Warning: The reviews have spoilers.

X-Men: Endangered Species
This one-shot kicks off the next big X-Men focused event. In a refreshing change of pace, this is done with a quiet character piece written by Mike Carey. Basically, a young mutant has died, and several of the X-Men and students are attending the funereal. As is one of their adversaries, although he's disguised until near the end. The whole issue consists of the reactions of the various x-folk to the death of yet another mutant, although you don't find out who died or how until near the end. And refreshingly, it does not turn out to be a shocking death of some 3rd-tier character hauled out of obscurity to die in a pointless battle. It's become rather common to start "events" that way and I'm glad to see that they're not doing that this time around. The reactions to what turns out to be a far more mundane death are more interesting, because each member of the cast projects his or her own meaning onto it. The most significant meaning for the ongoing story seems to be Hank McCoy ruminating on the possibility of mutants being too small of a population to remain a viable species. It seems like this will set in motion the main plot, although they don't make too big a deal of it here.

It's a low-key start to the event, and despite the somewhat cliched sentiment at the end I find that this interests me far more than another explosive kickstart would have. "Endangered Species" will be running as backup strips in X-Men, Uncanny X-Men, X-Factor and New X-Men, which is even a somewhat low-key way to distribute the story (and as a side note, I'm happy to see X-Factor in there, as it's the best X-book out there in my opinion, and should get every bit of promotion Marvel can give it).

Art is handled by Scot Eaton, although until I read the credits I thought it was Billy Tan (who drew most of Brubaker's recent Uncanny arc). For the most part it fits the mood well- the somber tone of the piece calls for realism rather than stylization. His X-23 doesn't seem quite right (too open in her facial expressions sometimes), but the others come across pretty well, especially considering that we're seeing them in street clothes rather than the familiar costumes. It's actually the opening splash page of Cyclops, Emma Frost, Cannonball, Iceman, Beast, Nightcrawler and Wolverine charging into battle (against and unseen foe) where I have a problem. The men are all charging in ready to fight, but Emma's just standing to the side, hands on her hips, looking on. She's not even in diamond form. Nor is there any indication that she's doing something telepathic. It looks like she's decided the bad guy's not even worth her time, so she'll just watch. Which, I suppose, is not entirely outside of the character's typical behavior. But it still struck me as odd.

Still, overall, I'm intrigued by this, and kudos to Marvel for kicking something off with subtlety for a change.


Captain America #27
I was never really a Captain America fan until Ed Brubaker started writing the character. The Winter Soldier storyline drew me in (I knew plenty enough about the character to get why it was a big deal), and I've stayed with it since. This issue continues to keep the quality high, even with the title character dead. Brubaker has established a solid supporting cast in Sharon Carter, the Falcon and Bucky that has no trouble carrying the title in Cap's absence. In this issue, Bucky makes his first moves against Tony Stark, but starts by tracking down Cap's shield to "reclaim" it. The person he has to fight for it turns out to have a previously unknown connection to him, but it's one that makes good use of a pre-existing possible overlap. Better yet, this issue is really about each of the characters using their knowledge of the others to predict what they will or would do- Bucky is trying to figure out what Tony's doing with the Cap's shield, Sharon and the Falcon are trying to figure out what Bucky will do first, and then what he'll do once he has the shield, and the person who lose the shield to Bucky is trying to predict what he'll do next (and nails it, btw). This all holds together beautifully because Brubaker has managed his characters so well. To me, it's the way he uses the characters to drive the plots that makes this book a continually compelling read. Oh yeah, Epting continues to do an equally great job on the art.


The Spirit #7
If you haven't been reading Darwyn Cooke's The Spirit, you really should be. Unfortunately, Cooke is nowhere to be found in this issue, and it suffers greatly for it. (Cooke does provide the cover, though, which is great). This issue contains three stories by three different creative teams, perhaps in an effort to see who else can write the character. The first one, written by Walter Simonson with art by Chris Sprouse and Karl Story, is a perfectly competent little detective story. It's well plotted and fits neatly within it's 8 pages. But it's almost completely generic. There are a few moments where the Spirit's sense of humour shows through, but most of the time it could be anyone in the blue suit. The art is similar- perfectly good, but doesn't really help elevate the characterization above the generic. Although I wonder if this team could do better given more pages.

