Teen Titans #11

So the last issue had the Titans running afoul Brother Blood and getting beaten up by him as a result. Yes, Brother Blood, the random cult leader dude, beat up the Titans. And he did that after BITING Superboy in the arm... Like, he legit bit him, and then claimed he had Superboy's strength. I don't get how he had the strength to bite into Superboy prior to getting Superboy's strength, but what can ya do?

Teen Titans #11(July 2004)

Summary: After being knocked into a hole in the ground while fighting Brother Blood, Starfire and Robin are confronted by Deathstroke and Ravager.

Yeah sure, why not carry Robin around by the scruff of the neck...

Deathstroke offers to lead Robin and Starfire to the other Titans, along with assisting in defeating Brother Blood, all in exchange for Raven. Robin refuses, but Starfire overrules him and agrees to Deathstroke's terms. Meanwhile, Beast Boy rushes Raven out of Brother Blood's room o' blood while hoping Cyborg can defeat Blood and his henchmen. Spoiler alert, he can't. Deathstroke leads Robin and Starfire to a room where Blood's holy book is, and discover that Blood is supposed to marry Raven, which would bring about armageddon. From there, Blood somehow magically appears in a pool of blood behind Raven and Beast Boy, along with the rest of the defeated Titans... So he beat Superboy, Cyborg, Wonder Girl and Kid Flash OFF PANEL?!?

Hey look, Brother Blood has defeated EVERYBODY.  I wonder how that happened.

You'd think that would be worth showing, but I guess not. Deathstroke and company arrive on the scene for the save, with Starfire turning on Deathstroke and refusing to let him kill Raven. Brother Blood somehow forces Raven to transport all of the Titans, along with Deathstroke and Ravager... inside herself? I think?? This issue ends inside Raven(???)with ghost Jericho threatening Deathstroke.

Thoughts: There were WAAAAAAY too many unexplained things going on here... Hell, Johns himself even pointed out one of them by having Kid Flash wonder how Brother Blood was able to bite into Superboy. There's that, Brother Blood having some form of control over Raven, or I guess just everything about Blood, since we're never really given any idea as to what Blood can and can't do. Brother Blood defeating all of the powerful Titans off panel is another nice moment... Why would THAT not garner page time??? On top of that, we have the end where the team winds up inside of Raven(and not in a fun, sexual way either), which makes her a pocket dimension like Abyss from Marvel? Maybe? This storyline though...

What gives with Starfire just randomly knowing Robin's real name?

In a perfect world Deathstroke kills Brother Blood and Raven, but I have a sneaking suspicion that isn't going to happen here...

Maximum Carnage part 5: Spectacular Spider-Man #201

Well, after the last issue I think it's safe to say we are squarely in the middle of what I fear will be a very long slump. We get random fights, but they don't mean anything since either Spidey's side declines to go after Carnage's side, or Carnage's side retreats. And we still have like 9 parts to go! I have no idea how the writers are going to be able to stretch this event out that long! But, I do intend on reading on to find out...

Maximum Carnage part 5: Spectacular Spider-Man #201:

Summary: Like a dweeb, Spidey remains at the warehouse and pulls Black Cat out of the rubble of the building before it collapses.

When Venom is the voice of reason, you know there's a problem!

After gathering himself, Venom is pissed(and rightfully so!) that Spidey remained behind when he should have continued after Carnage to prevent him from killing anybody else. Black Cat agrees with Venom, which pisses Spidey off and makes him to decide to stop teaming with Venom... Really dude? Like really? Carnage's kill count is in the hundreds at this point and you're going to play the high and mighty card?! What a prick! Black Cat seems to agree with me and leaves with Venom. Meanwhile, Carnage and Demogoblin have a bit of a tiff, but Shriek smooths it over. Continuing the theme of being an asshole, Spidey complains to Aunt May about Venom in a veiled way over cookies and tea... I... I just can't with this guy... Carnage is murdering half the city and he's whining to that fossil while eating cookies?!?

While this is going on, Spidey takes a cookie break.

