Tiny Titans #8

DC’s most enjoyable kids’ comic keeps rocking. The kids get their report cards, Starfire helps Blue Beetle become Neon Technicolor Beetle, Robin is afraid of the clown at a birthday party, and the Pet Club meets in Atlantis.

Verdict: Thumbs up. This is probably one of the best issues of this series that I’ve read — every story was funny or clever, the art was grand fun, and the characterizations were just wonderful. Yes, this is a kids’ comic, but I recommend it for anyone, just because it packs so much awesomeness and fun into every issue.

And it doesn’t hurt that it includes things like this:

The Tiny Titans version of the Persuader carries an Atomic Toothbrush.

That’s awesome, baby.

Billy Batson and the Magic of Shazam! #2

Being the World’s Mightiest Mortal isn’t always easy. Billy Batson may possess the Power of Shazam, but he’s still in big trouble, thanks to Theo Adam, a bully who used to the Wizard Shazam’s protege thousands of years ago. He was a real bad guy, and Shazam imprisoned him for a long time, but now that he’s escaped, he’s figured out that Billy is Captain Marvel, and he plans to find out what Billy’s magic word is so he can become a supervillain. So Billy and his sister Mary have to be careful using their magic word, or Theo will discover what it is. And when they’re finally able to reach the wizard, he reveals some more bad news — the Seven Deadly Enemies of Man have escaped their own imprisonment, and they’re now serving Theo.

Verdict: Thumbs up. Wow, this is the wordiest all-ages comic, I’ve ever read. Nothing wrong with that, ’cause they’re really well-done words. And Mike Kunkel’s art is gorgeous.

Have you noticed that just about the best comics that Marvel and DC are putting out are all-ages books?

Captain America #42

It’s the big conclusion of the first epic-length storyarc with Bucky Barnes as Captain America. Bucky foils the assassination attempt on Senator Wright, the Red Skull’s flunky, and pursues the Skull’s daughter, Sin. Knowing her dad will kill her for failing, she makes up a contingency plan to blow up all of the presidential candidates. Is there any way for Bucky to save everyone and embrace Captain America’s legacy? Elsewhere, the Falcon and the Black Widow are searching through the bad guys’ self-destructing base while the Skull and Arnim Zola try to transfer the Skull’s consciousness into Sharon Carter.

Verdict: Thumbs up. This ended up just plain excellent — much better than I was expecting. All the threads got either wrapped up beautifully or extended perfectly so they can be used later. This was a very long arc, but the finale was so spectacular, it made up for everything.

Blue Beetle #31

The artificially-created magnetic metahumans who Jaime captured last issue are brought to an El Paso hospital — their powers are killing them, and the only person who can save them is a metahuman doctor — namely, the Justice Society’s Dr. Mid-Nite. He’s able to stabilize them, but Intergang is planning on kidnapping them right back so they can dissect them. Meanwhile, Blue Beetle is awarded the key to the city, but the politically ambitious D.A. surprises Jaime by deputizing him into the Border Patrol! Oh, great, now half the city thinks Blue Beetle is a racist immigrant-basher. But Jaime doesn’t have long to worry about the fix he’s gotten into — Intergang attacks the hospital and takes his mother hostage! Jaime and Dr. Mid-Nite save the innocent bystanders, but Intergang escapes. But who’s pulling Intergang’s strings?

Verdict: Thumbs up. The Blue Beetle is awesome, and you should all go out and buy several copies right now.

Atomic Robo: Dogs of War #2

Robo is assisting with the invasion of Italy during WWII and runs into the Axis’ secret weapons — oversized suits of powered armor that give the Nazis an awful lot of butt-kicking power. Robo and the Allies end up taking down five of them over the next few hours, but it takes quite a struggle to take each one down, and there are still another seven out there. Do they have a chance of destroying the rest before the Nazis use them to stop the Allies dead?

Verdict: Giving this one a thumbs up, too. Robo’s a ton of fun, and the only thing better than killing Nazis is killing Nazi robots.

Superman # 680

I’m not a regular reader of this comic, but come on, who can resist that cover? We’re in the middle of a storyline where Supes is battling an ancient superhuman named Atlas — and Atlas is way too strong for Superman to beat. So is there any hope for Superman and Metropolis? Krypto… sic ’em!

