Knight and Squire #5

Jarvis Poker, the British Joker, isn’t much of a villain — he’s a bit mischievous, but his villainy is pretty light-hearted and harmless. He even hangs out with the Knight and Squire from time to time. But he’s just found out that he’s dying and has only weeks to live. And he reacts to the news by trying to start up a crime wave of his own. But he’s badly out of practice, and his gimmicks are, again, pretty harmless. So he’s doing more to embarrass himself than to make his name live in infamy. But the Squire deduces that Jarvis is dying, and the Knight decides to let him go out with a final grand hurrah — he warns everyone that the British Joker is about to attempt the Crime of the Century. Invigorated, he sets out to perform the kind of grand novelty crime that’d let him go to his grave with a smile on his face… until he gets a deeply unwelcome visitor from the other side of the pond.

Verdict: Thumbs up. Holy cow, this was fun. Jarvis Poker is such a fun character, and the guest star’s appearance — even if you predicted who he is — makes a really great moment. Next issue is the last one for this series? No fair!

Batgirl #18

It’s a special Valentine’s issue guest-starring that most eligible bachelor… Klarion the Witch Boy?! He’s left underground Limbo Town for our Blue Rafters because his cat familiar Teekl, foiled in his attempts to mate, is now running loose and tearing out people’s hearts. Stephanie gets roped into helping Klarion clean up this mess, and though they’re able to recapture Teekl, he’ll remain out of control unless they can find him another were-cat to mate with. And the only place to find those is back in Limbo Town, where Steph has to dress up as a pilgrim and beat up a magic-using schoolgirl. Ahh, a traditional Valentine’s outing!

Verdict: Thumbs up. It’s a funny story, with some hilarious dialogue and situations. Stellar artwork from Dustin Nguyen. And it’s got Klarion the Witch Boy! We don’t see enough of him, dangit.

The Unwritten #22

Tom Taylor has apparently broken “Moby-Dick.” He’s frozen the novel in time and doesn’t know how to escape, but Frankenstein’s monster clues him in on how to use his magic crystal doorknob — inside a book, he can only travel from one element to another. There’s only one Pequod in literature, but the ocean is in plenty of different novels. So Tom is able to leap from “Moby-Dick” to one of the Sindbad stories, and from there, he meets up with the famed Baron Munchausen. Meanwhile, the puppeteer has decided Lizzie and Savoy are no use to her, so she shows them a perverse little puppet show and sends them on their way. But is it a glimpse into the future?

Verdict: Thumbs up. Listen, any comic that includes appearances by Frankenstein’s monster, Sindbad the sailor, Baron Munchausen, and even more literary heroes is something that you should just accept is an awesome comic.

Batgirl #17

Yay! A teamup with Stephanie Brown, the former Spoiler and current Batgirl, with Damian Wayne, Bruce Wayne’s son and the current borderline-psychotic Robin! This is good because these two are extremely funny together, especially when being written by Bryan Q. Miller. Batgirl and Robin are both on the trail of some child kidnappers, and the case leads straight to a group of kids on a field trip to a local museum. The heroes can’t see what’s going on inside the museum dressed as superheroes, so Batgirl has the idea to send Damian in, dressed like a normal kid, and then sits back to enjoy the spectacle of Damian having no idea how to relate to kids his own age. Can Batgirl and Robin survive the kidnappers and each other?

Verdict: An enthusiastic thumbs up. The character interaction here is simply fantastic. Stephanie and Damian make a really fun team, thanks to their wildly different personalities and crimefighting styles. Miller gives us a bunch of great moments — Damian pestering Alfred, Steph waking up late for class, Damian trying to blend in with schoolkids and trying (and mostly failing) to drive a school bus, and Steph getting more than her usual share of one-liners and zingers. Have I told y’all before to make sure you’re reading this? No? Well, make sure you’re reading this.

Marvel Adventures: Super Heroes #10

So we’ve known that there’s an impostor inside the Avengers for the past few issues, but who is it? Well, it’s the Black Widow — specifically, the Black Widow from a few years in our future, who was brought in by Reed Richards, whose research into time travel revealed that the Invisible Woman had been fated to die at the hands of any number of supervillains. That fate had been averted, at least temporarily, when Sue joined the Avengers, but Reed wanted to make sure she stayed on the team, so he hired the future Widow to replace the current one and work to convince Sue to stay on the team. Now the Avengers know that Reed was behind the replacement, but they don’t know why, and they’re attacking the Baxter Building to try to get Reed to explain. Can Sue and the rest of the Avengers get into the Baxter Building? Can Reed hold them off long enough for the new Sue-doesn’t-die timeline to trump the old one?

Verdict: Thumbs down. I was the most bummed by the ending, which just comes out and says no one will remember any of this. It basically eliminates at least six months’ worth of stories from everyone’s memories. Just seems a little extreme and irritating, to be honest.

