Hal Jordan and the Bruce Wayne Problem

Its hard to remember after over a decade of Damian Wayne but there was a time when Bruce was a pretty minor figure in Batman comics. That sounds mad to say but its honestly the truth, Grant Morrison even called it out in his first issue of Batman when he has Alfred calmly inform Bruce that he's doing the gravelly Batman voice all the time now. In the 90s and early-2000s it seemed that Bruce was Batman 24/7. That was also the time when the whole “Batman is the real personality, Bruce Wayne is the mask” psychology was really prevalent.

Then Morrison came along with an explicit agenda to resurrect the “hairy-chest love God” Bruce Wayne (and yes, those were his words at the time) and thankfully it stuck. Even though the character has been “killed off” twice since then Bruce as a person outside the suit has remained a very important element of the Batman comics. Bruce's time as an amnesiac while Jim Gordon was Batman springs to mind as a prime example. You'd never have seen such an extended examination of Bruce as a person back when I started reading comics.

So what does this have to with Hal Jordan?

Well, in last week's issue of Hal Jordan and the Green Lantern Corps Hal experienced a vision or a visitation of his father during a tense and stressful moment. During the scene, Hal's father says this:

“... you can't lose sight of the ground […] you can't go all out, all the time. Be Green Lantern but don't forget to be Hal Jordan.”

Reading that it struck me how divorced Hal is from his Earthly roots, even from the personality of Hal Jordan, when he's in uniform. Perhaps its an effect of the mask, he's really the only Earth Lantern who's still portrayed as having a secret identity. John and Guy haven't worn masks in years (may never have done under present continuity) and both have public identities to the point that not long ago Guy was having trouble getting teaching gigs because of the risk his other job represented to the kids. Kyle still wears a mask but, let's face it, Kyle's heart is too firmly pinned to his sleeve to be anything other than Kyle Rayner at all times.

There's also the fact that Hal has a life back home that he's actively in the business of ignoring. John, Guy and Kyle don't. At this point none of them have Earth-based supporting casts or careers (is John even still an architect?). Hal has his brother's family back home at the very least and some day they're going to cycle back to him and Carol Ferris being a thing because there's decades of narrative gravity pulling him back to that relationship.

As much as I've always preferred the space-based side of the GL mythos there's is something inextricably Earthy about Hal. He's John Wayne in space and that does mean he sometimes has to go back to the good old US of A every now and again otherwise it just doesn't feel right.

Also, I do feel he sorts of needs an ill-advised love interest in his life and no one on Mogo is dumb enough to volunteer at this point. 

Comic Reviews

This week, Brienne of Tarth gives evidence; two jerks head into space; the Ninth Doctor and Rose end up all at sea; the X-Men aren't as astonishing as they think they are; and, Riri Williams experiences future shock.

Journey to Star Wars: The Last Jedi: Captain Phasma #1

The last time Marvel did one of these Journey To... series it wasn't what you'd call the most relevant comic they ever did. It was basically the story of how Poe Dameron's parents met. Okay, the details of The Force Awakens were super, super secret so what Marvel could do was rather limited and I didn't go into this thinking much had changed.

Effectively, this issue (and probably the whole arc) forms an extended epilogue to The Force Awakens as Captain Phasma narrates a not entirely frank account of how Starkiller Base came to meet its end. The dialogue is minimal, as suits the character, Marco Checchetto's art carries the bulk of the storytelling duties. If there's one thing that's clear from how the creators are treating the character its that they, and perhaps Disney's licensing department, view Phasma as being more the “new Darth Vader” than Kylo Ren is.

Frankly, I'm with them on that one.

This first issue doesn't shed any more light on Phasma's character than her appearances in the Poe Dameron ongoing have. She's still pretty much just a very efficient, very cold storm trooper in particularly cool armour. The writing captures her voice well and the art makes her look all kinds of badass in a way the film singularly failed to so I'm more than willing to pick up the next issue to see if things get more interesting.

Green Arrow #30

Hard-Travelling Hero part 5: Constellation of Fear

Its a reunion of the original Hard-Travelling Heroes! I was pleased as punch when some throwaway dialogue early in this arc referred back to the original Green Lantern/Green Arrow series because that's one of my favourite classic comics and here we get to see how the two Rebirth versions of the characters work together!

