New Guardians #5

Sure, Kyle. That rock that is also being sucked into the Vortex will save you.

 

The six colored Lanterns converge on the Vortex. The Red Lantern, Bleez, took off last issue when the Blue Lantern tried to heal her insanity. Too bad for her that her sanity was restored to her in the Red Lanterns title anyway. And wait until Arkillo finds out that the majority of his Yellow Lanterns have been destroyed! Ha ha! By Sinestro, even. Also, the Orange Lantern with the silly name, Larfleeze?, is not with the group. Instead, his little tubby potato Orange Lantern is covering for him.

I can't remember his name either but I think he's more of a potato than a pus-bag.

 

The Lanterns split up and Kyle ends up with the Orange Potato, Glomulus. But before any action takes place, the story goes back in time to show Bleez getting dunked in the Blood Ocean to restore her sanity.

She goes a little bit deeper than this in Red Lanterns.

Inside the spheres, the Lanterns find planets. Arkillo and Saint Walker's sphere contain a planet the natives call Tamaran. And they look like Tamaranians with horns and ridgy protuberances. Fatality and Munk's planet is called Okaara by the ape natives. Okaara is the planet where Larfleeze currently resides. Kyle and Glomulus land on a planet that is covered entirely by a great city.

The residents of the planet Kyle comes to run from him and Glomulus while screaming about the beast. Kyle and Glomulus find a temple where the priest shows them a statue of the great beast.

It's Larfleeze!

 

Larfleeze is the beast that is the enemy of all the worlds in the Orrery. And his great enemy is the protector of the Orrery and lives within the sun at the center of the system. His name is Invictus and he's angry at Kyle for bringing the Orange Potato into the sacred temple. So Invictus is rising from the flames of the sun to come destroy the Lanterns.

Pretty good searching, Kyle, seeing as how this entire place was the size of the solar system! What luck to stumble upon the place where answers were to be found! I guess I should be thankful they didn't drag out the search for five issues with lots of random fighting and no movement in the plot.
As for Invictus, why would he have a Latin name? I'm sure the name is being translated by the ring from whatever language the alien priest is speaking (although there are no foreign language brackets around the text, so maybe he just knows English), so why wouldn't it just translate his name into English instead of Latin? Like Kyle is going to know what invictus means! He didn't even know what an orrery was! And he doesn't have the internet to nearly sort of translate stuff for him!

This is Invictus. Just another cliché bad ass.

Not much more was explained this issue, so the Lanterns are really still just as confused as when they started. Larfleeze has something to do with this Orrery thing and not in a good way. It looks like this Invictus is some enemy of his and he's hoping that the Lanterns will destroy Invictus for him. And why are there familiar planets in this thing's shells? I guess I have to keep staying tuned to find out.
New Guardians doesn't move up or down in the rankings because it needs to explain more and it invented a stupid space villain named Invictus. It should be named something with letters that have no human pronunciation.

Green Lantern Corps #5

Green Lantern Corps brutality!

First off, let me apologize to Guy Gardner for criticizing his Custer remark a few issues ago. Since the Green Lantern Corps is being attacked by a group of aliens out to get revenge because the Green Lantern Corps devastated their homeworld and destroyed their resources, the analogy is a little more fitting. The Green Lantern Corps are the bad guys!

I really like the idea that the Green Lanterns were using a resource (the wormhole) without any real interest in where it came from or how it existed or if anybody was being affected by what they were doing. It was just a mystery and they, all 7200+ of them, just shrugged their shoulders and got on with their jobs. Some Americans and other so-called 'First Worlders' might start to feel lectured by the book or possibly slightly offended. But it's such an important idea that most people don't give a shit about. Gas. Technology. Clothing. Food. In this country, we have the luxury to care about where these things come from and how they affect other people. Our consumption doesn't occur in a vacuum. And yeah, I'm also being preachy about it. But I think as individuals, we would get less screwed by corporate and political powers if we lived by our ethics instead of being driven by our desires.

