Friday, December 14, 2007

Comics in December pt. 4

Continuing the pile of books showing up this month (man, there have been a lot!):

Countdown to Final Crisis #20 - Okay, four really good issues in a row meant we were due for a bit of clunker. This week's book was it. Despite the wonderful art by Howard Porter, the story was back to hitting each of the main characters for two to three pages each. Yawn. Momentum is quickly losted faster than the Pied Piper lugging around the Trickster's corpse (I'm still stinging from that death - but now it's getting morbid and not in a funny "Weekend at Bernie's" sort of way). I hope things pick up again soon.

Countdown: Arena #2 - the slaughter-fest continues this week with showdowns between trios of Rays, Blue Beetles and Green Lanterns. I liked the touch of telling us which of the 52 Earths each of the heroes comes from. It helps to map out the Multiverse a bit better. Some of the combatants were familiar or vaguely familiar. Others had interesting twists. Some of these death-fights though were pretty gruesome. I'm really glad this book only runs for four issues - all this month. While this is an okay as a one-time-deal story, I wouldn't want to see a steady diet of this.

Tales of the Green Lantern Corps: Ion - this one-shot kind of serves as an epilogue of sorts to the recent "Sinestro War" arc in the GL titles. Mostly, it focuses on the passing of the torch between Kyle Raynor and the Daxamite who is to serve as the new host of Ion. I picked it up to go with the other GL book this week, but I wasn't all that thrilled with it. It was just okay for me.


Green Lantern #25 - this was THE book for me this week! Man, what an awesome conclusion to an awesome story arc. We get a super-sized issue with some gorgeous double-page panels - the art was fantastic through-out (and well worth the few weeks delay in schedule). We get a ton of action and a conclusion worthy of any Hollywood blockbuster epic. We get guest-heroes (which should be there when a huge invasion hits the Earth). We get some nice family moments between Hal and his brother, as well as Coast City showing their love for the hometown legend. We get heroes fighting without their rings - because in the end it isn't the power that makes a hero a hero. We see see the villains - Cyborg-Superman, Prime, the Anti-Monitor and Sinestro - all get served, as well they should. We get it all! And we get hints of what's to come - as the next major GL landmark event will be coming in the summer of 2009. I guarantee the build up over the next year and a half will be amazing. Geoff Johns has proven once more his love for these characters and that he has the ability to build upon the foundations of the past while moving the whole pantheon to the next level.

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