REYNARD's Profile

And how wonderful it is to have Veitch's work complete. I love the idea of Abby and Swampy settling in the prehistoric era of some parallel universe before it got wiped out by the Crisis. Let the never-ending story continue somewhere far away from our lovers and their child. For me, the legend of the Swamp Thing comes to a close with this publication. A beautiful and earned finale to the saga.

The Neal Adams pencils are missed, but Bob Brown does a sufficient job. My main appreciation for this story comes from the wonderful remix done in Grant Morrison's Batman Incorporated #2 where the story is told from Talia's perspective.

Damn good. My introduction to Enemy Ace was through Rick Veitch's Swamp Thing #83, his pathos as a character is extremely ripe for exploration. The O'Neil/Adams globe-trotting Batman is unmatched in terms of potential, and this was so much fun. The framing device of Bruce Wayne funding a film in Spain is awesome, and the final climactic dogfight is compelling. Hammer's ghost intervening on Batman' s side sends chills down my spine, and the fate of Franz is a shocking tragedy. O'Neil's prose captions are also impressive, both him and Len Wein clearly laid the groundwork for the British Invasion of the 80s.more

Not at all what I was expecting. Fascinating to see Langstrom as an ambivalent figure in his first appearance, and I like that they play into the Dracula/Werewolf schtick with his Victorian dressing (similar to how he's dressed in Batman #655), but the Jekyll/Hyde trope is avoided by reducing the counter-persona. The Blackout gang is cool, fits the theme of criminals finding novel ways to operate effectively in the DC Universe. Also, a very charming sequence of Batman and Alfred testing out his new sonar earplugs.more

Wow. Just incredible. This creative team is fantastic. The Muertos echo a twisted Thomas & Martha, their machine-like beasts are a terrifying foil for our creature of the night. The hallucinations of the Sybil flower haunt Batman with alien figures, an exorcism of the Silver Age sci-fi romps. The finale is a triumph of macabre glory, waiting for the fall that was promised on the very first page.

Very good! Jim Starlin's art is terrific, his captions maintain a classic Marvel poetic thrum. I enjoyed the psychological crucible of Mar-Vell and his rebirth at the hands of Eon in order to take down Thanos. This Marvel cosmic is way more interesting than the movies.

The Guardians gaslight Supes to reevaluate if his work on Earth is holding back humanity from its full potential. Very interesting concept, but I will admit that I was left underwhelmed by the sudden finale. The art was great, Curt Swan never misses. I do appreciate the sense of uncertainty left in Supes at the conclusion, it fits the nature of the never-ending battle/debate. I also appreciate how messy Supes interaction with the strikers were, a very good complement to the stuff Denny O'Neil was tackling around the same time.more

In regard to the back-up story, "What Can One Man Do?":

Very depressing story about the relative powerlessness super-heroes have on society versus cosmic cape-conflict. Do the watchmen truly have the authority or ability to enact change, steer the path of humanity? No! Which is why Oliver lays down the costume and resolves to use the system to help Star City. I'm not saying that being a hero is bad, obviously in this world of alien invasion and ultra-crime there needs to be an answer, good Samaritans defending their planets and communities... but they can't force the weak to act a certain way, they cannot hamper free will, even as destructive as it may seem.more

Loved this! Hilarious iconography to have Superman munch on Kryptonite. Morgan Edge is a great inclusion, and I'm pretty sure this was being released concurrently with Jack Kirby's Jimmy Olsen run. Excited to see how the Sand Superman saga plays out.

Never been much into Kurt Busiek, but this was a lot of fun. George Perez is brilliant. Pairing the then current JLA squad with the pre-Disassembled crew was very nice.

Really wonderful stuff. Loved that we got to see the Hairies from Jack Kirby's Jimmy Olsen run. Chronos, Anthro, and the z-list professor side-kick from Silver Age Atom were nice touches as well. Very interested to see how this plays out with Jim Corrigan in human form, Arcane's escape from Hell, and the Swamp nativity nearing! Did Hubert Sax (the doctor from #84) die between issues? And what of t he Claw of Aelkhund, what is the secret of the Amber macguffin? How did it end up in the hands of Joseph of Arimathea during the Gospel-times? When will Anthro meet Swampy if he's just been consumed in the Big Bang? And what about the redemption of Roy Raymond!?! Many questions with 2 issues left!more

The creative bankruptcy of modern superhero comics epitomized in just 25 pages, arbitrarily squishing together elements you remember from long ago, playing Weekend at Bernie's with the corpse of your lost childhood. No purpose to anything except to swaddle you in memories of when you used to buy comics because you loved them, desperately hoping that you'll pay to chase those fading traces the way an addict endlessly reaches for the beautiful feeling of that first high. Sometimes I worry that superhero comics are dying as their aging readership does; reading this comic makes me feel like it's time to take them out back and put them out of their misery.more

This comic epitomizes what is wrong with DC. You have two mercenaries in Snyder and Williamson leading the pack of mundane and uninspired writers. These are cannibals, picking at the feet of their betters, scraping the tombstone library of story-past for any epitaph to sustain an event or story arc or whatever you want to call the derivative droll they put out.

