Wonder Woman #24

Quite a bit of fun in this one. We start out with Diana taking Tom Tresser to Themyscira to meet her mother, Queen Hippolyta. She takes him on a few chores as a test — specifically, hand-feeding the griffins. This doesn’t really work out well, but Hippolyta accepts him anyway, makes him an honorary Amazon, and gives her blessing to Diana’s relationship with him. She also gets off the best line in the comic, after asking Tresser and Diana for a final favor:

I actually laughed out loud when I read that.

Anyway, after leaving Themyscira, Wondy travels to Hollywood, where some slick movie execs have decided to make a Wonder Woman movie and are seeking her approval. Wondy takes a couple of her albino ape buddies along to help impress the movie moguls, tries to bond with a bitter lawyer, and gets a tour of the backlot. What she sees of the movie rehearsals, she really doesn’t approve of, and it does look really awful — the movie version of Wondy has a lightsabre, and there are just way too many awful one-liners. Unfortunately, Laney Kirswell, the studio head, is hiding a nasty secret that leads to even more trouble for Diana.

Verdict: Thumbs up. Lots of great dialogue, funny jokes, bizarre situations, giant sharks, and an unexpected supervillain. This one’s great fun.

Manhunter #34

Kate tangles with the Suicide Squad and spends several happy minutes just slaughtering Multiplex’s clone bodies, but she’s still badly outnumbered. Luckily, Huntress and Lady Blackhawk from the Birds of Prey show up to pull her bacon outta the fire — but there’s not actually going to be any more fighting. The Suicide Squad were undercover trying to discover who was killing women in Mexico and why. Meanwhile, her son Ramsey has developed superpowers — how is she gonna deal with having grandparents and a son who have superpowers?

Verdict: Thumbs up, kinda. I felt like the Suicide Squad wasn’t used the way I’d prefer ’em, and the stuff with Ramsey’s powers just felt a bit odd. But in general, it was alright.

Well, here we are, the first Friday in September, the weather’s cooling off, football season’s in full swing, school’s back in session, the political campaigns are making large numbers of people hoot madly and bash their heads against brick walls. What the heck, seems like as good an excuse as any to dive headlong into FRIDAY NIGHT FIGHTS!

Tonight, let’s pay a quick visit to 2003’s JLA: Welcome to the Working Week by Patton Oswalt, Patrick Gleason, and Christian Alamy, in which Wonder Woman gets in a little sparring using Cheetah’s spinal column:

Looks like Wondy just bought Cheetah a round-trip ticket on the Pain Train…

DC Universe: Last Will and Testament

It’s the night before the final battle against Captital-E Evil, and all the superheroes expect to get slaughtered. So everyone’s spending their last night trying to take care of the things that are most important to them. Superman goes to visit his dad; Batman hangs out with Robin and Nightwing; Wonder Woman and Donna Troy perform some ancient warrior rituals; Rocky Davis, of the Challengers of the Unknown, of all people, acts as a confessor for various superheroes; and Captain Cold does some good. But most of this issue is devoted to Geo-Force’s obsession with Deathstroke. Can he finally figure out a way to kill the assassin he blames for the death of his sister?

Verdict: Thumbs down. Way, way too many pages devoted to a C-lister like Geo-Force? With maybe two or three pages for the real heavy hitters? No, sorry, this was complete, useless garbage, and I’m mad at myself for buying into yet another load of crossover-inspired bilge. My life is actually worse for having read this comic.

The Spirit #20

The Spirit investigates a murder at an aquarium — one that was apparently carried out by innocent dolphins! The Spirit has some severe doubts about the official story, and he enlists Ebony’s aid by getting him to apply for a job at the aquarium. But when some of the dolphins are stolen in the dead of night, what could really be going on here?

