Batman: The Brave and the Bold #21

Our teaser story features Batman up against King Rex and his Dinosaur Gang. Things look grim for the Dark Knight until the Lady Blackhawks show up. Yes, a whole squad of characters based on Lady Blackhawk from “Birds of Prey” — but with jet-packs and bazookas! This, unexpectedly, is the most awesome thing in the past 10 million years.

The main story focuses on Batman and Green Lantern taking on some kind of glowing meteorite calling himself “Robert, Supreme Shaper of Worlds.” Wait, Robert? Seriously? Well, Robert has the heroes on the ropes, thanks to the army of yellow carnivorous plants he’s created. But Batman has a plan (Batman always has a plan) and decides to take Robert into a black hole. Which leaves Green Lantern all alone against a bunch of yellow monster plants that his ring can’t touch.

And finally, a reprint from a “Tiny Titans” comic. Kinda lame, but at least it’s not the two-month-old reprint from the last issue.

Verdict: Thumbs up. The reprint from “Tiny Titans” is a bit pants — come on, guys, don’t just swipe stuff from other comics! But the Dinosaur Gang, the Lady Blackhawks, and Robert’s mad rants more than make up for that.

Wonder Woman #603

Wonder Woman is still leading the Amazon refugees toward a safe haven when they come across some slaughtered Turkish soldiers, and Wondy discovers that she’s able to see the Keres, a group of demonic women harvesting the dead men’s souls. The Keres quickly overpower Wondy and drag her off to Tartarus, the Greek Underworld. Hades, the god of the dead, vanished 20 years ago, and Charon, Hell’s ferryman, now refuses to ferry any of the dead to the Underworld, which is now ruled by a multitude of demons. Wondy wants to return home — Charon warns her that she’ll have to avoid or defeat the Keres and get past Cerberus, the monstrous guardian dog of Hell. Once she makes it back to Earth, she ends up making a deal with the soldiers pursuing her to let the Amazons go in exchange for her meeting with the mastermind behind the schemes against her.

Verdict: Thumbs down. We’ve got this new status quo for Wonder Woman, no one knows what the heck’s going on with her, and so we waste a whole issue with a completely pointless trip to the Underworld. DC really needs some strong editors who’ll crack the whip on the pampered superstars like Straczynski.

Today’s Cool Links:

• How to teach about panel transitions using Craig Thompson’s “Blankets” graphic novel.
• Man, I’d really love it if DC would go ahead and release “Flex Mentallo” in a complete collection.
• Bohemian Rhapsody on slide whistles and kazoos

Billy Batson and the Magic of Shazam! #19

Captain Marvel has had a run-in with a villain called the Vampire Burglar, who doesn’t look much like either a vampire or a burglar, but he’s managed to steal away most of Cap’s life energy, leaving him looking like an old man and not too far away from actually dying. In desperation, Mary and Tawny turn to Freddy Freeman to help them get to the Rock of Eternity — he’s no big fan of the Marvels, but he’s moved to help out. They decide to summon the wizard, even though they don’t know whether Black Adam will return. And as it turns out, Black Adam is exactly who comes back, with extra powers he gained while running around the wizard’s pocket dimension. He’s more than powerful enough to take care of Mary, Tawny, and Black Adam Jr., and even the return of the wizard doesn’t leave them on much better ground. The only hope for Cap is for Freddy to make a very big sacrifice.

Verdict: Thumbs up. Very good story. Lots of action, lots of emotional resonance, very fun art. I loved it from beginning to end, quite honestly.

Batman: The Brave and the Bold #20

Big Barda comes to request Batman’s aid to find her kidnapped husband, Mister Miracle — and when they go to their suburban home to investigate, they’re immediately attacked by forces from Apokolips, including the Female Furies, who are trying to kill off Mister Miracle so Barda will return to lead them. The heroes are able to rescue Miracle from the rocketship deathtrap he’s been tied to, but he’s in no shape to fight, and Batman and Barda are badly outnumbered by the Furies. Can they figure out a way to get rid of the Furies before a tragedy occurs?

