House of Mystery #1

DC looks to be trying to recreate one of their classic horror anthologies, with a few twists. In this first issue, we discover that someone has somehow stolen Cain’s House of Mystery from out of the Dreaming itself. Much later, there are a bunch of people living in it — actually, they have no choice but to live in it. In fact, they never get to leave, except for rarely, when a strange coach arrives and whisks one of the tenants away, never to be seen again. We get into this issue’s setpiece after that, the odd life story of a girl named Hungry Sally.

Listen, if you don’t like disturbing, creepy, gory stuff, Hungry Sally’s story is gonna put you off your lunch. If you do like disturbing, creepy, gory stuff, it’s still likely to be unlike anything you’ve read in a comic book before. It involves pregnancy. And flies. I don’t think I can tell more than that without spoiling it. Viewer discretion is advised.

Verdict: Thumbs up. Yow, very squishy. I’m certainly willing to give this another shot. With any luck, the involvement of Cain and Abel from the “Sandman” series could mean we’ll eventually see a story or two from Neil Gaiman himself. Well, that’s what I’ve got my fingers crossed for.

Hulk #3

Most of this issue is devoted to the red Hulk, still a man of mystery, fighting the new blue Abomination — the former Rick Jones, now calling himself A-Bomb. Their battle ends up freeing Bruce Banner and turning him back into the familiar green Hulk. And aside from all that, there’s Iron Man, She-Hulk, and S.H.I.E.L.D. trying to figure out who the new Hulk is.

Verdict: Thumbs up. I’m pretty sure I’ve figured out who the red Hulk is. Does that make me smarter than Tony Stark yet?

Countdown to Mystery #7

Bruce Gordon manages to free Plastic Man, the Creeper, and Dove from Eclipso’s influence, but a bunch of Eclipso worshippers manage to make Gordon turn into the villainous vengeance demon and merge him with a giant black diamond, vastly increasing his power. The only being who can stop him now is the Spectre, but the thousands of souls who he’s damned over the centuries are back and ready to take their own revenge. Elsewhere, the Helmet of Fate gets taken by someone who just ain’t ready for it, and it looks like a lot of people are going to pay a terrible price for her arrogance.

Verdict: Thumbs up. Let’s be honest, the only thing anyone should be caring about is the Dr. Fate story. This issue is basically the last story by the late Steve Gerber. The next issue is the last one for the series — it’ll be interesting to see how DC will resolve the story without Gerber guiding it.

 

I read this comic for the first time not that long ago. It was originally published by SteelDragon Comics, and later by Marvel’s Epic Comics imprint, and it was created by Will Shetterly and Vince Stone. The series ran from the mid-80s to the early-90s. I’d read something about it elsewhere, in which someone assumed, not having read the comic, that it was a pro-Confederacy, pro-racism, pro-Treason-in-Defense-of-Slavery hack job.

It’s not a comic for kids. There’s sex, violence, and a number of very bad and very hurtful words. But I think I can report that it isn’t racist.

Background: The story is set in an alternate history where the South successfully won independence from the North in the Civil War. From there, the rest of North America balkanized into a number of different countries, including the Republic of Texas, Deseret, the Great Spirit Alliance, the People’s Republic of California, and the Louisiana Free State. And in the Confederate States of America, the prime motivator of the Civil War quickly becomes a moot point, as the slaves are freed all over the South. It doesn’t make the CSA a haven of racial harmony, though, as non-whites are second-class citizens. A lot of the bad guys use racist slurs — even some of the heroes use racist slurs.

Which brings us to our main characters — four actors, two white and two black, who are given a super-soldier serum so they can function as a combination of superheroes and propaganda figures for the government. The two white actors become Captain Confederacy and Miss Dixie, defenders of the South, while the two black actors become their opponents, designed to demonize black activists who wanted equal rights. But one of the actors decides to defect to the North, and the government, fearful that their fake superheroes are going to be exposed, brings the hammer down, forcing the actors to decide whether they want to keep pretending to be heroes or go out and become heroes for real…

Shetterly and Stone are reprinting the full comic series in blog form — frankly, their current format is a bit difficult to navigate from within their site, so here are links to the individual chapters.

