Wonder Woman #20

Apollo sends Artemis out to kill Zola’s baby — she gives Wonder Woman a good fight, but the Amazon comes out on top. But while that’s going on, Lennox, Zola, and Hera are about to walk right into the hands of the immensely powerful First Born of the gods.

Verdict: Thumbs up. Oh, I know, a short summary, because there’s not a whole lot else of the story to tell. That doesn’t mean it’s not good, ’cause it is a lot of fun. Really excellent action, for one thing, along with lots of politicking and intrigue among the godly types. I’m getting a mite nervous about Lennox’s fate, though, ’cause the First Born doesn’t strike me as someone you can really beat…

Batwoman #20

The D.E.O. wants Batwoman to find out Batman’s secret identity, and they’ve got a heck of a bargaining chip — Kate Kane’s twin sister, Beth, formerly the villainous Alice. Cameron Chase recounts the tale of the botched operation that nevertheless allowed the D.E.O. to obtain Beth’s comatose body. Once Kate agrees to their terms — Batman’s real name in exchange for her sister and clearing her father’s name — she returns home to find that her father, her stepmother, her cousin, Bette Kane, and her fiancee, Maggie Sawyer, all know what just happened — Bette planted a bug on her, and they listened in on everything that happened. And they all want to help her — but will she be able to accept any assistance?

Verdict: Thumbs up. Just a dadgum awesome issue. Beautiful artwork — but that’s a given at this point, isn’t it? — and a really strong story, with metric tons of great characterization. This was a pleasure to read from the first page to the last.

Today’s Cool Links:

• Sometimes the “Gutters” webcomic just absolutely knocks it out of the park.
• Justice for the teenaged science geek who’d been charged with a felony for conducting a chemistry experiment (and shhh, for not being white): charges have been dropped, and she’s going to space camp!
• Learn some true facts about hedgehogs.
• I do hope you guys have read Gaiman and Pratchett’s “Good Omens” by now.

Batwoman #19

Most of this issue is basically a lead-up to the next major storyarc, all revolving around a strong theme of family strife and secrets. DEO agent Cameron Chase clashes with her sister about their superhero-wannabe father. Jacob Kane and his wife argue about his training Kate and Bette as crimefighters. Bette and Kate argue about Batwoman working for the DEO. And Director Bones tries to insist that Batwoman investigate Batman.

Verdict: Thumbs up. Great artwork from beginning to end. How many times do I have to say it? This comic has the best art of any book on the stands. We also get some really enjoyable interpersonal characterization in here. I am really looking forward to seeing how the next few issues progress, ’cause it looks like there are some serious fireworks ahead.

Captain Marvel #12

Carol Danvers spends the whole issue trying to beat up Deathbird without flying, while her doctors discuss her case, the weird lesion in her brain, and her connection to Helen Cobb.

Verdict: Thumbs down. Really, the story is basically fine. But again, the art by Filipe Andrade is shockingly, embarrassingly bad. When you’ve got a comic with really good writing and a lead character who seems to be growing more popular with every appearance, when you’ve got outstanding cover art on every issue, why on earth would you stick it with art this horrific on the inside?

Mystery Society Special 2013

The Mystery Society is back?! HOT DAMN! I had no clue this was even coming out, so it was an absolutely wonderful treat when I found it on the New Releases shelf last week.

The full membership of the group — Nick and Anastasia Hammond, twin super-psychics Nina and Sally, undead adventurer Secret Skull, and Jules Verne (or at least his brain in a steampunk robot body) — are on hand for another caper, first sending Verne and the Skull deep undersea to trade the skull of Edgar Allan Poe with a collector of unusual items. But of course, he welshes on the deal, intending to add Verne and the Skull to his collection. Nina and Sally teleport Nick and Anastasia down to help, later tagging along themselves when they get bored. Who are the prisoners who the Mystery Society intend to free? Only a few legends of myth and literature… who may be a bit too terrifying to be trusted…

Verdict: Thumbs up. Wow, I’d forgotten how much I loved this series, and this issue serves as a great reminder of how much fun it was. My lone complaint is that, though Steve Niles is back on writing duties, Fiona Staples didn’t return to do the art. Andrew Ritchie is quite good, but he’s more closely associated with horror comics — and while this book has quite a few monsters in it, Ritchie’s art style seems an odd match for the Mystery Society’s pulp-adventure thrills. Still, that’s a fairly minor nitpick. The whole comic is just plain awesome, and y’all should go get this, and you should also go hunt down the trade paperback of the “Mystery Society” trade paperback.