Verdict: Good dog! What a good, good dog!

The Age of the Sentry #1

This is the origin and early adventures of the Sentry, Marvel’s Superman clone, told in a retro, Silver Age style. We get some great little tidbits here and there — a super-powered corgi, a villain named Cranio, the Man with the Tri-Level Mind, who has three brains, the Mad Thinker disguising him as a beatnik movie director, and the Sentry beating the Devil in a fiddle-playing contest.

Verdict: Thumbs up. Kinda similar to Alan Moore’s “1963” series or the retro Mighty Man stories they used to put in the back of some “Savage Dragon” comics. Not real happy about this being an ongoing series — this is the type of thing that’s fun once in a while but gets really tiresome if it goes on for long…

Young X-Men #6

In the aftermath of the first storyline, the team comes to grips with Wolf Cub’s death, Ink’s betrayals, and the whole team getting completely suckered by Donald Pierce. Rockslide punches the holy living snot outta Cyclops, Blindfold leaves the team, everyone gets a few clues about Graymalkin’s origins (it appears that he’s one of Charles Xavier’s ancestors), and Anole returns to join the team.

Verdict: Thumbs up. Pretty good stuff, good characterizations, nicely escalating team tensions. Not real thrilled with Blindfold leaving, since she was one of the most interesting characters in the book, but I’m hoping she’ll be making a return before too long.

The Brave and the Bold #17

Obviously, in this issue, we’re getting a team-up between Supergirl and Raven. Supergirl has voices in her head from her father telling her to kill Superman, so she goes to Raven for mystical help getting rid of her father’s programming. Raven takes her to Azarath to learn how to meditate. Meanwhile, a young urban revolutionary has inherited superpowers from his mysterious vanished father, and he plans on killing a whole lot of people.

Verdict: Thumbs down. The art is… weird. Not bad, just weird. And dang it, I just cannot take Raven’s alter ego seriously. The quiet, emotionless empath from the old “New Teen Titans” comics now spends her non-superhero time as a barely-dressed, fetish-wear goth-punk? Next you’ll be telling me that DC brought Barry Allen back to life…

Greatest Hits #1

This new Vertigo series could be summed up very briefly as “What if the Beatles had superpowers?” In this case, we’re talking about a ’60s British superteam called the Mates, consisting of the unpowered Solicitor (reminds me sorta of Lennon), the superstrong Crusader (seems like McCartney), magic-using Vizier (Harrison), and fun-loving speedster Zipper (definitely Ringo). In this first issue, everyone meets each other, goes through an extra teammate, goes on a rescue at a mine collapse, and enjoys being completely bloody famous. Mixed in with this is the story of Nick Mansfield, a washed-up screenwriter/director and the son of one of the Mates, who is trying to salvage his career by doing a documentary about the old superteam.

Verdict: Thumbs up, so far. Will it be something other than a bunch of old Beatles stories and anecdotes with superpowers tacked on? That remains to be seen. But for now, it’s pretty entertaining. I’ll keep my fingers crossed that it’ll stay good.

Marvel Adventures: The Avengers #28

The Avengers want to recruit Luke Cage, but he’s more comfortable as a street-level hero making life better for the people in his community. Luckily, Luke’s mother arrives on the scene, scolds him for sassing her, and orders him to go help the team out with some missions. They take out some of Dr. Doom’s robots, wrap up some plant monsters, and stomp on the Brawl Brothers. And in a followup story, the team rescues an interdimensional cat from a tree. All in a day’s work!

Verdict: Thumbs up. Great funny stuff, excellent storytelling. I loved Momma Cage! I also enjoyed the casual diss of Dr. Doom, Luke’s ongoing fascination with Storm, Hammerhead’s inability to shaddap, and the awesome twist on the old saving-the-cat-in-the-tree gag.

MySpace Dark Horse Presents

Awesome! Dark Horse Comics put out a trade paperback of a bunch of the stories they’ve got on their MySpace page. Yeah, sure, you can read ’em all online for free, but this way, you can show ’em to your technophobic gramma, or you can read ’em when all those Wall Street brokers steal that $700 billion government bailout, move to Argentina, and shut off our electricity. Heck, you can read ’em while you’re sitting on the pot. (“Uhh, I can take my laptop in there, man.” Bite me, freak. No one sane takes a laptop into the bathroom. Do you know how idiotic you look strainin’ and groanin’ on the terlet with your dorky MacBook on your lap? AWAY WIF YOU, KNAVE.)