Verdict: Thumbs up. The mystery here is properly intriguing, and Spirit’s interactions with Ebony and with Ellen Dolan’s class of pint-sized students are lots of fun. Some elements of the solution to the mystery seem a bit unlikely, but nitpicking a mystery in a comic like this is a little unfair…

Wonder Woman #23

Wonder Woman has to keep the demonic D’Grth from destroying the world, all while struggling to maintain her own humanity after the loss of her soul. Meanwhile, Tom Tresser has really stepped in it this time. He’s called in a DMA strike team on Agent Diana Prince’s apartment, unaware the albino gorillas inside are on the side of the angels. Donna Troy shows up to help out, but Tresser is still going to have to risk arousing the suspicion of his bosses by calling off the strike team.

Verdict: Thumbs up, but it’s a near thing. The fight against D’Grth is pretty good, but dangit, Tresser is just an irritating character. And as bad as he screwed things up, it’s really pretty unbelievable that he was able to keep his job or stay out of prison.

The Flash #243

Missed at least one issue of this one. In the interim, it appears that the Flash’s daughter, Iris, has aged into an old woman because of her out-of-control speed powers. Can the science of Gorilla City determine a cure for Iris and her brother Jai in time, or are the Flash’s kids doomed?

Verdict: Kinda hard to say, ’cause I have no idea what happened in the previous issue. I got no clue how Flash took care of Spin, and I got no clue what’s up with the Nzame. I think I’ll give it a thumbs up, though. The kids weren’t irritating, and Flash got to do some actual superspeed running, which it seems like he does mighty little of these days. Even better, the kids’ powers appear to have stabilized, so maybe the comic will stabilize, too.

 

Captain America #40

It’s the new Captain America — Bucky Barnes — vs. another new Captain America — in this case, a resurrected and brainwashed replacement Cap from the 1950s. But it’s nowhere near a fair fight — the replacement Cap may think he’s the original Steve Rogers, but he’s a lot stronger and faster than Steve ever was. The fake Cap thinks the Bucky Cap is an assassin who killed Bucky in the ’40s, but when he learns that Bucky’s still alive, will his conditioning break? Meanwhile, Sharon Carter is fighting for her life against the Red Skull’s daughter, Sin.

Verdict: Thumbs up, but for once, I wasn’t overly impressed with what I was reading. Personally, I’m thinking this storyline has gone on for a really, really long time, and I’d like a bit of resolution sometime…

 

Wonder Woman #22

Trapped in a fantasy world, and fighting alongside Beowulf, Claw, and the Stalker, Wonder Woman is rapidly losing her soul, thanks to Stalker’s bizarre magic. Their only hope is to defeat the powerful demon D’Grth, who is assisted by Grendel itself. But someone is fated to betray them all… and what will happen when D’Grth makes his way to our world? Elsewhere, Agent Tessier has stumbled onto Diana Prince’s houseguests — a friendly band of albino gorillas from Gorilla City — and of course, a big fight breaks out, leading to Diana’s apartment getting completely wrecked…

Verdict: Thumbs up, but this is another one that I’d like to get finished up soon, preferably with some explanations that actually make sense.

 

Young X-Men #4

Ink is having a change of heart after betraying Blindfold to mutant-hating cyborg Donald Pierce — he goes out and gets new tattoos (one designed to give him telepathy) and prepares to help Wolf Cub and Rockslide take out the last members of the new Hellfire Club, Cannonball and Sunspot, formerly of the New Mutants. But Cannonball and Sunspot seem to be under the impression that the kids are the villains here — what’s going on? And Greymalkin, a mutant who’s previously not been seen much here, makes a surprise attack on Cyclops — or rather, on the guy who’s been pretending to be Cyclops. No, he’s not a Skrull — he may be even worse…

Verdict: Thumbs up. I was actually a bit more impressed with this issue than I’d been with the previous ones, and the big reveal on the fake Cyclops was pretty good, too.

Captain Britain and MI:13 #2

The Skrulls have invaded England, established a beachhead in Avalon, source of the world’s magic, and blown up Captain Britain. Pete Wisdom is hearing mysterious voices urging him onwards, Dr. Faiza Hussain has escaped death and somehow developed superpowers, and the Skrulls are slaughtering the Fae and mythological figures right and left. The only hope is for someone to pull Excalibur itself from the stone… but what if no one’s worthy to wield the legendary sword anymore?

