Saturday, August 15, 2009

Super reviews

Told ya I bought a lot this week. After this post there's one more to come, which will cover GA/BC, Booster Gold and Red Robin. this post features spoilers for Adventure Comics #1/504, Action Comics #890, Superman Secret Files 2009 and Wednesday Comics #6.
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Adventure Comics #1/504 Pretty pretty pretty. Oh the skies. All pinks and golds and blues and greens. Oh I haven't seen art this pretty in quite a while. The colourist is named Brian Buccellato. Give the man an award. is this what the skies are really in (the west of?) America? I live in a pretty pretty county, which I name the flatlands, and if I ever got out into the countryside for a sunset I think we'd have skies like this. But not as expansive. One day I'm gonna get to America for a couple of months and do a road trip across the South and the West.

In this issue we see Connor re adjusting to Smallville life. He's grown up so much in the past few years and is now trying to reconcile the Superman part of him with the Luthor part of him. Krypto steals his thunder and rescues the girl, eliciting cries of the cuteness of the cape. Ugh, I know women like that, I am not one of them. Bart is incredibly hyperactive. More so than usual I thought - he seems rather young in this, but maybe he's just very happy to all his friends to be back.

The Legion of Superheroes backup caught my attention. I maintain they've all got stupid names but this was interesting. This Starman character seems a bit mad, or at the very least clueless about 12st century life. I read somewhere that he's meant to have schizophrenia. Well i'm pretty certain that that my friends, is not an accurate depiction of someone with schizophrenia.

It looks like the main and the backup stories will interlink, which is good. I'll stick with Adventure Comics for as long as they have Superboy as the lead and they stick with this art team.

Action Comics #890
Oh my, right back in the action. After last months poor performance this issue is back on form and completely action packed (pardon the pun).
We get to see a lot of what the average joe in the DCU thinks of Kryptonians, Kal and Kara come to earth chasing Ral-Dar and along with Mon-El save a bunch of pilots. Nightwing and Flamebird get treated like celebrities and Thara gets jealous. Christopher acts rather young in this, which is fitting seeing as he has physically if not mentally or emotionally grown in a pretty short space of time. Lois and Clark have a gorgeous reunion and there are some further reveals about the rogue Kryptonians who Thara and Chris have been after (so did not see that coming!), and also about who is working with who.
Overall the art is good, some places it seems average, other places, like with Lois and Clark's reunion and Chris and Thara's fight it is very effective.

I still don't care about Captain Atom but I am definitely gonna keep this book on the pull list.

Superman Secret Files 2009
I ummed and ahhed about whether it was worth getting this book and in the end i'm glad I did. It's got a lot of character backstory which was helpful for finding out about Non, what Kara's current history is and how Argo City/Kandor/Brainiac and the destruction of Kryption fit in. I am not so fussed about the maps of New Krypton or Kandor, but I know that will please a lot of other people.

As for the stories, Ursa's one was vaguely interesting, I suspect i'm not overwhelmed because I don't care much either way for the character. There is certainly nothing wrong with the story. Mon-El's story was delightful - it followed him and his partner on an average day/week in the SP. I like Mon but I don't like his short haircut. I don't like him enough to follow him into the pages of the new JLA but I am tickled by the idea of SuperMon.

The Kara/Thara story was fantastic. I loved young Kara's clothes! Very Linda Danvers (my avatar) esque:


She also has little blue shorts and calf high red boots on. (Picture stolen from Anj).
In the funeral scene Kara was wearing a black version of her uniform - harking back to one of the Kelly (?) issues where she's wearing Connor's shirt, saves a kid from a bus and the kid mentions that Supergirl shouldn't wear black, it's too dark. Well, black is certainly appropriate for the funeral. Interesting that Alura was in red and white though.

I'm always interested in religious stories in comics so seeing young Thara was a delight. Mischievous young Kara resetting the nanny bot was fun.

All in all a pretty excellent issue.

Wednesday Comics #6
Kara takes the super pets to a yuppie Aquaman and Streaky plants sea urchins on her. :D One thing I haven't mention about Connnor's art is that I really admire the way Krypto is recognisabley the same dog breed as the Krypto in the main Super titles. I know jack all about drawing, but it seems to me Connor have quite a simple style, yet it's very very effective.
The Superman stip was all of 5 panels and didn't really do much. I haven't read any of the others and right now am not particularly bothered about the rest, with the exception of the Wondy strip.

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