• Pages 1-20
• Pages 21-40
• Pages 41-60
• Pages 61-80
• Pages 81-100
• Pages 101-120
• Pages 121-140
• Pages 141-157

Again, this is a comic for adults. If you can’t handle sex, violence, extremely bad language, or critiques of racial politics, DO NOT click on those links.

The comic uses a great deal of racist language. But I’ve never believed that racist language alone causes a work of fiction to be racist itself. As a writer, if you’re putting together a story about a deeply racist society, like the CSA in “Captain Confederacy,” if you leave that kind of language out, you make everything look sugar-coated and fake. And this comic, though it has characters who use racist language, comes across as an actively anti-racist book. The villains are people who are working to keep an entire class of people subjugated. The heroes are people who are working to change society for the better. They’re not trying to overthrow the Confederacy, but they are trying to turn it into a vastly less oppressive nation.

As for the story itself, I think of it more as alternate-history science fiction. Altered Civil War settings are one of the more popular styles of alternate-history sci-fi. But you can’t have a story like this without addressing racial issues — sure, they’re somewhat fictionalized, but you can’t live anywhere in the South — heck, anywhere in America — for long before you realize that, no matter how improved we are from decades or centuries past, we ain’t got anywhere near a truly free and racially-equal society. We still got people who think it’s okay to drop the N-word in casual conversation. We still got politicians who’ll kiss up to racist groups for the sake of politics. We still got hardcore racists all over the ‘Net. We still got schoolkids who think nooses are a joke.

There ain’t a comic book in the world that can change that (though comic creators have been trying since Lee and Kirby’s “X-Men #1” in 1963), but it doesn’t hurt at all for comics to try to change what they can.

Iron Man

I waited ’til yesterday to see the “Iron Man” movie — I hate watching big blockbusters on their first weekend, mostly to avoid the crowds. And I really enjoyed it. Obviously, Robert Downey, Jr.’s performance as Tony Stark is probably one of the best comics-to-screen interpretations of a character ever, right up there with Christopher Reeve’s Superman, Tobey Maguire’s Spider-Man, and Ron Perlman’s Hellboy. Jeff Bridges as supervillain/corporate-PR-whiz Obadiah Stane is also great fun to watch — but that’s kind of expected, because Jeff Bridges is a seriously fantastic actor. Gwyneth Paltrow and Terrence Howard are pretty good, but they’re really not that important to the movie. Stan Lee has the best cameo he’s ever had in a movie. The action is good, the superheroics are good, the humor is completely awesome.

Verdict: Thumbs up. Go see this movie, whether or not you like “Iron Man” comics. If you want to see an extra scene with Samuel L. Jackson, stay ’til the end of the credits, but if you wanna skip it, it’s not that important, or that great. Yeah, I went and said it, so there.

Batman #675

Weird issue. Bruce Wayne is dating a woman named Jezebel Jet — someone I’ve never heard of, but apparently, this has been going on for a while. Jezebel is sick of Bruce’s frequent disappearing acts, and she’s ready to call it off. Terrorists led by the Ten-Eyed Man attack and try to kidnap her, and Bruce completely unleashes on them.

Thumbs up, but just barely. The action parts of the story are good. But who the heck is Jezebel Jet, and why haven’t we seen her more often, if she’s really that important?

Green Lantern #30

In the re-telling of Green Lantern’s origin, Abin Sur crashes on Earth and gives former jet pilot Hal Jordan his power ring. Hal saves a crashing plane, he and Carol Ferris make eyes at each other, and we meet Hector Hammond.

Verdict: Thumbs up, but again, just barely. We already know the story of how Hal got his ring, and this re-telling isn’t showing us much that’s either new or interesting. On the other hand, it’s cool to see Hector Hammond before he got his oversized cranium.

Number of the Beast #2

The Paladins are in a panic because they can’t figure out what caused the disappearance of 90% of the city’s population. They suspect that the evil Dr. Sin had something to do with it, but everyone suspects the truth — the Rapture has occurred, and the end of the world is coming. And right on cue, a meteor storm comes up out of nowhere — fire from the heavens. A guy called the Eidolon visits Dr. Sin in the brig and starts telling him that none of this is real, it’s all happened before, someone BIG is coming. And those government agents in their high-tech HQ are up to no good.

Verdict: Thumbs up. Mysteries galore! Weird religious references! Sinister conspiracies! Love it!

