It’s been a weirdly excellent week for diversity in the comic book world.

The biggest news has been the announcement that Marvel was introducing a new Ms. Marvel, a shapeshifting Muslim teenager who idolized the current Captain Marvel, Carol Danvers. Kamala Khan made a very brief debut in this week’s issue of “Captain Marvel” and will be appearing in her own comic book in February. She isn’t the first Muslim female character in a comic book, but it’s very likely she’s the first to grab her own starring role in a comic from the Big Two.

As was pointed out to me by a friend, while this is good news, it would be even better news if Marvel hadn’t even felt the need to publicize this — that woulda meant that having characters who were not white straight male Christians was no longer considered shocking or surprising or uncommon — that there was no longer an “other,” just people who had interesting stories we could tell.

Nevertheless, a lot of the excitement about this is because readers are excited that there are new interesting characters to read about and who are happy that the comics world is becoming a more open, less exclusionary place.

Outside of the printed page, there’s a lot of other news about TV shows. DC announced that the CW would bring a new superhero to the screen. No, not Wonder Woman — she’s still considered too weird and obscure and non-penis-endowed for TV. Instead, they’re going with Hourman. Yeah, a little-known Golden Age character who only has powers for an hour at a time after taking a pill. That’s so much more mainstream and cool and sensible than Wonder Woman, isn’t it?

On the other hand, the CW also announced that they’d be producing a new TV show based on Chris Roberson and Michael Allred’s “iZombie,” which of course stars a female character. This sounds like it may be a bit more interesting — the CW’s superhero shows (Well, “Arrow” — more are planned, of course) seem to be oriented around brooding shirtless hunks being angsty. A zombie who solves crimes by snacking on brains sounds like a meatier premise, though still probably pretty angsty, too.

Perhaps more encouraging on the TV front is that Netflix is going to make a number of shows based on Marvel characters, including Daredevil, Jessica Jones, Luke Cage and Iron Fist, and the Defenders. This is pretty exciting news — Marvel has been a lot more successful with superheroes in the mass media, and it means that Marvel stands a very good chance of beating DC to getting a female superhero into a starring role on TV. If there’s anything that could push DC into taking Wonder Woman seriously as a media property, it might be Marvel stealing their thunder again.

(Though on a semi-related note, what’s up with Marvel still not starting up a Black Widow movie? You’ve got one of the most famous, most marketable movie stars on the planet playing backup roles in other people’s movies, guys. For the sake of Croesus, make a Black Widow movie and put Scarlett Johansson’s name above the title.)

And finally, dropping back to comics, former Lubbock artist Rachael Anderson was just spotlighted in Comics Alliance’s new “Hire this Woman” feature! We have our fingers crossed that this will help draw more attention to a really outstanding artist. We’d love to see her name on big-name comics soon.

Does all this big pro-diversity news mean the struggle is over, or even close to over? Obviously not. For one thing, DC Comics still exists, and it’ll be years before they let go of the “Comics are only for white male geeks” paradigm. But any progress forward is good news, and if television success can drag the comics industry a bit closer to the 21st century, I’m all for it.

iZombie #28

So it’s time for the final issue of Chris Roberson and Michael Allred’s wonderful supernatural soap opera. Xitalu, an eldritch monster-god from between dimensions, is preparing to devour the entire world, starting with Eugene, Oregon. The treacherous mummy Amon has a plan to Xitalu away for a few centuries by having our heroine, intelligent zombie Gwen Dylan, absorb the souls of everyone in the city — including her friends and family — then he can then feed her to Xitalu so he’ll go away. Equally treacherous mad scientist/Frankenstein monster Galatea wants to download Xitalu into Frankenteen so she can gain all of Xitalu’s power for herself. As the seconds tick by and everyone gets closer to being eaten alive by Xitalu, is there any way for Gwen to save everyone?

