Blue Beetle #1

One of the best things about the DC Reboot has been the return of Jaime Reyes as the Blue Beetle. It’s a complete reboot for the character, with the alien conquerors the Reach still in business in the distant past, and in the present day, Jaime still just a normal El Paso High School student. Looks like his supporting cast is intact, including his family and his friends Paco and Brenda — though Paco has been changed into an irritating gangsta stereotype. Brenda’s aunt is still a crimelord, so Jaime’s parents won’t let him attend Brenda’s birthday party — so Jaime and Paco sneak out so they can make an appearance — just in time for the new Brotherhood of Evil and a bunch of La Dama’s metahuman enforcers to get into a fight over the legendary blue scarab — and that leads to Jaime getting a new blue addition to his spinal cord.

Verdict: Ehh, not sure yet. My major complaint is with the new cartoon-lowrider-gangster look they saddled Paco with. It looks stupid, it adds nothing to the character, and it gives DC another black eye when it comes to doing pointless racist crap. Combined with the awkward dialogue — and extremely obtrusive and gratuitous Spanish, dropped here mainly to remind everyone that HOLY COW, EVERYONE, WE’VE GOT A BROWN-SKINNED CHARACTER! — this title isn’t looking so good. I’ll probably stick with this one for a while, ’cause I do love this character, but it’s a far cry from the glory days of John Rogers’ run on this title.

Tiny Titans #44

Beast Boy is terrified of the crossing guard patrol — because they’re actually Elasti-Girl, Robotman, Negative Man, and Mento — the Doom Patrol! Well, they don’t seem so bad. Robin really likes Elasti-Girl, Robotman is really enthusiastic, Mento loves to think, and Negative Man is negative about everything. So what does Beast Boy really have against the Doom Patrol? What’s their fiendish secret origin?

Verdict: Thumbs up. As always, very cute and funny, and it’s great to see the Doom Patrol in this series. Any chance we can get Crazy Jane in here sometime?

Today’s Cool Links:

• Two different takes on the awfulness of the Rebooted version of Starfire — one from a seven-year-old and one from a cartoonist. Would someone please corner Dan DiDio again and ask him why DC Comics is becoming such an anti-woman company under his tenure?
• I had a pretty strong suspicion, when I first heard about it, that Frank Miller’s “Holy Terror” was going to turn out to be an exercise in lowbrow bigotry. But it’s still not good news that this is what Miller has fallen to.
• The guys working on Atomic Robo completely and unequivocably rock.

Daredevil #4

Everyone at least suspects that Matt Murdock is Daredevil, so every time he steps into a courtroom, his case gets derailed and thrown out because people won’t stop talking about Daredevil. So Matt and Foggy Nelson are now working to coach people who have good cases but can’t afford a lawyer on how to represent themselves successfully in court. Of course, there’s still plenty for Daredevil to do, including fighting lions at the Bronx Zoo, beating up muggers in a diner, and rescuing kids from a tenement fire. But Matt’s new case is a wrongful-termination suit with a blind man, a translator who knows over two dozen languages who was fired numerous commendations after somehow running afoul of a couple of Latverian investors. Uh-oh, Latverians, huh?

Verdict: Thumbs up. Okay, the story is just great, but holy baloney, the artwork by Marcos Martin is just absolutely amazing. That’s all I can say about it — just amazing, beautiful artwork. The fight with the lions alone should be put up in a museum somewhere. That cover definitely deserves to be framed and admired.

Batman #1

Well, I loved Scott Snyder’s work when he was writing “Detective Comics,” so I figured I should follow him to see how he does in DC’s new Rebooted “Batman” series. So we get Batman facing off against nearly his entire rogues gallery — and getting helped out of the jam by the Joker?! We get Bruce Wayne and all his most trusted sidekicks visiting a big social event to sell the city’s movers and shakers on a rebuilt, improved Gotham City. And we get Batman visiting a gruesome crime scene to discover that the killer may be someone who’s very, very unexpected.

