Thursday, May 26, 2011

Action Comics #901 & Detective Comics #877

Two of the very few DC comics I bothered picking up this week, both of them coming off of very strong prior issues... Can they keep up the momentum, or will they fall flat? Since this is DC we're talking about, I'd bet on the latter choice...

Action Comics #901:

Summary: This one picks up where Action #900 ended, with Superman, Cyborg Superman, Superboy, Supergirl, Eradicator and Steel finding the inert body of Doomsday in a mysterious spacecraft, surrounded by 4 or 5 other very angry Doomsdays... In other words, bad times for the Supes clan! Cyborg Supes is overjoyed by this situation, since he's hoping it'll finally lead to his death(HA!), so Supes tears out Cyborg Superman's central node to shut him up, and orders the Supes patrol to take the original Doomsday and try to lose the rest of the Doomsday's in the vast tunnels of the ship they were in. While Supes and company are trying to figure out how the ship works, why there were so many Doomsday's and how to get off, a mystery figure, watching the Supes patrol travel around the ship decides to pilot the ship towards Earth. The US government gets wind of this, and rapidly realize that if a ship that size struck the Earth, the effects would be catastrophic. To that end, the president goes on TV and asks for Superman to save the Earth... Unfortunately, Supes is still wandering around the spacecraft... Eventually Supes and his posse find a room showing an image of the solar system, and Supergirl notices that the Earth was rapidly getting closer and closer. Supes tells his crew to tear the room apart to find some controls, when a massive Doomsday looking creature enters the room. The creature introduces itself as Doomslayer and is immediately confronted by the Eradicator. Doomslayer tears Eradicator in half with absolutely no trouble, shocking the rest of the Supes patrol, and ending this issue.

Thoughts: I wasn't exactly sure what to expect from Paul Cornell with the end of his Lex Luthor story here in Action... I mean I liked most of his Lex work, but there were some parts that didn't do it for me, and with the idiotic direction DC has taken Superman in as of late, I'll admit, I wasn't expecting all that much from this series. Boy was I wrong though! This issue was WAY better than I expected it to be! Supes and company retreating from a multitude of Doomsdays, a huge threat to the planet, a new badass Supes villain, very good stuff here. Hell, maybe I'll drop the main Superman title and just stick with this series, because the quality difference between those two books is staggering!

Score: 9 out of 10.Look out! It's Robo-Doomsday!!!


Detective Comics #877:

Summary: Batman(Dick Grayson this time around) manages to escape from the deathtrap set up for him by the unfortunately named mobster, the Roadrunner... The Roadrunner... That's ALMOST as bad as “The Hat”... ALMOST. It turns out the Roadrunner doesn't have legs, but has prosthetics made out of titanium, which allow him to move faster than a normal man. The Roadrunner begins to get away from Bats, so Bats simply snares him with his grappling hook, dragging the Roadrunner back to him. Bats demands to know what Roadrunner's connection with Sonia Branch(formerly Sonia Zucco) was, but Roadrunner doesn't say anything worthwhile, so Bats drops him off at Gotham Central, and meets up with Commissioner Gordon. It turns out that Sonia had gone to the Commissioner and asked to meet with Bats, since she had information for his ears alone. Sonia tells Bats that several mobsters had come to her bank wanting to use her to clean their dirty money, but she always refused to help them. However, one criminal by the name of Tiger Shark refused to take no for an answer and was responsible for killing Sonia's assistant and delivering the corpse inside a giant whale. Sonia tells Bats as much as she can about Tiger Shark(he's a pirate who lives out at sea), and Bats decides to head out into the ocean to try to locate Tiger Shark. As Bats is investigating the waters around Gotham, Tiger Shark's massive ship pulls up to him, ending this one.

Thoughts: I've got to say, Detective Comics is the most consistently good main Bat books going. Tony Daniel's Batman is GOD-AWFUL, Batman and Robin keeps switching writers, and Batman Inc is written by Grant Morrison, meaning you'll either love it or hate it. But since Scott Snyder took this title over, it's been solid overall, and at times, really, really good. It reads like you'd want a Batman story to read. It's a bit dark, it shows Bats as a detective, and it isn't overly reliant on Batman's colorful rogues gallery. It relies on Batman, which is all you really need. As usual, good stuff here.

Score: 8 1/2 out of 10.The interaction between Tim and Dick here was done really, REALLY well.

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