The followup story is a reprint of the Martian Manhunter story from… two issues ago? Holy baloney, that’s weak.

Verdict: Thumbs down. The story with Big Barda was alright — not the strongest story, but not particularly bad. But reprinting a story that’s just two months old? That’s either a wildly inept screwup or the most blatant expression of “We’ve been canceled, we don’t care anymore” contempt I’ve seen in a long, long time. Whichever it is, it’s enough to kill any enjoyment the first story may have left behind.

Today’s Cool Links:

• “Calvin and Hobbes” get combined with DC supervillains.
• A whole bunch of Photoshopped new Amalgam Comics characters? I heartily approve.
• I am completely overjoyed by the writing in this essay. We really have come a long way as a nation, though we have further still to travel…

Batman: The Brave and the Bold #19

Hal Jordan hates to wait for Batman’s intricate plans, so he ends up getting captured by the Cyborg Superman, who wants access to the technology of the Green Lantern power ring. When the power ring detects the cyborg’s tampering, it immediately leaves Hal to find someone else who can help — and it ends up settling on Batman’s finger, making him the newest member of the Green Lantern Corps. But Batman isn’t a fan of power rings — he’d rather rely on himself and his less-flashy weapons. He and the other Corps members fly to the planet Ranx to rescue Hal, but the Cyborg activates the Manhunters, robots that specialize in draining power rings. For Hal and Batman to stand a chance against the Cyborg Superman, Hal is going to have to learn to plan, and Batman is going to have to learn to use a power ring.

Verdict: Thumbs up. It was kinda cool seeing the old-school Cyborg Superman again, and it’s always fun to see Batman wearing a modified Green Lantern costume.

The Flash #4

Captain Boomerang is out of prison again, and he’s now able to throw black-energy boomerangs like he did when he was a Black Lantern zombie. After Boomerang tries to blow up a police helicopter, Flash uses some super-fast footwork to rescue everyone aboard. Flash also saves the Rogue-inspired future-cops from Boomerang’s assault, inspiring the Top to risk his own life by telling Flash about the future — Mirror Master is going to open a gateway into the Mirror Worlds in an effort to beat the Flash, and one of the villains inside is going to take over Flash’s wife and turn her into a supervillain. The only way to free her will be to kill the person who opened the gateway, which will lead to Flash accidentally killing the future cop analogue of Mirror Master. Where does that leave the Flash?

Verdict: Thumbs up, mostly for that great speed stunt where Flash rescues the cops in the helicopter. The rest of it, I’m not so fond of. There are some serious time travel logic problems in this story — if the future cops arrest Barry Allen prior to the point where he kills the Mirror Monarch, then no one actually kills Mirror Monarch, so there’s no reason to arrest Flash, and they’re doing more damage to the space-time continuum than they are by revealing the truth to him. And I don’t much like the way the mirror gateway part of the story is developing either. It’s either going to be needlessly cruel or a complete anticlimax…

Today’s Cool Links:

• Jack Kirby’s depictions of God.
• The article is about the latest round in the legal battles between Neil Gaiman and Todd MacFarlane, but the judge’s ruling leads me to believe we’ve just found the best nerd judge ever.
• So apparently, when you’re faced with an epidemic of people videotaping crooked/violent/racist cops, the solution isn’t to train cops not to be crooked, violent, or racist, it’s to arrest the people who expose the crooked/violent/racist cops. I’ll, as they say, retire to Bedlam.

The Brave and the Bold #35

I’d pretty much given up on this title — J. Michael Straczynski’s storytelling skills lately have ranged from incompetent to downright insulting. But I’ve got a weakness for both the Inferior Five and the Legion of Substitute Heroes, so I shelled out the dough to check it out.

