Mighty Avengers #6

Well, some ignorant Teabagger arsonist is getting chased through the city by swarms of pigeons. Probably a lot better than he deserves. The White Tiger is wearing herself out patrolling almost all the time. Power Man has just learned that his powers are strongest after he’s studied history, of all things. Spectrum never should’ve had her hair straightened. Luke Cage and the Blue Marvel have a big argument. And glory be, ring the bells, this issue is illustrated by Valerio Schiti, not that hack Greg Land!

Verdict: Thumbs up. NO GREG LAND!

For the rest of the story — lots of great moments of character interaction, particularly between Adam Brashear and Jessica Jones, and between Adam and Luke. I also really, really dig the bit with Spectrum regretting her hair-care decisions — I get the impression that her new hairstyle was decided on strictly because Land was too lazy to change the hair he’d traced from his Halle Berry pix.

Lazarus #6

The Barret family are, in the jargon of the corporate-blessed future, Waste. They’re not the mega-wealthy Families who own the world, and they’re not the proles who are useful to the Families. They made a life in the wilds of Montana, but a flood has wiped out their home, and they have to choose between rebuilding and getting even further in debt to the Carlyles or hitting the road and risking starvation and bandits to try to enter the Carlyle’s service as serfs. Meanwhile, Forever Carlyle tracks a security breach, unaware that others may be plotting directly against her.

Verdict: Thumbs up. Characterization and artwork are still outstanding, and I love the weird plausibility of this future timeline — the one-percenters have everything, the 99%ers have nothing, and the world has legitimately gone to hell.

Today’s Cool Links:

• There are so many great superhero movies that could be getting made — if only Hollywood would get off its butt and start thinking seriously about stories and demographics. (Warner’s stubbornness on the Wonder Woman movie is looking more and more like a mental deficiency, and I can’t figure out why Marvel keeps sticking A-list actresses like Scarlett Johansson and Gwyneth Paltrow in supporting roles behind less impressive actors and less bankable stars.)
• This article on the recent evolution/creationism debate is entirely worth reading.
• George Zimmerman is one of the worst people in the country, and the fact that he keeps getting away with crimes, keeps getting paid real money, and keeps getting worshiped by the racist segment of the population should be embarrassing to the entire country.

FF #16

It’s the last issue of this gloriously quirky comic book. The Future Foundation has managed to shut down all of Dr. Doom’s defenses. His robots have been destroyed, his allies are wrecked, his hostages freed, his science, sorcery, and stolen power have all been neutralized. It’s all down to Dr. Doom vs. Ant-Man. Scott Lang doesn’t stand a chance, does he? Oh, you might be surprised…

Verdict: Thumbs up. Not trying to tell a lot of the plot, to avoid spoilers, but it’s quite interestingly done, and if Marvel doesn’t end up forgetting all this, it’s going to make anyone using Pym particles a lot more powerful. But most importantly, this is a wonderful farewell to an awesome cast of characters, adults, kids, superheroes, supervillains, freaks, and weirdoes. It’s really too bad this one isn’t going to stick around — I’m going to miss Darla Deering, Bentley-23, and Tong.

Mighty Avengers #5

The Superior Spider-Man has decided he wants to take over the Mighty Avengers and run it like his own personal paramilitary force. Luke Cage and Jessica Jones aren’t having any of that, and they clean Otto’s clock — at least until his Spiderling minions shoot them with high-tech weapons. Can anyone save them from Otto’s wrath? Maybe a big green lawyer. Meanwhile, inside Attilan, time-controlling corporate supervillain Quickfire is after some mystic artifacts while Spectrum, Falcon, Ronin (actually Blade — still don’t understand the silly subterfuge), Power Man, and White Tiger try to stop her — and while a three-headed monster tries to eat all of them. Who will survive and what will be left of them?

Verdict: Thumbs up. I’m enjoying the writing, the characters, and the story even while I’m still despising Greg Land’s tracing.

Pretty Deadly #4

Looks like we’re gathering our cast of characters together, slowly but surely. Johnny Coyote rescues Sissy from drowning in the river. Ginny and the Mason battle each other, but eventually come to an understanding. Death restores Alice to her form so she can go out and kill more people. And we slowly find out what this is all about.