Verdict: Thumbs up. This might be the best of DC’s Rebooted comics so far, mostly because it doesn’t read like a series that’s been rebooted. Our cast of characters doesn’t change significantly (the Riddler gets a mohawk, and that’s about it), and Snyder gets to focus on writing a good Batman story. Greg Capullo’s art is fun — Gotham and Arkham’s villains are appropriately grungy, the details of the Batcave are grandly realized, and the action sequences are fantastic. Put this one on your pull list, gang.

Dark Horse Presents #4

This anthology series seems to be getting better and better. Besides a new episode of Evan Dorkin and Jill Thompson’s enlessly awesome “Beasts of Burden,” we’re treated to new chapters of Howard Chaykin’s “Marked Man” series, Richard Delgado’s “Age of Reptiles,” Carla Speed McNeil’s “Finder: Third World,” Steve Niles and Christopher Mitten’s “Criminal Macabre,” Robert Love and David Walker’s “Number 13,” the wonderfully funny “Adventures of Dog Mendonca and Pizzaboy” by Filipe Melo and Juan Cavia, and much more.

Verdict: Thumbs up. Favorite stories? “Beasts of Burden,” of course. Loved the Dog Mendonca story. Chaykin’s “Marked Man” series is getting better by the second. And “Finder” is amazingly fun and entertaining. But I don’t believe there was a single bad story in this issue. That’s pretty good for an anthology comic.

Wonder Woman #1

First new Rebooted Wonder Woman comic from Brian Azzarello and Cliff Chiang. And the biggest surprise about this isn’t that Azzarello’s writing is great, or that Chiang’s art is even better — the big surprise is that this isn’t really a superhero story. It’s horror.

We start out with Apollo in Singapore manufacturing his own oracles out of a trio of partygirls. After that, we get someone who looks likely to be Hera creating some centaur assassins by hacking off a couple horses’ heads and letting freakish human torsos claw their way out through the necks. Ewwww. This is all leading up to the centaurs attacking a woman named Zola who is being protected — against her will — by a weird looking guy with blue skin, big black eyes, and wings on his feet. He gives her a key that teleports her into Wonder Woman’s apartment in London. After they teleport back, Wondy beats the centaurs, reveals that Zola’s defender was actually Hermes, messenger of the gods. What the heck is going on here?

Verdict: Thumbs up. Like I said, Azzarello and Chiang are quite outstanding. I don’t know if I like the idea of this being a horror comic from now on, but there’s no doubt that the gods are depicted amazingly horrifically. And it really feels like an amazingly apt interpretation — if the idea of gods doesn’t creep you out a bit, you’re not really thinking about it enough.

B.P.R.D.: Hell on Earth – Russia #1

It’s not a good time to be in the Bureau for Paranormal Research and Defense. Horrific monsters are roaming almost unchecked across the Earth, Liz Sherman has gone into hiding, and Abe Sapien has been shot, is in a coma, and is probably dying. Kate Corrigan and Johann Kraus are on a trip to Moscow to meet with Russia’s Occult Bureau. And Russia is undergoing some sort of fungal plague that is turning people into monsters. Kate learns from the Russians that many of the B.P.R.D.’s secrets have been revealed to the world by Wikileaks. And the biggest surprise for Kate and Johann comes when they meet the man running the Russia Occult Bureau.

Verdict: Thumbs up. We’re just in the process of establishing the plot right now — but what really has me excited about this one is that it may give us a chance to catch up with the creepy demon girl Varvara, who we haven’t seen in quite a few years.

