Superer Sunday

For those who are too lazy to look at last week's blog entry on the same subject, DC Comics are "relaunching" their entire range in September. There are 52 comics with "#1" on the cover, thirteen each week, and this is week two. I'm giving them all a try, with my head firmly in "new reader" mode (I'm familiar with a lot of the characters, but haven't bought a new DC comic for a good few years) and I bought this week's batch in the ever-awesome Nostalgia & Comics shop in Birmingham, on my way to the airport on Thursday. There was only one of the thirteen they didn't have, and they also had two of the ones I couldn't find last week, so we're now down to just two out of 27 that I've read without paying for. I'm more than doing my bit to keep those writers and artists in business!

So, week two. It's normal practice to save the best for the first and last week in situations like this. Remember all those comics with beautiful, crisp, clear artwork and snappy writing last week? This week we get a more eclectic mix, with a lot of demons and dragons and general weirdness. And lanterns of all colours. I read them in reverse alphabetical order, since that was the order they ended up packed in my bag in the shop, which means we start with...

Superboy #1
Scott Lobdell, R.B. Silva, Rob Lean

Written by Lobdell, pencilled by Silva, inked by Lean.

Superboy is a clone in a tube in a lab, hairless and naked except for a pair of modesty-covering pants that the scientists have kindly provided him with. He was created three months ago, as a fusion of Kryptonian and human DNA, and he hasn't had much to do except float there and take in what the scientists are saying. It's not good news, though - they don't think he's showing any signs of life, so Dr White is going to kill him. Red-headed female Dr Cait isn't happy about this, but Dr White goes ahead, only for everyone to be killed with a big boom. His last words to Dr Cait, who's safe on the other side of a window - "I shouldn't have kept you in the dark! The human cells, they came from..." splat. Don't you hate it when you mistime your last words like that? If he'd only phrased it in a normal way, like "the human cells came from..." he might have finished his sentence!

Anyway, Superboy's alive and well and now he can communicate with Dr Cait. And a month later, he's in school in Kansas, making friends with Rose Wilson and completely ignoring a cry for help from a woman in a burning building. It turns out that this is all just a virtual reality created for him, and he's still in the lab. He knows, but the scientists don't know he knows. They're more mystified by why his subconscious mind created the small-town Kansas background (the scientists don't have the advantage of knowing Superman's origin story) and where he got his complete disregard for the sanctity of human life (that one's still a mystery).

Dr Cait has a chat with the real Rose, who's apparently there to "put down Superboy if he ever snaps again", although how she'd go about that isn't clear. A Dr Umber, meanwhile, is sneakily feeding the lab's secrets (except the existence of Superboy) to the only journalist he can trust, who happens to be good old Lois Lane. Then the big boss, "Templar", arrives, and announces that it's time to activate Superboy. There's a mission for him.

The verdict? Story - excellent. Sets up the all-new Superboy, gives him a proper introduction and background and more than enough mysteries to keep us interested. It's a prologue, but it has great promise for the future. Art - nice. Everyone seems to have boggly eyes and funny noses, but the lab scenes are very detailed, and the storytelling is clear throughout. All in all - I like it, and I want to know what's going to happen next. I think I'll be back for #2.

Suicide Squad #1
Adam Glass, Federico Dallocchio, Ransom Getty

The three above get their names on the cover, but the credits page inside attributes the writing to Glass, and then "artists: Federico Dallocchio & Ransom Getty & Scott Hanna". I suppose Hanna lent a last-minute hand with the inking, but I do wish credits would actually say who did what.

Anyway, we're in a gloomy archetypal abandoned warehouse, and Deadshot is being tortured by a man with a bag on his head. Nasty torture, too, involving rats. He's not alone, either. Bag-heads are torturing another six super-types, trying to find out who sent them. Instead of telling them, Deadshot reminiscences about how he got into this mess in the first place - he's an assassin, and a darn good one too, but he was caught by Batman while trying to kill a senator. (After "Men of War" last week, that raises the senator-count in these comics to two, and there's more to come. Maybe the full 100 will have shown up before we're finished!) But he's not telling the bag-heads anything, however much of him gets eaten by rats, because it's all part of the job.

