House Rules! Week of 05/17/06

By Thomas "HouseT" Houston

No flash, no glamour, just me getting down to the goody goodness. No need for a lot of words. I'm back, baby. And I missed you, too.

On Deck: Batman/Superman #25, Robin #150, Ms. Marvel #3


Batman/Superman #25

"With a Vengeance Chapter Six: Batmen/Supermen"

Writer: Jeph Loeb
Art: Ed McGuinness/Dexter Vines

Note-a-Quote: "They don't remember because I don't want them to remember. That... and they haven't collected those stories into a trade paperback yet..." -Mxyzptlk (You know, they really should get around to that...)

A whole gang of Supergirls ply Superman from the Source Wall. They explain that Bizarro has told them that someone or something is mroe dangerous than Darkseid and playing for the control of the universe.

Who, you ask? Why Joker and Mxyzptlk, of course. Back at the three ring Circus O' Weird, Batman confronts Joker, who has just killed the freakishly strange Batzarro. Joker notes that he made Batzarro in Batman's image, but Batman is less than flattered.

Now comes the part of the issue I like to call... High Point HeroClix teams of doom!
Joker snaps his fingers and booms in Darkseid, Battle Armor Lex Luthor, Evil Supergirl, and Bald n' Evil Superboy. Mxy snaps and booms in Superman and his Would Be Harem if he Wasn't Related to Half of Them of Supergirls. Begin fight scene.

(Prepare for the only real thing resembling plot that appears in this entire book.)

Remember way back when, when Joker took Mxy's powers (the old Emperor Joker storyline)? Well, it turns out that even though Mxy got his powers back, Joker still retained a fraction of Mxy's powers. Hence, the two are engaged in a contest. If Superman and Batman die, then Joker gets all of Mxy's power. If the dream team triumphs, however, then Joker pays the price. See how that almost maks sense? Well, hold onto that...

More super fighting commences. The good guys are taking it on the chin, and it's obvious that they're going to need more help. Suddenly, Bizarro appears with... wait for it... and army of Batmen and Supermen. While the super melee commences once again, Bizarro sees his fallen comrade Batzarro. Lamenting his death, Bizarro reaches into Batzarro's futility belt and pulls out a blue kryptonite ring. Puttng it on, Bizarro states that he's now a 12th level intellect and rushes off to do "what must be done." Presumably, it's not his taxes.

In null space, Mxy and Joker watch the fighting on TV. Mxy notes that this is getting them nowhere, and tries to figure out some way to get all of the superheroes to work together. Thinking he has the answer, Mxy snaps and merges the Batmen, Supermen, and Kryptonite Man into... Composite Batman-Superman?

Old school! Old school!

Joker, not one to tae things lying down, combines all the baddies and Maximums into... the Maximum Maximum? Uh... er... new school? Yeah, yeah. That'll have to work. New school.

As the two titans battle, Bizarro returns with a device that will put Batzarro in a stasis zone until he can be helped. Joker yells at Bizarro from the crowd to pipe down, so Bizarro shoots Joker with the stasis beam instead. Joker screams, and then... Batmite comes out of Joker's mouth. Er... I... I have no idea what type of school this is. Anyway, it turns out Batmite was the missing part of Mxy that was inside Joker. Batmite explains that only something Joker created could free Batmite, so that's why Bizarro #1 could pull it off.

With Batmite free, the whole she-bang gets called off. The fighters get returned to their respective dimensions, the continuities get shuffled back to what they should be, and Batman and Superman get taught an important lesson about togetherness. Which as Infinite Crisis taught us, they followed to a t... er, ahem. Yeah....

If there's one positive to make of this issue, it's that it does at least explain just what the heck was going on through most of the story arc. And I'll say this much. Within the confines of this story, the explanation makes sense.

