Teen Titans #52 Review

I don’t know about you, but I was not a fan of the Teen Titans relaunch. Young Justice filled the spot of “young superhero team” admirably well, and so for that team to be broken up (and the book canceled) in order to capitalize on the Teen Titans name, well, I at least expected the new Teen Titans to deliver. It wasn’t meant to be. For me, it was as if Peter David (writer of Young Justice) was a master chef and had the recipe honed to perfection, and Geoff Johns inherited the recipe only to add his own ingredient of “failsauce,” be it the Superboy baby daddy drama, the abandonment of the Bart Allen readers grew to love as Impulse, and the abandonment of a Wonder Girl who actually had her shit together. The One Year Later jump didn’t help matters much, with our boy Robin experiencing his very own obsessive Clone Saga, and fights with Slade I couldn’t bring myself to care about. So when I heard that Sean McKeever, writer behind “Spider-Man Loves Mary Jane” (at least, that is the title of his which I’m most familiar with) was taking over at issue 50, I was practically jumping for joy. SMLMJ demonstrated he was an excellent writer of teenagers, and I looked forward to what he would bring to the characters.

Spoilers after the break

I. HATE. ADVERTISEMENTS.

The other week, I purchased Bungie and Marvel’s first issue of Halo: Uprising. It was the last first print version on the shelf and I’m a moderate fan of Halo so I picked it up. It turned out to be an above average piece of work; pretty art, decent writing, and as a Halo fan it wet my appetite for more canon. HOWEVER (as there is always a however in rants) one thing continuously pissed me off and nearly ruined my reading experience.

ADVERTISEMENTS.

She-Hulk #22, now with 100% more PAD!

“PAD*? On She-Hulk?”

Yea, that was my reaction when I heard as well. We all know PAD is good, really good, but She-Hulk? Yea, well, it works. Seriously. Dude, I’m not messing with you. For real.

*Peter Allen David

What Hath Brendon Wrought?

 

I think the Metalocalypse really has begun…

Blue Beetle 20: With Great Power, Comes Great Responsibility

Oh Sinestro, you wily bastard.

Alright. For those of you who don’t have a basic knowledge of the new Blue Beetle series, I’ll give a quick synopsis. The original Blue Beetle, Dan Garret, possessed a scarab that gave him his powers. Ted Kord, the second Beetle, and an acquaintance of Garret, inherited the object, but couldn’t use it. After the Day of Vengeance storyline where magic got screwed around, the scarab found its way to Jaime Reyes, a teenager living in El Paso. It fused with his spine (something that never happened, even with Garret) and enabled him to form a kind of alien exoskeleton that gives him his powers.

The scarab, as it turns out, is an object of alien origin similar to a Green Lantern Power Ring. Keeping with the colour-coded organization of the DC alien groups, The Reach are associated with blue. They fought the Guardians of Oa to a stalemate a couple thousand years ago, and now have a truce. Like the Green Lanterns, The Reach have their own agents, powered by Scarabs. The catch is that The Reach are bad mamma-jammas, and Jaime’s scarab is somewhat of a rebel; it has developed a mind of its own. Hence, Green Lanterns are skeptical of Blue Beetle, and generally respond to any Reach agents with hostility. Now, on to this issue.

The Adventures of Squintface McGee: A Totally Non-Biased Review of 30 Days of Night

Spoiler warnings, as always.

30 Days of Night, as evident from the trailers, is a movie about a small Alaskan town so close to the North Pole, which for one month every year, the sun doesn’t rise. Vampires infest the town, as it is common knowledge vampires find sunlight deadly, allowing them complete and total reign for the month. It is based on a comic of the same name by Steve Niles and Ben Templesmith, which is why it’s being reviewed here.

 

As you noticed in the title, I’ve already made one joke about Josh Hartnett squinting. And that’s because he squints. A lot. Not nearly as much as in 40 Days and 40 Nights, another film with a number in the title that also refers to the rising and/or setting of the sun, but it’s still his main reaction face. Surprised? Squint. Confused? Squint. Happy? Fucking squint. He plays main character Sheriff Eben Genericlastname, and is competent in his role, despite the squinting.