Batman Inc. #10

In the wake of Damian’s death, Batman recruits Azrael to join the fight while Talia and Leviathan work to completely shut down Gotham City. The various Robins track down where Jason Todd is being held captive, Kirk Langstrom has a gift for Batman, Talia disciplines the Heretic, and Batman makes a fateful decision.

Verdict: Thumbs up. If anything, the stuff outside of the main storyline are the most interesting. I’m finding myself caring less about Batman vs. Talia and more about the former Squire (now the new Knight), Kirk Langstrom, and the people who kidnapped Jason Todd. That’s not really a bad thing, because these are pretty interesting stories, and I’d love to see how they’re going to play out in the story.

Uncanny Avengers #7

A lot of this story is set in space, focused on Genocide, the son of Apocalypse, who is preparing to petition the Celestials to appoint him the new Apocalypse. But he and his Horsemen are unexpectedly attacked by a couple of characters called the Apocalypse Twins, the children of Archangel and Pestilence. They thrash the Horsemen and use Thor’s old axe, Jarnbjorn, enchanted to be able to pierce a Celestial’s armor, to assassinate the Celestial summoned by Genocide. That means the Celestials are going to come to Earth to take revenge.

And the Avengers still can’t stop arguing among themselves — should they bar Rogue from the group after she accidentally killed Wonder Man’s brother? Can Alex Summers lead the team effectively? Will Wasp’s attempts to market mutant chic to the young help turn things around?

Verdict: Ehh, it’s alright, but I just can’t pronounce myself thrilled with this. Too much emphasis on Genocide and the Apocalypse Twins, who I’d never heard of before. And I thought the bit with Wasp putting the moves on Alex solely because he was the team’s leader was creepy and out-of-character. Still, the bit with the Celestial assassination is a cool, attention-grabbing bit.

Today’s Cool Links:

• AOL has shut down Comics Alliance. No, this is not good — I didn’t always agree with everything they covered, but they did excellent comics journalism that was fun, geek-embracing, and not condescending — but let’s remember some very important points. First, the very, very smart writers from Comics Alliance are probably going to get snapped up by other sites pretty quickly. And second, this says more about the financial health of AOL (probably very, very poor) and not very much at all about the success of Comics Alliance (which was very, very popular).
• Why do female supervillains trend toward the skanky side of town?
• Greg Rucka would prefer that “Man of Steel” get a PG rating.
• Looks like the teddy bear needs an operation!

Batman: Li’l Gotham #1

Hey, a cute little all-ages series by Dustin Nguyen and Derek Fridolfs. It’s got Nguyen’s adorable watercolors and some amazingly cute stories featuring our favorite members of the Bat-family.

Our first tale is set at Halloween and focuses on Batman and Damian — yay, Damian’s still alive in this one! Damian doesn’t really understand Halloween — all the kids are dressed as monsters and supervillains, and his methods for getting candy are not polite or socially acceptable. And when the Dynamic Duo stumble onto some supervillains enjoying a holiday meal, the stage is set for an epic confrontation.

The second story happens at Thanksgiving, when the Penguin decides to rescue all the Thanksgiving turkeys in Gotham City. This turns out about as well as you’d expect, and the entire Bat-family gets to enjoy a holiday meal together.

Verdict: Thumbs up. This is absolutely glorious. And it features Babs Gordon as Oracle, as well as Cassandra Cain. So yes, seriously, you need to go get it because this is the kind of happy-making comics the industry should care more about making.

Uncanny Avengers #6

This entire issue takes place a thousand years ago, with a younger, more brash Thor, armed with a battleaxe called Jarnbjorn, instead of the more familiar Mjolnir. He is unexpectedly attacked by Apocalypse — and En Sabah Nur wipes the floor with him. Thor flees back to Asgard, asking Odin for assistance, but he refuses, saying that destroying Apocalypse would cause greater troubles in the future. Loki offers Thor an enchantment that will allow his axe to pierce Apocalypse’s invulnerable armor, and Thor heads back for a rematch — while Apocalypse and his Horsemen are attempting to kill Wolverine’s distant ancestor, Folkbern Logan. But is someone else manipulating events behind the scenes?