I guess people have to have a code of ethics for that to work! Like the Green Lanterns code of ethics to let no evil escape their light! Even accidental evil? Committed by themselves? Hey, aren't the Guardians doing some kind of evil as well? Don't they always escape the Green Lantern's light?

I also have questions about what's going on with the Guardians across three books! They're fighting with Kyle Raynor and the other Ring Bearers (not Frodo). They're also planning on creating a new Intergalactic Police Force. And what are they doing in this comic? I think they've been sequestered away for the most part. I don't remember that part as much. I should probably start reading the stupid comic book already.

New recruits are trained on Oa by Kilowog. Or do they take turns training new recruits because one sector would have one less Green Lantern all of the time if Kilowog stayed on Oa. Or maybe Kilowog is a special Green Lantern that remains on Oa and trains. Which explains why he was in the Justice League for awhile perhaps while Oa was not being used like it does at times.

Guy asks Kilowog for a list of the toughest Green Lanterns in the corp. It turns out there is a group called "The Mean Machine" (why just rhyme with Green but leave the Green out? Oh it's so subtle!). Gardner thought they were all dead but they apparently just hang out in a hidden bar beneath Guy Gardner's bar, Warriors. Why does Gardner want a job as a little league coach when he can be a cool bartender at his own bar?

This woman brings up a lot of uncomfortable questions.

Guy is greeted at the bar by a woman made out of Green Lantern light. How does this woman remain in existence? Can Green Lantern's create objects with their own free will? I didn't think they could because of the way everyone seems to be confused how the Orange Lantern can create his own autonomous Orange Lantern Corps with his Ring of Greedy Light. But I guess they can create objects of permanence if they have sufficient willpower. Like how Sinestro has now made an actual Green Lantern ring for Hal Jordan.

So Guy looks around and finds that he indeed has people living underneath his bar.

Of course they all have names that refer to Earth's action movie stars. Except for Aloo. Except I'm probably just not getting the reference.

Guy Gardner recruits these guys by telling them that he needs a bunch of Green Lanterns that don't care if they live or die, just that the mission gets done and a lot of asses get kicked. They jump at the chance. Actually, they get up slowly from their sitting positions as their limbs pop and their metal legs catch fire. They're all old, see?

I think having the willpower not to use the ring makes you a good Ring Bearer but a bad Green Lantern.

Guy introduces the Mean Machine to the rest of the Green Lantern Corps that will be going on the mission to defeat the Keepers. It comes with the usual bucking for position and in-fighting. But Gardner keeps them all in check long enough for Martian Manhunter to give them all of the information they need. Before wiping out the memory that they got the information from him!

Martian Manhunter explains everything that I already deduced. The Guardians put the batteries on a planet. The people of the planet were barely subsisting. The Guardians built a world for them and the batteries made the world flourish, providing food and infusing the people with a willpower that could only be born of the Green Lantern's light. When the Oans suddenly returned a short time ago to remove the batteries from the world, the world began to die. And the Keepers needed to figure out a way to keep their world from dying. Also, it seems they wanted a little revenge on the Green Lantern Corps while doing so.

The Green Lantern Corps should just dump all of the Oans on the Keeper's planet and be done with the whole problem.

See! America should do this as well! If terrorists attack, just drop our leaders in the various countries our government has screwed.

Guy Gardner and his group determine that the one advantage they have over the Keepers is the Green Lantern's ability to overcome great fear. One of the Mean Machine suggests they need "a fear bomb and a lot of guns." Guy Gardner takes the fear bomb idea literally.

What are the odds the two Sinestro Corps members in the GLC prison are called Fat Man and Little Boy?!

Instead of letting the fear bomb and the Lanterns name speak for themselves, Tomasi continues to bash the hydrogen bomb metaphor over our heads with the need for a bomber ("interceptor") to drop the "special payload" of these aliens whose unique "physiology could literally wipe out an entire city". I'm not sure if the "taking them for a milkshake" line was an exact quote from World War II but it's possible!