Today’s Cool Links:

• Y’all please listen to Kevin Church, okay?
• DC is a lost cause for diversity.
• Getting JMS off of “Superman” was the best way to stop that comic’s nosedive.
• “A Wrinkle in Time” in 90 seconds.

I don’t think I’ve ever tried to do a year-end retrospective list — it’s always too difficult for me to pick out a list of things I enjoyed the most out of 12 whole months. But what the heck, I’m gonna try it today.

This list is strictly listed in alphabetical order. I can’t claim it’s a list of the best comics — I haven’t read all the comics, after all — but it’s the list of the 15 comics that I enjoyed the most.

American Vampire

Scott Snyder, Rafael Albuquerque, and Stephen King came together to re-invent the vampire for the rough-and-tumble American West. Outstanding characters, close attention to setting, and rip-snorting horror make this a must-read for anyone who loves non-sparkly bloodsuckers.

Batgirl

The adventures of Stephanie Brown as the newest Batgirl are full of great humor, great action, great dialogue, and great characterizations. This is one of the best superhero comics around.

Batman and Robin

Grant Morrison’s triumphant run of Batman comics had its most epic stretch in these stories of Dick Grayson and Damian Wayne, as well as Alfred, Dr. Hurt, and the Joker. The scale of Morrison’s storytelling here was breathtaking.

Blackest Night

Possibly the most successful crossover storyarc in years, this grabbed readers’ imaginations and didn’t let go for months. Even better than its commercial successes were the overall excellence of the plotline. At its height, there was nothing as good as this story about zombies, power rings, and emotions.

Crossed

I’m not a fan of the new series, but Garth Ennis’ original Crossed miniseries was the most harrowing, brutal, relentless, depressing, and terrifying horror comic to hit the stands in a long, long time.

Daytripper

This was, without a single doubt, the best comic series of the entire year. Nothing else came close. Gabriel Bá and Fábio Moon deserve to win so many awards for this one. If you missed this series in the original run, you should definitely keep your eyes open in the next few months for the trade paperback.

Detective Comics starring Batwoman

Greg Rucka and J.H. Williams III didn’t create the character, but they crafted her best stories. While Rucka brilliantly fleshed out her backstory, personality, and supporting cast, Williams took the stories and created some of the year’s most beautiful artwork and design.

Hellboy in Mexico

This story of, well, Hellboy in Mexico was my favorite, but I also loved all of the other collaborations between Hellboy creator Mike Mignola and fantasy artist Richard Corben. These two meshed together creatively in ways that very few creators are able to do, and all of us readers were the beneficiaries.

Joe the Barbarian

Grant Morrison’s fantasy story is both epic and mundane in scale, which is really quite a trick — Joe is in diabetic shock, and he’s hallucinating that his home and toys have turned into a fantasy kingdom. But what if he’s not really hallucinating?

Richard Stark’s Parker: The Outfit

The second chapter of Darwyn Cooke’s adaptation of Donald Westlake’s crime fiction is a beautiful tribute to Cooke’s retro-cool art sensibilities and the pure fun of good pulp crime novels.

Power Girl

Jimmy Palmiotti, Justin Gray, and Amanda Conner created the best version of Power Girl ever for a year’s worth of funny, smart, sexy, exciting superhero stories. These creators loved this character, and you can tell that in every story they published about her. I still hope they’ll be able to come back to this title eventually.

Secret Six

Far and away DC’s best team book, Gail Simone has hooked us a bunch of people who are extremely likeable and also completely crazy and prone to trying to kill each other from moment to moment. This shouldn’t work as well as it does, but that doesn’t change the fact that it’s colossal fun to read every single month.

Strange Science Fantasy

Scott Morse’s retro-pulp series packed a heck of a lot of audacious fun into six short issues. This was a treat visually, emotionally, intellectually — even on a tactile level, what with the heavy, rough paper it was printed on.

Thor and the Warriors Four

The Power Pack go to Asgard. I didn’t really expect much of it, to be honest, but readers were treated to godlike quantities of humor, excitement, whimsey, and awesomeness, thanks to writer Alex Zalben and artists Gurihiru, and to Colleen Coover’s excellent backup stories.

Tiny Titans

Probably the best all-ages comic out there right now. These comics are smart and funny and cute and just plain fun to read.

Aaaaand that’s what I got. There were plenty of other comics that just barely missed the cut, but these were nevertheless the ones that gave me the most joy when I was reading them.

So farewell, 2010. And hello, rapidly onrushing 2011. Hope you’re a better year for all of us, and I hope we can all look forward to plenty more great comics to come.

Now y’all be safe and have a good time tonight, but call a cab if you need it — I want to make sure all of y’all are here to read me in 2011.

First things first: There’s going to be another meeting of people interested in getting some more comic conventions in Lubbock! It’s happening today at 6:30 p.m. at Awesome Books, 3009 34th Street.

The focus of this meeting is going to be dividing up some of the promotional work and sharing what’s been confirmed so far. If you’d like to assist with a comic convention — and take it from me, I had more fun volunteering at the previous conventions than I did when I was only an attendant — then you will certainly want to be at that meeting.

