Axiom's Edge Science Fiction and Fantasy

By Sam Christopher

Bring on the Second Bananas!

Quick question: Do Bizarros now just have whatever power whatever writer needs to make whatever story work? “STEEL-Vision”?!? That’s my main thing about Supergirl #54. I’ve never really been all that enamored of the freeze-vision/flame-breath juxtaposition, but this new one is just… dumb. Overall, I liked this story, though. I did think the kid’s whole “You’ve got a girlfriend, too?” question to Jimmy Olsen was kinda weird; it just really seemed out of place. I almost thought we were reading a dream of Jimmy’s or maybe even of the kid’s. Beyond that, we have a lot of thread here that needs to be woven into a story. The Lana Lang thread, the policeman “saving” the kid thread, the kid thread itself. There’s just a lot going on here that I guess Sterling Gates will get around to explaining in due course.

Then we move from one Girl of Steel to another, as the other Kara fights to keep both her business and New York City entire from going under in Power Girl #14. It seems that her financial officer has taken out loans in the millions and absconded with the funds—although I have to believe there’s a LOT more to it than just that since PG has a few sensory powers to bring to bear and hasn’t been able to find her. More, she also has to deal with a whiny Booster Gold and her own version of Doomsday, sorta. I am liking this new creative team much better than where we appeared to be headed with the last one. Judd Winick and Sami Basri seem to have a good handle on this character so far and are keeping it interesting. Even though I’m not really sure why PG doesn’t just carry the “Bio-Bot” out into space and toss him into the Sun. He’s not really alive, right?

Really?!? They really have named the new villain Hush just because he said that to some chick he decided not to kill? I know, I know. It’s just I expected a little more out of Batman Beyond #2. I will say this, this is a good story. Adam Beechen is doing a bangup job here. I love the new Catwoman, although mainly for Terry’s reaction to her more than anything else. I do want to see more of her. I do have to say that I see no way this is really Tommy Elliott. I think it’ll be better if it turns out to be Jason Todd (who should be dead—I voted for that—I’ve been DISENFRANCHISED!!!!). This is an alternate future, after all. More, the Ryan Benjamin art is pretty well done, too, especially in that so many scenes in this book are very dark. Benjamin does a great job when we can’t see his drawings… okay, I didn’t really mean it like that. I just like the way he adds expression to Terry when everything else about Batman Beyond’s costume is featureless. I know it’s a simple thing but I like it, and I like the rest of his art here, too.

Finally, we end up here with Azrael #10. This title is another, like the aforementioned Power Girl, that I loved in the beginning but that quickly wore on me to the point where I was thinking of dropping the book. This ish, though, like the aforementioned Power Girl, is a new direction in many ways and gives me hope for the comic. I still have the only problem with this character I’ve ever had and that’s how Dick Grayson can not go after him. Azrael kills people. I always thought that was a no-no in Gotham’s “Cape” circles. Anyway… here we find that the Crusader, a guy with the power to transmute materials from one thing to another and a cross tattooed on his face, is hunting down the people behind Azrael, the people connected with the Suit of Sorrows and asking them for a name. After which he invariably tortures them to death. Good stuff from David Hine and Guillem March. We’ll see how this works out in the near-future.