Archive for Marvel Adventures

The Archie Titans?

Tiny Titans/Little Archie #1

I have been looking forward to this a heck of a lot more than is probably healthy — partly because anything that Art Baltazar and Franco do on “Tiny Titans” is awesome, and partly because Archie crossovers with superhero universes tend to be ridiculously fun.

We start this thing off by discovering that Riverdale and Sidekick City are actually pretty close together geographically — close enough that Archie Andrews’ mom and Alfred the butler both go to the same dry cleaners — and when their outfits get mixed up, Archie ends up wearing Robin’s costume, and Robin ends up with trademark sweater. Once that mix-up gets cleared up, the Titans spend most of the issue visiting the school in Riverdale. Jughead provides hamburgers to Cyborg, Kid Devil tries to play tic-tac-toe on Archie’s head, and Mr. Weatherbee catches up with Principal Slade. And there’s an absolutely brilliant sequence with Miss Grundy that actually made me laugh out loud.

Verdict: Thumbs up. I had high hopes for this one — they were met and exceeded. Go get it, people.

Marvel Adventures: Super Heroes #7

Iron Man and the Black Widow investigate a report of a crashed UFO off the coast of Portugal when they get captured by an undersea base run by a woman calling herself the White Spider. She ws supposed to be the Black Widow’s replacement, but instead, she’s trying to take over the world. She keeps Iron Man unconscious while she tries to figure out how to access his armor, and she takes away Black Widow’s costume, which is full of a lot of useful gadgets. Can Natasha figure out how to stop the White Spider’s plans? Meanwhile, back at Avengers Mansion, the rest of the team accidentally uncovers some of the Black Widow’s secrets…

Verdict: Thumbs up. Good fun, great dialogue, fun artwork. Nice to see a focus on the Black Widow in this one.

Green Lantern #58

Atrocitus and Sinestro try to find the rage entity as it looks for a new host, Carol Ferris accepts her new role as the queen of the Star Sapphires, and Adara, the hope entity, selects a kidnapped girl named Nicole Morrison as its new host.

Verdict: Thumbs up, but just barely. It’s a bit of a place-holder story, and the only really interesting thing happening here is the character of Nicole Morrison.

DC Comics Presents Jack Cross 100-Page Spectacular

Okay, a while back, Warren Ellis and Gary Erskine started this comic, about a hard-boiled, ruthless anti-terrorism specialist who liked to spend his off-hours organizing anti-war protests. They planned to make it an ongoing series, but it ran out of steam after the first four issues. So a couple of weeks ago, DC put out all four of those issues into this small collection, in which Jack tries to track down a conspiracy within the government that’s trying to obtain a new superweapon and use it on the American public.

Verdict: Thumbs up. The price tag on this one is eight bucks, but this may be the only way you’ll ever get to read this story — and it’s definitely more than worth the price. Jack makes a great hero, the action is pretty fantastic, and it’s great fun to read. If you can still find this one, try to get yourself a copy.

Today’s Cool Links:

  • Chris Sims got to visit the offices of MAD magazine, and he brought back awesome pictures to prove it.
  • New posts from Allie Brosh are always a wonderful thing, but her latest features some of her best stuff.
  • Giga Pudding!

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Friday Night Fights: Fancy Fightin’!

Friends and neighbors, it’s been one heck of a week. We’re all worn to a frazzle, and what we’re all looking for right now is a little weekend time to unwind, relax, and reconnect with our own overworked humanity. And the best way to do that is always… FRIDAY NIGHT FIGHTS!

This evening’s battle comes from October 2008’s Marvel Adventures: The Avengers #27, by Paul Tobin, Jacopo Camagni, Troy Hobbs, and Norman Lee, as Captain America and Iron Man meet up with Fancy Dan and Ox of the Enforcers. Fancy Dan? Yeah, that’s what I thought. What do you think of that, Cap?

