More proof that stupid people are everywhere, and that they tend to gravitate toward positions of authority. Multiple people have been convicted and imprisoned for decades because of the “testimony” of a supposedly superpowered (in other words, very well-trained) police dog.

Last weekend, we looked at the case of Bill Dillon, the Brevard County resident imprisoned for 27 years before DNA tests set him free…

At least two other men suffered the same fate — and another shared link: a dog.

Not just any dog. A wonder dog helped convict all three men: a German shepherd named Harass II, who wowed juries with his amazing ability to place suspects at the scenes of crimes.

Harass could supposedly do things no other dog could: tracking scents months later and even across water, according to his handler, John Preston.

Especially depressing: Florida authorities aren’t gonna go to any trouble to let falsely convicted prisoners go. “Hey, it’s not the state’s fault that they were convicted because of false evidence provided by the state, right? That’s someone else’s fault, somewhere, we don’t know who. Just don’t sue us, that’s all we ask. Bad enough that our artificially inflated conviction records don’t look as good, but heaven forfend that we should pay any penalty for monkeywrenching some poor stooge’s life…”

Besides the falsely convicted folks, I gotta admit I feel sorry for the dog. Ain’t his fault his trainer lied about his talents and used him unethically.

Marvel Adventures: Super Heroes #12

Captain America and Rick Jones are investigating Hydra and snooping around the Hydra homepage, which is full of happy families singing Hydra’s praises and an adorably mascot called Hydra Boy. Cap doesn’t really understand or trust this new-fangled “Internet” thingamabob — and with good reason, because Hydra is able to use webcams to recognize Cap and teleport him and Rick into the Internet itself! While Hydra Boy uses his abilities to alter the website’s environment to vex Cap, Rick sets out behind the scenes to phone for help and figure out how to alter the website himself. In the end, of course, Cap and Rick escape, riding a big search-engine locomotive.

There’s also a backup story, set stateside during WWII, in which Cap and Bucky fight this guy:

A prototype MODOK!

That’s really all I can say about it. Prototype MODOK! Whooo!

Verdict: Thumbs up. Hydra Boy was an amusingly nasty villain, and the story contained a wealth of great visual puns about the Internet. And again — Prototype MODOK!

Captain Britain and MI-13 Annual #1

One of the last issues of this comic we’ll see, as Marvel has already announced that they’ve cancelled it. Cancelling really outstanding comics seems to be the very favorite thing for comic publishers to do.

There are two stories here, the first focusing on Meggan, the mutant shapeshifter who used to be married to Captain Britain. Most of the story is a retrospective on her history, from her childhood, where she frequently got into trouble for accidentally using her shapeshifting powers to reflect back what people thought of her (at one point turning into a cartoonish stereotyped image of a Gypsy crone when someone accuses her family of being Roma) to her accidental imprisonment in Hell. However, she’s the only non-tormented soul in Hell, very optimistic and hopeful, which unnerves the rulers of Hell so much that they trick her into using her empathetic powers to let everyone in Hell shape her appearance. Once she’s been turned into a deformed monster, they exile her to a distant part of Hell, where she ends up leading a revolt, receives her first-ever superhero name, and meets up with Dr. Doom.

The second story puts the spotlight on Captain Britain as the rest of the MI-13 team spends an afternoon playing cricket. It’s a pretty amusing story — Blade can’t seem to pitch the ball correctly (Is “pitch” the right word? I know nothing about cricket.), Faiza Hussein is a cricket fanatic, and Spitfire uses very weird British slang.

Verdict: Thumbs up. More emphasis on Meggan than I would’ve expected, but it all seems to work out well. I really don’t understand anything about cricket, but I still thought the second story was funny. Sure, I didn’t understand very much of it because it was grounded so deeply in British culture, but I still enjoyed it.

Another week gone by, another weekend ready to start. You roused up enough for it? No, I don’t think you are roused up enough for this weekend. You need one little boost to get you ready. You need one little bottlerocket shoved under your tailbone. You need a big, thick steamin’ bowl of FRIDAY NIGHT FIGHTS!

