Untold Tales of Blackest Night #1

Overall: This really isn't a new comic in the conventional sense. It's like a DVD that has deleted scenes and extras. The pieces of the Blackest Night story that were left on the cutting room floor are here, as well as a new mini story where Lyssa Drak escapes from the Book of the Black thanks to that little robed figure who has been appearing in the Green Lantern series as of late. As for the extras, they're pretty much what you'd expect. They're okay, but there was a reason they didn't make the final Blackest Night product. We get to see Ragman, the Rainbow Raiders, Animal Man, Wonder Girl and Donna Troy, the Scarecrow, and Sinestro Corps member Karu-Sil and what they were up to during the Blackest Night saga. So if you're interested in checking out these characters deleted scenes, then I guess this is the comic for you...

I will say this, it looks like Animal Man was going to be a major part of Blackest Night originally, because his deleted scenes culminated with him becoming White Lantern who had to prevent some sort of extinction event. I wonder why DC decided to take Animal Man out of the equation. Maybe he's the savior the White Power Battery is looking for? Most of these stories were pretty unexceptional/unnecessary(the Rainbow Raiders? Really?!), although as a fan of the Scarecrow, I did like seeing the scene from when he received his Sinestro Corps ring get extended a bit. Really the only thing of any interest here was the Animal Man stuff, and I really can't imagine anybody in their right mind would be willing to spend $5 to read a quick story about Animal Man becoming a White Lantern.

Score: 6 1/2 out of 10.You know, besides Hush, I think Scarecrow is my favorite Batman foe.

Let's talk about: Blackest Night characters!

Hey there X-Maniacs, tis your loyal servant X with a quick post. I'm going to try a new type of post tonight, so we'll see how it goes. See, I really don't have the time to do a lot of review type posts until the latter part of the week, because I'm usually buried with homework Monday through Thursday. So instead of doing a bunch of reviews, I'm just going to list a topic, and let you guys, my most loyal and wonderful X-Maniacs, Nerds of Prey and LoL's give this post life. I'll pick the topic, give my thoughts, and then throw the floor open to you guys. So if you want to put your two cents in, please feel free to do so. There are no right or wrong answers here, this is just to create some conversation. All right? All right then!

So what's the first topic? How about an easy one... I've made no bones about the fact that I hated the way Blackest Night ended. It started with such promise, and instead of ending with a bang, it ended with a whimper. One of the things that really bugged me about the way Blackest Night ended was the characters that were(and weren't)brought back to life. So here's your mission, should you choose to accept it... Which character who returned to life at the end of Blackest Night do you think should have stayed dead, and conversely, which character do you think DC should have brought back but didn't? Here's my picks... I say Reverse Flash should have stayed dead, since as a time traveler he could have just come back to menace Barry Allen from before he was killed. Time travel is funny like that. As for the character I think DC should have brought back to life but didn't, I'm going to go with Damage. He was a young character with a chip on his shoulder who, I think anyway, had some serious untapped potential. So there you go, those are my picks, what do you guys think?

Finally, Blackest Night #8(of 8)!

My copy of Blackest Night #8 FINALLY arrived today, and needless to say, I'm pretty psyched to give it a read. I've actually managed to avoid almost all of the spoilers for this comic(which was no easy task!), so going in, I have no idea how things end. Well, almost no idea. I do know that Nekron loses(duh!)and that Aquaman comes back. Other then that, I can happily report that I am blissfully ignorant of everything else that happens between these pages. I see no reason to continue to drag this introduction out, since I REALLY want to read this comic, so that's what I'm going to do! A word to the wise, this promises to be a LONG post!

Blackest Night #8(of 8): Writer: Geoff Johns. Pencils: Ivan Reis.
Last Issue: 9 out of 10.

We begin with Sinestro(who now wields the power of life itself)battling against Nekron, the embodiment of death. Sinestro tears into Nekron, and after a brief struggle, Sinestro simply tears out Nekron's heart... Well that was easy! Unfortunately for Sinestro and the gathered heroes, Nekron simply resurrects himself and continues the battle. While Sinestro and Nekron fight, Nekron summons his army of powered zombies, and they attack Hal Jordan and his New Guardians. Before Hal and the New Guardians are overwhelmed, all of the other color corps members finally arrive on Earth and join the New Guardians as they launch their counter-offensive against the zombies. On Hal's orders, every member of all of the other corps combine their power and attack Nekron, but they are still unable to faze him. It's during this last ditch assault on Nekron that Deadman possesses Guy Gardner and tells Hal that during his travels through the black rings, he discovered that the key to defeating Nekron is actually Black Hand, since Hand's death began this entire macabre ordeal. After giving Hal that helpful hint, Deadman leaves Guy's body, and Nekron finally separates Sinestro from the White Light Entity. With Sinestro no longer controlling the Entity, Hal rushes over to it and combines with it(glory hound!), using its power to destroy the black rings that had latched onto the resurrected heroes, and transforming them into all into White Lanterns. The White Lanterns all combine their attack on Black Hand and use their powers to return Black Hand to life, which finally serves to weaken Nekron. Black Hand vomits a white ring out and it shatters Nekron's Black Power Battery, returning the Anti-Monitor to life, further weakening Nekron, since the captive Anti-Monitor was powering Nekron's Power battery. The Anti-Monitor immediately attacks Nekron, and Nekron simply sends the Anti-Monitor back to his own dimension. With Nekron irreparably damaged now, the Entity hits Nekron with one final blast, destroying him completely and sending several white rings spewing from out of Nekron. These white rings travel around the battlefield and return some(but not all)of the heroes and villains to life. From there all the heroes happily mill about talking to their formerly dead friends, while the resurrected villains either escape(like Maxwell Lord and Prof. Zoom)or get put down, like Capt. Boomerang. After the shock of everything settles down, the heroes begin to wonder where Black Hand snuck off to and where the Indigo Lanterns had gotten off to... That question is soon answered when we discover that the Indigo Lanterns had taken Black Hand and apparently were forcing him to be a member of their Corps as a mindless slave... Wow, how compassionate of them... This issue and x-over finally ends with SAINT Barry Allen and Hal Jordan standing at the gravesite of Bruce Wayne's parents with the realization that Bruce was never dead, and that he had to be alive out there somewhere(what a brilliant deduction!). The final scene is that of a huge crater in a small town with a single White Lantern Power Battery sitting at the bottom of the pit.

Annnnnd that's a wrap. Hmm, hmm, hmm... What to say here... First off, I've got to say, I'm not with the rest of the free world here... I thought there were A LOT of things that were wrong with this comic... Sorry. Sure, there WAS a lot of good here as well, especially the artwork... I don't know HOW Ivan managed to fit so many characters on these pages, so my hat is definitely off to him, because he's definitely the MVP of this mini-series. I was also pleased to see many of my favorites come back to life in this comic, although that in and of itself was one of my main gripes here. Why were only certain characters allowed to return to life? I mean seriously? We get the old Captain Boomerang, but not the younger one back? Well, I guess that one doesn't REALLY surprise me, considering Geoff's obvious obsession with Silver Age Flash characters, but it still annoyed me. And the excuse for why some characters came back but not others was, “there's a bigger picture to it all” or my personal favorite, “I don't know.” Ha! The “dead means dead from here on out” line also provided me with a few laughs, because I'll eat my frigging laptop if THAT proclamation sticks for more then a years time! Dead means dead in a comic book... HA!!! The easy defeat of Nekron was another mild disappointment for me... I mean, the guy was running roughshod over the DCU for months, and then boom, he explodes? OK I guess... I will admit to liking the fact that the isolationist Indigo Lanterns took Black Hand and were safeguarding him, probably from himself... Let's face it, since it was Hand who was able to open the door for Nekron(so to speak), what's stopping him from killing himself again and giving us Blackest Night II? Keeping him lobotomized and hidden away actually was one of the few things here that made perfect sense. To be honest, I really expected better from Geoff Johns. I know we're heading straight into Brightest Day(yay, ANOTHER x-over...), but there just wasn't a sense of closure here... After such a long, drawn out x-over, I just felt there should have been a little bit of closure. It was like, Nekron dies, some random heroes get returned to life, we don't know why, and that's it. Instead of saving everything for Brightest Day, it would have been nice for some of the story threads to get wrapped up here. Eh, maybe I'm just being too nit-picky... I guess I just expected more from a writer of Geoff's caliber, then again, maybe Geoff isn't the writer I thought he was...

With my bitch-fest out of the way, I'm going to take a look at each of the heroes/villains who were returned to life, and on a scale of 0-5 I'll list how glad I am to see them alive again.

