Best Fight- Allen the Alien and Omni-Man escape from space prison, Invincible #55

While Invincible and Atom Eve have sex, readers are treated to a harrowing tale of Allen the Alien and Omni-Man escaping from the Viltrumite prison they’ve been trapped in together. Allen’s so strong he could have broken out whenever he wanted to, but he waited until all but two Viltrumites had left the facility so he’s be able to take Omni-Man with him. In the process of breaking out, Allen releases Battle Beast, whose only goal in life is to find the toughest fight he can and throw himself into it. Allen punches a hole in the prison’s hull and we’ve got a nice fight in outer space featuring Omni-Man, Allen and Battle Beast taking on two Viltrumites. In the grand tradition of Invincible fights, this thing is about as bloody and violent as you could possibly imagine.

At the end, Omni-Man drops a bombshell that changes things quite a bit. This whole time there’s been the imminent threat that the Viltrumite empire will show up on Earth and no one will be able to stop them, but Omni-Man tells Allen that the “empire” has been whittled down to les than 50 pure-blood Viltrumites in the entire universe. With Omni-Man, Allen, Battle Beast, Invincible and Kid Omni-Man, that might just be doable.

Most Realistic Ending- The Joker vs. Oracle, Birds of Prey # 124

This week’s issue of BoP featured the fight that should have happened last week, the Clown Prince of Crime versus the former Batgirl. Oracle gets in a couple really good blows, including breaking the Joker’s gun and shattering the teeth that make up his precious smile, but in the end it comes down to this: Oracle is a woman in a wheelchair, and the Joker is a homicidal madman. Once Babs is out of her wheelchair she’s pretty much defenseless, and all it takes is a well-placed ball of roots to the side of the head and a kick down the stairs for the Joker to come out on top. Luckily Misfit teleports back in time to stop the Joker from finishing the deed, leaving Oracle to fight another day.

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Well, I was way off. Several weeks back, I predicted that the man behind the Black Glove and the “most ignoble betrayal” to Batman was going to be Nightwing. Failing that, I thought there’d be a good chance of it being Robin. Turns out, I was wrong. The ultimate badguy behind the Black Glove is… well… uh… I don’t really know.

This week’s Book of Doom was probably the most anticipated issue of Batman in years, and the most anticipated comic for this guy since the conclusion of 52, which was about a year and a half ago. With all of that anticipation, the most important question to ask is whether or not it lived up to it. And, in my eyes, it did. It wasn’t the best story ever told, and it wasn’t the greatest betrayal of the past seventy years of Batman, but it certainly was an enjoyable issue, and I’m glad I bought it. The biggest problem for me, I guess, is that I’m still not 100% sure what the heck happened in it.

We’re led to believe that Batman was defeated by the Black Glove, but, yet, it’s also implied that the Black Glove was responsible for the creation of Batman, all those years ago. They hired Joe Chill, and they’ve taken great pleasure in watching the career of Batman throughout the years, and, now, their masterstroke to kill him finally came to fruition. I guess that’s what rich people do with all of their time and money: Orchestrate giant games to pass the time.

It’s also implied that Batman comes face-to-face with the Devil when he finally confronts Dr. Hurt (if that’s his real name). I’m not so sure about that. It ties in with Batman #666 perfectly, but, still, it just seems pretty hokey.

As a finale to a pretty entertaining story-arc, I think Batman #681 is a success. As a finale to the Batman, it seems quite incomplete, and I’m looking forward to what comes next in the way of some explanation. If this was the final issue of Batman, forever, and we were never to see or hear from him again, I’d say this is pretty damn stupid and pathetic, but I see it more as a bridge to more interesting stories, so I’m okay with it. For now.

Let’s turn things over now, to Fin Fang Doom: (more…)

In the lead: Tarot and newcomer Charity O’Dare take a mindtrip through time. Turns out that Tarot is the one woman chosen in this generation to be connected to the Worldsoul, which is the living spirit of the Earth. And apparently she can talk to her former (and deceased) Worldsoul connectees. Or something.

In the back-up: Morgaine Le Fey and Enigma finally work up the balls to ask Konvikt to join their team. There’s more back-story trying to make Konvikt seem like he’s just misunderstood instead of evil. That’s pretty much it.

My take: This is without a doubt the worst issue of Trinity so far. It was just plain terrible. The only interesting aspect of these twenty-two pages is that the lead ended with Tarot standing in front of ghostly apparitions of past Worldsoulers, and the back-up ended with Le Fey standing in front of the same ghostly apparitions of past Worldsoulers. So apparently Le Fey is also attuned to the Worldsoul. So that probably won’t help the good guys too much.

