We’re getting close to Halloween, so it’s a good time to look at a couple of new comics from Mike Mignola, creator of “Hellboy” and the industry’s foremost horror writer.

 

B.P.R.D.: Killing Ground #3

The Bureau for Paranormal Research and Defense is under siege from within, thanks to the untimely escape of a murderous wendigo. Multiple people have died, Liz Sherman is seeing an ancient sorcerer who keeps showing her images of the Apocalypse, and Ben Daimio is hearing voices from a dead monster-monkey in his quarters. And there’s someone with a serious grudge against the entire BPRD stalking the facility.

Unlike some previous “BPRD” series, “Killing Ground” has had a lot less overt supernaturalism — sure, there’s the wendigo and the mummy in the medical ward, but most of this has been about ratcheting up the pressure on the characters. Most of these characters are either professional soldiers or have had some military training, and this story has mostly been about a military organization in collapse. Not that there isn’t some really creepy stuff — the carcasses the wendigo leaves behind are pretty stomach-churning, and the thing in Daimio’s room just keeps getting more disturbing every time you see it.

Verdict: Thumbs up. I get the feeling this story is going to change the series’ dynamic forever, and I have no idea what’s going to happen next.

 

Lobster Johnson #2

This is a bit less horror and bit more classic ’30s pulp fiction. Lobster Johnson and his cohort Jim Sacks, the man with the high-tech powered armor, are on the trail of the dastardly souls who kidnapped Sacks’ benefactor. Lobster must contend with some villains he thought he’d already destroyed, while Sacks discovers the real reason why evil masterminds cultivate an image of ominous menace — it makes it easier to get you with the knockout gas.

Verdict: Another thumbs up. Really, if you love the crime pulps of the 1930s and ’40s, you should pick this one up — I have zero doubt that you’ll enjoy it.

Hey, kids! Who’s tired of doing long reviews of comics? Look around, see if you can find him! Wait, wait, there he is! That’s right — it’s me! So let’s do fast reviews of everything I’ve got left over!

B.P.R.D.: Killing Ground #2

Horrifically scarred tough-guy Ben Daimo summons a mystical Chinese mystic-guy, just in time for the guy to get eaten by a rampaging wendigo! Johann Kraus goes AWOL with his big, bad, hungry, horny body! Liz Sherman sees horrific visions of the end of the world!

Verdict: Thumbs up! Creepy stuff, gross stuff, more scary stuff on the way! Woo!

 

The Trials of Shazam #8

Atlas is a god who’s wired into the whole world, and he makes tiny minor changes to stave off major disasters. And someone just killed him! So Freddy Freeman has to fill in for him briefly, then Captain Marvel takes over, and then Freddy goes to fetch Atlas’ replacement, the god Apollo, who’s given up godhood to be a doctor. But Apollo don’t wanna be a god, and he’s willing to kill to stay normal.

Verdict: Thumbs up. Not bad. But with four issues left, they better start wrapping stuff up fast.

 

Shadowpact #17

Lots of stuff happens, and I can’t be bothered to care.

Verdict: Thumbs down. Boooooring.

And now, to fill a bit more space: A picture you will never be able to un-see!

The Flash #231

Well, the last time we checked, we had a single issue of “All-Flash” and before that, 13 issues of “Flash: Fastest Man Alive.” What’s with the #231? Well, before they cancelled the series before that, something like two years ago, they were up to #230. So they’re starting where that series left off.

Of course, a lot has changed since then. Wally West and his family have spent an unspecified amount of time in the other-dimensional Speed Source, his kids have prematurely grown into their pre-teens, and his wife Linda has used her pre-med skills, with the help of an alien race, to set up a ton of scientific equipment and expertise.

Anyway, the twins, Iris and Jai, have powers of their own — Iris can turn insubstantial by vibrating her molecules at superspeed, and Jai can “temporarily superaccelerate the myofibrillar hypertrophism” in his muscles — in other words, he can get superstrong, but only for a few minutes at a time. And the whole family is investigating a mysterious ferry accident that seems mundane until some fairly creepy monsters make their appearance.

Verdict: Thumbs up. I was expecting to be happy with Mark Waid’s story, but Daniel Acuna’s art is a pleasant surprise. I was really worried it would be too dark, but so far, he’s able to get the proper style of light humor and drama that a mainstream comic like “The Flash” requires. Of course, this level of detail usually means the artist will have to take a few breaks, so we should expect some fill-in artists over the next few months, too.