Verdict: Thumbs up. This story gets a lot more enjoyable when you can keep track of all the characters and what they’re up to. Honestly, I don’t think this ever should’ve been released as single-issue comics — it should’ve been a complete graphic novel from the very beginning.

Astro City #7

It’s the beginning of a new storyarc focusing on Winged Victory, the Samaritan, and the Confessor. While Winged Victory’s and Samaritan’s relationship seems to be going swimmingly, someone is plotting against the heroine — a group of supervillains have claimed to be working directly for her. Winged Victory has always been a controversial figure in the world of Astro City, and the media is completely eager to believe she’s a secret supervillain. Mixed into all this is an abused teenaged boy who wants to learn self-defense from Winged Victory, plus we learn W.V.’s secret origin.

Verdict: Thumbs up. A great story, wonderful art, great characterization, and an excellent mystery. I’m definitely looking forward to seeing where this is going to lead over the next few months.

Batman: Li’l Gotham #9

Batman and Robin have to track down Clayface as he hides out in the Gotham City Comic Con. Can the Dynamic Duo find the shapeshifting villain in the maze of cosplayers, and will Robin be able to hunt down all the cool toys he wants? And in the second story, we meet Jenna Duffy, the Carpenter for Gotham’s underworld. She’s trying to take a vacation day, but all the villains keep bugging her to rebuild stuff wrecked by Batman. Is she ever going to get the free time she needs?

Verdict: Thumbs up, of course. The art is great, the stories are fun. And there’s a cool little bonus at the end of the first story for anyone bummed about the nonexistence of their favorite characters in the New 52.

Mighty Avengers #4

The Inhumans’ city of Attilan has crashed in New York, exposing people around the world who have some Inhuman ancestry to the mutagenic Terrigen mists, and various unsavory characters want to get their hands on anything hidden in the city’s ruins. Meanwhile, the Falcon joins up with the Mighty Avengers, Spider Hero adopts the costumed identity of Ronin (even though we all know he’s actually Blade), and the Superior Spider-Man has decided he wants control of the team.

Verdict: Thumbs up. Nice story, fun dialogue and characterization, some excellent humor, too. The worst thing about it is, of course, the fact that no one has fired Greg Land from Marvel yet.

Watson and Holmes #6

Someone has killed the wife of Dexter Wainwright, a prominent NYC politician who’s been an inspiration to many in Harlem but whose campaign is plagued by money troubles. Holmes and Watson are on the case — while Holmes suspects Wainwright, Watson wants to see him freed from suspicion because he’s done so much for the community. A key link in the case proves to be a woman named Dominique Jiminez who is being pursued by the Russian mob. What’s her connection to Wainwright, and who is the killer?

Verdict: Thumbs up. A very well-done mystery, nice characterization and dialogue, and a excellent author’s note at the end in which Brandon M. Easton talks about how and why he wrote this particular story. I’m really pleased with how thoroughly enjoyable this series has been.

Captain Marvel #17

Here’s how weird comics are. They’ve got this one right here. It’s fairly popular, it’s well-regarded, the fans are vocal about how much they like the character, the costume redesign, etc. So Marvel is cancelling it. But just long enough to give it a relaunch and another #1 next March. Why doesn’t Marvel just label every issue of every comic with a “#1” on the cover, if they’re so convinced that’s the only thing that sells comics?

Anyway, this is the last issue of this particular volume of “Captain Marvel.” A lot of it is devoted to wrapping things up with the current supporting cast and discussing Carol Danvers’ ongoing memory problems. There’s also a new villain introduced — Grace Valentine, an electronic tycoon with a towering ego who so hates being upstaged that she learns that a magazine has decided to put Captain Marvel on a cover instead of her, so she launches missile attacks on New York. Can Carol keep the Big Apple from getting cancelled?

Verdict: Thumbs up, for the most part. It’s a good story, fun characterization, nice humor. The motivation for Grace Valentine is a little iffy, but I guess that makes her a typical supervillain.

You wanna know what’s not so good? The art. They’ve got that awful Filipe Andrade doing the art again. So if you want to see people who look like they got their faces run over with a steamroller and their bodies stretched out on pulleys, then this is all for you, man.

