A Sunday Comic Books Review

Here are reviews of the DCBS comic books that I've gotten around to reading and reviewing, sorted by the original shipping date:

• Oct 4th
• Justice League #30 - Well, now. I was expecting Wonder Woman - as were the children apparently. Regardless of how this story turns out, the timeline the children are from has been destroyed. What is going to happen to them? Time travel is so finicky and dangerous. The curse on Aquaman was intense. No wonder he's so cranky. There was a Golden Age story in which Aquaman became allergic to water, but this sounds hundreds of times worse.
• Green Lanterns #32 - Pancakes? Well, eventually. I'm not sure why Simon would go to a diner with Jessica if he knew there was a party going on right then that he wanted to attend. Nor does it make sense for him to drag someone with severe social anxiety into that sort of situation. She didn't complain much, but that's just not right.
• Usagi Yojimbo #162 - The key witness manages to get the key information to Usagi, who acts on it, as is typical for him. The result is justice - but the question remains of who the killer was and why he took the actions he did.
• The Tick 2017 #1 - It seems like forever since I've read any new Tick. I know there's been some, but they were lackluster, in my opinion. This? Worthy of the name. I mean, murder clowns and ninjas and the Tick speaking in French for no apparent reason? Lovely. And the possibility of seeing an origin story for the Tick? Even better.


• Oct 11th
• Bombshells United #3 - Um. Did Diana sacrifice herself by getting eaten by Clayface? That's... that's disgusting. And oddly symmetrical, as she notes.
• Scooby Apocalypse #18 - Hrm. Apparently in this universe, Montana and Washington state share a border. I wonder what happened to Idaho? Aside from that little oddness, the story moves along nicely in this issue, with Scrappy maybe dying and maybe not to save the others. The Secret Squirrel back-ups are pretty awful, and I stopped reading during the second one.
• Back To The Future #23 - Marty has so thoroughly messed up the past I'm not entirely sure this is something that can be fixed. I just wonder if the fact that Joey is still going to jail will salvage any of the chaos. And what the heck happened to the DeLorean?
• Spongebob Comics #73 - Definitely the Halloween issue. It starts with a ghost story and pranks, continues with the silly scares, and ends with a haunted penny of all things. Again, fun stuff, but no Mermaid Man. Although Mama Krabs's Knitting Room of Nightmares made me giggle.


• Oct 18th
• Aquaman #29 - Well, now. More progress is being made in this story. I loved the shade's response to Vulko, though it seems odd that he can talk with no face. Vulko fits in with those protectors... he ought to go down and chat with them more often. As for Dolphin and Arthur - interesting chat they had about the difference between a hero and a king. Then there's the Tempest story, which was hinted at in Titans. I noticed him ripping the necklace away during the fight, and wondered if that was because it would give him more power or something. Little did I guess its true purpose. And lastly... Murk. That was oddly satisfying. Yup, still want to read the next issue badly. This series has made me happier than I've been with the book in years, and the last few writers weren't bad at all.
• Batman: The Drowned #1 - Um. Ok. I'm not really all that sure what just happened there, but I'm also not sure I need to know. It's a crossover that involves a bunch of bats, and this particular bat happened to fight Aquawoman of Earth-11 and turned herself into an Aquabat, which is so utterly ridiculous I'm not even laughing. Since I didn't buy other parts of the crossover, I'll just read the reviews to see what happens next - if I ever feel any curiosity about it.
• Justice League #31 - Ok, I really don't get time travel. However, my assumption is that when they return to "their" future, the threat will be gone completely, since it followed them into the past. Therefore, they will be able to rebuild in their alternate universe. So it'll be another piece of the multiverse. As for the rest, lovely and heartbreaking on so many levels. A nice conclusion to the story.
• Titans #16 - A death, a psychic backlash, a memory dump (literally) and now - please tell me we aren't going back to the days of a billion different versions of Donna Troy. This issue was one big fight, and so it's a little underwhelming, even with the pathos and all.
• Green Lanterns #33 - Jobs. Employment. This one hits me hard. Jessica is healing from her anxiety. Anyway, how do you save people who don't want to be rescued? And what's going to happen now that disaster has struck the support rescue ship? Nicely set up so I want to read the next issue.
• Teen Titans Go #24 - Well, at least Aqualad appeared in both stories. I was reminded again that I'm not the target audience for this book. Sometimes I really like them, most of the time I'm just a bit underwhelmed. This time I was underwhelmed.
• Bombshells United #4 - So Clayface is converted into... something else. But what did they do to the people in Los Angeles? What sort of magic is being used to force people to confront reality? I still feel like this bit of the storyline is a bit clumsy. Perhaps the fight with a legion of Clayfaces will make it better.
• Astro City #48 - Sometimes reading can be traumatic. This story manages to fit into that category, while at the same time being comforting. I was not expecting the ending, but I saw the demise of Hank coming since the end of last issue. It was done beautifully and I particularly liked the way the Pet Patrol comforted Andy after. As usual, a really good issue of a really good comic book.
• Wonder Woman/Conan #2 - So, Yanna seems to be from an Amazonian-like tribe, but I'm not sure Diana is Yanna. I think we're supposed to be wondering exactly how Wonder Woman is in Conan's reality. I'm just gonna sit back and continue to enjoy the story.
• Doctor Strange #26 - This issue is another solid story about Doctor Strange's world. It resonates with both magic and the history of the character and works both as a fun comic book adventure and a continuation of the ongoing story. In other words, now that stupid crossover is gone, we're back to some excellent stories.


