DC Nation – 4/28/12

Welcome to this week’s installment of DC Nation.  Today’s episode of Green Lantern is titled “In Love and War.”  The Green Lanterns discover the Star Sapphires.  Today is the first episode of season two of Young Justice, which added Invasion to the title, and is titled “Happy New Year.”  It’s five years later, and the team discovers alien invaders.  The short segments include a profile of Blue Beetle (Jamie Reyes), a Super Best Friends Forever cartoon titled “Grounded,” and a new Mad cartoon titled “Teen Titanic.”  Once again, I imagine that I’ve spelled most of the things wrong in the Green Lantern episode.  I’ll fix it when I can find the correct spellings.

Green Lantern:  The Animated Series – “In Love and War”
Kilowog is feeling down about leaving Galia behind.  Hal is trying to cheer him up when Aya alerts them that there is something 20 seconds away.  It turns out that this thing is a giant space monster.  They are aided by two Star Saphires, named Acapo, Gyita.  They offer the Lanterns rest and repairs on their home planet of Zamaron.  Acapo looks into Kilowog, and sees he’s suffering from a broken heart.  A Star Sapphire ring goes to Galia.  Acapo tells Hal that they used to be with the Guardians, long ago, but they disagreed with the Guardians about the role of emotions.  The Sapphires believed that only love could heal the universe.  Gyita takes Hal on a tour, but he brushes her advances off.  Kilowog runs into Galia.  He asks how she got here, but she tells him to hush, and that she has something that can keep them together forever.  Aya has fixed the ship, but she can’t get Kilowog to respond.  Razer contacts Hal, who tells him not to worry.  It’s revealed that Kilowog has been encased in a crystal.  Queen Acapo is unhappy that Hal hasn’t fallen in love with Gyita yet, and tells her to take stronger actions.  Gyita gives Hal a drink, and finds that he already has a true love in Carol Ferris.  Acapo sends a ring to Carol.  On Earth, Carol has just been told that Hal can’t be found when she’s offered a ring.  Razer approaches Acapo, and demands to know where Kilowog is.  Acapo invites Razer to join her in searching for him.  She denies Aya entrance though.  Aya decides to go on her own search, and finds Kilowog, among many others, encased in crystal.  When she tries to contact Razer, she is attacked by Galia.  She subdues Galia, and flees.  Aya finds Razer as Acapo was offering him drinks, and tells him that Kilowog has been imprisoned.  The ring transports Carol to Hal.  Carol sees Gyita, becomes jealous, and attacks her.  Eventually, Hal is able to reason with Carol, and get her to stop fighting.  They kiss, she comes to her senses, and Hal tells her what’s been going on.  Gyita tells Carol that she can use the power of love to keep him.  Carol tells her that that isn’t actually love.  Carol gives back the Star Sapphire ring, and is returned to Earth.  Hal gets Kilowog out of the crystal, and they go to help Razer and Aya, who are fighting Acapo and her guards.  Gyita tries to convince Acapo to release them.  Acapo looks into Razer’s mind, and realizes that Aya looks like Razer’s love Alana.  With the help of Gyita, the Green Lanterns are able to escape.

DC tidbits and an update

After Justice League: Generation Lost concluded, I found myself no longer collecting any DC titles.  Thus this seemingly disastrous gimmick mega event relaunch thing doesn’t directly affect me.  Two titles actually stuck out to me, but for various reasons I have decided against them both.

Justice League International
I had finished JL:GL with every intention of picking this book up when it launched.  Unfortunately (for me, at least) the title has been given to Dan Jurgens for writing duties, but not for art duties.  Of the two, Jurgens’s art has always been stronger than his writing and his taking over Booster Gold twice led to me dropping the title.  I’m not saying his stuff is particularly bad, per se, but it’s not exactly good either.  If it turns out to be epic stuff, I might consider picking up the trades, but more than likely this will just be a title that exists for the sake of existing.  Much like when he took over the original JLI team back in the late eighties and turned it into a Superman book.

Blue Beetle
After much doing, I have gotten over my hatred of Jaime Reyes, with a lot of help from the story in Booster Gold by Giffen and DeMatteis that saw Booster finally coming to terms with Ted Kord’s death.  So for about a minute, I actually considered picking up this relaunch of Blue Beetle, but then I realized I had no interest in the kid’s solo adventures.  I liked him a lot as a member of Teen Titans and he really grew on my in JL:GL.  Much like his predecessor, young Jaime works well in team settings, but I just can’t get hyped up about seeing him solo.  I have a feeling this book is going to be one of the many announced that will quickly fizzle out.

So with those two off my radar, it looks like I will be continuing to Make Mine Marvel.

Okay jerk, so where’s the new Chuck Austen’s X-Men?
This one is about 60% complete, but I ran into an unforeseen case of illness over the weekend and spent a lot of it not thinking or moving.  But that’s not to say I’m going to let it go.  Look for the posting to come tomorrow afternoon at the latest.  Would I lie to you?

