177 Justice League Vol 4: Endless

This felt more like a collection of inventory stories than anything.  Not sure what's going on with this series.  Hopefully it was just a stop gap so they can settle the schedules of whomever is taking over the series.

Justice League Vol 4: Endless

Writer: Bryan Hitch, Shea Fontana, Tom DeFalco, Dan Abnett

Artist: Bryan Hitch, Tom Derenick, Philippe Briones, Ian Churchill, Daniel Henriques, Andy Owens, Scott Hanna, Trevor Scott, Andrew Currie, Paul Neary, Tony Kordos, Batt

DC Comics

129 Red Hood And The Outlaws Vol 2: Who Is Artemis?

I'm sure I've said this before.  Scott Lobdell is far from my favorite writer.  I enjoyed him back in the 90s, but his recent output has left me really cold.  Except this series.  The first volume was highly recommended to me, so I read it and I actually liked it a lot.  The same with the second volume.  Though I liked the first one better, this one is nothing to sneeze about.  Scott has a cast of characters that doesn't seem like would work together, but it surprisingly does.

This volume is mostly about Artemis' back story.  I wish they held off just a little longer telling it until they get Wonder Woman's current back story all straightened out because Artemis' story hinges somewhat on Wonder Woman's.  But they didn't wait.

I hate that we have to get a new back story for Artemis.  She was a character I didn't much care for when she first appeared, but I grew to love over time.  We're starting at square one with her again.  I hope they don't fuck this up.

Red Hood And The Outlaws Vol 2: Who Is Artemis?

Writer: Scott Lobdell

Artist: Dexter Soy, Mirko Colak, Tom Derenick, Kenneth Rocafort

DC Comics

072 Justice League Vol 2: Outbreak

Even without Bryan Hitch drawing this book, it still has this great, cinematic feel to it.  He continues to write this book like it's a big, widescreen movie.  I love the whole feel of it.  This volume, although still very cinematic, has a lot of smaller moments.

This book collects two stories, which makes me happy.  I like that we still get occasional two-part stories.  There's a two-parter and a four-parter.  Not everything needs to be six issues.  The first story focuses heavily on Jessica Cruz, Earth's newest Green Lantern.  The League battles and defeats an alien invader, or so they think.  The creature managed to infect the League with fear.  They defeat the creature, but at the end, Jessica doesn't think the League is the place for her and leaves.

The second story is kind of silly to me.  The League gets hacked.  Hardcore hacked.  By a hacker that makes Oracle look like an amateur.  I know this is just a comic book, but this story was even a little too far fetched for me when we find out who the hacker turned out to be.  Read it and tell me if you agree.

Justice League Vol 2: Outbreak

Writer: Bryan Hitch

Artist: Neil Edwards, Jesus Merino, Matthew Clark, Tom Derenick, Daniel Henriques, Andy Owens, Sean Parsons, Trevor Scott

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

005 Secret Six Vol 02: The Gauntlet

Odd, this is the fifth trade I've read this year so far and the fourth one to be Volume 2.  I think it's odd.

Anyway, Gail Simone's Secret Six was a book I loved back in the day.  You could tell she had the best time writing the book.  Full of irredeemable characters, she probably had more liberty to do things with them than she would have on Birds of Prey or Batgirl.  I was bummed when the book went away when DC did their ill-conceived New 52.  I was thrilled when I heard they were letting her bring the book back.  And now, this is where I'm torn on this book.

Gail was forced to re-introduce the characters from the old book she wanted to use, many of them appearing in the New 52 Universe for the very first time.  She got to create some new characters for the book, too.  And that's a shame, because you can tell she really was held back by the fact that, for all intents and purposes, these were ALL brand new characters with no history.  History that the characters had and new history she built on that base.  

This trade contains two stories.  The first one felt like it ended abruptly for no good reason.  The second was much better, not that the first one was bad.  Classic Gail storytelling.  But with strangers with familiar names.  Also, she got to reintroduce Elongated Man into the New 52 universe.  Even with her deft skills, I don't like what she did with him.  I don't know how much of that was her doing and how much of it was editorial, but I just didn't care for his reintroduction.  And near the end, he got his costume back and it instantly reminded me not of any of his previous costumes, but my first thought was Joe Staton's E-Man.

The book is good.  The stories are solid.  The art is beautiful.  I just felt like they were wasted on this shadows of characters.

Secret Six Vol 02: The Gauntlet

Writer: Gail Simone

Artist: Dale Eaglesham, Tom Derenick