El Diablo is in a similar situation, although he's less the cold-blooded killer and more the warrior monk type who kills people while thinking in Spanish-accented religious terms. But when he accidentally killed a bunch of women and children, he gave himself up to the police willingly. Harley Quinn, meanwhile, used to be the Joker's lover, but his arrest last week in Detective Comics drove her a little bit more loony than she already was, and she set out to kill lawyers before she was caught by the Black Canary. She actually quite enjoys being tortured, so she's not at all in the mood to snitch on her employers.

Black Spider and Voltaic don't get introductory flashbacks, just a namecheck each, and then we move on to King Shark. He's a big giant shark-man, as the name implies (although I'm not sure if he's actually king of anywhere), and he's not the talkative type at all. He plays possum, then bites off a bag-man's arm when he gets too close, exulting "Meat! Meat! Meat! Ha ha!" I like this guy.

The seventh member, Savant, eventually cracks. He explains that they're Task Force X, colloquially known as the Suicide Squad. If you're serving a life sentence, this is the only way to get out. Albeit with a bomb implanted in your neck and a lot of really sadistic training. On their first mission, to bring in a rogue agent, dead or alive (Deadshot just shoots him through the head straight away, to save time), they were caught in a booby trap, and then all the torturing started. The bag-heads thank Savant, then drag him off to do even more horrible things to him, while his six team-mates scoff contemptuously.

After one final tell-us-or-we-shoot-you session, the six are told they've passed the final test, and they're now officially in Task Force X. The sinister leader, Amanda Waller, sends them off on their first mission, which is apparently to kill six thousand people in a stadium. Wait, is this the government, or just a gang of slaughter-enthusiasts?

The verdict? Story - It takes the decision to only introduce half the characters in any kind of depth, which I think makes sense. Other team comics have rushed through everyone or else not shown most of the team at all, but I think this one gets the balance right. On the other hand, it's a rather excessively dark and nasty kind of story with just a lot of gore and rats and not a lot of plot. Art - suits the story very well, it's dark and gritty, and King Shark's happy bloodstained grin is really awesome. Some of the poses are a little strange, though. All in all - it's not my thing, really, but it does a good job as an introduction to the characters and settings, and I do find myself wanting to see where it goes. I can stomach another issue of gore, I suppose.

Resurrection Man #1
Dan Abnett, Andy Lanning, Fernando Dagnino

Written by Abnett and Lanning, drawn by Dagnino.

Our hero is dead. He's just been left alone after his autopsy, and he muses to himself that everything tastes of metal this time. It seems that coming back to life is nothing new to him. Once he's recovered from the unimaginable pain, he notes that this time, his "talent" seems to be an empathy with and control over metal. He steals some clothes and some money, and heads to the airport, where his latest compulsion has driven him. He vaguely wonders what his mysterious purpose is this time - he's given up wondering where he gets these "things I have to do" from.

So that's four pages and we already know everything we need to know about the character and his setting! Excellent, concise and clear writing! We're also introduced to a few of the other passengers on the plane before our hero, who calls himself Mitch, is joined by a strange woman with a red teardrop-tattoo on her face. She says that "they're closing in", and then turns into a horrific demon-thing. Mitch's soul is overdue, and she wants it. He has to launch the both of them out of the plane (closing the door and trying to save the passengers along the way) but then sees scary faces in the storm, which the demon helpfully narrates as "phantoms of the afterlife, closing in to claim the dead". Spooky.

Mitch manages to contrive a way to get the demon struck by lightning, but then his latest life comes to an end when he's sucked into the plane's engine and, well, the word "skrunntchh" sums it up. The plane crashes, everyone dies, and when Mitch comes back to life with the ability to turn into water, he's left mystified by what the heck is going on. The demon has taken a new human form and is after him, and meanwhile, two creepy young women are searching for him and having fun killing people along the way. And there's a weird fortune-teller saying something cryptic to end the comic.

