Comics are Awesome III

[andersonh1]

I was interested in the Wesley Dodds: The Sandman mini-series, but the art is terrible. I'm not spending any money on that book. And the "Alan Scott was always gay" retcon offends me, given that DC has to throw out his entire romantic history and happy marriage to Molly Mayne to make it work. So that's two of three "Golden Age" mini-series off the table. We'll see how the Jay Garrick Flash book looks, though retconning a bunch of new sidekicks into the JSAs history is another dumb idea that has put me off that series. DC is seriously mangling these characters right now.

[andersonh1]

Jay Garrick: The Flash #1 - Despite the fact that I really don't like a bunch of modern characters being retconned into having been "removed from time" and inserted back into Golden Age history, I decided to try out this book. And it's okay, nothing particularly good or bad as Jay and Joan's long lost daughter who they never knew they had reappears, still a teenager, while Jay and his wife have to be around 104 years old at this point. There's also some old enemy who they had forgotten. It all ties into Stargirl: The Lost Children which I only read one issue of and then dropped, like the current Justice Society series. Sometimes there comes a point where you just have to accept that the characters you recognize and care about only exist in back issues, and I think I'm at that point with DC's Golden Age characters. Though I will say it was genuinely nice to see Joan Garrick again. I'm not sure she's been on-panel since before Flashpoint.

Green Lantern War Journal #2 - they don't make Green Lanterns like they used to. The most interesting part of this series for me is the hints we get at the condition of the Green Lantern Corps under the United Planets, as the Green Lanterns who show up are pretty reprehensible individuals. They don't last long when they find the Revenant Queen, who turns them into undead and sends them after John Stewart, who has been looking to move to Metropolis with his mom and work for Mr. Terrific. John takes on the zombified GLs when they attack and ends up apparently infected the same way they were. Good cliffhanger, leaves me wondering how he's going to get out of this one the way a good cliffhanger should.

[andersonh1]

This should probably go in retro comics, but I picked up another of these replica editions DC has been publishing lately, where the entire issue complete with ads and all features is reproduced. All-American #16, Alan Scott's first appearance. I always forget how thick these Golden Age books were, it has to be somewhere around 60 pages. They were buying these for a dime back in the day!

[andersonh1]

The facsimiles continue to appear. I indulged for the foil cover variant of All-Star Comics #3. It's not as though I haven't read it before, but sometimes I just enjoy owning a copy of the issue, even a reprint like this.

[Sparky Prime]

I have a replica copy of Amazing Fantasy #15, which I've had for many years at this point. I've got the story in a couple different Spider-Man collections, but this is my favorite version that I've got, with all the original ads and all. I dunno what it is exactly, but it's just so fascinating to see the original formatting and vintage ads, most of which are novelty items.

[andersonh1]

They've produced a lot of nice replica issues lately. I couldn't resist a copy of Action Comics #1 a few months back.

[andersonh1]

Today's comics: Jay Garrick: The Flash #2, Green Lantern War Journal #3, World's Finest #21 and Fantastic Four #13/706. Jay feels like a co-star with his daughter in his own book, but he and his family are the kind of wholesome, good people that seem to be rarer and rarer in comics. War Journal introduces the blind prophet version of Kyle Rayner from the other universe and a few more explanations are offered, though we're a long way from understanding exactly who the Revenant Queen is or why she's out to kill John Stewart.

[Sparky Prime]

War Journal introduces the blind prophet version of Kyle Rayner from the other universe

Speaking of, do we know what happened to Kyle Rayner of this universe? I haven't seen any mention of him since the Corps was devastated... again.

[andersonh1]

War Journal introduces the blind prophet version of Kyle Rayner from the other universe

Speaking of, do we know what happened to Kyle Rayner of this universe? I haven't seen any mention of him since the Corps was devastated... again.

Nope, they still haven't told us Kyle's status. We know Guy is still around because he was having a beer and talking with John via ring construct, and Kilowog is on Earth with Hal, but we don't know about Kyle. Supposedly from what I've seen we're supposed to find out around issue 8, with Ron Marz co-writing, so presumably Kyle's okay.

The destruction of the Corps was a big reason I didn't read the last series beyond the first issue. We've seen that story before, several times, and I had no interest in reading it again.

[Sparky Prime]

The destruction of the Corps was a big reason I didn't read the last series beyond the first issue. We've seen that story before, several times, and I had no interest in reading it again.

Yeah, that's one of the reasons I haven't been reading, other than to keep tabs from reviews and the like. Unfortunately, Green Lantern titles have just felt like they've been spinning their wheels ever since Geoff Johns left the book, with each writer going back and forth on the same plot points... There's been some interesting developments here and there, but it just gets undone or forgotten about when the next writer takes over.