Ox takes the harder punch here, but I’ll have to declare Fancy Dan the big loser in this battle. ‘Cause when your name is Fancy Dan, you’re always going to be a loser…

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Classroom Chaos

Tiny Titans #32

The evil Lunch Lady Darkseid brings his son Kalibak for his first day of school, and he quickly ends up being the center of attention. He and Match disrupt everything by sitting around and joyfully bellowing nonsense at each other and then manage to turn Psimon into a gibbering moron when he tries to brainscan them. Darkseid knocks Dr. Light out when he shows him a photo of Kalibak’s mom. And Li’l Barda takes everyone out to get gigantic Barda helmets of their own.

Verdict: Thumbs up. Kalibak ends up being a lot more fun than I expected, and any issue that has the impossibly cute Li’l Barda is a solid winner for me.

Marvel Adventures: Super Heroes #6

While Thor entertains some female admirers with tales of his exploits in the distant past against pirates led by the Executioner, Nova jealously doubts the stories. So Thor takes him to the village he defended in the past, which has now erected statues of the Thunder God. But when the Executioner returns for a rematch, how will Thor manage this time?

Verdict: I’m going to thumbs it down. I thought this one was uncharacteristically boring.

Marvel Super Hero Squad #9

She-Hulk, Tigra, and the Wasp are a bit insulted that they do lots of great work, but the Super Hero Squad gets all the attention. So they set up a competition to see who the better superheroes are — a contest to see who can find the most fractals. Unfortunately, the villains are following them all around, looking for their opportunity to steal fractals away. Unless some unseen player comes to the rescue, the bad guys are going to get one heck of a victory. And in the backup story, Hulk and the Thing engage in their own little contest.

Verdict: Thumbs up. Nothing real fancy, but it’s an okay story, with some cool guest-stars and some nice moments of humor.

Today’s Cool Links:

  • Lubbock artist Dustin Wallace, an official Friend of the Blog, has a Kickstarter page running to help fund some equipment so he can keep making awesome robots. Go help him raise money for the sake of awesome robots!
  • Evil mastermind Grant Morrison makes a guest appearance in a new video by “Umbrella Academy” writer Gerard Way’s band, My Chemical Romance.
  • Polemical Sparkle Ponies!

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Fun with Rhinos

Marvel Adventures: Super Heroes #5

Captain America takes on a simple mission — he’s gotten a call that someone in a small town in Montana is illegally holding a baby rhinoceros for experimentation. Does he need a hand from any of the other Avengers? Nah, simple grab-and-go mission, piece of cake. Well, he finds out that the Montana town is actually a disguised HYDRA base with 5,000 members on site. And the person who called him for help? It’s Spider-Man’s old foe, the Rhino. But does Captain America back down from something like that? HECK NO! He goes in, beats up HYDRA dorks, steals some normal clothing so he can blend in with the city full of paranoid crazy people who want to conquer the world, and hangs out with the Rhino. The problem is that the cute baby rhino named Bartleby is going to be experimented on and killed because HYDRA thinks they can make an army of guys like Rhino — he knows that isn’t possible, and especially not just by killing a cute baby rhino. So Cap has to sneak a huge, superstrong, and completely unsubtle supervillain out of town, along with a mostly defenseless baby rhino. How on earth is that going to be possible?

Verdict: Thumbs up. Really cute and fun story. Nice emphasis on Cap, and a lot of fun with both the Rhino and Bartleby. And the art is by ChrisCross, an old favorite of mine from back when he was drawing “Blood Syndicate,” so getting a nice dose of his art is definitely a bonus for me.

Booster Gold #35

Booster and Skeets are in the past on a mission with Blue Beetle, Mister Miracle, and Big Barda as they try to get a magic book from a dweeby world conqueror wannabe named Hieronymous the Underachiever. Hieronymous has a trick up his sleeve — or rather in orbit, ready to destroy the planet he’s on with a giant weapon called a Planet Pounder. The Darkstars are looking for it without much success, and Hieronymous is using the Planet Pounder as blackmail to try to get the former ruler to reveal the secrets of the book to him. Can the heroes get the book, defeat Hieronymous’ minions, and stop the Planet Pounder in time?

