These days I don’t read too much from DC. I check out things from the Green Lantern neighborhood, the Batman neighborhood, Secret Six and I’m probably the only one mourning the loss of Magog’s solo series. What’s really keeping my attention these days is the Booster Gold section of the DC Universe in Booster Gold and Justice League: Generation Lost.

Let’s go back a second to the days of Countdown to Infinite Crisis. So much has happened since this story that I’ve almost forgotten about how I and many other DC readers had felt when it happened. The big reveal of the comic is that Maxwell Lord, former liaison of Justice League International, is not only evil, but has always been evil and the Booster/Beetle/Fire/Ice version of the Justice League was created to keep the brand from being competent. To prove he’s a jerk, he shoots and kills Ted Kord.

One of the big responses from the fans was how this idea that Max was always evil went against his behavior in Justice League International. One instance brought up is the twelfth issue where it’s revealed that Max has been blackmailed by a super computer called the Construct to betray the team, as the Construct has kept Max from succumbing to several bullet wounds. Max turns against the Construct and destroys it, allowing himself to die in the process. His body is recovered by the League in time and he’s brought to the hospital. There’s a scene between Scott Free and Oberon where they discuss what a great guy Max really is and how Martian Manhunter himself has been doing a full scan of Max’s mind to search for any sort of corruption. The last panel of the issue shows that J’onn had walked into the comatose Max’s hospital room and placed a JLI membership badge in his hands. According to one of the greatest psychics, Max is completely clean.

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40 isn’t a very special number, but we got a lot on the plate this time around anyway, so let’s pretend it matters. Oh, and we also get three doses of Grant Morrison. Well… only two of them count, but whatever.

Amazing Spider-Man #635
Joe Kelly and Michael Lark among others

American Vampire #4
Scott Snyder, Rafael Albuquerque and Stephen King

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Ah, what a world we live in where Booster Gold himself (well, Keith Giffen too, I guess) is the one carrying DC these days. Let’s get with the panels.

Avengers Academy #1
Christos Gage and Mike McKone

Batman #700
Grant Morrison, Tony Daniel, Frank Quitely, Scott Kolins, Andy Kubert and David Finch

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Welcome back for another week. It’s been a pretty damn good week for comics, even with that Rise of Angst miniseries. A really full week, too. Reader Space Jawa sends in one for Ultimate Enemy, which I heard was a pretty big letdown. Sure, it’s going to lead into the next miniseries, but there’s apparently no closure.

Amazing Spider-Man #632
Zeb Wells, Chris Bachalo and Emma Rios

Batman: The Return of Bruce Wayne #2
Grant Morrison and Frazer Irving

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Welcome to a very special Siege/Brian Michael Bendis/Luke Cage/Keith Giffen-themed This Week in Panels. For those of you new to the concept, every week, we take every new comic we’ve read since Wednesday and sum it up with one panel as a way to give you the gist without being entirely spoiler-heavy. hermanos has broken the rule against using full or two-page images as panels, but he writes the non-existent checks, so I’ll let it slide.
(joke’s on Gav, that page from BPRD: King of Fears is the top half of a page and the bottom half are a series of reaction shots. not technically a two-page splash! that’ll be two week’s non-pay for libel. -djdb)

Amazing Spider-Man #631
Zeb Wells, Emma Rios and Chris Bachalo

Astonishing X-Men: Xenogenesis #1
Warren Ellis and Kaare Andrews

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Flying solo again this week, so I’ll toss in last week’s Street Fighter II Turbo, since my shop got it in late.

Booster Gold #31
Dan Jurgens

Brightest Day #0
Geoff Johns, Peter J. Tomasi and Fernando Pasarin

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For those who haven’t noticed or forgot, a nasty storm caused me to lose my cable connection last week and rather than wait a day to post TWiP, I made the dumbass decision to add it onto the next week. Apparently I was too busy to notice that this week was a huge one regardless, making this a gigantic update. Welp, let’s get moving.

The A-Team: Shotgun Wedding #1
Joe Carnahan, Tom Waltz, Stephen Mooney

Amazing Spider-Man #624
Mark Waid, Tom Peyer, Paul Azaceta and Javier Rodriguez

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Absolutely massive set of comics this week. What If: World War Hulk is my pick of the week, even despite the crappy Thor story and the even worse comedy stuff at the end. The main story rocks.

Adventure Comics #5
Geoff Johns, Sterling Gates, Jerry Ordway and Francis Manapul

Batgirl #5
Bryan Q. Miller and Lee Garbett

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Pretty small batch this week. hermanos is busy at that APE thing, so nothing from him. Esther insisted on including the Blue Beetle back-up from Booster Gold #25. Something about the “fangirls running the asylum.”

Batgirl #3
Bryan Q. Miller and Lee Garbett

Booster Gold #25
Dan Jurgens

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I have said that I don’t warm up to new characters easily, and it’s true.  If anything, I find myself hostile to new characters.  Here’s a new person, taking up panels that could easily be devoted to characters that I already like.

Lately I’ve been examining what exactly causes a new character I hate to become someone I like.  It helps when they’re shown to be someone I can understand, but I understand plenty of people I don’t like.

What it comes down to are ‘click’ moments, moment when the character is so fantastic that I’m lifted out of my knee-jerk misanthropy and become a fan.  I haven’t found any particular common thread to these moments, but I’d like to share some with you.

Sasha Bordeaux:  She becomes Batman’s sidekick for a little while.  While sidekicking she meets up with Huntress during a crisis.  Huntress saves her, and snarkily says, “You can thank me later.”  Sasha replies, “Why wait?  Thanks!”  That’s when I began to like her, to cheer her on, and to follow her.  She’s a decent person.  Not a weak person.  Not a soft person.  A strong person with a level enough head not to answer rudeness with rudeness.  She exemplified the strategy of turning the other cheek.  In Gotham.  That takes some doing.

Cheshire:  In the Villains United miniseries, Mockingbird threatens to kill her child in order to keep her on the team.  Her strategy?  Immediately betray the team.  Oh, and sleep with a man to get pregnant so she can ‘replace’ her child.  When the other members rightly point out that his is sociopathic on a level never seen before, she says something like, ‘We were caught and only I managed to cut myself free.  Because I dared.’  Damn.  Just damn.  It’s horrible and it’s fantastic.

Booster Gold:  When he tried to save Ted Kord despite knowing the world would suck because of it.  That’s just self-explanatory.  What?  I’m not made of stone! 

Cassandra Cain and Stephanie Brown:  These two entirely won me over when they spar until both of them vomit and then decide to do it again the next day.  Their friendship is literally my lead-in to both characters.  It features everything I like, people being kind to each other, being loyal, helping each other out, and a broken jaw every now and then.  Really, it’s a chick flick waiting to happen.

Share your own ‘click’ moments, if you have them, below.