JUSTICE LEAGUE : RISE AND FALL : TPB Review: contains: Green Arrow 31 32, Justice League: Rise and Fall Special, Justice league: The Rise of Arsenal

Covers: Green Arrow: Mauro Cascioli, var Mike Mayhew/Andy Troy, Rise of Arsenal:Greg Horn, JL: R&F spec: Art Germ

RATING of 1.5 out of 5
Pathetic... doesn't quite seem pathetic enough... to describe this storyline.
SO ...I went to an online thesaurus,  which had the following words as a synonym for pathetic:

commiserable, deplorable, distressing, feeble, heartbreaking, heartrending, inadequate, lamentable, meager, melting, miserable, moving, paltry, petty, piteous, pitiable, pitiful, plaintive, poignant, poor, puny, rueful, sorry*, tender, touching, useless, woeful, worthless, wretched

Looking over the list, I would scratch through tender, melting, moving, and touching, because those... are not pathetic and don't describe the story, but... the rest seems pretty much on the mark.

I'm kinda leaning toward wretched... as the best description.

THEN... I saw the word Crummy on the same page as pathetic  ... and it's synonyms:

cheap, contemptible, crappy*, grotty, inferior, miserable, pathetic, poor, rotten, second-rate, shabby, sub-par, third-rate, useless, worthless 

Oh wow... it's hard to choose.

I know what I'll do....I'll use them all. {I say with a evil grin}

This story is a wretched pathetic attempt to use cheap theatrics in an effort to shock readers. This is a contemptible shabby storyline, not only for mega DC Comics publishing, but is miserably inferior to even a third-rate publishing house.  The writer, KT Krul's, sub-par attempt at a grotty comic story became laughable. It is deplorable that a  heartwretching and heartbreaking story of any hero loosing a loved one became laughable.

As far as I can tell, Krul made a feeble attempt to match other DC stories which were poignant, such as The Killing Joke and Identity Crisis.  DC stories such as those, are moving and have become classic, but this story, JL: Rise and Fall,  is a inadequate and paltry attempt to do the same. When in comparison, this rueful sorry story is quite pitiable.

It is lamentable that these worthless theatrics are distressing ....me, but I'm not alone. There are others who commiserate with me on the useless way that the character of Roy Harper can be brought down and then.. kicked.  Roy Harper was KT Krul's poor cat after a bad day.

Phew!!! I feel better. Though... I think I missed a few.

After saying that about this story, I don't mind Krul's writing when he is writing happy team stories ...I just read Teen Titans #92 and it was pretty good.  But PLEASE DC... I plaintively request to take pity on us meager readers and keep Krul far away from stories about character's death or how they handle death.

Reading Order of single issues:
Justice League: The Rise of Arsenal #1
Justice League: Rise and Fall Special
Green Arrow 31-32
Justice League: The Rise of Arsenal #2-4

        ********Spoiler******

A picture is worth a thousand words...and yes..that's a dead cat he just saved while high on drugs.
















Credits: JUSTICE LEAGUE: RISE AND FALL TPB
Writer of all the storylines: J.T. Krul
Justice League: Rise of Arsenal 

Associate Editor: Sean Ryan
Editor: Brian Cunningham
Pencilled by Geraldo Borges, Kevin Sharpe, Fabio Jansen, Sergio Arino
Inked: Marlo Alquiza/Scott Hanna/Mark McKenna/Mario Alquiza/John Dell
Letterer: Rob Clark Jr.
Color: Hi-Fi
May, Jun , Jul, Aug 2010

Justice League: Rise and Fall Special
Penciled:Diogenes Neves, Mike May hew, Fabrizio Fiorentino
Inks: Mayhew, Vicente Cifventes & Ruy Jose
Colors: Nei Ruffino & Andy Troy
Letters: John J Hill
Editors: Adam Schlagman and Eddie Berganza
May 2010

Green Arrow 31-32
Interior Artist: Federico Dallocchio
Colorist: Michael Atiyeh
Letter: Sal Cipriano
Editor: Adam Schlagman

May Jun 2010

Publisher: DC Comics

SUPERMAN/BATMAN: TORMENT! issues 37 38 39 40 41 42 TPB Review

RATING 3.4 out of 5

Dustin Nguyen's art is as great as ever in Torment. The story is not bad, but...just ah...how can I say this... some people's Torment is other people's pleasure. Superman seems to be in 'torment' while Batman is  mostly getting "action".  Wink wink nudge nudge.
The writer, Alan Burnett, does hand out a bit of mystery, and the dialogue is decent, so it's a decent story. While the storyline is wrapped up in this trade, it does leave a teaser for the storyline that followed when the original issues came out, called, Death of the New Gods.


