J. Michael Straczynski. JMS as he’s commonly called. I don’t even pretend to know the dude’s name or how to spell it were it not in front of me. Everybody knows something he’s written, whether its the Spider-Man comics that erased 20 years of continuity, Babylon 5, The Changeling… Something.

He’s been at DC for awhile now writing their team-up book The Brave and The Bold. I’ve picked up the occasional issue, but while it’s fun, the book had been nothing particularly special. The stories are all told in a single issue. Cliff Chiang’s art is solid but not spectacular. Also, the fact that they’re telling lost stories plays a part in the book’s blandness… Nothing feels like it counts. Issue 33 isn’t one of those issues, however.

The issue teams up Wonder Woman, Zatanna, and Barbara Gordon as Batgirl. It seemed like an oddball team up if I’ve ever heard of one and yet somehow it was impossible to ignore. The story starts out strangely with Zatanna and Wonder Woman deciding to enjoy a night out on the town.

Half-way through the second act it becomes chrystal clear where the story is going. There’s only one moment it can be leading up to… and yet when we get there the book manages to be surprisingly uplifting.

I don’t know how else to say it… this issue is something really special. If JMS keeps writing stories like this, I’m on board.

DC Comics officially announced yesterday that a new series called Brightest Day will follow up their best-selling Blackest Night series in April. While Blackest Night is a more conventional 8-issue miniseries, Brightest Day will be a bi-weekly 26-issue maxi-series beginning with an issue zero. This is similar to DC’s weekly series 52, which launched out of Infinite Crisis, and its follow up Countdown, which led into Final Crisis.  I remember hearing a lot of mixed reactions to 52 and Countdown, so hopefully nothing will spoil or needlessly complicate this series.

Twenty-six issues is a big commitment for me, especially considering I don’t normally read DC’s books. However, given how great Blackest Night has been, I’ll certainly give this a try since Green Lantern/Blackest Night writer Geoff Johns will be writing this as well.

It was also announced that David Finch will be providing covers for the series. Kevin and I were just discussing him over the weekend regarding his new exclusive contract with DC. This is a high profile job and he deserves it as he’s incredibly talented. He’s done some of my favorite covers in recent years, particularly for the X-Men: Messiah Complex crossover and Moon Knight. I’m even planning to purchase a print of his cover art from X-Men #200.

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

So this Blackest Night stuff is pretty cool.  I don’t read a lot of DC comics (and by this I mean any) on a regular basis, but I was getting a lot of suggestions from people that this was going to be a great book.  My intention was to stick to the 8-issue mini-series and not buy all of the tie-ins and spin-offs that are bound to be a part of this event.  However, when I went to my local comics shop last week, they didn’t have any more copies of North 40 so I used the money to pick up an issue of Green Lantern that serves as a prelude to DC’s new event series, Blackest Night.  I’m probably going to spoil things that happen in these books, so consider yourselves warned.

Green Lantern #43 (GL43) was totally creepy and a clear example of a comic that isn’t meant for kids.  It tells the back-story of the Black Hand (a character I have no familiarity with (like a lot of DC characters)) and how throughout his life he’s been surrounded by death.  I got what was going on and how he was selected to lead the Black Lanterns (a group of undead villains powered by black rings and a black battery in Space Sector 666), but what I don’t understand is why this is happening now.  Is it because Hal Jordan (The Green Lantern) and Barry Allen (The Flash) came back from the dead? Or is this one of the mysteries of Blackest Night?  The main things that might be missed if you didn’t read this issue are the life history of the Black Hand, his transformation into the leader of the Black Lanterns, and the fact that the Oa gnome with the scar on his face is the one who seems to have started the whole thing.

Upon finishing GL43, I went and dug up the Free Comic Book Day (FCBD) Blackest Night #0 (BN0) issue that I picked up back in May, but  hadn’t read (and was lucky to be able to find given the current state of my collection).  BN0 was a cool set up and bridged the gap between GL43 and Blackest Night #1.  I don’t know if that was necessary, but it’s interesting on its own and it was free.  The pages in the back describing the powers and members of the various groups representing the emotional spectrum was incredibly helpful and I referred back to it a number of times while reading Blackest Night #1, to summarize:

http://sinccolor.deviantart.com/art/Blackest-Night-114033719

Red = Rage
Orange = Avarice
Yellow = Fear
Green = Willpower
Blue = Hope
Indigo = Compassion*
Violet = Love
Black = Death