The verdict? Story - introduces our hero very well, and sets up the stories to come - poor Mitch's life (or lives) will be plagued by all kinds of horrible things. You have to feel sorry for him, but you also want to see how he's going to deal with it. And what strange powers he's going to get the next time he dies. Art - a bit unclear in places, with heavy shading, but Mitch has a very distinctive and consistent face, and the action scenes are nicely done. I like it. All in all - I'm interested to see what happens next. It's not a top favourite of mine, but it's something I want to check out in the future. The central character is very sympathetic.

Red Lanterns #1
Peter Milligan, Ed Benes, Rob Hunter

Milligan writes, Benes pencils, Hunter inks.

More torture! This time, nasty blue aliens are torturing a different kind of alien on a spaceship. But they're just doing it for fun, and the leader is getting bored. But then they're boarded by a cat in a red Green Lantern costume. A whole two-page spread, just of this cat! And it's really, really well-drawn, too. It's got a constant stream of red stuff coming out of its mouth, which seems to be a common complaint among characters in this comic, but it just adds to the coolness of it. It wears a red Green Lantern ring on its tail.

The cat proves quite efficient (and brutal) at fighting the nasty aliens, but they eventually catch it. However, then the cat's owner, Atrocitus arrives, and he's really bad news! He's also a Red Lantern, he's also streaming red stuff from his mouth (is it some kind of energy? Is it helping him fight? The art is excellent, but the red stuff is a bit unclear) and he really lays into the blue aliens, while considering his life. It seems he's not as filled with rage as he used to be. His people were killed by the Guardians (the Green Lanterns' bosses) and he's been raging ever since, but it's getting a bit old.

Meanwhile, on Earth, in "Small Ockdon, United Kingdom" (which looks very American, complete with car on the right hand side of the road), an old man is mugged by a street punk. Then we're back with Atrocitus, who leaves the kitty (it's called Dex-Starr) to rest and recover, then goes to tell his Red Lanterns to stop fighting. One of them is a woman called Bleez, who's more than a little loony and doesn't do what Atrocitus says, the others just stand in the background. We don't get told who they are.

Atrocitus goes to talk to the dead body he keeps lying around the place, and helpfully recaps his origins for the benefit of the reader. Krona, a Guardian, created the Green Lantern corps by convincing the other Guardians that they should use people and not robots. He proved this by programming the robots to kill everyone on Atrocitus's world. Atrocitus has been raging ever since, especially after Krona was killed by someone else (Green Lantern Hal Jordan, who we'll be hearing more from later), leaving the big guy just to keep Krona's corpse and occasionally shout at it. Then a nearby "fever pod" explodes, covering Atrocitus in painful red stuff and re-awakening his rage.

He decides to dedicate his rage-filled life to punishing those who deserve retribution. He'll need the help of his Red Lanterns, although they currently seem to be feeling uncooperative. And maybe the story will also involve what's happening back on Earth - the old man has died, and his grandsons Ray and John (another chalk-and-cheese pairing) are bickering about it. We can only assume this will eventually have some bearing on Atrocitus and co.

The verdict? Story - fills us in on the central character, but skips over the rest of the Red Lanterns. We're not told who they are, where they came from, how the whole Red Lantern thing works, anything like that. In a comic called "Red Lanterns", that's sort of what I expect. And the flashbacks are written in a way that suggests there's more story there that's already been written, rather than this being all you need to know in #1. Art - extremely cool. The Lanterns, from what little we see of them, are a fascinating bunch, and the aliens at the start look awesome, as does the cat. It's very bold and dynamic. All in all - I feel a bit like I'm joining in mid-story, rather than at the beginning, and the sub-plot on Earth is so totally disconnected from what happens on the other pages, it's a bit disorienting. It doesn't quite grab me, somehow.

Mister Terrific #1
Eric Wallace, Gianluca Gugliotta, Wayne Faucher

Wallace writes, Gugliotta pencils, Faucher inks.