Spoilers 

I'm sure most of you have heard of Bruce falling through time by being shot by Darkseid's omega sanction (Return of Bruce Wayne), that was Grant Morrsion's version of torment.

WELL.. here is Alan Burnett's version  of putting Bruce through Torment: The goddess of Desire from Apokolips, Bekka, has to save Bruce by... stripping him naked and putting him in bed. 

While... Superman has a mental breakdown handed to him by Scarecrow.  

Hmmm ....something doesn't seem fair in the handing out of Torment. 

But Sups does... get to face off with Bruce in a fight.. why wouldn't he want to, wouldn't you.. if you got such a bum deal.
 
Whose behind all this Torment? 

If you haven't guessed from the covers, I'm not telling ya...

Anyway...later in the story, Bruce does get to return Bekka the favor of saving his life... by saving her life, which includes...stripping her down naked ....and bed..ding her. 
Poor poor Bruce and Bekka...such such torment.

By the way...Bekka is Orion's wife, so why wasn't Bruce put in the line-up of suspects when Orion was found dead in Final Crisis...(throws hands up) just saying. 


Have I ever mentioned that not only am I closet comic book reader,  but... I also... love a good ROMANCE novel.  Ashes in the Wind by Kathleen Woodwiss was my first...ROMANCE novel.  I got it when I was 13, from a yard sale.  To this day, I regard it as the best romance novel... ever.   I'm sure you'll keep that close to the chest and not tell anyone. Riiiighht.


Superman / Batman : Torment 
Writer: Alan Burnett
Penciller: Dustin Nguyen
Inker: Derek Fridolfs
Colorist: Randy Mayor
Letterer: Rob Leigh
Ass. Editor: Adam Schlagman
Editor: Eddie Berganza
Cover Issue 37 : Nguyen, Fridolfs and Rod Reis/ Claudio Castellini & Noemi Vicens
Cover Issue 38 -42: Nguyen and Fridolfs
Alternate Cover Issue 38 - Claudio Castellini and Paul Mounts.
Publisher: DC comics
Issues dates Aug, Sept, Oct, Nov, Dec 2007, Jan 2008
TPB date: Feb 2011

Justice League : Generation Lost Vol 1 Issues 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 Review

RATING 3.9 out of 5

The story isn't over yet...but the ride getting to the end is well worth the cost.  Winnick is doing a wonderful job with this mini. It's a mega long bi-weekly 24 issue mini. This TPB, Justice League: Generation Lost Vol 1,  covers the first 12 issues.  It is jammed packed with action, adventure, and mystery.

When I first heard about this storyline, I wasn't gung-ho about it... at all.  Don't get me wrong, I like Keith Giffen...but he gets a little wordy, with lots and lots of gab between characters. Most of the time it's really witty, but I have to be in the mood for it, so I was a little put off by him being on the cover. As it turns out, Keith Giffen only gave the outline, or breakdowns, of the first 6 issues, Judd Winick does all the script.

Winnick has done a awesome job with character dialogue.  I love the interaction and relationships that he has written, even though a lot of the relationships were already there and created by Giffen when he wrote  the Justice league International series.  If you know nothing about the characters, don't worry...their backgrounds are explained to keep you from getting lost.

Minor Spoilers:

Max Lord died at the hand of Wonder Woman, but was brought back to life by the White Lantern at the end of Blackest Night.  In issue 1, Max Lord is able to mind wipe his existence from the world, except Boaster Gold, Ice, Captain Adam, and Fire.  Now they are on a search for Max Lord and on a quest to stop him at all costs.

What has he done? Many.. many horrible deeds, but those are not the biggest reason that they want to stop him. It's what he will do that they fear the most. They must stop him because of the terrible future that he causes to happen.

While at the same time that they are trying to catch Max, Max seems to be orchestrating their every step, almost as if he is recreating Justice League International, which was a team of hero's that Max was not only part of, but led.