This story is closely related to a previous “Brave and the Bold” story where the Legion of Super-Heroes and the Doom Patrol teamed up to save the future Earth from a black hole. Now in the aftermath, the Legion of Substitute Heroes have decided they’d like to get some of that Saving-the-World glory for themselves, so they steal a Time Bubble to try to team up with the Doom Patrol before the Legion can. But they arrive too late, the Legion and the Doom Patrol have already left, and they have to go look for a new team to join with — in this case, the Inferior Five. So in between various time travel mishaps, trying to explain advanced quantum theory to everyone, and losing Dumb Bunny’s tail in the Time Bubble’s machinery… the Legion of Super-Heroes and Doom Patrol still save the world by themselves. Oh, well, at least the Substitutes and the Inferior Five are still friends, right?

Verdict: I think I’ll actually give this a thumbs up. The main thing a story starring the Substitute Heroes and the Inferior Five needs to have is a nice big dollop of silly, and this was a pretty darn silly story. Sure, some of the jokes get hammered just a bit too hard, but it could’ve been a heck of a lot worse.

Astonishing Spider-Man and Wolverine #2

Well, Spider-Man and Wolverine have gone time-traveling, getting stuck in a future where the human race has been wiped out by Doctor Doom, after uploading his intellect into a planet, but the cavemen who Wolverine trained in the distant past have managed to survive and (barely) thrive. While Spidey does what he can to teach them science and try to find a way to defeat Doom the Living Planet if it ever comes back, Wolverine has locked himself away from the world to avoid the former cavemen who now worship him. Finally, Spidey finds the one weapon that could save everyone — the Phoenix Force — and manages to forge it into a single bullet. But when it’s fired, it’s guaranteed to kill whoever pulls the trigger. When Doom makes his return, is Spidey going to be able to fire that fateful bullet?

Verdict: Thumbs up. Lots of great stuff here, including Doom, the Phoenix Bullet, and Spidey’s replacement costume. The dialogue is nice, the artwork is great, and I’m loving the crazy ideas that are getting tossed around here.

Booster Gold #34

Rip Hunter tells Booster that since he rescued Rani from the future, he now has to take responsibility for her as her surrogate father. Booster isn’t ready for that responsibility, but his sister Michelle takes up the challenge. Still trying to figure out a way to stop Maxwell Lord in the past when he was a good guy, Booster takes another trip to the Justice League International days and runs into Ted Kord, who drags him along on one of his get-rich-quick schemes. Soon, Booster and Blue Beetle are on the trail of some strange thieves who stole a mystic book from the Vatican. Needing to track the thieves off-planet, they turn to Mister Miracle and Big Barda, who aren’t very enthusiastic about helping. After riding a Boom Tube to a quasi-fantasy world, they fight a dragon and come to the attention of a fairly unambitious-but-still-villainous wizard called Hieronymous the Under-Achiever. Can the heroes survive against his magical minions and enslaved subjects?

Verdict: A narrow thumbs up. I like the Bwa-Ha-Ha days of the Justice League just fine, but this doesn’t feel like one of the adventures of the new, more competent Booster Gold — it just feels like an old ’80s JLI tale. On the other hand, it is pretty funny, particularly the geeky Hieronymous.

Today’s Cool Links:

• Someone held an H.G. Wells writing contest and got no entries due to silly rules: no sci-fi allowed and handwriting required.
• Bizarro Fiction sounds kinda awesome, especially the “Shatnerquake” novel.
• David Brothers profiles six comics writers doing good work, including Inio Asano, Eiichiro Oda, Adam Warren, Jeff Parker, Naoki Urasawa, and Stan Sakai.

I got a great big stack of comics sitting on the desk, all ready to start reviewing for the week.

And I’m also getting a bit tired of blogging. The weather is nice, I’ve got a stack of interesting new games I could be playing, I’ve got a bunch of books I never have time to read, and I’ve got non-blog writing I’ve been wanting to do forever. The blog gets in the way of all of that.

