Black Canary

I bought this new Black Canary figure today. She's got amazing articulation. Her feet are jointed and there are turning points on her legs and arms along with the hinged joints for knees and elbows. The only thing that doesn't seem to move is her head, which is disappointing, but she's otherwise very posable. You can see she has a joint under her boobs (I use that word to help my search referrals) so she can lean back or a bit forward. Her feet really aren't weighted, so it can take a bit to get her balanced enough to stand on her own, but it is doable. Next week, I plan to get the Green Arrow from this set and maybe Wildcat. Payday isn't until Friday, so I couldn't get more than the one today.

Black Canary Times 3

I picked up the new JLI Black Canary figure today and couldn't resist doing this shot of my 3 Black Canary figures. The one on the right is still my favorite.

I have a stack of comics ready to review and bigger stacks of comics to read. I'll get to them all, eventually.

First Impressions

Nasty weather kept me from getting my comics til today. Here's what I thought of the first ones I read.


Green Arrow and Black Canary 15
The new creative team takes over and I hope they're using aliases. Seriously. This issue makes Judd's run look positively brilliant. The long arc Judd wrote might've been a bit overblown and it might've suffered from the worst of his excesses, but damn it, the story moved. And, another plus, it was actually, a story, with chapters and all. This wasn't a story.

So, maybe you could say, it's a character study. Those can be wonderful. I loved the Justice League with Roy and Mari trapped underwater in a collapsed building. That was tight, tense, even claustrophobic with its complementary art. This GABC issue had none of that. It was nothing more than an excuse to rehash Ollie's history, and not a very good excuse at that. Dinah trapped by a goon with a knife at her throat? Ha! While Ollie lines up the shot to rescue her? Ha! All I could think is that Dinah just stood there willing to give Ollie the chance to play hero, because the Dinah we've come to know and love could kick that goon's butt before he could kill her. She's a top martial artist. Sure, I'll buy that she had an off moment and got grabbed. We all have bad days. But Dinah is cool and calm and knows how to break that hold. And on top of all that, nothing happens, or rather, nothing new happens. There's no new revelations or understanding that comes out of this, other than letting us know that Mia and Connor likely won't be around for a while, effectively removing the only true supporting cast this book has had.

The art was okay, nothing to get excited about, just average. If this is the quality of the book from now on, I might have to drop it. Damn.

Conversely, in Justice League of America 27, Dinah sticks it to Supes, Bats, and Wonder Woman for meeting secretly behind her back. McDuffie has finally hit his stride with this book. There's some strong interaction going on and an intriguing group of costumed metas called the Shadow Cabinet to deal with. They might not be as entertaining as the Secret Six, but they have possibilities. And it looks like trouble in paradise where Roy and Kendra are concerned. A lot was going on in this book, which was beautifully illoed by Ed Benes.

Then we come to another WTF comic, Titans 8, where Judd Winick seems to be overindulging even more than he did in GABC. Jericho was never on my list of characters I love reading about, and now he's just plain insufferable. However, the cliffhanger ending is intriguing enough for me to want to pick up the next issue. Damn it.

Trinity 28
We're nicely past the half-year mark on this book and it's a real hoot. The alternate versions of well-known characters are just plain fun, especially Richie Grayson and Pulitzer-mad Lois Lane.

More later. I've got what look to be good reads waiting.

Barbie Black Canary

I tried to leave this comment over at Blogs@Newsrama, but it wouldn't publish, so I'm posting it here. The subject is the controversy over the upcoming Black Canary Barbie collectors doll.

I think some people look for things to complain about, even if they have to create the problem. Black Canary looks like that. It's a nice doll. It's for adult collectors, but I have no problem with teens and pre-teens owning her.

Impossible proportions? Barbies are almost realistic next to Bratz dolls that have been giving Barbie and Mattel a run for their money.

There are far worse things out there, in ads, etc., that promote things that can harm girls re: body image (boys, too) than Barbie. I grew up with Barbie (still have my Midge and Allan from the '60s) and I knew I didn't have to look like her. It was the comparison of breast size in school and camp locker rooms with my peers that was far more harmful.

She's a lovely doll. And I happen to love fishnets. They're very flattering. I just can't wear them anymore because I keep tearing them.

Comic Goodness

Suicide Squad 6
Double crosses! Triple crosses! Intrigue and backstabbing! And someone dares go against Amanda Waller! This book has it all! I continue to be entertained by this.