"J'onzz who? What interrogation report? What Stormwatch? Oreos?"

Guy Gardner and his team load the Yellow Lanterns into a ship and head out to fight an entire planet of Keepers in order to save John Stewart and the rest of the universe. And after securing the first part of the plan, the Green Lanterns raid a pirate ship to get their hands on the second part of the plan.

Who knew Guy would take the plan so literally?

This issue was just setting the plan in motion to free John Stewart. And it did it well. It moved the story along without feeling rushed and it filled in as much as it needed to. The only problem was the cover shows Guy bashing in the face of a Keeper and he didn't meet one in the entire comic! Stupid lying comic book covers! Again!

Green Lantern Corps move up the rankings one rung.

Green Lantern #5

"Two against a thousand"? What happened to all the Green Lanterns Sinestro created last issue?

Just like Hal Jordan when he received his ring from Sinestro, the Korugarians think they can kill Sinestro with the rings he just created for them. I think Sinestro needs to take a long look inside himself and figure out why everyone he arms tries to kill him immediately. Maybe he should start small and learn how to smile. Okay, sure, he knows how to smile but only when he's about to kill somebody! How about he learn to smile less creepily. Anyway, just like Hal Jordan, the Korugarians rings don't work against Sinestro. Obviously. Is everyone in the Universe just as dumb as Hal Jordan?

No you don't! You want your own Green Lantern ring!

Sinestro and Hal Jordan still remain locked inside the Ring Draining Cells. Hal Jordan has the willpower to remain locked up forever but he doesn't have the imagination needed to escape. But that's okay because Sinestro always has a Plan B!

No, not that Plan B.




No, not the Portland Bar.




Oh, there it is!

Sinestro's plan is to have his Lantern kill a bunch of Yellow Lanterns and then rescue him from prison. It seems that Sinestro and his Lantern Buddy could have made the assault on Korugar all by themselves! But I think Sinestro still needed a passable Green Lantern to walk inside the Yellow Lantern Power Battery to corrupt it in some way. Even though Hal Jordan wasn't disintegrated even though he was at the end of Issue #3, Hal entering the Battery has disrupted communication between the Yellow Lanterns.

The Lantern breaks them out of prison and while the Green Lantern Korugarians distract the Yellow Lanterns, Sinestro and Hal fly back into the battery to try the plan again. But this time, Sinestro actually tells Hal Jordan what they need to do instead of telling him to just sit inside of it.

Oh, bullshit.

Just keep making excuses for your retconned cliffhanger, Johns. I'm sure you'll come up with something later to explain it and then tell everyone that was what you meant all along. Just like the island in Lost wasn't purgatory. Even though it obviously was. The Others were trying to gather people with enough 'good' about them so that they could transfer their goodness to themselves and move on from Purgatory Island. So I imagine now the Disintegration Process was a necessary process that a person needs to undergo before being transferred to the Anti-Matter Universe. Right?

Wrong. Because the Battery said, "Green Lantern detected." If the Battery actually thought it was Sinestro, it would have said, "Sinestro detected." Just like it does later when it says that thing about Hal not being Sinestro and stops the process. But go ahead. Write whatever you want. The Green Lantern Fanbois will eat it up and be able to point out how the story wasn't flawed at all! The reader just didn't have enough information. Also, no flaws in Blackest Night or Brightest Day. Nope. Pure magic!

The plan works this time and all of the Yellow Lanterns have their energy sucked out by the Battery and are left in comas. Sinestro shuts off the Battery and Korugar is saved. But the Korugarians have not forgotten and banish Sinestro from the planet forever.

Sinestro still has some trouble with English.

So Sinestro packs his bags full of comatose Yellow Lanterns and heads back to Oa. He also drops the other shoe on his deal with Hal Jordan. He's letting Hal keep the ring but not giving him a Lantern with which to charge it! Oh, Hal. Have you never dealt with a genie before? Hmm, I'm guessing he probably hasn't. Seriously! Who has? Except every person in every third story in The Book of a Thousand Nights and a Night. I hope in the next issue, Hal Jordan finds a Monkey's Paw!

