Judd Winick

I actually saw (and loved) the direct-to-video animated movie version of this years ago, and have been reading all the comics those movies are based on, so that finally gave me an excuse to check this out. The obvious things working in the story’s favor are that I freaking love Robin, Nightwing, and villains who are either corrupted good guys or evil versions of good guys or whatever. I just always find those kinds of conflicts compelling thematically and because they’re so evenly show more matched.

Jason Todd isn’t my favorite Robin by any stretch of the imagination, but uh, I did write some embarrassing crackship slash fiction of him and Nightwing as a teenager so clearly I found him at least somewhat compelling. (For the record: I wrote Jason as an extremely bratty power bottom and Dick as a very befuddled service top and this is objectively correct I will not be accepting feedback at this time.)

Anyway yeah this story rules. There are parts of it that are emotionally difficult like Jason’s death and his tirade at Bruce for not killing the Joker after he killed him, which really drives the overall drama of both versions. And I feel a lot of empathy for everyone involved even Bruce even though he’s a dumbass and should kill the Joker for so many reasons, but especially for what he did to Jason. There’s just no coming back from that, and he’s shown time and time again that locking him up isn’t going to do shit, he’s just going to escape and murder more people again and again.

Like I said I saw the movie before reading the comics, but yeah the comics kicked ass. The narration, the art, the action, and the dialogue were all top notch. There were a few diversions from the main plot that seemed kind of unnecessary (what was even going on with Mr. Freeze), but I still don’t have any real major complaints. And WOW the fights kicked ass. show less

Oddly, in an emotional and intriguing plot about the mysterious new Red Hood and his connection to the Batman, the standout for me is the darkly hilarious Black Mask, recently crowned king of the Gotham City underworld. He's witty, scary, utterly unfeeling, and somehow both irreverent and deadly serious at the same time. Considering the decades of excellent competition, it's hard standing out as a Batman villain, but in these issues, the Black Mask very much does.

The plot itself, though, is show more actually fairly good, even if I would have wished it to be a tad more complex and packing a few more twists and turns. Even so, Batman's growing suspicion and dread at what is happening makes for a stellar slow-burn subplot while the Red Hood wages his war on the Black Mask in the main storyline. And the Red Hood himself is well written, making this a character return from the dead that, unusual for comic book resurrections, actually feels like it enrichens the original death storyline rather than cheapening it. And it helps that the artwork is both exciting and beautiful. show less

After three volumes with other authors (Connor Hawke: Dragon's Blood, For Better or For Worse, and Road to the Altar), I was dreading the return of Judd Winick to writing duties for Green Arrow; I'd gotten mightily sick of him after six volumes of the old series. But quite to my surprise, this books opens exceptionally. The actual wedding of Oliver Queen and Dinah Lance swings between touching, humorous, and shocking with ease, and the story that springs out of that is very good, too, seeing show more Black Canary, the new Green Arrow, and Speedy hunting for the once-again-"dead" old Green Arrow. There's some good banter, the story moves quickly, the twists are clever, and I liked the sprawling nature of it, a sharp difference from the very street-level old Green Arrow series. It really felt like both Oliver and Dinah's book, not Oliver's book with Dinah tacked on. Best of all, Connor Hawke actually got something to do. Which is why I should have known better...

Winick's favorite tactic on Green Arrow was to beat Connor up to prove the situation was serious, meaning that this expert martial artist-- who had served as Green Arrow by himself for years while Ollie was dead-- always looked a bit useless and never got any good character moments. This really got on my nerves by the end of the series, but Winick goes one further by putting him into a coma and wiping his mind! Argh! Why is this even good writing? How many times do I need to watch scenes of Ollie angsting over his relationship with his son? The only good thing I can say about this development, which ruined an almost-brilliant book for me, is that it finally pays off the revelation at the end of The Archer's Quest, a good five years prior.

On the upside, the wedding story itself is drawn by Amanda Conner, whose work on Wednesday Comics's Supergirl feature was fabulous, and she does a pretty good job here, too (though it's sometimes hard to tell her out-of-costume superheroes apart). The majority of the book is drawn by Cliff Chiang, who has a very clean, "kinetic" style that works well, especially with the bright colors of David Baron. Green Arrow and Black Canary look the best they've looked in years (I mean, look at that slick cover)... it's a shame they just can't have a story to match it.

Green Arrow and Black Canary: « Previous in sequence | Next in sequence » show less

I was hoping for a stand-alone adventure after the six-part epic that kicked off the series, but no, this is the first part of a new adventure and ends on a cliffhanger.

Hilo does a pretty good job of providing comic relief throughout, but the overall tone is pretty downbeat as Gina is mired in grief and regret and starting to withdraw from the craziness that has derailed her life.

I'm just tired of this series now, I guess.

The nail in the coffin for me may well be Hilo and other characters show more repeatedly and mistakenly calling leotards "tights." They're not the same thing, and it doesn't seem to be a comedic misunderstanding so much as a desire to use the word tights over and over because it is often associated with superheroes. I resent giving bad information to children, even if it is something as trivial as clothing terminology. show less