Green Arrow #31 – Review

By: Jeff Lemire (story), Andrea Sorrentino (art), Marcelo Maiolo (colors)

The Story: Ollie attends the least heartwarming family reunion ever.

The Review: So Lemire was serious about killing off Robert Queen after all. A pity, though not much of one, in all honesty. Having revealed he was still alive only four issues ago and showing little character to be admired since then, it’s not as if you’re particularly attached to his existence. Even Ollie, after giving himself a moment to mourn for all that was wasted between them, refuses to get maudlin about it, and allows the Outsiders to bury Robert on the island, away from the rest of his family, significantly enough.

There’s a poetic, even karmic, justice to all this. Robert, whose pointless obsession with the Totem Arrow led him to abandon his wife and nearly kill his son, dies for the sake of his family, even if it’s not the one he left behind in Star City. Komodo gets his comeuppance, too. After raising his child to be an Outsider on a foundation of lies, his child lives up to her upbringing by taking out the man who betrayed her all her life. A deserving end for Komodo, but at a monstrous cost to Emiko.

Batman: Li’l Gotham #5 – Review

By: Dustin Nguyen (story & art), Derek Fridolfs (story)

The Story: Figures that the day Gotham turns nice, it freezes over.

The Review: Not that I expect Li’l Gotham to aspire to Alan Moore-esque heights of literary depth, but I always think that the series deserves to be more than just a load of cuteness.  The holiday hijinks have been sweet and entertaining in their elementary way, but without much in the way of mental stimulation.  The plots are often times so thin and underdeveloped that you can enjoy them even if you’re practically brain-dead.

However, it’s not lost on me that this series is supposed to be full of fluff.  I just don’t see why that has to be mutually exclusive from building plots and characters that grown-ups can enjoy, too.  Anyway, I’m not here to argue that Nguyen-Fridolfs should change up their style or mess with a formula that works for them.  But if the stories on Li’l Gotham don’t take on some new dimensions soon, I’ll quickly run out of things to say about it besides its sheer adorableness.

Justice League of America #5 – Review

By: Geoff Johns (story), Brett Booth (pencils), Norm Rapmund (inks), Andrew Dalhouse (colors)

The Story: The JLA reveals that breaking up evil robots as an early specialty.

The Review: A long time ago, when Identity Crisis was still a controversial novelty, I remember one of the better jokes in the series involved a bunch of villains sitting around their satellite HQ and discussing the death of Donna Troy.  I believe it was Merlyn who deadpanned, “She’ll be back.”  The line reveals that comic book writers know how meaningless death in the superhero genre is, and yet the cycles of lifelessness and resurrections continue.

I’ve given up hoping that publishers will take a hardline stance on this point.  All I ask is for writers, if they’re going to use death as a narrative gimmick, then to at least use it well.  I’ll be more specific and say that they probably shouldn’t end an issue on a death if they know that we know it won’t take for longer than a single issue.  Here, Catwoman’s “death” doesn’t even last even three pages after her shooting, and we all know, before Martian Manhunter reveals himself, how that managed to come to pass.

Batman: Li’l Gotham #3 – Review

By: Dustin Nguyen (story & art), Derek Fridolfs (story)

The Story: Who ever knew that the Joker could be so lovable—or smell like it?

The Review: Whenever superhero writers make changes to the characters as an attempt at greater “realism,” they never seem to appreciate there’s always a trade-off involved.  Take the relationship between Harley Quinn and Joker.  In the new 52, their coupling has grown more disturbing, which arguably befits such a decidedly crazy sort of pair, and yet this misses out on the unrequited romance aspect which made them sympathetic.

So as much as I enjoy Scott Snyder and Ales Kot’s respective elevations of Joker and Harley as villains, I think they did lose an important part of their original personalities in the process.  Which is to say that I enjoyed myself heartily seeing the two of them play cat-and-mouse with each other again.  Nguyen-Fridolfs could have chosen any of the famous Bat-couples for this story, but I can’t think of a better choice for a Valentine’s Day spotlight than Joker and Harley.

Katana #4 – Review

By: Ann Nocenti (story), Alex Sanchez (art), Art Thibert (inks), Matt Yackey (colors)

The Story: No use crying over broken swords, Katana.  Don’t try huddling in a heap, either.

The Review: Have you ever read a comic and halfway through thought to yourself, I can write a better issue than this?  Yeah, me too.  It’s an inherently arrogant sort of thought, we can all agree; after all, we are basically throwing down with writers who are actually getting paid to have their work published—not to mention the fact that we just put down our own good money to purchase this product we’re now disparaging.

I don’t want to overstate my own writing abilities here, but I’m pretty sure if I had Katana on my plate, I could at least deliver a coherent, focused plot.  Nocenti, on the other hand, is all over the place.  There’s really very little excuse for that kind of distraction in this case; it’s not as if she’s obliged to tie in the title to any event or story arc going on elsewhere.  Yet these four issues have given us four rather different conflicts which have only the most tangential connection to each other and which Nocenti barely manages to develop before moving on to the next one.

Justice League of America #3 – Review

By: Geoff Johns (story), David Finch (art), Richard Friend (inks), Sonia Oback (colors)

The Story: Catwoman is kind of like your coworker who likes to steal supplies from the office.

The Review: If there’s one thing the JLA definitely has going for it, something that puts them a step above their iconic peers, it’s a bubbling brew of personalities.  With the Justice League proper, you can tell there are differences between them, but very narrow ones, kept very tight to their characters.  The members of the JLA, on the other hand, wear their differences quite openly, allowing them to clash with a lot more abandon.

