Booster Gold #12

Last issue, Booster’s plan was to beat Batman while posing as Killer Moth. Unfortunately, that just made the time glitch even worse, so the new plan is for Booster to pose as Batman and stop Killer Moth — who, remember, is also Booster. Got a headache yet? Booster and his sister Goldstar pay a visit to the Batcave, but they’re attacked by a shotgun-wielding Alfred. They manage to escape with the Batmobile, but they’re not able to get one of Batman’s costumes, so instead, they stop by the home of Commissioner Gordon and his daughter Barbara, where Goldstar steals a Batgirl costume. Booster still needs a disguise, since if his previous self sees himself wearing his regular costume, it’ll cause more time glitches, plus it’ll make readers’ time travel headaches even worse. So instead, Booster disguises himself as Elvis. So Elvis-Booster beats Moth-Booster, the time traveler gets his loot, goes back into the past, endows a children’s hospital, and all is made right with the timestream. I think. Man, it’s hard to say with time travel.

Verdict: Thumbs up. Yes, it’s full of confusing time paradoxes, but dang it, that’s what good time travel stories are all about.

The Goon #28

While the Goon puts the muscle on the lowlifes in town to make sure they’re not working with Labrazio. And Charley Mudd has been driven a bit ’round the bend by the death of his brother. He hallucinates that a tree stump is actually his brother Bill. When he finds out that a low-level gang leader named Joey the Ball (his hand is stuck in a bowling ball) was behind the murder of his brother, Charley pays him a visit and kills him and his hench-zombies with the stump. And the Buzzard has captured the blinded and humilated Zombie Priest after learning his True Name and forcing his loyalty. The story culminates in a grand finale in which the Goon meets up with a lowlife renting out his mule for, um, deviant purposes… so the Goon beats the stuffing out of the poor mule to make sure the guy won’t be able to make any more money off of it. Poor mule.

Verdict: Thumbs up. Mule beatings, stump murders, and Franky kicking a cat with a human face. Solid gold!

The calendar on the wall says today marks the official beginning of National Hispanic Heritage Month, which seems like as good a time as any to review the presence of Hispanic characters in comics. Though the Wikipedia page on Hispanic superheroes lists a whole lot of characters, the vast majority of them are either from small-press companies or are not currently appearing in any books. I’m not going to even try to address all of them, just because there are a ton of these characters who I know absolutely zip about, but let’s take a look at a few of the more prominent Hispanics in comics. (NOTE: No, this isn’t every Hispanic character ever — I tried to stick to characters who were currently being published.)

Bane – His real name is unknown, but his origin says he was born in and grew up in a brutal prison in a fictional Latin American country. He’s generally been portrayed as a supervillain — most prominently as the guy who broke Batman’s back — but he has occasionally operated as a superhero.

Bane is one of the characters in DC’s new “Secret Six” series.

Blue Beetle – Probably the most high-profile Hispanic character in comics right now — which is a bit depressing, because the “Blue Beetle” comic book has struggled with low sales numbers and always seems to be on the brink of cancellation. Jaime Reyes is an El Paso high school student who finds a discarded blue scarab which ends up fusing itself to his spine, allowing him to turn into an armored superhero with a vast array of weaponry. Most of his supporting cast is also Hispanic.

Jaime currently appears in “Blue Beetle” and “Teen Titans,” with some appearances in “Tiny Titans.”

The Darkness – Jackie Estacado is of mixed Spanish and Italian ancestry. He’s a Mafia assassin who winds up possessing a power called the Darkness which allows him to create almost anything, though his abilities only function in darkness. Technically, his powers are actually aligned with elemental evil forces, but he seems to end up working on the side of the good guys as often as not.

The Darkness appears in — duh! — “The Darkness” and the new “Broken Trinity” miniseries from Top Cow Productions.

Darwin – Armando Muñoz is a mutant in the Marvel Universe. He has mixed Spanish and African ancestry. His mutant power is “reactive evolution” — in other words, his body adapts to almost any situation or environment to allow him to evolve new powers. Turn out the lights, and he’ll be able to see in the dark. Dunk him underwater, and he’ll grow gills. Stick him in a burning building, and he’ll evolve fire-proof skin. Put him in a fistfight against the Hulk… and he’ll evolve the ability to teleport to a safe distance away.

Darwin is a regular character in the current incarnation of “X-Factor.”

El Diablo – Originally a Wild West hero, later an unpowered crimefighter in the ’80s, the current version is a criminal named Chato Santana who operates as a bit of a Robin Hood kind of guy. He’s a drug dealer, but he uses his money to benefit the less fortunate. That’s about all I know about the guy right now — his series is brand new, and I haven’t picked it up yet.

