PS238 #46

Evil genius Victor von Fogg has gotten his hands on a machine that briefly gives him limitless power and omnipotence — and every time he uses the machine, he ends up using it for frivolous or benevolent purposes instead of enslaving the universe, like he’d normally prefer. And he has to keep trying to use the machine over and over to work the bugs out — and it takes a lot of power to operate. How much power? He has to drain all the energy from an alternate universe just to turn it on. And when Zodon finds out which alternate universe von Fogg is about to drain, he decides that he has to stop him. So why does an evil genius care about saving another universe from another evil genius? We don’t know, but he assembles a strikeforce of his fellow classmates to travel to another dimension to stop von Fogg.

Verdict: Thumbs up. Obviously, we’re at the beginning of a new storyarc, with Zodon leading his motley band of pint-sized heroes on an interdimensional rescue mission, with Victor and his sister Alexandria in hot pursuit. So for now, we’re just setting up the players. If you haven’t read this title before, it makes this issue a very good jumping-on point.

Hercules: Twilight of a God #4

While Hercules’ grandchildren discover that the villain behind all the recent disasters is actually their own entirely amoral grandmother, Hercules is awakened from his coma, because he’s the only person strong enough to deliver the White Hole Engine into the Galactus-powered black hole. He says his farewells to his son, the emperor, to his surviving grandkids, to his friends, the Recorder and Skyppi, an elderly Skrull preparing to die. But when Hercules and Galactus clash, will either of them emerge? Or are they both doomed?

Verdict: Thumbs up. It’s a nice story, a lot more emotional than I was expecting, with a lot of personality and humor coming along for the ride.

Today’s Cool Links:

• Kalinara has been doing some thinking about the Bechdel Test.
• What’s so heroic about the Heroic Age?
• John Scalzi examines if any of the novels nominated for Hugos have a chance of being adapted into films.

Astro City Special: Silver Agent #2

Alan Craig is the Silver Agent, one of Astro City’s greatest heroes. He’s been framed for a crime he didn’t commit, and he’s fated, quite unavoidably, to be executed. But he’s been plucked from the timestream in an attempt to stop a time-spanning crisis, and as he travels more and more through time, he discovers more and more people who have been inspired by him, who have read his memoirs, and who he is able to push into greatness, including plenty of superheroes and his nephew Thomas, who has grown up to become a Senator. And the more Alan travels in time, the more energy and power he picks up. Can he say all the goodbyes he needs to? Can he complete his missions? And can he resist the temptation to use his extra powers to save himself from the electric chair?

Verdict: Thumbs up. Several thousand thumbs up. It’s amazing how good this story is, how powerful it is. As important as the Silver Agent is in the “Astro City” comics, he’s never been a particularly fully-fleshed character — he’s always been there as a background element, as an inspiration to other heroes. But this little two-part story has given him a solid background, personality, motivations, and emotions — as solid as any long-time character in the series. It’s a beautiful and touching story, and it’s something that people will be talking about long into the future. Go pick it up.

Secret Six #25

Bane and Jeannette have their own new Secret Six of mercenaries, including Lady Vic, King Shark, Dwarfstar, and Giganta, who are all busy on the standard murderous missions. And the government wants them on the payroll. Meanwhile, Deadshot is threatening a doctor to make sure he’ll tell Black Alice that she didn’t cause her father’s cancer, and Catman is trying to commit suicide by zoo lions. And the government wants them working for them, too. They’re all going to a land that time forgot, to fight their way through dinosaurs and giant griffins, to annex some new territory for the US of A…

Verdict: Thumbs up. Not sure where this is all going, but it looks plenty entertaining. Catman’s existential crisis has got him back living on the edge, and Bane’s new team is amusingly dysfunctional.

Today’s Cool Links:

Honestly, I’m in the mood to subject you guys to creepy, scary stuff, so here’s:

• No Through Road
• A dance routine starring the nurses from “Silent Hill”
• And something I’ve probably directed y’all to before — “Marble Hornets.” Start with the Introduction, then head up the list…

Beasts of Burden: Animal Rites

I reviewed all of the “Beasts of Burden” miniseries from last year already, but this is something somewhat different. Sure, it’s a collection of that wonderful miniseries by Evan Dorkin and Jill Thompson, but it also includes all of the other stories that were published in other Dark Horse comics.

