Brandon Borzelli's Geek Goggle Weekly Rankings For 01/14/09

Here are this week’s comics ranked prior to reading them:

3. GI Joe #1
2. Action Comics #875
1. Green Lantern Corps #32

I passed on the Obama Spider-Man team up because it was only a five page story in the back. I also passed on Final Crisis #6 because it appeared Batman’s final adventure wasn’t the bulk of the issue.

Here are the rankings after the first read through with a mini-review:

3. GI Joe #1

Dixon & Atkins

The reboot is upon us. This issue does a couple of things great. It constantly uses names. There aren’t a ton of characters in the book, but those in it are mentioned by name enough to establish their look and feel immediately. The issue takes a couple of characters, namely Duke, Scarlett and Beachhead, and breaks out their personalities and provides some base to build upon later for their interactions with each other. Lastly we have some drips of a larger plot that is slowly unfolding. The issue is a lot of fun. It doesn’t really feel like a reboot to me. It actually just feels like the Joes have been away since the 80s and were found out in the desert somewhere. The potential in this series is boundless at this point.

2. Action Comics #873

Johns, Woods, Guedes & Magalhaes

New Krypton wraps up with a decent battle, some drama and some nice epilogues. I wasn’t thrilled to see Luthor not really play a big role in the finale, but I liked how the problems with the Kandor people are resolved. I kind of wanted to see a big blowup between Superman and his Aunt, but this keeps threads open for later. It’s pretty good, but the epilogues stole the issue. Superman’s villains are out there and there are more than he even realizes as we see in two of the epilogues. The artwork in the whole series has felt dull in color and flat in its look. Whether it was by design or not, I wasn’t a fan of it. As a side note, wasn’t Faces of Evil supposed to be stories told from the villain’s perspective? If that’s the case then I’d say this missed the mark here, but maybe I missed the point of FOE.

1. Green Lantern Corps #32

Tomasi, Gleason & Buchman

Kryb fights for the Lantern couple’s baby. Kyle breaks out of her spell and rallies the troops. However, a Sapphire shows up to throw a wrench in the works. All of this and the Guardians throw the switch on banning love and relationships in the Corps. The issue packs a lot in it and it tells a tight story with emotion, character interaction and a nice fight. The ending gives the Guardians something to think about with their new laws as it seems to have backfired somewhat. This title is really doing a great job of telling great stories and still building up to the big Blackest Night event. This was a very good issue in a very good arc.