The Best of the Rest! DC Edition...

Welcome to another installment of the X-Files... Wait, scratch that, let's try that again... Welcome to another installment of the Best of the Rest! Yeah, that's better. Sometimes the classics work the best. Unless you work for DC, and then the classics are the ONLY thing that matter! And on that inauspicious note, let me inform you all that this is going to be an all DC BotR post, so expect lots of sarcasm, angry barbs thrown towards GEOFF “SILVER AGE!!!” Johns, and almost certainly low scores. Before going through that little bit of mental anguish, first some good news!

Fishing for compliments!
So during my first(and only...)X-Files post, I mentioned that I was going to begin reading the Aquaman series from the 1990's. As of the time of this writing, I've read the first 5 issues(as well as issue #0)of the series, and so far, so VERY good! Before I go any further, allow me to state in no uncertain terms that I've NEVER been a fan of Aquaman. To me he's always been, “That guy who talks to fish and gets beat up a lot”. But being a huge fan of Peter David, I figured I'd give this series a shot, and I'm glad that I did! As is a trademark of a PAD written comic, the focus isn't only on Aquaman, but is also on the strong supporting cast that includes Aqualad/Tempest(who's been stealing the show imo)and Dolphin. So far Aquaman has lost his hand, battled a supremely arrogant 90's Superboy, complete with those awful goggles SB used to wear, and fought Lobo(!). If I had to score these first couple of issues, I'd easily give them roughly a 9 or so. They're that good! So now you know what I'll be reading later on tonight!

Okay, the preliminaries are out of the way, let's get to the reviews. First off is Secret Six #27... This issue has the two different groups of Secret Six members, Spymaster's team, which is led by Bane, and Amanda Waller's team led by Scandal Savage. Spymaster has sent her Six to conquer some alien world(I think...), while Waller has sent hers to stop the other Six. Naturally this leads to a fight, and Scandal slashes Bane's throat by accident. With her father figure bleeding out, Scandal asks everybody to stop fighting(which they do)and some native healer walks over and heals Bane. Scandal then takes her Six and quits the battle. With the other Six out of the way, Bane takes his group to invade the castle of the king of this world, but little does he know Scandal's Six has made an alliance with the king... And that's about as well as I can do with this comic... It was absolutely horrendous! I can't believe that Gail Simone wrote this travesty, because I KNOW she's a way better writer than this! What didn't I like here you ask? How about everything with the exception of the art? The story made no sense, the characters almost universally annoyed me(I am SO sick and tired of Ragdoll by this point it's not even funny!)and I don't know anything about this world these different groups of Six's are invading/helping/hanging out in. Hell, I'm still foggy as to why Bane and Scandal split up the original Secret Six to begin with! Add all of that to the fact that the absolutely worthless Black Alice is in this series and yeah, there was nothing good going on here. I hate to say it, but I'm getting the feeling that I'll dropping this series by year's end. Score: 1 out of 10.

Well, we can only go up from that last review, right? Next I'll take a look at JSA All-Stars #12. This issue is a Cyclone-centric issue, which sucks for me since I can't stand Cyclone. It seems that Cyclone's powers are gone now, so she has left the All-Stars and gone to Harvard to attend some classes. Why Harvard? I don't know, I guess because she's really smart all of a sudden. So Cyclone attends classes, and also does some experiments on her blood in an attempt to figure out why her powers were gone. Naturally, she doesn't shut down the computer when she leaves the lab, because she's actually an idiot apparently, which leads to some fellow student taking a peek at her work. Cyclone heads back to her dorm room where she bumps into... *sigh* her doppleganger. This other Cyclone still has powers, but can't remember the past six weeks. The Cyclones decide to take a walk around town(sure, why not...), where they run into the student from earlier, who seems to have developed out of control Cyclone-esque powers. While the Cyclones are deciding how to handle this problem, a third Cyclone shows up, asking what she could do to help. Yeah, so I hate Cyclone, and this issue gives us THREE Cyclones! Sheesh. Couldn't we have spotlighted ANYBODY else on this team?! Hell, why not Tomcat, Citizen Steel, Chimera, Power Girl, Stargirl or ANYBODY else!? Ugh. The best thing about this story was the fact that it ends next issue, so I only have to suffer through one more Cyclone-centric issue... I hope! Score: 6 out of 10.

