Supergirl: Cosmic Adventures in the 8th Grade #1

This is a new all-ages book from DC, and it features the best version of Supergirl we’ve seen in a comic book in ages. A native of Krypton’s moon, Argo, which was transported into another dimension when Krypton exploded, Kara sneaked into a rocket to Earth in a misguided attempt to get back at her parents and didn’t expect to get trapped on Earth with no way home. But Superman decides the best thing for her is to learn to fit in on Earth, so she enrolls in a local school as bespectacled Linda Lee. Of course, it’s one disaster after another — she has no idea how things on Earth work, so she asks lots and lots of embarrassingly stupid questions. Can Supergirl escape back to her homeworld or at least find a way to communicate with her parents again?

Verdict: Thumbs up. This version of Supergirl is pure awesome, and it’s too bad she’s not the one who appears in the regular “Supergirl” comic. I love the art, I love the story, I love the humor. Go pick this one up.

Terra #3

Well, Geo-Force has been taken over by an undead necromancer named Deathcoil, and Terra has to defeat Deathcoil without also harming Geo-Force. She manages this in only a couple of pages, but Geo-Force is still left in bad shape from the possession, so Terra has to take him to her home — a world deep, deep underground called Strata, populated by an advanced race of kinda-sorta squids. And it turns out that Terra, despite her outwardly human appearance, is also one of the Stratans. Gifted at birth with earth-moving powers, she was chosen to live aboveground among humans as a super-ambassador of sorts. Meanwhile, Richard, the engineer-geologist who got turned into a living diamond, takes his girlfriend to see the mystical underground pool where he got his powers. Wanting abilities like his, she jumps into the pool… and of course, it doesn’t turn out the way she hoped. When an angry Richard shows up in Strata looking for revenge, can Terra and Geo-Force handle him?

Verdict: Thumbs up. Wow oh wow, Amanda Conner’s art on this is sooooo cool. And yeah, we gotta give props to Justin Gray and Jimmy Palmiotti for the excellent story, too, as well as Paul Mounts’ coloring, which is just plain dandy.

In case you ain’t noticed yet, the economy is pretty darned awful right now.

Over a half-million people lost their jobs in November, with expectations that a similar number will lose their jobs every month for a while. A few million more people are going to lose their jobs when the automakers declare bankruptcy, including car dealers, auto parts manufacturers, and, well, pretty much everyone living in Michigan and the northern midwest — and no matter how you feel about the automakers and their employees, that’s going to make things pretty awful for a huge number of people. And the government has finally decided that, despite everyone previously insisting, nope, nope, not in a recession yet, we’ve actually been officially in a recession since last December. Thanks, guys, glad you finally noticed. Hope those of us who are now job-hunting haven’t inconvenienced you too much.

So, if I may be so crude, if not shallow, where does this leave the comics industry?

Probably not anywhere good.

Book publishers are facing some pretty severe cuts, as are media companies in general. Heck, I’m even reading that there’s a chance that some large cities may actually lose their daily newspapers, thanks to hard times in the publishing biz. And if all those other companies are in trouble — many of them making way, way more than the entire comics industry makes every year — you’d be a sucker not to expect some nasty, nasty times on the way for the comics world. We’ve already seen an increase in the number of low-selling books getting cancelled, and speculation is running high that Marvel and DC will soon be raising the prices of their books up to four smackeroos each; if the economy continues to tank, how long will comics publishers be able to rely on readers continuing to spend their increasingly-tight leisure income on any comic books? Are we approaching the days when the only comics being published will be Batman, Superman, and Spider-Man? Or do even those mainstays have a future in this grim economy?