Venom and Black Cat close in on Venom and are rejoined by Cloak, who's not doing so well physically since Dagger's death. Spidey finally gets off his ass and heads out, only to find himself ion the middle of a riot. That finally seems to set Spidey off, as he screams to no one in particular that he'll give no mercy(not the game, at least I don't think...) to anybody.

Thoughts: Wow, Spidey was a horror in this one... Like, I barely even have words for how unlikable he was here! All he was doing was whining and bitching about... well, everything! You'd think he'd realize that he's serving the greater good by sticking with Venom(not to mention keeping an eye on him), but instead he gets pissy and runs home to Aunt May. Besides Spidey's complaining, we had Demogoblin and Carnage almost come to blows over Carnage's refusal to operate with a plan of any kind. Demogoblin was such an odd fit in this story... Not that I'm complaining about him being around, because he is frigging fantastic looking, but other than that, he's clearly in the wrong storyline.

Best looking of all the Goblins.

Hey, look at that, I'm almost halfway through this thing! That deserves a “huzzah!”

JT Review: Superman's Girlfriend Lois Lane #5 (Part Two)

Hey blogosphere, welcome to the return of JT! I'm sure you've all been wondering... Where's JT? Why has the quality of the blog dropped immensely? Did X kill him due to pure jealousy? Well, wonder no longer, I have returned!

Now you MAY recall that my last review was "The Fattest Girl in Metropolis", which was PHENOMENAL. I decided that I'd review another story in that comic, which was "The Girl of 100 Costumes" because in a Jimmy Olsen comic where they boasted he'd have a TON of disguises, he had three. So I owe it to you all to see if Lois Lane is a woman of her word. DOES she have 100 costumes?! I know you're curious, so enough of listening to this big joker, let's do this!

Summary: Okay, so this comic starts off in quite possibly the dumbest way I've seen a story begin. Superman arrives and Perry tells him that the fashion editor for the newspaper didn't show up and her column is locked in a cabinet. Okay, great, so you have Superman use his super strength to open the cabinet. Or his Ice breath to freeze the lock and break it. Or his heat vision to melt the lock. Nope, Superman uses his X-ray vision to read it, then types up the story verbatim... sure, GREAT use of your time, Big Blue. Lois sees Supes copying off someone else's homework and believes that this is how he feels about fashion, so she decides to follow his advice.

I feel like Superman should be doing more important things and Clark Kent should be here...

Superman sees Lois and congratulates her for "winning a contest and giving away the prize to charity" What a philanthropist that Lois Lane is! Superman wants to do something for Lois and she plans to ask him to the newspaper ball... terrible name, but first, she needs to follow his fashion tips!
Lois calls in a favor from some actress she knows and gets a bunch of costumes so she can impress Superman. She wants to wear a hula outfit but she thinks she'll look silly, but lucky for Lois, Superman just HAPPENS to be doing a movie called "Idol of The Volcano" and that has a Hawaiian background. Now, dear reader, you may think to yourself, isn't sneaking onto a movie set just to wear a hula outfit a little much? Well, Lois Lane says, fuck that noise! Lois crashes the set and luckily she happens to be dressed EXACTLY LIKE the extras in the movie. How convenient! Sadly, Lois misses out on having Superman see her in her dumbass costume, so she decides to try again.

I love that Superman is like "Watch me WHIRL AROUND!"

Lois' next costume, a Mandarin gown and crown, are perfect for Superman's upcoming appearance at a Chinese New Year event, because what's more Chinese New Year than a big white alien man? Anyway, Superman is so busy "whirling around" that he misses Lois, and because she's wearing her traditional Mandarin garments, some guys put a Dragon's head on her because it's tradition... or at least it is when an old white guy from the 60's writes about Chinese New Year. Down but not out, Lois decides to try another costume, this time she dons the costume of a Spanish Senorita with gay eyes... yep. Check the picture below.

That's one gay-eyed Senorita!

