Let's Talk About Mr Terrific #6

On the last arc Michael Holt save an entire group of slaves from the interdimensional conquerors, the Kryl

now Valentines Day

Before beginning i need add that once again Gianluca Gugliotta didnt draw this issue and was replaced by Oliver Nome, fill ins are nothing unusual in comics but to have an artist who is completely unable to draw 3 issues in a row is just ridicoulous, Gianluca will however draw the last 2 issues, which by the time of the release of issue #5 was already announced as final issues

SPOILERS!

MISTER TERRIFIC #6 by Eric Wallace and Oliver Nome

Our story begins NOW!

Somewhere really cold

Mr Terrific fights the the Tomorrow thief, Michael is heavily wounded cause of a fall, his T-spheres dont work, he is freezing, Tomorrow thief has ghost like abilities, he is stealing high tech, and he is psychopath, and today is valentine's day

and also Mr Terrific is trying to kill him

As soon as we open the first page we are greeted by a ton of black boxes describing in great detail what is happening, and simply because of the rushed nature of this scene and the "NOW" sign in the top of the page we can expect a flashback or several to explain the situation, the giant problem is, we really have no reason to care. The reason why we shouldnt care about this flashbacks is simple, we already know what happen, there is very little dialog in this scene but Michael already told us everything we need to know and thats a giant mistake cause it breaks one of the first rules of storytelling in comics SHOW DON'T TELL!

thats the problem with this opening, there is no tension on it, and and the same time it is going to suck away the tension and suspense of the next scenes, simply we already know what is going to happen, we are missing a couple of details like "why are they fighting for"but because of the scenario and conditions we can guess pretty quickly as the story moves forward.

And also one more thing as the picture aboves shows, Michael was trying to kill him, cause either he knows that the ice spike will pass through him and it was an stupid thing to do, or he didnt knew and since it was aimed to his head it would had killed him, our hero!

The next scene jumps to the past

24 hours ago we are in the conference room of Holt Ind, with all of the executives in the company and we will finally know who will be the succesor of michael in the Holt industries as it has been brought out several times in the past few issues

and the new successor is Jamal

who?

oh dont worry we get a very convenient exposition dumb on him as he arrives, now he just gets this job

so what about this?

well nothing really

this is a subplot that goes exactly nowhere, there is no point on this scene at all, and is probably cause Wallace wasnt expecting the book to be cancel so soon so there wont be a proper follow up

or even a proper build up

why is Jamal being name the new big head of the company, why did michael choose him exactly?

what was the point of all of this and what is the point from Jamal's perspective, those are things that just wont have any answer.

well we immediately cut back/forward to

now there is no transition between this and the 24hours earlier to the NOW time, but im going to assume that this doesnt mean that we are 31 hours before the fight with Tomorrow Man

Dr Lily, just created a new railroad in Iceland, its suppose to be a great achievement and it will also impulse Iceland's economy, but Michael is riding the train to flirt with ms lily some more.

Its hinted that Dr lily is an ex-girlfriend and michael is here just to ride the train, and thats all.

we cut forward to

Where Donald and Aleeka are having dinner

Donald is commenting with Aleeka how Michael gave his company to a 16yo as a matter of an experiment and Aleeka gives Jamal the benefit of the doubt

Donald once again is luring Aleeka into the dark side but she doesnt buy it.

Once again we cut to Michael in the train where, Lily and Michael talk about the train, it is apparently impulsed by something call Kinetic Rail Capacitor, or KRC in short, Michael design the project and Lily build it.

Then the TOMORROW THIEF appears, announcing his own name while he stands horizontally on one side of the train, his goal is to, steal the KRC that is powering the train.

Why is he doing this while the train is in movement?, in broad day light, while the train is full of ppl...

nevermind

Michael talks to Tomorrow Thief and in a very unintentionally hilarious scene throws Michael out of the train

But miraculously Michael survived

not with the help of any of his gatgets

no, that would kind of make sense

nop

he is simply thrown from an experimental BULLET TRAIN, AT HIGH SPEED, over a couple of feet from the ground

but no, he is perfectly fine in the next scene.

Thats exactly what happens in the scene, i dont need to point out what is wrong with it

Michael is fine and well and he suits up using his T-Spheres, Tomorrow Thief steals the KRC and flees the train using a jetpack and then we cut to

Really?

When Michael and TT start their fight, Michael destroys TT's Jetpack and TT Overloads his T-Spheres and short-circuit his connection with them.

which we already knew thanks to the first scene of the issue.

Completely overpowered by the Tomorrow Thief, Michael decide to do the most reasonable thing and is destroy the KRC

This is probably the first time that i have seen Michael do something actually really clever, it was a good strategy

This ofcourse bothers Tomorrow Thief and they continue with their fight

for the next half an hour until

Mr Terrific finds an Ice cave with a continently position volcanic activity which generates some extreme high temperature water springs

TM surprises him from behind and then Michael proceeds to make a judo move throwing him into the volcanic lake.

If im reading it correctly, Michael just left the guy to die a horrible slow death.

OUR HERO!

and finally realizing that he is in the middle of nowhere Michael's comes to only 1 solution to survive

he throws himself into an ICY COLD LAKE

And finally we cut to

where Michael explains how being frozen yourself can save your life

and the comic ends with Michael saying Happy Valentine's Day to Lily

Next time

THE END

This was very Dull and underwhelming

I talk and comment less here than any other installment cause there is really nothing much to say, the issue is full with padding and meaningless conversations that add nothing to the plot like most of the conversations with Lily and the subplot of the Holt Industries is just there and doesnt do much, but ignoring all the stupid twists and plot holes in the book, it has a huge flaw which is the Flashback story engine.

This kind of storytelling never works well unless we get a surprising huge twist or revelation at the last instance, which this issue doesnt do and even if its done right its very hard to pull, it gets very distracting very fast.

The sequences have little to nothing to do with each other except at the end where the action sequence is break in 3 pieces but on the wrong order, being place like this do absolutely nothing, instead it chooses to dump a massive amount of exposition at the start so it kills completely any surprise that we might get in the next pages

we know Michael is going to fall, that he is going to loses his t-spheres, etc

The fights are unimaginative, Mr Terrific describes himself as being hurt, but he doesnt look hurt or act hurt

We know absolutely nothing of Tomorrow Thief just what we are being told by Michael, and he is just a very one dimensional villain, why is he called the Tomorrow Thief? Is he from the future?

why are his cloths so similar to Mister Terrific's?

and overall, he is just a thief, nothing else, but Michael really goes really angry and hard at him, he calls him a psychopath when he was to only person being hurt by him, and then he tortures him at the end to take him out, it just feels very unnecessary and hard to side with michael cause once again TT is nothing but a common thief, it just not very important.

the end is campy, and unnecessarily campy, if Michael found a volcanic spring which im going to assume had warm water on it, why did he needed to froze himself

was the crying for help of TM to bothering?

and finally and probably the worst of all, THIS HAS NOTHING TO DO WITH VALENTINES DAY

this was a huge leap from the last issue

I give it a 2 out of 10

End of Blog Post

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Let's Talk About Mr Terrific #5

If you have a good memory you will remember what happen last issue

Our hero Michael and a random purple giant alien started a riot in the universe´s worst prison ship ever

but as they were fighting the few guards that they had on their way more were about to come

to which michael exclaims "good, we are gonna need them"

Why are they going to need them for, lets jump in.

Spoilers

MISTER TERRIFIC #5 by Eric Wallace and Gianluca Gugliotta

The issue starts with Michael revealing that he needed all the guards to go after them to do... nothing.

absolutely nothing happens to the rest of the guards, he didnt needed them for anything and such comment on last issue was unnecessary

Michael and all the prisioners he released fight back againts the guards but they are being held back quickly, Michael explains that since more guards are coming its better to release all the prisoners to fight back in a major riot.

Michael´s dialog about this sounds forced, this is something very simple and easy to understand but he explains in such a way only to make him sound smart.

However Michael and Purple guy discover that there is only one cell that they cant access, so by being separated from the rest they think it could be a weapon or something too dangerous to be release

a new alien who is never named so im just going to call him Alien #3 appears and says that the Kryl are retreating, But Michael realizes that there is something worst.

I could kind of accept that the Kryl have a really crappy security which is why Michael and the rest manage to escape so easily but is not the same to believe that they have absolutely no plan against a riot, no contingency at all, the prisoners escape their cells, no hope, the ship is lost.

There was an actual reason why the slavers of the 1600s-1700s toss those the slaves to the sea to their deaths, the reason was cause slavery was actually illegal by sea, sometimes they were persecuted by the marine so they kill the slaves to get rid of the evidence.

There is an actual cruel and cold logic to it, but Wallace comment that slavery is illogical without entering on any detail about that in the past or the actual plot, we dont know for sure if this other alien are innocent, they could be criminals or something else, Michael speculated that since he was kidnapped all of them could be too.

The only reason, in plot why this is happening is cause Mr Terrific is black, and such thing happen to black slaves in the past, is not subtle about it and lacks sense in the plot, and I know that i wanted I thought that if the color could be use as an intereting subject if used correctly and if its relevant to the plot, but i didnt meant something like this.

Now their only hope to escape is to use whatever is inside the locked cell, they dont know what it is, but is a chance, however The purple Alien dont agree

But then Michael talks to him and he opens the gate anyways =>

This is a single useless page, Michael is about to open the locked cage but purple alien tells him not to cause it could be dangerous, to which Michael and alien #3 just tell him that they will die anyways so lets better take a chance, so Michael opens the cell.

What was the point of that? this is an scene that you can easily be eliminated from the comic and the story remains 100% intact, its not advancing the plot on anyways or giving us any useful info on the characters, its not building up any suspense cause we already had this talk on page 4

So they open the cell and inside is just an alien, thats it

This is not only a single panel, its the entire page, but the angle is honestly terrible, The Alien inside is the whole point of the reveal but we can barely see her anyways, it could had been done much better without even adding much drawing to it.

The alien inside is probably the most interesting thing in the comic so far.

It is named Py´lothia comes from a race that has powers of energy manipulation, the male can expel energy while the female can store it, and once they are born they go through a phase(puberty) where they stabilize their gender for the rest of their life, but this Alien never stabilized and has both genders

Yes, this is a Hermaphrodite Alien that can shot energy

and is actually quite original

now since it has both genders she/he can stores larges amounts of energy and control and expel it, but she/he is also consider an abomination for her own race and is sold to slavery by her family

I will praise this a lot, this is a very interesting concept developed in a really cunning way, the whole angle of her/him(I actually apologize if this use of pronouns bother anyone but it seems the correct term) being rejected and mistreated by society for something like this that he/she has no control about and her whole attitude about it feels genuine, Py'lothia feels like a reject and a monster cause thats how he/she was treated and just believe is correct.

Its a very Original idea and it could had been a good point to explore if it wasnt for this.

Thats right, Michael once again feels depress over the brutal beat up that he gave to Megamind, and because of it empathize with Py'lothia

I understand what Wallace tries to do here, it just doesnt work at all, Michael cannot possibly put himself in the same position of Py'lothia for something like that

Py´lothia wanted to die cause she/he was rejected by her entire family and race and felt like a monster cause of it

Michael is depress cause he tried to kill someone but he had a legitimate reason to do so and when he wanted to commit suicide it was cause his wife died

so i have no idea what kind of parallelism is Wallace trying to do here but i know its not working

Now the Kryl are preparing a giant gun to destroy the worst prison ship ever and kill everyone, and the next 5 pages of the book pretty much goes like this:

"hey you can manipulate energy, you can save us all"

"no, i deserve to die, im a monster"

"no, you arent"

"yes i am"

"no, you arent"

"yes i am"

"no, you arent"

"yes i am"

"no, you arent, you are cool"

"really!, then i think im gonna save everyone"

Im not kidding is 5 pages of having Michael bond for 5 mins with Py'lothia telling her/him how special she/he is without even knowing her/him.

Py'lothia uses her/his powers to absorb the blast of the attack of the Kryl and reflects it Destroying their ship

YAY GENOCIDE!

Py´lothia destroys the kryl´s ship obviously killing hundreds if not thousands of aliens to save the slave ship, michael fixes his T-Spheres to go back home and he says goodbye to the aliens who now have decided to band together to face the evil empire of the kryl.

Py´lothia chooses to stay with them too to fight the Kryl and says good bye to Michael, she also ask him what does his name mean, Michael replies that it comes from Mye-Kal which means "One who resembles God", and asks what does Py´lothia means

It means "Harmony".

so michael returns home commenting on how he has always been defined by his own intelligence and how he needs to reexamine his own Anger issues, but the last 2 pages devote around a guy named stephen wyzeck, The person next to Donald on issue 2, but im gonna call him alien #4 cause his head is HUGE on this pages so i think he is an alien.

Alien#4 is in a party when he receives a phone call saying that Michael Holt is going to retire and he is going to choose a successor to which he responds

THE END

This issue and Arc were definitely better than the last one, but there are still major problems on both writing and art.

the plot is forced into some directions that really lack logic but still work on some cases but not all.