It all makes for a livelier read, even when not very much happens.  The JLA’s encounter with the robot-Trinity is only moderately exciting, as the fakes seem to have only the most basic abilities of the real thing.  You’re not inclined to see the JLA’s takedown of three mechanical imposters as the same as facing against all ten current members of the Justice League (soon to be eleven, with Zatanna slated to join—re-join?—the team).  That doesn’t stop Steve Trevor from remarking, perhaps naively, in wonder, “The Justice League versus the Justice League.”

Katana #3 – Review

By: Ann Nocenti (story), Cliff Richards (pencils), Rebeca Buchman, Juan Castro, Le Beau Underwood, Phyllis Novin (inks), Pete Pantazis (colors)

The Story: The Dagger Clan try to prove that the size of one’s sword really doesn’t matter.

The Review: I always find it a little risky when a creator mentions how he was inspired by this-or-that or so-and-so in his latest project.  Most of the time, he’s referring to some seminal work of the past, which is now held up as a standard for all works to follow.  Not that this is his intention, but why invite that comparison?  It just raises fans’ expectations and skeptics’ eyebrows that much higher, and a story tends to suffer in the process.

In nearly every interview I’ve read of Nocenti talking about Katana, she’s referred to Seven Samurai as a source of inspiration.  I find this rather amusing because not only does the substance of this series bear no resemblance to that legendary film (except, perhaps, for Katana being a samurai—sort of), but nothing in the tone nor the structure of Katana evokes the spirit that made Seven Samurai special.  This title already suffers from its own shortcomings; it can only look even worse when beheld next to a masterpiece.

Justice League of America #2 – Review

By: Geoff Johns (story), David Finch (art), Sonia Oback (colors)

The Story: The team goes on their first mission without so much as a proper, rah-rah send-off.

The Review: One thing that really hampered Justice League when it first hit the stands was how much time it spent simply getting itself together.  It wasn’t until I think the fourth of fifth issue that you finally had the entire group in the same place, which is a pretty long time for a team book to gather its wits about it.  On the plus side, with the invasion from Apokolips as the trigger for their formation, they never wanted for action from the first issue.

Justice League of America seems to have the opposite problem.  Although you get pretty much the whole crew (minus Simon Baz, who’s still occupied over in Green Lantern) in one room within the issue’s first few pages, by the end of the issue, you still haven’t really seen them go to work.  In fact, aside from Green Arrow’s brief flashback to his infiltration of the Secret Society, there’s no League action at all.

Katana #2 – Review

By: Ann Nocenti (story), Alex Sanchez (art), Claude St. Aubin (inks), Matt Yackey (colors)

The Story: Katana gets her Alias wig on.

The Review: For better or worse, minority characters always have a challenge developing a following on their own.  This is especially true in the world of comics, which is still mostly a pastime for white people, both on the creative and consumptive sides.  It’s not racism; it’s the simple fact that everyone tends to resonate more with characters that look and feel familiar to them, and in a market largely driven by one demographic, others will just struggle a bit.

Katana will have an even harder time of it because she’s not American by origin, meaning there’s that additional cultural barrier readers may have to deal with.  I had a discussion with commenter M0rg0th about the various remarks on Katana’s womanhood in the first issue.  M0rg0th saw it as misogyny, but I argued that it was misogyny with purpose.  As a Japanese woman, Tatsu does have these cultural expectations of what her place should be; it’s natural that when she goes against those expectations, she’ll suffer rebuke from others and doubt within.

Justice League of America #1 – Review

By: Geoff Johns (story), David Finch (art), Sonia Oback (colors)

The Story: Proof positive that America only thinks it can do it best.

The Review: This was pretty much my feeling about Justice League International, but when I heard the announcement for Justice League of America, I had to wonder: did we really need another one?  Then someone pointed out to me that in a world where we’ve got the New Avengers, Secret Avengers, Dark Avengers, Uncanny Avengers, and, simply, Avengers, maybe I needed to have a little perspective on the one Justice League spin-off.  True indeed.

So what does JLA offer that Justice League does not?  I think it’s a sense of possibility, one that’s been missing from the League for a long time.  Despite boasting the biggest icons of the DCU, the current League feels a little mundane.  In fact, I’d say they’re downright coasting on their own fame rather than going out of their way to earn the title of premier superhero team on the planet.  Not so with the JLA; every single one of these characters has something to prove.

Katana #1 – Review

By: Ann Nocenti (story), Alex Sanchez (art), Matt Yackey (colors)

The Story: A lady doesn’t need to sharpen her nails if she’s got a sword.

The Review: We all choose to jump aboard a series for various reasons.  Sometimes it’s creator loyalty; you love some writer or artist, so the moment you see their name attached to a project, your money’s already halfway out your pocket/purse.  Sometimes it’s character loyalty; you will buy pretty much anything with Bat, X, or Avengers in the title.  Sometimes it’s concept; the idea of a supervillain playing hero or a superhero in T-shirt and jeans.

And sometimes it’s something else altogether.  For me and Katana, I admit it was mostly a matter of principle.  I like to support female creators and characters and I like to support characters with minority backgrounds.  So having Ann Nocenti writing Katana, a female character who also happens to be Asian, in an ongoing solo sounds like a pretty cool deal.  If nothing else, that just piques my curiosity.