Astro City #1

Great news! Astro City is back on the map! No longer at Wildstorm (since Wildstorm no longer exists), it’s now being published as a Vertigo comic.

Our re-introduction to the city comes through the narration of a purple-skinned guy called the Broken Man. He addresses the readers directly, trying to involve us in some ill-defined scheme to prevent a future disaster. We also get introduced to a new character — American Chibi, a new superhero who looks kinda like chibi anime characters. She encounters a mysterious door floating in midair over the Gaines River, but she — and none of the other superheroes in town — are able to get the doors to open. Meanwhile, we run into Ben Pullam, a character we met waaaaay back in the first issue of the second “Astro City” series. (You can find it in the “Family Album” trade paperback.) Back then, Ben was a widower with two young daughters — today, he’s a good deal older, and his daughters are grown up. They’ve gotten together for an overdue visit — but what is Ben’s connection to the mysterious being who finally emerges from the door over the river?

Verdict: Thumbs up. The Broken Man is a tad irritating, but I assume that’s a lot of his purpose. Aside from that, this is all the stuff you love about Astro City — fun superheroics, some innovative twists on the superhero formula, normal people getting the spotlight, and an excellent story and art. If you ain’t reading this, you’re stone crazy.

(I do wonder if this is really a Vertigo comic. Granted, there’s no way it should go under the DC banner, which is apparently solely devoted to the New 52 — and makes almost everything associated with it suck — but it seems odd to see it here as part of DC’s mature readers line.)

The Hypernaturals #12

The last issue?! Bah! But how do things turn out? Sublime is preparing to kill the Quantinuum AI — which will end up wreaking havoc across the galaxy. Shoal reveals that the Quantinuum is a refugee from another universe — but it’s insane, desperate to help others at the same time as it wants to kill itself, so it creates superheroes and supervillains. Elsewhere, the rest of the Hypernaturals team has to fight off an army of supervillains — actually normal people in the teleportation network who’ve been transformed into monsters. Can the team stop all the bad guys? Can Shoal and Thinkwell save the Quantinuum?

Verdict: Thumbs up. A very nice end for the series. Lots of action, great dialogue and characterization, and all around fun stuff. I’d really love it if this series was continued, but I guess that depends on whether Dan Abnett and Andy Lanning want to keep it going.

Ame-Comi Girls #4

Power Girl and the new Green Lantern fight Star Sapphire for the heart of Jimmy Olsen. Avril Palmer — the Atom — fights off the Brainiac infection in Supergirl’s brain while Supergirl and Power Girl punch each other. And Sinestra gets hold of both a yellow power ring and a black one.

Verdict: Thumbs down. I’m just not even a little bit interested in this series anymore.

Today’s Cool Links:

• Huzzah! Comics Alliance is back in business!
• This story about Dwayne McDuffie, Halle Berry, and Michael Dorn is completely hilarious.
• Snell brings us the bizarre tale of Mickey and Goofy as quasi-realistic secret agents.

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…

Astro City Special: Silver Agent #1

In Kurt Busiek’s epic “Astro City” series, the Silver Agent is one of the guys who ties everything together. He’s at least as important a character as the all-powerful Samaritan — he’s the symbol of how the Silver Age of comics fell before the Dark Ages that came afterwards. His backstory has him being accused of murdering a supervillain, put on trial, convicted, and executed — only for everyone to discover after his death that the villain had faked his death — the Silver Agent had been executed unjustly. And even worse, a time-traveling Silver Agent began to appear at various crisis points after his death — heroes and citizens begged him not to return to the past and his ultimate execution, but he refused, intent on sacrificing himself to preserve the timeline.

We finally get some more of his story. We start out in the distant future of the 43rd century, where the Agent had been pulled so he could assist the heroes of the future against a supercomputer called the iGod (snicker). Once they defeat it, using a code-bomb called a Tweet (snicker), the Agent remembers his past as a polio-crippled kid in a family full of hard-working public servants. Wanting to serve his community, he teaches himself to walk and gets a job as a mailman — not the most glamorous career, but something to help him feel he’s contributing. When he uncovers an attempt to rig an election, he tries to stop the crooks but gets chased into a cave, where he discovers a glowing silver machine that heals and empowers him, giving him the strength to fight off his attackers and become a hero. Can the Agent overcome the temptation to stay in the safe, comfortable future and avoid his fated death?