So what are we talking about here? Our setting is the sleepy New England town of Burden Hill, and our main characters are all domesticated pets — Rex, Ace, Whitey, Jack, Miranda, Pugsley, and the Orphan, the lone cat in the main group. They’re all animals, and they all have animal concerns and thoughts, but they also talk, and other animals can understand them — so can we, luckily, or it wouldn’t make a lot of sense. Burden Hill is home to an unusual number of ghosts, demons, witches, and other horrors, and the pets of Burden Hill are the only ones who can stop them, with the assistance of some of the other pets and the occasional Wise Dog.

The threats range from the distinctly human — a resurrected sorcerer and a coven of witches worshiping Sekhmet — to the more pet-oriented — a demonic frog that eats stray pets and a cult of rats plotting to take over everything. And some of these rank among the very scariest stories printed in any comic book in the past few years.

There’s “Stray,” the very first of the stories in the collection, about a haunted doghouse, which is part funny, part sad, and part terrifying. There’s “Let Sleeping Dogs Lie,” which ladles on the gruesome shocks with a Night of the Living Dead Housepets.

And best of all, there’s “Lost,” which just might be one of the great masterpieces of horror. It’s got the heartbreak of a mother searching for her lost pups, it’s got a horrific spectral possession, it’s got a terrifying murder, a chilling twist, and a final haunting image you won’t ever forget.

And the whole thing’s wrapped up in a beautiful hardcover.

Verdict: Thumbs up. Brilliant writing from Dorkin, beautiful watercolors from Thompson, and the best, funniest, most terrifying, most human stories you’ll see for a long time.

Go pick it up. Don’t make me tell you again.

Prince of Power #4

Amadeus Cho is still after the final ingredient that will allow him to attain godhood and rescue Hercules from interdimensional limbo, but Thor has changed his mind about helping him — Amadeus reminds him too much of his deceitful brother, Loki. While Amadeus is able to put Thor down with a combination of science and sorcery, he still has to contend with the almost-godlike Vali Halfling, the actual son of Loki. Meanwhile, Delphyne Gorgon, Amadeus’ dishy, green-skinned, snakey girlfriend, is trying to escape captivity and beat Atalanta, the Parthenon’s sub-commander. Do they stand a chance of completing the ritual to make Amadeus a god? Does he have a prayer of saving Hercules?

Verdict: Thumbs up. Like every issue of this series — and like pretty much everything that Greg Pak and Fred van Lente get their hands on — this is an outstanding mixture of furious action, excellent humor, and brainy plotting. Much, much fun.

Detective Comics #868

The Jokerz gang is still running wild in Gotham, now answered by the Guardian Bats, a bunch of people who’ve been encouraged by a Batman impostor to dress up as Batman to fight crime. In an attempt to figure out what he’s dealing with, Dick Grayson exposes himself to the Joker Juice that the Jokerz use to make themselves look and act like the Joker. Once he gets control of himself again, he and Commissioner Gordon still have to figure out a way to get the Jokerz, the Guardian Bats, and the impostor Batman and Joker back under control. While riot after riot tears the city apart, we finally get a good glimpse of the man behind all the chaos and what traumas have influenced his life.

Verdict: Thumbs up. Mostly a bunch of run-of-the-mill fisticuffs in the street, but the extended origin of the Impostor Joker does a lot to redeem the story — he’s an interesting character, both pathetic and ruthless. Not sure he has much of a future — there’s only one Joker, and he doesn’t take kindly to imitations…

Today’s Cool Links:

• Satoshi Kon was the creator of some really great anime — one of my favorites ever is his “Paranoia Agent.” He died last week at the too-young age of 46, and he left these last words to his family, friends, and fans.
• How can science fiction help pull folks through tough times?
• I’m gonna have to require y’all to watch this. I’ll admit I wasn’t expecting a lot from it when I first watched it, but it ended up being just glorious.

