treehugging

drive-by readings

Gotham City Sirens #14 (DC) "Strange Fruit Part One" Tony Bedard Andres Guinaldo Lorenzo Ruggeiro JD Smith Tomeu Morey Steve Wands Guillem March (cover)

what we learned: Paula Irving a.k.a. Poison Ivy's Star Labs career moves on to its next chapter: getting taken over by an alien plant life form! and you thought The Happening was bad.
oh shit moment: Ivy may be doing this out of her own accord. naah, there'll be a twist/reversal next issue.
what's next: we need saltwater!!!


you never met Plantman yet, have you?

snaps: Gotham City Sirens #6

... where Paul Dini and Guillem March provide some subtext with the imagery. judge for yourselves.

1) right on the opening page, we get a midget rubbing himself against former Joker lover and sexualized court jester Harley Quinn. sure, he wants to kill her but come on! Verne Troyer would like to be cast in this movie.

2) "Jenna Duffy" - doesn't the name sound a little too ... hmmm, porn-ish, perhaps? if that's not a subtext, does her work van have to be depicting the wench riding a pipe wrench? (hah! "pipe!")

3) whooops. an adult midget and a teenage boy wonder. draw your own conclusions. ("bring down"? from the looks of it, "go down" might be more appropriate)

drive-by readings: Power Girl #4

Power Girl #4 (DC) "Girls' Night Out" Justin Gray Jimmy Palmiotti Amanda Conner Paul Mounts John J. Hill Guillem March (variant cover)

as much as we had fun with the the opening three issues, #4 feels more like filler, although we establish that Starrware Industries is a much fun place to work with because of the CEO! i mean, why would i work with that selfish playboy Stark - but in a crossover, he'd buy Karen out. assuming he charms her pants off, which isn't easy. taking sidekick Terra for movie night, Karen ends up battling magical monsters in a story that borrows somewhat from Godzilla circa 1998. turns out these monsters are from a magic book held by a tree-hugging, D&D-playing geek girl, whom Karen gives a pass to work for the betterment of the world in a much more positive way (awwwww). but of course, our favorite part of the story is when Karen gets called three words: "busty airborne lass". even i couldn't help smiling - filler, but heh.

drive-by readings: Gotham City Sirens #1

Gotham City Sirens #1 (DC) "Union" Paul Dini Guillem March Jose Villarubia Steve Wands JG Jones (variant cover)

now that Birds of Prey has been taken off the board, DC tries the same tack with the Bats' female Rogues Gallery - Catwoman, Poison Ivy and Harley Quinn team up to ... wait, what exactly are they teaming up for? definitely not to roast marshmallows and exchange slumbooks. do girls still make slumbooks? anyway, bad girls wanna have some fun but not before getting into a fight first with ... Crossbones?! what is Crossbones doing here?? is he fleeing arrest after a prison break for his role in killing Captain America? oh, that's not Crossbones?!

i have to say that if i bought stock in Guillem March, i would have lost quite a bit on it after this issue. his covers were fantastic (well, in an immature fanboy-ish kind of way), but it doesn't seem to translate well to sequential pages. he seems to be a fan of manga with the whooshing motion of body parts, conveniently or purposely distracting you from the lack of details. is he trying to be Rob Liefeld? beyond the boobs and butts ... you can only hold our attention so long.

thankfully, writer Paul Dini neatly ties in the events from months past (this is still a Batman tie-in, after all). Pamela and Harley need to know why Selina is not the same Selina she was prior to undergoing open heart surgery courtesy of Hush. and yeah, they want to know Batman 's secret identity. pure light-hearted fun. i just think March should rethink his approach here, because this book has potential.

cover of the week

seems like she's wearing the same blouse from issue #1, but what the heck.



Oracle: The Cure #2 by Guillem March