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All the Bats

Still trying to clear out two weeks’ worth of comics as fast as I can. Today, let’s take on the Bat books.

Batwoman #5

Kate has a final tense confrontation with the Drowned Woman, the ghost who let her children drown and has been abducting children in Gotham. Though the Drowned Woman assaults her with memories of her lost twin sister, Kate is eventually able to trap the ghost in fire and dispell her. But before she disappears, she tells Batwoman that the lost children can be found in “Medusa’s coils.” But her investigation gets pulled up short when she gets a visit from Agent Cameron Chase and Director Bones of the Department of Extranormal Operations, and they want to offer Kate a deal…

Verdict: Thumbs up. Still the absolute most beautiful comic book on the stands. If I’ve got anything I’m disappointed in, it’s that Bette Kane’s story gets so completely shortchanged — she’s reduced to a nonspeaking cameo in a hospital bed, and I was hoping to see more from her.

Batgirl #5

Batgirl runs into a family of mobsters who are behaving very strangely, holding up cars and demanding exactly $3.88. Once Barbara intervenes, the dad of the family cold-heartedly kills his sons and tries to jump off a bridge. Babs manages to snag him with a rope, but she’s interrupted by a woman named Gretel who beats the stuffing out of her and then just strolls off like she’s got a drug buzz. Next time Batgirl catches up to Gretel, she’s got her sights set on Bruce Wayne — and she’s got an unexpected accomplice.

Verdict: Thumbs up. Gretel makes an interesting villain, the “338” motif makes for an interesting mystery, and the whole story is good fun. Not a big fan of the subplot with Barbara’s mother, but maybe it’ll be interesting later.

Batman #5

The Dark Knight is in a heap o’ trouble. He’s lost somewhere underground, affected by mind-warping drugs and not enough food or water, and going through day after day after day of bizarre hallucination as he’s stalked by the Court of Owls. Can he survive with his mind intact? Can he survive at all?

Verdict: Thumbs up. A totally weird, wild comic. Just reading it makes you feel off-balance — probably because the comic flips on its side after a few pages, then turns completely upside-down. Great art from Greg Capullo and fun writing from Scott Snyder.

Today’s Cool Links:

  • John Rozum has a long, depressing post about the experience of writing comics for DC. At this point, I think I’m rooting for DC to cease publication of everything…
  • This short movie about a warbot with human memories makes me wish it was a heck of a lot longer than just five minutes.
  • A TV station barred from filming in court turns to puppetry instead.

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Spiders, Devils, Cats

Okay, I know I just got back from one hiatus. But can I have another? I’m so freakin’ tired of writing comics reviews. What, no more hiatuses? You guys are slavedrivers.

The Amazing Spider-Man #677

So Spidey runs into the Black Cat, and being the recently-dumped loser he is, he tries to get her to hook up with him. And she blows him off ’cause the Wall-Crawler was coming across as entirely needy and desperate. Soon afterwards, she gets arrested for stealing a hologram emitter from Horizon Labs, where Peter Parker works — but he doesn’t believe she did it. He tries to enlist Matt Murdock’s help in defending her, which of course leads to a team-up between Spider-Man and Daredevil. And that means lots of snappy patter and superheroes daring each other to jump off of skyscrapers. When the trail leads through some bad guys using a holographic projector, is the chase already almost over, or is the Black Cat going to get the drop on everyone?

Daredevil #8

And the continuation of the two-part story sees Spidey, Daredevil, and Black Cat teaming up to look for the villains who framed Felicia Hardy. Before long, they realize the thief actually worked for Horizon Labs — he’s been overdosed with poison, so Spidey rushes him to the hospital, while Daredevil and Felicia head for the criminal organization that’s really responsible. But will they be able to find the equipment? And will this lead to the kind of romantic entanglement that Matt Murdock and Felicia Hardy are both famous for?

Verdict: Thumbs up, for both issues. Excellent story, beautiful art (and an outstanding cover!), amazing characterization and dialogue and action and humor. These two issues got everything you want from a fun superhero comic book. Go get ’em, kiddios.