Unfortunately, there's so much confusion over what's going on that it really detracted fromthe overall story. Don't get me wrong; there's tons of fun and nice moments in there. Any time you can work a Composite Superman into a story, you're really putting work in. And seeing Batmite, disturbing entrance and all, was still something, too. But to be honest there was still a ton of mishmash thrown around everywhere. Honestly, was there any reason at all to have Kryptonite Man here? And was Darkseid included just so that he could stand around and do virtually nothing? And speaking of Darkseid doing nothing, how nice of them to remind us that Darkseid played absolutely no part in Infinite Crisis. At least there's a chance that when he appears again, he may be up for some old school greatness.

One of my biggest complaints about the story would be the explanation Mxyzptlk gives for what the Maximums really were. It's fine that they were imaginary, but to imply that they were made of elements of Batman and Superman seemed a bit of a copout. Especially since they were so obviously Marvel ripoffs. Add to that the fact that there are even Marvel knockoffs as skeletons in the circus crowd, and the whole thing just seems unnecessary.

On the plus side, there are, as there have been this entire arc, some nice visuals. Eight shades of Supermen and Batmen (and bless you if you can accurately identify them all) make for a good splash panel or two, and all of the brawling is full of fun images, too.

The arc did seem to have some sort of purpose, but given the events of Infinite Crisis, we already know that it takes more than throwing Bruce and Clark into eighteen different universes to get them to work like a team. It actually takes nineteen.

Story: 4/10 (... uh... yeah. Plot... Story... hambone...)
Art: 7/10 (To be fair, there is some nice artwork in here.)
Overall: 5/10 (Complete the arc if you started it, as it's the only issue that makes any sort of sense.)
Story Arc (Overall): 4/10 (I've seen worse. It scares me that I have, but I have.)


Robin #150

"Hard Answers"

Writer: Adam Beechen
Art: Freddie E. Williams II

The Skinny: After finding a note telling him that Cassandra Cain will be killed if he doesn't comply, Robin is forced to break her father David Cain out of prison. Easier said than done, but the Boy Wonder has the skils and the technical assist from Bruce Wayne to pull it off.

Robin contemplates his situation and realizes that he's been put at a disadvantage by having to comply with the kidnappers. Knocking David Cain out, Robin carries to a point in the wood and binds him so that he can't escape. Robin confronts David and demands to know if this is all part of some plot to break himself out of prison. David notes that he could break out whenever he wants to (and as has been shown, he can do just that), so Robin is forced to head to the oil field that's set to be the meeting point.

Robin tries to show up early to get a drop on his mystery foe, but the gambit fails as he is quickly surrounded by agents of the League of Assassins. David tells Robin he can't handle them alone, but Robin won't free David for fear of having him run off. Robin holds his own against the LoA for a while, but a mystery voice tells the attackers to go after Robin's bad shoulder. With his shoulder reinjured, Robin has no chance against the assassins.

Their leader reveals herself to be... Cassandra Cain? Yes, apparently Cassandra has had a change of heart over the past year. It turns out that she was so upset that her father David had trained another of his children to be living weapons that she had to kill the other girl and make plans to kill her father. Handing Robin a gun, Cassandra tells him to begin their wonderful dual rule the League of Assassins by killing David Cain.

My Take: Yikes. Talk about things that make you go, "Ehhhhh..." It was kind of obvious that Cassandra wasn't kidnapped, since we had seen her wandering around in the background of various scenes. It still doesn't sit well, though, that Cassandra would not only take control of the Leasgue of Assassins but also kill people in the process. Yes, I'm aware that she was in a downward spiral at the end of her own title. Yes, I'm aware that she took a dip in a Lazarus Pit and as such might be a recovering cuckoo. But the entire thing just comes off wrong.

For one thing, trained killer or not, Cassie was always more of an automated killer. She wasn't the type to enjoy it, or even do it because it was necessary. Despite her background, there was an innocence about her that seems to be gone now. Speaking of which, since when has she been so obsessed with having Robin as a "partner"? Does a dip in an L-pit come with a guidebook from the Talia al'Ghul School of Dating? This would seem to lean her further towards the "some kind of crazy" theory, but since there's a one year gap in things we can't realy be sure.