Batwoman #18

Batwoman and Hawkfire (Kate Kane’s cousin Bette in a new costumed persona) battle Mr. Freeze, each in secret communication with their technological benefactors — Cameron Chase of the DEO in Kate’s case, and Col. Jake Kane in Bette’s. They manage to take Freeze down, but run into more trouble when Batman shows up. He wants the villain’s freeze-gun, but the DEO wants it, too. Batwoman “solves” the problem by demolishing the weapon, which just convinces the DEO that she’s too much of a loose cannon, so they start planning on bringing out their new ace agent. All that, plus Maggie Sawyer starts house-hunting for a house for her and Kate once they get married…

Verdict: Thumbs up. It’s a good issue — but it must be said, it’s also not as good as many of the previous issues of this series — the art and writing are not quite up to the high standards we’ve come to expect from this series. Still probably better than almost anything else out there, though…

Batwoman #17

It’s the great final battle against Medusa, her monstrous minions, and Ceto, the mother of all monsters. We get some triumphs — Bette Kane reveals her new superhero codename as Hawkfire and she clobbers the stuffin’s out of the Hook — and some tragedies — Abbot, Batwoman’s occasional werewolf ally, is destroyed by the Medusa. But can all the heroes stop the Medusa? Can they stop Ceto? And what other cliffhangers will we be left with?

Verdict: Thumbs up. Oh, so very many thumbs up. First of all, as we’ve noted so very many times, this is the most beautifully illustrated comic on the stands, and that alone should make it worthy of your purchase. Second, it really is an excellent story, with drama, suspense, loss, and tons of great moments. Like I said, we’ve got a couple of cliffhangers, which I won’t spoil too much, at least not yet. The second one is way excellent, as we get the return of a character I’d very greatly missed. The first one is probably even more excellent, and it’s extremely weird that after the horrible PR of hiring crazy Orson Scott Card to write comics, DC didn’t push this very positive development a bit more enthusiastically.

Daredevil #23

Foggy Nelson is looking at some serious medical issues, and his pal Matt Murdock takes him on an outing over New York’s streets as Daredevil. But Matt gets called out on a real emergency — a bunch of people with his extreme sensory powers are running loose in the city, and Daredevil has to stop them. Who’s behind the attack, and what kind of news is Foggy going to receive?

Verdict: Thumbs up. Well, listen, the action is great, the mystery is fine, but what really makes this a glorious piece of storytelling is the last two pages.

Today’s Cool Links:

• RIP comic artist Scott Clark.
• A documentary about how Batman helps make the world more awesome? Yeah, I’ll back that project.
• If you’ve seen the movie “Argo,” here’s the amazing artwork that Jack Kirby contributed for the the fake film.
• A nicely done article about how Chris Claremont’s X-Men comics moved female superheroes out of the backwards ’60s and into the modern world.
• Here’s a fun interview with horror and genre actor Jeffrey Combs.

Batwoman #16

Yet another issue of the most beautiful comic book on the stands. The Medusa and her monstrous minions are laying waste to Gotham City in an attempt to raise Ceto, the mythical Mother of All Monsters. We get a check-in — and sometimes co-narration! — with almost every character we’ve met since this comic began, including Batwoman, Maggie Sawyer, Wonder Woman, Cameron Chase, Director Bones, the Hook, Bette Kane (with an all-new costume!), la Llorona, Maro, and even the Medusa herself. It’s a mad, chaotic war zone as all the chessmen take their positions on the board…

Verdict: Thumbs up. Once again, the most beautiful comic book on the stands. If that’s not enough, it’s a really fun piece of storytelling, too. I love seeing all these characters coming together, with all their agendas and fears and ambitions playing off each other, all working up to something truly epic and apocalyptic. I only wish we could’ve seen Joseph Kane in here, too — he’s just about the only major character we don’t see here.

FF #3

Apparently, the only survivor of the Fantastic Four’s journey into outer space is an elderly Johnny Storm, with the others all victimized by Doom the Annihilating Conqueror, an amalgamation of Dr. Doom, Kang the Conqueror, and Annihilus. Scott Lang tries to persuade Darla Deering to return to the group — an effort that quickly goes all embarrassing when the Yancy Street Gang targets her with a whipped cream bomb and then snaps some photos of Darla half-dressed. Can Ant-Man convince Darla to rejoin the FF? Can the team figure out a way to save the seemingly long-dead Fantastic Four?