Verdict: Thumbs up. It’s always fun to see Giffen and DeMatteis working on the old Bwa-ha-ha Justice League, and they’ve got the story moving along very well. Booster’s more recent maturity is nicely contrasted with the way his old teammates still expect him to behave.

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Get Curly

Tiny Titans #30

The plot on this one seems pretty straightforward — Kid Flash is racing all over town, and everyone he zips past ends up getting crazy curly hair from his backdraft. Cassie and Starfire look fine with curly hair, Rose looks a little weird, and Robin and Superboy look really, really goofy. All that, plus Peek-a-Boo makes her first appearance in the TinyTitansverse and steals Kid Flash’s heart. Anything else? Oh, yeah, Ambush Bug shows up, too. He doesn’t do much, but just the idea that we’ll see more of him here in the future makes me entirely happy.

Verdict: Thumbs up. As always, it’s cute, funny, and awesome. My local comic shop mentioned to me today that this series is collected by a lot more adults than kids — do they just groove on the fun stories? Or are they enjoying a Titans series that’s not dominated by angst and gloom?

Marvel Adventures: Super Heroes #4

The Avengers end up getting recruited to help bounty hunter Kraven the Hunter capture Deadpool. That leads to two problems: Deadpool is very, very good at getting away from people trying to catch him, and Kraven is very, very good at endangering civilians and making Captain America angry. All that, plus Sue Storm and the Blonde Phantom trail an incognito Sub-Mariner.

Verdict: Thumbs up, but just barely. The whole thing is a little bit too busy, and the ending is a bit weak. I’m also not thrilled about yet another Deadpool appearance in the way-too-Deadpool-centric Marvel Universe. Nevertheless, the art’s nice, the writing is pretty good, and the characterizations are fun.

Marvel Super Hero Squad #7

The Ringmaster hypnotizes the Super Hero Squad and makes them perform in — what else? — a circus, while Dr. Doom sends the Toad, Screaming Mimi, Paste-Pot Pete, and the Melter to infiltrate the S.H.I.E.L.D. Helicarrier and steal all their fractals. Can Captain America save the Squad and the fractals?

Verdict: I’m going to thumbs this one down. Ya promise me a circus issue, ya better deliver more than a couple of pages of circus stuff. The dialogue from the bad guys on the Helicarrier was nice, but it really should’ve been a separate story from the one with the Ringmaster.

Today’s Cool Links:

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Booster Pack

Booster Gold #33

This whole issue won’t make a lot of sense to you if you’re not up on the current “Justice League: Generation Lost” miniseries, where Maxwell Lord has boosted his psychic powers to the point where he’s been able to erase his existence from the memory of almost everyone on Earth, except for a small number of former Justice Leaguers. (I’m not reading it ’cause it’s written by Judd Winick, who seems to work by vomiting onto his script pages, then sending that in to DC.)

Anyway, after Booster knocks the stuffing out of a Scottish supervillain named Brigadoom, Cyborg shows up and gives him a lot of hassle about the old JLI, which triggers a very satisfying verbal smackdown on Booster’s part. The incident inspires him to try to figure out a way to prove that Max Lord really did and does exist, and he hits on the idea of traveling to the past and digging up some info about him before he publically went bad. Can Booster successfully infiltrate his own past, and can he find the information he needs?

Verdict: Thumbs up. The cover makes it look a lot more dangerous than it really is — most of the perils Booster faces in the past are generally on the level of Extremely Embarrassing and less Extremely Deadly. And we get some very nice stuff with Martian Manhunter uncovering Booster’s secret identity and Black Canary looking for revenge for a drunken interview Booster gave to a lad rag.