I sure don’t want to be one of those gloom-and-doom forecasters, because I’ve sure got no training in economics or finance. After all, the comic book was born during the Great Depression, and that suggests that the generally low-cost escapism offered by comics could be something that’d survive during a bad economy. Of course, paper is a lot more expensive now than it was back then…

But at any rate, if you are, for some reason, mad enough to think that investing in comics is the perfect way to get you through the economic downturn, could you please cut back on your liquor intake? Unless you already own Action Comics #1, Detective Comics #27, Amazing Fantasy #15, Marvel Comics #1, and two or three other extremely valuable comics, you won’t actually make much money collecting comics. It takes decades for a comic to get really valuable, and the most valuable ones are all from before the end of World War II, when all the paper drives meant that a lot of comics got pulped for the war effort, driving up the value of the ones that were left.

In other words, if you buy a copy of Action #1 today, it’ll cost you over $400,000, and it probably won’t increase in value very much over the next few years. And if you buy a new comic today, no matter who the artist or writer is, no matter what it’s about, no matter what gimmick may be decorating the cover, it may never be worth more than the cover price.

Besides, has it really been so long since the 1990s that people have forgotten the speculator boom-and-bust that almost killed off the comics biz? Let’s please not start that stuff up again, okay?

Is it a comic book without pictures? Is it a superhero spoof? Is it a postmodern critique of modern American mythologies and media? Is it a cyberpunk re-imagining of popular power fantasies?

Soon I Will Be Invincible is a novel by a guy named Austin Grossman, published in 2007, about a world where superheroes and supervillains exist and behave pretty similar to how they do in the comics. The bad guys try to conquer the world, the good guys try to save it. Our main characters are Dr. Impossible, a megalomaniacal super-genius who suffers from Malign Hypercognition Disorder, and Fatale, a cybernetic fighting machine who is the newest member of the New Champions, Earth’s most powerful superteam. Will Dr. Impossible’s latest scheme finally succeed where so many others have failed? Does Fatale have what it takes to be a superhero?

I know some comic fans who really don’t like this book much, but I thought it was great fun. The action sequences are fairly few and far between, but when they hit, they’re very, very good. Dr. Impossible’s scheme is appropriately byzantine and complicated, too. The real fun in this one is the characters. They’re simultaneously cliches and intriguingly unfamiliar. Reading about them, what they do, and what makes them tick is a lot of fun.

Let’s take a look at a couple quick excerpts. First, Dr. Impossible reminisces about his own origin:

There are moments in life you just can’t take back. In the terrible slowness of the accident, I got halfway across the room before realizing what I’d done. I had time to look back and read the controls, to see the glass begin to bulge and craze before it shattered, time to notice the sound of my foot scuffing on the floor, and an urgent musical whine from one of the generators sliding up the scale.

A dozen people have gotten themselves killed trying to replicate the effects of that explosion. I turned and saw my future crystallizing out of a volatile green compound, written out in invisible ink. All my life, I’d been waiting for something to happen to me, and now, before I was ready for it, it was. I saw the misadjusted dials and the whirling gauges and the bubbling green fluid and the electricity arcing around, and a story laid out for me, my sorry self alchemically transmuted into power and robots and fortresses and orbital platforms and costumes and alien kings. I was going to declare war on the world, and I was going to lose.

And second, Fatale meets the members of the Champions for the first time:

“We’ve got some new faces here, so let’s make some introductions. I’m Damsel.” The famous face is carefully neutral behind the mask.

They all know one another, but we go around the room anyway. I can’t help but feel it’s a courtesy to me.

“Feral.” It comes out as a breathy cough.

“Blackwolf.” He nods, looking just like his GQ cover. In costume, his black bodysuit shows up that perfect musculature. Almost forty, he looks twenty-five. Genetically perfect.

“Rainbow Triumph.” Rainbow Triumph’s is a bright chirpy cartoon of a voice.

“Mister Mystic.” Mystic’s is baritone perfection, crisp and resonant. I wonder if he used to be a professional actor.

“Elphin.” A child’s whisper but somehow ageless; the voice that once lured naive young knights to their doom.

