Comic reviews for week of 13/03/2013

Spoilers ahead for Animal Man 18, Demon Knights 18, Fearless Defenders 2, Thor God of Thunder 6, Superman: Silver Banshee 2, Superman Confidential 7.
Really do not carry on reading if you haven't read Animal Man 18.
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Spoilers for Animal Man 18.  You have been warned.

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Animal Man 18
I suppose the cover should have given me a warning.

But we get so much hype from comics companies I thought nothing of it.  Upon reading the first page I was disappointed to see that we are still in Rotworld, but it seems the end is near.  Indeed it is.  Swamp Thing and Buddy get sent back in time by the Rotworld totems so they can stop the destruction of the earth.  Excellent stuff.  It's nearly over.  Buddy lands near his family, just before some Rotworld denizens are about to trick Maxine into joining them.  Buddy interrupts, Maxine joins the fights and manifests her inherent power as the mother of all and the Rot gets ripped out of the rotting denizens and two people emerge, they are rather confused. Child Arcane has been killed by the Rot and was lying dead off to the side.  He then lurches up and launches himself at Buddy, then Cliff, Buddy's 12 year old son, jumps in front of Buddy and gets fatally punched through the torso.

Reading it, I was just thinking how good it was to have a family unit in the new DCU.  Buddy and Ellen have their problems, they fight, and Ellen's mother hates Buddy, but all in all, they are a great family who love each other and just get on with life.  Throughout the issue, Buddy is remarking on Cliff and how much he cares for him and how much he loves him.  This is quite an unusual occurrence.  Previously, most dialogues has been focused on Maxine.  So I suppose I really should have seen it coming.

Now Cliff is dead and another DCU family is reduced and possibly destroyed.  Cliff was a great character - there was truly no kid like him in the DCU.  Given DC's penchant for things dark and edgy and 'grown up' I'm surprised they allowed Cliff to be killed.  He's a 12/13 year old punk, moody as anything, who has dabbled in drink and drugs.  He's mouthy, snotty and rebellious.  The Vertigo run of Animal Man showed this.


I'm really quite upset about this.  It's a fridging.  Soon there will be no children left.  I am scowling.  See me scowl. >:-(

Demon Knights 18
This was far better.  It's serious, as are most things coming out of DC at the moment, but no one major died.  Jason has been rescued from Vandal Savage and is now in a snit because he thinks everyone only cares about Etrigan.  So he summons Etrigan and refuses to swap back when Etrigan runs out of strength.  Meanwhile, the vampires got through the Amazon shore Guard and are on their way to Themyscira to change the Amazons there.


Fearless Defenders 2
Dani Moonstar is introduced.  This was helpful because I know nothing about her.  She seems good.  An ex mutant with a bow and arrow.  Pity she got trapped in a chair of stone.  Valkyrie, Misty Knight and Isabella go to Asgardia (floating above Oklahoma) and consult with Freyja, Gaea and Idunn.  Isabella continues hitting on Valkyrie.  Hela turns up and starts fighting with Val.  Then on the last page Hippolyta turns up.

The strengths of this issue are in the art and the narration boxes.

Well usually in the art.  Occasionally Val's breastplates are ridiculous, almost conical.  But I liked this enough to consider putting it on my pull list.

Thor God of Thunder 6
A-ha!  Here we have a change of pace, as we move away from Thor and Gorr fighting, and look back to how Gorr became the God killer.  It was effective and good.  He's had a shoddy life and decided to take it  out on the Gods.  It's not the most rational explanation but it's an explanation.

Superman: Silver Banshee 2

I honestly thought that was Batman on the cover at first.  It's not, it's a were-panther.  This was a reasonable conclusion to the first issue (reviewed here).  In the first issue, Siobhan had tracked down one of her descendants, Lacy, as she was the key to ridding herself of the Banshee curse.  Then there's amulets and Hecate and Superman all involved.  In this issue, were creatures are attacking them and Superman is controlled by a demon.  Siobhan takes over Lacey's body, they fight the demons and were creatures and separate.  Lacy dies, thereby freeing Siobhan of the curse, but Siobhan doesn't think this is right, so keeps Lacy on this earthly place and so loses her chance to be rid of the curse.  The issues ends with the two of them working out what to do next.
This didn't feel as gothic as the first issue did but was still good.  I'd be really interested to know how the Siobhan/Lacy story progressed.  Can anyone give me pointers to issues/story arcs to read?

Superman Confidential 7
The conclusion to the Mer-tropolis story, first issue reviewed here.  The story is fluffy but fun and the art is great and bright.  I'm quite glad I got this.