Atomic Robo and the Knights of the Golden Circle #5

Helsingard’s zeppelin, the War Machine Basilisk, is on the move, and Atomic Robo, Marshall Bass Reeves, and Doc Holliday are aboard trying to fight off wave of cyborg outlaw soldiers to bring it down. A few problems: Reeves and Holliday are armed with six-shooters, which are not as effective as they’d like, and Robo’s atomic batteries are just about to run bone-dry on him. Can they stop Helsingard’s plans of conquest? Well, that’s a pretty sure thing, actually, since history didn’t show that Helsingard won. But where does this all leave Robo? Nowhere good, either in the past or the present.

Verdict: Thumbs up. Trying not to give away any spoilers — but could Brian Clevinger and Scott Wegener maybe start the next series right now? Like, seriously, right now? Because after this cliffhanger, I really, really can’t wait.

Groo vs. Conan #4

Everyone seems to think either Groo or Conan has been slain, but it just ain’t so — their battle continues, with neither able to gain the upper hand. Groo’s stupidity keeps frustrating Conan, while Groo continues trying to destroy the bakery. Elsewhere, Sergio is still hopped up on pills and thinking he’s Conan — and the friendly neighborhood comic shop may still be torn down! Can any hero solve all these problems?

Verdict: Thumbs up. It’s been a really cool series, very much in the vein of “Archie Meets the Punisher,” with the cartoony Groo meeting up with the more realistic Conan. Lots of good jokes, ranging from the expected stuff from Groo to gags about MAD Magazine — and even Conan gets a few subtle jokes in here and there. Definitely worth picking up the collected edition, whenever it comes out, if you haven’t yet read the series.

Sensation Comics #3

A trio of stories in this one. First, Wonder Woman is a combination of superhero and rock star, meeting fans and confronting bullies; second, Wonder Woman meets up with Catwoman, whose scheme to steal the Golden Fleece has Diana facing a dragon; third, Gilbert Hernandez of “Love and Rockets” writes and illustrates a tale in which Wonder Woman is captured and hypnotized by Kanjar Ro.

Verdict: Thumbs down. None of these stories was particularly well-written. The first one is crammed to the gills with illogic, strawmen, and clumsy dialogue and interaction. The second was full of situations where Wonder Woman does the dumbest possible thing every time. (Take Catwoman out of police HQ? Take her to a cafe? Lug around the loot she stole without leaving it in police custody and without even checking to see what it was? Sure, Diana would do all that stuff.) And the third featured sometimes clumsy artwork and Diana being captured way, way too easily by the aliens.

Today’s Cool Links:

• The lack of any plans to make movies about the Hulk and Black Widow is really the weirdest thing about the recent Marvel movie announcements. No Hulk movie for Mark Ruffalo? No Black Widow movie starring one of the most bankable actresses and action stars of the decade? What is Marvel smoking?
• This really is kinda spectacular: the Internet Arcade has a few hundred classic arcade video games you can download and play.
• Tumblr users seem to take a lot of flack, but they often bring the funny better than anyone else.
• How ’bout one final Halloween video? This one’s even based on a comic book.

Groo vs. Conan #3

Poor Sergio Aragones is still over-medicated and completely out of his mind, running amuck in a Renaissance faire. He’s arrested and taken to jail — but then there’s a jailbreak, and the prisoners drag him away with them. Meanwhile, in our mix-and-match fantasy world, Conan has realized that Groo is not a gigantic monster — just a complete idiot. But he’s still a dangerous combatant. Is he too much for Conan to handle?

Verdict: Thumbs up. Great cartooning, humor, and action. It’s still fun to see these two wildly-different characters interacting together, partly humorously, partly seriously.

Clive Barker’s Nightbreed #5

Our origin stories in this issue focus on devil-faced Lude and two-faced Annastasjia. Lude’s story starts back in Germany in the 1600s, when his mother is attacked by a demonic satyr and later gives birth to an adorable, obsidian-skinned, fanged, horned baby. Annastasjia’s is more recent — the 1920s — when she was a vain, shallow movie star, scarred in a bar fight. Her efforts to regain her beauty lead her into methods very far from medical science.

