Another Wednesday, another large pile of comics to read!

Comics taught me this week that Superman doesn't steal girlfriends, sometimes it is OK to meet your heroes, Angel is the best worst father and cross promoting is always a good idea.

This week we review Before Watchmen: Nite Owl #1, Angel & Faith #11, Amazing Spider-Man #688 and Justice League #10.

If anyone has any specific titles you'd like me to review here, sound off in the comments. I'll try to get to all I can!

POSSIBLE SPOILERS AHEAD!



The Watchmen prequels continue with Ted Kor-I mean, Daniel Dreiberg, meeting and succeeding his idol, Nite Owl.

This issue starts off really strong. We get to see Daniel's troublesome home life. His abusive father, his retreat into hero worship and his unbridled brilliance.

He is able to track down Nite Owl, and convinces the aging hero to take him on as a side kick. After his father dies, he inherits his fortune and sets out to making the many gadgets and vehicles he's designed over the years.

After Mason retires and Dreiberg becomes the new Nite Owl, he meets the enigmatic Rorschach, things start falling apart for me. The characters, especially Rorschach, don't feel right. They act a bit too goofy and the dialogue becomes way too corny. Also Rorschach uses his "Hurm." quote way to frequently.

All in all this was another solid issue in the prequel-ganza. I really enjoyed the time we spent with Daniel as Hollis's apprentice. This was well handled and it's something we didn't get to see much of in Watchmen so it was ripe for the exploration that a prequel can offer. Unfortunately we get precious little of it. Hopefully now that the origin is out of the way the rest of the series will pick up.



Willow makes the leap from the pages Buffy the Vampire Slayer to Angel & Faith and takes the characters back to America. We get to see some old friends as our protagonists embark on a new adventure.

After showing up on Angel and Faith's doorstep in London she makes a deal with Angel. She can help him restore Giles and he can help her bring magic back to the world. This requires them to return to California to get help from Angel's son Conner.

Along the way we get great character interaction and discover what happened to several of the supporting characters from Angel's TV show.



The amazing Spider-Man just so happens to fight the Lizard in his comic one week before he fights the Lizard in his new movie, The Amazing Spider-Man. Cynicism!

Flashing back and forth from his battle with the Lizard in the sewers and his interactions with Morbius and Mary Jane before the fight, we discover that Morbius has created a cure for Doctor Conners.

The cure however required the desecration of Conner's son's body. This is causing his tenure at Horizon Labs to end, but they all lead a hand to subdue and inject him repeatedly with the cure.

While this seems like a blatant way to weirdly promote the new movie, it made for a solid issue. There's lots of action and it wasn't horribly offensive.



Things go horribly for the fledgling Justice League as their targeted by a new villain, who knows more about them they do.

Batman calls the League together to deal with this new threat. It was really nice seeing these characters interact without some dudes in the room trying to punch them for a change. It makes them feel more well rounded and realistic. It's also neat to see what they know about each other and what they've been able to discern on their own. We also get a glimpse a the budding bromance between Batman and Superman.

We also get to learn quite a bit more about our new antagonist in this issue. I don't think they've given him a super villain name but he sure has some crazy powers. Feeding off their collective emotional pain he is able to incapacitate the whole group.

In the Shazam back up, we're introduced to the new tawny the Tiger as Freddy and Billy start becoming closer. Meanwhile Dr. Sivana unleashes Black Adam on the world.