Comic reviews: Convergence week 4 and lots others

So many comics to write about.  I'll try to keep each review brief.

Justice League 40
I bought this one for the boy band cover and obviously now want to watch Magic Mike, the film it is apparently from.  I did rather like the story too.  Metron is about and meets the anti monitor and all the crises are referenced.  At the end the Amazonian birthed anti-God turns up, which feels less stupid than it did in the WW FCBD story.

Multiversity 2
I think this reestablished the pre 52 Multiversity, with new universes, and established a group of protectors for it, including lady Aquaman.  It also has a panel of Vampire Wondy and Vampire Bats craving coffee.  Which is fun.

Superman 40
This is a very strange comic,  The JL are being written like they are all aged about 18 or 19, or younger.  The plot kind of works, but the way in which it's delivered is weird.  John Romita JR writes and pencils, and the pencils are bloody awful.

X-Men 26
The Krakoa storyline ended.  All but Rachel seem a bit bloodthirsty.  It's a reasonable ending, I suppose.

Bitch Planet 4
I adore this comic and the editorials.  Y'all should read it.

Princeless the Pirate Princess 4
Fecking wonderful, as ever, and Raven is confirmed queer. Love this,

FCBD offering from the CBLDF
This is a bit too much issue focused for me to really enjoy it. I'll pass it on.

FCBD offering: DC's Divergence
Ridiculous.  Commissioner Gordon is the new Batman in the Batsuit that looks like a Blue Beetle suit.  Lois has told the word Clark's secret.  An Amazonian fucked Darkseid and the child is the anti-God.  What a load of crap.

FCBD offering from Dark Horse
The Fight Club story was quite good.  I haven't bothered reading the other two.

FCBD offering from Boom studios
I've flicked through this and it looks good, but I haven't had the headspace to read it in totality.

Convergence 4
I can't be bothered to flick through this and re-acquaint myself.

Convergence: Shazam 1
One of the best Convergence books so far.  It has that innocence the Marvel family used to have, when they were unashamed at being written for kids.  It's got Sivana and Tawky Tawny but isn't written as a nostalgia trip - it's a genuinely good story and a good addition to Marvel canon.

Convergence: Blue Beetle 1
This is about Captain Shinypants, the Question and Blue Beetle, with a guest appearance by Booster.  Pretty Good, even with Shinypants in it.

Convergence: Crime Syndicate 1
Somehow I liked this.  I normally find the Crime Syndicate really really dull, but this was enjoyable.   Nice art too.

Convergence: Booster Gold 1
Pre 52 Booster meets New 52 Booster and if you like traditional Booster you'll like this issue.  the Legion of Superheroes turn up.  Fights ensue.  This was one of the highlights of this week's comics.

Convergence: Detective Comics 1
Helena Wayne and Dick Grayson from the earth where they are proper adult legacy heroes.  I liked their squabbling an the clear characterisation of all involved.

Convergence: Infinity Inc 1
I'm not clear on the background or history for this, but I quite enjoyed it.

Convergence: Plastic Man 1
I get the Freedom Fighters existing in a world where the Nazis won the war, I don't understand what Plastic Man is doing there.  Was he ever part of that world?  I did enjoy the comic and the Freedom Fighters as a team, so that's a job well done by the creators.

Convergence: World's Finest 1
This I did really enjoy.  It feels like a decent standalone story in it's own right.

Convergence: Action Comics 1
Another good one.  Like World's Finest, it simply works as a story by itself.

Convergence: Justice Society of America 1
This week turned out a bunch of corkers.  This feels like it was created by people with real respect for the JSA era and the main guys in the team.  Good work.

JLA Paradise Lost 1
I got this from the comic shop in Brugges in March, but forgot I'd bought it.  It was pretty good.  It has Zauriel in it trying to stop a fellow angel take over Heaven.

JLA Incarnations 6
Also from the Brugges comic shop.  This is the JLI at it's finest and it much better than the Convergence JLI issue.  The first story is led by Booster and Beetle, and proves why they shouldn't be allowed to roam around unsupervised.  The second story is led by Captain Shinypants when he's on Extreme Justice and just proves that team is rather incompetent.  Worth reading for the JLI story.