“Lily.” The glass woman. Her name brings an unmistakable tension into the room. She worked the other side of things for a long, long time. She’s stronger than almost anyone here, and some of them know that firsthand. Now she’s come through the looking glass, into the hero world. I wonder how she got here.

When it gets to me, Damsel says a few polite words about my work on the sniper killings. No mention of the NSA. I stand awkwardly to say my code name, conscious of my height.

“Fatale.” There’s a digital buzz at the back of my voice that the techs never managed to erase. When I sit back down, one armored elbow clacks noisily against the marble tabletop. I don’t wear a mask, but I fight the urge to hide my new face behind the silver hair they gave me. Most of it’s nylon.

It’s a good story, a fun read, and a nice gift for comic fans with a taste for new and interesting prose.

Soon I Will Be Invincible by Austin Grossman. Go pick it up.

The Umbrella Academy: Dallas #1

It’s the day after the Umbrella Academy defeated the White Violin and the Orchestra Verdammten. The Seance is still an acclaimed hero, The Rumor is still unable to speak, the White Violin is still paralyzed with no memory of what happened, and Professor Pogo is still dead. The Rumor takes her ultimately futile revenge on her brain-damaged sister by making her watch news video of the chaos her attacks caused. Spaceboy is enjoying a little reality TV. The Kraken is back to beating the snot out of criminals. Number Five is losing money at the dogtrack and getting attacked by — and slaughtering — legions of goons from the future. But do any of them stand a chance against… Hazel and Cha-Cha?

Verdict: Thumbs up. More great stuff from Gerard Way and Gabriel Ba. Perhaps the most fun thing about this issue is the flashback to the Academy’s childhood, when they fought the mystically animated statue of Abraham Lincoln from the Lincoln Memorial. The Rumor’s method of dispatching the evil presidential statue is exceedingly cool.

Blue Beetle #33

The Teen Titans are helping Blue Beetle and Peacemaker watch over a “Day Without Immigrants” protest in El Paso. Emotions are high — and for some reason, that’s when a bunch of Dr. Polaris’ magnetically-powered goons show up to attack all the protestors. Once everyone realizes this is just a diversion to distract everyone from Dr. Polaris’ real scheme at White Sands, how is Jaime, with his established weakness to magnetic fields, going to handle the magnetic villain all by himself?

Verdict: Thumbs up. I found myself wanting to dislike this, but there’s just too much good stuff. Peacemaker worrying that he hangs around too many kids, Kid Devil enthusing over breakfast tacos, more great patter from Paco and Brenda (and namedropping Hellboy, too!), Wonder Girl getting off an unusual number of good one-liners, and Jaime once again using science to defeat bad guys.

Wonder Woman #26

The Greek gods return to Olympus to find that it’s been creatively defiled by Darkseid’s New Gods. Elsewhere, Diana Prince and her team of agents from the DMA respond to an emergency call at a shopping mall to find a lot of destruction and a lot of dead or dying civilians. When Wonder Woman investigates, she finds something calling itself Genocide, something that appears to be a god, and it effortlessly beats the snot out of her.

Verdict: Ehh, not sure yet. Wondy getting her butt kicked is rare enough in this comic — are they going to come up with something good to go along with it, or is this just another cheesy tie-in with “Final Crisis”?

Forrest J. Ackerman has died at age 92.

Fan as in fanatic. Fan as in fancier. Fan as in fantasy lover. Forrest J Ackerman, who died Thursday at 92 of a heart attack in Los Angeles, was all these things and many more: literary agent for such science fiction authors as Ray Bradbury, Isaac Asimov, A.E. van Vogt, Curt Siodmak and L. Ron Hubbard; actor and talisman in more than 50 films (The Howling, Beverly Hills Cop III, Amazon Women on the Moon); editor of Famous Monsters of Filmland magazine and creator of the Vampirella comic book franchise. But each of these trades was an exponent of his educated ardor for science fiction, fantasy and horror, and his need to share that consuming appetite.

