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Saturday, May 20, 2006

Musings: Battle For Bludhaven

I'm trying to like Battle for Bludhaven, really I am.

The first was a chaotic mess. The second was interesting though, finally had a notion of who everyone was and what side they were on. The end had those nice twists with Major Force and Captain Atom.

Third's a mess again.

There's too much I think. Too many characters. I can't get connected emotionally to any of them. And I get connected emotionally to pencils I've had for more than a day. So there seems to be something lacking there.

Firebrand and his gang are pretty much standard rabble rousers thus far. No complexity or anything. Freedom's Ring's a little better off, being what seems to be governmental employees who are just trying to do their jobs and have gotten in over their heads.

I can sympathize with that but so far even Phantom Lady hasn't registered as much of a character yet. Human Bomb's moment with the nail was interesting, but still not much of a draw. No one's yet shown the slightest spark of personality for me yet. Even Father Time just seems to be your card carrying scenery-chewing bad guy.

So far, the Atomic Knights are making the best show, even though they're largely nameless and faceless to me. Gardner Grayle has so far made the biggest impression of any character that isn't Phantom Lady's tits. But then he gets little to no screen time in B4B 3.

And then they bring in the Titans. Don't get me wrong, I love the Titans. And Robin is a particular favorite. But in a series with so many new faces, especially ones that will end up, theoretically, Freedom Fighters, it's not a good idea to bring in so many recognizeable characters.

Major Force and Captain Atom were enough really. Thematically, they suit this whole nuclear disaster aftermath/atomic experiment thing. They're both established presences in the DCU but without quite the name recognition factor to completely overpower the characters, and they were still more peripheral. Atom wasn't conscious, Force was the obvious insane villain, the story was in how the newbies reacted to that.

Well, we'll see. This next issue will tell me, basically, if I'm going to be even remotely interested in the new Freedom Fighters.

So far, it's looking like a "No."

Unless they have Grayle. Then I'll think about it.

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