Verdict: Thumbs up. A nicely-done ending, with lots of suspense and tension — and everyone in the cast gets at least a brief moment in the spotlight. I’m still not sure if this one got cancelled because it wasn’t selling well enough, because DC didn’t like Roberson talking smack about them, or just because DC is a bit dim (though I’d bet on that last one). But I’m glad it got 28 fun issues.

The Hypernaturals #2

In the distant future, the newest Hypernaturals superteam has just been wiped out by an unknown foe. The temporary replacement team — Bewilder, Thinkwell, Halfshell, and Shoal — finds themselves under assault by a flesh mob, a bunch of regenerating monsters made of all the debris around them. They’re able to escape — barely — but it leaves them with some serious problems: one of their greatest foes, Sublime, is apparently back, their current team is missing and presumed dead, and the replacements include two rookies, one who overthinks everything and another who’s too hotheaded. Bewilder and Thinkwell go out to recruit some former team members, including the down-on-his-luck Clone 45, who doesn’t even have his powers anymore.

Verdict: Thumbs up. I think I’m having quite a lot of fun meeting these characters. It’s very much a Legion-of-Super-Heroes thing with the serial numbers rubbed off, but it still comes off fresh, interesting, and a lot of fun. Looking forward to plenty more.

Dial H #4

Abyss, a creature of pure darkness, has appeared in the city, and Nelson Jent, Manteau, Squid, and Ex Nihilo are unable to stop it. Abyss disappears temporarily, Squid gets shot full of holes, Manteau is captured by Ex Nihilo, and Nelson gets left behind without powers. It turns out Ex Nihilo is a doctor at the local hospital, as well as a “nullomancer” — a sorceress who specializes in magically altering nothing — literally nothing. While she tortures Manteau for information, Abyss starts wrecking downtown, and Ex Nihilo, using Manteau’s dial, goes to try to capture him. Squid, meanwhile, goes to Nelson for help — he’s wounded, maybe dying, and he wants Nelson to help him rescue Manteau and then get back to his own homeworld. But what can Nelson do when he can’t get his dial to work anymore?

Verdict: Thumbs up. Tons of stuff happening here, and it’s all wonderful fun. Scary, surreal, intense, even inspiring. China Mieville is a pretty dang good comic book writer, ain’t he?

Today’s Cool Links:

• A plenty interesting article — at least partly tongue-in-cheek — calling for fantasy writers and game-makers to start working on “humanizing the orc.”
• What if every Olympic sport was photographed like beach volleyball?
• It is always troublesome when someone calls you a bigot because your chicken sandwich tastes like Fred Phelps.

Dial H #3

The local mobsters are after Nelson Jent — and without getting to his magical phone booth, he’s got no powers. He does have a protector — a woman who calls herself Manteau. She extracts him from the attacking gangsters, and he’s able to remove the dial from the old phone booth. Nelson learns that Manteau gets her own random surreal powers from her own version of the dial, but she’s able to keep her own memories and personality intact with her cloak and silver mask. In fact, Manteau has found evidence that nearly all early research into telephones and telegraphs was encouraged and assisted by someone known only as “O” — and O appears to have created the dials that Nelson and Manteau use. Meanwhile, Ex Nihilo and the Squid are after a man with a connection to other dials, and a dark figure from another dimension is stalking Nelson and Manteau. Will Nelson be able to help Manteau stop the bad guys? And will he be able to handle the shock when his dial turns him into a woman?

Verdict: Thumbs up. China Mieville’s superhero/horror series is all kinds of surreal. There’s still a lot of stuff here that confuses me — the bad guys’ motivations, for one, but I also trust that’ll be revealed eventually — but I’m also enjoying the revelations we’re getting. Manteau is a very interesting character, frequently changing form and yet remaining reliably constant as a person.

iZombie #27

We’re very near the end of this outstanding series. Gwen has found her long-lost brother — only minutes before she needs to kill everyone in the city to save the rest of the world from the monstrous god Xitalu. And she rapidly discovers her parents and all her friends and allies, all right where Amon has told her she needs to absorb every soul in the city — and then Amon plans to feed her to Xitalu to force it from our world for another few centuries. Will Gwen go along with the plan — or is it already too late for everyone?