Maxwell Lord: 5. I've said since he died that he has HUGE potential to be a major JLA villain, and it looks like I may be getting my wish. Awesome!

Professor Zoom: 2. I've seen enough of him during the Flash Rebirth mini-series... This is once again a case of Geoff being overly enamored by Silver Age Flash characters... Speaking of which...

Captain Boomerang: 1. Umm, why? This loser adds NOTHING to any comic book he's in. Absolutely nothing. I can't believe we've swapped the younger Captain Boomerang for this loser... This right here is Geoff Johns at his worst...

Hawk: 1. Meh.

Jade: 5. I am OVERJOYED to see Jade back again. There are SO many places she could fit in the current DCU, from the Green Lantern Corps with Kyle, to the JSA with her father and brother. She's one character who shouldn't have died, and who definitely needed to come back.

Firestorm: 3. I can see the good in bringing him back. From the few Firestorm appearances I've read, I can't say I have anything against him. Hopefully he'll be a good addition to the restructured DCU.

Martian Manhunter: 5. The guy IS the Justice League, possibly more then the Trinity itself. He immediately brings loads to the table, especially if he goes right back to the JLA, where he belongs.

Aquaman: 5. Once again, this is a character who shouldn't have died in the first place, so bringing him back here makes sense. Now all of us Aquaman fans have to unite and get others to read his adventures so he won't be killed/canceled again!

Hawkman: 5. I've always liked Hawkman, so I have no problem with his return.

Hawkgirl: 4. If not for the fact that she has all of her memories, she'd be a 5 as well... Basically it seems all of what made Kendra interesting has been washed away. Sad...

Deadman: 0! This makes NO sense!!! The guy's gimmick is that he's DEAD! Why would you bring him back?!? I really don't get it. I like Deadman... DEAD! Will he change his name to Aliveman now? This one was a real head-scratcher...

Osiris: 5. He has great potential, plus a strong bond with Black Adam, which never hurts. If he doesn't automatically join the Teen Titans, I'll be pretty distraught. Osiris, Wonder Girl, Kid Flash, Superboy, Static, and an extra female or two and you've got an AWESOME Teen Titans line-up.

So that's who did come back... As for who SHOULD have come back, how about Ted Kord, Damage, the younger Captain Boomerang, Tempest(!), and I'm sure a few others I'm currently blanking on.

Well, the only thing left to do now is give this comic its score and publish the post. I know I won't be giving this comic a 10, there were just too many things I didn't like about it for me to go all the way. No, I won't give it a 10, but I will give it a: Score: 9 out of 10. And to be honest, the artwork played a huge role in the score even being THAT high... Well, on to Brightest Day...You know, by the end of this x-over, Nekron had kind of grown on me... How weird is THAT?!?

JSA All-Stars #4, Justice League: Rise of Arsenal #1 & Green Lantern #52.

Great news(for me anyway!), the comic book order I placed Wednesday arrived today! That means I'll be pushing off a few other books(sorry Teen Titans #80 & Outsiders #27!)so I can read the books from this order first. I have two weeks worth of comics here(3/17 & 3/24)so there are a few books I'm really looking forward to digging into. Before I get to those however, I read JSA All-Stars #4 last night before going to sleep, so I figure I should give a few quick words to that comic before I delve into my new books. Oh, and one more thing, I figure I should thank those of you who have taken the time to leave comments on my two blogs. After posting this, I'll be checking/responding to 20(!)different comments from 5 different people! 20 comments over the span of 24 hours is pretty awesome, so like I said, THANK YOU for taking the time to post your thoughts. Boy am I glad I kept this blog going! :-)

JSA All-Stars #4: Writer: Matthew Sturges. Artist: Freddie Williams II
Last Issue: 7 out of 10.

This issue begins with Johnny Sorrow beginning the ceremony to summon the dread King of Tears from its dimension to the mainstream DCU's dimension. While that bit of evilness is going on, Sand heads to the All-Stars and warns them about dreams he'd been having concerning Sorrow and the return of the King of Tears. Sand describes the location of where Sorrow would be enacting his ceremony, and the All-Stars head out. Before they all go however, Sand corners Stargirl and tells her that she has a special part to play in everything according to his dreams, but before we can find out what is said, the scene shifts to the JSA All-Stars arriving at Sorrow's location and launching into an all out assault against Sorrow and his Injustice Society. The battle begins with Sorrow immediately killing King Chimera(huh...), which surprises Sand since that doesn't occur in his dreams. From there we get a whole bunch of action pages until the King of Tears begins to materialize and starts attacking everybody. Sorrow approaches Stargirl and tells her that if she goes with him he'll call off the King of Tears and allow the All-Stars to live. Seeing as that the King of Tears is easily trouncing the All-Stars, Stargirl agrees to go with Sorrow, and he has her destroy the cosmic rod and get rid of her power belt to prove she was serious. With that, Sorrow seems happy, and he teleports away with Stargirl, leaving everybody else(including his own team!)to deal with the King of Tears. This issue ends with Stargirl finding herself in some sort of bizarre world, powerless and being chased by skeletal dogs. Before the dogs can devour her, she is saved by Atom Smasher... Wha-huh???

This was a very good, fast-paced comic, with plenty of action and a good enough story. I'm still dying to find out what's up with Sorrow's strange fixation with Stargirl, because that's just creepy. So next issue should deal with the All-Stars and the Injustice League trying to find a way to send the King of Tears back to its own dimension, while showing us where Stargirl wound up, why Atom Smasher was there and how come Sorrow didn't come to Stargirl's rescue at the end. All in all, good stuff. I'd be remiss if I didn't say that if King Chimera is really dead that would be a real waste, because I thought the character had some potential. However, when dealing with a character whose forte is illusion casting, it's hard to believe anything you see...

Score: 8 1/2 out of 10.Hmm, the King of Tears and Dan Didio, seperated at birth?!?

Justice League: Rise of Arsenal #1(of 4):Writer: JT Krul. Pencils: Geraldo Borges.

Umm OK, here goes... This issue starts out by showing the attack by Prometheus that leaves Roy missing his arm. From there he wakes up surrounded by his friends and teammates and they break the news to him that his daughter Lian was killed. Roy freaks out and in order to help him sleep, Dr. Midnite sedates him. While unconscious, Roy's mind drifts back to his old band mate, and to all of the drugs he used to do. A little while later, Roy wakes up and demands to see the body of his daughter, which Dr. Midnite allows. After that, he takes some painkillers and sneaks out to Star City, returning to his home there and fighting a duo of burglars who were trying to steal his computer. After he takes care of the thieves, Black Canary arrives and tries to convince Roy to return to STAR Labs, since he's still pretty messed up. Roy refuses, wanting to be in the last place he lived with Lian, and he ultimately tells Dinah to take a hike. After Dinah leaves, Roy takes out his frustrations on a punching bag, and this issue ends with Roy taking a whole mess of painkillers, which causes him to see his dead band mate again... Can you tell I really wasn't into reviewing this one?

I just don't get it... The purpose of all of this, that is. I just can't figure out what the bigwigs at DC are thinking with not just this mini-series, but with the whole Rise and Fall storyline... Why? Character development? That's a load of BS, because if anything both Roy AND Ollie's characters have taken a great big step backwards since the Cry for Justice abomination concluded. Ollie is back to being the lone wolf hunter of criminals like he was back in the late 80's and Roy seems to have reverted to a childless, pill-popping drug addict like he was back in the late 70's/early 80's... So this storyline is obviously not about developing characters. But then that takes me back to my original question, what is the purpose of all of this? To tell a good story? Umm, killing off little girls and retarding the growth of established characters does not tell a good story, so that's obviously not the answer either. I just can't answer that question... And that makes me both sad and angry. Sad because Roy's character didn't need to be broken down, he has always been one of the more unique comic characters around(let's face it, there aren't a whole lot of single father super-heroes in comic books), and angry because this storyline has taken 30 years of character development and thrown it all away. What more can I say?

Score: 4 out of 10.*gasp* Wow, what a revolutionary idea! Like 30 years ago...

Green Lantern #52: Writer: Geoff Johns. Pencils: Doug Mahnke.
Last Issue: 8 1/2 out of 10.

