Wonder Girl #1

Review: Wonder Girl heads to England to spend some time with her mother, who is working at a museum. WG's mother pretty much immediately gets under WG's skin, and the two basically spend a bunch of uncomfortable moments together. WG decides to ditch her mother and wander around the museum herself, where she bumps into a girl around her age named Kiran. The two girls talk, and an earthquake suddenly strikes, which surprises WG. It turns out the earthquake was caused by Lady Zand, the ruler of Zandia. Zand brings a bunch of stone creature out of the ground to run interference for her as she tries to steal some artifact she feels belongs to her. WG switches from Cassie Sandsmark to WG and goes to deal with the stone creatures, while Kiran transforms into the fire powered hero Solstice. The two heroes manage to minimize most of the damage, but Zand seemingly gets away with the artifact she was after(I guess, it was really hard to tell). Solstice runs over to her parents to tell them what happened, while WG heads towards her mother to apologize for doing the whole WG thing, since she knew her mother hated super-heroics. Instead of scolding WG though, WG's mother embraces her, ending this issue.

Thoughts: Blah. More than anything else, this issue seemed to be more of a debut for Solstice than it was a story about Cassie... That annoyed me a lot. I brought this issue FOR Cassie, NOT Solstice. Solstice has been making some background appearances in JT Krul's Teen Titans, so I guess it made sense he decides to use her here, but still, there are SO many characters that had actual connections to Cassie that I was disappointed not to see them. No Superboy, no Red Robin, no Arrowette, no Teen Titans OR Young Justice members at all... Just Solstice. All in all, this was a very disappointing one-shot, one I most definitely could have done without.

Score: 4 1/2 out of 10.Hey look it's Solstice... Not Superboy, not Kid Flash, not Red Robin, not Arrowette, not even Ravager... No, it's Solstice...

Flashback Friday: May 28th.

Get ready for a blast from the past, it's time for Flashback Friday! Or maybe I should start to call it Tim Drake Friday... Although I do have a few non-Tim Drake Robin books to check out(like 2...)this week is very Timmy-centric. Next week once everything settles down(provided I can find everything!)I fully intend on reading the second Wolverine Weapon X trade, as well as a Gen 13 trade that was written by the uber-talented Gail Simone. Why Gen 13? Because my sister has been raving about it, and anybody who knows my sister knows she doesn't rave about ANYTHING, so I figure this Gen 13 book MUST be worth a look. But that's next week, I still have this week to get through. So without further ado, here's this week's back issue bonanza.

Wonder Woman #113(Sept. 1996): This is a very early Wonder Girl appearance, and let me tell you, Cassie was ANNOYING back in the day! Cassie winds up stealing a bunch of Wonder Woman's artifacts and goes hunting the villainous Decay. Decay does a good job of trouncing Cassie, who is eventually saved by Wonder Woman. Score: 6 out of 10.

Flash 80-page Giant #1(Aug. 1998): 7 different stories here, so I'll try to quickly touch on each one. The first was a stinker where Wally West envisioned his life had he not gotten his speed powers(he was a paralyzed bum for some reason...). Next we had a flashback story with Barry Allen and Jay Garrick against the Shade in a story that actually made me slightly embarrassed to call myself a Shade fan... It looked like he was wrapped in black tin foil! Next was a fun little Impulse story where he was dealing with Gorilla Grodd and an army of intelligent rodents. Story 4 was a pretty good Jesse Quick story, while story 5 dealt with Max Mercury and Babe Ruth... Yes, THAT Babe Ruth. We then had a surprisingly good story about future Flash John Fox, and closed the book with a story in which Wally West met up with Mark Millar, who was hoping Wally would give him an idea for a new Flash story. As for a score for this comic, I just averaged the scores I gave all 7 stories. Score: 6 1/2 out of 10.

Robin II #1(Oct. 1991): This was Tim Drake's second mini-series. With Batman out of town, the Joker breaks out of Arkham and kidnaps a computer whiz. Tim winds up running into the Joker while he was kidnapping the computer guy, and Joker freaks out at the sight of Tim, since he thought Robin was dead. In the end, Joker manages to escape with the computer guy. Score: 7 1/2 out of 10.

Robin II #2(Oct. 1991?): Tim searches Gotham hoping to find Joker, and eventually does. Joker winds up handily beating Tim, and is ready to kill the fledgling Boy Wonder, if not for the interference of the Gotham City police. Once again, Joker escapes, but realizes that Batman must not be in town. Score: 7 1/2 out of 10.

Robin II #3(Nov. 1991?): Tim continues his hunt for Joker, but is unable to track the madman down. Joker drugs the computer expert he had kidnapped earlier and begins to wreak all kinds of computerized havoc throughout Gotham. Joker promises to cease his computer terrorism if he is given one billion dollars in a truck with Batman as the driver. Score: 6 out of 10.

