What I Read, 12/21

I'm getting this out of the way first. Yes I read Infinite Crisis #3 but I'm not reviewing it. There are plenty of people who actually understand what's going on who will do that. Really, the only thing related to it I care about is whether The Ray survives or not. Everything else I already know from the March covers.

X-Factor #1 - Yeah it came out last week, but I just got a copy today, so I'm reviewing it now. So Jamie Madrox formed a detective agency with Siryn, Guido, Wolfsbane, and now he's trying to stop Rictor (who has lost his powers) from throwing himself off a building by offering him a job. I'm actually very intrigued by this book, and given that I've never cared about any of these characters before in my life, that tells me something about it. 5 duplicates out of 5.

Batgirl #71 - The worst moment of today came as I was flipping through some book, probably Generation M #2, and Ken Murphy, who owns Marvels & Legends walks by to pick up some book or the other for someone's pull list. I'm not sure how it came up, but less than 1 foot from me he says, "Man, I hate this Batgirl." I couldn't even stifle the sound of pain that emerged. The aggravating thing is that his only reason is he's an old fogey who likes Barbara Gordon, because she's 'his' Batgirl, the same way Hal Jordan is 'his' Green Lantern. Yeah, it's a banner year for Ken and their old characters. To me, that's a bullshit reason, so I'll be giving him some crap when I come in on Friday to talk sports. Can you say "Derek Jeter is so overrated?" Well, he is, so there.

Anyway, Cassandra is trying to lead some of Shiva's former disciples out of the forest that surrounded Nyssa A'Ghul's fortress, which Mr. Freeze destroyed last issue. I'll diverge here by saying I liked that they revived Nora Freis, but not that she was given power over the dead. She should either have been normal, or the resurrection failed. Oh, well, I suppose she's Batman's problem now. The rest of the disciples are being sent after Batgirl by Shiva, which seems like a punk move to me, seeing as Shiva is supposed to be "the best". Fight your own battles, wuss! Wolverine calls himself the best, and you know what, he doesn't send Shadowcat out to fight Sabretooth for him. Hell no! He does it himself. Shiva lost to Cassandra in their last fight, meaning she's the challenger, she's the one with something to prove and fighting an exhausted opponent proves nothing except that you're an opportunist. And a wuss.

The story gets interrupted a few times by some sort of a fairytale type thing talking about Cain's decision to have a child and Cassandra's life on the run. It feels a bit out of place, but I think Gabrych is tying into the first issue in Bludhaven, where Cassandra talks about the time Nightwing told her the story about Cinderella. I think he's tying in to it to let us know it won't be a happy ending for Cass, in which case I am going to SEVERELY PISSED at DC. By the end, Cassandra has a whole new problem to deal with, though why the preview for the next issue tries to be coy about who it is I don't know. I had it figured immediately, and by the looks of it, so did Batgirl. And through it all, Shiva's still just sitting back watching. 4 "Shiva's a cowardly little punk"s out of 5.

Robin #145 - This is the best issue of Robin in months. That's still not saying much, but it does a good job of putting Robin on his own, even when surrounded by other characters. So he, Blue Devil, Ragman, and Warlock's Daughter are fighting SIXTY meta-humans that weren't killed by the OMACs. Given the numbers, the heroes get split up and each winds up fighting on their own, which is good for me. Robin is a solo character now, and should be treated as such. The story has amusing interludes of the Veteran and his crew trying to get across town to help Robin, with hilarious results. My only real problem with the issue? It still feels like filler. Willingham probably wants to have Tim make his decision about whether he stays by the Bat or joins the Veteran, but DC wants to hold that as a surprise for One Year Later, so Willingham just has to kill time, until the next writer comes along. So first you get OMACs, then the Shadowpact, now the Teen Titans. That hurts the score giving this 3 time fillers out of 5.

Generation M #2 - I didn't buy this book but I skimmed it, and was saddened to see an appearence by one of my favorite characters. Stacy X, introduced during Casey's run on Uncanny X-Men, shows up. She's not one of the few mutants who retained her powers, and so she's just another aging 'lady of the evening'. That really bummed me out, and I'll probably talk more about who I'm mad at about this on Thursday or Friday, but it was still a good issue. I remember someone commenting on the last issue of House of M, that they wondered why there had been no depiction of mutants who were happy not being mutants anymore. All the students leaving Xavier's were sad or angry. This book gives you people who are happy, like a guy who can play normal basketball to see how good he really is. Turns out he's not that good, but he doesn't care. And you see people like Stacy, whose life has gone in toilet since losing their powers. Oh yeah, and someone is running around killing the few remaining mutants. 5 out of 5.

Wow, I was pretty happy this week. Or else I've simply lowered my standards for the Christmas season. Or I'm just happy to see a Marvel team book where something happens. Or I'm just trying to savor the last few Batgirl's before DC kicks me in the nuts. . . again.