The way the Kryl just give up trying to recover the ship and decide to destroy it only to imitate the ways of the real life slavers is extremely forced and badly. We could have made the connection without a full page of michael explaining that slavery is bad and that black ppl used to be slaves and were drown before being set free.

the real problem is the Kryl, the whole race as the villain of the story just SUCKS, they dont look menacing, they never act intelligently and the almost never appear on this and the last comic, the are practically non-entities.

its just a classic "show dont tell" problem, we are told why the Kryl are evil but never shown a reason to actually care about them.

But the biggest surprise of the issue is Harmony, its an original idea that is well executed for the most part, the downsize is how rush is her whole character arc, and how forced is the "relation" with Michael.

Wallace said in an interview that this arc was suppose to be 3 issues long but was cut to give more space to the next one, thats a shame cause with more time and a better development it might had work

Instead what we have is a "run against the clock" situation where Michael just needs to cheer up Py´lothia's self steam despite the years of trauma , and it just doesnt cut it, the dialog is repetitive and safe played.

the Art definitely took a dive in this issue, absolutely inconsistent, the aliens look different from one page to the next and all of them look forgettable

Im gonna give this a 6 out of 10

End of Blog Post

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The beginning of a new arc starts,after saving Los Angeles from the attack of the evil villain Brainstorm our hero Michael Holt enters into a deep depression and recluses himself into the dept of the 9th dimension where he is approach by 2 alien creatures asking for help

Lets review Mr Terrific #4

as always the story is as it is in Black and my thoughts are in Blue

SPOILERS!

MISTER TERRIFIC #4 by Eric Wallace and Gianluca Gugliotta

The comic starts with the 2 Aliens that approached Mr Terrific in the last issue telling him about the great menace that inhabits the 9 dimension, The are call The Kryl, the aliens never state their names so I will just reffer them as Alien#1 and Alien #2, they are were soldiers who deserted the Kryl cause they believe in peace and all that while the rest of the Kryl are just a dominative cruel race

And thats pretty much it, thats all the backstory we will ever get from the "villains" on this arc, they are just Conquering Aliens, a little cliche to be honest.

Alien 1 & 2 ask Michael for sanctuary on Earth, but is too late, The Kryl's Warship just came completely out of nowhere and blast Michael at the spot without giving them even a second to react, Michael is paralized and we discover that the Aliens were into this trap all along.

there are several problems with this scene

If the Alien 1 & 2 are here to trap Michael, what the hell was the trap?

I guess you can say that they distract him long enough for the ship to arrive, but the ship appeared so fast it had to be near and if wasnt where did they came from?

were they just expecting for michael to appear in that right spot at that time?

Michael does remark that they should had observed him for a long time and we see that in issue 2, but Why him exactly?

we never actually get an explanation of what is the 9th dimension or how big it is, so it just feels like a really lame trap. You can resume the whole scene by saying "Michael gets kidnaped by Aliens" but without any logical explanation of anything.

Another problem is the fake story of Aliens 1 and 2, Why did they bother with that?

they go into very fine details saying how evil and powerful the Kryl are and that they are just deserters, this is just to give us as readers grounds to what is happening, but Michael didnt need to know that, they just want to kidnap him they dont need to tell him who or why.

Also like we learn in the last Issue Michael is invisible to technology, so how do they track him?

overall this is just a really rush scene

and there is one more problem about the Aliens but i will point it out on a next scene.

Michael is taken inside he sees endless rows of cells, each with different alien races, and Michael is impress by the cunning and cruelty of the Kryl to manage to trick and retain all this alien creatures as prisoners and he thinks =>

...ok

As he moves forward some of the imprisoned aliens start to talk to him but he cant understand them, he concludes that the belts that the Kryl are using are universal translators which is why they can talk to him and understand him.

and this is the problem i was talking about the Aliens before, How is that Michael doesnt point out the fact that Alien 1 and 2 are talking perfect english? It seems like something worth noting considering that they are running away and never set foot on Earth, so him noticing the translators in this scene is some way to show his smarts on the situation but it doesnt really makes it right.

but still lost in his thoughts Michael realizes of 2 even harsher realities

#1 Slavery is Bad

and

#2 he is no longer the same person he was before, and by before i mean 1 issue ago

Who is the Villain now, Michael?

REALLY!, i mean really

Michael attack a person who had killed her wife, killed in a very stupid and unrelatable way, Michael felt a human emontion and he is comparing himself to a group of Alien slavers

I could point out The fact that this african american superhero is dealing an issue on slavery which sounds a little forced to be honest, but lets forget about that.

This issue with his depression over what he did to Brainstorm is so stupid and doesnt make any sense at all that just sucks away all the drama of the problem he facing now, he is being kidnap by an alien race, he doesnt know whats going to happen to him, and he is just moping for his own selfsteam issues, give me a break

what is worst is that, this right here is the actual story, you might think that Aliens from other dimensions might be cool but thats not what this arc is about, no, this arc will be about Michael getting over his depression and his depression is caused by something so lame it just doom to have no resonance in the reader.

Finally the aliens put him in a room where they connect him into a machine that reads his mind in a very painfull way, this to discover all his secrets and about his race

This is scene takes 3 pages, and is completely pointless

After being prove Michael wakes up on a very open room completely surrounded by other alien prisoners

with no means of comunication with the other captives Michael tries to find a common language

Klaatu Barada Nikto

In case you dont get it, this is a reference to the classic sci-fi movie "The Day The Earth Stood Still"

this phrase in context was suppose to be said to the robot of the movie as a safeword in case something happen to Klaatu, the alien of the movie, and in the later remake of 2008 is the phrase used to stop the robot from destroying Earth.

but most importantly, this phrase, as wrote in the screenplay of the original movie, HAS NO TRANSLATION!

So basically this is a joke from Michael, in a really awkward moment and that will never be really funny unless you actually get the reference. otherwise you might think that he is just being silly and he is talking a language from Star Trek or something like that

Its very possible that this words are some kind of insult to this alien in the picture cause he starts attacking Michael very quickly, Michael starts dodging his attacks while thinking about his situation, a way to escape and also about the science involved to escape like the fifth law of of infinite fractal mechanics(there is no such thing btw), his T-Spheres are not working but he still has his T-Mask(why didnt the Kryl take it?), his Mask is what allows him to be invisible to technology(so how was he captured?) so he can modify it to use to open his cage.

As he eludes the attacks of the alien from the cover another Giant Purple Alien grabs the first alien with his hands and toss him into the ground and yells at him, saving michael

Michael mimes to the purple alien to take 2 spikes from the other aliens back to use as tools.

which he uses to modify his mask to open the gate

as he does this he wonders if the laws of physics that worked with his mask will apply in this new and unknown dimension

And it does Work, with this Michael and the other aliens escape and when he see the first set of Kryl he ask them a very important Question

hmm.

Ok, What the Hell just happen?

Why did the purple Alien help Michael?

Why did he needed the spikes of the back of the other alien, doesnt he carries tools?

How would those spikes serve as tools exactly?

Why are there no cameras in this highly advanced prison?

Why is Michael in this cell with other aliens when we saw individual cells in the beginning?

Specially if Michael is so important to look for him so closely why risk the fact of him being injure by the other aliens?

Why did the alien from the cover attacked Michael?

If the aliens started a fighting between themselves so easily why doesnt the Kryl have any methods to stop the fight like any other prison?

Why there arent any guards checking the cells?

Why there are no alarms sounding the exact second they escape?

Why there is no crown control?

Michael punch one of the guards and Finally the alarm sounds, Michael takes the belt of the Kryl so now he can communicate with his Posse, the Purple Alien is named Urdron and he tells him that he will follow him(why?)

Urdron tells Michael that the back up guards are closing in to which Michael says

THE END

WOW! that was bad

I said that the "its because im white!" moment of issue #1 is the worst moment in the entire series but this issue is definitely the worst single issue

I commented more about the comic than actually retracing it cause pretty much every scene is full with flaws and plotholes

The issue can be resume with 4 lines

-Michael gets kidnapped by Aliens

-He is depress

-The aliens mentally Probe him

-He escapes

everything else is just details that have no.importance at all.

This is the first issue that we get completely devoted on Michael and he just doesnt shine on his own on anyways

his capture is lackluster and poorly executed and his escape has a ton of questions, is the quintessential of Lazy writing, a Mary Sue, or in this case a Marty Stu

for those who dont know, a Mary sue a character, often portray in fanfiction as someone as an improve reflection of the writer, the character is often portray as someone with too many talents, some often unnecessary and in many cases the whole Plot bends to the will and convenience of this character

which is exactly what is happening here, literally the Laws of physics get bend only so Michael can escape, the Alien who helps him understands just by looking at him, that he is the new leader and capable enough to break them out without having Michael to put a single effort on it.

Michael is an expert fighter and an Olympic athlete we could have seen him defeat the alien from the cover with his own hands, that would make the idea of having this giant purple guy following him believable for the next chapter, instead the alien just steps in and then Michael mimes him for another favor on the next page.

and this book just wastes a lot of space, we get a 2 issue spread where Michael is mentally tortured and we see a vision the last arc, but it does nothing here, Spoiler alert! the Aliens do absolutely nothing with the knowledge of Michael, so what was the point?

and finally the whole angle of Michael's depression is completely stupid, is brought into the first half of the issue with himself saying how low he is and once he is in the cell the very first thing he does is make an stupid joke that no one will get.

The art, was actually very decent here, there are still certain problems with the face of Michael but the Aliens look ok and all stand out and all the backgrounds are great

but even that doesnt forgive the shortcomings of this chp

Overall is just boring, poorly written and lazy

2 OUT OF 10

End of Blog Post

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Let's Talk About Mr Terrific #3

In the last issue of Mr Terrific #2, our hero saved California from an earthquake that was caused by himself and then proceed to face Brainstorm, the maniac who is using mind control waves against that humble population of L.A. what will happen now?, let's review

SPOILERS

MISTER TERRIFIC #3 by Eric Wallace and Scott Clark

Now i need to mention first of all that this issue is being drawn by Scott Clark and Gianluca Gugliotta as its stated in the cover.

The Issue starts in the U.C.L.A. Medical Center where many of the victims attacked by Brainstorm are starting to react to his new attack on the Greenery Mall

Which to me is basically saying that the Dampering Field of Mr Terrific is doing jack shit.

Brainstorm is manipulating the people of the mall to attack Mr Terrific

While calling him a a terrorist, for some reason.

I guess that Megamind is using some kind of projection to make them think of Michael of something fearsome or menacing but then we also have the woman who tells him that he is a treehugger, which just comes as weird.

The we get into a fight sequence, Michael manage to place a couple of good punches on Megamind but then he uses some cables to try to directly drain his brain, but Michael quickly escapes thanks to his T-Spheres buzzing on megamind's ears.

and then we get his backstory

So basically he was a nice guy who discovered a way to become smarter by consuming artificial and none artificial intelligence, and he is using whatever the hell he is using to make ppl smarter so that he can consume better minds, which begs the question of why would that even matter at all, if consuming minds is making him smarter and more powerful it shouldnt really be an issue of quality vs quantity

Also

this feels really familiar

...

Brainstorm start using his powers for real this time and start consuming everyones minds in L.A. and even Michael cant make a Dampering Field big enough to stop him

Not that this matters at all cause it was established before the field does NOTHING

also, im confuse on why cant he just use the dampering field(if it worked that is) to just envelop Brainstorm and so cut off his signal, he only need to block an end, it would be more intelligent to block his end not the city.

But dont worry, Mr Terrific has a plan to stop Brainstorm from transforming Los Angeles into the City of the Fallen Angels(yes thats in the dialog), he calls for the back up of all his T-Spheres and use them to Amplify the power of consumption of Megamind

Yeah, I cannot imagine how that wont affect the countless of people that Megamind is trying to absorb

The Result is that Megamind gets a severe case of Mind Indigestion and then he detonates(?) in a green explosion.

...

wait a second

Green explosion.

The plan to consume peoples mind to be a super-god-Genius

Thats the Riddler from Batman Forever

Same Basic Origin, they both were researching something and by pure accident discover a wayto enhance their brains by sucking other people's minds

Same Motivation, they just want to be super-smart

and they are taken out by the same way, by overloading their ability to absorb minds

did Wallace just thought we wouldnt notice?

Well, the Plan is a complete success and Megamind is defeated but there is still something wrong

Oh No! Megamind has discover Michael's Identity

Just like the Riddler in Batman Forever!

But, there is more, Brainstorm tells him that he knows something about Michael that not even he knows himself, something about his Wife

It was Brainstorm's first experiments that caused the GPS of Paula to Malfunction, given her wrong instructions that she moronically followed on her own and resulted in her own death!

up to this point the book has been stupid or boring, now we reach a new lower level, Lazy!

in the retrospective that I made about Mr Terrific, I remark how thoughtful and deep that Death of Paula Holt, some people might argue that is equally cheap cause is another male character that is enhanced by the death of a woman, but it was more well develop that that, you can believe that he was driven by this and that the tragedy was real, it wasnt a hero who loses a love one because of a supervillain, it was an accident, and accident that any person around the world can believe and empathize with, there are still ppl who drive under the influence and some of those people end up in accidents and some of those accidents end up with deaths, its just an inevitable sad truth on our world.

