What I Bought 2/15/06

Only two books this week. One of those is Batgirl #73, the final issue of the series. I will be spoiling parts of it. If that is a problem, skip down to my other review, and I'll do my best not to give anything away in any other posts until at least Sunday. OK?

Batgirl #73 - Let's just pause a moment, give people time to scroll down past this review. So how's your week going? In the labs I teach, they're learning about bacteria this week. So they got to play with fire! Fun! OK, that should be long enough.

Cassandra isn't dead. I can't express how happy I am. I'm sure DiDio can't either, since this means I won't be jamming a rabid weasel down his espohagus. We do get to find out the whole story behind Cassandra's conception in two parts. First, a little discussion Cass has with Spoiler on the Other Side, where Cassandra also learns the fate of Bludhaven. Second, from Lady Shiva herself.

Anyway, Shiva wants to have it out with Cassandra once and for all, to really see if she and Cain succeeded in their attempt. She raises something interesting when she points out all these gadgets that are in Cass' belt, all from Batman, and Cass uses almost none of them. It reminded me of when she came to Bludhaven, she teamed up with Robin. At one point, he brings out a thermal sensor, and Cassandra wonders if she even has one of those. The gadgets, weapons, tricks that are part of being in the Bat-family, just don't fit with her.

Anyway, Cassandra and Shiva do battle, it goes all the way, and Cassandra moves on. I'm not sure what role she's going to fill now. A member of the Birds of Prey seems unlikely, and to an extent, I could see her becoming DC's version of the Scourge, or a version of the Red Hood that doesn't, you know, suck. She's crossed that line, knowingly, and she can't ever go back again. So I'm intrigued. In this context, the book ending makes sense; she isn't Batgirl anymore, can't be really. What is she? I have no real idea. Also, I want to say I'm glad Mhan was back on the book with the pencils. He's not the greatest artist, but he's quite good enough, especially since I can actually follow what's going on in the fight scenes. 5 "I'm just so happy she isn't dead" out of 5.

So where was I? Oh yeah, they get to play with fire because you have to heat kill the bacteria. Did you know some yogurt has live bacteria in it? And people eat it that way? What the hell? I'm sure this is where someone points out milk and cheese also have live bacteria in them, and I swear off dairy products. OK, I think we can safely assume people won't be seeing the score and getting the issue spoiled for them that way.

New Avengers #16 - So, almost no appearence of the actual Avengers. It's a prologue, so I can almost cut it some slack. So, apparently the events of the House of M have caused some being to be really powerful. I'm sorry, I thought that was the whole point of X-Men:Deadly Genesis. The guy in that book got all the weird energy that was released by mutants' powers being taken. So what, there's going to be a whole horde of them now? Goddamnit, Marvel just keeps making things worse. The story starts with Tony Stark arguing with Commander Hill, who isn't happy she wasn't informed the Avengers were going public ahead of time. Sure because telling Jameson about it beforehand worked out so well for them last issue. Cue huge new threat.

So SHIELD tries to deal with the threat, which starts in Alaska, and moves into Canada. It smacks around some SHIELD jets (BOOM), and proceeds to annihilate Alpha Flight. Cripes. I swear that Alpha Flight gets less respect than the Great Lakes Avengers.

Thus, Commander Hill is ordered by the President to send in the Avengers, which she really doesn't want to do, seeing as she doesn't like them very much. But, none of the other teams are available, so there you go. For now, I'm going to cut this book some slack, but there had damn well better be some Avengering in the next issue. This book is really on the edge for me right now. I already got Exiles and X-Factor as superior Marvel team books and New Excaliber is right there. Bendis, it's time to earn that check. 3 out of 5.