I picked up my free comics from Free Comic Book Day almost a week late, ’cause I was too busy volunteering at the Comic Book Expo to pick up any goodies. But I grabbed a few on Thursday when I went to pick up my latest comics fix, so what say we take a quick look at ’em now?

 

Hellboy: Free Comic Book Day

We get three short stories here — “The Mole” has Hellboy dealing with a skin condition that can’t be cleared up at the dermatologist. “Out of Reach” is a thoroughly enigmatic story set just after the events of the recent “B.P.R.D.: Killing Ground” series, with Johann Krauss, back in his glass-jar body, up to some possibly ominous shenanigans. “Bishop Olek’s Devil” is set prior to the current “B.P.R.D.: 1946” series, as Dr. Bruttenholm and Dr. Eaton seek out a dangerous spellbook. Oh, and keep your eyes peeled for Matt Groening’s Futurama/Hellboy mashups. They’re awesome.

Verdict: Thumbs up. All the creepy weirdness you love in Hellboy stories, compressed into bite-sized nuggets.

 

Atomic Robo: Free Comic Book Day

I’ve been trying to get my claws on some of the “Atomic Robo” comics for a while, and I always seem to just barely miss ’em before they get sold out. Sucks to be me. But I got this one, which is a nice little introduction to the character. Atomic Robo is the last and greatest creation of Nikolai Tesla — a fully intelligent, action-loving robot who runs his own think tank and goes on action-crammed adventures against devious scientists and the unexplained. In this story, he chases down a mad Russian scientist who plans to destroy the world with a mega-powerful atomic bomb. A short backup feature is from a new comic called “Neozoic” about an alternate earth where dinosaurs have survived to the present day and are currently making things really rough for humanity.

Verdict: Thumbs up. “Atomic Robo” is lots of fun. Who doesn’t love fast-talking robots who fight Soviet mad science? “Neozoic” isn’t nearly as good, but it shows some promise.

 

Maintenance: Free Comic Book Day

This one follows Doug and Manny, a couple of maintenance guys working in a lab with a bunch of more deranged than normal mad scientists. Worse comes to worse, and both of them end up transported back in time where they meet a bunch of cavemen. Cavemen with rocket packs, rayguns, and Segways.

Verdict: Thumbs up again. Very enjoyably goofy.

There are comics shops out there who have some free books leftover from Free Comic Book Day, so look around and see if you can pick any up.

Okay, fact is, I love, love, love Evan Dorkin‘s “Milk and Cheese” comics. Not just because of the horrific violence, not just for the gin-swilling, not just because of the crude and unsubtle commentary on everything irritating about pop culture and modern life. No, I love those little guys’ eyebrows. They’re hilarious.

But the eyebrows aren’t important right now! Because it’s Friday Night Fights! And that means the only thing important right now is nicely overblown butt-whompin’!

But dangit, I just used “Milk and Cheese” last week. Is there any way I could disguise this, so Bahlactus doesn’t think I’m repeating myself? Maybe if we disguise them with some sort of mask…?

Wow, that’s awesome. Only thing that’d make that better would be if Darth Milk and Cheese were beating up on Ewoks. Hey, wait a minute…

Man, I got home really weirdly exhausted last night, so I didn’t have time to write but one review before I had to hit the hay.

 

PS238 #31

Ohh, I loved this one. In the aftermath of the alien invasion and the Las Vegas mini-epic, there are some big changes in store for everyone at PS238. First, their hometown has become Superhero Central — renamed Wonderburg. After the school was ground zero for an alien invasion, just about every superhero team has established a base there. The evil Praetorian Academy has moved in, planted bugs inside the school, and started recruiting former PS238 students. Principal Cranston is under a magical curse that causes other people to read his mind instead of vice versa. Tyler Marlocke is in three places at once — in stasis to keep him from spreading an alien xenovirus, walking around in a clone body (so alien student Prospero will think Tyler’s cured and won’t destroy the planet to stop the virus), and inside the Castle Beyond Space and Time, where he has to decide whether or not humanity gets to keep having superpowers. And the whole thing ends with the most jaw-droppingly shocking cliffhanger I’ve seen in ages.

Verdict: Thumbs up. Good gravy, this was good. Just absolutely amazingly good. Clears the board of everything familiar and safe and sets up a new status quo full of way more threats, dangers, and intrigues than before. And there’s still a very strong character-based feel to the storytelling — we get some great bits of characterization from Victor Von Fogg, Angie Sinthousy, special guest star Mr. Extraordinary, Miss Kyle, and especially Tyler. Aaron Williams is doing a fantastic job with this comic — if you aren’t reading it yet, start soon.

