Quick Hits: 2/17/11

Never let it be said I don't keep my promises(well most of the time anyway...). I promised to post an all DC Quick Hits edition for Thursday, and BAM, here it is. I actually enjoyed all three of these comics, which is a nice change of pace, especially when it comes to DC lately. Oh, and that announcement I promised in my New Comic Day post on Wednesday? I'll fill you guys in on it tomorrow night(Friday), when I put up a post explaining just what all of the hubbub is about. Don't worry, it's nothing earth-shattering or anything like that. The only other thing I have to mention is that I'm hosting my scans through Photobucket now, so if they look a bit different, that's why. If they look unbearably different, let me know in the comments section. Okay, that's what's coming tomorrow, but today I have some reviews to get to, so here they come.

Red Robin #20:

Summary: We get things started with Tim(as Red Robin) chasing after Catman, who had just left Lonnie Machin's hospital room with a flashdrive that would return control of the Unternet to Viktor Mikalek. Tim manages to catch up to Catman and the two do some sparring, but Catman is simply interesting in leaving town, so he shows Tim that he had stolen Tam Fox's cell phone and calls the Unternet with her phone, tipping the Calculator(who ran the Unternet for a time)that someone was trying to use the Unternet without his permission. With no choice, Tim has to let Catman go and rushes to Tam's dorm, just in time to see it blown up by a man who looks surprisingly like Calculator himself. Tim searches the rubble and is relieved to discover Tam wasn't there at the time, but that search allows Calculator to escape. Tim heads back to his base with a piece of the rocket used to destroy Tam's dorm and finds some footage of Calculator purchasing it... Except his facial recognition program can only match the Calculator in the footage to the 94th percentile. After some thought and sleuthing, Tim realizes that the Calculator he saw was actually a robot, and that 147 other Calculator robots went on-line with the one he saw. Realizing that he'd need some assistance, and not wanting to be spoken down to while on the mission, Tim turns to the Teen Titans. Tim and the TT trace the signal which activated the Calculator robots to a nightclub in Istanbul, and Robin(Damian)spots a Calculator robot, attacking and beheading it. Unfortunately this action reveals that the robot had a built in bomb, and that Tim and the TT were surrounded by several innocent civilians and a few Calculator robots, which were now primed to blow.

Thoughts: Hmm, let's see. I like, and have always liked Tim Drake, from his early Robin days to his current Red Robin identity. I like the current line-up of the Teen Titans, and have actually morphed into quite the Damian fan. I've liked Fabian Nicieza's writing since the 90's, and I've enjoyed JT Krul's current run on the Teen Titans. So putting all of that information together and mixing it up I can tell you quite definitively that I really liked this comic! Yeah, there were some things that bugged me, Catman's bizarre and totally uncalled for appearance being one of those things, but just about everything else was done really well. Tim turning to the Titans for help, especially since it was their mutual enemy(Calculator)he was squaring off against, made perfect sense, and all of the characters acted exactly as I would have expected them to act. I'm definitely looking forward to the next part of this x-over in the Teen Titans comic.

Score: 8 1/2 out of 10.Can you believe that Damian has become one of my favorite DC characters?! If that's not a sure sign of the impending apocalypse I don't know what is!


Titans #32:

Summary: Captain Marvel(or Shazam, I'm not sure what the hell DC is calling him nowadays)and Osiris have a good, old fashioned super-hero throwdown after CM discovered that Osiris had been killing people with the hope of returning his sister, Isis, to life. While those two brawl in the streets of Philadelphia, Ink quits the Titans, figuring that now that he had avenged the death of his son he was done. Deathstroke tries to convince Ink to stay and keep assisting the Titans, but Ink turns them down and walks. Meanwhile, CM manages to reach Osiris by telling him that although they have the powers of gods, they can't walk around killing people indiscriminately. Osiris listens to CM go on for a while before he begins to wonder if killing CM would bring Isis back. Deciding to give it a shot, Osiris grabs CM and steals his powers, turning CM back into regular, old Freddy Freeman. Freddy tries to regain his powers by saying Shazam a few times, but they don't come back to him. Meanwhile, the Titans base rumbles violently from Osiris's room, and the villains head down to investigate. That Damn White Lantern Ring(yeah, that's its official name now) tells Osiris that he had accomplished his task, and he rushes back to the Titans base, finding Isis alive, but furious with him.

Thoughts: I didn't like the way Eric Wallace's run on this series started at all. I mean I disliked it so much I was seriously debating on whether I'd keep reading when my subscription was up. However, it seems with each passing issue I'm enjoying this series more and more. I liked this issue. It didn't blow my mind or anything, but it was a good, solid read. I like all of the little stories that it seems everybody on this team have going, from Cheshire and Roy to Ink to Osiris to even Deathstroke himself. This series is becoming pretty well rounded, and is shockingly becoming one of my favorite non-Bat family DC books(although that isn't really saying all THAT much with my recent displeasure with the DCU in general). Now I'm sure some of my longtime readers are probably kind of surprised by the fact that I haven't exploded at the fact that Freddy Freeman was robbed of his CM powers. Yeah, I am a big fan of Freddy, and feel he's about 17 and a half times more interesting than former CM Billy Batson. But let's face it, with DC's whole, “Everything old is new again” editorial dictum I knew Freddy's days as CM were numbered and as such had long braced myself. I have NO doubt that in the end Billy Batson will be the one to regain the CM powers, and as such have made peace with that. Does it suck? Yeah, it sucks HARD, but that's DC.

Score: 7 1/2 out of 10.It's not working because you aren't saying, "Shazam!" with the exclamation point!


Birds of Prey #9:

Summary: This one's pretty simple. Black Canary is being tortured mentally after having been touched by Mortis last issue. Huntress, Lady Blackhawk and Dove have been taken hostage by Calculator who thinks(but isn't sure)that Dove is Oracle. Black Canary manages to fight off the influence of Mortis back at the Birds base(which is where Batman took her), while Oracle heads to Calculator's headquarters in an attack helicopter. Oracle tells Calculator to release her minions or face the consequences, so Calculator has one of his goons(Current)blow up the helicopter, presumably killing Oracle in the process.

Thoughts: See that? Simple, just like I said. I've been really down on the Birds of Prey series since it restarted, mainly because of the way Hawk and Dove were unnecessarily foisted on the team. This was probably the first issue since the relaunch that I really enjoyed reading. It focused on the REAL Birds(Black Canary, Huntress, Oracle), the story finally came together, and everything made sense. Sure Dove got to do the whole Superman act which annoyed me, but the story itself was really solid. I enjoyed the Black Canary parts, with Dinah trying to fight off the effects of Mortis's touch(and ultimately succeeding)and I liked Oracle's “death”. Yeah, we ALL know that Oracle isn't dead, I mean the entire purpose of this storyline was for Oracle to fake her death to throw the various villains who had discovered she existed off her trail, but even with the ending being uber-obvious, I still enjoyed this one. The next issue is the finale to this storyline(it said so right on the last page!), and I'll be interested to see how Oracle decides to operate now that she'll be completely off the grid again.

Score: 8 out of 10.Now THAT shotgun would kill a whole horde of zombies!