Historical Anomalies: Batman Zero Year Crossovers

DC Comics just wrapped up an event called the DC Retailer Roadshow in New York, which is not an event to which I was invited, due to the fact that I am not a comics retailer, and thanks to ugly rumors spread by the owner of my local comic store, where they know me by name and ask me to stop including the word “taser” in sentences that also include the phrase, “If I ever get face-to-face with Dan DiDio.”

A gentleman named Roderick Ruth, however, was there, and filed a report on the proceedings. Which included the normal stuff you would expect from a meeting with retailers – hype about the upcoming Trinity War event, addressing concerns that DC isn’t giving retailers enough information to appropriately order high-demand books like the one where Robin died, what have you – but it also included an interesting tidbit about Scott Snyder’s Batman origin story Zero Year, which just started last week.

That tidbit being that there will be crossover stories with Zero Year appearing not only in some of the Bat titles, but also in Action Comics, Flash, Green Arrow and Green Lantern Corps.

Wait, what?

Blackest Night: Everyone Quits Green Lantern

DC’s been releasing their May solicits over the past few days… with one exception: they’ve been holding back their Green Lantern solicitations. Which has led to a certain amount of anticipation, at least here at the Crisis On Infinite Midlives Home Office, because some of the best crossovers and events in DC Comics over the past several years have come from Green Lantern writer Geoff Johns in those books.

So we’ve been waiting for what Johns had planned starting in May with bated breath, with images and memories of classics like The Sinestro Corps War, Blackest Night and Brightest Day dancing in our heads. What would it be? Another big crossover? Rainbow Lanterns? A new Lantern oath involving the prominent use of the word “sack”?

Turns out, not so much. It seems that Geoff John’s next big plan for Green Lantern is to, well, quit the book.

And apparently it was such a good idea that every other writer on the Green Lantern books has made the same plan. That’s right: everyone is leaving the Green Lantern books.

Um… what the hell, Geoff?

Expendable: Green Lantern Corps #5 Review

We’re now five issues into the New 52 reboot of Green Lantern Corps, and the one thing that has become undeniably apparent is that this book has a distinct identity. Unfortunately, that identity is that it’s the book that swipes from – or to be charitable, is inspired by – other forms of entertainment. Issue 3 was lifted from a video game in hoard mode. Issue 4 looked a lot like an episode of 24. This issue’s a knockoff on Sylvester Stallone’s flick The Expendables. At this rate, issue 6 will be about a Green Lantern whose ring is positioned in the back of her throat and can only be activated by Harry Reems.

Seriously: this issue is about The Expendables of the Green Lanterns Corps: The Mean Machine. As Guy Gardner calls them, “…the toughest sons of bitches in the Corps.” They’re old soldiers, so old that after more than forty years of modern Green Lantern stories, this is the first time we’ve ever heard of them. So old they wear the traditional Green Lantern uniform of jeans, muscle shirts and leather jackets. So old they have code names like, “Lee” and “Flint” and “Bronchuk”. So old they drink heavily, and probably occasionally tip a forty for their dead homies Norrisum, Schwarzeneggerzil, and Van Damme (Van Damme being Oan for “Michael Keaton.”).

Quick Hits – Wolverine And The X-Men #3, Green Lantern Corps #4, And Ghost Rider #7

Call this post “The Good, The Bad, and WTF”. Here are some books we’ve talked about before. Let’s check in to see how they’re doing now.

The Good

Wolverine And The X-Men written by Jason Aaron with pencils by Chris Bachalo, Duncan Rouleau and Matteo Scalera wraps up the opening story arc of Wolverine’s first day trying to run a school for young mutants. I enjoyed the first issue. Aaron continues to bring humor to this tale, now up to issue #3. He pens an engaging story that reminds the reader that your typical teen can be an obnoxious handful who believes deeply that they are the hero of not only their own story but everyone else’s. Still, all the kids want to do is fit in somehow, in his or her own way.

More goodness, badness and wtf-ness after the jump…and spoilers.