Ratings and Rantings

Woooo it's that time again everyone, time for your weekly cavalcade of comic content comments, Ratings and Rantings. As always I'm your host JT, and we have a nice collection of comics this week. We've got the continuation of the War of the Green Lanterns, The fallout from The Return of The Joker in Gotham City Sirens as well as Hell's Angel, Azrael, testing Catwoman, as well as our favorite busty Kryptonian, Power Girl. So, with an all DC Comics edition of Ratings and Rantings, let's kick things off with The War of The Green Lanterns!

Green Lantern #65

Here we are with part four of...something of the War of the Green Lanterns. We kick things off on Oa with everyone under Krona's control with the exception of a beaten but still defiant Kilowog. Krona taps into Kilowog's mind to see the reason he can deny falling under control is due to himself, Ganthet and the four Earth GL's having been exposed to Parallax before. Krona forces Kilowog's ring back on him and gains another member to his brainwashed Green Lantern Corps. Over on an non-inhabited world known as the Green House, Hal and Guy are wondering around looking for what's basically a Green Lantern Batcave which has a Green Lantern spaceship... Yep. They use the ship, which Hal calls the fastest in the universe, and plan to go find Kyle and John since it can track their rings. They arrive on Oa and Kilowog welcomes them by smashing up this ship, meaning it lasted all of five pages, bravo! Hal and Guy jump into an escape pod which takes them to Kyle and John. Once the four team up they realize they need rings or they'll certainly get caught or get killed, so Hal whips out the Color rings of the people who got sucked into the black book. They each pick a ring, Guy picking Red of course, Hal takes Sinestro's ring, Kyle takes Hope (looking more like Nighwting everyday Rayner.) and John wants Orange but Hal advises against it so gives him the purple ring for compassion. The issue ends with an awesome shot of everyone with their new colors, especially John who has a makeshift army uniform. This issue was more of a set up than anything but I really loved the last page where we got so see everyone with their new rings. I'll give this issue a 7.5/10 only because nothing else really happened.

Hal: That better be your belt buckle.

Guy: Don't flatter yourself. (I had this same conversation with X a week ago...)

Green Lantern Corps #59

And we continue with part five of this big War of the Green Lanterns. This issue starts with Ganthet trying to fight off hundreds if not thousands of Green Lanterns while we hear John Stewart compare this to a war with his own soldiers. We then see John, Kyle, Hal and Guy all sporting their new colors trying to decide what to do next. John cites that he knows the Indigo Lanterns can tap into other emotions and tries to tap into Guy's rage but can't because he's using Willpower to do it. He tells Kyle to charge his ring but Hal tells him that only works for Green Lanterns. They ask why Kyle picked Blue since there are no Green Lanterns to feed off of and Kyle says he though Ganthet gave him a hint when he said he had hope in him and now he hopes he isn't useless. Just pick another ring Kyle, don't whine about it. Kyle then starts to glow brighter when more GL's get close. They attack our four Earth Lanterns and Kyle's blue ring just supercharges all the Green Lantern rings. Damn, that's bad luck. John saves Kyle from a grim fate before they escape to go find Ganthet. They finally find Ganthet who pretty much unleashed a huge Green Lantern bomb to subdue all of his attackers when he see's the Crayola Cavalry as Guy calls them. Ganthet is upset to say the least, saying the rings shouldn't be on them as they are ill-suited (John), Not ready (Kyle) or condemning themselves to death (Guy). Ganthet tears into Hal for his idea but more attackers show up, as well as Mogo who BLASTS Ganthet. The issue ends with our four lanterns and Ganthet outnumbered by many to continue in Emerald Warriors #9. This was another fine issue, our guys basically ran around but I'm interested to see how this turns out, I'll give this issue a 7.5/10 as well because nothing really happened from the last issue.

Guy Gardner: The Crayola Cavalry has arrived!

