Batman: The Return of Bruce Wayne #3

Bruce Wayne is still traveling through time, and this time, he finds himself captured by the infamous pirate Edward Teach — Blackbeard! Bruce has been pulled out of the sea near the sinking pirate ship, the Black Rose, and Blackbeard thinks he’s the dreaded Black Pirate. Blackbeard and his crew want Bruce to lead them to the fabled treasure trove of the Black Pirate deep inside the caverns of Gotham — caverns rumored to be the home of the mysterious and deadly Bat-People. Can Bruce lead the pirates through the trap-laden caves and still manage to escape?

Verdict: Thumbs up. Pirates, people. PIRATES.

American Vampire #4

Newly-minted vampire Pearl Jones has been lured out to save her friend Hattie from a bunch of European vampires — only to learn that Hattie is willing to betray her to the other vamps. She manages to escape, barely, with the help of her friend Henry, but can she still manage to prevail against all those vampires? And in our second story, set in the Old West, Skinner Sweet lures his old Pinkerton nemesis out to his new stomping grounds.

Verdict: Thumbs up. This is turning out to be a really, really fun comic. The artwork is great, the stories are great, the characters are great, and if you love horror or a good historical vampire story, you should be picking this comic up.

Today’s Cool Links:

• Snell knows that some of the stuff from the Golden Age wasn’t even a little bit golden…
• Bully the Little Stuffed Bull does a lengthy examination of the image inducer from Marvel’s X-Men comics.
• Here’s a really fun cartoon called “Fumiko’s Confession.” Outstanding animation that combines anime with the over-the-top Warner Brothers cartoon style.

American Vampire #3

In 1925 Los Angeles, recently-minted vampire Pearl Jones visits her old roommate Hattie, warns her that she’s likely in danger, and tells her to move somewhere safe. The European vampires hiding out in Hollywood send a few vamps out to investigate Pearl’s old apartment, but Pearl ambushes ’em on the way and effortlessly takes ’em all down. But she also falls prey to one of her breed’s few weaknesses — she has to sleep on nights of the new moon, and that gives the Euro-vamps an edge over her. Meanwhile, in our prequel from 1909 Colorado, Skinner Sweet revives from his decades underwater and gets hit with a dose of future-shock — he doesn’t know what a movie is, what a telephone is, he complains constantly that the nearest town elected a Hispanic man as the mayor. And he wipes out most of the town and wires a telegram to the lawmen who captured and killed him, taunting them into returning to face him again.

Verdict: Thumbs up. I’m really, really enjoying Pearl’s story. She makes a very appealing protagonist, and it’s fun watching her discover what she can do. Skinner Sweet is also a lot of fun, but I got pretty irritated about all the anti-Hispanic slurs he kept dropping. Yeah, yeah, it’s probably historically accurate — or at least as accurate as a story with vampires in the Wild West is ever going to get — but it does run afoul of one of writer Stephen King’s weaknesses — the guy just doesn’t do subtlety. It woulda been easy to communicate racism in the West in a line or two — no need to keep going back to that well over and over and over. This is probably a case where an editor should’ve tweaked things down a bit. Still, on the whole, I enjoyed the story, and I’m still recommending it highly, especially for all the fun in Pearl’s story.

Zatanna #1

Zatanna’s first-ever ongoing series starts off with a visit from a San Francisco police detective after one of Zee’s magic shows. He asks her to help investigate a murder scene — numerous mobsters gruesomely killed by magic. After she hypnotizes the lone witness to the crime, she’s able to see what he saw — a meeting of San Francisco’s organized crime leaders was invaded by a bunch of sorcerous gangsters looking to expand their business into the mundane world. The bad guys all seem to be new characters — the constantly grinning Brother Night, Romalthi, who can make people change shape, Ember, a dragon in human form, and Teddy, a very bad little boy. Zatanna makes her way to Brother Night’s mystical nightclub and confronts the baddies — she handles the henchmen pretty easily and warns Night to stay away from San Francisco. But Night has some more powerful allies he’s willing to bring forth…

Verdict: Thumbs up. Probably a good thing this is being written by Paul Dini, as he seems to be the biggest Zatanna fanboy in the universe — I mean, the guy went and married a magician who’s a dead ringer for Zatanna. We get a decent amount of magical mayhem and some very nasty new magical villains. And the artwork by Stephanie Roux and Karl Story is entirely excellent as well — equal parts cheesecake and horror, which is a pretty good mix for this type of comic. Superhero comics about magic-based characters seem to have an uphill climb (Anyone remember the fast fade “Shadowpact” pulled?), but I hope they can keep this title running for a while…

Today’s Cool Links:

• Science creates artificial life form. I figure they’re either going to turn out to be superheroes or acid-blooded monsters. Either way, fun times ahead…
• Gavok ponders the failure of Marvel’s “Siege” and the Sentry.
• Awful camerawork and narrators who won’t shut up, but holy cow, the recent hailstorm in OKC was pretty spectacular!
• Ninjas save man from muggers: the world gets just a bit more awesome.

