Trimming the List Part 4 - Green Lantern

Ok, I know I said that no title was safe, but getting down to today's subject(s), I can admit that was a lie (though mostly to myself which is a bit more forgivable).  The Green Lantern books are currently the gold standard for tightly plotted epic storylines in comics.

 

Things didn't look so great for a few months in 2006 with Geoff Johns concentrating on Infinite Crisis, though.  While the Hal Jordan revival began amazingly well with 2004's Green Lantern: Rebirth, the following Green Lantern monthly began to falter in the late single digits.  I worried that perhaps Johns was preparing to move on as he had with Teen Titans.  At this point though it's obvious to any comic reader paying attention that I was wrong.  Following Infinite Crisis, Johns began laying the groundwork that lead us to the recently concluded Blackest Night and the recently begun Brightest Day.

 

Green Lantern continues to be a very strong book in the wake of Blackest Night.  Clearly Johns' vision for Green Lantern did not end with Blackest Night, and I have my doubts that it's going to end with Brightest Day.  I'm a little iffy on picking up Green Lantern: Emerald Warriors, starring Guy Gardner and Ganthet, when it begins in August.  As much as I love both GL and GLC, I don't really feel like I need a third monthly Green Lantern title on top Brightest Day which is bimonthly.

 

While not specifically a Green Lantern book, Brightest Day is inextricably bound to that corner of the DC Universe.  The story deals as much with the characters resurrected at the end of Blackest Night as it does any Lantern.  Why would I even consider not continuing with it?  Granted it's a bimonthly, but it only lasts for twelve months, and it's helmed by Johns and builds on everything he's done with Green Lantern since Rebirth.  Brightest Day is a lock. 

 

Obviously had I thought about my statement in the first post in this series, I never would have said nothing was safe.  Johns has never let me down (except for when he's left comics), and his Green Lantern books have been exemplary.  I look forward to this saga continuing for a long time. 

 

 

Posted via email from Newtronika

Trimming the List Part 3 - Teen Titans

In terms of personal meaning, the Teen Titans franchise falls closer to Batman than Superman in the spectrum.  I wasn't around for the beginning of the Wolfman-Perez revival but came to love it years later during the "A Lonely Place of Dying" storyline that introduced the recently dismissed Robin, Tim Drake.  I stuck with it through the short lived Dan Jurgens Teen Titan series which wasn't as great as the Wolfman-Perez run, but he managed to make me care about an entirely new cast, and there's something to be said for that. 

The current run of Teen Titans began as a smashing success.  Geoff Johns did an amazing job of transforming the former Young Justice stars into the new generation of Teen Titans, as they likely should have been from the beginning.  I understand many didn't care for the updates to Wonder Girl and Impulse transitioning to the Kid Flash identity, but they made a lot of sense to me.  I remember standing in line for a sketch from Mike McKone in 2003, just days after the new #1 hit the stands.  George Perez himself walked up to the table to tell McKone what a wonderful job he though Johns and McKone were doing - high praise indeed from the artist of the most beloved Titans runs ever. 

Unfortunately DC undid much of what made this title great by killing off Superboy and aging Bart Allen into an adult with Infinite Crisis.  Thankfully Johns was able to undo this mess with Legion of Three Worlds.  However, the writers that followed Johns on Teen Titans have been unable to find a way to keep me caring about the team.  While Superboy and Kid Flash are back in the DCU, they are still not the central characters they were, and Tim Drake continues wasting time as Red Robin without appearing in Teen Titans at all.  So many new characters were added at once that it felt like a brand new team, and I've never found much reason to care for many of the people hanging around Titans Tower these days.  There were two I didn't mind - Ravager for her long running connection to the Titans, and Kid Devil, a revamp of Blue Devil's former wannabe sidekick.  Unfortunately Ravager was turned into a junky (adrenaline inhalers which act to boost her precognition ability) and removed from the team, relegated to a gerbil wheel of a back-up story. Kid Devil was de-powered and killed.  I'm left with Static (never cared for him), Aquagirl (a bit of a cipher), the new Blue Beetle (I tried, really I tried), and Bombshell (an entirely one dimensional female version of Captain Atom - you would think he'd have something to say on this subject). Another new writer is coming on soon... maybe he can turn things around?  Or maybe not... he also wrote Rise of Arsenal, but he's probably not entirely to blame for that. 

