Trinity #1

After the unmitigated disaster that was “Countdown,” I kinda expected DC to quit weekly comics. But they’re gonna try a new one — namely, this one, “Trinity,” focusing on Superman, Batman, and Wonder Woman. We start out with our main characters getting together in their secret identities to discuss a dream they are all having. We also get the Flash, his kids, and Clayface as guest stars, plus a follow-up story about Morgaine Le Fey and a futuristic version of the Riddler named Enigma teaming up to try to take down the Big Three.

Verdict: Thumbs up. Much better than I was expecting, honestly. The best bits are probably Bruce Wayne, Clark Kent, and Diana Prince sitting around ordering coffee — great character interaction here. If they can keep this up, it should be pretty good.

Young X-Men #3

Ink has already betrayed the new team, knocking out Blindfold as they defeated Danni Moonstar — now he’s delivered both of them to some mysterious evildoer, and when Moonstar wakes back up, she takes out her frustrations on Blindfold. Elsewhere, the rest of the team manages to capture Magma, but not before she turns Dust’s body to glass. We also get our first good look at Graymalkin, who’ll be joining the team soon, and he has some plans to take care of Cyclops (or whoever he really is) once and for all.

Verdict: Thumbs up. I’m enjoying most of these characters quite a lot. I’m a bit concerned about Graymalkin’s bizarre speech patterns, though — after all, they’ve already got Blindfold and her loopy dialogue. What happens if they ever get both Blindfold and Graymalkin in the same room? Total linguistic meltdown?

It’s Friday night already? And we all feel the need to fightin’? Well, that must mean it’s time for Friday Night Fights!

This week, we turn to Marvel Adventures: The Avengers #24, by Jeff Parker, Ig Guara, and Jay Leisten, where the dastardly Hate-Monger shows Wolverine that insulting words really can hurt.

Let that be a lesson for all of you: avoid people who can grow to a hundred feet tall and stomp you into the dirt.

 

Giant-Size Astonishing X-Men

This is the long-awaited finale of Joss Whedon’s “Astonishing X-Men” series. Previously, the X-Men have been stuck on the alien Breakworld. They’ve learned that the Breakworldian behind the prophesy/blueprint claiming that Colossus would destroy the planet was actually the supposedly compassionate priestess Aghanne, who’s decided that her people are too violent to live. In an attempt to disrupt a gigantic missile aimed at Earth, Kitty Pryde has phased into it only to learn, just as it’s fired, that it’s actually an immense, planet-destroying bullet.

Well, the X-Men on the Breakworld just don’t have a ship fast enough to catch the bullet, but they are able to tell the superheroes of Earth. Unfortunately, the bullet has special magical defenses that put all of Earth’s superheroes into dream-like trances where they believe they’ve stopped the bullet and saved the Earth. Cyclops and Emma Frost can get a rocket near the bullet, but they’re too small to stop it, and Kitty can’t phase back out — the alien metal has weakened her too much. The Super-Sentinel that took out Genosha makes a last ditch effort to destroy the bullet — and fails. There’s nothing that can stop the bullet from hitting Earth — until someone pulls off the greatest superheroic feat ever.

Verdict: Thumbs up. As far as I’m concerned, this is a complete triumph for Whedon and artist John Cassaday. Almost everything here is spot-on perfect, from the wonderful scenes with Spider-Man (I would buy the snot out of a Spider-Man series by Whedon and Cassaday) to the new revelations about Agent Brand to Kitty’s final act to the entirely right aftermath.

 

Blue Beetle #27

Jaime and his girlfriend, magic-using Traci Thirteen, run into a minor invasion of demons, getting progressively more and more dangerous, as they target a group of unrelated normal people for elimination. And Blue Beetle finds himself trying to stop threats that are far beyond his abilities. Even if there’s a way to save everyone, will anything save Jaime’s self-confidence?

Verdict: Thumbs up. This is officially another fill-in issue before the new writer comes in next month, but I still think it was pretty good. I started to complain that we don’t see more of Jaime’s supporting cast — but the thing is, Jaime already has one of the largest and most richly developed supporting casts around, so there’s always room to spread the spotlight around to other characters. And it’s an interesting story anyway, with Jaime finding himself more and more helpless against the demons and questioning his ability to function as a superhero.

American Dream #1

The healthy young lady above is a character named American Dream, from an alternate future of the Marvel Universe. Her real name’s Shannon Carter, and she’s the daughter of “Captain America” supporting cast member, Sharon Carter. We get to see Dream take out a horde of arms smugglers, then we’re treated to a short recounting of her origin. She doesn’t have any friends or even much of a social life outside of the Avengers team she leads. And she doesn’t have any powers, which may end up making her a sitting duck for the supervillains stalking her in secret or the giant crystal monster who attacks her.

Verdict: Thumbs up. Nothing real deep here, but the story is fine, the character is fun, and the action is pretty good, too.

