The Amazing World of DC Comics! Hibbs reviews (whaaaaat?!?!)

This week is clearly a Big Win for DC -- Marvel barely put out even nine comics this week.

AMAZONS ATTACK! #6: There is absolutely positively no way to discuss this issue without being spoilery, so AVERT THINE EYES, MADAME, if you care about not having the ending ruined!

I haven't exactly been thrilled by this series from the start, because while the premise was self-explanatory, I was more interested in WHY the Amazons Attacked (as well as the HOW of it, since last I recall, they'd been sent off forever to be with the Greek Gods).

We get a little of that, but none of it was very satisfying for this reader -- a bit of hand-waving of "oooh, magic!", I guess. Circe, for what appears to be no good reason, brings Polly back from the dead using some of her own soul, which makes Polly all evil 'n stuff, but that really doesn't explain any of the OTHER Amazons' action, or how/why the bana-whatever are involved (since, again, last I remembered, the bana-whatevers and the themy-whatever branches didn't like each other at all, and hadn't been reconciled)

But, ah, it was all a feint within a feint, as the last page reveals that the New Gods have usurped the Old Gods. How? No clue -- in fact, GG always struck me as pretty much the weakest of the New Gods, with her only powers being "being haggard and cranky". Another 2-3 pages of the hows and whys would have been so much better.

I guess the premise is "have the population hate Diana that much more", though there isn't any story indication that *actually* worked, really. Instead, it just becomes a mess -- Paradise Island is back (Superman can hear it!), but Diana doesn't seem to give a fuck. Instead, she's worrying about Nemesis, and Sarge Steel in her next issue. Clark apparently doesn't/can't perceive Polly being on the isle, and no one seems to really be at all concerned where the Amazons (each roughly on par with Diana... therefore each roughly on par with Clark, yes?) all went. For that matter, none of the JSAers seem to be especially concerned about their fellow JSAer Polly. Oh well.

Where are the Amazons? Stealing an idea from Grant Morrison, and his White Martian story, they're all spliced into GenPop, but without their memories. I could vaguely sorta accept that in the former case, because there were only 7 of them, but in the Amazon's case, there has to be thousands upon thousands of them, and it seems to be a bit much to swallow. Either way, either this will be entirely ignored until someone wants to put Paradise Isle back together, or it will be some major plot point in FINAL CRISIS. I'm expecting the former, however.

So: to recap: the amazons are rescued from "limbo", attack for no special reason, have no lasting impact, then are basically thrown back into limbo again, waiting for a better plot to come along.

AWEsome!

No, wait, I mean... "AWFUL"

OUTSIDERS: FIVE OF A KIND: GRACE & WONDER WOMAN: Strangely this sorta pissed me off even more -- Grace is now "retconned" (well, it could have been the plan from the start) to be a Bana-mazon, but the big magical spell that GG cast to splice the Amazons back into GenPop didn't work on her. Dunno why -- there's no story reason given. But here's the thing: Diana FINDS OUT that the amazons are spliced into GenPop, without memories (that took a while, huh?), but doesn't seem to give one fuck at all. Anyway, why even bother to have that kind of a "mystery" at the end of AA if the SAME WEEK you let the one character who would be most interested know about it? How does that make sense? Putting aside that whole "are the DC editors even talking to one another?" question, this issue wasn't a miss; in fact the last two issue of this five more or less redeemed the whole series. I liked the characterizations and the interplay between Diana and Grace, and the plot moved briskly at least. If Diana wasn't such a "We don't know WHAT to do with her!" character these days, I'd've liked this better. As it is: reasonably EH.

COUNTDOWN TO ADVENTURE #1: It is unfortunately titled -- after all the title says it is leading TO adventure, not that there is any adventure contained within. Which is kind of true -- the closest you get to adventure is Cliff wanting to whack-off to Kory's sleeping body (Read this immediately after "AUNTS IN YOUR PANTS #1" for more amusingly perverse ideas). Like Graeme, I liked the idea of Adam Strange being thrown over for Steve "Champ" Hazard (a great name), but telegraphing him as a complete psycho-beast is sloppy sloppy storytelling. The Forerunner stuff was at least adequate, even if I don't buy any one's motivation -- but its basically just an extended origin sequence, and the future-adventure setup seems to be "What Jason and Donna are doing, except evil", which doesn't have me rushing for more, exactly. That said, I like the idea of a parallel earth where all of the planets of the Solar System have a sentient race, and they all hate earth. That's an OK sci-fi high concept. It veers close to being GOOD, but I think we'll stick with OK for now.

What did YOU think?

-B