So Hal is forced back to Earth on the last of his ring's charge. And once he crashes on Earth, we really see how much of an addict he is.

This gives credence to my belief that Sinestro got a blow job from Hal before the mission started.

After this declaration that all Hal wants is a Green Lantern Ring with Batteries, he heads off to meet with Carol and declare that all he wants is her. He's determined to make it work this time! You know what this sounds like? An addict who needs something and Carol has it. Does Carol have access to a Green Lantern Battery somewhere? My guess is she does.

And then back on Oa...

Oh look! They're power hungry and dangerous again!

Once again, some group in a comic book has manipulated people and things to such a precise degree that everything turned out as they had planned. Or so they think! Hal Jordan is out of the Guardians way (except he has a ring). Sinestro has crushed his Yellow Corps so that they will not be in the Guardian's way (except the leader and some stray others are still extant. And Sinestro, even though a Green Lantern, mistrusts the Guardians too). Also there are the other Green Lanterns and the other color Lanterns. But, whatever! Apparently the Guardians only felt they needed to worry about Hal Jordan and the Yellow Lantern Corps before enacting their next plan: The Third Guardians of the Universe Corps! And they're going to use the First Green Lantern to do it! I think I'll have one of those, "Oh yeah, that guy," moments when they finally reveal him.

Minus the prison escape and easy defeat of the entire Yellow Lanterns Corps, this issue was much better than the previous four. I like the story elements developed. I like how Hal and Sinestro were handled, character-wise. And I hope the ensuing New Green Lantern Corps story will be fun! I know. I'll be wrong about that. Johns will treat it like another super serious end of the Universe plight. But until then, Green Lantern can begin dragging itself from the bottom of the rankings. Good luck getting out of the bottom ten, Hal!

Red Hood and the Outlaws #5

I don't believe Crux was a good enough villain for two full issues.

This issue begins with a kind of apology for Crux in much the same way that Stephen King apologizes for Cujo on the last page of that novel.

"Tonight was something of a Holy Grail for him." No. I would accept 'revelation'. Perhaps 'epiphany'. But not Holy Grail. Wrong.

Roy Harper electrocutes this stupid jerk whose name I already forgot and I had to glance up at the top of the entry to remember it was Crux. He pins him to the ground with an arrow and runs off to find Kory while the idiot Crux lies there and wonders why the Human isn't on his side.

Well, Crux, even if the human was a complete xenophobe like you he'd still do the same thing to you because you look like a xeno, you stupid bastard. I hate Crux. I hate the idea of Crux. I hate the guy who became a super villain because of one even in his life and now he's dedicated every waking hour to compensate for that one event. And the power of his trauma has allowed him to become a super scientist and a super geneticist and a super flying bat thing! And the power of his isolation has allowed him to recover lots of alien gadgets which are very useful in very specific circumstances! And even though some of those gadgets are as tall as the pyramid they were supposedly found beneath, he can still drag them around the world every time he comes across an internet rumor that will help his mentally ill cause!

Crux is a giant piece of shit. The Untitled aren't much better!

Red Hood continues to fight the Untitled Policewoman. Good thing they both express every single thought in their head about the first four issues of this comic book out loud while fighting or they would never reach the conclusion that they've both been used. Some rogue Untitled is trying to start a war between Jason Hood and the Untitleds. And it's working because even after Jason and "..." realize what's going on, they continue to enjoy being manipulated and keep fighting with each other.

Roy Harper finds Kori shivering in the ice. For one page while he tries to keep her warm, she seems almost like the old Starfire. Perhaps taking away her powers has cleared her head. Which is why she was calling Dick's name last issue. Or else she was just horny.

Hey! Imagine that! One arrow pinning Crux to the ground in the snow didn't hold him!