Chew #11

Tony Chu, cannibal FDA agent, gets a lead on a murder case that points to a group of extremely wealthy powerbrokers who like to get together occasionally to eat endangered species. So he uses it as an opportunity to take his semi-girlfriend Amelia Mintz on a date. Dude, police business isn’t usually the most romantic settings in the world, Tony — especially when the guns and knives come out…

Verdict: Thumbs up. A good funny story, with the romantic subplot finally moving into the forefront.

Marvel Adventures: Super Heroes #3

Black Widow and the Vision learn of a blackmail scheme orchestrated by a couple of supervillains called Diamondhead and the Owl and, frustrated with their recent treatment by other members of the Avengers, decide to take on the case on their own.

Verdict: Thumbs up. The plot sounds a bit light, but it’s buoyed up by a lot of smaller-scale interpersonal stuff that’s really enjoyable — Vision extracting someone’s keys from a locked car, the banter between Reed and Sue, most of the interaction between Thor and Nova, and Nova’s reaction to someone else fighting “his” villain. The Vision’s anger that no one accepts his chosen name is well-done, too.

Today’s Cool Links:

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What a Thor Head!

Marvel Adventures: Super Heroes #2

Before we get started, could I just say that I hate Marvel’s trade dress for this comic? When you’re hiding the actual title of the comic way down at the bottom of the cover, while putting the very large logo for a completely different comic up at the top, it makes it very hard to identify the comic in the stores, and it makes it harder to build new fans for the series — if they liked last issue, they’ll be looking for an Iron Man comic, ’cause he was on the cover of last issue. Will they look for this issue, when it seems to be a Thor comic? It’s just a poor design/marketing decision.

Now on to the story — it seems that Galactus, Eater of Worlds, needs a new herald — he says he wants to give some human immense cosmic powers so they can fly all over the universe and guide him to new planets to devour. And the funny thing is — he took out a classified to find someone. Wha? Yeah, that’s what the Avengers think, too. So they show up in Austin, of all places, with a few thousand people desperate to get superpowers. When Firelord, one of Galactus’ last heralds, shows up, he announces that the price to get all that cosmic power is… any priceless item.

Well, that kicks off a global crime wave, as people start burglarizing art museums for priceless items. With most of the team protecting the world’s art treasures, can the Invisible Woman, Iron Man, and Black Widow find out what this Galactus plot is really all about?

Verdict: Thumbs up. Excellent hook for this story — Galactus placing a classified ad for a new herald? Firelord handing out paper applications for the position? That really draws you into the story fast, and it definitely keeps you reading. Great story, excellent characterization and development, and good dialogue, too. Spend a little extra time hunting this one down in the store, ’cause it’s worth picking up.

Marvel Super Hero Squad #5

And speaking of problems with the trade dress — this one keeps changing the logo on the cover! It keeps switching from “Marvel Super Hero Squad” to “Super Hero Squad Show.” It’s not too confusing, since the logos look very similar, but I do wish they’d be a bit more consistent.

When one of MODOK’s already outlandish schemes goes even more outlandishly awry, we get stuck with a Hulk made out of high-energy fractal shards, and a bunch of superheroes (but not nearly all of them depicted on the cover) with the Hulk’s strength, rage, and IQ running wild. We also get some connected stories starring Loki and Ant-Man.

Verdict: Thumbs up. This takeoff of Marvel’s recent mini-event on “Hulked-Out Heroes” has all the fun and charm that the original lacked, with 100% less Deadpool. The stories are pretty humorous, but I enjoyed the Ant-Man story at the end the most — great mix of humor and action.

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Wild and Free

I had a pretty good haul for Free Comic Book Day on Saturday — I hope you did, too. Here’s what I picked up…

Love and Capes #13

A lot of the comics you get on Free Comic Book Day are there to promote upcoming comics and crossover events, but this isn’t “Love and Capes: The Free Comic Book Day Edition” — this is the actual 13th full issue of “Love and Capes,” not filler, not a backup story, not a snippet, not a pinup book, and Thom Zahler put it out there completely free, which is pretty danged awesome.

