Sometimes even the best comics end up with some not-so-great issues…

B.P.R.D.: King of Fear #3

Abe Sapien, Andrew Devon, and the soldiers they were leading have been captured by a bunch of sub-terrans, while Liz Sherman finds herself inside a real-life apocalyptic nightmare that she thought was only a mental illusion produced by Memnan Saa. Abe is surprised to learn that, um, some skull-faced, black-fire-burning guy whose name completely escapes me, is working with the sub-terrans. The leader of the sub-terrans is looking forward to subjugating everyone and being installed as the king of the world, but the skull-faced guy (Maybe this is the “King of Fear”? I really don’t know.) disrespects him and eventually kills him when the leader attacks one of the B.P.R.D. soldiers. He’s not really on the B.P.R.D.’s side — he still wants to bring about the end of the world — but he wants to do it on behalf of a surprising master…

Verdict: I have to give it a thumbs-down. I’m having too much trouble keeping track of the players. I know I read the comic that featured skull-faced guy, but that must’ve been several years ago, and I don’t remember what his name was or what he was up to. And as long as this saga has been going on, we really would’ve benefitted from some reminders of who all the bad guys are, in addition to the good guys. It’s just too hard to enjoy the story when you don’t even know who all the characters are.

The Unwritten #11

A fictional version of Joseph Goebbels living inside an old novel/movie called “Jud Süss” has just shot Tom Taylor. He gets his hands on Tom’s map and the magic doorknob, but luckily, before he can kill Savoy, Lizzie Hexam shows up and beats Goebbels to death with a movie projector. And even more luckily, Tom isn’t dead — Goebbels’ fictional bullets didn’t have enough weight to them to kill him. But he’s now wandering around inside “Jud Süss” — and the story of “Jud Süss” has been driven mad. Ya see, there was a novel called “Jud Süss” in the 1920s that was about a deeply flawed but ultimately heroic Jew — and the Nazis took “Jud Süss” and turned it into an anti-Semitic propaganda movie. In the world of fiction, “Jud Süss” can’t figure out if it’s a pro-Jewish story or an anti-Jewish story, and that confusion and madness has turned it into something called a canker, a monstrous vortex of terror. Is there any way Tom can survive the insane canker?

Verdict: Thumbs down. I loved the backstory about “Jud Süss” (Mike Carey and Peter Gross include a short essay about the novel, the movie, and the power of propaganda) but the comic surrounding it just wasn’t up to snuff. Tom survives the shooting by a fluke, he stops the canker by fluke, and everyone gets back home by fluke. Lucky flukes don’t make for compelling drama.

Batman and Robin #8

We get a little flashback to begin with, showing us how Batwoman got captured — she was knocked out with narcotic soot (!) while fighting Satanic chimneysweeps (!!!) — before we get to this issue’s real problem: Batman has been raised from the dead by a Lazarus Pit and has gone temporarily insane. Except it’s not really Batman — it’s an evil clone of Batman created by Darkseid during the “Final Crisis” crossover. And it’s taking everything Dick Grayson, Batwoman, the Knight, and the Squire have just to slow him down. And one of the British crimelords on the surface plans to wipe them all out with explosives in the mine — and someone’s going to pay with their life. Meanwhile, Damian Wayne is recovering from spinal replacement surgery and is under strict orders not to exert himself — which could mean some serious trouble when the Batman clone comes calling…

Verdict: Thumbs up. Action, intrigue, suspense, and superheroics, all in a single issue — this is great stuff. And it’s got a two excellent cliffhangers, too.

Strange #4

The final issue of this very enjoyable miniseries. Magic has been broken, and the magic users of the world are getting their butts kicked every time they try to cast a spell. Even worse, it’s likely that the mystical backlash is going to tear the whole planet, if not the entire universe, apart. Dr. Strange has vastly decreased magical powers, but he still has the best chance to fix the situation — he’s going to use his surgical knowledge to try to repair the flow of magical energies through the universe. But his new apprentice, Casey, suffering from the loss of her soul last issue, is going to have to guard his body while he does so. But when an old enemy of Dr. Strange’s comes looking for him in the midst of all the chaos, does Casey have a chance of saving him?

Verdict: Thumbs up. This has been a really fun series — I wouldn’t mind reading more stuff about the de-powered Stephen Strange, and I hope someone at Marvel gives Mark Waid a chance to write about the former Sorcerer Supreme and his apprentice very soon.

