Stryder's Favourite Comics...Release Date 1/4/2012

Now that we've had all the excitement of moving beyond the new 52 earlier this week, perhaps we're ready to return to more familiar ground!  Only three comics for me, but two out of three of them are two of my favourite monthlies.  Then there's Green Arrow.  Let's see what we've got...

Action Comics #5 - Last month's Action comics ended with a large chunk of Metropolis having been stolen by an alien being who calls himself "The Collector" and essentially behaves like Brainiac, but probably isn't quite yet (speculation).  You can forget all that though, cause this month takes us back to a time when Kal-El was an itty bitty little super baby and the planet Krypton still hung majestically in space.  You know, for about 5 more minutes.  I liked this issue.  The origin keeps to the basic facts that we all know and love but manages to stay interesting by adding a few extra elements that will certainly pay off in story dividends down the line.  Plus, seeing the destruction of Krypton as drawn by Andy Kubert is totally worth the four bucks.   Not only that, but there's a cute bonus story about a young couple named John Kent and Martha Clark,  their wedding day, their hopes and dreams and struggles to conceive a child in this topsy-turvy world.  I always like a couple pages of characterization and back story...helps keep things real.  You know, relatively speaking...we are still talking about believing a man can fly, of course...

Or even JUMP over tall buildings?

 

Detective Comics #5 - This month's Detective Comics is broken into 2 shorter stories, one filling in an intermezzo between last issue and what's to come, and the other introducing Catwoman to the pages of this comic and also introducing a new character or two.  The last name "Strange" may ring some bells.
The main story involving Batman picks up where last we left off.  The Dollmaker is gone, but no one knows what's happened to the Joker.  He's disappeared, leaving only the skin of his face behind...no one knows for sure if he's even alive or dead.  Shrines are being built to him by misguided Gotham youth, who are starting to turn on Batman and paint him as the Joker's killer.  Of course this makes no sense, but you know how kids are these days with their twitters and their clown worship.  Batman doesn't let him get it down and is all business, tracking first a hijacker and then a mysterious assasin, whilst dealing with the aforementioned grieving, angry mob of psychotic clown fans.  It's hard out there for a bat.  Regardless, this is all somehow leading up to the spoiled-on-the-cover appearance of the Penguin and a sets us up nicely for issue #6.   

Green Arrow #6 - Green Arrow had some trouble last month with a young lady calling herself Blood Rose.  He managed to defeat her in the end, although she got away of course.  This month, Oliver learns that Blood Rose has a friend.  A large, overprotective toxic monster of a friend.  Somehow both of these actually-pretty-sympathetic characters have a close tie-in with Oliver Queen, although he isn't even aware of it.  Neither know that Queen is Green Arrow, but considering how sloppy he is, it's only a matter of time.  Assuming he survives that long.  It's going to be tough to survive this in a way that somehow involves arrows!

A lot of this issue was battle, and the rest was selling me on Midas, the monster behind Blood Rose.  He only looks hideous, they really want us to feel sympathy for him, I guess.  His origin reminded me strongly of old-school Swamp Thing.  Hopefully things work out for him and Blood Rose, whatever their goals may be.  If only they weren't trying to hurt people along the way, they'd make a great Cloak & Dagger like team.  Maybe in a month or two...