Hawkeye Annual #1

Our focus in this new annual isn’t on Clint Barton, but on Kate Bishop, who’s finally gotten fed up with Clint’s self-pitying moronitude and caught a flight to the West Coast. Unfortunately, Madame Masque, who holds a grudge against Kate because she humiliated her in a previous battle, finds out she’s heading for Cali. Masque manages to get all of Kate’s stuff — her car, her weapons, her clothes, her money — stolen. Luckily, she finds a new friend — Whitney Frost, a wealthy socialite who offers to put her up for the night and also maybe to kill her. Oh, because Whitney Frost is also Madame Masque. How is Kate going to escape from a crazed criminal mastermind and her dozens of loyal stooges?

Verdict: Thumbs up. It’s a fun, funny, action-packed story starring Kate Bishop, who is all kinds of awesome. This thing is full of fantastic dialogue, too. Can we talk art? Javier Pulido’s art is worlds of fun. Stylish and nifty and cartoonish and, like I said, worlds of fun. Y’all love Hawkeye, right? Of course you do. Go pick this one up, kids.

Lazarus #2

Forever Carlyle is her family’s Lazarus — an almost unkillable combat machine responsible for protecting the family members and their assets. And she’s started doubting her mission, at least partially because her brothers and sisters are all irredeemable scumbags who spend most of their time plotting against each other. But the Carlyle family is apparently under attack by the rival Morray family, her siblings want to go to war, and Forever has strong misgivings about all of this. Her father appears to share those misgivings — but he may be just as conniving as his children. He charges Eve with a secret mission, and she accompanies one of her brothers back to Los Angeles. While her siblings steam over what she’s up to, Eve takes a trip deep into enemy territory…

Verdict: Thumbs up. The dystopia described is still fascinating — and definitely check the sidebars in the letter column for this world’s history — and Forever remains a very deeply interesting character. Her siblings are all absolute scum, and I think we’ll enjoy getting to watch them all get killed eventually. The art is gorgeous, too. It’s just the second issue — there’s still time to get in on the beginning of this one, if you haven’t done so yet.

Uncanny Avengers #10

The Avengers are squabbling amongst themselves and splitting up to try to locate the Apocalypse Twins, but the twins are already several steps ahead — and they’ve created their own Four Horsemen of Apocalypse. But this time, they’re called the Four Horsemen of Death, because they’re all, well, dead. Banshee takes out Havok and the Scarlet Witch, the Grim Reaper goes after Wonder Man, the Sentry drags Thor to a planet on the other side of the galaxy, and Daken targets Wolverine.

Verdict: Ehh, it’s not that bad, but it’s also seeming more and more needlessly complicated. Of the resurrected characters, Banshee is the only one I’ve got any real affection for, and I’ll keep my fingers crossed that they’ll somehow manage to keep him alive. But for the rest — the Grim Reaper was a nonentity, Daken was strictly there to be a psycho, and I’d prefer that the Sentry be erased from history.

Batgirl #22

Barbara Gordon has a late date with Ricky, the former hoodlum she saved from Knightfall. But the date goes sour when they’re both ambushed by a gang that’s angry at Ricky’s brother. They manage to thrash the gang and derail their previous date plans to go visit Ricky’s family and go clubbing. The next day, Commissioner Gordon calls his daughter out to go shooting with him — even though Barbara is not a fan of firearms — because he’s fearful of losing her as he lost his son. Babs decides to give up being Batgirl, and Gordon has an angry confrontation with the Batman.

Verdict: Thumbs up. A really exemplary piece of storytelling. Batgirl doesn’t show up for a single panel, but it’s still a thrilling and enthralling story. Great work by both Gail Simone and Fernando Pasarin.

Hawkeye #12

This issue focuses on Clint Barton’s estranged brother Barney, who’s had a generally rotten life and has come to town to reconnect with his younger brother. He endures multiple beatings from the bros but gets to hand down a few of his own.

Verdict: Thumbs up. A nice story — the second in a row told from another character’s POV. Great characterization and action, too.

