The DC Comic Review

Sorry…updates also

Sorry it took me a LONG time to update. In the future I will try to update more frequently. I have been SWAMPED with tests and other assignments.

Also, in order to make this entire project easier for me to handle.

-Less pictures
-Shorter articles with more of a focus on modern comics

Also…
Maybe a top 10 best selling DC comics from a month to month basis. Depending on if I can find a reliable source.

Villains

Harley Quinn

Harley Quinn was developed by Bruce Timm and Paul Dini and first introduced into the DC Animated Universe in the Batman the Animated Series in episode ‘Joker’s Favor’. (One of my Favorite Episodes). Once an intern at Arkham Asylum, she volunteered to analyze the Joker. After a session she fell for him and tired to help him escape. She was caught and had her license revoked. During an earthquake she found Joker and became his sidekick.

Though it would be easy to simply have a female version of the joker (albeit more agile) she is not. Like I said before she is more agile and is less violent. Her and the Joker also have an on-again-off-again relationship.

Harley also has a friendship with another Batman villain, Poison Ivy. Ivy, the stanch feminist, is always deriding Quinn for being attracted to the Joker. In the animated series, they teamed up after the Joker kicked Quinn out, Ivy and Quinn teamed up and rose havoc in Gotham only to be later captured by Renee, back when she was still a beat cop.

Circe

In the recent Wonder Woman comics she has been an important enemy. In issues 3-4 she stole Wonder Woman’s powers. She went around the earth killing men who hurt women (Sex slave owners, strip club, etc…). It was also revealed that she was the one who upgraded Wonder Woman’s rouge gallery.

Circe has goddess level powers and is immortal. She can alter minds, revive the dead, fire destructive magical blasts.

I am honestly can’t wait to see her in future Wonder Woman comics.

Star Sapphire

In the 15th issue of Green Lantern, a new Star Sapphire is introduced. The alien crystal at first selects a few different hosts before finally decided on Cowgirl (Hal Jordan’s Wing Man) after discovering that Hal has feelings for her.

Star Sapphire’s powers are very nebulous. She seems like the character has a lot of potential in terms of story lines and things like that. Maybe Geoff Jones can write some interesting comics for her.

Women in the DC Universe

It is obvious that women’s roles in the DC universe has come a long way. Though much like their real life counter parts their roles have expanded and have become key players in the DC universe. As time as gone on these characters have become noticeably more feminist in their attitudes. When Power Girl was asked about her uniform and why it had a cut out on her chest she said:

"Shows what I am: female, healthy, and strong. If men want to degrade themselves by staring and drooling and tripping over themselves, that's their problem, I'm not going to apologize for it."

Though this is good it is important to realize that while this women are still noticeably drawn in an overtly sexual posturing with exaggerated feminine features (Power Girl’s breasts were drawn increasingly bigger in every comic by the original artist). Only time will tell where women will go in the DC universe, and how they will be received. In the month of February, Wonder Woman #4 sold 69,847 units, making DC’s top ten sellers for the month of February.

Best Sellers

The best (estimated) sellers for DC comics in February…

Title Issue # Price Units Sold

1) Justice 10 $3.50 DC 94,943
2) 52 40 $2.50 DC 94,677
3) 52 41 $2.50 DC 94,469
4) 52 42 $2.50 DC 94,203
5) 52 43 $2.50 DC 93,488
6) B&B 1 $2.99 DC 92,074
7) JSA 3 $2.99 DC 84,341
8) Batman 663 $2.99 DC 83,152
9) Wonder Woman 4 $2.99 DC 69,847
10) Action Comics 846 $2.99 DC 64,542

It’s a shame that green Lantern didn’t crack the top ten. It did get eleven though.
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Next Issue:  Reviews, Reviews, REVIEWS

Super Heroines (cont.)

Black Canary

While not every women in the DC universe had such a beginning as wonder woman, born out of feminist ideals before the word had any real power. Black Canary, also known as Dinah Drake Lance and Dinah Laurel Lance (to be explained later) is a martial arts expert and the latter being the modern Black Canary.

Her first appearance was in an edition of Flash Comics in 1947, as Dinah Drake Lance. She was a supporting character in the Johnny Thunder Series, at first appearing as a villain. It was later revealed that she was merely infiltrating the organized crime ring. As she grew in popularity she over took John Thunder feature and got her own. Thus was written her back story. She was originally a florist, with black hair, that wore a wig to fight crime. Her love interest was Larry Lance, a member of the Gotham city police department  She soon joined the JSA. Sometime in the 1950’s she, along with the rest of the JSA, stopped being published.