El Diablo appears in DC’s current miniseries called “El Diablo.”

Gangbuster – Jose Delgado got his start as part of Superman’s supporting cast, where he operated as an unpowered vigilante who targeted street gangs. Since then, he’s become a cyborg and has kinda-sorta retired. However, he’s been brought back around as one of the main characters in DC’s current weekly series “Trinity.”

Gangbuster currently appears in “Trinity.” Wait, I said that already, didn’t I?

Green Lantern – Specifically, Kyle Rayner. He discovered towards the end of his solo comic that his father was from Mexico. A graphic artist and cartoonist, he was given the last Green Lantern ring in the universe after Hal Jordan destroyed the Green Lantern Corps. After operating on his own for many years, he used a temporary boost in his powers to re-create the Guardians of the Galaxy, the planet Oa, and the Central Power Battery. I think he’s always been my favorite GL.

Kyle appears regularly in “Green Lantern Corps” and makes guest appearances in “Green Lantern” and other DC comics.

Hawkgirl – Both Hawkman and Hawkgirl reincarnate every time they die, but the current version of Hawkgirl, Kendra Saunders, is of mixed Hispanic descent. This is almost never referred to by anyone. Until recently, I thought she was 100% Caucasian. Though she wears a set of artificial wings, her power of flight is actually because of a belt she wears which is made of a substance called “Nth Metal.”

Hawkgirl appears in the “Justice League of America” comic.

Love and Rockets – Well, it’s not really one specific character, but this long-running independent series, created by Gilbert and Jaime Hernandez, features a large number of Hispanic characters, including Maggie, Penny Century, Luba, Ray, Speedy, Vivian, Izzy, and the population of the village of Palomar, as well as numerous other characters. The ongoing stories in this series are a combination of realism, punk rock fantasy, and magical realism, like in Gabriel Garcia Marquez’s novels.

There is a current series of “Love and Rockets” on the shelves, but there are also extensive reprints and anthologies of the older series that you can buy.

The Question – Renee Montoya is a former Gotham City police detective who quit the force after she was outed as a lesbian. Knowing he was dying, the original Question, Vic Sage, took her under his wing and trained her to replace him. Operating as a vigilante, she wears a special mask that makes her appear faceless.

You can read Renee’s full origin as the Question in the “52” miniseries from a couple years ago, and she has appeared several times in the “Final Crisis” series and as a guest in other DC comics.

Rictor – Julio Esteban Richter is a former mutant able to generate seismic energy and shockwaves from his fingertips. After being depowered, along with most of Earth’s mutants, he has joined the “X-Factor Investigations” private detective agency.

Rictor appears in Marvel Comics’ “X-Factor.”

Zorro – The granddaddy of all Hispanic superheroes. Heck, he was one of the major inspirations for Batman, which definitely makes him one of the most influential characters in adventure fiction. He was created in 1919 by Johnson McCulley for a pulp magazine. While masquerading as an ineffective fop, Don Diego de la Vega donned cape, mask, hat, and sword to battle corrupt officials in Spanish colonial California.

Though he’s most associated with movies, TV, and prose fiction, there have been several incarnations of “Zorro” comics, including a recent series from Dynamite Entertainment.

So there’s what we got. It doesn’t look like that bad a list of characters — but I am consistently surprised that there aren’t more Hispanic characters in comics, especially with a rapidly-increasing population of Hispanic-American citizens. Is it just a matter of the comic book industry being dominated by Caucasians, both as creators and as readers? That is probably a big part of the problem, but the smart companies should start realizing that a more diverse selection of characters would be more appealing to a more diverse readership.

I’ve always thought reading comics about the Guild of Perpetually White Superheroes was dull as cheap vanilla ice cream — and having more minority characters in comics makes the stories more appealing, as well as making a fictional comic-book universe more realistic and interesting…

Okay, folks, it’s Friday night, and I’m in the mood for a big thick steamin’ bowl of Wolf Brand Whupass!

In other words, it’s way past time for FRIDAY NIGHT FIGHTS!

For tonight, I dug out my recent copy of Ambush Bug: Year None #1 by Keith Giffen, Robert Loren Fleming, and Al Milgrom, in which the Golden Age Batgirl gives poor Ambush Bug a moderately undeserved kick to the face:

Good gravy train, she kicked him so hard his head exploded!

