The Flash Secret Files and Origins 2010 #1

Ooooo, first issue. Ya gonna have more than one “Flash Secret Files and Origins” issue this year, DC?

We’ve got two stories in this one — first, Barry Allen is obsessing about who killed his mother. You didn’t know someone killed Barry Allen’s mother? It’s a retcon — his mom wasn’t ever really mentioned until recently, when it was suddenly revealed that someone killed her when he was a little kid, and his dad got blamed for it and died in prison. Barry doesn’t believe that his dad killed his mom, and that’s what steered him toward work as a police scientist as a career. Our second story focuses on the Rogues — Captain Cold, Heat Wave, Weather Wizard, Mirror Master, and the Trickster — visit the original Mirror Master’s spooky headquarters to check into an old anti-Flash contingency plan. And after that, there are profiles of the Flash, his supporting cast, and his villains.

Verdict: Thumbs up. Yeah, I didn’t really mind it that much. It’s light, but you’re not going to get any real deep stories in these “Secret Files” comics. The worst I can say for it is I think they slipped up and revealed the solution to the big mystery without realizing it.

Billy Batson and the Magic of Shazam! #14

Black Adam is back, thanks to Freddy Freeman telling an amnesiac Theo Adam the magic word he needed. He and Captain Marvel knock each other around, and Mary Marvel tries to talk some sense into Freddy. Black Adam realizes he can find an amulet from ancient Egypt to get enough power to destroy the Marvels once and for all, but can he find an ally to help him out?

Verdict: Thumbs up. Oddly, the slowest parts of this story are the slugfests between Captain Marvel and Black Adam. Everything aside from that is pretty darn cool. And the ending twist is pretty nice, too, even if we saw it coming pretty early.

Madame Xanadu #20

Our flashback to Britain’s earliest history continues, through the eyes of Nimue, the future Madame Xanadu. The Romans have invaded, and Morgana is amusing herself by meddling in human affairs, in more ways than one. Nimue generally disapproves of everything she does, because that’s what she seems to do best. The sisters meet up with a young Merlin, who’s better at fortunetelling than Nimue is, and Morgana tries to destroy Camelot before it’s even begun.

Verdict: Thumbs down. Really just wildly not thrilled with this particular story — it sure makes Nimue sound like the original Miss Disapproval. She’s always sticking her nose in Morgana’s business and whining about whatever she’s doing. And I’m getting a bit frustrated that we’ve got a whole huge storyarc stuffed inside another storyarc. Can we please finish up one storyarc at a time?

Billy Batson and the Magic of Shazam! #13

Billy and Mary Batson are visiting the museum for a school field trip — complicated by the fact that Captain Marvel is supposed to make an appearance, so Billy has to somehow get away from his teacher and classmates so he can make the switch. Complicating things even more: Theo Adam, the amnesiac alter-ego of Black Adam, is in attendance, and he is suspicious of why Billy and Mary seem strangely familiar to him. And complicating things even more than that: a kid named Freddy Freeman who’s stuck in a wheelchair because Captain Marvel wasn’t able to keep his apartment building from collapsing, so he hates the Marvels. What’s it all lead to? Even more complications.

Verdict: Thumbs up. Mike Norton is the new artist on this one, and his style is really wonderful. As for the story, it’s great fun. We get the introduction of Freddy Freeman, we get a nice new storyline featuring crazy Theo Adam, we get Captain Marvel checking to see if his fly is open, we get Mary getting stuck inside a giant hourglass. It’s crazy and chaotic and an excellent read.

Tiny Titans #24

The bats from the Batcave have invaded the Titans’ treehouse, and they’re demanding cake and milk! Well, who wouldn’t, right? But now they’ve drunk all the milk Robin, Starfire, Beast Boy, and Blue Beetle were going to use on their Aqua-Oh’s cereal. Luckily, they’re able to borrow some milk from the Atom’s family (Snap! Snap!), but unfortunately, the milk has a strange effect on them — they all shrink as small as the Atoms! The perfect size for the bats to snack on! Can the Atom and his friends help the Titans? The Ant calls on his uncle, Uncle Ant (Uncle Aunt? No, Uncle Ant!), who has the power to enlarge them — but will he enlarge them too far?

