BATMAN : Legends of the Dark Knight : The Demon Laughs 142 143 144 145 TPB Review

RATING 4 out of 5:
Writer: Chuck Dixon, Penciller: Jim Aparo, Inker: John Cebollero, Colorists: Noelle Giddins, James Sinclair, Letterer: Bill Oakley, Editor: Andy Helfer, Assistant Editor: Harvey Richards

CHUCK DIXON!!! What else do I need to say?
Okay...well maybe a little more.
Oh how Oh HOW... I wish he was back at DC, writing for the characters I love. Dixon knows these characters and knows how to tell a story. Alright...I'm done...oops one more....DIXON!!!Come BACK!!!

Cough cough...I think I'm good now....

The Demon Laughs is mostly a stage for Joker. All the other characters are just cameo's circling around the master. The covers of the single issues are awesome. The interior art is passable, no two page splashes, mostly just story, but Aparo's facial expressions for the Joker are great.

The Plot: Joker is recruited by Ra's Al Ghul in his plan to reshape the world into his view of Utopia. It is all that Batman can do to track these two down to stop them before these partners in crime
 succeed.

SPIOLERS (minor):

Good ol' Ra's really got more then what he bargained for when he decided to use Joker in his plans. Joker "doesn't care if he wins or loses," he just want's part of the game. 

Ra's playing the straight man to Joker's high jinx's was perfect. After all, Ra's is uptight, straight laced, and arrogant, a great foil for all of Joker's one liners. 

The biggest problem I have with this story is the same problem I have with all of these types of plots.  Whether it is Ra's Al Ghul or Lex Luther...recruiting Joker.  I have trouble believing that these particular straight men would actually illicit help from Joker.  Ra's is a maniacal master mind in his own standing.  WHY would he break anyone out of Arkham for help, when they couldn't break themselves out of Arkham...etc?

The other thing is that it is mostly a Joker story...not much of a Batman story, but even with that, while reading... I came to want more Ra's/Joker panels just to see Jokers high jinxes with Ra's.

BATGIRL: THE FLOOD includes issues 9 10 11 12 13 14 2010

Rating 4.4 out of 5

Full of action and full of fun.  It's a lighter comic then the grim and gritty Batman series but it still has it's drama.  Bryan Q. Miller gives the best dialogue for the extraordinary circumstances that he puts Batgirl Stephanie Brown into.  Stephanie Brown has become just as witty as Dick Grayson was in the Nightwing series.

The trade paperback contains three complete stories of Batgirl Stephanie Brown:
The Flood: Issues 9-12, The Calculator turns the locals into techno zombies.
Trust: Issue 13, Batgirl battles Clayface and teams up with Detective Gage.
Terror In the 3rd Dimension: Issue 14, Supergirl comes to town for a visit and they team up to fight Dracula.

Reviews of the separate story lines are below:

Batgirl #9-#12 The Flood
Writer: Bryan Q Miller, Penciller: Lee Garbett, Inker: Jonathan Glapion and Richard Friend, Colorist: Guy Major, Letterer:Travis Lanham, Cover: Stanley "Artgerm" Lau, Editors: Michael Siglain and Harvey Richards

Rating 4.5 out of 5
This story has a couple of firsts. The first appearance of Johnny C. the future Gray Ghost. Also a first  with Proxy her new I.T. person when Oracle is out of the office. Not a first..., but It also has some awesome "Oh Crap...how does she get out of that" cool moments.

Spoilers and continued review if you don't want to be spoiled skip to the review in Blue:

Calculator decides to take some revenge on Oracle.  To do that he turns Gotham citizens into techno Zombies. Anyone connected to a electronic device gets Zombiefied (cell phones, TV, web, etc) and they are instructed to capture Oracle and take out Batgirl. You think at first this is bad as Zombie schoolmates and teachers come after you, but what ever is bad could always get worse when the local hero's become under the influence. See.. this  is where the "Oh Crap" comes into play.

BATGIRL #13 Trust

 Writer: Bryan Q Miller, Art:Pere Perez,  Colorist: Guy Major, Letterer:Travis Lanham, Cover: Stanley "Artgerm" Lau, Editors: Michael Siglain and Sean Ryan

Rating 3.9 out of 5 

This is still a cool issue with some action in it. Batgirl bonds with the local Detective while capturing Clayface.

BATGIRL #14 Terror in the 3rd Dimension Review

Writer: Bryan Q Miller, Penciller: Lee Garbett, Inker: Trevor Scott
Colorist: Guy Major, Letterer:Travis Lanham, Cover: Stanley "Artgerm" Lau, Editors: Michael Siglain and Sean Ryan
Rating 4.5 out of 5

Pure FUN.  Nothing cerebral about it...but who cares. It's so Great... just to have a FUN comic.  Bryan Q Miller is a master at telling Stephenie's story.  I hope he NEVER leaves this series.  I had tears in my eyes from laughing so hard.  It was good laughter...I was laughing with my heroes NOT at my heroes.   This story was wrapped up in one issue, so if you don't have any of the Batgirl/Stephanie issues, you could pick this one up for a fun ride and not invest in another....but I bet you will.

