Comics

Batgirl
#7 by Gail Simone, Ardian Syaf & Alitha Martinez
#8 by Gail Simone, Ardian Syaf, Alitha Martinez & Vicente Cifuentes

So, #7 was a bit blah -- talky talky middle; ongoing plots treading water -- until a helluva twist at the end. Simone seems to specialise in those -- there's another biggie at the end of #8 for starters. That issue's better, dealing with the ending of #7 giving it more of an emotional kick, not to mention backstory-mystery-solving kinda stuff.

Grotesque is a wasted villain though -- he's a good idea thrown away as background for a story about his henchman. Still, maybe someday someone will dig him out and do something with him -- that's what happens in the never-ending serial of interconnected superhero comics, right?

Also, it's a nice touch of the series that people keep calling her "Batwoman". Clever.


DC Comics - The New 52: FCBD Special Edition by Geoff Johns, Jim Lee, Ivan Reis, Joe Prado, Kenneth Rocafort & Gene Ha

DC's primary book for this year's Free Comic Book Day, containing a 14-page Justice League story written by Johns and illustrated by about a dozen different pencillers/colourers/etc. Well, it's kind of a "whole DCU" story really, but that's essentially what Justice League is, so it counts as that. It's all tease and setup and backstory, but I imagine what it sets up will be Very Important sometime next year.

The comic is fleshed out with 12 pages of previews for the six new books in The New 52's second wave. That just means a couple of excerpts, which is better than the usual issue-one-cover-plus-release-date that DC uses for adverts at the minute, but doesn't amount to much content-wise.


Justice League #8 by Geoff Johns & Carlos D'Anda with Ivan Reis & Joe Prado

A one-and-done (before next issue starts the next Big Story). Well, I say one-and-done -- more one-and-stop-quite-abruptly-without-really-concluding. But it will have cheered up some diehard fans wondering why Martian Manhunter isn't on the team, so at least they'll be appeased. Shame that the sudden end undercuts it though, because everything up to that point is good fun. And I must say, I like D'Anda's art better than Jim Lee's. I'm beginning to concur with those who say he's overrated.

Plus the second part of dull backup strip Shazam!, written by Johns and drawn by Gary Frank. 10 pages of domestic drama -- what?


Suicide Squad #9 by Adam Glass & Fernando Dagnino
Resurrection Man #9 by Dan Abnett, Andy Lanning, Jesus Saiz & Andres Guinaldo

Here's a weirdness: regular Resurrection Man artist Dagnino draws the Suicide Squad half of this two-part crossover, while Resurrection Man gets some other people. Maybe they regularly draw Suicide Squad and it's a deliberate switcheroo, I dunno.

Still, it's a solid crossover: lots of fighting, some plot developments. The first issue is mostly the former, the second issue more the latter, making it the better half. It ends up with the Suicide Squad having Mitch's right hand (while he's grown a new one, of course) and his current ally Kim Rebecki having a Suicide Squad-controlled bomb placed in her neck for future leverage. What's unclear is if these are future plot points for Resurrection Man or Suicide Squad or both or neither. Hopefully the solicitations will highlight it if there's going to be relevant crossover again...