Verdict: Thumbs up. Extremely cute, as always, and perfect reading for kids or adults who love goofy stuff. All that, plus guest starring appearances from the Batcow, the Ryan Choi version of the Atom, and more tiny pictures of Bat-villains on the Bat-computer.

Billy Batson and the Magic of Shazam! #12

The mirror Captain Marvel has been revealed as Mister Mind — and he’s managed to take away Billy’s powers! Though Billy is soon able to turn back into Captain Marvel, Mr. Mind has released a horde of demons on the city and he even manages to drop a skyscraper on Captain Marvel! Meanwhile, Mr. Tawny is trying to deal with losing his shapeshifting abilities and being stuck permanently as a talking bipedal tiger.

Verdict: Ehh, not too bad. Might be a tad predictable, but it’s good all-ages fun. And it’s nice to see Tawky Tawny back in his traditional suit and tie, too.

We’re gonna look at a trio of the old canceled comics that DC has resurrected for “Blackest Night”…

Starman #81

This is the one I think everyone was nervous about. James Robinson’s “Starman” series was one of the best comics of the ’90s — or any decade, really — but his recent DC work has been pretty unimpressive, to say the least. There was a lot of fear that he’d tarnish the “Starman” legacy with some badly-written garbage, but as it turns out, he brought his A-game to this one.

Jack Knight, the Starman from the ’90s series, doesn’t appear, and neither does his dad, the Golden Age Starman who died at the end of that series. The villain here is the zombified David Knight, Jack’s brother, who was very briefly Starman before Jack was. While David slaughters cops in Opal City, we learn that the Shade, immortal darkness-controlling former villain, and Hope O’Dare, lone distaff member of a large family of police officers, have become lovers. With the Black Lantern Starman threatening to wipe Opal City off the map and track down Jack Knight to kill him, is there any way to stop him? Especially after he tears out the Shade’s heart?

Verdict: Thumbs up. This was a huge relief — and I’m glad Robinson was inspired enough by the return to Opal City to put out a great story. It’s a great Shade story, a great O’Dare story, and we even manage to catch a few glimpses of the glorious Opal City architecture. My only disappointment: they got James Robinson back to write it, they got Tony Harris back to do the cover, but I wish they could’ve arranged for Peter Snejbjerg to come back to do the pencils. At any rate, Fernando Dagnino takes care of the art, with Bill Sienkiewicz inking, and while it’s a different look, it looks pretty good.

Catwoman #83

Catwoman tangles with the zombified Black Mask, a gangster who she killed after he tortured her sister. In fact, when he realizes he can’t terrify her, he decides to track down her sister in an insane asylum and finish the job. Selina enlists the aid of Poison Ivy and Harley Quinn, but will they be able to stop him before he kills Catwoman and her sister?

Verdict: Thumbs up. Good story, good art, decent characterization, and they even tossed in some set-ups for future stories… if there are any future “Catwoman” comics…

The Power of Shazam! #48

A bit of an odd one here, as this story focuses on a character who wasn’t even around until long after this series was cancelled — namely, Osiris, the young counterpart to Freddie Freeman in Black Adam’s “Black Marvel” family from the “52″ series a few years ago. Osiris is resurrected with a Black Lantern ring, but he doesn’t have the murderous attitude of the other Black Lantern zombies. In fact, he doesn’t even know he’s dead, doesn’t understand why everyone is so afraid of him, and successfully resists all of the black ring’s influences. Unfortunately, Sobek, the evil crocodile monster who killed Osiris has also come back from the dead, and he’s still very, very hungry…

Verdict: Thumbs up. It was weird to have a story where one of the Black Lanterns wasn’t evil, and it was weird to have a Captain Marvel comic where Captain Marvel only appeared in civilian guise on a single page, but I liked it anyway. Osiris was a cool character, and it’s nice to get to see him again, even if he’s all withered and rotten…

Marvel Adventures: Super Heroes #19

Well, first things first: Even if she’s not wearing her familiar Fantastic Four outfit, that’s one of the most awesome cover shots of Sue Storm I’ve ever seen.