The Amazing Spider-Man #678

And back to an issue of Spidey’s comic! Peter Parker has to deal with Grady, an irritating co-worker at Horizon Labs — and in this case, he’s an irritating co-worker who’s just invented a time portal that takes someone 24 hours into the future! When Grady steps through the portal, he gets to bring back tomorrow’s paper. But when Peter steps through, he finds New York City smashed to rubble! Grady realizes that anyone who goes through the portal skips forward in time, so the resulting destruction resulted because Peter Parker wasn’t in the Big Apple for 24 hours. So that means Spider-Man needs to do something to avert a future catastrophe. But will Spidey and Grady be able to figure out what went wrong before it’s too late?

Verdict: Thumbs up. Good plot and characterization. Fantastic cliffhanger. Really looking forward to seeing how this gets resolved.

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Unmasked!

Tiny Titans #48

Barbara decides to finally unmask to reveal… Barbara Gordon! Holy bananas, what a shocker! And Wonder Girl reveals her own amazing secret — she has an orange that tells her secrets! Wait, what? When did Wonder Girl go crazy? At any rate, Barbara takes a bunch of the Tiny Titans to her Bat-Lair so everyone can try on retro costumes and disco the night away. Wonder Girl also gets a new costume and creates the Secret Oranges of the Justice League! And where the Secret Oranges go, can the League of Just Us Cows be far behind?

Verdict: Thumbs up. One of the most wonderfully insane issues of this series I’ve seen yet. Wonderfully funny and almost completely adrift from reality. Good grief, why would DC want to cancel this series? They’re crazier than Wonder Girl.

Snarked #4

Wilburforce J. Walrus, Clyde McDunk, Princess Scarlett, and Prince Rusty need to get to a ship waiting for them on the docks, but how can they go anywhere when the army — and the terrifyingly competent Gryphon — are searching for them? Well, probably by getting the guards drunk and dressing up like floozies. Isn’t that how it always works? But do these sad-sack renegades really stand a chance of escaping to find the lost king?

Verdict: Thumbs up. An all-around fun comic with a ton of madcap antics and shenanigans that make this an all-ages winner.

Today’s Cool Links:

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Beware the Claw!

Lobster Johnson: The Burning Hand #1

This new Lobster Johnson series starts off with a 1930s setting, a scalped cop, and a bunch of mobsters dressed up as ghostly Indians. They all get slaughtered by Lobster Johnson before they can kill anyone else, and the case attracts the attention of a newspaper reporter named Cindy Tynan, and while most of the locals refuse to talk to her, she’s able to get a lot of the backstory from Harry McTell, a black mechanic, who shares his theory that the mobsters are pulling a Scooby-Doo plot — scare off all the locals, then buy their homes for a song. But when the Mob finds out that Cindy is snooping into their business, they’re going to send a few goons out to give her a permanent deadline.

Verdict: Thumbs up. Excellent writing as ever from Mike Mignola and John Arcudi, with the excellent addition of Tonci Zonjic on art chores. Zonjic does a great job with action, facial expressions, and pretty much everything he works on, and I always love seeing his stuff.

Wonder Woman #5

While Wonder Woman, Hermes, and Zola hang around London, they meet up with a guy named Lennox, who claims to be the half-mortal son of one of the gods. He offers to help them out, and Wonder Woman gets to have a meeting with Poseidon, the very large and very fishy god of the sea. How will he react to Wondy’s request for an audience? And what kind of trouble is Lennox going to run into in London’s sewers?

Verdict: I’ll thumb this one up for the sake of Tony Akins’ art (which isn’t as good as Cliff Chiang’s, but is still pretty good) and for the always-fun visions of the modern-day Greek pantheon. But I don’t yet understand why anyone should care about Lennox, and the issue in general doesn’t seem to have a whole lot of story or action running through it.

Severed #6

Jack Garron is traveling to his father’s home in Mississippi with the traveling salesman, who he has recently discovered is a violent, murderous man who’s lied about his friend Sam deserting and robbing him. Jack gives the salesman the wrong address to his father’s home, then accompanies him to the “recording studio” — actually just a shack in the swamp. Jack tries to kill him with a switchblade, but the salesman has an axe — and his scary shark teeth. Jack wisely beats it outta there and steals the salesman’s car. Hoping he’s seen the last of the salesman, Jack heads for his father’s home, only to learn that both of his birth parents have been dead for almost a decade. So who’s been sending him letters all this time?

Verdict: Thumbs up. Great suspense and beautiful artwork. This one’s nearing the end, and I’m keen to see how it all works out.

