The first 2.0 reviews

Didn't get much read last night, but let's see what I have so far. (Just about the only way to get through all of the comics for the week is to power through the "bad" ones first, with the "good" ones acting as the carrot. Bear that in mind.)

(Though, I do need to intersperse a few "good" ones in the middle to reset my palate)

ROGUE #1: I'm not sure if Rodi really "gets" how Rogue's powers work, or if they're changing it for this series, or if the editors are so overworked they don't care, but I kept getting super annoyed by the dumb stuff like her absorbing Remy's blindness, but not Juggy's heart attack. The core of the story, once you get past that, isn't so bad, but this is a really unnecessary book I think. This is the dark side of "Reload". Eh.

DOOM PATROL #2: #1 was a complete and utter train-wreck (nested flashbacks? I thought Johnny knew how to tell a clear story?) but this one was a lot better. I really enjoyed the first 5 pages, with the "revised" origin of Negitive Man (Though.... Rita is a flight technician and not an actress? Muh?), but then we went back to the dumb vampire leftovers from the JLA story. Thankfully it wrapped this issue. I really really REALLY hate the "new" characters, and I hope they die quickly. And I absolutely did not understand the last 2 panels -- was there an extra "not" or maybe one missing or something? Still, this was at least competent, and, perhaps, now that the "Crucifer" story is done maybe this can go somewhere fun. A low OK

GREEN LANTERN #179: Huh? Major Force has consistently been portrayed as an insane psychopathic killer -- he murdered Kyle's girlfriend, for god's sake, and chopped her up and put her in the fridge -- so why the fuck would John Stewert be defending him? That makes zero sense. Zip. Zilch. Unlessssss...... Marz had 4 issues schedualed and only 3 issues of story. Awful

VENOM VS. CARNAGE #1: It's written by Pete Milligan so I was hoping for at least a little wit, and cleverness. Nope, none of that here. The art was kinda nice except it looks like it printed way too dark, such that there's panels I can't tell at all what is happening (Nor can I read the captions in some palces with white-on-black and white-on-red), and there's some wonderful peril to a pregnant woman, which is always charming to read. On the other hand, there's a tit-alicious apearance by the Black Cat which doesn't appear to have anything to do with the story (wouldn't that be cool if it doesn't? She just showed up every 12 pages or so to show her breasts off so there could be some sex with the violence?), and some 12 year old boy, somewhere is going to be very happy for that. Or a 42-year old cat's ass man. Either way. The old CBG used to say something like "If you like this kind of thing, you'll like this" which is probably fairly accurate in this case. I don't like this kind of thing, though, so Awful from me.

JLA #102: The "Everyone Cries" arc continues. This issue: the Flash cries! It's not *bad* per se (Actually, it's well told), but I can't take 4 more issues of this -- wake me when it's over. OK

CITY OF HEROES #3: I love how the comic really has no relationship to the game whatsover, and doesn't really work as a comic on it's own. The only bit I leked was the War Witch in the astral plane thing at the very end, but that's not worth $2.95. You get this free if you subscribe to the game, which I suppose is a nice gesture, and almost certainly places this book in the top ten of circulation of American comics (the game has "well over" 100k subscribers) Anyway, Awful

Hrm, Ben's awake, time to take care of the boy. Back with more, later....

-B