Brightest Day #15: Most of this issue was J’onn’s fantasy world created by D’kay. I found two things interesting in this: 1) the brutal ways in which J’onn’s JLA friends were “killed” and 2) Why did they show the pants-wearing version of Wonder Woman on the cover but the classic version inside? Was it just a miscommunication? Or someone’s big idea to, in some way, cross-promote? Why do you mess with my mind in this way, DC? As with most of the J’onn J’onzz stuff in this title, I’m less than whelmed with it, despite the fact that I love that character. But there’s nothing really interesting going on with his story here. I want more Aquaman and Dove!
Buffy, Season 8 #39: The penultimate issue. Umm, what? Giles is dead?! To make it worse (at least for Buffy), he was killed by the same vampire that killed Giles’s beloved Ms. Calendar in Season Two, and killed in the same way. Is that poetic or just lazy on Joss’s part? The ending did have me going “oh no he diuhnt!”. It appears that all magic has been removed from the world, so it’ll be interesting to see what happens next issue (the last of this season), not to mention how this will affect Season 9.
Irredeemable #20: Now that Plutonian is captured by those aliens, Survivor, the self-appointed leader of the Paradigm, announces how the superhumans left alive will help humanity rebuild their world and under the Paradigm’s watchful eye. Anyone see a point where Plutonian comes back to save the world from the Paradigm? I did wonder about the panel showing Max Damage as he watches Survivor make his announcement, and I thought, what does that mean for Max’s adventures in his own comic? For some reason, I kind of doubt it will even be mentioned. Interesting, too, was that Plutonian seems to be in a self-imposed catatonic state where he is dreaming that he has saved the world and the people love him again. When he wakes up will he strive to attain that dream, or just kill everything in sight?
Planetary: Spacetime Archaelogy (volume 4): Planetary is dead! Long live Planetary! I have loved this series from trade #1, and was so excited to finally get to read the rest of the series with volume 4. I enjoyed it very much as a completion to the overall story and the John Cassaday art was just beautiful, but (there’s always a “but” from me, isn’t there?) I just got a continuation of the confrontation between Snow and his crew and the Four and what I wanted more of was the kind of stories we got in the first two volumes. That’s not to say that the writing was at all bad–it wasn’t (though at times I felt like I was in a theoretical physics lecture hall). I tried very hard not be spoiled about this collection before I got it, and I wasn’t, but I did hear some people say that the final issue was unnecessary to the overall series. I agree that the series could have ended at issue 26 and that would have just been fine, but 27 was a nice little capstone for the series (even if a bit long winded with the science discussed therein). I’m glad I read the end to the series, but I will continue to pull out volumes 1 and 2 just for the pure delight of the stories in them. That, and how much I am in love with Jakita Wagner.
Longbox Review 