Or hell I could just do this thing right now! Moving along...
Superman #8 - The issue opens in media res with Superman being hunted down by power-armour wearing soldiers and (not appearing but implied) members of the Justice League! They hate and fear him for being a too-powerful alien, a la Lex Luthor in the first few Action Comics...It's weird and random and... all a trick of Helspont, the skull-headed alien introduced last issue! I guess the weird purple plant thing growing out of Superman's mouth on the front cover has hallucinogenic properties. It's quite a striking cover, although rest assured, inside the issue the Man of Tomorrow keeps BOTH eyes...
Once Superman figures out that he's on a weird alien acid trip, the rest of the issue becomes a running monologue by Helspont basically espousing his belief structure and giving a lot more backstory than I really cared about. It was well written though and Superman's responses to the guy's tirades were amusing. Eventually Clark gets bored with the arguing and starts the punching...
Oh PS Lois' little sister comes to Metropolis and is kind of a bitch! Also, Jimmy Olson has bed bugs. B-Plot!! Overall it's more of a "set stuff up" than a "stuff happens" kind of issue, but I enjoyed it!
Of course if Superman's not to your tastes, there's more after the JUMP!
Aquaman #8 - We continue to learn about "The Others" - a one-time sort-of super hero team that Aquaman belonged to 6 years ago (and you thought you were his first, Justice League!), and which was created apparently with the specific task of hiding and protecting the "Relics of Atlantis". So last month a guy named Black Mantis killed a member of the Others and took her relic. Now Arthur and another member, Ya'Wara (aka hot girl with a pet panther) are off to track down Mantis before he finds any other Others (if you catch my drift). Mera's none to happy about Arthur tromping off to have an adventure with another woman but she trusts him and lets him go while she stays behind to babysit a scientist that seems involved in all of this and may not be entirely trustworthy! Wow that's a lot of plot!
That's not all though! We also get flashbacks to that time 6 years ago when Arthur was young, angry and stupid! We know he was young and angry because he doesn't care about anything except stopping Black Mantis - even at the cost of innocent lives! We also know he was stupid because he's running around with a silly necklace and no shirt in the middle of a snowy forest! As a Canadian, I can tell you that that is most definitely STUPID!
Regardless, we get lots of insight and backstory on Aquaman's character. A deeper level of characterization to keep us from laughing poor Arthur off as just some guy in an orange shirt who likes to make friends with fish. It's important to keep reminding us that he's pretty bad-ass and they keep on doing just that, with fantastic results!
Batman The Dark Knight #8 - A fairly enjoyable more-or-less one shot story this month with guest penciller Ed Benes before the Night of the Owls kicks in next issue. The story begins as Commissioner Gordon and Batman are investigating a subway train filled with the corpses of commuters who killed themselves. I hate commuting too, but this was pretty blood-soaked. An overreaction to a delay on the subway train to be sure. I usually just read a magazine or something.
So Batman, of course, investigates...and turns up a bunch of Alice in Wonderland villains...specifically Tweedle Dee, Tweedle Dum and the Mad Hatter! Presumably this has something to do with the White Rabbit who's been the background manipulator since issue #1. There's certainly a theme! Dare I presume that writer David Finch is a fan of Alice in Wonderland? Hmmm...
Meanwhile, the mayor's underling, Lieutenant Forbes, is giving Gordon a hard time and making him see a shrink for evaluation due to recent events. I mean, the guy had his face all sliced up, nearly died, and his family life is questionable at best. Then his best friend never sticks around to hear the last thing he has to say! Life sucks when you're Commissioner Gordon...
The Flash #8 - The Flash has gone INTO The Speed Force to try and rescue Iris and the others who were accidentally sucked into it last issue. Instead he finds a man who has been trapped in there since World War II! This guy is completely bonkers and calls himself Turbine as whenever he tries to run out of the speed force, he instead just ends up spinning at fantastical speeds! He's the fastest dizzy man alive! Not only that, but it turns out that it is because of THIS guy, and NOT because of the Flash, that the Speed Force has been opening up random dimensional portals!! When the Flash runs, it's actually GOOD for the Speed Force and acts as a pressure release valve! TURBINE'S the one screwing stuff up, getting objects and now people sucked into this crazy-town dimension where left is right, black is white and hot snow falls up!
Well, good news for Barry...at least he doesn't have to worry that he's screwing up his own powers or putting lives in danger any more! The bad news is, this gets him no closer to rescuing Iris or escaping the speed force himself before he goes just as mad as Turbine! If anyone can do it...
Teen Titans #8 - It's another "Prelude to the Culling" issue and we open on some crazy disturbing scenes of Red Robin being tortured through trans-mutation as the team is held captive by N.O.W.H.E.R.E. and left in the hands of a reality-altering metahuman girl called Omen. She is Messed Up (capital letters!) and takes out her strangeness on the Titans, one team member at a time...Oh did I mention she has no eyes?
Anyway through all this torture we do learn some interesting things about these kids...some secrets are revealed and some questions are answered. Even more questions are raised! Character is tested! I particularly love how Tim is constantly trying to figure things out and learn more about all the villains even while he himself is in agony and the team's situation looks completely hopeless. He really is the smartest Robin...
Oh and somewhere in there someone dresses all the Titans up in the outfits from the cover. I like their original outfits better, but hey, at least they all match now, right? Speaking of the cover, it took me an embarrassingly long time to realize that it's a match for the cover of Teen Titans #1.
Well, I never claimed to be particularly observant...
So that's it for April! I'm excited for new comic book day tomorrow! Along with Action Comics, Detective Comics and Green Arrow, it's also time for the first few #1 issues of the New 52 Wave 2!! Oh AND Teen Titans Annual #1! Wow!!
Well to tide you over until tomorrow you can always read the latest Stryder's Dementia post...it contains a picture of a badger! Peace and love!
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