Superman Krypton Chronicles 1 and 2
These are really good fun, and a bit batshit.  Plot holes a aplenty but as they aren't meant to be serious, who cares?  Clark is asked by the Daily Planet boss to put together an article on Krypton's history, so Clark has to travel to Kandor with Supergirl, now on the planet Rokyn, to meet with Supergirls parents and learn about Kryptonian history.  It's all a bit unhinged, but it allows the writers to have fun, and so the reader has fun too.  The reasoning for getting Kryptonian's history seems a bit bandwagon jumping though:

Superman Confidential issues

These are a great set of issues, and it's a great run.  Superman stories where he's being heroic from different stages of his life.  It's only 14 issues long and the ones I picked up were written by Justin Gray and Jimmy Palmiotti, who nearly always turn out reliably solid work, with the later issues pencilled by Phil Hester, who I adore.

Superman issues, pre 52 ones

One is a Christmas issue which I recall liking a lot, one is a one year later one that I already had, but forgot about and because it had Supergirl on the cover I bought it again.  She's barely in it.

The Adventures of Superman Annual 1997

I'm always disappointed by these pulp heroes annuals that don't have a pulp themed story.  Upon reading this it occurred to me that perhaps it's just that I don't know what it meant by 'pulp'.  The letters section was intriguing as everyone was complaining about the blue and red Superman.  It reminded me of all our kvetching about Supes' new solar flare power.  Oops.  Perhaps we should just roll with it...

Comics review

It's been a while yeah?  I think review might be too formal a word for what I'm about to write.

Wonder Woman 40 and Aquaman 40 both have glorious movie style covers.  I actually rather enjoyed Wondy.  That's probably not a popular opinion, since it's got Donna Troy slaughtering the men on Themscyria.  But I liked it.  I don't care about how she was written pre 52.  I enjoyed this story.  Aquaman 40 was pretty cute, what with Atlanna accepting that Arthur is her son.

Batman/Superman annual 2 I liked, but I don't recall much of.  I think it was someone trying to kill Clark, and because he'd used his solar flare power (which Kara had first, incidentally), he couldn't defend himself with his Kryptonian powers.  I've read a few thoughts from others about how this is meant to be a celebration of Clark. I didn't get that feeling from it, but I did enjoy it.

Red Lanterns 40 was a good ending to the series.  A bit rushed, but what isn't at these times.  It was full of hope, which I'm down with.  Guy is still a Dad (which I love) and no longer a Red Lantern. Sadly losing his rage means he's also lost his facial hair and his shaggy haircut.  I'll admit that I hated his new look at first, and roundly mocked it, but I've grown quite fond of it.

I've just added Harley Quinn to my pull list and this issue (16) is more of the same.  It's fun, but not substantial.  I'm buying these and passing them on to a friend.

Multiversity: Ultra Comics was pretty good. very clever, in a full of itself way, but also a good story which is the important part.  I am really really liking this series.

Convergence 0 was also good and I loved seeing the red skies!  This Superman is a bit of a knob though - he's just not very likeable is he?

Today I picked up the first 11 Convergence titles and I am so excited for them!  All my pre 52 favourites are there!  Roy Harper and Lian, a lady Justice League, Steph and Cass Batgirl with Timmy, Gotham City Sirens, Nightwing and Oracle, Supes and Lois, and Renee Question.  :D

Multiversity and DC's timelines

I had wanted this to be some sort of in depth exercise in comics journalism but I kind of stalled when doing a small bit of research.  So instead I'll just put out some unsupported conjecture.

A couple of weeks ago I wrote about DC's new publishing direction.  I get frustrated when fans don't understand the long lead in times for deciding creative direction and producing a comic.  When I read  the Multiversity guidebook last weekend (it's really rather good) I came across a story with Earth 8 and Earth 42.

Earth 8's logo:

Earth 42's inhabitants, named the Little League:

In the last panel they've been taken over, they weren't always red eyed monsters.

Now, the Little League most likely were developed from the chibi Justice League from the pre New 52 Superman/Batman series:

But, to get to the point of when this stuff is developed, I think Morrison's Multiversity concept was developed in 2012 or 2013.  i.e. about 2 years before it was first published.  I think this because there is a webcomic, now called JL8, but which was originally called Little League.