That’s really been an ongoing problem with this comic. Excellent writing, amazing covers — and absolutely What-the-Fuuuunzilla art inside the comics. It almost makes it look like Marvel’s been trying to sabotage the comic. Maybe Andrade has kidnapped Joe Quesada’s kids or something.

Mighty Avengers #3

Ladies and gentlemen, Shuma-Gorath his own damn self is invading New York City. Luckily, the Blue Marvel is hear to blow him up! But wait, that was just one physical manifestation of the Void Made Flesh, and he’s going to start dragging himself into reality through the faces of ordinary New Yorkers. The Marvel has already managed to cure Monica Rambeau of her antimatter infection, which gives her a chance to use her powers to create an anti-magic forcefield, while “Spider-Hero” (the big non-spoiler nowadays is that he’s Blade, although they’re going to dress him up as Ronin, for some durn reason) shows off his magical knowledge. Can the entire team work together to dispose of Shuma-Gorath before he fully manifests?

Verdict: Thumbs up, for the most part. The story is pretty good, and the characters are good fun. Again, the problem here is the art. There is just no good excuse for Marvel to continue giving Greg Land any work at all.

Ghosted #5

Jackson Winters’ planned heist of a ghost from the infamous Trask Mansion is falling all to pieces. Two members of the team are dead, one is possessed, and one has betrayed the whole group. And they’re all trapped in the mansion after sundown, when all the ghosts come out to play. What’s the mansion’s secret? What’s Markus Schenker’s secret? And what’s Jackson Winters’ secret? And will anyone get out alive?

Verdict: Thumbs up. It’s a good ending to the first storyarc — and I’m even more happy that the series will continue, as I was expecting this to be the final ish. I don’t know if any of the surviving characters other than Winters will be back, but I guess we’ll see if Jackson can pull together another team for his next heist…

CBLDF Liberty Annual 2013

I always look forward to the annual benefit comic for the Comic Book Legal Defense Fund, partly because it’s an easy way to support a wonderful organization, partly because it’s always a pretty high-quality anthology comic. This year, we have creators including Fabio Moon, Richard Corben, Josh Williamson, Paul Tobin, Tim Seeley, Andy Kuhn, and many others. And among our stories are a prosecuting attorney willing to commit murder to censor comics; agents of Thomas Edison determined to stamp out all non-Edison movie cameras; a horror host forced to go corporate; Captain Midnight trying to figure out blogging, newspaper commenters, and untrustworthy journalists; the tale of German comedian Paul Morgan’s persecution by the Nazis; a short history of Pussy Riot; a Hack/Slash story about a supernatural censor who kills people looking at forbidden things; and a story examining the question of “What if Wertham was Right?”

Verdict: Thumbs up. Excellent stories — no stinkers at all, this time, and only a couple that were just so-so. Good stories, good art, and all for an excellent cause.

Mighty Avengers #2

Well, we start out somewhere deep under the ocean, where the Blue Marvel has his sanctum sanctorum, monitoring the Earth for crisis situations. Meanwhile, in New York, Luke Cage, Spectrum, the Superior Spider-Man, and um, the Amazing Spider-Hero are fighting off a bunch of Thanos’ forces, led by Proxima Midnight. She manages to take out both Spectrum and Cage, but the citizens of New York lead a chant that gets Cage back on his feet. Thanos ends up calling Proxima off, but Monica is dying and something even worse than Thanos is rising up from beneath the city.

Verdict: Thumbs up on the story. It’s quite nice, with lots of action, characterization, and humor. Artwise, it’s a lot more of a thumbs-down situation, because they’re still letting that hack Greg Land work on this book, and there’s just no good reason to let this schmuck trace that many photos of Halle Berry.

Today’s Cool Links:

• Why do they keep saying Wonder Woman is so difficult for Hollywood to get when people keep making awesome short subjects about her?
• New Hyperbole and a Half! How a dinosaur costume led Allie to evil.
• This is why superhero comics are still so much fun to read.
• These petrified birds and bats are both beautiful and creepy.
• The Simpsons Halloween Special opening, created by Guillermo del Toro, is getting me into the Halloween Spirit.

