Vancha's Profile

I was feeling an 8 from this all the way up until the end. All the controversy...all these months...and that's it? He literally falls back into his powers? "Doot doot doot identity confirmed all better!" ??? It would always be hard not to make the restoration feel any less than "plot devicey", but to do it during a single page of deus ex machina? It feels like cheating.

The story is wonderful. You couldn't ask for more in the first issue of a transition in writer. Abnett recognizes and includes elements from Bunn's run, rather than mostly ignoring it as we saw in the recent Catwoman transition. He also sets up multiple story threads and manages to fit in a lot of fun interactions along the way. The art's a little more hit and miss, mainly due to the inconsistency in the faces. Mera regularly switches between maiden and crone throughout the issue, while the last time we see Tula her eyes are so off-set she could be in the midst of a stroke. Overall though, the future looks bright for Aquaman if Abnett handles all his issues this well.

If this weren't Batgirl, it'd be an average comic book that simply tried way too hard to force some youth culture references in there and I'd probably rate it a 6, but it is Batgirl and it's destroying Barbara Gordon as a character. Case in point, at the start of this issue we see someone who looks like Batgirl riding around in the back of a convertible, having the time of her life with her hands in the air and then taking a selfie with two other people in the back seat. The fact that I wasn't immediately sure that this wasn't "our" Batgirl demonstrates the problem. At the other end of the issue, on the final page, we have the real Batgirl striking a pose atop a bridge and having Black Canary take a well-lit picture of her so she can upload it to "Pixtagraph" (DC's incarnation of Instagram), to show people the "real" her. Booster Gold might be able to get away with uploading pictures of himself to the internet, but can you imagine many other superheros putting their pictures up on social media, let alone one of the bat family? Can you imagine what Bruce Wayne would think about one of his proteges putting their face out there for all to see? He'd be furious, but then it'd never happen because Barbara Gordon would never be so spectacularly stupid, which again demonstrates the problem. This is supposed to be Barbara Gorden, but so far it's in name only.

This Batgirl continues to be a clueless and oblivious ditz. Everything from deleting Dinah from her phone in a juvenile tantrum to putting her friend's life at risk by stopping to read Dinah's "Show off ;)" text on her terrible bat-phone reinforces what must be the writer's intention to make you loathe and detest Barbara, because nothing else makes sense. If they gave whoever this girl is her own name and superhero identity (because she's clearly not *the* Barbara Gordon), it'd probably get a 5, but it gets a point knocked off for besmirching the name of BG and an additional 0.5 for the ultimately disappointing cock-tease at the end.

What do you know? As long as this new, annoying, unlikeable Barbara Gordon and everyone from Burnside avoids opening their mouth or speaking at all, you end up with a really good comic. It makes me wish it had been like this for the entirety of Fletcher's reign.

I had such hope after the last issue ended, facing the possibility that this fool of a Batgirl we've had to suffer since the redesign really *wasn't* Barbara Gordon (which would explain so, so much), but alas we were left disappointed.

We're getting there. Slowly. Barbara's gone a whole issue without saying or doing anything monumentally stupid or mostly out of character (her interactions with Frankie are still cringeworthy, in the what-adults-think-all-young-people-are-like kind of way, but otherwise it's fine). Reading this issue I realize that BT's art, as good as it is, is really problematic for Barbara...It adds a heaping dose of infantilisation to anything she does or says. The pleasant surprise of her dad turning up and then her reaction at his new look is believable and Barbara-esque, but add in the art and it reads more like a developmentally-delayed pre-teen shouting "Daddy!" wide-eyed, and running up to greet him at the door. The same problem occurs during Barbara's walk around the park with her father, where the writing is mostly true-to-character, but the art makes Barbara look like daddy's little girl, in the entirely the wrong kind of way. Hopefully this continues to improve, but some of it's issues seem insurmountable.

As with last time, the one-off does better than the main series. I think this issue really illustrates how incompatible the "new" Batgirl is with Gotham and it's cast. She fits in fine when other characters are brought down to her level, such as running around with a slightly kiddified Spoiler or the girls of Gotham Academy, but put alongside Huntress or Batwoman and she looks almost childlike...The prospect of a relationship between her and Grayson at this point would seem tantamount to statutory-well, never mind. Still, I think they had to dial back the "basic" Barbara to her old self slightly just to make the interactions work and this issue is all the better for it.

Tarr's art continues to infantilize Barbara, but we have a few egregious examples in this one. The first one comes during a cringe-worthy "tee hee" moment, where Barbara pulls some shades out of thin-air and has a cartoon-style smile. The second and third are the panels during her fawning over Qadir, where her expressions in the two panels with completely bright pink backgrounds break the limits of sickly-sweet and enter straight-up vomit-worthy territory. The final one is a combination of the panels where she's winking at her father at the beginning and end of their fight against Livewire. Meanwhile, after a reprieve last week we're back to the writers destroying Barbara's character. A large portion of this issue consists of Batgirl's interaction with her own father, so you might think she'd be careful to avoid exposing her identity by coming across as too familiar, but no, not here. In fact, she acts more like her father's daughter than she usually does under the cowl, to the point of asking for a high five after she helps her father take down Livewire. Barbara Gordon's meant to be an intelligent woman, but as usual under this creative team, she comes across as a little more basic than that.

Barbara continues to be careless with her identity/equipment and generally act unlike Barbara Gordon, except now she also seems to have a habit of staring wistfully into the eyes of any male character that could conceivably be a love interest, but that might have something to do with everyone having permanent anime-style blushing expressions. Every frown looks bashful and every smile looks flirtacious. It's a bizarre artistic decision which amplifies the problem of these characters looking (and often acting) more like they've just hit puberty than living through their early 20s.