London, England! Mr Terrific is nimbly evading laser beams in that stereotypical action-hero way that always annoys me - why do they design those beams so that there's a person-sized gap in the middle of them? And ooh, the lab he's in has more of those omnipresent floaty computer screens! It's a beautifully-drawn opening scene, though - our hero is an athletic type who flies around on big floating marbles, and he's being pursued by a bad guy in a flying suit of armour. They blast through the wall and out into the streets of London (the part of London full of American-style buildings with Big Ben in the background) before Mr T cleverly turns the London Eye into a giant magnet to catch the villain. He introduces himself as the world's third-smartest man, and then reminisces about his origins for a while.

It seems he's a successful millionaire scientist, whose wife tragically died, following which he threw himself into science. When that didn't work out, he decided to kill himself, but was then visited by his time-travelling future son, who urged him not to give up, before disappearing in a scientific explosion. Science is a theme of this comic, and I worry that the writer doesn't seem to know much about science himself.

Back in the present day, our hero, real name Michael Holt, is back at home in Los Angeles, chatting with his rich and successful sort-of-girlfriend Karen. Nearby, an average working guy is suddenly zapped by some kind of intelligence-enhancing beam. It makes him be rude to a waitress, then go out and kill a beggar. Intelligence isn't good for you, it seems. Once the police pick him up, they call in Mr T and show him the strange equations he's been writing ever since they brought him in. "Some kinda science gibberish", the policeman quite accurately calls it, but Mr T says that it's highly complicated and clever differential equations. Obviously you need to be really really clever to see that it isn't just a random collection of mathematical symbols.

Terrific goes to his secret headquarters in another dimension and shows it off to the readers for three pages while pondering this latest case, then goes to his political fundraiser for a sleazy Senator he approves of because of his commitment to science. We're briefly introduced to his friend/colleague/something Aleeka and a teenager called Jamaal who seems to be part of his entourage, although we're not told why, and we get a bit of discussion about weighty race issues. This is, it's clear, a comic about a black superhero, unlike for example Static Shock, which was about a hero who's incidentally black.

But then Mister Terrific is also zapped with the intelligence-beam, and realises that the senator has to be killed. He immediately gets to work starting a big giant earthquake, and we're promised that next issue we'll meet "the villain called... Brainstorm!"

The verdict? Story - Science! And a strange underlying theme of "don't trust intelligent people". The central character is effectively introduced, and he's likeable. There is a story in there, but the science-gibberish and the black-man element sort of stop me appreciating it for the good story it probably is. Art - really good. The action scenes on the first few pages are beautiful, which makes up for the rather inconsistent drawings of faces in the non-action scenes. All in all - I'm on the fence. I'll have to see if it improves next time round.

Legion Lost #1
Fabian Nicieza, Pete Woods

It's just "by Fabian Nicieza and Pete Woods", the credits don't tell us any more detail than that.

At a hospital, doctors and nurses are wrestling with a strange superhuman man talking an unidentifiable language. He yells that they all deserve to die, and then things go boom.

Somewhere else, in Minnesota, seven superheroes arrive in a malfunctioning "time bubble". One of them notes that "the Time Institute warned The Legion Of Super-Heroes not to ride the timestream." So, is that who these people are? It's a strange way to refer to yourself, but the comic is called "Legion Lost", and this is the only indication we ever get as to what this gang call themselves.

All in all, even after reading the whole comic, I'm not sure who these people are. I think they all get a namecheck at some point, but they're slipped in among a lot of dialogue. Let me try and sort it out here. The leader's called Tyroc (he has powers of 'harmonic manipulation', whatever that is. He can fly.), there's a man called Timber Wolf whose name is Brin and Londo (one must be a first name and one a surname, I suppose), a shapeshifter called Yera/Chameleon Girl, an energy-man-in-a-suit-of-armour called Wildfire (Drake), a birdy thing called Gates who can teleport, a big monster called Tellus with telekinesis, and a woman called Dawnstar who's sort of in tune with nature.

