Countdown #16 (DC)
I'll have to wait until payday a week from Friday to pick it up.
Diamond Distributors did not have a list on their website for the week of Wednesday, January 16, 2008, but a search of the various comic publisher websites gave the following comics tentatively scheduled to be published next week:
Countdown #15 (DC)
The Sword #4 (Image)
The Umbrella Academy #5 (of 6) (Dark Horse)
Powers #28 (Icon / Marvel), which was originally scheduled to appear on shelves on the 16th, is now scheduled to be published on Wednesday, February 6, 2008.
Since I will not be reading and reviewing any new comics this week I thought I would use this blog to review some of the comics on my pull list, and "event" comics in general.
Superman mostly improved in 2007. All-Star Superman continued to be the best of the Superman titles. It's only drawback is the wait between issues. Kurt Busiek's Arion story in Superman was only mediocre. Arion's challenge that Superman's powers actually held back humanity's ability to ultimately defend itself dragged on too long. The highlight of the story was the alternate future of Earth. I always enjoy "what if"stories. Otherwise it was nothing special. Action Comics I would rate the highest of the Superman titles if not for All-Star Superman. The director Richard Donner joined writer Geoff Johns to script Action Comics. It had two great stories last year. The first story was the reprise of the General Zod character from the first two Superman movies. It gave an unexpected twist to Zod's descent into evil. Unfortunately, Action Comics #851 ended in a cliff-hanger, with a teaser stating, "to be continued in Action Comics Annual #11!" Action Comics #860 has recently been published, and it is in the middle of the second storyline since the General Zod story. According to the DC Comics website, Action Comics Annual #11 will finally appear the week of February 13. Superman Confidential, with a first storyline by Darwyn Cooke and Tim Sale, was also great, detailing the origin of kryptonite on Earth. Unfortunately, the conclusion to that story has yet to be published. Dc has gone ahead with the next storylines and creative teams. Fortunately we won't have to wait as long for the conclusion to the Cooke / Sale story. Superman Confidential #11 will finally contain the conclusion to their Kryptonite story on January 23, 2008. I've since dropped Superman Confidential. The subsequent storylines did not appeal to me as much, and there were other titles I wanted to fit into my budget.
Titles like The Umbrella Academy mini-series by Dark Horse Comics. I wish this title was a continuing series. The creative team of Gerard Way and Garbriel Ba have promised more mini-series after this six-issue one concludes two issues from now.
Powers never disappoints, except for the time between issues. It's now settled down to about six weeks between issues.
Legion of Super-Heroes was okay. The reboots of recent years have sapped the legacy of the title a little; how many times can you start over in a decade? I'm looking forward to seeing what Jim Shooter can do with his return to the title that began his comic book career.
Invincible is another title that never disappoints. Issue 50 will be published in the early part of this new year, and co-creator and writer Robert Kirkman has promised a big turning point in Invincible's career. His talent at setting up plot threads in stories to develop issues in the future promise an issue that won't disappoint.
For 2008, one of the things I'm looking forward to is some relief from "event" comics. Starting with Identity Crisis in 2004, every year has led to new "big events" from both Marvel and DC. It has been hit and miss. House of M was a bit of a bust. Infinite Crisis didn't quite live up to the standard set by Crisis of Infinite Earths from the 1980's. Part of what made the original Crisis work was that after its conclusion the individual titles were given time to develop. There was a definite ending. One event series did not lead to another the following year. As much as I liked most of the conclusion to 52, Renee Montoya and Ralph Dibney's stories, WW III and the return of the multiverse not so much, these successive events seem more watered down as their conclusions don't so much resolve any conflicts as they do lead into the "event" for the following year.
After 52 I was not planning on picking up Countdown. But when I read that DC would begin to weave elements from Kingdom Come into this new weekly event, like Red Robin, I couldn't help myself. I haven't seen that so much yet in Countdown, but I have picked up Justice Society of America for as long as the Kingdom Come Superman will appear in that title. I'm not sure that I will pick up Final Crisis (any hope the title will mean final?). It depends on how Countdown concludes in the coming months. I might just to see where al of these events will lead to. Even if I do, Final Crisis will be final for me.
There were several storylines that, if not for Countdown, would have been the highlight of the year for DC, like the Sinestro Corps and the Sinestro War (even though I didn't have enough in my comics budget to buy them). They seem to have been stuck in the shadow of DC's "event" comic for 2007.
Event comics seem to have sucked the effort away from improving each character in their individual titles and forcing them into the publisher's pot to conform to the pattern set by the writers of the event series of this year. The marketing departments of both Marvel and DC seem to have concentrated their efforts to squeezing as much money out of fanboys' pockets with tie-in mini-series, outside their characters' regular titles. To me, this doesn't expand the market beyond the "fanboy" base.
My resolution for this year as a comic book reader is that, once the Final Crisis event is over, to pool my comic buying budget into the titles I really enjoy, and look for other titles that don't fit into the cape and cowl crowd, even though I still enjoy superheroes.
What's yours?
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