Lois wears this costume to a Bull Fight where she's supposed to meet Superman. Lois, of course, enters the arena via the wrong entrance and gets chased by the bull. Superman sees this from SO far away and throws a telephone pole that hits the ground and restrains the bull with a noose made from the cord... Why do I even read this stuff?

This would take SO much pre-planning to actually work. Can't he just FLY there?

Lois cancels her date with Supes because her costume is all fudged up but she plans on wearing a Swiss costume to the United Nations parade the next day, after all, nothing is more impressive than the Swiss! (This sarcasm is not reflected by your reviewer, JT, who looooves the Swiss, but of that evil bastard and blog creator, X-Man, who HATES the Swiss... probably.) Anyway, Lois is brought on stage to yodel for some reason. Lucky for Lois, Superman finally sees her in her fancy costume! Superman is impressed and Lois is ready to pop the question and ask him to the "extremely prestigious" Newspaper ball. Right as she asks, Lois realizes she's lost her voice due to yodeling! Superman assumes Lois didn't need a reward for giving stuff to charity, so he just leaves.... and the comic... ends. Okay then.

Why didn't you just ask him at the beginning of the story?!

Thoughts:  I don't understand why this story just abruptly ended. I also don't understand why it ever started. The weird thing is, you'd think she'd just ASK Superman at the beginning then try to impress him with the dresses! Why we had her dressing up and going to events every day and never even REPORTING ON THEM was so weird! Also, there's a part where Lois tries to spy on two movie stars during a proposal so she can report on it... like that happened in here... for no reason! Then she got caught and they told her to buzz off and it never amounted to ANYTHING! What was the point of that?!

Also, who is this book for?! I can't imagine boys in the 60's wanted to read about Lois Lane and all of her fancy dresses. But if it's for young girls, why would they constantly want to see Lois, the "hero" fail time after time to get Superman to notice her! Not to mention all the "DONT BE FAT!" and "BETTER DRESS NICE!" messages in this issue alone.

And my biggest gripe... she only had 4 COSTUMES! Where the hell were the other 96 ?! Oh DC, you and your bait and switch story titles. And all this talk of the Newspaper Ball and we don't even get to see it?! Tsk tsk tsk tsk tsk.... yep, I gave you FIVE tsks! I came back for this?!


# of pages: 8
# of costumes Lois wore: 4....
# of costumes Lois had more of than disguises by Jimmy Olsen: 1

Teen Titans #10

Okay, we're up to the Raven/Brother Blood portion of this series... In other words, the really, REALLY bad part! I don't even have a good description of Brother Blood, and I read his storylines in the New Teen Titans series from the 1980's... He's a cult leader who runs afoul the Teen Titans a lot(for some reason). And now he has Raven... But, at least we're killing two crappy, diseased birds with one stone in this story.

Teen Titans #10(June 2004)

Summary: So Raven is somehow making the seas turn to blood, birds go crazy and causing a giant Trigon-looking skeleton to attack Titans Tower.

Hey Titans, meet your new neighbor!!

Superboy has no time for that, and destroys the skeleton with some heat vision. Meanwhile, the Titans at the hospital are all kind of possessed by Raven and are ranting about hating their fathers. Ares knocks that out of them, which allows them to catch Beast Boy, who is still a crazed bird, and head to Titans Tower to regroup with the rest of the team. They decide to follow Beast Boy, since he seems to be going to the location all of the other birds are heading. The Titans crash Brother Blood's weird blood room, and fight his hooded cannon fodder. However, things go bad for the Titans when Brother Blood bites Superboy and absorbs his strength.

Mmm, tastes like chicken!  Yeah, yeah, it was the obvious joke...  Feel free to do better in the comments.

Okay then... He goes into a Hulk-like rampage, downing the Titans and ending this issue.

Thoughts: Well, on the plus side this issue was way more fast paced than pretty much all of the other issues of this series thus far. Sure, we had our angsty moments(I'm looking at you, Robin), but this was a lot better than what we've been getting in this series. There are still a lot on unexplained things happening, like Raven seeming to have near infinite powers and yet still being the captive of Blood, but by this point I'm way past expecting perfection.