It seems with an especially bad issue other readers are finally seeing Batgirl for the disaster it's become. This week we get to see Barbara let her guard down time and time again for the stupidest of reasons (once because she was busy winking and giving a thumbs up to her friend. I'm not kidding). This clearly isn't a person who's spent any time at all around Batman or his proteges. Meanwhile, I could swear the art is being infantilised more and more every week. There's a panel here where Barbara is kneeling down in front of a couple of tigers and she looks like she could literally be a 10 year old girl. Looking back at past issues, I'm not convinced I'm wrong either.

I wish I could give this a lower score. I wish this site's user reviews had formatting so I could fully outline just how terrible this issue is without it looking like a mess. The story is dire. The art is dire. I'm almost convinced the reviewers giving this anything above a 5 must have been paid off. I can't even figure out who this comic is for...Putting aside the flaws of refocusing a primary member of the Bat-Family toward the tween market, even they would vomit reading this. It insults its audience, it insults its characters, it even insults its own creators, because they're infinitely better than this. Even Cameron Stewart, whose work I find almost universally sub-par, is way above needing to put out such utter trash.

I think I've just lost patience with this series. Barbara isn't an airhead, so I don't know why Stewart/Fletcher get away with portraying her as one. She's also meant to be as stubborn as her father, so to go from "hell no frankie" to "partners, frankie?" in the space of two sentences is completely ridiculous. It'd take more than that to convince her of ANYTHING, let alone risking your life as a vigilante. I'm also not sure what the point of Frankie is...She seems to exist only to be unlikeable and spout "Babes" at least once an issue. I'm assuming she'll come to harm at some point, but the way the writers portray her, I expect most readers would be more glad than sad to see it happen. The art's also feeling less and less suitable for a "Bat-Book" with every issue. I was going to say it's starting to feel like a Saturday morning cartoon, but even Teen Titans struck darker tones than this, let alone things like Batman: The Animated Series (I wonder what that Batgirl would think of our current Barbara Gordon?). At this point it feels like it's intended audience is more pre-ten than pre-teen.

If Greg ends up being the bad guy, this rating is honestly too high.

So I gave the last issue a 3, on the condition that Greg didn't end up being the bad guy, because that would be so predictable and so lazy no respectable writer could possibly decide that was a good idea. Well, it turns out a 3 was too high, because the writing was just that lazy and just that predictable. Other sins this issue include having Barbara utter "total swoon" without a hint of irony, and depicting her as a delicate snowflake, having her cower in fear when confronted with the baddie of this issue as if she'd never faced far worse from her nightmares before. I have to wonder what Batman would make of this Barbara and whether he'd allow her to wear the cowl at all. Barbara also had issues with her Eidetic memory this issue, which could've been interesting if it had featured at all since Stewart and Fletcher took creative duty, but as it is they had to write her as if she was losing her memory in general, since they seemed to forget she had eidetic memory until now.

This is easily the best Batgirl's been in months. I think it's primarily because Barbara was unconscious for most of the issue and the tone of the issue made any inane valley-girl moments inappropriate, as such this issue is "just bad" instead of a crime against humanity. Also, there are suggestions that this ret-cons 'The Killing Joke'...Hah. No. While I wouldn't put it past Stewart and Fletcher to be dumb enough to try and ret-con DCs best execution of a hero with a disability to date, that will always be part of Barbara's back-story where the audience is concerned.

And so we reach issue 50. The writers have managed to mischaracterize nearly every established character throughout their run, and have failed time and time again to deliver a decent story. I don't really understand why anyone is still buying this, but thank goodness it's nearly over.

"I wish I could call Frankie ... No, Babs! Burnside is the past!" I'm taking that as a message from Hope Larson and it's music to my ears. There's still some issues here, but it's already so much better than the last run it's hard to complain. I only hope Larson continues to transition back to the Batgirl of Gotham.

It's a giant leap forward from Burnside, but I'm wary of how much seems to have survived considering how much Rebirth seemed to be willing to throw out and correct in other series. Barbara's far less insufferable here, but still not back to her old self. Her terrible outfit and Frankie's existence also seem to have survived, along with Dinah's terrible stint as a rock star. Still, Benson and Benson avoided making me want to vomit, which is a marked improvement from the Cameron/Fletcher run.

Snyder doesn't quite understand the Batman and Joker characters fully. Almost, but not quite, so here we have an amazingly written story that falls down slightly when you consider who the people involved are. I'm not sure this'll be looked upon quite as glowingly in the light of history as it is right now.

Dionesium, Batman cloning machines and magic-power-pills...All these plot devices are making me nervous. Worst case scenario, Mr. Bloom is Joker and Bruce Wayne re-Batmanizes himself with his magic machine we've never heard about before. I hope that's not the case, because it'd be predictable and lazy. This issue in and of itself probably deserves a higher score, but there were far too many moments that felt like they foreshadowed depths that Snyder doesn't need to sink to.

A couple of things let this issue down. Firstly, we've been told multiple times that Bruce's memories aren't just repressed, they're gone. Eradicated. Erased. Non-existent. So how come Duke can pull his little stunt to any effect at all? It shouldn't have achieved anything. It feels like they've changed their mind just to let their new little darling Duke Thomas seem ever more impressive, which brings me to the second problem - Duke. I hate him as a character, purely because of how hard he's being pushed and how fast his character is progressing. In Grayson 15 he gets his first proper fighting lesson and supposedly gets the best of Grayson in a straight-up fight, then here he's deducing the identity of Bruce Wayne quicker than boy-genius Tim Drake? I know there are arguable explanations for both, but the intention of the writers is so transparent and it feels so forced.

Things are starting to feel real convoluted with this series. "Batman" barely features, but even the little we see of Gordon this issue doesn't feel quite true to character. Clark is a little closer to the mark, though seeming strangely inexperienced and conveniently getting his hands on way too much tech between this and his other titles. We also have the inclusion of Batgirl, who, even here, is better than in her own title.

