2018.030 DC Meets Looney Tunes

DC Meets Looney Tunes
Written by: Frank J Barbiere, Tony Bedard, Sam Humphries, Tom King, Steve Orlando, Jimmy Palmiotti, Bill Morrison, Jim Fanning, Bill Matheny, Juan Manuel Ortiz
Illustrated by: John Floyd, Tom Grummett, Scott Hanna, Kelley Jones, Barry Kitson, Aaron Lopresti, Jerome Moore, Mark Texeira, Lee Weeks, Dave Alvarez, Ben Caldwell, John Loter, Bill Morrison, Juan Manuel Ortiz, Byron Vaughns
DC Comics

130 Batman: Zero Hour

Collected together for the first time are all the Zero Hour crossovers from the Batman Universe.  It's an odd book, but it was enjoyable nonetheless.  I would have loved it if they devoted one page (as a forward, maybe) explaining what was happening in the Zero Hour mini series so that thing would have been a little bit clearer in this volume.  

Basically, the book is broken down into two sections.  The first have are the actual Zero Hour tie ins.  Time has gone screwy, different realities are popping up here and there, the Bat Family are being drawn to different realities and they have to deal with it.  Fun stuff happens, like the return of Batgirl, in full costume, though from a different reality.  In her reality, Commissioner Gordon was killed by the Joker rather than Babs getting maimed.  A young Dick Grayson shows up and teams up with Robin.  Batman is drawn back in time to where is parents lived but he was shot in Crime Alley.  Fun stuff all in all.

The second half of the book showcases all the #0 issues that were published after the mini series ended.  These were basically jumping on points for the characters, showing the new realities they're living in.  This being the Batman Universe, though, there really weren't many changes or tweaks at all.  You know how that goes.

Batman: Zero Hour

Writer: Chuck Dixon, Archie Goodwin, Alan Grant, Doug Moench

Artist: Bret Blevins, Mike Manley, Joe Rubinstein, Vince Giarrano, Graham Nola, Scott Hanna, Bob McLeod, Tom Grummett, Ray Kryssing, Jim Balent, Bob Smith

DC Comics

066 Astro City: Honor Guard

A couple of posts ago, I was complaining that Kurt Busiek, although a solid writer, just doesn't get the Justice League.  Or the DC Universe for that matter.  There's always been something about the stuff he writes for DC that doesn't click for me.  His Marvel work is great and he's so good at what he does, but not when it comes to DC properties.  Astro City is his creator owned book and what he does here makes his Marvel work look like his DC work, if that makes sense.  There's something magical about reading Astro City to me.  It rarely hits a sour note (though there was that maxi-series a few years ago.  The less we talk about it, the better).  He was born to write this book.

Very often in Astro City, Kurt will write a story which involves some sort of flashback.  Sometimes it's a single page showing scenes from previous adventures of the characters.  When you read something like JLA and they do that, you see a panel of them battling Shaggy Man and you remember that story, or they show a panel teaming up with the JSA and it brings you right back to that issue.  When Kurt does that in Astro City, you get the exact same feeling even though what he's flashing back to has never been published before.  Every time I read an issue of Astro City, it feels like a universe I've been heavily invested in since I was ten years old.  How he can manage to do that on a consistent basis is beyond me.

This collection is a little different than the last few.  It's full of one or two part stories that were published in between longer arcs.  Each story is about a different member of the Honor Guard.  You get some decent backstory on some of these characters.  I do love a nice done-in-one tale and these are all solid stories.  Also different about this collection is the stories are all drawn by guest artists.  But that does not detract from any of the stories.

Astro City: Honor Guard

Writer: Kurt Busiek

Artist: Jesus Merino, Joe Infurnari, Gary Chaloner, Tom Grummett, Wade Von Grawbadger, Cory Hamscher, Ferlis Santacruz, Agustin Padilla Bob Wiacek, Andrew Pepoy

Vertigo Comics

049 Superman: Panic In The Sky

I've been trying to catch up on my reading.  I have two full bookshelves with backstock reading material.  I finally caught up on everything new I had, so I pulled this off the shelf.  This book really brought me back to the nineties.  But I'm not sure if that's good or that's bad.  I had stopped reading the Superman books by this point in time.  They weren't really doing it for me anymore.  But reading this felt like putting on a comfortable old pair of jeans.

Basic premise of this book is Brainiac is back, he's got War World and he's coming to take over earth.  Superman gathers up as many of his friends as he can to battle Brainac and turn him away.  It looks like Matrix hasn't been around as Supergirl for very long at this point.  She's easily taken over by Brainiac, as is Maxima, or so she wants Brainiac to believe.  This story ran through all four of the monthly Superman titles.  Around that time, everything ran through all four Superman titles, effectively making Superman a weekly title.  While it's a good idea on paper, it really hampers the creative teams on each book because they're not necessarily telling their own stories.  And it kind of shows.

Superman: Panic In The Sky

Writer: Dan Jurgens, Jerry Ordway, Louise Simonson, Roger Stern

Artist: Jon Bogdanove, Tom Grummett, Jackson Guice, Dan Jurgens, Bob McLeod, Brett Breeding, Doug Hazlewood, Dennis Janke, Denis Rodier, Trevor Scott

DC Comics