybe Tomasi's run on Nightwing those stories aren't completely necessary to read this one and I think in that way Daniel was a success in his writing of Battle for the Cowl.

Unfortunately for Daniel I am a long time Batman fan and started reading comics right before another story that is very very familiar to Battle for the Cowl and that is Knightfall. Yep that's right no matter what Daniel or DC will say this is the same exact story that I read 15 years ago as a little. The only difference is that Battle for the Cowl last three issues while Knightfall was split into three seperate stories (Knightfall, Knightquest, and Knightend) that was over 30 issues long and lasted a year and a half. The story basically has Jason plays the psycho Batman role that Azrael played during Knightfall, Tim play the same role that Dick played in Knightfall by being the Batman who distracts the psycho Batman long enough for the "real" one to show up and take down the psycho Batman, and then finally Dick plays Bruce's role and is the one who takes down Jason with relative ease as he dominated most of the fight with Jason.

Now speaking of Jason playing the psycho Batman role in this series I just hated the explanation Daniel gave for the reasoning behind Jason becoming the gun-totting Batman. It would have been a much better explanation if Daniel said that because of how Jason was already a hot head during his time as Robin that when he used the Lazarus Pit to make a full recovery, back in Batman Annual #25, that slowly over the past few years since his return he has been losing his sanity due to the after affect the Lazarus Pit has on who ever uses it. It would have at least been a much more reasonable answer to Jason's portrayal during this mini-series than him flipping out because Bruce message to him saying that Jason is his biggest failure, which Jason already knew and stated during Under the Hood. In the end this just made Jason into a little crying kid that had his toys taken away by his father and at this point it would have been much better idea if Jason never came back from the dead as all the potential he had upon his return has been wasted and I could care less if I never see Jason again since he was already non-existent in the Bat-books even before Battle for the Cowl for the past two years.

The fight between Dick and Jason I found to be very anticlimactic and cliche. While I liked that Daniel showed Dick to be the superior fighter as he dominated most of the fight with Jason getting only a few hits in the ending really killed a fight that was actually pretty cool. The whole Dick reaching out to Jason telling him to grab his hand only for Jason to let go of the railing and fall into the water below is about as cliche as a writer can get. At no point was I worried about Jason's fate as I know he will be back and that lack of suspense shows the difference in quality between something like Morrison's suspenseful Batman: RIP and Daniel's bad cliche ridden Battle for the Cowl.

Another thing Daniel failed in is making me care about the gang war in Gotham. In truth this is were I kind of wish DC would have given this series to someone like Tomasi, who has not written a big crossover yet in the company. It is just hard to believe that the US army would just go in and take down Penguin and Two-Face gang war in such a stupid manner as it would be much more realistic if it was the National Guard or another organization set-up to handle this stuff in a much better manner. Also by having the army come in and quickly take down the Penguin and Two-Face it makes the Network who are a group made of some of the best fighters in the DCU and some powerhouses into being really incompetent and useless.

Also I still don't get why Daniel used Black Mask in this story as he was just used as an excuse for Daniel to draw some cool explosions and a burning city. With how little Black Mask appeared in this series it would have been a better move to make it Two-Face as the one who was behind everything in order to build him up into the Joker to Dick's Batman as they were already shown to have a Batman/Joker relationship in the last arc of Nightwing. Also I am guessing that the new Black Mask is Hush as he is probably going to be involved in one of the first story arcs of one of the Bat-books were he will be shown to try and destroy the Bruce Wayne name by posing as him and then using Black Mask to destroy everything Batman worked to make better.

Finally, the biggest problem I had with this issue in particular was how many inconsistencies Daniel had with the writing and the art for Tim and Damian. In the last issue Damien was shown to be bleeding out from his chest but then in this issue Daniel writes off all of that injury by saying Damien only had minor injuries due to the suits protection. And then Tim had a batarang the size of a football stuck in his chest that clearly pierced through the suit into his sternum at the end of the issue only for in Daniel to say that it barely pierced the suit and caused a few cuts. This is were probably Daniel should have just cut back on the dramatic splashpages/panels as it really hurt his writing in this issue and is a perfect example of why these type of endings to scenes don't work since they will be written off by the writer later in the issue or series.

