What I Bought 6/25/2011 - Part 2

We're not going to quite stick to the comics I promised yesterday. 2/3rds as promised, but we'll visit the 1930s later.

Batgirl #22 - Surprised they didn't go with an "Out of Time!" blurb on the cover.

Stephanie's in England for some Batman Inc. case. For some reason, it's been set-up for Squire (of Knight and Squire) to pick Steph up and get her where she needs to be. Beryl instead opts to show Steph around London until they come across The Orphan and his gang trying to steal the Greenwich Mean. Which is used to plug a seal in time naturally. The Orphan does manage to draw the sword (of course it's a sword), which freezes everyone except him and his gang (who are wearing special devices). And Steph and Beryl, who were zapped by the chronitons emitted by the sword. They save the day, which earns Steph no leniency with Batman, who is pissy about her arriving at her hotel room several hours late. I still hate BruceBats so much, folks.

I've never read anything with Squire in it before, so I have no idea if this is a portrayal in line with past appearances. I did like her as she was presented. Good at what she does, stays calm, but has fun with it too. Now I'd like to see her team up with Cass Cain, just for a different experience from working with Stephanie. I also have no idea if British people talk as they are depicted here, but I'm considering the idea Squire was just having some fun, playing at the stereotypes. Pere Perez returns for the art chores and handles things quite well. I'm not sure about using the sword as a panel border for two pages, especially while the Orphan is running around with it inside the panels, but points for trying to do something different.

Darkwing Duck #13 - Darkwing and Launchpad are visiting various mystics in hopes of locating Morgana, who vanished after banishing Duckthulu. Unfortunately, all the seers are a bunch of losers, and DW is slipping into depression. In other news a pitcher has gone slightly 'round the bend in his efforts to keep the hitters guessing. He receives a package, a coat from which he can draw practically any object, which he can then throw. Naturally, he becomes the new super-villain One-Shot, and calls out the downtrodden Darkwing. Round 1 goes to the villain, but Round 2 goes to our hero, who outsmarts the, the, . . . crap. I can't come up with a good alliterative description. "Highly-unpredictable hurler?" Ugh. Anyway, Darkwing makes a decision on the last page that, as Gosalyn notes, cannot possibly end well.

Another winner. One-Shot makes for a convincing villain for a single issue, but he also served to either set-up a new subplot, or advance an old one. Not sure which of those the being who provided the coat will turn out to be. Silvani continues to have fun with drawing weird stuff, since One-Shot could throw literally anything, including a canister of the radioactive ooze that created the Ninja Turtles! Who's up for a crossover?

What? Just me? Fine, forget you guys.

Power Man and Iron Fist #5 - The evil Penance Corp leader uses Power Man to lure Iron Fist into a trap, then tries to have him killed by unleashing lots of convicts. Yes, ordinary crooks will bring down Danny Rand. Brilliant plan. Regardless of its stupidity, Danny's thwarted even more by calling in some backup. No, not the Avengers. Or the Heroes for Hire. Turns out Noir was not who Victor or I thought she was, but we did learn something about Tiowa (and she learned Vic's a super-hero. We'll see how that goes). All the different pieces of the mystery are wrapped up and it's a relatively happy ending.

Wellinton Alves work looked rushed. Certain the level of detail I remember from Nova wasn't there, which is disappointing. I think the book could have looked better. I'll have to sit down and reread the whole mini-series because I'm not sure it holds together. It almost feels like van Lente threw too many threads in, then didn't have enough time to build them properly. It's been over a month since I read any of the earlier issues, though, so that feeling might go away if I take the whole thing in one sitting. I think Jonah Jameson needs to ease off the anti-vigilante stance. When your bias is being counted on as part of villain's schemes, that's a sign it's time to reevaluate. This was the weakest of the three books from today, but it was still OK, so that's not too bad.

Tomorrow, the last issue of a series, the second part of a mini-series, and a comic about amoral people doing harsh things to people that aren't them.