097 Batman - Detective Comics Vol. 2: The Victim Syndicate

I'm continuing my love affair with this book.  I know it's Detective Comics, but it should be called Batman Family.  It's the type of book I'm really loving.  Batwoman has been charged with training the various Batman Family members.  They've formed a makeshift team.  They're just a lot of fun to watch.

The story this time around is the BatFam battles a new group of villains.  People who were caught in the crossfire of Batman and his rogue's gallery and left broken and victimized.  These victims are now superpowered and out to make Batman pay.

One of the team, still haunted by Red Robin's "death", ends up turning on the team.  I really hope this is all part of a bigger story arc for them and not a stupid editorial decision because I've been enjoying them in this book.

I'm anxious to see where this book goes next because it's been a fun read.

Batman - Detective Comics Vol. 2: The Victim Syndicate

Writer: James Tynion IV, Marguerite Bennett

Artist: Alvaro Martinez, Eddy Barrows, Ben Oliver, Al Barrioneuvo, Carmen Carnero, Raul Fernandez, Eber Ferreira, Scott Hanna, Julio Ferreira, Szymon Kudranski

DC Comics

096 Batman - Detective Comics Vol. 9: Gordon At War

Because I haven't been reading most things in hardback, I've had to wait for the trade paperback version to come out.  This is one series that I've had weird overlap with.  This is the final volume of the New 52 run of Detective Comics, but I've also read two volumes of the Rebirth run as well.  That book is probably the next book to be written about.

I've really enjoyed this run.  It's one of the few consistent New 52 books despite changing creative teams.  This volume is written by Peter Tomasi, who I have always had mixed feelings about.  I think he's a great storyteller, but he's a lousy scripter.  This book is no different.  He's got great ideas, but he gets all caught up in the minutiae of his words that kind of gets under my skin.  For instance, Harvey Bullock is suddenly an expert on things you'd never think of, in this case, space travel.  Now that's not what bothers me, but what bothers me is while reading Harvey's dialogue, I feel like I might as well be reading Wikipedia.  Nitpicky, sure, but it's how I feel.

The stories in this volume are solid and I've thoroughly enjoyed the James Gordon as Batman run.  More than I expected to.  I'm happy Bruce is back and is Batman again, but this was a good run. 

The art by both Fernando Pasarin and Scot Eaton is simply wonderful.  I look forward to their next projects.

Batman - Detective Comics Vol. 9: Gordon At War

Writer: Peter Tomasi

Artist: Fernando Pasarin, Scot Eaton, Matt Ryan, Wayne Faucher

DC Comics

095 Avengers: Unleashed Vol 1: Kang War One

Mark Waid's Avengers book is the only Avengers book that actually feels like the Avengers to me.  It's not quite where I'd like it, but it's as close to a classic Avengers book as we're going to get.  With this volume, it looks like Marvel renamed and renumbered the book.  Again.  I really hate that, but there isn't anything I can do about it.  I'm sure after volume 2 of this book, the same thing will happen again.  I wish they'd just announce these books as mini-series and be done with it.

Anyway, this is the beginning of a year long Kang War.  It all started in the last iteration of Avengers when The Vision had finally had enough and decided to change time and history by removing Kang from it.  Things don't always go as planned and all hell breaks loose.  The Avengers try to undo what the Vision has done, but that just screws the pooch even more.  Lots of time travel, Avengers from different time periods and multiple versions of Kang.  You need to stay focused to keep on top of things.  This book ends on a cliffhanger setting the stage for working into the story the Avengers Four book I "reviewed" a bunch of posts back.

The book is drawn by Mike Del Mundo.  Now, while I think he's a magnificent artist, I didn't enjoy him in the context of a monthly comic book.  The art just wasn't quite right for me.

Avengers: Unleashed Vol 1: Kang War One

Writer: Mark Waid

Artist: Mike Del Mundo

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

093 Cave Carson Has A Cybernetic Eye Vol 1: Going Underground

I wasn't going to pick this up, but my friend George said it was such a great read.  So I picked it up based on his opinion and I have to say I'm in love with this book already.  Jon Rivera and Gerard Way take an old school Silver Age DC character, who really has a mostly blank slate, and bring him to life.  If you didn't know he existed before, it wouldn't really matter, because they really grab him and run with it.

This book starts later in Cave Carson's life.  His wife just passed away.  He has a teenaged daughter in college.  He has a cybernetic eye.  He's kind of lost with the passing of his wife, unbeknownst to him that his life is about to take a turn back into adventure.  It's kind of neat that this book is all about the present, but starts filling in missing details about his life since he was last seen.

I've bee very impressed with both Young Animal books I've read so far.  I think Doom Patrol is still in my backlog of books to post about.  I liked Doom Patrol a lot, but I loved this.  Everything about it was great.  The writing, the art, the choice of characters.  I look forward to so much more from this, especially since it ended on a cliffhanger.

 Cave Carson Has A Cybernetic Eye Vol 1: Going Underground

Writer: Jon Rivera, Gerard Way

Artist: Michael Avon Oeming

Young Animal/DC Comics

092 Doctor Who Tenth Doctor Vol 2: The Weeping Angels Of Mons

I've fallen behind of Doctor Who.  Not because I'm disinterested, but I ordered this book forever ago from my comics retailer and it never came.  Volumes since have come, but for some reason, they were never able to secure this particular volume.  So I stopped reading until I could pick up a copy.  While on vacation last month, the only volume they had in stock at Half Price Books was this very one.  So I grabbed it.  It didn't even make it all the way home before I read it.  

