What I bought 3/8/06

This. . . was a crappy week for comics. That has been somewhat nullified by the hilarity of watching Ken try to patch up his falling ceiling tiles with duct tape. White duct tape, so that it matches the ceiling. Anyway, two books, spoiler warnings.

Teen Titans #33 - I'm going to change the format for this review. I'll give the score, explain it, and then recap, so you can decide for yourself, because I have a severe bias on this one, OK? Here we go.

0 out of 5. I CAN NOT HANDLE ANYMORE INFINITE CRISIS TIE-IN ISSUES! Would One Year Later hurry up and get here already? I'm about to kill something. Those polar bears and racoons I was ranting about over at 2 Guys Buying Comics are about to be sent DC's way. And you don't want to look out your window and see machine-gun wielding racoons riding in sidecars that are attached to a polar bears' flanks. That's Death right there.

So, this is the follow up to Nightwing's really successful call to arms from Infinite Crisis #5. You know, where he was going to rally all the troops, because people still liked him, as opposed to that prick of a mentor he had? Yeah, that. So he and Superboy are ready to go to work. Nightwing sports an older outfit - with glider wings - and Superboy is still reeling from the ass-kicking Whiny-Bitch Superboy gave him. I say Harley Quinn and Plastic Man have a better chance of stopping Alex Luthor, but no one asked me.

So they're heading north, and we get lots of inner monologue about how neither one really understands the other, which is eventually resolved by talking about their lives. We don't see most of this; we just get the part where Superboy outlines the problems he's having working with Nightwing, and some dorky thing where the crystal Luthor gave Conner "reacts to emotional memories". The actual conversing/understanding is dealt with in one panel as they continue to fly north. Ugh.

I suppose this is meaningful because each one tries to live up to a hero. While Conner is still struggling to move out of Superman's shadow (and away from Luthor's I suppose), Grayson has gotten out from under the shadow of the Bat. He's at the stage Superboy wants to reach. Good luck with that, kid. Can't see DC Editorial letting it happen. At this moment, I can't say how long this book has post-OYL before I drop it. Probably three months. By that time, I'll know what DC has done with Cassandra Cain, and depending on the answer, I may want nothing to do with DC anyway.

Ultimate Spider-Man #91 - The start of a new arc. Will it be good? Who knows. Kitty helps Peter catch a criminal. A lame-wigger-wannabe version of the Ringer. He's defeated and made fun of by Kitty, as is her right. She also learns that in Spider-Man's world, cops are to be avoided, lest you get arrested. See that's the great thing about this relationship, they're learning new things. In the X-Men, you don't worry about getting arrested, because the cops are running from the "mutie freaks" along with everyone else.

Because it's a Bendis book, there is talking. Kitty needs a codename to go with the outfit, since she wants to date Peter publicly, and Shadowcat dating Peter Parker and helping Spider-Man will tip off the three people in the world (Aunt May, Jameson, and that dude in Tibet) who haven't figured out Peter is Spider-Man. Anyway, the codename. Just call her "Sprite". It's got mainstream Marvel history, and sure it's lame, but with that outfit what does she expect? Kitty also tries to get Peter to tell Aunt May he's Spider-Man. After Aunt May's recent outburst about Spider-Man, Peter is a little reluctant.

Kitty catches a remote-controlled jet to the X-mansion, and gets ambushed. Peter swings back by, sees another jet there, hops in, and goes to the X-Mansion. This is where that learning thing I mentioned comes in. See, Peter's about to learn that when you're school doubles as your home, it's just that much easier for you to get attacked by crazy people. There, he once again shows a remarkable ability to forget that the buzzing he gets in his skull is a signal to get the hell away, right now! We see Deadpool, and a bunch of people that. . . I have no idea who these losers are. Some Ultimatized versions of lameass giant '90s X-crossover cannon fodder, I suppose.

That being said, this could be good. I'm hopeful this isn't going to cause a breakup of Peter and Kitty, but will continue the relationship, and maybe convince Peter that Aunt May needs to know where the heck he is at night. If nothing else, the challenge of writing two characters with the naturally chatty tendencies of Spider-Man and Deadpool may cause Bendis' brain to short out. Then we'd get a book of nothing but fight scenes, drawn by Mark Bagley! Horrors! Or, Bendis would have to write fewer books to compensate. Might I suggest letting go of New Avengers, Mr. Bendis? 3 out of 5.