They've come from the 31st century, and they're chasing Alastor, the guy from the first page. But none of their fancy equipment is working, and several of them are feeling unwell. Nobody's sure why. But it seems that Alastor has released a pathogen into the atmosphere, which might be something to do with it. Wolf tracks Alastor down, but only after he's smashed up a town and then fainted.

They try to go back to their own time in the bubble, but something's going wrong. Alastor, after gloating about how he's doomed the entire human race (oh, Tyroc can also reduce the volume of people's voices - that's a weird kind of superpower), turns into his big-giant-monster form, and chaos breaks out in the cramped confines of the time bubble. Gates tries to teleport Alastor away, Chameleon Girl tries to restrain him, and the whole thing goes boom.

Tyroc, Dawnstar, Wolf, Tellus and Wildfire survive. Wolf and Dawnstar both have to pass on the bad news about their teammates - bits of them are falling with the rain. And Alastor's just vanished. It's too bad, I liked Gates, from what little we saw of him. So, to sum up, our heroes are trapped in the 21st century, possibly infected by something nasty, and it's raining. What are they going to do now?

The verdict? Story - This feels like Legion Lost #235. It doesn't really introduce the team so much as drop them, fully formed, into the story and expect the reader to catch up. Right at the end, we seem to settle on the status quo for the new series, but I'm not sure how many people will have stuck with it that far. Art - pretty cool. The characters look distinctive, and the various chaotic action scenes are well handled. All in all - I'm reading these comics for new beginnings, and I'm fairly sure this is a continuation of something I haven't read. We don't really get a feel for the various characters - only Wolf shows any real glimmer of individuality - and I'm not really interested in coming back to learn more.

Grifter #1
Edmonson, Cafu, Gorder

The front-cover credits don't give full names, apparently because the penciller is just called "Cafu". That doesn't explain why the cover and the interior credits spell writer Nathan Edmondson's name in two different ways, though. The inker is Jason Gorder.

We open with Bob Harras, the editor-in-chief of DC Comics, making a cameo appearance as a passenger on a plane who's annoyed when a man in a hat barges past him. The man is mumbling about voices in his head, which is never a good sign, but it seems he's justified in this case - the voice he's picking up is coming telepathically from the innocent-looking woman next to him, who's secretly not human and is planning to kill him. She decides to do it now, and lunges at our hero, but he kills her first. He forces a flight attendant to open the door, but the flight attendant is also "one of them", and they fall out together.

Flashback to how this started. Our hero, Cole, is a conman. He's just successfully swindled another con artist out of a briefcase full of money, and he's on his way to catch a plane and rendezvous with his collaborator Gretchen. But on the way to the airport, he's grabbed by a weird creature. He wakes up strapped to a table, with a horrible thing looming over him. There are voices in his head. A normal-looking man mentally calls his 'brothers' to tell them that "one has escaped the transfer" and "the host body has escaped" and so forth. In a panic, Cole kills him. He runs for it, checking his watch and finding that seventeen minutes have passed while he was unconscious. What happened in that time?

He steals a hat, apparently thinking that this will make him unrecognisable, goes to the airport, catches his plane, jumps out of it, and here we are back where we came in. He kills the latest monster in mid-air, lands in the water, swims to shore and calls Gretchen. She's not happy. He's been gone for seventeen days, not minutes. She assumes he's betrayed her, and is determined to get back at him. Elsewhere, the army have identified the 'terrorist' who killed the people on the plane, and assign his brother, Max, to track him down. Poor old Cole hides in a graveyard, voices still very much in his head and everyone against him, and puts on a mask. Come and get me. He also says to himself "I want my seventeen hours back." Hours? What, is he splitting the difference between the seventeen minutes he thinks he was out, and the seventeen days Gretchen said? Where does 'seventeen hours' come from?

The verdict? Story - it's compelling. Creepy and mysterious, although I don't know how it's going to keep carrying on indefinitely. Art - a bit inconsistent, Cole looks different from one panel to the next, although if he's going to be wearing a mask from now on, that won't be too much of a problem. All in all - I like it. I'll stick with it, just to see where it goes.