Severed #2

The year is 1916, and teenager Jack Garron has run away from home to stow away on a train. He wants to make his way to Chicago so he can meet his real father, a musician who he hopes will help make him successful as a performer. Jack has another run-in with the train cop who tried to throw him off, but this time, he’s able to get the better of the man and get his possessions back with the aid of a new friend named Sam. After they get to Chicago, they agree to rent a room together, and Jack learns that Sam is actually a girl disguising herself as a boy to avoid being assaulted or killed on the road. But Jack ends up missing his father — and he’s gone all the way back home to Mississippi. Sam suggests they earn some money by having Jack play his violin so they can take a train south — but the murderous traveling salesman with the horrific shark teeth has Jack’s scent now, and there may be no escape.

Verdict: Thumbs up. A rough-hewn, dirty story set in a rough-hewn, dirty country — it’s easy to forget that the U.S. wasn’t always the clean, heroic place we’ve invented for our myths. Good dialogue and tension — and more tension on the way, from the looks of it.

Today’s Cool Links:

• Just one today. There are a lot of the books in the DC Reboot that I’m very glad I’m not reading, and this article includes a lot of the reasons why. DC looks a lot like they’ve given up on producing comics that are acceptable reading for either children or for mature adults — too much of their focus is on producing comics for, about, and by immature man-children.

Frankenstein: Agent of S.H.A.D.E. #1

Another star from Grant Morrison’s “Seven Soldiers” makes his way to the Rebooted DC, as the badass, Milton-quoting man-monster called Frankenstein gets his own spotlight.

As a member of S.H.A.D.E., the Super Human Advanced Defense Executive, he pays his first visit to the Ant Farm, the organization’s hyper-miniaturized headquarters, designed by Ray Palmer, and meets up with the organization’s leader, Father Time — who, to Frankenstein’s distress, has cloned himself a new body — a Japanese schoolgirl in a domino mask. He receives a new assignment — to investigate a small town overrun by monsters, where his wife, the Bride, has already vanished. And he gets some sidekicks for the job — the Creature Commandos, including the vampiric Vincent Velcoro, Dr. Nina Mazursky, a fish/human hybrid, the lycanthropic Warren Griffith, and Khalis, a genuine Egyptian mummy. But do five monsters stand a chance against an army of hundreds more?

Verdict: Thumbs up. Lots of fairly mad action and a nice big dollop of humor to go along with it. Frankenstein is the same action-pulp hero he’s been in previous appearances, and Father Time’s new look is pretty hilarious. The Creature Commandos are barely sketched-out personalities for now, and the Bride barely appears at all. My primary disappointment is the lack of over-wrought pulp captions that were so prominent in the “Seven Soldiers” comic — there’s not a single “All in a day’s work… for Frankenstein!” to be found here. Still, it was a bucket of fun, and I’ll keep reading.

Daredevil #3

The Man without Fear has been captured by a bunch of partial sound-clones of the sonic-powered supervillain Klaw, and they’re trying to build him into a new remote-controlled body they can use to cause more chaos. Is there a way for Daredevil to escape when the clones’ sound forms wreak such havoc with his superpowered senses? And even if he can get away, is there a way for him to help an innocent man win a court case when no lawyer in the city will take him as a client?

Verdict: Thumbs up. A very tense and smart story by Mark Waid, and beautiful art by Paolo Rivera and Joe Rivera. Not much more I can say about this — it’s a really wonderful superhero story, without too much of the angst we’re seeing in other comics.

Demon Knights #1

In a story that starts with the fall of Camelot, we get to see Merlin bond the demon Etrigan to a lowly knight named Jason. After that, we jump forward a few centuries to the Dark Ages, we meet the heroes of our story as they pass through a small town — Jason Blood, the foul-mouthed Madame Xanadu, Vandal Savage, the Shining Knight, new characters called Al Jabr and Exoristos, and of course, Jason’s worse half, Etrigan. And they’ve got to save the world from the evil wizard Mordru. Holy cow, the world is going to get destroyed by Mordru!

Verdict: Thumbs up. Not a lot of plot going on yet — we’re mostly just introducing characters. And it’s a great bunch of characters, too. I love the idea that Madame Xanadu is playing Jason and Etrigan against each other, and it’s also really great to see Sir Ystin again, after much too long since she appeared in Grant Morrison’s “Seven Soldiers” series. Looking forward to reading more of this one.

