Book of the Week for 9/12/07

Justice League of America: Wedding Special # 1
Story: Unlimited - Chapter 1: Injustice League
Words: Dwayne McDuffie
Art: Mike McKone

This is kind of Justice League of America # 12.5 Its the first part of McDuffie's run on the Justice league. Part of the issue is dedicated to the Green Arrow's Bachelor Party/Black Canary Bachelorette Party, other half of the issue is dedicated to the new Injustice League. If any of you saw the final season of Justice League Unlimited (which is sad if you havn't), you'll notice a lot of similar story elements, as he ran that show while it was on. They use a new version of the old Legion of Doom HQ, now called the Hall of Doom. They also have an alarming assemblage of super-villains shown off on a nice 2 page spread, Luthor, Joker, Grodd, Poison Ivy, Major Force, etc.

Besides aping some of the JLU concepts. He also pokes fun with a lot of what Meltzer did in his run. The books starts off as a slight parody of the first issue of JLofA, with Luthor, Joker, and Cheetah sitting around using Polaroids of villains to decide who they want in their gang. Not to mention McDuffie made it well known that he disagreed with Geo-Force's inclusion on the roster, which is addressed.

The issue is just a lot of fun and actually funny without being silly, which is something McDuffie has proven he's good at with JLU and Fantastic Four so far. Cameos's galore and the essence of every character coming through even in the smallest of instances, and Firestorm plays a prominent role..and perhaps joining the league???(a man can dream can't he) Also McDuffie's favorite Green Lantern takes over for Hal in this story, but at least talks about it, and it actually makes sense.

I sadly don't have much to say about the art, other than its fantastic, and I wish Mike McKone was doing the actual Justice League Book. He draws each panel with detailed backgrounds and his faces are so expressive. Not to mention getting to see him draw so many different heroes. He draws a mean Adam Strange and Mr. Miracle.

A great issue, a lot of fun to read, nice to look at, and what looks to be the start of a great fun story. And I guess I have to find out what mike McKone is doing next.

New Books 9/12/07 - updated

There were twelve books that came out today on my list, only picked up 7, quick reviews soon. I just finished them all a little while ago, and I am very tired. I just realized it but, 3 of the books I got are written by Geoff Johns, and 2 by Brian Michael Bendis, 5 of the books I got are written by the same 2 writers, creepy.

EDIT: Got back to the Store picked up the rest of the books from this week, natch.

Booster Gold # 2

Countdown # 33

Countdown Presents The Search For Ray Palmer: Wildstorm # 1

Daredevil # 100

Green Lantern # 23

Justice League of America: Wedding Special # 1

Justice Society of America # 9

New Avengers # 34

Thor # 3

Trials of Shazam # 8

Ultimate Power # 7

Ultimate Spider-Man # 113

-2878 issues and rising-

X-Men: Some Assembly Required

Got my hopes up this weekend, when Marvel released the above image, implying they were going to do something drastic to the X-Men, along the lines of what they did to Avengers, restarting at #1, new direction, new team. Which of course got me interested, as X-Men used to be all I read, but lost interest in recent years. Then on Monday they released these.

They havn't yet said what they will be doing with the core X-titles. But they did let us know of what the New X-titles were gonna be *Sigh* a New Cable and X-Force series. And here I was hoping this meant they'd be cutting down on X-Books. I really think they need to get it down to 1 or 2 books, refocus things, then branch out again. Get everyone back up to speed again.

Oooh X-Force, the only X-book I never read regularly ever, because they just seemed lame to me. Back in the 90's they were eXtreme and badasses, and now it looks like their eXtreme and badass again. I mean they are all wearing black, so you know they are tough. I mena if Wolverine is good, this team has X-23 as well, thats like 2 Wolverines!!

They also realeased a Cable image which has him looking like all his 90's glory, with Marvel saying it will be like no other book they publish. But I personally don't care, I've never liked Cable, don't see a need for him anymore. He represents everything complicated and rediculus about the X-Men.

*Deep breath*

The son of Cyclops and a clone of Jean Grey, infected with a Techno virus as a baby, so he was sent to the future ruled by Apocalypse where he was kind of cured and was raised by the daughter of Cyclops and Pheonix from an alternate future who was lost in the timestream. Back to Cable, he was sent back in time now a middle aged man 0to destroy Apocalypse to prevent the future he was raised in did not happen. I promise that was all from memory. Just to show my X-Men cred, heh.

Why is it when these Alternate timeline characters show up, once the future is fixed, they don't disappear since they shouldn't exist anymore. Rachel Summers, Cable, Bishop. Could have made things much simpler if they had disappeared, when their story was over. I recently read the year long space story in Uncanny X-Men, I loved it. Some characters stayed in space, and the reason even made sense. And I think it was a good way to take some characters that were overly complicated, kind of lost in purpose over the years, and get rid of them, but not kill them needlessly. Havok, Polaris, and Rachel Summers. I could go into their histories and why its a good thing they are off the table for now, but I'm sure if you read any wikipedia article you could see why.

This has become a rant, so I will end here. Tomorrow I might talk about Bendis, and his upcoming Secret Invasion. :-)