Countdown to Mystery #8

In our first story, Eclipso is defeated by the Spectre in a fairly neat fashion — Crispus Allen, the Spectre’s host, convinces Bruce Gordon, Eclipso’s host, to surrender. But listen, no one really cares about that one, nice though it is. The big news is the Dr. Fate story. The previous chapters were written by the late Steve Gerber. It looks like he didn’t finish the script, so instead, DC asked Mark Waid, Mark Evanier, Gail Simone, and Adam Beechen to each write the final chapter the way they thought Gerber would have finished it up. They’re all pretty good, but I think I prefer Simone’s ending.

Verdict: Thumbs up. The Dr. Fate story really does end up being excellent, but I would’ve loved to see what Gerber had planned for the finale.

 

Pigeons from Hell #2

Second issue of this wonderfully creepy adaptation by Texan Joe R. Lansdale of a classic horror tale by Texan Robert E. Howard. I recommended y’all read the story last month, and I’m gonna go ahead and recommend it again — it’s good ghoulish fun. In this issue, the stranded friends have to spend the night in the creepy old mansion, but when one of them goes upstairs to check on some noises… Well, let’s just say when he comes back downstairs, he’s not right in the head. All that, plus creepy ghosts, a horrific murder, and more blood and gore than you’ll be able to believe.

Verdict: Thumbs up. A great writer adapting a story by a great writer. And the art, which I was a bit iffy on last month, is really hitting its stride now. I’m very enthusiastic about this comic now.

Number of the Beast #3

More people are dying, the oceans have turned to blood, and the members of the Paladins are accepting that this is the end of the world. A former superhero called the High has been mysteriously resurrected, accidentally blowing off Dr. Sin’s legs and later throwing him across the city. Supervillains are doing good deeds, Neanda the cavegirl accidentally lets slip that she’s not as primitive as she pretends, and the High discovers that he can’t leave the city. And it’s becoming more and more obvious that the city, the superheroes, and the supervillains are all actually in some sort of virtual reality environment run by the government.

Verdict: Thumbs up. I’m enjoying some of the character bits — Neanda losing her temper and reverting to normal speech is pretty good, and the scenes with Dr. Sin are stone solid winners.

Tangent: Superman’s Reign #3

Batman, Black Canary, and Black Lightning discover that Flash and Green Lantern have traveled to an alternate universe and start working plans to get them back. Meanwhile, in the Tangent Universe, the two Flashes, the DC Green Lantern, and the Tangent Joker go to the Tangent Superman’s fortress to rescue the Atom. They end up getting the Atom free, but John Stewart gets captured.

Verdict: Thumbs down. I think I’d enjoy this story more if moved a lot faster. I mean, a LOT faster.

 

Twilight Guardian #1

This is the weirdest comic I’ve read in a while.

I picked it up because I recognized Troy Hickman’s name and had been pretty pleased with the stuff I’d seen of his previously, and because I was in the mood to pick up something new and different. It’s part of Top Cow Productions’ “Pilot Season” promotion, where six new series are introduced, and the two that get the most votes from readers will get a new ongoing series next year.

The story focuses on the Twilight Guardian, a young woman in a hoodie and domino mask who patrols “a nine block area between Sandusky Avenue and Aurora Drive.” She doesn’t have powers, and there’s no real crime in her surburban neightborhood. Why does she do this every night? No idea. She’s broken somewhere, mentally, and somehow, it helps her to obsess over being a vigilante. And she is obsessed — she’s thinks out every last bit of her crusade, from the perfect crimefighting uniform, to the roll of quarters and ninja climbing claws she carries but never needs, to the comics she reads before going on patrol, to the homemade jerky she takes along to placate angry dogs.

So what happens? Nothing happens. She goes on patrol night after night, and nothing ever happens. I mean, nothing comic-booky happens. There’s no alien invasion, no supervillains, no natural disasters, no bank robberies. She goes on patrol, watches people in her neighborhood, encounters a lot of different black cats who want her beef jerky, and thinks about the importance of her “mission.”

And I think I like it. I don’t know that it’d be possible to sustain an ongoing series of this, but it’s a fascinating character study. I doubt she’d fare very well if she ever ran into a real crisis or a supervillain — she has to screw up her courage even to tell loiterers to move along — but I’d love to see how she came to this point in her life, and if she ever manages to come to grips with whatever drives her to pretend to be a vigilante.

Verdict: Thumbs up.

Oh, not that these have anything at all to do with Memorial Day, but ya gotta review ’em sometime.