Second, I found out, to my great disappointment, that the entirely awesome and hilarious “Marvel Adventures: The Avengers” series has been cancelled, and that nearly all of the “Marvel Adventures” titles are either being cancelled or are going to get revamped and retooled. Honestly, I didn’t see anything wrong with ‘em in the first place. And where are we going to get our monthly dose of Giant-Girl?

But anyway, for as long as this title lasts, the current lineup of the Avengers is Captain America, Thor, Iron Man, the Invisible Woman, the Vision, Nova, and Black Widow. They’re moving into their new headquarters when the supervillain Plant Man pays them a visit. But he’s not here to fight — he needs help because the Silver Surfer has seemingly gone nuts and keeps trying to kill him. While the rest of the Avengers make preparations for the Surfer, the Vision goes to visit the alchemist Diablo who the team met a few issues ago. While they discuss the secret codes of the Voynich Manuscript, the Silver Surfer finally arrives, attacking everyone around him in an attempt to get at Plant Man. And he’s so juiced-up on the Power Cosmic that even Thor has trouble dealing with him. So why won’t the Vision help out in the battle? And what is Reed Richards hiding from the team?

Verdict: Thumbs up. Some amusing character bits with Plant Man, a nice solution to the problem of the out-of-control Silver Surfer, and a new mystery to add into the mix. Isn’t it depressing that the only comics that focus on the fun of superheroic stories are the ones marketed mostly to kids?

Billy Batson and the Magic of Shazam! #11

Billy is still suffering from something that’s already turned Captain Marvel evil and is slowly corrupting him as well. Mary Marvel and Tawky Tawny escort him to the Rock of Eternity to see if the Wizard Shazam can help him. Trying to figure out what’s wrong, the wizard has Billy say his magic word, then draws the evil out of him — and it manifests as a mirror-image of Captain Marvel who speaks in reverse. While Captain Marvel tries to stop his double from wreaking havoc on the world, the wizard fears that something far more terrible is at work.

Verdict: Thumbs up. If I’ve got a quibble, it’s that the creators didn’t give Evil Marvel the same costume he has on the cover — instead, he and regular Captain Marvel have almost the same costumes, which can sometimes make it hard to tell the two apart. However, beyond that, it’s a great issue, with good characterizations, decent dialogue, excellent action, and a wonderful mystery.

Punisher #11

Okay, I think we all know by this point that I’m a sucker for monsters. And this one was high-concept enough that it was particularly appealing. In the previous issue of this comic “Punisher: Dark Reign – The List #1″ (Thanks for the heads-up, Todd), Frank Castle met up with Wolverine’s rotten son Daken and got cut to pieces, literally. And I’m not using the word “literally” for emphasis — I mean, there went Punisher’s head, there went his arm, there went his leg… So Frank Castle’s dead, right? Well, maybe not. A bunch of mole people collected the Punisher-chunks and carted them away into the sewer, under the protection of the Man-Thing. And Frank gets stitched back together and returned to life by Morbius the Living Vampire, with half-hearted assistance from Jack “Werewolf by Night” Russell and a bunch of other monsters. Why? The monsters of the world are being hunted to extinction by a bunch of high-tech samurai, and they need a soldier like Frank to help them with battle tactics. Unfortunately, Frank’s brain isn’t really firing on all cylinders yet, and he tends to have trouble with anything outside of his personal war on crime. Is he going to be able to help the monsters who saved his life?

