Comics Smorgasbord

Tiny Titans #23

Robin’s having to share his home with a whole lot of penguins and bunnies. Bad enough they’re filling his bathtub with ice and trying to get him to eat carrots and fish for breakfast, but they’ve scared all the bats out of the Batcave. And Batman wants his bats back in the Batcave ASAP! Can Batgirl, Batmite, two familiar toddlers, and a bunch of miniature Batman costumes fool the Dark Knight Detective? And where did all those bats go anyway?

Verdict: Thumbs up. It’s an awesome and hilarious story, and that should be enough, but then Baltazar and Franco show us, on the Bat-Computer, the Tiny Titans version of Two-Face:

That may be the coolest Two-Face ever.

And there’s this:

The Tiny Titans versions of Jason Todd and Tim Drake, the first two post-Dick Grayson Robins. I laughed out loud when I saw that. Does this mean we can look forward to Stepanie Brown, Damian Wayne, and Carrie Kelly showing up in “Tiny Titans”?

Batgirl #5

There are a series of arsons targeting a building development on the rougher end of Gotham, and Batgirl tracks down the arsonist, a weirdo named Diesel who has gasoline for blood. Batman and Robin (Dick Grayson and bratty Damian Wayne) show up to grab the glory, and to stop Diesel from torching Robin, Batgirl hits both of them with some freeze-arangs. As expected, this makes both Dick and Damian very snippy, which makes Barbara Gordon, Stephanie’s mentor, very snippy. Once they’re off the clock, Barbara meets a cop that her dad is trying to set her up with and proceeds to get snippy on him for no real reason, and Stephanie spies on a dishy classmate whose dad may be involved in shady business connected to the arsons. Stephanie later has an amusing argument with Damian and tries to meet up with her classmate for an improvised date, only to run into a bunch of kidnappers with murder on their minds.

Verdict: Thumbs up. Outstanding dialogue, funny situations, and top-notch superheroics. Stephanie is an extremely charming lead, Barbara is almost as much fun as she was in “Birds of Prey,” and even the normally insufferable Damian comes across as merely a ten-year-old pill. This book is getting some of the best buzz of any DC series right now, and it’s still early in its run, so there’s time for you to jump aboard and enjoy the ride.

Secret Six #16

The Six get hired to help a serial killer escape from the police? But it turns out that one of his victims actually hired the Six, so too bad about your drastically shortened lifespan, Mr. Serial Killer! But they’ve been found out by Black Alice, a somewhat nutty gothpunk with the power to duplicate the powers of any magic-based superhero or villain. And she’s willing to blackmail them into letting her join the group. They stop off at the nudie bar where Scandal’s sweetie works when the rest of the team shows up and tells Alice to get lost. Then the cops show up, Black Alice steals Jeanette’s banshee powers and beats up on the cops… and the rest of the Six. Is there any way to calm her down and get her to lay off?

Verdict: Thumbs up. Good grief, Black Alice is awesome. I mean, the rest of the group is fine — Ragdoll gets to crack his usual ton of great one-liners. But Black Alice is just the bee’s knees.