None of the characters here seem represented entirely correctly in terms of personality. It all felt a little cold.

There are an endless list of little niggles with this issue, but it's redeemed by the characterization of Jim Gordon, who I felt has been generally mis-characterized during the reign of RoboGordon.

My inner child is bouncing off the walls after this. Tynion is doing an amazing job so far.

A solid issue, but very inexplicable. "Oh, I have eye lasers now...nope, they're gone, with everything else". It's nice to have a more lighthearted/domestic look at the Batfamily once in a while, but the whole superpowered Damien angle never felt appropriate to me.

It's Batman and Robin, in moon suits, driving a moon buggy and flying a spaceship of aliens into a volcano. I do not understand these ratings. Maybe back in 1970, but not now.

Cassandra's connection with the dancers was a touching and clever bit of writing. Alas, I'd expect no less from Valentine after her work with Catwoman over the past year.

This is not how you handle most of these characters. Dick especially has been used and abused the past few months for the sake of the direction writers wanted to take their plot. Fortunately he's had Grayson to showcase the best of him, but jeesh. If your idea for a story requires characters acting unlike themselves, it's probably not a very good idea.

I'm so often the one wondering how certain series have such high scores. I guess it's only fair that I be the one overrating something for once. I loved this. I loved the feel of it. The building of the army...the planning of the counter-attack. It would have been nice to see the bat-family making contact with Black Canary, Catwoman etc., but we got plenty of great interactions anyway. Midnighter and his interactions with Cullen are probably the highlight of the issue, but Grayson has a good showing here, as well as an interesting exchange between Scarecrow, Spoiler and Red Hood. At face value Spoiler's handling her own while conversing with Scarecrow, but then Red Hood steps in and the way he treats Scarecrow by contrast...It puts into perspective both how far Spoiler's come and yet how far she still has to go - something that's been handled terribly with some other characters. Duke comes to mind as a prime example. There are problems here. Of course there are...but the call to arms when the world's gone to hell in a hand basket is always a fun time and I don't think this issue's any different in that regard.

For now at least, this story feels like it has more potential than it did during the Brother Eye arc. Here's to hoping the momentum continues upward.

I'm completely unfamiliar with Diego Latorre, but the art in here is exemplary.

A great end to a great story. I think your enjoyment of this depends entirely on your expectations. Spoiler - there's no earth-shattering revelations, no lasting consequences or anything that'll shake the Batman-Joker dynamic forever. It's just a damn good Batman story. Pretty, too. Very, very pretty.

Best issue of BC so far. The plot is flowing thick and fast, but it's failing to make me care about the characters at all. Dinah could fall of a cliff at this point and I'd be okay with it. That said, this is the most likeable Frankie's ever been. She only appeared for a single panel, but then maybe that's why.

This is so bad. So so bad. If Kurt hadn't miraculously popped up, Black Canary wouldn't need to be in this at all. The attempt to make the band element seem relevant is painful. The random white ninja appearances feel ridiculous. I think if this was a comic about a band, done for Vertigo, minus Dinah, minus the superhero elements, it could be a really good story. As it is, Fletcher's attempt to meet rock band with superhero antics is more cacophony than harmony.

They either need to make this a comic about a band or a comic about heroics. Fletcher isn't capable of doing both at the same time. The art is nice to look at, but the plot is idiotic and it makes Dinah seem idiotic too.

Hopefully this is where the band element exits stage right, then maybe something interesting can be done with Dinah.

The writing got really bad in this issue. It started to read like actors delivering flat lines.

Brenden Fletcher basically needs to be kept away from DC characters at all times.

The covers are making me wish Jae Lee was doing the art throughout. Garry Brown doesn't do a bad job, but it leaves a bit of I'm-not-quite-sure-what to be desired.

This probably doesn't deserve a score as low as this, but coming off of Valentine's sublime Catwoman run, every flaw here is magnified tenfold. The exchange between Selina and her fence was where I realized the transition from Valentine to Tieri wasn't going to be graceful. The dialogue felt artificial and cliche, plus we're introduced to a character who, as far as I can tell, made their first appearance this issue and yet has apparently been Selina's fence for years? You shouldn't need to create such a contrivance when you already have so much juicy material to work with. We're also introduced to a seemingly established mobster this issue, but again, having just had such a substantive crime family-themed run, no effort seems to have been made to weave him into the tapestry Valentine created, or explain how he was affected by the events of the previous issue. Meanwhile, the art would be fine aside from some truly bad attempts at make-up (seriously, Selina's eye shadow was horrendous this issue), but the way Miranda draws facial expressions is quite hammy, which magnifies the cliche tone of the dialogue. If the characters were actors, I'd say they were over-acting. All in all it's not a terrible issue, but seemingly flicking the reset-switch on Valentine's run seems like a huge, huge mistake after everything it achieved.

Yeah, this really isn't going to live up to Valentine's run, but at least that much is obvious. There's no glimmer of hope or potential, it just is what it is. It probably deserves a 7, but the implication that New York was worse than Gotham loses it half a point. No where is worse than Gotham. That's the point of it.

And so, it continues to grow. It continues to grow and I can't wait to see what it becomes.

Honestly, I don't think it's possible for a set-up like this to deliver without being somewhat of a let-down, in the same way a present opened is never quite as enticing as a present wrapped, so I'm going to enjoy this while it lasts, before the paper gets ripped away.

It's not often that writing of this level can get upstaged by the art, but god damn. I don't recall ever finding a comic quite so revolting. It's wonderful.

I feel like this series found it's footing from issue 18 onwards, which makes me sad to see Ray Fawkes reign come to an end. As for the issue itself I slightly wish the closing moments with his Earth-2 family had lasted a little longer and some of the Darkseid stuff was a bit mystifying, but otherwise it was a great issue and a great end to the arc.