And if tonight’s battle don’t get you roused up for action and mayhem, then it ain’t even possible to rouse you anymore. From September 2008’s Hellboy: The Crooked Man #3 by Mike Mignola and Richard Corben: Hellboy hits a diabolical spirit called the Crooked Man with… a consecrated shovel!

Our musical accompaniment for tonight? I had some trouble with it — couldn’t find any lyrics at all having to do with consecrated shovels, and that was really the big sticking point. You’d think that, at some point, some ambitious death metal band, or maybe Elvis, woulda written a song about hitting monsters with a consecrated shovel, but I guess not.

Finally, I was just looking at the panels, and it just came to me. Any time you need to convey, through music, what it’s like when a reformed, angst-ridden demon hits a misshapen, top-hatted monstrosity with a holy consecrated shovel so hard that everything EXPLODES… you must, absolutely must, dial up Marvin Lee Aday to provide the soundtrack.

Turn it up loud, and have a great weekend.

Booster Gold #21

Rip Hunter is acting mysterious, Booster meets Nightwing/Batman, and the Black Beetle makes an appearance.

Okay, that’s enough of that. It’s an alright story — and it’s a lot better than most recent “Booster Gold” stories — but no one cares about Booster. What’s important is the backup story.

The backup story stars Jaime Reyes, the Blue Beetle.

Good gravy, how much have I missed this guy?

We get Jaime, Paco, and Brenda hanging around a burger joint wondering why superheroes don’t get their own henchmen when the city is attacked by a giant yellow robot bellowing “THINKO! IS UNSTOPPABLE!” and “DESTROY ALL HUMANS!”After Jaime (eventually) destroys THINKO!, the gang learns that it originally attacked El Paso during World War II. They disguise themselves as reporters and head off to question the son of the robot’s creator, who is in jail for building his own evil robot called Unimate. He has no idea who’d rebuild his dad’s machine and crows fiendishly about the superiority of Unimate. Suspicious? Maybe a bit — especially when a horde of Unimate robots appear and try to destroy El Paso…

Verdict: Thumbs up. Again, the Booster Gold story was okay, but holy guacamole, did I ever enjoy the Blue Beetle story. I picked up this comic not expecting a whole lot from it, but the very first page of the backup was a colossal reminder of how awesome the “Blue Beetle” comic was, and of how much we’ve lost as comic readers now that it’s been cancelled. Everything from the great dialogue and chemistry between Jaime and his friends to the outstandingly mad THINKO! robot was just picture-perfect classic “Blue Beetle.” Not to wish anything bad on “Booster Gold,” ’cause I still get enjoyment out of the series, but really, “Blue Beetle” should be the lead feature. That’s all there is to it.

Astro City: The Dark Age, Book Three #2

Royal Williams is trying to lay low and avoid Pyramid Agents, the local criminal syndicates, and his brother Charles, who, as a member of E.A.G.L.E., is becoming more obsessed with the high-ranking Pyramid Agent who killed the brothers’ parents. And all around them, the world is becoming a bleaker, more brutal place, right down to the formerly noble and merciful superheroes. The Williams brothers are wedged in the middle of this powderkeg — will they be able to survive when the sparks start flying?

Verdict: Thumbs up. I love the way the tension here is slowly ratcheting upwards. Royal Williams really is a very interesting character — but the way things are going, who knows what the future holds for him or anyone else in this story?

PS238 #39

Alec Kent used to be a normal kid with a talent for art and mathematics, but after taking a trip to another universe a couple issues ago, he emerged with the ability to draw pictures and patterns that have magical properties. As a result, he gets introduced to the metahuman kids at PS238, where he’ll soon be enrolled as a student. Tyler Marlocke takes him on a short tour — he points out spellcasting teacher Vashti Imperia’s office, which has been blocked off by a magical brick wall ever since her mysterious disappearance. Unfortunately, Alec draws one of his teleportation patterns on the brick wall and goes after her — Tyler follows, after putting on his Moon Shadow costume. What they find on the other side is a magical fantasy world of castles and adventurers and witches and a very large, angry dragon. They also run into a little girl named Vashti Imperia — not a de-aged Vashti, but her actual younger self — Alec and Moon Shadow have traveled in time to a magic-based “Heroic Age.”