And this book is just reducing that to, "A Supervillain did it!" Its not only Lazy but poorly executed too, A GPS has a very limited AI, if any at all, i dont understand the reasoning of Brainstorm to do something like this, it feels just mean and forced for no reason, and a GPS is not an Autopilot, Paula is still driving in the picture, her hands are in the wheel, she is still following the GPS, its her fault to have done all that and Brainstorm is not more guilty than any hypothetical malfunction that the GPS might have had on that moment without his assistance, at least with a Drunk Driver, it cant never be anyone's specific fault, its just something that happens

After listening to this awful truth Michael does what any other person on Earth could have done in his position.

He beats the living hell out of him in front of many impressionable children.

Michael what are you doing?

Just constantly punching a blue man on the middle of a mall who just confessed to have kill your wife in a very stupid way.

Michael was about to kill him but after looking at the faces of the children he realizes that he is wrong and that despite being the 3rd smartest person in the world he just behave like a neandertal.

eh no!, you behave like a human being, you are human, you have this things called emotions and rage is one of them, it doesnt make you any less smart or less of human, it just makes you like everyone else in that situation, luckily you stop at the right time but its doesnt make your fault.

And not only that but it was all captured by cameras, but dont worry thanks to his superpower, Mr Terrific is literally invisible to other technologies so the cameras wont capture his image

Oh, did I Forgot to mention that? yeah Michael Holt has the special ability to be invisible to technologies that he doesnt allow, like cameras, metal detectors, etc, I didnt mention it before cause the book never does, and this power never actually becomes relevant again in the entire comic, and it also brings up the plothole of how he was possesed by Brainstorm's attack on issues 1 and 2.

But There is still a Big Problem, Dominic Lanse the villain "Brainstorm" still remembers who Michael is, and he is very dangerous, if he tells someone else, it could present a real problem to his own safety and those next to him

This could be a really delicate problem for his entire life

Or you know, NOT!

Apparently the T-Spheres have their own neuralizer function from MiB, and Michael has not moral problem with erasing the mind of another human being to protect his identity

DC had an entire miniseries name Identity Crisis dealing with the moral implications of mind wiping villains for the sake of the greater good, but Michael doesnt even give it a second thought.

After erasing the memory of Megamind, Michael proceeds to turn him to the police for the several acts of mental terrorism that this now Mindless person committed, and doesnt turn himself in for the murder attempt that he just commited cause he is the hero of the story

As he walks away he sees the same kid who once before ask for his autograph

But the kid has something in his eye and realizes that hena tattoos are bad for the skin so he cleans it off

We cut again to Michael talking to Aleeka and Donald, telling them that he will be out of reach for a while and thus initiates a new conspirasy between this 2 to make Aleeka into the new CEO of Holt industries

Michael starts walking in the nothingness that is the 9th dimension when suddently our comic ends with him being intercepted by 2 very Ugly Aliens asking for help.

Who Look nothing like the alien in the last issue but whatever.

THE END.

This is a very stupid comic book.

It is at least fast paced and focused, it doesnt go around other subplots like the first 2 issues did until the very end and that is more to set up the next chp but what we get here is just still too rush to actually care about.

One of the main problems is The Villain, he is just very lazy, Brainstorm is a mixture between Megamind and the Riddler of Batman forever but at least Jim Carrey was funny and appealing on that movie. Brainstorm doesnt look like has an strong motivation other than him being evil and mean for the sake of doing so. the revelation of him being the "Killer" of Paula, and I use that word loosely on this case, just doesnt make any sense, if Brainstorm can suck Artificial Intelligence, why GPSs? he obviously knew that it would cause accidents but i like to think that there are better options, and its still weird to concider why would he consume something as basic as such when the A.I. of some video games can be more advanced, and is not that all that there is on an AI, just software, 0s and 1s, he can absorb computer's information through the internet, he didnt need to kill anyone and never even need to create the thousands of sociopaths that he did, and finally he didnt need to attack Mr Terrific, if his powers are so big and advanced that he cant be stopped why even pay attention to him?

however the art was much better here than in other issues thanks to Scott Clark taking over, but not by much, the characters look good but the backgrounds look imposed, like if the characters were roughly photoshoped on it

this is back to the bottom with a 2 out of 10

End of Blog Post

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Let's Talk About DC's 0 issues, First Week

One year ago DC launch 52 #1 titles

so in celebration DC will launch 55 #0 issues including 4 new series and the final issues of 3 of their current run, cause that makes sense i guess.

No series is actually ending this week, well kind of 1 but i will get to that, and we have 1 new title in Phantom Stranger.

I will keep spoilers to a minimum for cause of space but there will be some

so lets see

Action Comics #0

Grant Morrison tells a really cute story on the first appearances of rockie Superman with a T-shirt, there are some very cleaver moments like how Lois Lane only sees 2 fish in the cape, it was a fast read but memorable and well drawn.

8.5/10

Animal Man #0

This issue is pretty much what Animal Man has been all about for the entire year, a mixture of Horror with Family, it is not an essential reading in any ways since it primarily retraces the origin that we already knew from the ongoing but its still enterteining and sets the continuity clean for it as well as the motivations of all the characters

its literally a 0 issue, as it precedents all that happen before issues 1-12

enjoyable and a perfect jump in point

8/10

Batwing #0

Judd Winick presents a really good exploration of the origin of the Batman of Africa. Its just a simple story of tragedy and overcoming that justifies the character's path on this last 12 issues.

if i had a complain it would be the ending, it ends with him getting his Batwing suit, which was an strong ending but it felt like the story could had much more going on, when you finish it, is like "Thats it!?"

another strong issue but could had been better 7.5/10

Detective Comics #0

Yet another depressing story from Gregg Hurwitz, here takes on the training of Bruce Wayne before he was Batman, it has a really strong message on whatever he should be alone and not depend of others or open himself to emotion, the training sequence is just beyond well done, and the end is very open to interpretation.

The back story focus on Alfred shortly before the return of BW, its well written, and both the main story and back story have excellent art

8.5/10

Dial H #0

...

ok,this issue is

...

well weird, but thats nothing unusual for Dial H

but is extra weird, it kind of hint the entire nature of how is that the dials work

but...

yeah i give it a 7.5/10

Earth 2 #0

one of the biggest problems of E2#1 was that it was mainly about 3 characters who just die at the end and we little to no information to the characters that will actually play in the book.

here is exactly the same problem, this is a book about how Terry Sloan becomes the greatest supervillain in the world, but it has 2 major flaws about it, one problem is that this has pretty much no relation with the the current ongoing story, even though Terry is part of that i see no cause and effect with what he is doing here, the second problem is that it does a very poor job on showing us why is terry the villain of the story.

This issue tells the ultimate betrayal of Terry, but fails to show us what motivates him and why he betrays the other heroes, its a little lazy and kind of ripping off Ozymandias.

a disappointing issue

5.5/10

G.I. Combat #0

Now G.I. Combat comes with 2 stories, the first half with the Unknown Soldier and the second part with The War that Time Forgot by JT Krull.

This is one of the titles that has been less appealing to me but someone actually lend me the first 4 issues, all start with The War story first then Unknown Soldier, this last one having the least of pages.

The first half of the story a quasi origin of the Unknown Soldier revealing that is possible that there has been several U.S. thoughtout history in every single war, it was ok but nothing great, specially that if you havent read the first 4 issues you might be a little confuse.

But definitely the story that takes the cake is The War that Time Forgot, the picture up here is the last panel in the story, and as you can see for "The End" mark there, is also the final instalment

the idea behind this story is simply just this: a group of soldiers end up in an island full of dinasaurs, The End

and thats exactly this story, a guy, in this case the only soldier left in the island since everyone else is dead or left it, and is a guy with a family talking about how he misses his family but is too late and he just hunt and eat a sabertooth tiger, the end

having read the 5 issues of this thing was an extremely boring experience

simply cause nothing really happens, we dont get the name of the main character until issue 3 and only once, and no, i dont remember his name, but I never really care about remembering either, and that is this story in a nutshell, a guy in an island fighting dinosaurs, and nothing happens.

4/10

Green Arrow #0

ah, the classic Goddam Batman style of recruiting,

This book written by Judd Winick is boring.

The new origin just shows Green Arrow as a character driven by guilt but does a very poor job making us care or showing us a good evolution of the character, the pacing is weird jumping from one point to another with little to no explanation, if you didnt know about the significance of island in the origin of GA you would be lost, the art is hideus, facial expressions are weird and focus emphasis in things that just makes little to no sense to focus on.

The writing just feels empty, there is a character in this who is a cyborg, but there is absolutely no reason for him to be a cyborg, its not fun, it once again doesnt make me care about the main character or any other character and is not very well executed overall.

Is just not a green arrow that i want to read about, like in the other 12 issues

so far the weakest of the 0 issues, which is surprising coming from someone like Winick. further more sementating that this book is a complete disasterbeyond salvation by any writer, If you want to read a good book with an archer on it, check Hawkeye by Matt Fraction, a future Eisner winner

2.5/10

Green Lantern #0

Basic.

Thats the first thing i think of this comic, it is just a basic origin story about a man who was in the wrong place in the wrong time, who had a rough upbringing because of his race, religion and the events of the world, and i find it well done.

For what it is, it does a good job, it doesnt feel cliche or overwritten and just well executed.

9/10

Phantom Stranger #0

So, I guess this means there will only be 13 issues of Phantom Stranger.

Overall this issue is divided in 2 parts, the first part tells the "origin" of Phantom Stranger, and the other part is the origin of the Specter, and thats it.

This book has a very old comic book feeling, i have read old stories of Phantom Stranger and it definitely makes certain feeling to it the only problem would be how it is paced, since the 2 halfs of this story are so different it feels a lot like both parts are incomplete, the story of PS is something retold from the FCBD issue, and the Specter story just ends with a kind of anticlimax.

One thing about the Specter is that the Specter here is Jim Corrigan, the original Specter, but there is no dates, we dont know for sure if this means that Corrigan is still Specter nor that it was the only one and considering the return of Hal Jordan from his time as the specter it just leave a very confusing feeling of how exactly is the continuity working here.

It was ok but not good

6/10

Stormwatch #0

Now this was an interesting reading, its pretty much has Adam One and Jenny Quantum talking about the other Century kids, the connection with the Demon Knights and why is Stormwatch named like that, it just tosses a lot of ideas into you, some are really interesting and worth exploring in the future.

It just gives a lot of answers to this book, but at the same time raises a huge lot of questions which to me serves as exactly what this 0 issues should do to expose what the book is about and what is worth reading about.

8/10

Swamp Thing #0

Possibly the most horrific story in DC at the moment, its creepy, its intelligent, its just a magnificent thing to have in DC at the moment.

Well written, well drawn and it does what is suppose to do which is tell the origin of the hero and the villain that we already know, but in a way that doesnt feel like its retracing itself or feels predictable or boring.

9.5/10

Worlds Finest #0

Worlds Finest is a little odd book, I really like the idea of this 2 characters together but i dislike the setting and what is being done with them, Huntress feel normal but Powergirl feels like a supervillain in the making with all her apathy and overall selfish behavior however one of the few things that are good in the book is the relation between the 2, this book is pretty much what Worlds Finest should had been always about, the characters a likable, its fun but it has very dark tones to it that actually makes you care about the characters and the art of Mcguire is just absolutely fantastic.

Its just a very good stand alone story I just would like the ongoing was more like this

9/10

Let's Talk About Mr Terrific #2

In our last installment Michael Holt got possess by an unknown force and puts him in a position to use his Quake preventer Machine in reverse, creating a massive earthquake that might destroy all of California, what will happen now?

Spoilers

MISTER TERRIFIC #2 by Eric Wallace and Gianluca Gugliotta

As we left off the last issue, Michael Holt is somehow possess into activating his Quake Machine, also named C.E.E.N., provoking an earthquake that seems to be destroying everything, at the start of this issue Michael begins to fight off this malignant influence by shouting "GET OUT OF MY HEAD!"

Everyone is in panic, Jamal read the console of CEEN and he finds out that in just 5 minutes the machine will destroy everything in a 10 mile radius and after that, and extintion level Earthquake of 13.5 in Richter scale or even higher

For the record, the strongest Earthquake recorded in the world happen in 1960 in Chile and only reach a 9.5, but even more as i was investigating the Richter scale, the math involve on it is more complicated than that and something also recorded is a 12.55 in the Chicxulub crater, basically the crater left by the meteor that killed the dinosaurs

so in summary, The Quake machine that Michael invented will more likely destroy all mankind!

Karen tries to help Michael but he is helping himself by rebooting his own brain using his T-sphere. He explains that something tried to take over his mind but the T-Spheres prevented that, unfortunately not enough to prevent him from activating a doomsday device, but luckily while he was rebooting his brain he atleast manage to hear out Jamal saying how screwed they all are so he moves on quickly inside the C.E.E.N. processing chamber to stop the annihilating quake.

