Falls Just Short

     Ares finally shows his hand.  Both Themyscira and Talarion are attacked by Euphemus’ sea monsters.  And Wonder Woman, badly injured, washes up on the shores of her homeland.  In the final issue of Rise of the Olympian, there’s a massive battle to decide the fate of the Amazons.  In order to combat the various sea monsters coming towards her, Hippolyta has all the prisoners on the island, including Alkyone and the Circle, released.  She orders Phillipus to keep Wonder Woman from fighting, but as she herself admits, her daughter is very willful.  Wonder Woman realizes just what Genocide was trying to do, and along with her fellow Amazons, she beats back Ares’ forces.  The Amazons then travel to Talarion to save Jason, Achilles, and the Gargareans, and Wonder Woman splits Ares’ head open.  Zeus then reveals his true plans for the Gargareans.  Achilles is to wed Wonder Woman, and the two tribes will be joined.  Then the Gargareans can handle all the troubles of the world.  He killed Kane Milohai just to facilitate this.  In rage, Wonder Woman strikes Zeus and renounces her identity as an Amazonian.  She then leaves the island and everything she knows.  Even though the day is won, she has lost.  And Alkyone reveals that Genocide now belongs to her.

     This last issue managed to tie together all the threads of Rise of the Olympian rather nicely, considering how disparate they were for so long.  However, I stand by my statement that this arc would have been better as two separate arcs, one for Genocide and one for the actual rise of Achilles.  By stuffing everything into eight issues, Gail Simone made everything seem far too rushed and too compact.  That’s its main downfall, and it makes it fall just short of being one of the greatest arcs on Wonder Woman history.  However, it does do a very good job of setting up a new status quo for Wonder Woman.  I’m curious as to where Simone will take her next.  Aaron Lopresti’s work here is as good as it has been in ever other issue he’s worked on, and he’s definitely proven himself to be a superb artist for this series.  He also did quite well with all the sea monsters, proving that he isn’t just limited in skill to draw tough, beautiful women.  Next, we get a nice, relaxing two-parter with Black Canary, so Gail Simone can show off her skill with another female great in the DC Universe.  It’ll be a nice break from this crazy arc.

Plot: 9.0      Art: 9.3      Dialogue: 9.0      Overall: 9.0

Rabid Superheroes

     If you’ve read Justice League: Cry for Justice, then you know exactly to what this title is referring.  In the fallout from Final Crisis (which, actually, ended months ago), Green Lantern (Hal Jordan) feels that the Justice League of America isn’t doing enough.  Simply reacting to problems doesn’t save enough lives.  Therefore, Hal decides to form his own Justice League to be proactive, to stop problems before they occur.  And his good pal Green Arrow decides to join him.  Then, in three other segments, three characters decide that they desire justice on their own.  Ray Palmer, along with the successor to the Atom legacy, Ryan Choi, beat up Killer Moth.  Palmer even tortures him to find out who was behind the killing of a friend of his.  The Mikaal Tomas Starman finds out that his boyfriend is dead and blows up a car in anger.  And Congorilla’s entire tribe of gorillas, as well as his friend Freedom Beast, are killed.  Each of them cry out for justice, the last of them quite literally.

     This miniseries is already more than a bit of a joke.  Deliberately forcing these characters into situations where they can, in extremely contrived and cheesy fashions, cry out for justice.  Making Ray Palmer and Hal Jordan suddenly bloodthirsty.  And the fact that Final Crisis finished months ago just makes this story feel so dated.  Besides, hasn’t the idea of a proactive Justice League been explored in both Justice League Elite and Extreme Justice, albeit in different varieties?  So to be honest, I’m just not feeling this story.  And the very fact that it’s utilizing such random characters as Mikaal Tomas and Congorilla makes it even less exciting.  The very concept of Congorilla is more than just a bit ridiculous.  Okay, so Mauro Cascioli’s art is drop dead gorgeous 90% of the time.  But that’s the only redeeming feature of this miniseries.  In fact, it’s shocking that THE James Robinson, the guy who wrote Starman, would write something so silly.  I’m staying for one more issue, but if it doesn’t pick up, I’ll save my money by buying one less miniseries.