MODOK’s 11 #2

Last issue, we were given the basic skinny: MODOK, the Mental Organism Designed Only for Killing, wanted a bunch of low-rent supervillains to rob an alien super-fortress for him. This issue, we get to see the bad guys train (and mostly fail), the much-too-overconfident Mentallo goes snooping around in the other villains’ brains, and the Chameleon reveals some unexpected secrets. And what’s MODOK really up to? You can bet it’s nothing good…

Verdict: Thumbs up. So far, we’ve got a perfect heist caper. A devious plan, a bunch of expert operatives, and a few twists, betrayals, and surprises. I hope the rest of the series can keep up with the first two issues.

B.P.R.D.: Killing Ground #1

The B.P.R.D. — the Bureau for Paranormal Research and Defense from the “Hellboy” comics — is back with another miniseries. We see some new changes to the team. Johann Kraus, previously just a spirit confined to a diving suit, has acquired a new body — one of the manufactured superhuman bodies that the B.P.R.D. acquired in their last adventure. Ben Daimio finds himself frustrated by his coworkers’ mistrust of his grandmother’s Nazi past. Liz Sherman is seeing more and more disturbing visions of the future. Meanwhile, an unknown enemy has gotten access to many of the Bureau’s codes and secrets, Panya the mummy takes up residence in the B.P.R.D., and a savage wendigo captured by Hellboy years ago is brought to the Bureau’s containment facility.

Verdict: Thumbs up. I always expect good things from the B.P.R.D. comics. We’re just getting re-introduced to everyone now — Johann Kraus’ reaction to having a body after so many years is pretty amusing — he now spends all his time eating and chasing women. And Ben Daimio’s reaction to everyone’s suspicions is also good. They say things are gonna start going nuts next issue, so hold on tight.

Man alive, I am one lazy, lazy comics reviewer. You’d think these were hard reviews. But they ain’t. I’m just lazy.

Let’s get after it.

 

B.P.R.D.: Garden of Souls #5

The conclusion of this storyline. Not quite as many spooky scares, but much, much more of Abe Sapien unleashing the forces of scaly-fishman whup-ass on the freaky oldsters in their steampunk armor and on Edward, the oversized muscleman.

It also includes the following panel.

 

That may not be the coolest cow in the world, but it’s sure close to the top of the list.

Verdict: Thumbs up. A nice thrill-ride to finish off all the horror. Grand fun.

 

Countdown #42

Piper and Trickster have been captured and shackled together with manacles that could kill them if they try to break them. Holly Robinson, former Catwoman, is hanging out Harley Quinn and a bunch of Amazons. Donna Troy, Jason Todd, and the renegade Monitor get the current Atom, Ryan Choi, to take them to the hyper-miniaturized “Palmerverse” to find the previous Atom, Ray Palmer. Mary Marvel meets up with the Riddler, then sends Clayface into orbit. And way too many of the pictures of Mary in this issue are upskirt shots. Siiiigh. Fine, fine, I recognize that there’s not much of a way to avoid it with that costume, but after a certain point, it just seems creepy.

Verdict: Thumbs down. Boring.

 

Deadpool/GLI Summer Fun Spectacular

Cute, fun, and funny. I’ve never much seen the point of Deadpool, but the Great Lakes Avengers (now calling themselves the Great Lakes Initiative) are always good for a larf. Squirrel Girl meets up with her ex-boyfriend Speedball, who’s now grim and gritty and spiky and calling himself Penance. A.I.M uses the Greek god Dionysus to get every superhero in the world drunk. Flatman shows off his Origami-Fu. Mr. Immortal dies a lot. Squirrel Girl also visits the future, and we get nearly-official confirmation that she is indeed the baddest badass in the Marvel Universe.

Verdict: Thumbs up. Squirrel Girl rocks. Deal with it, fanboy.

 

Green Lantern #21

The aftermath of the Green Lantern Corps’ first battle with the Sinestro Corps. Hal Jordan fights the Parallaxized Kyle Rayner. Hal is confronted with his only real fear. Ready for it? Ready? He’s afraid… that when his father died in a jet crash… that he was afraid.

That’s it? That’s the great fear?

Where’s my Whackin’ Stick?

WHACK! WHACK! WHACK! WHACK! WHACK!

Verdict: It’s WHACK!

 

Martha Washington Dies

Martha Washington, Frank Miller and Dave Gibbons’ futuristic soldier and freedom fighter from the classic “Give Me Liberty,” is now 100 years old. She dies.

Verdict: Thumbs down. Way, way too short. Half the comic is devoted to promos for next year’s collection of all the Martha Washington stories.

Okay, that’s all of ’em I got. New comics coming in tomorrow.

Ya know what? Writing long reviews of comics takes an extra-long time. So in the interest of getting these durn reviews finished sometime this century, I’m gonna shorten the reviews of the rest of the past week’s haul.

