What I Bought Today – Detective Comics #21, Earth 2 #13, The Movement #2, Batman: Li’l Gotham #2, The Fearless Defenders #5

Well, my birthday has come and gone, but it is now officially Wednesday, so it is time to check out…

…with my birthday money. And whoo, did I get a lot of books, so let’s start off with The Adventures of Harper Row #3!…Oh, sorry, I mean Detective Comics #21. lol

Okay, I should note that I didn’t buy Detective Comics #0, since it was done by the previous team who did Detective Comics that I REALLY didn’t like, so I’m a little lost on some stuff that happens here. The jist of it from what I can tell is that an ex-lover of Bruce’s who turned out to be an assassin is back and looking to kill him. Fortunately, it’s Harper Row to the rescue, reminding us all why she’s so awesome. Unfortunately, the assassin gets away, but is punished by her boss: Ra’s al Ghul, who appears to be out of his cell and back in power. In the back-up, we see that Kirk Langstrom is back, his wife having found him and returned him at some point, but is still transforming into the Man-Bat at night. Apparently, he likes the power it gives him, and feels he needs it to be of any use to the people on the streets of Gotham City. Too bad a John Doe is discovered that leaves him to believe he may have committed murder. Uh oh.

Earth 2 #13 picks up where the Annual left off, with Captain Steel headed off to a fire pit in Rio de Janeiro, one of the many created by Terry Sloan. While he’s doing that, Hawkgirl is still tracking down clues regarding why Green Lantern‘s lover, Sam, was murdered, and how and why he’s connected to Apokolips forces. Fighting a horde of giant Apokorats, she nearly gets taken down by a surprise attack, only for her attacker to be killed by an exploding Batarang from the new Batman…Damn, this guy is one cold mother frakker. Meanwhile, Captain Steel emerges from the fire pit, horribly burnt and with his left arm completely gone, screaming they have to save the world from “her”. And who is her? The Red Lantern!

Before I get to the main plot of The Movement, I should clear up an error I made with the first issue. I said that the main cast are all completely new characters. Not so. Two of them have appeared before. Katharsis was in a couple of issues of Batgirl that I missed due to getting into the series late, and Tremor was actually a member of Secret Six before the reboot. My bad, folks. Speaking of Katharsis, it seems that she’s got a major chip on her shoulder and is pretty much out to just kill cops. This rubs Virtue the wrong way, and she and the rest of the team go looking into a lead regarding the killer in Coral City, while Katharsis goes looking for the source of the corruption in town, only to find herself in a massive brawl with the CCPD. Also, Mouse mourns one of his fallen rat friends…and then eats it… … …Gail Simone, I love ya and all, but you can be kinda sick sometimes. lol

Gotham City Sirens, HO! XD

Batman: Li’l Gotham #2, HOLYCRAPBLUENIGHTWING!!! Seriously, blue Nightwing being in this book is frigging awesome. I don’t think anything could beat that-HOLYCRAPGOTHAMCITYSIRENS!!! So yeah, plenty of awesomeness in this book, and all kept clean enough that kids can read it and enjoy. We need more books like this, for realsies.

…Huh. It’s not a video game, and yet I WANT that video game. 😛

I’d heard about The Fearless Defenders for a while now, so I decided to pick up #5 today. Lucky for me, it makes a good first impression with me, as I’m a sucker for both kickass super-heroines and situations that call for LOTS of heroes in the same place at the same time. Can’t say as I know too much else about what’s going on, only that Valkyrie has brought Hippolyta (Marvel’s Warrior Woman) and Dani Moonstar to Descanso De Deus in Brazil, they fight Doom Maidens, Caroline LeFay, and Mr. Raven, but are hopelessly outnumbered until Misty Knight arrives with MASSIVE back-up, as you can tell from the cover. Unfortunately, while victory is theirs, Valkyrie becomes Brunhilde again, which leaves She-Hulk to try to knock some sense into her. Note to self: Bring snacks for next issue’s fight, as well as tissues since someone is being advertised to die.

*SIGHS HARD* Okay, so that’s everything for today. lol Check in next week when I…Are you kidding me?! Apparently Batman, Batgirl, Nightwing, Li’l Gotham, and Superman Unchained are ALL gonna get released on the same frakking day…I’m Jyger85, and I have a serious issue. lol Ja né.

What I Didn’t Buy Yesterday (And Why I Should Have/Shouldn’t Have) – Justice League #20, Batman: The Dark Knight #20, Batman: Li’l Gotham #2 (WARNING – SPOILERS)

So let’s talk about some books that I didn’t buy yesterday, why I should have/shouldn’t have, and ultimately why I didn’t. Let’s start off with Justice League #20.