 

Captain America #38

Sharon Carter has apparently found Steve Rogers, the late Captain America, alive again, but with heavy scarring. But she realizes that he’s actually a brainwashed and psychotic imposter who was the Captain America of the ’50s. She’s ready to kill him, but she is surprised and knocked out by Dr. Faustus. Elsewhere, Bucky Barnes, the new Captain America, and the Falcon go out to bust up an A.I.M. lab.

Verdict: Thumbs up, but the plot needs to be advanced a bit more. So far, the last few issues break down to (A) Red Skull and Dr. Faustus scheme and (B) Bucky and his pals beat up cannon fodder.

 

The Spirit #17

The Spirit’s kinda-sorta-girlfriend, Ellen Dolan, goes on a cruise, and the Spirit has to go on the same cruise ship to catch murderers and insurance scammers.

Verdict: Thumbs down. This is just so, so dreary. I’m starting to think DC shoulda just cancelled this book when Darwyn Cooke left.

 

Justice League of America #21

I’m amazed this one came out as well as it did. The first seven pages of this one are Superman, Batman, and Wonder Woman sitting around talking, just summing up the current state of things in the JLA. Wheee, exciting! The rest of it is a couple of extremely minor supervillains fighting a couple of really minor superheroes. The Human Flame, a pudgy guy who had one appearance fighting the Martian Manhunter a few decades ago, tries to rob a bank, fights Red Arrow and Hawkgirl pretty unsuccessfully, then gets rescued by Libra, another supervillain who had just one appearance in a JLA comic back in the ’60s. Libra takes the Human Flame before a whole trainload of supervillains and offers him anything he wants. And the Flame says he wants to be able to kill the Martian Manhunter. If you wanna see what happens from there, you have to read “Final Crisis.”

Verdict: I think I’m actually going to give it a thumbs up. The Big Three sitting around and talking gets really, really boring, but I didn’t mind the stuff with the Human Flame that much. Of course, it’s all leading to Grant Morrison killing J’onn J’onzz in the first issue of “Final Crisis,” which is going to really suck. But this issue wasn’t that bad.

 

Justice Society of America #15

Basically, the entire issue is a fight scene with the Justice Society trying to beat up Gog. No, really, that’s it. A few highlights include Obsidian fighting Gog from the inside, Lightning’s spiffy new battlecry, and Citizen Steel effortlessly withstanding Gog’s punches.

Verdict: Thumbs up. This isn’t particularly subtle storytelling, but it’s a good brawl, so we’ll call it a win.

This isn’t really comics related, but it made me laugh like a loon when I saw it — Weezer’s new video for “Pork and Beans” is one big Valentine to YouTube.

How many Internet memes can you count? Or, if you can’t remember all their names, check here.

To make this at least a little related to comics, this video is a lot like a comics crossover, except instead of Superman meeting Spider-Man or Hellboy meeting Madman, you’ve got Weezer meeting Chris Crocker, Tay Zunday and the DaftBodies girls.

After reading last night’s newest books, I still ain’t got my fill of Dark Side or Darkseid butt-whuppin’. And while there’s a great deal of pain dished out in the third issue of Grant Morrison’s “Mister Miracle” series, the coloration on those pages may be a bit too murky to scan well, especially while Bahlactus is decreeing black-and-white fight scenes. And dangit, most of my comics just don’t have that many scenes of Darkseid beating the snot outta someone — he tends to just stand around scheming with his hands clasped behind his back. So, sorrowfully, I had to dig up a scan from John Byrne and Dick Giordano’s Action Comics #586 from 1987, with Superman beating up on the Big D.

 

 

A serviceable fightfest, Kryptonian, but the Lord of Apokolips never stays down for long…

These two new comics surprised me. I was expecting some fairly predictable superhero hijinx — and there was some of that, sure. But there was something extra plugged in there that I wasn’t expecting to see.

 

The Flash #240

Okay, lately, this comic has not been very good, but this issue showed up and dropped the awesomebomb on me. First, we have previously lame supervillain Spin who’s summoned none other than Gorilla Grodd all the way from Gorilla City in Africa. And Grodd ain’t happy to be here. He ends up freeing a psychic freak that Spin used to control his powers, and that means Spin’s mind-control starts affecting almost everyone. So everyone starts acting out the tabloid threats pushed during sweeps-weeks news broadcasts and talking like cheesy news anchors. Drunk drivers drone about the failure of the system to control drunk drivers. Disgruntled gunmen warn viewers about the looming crisis of disgruntled gunmen. I never thought Spin really worked as a villain before, but just like that, they’ve turned him into a first-class threat.