Verdict: Thumbs up. And not just because of the mad concept of turning Frank Castle into a patchwork monster. If that was all there was to this, it wouldn’t be worth squat. What I enjoyed about this was Frank’s reaction — even in the midst of his post-reanimation freakout, he expresses deep cynicism, and the trigger point for his rage is the memory of his dead family. And even when he’s calmer, he has the old Frank Castle attitude, and he seems deeply conflicted about having to deal with a bunch of monsters, freaks, and bug people, when he normally focuses on organized crime. There’s been some serious thought put into Frank’s character and reactions, and the results are pretty entertaining. Is it bizarre? Oh, yes. I’m sure Frank will be back in his old body eventually, gunning down mobsters left and right — but I’ve got no idea how they’ll get there from this point. I hope it stays cool, because it looks like it’ll be a lot of fun to read.

Wonder Woman #38

Wonder Woman’s enemy Alkyone has married Achilles and been declared Queen of the Amazons. Wondy, meanwhile, is in prison, under a death sentence. She refuses to escape because if she does, Hippolyta, her mother, will be killed. Artemis plots revolution, Achilles chafes at Alkyone’s plots, Donna Troy searches for Hippolyta, and much darker bargains are made with much darker powers.

Verdict: I’ll give it a nominal thumbs up. The story isn’t that bad, but as I’ve said before, I’ve pretty much had my fill of grim stories here about gods and mythologies — it’s gotten to the point where that’s almost the only story that’s being told in this title, and that needs to change.

Billy Batson and the Magic of Shazam! #10

Billy is still unwilling to change into Captain Marvel because Cap has started acting evil. He and Mary are on their way to see the wizard Shazam about this, but they get distracted by a bunch of normal passersby who are robbing a bank — they’ve all been hypnotized by a felonious rocker named Axe. Mary tries to handle the problem solo, but gets hypnotized, too. Can Billy save everyone without resorting to changing into Captain Marvel?

Verdict: I’m gonna thumbs-down it. Part of it was that Axe just wasn’t a very good villain. Part of it is that this is the first all-ages title I’ve seen that combined a complicated multi-part storyline with no recap of previous events. If you’re going to go with continuing storylines in an all-ages book (something I’m just not convinced is a good idea), you’ve got to give new readers some idea of what’s gone on before.

Strange Tales #3

I had very high hopes for this one, especially with that outstanding cover by Stan Sakai, creator of “Usagi Yojimbo,” who also contributed the lead story, about an ancient Japanese warrior transformed into a raging green demon by a witch named Gama. But the rest of the stories here are, at best, unimpressive (Peter Bagge’s conclusion of “The Incorrigible Hulk,” Paul Hornschemeier’s talky “battle” between Nightcrawler and the Molecule Man, Jay Stephens’ entirely pedestrian set-up of the Beast vs. Morbius the Living Vampire) and at worst, outright stupid (Corey Lewis’ dayglo Longshot-as-a-club-dork story, Jonathan Jay Lee’s pointless and muddy Punisher story, and Chris Chua’s entirely incomprehensible… I really don’t know what it’s supposed to be, but it goes on for four pages).

Verdict: As bad as the rest of it was, I’m still giving this a thumbs up, solely because of that awesome Stan Sakai Hulk story, which is beautifully illustrated, cleverly thought-out, and extremely entertaining. This miniseries hasn’t been a bad experiment in letting alternate comics creators play around in the Marvel Universe, and it’s certainly an excellent way for readers to discover new creators that they wouldn’t be aware of otherwise.

Billy Batson and the Magic of Shazam! #9

An arsonist is trying to burn up the city, but the more perplexing crisis seems to be Captain Marvel’s sudden personality change — he’s turned into a colossal jerk! He insults his friends and family, snubs kids in wheelchairs, ignores the arson crisis, and endangers normal people. What’s going on? And is there anyway to stop Cap before he goes too far?

