Green Arrow and associates Comixology sale

Apologies for the long wait between posts.  Life has been rather busy lately.  I'm afraid I cannot give you a full review tonight, but I will point you towards another comixology sale, this time it is themed around the Arrow TV show.

Oliver Queen is known in comics as Green Arrow and I believe the TV show brings in a lot of other DC characters.  There are 166 issues in the sale, here are what I think are the best.  All links take you to the first issue in the story arc.  The sale runs for 7 days from 25th March.

Comixology - Black History Month

February is Black History Month in America so Comixology, sellers of digital comics, are doing sales throughout the month of key comics with black characters.  This week's spotlighted titles are all DC issues:
Green Lantern 182-188 - introducing John Stewart, the first Black Green Lantern.
Green Lantern 14 -17 - starting John Stewart's excellent Mosaic story.
The Mosaic maxi series (12 issues) itself.
The new-52 Mr Terrific series.

I would recommend the Green Lantern titles over the Mr Terrific ones.  There are a few key DC titles they haven't yet included but I hope to see on sale over the next month.  These are:
Black Lightning Year One
Vixen - Return of the Lion
Suicide Squad - Trial by Fire

All issues are 99 cents (about 60 pence in English money) and can be read on your device of choice - ipad, tablet, iphone, android phone, laptop, pc, apple mac etc.

We have covered many comics with black characters, and you can see all entries here.  We've also done spotlight blogs on characters of colour in superhero and non superhero comics.  The final entry, which lists all previous entries, is here.

JL8

Little League
JL8

A webcomic by Yale Stewart

http://jl8comic.tumblr.com/

Edit - Since writing this review the comic has changed it's name from Little League to JL8.  Info in post is now updated.

What's it about?
JL8 is an all ages webcomic that takes DC’s premier superhero team, the Justice League of America, de-ages them, and places them in primary school. They attend in costume, and in character, bicker, make friends and encounter vile adversaries such as PE teacher Darkseid!

( From strip #18)

It’s a very simple idea, executed very well. 

Justice League #1

Writer: Geoff Johns
Pencils: Jim Lee
Inker: Scott Williams
Colorist: Alex Sinclair
Letterer: Patrick Brosseau
Publisher: DC Comics

Regular cover on the left, variant cover on the right.  We recommend you buy the regular cover so you can avoid looking at a deformed and pin headed Wonder Woman.  The inside of the comic is exactly the same, just the cover is different.

What's it about?
It's the introduction to the new DC Universe.  In an attempt to boost sales and attract new readers to their books, DC Comics have recently undergone a relaunch.  Lovely, this is just the sort of initiative we approve of at New readers...start here!

The story is set 5 years in the past, at a time when the Justice League, DC Comics' premier team of superheroes, is just forming.  It is part of an ongoing story arc, which will probably be spread out over 5 or 6 issues.  This means this issue is just the first part of the story.  Apart from that I will tell you nothing else as it's only 26 pages long and I want to avoid spoilers.

Seen the movie? Read the book - Thor and Green Lantern

You may have noticed a few high profile superhero films coming out this year.  A month or so ago we had Thor, Marvel comics' favourite Norse god.  A few weeks ago we had Green Lantern, DC's favourite space cop.  Hopefully you enjoyed the films and now want to read some of the comics.  Well, we've got some suggestions for you.

Characters of Colour in superhero comics - the men (part one)

Following on from our previous post about good women characters of colour within superhero comics, we come to the second post, about male characters of colour.

Firstly, an explanation of the label system. 

On the blog we label all our posts with CoC for Characters of Colour if the character has a significant role in the book.  You can view all posts tagged with this label here, this includes the independent comics.

Don’t forget our manga reviews.  Most of our manga is set in Asian countries so the default ethnicity becomes Asian and there are very few white people in the books.  As such we won't list any manga titles in this post.  Independent and manga comics will be covered in another post.

