PS238 #32

Soooo much stuff going on here. Tyler Marlocke is actually in three places at once — in a stasis chamber underneath the school, walking around in a mentally remote-controlled robot, and sitting in the Castle Beyond Space and Time trying to decide if humanity should be allowed to continue having superpowers. He gets to talk to Ron Peterson, formerly Captain Clarinet, who’s actually gone over the evil Praetorian Academy! Also, Tyler gets deposed from his position as class president by American Eagle and USA Patriot Act, Cecil Holmes gets recruited by the Revenant, and a mini angel and demon have done something weird to all three of Tyler’s bodies.

Verdict: Thumbs up. Spooky stuff going on, and the scariest thing is probably Ron’s defection to the Praetorians. It’s like Superman deciding he’d rather hang out with the Joker than fight crime…

 

Marvel Adventures: The Avengers #25

We’ll make this one short and sweet: Arnim Zola. And brain-switching!

Verdict: Thumbs up. Is there any plot more awesome than getting the heroes’ brains switched into different bodies? I’ll answer that for you — there is not.

 

The Flash #241

Gorilla Grodd causes more trouble, at least up ’til the point where he completely fades away. Wally’s daughter Iris unexpectedly ages to her teens and gets her own superspeed powers. The townspeople, driven nuts by Spin’s out-of-control powers, set the Flash Museum on fire, forcing Flash to have to rescue the frozen-in-time body of Impulse’s evil clone, Inertia.

Verdict: Thumbs up. I expect this will mark the return of Inertia to villainy, and I’m hoping Iris isn’t about to unexpectedly age any further or vanish into thin air or something.

It’s Friday night already? And we all feel the need to fightin’? Well, that must mean it’s time for Friday Night Fights!

This week, we turn to Marvel Adventures: The Avengers #24, by Jeff Parker, Ig Guara, and Jay Leisten, where the dastardly Hate-Monger shows Wolverine that insulting words really can hurt.

Let that be a lesson for all of you: avoid people who can grow to a hundred feet tall and stomp you into the dirt.

Marvel Adventures: The Avengers #24

Jeff Parker’s writing this comic again?! Holy Words-I-Am-Not-Allowed-to-Say-on-this-Blog!

Well, this is part of Marvel’s all-ages line, and it features Captain America, Spider-Man, Wolverine, Storm, Giant-Girl, and Ant-Man. In this issue, Marvel’s Mightiest Team can’t stop hating each other. Any little disagreement will lead to knock-down, drag-out brawls until, a few minutes later, no one can even remember what the fight was about any more. Not even taking out a Hydra base cools ’em down. Will they ever manage to find out what’s causing them to rage out on each other? Even if they do, will they be able to keep from killing each other just for kicks?

Verdict: Thumbs WAY up. This is the funniest comic I’ve read in ages. We get the triumphant return of Karl the Henchman, Wolverine eating tater tots with his claws, Doc Samson’s psychoanalysis of the team (including his bwah-ha-ha funny notes on Spider-Man and Wolvie’s bwah-ha-ha reaction to a familiar Rorschach inkblot test), jokes about Storm’s hair, tons of hilarious Spidey one-liners, and great dialogue like “Captain America was the one who started it — with his corn!” and “Ow! You shot that little nerd right in my eye!” This comic is drop-dead, soda-snorting funny, and you need to go read it right now.

Green Lantern #31

More of the re-telling of Hal’s origin, as he pays his first visit to Oa, gets put through GL boot camp by Kilowog, and earns the right to be a Green Lantern. Besides that, we get a few more details about pre-giant-head Hector Hammond and Sinestro when he was still a Green Lantern.

Verdict: Thumbs up. It’s all stuff we’ve seen before, but it’s well-done, so I’m happy with it.

The Brave and the Bold #13

The cover pretty much says it all — Batman and Jay Garrick vs. a horde of evil robot samurai.

Verdict: Thumbs up. It’s Batman and Jay Garrick vs. a horde of evil robot samurai, fer cryin’ out loud!

Final Crisis #1

Nope, nope, nope, nope, nope. Not buying it, not reviewing it. I’m sick of pointless, stupid crossovers. I’m tired of comics companies killing off characters because they think they need shock value to sell comics. I’m tired of being asked to spend hundreds of dollars every summer on crossovers that are driven solely by marketing. And I don’t care if it’s written by Grant Morrison — I still think I can live without reading it.