In the previous issue of “Love and Capes,” Abby and Mark (better known to the world as the high-flying hero Crusader) got married after a long, whirlwind romance. This issue, they wrap up their honeymoon in Hawaii, get used to married life, work out a way to hide Mark’s wedding ring when he’s on-duty so supervillains don’t realize he’s gotten married, and work through the gossip about their own wedding reception.

Verdict: Thumbs up. “Love and Capes” is an incredibly fun comic, and it was fantastic to get it for free. Heck, I think there’s a pretty good chance that this was the best comic produced for this year’s Free Comic Book Day.

Iron Man: Supernova

This is basically an extra story from the “Marvel Adventures” comics series. Iron Man and Nova get called out after a report that Red Ghost has escaped from prison. His Super-Apes — Mikhlo the superstrong gorilla, Peotr the telekinetic orangutan, and Igor the shapeshifting baboon — are being held at a zoo-like facility, where Igor appears to have reformed — he now loves candy much more than he loves Red Ghost. Well, who can blame him? Red Ghost, however, succeeds in getting Mikhlo and Peotr to break loose. Do Iron Man and Nova have a chance of stopping Red Ghost and his Super-Apes when one of their allies is an ape that loves to goof off and shapeshift?

Verdict: Thumbs up. Very nice story. No, wait — it’s a very nice story that’s crammed full of apes! Igor’s wacky shapeshifting is a lot of fun. Paul Tobin is also the writer on “Marvel Adventures: Super Heroes,” which is already one of my favorites.

Doctor Solar, Man of the Atom/Magnus, Robot Fighter

Dark Horse is bringing these two semi-classic comics back. First, we get Doctor Solar, a scientist transformed into a god during a nuclear accident. Unfortunately, his transformation also created a number of random space-time anomalies, one of which empowers an abusive drunk who’s way more likely than Doctor Solar to beat up people who get in his way. Second, we get Magnus, a man who lives in the year 4000. He’s been trained in a special kind of martial arts that lets him break steel with his bare fists, so he goes out and beats up criminal robots. His allies include a robot called 1A and the wealthy Leeja Clane.

Verdict: Ehh, I’m completely ambivalent. Jim Shooter’s stories seem fine, but both Solar and Magnus have always seemed like characters that don’t make sense when you remove them from the cheesy 1960s comics where they originated. We’ll see if Dark Horse can get ’em to work out.

Artifacts #0

Top Cow’s new crossover is going to focus on bringing together 13 mystical artifacts in an attempt to destroy the world. This issue takes the form of an unseen villain feeding information to a captured Aphrodite IX, a green-haired cyborg assassin, about the Witchblade, the Darkness, the Angelus, and ten other quasi-magical items that keep Top Cow’s superhero universe spinning.

Verdict: Well, it’s free. But other than that, it’s a promo for a crossover that won’t be published ’til July.

Owly: Breakin’ the Ice

Well, they had this on the table, and I’d been looking for an excuse to check out this series… but it turns out this one isn’t from this year’s FCBD comics — it’s from all the way back in 2006! Andy Runton‘s cartoon about a lonely but loving owl is almost completely wordless, making it a great comic for very young readers. In this story, set during a cold winter at the local pond, Owly and his friends Wormy and Scampy try to figure out how to make friends with a flock of migrating geese.

Verdict: Thumbs up. Very, very cute, and outstanding cartooning. I wish I’d realized I hadn’t picked up this year’s free Owly comic, but I’m still glad I got to read this one. Parents, you should definitely consider this series for pre-readers.

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Raw Power

Power Girl #11

It’s the next-to-the-last issue of this great series (Oh, sure, the series name will continue, but without Justin Gray, Jimmy Palmiotti, or Amanda Conner — and with one of the worst comics writers in history taking over the title), and it just keeps getting better and better.

