Gods and Monsters

Hercules: Twilight of a God #3

Herc’s Skrull friend Skyppi is old and dying, trying to plan out his post-death existence as some random inanimate object. Hercules is brought into the hospital, comatose after his battle against the new Silver Surfer, and a convention of alien diplomats converges on Wilamean to negotiate on whether or not they’ll help evacuate the planet before a Galactus-powered black hole destroys everything. But a terrorist attack destroys all the diplomatic ships, leaving all those aliens stranded on a world that’s going to be destroyed in one month. As diplomats and citizens alike begin to panic, Hercules makes his triumphant reappearance to calm everyone’s fears — but actually, it’s a shapeshifted Skyppi working to give everyone more time to figure out a plan. And when they finally figure out how to stop the black hole, it turns out to be something that only the real Hercules can accomplish…

Verdict: Thumbs up. This story is actually a great deal sillier than the previous issues have been, with cracks about Superman, rednecks, brawling TV pundits, Hercules’ fake Shakespearean dialogue, and more. This actually works out a lot better than I was expecting. Characterization and dialogue are probably the best things in this issue, along with the art by Ron Lim.

JSA All-Stars #9

While most of the team is fighting monsters in the Central American country of Parador, they discover an old friend/foe, Brainwave, who has been roped in by the government to mentally sedate a group of mutant children who can channel the power of Parador’s gods. And the backup story featuring Hourman and Liberty Belle finally, after months of convoluted buildup, gets interesting as we learn why Tigress and Icicle want the magical doohickey everyone’s chasing after.

Verdict: Thumbs up. I wasn’t much expecting to enjoy this one, but it ended up being a good story — nothing spectacular, but a solid piece of storytelling. I’ve mostly skipped over the backup story in the past, but the fact that we’ve finally gotten a credible motive for Icicle and Tigress does a lot to make it more readable. They should’ve done this in the first chapter or two instead of the ones nearing the end.

Today’s Cool Links:

• A fake trailer for an Avengers movie — from the 1950s!
• A little bitty cannon that makes a great big BOOM!
• Scorpion performs his own theme from “Mortal Kombat” on an accordion. This is why the Internet is so wonderful.
• I’m not sure Mike Sterling‘s new blog is actually something we really need to see more of. Isn’t it depressing enough that these people exist without calling more attention to them?