I don’t know about you, but after a week as wild, wooly, wacky, and, um, wabash-cannonballesque as this one, I needs me a little dose of violence to get the weekend started right. So let’s get going — it’s time for FRIDAY NIGHT FIGHTS!

Tonight, our whuppin’ comes courtesy of this year’s Atomic Robo: Dogs of War #3 by Brian Clevinger and Scott Wegener.

The only thing better than beating Nazis bloody is robots beating Nazis bloody.

The Amazing Spider-Man #573

It’s the end of the “New Ways to Die” storyarc, which really ought to get an award for both the dumbest storyarc title and for dumbest new villain — namely, Anti-Venom: former regular Venom Eddie Brock now wearing some kind of negative-colored Venom outfit and with a mad-on for the current Venom, Mac Gargan, the former Scorpion. Hey, I just felt some of my brain cells die just from describing that! Anyway, Spidey and (snicker) Anti-Venom beat up Norman Osborne and Venom and various people and then everything goes back to the regular status quo.

Oh, but what everyone really cares about is the backup story, which stars Stephen Colbert, host of “The Colbert Report.” Most of y’all may remember that Colbert briefly threw his hat into the presidential race earlier this year — well, in Marvel’s continuity, Colbert is (A) exactly like his rightwing blowhard character on “The Colbert Report” and (B) is an actual candidate for the presidency. Well, Colbert’s candidacy ain’t goin’ so well. His most recent contribution is from Daily Bugle publisher J. Jonah Jameson, and it’s for a measly $100. His rallies are marked by an awful lot of apathy and not many people. In frustration, he gives up his campaign, until he runs into Spider-Man fighting a supervillain called (GASP!) the Grizzly! He helps Spidey beat the bad guy and gets to go web-slinging with the Wall-Crawler.

Verdict: Thumbs down for the main story. Dull, dull, dull, and stupid, stupid, stupid. However, a big thumbs up for the Colbert backup story. Much fun, very goofy, and still fairly action-packed. Ya know what’d be cool? If Colbert ends up becoming president of Marvel’s version of the USA. That’d rock soooo hard.

Atomic Robo: Dogs of War #3

Robo has managed to put most of the Nazis’ walking tanks out of commission, but now he’s on the trail of the Nazibots’ designer, Otto Skorzeny. But there’s another Allied agent tracking Skorzeny, a British agent called the Sparrow, and they end up getting in each others’ way and on each others’ nerves while they’re doing their Nazi-bashing. And complicating things even more are some more Nazi experimental monsters closing in on everyone.

Verdict: Thumbs up. More over-the-top action and Nazi bashing. All the action here takes place in and on top of a speeding train, which keeps things nicely focused and intense.

Captain America #43

Several different things going on here. We get World War II flashbacks with Cap, Bucky, and the Human Torch. We get Bucky smoochin’ with the Black Widow. And best of all, we get the return of Batroc the Leaper! Batroc’s French may be the most accurate it’s ever been (as far as I can tell — it’s not like I can read French anyway), and he actually manages to uncover Bucky’s secret identity as both the new Captain America and as the former Winter Soldier.

Verdict: Thumbs up. Hey, it’s Batroc the Leaper! BATROC ZE LEAPAIR!

Captain America #42

It’s the big conclusion of the first epic-length storyarc with Bucky Barnes as Captain America. Bucky foils the assassination attempt on Senator Wright, the Red Skull’s flunky, and pursues the Skull’s daughter, Sin. Knowing her dad will kill her for failing, she makes up a contingency plan to blow up all of the presidential candidates. Is there any way for Bucky to save everyone and embrace Captain America’s legacy? Elsewhere, the Falcon and the Black Widow are searching through the bad guys’ self-destructing base while the Skull and Arnim Zola try to transfer the Skull’s consciousness into Sharon Carter.

Verdict: Thumbs up. This ended up just plain excellent — much better than I was expecting. All the threads got either wrapped up beautifully or extended perfectly so they can be used later. This was a very long arc, but the finale was so spectacular, it made up for everything.

Blue Beetle #31

The artificially-created magnetic metahumans who Jaime captured last issue are brought to an El Paso hospital — their powers are killing them, and the only person who can save them is a metahuman doctor — namely, the Justice Society’s Dr. Mid-Nite. He’s able to stabilize them, but Intergang is planning on kidnapping them right back so they can dissect them. Meanwhile, Blue Beetle is awarded the key to the city, but the politically ambitious D.A. surprises Jaime by deputizing him into the Border Patrol! Oh, great, now half the city thinks Blue Beetle is a racist immigrant-basher. But Jaime doesn’t have long to worry about the fix he’s gotten into — Intergang attacks the hospital and takes his mother hostage! Jaime and Dr. Mid-Nite save the innocent bystanders, but Intergang escapes. But who’s pulling Intergang’s strings?

Verdict: Thumbs up. The Blue Beetle is awesome, and you should all go out and buy several copies right now.

