Awright, dudes and dudettes, I’m needing a break pretty bad — and not just from the blog.

So starting today, I’m going to try to spend the next week or so away from comics and mostly away from the computer. Limited net-surfing, minimal e-mail, zero gaming. I’m giving myself permission to do all the typing I want to, but other than that, I want to recharge my batteries, ponder on some future plans, and shake up my attitudes.

Hopefully, I can spend a week reading books and looking at the world. That sounds like fun, doesn’t it?

See y’all when I see y’all.

American Vampire: Survival of the Fittest #1

A new miniseries starring our new favorite non-sparkly vampires, still written by Scott Snyder, but with Sean Murphy, last seen illustrating Grant Morrison’s “Joe the Barbarian,” taking on the art chores.

Our lead character in this series is Felicia Book, half-vampire daughter of Wild West lawman Jim Book. It’s 1941, and Felicia works as a vampire slayer for the Vassals of the Morning Star. After proving to a newspaper publisher that his papers are infested with vampires, she returns to the Vassals’ headquarters in the American Museum of Natural History — where she has a reputation as the organization’s leading badass — and prepares to take a sabbatical. She learns that former Las Vegas police chief Cash McCogan is with the Vassals now, and he may have a lead on a cure for vampirism — hidden inside Nazi Germany.

Verdict: Thumbs up. The writing quality is just as high as the regular “American Vampire” series, and Sean Murphy’s art is just seriously awesome.

The Unwritten #26

Tom Taylor has been captured by his enemies, and he’s being put up for auction for a bunch of rich bastiches so they can dissect him and find out his secrets. One of the members of the Cabal is on hand, planning to wipe everyone out and take Taylor for himself, but Mrs. Rausch, the elderly puppeteer, puts a spell on him to keep him silent. Tom’s friends, Lizzie Hexam and Richard Savoy, are drugged in another room — but Savoy became a vampire not that long ago, and it’s not easy to drug the undead. Everyone makes their escape — but what secrets is Tom going to learn from his father’s diaries?

Verdict: Thumbs up. All in all, a good story. Very nice intrigue and action, and wonderful dialogue.

Morning Glories #10

This one is all over the place. Jade is the angstiest and most pitiable of the kids at Morning Glory Academy, and a lot of this story is set in her dreams. And the parts of it that aren’t set in her dreams may also be set in her dreams. And the ending is either set in her dreams or is set in her post-suicide hallucination.

Verdict: Thumbs down. Because I don’t like being this confused.

Today’s Cool Links:

• I’ve talked about how much I loved the “Supergirl: Cosmic Adventures in the 8th Grade” miniseries, but it turns out Landry Q. Walker and Eric Jones had some really awesome plans for where future comics in the series would go.
• Here’s a great article by Marc Bernardin about Green Lantern and how race could affect viewers of the upcoming movie.
• Adorable baby meets hungry lion.

Empowered: Ten Questions for the Maidman

Adam Warren’s plucky, bondage-prone superheroine returns for another one-shot special, this time spotlighting the Maidman, an unpowered guy who dresses up like a stereotypical French maid but still has the bad guys terrified because he’s such an unrelenting badass. In other words, he’s Batman in a miniskirt and apron. The entire story is written by Adam Warren and part of the art is by him, but a lot of the art — specifically, anything in color — is by Emily Warren (no relation to Adam).

While Emp bluffs multiple bad guys by pretending “Hey, Maidman’s right behind you” and then using their panic to take them down solo, the Maidman himself is being interviewed by a superhero celebrity interviewer named Blitzcraig. Can Emp’s diversionary tactics continue to be successful? And what is the Maidman’s secret motive for agreeing to the silly celebrity interview?

Verdict: Thumbs up. Everything about this series is fun and awesome. I don’t know anything else I can say about it but that.

Love and Capes: Ever After #5

Most of this issue is taken up by the sudden unexpected (and offscreen) death of Windstar, a superhero who has only been seen a few times over the course of the entire series. Still, he’s been a member of the superhero community for a long time, so his death sends shockwaves around the circle of friends including the Crusader, his wife Abby, Darkblade, and Amazonia. Mark, Darkblade, and Doc Karma do a thorough investigation of Windstar’s body to find out if he’s going to come back from the dead, Abby and Mark attend the funeral for Windstar’s civilian identity, and they all visit the Liberty League Satellite for a memorial ceremony.

Verdict: Thumbs up. For a comedy book, this is all surprisingly moving. We get plenty of flashbacks to previous interactions between Mark and Windstar, and we spend a significant amount of time focusing on Windstar’s grief-stricken father and his similarly-powered niece. It’s a really nice, emotional story, and it serves as a very nice capper on this miniseries.