Gotham City Sirens #22

We start things off with Catwoman recapping her decision to leave Ivy to deal with Harley trying to kill the Joker and how she now has to deal with a test by Azrael and the Crusader, who are on the way after Red Robin has failed his test. As Catwoman searches for the Angels of Death (cool name from the Red Robin issue) when they happen to find her sister who says she's Catwoman's test, and tonight she (her sister) will die. Meanwhile, Catwoman breaks into Azrael's Sister-In-Law's house and ties her up, then claims that his sister-in-law is for the lack of a better or funnier word, boning Azrael. She then ties her up for no reason and leaves. Catwoman finds the Crusader and kicks him to the ground. When he gets ready to attack he's interrupted by Red Robin, who even though he failed his test, sticks around to help Catwoman. They fight for a while until Azrael shows up and asks Catwoman to confess to her one biggest sin, the one she's never forgiven herself for. He stabs her with his fiery hail sin-telling sword which prompts her to have flashbacks about herself and her sister Maggie as a kid up to their fight in Sirens about ten issues ago.When Selina comes to, Maggie is there. Maggie and the Angels of Death tell Selina that Gotham will live on if she sacrifices her sister in the name of God. Catwoman grabs the blade given to her and tries to stab The Crusader, but his armor doesn't give and he decks her with a punch. Maggie begs Selina to do it, send her to God, cleanse her soul and save Gotham but Catwoman just can't bring herself to kill her baby sister. The issue ends with Ra's Al Ghul saying that Dick Grayson is the only one who can now save Gotham, as a defeated Selina is shunned by her sister. Well this was... something. Red Robin kinda had no point here, we got none of the Joker/Harley stuff that had me interested in the first place, everything was a bust for me. Plus that chick being tied up for no reason was dumb, I hope it leads to something in Batman, but I'll give this a 4/10.

Catwoman: He's gone crazy.

Jenny Lane: Says the lady who broke into my house dressed in a skintight Cat costume.

Power Girl #23

Kryptonians visit Jurassic Park as this issue starts off with my two favorite Kryptonians, and Superman. Okay, I couldn't resist. But nah, really, my two favorite Kryptonians, Superman and Power Girl are taking on what can only be classified as Magical Dinosaurs. Some even have Machine Guns for arms or are wielding Axes, and I'm serious. They decide to call up my favorite Magician (Sorry Criss Angel, Penn and Teller) Zatanna, but sadly she's all tied up. Zee is literally all tied up by some dude in a hoody who has her subdued up with tape over her mouth. Luckily, Zee's message on her phone says if she hasn't picked up she's in trouble and tells the caller to track her G.P.S. to save her. Peej calls up Nicco and has him track the G.P.S. We then see Zatanna's captor, known as Siphon and find out that since he was a teenager he's been able to use magic, but he has to be in close proximity with another magician. If he's around a magician for three hours then he can use their powers permanently. He tells Zatanna he doesn't want to hurt her or steal her powers, he just wants to copy them. Would've been easier to just get a date with her, taker her to go see Avatar and go to dinner, boom, instant powers for life buddy. Anyway, Siphon only needs two more hours but Superman and Power Girl show up and free Zatanna. What ensues from there are some back and forth spell-throwing which includes Supes and Peej being attacked by magical Sasquatches, the trio being turned into giant rock people (Shout out to the Thing!) and more. When Siphon finally has Zee on the ropes, Power Girl shows up and whisks into the sky, which knocks him out due to the speed and lack of oxygen. After dealing with a now locked up Siphon, Power Girl tells Zatanna and Superman she has a press conference to get to, and tells Supes she intends on making Karen Starr a real person. As the issue ends we see Karen Starr at the Starrware conference sporting glasses and red hair! Somewhere Kello just said "Hubba, Hubba." Now THIS was a good issue, I loved the change to making Karen look less like Power Girl and giving Power Girl a life outside of the Cape. I also loved the duel with Zee and Siphon as well as Siphon as a character, he should be interesting. And lastly I loved how Superman was here but never made the women look second tier, everyone was on a nice equal playing field, so I'll give this issue a 9/10 rating. Keep it up Judd, you just made Power Girl my favorite female hero.

Superman: She's got a Magic line?

Power Girl: She's a magician. She's got magic everything. Dinnerware, car, washing machine, bras, magic out the wazoo!

And that's it for me everyone. I Hope you enjoyed this short edition of Ratings and Rantings. Feel free to comment and let me know what you think. And of course the results from last week's poll are below so be sure to vote on this week's newest poll. Until next time, I'm your friendly neighborhood Blogger-Man, Jason Todd, signing off.

Last week's poll asked "Which comic couple would you like to see most?"
Last Place with 6.7% - Batman and Black Canary 
Third Place with 20%- She Hulk and Deadpool
Second Place with 3.33% - Booster Gold and Power Girl
Winner with 40% -Huntress and Jason Todd - Make it happen DC!

Next Time on Ratings and Rantings

Action Comics #900, Brightest Day #24, Generation Lost #24, Deadpool #36, Amazing Spider-Man #659, and Venom #2