Blackest Night #2

The zombie invasion of the DC Universe really gets going, as we get treated to zombified versions of Hawkman, Hawkgirl, Aquaman, Dolphin, Aquagirl, Deadman (though the ghost version of Deadman is still fighting the good fight), Hawk (but not Dove), Pariah, Firestorm, Crispus Allen (For an omnipotent avenging spirit serving God Himself, the Spectre sure does get spanked a lot, doesn’t he?), and even a bunch of zombie sharks, with Tempest as our spotlighted B-list zombie convert. Green Lantern and the Flash drop a car on the Martian Manhunter to stop him, but it doesn’t put him down for very long. DC’s magic users fall under attack and lose one of their most powerful members. But the bulk of this issue is devoted to the harrowing attack by Aquaman and his undead underwater minions.

Verdict: Thumbs up. I know a lot of folks object to the darkness of this series — and I know I’ve often had my share of gripes about gratuitous, shock-value deaths used by DC to pump up sales and look like tough guys. But DC sure has spent the past decade killing off and reviving as many of their characters as they could — maybe the time’s come for DC itself to take a closer look at their use of the dead-superhero crutch. Also, zombified superheroes, free of the nudge-and-wink giggles that marred “Marvel Zombies,” is just too good a concept to pass up.

Yes, we’ll get really, really, really sick of spandex-wearing zombies by the time this is through. But I think the ultimate test of the worth of this series is going to lie at the end of the run. Namely, if they’ve returned at least 95% of these characters to life by the last issue (which is what I think they’ll do), then we can say it’s all been worth it. If it’s just another slaughter-them-all-and-pray-for-good-sales gimmick, then we’ll be safe writing off Dan Dildio’s DC once and for all.

Astro City: The Dark Age, Book Three #4

Charles and Royal Williams completely screw up and fail to kill Aubrey Jason, the criminal who murdered their parents years ago. A cosmic being called the Incarnate is preparing to destroy the world. The Apollo 11 have been permanently stripped of their powers. An idiot superhero called the Point Man uses an awesomely powerful weapon called the Innocent Gun against the Incarnate — too dumb to listen to warnings to stop, he learns too late that the gun is only supposed to be fired once, by someone with a pure heart, at the time of Earth’s greatest need, and as a result, he may have doomed the whole universe. The Silver Agent is able to control the omniversal wormhole in time — or has he?

Verdict: Even for a comic called “The Dark Age,” I wasn’t expecting anything quite this depressing and grim. I’ll give it a thumbs up anyway, ’cause it’s incredibly well-written and illustrated, because I expect it’ll all make sense at the end, and because of the awesome announcement Kurt Busiek makes in the letter column — the series is going to be publishing monthly soon. But I am very disappointed about the loss of the Apollo 11 — they were fantastically cool in the brief glimpses we got of them, and it’s too bad they won’t be around any longer.

Astro City: The Dark Age, Book Three #3

Years ago, someone killed Charles and Royal Williams’ parents. They finally know who he is — a high-ranking member of the criminal Pyramid organization. Royal used to be a spy within Pyramid, but a close call had him running for safety, so Charles has now infiltrated the organization on behalf of the high-tech espionage agency E.A.G.L.E. Pyramid is spying on most of the superteams in the country, including the Apollo 11, a bunch of former astronauts turned alien superheroes. But when Charles and Royal finally confront their parents’ killer, will a cosmic disaster prevent their revenge?

Verdict: Thumbs up. The stuff with Charles and Royal is fine, but the real fun this time is all about the Apollo 11. These guys are utterly freakish, like a cross between the Doom Patrol, Ultra the Multi-Alien, and a ’50s sci-fi comic — and I really want to read a whole lot more about Commander One, Encephalon, Nihil, Shrff, Strangeling, L.G.M., Ichthyos, Kahoutek, Aquarina, Arthro, and Gas Giant. This really does seem to be what Kurt Busiek does best with this series — introduce these once-off, throwaway characters that make you wish someone would put them in a nice long comic series all to themselves.

Secret Six #11

We start off with a short confrontation between the Six and the slavers — Deadshot wants to carry the body of the woman he shot, and the slavers want to treat her like baggage. Smyth, the slavers’ leader, defuses the confrontation and later explains his view of world history: all of mankind’s greatest accomplishments were created by slavery, he says, so he wants to see slavery re-implemented worldwide, but with a twist — slaves would be chosen by lottery, so there would be no injustice of enslaving the poor or minorities. And what are his slaves on the island building? The world’s largest prison, designed to hold ever prisoner in the entire world. Meanwhile, Artemis, a stand-in for Wonder Woman in the ’90s, has been captured and brought to the island as a metahuman slave — she and Jeanette seem to have a past history, but Jeanette decides to rescue her and the other Amazons held prisoner on the island, just because she doesn’t like slavery. And this leads directly to a fight within the Six itself — Jeanette, Bane, and Scandal on one side, because they don’t want to work for slavers, and Catman, Deadshot, and Ragdoll on the other, because they don’t want to break their lucrative contract.