 

I don’t often have a really good chance to throw some shout-outs to other comics bloggers. But over the past few weeks, Snell at “Slay, Monstrobot of the Deep” has really been knocking ’em out of the park. For instance:

• He completely crushes the pitiful spectacle of DC’s “Countdown”;
• And then, just for fun, he crushes it again;
• He reveals the hidden secret of Marvel’s “Civil War”;
• He points out the big problems with superhero resurrections;
• He comes up with the perfect villain for the new “Indiana Jones” movie;
• And finally, he’s got Stan Lee flipping you off!

So go read his stuff. He’s got good writing, excellent analysis, lots of funny observations, and he was the first comics blogger outside of Bahlactus’s “Friday Night Fights” to link to me. 🙂

There are some times — I like to call them “weekdays” and “weekends” — when I worry that humanity has gone crazy enough to really, really need a straitjacket and padded cell.

Substitute teacher Jim Piculas does a 30-second magic trick where a toothpick disappears then reappears.

But after performing it in front of a classroom at Rushe Middle School in Land ‘O Lakes (Florida), Piculas said his job did a disappearing act of its own.

“I get a call the middle of the day from the supervisor of substitute teachers. He says, ‘Jim, we have a huge issue. You can’t take any more assignments. You need to come in right away,'” he said.

When Piculas went in, he learned his little magic trick cast a spell that went much farther than he’d hoped.

“I said, ‘Well Pat, can you explain this to me?’ ‘You’ve been accused of wizardry,’ [he said]. Wizardry?” he asked.

Tampa Bay’s 10 talked to the assistant superintendent with the Pasco County School District who said it wasn’t just the wizardry and that Picular had other performance issues, including “not following lesson plans” and allowing students to play on unapproved computers.

When middle school students, parents, and administrators can no longer tell the difference between really simple sleight-of-hand magic tricks and eldritch Gandolfian Magic-missile-flinging sorcery, we need to rethink our current concept of education.

And really, doesn’t that “not following lesson plans” and “letting kids play on unapproved computers” sound like the administration suddenly realized how stupid they looked and had to dig up something they could use for cover? Bah, humans, you must all be smote with fire, I swear.

Please, Florida, write this down somewhere: The Eye of Agamotto is not real. The Helmet of Fate is fictional. Harry Potter doesn’t really exist. And making a toothpick disappear doesn’t mean you’ve obtained unearthly powers from Satan.

 

Blue Beetle #26

In this very special issue of “Blue Beetle,” Jaime attends a family reunion with his girlfriend, Traci Thirteen, discovers that his grandmother knows his secret identity, and fights the Parasite after the villain has absorbed the powers of all the members of the Posse, El Paso’s magic-powered street gang. So what’s so special about this? Well, nearly the entire story is in Spanish.

Aww, now you kids don’t panic. If you can’t read Spanish (I can’t), there’s the original English script in the back to help you out. You won’t miss out on a bit of the story or dialogue.

In fact, the script ends up pointing up some errors in the comic — there’s a scene where Traci appears to be in two different places at the same time — very jarring in the comic. But the script reveals that one of those appearances is actually her astral form. A clumsy error, but not a deal-breaker. Another error? While the story is in Spanish, it’s not actually the Spanish you’d hear in El Paso or Mexico — it’s Spanish from Spain, because the translator is Sergio Aragones, who’s from Spain. So if you know Spanish, it may come off sounding a lot less than conversational.

So how is it? Despite the errors, it’s pretty good. The visual storytelling by guest penciller Mike Norton is excellent, for us non-Spanish-speakers. And guest writer Jai Nitz has a wonderful grasp on Jaime and his supporting cast. There’s plenty of humor, most of it character-driven. For instance, this panel, after Jaime sasses his mom and grandmom:

 

Translation: “No sass!”

Verdict: Thumbs up. By now, y’all should know I’m in favor of anything that (A) helps bring in new, non-traditional comic book readers and (B) makes comics look like something other than a bunch of white guys in tights, and this story works at doing both of those. I particularly hope this helps bring in some new readers, both Hispanic and otherwise, because this comic is still one of the best DC is producing, and it still needs more readers! If you’re interested in jumping on this bandwagon, this is a great place to do it.

