Batgirl #1

*SPOILERS*

The almost original Batgirl, Barbara Gordon, is back, and as you can see with her new textured gloves she can open a mean pickle jar and dispense gardening justice. We all know that what was 25 years, or so, for us, and, it seems, three years ago for Babs, she was shot in the spine by the Joker and was unable to walk for the rest of the century and a bit. This is part of the new 52, so just how much this Barbara has in common with the Barbara we all grew up with seems to sort of be up to the reader. I for one don't mind the ambiguity, but if there's one thing continuity bears hate, it's ambiguity; so this could end being a big snag for the titles in the new 52 where some of the old history apparently either applies or is at least duplicated, but they don't exactly tell you.

The writer is Gail Simone and artist is Ardian Sarif who at his best actually reminds me a bit of Herb Trimpe, strangely (though this could in part be down to the inking of Vicente Cifuentes) - but who unfortunately has a few anatomy problems to work out, as evidenced by a Spider-man-esque splash page of Batgirl swinging through the city in which her body parts look a bit distorted. There is also a certain amount of spatial confusion on a panel to panel basis, but it is still overall quite decent. There is nothing outstandingly distinctive about his style, at least so far, but it is cinematic and does the job.

As far as the writing goes, there are some neat touches. I like the idea that Batgirl's eidetic memory, which is something that has been referenced probably as far back as her first appearance in Detective #359, is a kind of burden as she is tormented by the memory of the Joker's attack on her, which, as she mentions in the narration, was part of a home invasion - neither contradicting nor sustaining the exact version of the event we saw in The Killing Joke. This is also interesting because in a way, it is almost that this attack is now at least one of her motives for fighting criminals, just as the murder of Bruce Wayne's parents is for Batman. As a matter of fact, this does accomplish the feat of turning a story idea I never liked into something interesting. However, that this version of Barbara Gordon had some affiliation with Batman before the incident is made plain in one caption; but it's not clear if she was actually Batgirl or not. Again, ambiguity. I'd be just as happy with the stories just going forward without that being cleared up or obsessed about much, but that likely won't happen.

In this version it seems that event happened three years prior, and Barbara has actually regained the use of her legs and is now very anxious to take down some criminals. And so in the opening story, we see her confront a group of home invaders, she gains a somewhat irritating new roommate, a villain named the Mirror is introduced, and then we end on a cliff hanger. My main beef is the continuing use of the first person narration via captions, which have essentially replaced thought bubbles in modern comics. They have that weary, jaded tone that's in every comic, I wouldn't mind seeing something different. But this is a decent reboot, and Batgirl's costume, a little more textured, looks good back on Babs.

On a scale of one to ten I'm giving it a B+. Nothing blew me away but it sustained my interest and I will get #2 and probably more because I want to find out more about The Mirror.

This Week's Big Three

Batman and Robin #14 - The main reason I still read this is curiosity about Dick Grayson as Batman. I like Mr. Grayson for being simultaneously one of the toughest people in the DCU and at the same time one of the more lighthearted (at times). This series has definitely turned out more grotesque and less fun than I hoped, but I keep going with it, for some reason. I want Whirly-bats and I want Bat-Mite. But what I've got is the Joker, Damian (don't people know not to trust a kid named Damian?), and the revolting Professor Pyg. Mind you, the element of Damian does interest me a bit, as I remember reading and enjoying Son of the Demon way back in the eighties, and I'm glad it's been reshuffled back into continuity after status for some time as an unofficial Elseworlds. Ras Al Ghul is my favourite Bat-villain, except for the Penguin maybe, so naturally I'm curious about a character who is his grandson and Batman's own kid all at the same time. I give this ish, oh, let's say a 6 out of 10. Grant Morrison's writing is confusing, the art storytelling is quirky, but on the other hand there are a lot of face kicks and other Bat action. I'm not really feeling the characters much, though, even scenes between Dick and Alfred are kind of perfunctory, not a lot of meat there.
Doom Patrol #14 - Ambush Bug, Ambush Bug...is there a place for you in this jaded world? Well, he'll make room, if Keith Giffen has his way. The first page of this comic being some of AB's trademark metereferencing is fun, then we get into the more serious part of the issue itself, with Rita Farr grown to giant size and squeezing her ex-squeeze Steve Dayton so we can actually hear the bones pop, via comic book sound effects. Yuck! By the way I'm not crazy about the current version of Elasti Girl's costume, which has some slick looking elements, but then the part covering her midriff looks like a cross between an eighteenth century corset and a third grader's sewing assignment. Maybe I missed something, and it's functional...? Which reminds me, maybe I don't know much about women's clothes but you know that commercial where the mother has borrowed the daughter's shirt? Am I wrong, or is that not actually a really hideous shirt? I don't mind the weird green but then it's got that totally non sequitur ruffle thing off to one side and...well, I just think they should burn the damn thing rather than use whatever product it is that supposedly gets the stains out.