Billy Batson and the Magic of Shazam! #19

Captain Marvel has had a run-in with a villain called the Vampire Burglar, who doesn’t look much like either a vampire or a burglar, but he’s managed to steal away most of Cap’s life energy, leaving him looking like an old man and not too far away from actually dying. In desperation, Mary and Tawny turn to Freddy Freeman to help them get to the Rock of Eternity — he’s no big fan of the Marvels, but he’s moved to help out. They decide to summon the wizard, even though they don’t know whether Black Adam will return. And as it turns out, Black Adam is exactly who comes back, with extra powers he gained while running around the wizard’s pocket dimension. He’s more than powerful enough to take care of Mary, Tawny, and Black Adam Jr., and even the return of the wizard doesn’t leave them on much better ground. The only hope for Cap is for Freddy to make a very big sacrifice.

Verdict: Thumbs up. Very good story. Lots of action, lots of emotional resonance, very fun art. I loved it from beginning to end, quite honestly.

Batman: The Brave and the Bold #20

Big Barda comes to request Batman’s aid to find her kidnapped husband, Mister Miracle — and when they go to their suburban home to investigate, they’re immediately attacked by forces from Apokolips, including the Female Furies, who are trying to kill off Mister Miracle so Barda will return to lead them. The heroes are able to rescue Miracle from the rocketship deathtrap he’s been tied to, but he’s in no shape to fight, and Batman and Barda are badly outnumbered by the Furies. Can they figure out a way to get rid of the Furies before a tragedy occurs?

The followup story is a reprint of the Martian Manhunter story from… two issues ago? Holy baloney, that’s weak.

Verdict: Thumbs down. The story with Big Barda was alright — not the strongest story, but not particularly bad. But reprinting a story that’s just two months old? That’s either a wildly inept screwup or the most blatant expression of “We’ve been canceled, we don’t care anymore” contempt I’ve seen in a long, long time. Whichever it is, it’s enough to kill any enjoyment the first story may have left behind.

Today’s Cool Links:

• “Calvin and Hobbes” get combined with DC supervillains.
• A whole bunch of Photoshopped new Amalgam Comics characters? I heartily approve.
• I am completely overjoyed by the writing in this essay. We really have come a long way as a nation, though we have further still to travel…

Alright, kiddies, it’s Friday, time for the weekend, and we need some comic book violence to get things started right. Let’s jump right into… FRIDAY NIGHT FIGHTS!

This is one of my all-time favorites — possibly the most epic battle ever from Grant Morrison’s run on “JLA” — during the “Rock of Ages” storyline, we get a glimpse into an alternate future where the evil New God Darkseid has taken over the world. So from January 1998’s JLA #14 by Grant Morrison, Howard Porter, and John Dell, here’s the all-powerful Darkseid vs. a guy who shrinks and a guy who shoots arrows:

And the coda to that fight, just because it’s a great coupla lines:

Everyone have a great weekend — I’ll see y’all Monday.

Madame Xanadu #26

Sammy is a little homeless boy who’s plagued by a tremendously noxious odor. No one can stand to be anywhere near him, the schools won’t accept him, animals run away from him. Well, except for dogs. Dogs chase him and try to eat him. When he can escape from the dogs, he sleeps in someone’s basement — always the same basement — and he has happy dreams where he’s a brave hero. But even in his dreams, he’s pursued by the Space Witch. Eventually, after much too long lost on his own, he meets up with the Space Witch — Madame Xanadu, of course. And she reveals the great secret about Sammy’s life.

Verdict: Thumbs up. Another strange, sad story from this series. Don’t be put off by Chrissie Zullo’s art — it may look like a bunch of “Precious Moments” figures, but that’s just to draw you into the storybook feel of this tale.

Wonder Woman #602

The alternate history version of Wonder Woman is trying to save a small enclave of Amazons hiding out at a hidden temple in Turkey. She bonds with them for a while, talks to the gods, and goes out to fight the soldiers waiting outside the temple to kill them.

Verdict: Thumbs down. There’s some fighting at the beginning and the end, and the entire middle is taken up with a lot of talking. And it’s pretty boring talking. Come to think of it, the fighting ain’t that great either. It’s just not a very entertaining comic at all.

