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LWICK: Now Do You Get It?

I apologize for this post to be a day late. Our internet at home is not working and Time Warner was suposed to climb the pole and fix it yesterday, but they failed. Because of their incompetence I am sneaking this article past “Big Brother” who monitors the net here at work a day late.

Last Week In Comics:
A fresh take on 6-day-old comics.

El Diablo #2

El Diablo is one of the DC comic characters that I did not, or do not, know much about so when a first issue of a new comic hits the rack I usually try it out. Last month I was surprised with how similar to Ghost Rider El Diablo is and how much I enjoyed it.

This El Diablo miniseries is Ghost Rider done right.

While the first issue is pure set-up showing us readers this ruthless gang leader get doublecrossed and shot by his second in command in federal custody. While in custody, Commissioner Gordon Agent Aaron offered him freedom to snitch while sharing a room with the original host of El Diablo. Chato does not snitch but the curse of being Hell’s assassin is transferred to him.

While the first issue gives us the background on Chato Santana, this issue gives some history and back story for the curse that is El Diablo. I am liking the story even if magic and curses is not my forte, seeing Hell’s assassin who is dressed straight out of the old west talking like a modern day street thug is definitely worth the cover price.

Justice League of America #25

Recently I have been bored with this title, but with the light load at the comic shop and a promise that the Red Tornado story finally ends I decided to check it out.

This issue, once we got past the “are you still here” Red Tornado drama, was a fun read. Dwayne McDuffie seems to be crafting solid stories that may not fit nicely in the DCU, but instead stays connected but separate like he did with the JLU animated series.

This story is connected, outside the JLA, to the DCU because of the Buddy Baker connection. The story is it’s own separate entity from the DCU because Batman is mentally insane (keep reading) and captured in Final Crisis not being able to be part of this story. With that complaint aside I had fun reading about this “new” villain.

The story of Anansi is not new to me. I was aware that in African folklore Anansi was a giant spider, and a god, who played tricks on people to get his way or profit. Reading McDuffie’s rendition of this character and how he could rewrite a story was fun, something that the Justice League has been missing recently. I have read other complain about the re-crafting of the DCU into an Elseworld, but again I found it to be a fun twist.

I was excited for a Justice League story again, even if its an alternate version of the JLA, until I did some research on Anansi. Anansi intrigued me so I decided to look up the folklore on Wikipedia and I found this “Many Anansi stories deal with him attempting to trick people into allowing him to steal food or money, or something else that could turn a profit, but frequently the tricks ultimately backfire on poor Anansi.” Now I feel that I already know the ending. If the next issue does end this way I hope McDuffie makes the ride worth it.

Nightwing #149

There was a while where most of the Bat-books were not that good and it was easy to pick the best of the bunch. Now it seems as if Batman and all of his current and former sidekicks are at the top of their game.

The end of issue 148 hit me as a small red flag in the best comic of that week. At the end of the issue Nightwing entered through a window into a room packed full with major players form Batman’s rouge gallery. I was not buying this at first and was nervous to see how it played out, it was the type of thing that could be too over the top and ruin a good story arc. Instead this issue opened up with Nightwing realizing that all of these baddies were not real, just creation in his own mind from the Scarecrow’s fear gas.

This story focuses on Harvey Dent, Two-Face, hiring Nightwing to protect a District Attorney from an assassination. In this issue we find out that Harvey hired Nightwing to protect her from Two-Face. Yes, Two-Face.

Harvey Dent has always been messed up with the whole split personality thing, but now he is really messed up. It seems as if Harvey no longer has a split personality that uses the flip of a coin to make decisions. Instead he seems to have a dual identity that is determined by the flip of a coin. In the past Two-Face was always aware of both personalities and because of the “good” side and “evil” side he used a coin flip to make decisions, now it seems that the coin toss determines which personality is present and which one is suppressed.

I raved about the last issue showing Nightwing as the perfect hero… in this issue he is not able to protect the District Attorney from being shot by “evil” Harvey. I look forward to seeing how Nightwing moves on from his failure since “good” Harvey wants revenge for Nightwing’s failure.

and…

THE BEST COMIC OF LAST WEEK:
BATMAN #680

Wow… This R.I.P. story has been one heck of a ride. Grant Morrision has successfully made me believe that in a month the Bruce Wayne Batman I have known all my life will be dead… will be no more.

Normally I read big events with the mindset that the next writer will undo everything and put it back to normal if they don’t want to play along anymore, but not this time. I don’t have that comforting feeling that when this is over everything will go back to normal.

Normally I would discuss this comic by recapping what happened and sharing my oppinion. Instead since Morrision has crafted a story that I am still mentaly digesting five days later I will share some images and a link to someone who disects this issue better than I ever could. Check out Geniusboy Firemelon’s “Batman R.I.P.” Part V: Batman #680 Annotations along with some amusing and disturbing images from the BEST COMIC OF LAST WEEK.

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Posted by Fred, on 10/7/08 1:40 PM Bookmark this post Digg Reddit Blogg-Buzz StumbleUpon