Welcome back for another week of reviews. We have lots to cover, so let’s dive right in.
Blackest Night #8 is the big book of the week that everyone will be talking about, but I am not so sure that it will be for good reasons. I am normally a huge fan of Geoff Johns, but this series was a significant letdown. What really happened here of any significance? Sinestro became a White Lantern, and then he wasn’t. Aquaman was killed, but then he was resurrected. Hawkman and Hawkwoman were killed, but then they were resurrected. One of the few permanent changes coming out of this was one for the worst, and that was the return of the original Captain Boomerang.
Unfortunately, Captain Boomerang’s return is emblematic of what has been wrong with DC over the last four years. After the Crisis, and especially during the 90s, DC moved forward with their characters and showed progressions. We saw Barry Allen die, and Wally West not only grew into a solid replacement for him but was in many ways superior – he showed more character than Barry ever had, and his run as the Flash until Barry returned was longer than Barry’s time as the Flash. Great writers, such as Mark Waid and the aforementioned Johns, made Wally West into a great character in his own right, but now that’s watered down by the return of Barry Allen, who has been dead for so long than entire generations, such as mine, grew up collecting comics with Wally West as the Flash. However, DC is not trying to sell comics to me anymore it seems, but to aging baby boomers who want the return of “their” heroes.
We saw Hal Jordan die, and we saw Kyle Rayner grow into a solid replacement for him. Now Kyle Rayner, who was the Green Lantern that got me interested in the book for the first time, has been largely relegated to the sidelines, and was a nonentity in Blackest Night.
How does Captain Boomerang’s return fit into this? He had died and was replaced by his son, who was a far more interesting and more complex character. Further, Boomerang’s death added something to the story of the Rogue’s Gallery. Now, the son is dead and the original is back – again clearly to please the boomers.
A new, more original, more interesting Reverse Flash had been introduced, but now the original is back, resurrected like Boomerang, thanks to Blackest Night.
Maxwell Lord, whose death at the hands of Wonder Woman advanced the characters of both significantly, is back too, completely destroying the effect of his death just three years ago.
What we have in Blackest Night is a re-establishment of the baby boomers’ generation of heroes making their statement on the DCU, and it all feels like a giant step backwards to me. If someone can tell me anything significant coming out of this series besides this, I would love to hear it.
This is all on top of the fact that Superman is far more like his pre-Crisis counterpart at this point than his post-Crisis rebirth under John Byrne, and every “reinterpretation” of Superman’s origin has made progressively less sense. Now, every major change from Crisis has been undone. Again, Johns is responsible for much of this too.
While I am looking forward very much to the return of Paul Levitz’s Legion of Super-Heroes, it again fits this pattern of undoing all the good that Crisis on Infinite Earths did for the DC Universe.
A DC title that has yet to disappoint is Detective Comics, with #863 hitting this week. The writing by Greg Rucka is once again brilliant, and the art by Jock, while not the same caliber as the artwork we saw from J.H. Williams III, is quite solid. Rucka does a brilliant job with the characterization of Batwoman and he gives us the first post-Crisis origin for Bette Kane that makes sense. The Question story line by Rucka and Cully Hamner is also very well done, and Hamner has done an excellent job of making the character his own. With the news coming out of WonderCon that Rucka will be leaving DC, one has to wonder if DC will continue the development of the characters in this series, or if they all go back on the shelf.
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There was some initial buzz over Dark Wolverine #84, as Daken decides that he wants to swap spit with Bullseye, but there is far more to this issue than just that. Daniel Way and Marjorie Liu do an excellent job of establishing this kiss not as anything romantic, but as Daken using his pheromones and his power to establish himself as the alpha male in this group – it’s a act of dominance, and almost violence in its unwanted nature, rather than what one normally associates with a kiss. Overall, this issue gives one a nice window into the personalities of both characters while also furthering the side plots associated with Siege. As for the art, Giuseppe Camuncoli does an above-average job with the pencils, but that’s really all I can say – they were nice, but not amazing by any means. It worked for the story, and really that’s all that truly matters.
As a side note here, I have to say that compared to all my disappointment with Blackest Night, Siege has gone well above and beyond my expectations. The main story has had more significant changes happen in the first three issues than Blackest Night did in eight, and unlike Blackest Night the crossover issues here seem to genuinely add to the plot.