Today’s Cool Links:

• Ta-Nehisi Coates points out some important points that the new X-Men movie skipped over.
• Can you believe that the suits at NBC were completely opposed to the brilliant D&D episode on “Community”? Some people never stop being afraid of the nerds.
• Neil Gaiman’s novel “American Gods” may get turned into a series on HBO.

Let’s get right to it — time again for FRIDAY NIGHT FIGHTS!

Not necessarily Ben Grimm’s finest moment — from August 1977’s Fantastic Four #185 by Len Wein, George Perez, and Joe Sinnott. The FF go up against a bunch of spellcasters, and they force the Thing to beat himself up.

Ya know, my week has felt a lot like that, too.

Yeah, the DC Reboot is still going on. And it’s still looking like a disaster.

Standard disclaimers: I can’t see the future, and it might turn out fine. Always beware geeks pronouncing DOOOOOOM. And I have no idea what DC’s secret plans may be.

Having said that, I still say it’s looking like a disaster.

Let’s be optimistic and start with stuff that looks good. Because there are a number of comics on the list that sound good and that I’ll probably pick up.

Yeah, I’ll pick up “Batgirl.” I complained about moving Barbara Gordon out of her role as Oracle, but it’s written by Gail Simone, who is one of DC’s best writers, and who has made it clear that she cares about Barbara as a character and is aware of and sensitive to all the issues involved in de-handicapping a prominent handicapped character. I trust that Gail is awesome enough to make this a great comic.

I’ll read the new “Wonder Woman” title, entirely on the strengths of Brian Azzarello as writer and Cliff Chiang as illustrator. I loved what they did in “Dr. 13: Architecture and Mortality,” and I think they’ll do excellent work again.

I’m overjoyed that there’s going to be a new “Blue Beetle” series, starring Jaime Reyes, with what looks like his original costume intact. And it’ll be set back in El Paso. It’s going to be written by Tony Bedard and illustrated by Ig Guara.

I’ll pick up “All-Star Western,” written by Jimmy Palmiotti and Justin Gray. It’s basically gonna be Jonah Hex with some Western guest stars, and that sounds pretty good, especially in the hands of Palmiotti and Gray.

I’ll read “Static Shock,” because I loves me some Milestone characters and because it’s written by John Rozum and Scott McDaniel, and because the art by McDaniel and Jonathan Glapion looks excellent.

I don’t want to fill this up completely with images of covers, but I’ll also read the new Batwoman ongoing, several of the Batman series, Swamp Thing, and maybe Justice League International. I might pick up some of the supernatural-themed comics, but I haven’t decided if they just look too freaky for me or not.

Of course, some of these comics just look awful. And now we shall look at them.

Well, hi there, new version of Superman. Yes, they got rid of the underwear-on-the-outside — and the costume still sucks. Why does Superman need armor? I do not know. But just seeing it makes me not care. I’m really unsure that even Grant Morrison can make that guy interesting.

Well, hi there, new version of Superboy. Apparently, you’re a robot now. I will not be reading you.

Here’s another image of the new versions of the Teen Titans. See, it’s just as bad as you feared. This Superboy has a completely different costume than the one above, and he doesn’t have a logo on his costume at all. There are also three characters who no one can identify. This is going to bite the wax tadpole.

There’s the new Suicide Squad. Harley Quinn is the one in front. Paul Dini should punch someone very, very hard. Oh, and King Shark is now a hammerhead. Apparently hammerhead sharks are cooler than great whites. DC doesn’t know anything about cool, do they?

They’re putting out a new “I, Vampire” comic. You should refer to it as “I, Twilight,” and you should not read it at all.

Besides that, we’ve got comics starring new, high-tech, hyper-violent versions of Blackhawk — I’m sure the kiddies will love reading about these characters who haven’t been interesting in decades. We have a comic starring the grandson of Sgt. Rock — instead of, say, reading comics about the original Sgt. Rock, who was legitimately awesome. We’ve got high-profile comics for characters who haven’t been popular in ages, like Hawkman, Captain Atom, Deathstroke, Jason Todd, and Aquaman. Wildstorm characters like Grifter and Voodoo are getting books, as well as Stormwatch, which will, oddly, co-star the Martian Manhunter. And we have the absolutely insane fact that DC is going to let Rob FRICKIN’ Liefeld draw a comic book for them.

It’s looking a lot like DC’s plan for becoming more successful involves trying to make their comics look like 1990s-era Image Comics. Good luck with that, guys. Not even Image looks like ’90s-era Image anymore.

