Milestone Forever #1

As I think I’ve mentioned before, I’m a huge fan of the comics produced by Milestone Media back in the ’90s. I loved the art, I loved the writing, I loved the dialogue and characterizations, I loved the idea that they were making superhero comics that looked like something other than a bunch of white people hanging out in spandex. Heck, “Blood Syndicate” got me back to reading comics, after years of ignoring them. And when I heard DC was going to bring all those characters back a year or two ago, I was real excited. It didn’t turn out so well — Dwayne McDuffie tried to re-introduce them during his run on “Justice League of America,” but DC kept taking control of the book away from him so they could promote new crossovers. And then DC announced that, whoops, they were foolin’, and other than Static, they had no plans to use the other Milestone characters for anything.

But the Milestone characters are getting one final hurrah — this very short miniseries, written by McDuffie, with artwork by John Paul Leon, M.D. Bright, J.H. Williams III, and Romeo Tanghal. We start out with a focus on Dharma, near-omniscient precog, obsessed with the only thing he can’t see — how the world is about to end. We catch up with Icon and Rocket, Flashback (still trying to kick her crack habit), Holocaust, still scheming, still trying to take over Dakota’s gangs. Holocaust wants his new Blood Syndicate to help him kill Icon, but he doesn’t know that Icon has allies on the way, including Static, Hardware, and even a bunch of Syndicate members. And former Syndicate leader Wise Son is back, ready to fight Holocaust for control of the gang he helped create. Is the ensuing battle going to be the spark that sets of the global armageddon that Dharma fears?

Thumbs up. It’s great to see all these characters again, even if some of them only show up for a panel or two. The dialogue is pretty good, and the story, set against the end of the world scenario that Dharma has foreseen since his first appearance, is still interesting. If I’ve got quibbles, it’s that there are probably too many characters — understandable, since they are trying to make sure all these people get to appear at least once, but it’s too bad we won’t get to spend more time with more of these characters. I also groused a bit about the consistency of the art — Dogg, for instance, ends up being depicted a lot larger than he was in the original comics, and Kwai has lost her Extremely Dramatic Eyebrows. The whole package is gonna run you $6, for just this first issue, but for Milestone fans, I’m still recommending it.

Blackest Night: Wonder Woman #3

Diana has just received her power ring and become a temporary member of the Star Sapphires. She sets out to bust up some Black Lantern zombies, particularly the resurrected Maxwell Lord, but she gets interrupted by Mera, Queen of Atlantis, now wielding a red power ring as one of the violently angry, blood-puking Red Lanterns. Of course, there’s a huge battle between the two — Mera’s rage won’t even let her think straight, and Wondy doesn’t want to hurt her anyway. Is there a way to get through to Mera before the zombies take all of them down?

Verdict: Thumbs up. As little as I’ve enjoyed the previous books in this mini-miniseries, I wasn’t expecting much from this final issue, but I was very pleasantly surprised. Character and dialogue hit on all cylinders, and the artwork by Nicola Scott is, as always, staggeringly awesome. Favorite bit? Wondy’s awestruck amazement on what it feels like to wield a power ring.

Power Girl #8

PeeGee and Vartox, sleazy superpowered ’70s swingah from another world, are fighting a seemingly hopeless battle against an indestructible and self-replicating monster called the Ix Negaspike — well, the operative phrase is “seemingly hopeless” ’cause they do, in fact, defeat it. Power Girl then lets herself be persuaded to let Vartox take her on a date. Plentiful shenanigans follow, including Vartox dressing very inappropriately, Power Girl wearing the gown from Adam Hughes’ celebrated “Women of the DC Universe” poster, Vartox burning dinner, and PeeGee picking up takeout pizza from a NYC pizzeria. And we get the real story of how Vartox hopes that Power Girl can help him repopulate his home planet. Will she actually agree to this mad scheme? (Hint: She will!)