Of course, they run into the older Vashti Imperia, disguised as a wicked witch, but they also run into some unexpected guest stars: the fantasy misadventurers from PS238 creator Aaron Williams’ other humor comic, “Nodwick.” Besides the big-schnozzed, sensible, and frequently-killed henchman Nodwick, they include Yeager the musclebound fighter, Atrax, a wizard with an outrageous mustache, Rowan, a hyper-aggressive ranger, and the bespectacled cleric Piffany.

Alec and Moon Shadow have to keep from getting shish-kebabed by Nodwick’s trigger-happy crew, get Ms. Imperia back to the school, and make sure the younger Vashti gets properly rescued… all while avoiding the aforementioned very large, angry dragon.

Verdict: Thumbs up. A great introductory story for Alec, a great return for Vashti Imperia, and a pretty cool crossover for Nodwick and his crew. The big climax of the story is actually pretty epic and dramatic — big props for Aaron Williams’ artistic and storytelling skills. This one is hard to find, but it’s worth the effort for you to track it down.

In the mood for a non-comic-book book review about comics and comedy by the funniest ex-hairdresser to ever write a comic book?

You’ll All Be Sorry! by Gail Simone

Before Gail Simone began writing comics like “Birds of Prey,” “Wonder Woman,” and “Secret Six,” she wrote a weekly humor column at Comic Book Resources called “You’ll All Be Sorry!” Her satires and parodies were extremely popular, both with comics fans and with comics creators. And it took ’em almost ten years to get those columns collected into a single book.

We actually have a number of Simone’s original columns, plus some new material. So we get: ridiculous Batman fanfiction by Brendan “Nightwing” Hockenberry and Fern Rosario; the softer side of the Punisher; a teen romance comic script starring an innocent high school girl and a quasi-mystical and heavily bearded British comic book writer; the secret history of the Hulk’s time with the Beatles; a dating guide by misogynist lunatic Dave Sim; a blog by Galactus, Eater of Worlds; and the epic tale of “Conan and Hobbes.”

In addition, there are a number of “Condensed Comics Classics” scattered throughout the book. These are (mostly) short, (mostly) funny summaries of comic series, written by the actual creators of the comics. In other words, the summary of “Crisis on Infinite Earths” (condensed to about six lines) was actually written by Marv Wolfman.

Verdict: Thumbs up. Only one or two duds, and the rest are consistently hilarious. If you can find it, get it. Heck, if you can’t find it, get it anyway. Borrow it, order it, steal it, whatever it takes.

A little of this, a little of that. Click away, gang!

• A blog all about the comics of one of my favorite cartoonists, Jack Cole, creator of Plastic Man!
• Here’s a really entertaining overview of the history of Captain Marvel by NPR, of all people.
• And a nice article about the very close connections between the Apollo space program and Charles Schulz’s “Peanuts” comic strip.
• Graeme McMillan ponders why Wonder Woman is such a hard character for people to get. (Simple answer: Superman and Batman are simple characters, and Wondy is much, much more complex.)
• A bit of a longer rant, triggered by this post by Aaron Williams about the “City of Heroes” MMO game: The new “Mission Architect” feature, which lets players create their own missions and storyarcs for other players to enjoy, is in deep, deep trouble, despite being awesome beyond awesome. You can have only three games available for the other players to play, and even then, no one will ever play them because there’s no good way to promote your stories. My three published storyarcs (which feature evil undead monsters, a cheerleader cult, and my attempt at bleak horror) have been played by fewer than 20 people, and the other impossibly awesome stories I’ve designed (which feature battles against hero teams and villain teams, out-of-control robots, the world’s toughest gangster girlfriends, and hobos) will probably never see the light of day. I sure hope the game’s developers can figure out some solution to all their Mission Architect problems…

Aaaaand that’s it for today. Merry Tuesday, everyone — see youse guys tomorrow!

Madame Xanadu #11

New artist Michael William Kaluta has his first issue on this title — the coolest thing about this is that Kaluta helped create Madame Xanadu way back in the ’70s.

