By now, everyone knows that prices of most of DC’s and Marvel’s comics are going up from $3 to $4 — a fairly significant increase, especially during a bad economy. DC, at least, is trying to do something to soften the blow for readers — they’re bringing back the backup feature. There will be more pages per issue, with an extra, shorter story after the regular story.

So far, it looks like Blue Beetle will appear in the back of “Booster Gold,” Manhunter in “Batman: Streets of Gotham,” the Question in “Detective Comics,” the Metal Men in “Doom Patrol,” and Ravager in “Teen Titans.” Black Canary and Captain Atom may be picking up backup features in other comics.

On the bright side, DC is going with characters who already had enthusiastic fan bases, which is going to be appealing to fans who were unhappy with the cancellations of “Blue Beetle” and “Manhunter” or who wish popular but little-used characters like Renee Montoya had a bit more exposure.

But on the other paw, the main features will probably end up getting shortened to make space. Creators who are used to telling their stories with 22 pages may have to get everything done in 18 pages or less.

And of course, a big issue is whether backup stories can succeed. While a lot of DC’s heroes got their starts as backup characters, comics that have backup stories in them are not always very popular — they were accepted and common in the Golden and Silver Ages, but since then, they haven’t tended to be popular with readers.

At any rate, DC deserves a gold star for trying to make the price increase a bit more palatable for cash-strapped readers. Marvel has ended up looking like the bad guy here — first, they increased their prices before DC did (though the increase was probably inevitable for both companies — and don’t be surprised when both companies eventually increase prices on all their books, instead of just a few), and second, they didn’t offer anything extra to along with the increase — no extra pages or backups, just an extra buck out of readers’ wallets.

So whatcha think? Are the price boosts a good idea? Will backup stories make you more likely to accept the increased costs?

Captain America Comics 70th Anniversary Special #1

This is the first of a series of comics Marvel is putting out to commemorate their 70th birthday. And I gotta say, I love the cover, with Cap and Bucky beating the snot out of Nazis, plus that retro “Timely Comics” banner — for those of you who aren’t as up on comics history, Timely was Marvel’s original name.

Anyway, our main story is written by James Robinson, one of my favorite comics writers, with illustrations by Marcos Martin. It tells a story of Steve Rogers before he became Captain America, when he was a skinny 4-F reject, heartbroken that he won’t be able to serve his country. But by blind luck, a murdered fed pushes a mysterious jewel into his hands, and Steve is on the run from a gang of Nazi saboteurs. He manages to elude them, even manages to kill a couple of them. He even pulls off some fancy stunts with a garbage can lid that suggest that Cap’s later shield-throwing abilities didn’t come from the super-soldier serum.

And there’s a followup story, a reprint from Captain America Comics #7 in 1941 by Joe Simon and Jack Kirby. Far from the battlefields of WWII, it details Cap and Bucky’s battle against a villain called the Toad as he tries to ruin the Brookly Badgers baseball team by killing off the players. It’s a decent story, but I kept getting distracted by the villain, who despite being called the Toad, wears a costume that looks like this:

Siiiigh. You almost wish they’d just called him Batman. (Dig the jawline on his lowlife henchman, though)

Verdict: Thumbs up. The Simon and Kirby reprint is a great bonus, but the main story really is excellent. Steve’s dejection at being rejected by the Army is really well done, the chase through New York is excellent and thrilling, and the framing sequence — Cap and Bucky preparing for a paratrooper jump over Europe — is also very good. Gotta love the way 4-F Steve manages to take out so many Nazis, even if he gets winded and banged-up in the process. And of course, there are very few things, either in comics or in the real world, that are more awesome than beating the heil out of Nazis! This is just a plain wonderful comic from beginning to end.

Wonder Woman #30

Genocide is torturing Etta Candy, Zeus has resurrected Achilles to serve as his warmongering peacenik ambassador to the Earth, and Wonder Woman beats up on Cheetah, mashes the Secret Society’s headquarters, and gains Dr. T.O. Morrow as a new (though probably temporary) ally.

Verdict: Ehhh. It seems fairly well produced, but I’m just colossally bored with this whole storyline.

For decades, we’ve all known that we had to guard against the day when robots would rise up against us and destroy all humans. If Sam Waterston has taught us anything, it’s that robots are everywhere, and they eat old peoples’ medicine for fuel.

Well, it looks like things are getting worse, ’cause there are now robots that can conduct their own scientific experiments. No, not just as tools for human scientists — they can actually come up with new experiments based on previous experiments they’ve performed.

Two teams of human scientists Thursday unveiled their work with robots that not only perform experiments, but also come up with new ones. The prototypes tackled physics and biology problems that require simple, repetitive experiments, proceeding by trial and error to uncover knowledge, according to studies published in the journal Science.

These robots don’t look like R2-D2 and C-3PO from Star Wars. They look like van-size computers, but with robotic arms to do tasks that would otherwise be done by human assistants.

“The prospect of using automated systems as assistants holds vast promise,” David Waltz of Columbia University and Bruce Buchanan of the University of Pittsburgh say in a journal commentary. Robot scientists could “increase the rate of scientific progress dramatically, (and) in the process, revolutionize the practice of science,” they write.

