Dungeons & Dragons #7

We’re still in flashback mode, discovering how Adric Fell and his band of adventurers originally got together. Hired on to guard some wizards traveling to a magically lost city, their band is ambushed by a bunch of elves and eladrin. When the head eladrin (for those not up on their D&D knowledge, eladrin are basically elf nobles, while regular elves are, well, just regular elves) reveals that he’s willing to kill other elves and eladrin to protect the city’s magic, Varis turns on him. But there’s another ambush in the making, as they are all attacked by the Drow (again, for the D&D avoiders, those are dark elves). A small group of adventurers survives, but they won’t last long with all the Drow trying to bust into the small room they’re holed up in. Do they have a chance to escape certain doom?

Verdict: Thumbs up. Nicely tense storyline, lots of claustrophobic, tense scenes, outstanding dialogue, and a picture-perfect Desperate Last Stand.

How to improve this series: Well, I enjoyed this flashback storyarc, but I’m fairly glad it’s over now, ’cause I really want to see more stuff with my two favorite characters, Bree the greedy sociopath halfling and Tisha the brooding but dishy tiefling.

Detective Comics #877

Batman escapes from a deathtrap set by Bixby Rhodes, a gunrunner/car dealer, and snags the crook even though he tries to escape on high-tech titanium super-legs. Dick learns from Sonia Branch, non-criminal daughter of the gangster who killed his parents, that her bank has had to deal with criminals wanting to launder money for years, but while the Mob usually respected her wishes not to cater to criminals (after all, they had plenty of other banks to turn to for dirty dealings), other crooks, including Rhodes and a smuggler named Tiger Shark, have refused to take no for an answer. Dick tracks Tiger Shark to his secret underwater lair, but what sort of dangers are lurking in the depths?

Verdict: Thumbs up. Very, very nice mystery storytelling. Love the dialogue and characterization by Scott Snyder. (There’s a great bit at the beginning where Dick Grayson talks about what he likes to do after dealing with human criminals all night — he loves nature documentaries, just because they don’t have any humans in them. That’s a great piece of character work.) And I love Jock’s artwork, too. Really, I’m loving the whole series.

How to improve this series: For starters, don’t get rid of Scott Snyder. The guy really is very good with mysteries. Other than that, I can’t think of a lot that would need to be fixed — this is one of DC’s best series.

Xombi #3

The Maranatha is a giant fiery monster of pure anger and hatred, and it’s whuppin’ the tar out of David Kim. Nun of the Above, Catholic Girl, and Rabbi Sinnowitz try to help out, but things look pretty grim once the monster bites David in half — and he doesn’t start regenerating. Well, not for a while. Eventually, he does recover, all while a ghost has this great monologue about what it’s like to be dead and to miss being alive. Will they be able to destroy the Maranatha? Will David be able to maintain his connections to the normal people while living forever? And where’s the mastermind behind this whole thing?

Verdict: Thumbs up. I had my doubts for a while, ’cause it was a lot of hitting and biting for a while, but once the ghost starts that great monologue while David slowly stitches himself back together, it’s pure magic clear to the end.

How to improve this series: Hey, I know you gotta have some hitting in superhero comics, but why don’t we let John Rozum spend more time writing awesome dialogue and characters, okay? That’s a ton of fun.

Today’s Cool Links:

• All anyone is talking about today is DC’s decision to reboot all their comics and republish everything from #1. I think this sounds like an utter disaster, and a great opportunity for me to read a lot fewer DC comic books — but let’s watch as Siskoid and MightyGodKing break it all down for us.

Rocketeer Adventures #1

Dave Stevens‘ “Rocketeer” comics were great retro-cool stories. They had excellent action, beautiful artwork — especially his acclaimed good girl art — and simple but cool stories. He died much too young in 2008. And IDW — bless their hearts, rapidly becoming one of my favorite comic book publishers — is starting a short series of comics paying tribute to Stevens’ stories.