Apparently this machine that is SOO EASILY turn into a world killer weapon needs a very specific set of procedures in order to be turn off, it just cannot be as easy as plug the powercord or reboot a computer, no, Michael explains that he needs to create a SONIC BLACK HOLE, in order to permanently stop the quake on its tracks, and again, they only have like 4 mins

YOU CAN DO IT!

and he does!

By creating this weird circle thingy =>

with the help of Karen.

I knew you could do it =D

=/

Ok here the problem with this whole situation, its so ridiculous and so forced on its pace that is almost impossible to feel the slightless tension at all on the scene, anyone can just easily wonder that if Michael could transform his machine so simply into a weapon of mass destruction so anyone, which makes the sole existence of this machine questionable, but even more is the fact that Its so easy to activate and so hard to deactivate, why? One can think this because as Michael explains the function of the machine, it seems like its generating the quake, its just a matter to make it stop, but Wallace goes into so much detail to sustain this situation that it just doesnt work, If you need to explain it with so much detail for people to understand it then you are doing something wrong, its not like is necessary to look down to the audience but we as readers understand that whatever is making this machine works is completely fake on its science, so there is no point to it at all.

With the crisis averted there is still one lingering problem, Michael Holt just publicaly tried to murder a member of the US Senate and created a machine that can easily destroy the West Cost in a matter of minutes and possibly the whole entire world, so what with happen with that?

But ofcourse!, he is just a victim of mind control, wasnt that obvious for everyone in the room? and that doomsday machine that Michael invented, completely forgotten, lets just pretend it never happen

Ok, being fair, the next panel tell us that several hundred people were affected just like michael, but the big problem of the situation is they were all random attacks, which also made the past scene just a huge coincidence since Michael wasnt just personally attacked to destroy the world.

Since Michael was not the only attacked and none of the others victimsrecover cause Michael had his T-Spheres he decides to find whoever caused this like any hero would do

and we cut to another scene to meet the main menace

the sole culprit of this situation and the cause of so much suffering and anguish to the good people of California

...

MEGAMIND

...

ok its not Megamind

Its this other blue dude from the cover

His name is Brainstorm but i will keep calling him Megamind cause its actually easier to do

Megamind exposit that what he is really doing is feeding from other people's minds, and his own ability is increasing more and more so soon he will be able to feed on a mass scale, and by feeding he will achieve Godhood

...

this plans sounds familiar

nevermind

The next scene we get Michael reunited with his board, they are worried for Michael cause he just had a near death experience but most of all they are worried that Michael doesnt have a successor.

???

And Michael responds on how important he is for HOLT Industries and without him the company would be ruin

ok, I will move ahead a little in the future but this subplot, never really pays off, If Michael is so important on his own, how would a successor change anything at all , the idea is that he needs to do this to preserve the future of the company after he is gone, but he doesnt need to be gone soon, and in the case that something happens to him and he didnt had an "heir" then i guess it would be up to his own board of directors to choose one or take care of the company themselves, so why press on this?

Aleeka has a moment with Michael in which she tries to convince him to choose one but he is too depress to react.

We cut again to 2 persons, Donald and another guy isnt name, Donald is part of the Holt Industries Board, and the no name guy works for something call the Circle Revolution, and they are conspiring to make take over Holt Ind.

We cut AGAIN to Michael doing an Scan on himself with the help of his A.I. NOLA and with this he finds out the reason of why so many ppl turn insane like he did, he is doing this while talking with Karen via holograms(what? you dont have one of those in your house?) and we find out that Karen have no idea that Michael is a superhero. He suits up and leaves throught his portal on the 9th dimension while he travels on it a misterious set of eyes are lurking

In the meantime he arrives at a random Mall in Los Angeles, why there, cause he detects some random anomaly that indicates that Megamind might attack here, but first he needs to give some autographs

Now considering that this place full of kids might be attacked by an evil person who is using mindwaves that would turn them into slaves and/or sociopaths, there is just no nesesity at all to alarm them

Once Megamind attacks Michael uses his T-Spheres to create a "dampering field" that will prevent any effect on this. This makes Megamind appear for the first time. Now imagine that you are in a mall and suddenly you are victim of one of those neural attacks that you see on the news and then you see this blue guy floating in the middle of the mall talking to a superhero and most likely the 2 are going to start a fight, you run from there? yes, well thats weird cause here they DIDNT RUN! This the problem with this situation, Michael knows that an attack is imminent and he doesnt bother to warn anyone, to evacuate the mall? maybe he didnt want to create panic but he could had put the dampering field before it started, he could had told everyone to run for safety once Brainstorm appeared since he knows what he can do and that he is dangerous, but he doesnt, even more why is Brainstorm here? up to this point all the attacks have been random, if he is here does it means that he was targetting this mall, why? and once it was stop why confront Michael, he could easily move to another location, this is the problem with a pacing that is too fast, we dont know anything for sure cause we havent been given enough time to assimilate the problem.

Megamind increases the power of his "whatever" and turns everyone in the Mall into his slaves

And the comic ends with him ordering the masses to Kill Mister Terrific.

THE END

This comic is confusing

It feels more like 2 comics in one, the first half with Michael in a challenge to save the world and the other one with 3 or 4 subplots that are just hinted, and then villain attacks at the end.

The Earthquake plot is just very blandly executed, It just meant to be an action sequence but without any action and tension, I dont know if Wallace was assuming that ppl wouldnt notice that a 13.5 richter is completely unrealistic or if he was just playing silly with it, its just telling us that this can end the whole world on a situation that the hero himself put in action only to make him be a hero and the plot still has this gigantic hole on the sole creating of the machine, Why would Michel make this think so it can be turn into a WMD?

Its just ignore and forgotten like it wasnt important, and it works in that sense cause it wasnt important at all.

The subplots are meant to be an story that will develop later int the future, but here there are too many taking away a lot of space from the same story, we get a full spread of Michael going through the 9th dimension only for a little panel to show us that there is a creature living there looking at him, this might sound interesting but it just feels like it doesnt belong here, and could had been hinted later or not at all they just takeout 2 pages of the book and leave nothing useful behind and the same goes for most of them.

and Finally the attack of Brainstorm has all those problems that i pointed out, we get an exposition that is too quick about why and how he is doing this but its just boring

we dont feel an emotional response to this attacks cause we never see the thousands of victims and we are just told about it, and the people attacked in the mall are more presented as comically mindless zombies and out of place with the whole super intelligent sociopaths that we were presented until now.

I think the art improved a little but it still presents problems and it has this thing where it uses close shots of everyone's face for no reason at all

overall a little improvement over the last issue, is not offensive but is still very boring

I give it a 3 out of 10

End of Blog Post

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Top 10 BEST Comic of the Relaunch

Is been a good year

Honorary mentions

15- Nightwing by Kyle Higgins

14- Dial H by China Mieville

13- Flash by Francis Manapul

12- Earth 2 by James Robinson

11- Justice League Dark by Peter Milligan/Jeff Lemire and Mikel Janin

Now the list

10- All-Star Western by Justin Gray & Jimmy Palmiotti and Moriat

For #10 it was between this and JLD and the reason why I went with this is simply cause All-Star Western has been consistently good since the beginning, while JLD is very enjoyable and has one of the best art of any comic books right now, the run of Peter Milligan has its ups and downs, while the run of Jeff Lemire has been just fantastic but is just the last few issues of 12

All-Star is just a consistently good comic, It has a great setting, we have the greatest hero in DC westerns here with Jonah Hex, written by Gray and Palmiotti, 2 writers who have driven this character for 70 issues of his own ongoing and know him perfectly inside out, and we also have Amadeus Arkham, a character that perfectly serves as a contrast for Hex, a great part of this book is the whole exchange of dialog and ideas between this 2 characters who are completely different.

But of course the greatest difference between this book and the previous Jonah Hex ongoing is that this is taking place in Gotham City in the 19 century, with that in mind if you are interested in the world of Batman this book dig deep into its roots.

This book also includes cofeatures which sometimes and most of the time is a different one each month, some have been good, some have been boring and others just felt like a nice introduction to a new character without really adding much to that character, but the last cofeature made in this book about Doctor 13 is just Fantastic, it’s a very different take from the main story but equally entertaining with a very interesting character with a lot of steampunk style on it.

you can buy this comic here

9- Wonder Woman by Brian Azzarello and Cliff Chiang

One thing out of the way, the new Diana sucks, she lost pretty much everything that made her unique and special just to become a new Hercules or Xena, that being said, this book is not about that, this book is NOT about Wonder Woman, WW is just merely peripheral, this book is about Gods, and as such, it is brilliant.

Ever since Neil Gaiman’s Sandman I have yet to see such originality and development over beings who are literally gods on earth, some are selfish and others are kind but the sole point of these characters is that you can actually believe that this are who they say they are, the designs of every single character is excellent, conceptual and terrifying in some cases, It is because of characters like Strife and Hades that makes this comic so entertaining and fascinating, Strife alone is easily my favorite new character in the new 52, she is not really evil, she is not a villain and not even an antagonist she just sees the whole drama and destruction around her and can’t stop being entertain by it, she is just a Machiavellian figure in this book well deserve of the title of her original inspiration, Eris of the Greek Myth.

The plot is really good; it’s a battle of wills between gods and just like any greek myth the hero of the story must face the challenges of the gods facing adversity, going down to the Tartarus to face death and came back, and on top of that we get the character of Zola who is carrying the new son of Zeus who ultimately becomes the trigger that sets all in motion and its very reminiscent of the greek myth.

However this is not a perfect book, the main problem with this book is simply Wonder Woman, this has to be the most naive version of wonder woman ever, is pure emotion and no brains, sometimes it can be well used in the plot like how she defeated Hades but on most of the book she is just dull, the changes that she experiences on this new incarnation are mostly unnecessary and on some cases troubling, for example the new version of the amazons are now murders and rapist, this is very similar to amazons of certain greek myths(not all myths of the amazons are equal), however it opens a huge plot hole, how is that Diana, being an amazon, didn’t knew any of this, wasnt there any kids when she was around? Didn’t knew the whole “birds and bees” speech from her mom? How come she never questions the sole existence or her island and race even after getting to know the Men’s world? and several other questions, or something else how is that she actually believe the BS of being born of clay, unless she knew it then how did she believe in the clay origin any ways, It’s just hard to change a history that is 70+ years old organically any ways but this felt like it had a lot of problems to begin with, I just think it could had been done differently with the same method and better results.

And then there are the amazons as characters, they appear very little but they are just a-holes, basically bullies to WW, who call her names behind her back, not even to mention the rapist/murderers change.

There are other changes that aren’t really that important, like now WW lives in London and not on Washington DC, which I think is great since it opens more possibilities for new set ups and stories as well it stops concentrating all the main guys of DC in one country.

And this is a personal preference but I really dislike the character of Lennox, he is the new brother of WW but I don’t really recognize from any greek myth however he actually feels more like a rip off of John Constantine, I don’t know if Azzarello requested Constantine and was denied by the editor for whatever reason and created this guy as replacement but I just can’t to think of him as anything but a Constantine imitation and it would probably had worked a lot better if it was Constantine, after all WW now lives in London, makes sense.

But like I put it before, this is not a book about Wonder Woman on the new DCU, is about a completely new and fresh take to her mythology, which ironically should be what WW is all about.

you can buy this comic here

8-Green Lantern by Geoff Johns and Doug Mahnke

Green Lantern is a book that has been very solid in the past few years but the relaunch completely revitalized the book, it just feels fresh, it takes 2 characters that have been really well developed of the past few years and just goes deeper into them.

The book in a nutshell is another buddy book like All-Star Western, Sinestro is in a quest to remove his green ring but in the process it becomes more of a redemption journey for him even if he is not aware of it, and for Hal is more of path to discover humility, he loses a power that he took for granted and now he is learning to appreciate it again, and at the same time rediscover who really is Siniestro.

It continues to expand the world of Green Lantern, the plot is unique and interesting and the direction that is following makes every issue enjoyable and satisfying and the interaction of Hal and Siniestro is very entertaining and well develop

you can buy this comic here

7- Demon Knights by Paul Cornel & Diogenes Neves

Ok imagine that DC grabs things like Game of Thrones, Dungeons & Dragons and all their very best medieval properties as well as supernatural, then put it in a blender, hit the turbo, and then put it all on the table and then you do this with it.

That’s the demon knight’s experience

It’s just the very best Team Book in the comic industry right now.

It fun, its well written, the characters are awesome, all of them are different and interesting on their own ways, strong female characters, funny ambiguous protagonist and just a pure sense adventure and discovery.

Every new chp and every new pages opens up a completely new world of concepts in the DC, to read this book you need to have an open mind for exploration and just go deep into it, With Characters like the Demon Etrigan going in and out of hell conspiring to betray his own team for personal glory, Horsewoman who brings an interesting wisdom and a mysterious past, Vandal Savage who is just a blast to read and you cant never expect what he is going to do next, and others like them, this book is just never boring for a single page.