Nimue is contacted by a young woman whose father has recently died in a case of spontaneous human combustion. The woman believes her father was murdered, and after a quick reading of her trusty deck of Tarot cards, Madame Xanadu agrees with her. She researches the victim’s life and learns that his last months were dominated by meetings with a man named Husam Al Nar and of being mysteriously stalked by dogs. Combined with this, we get flashbacks to Nimue’s life in Spain in the late 15th century as she and the people she loves must contend with the Spanish Inquisition.

Verdict: An enthusiastic thumbs up. Good gravy, is Kaluta’s artwork beautiful! Very lush, very retro, like some of Charles Dana Gibson‘s work. I was worried that the art would fall off with Amy Reeder Hadley’s departure from the book, but I clearly had nothing to worry about. And Matt Wagner’s story, of course, is no disappointment either — this one is set up much more like a traditional drawing-room mystery, except, obviously, for the inclusion of a number of mysterious occult elements.

The Unwritten #1

Tom Taylor is the son of a best-selling fantasy author who mysteriously vanished after completing his intensely popular series on boy wizard Tommy Taylor. Tom feels conflicted about his fame — after all, it’s tough having the world think of you as the kid who the Tommy Taylor stories were based on. But what’s weird is — there doesn’t seem to be any record of Tom Taylor in his youth. When word gets out, Tommy Taylor fans are divided into two camps — those who want Tom Taylor dead for being a fraud who capitalized on their love of the Tommy Taylor books, and those who want to worship him as the book character brought to life. And when Tom gets kidnapped by someone claiming to be Count Ambrosio, the vampiric villain from the novels, can he manage a storybook ending to escape his own death?

Verdict: Thumbs up. Partly because this one was just a dollar. Just a dollar! These days, that’s just wonderful! And it’s not like you get just a buck’s worth of story — this is 20 smackers’ worth of story. Great characters, great set-up, great plot, and an outstanding mystery. Vertigo offers their first issues for cheap to entice new readers, and it definitely worked on me, ’cause I’m definitely going to pick up the rest of this series.

Via Snell and Kevin Church and Benjamin Birdie: Okay, lemme set this up. The most recent issue of Brian Michael Bendis’ “New Avengers” comic reveals that Dr. Strange is no longer the Sorcerer Supreme — he’s been delving too much into black magic, and he’s fallen from his mystical perch. As the Avengers, Strange, and a bunch of supervillains try to track down Strange’s magical accoutrements, including the Eye of Agamotto, we discover that the new Sorcerer Supreme is very likely going to be Jericho Drum, a.k.a. Brother Voodoo.

Very cool, sez I — nice to see a little shakeup on the mystical front, and Brother Voodoo has been a fairly cool character who has mostly been neglected since he was created in the ’70s.

Brother Voodoo’s debut as the Sorcerer Supreme looks like this:

Oh, wow.

The guy was educated in the U.S., and spent quite a few years stateside working as a psychiatrist, fer gosh sakes. He’s been running around the superhero community for who knows how long. He’s the brand-spankin’-new Sorcerer Freakin’ Supreme, and Bendis sticks him with insulting and possibly racist pidgin dialogue.

Coming up next month in Marvel’s numerous Bendis-written comics, Cecilia Reyes will show up wearing a sombrero and taking a siesta under a cactus, Hulkling will develop a lisp, and Amadeus Cho will get coke-bottle glasses and gigantic buck teeth. Why Bendis has been doing such a good job with Luke Cage, I dunno, but maybe he’s gonna start back up with the “Sweet Christmas” stuff again…

Come on, Marvel, enroll Bendis in a sensitivity class before it’s too late…

It’s the end of yet another way-too-long week, and we all need a little chaos and pain to get our weekend started. Ideally, of course, the chaos and pain would come from starting our own real-world fights with various ill-mannered ruffians, but that could lead to unsightly bruising and being beat to death with pool cues, so instead we turn, as always, to comic books and FRIDAY NIGHT FIGHTS!

This week, let’s take a look at January 2008’s Green Lantern #25 by Geoff Johns, Ivan Reis, and Ethan Van Sciver, in which Superboy-Prime blasts his way through the Anti-Monitor’s chest:

Our appropriately-themed musical selection for the night should be easy enough — ladies and gentlemen, give it up for Pat Benatar!