This issue gets underway with all of the Black Lanterns in the area around the Earth(as well as the Black Lantern planet of Xanshi)responding to the events from Blackest Night #7(Sinestro becoming THE White Lantern)and making a beeline towards Coast City. John Stewart and his rag-tag group of Color Corps members realize that the best way to save the Earth is to attack Xanshi and try to destroy it before it destroys the Earth. While that is going on, Sinestro is getting a history lesson from his White Ring about the origin of life in the universe. While he is distracted, Nekron attacks him and cuts him in half(!!!)... Well, I guess that's ONE way to deal with things... Xanshi sends a huge blast of energy down into the Pacific Ocean which in turn sends a huge tsunami wave towards Coast City. However, before the wave can submerge the city, Hal Jordan erects a huge green wall to keep the waters back, which unfortunately leaves Hal open to an attack by the Black Lanterns and Black Hand himself. Back on Xanshi, John Stewart and his allies manage to reach the center of the planet and pool their powers to destroy it's black core, which obliterates the dead world. While that action is occurring, the White Light resurrects Sinestro, and these two acts actually seems to hurt Nekron for the first time since Blackest Night began. Now alive again, Sinestro prepares to attack Nekron one final time, but we won't get to see what happens during that battle until Blackest Night #8...

Eh, for what it was(a place-holder issue)this comic wasn't half bad. It gave us Xanshi getting destroyed and it also set-up the final battle between Nekron and... well, everybody else. I was looking forward to reading Blackest Night #8 before I read this comic, and after reading this, that feeling hasn't changed. Man do I wish there was a comic book store near me... Oh well, maybe I'll have my comics rush delivered this week so I can read BN #8 as soon as possible!

Score: 8 out of 10.Ouch, you're going to need a couple of band-aids to patch THAT cut up!

Dark X-Men #5, Green Lantern Corps #46 & REBELS #14

I've got a few comics here tonight that I've been looking forward to for quite a while! The final part of the mini-series which returned my namesake, X-Man, in Dark X-Men #5, the final Blackest Night x-over issue of the always good Green Lantern Corps, and the final part of the Starro the Conqueror storyline in REBELS. Well, let's skip the rest of this introduction and get to the comics, because I can't wait any longer!

Dark X-Men #5(of 5): Writer: Paul Cornell. Artist: Leonard Kirk.
Last Issue: 8 1/2 out of 10.

This issue gets started with the Dark X-Men trying to defeat the Green Goblin persona in Norman Osborn's mind, while Osborn himself has a mental war against Nate Grey for control of Norman's body. Nate's plan was for the Green Goblin persona to keep Osborn and the Dark X-Men preoccupied, however, Nate made a severe miscalculation and Osborn and the Goblin team-up to rid Nate from Osborn's mind. With Nate weakened and back in the physical world, Osborn has him quickly captured and tortured. Before sending Nate into the Omega Machine where his powers would be siphoned off for various nefarious effects, Nate tells the Dark X-Men that they let themselves down by not assisting him against Osborn, since he, unlike Osborn, would have been willing to help them overcome their various problems. This issue ends with Osborn having Nate wheeled away while the Dark X-Men realize that they probably screwed up their best chance to get out from under Osborn's thumb.

I totally expected this to happen. There were only two ways this mini could have ended, considering how INSANELY powerful Nate is, Nate either gets captured by Osborn and put in the Omega Machine, or he “dies” again and returns to the astral plane as discorporated energy, because with Nate's power level, he wasn't going to be allowed to roam around the Marvel U. For me, being THE biggest Nate Grey fan anywhere, I'm OK with this ending. Importantly, Nate ISN'T dead, he's just imprisoned, which means there is always a chance he'll be back again someday(kind of like Frosty the Snowman...). With Osborn almost certain to lose his power at the conclusion of the Siege x-over, I'm cautiously optimistic that no more Osborn means that Nate will be freed and allowed to do stuff in the Marvel U again. By the way, I'd be ALL for Paul Cornell taking over the writing duties from either Matt Fraction(Uncanny X-Men)or Mike Carey(X-Men Legacy), because in just five issues he managed to put together a better storyline then either of those other two writers have been able to string together in YEARS!

Score: 7 1/2 out of 10.I couldn't help but laugh when even the Green Goblin himself called Norman Osborn's hair bad!

Green Lantern Corps #46: Writer: Peter Tomasi. Pencils: Patrick Gleason.
Last Issue: 8 out of 10.

We open this one up with several members from all of the Color Corps combining forces above the Earth in an attempt to halt the thousands of Black Lanterns trying to descend upon the planet. While the Lanterns have some success, there proves to be too many BL's, and the Color Corps begins to lose ground. To make matters worse, Black Lantern Ice and Black Lantern Alex Dewitt(Guy Gardner and Kyle Rayner's girlfriends)attack their respective boyfriends. Guy manages to freeze and destroy BL Ice, while Kyle, with some assistance from Indigo Lantern Munk, destroys BL Alex. From there, all of the members of the Color Corps arrive in Coast City just as the Anti-Monitor(!)is attempting to free himself from the Black Power Battery, where Nekron had imprisoned him. The Color Corps members try to pool their powers against the Anti-Monitor, but since he isn't a full Black Lantern yet, they can't effect him. Instead, the Lanterns devise a plan which consists of putting Dove in a Green Lantern bullet construction(since she is full of the White Light of life)and fire her at the Anti-Monitor's head. While Dove's bullet passes by, all of the Color Corps members add some extra power to it, and it winds up striking the Anti-Monitor, knocking him over and out. Unfortunately for the members of the Color Corps, the Black Power Battery is STILL draining the power of the downed Anti-Monitor, and when the Corps members try to pull the Anti-Monitor away from the Battery, the Battery cuts their lines and sucks the Anti-Monitor back in. This issue ends with the Color Corps members re-newing their attack on the Black Power battery, since they realize removing the Anti-Monitor from it would de-power all of the black rings.

There was a whole lot of action here, and for the most part, it was all good. I enjoyed Kyle's interaction with poor dead BL Alex, and I'm glad Peter decided to put that in there, because Alex's death was probably one of the key moments which turned Kyle into the hero he is today. Other then that, there's really not much more to say... This comic was a welcome addition to the Blackest Night story, and didn't disappoint.

Score: 8 1/2 out of 10.Aww, seeing all of those Lanterns working together makes me want to break into a chorus of Kumbaya.

REBELS #14: Writer: Tony Bedard. Pencils: Claude St. Aubin.
Last Issue: 10 out of 10

This issue begins with the Omega Men(who had managed to procure the anti-Starro venom they went in search of)arriving at the Psimon's space station, but not getting any response from inside. Why is that? Because Starro himself was inside and ready to wage an all-out war against Dox and his REBELS. Adam Strange blasts Starro with a gun designed by Dox that was supposed to break Starro's hold over his slaves, but unfortunately, the gun doesn't work... With the gun a failure, the REBELS attack Starro, but even their combined efforts have little to no effect on Starro, as he easily brushes everybody and everything aside. During the battle, Starro falls into the Psimon's laboratory, and discovers all of his starfish that the Psimons had been experimenting on. This infuriates Starro, and he goes on a rampage, trouncing everybody and then using the starfish to latch onto everybody except for Dox(who was behind his impregnable force-field), Wildstar and Elu(who are both made entirely of energy). Before Starro can finish off Dox and his last two REBELS, the Omega Men arrive on the scene and shoot everybody full of quills containing the anti-Starro venom. However, the poison seems to have no effect, and Starro simply sends a few starfish at the Omega Men and enslave them as well. With his forces completely under Starro's control, Dox offers himself in exchange for Starro allowing Wildstar and Elu to go free. Dox puts his force-field down, and Starro grabs him by the throat in order to gloat a bit, because that's what any good super-villain would do! Before Starro can pop Dox's head off, Dox tells Starro that he happened to notice that when the Omega Men fired their quills, they only hit one starfish(the rest of the shots hit arms and legs of people), and that that starfish had died from the poison. With that, Dox pulls one of the quills out of Starro's arm and jabs it into the giant starfish on Starro's chest, which breaks Starro's hold over all of his slaves in all 9 galaxies he was under control of, as well as greatly diminishing his power. Before Starro can continue the fight, Despero grabs a hold of Starro, and restrains him, ending his threat. With Starro and his starfish army FINALLY defeated, Dox sends a transmission out to all of the planets which were taken over by Starro and tells them that he was responsible for saving them, and that he'd be organizing ways to assist them with getting back on their feet after their time as Starro's slaves. He ends the transmission by announcing that he would be reestablishing his LEGION peacekeeping force, and that he'd be getting in contact with the leaders of the worlds he assisted in order to discuss reparation... HA! This issue ends with Adam Strange deciding to stick around the REBELS for the time being in order to make sure Dox didn't take advantage of any of the newly freed planets.