As far as intermission issues go, this is damn near perfect. I much prefer the tone struck here than the one we've had for the last 5 issues.

This is probably closer to an 8 on a purely objective level, but it's just so damn fun to read. More of this please. More of this would be good.

It's silly without coming off as unbearably cheesy. Take it too seriously it's about a 6, but take it for what it is and this is a really likeable issue.

I was enjoying this right up 'til the last page. "There must be some other way than fighting...Oh, they look really powerful, okay then, I GUESS WE FIGHT!"

By rights this is closer to a 7, but the way Cyborg was portrayed in this issue reminded me of a bad take on the Flash from the Justice League cartoons. Maybe Cyborg could be more quippy/pop-culturey, but not like this...not like this.

Kinda fun. I'm not a fan of the revelation though.

I feel like potential is here, but it's paying off so slowly. Also the villain of this issue is so cartoon-baddie it's hard to take seriously, right down to the silly smirk at the end.

Mindless fun. The characters aren't always true to themselves and the art deserves to be in a better comic, but otherwise there's not much to complain about.

Good. That's it. Not bad, not great. Distinctly average. Unremarkable. Middle of the road. You get the idea. With that in mind, it was a pleasant surprise to have a perfect Harley come from nowhere. We only get a few panels worth, but for me it's easily the best representation of what I imagine Harley to be since the launch of the New 52. Aside from that however, this joins an ever growing list of DC publications with better art than writing.

Some great examples of awful dialogue in here.

What is meant to be a rite of initiation for Jim Gordon feels more like he's written a self-insertion story where in all his unremarkableness he just so happens to be able to save the day. I can understand having Batbot run around Gotham for a few issues, and even Superman/Batman feels somewhat plausible, but I can't see the Justice League ever turning to Jim as a Batman replacement, let alone this soon.

I'm fine with BatGordon if it's done properly, but come on, did we really just see the Commish get the best of Dick Grayson in hand-to-hand combat? The rest of the issue is good for me, but I'm surprised Fawkes thought that was remotely believable.

I feel strange rating a Scott Lobdell series this highly, but so far it's more enjoyable than most of the new series.

It's a classic "coming to terms with new powers" issue, but I think it's handled really well here. The whole "mistaking the good guy for a villain" thing is so easy to mess up, but Lobdell manages to avoid both the "too stupid to live" trope (say, getting frustrated and fighting back), as well as unintentional blunders (the "oops" bio-blast would qualify, but it was immediately rectified). I think this character and the world around him have a fair bit of potential mileage, I only hope they survive long enough commercially to see it through.

With one issue left, I feel like Lobdell hasn't developed Reiser enough to do him Justice. When I started reading this series I could see potential for mini-doom to transcend his own series and possibly pop up in other titles, but alas I think he'll instead be forgotten with the mists of time, unless issue 6 does something remarkable.

As with issue 5, I only hope Reiser continues to have a presence in the DC universe. This may not have been the best series ever, but it was good enough and I've found mini-doom likeable enough as a character that I hope to see more of him.

This was so frustrating to read, almost solely down to the portrayal of Captain Frye and him committing the "too dumb to live" trope at least twice in a single issue. Between ignoring Wally, deciding it was a good time to arrest Flash while under the dome and then getting pissy over his own pride despite Flash saving the day, he was just too unreal to believe. Not to mention how Professor Zoom's cohorts have somehow managed to go all this time without a single one of them getting a shifty vibe off the guy. The amount of convolution and liabilities being taken to direct the plot the way the writers want it to go is just too much, especially when the pay-off is so unremarkable.

This was the best Flash for a long time, which isn't saying much, but I sincerely enjoyed this issue. I guess this is where the writers wanted to get to with the convoluted and frustrating set-up. Well, we're here now and it delivered. I'm almost a little excited to see what happens next issue.

A fun little story, completely irrelevant to pretty much everything except for the development of one character in particular. Worth picking up if you're reading Gotham Academy, but skip it if you're only following Endgame.

If this develops into the love triangle I'm sensing, we'll have a bland, 2D female protagonist who initially had feelings for tall, dark and handsome, but then drama strikes as a dashing werewolf...sorry, werebat enters the picture. Remind you of anything? This series started off so promisingly, but Kyle continues to lack personality, as does Olive, who's starting to feel like a fan-fictionesque self-insertion job, which takes some doing for someone who starts fires with her mind. If not for Maps, this series would be seriously tough going.

The art in this issue seems to have been taken up a notch. It's the urban environments where the artists seem to do their best work, which makes me wonder if they aren't wasted on this title and it's academy grounds. Writing-wise, the same issues abound. The story doesn't lend itself to self-insertion, making it hard to read from the perspective of Olive, meaning her blank-slate of a character only serves to make her really boring to read. As usual, it's the weirder side-characters that redeem the issue (in this case, Maps and a little Pomeline). We also get another clumsily wedged-in guest appearance, this time from Red Robin. While mostly true to character, his acceptance of Maps and her throwing a batarang at him felt unnatural to the point of dream-sequence-esque. The Flashback sequence was nice though, and another victory for the art team this issue.

It's almost a credit to the writers that this continues to be as compelling as it is while they continue to leave the primary protagonist devoid of any character at all. I'm not sure I'd even notice if she was simply omitted from all future issues. Maybe I'd wonder why there was so much less fire than in previous issues and then I might remember the bland white-haired girl with no personality.

Felt like a bad Halloween issue that was clunkily tied-in to Robin War. Olive is still a huge Mary Sue and Maps single-handedly carries the issue, as usual.

This reminds me of the filler anime episodes you used to get between the good stuff (except in this case, the "good stuff" already wasn't stellar). It seems that for whatever reason they've got 4 months to muddle through before we get back on course, so it might be worth jumping off here and coming back to it when it's not killing time for the sake of killing time.