Verdict: Thumbs up. Good gravy, this was wildly, wildly funny. This is probably the funniest mainstream comic DC is producing right now, other than some of their all-ages comics. I do hope you’re picking this one up, ’cause it’s very good.

Wonder Woman #40

After beating up a giant Aztec winged serpent, Wonder Woman starts noticing a lot of strange stuff going on. The winged serpent admits he doesn’t know why he attacked the city or ate a subway car — he normally hates the taste of people and can’t imagine why he’d want to eat anyone. There are a bunch of ominous little schoolboys hanging around who manage to turn the people Wondy just rescued from total fans to utterly disillusioned non-fans. There’s a rash of race- and religion-based hate crimes. And Power Girl shows up with a mad-on to beat Wonder Woman to death.

Verdict: Ehh, not all that awesome. I dug the winged serpent, I dug the backstory for the new modernized version of Etta Candy, but the rest of it was less than fully awesome. Hopefully it’ll get better as the story advances.

Suicide Squad #67

This is another of the old cancelled titles that DC has resurrected for just one more issue during the “Blackest Night” crossover. And it’s a bit misleading. There’s only minimal material with the Black Lantern zombies, and the Suicide Squad aren’t the main characters. Most of our focus is on the Secret Six. After the overprotective Bane interrogates Scandal Savage’s date, Liana, the rest of the team gets called out on a mission to rescue a drug dealer from Belle Reve prison. The team gets into the prison no problem — Black Alice borrows Giganta’s powers, which surely ought to make a few kinksters out there happy — but the whole thing was a trap set by Amanda Waller and the Suicide Squad. Waller wants Deadshot back on her team, and she’s willing to wipe out the rest of the Six to get him back. But the fight between the two teams may have to wait once the latest crop of Black Lantern rings find the many deceased Suicide Squad members…

Verdict: Thumbs up. A bonus “Secret Six” issue! Huzzah! And co-written by both Gail Simone and John Ostrander! Funny stuff with Bane and Ragdoll, plus Nightshade and the rarely-seen female Fiddler make appearances. All that plus Amanda Waller, DC’s foremost scary, driven, badass government bureaucrat! Everyone loves Amanda Waller!

Blackest Night: Wonder Woman #2

We jump back to the period when Wonder Woman was a Black Lantern not-quite-a-zombie, fighting Mera, Queen of Atlantis and Aquaman’s ex-wife. The fight doesn’t generally go in Mera’s favor, seeing as how Wonder Woman is way, way more powerful than she is. Wonder Woman is apparently conscious inside, unable to stop herself from trying to kill Mera. Wondy briefly gets control back, flees to some nearby island, then kills Wonder Girl and Donna Troy, tries to kill her mother, and goes all smoochy on Bruce Wayne. Wait, what? Did I forget my medication this morning?

Verdict: Thumbs down. I agree with a lot of what Chris Sims has to say here, but the thing that kept irritating me the most was the way non-zombie Diana, sublimated under the control of the black ring, kept whining. DC’s most prominent, most powerful female character has an inner voice that’s one continuous whine. Better to have the inner voice completely absent than to make the character look that weak.

Beasts of Burden #4

The ghost-hunting dogs and cats of Burden Hill have another mystery on their paws — a local dog has turned up with his face scared white and attached to a leash tied to his master’s arm — that’s all, just the arm. When he finally gets his wits back, he tells ’em that his owner, the caretaker at a cemetery, was pulled into an open grave, and everything but the arm got chewed up. When they investigate, they find a bunch of monsters made of grave earth and skull heads performing a resurrection ritual. The resurrectee? Some hooch-loving satanist who can understand animal talk and cast a bunch of nasty spells. They manage to bite him back to death, but the grave monsters raise him back up again, this time encasing him in a suit of armor made of their own bodies! Their only chance lies with Dymphna, the witch cat, who most of them don’t trust at all…

Verdict: Thumbs up. More great writing from Evan Dorkin and great art from Jill Thompson. When I first heard about this, I really wasn’t sure what to make of it — a horror series starring a bunch of ghostbusting housepets? But I’m glad I got to read it, ’cause it’s been a ton of fun. This is the last issue of this particular miniseries, but I think we’ll be seeing more issues of this in the future.

