Two great tastes...

It seems like it has been raining everywhere in America recently (especially in Texas), and no exception here, which means it has been a great time to read comics!

If you remember from my previous post, Detective Comics #848 was delayed by Diamond to my local shop, so I had to wait a week. I am a huge fan of Batman, and Paul Dini has been doing great things in Detective since the One Year Later leap after the Crisis Whatever. (Too many crises for my taste) In my opinion, Paul Dini and Batman are a pairing that produces tastier results than peanut butter and jelly, steak and potatoes, or BBQ wings and Yuengling Lager. He has been going through a process of re-inventing many of Batman's villains, essentially blowing out the cobwebs and making for some exciting and twisted new stories.

This issue is supposedly a tie-in with the Batman R.I.P. storyline that I also have not been following. In the midst of a 5 part Hush story, the first two parts have not been all that interesting. The pieces were being set up, we learned a little more about Hush's past, but all that has been generally mundane. The very fact that it is a 5-parter, while for the past year Dini has been producing great stand alone and two-parters, makes me pine for a return to the previous formula.

That being said, this issue contains part 3 of Heartstrings, and Dini really puts the hammer down in some freaky ways. We find out that Hush is up to his old tricks, hiring old adversaries to distract Batman while Hush himself sets his various wheels in motion. In this instance, Scarecrow lures Bats to a cave where he has kidnapped a 10 year old boy. The boy, Colin, had been in therapy for paranoia and violent tendencies. Crane has viciously hooked the boy up to a system much like Bane uses, and gives him a shot of the Venom drug, turning Colin into a hulking monster. We get to see the more manipulative side of the Scarecrow that Dini has been cultivating up to this point, using an orphaned paranoid child as a weapon that Batman cannot fight back against.

Meanwhile, Hush has kidnapped Catwoman for his own nefarious plans, which are yet to be revealed. He leaves her mutilated in a very sci-fi monster movie way, but in a way that sends the message to Bruce that he will never be allowed to love as long as Hush is around.

Dini has twisted this arc around, and now I'm looking forward to where it will eventually end up.

Meanwhile, in Secret Invasion #6...

The proverbial poo is hitting the proverbial fan in the Marvel Universe. Thor makes his appearance in the main book, and is none too happy, (I'm sure we will learn more about this in Secret Invasion: Thor...) and the remnants of the Avengers have scraped themselves together just in time to face down a crap-load of Skrulls. Three great things from this issue and one question:

1) The protester-kids who are enamored with the Skrulls and their policy of change. (one of the kids is kind of set on fire by a Skrull, by the way)

2) The arrival of Thor and his asking of the new Captain America, "Who are you supposed to be?" To which Cap-Bucky replies, "Who do I look like?"

3) The "ASSEMBLE!" splash page gives me chills a little.

?) GalactuSkrull. Really? I can't tell if that is totally awesome or...um...not. Feel free to weigh in on this. I got nothing.