What we’ve got here is three short stories about the Rocketeer and his friends — a spectacular little number by John Cassaday and Laura Martin, in which Cliff Secord has to save his Bettie-Page-lookalike girlfriend Betty from getting shot into space by, ironically, trying to shoot her into space; a story by Mike and Laura Allred focusing on Cliff and his supporting cast; and a tale by Kurt Busiek and Michael Kaluta that puts the emphasis on Betty — while Cliff is fighting the good fight overseas during World War II, Betty works on keeping spirits high stateside by performing in patriotic shows on Broadway. Plus there are pinups by Mike Mignola and Dave Stewart and by Jim Silke.

Verdict: Thumbs up. Great high-flying adventure. My lone complaint about this issue? No reprints of any of Stevens’ classic stories. One of the covers features some of Stevens’ artwork (the one pictured above is by former Lubbock resident Alex Ross), but this is the kind of project that would benefit from letting us see the man’s storytelling for ourselves. Nevertheless, despite that one little quibble, it’s a great comic, and you should go grab it up.

Batman: Gates of Gotham #1

Looks like I’ll be taking a break from the “Batman and Robin” title, ’cause DC done gave that hack Judd Winick a shot at writing it, and if there’s one thing I can’t stand, it’s that hack Judd Winick. So here’s a Batman miniseries to keep us all happy ’til the hack’s gone again.

Someone’s stolen a heck of a lot of explosives and smuggled them into Gotham, and before Batman (in this case, Dick Grayson) can find out where it is, someone uses it to blow up three bridges in the city. Dozens of people are dead, despite the best efforts of Dick, Red Robin, Damian Wayne, and even Cassandra Cain, much beloved former Batgirl. In time, Dick learns that the Penguin probably had the explosives brought into the city for another buyer — but Oswald Cobblepot says he had no idea what the explosives for — and if he had, he wouldn’t have let the bombings happen, as one of the bridges was originally named for his family. In fact, the three bridges were once known as the “Gates of Gotham,” and the second bridge was once tagged with the Wayne family name. The third bridge’s original name, however, ties it to someone even more dangerous than Cobblepot.

Verdict: Thumbs up. Scott Snyder does some pretty good superhero mystery writing. My least favorite part of this is the end, when we bring in a villain I’ve never much cared for.

Today’s Cool Links:

• Superman vs. the Sugarhill Gang
• DC is doing Wally West wrong.
• Worried about the end of the world? It’s been predicted many times, and the doomsayers have never been right yet.
• But if the end does come… Well, like George Romero told us: “When there is no more room in Hell, the dead will walk the earth.” So the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention wants to help keep you safe from the zombie apocalypse.
• And finally… Chicken.

Batman Inc. #6

The global underworld is plenty alarmed by the presence of Batman Incorporated — Bruce Wayne is recruiting new Batmen left and right. He puts Red Robin in charge of the newest version of the Outsiders, uses a bunch of sockpuppets to spread doubt about his true identity, and informs everyone that they’re going after a multinational crime ring called Leviathan. We catch glimpses of Batman Inc. associates like Nightrunner (nice to see DC didn’t get run off by the short-lived controversy over that character), Batgirl, Huntress, Oracle (her online avatar now has its own bat ears), Blackbat (Cassandra Cain, the much-missed former Batgirl), Australia’s Dark Ranger, North Africa’s Batwing, a new Wingman, Gaucho, and much more. But Leviathan has plenty of tricks up its sleeve…

Verdict: Thumbs up. So very many awesome things here, particularly the return of Cassandra Cain. I just love the way the story and all of these characters are coming together.

Hellboy: Being Human

Mike Mignola reunites with superstar horror artist Richard Corben for a new story from Hellboy’s past, this time co-starring the late Roger the Homunculus. The story is set in 2000, when Roger hasn’t been alive long and is still wracked by guilt because he accidentally (but only temporarily) killed Liz Sherman when he was brought to life. Hellboy brings him along on a minor haunting in South Carolina. Someone keeps digging up a long-dead family and moving them into the ruin of their old family home. When the witch who raised the family to torture them returns, she immobilizes Hellboy with a mystical Hand of Glory — but will Roger stand a chance of freeing his friend and stopping the witch?

