DC hates beetles

i guess this is the end of the road for the current Blue Beetle, who dies by the hand of Max Lord. again.

here's a thought: let's revive Ted Kord by the end of the year. and by 2012, have Max Lord kill him again.

of course, this could be a red herring. its too obvious, isn't it?

by the way, you mean one of the weaknesses of the Beetle armor is right on the forehead? geddouddaheah!
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Justice League: Generation Lost #19

out of the pan

drive-by readings

Justice League: Generation Lost #8 (DC) "Would It Be Okay With the Management If We Check Out Early" Judd Winick Aaron Lopresti Matt Ryan Sal Cipriano Hi-Fi Cliff Chiang (cover) Ryan Sook/Joel Gomez/Fernando Pasarin/Randy Mayor/Carrie Strachan (variant cover)

what we learned: our JLWRML (Justice Leaguers Who Remember Max Lord) break out of Checkmate because they got caught and they can't find Max. the chemistry between them is extremely enjoyable and i hope they keep this team intact even after the future resolution of this Max Lord thing.
oh shit moment: if you can't find Max, Max will find you (isn't that from The Losers?).
what's next: for someone who doesn't want the world to remember him, he keeps pestering the JLI. what do you want, Max?


again: the most likable Russian since Ivan Drago. oh, wait, no, i meant Nikolai Luzhin.

breaking balls

drive-by readings

Justice League: Generation Lost #7 (DC) "Of Course, They Got Caught" Judd Winick Joe Bennett Jack Jadson Travis Lanham Hi-Fi Cliff Chiang (cover) Ryan Sook/Joel Gomez/Fernando Pasarin/Randy Mayor/Carrie Strachan (variant cover)

what we learned: our JLWRML (Justice Leaguers Who Remember Max Lord) break into Checkmate just to find out where Max is. of course, this is Checkmate we're talking about it here - the most hardcore spy agency in the DCU. and what happens is ... wait for it ... wait for it ... of course, they get caught!!
oh shit moment: i think i missed Magog #12. what the hell happened in there? is he gonna be an asshole just like in Kingdom Come?
what's next: it's clobbering you time!


the most likable Russian since Ivan Drago. oh, wait, no, i meant Nikolai Luzhin.

atomic peek

drive-by readings

Justice League: Generation Lost #6 (DC) "Splitting the Atom" Judd Winick Keith Giffen Fernando Dagnino Raul Fernandez Hi-Fi Travis Lanham Cliff Chiang (cover) Kevin Maguire/Hi-Fi (variant cover)

what we learned: Captain Atom, who exists for solely nothing except to absorb nuclear explosions in the DCU, takes a positive thing out of his latest absorption exercise as he is transported into the future where Max Lord wins. so yeah, more reason to stop their former boss once and for all.
oh shit moment: the only metahuman survivor of that future is a shriveled up prune formerly known as Power Girl.
what's next: yikes .... bring me back the Amanda Conner days! damn you, Maxwell Lord!



better make a time capsule, boys ... you don't want your PG looking like the one on the right.



and then there was that awkward time between Karen and Nate ...

DC artists are Russians

front and center: Joe Bennett (БЭНЭТ); below: Jack Jadson (ЛЖаДСОН). and others i can't make out.


the motherland vill triumph!!!

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Justice League: Generation Lost #4

goodbye, Roy Harper.

t'was nice knowing ya.


thanks a lot, James Robinson and J.T. Krul.

look out, Teen Titans, you're next!

countdown for Jaime Reyes' funeral, in three, two ...

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Justice League: Generation Lost #2

who's down with Max Lordy? yeah, you know me!

"miss me?? am sure you did!"

Maxwell Lord (oh god, the smugness of the name alone) is back and first thing he does to reclaim his douchebag title is to have two cops shoot each other. bloody hell.

ever since he went over to the dark side, i'm just holding on to the memories of the old Giffen/Maguire days and even contemplated getting a lobotomy. oh wait, he can do that for me, can he?

hey, you still call it the "Bat Computer"?? Oracle doesn't call hers the 'Oracle Computer'. neither does the Calculator. see, is DC trying to be trite and kid-friendly? but with all the dead and dying happening (see Night, Blackest and Day, Brightest), that doesn't seem like it.

who else are supposed to go after Max? well, of course it'll be the old JLI gang. what you should just remember is that no one is safe and for all we know, they'll all go the way of Ted Kord soon enough.


