Axe Cop: Bad Guy Earth #2

Ya know, I’m not sure I can even describe the plot here. Axe Cop and his allies save the dinosaurs from aliens, the evil Psychic Brothers have basically taken over Earth and attack Uni-Smart World, Sockarang meets his supposedly-dead mother, and there’s time travel galore. I mean, the plot doesn’t matter as much as the impossibly awesome details of the story. How do the bad guys beat Uni-Smart World, where everyone has a magic wish-granting unicorn horn? They put magic traffic cones over the horns. What do the Psychic Brothers use to attack our heroes? Truckchucks, which are nunchucks made out of semi trucks. How do you defeat good Vikings? With a world full of evil baseball players. What was so special about the year Zero Thousand and Zero? I’ll save that little surprise for you to read yourself.

Verdict: Thumbs up. It’s really hard to believe how jaw-droppingly bizarre and awesome this story is. You know it was written by a six-year-old kid, right? Six years old!

iZombie #12

Aww, Mike Allred has the issue off, so we’ll have to suffer through some random fill-in artist who — what’s that? Gilbert Hernandez? Co-creator of “Love and Rockets“? Well, that’ll at least be interesting. And it is pretty cool — like reading a L&R/iZombie crossover issue. Our focus is on hip 1960s ghost Ellie just prior to meeting Gwen for the first time — she hangs out in the cemetery with all the other ghosts, and they tell stories to each other and argue. Ellie reflects on what her own life was like, giving us a nice origin story for her.

Verdict: Thumbs up. Fun story — several fun stories, in fact — and wonderful artwork.

Love and Capes: Ever After #3

We’ve got three storylines running through this issue — Abby and Mark fixing up their new home, and later attending Abby’s class reunion, and Darkblade and Amazonia going through relationship stress over his continuing friendship with Abby’s sister Charlotte.

Verdict: Thumbs up. Nothing particularly fancy this time, just solid cartooning, funny jokes, and good dialogue, characterization, and interpersonal relationship design.

Today’s Cool Links:

• Shane and Chris Houghton, the guys responsible for the “Reed Gunther” all-ages Western comics, are about to get a run in Image Comics, with color and everything. They’re running a contest to promote it — get a Wanted poster promoting the comic posted in your favorite comic book store, and you could win a page of Reed Gunther artwork.
• The Village Voice has a nice article about the sad state of the comics/cartooning industries. And some good news that they’re going to pay the cartoonists who contributed art for the magazine, which they originally weren’t going to do.
• Mashing up “Inception” and “My Little Pony” = WIN.
• Mashing up Godzilla and Busta Rhymes = ALSO WIN.
• Okay, fine, I’m a complete sucker for high-concept weirdo movie trailers in which comedians play past and future versions of the Beastie Boys.

Axe Cop: Bad Guy Earth #1

For those of you who aren’t already familiar with Axe Cop, let me sum things up for you. It’s a comic created by two brothers. The artist, Ethan Nicolle, is 30 years old. The writer, Malachai Nicolle, is six.

I’ll repeat that for you: The writer is six years old.

This means that the series is impossibly awesome.

It’s been a webcomic for about a year, but Dark Horse is now giving it a limited three-issue series.

Our heroes here are Axe Cop (a cop who fights crime with an axe) and Dinosaur Soldier (Axe Cop’s partner, who is a dinosaur soldier). They must contend with normal cops and the army, who are offended that a police officer would use an axe instead of a gun, an evil planet that wants to destroy Earth, and psychic villains who want to turn everyone on the planet into criminals. Can our heroes prevail, armed only with axes, faint bombs, a flying police car, a planet shocker, a laser-portal gun that can travel through time, a good guy machine, and a fire-breathing dinosaur with giant chainguns for arms?

Verdict: Thumbs up. Seriously, didn’t you hear me say “fire-breathing dinosaur with giant chainguns for arms”?

Love and Capes: Ever After #2

Married bliss continues for Abby and Mark (better known to the world as the superhero Crusader). They purchase a building in the city, start remodeling plans for their apartment, and prepare for a visit from their parents. Complications ensue, of course, including Mark getting temporarily de-aged to 10 years old. And they decide to reveal Mark’s secret identity to Abby’s parents, creating some all new complications.

Verdict: Thumbs up. A fun story — actually, several fun stories — with excellent art, dialogue, and humor. It actually feels like there are too many mini-plotlines in here, but I still enjoyed the full comic just fine.

Avengers Academy #10

Well, let’s see — Veil is desperately trying to avoid being kicked out of the Academy, but it seems like she can’t stop putting her foot in it. Giant-Man comes up with an idea to help Hazmat live a normal day — he teams her up with mutant power-drainer Leech, whose ability to shut off her powers means she can spend a day outside of her containment suit. And Speedball takes the class on a field trip to Stamford, Connecticut, where he was involved in an accident that killed several hundred people a few years ago.

Verdict: Thumbs up. A nice change-of-pace story. Speedball takes the lead, Hazmat gets her chance to act mature, and Veil shows her dangerously impulsive side. Fantastic art by Sean Chen.

Today’s Cool Links:

• Chris Sims got to make an appearance on “The Daily Show” to talk about Batman. You can watch the video here, as well as be horrified by comments by awful racist douchehats.
• Here’s a fun article about the influence of awesome illustrator Edward Gorey.
• And finally… Vampire Hockey Players!