The very names "Fawkes" and "Templesmith" sound like some kind of dynamic duo from an old detective novel, and in Gotham by Midnight it feels like they were meant to work together. They've spun something magical in GbM's first five issues and it kills me that Templesmith ended his art duties with this issue. I can't imagine any artist being quite as good a fit for a story like this (and a great story it is), but we'll find out to what extent Ferreyra fills his shoes next issue.

Templesmith was perfect for this series, but Ferreyra makes for a great replacement. I loved his work in Batman Eternal #42, so I'm glad to see him working on a DC project full-time. As far as the story goes, this is clearly a filler issue, with the aftermath of the last arc and setting up the next one. Nothing world-changing here, but some interesting moments.

I'm heartbroken to hear this is getting cancelled. I'd go as far to say this is DC's best series right now. The story is gripping in and of itself, but the art...Dear god, Juan Ferreyra. This guy is a magician. The whole issue basically takes place two police interview rooms and Midnight Shift's base of operations, but Ferreyra manages to keep things interesting and fun to look at throughout. Both of these guys deserve to be working on big-name projects.

This is the issue where I fell in love with Juan Ferreyra. There are two pages of car chase here which just look absolutely beautiful. I'm not the kind of reader that typically goes back to study the art, but I went back and studied those two pages just to admire the beauty, which I don't think any other artist has ever gotten me to do. The writing meanwhile is in some ways impossible to judge. What happens and what is said feel so much like a natural conclusion to the events that precede them that it almost feels like it could've written itself. As it is, I imagine that's actually the result of spectacularly good work by Fawkes, knocking yet another issue out of the park.

I don't want it to end!

Thank you Ray Fawkes, Ben Templesmith and Juan Ferreyra. I'm still fairly new to comics, but this might be the most consistently enjoyable series I've read yet. Good luck to all three of you on future projects.

So it turns out Felicity Smoak without Emily Rickards ends up being a really insufferable, unlikeable character. Honestly, I really wish they'd never introduced the TV elements at all. Flyff and Naomi were infinitely better than the versions of Diggle and Smoak we've been given, and every issue under this creative team has felt like the continual desecration of what Lemire created. I'm so glad we get a new creative team after this.

I miss the days of Lemire and Sorrentino. I'd still take this over the direction Kreisberg and Sokolowski tried to take it, but Green Arrow deserves better.

I actually really enjoyed this, despite the slight silliness of it. The drug addict parallel is pretty transparent here, so I think an appearance by Roy could be incredibly poignant once GA inevitably hits rock bottom.

Some interesting ideas, but everything feels so, so rushed. Ollie and Dinah seem to go from flirting to "needing space" via some kind of relationship in the space of 5 pages, not to mention the ending...

Again, things occur at a million miles an hour. He's dead. Everyone knows. He's alive. He's recovered. Everything's gone. All while acting as though Ollie and Dinah - who in this incarnation have known each other for 5 seconds - are the GA and BC of olde. The transition from where Green Arrow as a series has been to where Ben Percy seems to see it going feels as rushed, clumsy and badly-done as when Sokolowski tried to make it more like the "Arrow" TV show in 2014.

It gets an extra point simply because I love Ferreyra's art, but I'm not enjoying this. I don't buy Emiko's face-heel turn at all. We're three issues in an Dinah is already one of the two most important people to GA? I think not. I'm assuming this is all built on pre-52 narrative, because Percy's spent no time giving me reason to invest in anyone or anything going on here, as if I'm meant to care already.

This has to be the worst creative transition since Sokolowski and Kreisberg picked up the reigns of Green Arrow. This issue is clearly intended to raise questions, but it's hard to tell which ones are going to have satisfactory answers and which ones are there purely to explain away ham-fisted creative changes.

Bleez manages to be more compelling in one issue than either of the protagonists have been in three. The only problem is we know Bleez. This is the same Bleez we've been reading about for the past 5 years, but all her character development seems to have been thrown out. If it was a memory-wiped Bleez or alternate-universe Bleez it'd be fine, but I can't reconcile treating a character I've already invested in as if their slate's wiped clean without some explanation.

Genuinely surprised to find out Simon Oliver is British after "init she" from the cab driver. The dialogue is as heavy-handed as Constantine's characterization. I'm not confident that Constantine is in good hands if this is anything to go by.

It's good for what it is, but I have no desire for another Justice League comic about the same team. Especially another one that fails to account for current events/continuity, making everything feel so inconsequential. In another time and place I'd be kinder, but this doesn't seem good enough to justify the over-saturation of these characters.

As with the rest of Parker's JLU run, I seem to have enjoyed it a little more than most. Like Gotham By Midnight, I feel this is a series that would've gotten even better given time to grow and mature, but I'm glad we got as much as we did. The art was especially notable this issue. Travel Foreman's art seems to be slightly more stylized than his usual and I love it. I'd be very happy to see Foreman on another of DC's titles full-time.

This feels like a set-up for a solo series, or at least for Shazam having a more prominent role in the DC universe than he's had. If this issue is undone by the end of the Darkseid war, this is more of a 6.5 than an 8.

There's nothing wrong with it, but it doesn't have much reason to exist either. Unless the "lesson" of this issue has major implications in the future, it feels like this only serves to save space in the next issue of Justice League.

I feel like this thing is stumbling across ice, and you can't tell whether it's just about to find its footing or fall over completely. This one gave me hope for its future, though.

In a world where Batgirl is somehow scoring 8, this deserves at least a 7. Fun to read and fun to look at. Impressive how much story gets told during the fight sequences, too.

Throughout the issue you're hoping it'll happen, and at the end it sort of does. It's a good issue in and of itself, but the best part is the possibilities it raises for the future.

