JERSEYLUCK'S SPACE

Where I share my opinions on things (mostly DC comics or SNL)

[jerseyluck]

Do teachers fear students unionizing? I mean there are more kids than there are teachers. How are the teachers going to stop 100s of kids if they want to a recess?

[jerseyluck]

Hey, not enough people talk about how DC Comic's version of Billy the Kid is actually a girl. It is just a wild, fun decision to make that it is a shame that it only popped 3 times.

She should be like DC's Leonard Di Vinci (who in Marvel founded SHIELD). Give me more of female Billy the Kid, Mark Waid!

All-Star Western Vol2 #6

[jerseyluck]

DC Finest: Western: The Hangman Never Loses!

Gonna start running thought these with brief thoughts for a bit until a new status title shows up.

All Star Comics #3 opens with another Outlaw story has the main feature. This one has Outlaw teaming up with another criminal for a train heist. Fun shootout on the train, and the heist crew are taken out by Outlaw and Marshall Wilson. Fun story, captures the angst of this broken family, but it isn't the most important story in this issue.

That honor goes to the origin story of our masked cowboy: El Diablo. That story opens with El Diablo saving an old man from some gangsters that just so happened to kill his son-in-law. El Diablo disappears into the night...

Just so we can finally figure out the backstory of El Diablo. The backstory tells the tale of Lazurus Lane, a cowardly bank teller. One day Lazurus's bank was robbed, and instead of shooting the robbers with a gun he had, Lazurus froze. Unfortunately, when Lazurus froze, another bank teller got shot who just happens to be murdered man mentioned early in the story.

Struggling with guilt and public shame at his cowardliness, Lazarus goes to his old friend, Wise Owl, home to recover. A week later, Lazarus is healing when suddenly the gang that attacked the bank return to assault him again. And just to prove that Lazurus is the unluckiest man in the west, lightning comes down and strikes Lazurus in the puddle he fell was pushed in!

Wise Owl shows up and takes the comatose Lazarus back to his house to recover. When a doctor shows up, Lazarus is basically pronounced to be braindead, to heartbreak of Lazarus's love interest.

But no, it turns out that Lazarus managed to survive with only brain damage! Hooray! Because when Lazarus manages to speak up later, it is revealed that he sees himself as two men: the husk of a coward and the shadow of a demon that wants revenge.

Lazarus Lane is no more; there is only El Diablo! With his jet-black horse, a gun, his amazing bolas skills, he rides for justice. And his first act of justice, El Diablo takes out the gang that destroyed his life. With this act of revenge, El Diablo sleeps until he is needed again.

And that's the origin story of El Diablo, a nice creepy tale about a man God must really hate. The artwork by Gray Morrow really captures the creepy mood that this story tries to capture. A fun tale that shows why El Diablo actually still manages to exist in the modern times.

All-Star Western #3

[jerseyluck]

DC Finest: Western: The Hangman Never Loses!

Next in the DC Finest: Western, Tomahawk gets a timeskip, a new status quo, and a new main character.

Tomahawk #131 is a relaunch in an effort to gain readership with a new style change. Instead of Tomahawk and friends fighting in the Revolutionary War, the book skips ahead 20+ years. Tomahawk is an old married man to a Native American woman, Moon Fawn, who decided to live away from civilization.

During this time, Tomahawk had two kids with his wife: a white-passing kid called Hawk who is now the co-lead of this book and a young child, Young Child who looks/act more like an Indigenous person.

Anyway, this story opens up on Hawk saving a woman from a criminal that sees himself as a judge. Hawk is captured and almost hanged by the crook, until ol' man Tomahawk shows up and forces the crooks to run away.

The trio go back to Tomahawk's valleyy farm, where we discover the status quo update that we have already discussed, and Hawk decides that Judge's gang needs to stop before they come looking for them in the valley.

The woman and Hawk go off to fight the Judge's men and there is a fun shootout. The Judge is killed and far away Tomahawk is happy that Hawk is managed to be hero without his help.

This such an improvement over the previous Tomahawk story I've read. It takes a moment to just explore the previous legacy of what came before, but it also introduces a fun new status quo. I actually care about what happens to these characters and want to read more adventures of Tomahawk.

Tomahawk #131

[jerseyluck]

DC Finest: Western: The Hangman Never Loses!