Green Arrow and Black Canary 5
I rarely buy both when there are alternate covers, but I did this time because I couldn't choose between them. I just don't understand why the art credits on the covers don't match with the credits inside and the Conner cover has the interior artist, Andre Coelho (who did a decent job) under Winick's name on the cover and is clearly signed by her and the other cover has Conner's name on it and clearly isn't her work, nor is her work inside, because, duh, that's Coelho. And that cover is signed by Chiang. The interior credits list covers by Cliff Chiang and Amanda Conner, with David Baron (who also did colors). Did anyone else notice this and was anyone else confused by it?

Anyway, there was a story inside, and Winick is clearly messing with our minds now. The Conner "death" story is anything but so far, with Conner the target or lure for Ollie in a deadly game of cat and mouse. Much of the issue was flashback to how Ollie and Conner's mother, Sandra Hawke, hooked up and straightened out some of the continuity confusion and maybe now people will remember who she is and when Ollie got her pregnant. We got to see Conner as a boy and not a very well behaved one at that. Ollie and Dinah finally get married for real and then there's the cliffhanger when a mindwiped, catatonic Conner is kidnapped. I am definitely enjoying the ride Winick is taking us on and think this is some of his best work.

Booster Gold 0
I read Zero Hour and Hal as Parallax years after the fact, so a lot of this didn't resonate with me as much as it could have. However, it was fun to see Michael and Ted resume their friendship and the Blue Beetles interact, though I am not trusting the future Blue Beetle for some reason. He's an unknown quantity to us and with all the weirdness and varied baddies in this book, we don't know enough about him to know he's above reproach. How this all will end up, whether or not Ted will get to stay alive or end up making the ultimate sacrifice once again, it is one rollicking adventure.

Countdown to Final Crisis 11
More gathering of the players to Apokolips. Harley and Holly, with Mary, have become as entertaining a team as Piper and Trickster while Trickster was still alive. Jason seems to have gotten a bit stuck up since his encounter with the Earth 51 Batman. I'm still hopeful of a boffo (does anyone still use that word?) ending.

Wonder Woman 17
As I'd figured, Gail Simone pulled all the elements of her story together for a solid conclusion, while enhancing Diana's origin. And I'm still not sure where this fits into the current continuity, though I'm thinking between Amazon War and before Countdown.

Simon Dark 5
I'm really enjoying this odd, quirky book, and it seems not everyone is what he or she seems. When Simon discovers that his kitty can't be revived by having its head sewn back on (really, that isn't as bizarre, in context, as it sounds out of context), it was an honest, poignant moment. There is serious evil afoot in this book, in Gotham, yet there is also an endearing innocence, too. I like seeing something different being done within the regular DCU continuity.

Black Canary

Posting a quick update before going to bed.

I had commissioned a talented artisan named Thelma DeMet to make a skirt for the Alex Ross Black Canary figure and I picked up the newly redressed figure at the miniatures show yesterday. The skirt, wristband, and bracelet are glued on. Doesn't she look lovely? Okay, and more kickass than ever.

Meanwhile, I'd read the latest Wizard on the train ride to Philadelphia and it was the same old same old inside. So, it was just that one alternate cover that was a ploy for male readers. Nothing that bothered me since I had other covers to choose from.

I'm Annoyed

Actually, I'm pissed, but that looked too weird in the title spot. And the cause of it all is Judd "What the hell does he think he's doing?" Winick.

For the record, I still don't have a problem with the Wedding Special. And like Sally, I can rationalize and/or forgive a lot. My suspension of disbelief is great. I'm a reader who happily falls into a story and the writer has to push me out. No need to coax me in. I'm there, baby. Which is why things I've been reading about JW are all the more troubling. I am starting to feel betrayed.

According to Sally, in an interview I think I won't be reading in deference to my blood pressure (which is normal and I'd like to keep it there), Winick actually planned to kill Dinah, before settling on Ollie. Up to this point, I was readily accepting that, as you regular readers will recall, Dinah couldn't take Ollie down any other way. A plot device to spur on the new series, to be sure, but okay, I was willing to play along. No more.

Because I'm getting the feeling Winick has told us two important things about himself. He's a jerk, and he thinks we're idiots.

...

Okay, I lied. I went and read the interview. And you know what? My blood pressure is still normal. I just can't figure out what or whose side I am on this. The only thing I know for sure is that Winick's writing can't support his ideas. His execution, pardon any pun there, falls short of the goal line. It stinks, to be blunt.