Verdict: Thumbs up. Nice, desperate action, lots of nasty Super-Skrulls, and interesting stuff going on with Dr. Hussain and the Black Knight. Not quite as much characterization as I’d prefer, but this is taking place in a war zone — kinda hard to get into a lot of personality quirks in that kind of setting.

B.P.R.D.: War on Frogs #1

A story about the Bureau for Paranormal Research and Defense that’s not written by Mike Mignola? In this case, our writer is John Arcudi, who’s written more than his fair share of tales from the Hellboyverse. This one is a flashback in which the late Roger the Homunculus goes on a mission to round up the frog monsters who attacked Hellboy and Abe Sapien in one of the first “Hellboy” comics. Roger tracks them to an underwater lair where they’ve set up a shrine to their late mother and their old way of life. Does Roger have what it takes to fight off two frog monsters at once?

Verdict: Thumbs up. It’s really nice to see Roger again.

Wonder Woman #21

Back in the real world, Director Steel assigns Tom Tresser to investigate Diana Prince and Etta Candy to find out if they’re secretly Amazons in league with Gorilla Grodd. (“Amazons in League with Gorilla Grodd” would be a killer band name.) This leads to problems when Tresser thinks he’s discovered Grodd in Diana’s apartment only to find the intelligent gorillas who are living in Diana’s apartment. Meanwhile, in where ever the heck Wonder Woman has ended up, she and Beowulf are fighting off a bunch of demon-possessed peasants, and Diana finds herself struggling against her growing bloodlust. They also meet up with the Stalker, who tells them his origin — unwisely bargaining his soul away for immortality. To gain his soul back, he has to kill a powerful demon. Diana and Beowulf agree to assist, and they go to enlist Claw the Unconquered, an old DC fantasy character, in the quest, and Diana discovers that she’s acquired a deformed, demonic hand, just like Claw.

Verdict: Ya know, when I read the summary above, it sounds absolutely rollicking. But it isn’t. It’s actively uninteresting. This should be the type of thing where you blow your mind six or seven times just reading the book, but it’s criminally boring. Thumbs down.

Young X-Men #2

Cyclops has formed a new team of X-Men, including Dust, Blindfold, Rockslide, Wolf Cub, and Ink, and he’s given them an assignment to hunt down and kill the current Brotherhood of Evil Mutants — the former New Mutants, Cannonball, Magma, Sunspot, and Dani Moonstar. Whoa, wait a minute, why did the New Mutants turn evil? Why does Cyclops want them dead? His explanations make no sense, and the team’s training against holographs of the old New Mutants team aren’t going well. Nevertheless, Cyke splits the team and sends them out after Dani Moonstar and Magma. Unsurprisingly, things don’t go that well, and even worse, there are suggestions that there’s a traitor on the team…

Verdict: Thumbs up for now. Yanick Paquette’s artwork is sweet, but I’d definitely like a credible explanation for Cyclops’ sudden and uncharacteristic bloodthirstiness.

Wonder Woman #20

A weird issue. On one hand, Wonder Woman is in a wintry wasteland, besieged by wolves, seeking out the legendary hero Beowulf. Elsewhere, she’s in the Department of Metahuman Affairs, in her mortal guise as Agent Diana Prince. Sarge Steel promotes her, even though he doesn’t seem to trust her at all. And she and Etta Candy run into the Stalker, an minor DC hero/villain from the ’70s, who manages to strand Diana in, well, a wintry wasteland where she has to seek out Beowulf.

Verdict: Thumbs up, mainly for the dialogue, which rocks. I’m less than thrilled with this Stalker dude, who really needs a little backstory and explanation to make him a decent character.

 

Number of the Beast #1

Well, that’s an ominous title and cover, isn’t it? This is part of a new crossover series in the Wildstorm Universe, with a “new” superteam taking the lead role. The team is called the Paladins, including Aeronaut, Engine Joe, the Thrush, Falconette, Wallflower, Johnny Ray-Gun, the Midnight Rider, Neandra, the Black Anvil, Mago, and Tumbleweed, and though this is the first time we’ve seen them, their backstory says they’re the top supergroup in the newest version of the Wildstorm Universe.

