It's official. DC's latest weekley series, after the success of 52, is now at its half way point. And with it, comes a new name. It's all counting down to the Final Crisis. For those of you that haven't been keeping up with this series, I won't even attempt to explain what's happened over the last 25 issues. Let's just say it involves the triumphant return of DC's Multiverse (meaning there are now 52 alternate earths out there) Jimmy Olsen's strange new powers, the obligatory deaths and transformations and now, a war. A big war brought about by the Monitors. No, not the screen that attaches to your computer, but a race of powerful beings who have been watching the effects of the Multiverse's return and don't like what they see.

The problem with this issue (and some may say the entire series) is that  there is a lot of talking. Exposition is common in this title, and it's needed. Here, the first 15 pages are basically filled with the nameless lone Monitor talking to his fellow Monitors (who all look pretty much the same). 

What do John McClane, Godzilla, the great Chicago fire, and the Human Torch all have in common?  They're all loosely interwoven in Boom! Studios limited series Dominion, written by Michael Alan Nelson with art by Tim Hamilton.
    I really wanted to like this book.  There was a lot of stuff going on that worked really well, but I missed the first issue and had no idea what was going on.  Here's the highlights:
    Set in Chicago, the book opens with a montage about Greek gods and a news helicopter recording footage of a grossly overweight Godzilla-sized monster with teeth for miles.  The chopper is then attacked by a flying man, possibly Apollo himself, and dropped to the earth in a fireball.  

Then we cut to action-cop extraordinaire, Die Hard's very own, John McC-...Dick Urbanski.  His philosophy, as we learn on page 4, is literally "Shoot first, ask questions later."  He recruits nurse Elaine to help him tend to the wounded in the monster's path, and the two take off on a motorcycle towards a 50-story creature.  But how do you stop something so big?  Guns don't work- they just make the Hulk madder.  Then in a flash of brilliant inspiration, Urbanski rigs a car to explode in the monster's teeth, and well, that's the last thing he eats.    

In the far flung future, a team of three aliens survey a dead Earth.  Their technology is based on telepathy and they literally plug into their ship to scan for traces of life.  The scans pick up a life trail that became telepathically active toward its end, leading the team on a more elaborate search than they originally anticipated.  The "life trail" pushes the story back to the not so far flung future where a small band of dissidents and a robot named Artie fight against a corrupt government.  They are trying to uncover a conspiracy that threatens not only their lives, but those of their nation.    

Sound ambitious?  It is.  This is the first of four issues and it's bursting at the staples with ideas, energy and creativity.  And pages, too.  Did I mention that the first issue has 104 of them?  That's right, 104 beautiful black and white pages with six to eight panels per page.  Forget deconstructed storytelling; there's a whole lot going on here.