Finally the Art of Diogenes Neves is perfect for this book, is dynamic and stylized perfectly for the dark ages, the different designs of every town, of every monster, or every face and background, from hell to a simple town to a majestic castle, It takes work and talent to pull this off and here there is a lot of those though is a very sad news to know that he will be leaving soon the title, though I think we will see more of this artist in DC

.

you can buy this comic here

6- The Shade by James Robinson and several artists

The Shade is a great character, when James Robinson created the universe of Starman he took a character forgotten by the ages and make it his own, and in this miniseries he is utilizing that character in new ways that goes beyond what he did with him in Starman with a fun journey through the different times of the world of DC.

The plot is that the Shade is being target to be assassinated, but since he is immortal it’s not a big problem, more like an annoyance, so he travels around the world following clues on who might be behind this hit which lead him to encounter with his own family and his own past, and that’s where the book really gets interesting, most of the issues take place in the past where Shade comments about his adventures around the world, meeting many interesting people also forgotten by the golden age of comics or just simply new inventions from the mind of Robinson who are always a delight like an ancient teenage Vampire from Spain or a group of godlike beings bound by a satanic cult.

The art is right, for what it is, we have several artist on this book, all with different backgrounds and styles but each one of those styles fits perfectly for the type of story that is being told

This book is just a good read and is highly recommended.

you can buy this comic here

5- Aquaman by Geoff Johns and Ivan Reis

The best Superhero book of the moment, it’s just a well crafted book, good art, good writing, good characters.

The book resolves about Aquaman and his wife Mera living a peaceful life at Mercy’s Reef when suddenly a town nearby gets attacked by fish-like creatures and is to them to stop them, they do but in doing so find several connections to Atlantis, in the next arc one of Arthur’s old friends gets assassinated by Black Manta which sends him in a quest to discover even more secrets about Atlantis and himself.

The plot is really well presented, the quest of Aquaman is interesting and every single one of the old Aquamans friends, also known as the Others is well design and with a fascinating story behind them, and finally Aquaman is a full multidimensional character with a great personality behind them, and that’s not even mentioning Mera which is easily one of the strongest and most interesting female characters in DC at the moment.

This is Geoff Johns writing at its finest, but it’s also thanks to Ivan Reis exquisite art that pulls it all together, the characters feel alive and radiant, and the battle scenes are full of energy and dynamism. Which is very sad to see this team leaving the title soon, but I hope that whoever is in charge of talking this title be able to fill the shoes.

you can buy this comic here

4- Penguin: Pain and Prejudice by Gregg Hurwitz and Szimon Kudranski

This is probably the most depressing book made by DC this year and an excellent analysis on the character of the Penguin, we see him from his childhood, explore his traumas and issues and what ultimately drives him to be who he is.

Penguin: Pain & Prejudice is essentially a tragedy, we follow the villain of the story into his ultimate downfall, but it never feels predictable. We see Penguin committing some of the most horrible acts a human being can perform, basically destroying the lives of people around him and you can still to certain degree sympathize with him, not cause he is some kind of victim from the circumstances or cause of some little excuse but because he is a complex feeling human being, and that’s one of the greatest things of this book, it transforms him into a multidimensional character that you can either love or hate, and is a credible threat for Batman.

The art is absolutely gorgeous, using only dark and gray tones, very stylistic to set the mood its going for.

What The Killing Joke did for the Joker, this book did it for the Penguin.

you can buy this comic here

3- I, Vampire by Joshua Kialkov and Andrea Sorrentino

This book is the big surprise of the relaunch, it has a Perfect tone and Style on the story that it tries to tell.

In essence is a love story gone wrong, Andrew Bennett turns into a vampire and share this new gift with her love Mary, but Unlike Andrew who turns into a vampire with a passive nature Mary becomes overwhelm with bloodlust, 400 years past and Mary has become the most powerful Vampire in the world and is preparing a war against the human kind, while Andrew has become simple Vampire with great power that just wants to live in the world and its up to him to stop Mary.

The Journey of Andrew takes us to very different places and meet very different characters without ever resorting in the overused clichés of vampire stories that have been going on lately, there is no teenage angst here, nor vampires that shine, we get vampires that turn into smoke and savage beasts that destroy everything on their path and we see them fighting zombies, vampire hunters, and zombie vampire hunters.

It’s just one of the best written books in the stands and sadly one of the most overlook too, the dialog is funny when it wants to be funny and grim and dark when it wants to be, we see a constant evolution in all the characters that are present, Andrew moves away from his own doubts to keep fighting and turns into basically Vampire Jesus in the middle of the run and still keeps moving forward.

And the Art of Andrea Sorrentino couldn’t be a better fit, it’s very dark and pale but still good to look at.

If you aren’t getting this book right now do yourself a favor and get it, you wont regret.

you can buy this comic here

2- Animal Man and Swamp Thing by Jeff Lemire and Travel Foreman & Alberto Ponticelli/Scott Snyder and Yanick Paquette & Marco Rudy

It’s very hard to pick one over the other one, both have similarities and follow the same direction but by 2 completely different routes

First Animal Man, It’s just a perfect combination between a superhero book and a horror book, in just the first scene of the book you can see how big of a hero Buddy Baker is, in just a few pages you can see him as the idealist superhero when suddenly he is meet with a completely unexpected development that turns his world around, and is very easy to care about it, to wonder what is happening and why to him, but the biggest asset in this book is not only Buddy but the Baker Family, a son, a daughter, a wife, a grandmother, all connect with the reader in a different way just like buddy does and the different interactions of the family between them and the villains of the story.

In a medium that is almost completely made out of lonely heroes with dead parents, no siblings or wives or families in any relevant way this book stands out above all for trying something different with the family dynamic and is very unique in an exciting and thrilling way.

Then we get the Swamp Thing, when Alan Moore came to DC he brought with him the essence of the Sophisticated Suspense to the whole medium in the form of The Saga of The Swamp Thing and created one of the finest comics of all times, in this new volume Scott Snyder brings an spiritual successor to that run.

Swamp Thing is divided between 3 stories, one is a love story between 2 persons who never meet before but can’t help to be in love, a classic battle between good and evil and a journey of self-discovery for a man who is given a second chance to live again.

The book is nothing short of Epic, it sets itself up to be Epic and rebuild the mythos of one of DCs best properties.

Both Animal Man and Swamp Thing share a similar tone and fight the same enemy from different sides until they merge their paths by issue 12 but both are their own separated story, they aren’t anything but intelligently written and beautifully drawn books with Excellent characters and a great direction.

you can buy this comic here & here

1- Batman by Scott Snyder and Greg Capullo

The new 52 is a relaunch project, its goal tries to reinvent characters, get rid of things that didn’t work and just open new possibilities for them, but there only 3 exceptions to this, 1 was Green Lantern, another one was Batman and finally LSH, the reason for them to survive the relaunch is not because of the characters themselves, or because of sales, or because of the writers behind them, the only important factor for them is [b]Consistency[/b], both Green Lantern and Batman have had the same story for a long time the same direction, and why? Cause they work, Geoff Johns have 8 years on GL, Morrison had 6, and their stories just work, they sale well they entertain and they build themselves up to the next step, when you see any other title, no matter the writer or the sales, it just keep changing to something different, the stories never evolve to new high they just change to something else and that’s why they were relaunched, cause it doesn’t matter how good or bad the stories were cause none of them could maintain the same direction for more than a year, not superman, wonder woman, no one.

I bring all this up because even though the Morrison era is finally coming to an end I have never been more excited for Batman in a long time and looking at what Snyder is doing in this book is exactly what every single of the other 51 books should had done, It’s beyond the story itself, it’s how its being constructed, this book in just a year constructed a base that can endure change, Its gonna keep that same consistency that made the stories of Morrison and Johns last for so long, simply put, if next year we get another relaunch, this book will not change, and that for me is what made all of this books the best of their kind and why all of the worst of the relaunch are bad, those bad books, those bad changes will be wash away when DC gets their chance and some already have been while this stories will remain.

Coming out of his brilliant run in Detective Comics, Scott Snyder keeps that same energy on this book despite having a different character under the Cowl, and the same master on dialog and tone, He just knows how exactly to create an scene, in Black Mirror you keep feeling like there is something else coming from the pages, not dialog or thoughts but like a voice from behind you that tells you “Is he telling the truth? is he lying” “Is he really a psychopath?” “is there a head in the toilet?” and that same voice accompanies you on this book too.

What makes Batman so good is just its simplicity, Snyder knows exactly the story that he wants to tell and he tells it in and interesting and entertaining way, the art by Greg Capullo is simple, easy to follow, appealing to the eyes, the characters feel real, their pain feels real as well as their emotions.

One thing I love for this is that it tries to evolve the weapons of batman, I rarely see a writer make him develop Batman’s arsenal in a way that is so believable, I guess is cause DC doesn’t want to end up in an Iron Man hole where he just gets a new suit every 6 months, but here it feels right how he develops his new gadgetry and how he uses it, and at the end of the run when he faces he final enemy, he just realizes that there is much more to do, that even after 70+ years it can still grow in more different ways, reminded me a lot of the Dark Knight movies.

For me the best part of this book is how serious can it be sometimes, specifically issue 6, is rare, extremely rare to actually have a book with Batman and think for a second that he might not make it, Snyder just knows how to create a feeling and tone in an scene, little to no dialog in certain portions just relaying in the art to tell the story and it just evoke the sensation that you, just like batman are trap into this place, the next issue has one of the best fight sequences I have ever seen, once again it gets that feeling for struggle and victory, there are several well placed twist by the end and the book at its conclusion gives us one of the best open endings I have ever seen since The Long Halloween.

That said, this is not a flawless book, there are many ppl with valid complains, like how is that batman gets wounded so severely and then heal so fast or act like is nothing in a next scene, despite being a big wound, things like that, but ultimately this is a great book, with an good story but the best thing, the uniqueness that separates them from all the other titles is that it builds to be better, this is just the threshold of a long epic run.

you can buy this comic here

Final Thoughts on the Relaunch so far

I read almost all of the books of the relaunch, with a couple of exceptions.

And just for everyone to know, I really love continuity in comics, I love that we can revisit and old story at any point, that such possibility can exist and that is tied to the character, the bad part is that is a 2 way route, a great story can rise a character to a new high, a back story can turn into an stain in his record that can ruin him forever, with that in mind I should be conflicted about the relaunch cause one one side is getting rid of a lot of stories that are great, but on the other hand is getting rid of the bad ones.

The lost of continuity is probably the biggest complains that I have seen for the new 52, the problems of it, of what is it or what is not inside the 5 years of history, that’s important, is just not what the relaunch is about, the relaunch is about the characters.

What a character can do has nothing to do with what a character has done, for me the worst parts of the relaunch are when we are shown a character who is to some degree a reinvention of such and we get to realize that’s not what the character would do, that’s not what DC can do with it and is just not embracing its full potential, at contrary, when we get a character with a new continuity, with a new story and just believe in this new person as the new Alan Scott, as the new Bucky Baker, as the new Bruce Wayne, and still identify that voice, what we lost is not that important.

As I said in the other thread Static is the very worst of his kind cause of how it wastes such a chance and doesn’t show off his potential despite keeping his continuity intact, is the perfect example of a failure on the relaunch, or other books Like Batgirl and Green Arrow reinvents their whole concepts but forget what make them iconic in the first place.

The things that can be done with a character with little to no ties on continuity just by basing it only on the best parts of such continuity can end up becoming great.

For example, I love Cassandra Cain, and Stephanie Brown and Wally West, and that’s why these characters DESERVE a relaunch.

It doesn’t matter if Cassandra Cain wasn’t batgirl, if DC understands her potential as a character and understand how she works and what she can do, then I won’t mind seeing her starting once again from 0, what she can do with another chance can be bigger and better than anything she has ever done, not being tied by the bad parts of her own continuity and release her from those mistakes on the past and still learning the lessons from them as well as the good parts which can open new possibilities, that’s an objective in fiction, not to tell the same story over and over again but to get to the next step and that’s exactly what the relaunch can accomplish, it can give us the very best of it and use it in new ways we couldn’t have ever expected or even be possible.

The Relaunch is potential, it can be potentially worse or it can be potentially better, but is not good or bad on its own and I hope we see more like this 10 titles in a future.

End of Blog Post

Check out my Personal Blog lets-talk-about-comics.blogspot.com

Let's Talk about Mr Terrific #1

This is Mister Terrific #1, one of the 52 #1s released by DC on September of 2011 and the ongoing that came was so bad that and it sold so poorly that DC cancel it after just 8 issues

Why is it so bad?

Lets talk about it

First of all

Who is Mister Terrific?

Created in January 1942 Mister Terrific was originally a founding member of the superhero team of the Justice Society of America, his name was Terry Sloan, he was a self-made man, a genius who graduated from college at age 13 and an Olympic-level athlete. after becoming basically the best of the best of the best he gets into a depresion which let him to contemplate suicide but due pure changes he ends up saving the life of a woman who was trying trying to kill herself, this was the first step that lead him to become a superhero until his final days, his motto and pretty much his way of living was "Fair Play"

but of course thats not the guy from the cover, this comic is about the second Mister Terrific, Michael Holt

His origin is somehow similar to the origin of Terry Sloan but with several differences, the main one is possibly the fact that Michael is a more modern character, in the past DC tried to keep its continuity intact in a way that all the heroes of the past like the JSA started at their time period, so someone like Terry in his continuity with Michael actually started being a hero on 1942, while Michael first appearance was in 1997.

