Hey, New Year’s Eve! The end of 2009, the beginning of 2010. Everyone be safe out there tonight and enjoy whatever you’re doing. Call a cab if you need it, and don’t torture your cat with drunken hijinx. They can steal your breath away, man!

Need something to kill time while you’re waiting for the celebrations to start? Here are some links for ya:

• Stan Sakai’s Usagi Yojimbo Hidden-Picture feature
• The close links between heroism and sociopathy
• The Adventures of Lil Cthulhu
• Speaking of Cthulhu, here’s an article focusing on Lovecraft’s greatest creation as a humor icon.
• Hyper-high-speed bullet impacts
• I love this (proposed) skyscraper.
• And here’s the greatest performance of “The Final Countdown” ever.

Here’s hoping 2010 is a lot better for all of us, right?

Time once again to access our amazing archive of the assembled annals of astounding awesomeness! Join us as we explore the awesomely awesome awesomosity of robots!

How awesome are robots? Just look at the Wikipedia page on robots. Robots are so awesome that not even Wikipedia’s mindless dedication to dreariness and tedium can manage to strip the awesomeness away! And if you want even more examples of robotic awesomeness, you should go here and prepare to spend all day getting your feeble nonrobotic brain blown.

Robots are built by mankind to make their lives easier. Luckily, robots always go berserk and start shooting humans with lasers and chasing them with clamping claws and killing Sarah Conner and eating old people’s medicine for food and ruling the Earth as terrible metal despots. You love serving your robotic masters, don’t you, fleshbag?

Even good robots are far more awesome than humans. R2D2, Machine Man, Data, the Iron Giant, KITT, Astro Boy, Tom Servo and Crow, Dynomutt — we were lucky they were on our side, ’cause they could’ve taken us over easy. And we would’ve loved them for it, ’cause they’re all just so awesome!

The robot pictured above is a real robot, not something from fiction. It was designed to play ping-pong. Yes, ping-pong. That in itself is pretty awesome. But just look at it. You know it’s got some lasers and chainsaws hidden away in there, right? Never doubt the awesomeness of robots, or this guy will kill you with ping-pong balls accelerated to light speed.

Booster Gold # 27

The Black Lantern Blue Beetle is running amok, threatening Booster, Skeets, the new Blue Beetle, Booster’s ancestor, Daniel Carter (wearing his always-spiffy Supernova costume), and Booster’s possible ancestor, Rose Levin. They’re not making much headway against him, since it’s almost impossible to harm the Black Lantern zombies, so Booster makes a strategic retreat through time to Rip Hunter’s hideout. Realizing they need something that emits a lot of light to break the connection between the black ring and its undead host, Booster, Skeets, and Jaime visits Ted Kord’s mothballed HQ in Kord Industries to get Ted’s old light gun. Will it be enough to stop the Zombie Beetle before anyone else dies?

Verdict: Thumbs up. Nothing to earthshaking — just a nice story, with a bit of hitting, a bit of superhero angst, and a nice solution to the problem of the Black Lantern rings.

Detective Comics #859

The origin of Batwoman continues, as we join Kate during her time as a cadet at West Point. She’s at the top of her class, but the brass finds out she’s a lesbian. She’s given the chance to say it’s all a mistake, never to happen again, so she can stay in the Army, but she chooses to maintain her honor — she admits her sexual orientation and accepts her discharge. She breaks the news to her dad, who is proud of her for keeping her integrity. Directionless, Kate throws herself into a hedonistic lifestyle, meets up with and starts a doomed romance with Gotham cop Renee Montoya, and has her first run-in with the Batman after she fights off a mugger. In the backup story, Renee Montoya, as the Question, tracks the human smuggling ring, with the assistance of another superhero.