Green Lantern #1
Geoff Johns, Doug Mahnke, Christian Alamy

Johns, who also wrote Justice League, writes another adventure of the Green Lantern, Mahnke pencils and Alamy inks - helped, apparently, by Tom Nguyen.

But we start with Sinestro, the big-red-headed enemy of the Green Lantern. It seems that although he betrayed the Green Lantern Corps long ago (for reasons of not liking the Guardians, he insists, and for the good of the universe rather than for reasons of being evil), a green ring has 'chosen' him again, so the Guardians make him a Green Lantern once more. The one Guardian who disapproves of this idea is killed by the others.

Back on Earth, it seems that Hal Jordan isn't a Green Lantern any more. He's somewhere in California, with a huge pile of unpaid bills, an impatient landlord and a tendency to still try to help people. He's also lost his job with the air force, and his old boss/girlfriend/apparently also former superhero is prepared to give him a job, but not as a pilot. They vaguely reference previous adventures they had in the past - she had a 'star sapphire ring', it seems, which sounds like she was a Blue Lantern.

They come in all colours of the rainbow, obviously. Back in space, Sinestro has an army of people with yellow Green Lantern rings. One of them takes exception to Sinestro wearing green, and has to be killed.

Back on Earth, Hal has a disappointing dinner-date with Carol, and comes home to find he's been evicted. And also, Sinestro is waiting for him. If you want your ring back, you'll do everything I say.

The verdict? Story - introduces our characters nicely, but it again feels like we're joining in half-way through an ongoing story. It's not a new beginning so much as a jumping-on point. But it leaves me wondering what'll happen next. Art - classic superhero stuff, very well drawn. Sinestro and Hal especially have distinctive facial expressions, and the action tells the story well. All in all - all these Lanterns are confusing me. I don't really sympathise with Hal enough to care what happens to him next, but I feel like I should give it a chance. I'll check out the next one.

Frankenstein, agent of S.H.A.D.E. #1
Jeff Lemire, Alberto Ponticelli

Lemire, who wrote Animal Man in last week's lot, writes this one too. Ponticelli draws.

No, really, Frankenstein is an agent of S.H.A.D.E. That pretty much tells you everything you need to know about this. It's silly. But actually, it takes a silly premise and plays it completely straight.

The town of Bone Lake, Washington, is attacked by monsters. Frankenstein (the monster, not the scientist) is called back from his holiday on the moon, and we're introduced to the new hi-tech headquarters of the Super Human Advanced Defence Executive. His father, who changes bodies every decade or so, is now a small girl, and fills Frank in on what's happened so far. Frankenstein's estranged wife was sent in to deal with it, but has disappeared. So now it's up to Frank and his new support team, the Creature Commandos, to fight the monsters.

There's a fish-woman, a werewolf, a vampire and a mummy. Like Frank, they've been created specifically to "tap into man's irrational fear of the unknown". Except the mummy, who is apparently an actual mummy. Anyway, they get to work fighting monsters and looking for surviving humans. In a somewhat anticlimactic cliffhanger, they find some.

The verdict? Story - It's daft, but it is fun, and it does have a proper story too. I rather like it. Art - I don't think it suits the story as well as it should. This calls for a more old-fashioned kind of artwork, more realistic-looking, to emphasise the weirdness of the central characters. It tells the story well enough, though it's not always easy to see what's happening. All in all - I have a weakness for silliness. Even deadly serious silliness. I'll stick with it.

Demon Knights #1
Paul Cornell, Diógenes Neves, Oclair Albert

Cornell shows his full range of writing ability by following last week's Stormwatch with something quite different. Neves pencils, Albert inks.

It's England again, but Camelot this time. There's an absolutely beautifully-drawn first page of (presumably) Sir Bedivere clutching Excalibur. He watches as Arthur is taken away in a ship by mysterious women, and then throws the sword back to the Lady of the Lake. However, one of the women, Xanadu, decides to try to change the story by diving in after it. Meanwhile, Merlin has the demon Etrigan captive, and is wondering what to do with him now Camelot's finished. He traps him within the body of a passing guy called Jason of Norwich.