Oh, the copy on the cover says "Super-Chief!", a witty reference to a more obscure DC character, who was a Native American with superpowers from the Silver Age. I'm sure most of you probably knew that. I've only know about him for a couple of years, since first reading about him in Michael W. Barr's book on Silver Age sci fi comics.

Adventure Comics #518 - Saving the best for last...

By the way, I can't now write a high number for the Adventure Comics issue without thinking how now my Adventure Comics #503, which says "Final Issue!" on it is now out of date thanks to the relaunch. It's turned that issue (which was in digest form, by the way) into lies! But in all seriousness, I'm kind of glad they revived this venerable title. I've often said, at various functions - society balls, boardroom meetings, looting sprees - that if there was one title I'd like to own a complete run of, it would be Adventure...as it is, I'm working on the fifty or so issues that were Supergirl adventures, some of the quirkiest early seventies stuff I've read.

But now to this issue. I must admit I like the cover, and I'm not even a big fan of Doomsday. Additionally, I'm not sure if his towering that high over Superboy is meant as sort of symbolic, ie he will cast a large shadow over the Superman legend type thing, but I dig the rendering of that big nasty. Cover is by Scott Clark and David Beaty. The story, "Whispers of Doom", takes us a bit further into Legion continuity than we were in the last issue, as they have now gained a few more key members such as fan favourite Ultra Boy.

Anyway, Paul Levitz, Kevin Sharpe, and Marlo Alquiza deliver a great issue for action, drama and fun. Levitz has still got it, even more so. One of the highlights is a scene where a young Phantom Girl flirts with Superboy - and it's nice to see her in that old unrevealing costume with the big P on the front. We also see a young, pre-Legion Dream Girl, in fact her home world of Naltor provides much of the focus for this story. And there are some other key elements which may or may not be suggested by the cover.

Superman/Batman #75: She Was Physically Forgotten But Then She Slipped Into My Pocket With My Batmobile Keys...

I'm not the biggest Frank Quitely fan so I don't love this cover, and I'm not that into "mood" covers in general, I prefer action, and speech bubbles, and maybe some kind of dilemma. But this turned out to be a fun issue among my new comics this week, and the interior art on the main story is by Jerry Ordway, so I'm not complaining about that. Then also factor in that the story is by Paul Levitz and incorporates the Legion of Superheroes, well, it's potentially as much a milestone as it wants to be. The story itself isn't very groundbreaking, mind you. Standard fare. However, I personally never care much about the setup to create an unusual team-up, I guess I'm just not very picky. An evil clone is pursued all over the time stream by the Legion, running into Superman and Batman and then Superboy, though if they wanted to make it as symmetrical as this title usually is, they could have also had the teenage Bruce Wayne. Maybe teen Bruce could have gained superpowers and gone to the future and become "Legionnaire for a Day!" but then lost his powers and memory. Can you tell I read a lot of Silver Age? Well, that doesn't happen, but this fun scene does:
I'm wondering what Batman had to clear out of that pouch so Salu could fit in there...maybe he just has to hope they don't run into any sharks that day. And can people in the DCU see those labels all the Legionnaires have? Is that a feature of the flight rings, like a nametag? Anyway, that scene is something new, though I imagine Ray Palmer has probably had to ride around in one of Batman's smelly, chemical-soaked pouches before. A final note about that, I really like this version of Shrinking Violet's costume, it's like the 2960's never ended. It's got that groove.