B.P.R.D.: King of Fear #2

While Abe Sapien, Liz Sherman, and Andrew Devon explore the tunnels beneath Agartha, Kate Corrigan and her new beau Bruno have come to the infamous Hunte Castle in Austria to see if the ghost of crimefighter Lobster Johnson will release the spirit of ectoplasmic medium Johann Kraus.

Verdict: Thumbs up. The whole issue was just fine, but the final two pages combine to make it really awesome and cool.

Hellboy: The Bride of Hell

A quick one-shot issue from the superstar team of Mike Mignola and Richard Corben, the folks behind 2008’s brilliant “Hellboy: The Crooked Man” miniseries. Hellboy travels to France on behalf of the Bureau for Paranormal Research and Defense to rescue a girl kidnapped by a cult that wants to make her into the bride of a demon. Of course, things don’t go entirely to plan, as Hellboy is stuck with an unconscious bride-to-be and an angry monster-demon. He finds temporary respite in an ancient cemetery dedicated to a saint reknowned for his powers against the forces of Hell. A lone monk tells him that his order has slowly been picked off over the years by the demon — while it can’t enter the cemetery, it can attack anyone who leaves. Knowing he’ll have to take out the monster in order to get the girl home, Hellboy leaves her sleeping in the cemetery while he goes out to find the demon, who has his own backstory to tell.

Verdict: Thumbs up. Mignola’s storytelling is wonderful as always. Corben’s artwork is hully-chee-whiz drop-dead gorgeous. Asmodeus’ story is beautifully told, alternating between chilling and amusing, particularly his boredom after taking over a kingdom and having to deal with the mundane aspects of governing. It’s an absolutely awesome comic, and you should go hunt it down so you can enjoy it.

B.P.R.D.: King of Fear #1

In the wake of the disastrous mission to Mongolia that wiped out a bunch of American military men during an attack by an army of monsters, the BPRD has lost the support of the American government. While Dr. Manning and Abe Sapien try to decide how they’ll take the fight back to the frogs and the subterrans, Liz Sherman looks forward to burning some monsters, and Kate Corrigan takes a trip to the infamous Hunte Castle with her German military friend Bruno and the ghost of Lobster Johnson, possessing Johann Kraus’ ectoplasmic form.

Verdict: Thumbs up. A nice beginning to this new storyline. Lobster Johnson is an eerie and sad presence throughout the story. And Andrew Devon’s nervousness around ancient Egyptian mummy Panya and her awesome new Queen Elizabeth II hairstyle is an amusing mood-breaker.

Power Girl #7

We start out on the planet Valeron, where Vartox, a Superman-like hero who made his original debut in the 1970s (and who dresses like Sean Connery in the utterly mad sci-fi flick “Zardoz“) fights off a bunch of alien yeti space pirates. But the battle was just a distraction for the pirates’ real attack — the detonation of a contraceptive bomb! A contraceptive bomb?! Yep, and everyone on Valeron except for Vartox has been sterilized — their race is doomed to die out… unless Vartox can find himself a suitable mate. And of course, he chooses a certain busty, superpowered blonde living on Earth.

And speaking of Power Girl, she and Doctor Mid-Nite are chasing a supervillain named the Blue Snowman, who is some crazy person in a powered armor suit who shoots ice from her cyber-hat and cyber-pipe. Unsurprisingly, the Blue Snowman is no great challenge. That’s when Vartox shows up in a giant floating robot head (Just like “Zardoz”! You think they’re going with a theme here?) and shoots Kara with something called “Seduction Musk,” which, luckily, doesn’t work on her. And then Vartox unveils a big fang-faced monster called an Ix Negaspike, which he intends to defeat to win Kara’s love. This doesn’t work out at all — it’s entirely indestructible and ravenously hungry. Can PeeGee beat the Ix Negaspike and fend off Vartox’s unwanted advances?

Verdict: Thumbs up. This is awesomely funny from beginning to end, with lots of silly touches, like the ridiculously 1960s-70s culture of Vartox’s homeworld (His chancellor is named Groovicus Mellow and the leader of the military is named General Peacemonger) and the ineptness of Blue Snowman. The dialogue between Power Girl and Doctor Mid-Nite is also fun. And as good as Gray and Palmiotti’s writing is, Amanda Conner’s artwork really sells this — great, funny, beautiful art here, everything from facial expressions and body language down to the details of the buildings Vartox gets punched through.