Issue Rating
Story: 2.7/10 - Daniel's writing on this series was very unimpressive and showed that it had been a while since he has written a comic as a lot of the dialogue came off as bit amateurish.
Art: 8/10 - Daniel and Florea combine for some excellent artwork that shows why Daniel's artwork is hundreds of times better than his writing. Though the inconsistencies between this issue and the last two issue hurt how effective the art should have been.
Overall: 5.35/10 - Battle for the Cowl is as predictable as a story can get and this was nothing but filler to get the characters to the point for the relaunch of some of the Bat-titles. And as of now this story failed to get me interested in the current direction of the Bat-books.

Legen--wait for it--dary Comic Book Highlights for 5/13/09

Cover of the Week: Green Lantern Corps #36

I like how there is no empty space on this cover for GLC #36. It gives a nice preview to the hectic war going on in Oa.

Dark Reign: Hawkeye #2 Highlights

So this is basically how we are suppose to see H.A.M.M.E.R as. If this keeps up it looks like Norman's reign over the Marvel Universe will meet a quick end.

I continue to love how Bullseye continues to get under Norman's skin. And it will be nice to see the usual homicidal maniac I expect Bullseye to be.

Green Lantern Corps #36 Highlights

Emerald Eclipse in essence is the sequel to Sinestro Corps War. It is great that at least GLC knows how to integrate the other Lantern Corps while continuing the war between the Green and Sinestro Corps.

With Sodam turning the Daxam sun yellow I wonder if we will see a war between Daxam and New Krypton in 2010.

Oracle: The Cure #3 Highlights

This was a nice little cyber battle between Oracle and the Calculator, though it was a bit of a one-sided battle.

Ultimate Spider-Man #132 Highlights

Who doesn't love a good chick fight! The best part was when Kitty says she loves Peter as much as MJ while her current boyfriend, Kong's looks on. When USM is relaunched as Ultimate Comics Spider-Man I would like to see more stuff with MJ and Kitty.

With Venom involved later on this was a nice battle between Spider-Man and the Sinister Six and I hope that we get a Sinister Six II storyline when this title is relaunched.

I was impressed with how Immonen was able to capture the Ditko Peter Parker. And I like the creepy look to the zombie Uncle Ben at the end of this page.

Man I will be super pissed if Loeb kills Ultimate Peter Parker. It would only give me another reason to hate Loeb's work in an ever growing list of things I hate about his work.

War of Kings: Ascension #2 Highlights

The Annihilus baby back and it should be an interesting plot point after War of Kings is over for Nova or Guardians of the Galaxy to pick up on.

It should be interesting to see how DnA will mix Blastaar into the main War of Kings book and if his escape from prison 42 will mean that some of the other Marvel heroes on Earth will get involved in War of Kings.

Legacy Shorts: Comic Book Reviews for 5/13/09

Dark Reign: Hawkeye #2

Creative Team
Writer: Andy Diggle
Artist: Tom Raney
Inker: Scott Hanna
Colorist: Guru eFX

Story - Hawkeye Part 2 of 5

Review
Diggle continues to impress with how well he understands the homicidal maniac that Bullseye really is. I love seeing how Bullseye, as Hawkeye, took out the camera crew at the beginning of the issue and then pinned down to helicopter pilot with one of his arrows and then placing an explosive arrow right out the pilot to give him a chance to live. It was a very sick act I expect from Bullseye. And I also continue to enjoy how Bullseye continues to find ways to get under Norman's skin by the actions he does as Hawkeye.

Now as I said before I have mostly stayed away from most of the Dark Reign books but just from the few Dark Reign books I have read I have not seen H.A.M.M.E.R portrayed the way they were in this issue. Norman and his H.A.M.M.E.R organization were portrayed as plain terrorist in this issue with what they did to the workers at the TV station. This portrayal doesn't really fall in line with how H.A.M.M.E.R has been portrayed in the past and with more actions like this it may be just time before Norman is new power.

Also I continue to dislike that it is only Ben Ulrich that is calling Norman's rise to power in question. It has been one of the more unrealistic things that almost no one has questioned the amount of power Norman currently has and it is another that hurts this issue as we are reminded of this in the middle of the issue.

