Tails of the Pet Avengers #1

The Pet Avengers, from the recently completed miniseries and the soon-to-begin ongoing series, are back in a one-shot full of short solo adventures. Frog Thor returns to his frog tribe in Central Park to fight off alligators and ponder whether his godlike power is too powerful for his tribe’s own good. Zabu fights off some raptors and adopts some new kids into his family. Ms. Lion helps save a cruise ship from poisoners. Lockjaw battles Mad-Dog for the Inhumans’ Terrigen Mists. Lockheed helps make a lonely girl’s prom night perfect. Redwing must deal with unwanted help as he stops jewel thieves.

Verdict: Thumbs up. Fun stories for kids of all ages. Heck, there’s not a bad story in the whole bunch.

Batgirl #7

Batman has been shot down by a trio of supervillains so gambling queen Roulette can take bets on who will manage to kill him first. Batgirl gets ditched by bratty Damian Wayne, the new pre-teen Robin, so Oracle gets her a shiny new Batgirl-Cycle so she can make it in time to help. At that point, it’s Robin and Batgirl, plus a wounded Batman, vs. Dr. Phosphorus, Roxy Rocket, and Riot, with the Dark Knight’s life on the line…

Verdict: Thumbs up. Nicely frantic action, lots of great dialogue and banter, and great characterizations. Bryan Q. Miller has a talent for writing incredibly charismatic superheroes — even Damian is likeable in this, and everyone hates Damian!

Marvel Super Hero Squad #2

I had no intention of ever picking this series up — from the character designs, I assumed that all the stories would boil down to “We can stop Doctor Doom… with the power of FRIENDSHIP!” What changed my mind? I watched a couple episodes of the cartoon series — namely, the pilot episode (see here for Part II and Part III) and this amazing little thing called “Mental Organism Designed Only for Kisses” (see here for Part II and Part III). So it’s a good deal goofier and more subversive than it looks on first glance, and I decided that made the comic series worth checking out.

Anyway, this issue is dedicated to Valentine’s Day and all things love-related. We start out with a trio of supervillainesses — Enchantress, Mystique, and Screaming Mimi — trying to use their feminine wiles to get the good guys in the Super Hero Squad to give them the awesomely-powerful superpower-granting crystals called fractals. While Enchantress uses her magic to ensnare Wolverine, Thor, the Falcon, and the Silver Surfer (though Hulk is completely immune, ’cause all he wants to do is fight monsters), Mystique impersonates Ms. Marvel to try to get Iron Man to lead her to the fractals, and Screaming Mimi hangs out with Hulk mainly for something entertaining to do. Our second story features teen dinosaur-transformer Reptil, who is hoping Valentine’s Day will mean all the girls in school will be swooning over him. And finally, the rest of the “Squaddies” learn who Hulk’s true love is…

Verdict: Thumbs up. Very cute stuff. Not particularly edgy, but it’s going to be fun for all-ages readers, or for anyone who enjoys the cartoon.

Perhaps you’ve heard of Marvel’s “Super Hero Squad” line of toys, and maybe you haven’t. It’s not a bad concept — a bunch of cartoony, kid-friendly action figures where the superheroes are free of comic book angst. They’ve had a comic or two about the characters, and there are plans to turn it into a cartoon series and even an MMO. The worst thing you can say about it is that it caused the cancellation of Chris Giarrusso’s impossibly cool “Mini Marvels” comic strips.

Anyway, one of my new co-workers got to go to Comic-Con in San Diego a couple weeks ago and came back with a stack of comic freebies that she left in our break room with an invitation for all of us to take anything we thought looked interesting. One of the few things to catch my eye was a poster featuring a ton of the Super Hero Squad characters.

(And I’ll apologize in advance for the wonky quality of my scans here — it was no easy feat to get a full-sized poster properly positioned on a scanner, and some of the images also suffer from some bleed-through from the images that were on the back of the poster.)

The main thing you notice about all these Super Hero Squad characters is that they’re all extremely adorable and cute, with big happy eyes and friendly smiles. This is bit jarring on characters like Wolverine and the Silver Surfer, who aren’t known for running around and grinning. But probably the cutest character they have is Hank “Beast” McCoy:

Holy spaghetti, that’s so cute, my teeth have already rotted right out of my skull. Is this the fabled missing link between comic books and lolcats?

OMG SO CUTE!

But you wanna know what the freakiest thing about this is? The villains are just as happy and friendly and smiley as the heroes. For instance, there’s the Vulture and the Green Goblin.

Now the Goblin is one of the few Super Hero Squad characters who looks even slightly threatening, ’cause that smile legitimately brings the crazy. Still, even for a demented killer, he looks really cute and adorable. And check out the Vulture — in the comics, he’s a dour, bald, elderly man. Here, he’s young, smiling, happy, and handsome. He looks like Charlie Brown when he’s having a good day. Definitely not the typical look for him.

And then there’s Venom.

See what they did to make him look less scary? They gave him flat teeth, not fangs. They didn’t do anything to his claws or to his always-disturbing tongue. He may be less scary, but dangit, if I was ages 3 and up, he’d still be more than scary enough. Honestly, I’m not sure there’s any good way to de-scarify Venom. Maybe put him in blonde wig and a pretty pink party dress and rename him “Paris.” But no, no, I’m newly terrified of Venom now. Great work there, Scott.

Oh, and who’s that I see behind Venom and the Rhino down there?

Hey, it’s that wholesome and cute serial killing alien symbiote monster Carnage! OMG SO ADORABLEZ!

And finally, anyone looking for an adorably cute Nazi war criminal?

Oh, Red Skull, how could we ever stay mad at you?