This week saw the release of a few notable titles for DC, including the first issue of Green Lantern without Geoff Johns in 9 years, and the first issue of Astro City under the Vertigo imprint. Check out the reviews for these titles and many others by clicking the links below.
The final issue in the Andy Diggle and Tony S. Daniel arc of Action Comicshas been released. The three-comic arc started strong but faltered a bit towards the center. Did the final piece fit into a beautiful puzzle, or a miserable one?
Astro City is one of those special titles that, after binge reading through the 60 issues now bound in beautiful volumes, you relentlessly foist upon disinterested friends and loved ones. While Vertigo has traditionally shied away from “capes,” the publisher is a perfect fit for this weirdly inspired masterpiece.
Detective Comics #21 begins a new story arc in Batman’s classic title, written by John Layman with art by Scot Eaton. This issue picks up right where last year’s #0 issue left off.
ts been one week since we got our first look at Captain Steel and now we find out who he is, how he got his powers and what he can do. Captain Steel (who last week I mistakenly referred to as Commander Steel) was once Hank Heywood Jr., a child with a degenerative bone defect. His father, a mad genius, used cutting-edge science to correct his son’s defects and augment his strength.
It is the start of a whole new era for the Green Lantern universe and we are off and running with Green Lantern #21.
The Movement debuted last month as well as The Green Team, a pair of books many people believe were created to cash in on the current tension between the classes. These are also two of the only comics in DC’s current line-up that revolve around all new characters, so we can expect things to potentially take a little while to get going in these comics. With that said, the opening act of The Movement #1 in particular, as well as the rest of the issue were pretty fun. Coral City seems like it’ll be a fun, although stereotypical, city. I was pretty excited to pick up issue 2, let’s see how it went.
Stormwatch has been rather erratic since they decided to erase all the history that’s happened between #1-#19. It has a new team consisting of the Engineer, Hellstrike, the Weird, and new characters Jenny Soul, the Forecaster, and Force. Obviously Jim Starlin will have to do some work to make sure that move was justified, but the audience already approves of him sending Midnighter and Apollo back into their old costumes. The team finds itself meeting the Kollective and Lobo in this issue, and we get to see some glimpses of Jenny Souls evident power and learn more about just who the Kollective actually are, and why Lobo is so powerful.
Charles Soule started his run on Swamp Thing incredibly strong, offering a much more traditional, yet still fresh, interpretation of the character. The second issue however, while full of action, focused on Superman rather than Swamp Thing, which created an ultimately confused tone for the book. Luckily, Soule’s third issue combines the best of both issues, producing not only Soule’s best issue on Swamp Thing to date, but one of the best issues I’ve read in a long time.
Verdict: (5/5)