Let’s also consider that the new DC, supposedly a much more diverse universe, has only one female creator — the aforementioned and impossibly awesome Gail Simone. (CORRECTION: notintheface at Stars and Garters points out that Amy Reeder Hadley will be handling art on the new “Batwoman” series.)

Let’s also consider all the series that we, for some reason, will not be seeing. No Justice Society. No Power Girl. No Secret Six. No Stephanie Brown or Cassandra Cain. No Captain Marvel. That’s a lot of stuff I really, really liked getting tossed on the junkpile. “Secret Six” was one of the best comics being published, the Justice Society books were bestsellers for years (not recently, granted, but still…), and Bryan Q. Miller’s “Batgirl” was an amazingly fun comic. And I’m really a bit astounded that “Power Girl” is getting cancelled. I mean, Jason Todd, Voodoo, and Hawk and Dove get comics, but Power Girl isn’t popular enough? Is it possible that DC Comics is actually just pranking us?

And with this many of my favorite comics getting the axe, do I need to start worrying about whether or not “Tiny Titans” is going to make it?

Ultimately, what irritates me the most about the Reboot is the staggering marketing failure of the entire enterprise. Yes, DC is getting a lot of publicity, but they’re also doing serious damage to their brands. I assume Time-Warner knows what Dan DiDio, Geoff Johns, and Jim Lee are up to — and that means either they’re mad enough to think this is all okay, or they think DC is such small potatoes that they just don’t care.

Okay, here’s how I would’ve handled a reboot at DC.

First: I would keep in mind that I was rebooting DC Comics, not re-creating ’90s Image. That’s going to be a serious problem going forward for DC.

Second: costumes. Limit the major costume redesigns to minor characters. You can redesign costumes for Booster Gold, Martian Manhunter, Zatanna, and Captain Atom all you want. But you don’t give Superman armor. You don’t give Wonder Woman long pants.

You have to remember that most merchandising of your characters is going to include the classic costumes. You don’t have to make ’em look exactly like they did in the ’70s, but you’ve got to try to keep most of those classic looks intact, partly to keep the marketing folks from killing you, and partly to make sure that new comics readers actually recognize the characters in your comics as the same ones on their Hot Topic shirts.

Ya know what else? Don’t have a single artist redesign your costumes. Jim Lee is a good artist, but when you have him redesign everyone, you end up with a lot of superheroes with pop-up collars, and that looks silly.

Third: Remember that your goal is to sell more comics. Not to get written up in USA Today. Your goal is to sell more comics. So yes, do what you can to bring in new readers. But don’t alienate your current readers. You have to remember that you need them, too. Will they still yell and complain about every single change you make? Yes, they will. But make sure your changes can be defended as something other than publicity stunting — and don’t make them all hate what you’re doing.

And finally and most importantly: Remember that your reboot is absolutely guaranteed to fail. None of them have ever managed to permanently change the status quo. “Crisis on Infinite Earths” was undone. Same with “Zero Hour,” same with “Infinite Crisis,” same with all of them. The DC Reboot is going to be undone, because, well, how could it NOT be?

You have to design your reboot so that, when it’s eventually reversed and the old ways are brought back, the un-reboot doesn’t end up making you look too embarrassing and clumsy. Do it for the sake of your comics, do it for the sake of your readers. Do it for the sake of your own dignity and future job prospects, comic creators.

Thus endeth the lesson. Let they what has eyes to see and ears to hear and noses to smell absorb the teachings and go forward into the glorious future.

EDIT: Some corrections above — and I wanted to point out this list of all the Reboot titles — which includes not only the many characters and titles that are being abandoned, but also the very, very many creators who are getting left out in the cold.

Holy bananas, I can’t believe I’m going back into this stuff.

DC’s Reboot is looking more and more like a company-killing disaster. They’re alienating readers, throwing scares into retailers, and running off good creators like Chris Roberson.

A lot of the new titles they’ve announced have not really made me excited — they might be good, they might be bad, but they’re uninspired enough to make me not care whether they exist or not.

Of course, some look pretty good, and I reckon I’ll be reading Wonder Woman, several of the Batman titles, Swamp Thing, and the new Static series.

But too many of the titles announced recently look shockingly bad.

First, there’s this one, from Monday’s announcements:

That one’s called “Red Hood and the Outlaws,” starring psycho former Robin Jason Todd, Arsenal (now with both of his arms again), and Starfire. It’s written by Scott Lobdell and illustrated by Kenneth Rocafort.

