DC TPB Reviews
Apr. 28th, 2014 09:00 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
chuckroDC Comics Presents Volume 3: Black Lightning and Blue Devil - The cover of this would make you think you’re getting a book of Black Lightning/Blue Devil stories. You’re not. You’re getting a couple of issues worth of them, then a bunch of random Arsenal and Starfire stuff, because DC Comics Presents is the miscellaneous/tryout book. The BL/BD story is meh, as it doesn’t actually play through the consequences and emotional arcs it tries to set up, and doesn’t make good enough use of either character. The Arsenal story is totally absurd, but fun; the Starfire story seems like a setup for something larger that is unclearly linked to the Arsenal story. And then we get an origin story for Beowulf, who apparently stars in a fractured version of the typical myth, in a fallen future 300 years hence. Too random and not self-aware enough; it looks like a crappy attempt to reboot The Warlord.
Green Lantern: Rise of the Third Army - This is how you do a TPB of a crossover event. This collects four issues of each of four books plus two annuals, in a logical order for both how the story is unfolding and what keeps dramatic tension intact, giving you the full set of events in a way that’s fun to read. Major props to the editors who put it together. Hopefully the collection of the “first lantern” stories that immediately followed will be just as well organized. The story itself is decent, if a retread of a “zombie apocalypse” theme we’ve seen three times in the last five years; and while I find Simon Baz an unnecessary addition to an already-gigantic cast, they do an okay job with him. (The blatant retconning of Kyle’s origin to remove Hal as Parallax killing the Guardians is irritating. On one hand, it simplifies things. On the other, it makes Kyle’s early period as a Lantern very different if the corps and Guardians still existed the whole time.)
Trinity of Sin: Pandora Volume 1: The Curse - This is how you do NOT do a TPB of a crossover event. We get Pandora’s origin story told twice (basically verbatim), then bits and pieces of the “Trinity War” Justice League crossover and bits and pieces of the “Forever Evil” bigger crossover, revealing that Pandora’s origin ties directly into both of them, but without any useful context or explanations for either.
Animal Man Volume 4: Splinter Species - An in-between volume containing some fallout from the previous storyline and the setup (but none of the payoff) for the next one. At least Animal Man’s powers seem to be working properly?
Deathstroke Volume 2: Lobo Hunt - Deathstroke (with Zealot’s help) hunts Lobo. Then he meets Hawkman and discovers that his armor is made of a weaker kind of Nth metal. Finally, he has a big family reunion with New-52 Jericho (now with a much stronger mind-control powerset), Grant, Rose, Terra, and Majestic (apparently a genetically-engineered project in this universe rather than a Kheran prince); that leaves pretty much his entire family dead. Gore-filled fun for everyone!
He-Man and the Masters of the Universe Volume 2: Origins of Eternia - A collection of 12-page origin stories, most of which were apparently first published online. It continues the modern trend of making darker, grittier versions of beloved cheesy 80s cartoons. There’s no real theme to the stories (a dozen different writers and artists worked on them) besides, “Hey, there was a supporting cast to He-Man who were all tragic badasses.”
Green Lantern: Rise of the Third Army - This is how you do a TPB of a crossover event. This collects four issues of each of four books plus two annuals, in a logical order for both how the story is unfolding and what keeps dramatic tension intact, giving you the full set of events in a way that’s fun to read. Major props to the editors who put it together. Hopefully the collection of the “first lantern” stories that immediately followed will be just as well organized. The story itself is decent, if a retread of a “zombie apocalypse” theme we’ve seen three times in the last five years; and while I find Simon Baz an unnecessary addition to an already-gigantic cast, they do an okay job with him. (The blatant retconning of Kyle’s origin to remove Hal as Parallax killing the Guardians is irritating. On one hand, it simplifies things. On the other, it makes Kyle’s early period as a Lantern very different if the corps and Guardians still existed the whole time.)
Trinity of Sin: Pandora Volume 1: The Curse - This is how you do NOT do a TPB of a crossover event. We get Pandora’s origin story told twice (basically verbatim), then bits and pieces of the “Trinity War” Justice League crossover and bits and pieces of the “Forever Evil” bigger crossover, revealing that Pandora’s origin ties directly into both of them, but without any useful context or explanations for either.
Animal Man Volume 4: Splinter Species - An in-between volume containing some fallout from the previous storyline and the setup (but none of the payoff) for the next one. At least Animal Man’s powers seem to be working properly?
Deathstroke Volume 2: Lobo Hunt - Deathstroke (with Zealot’s help) hunts Lobo. Then he meets Hawkman and discovers that his armor is made of a weaker kind of Nth metal. Finally, he has a big family reunion with New-52 Jericho (now with a much stronger mind-control powerset), Grant, Rose, Terra, and Majestic (apparently a genetically-engineered project in this universe rather than a Kheran prince); that leaves pretty much his entire family dead. Gore-filled fun for everyone!
He-Man and the Masters of the Universe Volume 2: Origins of Eternia - A collection of 12-page origin stories, most of which were apparently first published online. It continues the modern trend of making darker, grittier versions of beloved cheesy 80s cartoons. There’s no real theme to the stories (a dozen different writers and artists worked on them) besides, “Hey, there was a supporting cast to He-Man who were all tragic badasses.”