Verdict: Thumbs up. It’s still kinda hard for me to believe I’m enjoying this as much as I am. The stories are still fun — and monstery and gross and often funny — and there are a lot more of the Nightbreed the creators can mine for stories…

Evil Empire #5

We get a break from the main storyline as we meet up with Ace, a serial killer, and Talia, his chosen victim. Ace’s gimmick is that he prefers to tie his victim up and make her watch him torture and murder people for days before finally killing her. He’s moderately well-adjusted, socially and mentally — he just likes to kill people and mentally torture women who remind him of his mother. But as the country starts to go to hell during the presidential campaign, Ace starts discovering that life is a lot more dangerous — people are murdering each other left and right, and no one’s getting in trouble for it. And when everything is permitted, Ace really doesn’t get the same charge he used to get from serial murder. Is there hope for his redemption?

Verdict: Thumbs down. I liked parts of this — the humor is really quite well done. Ace complaining about his new doubts about serial killing comes while he’s eating a body, for example, and his murderous impulses are largely played for laughs. The thing is, I’m buying the premise of the story less and less, and I especially couldn’t believe that a serial killer would give it all up just because everyone else is a serial killer, too.

Silver Surfer #5

Things are really weird at the Greenwood Inn. Dr. Strange and the Hulk show up, and Nightmare has a dastardly plot to put everyone on Earth to sleep to gain ultimate power. Luckily, the Surfer never sleeps — oh, wait, he’s asleep and dreaming right now? And the world relies on Dawn Greenwood to stay awake?

Verdict: Thumbs up. Very cute story and fun art to boot.

The Manhattan Projects #23

LBJ wants in on the Projects, and the alien-corrupted Soviets, led by Monster Brezhnev and a robot with three animal heads, want some mind-controlled dupes to help them control Cuba. So we get to meet up with Fidel Castro and Che Guevara, too.

Verdict: Thumbs up. LBJ is fun, even if he’s very similar to General Groves, and Castro and Guevara are all kinds of cool as they battle the Soviets.

Groo vs. Conan #2

Sergio is still looped out of his gourd and thinking he’s Conan. In the fictional reality, Conan has been led to believe that Groo is a gigantic monster, so he doesn’t recognize him when he meets him. But how do the townspeople think their first meeting is going?

Verdict: Thumbs up. Lots of great, weird fantasy fun.

Groo vs. Conan #1

I just can’t resist the concept. I really loved the old Archie Meets the Punisher crossover from a couple decades ago, mixing serious comics with funny comics and meshing cartooning with dramatic art. So Sergio Aragones’ pea-brained barbarian Groo the Wanderer meets up with Robert E. Howard’s Conan of Cimmeria — “black-haired, sullen-eyed, sword in hand, a thief, a reaver, a slayer, with gigantic melancholies and gigantic mirth” — that’s just so weird, and I just don’t care.

While Conan heroically scales a tower, defeats a wizard, and rescues a fair maiden, Groo ends up getting tricked into helping some corrupt politicos and associated troops rout innocent villagers from a beloved local bakery. And wrapped around this story are our writers, Sergio Aragones and Mark Evanier, getting mixed up in a riot at a comic shop. Sergio is injured and taken to a hospital, where he’s injected with enough drugs to get him hallucinating that he’s Conan himself and fleeing the hospital to find some evil to fight.

Verdict: Thumbs up. It’s a thoroughly weird story, which means I’m basically required by law to love it.