American Vampire: Survival of the Fittest #4

Dr. Erik Pavel recounts that for the last few decades, he’s been on the trail of strange, gigantic figures that look like statues but are actually alive — ancient, powerful vampires in a state of hibernation. But normal vampires have been working very hard to destroy all these gigantic vampires over the years, and Pavel hopes that Felicia Book and Cash McCogan, members of the vampire-hunting Vassals of the Morning Star, can appreciate that they’re about to awaken, and that they’ll wipe out all the smaller, impure vampires in the world. And even worse, the Nazis and their Nazi vampires finally capture all three of them. Is there anything left that can save them from destruction at the fangs of the vampire hordes?

Verdict: Thumbs up. It’s still exciting, still beautifully illustrated, and still worth shelling out the three bucks per issue for this series.

The Unwritten #29

Tom Taylor is still trying to discover what his father was doing in Brooklyn in the ’30s. He’d nurtured the talent of a beautiful comic book creator and fallen in love with her — but the Cabal wants her dead. The freewheeling stories in the unrestricted comics medium have too much power to break the Cabal’s control. Wilson Taylor does everything he can to persuade Miriam Walzer to give up the business and go into more mainstream art, but she’s dedicated to her craft. Can Wilson save her, or is it already too late for everyone?

Verdict: Thumbs up. The near-ending of this storyarc is full of a few noble hearts and how they all get crushed, trampled, abused, and destroyed. Not the prettiest tale, but definitely an effective one. Wilson Taylor’s plans for taming the comics industry is the type of thing that I’m a bit surprised DC agreed to publish — but maybe they’re focused solely on the Reboot and are ignoring Vertigo? And there are a few excellent twists at the end, too.

Today’s Cool Links:

• A friend of mine wrote this, and she is awesome.
• Need something new to be afraid of? This is what’s going on inside the skull of every kid growing their adult teeth.
• The new Muppet movie trailer is a pretty awesome parody of the also-awesome trailer for “The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo.”

Batwoman #1

Wow, for a first issue, this comic is just jam-packed with stuff. And it still makes for great reading!

We start out with Batwoman on the trail of a new villain — or possibly an actual ghost — who styles herself after the spectral child-kidnapper La Llorona. We also get Kate Kane planning a date with Gotham Detective Maggie Sawyer and putting her new sidekick, Bette Kane, the former Flamebird, through her paces. We get the backstory of why Kate is estranged from her father, and we learn that Agent Cameron Chase of the Department of Extranormal Operations is being put on Batwoman’s trail.

Verdict: Thumbs up. Yes, I summarized it really quickly, but this was just an incredibly awesome comic, and I didn’t want to spoil too much of it for you. But there’s a lot here to love. There’s a villain based on La Llorona, my favorite urban legend/ghost story. There’s Kate treating Bette as a military trainee. There’s the return of Cameron Chase and the always-awesome Director Bones. There’s J.H. Williams III being a very good storyteller. And most importantly, there’s J.H. Williams III’s beautiful, beautiful, beautiful artwork. No kidding, this one is worth picking up just so you can marvel at how gorgeous the art is. So go get it already.

The Amazing Spider-Man #669

Spider-Island is still going crazy, and a million New Yorkers have found themselves with Spider-Man’s powers. Peter Parker is forced to show off his fancy new martial arts skills in a way that makes his girlfriend Carlie suspicious that he may actually be the real Spider-Man. Reed Richards and the other scientists discover that no one who already has powers is able to catch the virus that dishes out the spider-powers, so they plan to give everyone in the city the super-power of… knowing which way is magnetic north. Why such a lame power? Well, it was easiest to mass-produce. Unfortunately, Mayor J. Jonah Jameson learns that he’s already been infected with the virus, and he’ll be getting spider-powers just like his hated nemesis. Spidey runs into the Shocker — and the villain has grown a few extra pairs of arms, just as it becomes clear that the spider-virus is causing additional mutations in anyone who has it.