Where was I? Oh, yeah, this one is awesome. For one thing, it opens up with Joss Whedon and Fabio Moon’s impossibly awesome “Sugarshock” — and that’s worth the purchase price all by itself. Plus it’s got a story of the Umbrella Academy by Gerard Way and Gabriel Ba, Adam Warren’s awesomely awesome superhero bondage-queen Empowered, a Christmas story by Mike Mignola, Rick Rememnder’s “Fear Agent” and much, much more.

Really, I’ve been looking through here trying to find a story I didn’t like — I think I found one. And I didn’t even mind it that much, it just didn’t entirely appeal to me. The rest of the stories here are just plain jaw-droppingly schweeet.

Verdict: Thumbs up. Big-time, crazy-hat, jazz-hands thumbs up. Why hasn’t “Sugarshock” been given an ongoing series yet? Whedon, to heck with that Buffy stuff, a’ight? Get busy on bringing us monthly Sugarshock adventures.

If ya ain’t heard the news yet, Top Cow has announced the winners of their second annual Pilot Season event — they’re Troy Hickman and Reza’s “Twilight Guardian” and Mark Bernardin, Adam Freeman, and Afua Richardson’s “Genius.” Both titles are going to get their own ongoing series sometime next year.

I previously reviewed both “Twilight Guardian” and “Genius” — both of them got thumbs-ups, and I’m very eagerly awaiting both of the ongoing series next year.

‘Gratz to the winnahs!

Bahlactus speaks, and he demands nothing less than FRIDAY NIGHT FIGHTS! And even better, he wants a bunch of girl fights! Girl fights! It’s like Christmas! No, it’s better than Christmas! It’s ATOMIC CHRISTMAS!

Tonight, we get our double-X-chromosomed violence from 1998’s C.H.I.X. #1 with Adam Warren and Tom Simmons. Here, Sistah Ninja’s mad leet ninja skillz prove no match for Good Girl’s middle finger…

“PLIK” is an excellent sound effect.

Birds of Prey #122

Manhunter’s gonna be off the team for a bit — Visionary’s fear power messed her up pretty good mentally and emotionally. But Visionary’s Silicon Syndicate and their new ally, the Joker, stage an attack on police HQ to draw the Birds out of hiding. The bad guys manage to plant a tracker on Lady Blackhawk and figure out the team’s base of operations. Looks like they’ve tipped the cops off, figuring that the police don’t like superheroes so will blame them for all the trouble. Oracle sends the rest of the team away so maybe the cops and bad guys are really dumb and will just think that Lady B. just dropped off her jacket in the lobby. Barbara figures she can make the cops think it’s a bad call… oh, wait, that’s not a cop, that’s the green-haired guy who put her in that wheelchair…

Verdict: Thumbs up, even though the story relies on way too many people being way stupider than normal. I’m just digging the idea of Babs Gordon vs. the Joker next issue…

The Flash #244

Flash introduces his kids to the location where he got his superpowers, then the three of them take down a trio of villains while Flash experiences some mysterious cramps in his muscles. But there’s an emergency to attend to — someone’s running around in a scary bee suit and using toxic programmable killer bees to kill people. Looks like it might be an attempt to steal an alien-tech communicator, which is on the other side of the country, making Flash the obvious choice to collect it before the bee-man can. Unfortunately, Flash’s cramping muscles are becoming more of a problem, leaving him having seizures and unable to run above the speed of sound. Why? Looks like when Wally used his powers to fix his kids’ powers last issue, his superspeed somehow reverted back to his preteen days before his abilities matured. That makes absolutely no sense, but I guess it’s what we’re going to go with.

Anyway, Wally can outrun the bees, but not by much, so when he gets to the research facility where the communicator is being kept, he actually rents a deep-sea diving suit to keep the bees out. Unfortunately, the bee man is a bit too tough for him — the bee dude gets away clean, and Wally’s in really, really bad shape…

Verdict: Thumbs up. It’s nice to see Wally running a lot, even if it’s at a lower speed. Only thing I’m worried about is whether DC’s trying to drop his speed down so they can have Barry Allen take over this book. I wouldn’t like that one bit.

