Blackest Night #5 (DC Comics) I was warned repeatedly at the shop to make sure I read Green Lantern # 48 before reading this issue, so I did. It’s not really that big a deal though; GL just explains how Hal Jordan and Sinestro convince the main orange and red lanterns to join their rainbow coalition.This fifth issue of the main miniseries that DC’s event is spun around was mostly notable for the number of splashes in it—four double-page splashes, one single-page splash. That’s a lot for a 26-page, $3.99 comic, and some of them are less-than-impressive. Did we need two double-page splashes devoted to the rag-tag rainbow Lantern corps they’re apparently going to be calling “The New Guardians?” If Ivan Reis was going to take a whole page to draw a crowd of heroes showing up for a fight, couldn’t he have gone full Perez on it, instead of just drawing 15 heroes?
There are two pretty big moments here, one of which I’ve been expecting to happen since the #0 issue, the other of which was a complete surprise, but lead to a pretty great “Oh man, the heroes are so boned now” ending. That said, you can probably glean the entirety of this issue’s story by flipping through it in the shop.
Of course, if you just did that, you’d miss the part where skull-licking, open grave-sleeping-in villain Black Hand tells Barry Allen, “Don’t worry, Flash. I won’t disturb your body. You aren’t my type.” You see, he says this because he is a necrophiliac, and he is talking about having sex with Flash’s corpse. This is the best selling American superhero comic book of the moment.
Green Lantern #48 (DC) Orange Lantern Larfleeze and Red Lantern Atrocitus team-up with the Green, Yellow, Blue, Violet and Indigo Lanterns, Doug Mahnke and Tom Nguyen draw the living shit out of everything (and attempt to do a Disney duck that doesn’t look like a Disney duck, perhaps to avoid a lawsuit) and the issue ends with the tag “The New Guardians Charge Up in Blackest Night #5!” Yes, they’re going to call this rainbow Lantern team The New Guardians! Will they get their own series after this? Will it last longer than the last New Guardians series? Why aren’t they the New New Guardians or the Brand-New Guardians? So many questions left unanswered by GL #48…
Incredible Hercules #136 (Marvel Comics) “Assault on New Olympus” is a well-named story arc. What’s it about? Well, it’s all right there. Athena, Herc and Amadeus Cho grab some random Mighty and New Avengers (Wolverine, Spider-Man and –Woman, Hank Pym, USAgent, Quicksilver) and launch their attack on Hera’s New Olympus stronghold, where her and her evil allies are preparing to launch a mysterious attack that will wipe out all life on earth. It’s pretty fun stuff, but nothing special on the awesomeness scale established by previous Incredible Herc stories.
A few random observations:
—I did not care for the way Rodney Buchemi drew Spider-Woman’s under-arm bat-wings.
—“Brevoooorted” is a pretty good sound effect.
—This is the first issue of Inc Herc to include an Agents of Atlas back-up, continuing from the back-up in the Assault on New Olympus one-shot, which continued there from X-Men vs. Agents of Atlas It’s just six-pages long, and while it looks great and reads fine, it seems a little too sleight.
—Adi Granov’s cover is pretty awful-looking, isn't it?
Justice League of America #39 (DC) Writer James Robinson tries to match the depravity of Geoff Johns’ Blackest Night #5 at the climax of this 30-Page, $3.99 issue. Black Lantern Dr. Light is found licking the severed head of Gehenna, who was transmuted into salt in an earlier issue of Blackest Night, and, when the heroic Dr. Light II arrives, the undead zombie rapist supervillain tells her, “Firestorm’s girlfriend tastes salty good. Now… …Let’s see what you taste like.”
So, congratulations…?
14 comments:
Boy you really have it in for Adi Granov, eh?
I will admit that his covers are a bit stiff, but I like them in a "Heavy Metal" kind of way. I wouldn't want him to draw the whole comic, but I enjoy the covers he turns out. I hardly think he deserves to be classified as "awful." It's not like he's Tony Daniel. And at least he doesn't trace.
