Though it finished a few months ago I finally got around to reading the remainder. I don't really understand DC's fascination with weekly comics. I stuck with 52 for pure fan appeal (Super-Chief! Ambush Bug!) and inertia but passed on Countdown and Trinity. This past week they just announced two alternating bi-weeklies as well as a separate weekly about the DC Online game. Who on earth reads all that?
Wednesday Comics seemed different since it was far more limited (just 12 issues) and in an unusually large newspaper-format that offered the possibility for something quite different than the usual run. The end result was predictably mixed with a couple that could easily have been done as a backup story in a regular comic but others that really pushed the limit.
A run-down:
Batman (Azzarello & Risso) - The 100 Bullets team does a decent hard-boiled tale that's more interesting than most of what's been in the regular books these past couple of years.
Kamandi (Gibbons & Sook) - Doing this as a Hal Foster tribute was inspired, especially since the story is otherwise fairly familiar.
Superman (Arcudi & Bermejo) - Very slight with art that's merely larger instead of using the potential space.
Deadman (Bullock & Heuck) - Our hero visits the underworld, tangles with bad people - the twist ending is so obvious that the real twist would have been to not do it.
Green Lantern (Busiek & Quiñones) - Another story that's much better than anything in the regular books even if it is fairly straight-forward.
Metamorpho (Gaiman & Allred) - Allred was born to draw this - too bad Gaiman wasn't born to write it. Some cutesy fourth-wall pushing can't disguise how much Gaiman was working on autopilot.
Teen Titans - (Berganza & Galloway) - Completely forgettable but done with some hideous computer graphics.
Adam Strange (Pope) - I don't know if Paul Pope was the right person for this character (maybe he should have done Deadman) but he doesn't completely disgrace himself.
Supergirl (Palmiotti & Conner) - The undisputed highlight and exactly the kind of thing that got me hooked on comics. Krypto and Streaky are having bouts where they run out of control and Supergirl has to figure out what's happening. It's imaginative, cute and funny.
Metal Men (DiDio & García-López) - A routine tale about a clash with a supervillain but at least decently done.
Wonder Woman (Caldwell) - A complete botch - in fact the text is so difficult to read that I gave up around the fourth issue and didn't even bother trying. To Caldwell's credit he at least used the full page to an extent that it would be almost pointless to reduce the size.
Sgt. Rock (Adam & Joe Kubert) - The story is pretty slight but something other than superheroes is always welcome and Kubert pere hasn't lost anything over the years.
The Flash (Kerschl & Fletcher) - A very clever piece that starts with Barry's story done superhero-style and Iris' done as a romance comic and then mixes and matches from there without ever becoming too forced or complex.
The Demon & Catwoman (Simonson & Stelfreeze) - Though I would much rather have had Simonson's art this mismatched match still works reasonably well.
Hawkman (Baker) - Another decent and somewhat unusual story (and the second with a guest appearance by Aquaman).