Wonder Girl one shot and Superman 707

Nicola Scott gives Cassie a really wide face.  Almost aquiline.  I like it, but it's always surprising to see it.  More surprising is that Scott isn't the inside artist.  Some pencils seem a bit off but the colouring on this si great.

Even more surprising is that this isn't a bad issue, at all.  After seeing the previews - basically of Cassie's mum being horrible to her - I expected the worst.  But I like Cass, so I bought it anyway.

It turned out to introduce a new heroine - Solstice, who's an Indian girl clad in sunlight and gold clothing, whose parents know she is a superhero.  I want to read more about Solstice.  The issue ended with Cass and her mother hugging, which was pretty adorable.

I don't think this issue will change anything, it didn't reveal anything major (as I don't expect DC to do much with Solstice, although I fervently wish they do), it didn't explain or link to the Wonder Woman but it turned out to be good enough.

As for Superman, this title was not as dull as earlier ones, but not as good as last the issue.  First there lots (and I mean lots) of exposition.  Then Superman fails to be Super in any way and is actually rather rubbish, then he's mean to Lois.  Then we find out he's being mind controlled, then the Superman Squad turn up.

I can't help noticing there's a lot not-white characters being introduced this week.  Are DC paying attention?  Are they making their books more diverse?  I hope so, because the Superman Squad is the only bit of this book I'm really interested in.  Well, that and the ass whupping Lois is going to give Clark when he gets his mind back.

Superhero sign names

Continuing on from my previous post, I give you more ideas of what sign names I would give the various superheroes.  I've also now edited the previous post to give pictures of each hero.  Makes more sense that way.

Regarding Guy Gardner, I've now decided that Guy's sign name should be linked to his lapels, as that is a very distinctive jacket he's wearing.  I do believe no other GL has a uniform quite like it.

How about Power Girl?

It would be the shape of the boob window.  No question.

As for her civilian name, a pun on Starr seems easy, so the sign for star then, whilst you lipspeak her first name.

As for the Wonder family.  Take Wonder Woman:

Before I said you'd just sign Wonder+Woman.  But to make it an actual sign name, you could trace the W shape on your chest and lipspeak either Diana, Wondy, or Wonder Woman.

For Donna Troy:

Again, easy.  Do the sign for sparkle all over your torso and lipspeak Donna.

For Wonder Girl (Cassie) I think it would very much depend on her outfit.  For an early version of her costume:

Whether she's wearing her blond hair short or she's wearing a wig, the goggles are a mainstay.  So let's make the sign for goggles (either on her forehead or her eyes), and lipspeak Wonder Girl or Cassie.

That's all for today's lessons, I'll be back in a few weeks with more!

Comic Reviews, GL quiz, Scans Daily, and the BBF

This week was a light week for comics, I only got 2, Teen Titans 68 and Superman 685. Onto the reviews:

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. Teen Titans 68
My first read through of this occurred whilst drunk so my memories were hazy, but I had a distinct feeling of pleasure. On a second sober read through I confirmed that it's a pretty good issue. the focus was all on Eddie, now back to being human, with Kid Eternity at his side. we learn more about Eddie's contract with Neron, specifically that it is unsigned and so void,a dn that all neron did was unlock Eddie's own metagene.

This then begs the questions of why Eddie was temtped by a second devil, Blaze. If the power is within him it would make more sense for him to go to STAR labs and get tested to find out a way to activate the metagene again, rather than get powers back via a soul selling contract.

I was rather dissapointed with Eddie's civilian clothes. Baggy skater shorts and an oversize vest makes him look like a right pillock. And that baseball cap, ugh. Get him back to demon form asap, please.

It's good to see Bombshell is joining the team. They've really been through hell over the last year or so haven't they? I really liked the panels showing 3 different incarnations of the Teen Titans, and the reference and lead in to the Dark Side Club is way overdue. Hopefully that will get sorted next issue.