Verdict: Thumbs up. The tension gets cranked way, way up. The final issue comes out next month — and I really don’t know if this is going to have a happy ending or not. Still looking forward to seeing how Chris Roberson wraps up his work at DC…

Today’s Cool Links:

• Ron Perlman is THE BEST.
• H&R Block, of all people, put together this infographic that compares the financial situations of Bruce Wayne and Peter Parker. Entertaining? Yeah, but also enlightening in ways you might not have expected.
• Here’s a short cartoon that works to explain what the Higgs boson is, and why it’s so important to physics.

Worlds’ Finest #2

Most of this issue is a slugfest — Power Girl and the Huntress vs. a radioactive monster called Hakkou. In fact, Hakkou makes short work of both of the heroines almost every time they meet, and it seems that he has some kind of connection to their old home on Earth-2. Speaking of Earth-2, we also get plenty of flashbacks to Karen and Helena’s early days after escaping from that alternate Earth, as they get adjusted to their new home and try to figure out how to get back to where they came from. But do they ever stand a chance of leaving Earth-1 behind, or will Hakkou finish what Darkseid’s armies started?

Verdict: Thumbs up. It’s not great comics, but it’s pretty good comics. The art by both George Perez and Kevin Maguire is lots of fun, the battles are nice and actiony, and the flashbacks are enjoyable. Of course, Power Girl’s costume is still just atrociously bad. I feel sorry for whoever designed it. Or whoever eventually gets blamed for it.

Justice League International #10

What a mishmash. The JLI — down Rocket Red, Ice, Fire, and Vixen, but having recently added Batwing and OMAC — tries to track down the terrorists who’ve been behind a lot of the hits they’ve been taking. They knock out some of the bad guys, but they still get stomped after one of the villains manages to take control of Booster Gold’s and Guy Gardner’s weaponry.

Verdict: Thumbs down. This one is just getting irritating. It was never a really strong comic, but one of the things that I thought made it so interesting was the unusually large number of women who were team members. By now, three of the four of them have been fridged, and they look like they’ll stay fridged ’til this comic gets cancelled. But I don’t think I’ll stick around to see — this title has stopped being even vaguely interesting to me.

iZombie #26

Gwen has been convinced by Amon that she needs to help kill everyone in Eugene, Oregon in order to save everyone on Earth from the coming of the elder god Xitalu. She’s trying to give Ellie and Scott a chance to make their escape, but she can’t locate them anywhere. Ellie and Frankenteen get cornered by the vampire paintball girls, the Dead Presidents and the Fossors battle mind-bending horrors together, Scott’s grandfather gets unmasked as a chimpanzee, leading Scott to turn into a were-terrier in front of everyone. And just as the end shows up over the horizon, Gwen finally locates her long-lost brother.

Verdict: Thumbs up. Is it okay to call this “soap opera on an apocalyptic scale”? Whatever it is, it works great. Common drama really gets cranked sky-high once the end of the world is coming.

Today’s Cool Links:

• Wow, DC is just unable to resist the temptation to put their foot in it these days. They really thought that Catwoman cover looked good? I don’t buy it — this is Dan DiDio and Geoff Johns engaging in Marketing-through-Trollbaggery.
• It’s really very strange to me that there are people who really, seriously hate the idea of women having an online presence or daring to speak their minds. What’s wrong with these people, and can we get them some medicine to fix them?
• The Oatmeal vs. asshole lawyers? The Oatmeal always wins.
• This site promises to point out where your mouse pointer is. It’s absurdly genius.
• And seriously, Nickelback sucks.