Mighty Avengers #1

The Avengers are all off in outer space dealing with some intergalactic threat, which makes Thanos figure he can invade Earth ’cause the Avengers aren’t around to stop him. Of course, there are plenty of other heroes running around the joint. Which brings us to the newest incarnation of the Heroes for Hire — Luke Cage, White Tiger, and Power Man (who’s a completely different guy — a smartass teenager nowadays). But that team only lasts ’til the Superior Spider-Man shows up, talks some smack, and convinces White Tiger to take a hike.

Elsewhere, Monica Rambeau is back in town, now wearing a new costume and calling herself Spectrum. She has a mysterious, shadowy benefactor, too. Aaaaanyway, Thanos’ minions finally attack New York City — does this ragtag band of do-gooders stand a chance?

Verdict: Thumbs up. Fun dialogue, action, humor, and drama. Excellent characterization, too. This is a darned interesting group, and I’d really like to read more about them as quickly as possible.

Oh, but I do have some serious quibbles. First, the art. Hey, it’s by Greg Land, who is infamous for tracing other people’s art and photos. Looks like he’s up to the same gig here, with lots of weirdly awkward facial expressions and poses that you just know look like that because he copied them somewhere else. Why does Marvel still employ this guy? Does he have some serious blackmail photos of Joe Quesada?

Another thing that bugs me is the way Monica Rambeau looks in this. I’m not a big fan of the new costume — I actually liked the look of the jacket she wore in her previous appearances. But new costumes show up all the time for B-list characters, and really, this costume isn’t all that bad. But I do think her hair is a more serious problem.

Look, “Mighty Avengers” is pretty much getting marketed as Marvel’s “Black Avengers” comic, much like Brian Wood’s new “X-Men” book was billed as the “Female X-Men” book. It’s got more African-American characters than any mainstream superhero book has had since Milestone’s glory days.

Among the female characters we know of, Spectrum is black, White Tiger is Hispanic, and She-Hulk is, regardless of her skin color, Caucasian. And all three of them have straight hair. I might be able to excuse it if Monica had ever been depicted with straight hair, but in her most recent appearances, she had cornrows. And taking your only African-American woman and giving her chemically-straightened hair isn’t really the most enlightened thing to do. I’ve got to assume Monica’s hair has been straightened because the women Land traced had straight hair, but that’s just another reason not to use Land as your artist.

The True Lives of the Fabulous Killjoys #4

Red and Blue, the porno droids on the run from BLI, are trying to make it out of Battery City. Their power will shut off once they pass the city limits, but they figure they’ll be able to die together. Elsewhere, Korse’s secret — he’s fallen in love — is revealed, and his lover has been killed. Now he’ll be taken away to be reprogrammed. And the Girl is stuck in the desert, forced to hang out with the rotten Val Velocity as he barrels down the road into paranoid psychosis and self-destruction. Can any of them survive BLI’s crackdown?

Verdict: Thumbs up. All the storylines are really picking up and turning seriously enjoyable. Great art, great storytelling, great characters — excellent pop/sci-fi comics, and it’s worth picking up.

Red Sonja #3

Sonja is wandering the wilderness, burning with fever as the plague begins to overwhelm her. Forced to surrender to an enemy in the last issue to protect innocent villagers, she’s been cast out and humiliated — and she’s beginning to hallucinate as the plague starts to destroy her mind. She sees her long-deceased father and relives the nightmare of her childhood when sadistic raiders destroyed her family and village. Will the hopelessness of her past predict her own doom?

Verdict: Thumbs up. More excellent storytelling and art. Sonja’s childhood is simultaneously incredibly grim and grandly badass, and the latest cliffhanger is very nice, though I’m pretty sure we know how it’s going to turn out…

Today’s Cool Links:

• ShadowWing Tronix has some thoughts on superhero marriages and superhero social lives.
• An excellent long-read on the outstanding “Clue” film from 1985.
• Looks like Grand Theft Auto has decided they wanna be on the side of the immature manchildren.
• These Power Ranger cosplayers are all awesome.
• This re-telling of “The Little Mermaid” is very, very rude, and very, very funny.
• Work to live, people. Never live to work.
• This article about adoptee-trafficking is genuinely sickening stuff.

Let’s run through ’em fast.

Captain Marvel #15

So Carol didn’t die in space. She just lost her memory and is somehow faking her way through everything. A ton of superheroes go to blow up some evil aliens called the Builders, but Carol gets stuck in space all alone, then she turns into Binary. Okay, fine, everything old is new again.