Verdict: Thumbs up. A very cool story so far, with excellent dialogue, characterization, and humor, and fans of “Astro City” will definitely want to read this.

Mystery Society #2

While Anastasia Collins welcomes the Secret Skull, an undead adventurer, into the Mystery Society, Nick Hammond is in Area 51 rescuing a couple of genetically-engineered psychic little girls. Of course, once freed from captivity, they’ve got powerful enough abilities to knock the stuffing out of the government’s secret war machines. But once they get back to the Mystery Society’s headquarters, they learn that the government is already busy manufacturing false spin to turn Nick, Ana, and their associates into the bad guys. After that, the Society’s next new member literally falls from the sky — the brain of Jules Verne inside a steampunk robot body! And after that, the military attacks — is there any way to escape? Well, turns out the Mystery Society has its own flying saucer…

Verdict: Thumbs up. Really, the story is running all over the place, seemingly at random. But I’ll forgive a lot for the sake of flying saucers and the disembodied brain of Jules Verne..

Girl Comics #3

Final issue of this anthology series dedicated to women creators. Besides another edition of Colleen Coover’s endlessly awesome introduction, we get Marjorie Liu and Sara Pichelli with a cute story about Wolverine and Jubilee; Louise Simonson, June Brigman, and Rebecca Buchman with a story about the Power Pack taking on a babysitting job for the X-Men; Lea Hernandez bringing us a look at the latest battle between Wolverine and Magneto; Carla Speed McNeil inviting us all along for Kitty Pryde’s 21st birthday party; and a couple of stories about characters I don’t even recognize.

Verdict: I’ll thumbs-up it, even though I didn’t recognize all the characters, ’cause I did enjoy most of the stories here. Wow, this one was almost the All-Wolverine issue…

Today’s Cool Links:

• Stevie Wonder brings the funk to Sesame Street.
• There’s a HeroClix set for “Watchmen”? Oh, my my my…
• And this is really, really great writing, and you should read it, even though it’ll break your heart.

Batman: The Return of Bruce Wayne #1

Holy cow, Bruce Wayne is stuck in the distant past?! Why didn’t anyone tell us about this?!

Okay, okay, Batman being stuck in the past wasn’t really much of a secret. Apparently, after Darkseid hit him with the Omega Effect during the “Final Crisis” series, he got shot clear back to prehistory, where he met up with Anthro the First Boy on Earth (just before he dies of old age), and drawing a few superhero symbols on a cave wall. Now Batman, addled and amnesiac from his time trip, meets up with Anthro’s tribe just before they’re attacked by a rival tribe of cavemen led by Vandal Savage. They kill numerous people and capture Bruce, staking him out on the ground overnight. But he’s rescued by Anthro’s grandson, one of the survivors of the attack, who’s gone and suited himself up with an actual domino mask. Batman then attacks Savage, wearing a giant bat skin as a cape and cowl, and then he kicks Savage’s butt with a whole lot of gadgets from his utility belt. But by the time Superman, Green Lantern, Booster Gold, and Rip Hunter make a time-travel trip to retrieve him, Batman has disappeared again.

Verdict: Thumbs up. It’s a weird, weird book — a caveman Robin who makes his own domino mask? It’s even slow-moving, in an odd, first-issue kind of way. But once Bruce Wayne dons the dead bat skin as a costume, it’s all weird in the best, most awesome way possible.

