Shock and Awe

Static Shock #2

Static’s encounter with the assassin Virule has ended with one of his arms severed — but then mysteriously healing itself — at the cost of knocking out all the power in New York City. The criminal organization that ordered the hit on Static isn’t happy and threatens to fire the gang in charge of their assassinations — the Slate Gang, a bunch of kids dressed up like something out of “Tron.” Can Static track down the Slaters? And can he survive any more encounters with either them or Virule?

Verdict: Thumbs up, but there’s some seriously weird stuff going on here. Apparently, Static’s sister Sharon has a clone. They both consider themselves the original article, and the family has no idea which one’s the clone — so the Hawkins family has one superhero and a couple of identical mindlinked twins who hate each other. That’s the kind of weirdness that I could accept after a dozen or two issues, but having this pop up out of the middle of nowhere is just mondo bizarro. Even if it’s part of old Static continuity, a big reboot should be your opportunity to remove something that strange, at least initially, to keep from freaking out your readers. I’m still sticking with this one, ’cause I enjoy everything else about the comic, but yowza, that’s just somethin’ else.

iZombie #18

This issue, our focus is on Diogenes, monster-fighting partner of Gwen’s semi-boyfriend Horatio — specifically, we get a look back in time at one of Diogenes’ first missions for the Fossor Corporation, with his mentor Britia, as they track a vampire clan across Brazil. On their way through the rain forest, they encounter were-jaguars, zombies, a poltergeist, and mystic dream-walkers. When they finally make it to the vampires’ secret temple in the middle of the Amazon jungle, the bloodsuckers aren’t anything like what we may have been expecting…

Verdict: Thumbs up. A nice done-in-one break from the soap-opera drama going on in Eugene, Oregon. And the identities of the jungle vampires were a welcome and quirky surprise.