Batman
The New 52 version of the Riddler is essentially a well-prepared, but bitter, nerd. Hardly anybody gets him! Despite his verbal manipulation skills, punning, rhyming, foreshadowing, etc. Perhaps this Riddler is an angry autistic savant. Nobody really gets the guy except Batman, who's willing to indulge considering hyper-specific historical/literary/mathematics allusions because he's a genius. The Riddler is saddened by Batman's absence. He anxiously waits his return, killing time by killing people. I bet Scott Snyder thought up a lot of the Riddler concepts: it's cool, but I prefer a Riddler that's way crazier, and thus, equally ruthless--a la Hush. Different is fine I guess. What makes me really dig this is the structure and the end twist, which I bet was Ray Fawkes doing. 4 Question Mark Pinstripe Zoot Suits out of 5.
Last year's Batman annual #1 by Scott Snyder was an excellent Mr. Freeze one shot, readapting the many Freeze origins and creating something new. Snyder's Freeze is humanized (like the one from Batman: The Animated Series) but way crazier. Jimmy Palmonati and Justin Grey (perhaps the most reliable writers on the DC payroll), deepen the insanity. Freeze has a strange psychiatric syndrome that constantly needs love and control. That's why he freezes people all the time. Freeze is ruthless, compassionate, intelligent and delusional--a man of many layers. Plus, the art uses some clever paneling to tell the story with wide splash pages and tiny panels. Another good book. 5 Freeze Guns out of 5.
Harley Quinn (Detective Comics 23.2)
Matt Kindt (of Mind MGMT) sets up his upcoming Suicide Squad arc with this very solid issue. Kindt seeks to reconcile the many versions of Harley Quinn into one unified Harley Quinn with multiple personality disorder. She's been a psychiatrist, Joker's slave, Joker's sidekick, a villain free agent, a member of the anti-hero crime/fighting team, The Suicide Squad, and now all those things. "I'm more of a collage now. A mosaic," Harley says as while staring into a splintering mirror. I hope Kindt does this for every Suicide Squad member, as the DC Firestorm heroes keep getting everything cool about them edited out. Great script, but obnoxious art. Harley looks cartoony and childish simultaneously, while still being grossly-oversexualized and impossibly proportioned. Look at the cover: she has tiny twig arms, yet she's holding a gigantic wooden mallet only Bane could reasonably swing. Maybe I'd suspend disbelief and buy that Harley could swing a comically-oversized mallet if she wasn't wearing a corsette! That would make everything so much harder--everything except exposing stupidly oversized boobs to the hypothetical teenage audience that still reads comics, yet I've never seen one ever. You know who might draw a great Harley Quinn? Matt Kindt. 4 Sexy Clown Babies out of 5
This issue reads like outtakes from Scott Snyder's Court of Owls story line. While some of the scenarios are neat (the first Talon loved killing prostitutes as much as Jack the Ripper), all of them show the Court menacing Gotham the way Snyder intended. They've been there all the time, they've infiltrated the police, they trap their enemies in a scary labyrinth, etc. Almost nothing is different. The art is interesting: very moody, shaky, and sort of like a digitally colored Gotham Central. This sets up a story in Talon, a book I forgot existed. 2 Conspiratorial Crime Syndicates out of 5.
Superman
Brainiac (Superman 23.2)
Brainiac used to just be an alien, then he was a robot, then he was a computer: now he's a mishmash of all those things! Brainiac is a ruthless alien genius that can broadcast his consciousness into computers and robots. After being dejected from his species for experimenting on his infant son (he tried to build a bigger baby brain), Brainiac goes crazy and murders all his own people. Then he destroys Krypton (as revealed in Grant Morrison's Action Comics run) and terrorizes the universe. The art on this story is perfect. It's clean, but other world.y And, like Harley Quinn, it does a good job bridging the many disjointed versions of Brainiac into one. It's Grant Morrison inspired story telling that totally works. Brainiac even mentions he's tapped into the powers of the fifth dimension, where all the heroes are currently fighting. If we remember the words of Bat-Mite, "The Fifth Dimension is just imagination!", thus every superhero is a representation of unconscious trauma projected through imagination...right? 5 Miniature Civilizations Frozen in Bottles out of 5.
Zod (Action Comics 23.2)
Greg Pak knows how to make the inter-workings of pre-explosion Krypton fascinating. Zod is the estranged brother of Jor-El. As a child, Zod watched his father create cool space monsters to fight other evil space monsters persecuting Krypton. The monster escaped, killed Zod's family, and chased Zod into the wilderness--where he became the best warrior Krypton ever saw. But more about Krypton: the planet is a essentially a utopia because every citizen is utilized to make the city better. But there's still other-worldly problems to deal with--monster attacks; alien invasions--that create the required civic unity for perfect society. It seems like the elders are tyrants, yet benevolent (thanks to scientific augmentation): there must be proof before you're exiled to the Phantom Zone (remember Superman II?). Pak's Krypton is a smart, Dune-esque twist on space opera. I wish there was a series set 1000 years before Krypton explodes to show Krypton's origin Good week for Super-fans, 5 False Wars out of 5.