Long gone are the days of wonder, the imaginary beyonds of Fox and Broome and Haney and Kanigher.

Julie Schwartz would be turning in his grave. Jack Kirby too.

There is a reason for the alienation of true auteurs in this industry: Morrison, Moore, Gaiman. Because even as they try to bring comic books back to their roots of poetry and mythology, the Empty Hand manifests itself to reap. They came, they conquered, and they departed after realizing there were better things to do than play back & forth with the carrion crows who run DC.

DC has been hanging under the fangs of the Empire of Mammon since the Golden Age, when Liebowitz and Donnenfeld stripped the company from its original owner, Major Wheeler-Nicholson.

What's happening now is more insidious. An ultra-pollution of the narrative, a sacrifice submitted to strobe-torture before being disemboweled. These people are going to ruin everything just to feed their wallets.

If you don't believe me, read this book:

"WHAT IF EVERYONE JOINED THE JUSTICE LEAGUE?"

"WHAT IF DARKSEID AND THE SPECTRE MERGED?"

"WHAT IF DARKSEID FOUGHT EVERYBODY AND BEAT THEM WITH HIS LAZER BEAMS?"

"WHAT IF HE MADE A BAD UNIVERSE WHERE EVERYTHING IS BADDER AND MORE BAD?"

"wait, don't we already have Earth-3 and the Antimatter Univ-"

"WHAT IF EVERYBODY WAS A DARKSEID AND THEY HAD HIS LOGO?"

"WHAT IF EARTH ONE WORKED OUT BECAUSE IT WAS WRITTEN BY US AND WE MADE EVERYBODY TOTALLY EDGY AND ULTIMATE AND MARK MILLAR AND METAL AND FRANK MILLER AND BRIAN AZZARELLO AND SO COOL?"

"DO YA GET IT? 52 DAYS EARLIER? 52 DAYS LATER? REMEMBER THAT WEEKLY BOOK WRITTEN BY TALENTED WRITERS? REMEMBER THAT PUBLISHING INITIATIVE THAT FUCKED EVERYTHING UP?"

"WHAT IF DARKSEID WAS MAD ABOUT BEING DARKSEID, BUT WHAT HE REALLY WANTED WAS TO BE DARKSEID IN DARKSEID LAND, WHERE BEING DARKSEID WAS COOL?"

"WHAT IF ALL OF OUR CHARACTERS EXPLAINED EVERYTHING THAT WAS HAPPENING AND SAID EXACTLY WHAT THEY WERE THINKING AND FEELING AND THEIR MOTIVATIONS WERE SIMPLE AND EASY TO UNDERSTAND? MAN, WRITING COMICS SURE IS EASY!"

"HEY, IT'S THE MIRACLE MACHINE! REMEMBER THAT? I READ A GRANT MORRISON COMIC GUYS! I LOVE LOOKING AT ALL THOSE PRETTY PICTURES IN THAT GRANT MORRISON COMIC!"

"DARKSEID DARKSEID DARKSEID OMEGA BEAMS DARKSEID APOKOLIPS I DIDN'T REALLY GET FINAL CRISIS BUT I READ THE DC WIKI PAGE DARKSEID DARKSEID DARKSEID!"

If there is one redeemable quality, it is the art. Sampere and Craig are very talented. It's a shame they have to waste their time drawing absolute nonsense. At least they get a check.more

Mark Waid has forgotten that comics should be poetry. He is now debasing his craft to write brain-dead smash-em ups that cannibalize the Silver Age in the most uninteresting ways. This is truly the darkest era in DC Comics history.

I've been gently drifting away from new superhero comics in the last year, and while competently executed, this comic's weary exhumation of the moldering corpse of Warren Ellis's early oughts peak really sums up why. I miss the days when comics were new and exciting and full of big ideas, instead of "We've grabbed a thing readers were very excited about 25 years ago and several randomly selected B at characters, ground them into a bland slurry, and poured them into a trough for our dwindling middle-aged fanbase to stick their little snouts into"more