Anyway, the Paladins beat up some supervillains and fight off an invasion from the excellently-named Saucerlings from Saturn’s Moons. But sandwiching all of this is the really weird, disturbing stuff. There are a couple of low-level flunkies for the government, and they wear patches on their uniforms that look like an American flag with a stylized “666” in place of the stars. They dump a barrel-full of liquified human — actually a barrel-full of liquified human who’s still alive — into a storage tube. And much later, they start making people around the city vanish into thin air… by pushing a button marked “Rapture.”

Verdict: Thumbs up. I’m a big fan of Chris Sprouse’s artwork — really, who isn’t? And the story mixes Silver Age superheroics with extraordinarily creepy religious horror. I hope it stays fun.

 

Wonder Woman #19

On the Khund homeworld, Wonder Woman meets up with a Green Lantern named Procanon Kaa who wants the mysterious Ichor Ship to destroy the warlike Khunds. Diana has to fight him down and simultaneously persuade him to embrace a peaceful solution. But the Khunds plan to destroy their own planet to save face for being defeated by the Ichor. Can Wondy get Kaa to rediscover his compassion? Can she stop the Khund plan for self-genocide? Can she get the Ichor to leave the Khund homeworld?

Verdict: Thumbs up. I don’t much like Bernard Chang’s skinny version of Wondy, but it’s a minor quibble. I do like Gail Simone’s characterization of Wonder Woman as someone who knows so much about battle that she can beat a guy weilding the most powerful weapon in the universe but who’s willing to take a beat-down for the cause of peace. Dude, that’s hardcore. Not sure why we really needed Etta Candy along for this ride, but I enjoyed the last couple of pages with Kaa and the Khund general’s daughter, Kho.

 

Green Lantern Corps #23

A batch of Green Lanterns, including Kyle Rayner and Guy Gardner, are selected to track and recover a bunch of Sinestro Corps rings. A new yellow ring is delivered to Duel Eknham, a deformed alien who looks like a conjoined twin and has two warring personalities, both of whom love to kill people. And Mongul sets up some evil plans that include collecting a whole bunch of yellow power rings and big sackful of parasitic Black Mercy plants.

Thumbs up. The crazy siamese twin with the dueling personalities would probably make a cool villain. Some of the scenes at the beginning of the comic where various GLs are summoned to duty are pretty funny — Iolande, a member of her planet’s royal family, is vainly attempting to address her homeworld’s ruling council when she’s dragged away; the robotic Stel doesn’t get a chance to make extensive repairs to his body; and Guy Gardner stays sound asleep even as his ring pulls him to the Guardians.

You may find yourself thinking, “Self, I want more from my Friday nights than just gratuitous violence, horrendous beatings, and drunken barroom brawls. I want love, happiness, peace on earth, a friendly game of foosball, and a can of domestic light beer. Is that so much to ask?” Well, frankly, yes, it is. Please don’t bother us with your sick, disgusting fantasies of Friday nights without fights. Because we normal folk prefer FRIDAY NIGHT FIGHTS!

From “The Mother of the Movement” by Darwyn Cooke and J. Bone, from DC’s recent Justice League: The New Frontier Special, Wonder Woman, with Black Canary along for the ride, encounters a small horde of male chauvinist punching-bags in a local gentlemen’s club:

 

“Hola, dogs!” is our Phrase of the Weekend, by the way. Make sure you say it to someone before Monday hits.

Anyway, this leads to some of the best comic-book sound effects I’ve seen so far this year.

 

By the way, folks, when you’re facing an angry Amazon, your best weapon is probably not a Zippo lighter and a snifter of brandy, okay?

 

 

Luckily, Wondy isn’t harmed by — Whoa, wait a minute!

 

Oh my.

 

Oh my.

 

A little pain, a little pleasure. That’s what Friday Night Fights is all about. Hola, dogs!