New Comic Day hangover

It’s been several weeks since I’ve picked up my new comics, so I’ll be going through the backlog on this, my 20th edition of the New Comic Day hangover.  20?  Really?  Where does the time go?

Anyway, this edition we’ll be looking at…

• Booster Gold #38 in which we get a trip to the past to set up a continuity issue.
• Justice League: Generation Lost #13-14 in which we get a whole lot of Captain Atom.
• New Mutants #19 in which we get more torture.
• Uncanny X-Force #2 in which Wolverine pisses off Angel.
• Uncanny X-Men #530 in which the mutants get the sniffles.
• X-Factor #211 in which we get back to Las Vegas.
• X-Men #5 in which we are still fighting vampires.
• X-Men Legacy #242 in which the rebuilding of San Francisco gets underway.

As a side note, I know I said I would be dropping both Uncanny X-Force and Booster Gold but since my comic shop had already ordered  me copies of these issues before I dropped them from my pull list, I did the decent thing and went ahead and picked them up.  The same will happen with next month’s issues.

Anyway – reviews (with SPOILERS) after the jump.  Let’s get to it!

New Comic Day hangover

Yeah, I know that three weeks ago I said “hiatus complete” but I had some extenuating circumstances over the past couple weeks.  Two weeks ago I was too lazy – my bad.  Last week, Casey and I travelled to Chicago for the Wizard World Comic Con and the hotel I was staying in charged $12 for internet access.

But enough excuses.  Let’s make up for the lost time and hit the big list!  This week we have…

Astonishing X-Men #35 in which the story that took forever ends with a disappointing whimper.

Booster Gold #35 in which Booster realizes his trip in the past is not as innocent as he believes.

Justice League: Generation Lost #7 & 8 in which the JLI attacks Checkmate.

New Mutants #16 in which we get the back story of the hellish soldiers.

Uncanny X-Men #527 in which Hope goes after another new mutant.

X-Factor #208 in which Wolfsbane finds out her bf is shacking with a dude.

X-Men #2 in which Blade pops up for the vampire story.

And finally, X-Men Legacy #239 in which we meet Indra’s fiancée.

Please be warned there will be SPOILERS in the reviews following the jump.  I no longer feel bad.

Damn it, Jaime!

Ugh.

Fine, DC.  You win.  I’ll give Jaime Reyes a chance.  You seem to be pushing him hardcore, so I’ll try.

I’m just saying it probably won’t work out, ok?

Live Action Blue Beetle?

CBR’s daily news feed of comic-based movie/TV stuff had this today:

Geoff Johns began teasing the possibility of a live action “Blue Beetle” show. It began with this Twitter post: “BLUE BEETLE NEWS from DCE!! We have a live-action test of Jaime Reyes’ scarab activating his suit. It. Is. Awesome.” He quickly followed with “Blue Beetle’s going to appear in most of the Brave and the Bold’s this year and we’re hoping to develop a live-action show. Fingers crossed!” Then, in true Stan Lee fashion, he made this half-promise: “If I can break it out of the vault, I’ll bring it to SDCC. LIVE ACTION BLUE BEETLE!!” I suppose the important thing to glean from this is that Jaime Reyes might be coming to TV. Could he replace “Smallville?”

I hate, hate, hate, HATE Geoff Johns.  Hate him.  He can take his stupid Jaime Reyes and go die.

EDIT (time to calm down has passed): Okay, first I suppose I should explain the rant.  Ted Kord is my favorite hero.  I hated how he died and I hate his replacement.  No matter how good Jaime Reyes might be as the Blue Beetle, I will forever hate him specifically because he is not Ted Kord.  That’s just how it is.

But let’s look at the possibility of a Blue Beetle live action series.  My personal preferences aside, using the Jaime Reyes Blue Beetle instead of Ted Kord would cause problems from the start.  Unlike Kord, Reyes is a mystical hero, and to reflect his appearance and powers accurately, a decent amount of special effects would need to be used.  I highly doubt too many studios would be willing to pick up an expensive show about a character very few people have heard of.

But if it’s good, won’t people watch?  Sorry, my friend – I’m afraid not.  Good shows get cancelled all the time.  What ever happened to Firefly or Better Off Ted?  These shows were both fantastic, yet both got cancelled for whatever reason.  Blue Beetle would have the immediate hurdle of being a relatively unknown hero.  Sure, his solo book ran 36 issues, but that was more than it probably deserved given how abysmal its sales were.  Why did Smallville work so well?  Because it had Superman and his well-known supporting cast.  That brought people in and from there the quality of show took over and kept people watching.  Blue Beetle doesn’t have this kind of a hook.

So would a Ted Kord show work better?  I’m afraid not.  The draw factor is still missing, and removing the teenaged character would pull it from the CW’s (its likely home) demographic.  I just think the whole thing is destined for failure.  Anyone remember the Birds of Prey live action series?  Exactly.

