Since Long Box Review Fridays are taken up with Retro Reviews for a few more weeks (at least), I’ve decided to combine my August 18 comics pull list reviews with today’s new comics list.
First, my comics coming out today:
- Birds of Prey #5
- Brightest Day #10
- DC Universe: Legacies #5
- Unwritten #17
- Zatanna #5
Brightest Day #8: I am really liking Finch’s covers. Although, while this one looks really good, it’s also too cheesecake. Hawkgirl is supposed to be striking a fighting stance, but she looks like she’s just posing that cute butt. Interesting side-note: when I first saw this cover I immediately thought it was Kendra. I don’t know how long Kendra was around, but long enough that she impressed upon me that she was Hawkgirl and not Shiera.
The J’onn J’onzz story is really anticlimactic. We all know already that another green Martian is on Earth, so J’onn’s realization of the same thing has no impact, plus it takes up several pages. His upcoming confrontation with Green Arrow ought to be interesting.
The Hawkman/Girl (is she Hawkgirl or Hawkwoman? The cover says Girl, but would Shiera really go by Hawkgirl? That doesn’t make sense to me.) story takes up the bulk of the issue. We’re given a few more tidbits of the history of Hawkworld, and then we get the “big” reveal that the bloodthirsty queen is none other than Shiera’s mom. Her mom? Really? When did this become a soap opera? I was okay with this s l o w going story until that. I do like the art of this story though. I’m not familiar enough with these artists’ work to know who is doing the work though.
DC Universe: Legacies #4: I was looking forward to this issue because of the focus on the sidekicks, the New Teen Titans in particular. One thing struck me though at the start of the story. The narrator, the older Paul, makes mention of the few Golden Age sidekicks, and then says, “The Star Spangled Kid had Stripe–well, the less said about that the better.” Huh? What is that all about? Since we’ve already passed the Golden Age, will I ever get the answer? Oh, and UGH!, here’s the Royal Flush Gang in this comic as well (see my Zatanna #4 review).
We’re also shown the modern version of the “Flash of Two Worlds” story that kicked off the Silver Age. Is it just me or does that story lose a little luster since it’s not about Flashes of two different, but parallel worlds? Wein explains it well enough (Jay Garrick comes out of retirement because he’s inspired by his younger namesake), but it falls a little flat to me.
More important in this issue is the second story where we are actually shown the death of Sgt. Rock. I’m not sure why, but that had an effect on me. I was surprised mostly that DC would actually show that, though I’m not sure why. It’s not as if Sgt. Rock has had any significant impact on the DCU in the last 25 years or so (or me personally–I was never a big fan of the character), but to see his death shown in such finality just struck a nerve, I suppose.
Of the two limited series, Brightest Day is definitely the better of the two.
Longbox Review 