Of course I liked this one! After 15 parts, the whole Starro story is over... While the end came kind of... easy I guess, I was still pleased with the overall story here. These past 14 issues(plus the 1 annual)have really led me to become a huge fan of the characters in this book, to the point where I've been collecting all of the past LEGION/REBELS comic series. The next few issues should deal with Dox and his now bigger then ever ego after ending the threat of Starro, and the more Dox we get in this series, the better this series will become which is a GREAT thing! I'm eagerly looking forward to the next few issues to see where things go from here. Long Live The REBELS!

Score: 9 out of 10.Hmm, I've heard people talk about poking their eye out, but I've never actually seen it happen...

Blackest Night: Flash #3, Blackest Night: JSA #3, Green Arrow #30 & Secret Six #18

As you can probably see from the title of this post, I've got a whole mess of Blackest Night x-over stuff to go over tonight. For the most part, these comics were OK... For the most part. However, one of them left me VERY pleasantly surprised. Which one? Well, you're going to have to continue reading to find out! Besides that, I ordered some junk from Amazon last week, along with two trades. Yeah, whenever I order from Amazon, I always wind up tossing at least one trade into my cart before checking out. Those two trades are, Superman/Batman: The Hunt for Kryptonite, and Batman: The Long Halloween. Since I'd heard good things about both these trades, I figured I might as well pick 'em up. Alright, intro over, time to get into the meat of this post.

Blackest Night: The Flash #3(of 3): Writer: Geoff Johns. Artist: Scott Kolins.

This issue begins with the younger Captain Boomerang throwing c-list Keystone City villains into a large hole in the ground, where his father, Black Lantern Captain Boomerang, would then proceed to tear out their hearts... Aww, how nice! We then head to Saint Barry Allen, Wally West and Blue Lantern Saint Walker trying to deal with the various Black Lanterns being tossed their way. The trio manage to take out BL Reverse Flash, BL Solovar the monkey and Saint Barry is eventually able to cure BL Bart Allen, bringing him back to life. How did he manage to do that? Because he's SAINT BARRY and he can do anything!!! In the meanwhile, the Rogues are running through Blackgate prison trying to avoid the BL Rogues. However, the BL Rogues become enamored by the cell holding the body of the Reverse Flash(who I guess was captured by Saint Barry in Flash Rebirth #6... Thanks for that spoiler DC.), who is apparently a White Lantern... Oh boy, am I done with this review yet? The Rogues blow up the distracted BL Rogues, and leave Blackgate, stumbling across Captain Boomerang Jr and his BL daddy in the hole. Capt. Cold discovers that Boomer had been tossing women and children to his father, which he explains is something the Rogues don't do... You know, except when they do... Since Boomer broke the Rogues sudden honor system, they toss him into the hole, where he is killed by his father. This issue ends with Saint Barry and the lesser Flashes heading towards the final battle with Nekron.

You know what? I lied. It turns out I didn't like this comic at all... I didn't like Saint Barry magically curing Bart, I didn't like the Rogues killing Captain Boomerang Jr, and I ESPECIALLY didn't like the apparent revelation that the Reverse Flash is somehow connected to the White Lanterns... Boy, I'm usually one of Geoff John's most stringent supporters, but lately, his work has been leaving me flat... The sooner Blackest Night is over, the better.

Score: 5 out of 10.Wait, so now the Reverse Flash is a White Lantern?!? You know what? I don't think I even care anymore...

Blackest Night: JSA #3(of 3): Writers: James Robinson & Tony Bedard. Pencils: Eddy Barrows, Marcos Marz & Eduardo Pansica... Wow, three pencilers for one comic?

After being tricked by the Black Lanterns last issue, the JSA is forced to deal with the once again reanimated BL Earth-2 Superman. Mr. Terrific tells the JSA to give him a few minutes to put the finishing touches on his Black Lantern killing machine, so the team attempts to halt the rampage of BL Supes. In the end, Terrific manages to complete his machine, which unleashes a shock wave that obliterates every Black Lantern in the New York region, ending this comic.

Although I didn't really write much of a review, I thought this comic was pretty good. It was DEFINITELY better then BN: Flash #3, that's for sure! It was pretty much an all out action issue with the JSA, led by Power Girl trying to halt the rampage of BL Supes. No tricks, no gimmicks, just a good old fashioned knock down, drag out fight. There was also some stuff with Liberty Belle and her BL father racing around the world, but since it didn't really add anything to the main story, I chose to ignore it. While the end was a bit too convenient for my taste(Terrific manages to create a machine that kills all of the surrounding Black Lanterns, and then explains that he could never recreate the machine... Umm, maybe he should try harder!), the fight scenes and the stuff with Liberty Belle and her father was pretty good. If I had to choose between this mini and the BN: Flash one, BN: JSA wins in a landslide.

Score: 7 1/2 out of 10.I guess the lesson here is don't re-kill Earth-2's Superman, because he comes back kind of surly.

Green Arrow #30: Writer: JT Krul. Pencils: Diogenes Neves.

Due to the events of Blackest Night #6, Green Arrow is now a Black Lantern, although unlike most of the other BL's, he is able to watch everything his body is doing in the real world. BL GA immediately attacks Hal Jordan, but Hal gets whisked away by Saint Barry. BL GA then turns his attention towards Black Canary, and the two fight, with BL GA using every doubt BC ever had about GA to his advantage, even going so far as to tell BC that he was fully aware of the affair Shado had with him while he was supposedly unconscious, which led to the birth of their child(that's actually a LONG story...). BC is devastated(devastated I tell ya!)by BL GA's words, but before BL GA can tear out BC's heart, Speedy and Connor Hawke(!) arrive on the scene and throw everything they have at BL GA, meeting with no success. By this time, BC was recuperated enough to unleash her Canary Cry point blank at BL GA, which pretty much disintegrates him. However, BL GA begins to slowly reform, much to the shock and horror of the three heroes. GA manages to regain control of his body just long enough to warn the trio to run away, which they do. Unfortunately, BL GA retakes control and puts an arrow through one of BC's shoulders. Before BL GA can finish the job, GA retakes control of his body one more time and manages to fire an arrow through a hose containing liquid nitrogen. Connor grabs the hose and sprays BL GA, freezing him in place, as well as ending this issue.

Now this was an exceptionally well written BN x-over issue! First off, I loved all of the nods to Ollie's past JT placed throughout this comic, from his relationship with Shado, to his abandoning of Connor, to the time he managed to use Hal's Green Lantern ring. It's nice to see a writer who has actually bothered to research the character he's writing about, unlike SO many of today's comic writers. Besides that, the story actually made sense. It definitely made more sense then the issue of Adventure Comics with BL Superboy, because while SB had no business being able to continuously fight against the black rings control over him, Ollie could, and JT even explained why and how by giving the example of the time Ollie managed to toss an arrow with Hal's ring. If you're a GA fan, then there was a whole lot to like in this comic.

Score: 9 out of 10.Dinah, I couldn't have said it better myself.

Secret Six #18: Writers: Gail Simone & John Ostrander. Artist: J. Calafiore.

The Secret Six, along with the Suicide Squad are trying to figure out a way to escape the Black Lantern infestation of Belle Reve prison. While that is happening, Scandal Savage and Amanda Waller meet face to face and decide that it would probably be in their best interest if their two groups joined forces. By this time, Black Alice, using the powers she stole from Nightshade, teleports the Secret Six, the Suicide Squad and a whole mess of Black Lanterns back to the Secret Six's hideout, where Waller and Scandal were having their pow-wow. The Squad and the Six team-up, and Waller tells Nightshade to teleport her back to the Checkmate base, which Nightshade does after Waller knocks Black Alice out in what is potentially the greatest scene in the history of DC comics! OK, maybe that's a bit of an overstatement, but it was still pretty awesome. Waller returns to Checkmate HQ with Nightshade and the two grab a broken Manhunter robot that Checkmate's scientists were working on. Waller puts on a helmet which grants her some control over the Manhunter, and after heading back to the scene of the battle, she causes the robot to explode, killing all of the Black Lantern's in the area. With the BL's out of the picture, Waller goes back to her original plan, which was to force Deadshot to return to the Suicide Squad. After she threatens Deadshot, he shoots her in the chest as his way of telling her he wasn't interested in her offer. With that, the Squad take their injured leader and vacate the Six's property. This issue ends with Waller recuperating in a hospital, while revealing to one of her Checkmate associates that she's not all that bothered by Deadshot's actions, since she still has a semblance of control over the Six as their mysterious leader, Mockingbird.

For me, Amanda Waller TOTALLY stole the show here... The moment she punched the ultra-annoying Black Alice out, she immediately catapulted herself up my list of favorite villains. The story was basic Black Lantern claptrap, but like I said, the stuff with Waller went a long way in making this comic a bit more readable then the other BN x-overs. The reveal at the end was also extremely interesting, and something I didn't see coming at all. Hopefully, this means we'll get more Waller in this comic, because to be quite honest, with the exception of Deadshot and Catman, the rest of the Six have gotten extremely stale...