Next up is a story introducing the first character that people in the modern day might have heard of: El Diablo (sorry Tomahawk fans)! And it is a six page that really explore the character but instead focuses on a lady giving birth. A prostitute as to help the other woman give birth when the doctor runs away out of fear of failure. Doc is found dead and the story ends. Gray Morrow's art is solid, but this is just a teaser for the rest of El Diablo stories.

All Star Western Vol 2 #2

[jerseyluck]

DC Finest: Western: The Hangman Never Loses!

After 50 pages, we finally get a good story out of this DC Finest volume!

All-Star Western launches with its first lead: Outlaw. The premise is that a child of a Texas Marshall wants to become a Marshall like his dad; despite the fact that the father does not want his son to have the dangerous career of being a lawman.

After one heated argument, the son leaves to go off on his own. Eventually the son joins a gang of bank robbers in a job that leaves a man dead. Despite not shooting the murdered victim, the son is recognized as one of the robbers, becoming a wanted man aka Outlaw.

We get some family drama with Outlaw's father, Sheriff Wilson, chasing him down to arrest and put down his criminal son. With only his horse and pet hawk, Outlaw has to escape his father who will chase him down as well the crooks who refuse to trust the son of a sheriff.

This leads to the father and son defeating criminal gangs from different angles, with this first story having Outlaw shooting the bank robbers tried to cheat him out of the profits.

I understand the father who is disappointed in his son, the son who just wanted to prove himself but is now a fugitive from the law, and the adopted daughter who wants everything to go back to normal.

A great idea from Robert Kanigher, that captures the western spirit. The first great idea, and it is a shame that this idea burns out so quickly (there are only 4 Outlaw stories in total before he is replaced by another (fun) idea as the feature lead of All-Star Western.)

All Star Western Vol 2 #2

[jerseyluck]

DC Finest: Western: The Hangman Never Loses!

Finally in the trilogy of suck, we get a one-off tale about a military officer so racist and overconfident that he manages to get his whole unit slaughtered.

There is a Native American soldier who tries to advice the racist dipshit, when attacked racist dipshit and Native American John Hawk are the only survivors. Racist dipshit redeems himself by sacrificing himself to kill the Native American leader who slaughtered his men, and the story ends with me not caring about anything that as occurred in this DC Finest volume so far.

Super DC Giant S-15

[jerseyluck]

DC Finest: Western: The Hangman Never Loses

Next in a volume is a tale about a member of Tomahawk's Rangers: Frenchie.

This is a story about Frenchie trying to kill a man who had his brother executed. Except it turns Frenchie's brother was actually a spy, so the US soldier was right to kill him. Instead of being of punished for trying to assassinate an American officer, Frenchie is forgiven and put on Tomahawk's Rangers as soldier for American Independence.

This is story that tries to give us more to know about supporting character Frenchie...which fails because based on that first story in the volume, I don't care about Tomahawk's Rangers, and I especially don't care about the comic relief character of the crew.

Tomahawk #130

[jerseyluck]

DC Finest: Western: The Hangman Never Loses!

It is a shame that the Western DC Finest starts with, what turns out to be, the worst 3 stories in the whole book.

The volume starts with a Tomahawk story that involves him and his team of rangers fighting Native Americans to save a white settlement. Despite having a team of awesome women saving the team's butt, it is as uncomfortable racist as it sounds. Does not help that the Tomahawk's crew refuse to belief that the women are capable of fighting/defending themselves despite that story proving otherwise.

But most importantly, this story isn't a Western. It is a War Comic that takes place during the Revolutionary War. So, it is weird that this the issue that launches the DC Finest Western Line.

A terrible first impression for Tomahawk and his crew. A Bad Comic to start off with, and it makes sense that the rest of Tomahawk in this volume is a hard reboot having a different cast/story than this.

[jerseyluck]

After dealing with some personal issues, I decided to get back onto the horse by reading:

The DC Finest about westerns. This probably won't be a review/analysis like I normally would do (because it's a bunch of short stories), but instead some posts of what I find interesting.

[jerseyluck]

Comic Retrospective: The Riddler: Year of The Villain

After yesterday's six-part epic I am in the mood for something shorter, so let's dig into a Riddler story from 2019's Year of the Villain.