Verdict: Thumbs up. Very nice action, and a nice alternate take on Thor (I haven’t been reading the recent comics where this version of the Odinson hangs out).

Sledgehammer 44 #2

While the American soldiers are trying to wheel the guy in the powered armor to safety, they’ve gotten ambushed by a bunch of Nazi goons. They manage to take ’em out, but one of the soldiers gets a bullet in the chest for his trouble. Now lugging an injured squadmate along with the armor, the soldiers barely make it to safety in a deserted barn — but they’re still outnumbered and outgunned by a bunch of villains who’ll use the armor to develop technology to destroy the world? How can the good guys come out on top?

Verdict: Thumbs up. It was a very short story, but a pretty good one anyway. Excellent drama and dialogue and art — all around, a fun read.

I reviewed the latest issue of “Uncanny Avengers” on Friday. And not too long after I posted it, there was this little controversy that hit the ‘net:

I barely noticed this when I read the issue. I remember at the time thinking, “Hmm, that’s kind of a strange attitude for someone in Havok’s position to have.” But I didn’t think of it much beyond that.

If you’ve read the link above, you’ll see some detail on why it’s such an odd thing for Havok to say. Alex Summers is a member of a minority group — namely, mutants — which in the Marvel Universe, definitely qualifies as oppressed. The government periodically tries to outlaw and imprison them and people sometimes kill mutants, all on the basis of their genetics. Sure, on the one hand, Alex just wants to be treated like any other human, which is something that every civil rights activist would agree with. But not wanting to be identified in any way as a mutant, and even considering the word “mutant” to be a slur, makes Havok look like a self-loathing mutant.

It’s been said that, as far as their political awareness goes, Charles Xavier was the equivalent of Martin Luther King, Jr., working to improve mutant rights through (mostly) peaceful means, while Magneto (and the current version of Alex’s brother, Cyclops) would be the equivalent of Malcolm X, working to advance mutantkind “by any means necessary.”

With that speech, Alex has been cast as, basically, many of the characters from TVTropes’ “Boomerang Bigot” page. If his fellow mutants don’t bust his chops over this in future issues, they’re not doing their jobs.

It probably doesn’t help that “Uncanny Avengers” has previously been criticized for being a team of white characters — and in this issue, they added a Japanese character and two more white ones. And it also doesn’t help that writer Rick Remender is reacting to criticism by unleashing his inner douchebag.

For all the complaints, however, it must be said that Marvel could’ve handled the whole thing much, much worse. DC Comics, for instance, can barely go a month without some horrific controversy where they kill off another non-white character or ladle on the embarrassing sexism when writing about their female characters. Marvel may not be perfect, but they’re closer to where they should be.

Anyway, it bugged me that this didn’t bug me more when I read the comic, but like straight white male Alex Summers, I’ve got more than my share of privilege issues that make it easy for me to overlook these things. I try to train myself not to let these things slide by me, but the big problem with privilege is that you often have no clue you’ve got it until it’s pointed out to you after the fact. The best any of us can do is try to be better people…

FF #5

Our focus in this issue is on Medusa, who appears to be harboring a few secrets. She enrolls her possibly-crazy son Ahura in the Future Foundation, makes Crystal’s daughter quite nervous, and is visiting some unwholesome old friends. Meanwhile, Darla Deering is trying to figure out a good helmet to wear with her Miss Thing suit, the pressure is getting to Scott Lang, and the elderly future Johnny Storm goes crazy and tries to burn New York City down.

Verdict: Thumbs up. Excellent action, intrigue, and, of course, art. Fun dialogue. Some great funny bits, particularly Darla trying on helmets. In fact, I suspect the whole issue is worth buying just for this panel:

I’m a complete sucker for the Marx Brothers.

Batman Inc. #9

In the immediate aftermath of Robin’s death, the Bat-family battles Damian’s clone and the forces of Leviathan. Bruce Wayne kicks Alfred out of the mansion for letting Damian leave the Batcave. The Squire takes over as the new Knight. Jason Todd is being held prisoner by Talia. Gotham City knuckles under to Leviathan and bans Batman from the city. And Bat-Cow says “Moo.”