Score: 6 1/2 out of 10.Amanda Waller punching out Black Alice is one of the best things I've ever seen in the Secret Six series!

Blackest Night #7(of 8)

Well, much to my surprise, my comic book order arrived at my front door today. With the snowfall we've gotten around my area, I honestly wasn't expecting to see that package until Monday at the earliest, so if I were wearing a hat, I'd tip it to the postal service. This package of comics contained all of my non-subscription comics from the past three weeks, so needless to say, there's a lot of good stuff here. With that said though, when I had to decide what to read first, it was a complete no-brainer... More then anything else(yes, even more then Dark Wolverine #83)I couldn't wait to dig into Blackest Night #7. So was BN #7 worth the two months worth of hype, or was it a real letdown? Let's find out!

Blackest Night #7: Writer: THE Geoff Johns. Pencils: Ivan Reis.

The penultimate issue of Blackest Night gets started with Nekron and his zombie army dragging all of the Guardians of the Universe to a designated place on Earth. The combined forces of the New Guardians launch into an attack on him, but Nekron is completely unaffected and goes about his business as if they weren't there... Well, that's not a good sign... Black Hand arrives on the scene and prevents the New Guardians from further assaulting his master, wrapping them up in black barbwire. Upon spotting Atrocitus, Black Hand remembers him from his first meeting with Hal Jordan, and attempts to tear the alien's heart out, but meets with no success since Red Lanterns HAVE no hearts. The New Guardians take advantage of this momentary distraction and launch an attack on Black Hand, an attack surprisingly led by Scarecrow. Lex Luthor watches Scarecrow have his moment and becomes insanely jealous, tearing the Sinestro ring off of Scarecrow, and adding it to his own hand. With that, Lex decides to take EVERYBODIES rings, and he goes after Mera's red ring. While this is going on, John Stewart is attempting to turn back the Black Lantern planet of Xanshi, which is on a collision course with Earth. Luckily for John, he is soon joined by pretty much every member of all of the other Corps, and they are all informed by their respective leaders to put aside their differences and join forces with their rival Corps. Returning to Nekron, he proceeds to murder one of the Guardians of the Universe and with some assistance from Black Hand(who returned to his master's side while the heroes dealt the power mad Lex Luthor), he tears out the Guardian's heart. Nekron then uses the heart of the Guardian to draw out the Entity, which is basically the thing that grants life to every being in the universe. Ganthet reveals to the New Guardians that life originated on Earth, and that the Guardians of the Universe hid that knowledge from the rest of the universe in order to protect the Entity and it's homeworld. This revelation pisses Sinestro off something fierce, since the Guardians pretty much destroyed Abin Sur's life because he had come across that knowledge. Sinestro attacks Ganthet, but is stopped by Nekron's continued assault on the Entity, which harms every living being in the universe, including Sinestro and the other New Guardians. Hal figures out that the Entity is like Parallax or Ion, in that it needs a host to use it's powers, so Hal races to the Entity in order to let it bond with him. Sinestro prevents Hal from bonding with the Entity, citing his failure to properly use Parallax's powers in Green Lantern #50, and this issue concludes with Sinestro bonding with the Entity, becoming the first White Lantern!

Wow, so Sinestro is the White Lantern?!? I have to say that I am QUITE surprised by that, since I(and probably everybody else)thought Hal Jordan would get that honor. This comic was extremely good, and I enjoyed pretty much everything about it, with the exception of the big reveal... I was NOT very fond of the whole, “Life began on Earth” revelation, because it disregards the role the Guardians of the Universe had in the DCU. Yeah sure, Ganthet does his best to try to explain that the Guardians are indeed the oldest living creatures in the universe, while stating that life began on Earth, but I just can't buy it... I'm not going to go into the scientific reasons as to why that doesn't make sense(and believe me, I could!), so I'll instead get into the DCU reasons why that doesn't make sense. If life began on Earth, then shouldn't Earth be the home to the most advanced society in the Universe? In the DCU, the Earth is one of the LEAST advanced worlds around! Hell, even Korugar is more technologically advanced then Earth! However, disregarding the Entity/Earth stuff, the rest of this comic was very solid. I loved Lex attacking his fellow New Guardians, because that is SUCH a Lex Luthor thing to do... The greatest evil in the universe is attacking the Earth, and Lex Luthor is still trying to find a way to acquire more power... Leave it to Lex! All in all, this comic was really good, although the Earth/Entity stuff did take something away from it for me.

Score: 9 out of 10.I really hope Black Hand survives Blackest Night, because he's rapidly climbing my list of favorite villains.I'm as surprised as everybody else!

A Quick Look at: Green Lantern #51, Green Lantern Corps #45 & Nova #34

Thanks to the massive amount of snow we received here in upstate New York, my school was surprisingly shut down today. I wasn't planning on going even if it was open, so I'm glad that my attendance is still unblemished thanks to the snow day. As for what I did today, I shovelled a LOT of snow(20 inches worth!), watched the American hockey team destroy Finland to make it into the gold medal game at the Olympics(Sunday at 3:00 Eastern time is the rematch against Canada for the gold!)and of course read a few comics. All in all, I can't complain. I'm hoping my package of new comics comes tomorrow, but with the snow, I'm not holding my breath. Hmm, I know there was something else I wanted to add here, but I'm drawing a total blank... Oh well, it'll come back to me eventually. As with the last batch of reviews, I'm going to try to keep the wordage down... Will I succeed? I guess we'll know soon enough!

Green Lantern #51: Writer: Geoff Johns. Artist: Doug Mahnke.

We kick things off with Larfleeze and Lex Luthor fighting over the Orange Power Battery(God do I wish Lex would have killed that pest!)before we head to the main event, a Parallax-possessed Hal Jordan vs. the Black Lantern Spectre. Parallax Hal tears out one of BL Spectre's eyes and hops inside the giant, finding the black ring that was corrupting BL Spectre and destroying it, reverting BL Spectre back to the plain old Spectre. Spectre decides to attack and punish Parallax Hal since Spectre hates Parallax, so the two once again begin to fight. Realizing that this battle isn't helping in the defeat of Nekron, Ganthet and Star Sapphire Carol Ferris manage to separate Hal from Parallax, and Parallax is pulled away by an unknown entity. Spectre decides to punish the one responsible for the whole Blackest Night mess, Nekron, but the Spectre is unable to harm Nekron, since Nekron is dead and has no soul. With that, Nekron banishes Spectre and rallies his forces to attack the New Guardians.

Although I did like this issue, it suffered from Blackest Night formula syndrome... In other words, we've seen this battle play out in almost the same way in dozens of other comics already. A Black Lantern attacks our heroes(in this case, the Spectre attacks the New Guardians), the heroes are hapless at first, but eventually they figure out a way to defeat the Black Lantern. The main Blackest Night storyline wasn't furthered at all here, so in a way, this issue(although enjoyable)was a waste of time...

Score: 8 1/2 out of 10.Why look, it's Nekron! It seems like so long since I've last seen him actually say something...

Green Lantern Corps #45: Writer: Peter Tomasi. Pencils: Patrick Gleason.

On Mogo, the Green Lanterns and Red Lantern Guy Gardner open this issue by having a good, old fashioned stand-off. Most of the GL's want to attack Guy, but Kyle stops them since he still wants to try to reason with Guy. That strategy doesn't work out, and Guy attacks his friends and teammates. Mogo decides to intervene, and uses it's emphatic abilities to draw all of Guy's good and bad memories from his head, with the hope that the good memories would overpower the bad, which would fix Guy. This doesn't work either, so the GL's attack Guy again and Kyle ties him up. The Indigo Lantern who was assisting the GL's explains that the only way to reverse a Red Lantern transformation is to either kill the Red Lantern, or expose it to the power of a Blue Lantern. Since the GL's don't want to kill Guy, and a Blue Lantern isn't available, Mogo decides to cleanse Guy's Red Lantern blood, temporarily curing him of his affliction and turning him back into a Green Lantern. This issue concludes with the Indigo Lantern getting the summons from Indigo-1 to collect as many GL's as he can find and bring them to Earth to attack Nekron, as seen in the Atom & Hawkman comic.

I really enjoyed this comic, although I will admit to being a bit let down by Guy losing his Red Lantern abilities. With that said though, I am glad that Peter left the door slightly open in case he wanted to turn Guy back into a Red Lantern, since his cleansing was only temporary. So until Guy is cured by a Blue Lantern, the possibility of Guy reverting back into a Red Lantern still remains. Next issue should give us the huge Black Lanterns vs everybody else issue that leads into the final part of Blackest Night, so if nothing else, the next issue should have some awesome action scenes.