Today’s Cool Links:

• Good riddance, you dreadful football-hating cussword. And take that dreadful Texas Tech-hating chancellor with you.
• Aaron Williams’ rant about the latest horrible show on SyFy is not to be missed.
• Watch those clearances when you’re driving a truck! Including rentals!

The Avengers #4

Iron Man, Captain America, Wolverine, and Noh-Varr travel to the future to try to stop whatever time anomaly has been caused by their children. What they find is, apparently, a bunch of superheroes and supervillains fighting Ultron in the Destroyer’s body. Back in the present, the rest of the Avengers run into Killraven and his pet Devil Dinosaur, who are on the run from war tripods from futuristic Mars. While Thor takes care of the Martians, a bunch of axe-wielding gangsters from the turn of the last century start fighting in the street. And then the WWI biplanes show up. And more dinosaurs. And zeppelins. And, um, Galactus. Things aren’t much better in the future, where the Avengers’ kids take down the time-traveling Avengers. And when they wake up, they learn that the Maestro is running things, along with future Iron Man, who wants to do something awful to the present Iron Man’s face with a big, jagged hook.

Verdict: Thumbs up. Good story, good art, some fun dialogue. I’ve got some quibbles with the way the Avengers in the present seemed mostly to stand around inside a building and watch the chaos outside. I mean, Thor is pretty good with the Martian tripods, but couldn’t the street-level heroes be taking care of some of those guys running around with axes?

Spider-Girl: The End

The end of Spider-Girl?!

Okay, we start out in the future, with an elderly Auntie M telling a bunch of kids about the last adventure of Spider-Girl — May Parker, the near-future daughter of Peter and Mary Jane Parker, who inherited her dad’s spider powers and tries to balance her career as a superhero with a normal life as a high school student. Well, a few years back, May learned that she, like her dad, had a clone out there. April jealously wanted all the great stuff that May had, and turned to a symbiote to help her get it. Unsurprisingly, this made April — who now called herself Mayhem — all kinds of unbalanced and crazy, and in one final confrontation with Spider-Girl, when Mayhem’s recklessness caused a huge fire, May threw April to safety before dying in an explosion.

With storytime over, Auntie M sends the kids away, and we learn the rest of the story. Auntie M is actually Mayhem, and May Parker’s death made April even more dangerous, and as she killed both supervillains and superheroes, the government finally okayed a process to bond a bunch of soldiers with symbiotes, in the hopes that they could be used against her. Unfortunately, they turned out to become a lethal army dedicated to wiping out humanity, leaving Mayhem as one of the few heroes who could stop them. But now, there’s a plan to send Mayhem back in time to stop her younger self from killing Spider-Girl. Does the plan have a chance to work? Maybe not if the process accidentally traps April inside a wall…

Verdict: Thumbs up. Wonderful art and story. Lots of excitement, great fight scenes, and plenty of the excellent retro Silver-Age-style teen angst that makes the Spider-Girl stories so fun. I don’t know if this is really the end of Marvel’s unexpectedly long-lasting Spider-Girl stories or if Tom DeFalco and Ron Frenz can persuade Marvel and readers to give her yet another chance. I’ll keep my fingers crossed that she’ll be back.

Today’s Cool Links:

• Superman and Einstein vs. the Nazis!
• Too many Flintstones!
• Archie really is the perfect example of why comics should avoid fad marketing.

Laika

I got this a while back and loved the stuffing out of it, so let’s go ahead and give it a proper review.

“Laika” is a 2007 graphic novel by Nick Abadzis about the first animal to go into space — a small mixed-breed dog named Laika, who was sent up by the Soviets in 1957 aboard Sputnik 2. The first Sputnik had launched just a month before, but Khrushchev wanted a second space triumph to coincide with the 40th anniversary of the Russian Revolution in November of that year. They decided to send a dog up with the next launch, partly to see if an animal could survive launch, partly for publicity’s sake. And because of the extremely short deadline, they never designed the craft to make it back to Earth. Whatever animal was sent up was doomed to die in space.

This is the background for Abadzis’ story — some speculation about what Laika’s earlier life might have been like (Abadzis creates a life story for the dog that’s equal parts comfort and hardship — pushed from loving homes into cruel ones, and ending up as a stray in the streets of Moscow), and a lot of focus on the men and women who were running the USSR’s space program.