DC Universe Decisions #1

DC gets into election season by tapping conservative Bill Willingham and liberal Judd Winick to write about the impact of politics on the world of superheroes. An unknown villain is mind-controlling campaign workers into turning themselves into suicide bombers to try to assassinate a quartet of presidential candidates. The Justice League mobilizes, with everyone assigned to guard a candidate, either publicly in costume or undercover. Green Arrow breaks an unofficial superhero taboo by endorsing the liberal candidate he’s guarding.

Verdict: Thumbs down. This one already had an uphill battle, due to half of its writing team being an incompetent dope who is never happy unless he’s killing random characters. Yes, I mean Winick. Jeez, I hate that guy. Anyway, the investigation into the would-be assassin is entertaining enough, I suppose. We don’t really get much insight into the political beliefs of our superheroes — everyone knew Green Arrow was a liberal, and it was a pretty good bet that Lois Lane, daughter of a general, would be conservative. Perhaps a bit weirder is that Lois has no clue whatsoever about her husband’s political beliefs, and he absolutely refuses to tell her. Wow, that’s a really awful depiction of married people, don’tcha think? Superman keeps incredibly pointless secrets from his wife, and Lois Lane, big-time investigative reporter, can’t figure out what her husband thinks about the important issues of the day.

Captain Britain and MI:13 #5

Captain Britain is getting adjusted to his new powers, and Faiza Hussain and the Black Knight talk to Faiza’s overprotective parents, finally winning them over to accepting her new powers by showing off the shiny magic sword she pulled from a stone. Spitfire revels in her control over her vampiric nature, and everyone welcomes the team’s newest member, Blade. Hold it, Blade? Yeah, turns out he was brought up in England. Hey, wait a minute, Blade really, really doesn’t like vampires, does he?

Verdict: Thumbs up. A conditional thumbs up, as long as Spitfire gets outta this okay. I love the characterization they’re doing for Faiza Hussain — she’s really turning out to be a very appealing character.

The Spirit #21

A former crime boss named Buzz Viviano is facing regular attempts on his life in prison, and his old gang kidnaps Ellen Dolan, daughter of Commissioner Dolan and girlfriend of the Spirit, to try to get Viviano released. The Spirit has a makeup artist disguise him as Viviano so he can track down the gang and rescue Ellen. Unfortunately, the gang actually wants Viviano dead, so a nice big fight erupts. Ellen gets away, meets up with a cycle gang and enlists their help. The cops release the real Viviano, hoping he’ll lead them to the rest of the gang. The whole thing ends with a fairly epic brawl between the Spirit, the crooks, the bikers, and the cops, with Ellen enthusiastically joining in the mayhem.

Verdict: Thumbs up. The fight at the end is lots of fun, and the rest of the story is pretty good, too.

Green Lantern Corps #28

Trying to identify the mysterious assailant who’s murdered the families of rookie Green Lanterns, the Corps calls in Saarek, a GL who can communicate with the dead. Unfortunately, the face that Saarek conjures doesn’t match up with any known species. Guy Gardner, Kyle Rayner, Saarek, and Kilowog head out to try to track down the killer — but they find not one, but five of them, all Sinestro Corps members. But they’re all caught pretty quickly, and Saarek gets a new assignment that could lead to some major unpleasantness.

Verdict: I’m gonna give this a thumbs down. Everything got resolved a bit too cleanly and quickly, considering how the threat of these killers got hyped up so hard. I’m also not grooving all that hard on Saarek — he seems like he’s been introduced just so they can do something horrible and dramatic to him in the next couple of issues.

B.P.R.D.: The Warning #3

The Bureau for Paranormal Research and Defense, including Abe Sapien, Johann Kraus, and Kate Corrigan, are trying to track down the possibly kidnapped Liz Sherman, ending up near Munich and uncovering evidence that Liz’s disappearance may have connections to some previous BPRD cases. Abe and Johann investigate an abandoned subway construction site and find a small army of proto-human monsters building giant robots. This is gonna be bad news for Munich and good news for everyone who loves giant robots.

Verdict: Thumbs up. Almost entirely because I love giant robots.