I first came across and reviewed this webcomic for New readers... in 2012.  I know this because that's when the review was published, and I didn't write reviews too far in advance back then.  The review states that were about 40 strips published at that point.  I remember seeing a post from the creator, Yale Stewart, saying that DC had contacted him telling him stop using the name Little League because, if my memory serves me right, his webcomic's use of the name was copyright infringement or some similar thing.  Apparently it was a legal letter and I got the impression it was pretty official and scary looking.  So he changed the name to JL8.  I reflected the name change in my post, but sadly I didn't note the date of when this happened.  That'll learn me.

So, go have a look through at the JL8 tumblr.  Notice the chibi style of the characters.

Now to my recollection the chibi Justice League were never named the Little League in the Superman/Batman issues they appeared in, or in the Halloween or Christmas issues they had an appearance in (It was one or t'other).

So, my point is that if DC sent a letter to the creator of JL8 in 2012 or 2013 saying he couldn't use the Little League name, that could mean that they were thinking about and planning out Morrison's Multiversity as far back as then.  The ideas could have been purely at concept stage, or they could be being drawn out and the Multiversity being created and nailed down.

(I wish I knew the date of the change, or could find the post that Yale Stewart, the creator put up announcing the name change).

Or it could mean that DC were looking to capitalise on the Chibi Justice League at some point but they weren't sure when or how.  I think this idea is unlikely though, as the New 52 was launched in August 2011 so I think they'd be mostly busy with that and not with very conceptual ideas that might never see light.  What would be the point?  If they were annoyed with the JL8/Little League series existing they could have filed a proper take down notice to the creator.  They didn't, they just said the name had to change,

Of course, this could just be wild conjecture from me, but I think it goes some way to demonstrate how far in advance DC plan their storytelling.  It's for sure not just a few months in advance.

This all feels a bit self indulgent, sorry,

Comics of the last week in November

Spoilers ahead for this lot:

Supergirl 36
It's the new creative arc and lo and behold I actually enjoyed it. This is a good writing team. Art was OK - the first panel was a boobs and butt pose which isn't great, obvs, but the rest was OK. Kara gets full armour and it looks better than the unitard.
The comic opens with Kara working in a coffee shop, frustrated with earth tech (till machines) and a bearded Clark turns up and lectures her. I liked Kara in these scenes. She felt real.

Then she gets whisked to space and introduction d to the crucible academy. This wasn't bad. Nice to see Maxima there. I hope we get to see her back on earth though.

Aquaman 36.
I dip in and out of this title. I bought this one for for the Lego cover (also got the Lego Supergirl cover). It's a strong issue. Good plotting, good writing and good art. I like Mera's catsuit.

Batgirl 35
This is the new creative team.  It's really, really good.  I will be putting this on my pull list.  Black Canary is in it (winner).  The art is kinda reminiscent of the art from Archie/Betty/Veronica type stories.  C'est triple good.

Batman/Superman 16
I got really edgy and grumpy while reading this.  It's a tense story with really touching moments.

Multiversity 3 (4)?
These are all numbered 1 on the cover, it's confusing.  (woe is me, ect ect).  This issue had watchmen, Midnighter and marvel references.  I preferred the previous issue, it made more sense.  Then again, this is Morrison and he's not interested in writing linear easy to understand stories.  I'm sure that as a whole it will all come together.

Sensation Comics 4
Ugh, just check out the boobs and butt pose on the cover it is horrible.  It would be nice if she wasn't twisted so much.  It looks like it's aping Adam Hughes, but for all his faults he doesn't usually create spine twisters.
Inside the comic is much better.  Gilbert Hernandez's Wondy, Supergirl and Mary Marvel art make for a very enjoyable alternative story.  I'm not sure I have a view on the plot or characterisation - it;s maybe rather stilted, but perhaps that's the point - but the art makes it worth reading.
The 50ft Wondy story is quite nice, with a bit of cheeky gender bending at the end.  The final story also has good art and fat Etta - always worthwhile.

Harley Quinn 12
Good fun. Harley has a red and black Peej outfit on.  I bet we'll start seeing that at cons soon.  Peej has named Harls her sidekick and they fight a giant pizza slice then visit Manos, bearer of the infinity rings.

Jonah Hex new 52 volume 2
I'm halfway through this and it's OK so far.  I'm not a big fan of Westerns hence why it's only OK.  I would quite like to read the issues when Jonah gets plumped forward to the present day.