I've actually been enjoying Lobo up 'til this point, but I'm not sure why this issue needed to exist. It also breaks my heart to see the Red Lanterns come to this. They'd been so well developed, and now for all intents and purposes that seems to have been undone.

I've loved the series so far, but there were so many things wrong with this issue. It still gets a 6 because some of my problems with it are subjective, but a lot of the behaviour of various characters make no sense in here, and there almost seemed to be a different cliché for every page of the issue.

This was not a series I thought would turn into straight-up silliness. Some parts read like a bad anime. All in all it's not terrible, but this has gone from great to drop-worthy in the space of two issues.

Fortunately, things feel slightly more grounded in this issue than the last. It still suffers from an element of the absurd and a lack of emotional investment however. Mecha-Jonzz just feels silly, and I don't care about most of the parties involved here. Constantine makes an inexplicable appearance at the start of this issue and it's arguably the most relatable part. I don't care about adult-Alicia. I don't care about Pearl. I don't care about the Martian people. I don't care about Maalefaak, he's a cartoon villain. I don't care about the Martian child (but then, he's a plot device, I don't think you're meant to). I barely care about Daryl. The only person I care about is Mr. Biscuits, since he's the only person that possesses enough character and got enough face-time before this all kicked off that I actually care about what happens to him. If we'd gotten a few more issues before we'd been kicked off to Mars, I think we'd be in a better place. That said, we are still given a great spectacle, it's just rough to change one's mindset from wanting more of what we started with to enjoying what feels like an action-packed Saturday-morning cartoon.

Mostly, it's a typical Sean Ryan Suicide Squad issue. My only real issue was some clumsy handling of Harley's characterization, but that was balanced by some decent Capt. Boomerang development, then suddenly we get two pages of social commentary out of nowhere. You could remove those two pages and the story would still be coherent (at least by current Suicide Squad standards) and the quality of writing is a level above Ryan's usual, which almost makes me feel like it was written by somebody else. I don't remember ever seeing quite such a stark anomaly in the middle of an issue with no explanation at all, but I'm glad it happened.

This is the Harley I like.

Neither Ivy nor Harley felt *quite* like themselves. I was happy to see Harley taken more seriously, but it almost went too far in the other direction. Ivy meanwhile almost seemed too personable and human in the beginning, and then halfway through switches to "humans are so complicated" mode. It doesn't feel like Amy Chu has a perfect grip on either character, but it's still very readable.

Over the last couple of issues this has simply turned into a super solid Poison Ivy story. It almost feels a little "slice of life", but with a twist here or there. I'm interested to see how long Rose and Hazel last and how they're handled. I could just as easily see them getting bumped off next issue as much as being long-term additions to Ivy's character, whether they remain children or have a hyper-accelerated growth-rate.

I can't wait for it's return and I hope it's better promoted when it does. This was more enjoyable than most of DC's big-name titles right now.

Yeesh. I don't know what Duela Dent was like pre-New 52, this is the only iteration of Joker's Daughter I've ever known, and I just want her to disappear. Lobdell tries to do something with her, but she's so unlikeable I can't even pity her. I'm also not buying the attempt at redemption. Hopefully that's on purpose and this is all some elaborate scheme to draw Red Hood and Arsenal into some kind of trap, because as a character she's going to need to face something truly horrible before she can begin to be redeemed for real. Maybe that's already happened and we'll find out about it in flashbacks, but there's no other path I can see for her that won't feel convoluted and unnatural.

This felt super clumsy. The JD story could've been done really nicely, but it's wasted here as it's delivered with the same level of writing as a bad fanfic. It really feels like Lobdell has no idea what to do with these characters.

Scott Lobdell. Joker's Daughter. Of everything he could get right, of every character he could redeem, it's Duela Dent? Seriously? In this sea of mediocrity, it's her of all people that he's beginning to mold into a seemingly compelling character. It almost seems like a waste, to build up a character in a series no one is reading just before a major DC reboot...How very Scott Lobdell.

This was far better than I thought a Lobdell book had any business being. A genuinely solid and enjoyable issue that stands on its own. I'd like to believe we could get an entire Red Hood run of this quality, but I know better than to get my hopes up.

Teenage girls would love it. I don't know how many teenage girls it'll reach, though.

There's two things I can say for sure. Firstly, perfect little Duke needs to go away. He's loathable in his flawlessness. We Are Robin #7 did a good job at putting him in his place, but that's all undone here. Here we have Grayson and Damian looking like the amateurs and Duke the unwavering hero. It's all backwards. Secondly, Damian gets completely mishandled by King. It wouldn't be so bad if it wasn't completely contrary to where Damian is in his own series, but he's just been through this huge journey of redemption and finding out who he is, and then his character gets conveniently contorted in this just so Duke-the-absolutely-wonderful can "redeem" him in this issue. It's crap.

It says here the writer is Patrick Gleason, but as far as I'm aware this issue is pure Ray Fawkes and the change of writers shows. I loved Fawkes' work at the end of Constantine and throughout Gotham By Midnight, but it's clear he doesn't really have a grip of the characters/story here. It really screams of someone who's been brought in to cover the last 3 issues of a cancelled series.

I'd say it went out on a strong note. I wouldn't be surprised if Suren is lost to obscurity after this, but I hope Maya figures in Damien's future adventures once in a while.

I never read the original Secret Six, but only 3 issues in and I'm already in love with most of the characters (which makes the end all the more heart-breaking). Ventriloquist is an exception, but then I think she's meant to be.

If nothing else, this made me realize how much I miss JLD. There's a few missteps of logic here, but otherwise this is easily one of DC's most readable titles. Simone does a remarkable job of injecting humour into the proceedings without negatively affecting anything else (Strix's dignity might be taking a slight hit, but otherwise it works perfectly).

I love this thing. I don't often enjoy comedy in my comics, but Simone's got the tone of this thing nailed down.