There’s Sergey Korolyov, the lead designer and engineer of the Soviet space program, ambitious and charismatic but also single-minded and obsessive, who starts the story out as a just-released prisoner, forced into the gulags during one of Stalin’s purges, walking across the frigid Russian winterscape and telling himself over and over “I am a man of destiny. I will not die.”

There’s also Yelena Dubrovsky, the official dog trainer, who accepts that one of the dogs she’s training will be sacrificed for the space program, but is bitterly unhappy that Laika, her favorite, has been chosen. She’s actually a fictional character created by Abadzis, but you’ll finish the story thinking she was real.

But the main character and strongest personality is Laika, even if she only speaks in Yelena’s imagination. Her calm, docile, loving qualities are what allow her to win the hearts of the people working on the space program — and also what doom her to her one-way trip into orbit.

Verdict: Thumbs up. Simple but charming artwork, an uncommon glimpse into the early days of Russia’s space program, and beautiful, beautiful storytelling. Abadzis did an amazingly good job with a story that’s informative, entertaining, and just plays the heck out of the heartstrings, especially for dog lovers. Three good reasons you may want this — first, because of the interesting look into the early days of the Space Race from an unusual non-Western POV; second, for the hard-nosed look at life in the USSR, for both the privileged and the common man; third, because like me, you’ve got a weakness for great stories about good, good dogs.

It might take a little work for you to find it, but it’s worth the search. Go pick it up.

Supergirl #55

Hey! Amy Reeder, creator of freakin’ gorgeous artwork on the “Madame Xanadu” series, is now drawing freakin’ gorgeous covers for “Supergirl!” Yay!

In this issue, Supergirl narrowly gets out of Bizarro Supergirl‘s turn-you-to-metal vision by apparently using superspeed to escape before she was completely covered in metal. Aaaactually, I’m not sure the Flash’s superspeedy vibration power really works that way. I mean, if you’re vibrating out of an ice coating, yeah, but not when you’re being turned into metal. Ahh, well. Supergirl rescues the hostages, then gets Dr. Light (the good female Dr. Light, not the very bad and dead male Dr. Light) to synthesize orange sunlight to take away Bizarro Supergirl’s powers. After that, Supergirl kidnaps her Bizarro version to return her to Bizarro World.

Verdict: Thumbs up. Great cover, and really nice artwork inside the issue by Jamal Igle. This is all full of quite a bit of wonky comic book science, but the story itself moves along just fine. And next issue, looks like we’ll have a whole bunch of Bizarros hanging around, which is often a lot of fun…

Tiny Titans #31

Superboy, Supergirl, Superman, and the Super-Pets are all attending a birthday party at the Fortress of Solitude for Match, Superboy’s clone-turned-Bizarro. They get several special party guests, like Lex Luthor, the Brainiac Club, and the Tiny Titans version of the Legion of Super-Heroes. All that, plus Jor-El thinks his son is a monkey.

Verdict: Thumbs up. As always, cute, fun, and funny. The Brainiac Club is very humorous, and the Little Legion is something I’d like to see a lot more of in future issues.

Justice Society of America #42

I forgot that they were doing a long crossover with the Justice League comic, and that the whole thing was going to be written by (ugh) James Robinson, or I would’ve skipped buying this one. As it is, Jade and Obsidian get merged into one squick-worthy being, there’s a big fight with a fake evil Alan Scott, then there’s a big fight with the real evil Alan Scott, and Doctor Mid-Nite has to try to save Starman‘s life.

Verdict: Thumbs down. Even for an issue of a crossover that I haven’t been following, this one was confusing, bizarre, and just badly written. I sure hope they’ll be done with this crossover before another issue rolls around.

Today’s Cool Links:

• What do you get when you cross Dilbert with Garfield?
• The creepiest, most terrifying museums on the planet.
• Here’s a newborn with six fully-functional digits on his hands and feet. And his parents and doctor say they’re definitely not going to amputate to make him “normal.”
• This video’s a bit long, but worth watching. The hatemongers we have today have been with us in spirit for a long, long time.