First off, I only briefly skimmed through this book, and while I’m usually good on picking up details, I may have missed a couple here or there, so if you wanna know the full deal, read the book yourself. Anyway, we get to see the three newbies (Firestorm, Element Woman, and The Atom) take on DESPERO, of all people, who has the Kryptonite ring stolen from the Batcave last month, although he himself didn’t steal it, and it’s been altered to fit his giant fingers. However, while Despero is able to plough through them easily enough, he has less than stellar results when Martian Manhunter makes a surprise arrival at the Watchtower, telling Atom not to reveal that he was there after dispatching Despero, so she has to tell the other Leaguers that she managed to fluke her way into taking him down. After recovering the ring, we learn that, yes, in this continuity, Superman is still the one that gave the Kryptonite ring to Batman, just in case something happened where he was mind controlled or turned to evil or for whatever reason he might be forced to power Supes down. However, he’s less than thrilled when he finds out that there’s a box in the Batcave for each member of the League, each containing a fail-safe for each one. It’s at this point that Batman tells him other reason he doesn’t like the idea of him and Wonder Woman dating, as he shows Clark Diana’s box to reveal there’s nothing inside (shut up, don’t make that joke). Instead, should the need arise, Batman chose Superman to be his fail-safe against Wonder Woman, should the need arise. However, to keep things even, Batman hands him another box: The one containing the fail-safe against Batman, and insists that if Clark is truly his friend, he’ll use it on him if he’s ever turned rogue. We don’t see the contents, but whatever it was, it shocked Superman pretty bad.

So getting back to Rhonda Pineda, the new Atom, I’ve REALLY been enjoying her as a character. She’s smart, witty, and kind of a geek, as she apparently spends her free time shrinking down to enter and play MMORPGs. And yeah, as I made no attempt to conceal, I find her kind of hot, too… … …She’s the mole. She’s the one that hacked the Watchtower database and downloaded the entire history of the Justice League. It’s not entirely her fault, though. She doesn’t want to continue doing this, but she’s being made to. Turns out, she’s a member of the JLA, picked out to be the counter for Element Woman, and forced to do Amanda Waller‘s work.

So yeah, why didn’t I buy this issue? Mostly that, plus money, plus the Shazam mini-story that is, as per the norm, terrible. And I’m just gonna say this now: I’m dropping Justice League of America. Why? Well, remember how I said this book was headed to a not-very-fun place? I’m sorry, but it’s clear to me that the plot of this is essentially Suicide Squad with superheroes, except that some of the heroes on the team aren’t being written to be all that heroic. Just some free advice: When the most heroic members of the team are Vibe, Stargirl, and Steve Trevor, that’s a problem. Why? Because Steve isn’t even a superhero, Stargirl isn’t even an active member of the team and instead being made to work as their public face, and Vibe, while his reintroduction in the reboot has been pretty awesome, is still kinda young and feels out of place at times, like he should’ve been on Titans or something. Oh, and it gets better, because they’ve decided to BRING BACK DOCTOR LIGHT! No no, not the good one, the fucking rapist!…DOCTOR COX, I NEED YOU AGAIN!

THANK YOU, DOCTOR COX! Just…Geoff Johns, NO! Just, NO! I respect the hell outta you, and of course am sad to hear that yer leaving Green Lantern, but NO! There are characters that should be brought back and given a second chance, and there are freaks like this that need to remain dead and buried! NO!

SYMBOLISM!!!11!! OMFGWTFGENIUS!

Batman: The Dark Knight #20. First off, I wanna apologise to someone who shall remain nameless due to a pretty bad argument/discussion that broke out last night over this issue. But I digress, for all of the bad this series has had, this issue is the worst of all, and makes me so glad I dropped it a year ago. The story is pretty much crap, with Bruce continuing to grade to the point where he as a character is only motivated to make his life better by flashbacks of his parents, and Alfred actually starts talking him into considering hanging it up as Batman. But what makes me despise this issue more than any other? Well, remember that time I brought up the stupidity of Batman revealing his true identity to Natalya, the love interest no one cares about?

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She’s dead. Oh, and not just dead, but she got the crap kicked out of her by Mad Hatter’s goons and then dropped out of a helicopter straight down onto the Bat Signal (see what I meant about symbolism?)…Y’know, I’ve mentioned before that I wasn’t an active reader before the relaunch, but I’ve heard some pretty sick tales of characters treated like this in comics, particularly women. And frankly, I am sick to death of seeing this shit!

And finally, that leads to Batman: Li’l Gotham #2.

So what are my thoughts on it?…None. Kinda the reason why I didn’t buy it: It was sold out by the time I got to the store. But I’m hoping to get an issue of it soon enough, and then I’ll share my thoughts with y’all…I will say that, even without reading it, it automatically gets points for having Damian in it, alive and well.

So that’s what I did not buy yesterday, though hopefully I buy one of them sooner than later. Leave your comments below, and I will see y’all next time. Ja né!