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Life with Archie: The Married Life #2 (Kupperberg/Breyfogle/Pepoy; Archie Comics):
Library Wars: Love and War, vol. 2 (Kiiro Yumi; Shojo Beat Manga): In which the civil war, surprisingly enough, not only makes an appearance, but looks somewhat like warfare. There's a skirmish between the Library Defense Force and the Media Betterment Committee forces at the Musashino Main Library, in which it's discovered -- but not confirmed absolutely -- that a librarian has been acting as a fifth columnist for the MBC. (The horror ... the horror ...) We also get a bit of history into how the civil war started in the first place, which is actually fairly interesting, and does in fact look like civil warfare in all its ugliness. And ... then all that pretty much gets shoved aside so the story can concentrate on the triangle between Iku Kasahara, Sgt Dozo, and Corporal Tezuka. Iku doesn't actually realize there is a triangle, but then, there's a lot she doesn't quite get. Honestly, I'm not sure that I'll keep going with this; I picked up vol 2 primarily to see if they could keep having this unusually civil civil war. And it turns out they can; even in the one battle we see, the only thing that seems to happen is that there are some injuries on both sides, apart from the main goal of the battle, of course. It's actually not badly done; I'm just ... really, profoundly not the audience for this title.
OK; No recommendation (But if you know a teenaged girl that has a thing for romances, I'll bet she'd love this.)
Red Robin #16 (Nicieza/To/McCarthy; DC): In which we discover that Anarky has been killing off people he thinks might be Red Robin. The only reason he hasn't gone after Tim is that the assassination attempt seemed to take him out of the running. And "The Hit List" chapter concludes just in time to yield to the big mega Bat-Event, The Road Home. Unfortunately, the end of it shows that it was sorta kinda meant to be sequenced with "The Flash" and the Brightest Day event, and that sort of didn't happen.
OK; Recommended
Batgirl 14 (Miller/Garbett/Scott; DC): In which Kara is bored and comes to visit Stephanie, whom she met back during the "World's Finest" miniseries. (Which, come to think of it, was supposed to set up something that has relentlessly refused to appear. I wonder if it was in Superman/Batman?) And it turns out that some geek has invented a machine that accidentally reaches out to a nearby old film festival and creates 24 three-dimensional Draculas. (Don't ask. Really, just don't.) And so Batgirl and Supergirl get to spend a pleasant evening (really, it is!) hunting down and staking (yes, REALLY) vampires. It's a nice, frothy little done-in-one, and it has the advantage of not leaving any dangling plotlines to be cleared away by next month's Big Bat Event.
Eh; No recommendation.
Batman and Robin 14 (Morrison/Irving; DC): In which Damian discovers the hard way that the Joker has the joker toxin in his blood, and there's a reason why Batman doesn't normally go pounding on him without a certain amount of protection. In the meantime, Gotham and all within it have gone insane -- as it does -- and really horrible things happen to poor Commissioner Gordon, as they do. And we still haven't reached the point where we started this storyline, where Dick got shot and has a bullet in his brain. Unless we skipped right past all that and I missed it. Entirely possible; this is, by design, a very difficult storyline to follow. Frazer Irving's artwork is, however, really oddly beautiful, and well matched to the type of story being told. Oddly, alone of the Bat titles I've seen, there's one more issue before the big mega Bat event; I assume that the Batman and Robin issue will be the concluding chapter.
Good; No recommendation
Batman 703 (Nicieza/Richards): A mostly done-in-one, which seems to be taking place far enough after the beginning of Time Masters so that Alfred, Dick, Damian and Tim all bond over their hopes that Bruce will soon be home. Dick does something terribly stupid -- as he has been doing while he learns to be Bat -- and the demonization of Vicki Vale continues apace. (Seriously, what on earth did they ever do to her to inspire this level of ... well, it's not hate, exactly, but she clearly Does Not Like Them At All. Mostly a placemarker issue, letting us know that Everybody Misses Bruce, just in time for his return next month.
OK; No recommendation
Apparently, what we're supposed to learn from this is that living with or ever having dated -- or possibly even simply having known -- Archie Andrews is a passport to making your life an utter misery. In the "Life with Veronica" section, Veronica's life is miserable because she's Archie's supervisor at Lodge Industries, and he's been tasked to give Pop a lowball offer for his Chok'lit Shop, and, understandably, he hates having to do this. Veronica hates having to make him do it, hates that her father wanted them to do it in the first place, and she and Archie wind up having -- for Archieworld -- a fairly nasty fight about it. She winds up breaking down over it, with Reggie innocently comforting her in a way that leads some of their coworkers to thinking that she's cheating on Archie. In the meantime, Betty the unemployed has been avoiding her friends, because she doesn't want them to think she's a loser. Her mother eventually forces her to go out and try to meet one of her old friends -- Veronica, whose breakdown means that she totally forgets that she agreed to meet Betty in the first place. Archie, in the meantime, is beginning to suspect that Mr Lodge is up to no good.