Score: 8 out of 10.I'm sorry, but Red Lantern Guy>Green Lantern Guy.

Nova #34: Writers: Dan Abnett and Andy Lanning. Mahmud Asrar.

This issue has the old Sphinx and the younger Sphinx deciding to pit their forces against one another, with the victor claiming both Sphinx's Ka stones. The old Sphinx's forces are basically composed of heroes, while the young Sphinx has selected more villainous characters. After a few one-on-one battles, the old Sphinx's side wins and Darkhawk tears the Ka stone away from the young Sphinx, robbing him of his powers. Old Sphinx then mentally takes control of Darkhawk and forces him to hand over the Ka stone, giving the older Sphinx two, which pretty much makes the older Sphinx a god.

I'm a sucker for one-on-one battles, ala the Contest of Champions mini-series, so it should go without saying that I enjoyed this comic. While the outcome of some of the battles definitely surprised/stunned me(Basilisk defeated Black Bolt? Really?!?), for the most part, the battles shook out the way I expected them to. I'm still not a real big fan of the Sphinx, but this storyline has been good enough to make me overlook my natural dislike of the Sphinx, which is definitely the sign of good writing.

Score: 8 out of 10.The Age of the Sphinx? Can we have another Age of Apocalypse instead?

A Quick Look at: Batman and Robin #7, Blackest Night: JSA #2, Teen Titans #79, Avengers: The Initiative #32 & Ultimate X #1.

Hey everybody, it's your insomniac buddy X here to bedazzle you with some of the worst work every to appear on the Internet! Since my body doesn't seem interested in sleeping anymore, I have decided to simply lay awake and read comic books for the better part of the night. Hey at least I'm accomplishing something, right? On the plus side, I'm very rapidly reducing the size of my comic book pile. On the negative side, no sleep makes brain work not so good, so I'm not even going to bother attempting full reviews for the 5 new comics I read through last night. Instead, I'll give a(very!)brief synopsis of what happened in the comic, followed by my thoughts on it. Lastly, I'll dish out my score, and a pic from each book, so if nothing else, at least these reviews should be WAY quicker for you brave souls to read through. All right, enough small talk, it's game time!

Batman & Robin #7: Writer: Grant Morrison. Artist: Cameron Stewart.

Batman arrives in jolly old England and, with some assistance from Knight and Squire, winds up finding an active Lazarus Pit. Dick decides to toss the corpse of who he thinks is Bruce Wayne in the pit, and waits for "Bruce" to emerge from it. Oh, and Batwoman also shows up... Don't ask me why.

You know, I'd been warned about this comic by a few of my blogging amigos, most recently by Jason Todd, who cautioned me that reading this comic would probably cost me several braincells. JT, YOU WERE RIGHT!!! I honestly haven't the slightest idea as to what the hell was going on here... Weird British villains, Batwoman in a coffin, Knight and Squire, Batman's corpse, Damian floating around in a tube... Wha??? Reading this comic made my head hurt, but at least the artwork was nice, I guess...

Score: 2 out of 10.Does anybody know where I can buy an English-to-Grant Morrison Dictionary?

Blackest Night: JSA #2(of 3): Writers: James Robinson & Tony Bedard. Pencils: Eddy Barrows & Marcos Marz.

While Mr. Terrific is attempting to create a light source that would defeat those dastardly Black Lanterns, the Black Lanterns decide to trick the JSA into allowing them access to Terrific's laboratory. Instead of mindlessly attacking the JSAer's, they pretend to be nice zombies, which allows Black Lantern Earth-2's Lois Lane access to Terrific's lab(thanks to Power Girl, who considers E-2 Lois her mother), where she gives her BL ring up to Earth-2's Superman, who was defeated in the Blackest Night: Superman mini-series not all that long ago.

I actually enjoyed this comic a lot more then most of the other BN x-over issues. It was nice to see the BL's actually come up with a plan other then, "Terrorize the heroes who were once their friends/lovers." I loved the fact that the BL's were smart enough to momentarily sacrifice themselves in order to gain access to the corpse of Earth-2's Superman. The next issue of this mini should be extremely interesting, since there should be almost no conceivable way the JSA should be able to take BL Earth-2 Supes, as well as the army of BL's knocking at their door.

Score: 8 out of 10.Jeez, how many times is Earth-2's Superman going to return from the dead?!?

Teen Titans #79: Writer: Felicia D. Henderson. Pencils: Joe Bennett.

Static reveals to the Teen Titans that he has to return home to Dakota(Umm, which one?), because a virus is striking the place. I'm not really sure how Static plans on fighting the virus, but whatever I guess. Upon arriving home, he refuses to tell anybody where he'd been, which leads to his friends and family acting distrustful of him. The Teen Titans eventually decide to follow Static to provide him with some emotional support, but before they arrive, Static uncovers a plot by a pharmaceutical company that was benefiting from the virus, and he winds up getting laid out by some big bruiser named Holocaust.

Eh, this was an OK issue I guess. Since I only know Static from the Terror Titans mini-series and the handful of Teen Titans books he's been in, it was nice to get a look into his life. I can't say he(or the vague Dakota)was very interesting, but since he's still a work in progress, I'm willing to give Static, this storyline, and the new writer the benefit of the doubt... For now.

Score: 7 out of 10.Miss Martian has a migraine? I guess she must have read Batman and Robin #7 too!

Avengers: The Initiative #32: Writer: Christos Gage. Pencils: Mahmud Asrar.

This is a Siege tie-in issue, and it takes place before and during Siege #1, just so you know. Instead of turning tail and running from the battle against the Asgardians, Taskmaster decides to stay and fight, hoping he'll finally be recognized as an A-list villain due to his actions. The Constrictor and Diamondback are torn as to whether or not they should battle the Asgardians, and ultimately Constrictor is convinced to assist Norman Osborn's anti-Asgard crusade by the Taskmaster. Eventually Osborn takes the battle directly to Thor himself, and several of his heaviest hitters attack the God of Thunder, including Taskmaster. Diamondback can't decide what to do as she watches the battle, and before she can make up her mind, Osborn's forces have felled Thor. Besides that, the Avengers Resistance(think the former New Warriors)learn that Osborn was behind the destruction of Soldier Field in Siege #1, and they decide to attack Camp HAMMER while Osborn and his forces are preoccupied in Asgard.

Not bad, not bad at all. I've never made a secret of the fact that I've always thought Taskmaster was a WAY better villain then he was constantly being portrayed, so I was happy to see that he had a hand in downing Thor. The Constrictor/Diamondback love story is still rolling along, and since Diamondback kept wishing Captain America was there to watch her back, I've got to believe her relationship with Constrictor isn't all he was hoping it was. The Avengers Resistance taking on the nearly deserted Camp HAMMER is actually an extremely good idea, why not destroy the base of your enemy while he's away? All in all, this comic was quite good. As usual.

Score: 8 out of 10.Yeah that's right, the Taskmaster rules.

Ultimate X #1: Writer: Jeph Loeb. Pencils: Arthur Adams.

In this issue we meet Jimmy Hudson, who was given to James and Heather Hudson by Wolverine as an infant sixteen years ago. With Wolvie dead as a result of the Ultimatum storyline(really?!? They killed off their most popular character?!?), Kitty Pryde hunts Jimmy down, reveals to him that he is the son of Wolvie, and presents him with some of the Ol' Canucklehead's belongings. Among the belongings is a holographic message from Wolvie to his son, where Wolvie asks Jimmy to listen to an idea he had for him. With that, Kitty gives Jimmy the whole, "You're a mutant in a world that hates and fears you" speech, but Jimmy isn't fully convinced he actually IS a mutie, until he pops out three bone claws, ala Wolvie. However, Jimmy's claws wind up coating themselves with metal after they've been popped, unlike his old man. By now, the Hudsons track down Jimmy and Kitty, and needless to say, they are none to happy that Kitty told their son he was adopted without their prior knowledge. This issue ends with the Hudsons having to decide what to do now that the cat was out of the bag.