Teen Titans #59

This is part of the “Dark Side Club” crossover that showed up last week in “The Flash” and “Birds of Prey.” The Terror Titans are actually working for Dark Side to capture the Titans so he can stick them into his underground fight club. They’ve already captured Kid Devil and Miss Martian, but they think Ravager is dead. Robin, Wonder Girl, and Blue Beetle start working to track everyone down, but they get ambushed and overwhelmed.

Verdict: Thumbs up, but just barely. The stuff with Dark Side isn’t nearly as cool as it was in “Flash” and “Birds of Prey.” It was nice to see a bit more info about the Clock King (he’s a precognitive), and the rest of the characterizations seem to be alright.

 

PS238: The Roleplaying Game

Here’s something I don’t get to do too often — reviewing a pen-and-paper roleplaying game. If you’re familiar with Aaron Williams’s “PS238” comic book, this should be fairly clear — PS238 is a school for kids with superpowers. They get training in how to use their powers and how to maintain a secret identity. The entire school is secret, located three miles underground beneath a normal elementary school, and the super-powered kids have to attend both schools. It’s a very funny comic, and I recommend it without hesitation.

So Hero Games put out a PS238 game, written by Steven S. Long, and made it compatible with “Champions,” the best-known and most popular superhero RPG. In addition to a complete set of the HERO System rules, the book also includes a complete description of the school, character stats for the faculty members, students, villains, and other important characters, and some general gamemastering advice.

I do have a few problems with the book. First, I’m not a big fan of the “Champions” system. I know, lots of people play it and love it, but I just can’t get into it. Back when there was a such thing as GURPS Third Edition, I liked their treatment of superheroes, and nowadays, I like to pick up “Mutants and Masterminds,” which really does seem to be the best superhero game I’ve ever seen. Still, obviously, my dislike of “Champions” is a personal preference only.

A bit more substantial a problem is the book’s typos, which range from “barely noticible” to “fairly wacky and embarrassing.” One thing that jumped out at me while I was reading the book was that they stuck Julie Finster with some of Captain Clarinet’s disadvantages — specifically, they said she had the same vulnerability to the Kryptonitesque mineral that CC did — of course, Captain Clarinet is an alien, and Julie is a human, so there was clearly a problem with copy-and-pasting stats from one character to another.

I was also unhappy with the quality of the gamemastering and player tips. Specifically, there’s no advice for either players or GMs on how they should roleplay children. It’s not that obvious, of course. Sure, we were all kids once upon a time, but slipping from an adult’s mindset into a child’s isn’t as easy as it sounds. Williams does a good job of it in the comic book, but there needs to be some advice on this subject in the book.

And this may seem overly nitpicky, but the cover of this book just plain honks me off. Look at it up there — completely off-balance. Obviously, the kid heroes confronting that bully is what’s supposed to be front-and-center on the front cover, while Victor von Fogg and (unseen) Zodon arguing about their laser-beam tic-tac-toe game on the moon is supposed to be on the back cover. Something went bad wrong in the design process, however, and we get the amateurish crap job we see here.

So that’s a lot of griping, but I still like the game. All the art in the book is by Williams, taken from his comic book, and there’s just tons of great info about the characters and setting — it’s really like having a complete guidebook to the PS238 universe. With the right bunch of players, I could see this being incredibly fun to play — in fact, it might be a good system to use for young roleplayers — instead of asking them to play adult psychopaths raiding dungeons, let ’em play themselves with superpowers.

Verdict: Thumbs up. Even with the problems, you should check it out.

(I keep considering whether to start reviewing roleplaying games more often, but I usually resist the temptation. It’s been something like a decade since I played an RPG, so I keep worrying that I don’t know enough about the current state-of-the-art to be able to do a proper review. Ehh, maybe I’ll review some more, maybe not…)

 

Batman #677

The latest chapter of the “Batman R.I.P.” storyline is pretty freakin’ weird. Batman is obsessed with the international assassination organization called the Black Glove. The Club of Villains puts evil schemes into motion. The Gotham Gazette plans to run a story claiming that Bruce Wayne’s parents — and Alfred the butler — were degenerate drug fiends. Jezebel Jet suspects Bruce himself may be the Black Glove. Batman has been hypnotized somehow. The Club of Villains has gotten into the Batcave and plans to do some killin’.

Verdict: Thumbs up. It’s almost unstoppably weird and random and baroque and chaotic, and it seems to be awesome. The Club of Villains, by the way, is the best mass supervillain addition I’ve seen added to a comic book universe in years.

 

1985 #1

A bit of high-concept here. Our story is set in 1985 in a non-superhero universe. Toby is a normal kid with divorcing parents and a fascination with comic books. He and his dad happen across an old mansion being renovated by a bunch of out-of-towners who seem oddly familiar to Toby. So what are a bunch of Marvel comic book villains doing hanging out in an old house on the outskirts of a small town?

Verdict: Thumbs up. In places, this one is really pretty spooky. The brief glimpse we get of the Red Skull, peering down from an upstairs window at Toby, is pretty chilling. Dr. Doom is plenty scary. And the big guy who Toby runs into at the end of the issue looks really, really terrifying. I’m not sure where they’re going with this, but I hope it’s all this good.