The whole thing about “one in every generation” seems to me like a blatant rip-off of Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Except instead of slaying vampires, all Tarot can do is feel the living spirit of the Earth. I guess that’s almost as exciting, though. Even the bit about connecting with past Worldsoulers in dreams seems a lot like Buffy having dreams about past Slayers. Oh yeah, and they’re both always women, apparently. Lame. (more…)

So I went against my word and decided to pick up Supergirl #35, part 5 in the New Krypton saga. It turned out to be not quite as skippable as I thought, which was nice.

It did, however, open with one of the best jokes I’ve found recently in a comic book. General Lane is telling that green guy whose name I have forgotten that the American people don’t realize the threat they’re up against with these Kryptonians flying around everywhere. The Americans are being just too welcoming, because they see the Kryptonians as just another group of immigrants. And they show this welcoming attitude toward immigrants on display IN OKLAHOMA! Hahahahahahaha!

Oklahoma’s Taxpayer and Citizen Protection Act has been described as “the nation’s toughest state law targeting illegal immigrants.” But hey, they probably just needed a good place to show a cowboy rounding up his dairy cows. I’m sure this was all just subtle delivery of the message that, much like this kind Oklahoma rancher, humans shouldn’t judge Superman based on the threat of the other Kryptonians. Yep, I’m sure of it.

So anyway, now that Kara has her parents back, she’s going through that thing all teenagers experience once they come of age — her parents are telling her to stop being all independent and to move back home. But her father diagnoses her with a case of Kryptonite poisoning, which means he needs to take her back to the lab and purge her body of the K-radiation in the Regeneration Cabinet. Her dad says he’s willing to endanger himself and his wife, and potentially the city by extension if they can’t contain the Kryptonite energy, in order to cure this urgent case of poisoning that hasn’t shown any symptoms since Kara first arrived on Earth.
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For this week’s weekly roundtable review discussion, I’ve decided to pick the conclusion to the Batman RIP story-arc, Batman #681. If you’re anything like me, you started out thinking that this story was unnecessary and boring, then you shifted to being confused and overwhelmed, then switched to being a little drunk, and, now, you’re eagerly anticipating seeing everything come together to finally show what exactly happens to the fate of the Batman and who is, ultimately, the big bad guy behind the whole thing. Who is the Black Glove? Will we find out tomorrow? Three years from now?

These days, lots of rumors are floating around about who could possibly be the one to finally kill the Batman, or Bruce Wayne, or both. I’ve been guessing for awhile now that it’s Dick Grayson who’s behind the whole thing, based on several remarks writer Grant Morrison has said about the ending.

I read another interesting theory about who might be behind it just the other day, too. While I’ve never ruled out the possibility, a good point was raised about how Tim Drake might be the culprit. If you recall, several months ago, when this story was initially launched, Chuck Dixon left DC for a reason that has yet to be explained. Considering he wrote a lot of stories about Tim Drake, especially the ones where he went off to train on his own and separate himself as his own man, rather than just a sidekick, perhaps Dixon heard the ending and was so peeved that he quit out of spite.

Either way, it’s going to be interesting to see what new information comes to light, if any, and to see where Batman comics are headed for in the future. As always, feel free to e-mail in your own review to doomkopf at doomkopf dot com, and we’ll include it with the rest of ours. Or just leave comments. It’s entirely up to you. Here’s what DC has to say:

Written by Grant Morrison ; Art by Tony Daniel and Sandu Florea; Cover by Alex Ross; Variant cover by Tony Daniel

This is it – “Batman R.I.P.” concludes here! The final, heartrending confrontation between Bruce Wayne and Jezebel Jet. The final fate of The Dark Knight. And the horrifying and shocking truth behind the Black Glove. With The Joker, the Club of Villains, Robin, Damian, plus an ending you’ll never see coming – this one has it all!

Best Artist- Marcos Martin, Amazing Spider-Man #578

There’s just something about Marcos Martin’s art that seems like a perfect fit for Spider-Man. His art reminds me a lot of John Romita Sr., and that’s really the pinnacle of Spider-Man as far as art goes. Unfortunately, this is only the fourth issue of Amazing Martin has drawn, and it’s only the second thing I’ve ever read that he’s drawn (the first being the superb Dr. Strange: The Oath mini-series). Here, I’ll just let this art speak for itself:

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My fears that I’d be flying solo this week turned out to be relatively unfounded, as Fin Fang Doom and Jason from Legend joined us again this week. More from them in a minute.

I haven’t been reading Fantastic Four at all, but I thought this seemed like a fairly interesting point to jump in. Not necessarily a good point, but an interesting one. And everything else coming out this week looked terrible. Marvel solicited it as “the Death of the Invisible Woman,” but visitor Aussiesmurf warned us that the Invisible Woman who was about to kick the bucket was likely to be the recently introduced Invisible Woman from the future.

