If you haven’t read Uncanny X-Men #522 or had it spoiled for you (the big story of this issue was leaked months ago) please don’t read on.  Unless of course you don’t care about such things.

In a wonderful act of kindness, Matt Fraction, writer of Marvel’s Uncanny X-Men, returned Kitty Pryde to planet Earth in the issue that shipped this week.  It was a nice way to commemorate my birthday, so I thank him.  Kitty had been trapped inside a giant bullet hurtling through space since the end of Joss Whedon’s run on Astonishing X-Men (I am fully aware of how ridiculous this is, but it’s what I like).  After being lost in space for “however long it’s been” in comics’ time (nearly two years for readers), it’s nice to have her back in the book.

How did this happen? Magneto has returned, repowered by the High Evolutionary, and joined the X-Men’s community on Utopia.  Tiring of the justified mistrust directed toward him, he has used every ounce of his regained abilities to redirect the space bullet and rescue the X-Men’s missing teammate: doing himself great physical harm in the process.  The long-term impact of whose hand she was returned by should be fantastic to see.

Another interesting element of her return is that when she reached out to embrace her longtime love Piotr Rasputin (Colossus), she passed right through him, suggesting that the amount of time she spent phasing the bullet has left her in a perpetually phased state.  It’s likely that this means nothing can touch her, but it might have been a fun twist if she were only unable to touch Colossus, since it was indicated that the “strange” metal the space bullet was composed of is similar to Colossus’ organic steel body.

A great back up story by Fraction and artist Phil Jimenez was also included that addressed the issue of what effect a giant bullet flying through space has had on other planets in it’s path.  Kitty was able to use her mutant phasing power to allow it to harmlessly pass through the Earth, and managed to maintain that state through the duration of her voyage, but the reaction of an alien planet that couldn’t have known this made for a great story.

As much as I enjoyed this issue, I have to mention that the excitement just continues for me with the start of X-Men: Second Coming.  Marvel was kind enough to send another gift today in the form of a free preview available now at Comic Book Resources.

Cry for Justice! launched on the heels of Final Crisis with Green Lantern Hal Jordan and Green Arrow deciding they needed to seek revenge… Scratch that Justice!… for the deaths of guys like the Martian Manhunter at hands of supervillians in recent years. The two heroes form their own seperate Justice! League to proactively dish out their new brand of Justice!

The book was originally announced as a second ongoing Justice! League title to be written by James Robinson. The series was mercifully shortened to just seven issues. Robinson has since, however, taken over the main ongoing JLA book. Spoilers below…

Since the publication of the first issue of CFJ! the book has been controversial. Fourth-tier DC characters were killed off seemingly without regard. The dialogue was at times ridiculously bad and the whole package desperately sought to be edgy. Hell, several supporting characters never even interacted with the books stars and had no reason for being in the series at all.

As the story progressed, I took it all in with a grain of salt because the art looked kind of nice and it all seemed to be done in the name of turning the villain Prometheus into an upper tier force in the DC Universe.

I’m always in favor of more top heels.

The final issue of the series landed yesterday and proved every single one of the book’s naysayers correct.

I really don’t know what DC was thinking with this one.

This book destroyed virtually the entire Green Arrow universe.

GA’s former sidekick Speedy, also known at one point as Arsenal and most recently known as JLA member Red Arrow, had his arm torn off. That’s a pretty big problem for an archer, but DC can always tack on a cyborg arm ala the Winter Soldier or Cable.

Why? Because it’s edgy.

Speedy’s most interesting characteristic has always been that he was a single father doing his best to raise the daughter, Lian, that he fathered with the supervillain Cheshire. Lian is a decades old character though maybe only six years old in continuity. (People age oddly in comics.)

Of course the most noted casualty in CFJ! had to be this little girl. The only interesting part of Speedy’s character is gone.

Why? Because it’s edgy.

Robinson went further by destroying GA’s hometown likely killing millions.