Wednesday Comics

Credits:
BATMAN: Brian Azzarello and Eduardo Risso
ADAM STRANGE: Paul Pope, Neil Gaiman andMichael Allred
THE DEMON AND CATWOMAN: Walter Simonson and Brian Stelfreeze
DEADMAN: Dave Bullock and Vinton Heuck
KAMANDI: Dave Gibbons and Ryan Sook
SUPERMAN: John Arcudi and Lee Bermejo
WONDER WOMAN: Ben Caldwell
GREEN LANTERN: Kurt Busiek and Joe Quiñones
TEEN TITANS: Eddie Berganza and Sean Galloway
SUPERGIRL: Jimmy Palmiotti and Amanda Conner
HAWKMAN: Kyle Baker
SGT. ROCK: Adam Kubert and Joe Kubert
THE FLASH: Karl Kerschl and Brenden Fletcher
METAL MEN: Dan DiDio and Ian Churchill
Publisher: DC Comics

What's it about?
14 different short superhero stories, each one told over 14 pages and collected in an oversized, hardback book of 200 pages. All stories are out of continuity, fresh one off narratives that require absolutely no previous knowledge of the character or the DC Universe. It's sort of a love letter to comics through the decades, with the creators kicking back, having fun and developing something that can stand alone in an attempt to show the true essence of each character.

Blackest Night

Blackest Night
Writer: Geoff Johns
Pencils: Ivan Reis
Inkers: Oclair Albert, Julio Ferreira, Robert Hunter, Joe Prado
Colorist: Alex Sinclair
Cover Artists: Rodolfo Migliari, Ivan Reis
Letters: Nick J. Napolitano
Publisher: DC Comics

What's It About?
Zombies, or, more specifically, "Black Lanterns," risen dead who have come back to fight the entire pantheon of DC's superheroes.  Blackest Night was DC's summer 2009 crossover (a story spanning several comic book titles).  Most exciting for long-time fans was the chance to see dead superheroes and villians brought back to "life," which lead to speculation about which ones would remain in the living.  This crossover was unique among crossoevers in that it centered around the Green Lantern Corps.  This trade collects the "main" story relating to Blackest Night, collecting Blackest Night issues 1-8, plus a special issue, Blackest Night: Director's Cut.

Green Lantern: No Fear

Green Lantern: No Fear, 2005

Writer: Geoff Johns

Pencillers: Simone Bianchi, Darwyn Cooke, Carlos Pacheco, Ethan Van Sciver

Inkers: Simone Bianchi, Darwyn Cooke, Jesus Merino, Prentis Rollins, Ethan Van Sciver

Colorists: W. Moose Baumann, Nathan Eyring, Dave Stewart

Letterers: Jared K. Fletcher, Rob Leigh

Cover Art: Alex Ross

Publisher: DC

What's It About? 
Green Lantern: No Fear marked the start of a new ongoing Green Lantern series, and it collects issues 1-6 of the new title, plus a special issue, Green Lantern: Secret Files and Origins.

Prior to this new Green Lantern series, Hal Jordan, Earth's most prominent Green Lantern, had become a villian, died, and was brought back to life as The Spectre.  But you don't need to worry about any of that to enjoy this book.

Green Lantern/Green Arrow volume one

Writer: Dennis O’Neil
Pencils: Neal Adams
Inks: Neal Adams, Dick Giordano, Frank Giacoia, Dan Adkins and Berni Wrightson
Colours: Cory Adams and Jack Adler
Publisher: DC Comics

What’s It About?
Hal Jordan is the Green Lantern: a sort of outer space policeman dedicated to enforcing law and order on Earth and in surrounding space with a ring that can create any construct he can imagine. Oliver Queen is Green Arrow: once rich, now poor, he fights on the streets for the underdog armed only with his bow and arrow and a ready wit.

Forced to question his faith in authority, Hal begins a journey to discover the “real” spirit of America with Ollie as his guide. Accompanied by one of Hal’s superior officers, the immortal Guardian, they set off in a battered pick-up truck to cross the country and reconnect Hal with his own species after so long out in space.