This issue opens up with Riddler and, from Batman 66', King Tut eating at a diner. And it does not surprise me that Mark Russell has decided to bring back the campy King Tut to a mainstream DC comic. Glad Mark is having fun, just wished it continued throughout the issue.

This villainous duo is discussing two things. Firstly, Riddler is talking about how Lex Luthor is handing out weapons/upgrades to all the villains...except to King Tut and Riddler.

Meanwhile, King Tut doesn't care that the Legion of Doom is disrespecting him, he is just annoyed about how easily he lost to Batman in their last encounter. The two villains hug it out as Riddler goes to back to his lair.

Only for Apex Lex (Lex is called that because he made a deal with creator of the universe for power as long as he turned the world's future towards villainy) to finally show up in Riddler's lair.

Riddler asks Lex for his gift, only for the big bald mastermind to tell Nygma that he is disappointed in him. For all his brilliance, Riddler is trapped in a childish "game" with Batman; trying to make a big score when he could be so much more. Lex's "gift" is a call for Nygma is more of an intervention.

And personally, I think that sucks. The reason why Riddler works is that he is willing to play childish games to prove that he is smarter than everyone else. If you get rid of his desire to be the smartest, you just get another Joker, and we are barely okay with one Joker we got.

I am just tired of people not who write Riddler stories that try to turn him into something else (this is a Tom King callout). But back to this tale were King Tut calls Riddler to offer a team-up to take out Batman once and for all.

And this is the part of the book where Mark Russell's humor comes out. There are some jokes that Tut is spending a dead relative's inheritance on crocodile and other Egyptian themed traps for the Batman and the fact that Tut lives in a sphinx.

Batman gets a note summoning him to the trap at a Gotham PD Station, and minor digression, WHEN DOES THIS TAKE PLACE?

Because I know enough about Year of The Villain, that Bruce having free time to spend with Commissioner Gordon doesn't work. YOTV takes place at about the same time the Justice League is fighting across space and time, City of Bane is happening, and Gordon was Jokerized by the Batman Who Laughs. The timing is off for this dumb tie-in.

Anyways, Batman goes to the warehouse King Tut is set up at, and the hero survives many Egyptian themed traps. Fun action stuff with okay art by Godlewski.

But at the same time, Riddler is having some flashbacks about his past, doubting his villainous career. And it comes to an end with Edward deciding to quit being the Riddler as Batman corners King Tut. The story ends with Edward throwing his Riddler gear away until James Tyrion puts him back to the status quo 6 months later.

This is a one forgettable tie-in. It would be if this story was named Year of the Villain: King Tut after the best parts of this story; but that wouldn't have sold as well. Riddler isn't his fun usual self and the status quo this issue tries to establish is bad. But most of all this issue is just forgettable, as noted by the fact that I struggled to remember the plot as I was writing this.

4/10

[jerseyluck]

Comic Review: The Brave and the Bold v3 (#1-6): Lords of Luck

I get back on the horse by reviewing a 2007 Mark Waid joint that explores the entirety of the DC Universe. Time to start a new volume of DC Team-Up series The Brave and the Bold.

This six-issue story opens with Hal Jordan and John Steward talking about past team-ups with other heroes before John leaves the story. As Hal arrives at Earth's orbit, he sees a murdered man floating in space.

Hal calls Batman for some assistance to figure out who this dead body floating in space is; only for Bruce to tell Hal that there is a clone of the murdered man in the Batcave as well. Green Lantern goes to the Batcave to help solve the mystery of the man who died twice!

Only for Bruce to reveal that it there are more like 40 corpses that are the same as the dead man. Batman explains the corpses are clones/echoes of the man, who share any damage that happened to the original.

As Batman explains that this case will take the duo to Las Vegas, a giant yellow creature shows up and attacks the pair. Having read the story, I am still confused why this scene exists other than to give the issue an action scene. The creature is beaten by Batman's giant penny and dinosaur; and the pair leaves for Vegas.

Bruce and Hal do some fun undercover work at a casino (in their civilian identities) to discover that the dead man's partner was the casino-themed supervillain Roulette. And she has something that catches the eye of two aliens.

Green Lantern and Batman fight these villains, but they escape in two different directions. Before the pair split up, Roulette reveals that the stolen item was The Book of Souls: a book that in can see events that haven't happened yet... and in the wrong hands can rewrite the future.

