Comic shop comics: Jan 11

Just three books this week. Still, that's three more than last week...

Batman: The Brave and The Bold #15 (DC Comics) Only one more issue left! Writer Sholly Fisch, inker Dan Davis and guest pencil artist Stewart McKenny team Batman and Mirster Miracle for a multi-day marathon of death-traps. Spoiler alert: They escape them all and save the day—as much as anyone can save the day on Apokolips.

I really liked McKenny's art on this issue—so much so that I didn't realize regular artist Rick Burchett didn't draw it until a second reading–and was particularly fond of his smooth-faced, nose-free Scott Free, whose face occasionally takes on emoticon-like simplicity:Also, whose Darkseid do you think is better, McKenny and Davis'...?Or Jim Lee and Scott Williams'...?
I agree!


Green Lantern #5 (DC) It's the last issue of the new volume's first story arc, and right on time too, since the art team pretty much completely poops out on this ish. Doug Mahnke's still on pencils, and this issue's amazing number of inkers is four, including regular Mahnke collaborators Christian Alamy and Tom Nguyen. I can't recall if Keith Champagne and Mark Irwin have inked Mahnke on this book before or not, and, if so, how often, but there's a notably dip in quality between this issue and the last. The image's are all scratchier and more indistinct, occasionally looking like the work of another pencil artist entirely.

The story puts Hal Jordan back pretty much where he was when the arc first started, although now he's got a power ring (but no Lantern with which to charge it), and he's a few iotas more mature than he was when it comes to his relationship with Carol Ferris.

I continue to enjoy Geoff Johns' take on Sinestro as the real greatest Green Lantern. He gets a little help from Hal throughout this story—although Jordan is doing little more than what Sinestro tells him to do, executing Sinestro's own plans—and he's able to take down the entire Sinestro Corps. When Hal went to war with the Sinestro Corps, he needed the rest of the GL Corps and Justice League in his corner, and that was still pretty much a draw.


The Return of The Smurfette (Papercutz) I've only read two of the six short stories collected in the latest little Smurfs collection so far, but I'm nevertheless quite confident that this will turn out to be another particularly smurfy comic.