Plot: 5.2      Art: 9.0      Dialogue: 3.5      Overall: 4.8

An Unceremonious Finish

    Well, the story of the merging of the DC and Milestone Universes is  over, and it’s fairly obvious that Dwayne McDuffie pooped out in the end.  At the end of this arc that has seen the Justice League of America reduced to almost nothingness, it’s an all-out-brawl between its remnants, plus Paladin, Hardware, and Icon, versus Starbreaker and Shadow Thief.  Starbreaker reveals that the Sun Eater form is simply his species larval state, and he gets bigger and redder.  Lots of fighting, blah blah blah.  Ultimately, Dr. Light and Green Lantern (John Stewart) utilize the new tech in Light’s suit to siphon off most of the energy that Starbreaker has stored.  Paladin then shoots Starbreaker in the head, ending him as a threat, at least for the time being.  Zatanna heals Dharma, and later on Dharma acts as a plot dump for Icon and Superman, explaining how Final Crisis forced him push the two universes together.  The three of them then agree to keep things as they are and to keep Dharma safe in order to make sure that the two universes don’t split.

     So, a ridiculous fight, followed by Dharma explaining everything in one go as a plot dump.  Yup, not the best ending.  Not very much of McDuffie’s trademark dialogue either.  All in all, a pretty sad ending to what was originally a very good arc.  By the end, McDuffie was barely even working with any of his own Milestone characters.  Hardware was really the only one who got any real screen time.  I’m not sure if this is a result of his own exhaustion, or anger towards DC for firing him.  Either way, it’s too bad, especially considering that his run is now over.  Now, we get some funky three-parter by Len Wein before James Robinson and Mark Bagley start up as the new creative team.  Oh, and by the way, we get a few gorgeous pages by Eddy Barrows before being suddenly taken into mediocre work by Ardian Syaf, who makes everything look really stale.  It’s quite sad that this is the ending to this run.  McDuffie only got a short period of time to do what he actually wanted with the title, and now he’s gone.  And there isn’t even really a team yet.  By the way, whatever happened to Black Canary?  Didn’t she say that the team was disbanded?  So many problems.  Let’s hope Robinson can mop up this sad mess of a Justice League.

Plot: 5.5      Art: 6.2      Dialogue: 6.0      Overall: 5.8

A Night on the Town

     At long last, the greatly-reviled Sean McKeever has left Teen Titans.  Now, Bryan Q. Miller is handling a three-issue arc before the new full-time writer, Felicia D. Henderson, takes over.  This arc seems to be mostly about endearing the new team to the readers, since Deathtrap didn’t exactly do that.  Everyone on the team, plus Traci 13, Blue Beetle’s girlfriend, decides to head over to Fisherman’s Wharf in San Francisco to have some fun.  Everyone except the eternally moping Wonder Girl, who heads over to Alcatraz to deal with some prisoners.  There, Shimmer breaks her brother, Mammoth out of prison, leading to a massive jailbreak.  And Wonder Girl is the only superhero there to deal with it.  The rest of the Teen Titans enjoy themselves, and Aquagirl and Traci have some icy dealings with each other.  Then, Blue Beetle sees what’s going on at Alcatraz on an electronic billboard.  Then, the new Fearsome Five’s (we’ve only met three of them: Shimmer, Mammoth, Jinx) esteemed employer is revealed: Marvin and Wendy’s father, the Calculator.  In the new Ravager backup, Ravager sees Wonder Girl as a part of an adrenaline-induced hallucination.  She arrives at some weird place up north, presumably in Canada or Alaska, beats up some locals, and passes out, covered in blood.

