Doc Savage No. 1 written by Paul Malmont, illustrated by Howard Porter. This comic was so boring - Doc Savage is the biggest most self important jerk in the goddamn world. I don't even kind of care about his stupid adventures - although what I care even less about is the awful back-up story. God this was terrible - I bet the writer of this stupid thing (Jason Starr) thought that Frank Miller's The Spirit was an underrated masterpiece - just read some of this stupid narration - "Some people say I'm insane. They don't get why Richard Benson, the wealthiest man in New York City, would choose to live in total squalor when he could be living in the most lavish penthouse on park avenue. But I think I'm the sanest man in the city. Hell, in the world." Shut the hell up. He spends the entire fucking thing whining about how terrible the world is, and how awesome he is for being such a great man to stand up for what is right. It's like if Batman was a terrible person, and I didn't give a shit about him. Also - Jesus Christ is this thing ugly.
Secret Six No. 20 written by Gail Simone, illustrated by J. Calafiore, on the other hand, is fucking excellent. The last issue ended on a pretty good climax, except that it seemed like it could have gone somewhere very stupid. Fortunately, Simone knows exactly what she's doing, and makes her characters into people who don't pay no goddamn attention to any of that moral ambiguity crummier comic book heroes are always whining about. Also, I really like the weird and touching relationship developing between Black Alice and Ragdoll that just runs through this book in the background, subtley counterpointing all the insane and awesome violence. A lesser writer than Simone would make that relationship all foreground stuff, but if she did that, then something more melodramatic would have to occur, which would detract from the beautiful strangeness that is occuring at the moment.
Batgirl No. 9 written by Bryan Q. Miller, illustrated by Lee Garbett. This was a pretty good book - I like the fact that, even though it is Batgirl, the artwork doesn't focus on the cheesecake very much. Instead it makes her look like a total badass, and someone who definitely deserves to be bearing the 'bat' name. I also like Batgirl's banter with Oracle, but I think that Oracle's friend Wendy could turn in to a pretty annoying character of the, "oh, I'm in a wheelchair and everyone feels sorry for me but nobody feels sorry enough! I'm gonna take over the world!" variety, but if that does happen, hopefully it isn't played to cliched.
Batman No. 698 written by Tony Daniel, illustrated by Guillem March. D.C. have really been screwing Edward Nigma around lately. After all these years, the character has finally become interesting - rather than being the crummy Joker knock-off the Riddler, he was a rival master-detective who would sometimes help out Batman, and he became a much more fun character. But just recently in Gotham City Sirens it was revealed that the Riddler might be making a return to supervillainy (lame), and now this - he might actually be dead. Goddamnit D.C. stop screwing Edward Nigma around! He is currently one of your most entertaining characters, now that the Blue Beetle doesn't have his own run, and yet you seem to want to fuck with what was working. Stop it. Still, it was a good book, and if Edward Nigma isn't actually dead or a supervillain, I will be very happy indeed.
Booster Gold No. 31 written by Dan Jurgens, illustrated by Norm Rapmund. So he wasn't able to save his sister's boyfriend, or, you know, the other seven million people, because that would 'screw with time', but he was able to go back and save that little girl's dog, which makes it all okay. Ummm... okay. Why would that change the future any less than saving one single person? And what the hell does "Because we were here earlier we could make this change?" mean? Oh, you're going to "fill us in later" are you? Oh good, because I'd hate to understand your time travel rules right now, so I could judge if what is happening actually makes any kind of sense or not. Booster Gold is an entertaining character and an entertaining book, but it does keep threatening to just completely stop making any sense at all. Hopefully Keith Giffen will be able to step in and either make everything make sense, or entertain me enough so that i don't really care that I don't understand what the hell is going on.
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