Verdict: Thumbs up. Holy cow, there’s lots of crazy stuff happening here. But I have to admit, my favorite part of this is the idea that Mr. Fantastic is planning to give everyone super-compass powers. That’s bizarre, hilarious, and awesome all at the same time.

Today’s Cool Links:

• Well, this isn’t very cool, but DC has rebooted Amanda Waller from a devious heavyset mastermind to a typical skinny-girl nobody. Come on, DC, what about that commitment to diversity? Oh, don’t tell me it was a sham, just like everything else Dan DiDio says? Or was it just that the comics company run by stunted man-children still can’t do anything without calculating how much fun it’ll be to pointlessly infuriate their readers?
• And in more bad DC Reboot news, John Rozum is already leaving “Static Shock.” He says it’s not related to anything at DC. I hope he’s not just saying that so DC will hire him for comics in the future.
• Snell reminds us that it’s possible to have more than one interpretation of a character out there, even at more than one publisher. You hearin’ him, DC and the Siegel and Shuster families?

Swamp Thing #1

Alec Holland used to be a scientist, and he used to be Swamp Thing, and he used to be dead. And he’s not any of those things anymore. He’s lying low working as a construction worker, unwilling to return to his scientific work with plants and definitely unwilling to become a swamp monster, even though he never actually was the Swamp Thing, even though he’s got the Swamp Thing’s memories cluttering up his skull. And even more bizarre, plants still love him. They grow fast around him, they like to coil themselves around him.

He soon gets a visit from Superman, who asks him if he’s aware of the various species die-offs taking place across the country — Holland is, but notes that isn’t all that uncommon — large numbers of animals die all the time, sometimes for reasons of sickness, sometimes for no apparent reason at all. Superman wants to check to see if Holland is adjusting alright to his return from the grave. And Holland can’t really tell him everything’s all that great. He’s worked on his old bio-restorative formula, but abandoned it. And he’s having weird dreams about plants. And where no one’s aware it’s happening, some sort of monstrous abomination, part alive, part dead, is beginning a rampage.

Verdict: Thumbs down. I know everyone else seemed to love this one, but it just rubbed me the wrong way. It was creepy in places, but tried a little too hard to look like Alan Moore’s Swamp Thing stories. I was bugged by the lack of anything explaining Alec Holland’s current backstory — not all of us paid any attention to how Swamp Thing changed during the “Brightest Day” storyline. And I was really a bit irritated that Swamp Thing himself never appeared in the story ’til the last page. Sorry, but I just didn’t buy all the buzz.

The other interesting thing about this issue is that it’s just about the first place outside of promotional artwork where you can see what Superman’s new costume looks like.

And it’s not good.

Yanick Paquette is one of the best artists DC or anyone else has. You don’t see him drawing stuff that looks bad — pretty much everything he draws looks awesome. And if he can’t make the Man of Steel’s costume look like something other than a bucket of boiling crap, no one else is going to be able to do it either.

Morning Glories #12

We get introduced to a brand new character in this issue — Lara Hodge, the guidance counselor at the Morning Glory Academy. And she’s not happy with the way things are being run. Students are being killed, the head nurse is a sadist, the headmistress is only effective at terrorizing students. Hodge arranges meetings with most of the main cast of students, giving Zoe a gun, giving Jade some pills to help her sleep through her nightmares, and she tries to comfort Casey, who’s still grieving over her dead parents. But is Hodge just another sticky strand in the Academy’s web, or can she really do something to help the students?

Verdict: Thumbs up. Lara Hodge is an interesting character, and it’ll be interesting to see what kind of role she’s going to have in the story. Other than that, plenty more intrigue and mystery, and all the things this series does so well.

