Batman 688-690

Judd Winick's Batman. I have been in the camp that Judd Winick is a mediocre comic book writer. I always felt like his stuff was being force fed food I hated as a baby. When I was a baby, you see, the mortality rate was pretty crazy. I was born in the 1700's.

Anyway, Winick's Batman run here has been pretty great. Perhaps when I compare him to demon-seed Grant Morrison it is clouding my objectivity. But seriously, this arc has been cool.

First and foremost, there is VERY little of Damien in this series. I love that. In fact, I wonder what Damien would look like in a casket.

So, Two-Face figures out that this new Batman (Dick Grayson) is not the OLD Batman. Quite an interesting cliffhanger in issue #690. Clayface makes an appearance, and I can't remember the last Clayface story I read.

Mark Bagley is a great artist, I liked him way back in the day when he was on Spider-Man. Good detail! Side note: supposedly this was Winick's last issue?! So someone else is writing the conclusion? Weird. Seems like the only consistently DC has right now is with Green Lantern.

Speaking of which, the next entry will catch up my legions of readers (2) on Blackest Night!

Regarding Batman 688-690, 4 out of 5 Batarangs.

Adventure Comics #1

Adventure Comics has quite a history. Starting in 1935 as New Comics, it (according to Wikipedia) started out as a humor series, making the switch to superheroes a few years later.

It ran until 1983, making it, at the time, one of the longest running comics.

The return of this title now features Conner Kent, a.k.a. Superboy. Geoff Johns brings us the story, and Francis Manapul the pictures. Does Geoff Johns sleep?

Now, last I knew, Superboy was dead, and am not sure what the deal is with his reincarnation, and I suppose I could easily find that information. Cripes, get off my jock, people! All right, I'm back. It turns out he was brought back in some sort of time-traveling debacle orchestrated by the Legion of Superheroes, after he died in the Infinite Crisis storyline.

Superboy, or Conner Kent, is cloned from both Lex Luthor and Superman. This plot point factors into the first issue when Conner and Superman visit Lex Luther's old home in Smallville. Now, color me stupid, but I didn't think Lex was really from Smallville, I thought that was a plot device used for the TV show Smallville. Regardless, reading the book was like an episode of Smallville set 15 or 20 years into the future.

Superboy is staying with Ma Kent, helps with chores, has Krypto the superdog as a pet, and has created a checklist in an effort to be more like Superman.

This was actually a pretty good first issue, and I'm glad I picked it up, even though I am left having to look up some of the key points on the interweb machine.

4 out of 5 shards of red kryptonite.