Hiya Folks! John Sitton here. I'm sure by now you've listened to the newest episode of Staple Pop. If not, I suggest going to listen to it right now. It's a good listen. If you have listened to it, then you know that it was seriously lacking my presence. Did this hurt the episode? Did this help the episode? I don't know, however after listening to it I severly wish I was there! Why wasn't I there? I had prior commitments, sadly. Will most likely not be there next week due to the X-mas holidays. Sorry to dissapoint, folks. However not wanting to leave you without a nice big helping of the Sitton experience...I give you this here blog post. I know it's not the same as listening to my sexy voice on the podcast...but I'll try to misspell a few words here and there to give you that sense of me misspronouncing things.
Now before going any further, I do want to say that I'm going to talk about multiple topics...some of these topics may contain spoilers for comics that came out this last week. Some of these comics were discussed on the last show. So, if you want to avoid them...don't read this and go read your comics. If you've read your comics this week or don't care about spoilers, read on. So let's jump on in and get our hands dirty, shall we?
First up, let's talk about Green Lantern this week. It's the BIG FINALE to The Sinestro Corps War. For that big finale we got 3 awesome comics. We got Green Lantern 25 ending the actual story, then we get Tales of The Green Lantern Corps: Ion One Shot offering some insight to the future of Ion, and finnaly there's Green Lantern Corps 19 offering the Epiloge to the whole thing. I have to agree with Tim's comments on this weeks show. This is probably THE best event DC has done in a while. Geoff Johns knows how to write a comic. He knows how to plant the seeds of the future and how to get the fans drooling enough on the thought of those seeds to help water them and cause them to blossom with awesome. Honestly, I don't think anyone has done anything this amazing with Green Lantern since editor Julius Schwartz decided to reinvent the character and make him a space cop back in Showcase 22 back in 1959. (That was a story written by John Broome with art by Gil Kane, for anyone who cares.) I'm serious. Johns is doing things in this book on a level that I don't think I've ever seen before with any character. If you decided to skip the whole Green Lantern event for whatever reason...you owe it to yourself to track each issue down, or at the very least buy the eventual trade release. All I know is that I hope that when they do release the trade, I hope it contains everything in chronological order. By this I mean, all of Green Lantern, Green Lantern Corps, and the Tales of the Sinestro Corps Specials. I know I would buy the shit out of a nice big hardcover collection of this whole thing. The thought of it makes my pants a bit tighter. I digress, though.
In the Story of Green Lantern 25 it all ends, and of course the Green Lanterns win the day. Sinestro is captured, the Anti-Monitor is defeated, and we get a nice view of what's to come down the road. We get some more of the "The Blackest Night" Prophecy that was in the book of Oa. We learn of the fact that there are other colored lanterns out in the universe. We learn that some of the choices made by the Guardians to win the war may have only solidified that the events of the prophecy will come to pass. It's some wild and crazy stuff. I'm excited. You should be, too. We even get a view of events that are supposed to happen in 2009. Holy shit...this stuff is going to go on for that long? I am a happy man. I'm bouncing off the walls happy. Of interesting note, on the show Tim mentioned the Black Lanterns. I want to point out something here. Go look at the rings on that page. Notice the symbol on it? Seem familiar? It should. It's the symbol of the Black Hand. You know, that character that Johns briefly touched on in Green Lantern Rebirth, and then briefly touched on again later in the GL run...sadly I forget the issue. In his last appearance he started to have a very zombie like appearance and has the ability to consume the life force of the living. In the preview of what's to come in 2009, we see the Black Lantern rings going to the dead. WOW. That could be cool. When Johns first brought the Black hand up in Rebirth and the brought him back again in the pages of GL, it seemed like no big deal. Like he was a throw away character that Johns was using to fill pages. However, we did get an action figure of this character and Johns had even made comments on how he was an important character to look out for in the pages of GL. I had no idea until now. Just amazing. I hope Geoff Johns NEVER leaves this book.