The Incredible Hercules #139

A bunch of superheroes, including Hercules and Amadeus Cho, are battling a bunch of Greek gods, titans, and monsters to stop Hera’s plan to use something called Continuum to destroy the world. For the most part, the Avengers are proving to be easy pickings for the gods, even for the heroes who are ultimately based on godly archetypes. (Zeus and Quicksilver, on the other hand, get along great.) Delphyne Gorgon, the queen of the Amazons, has her heart set on killing Athena, and she may be able to pull it off. And who is Thanatos, the god of death, waiting around for? In our backup story, the Agents of Atlas are attempting an underground raid on Hera’s skyscraper and end up tangling with the Cyclops, a chimera, and a bunch of animated skeletons.

Verdict: Thumbs up. Everything’s pretty chaotic, but there’s some really great characterization going on here, along with a lot of excellent dialogue and intrigue. And, of course, some of Greg Pak’s wonderful sound effects, like “TITANOSMAK,” “FRIKASEEEEEEE,” and “WYPOWT!”

Crossed #8

Last issue, the Crossed got hold of Cindy’s young son Patrick and turned him into one of them — a psychotic, violence-loving murder addict. In the aftermath of having to kill her only child, she’s mostly withdrawn from the group, willing to necessary security but not much else. In the leadership void, Brett starts asserting his inner aggressive scumbag, leading to yet another shocking act of violence. And the question remains — how to get Cindy back to her old self and keep her from losing herself to despair and self-loathing?

Verdict: Thumbs up. The Crossed don’t appear in this issue at all, but there is still some significantly disturbing and out-of-the-blue stuff, as well as some more insight about how the world slid into hell after the Crossed infection appeared. As always, good storytelling from Garth Ennis and beautiful art by Jacen Burrows.

Wonder Woman #39

Turns out all the suddenly pregnant Amazons are actually the victims of a dire plot by Ares, and everyone else is distracted by Alkyone’s attack on Wonder Woman and the other Amazons. While Wonder Woman battles the Cottus, an ancient, many-armed monster that claims to have crafted the clay that was used to create Wondy, the rest of the Amazons, along with Achilles and his followers, do what they can to stop Alkyone and her guards.

Verdict: I’ll give it a thumbs up, because there were some very cool moments, including Artemis leading Themyscira’s defenders past Alkyone to assist Wondy, the giant shark bringing Wonder Woman her lasso, and Zeus’ memories of being tortured by Desaad on Apokolips. But I’m still very, very, very tired of the focus on mythology and gods and suchlike in this comic. How ’bout some superheroics once in a while, ya know?

Blackest Night: The Flash #1

The ever-expanding “Blackest Night” crossover moves into a three-issue miniseries starring Barry Allen, the Silver-Age Flash. He’s warning as many heroes as he can about the dangers of the Black Lanterns and how they can be stopped — he’s even making sure some of his enemies know — namely, the mostly honorable Rogues, Captain Cold, Heat Wave, Mirror Master, Weather Wizard, the new Trickster. And it looks like all of them will have to pitch in — many of the zombified Black Lanterns are former Rogues who are probably going to be going after their former friends. While Tar Pit and the new Captain Boomerang wait for the arrival of the original deceased Captain Boomerang (the old one was the new one’s father), Barry tangles briefly with the zombified Professor Zoom, the Reverse-Flash, then heads to Gorilla City to get advice from his old friend Solovar, the ruler of Gorilla City. Unfortunately, Barry doesn’t know that Solovar died years ago, and Barry has to fight an undead psychic gorilla who keeps trying to convince him that he’s not all bad. Meanwhile, the Rogues are preparing to take the fight directly to their Black Lantern counterparts with a raid on their new hideout in Iron Heights Prison.

