Ratings and Rantings

Hey everyone, it's that time once again for your weekly dose of comic content comments, Ratings and Rantings! I'm your host Jason Todd, and this week you get your Rantings and Rantings in the middle of the week instead of this weekend! Oh lucky you! We've only got four comics but hopefully their good ones. But I won't bore you with an intro, let's get to the meat and potatoes of the post, the reviews, starting off with Green Lantern!

Green Lantern #62

We start off with Hal and Krona confronting one another, and we see a bit of Krona's past. He was apparently a Guardian and mistakenly caused the creation of the Antin-Matter Universe, and subsequently Qward, The Weaponers and Sinestro's ring. Hal tries to take on Krona, in failing effort, while Saint Walker and the other Lanterns save the people that were formerly possessed by the entities. Hal then hits Krona with a huge punch and places him inside a Green Lantern but Krona breaks through. Krona then eases his way out of it and depletes Hal's ring battery, but Hal is surprisingly saved by a very angry (when isn't he angry...) Atrocitus who wants revenge on Krona, and gets it by biting his neck like a damn Dracula. (Thank you Deadpool!) Jrona blasts Atrocitus off and gets ready to leave with the entities, but Hal, Atrocitus, Saint Walker, Larfleeze and some more Lanterns all go to attack. Their interrupted by Hector Hammond, who is still possessed by Ophidian, the Orange Lantern entity. While Atrocitus is subdued, Krona uses this time to take his entity too. Hal tries to make on last ditch effort and blasts at Krona but Krona is ready and blasts ALL the lanterns back with a blinding white light. While Hal is blasted unconcious he see's the Guardian's discussing how dangerous Hal is, especially with the loss of one of the Lanterns of sector 2814 (Interesting...) as a robed figure says Hal isn't as dangerous as him. Hal then awakens on the JLA Satellite surrounded by The Flash, Superman and Batman. Batman has apparently dropped the loving role as he pretty much goes off on Hal about working with Atrocitus, as he's going around killing people. Superman, Flash and I'd assume Batman offer their help in taking on Krona as they all know how powerful he is, and Atrocitus, Saint Walker, Indigo and Larfleeze also show up saying Larflezee can track Hammond. The heroes tell Hal not to turn his back on friends and he can't do this alone, and Indigo replies he isn't doing it alone. Hal then says sorry as he leaves with the other Lanterns as the issue ends. This issue wasn't bad, we learned a lot about Krona and his past, as well as the Guardians used to all wear White Lantern symbols which is interesting, you'd think they would know more about the Lantern in that case. We also saw Hal turn his back on his friends which may lead to other things, I'll give this issue a 7/10, it wasn't bad but nothing memorable really took place either, nor was it explained where the hell Hammond even came from. Was he just watching and waiting?

Hal Jordan: What... What happened?

Batman: You Lost. (Haha, there's the Batman I remember!)

Brightest Day #20

Last time Aquaman lost a hand... again, this time I'm gonna predict.... Hal gets Parallax and kills everyone? Firestorm gets impaled with a sword and flies into the sky and explodes? Wonder Woman snaps Max Lord's neck? Oh... we are just rehashing old storylines right? Right from the opening page we see Boston Brand trying to join the fight on the beat between the Aqua-family and Siren, her people and Black Manta. The ring tells him it isn't his fight and that the ring opened the Bermuda triangle to see how Aquaman would handle this, as well as the truth about Mera being sent to kill him. Damn, that ring is pretty evil, it's like it's planning a reality TV show. Manta walks up to kill the crying Aquaman, but he's tackled by his son, Jackson. Jackson asks why Manta sides with people that killed his mother and wants to kill him, and Manta says neither Jackson or his mother mean anything to him. Damn Manta, you're one cold blooded S.O.B. Manta is then attacked by water constructs of sharks as Mera and Aquagirl show up to the fight. Jackson see's Aquagirl and gets a tingle in his swordfish. Yeah, I said it. From there, she tells him to try to knock off their helmets since most of them can't breathe air, and the two start to take on Siren's men. Aquaman is shocked that Mera is alive, because sure, Siren would never lie to you Arthur. She tells Arthur he needs to get his hand or lack of hand fixed because he's losing blood rapidly and she has Jackson cauterize the wound with his electric powers. From there the Four Aquamembers try to take on their opposers and Mera controls the entire sea and grabs all of their enemies and throws them into the water. They then follow them in as Aquaman calls on his fish friends to help even the odds and hundreds of dead Sharks, Octopi and the like follow him into battle. Once they battle the bad guys, Jackson uses his powers to turn the Bermuda triangle back on... okay... and lock the enemies away. After that, everyone makes up and Aquaman and Mera kiss as Lorena tells Jackson not to get any ideas. The issue ends as Aquaman is granted life by the White Ring, as Deadman stands there and we see a repeat of what happened to the Hawks. This issue was okay, I'm starting to believe the ring is just teleporting people away. That makes more sense, and this issue wasn't bad at all, but I think the ending of the fight was pretty lackluster. I did like that it stuck with one story for the whole issue though, so I'll give this a 6.5/10.

Black Manta: Your mother meant nothing to me. Just like you.