So here’s what I’m gonna do — get all these comics reviewed today, then take most of the rest of the week off, except for Friday Night Fights. Maybe I can recharge my batteries, maybe I’ll get some writing done, maybe I’ll actually finish a book for once.

So here we go…

Batman: The Brave and the Bold #18

Batman teams up with the Martian Manhunter to take on Ma’Alefa’Ak, the other last survivor of Mars, and later, Dr. Fate assists when Batman is possessed by the evil Martian.

Verdict: Thumbs up. Fun story with a few twists and turns. Evil Batman is lotsa fun.

The Flash #3

Captain Boomerang gets magic black-lantern boomerangs, Barry Allen gets in trouble at work, and the Flash gets chased by the futuristic Rogue-inspired cops

Verdict: Thumbs down. It’s just not particularly fun or exciting.

Green Lantern #55

Lobo’s in town, and that means a bunch of ring-slingers are gonna get beat up. All that, plus the origin story of adorable rage-filled Red Lantern cat Dex-Starr!

Verdict: Thumbs up. Lots of great stuff, including Hal on a space motorcycle. And the Dex-Starr origin is worth the price of admission all on its own.

Heralds #5

Nova has kidnapped Valeria Richards, and all the heroines have to go into space to rescue her. Will Frances the diner waitress be able to assist with her mysterious connections to Nova? Or is someone gonna die?

Verdict: Thumbs down. Not enough of Tonci Zonjic’s artwork. Too much confusion in the plot. A whole lot of stuff unresolved. This series started really well — I’m disappointed it ended so poorly.

Joe the Barbarian #6

Joe makes it to Hearth Castle, a deeply friendly and comforting place, where everyone promises to make his life completely happy. But Zyxy and Smoot track him down and try to get him to return to his quest.

Verdict: Thumbs up. Two issues left ’til the end of this one. Joe has to get a soda and try to save both himself and this weird little fantasy world that may be a lot more real than we expect.

Legion of Super-Heroes #2

While the Legionaires try to clean up after the destruction of Titan, Saturn Queen takes control of Ultra Boy, Earth-Man tries, probably deceitfully, to win his new teammates’ trust, and Saturn Girl travels time to find her children.

Verdict: Thumbs down. Too much stuff happening! Come on, it’s just the second issue — shouldn’t there be a little lead-up before we get this many subplots going on at once?

Madame Xanadu #24

Rosalyn is trying to live a normal life, but she’s begun to see visions of normal people with horrific injuries — visions that no one else can see. Can Madame Xanadu help cure her?

Verdict: Thumbs up. Very nice work, great setting details for 1963. Rosalyn is a very appealing character. The art by Marley Zarcone is different than normal for this book, but it works very well.

Supergirl #53

The War of the Supermen is over, and New Krypton is destroyed, and now Supergirl doesn’t much wanna be Supergirl anymore. But a new Bizarro Supergirl may soon force that issue.

Verdict: Thumbs up. Nice characterization, nice dialogue, cool art. Supergirl’s desire to get out of the spandex-wearing career is written really well.

Aaaaand that’s that. See y’all Friday evening.

People, it’s already past the mid-point of June, and it’s getting painfully hot. I can’t do anything about that. Sorry. All I can do is try to distract you from this increasingly awful heat with some early-weekend fisticuffs via… FRIDAY NIGHT FIGHTS!

The last time we featured Supergirl here, it didn’t really end well for her, as she got impaled on a giant shard of artificial Kryptonite. But we’re gonna make it up to her now. This is from that same storyarc, from May 2007’s The Brave and the Bold #2 by Mark Waid and George Perez. A little background info — Supergirl and Green Lantern have traveled to a planet obsessed with gambling to try to shake out a stolen artifact that can foresee the future. In an attempt to get the thief to reveal the artifact’s predictive abilities, the Girl of Steel is going to fight a couple of giant rock monsters while in this disguise:

And what follows after that… is this:

Dang it, that didn’t distract anyone from the heat at all! I think it’s actually getting hotter!