HA!!!  Geoff Johns, the man who came up with Brightest Day, Superboy Prime punching reality and the New 52, taking shots at other writers...  GTFO, man...  Seriously...

I'm happy just to get acceptable! Also, where the hell did all of those birds go once they got to Brother Blood's cave? I mean there were SO many birds, and then none...

Oh yeah, Deathstroke and Ravager were in this one too!  Hi guys!

Maximum Carnage part 4: Spider-Man #35

Part 3 of this event was a bit on the blah side, but we've still gotten more good than bad, which makes me a happy comic book reader. The last part's cliffhanger brought Spidey and Venom together, which should be fun. On top of that, this issue promises to bring Black Cat in on the side of heroes, which should balance the two sides out a little. Okay, enough talk, let's see what happens next.

Maximum Carnage part 4: Spider-Man #35:

Summary: Fed up with all things Spidey, MJ storms out of her apartment home, leaving Peter and Venom behind. Peter lets Venom rest up on his couch and heads out to talk to Black Cat... Really?! His wife is mad at him so he goes to see the other woman?! Jeez Spidey, you suck! Spidey tells Black Cat all about how he knows he needs Venom's help against Carnage, but that he doesn't actually want to team with Venom due to Venom being a bad guy himself. After listening, Black Cat tells Spidey they need Venom, and suits up to fight against Carnage as well. Meanwhile, Demogobin joins up with Carnage's crew. Black Cat goes to Venom and offers to help him out, and is soon joined by Spidey, who warns Venom that there would be no killing as long as they were working together.

HA!!!  That little antenna on Spidey's head slays me!!

Back with Carnage, Cloak manages to locate him and attacks, but is greatly outnumbered. Luckily, Spidey's group hears the sounds of battle and join in to help Cloak.

Ah back when it took several established characters to defeat Carnage...  Good times...

Carnage tires of the fight and has Demogoblin and Shriek destroy the roof of the warehouse they were battling in, burying Black Cat and knocking Venom out. With that, Spidey is faced with a choice, head after Carnage or rescue his injured allies and allow Carnage to escape.

Thoughts: Eh, this issue was alright. Both Spidey and Carnage bolstered their ranks, and we got another inconclusive fight. I'm not really sure what Carnage wants though... He tells J. Jonah Jameson that he wants to face off against Venom and Spidey, but he's retreated from Spidey twice and allowed Venom to escape him once... I get he's all about chaos and such, but shit, finish off your kill, good sir! Other than that, Peter showed how clueless of a husband he was by going to see Black Cat immediately after MJ stormed off.

How the hell does that costume actually stay on?!?!?

I don't even have words for how dumb a move that is. Yeah, that's about all I can think of for this issue...  

Teen Titans #9

And here comes issue #9! I've almost made it to double digits, which means I'll be 1/10^th of the way finished with this series!! Huzzah?... Hmm, that's still a hell of a lot of comic books to go through... But 1/10^th less than I started with, so huzzah!!! (Also, JT is here to crash this review! Some of you may remember that X and I like to jump onto each others reviews, make comments, and generally make fun of the poor sap that's being dropped in on. So, let's have some fun!)

Teen Titans #9(May 2004)

Summary: We kick this issue off with the newest Brother Blood spouting nonsense at Raven and biting that weird gem off of her head. (It reminded me of Boogeyman v. Jillian Hall for all you poor, poor, wrestling fans out there. ) From there, the Titans, in this case Kid Flash, Robin, Wonder Girl and Beast Boy, are looking into some strange happenings in San Francisco... Well, stranger than usual. In this instance, a mess of fortune tellers had seizures and went into comas at the same time. As a result, Robin decides to take a batmobile to the hospital, and makes the mistake of letting Kid Flash drive. “Hilarity” ensures. (Grade "A" hilarity! Kids crashing cars, fighting in the streets, I'm sure San Francisco is loving the Titans...)

