Red Lanterns #7

Christmas!

This issue opens with Bleez leading a raid on a ship full of Sinestro Corps refugees. The ex-Sinestro Corps members have all taken off their fingers to be rid of the yellow ring and are on the run. Probably from Sinestro who is now a Green Lantern and quite angry with his Corps for subjugating his people. But the ex-Sinestro Corps members have decided to hide out in Sector 666. Not a good idea.

There's that female Czarnian again! Who is she?

Back on Earth, Guy is trying to calm Jack Moore down. Looks like Guy probably war a Red Ring somewhere in that whole Blackest Night Saga Mess so he understands what Jack Moore is going through.

Hee hee. Jack Moore.

More misplaced quote bubbles. Unless the Red Lantern is trying to help Guy. That's possible!

The human Red Lantern brings himself to say, "Help me," to Guy. And then he saves Guy when a car almost crashes into him. Guy realizes this Red Lantern isn't like any other he's seen before and tries to get the Red Lantern to help him with the injured people on the freeway. Oh yeah, their fight brought them to the middle of the freeway where there was a bit of a pile-up. But the Red Lantern is suddenly pulled into space by the Red Ring and is headed toward Ysmault.

On a small asteroid, Bleez has been torturing the ex-Yellow Lanterns. She wants revenge against any Yellow Lantern she can get her hands on because it was Yellow Lanterns that took her wings and were the cause of her rage. The Yellow Lanterns tell her that Sinestro has gone over to the Green Lanterns and is punishing his Sinestro Corps. Bleez doesn't believe him. Her torture victim also believes she is a fool to think that the Red Lanterns are now following her when everyone, even Sinestro, is afraid of Atrocitus. Bleez doesn't want to hear that so she kills him.

Meanwhile, back on Ysmault!

Atrocitus's search for Krona has led him to a part of the planet where he first began experimenting on and creating the Red Lantern Corps. It was here that he killed and buried many of his first creations that weren't fit to live. He's tearing one of them in half in that panel above. It turns out, one of them named Abysmus still lives. He stole the corpse of Krona, ate it for its power and then decided to wear Krona's skin as a shawl. Atrocitus realizes this and goes fuck nuts, killing all of the zombie creatures.
Abysmus is surprised that Atrocitus still has so much power. But when Jack Moore crashes into the planet and distracts Atrocitus, Abysmus seizes his chance.

I could probably stop reading here if I wanted! This is an acceptable ending.

Red Lanterns Issue #7 Rating: -1 Ranking. The comic isn't thrilling me nor is it filled with comic book fun times! Also, Dex Starr has been missing from the last two issues! Bring back the kitty cat, Mr. Milligan!

Justice League Dark #4

The Enchantress hit by Deadman and June Moone turned out to be an empty shell. But it still had power. It's hunting for June Moone. Perhaps Enchantress can't quite keep her world sane enough to function without June Moone being a part of her. Does that also mean June Moone needs Enchantress? Probably. They probably need to merge to save the world from the destruction Madame Xanadu sees in the future.

Constantine has moved on from Zatanna to Shade and now he finds himself sitting in Deadman's apartment when Dove walks in. It's beginning to look like maybe Madame Xanadu should have approached Constantine to collect everyone. He seems to have a better method of locating everyone than that insane M-Vest that just does whatever it wants. I hate clothing like that.

Meanwhile, while these magick types keep running around and acting mysterious at each other, Enchantress' craziness continues to spread around the country. Kids are killing adults. Songs are driving people crazy. And empty shells of June Moone and Enchantress are killing people in an endless search for the real June Moone.

Enchantress breaks free from her envelope and identifies the solution. Yep. She needs to be reunited with June Moone to regain some semblance of sanity. But she has a problem.

I bet Batman would listen.

Zatanna finally attempts a raid on the envelope farm but it doesn't work out too well. She randomly teleports away and ends up with Shade. Constantine backtracks his way to the source of all of the trouble: Madame Xanadu. And Deadman and June finally enter Shade's Madness Doorway.

Characters Cooler Than Superman is actually a pretty long list.

Unfortunately, June doesn't seem to end up on the correct side of the gateway. That's the funny thing about Magic Portals. June does, however, end up encountering all of the Enchantress and June Moone simulacra joining each other to become a gigantic Enchantress.

