NCD #5: Wind ups and winding down...

DC Universe 0
Action Comics #864
Green Lantern #30
Ultimate Human #4
Ultimate X-Men #93
Black Summer #6

DC Universe 0

So, the big news with this issue is that Barry Allen is back.

Maybe.

(Probably)

Granted, it could be some other Flash, Bart perhaps, as we never actually see the character narrating throughout the story. But from everything I’ve seen and heard around the comic blogosphere I reasonably sure Captain Crew is back.

Unfortunately, the character of Barry Allen has more emotional significance by remaining dead than he ever will running around busting up bank robberies and foiling crime. His death represented something truly unique in this business known for shock killings and rebirths in order to drive up sales, permanence. His legacy provides the foundation for the current Flash mythos, the importance of sacrifice in the pursuit of what is right.

Flashes retain heroic value by passing along the responsibility of the name after their leg of the race has been run. So much of Wally’s career is built around living up to his uncle’s name. To bring Barry back is to deprive Wally’s character of his purpose and relevance.

Twenty some odd years on I find it difficult to believe that fans are still clamouring for Barry’s return. We’ve already got a super speedster tearing around in red pajamas. His name is Wally West and he’s doing just fine thank you.

Nothing much else of note in this thing. It reads like an episode recap.

“Previously on the DCU…”

One things that does raise my pulse a littlebit is the appearance of Fernus, last seen, by me, at the end of Joe Kelly's JLA run. I could be way off here as nothing actually identifies the flaming Martian-headed pointy toothed character as actually being Fernus, but the resemblance is definetly there. Seeing as how it's widely rumoured that J'onn is going to bite it during Final Crisis and Fernus was created directly from his DNA I have to think that it makes sense that he's going to reappear in this story.

Green Lantern #30

Interesting enough read, but I wish the story was focused more on Abin Sur than Hal Jordan, as Sur’s story is where all the interesting stuff happens. The “Blackest Night” setup is a story worth telling, rather than redredging the origins of Hal’s superhero career.

The story is perfectly readable, Johns has never had any problems turning in a serviceable GL script. And Ivan Reis’s art is more than passable. I just find it hard to see why I should care about something that Johns has already covered in this same title and I saw again in the New Frontiers movie about a month ago.

Note: I really liked the explanation of why Abin Sur needed a spaceship to come to Earth, he was worried about his ring failing him, as he normally would have just whipped up a standard lantern bubble to travel. Not once in all the years I’ve been reading comics have I have twigged to the inherent contradiction of a GL needing a space ship. Which goes to show you how…slow…I am.

Black Summer #6

This is the only comic I bought this week that wasn’t winding down from something or setting the groundwork for its next ‘real’ story.

Warren Ellis take on the ultra-gory citizen\solider superheroes is about as fun a read as you’re ever going to get. It gives you the bare minimum of expository plot before cutting away to a blood soaked battle scene. (When he feels like a change Ellis merely open with the fight and tacks the exposition on the end.) In this issue we have an interesting two page splash where pencilier Juan Jose Ryp has spent and awful lot of time inserting children’s cartoon characters into the firefight.

I was curious as to why Bam-Bam would be a part of such a high octane fight scene until I stared at the page a little longer and other characters started to stand out from the rubble.

Ellis and Ryp seem to have spent a fair amount of time trying to deliver a realistic take a on a superhero smack down, a la Alan Moore and Miracleman. Body parts get ripped off, (most) characters who are shot go down and never get back up and very few characters are safe from being written off by virtue of their importance to the title. This isn’t a sanitized showdown in the streets of Metropolis, but a bloody battlefield fracas that takes no prisoners.