The future peeks look interesting. I see Ravager still has a beef with Cassie. It appears that Cassie and Jaime are gonna have a moment - I wonder how long it will be before the internet or her mates start accusing her of sleeping round the team? We see Eddie as a dessicated corpse - my guess is this is showing him leaving his human body behind to become a full fledged devil.
And we see Bart's costume!!! :D :D :D :D :D

Superman 685
Fabulous cover:


Mon El is saved. Ace. I've been looking forward to reading more about him, and now he's gonna be looking after Metropolis is Supes' absence. He's also drawn pretty engagingly. I like his new identity of Jonathan Kent, but am wondering how many cousins Clark is going to claim. Kara, Connor and now Jonathan? Won't people start to wonder why they haven't heard of any of these before? And how did they explain away Christopher Kent? Was that a 'foster' arrangement?

My only complaint about this issue is how Lois reacted to Clark saying he was going to New Krypton. I know he has a job to do, I know she knows it, but I cannot believe that someone so deeply in love with another would let him go so easily.

Onto other stories.
Scans Daily has been taken down. Bastards. So a bunch of users have moved to Insane Journal. I say pshaw to copyright infringement. Sites such as SD promote comics and I do not believe lead to the creators or the companies losing out on cash.

For the GL fans out there, a quiz: What Lantern Corps are you? I'm a Green Lantern :D Surprisingly enough, that news pleases me.

I found this interesting article about Hollywood and the Black Best Friend role in moves. I don't think it's progressive, I think it's typecasting, but typecasting of a race not of an individual. Rubbish.

Quick edit: Have a gander at this post about Fan delusion. I'm loving the Fandelusion Pony! (And I get to feel slightly smug because I get the joke, oh the benefits of being a horsey youngster)

It’s been a while but I’ve been busy

So here’s two weeks of comics reviews. Spoilers ahead for:
Buffy #19
Teen Titans #65
Superman & Batman vs Vampires and Werewolves (try typing that with a bad W key)
Superman # 682
Terror Titans #3
Terra #3
Superman/Supergirl Maelstrom #3
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Buffy the Vampire Slayer #19
Evil future Willow has set up Buffy and Faith to fight each other. Also features Fray’s cop sister.
This has lots of Fray future speak, which I like, and can’t quite see why Buffy had such a problem with when she first arrived. It’s perfectly understandable to me. Willow has been lying to Fray, Fray’s brother and Buffy about what will happen when Buffy both arrives in future land and when she leaves for our present day. This turns out to be a long winded ploy to get Buffy to kill Willow. And she does. She murders her best friend, and she does it easily and swiftly because she knows it is what is needed. It’s a clear cut decision. This doesn’t mean she isn’t sorry about it, she is, but she’s a warrior and she’s tough as nails and she does what needs to be done.
This reminds me of Wonder Woman killing Max Lord. Same reasons, carried out in a similar fashion.
Poor Buffy.

Teen Titans #65
Cassie kicks back and beats her crazy nephew (Lycus). I’m not quite sure how she did this. We saw crazy nephew choking her and then her eyes went starry, next thing we know, she’s got a new costume, she’s awake, she’s found her own power and she’s winning. I hope how this happened will be explored satisfactorily later. Her new costume looks pretty darn good, and mature, except….the gold W looks like it’s made of metal, so how’s she moving her arms? They should be clamped to her side..
Bombshell blows up the dog from inside him! Way to go. Violent, icky and messy but she keeps her cool and is hard as. Loving her. But I hope they are not gonna try and make her a Rose substitute, what with the snarking at Cassie. There’s room for two tough as hardcore morally wobbly super powered teenage women on the Teen Titans.
(And despite the previous sentence they aren't clones of each other, but they do have similarities)

Superman & Batman vs Vampires and Werewolves # 4
It’s got Ollie in it. J I like this issue. Far better than the last one. We see a kid turned vampire who hasn’t descended to drinking blood yet and we learn where the Vampires & Werewolves came from. Then Etrigan is summoned and starts rhyming, in a non annoying way. The art is lovely and murky too.
So far so good.

Superman #682
Ok so I do like this New Krypton cover.
Bizzarro mourns Pa Kent. Kryptonians are idiots, and as some other astute blogger observed, (who exactly I can’t remember, if anyone knows please tell me and I’ll credit them) if they are going to go to the trouble of locking up Supe’s enemies, they really should have put Lex out of action first.
I’m surprised Kara went along with her folks requests. I thought she had more mind than that. Renato Guedes draws an awesome Silver Banshee.
That page is just so colourful, so sunny and bright, (and Kara's wearing pants!)