Green Lantern Corps #57

Green Lantern Corps guest-staring Firestorm, well alright then. We get a quick recap on the Firestorm Brightest Day story, for those lucky enough to not be following that series. The two fly around and sense White Lantern energy so head towards Qward, where of course their sensing the Weaponer's white lantern powered weapon. From there we see Soranik Natu as she talks about how she could tell the Weaponer wasn't evil. His main weapon being a shield shows that he fights defensively and isn't a murderer. The Thunderers and Green Lantern Honor Corps use the Weaponer's weapons to fire on Sinestro, as Soranik thinks to herself how much devastation Kyle has brought to this world by bringing Sinestro. Well he WAS trying to save you... Sinestro meanwhile blasts everyone with his counter attack except the Green Lanterns to keep the truce intact. The Weaponer then blocks the blast with his shield to save some of the Thunderers, before rushing Sinestro with an attack. As the Weaponer takes on Sinestro the Thunderers and the Honor Guard fight off the Sinestro Corps, and Firestorm joins the fight as well helping out the Green Lanterns. Back with Sinestro and The Weaponer, they trade blows with one another but Sinestro gets the upperhand. He then puts a force field around himself and The Weaponer and tells him he'd forgotten how resourceful the Weaponer is, how well he could harness the white light and how he knew to go after Soranik to draw Sinestro there. He then tells The Weaponer he could use a man like him to arm the Sinestro Corps with rings. The Weaponer, clearly defeated, agrees and joins the Sinestro Corps as the Thunderers promise to make him pay. Sinestro and his corpsmen leave as Sinestro tells Soranik if she had been harmed he would have turned the whole planet into dust. Firestorm then says "I have to bounce."..riveting... as he leaves to try to find Deathstorm who's apparently on Qward. This issue ends as Ganthet warns the Lanterns about Krona. Well this was a good issue, they built Weaponer back up, I didn't like how quickly he failed and joined the Sinestro Corps, but it made sense. The thing I didn't like was Firestorm's very unnecessary appearance here. He showed up, didn't even grab the White Lantern powered weapons, blasted some people and left. That really seemed pointless to add him, so I'll give this issue an 8/10.

Soranik Natu: Sinestro was right, you are not the same man that abducted me. That man, at least I respected.

Amazing Spider-Man #654.1

Lmao, this issue is called Flashpoint! God Bless you Marvel Comics. So anyway, we start things off with the newest Symbiote Host to Venom, Flash Thompson, as he scales a building and breaks in. He then uses the awesome suits morphing abilities to turn the costume into a tux. Flash, who wants to be the new Spider-Man, has to be called Venom, because Venom scares criminals because of his past habits of eating and killing them. Flash then mingles at the black tie affair he's crashed, under the army provided pseudonym of Gene Heisman. Flash is there to track Countess Bianca Demonico, and it proves easier than he thought when the blonde beauty wants to dance with Mr. Heisman. While dancing, Flash uses the tiny syringes that his suit has absorbed to implant a tracker into Bianca, proving that Spider-Tracers are indeed things of the past. After his mission is completed, Flash has the symbiote removed in the army lab as they verify it hasn't bonded to him, and let Flash know that he can wear the symbiote for nineteeen more missions before it tries to permanently bond with the Flash-Man. Back at home, Flash is in his wheelchair when Betty Brant comes in crying, she tells him that Marla Jameson is dead, and how the Jameson's are like family to her. Flash tries to get up and comfort her but falls, obviously forgetting that he can't walk without the symbiote. After checking on Flash, Betty asks him to talk to Peter since he's shut down upon knowing of Marla's death, and Flash agrees to. He goes to see Pete and finds out that Pete is talking about it with Mary Jane and not Carlie. Flash thinks Pete may slip up and ruin his relationship and is gonna talk sense into Pete but gets a call from the General. He tells Flash that someone was wrongly accused due to Flash's last mission and they need Venom on the case. From there Flash suits up as Venom and heads to go save the wrongfully accused man, which after some stealth work and using his suit to dress up like one of the guards, or as I call it, the Storm Trooper trick, he rescues his target. While trying to escape Flash is blasted with a grenade that blows off his legs, talk about deja vu. This causes him to go berserk, and change from this slender, athletic, Spider-man type Venom to a huge Mac Gargan monster-type Venom. He then brutally murders all the guards and even bites off the arm of Flag Smasher before spitting it out and claiming he isn't a cannibal because "We didn't ssswallow." When Flash meets up with the other army members he's ready to get the Venom suit off but they don't have a containment pod so they tell him he has to wait until they get back to the base. He's then asked if he Venom'd out because they lost transmission, and when they ask the man Venom just rescued, he looks at Venom, then seems afraid and says he saw nothing out of the ordinary. When they get back to the base they extract Venom but only 99% is in the tank, leading them to think something isn't right before telling Flash he has eighteen missions left. Flash gets home and Betty tells him he missed Marla's funeral and he admits he didn't get to talk to Pete. He promises to talk to Stupid Parker and keep him from ruining everything as we see the Symbiote's shadow behind Flash and this issue ends. This was another great issue, I love to see how the symbiote is going to try to slowly turn Flash against Peter, as well as giving us a glimpse at the upcoming Venom series which looks to be damn interesting, I'll give this issue a 9/10.

Kate: Sooner we get the symbiote off this amateur and on to a real agent, the better.

Flash: Um, Kate? My communication implant's still on. I can hear everything you're saying.

Well that's it for me, Todd Squad. This week's poll results will be posted next week along with a new poll. Thanks for reading and feel free to comment, and until next time I'm your friendly neighborhood
blogger-man, Jason Todd, signing off!

Next Time on Ratings and Rantings

Action Comics #898, Gotham City Sirens #20, Detective Comics #874, Generation Lost #20, Power Girl #21, Teen Titans #92, Morning Glories #7, Amazing Spider-Man #655 and Deadpool #33