I’ve been anxiously awaiting Will Terrell’s “SuperZeroes” webcomic since before the last Comic Book Expo in May. Back then, it was going to be a regular comic book, and Will put out a preview during the Expo. I liked what I saw then and have been eagerly waiting for its grand debut since I read the preview.
 
Looks like the wait is over.
 
There’s not a lot of backstory you’ll have to learn yet, but it looks like our main characters are a bunch of Texas high school outcasts — lanky class clown Johnny Hopkins, rotund moper Bob Krumple, sarcastic goth-girl Rosina “Muertina” Mantano, and spacey California surfergirl Elysium M. Fields. Oh, and Potato, a very lazy bulldog.
 
Will describes the set-up this way: 

“A romantic-superpowers-adventure-comedy about growing up strange in an average world.  It’s a story in the style of ‘Amelie’ meets ‘The Breakfast Club’ with a quirky imagination and a predilection for spinning stereotype on its ear.”

Four lovable high school losers are drawn together as they discover they each possess strange powers that allow them to take slacking to SUPER ZERO proportions.  With incredible, limitless powers, teenage angst and no common sense, there is no end to the adventures in store.

Go check it out, and get it added to your own bookmarks.

The Incredible Hercules #134

Hercules is disguised as Thor in a bid to stop the Dark Elves before they attack the mortal realm. He’s babysitting his amnesiac father, Zeus, inconveniently de-aged to childhood, but still possessing many of his godly powers. After briefly battling a bunch of marauding trolls, they then run from them, then ally with them, then turn on them again.

And when they get to the castle of Queen Alfyse of the Dark Elves, instead of battling, Hercules, as usual, lets himself be fooled by a beautiful woman. He mostly fails the Drow’s tests… but Alfyse is willing to let herself be fooled, too. So a lengthy night of revelry begins, and Herc learns about obscure elvish customs that decree that if he sleeps with the queen, they’re married — and the Dark Elves celebrate the wedding by preparing to invade the mortal realms. Luckily, Asgard’s Warriors Three have a plan to stave off disaster…

Verdict: Thumbs up. Even if I hadn’t loved every page of this comic, from Zeus’ exasperation with his demigod son to Herc’s semi-clueless references to Midgard pop culture, this would’ve been worth six or eight thumbs-ups just for the plot twist on the last page, which actually had me laughing out loud because it was so wonderful.

The Brave and the Bold #27

Robby Reed, owner of the legendary H-Dial that lets him transform into different superheroes, is visiting Gotham City with his grandfather, just as the Joker decides that he’s finally waited long enough, he’s not getting any younger, and it’s time to kill off the Batman once and for all. What follows is an intense city-wide crime spree designed to wear the Dark Knight out. When Robby spins the dial to try to help out, he comes up with a precog super-psychic called Mental Man — and when he looks into the future, what he sees scares him so badly that he gives up, turns back into Robby, and runs off to huddle under his bedcovers.

The next day, a desperate hard-luck case named Travers Milton breaks into the Reeds’ motel room to steal a few valuables and snags the H-Dial. When he spins it, he turns into a flying brick called the Star. He quickly gets busy saving lives and meets up with Batman — Milton’s background in the underworld means he knows a lot of the details about the ongoing crime wave, which he eagerly shares with Bats. The Star runs off to fight crime and save more lives, and in the end, he saves Batman from a bomb the Joker had left for him, but at the cost of his own life. Batman later returns the H-Dial to Robby, who reveals that his psychic powers revealed that the next person to use the dial would die, so he chickened out and left it for someone else to use instead. Bats says he’s okay with this, because it gave a no-hope loser like Milton the opportunity to be a real hero.

Verdict: Thumbs down. I actually liked most of this comic, but that bizarre ending, where Batman shrugs off Robby’s spectacularly craven cowardice, is a complete deal-killer. It’s actually monumentally out-of-character for both Batman and Robby, and I can’t thumbs-up a story that screws up those characterizations so easily.