Verdict: Who cares?

 

Marvel Adventures: The Avengers #22

I lost track of this one for several months, but there was a spare copy or two at the store last week, so this seems as good a time as any to get back on the bandwagon. What is it? It’s part of Marvel’s all-ages line of comics that’s not so tied down by continuity. The members of the team include Captain America, the Hulk, Spider-Man, Wolverine, Storm, and Giant-Girl (basically, she’s what the Wasp woulda been if Janet van Dyne had been more interested in stomping buildings flat than in fashion).

This issue puts most of the focus on Wolverine and Storm, because the Avengers travel to Wakanda, home of Storm’s semi-ex-boyfriend the Black Panther, and try to track down Wolverine’s nemesis Sabretooth. And… well, that’s pretty much the gist of the plot. Ain’t nothing wrong with simple and straightforward.

Verdict: Thumbs up. Lots of good superhero-ey action and nice artwork. Wolverine’s personality is a bit stereotyped (“Grr, I have to get Sabretooth on my own because he’s my responsibility, for some reason no one knows. And because I’m moody.”), but Storm is a good deal more interesting. The Black Panther is cool, and his costume is just about the best one I’ve ever seen designed for him. And every time I look at this, I get more and more impressed by, of all things, the coloring work by Ulises Arreola, especially in the night scenes, when the light from the moon hits all the right highlights. I had a heck of a lot of fun reading this.

 

Tangent: Superman’s Reign #1

Okay, back in ’97, DC came up with a temporary new imprint called “Tangent Comics” for one of their “fifth-week” events. The gimmick with Tangent was that it was an all-new superhero universe, built using new characters with familiar names — the Flash was a light-based superheroine; the Atom was an atomic powerhouse; Superman was a hyper-evolved psychic cop; the Joker was an anarchic female hero. The Tangent Universe has been established as Earth-9 in the post-“52” universe, and references to it have popped up occasionally, but this is its first major series since a short Tangent series in ’98.

The Tangent Universe is a lot different place than it used to be. Superman has taken over and is trying to “reform” most of the world’s heroes and villains, against their will. The Joker has lost most of her sense of humor under the totalitarian parole system, and Green Lantern has lost her Green Lantern, leaving her at death’s door. Manhunter and the Spectre, meanwhile, are trying to rescue the missing Atom. And over in the regular DC Universe, our Flash meets the Tangent Flash, and they and Green Lantern take Green Lantern’s Green Lantern (umm, what?) into the Tangent Universe to see what’s up.

Verdict: Thumbs up. I’ve always kinda liked the idea of the Tangent Universe, though I’m worried that all the duplicate names is gonna make it rough to describe what’s going on.

 

Marvel Adventures: The Avengers #17

This, you’ll remember, is one of Marvel’s “all-ages” comics, safe enough for kids to read, but still fun for grown-ups, too. The stories don’t really fit into Marvel’s normal continuity, but you don’t need no stinkin’ continuity, do ya? The Avengers members include Captain America, Iron Man, Giant-Girl, the Hulk, Storm, Wolverine, and Spider-Man.

Oh, and this issue features a new writer — Jeff Parker left the title last issue, so now Ty Templeton has stepped on board.

In this issue, we get introduced to the Vision, an old Avengers member, an android who can change his density. But here, he’s a villain who takes over the Avengers’ HQ and tries to throw everyone out. Most of the action takes place during a power outage, so no one can see anything, no one knows who’s attacking them, everyone’s paranoid and nervous. It’s a very moody story, and feels like a Halloween story, even though there’s nothing outwardly spooky or Halloween-y going on.

I do have some misgivings about the story, because in Marvel’s normal continuity, the Vision was created by Ultron, one of the Avengers’ enemies, and the Vision in this tale has an origin completely different. On one hand, I’m disappointed that the character’s classic origin wasn’t preserved. But on the other hand, that would’ve required the creators to introduce Ultron, have the team fight him for an issue, then bring him back to create the Vision — for a comic that’s being kept free of continuity to make it accessible to kids and new readers. So I think I understand why it was done, even while the fanboy in me wishes it was done differently.

Verdict: Thumbs up. Not perfect, but this comic has always been great, and I’ll give it the benefit of the doubt.