iZombie #24

Our focus in this issue is on Kennedy, the field leader of the Dead Presidents, a bunch of government monsters who go out to fight other monsters. Everyone in Eugene, Oregon is dealing with the problem of an elder god called Xitalu, who is about to come to Earth and kill everyone, and Kennedy notices a new player on the scene — a green-skinned, green-haired combat monster who looks just like Gwen’s boyfriend, Horatio. And Kennedy realizes that this reminds her of something from her past — after a short origin story, the flashback reveals that a mission a few decades ago had her meeting up with a rock band called Ghost Dance that, thanks to lyrics assistance from a trippy novelist named Adam Morlock, was performing concerts where the band and everyone in the audience had mass hallucinations. What’s the connection between an old rock band and the end of the world?

Verdict: Thumbs up. Nice to see a little background on the Dead Presidents’ leader. Great character work, too, particularly for the band members. And a really nice cliffhanger. It’s depressing that this title will be ending in another four issues, though…

Fatale #4

The supernatural gangsters are running amok. They’ve already butchered the wife of reporter Hank Raines and have now turned their evil attentions on a mob boss named “Mayday” Luccarelli and his stooges. Hank Raines has gone a little bit crazy after being accused of killing his wife — especially after he sees the gory crime scene photos. Corrupt cop Walt Booker and his partner insist they had nothing to do with the murder, though their superiors still suspect them. Josephine catches up with Booker, and she convinces him that he should help her escape from the demon mobsters. We also learn that Booker has been able to see through the world’s mundane veil to the otherworldly horrors that actually run things. And Hank, released from jail because the cops don’t believe he really committed the murder, gets trailed by Booker’s partner, and they both land in a world of trouble.

Verdict: Thumbs up. Super-stylish noir-horror. Great atmosphere, killer art, everything else about it rocks. Don’t know what else I can tell you about it — it’s grand fun to read.

Avengers Academy #28

The Runaways have got Old Lace back, but they’ve learned that Giant-Man and Tigra plan to betray them so they can get Molly Hayes and Klara Prast into normal families and normal schools. This leads to a fight… but not a very long fight — most of the Avengers Academy kids are entirely sympathetic to the Runaways. They all realize that part of the problem is that none of them understand the other side’s point-of-view, but Nico Minoru can cast a spell that will make that possible. So everyone gets a peek into the brains of someone else on the other squad so they can get some perspective on their lives. Will that be enough to clear up the two teams’ disagreements?

Verdict: Thumbs up. So amazing to have a comic where problems are solved through brainpower instead of a bunch of people slugging each other.

iZombie #23

Xitalu, an ancient evil god, is coming, and he’s going to wipe the planet clean. Amon was able to help stop him the last time he showed up a few centuries ago, but one complication this time is that Galatea is actually trying to speed up Xitalu’s arrival, hoping that she and her allies will be able to harness his power. The Dead Presidents and the Fossor Corporation team up to try to stop her. Amon, meanwhile, has his own plan to stop Xitalu — and it involves sacrificing Spot! Even if those plots can be foiled, is there any way to prevent Xitalu from destroying everything?

Verdict: Thumbs up. Lots of action — and it all works with the series’ ongoing soap opera surprisingly well. And hopefully, Gwen will have something to do other than talk to her boyfriend and get ordered around by other characters — I like her a lot, but she needs to be less passive if she’s going to the lead character.

Avengers Academy #27

While Lightspeed worries about whether Striker is adjusting well to his homosexuality, he surprises everyone by holding a press conference to come out. Turns out he thinks it’ll be great publicity. Meanwhile, the Runaways have come to the Academy hoping that they have a way to retrieve the team’s pet dinosaur, Old Lace. After an unusually brief fight, the two teams agree to work together and even get along. Unfortunately, Giant-Man and Tigra have decided that, though the rest of the Runaways can go their own way, Molly and Klara are too young to be out adventuring, so they plan to take them away and put them in foster homes. Everyone soon ends up traveling to a prehistoric world to find Old Lace — but some of them may not be coming back when the Runaways find out what Giant-Man and Tigra have in mind for them.

