The Best of the Rest! December 1st edition.

Well the weather outside is starting to get frightful, but rest assured, my reviews are still delightful... Man, was that corny as hell or what? Anyway, it's time for another installment of the most popular blog feature in the great country of Japan, the Best of the Rest! And who am I you ask? Men call me X! Trust me, that'll make way more sense by the end of this post... Probably. I'll be knocking off 5 reviews in this post, three DCs and two Marvels. On top of that, the last “review” is probably the most outrageously offensive thing I have ever written... So on that dubious note, let's get this show on the road.

Aquaman is... I've run out of fish jokes...
I am rapidly racing towards the end of the 1990's Aquaman series(I have about 20 issues to go)and I've got to say, once Peter David jumped ship(hey, there's a water reference!)this comic went down like the Titanic(I did it again!!). Nothing against Erik Larsen, but he is NO Peter David. Sure, PAD did some weird things during his nearly 50 issue Aquaman run(like the bizarre alien invasion storyline), but I could always find a character or two that I'd connect with, be it Tempest, Dolphin, Vulko, or Aquaman's awesome son, Koryak. Once PAD left, we lose Koryak, gain Mera(yawn)and Aquaman decides to wear a fake hand and go with his retro, 1960's look. Ugh. I'm definitely looking forward to being done with this series, hopefully as soon as next week.

Titans Together or something like that...
So with the impending end of the Aquaman series, I've decided that the next full run of comics that I'll tackle will be the Titans series from the late 90's. I've been warned to stay away from this series from some of my fellow bloggers, but my sister told me to give the series a shot, since it was a quick read. So once I'm done with Aquaman, I'll be working my way through the Titans. For better or worse...

Okay, enough gibber-jabber, let's get this show on the road! The first review on tap for tonight is Black Widow #8. Last issue Widow and the reporter she was trying to rescue were confronted on a train by the Crimson Dynamo and Fantasma. Widow outsmarts and electrocutes the Dynamo, but has a tougher time with Fantasma. Luckily for Widow, her foe from the first issue of this storyline, Fatale, steps in and knocks out Fantasma. Widow, Fatale and the reporter head to a hotel and Fatale explains that she had been betrayed by the people who hired her to take out Widow, so Widow decides to team-up with her. The reporter finally gives up the location of his source, who was the person trying to frame/kill Widow, and Widow and Fatale hunt the source down, discovering an empty room, which promptly explodes. The reporter figures Widow had died, but she later texts him and lets him know she survived, before she sends some of her spy friends to take the reporter back home. Annnd that pretty much closes that. I really didn't like the way this story ended at all. Basically nothing happened, except that the reporter no longer believed Widow had killed his father. Three issues and several continents for that?? Score: 4 out of 10.

Let's get to the DC books with a quick peek at Titans #29. Last issue Deathstroke decided to piss me off by freeing the Mad Hatter from Arkham, and is in the process of freeing a second inmate, Allegra Garcia. Unfortunately for Deathstroke, Batman is standing in between him and his escape. Naturally that leads to an extended fight between the two long time foes. Meanwhile, Deathstroke's team is battling a who's who of Gotham City nutjobs who escaped from their cells during Deathstroke's initial raid on Arkham. For some reason, all of the Arkham inmates seem to be packing their weapons(um, how?)making lots of trouble for the Titans. Deathstroke manages to get away from Bats by jeopardizing the lives of two Arkham guards who wandered into the fight, and with Bats distracted trying to save the guards, Deathstroke and Allegra make a break for it. This issue ends with Allegra tiring of Deathstroke and attacking him with some form of powers. This was actually a pretty good comic, with my only real complaint being the fact that all of the Arkham escapees had their weapons of choice with them. I mean, how the hell does THAT happen?! Scarecrow had a sack on his head and was blowing fear gas in people's faces, Zsasz had a knife, and Mr. Freeze had his frigging freeze gun! Now why would THAT be in Arkham with him?! Weird. Other than that, no real complaints here. The Batman/Deathstroke fight was well done, and as per my own sanity keeping exercise, I simply ignored everything Arsenal said and did. Score: 7 out of 10.

