123 Batman/Two-Face: Face The Face Deluxe Edition

I read this back when it was originally published.  It's been over ten years, so it was definitely time to revisit it.  And thankfully, DC has collected it in a deluxe hardcover.

James Robinson has that unique ability to hook me on page one and keep me involved until the last page.  This story is no different.  

After Infinite Crisis, Batman left Gotham for a year.  While he was gone, he didn't want to leave Gotham unprotected, so he enlisted Harvey Dent, the former Two-Face.  Harvey was finally cured of being Two-Face, both mentally and physically.  And he took on the role of Gotham's protector and excelled at it.  But now Batman is back and Harvey feels like he's out of a job.  In the meantime, it appears that he's falling back into his old, criminal ways.  Some D-List Bat villains are turning up dead and all the evidence is pointing to Harvey.  Batman doesn't believe it and sets out to prove Harvey innocent.  But with everything that's going on, it's driving Harvey nuts and he's losing his grip on sanity, eventually reverting back to Two-Face.  Which is all unfortunate because Batman discovers that Harvey is indeed being set up for the crimes.

This is a fascinating story and one that I will definitely read again sometime in the future.  James Robinson is one of my heroes.

Batman/Two-Face: Face The Face Deluxe Edition

Writer: James Robinson

Artist: Leonard Kirk, Don Kramer, Andy Clarke, Wayne Faucher, Keith Champagne, Michael Bair

DC Comics

113 Extraordinary X-Men Vol 4: IvX

The latest era of X-Men is coming to an end.  I'm not disappointed.  The whole Terrigan Mists era of X-Men feels like it was more a placeholder than anything else.  Like, "we just came off of the Bendis run but we don't know what to do with the X-Men.  Let's push our Inhumans hard, poison the air and let the X-Men figure things out while we try to find a direction for the book."  That's what the last year or two have felt like to me.  But it's ending.

This book has a lot going for it.  Lemire!  It's an Inhumans vs. X-Men tie in, but it has almost nothing to do with that series, which is fine by me.  What we have here are four stand alone character driven stories, focusing on a different X-Man.  Forge, Storm, Old Man Logan and Magik.  Jeff Lemire makes it work in the context of the big, awful crossover.  There's really nothing he can't do.

Also included in this book is X-Men Prime, the latest version of "let's start things all over again."  Kitty Pryde is back and she's in charge of the team.  I hope this leads to a strong direction for the X-Men.  It's something they've been lacking for a while now.

Extraordinary X-Men Vol 4: IvX

Writer: Jeff Lemire, Mark Guggenheim, Greg Pak, Cullen Bunn

Artist: Eric Koda, Victor Ibanez, Andrea Sorrentino, Tom Palmer, Ken Lashley, Ibraim Roberson, Leonard Kirk, Guillermo Ortego

Marvel Comics

094 Aquaman: Kingdom Lost

Honestly, this run of Aquaman from back in the early 2000s was one of my favorite runs on the book ever.  It started with Rick Veitch bringing the character back to basics after the shit show Peter David performed on him.  Gone was the underwater Conan look, gone was the hook.  Although his hand itself wasn't back, a reasonable facsimile was and that was great.  After the Veitch run, John Acrudi came along and gave us a great run.  The Sub Diego years.  A big chunk of San Diego was sunk into the Pacific and with it, many of it's residents turned into water breathers.  It was a great storyline.  It was fun meeting new characters and watching Sub Diego begin to develop into a functioning community.

This volume concludes the Sub Diego storyline and wraps it up nicely.  And this is where I stopped reading Aquaman for a while because right after this, they introduced a brand new Aquaman who I had no interest in at the time.  I decided to go out on a high note.

Aquaman: Kingdom Lost

Writer: John Acrudi

Artist: Leonard Kirk, Andy Clarke, Patrick Gleason, Christian Alamy, Freddie Williams II

DC Comics

044 Supergirl Book 2

And here's where the problem for me begins.  I've been a lifelong fan of Supergirl.  I've been with her through thick and thin, so even a Peter David written Supergirl wasn't going to keep me away.  I'm just not a big fan of David's "look at how fucking clever I am" writing style.  It's grating.  It's annoying.  He's not a terrible plotter, but his scripting, to me, is awful.

The first volume of this series was actually kind of refreshing to me considering the writer.  Peter David was given Supergirl and like every writer who has come along since Crisis on Infinite Earths, he set up the series to try to bring Supergirl back to her pre-Crisis status quo, or at least as close to it as allowable.  He took the then current Supergirl (aka Matrix) and melded her with earth girl Linda Danvers.  Suddenly, for the first time since Crisis, we have Linda Danvers aka Supergirl.  The first volume wasn't bad.

Now we come to volume two, where Peter David really starts to drive home the religious through lines.  Linda's mother is all God-Squad.  There's a boy running around who looks like the 7th Doctor but who is God.  Linda becomes an Earth Angel.  This is where he really starts to lose me.  I don't think this angle works.  I find myself rolling my eyes more and more with each page I read.

But it's Supergirl and I love Supergirl.

Supergirl Book 2

Writer: Peter David, Darren Vincenzo, Tom Peyer, Chuck Dixon

Artist: Leonard Kirk, Greg Land, Anthony Castrillo, Cam Smith, Prentis Rollins, Chuck Drost, Doug Hazlewood, Jordi Ensign

DC Comics