Verdict: Thumbs up. There’s spectacular energy in this one. From the mystery of John Storm to the effort to recruit Darla to the Moloids’ trip underground, there’s crackling excitement here. While we’d expect that energy in a chase down a skyscraper’s stairs, we also get it from a mostly static scene with Johnny and Wyatt Wingfoot. Yeah, Matt Fraction is writing a very fun comic, but this feels like a Michael Allred comic from beginning to end.

Today’s Cool Links:

• Was the moon landing a hoax? Here are some photo-based reasons why it all really happened.
• Here’s an absolutely hilarious tutorial about how to make a railgun.
• What happens when you change a familiar song from a minor scale to a major one? You get a song that’s the same, but very, very different.
• Here’s some stuff to scare the gee-willikers out of you.

Well, 2012 is almost over, and I’m absolutely delighted to see it go. This has been, without a single doubt, the absolute worst year of my life.

My grandmother died in January — she was 100 years old, but nope, you’re never prepared for that, never, never. Three friends died of cancer. We lost Ray Bradbury. I was diagnosed with diabetes. “City of Heroes” was shut down.

Oh, I know, there are lots of ways it could’ve been worse. Lots of people have gone through more horrible things this year, and I’ve got it relatively good. My family is healthy and happy. I have a job that keeps a roof over my head, food on the table, and comics in the longboxes. I’ve lost about 45 pounds since July, and my health is overall pretty good.

Nevertheless. It’s been a deeply unpleasant, depressing, sorrowful year, and I won’t be at all sad to see it end.

And ya know, this hasn’t been a very good year for comics, either.

We’ve had to sit through DC firing Gail Simone from “Batgirl” for no apparent reason (and then hiring her back when they realized that she was much more popular than anyone else at the company); DC shutting down “Hellblazer” so they can try to turn John Constantine into a superhero; fans responding to the (truly awful sounding) Amazing Spider-Man #700 by making serious death threats against writer Dan Slott (Pff, like Slott came up with that? Joe Quesada and Alex Alonso probably thought that one up, then assigned him to work on it.); DC just straight up being a dick to Alan Moore almost all year long with the (mostly ignored by readers) “Before Watchmen” comics.

And dominating geek news for the entire year has been the bizarre hostility in comics and gaming toward anyone who isn’t a straight white male. In a lot of ways, the gaming industry has been far worse with the hating-on-everyone problem, but the new obsession with Fake Geek Girls is largely focused on the comics fan community, especially cosplayers. Tony Harris’s bizarre misogyny helped play it up, but DC and Marvel have had more than their fair share of He Man Woman Hater moments, too. Really, would you be particularly surprised if Dan DiDio announced he was firing all the female creators at DC?

I’m probably forgetting some really important awful moments for comics, too, but there have just been so dang many of them…

Even the year’s major successes — the films of “The Avengers” and “The Dark Knight Rises” — were really to be attributed more to the skill, talent, and imagination of movie studios than to comics publishers.

DC, of course, has been the leader in bad comics and bad decisions. Marvel’s been a bit better, but has still shown too much enthusiasm for dull crossover events and poor judgement. The independents have been better than both of the Big Two — and yet I’ve still felt mostly bored with the comics that’ve been released this year.

I went through my pull-list earlier this year and stripped a lot of it out. I was tired of spending so much money on comics, of having to find storage space for all my books. And a lot of what I got rid of was actually pretty good. Scott Snyder’s Batman comic, for example, got pulled off my list. It was just fine, Snyder’s still a fantastic writer, and his work on the Dark Knight is just plain some of the best work anyone’s done with him for years. But I still took it off my list because I wasn’t excited about it. It wasn’t a book I looked forward to getting anymore. There were lots of comics like that — The Massive, Dark Horse Presents, Dial H, Demon Knights, Fatale, Frankenstein, Morning Glories, Popeye, Saucer Country, Unwritten, even B.P.R.D. — and I don’t really regret taking any of them off the list.

So what are my picks for my favorite comics of 2012? Here they are, in alphabetical order…

American Vampire

Still the best and most gloriously visceral horror comic we’ve got. Great characterization, art, and plotting make it a winner every issue.

Atomic Robo

Possibly the most consistently fun and entertaining comic out there. Any comic fan who isn’t reading this is utterly, utterly mad.

Avengers Academy

Cancelled long before its time, I loved this one for the great characterization and for its refusal to fall into the same boring traps as other teen-oriented comics. Random, shock-value deaths were avoided, and the heroes got out of plenty of problems by talking instead of fighting.