Daredevil #6

In this Original Sin crossover, Uatu’s exploding eye has revealed a secret from Matt’s past — at some point, his beloved father Battlin’ Jack Murdock beat Matt’s mother, who is now a nun called Sister Maggie. When Matt returns to New York to quiz his mother about what happened, he discovers that she and two other nuns have been arrested after spray-painting peace slogans on the walls of a military base that was testing chemical weapons. But they haven’t been arrested for vandalism — in fact, no one is telling anyone what they’ve been arrested for. No one has read them their rights, and they’ve been given no legal counsel. And a military tribunal has ordered them extradited to Wakanda. Wakanda? What the heck? T’Challa is no longer in charge in Wakanda, and no one claims to know anything about the case. Matt ends up sneaking into Wakanda’s Manhattan embassy to find some evidence about what’s going on — and walks right into a trap.

Verdict: Thumbs up. The usual great writing and art. Thankfully, only a minimum of connection to the Original Sin series, as most of the emphasis is on the mystery of why Matt’s mother has been reasonlessly arrested. And it’s an excellent mystery — it definitely has me looking forward to the rest of this storyline.

Axe Cop: The American Choppers #3

Everyone meets Axe Cop’s real father, who was a general on General Planet and who sent Axe Cop to Earth as a baby to escape the destruction of his home planet. He brings Axe Cop back to life, and the whole team returns to Earth to fight Captain Axe’s evil uncle and Satan himself. They kill Satan twice — and then throughout the universe killing all of the Space Satans.

Verdict: Sorry, but thumbs down. Too self-aware, it repeated too much stuff that’d been done before, Axe Cop’s new origin was a groaner. I thought the most interesting parts were when the characters, who’ve always been focused exclusively on chopping off bad guys’ heads, actually made inquiries about deep philosophical and theological questions. But those moments were few and far between.

Mighty Avengers #12

Long story short: the Mighty Avengers of the 1970s take on the Deathwalkers, ancient wizard-kings, former wise rulers corrupted by human sacrifice. They want to destroy the world, and only our heroes stand in the way. But will Earth’s Mightiest Heroes stand a chance against impossibly powerful sorcerers?

Verdict: Thumbs up. It’s mostly a slugfest, sure, but it’s a good slugfest.

Holy cow, people, we got an absolute marathon set up for tonight’s edition of Friday Night Fights, so let’s get straight into it.

From February 1984’s What If? #43 by Peter B. Gillis and Bob Hall, we’ve got mighty Conan of Cimmeria — “black-haired, sullen-eyed, sword in hand, a thief, a reaver, a slayer, with gigantic melancholies and gigantic mirth, to tread the jeweled thrones of the Earth under his sandalled feet,” to quote “The Phoenix on the Sword” — and something has transported him to 1980s New York City! Can the great barbarian make an honest living in the Big Apple?

Ha ha, NO.

Mighty Conan cares not for paper money. He’s probably one of Ron Paul’s gold hoarders, the poor soul.

But it’s not long before Conan has picked up a good deal of American English and made himself a fair bit of money. So he buys himself some new threads and goes to visit a friend.

Hey, man, that suit is you! You’ll get some leg tonight for sure! Tell us how you do!

But listen, it’s a Marvel comic book, and that means eventually, there’s gonna be superheroes. And then, there’s gonna be lots and lots of fighting.

All hail Conan! All hail King Conan!

Okay, I just gotta throw this out here real quick. You guys like The Onion, right? Check out their new article about Obama’s challenges with his new Cabinet…

WASHINGTON—President Barack Obama expressed frustration Wednesday after members of his cabinet failed to recognize his allusion to the 24th issue of the comic series Savage Sword Of Conan during their first major meeting together.

Obama, whose upcoming challenges include organizing a massive effort to rebuild the nation’s infrastructure, was reportedly unprepared for the confused silence he received upon suggesting that his cabinet “team up with Taurus of Nemedia” to secure the necessary funding from Congress.

(snip)

Obama, an avid collector of Conan The Barbarian and Spider-Man comic books since he was a child, was referencing the 1977 story “The Tower Of The Elephant,” written by Roy Thomas. According to administration sources, no one in Obama’s cabinet was familiar with the magazine-sized comic, though Labor Secretary Hilda Solis claimed to have once seen Conan the Destroyer.

Even by The Onion‘s usual high standards, this one was particularly funny. Go read the whole thing.