     This is a start.  It’s not exactly a brilliant change, but it’s a start.  Besides, Miller will only be here for two more issues.  He gets the characters all a bit better, though I still don’t feel like I hear their voices coming through their dialogue.  Then again, it takes really good writers to do that.  I like seeing everyone have fun, though, since during McKeever’s run, they had anything but that.  I am curious as to why Robin would have a Hummer lying around Titans Tower, but that could just be the environmentalist in me.  My main complaint is that people have beaten the whole Wonder Girl identity issues topic to death.  Every single person who gets to write even a tiny bit about the Teen Titans deals with it.  Geoff Johns, Sean McKeever, and now Bryan Q. Miller.  It’s kind of annoying.  In fact, it’s the main reason why I don’t like her as a character.  They write her as this loser who’s too dependent on other people when that’s not at all what I saw in her characterization during One Year Later.  But maybe that’s just me.  Joe Bennett is a superb artist for this series, and I’m glad that there’s actually a real successor for Eddy Barrows on this series.  As for the backup, Sean McKeever continues to perform a character assassination on Ravager.  Hooked on adrenaline?  Oh brother.  And as if anyone would buy that cliffhanger.  Ravager isn’t going to die in the first installment of her backup feature.  And Yildiray Cinar’s art is as generically boring as it was last time.  I can’t wait for Felicia D. Henderson to take over, but at least now McKeever isn’t destroying all things Teen Titans-related.  Just my favorite character from the team.

Plot: 6.9      Art: 8.8      Dialogue: 6.5      Overall: 6.9

What Grief Does to a Person

     In the shocking conclusion to last issue of War of Kings, Lilandra Neramani, longtime ruler of the Shi’ar Empire and X-Men supporting character, was killed by the Fraternity of Raptors.  With hopes of bringing the war to a safe, early end dashed, Black Bolt makes the decision to utilize his ace in the whole: the T-bomb, a bomb utilizing the Terrigen crystals to force mutation in those it hits.  Basically, the Inhumans plan to forcibly mutate all others in the galaxy into Inhumans, thereby eliminating the need for war.  Vulcan fights some with Talon, and Talon reveals that he is not supporting Vulcan, but rather, the Shi’ar Empire.  Both Ronan and Crystal try to dissuade Black Bolt from his chosen course of action, but the king ultimately decides to go through with using the bomb.  Meanwhile, on Chandilar, Gladiator goes berserk, and the Starjammers fight to stay alive.  Marvel Girl kills Black Cloak, the leader of the Death Commandos, as revenge for all the members of her family that he killed, and Gladiator kills Araki.  Back with the Inhumans, Maximus reveals that, by using the T-bomb, Black Bolt will sacrifice his own life.  Medusa tries to stop him, but Black Bolt silently moves on.  Vulcan bursts into the T-bomb, and the fight between kings is ready to begin.

     This issue is just epic.  Seeing Chandilar burn, Black Bolt making the fateful choice to sacrifice his life…  It’s great.  Dan Abnett and Andy Lanning are truly the kings of outer space.  Vulcan is still the loser that he always has been, but they write him better than most people.  I’ve actually completely forgotten his idiotic origin as the third Summers brother.  Crystal, Ronan, and Gladiator continue to be the emotional focuses of the story, and you can really see that through Gladiator’s narration.  I think it’s interesting that Abnett and Lanning picked these characters, none of whom are the main people involved in the war.  They provide a very interesting viewpoint.  Paul Pelletier continues to do outdo himself in these pages.  I especially like his work with Gladiator.  I must admit that I have no idea what’s going to happen next.  Personally, I much prefer that.  It’s the mark of good writesr to be able to keep you guessing even until the end.  However, I do hope that Vulcan will not see the light of day past the end of this miniseries.  He’s the one blotch on Ed Brubaker’s superb record, and it would be better for everyone, both in real life and the Marvel Universe, if he just disappeared.

Plot: 9.2      Art: 9.2      Dialogue: 9.2      Overall: 9.2