Meanwhile, Jason Todd has fallen into a fountain and journeyed through time to a lesson he learned from Ducra, the All-Mother. While in that fountain and in a fugue state, Jason Todd has a Holy Grail!

The series has a plot! Hunt down the 108 ghosts of the Untitled!

The fight with Crux goes as expected. Crux is defeated. And Kory gains her powers back because she had some alterations to her Tamarannean physiology that Crux couldn't have known about. And so he wasn't able to actually drain her of her power for more than a few minutes. But as Starfire is getting ready to incinerate Crux (YAY!), Jason Todd appears being trailed by an angry mob consisting of the population of Middleton, Colorado.

Oh no! Starfire is bringing Crux with them! Shit. Is he going to become an Outlaw?!

The story is coming together quite a bit better now. Less confusing and more extremely simplified. Overall, it was nicely done and it always looks nice as well. So I'll allow it to climb the ranks by one slot this month mostly because any comic at the bottom of the heap that does a decent job at not sucking should be given a Warm Fuzzy.

Birds of Prey #5

When did Canary's fishnets become hex tiles?

The Birds have just appeared out on the street after being inside the half-floor offices of Choke. But they weren't just scooted out and mind wiped of the escort out of the building. Starling's hand is no longer broken and Batgirl is missing. The Birds seem to have quite a large chunk of missing time.

Can we please agree to stop using the term 'big bad'? I know it just rolls off the tongue. But this isn't Buffy Season Whatever.

While they're trading memories, they're suddenly attacked by a bunch of men with guns. None of them seem concerned in the slightest that men are shooting at them. Men they've never seen before because they aren't Cleaners. Perhaps it's just a Gotham thing. If you're going to stand around in an alley yacking it up, you have to expect that at some point someone is going to come along and shoot you in the groin.

They all have various memories of what happened but I tend to believe Katana since her husband shouldn't have been mind-wiped and he can tell her what happened. Unless her husband actually is a figment of her mental illness and then she's possibly the least reliable. After Poison Ivy!

Oho! So Starling doesn't know about Katana's husband. Or, um, she forgot again in the mindwipe.

The Birds defeat the men with guns and retreat when the police arrive. They then decide to split up, rest, and meet up again in 24 hours. They never show an ounce of concern over the guys with guns that just tried to kill them.

Unless she aims better when she's drunk, whatever she's planning to shoot shouldn't need to worry. Unless she's planning to shoot a wall.

Starling goes off to the shooting range to blow off some steam and think about how she could never have busted her hand because she needs it to shoot guns and drink whiskey. She spelled whisky with an 'e', not me! I'm a traditionalist! But she's shooting like crap (so, you know, like usual) and gets frustrated, so she goes out walking but still feels like she's being watched.

"Just because you're paranoid, it doesn't mean they're not out to get you."

Oh, no. Her Uncle Earl's "great take on paranoia" is that "most times, they ARE out ta get ya." Wow. He's a modern day Confucius. A trailer trash Voltaire! Ev goes off to meet someone named June who begins crying. If we've met June previously, I sure don't remember her and I didn't make any mention of her in the earlier commentaries.

Black Canary tracks down Batgirl who remembers nothing about involving herself with the Birds and is adamant she'll have nothing at all to do with them. Tatsu tracks down Black Canary and they train a bit and giggle like Japanese women gossiping about their neighbors over a game of Mahjong.

No, seriously! See!

Poison Ivy spends her time communing with nature until an X-Files Smoking Man Wannabe intrudes on her space and asks her if Ivy will still honor their arrangements. She says yes and is given a briefcase that contains a green glow. So it's a different briefcase than that one in Pulp Fiction.

The Birds all meet up at the place Canary suggested. Even Batgirl comes along. But not Starling. Starling ends up on a bridge in the middle of an ambush because the address on her arm was different than the address given to everybody else. Starling immediately thinks Black Canary set her up (for some reason). I guess they don't trust each other as well as I thought. So either Black Canary wrote down the wrong address because of the mind control or Starling read the message incorrectly because of mind control. I only think it could be on Starling's end because I thought Poison Ivy copied the address from Starling's arm and onto her own instead of letting Black Canary write it on her with evil chemical ink.