And Jaime Reyes sucks.

Retro Comic Day hangover

I have no new issues coming out this week, so as to keep the reviewing flow going, I’ve decided to hop into the time-mobile and travel back 11 years and take a look at what books I would have bought back in June of 1999.  Jeez – 1999 was 11 years ago?  Ouch.  This (that) month, we have (had)…

Uncanny X-Men #371 in which we get a needless crossover with the tech characters of the Marvel U.

X-Force #92 in which we take a brief moment to bring in a character from X-Men 2099.

Generation X #54 in which we get a big fight scene.

X-Men #91 in which we get more tech character crossover.

And that’s it.  By this point, both X-Factor and Excalibur had mercifully received the axe and neither X-Force nor Generation X would make it another two years.

I usually would warn of spoilers, but come on – these are 11 years old.  I’ll have them behind the jump anyway.

On Ryan Choi

Before looking at the image included, did you have any idea who Ryan Choi was?  I didn’t either, and I have read books that he actually was in.  He was the successor to the identity of the Atom after Ray Palmer vanished at the close of Identity Crisis.  And we was recently killed off in an issue of Titans.  Now, I’d usually throw up a SPOILER warning there, but realistically, since you had no idea who Ryan Choi was, why would you care if he got killed or not?

Apparently, because he’s Asian.

That’s been word floating around the dorkosphere as outrage has been unleashed since Choi was skewered by Deathstroke. I decided to write this when I spotted this quote in an article on Topless Robot:

Ryan Choi is now dead, having died quickly and ignominiously in a Titans: Villians for Hire comic, because — and I’d like to quote Wikipedia, as found by my buddy Sean T. Collins — “he was not white enough for DC Comics.” Whether people are mad because DC killed off yet another non-white character to make room for a white one, that a major non-white character is killed as a minor note in a minor comic, that a Grant Morrison character that was genuinely interesting was murdered in a comic he should have had nothing to do with… I think it’s all of those things.

And I’m here to call BS on that crap.

The five stages of grief in comic book deaths

So you’ve got a favorite hero, right?  You keep an eye out for appearances from them, buy their own book every month, and know pretty much everything there is to know about him.  Then suddenly, you pick up the newest issue to find – bam! – your beloved protagonist is caught in a situation that surely no one can survive.  And he doesn’t.  You’re forced to watch the funeral, and then your character is gone, leaving you hoping for a resurrection.

Losing your favorite hero can be hard on the comic fanboy, and it is expected that the mourning process will be rougher than it should be.  In some cases, the Kübler-Ross model, or the so-called ‘five stages of grief’ will come into play.  It’s nothing to be ashamed of – it’s part of the healing process.

I went through my own grieving period back in 2005 when my favorite hero, Blue Beetle, took a bullet to the head care of Maxwell Lord.  I remember it well – I had heard in an interview that Dan DiDio was teasing of Blue Beetle’s importance to the DCU leading into Infinite Crisis.  Then the cover art for Countdown to Infinite Crisis was shown, with Batman holding a shaded figure before a number of DC heroes.  I looked closer and realized it was Beetle being held, I was suddenly worried that he would be the sacrificial lamb to kick off the event.

A phone call from a dear friend confirmed it.  She had access to our preferred comic shop’s preview issues and read the book a week before it hit shelves.  She was almost giddy in sharing the news, knowing that it would crush me knowing that my beloved character would not be making it out alive.  I am now dating that girl, and she is probably loving the memory of seeing my spirit crushed. 

And then I found myself going through the stages.

Revisiting the JLI: Part 7

Issues Covered
Justice League International #13-15

What Happened
After an inconsequential crossover with the Suicide Squad, the Justice League takes a moment to relax, with Booster Gold and Blue Beetle visiting Mister Miracle and Big Barda to watch a football game.  During this time, the villainous Lord Manga (with his assistant L-Ron) leads his army The Cluster to Earth, offering the world the chance to trade their natural resources with other worlds or have them taken.  As the nations of the world argue over what to do in the United Nations, the League comes together to take action, but find themselves shorthanded with both Batman and Black Canary MIA and Guy Gardner off on a side mission of his own.  To fill their ranks, Martian Manhunter accepts Green Flame and Ice Maiden’s request to join the League on a probationary basis.

The nonsensical Green Lantern G’nort comes across a planet ravaged by Lord Manga and learns of the attack on Earth and foolishly attacks the fleet by himself.  He accidentally destroys Manga’s cloaking device, revealing both the fleet and the device set up in the Australian Outback to drain Earth of its resources.  Detecting this, the League splits up with Martian Manhunter, Captain Atom and Rocket Red going after the fleet while Mister Miracle, Blue Beetle, Booster Gold, Green Flame and Ice Maiden head for Australia.