Putting the Cheese in Cheesecake

Power Girl #8

PeeGee and Vartox, sleazy superpowered ’70s swingah from another world, are fighting a seemingly hopeless battle against an indestructible and self-replicating monster called the Ix Negaspike — well, the operative phrase is “seemingly hopeless” ’cause they do, in fact, defeat it. Power Girl then lets herself be persuaded to let Vartox take her on a date. Plentiful shenanigans follow, including Vartox dressing very inappropriately, Power Girl wearing the gown from Adam Hughes’ celebrated “Women of the DC Universe” poster, Vartox burning dinner, and PeeGee picking up takeout pizza from a NYC pizzeria. And we get the real story of how Vartox hopes that Power Girl can help him repopulate his home planet. Will she actually agree to this mad scheme? (Hint: She will!)

Verdict: Thumbs up. Good gravy, this was wildly, wildly funny. This is probably the funniest mainstream comic DC is producing right now, other than some of their all-ages comics. I do hope you’re picking this one up, ’cause it’s very good.

Wonder Woman #40

After beating up a giant Aztec winged serpent, Wonder Woman starts noticing a lot of strange stuff going on. The winged serpent admits he doesn’t know why he attacked the city or ate a subway car — he normally hates the taste of people and can’t imagine why he’d want to eat anyone. There are a bunch of ominous little schoolboys hanging around who manage to turn the people Wondy just rescued from total fans to utterly disillusioned non-fans. There’s a rash of race- and religion-based hate crimes. And Power Girl shows up with a mad-on to beat Wonder Woman to death.

Verdict: Ehh, not all that awesome. I dug the winged serpent, I dug the backstory for the new modernized version of Etta Candy, but the rest of it was less than fully awesome. Hopefully it’ll get better as the story advances.