DC - Review - FA Online

Legion of Super-Heroes 8

I’ve always had a soft spot for the Legion of Super-Heroes. It was a series that was always aware of its own absurdity, with its multitudinous cast of members, all of whom had ridiculous names and often even more ridiculous powers.

Superman/Shazam! – The Return of Black Adam

Both Marvel and DC have been releasing straight-to-DVD animations of their characters for a few years now, with apparently variable results. This is the latest, a collection of shorts featuring a new Superman/Captain Marvel team up, along with previously released features starring The Spectre, Jonah Hex and Green Arrow.

Batman The Dark Knight 1

This is the first comic in a very long time that I have bought for the artist rather than writer – well, they are the same person, but I like his art a lot and had never read his writing. I guess the fact that Batman is a fresher proposition now than for ages helped incline me towards trying this, too.

Showcase Presents Doom Patrol 2

The team is more or less an attempt to do what Marvel did with the Fantastic Four (it’s all too easy to parallel the characters), but making it weirder, ending up more like the X-Men (who I believe debuted after the DP): the team are freaks and misfits, and the villains are weirdoes.

The Sandman

We don’t generally think of this as one of Kirby’s more notable works. When the character came back in the ’60s Earth-2 revivals, it was with the earlier gasmask costume, rather than the more conventional superhero outfit on show here. This work was just after S&K created Captain America. But it was a genuine hit…

Showcase Presents Our Army At War 1

I think this is the earliest material DC have reprinted in a Showcase volume – it starts in 1952. I guess this is partly because that’s where the series started, but the fact that it doesn’t look Golden Age must have helped the decision – the standard style for war comics doesn’t seem to have changed so much, and bar the odd racist exaggeration of the Japanese enemies, a lot of this would hardly look out of place today.

Power Girl 18

I’ve just sat down and read Power Girl 18 and I thank God that I’ve been following the JLA/JSA titles as well, because if I hadn’t I wouldn’t have understood the deeper story here.

House of Mystery Halloween Annual 2

I was looking for a ‘give it a go’ buy for the week, and this caught my eye. Pete Milligan, Mike Allred – yeah, surely worth a try.

The Return of Bruce Wayne

All credit to Grant for the way he has played Batman’s death. Yes, he gave us some ‘he really is dead’ stuff in the wonderful Final Crisis series where Batman and Darkseid kill each other, with Superman carrying the clearly dead body. However, he also ended the series with a clear statement that he isn’t dead, that he is now somehow lost in the depths of the past.

The Extremist

The Extremist was a four issue limited series from Vertigo in the early 1990s that they have now reissued as part of their Vertigo Resurrected line. Set in San Francisco, the book concerns itself with the Order, an organisation of Sadeans with outré sexual urges.