The main event, Blackest Night #1 was a really fun book.  Granted it was more set up for the most part (although it’s set up for the entire DC Universe), but a number of significant things happen.  Hawkpeople are murdered, Bruce Wayne’s skull gets carted around town (although I have suspicions that it isn’t actually Batman’s skull), and thousands of Black Lantern rings distribute themselves across the universe awakening the dead to serve in their mission to kill everything.  A nice background is given for the Green Lanterns of Earth, most of whom I have only the most cursory of knowledge of.  My only complaint is that in a few scenes names were being thrown around that I didn’t recognize and I wasn’t sure what the significance was.  The book made me want to know more though.  The artwork was top notch, and rendered an amazing number of characters (both living and dead) beautifully (and incredibly creepily).

I’m intrigued.  I will certainly continue with Blackest Night, and I’m even interested in checking out the stories that got everything to this point.

*Thanks to the commenter below for the correction.

I know this is coming almost two weeks after the book shipped, but I was pressed (slightly) into doing this by Kevin (who also reviewed it here). He’s very interested in my DC purchases lately.  For anyone who’s not familiar with the Wednesday Comics project, it’s a Sunday newspaper style “comic book” featuring a series of one page stories that will continue weekly over the course of twelve weeks.  The quotes are not meant to demean the “book,” I’m honestly not sure what to call it.

I had an immediate reaction to this “book” the moment I laid eyes on it.  Newsprint automatically equals cheap in my mind.  Even though it’s actually pretty high quality paper, I just thought that there was no way it should cost $3.99.  That’s just the price of comics at this point though and it’s one of the more expensive “books” on the shelf (I think most books are still $2.99, for now).

While the format is cool, really cool, I found it hard to read at times since the pages kept folding over on me.  The artwork is amazing at that size, but a one page story is just not enough to hook me in.  In fact, the Superman “story” hardly even qualifies as a story as they are only about 20 words and it’s the villain basically saying “you’re an alien, Superman.”

The other stories (15 in all) have a lot more substance to them, with the Kamandi story being my favorite, which is saying something since my only knowledge of the character is as a source of comedy as the go to obscure DC character that gets referenced from time to time.  The Hawkman story and Strange Adventures come in as strong runners up. I’d love to see where these stories are going, though I don’t see myself coming back for subsequent weeks.  I lead a serialized life, but the one page stories are just too low dosage.

After a controversial run on Batman that ended with Bruce Wayne sort of but not really dying in another title, Grant Morrison launched the new Batman and Robin title from DC this week with frequent collaborator Frank Quitely. Spoilers ahead…

So there’s a new Batman and Robin showing up in Gotham for the first time in this story. The original Robin who has been running around the DC Universe for the last 25 years as Nightwing, Dick Grayson, has taken over as Batman and is joined by Bruce Wayne’s evil brat son, Damian, as Robin. In contrast to the classic team, the new Batman has a sense of humor and the new Robin is a violent, psychotic, ten-year old, trained by Ninja Assasins who thinks he should be Batman. The Batmobile flies. The villain is called Mr. Toad and looks exactly like you’d expect.

It sounds stupid. Well, it is stupid. But in the capable hands of Morrison and Quitely, it works. And by the way, Morrison’s last run on Batman works better than you think it did too. Go back and read it one sitting. Seriously. Try it. It’s not nearly as incoherent as it seemed while reading it on a monthly basis.

Anyway, where was I?

Quitely’s art is a style all his own. Undeniably ugly… And yet I can’t get enough of it. His characters ooze personality.

Morrison in one issue has written the most interesting Dick Grayson we’ve seen in years. And while he’s treading on dangerous territory by making Robin such a brat… (Fans voted for the last brat Robin to be beaten with a crowbar and blown up…) I believe he has a plan for Damian. Whether that plan will be satisfying for readers or not, I guess we’ll see.

The master villain we’re introduced to at the end of the issue looks to me like someone from a horror movie and his actions seem to confirm we’re about to see the equivalent of Batman vs. Leatherface or the villain from some torture porn flick or something. The scene was sufficently creepy and sold on the strength of Quitely’s characterization.

In conclusion, it’s interesting that Dick Grayson is running around as Batman now (for the second time… See Batman: Prodigal), when just a few years ago we saw his death scene in Infinite Crisis. A scene that DC thankfully wimped out on following through with, as we saw Dick alive a few pages later. But make no mistake, Dan Didio intended to kill Dick Grayson off once, this story could just as easily be his swan song.