We’re gonna make this short and sweet tonight, just so we can get straight into our old favorite: FRIDAY NIGHT FIGHTS!

Tonight’s fight comes from 1999’s JLA: Foreign Bodies by Len Kaminski, Val Semeiks, and Prentis Rollins. Our set-up: It’s Batman vs. Kobra!

But wait, that’s not who our players really are — the Justice League’s minds have gotten swapped around, so actually, that’s Kobra in Batman’s body, and it’s Superman in Kobra’s body. Confusing? Well, yeah, it is a bit mad.

I always enjoyed this story — I’m a sucker for a good mindswap tale. I reckon I’m lucky to have gotten my mitts on this one — I doubt it’ll ever get reprinted…

Crossed #9

It’s the final issue of this epic pseudo-zombie series by Garth Ennis and Jacen Burrows. Stan and Cindy bury Cindy’s son, Patrick, while Kitrick, Thomas, and Kelly find themselves being stalked by the gang of Crossed who have been after them for the last few hundred miles. And I’m gonna stop describing the story right there — if you’ve been reading and enjoying this series the way I have, I reckon you deserve to find out the final twists and turns on your own. For some of the characters, it’s not a happy ending, and for others, it’s at least not a sad ending.

Verdict: Thumbs up. A great ending to one of the more enjoyable and brutal horror series I’ve read in a while. As I’ve said repeatedly, this isn’t a story for kids — it’s an extremely violent, terrifying comic, designed for grownups who can handle blood, guts, cussin’, and really awful, unromanticized violence. If you’ve been reading “Crossed,” you sure won’t want to miss this last issue. If you haven’t been reading it, and you want to give it a shot, keep your eyes open for the collected edition whenever they put it out.

Jonah Hex #53

Jonah Hex, the meanest, rottenest bounty hunter in the Wild West, hires a dance hall girl — and not for the usual purposes. He’s after the train-robbing Hager brothers and needs her to help him sneak aboard a train in preparation for ambushing the gang. Things go fairly smooth, other than having to kill most of the gang members — until the inevitable double-cross.

Verdict: Thumbs up. Short, simple, clever, and brutal, just like the best Jonah Hex stories.

Chew #9

Tony Chu is a secret agent for the FDA with the unusual ability to retrieve pscyhic impressions from anything he eats. He’s traveled to the small island nation of Yamapalu on the trail of a mysterious fruit that tastes just like chicken, but he’s stumbled onto something much bigger, with corrupt cops, corrupt governors, secret conspiracies, and multiple murders. The culprit? Well, Tony takes a few bites out of the corpses in the morgue and finds out that it’s… a vampire? Wait, surely there can’t be vampires in a perfectly logical world of psychic cannibal FDA agents, chicken fruits, cyborg cops, and other normal stuff like that, right? Well, the vampire is planning to attack the governor’s compound. No problem for Tony, right? Nope, his brother, a famous but disgraced chef, is there. The girl he loves, an impossibly talented food writer, is there. And there’s another chef, a guy who communicates entirely through cooking, is there, too. Can Tony save them all in time?

Verdict: Thumbs up. I’m really enjoying this, ’cause we’ve got all these wonderful oddball characters, all thrown into the mix together. It’s a lot like a stew — a really weird cannibal-cyborg-vampire-tropical-cop-foodie stew. Aaaaand I think I’ve hopelessly killed the metaphor, so let’s move along.

Wonder Woman #41

A bunch of evil mind-controlling schoolboys have turned Power Girl against Wonder Woman. There’s quite a bit of slugfesting that goes on before Wondy is finally able to break PeeGee free of the spell, and then they’ve got a couple problems to worry about — Power Girl has to try to be diplomatic and convince a whole lot of people not to riot and kill each other, and Wondy has to track down the evil schoolkids, resist their spells, and dish out a proper punishment. And is anyone going to be able to save Etta Candy and Steve Trevor from killing themselves?

Verdict: Thumbs up. A pretty good slugfest combined with good characterization for both Wondy and Power Girl. We also get a nice moment with Achilles at the beginning and a neat callback for anyone who remembers their history of the Trojan War…

Madame Xanadu #20

Our flashback to Britain’s earliest history continues, through the eyes of Nimue, the future Madame Xanadu. The Romans have invaded, and Morgana is amusing herself by meddling in human affairs, in more ways than one. Nimue generally disapproves of everything she does, because that’s what she seems to do best. The sisters meet up with a young Merlin, who’s better at fortunetelling than Nimue is, and Morgana tries to destroy Camelot before it’s even begun.

Verdict: Thumbs down. Really just wildly not thrilled with this particular story — it sure makes Nimue sound like the original Miss Disapproval. She’s always sticking her nose in Morgana’s business and whining about whatever she’s doing. And I’m getting a bit frustrated that we’ve got a whole huge storyarc stuffed inside another storyarc. Can we please finish up one storyarc at a time?

