Smallville #6 – Review

By: Bryan Q. Miller (story), Jamal Igle (pencils), Marc Deering (inks), Carrie Strachan (colors)

The Story: Batman discovers it’s a little harder to flip-drop Superman than other folks.

The Review: Last month, I went through a strange, almost revelatory moment with the title, where I realized that no matter how much I or Miller or anybody else wanted it to replace the show we watched semi-diligently, it never would.  Comics, particularly ones involving superheroes, are all about indulgences, taking fictional liberties and playing up the action.  For a drama and talk-centered series like Smallville, comics don’t always translate its appeal.

Remember how often and how much of the show used to involve two-character scenes, with long, windy streams of dialogue (and lots of talking while turning away from the other person).  Fighting sequences were limited by budget constraints, but that made the personal storylines more integral to the show.  Miller has almost reversed the action-drama ratios here, and that produces an “episode” that doesn’t much resemble those of its televised predecessor.

Young Justice S02E04 – Review

By: Greg Weisman (story)

The Story: Roy, we’re your friends, but we feel like we’re losing you.  Come back to us, man!

The Review: Although the finale offered a pretty good wrap-up of the first season’s major storylines, it also left a couple open.  The biggie, of course, is the truth of what happened to the “16 hour” Leaguers while under the Light’s possession, which will undoubtedly form the basis of much of the coming season’s conflicts.  But we also have the issue of Red Arrow being a clone of the original Speedy (who remains MIA), which the show put on the back-burner.

Weisman uses this episode to follow up on that particularly volatile plotline, showing us that in the interim five years, clone-Roy has fallen on hard times, a sad twist for the ex-sidekick who first earned League membership.  Weisman clearly gets his inspiration from the infamous “Snowbirds Don’t Fly” storyline in Green Lantern/Green Arrow #85-86, which depicted (the original) Roy as secretly addicted to heroin, a problem he overcame with Black Canary’s help.

Action Comics Annual #13 – Review

by Paul Cornell (writer), Marco Rudy & Ed Benes (art), Val Staples & Jason Wright (colors), and John J. Hill (letters)

The Story: A young Lex Luthor finds himself the unwilling “employee” of Darkseid and, in the back-up, the disciple of Ra’s Al-Ghul.

What’s Good: First things first: this issue is $4.99, but it’s a big, quality package that ultimately earns that price tag.  That being said, this isn’t just a double-sized issue of Paul Cornell’s Action Comics.  It has Lex Luthor, sure, but this is something different, something that allows for Cornell to show his range as a writer.

Cornell does a fantastic and very subtly nuanced job of writing the young Lex Luthor.  It is most definitely Lex, but it’s a Lex that’s more brash, fearless, and arrogant.  He’s like the first LP of your favourite band: more raw with both his flaws and strengths more readily apparent.  Sure he’s brave to the point of lunacy, but he also has a near pathological hatred of being dismissed – his inferiority complex is never clearer.  All told, young Lex makes for a compelling protagonist.

The main feature is all kinds of kooky, having a tone not unlike the old, sci-fi/cosmic adventures of the past.  It’s a kind of pure, wacky sci-fi that makes for a distinctly different read.  Helping this along is Cornell’s Darkseid, which is all kinds of awesome.  Cornell clearly has the time of his life writing the character, who is a classically bombastic “muhuhahaha” villain.  This makes for a fantastic adversary for Lex, one who clearly functions at a different level.

The generally fun artwork of Marco Rudy is a perfect fit for this story, playing up the goofy retro tone while drawing one hell of an Apokolips.  His work is a sort of noir acid trip and it ends up being quite a bit of fun.