Verdict: Thumbs up. As always, Mignola and Corben are a combo that can’t miss. Lots of awesome zombies, demons, and horrors, beautifully illustrated by Corben and beautifully humanized by Mignola.

The Unwritten #25

Tom Taylor finally returns to Earth after a few months of getting knocked around inside literature itself. Lizzie Hexam and the newly vampiric Richie Savoy are planning on breaking into an auction house to steal a lot of items originally owned by Tom’s father, Wilson Taylor — and Tom’s new mastery over the crystal doorknob will allow them to march right past the security. But will Tom be able to resist exploring his memories inside the auction house? And will they be able to deal with their enemies inside?

Verdict: Thumbs up. Nice start to a new storyarc, with Tom finally in more control of his magical abilities and the search for the truth getting taken to a higher and more dangerous level.

Today’s Cool Links:

• A “useless machine” is basically an engineer’s joke. You switch it on, and a mechanical hand emerges to shut itself back off again. Most are pretty simple. This one is pretty epic.
• This recipe for vegan pad thai is the most metal recipe for vegan pad thai ever.
• There’s something about these “My Little Pony” mashups that I just can’t get enough of.

Godzilla: Kingdom of Monsters #2

More giant monsters begin making their appearances on the scene, with Rodan emerging in Moscow and Anguirus in Mexico. A distraught father arms himself in an attempt to get revenge on Godzilla, the president tries to figure out how to do anything to the monsters when nuclear weapons have proven to make them stronger, and the Texas governor builds a border wall to keep out the giant illegal immigrants.

Verdict: Thumbs up. Several things I was pretty fond of — the father’s misguided quest for revenge was pretty well-done, as was the Russian psycho kid’s comeuppance when it came to Rodan. But I do wish they’d gone with something other than the standard blowhard Texas cowboy stereotype for the Texas governor — considering that the president pictured in the comic is very clearly Obama, couldn’t they have used Texas’ own blowdried nincompoop? They wouldn’t even have had to change his dialogue…

American Vampire #14

Henry Preston has joined up with a crack military squad from the vampire-hunting Vassals of the Morning Star to clear out a nest of vampires on Taipan ahead of the American invasion forces. They don’t realize that Skinner Sweet is tagging along incognito — mostly to make sure he’ll get to kill them himself. Pearl confronts Agent Hobbes about what’s going on. And the squad finds out that what’s taken over Taipan isn’t something they were prepared to deal with.

Verdict: Thumbs up. It’s amazing how consistently awesome this series is. Lots of good character work, and Rafael Albuquerque’s art is, as always, amazingly fun.

Batman Inc. #5

This one was a bit all over the place for me. Everyone ends up on the Falklands, Batwoman kicks Scorpiana’s butt, there’s a guy who may or may not be a Nazi super-spy, there’s a guy called the Hood who’s another British version of Batman (and he may be working against the good guys), Batman and the Gaucho make nice, and at the end, there’s a from-outta-nowhere Batman from Central Africa.

Verdict: Thumbs down. I couldn’t keep track of everything going on, and it’s pretty rare that a Grant Morrison comic does that to me.

Today’s Cool Links:

• First of all, can I get a whoop-whoop for Bin Laden kicking the bucket? WHOOP-WHOOP!
• An excellent examination of the recent abortion revelations from Robert Kirkman’s “Invincible.”
• David Brothers ponders violence in crime comics, war comics, and superhero comics.
• Mike Sterling’s postmortem on his long-running Sluggo Saturdays includes the funniest sci-fi mashup of Nancy and Sluggo I’ve ever seen.
• Snell dredges up an old anti-comics polemic from the ’50s directed by the guy who directed “The Empire Strikes Back.”