“Scientists should be using their brains rather than their hands,” says computational biologist Ross King of the United Kingdom’s Aberystwyth University, who led one robot effort. Adam, the team’s $1 million prototype robot scientist, reports new findings about yeast genes in one of the studies. The robot can start more than 1,000 biology experiments a day over a five-day period.

King’s team manually confirmed the biochemistry results that explained the genetic workings of yeasts, which have eluded researchers for decades. “There is a lot of work to do, even in creatures we think are well-understood,” King says.

Sure, sure, it sounds great. They’re performing repetitive experiments so humans don’t have to do them. They’re helping to advance science. They’re discovering stuff about yeast, which could lead to better-tasting bread. But dangit, once you start teaching ’em science, it’s only a matter of time before they’re building new bodies made out of adamantium and trying to kill off the Avengers.

Yet another week has come and gone, and it’s time for the two days of the week that make the rest of them worth sweating through — and that means it’s time once again for FRIDAY NIGHT FIGHTS!

Our pain-packed panel for this week comes from Alan Moore and Eddie Campbell’s classic Jack the Ripper thriller From Hell, Chapter 8, collected into a single volume back in 1999. Here, we see Sir William Gull taking his knife to Kate Eddowes.

Hmm, not our usual light-hearted fisticuffs this time, so we’ll just leave it at that, along with the wish that everyone has a far better weekend.

Justice Society of America #25

What. A. Train wreck.

Evil Pink-Ponytailed Mary Marvel gets unpowered Billy Batson to say her name, thus turning him into, I dunno, Evil Captain Marvel Junior? Evil Black Adam Junior? Evil Mary Marvel Junior? I don’t know, but he’s evil and stuff. Isis, meanwhile, has turned into a total mass-murdering villain. Atom Smasher turns in the most overwrought, hackneyed and ridiculous narration ever. Flash and Billy Batson’s father go to a place called the Rock of Finality, which is basically the Evil Rock of Eternity, where the Seven Sacred Virtues of Man are chained up and where the wizard Shazam has been turned into a stone statue. Black Adam finally turns on his crazy “family” and helps free Shazam, who repays the Marvel Family and the Black Marvel Family alike by taking their powers away and turning Teth-Adam and Adrianna Tomaz into statues. As for the rest of the Justice Society, everyone decides that everyone gets to remain on the team, which is the lone bright spot for this comic.

Verdict: Thumbs down. This was absolute garbage. I figured they’d try to hit the reset button on the Marvel Family, after the disastrously awful way DC has treated the characters over the past few years, but I never imagined they’d actually go and make the situation even worse. The explanation that “Black Adam’s powers are inherently corrupting” is insultingly simple-minded, and Shazam’s harsh treatment of everyone suggests that Geoff Johns has a spectacularly poor grasp of the character. The whole thing is just a complete embarrassment.

Billy Batson and the Magic of Shazam! #4

In the latest issue of Mike Kunkel‘s all-ages take on the Captain Marvel mythos, it’s Captain Marvel and Mary Marvel vs. Black Adam and the Seven Deadly Sins of Man. Unfortunately, Cap and Adam find themselves completely unable to harm each other. Forced to adopt a very complicated strategy, Billy and Mary use their magic lightning to defeat all the Sins but Selfishness, then convince Adam to go to the Rock of Eternity to drain the power of the imprisoned Sins. This leads to Adam and Selfishness battling for the Sins’ power, giving Billy the edge he needs to take them both down.

Verdict: Thumbs up. Nice, cute, and funny. Billy’s tactics are a bit byzantine, but still pretty entertaining.

Attention, fans of H.P. Lovecraft’s brand of cosmic horror:

According to my calendar, today marks the day in 1925 when the ancient sunken city of R’lyeh rose from the bottom of the sea, temporarily freeing the mighty eldritch god/monster Cthulhu to terrorize some fish and some sailors.

So, ya know, it’s a great day for performing blasphemous and squiddy acts against anyone you want.

This seems like an appropriate day to post a bunch of fun links and news items.

ITEM: Project: Rooftop announces the winners of their contest to redesign Batman’s costume. Most of the winners went with a strategy of designing a Batman costume for Nightwing.

ITEM: Happy Birthday, Supergirl! The Girl of Steel was created 50 years ago!

ITEM: Augie De Blieck Jr. has a very cool review of John Byrne’s classic “Sensational She-Hulk” run from the late ’80s.

ITEM: Hack fantasy writer Terry Goodkind is a lousy writer and a horrible person, as these hilarious excerpts (with associated parodies) demonstrate.

ITEM: EXTREEEEEME SHEEPHERDING!

ITEM: Could I just register my amazement that, if this trailer is any indication, the creators of the upcoming “Where the Wild Things Are” movie appear to have actually made an excellent adaptation of Maurice Sendak’s classic children’s book?

ITEM: I’m wildly in agreement with this awesomely cathartic rant about the state of newspapers these days. There are way too many reporters looking for work, and way too many greedy, short-sighted media conglomerate owners walking around with fat pocketbooks and undented craniums.

ITEM: A free, demented SubGenius rant. Don’t like it? Reload the page for another.

ITEM: On a personal note, I gave my 30-days notice to move out of my apartment. Nope, haven’t gotten a job yet — I just don’t want to keep paying $600 in rent every month. I’ll be moving in with my brother at the end of April. I don’t like moving, for any reason, but it must be done. So expect light posting toward the end of the month.