Blondes in short skirts and masks kicking you so hard your head explodes is what Friday Night Fights is all about…

Hey, if you haven’t seen it yet, y’all need to check out the article in today’s Lubbock Avalanche-Journal about the Lubbock Sketch Club!

Let’s take a quick look at an excerpt:

A flyer for the Lubbock SketchClub’s weekly Saturday meeting features a big smiling character who says, “I can’t even draw stick figures!”

The quote places a sarcastic spin on the belief of the club’s founder, Will Terrell, that everyone has artistic potential.

“We have seen people (go from) drawing stick figures to life-like characters in six months,” said Terrell, a professional comic book artist whose resume includes being the colorist for Disney’s “Gargoyles” and “The Goblin Chronicles” comic book.

Terrell, 31, started the club in October 2006 to create a community for cartoonists and comic book artists in the Lubbock area. Meetings are free and open to all ages and skill levels.

The club’s success has been built on diversity in membership and participants’ willingness to share work and give feedback to each other, Terrell said.

As they say in the funny pages, read the whole thing.

So Kalinara proposed a little meme-game called the “Five Characters” meme, which I’ve decided to play around with. Here are the rules:

1. Comment on this post.
2. I will give you a letter.
3. Think of 5 fictional characters and post their names and your comments on these characters in your blog or Livejournal. Or even here in the comments.

You’ll note it says “fictional characters” — you don’t have to include any comics characters if you want… but hey, I run a comic book blog, so I went with all super-people.

Anyway, the letter I was assigned was “C“… and here are the characters I picked.

1. Captain America – I’ve only recently started reading any “Captain America” comics, and it used to be that I didn’t even understand the appeal of the character. But in the last few years, I think I’ve started to catch on to why Cap is so much fun.

Granted, back in the day, he didn’t do much but wave the flag, fight Nazis, and be patriotic. But for the past several decades, lots of writers have realized that Cap is a perfect vehicle for exploring topics like the nature of patriotism and America’s strong and weak points. Heck, the guy’s basically a big living flag, and he’s just about the closest thing any comic companies have to an actual symbol of America — with that pedigree, he’s tailor-made for storylines dealing with the times when America hasn’t lived up to its idealistic promises.

There’ve been Cap stories dealing with the War on Terror, the dangers of knee-jerk nationalism and jingoism, national dissent over the Vietnam War, fascism, racism, and just about every other important national issue. Even the current storyline focuses on an attempt to destroy America by tearing it down from the inside, using a collapsing economy, an out-of-control security apparatus, and collusions between corporate and governmental conspirators. Talk about “ripped from the headlines!”

2. Captain Carrot – Aww, how could I resist! The lead character of my favorite funny-animal comic ever! Originally a mild-mannered cartoonist named, believe it or not, Roger Rabbit (DC changed his name to Rodney when Disney started working on their movie), he got his abilities of super-strength and super-leaping by eating “Cosmic Carrots.”

Actually, Captain Carrot may have been my least favorite character out of the entire Zoo Crew. Fastback, Pig-Iron, and Rubberduck had the powers I wanted, Alley-Kat-Abra and Yankee Poodle were easier on the eyes, and even Little Cheese had a more interesting backstory. But Cap was the glue that held them all together — without him, you just couldn’t see any of the rest of the Zoo Crew working as a team or even getting along that well.

In a way, that’s what leaders do best, at least in fiction — they may not be the most interesting characters, but they exist to make sure the other characters stay linked together and interacting with each other. Or maybe I’m over-thinking that. Cap is just a cartoon rabbit who makes a “SPROING” noise when he jumps…

3. Changeling – No, not “Beast Boy.” I always hated that name. I still don’t know why they went back to it, other than stupid Silver Age nostalgia. Gar Logan’s gotta be in his 20s by now — why would he want to be called a boy? I definitely preferred the “Changeling” name he went by during the Wolfman/Perez “Teen Titans” series in the ’80s.

Anyway, I’ve always liked shapeshifters and stretchers, because they can physically change their own identities. I guess I’ve always wanted to be different people, so I tend to gravitate to shapeshifters, like Changeling, Plastic Man, Chameleon Boy, Warlock, and Morph. I think it’s even why I enjoy werewolf movies so much. But Changeling was always one of my favorites. I liked his juvenile/goofball attitude, for one thing, and I think I’ve always liked comics characters with green skin. Heck, you should see my “City of Heroes” characters — you’ve never seen so many green-skinned freaks in yer life, I promise.

So yeah, I’m a complete fan of Changeling, and I can’t wait ’til they change his name back like it oughtta be.