Verdict: Thumbs up. Listen, it was just a good issue, a strong obit for Damian (maybe not as good as the silent issue of “Batman” from a couple weeks ago, but good nevertheless), excellent action, and lots of cool moments.

Uncanny Avengers #5

Wonder Man and the Wasp join the team as public relations experts, while Wolverine travels to Japan to recruit disillusioned ex-hero Sunfire. But the team is already fraying at the edges — many members are unhappy with Havok leading them, the mutants and Avengers don’t play together all that well, and a press conference goes from bad to worse when the Grim Reaper, Wonder Man’s brother, attacks the group.

Verdict: Thumbs up. Good all-around storytelling, good characterization, sweet art by Olivier Coipel. Love the way the personalities are clashing and the constant rise in the tension.

Today’s Cool Links:

• Don’t forget: this Saturday, March 30, is TableTop Day. Go forth and play games, people. Board games, card games, roleplaying games, you name it.
• Japanese teenagers hitting each other with hadoukens is the best thing ever.
• I remember some of these old gaming magazines. It’s good to see they’re not entirely lost and forgotten…
• How Steven Spielberg, George Lucas, and Lawrence Kasdan brainstormed “Raiders of the Lost Ark.”
• These games are so cool, it makes me wish I had a TV again.
• John Cole says a lot of smart things about how we think of civil rights that we should all spend more time pondering.

Batman Inc. #8

Yeah, it’s the worst-kept spoiler ever.

So it’s the big final battle against Leviathan, and the heroes are on the ropes. Batman’s trapped in a safe at the bottom of a swimming pool. Nightwing and Commissioner Gordon are being mobbed by brainwashed children. Red Robin is about to get ambushed. And Damian needs to save the day, against insurmountable odds. But when Damian’s clone — force-grown to adulthood and gifted with enhanced strength — shows up to the fight, things aren’t going to go well.

Verdict: For the most part, a thumbs up. Lots of action — pretty good action, too. Loved the interplay with Damian and Dick Grayson. They really were the best team, weren’t they?

However, I do thumbs it down for killing Damian, even if it’s just a temporary death. He’s an absolutely grand character, and completely unique within the Bat-family. In particular, I’m disappointed that Damian didn’t get more of a swan song — oh, sure, he was basically the star of all of the last few issues, but most of that was devoted to general ass-whuppery, and I think a character this great at least deserved a decent farewell scene with his dad. But I guess this way, we get an even more angsty unpleasant Batman back, which will be just like it was before. Is that what we really want?

Not even sure it matters. Like they’ll leave Damian dead for long? Heck, no. He’s too great a character, and DC can’t resist bringing characters back, except for the ones they hate, I guess (Wally, Cassandra, Stephanie, Donna, Lian, the Justice Society, etc.).

Uncanny Avengers #4

Pretty much a lot more hitting and punching. Thor has been mind-controlled by the Red Skull, who’s stolen Charles Xavier’s brain, and the Scarlet Witch has to take him out of the fight. The Skull works hard trying to mind-control Captain America, too. And everything eventually ends up okay, or basically kinda-sorta okay.

Verdict: Thumbs mostly down. The action was fine. The art was really nice. And it was all just basically people hitting each other a lot. And since reading this, I can’t stop seeing this as a bunch of honkeys fighting a bunch of Nazis. The next few issues of this better be really good, or I’ll have to dump it.

Today’s Cool Links:

• The folks running Zeus Comics in Dallas are working to make comics better.
• The gaming industry’s weirdly obsessive hatred of female characters and female gamers is causing them to make outright bad video games.
• This would be the coolest comic book ever.
• The New York Yankees have admitted what everyone else already knew.
• This is the only worthwhile Harlem Shake video you’re going to see.