Okay, first, you’re rebooting your whole universe, you’ve given Roy Harper both his arms again, indicating that you’ve removed James Robinson’s horrible “Cry for Justice” from continuity, and you can’t bring yourself to erase Jason Todd from existence? I mean, no one likes Jason Todd. He’s the character who no one can believe was resurrected instead of Ralph Dibny or Ted Kord. He’s done nothing since coming back to make anyone think he’s a worthwhile character. Why not reboot him back to the character graveyard?

Second, superheroes should not wear baseball caps. I’m sorry — it just looks stupid.

Third, wait, why is Starfire an anti-hero? Oh, I guess they needed boobs in the series. Siiiiigh.

Fourth, Lobdell? Are you sure? I actually re-read some of his old X-Men books the other night, and they weren’t that good. Has he improved in the last decade?

Then came the Wednesday announcements, including this one:

A new “Teen Titans” series, featuring Superboy, Red Robin, Kid Flash, Wonder Girl, and a couple of new characters. Written by Lobdell again and illustrated by Brett Booth and Norm Rapmund.

Problems: Where the heck do we start? With Red Robin’s feathered cape? With Tim Drake’s new background where he was apparently never Robin? With yet another completely random costume for Wonder Girl? With the ridiculous Kid Flash costume?

Do we really want to ask why Superboy has his logo Scotch-taped to his back?

Another book by Lobdell. Frankly, not a good sign.

And then there’s this.

“Hawk and Dove.” Written by Sterling Gates. Illustrated by Rob Liefeld.

Yes, Rob Liefeld.

ROB FRICKIN’ LIEFELD.

Dan DiDio, Geoff Johns, Jim Lee — I will need your resignations on my desk this afternoon.

iZombie #14

Gwen finds herself in an even stranger situation than normal — the most recent brain she’s eaten was from a skeeball nut who wants her team to win the league championship. Yes, apparently, there is a such thing as competitive skeeball. So Gwen is posing as a skeeball whiz from out of town who’s doing the team a favor for her “late friend” — and she suddenly discovers Amon the mummy hanging out watching everyone play. Turns out he really is a genuine over-the-moon near-demented skeeball fanatic. Horatio is having to deal with an unusually large number of zombies than Eugene, Oregon normally has to deal with. And where are Ellie the ghost and Spot the were-terrier? Well, Spot’s stuck underground where he’s been fighting off zombies for quite a while, and Ellie is trying to figure out how to get him free. Meanwhile, with the more-secret-than-normal covert ops group called the Dead Presidents, the team is planning their next moves against a mysterious zombie master — and they may be heading for Eugene soon.

Verdict: Thumbs up. The extremely rational and sophisticated Amon’s obsession with skeeball comes completely out of nowhere and is absolutely hilarious. Plus we’ve got tons and tons of intrigue and more fun stuff with the Dead Presidents.

How to improve this series: Definitely keep writer Chris Roberson on board this series. He’s announced he’ll stay on this comic as long as he can, even though DC just kicked him off the Superman comics after he saved them from J. Michael Stracyzski’s mishandling. Roberson is an incredible writer, and Vertigo needs to make sure they stay on his good side.

Hellboy: The Fury #1

Lots of backstory needed for this one: the sorceress Nimue has crowned herself the Goddess of War and plans to lead an army of monsters to destroy humanity. Hellboy has learned he’s descended on his mother’s side from King Arthur himself, making him the rightful king of England, but he’s decided he doesn’t want to lead the army of England’s noble dead, and he’s set out to battle Nimue’s forces alone — and he’s booked passage to Nimue’s castle through the Russian witch Baba Yaga, in exchange for one of his eyes.

As Hellboy gets to the castle, Nimue is having some serious trouble with unwelcome transformations and a growing realization that she’s merely a pawn of the Ogdru Jahad, who will destroy everything on Earth, including her. Alice Monaghan hands Excalibur over to an impossibly old man, who turns out to be Arthur himself, and Hellboy battles his way through Nimue’s army — and through Nimue, who turns out to be Hecate. Having come so far, is there anything Hellboy can do to stop mankind’s destruction?

Verdict: Thumbs up. So awesome to see Mike Mignola and Duncan Fegredo doing work this amazingly beautiful.

How to improve this series: Right now, there’s nothing that can be done to improve this. It’s pretty near perfect.

B.P.R.D.: The Dead Remembered #3

Young pyrokinetic Liz Sherman has traveled to a small town with Professor Bruttenholm of the B.P.R.D. to try to stop a haunting. But while the professor and the local priest try to exorcise the house, Liz and a local boy she’s befriended have realized that the house isn’t haunted — it’s the woods around the house. And their attempts to dispel the spirit aren’t turning out well — though Liz assumes the ghost was an innocent woman executed as a witch, it turns out she really was a witch, and not a very nice one. She’s using Liz’s powers to make herself stronger. How will they be able to get rid of the ghost before she kills someone?