As it turns out they've mellowed towards one another and that's good because this issue the exact opposite of what the original Hard-Travelling Heroes was about: this is Ollie needing to get out into space, high above the people he's trying to save instead of convincing Hal to keep his feet on the ground and notice the little people. There's a lot of nice scenes where we get to see the two Greens be jers to one another in that way that people can be when they're totally comfortable with each other.

We drop in, briefly, on Star City and Dinah and Emi's ongoing investigation into whatever happened to the secretary Ollie is meant to have murdered. Honestly, I wish there was more to that plot because I like Dinah and Emi together and this brief scene is one of only a few rare snapshots we get of the two women being superheroes together.

Doctor Who: The Ninth Doctor Special one-shot

The Lost Dimension part 2

So, is it all starting to tie together yet? Well, no. This issue does exactly what it says on the cover. After the Alpha one-shot set up events all across the modern series continuity (and the Fifth Doctor era) this one hones in on the Ninth Doctor and Rose. It follows up briefly on the Jack and Tara subplot from Alpha but in the main this is a standalone that has Nine and Rose running into Madame Vastra and Jenny Flint on the high sees. Its exactly as fun as it sounds as a one-off, though at times it does feel more like a second prologue to the story.

Anyway, interestingly Vastra and Jenny already know the Doctor which opens up the comics to do so much more with the Paternoster Gang in the future. There's more distrust between Vastra and Nine than she had with Eleven and Twelve, though Nine just isn't as trustworthy as his successors (unless you're Rose). Now that the series has long abandoned Vastra and Jenny (and Strax) I'd love to see Titan revisit the characters in depth.

Especially as the comics seem a lot less shy about Jenny and Vastra making heart eyes at each other than the TV show was.

Astonishing X-Men #3

Life of X part 3

I'm starting to wonder about this different artist on every issue angle. Its a nice idea in theory but it doesn't seem to be contributing much to the overall experience. I can see how it could but even with most of the series so far taking place on the astral plane there hasn't been the sort of stretching of artistic muscles you'd assume would be going on.

This issue art comes courtesy of Ed McGuinness, an artist I really like. For the most part he's called on to draw Old Man Logan wandering through various scenarios built by the Shadow King to sucker him into believing its all real and putting him under the King's control. So far to good.

Its not that its badly drawn, its just there's nothing about the scenario that merges with McGuinness' art style to create the sort of amazing showcase that a series with a different artist on every issue should be offering. Nothing here is bad, its just that this was sold, as most series of Astonishing are, as a series os especial specialness.

And I'm not feeling it.

Generations: Iron Man and Ironheart one-shot

This one, I'm feeling. This issue has a whole list of pencillers, inkers and colourists that should make it unwieldy and confused but just adds to the experience as different artists hand in art that matches the different moods and sense of confusion Riri goes through in this issue, art gaining definition as she comes to understand what's going on around her. This issue also marks the first time one of the younger characters going through the Generations thing has been sent to the future, which I guess makes sense since the story being teased at the end of the issue is the return of Tony Stark.

Anyway, Riri is in the far-flung future we've been teased with a few times, the one where Tony Stark is the Sorcerer Supreme and those kid Avengers from that one cartoon turn up because that can't just be left to lie dead in the dust where it belongs. The two bond about futurism and its interesting to see because for the first time this is a pairing where both characters know each other. True, there's a gap of experience between the two because this Tony knows Riri far better than she knows him but no one is ignorant of the situation.

If nothing else this really makes me want to see more interaction between Riri and the real Tony Stark rather than the increasingly dodgy AI version. 

More Jessica Cruz and Guy Gardner, please

Now, I've warmed to Simon over the last year. I never hated the character but it has to be said DC didn't do the best job of selling him during the New 52. He was introduced and after Geoff Johns left the series he was just sort of... there. Jessica Cruz, however, I instantly loved when Green Lanterns launched. I didn't follow Forever Evil (which I think is where she was introduced) so she was a new character to me. I love her, I love how she's used as a vehicle for psychological issues not usually dealt with in superhero comics, I love her design (the cool eye thingy especially)...