The True Lives of the Fabulous Killjoys #2

It’s another rotten day in Battery City. The outlaws in the badlands are preparing for war, and the Girl runs into Cherri Cola, an old friend from the Killjoy days. A pleasure android struggles to find batteries for her dying lover, and the assassin Korse — better known to us as Grant Freakin’ Morrison — is about to get put out to pasture because his kill percentages have been dropping.

Verdict: Thumbs up. A lot of this is still background material, but I’m still enjoying reading it. The background into Korse’s private life is cool, and the bit with the android trying to keep her lover from dying is really outstanding stuff.

Today’s Cool Links:

• This looks like a great way to encourage young girls to get interested in engineering.
• It never hurts to remember that Orson Scott Card has always been an authoritarian thug, as well as a homophobic bigot.
• And speaking of authoritarian thugs, our state legislature is filled with really, really bad people. Do what you can to fight back.
• And things are pretty messed up in Florida, too. Do what you can to fight back.

Hawkeye #11

If you ain’t heard by now, this entire issue is told from the point of view of Pizza Dog, Clint Barton’s dog, which he rescued from his abusive owners, the tracksuit-wearing bros. So Pizza Dog roams the neighborhood, investigates the body of a murdered neighbor, tangles with the bros, tangles with an assassin, and goes on a road trip.

Verdict: Thumbs up. This is just an astounding graphic and storytelling achievement. Word balloons are rare and often unreadable — Pizza Dog can’t understand a whole lot of human words. Most of his thoughts are depicted with simple warning signs, so for the most part, you can understand what he’s thinking and experiencing. It’s a fascinating read, and it’s amazing to see how Matt Fraction manages to get into a dog’s mindset. Even if you haven’t been reading Hawkeye — and you should, you know — go pick this one up.

Daredevil #27

Daredevil finally meets the mastermind behind all of the current misfortunes in his life — Bullseye. But it’s not the Bullseye we’re all accustomed to — he’s paralyzed, deaf, barely able to speak, confined to a metal tank to stay alive. He hired technicians and lackeys, created Ikari, and moved heaven and hell to get his ultimate revenge on Matt Murdock. With Ikari near enough to kill him, Matt is prepared to kill Bullseye, though it may mean the deaths of all his friends, including Foggy Nelson. Will Daredevil be able to keep Bullseye talking long enough to come up with a plan? Can he defeat Ikari? How can he stop Bullseye’s agents from killing his friends?

Verdict: Thumbs up. Amazing, tense writing from Mark Waid, beautiful art from Chris Samnee. Outstanding suspense and action, and thrilling revelations. It’s just a great, fun comic, and I loved reading it.

Today’s Cool Links:

• I don’t do digital comics right now, but this is really big news: Image is going to sell their digital comics DRM-free. That means you own the comics you buy, instead of just renting them, which is what you’re doing with DC, Marvel, and everyone else — including books on your Kindle or Nook.
• DC’s movie universe is bleak and nihilistic. Marvel’s is optimistic and hopeful. That’s why Marvel’s movies have been so much more fun than DC’s.
• The people who think it’s too hard to make a Wonder Woman movie haven’t been paying attention, because it’s been done before.
• You need some beautiful photography of abandoned places? Here ya go.
• Here’s a nice little essay on memory, horror movies, suburbia, and more.

Hawkeye #10

Most of this issue focuses on a guy named Kazimierz Kasimierczak, a guy who grew up in a war-torn region of Europe, saw his whole family killed during various acts of war, and eventually grew up to be an assassin wearing whiteface clown makeup. And he’s on Hawkeye’s trail.

Verdict: Thumbs up. It’s a good story with good art, good dialogue, and all the great stuff we expect from this series. I wish we knew if this guy had some sort of codename — it’s going to get very tiring if I have to type that name very often…

Worlds’ Finest #12

The new version of Desaad, an inhuman fanged monster, has shown up, and he’s disguised as Michael “Mr. Terrific” Holt. After the authorities try to arrest Huntress and Power Girl for attacking him, they make their escape, but Karen soon finds her business failing because of financial attacks and more destructive terrorist bombings. Can the heroes keep from losing everything?