Verdict: Thumbs up. Excellent characterization all around, from Deadshot’s insistence on respecting the woman he killed, to Smyth’s twisted logic behind his pro-slavery utopia, to Jeanette’s reasoning for rescuing Artemis, even down to Catman’s willingness to work for people he hates because he gave his word of honor that he’d do so. Artemis’ speech to her jailers was also especially cool. All in all, just a very fun and awesomely morality-obsessed comic, even if it’s focusing on a bunch of supervillains.

Booster Gold #21

Rip Hunter is acting mysterious, Booster meets Nightwing/Batman, and the Black Beetle makes an appearance.

Okay, that’s enough of that. It’s an alright story — and it’s a lot better than most recent “Booster Gold” stories — but no one cares about Booster. What’s important is the backup story.

The backup story stars Jaime Reyes, the Blue Beetle.

Good gravy, how much have I missed this guy?

We get Jaime, Paco, and Brenda hanging around a burger joint wondering why superheroes don’t get their own henchmen when the city is attacked by a giant yellow robot bellowing “THINKO! IS UNSTOPPABLE!” and “DESTROY ALL HUMANS!”After Jaime (eventually) destroys THINKO!, the gang learns that it originally attacked El Paso during World War II. They disguise themselves as reporters and head off to question the son of the robot’s creator, who is in jail for building his own evil robot called Unimate. He has no idea who’d rebuild his dad’s machine and crows fiendishly about the superiority of Unimate. Suspicious? Maybe a bit — especially when a horde of Unimate robots appear and try to destroy El Paso…

Verdict: Thumbs up. Again, the Booster Gold story was okay, but holy guacamole, did I ever enjoy the Blue Beetle story. I picked up this comic not expecting a whole lot from it, but the very first page of the backup was a colossal reminder of how awesome the “Blue Beetle” comic was, and of how much we’ve lost as comic readers now that it’s been cancelled. Everything from the great dialogue and chemistry between Jaime and his friends to the outstandingly mad THINKO! robot was just picture-perfect classic “Blue Beetle.” Not to wish anything bad on “Booster Gold,” ’cause I still get enjoyment out of the series, but really, “Blue Beetle” should be the lead feature. That’s all there is to it.

Astro City: The Dark Age, Book Three #2

Royal Williams is trying to lay low and avoid Pyramid Agents, the local criminal syndicates, and his brother Charles, who, as a member of E.A.G.L.E., is becoming more obsessed with the high-ranking Pyramid Agent who killed the brothers’ parents. And all around them, the world is becoming a bleaker, more brutal place, right down to the formerly noble and merciful superheroes. The Williams brothers are wedged in the middle of this powderkeg — will they be able to survive when the sparks start flying?

Verdict: Thumbs up. I love the way the tension here is slowly ratcheting upwards. Royal Williams really is a very interesting character — but the way things are going, who knows what the future holds for him or anyone else in this story?

Detective Comics #853

DC Comics sure does love killing their most popular character, don’t they?

It’s the second part of “Whatever Happened to the Caped Crusader?” by Neil Gaiman and Andy Kubert. (Part I came out waaaaaay back in February.) In this issue, we continue the strange funeral of Batman, attended by his friends and foes, telling stories — always wildly contradictory — about how the Dark Knight died, while a mysterious woman keeps Batman company. We get stories from the Joker, the Mad Hatter, the Golden Age Batgirl, Robin, Clayface, Harvey Bullock, Ra’s al Ghul, and even Superman. And finally, Batman realizes that he’s not dead… but he is dying. How is the woman accompanying him going to help him? What secrets will she reveal? Is there an escape from the other side of the grave?

Verdict: Thumbs up. A strange, fun, bittersweet story, perfectly designed for Gaiman’s strengths as a storyteller. And Kubert was a great match for this story — his artistic style makes the whole thing look modern, gritty, and classic all at the same time, where a popular, more glossy artist would’ve killed the mood. If you didn’t get a chance to read the first part of this story, you might wait to see if DC is going to put out a collected paperback of this story, to go with the paperbacks of Alan Moore’s “Whatever Happened to the Man of Tomorrow?”

Astro City: The Dark Age, Book Three #1

Charles Williams, former cop, and Royal Williams, current hoodlum, are on the trail of the man who killed their parents many years ago during a superhero battle. But now it’s 1982, in the midst of the darkest period of Astro City’s history. No one trusts superheroes, and the superheroes don’t care much about the people of the city either. We get to see the debut of the new Cleopatra as she helps defeat a villain called the Hellsignor, then we follow Royal, undercover as a henchman at a training camp for the evil Pyramid organization. He’s able to avoid the indoctrination treatments as he tries to track down his parents’ killer. But will he be able to continue his investigation when the authorities raid the camp — and when he learns that Pyramid suspects his treachery?

