Beetles, Birds, and Spirits!

Blue Beetle #32

Tons of stuff happening here, but let’s keep the summary short. We get an extended origin of the new Dr. Polaris, Jaime gets a stern talking-to about endangering the trust El Paso had put in him by agreeing, even under pressure, to work with the Border Patrol, and Jaime, his dad, and Traci Thirteen try to track down Intergang and fall into a trap.

Verdict: Thumbs up. Some great stuff here — Jaime’s dad beats up someone with his cane, Traci isn’t able to mystically summon anything but carrots, and everyone gets off a number of excellent one-liners. The new Doc Polaris seems moderately interesting, but he’s mostly monologuing here.

Birds of Prey #123

Barbara is stuck face-to-face with the Joker, the guy who crippled her — and he doesn’t even remember who she is. The cops scare him off, and Babs and the rest of the Birds need to figure out why the Silicon Syndicate has joined up with the Joker and how they can shut them down. And to do so, they actually partner up with Barbara’s rival, the Calculator, with Infinity masquerading as a metahuman version of Oracle. But the team may be walking into a trap set by a bunch of very powerful and very creepy villains…

Verdict: Thumbs up. Nice standoff with Babs and the Joker. A few good villains waiting in the wings, though I suspect several of them wouldn’t be much good in a fight…

The Spirit #22

The Spirit investigates the murder of a magician and tries to determine what trickery was involved.

Verdict: Thumbs up, just because I’m a sucker for stories about magicians, sleight-of-hand, and all that stuff.