Blackest Night #3

We start out with Jason Rusch, the new Firestorm, and his girlfriend Gen, who is his current co-pilot in the Firestorm fusion matrix. She wants to talk marriage — he doesn’t. From there, we switch to the Flash and Green Lantern fighting against the Black Lantern Justice League — the undead versions of the Martian Manhunter, Elongated Man, Sue Dibny, Firestorm, Hawkman, and Hawkgirl. Hal and Barry are soon joined by the Atom, who stowed away inside Hawkman’s Black Lantern ring — they speculate that the rings are channeling energy to somewhere else in the universe, that certain people are being resurrected specifically because their reappearance would elicit strong emotional responses, and that the rings function as organic computers that animate the dead — as the Atom puts it, the dead aren’t wearing the rings, the rings are wearing the dead — though the zombies act somewhat like they did when they were alive, it’s all a put-on by the rings themselves.

Luckily, the Purple Lanterns — or as they call themselves, the Indigo Tribe — finally make their appearance. They are powered by compassion, and their staffs are able, when combined with the energy of any other color of power ring, to disrupt the black rings’ connections to the hosts and dissipate the bodies — in fact, they’re able to put down Ralph and Sue Dibny that way. Hal, Barry, Ray, and the Indigo Tribe meet up with Firestorm and Mera at the Justice League HQ, but they’re surprised by the rest of the Black Lantern Justice Leaguers. Ronnie Raymond manages to separate Jason and Gen, re-fuses with Jason, and uses his knowledge of chemistry to turn Gen into NaCl. After that, another bunch of black rings come in and resurrect the dead supervillains in the JLA’s basement.

Verdict: Thumbs up. Probably the most fun about this series so far is seeing who else gets turned into a zombie — in this issue alone, we get treated to walking-dead versions of Dr. Light, Copperhead, Alexander Luthor, Madame Rouge, Maxwell Lord, the Psycho-Pirate, the Unknown Soldier, Rocket Red, and Osiris. Not a bad turnout this time.

Secret Six #13

The Six are still stuck on Smyth’s slaver island — Scandal, Bane, Jeannette, and Artemis trying to free the Amazons, and Catman, Deadshot, and Ragdoll left guarding Wonder Woman on behalf of Smyth and staring down the crucified demonic horror called Grendel. Ragdoll tries on Wondy’s boots, Scandal confronts a bunch of guards and gives them 30 seconds to call their loved ones — and the guards DO, and it’s kinda heartbreaking, ’cause she kills ’em all anyway. Catman goes rogue and frees the captive Amazons, and Grendel gets loose.

Verdict: Thumbs up. This was kind of a weird issue — it seems that pretty much everyone was having visions of one type or another. Jeannette sees everyone wearing old period clothing, Scandal relives her childhood, Deadshot imagines himself killing everyone, Bane is having happy, weepy memories of his life in prison, Ragdoll is unusually spacey, even Wonder Woman is making cryptic pronouncements. Something even stranger than normal is going on here…

Has it been a long week for anyone else? ‘Round about Monday, I was thinking it was almost the weekend, and dang it, I was wrong! It was nowhere near the weekend! NOWHERE NEAR! Can you imagine the shattering, towering agony of having to wait five whole horrible days after Sunday for the next weekend to start? Well, of course you can imagine it! But — how do we stand it?! Those endless, terrifying hours spent at work instead of maxxin’ and relaxxin’ back home, spinning some fine tunes, eating Cheetos on the toilet — um, I mean, sipping champagne in the hot tub. YOU SEE HOW THE STRESS GETS TO ME?!

Dang, you know what we need? We need some FRIDAY NIGHT FIGHTS!

Our kicktastic smackdown tonight comes to us from 2002’s Dork #10 by Evan Dorkin, in which teenaged Evan comes face-to-face — or at least face-to-foot — with the prettiest girl on the bus:

Ahh, the happy memories of junior high and the compadres of our youth… Ack, spit, howl, now I need three more weekends to erase those memories!

Also, a very merry birthday to our Friday Night Fights host, Spacebooger! He’s almost old enough to legally buy cigarettes and porn now!

