Daylight Savings Time is really doin’ a number on my ability to stay awake and concentrate on much of anything, so I ain’t thought of a thing worth blogging about.

So instead, here’s a couple panels of Deadpool plugging this blog.

Because you know a guy aware of the Fourth Wall is probably reading Z-list comics blogs, right?

(Thanks to Derek Moreland for the scans)

(Also, hoping I didn’t have to reduce that too small for y’all to be able to read.)

Okay, I’m tired and in no mood to spend a long time summarizing these comics, so yoiks and away!

Worlds’ Finest #10

The missing Michael Holt (better known to us comics folks as Mr. Terrific) has apparently been targeting Karen Starr’s labs for paramilitary sabotage, so Power Girl strikes back, wrecking a number of Holt labs and even starting an earthquake that gets out of hand. Huntress learns that Damian Wayne, her kinda-sorta half-brother, has died and pays a visit to his grave, narrowly avoiding an encounter with Batman.

Verdict: Thumbs up. For the most part, typical superhero shenanigans, but the art’s nice. I do wish they didn’t assume we knew dippity-doo about what Mr. Terrific was doing in the New 52. That comic wouldn’t have been cancelled if readers had been paying attention to it.

The Hypernaturals #9

A lot of fighting happen. Seriously, a LOT of fighting.

Verdict: Ehhh, for the most part, not that bad. The action really is very good. I enjoyed the glimpse we get of the older Hypernaturals team. The big cliffhanger kinda lost some of its impact for me because I really could not remember the character it referenced.

Ame-Comi Girls #1

I really don’t know why this series started over with a new Number-One. But they did anyway. Wonder Woman shows up on the scene, Supergirl is still evil, the villains bail on Brainiac and team up with the heroes, and Power Girl is deep underground trying to shut off the machines that will suck the world’s mental energies down to zero.

Verdict: Bah, I’d hoped this very, very long storyarc was almost over, but now it looks like it’s going to run another half-dozen issues.

Alright, lads and ladettes, it’s another Friday night at the beginning of another much-too-short weekend, so let’s try to squeeze all the enjoyment we can out of these meager few days before Monday kicks us in the butt again. In other words, tighten your shorts, pilgrim, it’s… FRIDAY NIGHT FIGHTS!

Tonight’s battle is from June 2009’s Marvel Adventures: The Avengers #35 by Paul Tobin and Casey Jones, in which Batroc the Leaper pays the team a visit to talk a little smack and leap into a little butt-whuppery.

And if a Frenchman kicking an archer in the face doesn’t get you in the mood to party, there’s something wrong with your party glands.

Colder #5

Nimble Jack has Declan trapped and paralyzed, rapidly dropping to his deadly freezing point, while he drags him on a guided tour of his own life before he finally cracks his skull open and feasts on his madness. Does Declan have any chance against Nimble Jack? Or are he and Reece doomed to get eaten alive by the villain?

Verdict: Thumbs up. Oh, man, I want to spoil so very much of this story, ’cause it’s so very, very good. You know how a lot of horror series start off really great, then never manage to sell the deal at the end? This is not one of them. This one hits on all cylinders all the way to the end. You get creepiness, you get action, you get buckets of gore — including the scene promised on the gruesome cover of the first issue. You even get good characterization and a few precious nibbles of humor. I’m going to trust that y’all have been reading this entire series — but if you haven’t, you’d better keep your eyes peeled for the trade paperback. If there’s any justice, Paul Tobin and Juan Ferreyra are gonna win some awards for this one.

Hellboy in Hell #4

Hellboy is rescued from another tight spot by the mysterious figure who has aided him before, and this time, he learns his benefactor’s identity: Sir Edward Grey, Witchfinder. Grey reveals how he disappeared from history and how he ended up trapped in Hell — and he offers Hellboy a chance at freedom and a new life. Can Hellboy take the bargain?

Verdict: Thumbs up. It’s really great to see Edward Grey again — I really enjoyed his previous series. I don’t know if this is the last issue of this series — if it is, it’s not a bad place to leave Big Red. If it isn’t, I’m looking forward to seeing what happens next.

Today’s Cool Links:

• Wow, it looks like Random House has decided they want to start cheating authors to try to earn a few extra bucks.
• Here ya go, writers — here are Pixar’s rules for storytelling.
• Here’s a creepy bit of music composed by a five-year-old kid — and designed to be read backwards.

FF #4

The bulk of this issue focuses on She-Hulk going out on a date with Wyatt Wingfoot, and the hilarious and fruitless attempts by Bentley-23 and the lovestruck Moloids to try to derail that date with good old-fashioned mad science. And I don’t know that there’s any need for me to describe it any further than that.

Verdict: Thumbs up. This is just an absolutely outstanding comic. From Jen and Wyatt’s adorably perfect date to the increasingly bizarre and entirely hopeless attempts by the kids to ruin the romance, it’s all solid proof that you — yes, you — need to be reading this comic book. Go get it already!

Freelancers #4

Val and Cass have learned that Drachmann, one of their former instructors at the orphanage, killed their sensei and is the leader of a secret organization dedicated to destroying Los Angeles. Looking for a way to track him down, they pay a visit to Patrick, the guy who gets them their freelancer assignments, and he points them toward a likely target who’ll need them as bodyguards. Ricky Saint is a hip-hop star who claims to be a former gangster — but he’s actually stolen the identity and backstory of a real gangster. Now the gangster is out of jail and looking to bump Ricky off during a big concert. Can Val and Cass manage to keep Ricky Saint alive with multiple assassins gunning for him?