The Unwritten #33

More and more people worldwide believe that Tom Taylor is the boy wizard Tommy Taylor, and as a result, Tom is hyper-charged with magical power. He plans to hit the Cabal’s headquarters as soon as possible so he’ll have enough magic to overwhelm their defenses, but he needs more information about where their HQ is located, which he manages to get by summoning and interrogating the ghost of the architect who created the building. But the Cabal knows he’s probably on the way. Pullman gives them a lecture on how consensus reality works and doesn’t work, and the Cabal’s masters work on a desperate gamble involving storytelling. Do they stand a chance of stopping Tom?

Verdict: Thumbs up. Good dialogue, plot development and twists, fun art. As always, a good, solid read.

Today’s Cool Links:

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Blackout!

Okay, this is obviously not an official blackout of the blog — but I do support all the blackouts today, as well as any other efforts to defeat SOPA and PIPA.

What are we talking about? SOPA = the Stop Online Piracy Act in the House of Representatives. And PIPA = the PROTECT IP Act in the Senate. They sound real nice, but the way they’re written, they’d have a good chance of shutting down large chunks of the Internet. If passed, they would damage Internet security, make things much rougher for online innovators and businesses, and have a strong chilling effect on free speech. I consider both of these bills some of the most anti-First Amendment and anti-American bills I’ve ever seen from any Congress.

I’m not going to waste your time by going over all the issues and dangers that SOPA and PIPA pose, especially when the Electronic Frontier Foundation has already done it so much better than I could.

I do consider these bills to be something that could affect blogs just like mine. Most of my content revolves around comic books, and both DC and Marvel have come down in favor of SOPA and PIPA. If they wanted to, they could use laws like these to demand that my blog be blocked for posting scans of comic covers or interior panels — which have been permitted for decades as “fair use.” This isn’t something that will only affect downloaders — it’ll affect people who use Google, Wikipedia, Reddit, YouTube, Vimeo, Etsy, Flickr, DeviantArt, Facebook, Twitter, WordPress, Amazon — frankly, I think it could end up affecting almost every website in the country.

The House has temporarily retreated from SOPA, at least until they think no one’s watching them, but the Senate is still working to pass PIPA. Both of these bills need to be crushed out of existence.

And to be honest, we all need to ask our Congressional representatives why they’ve been working so very, very hard to pass anti-American bills like this. We have to ask them why, we need to hold their feet to the fire, and they need to know we’re angry.

Call your Congresscritters. Be polite or they’ll ignore you. But tell them you’re angry. And tell them to oppose any bills that censor the Internet.

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Lost in the ’50s Tonight

First, a short announcement.

The blog is going on a hiatus. Hopefully a short one, but it may be longer. My grandmother has died, and I may not feel like writing about comic books for a while.

However, I still had these two reviews finished and ready to go, so let’s go ahead and get them out of the way.

I’ll see y’all when I see y’all…

American Vampire #22

A new storyarc and a new setting, as we move into the 1950s. Our new lead character is Travis Kidd, a 19-year-old with cool sunglasses, a leather jacket, greased-up hair, a fast car, and a bad attitude. He’s dating Piper Francis, a pretty blonde, and Piper’s parents really don’t like Travis at all. Bad news for Travis that Piper’s folks are actually vampires… and even worse news for the vampires that Travis is a skilled vampire hunter. After a run-in with Agent Hobbes from the Vassals of the Morning Star reveals the identity of the vampire who killed Travis’ family, is Travis going to get in over his head?

Verdict: Thumbs up. Great art, great story, and all of it mixed in with all your favorite ’50s archetypes. This one is just grand fun, people.

Swamp Thing #5

Alec Holland and Abby Arkane are trying to catch up to Abby’s deranged brother William before he gives himself over too completely to the Rot, the spiritual manifestation of death and decay. Unfortunately, William gets the drop on them with a bunch of recently slaughtered livestock. But Alec is able to tap into his plant-controlling powers to tear their undead attackers apart and strand William in a tree. But the war between the Green and the Rot is fought on more than one front, and the good guys may have already lost.

Verdict: Thumbs up. Wow, I actually enjoyed an issue of this comic. Sure, we still haven’t seen the Swamp Thing yet, but at least we’ve got Alec Holland using plant powers and doing something active, instead of just being dragged along and getting stuff explained to him. Maybe if we finally see Swamp Thing next issue, this comic will be something worth keeping up with.