But that's not all! There are a bunch of bonus features, including a two page Supergirl/Batgirl tribute by Adam "Girls Don't Have Hips" Hughes. Here's a chunk of it:
...leading up to, you guessed it, the number one "Most Memorable" moment in DC History, so fortunately timed on the part of Adam Hughes. I cut that out because seeing that once was enough...and am I the only one who found it more memorable when the Joker shot at and missed Fire (JLI Annual #2)? I guess so.

Some other new fish:

Justice League of America #48: The "Dark Things" crossover with the Justice Society wraps up into a neat little package with everyone pulling together, believing in themselves, drinking milk and staying in school. There's some sentimental Alan Scott schlock andddd...big finish, big finish, jazz hands! But it's actually a good ish, I don't mean to sound negative, basically good old fashioned saving the world against a cosmic threat type stuff, nothing wrong with that. And Kyle Rayner gets off some good zingers, I miss that from the Magnificent Seven days. One in particular has to do with what may be the most noteworthy moment, the always semi-creepy Obsidian declaring he has to "join" with his sister Jade. Never before has the word "ickypants" taken on such significance.

Superman: Secret Origin #6: It's Superman's origin. Again. I once swore I'd never buy Superman's origin. Again. But apparently I was wrong, what got me out this time was, well, I guess that it'd never been done by Geoff Johns and Gary Frank before. Now that we've reached the end, I'll sum up by giving Johns about a 3 out of 5, there were some neat tricks, but a lot of cliche stuff, like "the army is always evil, and any angry woman is always right". I can turn on the TV and see the same thing. And I really find it kind of unimaginative that Clark is embarrassed initially to wear his costume, I would much prefer it if despite Clark being a nice, good person, he is also kind of a strange boy with strange powers who just wants to wear a strange outfit. And the way Superman's goodness and optimism is handled is also pretty well by rote. Frank really outdid himself artwise, even if I don't really need the two main characters to look so much like Christopher Reeve and Margot Kidder. But his range of expressions brought me back to Kevin Maguire, and that was a lot of fun, and the action sequences were pretty solid. I also think I like the new look of Metallo, it's a throwback that even includes a nod to Curt Swan thigh high boots, but also has its own unique horror-movie creepiness. So a 4.5 out of 5 for Frank's art.

Adventure Comics #517

Things are heating up in Paul Levitz's return to the characters that made him, the Legion of Superheroes. It's only relatively recently in my own comic collecting, within the last ten years, that I began to realize how addictive the whole mythos can be, but the fact is the Legion has everything geeks could possibly want all in one glossy package. I'm catching up on Levitz back issues even as I'm buying the new ones, so hopefully it doesn't all get too jumbled.

This ish is pretty fun, at least the lead story about Saturn Girl in the early days of the three founding members. We see a workout version of SG's costume, and then there are some events involving a female Science Police liaison whose name is neither Gi Gi nor Shvaughn, and that's all I'll say about that. As the cover hints, there are some shenanigans with Cosmic Boy, the purpose of which Paul Levitz is currently explaining, in a note included on today's Legion Omnicom. The second feature is the new Atom arc, but I only skimmed over that, it had some rather boring stuff involving Ray Palmer's father that just looked like typical "fill in the background" aka "slow down the pace". No thanks. Y'know, it probably occurred to Gardner Fox, writing the original Atom stories, that he could go on for pages about the Atom's family background, but he probably realized that would be dull. David Copperfield kind of crap.

Favourite Martians

This striking image, though I think there may be something slightly off about it, can't quite figure out what, appears on the first page of Justice Society of America #41 and is drawn by Mark Bagley and Rob Hunter. I think on the periphery of my awareness, in that careening cosmic vapour I call my mind, I had grown aware of the existence of a girl Martian in the DC universe but this issue made me want to find out about her, so I did some research.

She's a white Martian, and I know what those are from having read the the original Blanx stories in Justice League of America #71 and #144 of the original series, and the first arc of the nineties reboot, and some other stories. They're mad, bad, and dangerous to know. I see that through various storylines in the Teen Titans, which I haven't collected for a few years, not really because I didn't like it but because of redirecting comic funds to back issues and suchlike, that she has been revealed as one of the good ones - or maybe the good one.

