8.15.07 Reviews

The Brave & The Bold #6 (DC): Instead of being the campy 1960's throwback fun with modern sensibilities that it started out as, this felt a little too laborious to read through. That's due in large part to way too many plot threads to follow; we've got Batman and Green Lantern returning to close the introduction of the first issue, Supergirl, Adam Strange, The Book of Destiny, The Challengers of the Unknown, Legionnaires, Rannians, Thanagarians, and a billion random evildoers all thrown into a time-travelling, alternate future mix-up. It just tries to do too much and thus doesn't do any one thing all that well in a focused, meaningful way. Any one of these (or a combination of a couple) is plenty to work with, the inclusion of everything makes for a muddled, too dense composition. Luckily, Perez's art is still beautiful in its clean intricacy. Grade B.

Justice League of America #12 (DC): As usual, there are some interesting narrative bits and playful perspectives here, but not much of a plot. It's as if Meltzer has a lot of interesting things to say about the JLA, but not a story to tell per se. There are some isolated bits I really dig, like Roy and Hawkgirl's budding relationship and the introduction of Deathstroke, but for the most part it feels like perpetual set up, with not much in the way of pay off ever occurring, capped off with an anti-climactic pseudo-close of the first year. Grade B-.

Checkmate #17 (DC): Though it's a total filler issue that could have been randomly inserted anywhere in the run, it's a pretty interesting premise to see who would handle security for the Castle HQ and what some of those challenges would be. As usual, the political dynamics of the royals are pretty interesting, but Samnee's art doesn't really look at home here, with some rough flat spots that come off pretty wonky. Some of that may be due in part to the inker or colorist, but it's nonetheless a little jarring to the eye. Grade B-.