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Time and Time Again

Secret Avengers #20

The latest Secret Avengers op has gone bad, leaving Steve Rogers, Sharon Carter, and War Machine dead, and Black Widow using an untested “escape hatch” teleporter to escape to… five years in the past? Turns out the “escape hatch” is a wrist-mounted time machine with a few serious limitations — events that have already happened still have to happen, so she can’t just timejump to five minutes before the end of the mission and wipe out the bad guys. This leads to a great deal of jumping back and forth through time, learning about how time travel works, financing a genius to get him to build a wrist-mounted time machine, getting weapons engineers to build weapons that won’t actually kill her teammates and making sure those weapons are in the hands of the bad guys. But will all this time travel actually save the Secret Avengers?

Verdict: Thumbs up. This was actually the first of Warren Ellis’ “Secret Avengers” comics that really felt like a Warren Ellis comic. It’s high concept, packed full of action, and insanely complicated, but it’s still very, very human. I loved all the scenes with Count Khronus and Kongo, especially the art shifts that accompanied their first appearance.

Static Shock #5

Static escapes from the watery grave Piranha threw him into. The Slate Gang loses their security contract with the criminal organization, and Piranha takes it over on a probationary basis. The crooks say they can’t find any civilian identity for Static — not even Virgil Hawkins has the same DNA. And they kidnap Virgil’s sister, Sharon — or one of them, since they’re perfect clones. Guilotina tries to make friends with Sharon, and Static tries to track down where Piranha is taking Sharon.

Verdict: Thumbs down. Too much confusion. Why can’t the bad guys tell that Static is Virgil Hawkins, and if they don’t think he’s Static, why do they kidnap his sister? What’s with the threatening note left for Virgil at home? About the only part of this that I enjoyed was the retelling of Static’s origin. Other than that, wow, what a colossal mess.

Today’s Cool Links:

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Nobody Tosses a Dwarf!

Dungeons & Dragons #14

Khal the dwarven paladin has been accidentally struck down by his girlfriend Danni’s crossbow in the midst of an attack by the monstrously creepy foulspawn. But never fear — once the foulspawn are repelled, it’s revealed that a few crossbow bolts are no match for good dwarven armor. Danni has been stuck down here with a small group of dwarf explorers, thanks to the foulspawn, the kruthiks, and other monsters. Adric Fell and the rest of the adventurers check out the temple and find a clock — a very, very large clock, counting down to some sort of probably awful cosmic event. Further exploration reveals some Escher stairs and a possible way out. Unfortunately, they also discover that most of the dwarves are actually already dead, and Danni’s companions are… something else. And when they reveal to Danni that they know this, Danni goes a leeeetle bit berserk. Could things get worse? Yeah, once the foulspawns’ master finally shows up, things can get worse.

Verdict: Thumbs up. Outstanding stuff — amazing suspense, revelations, and cliffhangers, great dialogue, and a few really hilarious situations. This is really good stuff — I hope more of you are reading this.

Avengers Academy #24

Reptil has been mindswapped with his future self, who’s working against the best interests of the Academy because he’s trying to preserve his version of the future. And he’s willing to help Hybrid, an alien monster who’s part mutant, part Dire Wraith, and all evil. Reptil’s future can only happen if Hybrid kills half the students, and Reptil gets busy sending students and teachers into Hybrid’s room at the Academy. Will White Tiger be able to resist Hybrid’s mental powers, or are all the students doomed?

Verdict: Thumbs up. I’d never heard of Hybrid before, which seems a bit strange ’cause he seems like a really excellent villain. What I really like about this issue is that, even as the main storyline is going on, we still get some character details on White Tiger and even a couple of the background characters.

iZombie #21

Gwen has been captured — if captured is really the right word — by the Dead Presidents, a bunch of monsters who work for the government. Agent Kennedy — a zombie like Gwen — gives Gwen a brain smoothie ’cause it’d been a while since she had gotten to eat any brains. Galatea — half Dr. Frankenstein, half Frankenstein’s monster — conspires with Kovsky, a disembodied brain in a coffee maker, and his zombie servant. Spot finds himself captured by a leopard woman — who is actually Amon’s shapeshifted leopard — and he discovers that they have some really bad plans for him. As the Dead Presidents prepare to move against Galatea, they get an offer of assistance from the normally hostile Fossor Corporation. Can they be trusted?