Michael was Created by John Ostrander and Tom Mandrake basing him on the mold that was Terry Sloan and just like him he is a genius, mastering the most complex concepts at the tender age of 6, he had a "a natural aptitude for having natural aptitudes" easily retaining skills that others could take a lifetime to achieve, before even becoming a hero he already had gotten 14 Ph.Ds and was a self-made millionaire in addition to be an Olympic Decathlete

But ofcourse just like with Terry Sloan, tragedy strikes him but not in a form of the incomplacence of not being able to get more achievements in life, but for the lost of his Wife.

Both his wife, Paula Holt and their unborn son die in a car accident provoked by a drunk driver, such a powerful tragedy lets Michael devastated and contemplating suicide but he is save by the hero The Specter, who tells him the story of Terry Sloan and inspired by this he takes up the mantle of Mister Terrific and the title of the 3rd Smartest man in the World.

As Mr Terrific, Michael became a vital member of the new JSA, a leader of it and also the organization of CheckMate and other great accomplishments that let him become an important character in the DC Universe

But ofcourse, The New 52 is about change, this new project essentially separated the JSA and Terry Sloan from continuity so what we have here is a repacked Michael Holt without his really cool jacket and an slightly different backstory

so lets jump in

Spoilers!

MISTER TERRIFIC #1 by Eric Wallace and Gianluca Gugliotta

This issue Starts with our hero fighting a biomechanical battle armor in the middle of London and michael says that this is some CEO named Dalton from some random company who is selling weapons(apparently mechs) in the black market.

Now why would a CEO deal with this kind of things himself?

Michael uses his T-Balls(not an innuendo at all) to escape from him and as he flies through the city with Dalton on pursue.

Using his superior intellect and his T-Spheres, he transforms the London Eye(google it!) into a giant magnet to capture Dalton and beats him up

That doesnt really sound like a good idea, wouldnt magnetize it ruin its engines or something?

And then he enters into one of the pods of the london eye to receive his well deserve congratulations

...

and that ladies and gentleman is the introduction of our hero for the next 7 issues

Why is he angry about this? he is the one who called himself the 3rd smartest man, which even though that has been one of Michael's surnames i dont know of any comic besides this one where he actually refers as such, and the question is legit, who are the #1 and #2, and how is that they are #1 and #2?

and why would the girl would thank him by saying "Thanks Black Guy" thats sounds really mean and an unnecessary use of race here since the other guy in the pod is also black,would it be wrong to think that maybe those 2 know each other? so why would she bother to remark about race?

and finally, Michael didnt save them, they were fine until he let the Homicidal lunatic wearing weaponized body armor to them, so is Michael who should apologize to them for endangering them.

and this was the first 4 pages

With this introduction, we cut back in a form of a flashback to his origin as a superhero, it is basically what i said back there, he is a genius, an olympic level athlete, a self-made millionaire, CEO of his own enterprice, Holt Inds, and he sadly loses his pregnant wife in a car accident... by a GPS

...

how does someone dies because of a GPS? you might ask

well the GPS helps someone find a way to go, its practically a digital map navigator, not an autopilot so how can it kill?

well it does kill, there are several reported cases in the US where people followed the instructions of a faulty GPS and let them to a wrong turn that end in a car crash or even get lost on the desert with no gasoline and die because of it. but ultimately its never going to be the entire fault of the GPS, there is certain responsability for the driver who used it, and that makes Paula partially responsible for own death, it just diminish the impact of this tragedy and is almost, with all due respect, a ridiculous way to die. her GPS system went haywire and she died, you almost have to think hard about that, while with just a drunk driver, is something that anyone can accept as a sad random inevitability of life.

Of course with the death of Paula Michael gets depress and contemplates suicide but instead of being visited by not the specter, but a vision of a young man, who says its his son, and tells him to not give up and EDUCATE THE WORLD, and then the young man disappears.

I really dont know how putting on a mask and fighting lunatics in Mech suits educate anyone but he does become a hero for the people.

we cut again to Los Angeles where we meet the first useless supporting character in this book, Karen Starr, i might add that she is Powergirl from another earth but right now is not relevant at all, she is the CEO of Starrware a hightech company and she is wearing nothing but a lakers t-shirt and what we establish in this scene is that Michael and Karen were a couple sometime but not now and are good friends, also that they will go to a party tonight for fundraiser

we cut to another scene on a dinner on LA were some guy(Edgar) is eating soup and suddenly he gets flashes in his eyes, then he insults the waitress until she makes her cry and leaves without paying the meal, while he leaves he sees a homeless person asking for money on the street, the manager(I think is the manager) of the dinner goes outside with a baseball bat obviously to kick his ass for not paying for the food and insulting the waitress when he sees Edgar killing the homeless man while saying "problem solved".

then he gets arrested and the police calls Mr Terrific cause Edgar is now writing highly complex equations and since this is the kind of thing that Mr Terrific deals with he called him

Ok, first of all, i will say that the whole notion of a random guy gaining high intellect out of the blue and then acting as a jerk because of such intelligence is a little forced, as we will learn later, this involves some level of mind control that fell just random, why was edgar turn into this? no explanation and we will never get one, he never reappears in the book and he is never "cure" from his condition, and it is a very forced why to bring Mr Terrific into the story, he could just have looked in the news, i fail to see why the police needed to involve him breaking procedure, This is the DCU, there are organizations that the police contact before they contact a hero, thats why Gordon contacts Batman in secrecy.

but enough of that, we cut, AGAIN, to michael investigating the mystery in his lair on the 9th dimension

and once that is established we cut again to the party

In the party we meet Jamal, a 16yo with a 192 IQ who will in no way be important on this book, we see Aleeka a coworker of Holt Ind, who is secretly in love with Michael, we see Michael talking with a senator to establish the fact that michael is republican(this is not important at all) and Karen is there of course

But during the party Karen notice that Aleeka has been staring at her, and she calls her about this, she tells her that she and Michael are ONLY Friends and that she doesnt want a tuft war with Aleeka, she responds that is not that, and Karen replies this:

... ok

and Aleeka responds

...ok

This is really stupid.

I guess you can say that is was to establish the fact that Aleeka and Karen cant stand each other and be used later to make her be friends or enemies in a future, but No is not that, they never get close to each other or anything remotely like that.

This is literally a conversation that goes absolutely nowhere, but is impossible to avoid cause of how big of an impact it causes, the close up to the eyes of Karen almost make the line more important for the scene.

The sole response of Karen, "Its because im a white girl" really makes no sense at all, why would that be the problem, at this point we havent established anything on either of this characters and we dont even get to know how well do either of them know each other, so why would Karen think that Aleeka is racist?

Even more why is that even brought out? Aleeka responds that she could never compete with her, but she does it, just after Karen says that she was just a friend of Michael, why would she need to compete with her if Karen just said is not after Michael?

Personally I think the dialog would had made more sense if it was indeed because she thinks Michael cant be with a white person, it would make her a racist but at least the dialog would make sense and it could even be interesting to develop.

And finally the response of Aleeka regarding being a black woman, if they both had been men this would had been the literal equivalent of Aleeka opening her flier to show that she had a bigger thingy than Karen, Is basically an example, not of racial pride, but almost racial supremacy, she is telling her that because she is black that she can do things that Karen cant cause she is white, and that is in essence better than her cause she is black, you can argue the semantics but thats a way to translate it, still this is completely irrelevant

their races are irrelevant and their whole discussion is irrelevant

This is not only the worst moment in this issue but in the entire book and if Wallace actually wanted ppl to feel awkward while reading this conversation, if he actually did this on purpose, to what purpose?

I was told that ppl who have gone into an interracial relationship sometimes end up in this kind of situation, that this kind of thing of a man or a woman is rejected by the friends of their couple cause of the color, this actually happens but, this is not the same, This has nothing to do with the relationships in the book, or with Mister Terrific, that is an issue that has nothing to do with this conversation, it serves no end at all other than to question the race of the characters for absolutely no reason

Well after that moment we get to Michael showing the Senator the machine that he build.

Its called C.E.E.N. and it basically stops quakes by canceling the wave that they produce with an equal and opposite wave, michael mentions how much hard work went into this machine and how much he is proud of it, when suddenly Michael starts to feel a headache then he starts insulting the senator and activates his machine to instead of preventing a quake is creating one which is destroying the entire building

Ok, if create a machine that can prevent a quake, why in the hell, would you make it, so that it can also creates them, Its a huge logic flaw, Michael practically created a WMD, that can be used for good, but is still a WMD, and there is logic behind how the machine works but i dont think that something like that would work in the real world, i know this is a comic but when the book is trying to so accurate in its science, its just begging to be told that it doesnt work.

and finally considering this ending where he is so obviously attacked by the mastermind being the attack in the dinner, he didnt need to be present in the police department to be informed of the situation, he could had seen it on TV or something, It only served to established the fact that he sometimes works with the police but overall it was unnecessary

and finally the comic ends with michael as just stands in front of the senator telling him that he is going to kill him.

THE END.

*End Spoilers*

This Comic is a mess.

I think the biggest problem is the fact that Eric Wallace is trying to do way too much in just one issue, there is very little to sink in and too much to choose from, we have the presentation of Mr Terrific, the mystery of whoever is trying to mindcontrol them, presenting the support cast, and also the 9th dimension lair + the origin of Michael, its just too much and every single thing has its own individual flaws

I also need to address the fact that the writer Eric Wallace is black, and he really makes apparent the fact that Mr Terrific is black, its not really a bad thing to have in a comic, to make the race relevant for the comic.

He also made a comic name Final Crisis Aftermath: INK, which was about a black hero/villain living with his family in a hellish city and the comic was really good, its a very intereting portray of the character and an interesting story and ofcourse the race play a factor on it and it feels ok there cause it holds certain relevancy, but here is completely out of place, It keeps being repeated again and again and at the end of the day is completely irrelevant, If Michael was white, it wouldnt make a single difference in the plot, the fact that Aleeka is black is not important, just like Karen being white is not important.

It feels like Wallace tried to construct him as a "black character" before even try to make him a character

Michael Holt is more than just some black hero, he is a genius and a leader of men and I dont see any of those things in this book.

The Art of Gianluca Gugliotta is really bad, body figureslook off in many places and the faces actually look terrible, Michael should be around 25-30 years old, maybe much less, but he looks 40 or 50 just on his facial features

Overall i give this comic 2 Out of 10

End of Blog Post

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Top 10 WORST Comic of the Relaunch

Its been a year since DC relaunched its universe, and personally I think most of it has been good but not all, there are many rotten apples in this basket.

Here I have made a list of what I think are the worst titles of DC 12 issues into the relaunch(though not all have 12).

Just 3 things before I start, if you want to comment or maybe even share your own lists you I encourage you to do it but for the record I consider this 3 things

1- I honestly tried to be as objective as possible with this list, I go on detail of what I think is failing on this titles but this ultimately MY OPINION, if you don’t agree, is your opinion

2- If I didn’t read, it is not on the list, and I read a lot this year.

3- Miniseries and events count

But First the Dishonorable mentions that for one reason or another couldn’t make it on the list

*Detective Comics #5-12 by Tony Daniels

*Superman by George Perez

*Savage Hawkman by Tony Daniels

*Deathstroke by Rob Liefeld

Now the List

10- Batman: The Dark Knight #1-8 by David Finch and Paul Jenkins

What is it?

Issues 1-8 tell the story of Batman pursuing a criminal named White Rabbit, who keeps appearing in crime scenes and is suspect of giving several villains of Gotham City access to a Venom component which gives them superstrength but ultimately leaves them incapacitated after a while, in the course of the story Batman keeps getting attacked by several of them. And of course never catches the white rabbit.

What’s wrong with it?

This book is pretty much Like Hush, but not very much, the idea was to show how Batman fits in the whole DC universe, presents all his crew, his most known enemies and a new one, David Finch created White Rabbit as an attempt to be another Catwoman, another sexy female villain to lure Batman and I actually thought it was interesting and intriguing but really underdeveloped.

Where it fails is simply on the writing, ITS VERY STUPID, the plot couldn’t be more basic but it always gets more and more complicated and never in a good way, It’s just Batman following WR, then a villain appears, he fights and move to pursue White Rabbit again, it gets repetitive very fast also the underlined story behind White Rabbit is never important, and several side plots are presented and drop or are just to give a fake sense of suspense, for example there is a part in which Flash appears and gets poisoned, then he recovers and appears at the end, this is done only to remove Flash momentarily from the story but he never serves any purpose to begin with, or another example, in issue 4 Deathstroke appears completely out of nowhere and attacks batman in his batplane, while in the air, literally no explanation how he gets there, destroys the batplane with his sword and fights Batman ON MIDAIR and then leaves, for no reason, it looked kind of cool, but there is no sense to it.

Ultimately the book is only meant for the fight scenes and the plot doesn’t get much attention.

However it’s still entertaining and the art is still good because it’s just very silly and stupid, there is a scene in which Alfred prepares and ice cream for Batman and Batman eats Ice cream, and that’s it, is just Batman eating ice cream for 1 page, that’s this arc in a nutshell.