Astro City: The Dark Age – Book Four #4

The final issue of this miniseries has the Pale Horseman killing people for real and imagined crimes, while the Street Angel and Quarrel try to stop him. Charles and Royal Williams are still tracking down Aubrey Jason, the man who killed their parents, but he’s now stealing some of the Pale Horseman’s power to shore up his own rapidly vanishing lifeforce. Will they be able to work with the Silver Agent to stop him, when they blame the Agent for their parents’ deaths almost as much? And is there still a way for the brothers — or Astro City — to pull a happy ending out of this dark, bleak story?

Verdict: Thumbs up. It is a dark, bleak story, crammed full of more shadows than you’d expect, but it ends on the right note, with the Pale Horseman and Aubrey Jason getting the proper comeuppance, and all done with the right amount of heroism. And then the epilogue makes it all even cooler. Low-key, calm, quiet, but still cool.

Well, an extra two days away from the blog didn’t exactly recharge my batteries, but it gave me two days away from the blog, and I guess that’s saying something.

Part of the problem may be that last week’s comics, with only one or two exceptions, were perfectly competent, but just not that enjoyable. But I guess we gotta start reviewing somewhere, so let’s start with one of the few that I thought was really fun.

Blackest Night #8

And hey, if you haven’t read this one yet, I’m gonna spoil the heck out of it. You have been warned.

Well, Sinestro has merged with the Entity, the incarnation of all life in the universe, making him the extremely powerful White Lantern. He doesn’t have too much trouble killing Nekron — or so it seems. How do you kill an undead god? You don’t, ’cause he can recreate himself with any of the billions of Black Lantern zombies in the universe. And it doesn’t take long for Nekron to separate Sinestro from the Entity. The Black Lanterns make a recovery until all of the Lantern Corps and Earth’s superheroes join the defense of the planet. Deadman briefly possesses Guy Gardner to suggest that the Lanterns should focus on Black Hand instead. Hal Jordan realizes that, though Nekron claims to have allowed all of the resurrected heroes to return to life, they all chose to embrace life on their own. He joins with the Entity and inducts all of the resurrected heroes, including Superman, Wonder Woman, Flash, Kid Flash, Green Arrow, Superboy, Donna Troy, Ice, and Animal Man, into a new White Lantern Corps, which lasts just long enough to bring Black Hand back to life.

Black Hand ends up puking up a bunch of white rings, the way he used to puke up black rings. He brings the Anti-Monitor back to life, which breaks the Black Lantern power battery. Nekron banishes him back to his own universe (which also frees up the Anti-Monitor for use in future crossovers), but he is then destroyed by the white rings. A bunch of white rings then start flying all over the place, resurrecting the Martian Manhunter, Aquaman, Hawkman, Hawkgirl, Firestorm, Jade, Hawk, Captain Boomerang, Maxwell Lord, Professor Zoom, Osiris, and, most surprisingly, Deadman. Mera’s heart stops beating after her love for Aquaman frees her from the Red Lantern ring, but she’s saved by Star Sapphire and Saint Walker. Maxwell Lord makes his escape, and Hawkgirl is revealed to no longer be Kendra Saunders, but the classic Hawkgirl, Shiera Hall.

Verdict: Thumbs up. This is what every single giant comics crossover of the last few years has wanted to be. It has all the epic stuff that a big cosmic crossover needs, with some good human level drama, too.

The few things I’m less-than-happy with are all related to the aftermath. Why bring Deadman back to life? Isn’t the entire point of Deadman that he’s, um, dead? I assume they’ll kill him sooner rather than later to get the status quo back, so why even bother resurrecting him? And my irritation about bringing Shiera Hall as Hawkgirl is mainly that I thought Kendra Saunders was a really cool character. And there’s going to need to be some explanation why these specific characters got brought back to life, and not, for instance, Ralph and Sue Dibny, Solovar, Trickster, or any of the dozens of other dead DC characters.