Later revived with the rest of the golden age heroes on Earth-2, Black Canary went on to fight along with the JLA in their many JSA/JLA crosser comics. It was also revealed that sometime during the 50’s she married Lance. He was later killed in 1969 when the JSA and JLA fought Aquarius, he died trying to save her life. She then moved to Earth-1, to get away from the grief and have a fresh start. After that she started dating Green Arrow (a legendary relationship in the DC universe.) During this time she also got her famed Canary Cry (blamed on a dose of radiation she received at some point).

In retcon, or retro continuality, it was established that Dinah Drake Lance was really Dinah Laurel Lance, her daughter during JLA issues 219 and 220. Sometime during the 50s, Dinah and Larry, her late husband, had a child. The infant, Dinah Laurel Lance, was ‘cursed’ with the Canary Cry by the Wizard. The problem was that while it was powerful the baby couldn’t control it. Dinah Drake asked her old friend Johnny Thunder (the feature she replaced) hit the babe with a thunderbolt, but it didn’t work. Then Thunderbolt kept the child in suspended animation (but aging all the while) in his native dimension. It was her parents hope that a cure could be found, or at least a way to control it. Seeing how much it hurt the couple to see their child in pain Thunderbolt erased their memories and convinced them they the baby had died. He did this save them from the pain that their child was in pain.
After the battle with Aquarius, Dinah realized she was dying from the radiation she was exposed to during the battle (While not confirmed this was most likely the battle that gave her the Canary Cry to begin with). Thunderbolt, Black Canary and Superman of Earth-1 arranged to transfer Dinah's memories into the body of her now-adult daughter, still in the suspended state in Thunderbolt’s dimension, while not letting Dinah believe anything unusual had happened to her.

This retcon was written to deal with the fact that Dinah was originally much older than the rest of the JLA and perhaps most importantly her romantic interest, Green Arrow.

The Dinah Drake married Lance and still had her florist business. In a Times Past-style story in Birds of Prey, Lance was an acquaintance of Jim Gordon, father to Barbara Gordon. A few years later, their daughter, named Dinah Laurel Lance, was born (The modern Black Canary). Growing up, Dinah Laurel was surrounded by her mother's old friends in the disbanded JSA. Like a surregate family Dinah looked up to them. Dinah wanted to follow in her mothers footsteps. Dinah Drake, didn’t want her to do this, thinking it was to dangerous.

However, Dinah Laurel had her own "Canary Cry" – in this version, the result of a metagene not present in her parents – which she is fully able to control. Unlike her silver age counter part.

Now Black Canary works with the all female superhero team named, Bird of Prey. The team includes, Barbara Gordon, Huntress and others.

Black Canary, or some form of her, has been in the DC universe for quite a long time. While not receiving the top billing of other heroes, or even heroines, she is an important character and interwoven into the fabric of DC.

Vixen
Vixen, aptly named after a female fox, was introduced in Action Comics #521. Her back story is rather simple compared to other heroes. Orphaned, Vixen aka Mari McCabe fled to America where she used her beauty to become a model, and with that wealth travel the world. On a trip back to Africa, she came across her uncle, and got back the Tantu Totem, using its power to become the Vixen.
Though only existing since the early 80’s, she has made a nice impact on the DC universe. Only of the few heroes of African decent, and even fewer African Women (though technically she is African America, but not in the sense you might understand it).
Vixen wears an African artifact object called the Tantu Totem, a fox-head (again the name Vixen)  shaped talisman given to her ancestors by the African trickster Anansi. Vixen can make direct contact with Earth's Morphogenetic field. This allows her to mimic the abilities of any animal she can think of, by simply focusing on a specific animal's abilities and then drawing it directly from the field. Currently, she seems to have to call out the name of the animal she wishes to draw power from in order to use that power such as saying "bear" before she could use the power of a bear.

Huntress

Perhaps the most interesting of all of the heroines I have studied the huntress started out as a villain during the golden age. She routinely battled Wildcat. The Huntress, aka Paula Brooks, first appeared in Sensation Comics #68.

She was later retroactively renamed the Tigress in the book Young All-Stars.

The Silver age version Helena Wayne, the daughter of the Batman and Catwoman of Earth-Two. Earth-Two was also the home of the Golden Age versions of various DC characters. Established in the 60’s as to have a place where the golden age heroes adventures took place.

Created by Paul Levitz and Joe Staton, and Bob Layton she first appeared in All Star Comics #69 (December 1977) and DC Super-Stars #17, both issues came out in the same month. The bulk of her solo stories appeared as backup features in issues of Wonder Woman.