Whatever has happened, none of them seem overly concerned with the missing time in their lives. I guess if you can't remember something, you cease to worry about it, right?! And Poison Ivy tells Batgirl all about Katana and Katana's dead husband, so I guess everybody gets to know about it when the writer thinks the reader needs a refresher on what the hell Katana is talking about!

Here is Black Canary's plan now that she guessed the Cleaners are just mind controlled sleeper agents of Choke:

How is this any different than the last plan where they found Choke's lair from information from a Sleeper agent and then were all mind wiped?

Black Canary's plan is dumb. And none of the Birds seem to particularly care about the things that keep happening to them. They just shrug their shoulders and move on in their quest to find Choke. The characters are as flat and boring as the backgrounds. I was really kind of feeling bad that Birds of Prey was so far down in the rankings. I was going to give it a pity bump after this read because I didn't think it deserved to be below comics like Hawk and Dove or Detective Comics. But it does deserve to be this low. Birds talk. Birds have action. Birds have same conversation as before as if the action never took place. Birds have action. Birds forget action and don't care. I know it's only the 5th Issue but I don't think it's much to ask to have the characters grow from the consequences of their actions.

With the remainder of my pity, I won't drop this comic book a ranking. But I will if the Birds don't try to figure out what happened with their missing time next issue. If they just drop it and never care about it again, I'll never care about this comic again! Okay, that's a little dramatic. Actually, I'll probably just whine and bitch and moan a lot more than normal.

Nightwing #5

That looks a bit like Trigon except I think Trigon had more eyes.

Nightwing is still with the traveling circus and headed for New Orleans. Waiting for him and his circus is Zohna and her newly summoned demon, Acheron (not Trigon!)

She summoned a demon to kidnap a clown? Seems a bit much.

Actually, Nightwing was left behind by the traveling circus! So now he's racing to catch up with their train.

Wouldn't it be easier to just learn the highway to New Orleans and meet them there?

Haly's circus starts setting up in New Orleans with a little tension between Raya and Dick. She hasn't been speaking with him since she met Barbara Gordon. Why should she? She's obviously just a replacement! Except she should actually be flattered. Dick obviously has a type and it was most definitely influenced by the first redhead he was close to in life. Her. She eventually caves to his request for dinner but only because they're in New Orleans. Which makes it special somehow. But I'm guessing she may get stood up because Nightwing is going to be busy.

Oh! The demon really was summoned to catch a clown!

Acheron appears to bring Jimmy the Clown to his psycho ex-girlfriend Zohna. The demon seems all business. If I were a demon, I think I would be insulted if I were summoned all the way from hell simply to go capture a stinking clown. Because, you know, really? Even if some overly dramatic losers still claim that clowns are so fucking scary, they're not exactly known for their overpowering natures and strong defensive skills. I think a normal, run-of-the-mill kidnapper could have taken care of this mission. But, again, kudos to Acheron for putting his all into the mission, no matter how lame the mission may be. That's a demon that takes pride in his work!

Luckily Acheron kidnaps the clown when only Dick is around. That way, Dick can run off after it without anybody screaming at him to let the police handle it. Although I don't think circus folk like to involve the police. So maybe they'd expect Dick (the owner of the circus now) to handle it himself. I really don't know how things work when you live in a traveling cesspit of inbreeding and tobacco spitting.

Sorry if I offended any carnies reading this! Ha ha! That was a joke. Fucking carnies can't read!

Oh man, seriously, I don't mean to be all prejudiced and shit! It's like Carnival Folk are the only people we can still make fun of, right? I mean besides Mexicans.

Geez! Calm down! That was a joke! I love Mexicans! My gardener is Mexican!

No, no! Sorry! That was another joke. My gardener is actually Portuguese.