Verdict: Thumbs up. What did I love the most about this? J. Bone takes over art chores for one issue and produces something that looks like a more cartoonish Darwyn Cooke. It’s an amazing change of pace for this comic, even if it’s just temporary, and it makes me wish Bone got more comics work.

Today’s Cool Links:

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Friday Night Fights: Western Whuppin’s!

Okay, it’s the first weekend after the holidays. The best thing about the first weekend after the holidays is that it’s the first one in weeks that hasn’t included an extra dose of holiday stress. So we actually get to enjoy this one a bit more. So let’s jump right into things with some good old-fashioned… FRIDAY NIGHT FIGHTS!

Tonight’s battle comes to us from August 1968’s Showcase #76 by Sergio Aragones and Nick Cardy, with the first appearance of dandified Western anti-hero Bat Lash:

And that’s that! See y’all back here on Monday!

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Look for the Union Label

The Goon #37

What we have here is not the typical funny, gross “Goon” story. This one is pretty dead serious.

Creator Eric Powell is a well-known liberal, but he’s also a big fan of unions. He takes a huge chunk of this story from the Triangle Shirtwaist fire of 1911, where 146 people died in a fire that was made worse by nearly no safety regulations or systems. No one was ever punished for the disaster, but it helped lead to much stronger regulations protecting workers — something which Powell has surely noticed are in danger of being rolled back in the interest of enriching the “job creators” who never seem to create any jobs.

In this particular story, the sweatshop is called the Pentagram Girdle Factory, and it has tons of similarities to the historical sweatshop — nearly no safety precautions, fire marshals persuaded to look the other way, owners who turn a tidy profit off of the disaster thanks to insurance payouts, locked exits, trapped workers flinging themselves from the upper stories of the building, horrified onlookers powerless to help. After the surviving workers organize to demand better working conditions, the factory owner sends strikebreakers to beat down the protestors. But after the union goes to the Goon for help, the tide turns. The owner turns to the Zombie Master to use black magic to help him, but the Goon still beats down the bad guys. But is there any way to really hold the real villains responsible? Only in the comics, unfortunately…

Verdict: Thumbs up. An awesome change-of-pace — both educational and topical — with the great art and writing we’ve come to expect from Powell. I didn’t even realize this issue was coming out this week, but it’s definitely a great issue, though — if you haven’t gotten it, go pick it up.

The Defenders #2

Dr. Strange, Namor, the Silver Surfer, Iron Fist, and the Red She-Hulk are on the trail of Nul the World-Breaker, which recently possessed the Hulk and turned him into a tool of the Asgardian god of fear. They’ve tracked it to Wundagore Mountain, but find themselves under attack by the forces of Prester John. Iron Fist heals himself from a bullet wound to the chest, but the team soon finds itself outmatched by Prester John’s bizarre hyper-technology. Red She-Hulk eventually frees the heroes by getting Dr. Strange to scare her into turning back into Betty Ross, but is there any way to keep Nul away — and once he makes it the Prester John’s time machine, will anything be able to stop the destruction of the universe?

Verdict: Thumbs up. Lots of action and lots of great dialogue and personality work. Lots of team comics can only handle characterization for one or two characters per issue, so the fact that this one can handle it for everyone is definitely a good thing. The only sore spot for me is that I still didn’t really understand what Prester John’s scheme involved…

Justice League International #5

The giant Signal Men robots are slowly destroying the Earth while Peraxxus harvests the planet’s minerals while his ship shoots down anything trying to reach him to stop him. So the JLI has to make it from inside the planet’s crust into orbit, all without snarking each other to death. Godiva worries about her ability to work on a cosmic level when her only power is prehensile hair, Guy Gardner complains about everyone. August General in Iron and Rocket Red start to respect each other, and Vixen tells Batman to quit being such an ass. Can the team stop Peraxxus? And even if they can, will they be able to survive the trip back down to Earth?

Verdict: Thumbs up. Better than I was expecting. I do think the dialogue is often very, very awkward, but I’m glad to see some personality development going on. I’m also fairly well impressed with the artwork and designs. None of the female characters has a silly costume, and when was the last time you could say that about a DC team comic? I’m also pretty happy with Aaron Lopresti’s work on the characters’ body language.

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