Morning Glories #1

I originally skipped this one because the initial buzz involved a lot of comparisons to Joe Casey’s superteens-at-evil-school comic series “The Intimates,” which I still think is one of the worst and most pointless comics of the past decade. But I got persuaded to give it a shot when they reprinted the first issue, so here we go.

The setting is indeed a spectacularly evil private boarding school, hidden from the public, housing intangible assassins, and keeping a bunch of super-genius students imprisoned for some unknown purpose. We follow a group of new students — pretty whiz kid Casey, rich sociopath Ike, golddigger Zoe, neglected geek Hunter, goth poet Jade, and exchange student Jun. They sit through a weird orientation video that features images of goat sacrifice, meet the hyperactive R.A.s, and barely missing seeing one of the recently executed upperclassmen. Jade learns that her father no longer remembers her, Casey learns that they all have the same birthday, and then finds out something much, much worse.

Verdict: Thumbs up. It’s a large cast, but they’re all nicely distinct from each other, both visually and emotionally. The backstory — scant though it is for now — is also plenty interesting, and I’m sure it’ll be interesting to see how everything develops.

Strange Science Fantasy #3

Scott Morse’s retro storytelling platform continues with a weird film noir set in the early days of Hollywood. Our lead character is the Projectionist — because he has a projection camera for a head. Other projectionists in the city are being killed off by someone who wants to eliminate the movie industry in its infancy. The suspects include the Key Grip, who has keys for hands, the typewriter-headed Script Girl, the Prop Master, the Location Scout, and the deadly Silent Scream. Will the Projectionist be able to track down the Director before everything fades to black?

Verdict: Thumbs up, but you really gotta get yourself into a film noir mood to enjoy this one. Might not hurt to watch a few old detective movies — or heck, just go for the big one and watch “Sunset Boulevard.” On the other hand, I may just be encouraging you to watch “Sunset Boulevard” ’cause it’s really worth watching…

JSA All-Stars #10

The gods of Parador have returned to life, but they’re not content to remain in South America — they want to start over in Los Angeles. But they’re not fans of the current landscape, so they’re gonna knock the whole place down and build new temples. Can Power Girl and Stargirl hold out long enough for the rest of the team to arrive?

Verdict: Thumbs down. Good grief, what an awful mess this is. The plot makes nearly no sense, the artwork is weird, and I’m just completely bored with the whole thing.

Today’s Cool Links:

• Lubbock comics fans who miss out on this exhibit of Peanuts art over at Silent Wings museum have to turn in their Lubbock Comics Fans badges.
• The Museum of Soviet Video Games
• This is what I wish my brain felt like all the time.

Alright, friends and neighbors, it’s been another long, hard week, and what we all need, aside from a (hopefully) long holiday weekend, is a good old fashioned dose of pain and face-punching in the form of… FRIDAY NIGHT FIGHTS!

Our fight today is from the insane glory of June 2006’s Nextwave #4 by Warren Ellis, Stuart Immonen, and Wade von Grawbadger, as Tabitha Smith and Aaron Stack take on the awe-inspiring menace of a crooked cop.

Grrr, annoying fleshy cops.

Oh, and what’s this, blurb at the end of the Nextwave issue?

Hmmmm. I’ve been needing an activity for the weekend…

(goes to look up state, federal, and local laws and regulations concerning dragging insane, corrupt police officers who change into giant robots into alleyways and shooting them a lot)

(fails to find what he was hoping for)

Oh, shucks. Looks like I’ll have to stick with cookouts again…

PS238 #46

Evil genius Victor von Fogg has gotten his hands on a machine that briefly gives him limitless power and omnipotence — and every time he uses the machine, he ends up using it for frivolous or benevolent purposes instead of enslaving the universe, like he’d normally prefer. And he has to keep trying to use the machine over and over to work the bugs out — and it takes a lot of power to operate. How much power? He has to drain all the energy from an alternate universe just to turn it on. And when Zodon finds out which alternate universe von Fogg is about to drain, he decides that he has to stop him. So why does an evil genius care about saving another universe from another evil genius? We don’t know, but he assembles a strikeforce of his fellow classmates to travel to another dimension to stop von Fogg.

Verdict: Thumbs up. Obviously, we’re at the beginning of a new storyarc, with Zodon leading his motley band of pint-sized heroes on an interdimensional rescue mission, with Victor and his sister Alexandria in hot pursuit. So for now, we’re just setting up the players. If you haven’t read this title before, it makes this issue a very good jumping-on point.

