Comics Roundup for 11/17/10

Batman: The Return - This one-shot unites Grant Morrison, writer of the new Batman, Inc. with David Finch, writer/artist of the upcoming The Dark Knight for a story that establishes the new status quo in the Batman universe. Personally, I liked it. I'm not a huge David Finch fan, but when he's good, he's good. I also don't have a problem with there being two Batmen - Dick Grayson in Gotham and Bruce Wayne as the international one (I guess he'd be more suited to be in the JLA, then.) I do worry that there are too many Bat-books coming out. I like having a regular Batman book to read every month, but there's no way that I'll be getting all six (?) of them. At the very least, I'll stick with whatever Grant Morrison is doing.

Batman, Inc. #1 - Speaking of which, this was an interesting first issue. A Japanese Batman? I wonder what that's going to be like. So far, it seems pretty interesting, and I like Yanick Paquette's art. It's also nice to see Catwoman playing an important role in this book as well.

Hellboy: Double Feature of Evil - All the Hellboy comics have been really great lately, so I'll forgive this one for being a tad bit sub-par. There are two short stories, and the first one, while having a cool concept, has a pretty anticlimactic ending. The second one is short and fun story involving some Egyptian gods. As usual, Richard Corben does a nice job on the art.

The Flash #6 - How often does this comic come out? Seems like it's been more than a month since the last one. Oh well, so long as the creative team remains this consistent, I'll be happy. Anyway, this issue wrapped up the first major story arc, and it was a pretty good one. The subplot that I liked managed to dovetail into the major story, and I'm starting to get who Barry Allen is more as a person than I ever have before.

The Astounding Wolf-Man #25 - Well, that's that. I want to go back and re-read the entire series, but I still found myself enjoying this issue despite the fact that I didn't necessarily remember all of the characters and various subplots. It looks like things are definitely being kept open if ever Robert Kirkman wants to return to this character. Overall? A pretty fun 25-issue limited series.

The Avengers #7 - Too many damned Hulks, if you ask me, and I was kind of hoping that the Red Hulk would go away once his identity was revealed. It looks like that's not happening though, and he's in this issue. Looks like he might even be joining the team. Well, the original Hulk was a member, maybe it might be interesting to have this one on the team for a while, especially now that he's slightly more of a "good" guy than before. The Red Hood is also back, and he has his hands on two of the Infinity gems. There's a guy who just keeps on trying, and it's nice to see that he's back to cause more problems.

Green Lantern #59 - We finally learn what happened to Black Hand, and we get some more information on the Indigo "compassion" Lanterns. It looks like there's more going on with them than meets the eye, and in some ways they might be the most messed up Lanterns of them all. This was yet another good installment in what has consistently been one of my favorite comics of the past several years.