Max claims that he is only trying to... save the world. Now ....why would he lie about that?

Justice League: Generation Lost:
Story: Judd Winnick & Keith Giffen
Script Issues 1-12: Judd Winnick
Breakdowns issues 1-6: Keith Giffen
Editors:Rex Ogle, Michael Siglain, Brian Cunningham
Pencils: Aaron Lopresti, Joe Bennett, Frenando Dagnino
Inks: Matt Ryan, Jack Jadson,  BIT & Raul Fernandez
Colors: Hi-fi
Letters: Sal Cipriano, Pat Brosseau, SWANDS, Travis lanham
Cover issues 1-5: Tony harris& JD Mettler
Cover issues 6-11: Cliff Chiang
Variant Cover 1-6, 9,11-12: Kevein Maguire & Hi-Fi
Variant Cover 7-8: Ryan Sook, Joel Gomez & fernando Pasarin, Randy Mayor & Carri Starchan
 Variant Cover 10: Felipe Massafera

DC PRESENTS : BATMAN - CONSPIRACY : Legends of the Dark Knight 86 87 88 Detective 821 review

RATING 4.3 out of 5
This trade has two complete story-lines and both of them are artistically  wonderful, yet have the grungy detective feel to it.  You have writers well known for telling great Batman/Bruce detective stories along with one of the best comic book artist going, J. H. Williams III.  Williams really knows how to artistically tell a story. The panels and the placing just brings you into the stories and doesn't let you go.  If you don't have these issues, I would highly recommend them.
In the reviews listed below, notice the publication dates of the stories. There is a ten year gap between the two stories, which allows you to see how much Williams' style has changed.  He's art was fantastic back in 1996, but it's awesome to have these two works of his together just to see how much panache he added to his artistry by 2006.


The individual story reviews are below:

REVIEW 

CONSPIRACY: Legends of the Dark Knight 86-88: 
published 1996, writer Doug Moench, artist is J.H. Williams III, inker Mick Gray, colorist Dan Brown, letterer Willie Schubert, ass editor Chuck Kim, editor Archie Goodwin.  

Rating of 4.5 out of 5

This is the first Moench story in which I've been wowed. Most of Moench stories that I've read have been teamed with Kelly Jones as the artist. I like Jones' covers, but I'm not fond of his art for interior stories.

Moench ...with Williams... was a completely different story.  You can see it, hear it, and I'd say you could feel the action.  Moench is great with the SFX sounds... of which I take for granted until I don't have them.

SPIOLERS for Conspiracy. If spoiling not for you, go to the next review in blue.

You see... there's this cult...and there's this king of the cult, that sacrifices stray pets, until... now.  They've graduated to human sacrifices. Batman/Bruce Wayne traces the cult then finds a biker gang drug connection, then even more connections from LA.  Bruce actually does quite a bit of traveling and crime solving outside of Gotham in the story, but the grundy Detective feel of the story is never lost. He finds himself allied with a local reporter, who seems to have an inside scoop on what is happening.  Nothing is as it seems... and he is hunting in the dark for a killer, or is it killers with the same agenda.  The twist at the end show how evil can use even the best of us.

REVIEW

Cover by Simone Bianchi

The BEAUTIFUL PEOPLE: Detective 821 
Published 2006 written by Paul Dini, artist J.H. Williams III, colorist John Kalisz, Letterer Jared K. Fletcher, ass editor Michael Siglain, Editor Peter Tomasi,

Rating 3.9 

It's a great detective story but... I didn't like it as much as the other.  Which is funny, because I'm a big fan of the writer, Paul Dini, and not so much of Moench.  This detective story seemed a little dry, and it took me awhile to figure out what it was that made me like Moench more.  It was the SFX(sound effects). There were only two panels in Dini's story and Moench's is jammed pack full of them on almost every page.

Otherwise the art is wonderful...it definitely has the flare that the current detective stories with the current Batwoman that Williams is a big part of establishing. There is a lot of red and black backgrounds and panels.

SPOILERS: 
The accidental death of a mugger who is dressed in fine clothes, brings Batman/Bruce Wayne into a search for a new crime organization that prays on the  upper-crust by pretending to be part of that same upper-crust.