First off, up until about two years ago, I had collected every single comic book that came out of the Ultimate line of books. Ultimate Spidey, Ultimates, Ultimate FF, Ultimate X-Men, if it said Ultimate on it, I brought it. Then I began to read DC comics, and since I needed to drop some Marvel books in order to afford the DC comics, I ended up dumping all of the Ultimate titles. From what I've read about the Ultimate Universe since I stopped collecting, it's probably a good thing too, because it sounds like that line of books went to hell in a handbasket... I only brought this comic because I needed to add another $3 to my comic book order in order to qualify for free shipping, so needless to say, I figured I'd buy this series one time only, read it, probably not like it, and then forget about it... You know what? I was WRONG! I REALLY liked this comic! Jeph told a very simple, basic coming of age mutant story, and he did it extremely well. The story was well done, the art was good, the dialogue was solid, I liked the Hudsons, and most importantly, I liked Jimmy as well. Trust me on this one, nobody is more surprised by the fact that I liked this comic then me, it's been a while since I've really enjoyed Jeph's work, but if he can keep producing high quality stuff like he did here, I will happily stick around for the ride. So yeah, I'll definitely be buying issue #2

Score: 9 1/2 out of 10.I can tell you from experience, that hurts as much as it looks!

The Atom & Hawkman #46, Gotham City Sirens #8 & World's Finest #4.

I'm still in a great mood thanks to the American hockey team defeating the Canadians Sunday night at the Olympics... Besides the Rangers winning the Cup in '94, and of course the Miracle on Ice, that game was probably one of my all-time favorite hockey games. To go into the heart of Canada and defeat their beloved hockey team? That's Awesome, with a capital "A"! Besides that, I aced my Accounting exam from last week, so yeah, everything is coming up roses for me. Will my good mood hold out after I give these three comics a read tonight? Here's hoping the answer to that is a resounding yes! Before I get into the reviews though, here's something that caught my eye as I was drifting around the Net today, I thought it was pretty cool, hopefully you guys will concur. Click here to see what I'm talking about.

The Atom and Hawkman #46: Writer: Geoff Johns. Artist: Ryan Sook.

We open with a rather lengthy look at who the Atom is, from his early years, to his becoming an Indigo Lantern. From there, Atom is forced to battle against his good friends, Black Lanterns Hawkman and Hawkgirl. The BL Hawks wind up getting Atom on the ropes, but he is saved by the timely arrival of Indigo-1, who tells him he needs to learn how better to use his Indigo Lantern abilities before it is too late. She then asks Atom to grant her a few minutes to contact the rest of the Indigo Lanterns so she can tell them to gather as many of the other Corps members as they can and bring them all to Earth for the final showdown against Nekron. While Atom is trying to fend off the BL Hawks again, his evil ex-wife, BL Jean Loring, jumps into Indigo-1's ring, infecting it. Atom shrinks down and enters the ring, appearing at the site of Sue Dibny's murder? Huh??? BL Jean makes Atom watch what happened to Sue, before she attacks him with an army of BL Lilliput's, who are apparently a dead race of miniature people. Atom finally has enough of BL Jean, and manages to link his Indigo powers up with a nearby Green Lantern, using the combined powers to destroy BL Jean, severing her connection to the Black Lantern Corps, and reversing the infection in Indigo-1's ring. With the BL infection taken care of, Indigo-1 manages to contact her tribe, and they begin to spread across the universe, collecting members of the various Corps for the final confrontation against Nekron. This issue ends with Atom swearing to himself that he will figure out some way to return the BL Hawks to life.

You know what I just realized? Almost all of the cancelled series that were brought back for Blackest Night hardly featured their title characters... Starman didn't feature Jack Knight at all, Hawkman was an afterthought in this issue, as was the Question in his series, while Billy Batson was only on one page in the Powers of Shazam comic... That's weird. As for this comic, it was more of the same Blackest Night stuff that I'm SO used to reading. Hero meets BL from their past. Hero and BL battle. Hero eventually finds way to defeat BL. Rinse and repeat. I'm extremely excited to see that BN #7 is coming out this week, because we will hopefully get something somewhat new in that issue, instead of the same tired formula.

Score: 5 out of 10.BL Jean Loring is one UGLY woman!

Gotham City Sirens #8: Dialogue: Marc Andreyko. Plot and Art: Guillem March.

We kick things off with Poison Ivy strolling through Robinson Park in Gotham, thinking about how much she hates the people who are plucking the flowers and trampling the grass. Eventually Ivy returns to the Sirens base just as Catwoman and Harley Quinn are watching a news report about two men who were killed in Robinson Park thanks to some sort of unidentified plant toxin. Needless to say, this looks bad for Ivy, but she tells the other women that she had nothing to do with those murders, no matter how damning the evidence looks. With that, Ivy leaves and heads back to the Park, looking for answers. While she's there, the Gotham Police spot her and order her to surrender, which she does with no trouble. At police headquarters, Commissioner Gordon interrogates Ivy and tells her that he believes she is innocent, showing her some photos of the dead men, pointing out that they had needle marks, indicating they were injected with the poison, which Ivy would never have to do. Gordon does tell her that the poison carries Ivy's exact genetic marker, which stuns Ivy. Gordon ultimately lets Ivy go, figuring that she'd be able to track down whoever the murderer was, which enrages one of the cops present. As Ivy leaves the police station, she is struck from behind and knocked unconscious. Two weeks pass, and Catwoman and Harley hear nothing from Ivy, so they begin trying to figure out what happened to her, and why she wasn't contacting them. Catwoman and Harley wind up getting into a bit of an argument, which causes Harley to leave the hideout and head to the park to take a stroll. While walking, Harley is stuck with a needle and injected with plant toxin, which causes her to pass out. While that scene is playing out, Catwoman places a call to the Riddler, and he deducts that the person framing Ivy had to have been a doctor at Arkham, since they would have access to Ivy's blood, which was what the plant toxin was devised from. Catwoman meets with Gordon, and he informs her that Harley was in the hospital, slowly dying thanks to the toxins injected into her. After talking, they realize that the only way to save Harley is to get Ivy to make an antidote, which causes the angry cop from earlier to speak up. Apparently, the cop's brother was one of the men who died in the park, and since he was sure Ivy was responsible, he attacked her as she left the police station, and proceeded to lock her up in the cellar of an abandoned house. After arresting the cop, Gordon and Catwoman find Ivy, and douse her with water, bringing her back to "life". Some time later, Ivy, Catwoman and Harley wind up tracking down the man responsible for the Park murders and discover that he was a doctor at Arkham who wound up becoming obsessed with Ivy. In his deranged mind, he was helping Ivy by killing people, so Ivy repays him by giving him the kiss of death, leaving him laying in the park like his victims.

This was an OK comic, but it never really connected with me. The story, art, etc. were all well done, but this is one of those comics I'll probably forget about the moment I put it back in its bag. For the record, it was perfectly acceptable, but nothing more.

Score: 6 out of 10.You know, if Riddler ever got his own series I'd buy not one, but TWO copies!

World's Finest #4(of 4): Writer: Sterling Gates. Artist: Phil Noto.

We get started with the giant Superman/Batman robot built by the Toyman and Mr. Freeze rampaging through the streets of Gotham City. The robot had managed to capture Supergirl and Batgirl last issue, which brings Batman and Superman on the scene to try to stop the robot. The robot, which is being powered from within by the Kryptonite Man, eats Supergirl, and is about to do the same to Batgirl before she is saved by Batman and Robin. With Batgirl out of harms way, Batman decides to enter the robot in order to save Supergirl and figure out a way to shut it down. While Batman is doing this, Superman has the job of keeping the robot distracted. Batgirl and Robin wind up finding Freeze and Toyman, who were watching the carnage from a nearby rooftop and the two spring into action, knocking the robot's controls from Toyman's hands, which causes the robot to enact its self-destruct program, which is to fly to New Krypton and explode, bathing that planet with deadly Kryptonite. The robot flies away, just as Batman finds Supergirl laying injured on the floor thanks to the Kryptonite exposure she was suffering from. Using Supergirl's x-ray vision, Batman discovers Kryptonite Man's location and goes about cutting him out of the trap Freeze and Toyman had placed him in. By this time, Superman has finally broken into the robot, and as luck would have it, he arrives at the very spot Batman, Supergirl and Kryptonite Man were located! Superman pulls the Kryptonite Man's holding tank out of the wall, and after Batman attaches a homing beacon that would deliver it safely to the Batmobile, Supes tosses it out of the robot. With the Kryptonite Man and his radiation gone, Supes grabs Batman and along with Supergirl, the heroes exit the robot just seconds before it explodes. The three heroes head to the rooftop where Batgirl and Robin were battling Freeze and Toyman, and take the villains out with ease. As Superman is trying to see why Toyman did what he did, Toyman explodes, revealing that it was only a robot, not the real Toyman. This issue ends with the heroes parting as friends, while the real Toyman meets with General Lane to see how they can next try to attack New Krypton.

