REBELS #27:
Summary: This issue gets started with a knockdown, drag out WAR between Lobo and Starro's top lieutenant, Smite. Smite has killed thousands of the universe's top fighters as he subjugated worlds for his lord, Starro, while Lobo is Lobo, so yeah, they have one hell of a fight. While those two are tearing across Psion, Rann has been overrun by Starro's starfish, and only a small band of Tamaranians, led by Starfire's sister, Blackfire, are left to try to halt the starfish wave from spreading any further. Blackfire manages to lead her defenses to the location of Rann's leadership, but discovers that she was too late, and that the rulers of Rann had already fallen to Starro. At that moment, Vril Dox(Still my hero) enters the room wearing one of Starro's starfish on his face. Dox tells Blackfire to surrender to Starro, but she refuses, which brings Starro himself into the room! Uh-oh! Meanwhile, Dox's son, Brainiac 3 has managed to bring Tribulus back to life with an upgrade... Thanks to Brainiac 3, Tribulus's psionic lightning is now capable of short-circuiting Starro's starfish, safely freeing anybody wearing a starfish, making Tribulus the ultimate weapon against Starro. After that, Brainiac 3 contacts Adam Strange(who was heading to Psion to find Lobo and rescue Dox) and informs him that Rann was being devastated by Starro and company. Strange takes Starfire and Captain Comet and zeta-beams the three of them back to Rann, while the rest of LEGION continue to Psion. As for Lobo and Smite, their battle is too even for one to emerge victorious. Eventually they crash through a wall of a Psion bar, and decide to halt their fight to have a beer... Um, okay... Back on Rann, Starro and Dox are about to put Blackfire down for good when Starfire, Strange and Comet arrive on the scene, attacking Starro en masse, while Tribulus roams the streets of Rann frying all of Starro's starfish at the beshest of Brainiac 3, ending this issue.
Thoughts: Dear Dan Didio, Chairman Johns and the rest of the DCU “braintrust” (and I use THAT term as loosely as humanly possible). I hate you all. Love, X. This was seriously one of the toughest reviews I've ever had to write, and it took me a good 40 minutes to type it out... As for why it took me so long, I had to keep pausing to refrain myself from the overwhelming rage that was threatening to consume me... You see, REBELS IS the BEST comic coming out of DC. Period. I mean that with every fiber of my being, from the bottom of my heart. This is the second to last issue of REBELS before it gets canceled. I was trying REALLY hard not to go off on an epic rant here, but you know what? Why the hell SHOULDN'T I rant? Seriously, if ever I deserved an opportunity to just blow up, this is that time. As for this issue, what can I really say? To be honest, why the hell SHOULD I say anything? It's not like it matters ONE goddamn iota what I say anyway. It never did. Everything I've ever said about this series all means absolutely nothing anyway. I don't even know if I'll bother reviewing REBELS #28 next month when it drops. What the hell is the sense? I've been pleading with anybody within earshot to give this series a try since pretty much issue #7 onward. It's consistently been one of the highest scored comics I've reviewed these past few years. I started the whole Picto-Review idea in order to showcase this comic. That's right, REBELS was the only reason I ever did those stupid Picto-Reviews, and that was only because I was hoping actually SEEING what was in these comics would lead to a few people commenting and saying, “Hey, this looks pretty good. Maybe I'll give it a shot.” Instead, old X gets a swift kick in the balls and his favorite DC series(by a MILE) gets canned. So yeah, enjoy Chairman Johns' vision of the DCU everybody. I hope you all like bullshit stories full of multi-colored Lanterns and Hal Jordan and Barry Allen receiving verbal blow jobs, because that's what you ALL deserve. Those of you who are reading and enjoying comics like Power Girl, Booster Gold, Zatanna, Supergirl, Secret Six, Batgirl, Gotham City Sirens, Titans and any other books outside of Johns and Didio's personal realm of favorites, THIS will be your fate in a few months. Mark my words. And you know what? I'll be laughing my ass off as each and every one of those books get canceled so we can get a Larfleeze ongoing, or maybe an Indigo Lantern series. How epic will THAT be? A Indigo Lantern ongoing... Am I bitter? Fuck yeah I am. But in a way I'm also