While this is going on, Madame Xanadu and John Constantine are busy slapping each other. I think John will come out on top and get Madame Xanadu to admit she did something bad. Possibly she was the one behind separating June and Enchantress. Maybe they'll just end up having sex.

Birds of Prey #3

A bunch of the initial pages of this issue are filled with Katana and Starling trying to kill Poison Ivy. You know, because Poison Ivy is a whacko Arkham Asylum loony nutjob terrorist murderer. But if she can help the team, Black Canary is willing to overlook those faults! And all it takes for the others to go from trying to kill her to welcoming her on the team is for Poison Ivy to save their asses when the hostage they took mutters a rhyme and blows the hell up.

Both times someone has blown up by hearing a specific phrase, Black Canary's head began to ring. My guess is that when the stealth assassin kissed her in the first issue, he somehow transferred some sort of explosive stroke medicine virus into her brain. That's some kiss!

But before the hostage blew himself up, Poison Ivy was able to get him to blab the location of his safe house. The Birds head over and find some scraps of paper they think may hold the names of a couple of other people who have bombs in their heads. So they head out to try to save these people by knocking them unconscious so that they can't hear the trigger words. Except how, you know, people can still hear things while they're asleep or unconscious. I don't think it would work.

Um, I also don't think the stroke medicine brain bomb would work either! But I'm willing to accept that as a plot device. I'm just not so willing to accept bad solutions to the plot device!

When I'm at work, I ma'am rude women all the time.

Ivy is tasked with stopping the train. Canary and Starling need to drug the brain bombers. And Katana is walking around on the roof of the train like a good ninja samurai whack-job.
But none of that matters because Dinah aborts the mission when she finds out what we already knew:

Whoops!

Birds of Prey #2

Yes! Shoot the new recruit in the face, Starling!

This Issue starts off with Katana slaying a bunch of assassins that have come after her for some reason. Also, she's talking to her husband's soul in her sword! Yay! This makes me very happy.

Her slaying technique is boring.

Back at the airport, Dinah and Ev (Black Canary and Starling) steal pieces of the exploded journalist and escape the scene before the TSA can get their fat hands on them for questioning.

Here they are leaving the scene. I mean, here Starling is leaving the scene without Black Canary. Except that KRESSSSHHH happens and on the next page:

There's so much wrong with this scene. I'm fairly certain that Dinah is supposed to be in the little airport tram car in that first panel. Because they're leaving the scene of the explosions chaos. See the people calmly walking around because they must be far enough away to not have noticed? So Ev isn't driving toward Dinah who has just picked up the journalist's broken phone one second prior to Ev taking off in the tram. Plus, the stealthy guy says Lance and Crawford are leaving the scene.

Also, you can run a whole lot faster than those stupid airport cars. See the one TSA guy keeping up with the rest of them by jogging behind? Maybe that's why Dinah isn't in the car. She traipsed along ahead of Ev and decided to hop in just before they drive through a plate glass window! Nice one!

Also, the art is very disappointing. It almost looks as if Jesus Saiz could draw but he's not taking any time to do so. Very boring and flat panels. Look how angry those TSA guys are! Or not. And Katana's pose when she's slicing assassins. She's just standing their bored! A comic book full of hot women, you'd think David Finch would have jumped at the chance to draw this one!

A few days later, Black Canary and Starling meet up with Katana and nobody gets shot in the face like the cover suggests. How come every time a hero meets up with another hero in an issue of a comic book, the cover has to suggest that they have a big brouhaha? Stupid liars!

Nice line, Tatsu!

The three Birds do some research and find out the journalist had explosives in his brain (yes, yes) and also another chemical. This one turns out to be an experimental stroke medication that reacts to certain words or phrases (yes, yes, the trigger). And it just happens 4 out 5 of the warehouses in Gotham have had the drug stolen! So they go to the 5th location and find more invisible people!

Why does she even bother using a gun?

Katana slaughters a bunch of the stealth guys while Canary takes out the rest with her Sonic Scream and Starling shoots the wall a bunch of times. Actually, Starling takes one hostage so they have somebody to question to keep the plot moving next issue. And then Poison Ivy appears because Canary asked her to join for some reason. Maybe Poison Ivy is turning over a new leaf! Ah ha ha ha! I wonder how many times that joke has been used in comics featuring Poison Ivy? I'm actually very sorry I typed it. And then didn't delete it. And then hit the Create Post button with it still there.

