Sunday Reading 8-19-12

Welcome everyone to Sunday Reading!  I’ve been gone for a while taking care of some real life business but hopefully this Sunday will mark my glorious return to your Sunday internet reading. Since it’s been a while let me remind you that each Sunday we take a little time here on the Bloc to look at what comics came out in the last week and see what they did great, not so great and just down right horrible.

I’ll start things off by picking some comics from my own personal buying list and hopefully give at the end have at least one great recommendation for you. Feel free to stop into the forums and worship my ‘insights’, ok state your own opinions, and maybe we can get a bigger look at the comics world. Who knows maybe you’ll find a book you have never tried before.

This week I’ll start by looking at: Avengers Vs. X-Men #10, Legion of Super-Heroes #12 and Green Lantern #12

Avengers vs. X-Men #10

So I feel like I’m not watching a train wreck happen but actually riding the train all the way off the rails. This series started off with a generally good idea of pitting the Avengers vs. the X-Men and we were promised that it would be a battle of ideological difference and varying view points. The beginning of the series started off so forced and contrived you had to wonder if the writer had even read any of the past history of these two teams. The middle got a little better but what should have been natural conflicts instead take some crazy turns in what I can only think were designed to “surprise” the reader. Now we get to issue 10.

Here in issue 10 all the differences in thought and philosophy that should be driving this series have been cast off and we are presented with a much more generic “power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely” theme. Its a shame really. We should be able to root for either side depending on our point of view, but now the horribly named Phoenix 5 have quickly deteriorated into almost generic “I’m going to rule the world villains”. The worst thing for me however is that even the heroes aren’t really heroic in this series as they attempt almost fascist control of everything or simply go for “kill them all and be done with it” attitudes.

I guess the series has done what it needed to do, because I’m still trapped and hoping that the ending will make it all worth my time, but I’m not betting on it.

Green Lantern #12

Finally we are getting a Hal Jordan that doesn’t come off as a complete idiot.  Seriously, it seems as if this entire series has existed to show us how much more other people know more than Hal. It has been annoying. Here however we see Hal in classic form and it is really enjoyable.

I like his quick dealing with Black Hand just to get out and get to work, how after a quick fight he realizes “hey these guys can’t fly”, and he is the one saving Sinestro. The only place this begins to fall little short is toward the end where Sinestro has to encourage Hal to have more willpower and while it may seem like classic Sinestro when compared to the whole of the series it just comes off as another knock Hal down a notch thing.

The sub plots that are building toward the promised 3rd Army story line are interesting and insightful. Seeing the Guardians slowly becoming the threat in the book and manipulating things from the shadows really has me intrigued. On the other side of the coin however is the new prophesy reveled this issue regarding Hal that just seems a little to forced and thrown in at the last-minute in order to create some artificial sense of dread.

Top Recommendation: Legion of Super Heroes 12

This was by no meand a perfect Legion tale or even the best LSH tale ever, but it was a good fun read. We have the finale of the Dominator conflict and with that comes everything that makes comics fun. We have big battles, last-minute saves, superhero attitude, previously unknown revelations, crazy villains, and even a lot of a Bouncing Boy. What more could you want?

The cast this issue was actually what I really enjoy about the Legion, a mix of classic characters while also giving some quality screen time to new characters. Its that interaction that I wish more writers would embrace. We should feel like there is a large group to be called upon and that each mission may require a completely different group each time out. By having two groups this issue trying to accomplish the same thing, one by going rogue and the other by working within the political system, we really get a nice feeling that the Legion is a large group living in a large universe.

With folks I am out of time. I hope you have enjoyed my little Sunday session and I hope that this last week of comics has inspired you to be just as passionate about what you are reading. Again I invite you to take moments and share with us your good, your bad and even your ugly. Let’s see what your reading this Sunday and see how it all compares.

[Editors note: this article was initially set to run on the 19th, we apologize for the delay]