What can I really say about this comic? Besides the Mad Hatter and the Penguin, Toyman is the most useless villain in all of comic books. With all of the good, underutilized villains in the DCU, I have absolutely NO idea why a loser like Toyman is still alive, let alone why Sterling thought it was a good idea to have him serve as the main antagonist in this mini-series... There are some characters that probably should have been retired in the 1950's-1960's, and in my opinion, Toyman should be right at the top of that list. Honestly, reading about the Toyman actually makes me just a little bit embarrassed to even read DC comic books... If ANY other villain had been in Toyman's spot, I probably would have enjoyed this mini-series a lot more, but just as bad casting can ruin a good movie, choosing the wrong villain can ruin a comic book, and the inclusion of the Toyman totally ruined this mini-series for me...

Score: 5 out of 10.Hmm, I think I have to agree with Damian here...

The Question #37, Superman: World of New Krypton #12 & Titans #22

It's another night, which means it's time for me to post three more DC comic reviews! Since I won't be posting anything tomorrow night, this will have to satisfy my adoring public for the next two nights. Why no new content tomorrow? Well first off, I have a few papers due at school that have rapidly approaching due dates, but the other reason would be the USA/Canada hockey game tomorrow night. I wouldn't miss watching that for the world. Anywho, on to the shoddy reviews!

The Question #37: Writers: Dennis O'Neil & Greg Rucka. Pencils: Denys Cowan.

We begin this issue with the current Question, Renee Montoya and an old friend of the former Question, Professor Rodor, preparing for the possible return of the former Question. While the two wait, Lady Shiva arrives and challenges Renee to a fight to gauge her fighting prowess. While the two women are fighting, the original Question is resurrected as a Black Lantern, and he attacks both women. The two women try to battle him, and Rodor ends up shooting Shiva in the arm, since he wanted to ask BL Question some... well, questions about the afterlife. BL Question approaches Rodor and prepares to pull out his heart, however, Shiva blindsides BL Question after deducing that BL Question can only see people who are showing emotions. After hitting BL Question, Shiva remains perfectly calm, which causes BL Question to lose sight of her... What the hell? Since he could no longer see Shiva, BL Question decides to go after Rodor and Renee, and they pull the same trick, rendering themselves invisible to BL Question. Since BL Question could see no more victims, he leaves, and this issue ends with Renee deciding to go after her one time mentor.

You know what? I give up. I don't even know what more to say... Now if you show no emotions, you're invisible to Black Lanterns? Since when?!? I can recall Etrigan showing no emotions, and still having Black Lanterns attacking him. Whatever... I can see that each writer is going to make up their own rules as to what a Black Lantern can and can't do, instead of following Geoff Johns already established rules on Black Lanterns. Let's put this comic behind us and move on...

Score: 3 out of 10.Um wait, Black Lanterns are actually blind to everything but emotions? Then why aren't they just walking into walls helplessly?

Superman: World of New Krypton #12(of 12): Writers: James Robinson & Greg Rucka. Artists: Pete Woods & Ron Randall.

Picking up from last issue, Adam Strange teleports himself, Supes, Tam-Or and Tyr-Van away from the Kryptonian soldiers who were shooting at them. Unfortunately, Tam-Or was hit before getting away, and he ends up dying on Supes, leaving him with yet another dead-end as to why certain members of the Kryptonian hierarchy were being killed off. Before the remaining trio could go anywhere, the Kryptonian soldiers manage to catch up to them, and once again have their weapons trained on Supes and company. Before Supes longtime military guild rival, Commander Gor, can blow Supes head off, General Zod and Ursa arrive on the scene and Zod orders Gor to stand down immediately, stating that he ordered Tam-Or's capture without the use of lethal force. Zod lays down the law and orders everybody to return to Kandor, with the exception of Supes. Zod asks Supes to have Strange leave, since he wanted to discuss matters of New Krypton's security, and didn't want a man from Rann/Earth there to overhear any sensitive information. Supes thanks Strange for his assistance, and Strange takes his leave, while Supes and Zod return to Zod's office to discuss the matter of the Kryptonian assassinations. Supes and Zod begin to go over the murdered Kryptonians, and what connection they had to each other, and Supes realizes that Tam-Or had made a similar comment to Ral-Dar, who shot Zod on behalf of Gen. Lane of Earth. Supes then suddenly figures out who was responsible for the assassinations, and leaves Zod's office to find out why. The scene shifts to the home of science guild councilor Wri-Qin, where Supes accuses Qin of ordering the assassinations of the other Kryptonians. Qin admits his guilt, and then like a good villain, goes on to explain his entire dastardly plan to Supes instead of just killing Supes... Oh villains... Qin explains that Lane had sent Superwoman to New Krypton to recruit Kryptonians in high places who would be willing to hurt New Krypton's infrastructure, making the planet more easily defeatable for Lane and the forces of Earth. The Kryptonians who promised to help Lane were to be given positions of power on a Krypton ruled by Earth, upon New Krypton's defeat. Qin decided he didn't want to share any positions of power with his fellow traitors, and as such, he began to kill off his fellow conspirators. Once Qin tells his story, Supes orders the military to enter the home, and they arrest Qin. Later on, Zod joins Supes back in Kandor, and tells him that the labor guild had been granted a seat on New Krypton's ruling council, just as Supes had wanted all along. Even though he had earned that victory, Supes is still melancholy over the fact that Qin was willing to sell out his entire planet for the promise of power. Zod and Supes have a heart to heart, and this issue ends with Brainiac's ship hovering menacingly above New Krypton!

Well, this was a pleasant surprise! Actually, this entire maxi-series has turned out a lot better then I thought it would. Now, I'll admit that if you only read the review I just wrote for this comic without having read the rest of this series, you'll probably be a bit lost. However, looking at this series from start to end, I have to admit that I have thoroughly enjoyed Supes adventures on his native planet. It's almost too bad that Supes has to return to Earth, because his time on New Krypton has been very good. The biggest surprise for me though would have to be General Zod's portrayal in these pages. Gone is the insane, "Kneel before ZOD!!!", character most of us know from the movies and his appearance in the Last Son storyline, replaced by a man who's driving force is the protection of his people. All throughout this series I kept waiting for the other shoe to drop, and for Zod to reveal some kind of Machiavellian master plan to kill Supes and destroy the Earth, but that moment never came, instead, Zod was oftentimes more level-headed then Supes, and was beloved by his fellow Kryptonians. Not only that, but I wound up becoming a fan of Zod's, something I never thought possible after his actions during the aforementioned Last Son storyline. While Action Comics and Superman have been hurting thanks to Superman's absence in those titles, this series flourished, and in the end left me very impressed, and quite interested to see what would become of New Krypton as Brainiac bears down upon them.

Score: 9 out of 10.So General Zod didn't turn into a psychotic, raging lunatic by the end of this series... Who knew?

Titans #22: Writer: JT Krul. Pencils: Angel Unzueta.

This issue opens with Phobia still manipulating the emotions of Starfire and Cyborg by making them live through their worst fears. For Cyborg, it's failing his fledgling Titans East team again, while Starfire is forced to be completely and totally alone. After watching his young charges get decimated again, Cyborg lets out a massive blast, which momentarily distracts Phobia, breaking her control over the two Titans. Upon regaining her senses, Starfire makes quick work of Phobia, and Cyborg arrives on the scene to help her take Phobia into custody. The following day, the Titans and the Teen Titans meet to remember their fallen comrades, which leads to Hawk yelling at Cyborg for allowing the Titans East team to have been butchered. After Hawk leaves, Beast Boy arrives to cheer up his *ahem* friend. While the two are chatting, Starfire wanders away, thinking about how her relationship to the Titans has prevented her from creating a life for herself, one where she isn't emotionally attached to the Titans. This issue ends with Donna Troy arriving to talk about poor Red Arrow, with Starfire lending her friend a shoulder to cry on, for perhaps the last time.

This was a pretty good comic actually. I was fine with the fact that Phobia was more or less an afterthought, because let's face it, that's what she is. I normally hate Starfire with a passion, but in this comic she was somewhat likable, which was nice. I liked that she was seriously considering leaving the Titans(and the Earth), because she was under the impression that the Titans had stunted her growth as a person. To some extent, that is quite true, as Kory has pretty much done NOTHING of note in the DCU since her debut several years back, except constantly serve as a member of the Titans. While several other members of her Titans team have evolved, grown and developed, Kory has remained pretty much the same person she's been from the start. It would be nice to see Kory grow ala Wally West or Dick Grayson, but I won't be holding my breath awaiting that to happen.

Score: 7 1/2 out of 10.And the love affair continues...