… I love her and Guy Gardner together. I've been catching up on the GL titles and just finished the Lost In Space arc of Green Lanterns where Jessica and Simon are summoned to Mogo for a training day. Simon gets to work on his creativity with Kyle, which ties back to his issues with giving up his gun, and Jessica gets Guy as her drill instructor.

Naturally, Guy has to be Guy about things and goes all drill sergeant from hell on her, pushes her to her breaking point and she lamps him.

And, my goodness, but it works. For all the progress he's made since the early JLI days, Guy is still no the best at emotions. I mean, this is man went to confront the former second-in-command of the Sinestro Corps in his shirtsleeves and when he's confronted with a Lantern who has to get past her anxiety to earn her badge, of course he pushes way harder than he should and she thumps him.

After which, of course, he starts complimenting her after spending a day tearing her down. Guy has a very direct an not entirely healthy approach to people earning his respect.

Guy's a mess of issues, that's not news, but so is Jessica. When the two fight for real, the fight that has Guy declare Jess fit for duty (because, again, Guy), he explains to her how he used to get in his own way. He does it in the most cocky, self-aggrandising way imaginable (again...) but he is making a genuine effort to connect with her.

And, I wonder, does he see something of Ice in her? Because with most of the other human Lanterns, there's a lot said of the people they lost: Hal's father, Katma Tui, Alex deWitt, Nazir's coma, Kilowog's family if we want to extend the point. These events define a lot of those Lantern's relationships.

Guy lost Tora who, truth be told, had more than a little anxiety of her own and it was only after her death that Guy really examined his behaviour. A lot of his actions since have been about being the better man he believes she deserved.

Not that I want Guy and Jessica to hook up, good grief no! That wouldn't be good for either of them, but one thing this arc does point out is that Jessica is seriously missing out on mentoring. Simon is not much more experienced than she is, really, and Guy as a teacher (which is, legitimately, his civilian profession) is something I feel we could do with seeing more of. 

This Week's Comics featuring the Rebirth Roundup

What's this? DC are showing restraint? Unheard of! Its the first week after DC Universe: Rebirth and we're only getting four one-shots to flesh out the status quo of some central pillars of the newest DCU: Batman, Superman, Green Lanterns and Green Arrow (Wonder Woman once again gets left in the cold until later because this is a DC reboot we're talking about and she didn't want to come your party anyway, icky boys). You know what, though? It's good. Well, its mostly good. Its 75% good, we'll get there.

Whilst on the Marvel side of things... sweet Jesus was that a game of two halves.

Be warned, there are minor spoilers for all issues discussed but the only things I really go into specifics on are the identities of the secret Hydra agents in each and every series. On with the motley:

Batman: Rebirth

This was quite a nice mood piece. Whilst there are a few concessions to setting up a new status quo with Bruce having some meetings with Lucius Fox and Duke Thomas in the main its a done-in-one about Batman fighting Calendar Man. I've always rather liked Calendar Man and he gets a nice little update here. In all honesty, of DC's four offerings this one gives the least idea of what the series spinning off of it will be like (mainly because three titles will be spinning off of it) but its a nice little story regardless. Fond memories of the animated series always abound when a quality Batman done-in-one comes along and in a week full of nostalgia buzz this didn't feel at all out of place.

Spoiler: Duke Thomas isn't a Robin anymore, he's Hydra.

Green Lanterns: Rebirth

Now, this really takes me back: Geoff Johns, Ethan Van Sciver, an ancient secret underpinning the Green Lantern mythology, poor release schedule co-ordination so that one GL series spoilers the events of another (unless Edge of Oblivion #6 came out and I didn't notice, which is possible)... it feels like 2006 all over again.

Which isn't to say that nostalgia is all this comic has going for it. Of all the Rebirth one-shots this week this one has the most new(-ish) ideas. Yes, Simon Baz has been knocking around since the dawn on the New 52 but this is somehow the first time he's had his own ongoing series. In fact, there's a feeling here that Johns is getting to pull the trigger on a few ideas both he and other GL authors have had over the New 52 but not been able to properly expand. So we have Baz and fellow rookie Jessica Cruz (who was something to do with Forever Evil, I think) as the Green Lanterns of Earth with Hal acting as the grizzled old warhorse of a precinct captain telling them to both shape up. It seems that Hal has regained some sense of authority and gravitas with Rebirth, something he sorely lacked when he was running the Corps a while back.