The Ultra-Humanite has transplanted his brain into Terra’s body. Big deal, right? Power Girl is a lot stronger than Terra is. But wait, no, Terra could crack New York City apart with ease, and when it comes to beating PeeGee up with boulders or lava, Ultra’s up for that, too. Can Power Girl find Terra’s brain? Can she find someone to put the brains back where they belong?

Verdict: Thumbs up. Pages and pages and pages of knock-down-drag-out fightin’, all of it awesome, mixed in with actual smart dialogue and strategy and characterization. Ultra-Humanite/Terra makes for a great global-level threat, and Power Girl breaks out some serious brutality and badassery. And as always, brilliant and beautiful artwork by Amanda Conner. Why she’s not on the A-list of every comics company on the planet, I have no idea…

Tiny Titans #27

Our entire focus of this issue is on Raven, her dad Trigon, and Kid Devil. Raven gets stuck babysitting Kid Devil and brings him home with her to hang out at her house for a bit. And her dad, a red-skinned, horned demon, is completely won over by the pint-sized, red-skinned, horned demon. Trigon keeps assuming Kid Devil is a harmless little tyke, which leads to several amusing incidents of minor injuries and property damage.

Verdict: Thumbs up. Just three main characters this time, and it’s all funny, and it’s all cute. I didn’t expect it to work so well, but it turned out just fine.

Marvel Adventures: Super Heroes #1

Not sure why they’ve started re-numbering this series, but here we are anyway. The Avengers have gone to talk to everyone from the UN to the FBI to S.H.I.E.L.D. to the White House, making their case for everyone to let them serve as an independent, unaffiliated team. Meanwhile, an unknown party has begun creatively vandalizing famous statues around the world — adding extra arms to Copenhagen’s Little Mermaid statue and a set of giant wings for the Statue of Liberty. Who’s behind it? Magneto and the Brotherhood of Mutants, who are now threatening to start blowing up buildings, too. Can the team take out the insanely powerful Master of Magnetism when some of their most powerful members have to be off pleading the team’s case to the authorities?

Verdict: Thumbs up. A very nice story with a wonderfully clever ending and great character work. There are lots of great moments for characterization here — Black Widow’s strong disagreements with the team’s decisions, Sue Storm’s homesick phone call back to the Fantastic Four, the struggle between Nova and Thor for the last donut. It’s outstanding stuff, and not the sort of thing you expect to see in an all-ages comic.

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Friday Night Fights: 1,001 Brain Blasts!

Yes, yes, we all love a little violence on our Friday nights, but let’s talk about what’s really important tonight — my 1,001st post! Namely, this one! Yes, I’m going to milk this just as long as I can, so go lump it, haters.

My initial thought was to try to find a fight sequence that would match up thematically with the number 1,001. That’s kinda a tall order. There’s “The Thousand and One Nights” and that’s really about it. “Fables” had a storyarc focusing on characters from Middle Eastern folklore and fiction, but I actually stopped collecting that series a bit before that arc began. There’s the extraordinarily brilliant 50th issue of “Sandman,” with the story titled “Ramadan,” but that one’s entirely free of violence.

So I finally decided, the heck with a theme, I’ll go with something that’s just plain awesome.

From March 2007’s Marvel Adventures: The Avengers #9 by Jeff Parker, Juan SantaCruz, and Raul Fernandez, here are Capdoc, Stormdoc, Spidoc, Hulkdoc, Gi-Doc, Irondoc, and Woldoc, transformed, obviously, into hyperintelligent brain-zapping MODOKs, taking on Attuma and his hapless army:

There is nothing in the world more wonderful than giant-headed superheroes riding around in floaty yellow chairs.

Y’all really wanna give me a “Merry 1,001 Posts on your Comic Book Blog” present, y’all head over to Spacebooger’s place after 10 tonight or any time this weekend, and vote for me.

And y’all have a great weekend…

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