Well, here we are, the first Friday in September, the weather’s cooling off, football season’s in full swing, school’s back in session, the political campaigns are making large numbers of people hoot madly and bash their heads against brick walls. What the heck, seems like as good an excuse as any to dive headlong into FRIDAY NIGHT FIGHTS!

Tonight, let’s pay a quick visit to 2003’s JLA: Welcome to the Working Week by Patton Oswalt, Patrick Gleason, and Christian Alamy, in which Wonder Woman gets in a little sparring using Cheetah’s spinal column:

Looks like Wondy just bought Cheetah a round-trip ticket on the Pain Train…

Secret Six #1

The dysfunctional anti-villains from “Villains United” are back — Catman, Deadshot, Ragdoll, and Scandal, with new member Bane joining them and another newbie showing up in another issue down the road. Some horrifyingly creepy crimelord named “Junior” has the team in his sights, Catman is considering giving up crime, Scandal is drunkenly mourning her lost love Knockout, and Ragdoll is still the funniest and most pervertedly bizarre freak on the planet. The whole team has to break a former superhero out of prison and take her on a cross-country journey, all with an impossibly large bounty on their heads that guarantees that everyone is going to be gunning for them.

Verdict: Thumbs up. Oh, mercy, what a thumbs up. I can’t believe I missed this series as much as I did. I love all these characters, but holy guacamole, how is it possible for any character to be as horribly funny and kinky and awkward as Ragdoll? And Junior seems like a really cool villain — scary, mysterious, sadistic in really awful ways. This one is going to be so much fun.

Green Lantern #34

The “Secret Origin” storyline continues. Hal and Sinestro save William Hand from Atrocitus. Sinestro gets to be an arrogant so-and-so, Hal is able to use his ring against something colored yellow, Hal makes his peace with Carol Ferris and her father, and both of the GLs get called on the carpet by the Guardians.

Verdict: Thumbs down. Bored now.

H.P. Lovecraft’s Haunt of Horror #3

The final issue of this miniseries sticks to the same high standards as the previous two. Once again, it’s the stories and poems of horror master H.P. Lovecraft, illustrated by brilliant horror artist Richard Corben. In this issue, we get the tale of Arthur Jermyn, who discovers that there’s a nasty case of root rot in his family tree; we get the story of “The Well,” in which something unpleasant and dangerous is lurking underground; and we get “The Window,” which considers just how empty the space on the other side of a wall can be.

Verdict: Thumbs up. “Arthur Jermyn” is one of my least favorite of Lovecraft’s stories, but Corben still makes it work. The other stories, based on very short poems, work out wonderfully as full-length comic stories. Pick all of these up, if you can.

Marvel: Your Universe Saga

Basically, this is a combination of a short addendum to the Official Handbook of the Marvel Universe and a brief summary of the last several years’ worth of Marvel storylines.

Verdict: Not much to it? I’m still giving it a thumbs up. It’s free, baby! And it’s pretty good anyway — Marvel has been a pretty convoluted place lately, so it’s nice to have a little scorecard to keep track of everything that’s been going on.

Justice Society of America #18

Well, he’s right there on the cover, isn’t he, so it’s not like this is a big spoiler — Magog, from the “Kingdom Come” series, has his big origin in this issue. Who is he? That’s a spoiler for a bit further down in this paragraph, so be warned, a’ight? Anyway, Gog has discovered that humans make war on each other, and he’s not happy about that at all. The JSA try to disarm the bad guys and keep them from taking hostages or killing anyone else, but Gog takes the villains out of the picture without killing them — he turns them into trees. Of course, that pretty much kills their consciousness and minds, so there’s not much difference, is there? Elsewhere, Citizen Steel is desperate to get his Gog-granted cure, Damage is enjoying his newly-repaired face, Hawkman is bloodthirstier than normal, and Power Girl is trying to find some allies in the weirdly hostile Earth-2. Oh, and David Reid, FDR’s grandson, gets hit with a rocket shell and killed. But with Gog around, that’s hardly likely to be permanent — and Gog likes improving people, too, maybe with a few cyber-enhancements and metal horns…

Verdict: I’m gonna thumbs-down it. This is getting stretched out more and more and more, and it’s way past time to start wrapping this up. I’m also not thrilled with taking a perfectly good character like David Reid and revamping him into the Kingdom Come Magog.