Detective Comics #876

This one starts with one of the best opening mysteries I’ve ever seen — a bank in Gotham City opens its doors in the morning and finds a full-grown killer whale dead on the floor. Obviously, no one has a clue how it got there. All the bank’s cameras blanked out for an hour during the night. The bank is owned by the daughter of the gangster who killed Dick Grayson’s parents, but there’s absolutely no evidence that she’s anything but a law-abiding citizen. And there’s a dead body in the whale’s stomach. What can it all mean?

Verdict: Thumbs up. Outstanding beginning for this mystery — the entire thing is tantalizing and bizarre, and I really want to see how it all turns out.

Xombi #2

David Kim is pumped full of nanites that heal him of any injury and make him immortal, but he doesn’t feel too healthy when this comic opens. He’s just been attacked by a magical being called a snow angel that’s tearing his arm off. And once Catholic Girl has used her holy powers to stop it, they’re all getting attacked by a bunch of zombie kids in Halloween costumes. Clearly, these monsters aren’t who broke a mystical Mr.-Hyde-transforming prisoner out of prison. They find the transportational portal that the escapees used, leaving David to pursue, accompanied by a guardian golem called a rustling husk — a creature formed out of the discarded husks of millions of insects that died while trapped inside windows. But once David catches up to  the escapees, is he going to find something even more awful to worry about?

Verdict: Thumbs up. Holy bananas, this one is just so relentlessly weird, from the clerical superheroes like Catholic Girl and Nun of the Above to the talking pocket change to the Maranatha, part lion, part demon, part King Kong, who ends up being the main villain in this piece. And if there’s one thing I enjoy, it’s a weird, weird comic book.

Morning Glories #9

Our focus in this issue is on Jun, the Academy’s resident badass — and on his mysteriously hostile twin brother Hisao. We see their childhood, when they were much friendlier to each other — and when the Morning Glory Academy first came after them. How did they come to be enemies? How were they separated? What happened to their families, and who rescued one of them? Only some of those questions get an answer, but it’s still a good ride.

Verdict: Thumbs up. I’m enjoying the focus on the individual students — something that was definitely missing from the first storyarc. The one thing that bugged me in this issue is that it spotlights Jun’s past, captioning it as “Five years ago,” while depicting him and his brother as, at the most 8-10 years old — that’s just much too young for a guy who is presented, in the present day, in his upper teens.

Today’s Cool Links:

• This. That’s all. And I sure do wish some of the idiot scumbag birthers would move the heck out of my country.

The Unwritten #24

We get another break from the main storyline to return to the intensely freaky tale of Pauly Bruckner, reluctant and foul-mouthed storybook rabbit. After escaping from a children’s story set in idyllic Willowbank Wood, Pauly finds himself trapped on a surreal and deeply depressing endless staircase with a bunch of other storybook animals, all trying to climb to a possibly mythical Golden Door. Pauly eventually winds up taking over the group and leading it his own way, but is there really any way out for him?

Verdict: Thumbs up. So very, very weird. I wish Pauly Bruckner had his own series — he’s just so wonderfully bizarre.

Hellboy: Buster Oakley Gets His Wish

So who is Buster Oakley? He’s an awkward teenager dabbling with his friends in witchcraft and Satanism, hoping for amazing power. Hellboy is called out to his small area of Kansas after he and his friends disappear and after a bunch of cows disappear and later turn up mutilated. Hellboy is expecting to have to deal with Satanists… but he gets one heck of a surprise when he gets abducted by aliens. Of course, we can expect that Hellboy will come out of this okay, but can we say the same thing for Buster?

Verdict: Thumbs up. A nice, action-packed story with a giant dollop of humor on top. We don’t often — or ever, really — see Hellboy fighting bug-eyed aliens from outer space, so this is one heck of a change of pace. And Kevin Nowlan’s artwork is a ton of fun, too. If you haven’t gotten this yet, go do so as fast as you can.

