What I Bought 1/22/2013 - Part 2

Let's step over to the DC side of things today. All three of these books shipped in January, but one is a December release. This also marks the end of my time reading Green Arrow.

Batman Beyond Unlimited #11, by Adam Beechen (writer), Norm Breyfogle (artist), Andrew Elder (colorist), Saida Temofonte (letterer) for "10,000 Clowns: Dark City"; J.T. Krul (writer), Howard Porter (pencils), Livesay (inks), Carrie Strachan (colors), Saida Temofonte (letters) for the Superman story; Derek Fridolfs & Dustin Nguyen (writers), Ben Caldwell (artist), Saida Temofonte (letterer) for "Beyond Origin: Barda" - On first glance at that cover, I couldn't figure out where the Joker King's left foot was. Then I realized most of his shoe was white, so it was blending into the background.  I do like McGinnis' blood forming his shadow on the ground.

Let's see, Wayne can't stop the Joker King, but he does get through to Terry, who rushes to the rescue. And promptly gets his butt kicked by the Joker King, too. Meanwhile, Doug's been prattling on about how he reached this point. Blah, blah, vision, blah, blah, gullible sheep. On the good news front, Drake figured out how to deactivate the explosions, so no more stuff going boom. Grayson has an inkling that something may be wrong, but no telling if he'll figure it out yet. Not sure why he and the others didn't hear Wayne's message, too. Their radios are all supposed to be set on the same frequency. I thought Beechen's dialogue for Wayne drifted too far into Frank Miller territory for a minute there. That seems more appropriate for Vigilante. Catwoman constantly hitting on Dick Grayson is amusing. I think Breyfogle's expressive work with McGinnis is best when his face is in shadows, and you can just see the eyes. Breyfogle makes that work, the small amounts of light against the shadows. Also, the sequence with the Dee Dees, especially their sheepish reaction to their bombs not detonating.

In the Superman story, we get the Trillians reason for wanting Superman dead. I suspect it's a rather jaundiced account. Their first attempt to kill him fails, so they're gonna call in Lobo. Oh boy.

Moving on, we get Barda's history, though about half of it is her mother's history. Her mother's name was Breeda? Um, OK. She was friends with the lady who became Granny Goodness, until she hid Barda's existence from granny, at which point Breeda lost her daughter. Probably the best thing that could have happened to Barda in the long run, since being a Fury is how she met Scott, and decided to leave Apokolips.

I like the repetition of certain images or poses. The relationship between Breeda and Barda's father represented by their shadows against a wall as troops march past, and Barda and Scott's being shown the same way. Also, the way Breeda leaps at Granny one the first page (when they're children), compared to her attack when Granny takes Barda. It's also similar to Mercy's attack on Granny, which ended the same way as Breeda's second attempt. Each of the origin stories has had its own artist, and each has their own style, but they all have enough similarity they don't feel out of place compared to Nguyen's art. There hasn't been a photorealistic artist in the group so far, which is good. It wouldn't really fit the look. It's kind of the issue I have with Porter's work. It isn't photorealistic, but it's needlessly busy compared to Nguyen or Breyfogle, and his hyper-muscled Superman doesn't bear much resemblance to Nguyen's more slimmed down version.

Dial H #8, by China Mieville (writer), Alberto Ponticelli (pencils), Dan Green (inks), Tanya & Richard Horie (colorists) - Jeez, I'm only the second book now? Freaking anthologies.

Nelson and Roxie arrive in Toronto. Nelson dials up as soon as he can in the hopes of drawing out the dial user. Which he does, but the guy doesn't seem to have much control. Then again, Nelson was having some trouble remembering whether he's Nelson, Flame War, or Manteau. He doesn't succeed in making friends with the other dial user, and the Human Centipede catches sight of him, tracks him, and swipes the dial away. That can't possibly end well, especially since he may be planning to go into business for himself.

This wasn't my favorite issue. There's a lot of incremental movement. The possibility the Centipede's about to go rogue. The hallucinations Nelson had as Flame War, unless they weren't hallucinations. I suppose I should have guessed O stood for "Operator", but now I'm curious as to how Centipede's people know that. So there's a lot of little things. Alberto Ponticelli stepped in as artist, which is a pretty severe shift from Lapham, but it's a move more back in the direction of Santolouco's art, which I won't complain about. I'm not sure if his hero designs will have quite the manic energy of Santolouco's, but Trash Talk might be a promising sign. I want to see an angry trash can fight crime with smack talk.

Green Arrow #16, by Ann Nocenti (writer), Freddie Williams II (artist), Allen Passalaqua (colorist), Rob Leigh (letterer) - Is Ollie fighting Mitch Shelly on that cover? When did Mitch decide to start shanking people? I guess learning the truth about himself made him become a jerk again!

Ollie fends off Harrow's boys, then the cops show up. Harrows off to jail, everything's great. Then Gloria shows up with word Pike (the kid that fought the dog) is going to blow himself and Harrow's warehouse full of explosives up. Ollie manages to talk Pike down, but then Harrow shows up, so he and Ollie gotta fight. Ollie wins the fight, then makes sure everyone escapes the warehouse safely. He's still not too happy, which seems to disappoint the jogger lady who shows up twice in this issue.

For the last issue of a run, this feels inconclusive. The head injury is still getting mentioned (even if the art fails to depict this bloody spot on the back of Ollie's head Harrow references), but not paying off. It's an odd place to leave him. Ollie seems convinced that not only is he broke, he's lost his friends. Which couldn't certainly be true, but I'd like to have seen it happen, rather than rely on his sketchy self-awareness and some comments they made last issue. Ollie saved everyone from the immediate danger, even found out Pauline Pearl (from issue 10) is now grateful to Ollie for saving her, but it doesn't seem to do much for him. I think it's supposed to be the realization of how little he's really helped Pike by "saving" him that bums him out. He's butting up against the limits of what he can do as Green Arrow, and realizing he could do a lot more if he hadn't pissed away his fortune chasing skirts.