 

Metal Men #3

Well, the Death Metal Men — Uranium, Thorium, Radium, Lithium, Polonium, Ferium, and Strontium — make their debut. The Robot Renegades try to fight them off and are generally helpless. Dr. Morrow reveals to Magnus that the Death Metal Men are actually the Metal Men with a few extra protons added (I don’t think that makes any actual sense, but it’s comic-book science, so we’ll roll with it). The Metal Men get reconstituted back to normal — except that Gold and Lead are now made out of each other. On top of that, there’s more time travel, more alchemy, an appearance by Chemo, and even more. Frankly, it’s confusing as heck.

Verdict: I’m not sure. I think thumbs down. Some of the stuff going on here really is thrilling. But good grief, it’s so confusing…

 

Marvel Adventures: The Avengers #16

It’s writer Jeff Parker’s last issue on this title. With any luck, he’s taught the next guy what he needs to do to make sure this comic stays so cool.

Quick recap: The “Marvel Adventures” is an all-ages line — they’re specifically designed to be kid-friendly while still giving adults something they can enjoy, too. The Avengers, in the Marvel Adventures universe, are Captain America, Storm, Iron Man, Spider-Man, the Hulk, Wolverine, and Giant-Girl. The Hulk doesn’t appear in this issue, but we get a guest appearance from costumed archer Hawkeye.

The team’s opponents this issue are the latest incarnation of the Masters of Evil — the Melter, Man-Bull, Whirlwind, and Egghead. Hawkeye shows up to try to help, but he’s mistaken for one of the villains. Though he persuades them to let him assist, the Avengers remain suspicious, especially since someone seems to be feeding the Masters of Evil some inside information about the team.

There’s a lot of wonderful stuff in this issue, including the return of hapless minion Karl from A.I.M., Hawkeye romancing both Storm and Giant-Girl, everyone making fun of the Mandroids’ names, and this great panel depicting what happens when the Melter shoots Iron Man with his melting ray.

 

Pantsless Iron Man = Comedy Gold.

Verdict: Thumbs up. Again, Marvel better hope that their next writer is as awesome as Parker was…

Marvel Adventures: The Avengers #14

As you may be aware, the “Marvel Adventures” comics are Marvel’s line for all-ages comics. Now there are some all-ages comics that are really just for kids, but “Marvel Adventures” — particularly their “Avengers” comic — isn’t one of them. It’s grand fun for both kids and grownups, the stories are wonderful and funny, and you shouldn’t feel a trace of embarrassment about buying them.

So in this issue, the Avengers answer a request to help defend a farming village in a fantasy-based alternate universe from a horde of marauding bandits. But they know that if they just lay the smackdown on the baddies, the villagers won’t be able to defend themselves from future bandit raids. So they teach the farmers how to be warriors.

Yeah, it’s a fantasy version of “The Magnificent Seven” starring a bunch of superheroes. You think a 10-year-old is gonna catch on to that? Heck no. That’s why you’re here, grownups. To buy that kid some comics and make sure he watches “The Magnificent Seven” (and probably “The Seven Samurai,” too. You ain’t gonna diss Kurosawa, are ya?).

Aaaaaanyway, the story is fine, but the best part of this really is the dialogue and one-liners. Spidey gets most of the obvious one-liners, but Wolverine has his share of laugh lines, too. If I’ve got a complaint, it’s that they went to the trouble of designing new fantasy versions of the heroes’ costumes, then didn’t give them a decent spotlight. But that’s a minor quibble.

Ohh, and there’s this great little four-page mini-story at the end about the “Mini-Marvels” helping Hulk get through his date at the soda shop with Betty.

Verdict: Thumbs up. Kids can read this, parents can read this, and you all ought to be reading it.

Well, you may have noticed we didn’t have Friday Night Fights a couple days ago. Unfortunately, we had a few technical troubles that prevented any posting. On the bright side, that means I’ve already got my next FNF ready to go. But for now: a couple of quick reviews!

Marvel Adventures: The Avengers #15

The Avengers are attacked by trees, believe it or not, and they somehow realize that this means there’s trouble with the Norse gods, so they travel to Asgard to look for the missing Thor. They find that all of the Asgardians have gone missing, with Malekith and the Dark Elves in charge. Everyone gets attacked by the Frost Giants, who sing a lovely “smiting song.” Can the Avengers resist both Malekith’s attacks and the Frost Giants’ mad rhymes?

Verdict: Thumbs up. Not as madcap as some of the previous issues, but still good fun. And like all of the “Marvel Adventures” comics, they’re perfect for readers of all ages.