Verdict: Thumbs up. A big part of the reason I enjoyed this is the artwork — Scott Kolins was one of my favorite artists during the Wally West glory days of “The Flash, with a gritty style that perfectly suited the more blue-collar vision of Flash, the Rogues, and Central/Keystone City of the early 2000s. To be honest, I’m looking forward to this miniseries more for the Rogues than for Barry — Wally West was the Flash I knew and cared about, but the Rogues are classics, and anything that shines a good bright spotlight on them is great with me.

Blackest Night: Wonder Woman #1

And another new “Blackest Night” crossover, as Wonder Woman goes to Washington, DC, to confront Black Lantern Maxwell Lord, the former ally turned enemy who Wondy killed a few years back. She finds him in Arlington National Cemetery, where he’s using his psychic powers to hold hostage the guards of the Tomb of the Unknowns. She isn’t having much difficulty with Max until his reinforcements arrive — enough Black Lantern rings to zombify everyone buried in the cemetery, including a few members of the WWII Blackhawk Squadron and DC’s original Unknown Soldier. How does she deal with several thousand zombies? She makes her magic lasso emit pure, blinding light and incinerates all of them.

Verdict: Man, I don’t know. I absolutely love Nicola Scott’s always outstanding artwork, but I got some serious squick going on with the idea of desecrating every body in Arlington National Cemetery and cremating them all down into random piles of ash. No, not even if it’s just fictional. “Hey, families of American soldiers! Wonder Woman just torched your grampa’s dead body! Wheee!” I know, I know, probably getting carried away, but that was my reaction when I first read it, and I don’t feel a lot better about it yet.

The Incredible Hercules #138

Hercules, Amadeus Cho, a few renegade Greek gods, and the Avengers need to storm a skyscraper housing the Olympus Group, where the rest of the Greek gods are holed up while Hera prepares to unleash her “Continuum” plan that will eliminate human life from Earth. With so many gods watching over the building, a frontal assault can’t succeed, but a little cleverness and misdirection gets everyone in the front door and ready to fight. But can anyone survive when the God of Death makes his appearance? And in a backup story starring the Agents of Atlas, Venus is freed from her hypnotic spell, depriving the monster Phorcys of the legions of mortals he was about to eat. He retreats to the sea, and the Agents prepare to make their own assault on the Olympus Group.

Verdict: Thumbs up. What I’m enjoying the most about this story is the characterization. Hercules, Amadeus, Zeus, Hebe, and Spider-Man are all excellently represented here, but the real standout star as a character is, of all people, USAgent, who comes across as a cross between a monotheist and an atheist by insisting that Hercules, Zeus, and the rest are merely garden-variety metahumans who’ve convinced themselves that they’re actual gods — and he’s actually allowed to make a good case of it, too. Definitely not the standard treatment for comic-book skeptics, who are usually not much more than comic relief.

Punisher #11

Okay, I think we all know by this point that I’m a sucker for monsters. And this one was high-concept enough that it was particularly appealing. In the previous issue of this comic “Punisher: Dark Reign – The List #1” (Thanks for the heads-up, Todd), Frank Castle met up with Wolverine’s rotten son Daken and got cut to pieces, literally. And I’m not using the word “literally” for emphasis — I mean, there went Punisher’s head, there went his arm, there went his leg… So Frank Castle’s dead, right? Well, maybe not. A bunch of mole people collected the Punisher-chunks and carted them away into the sewer, under the protection of the Man-Thing. And Frank gets stitched back together and returned to life by Morbius the Living Vampire, with half-hearted assistance from Jack “Werewolf by Night” Russell and a bunch of other monsters. Why? The monsters of the world are being hunted to extinction by a bunch of high-tech samurai, and they need a soldier like Frank to help them with battle tactics. Unfortunately, Frank’s brain isn’t really firing on all cylinders yet, and he tends to have trouble with anything outside of his personal war on crime. Is he going to be able to help the monsters who saved his life?