Here's what he said:

"Yeah. We all came to the same conclusion around the same time, that it was going to be her, but it just became such a more interesting dynamic when it was Ollie who got it in the end. Ollie killing Black Canary and then hunting for the truth – there was something about it that didn’t feel right to me, and when Dan and Mike and I were talking, we came to the conclusion that we wanted Black Canary to carry the story forward from there. Dinah losing Ollie felt like a different kind of terrible than Ollie losing Dinah.

And I kind of wanted to start the book from Black Canary’s perspective, and this was the best way to do it. It wasn’t a small decision – it was just “are we going to get their by land or by sea?” Different things, but we decided to go by sea, instead of by land."

On the face of it, it's pro-Dinah. It makes it sound as if he wanted to use her, the female character, to move things forward, rather than the guy. That should be a good thing. But his execution, the way Ollie dies, hinders rather than helps the cause. Losing Ollie was one thing; killing him and doing it the way she did, is quite another. If she'd struck a blow to the side of his head and he died, that would've been more fitting. But there wouldn't have been blood that way.

So, I'm going to get and read GA/BC. I'll go along with this for now. And I'll be wishing a better writer was at the helm, because a better writer could've done something great with this story idea. Someone like Gail Simone, perhaps, if such a plot appealed to her. Or Will Pfeifer, if he wrote it in the style of his Catwoman stories and not his Amazons Attack story.

I don't have time to try this myself right now, but it could be an interesting meme. Given the background, what they (writer and editor and head honchos) hoped to accomplish, how would you have handled it?

Or better, how would you have started the new series? What kind of bang would you have used, instead of killing one half of the couple in question? It's something I'm going to be thinking about as I read the opening arc.

But I'm still peeved. Because I feel like I'm being played. And that's something I don't take kindly to. But you know, as bad as Winick might be as a writer, for me, he has never written anything as insipid as Jodi Picoult's arc on Wonder Woman.

More on the Wedding Special, Spoilers

Notintheface has an interesting idea re: Ollie's apparent brainwashing. Now, I didn't know about these hypos, or if I did, I completely forgot. *sigh* However, I'm not convinced it was Ollie, mostly because of the solicits for the upcoming Green Arrow/Black Canary series. Before seeing the Wedding Special, I'd thought that with Connor being the Green Arrow first seen in the new series, that meant that Ollie was missing. And that idea has stuck with me. However, I can see this going in any number of directions now.

I want to enjoy the new series. I've always liked Ollie and Dinah together, simply because in the right hands, they've always been fun as a couple, especially when they were arguing. Ollie is flawed, no doubt about it, and Dinah's one of the few women strong enough to put up with him without losing herself to him.

Judd Winick is not one of my favorite writers. He's got great ideas and is good with character. He's always shown an understanding for Ollie and Roy's relationship and he's done a nice job with Roy over the years, especially in The Outsiders. But too many times, the seams show. Too many times, you can see the plotting because what we get is plot convenience.

So, yeah, everyone who's pointed out (in too many blogs for me to go back and find the links) that Dinah could've taken Ollie down easier without needing to resort to an arrow through his neck has a valid argument, even if I can also see that Dinah wasn't mentally prepared, couldn't get proper leverage, and her instinct at that moment was to go for the kill. Would Ollie unconscious from a blow to his temple from her hand, for ex, been as dramatic as that arrow? I don't know. But we do know he's not getting up and walking around in GA/BC 1, and it's clear Judd wanted Ollie/? either dead or incapacitated for the start of the new series. Was that the only way to achieve it?

There are only so many writers out there and a lot of books these days. The top tier, the ones we as individuals wish could write all our favorite comics, are really not able to do that. And because of the need to use many writers, consistency, in characterization as much as background details, can get muddied quickly. Even editors, apparently, can't keep up. Or we wouldn't have had the minor errors Tony Bedard made in a recent BoP. It's the difference between a self-righteous Ollie as written by Denny O'Neill back in the day and the pompous ass written by many others after (not counting Mike Grell who did a good job with him). And a writer might work for us on one book or with one set of characters and not another. And we all get disappointed by different things.

The Wedding Special, until that final scene, was clearly meant to be funny, on an almost slapstick level. And so, we have Dinah freaking out trying to retrieve her ring and trying to knee Deathstroke in the balls even though she more likely would've ignored the ring to bring down the baddies and she knows Deathstroke well enough to know he protects that area of vulnerability. The thing is, the book made me laugh, and that's as much thanks to Amanda Connor's fun art as to what Judd Winick wrote. I really didn't think I was supposed to take the details too seriously, especially since, with so many writers and artists handling various aspects of the marriage storyline, all the pieces didn't line up, at least not as well as I would have liked.