"what kind of bomb?" let's see:
- a Nega Bomb?
- a Jaegerbomb?
- a James Bomb? ("boooooooooooooooo!")
- the kind of Bomb that Fire and Ice are (bombshells)




right, keep telling yourself that, Max.

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Justice League: Generation Lost #1

R.I.P. Ryan Choi

and here i thought another Atom going thru snot was the worst thing.


ah, Ryan Choi, we barely knew ye.



so who else dies in Brightest Day?

Kyle Rayner?
Wally West?
Donna Troy?
Cassie Sandsmark?
the hispanic Blue Beetle?
Bart Allen? again?
Speedy Mia?
Roy Harper? (oh wait, "Arsenal" kills them all for "letting" Prometheus kill Lian)

place your bets, and thank Geoff Johns!!!*

* he never actually said Brightest Day would be all flowers and balloons and happy-happy-joy-joy now, did he?

Roy Harper is a choker

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Justice League: Rise of Arsenal #2

snaps: Justice League - The Rise of Arsenal #1

... where we stick the knife in deeper into Roy Harper's broken heart, gouge at his entrails, and kick his severed arm around the room. seriously, James Robinson severely damaged this character and now we're supposed to believe he's going to come back as a badass evil-crushing vigilante of sorts - that is, if he doesn't die first (see, its the powerless archers that get deconstructed and "die honorably" - see The Nail, and Another Nail). and how do we explain the 2000 resurrection of Oliver Queen? ah, editor ex machina. welcome back to the '90s, DC. i guess that Hot Tub Time Machine does work!

"Freddy Marvel" is a sore loser with video games.


ah ah, tactical error, Roy. you shoulda stomped him to the ground. do not ever listen to a villain prattling.


whoooops - somebody's pulling a fast one, Mr. Green-Gigolo-who-allegedly-had-a-threesome-with-Zinda-and-Helena.


for once, the Canary Cry is silenced.


you know who i'd cast as that pusher? Christopher Walken *. YEAH.



* well, only because David Carradine accidentally killed himself.

it could happen to you

... if you badmouth the Titans for not being good enough as the Justice League.



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Titans #23

you hit like a girl #20

hell, why not make it a three for three?




if you look closely, Kara has her eyes open. and she's slightly smiling. i'd say she's checking out the package, but that's just me.


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Magog #6

atomic fate

drive-by readings

The Atom & Hawkman #46 (DC) "Bye Bye Birdie" Geoff Johns Ryan Sook Fernando Pasarin Nick Napolitano Hi-Fi a presumably one-shot following the final issue (#45) back in November 1969, The Atom & Hawkman #46 begins with a recap of what Ray Palmer's life's been so far (new fans will remember the Identity Crisis period) and details the moments as he becomes deputized as an Indigo Lantern deep in the midst of Blackest Night. his best friend Hawkman (with Kendra), now a Black Lantern, attempts to bring him over to the dark side, and is saved momentarily by his sponsor, Indigo-1. to enable her to contact the rest of her tribe, Ray has to protect her from all comers including his bitch of a wife Jean Loring (who makes him relive that night she kills Sue Dibny). his success fittingly puts him back into major player status, something i've been looking forward to, with all due respect to Ryan Choi. Geoff Johns makes hay while the night is still young, and Ryan Sook's fluid art complements him perfectly. now if only Sook also drew the X-Force issues of Necrosha ...

and here we have another case of DC's adeptness in typos.


does AIG work for you, Ray?


ironically, Ray refines his ex-wife's tested killing method.


in the land of tinier people, the Atom is king.


my, my, Mr. Palmer, what language.

snaps: Titans #20

... where am not sure why i read #21 first before this. this is certainly interesting. Donna Troy moves to Miami, and doesn't bring me along. even worse, she finds a handsome bartender to spend time with in-between Amazonian bitching and whining in the Titans tower.

i just hope they're not about bestiality.


clearly, this is the owner of those DVDs.


"LIMUX"? what the-!? what are the rules for product placement and fake product placement?


what's lamer than "Frightful Four"?