The Scifipedia, an online biographical dictionary, defines Ackerman first as “American fan.” That’s good enough. As much as almost any writer in the field, he created a devoted, informed audience for speculative fiction. If he didn’t coin the term “sci-fi” — Robert Heinlein used it first — then by using the phrase in public in 1954 he instantly popularized it (to the lasting chagrin of purists, who preferred “SF”). Forry, as everyone called him, was the genre’s foremost advocate, missionary and ballyhooer. His love for the form, stretching back more than 80 years, godfathered and legitimized the obsessions of a million fanboys. His passion was their validation. He was the original Fanman.

I wrote about Uncle Forry just a month ago, when it looked like he’d be leaving us in days. As it turns out, the cards and well-wishes from his own legions of fans helped him rally for an extra four weeks.

If you’ve ever been to a convention, whether for comics, horror, sci-fi, Star Trek, you name it, you’re one of Uncle Forry’s kids. If you’ve ever dressed up in costume as a character from fiction, you’re one of Uncle Forry’s kids. If you’ve ever spent an evening geeking out with friends about something awesome in a comic book, in an old science fiction story, in a horror movie, you’re one of Uncle Forry’s kids.

Mugs up, folks. Here’s to Forrest J. Ackerman.

Another Friday, another pointlessly violent interlude of pain and suffering. But enough about your typical workday — it’s time again for FRIDAY NIGHT FIGHTS!

Our superpowered brawl tonight comes courtesy of the Elongated Man in January 1965’s Detective Comics #335, in the story “Break Up the Bottleneck Gang!” by the great Gardner Fox, also-great Carmine Infantino, and the great-but-not-as-well-known-as-Fox-and-Infantino Sid Greene:

Spacebooger spins you right round, baby, right round.

Madame Xanadu #6

Nimue is trapped in a cell during the French Revolution. Unable to get to her youth-restoring potions, she’s growing older and older by the minute. Desperate to save herself, she casts a spell to summon Death herself — as in Morpheus’ uber-cool goth sister from Neil Gaiman’s “Sandman” series — to persuade her that it’s not actually her time to die.

Verdict: Thumbs up. First, because Death is such an impossibly awesome character. And second, because Amy Reeder Hadley draws such impossibly awesome pictures of Death.

Birds of Prey #124

The Calculator has betrayed the Birds of Prey to the Silicon Syndicate. Luckily, they have some backup — namely, Black Canary, Manhunter, Green Arrow, and Speedy. But the more significant battle is back at Oracle’s HQ, where the Joker has come calling again, having finally realized that the girl in the wheelchair was really Barbara Gordon, the girl he paralyzed all those years ago. Who’s going to come out on top in this rematch?

Verdict: Thumbs up, entirely because of the Barbara-vs.-Joker fight. The rest of it was pretty forgettable.

Tiny Titans #10

We got a bit more focused story this time, with Supergirl and Batgirl as our two main characters. They’re gonna go hang out with the Titans, but they’ve forgotten to feed their pets! So Streaky the Super-Cat and Ace the Bathound head off to look for them. They barely miss their owners at Titans Treehouse, then it’s off to Gotham for a picnic, where the girls get grossed out by Kroc eating garbage and take off to Metropolis. But there, they have to deal with Bizarro who eats potato chips much too noisily. Will Streaky and Ace ever catch up to their owners and get their dinner?

Verdict: Thumbs up. At least partly for this:

That’s the “Tiny Titans” version of Killer Croc. And one of the sound effects is actually “GARBAGE!” That’s just plain awesome.

PS238 #35

Tyler Marlocke has finally been cured of his alien xenovirus, thanks to a transfusion of Susie Finster’s superpowered red blood cells. Unfortunately, his clone has gotten superpowers – and he’s being piloted by an angel and a demon who can’t agree on how to make him fly and are willing to make him look good by turning innocent people into supervillains for him to defeat. In fact, every time he uses his powers, something bizarre and unexpected happens. What’s the cause of all this? It seems that the parents of half-demon/half-angel Malphast have decided they’re willing to upset the natural order just to see their son…

Verdict: Thumbs up. This one is always lots of fun. I got no idea how they’re going to clear up all the problems with Tyler and his clone.