4. Citizen Steel – So you got Nate Heywood, former football star, now drug-addicted, whiny amputee, and he gets superpowers that give him his leg back and give him superstrength. His powers have taken away most of his ability to feel anything, and he’s too strong to touch anything without causing damage. His costume is designed to slow him down and reduce his strength. I was not expecting to like this guy at all, but he’s turned out to be one of my favorite characters in the new “Justice Society of America” series.

What’s he got that makes him appealing? Personality. The guy is absolutely devoted to the surviving kids in his family, and it seems like half of his appearances have featured him hanging out his numerous cousins, just letting them crawl all over him while he makes them pancakes or something crazy like that. In the current JSA storyline, he’s clearly jonesing hard for Gog to grant his wish of being able to hug his cousins without injuring or killing them. It’s that strong attachment to his family that really makes Nate unique and cool.

5. Crazy Jane – And finally, there’s Kay Challis, from Grant Morrison’s late-80s/early-90s “Doom Patrol” series. Kay suffers from multiple personality disorder, and each of her 64 personalities has its own superpowers. The hyper-aggressive and super-scary Black Annis has claws, the Hangman’s Beautiful Daughter creates psychically-active paintings, Flit can teleport, Lucy Fugue has radioactive bones, Sun Daddy has a sun for a head.

Robotman is the best superhero, Rebis seems to know the answers to everything, but Crazy Jane was the heart and soul of the Doom Patrol. Her madness was the perfect mirror for everything Morrison was doing in this comic. And she was actually better at holding the entire team together — Rebis always seemed about to vanish somewhere to contemplate his/her radioactive navel, and Cliff Steele tended to want to stay home and avoid trouble. Jane motivated Cliff to act, and Rebis usually tagged along for the ride. And she still turned out to be a pretty good superhero — she often lasted longer against the Doom Patrol’s weird bad guys than either Rebis or Robotman.

I wish they’d bring her back. I don’t know if she’d be as good if someone other than Morrison was writing her, but I still think it’d be cool.

So there are my five characters. Gimme a shout in comments if you wanna play, and I’ll assign you your letter.

Wonder Woman #24

Quite a bit of fun in this one. We start out with Diana taking Tom Tresser to Themyscira to meet her mother, Queen Hippolyta. She takes him on a few chores as a test — specifically, hand-feeding the griffins. This doesn’t really work out well, but Hippolyta accepts him anyway, makes him an honorary Amazon, and gives her blessing to Diana’s relationship with him. She also gets off the best line in the comic, after asking Tresser and Diana for a final favor:

I actually laughed out loud when I read that.

Anyway, after leaving Themyscira, Wondy travels to Hollywood, where some slick movie execs have decided to make a Wonder Woman movie and are seeking her approval. Wondy takes a couple of her albino ape buddies along to help impress the movie moguls, tries to bond with a bitter lawyer, and gets a tour of the backlot. What she sees of the movie rehearsals, she really doesn’t approve of, and it does look really awful — the movie version of Wondy has a lightsabre, and there are just way too many awful one-liners. Unfortunately, Laney Kirswell, the studio head, is hiding a nasty secret that leads to even more trouble for Diana.

Verdict: Thumbs up. Lots of great dialogue, funny jokes, bizarre situations, giant sharks, and an unexpected supervillain. This one’s great fun.

Manhunter #34

Kate tangles with the Suicide Squad and spends several happy minutes just slaughtering Multiplex’s clone bodies, but she’s still badly outnumbered. Luckily, Huntress and Lady Blackhawk from the Birds of Prey show up to pull her bacon outta the fire — but there’s not actually going to be any more fighting. The Suicide Squad were undercover trying to discover who was killing women in Mexico and why. Meanwhile, her son Ramsey has developed superpowers — how is she gonna deal with having grandparents and a son who have superpowers?

Verdict: Thumbs up, kinda. I felt like the Suicide Squad wasn’t used the way I’d prefer ’em, and the stuff with Ramsey’s powers just felt a bit odd. But in general, it was alright.

House of Mystery #5

This one’s a bit all over the map. We get a bio of Fig’s life, from childhood literary hero to mystical Teen Detective to failed architect. We get the House’s permanent residents trying to survive as the House begins to collapse on itself. We get a spotlight story where boring old Jordan tells a boring story about his boring life fighting giant spiders, vampire cats, fire-breathing dragons, and elder gods. We also get what seems to be a resolution to the first storyarc, though I can’t really tell if it’s completed or just carrying over to another new arc.