Superman/Supergirl Maelstrom #3
God Superman is a dick. I am completely with Kara here. He is acting like her father, and a very short tempered dictatorial father at that. They’re cousins, she should be treated as an equal human being, not as someone of lower status who should be deferential to the mighty Kal.
Teaching her not to be reliant on her powers is a good thing, but taking them to a hostile planet with a red sun where they could be killed by all the aggressive attacking wildlife is not a good thing. It’s a stupid stupid thing. And arrogant. What if they were to die? What would their loved ones back home do? What would it do to Lois if they were to die off planet where (presumably) no one knows where they are?
And Kara's origin? Rocketed from Krypton as it exploded? I thought her last issue fixed it so she rocketed from a bubblised Argo City after a rampaging Brainiac was set on destroying it? And I got the impression this was Argo City after it had separated from Krypton and Krypton had exploded? Did I misunderstand?

The cover is beautiful though, especially Kara.

Terror Titans # 3
Well Rose won her match against Aquagirl, and I’m sure she’ll win against Static. Whoever the hell he is. I’m still appreciating the art (women with muscles!). Terry (a bad guy whose code name I’ve forgotten) fused his Dad into a wall. You can see the horror and the anger.

Terra #3
Still good fun. I’m loving the under earth civilisations. It seems that Terra, or Atlea, is not a simple clone of the previous Terra and I think it works. No Peej in this issue, sadly. The art is still looking gorgeous though, and Terra’s outfit is brilliant.

JSA: Ghost Stories
Trade paperback, incorporating ‘Ghost in the House’ and then the first 5 issues from 1 year later. I did enjoy this - the Gentleman Ghost flashback sequences are beautifully rendered. The rest of the art, pencilled by George Perez, Rags Morales and Jerry Ordway, I did not like. The story was fun, but I think may have bored me if I’d read it as a floppy monthly title.
Finding out Wildcat comes from English nobility tickled me. I was cringing through the fight sequences in London, at Buckingham Palace, the Tower of London and possibly Westminster Cathedral, cringing because I was thinking you can’t fight there, you’ll destroy our national treasures!
That’ll be the first patriotic thought I’ve ever had.

Monster Comic buying session part 1

I got my Nightwing figure! It's very cool :D Although the slots at the back where her wings fit in and not level :( Oh well, it's still pretty awesome :)

I've bought a ridiculous amount of comics recently. Orbital comics in London has loads of 50p back issue comics, (it's also where I got my figure from), and Forbidden Planet does a grab bag of 5 back issues for a quid. You can only see what two of them are and the second time round I did end up with duplicates but it's still a bargain. I may now attempt a super short collection of thoughts of each comic. I won't say review. Team ups first, then individual books, then Infinte Crisis tie ins. Then non DC books.

Justice Society of America \2: Nice. Features Kingdom Come Superman. I'm thinking of picking up the title on a regular basis now. Previously I haven't gone near it cos all the JSA heroes except Power Girl have bored me senseless. I am ready to concede I may be wrong.
JSA Strange Adventures \5: I remember enjoying this. And the cover art is great. And it's got Hawkgirl. Thumbs up.

Justice League New Frontier special \1: Lovely art. Didn't really like Superman in this. Liked Black Canary and Wonder Woman in the strip club, even if Diana did come across a bit mental. Dinah's reactions to her and the situation were great though.

JLA \67: I do have a soft spot for this run.

Teen Titans\57: An issue devoted to Rose, my favourite of the titans, hurrah! I must get the 5 or 6 issues I've missed of this.
Teen Titans Year 1 \1 to 3: Oh poor aqualad, he's rather pathetic isn't he? I like this mini. A lot.
Titans \1: Yes so it's Michael Churchill's art and it's pornface all over, and Supergirl and Wonder girl are clones of each other, but the story is good. What's everyone's beef ??

Green Arrow/Black Canary \6 and 7: Oh hell yeah. I love these two. And I like Judd Winick's writing. Oh Ollie, you're such a twat, you didn’t' check the aliens. *shakes head*
Green Arrow \48: Dire.

Brave and the Bold \10: Oh Robin and Wally, you’re so mean to Aqualad.