The Trials of Shazam #7

 

The kid in camo on the cover is Freddie Freeman, who used to be Captain Marvel Jr. until he lost his powers. (Yeah, there’s been an outbreak of members of the Marvel Family losing their powers. Just roll with it.) However, he’s being given the chance to earn his powers back by completing tests for the “gods of magic” — Solomon, Hercules, Atlas, Zeus, Achilles, and Mercury. However, a woman named Sabina is trying to intervene in the tests because she wants all those powers for herself.

In this issue, Freddie and Sabina have both managed to grab half of the strength of Hercules and are duking it out to take all of it. We also get some of Sabina’s background in the midst of all the fighting. For the most part, however, this is a slugfest all the way through. No complaints — it’s a good slugfest.

Howard Porter’s art continues to be outstanding, and I particularly like the interpretation we see of Atlas, the next god on the list. This is a fairly low-key comic — it’s not getting the kind of attention that some other books are — but it’s been an excellent read from the very beginning.

Verdict: Go get it.

B.P.R.D.: Garden of Souls #4

 

This is a spin-off from Mike Mignola’s action/horror series “Hellboy” — Big Red doesn’t appear in this, but if you’re familiar with the movie, you should be familiar with at least some of the stars in this one. The focus of this particular story has been Abe Sapien, the department’s fishman, and his quest to discover his own origins. He’s already discovered that he used to be a human named Langdon Everett Caul, back in the 1860s, and he’s been kidnapped in South America by a bunch of old guys wearing nifty steampunk powered armor and attended by a towering powerhouse named Edward and a bunch of genetically engineered animal hybrids. Oh, and there’s a mummy. Wearing a nice Victorian-era dress. The story is written by Mignola, but illustrated by John Arcudi, who does a good job of aping Mignola’s distinctive style.

In this issue, the mummy, Panya, tells Abe how she was discovered to be alive during a mummy-unwrapping party in the late 1850s (Believe it or not, the Victorians really used to have parties where they’d unwrap mummies. For fun. They also thought it was rude to say “leg” in mixed company. The Victorians were all crazy.) Instead of running amok, strangling butlers, and cursing random explorers like a normal mummy, Panya was educated in Western ways and became a part of high society. Eventually, she’s declared to be a treasure worth hoarding, and is taken prisoner by several competing conspiratorial mystical associations until the present day, when she’s being held in opulent surroundings by the Oannes Society. After that, the Society members tell Abe that he used to be one of them, and that their plans involve transferring their minds out of their impossibly aged bodies and into superhumanly powerful bodies like Edward’s. And then, they plan to kill everyone in Eastern Asia and use their spirits to vastly empower their new bodies, allowing all of those spirits to live forever.

Abe is not impressed, manages to kill one of the host bodies while it’s still being grown in its glass tube, and goes on the run. But the island he’s being held on isn’t that large, and there aren’t many places to hide.

Verdict: Big thumbs up. Heck, you should go get every “BPRD” and “Hellboy” comic you can. I think it’s been very well established at this point that Mike Mignola is the best creator of horror comics of the modern age, so just about everything he comes up with is worth reading. Arcudi’s art is also outstanding — like I said before, it’s very similar to Mignola’s style, but he’s better with detail work (If you really want to see Arcudi’s detail artwork unleashed, check out the previous series, “B.P.R.D.: The Universal Machine.”)

And this issue would get an enthusiastic recommendation from me even if it didn’t feature the image below:

 

That is a female mummy and some Victorian mad scientists operating a horse with a steam-powered Babbage engine in place of its head.

And that is awesome.

Marvel Adventures: The Avengers #12

 

This is one of Marvel’s new all-ages comics, and it’s actually a week or two old, but I’d heard good things about it, so I picked it up. The members of the Avengers in this one include Avenger regulars like Captain America, Iron Man and Giant-Man… uhh, I mean Giant-Girl, plus popular Marvel characters like Spider-Man, Storm, Wolverine, and Hulk. Every issue has a self-contained story, so you don’t have to worry about too much continuity. The stories combine action with a great deal of humor, and they are fun for both kids and adults.

In this issue, the Avengers are trying to control a number of different natural disasters, caused by the coming of Ego, the Living Planet. This is an actual villain from ’60s Marvel books, which suggests pretty strongly that Stan Lee and Jack Kirby were nuttier than a whole bag full of fruit bats. So what is Ego doing getting this close to Earth?

 

Ego is in luuuuuv.

This does not sit well with the Avengers.

Verdict: Big thumbs up. Go get it. Be sure and check out the back issues, too — they’re all good.