Verdict: Thumbs up. A very interesting mystery, with cute illustrations and storytelling to go with it.

Wonder Woman #37

I missed an issue somewhere down the line, so some of this doesn’t make a lot of sense. Diana gets a visit in her dreams from Ares, God of War, who Wonder Woman killed a few issues back by splitting his skull with an axe. Back on Themyscira, Achilles is romancing one of Wonder Woman’s mortal enemies, the island is plagued by numerous mysterious virgin pregnancies, and Artemis has returned a lost tribe of Amazons home. When Wonder Woman decides to return to Themyscira, she’ll have to battle one of her best friends to make her homecoming.

Verdict: Thumbs down. Even considering that I missed an issue, this didn’t make much sense at all. I know all the Paradise Island stuff is supposed to be important to Wonder Woman, but I’m kinda getting tired of hearing about it all the time. Couldn’t Wonder Woman go bust up some criminals sometime?

Tiny Titans #20

Raven has a great shortcut to school — she just conjures a black hole and steps through to get where she wants to go. Soon enough, everyone in school is using black holes to get around school and to get school supplies they forgot at home. Is there a downside? Not really, other than Beast Boy accidentally hitting himself in the face with a rock. But Terra can do that for him all by herself. Meanwhile, Alfred doesn’t trust the kids to play in the Batcave unsupervised, so he sends a penguin along to keep an eye on things. Of course, the kids soon get into mischief, with Beast Boy trying on a jetpack. Does anyone else suspect this is going to end with everyone standing in a corner?

Verdict: Thumbs up, as always. Beast Boy is the star this issue, since he’s the guy who gets into all the trouble, but Action Alfred is always fun to watch.

Billy Batson and the Magic of Shazam! #8

Dr. Sivana is at the controls of a new Mr. Atom robot, now powered by the Marvels’ magic lightning and by Tawky Tawny! The robot is stronger than ever, and every time Captain Marvel or Mary Marvel hit it, Tawny feels all the pain. Even worse, the battle releases Kull, who immediately wants his revenge on Captain Marvel. Luckily, Mary remembers something from science class, using some copper wire and some magic lightning to turn Kull into an electromagnet. Can the Marvels use the magnetic Kull to take care of Sivana and Mr. Atom and save Tawny at the same time?

Verdict: Thumbs up. Nice to see a little comic-book science make its appearance here with Mary’s electromagnet. Cute art and cute story, too. My only complaint? Even for the conclusion of a lengthy storyarc, this felt a little lightweight.

Lockjaw and the Pet Avengers #4

Uh-oh, Thanos is on the scene, and he means to get all the Infinity Gems away from the Pet Avengers. None of them are tough enough to take him on, so Frog Thor (I just can’t get into calling him “Throg” — even for this series, it’s too silly) takes all the gems and gives them to Lockjaw, on the pretense that Lockjaw is going to betray them all and hand them over. Instead, Lockjaw blasts Thanos a few times, then teleports him pretty much all over the place before stranding him in an alternate universe where he can’t get back. Huzzah! Cute animals triumph over evil!

Verdict: I’ll give it a thumbs up, because this issue was still plenty fun. But this was still the weakest issue of the series. If Thanos couldn’t understand what the animals were saying, why all the subterfuge that Frog Thor goes through? How did Ms. Lion survive getting a face-full of Thanos-blast? Why wasn’t Lockjaw more powerful when he possessed all of the Infinity Gems? Still, like I said, lots of good fun in this one, and I’m looking forward to the planned ongoing series with these characters.

Billy Batson and the Magic of Shazam! #7

Dr. Sivana is back and plotting more evil. After learning about Tawky Tawny’s connections to Billy and Mary, he manages to trail them to their home, bug their apartment, kidnap Tawny, and lead them straight into a trap — he’s re-activated the giant robot Mr. Atom, and he’s managed to super-charge him with the Marvels’ own lightning! Do they stand a chance to stop Dr. Sivana’s schemes?

