Gotham City Sirens #4
Written by Paul Dini
Art and cover by Guillem March
Ah, Paul...Really, I'm LOVING Batman: Streets of Gotham, it's classic Batman storytelling transferred into the post-Morrison "New Batman" era.
However....
I know you have a thing for the girls of the DC Universe, and the Batman girls, in particular, as the creator of Harley Quinn, we can thank you for that. You've used this to great effect when you were writing for Batman: The Animated Series, giving us some terrific "side stories," getting us away from the staid Dark Knight for 20 minutes. The thing is, what works as a "one off" TV episode is not enough to hang an ongoing series on. Gotham City Sirens reads like "Paul Dini's fetish show," it's a great fetish, I dig it, but....the series seems really thin.
Green Lantern #46
Written by Geoff Johns
Art and cover by Doug Mahnke and Christian Alamy
Variant cover by Andy Kubert
Geoff Johns was born to write mainstream comics. There are other comic writers that might be better, more technically proficient, or adventurous in terms of structure, but Johns is the guy who sits down with the sandbox he's given and starts seeing all the things that can be done with that sand without breaking the box. His work is always good, sometimes inspired. His Superman: Secret Origin went from something I thought would be a pointless retread to pretty darn interesting in one issue, kudos. (The Gary Frank "I'm just going to draw Christopher Reeve, OK?" artwork only adds to the package.)
But I digress....
Johns has been building up to this Blackest Night event for a long, long time. Through the Green Lantern: Rebirth return of Hal Jordan, through The Sinestro Corps War, and the constant build up to Blackest Night in the Green Lantern and Green Lantern Corps series over the past year. All of that material has been terrific, Johns in full creative flight...
So why am I feeling "Meh" about Blackest Night now that it's here? I trust Johns, and I'm in for the long haul on his Green Lantern era. It's just that, for all the build-up, I'm just thinking "huh, Zombies...great."
Now, since this is a very light week, I usually use that for an opportunity to pick up something that I haven't been, and with Wednesday Comics now done dealing, I have a bit in the budget to play with, so....I MIGHT pick these up this week.
Batman: Widening Gyre #1 & #2
Written by Kevin Smith
Art by Walter Flanagan and Art Thibert
Cover by Bill Sienkiewicz
Earlier this year, Kevin Smith and Walt Flanagan (of View Askew movie pseudo-fame) jumped into the DCU with Batman: Cacophony. A really enjoyable little tale using a villian Smith created for his run on Green Arrow years back, Onomatopoeia, who's gimmick was that he didn't speak except in sound effects. He would, literally, say "BANG! BANG!" when firing a gun, for example. I found the tale fun enough, and Smith did some really twisted things with The Joker, that some folks objected to...Me? I just figure...He's crazy, right? I don't see why people are so willing to accept a twisted character in the terms of violence, but when it touches on something sexual...it's "defiling" the character.
How, exactly, do you defile a character like The Joker?
Anyway, long story shot...I enjoyed the previous mini-series, so I'll might give this one a shot.
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