I am not a happy camper right now, because every comic book store in striking distance of my sweet little hometown of Richmond, Ky, is sold out of what has routinely been my favorite book on the weeks it has come out: Uncle Sam and the Freedom Fighters. This angst aside, the comic book peace train must keep chugging along and it was a big week in comics with with other things that bear reporting nonetheless.

For instance, the delayed release of the Brave and the Bold #9 written by Mark Waid and drawn by George Perez (though in the hokey team up fashion of book, they both take the title “storyteller”). Following the tradition of the Silver Age book of the same title, the series is composed of storyarcs formed by broadly related team ups of different characters from around the DC Universe that weave together to tell a big story.

Heretofore, the issues in this series had just been composed of one team up (like last month’s the Flash and the Doom Patrol), but Waid and Perez pulled out all the stops in this issue. With the pages of the Book of Destiny swirling out of control in the headquarters of the Challengers of the Unknown, an ally of the “Challs” peers into three scenes from across DC history all related by the involvement of the mysterious Megistus. She sees a Silver Age era team up between the Metal Men and the protagonist of the classic Dial H for Hero to fight a dragon bellowing the name of Megistus, a team up of the Golden Age Boy Battalion and the Blackhawks who do battle with Nazis and reanimated mummies working for Megistus in Egypt for the Orb of Ra, and a contemporary team up between Hawkman and the new Atom, Ryan Choi, who fight a supervillain also working for Megistus.

This issue would have been my pick for this week only because of ambition and the inclusion of the Dial H for Hero concept, something that is totally underplayed, if not for the Boy Battalion/Blackhawks team up. I can’t stand military comics (except for those delectable Devil’s Due G.I. Joe/Transformers team ups) and the inaneness of the Boy Battalion made the middle third of the book almost unreadable for me.

What I do love though is Adam Beechen and Justin Gray’s Countdown to Adventure. We got issue 5 of 8 this week as the Adam Strange and Animal Man/Starfire stories have started to weave together. We learn that the infected San Franciscans, among which is Animal Man’s son, can be cured by intense blasts of sunlight, like those that can be produced like Starfire when she has her powers, which she realizes can be restored by the planet Rann’s triple suns. Meanwhile over on the planet Rann, Adam Strange is figuring out how to work the Zeta Beam transportation device. Hmm… I wonder what’s going to happen in the next issue! Beechen’s section of the story closes with Animal Man being identified by aliens as the carrier of the virus running wild in San Francisco and being taken off for dissection. LoL… the Animal Man is going to be dissected. How clever. Can’t wait to see him escape. Over in Justin Gray’s section of the story the Forerunner is rescued from the cold void of space by interstellar good Samaritans and she manages to commandeer a pirate ship that is being chased by Thanagarian authorities. If I remember correctly, Thanagar and Rann are now in the same star system. Perhaps this seemingly unrelated tale will tie in with Beechen’s in some unexpected way.

Over in Countdown #18 (above), the other Challengers of the Unknown have finally found Ray Palmer. The issues ends with a shocking turn of events which shows the Monitors may not have been as divided as the reader was supposed to think they were. You can get more details over at Newsarama.

Finally, my Pick of the Week is Green Lantern #26. I can’t really believe I’m enjoying a book that is primarily about Silver Age Green Lantern Hal Jordan this much. However, as I’ve said before Geoff Johns is just the man. He creates some great tense and tragic moments in this issue and a fun interlude about Jordan’s sex life. I really loved the pathos in the scene where after Sinestro tells Jordan that he was one of two Green Lanterns he had ever considered a friend during his time in the corps, Jordan tells Sinestro that since the Guardians of the Universe have enacted their new law of lethal force, Sinestro is going to be executed. It was a wonderful scene in a wonderful issue.

Next week, there’s not a whole lot coming out that I’m interested in, so I may just drool about the issue of Uncle Sam and the Freedom Fighters that my man at the comic book store is going to track down for or I might talk about trade paperbacks and hardcovers that amateurs should check out. In any event, Happy New Years everyone. Peace.

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