We all have the little things we like to rant and complain about. I can do an entire rant on how long Roy's hair should be. And we all have expectations of some sort, I think. I know that Gail Simone has done such a fantastic job writing Dinah that anything anyone else writes simply pales in comparison. So while I'm looking forward to what Sean McKeever can do with her, I'm also a bit nervous.

Then again, I didn't think anyone could do justice to Catwoman after Ed Brubaker left the book, but Will Pfeifer proved me wrong. And yet, he wasn't nearly as good with the Amazons. Which just supports my premise that no matter how good a writer is, they won't appeal to everybody, at least not all the time, and a writer can be great with one book or character and not another.

I want GA/BC to succeed, but I suspect that even if I enjoy it, it won't be one of my top books each month. And that's okay, as long as it's enjoyable.

Quite the Haul

On Talk Like a Pirate Day, Y'arrrr! I usually forget to do the pirate thing, not that I'm any good at it. But I did pick up lots of comics today. And got 3 read so far. Spoilers ahead, probably.

Countdown 32
Along with the GA/BC Wedding Special, which I'll review next, this contributes another batch of scenes to the extravaganza known as the DCU Wedding of the Year, not that there were any others really in contention. This one seems to fit better with the JLA Wedding Special, with a disruption of the bachelorette party that didn't seem to derail it much. Not much else happened here, other than Mary Marvel being reeled in by Eclipso. But there were fun scenes, mostly at the party, and any time Piper and Trickster are on screen, so to speak, they're good for a few laughs.

Green Arrow and Black Canary Wedding Special 1
Why these one-shots are getting numbered is beyond me. Anyway, I suspect I'm not supposed to like this if I want to keep my feminist cred or something, but since I never worry about things like that, I'll come right out and say it. I liked this a lot. Didn't love it, but I really enjoyed it.

This is pure camp, farce, something not to be taken completely seriously. The outrageous cover tells us that. I really wish Dinah had worn one of the lovely dresses from the Wedding Planner, but to be honest, this reworking of her costume better fits the tone of the book and worked well for the battle scene.

At this point, I should go on record that I'm a big fan of Amanda Conner's work. One, because she's got a style I pretty much always recognize before I see the credits, and two, because her art is pure fun. I first encountered it Codename: Knockout, a nice cheesecake/beefcake, lighthearted, zany look at spies and intrigue and that whole GOOD vs EVIL thing. And yet, the art on the first few pages here, which were flashback scenes, really evoked the original art. To me, it looked like the style changed subtly from panel to panel. Nice stuff.

The book was pretty funny, too. I hadn't realized Winick could be this funny. Dinah getting a hot and bothered Ollie to wait til they're married for sexual relations to resume was priceless. The reactions of folks getting the invitation was fun, too. Then we have more bachelorette party panels, and finally, the wedding. Which is where I got a bit confused trying to keep all the wedding-related stories straight. Didn't all hell break loose during the parties, which led to injuries, in the JLA Wedding Special?

So there's a big battle with the baddies, Dinah freaking as Roy loses her ring and it goes flying, Deathstroke claiming he just wants to kiss the bride, Batman showing up for the fight, Deathstroke escaping, and the assumption that the vows were exchanged, because we next see Dinah and Ollie in bed. I guess this is the spoiler part. Ollie goes glassy-eyed and tries to kill Dinah, and in desperation, she grabs an arrow and, well, who is that lying atop her with an arrow through his neck? And if someone was subbed for Ollie, did it occur before or after Ollie and Dinah exchanged vows? And if before, who did she end up marrying? Enquiring minds want to know! Oh, and what about those pics that Ollie was looking at? The ones that looked like they were from the wedding but included one of Wonder Woman breaking Max Lord's neck from the look of it. The new series promises to start with a bang.

Catwoman 71
A not unpredictable fake her and Helena's death for Selina (guess that's another spoiler), not unlike the recent faked death of Sin in the Black Canary mini, but here, Selina instigated it and there Dinah was kept in the dark. But if anyone hadn't guessed before the reveal that the nutjob with the bomb was Batman acting on Selina's request, I think you might be working with a more befuddled brain than I do most times. Because it was obvious to me. And almost as obvious, I fear and hope I'm wrong, is that Selina is going to give up Helena. BTW, while the art is nice, as usual, just how many teeth do David Lopez and Alvaro Lopez think toddlers have, anyway? On the next to last page, Helena seems to have almost a full set.