Anyway, I like the idea of Miss Martian, as it seems like time Martian Manhunter had a kind of girl counterpart. This all falls under the heading of a larger concern, which is that I was thinking about how my Martian Manhunter cred was, for as I revealed in the now classic entry of July 28, I recently bought a shirt with MM, along with several other heroes, on it and started thinking about what a genuinely great character he is. So fortunately there is the great and informative blog, Idol Head of Diabolu, which also looks at Jemm Son of Saturn about whom I unfortunately know very little, though he recently made an intriguing cameo in I believe it was Adventure Comics, in a sequence that I think is meant to help tie together his Saturn with that of Saturn Girl.

I'm not really going anywhere with this, other than that looking at Idol-head and other sources, I feel I might have almost half MM cred, anyway. I have a pretty good number of what are the key MM stories, in one form or another - by which I mean some are reprints of old classics. But I've read those two I mentioned as well as his kind of comeback in DC Comics Presents #27, plus his return to the Justice League and of course the Oreo years in JLI. And didn't he turn into a woman one time in Justice League Task Force? Though I admit I don't have those issues, I was reading a friend's copies. But I guess he has always been there and I think for Justice League members he would probably be the same, the guy who's always there but you don't think about much. Kinda reminds me of me, maybe that's why I like him.

But I really know nothing about his little Silver Age buddy, Zook. Think I might have to go out and get the Showcase reprints soonish.

Justice League of America #47: Jaded Captions and Sexy Gorilla Butt

writer: James Robinson

artists: Mark Bagley and Rob Hunter

One of the signs of the bogus maturity of comics, as I talked about in the previous post, is all the captions instead of thought bubbles, which presumably we are meant to take more seriously than thought bubbles because they are less "comic book". Yeesh! With that typical first person "jaded" voiceover. Enough already! I like James Robinson but his writing's full of them, the legacy of Dark Knight Returns, which was 24 years ago. Speaking of jaded, this ish gives us a lot of Jennifer, also known as Jade, Alan Scott's daughter, as she is rude to Donna Troy and then regrets it in her jaded caption. Everyone's got captions which are all identified by colours and symbols, because that's so much clearer than thought bubbles, right? Okay, I'll calm down. Enough about the captions, Aaron!!!

It's a pretty decent ish of Alan Scott being possessed by the Starheart along with Obsidian and Doctor Fate. If you're into bondage, there's Jay-Flash, Wildcat, and Sebastian Faust in one full page drawing and they're all tied up at the moment.

Wildcat: Alan, stop him! Come on, Alan! Come on! Fight this! You can, Al! I...We, know you can...

Jay-Flash: We believe in you, buddy. Your will is steel!

That's some fresh dialogue for ya!

Anyone with any vulnerability to the Starheart is going apesh*t. Speaking of which, the splash page treats us to a nice view of Congorilla's hairy butt. There's a wonderful blog called Green Lantern Butts Forever at least partly dedicated to its stated subject, but as far as I know there is no blog dedicated to the butts of DC Gorillas, so feast your baby blues:

Brave and the Bold #35: Redemption for J. Michael; and a couple random thoughts on the Legion Of Substitute Heroes and the I-5

I thought I should say that the last few issues and the new one in particular #35, teaming up the Inferior 5 with the Legion of Substitute Heroes, hs redeemed the J. Michael Straczynski run to me. As noted elsewhere, some of the jokes in this one are a little forced, but the guy's working in a vaccuum, using some of the least "cool" characters in comicdom, so uncool they, I mean the I-5, have seldom even been resurrected since their title's demise in 1972, save an appearance in Ambush Bug. Don't get me wrong, I think they're very cool, but I'm a bit like your mom - if I think something's cool, it probably isn't being thought of that way anywhere else.

This issue had the random fun craziness of classic DC. The contrast between Night Girl and Dumb Bunny is especially great. Night Girl always seems too cool for these guys, like that one cute girl who hangs out with the nerds because her hairdo is not what the popular girls are wearing. The boy Subs are almost certainly all angry she goes out with Cosmic Boy, one of the jocks.

My favourite things about this cover is Merryman's "badass" face. It's such a great mockery of the ubiquitous "badass pose" covers which fortunately are passing into history, but wow that was a long 11 or so years. This is a great time for the I-5 to return, they are much needed to mock the adolescent-level comics that take themselves seriously and consider themselves "art" and great writing and so forth.