Four centuries later, and Jason and Xanadu, both being immortal, have hooked up. They happen to be in a village that the Horde of the Questing Queen are heading for. In a pub, they bump into another immortal of their acquaintance, Vandal Savage, a huge, well, Vandal who's savage. Also in the pub happen to be the Shining Knight, Sir Ystin, who might actually be a woman, and another couple of unusual people called Al Jabr and Exoristos, who don't really get to do anything. There's also a mysterious figure on a horse nearby. But then the Horde break into the pub, the various magical types resist them, and the Queen decides to send in the dragons.

The verdict? Story - sword and sorcery only really works if it takes itself seriously. And this doesn't, really. It sets up the story nicely, although some characters show up so briefly that they go unnoticed. There's clearly more to come from them. Art - really quite epic in places, it's exactly right for the story. All in all - it's just not my thing. Admittedly there aren't any Dungeons and Dragons jokes in it yet, but it's the kind of comic that would have them, if you see what I mean. I'll stick to the present-day comics.

Deathstroke #1
Kyle Higgins, Joe Bennett, Art Thibert

Higgins writes, Bennett pencils, Thibert inks. The cover seems to write it as two words, Death Stroke, but inside the comic it's just the one.

Deathstroke is a tough guy. Super-powered mercenary who can do the impossible. Narrative captions tell us all this on the first page, and demonstrate it by illustrating him killing a man surrounded by armed guards in Moscow. It's very nicely drawn, but I can't help but see the scene as showing how rubbish the guards are, rather than how awesome Deathstroke is. They just stand there and don't even fire their guns!

Anyway, having established who he is, we see his boss Christoph assign him a new mission. He has to work with a group of annoying teenagers, and he's not happy about it, understandably. But the mission is to kill an arms dealer and steal his briefcase, all while he's safely aboard his private plane.

Luckily, Deathstroke is really cool, so he can jump from another plane onto the top of that one, cut his way in with a sword and confront the target. He turns out to have a plane full of monsters, but they only last one page before Deathstroke takes care of them. It turns out, though, that the target knew he was coming, and wanted him to have the briefcase. Deathstroke is surprised by the contents, which the reader doesn't get to see. Still, he goes ahead and blows up the plane, escaping dramatically with the aid of his support team.

They celebrate a job well done, but then Deathstroke kills them all. I mean, teenagers. Annoying ones, too. He has words with Christoph - he wants better work than bodyguarding and occasional assassinations, but it seems people think he's past it. Have to do something about that.

The verdict? Story - yes, he's cool. Even despite the idea that employers don't want him any more, Deathstroke is completely indestructible and infallible, which just doesn't make for a compelling story. There's really no hint as to how the series is going to develop, which at least makes me curious to see the next one, but it's not a character I can really care about. Art - good all the way through, it tells the story and depicts the violent action scenes nicely. All in all - It just spends a bit too much time telling us how cool he is. I don't really like him, I'm afraid.

Batwoman #1
J.H. Williams III, W. Haden Blackman

Williams and Blackman write the story between them, with Williams doing the art too.

Last week we had Batgirl, but this is a very different thing. Williams's art is watercolour-like and dreamy in the flashbacks that start the story. A scary ghost woman came into a house in Gotham City and stole three children. Batwoman arrived and fought the ghost woman, but couldn't stop her getting away with the kids. Batwoman is also rather spooky, with chalk-white skin and bright red hair.

Later on, the parents explain what happened to Detective Sawyer. She makes them feel worse by telling them that twelve children have been taken so far, and that she doesn't know if they'll ever find out what happened to them. As she's showing the parents out, she sees Kate Kane in the lobby. Kate's got chalk-white skin and bright red hair. I wonder if she knows anything about Batwoman?

Kate is mooning about a picture of dead police officer Renee Montoya, who she apparently had a relationship with. But she snaps out of it and asks Sawyer out on a date instead.