This arc is completely skip-able and it ultimately has a Major Flaw, Its forgettable, this book leaves no mark on DC or Batman’s history, 1 year from now no one will remember this story and I bet that wasn’t the idea.

What could have been done?

Hush it more- Like I said this is a lot like Hush but unlike Hush that story actually left a mark on Batman, it created a compelling villain and serve as a big and insight exploration of what Batman is and how he fits in DCs Universe as well as presenting and interesting mystery (which is kind of easy to solve but it tries)

I know many don’t like Hush but for what it was it was pretty great, it changed status quos in an instant and for a long period of time, it left a mark.

The idea in theory is not bad but it lacks on execution

9- Justice League International By Dan Jurgen

What is it?

5 Years after the creation of team known as the Justice League the members of the UN decide to take this new problem of the metahuman populace on their own hands by assemble a team of various heroes from around the world to protect the world.

On their first mission they encounter a planet killer enemy and defeat it but then the entire team is attack when they expected less and they lose their support with the UN, the team changes and they go after the guy who set the attack

What’s wrong with it?

This is just a disappointment, the big pull of this book is not really the set up or the plot but its characters and this book had a pretty good set of characters, Booster Gold, Guy Gardner, Ice and Fire, all are interesting heroes with great stories to be told and in addition to those we get some like August General in Iron and Vixen who are just so under-appreciated, so underdeveloped that is just criminal, so the idea of having a team made of heroes who can finally have a place to tell their story it’s just great. The Gigantic problem with JLI is, this character don’t tell their story, they don’t get a chance to shine, they don’t get a good development, and after 1 arc, 6 short issues, we get a completely new set of characters to follow, we lose Ice, Fire, Vixen and Rocket Red in exchange for Batwing and Omac, not to say those characters are bad, far from it, but what was the point of having all those other characters in the first place?

This is book that reeks of editorial mandate, is obvious that DC planned JLI to be a continuation from JL:GL but the relaunch pretty much kill all plans about it, after that Jurgen tell his first arc and just when that was getting done DC decided to take the book to another direction, and then another one, so far this is the only book on DC on this relaunch to had been cancel due some creative changes despite having decent sales.

Ultimately this is a title that failed to launch, whatever premise or concept it originally got in the beginning was scrapped out and then it just wasted whatever advantages it got on every chance

What could have been done?

Consistency- DC needed to define exactly the purpose of this title before releasing the title, why were this characters in this team, to what purpose?, this was a book that needed more time to think about before going to sale

8- The Culling by Scott Lodbell, Tom Defalco, Brett Booth

The Culling is a crossover event composed of Teen Titans, Legion Lost and Superboy, why is it here and not those titles? Well simply because individually those titles aren’t that bad.

Culling is definitely not a reflection of any of those titles, it feels more like an interruption of their stories rather than a continuation, and despite those comics have lots of flaws none of them are bad enough on their own right to be here.

What is it?

The secret Organization of N.O.W.H.E.R.E. captures metahuman teens all over the world, put them on a survival tournament to become killers and be inducted in the group named Ravagers, where only the stronger and vilest serve

Basically this is Teen Superheroes + the Hunger Games

What’s wrong with it?

Personally I do like Teen Titans despite its flaws, and the whole idea of the Culling sounds great on paper but it had basically 1 sole problem that made I fail.

It was too big.

It simply tried to do Way too much that didn’t allow it to focus on giving an actual story, there were too many characters, too many conflicts, too much dialog, too much of everything, that is just a hard time to care of any of them.

The book plans on giving a new status quo to Legion Lost, finally unite Superboy with the Teen Titans, end the N.O.W.H.E.R.E. storyline in that Teen Titans, and at the same time have this survival war of superteens, and ON Top Of That, present a completely new set of characters to Launch the new series of Ravagers, including the villains, this is about 20-25 characters all fighting for our attention and none of them is doing anything to deserve it.

That’s is not even to mention Harvest , who is the ultimate villain of the story, comes out completely underdeveloped and he pretty much comes out of nowhere, he is interesting as a concept and design, but that’s all he is, an idea half cooked.

It is just a story that collapsed under its own weight.

What could have been done?

Time - this story needed time and preparation, Its not a bad idea, It’s a bad execution of an idea, too rush for it to work and too big for such little space, this could had been its own event with a separated miniseries that ties into all the books, the end is not even well constructed with 3 separated climaxes, 1 for ravagers, 1 for TT and 1 for LL, If you compare it to something like the Rot World event on Swamp Thing and Animal Man, that took over a year to build up, this needed more time.

No LL- the Legion didn’t need to be part of this at all, this comes out as the event for the Young Justice line but its appearance is just another center of attention for the storyline, they are barely affected by this event overall.

7- The Fury of the Firestorm by Gail Simone, EVS and Joe Harris

What is the first thing you think, when you think of Firestorm?

Well, he dresses in red and yellow, he has radiation/nuclear powers and his head is on fire

That’s pretty much it.

Well someone at DC was thinking on Firestorm and the very first thing that came to mind was Jack Bauer on 24.

What is it?

Professor Stein creates something called the “Firestorm Protocol” that allows a human being transform itself into a superpowered being with the power of a nuclear bomb, but somehow the thing leaks to a terrorist group and several countries, basically starting a completely new Nuclear Arms race with firestorms.

Before disappearing Professor Stein left a final protocol to his student Jason Rurch, and he and a classmate Ronnie Raymond transform into a new class of firestorm and join a secret organization to fight terrorist firestorms.

What’s wrong with it?

Do I even need to say it? Who thought this was a good idea!?

This series Fails on many things, but first and main of all is Concept, as I explain this It might sound like an interesting political conflict comic with super beings on it of the like a Warren Ellis comic but is just not developed as such, it feels like it wants to be a regular superhero book but the underline theme doesn’t allow it, specially cause we never see politics in action, we never see the sides or the pressure or fear of the country’s administration regarding this issues, there is no politics in what is suppose to be the new WMDs.

This book is also extremely violent; it has some of the most gruesome scenes in the new 52 and for absolutely no reason, in just the first issue a whole family is cruelly tortured and assassinated to do, nothing, it was just to show that the evil guys were evil, later another firestorm who has some kind mental problems is again, tortured and then dies and no one really cares, then an entire stadium is destroyed in a terrorist attack and one of the main characters is explicitly tortured and maim in a full issue, it’s just violent for the sake of being violent.

Another problem is the Terrorists, they suck too much as Villains, they don’t show any motivation during most of the story, have no development whatsoever and almost present no serious threat, they blow up a whole stadium and destroy the Eiffel Tower and yet they are taken out like flies in the comic, even the Al-Qaeda in Frank Miller’s Holy Terror had better motivation than this guys.

And finally the main characters, both are boring and it’s because they show no personality whatsoever, they feel more like clichés than anything else, Jason starts and the nerdy kid with problems in house and Ronnie is the rich and spoiled Jock, Gail Simone does a very poor job at developing them as anything else and once she leaves the comic the next writers don’t even try. This is worst on Ronnie because he eventually cares about this whole terrorist thing and then is captured, tortured and maim which leaves him like more of an antihero from the 90s, It feels more like a propaganda to join the army more than anything else.

The last few issues feel very different from the rest of the book must likely cause it seems DC is dropping the entire idea they started with, but it still a very poor read, lots of senseless violence with a pretty stupid underlined message of U.S. vs Terrorism and very boring one dimensional characters .

What could have been done?

Identity - This book suffers a grave case of an Identity crisis, it didn’t knew what it wanted to be, a political thriller, a superhero book, a teen book, an spy book, it just didnt have a definite direction, of course it doesn’t help that this book passed for several writers, DC wanted to have a Firestorm Book but they just didn’t have any idea of what that was. I haven’t read any of it but I heard that the original Fury of Firestorm book had a much better established political component and that is actually very good, maybe they should have done something more like that.

Brightest Day?- you could say whatever you can of Brightest Day but at least they have a better plot than this, is a real shame that Brian Clevinger lost his pitch, a real miss opportunity

6 –Huntress 1-6 by Paul Levitz and Marcus To

What is it?

Helena Wayne investigates and bust an arms dealer operation but discover that they are also trafficking with human slaves, she goes to Italy and stops them.

What’s wrong with it?

IT’S BORING!

Definitely the most boring comic I have read in the entire year.

Maybe that’s not enough for some to be consider among the worst books of DC relaunch, but you have a plot that can easily resolve in 2, maybe even 1 issue that stretches for 6 full issues, 120 pages, and never gets interesting to keep going on, at the start of every single chp you can’t help to wonder “this is still going on!”

The mini is full with patting, a lot of fight scenes and meaningless conversations with characters that ultimately serve no purpose at all to the plot and are barely even introduce in the first place, I cannot remember the names of anybody here.

There are some good action sequences but nothing great, and the book absolutely Fails at presenting Huntress as an interesting character, She is written completely unbeatable, extremely cocky and arrogant and just not fun, there is no suspense cause of this and its just drags on and on.

It’s hard to describe but every chp feels like you are reading exactly the same thing over and over from beginning to end.

It has pretty good looking art with Marcus To in the pencils but that’s just not enough

What could have been done?

Another Plot- The purpose of the miniseries was to present the new Huntress on the DCnU, we aren’t sure but there is a rumor that this originally going to be E0 Huntress until it was decided to use Helena Wayne, maybe this provoked the plot to drag on but DC also wanted to keep Earth 2 as a secret so Huntress doesn’t reveal that she is Helena Wayne on this story, so basically we don’t get to meet the character at all nor in an honest light, if it instead had focused on the arrival of Helena Wayne from E2 things would had been different

5- Hawk and Dove by Sterling Gates and Rob Liefeld

What is it?

Following out of the events of Brightest Day Hawk and Dove reunite once again to fight crime, in the first arc they fight against the Condor and Swan, antithesis of themselves and save the president of the US and then team up with Batman and Robin and face a hunter that is hunting them cause of some ancient cult to Hawk.

What’s wrong with it?

The art is awful and the story is dull and stupid.

…

That’s pretty much all It.

It’s just very simple but mediocre on what it does, the first arc Hawk and Dove fight against Condor and Swan, they don’t do anything special, they aren’t particularly interesting either, overall they are just lazy villains.

The art is a huge problem here, none existent backgrounds, weird bodies and without proportion, for example, Damian Wayne, Robin appears on issue 6, Robin is 10 yo and he looks like he is 16 or older, almost as tall as Hawk and just too big.

The most interesting parts of this book is the relationship between Deadman and Dove which carries out of Brightest Day but those are much better developed in JLD, Dove is actually an interesting character not well developed, Hawk on the other hand is very dull, he is just a muscular guy with a chip on his shoulder and also is underdeveloped

I wish I could say more about this book but there isn’t much to, it’s just a very forgettable book, with bad art and a mediocre story.

What could have been done?

This one is hard.

The whole concept of Hawk and Dove is not that interesting, despite being in the Young Justice family of titles, this aren’t portray young, nor try to tap into any of that, the book tries to keep its continuity post the relaunch acknowledging things like the death of the first Dove and the romance of Dove and Deadman, but it doesn’t really tap into that either, we don’t get much into the fact that Hawk died and was revived or how is Hawk connected to the white light of BN and BD, so it just comes out as unnecessary information, I guess that if they really wanted to continue with the story of Brightest day then they should had focus into that, its not a bad idea to use a series to impulse another one but it needed focus and definitely a better creative team

4- Green Arrow by J.T. Krul, Keith Giffen, Dan Jurgen and Ann Nocenti

What is it?

Billionaire Oliver Quinn uses his money to fight crime with a bow and arrows.

What’s wrong with it?

It’s impossible to really talk about new GA without comparing it with the Old one, Oliver Queen is one of the characters that lost the all of its continuity with the relaunch, the old green arrow was mature but flawed, he was human, made mistakes, had experience and personality, after years of development he became something unique, New Green Arrow is anything but that.

The new GA, has a childish personality, no experience, he is basically a young Iron Man, doesn’t work alone but feels like it, he is a Buffoon not and archer, no longer the liberal hero but almost an anarchist who does what he wants cause he has money to support himself, basically is the worst version of the character ever conceived.

Green arrow has always been a character to aboard certain social themes but it never really take sides on them it just informs of how the situation works, the run with Krul starts of tossing all of this ideas of violence on videogames and social network, Jurgen’s run focus more general hero business but when nocenti takes over it all goes back to preaching.

for example Issue #10 focus on a girl who has mechanic implants and think she is a robot, or is a robot who thinks is human, the story is pretty cleaver on what it tries to do the problem is that Green Arrow feels completely out of place on this story, this would had been a pretty good story for iron man but it doesn’t make me think any better of Ollie as a hero, then he tackles the always controversial 99% group and the Occupy movement, it makes some parallelisms to robin hood, but again, what is so special about this? It ends up sacrificing the character for the sake of the message that is sharing.

Overall there is nothing else to say about it, it’s just unoriginal, bland and its very hard to actually care about the main character.

What could have been done?

