Picklist: August 27, 2008

• Blue Beetle 30
  They're going to kill this book. All I can say is, I hope that Jaime gets to stay on as Blue Beetle, even if he doesn't have his own book. This has been one of the most enjoyable and fun books out there, and it beats me how they were allowed to do that. I thought DC policy was to yank everyone kicking and screaming over to the dark side.
  
  
• DC Universe Last Will and Testament 1
  I haven't been paying much attention, because I have no idea what this is about. But it seems to be tied in with all of the changes DC is playing with now, so I'm going to check it out.
  
  
• Final Crisis Rogues Revenge 2 (of 3)
  I honestly didn't like the first issue of this. But it's a Flash title, and that's one of my weaknesses.
  
  
• Final Crisis Superman Beyond 1 (of 2)
  I also have no clue what this is. Superman from the Batman Beyond world? I suppose that could be interesting, but his Terry would probably wind up like SuperPsycho-Prime.
  
  
• Justice Society of America 18
  I'm loving this title. I don't care that they have three and a half trillion members. They have Kingdom Come Superman. They have Power Girl. They have heart. Something sorely lacking from the JLA book. I'm only even still reading that one with a "hope springs eternal" sort of attitude. Right now, I couldn't care less what happens to anyone in the JLA book. But the JSA has me hooked.
  
  I was so psyched about the JSA annual. Yes, I know, annuals are supposed to cap off story lines; not serve as springboards back into the main comic, but I was so happy to see my old Earth-2 friends that I didn't care. And yes, I know that DC will probably manage to blacken Earth-2 just like they've done to the rest of their titles, but there's always a chance that a miracle will happen, and they'll allow one nice place to flourish in the DC universe (other than the kiddie titles).
  
  
• Reign in Hell 2 (of 8)
  Let me be clear about this. I have no interest in DC's hells. They were cool in Hellblazer back at the beginning. Hell was cool in Sandman, and it was even okay in Lucifer, although I was a lot more interested in Lucifer himself than Hell. But the whole Neron and Blaze and whatnot thing happened while I was away, and I just really don't care a whole lot. I'm reading this for one reason, and one reason only. So that DC can rip my heart out and stomp on it by doing horrible things with Linda Danvers.
  
  Supergirl was one of my two favorite characters growing up. Supergirl and the Flash. As you might expect, I took CoIE a little personally. When PAD wrote his Supergirl series, I was out of the country, and all I knew about it was the little bit I read on the AstralDreams site. As far as I was concerned, that wasn't Supergirl.
  
  But then I got a chance to read it. In a huge marathon. And I fell head over heels for Linda Danvers. The end of the series crushed me. I've had a child taken from me, and again, I took what happened to Linda very personally. I started reading Fallen Angel in hopes that this was Linda, and that somehow she'd find her way back to herself. When PAD took the title away from DC, I couldn't get into it as much, and when he wrote Linda into the book as Lee's predecessor, I was done with it.
  
  But now Linda is going to be featured in Reign in Hell. So what choice do I have?
  
  
• Runaways Vol.3 1
  I like Runaways. My daughter read the original run last year (she's 8 now), and she liked it too. Even my partner read them. I didn't realize that they were starting up a new run, and I've been wondering what happened to the title. I'm glad it's reappearing. My knowledge of the Marvel Universe is pretty dated, but it suffices. I mean, I remember when Cloak and Dagger were introduced. I remember back before they invented the whole mutant-as-minority idea back in Dazzler whatever. Runaways is fairly off the beaten track from general Marvel continuity, though, so I'm not worried about it dragging me in deeper.
  
  
• Superman 679
  So I'm reading Superman and Action. Sue me. They're the core titles. I don't read any of the Bat-books (except Birds of Prey, which isn't really a Bat-book any more, and Superman/Batman and Trinity, which are only 1/2 and 1/3 Bat-books), because I've always preferred Superman. Batman is too dark, and there are too bloody many Bat-books to keep up with.
  
  I'm interested in seeing how they're going to handle the Kirby stuff with Atlas. And a good old fashioned super-brawl is always nice.
  
  
• Trinity 13
  What can I say about Trinity? It's an interesting book. I like how they're playing with the archetypes. In all honesty, Diana has never been as much of an icon for DC as Clark and Bruce, but for some reason, the idea of the three of them as the center feels right.
  
  

Now let's see how the reviews go once the books come out.