Astro City: The Dark Age – Book Four #3

A new player is on the scene, born partly from a rip in reality and partly from the current mood of darkness and violence in Astro City. A hooded figure riding a flaming horse skeleton, he calls himself the Pale Horseman, and he specializes in killing criminals — metahuman assassins, safecrackers… and jaywalkers and kids stealing shopping carts. Meanwhile, in Las Vegas, Charles and Royal Williams again miss the chance to kill Aubrey Jason, the supercrook who murdered their parents decades ago. While Jason is having trouble holding himself together after being converted into an energy form, he still manages to escape. The Williams brothers give chase, and Mirage tries to convince the Silver Agent not to keep traveling into the past, to avoid his own execution — and of course, the Agent refuses, because it’s still worth it to him to go out and save lives, even knowing what’s to come.

Back in Astro City, the Pale Horseman’s continued assaults on “transgressors,” combined with uncommonly bleak weather, has everyone in the city alternately terrified that they’ll be next on the Horseman’s list and eagerly anticipating seeing someone else get slaughtered by him. A former hero named Street Angel who’d once been mind-controlled by another vigilante into killing criminals tries to live a clean life but is targeted by the Horseman. Royal Williams runs into another ex-hero who the brothers were acquainted with when they were kids — and then Charles tracks down Aubrey Jason again.

Verdict: Thumbs up. This is still a great contemplation of the Dark Age of comics history — it’s probably one of the best of its type out there. The Pale Horseman is certainly one of the most vivid and terrifying symbols of the Dark Ages that we’ve seen, and he makes a great antagonist, too. On top of that, the Silver Agent’s scene with Mirage is really very well done, and an excellent re-statement of the Agent’s Silver Age morals. If I’ve got a complaint about this issue, it’s that it’s going to be really difficult for new readers to follow. There’s a short recap of the action at the beginning, but there’s been so much happening in this series, it’s just not enough to explain everything that’s going on.

Astro City: The Dark Age, Book Four #2

It’s the down-and-dirty ’80s, everything’s nasty and cynical and brutal and cruel, and the Silver Agent has just traveled back in time to stop something from awful from happening. Charles and Royal Williams are chasing Aubrey Jason, a rotten piece of work who killed the Williams brothers’ parents decades ago. He’s got a mad scientist to agree to give him unlimited cosmic power, while the scientist’s vat-grown Dynamoids tear up Las Vegas and battle the local superheroes, like Mirage, the neon-wearing guy pictured on the cover. (Wow, that was a spectacularly long sentence.) Can Charles and Royal stop Aubrey Jason, even with the unwitting assistance of Mirage and the Silver Agent? And dark power has come thundering out of a dimensional vortex into Astro City?

Verdict: Thumbs up. Still loving the adventures of the Williams brothers, and everything in the background is just great, too. What’s really impressing me in this one is how much acknowledged darkness there is in this story. When you look back at the ’80s and the “Iron Age,” a lot of the comic stories were dark and bleak, but they never seemed to be really aware of how dark things were. Kurt Busiek has grasped all the pessimism and nihilism of the ’80s and has brought it out of the shadows to make sure we don’t miss it. Everything from the violence-loving TV viewers exulting in the chaos to the ominous hoofbeats riding out of the alley combine to create an incredibly forboding and frightening picture.

Milestone Forever #2

Well, in the last issue of this swan song for the old comics of Milestone Media, Icon, Rocket, and the Blood Syndicate got their happy endings — this time, it’s time for Hardware and Static. For Hardware, he’s inherited Alva Industries, he’s taken out the bad guys, and he doesn’t know where to go next. For Static, he’s heading out for his tenth high school reunion, meeting friends, and beating up on old enemies. And in the end, just as Dharma had feared, the end of the universe is on the way…

Verdict: Thumbs up. You want my advice? Ignore the stuff with Dharma. It ain’t important. The Hardware story is really good, and the Static story is absolutely fantastic. And even then, it coulda been better — DC has some weird grudge against Dwayne McDuffie, and it looks like they went meddling in his story again. But what we get here is still pretty good and still worth picking up, even if it’s six bucks. Man oh man, how I have missed ChrisCross’s artwork…

If it’s Friday, and it’s anywhere close to evening, then it must be time for… FRIDAY NIGHT FIGHTS!