B.P.R.D.: War on Frogs #4

It’s the conclusion of this extended miniseries (just four issues, but spread out over many, many months) as disembodied medium Johann Kraus leads a team of agents from the Bureau for Paranormal Research and Defense against a cult of the amphibious froggy monsters called the Frogs. While they manage to wipe them out easily, Johann discovers that he is able to see the spirits of the recently deceased Frogs, and they want his help in finding out where their afterlife is. He doesn’t think he can help them — who knows what on earth Heaven is like to murderous unnatural frog monsters? — but once they start making other BPRD members deathly sick, he agrees to try to help them. Can Johann lead them to their monster paradise successfully? And even if he can, will he be able to escape the other hungry monsters that dwell there?

Verdict: Thumbs up. This was one of my favorite issues of the BPRD series in a while — most of the stories focusing on Johann are interesting, but this one was especially fun, with the focus on trying to find the spiritual realm of things that shouldn’t have souls at all.

B.P.R.D.: 1947 #5

In the conclusion of this story of the early days of the Bureau for Paranormal Research and Defense, Simon Anders has been rescued from vampires and returned to the New Mexico Air Force base where the BPRD is currently headquartered. Professor Bruttenholm meets a specialist expert he’s brought in to assist — Ota Benga, an elderly former priest who specializes in exorcisms. Bruttenholm needs him to conduct a ceremony to dispel the demonic forces that have taken over Anders’ soul. Most of this issue focuses on the exorcism — played out quietly in the corporeal world but with tons of blood and thunder in the psychic realm — along with the unspoken conflict between Bruttenholm’s friendship with his old exorcist friend who rabidly hates demons and his duties to the young and innocent Hellboy.

Verdict: Thumbs up. In a lot of ways, a very quiet issue, with plenty of discussion and conversation — something that can be a bit rare in the BPRD comics. We also get an unpleasant little hint about what Simon Anders’ future may hold. And Hellboy gets to play baseball. This is the kind of stuff that makes for a good cool-down issue, and I can’t stop enjoying it.

Hellboy: The Wild Hunt #8

Hellboy has lost control of his demonic side, and he may have killed his friend Alice. Now he’s even more concerned about what’s wrong with him — for years, others have been pronouncing him the Beast of the Apocalypse, fated to bring about the end of the world — and he worries that it may be happening now. But a Russian spirit convinces him that he should stop believing what demons tell him and start believing what Alice herself believed — that he was the right person to carry Excalibur. So Hellboy draws the sword from the stone — and it turns out Alice wasn’t dead after all. So Hellboy’s the Rightful King of Britain — is that a happy ending? Well, Nimue is still out there plotting the end of mankind, and the the Heliopic Brotherhood of Ra is making their own plans to end the world. So maybe it’s just a sign that things are changing, faster and faster.

Verdict: Thumbs up. Another great conclusion for this series. I still don’t know if I can buy Hellboy as mystic royalty, but Mike Mignola doesn’t steer us wrong very often, and I’m willing to give him the chance to show how it makes sense.

B.P.R.D.: 1947 #4

Jacob Stegner thinks he’s the only member of the team from the Bureau for Paranormal Research and Defense who’s left alive, after everyone else was killed by vampires, but he learns, from a mysterious old cat-controlling lady that’s not so — Simon Anders is still alive, but he’s in the clutches of Annaliese and Katharina Brezina, vampire sisters who officially died in 1701 after long years of debuchery and murder. Does Anders have any chance of survival against these monsters?

Verdict: Thumbs up. Good action and suspense, excellent dialogue, and fun artwork. And we get appearances by creepy Russian demon girl Varvara and much-less-creepy pancake-loving demon boy Hellboy. A nice little dose of pre-Halloween postwar scariness.

Hellboy: The Wild Hunt #7

Hellboy has been given the choice of two crowns to wear — he can become the actual-fer-realz True King of England, the last ancestor of King Arthur, or he can become the King of Demons, the Beast of the Apocalypse. His friend Alice has faith that he’s going to become the King of England and the savior of the world, but Hellboy has his doubts. In a dream, he battles his own demonic self and learns that taking either crown will eventually lead to him wearing both — and if he refuses, Nimue, the new Queen of the Witches, will be able to destroy the world on her own. Can Hellboy battle against fate and his own nature? Oh, and we also get a backup story about Sir Henry Hood, Witchfinder of the 1600s, and one of his battles against the Devil.

Verdict: Thumbs up. Lots of apocalyptic awesomeness. Lots of eerie, creepy stuff. Mike Mignola is playing his cards close to the vest, so I really can’t tell what he’s planning for the future? Is Hellboy going to become the Beast of the Apocalypse? Is the Hellboy-verse coming to an end?