Verdict: Thumbs up. Cute story, cute art, and they manage to raise the stakes and make things even more dangerous for Billy and Mary. That’s actually a pretty nice accomplishment for a kids comic.

Marvel Adventures: The Avengers #39

The Leader, the Abomination, and the Rhino are pulling off a ton of crimes as they work toward a plan to take over an orbital super-laser. Wolverine gets conned into making hot dogs while wearing an apron, just so Spidey can upload the pix to the Internet. Luke Cage beats the Abomination by beating him senseless with Wolverine. Spidey and Storm beat the Leader with rain. And Rhino wants out of the villain biz, so he and Tigra fake an epic battle so he’ll have an excuse to retire.

Verdict: Thumbs up. This one was just spectacular fun. The coolest scene was Tigra’s faked battle royale with Rhino — in a dramatic, drenching downpour, no less. The prize for best line goes to Tigra for: “Won the fight. Stole a line from the Thing. I’m totally a hero, and everything’s fine.” Just plain fantastic stuff.

All Winners Comics 70th Anniversary Special #1

If you’d told me a few months ago that I’d be grooving this hard on a bunch of comics commemorating Marvel’s Golden Age, I’da laughed in your face. The Golden Age of comics — mostly centering around World War II — is something that requires a lot of nostalgia to get into, ’cause if you read the original comics from that era, they’re often not that good. But without the Golden Age, you wouldn’t have had any comics at all, and for that alone, it deserves respect. But I’ve always been more interested in DC’s Golden Age, mostly because DC does such a good job of promoting their Golden Age characters through the “Justice Society” series. Marvel? What’s there to know but Captain America, Bucky, the Human Torch, and Namor, right?

Well, wrong. This series of specials has been absolutely amazing — some of the best writing and artwork to come out of Marvel in ages, along with some of the best stories from the real Golden Age, too. If you haven’t picked them up yet, go get to it.

As for this story, we start out shortly after the end of World War II, with the All Winners Squad taking on Future Man and Madame Death. Captain America makes a careless error that leaves Future Man’s time ship falling through time, though the heroes escape safely. Waitaminute, wasn’t Cap frozen in ice at the end of the war? Yes, this is a guy named Jeff Mace who is a replacement Captain America — and he doesn’t feel he’s earned the right to take Cap’s place yet. There’s also some additional soap-opera drama — Miss America is pretending she and Cap are dating to get the media talking, which is making her real boyfriend, the Whizzer (snicker!) jealous. But a night out on the town soon devolves into an attack by undead soldiers — and when a zombie Captain America appears and says that he’ll return to life if the replacement Cap dies, what’s going to happen then?

Verdict: Thumbs up. Wonderful plotting, dialogue, characterization, and artwork. The soap opera elements inject several months’ worth of drama into only a few pages, and the surprise villain was perfect for the story.

Billy Batson and the Magic of Shazam! #6

Dr. Sivana has escaped from prison, but Captain Marvel doesn’t have time to track him down — there’s a Bigfoot terrorizing the area. Wait, that’s no Bigfoot, that’s King Kull, timelost barbarian warrior with a magic gun that turns wood into metal. But Kull may be as strong as Cap, and he’s definitely a more experienced fighter, plus his gun leads to some very rough moments for the Big Red Cheese. Is there a way for Cap to prevail?

Verdict: Thumbs up. This story is again written by Art Baltazar and Franco, who are best known for their work on “Tiny Titans” and “Patrick the Wolf Boy,” while artwork is provided by Stephen DeStafano. At first, I thought DeStefano’s art was extremely weird for this book, but the more the story continued, the more I liked it — it’s like a combination of ’60s underground art and retro Golden Age cartooning. It ends up being very appealing and perfect for a character like Captain Marvel.