In the "Life with Betty" part of the strip, Archie's music career continues to go nowhere. Betty's career at Sacks 6th Avenue seems to be going nowhere, as she's had to take a pay cut and add on more work. She's carefully avoiding telling Archie how badly things are going for her, while he grouses to everyone everywhere. Eventually, he and Ambrose have what can only be described as an Andy Hardy moment ("Let's put on a show! Right here!"), while Betty may be finding her way to both more work but also some career satisfaction. Of course, all this will be threatened by (you guessed it) Mr Lodge. He's furious that Archie refused to be bribed to leave Betty for Veronica, and he begins to make .... plans.
There's a level where this is the most stunningly realistic story to come out of Archie Comics in an age. People in their 20s do struggle to get themselves set in the world, even when they've got someone like Mr Lodge easing the way quite a bit. And yet, there's a level where it's heading quickly to be just a bit too much. Mr Lodge, however much he disliked Archie, was not an unspeakably evil plutocrat in the original stories. Veronica was just not this mopey, which she is in both stories; for that matter, neither was Betty. Though god wot, both of them have ample reason to mope. Even with that caveat, however, it's fascinating to read. Archie just doesn't do grim and gritty, and yet here we are.
Good; Recommended for those over 30 (NB: At one point in the first issue, Betty recounts the men she's dated to try to get past Archie; they include Henry Aldrich, Andy Hardy, Richie Cunningham, Zach Morris and Troy Bolton. The only name that anyone under 30 could reasonably be expected to easily recognize is Troy Bolton of High School Musical ... and that actually makes her a bit of a cradle robber. Scandalous!)
Library Wars: Love and War, vol. 2 (Kiiro Yumi; Shojo Beat Manga): In which the civil war, surprisingly enough, not only makes an appearance, but looks somewhat like warfare. There's a skirmish between the Library Defense Force and the Media Betterment Committee forces at the Musashino Main Library, in which it's discovered -- but not confirmed absolutely -- that a librarian has been acting as a fifth columnist for the MBC. (The horror ... the horror ...) We also get a bit of history into how the civil war started in the first place, which is actually fairly interesting, and does in fact look like civil warfare in all its ugliness. And ... then all that pretty much gets shoved aside so the story can concentrate on the triangle between Iku Kasahara, Sgt Dozo, and Corporal Tezuka. Iku doesn't actually realize there is a triangle, but then, there's a lot she doesn't quite get. Honestly, I'm not sure that I'll keep going with this; I picked up vol 2 primarily to see if they could keep having this unusually civil civil war. And it turns out they can; even in the one battle we see, the only thing that seems to happen is that there are some injuries on both sides, apart from the main goal of the battle, of course. It's actually not badly done; I'm just ... really, profoundly not the audience for this title.
OK; No recommendation (But if you know a teenaged girl that has a thing for romances, I'll bet she'd love this.)
Red Robin #16 (Nicieza/To/McCarthy; DC): In which we discover that Anarky has been killing off people he thinks might be Red Robin. The only reason he hasn't gone after Tim is that the assassination attempt seemed to take him out of the running. And "The Hit List" chapter concludes just in time to yield to the big mega Bat-Event, The Road Home. Unfortunately, the end of it shows that it was sorta kinda meant to be sequenced with "The Flash" and the Brightest Day event, and that sort of didn't happen.
OK; Recommended
Batgirl 14 (Miller/Garbett/Scott; DC): In which Kara is bored and comes to visit Stephanie, whom she met back during the "World's Finest" miniseries. (Which, come to think of it, was supposed to set up something that has relentlessly refused to appear. I wonder if it was in Superman/Batman?) And it turns out that some geek has invented a machine that accidentally reaches out to a nearby old film festival and creates 24 three-dimensional Draculas. (Don't ask. Really, just don't.) And so Batgirl and Supergirl get to spend a pleasant evening (really, it is!) hunting down and staking (yes, REALLY) vampires. It's a nice, frothy little done-in-one, and it has the advantage of not leaving any dangling plotlines to be cleared away by next month's Big Bat Event.
Eh; No recommendation.
Batman and Robin 14 (Morrison/Irving; DC): In which Damian discovers the hard way that the Joker has the joker toxin in his blood, and there's a reason why Batman doesn't normally go pounding on him without a certain amount of protection. In the meantime, Gotham and all within it have gone insane -- as it does -- and really horrible things happen to poor Commissioner Gordon, as they do. And we still haven't reached the point where we started this storyline, where Dick got shot and has a bullet in his brain. Unless we skipped right past all that and I missed it. Entirely possible; this is, by design, a very difficult storyline to follow. Frazer Irving's artwork is, however, really oddly beautiful, and well matched to the type of story being told. Oddly, alone of the Bat titles I've seen, there's one more issue before the big mega Bat event; I assume that the Batman and Robin issue will be the concluding chapter.
Good; No recommendation
Batman 703 (Nicieza/Richards): A mostly done-in-one, which seems to be taking place far enough after the beginning of Time Masters so that Alfred, Dick, Damian and Tim all bond over their hopes that Bruce will soon be home. Dick does something terribly stupid -- as he has been doing while he learns to be Bat -- and the demonization of Vicki Vale continues apace. (Seriously, what on earth did they ever do to her to inspire this level of ... well, it's not hate, exactly, but she clearly Does Not Like Them At All. Mostly a placemarker issue, letting us know that Everybody Misses Bruce, just in time for his return next month.
OK; No recommendation
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