Batman and Robin #4

We briefly meet a villain called the Lightning Bug, just before he gets cornered and killed by Gotham’s newest vigilantes, the Red Hood and Scarlet. Scarlet used to be the innocent kidnap victim disfigured by Professor Pyg’s doll mask, but she’s now joined the Red Hood to treat criminals a whole heck of a lot more lethally than they’ve usually been treated in the past. We get scenes of Dick Grayson and Damian Wayne investigating stuff at yet another GCPD charity event and meeting a mysterious masked guy named Oberon Sexton, the Gravedigger; we see Sasha worrying about whether the doll mask will ever come off; and the Penguin attends a meeting of criminal kingpins, as a masked villain named Santo warns that an assassin named, believe it or not, the Flamingo is coming to get rid of Batman for them. Of course, the Red Hood and Scarlet show up to kill some more crooks — when Batman and Robin arrive to stop them, the next stage of the confrontation is set up.

Verdict: Thumbs up, but it’s not as good as it could’ve been. Everything seems a bit muddy and unclear, including a odd couple of pages of Batman and Robin on a stakeout. I am enjoying the characterization of Sasha and the clues being dropped about the identity of the Red Hood. I’m not sure that Grant Morrison will go with the seemingly obvious choice for Red Hood’s secret identity, but if it’s not the original Red Hood, I suspect a lot of people will be disappointed…

JSA vs. Kobra #4

Finally, some other characters besides Mr. Terrific, Power Girl, Flash, and Green Lantern get some time in the spotlight! Kobra is continuing their seemingly random worldwide attacks, but Mr. Terrific thinks he has them figured out. He gets Jakeem Thunder and the Thunderbolt to teach him everything they can about magic, and they track Kobra to the Rock of Eternity, where he chips a stone off the statue of Hatred from the Seven Deadly Enemies of Man. A JSA squad attacks, but Kobra is able to use the powerful magical energy of the Rock of Eternity strike against the Thunderbolt, and he’s able to escape. Still, it’s not a total loss — the JSA have captured his most trusted confidant.

Verdict: Thumbs up. It’s finally starting to get a bit better. There’s still a ton of emphasis on Mr. Terrific, but it’s great that the much-neglected Jakeem gets a few moments to shine, and Stargirl gets to take on the roll of Team Badass, which we don’t get to see her do very often. Still, the plot is far from perfect — I’m hoping it all comes together in the last two issues.

Sir Edward Grey, Witchfinder: In the Service of Angels #3

Sir Edward is able to scare off the demon, but at the cost of one of the Captain’s assistants. Miss Wolf, the medium, has learned the location of the monster’s bones from her spirit guide — a quick diving expedition in the Thames locates the bones, but to use them to dispel the beast, they’ll have to track it down first. Miss Wolf leads Grey and the others to a storefront church, where they find a whole congregation of corpses — the monster disguised itself as an angel and fed off of their blood. The church’s minister is able to recount the monster’s origin, but while their attending to him in the back room, they accidentally leave the case with the bones in the main sanctuary… and of course, that’s when the monster picks its moment to attack.

Verdict: Thumbs up. Nicely chilling and creepy, with outstanding suspense and beautifully crafted artwork.

Like I said last week, the West Texas Comic Con is coming up on November 7th at the Science Spectrum, but did you know they’re already adding new guests? In addition to Matt Sturges, Will Terrell, and Dirk Strangely, we can now add…

* Josh Howard: writer and artist on “Dead@17,” “Black Harvest,” and “The Lost Books of Eve.” Had you heard that “Dead@17” has been optioned for a movie? You have now…

* Chris Nicholas: sometimes known as Uncle Staple, he’s the driving force behind “Staple!: The Independent Media Expo,” Austin’s annual comics/art/animation/self-publishing convention.

* The Abilene 501st: the Abilene branch of a worldwide “Star Wars” costuming organization operated entirely by fans. Will they be competing in the costume contest? Just in case, you better bring your A-game, Lubbockites.

* The Lubbock Sketch Club: Lubbock’s best and brightest all-access art club is, of course, going to be a very important part of any comic convention in the Hub City.