Back 2 Basics – I think the approach of GA is bad due the concept that is being presented, there is nothing here but some vigilante who uses arrows, that’s all, and Green Arrow is way more than that, we need to see the man behind the bow rather than just an imitation of Bruce Wayne or Iron Man

DC could have perfectly used this chance to tell a story from Oliver Queen to rival with Bruce Wayne on Miller’s Batman Year One, a new origin that relies on the character’s strength.

Brightest Day 2 – during BD a giant star shaped forest appeared completely out of nowhere in the middle of the city, it was a magical place where technology, magic and meta powers didn’t work, healing rivers and ghosts, it wasn’t that good but it was still an interesting concept that I think deserved a take 2 for consideration.

3- Batgirl by Gail Simone and Ardian Siaf

What is it?

After 3 years on a wheelchair the Vigilante Barbara Gordon dons one more time the cowl of Batgirl, fighting villains that are basically reflections of her own insecurities and fears

What’s wrong with it?

I think regressing Barbara Gordon to Batgirl is a very stupid idea, Barb is way more interesting as Oracle and Cass & Steph are just more interesting Batgirls, but because of how this is being executed here is worse than just stupid, it’s offensive.

Just consider the fact that Oracle never really had anything to do with this, and that TKJ never really influenced Barbara in any fashion other than something physical, it didn’t drive her to do what she did just changed the way she do it, what happen to her was a terrible event but that’s all, almost like an accident, she might had been confined to a wheelchair for years but she faced that challenge as she always do and never let it beat her.

And yet what is presented her is a Barbara Gordon that was so Shattered by that event that it paralyzed her own life physically and mentally even beyond the chair, who couldn’t wait a second to put the cowl back and froze to the first gun she sees, she lost all her experience and maturity, physically she is a healthy 21yo woman but mentally she is still 18yo girl in a wheelchair, and going back to the cowl is just a shackle that ties her to that event tighter than the wheelchair ever did, Barbara Gordon is now and forever defined by the Killing Joke and the worst offender, this book is basically giving the message that if you end up in a wheelchair, if you get a disability then your life is over and there is no future for you unless you get fix by a “miracle”, Barbara just never moved on.

And what shocks me the most is that there are many who excuse her pathetic behavior to the fact that “she just came out of a wheelchair”. If she does something bad, it’s because of the wheelchair, if she does something good, is cause is she is moving pass it, how sad it is that everything to blame for is blamed on her being crippled before.

This offends me profoundly.

Personally there is nothing more I can add to that but I will still put this 3 links to go with it.

Oracleis Stronger than Batgirl will ever be

Batgirl the most Repulsive Comic of 2011

Batgirl5-6, Ableism Garbage Day

HOWEVER

I will be fair, objectively speaking what’s so bad on this book?

let’s say Barbara Gordon never existed before this series, just no point of comparison.

What problems does it present?

For starters the Villains, every single villain in this book is new and is made only around Batgirl, that’s generally not a bad thing except when is such a direct relation to a single thread of the character, the mirror was her survival guilt of recovering her legs, Grethel is her anger for the attack on TKJ, Grotesque wasn’t important he was just a faceless villain, but Danny was the embodiment of her insecurity, Talon Mary is made around the fact she hides her own feelings, and finally Knightfall, is just how batgirl would be if she was psycho antihero, it almost feels like this could be Sucker Punch and all is happening on Barb’s head, and actually would had been awesome if played like that.

The problem with the villains is that they aren’t subtle, it’s very obvious what they are and whatever message they try to make is forced and besides the obvious relation with Batgirl there is very little going on with the actual characters, and most of the time present several problems and plotholes.

It’s just so lazy on every case and its really repetitive, without Batgirl this villains essentially can’t exist so none of them make a big impression, and ALL OF Them are VICTIMS

They only exist because Batgirl was a victim once.

And that’s all there is on this comic, irredeemable victims and broken characters who commit murders, terrorist acts, evil deeds or just plain stupid decisions and try to justify themselves only cause their family died or they were hurt or had just a bad day.

This is a book about a woman who is recovering her life from a brutal attack, but for something like that this lacks the element of Barbara Gordon on it, we only get to see Batgirl.

We don’t see Barbara going out, we don’t see her in a job, we don’t see her friends outside her own roommate, or Black Canary who is her teammate, it’s all limited to batgirl, if this is the story of how Barbara Gordon recovers her life, why isn’t she recovering her life?, unless her whole life is defined as batgirl, then there is no point of Barbara being batgirl at all cause there is no Barbara Gordon at all.

Also the book makes a bad job at showing her trauma from the paralysis since we never see her while she was in a wheelchair in a flashback, or while recovering, or before the attack, once again, all is limited to her attack or after it, the book tries to show us how she feels mentally with her inner thoughts and dream sequences but without seeing what she lost and recover, it all just comes bland and poor storytelling. Please show us the reasons why she is feeling distress, not just have a dream where she is in a wheelchair and her previous self is nagging her cause it just comes as a pretentious use of first year psychology.

And Barb has this constant inner monologue on virtually every single scene she is in, and is just unbearable to read, is better to just ignore it completely because you get absolutely nothing useful from it.

To summarize, this book is not funny, is not inspiring and is not interesting however it is very repetitive and depressingly dark and violent without a point to be.

This is just an Insulting and a Sickening poorly written book.

What could have been done?

a-No Barbara - obvious#1.

b-Full 100% Reboot- obvious#2.

c-Batgirl Year 1.5 - why can’t DC have its cake and eat it too? Action Comics is featuring Superman while he is starting his career as a complete rookie, in the meantime we still have the experienced Superman in DCU, so why not have the Batgirl title in the past and Oracle in the present, win-win.

d-NO RETCONS - ok, let’s Say that Batgirl HAD to be Barbara, and that TKJ HAD to be in continuity.

Considering what was lost, the price didn’t need to be this high.

2- Mister Terrific By Eric Wallace and Gianluca Gugliotta

What is it?

After losing his wife in an accident that involved a GPS, Michael Holt tries to kill himself but is stopped by a vision from a son he never had saying to him to keep on living and “educate the World”, with this inspiration he decides to turn himself into a vigilante using his mind and high technology and help everyone in need

During the series, he stops a villain who used his wife’s GPS to kill her, goes to another dimension and save a group of slaves with the help of a transsexual superpowered alien, stops a thief on Valentine’s day, Stops a group of terrorist that want to blow up a city with a ghost ship, and save his enterprise from a half human half machine monster

What’s wrong with it?

It’s Fails on every conceivable level. It is not smart, it is not inspiring and the only entertainment that you can get from it is by laughing at it.

But why is it so bad specifically?

Mainly is the point that Eric Wallace simply couldn’t make a single character compelling or even interesting on this comic, Michael Holt quickly becomes one of the most boring characters I have ever read, every time he does something to show his intelligence he explains in great detail how this faux science works but is not really important to know and it drags on every scene, and it also can become contradictory cause since is science that is completely made up it lacks sense and is impossible to accept and sometimes completely fails at the plot on other places, for example an “Earthquake machine” was created by Michael to be a quake preventer and he explains how it works in both ways, but why would he create something that very easily can be turn into a weapon that causes quakes?

The support cast is basically inexistent, the support rarely appears on the book but when they do, they do nothing important or relevant to the plot or just annoy the hell out of you, like Jamal, he is this young super genius kid that work at Holt Industries and Michael choose him to be his successor, Why? Never explain, he is giving the great total of 6-7 panels on 6 issues before he gets to this promotion, and after that he gets more time on panel but the fact that he is the new CEO contributes nothing to the main story, it’s a complete subplot that goes nowhere because it didn’t had any time to develop at all.

The other 2 members of the supporting cast were Karen, Powergirl relaunched as just a friend of Michael with no given background in the book at all, and Aleeka a completely unlikable character that is supposed to be a romantic interest to Michael but never actually becomes one.

One of the worst scenes in the book is in the first issue where Karen addresses Aleeka’s problems with her, since is obvious that Aleeka is jealous of her, and completely out of the blue Karen asks her “its because Im a white girl, isn’t it?”, If this had been relevant at all and by that I mean If Karen being white was actually a problem to Aleeka and build on from that, maybe it would had been interesting, but did not, Aleeka responds that she is basically jealous of her not cause Karen is white but cause she is rich and that she could never compete with that to get Michael, and this never becomes important ever again in the whole series, Is totally out of place, without any build up to it and with no follow up either, its completely pointless

I particularly love the T-Spheres, the main weapons of Mr Terrific but sadly here they turn into constant Deus Ex Machinas, whatever the difficulty is, the T-spheres fix it with little to no explanation on how they work out, in the worst case of this, Michael uses them to erase the mind of an enemy of his who discovers his identity, ignoring the moral implications of the act, the way he does it is by just using a “forget” wave on him, I think he stole that from MIB.

You can pretty much skip the entire dialog and get a better experience from the book, and that’s not even going on how badly drawn this book is or how dull the story is.

If you want to laugh a lot, get this book and read it with your brain turn off.

What could have been done?

1- Consistent Direction: one of the things that Wallace did with the book was speed up the developments on the stories so they would end faster, he wanted to tell a broad amount of stories to show what Mr Terrific could do, but as a consequence of this it just becomes a book that lacks direction, Is Mr Terrific a hero of the people, a vigilante, a space hero, what exactly?

This hero needs a reason to exist and he doesnt get one, the whole “Educate the World” is quickly forgotten in this comic, the whole dimensional aspect of the book feels completely out of place and becomes highly contrasted with the urban settings that he is in sometimes; it needed to pick just one direction and stick with it.

1 – Static Shock by Scott Mc Daniels and John Rozum

This Comic is a Complete Disaster

What is it?

The Teen Hero name Static move out with his family from Dakota City to New York and…

Fights crime?

…

That’s all I got.

What’s wrong with it?

This book is virtually unreadable. I really had a problem making coherent summary of the plot cause it just fails to be read.

For those who disagree with this choice as #1, just think this: Green Arrow was a failure of a relaunch for a character and Mr Terrific was completely incompetent on its storytelling, Batgirl is just offensive, BUT AT LEAST YOU COULD READ THEM, you can understand the plot and follow it, such is not possible here.

But we can’t really speak of this book without talking of what went wrong behind the scenes, originally this book was going to be written by John Rozum, and drawn by Scott Mcdaniels, but the idea that Rozum had for the book just wasn’t good with the editor Harvey Richards, in addition to that the editor also forced some storylines into the book, one was that Shannon(Static’s sister) was kidnapped and cloned, without any explanation of how to do this or with any resolution for it, Rozum just couldn’t agree with the direction of the book and left after just roughly plotting 3 issues of a 6 issues arc, and left even before the title launched, instead of actually calling a new writer to fill in for issues 4-6 much less fix the 1-3 issues, he just leave the writing duties to McDanie, Scott McDaniel has never written a comic in his entire life, before this project he NEVER read static in comic form, or even watch the tv show, he was given a lighting course(pun intended) in Static history, he read the milestone bible, read a couple of books on how to write scripts and saw the show while he was drawing this issues. I could go on and on regarding this but it was clear that the book was doom before it even started.

Especially because the only thing that the 3 of them actually agreed on was to keep Static’s continuity intact, this was done to honor Dwayne Mcduffie’s memory who passed away almost a year before the relaunch, however at the same time DC decided to have Static move to New York, with a new suit, new powers, added that to the new plots that came out of nowhere, basically alienating both old fanbase and new readers at the same time, quite an accomplishment.

I will try to interpret the plot.

First Shannon, Static’s sister, is kidnapped and cloned by the main villain, because Shannon is important, somehow, I don’t know why she is important or why clone her was necessary, but Static saves Shannon and her clone but none of them can tell who the real one is and who is the clone, ALL OF THIS HAPPENS OFFPANEL. So the family decides to pretty much adopt the clone(whoever that is) and move to New York. On NY Static is attacked by a random guy who dies in the first issue, then he is attacked by the Power Rangers, and also a piranha man and a joker clone called the Pale man, who is I think an undercover cop, but im not sure why since this is never important at all in the comic, and they are all working for the same guy who kidnapped Shannon and also made sure that Static moved to NY(why?), and they also cloned Static without knowing so, but the Static clone is good and is also working undercover inside the evil guys organization and he sacrifices himself to kill all of them all and save the day, at least I think he dies, the end.

And again, im pretty sure I have some of that wrong somehow, I have no idea what the villain was suppose to gain of all of this or why, all the villains are terrible here, the dialog and pacing is completely dreadful and the art is very bad.

This was without any doubt the biggest Failure of the New 52, I just hope DC learns from this mistake when it addresses another Milestone property.

What could have been done?

FULL REBOOT- one of the biggest opportunities of the New 52 is to have a new chance to relaunch characters to a new beginning, it doesn’t matter if they actually need them or not but if used correctly can make them shine once again.

With Static, there is a lot of continuity to it, but none is necessary, Static can easily start again with those elements that made him work in the beginning and become a flagship for the whole milestone Universe in DC. But this book kills that chance. And is even sadder when you consider that they didn’t started from scratch to pay honor to the work of Dwayne, is funny too cause Dwayne would had had probably agreed to a full reboot.

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