Comics this week

Batman/Doc Savage Special #1- One of the strangest things to come out of the great 52 weekly series was the lack of stories about the 52 worlds. I mean if DC was going to return the multi-verse back to the DC fold, you would expect DC to have some stories lined up about the various 52 worlds right? Better late than never I guess as Brian Azzarello's First Wave series is going to see print in 2010. As a kickstart, Batman/Doc Savage Special was the right vehicle to introduce readers to the new world. I enjoy how they manage to get Batman into a world without superpowers. In most instances, Batman would be nothing but a way to put readerships; however in this case it worked beautifully. I enjoyed the way Azzarello tweaked the Doc Savage character into the superman of this world. No superpowers but he is the perfect man thus making Doc the Superman to Bruce Wayne’s Batman. It was a cute move. The story itself was nothing much but Azzarello did a good job introducing the world…which is what the issue is mainly for. I must say I was very surprised at how enjoyable this one-shot was; a good intro issue for the First Wave that will leave you asking for more.

S.W.O.R.D. #1- S.W.O.R.D. is an agency that defend Earth from threats from outer space. The idea was great and it clearly deserved a series of its own. Agent Abigail Brand has always been an underused character. I mean she’s a half-alien, half-human ice queen with a heart of gold. What’s there not to like about that? What I don’t like is the introduction of Beast into S.W.O.R.D. I never bought the relationship between the two and I feel the series would have been better if we had less Beast and more of the other supporting characters like Henry Gyrich and Lockheed. Good start to a series with potential.