Just Stay at Home

New comics came out today? Too bad I've not time for talking... Only thinking! Thursday Night Thinking!

Tonight's thought comes from the Batman:

I guess it's true that Batman is the best at everything he does. Even when "what he does" is steal your girl!

Okay, let's do this, folks. They came out on Monday but I'm talking about them now. February 2010 solicits. Hit it.

ADVENTURE COMICS STARRING BLACK LANTERN SUPERBOY #7
On Sale February 10 • 40 pg, FC, $3.99 US
Written by Tony Bedard • Art by Travis Moore • Covers by Francis Manapul
TOP SECRET!
Retailers please note: This issue will ship with two covers. For every 10 copies of the Standard Edition (with a cover by Francis Manapul), retailers may order one copy of the Variant Edition (with a cover by Francis Manapul and renumbered ADVENTURE COMICS #510). Please see the Previews Order Form for more information.

There are a lot of Blackest Night tie-ins this month. But this one is the one I want to talk about. What do you think they mean when they "Black Lantern Superboy"? Consider: during Legion of Three Worlds Superboy was resurrected a thousand years in the future from a body that had been rejuvenating under the Fortress of Solitude for that long. In the present that corpse is still there. How creepy is that?

BATMAN AND ROBIN #8-9
Issue #8 on sale February 10 • Issue #9 on sale February 24 • 32 pg, FC, $2.99 US
Written by Grant Morrison • Art and Variant covers by Cameron Stewart • Covers by Frank Quitely
BATMAN AND ROBIN double-ships in February with part 2 and 3 of “Blackest Knight” guest-starring Batwoman, Knight and Squire! Only months into his new role as Batman, Dick Grayson faces perhaps the biggest threat of his life. In hopes of attaining his heart’s desire, has Dick instead unleashed a terror the likes of which the world has never seen?
Meanwhile, back in Gotham City, Alfred and a recuperating Robin are at the mercy of someone both fearsome and familiar...
Retailers please note: Both of these issues will ship with two covers each. For every 25 copies of the Standard Editions (with covers by Frank Quitely), retailers may order one copy of the Variant Editions (with covers by Cameron Stewart). Please see the Previews Order Form for more information. Issue #8 on sale February 10; issue #9 on sale February 24 32 pg, FC, $2.99 US

Look, I know I'm supposed to like Dick Grayson as "Batman." Everybody else does. But I don't. I want the real Batman back. I want Bruce Wayne. I want the Batman I've known for my whole life and then some.

Good God, is this what the Hal Jordan fans felt like?

JUSTICE LEAGUE: CRY FOR JUSTICE #7
On Sale February 24 • 7 of 7 • 40 pg, FC, $3.99 US
Written by James Robinson • Art and cover by Mauro Cascioli
This is the big one! After the catastrophes seen in issues #5 and #6, a hero loses control, leading to an unexpected ending that will fundamentally change the lives of the World’s Greatest Heroes forever. This issue launches a major storyline in the DC Universe and is not to be missed!

The guy has a quiver on his back. Between this and "Black Lantern Green Arrow #30" what the hell is going on with Green Arrow?

We keep hearing that he's a character to watch next year. But I don't have any idea what is supposed to happen. And what's the deal with him being a Black Lantern? Did a black ring somehow regenerate a body from the bits that Parallax didn't use to reconstruct Ollie's body? Or does Green Arrow die in Cry for Justice #7?

Let's talk about this, shall we?

We all know I'm not the biggest Green Arrow fan in the world. In fact, I'm sitting in my study with my dog, and it's still fair to say that I'm not the biggest Green Arrow fan in this room.

But I do enjoy Black Canary/Green Arrow, and how the book has help humanize and redeem him for me. I have always been kind of peeved how his absentee fathering of Connor Hawke has been sloughed over or whitewashed. This most recent issue tackled it head on, and showed that, no matter what anyone else thinks about it, including Connor, Ollie feels guilty about it, and deservedly so. That's once of the most decent, human things done with Green Arrow for some time.

That said, I am cheesed by the hacky plot non-resolution of Connor's shooting. He's not dead. But neither is he alive.

Boo! Hiss! Get off the fence! The only thing in the middle of the road is roadkill!

Honestly, I have no strong feelings about Connor himself. If someone had ever had the guts to make him gay (or stopped a certain someone from preventing him from being gay), I might care more. But they didn't.

Sure, I like him more than I like Ollie, but what human being wouldn't? Connor was calm, loving, fun, competent, etc. But for the most part, I just think of him as another failed "Earth-8" style replacement for a Silver/Bronze Age icon.

He is, however, a GREAT Heroclix figure.

Sadly, I feel that Connor has been offed, at least partly on account of the cruelties of the Dynastic Centerpiece Model (which longtime readers will recognize as one of my pet concepts). DC has been (re-)building a dynasty around Black Canary (Female Counterpart) and Green Arrow (Centerpiece). Red Arrow (Junior Counterpart), Speedy II (Youth Sidekick), Black Lightning (Ethnic Counterpart); they all had a place... .

But Connor didn't. Red Arrow fills the Junior Counterpart slot, and with some 60 years of seniority, isn't easily dislodged from it. Connor literally had no role to fill in the Green Arrow dynasty, once his original role (as replacement Centerpiece) was taken from him.

Personally, I think that's a mistake. One of the slots in the Dynastic Centerpiece Model is the "Black Sheep". I think that's where Connor should have fit in. Not because he's the "naughty" version of Green Arrow. Quite the opposite; Ollie's the jerk, so Connor made a perfect "white sheep", so to speak. In the same way Wonder Woman has a Male Counterpart (Hercules, by they way) in her dynasty rather than the regular Female Counterpart, in the Green Arrow dynasty, Bad Boy Ollie Queen would have a "White Sheep" in his family: Connor Hawke.

Usually he was written that way, too. Why wasn't that enough to warrant keeping him? I guess Judd doesn't read my blog (*Silver Age sob*!).

But setting all that aside: killing him is one thing. Bringing him back from death's door (which has been done several times already) is another. Repairing his body but leaving him brain dead as a result of some absurd "poisoned bullet" macguffin, however, is nothing. Unless Winick goes somewhere fantastic with this (like he did with Ollie getting stabbed in the throat by his bride on his wedding night), it seems like a grand cop-out. Show of hands if you're confident Judd's going to go somewhere fantastic with this...!

Let's see, as I recall the recent storylines for Black Canary and Green Arrow, they've been:

• "Humanize the Series Principal #1 by showing his reaction to losing someone close" story, when Dr. Light & Co. blew up Ollie's house and everyone in it;
• "Humanize the Series Principal #2 by showing her reaction to losing someone close" story, when she thought that the girl, Sin, was dead.
• "Humanize the Series Principal #2 by showing her reaction to losing someone close again", when she seemed to have killed her husband, Ollie.

Was it necessary, wise, or imaginative to follow those immediately with a "Humanize the Series Principal #1 by showing his reaction to losing someone close" story, where Green Arrow loses Connor?

Does Judd really only have one story to tell us? If that's the case... well, I enjoyed it the first three times. Now, it's time for someone else to write a different story... .