Next in Tales of the Green Lantern Corps: Ion, we get to see the fate of Kyle Rayner and the new Ion, Sodam Yat. Not too much to talk about here. We find that after his battle with Superbo-um...erm...Superman Prime, Sodam Yat is having doubts about himself. So the Guardians tell Kyle to go help him out. They end up fighting a loose end named Alex Nero. Now I originally kinda liked the idea of Nero. He was an artist type like Kyle, however he was crazy and evil. He was in a sense to Kyle what Sinestro is to Hal. However now he's been bumped down to more of a neusence than anything and the writers don't know what to do with him as a villain. Really, they could have replaced his character with someone else, and it wouldn't have mattered. He was a throw-a-way character here. However in the end Kyle helps Sodam Yat get past his worries, and moves on with his life. We also find out that Kyle's new position in the Corps is on the Honor Guard. This is a sect of GLs that previous to this issue only had 1 member...Guy Gardener. So in a sense Guy and Kyle are Partners now. I'm ok with this. Plus it gives reason as to why he's now appearing in Countdown: The Search For Ray Palmer. The Honor Guard isn't set to protect any specific sector of the galaxy or anything. The Honor Guard is the Guardian's personal task force. They go where the guardians tell them. Plus it's nice to see that the ranks of the Guard are growing, even if that number only went from 1 to 2.
To wrap up the Green Lantern love fest that's going on, we move on to Green Lantern Corps 19. It's some good stuff. We get to see how everyone is adjusting now that the Corps War is over (for now anyways). New York has been repaired, Kyle sets up his new life back on earth, Guy tries to rekindle his relationship with Ice, and Kilowog gets some R&R. Some lanterns mourn those lost in battle, while others celebrate the fact that they are still alive. We also see that while beaten, the Sinestro Corps is still alive and will come back. Oh and Mongul gets a Sinestro ring. Holy fuck, is all that needs to be said about that. Can't wait for the next issue.
Me being a HUGE GL fan...I'm a happy camper, and from where I'm sitting, things can only get better!
About the only book that contains a GL character that I'm disappointed in would be Countdown: The Search for Ray Palmer. This book features the characters of Donna Troy, Jason Todd, A Monitor with the name Bob, and my favorite Green Lantern Kyle Rayner. The book features these characters hopping around the multiverse searching for Ray Palmer. Why? Not sure, but according to Bob The Monitor, Ray Palmer is essential to the future of the Multiverse. No clue what that means as Bob ain't saying more than that. The latest issue features them in the world of Superman: Red Son. For those that may not be aware, Red Son is the Elseworlds tale written by Mark Millar where Superman ended up landing in Russia instead of the U.S. It's a damn good story, and I highly recommend you go find the trade and read it if you haven't. However in concerns with this issue specifically....ug. With each issue of The Search For Ray Palmer I care less and less for the book. It honestly seems to be going no where. It's only purpose seems to be "Hey look kids, we're making X Elseworlds title one of the 52 worlds in our Multiverse! Get Excited!" However I can't get excited because 9 times out of 10, the stories in this series haven't been that great. It's sad that I'm actually considering dropping the book at this point. So far DC has not been able to get me excited about any book with the the word "Countdown" in the title. It's sad since all these books are supposed to lead into the big event, Final Crisis. How am I supposed to care about your big event if I you can't make me care about the books that lead into it?
In other news...let's talk movie trailers. Have you seen the Speed Racer Trailer? Oh...man. I'm in love with it. It's honestly like watching a live action anime. Go check it out:
http://movies.aol.com/movie/speed-racer-2008/28066/main
Let me know what you think. I think it looks amazing. I also like the fact that they are doing a continuation of the series. I think it looks good. I think it looks like a really good family friendly film. Plus Mathew Fox just oozes Racer X in those few scenes he's in.
Another trailer that's out that I'm a bit more excited about happens to be THE DARK NIGHT. The new trailer was released over the weekend. It was shown with the movie I Am Legend. If you haven't seen it yet, Go view it at:
http://www.atasteforthetheatrical.com/
All I can say is HOLY SHIT that looks awesome. I can't believe that's Heath Ledger. I think it looks better than Batman Begins, which is honestly my favorite Batman movie outside of Mask of The Phantasm. Heath looks like he's pulling a little bit of Joker from every incarnation, while at the same time adding a bit of flare of his own. Right now this trailer looks like one movie no comic fan is going to want to miss.
In video game news....Rock band is the greatest game ever. End of story, nuff said.
And it looks like that's all I have for you. Hopefully that will tide you all over until I'm back on the show.
I'm John Sitton and this has been a blog version of The Sitton Spin
-P to the E to the A to the C to the E OUT!