Reign on my Parade

The fifth issue of the Reign of Doomsday crossover came out this week, pitting Doomsday again Superboy. In Detroit. That should tell you just how bad it was. The whole storyline has been rather stupid, but the Superman/Batman issue at least had interesting layouts of the fight through the JLA Watchtower. This issue was mainly your basic grid with panels so small most of the time you couldn’t even tell what was going on in the fight. It worked out though, because Superboy was narrating it the whole time just in case you couldn’t figure it out. Doomsday shows up in Action #900 next and this will be the big test. Up to this point, the crossovers have primarily been written by writers that we don’t care for. How Paul Cornell handles this event will let us see if it’s the writing or the event we’ve been having issues with.

American Gods, the awesome novel by Neil Gaiman that depicts the struggle between the old, forgotten gods and new American gods, is going to become a new HBO series. This got announced just days before HBO’s other big book-turned-series A Game of Thrones has its premiere. With all of the buzz from Game of Thrones, I think that HBO has realized that the nerd crowd is a vast market of untapped potential. I’m sure this will be a long way in coming, but it’ll be something to keep an eye on.

It looks like that Zac Snyder’s Man of Steel will have Superman’s full origin from Krypton to adulthood on earth. It’s also rumored that the villainess in the movie will not be Ursa as originally expected but Faora. While that’s interesting, the thing I had not realized is that Ursa was introduced in the Superman II movie and was actually based on Faora, who had been in the comics for a long time previous. Ursa wasn’t introduced into comic continuity until 2007 when Geoff Johns collaborated with Richard Donner on Action Comics.

Travis, what’s on your pull list?

• Batgirl #10 - Batgirl and Proxy are starting to figure out how to work together. I love The Compact, Batgirl’s new Mini Cooper Batmobile.
• Birds of Prey #11 - One-shot break after the big Death of Oracle arc. While the story was interesting, it didn’t grab me all that much.
• Cinderella: Fables are Forever #3 - This was especially fun as we got to meet the Fables version of my personal favorite fable character. It’s hard to believe that this is the same writer who’s writing the drivel that is Superman.
• Red Robin #22 - This Azrael crossover is such crap. If they couldn’t wrap up his storyline before his book was canned, too bad.
• Unwritten #24 - This one off sees the return of Mr. Bun, the foul mouthed rabbit from the last critically-acclaimed one off. While he was an interesting character in the first story, I found this story to be less appealing. Who cares about these random characters, get back to Tommy!

Kris, what’s on your pull list?

• Adventure Comics #525 - The best issue of the Legion Academy so far. Levitz is really good at making character grow on me in a very short time.
• Batgirl #10 - Another great issue. Miller is building a great world around Batgirl, almost to the point that it makes other books seem shallow.
• Batman & Robin #22 - A fun end to a fun arc. I thought Tomasi was going to be on this book for the long haul, but Winnick picks it up next month. I relly hope Tomasi comes back.
• Birds of Prey #11 - I know Simone is supposed to be the advocate of women, or something, but this shows she either doesn’t have a high opinion of Huntress or just women in general.
• Booster Gold #43 - Jurgens is coming back. That’s all you really need to know. Jurgens should have never left. Booster is stepping into the big time and he needs his A game.
• Flash #10 - Remember when Geoff Johns focused on comics? He really good when he does that. I don’t know if it’s the pressure of his new position and the GL movie, but my hero has been letting me down. Hopefully with the bi-monthly Brightest Day ending and GL seemingly taking a break he can get back to form for Flashpoint.
• Justice League: Generation Lost #23 - The pacing on this book has been a little off, but it’s always been enjoyable. I’m sad to see it go and I hope it gets the proper send off in its final issue.
• The Outsiders #38 - Let’s just move on.
• R.E.B.E.L.S. #27 - This book is fun. That’s the best way to describe it.
• Red Robin #22 - This book really makes no sense. Another hint that DC is running low on good editors right now.
• Superboy #6 - Can we get Johns back on Superboy? Or maybe just let him be in Teen Titans? No, we have to put up with this?
• Superman #710 - Okay, now I’m just getting upset.
• T.H.U.N.D.E.R Agents #6 - Hey look, a good comic!
• Titans #34 - Nevermind…