Reviews of 8/3 stuff

It has been a crazy week – lots of it revolving around Ben (We need some more recent pics up, don’t we? One more thing to add to the “To Do” list!) His language skills seem to have doubled this week – not only is he starting to assay 3 syllable words, he’s also starting stringing words together to form simple sentences – “Bye bye, momma!” or “Airplane fly!”. He even busted out with a string of “Ub bub wa so-hi!”, which of course, is “Up above the world so high” from Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star. So, something is clearly cooking in his head, which is probably why he’s suddenly decided he doesn’t need naps any longer. 2 days this week (and one last) he flatly refused to go nap. This is bad because 1) little guys need their sleep, and he gets progressive more insane and wonky as the day slips by, and 2) because, up until now we’re scheduled our day AROUND his naps – working when he’s asleep, planning when and where to go based on his sleep, and all of that is out of the window now.

I feel like we’re back to where he was when he was 3 months old, y’know? Trying desperately to eke out 5 minutes of work between his needs.

I honestly don’t understand how people with more than one kid handle it.

But, he’s a rocker, yes he is.

Anyway, back to Alpha-Smart on the counter, seeing what I can bang out before the truck shows up…

DETECTIVE COMICS #809: Part 1 of “War Crimes”, and, ouch, based on first week sales, it’s a bomb – less than a 50% sell through, owies. What’s worse is how totally, frustratingly they’ve screwed Batman into the ground. Now they’ve got him altering crime scenes to save his weaselly ass. I mean, what? I’m not a cop or a crime scene investigator or anything, and even I know that the wound patterns from a “batarang” are going to be different than that from a kitchen knife! So, here we have a Batman not only covering up something he didn’t do, but making it HARDER for the legitimate police to do a thing. Gah! This is just plain CRAP

GOTHAM CENTRAL #34: and so I really want to see these cops solve some crimes DESPITE Bat’s interference. I want to see them kick his damn ass for being a colossal fuck up. I really liked this issue, and the use of the primary colored characters in the muted-grey world of Gotham. As terrific as DETECTIVE is tragic. VERY GOOD.

AQUAMAN #33: I get hives anytime it swings back to Atlantis, so this wasn’t my favorite issue – although seeing Mera again is always nice. OK

BLOOD OF THE DEMON #6: I wonder if the series will last long enough to answer some of the questions it has been posing – we’re six issues into the “healing flames” thing, but it’s been noting but subplots so far. There’s a lotta jibber-jabber in here, and a sense that it isn’t actually happening in the same world as the rest of the “Infinite Crisis” stuff, but there are ideas and beats that I like quite a bit (like the bullet “eater”) Question, though: what happened to Jason’s hand magically regrowing with no comment? Did Byrne just forget? A strong OK

FIRESTORM #16: Seems like a nice way to get “the Professor” back into the mix while leaving things nicely open. As far as second-tier supers go, this is one of the better books on the stands these days. A low GOOD.

JSA #76: I’m getting super-sick of the “OMACs” showing up, not achieving anything, then bailing – such a lazy crutch yielding plenty of “Red Sky” action. Between the incessant crossing over and the unneeded spin off book, I’m giving serious consideration to personally dropping JSA. And I’ve been a JSA fan longer than some of you have been alive, living through the “No one wants to read about them” regimes at DC. Pretty meh stuff here – EH.

JUSTICE #1: Looks damn pretty (and sold like a MONSTER), but I was pretty bored by the half-an-issue of dream sequences. Knock-out looking, mediocre reading. A strong OK.

SERENITY #2: Yeah, big time fun here, even for people like me who have bare passing familiarity with the original. Selling stupidly well, too. Man, can you believe that Warp 1/Nathan Fillion flap? While I’m wholly against marking up “hot” comics for the short buck, I gotta tell you, anyone who tried the “Don’t you know who I am?!?” trick on me would be bounced out of my store right fucking quick. Also “I’ll never shop here again” is pretty meaningless if you’ve never shopped there BEFORE, just so you “Brownshirts” know. Just because someone is being an asshat, don’t give you the right to be an asshat on your own, dig me?

Shit, truck’s here…. No time to question the Soul-Vision ™ in Superman, or tell you just how fucking good TOP TEN; THE FORTY-NINERS is. That’s our PICK OF THE WEEK and GN/TP OF THE WEEK all rolled into one, and I don’t care if you think that is cheating!

Anyway, what did you think?

-B