Anyway, Green Lantern and Batman split up to stop these alien thieves. The story alternates between POVs, but for clarity's sake, I am going to start with GL's half and then go back to Batman's part.

So, Hal calls for back-up as he has to chase to the thief to a casino planet in order to retrieve the book. He gets the underage Supergirl as his team-up partner, and oh boy, this sucks!

Okay, Hal has some terrible moments in his character's history of being in ... uncomfortable relationships, that I can't get into here, but we try to forget about that so Hal can be a major hero. Except for this story where Hal as to remind himself that Kara is underage while she is flirting with him.

Eh... and it is a shame because it ruins what is otherwise a solid issue. The casino world having safeguards against people who try to scam the planet with stuff like time travel and mind-reading. It makes for fun setting for this adventure as our heroes try to reclaim the book.

Hal uses his ring to track the energy The Book of Destiny is putting out and arrives at a colosseum. In order to track the book, Kara dresses up as a little girl and challenges the champions. GL realizes that the only person who would bet for the "little girl" to win would have to have future knowledge (Aka the Book of Souls).

Hal tries to retrieve the book, only for it to be stolen away by Rannian spy at the last minute. GL goes into the Zeta Beam with the Rann native leaving Supergirl behind.

Kara does manage to find a way off the planet.... Lobo. Lobo takes Kara to Rann, only for them to be trapped in a maze dimension. In the maze the pair come across Destiny, from Sandman! He tells Kara that the Book of Souls from him and some gods are trying to rewrite the universe. However, Destiny tells Supergirl that the universe can be saved by men (who Hal and Bruce know) that have cheated fate.

Lobo drops Kara off with Hal... only to find that he and Adam Strange are being attacking. With the triple suns overcharging Supergirl, the trio finds Rannian thief... who is using the book to fight a war against the Thanagarians (Hawk-people). This man refuses to give up the book, and to make things worse, the Gods of Luck appear convincing the Rannian rebel to use the book to kill the heroes.

Meanwhile, Batman is chasing the other thief to El Paso; Texas where he calls local hero, Blue Beetle, for assistance. They attack the criminal; but the crook has a gun that alters probability to make the unexpected happen...like causing a snowstorm in the Texas desert. The crook manages to escape.

Bruce realizes that the crook is likely to sell the "magic" gun to get away while Jaime realizes the person who would buy it is local magic crime lord La Dama. And they happen to be right, as the issue cuts to that happening...

Only for Epoch and the Fatal Five (classic DC villains who time travel) to arrive to get the "magic" gun for their own purposes. And an all-out brawl happens with Bruce eventually fusing together with the robot villain Tharok after being hit by the probability gun.

The duo defeat Epoch, but the Fatal Five still remain. With Jaime outmatched by the Fatal Five and Batman fighting Tharok for control, Bruce decides to shoot himself with "magic" gun just to make sure Blue Beetle survives.

Out of anything that could have happened, Bruce is dragged to the future of the Fatal Five and encounters the Threeboot Legion of Superheroes. And I don't have the word-count to explain the Legion of Superheroes here. So, we will continue with the racap.

Brainiac 5 manages to defuse Batman-Robot hybrid and discovers that Batman time-traveling to the future is causing rips into the time-stream. And this Legion lacks time-travel technology, so they can't just return Batman to the present to fix everything.

Bruce manages to steal Brainy's ring and escapes into the future. Batman has some fun fights with Legion of Superheroes members, but he is cornered by Phantom Girl. But this is all part of Batman's plan as the magic gun can only works against those who are threatening the holder. But before Batman can returned to the past, he is ambushed by the Lords of Luck.

Now we get an explanation of the villains' plan. The Lord of Lucks plan to put the Tharagarrians and the Rannians in a forever war by using the Book of Souls, so they keep making more dangerous weapons. Using the energy from these weapons they plan to reboot the universe. And the Rannian general can't be stopped in the present because he can counter anyone who stands against him with future knowledge.

This is where our plotlines converge has Lantern, Supergirl, and Adam Strange almost die when they try to take book back. Kara remembers Destiny words that fate can only be changed by those who already defied it. So, Supergirl uses her extra powerful X-Ray vision to read the Book of Souls from miles away.