• Oct 25th
• Teen Titans #13 - Oooo, the Bainbridge Island ferry during rush hour! I've been there! I guess I'll always give the side-eye to any moving trucks on the ferry from now on. Red Arrow has her head on straight, and I really enjoyed seeing her burn that little twit, Damian. She has a very nice point - he was alone. And what's this nonsense about him creating the team? It was around long before he was and even had a different leader just before he joined. He's an egotistical moron. A character I just wish would go away forever.
• Batman Beyond #13 - Another standalone issue, this one set soon after Terry returns while the city is still just starting to recover from the disaster. Enemies become allies for a short jaunt as Batman tries to help reset the city's tech in places where most folks cannot reach. It's an ok story, not much to write home about, though.
• DC House of Horror #1 - Eight very short stories, with about half of them bat-stories (ug). None of them have any characters I'm thrilled to see, but that's actually fine, because none of the stories were all that good. Perhaps the most interesting concept was of a girl possessed by the spirit of the Amazons after playing with a Ouija Board (don't tempt the spirits). The Superman story was suitably horrific. The rest barely merit mention. Definitely not the best anthology DC has produced.
• Scooby Doo Team Up #31 - Ah, the Atom. This is a good one for Atom fans, I guess. I'm not big on the shrinking into kingdoms that are inside an atom thing, so it's just a little disturbing to me. I do have a suspicion of what the end is leading up to, and I'm not entirely sure I'm looking forward to that, either. Oh well, it's still fun, and it was nice to see some actual detective work.
• Back To The Future #24 - Ha, I thought the story would end once our goofy time travelers got back to the future, but no, Biff and Joey are practically waiting for them there. I'm curious to see what Doc Brown has to say about all of it, since there is a lot more going on there in the past and present. And while a treasure map fits Doc Brown's sense of humor, I'm not sure it's actually his exact style.


• Doctor Who Comics
• Doctor Who 10th #3.8 - I admit I wanted to cry at the Sarah Jane appearances. She's just so *right*. I can hear her voice saying those lines and making them her own. I can hear the comfort she gives. As for the rest - yeah, peril and stuff. But oh, I miss Sarah Jane.
• Doctor Who 10th #3.10 - Echoes of the future strike the past, and of course the Doctor is able to fight off the inevitable with the help of both the future and the past. And the wisdom of Sarah Jane, I'm sure. I need to stop having trouble with time travel stories if I'm going to remain a Doctor Who fan - except Doctor Who usually doesn't bring the time travel element into the main story - time travel is just the method to get to the setting of the tale. Which I enjoy more than twisted time consequences smacking us around. Sorry, wandering off-topic. I loved Sarah Jane in this one, with her references to the past. And I thought the whole paradox was nicely explained. So, I enjoyed it.
NOTE: Issue #3.9 is part of a crossover that I do not have all the issues of yet due to shipping and distribution problems. However, it is NOT part of the ongoing storyline, thank goodness, so I can just continue these regular reviews.

• Doctor Who 11th #3.8 - Ah, memories. Being stolen from people. We've already experienced a bit of that in the show, and in the comics as well. Indeed, I keep forgetting that the Sapling stole memories from the Doctor and Alice to become a whole being. In fact, there's an awful lot about memories in the last couple of issues of this run of the comic.
• Doctor Who 11th #3.9 - A new plotline starts, as the TARDIS crew heads to a planet the Doctor visited in the past and find it has gone through rapid industrial progress that polluted the air. I'm still not sure what triggered the Doctor's attack and clued him into the nature of the progress. Again, this issue talks about memory in that the Sapling can remember the Doctor's previous visit, but he cannot.
• Doctor Who 11th #3.11 - Ah... so not a Time Lady. Something much worse instead. I wondered. The Time War has a lot to answer for. This issue finished up the current little story while continuing the overall storyarc, which has me curious. Not as great as some recent issues of DW comics, but still fun and strange.
NOTE: Issue #3.10 is part of the missing crossover, but not part of the regular storyline.

• Doctor Who 12th #3.6 - Why is Twelve getting all the cool callbacks to previous episodes with awesome bad guys? I mean, the Waters of Mars reference was already enough to make me happy, but now we're seeing references to Fenric? Man, this series is starting to tickle my fangirl senses in a very happy way.
• Doctor Who 12th #3.7 - And a solid conclusion to what was a pretty cool story, as the Doctor manages to outplay Fenric at this part of the game. Yet it's not a happy victory for the Doctor, because he knows what will happen in the future, and there's just enough of that to keep the story from becoming too much of a fanfest. Very neat stuff.