The Marvelous Marvels

Tiny Titans #37

For the most part, this is all about bringing Captain Marvel and Mary Marvel into the Tiny Titans universe (Cap Jr. and Hoppy the Marvel Bunny have previously made their debuts). While the Marvel kids make with the “Shazams!” and the “Krakooms!”, the Super-Pets take naps, Mr. Tawny appears as the school’s math teacher, Mr. Mind tries to get into Pet Club, and Psimon tries to discover his own magic word.

Verdict: Thumbs up. Just spectacularly cute and funny. I probably got the most enjoyment out of Psimon’s two pages of trying to figure out a magic word he can use — not to get Marvel powers, he just wants a T-shirt with a lightning bolt on it. And of course, it’s great to see the classic Marvel family back in comics.

Detective Comics Classics

It’s one of DC’s new reprint mini-collections, and it costs six bucks, but I just couldn’t resist a bunch of retro Batman stories. There’s an extremely cheesy Riddler story from 1968 written by Gardner Fox with the Riddler trying to cheat his way through his clues and Batman using detective skills and huge amounts of luck to save the day. There’s a ’69 Batgirl story with incredible art by Gil Kane. And there’s a story starring Robin and Batgirl from ’75, during Barbara Gordon’s short-lived (but not short-lived enough) career as a Congressperson, where the heroes have to fight off a resurrected Benedict Arnold and the Devil, which is everything that a good Bat-Family story should never be.

Verdict: Thumbs up. Yes, it’s just spectacularly cheesy and goofy, and sometimes absolutely idiotic. But I loved it anyway. And the Gil Kane art is so good, I’ll be spotlighting some of it later tonight.

Marvel Adventures: Super Heroes #11

The Hulk recruits the Thing (if by “recruit,” we mean “tries to beat up”) to help him with a conundrum. The Hulk has discovered a Celestial hidden in the countryside and doesn’t know what it means. Ben gives a brief summary (My favorite way to describe the Celestials is “Because Jack Kirby said so.”), then calls in the Invisible Woman to help them figure out what to do with the dormant giant. But the Leader has his own plans for the Celestial. Meanwhile, Captain America and Nova hang out and meet a girl.

Verdict: Thumbs up, pretty much entirely because I thought the bits with Ben, Sue, and the Hulk were so much fun.

Today’s Cool Links:

• Lubbockite Todd Gray, purveyor of fine bloggery at Fanboy Fun, writes about Grant Morrison’s take on Batman. Here’s Part I and Part II, with another two parts still to come…
• It’s never fun to learn about canceled comics.
• I’ve been having some fun with this game. “Audiosurf” is like a racing/block-collecting game powered by your own music collection. It’s a few years old, but it’s dirt cheap!
• I gotta admit — I love reading everything I can about this story. It was great to read about people power in Egypt, and it’s even better to read about it here in the U.S.