Girl Comics #2

The second issue of this anthology comic focuses on stories with writing and art by female creators. After another great introduction by Colleen Coover, we get a lighthearted story about the Inhumans by Jill Thompson, a story about Dr. Strange by Christine Boylan and Cynthia Martin, a very fun story about Tabitha Smith and Elsa Bloodstone from “Nextwave” by Faith Erin Hicks, and a very, very cool tale by Kathryn Immonen and Colleen Coover about Shamrock, the Invisible Woman, Patsy Walker, and Felicia Hardy inside a hair salon. Plus we also get some biographical pieces about historical Marvel creators like June Tarpe Mills, Ruth Atkinson, Valerie Barclay, and Linda Fite.

Verdict: Thumbs up. Much better stories than in the first issue — loved everything Colleen Coover did for this issue, and the Inhumans and Nextwave stories were pretty good, too. I know this series is ultimately a gimmick, but it’s been a pretty fun gimmick.

Batman: The Brave and the Bold #17

A week with Batman includes team-ups with Metamorpho, Merry the Gimmick Girl, Jonah Hex, Hawkman, the Creeper, the Inferior Five, and more. And it is all awesome.

Verdict: Thumbs up. No real overarching plot in this one, just a bunch of fun and unexpected guest stars. My faves were probably Metamorpho (with a very fun element-vs.-element battle with Mister Element), Jonah Hex (it’s amazing how cool the animated-version of Jonah Hex is), and the Inferior Five (I’ve always been a sucker for the Five). Yeah, this is a very light-hearted and kid-friendly comic, but if you’re a grownup who loves the crazy ephemera of DC history, this series was made for you.

Today’s Cool Links:

• Neil Gaiman writes a wonderful essay about Ray Bradbury.
• The alternate-reality DC Comics covers from “Fringe” really are kinda cool.
• Polite Dissent asks: “How good a comic-book doctor are you?“

Batman: The Brave and the Bold #16

After a brief prelude where Batman teams up with — well, more like gets beat up by — the mind-controlled Teen Titans, we get to the main story for this issue — Bats and Wonder Woman try to find the egg-obsessed criminal mastermind Egg Head by looking for a bunch of strange eggs he seemed to be after. But Egg Head captures the heroes and their collected eggs and uses them to hatch out an elder god called Y’ggphu Soggoth — better known as the ridiculously silly Silver Age Wonder Woman villain Egg Fu.

Verdict: Thumbs up. How ’bout this — this series takes two of the DC Universe’s biggest names and pits them against two of their dumbest foes — a bizarrely racist egg (but now portrayed much more like the character from the “52” miniseries, as simply a weird egg-like villain) and a guy who hasn’t really appeared anywhere since he was played by Vincent Price in the ’60s Batman series. And they actually make it work out fine. Egg Head mostly stays in the background directing the action and acting demented, with Egg Fu showing up at the end as the heavy hitter. It was a lot better than I was expecting from the cover, honestly.

Wonder Woman #43

Diana is stuck in Washington, which is cut off from the rest of the world, as a monstrous alien civilization makes war on it. It’s an all-woman invasion that survives by scavenging a hundred women from each world they visit before they unleash a horde of semi-organic snakes on the planet to eat everything biological and convert it into a goo that is used as both food and spaceship fuel. Oh, and the aliens’ leader is Wonder Woman’s aunt, Astarte, kidnapped from the Amazons when she and Hippolyta were just babies. While Achilles, Etta Candy, Steve Trevor, Wondy’s gorilla bodyguards, and the DMA try to get control of the situation, Astarte reveals that even more of her alien fleet is on the way — and she unveils her secret weapon: her own daughter.