Verdict: Thumbs up. Excellent action and nice dialogue. The whole comic is just good escapist fun. Ain’t nothing wrong with good escapist fun.

Today’s Cool Links:

• Chris Sprouse is a much better man than Orson Scott Card.
• Someone please make this awesome Wonder Woman movie.
• If you haven’t heard the “Head Like a Hole”-“Call Me Maybe” mashup, it’s really pretty dang good.

Young Avengers #1

I heard lots of folks recommend this one recently, so I’m gonna give it a try.

Most of this is focused on getting everyone re-acquainted with the characters from the original Young Avengers series. Kate “Hawkeye” Bishop wakes up in Noh-Varr’s spaceship, and they almost immediately have to fight off a Skrull attack. Hulkling and Wiccan are living together — well, living together in separate rooms in Wiccan’s parents’ house. Hulkling is fighting crime behind Wiccan’s back, and Wiccan decides to go surfing the multiverse to try to save Hulkling’s mother. Kid Loki, meanwhile, wants to keep Wiccan from doing anything in the multiverse, but ends up tangling with Miss America. Wiccan ends up finding Hulkling’s mom — but it may not be the mom anyone was expecting to find…

Verdict: Thumbs up. A lot of this is really grand — Noh-Varr’s enthusiasm for ’60s girl groups is fairly awesome. Hulkling and Wiccan’s affection is well-handled. Kid Loki is darn funny. And Kate’s all-giant-font monologue before going out to fight the Skrulls is one of the greatest mission statements about superheroism I’ve seen in years.

Young Avengers #2

While Teddy is glad that his mother is back, he gets considerably less glad about it when it becomes clear that she’s controlling Wiccan’s parents’ minds — or has replaced them entirely! All that plus she can defuse Wiccan’s spells and reshape reality! Hulkling and Wiccan run off to get help from the Avengers, but get a nasty surprise when the heroes turn them back over the Hulkling’s mom — somehow she’s controlling the Avengers, too. Heck, she’s controlling almost everyone. She stuffs both of them into an empty, featureless limbo, but Kid Loki pulls them out and reveals that Hulkling’s mom is actually an interdimensional parasite of some sort. But they suspect that Loki may be behind the whole thing somehow, so they drag him off to Asgard — and that’s when things go from bad to worse…

Verdict: Thumbs up. Nicely done desperation, and Kid Loki continues to be wonderfully hilarious. I do hope we see the rest of the team soon — they’re completely absent in this issue…

I don’t think I’ve got a lot of patience for blogging — or much of anything else — this week, so let’s get this one knocked out fast.

Tonight’s battle comes from January 2011’s X-Men: To Serve and Protect #1 by Christopher Yost, Derec Donovan, and Andres Jose Mossa. Rockslide and Anole of the Young X-Men are, with the rest of the X-Men, hanging out in San Francisco, and they’ve both decided they want to go out and fight crime, not the usual fighting-with-other-mutants that the X-Men normally focus on. So they go put on disguises that do nothing to disguise them and go fight crime.

The most amusing thing comes a couple panels later when we learn that Rockslide wore a fake mustache underneath his mask. Nicely played.

So head over to SpaceBooger’s house and vote for your favorite.

Batman Inc. #8

Yeah, it’s the worst-kept spoiler ever.

So it’s the big final battle against Leviathan, and the heroes are on the ropes. Batman’s trapped in a safe at the bottom of a swimming pool. Nightwing and Commissioner Gordon are being mobbed by brainwashed children. Red Robin is about to get ambushed. And Damian needs to save the day, against insurmountable odds. But when Damian’s clone — force-grown to adulthood and gifted with enhanced strength — shows up to the fight, things aren’t going to go well.

Verdict: For the most part, a thumbs up. Lots of action — pretty good action, too. Loved the interplay with Damian and Dick Grayson. They really were the best team, weren’t they?

However, I do thumbs it down for killing Damian, even if it’s just a temporary death. He’s an absolutely grand character, and completely unique within the Bat-family. In particular, I’m disappointed that Damian didn’t get more of a swan song — oh, sure, he was basically the star of all of the last few issues, but most of that was devoted to general ass-whuppery, and I think a character this great at least deserved a decent farewell scene with his dad. But I guess this way, we get an even more angsty unpleasant Batman back, which will be just like it was before. Is that what we really want?

Not even sure it matters. Like they’ll leave Damian dead for long? Heck, no. He’s too great a character, and DC can’t resist bringing characters back, except for the ones they hate, I guess (Wally, Cassandra, Stephanie, Donna, Lian, the Justice Society, etc.).

Uncanny Avengers #4

Pretty much a lot more hitting and punching. Thor has been mind-controlled by the Red Skull, who’s stolen Charles Xavier’s brain, and the Scarlet Witch has to take him out of the fight. The Skull works hard trying to mind-control Captain America, too. And everything eventually ends up okay, or basically kinda-sorta okay.

Verdict: Thumbs mostly down. The action was fine. The art was really nice. And it was all just basically people hitting each other a lot. And since reading this, I can’t stop seeing this as a bunch of honkeys fighting a bunch of Nazis. The next few issues of this better be really good, or I’ll have to dump it.

Today’s Cool Links:

• The folks running Zeus Comics in Dallas are working to make comics better.
• The gaming industry’s weirdly obsessive hatred of female characters and female gamers is causing them to make outright bad video games.
• This would be the coolest comic book ever.
• The New York Yankees have admitted what everyone else already knew.
• This is the only worthwhile Harlem Shake video you’re going to see.