Funnybook Roundup Monday

It is a good thing that DC is holding the line at $2.99, because something like Brightest Day seems just that little bit easier to indulge at that price than at 33% more. I am catching up on comics over the Boskone President's Day weekend and just did issues #17-20. #17 was half good with Firestorm and Deadman stuff that was interesting and the. Hawkman stuff that was not. #18 is almost all Hawkman with a little Deadman and may end (spoiler alert, but really, if you care about the series you read this issue a month ago unlike me) with Hawkman and Hawkgirl being dead, and does anyone really care?  Hawkwoman?  Cannot stay dead, even as a DCU backwater for most of his existence eventually the attorneys will need them revived for trademark purposes, but maybe we can hope not until 2015. Issues 19 and 20 have an Aquawar. Lots of fast page flipping in #19, some payoff in the followup issue.  I want more Firestorm in the final four issues, and at this point I think I can spend $11.96 or something to see where it goes. This isn't great stiff, but I am more involved than in the last 23 DCU crossover epics which counts for something. 

Speaking of trademark rejuvs, I have been selectively sampling the DC Comics Presents reprint books, and should have selected away from The Atom.  The first half from twelve years back has some Gil Kane art in what is intended asman homage/return to Silver Age comics. But Silver Age didn't mean incoherent, and this is.  With a script I couldn't comprehend the charms of the Gil Kane art, ne being one of the quintessential Silver Age artists, were elusive, and I felt guilty for preferring the more contemporary art by in the Atom pages. The second half was a more contemporary story equally incomprehensible. So let's be fair to Brightest Day and other current comics not as good as that. It's only via extremely rose-colored glasses that there was a good old days when only good comic books were published. 

Superman isn't looking good right now. DC made a big push with issue #701 of it and Wonder Woman with J. Michael Straczynski taking over both. WW wasn't good at all, Superman was interesting, a brave stylistic choice, but not a clear winner. Straczynski bailed, deciding he wasn't doing great work and shouldn't do at all.  Now novelist and iZombie writer Chris Roberson is writing from JMS plots. 

The first of these, issue #707, which has fill-in art, is off to a bad start by panel two. Superman keeps a freight train from running over a little girl, but the art shows him doing this by stopping the train. I would vote for picking the girl up off the tracks, much less likely to cause collateral damage. A few pages later we have a caption where Superman worries about whether a factory's insurance will cover something. There is realism and there is realism, and this is a little much.  Later Superman is tempted to take the side of a plant owner who says if he can't poison the environment nobody will have jobs, and I don't see Supes as the type to settle for false choices like that. Issue 708 is a downhill step, the art is at least with series regular Eddy Barrows instead of the static fill-in of the prior issue, but the script starts out with an I erecting idea, loses it's way in prose like "you were trying to reconnect with the formative experiences that first taught you your values" and soon commended a guest appearance by Wonder Woman. Issue #709 is looking like a doubtful...