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Sesana

Sesana

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Childhood's End
Arthur C. Clarke
Siege
Brian Michael Bendis, Olivier Coipel
Scrivener's Moon - Audio
Philip Reeve
Stormwatch Volume 1: The Dark Side (The New 52) - Paul Cornell,  Miguel Sepulveda (Illustrator) It isn't terrible, but I am feeling a little frustrated. Jim Starlin took over the title with #19, and when he did, he completely rebooted the series. Nothing that I just read happened, and the versions of the characters that I read are gone. I kind of feel like I wasted my time. And seriously, New 52 is barely two years old and we're already entirely rebooting entire series? Knowing that, I would say not to bother with reading this volume of Stormwatch. There's nothing here fabulous enough to make reading what's basically an Elseworlds story worthwhile.

On to the actual merits of the story... Well, it's fine enough on its own. There's a pretty decent cast of characters here. Plenty of familiar faces for people who read the old version of Stormwatch and Authority. A few new ones. Martian Manhunter makes for a pretty good fit into the team. The biggest problem is that the overarching story is confusing, too busy, and resolved way too easily. But that comes from having a team of people who are very, very powerful in a very effortless way. A conflict is only rewarding to read if there's a struggle, and this just didn't feel like much of one. It was too easy for the characters.

I don't know what Starlin will do with these characters now, and frankly, I'm irritated enough that I don't know if I'll read it. Unless maybe I hear really good things about his take, of course. I had fond memories of some of these characters from the Authority that I did read, and it was nice to see that they're still around. Fans of the relationship between Apollo and Midnighter might feel a little disgruntled that their relationship was reverted to the flirtation stage, but just about every couple was broken up with New 52. I just don't feel like investing time into character development that's about to get reverted anyways.