Season Two of The Newsroom premieres on July 14th. Here’s a quick preview of things to come including the show taking on Occupy Wall Street, the fall-out of Will (Jeff Daniels) calling the Tea Party “The American Taliban,” Mitt Romney’s Presidential bid, and a story that threatens the future of everyone who works at News Night.
For the past few months Detective Comics has been the strongest of the Batman titles so far, and consistently better than Scott Snyder and Greg Capullo‘s Batman. Sadly, that’s not the case here. Snyder’s regrettable creation of Harper Row, a hipster street kid who DC Editorial seems to be fast-tracking as the next Robin, at least was limited to one Bat-title. That’s not the case anymore as like a virus she has begun to spread to other titles.
Aside from Harper Row’s appearance, the comic also focuses on a odd story about a love from Bruce Wayne’s past who is some kind of shadow assassin named Penumbra. Her introduction is awkward, as is the resolution (or lack of) where she apparently falls to her death a second time only to return home in disgrace. The only part of the story of interest is the suggestion of the person controlling that guild of assassins. It appears the New 52 seems ready to reintroduce Ra’s al Ghul.
The comic also contains a forgettable back-up story involving Kurt Langstrom who believes he may be responsible for a series of grizzly murders. Pass.
[DC, $3.99]
Detective Comics #21 Read More »
Looking to get on Megatron‘s (Frank Welker) good side, Knock Out (Daran Norris) and Starscream (Steve Blum) perform some experiments with a combination of Dark Engergon the stolen Autobots experimental, and still unstable, Artificial Energon on the Silas/Breakdown cyborg creating an out-of-control vampiric monster who begins preying on Deception troops and draining them of their Energon (and creating a small army of zombie Decepticons out of his victims).
…
Transformers Prime: Beast Hunters – Thirst Read More »
Wonderland marks the second Spenser novel written by Ace Atkins following the death of the character’s creator Robert B. Parker. I enjoyed Lullaby, Atkins first foray into the Boston private detective’s universe, and with Wonderland Atkins feels even more at home. The second time around Atkins chooses to give minimal time to the two most complicated relationships in Spenser’s life by not including Hawk at all and having Susan Silverman be out of town for most of the novel. The choice works well, allowing the author to spend more time on our leading man and his relationship with Zebulon Sixkill, a character introduced in Parker’s last Spenser novel.
The adventure begins, as many of these novels often do, with Spenser doing a relatively simple favor for an old friend that soon becomes far more complicated. When Henry Cimoli approaches him about a pair of toughs trying to force Henry and his neighbors out of their condos, Spenser and his new apprentice begin an investigation that will involve gambling, a land grab, an abandoned dog track, billions of dollars, and murder.
…
Following the events of last week’s bizarre episode, XIII (Stuart Townsend) is sent into “The Pit” by Betty (Roxane Mesquida), an underground prison that pits its prisoners in gladiatorial combat to the death, while above ground she and Victor Gong take control of the Xu Corporation. XIII comes across a few familiar faces who Betty has also sentenced to The Pit including Mozambique (Wole Daramola), movie producer Barry Salters (Jason Blicker), Amos (Greg Bryk), Grier (Lisa Berry), and anyone else Betty blames for the hardships of her life. Pitted against each other, not all of them will survive.
…