Verdict: Thumbs up. Nice to see the Runaways, even if it’s been so long since I read the book, I don’t recognize all the characters. It’s also nice that their “We’re All Superheroes So Let’s Fight” routine was blissfully short. And it’s great to see Old Lace again — the world needs more dinosaurs in comics. If I’ve got a complaint, it’s that Giant-Man and Tigra are carrying the Idiot Ball this issue, thinking they can do something as shady and underhanded as breaking up the Runaways without facing some serious consequences.

The Amazing Spider-Man #681

Spider-Man, the Human Torch, and astronaut John Jameson (son of NYC Mayor J. Jonah Jameson) are trapped on a space station, surrounded by crewmen who’ve been taken over by Dr. Octopus’ Octobots, with no escape shuttles to let anyone back down to earth safely. And Doc Ock is remotely setting the space station to crash. So why does the plan to save everyone involve flushing all the station’s oxygen into space? Is there any way for Spidey and the Torch to save everyone?

Verdict: Thumbs up. Very nicely done. Lots and lots of action, fantastic dialogue, great suspense, humor, drama, you name it. Definitely worth reading — this title is hitting on all cylinders.

Today’s Cool Links:

• Ladies and gentlemen, hats off for Jean “Moebius” Girard.
• And Part I of a really interesting documentary about Moebius.
• Incredible photos of the insides of musical instruments.
• The fringe religious right sets their sights on that dastardly Archie Comics — and blows their own feet off.
• This may be the craziest and most awesome kid in history.

Fatale #1

My local store ran out of these fast, and it took a few weeks to get replacement issues, so we get late reviews of this.

When Ed Brubaker and Sean Phillips get together, it usually means they’re working on stylish, noir-influenced crime comics. They’re switching it up a bit this time — this is a stylish, noir-influenced crime/horror comic.

We start out meeting Nicolas Lash, a man attending the funeral of Dominic Raines, his godfather and one of his father’s only friends — Nicolas has been named executor of Raines’ estate, and at the funeral, he meets a beautiful woman named Jo. Later that night, while looking through his godfather’s papers, he realizes that gunmen are coming to kill him — and Jo shows up to save his life. But after that, we take a trip to 1956 San Francisco, a city full of crooked cops, naive reporters, deranged cultists — and Jo, calling herself Josephine, no older and no younger than she’ll be a half-century later…

Verdict: Thumbs up. Beautiful art and gritty neo-noir storytelling. Not a lot yet that’s truly horrific, but I don’t expect the first issue of a new series to drown us in monsters and gore…

Fatale #2

This issue is set entirely in ’56, as Josephine tries to see two different men — one a corrupt, cancer-ridden cop named Walt Booker, the other an idealistic reporter named Hank Raines who is investigating Booker. Raines wants Josephine to leave Booker — neglecting to realize that his pregnant wife is sure to find out about his infidelity. Booker, meanwhile, has contacted supernatural powers to help him get rid of his cancer. And what does the diabolical Bishop want in return? Booker just has to deliver Josephine. But that might be hard to do when his corruption is exposed by Hank’s reporting…

Verdict: Another thumbs up. Again, great art and excellent crime storytelling. And the supernatural elements that finally make their appearance here are excellently creepy.

iZombie #22

Gwen is rescued from captivity by Horatio, who has quit the Fossor Corporation because he realized he loved Gwen, even if she was a zombie. Gavin discovers that Spot’s grandfather is a chimpanzee, while Spot learns that Amon and Ubasti definitely plan to kill him as a sacrifice. The Fossors and the Dead Presidents make a very uneasy truce over the need to stop the end of the world, and Gwen remembers how Amon recently convinced her she had to… kill herself? But how can a zombie kill herself?

Verdict: Thumbs up. Nice to see so many plotlines coming together all at once — even minor ones, like Dixie the waitress being revealed as the model for the old Dixie Mason dolls that Spot collects.

