-I'm still not entirely on board with Flash: Rebirth. I don't know Barry at all, and am having trouble feeling any connection with him. It probably doesn't help that pretty much every character who had a strong connection with him (Batman, Aquaman, Superman, Martian Manhunter) is dead or MIA except for Hal. Well, and Wally and Jay, I guess, but they have more of mentor/student relationships rather than colleagues. Spoiler Alert... Barry ends up wearing the Black Flash costume at the end of #2. How crazy would that be if they brought Barry back, and then made him a villain? I really don't think DC has the balls for something like that, but it sure feels like this series could go that way. Barry hasn't really been likable at all in this; from what I can tell, fans haven't been connecting with him all that much (or were clamoring for his return...), and he has been disintegrating people by touching them. Plus, Van Sciver said there would be some new Flash uniforms drawn up for this to differentiate them (although I think he said it would be for Wally, not Barry) so we've already accomplished that if Barry wants to stay in the black. By the way, I have absolutely no expectations that any of this "Evil Barry Allen" stuff will actually happen (like one tenth of one percent), especially after the Disastrous Journey of Hal Jordan in the '90s, which Johns himself had to come in and fix, but man... that'd be a hell of a curveball, wouldn't it?
-Blackest Night #0 was a bit of a let down. I guess I don't really know what I was expecting since it was a free comic book and all, but it didn't seem like it would pull in many new readers and it didn't really satisfy the diehard fans. However, I do think I have gleaned a tiny bit of information on how the Black Lanterns work from this. To me, it seems like all Black Hand needs to create a zombified Black Lantern is a corpse. Aquaman, Earth-2 Superman, Martian Manhunter, Firestorm, the Dibny's... they all have corpses sitting around somewhere. This seems to be the part of critical importance when it comes to Batman. Judging from this and the covers for the June books, Bruce Wayne is going to be a Black Lantern. It's gonna happen. Or, perhaps I should say, his corpse is going to be a Black Lantern. We know Bruce is living out alternate lives at various points in history (well, as much as we can know something like that) so it most likely won't actually be Bruce as a Black Lantern. Just his body. (And all of his body's abilities, I'd guess... otherwise there's not much point in superhero zombies...) That seems like a pretty nifty way to turn heroes into villains without holding them accountable for their actions later on. This lets them have Batman be a villain for this series, return later, be horrified to learn of the desecration of his body and its use for evil, and then either be tortured by that knowledge and work to redeem himself or just dismiss it as "it wasn't really me." I don't know when that'll happen with Batman, but I can almost guarantee that scenario plays out with Superboy/Conner Kent. Especially since Johns is writing Blackest Night, Legion of 3 Worlds, and the forthcoming Adventure Comics starring the resurrected Superboy.
-Speaking of Green Lantern, I was again underwhelmed by the latest issue. #40 I think. I'm still just waiting for Blackest Night to roll around now. But it does make perfect sense that Larfleeze would keep all of the Orange Lantern power for himself. That's kinda how greed works. (Seriously though... Larfleeze? You can make up any name you want and you went with Larfleeze?) But I was almost certain Hector Hammond would be involved with the Orange Lanterns somehow, considering how jealous he is of Hal's life, how prominent he was early on in this series (and in Secret Origin), and that his caption boxes are highlighted in orange... You know what, looking at all that evidence again, there's no way he's not involved with the Orange Lanterns somehow. I'm sticking to my guns on this.
-Oh, and if anyone's keeping track, we now have Ghost Lanterns (Orange), Zombie Lanterns (Black), and, while this technically isn't a horror villain, Nazi Lanterns (Yellow). Any takers on what color the Werewolf Lanterns will be? My money is on Silver.
-Whatever Happened to the Caped Crusader? was very good, albeit a bit misleading. I won't spoil it for anyone who hasn't read it yet, but I will say that the death of Batman discussed in this book isn't necessarily the result of Batman RIP/Final Crisis. It could happen at any point in continuity, making it both timeless and heartbreaking once you realize the implications of the final page.
-Speaking of Batman, I really hope the Batman books coming out of Battle for the Cowl (yeech...) are as strong as the Superman books have been out of New Krypton, although there are going to be almost double the Bat Books as the Supes ones. Hmm, I should really do a "State of the Superman Books" sometime when I've got the time... (hint: 2 are excellent, 1 is good, 1 is 'meh,' I'll leave it up to you to figure out which is which) then I could do it again when Batman starts up again.
-I don't know if I've mentioned this before, but I am done with X-Men until Fraction leaves. I felt I may have been a little harsh with the last issue, but instead of rereading it, I bought the next issue. And I had the same reaction. So, yeah, I'm done with that book until he's done with that book.
-I think that leaves the only Marvel books I'm currently reading are Dark Avengers and Captain America... I'll have to double check on that, but off the top of my head, that's it. So, a question to anyone who's reading this... should I be reading anything else? There's gotta be more than two quality books out there from Marvel that just happen to be flying under my radar...
-I haven't seen Wolverine yet, and after all the awful reviews I've seen, I'm not sure I want to... But I will. This weekend for sure. Already got tickets, so there's no turning back. Then, as soon as that lets out, I'm turning right back around and going in to see Star Trek. No exaggeration. I got those tickets too. It's probably the movie I've been looking forward to most since The Dark Knight. (Star Trek, not X-Men Origins: Wolverine.)
-Speaking of Wolverine, I don't know if I have any "regular readers," mostly because my posts haven't been "regular" yet, but just in case I do, what did you think of the "Character of the Month" idea? I didn't get to put as many reviews as I wanted to just because of my hectic schedule, but that's about the same ratio of character-centric to general stuff I was thinking about keeping. Just more of both. May probably won't have a character, since I won't have much time for a little while yet to read and write, but if you guys like the idea, we'll pick it up again in June. (And I may pick it up again anyway... I had fun with it. I just may have trouble finding too many more characters with as many books that I'm willing to buy as there were for Wolverine.)
-Okay, that's it for now. Thanks to everyone for checking this page out while I've been trying to figure this whole "blog" thing out. It's been a lot of fun, and I hope you guys are enjoying reading it as much as I am writing it.