Fantastic Four: True Story #2

The Fantastic Four manage to save Elinor, Marianne, and Margaret, from Jane Austen’s “Sense and Sensibility,” from hordes of demons, but the team learns that, here in the world of fiction, their own imaginations can alter the characters — Johnny accidentally starts Marianne talking in computer-jargon l33t-speak — and the fictional characters’ imaginations can alter them, too! Ben Grimm manages to save everyone, but the Dashwoods start re-imagining him as a heroic soldier of their own time period. So the FF, realizing they need some more allies, go visiting “Ivanhoe,” “Kubla Khan,” “Last of the Mohicans,” and “Frankenstein.” But the demons have other stories they can dig through, too, looking for their own villainous allies…

Verdict: Thumbs up. A bit confusing here and there, but I’m enjoying the ride so far.

Blue Beetle #30

Jaime is still trying to track down the illegal immigrants who’ve managed to give themselves magnetic superpowers. In the process, he interrogates La Dama, tangles with the metahuman wrestlers he fought last issue, argues with the Posse, and plays a round of mini-golf. In the end, Jaime defeats them with Science! — but that’s far from the end of Jaime’s troubles…

Verdict: Thumbs up. This is still, even over the course of multiple new writers, the best comic DC is publishing. And still, over the course of dozens of issues, the dialogue and situations are still what make it so golden. Any comic that features a little boy dancing in a dress and singing “I’m a princess!” and a superhero who manufactures his own paper with dead skin cells and sweat — and feels like he needs to tell people that — is something that I really never ever want to give up. I’ve told y’all a few times to go read this, right? Well, go read this!

Marvel Adventures: The Avengers #27

An unusual issue this time, because there’s not just one story. The first part of this issue focuses on Storm, Ant-Man, Spider-Man, the Hulk, and Giant-Girl visiting a county fair. Why? Because they need superheroes to judge pie-eating contests. Anyway, there’s an accident with Ant-Man’s helmet, and everyone gets shrunk. This would be easy for Ant-Man to fix, if only he could get his helmet back from the pig that’s run off with it. Meanwhile, back in the city, Captain America and Iron Man shoot some hoops and round up some spammers.

Verdict: Another thumbs up. And once again, what makes this comic so wonderful is the outstanding dialogue and funny situations. Ant-Man helping a moonshiner improve his still? Hulk chasing pigs for a hug? Storm trapped in cotton candy? Giant-Girl riding a chicken? Iron Man cheating at basketball? And really, the single best line in any comic I picked up last week: “Is Fancy Dan kidding?” This is definitely another comic you need to be reading right now.

Liberty Comics

Here’s one of the Comic Book Legal Defense Fund’s periodic fundraiser comics, designed to both raise a little scratch for the organization and educate readers about the continuing need to support the CBLDF and oppose censorship of comics, graphic novels, etc.

This one features a number of different stories by a number of different creators, but the real standouts are Garth Ennis and Darick Robertson’s short vignette about The Boys and the horrible, violent things they do to super-people, Darwyn Cooke and Dave Stewart’s tribute to “The Deadly Book,” Mark Millar and John Paul Leon’s modern re-telling of “House of Dracula,” Art Adams’ great pinup of Monkeyman and O’Brien, Ed Brubaker’s “Criminal” story about pressuring the press, and the short strips on “Tales of Comic Book Censorship” by Mark Evanier and Sergio Aragones.

Verdict: Thumbs up. You’ve joined up with the CBLDF, haven’t ya? Twenty-five smackers is all it costs to get a membership, and you help support efforts to stamp out comic censorship.

Birds of Prey #121

The Joker is moving in on the Silicon Syndicate in Plantinum Flats; the Birds get acquainted with Infinity, their newest operative; and Misfit enrolls in a new school. That’s pretty much it.

Verdict: I’m thumbs-downing it. It’s a place-saver issue. Worse, it’s a fairly dull place-saver.

She-Hulk #32

Shulkie and Jazinda have captured the Nogor, the Skrull’s “Talisman”, or spiritual leader. So they, umm, keep him tied up. With ropes. In their RV. She-Hulk rescues a bunch of humans captured by the Skrulls, and then they get attacked by Jazinda’s dad, the original Super-Skrull himself.