Verdict: Thumbs up. Excellent action, good intrigue, better characterization than I was expecting, and an excellent backstory for Astarte. And Wondy’s new cousin, Theana, makes the best mirror-opposite Wonder Woman I’ve seen outside of, well, DC’s antimatter universe. And beside Gail Simone’s storytelling, there’s also Nicola Scott’s downright brilliant artwork, too.

Hercules: Fall of an Avenger #2

Hercules is dead, as are Zeus and Hera, so Athena declares herself the new queen of the Olympian gods, and she wants Amadeus Cho to be her mortal champion on Earth. Not everyone is happy with that — most of all Amadeus, who doesn’t trust Athena a bit. Her fellow gods also have some objections — Apollo steps forward to challenge her, and the gods start picking the mortal proxies who will fight for them. Athena picks Amadeus, Apollo chooses the late Ares’ son, who is now Phobos, the demigod of fear, Poseidon chooses Namor, Artemis chooses Skaar, Nyx, the goddess of night chooses Nightmare, and Hebe picks the temporarily Hulk-less Bruce Banner. Three powerhouses vs. one powerhouse and a couple of smart guys? This is gonna be a pretty one-sided fight, isn’t it?

Meanwhile, in the backup “Agents of Atlas” story, Venus and Namora are settling Hercules’ estate. They visit an island orphanage only to meet up with a horrific, multi-headed, tentacled dragon. But they soon learn that the dragon is actually a little girl with a bunch of dragon-headed limbs, and that the whole island is a refuge Hercules set up for young, orphaned monsters, both growing children and a number of terminally-ill kids. With orders from the Olympus Group to shut down Hercules’ holdings, can Namora and Venus find a way to make everyone happy?

Verdict: Thumbs up. The first story was just fine — lots of exciting and clever action. But the real winner here is the backup story. It’s a very sweet, sad, genuinely touching story. And it’s cuter’n heck, too — I thought the giant spider pulling the little centaur girl in her little red wagon was really adorable, though I’ve got a bit of a twisted sense of cute. Still, it’s definitely worth picking up.

Joe the Barbarian #4

Joe’s slowly going into diabetic shock and hallucinating a whole fantasy world based on his own home — or is he? He’s traveling with Jack, a humanoid rat, and Smoot, the world’s tallest dwarf, when they meet up with a city full of technological magicians. The magicians have a bunch of weapons that could be used to fight King Death and the Deathcoats, but they’ve actually taken sacred vows of cowardice. They offer the travelers guidance for the journey ahead, but King Death’s armies soon attack. A lone apprentice magician, Zyxy, offers her aid and the use of her flying machine to help them all escape — but are they really escaping? Or just plummeting?

Verdict: Thumbs up. Exciting stuff going on here — and it’s pretty funny, too. The magicians’ idea of magic runs toward inventing cigarette lighters and batteries, which they treat as superstitiously as they can. Zyxy looks like she’ll be a fun hero, as well, and a great addition to Joe’s motley band.

The Brave and the Bold #33

I decided to give this one another shot. And I’m gonna spoil the whole story for you, so if you don’t like that, ya better start runnin’ now.

You’ll notice the Barbara Gordon version of Batgirl walking around on the cover — this is a story set some time in the past. Zatanna wakes up in the night after experiencing a prophetic vision. She calls Wonder Woman, and they both seek out Batgirl to convince her… to go dancing with them? All three have a long night visiting as many clubs as they can, then Wonder Woman starts dropping hints about… Oracles. She talks about the mythological oracles who could see the future, but who could do nothing to prevent bad futures without making things even worse. And we finally get the big twist — Zatanna is an oracle who just foresaw that Barbara was about to be shot and paralyzed by the Joker, and the entire outing was to give her one more night of dancing and having fun.

Verdict: Well, now, let’s talk about this one a little. On the one hand, we’ve got Cliff Chiang and his always outstanding, gorgeous artwork. We’ve got some nice interplay between the trio of heroines during their pub crawl. We’ve got some nice bits of humor here and there. Those are on the plus side. Unfortunately, the negatives are all on the other side.