Verdict: Thumbs up. And not just because of the mad concept of turning Frank Castle into a patchwork monster. If that was all there was to this, it wouldn’t be worth squat. What I enjoyed about this was Frank’s reaction — even in the midst of his post-reanimation freakout, he expresses deep cynicism, and the trigger point for his rage is the memory of his dead family. And even when he’s calmer, he has the old Frank Castle attitude, and he seems deeply conflicted about having to deal with a bunch of monsters, freaks, and bug people, when he normally focuses on organized crime. There’s been some serious thought put into Frank’s character and reactions, and the results are pretty entertaining. Is it bizarre? Oh, yes. I’m sure Frank will be back in his old body eventually, gunning down mobsters left and right — but I’ve got no idea how they’ll get there from this point. I hope it stays cool, because it looks like it’ll be a lot of fun to read.

Wonder Woman #38

Wonder Woman’s enemy Alkyone has married Achilles and been declared Queen of the Amazons. Wondy, meanwhile, is in prison, under a death sentence. She refuses to escape because if she does, Hippolyta, her mother, will be killed. Artemis plots revolution, Achilles chafes at Alkyone’s plots, Donna Troy searches for Hippolyta, and much darker bargains are made with much darker powers.

Verdict: I’ll give it a nominal thumbs up. The story isn’t that bad, but as I’ve said before, I’ve pretty much had my fill of grim stories here about gods and mythologies — it’s gotten to the point where that’s almost the only story that’s being told in this title, and that needs to change.

Billy Batson and the Magic of Shazam! #10

Billy is still unwilling to change into Captain Marvel because Cap has started acting evil. He and Mary are on their way to see the wizard Shazam about this, but they get distracted by a bunch of normal passersby who are robbing a bank — they’ve all been hypnotized by a felonious rocker named Axe. Mary tries to handle the problem solo, but gets hypnotized, too. Can Billy save everyone without resorting to changing into Captain Marvel?

Verdict: I’m gonna thumbs-down it. Part of it was that Axe just wasn’t a very good villain. Part of it is that this is the first all-ages title I’ve seen that combined a complicated multi-part storyline with no recap of previous events. If you’re going to go with continuing storylines in an all-ages book (something I’m just not convinced is a good idea), you’ve got to give new readers some idea of what’s gone on before.

Strange Tales #3

I had very high hopes for this one, especially with that outstanding cover by Stan Sakai, creator of “Usagi Yojimbo,” who also contributed the lead story, about an ancient Japanese warrior transformed into a raging green demon by a witch named Gama. But the rest of the stories here are, at best, unimpressive (Peter Bagge’s conclusion of “The Incorrigible Hulk,” Paul Hornschemeier’s talky “battle” between Nightcrawler and the Molecule Man, Jay Stephens’ entirely pedestrian set-up of the Beast vs. Morbius the Living Vampire) and at worst, outright stupid (Corey Lewis’ dayglo Longshot-as-a-club-dork story, Jonathan Jay Lee’s pointless and muddy Punisher story, and Chris Chua’s entirely incomprehensible… I really don’t know what it’s supposed to be, but it goes on for four pages).

Verdict: As bad as the rest of it was, I’m still giving this a thumbs up, solely because of that awesome Stan Sakai Hulk story, which is beautifully illustrated, cleverly thought-out, and extremely entertaining. This miniseries hasn’t been a bad experiment in letting alternate comics creators play around in the Marvel Universe, and it’s certainly an excellent way for readers to discover new creators that they wouldn’t be aware of otherwise.