Robin II #4(Dec. 1991?): Tim and Commissioner Gordon manage to outsmart the Joker by giving him an empty truck with a fake Batman automaton driving it. Joker tries to escape, but this time Tim catches him and ends up besting Joker, finishing the fight by tossing Mistah J into a vat of sewage, where he is fished out and arrested. Score: 7 out of 10.

Batman #480(June 1992): Tim Drake's father is finally released from the hospital and no longer wants his son hanging out with Bruce Wayne. As Robin, Tim manages to catch some goons who were embezzling money from his father's company, and ultimately moves out of Wayne Manor, although this issue ends with Alfred showing Tim some real estate listings, including one right next door to Wayne Manor. Score: 7 out of 10.

Robin III #1(Dec. 1992): This is the final Robin mini-series before DC finally relented and made the Robin comic a regular monthly. Huntress is running around Gotham busting heads, and Tim winds up running afoul the KGBeast, who was destroying a Russian owned store whose owner wouldn't pay the Beast's handlers protection money. Score: 6 1/2 out of 10.

Robin III #2(Jan. 1993): Tim is unable to prevent the KGBeast from killing the store owner from last issue, or from halting the Beast from kidnapping the store owner's teen-aged daughter. While chasing after the Beast, Tim happens to wander into Chinatown, where he is immediately attacked by his old foes, King Snake's Ghost Dragons. The Dragons trounce Tim, but he is saved by Huntress. Tim and Huntress decide to work together, since they were both after the KGBeast and his handlers. Meanwhile, Tim's guidance councilor believes Tim is being abused by Bruce Wayne because of all the bruises he's always coming to school with... If she only knew... Score: 7 1/2 out of 10.

And that's it for this week. See, I told you there'd be a lot of Tim Drake related material here! Tomorrow I should have the always offensive Best of the Rest up, and boy am I going to have fun with THOSE reviews... Why? Simply put, Flash #2... Until then, Long Live The Legion!

Adventure Comics #2

Unfortunately this is going to be the only book I review tonight, I just finished typing up a paper on "The Epic of Gilgamesh", and needless to say I'm tired! Tomorrow I should have reviews up for Magog #1 and Booster Gold #24... Hopefully!

Adventure Comics #2: Writer- The comic book GOD himself, Geoff Johns. Artist- Francis Manapul.

What Happened: Lex Luthor and Brainiac make their escape from Project 7734. We learn that Brainiac intends on killing Superman for defeating him and re-bottling Kandor, while Lex Luthor will be given the Earth for his assistance in Brainiac's escape. Lex also has some kind of experiment on Brainiac's ship called Project: Alien Farm, which Lex calls very "personal" and "family". Wonder Girl and Superboy have a date, and SB reveals to Cassie that he still has feelings for her and that he'd like to pick up their relationship from where they left off, prior to his "death". Cassie reveals that while SB was "dead" her and Robin(Tim Drake/Wayne)wound up dating for a while. SB forgives her since everybody thought he was dead anyway and the two share a kiss. This issue ends with Lex Luthor catching up on the news while he was locked up by Project 7734. Lex seems genuinely pleased by most of the bad things he reads, however he is struck speechless when he gets to the article about his "son", Superboy, returning from the dead. This issue also had a Second Feature story starring Lightning Lad from the Legion of Super-Heroes and his evil brother. The story was pretty good, but I just can't fully enjoy these Legion stories... I want MY Legion, the Three-boot Legion!

What I thought: I definitely liked this issue more than the last one, the main story, as well as the Legion back-up were both way better than last month's installment of "Adventure". Lex Luthor stole the show as usual for me, but as most of you probably know, I'm a big fan of Lex, and Geoff writes Lex better than anybody else IMO. The SB story was nothing more than an extended date between SB and Cassie... Although I did enjoy the date and the dialogue was very well done, I was a little letdown that nothing really happened on the date. Sure, SB and Cassie got back together and kissed and all, but I was hoping for something more. Now, next issue has the potential of being VERY interesting... Red Robin(Tim Drake/Wayne)and SB are set to meet up for the first time since SB's return from the dead(well, besides FC: Legion of Three Worlds #5). I'll be interested to see how SB reacts to Tim concerning his new moniker/look, as well as the fact that Tim, SB's best friend, was all over Cassie after SB's death.

Score: 8 out of 10.You've got to love Lex's definition of "good" news.

Nothing cheers me up like Young Justice!

As I type these words I have to admit that I am one sad blogger tonight... Why? My beloved New York Rangers were eliminated from the NHL playoffs earlier tonight. What do I do to cheer myself up? Why I go through some of my old comic books, that's what! Here are a couple of scans from "Young Justice", my favorite teen-oriented comic book ever.

Robin, Caring Friend or Jerk?

Awww... Superboy and Wonder Girl... They made a really nice couple.

Robin and Wonder Girl on the other hand always kind of creeped me out... Superboy was barely cold in the ground, and Robin and Wonder Girl were already in each others arms. I get they were in mourning and all, but still, come on! To top it off, Robin is making out with her while wearing Superboy's colors!