Crossed #7

You remember the Crossed, right? They’re normal humans who’ve contracted some sort of disease that turns them into gleefully sadistic, psychotic killers, and the only way to tell them apart from normal people is the bloody red cross-shaped rash that develops over their faces. Our small pack of survivors are on the run from the band of Crossed freaks from a couple issues back, who’ve managed to track them across a thousand miles of desert. They try to put as much distance between the Crossed as they can, but they get ambushed while forging a river — one of their number gets a minor gunshot wound, they all get a scare — and Patrick, Cindy’s young son, gets washed down the river. Luckily, they’re able to wipe out some of the Crossed pack and find Patrick — but this issue still has a downer ending.

Verdict: Thumbs up. Brutal. As I’ve said before, don’t read this if you’ve got kids who can get their hands on it, don’t read it if you’ve got anything against monstrously grim horror, and don’t read it if you hate stories that don’t have happy endings. But for everyone else, read it, read it, read it. This may be the best pure horror you’ll find in a comic book.

North 40 #3

Conover County is still overrun with monsters who used to be normal county residents, including a junkyard owner who’s building giant robots, a police dispatch operator who’s been dead for 20 years, a former beauty queen who can see the world through her own photographs, the local goth teen turned spectral instrument of vengeance, and a whole heck of a lot of freaky kids attending the prom. Sheriff Morgan is trying to keep order, but he’s got people plotting against him, and he may stand no chance of stopping the slaughter planned at the high school.

Verdict: Thumbs up. Creepy, bizarre, funny, weird stuff. By this point, I thought all the main players were already on the stage, but I’m impressed that Aaron Williams is both still introducing new, mondo-bizarro characters and advancing the plot at the same time. This is the next-to-the-last issue of this miniseries, but I really hope they’re going to turn this into an ongoing series.

B.P.R.D.: 1947 #3

The Bureau for Paranormal Research and Defense has sent four soldiers to Europe to deal with some vampires, and things don’t go well. After a suspenseful investigation of a couple of suspicious coffins in the castle’s crypt, two of the three operatives are attacked and killed by vampires. Meanwhile, the lone operative who’s been taken to the black mass with the witches and vampires is witness to Baron Konig’s undoing and to the terrifying summoning of Hecate herself. But does he survive the experience? Does any of them survive?

Verdict: Thumbs up. Outstanding — and very suspenseful — storytelling from Mike Mignola and Joshua Dysart, along with fantastic artwork by Gabriel Ba and Fabio Moon. Just plain outstanding horror fiction getting made here, on every level from intimate suspense to apocalyptic blood-and-thunder.

I got two different Mike Mignola comics, and I’m gonna review ’em right now! Try and stop me!

Hellboy: The Wild Hunt #5

While Hellboy tries to get his friend Alice into a demon-guarded castle where her injuries can be healed, the newly crowned Queen of the Witches makes her plots against Big Red and demonstrates her power on a fae ambassador, compelling him to leave to commit regicide. Our second feature is a story by Gary Gianni about a group called the MonsterMen who travel into the Underworld to help un-haunt a house and getting stuck with a powerful (though silly) demonic relic.

Verdict: Thumbs up. The Hellboy story has plenty of action, thanks to Hellboy fighting an all-powerful demon, and plenty of creepy, thanks to the Queen of the Witches, who could scare you into a year of nightmares. The second feature is plenty silly (its evil relic is called the Mustache Diabolico), but I wish it had a little more background on the characters.

B.P.R.D: 1947 #2

In this story of the early days of the Bureau for Paranormal Research and Defense, Simon Anders is in big trouble. He’s one member of a small squad sent to investigate vampire attacks in post-war Europe, and he’s been lured by a pretty girl to the ruins of Chateau Lac D’Annecy — but the ruins aren’t ruins anymore, and there’s a big party going on with a lot of women dressed up in fashions from the 1750s and a lot of suspiciously withered servants. At the stroke of midnight, the ladies take Simon flying off to “the Festival” — a ritual to Hecate attended by withches and vampires — including Baron Konig, the vampire believed to be behind the attacks in Europe. The next morning, the rest of the BPRD squad make their own trip to the castle — but all they find is ruins, Simon’s notebook, and ominous coffins.

Verdict: Thumbs up. Very spooky stuff, which has certainly become a hallmark fo Mignola’s various BPRD series. The artwork by Gabriel Ba and Fabio Moon is quite stunning as well.