Batman and Robin #22

The White Knight intends to kill off as many relatives of Arkham inmates as he can, because he believes they’re all tainted by their association with their crazy, criminal relatives. Batman and Robin save as many as possible, then follow the White Knight to Arkham Asylum itself, where he intends to drown all the inmates. We get the White Knight’s origin, including his connection to Dr. Phosphorus, and we get a furious punch-a-thon to close out the storyarc.

Verdict: Thumbs up. Good action, very nice artwork, and a pretty good conclusion. My only quibble — we never learn exactly how Robin manages to save all the drowning inmates.

Secret Six #32

So the Secret Six have gone to Hell — this time, in a luxury elevator operated by Etrigan the Demon. And their primary foe is their former teammate Ragdoll, who has been made a Prince of Hell. And besides his army of demons backing him up, he’s also got his old deceased friend Parademon on hand. Ragdoll worries that he’s going sane, Catman goes looking for his father, Bane learns that he’s likely hellbound, despite his attempts to live an honorable life, and Ragdoll reveals a surprising ally.

Verdict: Thumbs up. Good action, good characterization, and lots of twists and turns.

Today’s Cool Links:

• Attention, Lubbockites: This upcoming sci-fi movie includes Buddy Holly, Napoleon Dynamite, and a likely guest-starring role for the Hub City.
• Ya ever noticed that sometimes, Archie Comics are completely insane?
• The art of the 3-D logo in comics, with special emphasis on Will Eisner’s logos for “The Spirit.”
• I wish the guests for Career Day had been this awesome when I was a kid…

Zatanna #11

Oscar Hempel, evil puppeteer turned evil puppet has managed to turn himself back into a human while turning Zatanna into a puppet. Hempel has been using her in his show for several weeks, but plans to have her put into a museum so he’ll be rid of her forever. But her stage manager, Mikey, suspects Zatanna has been kidnapped, recognizes “Miss Zee-Zee” from one of Hempel’s shows, and disguises herself as a floozie so she can knock out Hempel and try to help Zatanna regain her human form. The plan mostly works, but Hempel regains consciousness and tries to zap Mikey with his magic trinkets. But Mikey is under the protection of a spell (What? She is? Since when?), and the backlash turns Hempel back into a puppet, and Zatanna back into her fully human form. Also, Brother Night is back and planning more evil stuff.

Verdict: Ehh, a little from Column A, a little from Column B. The art by Jamal Igle is outstanding. The story is pretty much a mess. Zatanna doesn’t really do much of anything. The entire story runs on Mikey’s ingenuity, a lucky magic spell, and Hempel’s general rottenness. Zatanna’s a side player in her own book.

Detective Comics #875

A Batman comic that barely features Batman at all? Well, it actually turns out pretty good. Our focus is on Commissioner James Gordon, who is tracking a recently paroled prisoner who he suspects of being a long vanished child killer — and at the same time, remembering the childhood of his estranged son, James Jr. His son was always a weird, disturbed kid — drastically unemotional, smart, but with a tendency toward cruelty. Gordon has always suspected that his son killed one of Barbara Gordon’s childhood friends — but is there actually a connection between the two cases?

Verdict: A big thumbs up. Outstanding storytelling, outstanding art. The title of the comic is “Detective Comics,” and this one is all about detective work, even if the Dark Knight isn’t the star.

Today’s Cool Links:

• I really hope you read this great article about the upcoming Lubbock Comic Book Expo in yesterday’s Avalanche-Journal. You remember it’s coming up this weekend, right?
• The Project Rooftop blog has been really interesting lately, but I really dug their discussion of Iron Fist’s new costume change.
• Evil Bully tracks down all the dirty Archie covers.
• You’ve read the great Letters of Note site, right? It’s a collection of interesting letters, some to or from famous people, some completely mundane but interesting in their own way. It’s a lot of fun to read…
• A Cthulhu shot glass? Nice.
• This article, about people who game the system to benefit people getting ground down by the heartless global economy, was really interesting and inspiring.