Green Lantern Corps #15

This is part of the long “Sinestro Corps War” storyline. In this part of the story, we’ve got lots of Green Lanterns hitting Sinestro Corps monsters and vice versa. Mogo, the planet that’s also a Green Lantern, is in danger from an evil city called Ranx, and the Guardians are up to something sneaky.

Verdict: Thumbs down. There’s very little drama. We don’t even get to see any big fighting between Mogo and Ranx, which really should have been a spotlight. You ever seen a city fight a planet? Me neither, and the cover made it sound like that was gonna be a big chunk of the action. Heck, Ranx even attacks Mogo, and the planet makes no real effort to defend itself. That’s weak, man. In the end, the entire issue is skippable.

Wow, did I ever have a busy day yesterday. Tons of work here at the office, followed by a couple hours running errands for family before finally getting home in time to cook dinner at 8 p.m. I didn’t even have time to finish reading yesterday’s new comics, but we’ll try to remedy that over the weekend.

Here’s what I’ve gotten to read so far…

The Spirit #8

If you’re not familiar with the Spirit yet, here’s the general summary. The Spirit is a guy in a suit, fedora, and domino mask who runs around fighting crime in the best pulp tradition. He has no powers, other than his ability to get repeatedly and entertainingly beaten up. He was created by Will Eisner, who is generally considered one of the best artists and the very best storyteller who’s ever worked in the comics biz. This is a new series, written and drawn by Darwyn Cooke, who is generally considered to rock the house.

In this issue, the Spirit and superspy Agent Satin are locked in an old water tower with a nuclear bomb. Satin could disarm it easily… but she’s got amnesia. With just 30 minutes left before the bomb explodes, can the Spirit get Satin to recover her memory in time?

Verdict: Thumbs up. Darwyn Cooke is the reigning King of All Awesomeness. If you’re not reading this comic every month, you’re missing out on a guaranteed pure 5000cc megadose of pure unfiltered AWESOME. Go pick it up.

Marvel Adventures: Giant-Size Avengers

An extra-sized one-shot of the best all-ages comic produced by Marvel, thanks to Jeff Parker’s ability to write outstanding action and hilarious dialogue. This issue combines teams up the Avengers with the Agents of Atlas, a team of Avengers surrogates who had their glory days during the Golden Age — Parker wrote a wonderful miniseries starring the Agents of Atlas last year.

Anyway, Kang the Conqueror, a time-traveling despot, attacks in this issue, first sending a wave of dinosaurs against the Avengers and later manipulating the Agents into reviving Captain America in the mid-50s instead of the present. As a result, Captain America becomes president and, tricked into thinking that Kang is a great hero, he signs the whole world over to him. Can Storm, Wolverine, and Spider-Man make it through Kang’s timegates to convince the Agents to let Cap remain frozen in the Arctic?

On top of all that, readers are treated to reprints of Golden Age comics starring Namor, Namora, and Venus.

Verdict: Thumbs up. The story is a joy from beginning to end. Kang’s plot is unusually subtle and clever, and his personality is a lot more interesting than is normally portrayed. It’s great to see the Agents of Atlas again, too. Gorilla-Man is hilarious, and I’d love to see him and the rest of the Agents in an ongoing series. Even the reprints at the end are fun — they’re kid-friendly without being simple-minded. My only disappointment is that there’s no appearance by the Hulk.

Countdown #41

Trickster and Piper fall out of a plane but survive. Mary Marvel is targeted by evil forces. Jimmy Olsen is wearing spandex under his clothes. Donna Troy, Jason Todd, the Atom, and the Monitor (now called “Bob”) shrink down to —

To heck with it.

Nothing happens. Everyone just marks time for another issue, waiting for whenever someone decides to start writing a real story instead of these pointless, meandering vignettes.

I’m done with this one. At its very, very best, it’s been only mediocre. “Countdown” is a symptom of everything that’s gone wrong with DC, and I’m not going to waste my time or money on it any longer.

That’s all for now. More reviews this weekend, I promise.

Ya know what? Writing long reviews of comics takes an extra-long time. So in the interest of getting these durn reviews finished sometime this century, I’m gonna shorten the reviews of the rest of the past week’s haul.