Uncanny Avengers #3

Well, the Red Skull has done a bad, bad thing. He’s dug up the body of the late Charles Xavier, pulled out his brain, and grafted parts of it into his own brain to give himself powerful telepathic abilities. Now he’s using those powers to turn New Yorkers against each other, specifically by giving them the ability to sense mutants, then goading their bloodlust high enough that they’ll attack and kill anyone who they perceive as a mutant. And he’s got a pack of superpowered allies who are working to create even more chaos. Can the Avengers help? Well, yeah, except for Captain America having to fight through the Skull’s mind control to resist succumbing to mutant bigotry. And Wolverine losing his mutant healing factor. And Thor defecting to the bad guys.

Verdict: Thumbs up. Really ramping up the pressure on this one, and it’s all quite nicely done. Lots of hopeless situations and tension, which is exactly what a new series like this needs. John Cassaday’s art is great, of course — but I do wish his attention to detail didn’t mean that the series was already running behind. More issues should’ve been in the bag before the first issue was released.

Wonder Woman #16

Diana meets Orion and one of her new half-brothers, Milan, who can puke up an infinite number of bugs and see anything in the universe. Zola and Hera go out for drinks. And the guy who just got dug up in Antarctica (I don’t think they’ve yet said who he is — I’m betting on Prometheus) beats up a bunch of frost giants.

Verdict: Thumbs down. It was mostly pretty dull. The good stuff wasn’t particularly good, and the dull stuff wasn’t particularly good either.

Uncanny Avengers #1

So this was the one everyone was kinda excited about — the comic that kicks off “Marvel Now,” Marvel’s soft reboot/renumbering scheme. Was it worth it?

Basically, we get a bunch of introductions to the folks who’ll be starring in this book. We get Wolverine giving a eulogy at Charles Xavier’s funeral. We get Havok paying a visit to his incarcerated (and unrepentant) brother, Cyclops. We get Captain America and Thor recruiting Havok for the Avengers, and then all three of them dealing with a repowered and mind-controlled Avalanche. We get Rogue and the Scarlet Witch angrily confronting each other and then getting attacked by a new group of villains.

Verdict: Thumbs up. Can I say, first of all, that this is a team that’s much too overdue? One of the things that’s long bugged me about the Marvel Universe has been the seemingly impenetrable wall between the X-books and the rest of Marvel’s comics. Sure, there’s the occasional team-up or miniseries, but for decades, the only X-Men who became Avengers were Beast and Wolverine. It really seemed ridiculous that Captain America never said, “Hey, Storm, Colossus, Nightcrawler, Kitty Pryde, and a bunch of these other X-Men are pretty darned good. We should recruit them into the Avengers, ’cause they’re badasses — and it’d help the cause of mutant rights, too!” So, like I said, a long overdue move here, and I hope this isn’t just an experiment that’ll be forgotten in another couple of years.

As for the comic itself, John Cassaday’s art is, as always, outstanding. Rick Remender’s writing is fine, too. The story is probably a bit gorier than some of y’all would rather, with a lot of emphasis on the bad guys pulling people’s brains out of their heads. But I still enjoyed it, and I reckon I’ll pick up future issues of it, too.

Arrow #1

It’s a preview for the comic based on the new TV series that’s going to be airing soon, about spoiled rotten rich boy Oliver Queen and how he becomes an archery superhero.

Verdict: Well, it’s free, and you get what you pay for.

Supergirl #56

Supergirl has kidnapped her Bizarro double, Bizarrogirl, so she can return her to Bizarro World. But when they get to Bizarrogirl’s home, they learn that something has cracked the whole cube-planet open, and everything’s in chaos. Well, more in chaos. After a green space monster eats Bizarro Luthor, Bizarro himself shows up and reveals that something called the Godship is behind all their troubles. It crashed into the planet and periodically sends out space-monster drones to eat people — the drones then get processed to provide the ship’s fuel. Supergirl goes out to check out the Godship — and discovers that it’s not a ship at all. And it won’t be easy to beat it.

Verdict: Thumbs up. It ain’t perfect, but I love this comic’s blend of humor and superheroics. The Godship is plenty impressive, and I like the way the Bizarros aren’t being portrayed as solely dim-witted buffoons. The artistic style is great, too — it’s so nice, after the last few years, to see a Supergirl who’s not drawn to look like a hooker.

