Thanks to my brother I’ve had the opportunity lately to read through a whole bunch of DC comics that I was interested in. I used to be a hardcore Marvel fan but they lost me years ago. I was never really a DC fan since I only had the Superman and Batman movies to go on and, well, meh. Heck, I even saw the Supergirl movie! Over the past summer my brother was extolling the virtues and pure win that is Batman so he lent me everything I needed to see what the heck he was talking about. I now <3 DC. I do tend to prefer the one-shots, even if continuity be damned, since I'm one of those weird people that like stories to be resolved once in a while. 'Once in a while' constituting a period of less than several years. Granted, many of the short series I have been reading leave things pretty open-ended themselves and I do wish they were continued but there's only so many variants of a certain character that you can have running at a certain time without people losing their minds.

Ok, the rest of this post may contain massive spoilers for the comic series I’ve been reading. Don’t say you weren’t warned! None of them are terribly recent but I don’t want to ruin anything for people who wait until the trades are published to do their catching up. That and I’m not up to writing epic recaps of the stories I’ve read to bring people up to speed so it’ll sound like random pieces that don’t mean anything out of context!

Cassandra Cain is awesome. I love her. I love that picture on the wiki page, too. It’s actually in a Batgirl theme I have running on my PS3 these days. Thus, I hate what ended up happening to her character. Boo. I’ve only read up to issue 73: The End of Batgirl but I know that Cain doesn’t just hang up the cape, she gives it to the presently non-dead Spoiler. I like Spoiler and all (having only read a little about the short-lived Robin tenure) but it just seems like such a weird and random thing to do with my present information. There’s a lot of hate for the new Batgirl costume but I don’t mind it at all. Cain had the wickedest look but it wouldn’t suit Stephanie/Spoiler at all. I do question the wisdom of showing the hair though. This isn’t the 80s/90s anymore.

I REALLY need to track down the rest of the series to see what the hell happened that pushed her away from the symbol she swore she loved more than Batman and back towards the League of Assassins. And there’s something about her, as Batgirl, with Titans East and hanging out some more with Stephanie. I really have no idea and I’m trying to avoid wiki spoilers. I love wikipedia. I just have to be careful with looking up comic stuff since it’s easy to get lost in there for hours. It’s just like TV Tropes that way. So good but so dangerous when you are trying to be productive!

Meh. Turns out that Supergirl is a moron. I read from 00 to 23 and that’s it for me. Especially after reading Super: New Krypton I’m wondering how she manages to dress herself. Not a fan even though I really wanted to be. At least when I read my dad’s old comics she was really smart. This one couldn’t even hold down a secret identity for more than, what, was it only a single issue or two? I really can’t remember. The one thing that the Supergirl comics did for me what that it introduced me to Power Girl and I really like her. Supergirl abandoning Kandor was just another nail in the Supergirl coffin for me. Power Girl is still cool though, crazy boobs and all. No idea how I missed her existence before.

There’s a surprising amount of hate for this series. Yes, Batman is depicted as a seriously depraved loony but I really liked the take on the character and his relationship with Robin. In short, I totally loved All Star Batman and Robin the Boy Wonder and I would have liked to see more. I don’t know enough about Black Canary to comment on her portrayal in the series but Barbara Gordon’s batgirl appearance was a nice light bonus.

Oh! And I got to read a whole bunch of JLA classified. Good times. Now, it’s back to work and gaming. I’ve procrastinated long enough so I need to get a video, any kind of video out this week. I haven’t installed my HD gamefootage capturing device on my new machine yet so that’s another thing on my ‘to do’ list. Not to mention getting Fraps or some other solution to show off the PC games I’ve been playing. And how awesome they look on this system ;)

And what I’d give for a game like the FIRST Marvel Ultimate Alliance with DC characters instead!