Mike Grell Rides Again

I picked up a copy of Young Justice #13 today. Tried to pick it up from the close comic book shop on Wednesday, and they had ZERO copies. (They also never order any Vault Comics. Which is why I seldom go the the close comic book shop.)  And I was feeling pretty anxious when I hit The Great Escape today, two days past Comic Book Day, thinking I might have missed the Mike Grell Variant Cover...and I almost did. There was one copy of the book left on the stands. See above.

And speaking of The Above, isn't that a lovely drawing? The symmetry of the Young Justice figures. The classic "I have underarms!" Warlord pose. It alone was worth $3.99 to me. But there was more: 5 pages drawn by Mike Grell (a 4 page recap of The Warlord's origin with a 2 page spread to round it out and another full one page spread a bit later on). And that's what I was in it for, of course, as I've never had the slightest interest in Young Justice before this. I was also quite happy to see that the Skataris story did not end here, so obviously there will be at least another issue...and probably two or more...and maybe even some more Mike Grell. Hope springs.

Still there is more: because there were 7 pages drawn by Michael Avon Oeming, who is always fucking AWEsome. (There were also ten pages by John Timms, but I don't really know who he is...and, to be honest, he's not my cup of tea. Just wanted you to know that this comic book was more than 12 pages long.)

Still there is more: because this book also had a nice preview of the new Amethyst mini-series. Which didn't actually look great...certainly nowhere close to the Dan Mishkin, Gary Cohn, Ernie Colón days...but hey, at least it's a little bit of a different thing. I'm always up for that.

As for the Young Justice #13 story...well, the Skataris stuff was pretty good. Brian Michael Bendis does a lot better when he's doing literal dialogue (as between two people). In fact, there was even a line between Superboy and The Warlord which made me laugh. But when the story goes back to the rest of the group...well, Bendis just really irritates me when he writes a group conversation. He seems to think that interruptions and non-sequiturs are the way to go, and it just feels really phony. Like a bad actor speaking lines onstage.

So if you want to spend your money here, do it for The Grell.

Oh, speaking of...did you know that DC is releasing an omnibus volume of Grell's Green Arrow work? $105 (Amazon price), 1512 pages. It comes out June 30th, and I have the feeling that I'm going to be needing that.

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