Hey, it's time to take an unwanted trip back to the early 1960's as I review GEOFF “SILVER AGE!!!” Johns' Green Lantern #58. This issue starts off with Sinestro and Atrocitus searching for the avatar of rage unsuccessfully. Carol Ferris informs Hal Jordan that she intends on staying on Zamaron and taking over as Queen of the Star Sapphires, which bugs Hal since he was still trying to get in her pants. Meanwhile, the avatar of hope possesses some girl who was kidnapped by a pervert and runs around saying “All will be well”. Larfleeze tries to kill the guy from last issue that was possessed by the Predator, but is stopped by the recently arrived Hal Jordan. Hal and Larfleeze fight, but are halted when they get word from Saint Walker that the avatar of hope had chosen a host. Larfleeze and Hal head to the hope possessed girl and meet her and Saint Walker, and this issue ends with SAINT Barry Allen running over to ask Hal what was up with his recent choice in running buddies. Listen, I could care less about any comic that has the name GEOFF Johns on the cover. In my god honest opinion he has completely destroyed everything the DCU has built up over the past two decades or so. As such, reading a comic he wrote tends to turn my stomach, which naturally leads to low scores. So if you liked this issue, kudos to you. If you're a fan of GEOFF, good for you. Me? I hate everything GEOFF writes. Everything. If I wanted to read about Hal Jordan and SAINT Barry Allen, I'd pick up a few DC Chronicles trades and read about them back when they were still exciting and new. Now, whenever I see Hal or SAINT Barry, all I can think about is how screwed over Kyle Rayner and Wally West are, and I lose all ability to write an impartial review. But see, that's the best thing about this being my blog, and not having to answer to anybody, I can write whatever I want! As such, I'm only going to give this comic a score of: 5 1/2 out of 10.

Moving on, we reach Green Arrow #5. This issue begins with Green Arrow rescuing that Mary woman from the assassin, Nix. While Ollie manages to rescue Mary, he isn't able to stop Nix from gutting an innocent civilian in order to make her getaway. Ollie takes the man to the enchanted Starwood forest and dunks him into its magical waters, but instead of the man getting healed, he turns into a Black Lantern thanks to that Black Lantern Firestorm from the Brightest Day comics. Not only that, but tons of Black Lanterns suddenly pop up in the enchanted forest(including Ollie's father somehow)and attack Ollie and his buddy Galahad. Ollie runs to the magic tree with the White Lantern symbol on it and uses the tree's power to defeat the Black Lanterns. With the Black Lanterns defeated(AGAIN!!!), Ollie decides to take the fight to the woman who stole Queen Industries out from under him. Meh. I'm tired of the whole White Lantern thing, I don't care about this idiotic enchanted forest(an enchanted forest? Really? What is this, a fairy tale?!), and I was tired of the Black Lanterns SIX months ago! Besides all that, how the hell did Ollie's father pop up in the enchanted forest?! Was he buried there or something? Weird... Whatever happened to Oliver Queen, street vigilante who would walk the streets of Star City(and Seattle before that)helping citizens in need? No, now we get Green Arrow and his adventures in the Magic Forest. Next. Score: 6 out of 10.

Finally, let's take a look at Green Lantern: Emerald Warriors #4. Guy Gardner, Arisia, Kilowog and that Red Lantern head to Daxam to see if they can discover whether or not Sodam Yat was alive or not. After some digging, the group learns that Sodam WAS on Daxam, but that he took a bunch of Daxamites who were worshiping him off-world in order to get them away from the widespread hatred of all things extraterrestrial on Daxam. So where is Sodam? He and his followers have landed on a new world, where Sodam has decided to forsake the Green Lantern way in order to take the Guardians to task for the fact that they were making all sorts of rules, but never bothering to see how those rules were affecting other races. Meanwhile, Guy and company finally arrive in the Unknown Sectors and are attacked by a bunch of mind controlled rookie Green Lanterns at the behest of the ultra-powerful telepath who leads the planet of Kralok. You know, this issue wasn't all that bad. I'm not sure where the Sodam Yat stuff is headed, but I AM glad that he's back to life. I still like the odd couple team of Guy, Arisia, Kilowog and that Red Lantern, and the telepathic villain in the Unknown Sector sure looks like quite the formidable threat. Add Sodam and what looks to be an eventual attack by him on the Guardians, and this series' future looks pretty bright. Score: 7 1/2 out of 10.

"Girl of my wet dreams!"?!?!? REALLY?!?!