I quite like Simon's FBI contact/parole officer, the man who arrested him on terrorism charges (and for a few things he actually did, too) and who now wants to make amends. Jessica Cruz I am less sold on but I'm willing to give it time, even if only for the fact that she seems to be a rather introverted soul and you don't tend to see those as superheroes.

Spoiler: Simon Baz is Hydra.

Green Arrow: Rebirth

Well, here's a no-brainer that should have occurred to someone about five years ago! The big idea for Green Arrow's Rebirth is bringing Black Canary into the series. I am genuinely surprised that no one had this idea before. Given the blank slate continuity the first New 52 writers were handed I'm shocked no one thought of trying to build this romance from the ground up. Okay, it's not Lois and Clark levels of legendary but it is one of the bigger DC romances and the chance to tell it as a coherent series of events under a single creative team sounds like a winner to me.

Which is all to the good because otherwise Benjamin Percy's angle on the character is the bog standard GA plot of “How can someone this rich consider himself a man of the people?”, ground that Green Arrow has been treading off and on since the Hard Travelling Heroes era of the 1960s.

Spoilers: Black Canary is implied to be Hydra but its actually the homeless girl.

Superman: Rebirth

And here's where the wheels come off the wagon because this issue is mostly infodump and it doesn't make an awful lot of sense. Okay, I get the idea that the New 52 Superman is dead and the pre-Flashpoint Superman has somehow been hanging around for a couple of years raising a son with pre-Flashpoint Lois Lane (are there two Loises now?) and he's going to take over. I get this because it is laboriously explained to Lana Lang over about half the comic as beardy older Clark recaps the events of The Death of Superman to explain a certain amount of graverobbing.

I say this as a man who has been reading Uncanny X-Men monthly for over two hundred issues: this is one convoluted damn reboot and I'm not sure it needs to be. Everything else DC put out this week has had a very explicit back to basics structure where a new-ish character or two get used to explain the basic premise of the series. That sort of happens here with Lana but the situation that's being introduced to us through her eyes is one that is probably going to need to be explained again and again over the next few years for the benefit of new readers in a way that, say, “Here are two rookie Green Lanterns getting on each other's nerves in classic buddy cop movie style” won't.

Frankly, the only interesting thing I read here was the revelation that (spoilers) Lana Lang is Hydra.

Spider-Women Omega

In a few paragraphs time I am going to have a massive “you done fucked up” rant at Marvel over one of their crossovers. I wanted to do this review first to reinforce the fact they can do these things right when they put their minds to it. Spider-Women has been an awesome little crossover: eight issues of tightly plotted, well thought through story that managed to be an “event” for all three participants and pushed all of their individual plotlines forward even as it remained fairly self-contained. Good story, good mutual marketing exercise for three lower-tier series, satisfying action beats, the works.

Over those eight issues we've seen Gwen's world expanded in interesting ways, Silk's family issues explored, and Jessica enduring her first extended separation from her child. There are a couple of new characters on the board who I hope to see in future and two of the three leads got status quo shifts out of the deal.

All in all, not a bad two months work and I heartily recommend it once it comes out in trade.

Spoiler: both Cindy Moons are Hydra.

Civil War II (Manchester United nil) #1

There have been a couple of WWE pay-per-views recently that have shuffled the United States Title off onto the pre-show card, squandering the hard work John Cena put in lending the belt legitimacy and making people who paid the rather large non-Network price of the PPV question their purchase if a whole title fight is going to happen practically off-camera.

Why am I bitching about wrestling booking in a comic review? Well, because this comic has a huge fight with a major villain in which a beloved character dies happen off-panel. You get to the end of the series' set-up, turn the page and BAM! Someone's dead, someone else is in a coma and the actual fight is filled in with exposition and a couple of flashback splash panels. Result: a very talky issue that could have been broken up by having a huge fight scene in the middle of it and just decided not to.