Verdict: Ehh.

FF #11

The FF go back in time to try to rescue the Fantastic Four, but they get hijacked by the Impossible Man, and they agree to take on his son Adolf as a student.

Verdict: Ehh.

The Green Team #4

Everyone fights Riot, who turns out to be Comm’s father. Cecilia loses her cyborg arm, and the nanites in Comm’s suit give him superpowers.

Verdict: Ehh.

Lazarus #3

Forever Carlyle visits the Morray family to offer them a truce. She and Joacquim, the Morray Lazarus get along very well. Jonah and Johanna Carlyle, however, are plotting against everyone.

Verdict: A bit better, but still mostly ehh.

Uncanny Avengers #11

Daken stabs Wolverine through the head, the Sentry tears his own face off, and the Scarlet Witch may be about to rapture every mutant on Earth to another planet.

Verdict: I’m a little amazed how little I care about this comic.

Young Avengers #9

Prodigy’s smooch with Hulkling is just gonna cause more angst. The rest of the team meets Leah, a former handmaiden of Hela banished to another dimension by Loki years ago. The team finally rescues Hulkling and Prodigy from Mother’s dimension by hitting her with a bunch of evil alternates versions of themselves. And Kate Bishop is close enough to her birthday that she’ll end up becoming an adult and joining Mother’s side soon. Plus Hulkling’s new therapist looks familiar…

Verdict: Thumbs up. The only one of these I really enjoyed. Lots of fun, lots of action, plenty of intrigue and mystery and humor and spooky stuff.

Hawkeye Annual #1

Our focus in this new annual isn’t on Clint Barton, but on Kate Bishop, who’s finally gotten fed up with Clint’s self-pitying moronitude and caught a flight to the West Coast. Unfortunately, Madame Masque, who holds a grudge against Kate because she humiliated her in a previous battle, finds out she’s heading for Cali. Masque manages to get all of Kate’s stuff — her car, her weapons, her clothes, her money — stolen. Luckily, she finds a new friend — Whitney Frost, a wealthy socialite who offers to put her up for the night and also maybe to kill her. Oh, because Whitney Frost is also Madame Masque. How is Kate going to escape from a crazed criminal mastermind and her dozens of loyal stooges?

Verdict: Thumbs up. It’s a fun, funny, action-packed story starring Kate Bishop, who is all kinds of awesome. This thing is full of fantastic dialogue, too. Can we talk art? Javier Pulido’s art is worlds of fun. Stylish and nifty and cartoonish and, like I said, worlds of fun. Y’all love Hawkeye, right? Of course you do. Go pick this one up, kids.

Lazarus #2

Forever Carlyle is her family’s Lazarus — an almost unkillable combat machine responsible for protecting the family members and their assets. And she’s started doubting her mission, at least partially because her brothers and sisters are all irredeemable scumbags who spend most of their time plotting against each other. But the Carlyle family is apparently under attack by the rival Morray family, her siblings want to go to war, and Forever has strong misgivings about all of this. Her father appears to share those misgivings — but he may be just as conniving as his children. He charges Eve with a secret mission, and she accompanies one of her brothers back to Los Angeles. While her siblings steam over what she’s up to, Eve takes a trip deep into enemy territory…

Verdict: Thumbs up. The dystopia described is still fascinating — and definitely check the sidebars in the letter column for this world’s history — and Forever remains a very deeply interesting character. Her siblings are all absolute scum, and I think we’ll enjoy getting to watch them all get killed eventually. The art is gorgeous, too. It’s just the second issue — there’s still time to get in on the beginning of this one, if you haven’t done so yet.

Uncanny Avengers #10

The Avengers are squabbling amongst themselves and splitting up to try to locate the Apocalypse Twins, but the twins are already several steps ahead — and they’ve created their own Four Horsemen of Apocalypse. But this time, they’re called the Four Horsemen of Death, because they’re all, well, dead. Banshee takes out Havok and the Scarlet Witch, the Grim Reaper goes after Wonder Man, the Sentry drags Thor to a planet on the other side of the galaxy, and Daken targets Wolverine.