That’s way, way more special guests than I was ever expecting, so mad kudos to everyone hammering out the details and making the contacts for this. This is looking like it’ll be the best comic convention Lubbock’s seen yet, so y’all better get your calendars marked for the West Texas Comic Con — Saturday, November 7th, 10 a.m.-6 p.m. at the Science Spectrum!

Hot dog, a new awesome update for City of Heroes! Ya know what that means? Wait, actually, I don’t care if you don’t know what that means — I’m too busy playing on the computer!

Here’s some links, so keep yer yaps shut while Daddy’s busy!

• Possibly the best fake punt ever!
• Hey, you can follow the Hulk on Twitter!
• Has Halloween become overcommercialized?
• Roadrunner vs. Roadrunner!
• Ayn Rand was a horrible person.

‘Scuse me, gotta fight cybernetic supervillains now. EAT RADIOACTIVE LASER BEAMS, EVILDOER SCUM!

North 40 #3

Conover County is still overrun with monsters who used to be normal county residents, including a junkyard owner who’s building giant robots, a police dispatch operator who’s been dead for 20 years, a former beauty queen who can see the world through her own photographs, the local goth teen turned spectral instrument of vengeance, and a whole heck of a lot of freaky kids attending the prom. Sheriff Morgan is trying to keep order, but he’s got people plotting against him, and he may stand no chance of stopping the slaughter planned at the high school.

Verdict: Thumbs up. Creepy, bizarre, funny, weird stuff. By this point, I thought all the main players were already on the stage, but I’m impressed that Aaron Williams is both still introducing new, mondo-bizarro characters and advancing the plot at the same time. This is the next-to-the-last issue of this miniseries, but I really hope they’re going to turn this into an ongoing series.

B.P.R.D.: 1947 #3

The Bureau for Paranormal Research and Defense has sent four soldiers to Europe to deal with some vampires, and things don’t go well. After a suspenseful investigation of a couple of suspicious coffins in the castle’s crypt, two of the three operatives are attacked and killed by vampires. Meanwhile, the lone operative who’s been taken to the black mass with the witches and vampires is witness to Baron Konig’s undoing and to the terrifying summoning of Hecate herself. But does he survive the experience? Does any of them survive?

Verdict: Thumbs up. Outstanding — and very suspenseful — storytelling from Mike Mignola and Joshua Dysart, along with fantastic artwork by Gabriel Ba and Fabio Moon. Just plain outstanding horror fiction getting made here, on every level from intimate suspense to apocalyptic blood-and-thunder.

I’m in a bit of a rotten mood. Nothing real serious, but I’ve taken on some very big, very daunting personal projects, with very scary upcoming deadlines, and I spent most of this weekend not making any real progress on them, even when I tried to work on them. It was a pretty frustrating weekend, coupled with the fact that I haven’t really done anything for fun in a while.

So basically, I’m a bit grim, and I feel like reviewing some comics that just plain bite.

Booster Gold #24

Booster fights Trigon in the future world where Trigon has killed almost everyone. He gets captured with the help of the Black Beetle, but Lex Luthor ends up helping him escape. Luthor leads Booster, Skeets, Rip Hunter, Raven, and the future rebels, including Zatanna, Kyle Rayner, and Green Arrow, to Trigon’s secret vault, which is full of superheroes’ skeletons and a few trinkets. Black Beetle follows them in, grabs a red scarab that he claims will make him invincible, and the rest of the team gives Kyle Rayner a Green Lantern ring. Then Booster, Rip, and Raven return to their original time, where — get this — Booster beats up Deathstroke off-panel so he can impersonate him and save the Teen Titans. Yeah, Booster Gold beats up a guy who can trash pretty much anyone in the DC Universe, and he doesn’t even break a sweat. The backup story with Blue Beetle, for once, isn’t a lot better. Jaime and his friends and family are hiking in Big Bend when they’re attacked by the Black Beetle. Jaime’s been worried that his scarab has been more bloodthirsty, but he just gives in and decides to see if he can kill the Black Beetle.