Verdict: Thumbs up. Really powerful storytelling. Kate Kane and her dad are both really controlled people, emotionally, not given to outward displays of any kind — but this is a deeply emotional and fantastic story, beautifully emphasizing just how off-kilter the military’s Don’t-Ask-Don’t-Tell policies are. Greg Rucka is doing a great job writing both of these stories. Lots of detail, outstanding characterization, and wonderful dialogue, helped out by J.H. Williams III’s heartstoppingly beautiful artwork in the main story and by Cully Hamner’s less spectacular but still great art in the Question backup.

SpaceBooger is going to start up the next official round of Friday Night Fights next week, but why don’t we jump the gun with a little seasonal mayhem?

From January 2002’s JLA #60 by Mark Waid, Cliff Rathburn, and Paul Neary: Santa Claus puts the hurt on a bunch of demonic elves!

You better not pout, you better not cry, you better watch out, I’m telling you why: Santa Claus is coming… to kick your ass.

Hey, it’s December 25th! You know what that means? That’s right, it’s Humphrey Bogart’s birthday!

Oh, and it’s Christmas, too! Let’s celebrate the traditional way — with a bunch of comic book covers!

Hope your holiday is all kinds of merry and festive, and hope Santa gets you everything you wanted!

Merry Christmas Eve, everyone! You in the mood for some Christmas music? Me, too! But not any wimpy carols, man. I got a heavy metal heart, so get in the mosh pit, throw your horns up, and let’s have a headbanger’s holiday!

And before you start — no, no, no, not going to listen to anyone who wants to complain that this is anti-Christmas or anything like that. I like classical Christmas music a lot, but ain’t nothing better than a few non-traditional carols. And this stuff is light-years better than most of the Christmas country or pop music that’s cluttering up the radio these days.

So yeah. Heavy metal Christmases rock.

• I’ll Be Home for Christmas by Twisted Sister and Lita Ford
• Run Rudolph Run by Lemmy Kilmister, Billy F. Gibbons, and Dave Grohl
• Silent Night by Chuck Billy, Scott Ian, Jon Donais, Chris Wyse, and John Tempesta
• Little Drummer Boy by Doug Pinnick, George Lynch, Billy Sheehan, and Simon Phillips
• God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen by Ronnie James Dio, Tony Iommi, Rudy Sarzo, and Simon Wright
• We Wish You A Merry Christmas by Jeff Scott Soto, Bruce Kulick, Bob Kulick, Chris Wyse, and Ray Luzier

If you ain’t in the Christmas spirit by now, turn in your headbanging license.

Hey! It’s Christmas Eve Eve! Do we get to open presents yet? No?! I’M TIRED OF WAITING.

Fine, I’ll let y’all amuse yourselves with a few links, some holiday-related, some not-so-holiday-related.

• Here’s Handel’s Hallelujah Chorus as performed by monks who’ve taken a vow of silence.
• A lot of your favorite Christmas music was written by Jewish songwriters. Take that, War on Christmas!
• Here’s a 100% whacked-out disturbing Johnny Ryan comic called “The Miracle.”
• If you haven’t seen this one yet, it’s definitely worth watching — the Muppets perform Queen’s “Bohemian Rhapsody.”
• Speaking of the Muppets: here’s Cookie Monster singing along with Rammstein.
• Make your own Marvel Super Hero Squad comic.
• Something tells me this story isn’t exactly true, but what the heck: Kung-Fu Monkeys — ATTACK!
• And a little seasonal superhero fun — Flash and the Ultra-Humanite team up… for Christmas!

There are my little pre-Christmas presents to you guys. Just remember to get me what I’ve always wanted — impossibly expensive real estate.

DC Universe Holiday Special ’09

Most years, these holiday specials are about as welcome as a stocking full of coal — atrocious writing, bad art, hackneyed holiday cliches. But this year’s edition is actually pretty darn good. This one has 16 different stories — Batman tracking a dishonest Santa; Superman fighting a snow-golem; the Flash doing a ton of holiday chores in a small amount of time; Beast Boy finding a new family with the Doom Patrol; the Martian Manhunter solving a Christmas crime; two different tales of holiday cheer during wartime, starring Sgt. Rock and Enemy Ace; Deadman bringing comfort to a couple of lost souls; the Red Tornado trying to convince greedy shoppers to embrace the holiday spirit; Adam Strange trying to beat a deadline so he can make it back to the planet Rann for New Year’s; and many, many more.