Axe Cop

This remains one of the best humor comics you’ll find — the Nicolle brothers are still hugely imaginative, funny, and audacious, even years after they started their comic.

Batwoman

Month after month, the best art you’re going to find in any comic book on the stands.

Daredevil

Probably the best pure superhero comic out there. Mark Waid’s Daredevil is fun, charismatic, clever, action-packed, and just all-around fantastic. And the art is usually pretty darn good, too.

The Goon

Rude? Yes. Hilarious? Yes. Unexpectedly emotional? Yes, yes, yes. Eric Powell would probably kick my ass for saying it, but he’s got more heart than any other comic book creator.

Love and Capes

This superhero sitcom is light on the action, but heavy on the humor, awesome characterization, and brainy storytelling. I would like more of you to read this, please.

Punk Rock Jesus

An amazing story combining religion, punk rock, politics of all stripes, science fiction, and our global obsessions with pop culture and entertainment. Sean Murphy deserves to win all kinds of awards for this.

Snarked

A very fun modernized re-telling of Lewis Carroll’s “The Hunting of the Snark.” Great characters, dialogue, humor, and action, all wrapped up in a very friendly all-ages bow. I want Roger Langridge to make more and more comics, that’s all there is to it.

Wonder Woman

This isn’t really a superhero book at all — it’s part horror comic, part urban fantasy, part reboot of the ancient Greek myths. Half the fun of this is seeing what bizarre new forms the Greek gods and monsters will take.

So that’s what I’ve got for this year. I left off a lot of good comics — books that debuted in only the last few months, books that were cancelled in the first month or two of the year, books that were of unquestionably high-quality but which were nevertheless boring me when I finally dropped them.

What can we hope for in the future? I’m sure not dumb enough to try to make predictions, but I’d like to think that, after a year this bad, there’s nowhere the comics industry can go but up. Unfortunately, my optimism bone done got snapped off, and it wouldn’t shock me a bit to see things get even worse in 2013.

Hold on to your hats, and pray for miracles.

The Goon #43

Hey, it’s a secret crossover between the Goon and Billy the Kid’s Old Timey Oddities! We start out back when Billy the Kid was young and helping to run the old freakshow — Billy wins a trinket in a card game. What is it? It’s the Ossified Baby of Nuremberg, which seems to be a stone statue but is actually alive, and if it isn’t fed a bottle of milk and goat’s blood every Halloween, it’ll come to life and kill everyone it can. Sooooo many years later, the now-elderly Billy comes to town for a show, and a bunch of kids steal the Ossified Baby, which, deprived of its yearly blood-and-milk snack, runs amok. How will this terrible crisis be solved? Easier than you might expect…

Verdict: Thumbs up. Not the funniest Goon story or the most violent, but it’s still got lots of great stuff to enjoy. Y’all should be reading every issue of this comic, and I’m a little amazed that y’all don’t.

Daredevil #20

The bizarre teleporting villain Coyote — who used to apparently be the Spot — has severed Daredevil’s head. But Daredevil is still okay, because Coyote’s powers have somehow left the head and the body connected, even though they’re not, well, connected. But Matt can still feel his body, so while Coyote monologues for Daredevil, the hero’s body slips out of its bonds and goes exploring the bad guy’s hideout. Turns out Coyote is running quite a criminal operation based on his teleportational abilities, most of it focused on just generally making people miserable, including using pregnant women as drug mules and creating a vast slavery organization of people who have been teleportationally decapitated like Daredevil. So how can Matt Murdock stop Coyote when he’s got no head?

Verdict: Thumbs up. A vastly clever story. Matt manages some wonderful stunts — even if it’s just his headless body using his cane to feel his way around the lair. And Coyote’s operation is as despicable as you can imagine — he’s definitely a villain worth hating.

Batwoman #14

Batwoman and Wonder Woman have just met Pegasus, son of Medusa. He doesn’t look like a winged horse — he’s more of an immortal cowboy who’s been beaten and tortured horribly by the evil Falchion — and because he’s immortal, it will take him thousands of years to heal, thousands of years of agony. He tells them where to find Medusa — right back in Gotham — and then Wonder Woman grants him a merciful death. Back in Gotham, the Medusa herself is laying siege to the city, along with her army of brainwashed minions and urban legends. Medusa offers Killer Croc another transformation — from the ultimate sewer alligator to the Beast of Babylon. Can two heroines save the day, or is the Medusa’s power too great?