Oh, but that’s not the really awesome thing. The awesome thing is the guys who are hunting Iris and Jai — they’re minions of Dark Side — no, not Darkseid, the powerful and evil Lord of Apokolips — we’re talking the extra-nasty crime boss from Grant Morrison’s “Mister Miracle” miniseries in the “Seven Soldiers” mega-series. Yeah, he was basically Darkseid, with a stylish urban gangsta exterior. But he was fairly rockin’, and no one really knew if we’d ever see any elements of that character or that miniseries again. The minions spout a pitch-perfect pastiche of Jack Kirby/Grant Morrison phraseology — the “Boom-Drive,” the “Sister Box” and about a billion extra exclamation points!!! And when Dark Side’s goons catch the kids, it triggers a very unexpected reaction from Iris…

Verdict: Thumbs up. Pages 4-5 are just about the best single scene I’ve ever seen of Grodd — the visuals and dialogue are just perfect. And the complete flabbergasted glee I felt when I realized that this was gonna be a Dark Side story was just about the happiest I’ve been all week.

 

Birds of Prey #118

And this one’s part of the same crossover, so it’s all about Dark Side, too. Misfit and Black Alice have been abducted by Dark Side’s crew, and Granny Goodness and the Female Furies — yes, the same stylish urban gangsta versions of Granny Goodness and the Female Furies that were in Morrison’s “Mister Miracle” miniseries — are keeping ’em doped up on angry-juice so they’ll participate in gladiatorial matches. So far, Misfit’s been the reigning champ, but Alice was only recently picked up. Alice steals Misfit’s powers to make her escape, but she gets caught by Dark Side himself just as she learns a really surprising secret about her past. So they stick both of them in the arena to see who’ll kill the other, but Alice actually manages to steal the powers of Etrigan the Demon, of all people, and then takes the fight to Granny herself.

Verdict: Thumbs up. Not as skull-crushingly manic as the “Flash” comic, but still lots of fun with a couple of my favorite characters.

 

Tiny Titans #4

It’s another fun and funny issue of “Tiny Titans” — Beast Boy goes to the dentist, Kid Flash helps Starfire style her hair, and Robin has a robin infestation problem, which he apparently solves by changing his costume and calling himself Nightwing. Too bad everyone thinks he’s getting ready to go dancing. And Wonder Girl and Bumblebee have to babysit the Little Tiny Titans (Kid Devil, Miss Martian, Jericho, and Wildebeest), but they don’t seem to need much babysitting.

Verdict: Thumbs up. The artwork is adorable, and the jokes are funny. This is the best Titans comic out there right now. Ain’t that something?

 

Comic Book Diner

This is the last of the books I got for Free Comic Book Day. It’s basically a sampler of a bunch of different all-ages comics, including superheroes like Roboy Red and Buzzboy, a fantasy called “Dreamland Chronicles,” a Western ostrich con-man named Tbyrd Fearlessness, and a monkey called “Banana-Tail.” Oh, and Patrick the Wolf Boy, who’s drawn by the same folks who make “Tiny Titans!”

Verdict: Thumbs up, though I liked some stories more than others. I have trouble getting into fantasy, so “Dreamland Chronicles” didn’t thrill me, and “Banana-Tail” was written for a very young audience, I think. I thought Patrick the Wolf Boy was just plain awesome, and I wish they’d given him more space in the book. Probably the most useful pages are a KidsLoveComics.com reading list of all-ages comics. There are over 20 comics listed, and they’re from a wide variety of different companies, with a wide variety of different stories. Parents, if you’re looking for something your kids would enjoy, check out the list in this comic.

Love and Capes #7

This was one of the comics offered during Free Comic Book Day a couple of weeks ago. It bills itself as “the Heroically Super Situation Comedy” and focuses on Abby and Mark. Abby runs a bookstore. Mark is a superhero called the Crusader. They’re in love. Awwwww! Anyway, Mark wants to propose to Abby, but he can’t decide on the perfect way to pop the question. He gets advice from Abby’s sister and from a bunch of his superhero friends.

Verdict: Thumbs up. Nice characterization, good jokes. My only quibble is that it goes on for a bit longer than I would’ve preferred.

Green Lantern Corps #24

Kyle Rayner, Guy Gardner, and a bunch of other Green Lanterns are on a mission to track down some missing Sinestro Corps rings, but Arisia and Sodam Yat have been captured by Mongul. He’s strapped them to a couple of Black Mercies — they’re parasitic alien plants that have traditionally made the victim hallucinate their fondest dreams. But these have been altered by Mongul to cause the victims to experience horrific nightmares. And he plans to send the new Black Mercy plants all over the galaxy. Meanwhile, Sinestro and the other prisoners in the sciencells on Oa mutilate themselves so they can draw the Sinestro Corps symbol on their cell walls with their own blood. Grody.

Verdict: Thumbs up. Black Mercies are nasty, nasty plants, though not as nasty as watching Sinestro chew off his fingertip. That dude’s craaaazy.