Verdict: Thumbs up. This one is just amazingly good, with excellent art and writing. There are some clunkers here and there, but they’re not actually bad — just not real successes. And the good definitely outweighs the merely mediocre in this one. If I had to pick my favorites — the Doom Patrol story, Martian Manhunter, Sgt. Rock, Enemy Ace, Red Tornado (he never puts on the stupid costume once!), and the Adam Strange story. The whole thing is a nice dose of holiday cheer.

Batman: The Brave and the Bold #12

This is the comic based on the goofy Cartoon Network series. In their first Christmas issue, Batman starts out knocking the stuffing out of the Calendar Man who plans to destroy all the Christmas cards in Gotham City! ALL THE CHRISTMAS CARDS! (insert evil laughter here) And right when Batman is about to deliver the knockout punch, he gets transported off-planet by a Zeta Ray. Huzzah! Calendar Man is triumphant! And a second or two later, Earth is destroyed by a wave of antimatter. Is there no hope for a Merry Christmas?

Well, Batman arrives safely on the planet Rann, where Adam Strange reveals that the Psions have generated the antimatter wave which has already destroyed almost everything in the universe but Rann, which is resistant to antimatter because of its natural Zeta radiation. (No, that makes no sense, but it’s a comic book, so shush.) While Batman and Adam fight off antimatter shadow-demons, Adam’s wife Alana shows up to help. When they all make it to the Psion base, they learn that all the destroyed planets have been converted into pure information. Alana can use the Psion technology to reverse the deletion effects, but Batman and Adam will have to help out from inside the antimatter generator. Their recent exposure to Zeta radiation should protect them from instant destruction, but it won’t stop them from undergoing some unusual transformations…

Verdict: Thumbs up. Okay, it’s very silly stuff, but I still thought it was fun, funny, and pretty nicely Christmasy. I thought the transformations at the end were cute, and I enjoyed Batman’s appropriately gobsmacked musings about the Earth being destroyed. All in all, a cute dose of Christmas cheer.

Time for one more look into our gift recommendations for comics fans and people who want to be comic fans. Today, we’re going with an old favorite around here…

Let’s talk about Marvel’s Essentials and DC’s Showcase Presents. I’ve recommended these every single year, because they’re some of the very best, easiest gifts you can get for someone who loves comics. What are they? These are very thick collections of old comics — usually over 500 pages long, black and white printing, on inexpensive paper. They sell ’em for cheap, too — between $15-20 each. That’s cheaper’n spit, man, especially for huge books like these.

These collections can be divided between early works, like the first appearances of Green Lantern, the Avengers, the Legion of Super-Heroes, or Spider-Man, and rarities that haven’t previously been collected because they’re not in high demand, like “Moon Knight,” “The Creeper,” “Dazzler,” or “Dial H for Hero.” There’s a huge variety of comics offered this way — superhero comics, war comics, Westerns, horror, sci-fi, fantasy, and more. You get major characters and minor characters, and some of the greatest artists and writers in comics history.

The economy is still pretty rotten, and lots of folks need to be able to get good gifts for not a lot of money. These are perfect for that — they’re amazingly affordable, and they’re stuffed full of enough comics to keep any fan reading along for weeks. You don’t even have to get these on special order — most comics shops and large bookstores are going to have a ton of these on hand, so you can stop in, shell out a little cash, and walk off with an easy last-minute stocking stuffer. The comics fan on your list gets some classic stories they’d never get to read otherwise, and you get a nice little break for your pocketbook, too.

Marvel’s Essentials and DC’s Showcase Presents. Go pick some up.