What's going on with Nightwing (spoiler if you think it's needed)? TIA.

He was committed, foaming mouth and all, to Arkham.

I'm reading RIP, and I have to be honest and say I don't really know what the hell is going on. That's probably because i jumped back on with this arc, which means I've missed a lot of the clues and foreshadowing Morrison did earlier in his run. I'm pretty much ready to just give up on it for now, and revisit it later when it's all done. Morrison reads better for me that way.

I've been reading all of Morrison's Batman run, and I'm not completely sure what the hell is going on, either. I keep thinking that I must have missed an issue here or there, but I know that I haven't. I'd like to give Morrison the benefit of the doubt and believe that it will all somehow come together in the end. Sadly, I don't think that will be the case. It's poor, disjointed (although occassionally oddly compelling) storytelling.

A couple other random thoughts and opinions...

Just finished reading James Robinson's first issue of Superman. He's got a history of stellar work and it's too early to judge how everything will work out, but I really enjoyed this issue. The opening with Krypto was a joy even for this Krypto-hater. A year ago Supes was enjoying a hot pretzel and now he's playing fetch with his dog. Hurray for a more human Man of Steel!

And speaking of Superman, I'm loving Geoff John's run on Action Comics right now. "Last Son" suffered so many delays that it's a bit hard to judge without going back and re-reading the whole thing, but my initial reaction is pretty damn positive. The Legion story was excellent and Braniac is off to a strong start.
Unfortunately, the same can't be said for the quality of John's work on Green Lantern lately. The Sinestro Corp storyline was great, epic storytelling. Everything since has just felt like either build-up for Darkest Night or mediocre padding (a retelling of GL's origin????).

The new Hellboy movie was a bit of a disappointment for me, but the books (both Hellboy and BPRD) are on a roll. Quality miniseries being produced every month, including "The Ectoplasmic Man" and "War On Frogs" one-shots. Both are a real treat for fans of the characters of Johann Kraus and Roger.

It looks like Bill Willingham has added another winner to his resume with House Of Mystery.

Andy Diggle had a hard act to follow when he took over Hellblazer shortly after the departure of Mike Carey. Carey's run is my favorite take on the character, and this is coming from someone who has almost every single issue of the series. (I had to stop for a while during the Jenkins run because I couldn't justify wasting money on such dreck.) But Diggle's work on the title, while not groundbreaking by any means, has been very solid.

And, once again, I must state my love for DMZ. If you aren't reading this book, what the hell are you waiting for???? It's often disturbing, always thought provoking, but without being too bleak. Do yourself a favor and pick up the trades.

Just a small nitpick - House of Mystery is more Sturges' baby than anything. Willingham is only doing the inset stories, and even then I believe he's only doing them for the first story arc (although this I'm not too sure of). But yea, Sturges is the one behind House of Mystery.

Yeah, Morrison's style is exactly like that... You read and read totally lost and then for some reason at the end, it all comes together and you're like, "oh ok, thats pretty damn good."

I'm still waiting to think that about his run on New X-Men..

Finished the Sinestro Wars trades (including the Tales of the Sinestro Corps one):



Some of my fondest comic memories as a kid was reading stories about the entire corp being led by Hal Jordan against some huge foe, so I loved this as a whole.

Also finally read the last trade of Y the Last Man. I think this is one of the rare books that works much, much better as a month-to-month read... I just read the thing too fast, and kinda glossed over the impact of a lot of the major scenes.

Anyone reading Uncanny X-Men? I've been thinking about picking up some monthlies again to feed my need for comics, and with the 500 issue hitting today, I figured it would be a good start. Is it any good these days?

I guess if you wanted to jump on, this would be a good place since it's a new writer/artist/direction thing.

Ambush Bug #1 ...

I share many of these same sentiments.

The untimely death of Dennis ...

Final Crisis #3:

Yeah, I'm not feeling Final Crisis at all. It's just.. meh.

I actually enjoyed Front Line this week more than I did Final Crisis. You hear that. FRONT LINE! For fucks sake, that's just.... insane.