Birds of Prey #1

Why do the Birds of Prey call themselves the Birds of Prey? Are they using the British slang for Birds? So they're chicks who prey on evildoers? You know, since Black Canary is the only actual bird in the group. Unless that girl with guns has a bird name.

I hope this comic book is good because it has Katana in it. I hope Katana's sword still has the soul of her husband still trapped inside it and whoever is writing the comic doesn't forget that that's an important part of who she is partway through the series and we never hear about her husband again ever.

The title of the comic is 'Let us Prey'. Ugh. Now I know the feeling anyone reading this would have had if I'd made a pray/prey pun! Thanks goodness I had the self-control to not say how much I really want a Birds of Pray comic book. With a bunch of hot nuns in corsets running around Gotham whenever there is danger! The Gotham PD Chaplain would put a big Cross spotlight into the sky when they're needed and they'd hustle out in their skimpy habits to the scene of the crime and kneel down and pray! And sometimes the crime will be stopped by Batman and they'll praise God that their praying worked and sometimes the crime won't be stopped by anyone and they'll praise God because he works in mysterious ways!

Someone draw that comic immediately! The hot blonde leader could be named Holy Water. And the sexy redhead could be called Vestibule. And the Asian sex kitten can be called Confession. And the hot-tempered brunette will be Hallelujah!

But that comic is too big an idea for DC's New 52! So instead, Birds of Prey begins in a church with a journalist named Mr. Keen who is on the tail of some hot girl covert ops team. That sounds sexy! Actually, he's not on their tail at all. He's about to give up due to lack of evidence. Fuck! When was the last time that stopped a journalist? They're so desperate to not have their hard copy paper newspapers go under, they'll take any story that will sell a few issues. And I think hot chicks doing crime will sell!

As Mr. Keen is praying (or quitting), a car crashes through the wall and the Bird of Prey I don't recognize steps out! I'm guessing she's from the Wildstorm universe because she has guns.

Whenever I hear the words, 'Let us pray,' all I hear is 'Let us Bray' from The Boomer Bible.

I don't think I've mentioned this yet and I'm about halfway caught up to the new issues of 52 coming out. The narration boxes I've mentioned that are used in such a strange way at times are color coded and have a symbol in the first one so that you know which hero is speaking. Most of them have a symbol that the speaker is identified with: a bat, the Green Lantern ring, a lightning bolt, an S. So, guess what symbol Black Canary gets? Yep! Fishnets! I bet when they get to Power Girl, it'll be boobs.

The journalist is about to be killed by a whole bunch of invisible sniper assassins who apparently can't do their job quickly enough. Losers! Also, I just learned that the new girl's name is Starling. Like Jodie Foster!

The comic then takes the typical 'Two Weeks Ago' approach to get the story in. Most comic book writers have heard that you start in the middle of the story but they really don't know how to execute it. So they begin with one or two pages showing some action and then immediately revert to the beginning of the story and start the tale from there.

Barbara Gordon must bring a boob spotlight with her wherever she goes. Gotta highlight those princesses!

Black Canary is organizing a covert team of superwomen to fight criminals in Gotham. So the covert team isn't even formed yet and Mr. Keen is already staking out Dinah Lance for his story about a covert team of hotties. He has some secret source that led him to begin following Dinah Lance. But since Black Canary is currently only teamed up with Starling, it seems the source knows as much about Canary's plans as Canary does.

Black Canary meets up with Batgirl/Oracle/Babs for some information on possible members for the crew since she only has Starling. Batgirl suggests Katana (yay!) who fits right in with the Birds of Prey theme. Oh, the theme seems to be hot girls who are wanted by the law but are actually heroes working for good. That's a pretty decent theme for a Super Group!

With some kicking and shooting and screaming (the ear drum rupturing kind), the Birds of Prey escape with the journalist. They take Mr. Keen to the airport to get him out of Gotham. But instead of leaving safely, he answers his phone, bleeds from his eyes, and blows up.

Whoops!