Billy Batson and the Magic of Shazam! #13

Billy and Mary Batson are visiting the museum for a school field trip — complicated by the fact that Captain Marvel is supposed to make an appearance, so Billy has to somehow get away from his teacher and classmates so he can make the switch. Complicating things even more: Theo Adam, the amnesiac alter-ego of Black Adam, is in attendance, and he is suspicious of why Billy and Mary seem strangely familiar to him. And complicating things even more than that: a kid named Freddy Freeman who’s stuck in a wheelchair because Captain Marvel wasn’t able to keep his apartment building from collapsing, so he hates the Marvels. What’s it all lead to? Even more complications.

Verdict: Thumbs up. Mike Norton is the new artist on this one, and his style is really wonderful. As for the story, it’s great fun. We get the introduction of Freddy Freeman, we get a nice new storyline featuring crazy Theo Adam, we get Captain Marvel checking to see if his fly is open, we get Mary getting stuck inside a giant hourglass. It’s crazy and chaotic and an excellent read.

Blackest Night: JSA #3

The bad news for everyone is that the Earth-2 Superman’s zombie is up and running again. The good news is… well, there’s not a lot of good news. Mr. Terrific has a plan to beat the Black Lantern, but it’ll require most of the Justice Society to charge into a hopeless battle against an undead demigod. Is everyone doomed or what?

Verdict: Ehh, thumbs down. I don’t mind a big slugfest sometimes, but this one just wasn’t entertaining enough to hold my interest.

Justice Society of America #36

We’ve got a tale told in flashback from 20 years in the future — Mr. Terrific is in prison and due to be executed soon, so the new Nazi masters of the world want him to record some of his history for their records. He remembers Liberty Belle getting taken down by a Nazi speedster, Green Lantern getting killed by a bomb in a wooden crate (the Golden Age Green Lantern has a vulnerability to anything made of wood, which is the type of thing that turns a bunch of high-velocity splinters into lethal shrapnel), and the rest of the team has to deal with a large team of evil Nazi supervillains.

Verdict: Thumbs up, at least for now. It’s been a while since the JSA had a good time-travel story to deal with, and frankly, it’s always fun to see superheroes stomp Nazis into puddles. Something about the story, however, is bugging me. I can’t really say for sure what the problem is, but it’s making me a bit nervous about how the rest of the story is going to play out.

It’s been a while since I unloaded some of my stored-up links, ain’t it? Spend some time clicking on these while you try to recover from your weekend…

• Monday morning seems like a good time to review a list of the worst bosses ever. See? Even your boss can’t be that bad…
• Via A-J entertainment editor William Kerns: Lubbock fiddler Amanda Shires of the Thrift Store Cowboys recently scored a guest appearance in a “Hi & Lois” comic strip.
• A tale of an auto-appendectomy by the toughest Russian surgeon in the Antarctic.
• Things the media loves to pretend are news.
• Gorgeous office buildings
• Unused Plastic Man cartoon pilot.
• Really interesting example of D&D being played on a tabletop device called the Surface.
• Speaking of roleplaying games, did you know it’s Read an RPG in Public Week?
• No more whining about bloggers, please. Our awesomeness cannot be contained. (For additional lolz, here’s a Newsweek article from 1995 declaring that this upstart Intarwebz thing will never catch on.)

Merry clicking, and here’s hoping you survive your Monday…

Wow, has this seemed like a rougher-than-average week. I’ve been feeling like I needed the weekend to start sometime around Tuesday, so this absolutely feels like it’s long overdue. So let’s get right to it — time to get our weekend started right — with FRIDAY NIGHT FIGHTS!

Tonight’s battle comes from the second volume of 2005’s DC: The New Frontier by the astonishingly awesome Darwyn Cooke with Dave Stewart. Superman heads out to confront the island-sized monstrosity called the Centre and finds an unwelcoming committee just waiting for him to drop his guard…

I’ve recommended this comic to y’all before — and if you don’t have it, you really, really should go get it. It’s fantastically beautiful all the way through.

Hope y’all have a great weekend, and I’ll see y’all Monday…

Green Arrow #30

Okay, I got this for the “Blackest Night” crossover and for that cool inversion of the famous “Green Lantern/Green Arrow” cover from the ’70s. Green Arrow has been taken over by a Black Lantern ring because he once died and was brought back to life. While his zombie-side tries and fails to kill Hal Jordan, Black Canary, Connor Hawke, and Mia Dearden, the real Oliver Queen ends up watching it all from the inside, mostly helplessly.

Verdict: Thumbs down. At least Ollie wasn’t as uselessly dull as Wonder Woman when she got take over by the black ring in the “Blackest Night: Wonder Woman” miniseries, but it’s still not a very interesting story. I dig the artwork by the awesomely-named Diogenes Neves, though…

Batman and Robin #9

And speaking of zombies, this issue had several resurrected dead people, and it isn’t even part of the “Blackest Night” stuff at all.

