Flash Friday!

Last week was a big week for comics!  We had more Night of the Owls books come out as well as Free Comic Book Day on Saturday.  Our family attended FCBD at The Realm Comics and Games (our local shop) and we made out like BANDITS!  Each of the kids got a free comic and we dug through the older comic boxes (at a quarter a book) and bought $12.50 in back issues.  My daughter (who is four) got a bunch of Wonder Woman books from the 80's through 2008 and a full set of the Wonder Girl series.  She was beyond excited.  I got a ton of Flash comics- I even found some that I hadn't read!  I also crossed 4 issues of Robin and 2 issues of Civil War: Runaways & Young Avengers off my Wish List.  Big scores all around!  Our pull list this week included: Batwing, Detective Comics, Green Arrow, Teen Titans Annual and the first 2 issues of Green Lantern: The Animated Series for my son.  Unfortunately, we did not get our copy of Batwing because it sold out!  But it is on order so we should have it within 2 weeks.  I can not wait to see what Marcus To has done with Batwing, his art is amazing.

Detective Comics # 9-  Batman has to save Jeremiah Arkham, Arkham Asylum doctor, from the Talons sent to kill him by the Court of Owls.  Arkham has no love for Batman and sees him only as something he can study and fix.  But Batman would never let someone die when he can save them.  I have not been reading Detective Comics but the art is REALLY nice and the story seems to be background on the Batman world.  I may need to pick it up.  (Like I need another title!)  The art really reminds me of the art for the Arkham City and Arkham Asylum comics.  Really pretty but dark at the same time.  The characterization is great too.  Overall I really enjoyed this one and am really debating picking up the Detective Comics for my pull list.  This Night of the Owls tie in book earns 5 Flashes for some great Batman art and story telling.

Green Arrow #9-  Ollie has sure gotten himself into a mess!  He's gotten himself stuck in an ecological nightmare facing a crazy guy and his created daughters.  We really start to see some of good old pre-reboot Ollie leaking through here as he tries to convince the townspeople and the Skylarks that they need to fight their oppressor and that their attempts to fix the environmental problems have only created larger problems.  At the end of the day, Ollie realizes that he has made a number of mistakes and vows to try harder- which is something that Green Arrow has always had to realize, in all of his incarnations.  I'm feeling better about the art this week as it feels like the artists have finally settled into what they want Ollie to look like.  He's younger and a bit different from how we've seen Ollie in the past but at least they ditched the Justin Timberlake N'SYNC hair.  I can not wait to see what happens next when Ollie returns home.  This book has definitely redeemed itself.  3 Flashes to this book!

Teen Titans Annual #1- The Culling has begun!!  The Culling begins in this huge Annual that features cool Tron looking suits (that I hope won't be a new thing with the Titans) and lots of cameos and new characters.  We see Beast Boy and Terra again.  We meet Thunder, Lightning, Artemis and for those of us not reading Legion Lost, we meet the Legionnaires.  The Legionnaires are not what I expected them to be.  We get an overview of their powers and abilities and Tim Drake tries to get everyone to work together to stop the culling.  He has some great moments where he inspires his teammates and the others to fight Harvest.  I enjoyed seeing Tim in this role, it really reminded me of Tim from Young Justice and Teen Titans.  He always had some great inspirational lines.  It was good to see Superboy finally with the Teen Titans.  I was glad that he was finally part of the team.  Bart was interesting.  You can see a bit of his impulsiveness even though he's older than he was in his previous incarnation.  The art was generally fantastic and I loved that Brett Booth snuck one of his amazing animals into the issue.  He has Beast Boy turn into a gorgonops.  It looks like it stepped out of a scientific journal, it was lovely.  Overall, this annual was really pretty good.  Teen Titans Annual #1 earns 4 Flashes for great art and an interesting story.

Next week we'll have Batgirl #9, Batman #9, Batman & Robin #9 and Superboy #9.  3 out of 4 of these titles will include more from the Night of the Owls.  I have seen the preview pages for Batman & Robin and this book is going to be absolutely stellar.  I can't wait.  I also saw Brett Booth's pencils for Teen Titans #10 that show Bart racing some dinosaurs and his face is just PURE BART ALLEN- so full of joy.  I can't WAIT!