This should be at least an 8. The majority of the book deserves it, but the end is such a disappointment and such a let down, it cheapens all the build-up. No doubt certain elements here will be picked up again in the future, but it feels like the story was meant to go on for at least a couple more issues and got prematurely cut short because they had to move on to the next arc for whatever reason. As far as convenient wrap-ups go, this one takes the cake.

God do I miss Simone's Batgirl. Even with Cameron's/Fletcher's younger, less Barbara-ish Batgirl to work with, Simone does her more justice here than Batgirl's own writers have since they started. The rest of what's good here is very much the same as in previous issues - the dynamic between a bunch of messed-up misfits, who - by and large - are written superbly.

Exposition and set-up for what's to come. The art quality dips in this issue, with our special guest suffering especially at the end.

Some parts beggar belief, but it's such incredible fun to read.

If this were just the Deadshot story, this would probably be a 9. I always get nervous when origin stories are tinkered with, but in this case...Wow. This is as heavy a story as you tend to get outside the Vertigo branch of DC. I'm genuinely looking forward to seeing where Buccellato takes the Deadshot half of this story. Unfortunately there's a second half to this book, and even worse it's the first half, which means people who pick this up from the shelf and start reading may well end up putting it back without ever getting to the good bit. I'm completely unfamiliar with pre-New52 Katana, but I get the impression she hasn't been done justice from then 'til now and that doesn't look like it'll change with this series.

This is mainly a score for the Deadshot story, which isn't quite as good as what was delivered last week, but still maintains a decent quality. The problem here is the Katana half. It almost seems cruel to force it into the same book, like a disappointing sibling that you can't help but compare to its better older brother or sister. It doesn't help that the Suicide Squad features in both stories, benefiting from such great characterization by Buccellato in the first half, but then suffering lines like "'Strewth! I don't need t'lose any more juice! Best put these blokes out!" from Boomerang in the second. You can't help but wish 'Katana' was more like its older brother.

The art was good for both stories, and Deadshot's half ended so well, but Katana's just wasn't of the same calibre.

I actually liked the fight club stuff. The idea of old gods who have to keep their story alive to survive and do so via conveying their narrative through modern means, but it's not very "Superman", and then we get to the Superman part of the issue and it's so, so bland. As with the last-but-one issue of Superman & Wonder Woman, I hope the significant event of this issue isn't as it seems, because to happen during this "Truth" arc would be such a waste.

What a mess.

I know people disliked the idea of Superman and Wonder Woman, on account of Clark and Lois being such a fundamental aspect of the DC universe, but with the way Lois has been characterised from the beginning of the New 52 until now, the events of this issue are supremely unsatisfying. Assuming this is the end of Clark & Diana, having it happen in such an underwhelming way during such an underwhelming crossover is just so disappointing. Add all that to the bad characterisation and I begin to hope this issue can be dismissed as never having happened as far as the rest of the DC universe is concerned.

If this is the Supes/Wonder Woman break up, it's feeling so forced and unnatural...So contrived. I think I'd rather it had just faded from existence post-Convergence, away from the public eye and with readers left to reach their own conclusions based on future context and cues. I think an implied distancing and separation could've been far more powerful than "HEY GUYS. LOOK. LOOK AT ALL THE ARGUMENTS AND PROBLEMS THEY'RE HAVING. THIS IS BELIEVABLE, RIGHT?"

A very different tone to the last one, but I loved it just as much. It's such a teenager move to do something immensely stupid for the right reasons and I think we get the superpowered version of that here. If you try and imagine what adolescence would be like for Superman, I think this is pretty much as believable as it gets. The art meanwhile is better than my initial impressions let on. I realized after reading just how expressive the faces were here. I'm looking back over the faces as I write this and for some reason I'm reminded of the way Andrea Sorrentino draws his faces, which similarly cover a wider range of expressions than you typically see. Again we get something very different to the previous issue with the art, but it's perfect for putting the internal conflicts and uncertainties of the adolescent mind on display.

This is handled so well. So many pivotal characters meeting each other for the first time, and each meeting is handled perfectly. The best one of all for me though, was young Grayson. Not only do we rarely get to see him during his boy-wonder days any more, but seeing him training his ability to read people was a lovely moment. His comments about light balancing darkness also happened to tie almost too perfectly into the art of this issue, being drawn by Jae Lee who is by far my favourite comic book artist, we see a lighter edge to his usual style. Going from constant sunlight and blue skies to the Kidz Zone, then to an arcade and back into sunlight for most of the remainder of the issue. The colours seem a little bolder and the characters less intimidating, be it Clark and his little jig of joy, or even Batman being less cloaked in shadow than a typical Jae Lee portrayal. I came into this with high expectations, but even still it's hard not to geek out over an issue like this.

Max Landis continues to deliver the best Superman stories in a long time. There's only one problem, and that's that there's only 7 issues. What I wouldn't give to have Superman stories of this quality on a long-term basis...

Sometimes it can be fun to take a trip back to the comick bookes of olde, but this feels like a distillation of the most mocked elements of it. It's not bad, but between the rip-off supermen and Darkseid's dad supposedly building the Sphinx (yes, earth's sphinx), it does come off feeling a bit naff.

I try to look past the art, since it's a style from another time, but the writing can't be excused, especially in the latter half. "This is a very bad thing going on here"...That's an actual line fron the comic and it says it all, really.

As someone who's only known the most recent incarnation of Swamp Thing, this felt like a huge leap backwards. I'm not sure whether it was the writing or the art, but it felt so dated. Long-time comic readers might get some nostalgia from that, but otherwise it just feels a bit naff.

Pancakes and the most predictable repercussions ever.

Made me miss the supernatural elements of the DCU, but felt like something from decades ago.