The Avengers #5

Time appears to be broken bad, and while the Avengers in the present mostly sit around and gawp at the ongoing disaster (except for Thor. Thank Thor for Thor! He zooms right out and hits Galactus with his hammer), the small group of Avengers in the future have a lot more to do. Future Tony Stark has stripped out all the electronics and armor out of Regular Tony Stark to keep Ultron from using his armor to spy on them. Future Tony Stark and the Maestro reveal that time breaking is all the fault of Kang — he was trying to defeat a super-advanced version of Ultron and kept twisting time to bring in more and more heroes and villains to help him until he finally fractured time good.

Future Tony has a big Rip Hunter map of the Avengers’ future, and he realizes that he has no idea who Noh-Varr is — which means he’s could be the key to stopping time from breaking. The Avengers suddenly find themselves shot back into the past, Groundhog Day style, at the moment a few issues back when Apocalypse and his Horsemen attacked. Can the Avengers figure out the clues they need to prevent the disaster? And who will they have to ally themselves with to stop it?

Verdict: Thumbs up, with reservations. I loved all the future stuff, even when it was chaotic and crazy. I really disliked the stuff in the present, particularly the way that everyone except Thor limped around staring goggle-eyed at a bunch of cavemen and dinosaurs and whimpering that they had no idea how they could help and the whole world was just ruined and how can any of us go on? The whole thing made me want to smack the tar out of a bunch of whiny superheroes. And Bendis’ dialogue was downright weak this time. But yeah, even with all that going against it, I still enjoyed enough of the story to feel happy with it.

The Flash #5

I didn’t actually buy this one. I’ve been feeling unhappy with the way it’s been going, so I flipped through it in the store. General summary: Flash fights the Rogues and also the future versions of the Rogues, who are all cops. They want to arrest him because they say, at some point in his future, he killed one of the future cops. At some point, for no real reason I could see, Captain Boomerang gets a bunch of White Lantern powers.

Verdict: Thumbs down. The random “Hello, White Lantern!” thing was bizarre. The way the future cops are wanting to arrest Barry for a crime he hasn’t committed yet — and if jailed, will never commit — is stupid. But you know what really chaps my hide about this? This comic about the Fastest Man Alive is incredibly slow and boring. I doubt that I’ll be reading any more of it.

Today’s Cool Links:

• Reactions from the comics world about the news that Wildstorm was going to close. It really is kinda cool how many really, really excellent comics they produced over the years.
• Bully remembers the times Marvel superheroes have made guest appearances on TV…
• I’m a sucker for sad stories about pets. And when they’re written by Warren Ellis? I’m a sucker for those, too.

The Avengers #4

Iron Man, Captain America, Wolverine, and Noh-Varr travel to the future to try to stop whatever time anomaly has been caused by their children. What they find is, apparently, a bunch of superheroes and supervillains fighting Ultron in the Destroyer’s body. Back in the present, the rest of the Avengers run into Killraven and his pet Devil Dinosaur, who are on the run from war tripods from futuristic Mars. While Thor takes care of the Martians, a bunch of axe-wielding gangsters from the turn of the last century start fighting in the street. And then the WWI biplanes show up. And more dinosaurs. And zeppelins. And, um, Galactus. Things aren’t much better in the future, where the Avengers’ kids take down the time-traveling Avengers. And when they wake up, they learn that the Maestro is running things, along with future Iron Man, who wants to do something awful to the present Iron Man’s face with a big, jagged hook.

Verdict: Thumbs up. Good story, good art, some fun dialogue. I’ve got some quibbles with the way the Avengers in the present seemed mostly to stand around inside a building and watch the chaos outside. I mean, Thor is pretty good with the Martian tripods, but couldn’t the street-level heroes be taking care of some of those guys running around with axes?

Spider-Girl: The End

The end of Spider-Girl?!

