Grumpy Comic Reader's Profile

One of my biggest surprise reads in years! By the time I started reading it, it was on Year 4, and I couldn't put it down until I was up to that point! If you enjoy Elseworlds tales, this one will be right up your alley as it centers on a Superman (and a few other mainstays) gone bad. If you enjoyed Mark Wade's Irredeemable, you won't have difficulty liking this one either. It doesn't require any knowledge of the video game to get into the story but my advice is search YouTube and find the fan made movie that takes all movie sequences from the game and makes one giant movie. Injustice does a lot of things that the regular comics can't seem to get right anymore. It's a mega hero and villain crossover that stays simple and in one volume, much like the classic Secret Wars. And my favorite part of the book is dead is dead. When your favorite superhero goes down in the battle versus Superman and his allies, chances are she or he is gone forever which makes the excitement even more as the story definitely takes some hard turns throughout. Tom Taylor did such a good job with this series that it compelled me to research his writing history and see if he had some other gems hiding for us to enjoy.

Brian K. Vaughan can do no wrong. Seriously though... there is a short list of comic writers who I anxiously await anything by them whether it be Marvel, DC, Image or another independent. Vaughan is one of those writers. This series keeps his streak alive! There's not much I can say that hasn't been covered already. It's a terrific sci-if drama with characterization done so well you can feel the people involved. Fiona Staples was also a great artistic choice for this series as her eccentric style captures the tone Vaughan was looking for and in some ways takes it to the next level. I'm on issue #40 and this series has not lost any steam from issue #1 and it's rare I can say that. If I had any complaint about this series it's that the delivery schedule can sometimes be erratic as many creator owned series tend to be.

I did it again! Once again I plunged into the Teen Titans hoping to find that same magic I read in the 2003 series started by Geoff Johns. What has it been? Three new launches for this series? And everytime I make it less distance from Issue #1. Issue #3 is where I got off the Teen Titans bus this time. I was disappointed from the start but this issue slowed to a crawl as the Teen Titans tried to bond. That's right... half of the issue is them bonding at a campfire and listening to lame Beast Boy jokes. And that's really why this series fails. Only 5 Teen Titans and we get the eternally prepubescent Beast Boy as one of the picks? You have comedy gold in Damian yet they try and make him a serious character and the leader of the group. I'm all for new angles on tried and true superheroes but this Damian angle (that is somewhat similar to his resurrection storyline theme) never clicks and falls flat. And in another attempt to re-do backgrounds and ages just enough to piss off longtime fans, Starfire is apparently now a 19-year old. Stop trying to bring back classic characters as teens! Let them move on to the next level and keep the core teams together for Christ sake! Starfire, Raven, and Beast Boy should be with the Titans. Or use the Geoff Johns relaunch idea and bring them back as teachers. After sorting out the characters who are dead and waiting for resurrection (because it's so hard to keep track of these days), I believe there should always be 3 core groups... the George Perez Dick Grayson, Wally West, Starfire, Beast Boy, etc Titans 1.0. Followed by the Geoff Johns Tim Drake, Conner Kent, Bart Allen, Cassie Sandsmarck, etc Titans 2.0. And this should be the Titans 3.0 which is fine with Damian but with the exception of the new black Bart Allen, instead of being surrounded by some of the new youth in DC, he is packed into a team that tries to bring all three generations together and fails every step of the way.

Damian is still the best new character introduced by DC in the last decade and Jon (aka Superboy) might be close behind! Super Sons has the same potential as every great Damian team-up in the character's short life. If you enjoyed his earlier outbursts with Batgirl, Supergirl or The Teen Titans -- before the convoluted death and resurrection mess -- this series is more of the same comedy gold. Feeding off of Superboy's rural home slice upbringing versus Damian's test tube baby self-centered hard training, it's fun to see the dynamics that made Damian so readable (and writeable) are back! They're easy personalities to write for but I'm glad DC gave this one to Peter Tomasi who is one of my favorite DC writers in recent years and has already mastered the Damian dynamics starting way back with his Batman & Robin Blackest Night story with Deadman which is a hilarious read if you haven't tried it yet! Jorge Jimenez is one of a kind talent and his style adds to the book's theme but I'm still frustrated that Marvel or DC feels every teenage superhero comic must be introduced in "manga style." I'm also bitter that Jon had to enter our world through the multi-verse and have his old man replace the New 52 version of Superman. It would have been nice just to see some continuation and age in the Superman story with *gasp* fatherhood in the Man of Steel's life and new characters such as Jon created to answer the challenge of bringing in new younger readers instead of rebooting the classic character and alienating most of the established reader base. Excited to read this series and hope it will stay fresh after the inaugural first year.