Then we turn the page, and I thought at first that it was Sawyer who was with Kate at her headquarters, but it's someone with slightly different hair, who's called Bette. She seems to be Kate's cousin, although it's not made entirely clear, and the base was built by Kate's dad. Bette is apparently a superhero called Flamebird, but Batwoman has decided to demote her to wearing a drab uniform and being called Plebe. They go out for some rooftop acrobatics training.

Meanwhile, in New York, a skeleton assigns a woman called Agent Chase to go and investigate what's going on in Gotham. They've given up on unmasking Batman, but they'd like to know who Batwoman is. A Colonel Kane has classified everything, apparently. Still, it seems to me that Kate Kane stands out in a crowd somewhat, so it surprises me that she manages to keep a secret identity.

Back in Gotham, Commissioner Gordon (he's a busy man) and Detective Sawyer are looking into a case of drowning, and Kate has a confrontation with her father the colonel. It seems she had a sister who he said was dead, but then she showed up as a supervillain. Soap operas should have plots like this. And then Batman shows up to have a chat with Batwoman on the final page. Batman's a busy man, too.

The verdict? Story - dark and weird, but the subplots are a little confusing. The central character is a real enigma, there's no attempt to explain who she is or what her story is, and yet there are references to her history with people like Flamebird that seem to assume we'll understand what it's all about. Art - varies from weird to extremely weird, but it makes a change from the rest of the comics out there. Batwoman herself is really striking, in jet black, chalk white and bright red, but since Kate Kane looks like that too, it's all a bit surreal. All in all - it doesn't really grab me. I think it's another one to keep an eye on and then come back to if and when it gets through the first storyline and shows signs of telling us what it's all about.

Batman and Robin #1
Peter J. Tomasi, Patrick Gleason, Mick Gray

Tomasi writes, Gleason pencils, Gray inks.

It's apparently Moscow, and someone is being chased by a Batman-like person, who describes himself as "an ally of the bat". However, they're both shot dead by an invisible someone or something, which describes itself as "nobody".

Meanwhile, in Gotham, Bruce Wayne promises his dead father that tonight's the night. He goes and wakes up his son, Damian. While they change into Batman and Robin, Bruce talks about his parents and Damian, an irritating child, is contemptuous of Batman's whole obsession with death. Batman takes Robin to the place where his parents were killed - it's the anniversary - and explains that he's going to stop obsessing about that, and from now on celebrate their wedding anniversary instead.

Why he needs to commemorate any anniversary of his late parents, I'm not sure, but Robin chips in with helpful comments like "Grief and remorse are a disease of the weak." He's a precocious as well as irritating ten-year-old. He also implies that his father wasn't around for most of his life, so presumably there's going to be some explanation some time as to why Batman now has a son. It doesn't come in this issue, though. Instead, they're called to a situation at Gotham University.

A gang are stealing something, but our heroes stop them, despite Robin not doing what he's told, and Batman spending more time telling him what to do than fighting. Robin chases the baddies as they escape, messes with their strange vehicle and makes them crash. Batman prevents the reactor from overloading, or something like that. Commissioner Gordon comes in to make his contractual appearance in every Batman-related comic, and Batman chides Robin for trying to kill the baddies. They seem to have escaped the crash, but Batman still isn't pleased.

Robin then makes the strange comment that "I'm not like Tim, or Jason, or even Dick. I'm light-years ahead of all the past Robins in skills and training." So let's get this straight - Batman has only been around for five or six years in this new universe of DC's, and he's already on at least his fourth Robin? What is he doing with them? And there's an epilogue with that Nobody person, resolving to visit Bruce Wayne.

The verdict? Story - Robin is so very annoying, it's hard to pick out any good points in this. It's standard Batman stuff. Art - quite cool, but Robin looks a lot more cartoony than the other characters, which gives quite a weird effect. All in all - hmm, it's one of about half a dozen Batman comics in the "new 52", and this isn't a very interesting one. I think I'll give it a miss. Until this latest Robin gets bumped off, anyway.