Hercules: "Woolly! And you say ..."


and the moral lesson here is: never interrupt Donna while she's eating.

snaps: Titans #21

... where the Titans are at a crossroads, with teammates down or sidetracked or unsure where they're going. that's pretty much it. since there's a cliffhanger, most likely there is a Titans #22.

by "psychopath", she means James Robinson.


wow, you're a model for positive thinking, Donna. you know who i heard that from? the Midnighter.


you mean they were brother and sister? and they did it?? get out!!!


again, let us not read too much into this dialogue ...


is she shocked after looking at a mirror and realizing how skimpy her costume is?

so now he's a real man?

she tells him he's gonna be a boy no more, then lays hands on him. what conclusion are we supposed to draw here?

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World's Finest #3

unmellow yellow

drive-by readings

Green Lantern #46 (DC) "Feared" Geoff Johns Doug Mahnke Christian Alamy Tom Nguyen Randy Mayor Gabe Eltaeb Rob Leigh Hi-Fi Andy Kubert/Alex Sinclair (variant cover)

what's the best thing about this issue? the inevitable showdown between Sinestro and Mongul. and guess who wins!

Blackest Night, as an event, seems to be overburdened by its own hype. i mean the series itself is something worth following, but the nature of the whole thing demands it has to spill over to the DC Universe, inadvertently making it like DC's version of cough, cough, Marvel Zombies, with a twist. Blackest Night is inherently a Green Lantern story, but by encompassing all the major titles (incidentally, where's Blackest Night: Wonder Woman?), i have the feeling that it kind of overreached a bit.

of course you need to tell other stories that may be tangential to or build something toward the main storyline. here we have the beginning of the melding of colors - Green Lantern, Sinestro, Star Sapphire and Indigo-1. Blue should not be a problem, but Red (Anger) and Orange (Avarice) may need a little more prodding to play ball. along the way, Hal Jordan, all coiffed up and ready to fight, has time to flirt as well (hel-lo, Carol!). hey, perks of the hazardous job. the Indigo Lantern said it best (referring to our flyboy): "Despite what the Zamarons preach, love cannot conquer all - you are a living example of that." of course, he is. he's the one who has one night stands with like half of the Birds of Prey.

next issue promises to be more of relationship exploration, as more dead friends come back to life. Arin Sur? who's Arin Sur? exactly. you sly Sinestro, you.

death is everywhere

drive-by readings

Blackest Night #3 (DC) Geoff Johns Ivan Reis Oclair Albert Joe Prado Alex Sinclair Nick Napolitano Ethan Van Sciver/Hi-Fi (variant cover)

ok, maybe brute force is the answer to kill these Black Lanterns. turns out the Indigo Lanterns (representing compassion, natch!) hold the key or at least the plan on how to beat them. hint: you have to be gay. you know, like a rainbow? no? sigh.

since when did Ralph talk like the Joker? Atom "hates being in the dark" yet shrank to minutiae in the blackness post-Jean Loring imprisonment. right now, we are still in Barry/Hal-centric mode (as this is indeed, for all intents and purposes, a GL-driven crossover). and we get some Firestorm love as it looks like the new version isn't up to snuff. heh. snuff.

we also have a heart to heart talk between Barry and Hal regarding their philosophies. i thought i'd never write that sentence except when looking back at old Justice League stories. i thought we moved past that, had Kyle and Wally. nope ... back to old. what are the bets that Grant Morrison's reconstituted Batman will be reversed down the line and they'll bring back Bruce Wayne back?

but anyway - we get more dead people coming back (hell, the dead obviously outnumber living people at this point, so from a numbers standpoint, the heroes have no chance). note that they're all in the JLA HQ in Washington, DC, and they have all their dead in the building! so you see Maxwell Lord getting out of his cadaver with his head(!) still attached. (and is that a piece of Wonder Woman's lasso around his neck?) things look bleak around here, the Purple Ones notwithstanding.

Nok Klek. this means you ain't seen nothing yet.

Hal Jordan says ...

"i don't think that's the way to amputate a smoker's haaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaAAAAAAAARRGHHHHH!!!!!"




moral lesson, kids: quit the damn sticks.

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Green Lantern #41