American Vampire #2

Both of our linked stories in this issue focus on our heroes’ transitions from humans to the undead. In 1926, Pearl Jones dies in the hospital after getting attacked by a bunch of Hollywood vamps and wakes up only to learn from Skinner Sweet that she is, like him, a new kind of vampire, an evolutionary step up from the ones who created her. What can she do? Other than survive in the sunlight, Skinner keeps that a secret from Pearl — but he does leave her a gift — the handsome Hollywood actor who lured her to the vampires in the first place. The second story, written by Stephen King, is set in the last years of the Wild West. Notorious outlaw Skinner Sweet has been gunned down by the law — but only after contact with a vampire’s blood. Now Skinner’s in an uncomfortable spot for a vampire — buried underground, unable to get out — and a few years later, after the vampire businessmen dam up the river, under an extra 60 feet of water. How can even the undead survive a couple decades in those conditions?

Verdict: Thumbs up. Oh mercy, thumbs up. Both of the stories are wonderful horror romps, and as much fun as the first issue was, this second issue makes it clear that this series is gonna be a must-buy. Let’s talk art — Rafael Albuquerque adapts his familiar superhero style very well to the world of vampires — our first glimpses of Pearl and Skinner in full bloodsucker glory are just awesome. And the look of the artwork actually changes from the story in the ’20s to the one in the Old West, credit to both Albuquerque and colorist Dave McCaig.

B.P.R.D.: King of Fear #4

The King of Fear, a skull-faced, semi-mechanical, black-glowing wannabe-world conqueror, has Abe Sapien, Andrew Devon, and their team of B.P.R.D. operatives trapped underground, surrounded by frogs and proto-humans and giant robots, as the King makes his plans to destroy the world and present it, wrapped up in a bow, to Abe, who he sees as the next stage in the evolution of life. Meanwhile, Liz Sherman has been taken into a vision of the apocalyptic future by the ghost of Memnan Saa. Is there anyone left who can save everyone?

Verdict: I’m gonna have to thumbs this one down — and for a second issue in a row! As I’ve said before, this series has gone on for so long now that we need a lot more detailed recaps of what’s happening and who all the players are — and not just the heroes, but the villains, too. Other than that, the story seems straightforward and credible… or at least as far as I know, since I can’t remember who all the villains are…

Crossed: Family Values #1

Here’s a new series set in the “Crossed” universe, this time starting at the same time as the initial outbreak of the insanely homicidal super-virus. Our lead character now is Adaline Pratt, eldest daughter of a very large and very wealthy horse-ranching family. It seems like a fairly happy life — except that dad is an authoritarian rageoholic with a fondness for child abuse and molestation. So, ya know, not so much of an idyllic existence and more of a barely-suppressed domestic hell on the verge of exploding. And that’s even before the army of virus-driven psycho killers show up and try to kill everyone at the ranch…

Verdict: Ya know, I’m really not sure yet. I like Adaline as a character, but when the leader of the survivors is a moral monster like Joe Pratt, you’ve got the potential for a really deeply unpleasant story ahead of you. I’ll need another issue or two before I’ll be able to decide whether or not I want to deal with it.

American Vampire #1

Listen, man, I need good horror stories in my life. I need an occasional Western, too. And I got this entirely unnatural fondness for stuff from the 1920s. Co-written by Stephen King? That’s a bonus. Art by Rafael Albuquerque, who aside from having an awesome name, also provided art for my fondly-remembered “Blue Beetle” series? Another bonus. So yeah, you bet I picked this one up.

We get two different stories in this one. We start out in Hollywood in 1925, where Pearl Jones and her roommate Hattie are living their silver screen dreams — well, not really dreams. They’re just extras in a silent costume drama, and Pearl also works extra jobs as a cigarette girl in a fancy club and as a waitress in a diner to make ends meet. Things finally start looking up when she catches the eye of the handsome star of the movie, who invites her to a ritzy party being thrown by the film’s producer. And it turns out the producer and his friends have a — how shall we say this — a bit of a drinking problem, if you catch my drift.

Our second story is set in Sidewinder, Colorado, back in 1880, where notorious murderer and bank robber Skinner Sweet has finally been captured and is being taken by train to New Mexico, where he’ll be hanged. Riding with him are James Book, the Pinkerton agent who captured him, William Bunting, a writer looking for a story, and Mr. Percy, the wealthy financier who helped pay Agent Book’s salary. But even chained up, Sweet’s a dangerous outlaw — and that’s without his gang looking for a way to derail the train. And once the lead’s started flying at the end, it turns out that someone on the train has an even sweeter tooth than Skinner Sweet…

Verdict: Thumbs up. Loves me a good vampire story. Pearl and Skinner both make very enjoyable protagonists, and we’re treated to a lot of fun characterization for both of them — probably more for Pearl, since she’s likely to be a much nicer and less murder-y protagonist than Skinner is. But all told? I like it. A lot.

Daytripper #4

Brás de Oliva Domingos is now in his 40s, and his wife is gonna have a baby any time now. After they race to the hospital, Brás learns that his father, a famous novelist, has just died. So he has to go through the stress of losing his father, the stress of the high-profile funeral, the stress of waiting for his baby to be born, and the stress of meeting, for only the second time, the half-sister he never knew. And then something unexpected happens.

Verdict: Thumbs up. For something that has basically the same ending every time, this one is a story that never fails to entertain me. The art and writing by Gabriel Bá and Fábio Moon are just really wonderful. If you aren’t reading this, I really do hope you’ll start soon — it’s something special.