 

I’m going to assume that you all know about the huge Chinese earthquake on May 12th, right? Tens of thousands of people dead, probably the biggest and most tragic natural disaster we’ve seen in the past several years.

Well, there’s a Chinese cartoonist named Coco Wang, and she decided she’d draw what she’d seen.

 

Steel yourself. This is utterly heartbreaking stuff, completely soul-crackingly sad and triumphant stories, beautiful stories of death and survival, horror and humor. But you need to read these comics. Read Coco’s introduction, then read the “5.12 Earthquake Strips” over in the sidebar. They’re all pretty short, so it won’t take long. But go read them.

And look at that art style, too. It’s not complex or realistic at all. It’s deceptively simple cartooning. Some of the most powerful stories can be told with simple and straightforward art. It drags you into the narrative, because it’s easier for any reader to picture himself or herself as part of the story.

Beautiful work. Please go read it.

Well, Bahlactus has requested all black-and-white battles for the current round of Friday Night Fights, which is too bad, ’cause I keep running across great fights that look awesome in color and just awful in monochrome. Still, one must persevere, and I found one this week that didn’t look too muddy…

From 2007’s Deadpool-GLI Summer Fun Spectacular by Dan Slott, Fabian Nicieza, and Kieron Dwyer: the mighty Squirrel Girl boots Deadpool in the butt.

 

Love that “SPANQ” sound effect…

Marvel Adventures: The Avengers #24

Jeff Parker’s writing this comic again?! Holy Words-I-Am-Not-Allowed-to-Say-on-this-Blog!

Well, this is part of Marvel’s all-ages line, and it features Captain America, Spider-Man, Wolverine, Storm, Giant-Girl, and Ant-Man. In this issue, Marvel’s Mightiest Team can’t stop hating each other. Any little disagreement will lead to knock-down, drag-out brawls until, a few minutes later, no one can even remember what the fight was about any more. Not even taking out a Hydra base cools ’em down. Will they ever manage to find out what’s causing them to rage out on each other? Even if they do, will they be able to keep from killing each other just for kicks?

Verdict: Thumbs WAY up. This is the funniest comic I’ve read in ages. We get the triumphant return of Karl the Henchman, Wolverine eating tater tots with his claws, Doc Samson’s psychoanalysis of the team (including his bwah-ha-ha funny notes on Spider-Man and Wolvie’s bwah-ha-ha reaction to a familiar Rorschach inkblot test), jokes about Storm’s hair, tons of hilarious Spidey one-liners, and great dialogue like “Captain America was the one who started it — with his corn!” and “Ow! You shot that little nerd right in my eye!” This comic is drop-dead, soda-snorting funny, and you need to go read it right now.

Green Lantern #31

More of the re-telling of Hal’s origin, as he pays his first visit to Oa, gets put through GL boot camp by Kilowog, and earns the right to be a Green Lantern. Besides that, we get a few more details about pre-giant-head Hector Hammond and Sinestro when he was still a Green Lantern.

Verdict: Thumbs up. It’s all stuff we’ve seen before, but it’s well-done, so I’m happy with it.

The Brave and the Bold #13

The cover pretty much says it all — Batman and Jay Garrick vs. a horde of evil robot samurai.

Verdict: Thumbs up. It’s Batman and Jay Garrick vs. a horde of evil robot samurai, fer cryin’ out loud!

Final Crisis #1

Nope, nope, nope, nope, nope. Not buying it, not reviewing it. I’m sick of pointless, stupid crossovers. I’m tired of comics companies killing off characters because they think they need shock value to sell comics. I’m tired of being asked to spend hundreds of dollars every summer on crossovers that are driven solely by marketing. And I don’t care if it’s written by Grant Morrison — I still think I can live without reading it.

Verdict: Who cares?

This is one of those bizarre stories that just pops up out of nowhere and immediately gets snapped up by who-knows how many folks, so what the heck, I’ll jump on the bandwagon. Frogs that can pop claws like Wolverine? Surely a sane universe could never contain such things, right?

X-Men fans rejoice: Wolverine has come to life, as a frog. When the comic book warrior faces a fight, metallic blades spring forth from his hand. A new study concludes that certain African frogs are similarly equipped, having sharp, claw-shaped bones that pierce through their own fingertips when the animal is threatened.

More than 100 years ago, scientists observed the mysterious bony appendages in museum specimens of the Arthroleptidae frog family, but they had no idea what to make of them. Some speculated that the protrusions were an artifact of the preservation process. Harvard University biologists David Blackburn decided to solve the mystery once and for all after having the frequent misfortune of being injured by the amphibians while doing field research in Cameroon. “The frogs will start kicking and drag these claws against your skin,” he says. “I’ve gotten bloody scratches from them many a time.”

I… have no idea what to think of this. Frogs with retractible bone claws is something I’m sure I’ve had nightmares about. Time to go hide myself in the closet, I think…