Verdict: Thumbs up. I liked the story just fine, people, but this is worth buying just so you can marvel at the stunning beauty of the artwork. Every artist who works on this turns in some of their most visually stunning art ever, and I think we really do have to give at least some of the credit for that to writer J.H. Williams III — his astoundingly gorgeous artwork was all over this title, and I strongly suspect his writing instructions are helping the art look so amazing.

American Vampire: Lord of Nightmares #5

With a small number of vampire allies, Agent Hobbes, Felicia Book, and her son Gus are tracking Dracula, the most powerful vampire on Earth, as he sets sail for a device that will allow him to mentally command every vampire in the world. Since he’s in a ship, and Carpathian vampires are notoriously incapable of swimming, the plan is simple: get a raft in close, attach some dynamite, and blow a hole in the hull. Unfortunately, that doesn’t work, forcing them to board the ship to blow it up from inside. Can young Gus handle himself alone when Dracula’s servant, Tommy Glass, attacks? Can Agent Hobbes survive Dracula’s mental attacks?

Verdict: Thumbs up. High intensity suspense, a suitable ending for one character, and some interesting changes put in place for the rest of the American Vampire series. This has bee, like all of Scott Snyder’s American Vampire books, absolutely excellent. More’s the pity that he’ll be putting it on hiatus to work on Superman comics.

Daredevil #19

Has Matt Murdock gone insane? He’s seeing people who aren’t there, he seemingly graverobbed his father’s bones, he thinks he’s in one place, then finds himself somewhere else. Is Foggy Nelson going to betray Matt to the authorities? Can Daredevil solve the mystery of what’s happening to him? Or is he literally going to lose his head?

Verdict: Thumbs up. Great art and writing, a fun mystery, creepy situations, and an excellent old/new villain.

Batwoman #13

On the trail of Medusa — and fearful that it may not be a mere criminal organization but the actual mythical gorgon herself, Batwoman teams up with Wonder Woman to track her down. They travel to a dungeon/labyrinth designed to hold horrific monsters, but find that the creatures and their guards have all been destroyed — and soon, they’re attacked by Nyx, goddess of night, and her bleak minions. Meanwhile, the DEO continues their various plots, while Joseph Kane starts training Bette Kane for a new crimefighting career.

Verdict: Thumbs up. Good gravy, the art in here is just stunning. Just about every page of this is shockingly beautiful. I don’t know what else to say about it — sometimes this stuff just blows my feeble brain into orbit.

Today’s Cool Links:

• Are you a Chaos Muppet or an Order Muppet?
• Here’s a great essay about Shirley Jackson, Stanley Kubrick, and “The Shining.”
• Hey, you wanna watch a short Pixar movie? Sure you do!
• If you Doctor Who fans want something to cry your eyes out about, try this.
• HOLY HEADBUTTS, IT’S A BABY GOAT!

Hey, I got a lotta comics last week, and they were all pretty good. I don’t think I got time to review all of ‘em, but here’s some of the stuff I thought was cool.

Snarked #12

The final issue of this series?! What the heck, no one had any clue this one was ending. But it’s a good ending. Our cast of heroes has to do battle with the Snark — who is also a Boojum. That means he can make you disappear, throwing you forward in time 20 years, if you look at him without wearing special goggles. And a very important cast member loses his goggles…

What we’re left with is a bittersweet ending, but still a very sweet tale. Y’all go get it if you’ve been reading it, or pick up the eventual trade paperback. It’s a good one.

Sword of Sorcery #0

I liked it. A fairly familiar story — young outsider discovers she’s actually a princess in another world — but it’s well-told and entertaining. The backup feature, featuring a far-future sci-fi variation on the “Beowulf” story.

The sticking point for a lot of people is the attempted rape in the “Amethyst” story. It’s not a good thing, and it’s entirely unnecessary for the story. It reads like someone decided to prove it’s “not a little girl’s story” which happens just too damn often.

Perhaps more depressing, however, are the comments at the end of Chris Sims’ very nice article about it — most of the commenters seem to have an attitude of “Hey, we want comics with more rape!” Maybe we get the crappy comics we deserve.

Oh, also? The Who’s Who page in the back says Amethyst was first introduced in this very issue. It’s not so. Amethyst, Princess of Gemworld made her first appearance in April 1983, in Legion of Super-Heroes #298. She was created by Dan Mishkin, Gary Cohn, and Ernie Colón.

Avengers Academy #37

It’s the students’ final stand against Jeremy Briggs’ villainy. A few surprising choices are made. And it’s a very good issue — great action and dialogue and a moral core to the tale that carries it over the top.