The Trials of Shazam #7

 

The kid in camo on the cover is Freddie Freeman, who used to be Captain Marvel Jr. until he lost his powers. (Yeah, there’s been an outbreak of members of the Marvel Family losing their powers. Just roll with it.) However, he’s being given the chance to earn his powers back by completing tests for the “gods of magic” — Solomon, Hercules, Atlas, Zeus, Achilles, and Mercury. However, a woman named Sabina is trying to intervene in the tests because she wants all those powers for herself.

In this issue, Freddie and Sabina have both managed to grab half of the strength of Hercules and are duking it out to take all of it. We also get some of Sabina’s background in the midst of all the fighting. For the most part, however, this is a slugfest all the way through. No complaints — it’s a good slugfest.

Howard Porter’s art continues to be outstanding, and I particularly like the interpretation we see of Atlas, the next god on the list. This is a fairly low-key comic — it’s not getting the kind of attention that some other books are — but it’s been an excellent read from the very beginning.

Verdict: Go get it.

B.P.R.D.: Garden of Souls #4

 

This is a spin-off from Mike Mignola’s action/horror series “Hellboy” — Big Red doesn’t appear in this, but if you’re familiar with the movie, you should be familiar with at least some of the stars in this one. The focus of this particular story has been Abe Sapien, the department’s fishman, and his quest to discover his own origins. He’s already discovered that he used to be a human named Langdon Everett Caul, back in the 1860s, and he’s been kidnapped in South America by a bunch of old guys wearing nifty steampunk powered armor and attended by a towering powerhouse named Edward and a bunch of genetically engineered animal hybrids. Oh, and there’s a mummy. Wearing a nice Victorian-era dress. The story is written by Mignola, but illustrated by John Arcudi, who does a good job of aping Mignola’s distinctive style.

In this issue, the mummy, Panya, tells Abe how she was discovered to be alive during a mummy-unwrapping party in the late 1850s (Believe it or not, the Victorians really used to have parties where they’d unwrap mummies. For fun. They also thought it was rude to say “leg” in mixed company. The Victorians were all crazy.) Instead of running amok, strangling butlers, and cursing random explorers like a normal mummy, Panya was educated in Western ways and became a part of high society. Eventually, she’s declared to be a treasure worth hoarding, and is taken prisoner by several competing conspiratorial mystical associations until the present day, when she’s being held in opulent surroundings by the Oannes Society. After that, the Society members tell Abe that he used to be one of them, and that their plans involve transferring their minds out of their impossibly aged bodies and into superhumanly powerful bodies like Edward’s. And then, they plan to kill everyone in Eastern Asia and use their spirits to vastly empower their new bodies, allowing all of those spirits to live forever.

Abe is not impressed, manages to kill one of the host bodies while it’s still being grown in its glass tube, and goes on the run. But the island he’s being held on isn’t that large, and there aren’t many places to hide.

Verdict: Big thumbs up. Heck, you should go get every “BPRD” and “Hellboy” comic you can. I think it’s been very well established at this point that Mike Mignola is the best creator of horror comics of the modern age, so just about everything he comes up with is worth reading. Arcudi’s art is also outstanding — like I said before, it’s very similar to Mignola’s style, but he’s better with detail work (If you really want to see Arcudi’s detail artwork unleashed, check out the previous series, “B.P.R.D.: The Universal Machine.”)

And this issue would get an enthusiastic recommendation from me even if it didn’t feature the image below:

 

That is a female mummy and some Victorian mad scientists operating a horse with a steam-powered Babbage engine in place of its head.

And that is awesome.

Marvel Adventures: The Avengers #12

 

This is one of Marvel’s new all-ages comics, and it’s actually a week or two old, but I’d heard good things about it, so I picked it up. The members of the Avengers in this one include Avenger regulars like Captain America, Iron Man and Giant-Man… uhh, I mean Giant-Girl, plus popular Marvel characters like Spider-Man, Storm, Wolverine, and Hulk. Every issue has a self-contained story, so you don’t have to worry about too much continuity. The stories combine action with a great deal of humor, and they are fun for both kids and adults.

In this issue, the Avengers are trying to control a number of different natural disasters, caused by the coming of Ego, the Living Planet. This is an actual villain from ’60s Marvel books, which suggests pretty strongly that Stan Lee and Jack Kirby were nuttier than a whole bag full of fruit bats. So what is Ego doing getting this close to Earth?

 

Ego is in luuuuuv.

This does not sit well with the Avengers.

Verdict: Big thumbs up. Go get it. Be sure and check out the back issues, too — they’re all good.