One reason I didn't get Daredevil (I remember now) is that it looked like I would need the past 2 issues or so to understand what is going on in the current issue.

The Previously gives you a pretty good rundown of what's going on, and officially, it's the second in the latest arc, so only last month's issue is "necessary." And besides, there's me and Jeff.

These seem to be Gail's key points

(Rather surprisingly, I appear to be Gail. Go me! Or, uhh, something.)

Batman: Death in the Family finally arrived!!! I was starting to think that the ebay seller forgot about me. Now I just have to get it from the house tomorrow.

Quickie review the next: Outsiders 14: Between all the Big Doings In The 'verse (not just IC, but also and especially the increasing and doomful sense in all the Bat-titles that something big's a-brewing in preparation for War Games), and the fact that I'm generally left a cold by team titles[*] (they're like the All-Star Game. It's a thing.) and this one is good team vs. bad team, the Fearsome Five business has mostly made me impatient. The American League revives their guys from the dead and breaks them out of prison and goes after the National League and, oh, YAWN.

The good part was Jade's little talk with Dick: Damn, but she kicks ass, and we haven't ever seen enough of her in this title. Want more Jade. And it's an interesting side of Dick, too: He's being accused, and not for the first time in this title, of being the cold and disconnected executive, of not caring enough. Of being, in her words, the hard-assed ice queen (yeah, really). The Dick we're used to seeing in NW (and especially in Devin's run) practically bleeds his heart's-blood all over the page; this one isn't a born hardass the way Batman is a hardass, but is playing the part because he's determined to be a leader, to build the team. It's radically different from the Dick we've seen elsewhere, and yet it doesn't quite seem inconsistent -- if only because it's so clear that it's an act. If anything, it's his circus all over again, only this time, he's determined not to let it get destroyed. So, really interesting Dick stuff -- but on the downside, they spend THREE FREAKING PAGES standing on a catwalk talking. It coulda been done in three panels. If you're going to spend that much of a 22-page comic on something, make it three more pages of Jade/Anissa liplock closeups, please.

Disconcerting moment -- thanks to all the aforementioned Big Doings, when Roy got the "OH MY GOD WE HAVE TO GO RIGHT NOW" call, I was seriously expecting them to be called away to Gotham. But, oh yeah, that was last week's NW.

All in all, edging toward meh, with a side of good but could've been better executed.

[*] But strangely, not by family ones -- and granted, all the "families" in question are adoptive or surrogate ones. The Bats, the Arrows, all good with me, because the bonds there seem to precede and override the fact that they're all being hero-ey together. But (young) justice (league) (society) (of Am. | Int'l | Detroit) have never grabbed me beyond the fact that they contain characters I happen to like in other contexts. That I love BoP beyond reason is due to either overwhelming love of all the principals, or something else that'd probably take therapy to dig up.

Amych, I thought the same thing when Roy got that call.

So, I got last month's GK -- thought that I needed many more to make sense of the arc -- you don't think so? (Why I didn't get this month's.)

I'm very seriously thinking about heading back to the comic shop to pick up the last 3 Flashes (Curse you wee Plei!). . . possibly putting Green Lanterns on hold. . . I suck with my suggestibility.

Sumi, re GK, I'd say you probably do need to go back at least a couple more -- this month's HSQ is of the big reveal sort, but it definitely builds on what's come before in the arc.

My store didn't have the whole arc. . . I should look more closely and see how far back they do have.

So, this month's GK is the end of the arc - because next month's is part of War Games?

Re: Outsiders 14 I love Jade. I fell for her in the Winick GL stuff, and have been waiting for the man to use her like I know he can. And he did. It was, of course, about time. That said, I wasn't big on the pacing of this one. The balance of fight vs. team was off, to me.

Re: BoP 70 meep. meep. This, however the pacing was right on. Aside from my continuing blink at Helena's shifting eye color (blue in this issue, but I read two Huntress-centric titles today, where they were brown as I remember them being), I was sucked right in, and when I hit the end of the book, I wanted the two weeks to be up as soon as possible. Two weeks? How the hell am I going to last two weeks? All signs point to another good arc from Simone, and her writing just keeps getting better. The easy friendship between Dinah and Babs was warm, funny, and never an anvil. Given what happened next, it would have been easy to overplay the interaction. My fondness for Helena grows by the hour, by the way. And Savant? Well, this should be interesting...

Alan Moore, the creator of V is for Vendetta and From Hell, has an interview up at salon.com. There's a Best Buy ad to sit through if you're not a member, but the interview's pretty interesting.