 

Birds of Prey #117

In the city of Platinum Flats, Oracle, Manhunter, and Misfit tangle with a crew of magical meta-crooks, including a lizard man, a guy who shoots bullets out of his third eye, a telepath, and a nerdy cyber-mage. Manhunter and Misfit get captured, but everyone makes it out okay, barely. With this new magical gang of magicians supplying mystical weaponry to the underworld, Barbara decides to move the team out of Metropolis and to Platinum Flats.

Verdict: Thumbs up. These new villains are pretty cool, and Misfit gets another bunch of awesome moments. We even get a few pages with Lady Blackhawk and her world’s-greatest dimples.

 

The Spirit #16

When an actor gets murdered on the set of a movie, the Spirit goes undercover as a stuntman so he can listen to set gossip and try to discover the killer.

Verdict: Thumbs up. A better mix of humor and mystery than the last issue had.

Thanks to having the blog shut down for a week and then spending most of last week promoting the Comic Book Expo, I’ve fallen way, waaaay behind on my comics reviews, so I’m gonna try to get as many of these out of the way as I can.

DC Universe #0

This is the one everyone was talking about last week. Superman hangs out with the Legion of Super-Heroes in the distant future, Batman hangs out with the Joker, a bunch of bad guys want Wonder Woman dead, the Green Lanterns are unaware that the Black Lanterns are coming for them, a minor villain called Libra is trying pretty weakly to get a bunch of villains to join the Cult of the Crime Bible, and Barry Allen comes back to life.

Verdict: Thumbs down. It’s an ad for “Final Crisis,” and it’s not even a particularly well-done ad. And was anyone here really jonesing for Barry Allen to come back? I wish DC would quit being stupid and quit screwing their comics up for no good reason.

Justice League of America #20

A nice little done-in-one story about Wonder Woman and the Flash taking on the Queen Bee.

Verdict: Thumbs up. Seems like the Queen Bee should be more of a regular threat — I thought comics thrived on things like hyper-evolved space bees, right? Still, fun stuff, some good speed tricks from the Flash, and a nice Silver-Age feel to the story.

Tangent: Superman’s Reign #2

The Tangent Universe’s Green Lantern gets her magic lantern back, restoring her youth, and the Tangent version of the Flash, along with the regular DCU Flash and Green Lantern come along for the ride. The Tangent GL summons the spirit of the Tangent version of the Joker, who was a superhero, to fill in the gaps of the Tangent Superman’s ruthless rise to dictatorial power.

Verdict: Thumbs up, but just barely. The characters are pretty interesting, but I’m having trouble accepting this as a story that needs 12 issues to tell. They could make it a heck of a lot shorter by cutting out those useless history lessons that take up about a third of the pagecount.

Teen Titans #58

We focus on Miss Martian, trying to make a life for herself and ignore the voice of her evil future-self, who has taken up residence in her head. On top of that, she’s also being stalked by the Terror Titans’ Disruptor, and Kid Devil is still being horribly tortured to try to get him to turn evil.

Verdict: Thumbs up, I think. I don’t much like the idea of Evil Miss Martian, but the story is well-done and does a good job of continually raising the stakes.

The Flash #239

The new supervillain Spin managed to use Keystone City’s fears about the Flash’s money problems to turn him, temporarily, into a superspeedy thief. Now everyone’s more afraid of Flash than ever. He also manages to mind-control Jay Garrick into attacking Wally. Oh, and Wally has gotten a legitimate job at last — watching videotapes at super-speed? Weird…

Verdict: Thumbs up. Spin is still a pretty dumb villain, but the scheme is getting better, bit by bit. Still, next time they want to use a supervillain with fear and mind-control powers, why don’t they just raid Batman’s rogues gallery for Scarecrow and Mad Hatter?

She-Hulk #28

She-Hulk gets arrested again after causing a ruckus at a football stadium while trying to apprehend the guy who knocked down an apartment building a few issues ago.

Verdict: Thumbs down. Dangit, this storyline completely vanished several months ago, then it’s back and running hard like we’re supposed to remember it again? Guys, please stop jumping randomly from one storyline to another.

Oookay, that’s enough for now. Another review-burst tomorrow…