Verdict: Thumbs up, with some pretty strong reservations. I loved Jordan’s story, which shoehorns tons of weird, bizarre, fantastical stuff into a seemingly mundane story. I love Fig’s autobiography, which twists and turns all over the place, from happiness to ongoing tragedy. I was really not at all interested in the overarching story about the House trying to destroy itself. And I didn’t like the ending at all — I expect a little vagueness in good dark fantasy, but this was simply too vague for me to really figure out what happened.

Necronomicon #1

This one’s pretty fun. We follow the story of a Arabic student named Henry Said who’s attending the infamous Miskatonic University in the 1920s. He’s good with languages, so a mysterious group of university patrons hire him to translate the dreaded Necronomicon into English. But something sinister is going on? Why is Henry being followed? Why does the university librarian act so strange? Who are the monstrous figures who try to steal the Necronomicon?

Verdict: Thumbs up. Excellent Lovecraftian fun. Henry is a fun character, naively learning about the Western world and the occult horrors around him. His small circle of friends are entertaining, too. And the eldritch horror elements are nicely handled, too. No mind-bending gods rising from the sea, at least not yet — things start out slow and creepy before building up to what seems to be a horrific climax — but this is just the first issue, and there are certainly worse things than decomposing zombies and bug-faced kidnappers on the way soon…

I wanted to throw out a quick heads-up about a new blog I’ve added to my blogroll — it’s The Kid’s Comic Book Reviews.

What is it? It’s a bunch of comic reviews by a seven-year-old kid — and they’re not short, barely-thought-out micro-reviews, either. They’re lengthy, complete reviews of everything from artwork to plot and character. Even better, they’re fun to read, and they give a perspective we don’t see that often around the blogosphere.

Give the Kid a read — I think you’ll like him.

Believe it or not, today is apparently Teddy Bear Day. I know, I know, that’s what I thought, too. I don’t know if Hallmark is just powerful enough where they can designate any crazy holidays they want to sell more cards, or if there’s some groundswell movement by crazy people to get people to, I don’t know, hug teddy bears or something.

But never let it be said that I won’t shamelessly jump on any ol’ bandwagon that rolls down the hill, a’ight?

Alright, I’ve done my sacred duty as a comics blogger, so now I’m gonna go off and read edgy comics about cool people who wear black clothes and smoke cigars.

(looks around to make sure no one’s watching)

(hugs secret teddy bear hidden under bed)

(resolves to go find that “Death is a Windup Bear” story somewhere)

The Family Dynamic #1

A new all-ages book from DC — this one focuses on the Spencers, a Canadian family with a secret identity as a superteam called the Family Dynamic. The dad, Pyralis, controls fire; Sirocco, the mom, is a wind generator; eldest son Troylus is a water blaster; and younger son Terran is an earth elemental. They all get their powers from a set of rings that have been in the family at least a generation or two. A lot of this first issue is focused on establishing the backstory, thanks to a news interview by a reporter who’s also a superhero in his off-time. And there are another couple of superheroes in town, a mother-daughter team called Blackbird and Little Wing. Add a couple of clownish villains called Tragedy Ann and Tom Foolery, and the stage is set for lots of superhero action…

Verdict: Thumbs up. This looks like it’ll be a lot of fun. Already getting some interesting conflicts set up among the various superheroes, and everyone’s personalities seem solid and interesting. If I’ve got a complaint, it’s that we just barely learn the characters’ real names — the names are buried way back in the story, when in the first issue of a comic, you should really make sure that all the characters have been properly and clearly introduced to the readers. But again, minor quibble there — the rest is plenty of fun.

Young X-Men #5

The mask is off — “Cyclops” is really the evil cyborg Donald Pierce in disguise! As Graymalkin and Magma scare Pierce off and return Dust to her natural form, while Rockslide, Wolf Club, and Ink fight Sunspot and Cannonball. Eventually, everyone realizes they’re on the same side, and they track down Pierce so they can rescue Blindfold and Dani Moonstar. And though they’re able to beat Pierce in the end, he manages to kill Wolf Cub.

Verdict: Thumbs down. Aside from the story being a bit of a letdown, I’m disappointed that they killed Wolf Cub. Sure, it was telegraphed from the beginning — who else were they gonna kill? A brand new character like Graymalkin? The quirky blind girl with the wacky speech patterns? The charismatic rock-covered tough guy? The token religious minority? So if someone had to die, it was obviously going to be Wolf Cub. I’m just disappointed that they felt they had to kill him at all. He could’ve developed into an interesting character, with a little effort. And besides, I’m really getting tired of comics killing off characters for cheap shock-value.