Today’s Cool Links:

• A quick and enjoyable minicomic about a girl raised by wolves.
• Bully the Little Stuffed Bull and Postmodern Barney team up to review movie trailers.
• And here’s “Space Stallions,” the bad ’80s cartoon that everyone wishes were the real thing.

Dungeons & Dragons #14

Khal the dwarven paladin has been accidentally struck down by his girlfriend Danni’s crossbow in the midst of an attack by the monstrously creepy foulspawn. But never fear — once the foulspawn are repelled, it’s revealed that a few crossbow bolts are no match for good dwarven armor. Danni has been stuck down here with a small group of dwarf explorers, thanks to the foulspawn, the kruthiks, and other monsters. Adric Fell and the rest of the adventurers check out the temple and find a clock — a very, very large clock, counting down to some sort of probably awful cosmic event. Further exploration reveals some Escher stairs and a possible way out. Unfortunately, they also discover that most of the dwarves are actually already dead, and Danni’s companions are… something else. And when they reveal to Danni that they know this, Danni goes a leeeetle bit berserk. Could things get worse? Yeah, once the foulspawns’ master finally shows up, things can get worse.

Verdict: Thumbs up. Outstanding stuff — amazing suspense, revelations, and cliffhangers, great dialogue, and a few really hilarious situations. This is really good stuff — I hope more of you are reading this.

Avengers Academy #24

Reptil has been mindswapped with his future self, who’s working against the best interests of the Academy because he’s trying to preserve his version of the future. And he’s willing to help Hybrid, an alien monster who’s part mutant, part Dire Wraith, and all evil. Reptil’s future can only happen if Hybrid kills half the students, and Reptil gets busy sending students and teachers into Hybrid’s room at the Academy. Will White Tiger be able to resist Hybrid’s mental powers, or are all the students doomed?

Verdict: Thumbs up. I’d never heard of Hybrid before, which seems a bit strange ’cause he seems like a really excellent villain. What I really like about this issue is that, even as the main storyline is going on, we still get some character details on White Tiger and even a couple of the background characters.

iZombie #21

Gwen has been captured — if captured is really the right word — by the Dead Presidents, a bunch of monsters who work for the government. Agent Kennedy — a zombie like Gwen — gives Gwen a brain smoothie ’cause it’d been a while since she had gotten to eat any brains. Galatea — half Dr. Frankenstein, half Frankenstein’s monster — conspires with Kovsky, a disembodied brain in a coffee maker, and his zombie servant. Spot finds himself captured by a leopard woman — who is actually Amon’s shapeshifted leopard — and he discovers that they have some really bad plans for him. As the Dead Presidents prepare to move against Galatea, they get an offer of assistance from the normally hostile Fossor Corporation. Can they be trusted?

Verdict: Thumbs up. What did I love the most about this? J. Bone takes over art chores for one issue and produces something that looks like a more cartoonish Darwyn Cooke. It’s an amazing change of pace for this comic, even if it’s just temporary, and it makes me wish Bone got more comics work.

Today’s Cool Links:

• Snell goes digging in the old archives for a story about “The Town that Hated Superman.”
• What were the best and worst examples of comic book medicine last year?
• I don’t care if it’s a Star Wars promotion. I don’t care if it’s actually edible. I’m not eating a hamburger with a black bun.
• This remake of “The Evil Dead” doesn’t sound much like a remake.

iZombie #20

Holy bananas, that’s a wonderful cover.

Gwen is hiding out in a tomb, endlessly pacing, because she wants to avoid her ex-boyfriend Horatio, the leftover zombies, and the Dead Presidents. But eventually, one of the Presidents locates her and goes to get the rest of the group. Elsewhere, Ellie the ghost girl is helping to care for Francisco, who’s been turned into a Frankenstein-like monster by Galatea the mad scientist. Ellie is falling for him, but can’t even touch him. And Spot is about to meet up with his semi-sorta-boyfriend until Amon shows up and kidnaps him.