Atomic Robo: Dogs of War #2

Robo is assisting with the invasion of Italy during WWII and runs into the Axis’ secret weapons — oversized suits of powered armor that give the Nazis an awful lot of butt-kicking power. Robo and the Allies end up taking down five of them over the next few hours, but it takes quite a struggle to take each one down, and there are still another seven out there. Do they have a chance of destroying the rest before the Nazis use them to stop the Allies dead?

Verdict: Giving this one a thumbs up, too. Robo’s a ton of fun, and the only thing better than killing Nazis is killing Nazi robots.

Superman # 680

I’m not a regular reader of this comic, but come on, who can resist that cover? We’re in the middle of a storyline where Supes is battling an ancient superhuman named Atlas — and Atlas is way too strong for Superman to beat. So is there any hope for Superman and Metropolis? Krypto… sic ’em!

Verdict: Good dog! What a good, good dog!

 

Tiny Titans #7

Starfire takes the rest of the Tiny Titans into space with her so they can visit her home planet and help her clean her room. But it takes a long time to travel through space — how will the Titans keep from getting in trouble for getting home so late? All that, plus Psimon plays checkers with Mallah and the Brain.

Verdict: Thumbs up. It’s the little things that make this so cool, like the way the shark toy eats the heck out of the Aquaman toy, Raven reading a “Patrick the Wolf Boy” comic, and especially the sound effects. When someone walks into a scene, the sound effects are: “Walk Walk Walk Walk.” And cleaning Starfire’s room gets sound effects like “Sweep Dust Pick Carry Put” — dang it, “Put” is a purely awesome sound effect. On top of all that, there is nothing in this world cuter than the Tiny Titans version of Monsieur Mallah and the Brain.

 

Atomic Robo: Dogs of War #1

Atomic Robo, an intelligent robot created in 1923 by Nikola Tesla, gets drafted to help fight the Nazis during World War II. The Germans have a new super-weapon, and Robo has to get to the Nazi’s secret lab in time to destroy them. Can he do it? Not if they want to keep this miniseries going for another four issues…

Verdict: Come on, it’s got robots fighting Nazis! Of course it’s a thumbs up! Robo is such a cool character, and Scott Wegener’s art is a lot of fun. There’s also quite a bit of regular wartime action, much of it done by non-robots, which is a good thing — it’s important for us to get to know the troops who will soon be threatened by those Nazi super-weapons.

 

I Kill Giants #1

A weird little story starring a fifth grader named Barbara Thorson. The local social outcast, Barbara smarts off to her teachers and family, wears bunny ears in class, abuses the other kids in her D&D games, and is absolutely obsessed with hunting and killing giants.

Verdict: Thumbs up. Like I said, a weird little story, but I love these kinds of character studies.

I picked up my free comics from Free Comic Book Day almost a week late, ’cause I was too busy volunteering at the Comic Book Expo to pick up any goodies. But I grabbed a few on Thursday when I went to pick up my latest comics fix, so what say we take a quick look at ’em now?

 

Hellboy: Free Comic Book Day

We get three short stories here — “The Mole” has Hellboy dealing with a skin condition that can’t be cleared up at the dermatologist. “Out of Reach” is a thoroughly enigmatic story set just after the events of the recent “B.P.R.D.: Killing Ground” series, with Johann Krauss, back in his glass-jar body, up to some possibly ominous shenanigans. “Bishop Olek’s Devil” is set prior to the current “B.P.R.D.: 1946” series, as Dr. Bruttenholm and Dr. Eaton seek out a dangerous spellbook. Oh, and keep your eyes peeled for Matt Groening’s Futurama/Hellboy mashups. They’re awesome.

Verdict: Thumbs up. All the creepy weirdness you love in Hellboy stories, compressed into bite-sized nuggets.

 

Atomic Robo: Free Comic Book Day

I’ve been trying to get my claws on some of the “Atomic Robo” comics for a while, and I always seem to just barely miss ’em before they get sold out. Sucks to be me. But I got this one, which is a nice little introduction to the character. Atomic Robo is the last and greatest creation of Nikolai Tesla — a fully intelligent, action-loving robot who runs his own think tank and goes on action-crammed adventures against devious scientists and the unexplained. In this story, he chases down a mad Russian scientist who plans to destroy the world with a mega-powerful atomic bomb. A short backup feature is from a new comic called “Neozoic” about an alternate earth where dinosaurs have survived to the present day and are currently making things really rough for humanity.

Verdict: Thumbs up. “Atomic Robo” is lots of fun. Who doesn’t love fast-talking robots who fight Soviet mad science? “Neozoic” isn’t nearly as good, but it shows some promise.

 

Maintenance: Free Comic Book Day

This one follows Doug and Manny, a couple of maintenance guys working in a lab with a bunch of more deranged than normal mad scientists. Worse comes to worse, and both of them end up transported back in time where they meet a bunch of cavemen. Cavemen with rocket packs, rayguns, and Segways.

Verdict: Thumbs up again. Very enjoyably goofy.

There are comics shops out there who have some free books leftover from Free Comic Book Day, so look around and see if you can pick any up.