Blackest Night #1

We reviewed the prologue yesterday, but DC’s big summer crossover officially gets started with this one.

It’s semi-official pay-respect-to-your-superheroes day in the DC Universe, giving lots of super-people opportunities to visit the gravesides and memorials of their fallen comrades. Earth’s Green Lanterns do a flyover of Coast City, the Kents visit Jonathan Kent’s grave, Flash’s Rogues hold a wake in their secret graveyard, Hawkman and Hawkgirl reflect on their never-ending cycle of death and reincarnation, and the recently resurrected Barry Allen learns how many of his friends have died in the years he’s been gone. But bad doin’s are afoot. A bunch of mysterious black rings descend on Earth and into the Green Lanterns’ mausoleum on Oa. And holy gee whilikers, the dadgum rings actually raise the dead as horrific zombies! Among the confirmed zombies we get here are a gobsmackingly staggering number of dead Green Lanterns, the Martian Manhunter, and Ralph and Sue Dibny… along with a surprise couple of recent deadlings leftover from “Final Crisis”…

Verdict: Thumbs up. So far, so good. I really hope they can sustain this. But for this issue at least: ZOMBIES!

Crossed #6

Our small band of survivors continue their trek north, where they hope they’ll have a better chance of survival. They’re still running into packs of the deranged and diseased serial killers/zombies called the Crossed, and they have to deal with personality conflicts within their own group. We get some flashbacks back to the earliest, most terrifying days of the Crossed outbreak, the group acquires a new canine buddy, and learns that some monsters don’t come with bloody red cross-shaped rashes on their faces.

Verdict: Thumbs up. Outstanding characterization work in this issue, along with a genuinely surprising twist. Garth Ennis and Jacen Burrows are really doing great work with this one.

B.P.R.D.: 1947 #1

The sequel to the earlier “1946” series focusing on the early days of the Bureau for Paranormal Research and Defense opens with a bunch of captured German SS officers mysteriously getting slaughtered in Nuremberg. Back in New Mexico, Professor Bruttenholm suspects the vengeful vampire, Baron Konig, has committed the murders, and he receives a visit from Varvara, the impossibly creepy, vodka-swilling little girl/demon who appeared in the last series. The BPRD designates four new operatives to travel to France to investigate the killings, which also seem to be tied to a terrifyingly blasphemous opera performed in 1771. But as always seems to be the case in the “BPRD” stories, ominous things are on the way. Can any of the new operatives survive what’s coming?

Verdict: Thumbs up. The story by Mike Mignola and Joshua Dysart pops along very well, but the art by Gabriel Ba and Fabio Moon is just plain awesome.

The Strange Adventures of H.P. Lovecraft #2

Two ruffians have ended up dead, horribly mutilated by… something, and the only evidence points to wallflower weird-tales writer H.P. Lovecraft, who, luckily, has an alibi — he was at home asleep, and the dead guys had his watch because they stole it from them the previous day. But Lovecraft knows something is wrong — he hears ominous voices and sees evil visions when he looks at an ancient book in the university library, and he knows that his resentment of the muggers is what caused them to be killed. And right on schedule, his romantic rival for the heart of his ex-girlfriend shows up, bullies him, gloats at him, and kicks him out of the library. And just like before, Lovecraft goes to sleep, has horrific dreams, and wakes up knowing that his nightmares are literally coming true. So Lovecraft — who really is in no way a man of action — heads over to his rival’s house to try to save him from the otherdimensional horrors trying to eat him. Can Lovecraft save his rival? And even if he can, will he be able to stop the cthulhoid monstrosities from eating the rest of the city?

Verdict: Thumbs up. The impressionistic art style is working very well for the story, and the monster designs have been unexpectedly good. I do hope they can keep this going for the rest of the miniseries, because it’s been a great deal of fun so far.

B.P.R.D.: War on Frogs #3

In a story set before the current storyarc, Liz Sherman, the Bureau of Paranormal Research and Defense’s pyrokinetic badass, has been struck by a strange malaise after leading a series of successful but very, very destructive raids against the frogs, the amphibious toad-like monsters who have been the most prominent baddies through nearly all of Mike Mignola’s “Hellboy” comics. Is her sickness a matter of burnout? A disease caused by the frogs? Or something worse?

Verdict: Thumbs up. We don’t get to see Liz setting fires and kicking ass nearly enough, so this is plenty of fun, while also serving as a prequel to more current “B.P.R.D.” storylines.