Billy Batson and the Magic of Shazam! #9

An arsonist is trying to burn up the city, but the more perplexing crisis seems to be Captain Marvel’s sudden personality change — he’s turned into a colossal jerk! He insults his friends and family, snubs kids in wheelchairs, ignores the arson crisis, and endangers normal people. What’s going on? And is there anyway to stop Cap before he goes too far?

Verdict: Thumbs up. A very interesting mystery, with cute illustrations and storytelling to go with it.

Wonder Woman #37

I missed an issue somewhere down the line, so some of this doesn’t make a lot of sense. Diana gets a visit in her dreams from Ares, God of War, who Wonder Woman killed a few issues back by splitting his skull with an axe. Back on Themyscira, Achilles is romancing one of Wonder Woman’s mortal enemies, the island is plagued by numerous mysterious virgin pregnancies, and Artemis has returned a lost tribe of Amazons home. When Wonder Woman decides to return to Themyscira, she’ll have to battle one of her best friends to make her homecoming.

Verdict: Thumbs down. Even considering that I missed an issue, this didn’t make much sense at all. I know all the Paradise Island stuff is supposed to be important to Wonder Woman, but I’m kinda getting tired of hearing about it all the time. Couldn’t Wonder Woman go bust up some criminals sometime?

Batman and Robin #3

While Batman interrogates Professor Pyg’s fire-powered meta-terrorist (by zooming around the city in the Batmobile and holding him about a quarter-inch above the asphalt), Robin finally wakes up in Pyg’s hideout just before the bad doctor is preparing to lobotomize a girl named Sasha, one of his artificially doll-faced victims. Pyg introduces himself to Robin by… doing a really creepy sexy-time dance. Wwwwwow. That’s a pretty horrifically memorable way to introduce yourself to the world, I gotta say. Luckily, Robin has been working his way free of Pyg’s ropes this whole time and unleashes on Pyg and his dolls. Batman discovers that Pyg’s scheme involves releasing a aerosolized bio-weapon virus on Gotham City, and he comes to Robin’s rescue at the abandoned carnival. But they can’t find Sasha afterwards. And it turns out that the dollmasks don’t come off once they’ve been put on. Sasha wants revenge — and she meets up with a new partner to help her.

Verdict: Thumbs up. So much awesome stuff here — Batman’s near-face-scraping interrogation in the Batmobile, Pyg’s uber-creepy dance, Dick and Damian both dropping the whupass on the baddies, and some excellently creative sound-effects captions. This was a fantastically fun comic.

Detective Comics #856

Batwoman and her military dad make a narrow escape from Alice, thanks to the assistance of Abbot and his shapeshifting pals, all former members of the Church of Crime. Dad and daughter argue about the crimefighting biz, and later, Kate, her dad, and her stepmom — along with cousin Bette “Flamebird” Kane — attend the annual GCPD Charity Ball. Kate makes a scene by showing up in a spiffy tuxedo, to the disappointment of her stepmom. Kate runs into the only other woman wearing a tux — Major Crimes Unit leader Maggie Sawyer, formerly of Metropolis PD. After sharing a dance with Sawyer, Kate gets a visit from Abbot and his friends, now non-shapeshifted — they share some info about why they broke with the Church of Crime and reveal that Alice wants to succeed where the old leader, Mannheim, failed — they plan to destroy Gotham City. But has the warning come too late? Meanwhile, in our backup story, the Question is on the trail of the kidnappers and survives two different attempts on her life in only a few pages. But will she ever get the answers she needs to break the case?

Verdict: Thumbs up. Great characterization work for Batwoman and her family. Excellent action, too. Some great intrigue as well. This is big fun. The Question backup story is good, too — very heavy on the action here, and Renee Montoya makes such a cool protagonist.

