Spidey #3

Poor Peter Parker has money troubles — and even worse, Aunt May does, too. But can he do anything to help when all his free time is taken up by school, being bullied, and fighting supervillains? And speaking of supervillains, the Lizard is back, and he’s growing a ton of mini-lizards in an attempt to take over the world. So where does Spidey have to go to track down the Lizard’s lab? The sewer, of course. And who does he run into down there? Even more mini-lizards and one great big angry Lizard. Can Spider-Man make it back to the surface alive?

Verdict: Thumbs up. Beautiful art and a fantastic, classic story. This comic is just wonderful, and it’s weird that it doesn’t get a lot more attention.

Howard the Duck #4

So Howard — now the Living Nexus of All Realities — has been captured by a cosmic baddie called the Stranger, but he’s quickly rescued by a woman named Scout, who is the new Herald of Galactus. But actually, she isn’t — she’s just a human who mugged Alicia Masters for a bit of the Silver Surfer’s metal so she could get cosmic powers. In fact, she’s a Galactus fangirl, and the Big G doesn’t think much of her. But the Silver Surfer rescues Howard, briefly, and even gifts him with enough of the Power Cosmic to turn him all silvery and nakedy. He and the Guardians of the Galaxy rescue each other — and then it’s right back into the clutches of the Collector.

Verdict: Thumbs up. It’s entirely fun, and it’s great to see Howard with some real power for once, even though we can expect it to last maybe two pages in the next issue…

A-Force #2

The giant monster called Anti-Matter wants to destroy Singularity — and anyone else he can, too. He gets Medusa good and angry, and she uses Inhuman technology to teleport him to the moon. Singularity then teleports Medusa and She-Hulk to Japan, where Nico Minoru is trying to live a normal life. Of course, Anti-Matter returns, and Nico manages to “un-make” him — but this is still a temporary solution, because he will re-form. They all meet up with Captain Marvel, then go looking for Dazzler, hoping she can hit Anti-Matter with more light than he can process, giving them the opportunity to study him quickly and learn what his weaknesses are. They find Dazzler playing roller derby, and she’s a lot more punk-rock and a lot angrier than she used to be. But can she help fight off the monster?

Verdict: Thumbs up. This issue is a lot more fun than the first. There’s a lot more action, much more fun dialogue, and cooler characterization. It’s also great to finally see Nico and Dazzler again. (Do you think there’s a database in the Marvel offices to keep track of all the magic words Nico uses, since she can use each one only once?)

A-Force #1

You’ll get more out of this issue if you followed the A-Force comic during the recent Secret Wars crossover — which I mostly didn’t. But Singularity, a humanoid quantum singularity, appears in the Marvel Universe and starts encountering characters she knew from the first miniseries, only to learn that they no longer remember who she is. Soon, she’s pursued by a humanoid wad of antimatter. Captain Marvel fights the antimatter being but is apparently knocked out. Singularity also enlists She-Hulk’s aid — but Queen Medusa may not be so eager to assist.

Verdict: Thumbs up. It seems fine, though nothing particularly amazing so far. We don’t get to meet Nico Minoru or Dazzler yet, even though they’re on the cover.

Spider-Gwen #4

Gwen knows that Harry Osborne, in his new identity as the Green Goblin, is coming after her, determined to kill Spider-Woman for the death of Peter Parker, but not realizing that she’s actually his old friend Gwen Stacy. She battles Harry mostly to a standstill — but knows she’s making the same mistakes she made with Peter — fighting to humiliate her opponent and not to defuse a conflict she doesn’t actually want. Can she get the fight back under her control before she — or another friend — is dead?

Verdict: Thumbs up. It’s a great knock-down-drag-out battle — and it brings up an interesting point about Gwen’s (and Spider-Man’s) tendency to wisecrack in comics — it’s fun for us to read, but it just makes his opponents that much angrier…

The Vision #3

Well, the Vision family continue to do weirdly creepy things. Virginia scares off some vandalizing kids by beating them up through her own garage door. Vision channels a vast amount of electrical power to heal his daughter Viv. And Virginia seduces her husband, leading us to consider what the heck sex is like for a couple of robots. And enfolded around all this, we get Agatha Harkness, alive, dead, or both, feeding a pet cat a mystical flower, stabbing it in the neck, and then fighting it off when it turns into a large black panther. And then she cuts it open and eats its stomach so she can foresee the future of the Visions…

Verdict: Thumbs up. Super-creepy. Yeah, the Visions were fairly weird, but it ain’t nothing like watching an old woman eat a panther’s innards raw and then babbling predictions of the future…

A-Force #1

In the world created after the Marvel multiverse has been destroyed, the nation of Arcadia is a paradise, patrolled by scads of heroes, nearly all of whom are women, including She-Hulk, Captain Marvel, Dazzler, Medusa, America Chavez, Pixie, Spider-Woman, Nico Minoru, Lady Loki, Storm, and more. But all is not perfect in Arcadia, after an unexpected attack from a flying megalodon shark, Ms. America gets honked off and throws it over the horizon — and breaking one of Victor von Doom’s laws — nothing passes the borders between the nations. The law is enforced by the Thors, and not even Sheriff Stephen Strange or Baroness She-Hulk herself can win her any leniency. The Thors take her away to an eternal prison, and She-Hulk decides to find out who’s hiding out in the ocean throwing giant sharks at everyone.

Verdict: I hate to say it, but thumbs down. The major problem is that this is built around a summer crossover with a lot of weird, un-superheroey rules built into it. When you’ve got a world ruled by Dr. Doom, who has the powers of a god, and everyone’s fine with that, that’s a problem. When there’s a whole enforcement arm of the global Doom-worshiping government that’s composed of a whole bunch of different versions of Thor, and they’re really nothing more than Doom’s puppets, that’s a problem. When you’ve got that many awesome characters on the cover, but most of them don’t appear inside the issue, and the one character who does something really unquestionably awesome is banished before the last page, that’s a problem. This book can be turned around, but it’ll have to break free from the summer crossover prison it’s trapped in.

Sensation Comics #10

In our first story, Wonder Woman helps defend a pop star from a deranged fan who’s angry that the innocent teenybopper he obsessed over in his youth has dared to grow up. But who’s the stalker, and who’s sabotaging the star’s tour? In our second story, Diana fights a dragon with a personal connection to the Amazons and to Wonder Woman’s mother.

Verdict: Thumbs down. In the first story, the bad guy was telegraphed way too early on, and like some of the in-story media commenters, I questioned why on earth one of the most powerful people on the planet was going to all this trouble to babysit a pop star. In the second story, I wasn’t real happy with the extremely high civilian casualties. That may be okay for DC’s grimdark New 52, but a lot of the stories in this series have been more all-ages-friendly.

Lumberjanes #14

The Lumberjanes are trying to earn a badge for basic wilderness survival — but they’re just no good at basic things like setting up tents or remembering to pack the can opener. How will they ever survive the snowstorm? Wait, why is there a snowstorm in the middle of the summer?! What are the monsters that attack everyone? Can the campers find Jen after she’s separated from the group? And who is the mysterious and vaguely ominous Abigail who rescues her?

Verdict: Thumbs up. Fantastic art and writing. We get a story that’s simultaneously hilarious and genuinely frightening and unnerving. If you aren’t reading this, you really need to get with the program.

Today’s Cool Links:

• Let’s start things off on the happy side of things, with an antique carnival organ playing “Bohemian Rhapsody.”
• The “Batkid Begins” documentary trailer is predictably awesome.
• Here’s an airline safety video, guest-starring the Internet!
• Are prosecutors afraid to prosecute GamerGaters for death threats? Or do they actually approve?