Detective Comics #29 (Comics Review)

This past week, John Layman ended his excellent run on Detective Comics with #29, which also marks the end of his 3-part Gothtopia arc, in which the Scarecrow created a serum to make everyone happy and caused a mass delusion that Gotham was the safest and greatest city in America. He even managed to subvert all the heroes and drew in a number of… medically-oriented villains to his cause, such as Harley Quinn, Professor Pyg, Mr. Freeze and the Merry Maker. But now, the Great Detective is on to them, and the fight is for the future of Gotham and the entire American eastern seaboard.

When Gothtopia was teased out with Layman’s contribution to Detective Comics #27, I was pretty excited. In the New 52, it seemed to be a pretty unique story, and when all the tie-ins came, I was even more excited. Well, except for the Catwoman tie-in, which wasn’t all that good really. But, Layman delivered quite handsomely on the entire premise, and he wraps up things in this issue with a bit of the panache that I expected. Its not as good a story as the previous two issues, but I liked. And the art by Aaron Lopresti and Art Thibert continues to be awesome, so that’s something as well.

Detective Comics #28 (Comics Review)

John Layman’s run on Detective Comics is coming to a close very soon. The few of his issues that I’ve read, particularly the fourth volume of the new series, have been really good, and he has certainly impressed me with each issue. In fact, I’ll go one step further and say that he is one of my favourite writers at the moment. This weekend, I got to meet him in person at Comic Con India and it was great! Given some of my other plans this year, I’ll be reading his other series Chew quite soon, probably once his excellent Gothtopia arc on Detective Comics is done.

In last month’s celebratory issue, we saw the beginning of Gothtopia, a story in which Gotham is the safest city in America, by far, and where crime is at an all-time low. In fact, it is virtually extinct, except for suicide rates going up. Seemingly an Elseworlds take at first, the story quickly morphs into something else, and things really get interesting. In the new issue this past week, John fills in some of the blanks and shows how things got to this point. And Aaron Lopresti’s artwork is just as amazing as ever, supporting John’s script in every way.

Comics Picks of The Week 15.01.2014

Once again, a very light reading week, with no graphic novel reading at all. I took a trip to India and back over the weekend, mostly because preparations for a cousin’s upcoming marriage and mom’s treatment, so reading time was extremely limited. I’m even behind on my novel reading at the moment, so I’m generally not doing well on that front at all.

Some really fun titles launched this past week, such as Night of the Living Deadpool, so it was an entertaining week at least, for the most part.

Anyway, here’s another edition of this new feature. Full reading list, as always, is available here and all my comics reviews are available here.

Forever Evil: Rogues Rebellion #4 (Comics Review)

This month, the Forever Evil event moves into its second half. Till now, we have seen a lot of things happen here (yeah, I say that every time) and of all the four distinct books, Rogues Rebellion has been the most entertaining. It has sat on the fence between comedy and serious, with a mostly well-handled execution that makes it one of the best event comics DC has out at the moment. But, till now it has also been little more than a villainogue as I mentioned in my review of the previous issue. In fact, the entire event has been about that and lots of ignored, minor villains and supervillains have stepped up to the plate and it all has been quite interesting.

With the new issue, writer Brian Buccellato introduces a new (to New 52) supervillain group while also introducing one of Gotham’s more notable crime lords and his own gang. With the Rogues currently in full limbo and Captain Cold off on his own with Lex Luthor’s Injustice League, Rogues Rebellion has taken a rather interesting turn and I have to say that despite the fact that the series isn’t really moving forward all that much, I’m having fun. The art remains excellent and the writing is mostly consistent. There is little more that I could ask of this creative team.

Comics Picks of the Week 11.09.2013

DC’s Villain’s Month went ahead full-steam last week with a ton of new releases. And on the other side of things with Marvel, their X-Men: Battle of the Atom event also continued apace with the release of X-Men #5. My reading is still all primarily DC, thanks to Villain’s Month because there are just so many comics to read. I’m attempting to change things around but its going to be slow. Just a comic or two here obviously doesn’t work and I intend to grab some graphic novels at the least.

We shall see what happens when it happens.

In the meantime, here’s another edition of this new feature. Full reading list, as always, is available here and all my comics reviews are available here.

Advent Reviews Day 1: Batman 2012 Annual by Scott Snyder and James Tynion IV

As I mentioned in latest update from 29th November, I’m doing a review a day for December, as part of an Advent Reviews Calendar for the month to get into the festivities. I’m kicking off the series with this review of Scott Snyder and James Tynion IV’s excellent 2012 Annual for their New 52: Batman run, which is ongoing.