 

I'll keep hope alive here for a while I think.  I never want to give up on the Titans, but man it feels like I've been hanging on by a thread here for so long.  It seems as though it's destined to get the axe, but at least the right characters are starting to come back into place.  I think I'll at least give J.T. Krul a chance, and revisit the subject at the end of the year. 

 

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Trimming the List Part 2

Today I continue my attempt to whittle down my monthly list of comics.  Last week I took a look at the current state of Superman books and decided it was time for me to once again move on from those waters.  At the rate prices are increasing, I may never see them again.  This week I move on to Gotham's Caped Crusader.  I've rarely not purchased some Batman book or another since around the time of the first Keaton movie.  Is his place on the list secure?

 

 

In contrast to Superman, Batman has been with me more often than he has not.  However, I'm really only buying Morrison's Batman and Robin, his Return of Bruce Wayne, and the eponymous Batman.  I'm honestly not crazy about the current Bruce Wayne-less Batman paradigm.  I like Dick Grayson well enough, but I liked him better as his own man.  Clearly that's coming to an end though, as we are already underway with the Return storyline.  Still, Batman and Robin remains an excellent title, slightly more coherent than Morrison's own RIP storyline, so I'll stick with it for now.  Batman, while less impressive than B&R, is readable. 

 

The real question here is Return of Bruce Wayne.  It's one of those Morrison books that reads less like a story and more like a series of glimpses into a story.  We're rapidly thrust into a sequence of events that feels as though it supposes we already know exactly what is going on (Darkseid made Bruce a living weapon?), and shows us aspects of the DC Universe that do not mesh with previous depictions (Vanishing Point).  However, on occassion, these mental meanderings of Morrison's do pay off.  Heck, I'm already two issues in to a six issue mini, might as well stick with it. 

 

Ok, three books examined, three books remain.  Honestly I'm tempted to add in a couple of other Bat-books, such as Red Robin, though I detest that direction for the character, and Batgirl, which actually is the direction they should have gone a long time ago imo.  We'll see where I end up at the conclusion of this excersize and make a decision then.   

 

 

Posted via email from Newtronika

Trimming the List

I'm facing some tough decisions.  Comic prices are outpacing inflation, by a large margin, which is also outpacing my salary.  It's time to start taking a look at my pull list because something HAS to go; but I'm setting no requirements, and no limits - everything will be judged.  The looming new standard of four dollars for the standard 22 page comicbook story is prompting me to carefully consider my pull list and make some cuts. 

 

The first defendants are the Superman books for the simple reason that it's the largest group of books on my list. 

 

My history with the world's most famous superhero is fraught with periods of intense devotion and unapologetic scorn.  One of my favorite comic runs of all time remains the "Panic in the Sky" storyline running through the Superman titles for three months in the early 90's.  As much as I continue to love that run, I dropped the books the month after it ended and barely touched the line until the Death of Superman story several years later.  Recently Geoff Johns' shepherding of the Superman books prompted their return to my monthly purchases.  The introduction of a more classic version of the Legion of Super-heroes and the reincorporation of Superman into their mythos was appealing on many levels... but since his departure the books have again become stale. 

 

Why am I hanging on to them now?  Likely out of the dangling plot lines continuing to run from Johns' tenure.  The New Krypton plot is past its expiration date, and the LOSH angle appears to be resolved finally in the latest issues with Mon-el going to the 31st Century (more on that later) following Brainiac's assault on New Krypton.  OK, no need to keep them around.  With the end of War of the Supermen, I'm out.  There goes Action, Superman, Supergirl and the rotating mini series that have come to account for another monthly or two in the budget. I think I can honestly say I'm not going to miss it for a while.

 

That was liberating.  Up next is a slightly tougher bit of jerky - Batman...

Posted via email from Newtronika