Superheroes at Halloween (mostly)

Herein lies spoilers for Supergirl #46, Power Girl #6, Superman/Batman #65, Blackest Night: Superman #3 and the DCU Halloween Special.  In my efforts to improve my writing (and my discipline) I shall try to keep them succinct and not ramble too much.
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Supergirl #46
The finale to The Hunt for Reactron crossover.  This issue was an outstanding end to a crossover I did not initially care for.  Chris’ tactile telekinesis is not affected by Red sunlight, Reactron is defeated by the Flamebird entity, Lois gets her story, Kara and Thara make up and Kara finds out about Lana’s illness (and is singularly unimpressed with her deceit).  The only quibble I have is about Chris’ power – he didn’t seem to have to be touching things to affect them, so why is it called tactile telekinesis?  Aside from that the artist’s depiction of his power (flat looking purple discs) worked really well.

I have now read this twice and each time it brought me to tears, specifically, at the scene where Kara and Thara discuss their father.  Excellent, excellent end to this arc.

Power Girl #6
I feel somewhat similar to Sam at Retconning My Brain about the Power Girl title.  I feel that my feminist sensibilities should be offended by the overt cheesecakeyness of it all, but I just can’t seem to let it bother me too much!  Amanda Connor gives her characters facial expressions and body language, they aren’t just lifeless dolls, unlike say, Michael Turner’s art.  Because of this, and because Power Girl’s physique is acknowledged in text, and we see her interactions with the drooling menfolk, I don’t really care about the needless cheesecake.  Even with the 3 spacegirls gone wild.  Exclamation mark.  All 3 of whom get more fleshed out and less 2D in this issue.

I particularly enjoyed Terra’s dislike of Chinese food, and Peej’s kitty stealing some prawns.  There is another femme slashy moment when 2 of the spacegirls hug Peej, and of course the Hollywood joke was funny. Terra remains adorable.

Superman/Batman #65
A Halloween themed issue.  The scarecrow has captured Superman, Batman, the Joker and Lex Luthor.  He subjects them each to his far gas and each dreams their own worst fear.  For Superman it’s that he can’t save his loved ones.  For Lex Luthor it’s that he has no power.  The Joker becomes the joke and Batman kills his parents.  There is a different artist for each story and I would say that they have been selected particularly well as the art conveys the mood and themes and associated with each hero and villain, as well as the feelings within each story.

Batman saves the day by pulling himself out of his trance.  I’m getting a bit sick of Batman always being able to do this.  He’s not superhuman and it would be nice to see him fallible more often.  Having said that, it is a team effort to defeat the Scarecrow, who is then placed into his own nightmare.  He becomes the scarecrow in Dorothy, but without a brain in his head, Dorothy declares him not very scary and decides to leave him where he is.  She then gives permission for Toto to pee on him.  Nope, that’s not what I’d expected either!

Why don't more people buy this title?  It is consistently good, yet out of all the comic blogs I read, I'm the only one reviews this.

Blackest Night: Superman #3
The final of the miniseries.  We see Kal, Connor and Krypto defeat the Black Lanterns in a manner I had not expected, and on New Krypton Kara, Alura and the Krptonians put on a joint effort to repel Black Lantern Zor El.
I love the inclusion of Krypto.  I had previously thought him a cheap gimmick, something cheesey, crap and a relic of the corny silver age of comics.  My opinion of him has now changed and now I think he’s earned the right to be included as a character in his own right next to the humanoid Kryptonians.  He certainly does well in this issue, flying to the rescue of Ma Kent.  Not that she needed much rescuing, she’s a tough old cookie.  Course she is – she’s a farmer’s wife.
Krypto takes the hand with the ring from Black Lantern Lois and the ring reconstitutes Lois around him.  He then blasts the revenant body with heat vision.  I’m surprised the Black Lanterns aren’t going for Krypto’s heart – he’s all emotion and feeling, mostly rage and love I’d wager, and he’s not too far from being a person.  A dog shaped person, yes, but a person.

The scene of the Smallville folks looking up to Connor in the sky is lovely.  He defeats the Black Lantern Kal-L with the use of the Psycho Pirate’s mask – it overloads the rings.  Then it breaks, so it’s kind of a one off solution, but it did the trick.  I assume that he Psycho Pirate is still down in Smallville but without his mask he’s powerless and he can’t control anyone.

I can’t wait to see how this all plays out in the next issue of Blackest Night!  ( I say that at every Blackest night review don't I?)

DCU Halloween Special 2009
Not as good as last year, but a few enjoyable stories.  I didn’t much care for Guy’s party on Oa, Bizzaro’s commentary, the Creeper or the Outsiders.  Is that the current Outsiders team?  How D list.  Both the Batman and the Robin stories left me cold.  Red Robin was interesting with good art, if a little heavy on the inks.  The Ravager story tickled me, she’s so wicked!  The Kid Flash story was reasonable with special kudos going to the kids dressed up as the zombie trinity.  I loved the Wonder Woman/Teen Titans one.  I don’t think Di is too out of character and I don’t think it’s weird she was at the tower.  She’d probably popped in to visit Cassie, or was dropping Cassie off.  Superman vs the Flash was adorable, as always with little kids involved, but the main Superman story was also neither here nor there.