Verdict: Thumbs down. Once again, there’s no reason for Booster or Rip Hunter to be goofing around in FutureLand, when the only thing they were supposed to fix was in the past. And the utter ridiculousness of Booster beating Deathstroke is just the cherry on a big fat horsecrap sundae. And even Paco talking like Mr. T can’t save the backup story from being a lot of uncharacteristic no-fun.

Models Inc. #1

Hey, ya know what girls want in their comics? A bunch of self-obsessed fictional models talking about clothes and about being famous and about people they don’t like, with minimal action and shallow characterization! Ya know what else they want? A heavily-promoted backup story starring Tim Gunn from “Project Runway” in which he puts on a suit of Iron Man armor that’s on display at a fashion museum and then beats up on bad guys!

Verdict: Nine million thumbs down. I lost numerous brain cells reading the main story, and the backup — listen, I hate to go all continuity-obsessed-fanboy on everyone, but if you were going to display Iron Man armor at a museum, wouldn’t you deactivate it, to keep bad guys from getting it? And even if most Iron Man suits these days weren’t programmed to respond only to Tony Stark, how the heck would some random fashion guru be able to use the blasted thing with any sort of competence? Bad comic. Bad, bad, bad comic.

Superman’s Pal Jimmy Olsen Special #2

The last issue of this came out last October, and I liked it pretty well. But wow, what a whole year stuck on the shelf will do for ya. Good luck making heads or tails out of this one if you haven’t been following the Superman comics. Superman ain’t around, but Mon-El, from the Legion of Super-Heroes, is filling in and promises to keep Jimmy safe from Codename: Assassin, a guy who is able to fly and kill people with guns. Jimmy is trying to find out — umm, I forget — which leads him to a housefire — he saves someone inside, who turns out to be a former member of Lex Luthor’s Everyman project. He keeps randomly switching gender for some reason. Before he dies, he puts Jimmy in touch with Natasha Irons, who rattles off some stuff about Captain Atom and Breach and stuff. Then Jimmy gets ambushed by Codename: Assassin and gunned down.

Verdict: Thumbs down. Sooo confusing, sooo boring.

Another Lubbock comic convention? Heck, yeah!

The West Texas Comic Con is happening on Saturday, November 7th from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. at the main exhibit hall in the Lubbock Science Spectrum at 2579 S. Loop 289, Ste 250. There will be panels and presentations, vendors, artists, comics, costumed folks, and more fun than you can shake a stick at without getting investigated by the Lubbock PD.

Admission fees are cheaper’n dirt, too. Adults pay $4. Kids 12 and under pay $2. Toddlers get in free. And people who come in costume get in free! So keep your Halloween costume for an extra week so you can use it to get into the Comic Con, alright?

“Aww, come on, man! A Saturday in November?! I gotta go tailgating!” No, actually, November 7 is a bye week for Tech! Ain’t no football — so come on down!

Numerous presentations are planned, including a writers workshop, at least one humorous fan panel on “How to Read Comics,” a game show, and of course, the ever-popular costume contest, starting around 1 p.m.

And listen up — this year, there are going to be special guests.

The featured guest: Matt Sturges, writer of “Jack of Fables” and “Justice Society of America.” He’s also worked on “Blue Beetle,” “House of Mystery,” “Shadowpact,” and “Final Crisis Aftermath: Run!” Matt lives in Austin, believe it or not! He’ll be participating in the writers panel and a Q&A session.

Will Terrell will be there, of course. He’s the Lubbock artist who’s worked on “Disney’s Gargoyles” and “The Goblin Chronicles,” as well as helping found the Lubbock Sketch Club. And he designed the convention logo at the top of this post! He’ll be helping out on the writers panel and probably almost everything else. His current big project is the webcomic “Super Zeroes.”

And a guy named Dirk Strangely will be there, too. Dirk does extremely creepy (and often, very funny) illustrations and has written a couple of nicely morbid children’s books. I spent a lot of last night clicking through his gallery on his site, and I’m entirely loving his stuff. I’m really looking forward to meeting him.

So go ahead and make your plans for the West Texas Comic Con — Nov. 7, 10 a.m.-6 p.m. at the Science Spectrum! Be there or I’ll whup ya with sticks!