Abe Sapien: The Abyssal Plain #1

A new story about one of Abe’s earlier missions, with writing by Mike Mignola and John Arcudi, and art by Peter Snejbjerg. Long decades after a large number of sailors drowned in a sunken Soviet submarine, Abe is assigned to swim down and recover something called Melchiorre’s Burgonet, a medieval helmet with reputed magical powers. Once Abe gets to the sub, he doesn’t find the expected zombies, just a lot of long-dead waterlogged corpses floating eerily in the darkness. He recovers the helmet, returns to the ship awaiting him, argues with the captain when he wants to salvage the sub, and then finds an unexpected visitor.

Verdict: Thumbs up. This is a wonderfully atmospheric story (and a great cover, too), from the Russian sailor awaiting the water, darkness, and cold that will end him to the dreamlike scenes of drowned bodies floating through the water around and inside the sub. It’s beautifully tense horror, and you should definitely go pick this one up.

Justice Society of America #40

This ends up being a bit of an anticlimactic ending to the time travel storyarc — the message that Future Mr. Terrific sent to Present Mr. Terrific actually arrives back around Issue #32 of this series, back when Mr. Terrific died (briefly) on the operating table. This time, he revives, blurts out a message to “Hatch the egg,” and passes out again. Green Lantern, assuming he may be hearing Michael’s last request, goes out, finds the “egg,” and releases his son Obsidian from captivity. He helps to rout the crop of villains attacking the JSA, then participates in the rest of the Justice Society’s various adventures since then, and Mr. Terrific retains his memories of the future, helping the team get the drop on the Nazi supervillains and eventually offering a scholarship to the girl who would, in the alternate future, have turned out to be his interrogator.

Verdict: I’ll give it a thumbs up. It’s one of the weirder retcons I’ve seen, but it all seems to work out well. And it gets Obsidian back as an active superhero again, so I’ll proclaim that a good thing, too.

Zatanna #2

After helping Black Canary and Vixen take out a pack of were-hyenas in New Orleans, Zatanna returns home to San Francisco for some well-deserved shut-eye, but she soon falls prey to a nightmare-causing demon with the unlikely name of Fuseli, who has been empowered by the evil Brother Night to try to keep her in dreamland forever. And Brother Night is putting the squeeze on Detective Colton, too — he plans on taking over all magical and mundane crime in S.F., and he warns Colton that he better get on his good side. Can he help Zatanna escape from her dreaming prison? And who is Brother Night’s secret ace-in-the-hole?

Verdict: Thumbs up. Very nice stuff, fun depiction of a good nightmare villain, some excellent work on cranking up the menace of Brother Night, who really is just creepy as heck, and the surprise guest appearance on the final page really makes for a good cliffhanger.

Today’s Cool Links:

• Esther writes about women as victims in fiction, and why it’s not always a bad thing.
• A live-action version of “What’s Opera, Doc?” Oh, yes, I approve.

Wonder Woman #600

Where to begin? Well, DC has now re-numbered this series to take advantage of the fact that this is the 600th issue since the ’40s, and this is supposed to be the big send-off for Gail Simone, whose run on this series has been pretty popular. But this issue has mostly been overshadowed by all the hubbub about her new costume.

So let’s take this more or less in order.

We’ve got a half-page introduction by Lynda Carter, and some excellent pin-up illustrations by artists including Adam Hughes, Nicola Scott, Phil Jimenez, Ivan Reis, Greg Horn, Francis Manapul, and Shane Davis. Our first story is written by Gail Simone with art by George Perez. Wondy and a host of superheroines take out Professor Ivo’s newest creations — a bunch of Cyber-Sirens who can mind-control men. Afterwards, Diana attends the graduation ceremony for Vanessa Kapatelis, the former Silver Swan.

The next story is written and illustrated by Amanda Conner and features Wondy, Power Girl, and Cassandra Cain cracking down on Egg Fu before Diana assists Kara with a problem with her horrible, horrible cat.

There’s also a short story where Wonder Woman and Superman have to stop a terrorist who’s taken control of Zeus’ thunderbolts.

The big problem here starts with the last story, by the series’ new writer, J. Michael Straczynski. It’s gotten a lot of publicity because JMS announced his new direction for the series (Themyscyra retroactively destroyed in the past, with an amnesiac Wonder Woman on the run from government agents) and debuted a new costume designed by Jim Lee.

This hasn’t been very well-received, partly because of JMS’s mostly unearned arrogance (his attitude in interviews could be summed up as “Wonder Woman sucks and has always sucked. I’m here to make her cool.” All in the voice of Jeff Albertson.) and partly because of Jim Lee’s new costume:

My thoughts? I agree with a lot of what the folks at Project Rooftop had to say — it’s probably a fine costume for any other character, but it’s not a Wonder Woman costume. And Jim Lee really does stick a leather jacket on every character he can. As for the story, it’s a very safe bet that this kind of alternate-reality scheme will be cleaned up between six months to a year from now, possibly by the end of the first storyarc. This is a publicity stunt, no more or less.

But J. Michael Straczynski really is a bit of a jerk, and I haven’t been at all impressed with his DC work in the past year or so. He’d better bring his A-game, or I’m not going to be reading this title for much longer.

Verdict: All told, it’s still a thumbs up. The first story by Simone and Perez is just awesome, at least partly for seeing Perez’s art on this character again. The second story by Amanda Conner is also really cool, partly for Conner’s always outstanding artwork, partly because it’s got a lot of the Power Girl brand of humor.

And a lot of the pin-ups are just absolutely beautiful, especially the ones by Adam Hughes, Phil Jimenez, and Nicola Scott — they should all be out there as posters or book covers or wall paintings, not buried on the inside of a comic book. It’s definitely worth picking up, even with a $5 price tag.

Today’s Cool Links:

• Huzzah! The winners of the latest Bulwer-Lytton Fiction Contest have been announced!
• Oooh! The Unspeakable Oath, the greatest Lovecraftian gaming magazine ever, is returning from the dead!
• Gavok may have figured out why Max Lord turned evil, and how he’ll be reformed…