Rapid Reviews - 26 October 2005 - Part I

Ha! I'm actually doing reviews for books that came out THIS WEEK! Ha!

The Flash #227: "The Last Days": Nice little adventure. I liked the future Flash twins at the beginning, but I'm glad that was all we had to see of them. Nice cliffhanger, too, although folks laughing menacingly aren't that frightening. Wiki.

Wonder Woman #222: "Blood Debt": Diana turns herself in. The contrast with Cheetah could have been good, but didn't work too well for me. It just was too drawn out and too wordy. The Cheetah bits distracted from the more interesting story of Diana wanting to make up for her murder. And I guess my favorite bit was definitely the Etta side of the story. About superhero average. Wiki.

JLA: Classified #13: "New Maps of Hell" Part Four: I'm not entirely sure what's happening here. Some demon thing. I wish I liked this better. But I don't like it much. Wiki.

JSA: Classified #4: "Power Trip Part IV of IV": No real resolution to this one, as part of it has to be resolved in Infinite Crisis. At least we sort of have a bit of an idea who Power Girl is. Um. Maybe. If it's true. Wiki.

Solo #7: "Michael Allred": There were some decent stories in this one, even if Aqualad was severely mistreated. The Hourman tale was probably the best. Not my favorite of the Solo books, but a good one. Wiki.

Wizard of Oz (Puffin Graphic Novel): This has got to be one of the most faithful, if not the most faithful, adaptations of the original book by L Frank Baum I've ever seen. Admittedly, I'm a newbie as far as Oz fandom goes, but this is a magnificent work. Michael Cavallaro should be proud of this one. The character choices he makes are a bit different than most, and I do have a small issue with his Tin Man, but it's very very small and is more than made up for by the other excellent touches, including having the real ending to the book instead of cutting it off at the Emerald City. There's also some nice supplementary material at the end of the book. This one is definitely a winner.