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?

Mark of Shame - 11/29/07 - Teen Titans #53

I know I'm not the only one that misses days when we didn't get images like this in our comic books, right?

Obviously there's nothing wrong with putting an image like this in a blog post, because any kind on the street could walk into a comic shop, and buy the comic it came out of. But could someone tell me just why imagery like this is needed? I don't personally want to see people I'm supposed to see as super-heroes tearing the heads off of people.

I think this is the point at which I label 'Infinite Crisis' a total failure. Wasn't it supposed to give us back a comic book universe in which superheroes acted like heroes again? Is this what heroes act like, Mr. Didio? And compared to Brad Meltzer's run on Justice League of America, this is restrained.

I understand that there's going to be a level of violence in superhero comics. That's fine... it's expected, and enjoyed. But why do we need such a graphic and bloody image? Can anybody give me a solid reason why it's necessary?

I was hoping to just have a light-hearted talk about Marvel Team-Up #74 (as mentioned yesterday) in which Spider-Man and the cast of Saturday Night Live foil the Silver Samurai. Maybe tomorrow.