Oh!  Upside down is car, so is big funny here!!

Meanwhile, Ravager and Deathstroke are still killing Brother Blood's henchmen in an effort to find and kill Raven to make sure Jericho stays gone.

I'm still confused by how Slade knows Raven is with Brother Blood, but whatever... (I'm confused by Ravager constantly saying daddy... well not confused, just creeped the fuck out.)

Also, Superboy discovers Cyborg's head in a lab at Titans Tower and gets to hear all about how Cyborg maintains himself... Really, that happens. (Maintains is code for jacks it, right?) The Titans end up going to see the fortune tellers, which leads to the strange energy surrounding them attaching itself to Beast Boy, who... explodes(?), gets possessed and flies away as a raven.

Thoughts: Uh-huh... I don't know what to really say about this comic... Once again, nothing of note really happened... Like, the Titans went to a hospital. That's it! Shit, that should have taken up all of 3 pages, and yet that was the main story here... Deathstroke and Ravager are STILL killing suckas in red-hued rooms, same as they've been doing for a few issues now, in other words, nothing happened!!! Plus the Cyborg scene was just plain weird and it seems was only there as a sight gag. You find out his head is removed from his body while he sleeps, with his body getting soaked in pickle brine or something. (HA! Try our new classic Vic Vlasic!) For some reason. I mean, the before and after pictures of Cyborg don't even make sense...

Cyborg before...

And after...  How one panel turns into the other is way beyond me...

I just don't know with this series sometimes... (The best part is that he just flexes. That's how he shows Superboy his body works... but holding his arms up. Also why does his body soak in protein, which sounds gross, but his head doesn't need to?)

Maximum Carnage part 3: Amazing Spider-Man #378

So far I have to say, Maximum Carnage has been pretty damn good. Granted, I'm only 2 issues in, but we've had a few good battles, great pacing, and a quick Spidey/Carnage skirmish. This issue looks to give us the much anticipated Venom vs Carnage battle. The one thing I will say that I'm a bit worried about with this event is the fact that we're getting so many big moments early on... There's 14 parts to this thing, are the various writers going to be able to continue to keep things exciting as we carry on? I don't know, but I think it's time to find that out.

Maximum Carnage part 3: Amazing Spider-Man #378:

Summary: We kick things off with Venom arriving in New York and ranting at a newspaper with Carnage on it.

Dude, it's a newspaper!  Chill out!

Cloak freaks out at Spidey and vanishes, leaving Spidey to head home to a very angry Mary Jane, who doesn't want Peter to end up like Harry Osborn did... You know, dead! Carnage and his crew smooth over their disagreements regarding Shriek “killing” Spidey, and head to Central Park to kill everybody there. Spidey disregards MJ and heads back out, where he runs afoul Demogoblin, who is preparing to kill Spidey, but gets distracted by a priest... Wha?!

This is either the bravest or dumbest priest ever.  I'm leaning towards the latter...

Spidey uses the distraction to turn things around, but Demogoblin flies away, with Spidey much to wasted to stop him. Realizing that he needed rest, Spidey heads home. Meanwhile, Venom hears about Carnage's attack in Central Park, and heads out there, only to get jumped by Carnage and his allies. Or so I assume, since we don't even get to see any of that fight... Which according to the cover is the selling point of this issue! What the hell!?! This issue ends with a beaten Venom arriving at Peter and MJ's front door.

Ya think, MJ?

Thoughts: Well, this was definitely the weakest of the Maximum Carnage issues thus far. We got mirroring relationship issues between Peter and MJ, as well as Carnage and Shriek, as well as Spidey getting into a fight with Demogoblin, only to be saved by a cross-toting priest... I don't know what the hell that was all about, to be honest. And to top it off, we never even see Venom and Carnage touch each other(well except for the sweet cover to this issue). Venom just show up beaten at Spidey's door. And not only that, he politely knocks on the door! I'd have expected him to crash through the window or something, but nope, even in his beaten state, Venom still has good manners. Ah well, let's see if things pick back up come part 4.