Comics of the week of 5th November

Well you lucky, lucky people, as I was late buying and then gabbling about last weeks books, but on time this week you get two, yeah, that’s right, TWO, sets of up the minute comic thoughts from yours truly, this week.

Betcha can’t wait, huh?

Here follows some gushing thoughts (and spoilers) about Jack Kirby’s Mister Miracle collection, Terror Titans #2, Terra #1, Superman/Supergirl/Maelstrom #1 and Aquaman v2 - issues 1 – 13.
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Terror Titans #2
Rose is at the forefront here. Independent, mouthy, tough and superior to everyone around her. Best moments:

• ‘Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’ve got some face to rearrange’

• While fighting TNTeena in the ring, she slices the girl’s fingers off. Ouch.

• Terra is in it, she beats Zatarra (arrogant git).

• The art – check out the cover, Rose has muscles, she looks utterly, utterly solid. And I like her costume, have I mentioned how much I like her costume?

• The rivalry between Disruptor and Ravager. Please, Disruptor is a lame third rate villain, she’ll never come out on top.

Terra # 1
A new mini series. Pencilled and inked by Amanda Connor (with Jimmy Palmiotti also doing inks).
I’m SO pleased we’ve got a Terra mini. The first time this version turned up (so far as I know, and do correct me if I’m wrong), was in a Supergirl book, I forget the number. She was great – distant yet helpful, earnest and serene. Now that must have been at least 2-3 years ago, and I’ve been waiting ever since to hear more about her.
The story starts underground where she’s fighting these wormy teethy vampire slug things on behalf of other flying insectoidy denizens of the deep. This meanwhile is causing tremors and earthquakes above ground.

Terra defeats the wormy vampire slug things, heads above ground, saves the people and requests that they move their excavations to another site as they are disturbing the below earth civilisations.

Some random guy located beneath the New Mexico desert gets dragged into a weird pool, gets covered in shiny stuff and kills his fellow excavators. And dubs the pool ‘my newfound pool of magic goodness’ (!).

Meanwhile Terra is fighting more underground denizens who are exploding a volcano. She falls into lava and is rescued by Power Girl. There then follows 6 of the most (fem) slashy panels ever! Because of this, Amanda Connor is now my hero. Terra and Karen are totally having a relationship. If I can find some scans of the panels I'll post a link.

Amanda Connor’s art rocks. It can be quite static – as in I don’t get the feeling of movement from it that I get from say, the Terror Titans cover. Her panels look very much like a frozen snapshot and the art is sometimes less sequential than just plain jerky, and her Peej is drawn a little too round and immature for my liking. But, those points aren’t a big deal. Overall, I find her art fresh, the characters are adorable and seductive (without being porny), cute and Terra cam be naïve or powerful. She can even do different (and convincing!) facial expressions! Even when the panels look static she conveys a lot of meaning and in this book I find the art perfectly complements the nature of the story and brings something extra to it. It’s fun and playful. I’m hooked. More pleased!

Superman/Supergirl/Maelstrom #1
After reading this review of the book I’m not sure what my true feelings are or how much I’ve been influenced by other people’s negative views. Hence why I usually avoid spoilers.
One thing is for sure – Kara is lame in this issue. She gets beat almost immediately, barely lift’s a finger to help herself and is overall rather pathetic. Especially when compared to Kal’s ease at beating Maelstrom. He flies down, uses laser vision to get her attention, smashes a rock thrown at him, then grabs her arms and operates the boom tube.

Now why couldn’t Kara have done that?

On the plus side, Supergirl is thrown face down on the pavement and kind of goes splat. That, no matter, who it’s done too, is ALWAYS amusing.

Anyway, back to the moon. Kal displays another facet to his Superdickery and suggests that Kara and him go somewhere far away, presumably for him to train her. She says no. he says ‘I was only asking to be polite, Kara. You’re going whether you want to or not.
Fascist.
The art’s nice though.

Note: the issue is up on scans daily for anyone who wants to check it out.

Jack Kirby’s Mister Miracle – a collection of his earliest stories.
This is mad. Overly dramatic, over enthusiastic, too many adjectives and narration boxes. Like everything else of it’s time. Fun and completely incredulous.

Plus points is there’s a lot of Barda about (Yay!), and not because she’s big. Boom boom (sorry). It’s good to see their origin stories and it’s good to see Barda not take any shit from anyone and defending her right to wander around in a skimpy bikini without being letched at. Which makes me approve of this statue more. Or it did, until i looked at it again and realised she's posed like a serving wench holding Scott's bleeding cloak. Grrr.

There was one stupidity plot – Mister Miracle, the world’s foremost escape artist, master of gadgets to get you out of ANYWHERE, is foiled when a bad guy grabs his cloak and won't let go. Really. How dumb.
But overall, it’s a recommended volume.

Aquaman v2 issues 1-13
All about how Aquaman is trying to cope with the death of his son and his wife leaving him. He’s very angry and is beating himself and everyone else up about it. I finally understand why Arthur has his abilities and that not every citizen of the Atlantis cities has the same ones.

The last issue was heartbreaking and brought a tear to my eye, because I’m a big softy. Told from the point of view of this kid who’d got an undisclosed awful illness. He decides to go to the lake to find Aquaman, because Arthur is his hero, he hitches with 2 people who tell him lies about how they saw Aquaman once, then meets a reformed con who turns out to be reformed because of Arthur’s interventions. Then the kid meets Aquaman who is stopping by the reformed con’s house for a pint (or maybe not a pint). See? I’m a big softy.

I quite liked the whole series and am now going back to read the two mini’s that preceded it, but not V1 from the 60s because I like my head not exploded, thank you very much.