Marvel Adventures: Super Heroes #5

Obviously, our focus in this issue is on Dr. Strange, Master of the Mystic Arts. He’s cruising the various interdimensional realms of magic (lugging a cup of Starbucks coffee. Niiiice.) when he discovers that something has been eating the fabric of reality. Bad news. Who’s his perfect ally to solve this cosmic problem? Apparently, it’s your friendly neighborhood Spider-Man. After helping Spidey take down the Vulture (Who knew magical crimefighting involved stripping the Vulture down to his underwear? And how will I ever erase that particular image from my brain?), Strange recounts his origin for the Webslinger, magically enhances his webs to allow them to seal the holes in reality, then it’s off to a bunch of floaty magical dimensions, where they tangle with a bunch of monsters called the Zakimiya — newborns, actually, starving for the raw energy of the universe and spawned from an adult monster of incalculable power. And when they finally meet up with that impossibly powerful monster and his awful, awful haircut, can Spidey’s ability to monologue like Dr. Doom save the day?

Verdict: Thumbs up. Lots of fun bits of characterization here. I love Dr. Strange’s morning mug of mocha, as well as his very personable optimism. And Spidey’s over-the-top arrogant monologues at the end of the story (“How DARE you awaken ME, the completely awesomely cool SPIDER-MAN from my SLUMBER OF EONS. I am TEMPTED to release more than this MERE MOTE of my TRUE POWER!”) really are completely awesomely cool.

Marvel Adventures: The Avengers #30

Tigra has been hired by a mysterious stranger to tail the Avengers and find out all she can about them. She trails Bruce Banner through a grocery store, Storm and Giant-Girl to a sidewalk cafe, Captain America to an assembly at a local elementary school, and the whole team to a knock-down, drag-out battle against the Griffin. Will Tigra finally step out of the shadows to help? And who was the mysterious figure who hired her?

Verdict: Another thumbs up. Marvel’s kid-friendly comics are some of the best out there, and they make great reading for anyone, either adults or kids. Tigra comes across as an incredibly appealing character, part investigator, part wide-eyed fangirl.

It’s time to start thinking about Christmas shopping, and that means it’s time for me to start recommending some stuff you can get for the comics fan on your gift list. We’re gonna start off with something I recommended last year — Marvel’s Essentials and DC’s Showcase Presents.

These are, without a doubt, the best bargains in comics, hands down. You get about 500 pages of comics, all for about $17. They’re often called “phonebooks,” ’cause that’s about how thick they are. They’re black-and-white, and the paper quality isn’t top-notch, but these are comics that are designed to be read, not just collected and stored away in mylar.

Even better, these collections can be divided between early works, like the first appearances of the Flash, the Punisher, Green Lantern, or the Fantastic Four, and rarities that haven’t previously been collected due to low demand, like “Tales of the Zombie,” “Enemy Ace,” “The Astonishing Ant-Man,” or “Aquaman.” The variety of comics offered in these is really astounding — you get superhero comics, war comics, Western comics, horror comics, sci-fi, fantasy, you name it. You get major characters and minor characters, and some of the greatest artists and writers in the biz. They don’t have many romance comics yet, but whenever some flunkie at Marvel remembers how many romance comics Stan Lee and Jack Kirby worked on back in the ’50s, we’ll probably get some collections of those, too.

Let’s face it, the economy is in the dumper, and folks are looking for good ways to trim down their holiday spending. These collections are perfect for that — they’re extremely affordable, and each one has more than enough reading to keep comics fans happily reading for weeks. The comics fan on your list gets some classic stories they’d never get to read otherwise, and you get a nice little break for your pocketbook, too.

Marvel’s Essentials and DC’s Showcase Presents. Go pick some up.