WLG #271: The Early Bird Catches the Xenomorph!

By Michael A. Diaz

What's this, ANOTHER early column?

How is this so?

Easy: Aliens is playing at the Wealthy Street Theater tomorrow night and seeing as it is my favorite movie of all time, I have to be there.

So, without further delay, let's jump into What Looks Good…

DC

BLACKEST NIGHT #2 (OF 8) $3.99 (Geoff Johns / Ivan Reis)

BLACKEST NIGHT: BATMAN #1 (OF 3) $2.99 (Peter J. Tomasi / Adrian Saef)

GREEN LANTERN CORPS #39 $2.99 (Peter J. Tomasi / Patrick Gleason)

Yeah, I know that these are three different books, but they're occur during the same event, an event that judging by the feedback I'm getting from the message boards is one that I am interested in more than anyone else. I'm OK with that, I realize my tastes are just that, but in the interest of not going on and on about something that I care about, I'll wrap all these books into one this month.

First off, we have Blackest Night #2; the solicitation for this issue doesn't give us much to go on, but based on the last issue we're sure for some surprises. Already we've seen a beloved hero and his wife return to apparently kill another set of heroes, and apparently remove the heart from at least one of them. The question now is that now that those heroes are apparently dead, will they immediately become Black Lanterns as well?

As Blackest Night #1 showed, we should be ready to see just about anyone come back. Now, I thought that would only include past heroes and villains, but the solicitation for Blackest Night: Batman #1 makes it sound like the new Batman is about to get a blast from the past from some dearly departed relatives. If so, well, that's just disturbing. Over the years Bruce Wayne seemed to relive the death of his parents over and over. Obviously Dick Grayson witnessed a horrible event when his parents died as well, but he didn't obsess over their deaths like Bruce did. For me Bruce was always a man that used that obsession to fuel him, to keep him going as the man he had become. Not so much for Dick; he saw how much Bruce's obsession absorbed him, and though Dick grew up to become a hero in his own right, he was always careful not to become as completely obsessed as Bruce had become. Instead, to me anyway, it seemed that sure, Dick used the tragedy of his parents' death as a springboard to becoming a hero, but he didn't let it define him, unlike Bruce/Batman.

Bruce's obsession is what turned him into the Batman; it was also Bruce's obsession that brought Dick/Robin into the fold.

It will be interesting to see how Dick/Batman reacts to the return of some people that should never have come back.

Which brings us to the Green Lantern Corps, a group of intergalactic police officers that have buried a large number of their dead upon the Guardians' home world of Oa. With the Black Lantern power rings through the Oan defenses they will be able to easily revive dozens/hundred/thousands of dead Green Lanterns. Over the years we've seen many of the Corps die, most recently during the "Sinestro Corps War." However, one dead GL in particular is sure to show up, the wife of John Stewart, Katma Tui. It's going to be interesting to see how he copes if she does indeed return (I'm betting on her coming back).

Another interesting reveal would be to see if Ch'p returns as well, another GL long gone, but that's just because I'm nostalgic about the late 80's Green Lantern Corps comic.

But what about Kilowog? That dude has been dead at least a couple of times now, and yet, he's alive and training members of the Corps still; won't the Black Lanterns want to take him back as well?

All good stuff, and really, I couldn't be happier.

MARVEL

ULTIMATE COMICS AVENGERS #1 $3.99 (Mark Millar / Carlos Pacheco)

I'm going to be honest here, after the widescreen, somewhat realistic take Millar and Hitch brought to the first two volumes The Ultimates I was a little bit disappointed by Jeph Loeb's approach to volume three. Perhaps it also had something to do with the art, but to be it was very cartoony. If others liked it that's cool, but for, it just wasn't my style.

I'm sure I have all the issues in my collection somewhere, but honestly, I don't think that I read them all.

So, when I heard that Millar was coming back to the title, or rather, the newly christened "Avengers", well, I just HAD to check things out. True. Hitch's realistic pencils are not coming, but Carlos Pacheco does a mighty fine job in my book.

For me, Millar's run on The Ultimates felt epic, just like his stint on The Authority, and I've been craving more of that; looks like we're getting some!

UNCANNY X-MEN #514 $3.99 (Matt Fraction / Terry Dodson)

I have to admit that I strayed from the X-titles for a while but over the last few days I have been catching up on this "Utopia X" storyline and so far I am really liking what I am seeing. Norman Osborn taking over the Avengers kind of made sense to an extent. He had worked his way up and became the head of HAMMER, and now that superheroes are supposed to be registered with the federal government it made sense that HAMMER would control the Avengers as well, and as Osborn controlled HAMMER, he controlled the team.

I get that.

But the X-Men for a long time were not really an organization but more a loose collection of activists. Of course, now that there are so few mutants left in the world things have changed, and in a way they have become a kind of embassy for mutantkind. The approach them, even during "Civil War", was "stay out of human business, and we'll stay out of mutant business."

Now, with riots in the streets of San Francisco Osborn has decided that he need to control the mutants as well, and thus, has created his own team of X-Men.

Like many others I thought that "Civil War" was entertaining, but I haven't been interested in many events since then. That said, this "Utopia X" story is really starting to make me go "yeah...."

It doesn't hurt that over the last few issues of this book, as well as Invincible Iron Man, that I appear to have started a new fanboy crush on Matt Fraction.

Good stuff!

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What comics did you get geeked out about this week? Just stop by the WLG message boards (see link below) and share!

See you next week!

Peace!

-Diaz

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Were Diaz's picks on the mark?
Have your say on What Looks Good at the Looking Good message board.

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