Only one more issue of this, and that’s a huge disappointment.

Wonder Woman #0

A wonderful little story about Princess Diana’s teen years, stealing a harpy’s egg to commemorate her birthday, getting her teen angst on when people make fun of her (supposed) origin as a clay statue, being trained by Ares, and battling the minotaur. It’s a very, very nice story, and I had a blast reading it.

And again, the Who’s Who page gets things irritatingly and insultingly wrong. It says Wonder Woman’s first appearance was in 2011. But she had her debut in All Star Comics #8 in December 1941. She was created by William Moulton Marston and Harry G. Peter. You’d think they’d get this right because Marston’s name is on Page 1 as the character’s creator, and he sure as heck wasn’t around in 2011.

Womanthology: Space #1

A new anthology focused on spotlighting the work of women creators gets started, this time with the focus on science fiction. We get stories by Bonnie Burton, Jessica Hickman, Sandy King Carpenter, Tanja Wooten, Allison Ross, Stephanie Hans, Ming Doyle, Jordie Bellaire, Stacie Ponder, and Rachel Deering, and they’re all pretty good…

And since this is a new miniseries, we can look forward to a few more months of cool comics created by women. Too bad DC and Marvel aren’t so good about working on that…

Batwoman #0

We get a short look back at Kate Kane’s younger years, from her childhood, through mourning the death of her mother and the supposed death of her twin sister, being accepted to West Point, then being drummed out of the military, trying to find a purpose to her life, and the long, hard years of training that her father put her through to make sure she was really ready to become a crimefighter.

It’s a great story. It’s got great action, the plot zips along like lightning, and there are tearjerker moments you won’t believe. It’s an astoundingly good comic book.

And again, because it’s important not to let DC tell stupid lies about this stuff, but Batwoman wasn’t created in 2011, no matter what the Who’s Who page says. The modern Kate Kane debuted in 52 #7 in 2006.

Today’s Cool Links:

• An excellent reflection on the seemingly inevitable end of “City of Heroes.”
• But luckily, lots of people are not ready to let the best superhero MMORPG die.
• The paradox of a feminist who likes superhero comics.
• Greg Rucka is really, really not happy with the current state of the Big Two.
• If you’ve got any interest in turn-of-the-century British supernatural fiction, you may enjoy reading this.
• And this tribute by the artist behind The Oatmeal to his beloved dog is just all kinds of adorable. I mean, a bit rude and crude, but still adorable.

Captain Marvel #2

Carol Danvers is going to take a vintage plane once owned by her idol, a butt-kicking pioneer female pilot named Helen Cobb, up into the air in an attempt to both prove that the plane was sturdy enough to set the altitude record Cobb claimed but could never confirm, and to try to do her idol one better by breaking her record. Unfortunately, something goes wrong, and Carol ends up thrown back in time to World War II. Can she find a way home without upsetting the course of history?

Verdict: Thumbs up. Good writing and art, nice action, dialogue, you name it. I’ve got high hopes for this book.

Batwoman #12

Batwoman and Abbot, the cultist werewolf who has teamed up with her a few times in the past, go on the hunt for Bloody Mary. They visit a house of mirrors and watch Mary’s origin story — a girl forced to marry an older man, she went mad when he was unfaithful and killed as many attractive girls as she could, only to end up hanged and then haunting mirrors for eternity. When Mary finally appears, Batwoman shatters her mirror and interrogates her about where Maro took the children he’d kidnapped, and who runs Medusa. But Mary tells them that Medusa isn’t a criminal organization — she’s a monster out of myth. Not feeling up to taking on a mythological monster, Batwoman and the D.E.O decide she’ll need to team up with someone who knows how to deal with mythology: Wonder Woman. Meanwhile, Bette Kane’s road to recovery begins, and Kate Kane’s relationship with Maggie Sawyer hits the rocks.

Verdict: Thumbs up. Outstanding art and writing. It’s a blast getting to see Bloody Mary again. I do wish we could spend more than just two or three pages per issue with Jacob Kane and Bette Kane. And I’m looking forward to seeing how Batwoman and Wonder Woman end up (not) getting along…

Today’s Cool Links:

• Harry Harrison, creator of the Stainless Steel Rat and the mind behind “Soylent Green,” has died.
• Jamal Igle has started a Kickstarter project for a cool girl-friendly comic. Would ya consider sending him some scratch to help him along?
• The winners of the annual Bulwer-Lytton Fiction Contest have been announced!