Verdict: Thumbs up. It’s been a long time since the last issue of this one, but I’d forgotten how much I liked the Williams brothers. The Pyramid stuff is a nice glimpse into the world of the Hydra/Cobra-style organizations. As always, Kurt Busiek brings a great story and excellent dialogue, and Brent Anderson provides the excellent artwork we’ve come to expect from him.

Astro City: Beautie

One of my very rare complaints about Kurt Busiek’s brilliant “Astro City” series? He comes up with all these wonderful, interesting characters, and then they only appear in a single issue, or in the background of several issues. We’ve only ever learned a bit of trivia here and there about MPH or the Gentleman or the N-Forcer. And one of the characters that has attracted the most interest is Beautie, a life-sized Barbie doll with superpowers.

So finally, Busiek has put together an entire double-sized comic focused on Beautie. Distant and aloof, she’s obsessed with learning her origins, looking at dolls in toy stores, and collecting fashionable clothing. She’s irritated by many men after years of having to deal with clumsy attempts to pick her up — after all, she’s not anatomically correct — and she actually feels more comfortable hanging out in gay bars, where the guys don’t try to pick her up and where she feels that she’s met a community of fellow outsiders. But as she gets closer and closer to discovering her origin, she begins developing mysterious memory troubles. What’s happening to her, and will she ever be able to make the right connections to learn who created her?

Verdict: Thumbs up. This one was big, big fun, and I hope Busiek does some more of these character specials to clue us in on some of Astro City’s other interesting characters.

Booster Gold #0

Holy moley, how long has it been since we’ve seen an honest-to-Graud Zero issue? And one of the coolest story ideas we’ve seen in ages — this is an actual crossover with the old “Zero Hour” miniseries from way back in 1994. Booster and the various Blue Beetles, including the resurrected Ted Kord, Jaime Reyes, and Dan Garrett, meet up with the Zero Hour villains, Extant and Parallax, while traveling through time. There’s a brief battle before Booster and the Beetles end up with a wrecked Time Sphere in the 25th century — Booster’s home time, actually. Booster briefly considers trying to keep his younger self from throwing the game that got him banned from football, and talks about the loss of his sister who followed him to the past and tried to be a superhero like her big brother.

Eventually, everyone steals another Time Sphere from a museum (and we meet a younger version of Skeets, too) before escaping back to their proper time periods. So everything’s okay, right? Ted Kord is alive again and is gonna help Booster safeguard the timestream, right? Well, maybe not. Max Lord’s OMACs may have something to say about all that…

Verdict: Thumbs up. How many times can I say that this series is surprisingly awesome? Every time I read a new issue, I end up underestimating how much I’ll enjoy it. The Zero Hour twist to this issue is also awfully fun. If you’re not reading this, please start. It’s an excellent comic, and I hope it lasts for years.

So I called my doctor and said, “Hey, doc, I got a runny nose, wicked awful cough, fever, and I keep having dreams that I’m spontaneously forming my own evil post-human clone-minions from my own supernaturally overabundant snot. What should I do?”

Well, my doctor knows what I need the most. He yells out, top volume: “FRIDAY NIGHT FIGHTS!”

From 1996’s Astro City #4 by Kurt Busiek, Brent E. Anderson, and Will Blyberg: The best ever one-kick takedown of a Paste-Pot Pete analogue by a busboy:

Bahlactus has a fever for pain!

Astro City: The Dark Age, Book Two #4

Okay, the main problem with this series is that it doesn’t come out often enough, so it’s hard to keep remember what the heck was going on the last time I read it. Basically, we’re following two estranged brothers, Charles Williams, a cop, and Royal Williams, a crook. It’s 1977, and thanks to a battle between two supervillains, half of Astro City has been infected with negative emotions and are either trying to kill each other or themselves. The Silver Agent shows up to help out — but isn’t he dead? And Royal finds his brother Charles, shot in the back by crooked cops, and with all the chaos in the city, he has no way to summon help for his brother.

Verdict: Thumbs up. As always, you wish that Busiek had time to tell more of the stories of some of these minor characters, like Jitterjack, Black Velvet, and Street Angel. At any rate, it’s well worth getting, but if I were you, I’d wait for the trade paperback. You may have trouble finding the earlier issues of this series, and if you miss those, you miss too much.

Batman #669

It’s the final chapter of the “Club of Heroes” saga, with assassins trying to off Batman, Robin, and the rest of the “Batmen of All Nations.” The Squire has a bomb in his stomach, the sidekicks have been kidnapped, and several different people are masquerading as someone else. Can I say more without spoiling the surprises? No, I can’t. Sorry, but it’s too good to spoil. Go buy it, or wait for the trade paperback.

Verdict: Thumbs up, obviously.