Hercules: Twilight of a God #4

While Hercules’ grandchildren discover that the villain behind all the recent disasters is actually their own entirely amoral grandmother, Hercules is awakened from his coma, because he’s the only person strong enough to deliver the White Hole Engine into the Galactus-powered black hole. He says his farewells to his son, the emperor, to his surviving grandkids, to his friends, the Recorder and Skyppi, an elderly Skrull preparing to die. But when Hercules and Galactus clash, will either of them emerge? Or are they both doomed?

Verdict: Thumbs up. It’s a nice story, a lot more emotional than I was expecting, with a lot of personality and humor coming along for the ride.

Today’s Cool Links:

• Kalinara has been doing some thinking about the Bechdel Test.
• What’s so heroic about the Heroic Age?
• John Scalzi examines if any of the novels nominated for Hugos have a chance of being adapted into films.

Astro City Special: Silver Agent #2

Alan Craig is the Silver Agent, one of Astro City’s greatest heroes. He’s been framed for a crime he didn’t commit, and he’s fated, quite unavoidably, to be executed. But he’s been plucked from the timestream in an attempt to stop a time-spanning crisis, and as he travels more and more through time, he discovers more and more people who have been inspired by him, who have read his memoirs, and who he is able to push into greatness, including plenty of superheroes and his nephew Thomas, who has grown up to become a Senator. And the more Alan travels in time, the more energy and power he picks up. Can he say all the goodbyes he needs to? Can he complete his missions? And can he resist the temptation to use his extra powers to save himself from the electric chair?

Verdict: Thumbs up. Several thousand thumbs up. It’s amazing how good this story is, how powerful it is. As important as the Silver Agent is in the “Astro City” comics, he’s never been a particularly fully-fleshed character — he’s always been there as a background element, as an inspiration to other heroes. But this little two-part story has given him a solid background, personality, motivations, and emotions — as solid as any long-time character in the series. It’s a beautiful and touching story, and it’s something that people will be talking about long into the future. Go pick it up.

Secret Six #25

Bane and Jeannette have their own new Secret Six of mercenaries, including Lady Vic, King Shark, Dwarfstar, and Giganta, who are all busy on the standard murderous missions. And the government wants them on the payroll. Meanwhile, Deadshot is threatening a doctor to make sure he’ll tell Black Alice that she didn’t cause her father’s cancer, and Catman is trying to commit suicide by zoo lions. And the government wants them working for them, too. They’re all going to a land that time forgot, to fight their way through dinosaurs and giant griffins, to annex some new territory for the US of A…

Verdict: Thumbs up. Not sure where this is all going, but it looks plenty entertaining. Catman’s existential crisis has got him back living on the edge, and Bane’s new team is amusingly dysfunctional.

Today’s Cool Links:

Honestly, I’m in the mood to subject you guys to creepy, scary stuff, so here’s:

• No Through Road
• A dance routine starring the nurses from “Silent Hill”
• And something I’ve probably directed y’all to before — “Marble Hornets.” Start with the Introduction, then head up the list…

Beasts of Burden: Animal Rites

I reviewed all of the “Beasts of Burden” miniseries from last year already, but this is something somewhat different. Sure, it’s a collection of that wonderful miniseries by Evan Dorkin and Jill Thompson, but it also includes all of the other stories that were published in other Dark Horse comics.

So what are we talking about here? Our setting is the sleepy New England town of Burden Hill, and our main characters are all domesticated pets — Rex, Ace, Whitey, Jack, Miranda, Pugsley, and the Orphan, the lone cat in the main group. They’re all animals, and they all have animal concerns and thoughts, but they also talk, and other animals can understand them — so can we, luckily, or it wouldn’t make a lot of sense. Burden Hill is home to an unusual number of ghosts, demons, witches, and other horrors, and the pets of Burden Hill are the only ones who can stop them, with the assistance of some of the other pets and the occasional Wise Dog.

The threats range from the distinctly human — a resurrected sorcerer and a coven of witches worshiping Sekhmet — to the more pet-oriented — a demonic frog that eats stray pets and a cult of rats plotting to take over everything. And some of these rank among the very scariest stories printed in any comic book in the past few years.

There’s “Stray,” the very first of the stories in the collection, about a haunted doghouse, which is part funny, part sad, and part terrifying. There’s “Let Sleeping Dogs Lie,” which ladles on the gruesome shocks with a Night of the Living Dead Housepets.

And best of all, there’s “Lost,” which just might be one of the great masterpieces of horror. It’s got the heartbreak of a mother searching for her lost pups, it’s got a horrific spectral possession, it’s got a terrifying murder, a chilling twist, and a final haunting image you won’t ever forget.

And the whole thing’s wrapped up in a beautiful hardcover.

Verdict: Thumbs up. Brilliant writing from Dorkin, beautiful watercolors from Thompson, and the best, funniest, most terrifying, most human stories you’ll see for a long time.

Go pick it up. Don’t make me tell you again.