Also about Sinestro Corps. Pick up some of the latest issues, you'll see that the whole war was nothing more than a set up for the war of lights and the blackest night that's coming up next year. It'll make more sense like that. Maybe it loses something in the trades. I know having all the side mini stories in one trade doesn't make for good reading. When those were laced throughout the monthly books it read and felt great. I didn't feel that there was an anti-climatic ending. I haven't read it through in trade though. But as a monthly, Johns could do no wrong because I loved that whole experience.

I thought Final Crisis #3 was an incomprehensible mess. And I kept waiting for Supergirl to have a role in the issue, what with her being on the cover and all.

On the other hand, in the last few weeks, I picked up collections of Journey, Zot!, and American Flagg! Somebody remind me what year it is again?

I guess the problem I had is not with Johns necessarily, but it seems like EVERY DC big-event book is just a lead in to the next big event, which leads to the next one, etc. I guess this is true of Marvel as well these days, but for Annihilation, for instance, I felt like the first series had an ending, even if they followed it up with Conquest later.

I liked Final Crisis better when it was called Rock of Ages.

While I love Grant and I can see what he's trying to do here. That is, have us feel like we're missing some major bit of what is going on and be as confused and lost as the heroes in this situation were in their POV, a war in heaven was already fought and lost. Evil has already won, it just comes across as terrible story telling that, while it may read great in trade, simply feels like we're only reading every third page.

It's a mess and the tie in issues are a lot better than the main book. I really was more excited for Front Line this week than I was for Final Crisis. And that's a sad thing.

And yeah, for having Supergirl on the cover, she sure did a whole lot of nothing.

I'm just not feeling it. I mean, I get it. A darker DC blah blah blah where evil won. But I just don't care to read that. We already had a good year of that in the last big event and while I hated everything about Countdown, any one who actually read it would be totally lost anyway because Grant is completely ignoring Countdown altogether. Which is just.. well, at least fess up to the screw up of that year long mess.

I just wish DC could go a short time before "Shaking things up" with their major event so we can actually enjoy a complete run of good solid story telling.

DC's editorial schizophrenia solves this problem. Events in books that "shake things up" like Final Crisis and Batman: RIP are not referenced in other books starring the same characters; this is exactly the same problem that plagued Countdown and Final Crisis. While this lack of coordination has a negative impact on the big event books and continuity-driven stories, which consequently don't feel like events at all, it leaves the ongoing titles free to do their own thing, like Johns and Robinson on the Superman titles or Johns and Tomasi on the Green Lantern books.

It's a better situation than circa Identity Crisis, where the stink of that crossover tainted pretty much the entire DCU for a while.

Countdown was utterly unreadable and almost totally inaccessible. It was probably one of the worst events in DC history, next to the Millennium 2001 fiasco.

Justice Society of America is the thing out IMO. JSA Annual #1 was really great. Batman RIP - The Heart of Hush - is looking good so far. It seems Dini suggest that Bruce got his concept for Prep-time from Thomas Elliot.

All Batman titles are in R.I.P, which while it has some good potential, it's really not even in the same boat as in what is going on. You have nightwing in the nut house one issue, then the next he's getting helicopter debri stabbed into him. Detective and BATMAN don't mesh together at all.

Green Lantern, while good, is spending a good 7 months on retelling his origin so they could include and retcon blackest night seeds into it. So having their books NOT intersect with the main events only goes on for so long before the main event changes the status quo and then we have to reboot to the new changes.

Either way, Final Crisis is really not something I'm enjoying at all.

Just reread the Watchmen. It is been 20 years since I have read it and I forgot just how good it was. I also see no way this can be brought to the screen in a way that will satisfy anyone that has read the graphic novel. Hopefully I am wrong.

The worst thing that can happen to watchmen is if it is brought to the screen in a way that is actually true to the comic.

Honestly, as great as the Watchmen is, I have no real desire to watch it as a movie. The outfits just look terrible when translated to the big screen and I don't think the story can truly be adapted .