Hibbs talks a little about 1/13

The one problem about promising to do this weekly for the quarter (well, or perhaps more properly promising to TRY) is sometimes I feel stupid and tired and without anything meaningful to say. So this one will be short!

ADVENTURE COMICS #6: I sort of wonder if Geoff Johns had really intended to be on this book for more than the 6 issues or not, but it all ends this issue. The "what would Superman/Luthor done?" thing gets buried here, too -- and none too fast to my tastes. That whole thread really didn't work, given the possible end-games, and it is hammered in all of the wrong directions here as Luthor does something stupidly evil here. Mostly stupid. I've got to go with... well, I started typing "eh", but actually I think I'll mark that as AWFUL. There are no LSH bits this issue, and I sort of wonder if everything that was meant to be building up for... geez, it feels like 3 years, can that be right? with all of the LSHers in the present time is just going to peter out and come to nothing in the end as well?

BUFFY #31: I dunno if it just lagged out on the main plot that doesn't happen the same way when it is a TV show coming into your house for free, but I've been itchy with BTVS for the last few issues -- I'm especially not liking this whole "everyone loses their powers/Buffy is superpowered" thing that just doesn't really work in the time spans comics are released. My bigger problem with the book, and especially the expanding cast is how weak some of the likenesses have gotten recently. Is that Oz at the top of the issue? Is the wounded soldier supposed to be Riley? Is that Andrew that Twilight has there in the middle? I can't fucking tell! While it isn't "natural", having characters say one another's names to make these things clear would be a swell idea. The Xander/Buffy conversation was very nice, but, overall, we're getting into merely OK territory for this reader.

INVINCIBLE IRON MAN #22: Part 3 of 5, and it really felt like a time marker to me. Not much HAPPENS so far in this story, and this is the least-happening of them. If you're jumping on IM because critics like me like it... don't start here. OK

POWER OF SHAZAM #48: Are there ANY rules to these BN crossovers? I'd thought we were told quite explicitly that the zombies WERE NOT the actual dead people, that the rings were simply accessing memories. WTF is going on here then? Without rules Science Fiction is just Fantasy, and most fantasy is just AWFUL.

SECRET SIX #17: Editing 101: if you're doing a three part story, and part one was not in the same series you're currently reading then you NEED to put some sort of "continued from SUICIDE SQUAD #xxx" note in the comic SOMEwhere. Anyone getting Sec6, and who didn't pick up the SuiSq lead in to this would be COMPLETELY AND UTTERLY LOST. Even having read both I was kind of meh on the endless rolling fight scene. EH.

That's all I got for this week... what did YOU think?

-B