Wonder Girl \1: Oh I'm definitely getting the trade of this. Oh yes.

Black Adam \2: The end of 52 promised a better book than this. And the cover is lame. But hey, Black Adam's back!

Batman Legends vol 2 \2: A British reprint of stories from ASBAR, (Ninja) Man Bats of London and Superman/Batman Public Enemies. Hey, it's the goddamn Batman, what can I say, I love it!

Robin Annual \7: Shiny. The bat family has always interested me more than batman himself, and this was an enjoyable read. The festival of the hungry ghosts story was the best even though I know fuck all about Damian. Maybe that's why?

Superman \661: Tagline on the cover reads - (Khyrana) 'No one can stop Khyrana, Superman--no one!' (Wonder Woman) 'OH?'. The boyfriend finds this funny in an American comics are really utter dross way (he's a manga snob). I find it funny in a cheesy overly dramatic way. Lois was acting rather jealous in this though. Is that a normal part of her characterisation recently?
All Star Superman \10: Definitely not as awesome as I'd been led to believe. I will not be rushing to pick the hardback of this anymore.
Superman \185: Gorgeous cover. Really enjoyable read, although Superman getting snarky with villains does always seem a bit contrived. Like the writers are trying to move away from the gentle boy scout image, it's not always handled very well and this issue is an example of that I think.
Superman \207: Can't remember a thing about this..
Action Comics \10: Yay! I especially liked the terrible editing job. In the Criminals of Krypton we find out why the ugly silent one - Non - of the Zod + Ursa group is so grunty. Turn the page and Superman's Top 10 Most Wanted reads Non’s fall from grace and current condition remains a mystery. Err, no it doesn't!
Superman The Man of Tomorrow \ 13 and 26: Mulletman. Rubbish.
Superman The Day the Earth Died \658: The start of the Camelot Falls saga. Oh I want to read it all.

Supergirl \28 : we’ve finally had a run of several decent issues! And good art, thank god!

Nightwing \137: Not good as an intro to the Nightwing books.

Plastic Man \9: New, refreshing funny. I'm amazed I like a Plastic Man title.

Aquaman \48: Oh my god this was brilliant. Have they put this into trades? Must get all back issues. And the art is simply lovely.

Booster Gold \1: 52 pick up. Great! Booster's a brilliant character, a bit of an arrogant cocky jerk but he generally does the right thing. I'm now gonna be getting this one regularly. \8 also followed on pretty well.

Countdown to Mystery \2: Well it's nice and shiny and flicking through it I can see it features the Spectre and a guilty Plastic Man but for the life of me I can't remember any details.

Countdown to Adventure \3: Oh I like this. Go Starfire. I liked how the 3 way relationship between Starfire, Animal Man and his wife was handled.

Infinite Crisis aftermath The Spectre \2: and Tales of the Unexpected featuring The Spectre \1-4: I think I've got the individual stories of these mixed up. I wasn't aware of this new incarnation of the Spectre and it has piqued my curiosity. the Dr 13 stories at the back of tales of the unexpected were far superior though. Mad and very very funny.

Checkmate \15: Did I even read this?

Showcase \1: Cyborg, Blue Devil, Catwoman: I did not care for Catwoman. I think they may have wanted to make her more edgy and mean and 90s. The Blue Devil story was entertaining, the Cyborg one was a good opener but without the follow on issues I've lost interest. Overall, rather forgettable.
Blue Devil \22: From 1986. Funny, a keeper.

Midnighter \14: Do not care for. I picked it up cos I thought Midnighter was a gay superhero and I'd heard interesting things about it. But it didn't grab me. Maybe it will on a future re-read.

Serenity Better Days \2: Of course I like, how could I not?

Buffy \13: Not as good as last issue. Loved the Xander/Dracula dialogue though.

Wolverine \58: Wolverine is one of the few Marvel characters I care for. This was ok; I’m a sucker for random religious/spiritual experiences so this drew me right in. And of course it’s got Doctor Strange in it, who rules. However, do they really think that their audience needs the word anagram explained?

X-Man \49: Fucking shite. oh Marvel you suck.

And then there's the Impulse run as well. And more 52 spin offs. And 5 of a kind books. And Empowered. And Superman 3,2,1 action. And probably even more. *Sigh*