Wednesday, June 11, 2008

Sightings - A Rant




It seems like only yesterday that DC's editorial staff told it's readers that special books with something important would carry this special 'SIGHTINGS' banner, and that within those issues would be something the readers would want to see. My personal understanding of the concept was that when something big enough to reflect notice in the DC Universe at large happened, this banner would appear on the cover of the book, so that fans would know to look. It's a good idea.


In my opinion, it's been misused completely in the two books I know of that have carried it.


Justice League of America, Vol. 2 #21 carried thie banner. What happened in Justice League #21? Libra recruited a loser criminal called the Human Flame for his new incarnation of the Secret Society, or Injustice League, or whatever they're deciding to call the faceless mass of supervillains for this Crisis. And I guess they beat up a few Leaguers doing it. Well... was there anything in this mess that wasn't covered by the first issue of Final Crisis? Not that I'm aware of. By comparison, Final Crisis #1 did not carry the 'SIGHTINGS' banner, and in that issue they killed a prominent mainstay of the Justice League. That would seem slightly more important to me.


Action Comics #866 arrived in stores today, and once again, another book bearing the banner. I've been steadfastly ignoring Geoff Johns' run on Action Comics for several reasons, so once again... a book that I wouldn't have normally read has a banner telling me something important is happening. It's a light week, so I nibble. I don't see anything noteworthy in the title, except that Johns is now apparently re-telling or re-imagining Brainiac's pre-Crisis history. (For the sake of further spoilage, I won't go into it here, but Wikipedia sums it up nicely.) Where's the landmark event in this book that makes it a must-read? Could someone please tell me?

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