New Comics! The "New 52!" Edition

Justice League #6:  I'm surprised that Johns wrapped up this arc in this issue, given how many irons he seemed to leave in the fire at the end of issue #5.  But, he manages to do it without leaving too many loose ends.  Cyborg uses his connection to the Mother Boxes to open portals to Apokolips, allowing Batman to rescue Superman and the team to return Darkseid to where he belongs.  The only real nagging question I had is that I'm not entirely sure why Cyborg opening the portals takes out Darkseid.  I figure Superman or Green Lantern or someone would have to push him through it, but it appears that merely opening it managed to suck him into it.  I'm not all that well versed in Darkseid lore, so maybe the Boom Tubes activate some sort of energy field that would explain it.  At any rate, I thought Johns did a good job of showing how defeating Darkseid gave the members of the group the credibility they needed vis-a-vis the public.  All in all, it was a decent opening arc, though I'm definitely ready for us to return to the present, such as it is, and see how the team interacts now, with five years' experience under their various utility belts.  I'm intrigued by Johns' decision to re-introduce Pandora so quickly.  If I'm not mistaken, she's the one that essentially ushered in the DCnU at the end of "Flashpoint," so Johns seems to be in the mood to wrap up some loose ends.  So long as it doesn't devolve into some sort of metaphysical nightmare, I'm excited to see where he goes with it.

Superboy #6:  Well, we seem to be getting somewhere.  I was worried that we were going to spend a few dozen issues with Conner being the confused errand boy for N.O.W.H.E.R.E., but he, thankfully, has come to realize that N.O.W.H.E.R.E. might not exactly have his best interests at heart.  His meeting with Supergirl here is interesting.  I'm not sure what her deal is in the DCnU, but I'm pretty sure that the fact that Krypton had some sort of clone war is new.  (It totally might not be.  I've never been much of a "Superman" fan, so I could be totally wrong on this part.  But, it feels new, like something invented to make Conner's identity even more complex, make him worry all the more that he's only a killing machine.)  I'm hoping it means that, after next issue's fight with Rose, we're not that far from Conner joining the Titans and getting on the path to the Conner we all (used to) know and love.  To get there, though, the authors are also going to have to make him sound like Conner again.  When we left Conner, he sounded like your everyday, run-of-the-mill teenager, with occasional moments of excessive introspection.  This guy sounds like he's a Harvard linguistics undergrad who confuses using big words with having deep thoughts.  I can handle the angst, but maybe we can leave the thesaurus at home next time.  It doesn't fit Conner, and it makes me feel all the more disconnected to him.  (Totally on a side note, WTF is the deal with Supergirl's costume?  It's even worse than the problem I mentioned about Psylocke's costume in "X-Men" #25.  I mean, she's essentially wearing a codpiece that appears to be attached to her shirt.  We can't even give the girl underwear?) 

Teen Titans #6:  This issue is pretty solid.  Red Robin hunts down Static at S.T.A.R. Labs, who helps him find a way to keep Kid Flash from essentially vibrating to death, while Bunker and Wonder Girl free Skitter from the control of a psychopath with psionic powers who was trying to use her to help him escape.  It's essentially a one-and-done issue, with the only real immediate effect being Kid Flash getting his new costume, which should regulate his powers from his cell at the Labs.  We also see a hint that Bart is from the future, with the detective who tried to arrest the group after its fight with Superboy revealing that she's not exactly from around here.  The best part of the issue is the fact that Lobdell essentially uses it to continue fleshing out the relationships between the various characters.  Bunker and Wonder Girl both progress nicely here, though Red Robin still seems different from the Tim we used to know.  I'm still a little confused about the deal with Skitter.  We saw her, in her civilian identity, hanging with the gang in issue #4, but, here, Red Robin and Wonder Girl are ready to fight her.  It seemed, to me, to be an odd reaction, given that it was pretty clear that she was there to help them.  Even if they feared she wasn't in control of herself, they seemed to jump quickly to take-down mode.  At any rate, we made some progress in this issue, though I'm still hoping for the day that this series feels like "Teen Titans' and not early episodes of the "Real World."