Justice League Dark #21 review

The Parliaments of Life are at war with one another. The Red, the Green, the Grey, the Divided and the Rot are vying to rule Earth. The Green is manifesting flowers in corpses but it’s the Rot which is announcing itself with the most sickening style, taking over hordes of humans in Los Angeles. Detective […]

Doomsday Clock #12 review

We’ve waited a long time, but, finally, Doomsday Clock gives DC fans what they’ve been waiting for. Yes, the return of the Canterbury Cricket, leading his World of Flashpoint comrades Mrs Hyde and Godiva, and fellow British heroes Knight and Squire, into battle. There was other stuff too. The also long-awaited confrontation between Superman and […]

Inferior 5 #1 review

In the Sixties, the Inferior Five comic was a good-natured superhero send-up. In 2019, the Inferior 5 comic is, well, I’m not sure… yet. I am sure this first of 12 issues is one of the most intriguing comics I’ve read in ages. For one thing, it’s set in 1988. We’re in the small US […]

Action Comics #1014 review

Some people read Action Comics and dream of being Superman, high-flying hero of millions. Me, I want to be ageing newsman Perry White. This week, anyway, as he finally meets the new owner of the Daily Planet. An actual increase in the editorial budget? That never happens in this age of abandoned print editions and […]

Detective Comics #1009 review

That’s a heck of a cover from illustrator Doug Mahnke, colourist David Baron and the DC production department, with Mr Freeze icing up the mag’s logo to celebrate the Year of the Villain. Inside, Victor Fries barely appears – he’s confined to a two-page addendum after the meat of the issue concludes, working on his […]

Justice League Dark Annual #1 review

Very soon, on beginning this Justice League Dark Annual, I realised that it’s a stealth Swamp Thing Special. Very soon, I didn’t care. Because this is an absorbing, affecting, great-looking read which works as a one-off, while feeding into DC’s current crossover, Year of the Villain. Not that the other characters who weave in and […]

Teen Titans #31 review

Lobo’s back. That was the name of one of the best mini-series starring DC Comics’ main man, the extraterrestrial assassin with a fondness for space dolphins. His ubiquitousness in the Nineties, and creators forgetting he was meant to be a joke, led readers to tire of him, and his popularity faded. In the last decade […]

Doomsday Clock #10 review

It’s April 18 1938, the day of Superman’s first public appearance in Metropolis. It’s also the day Carver Colman, a young drifter in Los Angeles, meets Dr Manhattan. The superbeing once known as Jon Osterman has abandoned his own reality to explore new ones. In this one, though, he’s no longer able to control his […]

Detective Comics #1003 review

‘Atomic batteries to power and gyro-sphere to ignition.’ Now there’s a line that will resonate with longtime fans, updating the Batman TV series’s dialogue signalling the Batmobile was about to hit the road. Mind, it’s not a car Batman and Robin are taking for a spin, it’s a new version of the Bat-Gyro, that Golden […]

Action Comics #1009 review

Think Amanda Waller is the toughest civilian in the DC Universe? Think again, as Lois Lane gives her a piece of her mind. While Waller speaks up for herself, by the end of the scene she’s putting the ‘cow’ into cowed. Superman has brought Lois, Waller and Jimmy Olsen to his Fortress of Solitude fo […]