Wonder Woman #18

Lotsa stuff happening in this one. The extremely warlike Khund Empire comes to Earth just to throw all their military might at Wonder Woman for a few minutes before surrendering, proclaiming that it was all in tribute to her warrior power, and inviting her and Etta Candy to the Khund homeworld to take care of an invader that’s stomping their civilization to death.

Of course, what everyone’s talking about is the fact that Wondy has decided to, in her words, court Agent Tom Tresser, AKA Nemesis. So, I guess they’re dating, in some weird combo of Amazonian and American dating rituals. I have no idea what to think of this. On one hand, every other superhero in the DCU gets a romantic interest, so why not Wonder Woman? And the idea of Tresser being subjected to whatever warrior-ethos courting rituals the Amazons prefer sounds like it could lead to some nicely humorous comics. On the other hand… Tom Tresser? Really? That’s the best Wondy could come up with? Sure, Nemesis was a certified badass a decade or two ago, but the way he’s written now, he’s pretty much just a garden-variety dork. He might be considered decent boyfriend-fodder for some characters, but he just seems way too lightweight for Wonder Woman…

Verdict: Thumbs up. Gail Simone’s writing is just grand fun, particularly during the courtship sequence. And I also enjoyed the culture clash of the war-loving Khunds, who think calling Wondy “Destroyer” and “Avatar of Havoc” and building giant, ugly statues of her are great compliments. The characterization of the Khund advisor’s daughter, who combines complete enthusiasm for war with pseudo-hip MTV lingo, is also entirely diggable. My sole quibble is really the idea that Wonder Woman thinks an unrelenting dork like Tresser is court-worthy.

Is this not the weirdest political season you’ve seen in a while? It seems particularly unusual for us Texans — when was the last time that we actually had a say in helping to pick any of the nominees? Usually, the candidates have been narrowed to one-per-party long before the Texas primary hits. But this year, we’re still in play. Seems to make a lot of people much more interested in the presidential race than normal.

We’ve already had ol’ Bubba in town to talk up Hillary’s candidacy. Right now, Obama’s currently disappointing a lot of folks who were hoping he’d come to town, too. So right now, everyone’s thinking about matters political. And hey, I’m a shameless attention hound, so I figured I’d hunt down nice presidential-themed comic covers for your amusement.

 

Ya ever wondered who various superheroes would vote for? I figure Wonder Woman would be endorsing Hillary, right?

 

Captain America’s got a military background — I figure he’d pull the lever for McCain.

 

Green Arrow? While he hasn’t run for president, he did get elected as mayor of Star City not too long ago. I think he’d definitely be a Kucinich supporter, though I’m sure he complained that Kucinich was a bit too conservative for his tastes.

 

Hey, good ol’ Prez Rickard, the 18-year-old president from the old ’70s DC series. I’m betting Prez would write in whoever was running as the Green candidate. Crazy ’70s hippie weirdo presidents…

 

Yeah, the Savage Dragon was briefly the president. Who would he support in this election? Definitely the Greens. Get it? Get it? Oh, man, I’m hilarious.

 

No reason not to let the villains in on the act. In DC’s continuity, Lex Luthor actually got elected president of the U.S. back in 2000. He wasn’t considered too bad a president either, though he eventually got booted out of office after turning supervillain. As for who he’d vote for? I figure Lex would write himself in. Crazy megalomaniac ex-presidents…

 

I think I’m the only person in the world who liked the “Emperor Joker” storyline that ran in the Superman comics a few years ago. Sure, he’s not exactly presidential, but being an all-powerful emperor counts for something, I guess. I’m not sure the Joker would think any of the candidates were crazy enough for him. Maybe Alan Keyes. That dude’s craaaaaaazy. Maybe Huckabee, if he keeps talking up that garbage about making America a theocracy…

 

Whoa, looks like Superman’s endorsing Obama.

So who are your picks for the nation’s top job?

UPDATE: Can’t believe I forgot Howard the Duck!

I figure Howard would vote for Mallard Fillmore or Andrew Quackson…