Gashapon Reviews: February 17, 2010

Next week is going to be chock-full of comics, so I'd better get this out today. Two more weekends on this play then I'm finally done.

DC:

Green Lantern #51 (****)

I am exceedingly glad that this Jordan-as-Parallax thing only lasted one issue. It would be far too easy to drag it out for several issues, but they had them come in, do what they needed to do, and get taken away. Clearly Parallax isn't locked away for good, and will be popping up in some future story, but we don't have to deal with it at a time when all I want to see is how this whole BN story wraps itself up. The feeling that nothing will be the same is very palpable, and DC needs to be commended for the epic-ness of this event. I've said it a dozen times, but Marvel had best be taking notes for Second Coming.



Green Lantern Corps #45 (***)

Between this and GL#51, clearly they are wrapping up all the side stories for a major push towards the end of Blackest Night. BN#7 comes out next week, so a major finale that stretches across all three titles is clearly on its way. I'm excited enough by the prospect of a finale that I'm willing to forgive the kinda predictability of this issue. Not that I exactly thought Mogo would use leeches to clean Guy's bloodstream (Ew), I knew Guy would get cleaned up. It wasn't a bad issue, and certainly better than that John Stewart storyline a few months back, but I've been spoiled by edge of your seat storytelling.

Blackest Night: The Flash #3 (***)

After reading this, I am more than a little convinced that the SpeedForce is connected to the White Light that is going to wind up killing the Black Lanterns. Not that there was anything specific that mentions that, but given how the conclusion to Flash: Rebirth was delayed from several months ago until next week, and how Flash is usually pictured alongside all of the Brightest Day materials, I feel like there's something more there. I could be completely insane, but it's a feeling that I have. Outside of my crazy theories, I found all of the Rogue's Gallery stuff to be very uninteresting here. These villains all seem kinda silly to me in the first place (Captain Boomerang? Really?), and while the stuff about Captain Cold (Whatever the hell is name is) not feeling feelings was interesting, I kinda wanted more of a focus on Barry handling the ring. The faith that he now feels just seems very interesting to me.

Marvel:

Dark Avengers #14 (**1/2)

Meh. It's yet another "Sentry is F@&!ing insane" storyline, and I kind of get it already. He is disgustingly powerful and very unhinged and Osborn has clearly got in over his head. Osborn's line about "Come to me tonight" makes me think the Void may have been Osborn's Ace-in-the-hole, but then he goes on and on about how Doom could kill Sentry, so that then seems unlikely. Of course just because Doom could kill Sentry doesn't mean it'd be easy, so it doesn't really have to disprove anything. I did like how Hand was like "You need to get help. Unless of course you want to go insane". My biggest problem is that I just feel like we should be sieging Asgard, not running about NYC. My kingdom for a timeline. I heard people at IGN complaining that BN was too long, but at least BN is fairly easy to chart out chronologically. Over at Marvel I feel like ten writers were given a five line description of the event, and then went off in their own directions that may or may not meet up at some future date. I hate it.

Uncanny X-Men #521 (***)

Yay! Even though I knew last week what Mags was doing up on that mountain, it still makes me happy. I'll ignore for a minute how she could possibly have survived all this time without food or drink or even air, because I'm very excited that she's coming back. Who wants to take bets on how angsty she's going to be about the whole thing? The plot with Phantomex and Wolvie and Psylocke in New York is interesting, but I feel like it's all going to get put on hold in a month when Second Coming kicks off. At least I hope it's going to get put on hold, cause it would be kind of unsatisfying if we tie up the whole engineered-to-be-mutants storyline in 0ne issue.