Issue Rating
Story: 7/10 - Though Diggle writes a great Bullseye I found his portrayal of H.A.M.M.E.R and the reminder of the non-questioning of Norman's actions to hurt this issue.
Art: 7.7/10 - Raney's art continues to look great but I still would have preferred someone like Aja or Lark to draw this book that should have a darker feel to it.
Overall: 7.35/10 - Dark Reign: Hawkeye #2 had an entertaining beginning and ending but a lot of what happened in the middle of the issue hurt how good this issue should have been.

Oracle: The Cure #3

Creative Team
Writer: Kevin Vanhook
Artists: Julian Lopez & Fernando Pasrin
Inkers: Bit, Norm Rapmund, & Fernando Pasarin
Colorist: HI-FI

Story - A Matter of Anti-Life or Death

Review
All I can say about this series is that I guess I should have learned already what I get when I get my hopes up. Oracle: The Cure had some potential to show why Barbara could carry a book on her own but in the end this series proved to be little better than what you would read in a fanfiction. Other than Morrison it just seems that any writer trying to pick up some of the plot points from Final Crisis are just doomed to failure. And Vanhook made the search for the left over Anti-Life Equation on the Internet very uninteresting. It doesn't help that I could have cared less about a battle between Barbara and the Calculator as we have seen it in the past before and in a much more interesting story. I kind of wish Vanhook would have used another villain for his story than the Calculator as the story did not feel very fresh.

Issue Rating
Story: 4.5/10 - Vanhook was very unimpressive with his writing as it felt I was reading dialogue from a fanfiction.
Art: 6/10 - Lopez art was good though this issue have a lot more inconsistencies that hurt the look of this issue.
Overall: 5.75/10 - Overall Oracle: The Cure was a very disappointing mini-series and I have no idea how this ties in with what DC has in story for Barbara and the new Batgirl book in the future though I could care less.

Ultimate Spider-Man #132

Creative Team
Writer: Brian Michael Bendis
Artist: Stuart Immonen
Inker: Wade von Grawbadger
Colorist: Justin Ponsor

Story - Ultimatum Tie-in

Review
If there wasn't more of a reason to hate Loeb and his Ultimatum event but for the first time that I can remember in its almost 10 year run Ultimate Spider-Man actually wasn't released last month. And if that wasn't bad enough it seems that Ultimatum has finally affect the quality that we get in Ultimate Spider-Man. Even Bendis and Immonen best can't help make Ultimatum a better event. Still the team of Bendis and Immonen due their best with what little they have to work with and still continue to make the Ultimate Spider-Man tie-ins to Ultimatum much more compelling that the event itself.

Again as always the strength Ultimate Spider-Man #132 is the stuff that goes on in Peter and supporting cast lives. The short fight MJ and Kitty get into, MJ actually punches Kitty, was great. The best part was right when Kitty says she loves Peter as much as MJ and just stopping before saying Peter's name was made even more awkward as Kong, Kitty's current boyfriend, was there as well with a shocked face. Bendis does a great job with this scene as his dialogue is perfect and it will be interesting to see if Kitty and/or Spider-Woman will be able to reach Peter before what looks to be his final moments if we are suppose to believe what Loeb has been saying.

Also while Bendis went a bit to long with the stuff going it was still much more enjoyable than the senseless fighting over in Ultimatum. And I got to give it up Immonen as his artwork continues to grow on me and he kicks some butt with his artwork in this issue. Also I liked the little call back to the Nightmare plotline from issue #70 and #71. It was cool to see how he brought Spider-Man's worst enemies to life and used all the people Hulk killed against him in order to mess with both heroes mentally.

Issue Rating
Story: 7.8/10 - Bendis does the best to give this Ultimatum tie-in much more depth than the event itself though their is little he can do to stretch out the very thin story of Ultimatum.
Art: 8/10 - Immonen does a great job in this issue and his splash pages were awesome.
Overall: 7.9/10 - Overall this was a good issue of Ultimate Spider-Man but still not close to some of the better issue of this series. Still an average issue of Ultimate Spider-Man is better than most of the other titles on the market.