Sticking with DC, let's take a look at what used to be DC's premier super-team, the Justice League in Justice League of America #51. Batman, Supergirl, Donna Troy, Jade and Jesse Quick are trapped in the Hall of Justice with the Crime Syndicate and the immensely powerful Omega Man, who is SO powerful he speaks with an echo!!! Oooo, scary! Apparently the Omega Man is the being that has destroyed two other Earths, and wants to add the DCU to his resume. The Crime Syndicate try to avoid the Omega Man, while the JLA battle him to no avail. In the end, the Omega Man tries to fire a massive death beam into the air, but Jade uses her powers to halt the blast, creating an impregnable dome around all of Washington DC. Supergirl tries to take on the Omega Man, but using his ability to speak in echoes, he transforms her into EVIL Supergirl. How do I know she's EVIL Supergirl? Because she no longer has eyeballs and was wearing a black and silver costume. Meh, meh, and double meh. Supergirl “dying” and being reborn as EVIL Supergirl lacked any real impact since we all know she's not going to be staying that way since, you know, she has her own series! Now if Donna would have become EVIL Donna, maybe the impact would have been greater. Other then that, this issue STILL confused the hell out of me, and the Omega Man looked suspiciously like Onslaught. Whatever though, another lousy issue of a lousy series. Score: 4 out of 10.

Let's head back to Marvel and Secret Avengers #7 before I get to the main event of this post. This issue is STILL dealing with Shang-Chi, meaning that I was bored of it before I even got started... Shang gets captured by his father's ninja goons, but that's exactly what Steve Rogers wanted, since he had Ant-Man hiding in Shang's hair... Huh. Ant-Man springs Shang, and they return to Steve's base. Meanwhile, Valkyrie and the Price of Orphans(what kind of a codename is “The Prince of Orphans”?!)manage to capture a member of the Shadow Council and bring him into Steve for some fruitless interrogation. This issue ends with the leader of the Shadow Council, Director Thorndrake and Max Fury promising Shang-Chi's half dead father that they'd still capture Shang in order to complete the ritual that would return Papa Shang to life. How can they be so sure? Because they have some guy named John Steele working with them. This is another issue that had me saying, “meh” when I was done with it. I'm just not into Shang-Chi. Don't care about him, don't care about his stories, don't care about his father, I just don't care. I think this storyline wraps up next issue, and to that I say, the sooner the better! Score: 5 1/2 out of 10.

And now it's time for Green Lantern #59... I'm going to brutally honest here, I hated this comic book passionately, and as such, this is going to be more of a rant than a review. Not only that, but this rant turned out to be uncharacteristically profane, so if you get easily offended, you should definitely skip this review. So there, you've been warned. If you read on and get pissed, don't complain to me about it. This issue starts with the Indigo Lanterns arriving on Earth and putting some guy on their team. From there, the two objects of every one of Geoff Johns' wet dreams, Hal Jordan and Barry Allan talk and talk and talk and talk and talk and talk some more. Barry is upset that Hal is working with Sinestro and Atrocitus instead of him, and then the two talk some more, because what this issue needed was more of two characters who were dead years ago talking. On Oa, the Guardians and Salaak talk about Hal Jordan(because we needed MORE talking!!!)and discuss how he doesn't follow orders. Really? What a shocker! Wow, that's NEVER been mentioned before!!! That Geoff Johns is a comic book GENIUS!!! Eventually the Indigo Lanterns arrive at Hal's location and Hal proceeds to talk to them too. Hey, why the hell not? Hal complains about Black Hand being on the Indigo Lanterns, which gives Black Hand the opportunity to, you guessed it, talk! That little robed figure arrives on the scene riding Parallax, which makes no sense, but who really cares about this shit making sense anymore? Parallax then possessed Barry Allen and this issue thankfully ends. After I finished reading this comic, I put it down and simply said three words, “Fuck this shit.” That pretty much sums up my feelings towards this series. I guess I'm happy for Geoff Johns, who can jerk off to his favorite characters to his heart's desire, but me? Count me out of the Johns wank-fest. I'm done with this series. And more importantly, I'm done with anything written by Geoff “1959” Johns. I'm tired of his incessant pandering to the fans of DC's Silver Age, I'm sick of seeing the dead Green Lantern and the dead Flash getting all of the play in the DCU, basically I'm tired of Geoff Johns. Let all of the little DC fanboys drool all over the garbage he's regurgitating from 50 years ago, I'm done with it all. Score: 0 out of 10.

The Random Scan of the Week!Best line EVER!!!!