Fuck. I just can't stop myself! Pretty soon I'm going to call Spaniards chicken chasing pepper bellies and offend myself! No, that's a joke. I don't get offended.

Nightwing, you're not even trying! Batman would save the day and still have time to fuck Raya on top of the dinner table!

Nightwing follows the demon out to the usual New Orleans Voodoo Cemetery where Zohna and Jimmy are being bound in unholy matrimony (just like the cover told us would happen!) by Acheron and his rhyming vows. And now Nightwing is going to save Jimmy from this demon.

How arrogant are some of these super heroes? Just because Nightwing trained under Batman and he fights crime in Gotham, he thinks he's cut out to take down a Demon? Do they all just have a death wish? They don't care if they die as long as they die doing good? It's not like he has to leave Jimmy to die. He could get help, right? Dick Grayson has connections! Sure, he's going to have to do something to delay or stop whatever is going to happen right here and now. But a normal human against a demon? I guess Dick just knows he's that smart!

The Demon is not speaking in sonnets, dumb dumb.

At least Nightwing is acknowledging that this isn't the kind of shit he usually deals with. And I guess this Demon probably isn't going to be much different than fighting Bane or Killer Croc! Just keep moving and don't get hit, right? Unless it has, you know, fire breath or a stone gaze or something. Maybe it drains levels! That would be a huge pain in the ass!

Again, admitting he didn't quite think this through!

As Nightwing is fighting, he notices a mystic symbol over a hole in a crypt. And perhaps this is why Nightwing is confident when he goes into battle against some major unknown like this. He's confident in his ability to perceive everything around him and formulate a plan on the fly. It really is so simple and yet so effective in life, even if you aren't a super hero. Just noticing things. Perception. And then putting the pieces together. It's the real intuition. It's called deduction and it's what most people are doing when they claim they've intuited something. They've just weighed the evidence around them and made a likely guess at some outcome.

So Nightwing gets the Demon to chase him and he leaps it and shoves it into the hole from whence it came. The Binding Spell is broken and the wedding undone! After the demon is taken care of, it's a simple matter to apprehend Zohna before she scratches Dick's eyes out. Nightwing heads back to the circus and talks with Jimmy the next day (but as Dick, not as Nightwing!). Jimmy gives him some good advice to leave the past in the past. But I don't think Dick can veer from the path he's on now. He's just going to have to deal with all the hell that is about to break loose around him and the circus.

OMG! Raymond isn't dead!

This shows the difference between Nightwing's writing and Batwing's writing. Where Batwing introduced a flashback that ruined the surprise that Massacre was Batwing's brother, this story wove the Circus tale so well that I didn't even consider making connections with one of Dick's dead circus friends. I'm not saying it's not obvious, after the fact. But it was done with some really good obfuscation. Or legerdemain! A word I learned from John Ostrander way back in the day!

And apparently Raya is a bad, bad person. Go figure! Of course the woman is the bad guy! Isn't that always the way. From The Bible to The Bible to other parts of The Bible and more parts of The Bible and later parts of The Bible and Macbeth, the woman is always the problem!

I'm still really liking Nightwing. It easily moves up another ranking. Not much more to add to what I've added before. Good writing. Well-paced story. It's fun. And Nightwing mostly resists saying stupid things like he used to when he was Robin in the middle of a fight.

Catwoman #5

Guillem couldn't manage to show Catwoman's boobs in this pose somehow? Comic Book Fail.

I haven't opened the comic book yet so I thought I'd make a guess at how Catwoman survives being launched way up into the sky. Since she has her whip, I'm guessing she'll pull an Indiana Jones and whip lasso a flag pole or something and swing to safety. I also asked my local comic book shop owner about the Teen Plus ratings and how he deals with them. He said that they don't ever card anybody but if it's obvious the kids are pretty young and they don't have parents with them, they won't sell them obviously adult titles, whether they have a rating or not. If parents are there, he'll point them over to the kid's comic section which separates new comics like Tiny Titans and Scooby Doo out from the mainstream new titles. He also mentioned that one of the things he's been disappointed with the New 52 is the lack of any titles he can suggest for new, young readers to get them into comic books. I think he's spot on. One of my major criticisms has been most of DC's new comics just don't have that fun factor which would really excite someone new to comics. It's been awhile since I read an issue, but maybe Justice League International might work. That one hasn't had any over-the-top violence that isn't super hero standard. And the raciest stuff in it is Godiva's flirting with Booster.

