Power Girl #17 - The actual cover says at the bottom "Enter: Batman!" Except Batman showed up in last month's issue, so he entered then. The other thing I noticed is the use of two little triangles for the colon. It fits with how pointy practically all the other letters are, but it looks a little strange. The triangles point downwards, so it's almost a map telling you that after you read the word "Enter", read down the page, not up.Batman helps Power Girl track down Benjamin Vitale, the 6th most prosperous arms dealer in the world. He sold the device which merged with the 3rd most prosperous arms dealer in #14 to become a big purple guy for Power Girl to fight. He confirms he left the device in Antarctica for a week, which sends Power Girl down there, which is how the story gets back around to the fight she was having at the start of #16, a fight which takes up the second half of this issue, and ends with Power Girl meeting a dark-haired copy of herself. I think. It's more a Super-Adaptoid thing than a clone thing, I think.
This was actually my favorite issue of Winick's work on the book so far, but that's entirely based on the first half, where Power Girl teams up with Batman. There were a couple of humorous bits - such as an armored goon trying to blast Power Girl in the face at point blank range, and the result of that - and I found the back-and-forth between Peej and Grayson entertaining, along with how their styles compliment each other. There was a panel on page 3 where she thinks to herself how Grayson actually seems to enjoy fighting crime (in comparison to Bruce Wayne), and I'm not sure if Basri was supposed to draw Grayson smiling or what. He's not scowling, and the corner of his mouth might be turned up in a slight smile (or I might be projecting), but it isn't an image that screams out "Character is having fun!"
The problem was the latter half of the issue, where Power Girl constantly yelling at Nicco to provide some intel on who she was fighting, and Nicco babbling uselessly for multiple panels got old real quick. It made the fight feel like it was on a loop, though the fight itself didn't help. Both combatants keep hitting each other, gaining and losing the advantage for a page or so at a time, but the fight seems static. Power Girl comments that her opponent is getting faster and stronger, but she doesn't seem to be presenting anymore of a problem for Power Girl than she did at the start. Half of a good issue is still better than none, though it isn't enough to keep the book on my pull list. Five months was more than enough time for Winick/Basri to convince me to stay, and they couldn't do it.
Secret Six #26 - Do Bane's proportions seem off on that cover? I can't decide whether his head is too big for his shoulders, or his arms are too long for his legs. I think his arms look too long because he's sort of hunched over. Also, the knife and the huge moon behind him are making me think of Texas Chainsaw movies. Which doesn't make much sense, as he doesn't have a chainsaw, but Bane as Leatherface worked in my brain somehow. If one was going to go for that - and I don't know if Luvisi is - October's the right month for it.Waller learns from Spy Smasher why Bane's team was sent to Skartaris. At least we know why they cut Waller out of their decision-making: she wouldn't go along with it as readily as Spy Smasher. Bane's group has conquered one group of people, who provide an overview of the political climate, which I assume was established in that Grell Warlord series that was going recently, or maybe it's from the original Grell Warlord stuff. Tremor leads the other Six into Skartaris, provides some information on the geography and wildlife, is unnerved by Shirtless Catman, then saves Shirtless Catman from a creature that looks like a combination of an octopus and those angler fish that live in the ocean depths. The two teams meet, the two teams fight. Some of them fight anyway, as Bane refuses to fight Scandal, and in fact helps her win, which, wow, did not see that coming.
Deadshot's figured out who the current Mockingbird is, so that might simplify things for when Luthor hires them, though I'm curious to see what Deadshot might do when he gets back home. I'm not sure about Catman's mental state. One moment he seems feral, unable to recognize anyone, the next he seems in control. Not chatty, but able to walk calmly next to his teammates. Maybe the feral bit is only supposed to be coming over him in battle, in which case it'll be interesting to see how things go next issue, since he was trying to kill Dwarfstar the last we saw of him in this comic.
Thanos Imperative #5 - Can Gladiator fire beams from his hands? Looks like he's getting ready to on the cover, and I wasn't aware he had that power. The look on Quasar's face is a bit strange, I'm not sure how to describe it.First off, I was right about something! Cancerverse Scarlet Witch is working against Mar-Vell, and accepts her incredibly painful death to send Thanos and the Guardians to where they need to go to perform the Necropsy. My being right about that would be more impressive if I hadn't read the Realm of Kings one-shot, I admit, but it's so rare I make a prediction that's right, let me enjoy it for a moment. Moment's over. The assembled honchos of the Marvel's space empires tell us the fight goes badly, as things even more powerful than the "Galactus Engine" are waiting to burst into the Marvel Universe. Then all the leaders engage in a round of Insult Star-Lord, at which point Nova decides he's going find and help Star-Lord, to hell with the rest of them. I love that, how casually he blows off Medusa when she orders him to stay. Afte everything he's been through, Richard Rider takes orders from no one. He does lend Quasar some Nova Force to help out at the front lines. The last page of the issue would appear to be very bad news for the Marvel Universe, whether Nova makes it there to help the Guardians or not.
I was disappointed it doesn't look like Namorita will get to take much of a hand in the fighting. I don't want her to get killed again, so perhaps it's for the best, but Rich could have loaned her a little Nova Force too. She has more combat experience than any of the Nova Corps rookies he asked Quasar to lead. As last page cliffhangers go, I don't think this one worked quite as well for me as #3's apparent Thanos death (which didn't take). It definitely had me going "Oh, crap!" for a moment, but this is Thanos we're talking about, so my mind quickly came up with less dire explanations than the obvious one. One thing I realized while I was reading this is I'm enjoying it much more than I thought I would. I was afraid I was into diminishing returns territory with Cosmic Marvel events, but I think this has been my favorite one since Annihilation.
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