Dirk Daring #9

The NCAA Men’s Basketball Final Four was in Houston this year. We at Ret-Conned HQ aren’t big basketball fans, but it was hard to escape it.

Back before Blackest Night started when Sodam Yat entered Daxam’s sun, thereby saving Daxam from the Sinestro Corps, Alan Moore started making claims about how DC and the Green Lantern writers (ie. Geoff Johns) were stealing his work. See, back when Moore wrote some stories for Green Lantern, he created Sodam Yat and introduced a prophesy to the Green Lantern Corps mythos about the importance of Sodam Yat in relation to the Blackest Night. Of course, Moore had no concept of what the Blackest Night was or at least never publicly did anything about it. Years later now that Johns was writing the Blackest Night and made Sodam Yat’s prophesy come true, he was now “stealing” from Alan Moore. Kris has a theory that Moore’s accusation kind of pissed Geoff Johns off and he’s now made it a personal mission to undue Moore’s work. This would explain Swamp Thing’s appearance in Brightest Day especially since Brightest Day looks like Swamp Thing will revert back to being Alex Holland turned into a plant monster (the original origin story) from the sentient trees created plant monster that happened to have Alex Holland’s memories (Moore’s altered origin). If our theory is true, we expect that Flashpoint will result in the destruction of the League of Extraordinary Gentlemen and Johns will soon announce his next project is Watchmen 2.

Back when Brightest Day Aftermath was first announced, I commented about how it was interesting that it was being written by a former Vertigo editor. Now with the end of Brightest Day #23, that choice is becoming more clear. DC announced today that the full name of the comic is Brightest Day Aftermath: The Search for Swamp Thing. Vankin was the editor for the most recent volume of Swamp Thing that Vertigo did, so is probably the most qualified to write a story reintroducing the character that hasn’t been seen in six years.

Travis, what’s on your pull list?

• Axe Cop: Bad Guy Earth #2 - It’s Axe Cop plus more Bad Guys. The body count is unimaginatively high and awesome.
• Batman Beyond #4 - This issue starts a new arc and seems to be focusing on Max, who was my favorite in the TV series anyway.
• Daomu #3
• Secret Six #32 - Interesting twist to why Ragdoll is doing what he’s doing. Catman side story was predictably going where I thought it would.

Kris, what’s on your pull list?

• Batman Beyond #4 - A good story, but the attempted inclusion of Batman, Inc. just show how this book needs to be separate from the DC continuity.
• Brightest Day #23 - Does anyone else think Swamp Thing was a completely random character to bring in? If there were hints, maybe it would be better, but this feels totally out of left field.
• Doom Patrol #21 - Everybody is going to die, THAT’S how you deal with your book being cancelled.
• Freedom Fighters #8 - Or you can just make them lose their job because of the economy.
• Justice League of America 80-Page Giant 2011 - The best 80 page I’ve read. It was unique and topical.
• JSA All-Stars #17 - I’m really sad this book is being cancelled, it’s 10x better than JSA.
• Secret Six #32 - I love this group, but the story seems a little disjointed.
• Superman/Batman Annual #5 - What?! I hate James Robinson.