"He says this because he is a necrophiliac, and he is talking about having sex with Flash’s corpse."
No, he says this because it's a play on words. "Disturb someone's body" can mean "dig someone up," which is what Black Hand routinely does.
Christ, Caleb. What is it with you and all these perverted interpretations?
I wish my comics shop had warned me to read the GL#48 first...I was five or six pages into Blackest Night thinking I really need to start taking notes or something, because I didn't remember things getting to the point that BN#5 began at. I miss the days when crossovers were clearly numbered, like War of the Gods.
And oh look, Hdefined is back. No, it was definitely a necro joke.
Yes, when he said, "You're not my type," it was a joke - following the play on words on words of "disturbing his body." It was intentionally creepy.
It wasn't about the Black Hand wanting to (or not wanting to) have sex with Flash's corpse, as Caleb concluded.
No, but it was a joke based around the fact that the phrase had two meanings, one of which was about having sex with his corpse. That wasn't what he meant, but the joke came from the other meaning. So it's just the same, really.
Boy you really have it in for Adi Granov, eh?
Eh, he's all right at robots and Iron Men I guess, but I don't like the way he draws "organic" people. This one in particular seemed to waste all that space, and the characters are all just sorta placed at random.
Yeah, there are certainly worse artists and cover artists though. Like, AG won't stop me from buying a comic the way some can.
What is it with you and all these perverted interpretations?
Happy Thanksgiving, Hdefined!
Have you been reading reading GL and Blackest Night? They haven't drawn Black Hand with his penis out humping a corpse yet, but as I wrote, dude sleeps in graves with corpses, licks skulls and told Flash that his (potential corpse...after he kills him) wouldn't be "his type."
I'm not exactly reaching here, and it's not exactly subtext. It's what they wrote into the comic. I'm not interpreting, just saying "Ew, gross."
I thought they hadn't made it overtly sexual to any degree, but as you mention the skull-licking thing, that does give your argument more credibility. I concede.
The Dr. Light stuff is just obvious, given the lack of subtlety they've given him post-Identity Crisis, but JLA #39 was so awful as a whole that that line hardly stands out.
I guess it's more an indictment of other artists that I count "at least he doesn't trace" as a huge check in the plus column.
Happy Thanksgiving!
I agree with Caleb interpretation, since previous issues of GL (mostly the "Secret Origin" arc) heavily implied that Black Hand was a necrophiliac.
But how about Doctor Light? Is it necrophilia if it's the corpse thats performing the act on a living person?
That ending to JLA kept me from buying it, and grabbing the red ring to complete my collection (long story short, I knew someone that gave me the rest who wasn't working on Wednesday)... I just don't want that in my house!
And I have Young Liars in my house!
"And I have Young Liars in my house!"
For some reason this gave me an image of an issue of Young Liars coming to life "Toy Story" style, and asking James Robinson's Justice League books what the hell was wrong with them.
The Blackest Night chronology thing really wasn't a big deal, imo. I started reading BN #5 first, and I was like "oh, they finally got all the lantern peeps together, guessed that happened in GL" and then just read Green Lantern first instead. It's not like it wasn't bloody obvious that that was what would happen. But it would be nice if they made that clear in the future (for plot points that are significant), either by mentioning it in both books or, I don't know, releasing them on different dates.
And I don't know if I'm judging it as a "summer crossover event" but I am sorely underwhelmed by blackest Night, and it's not like I had lofty expectations for it especially since Secret Invasion already lowered that bar. At this point, I really don't expect events to be anything more than some sales device with more flash than substance meant to establish some new arbitrary direction and ramifications rather than try to tell a deep and decent story.
Adi Granov would be the perfect choice to draw a Metal Men story in which all the characters become rusted in place, pathetically squeaking out the words "Oil can...oil can."
As order of the stick taught us, an undead being that likes living people in that special way is a biophiliac, and yes, even evil liches find the whole concept incredibly disgusting
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