Verdict: Ehh, it’s not that bad, but it’s also seeming more and more needlessly complicated. Of the resurrected characters, Banshee is the only one I’ve got any real affection for, and I’ll keep my fingers crossed that they’ll somehow manage to keep him alive. But for the rest — the Grim Reaper was a nonentity, Daken was strictly there to be a psycho, and I’d prefer that the Sentry be erased from history.

Wonder Woman #21

With the monstrously powerful First Born and his henchwoman, the cyborg demigod Cassandra, prepared to kill Zola and use her baby Zeke to destroy the world, Wonder Woman and Lennox are having trouble slowing the villains down. Orion shows up to help, but he’s not managing to tip the scales too much over on the good guys’ side either. Orion drags all of them along into a boom tube to escape, but the First Born actually holds the tube open so he can get to them. Is there any escape?

Verdict: Thumbs up. Great art from Cliff Chiang, fun writing from Azzarello. Excellent action, a nice cliffhanger ending for one character, and a modernized take on Jack Kirby’s Fourth World.

Uncanny Avengers #9

The Avengers are in disarray — while Wonder Man helped Captain America escape from Hydra, Cap also had a secret meeting with Kang the Conqueror, who revealed that the future of seven different timelines are threatened by current events. And the Apocalypse Twins revealed to Thor that Wolverine has killed dangerous mutants as a member of X-Force. As a result, Cap wants Logan — and any of his supporters — off the team. And it doesn’t help that everyone is still arguing about Havok’s controversial rejection of his mutant identity. And worse is on the horizon — the Apocalypse Twins have assembled a new quartet of the Horsemen — the ominously-named Four Horsemen of Death…

Verdict: Thumbs down. Ye gods, is this ever a talky comic book. There are so many word balloons in here, you could use ’em to float a house. The Apocalypse Twins talk to each other so they can provide exposition for readers. Kang does the same. Wolverine does the same. And Rick Remender lets Scarlet Witch function as his mary-sue mouthpiece so he can try to defuse the controversy he caused by turning Alex Summers into a self-loathing mutant. (It doesn’t work, by the way — Remender’s rationalizations are still insulting.)

I picked up a ridiculously small number of comics on Wednesday, but here’s what I gotta say about ’em.

Uncanny Avengers #8

The Peak Space Station — the HQ for S.W.O.R.D. — has been knocked out of orbit, but Thor and Sunfire manage to — just barely — save Rio de Janeiro from the plummeting wreckage. After Sunfire takes a few minutes to get uncharacteristically egotistical about praising himself, he and Thor take off after the Apocalypse Twins, whose murder of a Celestial has set the whole disaster in motion. They reveal that Wolverine, as a member of the black ops X-Force team, participated in the executions of Warren Worthington and a young clone of Apocalypse. Meanwhile, Captain America finds himself trapped in hostile territory in the Sudan, where an unknown person has brought him for a secret meeting. And as the rest of the team rushes to Apocalypse’s old home base at Akkaba, the Apocalypse Twins destroy their old followers and then blow up the city.

Verdict: Thumbs up. Good story and art. Nice set-ups for future issues — Thor doubts Wolverine, Sunfire’s an arrogant dork, Cap is meeting someone mysterious. Still a bit bugged by how little I care about the Apocalypse Twins, though. And that I didn’t know Angel was dead. I was pretty sure he was appearing in one of the X-books…

DC Entertainment Essential Graphic Novels and Chronology 2013

Basically, it’s a bit oversized listing of what DC considers its most important graphic novels, along with some spotlighted GNs and trade paperbacks for most of their characters.

Verdict: Thumbs up. At least partly because it’s free.

For the most part, I’m in agreement with the books they pick to spotlight. I’ve got some quibbles — Ain’t no way JMS’s “Earth One” books are considered worth getting, and there’s a pretty vast amount of emphasis on the New 52 and Flashpoint vs. the older comics that were generally considered the best reads. Not a word is mentioned of any Flashes other than Barry Allen or any Batgirls prior to Barbara Gordon. And there are a pitifully small number of Wonder Woman collections listed, which DC should feel really embarrassed about. And not a single all-ages collection from a series that hasn’t been cancelled. Holy crap, DC Comics, how did you let that happen?!

But most of this is a pretty good summary of the better DC graphic novels, as well as books from Vertigo and MAD. It’s a decent reminder of some comics you may not have picked up yet. And again, it’s free.