Verdict: Thumbs up. A nice ramp-up in the mystery and danger for the heroes. A lot of the publicity about this issue has to deal with getting Power Girl back into her classic “boob window” costume, but it appears almost as an afterthought, which is probably a good way to do it. The new costume was really awful, though, and I hope we don’t see anything like it again.

And let’s take a very quick look at the comics I got for Free Comic Book Day:

World of Archie Digest

Almost 100 pages of Archie comics? Reprints both old and new? Archie takes the prize for the year’s best release for FCBD.

Mouse Guard/Rust

Archaia always puts out great stuff for FCBD — solid stories designed to preview upcoming comics and promote what’s already out there for new readers. Everything here was great fun to read, and the Cow Boy story in the middle even has some fun with the comic’s flip-book format.

Finding Gossamyr/The Stuff of Legend

Loved these a lot. Both are long-running stories, and the FCBD comic was able to both summarize the previous storyarcs and create new mini-stories that were fun to read.

R.I.P.D./True Lives of the Fabulous Killjoys/Mass Effect

Ehh. Almost completely forgettable stuff. I’d been considering picking up the Killjoys series, but I’m questioning whether I really care that much about it now.

Marvel Infinity

Beyond forgettable. There were more of this comic than anything else on FCBD. The lead story was depressing and un-fun. The ’70s reprint was depressing and un-fun. The preview from “Endless Wartime” was more entertaining, but it was just a preview. Come on, Marvel — Free Comic Book Day is supposed to bring new readers in, not scare them off.

Hawkeye #9

I’m way, way late to the party on this comic, which has gotten justified raves from almost everyone. I caught up recently, thanks to the just-released trade paperback, which you should totally go read if you haven’t previously been reading this book.

Well, Hawkeye is in trouble again, and once again, it seems to revolve around the Russian gangs he tangled with in the previous issues of this series. There’s a woman from his past, Penny Wright, who’s gotten him in over his head, and the other women in his life, including the Black Widow, Mockingbird, Spider-Woman, and Kate Bishop, do their best to find out what’s going on and to keep the “bros” off his back.

Verdict: Thumbs up. Fun retro art style, great dialogue and humor, and nice action, too. I’m really sorry I wasn’t reading this book from the first issue.

Batgirl #19

Barbara’s psychotic brother, James Jr., is working to make his entire family’s lives as miserable as possible. Babs reveals a lot of the family secrets to her roommate Alysia, including the fact that her boyfriend is a psycho and that Babs was formerly paralyzed by the Joker, while Alysia reveals that she is transgender. James lures his mother, father, and Batgirl to the local amusement park and sets about trying to kill them — how successful is he going to be?

Verdict: Thumbs up. Excellent action and suspense. I expect we’ll be seeing a lot more of James Jr. in the future — he’s simply been too wonderful a villain to discard.

There’s only one element of this story that I have to thumbs down, and that’s the bit with Alysia revealing that she’s transgendered. I’m not disappointed that she’s transgender — as Gail Simone has said in the many articles focusing on this issue, it’s probably way past time that comics start looking at this issue with more clear eyes. No, the problem here is that this comes out of nowhere. There’s never been any hint that Alysia was transgender or had any kinds of secrets she was hiding. It pretty much comes across as Simone deciding someone needed to be transgender, so she just went with the closest character available. It was like Judd Winick took over the writing on that one page. It was just immensely clumsy and badly done, and it was irritating to read it, because Simone is a far better writer than that.

Anyway, we’ll have to hope Alysia gets to be better written in future issues, or we’ll end up revisiting this plenty of times.

Today’s Cool Links:

• Going behind the scenes in the shutdown of Paragon Studios.
• Universally hated Internet “lawyer” Charles Carreon finally gets his comeuppance.
• I’m starting to think that Fox just isn’t happy unless they’re making fandom unhappy.
• I’m sure you’ve seen this KMart ad already, but it is pretty glorious.