Verdict: Thumbs up. If you’re into unbelievably weird monster-flavored soap opera, this is the book for you. The art is great, the storytelling is excellent, and the characterization and dialogue are fun, too.

Batgirl #4

We get some more of Barbara Gordon’s backstory. She still suffers from survivor’s guilt because she not only survived getting shot by the Joker but managed to recover from being paralyzed as well. We also get some info about how that recovery happened — Jim Gordon discovered a clinic in South Africa that was able to return her ability to walk. She goes out to bust some crime as Batgirl and runs across some thugs who are using a smartphone app designed to track appearances by Batman so they’ll at least know they won’t run into the Dark Knight — too bad the app didn’t track Batgirl, because of course, she stomps them flat.

In the process of beating up the muggers, she realizes how to track Mirror, the serial killer who targets people who’ve survived by seeming miracles — since he’s obsessed by the deaths of his family, of course he’d be visiting their graves on the anniversary of the accident that killed them. Batgirl leaves him a note and tells him to meet her at a deserted amusement park. But does Batgirl really have a chance against the stronger and more heavily armed lunatic?

Verdict: Thumbs up. Really excellent characterization on Barbara. Still not sure I’m buying the “really awesome medical clinic” as her miracle cure, though. The action, however, is really fantastic. There are a couple of outstanding fight scenes, and they’re exciting and perfectly done.

Frankenstein: Agent of S.H.A.D.E. #4

Frankenstein, Lady Frankenstein, and the Creature Commandos are on Monster Planet trying to track down and destroy the giant monsters there. They learn that Monster Planet is actually sentient — and dying. It was taken over by the monsters, and they’re trying to get Monster Planet to Earth so they can take over Earth as their new host planet. While Frankenstein and Nina Mazursky have a fairly easy time getting to the giant undersea monster because his monstrous minions see Dr. Mazursky as their mother, things don’t go nearly so easily for Lady Frankenstein, Vincent Velcoro and Warren Griffith — they have to fight their way through nearly limitless hordes of ogres! Luckily, S.H.A.D.E. ships them some backup — the War Wheels and the G.I. Robot Squadron. Can the team kill both giant monsters and still make it back home to Earth?

Verdict: Thumbs up. Grand fun. The art’s still a bit funky, but I think it’s definitely growing on me. Otherwise, great character work and dialogue, nice action, and a lot of bizarre, hilarious stuff going on here.

Wonder Woman #3

The big secret is out — Diana wasn’t formed from clay by her mother and given life by the gods. She was created the old-fashioned way — by her mother, Hippolyta, and her father, Zeus. With many of the Amazons angry at her, with Hera lining the gods up against her, and with only a few allies remaining on Themyscira, what future does Wonder Woman have here?

Verdict: Thumbs up. Still not sure I like the new origin, but the art is beautiful, the dialogue and characterization are great, and I can’t see that much here I should feel unhappy about.

iZombie #19

In the aftermath of the zombie invasion, the National Guard is out, the Dead Presidents and the Fossor Corporation are hunting monsters, and everyone else is lying low. Gwen has Ellie seal her up inside a crypt to keep someone from shooting her in the head, despite the danger that she could go nuts whenever she needs to eat a brain. Spot has a date with Gwen’s hunky brother Gavin, and a new ghostly vigilante called the Phantasm is stalking the streets.

Verdict: Thumbs up. As always, Mike Allred’s art is fantastic, and Chris Roberson does a great job juggling the various professional and personal relationships — and the accompanying soap opera angst — going on here. Interesting to see that Spot is apparently bisexual — had no clue prior to this that he was anything other than an awkward straight geek, but maybe more was going on that I didn’t notice…

Today’s Cool Links:

• Yes, what the world really needs is a dark re-imagining of “The Munsters.” (shoots producers)
• Batman knows all about good customer service.