The second story, by Jimmy Palmiotti with art by Jordi Bernet is the best of the three. The artist comes closer to capturing the whimsical tones that the series has featured so far, and the story rings true to the character- the Spirit is chasing a bad guy, and that's important, but the real story is happening around him and he's largely unaware of it. The whole thing is quite cute, which is a good approach when there's not much space to develop a big drama.

Finally, there's a story written and illustrated by Kyle Baker, and I'm afraid I find this one to be a mess. The art is incredibly difficult to read, and I don't just mean the dark and smudgy style. There are lots of scene shifts with minimal cues- panels focused on close-ups so that the character shown is really the main way to figure out where we are. I still can't figure out exactly what happened with Ellen and the villain and the pool. Plus, what's with Ellen hanging all over Denny and the whole "I'm wearing a mask, too" comment? We haven't seen her much in this series, but last time she appeared she was giving off the "wholesome girlfriend" vibe, where here she's a lot more femme fatale. The could move in to showing a more sexual side of Ellen and Denny's relationship, but dropping lines about kinky "good girl/bad girl" roleplaying sex is a bit jarring.

Hopefully Cooke will be back next month, because his take on the character has been excellent so far, and I'd like to read more. Failing that, I'd nominate Palmiotti and Bernet to fill in.


Countdown #45
Ho hum, the Monitors are arguing amongst themselves again. Aside from hoping they don't kill off too many characters I like (I always rather had a soft spot for Duela Dent), I really can't bring myself to care much. The sides were established immediately, and the discussions of the Monitors have been boring reiterations ever since. And it doesn't help that we have to listen to them bitch about it again in each week's backup strip. DC hasn't given me a reason to care about any of this one way or the other- the only reason one side seems more reasonable is that it isn't killing off people left and right, and character death has gotten overused in recent years. But really, they all just seem high-handed and annoying, and I've yet to be convinced any of them should be in charge of anything. Or convinced of the danger of people crossing between universes or cheating death, unless it's the danger of giving continuity-obsessed geeks like myself anyeurisms. Is it too much to ask for a bit of motivation beyond the characters just saying that things have to be this way?

Anyway, in this issue, the alien woman they sent to kill Jason Todd and Donna Troy starts to beat the shit out of them, but then gets recalled by the leader of the more friendly Monitor faction. Who apparently is now considered the renegade since most of the Monitors went with the angry bearded guy. There's a lot of ranting about how horrible it is that this race of alien assassins was ever created. Yeah, whatever, Monitors ranting, what a shock.

Meanwhile, Jimmy helpfully thinks about the New Gods a lot, delivering exposition to everyone who doesn't know the background. I wish DC had started putting out the Jack Kirby's Fourth World Omnibus volumes earlier so we could all have the proper background if we want- BTW, go buy the first one right now, it's fantastic, I'll write up the first issue or two that it collects later.

We also get a (as far as I can tell) pointless scene with Dr. Mid-Nite talking to the time-traveling pre-Crisis legion members Karate Kid, Dream Girl and Starman. Given that the Lightening Saga ended this week in JLA, I'm really not sure what this scene was supposed to tell us. Whatever, Countdown's already becoming a mess in my opinion. In addition to annoying Monitors, the fight scene with Donna Troy takes place in DC, yet the attacking Amazons are only mentioned perepherally. Is this tying in to Amazons Attack or not? Blah. I don't think I care.


Justice League of America #10
Well, we certainly are making the most of having both Justice teams led by women. Yup, those are some mighty sultry eyes on the cover there, and some mighty big boobies. OK, Power Girl is supposed to be busty, and I'd object to anyone changing that- the juxtaposition of her figure with her feminist attitude is a long-standing part of her character. But are those even attached to her chest in the right place? Is it me, or is there just something wrong with her torso? And did Michael Turner just re-costume his Supergirl design to get Dream Girl?

Oh, you wanted a review of the story? Silly me, I got distracted by the giant breastses of dubious anatomical correctness. The story is actually quite good, at least in terms of resolving the plot with a good twist. The mystery here is the identity of the person the Legionairres are trying to resurrect. As we get close to the event, there are hints that it is Barry Allen (Flash II), who died way back during Crisis on Infinite Earths, and has remained dead for a remarkably long time. Instead, it turns out to be Wally West (Flash III), who disappeared into the Speed Force with Bart Allen (then Kid Flash II, now Flash IV) during the recent Infinte Crisis. Brought back with Wally are his wife and their twin children, unharmed but several years older. This all makes sense, as Bart came back before Infinite Crisis ended, four years older but reporting that Wally, Linda and the twins were fine. So no one ever really thought he was dead. But you can see that Batman at least had figured it would be Barry, and he can't help but be a bit disappointed. There's also a hint that Brainiac 5 had expected someone else (presumably Barry), but its unclear. It will be interesting to see what happens with that.