Helena was trained by her parents to become a superb athlete. Helena began her super-hero career when a criminal blackmailed her mother Catwoman. Helena, deciding to bring the criminal responsible to justice, created her custom and weapons. Helena, after being successful decided to continue to fight crime, under the code name the "Huntress."

During the 1985 megaseries Crisis on Infinite Earths, Helena was killed off. After Crisis ended, Helena Wayne's existence, like that of her parents and Earth-Two's Dick Grayson, was retroactively erased from the remaining Earth and the world no longer remembered her.

Following the character's death and erasure from history in Crisis on Infinite Earths, DC created a new Huntress, Helena Bertinelli, whose costume and weaponry are similar to Helena Wayne's.

Following the megeaseries event, Crisis on Infinite Earths, and thanks to the characters popularity she was reborn as Helena Bertinelli. This new Helena was the daughter of Gotham’s mafia bosses. After seeing her family gunned down in a mafia hit she vows vengeance.

Helena is currently a member of the Birds of Prey.

Renee Montoya

Renee, created for the critically acclaimed Batman: The Animated Series is a uniformed beat cop partnered with Harvey Dent. She, like Harley Quinn was one of the characters created by Batman: The Animated Series later introduced into the comic continuity. She first appears in Batman 475 #1992. She is then promoted to homicide detective and partners with Crispus Allen.

She is also an important character in the weekly year long comic title of 52.

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Next Issue: The Villians

At first this was just going to be an article about Wonder Woman, then I decided to go ahead and expend it to include all of the fabulous super heroines in the DC universe. But I figured that would undercut the super villains in the DC universe, they after all, add so much to the universe. So I decided that out of respect to Woman’s history month I would dedicate a few posts about Women, good and bad and in between.

Super Heroines

Wonderful Woman

Created in the 1940s by William Moulton Marston and his wife, Elizabeth Holloway Marston, after he made the observation about the DC line up being dominated by “supermen” he decided to propose a super heroine: Wonder Woman.

After that she was first introduced in All-Star Comics issue #8 in the winter of 1941. By the summer of 1942 she had a self-titled book. Marston wrote all of the stories until his death in 1947.

It was said that Marston modeled Wonder Woman after his wife and his ideal woman. Both were strong, intelligent, and beautiful and were different from the socially accepted norm. From the start Wonder Woman was an Amazon but in the beginning her powers were derived from her ‘Amazonian Concentration’.

In a 1943 Marston wrote to and issue of The American Scholar:

Not even girls want to be girls so long as our feminine archetype lacks force, strength, and power. Not wanting to be girls, they don't want to be tender, submissive, peace-loving as good women are. Women's strong qualities have become despised because of their weakness. The obvious remedy is to create a feminine character with all the strength of Superman plus all the allure of a good and beautiful woman.

In her original origin story she took part in a contest to see who would go to the “Man’s world” and fight the Nazis. Diana, in disguise, won the tournament and along with a man, Steve Trevor an army intelligence officer, who crashed on the Amazon’s island. They both go back to America and Diana buys the identity of a young army nurse who looks like her. This allows her to over hear Steve’s intelligence conversations and this allows her to go where she is needed.

After a stint in the 70s where the amazons left this dimension, thus taking all of Wonder Woman’s powers, and no longer affiliated with the JLA she left, and be came more of a super spy than a super hero. Echoing the popular Emma Peele from the Avengers TV show. She was also mentored by I Ching and she learned martial arts and weapons training. In order to cut the ties to her life before this they killed Trevor Steve.

Wonder Woman’s powers were restored, in part because of the urging of famous feminist Gloria Steinem. She noticed and most Super Heroines where depowered. She rejoined the JLA after twelve trials (Ala Hercules). The first volume ended in issue 329 during February 1986 with the marriage of Diana to Steve Trevor.

After the DC reboot in 1987, after the “Infinite Crisis on Multiple Earths” she got a second volume that ran from then until 2006. Which culminated in the story arc of Sacrifice where she broke not only the neck of Maxwell Lord but the DC heroes code of “do not kill”. Thus began the falling out between Superman, Wonder Woman and Batman.

Though the Character of Wonder Woman has gone under many changes in the characters history when she has had her powers she has had the bracelets, the whip and the tiara. Often the lesser known of the three DC staples she is well worth reading.

Volume 3

I have been getting this comic since June and only 4 issues have come out since then. While the comic is well done, both from a drawing and writing stand-point, I can’t forgive the fact that so few issues have come out. If the DC website is at all reliable (and lets face it, it can proven itself quite the opposite) more issues should come out soon. Maybe this will be the trend and not the exception.

