A Couple I Like!

I've also finally caught myself up on Checkmate! Yay! I think my favorite part was Sasha's attempt to deputize Superman. Or rather, how she knew when NOT to pursue a given tactic.

I used to be really iffy on Sasha. I liked her in Murderer/Fugitive, disliked her in the OMAC Project (to be fair, most of that is probably because I really liked the earlier OMAC issues which focused on the aftermath of the Blue Beetle's death and I was annoyed by the switch in focus) and now I'm really enjoying her. She's well-suited to Checkmate. (As long as Winick isn't writing her. I still haven't quite forgiven him for the idiotic way the Checkmate/Outsiders crossover ended.)

It helps, I think, that Sasha Bordeaux/Michael Holt is one of my favorite pairings-that-I-would-never-have-thought-of ever. It reminds me of how I really liked Sasha and Bruce's early interaction, before OMAC Project. (I probably would have liked OMAC more if I weren't screaming "You idiots! Way to be sloppy and get one of you killed!" during their big kiss scene.)

Michael Holt is like all of the parts of Bruce Wayne that make him such an eligible bachelor: genius, wealth, reasonable amount of charm, but without half as many of the issues. Of course, Michael's had horrible tragedy as well, but, possibly because he was an adult as opposed to an eight year old boy, he's actually dealt with a lot of that. And while he's not quite as charming as Bruce, I also think he's a lot less likely to leave his love interest, or even just a friend, in jail for a while just because it'd be a benefit to the cause. I definitely think he's underrated in terms of eligible bachelorhood in the DCU

:-) Mostly though, I like them because they act like adults. I admit, I've missed some of the intervening issues between Michael taking Alan's position and now, so I don't know exactly how they got back together, but I remember liking that when they parted, they parted like adults. Sure, they didn't want to split and were visibly unhappy with the decision, but they didn't act like mopey teenagers about it. (At least in the issues I've read, it IS possible, I suppose, that they did act like utter idiots in the issues I've missed. I'm sure I'll catch up eventually.) There's a nice lack of melodrama about the two.

But yeah, I like him, I like her. And I thought the beach scene in this most recent issue was incredibly cute. :-)