Batman Inc. #4

We get a trio of storylines in this one. First, Batman and El Gaucho are duking it out — as long as one of them dies, three blind orphans won’t have to die. And Batman’s just learned a terrible secret Gaucho has kept from him, so he’s really out for blood. Meanwhile, Batwoman is tracking a crook called Johnny Valentine and runs into someone dressed as the original Golden Age Batwoman. And finally, we get a flashback to the rewritten-for-the-modern-era origin and story of Kathy Kane, the aforementioned Golden Age Batwoman. A wealthy daredevil widow, the idea of fighting crime with Batman and Robin appealed to her adventuresome side and she started a superhero career, as well as a romance with the Dark Knight. How did it all end, and what’s the connection with the Batman’s new case?

Verdict: Thumbs up. Yay, a new Batwoman story! The Kathy Kane flashback was better than I was expecting. It gets goofy here and there — Batman and Batwoman making out in the Batmobile, Robin complaining about Ace the Bathound wearing a mask — but in general, it’s a fun, exciting, sexy story. Oh, and Chris Burnham’s artwork is impressive and fun.

Green Lantern #64

While a small squadron of Green Lanterns heads out to arrest Hal Jordan for treason against the Corps, Jordan and the other unsanctioned ringbearers pursuing Krona run into some trouble with the terrifying Book of the Black — its vampiric keeper, Lyssa Drak, shows up and starts trapping all seven of them inside the Book. And the Guardians come under attack by Krona and the enslaved Entities — and once Krona starts bonding the Entities to the Guardians, it isn’t long before they and most of the Green Lanterns are under his control.

Verdict: Thumbs up. Wow, it’s been a while since I was able to say that. But this issue actually has some real plot happening and not just the usual aimless meandering. Hope they can keep it up for a while.

Today’s Cool Links:

• Hey, there’s still a need for volunteers for the Lubbock Comic Book Expo. Want to help out? Say “Yes, Scott, I want to help out, your will is my will, I am your lowly slave, here’s my paycheck.” Oh, yes, there will be another Expo meeting TODAY at 7 p.m. It’ll be at Awesome Books, 3009A 34th St. Please come out and help — it’s important that the show get enough volunteers to make sure everything runs smoothly, and it’s a lot more fun to help out with this than you’d expect.
• Mike Sterling invites us to closely examine the Giant-Size Man-Thing.
• This man is made of pure 100% turbocharged Awesomeness.
• “Duke Nukem Forever” is finally going to be released? Um, wait a minute…
• This may be the most head-explodey thing you’ll read today: A Wonder Woman story from the 1950s in which our heroine babysits a tyrannosaur in a baby carriage. And yes, it’s by Robert Kanigher, the maddest writer of the Silver Age.

Zatanna #10

Zatanna may be one of the top spellcasters in the DC Universe, but she’s apparently not the smartest person around. Last issue, she was menaced by the murderous puppet Oscar Hempel — this issue, she invites him into her ancestral home, which is stuffed to the gills with magical artifacts. She learns that Hempel is definitely a psycho, but then he gets his wooden hands on a bunch of artifacts and uses them to make things a whole lot worse for Zatanna. Not a smart move, Zee. Meanwhile, the evil Brother Night is stirring up more trouble back in San Francisco.

Verdict: Thumbs up. Paul Dini may be writing Zatanna as uncommonly stupid, but Cliff Chiang’s gorgeous artwork makes it all seem okay.

Batman and Robin #21

This new guy called the White Knight has targeted someone else for a mysterious angel-themed death — in this case, the wife and children of Kirk Langstrom, the Man-Bat. Batman and Robin are able to rescue them, luckily, and they soon learn the identity of the first victim — he was the brother of Batman foe and serial killer Victor Zsasz, which means that the White Knight is targeting innocent family members of Batman’s rogues gallery. Who’s next on the hit list?

Verdict: Thumbs up. Great story, fantastic art, a nice mystery, and a neat twist. I’m enjoying this one a lot.