We start out with Batwoman, who is, um, dead. She was injured terribly in the cave-in from last issue, but ultimately, it was a suicide, assisted by Dick Grayson. The plan: Batman, the Knight, and the Squire will dig out the buried Lazarus Pit again, and then dunk Batwoman back in it. Meanwhile, the resurrected clone of Bruce Wayne has traveled to Gotham City, where he’s trying to kill Alfred Pennyworth and Damian Wayne, still recovering from spinal replacement surgery. The Batman clone is starting to rot from within pretty quickly, but he’s still got plenty of time to commit low-IQ mayhem. Back in England, Batwoman is successfully revived, but will she and Batman be able to make it back to America in time to save Damian from being thrown off the top of Wayne Tower?

Verdict: Thumbs up. Nicely claustrophobic action — can Damian even survive fighting a zombie clone Batman when he’s wearing a neck brace? Great personality work, too. Batwoman’s father has his first meeting with Batman and looks entirely delighted, and it’s great fun read dialogue between the Knight and the Squire. And there are a couple hilarious keeping-the-secret-identity-secret moments — Damian’s mock-innocent “Who ARE all these terrible people?” and the not-heterosexual Batwoman just flat-out flirting with Dick Grayson, partly for the sake of her secret ID, and partly because Dick is, frankly, such an over-confident dork.

Blackest Night #7

Nekron is putting his final gambits into place, and the various representatives of the Lantern Corps are not working together well. Specifically, Lex Luthor, weilding an Orange Lantern ring, has decided that his greed entitles him to all the other power rings. He manages to take Scarecrow’s yellow ring and tries to take Mera’s red one, but before he can do that, the full populations of all seven Lantern Corps finally arrive at Earth. But Nekron reveals his ace-in-the-hole when he kills one of the Guardians. That enables him to summon from inside the Earth a glowing white entity called simply “The Entity” — the embodiment of all life in the universe. And if Nekron call kill the Entity, guess what happens to everyone else?

Verdict: Thumbs up. More chaos, more hitting. Scarecrow and Luthor get some brief moments to shine, but at this point, it’s nearly all boiled down to just the Green Lanterns and the other Emotional Colors of the Universe. That’s not a bad thing, because the story is still rocking, and it’s still managing to get a few good shock moments out there, including a completely unexpected cliffhanger.

The Incredible Hercules #141

I really hate to say it, but it appears this is the final issue of this wonderful series. As it starts, Typhon has succeeded in almost all of his objectives. He’s killed Hera, he kills Zeus, and he’s about to use the power of Continuum to strip the universe clean of all life. Athena manages to return from the dead and re-curses Delphyne Gorgon with her snake-headed appearance. Hercules goes off to confront Typhon after telling Amadeus Cho to quit worrying about him all the time. There’s a terrific battle, and Herc almost has the ancient Titan on the ropes, but Typon wears a magic chestplate that drives all attacks on it back on the attacker — and that’s enough to almost take Hercules out of the fight. Does Hercules have a chance of defeating Typhon? Can he stop Continuum from destroying the universe? Or is there one more betrayal on the way?

Verdict: Thumbs up. And thumbs down, too. On one hand, it’s a great story, and a better ending than I was expecting from this storyarc. But on the other, I’m so tired of seeing great comic series like this get cancelled. This one has had a great run, and has profited from a lot of wildly unexpected success — but it should’ve lasted a heck of a lot longer.

Everyone pay attention — these were the two comics that gave me the most joy last week.

Batman: The Brave and the Bold #14

After a short intro where Batman and Plastic Man defeat the Scarecrow with the power of terror and good acting, we get to our main story — the Huntress calls Batman to help her corral a lunatic crook named Mr. Camera. His gimmick: he has a camera on his head. Batman thinks Huntress wants him around because it’s Valentine’s Day and she’s got the hots for him. She eventually heads home while he tracks Mr. Camera to his hideout — and discovers that Huntress is in more danger than he suspected!

Verdict: Thumbs up. Very nice story, but I must admit, it was the little details in here that really made it fun for me, particularly the revelation that Bruce Wayne participated in theater in high school and college, and the amusingly long list of all the things his “theme villains” have been obsessed with. I really wish we could see a story featuring the wheatcakey villainy of the Griddler…

Power Girl #9

After chasing down the person she thinks is trying to blackmail her (not only is it apparently not him, but she also ends up dropping her bathtowel in front of one of her neighbors), Power Girl heads to work and the bank. Unfortunately, Satanna, the Ultra-Humanite’s ex-girlfriend, is attacking PeeGee’s bank with her highly-destructive genetically-engineered animal army. The animals aren’t too much trouble, but Satanna shows up with a couple of specialized weapons — an oversized sonic hammer that’s actually able to knock the stuffing out of Karen, and a nasty chunk of nanotech that can do a heck of a lot worse…

Verdict: Thumbs up. Things get pretty serious towards the end, but still, this is the best mainstream-superhero humor comic that DC is producing. And again, the fun is in the little details, whether that includes the usual shenanigans of Power Girl’s horrible, horrible cat, Dr. Mid-Nite’s pet owl watching a TV show about mice, PeeGee throwing a subway pervert off the train, or all the outstanding facial expressions and body language. As always, the writing by Justin Gray and Jimmy Palmiotti is great, and Amanda Conner’s artwork is amazingly fun and appealing and charismatic.