Green Arrow: Year One. By Andy Diggle

So with my birthday having just past and Christmas coming up, I will be getting an influx of new comic books.  One of the books I received for my birthday was Green Arrow: Year One.  Having read batman year one, I though that would be a good launching point for green arrow.  I knew a little bit about Oliver Queen before reading this.  I already knew he was a good friend the Hal Jordan (the Green Lantern), I knew he was rich, his dad died, and he was stranded on an island for several years.  Also, the CW has come out with a show called Arrow, that is supposed to be the green arrow story, just like Smallville was the superman story.  I already knew I liked the idea of Oliver Queen because of his run in's with Hal Jordan.  As an origin story it was fun.  But for whatever reason it just didn't grab me.  Maybe because this origin has different elements compared to the CW's show Arrow.  In the show Oliver is basically a useless human being.  No skills, no guts.  But in this origin, he already knew how to use a bow and use it well.  One of the things I had a hard time with in this book was the passage of time.  Either I just didn't pick it up or they did a poor job of portraying that, but I couldn't tell how long Oliver was supposed to have been on the island before he finally comes into contact with people.  Is it like the title says... one year or like the show, five years.  Though not a bad book, it just didn't grab me.  With Green Arrow being somewhat of a cheesy robin hood knockoff character and a second tier DC character, I was hoping for something more.  This book is just ok.  If something hasn't already drawn you to find out more about Green Arrow, I wouldn't pick this one up.

Captain America Omnibus, Volume 1. By Ed Brubaker

This was fantastic.  After reading this, it made me think of a line from the Avengers movie were Tony Stark is mad and tell's Steve Rogers that the only thing special about him came out of a bottle.  That couldn't be further from the truth.  Steve Rogers is one of those larger then life men.  Not because he is a chemically enhanced super soldier, but  because he is a man with a strong moral compass, personal conviction, and can properly act on his emotions.  One of the reasons Steve Rogers was chosen to be Captain America was because of his quality of character.  This large omnibus covers the first 25 issues of Ed Brubakers run of Captain America.  The art was excellent and extremely consistent throughout the entire book.  The Winter Soldier story was probably my favorite in the entire book and (re)introduces a character I can't wait to watch develop.  Another thing I really enjoyed about Captain America was that he truly is the man out of time.  He brings a certain point of view and value system from days gone by.  He isn't just a pawn for the U.S. government.  He is the embodiment of the idea of America.  One of the things he said that made me think was that sometimes freedom comes at a cost of security.  We as a nation now fight that.  Are we willing to give up more and more freedoms in the name of security or do we value our freedom more where we will sacrifice some security for it?  This book was difficult to find and with another Captain America movie coming out in 2014, the price will only go up.  If you can find this at a reasonable price, pick it up, you won't regret it.

Batman: Sword of Azrael. By Dennis O'Neil

I picked up this book after reading several reviews saying that if you could find it, it was a good prequel to the Knightfall story line. (Bane)  This book easily goes for $30 or more online, but I found it in my local comic shop for under $10.  Couldn't pass that up.  I had no idea who Azrael was before this. But come to find out, the concept of an Azrael type character is a really cool idea.  It is almost a parallel idea to Batman.  The Azrael character and the order of St Dumas are very interesting and mysterious and really fit well in the the Batman mythos.  For a 20 year old story the art was very good.  As a stand along four part series it's pretty good, but I think the true test will be how it leads up to the Knightfall series once I'm able to read through it.

The Ultimates 2: Ultimate Collection. By Mark Millar

I just finished The Ultimates 2.  Again Marvel's Ultimate series is an out of continuity story that reimagines many of the characters in the Marvel universe.  Mark Millar takes a much more realistic approach to the characters and tries to fit them into a more realistic world.  One of the examples of that is the design of the iron man suit.  Mark always wondered how Tony could fit his nose into the helmet, so he had Bryan Hitch draw him with space for a nose in the helmet. Anyways, in this book no character is safe. The twists, the turns, everyone is a suspect for being a trader.  Without spoiling the plot, the Ultimates team battles an international terrorist group of super soldiers, while trying to find out who their own double agent is.  Towards the end of the book, there is a beautiful 8 to 10 page pull out drawing of the final epic battle.  The art is gorgeous.  If you're looking for a change of pace marvel story, check out the Ultimates 2.

Green Lantern Corps: Sins of the Star Sapphire. By Pete Tomasi

With the Sinestro Corps war having ended, we are still surrounded by yellow lanterns and dealing with aftermath of having new rings around.  We also get a new third law change to the book of Oa and it is solely dealing with a problem the guardians see and "fix it" in a completely inappropriate way.  Between the green lantern series and the green lantern corps series we have already been introduced to the red, orange, yellow, green, blue and violet lanterns leading up to the blackest night.  We do not find out about indigo until the blackest night.  A new corps, the Star Sapphires emerges, from the Zamarons, immortal being who split from the guardians millennia ago since they believe in the power of love (cue Huey Lewis and the News) to heal while guardians believe solely in will power and reject all others of the emotional spectrum.  One of the more disturbing stories in this book revolved around Yellow Lanter Kryb and the collection of green lanterns children.  If you really liked Blackest Night or want to know every piece of info prior to reading it, this book is worth while.