Today’s Cool Links:

• Comic artists are doing what they can to raise money for Japanese earthquake/tsunami relief.
• Texas Tech librarian/cultural historian Rob Weiner on 1960s Batman vs. modern dark Batman.
• If this is true — and I have no idea yet if it is — but if it’s true, DC should be impossibly ashamed of themselves.
• This particular picture is a bit old, but Nextwave fans, this will make your pants happy.
• Here’s a long but very enjoyable article about H.P. Lovecraft and the impact of his Cthulhu Mythos.

Batman Inc. #3

Batman travels to Argentina to team up with the impressively mustachioed Gaucho, one of the members of the old Club of Heroes, and offer him membership in Batman Incorporated. To his surprise, Gaucho turns him down, but they still unite to defeat El Papagayo, his mooks, and his swarm of explosive Blue Scorpions. He’s working for someone who has kidnapped a trio of blind children from the poor side of the tracks, but won’t give up the name of his boss. After Bruce Wayne and Don Santiago Vargas, the Gaucho’s alter ego, stage a disagreement over the deadly femme fatale Scorpiana, the two heroes discover new clues to the kidnapping to lead them to a deserted and boobytrapped warehouse. Once they’re inside, they’re provided with taser-gauntlets and ordered by a voice over loudspeakers that they must fight to the death or the kidnapped children will die.

Verdict: Thumbs up. The Gaucho is just cooler’n heck. Scorpiana’s appearance is also 100% awesome and sexy. And wow, Yanick Paquette’s artwork is just divine.

B.P.R.D.: Hell on Earth – Gods #3

The conclusion of the newest storyarc sees Abe Sapien and his team from the Bureau for Paranormal Research and Defense taking on some of the monsters invading Texas and working to corner and recruit the mysterious Fenix. And things do not end the way Abe would’ve expected.

Verdict: Thumbs up. A shocking ending, a shocking betrayal — and a shocking departure by artist Guy Davis, who’s leaving the B.P.R.D. comics for pastures elsewhere.

Supergirl #61

I’m behind on reviewing this one — my copy got lost in the mail somewhere, and it took a few weeks for a new one to be shipped out to me. Anyway, in this issue, Supergirl has been ambushed by a bunch of Superman’s villains, thanks to a new smart-phone app called “Flyover” that encourages users to snap photos of superheroes and post them — allowing our mastermind villain, the psychic technophile Alex, to dispatch supervillains anywhere someone’s seen a hero. After Kara takes out the villains attacking her, she meets up with Lois Lane, who clues her in on certain shenanigans at Cadmus Labs. And after that, the Flyover app targets Robin in Gotham City, and Kara flies off to help him deal with the sudden attack by Clayface and Mr. Freeze. But what’s really stalking the young heroes of the DCU?

Verdict: Thumbs up. Lots of plot plugged into this one, and it all makes decent sense. Nice mystery being developed, too. Good, distinctive dialogue for all the characters. All that, and Kara’s sporting a shorter haircut — looks pretty good. Hope it sticks around, rather than getting re-lengthened by the next artist. And can we give a shout-out for that great cover by Amy Reeder? — gotta love the use of sound effects there.

Today’s Cool Links:

• First, another reminder: There’s going to be a planning for the Comic Book Expo this evening at 7 p.m. at Awesome Books, 3009 34th St. If you can help out, please attend.
• Anyone noticed lately that Rick Perry is a weasel? “Don’t blame me for the rotten condition of the state budget just because I spent a decade screwing up the state budget! Please ignore me and your legislatures and vent your rage on your neighbors! It makes it easier for us to get away with screwing over the state when you fight each other instead of us!” Whatever, weasel.
• And hey, lookit what I’ve got lying around on my desktop! A nice handy link with info on how to contact your state and national representatives!
• And here’s some nice advice on how to effectively lobby your politicians so they’ll be more likely to listen to you.
• Why does Universal Studios hate Guillermo del Toro, H.P. Lovecraft, and the freely given entertainment dollars of hundreds of thousands of enthusiastic Lovecraft fans?
• And finally, here’s a great article on the resurgence of Dungeons & Dragons with older roleplayers.