Biweekly comic ramblings

Apparently I completely forgot to post last week's haul.

As usual, SPOILERS for everything below.


TMNT #30

AKA "How not to write about characters recovering from trauma."

This was everything I feared we would get for the Northampton arc. Basically, Leo instantly gets better after having a dream in which he talks to Tang Shen. Character development was exceedingly rushed and most of the trauma was glossed over.

Ugh...I want to say more, but I just feel so apathetic towards this issue. Everything just seems too superficial, and on a more meta level, portrayals of trauma/depression like this just contribute toward the general myth that things like depression/PTSD are "easy to get over," "you just have to snap out of it" and so on.

Also, I feel like Alopex has become the writer's/writers' new pet character. I'm going to come out and say that I have a disproportionately burning hatred for Alopex because everyone else seems to love her so much, when really all she has is terrible writing and the personality of wet cardboard.


Earth 2 Annual #2

To be honest, I was hoping right up until the end that Batman 2.0 wouldn't be Thomas Wayne. Even having Batman 2.0 be Thomas Wayne, Jr. would've been better. Learning what had happened to Bruce's dad just made his entire story even more grimdark and cynical...because of course Batman's story was sunshine and rainbows to begin with, right?

I also ideally wanted Batman 2.0 to be not related to Bruce Wayne. There were a lot of things I didn't like about The Dark Knight Rises, but one thing that I thought was powerful was the idea of the Batman legacy being used to inspire a new generation and being passed on to new heroes. It would've been cool of Earth 2's Batman 2 was like that. Sigh.


Teen Titans #27

This series is becoming more and more of a trainwreck as time goes on. I'm so glad it's ending in April, but desperately hoping someone will do something better with all these characters who had so much potential.

So...I really liked the first few pages. I loved hearing about Kiran's background, and the scene in which Tim is trying to cheer her up was really cute. I hated everything else about the issue, especially "gasp KID FLASH IS NOW TEH EVULZ!!!". Just, no. Give me back cheerful, funny Bart Allen, please. (sob)


Aquaman #27

Don't really have much to say about this issue. It's pretty solid, not the most exciting but not the worst, either.


Flash #27

I originally wasn't going to read this, but this week was mostly dominated by meh issues for me, so I picked this up on a whim. Actually, I quite like it a lot. Nothing can top Francis Manapul's art, and it was pretty jarring for me to get used to the new art style, but the writing was pretty interesting and I'm dying to see what happens next.


Injustice: Year Two

I quit.

I kept reading (admittedly, mostly out of a sense of morbid curiosity) after they killed pregnant Lois Lane in the first few issues. I kept reading when they killed off Nightwing (which...was a bit less shocking to me than it should've been, considering the New 52's record of heaping angst and trauma onto Nightwing). I kept reading even though they made Wonder Woman even more of a douchebag than evil!Superman. I kept reading even when J'onn J'onzz, whom I've always had a soft spot for, was burned to ashes, which left a very sour taste in my mouth.

But no more.

I really would've appreciated a trigger warning for Injustice: Year Two #2, so I'm going to say this for the benefit of any future readers: extreme trigger warning for gore in this issue.

I quit because they killed off Kyle Rayner in the most brutal, traumatic, and graphic way in this issue. And there was no reason other than to up the already ridiculous grimdark/cynicism/grittiness factor, and I guess because they only wanted to write about Hal Jordan.

Yes, dammit, I'm a huge fan of Kyle, and yes, dammit, seeing him killed off in such a graphic way was traumatizing. Nightwing just got off with falling and having his neck broken, for crying out loud.

That's it.

I'm done. I don't need any more grimdark in my life, and I sure as hell do not need gratuitous gore in the comics I read.


Ms. Marvel #1

HELL YES.

I loved this issue. I'm not Muslim or Pakistani-American, but I am the child of immigrants and lots of her experiences were definitely super familiar. I get why some people might think it's cliché, but that just brings up the sticky question: yes, it's a "clichéd" view of the hyphenated-American experience, but this is something that so many of us deal with.

I love Kamala, she's so down to earth and funny and real. I loved the variety of characters/reactions introduced; Zoe and her boyfriend seemed slightly exaggerated, but at the same time I feel like their reactions are realistically ignorant.

Also, as a fan of Runaways, I love Adrian Alphona's art. So basically everything was a win for me.


Earth 2 #20

Let's get the bad news out of the way first: they whitewashed Connor Hawke. Actually, everything about "Red Arrow" is incredibly bizarre. He was originally intended to be "Roy McQueen," an amalgamation of Oliver Queen and Roy Harper, and even had a lot of cues besides his name & identity of Red Arrow, like his metal arm. But now someone decided he's Connor Hawke, which, just...no. If they keep his name, at least make his skintone darker. :/

Good news: This issue had lots of Aquawoman being badass (yeeeeaaaah!), and some really nice scenes with Lois and Val. I really, really love Val. I love the fact that we finally have a Kryptonian who is brown instead of white. I love the fact that his struggle with agoraphobia is (so far) being treated sensitively and compassionately.


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More comics that I'm thinking of getting into:

- New 52 Green Arrow
- Black Widow
- Elektra (next month, because the art looks gorgeous)
- Hawkeye (everyone says it's good?)
- preboot Green Arrow/Black Canary stuff, because Arrow is making me really angry right now and I want some fluffy Ollie/Dinah happyfuntimes D:<
- Moon Knight (next month)