Why? Because it’s edgy.

All of this would have been a major price to pay to push Prometheus back up to the upper echelon of DC villains, but most troublesome of all, CFJ! ends with Green Arrow firing an arrow through Prometheus’ skull and basically nailing his face to a wall.

Why? Because it’s edgy.

It’s bad enough that the biggest developments in Green Arrow’s life since his own death and resurrection happened not in his own title but in a Justice! League mini-series… But what did any of this accomplish? Producing a suddenly edgier Green Arrow?

Why didn’t they kill Black Canary and Connor Hawke while they were at it? That would have been really edgy. Hell, for all I know Hawke may already be dead. Who can keep score?

DC has promised to follow up on this story throughout the Spring, but CFJ! has generated nothing but cheap heat and I can’t imagine people will buy those follow-up books en masse.

Ulimately, I know some of this stuff will be written out of DC continuity in the years to come War Games-style. It has to be. It’s all too stupid. But that just serves to cheapens the DC universe even further.

Cry for Justice! should never have been published.

No sooner do I criticize Marvel for revealing members of their upcoming Avengers team and as a result cutting the legs off any suspense contained in their current epic story Siege which is basically leading up to the formation of that team than DC decides to get in on the action. DC via their official blog the Source is unveiling their post-Blackest Night plans starting with the return of Aquaman in Brightest Day.

Aquaman is currently one of the major Black Lanterns terrorizing his former friends. Why is it necessary to reveal now that he’ll be back from the dead and no longer a zombie-like thing come Brightest Day #1. This reveal of course suggests that other Black Lanterns will be returning to life as well… Granted this was assumed by most readers to be one of the end results of Blackest Night, but now any questions about an upcoming mass resurrection have been put to rest.

And how does spoiling Aquaman’s return help DC sell more comics? Because that’s the only excuse for the ruining part of the ending of possibly the company’s most popular mega-event of at least the last decade. Time and again, Aquaman has been relaunched and failed to sell books. Almost no one is going to buy Brightest Day on the strength of an Aquaman appearance. In fact, Aquaman and his talking to fish gimmick may drive some readers away.

DC has actually now gone further and announced that the underrated Tony Bedard will be taking over as writer of their Green Lantern Corps title. This is good news in my opinion. The book will follow the adventures of Green Lanterns John Stewart, Kyle Raynor, and Ganthet. Yep. That’s three more main characters that we now know will survive the war of light! And Ganthet is going to remain a Green Lantern? Who saw that coming? Why are you telling us this DC? Why?

This would suggest that the only major Green Lantern character who could face any peril in the final issues of Blackest Night would be the currently rage consumed Red Lantern Guy Gardner. But DC has further announced he’ll be starring in the new monthly Green Lantern: Emerald Warriors title.

And I guess no one should feel stupid continuing to pay $3-$4 an issue to find out how this story concludes? I feel like I’m screaming at a wall, but really it’s why things like HTML Comics exist.

Marvel had it right when they were refusing to release any solicitation information except basically titles and prices for post-Civil War and Secret Invasion books… Captain America 25 which was spoiled by national newspapers aside… But since they’re releasing spoilers now too maybe that policy hurt sales.

Who knows.

More on the series can be found at our Brightest Day hub.

After writing my earlier post, it occurred to me that I’m not even that big of an Avengers fan and Marvel has been releasing teasers for weeks for an event that I’m far more interested in. The third chapter in the X-Men: Messiah Trilogy hits this April with Second Coming.
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This snow is really starting to cause problems. Apparently Diamond Comic Distributors, who ship the majority of new books on Wednesdays, had no power and no phone as of Monday due to the weekend storm. A recent update says that this outage shouldn’t cause any shipping delays. However, considering the new storm that’s crushing us today, there’s a good chance we won’t see books before next week at this point. Without any books hot off the presses, it’s nice that Marvel has given us some teasers of what’s coming a few months down the line to focus on.
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