happy. I'm happy because I know that in time plenty more of you will be in the same boat I'm in. Sure, the brain-dead, “Rah, rah, everything Johns writes is GRRRREAT!” fanboys will be happy, because they don't know any better, but the other DC fans, the fans who actually have the AUDACITY to purchase books that DON'T have the name “Johns” on the cover, you'll all feel my pain in due time. So yes, I'm happy because I KNOW that your favorite books will eventually be canceled too. And THAT tickles the hell out of me. One day more people will realize how fucked-up DC's direction has become these past several years(starting with the return of Hal Jordan), especially as more and more good, but lower selling comics are canned. You'll be left with a DCU that consists of nothing but the fucking Rainbow Lanterns and a Flash who should have stayed dead, and by then it'll be too late. I take great solace in the fact that sooner or later you'll all be in the same boat as I am. This is only the beginning... Before I end this hate-filled post, I first want to say thanks to Tony Bedard, Andy Clarke, Claude St. Aubin, Scott Hanna and everybody else who was behind this series. The sooner all of these talented men get the fuck out of DC and go to Marvel, Image, Dark Horse, ANYWHERE but DC, the better. Because with each passing month, it's becoming more and more obvious that there is NO future for DC Comics, simply a return to a pathetic past. That's it. I'm done.
Score: 9 1/2 out of 10.
Better luck in the next LEGION/REBELS series, Dox...
Never trust a book by it's cover. Lmao I know you said you didn't care about comments, BUT, I had to lol, because I so thought this review was going to be on the scale of BD ranting! Lol. But I'm glad to see that DC had one thing good coming out of its printers lol. I can't even take up for DC anymore. I mean, they just are slowly fucking up, excuse my french. But, the more I look at the trades and comics I buy, the less I see DC, and I'm okay with that. If it's not old WW then it's not going to be on the shelf either. And after I go through all your rebel reviews and get an average score, that'll determine if I'll look into reading it myself. :)
ReplyDeleteYou're one persuasive man X, you should get paid for it! lol.
I don't think I've ever seen X drop the F-bomb before, but he does it FOUR times here...so yeah, you gotta know he's pissed. And with good reason too. The Johns-ification of the DC universe is a huge turn-off for me, and it's pretty sad that DC can't let any series that aren't under Johns' aegis go forward in the way they should (if at all).
ReplyDeleteAs a trade-waiter, this just makes me not want to read the current DC universe at all. The Johns-written trades I've read have been nothing special, so why would I want to read anything from a line of comics that's basically just an outgrowth of his "creative vision" (and I, like X, use that term very loosely)?
X, if you read this, I really hope you've realized that the DC ship is sinking and that you get off as soon as you can. I think you have, between this post and the one a week or so ago where you mentioned possibly dropping all but a select few DC titles. Johns' "vision" may work for some people, but it obviously doesn't for you, and it always pains me to see people not enjoying the comics they buy (even if it does sometimes entertain me to read their comments, like when you write about Brightest Day!).
So yeah, I guess what I'm saying is, if you feel this much negativity about the DC universe right now, perhaps it's best that you take a break from DC for a while. Investigate more Marvel books and more stuff from Vertigo or Image or independent publishers or whatever. There's a whole world of comics out there that you could spend your money on that would make you feel a lot happier about the way you spend your money. (And if you ever need recommendations, all you have to do is ask!) You don't owe DC anything, especially if their books are upsetting you this much. They still have some great characters, obviously, but many of them aren't being used properly at the moment...so maybe it's best that you just come back in a few months or a year and see where everything's at then.
Yes absolutely. REBELS was the only DC title I still got because I thought it stood out a mile and I'm really pissed that these sort of comics don't seem to be able to survive. It's good to see someone ranting about it - therapeutic for us too.
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