So for a reader who was just jumping on, I thought this book was very accessible. It did a good job of introducing me to this gang from the future, what they wanted, why they wanted it and what they were going to do about that. It gave a great depiction of the Fantastic Four and their personalities, including the geek chic of Mr. Fantastic with his awesomely clever way of tracking Future Sue by injecting a tracker into Present Sue. I also dug the little character moments, like Alex Ultron noticing the contrast between Johnny Storm’s screams for mercy and Doom’s composed silence. Everything about the building tension and the drama made sense, but it played out so casually in a way that just made the FF seem supremely confident of their awesomeness. I dug that. And Bryan Hitch’s art, as always is beautiful.
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• Local artist Kathleen Clark is debuting her new comic at Krypton Comics in Omaha today from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m.

• It’s Holiday Sales time — both Legend and Krypton are boasting big holiday sales coming up this week.

Legend’s sale is Friday, November 28th through Sunday, November 30th. Back issues are 50% off. All Absolute and Omnibus editions are 30% off. All graphic novels and trade paperbacks are 25% off. DVDs and toys are 20% off. All manga is on sale for $5, and there will be free giveaways of movie passes, comics, posters and more. The hours are Friday 10 a.m. to 9 p.m., Saturday 10 a.m. to 9 p.m. and Sunday 12 p.m. to 6 p.m.

Then at Krypton, everything in the store will be on sale on “Black Friday,” November 28th from 6 a.m. to 10 a.m. Sales will continue throughout the weekend.

• Check out the Capes Comics Lounge video podcast at comicbookcrossfire.libsyn.com or on the Capes myspace page at myspace.com/capescomics. The latest issue of the Capes newsletter includes columns on The Shadow and Smallville. You can subscribe to the newsletter at CapesComics.com.

Don’t forget “Ladies Night” each Thursday at Capes, which means women get 20% off everything in the store starting at 4 p.m. Capes also has 20% Tuesdays, in which all comics on the wall are on sale. And again, Capes has begun featuring the Doomkopf.com Book of Doom in the shop. Capes customers and Doomkopf.com readers are encouraged to email us your review of the weekly pick to have it included in Saturday’s roundtable.

• Jason from Legend Comics has joined us again for this week’s Book of Doom, going live here in a few hours. This week’s “Featured 500,000 Comic of the Week” at the Legend online store is Uncanny X-Men #248, the debut of Jim Lee. At the physical store, Legend is still offering 25% off all back issues every Saturday and Sunday for the rest of 2008.

If you have any comics-related news from the Omaha / Lincoln / Council Bluffs area that you’d like included in the weekly updates, send an email to doomkopf at doomkopf dot com.

In the lead: The JSI breaks into the League’s secret HQ in Detroit and Carter Hall has a chit chat with the League’s leader, Barry Allen. In Europe, Enigma and Morgaine Le Fey stop fighting and decide to go track down Konvikt to use him as the third in their Trinity. Tarot arrives in Opal City and freaks out as reality shifts around her.

In the back-up: Alfred meets with Lois Lane, Richie Grayson and Thomas Tresser and tries to convince them the world is not as it should be, and they are a fundamental part of that change. Interceptor (Supergirl) shows up and Alfred subdues her with kryptonite. Everyone is convinced there’s some truth behind Alfred’s words, so they go off in search of the sixth member of their group: Donna Troy.

My take: That was not a very good issue.

There were five pages of the JIS/League confrontation, and not much came out of it. We learned Barry Allen formed the League after he was injured on a mission for the JSI, but considering this reality will cease to exist in ten issues or so, it seems a little unnecessary. And in case you were wondering, the roster of the League is Lex Luthor, Green Arrow, Fire, Vibe, Black Orchid and Ranger. Bit of a letdown. (more…)

I had a dream last week that this week was Thanksgiving, so comics came out on Tuesday. Doom DeLuise and I decided to go to a different comic shop on this particular week, which happened to be the week that Batman #681 came out — the conclusion to Batman R.I.P.

This shop reminded me a lot of the inside of a Starbucks — lots of wood covering the floors and the walls, lots of brushed steel hardware. The comic shelves were built-in wood shelves with recessed lighting along the sides. Very nice store.

So anyway, DC had decided to take advantage of the anticipation building around the Batman R.I.P. finale and exploited it for extra money and exposure. There were several variations of Batman #681 — each was $4.99 and included a full extra issue of some unpopular DC comic. So you’d get two comics for the price of one and two thirds comics, except you only wanted half of it and you weren’t likely to read “Galactic Champions” or whatever stupid issue was stuck in the second half.
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