The story from Alan Moore’s “The Killing Joke” has been told and retold multiple times, but J. Michael Straczynski turns in the only one I’ve ever seen that really gets right down in the muck and wallows in Barbara’s fast-approaching shooting. Reading this just makes you feel dirty, like you’re sharing headspace with JMS’s faintly sadistic pleasures.

And there’s also the bizarre anachronisms of the story. The events from “The Killing Joke” took place quite a few years ago, as the DC Universe reckons — but this story features a prominent iPhone joke and a scene where the three heroines go to a karaoke bar and sing Beyonce’s “Single Ladies.” This comes across as just ridiculously inept, and it serves to rip you right out of the flow of the story.

So yeah, a thumbs down. The only thing that keeps it from being multiple thumbs down is the sheer awesomeness of Chiang’s artwork.

Straczynski is about to take over “Wonder Woman” in a few months. Judging by how awful his run on “The Brave and the Bold” has been, I can’t be the only person who’s dreading how this is going to turn out, right?

Tiny Titans #26

All of the green-colored and green-clad Tiny Titans get their spotlight this issue. While Beast Boy is babysitting Miss Martian, he takes her to a toy store to pick out a new dolly. Turns out, the dolly she wants is Gizmo. While Giz tries to make his escape, Kroc and Lagoon Boy get dragged into the action. And it all ends with everyone getting Green Holiday Festive Milkshakes spilled all over them.

Verdict: Thumbs up. Short, simple, to the point, and very, very silly. Miss Martian squeezing the stuffing out of Gizmo, Kroc eating a fishing pole, and Lagoon Boy complaining that he needs a bath are all definitely worth the price of admission.

Batman: The Brave and the Bold #15

The bulk of our story focuses on a competition between Batman and the Flash to see who can wrap up a mystery involving a museum robbed of a few rare crystals. Even with all his speed, does the Flash have a chance of beating the greatest detective in the world? But I had the most fun with the story’s prequel, with Batman traveling back in time to the 1960s to stop the Mad Mod, aided by hippie ragdoll Brother Power the Geek and Bob Hope sidekick Super-Hip.

Verdict: Thumbs up. The entire story was just fine, but the entire prequel really sold it. I mean, seriously — Super-Hip? That’s just so bizarre and weird and awesome, it drags the whole thing to a whole new level of bizarre and weird and awesome. I also liked the way this comic ended up combining characters from three different TV cartoons — Batman from the recent “The Brave and the Bold” cartoon, the wisecracking Wally West from “Justice League,” and the Mad Mod from the “Teen Titans” cartoon.

PS238 #43

The Argosians have come to Earth and imprisoned Argonaut (otherwise known as Ron Peterson and Captain Clarinet). After his dad, Atlas, shows up and overpowers the Argosian pilot with a substance called Argonite. Turns out Argonite is artificial, designed by the government to affect Atlas if he ever went rogue — it also affects anyone with the combined powers of flight, invulnerability, superstrength, and superspeed, which explains why it affected 84 last issue. Argos was never the last survivor of Argos — he was just exiled as a child. Frustrated, he returns to Argos with Argonaut, Moon Shadow, and 84. And it turns out the Argosians aren’t very friendly. They don’t trust Atlas, they want to kill Argonaut because he’s not a pureblood Argosian, they want to kill Moon Shadow because they don’t like humans, and they send 84 on a supposed diplomatic mission that’s actually an attack against the Emerald Ones who empower Emerald Gauntlet.

Verdict: Thumbs down. I hate giving any issues of this comic a thumbs down, but it took too much focus off of the kids, who are the real stars of the series, it was jam-packed with byzantine political maneuvering, to the detriment of everything else, and the idea of Argonite as something that weakens only people who have superstrength, superspeed, flight, and invulnerability and no one else just took things a few dozen steps beyond what my suspension of disbelief could handle.