I already promised Jeff and Graeme I'd be reviewing today, so the reaction to THE BIG NEWS is going to have to wait a little bit, let me charge into this as fast as I can (below the jump) (Seriously, WTF is up with me picking exactly the wrong week of the entire year to go on a "Vacation" with the boy? Universe, give me more rope!)

(Oh, and, yeah, I won't even READ a comic next week until Monday, so I'm going to pre-doubt that I'll hit next week's target)

GREEN ARROW #12: OK, so "Rise and Fall" ostensibly existed in the first place to give Green Arrow a "shocking new direction" (or some other words like that, I am sure), right? I'm sure we all remember how a judge told Oliver Queen he'd never be allowed to set foot in Star City ever again, right?

So, sure, the last page has Ollie marching back into Star like nothing ever happened. *sigh*

This title is probably everything I absolutely fear about this DC reboot all wrapped up in one pretty bow -- a new direction that doesn't have anything to do with the protagonist wahtsoever; history/important beats completely ignored; plans changed at the last possible second (Seriously, WHY go through the entire BRIGHTEST DAY exercise to bring Swamp Thing back to the DCU if you're just going to reboot the ENTIRE UNIVERSE a few weeks later?)

I thought I was going to say "Awful" when I started writing this, but the news broke between, and, ugh, all I can think is CRAAAAAAAP!

KIRBY GENESIS #0: Twelve story pages. Arguably only one has anything to do with human characters, and most of the rest are just non-story beats of character designs. The art is pretty as heck (though I had to check twice to make sure it wasn't actually Brent Anderson layouts... is it just me?), but even for that thin American buck this doesn't seem to me to be a good introduction to this new title (or is it a line of books? I can't tell from this). I'll give it a big fat EH

X-MEN LEGACY #249: I intellectually know that that cover is supposed to imply Magneto being all angry and Rogue comforting him over the horrors of the concentration camps, but it's too overwrought and over-rendered for that to work. Frankly, I get a sexual vibe from it, which is pretty wrong (especially since the issue ENDS that way) -- I don't know, I think the new fucked-up characters are all kind of interesting, and that this new direction could be alright.... but it doesn't feel like "X-Men" to me, in some undefinable fashion. OK

THE TATTERED MAN: I'm too meta for my own good. The text piece at the back starts with Jimmy Palmioti talking about how they're always getting approached to pitch to movie and TV people. "The Problem we keep running into is," Jimmy says, "that they really don't want anything too original."

Thus this comic is absolutely perfect for these phantom producers, because it appears to be a rejected pitch for a Ragman comic.

A gory one with tons of swearing.

It didn't suck, or anything (in fact, the Savage Critic says: solidly "OK"), but man, it's hardly even disguised, how blatant the rip is. Yikes.

XOMBI #3: Still loving this... but it's going to start over at #1 again in 2 months? Really?

Ugh, I think I'm done.

What did YOU think?

-B