But let me not give the impression that all is bad with this issue. There are still some nice moments. Robin taking time to reflect on how Batman trained him to be two steps ahead of an opponent combined with Robin's annoyance over not being able to do that in this case made for good storytelling. It feels like Robin should have been able to figure out some better way to do things than just breaking out David Cain and taking him to the meeting place, but since I couldn't think of one either I suppose I can't complain. At least they did show that Robin tried to get control of the situation, even if he failed to.

I also found the moment when Robin got his shoulder reinjured to be especially poignant. Something about the image of him standing there lurched to one side, knowing that there's no way he could fight the group off one-armed and not really sure whether or not the LoA planned to kill him or what... it was just a nice dramatic moment.

Now if I could just make sense of the whole Cassandra thing, I'd be a happy guy. It's still better that Nightwing, though.

Story: 4/10 (I reserve the right to change this if it's later revealed Cassie's crazy has a logical explanation.)
Art: 6/10
Overall: 5/10 (A bit of a dip, but maybe this story will take an upswing.)


Ms. Marvel #3

Writer: Brian Reed
Art: Roberto de la Torre/Jimmy Palmiotti

The Skinny: The entire town of Spaulding, Georgia is screwed. While the cavorite crystals in the miltary base decided to shoot into space other than instead of incinerating the Earth, the town and the military base disappear in a flash of light, leaving behind a crater.

Carol Danvers has bigger issues, though. For one, the alien hunter Cru is still lurking about, and the guy is hardly the firendliest sort. carol puts up a tough fight against Cru even after Cru injures her. Feeling her strength starting to wane, Carol puts up on last desperate gambit that pays off. Cru is destroyed, but Carol comes crashing to Earth. Noting the success of her plan, Carol passes out

The Fantastic Four arrive to assess the situation in what was Spaulding and find Carol in the woods. Reed Richards examines the slowly awakening Carol and discovers she's covered in blue goo. The goo begins floating around Reed's hand, while in low orbit, a simliar pile of Cru goo begins collecting itself.

Carol returns to New York and heads for her apartment. She looks forward to taking a bath and unwinding for a good long while, but her plans will have to be delayed. As she opens her apartment door, her publicist Sarah meets her and tells her that she's late for her interview with the reality show Super Powers.

My Take: Anyone that wasn't sure that Marvel was on board with making Ms. Marvel a heavy hitter in her own rights in this series can drop the notion here. Not only does she survive an explosion that burns al the oxygen out of her immediate area, once she gets a breath again she gets a serious injury, takes the fight back into space, blows up an alien, and crashes into the planet from orbit.

So yeah, she's one tough broad.

I'm curious as to whether Spaulding will remain a casualty or end up being in some pocket dimension. Given the current atmosphere with Marvel's Civil War story line, I'd imagine they'd be hard pressed to let Carol slide with having blown up an entire small town. Sure, I know she didn't do it, per se, but no one's really worried about those details these days,

Not much to say for Carol's personality this issue. It's consistent, and she still shows her own private sense of humor by talking to herself in the middle of a fight (although I like to think that professing your love of air is an incredibly healthy thing to do). Msot notable here is Carol's dedication to stopping Cru, even at the cost of her life. Sure, that's what heroes do and blah blah blah, but it's nice to see a moment where the hero really does feel like their life is in peril.

Perhaps the most ironic part of the whole thing is that after a big, bruising alien fight like that, I'm really looking forward to Carol's interview with Super Powers. It may sound silly, but there's been such a slow gradual build-up to the event that it almost seems a critical moment. Hopefully, it's not something they plan to skim over or ignore completely in the next issue.

Story: 7/10 (Good story, but not spectacular.)
Art: 6/10 (Art's the same deal.)
Overall: 7/10 (Only this book could make an alien space fight feel like a bridge issue... and it still works.

That's going to do it for this week. I also read Moon Knight #2, but I just don't have much to say about it. Except maybe, "Ewwwwwww!" or "Not the face! Not the face!" But not necessarily in that order.

If you have any ideas/suggestions/comments, feel free to leave them here or contact me at th_houston75@hotmail.com. Please reference either "Waiting for Wednesday" or "House Rules!" in your subject, so I have some idea why you're mailing me. It would also help me fill my T-Mail column.

You know it makes you happy.