On the plus side I like that Tony takes the side of this ethical debate I didn't expect him to. I was all ready for him to be the bad guy again, or at least the authoritarian guy which largely shakes down to the same thing when geeks are your main audience. Yet he's the one who recoils at the idea of acting on precognitive visions and for pretty specific reasons. He isn't against it for broad philosophical reasons but for ones that are entirely specific to the situation, ones about it being hard to externally verify what the Inhuman precog sees or how accurate his visions might be.

Still, a huge fight in which a major character gets chopped would have been nice to actually see.

Spoiler: all the Inhumans are Hydra. The ones from Uncanny Inhumans, the one from Uncanny Avengers, Ms. Marvel and Moon Girl, all of them. Except Lockjaw, he's too cute, he failed the entrance exam. (Don't worry, I'm sure this was a one week joke. Mostly sure.)

The Comics Ramble rings in the New Year

First comics of the year and I would love to say I started off with a bunch of the new titles that came out this week but... okay, Wolverines was good and we'll discuss that in a moment but Ant-Man and The Unbeatable Squirrel-Girl just failed to grab me at all.

Green Lantern #38

An issue like this has been a long time coming. The GL titles have been through Lights Out, Uprising and Godhead over the last year or so. It has been practically non-stop action and crossover and danger since Geoff Johns left the title (not that it was exactly sedate back then, but...) and I feel both we and Hal need a quiet one to reflect on things.

It's also good to see Venditti stretching his character-writing muscles on something more human than the usual, here the simple frustration of trying to have a quiet drink and your friends just won't leave you the hell alone!

So we get Hal on forced leave on Earth trying to drink quietly but first Guy and then Barry wander in and insist on telling him all the horrible things that have happened on Earth in his absence. I love how Hal just sits there as they talk on and on, downing his pint. And of course it ends in a bar fight. This would be a good issue in itself: a little action, a little character, a little philosophy and a look under the hood of a character who has been all-business for a long time.

Then Carol Ferris turns up and we get a moment of real development for the two characters: an actual adult conversation about their relationship and why it never seemed to work. The last time a conversation like this happened in Green Lantern on this subject I strongly suspect it was between Hal and Sinestro.

Though, good grief, do I wish we could have had a short back-up or something telling us what the night was like for Guy and Barry after they wander off arm in arm.

Wolverines #1

The question I have to ask myself is this: as good as this issue was, do I think its good enough to pick up on a weekly basis? Because as a monthly this more than passes the test: interesting sequel to an interesting mini-series, characters I like from multiple titles I used to read and enjoy before their too-soon cancellation.

But each and every week?

We've got Mystique, Lady Deathstrike, post-Axis good guy Sabretooth, Daken and X-23 plus some cyborg guys who don't so much interest me but seem interesting enough. They get into a tussle with the Wrecking Crew, which is an unusual match-up for an X-Men comic. Their employer was less surprising but since I bloody love that character I'll take it. Art's good, too, being mainly by Wolverine and the X-Men alumni Nick Bradshaw, though obviously as a weekly that's not going to be a constant.

We'll see in a week whether I've made a decision, I suppose.

X-Men #23

The all-girl X-Men get another new writer in the form of Ms.Marvel's G. Willow Wilson, a writer I've been meaning to sample more work from because that series is fantastic. Of course, there can be a world of distance between a writer's work on their own characters and with existing ones. For instance, I found an unassailable gulf of quality between Bill Willingham's Fables and his Robin run.

Too early really to tell whether this will quite live up to Ms. Marvel but it was very cool, nonetheless. This issue focusses on Storm and the next promises to be focussed on Psylocke. This is certainly an approach I can get behind, sucker for character focussed storytelling that I am.

As to the larger arc there's weird whether at a music festival in Utah where Gambit is trying to seduce women because he's Gambit. A sinkhole opens up and massive electrical storm hit so he calls Storm and her team. We get a lot of narration from Storm concerning the physics of the weather she's working with as well as some philosophy showing us how she views her actions. Interesting as that is Storm is one of the better explored X-Men so I'm looking forward to seeing what Wilson does with one of the characters with fewer miles on the clock like M or Omega Sentinel (who I don't remember if she's still on the team or not, now I think about it).

On the art side it must be said the issue is poorly served by the Dodsons' cover. I like the Dodsons but their smooth, curved style doesn't work at all with the jagged, slightly caricatured look Roland Boschi brings to the interiors.