Review WITH Spoilers

VAMPIRES...I love a good Vampire story...but lately you can't swing a stick without hitting one.  They've become a staple of TV.  There's Vampire Dairies, True Blood, Being Human, and the newest show, "The Gates."

THAT's just the shows that are currently produced.

In reruns, you have Buffy, Angel, Moonlight, Forever Knight, Kindred, and one that I wish to see again but haven't in a long long time, Dark Shadows.

OH... and let's not get started with what's in the Movie Theaters.
  
They seem to be just as prevalent in comics.

NOT that this is a bad thing.

BUT HOW...Oh how.... CAN you have a NEW take on the same OLD OLD OLD Story.
Whatever it is...it's been done.  Hasn't it?

NOPE....and Bryan Q Miller actually came up with something different and FUN.

You see...there's this scientist (refreshingly not crazy), who had a lab overload with his experiment. He was working on a way to generate "Hard Light" (force fields) to create a three dimensional construct that could hold an image that was projected onto it. This is not that hard of a concept for sci-fi fans. We've seen it before, on Star Trek: Voyager, with the EMH Doctor.

The lab happened to be right next door to the campus theater, where Stephanie Brown(Batgirl) and Lana Lang(Supergirl) are watching a old black and white horror film with Dracula which had been redone in 3D. The blast from the lab only lasted a second, but since film runs at 24 frames per second, this releases 24 black and white "Draculas"...Blah blah blah...who run "Amuk Amuk Amuk" in Gotham City.

Control rods can destabilize their photon matrices when done at high impact. This is Miller's .. Wah Lah ...for stake through the heart.

Now LET the 'Buffy' in all of us out and just sit back and ENJOY.

There is a two page spread of the girls staking black and white Dracula's that is pricelessly funny. One 'Dracula' had tried to get away on a Segway.

This was the best Girls night out I've read in a long time.

Because the next issues are going to have more grittier stories, Miller will be teamed up with Dustin Nguyen on pencils.  I'm looking forward to this storyline... but I hope Batgirl doesn't become too toughen.. too soon, I'm enjoying the current character



Publisher: DC Comics
Jun - Dec 2010

BIRDS OF PREY Vol 1: ENDRUN 2010 Issues 1 2 3 4 5 6 review

RATING 3.8 out of 5       Jam-packed-full of action.  It doesn't quite meet expectations, only because the previous Birds of Prey series with Gail Simone was so awesome, but this was a good start for the Birds.  The story was good and had quite a bit of intrigue.  These issues have the Brightest Day banner on them, but that is only a minor subplot, so don't feel obligated to purchase the Brightest Day mega mini to enjoy this storyline.  The main storyline is completed within these issues, or this one TPB, Endrun. 

There is plenty of cleavage in this series both above and below, but it doesn't take away from the badassness of the women. There are two new members to join the team, Hawk and Dove. I like Hank Hall, aka Hawk, (I seem to be alone when it comes to that). I think it's nice to have a little eye candy for us girls too, and I like his stubborn streak. To quote Oracle, "The guy punched a tank for having the gall to point it's cannon at him."

I think the main problem that fans are having is that it doesn't have the newness of the old series. In the old series the Birds were trying to prove that they were equals with the other hero groups and that they didn't need them to get the job done, but they succeeded  in those previous issues, so there is really nothing to prove in this series, other then getting the job done. 

I enjoyed the camaraderie, and seeing this group of characters back together again, Gail Simone knows her characters very well, but it's like the movie Lethal Weapon II, which is a good movie, but it's just not the same as the first movie Lethal Weapon.  

Spoilers:    Someone is digging up personal information on the birds, specifically Black Canary, and telling the world, but not in a nice "Entertainment Tonight" way.  They are manipulating the truth and making Black Canary, Dinah Lance,  look like the number one dastardly being on the planet.  The media is gobbling up these half-truths and spewing them out. The Birds seemingly don't have a friend in the world to turn to for help... except ...Penguin.  Also, a highly trained mystery woman using the name White Canary says she will kill one of the Birds every six hours, if Black Canary doesn't concede to her demands. 

BIRDS OF PREY Vol 1 : ENDRUN Issues 1-6

Writer: Gail Simone

Colorist: Nei Ruffino

Letterer: Swands

Editor: Janelle Siegel

Issues:1-4  

Pencillers: Ed  Benes and Adriana Melo

Inkers: Ed Benes and JP Mayer

Issues:5-6

Pencilers: Alvin Lee and Adriana Melo

INkers: Jack Purcell and JP Mayer

Covers: Cliff Chiang, Ed Benes, Nei Rugino, Alina Urusov, Ryan Sok, JOel Gomez, Fernando Parsarin, Randy Mayor, Carrie Strachan