2018.017 Superman And The Legion Of Super-Heroes

I'm an idiot.  I already own this, yet I bought it again.  I saw it at my local Ollie's Bargain Outlet in their big display of DC books.  I forgot I bought it twice already (once in floppies, once in trade paperback) so I bought it again, this time in hardcover.  It was only four bucks, so it was well worth it.

I love this book.  I love seeing the real Legion of Super-Heroes back in action.  I love seeing Gary Frank draw them.  I only like the Geoff Johns world of Superman, though.  He was trying to re-write the modern day Superman to mirror the Christopher Reeves movies better.  Or at least give it that feeling.  Which meant re-writing DC history again.  But as Geoff often does, he did it well.  

Brainiac 5 sends for Superman in the past to come help the 31st Century.  It's become a very anti-alien landscape on future Earth and it kind of scares me because I see a lot of parallels with what's going on in this country right now under Trump.  Such a great read, though, and it puts the Legion in place to regain their own title again.  I could read this a hundred more times.

Superman And The Legion Of Super-Heroes

Written by: Geoff Johns

Illustrated by: Gary Frank, Jon Sibal

DC Comics

171 Batman Arkham: Joker's Daughter

Not a fan of the new version of the character, but this book is soooo full of classic Joker's Daughter appearances, it's well worth the price.  Honest.  Those awful old stories are awesome!!

Batman Arkham: Joker's Daughter

Writer: Bob Rozakis, Geoff Johns, Ben Raab, J Torres, Ann Nocenti, Marguerite Bennett

Artist: Irv Novick, Frank McLaughlin, Jose Delbo, Vince Colletta, Don Heck, John Celardo, Juan Ortiz, Bruce Patterson, Dave Hunt, Kurt Schaffenberger, Drew Johnson, Rich Faber, Paco Medina, Wayne Faucher, Georges Jeanty, Dexter Vines, Meghan Hetrick

DC Comics

117 Supergirl Vol 3: Ghosts Of Krypton

I love Supergirl.  Well, I love Supergirl when she's done right.  This volume, not my favorite.  I wasn't reading the series regularly when these stories were published.  I'm not sure why, but I'm kind of happy I wasn't reading it.  I really didn't enjoy this book.  An awful lot of it is spent on a story where Supergirl tries to find a cure to save a dying boy she "accidentally" promised would be okay.  I do love that Resurrection Man was featured prominently in the story, but even that wasn't enough to save it for me.  Kara spends an awful lot of time brooding about Krypton, too.

I loved the stuff Kelley Puckett did with Batgirl, but not so much with Supergirl.  It just didn't work for me.

Supergirl Vol 3: Ghosts Of Krypton

Writer: Kelley Puckett, Kurt Busiek, Fabian Nicieza, Geoff Johns, James Peaty, Will Pfeifer

Artist: Renato Guedes, Jose Wilson Magalhaes, Drew Johnson, Ray Snyder, Lee Ferguson, Rick Leonardi, Dan Green, Ron Randall, Brad Walker, Jon Sibal, Jesse Delperdang, Rodney Ramos

DC Comics

063 JLA Vol 9

This book was a real mixed bag for me.  It's the final volume in this era of JLA.  I believe it leads right into Infinite Crisis and then into the Brad Metzler run of JLA.

We have three big stories here.  And I see each of them differently.  One I loved.  One I hated.  One I liked.  The book starts off with the end of Kurt Busiek's run.  I love Busiek.  I think he's a fantastic writer.  His run of Avengers was my favorite run of the book.  Astro City is a book that is amazing to me.  But for some reason, Busiek and the DCU just don't gel together for me.  At all.  I don't know why.  The characters don't seem right to me.  The stories just don't grab my attention.  And this book starts off with a big story.  Nine or ten parts, I think.  It's massive.  And, for me, really hard to get through.  I did not enjoy it then.  I didn't enjoy it now.

The next story was my favorite.  It's a six part arc that sort of served as a sequel to Identity Crisis.  It was the beginning of the end of this era of JLA.  The team was falling apart.  Hard.  The Secret Society was going after the JLA and their loved ones.  Mind wipes were discussed.  It was a big mess for the team.  And although there was one more story arc, for all intents and purposes, the JLA was done.

The last story features the team pretty much packing it in, but before they can officially close this chapter, The Key strikes.

Despite my feeling towards the Busiek story, this is a really good collection of JLA tales from the early 2000s.

JLA Vol 9

Writer: Kurt Busiek, Bob Harras, Allan Heinberg, Geoff Johns

Artist: Chris Batista, Tom Derenick, Ron Garney, Mark Farmer, Dan Green

DC Comics

014 Wonder Woman: Her Greatest Battles

I've said before that I do love a good compilation.  This is one of those things that sounds so good in my head, but in reality kind of falls short.  The problems, for me, are (1) there are so many stories you could pick, but such limited space that something good is going to miss out and (2) there are rarely any done-in-one stories anymore that anything you put in a book like this is going to be one part of a multi part story.  So odds are you're going to be lost or not really care what's going on.

It's an interesting choice of stories here.  The oldest is from the beginning of George Perez's run and the most recent is from the Azzarello/Chiang run.  I'm bummed out that nothing from Phil Jimenez's run on the book made the cut.  Or from Allan Heinberg's run.  But space limitations and such.

The book does work well giving you a lot of fighting.  Wonder Woman battles Ares, Max Lord, Cheetah, Power Girl.  You get a nice variety.  There's an issue of Geoff Johns' New 52 Justice League in here that really doesn't fit.  At all.  I wish that was sacrificed in favor of something else.

All in all, it's a good, mindless romp through Wonder Woman's recent history.

Wonder Woman: Her Greatest Battles

Writer: George Perez, John Byrne, Greg Rucka, Gail Simone, Geoff Johns, Brian Azzarello

Artist: George Perez, John Byrne, Drew Johnson, Rags Morales, David Lopez, Tom Derenick, Georges Jeanty, Karl Kerschl, Chris Battista, Fernando Dagnino, Jim Lee, Cliff Chiang

DC Comics