Today’s Cool Links:

• Siskoid mixes and matches Marvel’s and DC’s latest crossovers for a glimpse into the latest releases from Amalgam Comics.
• How Mad Magazine came up with one of their best covers ever in less than a day.
• Here’s a cool short documentary about the company that made Vampire Blood, Scar Stuff, and Evil Teeth.

Justice League International #1

Well, the UN is putting together their own team of superheroes in answer to the newly-formed Justice League, and the diplomatic bureaucracy hammers out a group of mostly random misfits, including Booster Gold (as the team leader, because they figure he’ll be easy to control), Guy Gardner (who immediately quits the team because he can’t stand the idea of Booster leading them), Vixen, Fire, Ice, Godiva, Rocket Red, and August General in Iron. The UN specifically removes Batman from consideration, but he invites himself along anyway. Their first mission sends them to Peru to look for a missing research team — but what they find instead is an ambush by lava monsters! Can the team pull together to deal with this threat — and the far worse threat that comes behind it?

Verdict: Thumbs up. This one isn’t trying to convince us that the New Rebooted DC is the greatest thing since sliced bread. It’s just putting out a decent superhero comic — and these days, that’s unique and wonderful enough all on its own. Gotta admit some of the choices for the team are surprising — I like August General in Iron, but he seems even less likely than Guy to accept Booster Gold — or anyone else — leading a team he’s on…

iZombie #17

There’s an all-out zombie apocalypse taking place on the streets of Eugene, Oregon, and that’s the worst time for a knock-down, drag-out between the government-sponsored monsters of the Dead Presidents and the undercover monster-hunters in the Fossor Corporation. And even worse is the fact that Gwen, a zombie, and Spot, a were-terrier, are stuck in the middle of it. All this while mad scientist Galatea has a face-to-face meeting with Kovsky, a disembodied brain in a coffee maker, Ellie makes a new friend who just escaped from Galatea’s lab, Spot’s chimpanzee grandfather seeks shelter in the diner, and Gwen discovers an unsettling truth about how she died.

Verdict: Thumbs up. Lots of action, lots of drama. The art by Michael Allred is, as always, outstanding, and Chris Roberson’s storytelling skills are still top-of-the-heap. Of course, the big problem for Gwen in all of this is that there’s a lot of fighting going on, and a lot of people who want to kill her — and she doesn’t really specialize in being able to fight…

Static Shock #1

Well, here’s one of the DC Reboot books I’ve really been looking forward to — the sole survivor of the Milestone Media characters acquired by DC.

Virgil Hawkins, the teen electricity-and-magnetism-powered hero called Static, has moved with his family from Dakota to New York City, where he’s gotten a part-time job working for S.T.A.R. Labs. After depowering a technician who was running amok while wearing an experimental plasma protection suit, Static is surprised when the man is shot dead by persons unknown. Turns out the man was stealing the suit for a criminal organization that’s decided that Static needs to die now, just in case the technician told him about them. We get some great character work with Virgil’s family and his new mentor, Hardware — but Static gets a nasty surprise when he’s attacked by an assassin called Virule.

Verdict: Thumbs up. Great to see Milestone get some representation in the Rebooted DCU, and it’s especially cool to see that Hardware is going to have a strong supporting role in this comic. All that plus Static’s fantastic attitude and family come through just fine. I hope we’ll see more of Static’s old supporting cast here, too. Still not sure why the character had to be transfered to the Big Apple, but I’ll take it as long as it gets us some Milestone goodness.

Atomic Robo: The Ghost of Station X #1

Robo gets an urgent call on Tesladyne Island about a team of astronauts trapped aboard a crippled space station — and he and his team of mad-science geniuses are the only hope for rescuing them. After brainstorming furiously, they cook up a wildly improbable plan that could only work in a comic book or an action movie — and which is still going to involve colossal risk to the pilot — namely, Atomic Robo. All that plus a missing house in Britain, exiled scientists in Norway, and an experimental jet, and the plan can’t fail, right? Right?