Justice League
Lobo (Justice League 23.2)
3 Grizzled Anti-Heroes out of 5.
Matt Kindt writes a creepy New 52 origin for Solomon Grundy. Of course, all Grundy really says is his creepy nursery rhyme, but this proves how effective Kindt is at visual story telling. The timeline alternates between Grundy's most recent resurrection, and Grundy's first resurrection in the sad swamp. The repetition of the rhyme becomes all the more tragic knowing that this sad, zombie man will never have the peace of dying. This origin also drops two interesting details: Grundy can make stuff rot, and he's after the "green man". Sounds like Swamp Thing territory to me! A Green Lantern/Swamp Thing cross over would be boss (Swampy was the coolest part of Blackest Night). I won't spoil Grundy's swamp origin because Matt Kindt writes one heck of a one shot 5 Monday Births out of 5.
Another of the DCU's many ice villains (Mr. Freeze; Captain Cold), Killer Frost is most obscure. Frost is an old Firestorm villain (that Jim Lee refuses to forget), who's had her origin reduxed three times since moving to DC in the 2000s. She was a terrorist, a member of a secret society, and now she's a brilliant super scientist. The first ten pages outline how Killer Frost got her powers. Working in an Antarctic super-lab, Frost tried creating a perpetual motion machine--Why perpetual motion would give you ice powers (and not heat powers) I have no idea. But, her scientist colleagues can't allow such a machine to exist, as their benefactors make too much money from fossil fuel. Again, one perpetual motion machine wouldn't immediately effect personal fuel consumption, it would change the current perceptual paradigm of how we perceive the physical world by breaking a thermodynamic law (something all scientists find neat). Ok, so the "science"is bunk, but that can be forgiven if Firestorm then used her powers creatively. Nope. She chases Firestorm for a page, goes to the Forever Evil pull-out meet-and-greet, and at the end of the issue, she resolves to die without Firestorm around. The art was fine. 2 Icicle Haircuts out of 5.
Flash/Teen Titans/Green Lantern/Aquaman
Reverse-Flash (Flash 23.1)
This was a cool origin involving time travel. Plus, the time travel connects events from the rest of Flash in a subtle way. In issue 0, when Flash stopped a bank robbery, he was actually putting Reverse-Flash in jail (he was just Daniel then). When all those gorillas invaded Central City and the Rogues tried saving the day, Daniel punched Heatwave in the face! And when Heatwave tried to shoot him with fire, he drove straight through mirror world in an explosion that would make him Reverse-Flash! There's also a sad story about child abuse, but the ending is cool so I won't spoil it. As always, the art on the Flash books is tops. Really awesome use of two page spreads (also looks great on screens). I usually find New 52 Flash too goofy, but this story nicely balances characters, plot, fun, and super-speed. 4 Time Traveling Sprints out of 5.
Trigon (Teen Titans 23.1)
Teen Titans legend Marv Wolfman returns to the Teen Titans...kind of? Trigon is Raven's demon dad (spoiler alert). This issue details his rise to power--from sucking the energy straight from a planet's heart!--to his ruthless galactic conquest. Trigon looks like a Satanic goat man. Fitting, as he forces one female of every planet he meets to bare his demon spawn ("You will be both my bride...and my mother," Trigon says very creepily). Then, a Trigon is born, grows up and destroys the world. Somehow, Raven is exempt from this destiny, possibly because she's a girl. Not sure. Otherwise, fine story, wish Wolfman got a chance to do something with a teen team dynamic though. 3 Space Devils out of 5.
Mongul (Green Lantern 23.2)
Of course the creator of Thanos, Jim Starlin, knows how to write about crazy space tyrants. Mongul, leader of Warworld, finds his planet under attack by a bug-alien armada. He invites an ambassador in and shows off how ruthless Warworld truly is. After first killing his twin, then killing his parents, Mongul dedicated himself to become supreme authority of all! He nuked his planet into submission, built it back up into a galactic military base, and dedicates all energy to war! Check out these four panels where Mongul explains the civic structure of Warworld, You're either a warrior, a janitor, or dead. Brutal. How do you think Mongul deals with the ambassador? 4 Galactic Fascists out of 5.
Black Manta (Aquaman 23.1)
I only know Aquaman's greatest foe from Hanna Barbara's Super Friends. He wore a scuba suit and shot a harpoon. In the New 52, his origin is interlinked with Aquaman's. Trying to steal Aquaman's blood, Black Manta accidentally gave Aquaman's father a heart attack. So, Aquaman went on Black Manta's boat late at night and killed Black Manta's father aiming for revenge. Lots of sad dad in the ocean it seems. After Manta gets Aquaman's trident in Forever Evil #1, he goes to his father's grave. Ultra-man (Superman's evil mirror identity) moves the moon, screwing up the tides, and flooding Black Manta's father's grave. If there's one thing this guy hates, it's people messing with his dad. This was kind of a dumb segue to Forever Evil, but now I have a better understanding of the scuba guy with the harpoon gun. 3 Flooded Graves out of 5.
Point Total! 49/65
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