By Dustin Cabeal

I thought long and hard about this book after reading it. By no means am I one of these comic readers that view Watchmen as some untouchable bible of comic books. I read it. I could see a lot of the brilliance of it, which I mostly credit to the artwork. I’ve never read or cared about the prequel stories nor did I find it particularly interesting that the world of Watchmen was being injected into the DCU. If Watchmen is the DC Comics bible, then Doomsday Clock is the new testament.

By Jonathan Edwards

For about the first half of God Complex #2, I was finally getting into the story and enjoying myself while it happened. And then, right around the time Seneca visited the Fates, I started losing interest. It’s still a fine issue overall, and the last couple pages do present us with a decent enough cliffhanger. It just doesn't end up being as entertaining as the beginning was. And, I think I know why. Seneca’s character by itself isn’t all that interesting. Neither is his investigation into the deaths of the three Church of the Trinity acolytes. Yet, both work a lot better whenever we see the Rulers getting directly involved. Because they provide great foils for Seneca and vice versa. His moody, neo-noir detective shtick if offset by his fear of getting on their bad side and/or letting them down. And, their sense of superiority, inside information, and larger than life power struggle is offset by the legitimate need for his help, as he can perceive things in a way they can’t. As such, we get an interesting dynamic where, rather than condescend, the Rulers actually attempt to pick Seneca’s brain and enable him, and his both compelled and reluctant to go further and further down the rabbit hole that is his investigation.

By Daniel Vlasaty

Growing up, I never had an imaginary friend. Not sure what that says about me but I just never did. But I do remember my sister having one. It was this fat little baby looking-thing named Chebby or something like that. I also remember trying to play with them, my sister and Chebby were always getting up to something, but she never let me. She’d always say that Chebby didn’t like me or that it (he?) was mad at me or that it hated me. My sister was older than me and was never really nice when we were kids.

By Cat Wyatt

This issue brings us to the conclusion of the Vote Harley plot, and obviously based on how things ended in issue 31, we know we’re in for a bit of a rough ride (emotionally speaking). It probably goes without saying that Harley doesn’t react well to Mason’s death, add on the fact that DePerto committed the act and tricked her into watching it on TV? Yeah, not so much.

By Daniel Vlasaty

In the afterword at the end of this issue, M.L. Miller says that Gravetrancers was inspired by a real-life story of a cemetery dumping bodies into a pit at the back of their lot and re-selling plots over and over again. I remember this in the news some years ago. It was at Burr Oak Cemetery, I believe, which is not that far from where I live. It was a crazy, fucked up story. Listing this as inspiration for a story should tell you just what kind of book Gravetrancers is going to be. Pretty crazy and fucked up on its own, right?

By Jonathan Edwards

It’s ironic that a book as clumsy and heavy-handed as Justice League of America would title one of its story arcs “Precision Strike.” What’s more, I think Orlando himself might be realizing that and panicking. Because, in addition to more of Prometheus’s cliché “I planned for every possible scenario” speeches, we get two back to back panels where first the Atom and then Black Canary comment about the “precision” of the latter using her supersonic scream to overload the former’s bio-belt, defaulting it.

By Cat Wyatt

I’m not going to lie, I naturally just assumed the Rat Queens were famous (or notorious) enough for this girl to have heard about them without ever actually having met them. So imagine my surprise when Madeline heads downstairs and starts serving them! Not only that, but they (and by they I mostly mean Violet) know Madeline on a first name basis and everything. It’s pretty clear that Madeline worships Violet, but I also think it’s more than that – she sees her as a role model, this amazing adventurer capable of taking care of herself (and realistically Violet is probably the best one in the group to look up to…though there’s not a ton of competition).

By Justin McCarty

Shadow number four is out this week, and up until the last issue we were mostly confined to a hospital room, Mr. Crispy gave his backstory, Mary did make it out to the world to do some sleuthing. At the end of issue three, The Shadow escapes as a SWAT team storms his hospital room. Mary, of course, goes after him and finds him on the rooftops, wearing the slouch hat, cloak, and twin .45s. It was an exciting conclusion, leaving me dying to know what would happen!

By Cat Wyatt

Fans of Jason should rejoice, while those of you that aren’t fans of the Wonder Woman’s brother plotline will probably be less than thrilled about this issue; the entirety of it is spent on Jason and his past. It goes without saying that Jason lived a very different childhood from Diana of Troy. Unlike Diana, Jason could not be hidden among the Amazonians (a boy would stand out quite a bit) and thus had to be whisked away to earth. But we know all that already, courtesy of the last issue. This issue aims to show us more of the details of his life (and presumably to help explain the choices we’ve seen him make).

By Jonathan Edwards

As it turns out, Hollow Fields Vol. 1 was originally published in June of 2007 and black & white. Cut to roughly and a half years later, and Seven Seas Entertainment has opted to re-release this full-color version. I can’t say I’ve heard of that being a particularly common practice, at least in terms of the traditional manga publishing industry. However, Hollow Fields is not a part of the traditional industry. It’s an “original English-language” manga. And in this case, that means the writer and artist is Australian. I know some people have a huge issue with manga produced outside of Japan by people who aren’t Japanese, but I’m not really one of them. Sure, you’re inherently going to get some stylistic changes thanks to cultural differences, but if the general themes and tropes are congruent, then why should overseas works be excluded? Especially when there are people who dismiss any and all Japanese animation solely on the premise that they “don’t like anime.” This is despite the fact you might be trying to get them to watch Spirited Away, and all they’re familiar with is the likes of Bleach.