Verdict: Thumbs up. But you’re going to have to be prepared for a very talky script. Of course, I think that’s a good thing — the best way to watch mad scientists brainstorm is with a few pages of mad scientists brainstorming their way through a bunch of mad science gobbledygook. Luckily, there are the jet planes and the insane science stunts, so that’s another bonus.

Today’s Cool Links:

• Good news! The sick are healed, the poor are comforted, war is ended! Surely that’s the only reason this Holy Dork has time to get pissy about Superman saying, literally, “GD” in a comic book, right?
• This is a really excellent hidden-camera prank. It’s all in Spanish, but the prank is definitely universal.
• Here is your disturbing but hilarious video for the day.

Action Comics #1

Here’s the comic that probably should’ve been the first out of the blocks last week for the DC Reboot — but of course, this one wasn’t being worked on by Geoff Johns and Jim Lee, so “Justice League” had to go first. But this one is by Grant Morrison, so you can probably bet a decent sum of money that it’ll be better.

This is, obviously, a Superman comic, and it should be equally obvious that it’s not the familiar Superman we’re all used to. This is a young Superman at the beginning of his career. He wears blue jeans, work boots, a T-shirt, and a cape. He can’t fly, but he can leap tall buildings in a single bound. He’s not as strong as the Superman we’re used to, but he’s real strong, real fast, and getting stronger and faster all the time.

And hold on to your hats — the Man of Steel is a hardcore, unapologetic liberal with a mad-on for corporate malfeasance.

We get introduced to Superman after he charges into a skyscraper and terrifies a mega-rich corporate tycoon into confessing to his crimes by jumping off a building with him. The police are helpless to stop him, and Lex Luthor is working with General Sam Lane to figure out a way to capture him. After Supes prevents the demolition of a tenement filled with people and eludes the cops, he changes into his Clark Kent, crusading reporter, pays his rent, and tries to warn Lois Lane and Jimmy Olsen (who are working for a rival newspaper? What the heck?) about going after a gangster. But when Luthor decides to crash a subway car, will Superman be able to save the day?

Verdict: Thumbs up. I’ll admit — I was not actually expecting a lot from this. What we got was an interestingly different Superman and Clark Kent, with the same political sensibilities he had back when he was initially introduced in 1939. The action, as you’d probably expect from something called “Action Comics” is first-rate, but really, the thing that makes this so interesting is Superman’s personality — man of the people, infuriated by injustice and the way the law and the police work almost entirely for the advantage of the wealthy, and more than a bit arrogant about his powers, especially since he’s never run into anything that could seriously challenge him. This could turn out to be one heck of a cool comic.

Batgirl #1

And here we get introduced to the new version of Barbara Gordon — former Batgirl, victim of a spinal cord injury courtesy of the Joker — and a woman who had a miraculous recovery after three years in a wheelchair. Now back in costume as Batgirl, she takes down a bunch of home invaders, despite her lingering fears of gunshot wounds. She moves into a new apartment with a new roommate, but gets called back to action to help defend the leader of the home invaders from a villain called the Mirror — a murderer who specializes in killing people who have survived where they should have died — and he might have Barbara Gordon in his sights, too…

Verdict: Thumbs up. The “miraculous recovery” might be seen as a cop-out to get Babs Gordon out of her wheelchair and back into a bat-costume, but since there’s clearly something big that’s going to be explained at some point in the future, I’m willing to give it a pass. At any rate, I’m very glad to see this character being written by Gail Simone, who is one of the few writers I think can be trusted to do right by Batgirl, no matter what.

Today’s Cool Links:

• Texas governor/presidential candidate/America-hating treason-fan/professional moron Rick Perry wants people to compare him to Superman. Jay Smooth delivers the epic smackdown.
• Orson Scott Card may have written some good books years ago, but today, his only profession is being a jaw-droppingly horrible person.
• So Napoleon was short, right? Kate Beaton brings us learning along with humor.