Meanwhile, Hal and Adam Strange combine their powers to make an ultra-powerful Zeta Beam to return Batman to present-day Rann. Bruce and Hal realize the heroes that have defied fate are... The Challengers of The Unknown, who are summoned to save the day.

And then we get a great ending scene of The Challengers saving day by overwhelming the Rannian forces. The villains can't get a read on the reckless actions of the Challengers, and they lose control of the Book of Souls. The Luck Lords are sent to be trapped in space; Adam Strange gets sad after reading the book, and The Challengers on The Unknown become the protectors of the Book of Souls.

As a whole this story is fun but there is enough there that pulls this away from greatness. There are some human moments in this; like Kara who wants to find out what happened to her family. But there some dumb moments like issue 2 and Lobo is very pointless in the end. I did cheer out loud when the Challengers of the Unknown were revealed to be Heroes in the end.

An overstuffed tale but the core of it is solid:

6/10

[nitpickrider]

DC Randomizer, Do your Thing!

Now imagine a big wheel spinning

spinning

SPINNING!

The suspense increasing!

INCREASING!

AND JUST WHEN IT REACHES A CRESCENDO!

...!

!!!

*hugs*

We hardly had time to miss you, big guy!

[jerseyluck]

Always enjoy people getting into one of comics’ great lesser known creators. Hope you enjoy your time with Louise Simonson, a comic all star.

[jerseyluck]

Depression is a trip. Got to get back into the groove.

[zahri-melitor]

A challenge for the fandom: talk about Devin Grayson without starting your comments with ‘she sucks but’

Skip the commentary on what you don’t like, especially when you’re defending her. Try framing things in terms of what you enjoy from her writing

Here’s some to start with:

Relative Heroes was an incredibly well characterised superhero family

Arsenal 1998 is fundamental Roy and Lian characterisation unmatched elsewhere

She’s the closest Power Pack writer to replicating Louise Simonson’s voice and characterisation

Transference is legendary silly fun for a reason

Gotham Knights #32: 24 is my favourite depiction of the impact Bruce has on Gotham, bar none

The bank heist in Catwoman #61 is probably one of my ultimate Selina characterisation issues in terms of the amount of fun she’s having

[jerseyluck]

Devin Grayson is a perfect fine B-tier writer who has the misfortune of writing the third best Bat-book at a period of time when Ed Brubaker and Greg Rucka were on the other 2 Bat-titles. And I think that even Devin Grayson would admit that she isn’t on the level of Rucka and Brubaker.

But she managed to make a career writing comics, which is impressive for a woman in the late-90’s and early-00’s.

[nitpickrider]

Lana is making the same assumption a lot of people make. Lois fell in love with CLARK. Broke off her "relationship" with Superman in public. Said yes to his proposal and ONLY THEN did she find out who he was. And she was PISSED! They separated for a while right before the wedding (I should know, I read it). She fell in love with Clark and got SURPRISED by Superman. You fell in love at 16 and have defaulted back because you hit a rough patch. Action Comics 819

[jerseyluck]

If I remember my DC history correctly, this was at point where the books were trying to see if they break Clark & Lois up and go back to Silver Age dynamic where Supes was in a love triangle with them both.

With this and Superman: Tomorrow (a story going on the main Superman book at the point, in which Lois is thought to be dead for a bit), DC was trying to see if how the audience would react.

They reacted poorly, so we were saved from the marriage dissolving until we got to The New 52. But that is a different story.

[nitpickrider]

I would like to find the writer who wrote "Lana kisses a heavily injured Clark while he's unconscious and she knows Lois is out of town, having come to visit him with her son while dressed like a hooters waitress" I just wanna talk. Action Comics 819

[jerseyluck]

Oh baby, this is a Chuck Austen comic. AKA the writer of many considers to be the worst X-Men run of all-time (The guy who did Nightcrawler that tried to make Nightcrawler the pope as part of an evil plot... among other bad decisions.)

This is at the time that he was briefly at DC (where he wrote, and I am not kidding on this one, the comic tie-in to the Halle Berry Catwoman movie) before he was run out of comic book industry.

And it was for the best, because he went on to be part of animation industry working on Steven Universe and She-Ra among others. I want to make to clear that he isn't awful, because the guy doesn't deserve the vile hatred that he has received just for making some awful comics