Verdict: I’m turning thumbs down on this one, too. The main problem is that it’s just not interesting.

Ya know what’s cool about working at a newspaper? You get all these press releases in the mail, and every once in a while, one of them ends up being useful for your comic book blog! For instance, there’s this one that came late last week from the folks at Texas Tech University…

To all those would-be comic book historians whose mothers tossed out their research materials while cleaning out the attic: here’s the resource for you.

“Marvel Graphic Novels and Related Publications: An Annotated Guide,” written by Texas Tech University pop cultural guru Rob Weiner, is an exhaustive 385-page reference work on the universe of Spidey, Iron Man and The Fantastic Four.

Written to appeal to casual fans, committed collectors and scholars of sequential art – a lofty term for comic books – the guide provides detailed descriptions for all of Marvel’s mainstream comics. Bibliographic citations provide information on writers and artists, ISBN numbers and plot synopsis for each publication title.

Weiner, a Texas Tech author, librarian and instructor with expertise on topics ranging from the Grateful Dead to American presidents in film, noted that a growing number of universities are offering courses that examine the social and psychological impact of sequential art.

“Superman, Batman and Spiderman represent a 20th century type of folklore, much like their predecessors: Odysseus, Hercules and Perseus,” he said.

Weiner spent six years compiling the book – a task that required him to read all the works himself. The guide includes anecdotes and listings of scholarly publications on the subject.

Weiner serves as a subject librarian for the Texas Tech Library who specializes in art, sequential art, music and film. He is currently co-editing a book about transgressive exploitation and art cinema and plans the release of another book covering a Marvel staple: Captain America.

“Marvel Graphic Novels and Related Publications: An Annotated Guide,” published by McFarland, may be purchased through Amazon.com.

By the way, Rob is one of the most dedicated promoters of comics in the Lubbock area — he worked for about a dozen years as a reference librarian at Lubbock’s Mahon Library and helped build the library’s comics/graphic novels collection from only a few books to over 4,000. That’s gotta be one of the largest municipally-held comics collections in the country, if not the world.

If it’s Friday and after five o’clock, you know what that means, right? No, it’s not time for sitting in front of the TV and watching pointless stuff! No, it’s not time to go out on the town and pretend you’re good-lookin’ enough to git some leg! No, it’s not time for your weekly bath! (Well, actually, yes, it is time for that. Please go bathe. Use the wire brush, please.)

No, it’s time for our much-beloved FRIDAY NIGHT FIGHTS!  Why? Because Bahlactus says so, and Bahlactus knows best. Think happy thoughts, or he’ll wish you into the cornfield!

Tonight, we’re only going back a few months to this year’s American Dream #4 by Tom DeFalco, Todd Nauck, and Scott Koblish. Here’s the aforementioned American Dream chin-checking the dastardly Red Queen:

That’s some violence that’s worth standing up and saluting for!

Teen Titans #62

I’d love to review some good comics today — goodness knows, I got a lot of good, entertaining comics that’d be a lot more fun to review — but this one just made me wanna smack the tar outta someone, and I’m not gonna dilute any good reviews I’ve got by pairing them with this turkey.

Okay, backstory time. A while back, after DC revamped the “Teen Titans” series again, they brought in a couple of hipster kids to serve as general maintenance/techheads for Titans Tower and as low-key comic relief. They named them Wendy and Marvin — yes, just like the comic-relief teens in the old “Super Friends” cartoon back in the ’70s. And yes, I rolled my eyes when they were introduced, because it really is a completely silly idea.

Well, in this issue, Marvin and Wendy find a dog. They name him Wonderdog, because no one can really figure out how he got all the way out to Titans Island. While all this is happening, Miss Martian leaves the team, Robin tells Wonder Girl that his old girlfriend Spoiler is alive again, and the remaining members of the team go off to the gym for training. And while no one’s looking, Wonderdog turns into a monster, kills Marvin and Wendy, and disappears into the night.

Yeahhh, how ’bout that?