So that's all well and good, but not perfect. It resolves the Lightning Saga plot well, but it hardly makes use of the JLA/JSA team-up concept. There are a few throwaway lines from JSA members, plus they're used as much as the JLA in bits, but this issue really belongs to the Legion. Which is fair enough, I suppose, but for the first post-Infinite Crisis JLA/JSA team-up, it would have been nice to make something really hinge on the presence of both teams. I didn't really get that feeling here, even though the expanded roster was used to find enough people with super-speed at one point. Anyway, this was cool, but I'll be happy to see JSA allowed to go back to its usual style that tends to focus more on character development. While JLA deals with this level of threat all the time, the crossover was more of a diversion for the JSA. Still, Cyclone asking Red Tornado if things were "always this kooky" was great :-)


Flash, The Fastest Man Alive #13
This was well written, but I'm very unhappy with DC choices here. Bart Allen (Flash IV) is killed in this, the final issue of this rather short series. Young Justice, particularly the guys, has not fared well- of the guys, only Robin is still alive. Of the girls, only Wonder Girl is still active. But really, I don't see the point of treating Bart this way. He used to be a very distinctive character as Impulse, and there was some pretty interesting character development while he was Kid Flash as well- he wasn't quite as funny, but watching Bart try to grow up was interesting.

Then DC aged him four years to a young adult and made him the new Flash. This made him a completely generic character- yet another serious young adult trying to figure out how to be a superhero. And then they killed him a year later. What did we gain from this? The storyline with Inertia that led to this wasn't even particularly compelling. It wasn't bad, but it wasn't really above the norm. I have no problem with DC bringing Wally back as the Flash, but why did they change Bart at all if that's what they wanted to do? There was plenty more that could have been told with him as Kid Flash that I guess we won't get to see now.

The death itself was handled well, though, with several great panels with no dialog or narration. The page where Robin gets the call, drops his phone and slumps down against the wall in his room in Titans Tower is particularly wrenching- Tim doesn't have many friends or relatives left alive, and Bart and the already-dead Kon were his closest friends. I also loved the touch of Jay removing his hat when Jesse tells him the news. But it seems so pointless. I'm hoping this is part of some larger plan and he doesn't just get swept under the rug like poor Spoiler.


Robin #163
I just want to say that I love this book when it gets to do nice little character pieces (you may have noticed that I'm really big on characterization, probably more so than any other element of the story). In this issue, Tim is trying to get Bruce a Father's Day present. Of course he gets distracted by somethingr requiring Robin's attention, which makes for a nice fight scene. But the real fun of this issue is in Tim's brief conversation with Zoanne. She's been a very interesting and well-used love interest for Tim so far. She's smart and not interested in putting up with Tim if he's going to be flaky and distracted. But she is clearly still into him. And Tim, of course, is frighteningly competent at everything except relationships. I hope that either this writer stays long enough to do something with them, or the next writer keeps the subplot going. As for this issue itself, the wrap-up is fairly predictable, but again, the whole thing is just a nice breather after the difficult things Tim dealt with in his last storyline. I love to see books remember to show the relatively quiet periods every once in a while, especially with younger characters like Tim.


Love and Capes #4
I want to end on a high note, so let's look at the indie publication Love and Capes. It's a fairly simple light comedy about a superhero who reveals his identity to his girlfriend. The main character is a Superman analog, and there are analogs of (at least) Batman, Wonder Woman and the Justice League around as well. Although the correspondence is decidedly loose and tilted towards humour. What makes this series so great is the characterization. While there are other more obvious gags in the book, most of the humor and fun come from the interactions between the protagonist, his girlfriend, and a few other characters. They have well-developed enough personalities already that creator Thom Zahler can play them off each other well enough to make a whole interesting book.

Love and Capes isn't trying to change the world of comics or make any other such grandiose claims. But if you like secret identity hijinks and light romantic comedy, you should really make the effort to track down this book (http://www.loveandcapes.com/).

Tags: bart allen, captain america, comics, countdown, dc, jla, jsa, legion of superheroes, marvel, reviews, the spirit, tim drake, x-men
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