Good morning, fellow geeks and geekettes! It’s been a long weekend, but we’ve once again got the latest upcoming titles to look at this week at GodHatesGeeks. We’ve once again got DC Rebirth-ing it up, and a look at the young sons of some of our favorite heroes, and also a look at an adaptation of a previous novel.
So without further ado, let’s dive right into this, and get to following up with some of our great writers!
@CollyCol
Readers familiar with Greg Rucka’s Elegy story arc for DC’s Detective Comics will feel a sense déjà vu with this book. Batwoman Rebirth #1 sets up the titular heroine’s backstory. As a fan of Elegy and JH Williams artwork for that run, I was pleasantly surprised to see the continuity of dynamic visuals as rendered by Steve Epting (Velvet) and with colors by Jeromy Cox (Teen Titans). There isn’t much more story here that I haven’t read before, but new readers are properly introduced to Kate Kane, Batwoman’s alter ego, the ex-military sapphic socialite in short order. She is kicking ass, taking names, battling enemies that are closer than friends, and having an existential crisis. In the hands of the immensely talented and unabashedly queer writers Marguerite Bennett (DC Bombshells) and James Tynion IV (Batman Eternal), Batwoman Rebirth promises to be another hit run of this contemporary superheroine. 5/5 Bibles.
There’s always that argument that “The book is better than the movie.” Well how about when they take a novel and adapt it to comic book form? Joe Haldeman’s The Forever War was a science-fiction novel originally published in 1974; now Titan Comics are reprinting the 1988 adaptation written by Haldeman himself, with art by Marvano. And there’s a whole lot going on here.
The story is about a group called the United Nations Exploratory Force that was created to defend against an extra- terrestrial race named the Taurans who have attacked our space exploration vessels killing many colonists and now are a threat that must be dealt with. The story is told through the accounts of one William Mandella, a soldier in the UNEF who takes us through his training, space flight, and building a base of operations on a far-away moon. But the fact that they are in outer space and light years away calls for an extremely time consuming and complicated process just to get UNEF out there to fight them!
And speaking of that’s not the only thing that’s complicated! There is so much talk about the physics of traveling through space, planet portals, black holes etc. I feel like I’m watching Interstellar all over again. I’m sure there are people who really nerd out on this stuff but I’m not one of them. While I feel the story is very compelling I get lost in the exposition of the geography of the solar system, logistics of space travel, and what exactly their mission plan is. They go to build a base on a moon/rock whatever and are told they’ve already lost over a dozen people to its construction. So then they tell the UNEF people to continue its work to get it operational and a bunch of their people die! While it makes sense that the elements and difficulties of running a base in space make sense, who the hell is volunteering for this job?!
There’s no passionate display of people feeling they really need to be out there, it’s more like a suicide mission that everyone just seems okay with. It is shown that the regular citizens of Earth want justice enforced for the dead colonists but this is before the actual mission shows us all the negative fallout. After they’ve completed the base and it’s functional they start running combat scenarios for their training against the Taurans but they’re using real missiles and ammo. So mistakes happen and more people die. Why do you need to use live explosives in training sessions?! I just kept getting annoyed at the unfolding of this book. My guess is they want to defend the Earth against these alien attackers and that’s the risk they are taking but the dedication to a cause with such a huge casualty rate should be evoking some of the soldiers to question what they are doing. That all being said I do like where this issue ends with the soldiers going to one of the alien planets and a battle is initiated by the Taurans. Maybe when the actual fighting starts I’ll get pulled into this book more but for now I might just hope they make a movie instead. 2.5/5 Bibles.
“Cardinal” Brooks here and I’ve been tasked with reviewing DC’s Rebirth title Super Sons which features Superboy AKA Jonathan Kent and The newest Robin AKA Damian Wayne the son of Bruce Wayne playing, well…Superheroes. Robin and Superboy’s relationship is in some ways similar that of their fathers in the early years when they were almost trying to one up each other all the time. Always keeping each other on their toes and pushing one another to be better. Obviously this dynamic duo have a long road ahead and they have much to learn before they become the hero’s of tomorrow, but this is a good start.
Peter J Tomasi — of Batman and Robin, Brightest Day, Green Lantern Corps, and Nightwing fame — writes a fun and light-hearted team-up in the vein of teen titans that doesn’t take itself seriously, and he includes two fun cameos from each of the boys’ fathers — Batman and Clark Kent — that helps to ground these two heroes-in-the-making and remind us just who these kids are. Jorge Jimenez — whose art you my recognize from books like Earth 2: Society, Smallvile, and Superboy — does a great job of keeping the tone of this book cartoony yet detailed and dynamic. This is some of his best work and really shows how versatile he can be as an artist and storyteller.
Super Sons is enjoyable for what it was and appreciate its fun and adolescent tone. But, it’s really not my speed and i’m not sure I’ll keep reading the series. That being said, I’ll score this one 3.5/5 God Books. Until next time True believers…this is the one and only Cardinal Brooks signing off!