DC has this ongoing problem where they can’t decide if they want to embrace the innocence of the Silver Age or if they want to tack the other direction, so they can tell everyone they’re making comics for grownups. Hence, you’ve got DC bringing back Hal Jordan, Barry Allen, and the silly kids from the “Super Friends” because it appeals to their sense of nostalgia. And then, to make ’em feel like they’re hardcore badboys who’d fit in at the nastiest corner of Image Comics, they kill Sue Dibny, they kill Bart Allen, and they turn Mary Marvel into a psychotic bimbo. It’s a constant push-and-pull — Is DC all about innocent, goofy fun? Is DC all about gritty and adult mayhem? Wait five minutes, and the answer will change again…

This is the same thing. They bring in Wendy and Marvin — isn’t it cute? It’s just like the crazy cartoon you loved when you were a kid! Then someone else at the company thinks to himself, “Hey, this is like a kid’s comic! I don’t make no kid’s comics!” And so they make yet another “Teen Titans” comic that looks like it was written by some sadistic lunatic.

It’s not like I really mind death in comics. I mean, I’m a pretty huge fan of horror comics of all types. What I do mind is gratuitous and unnecessary death in comics. And this was a picture-perfect definition of gratuitous and unnecessary.

And lo and behold, who’s that listed down there as one of this comic’s editors? Dan DiDio. Of course. What a complete and utter surprise. The guy who ain’t happy unless his comics are blood-soaked slaughterfests supervises yet another completely pointless and gratuitous blood-soaked slaughterfest.

Verdict: Thumbs down. I’m dropping this comic as of now.

DC Universe: Last Will and Testament

It’s the night before the final battle against Captital-E Evil, and all the superheroes expect to get slaughtered. So everyone’s spending their last night trying to take care of the things that are most important to them. Superman goes to visit his dad; Batman hangs out with Robin and Nightwing; Wonder Woman and Donna Troy perform some ancient warrior rituals; Rocky Davis, of the Challengers of the Unknown, of all people, acts as a confessor for various superheroes; and Captain Cold does some good. But most of this issue is devoted to Geo-Force’s obsession with Deathstroke. Can he finally figure out a way to kill the assassin he blames for the death of his sister?

Verdict: Thumbs down. Way, way too many pages devoted to a C-lister like Geo-Force? With maybe two or three pages for the real heavy hitters? No, sorry, this was complete, useless garbage, and I’m mad at myself for buying into yet another load of crossover-inspired bilge. My life is actually worse for having read this comic.

The Spirit #20

The Spirit investigates a murder at an aquarium — one that was apparently carried out by innocent dolphins! The Spirit has some severe doubts about the official story, and he enlists Ebony’s aid by getting him to apply for a job at the aquarium. But when some of the dolphins are stolen in the dead of night, what could really be going on here?

Verdict: Thumbs up. The mystery here is properly intriguing, and Spirit’s interactions with Ebony and with Ellen Dolan’s class of pint-sized students are lots of fun. Some elements of the solution to the mystery seem a bit unlikely, but nitpicking a mystery in a comic like this is a little unfair…

Wonder Woman #23

Wonder Woman has to keep the demonic D’Grth from destroying the world, all while struggling to maintain her own humanity after the loss of her soul. Meanwhile, Tom Tresser has really stepped in it this time. He’s called in a DMA strike team on Agent Diana Prince’s apartment, unaware the albino gorillas inside are on the side of the angels. Donna Troy shows up to help out, but Tresser is still going to have to risk arousing the suspicion of his bosses by calling off the strike team.

Verdict: Thumbs up, but it’s a near thing. The fight against D’Grth is pretty good, but dangit, Tresser is just an irritating character. And as bad as he screwed things up, it’s really pretty unbelievable that he was able to keep his job or stay out of prison.

The Flash #243

Missed at least one issue of this one. In the interim, it appears that the Flash’s daughter, Iris, has aged into an old woman because of her out-of-control speed powers. Can the science of Gorilla City determine a cure for Iris and her brother Jai in time, or are the Flash’s kids doomed?

Verdict: Kinda hard to say, ’cause I have no idea what happened in the previous issue. I got no clue how Flash took care of Spin, and I got no clue what’s up with the Nzame. I think I’ll give it a thumbs up, though. The kids weren’t irritating, and Flash got to do some actual superspeed running, which it seems like he does mighty little of these days. Even better, the kids’ powers appear to have stabilized, so maybe the comic will stabilize, too.