Wonder Woman #35

Wonder Woman and Black Canary are in Tokyo on some downtime from their next battle in Roulette’s metahuman fight club. Wondy’s down in the dumps about, um, various stuff, so Dinah tries to cheer her up, with some success. Their next bouts go well, until they’re matched up against a single fighter — and Wondy’s not strong enough to beat her. The new fighter is the goddess Pele, the daughter of the god Kane, Wondy’s chosen patron when the Olympians deserted Earth. Pele is angry because Zeus killed her father, and she plans on taking her revenge by killing Wonder Woman. Is there a way to survive a goddess’s wrath?

Verdict: Thumbs up, but largely for some of the smaller points. Wondy’s reaction to the over-sexualized toys of her in the Japanese stores was very funny, all the dialogue between Wondy and Black Canary was great, B.C. taking on all the villains in the arena at once was thoroughly and awesomely cool. But I’m getting a bit tired of the over-reliance on Roulette’s fight clubs as a storytelling gimmick, and Diana has spent much too much time lately fighting gods and goddesses.

Detective Comics #855

Batwoman confronts Alice, the looney-tunes new leader of the Church of Crime, gasses her in the hope of interrogating her, but gets slashed by a poisoned razor that Alice was holding in her mouth. She loses her wig and starts hallucinating about the night her mother was killed. Kate’s dad goes after her to help, but the Church of Crime has resources that could be much too strong for an injured crimefighter and her aging military dad. Meanwhile, in the second feature, the Question beats up some thugs and gets a lead on the kidnapped girl, heading to a large office building to meet up with someone named Chandless. But his security is a lot better than the thugs Renee took care of before.

Verdict: Thumbs up. Good, solid superheroey whoopass from beginning to end. Alice is a nicely disturbing weirdo — and it does seem appropriate that Batwoman would get her own version of the Joker as a nemesis.

Wonder Woman #34

Wondy gets a lead from Dr. T.O. Morrow on the murderous demigoddess Genocide’s whereabouts — an illegal metahuman fighting club in Japan. She enlists Black Canary’s aid to help her infiltrate the club, and Dinah decides to give herself and Wondy a super-makeover so they can disguise themselves as supervillains and sneak into the club. Masquerading as the Orphan Sisters, WW and BC have to fight a robot and a shapeshifter, and Diana unexpectedly manifests some new superpowers. But who’s the mastermind behind the club?

Verdict: Thumbs up, particularly for Black Canary’s dialogue and the hilarious makeover scene.

Power Girl #2

The Ultra-Humanite has captured Power Girl and is holding New York City hostage — by suspending it high above the earth and threatening to drop it. Ultra’s plan is to transplant his brain into Power Girl’s head, which PeeGee is not real happy about. Extended fisticuffs occur, the Big Apple panics, the Justice Society tries to maintain order, and Ultra tells Power Girl the latest version of his origin, in which he started out as a very sickly genius but, with the help of the kinkiest femme fatale ever, was reborn in the body of the mutant albino gorilla he now lives in. Finally, Ultra has drained her of enough solar radiation to allow him to start cutting into her skull — is there any way for Power Girl to get out of this?

Verdict: Thumbs up, but I gotta quibble about the Ultra-Humanite’s new origin — it leaves out a lot of the creepiest elements of Ultra’s traditional origins, like his co-opting of Hollywood starlet Delores Winters’ body in the ’40s. However, I love the characterizations of the employees in Starrware Industries while they worry about the world falling apart around them.

Wonder Woman #33

Wondy’s gravely injured, but she’s made it back to Themyscira — just in time for an attack by giant monsters. The Amazons fight the monsters, and eventually, Wondy joins them, after having her lasso and an ax taped to her hands, ’cause she’s too injured to hold them properly. In the end, the monsters are driven off, Ares apparently takes a mortal wound to the face, and Zeus appoints Achilles as the new ruler of Themyscira. Will Wonder Woman bother sticking around after all this?

Verdict: Thumbs down. The storyline was far, far, far too long, and for very little payoff. No one expects the Amazons to be out of power on Paradise Island for long, so this whole diversion is particularly pointless.