Ratings and Rantings

Hello everyone, once again it's time for your weekly dose of comic content comments, Ratings and Rantings. As always I'm your dashing, enjoyable and just plain awesome host, Jason Todd.This week we get the start of the War of Green Lanterns arc, we slowly make our way to the end of Generation Lost, and some crazy comedy with our favorite Masked Merc, Deadpool. But before we jump into that, I got some comments on next week's Brightest Day cover.

Really? REALLY?! Okay, now when Brightest Day started I know a lot of people didn't have faith in it. I did, I thought it could be something as good as 52, but it's been almost as bad as Countdown to Final Crisis. I mean really, from people being told they accomplished their goals when they didn't (Firestorm, Martian Manhunter) to people who STILL haven't accomplished the most simple goals like Boomerang who had a WHOLE GODDAMN YEAR TO THROW ONE BOOMERANG AT ONE SPECIFIC PERSON, to the fact that most of the issues have been so stupid they made no sense and starred no one in particular that could be considered an A-Lister except maybe Aquaman. And that's a BIG maybe. But this farce REALLY pissed me off. I mean come on. Earth, Fire, Wind, Water and what, Heart?! Is the goddamn White Lantern Champion Captain Planet?! I mean this has got to be one of the more annoying things I've read in a while just because we're being fed this paint by numbers lame ass story, and then we aren't gonna see how it even makes any ripples since we're jumping to Flashpoint. Which basically means over a two year span we go Blackest Night/Brightest Day/Flashpoint with NO gap in between. So yeah, I won't be following with any Flashpoint stuff because none of it interests me, I guess I'll be reading at IGN or um... probably somewhere reputable to see if anything significant happens. But whatever, enough of that, let's get to the reviews.

Justice League: Generation Lost #22

We start out with a confused Blue Beetle as the JLI is ecstatic that he's fine. He doesn't even remember being dead apparently, because he never was. He explains some well thought out thing that I'll dumb down buy saying the bullet was blocked by the armor and Hai-Me was knocked out. We all good? Awesome. He then mentions that he hacked Max's files and he knows Max's plans. From there he explains how Max manipulated them to make Checkmate look bush league which led to him taking control of Checkmate, thanks to the JLI. When Hai-me mentions the other part of Max's plan, Batman (Bruce) and Power Girl show up at the JLI headquarters, ready to help the team. We then see Max putting on a headset to try to do something like what he did when he made everyone forget. It seems to go haywire but he demands Ivo not to shut it off. Back at the JLI they realize that Max is building a powerful Android to kill Wonder Woman. Just when everything seems to be going well, Power Girl doesn't remember who Wonder Woman is. Batman does remember though, since his brief time wearing the White Lantern ring restored all of his memories. They head to New York since someone has been killing Amazon's, and find Wonder Woman on a rooftop. They talk to Wonder Woman and warn her of danger but the headstrong Amazon won't back down from a fight. At that moment we see Max and his helmet and we see people around the world spaz out and of course turn into OMAC's. The issue ends with the OMAC's heading for Wonder Woman as the JLI gets ready to jump into battle. This was a fine issue, nothing wrong with it, although I wish Jaime's death meant something but hey, he never died, so those last two issues were kinda pointless eh? I wondered if they would explain the difference in WW's look considering her and Batman haven't seen each other since like Final Crisis but whatever. I'll give this a 7.5/10 rating.

Ice: You look like a taller Angelina Jolie.

Rocket Red: Da. In gold tube top and flag hot pants.

