The Book of Hsssh

Ultimate Spider-Man, and by extension Ultimate Universe, is probably the main reason why I got into monthly comics. But with time my tastes changed and Bendis went from the writer that I really liked to one of my least liked writers. So I wasn't thrilled when he got the control of Superman's line and new Wonder Comics line was launched. But I really like Dial's concept so I decided to try new Dial H for Hero series. After all, how bad could it get? I didn't really have much experience with Humphries. I read his Nightwing arc before and wasn't too impressed. And this was probably first time I was reading something drawn by Quinones. Well, no, I had read Wednesday Comics, but that was ages ago. Either way creative team didn't inspire much confidence. But this turned out to be a very pleasant surprise. Anyway, first collection (or first 6 issues) mostly introduces the characters and sets up things. Writing is okay, it has its charm and does what it needs to do, but...

We finally reached the third and final act of this story. It also ends Busiek's DC run in general so it is kinda important all things considered. So how did it end, with a bang or a whimper? It ends with a... neither of those two? It certainly was not a slam dunk, but it wasn't some disaster either, it is more of the same. And well, if you liked first two acts then not much happens in final act that could change your mind. All the positives are still there: lots of characters, good visuals and strong characterizations. What really prevents this from being a slam dunk is that negatives are still there as well. Biggest of them being padding. I mentioned in previous posts that it doesn't look like Busiek had story for 52 issues and to me the ending is where it is felt the most. Some fights and betrayals feel like they are there only to fill the pages and don't really serve any narrative purpose. In one of the interviews after the series ended Busiek mentions that DC's ...

With everything, asides of Futures End, till 2023 covered in previous posts it is probably time to make a list of what actually I consider worth reading and how I try to explain away continuity problems between pre-Flashpoint and post-Flashpoint versions. Lets start with reading list. I'm dividing it into two parts: must read and worth reading for one reason or another. If some Frank story is not included in this list then I pretty much don't consider it as being in continuity or mattering. Must read: Seven Soldiers: Frankenstein and Seven Soldiers #1 Frankenstein, Agent of S.H.A.D.E. #1-5 Superman Vol. 4 #12-13 Worth reading: Frankenstein, Agent of S.H.A.D.E. #6-9; 16 Men of War Vol. 2 #8 Pieces of me  from Young Monsters in Love #1 Batman and Robin Vol. 2 #19; 31-32 and Robin Rises: Omega #1 At first I wasn't sure about including stuff like Men of War and Batman and Robin #19, but I changed my mind in the end to make the list a bit more "complete". So, thats tha...

First act has rather good breaking point, ritual is completed and we are left to wonder what actually happened. Second act ends with us finally seeing a version of Trinity again, but it is not as clear of a cut. From what I have seen one the main criticism for this series is that it is called Trinity but Trinity is gone for the most of the second third of the series. But lets look closer at that. When you take into account that this series was initially pitched more as a DC Universe than Trinity then Trinity's absence makes sense, but well, that is not what it ended up being called. And their faces were used on the covers to sell this series. An argument could be made that the point of this act was to show what their absence means to DC Universe so in a way it is actually about them, just not directly. So, what happens after first act is that Trinity are banished from this universe and reality gets rewritten. We see DC Universe where Trinity never existed. Things are different and ...

Over the years Tomasi has used many characters and concepts created, or revamped, by Morrison so no surprise that he had a crack at Multiversity as well. And what better opportunity to do it if not when he was the main writer of Superman? For me Tomasi has something like 50/50 hit ratio when it comes to using Morisson's toys and sadly this has to be one of the biggest duds that he has written. On paper this sounds like a good story. Some villain is kidnaping and draining Supermen from various Earths. We got our main guy and Justice Incarnate (now Justice League Incarnate I guess) involved and some other characters. So how does it fail? It reads like a filler. Villain is generic and bland, we don't get much of him in general. We never really learn why or how any of this is working asides of some vague hints about coming new threats. At the end he is captured by another villain hinting at other plots that are yet to come, but never really do. And maybe it is good thing that many ...

Trinity is a big series so I'm not going to cover it all in one post, but I'm going to divide it into three parts just like the collected editions are divided. At the same time I'm going to cover some things that happen in other parts if they are relevant for what was going in this particular part. Yes, it might get a bit confusing. Lets start with the structure. In theory each issue is divided into two parts, one main story drawn by Bagley and a backup drawn by one of the collaborators. In practice you can't really say that one part of the book is more important than another, they are equally important and you can't ignore them like you could with "traditional" backups in other books. Bagley simply isn't a robot and couldn't draw 52 issues in a year + however long the lead-in time was. Trinity, as the name suggests, appear a lot in the first part of this series, but you can already see that Busiek and Bagley are going to play with lots and lots of...

So I figured that I'd close this series of recaps once the new year starts rolling in case of something big and unexpected happening in December, spoiler alert - it didn't. For fans of not very popular characters DC doing many anthologies is both blessing and a curse. On one hand your favorite might get a short story focusing on him, on another hand anthologies are expensive and rarely you'll enjoy every story (or even majority of stories) in it. With short stories we have three that focus on Frankenstein. First one is  in Young Monsters in Love anthology, it explores Frank's feelings towards The Bride. Nothing fantastic here, it is fine, but not something that you'd buy entire anthology for so check if you find other stories interesting as well. Second one is The Doomed and the Damned where he teams up with Aquaman and I don't get Brandon Thomas' writing. I know that he has some fans (well, everyone has at least a few), but I haven't enjoyed anything he...