The Art is just how I like it, not to stylized but it doesn’t look like anything else out there. WW is drawn as a large, athletic woman with curves. Which I think is important to do. It would be very easy to draw Wonder Woman as a man in drag. It’s a tough balance you must maintain her as a strong woman, and so many people think that means a man with long hair.

The story is hard to judge because there have only been 4 issues and the first arc is not completed yet. So far though the story seems to be nicely done. Though I was confused in the first two issues with Donna Troy taking over as Wonder Woman, and Diana dressed in white. While I could understand what Donna was doing, and why, I, at first, didn’t get that that was Diana, I thought that was someone new.

Regardless of my confusing this series has a lot of potential it is still early enough that it could fall flat on its face and never get up again. Only the coming months will tell.

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Next on comic review Bird of Prey, Renee and other Heroines are on the way…

Before I start I think I need to state the obvious. This is my first entry (hopefully the first of many). I figured that because my girlfriend just got done reading Watchmen that I should use it as my first official review. I think also that it will be a good way to showcase how I plan to rate the comics and why I rate them this way.

Also, I think this bears repeating, that I welcome all points of view and thoughts. I will ask that you remain respectful of not only me, but also anyone else who may post. Also, keep in mind that while I have a great, GREAT, deal of respect for Marvel and their characters my first love in the comic world was DC. If I do read any Marvel (That doesn’t seem possible right now) I doubt, severely doubt that I will post anything about it here. This is a DC blog.

Lastly, my goal for this blog is to give an honest, objective review of DC comic books that have come out. While I will mostly talk able recent or current comics I will, from time to time, bring up older comics of Trade Paper Backs because I think they are worth it. Again, I reserve the right to think, feel, and write whatever I want. But I will promise to try to remain as objective and clinical as possible. So with out further ado…

Who Will Read the Watchmen

My friend gave it to me a few months ago to read. He said that if I were into comic books that I should read this because it was very good. I like my friend Andrew and I normally like the things he likes. He brought the Watchmen for me to read. I found some time in the middle of the day on Friday and started. I can honestly say that I didn’t put it down for a few hours and read until my neck hurt. I finished it the next day at around 3 pm. For me this is rushing because when I get a TPB, or trade paper back, I like to savor it. No, no, not this one. I had to have it.

The Watchmen is an incredible epic and without a doubt the best graphic novel, or comic book that I have ever read. Moreover I consider it one of my four favorite books. I have given it to friends, my dad and my girlfriend and told them what I just told you.

The story is set in a world where the first comic books spawned a select few to don the cape and cowl to become real life superheroes. They take part and witness real life events (The Second World War, Vietnam, the Kennedy Assassination) and have an affect on them. In the end it is because of them that the police go on strike and the Keene act is pasted. An act that outlaws vigilantism and puts most “Masked adventurers” (what they call Superheroes in their world) out of business, aside from the ones who choose to work for the government. Thus the story is set.



The pacing, the story telling and the plot are flawless. At no point was I brought out of the story with a “yeah…RIGHT” moment. Every event was important, every line and character, every quote had its place.

The paneling in this story was nothing short of a stroke of genius. Characters move from panel to panel as if you are watching a movie and the camera is just moving with the actor. Examples include in chapter 2 on page 10 the top three panels. It is almost like a camera is panning from left to right, where the Comedians feet start in the first panel, in the next you see his knees and calves and in the last panel you see his face. All the while in the background you see characters, parts of them in one panel and the rest of them in the next. It is hard to explain but hopefully you can imagine. Regardless this adds a cinematic feel to the story.

The characters are real three-dimensional people who have their own fears, quirks, and motivations for doing what they do. Not one character is anything like the other. Though they are based off of Charlaton comic characters (who were bought by DC comics sometime in the 60s) they feel fresh and real. Each one is based off of a superhero archetype. Dr. Manhattan is the uberman, a super powered being who is losing touch with humanity. The Comedian is the war hero, a brutal and ruthless man who has seems to have it all figured out. Rorschach, the crowning psychological achievement is the dark avenger, who spends most of his time in the dregs of society. I could spend hours talking and typing about Rorschach but I think I better let those who haven’t read Watchmen yet find out for themselves.

The Watchmen artwork has an old time, 1980’s feel. That’s because it was drawn in the late 80’s. Despite it being twenty years old now the art work has held up and does not detract from the story once so ever. Though I must admit that I think that this type of work might be an acquired taste but in my opinion it looks good and it more than appropriate for this story.

I think the best way to describe Watchmen is to compare it to another great work of art (and make no mistake, this is art). Watchmen is the God Father of comic books. It is that good. If you enjoy comics, at all, read this. You will not be disappointed.