Today, we’re getting our stack of brutal brutality from 1995’s Astro City #1 by Kurt Busiek and Brent E. Anderson and the epic battle between the Samaritan and the Living Nightmare:

And that should be enough to get y’all started on an epic and awesome weekend. Everyone have fun, and let’s hope Monday takes its time getting here…

Astro City: The Dark Age, Book Four #1

It’s 1984, and Charles and Royal Williams are still after Aubrey Jason, the man who killed their parents decades ago. They’ve given up their former lives and turned themselves into semi-paramilitary vigilantes, scavenging equipment, weapons, transportation, and even a base from former villains. But while the ’80s may look sunny and upbeat, times have actually gotten a lot darker, with more heroes willing to kill randomly, more monsters raging on the streets, more murderous gangs — is it all being caused by something evil hidden away from sight? Charles and Royal meet up briefly with the Green Man, a plant elemental, Gloo, a sadistic blob, and Nostradamien, a criminal who can only see awful futures. The brothers pursue Jason to Las Vegas, but he knows they’re after him, and he’ll do anything to get them off his trail.

Verdict: Thumbs up. I really enjoy the Williams brothers — they make excellent protagonists, and their continuing evolution is fun to watch. The background is also pretty interesting, and as always, some of the background characters are people I wish we could learn more about, particularly the Green Man.

Chew #8

Tony Chu, a government agent who get psychic impressions from anything he eats, is visiting a tropical island called Yamapula on the trail of a mysterious plant that tastes like chicken. Why is that important? Because chicken has been outlawed in much of the world after a bad outbreak of bird flu. Tony is briefly tossed in the local clink because he was seen associating with a secret agent who was later found murdered. After beating on a couple of abusive inmates, Tony gets a taste of their blood, learns that they’re murderers, and leads the local police chief to the dead body and then on to where the criminal cartel has stashed the illegal chicken. Well, actually, it’s not really a bunch of chicken that you’d cook and eat — it’s a rooster. A rooster in a luchadore mask.

Verdict: Thumbs up. More bizarre, morbid, violent fun. Lots and lots of plot twists, most of them more bizarre than any of the previous ones, and more intrigue than you’d expect from a comic featuring a part-time cannibal, fighting roosters, and prison swirlies.

The Incredible Hercules #140

Hercules, Amadeus Cho, and the Avengers are still in the lobby of the Olympus Group, trying to stop Hera’s mad scheme to rewrite the universe. Athena has been turned to stone by Delphyne Gorgon, who delivers the statue to Hephaestus, craftsman of the gods, who intends to create a golden automata of the Goddess of Wisdom. Herc and Amadeus fight a robotic dragon, but are soon captured by Hephaestus, who pits them against each other in a test of heroism and friendship. But can any of them stop the secret betrayer who is working against all of them?

Verdict: Thumbs up. Great action, great humor, and some very clever problem-solving. As always, you should take the time to read all of Greg Pak’s sound effects, because they’re very funny. The backup story with the Agents of Atlas is okay, but mostly forgettable.

Blackest Night: The Flash #2

Barry Allen is just getting his legs as a new Blue Lantern, trying to take on zombified versions of Kid Flash, Firestorm, the Reverse-Flash, and Solovar. Meanwhile, the Rogues have invaded Iron Heights Prison and must fight off the Black Lantern zombies of former Rogues, including the first Mirror Master, Captain Boomerang, the Top, Golden Glider, the Trickster, and the Rainbow Raider.

Verdict: Ehh, not bad at all. I love seeing Scott Kolins do art for Flash comics, and I’m enjoying Barry’s reactions to joining up with the Blue Lantern Corps.

I still have a ton of comics to review, so let’s spend today looking at all my comics that started with the letter “A.”

Abe Sapien: The Haunted Boy

We get a flashback as Abe Sapien, Hellboy’s amphibious buddy, goes on one of his first assignments, traveling to a small town in Vermont to investigate a routine haunting. Two boys fell through the ice on a frozen pond during the winter — one died, but the other was rescued. After the spring thaw, the glowing spirit of a boy was seen floating above the pond. Abe’s investigation isn’t turning up much — the mother of the dead boy is still bereaved, and the boy who survived the accident is suffering some kind of survivor’s guilt and can’t offer any helpful information. But when Abe goes for a swim in the pond, Abe learns something very, very bad.