Green Lantern #64

Part one of the War of The Green Lanterns is finally here. We start off with a brief synopsis of Hal's life, him getting the ring from Abin Sur, the Parallax ordeal and how he now runs rogue with the other Color Corp Commanders. We then see that Salaak along with a crew of Green Lanterns have been tasked with arresting Hal Jordan. We then see the Color Corps on Krona looking into the giant book Krona left behind. They wonder why he's left it behind when the Book spits out Larfleeze's Lantern. Larfleeze grabs it and chains try to pull him into the book, proclaiming he now belongs to the book of the black, and it's story vampire, Lyssa Drak. So yeah, he has that going for him I guess. Back on Oa the Guardians discuss how the most prominent Lanterns have fallen from grace, mentioning The first Lantern whoever that may be, then Krona, Sinestro and Hal. As the Guardians talk bright colors explode everywhere and Krona appears with all seven Entities in tow. Sinestro demands she back down as a sworn member of the Sinestro Corps, but she reminds him she was imprisoned by the Black Book during Blackest Night and forgotten by the Corps, but was freed by Krona. The book manages to pull in Atrocitus, Saint Walker, and Indigo-1 as the rest of the Corps try to fight it. Over on Oa Krona makes his dominance established by killing a Guardian then telling the entities to pick their host. Over with the book Carol is about to be added to the pages when Sinestro says that Hal and he should combine their rings as it's the only way, Hal does as he's told and the two touch their rings which causes a huge Green and Yellow explosion. It causes the book to explode and drops the rings of Larfleeze, Sinestro, Carol, Walker, Indigo and Atrocitus to the ground. Hal reaches for their rings but is told to put his hands in the air by Salaak and his Lantern team. They tell him to remove his ring and come with them but he tries to plead with them. Some of them want to hear Hal out but at that moment we see Krona, he says that the Guardians are now infused with the six entities, and he then puts Parallax back in the Green Lantern battery. The Green Lanterns that confronted Hal immediately attack him due to Parallax's impurity. Hal, having seen a flash of Parallax when he jumps into the rings knows that Parallax has taken over the rings again. He quickly grabs the other color corp rings and flies off looking for help for anyone not infected by Parallax. Well this was a pretty good issue. The idea of giving the Guardians entities so they now have emotions was just genius, and makes for a good idea. I'm also wondering where the hell Sinestro went, I'll give this issue a 8/10.

Krona: I told you long ago. Beware my power.

Green Lantern Corps #58

We start this issue with a quick rundown on Kyle Rayner, how he got his ring, defeated Parallax, and how many people in the Corps thing he didn't earn his ring and was in the right place at the right time. He mentions that some people think of him as a skirt-chaser and how often his relationships were real and ended with death. After that we get one on John Stewart, about how John doesn't hide his identity as a Lantern, how he's an architecture since DC loves to mention that, and his past as a member of the armed forces. He notes how he and John are Ying and Yang but work well together because of their differences. After he snaps out of it, The Honor Guard step through a portal Ganthet made and end up in space for some reason. They see Boodikka and the Alpha-Lanterns are all deactivated for some reason, and suddenly the impurity of Parallax affects the Honor Guard. Sora and Hannu appear to be in the same trance Salaak and his crew were and head to Oa as Kyle, John and Ganthet follow hastily after them. John tells Kyle to slow down because this is obviously a trap, but Kyle can't hear him over the sound of Parallax which commands him to attack John. John tries to defend himself until Parallax kicks in for him and he attacks Kyle. While they fight, Parallax takes of Ganthet and he calls them both a disgrace to the Corps, and demands they turn in their rings, but he quickly realizes Parallax is controlling him. Ganthet tells John and Kyle to remove their rings but they refuse, Kyle because he wants to save Soranik and John because he doesn't wanna be left defenseless. He removes their rings which causes John and Kyle to drop from the sky, he then tries to crush their rings but it causes Ganthet's hand to explode, which looked AWESOME. The three fall to the ground but are apparently fine, and John starts to wrap Ganthet's ring with some fabric he tears off of Ganthet's robe. While he does so we can see the residual energy fade away from the Lanterns as they are now wearing street clothes. Ganthet explains how it took everything to fight back Parallax's influence, and how they were able to resist him at first because they'd been infected before, so everyone besides them, Guy, Hal and Kilowog would have fallen under his control immediately. Kyle and John try to get Ganthet to come with them to avoid Krona's search party but he notes they will be after him since he's a Guardian, and tells them to try to find help in Guy, Hal or even Sinestro. As the issue ends Jyle and John leave as the search party makes it's way to Ganthet. Damn this was good, two issues in and this is better than everything Brightest Day has had in the last year. I'll give this issue a 9/10 rating and I'll definitely be picking up part three in Emerald Warriors.

Kyle: Well I'm not letting another girlfriend die! Never again!! Do you even understand?!  Or did you forget what it felt like when your wife got murdered?!

I was going to review Deadpool but on Thursday I started to have trouble with my internet and it's still not been resolved. I'm actually typing THIS from Falisha's house right now letting you guys know so hopefully this is resolved soon, so I'll review DP another day, or not. But until next time this is your friendly neighborhood Blogger-Man, Jason Todd.

Next Time on Ratings and Rantings

Action Comics #899, Detective Comics #895, Gotham City Sirens #21, Green Lantern: Emerald Warriors #8, Teen Titans #93, Amazing Spider-Man #657 and Kick-Ass 2 #2.