Verdict: Thumbs up — but the ending was a lot weaker than I expected. Up ’til then, there was great mood, outstanding art, colossally awesome escalation of the action, especially jumping back and forth between the present and the past. The ending was weak, but it was still fun to read.

How to improve this series: Well, like I said, a stronger ending, with more stuff for Liz to do, would’ve been good. And the art by Karl Moline and Andy Owens was just grand, so I’d like to see more from them somewhere down the line.

The latest news on the DC Reboot is that the new Batgirl is going to be — not Stephanie Brown, not Cassandra Cain — but Barbara Gordon, the first Batgirl, who has spent the past 20+ years as the wheelchair-bound super-hacker Oracle.

I can’t say I’m happy with this. I liked Barbara Gordon more as Oracle than I ever did as Batgirl. I thought she was a stronger character as Oracle. Barbara Gordon as Batgirl was just another Bat-character, as stuck in the Silver Age as Barry Allen ever was. Barbara Gordon as Oracle was a paralyzed former acrobat who overcame adversity to become a greater crimefighter than she ever had before. Could she have done that as Batgirl? I don’t think so — without her handicap, she never would’ve been written as anything but a former sidekick.

In fact, this feels to me like we’re actually losing a lot of what made Barbara Gordon important as a character. Can you see Babs-as-Batgirl serving as the Justice League’s secret information broker? Can you see Babs-as-Batgirl founding and leading the Birds of Prey? I can’t. It doesn’t make any sense.

By the same token, can you imagine Babs-as-Oracle swinging through Gotham’s night sky? Well, no, but can you imagine her kicking ass against non-paralyzed opponents? We didn’t have to imagine it — it happened pretty often in “Birds of Prey.” She even made a decent stand against Prometheus, the anti-Batman, in an issue of Grant Morrison’s “JLA.”

Bringing Babs-as-Batgirl back means we’re losing Babs-as-Oracle forever. But we’re also going to lose any possibility of Cassandra Cain as Batgirl or Stephanie Brown as Batgirl. Heck, Babs-as-Batgirl essentially holds the exact same niche as Steph-as-Batgirl — chipper, upbeat, fun crimefighter. Heck, I wouldn’t be surprised if Steph Brown gets killed off again six months to a year after the reboot, just to make sure people stop comparing the two characters. And we won’t see Barbara returning to her role as Oracle — that would probably require re-paralyzing her, and I doubt even DC is cruel enough to do that a second time.

There was this picture that showed up earlier today on the DeviantArt website by Jamie Noguchi — it was linked in an article on ComicsAlliance. It’s generally been portrayed as a happy picture, showing Babs in her moment of triumph, finally escaping the wheelchair to return as Batgirl. Here ’tis:

It doesn’t look happy to me. I keep focusing on the wheelchair and on the invisible character — the adult woman, serious-minded, smart as a whip, capable of running the Birds of Prey, organizing the JLA, keeping every superhero on the planet connected to each other, still able to whup the tar out of bad guys — who is now going to fade away and be forgotten in favor of the jaunty, optimistic, acrobatic schoolgirl. It doesn’t look like a triumph to me. It looks like the final tragedy in Oracle’s life.

More thoughts on this subject from Andy Khouri and especially Jill Pantozzi, who brings an important perspective to all this.

From time to time, we like to take a break from comic book stuff to examine things that truly make life worth living — things that fill the heart with joy — things that are awesome. And today, we’re gonna talk about chainsaws.

What makes chainsaws so awesome? Well, you can cut down trees with them. Yep, that’s really all you need ’em for. Cutting down trees.

Oh, okay, you can also use them for cutting down people.

Of course, you should avoid doing that in the real world, as it rarely leads to lucrative film contracts — and if you try it, I refuse to accept the slightest blame for it, you lunatic. Who is this person anyway? Jeeves, have this mad chainsaw goon thrown out right away.

Of course, you’re still on the up-and-up if you’re going to use a chainsaw to cut up zombies and monsters. Because that’s completely awesome.

For more examples of why chainsaws are really, really, really cool, you can read this whole page of awesome chainsaw stuff.

I’ve had a bad case of Severe Brain-Fried Syndrome all week long, so no cute intro tonight, just… FRIDAY NIGHT FIGHTS!

Tonight’s battle comes from September 2000’s Fantastic Four #33, by John Moore and Salvadore Larroca. It can be summed up pretty simply as: Ben Grimm vs. a DINOSAUR!

See y’all next week, provided I get some relaxation time this weekend…