Verdict: Thumbs up. Another great story from Mike Mignola and some more wonderful artwork from John Arcudi. The plot is nicely low-key, but still spooky and fun.

Ambush Bug: Year None #7

Okay, this one was supposed to have just six issues, but instead we get #7 this past week. A bonus? No, not really. Issue #6 has never been published, and no one seems to know why. This final issue has been delayed for about a year.

So in this issue, no one professes to know what happened to Issue #6. Dan DiDio acts evil and megalomaniacal, which is kinda like the real world, except without even that much entertainment. Some private eye investigates, um, something. And there’s not much more to it. About half the issue is drawn by Art Baltazar and Franco, from “Tiny Titans,” and that’s nice. But it’s not nearly enough.

Verdict: Thumbs down. Sooooo bad. Baltazar and Franco’s artwork is the only saving grace, and that still doesn’t change the fact that it’s soooooo bad.

Astro City Special: Astra #2

Astra Furst, recent college graduate and famous member of the superheroic First Family, has taken her boyfriend to the Gordian Knot, a twisted maze of stars, planets, and celestial bodies that Astra herself created a few years ago when she saved the universe — all these worlds are basically stuck together, meshing their cultures together, right at the edge of collapsing into nothingness. The planets can be rescued, but if it’s not done carefully, they could be destroyed, and the rest of the universe — maybe all universes — with them. But tonight is about Astra showing Matt the sights in the Knot, from a flight playground, to Astra’s multiversal pals, to the Caldera, the deadly center of the Knot. And Astra has two little pieces of news for Matt, neither of which he’s likely to enjoy very much.

Verdict: Thumbs up. It’s a great story about Astra, and a great study on celebrity media culture, both in the comic-book world and the real one, too. Definitely worth picking up if you’re an “Astro City” fan.

Astro City Special: Astra #1

About a decade ago, we were introduced to Astra Furst, youngest member of Astro City’s celebrated First Family, experienced superhero but a complete novice when it came to being a normal elementary-school student. Well, the “Astro City” comic advances in real-time, so Astra is now graduating from college, dealing with life as a super-celebrity, trying to decide what to do with her future. If anything, the ensuing hijinx are a greater trial for Astra’s boyfriend, Matt, who is a perfectly nice, down-to-earth guy, but is completely unable to deal with superteams on recruitment drives, diplomatic delegations from Monstro City, most of the members of Astra’s family, or interstellar nightclubs.

Verdict: Thumbs up. The First Family is always good for some good Fantastic-Four-style fun, and it’s great to catch up with them after all these years.

Marvel Divas #3

Angelica “Firestar” Jones’ cancer treatments are going about as well as you’d expect them to — chemotherapy is no picnic, superpowers or not. Patsy “Hellcat” Walker, Monica “Photon” Rambeau, and Felicia “Black Cat” Hardy rally around her and do what they can to take her mind off her troubles — Patsy sets her up with the best hairdresser in New York, and Angelica opts for a good ol’ fashioned buzzcut. Meanwhile, Monica has been roped into standing in for Doctor Voodoo in an auction for the Monkey’s Paw, and Felicia gets in a fight with her boyfriend, the Puma, because she wants to go back to stealing jewels from museums to pay her bills. And Daimon Hellstrom, the Son of Satan, makes Patsy another deal to cure Angelica’s cancer.

Verdict: Thumbs up. One of the things I ended up enjoying the most was the descriptions of some of the side effects of chemo — we’ll still need to wait on official word from Polite Dissent to see if they pass the sniff test from an Actual Doctor, but they do seem to give you some idea of just how unpleasant chemotherapy can be. Other than that, great art, great dialogue, good action — this one is worth getting, whether you’re a female or male comic fan.