What you need to know.  Tenth Doctor.  New companion.  World War I.  Weeping Angels.  It's everything you could imagine it to be.  It's everything it should be.  Those Weeping Angels are scary as shit.  This story doesn't fail in getting that point across.  Great story.  

One of the things I sometimes have to stop and think about when reading a series like this is I know exactly how the script should sound.  At least with the Doctor.  It's a lot of fun to hear David Tennant's voice in my head as I read.  Because it forces you to not just read the words, but read the words in the way you'd expect him to deliver them.

Doctor Who Tenth Doctor Vol 2: The Weeping Angels Of Mons

Writer: Robbie Morrison

Artist: Daniel Indro, Eleonora Carlini

Titan Comics

091 Tarzan On The Planet Of The Apes

Let me state this for the record.  I fucking love Planet Of the Apes comics.  Love them so much.  This book is no exception.  It's the weirdest crossover I've read yet, but it works so fucking well.  I love seeing these two worlds crash together and become something new, yet familiar.  

This book sort of spins out of the third PotA movie.  The one where Cornelius and Zira time travel back to present day.  In it, Tarzan is raised by Cornelius and Zira as their own, side by side with their son.  It just works so well.  Add to that it also deals with alternate earths and time travel, yet doesn't take away from either Tarzan's history nor PotA's.  This book is really fantastic.  

The only thing I don't quite get is how Tarzan can be a youth in 1901 and an adult in 2016.  That's never properly explained and I'm just writing it off to an editorial oversight.

Tarzan On The Planet Of The Apes

Writer: David Walker, Tim Seeley

Artist: Fernando Dagnino

Boom! Studios/Dark Horse Comics

090 Justice League Vs. Suicide Squad

A few posts ago, I mentioned that I went on vacation in mid-June (and that's when my posts stopped.)  I had a layover on my way to Austin, Texas, but because of bad weather, my flight was delayed.  By hours.  Thankfully I had a big stack of books to read during my travels.  This book I read cover to cover during my delay in the Baltimore Airport.

I'll be honest.  I wasn't expecting much out of the book.  And maybe because the bar was low, I really enjoyed what I read.  Well, most of it.  This book collects the complete mini-series as well as the crossover issues from each team's regular series.  The mini-series was a lot of fun.  The crossovers were nothing more than pointless money grabs.

The book is basically the JLA vs. the Suicide Squad, then the JLA teaming up with the Suicide Squad against the greater enemy.  Your basic super-team crossover.  But more specifically, all this is is a set up for the upcoming Justice League of America book.  The Batman lead team.  Killer Frost is a member of the upcoming JLA book, and this story is very much about her redemption, however temporary or permanent it's going to be.

While I'm not a big fan of the Suicide Squad, I've been warming up to the during the whole Rebirth thing.  I had a good time with this book.

Justice League Vs. Suicide Squad

Writer: Joshua Williamson, Tim Seeley, Rob Williams, Si Spurrier

Artist: Jason Fabok, Tony S. Daniel, Jesus Merino, Fernando Pasarin, Robson Rocha, Howard Porter, Christian Duce, Riley Rossmo, Scot Eaton, Giuseppe Cafaro, Giuseppe Camuncoli, Sandu Florea, Andy Owens, Matt Ryan, Wayne Faucher, Jay Leisten, Daniel Henriques, Oclair Albert, Francesco Mattina

DC Comics

089 Jessica Jones Vol 1: Uncaged!

Jessica Jones is back in her own book again.  At last.  I loved Alias way back when.  I've only kind of liked what's been going on with the character since.  Sure, Bendis is the one who has been writing her, but since Alias ended, she's felt very neutered to me.  She's been in the background, they softened her up and made her less appealing.  But she's in a new series and it's really back to basics.  Jessica is her own worst enemy.  She's only trying to do what's right, but even when she does that, she manages to fuck her own self over.  Repeatedly.  This story is a great example of that.

Not only is she back in her own book, the book is by her original creative team of Bendis and Gaydos.  They know Jessica better than anyone else.  This book is going to be a great ride, I can already tell.

Jessica Jones Vol 1: Uncaged!

Writer: Brian Michael Bendis

Artist: Michael Gaydos

Marvel Comics

088 Death Of Hawkman

So, this blog has gone askew already.  Up until this point, I've been doing posts about what I'm reading, in order of what I'm reading.  Mid-June I went on vacation, came home, enjoyed the great weather and let books start to pile up.  I no longer know what order I've read them in, so until I catch up on the pile I have, it's going to be in random order.

Today I read Death Of Hawkman.  It's an Adam Strange/Hawkman mini series and I found it very likable.  The characters have a long history together, so it seemed right to team them up.  Unfortunately, it's the New 52 versions of the characters, but still, I'll take what I can get.

The characterization of Hawkman seems very consistent with what we've gotten since the New 52.  What I mean is this is yet another version of the same character they can't seem to figure out.  DC did Hawkman a huge disservice in the New 52.  Totally changed him, then didn't like what they did, so they changed him again.  And again.  And again.  But, as the title of this collection says, it's all about his death, which is a good thing, if you ask me.  Hawkman always comes back, reincarnated.  I hope when they bring him back again, they'll bring him back to basics, not this over designed, under thought out claptrap.

Adam Strange is also following that inconsistent path.  While he's mostly like the New 52 version, he's kind of not.  But they're bringing him back closer to the true Adam Strange.

This was a fun mini-series.  Marc Andreyko writes a great buddy book, if you can call this that.  I hope DC lets him continue on and write more of these two characters.  He seems to have a feel for them.

Death Of Hawkman

Writer: Marc Andreyko

Artist: Aaron Lopresti, Rodney Buchemi, John Livesay, Norm Rapmund Sean Parsons

DC Comics