You know it's all over when you have Scott Lobdell writing a Titans issue again. Close your eyes and stick your fingers in your ears until the new creative team arrives.

This was the most enjoyable Titans issue for a long time. Not great, but readable. I was super glad to see Reiser make an appearance too. I hope he continues to be a presence in the DC universe.

Teen Titans hasn't been a strong series since the New 52 hit, but if every issue were as bad as this one, it'd rival Batgirl for DC's worst series. This issue manages to get pretty much everything wrong, from nonsensical fight scenes to sending off potentially interesting characters while retaining the dull and boring ones. The only thing it does successfully is leave a great big "screw you" to Greg Pak who takes over next issue, by leaving such a mess of a comic that even the best writers would have an unpleasant task putting it back on the rails again.

I'd almost like to see Teen Titans omitted entirely in Rebirth and just go away for a year or so before a complete reset. It's good to see the the Azzarello WW mythos return, but that's about the only enjoyable part of the issue.

All too often a good story either lacks a good ending, or a good ending is wasted on an undeserving story, but my thanks go out to Aldridge for managing to deliver us both in a solid final issue.

"I'm having deja vu. I hate deja vu" was such a horrible line, it reduces the score of this issue by half a point all by itself. It's telling that the two most interesting characters in this issue are both AIs. I don't like Tim Drake in this and I like him as Batman Beyond even less. Hopefully his own series will rectify the problems with his character so far.

The machinations of a certain enigmatic character carried this issue, but otherwise it felt cold. What seems like it should've evoked emotion and outrage felt inconsequential and passe (the scene between one of our main characters and a girl near the start fell victim to a truly tired trope). The art doesn't help with this, with it's style failing to breathe much life into the characters, leaving them looking more like puppets - dead behind the eyes. I have faith Tom King will give me reason to care in future issues, but this one left me without investment in the story or the characters.

Brett Booth's art here is hammed up to 11. I'm not sure what the deal is, but his portrayal makes pedestrian lines and normal actions come across as supreme comic book cheesiness. That said, while I'm typically a fan of Dan Abnett, there's plenty of dialogue here which stands by itself as physically painful to read - Roy's opening up to Donna being a prime example.

The story didn't really follow up on the previous issue's tragedy very well, but it brought us a good story nonetheless and let us get to know Riko. It also gave us some proper Batgirl while her own comic is dropping the ball so hard. The style and tone of the art is actually more what I expected from this title when it was announced, albeit it was a little *too* messy in this instance.

After a few too many issues of Duke's character and abilities being developed wayyy too quickly, it's actually his own series that puts him back in his place. I was very glad to see the gulf between the true Robins and the wannabes stated outright. Props to writer Lee Bermejo for that, as well as the exchange between Grayson and Gordon about the ethics of child-vigilantes. It's not something I've seen brought up as often as it probably should be. Unfortunately there is but one black mark against this issue and it's a problem that seems to be plaguing Robin War throughout - the capabilities of Dick Grayson. In part 2 of Robin War (Grayson #15) we see him get out-sparred by Duke Thomas, in part 3 (Detective Comics #47) we see him get beaten in one-on-one combat by Jim Gordon and now on the second page of this issue we see him seemingly slip and need saving while scaling a building. That would not happen. Acrobatics are Grayson's thing, he could leap around Gotham in his sleep. Jim isn't used to climbing buildings; he's new to this. It would've made perfect sense if it was the other way round, with fish-out-of-water Jim Gordon losing his grip and Grayson the acrobat being able to catch someone in free-fall while clinging to the side of a building. It'd also be way more poetic, to have Dick to go from being caught on the previous page to being the one doing the catching. It's not a huge deal, but it's a noticeable oddity in an otherwise level-headed issue.

I hope we see more live on from this series than it's biggest failure - Duke Thomas. The rest of the characters are all interesting, be they likeable or not, and now it looks like it could end with one hell of a bang.

I feel like this issue came " " this close to giving me whiplash. Usually the writing of a comic is either good or bad, but wiith Meredith Finch you seem to have a bizarre distinction between the writing of the characters and dialogue, which is fine, and the writing of the plot which is god-awful. It's almost worse than just having a terrible writer, because you end up seeing characters you've managed to invest in being handled so badly. There are decisions that may end up making sense if the end of this issue isn't all as it seems, but there are others which are just straight-up bad writing. Meanwhile the art is exemplary throughout. I only wish a comic this nice to look at was as enjoyable to read.

I'm pretty sure this ranks just behind "and then they woke up" in terms of plot devices that should never be used. It's one thing to write terrible issues yourself, but to undo the work of the better writers before you? I feel bad for David Finch. He's a good artist in a horrible position.

All too often it reads like a comic book from the 50s. It also seems the artist for this issue hasn't gotten the memo about Diana's new costume. I can't help but feel bad for Brian Azzarello, having to see the series he built turn into...this.

This reads like some combination of a filler issue and a propaganda comic from WW2/the cold war...Even the dialogue was suitably cheesy to fit in with a bygone era of comics. Once again David Finch (sort of) saves the day, by making the comic at least pretty to look at, but I'm baffled why he's gone back to drawing Diana's old costume. It only really serves to make these strange stand-alone issues we're getting feel even more detached, as if we're viewing flashbacks or something. That said, if I were to imagine the last couple of issues as back-ups that were written months ago in case one of the Finchs got sick or something, they'd suddenly make a lot more sense.

By comparison to the past few issues, this was better. I'm still questioning the disappearance of Diana's armour, but it's good to see the machinations return to Olympus.

Until now I've found Meredith Finch's writing in this to be just...horrible, but I actually enjoyed this one. There are still problems, but I dare say if they'd all been of this level, I'd have actually enjoyed her run.

I sincerely hope Azzarello's run won't simply get undone. It's bad enough that we've gone back to the dominatrix-style corset and miniskirt.