Fast and Furious

Tiny Titans #16

Sidekick Elementary’s PE coach is Lobo, which isn’t quite as cool as having Darkseid as a lunch lady, but it comes close. Anyway, Coach Lobo has decided that the best way to get all the students in shape is to have them race all the way around the world, which really isn’t going to be fair for most of the kids. We also get to meet the Tiny Titan version of Bombshell and Mas y Menos.

In addition to that, we also get this deliriously odd panel:

Mmmm, that’s great non sequitur!

Verdict: Thumbs up. As always, this is just a very, very fun comic. It’s marketed to kids, but I think it’s a good read no matter how old you are.

Marvel Mystery Comics 70th Anniversary Special #1

Another in Marvel’s special comics to commemorate their 70th birthday, this one puts most of its focus on Namor the Sub-Mariner and the Human Torch, and the great rivalry they had during the Golden Age. We also get guest starring roles from Toro, the Angel, and Electro — not the Spider-Man villain, but an old robot hero from the ’40s. They’re all fighting Nazi saboteurs (of course) and a bunch of robots that burn with green flames. Once that’s over, we get treated to some reprints of classic Golden Age stories, including one with the Human Torch and another starring a guy called the Ferret, a detective whose gimmick is a trained ferret. Yeah, no kidding — pet ownership used to be enough to get you a comic book series…

Verdict: Thumbs up. The reprints at the back are pretty silly, but the main story is solid work — good script, excellent art, and I love Namor’s near-constant state of offended rage. It’s really too bad that we don’t see that version of the Sub-Mariner very much anymore.