Guillem March does draw a sexy Catwoman.

Here's Catwoman falling looking to whip on to something. I know, it wasn't much of a grand prediction on my part. What else was she going to do? Learn to fly? She manages the feat with nothing worse than a dislocated shoulder (probably. Unless that complicates the story and then it's just sore) and a shitload of bruises as she swings onto an unfinished floor of the building at the construction site she's plummeted into.

Reach is still after her so she's still got some rabbits to pull out of her, um, cleavage? I don't know where she could possibly keep any rabbits in that tight fitting outfit! Maybe I should have used the aces and sleeves analogy instead.

I turn the page and get this:

I've also heard from a woman who'd had three kids that kidney stones hurt worse than childbirth as well. Or possibly as much. But she said the stones were worse because at least with childbirth, you knew the pain was going to be over soon. So how many other things hurt worse than childbirth? I'm starting to think having kids is a breeze, you whiny women folk!

So that's good! She did dislocate her shoulder. Now this comic in which a woman runs around in a cat suit and another one has electric anti-gravity powers and can fly and blast people into the air is realistic and I don't have to fanboi out and start ranting, "*snort* How can she fall at 32 feet per second per second, and have her fall arrested by just her skinny ass arm with no damage at all! It should have been ripped from her shoulder!" Although she did keep saying, "Go limp!" before the whip went taut. Plus Batman and Robin and Nightwing have probably done this move zillions of times before! It would be sexist not to have Catwoman accomplish it as well!

When Reach comes after Catwoman this time, Catwoman gets the jump on her. After popping her arm back into the socket while chewing on her glove so she doesn't give away her position while screaming with the pain of one thousand childbirths, she leaps out and kicks Reach's ass before Reach can use her Reach Around Powers. Catwoman leaves Reach unconscious and walks away with a bag full of drug dealer money.

Dirty cops? In Gotham?!

Turns out the bag full of money wasn't drug money at all but money from the Gotham City Police evidence vault that a bunch of dirty cops, including the Lieutenant, were trying to launder. Some detective named Alvarez has been linking robberies to Catwoman over the last few months but the Lieutenant keeps shutting him down and doesn't want to hear about it. Probably because dirty police fingerprints have been all over a good portion of those robberies. It also turns out there was $425,000 in the bag. Which makes Catwoman realize something really wrong was going down and maybe she should lie low for awhile.

But being Catwoman, why would she actually consider that? I mean, it's not like her best friend can get killed twice by acting stupid and careless!

"Yeah, and make sure as I get my massage, you splash champagne all over my back!"

Since the cash was marked with some super sensitive Spa Manager Suspicion-O Ink, Catwoman's use of it at the spa immediately gets her flagged and the Gotham Police alerted to her location. Then the less than subtle staff all vacate the room for an 'emergency meeting' and Catwoman's spider sense begins to tingle. So she quickly gets dressed and makes her way out the back alley and into this:

Whoops! And then...




Her getaway doesn't go quite as planned.

Catwoman suddenly realizes by the sheer amount of go-po-po after her that the money she stole must have been dirty Gotham police money. Go-po-po-mo! And that she's in big league trouble now!

So with all my bitching about DC Comics not being fun, here's one that is. And next I read Nightwing and it's been working its fun mojo as well. How can I praise Judd Winick? Swallow my pride and tell him, "Good job!" I can't! Fuck him! But Catwoman is a pretty fun comic book! So it gets +1 Rank for this issue.