Okay, we start out in the future, with an elderly Auntie M telling a bunch of kids about the last adventure of Spider-Girl — May Parker, the near-future daughter of Peter and Mary Jane Parker, who inherited her dad’s spider powers and tries to balance her career as a superhero with a normal life as a high school student. Well, a few years back, May learned that she, like her dad, had a clone out there. April jealously wanted all the great stuff that May had, and turned to a symbiote to help her get it. Unsurprisingly, this made April — who now called herself Mayhem — all kinds of unbalanced and crazy, and in one final confrontation with Spider-Girl, when Mayhem’s recklessness caused a huge fire, May threw April to safety before dying in an explosion.

With storytime over, Auntie M sends the kids away, and we learn the rest of the story. Auntie M is actually Mayhem, and May Parker’s death made April even more dangerous, and as she killed both supervillains and superheroes, the government finally okayed a process to bond a bunch of soldiers with symbiotes, in the hopes that they could be used against her. Unfortunately, they turned out to become a lethal army dedicated to wiping out humanity, leaving Mayhem as one of the few heroes who could stop them. But now, there’s a plan to send Mayhem back in time to stop her younger self from killing Spider-Girl. Does the plan have a chance to work? Maybe not if the process accidentally traps April inside a wall…

Verdict: Thumbs up. Wonderful art and story. Lots of excitement, great fight scenes, and plenty of the excellent retro Silver-Age-style teen angst that makes the Spider-Girl stories so fun. I don’t know if this is really the end of Marvel’s unexpectedly long-lasting Spider-Girl stories or if Tom DeFalco and Ron Frenz can persuade Marvel and readers to give her yet another chance. I’ll keep my fingers crossed that she’ll be back.

Today’s Cool Links:

• Superman and Einstein vs. the Nazis!
• Too many Flintstones!
• Archie really is the perfect example of why comics should avoid fad marketing.

PS238 #45

There’s a lot of stuff happening in this issue. Ron “Captain Clarinet” Peterson and Tyler “Moon Shadow” Marlocke are on the run from Dax-Ra’s guards. They manage to evade them and finally meet up with Ron’s father, Earth’s mightiest superhero, Atlas, who isn’t pleased to hear that Ron has been stripped of his powers or that Dax-Ra is plotting against him and his family. Meanwhile, back on Earth, the new substitute Atlas is Forak, an exiled Argosian engineer whose powers are vastly weaker than the original Atlas’. Besides that, he’s got no stomach or talent for crimefighting, Julie “84” Finster has been assigned to try to teach him about superheroing and how to handle life on Earth. Of course, they run into trouble when they get kidnapped by a supervillain who wants to hold them for ransom. Can 84 get Forak to start thinking like a hero and not a whipping boy? Can Atlas get the kids safely back to Earth?

Verdict: Thumbs up. Nice art, nice storytelling, and unexpectedly high stakes for an all-ages comic. Aaron Williams always brings the fun with this book.

The Avengers #3

World-conquering super-mutant Apocalypse has just made the scene, along with his newest crop of Horsemen — the Scarlet Witch, Red Hulk, Wolverine, and Spider-Man. Obviously, these are Horsemen from an alternate future, since Wolverine and Spidey are current Avengers trying to stop Apocalypse’s rampage. They’re able to run the villains off after a pitched battle, but the problem now is that more timelost threats are appearing, and a small group of Avengers needs to travel into the future to stop their own children before they destroy the space-time continuum.

Verdict: Jeez, I dunno. The best parts were Spider-Man barely saving an armor-less Iron Man and Spidey later realizing after the fact that one of the Horsemen was supposed to be him. And the thing is, though those were pretty fun, they actually felt out-of-place in this all-fighting most-of-the-time issue. There are times I think Brian Michael Bendis should leave superheroics alone and just concentrate on stories with lots and lots and lots of dialogue, because he clearly loves that the most.

Today’s Cool Links:

• I never thought I’d feel sorry for the Teabaggers ’til now. An Oregon GOP group has gone and stolen a slogan from the merciless, unforgiving, and moderately evil hacking group 4chan. Expect chaos.
• This is funny but might be a bit rude. A zoologist meets up with a confused but amorous parrot while actor/comedian Stephen Fry makes wry commentary.