War of Kings: Ascension #2

Creative Team
Writers: Dan Abnett & Andy Lanning
Artist: Wellinton Alves
Inkers: Scott Hanna & Nelson Pereira
Colorist: Guru eFX

Story - Null and Void

Review
Though the last issue showed some promise with the Fraternity of Raptors showing themselves to be villains this issue suffered from focusing on giving the reader insight into Christopher Powell, better known as Darkhawk. I found the stuff dealing with Chris to be a very boring character study and would have preferred to see more of a focus on Talon and the Fraternity of Raptors.Still I am enjoying how DnA are building the Fraternity of Raptors into the antithesis of the Nova Corps and hope that after War of Kings is over that DnA build up a war between the Nova Corps, what's left of the Nova Corps after War of Kings, and the Fraternity of Raptors as it would be awesome to see and give Nova a Sinestro Corps War type event. Also I will be interested to see how DnA tie-in the ending of this issue into War of Kings.

Again the star of this mini-series continues to be Wellinton Alves great artwork. I love how Alves capture all of the cosmic stuff. I hope that Alves gets a more splash pages of action to draw in the last two issues as he wasn't really given any in this issue.

Issue Rating
Story: 5.3/10 - DnA do an good job when the issue did not focus on Chris. To bad most of the issue did focus on him instead of Talon and the Fraternity of Raptors.
Art: 8.4/10 - Alves does a great job with all the cosmic stuff and I would love to seem him back on Nova or tackle an Iron Man book.
Overall: 6.85/10 - This was an average issue and this mini-series still has potential to be a good one. Though I wonder how the ending of this issue will tie-in to the main series.

Legen--wait for it---dary Comic Book Highlight for 5/6/09

Cover of the Week: War of Kings #3

What I really like about this cover is the video game character look Havok, Black Bolt, and Vulcan that Brandon Peterson gave them. It really makes this cover stand out from all the other covers for this week.

Amazing Spider-Man #593 Highlights

All in a days work for your Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Man.

Our first look at the new Vulture.

Well that was unexpected. The new Vulture can spit acid from its mouth. That is sure to mess up Spider-Man's face.

Batman: Battle for the Cowl - The Network Highlights

To quote Michael Kelso - "BBBBBUUUUUUURRRRRRRNNNNNN"

I guess it ain't the costume that makes the man, as these fake Batman quickly learned.

Flash: Rebirth #2 Highlights

You know my first thought would be "Great googly muggly! What the hell did I just do." But hey that's just me.

Yes folks what made Iris fall for Barry was his bow tie. If getting women to become attracted to you is that easy than maybe I should start wearing bow ties instead of just plain ties.

Nice little trip down memory lane.

Well I was expecting Wally to be the one to get a costume change during Flash: Rebirth but it being Barry that gets the costume change to become the Black Flash was relatively surprising.

Invincible Iron Man #13 Highlights

I am finding Maria Hill's mission to be the most interesting plotline in this "World's Most Wanted" arc, which I guess isn't saying much is it.

As long as The Hood isn't in any title I read I am fine with Madame Masque being given the opportunity to hunt down Iron Man. Though I still find unlikely she can do it as Namor could take Tony down.

While starting to find the sub-plot of Tony's intelligence slowly diminishing, I find myself caring less and less about Pepper with each passing issue.

War of Kings #3 Highlights

Honestly War of Kings #3 was filled with great moments and it was hard to choice just a couple moments. What I like about this page in particular is that while their may be no recognizable character on this page I like that DnA are showing that this is truly a war being fought by two armies (the Shi'ar and the Inhumans/Kree) and not just a battle between hero and villain.

I don't know why but I am hoping that before War of Kings is over we get to see a chick fight between Medusa and Crystal to see who is the alpha female now. That would be hot!

Do not mess with Rocket Raccoon!

Even though Rocket Raccoon stole the show in War of Kings #3 I crack up with Drax's line of "Accessing Fist." Just awesome!

Gotta love that little Raccoon. Plus we all know that is just not any mop but it is a cosmic mop it must have some sort of use other than cleaning. Though it is still not enough to take down Gladiator.

This was just the badass moment of the week. Can't wait to see the Vulcan vs Gladiator fight that should be a prelude to the Vulcan vs Black Bolt fight we should get in the last issue.