Now listen — the Miracle on 34th Street event will be going on around that time, which means a parade and a heck of a lot more traffic, so you might want to park on 33rd or 35th or in one of the larger parking lots and walk. So allow yourself some extra time to get to the meeting, awright?

Remember: today, 6:30 p.m., Awesome Books, 3009 34th Street!

And now: Reviews!

Knight and Squire #3

Genetic researchers have perfected cloning — and they’re able to re-create an actual historical personage, complete with his full genetic memory! Who do they pick for this great honor? Richard III. Wait, Richard III? The villain of Shakespeare’s play of the same name? A guy who’s thought to have killed his young nephews to keep himself on the throne? That doesn’t sound like a smart move, does it? The Knight and Squire are suspicious, but there’s some belief that Richard got a raw deal from history and Shakespeare, so maybe this guy’s okay, right?

Well, no, not really. He demands to be placed back on the throne, and when that isn’t so successful, he clones a bunch of England’s most rotten monarchs, gives them superpowers and their own armies, and turns ’em loose on everyone. Can the Knight, the Squire, and the British Isles’ other superheroes stop the royal renegades before they take over the country?

Verdict: Thumbs up. So very many things to love about this issue. There’s the Knight dating one of the Muses. Like an actual Muse, goddess of literature and the arts, from ancient myth. That’s so random, it’s awesome. There’s the final battle, fought partly through Twitter. There’s the way Richard’s lines are all in iambic pentameter. It’s a great issue in a great series, so go get it already.

Batgirl #16

Steph’s being chased by the cops, who think Batgirl killed a college student. After she evades the Gotham PD, she meets up with Detective Gage, who reveals that he knows she she’s been framed. Back at the university, Steph has to deal with her classmates demonizing Batgirl, mostly so they can get out of having to take tests, and Wendy Harris does a little off-the-clock investigating. Eventually, they’re able to track the real killers to an abandoned warehouse contaminated with an unusual form of radiation. But will getting her good name cleared and the gang rounded up be enough to solve the case when it turns out the bad guys have superpowered help of their own?

Verdict: As ever, very funny and exciting stuff. I don’t know if this is the best of the Bat-books, but it’s certainly the most fun.

Today’s Cool Links:

• It’s like someone figured out how to mix Christmas with death metal. And it’s been around for centuries!
• The Ten Least Successful Holiday Specials of All Time.
• Any of y’all ever read Douglas Adams’ Dirk Gently novels? Turns out the BBC is adapting ’em for TV…
• Why does Brian Bendis hate Marvel continuity?
• Here are a bunch of Marvel parodies of old Charles Atlas ads.

The New Avengers #6

Well, I didn’t like this one at all.

Wolverine has been mystically granted the full power of all the Avengers so he can fight Agamotto, which he does, for page after page after page. Agamotto is a shapshifter, so he never looks the same twice, which was probably the only way to make Glowing-Wolverine-fighting-magician-on-pages-with-no-backgrounds at all interesting. The rest of the Avengers mostly sit around in a magic circle and chit-chat about what’s going on. Dr. Voodoo’s long-deceased brother Daniel is in Agamotto’s realm and tries to help out, and Voodoo freaks out, goes charging into the fight, and sacrifices himself to destroy Agamotto.

Ladies and gentlemen, Brian Michael Bendis, writer of “The New Avengers” and way, way too many of Marvel’s books, just killed the black guy so he could move Dr. Strange back into the Sorcerer Supreme slot. And that’s about 18 months after Bendis himself moved Dr. Voodoo into that same position. What was the point? Bendis hadn’t gotten to kill a random character in too long? Bendis decided he’d be more edgy and exxxxtreme if he killed a black character for no reason?

(Pictured: Brian Michael Bendis, unretouched photo)

On top of that, on the last page, Daimon Hellstrom goes out and scolds a bunch of random New Yorkers because they weren’t genuflecting low enough to the Avengers.Who didn’t really do much beyond sitting on their butts while a non-member, Dr. Voodoo, saved everyone. Why? I dunno, maybe because Brian Michael Bendis is a colossal douchecanoe.

So to sum up: Wolverine does stuff. Dr. Voodoo does stuff. Dr. Strange cries. The rest of the Avengers sit on their butts. Bendis collects a fat paycheck for writing yet another rotten comic book.

Brian Michael Bendis is an extremely lazy and vastly over-rated writer.

Verdict: Thumbs down. And you can add Bendis to the list of writers whose comics I won’t read any more.

Batman: The Return of Bruce Wayne #6

Finally, and only a few weeks late, Grant Morrison drops this bucket of insanity on us. Bruce Wayne appears at the very end of time, dying of an infection by Apokolyptian monster. The mostly-robotic keepers of the end of time can keep him from dying, at least temporarily, and they disguise him as one of their own number. He returns to the present and fights off the current version of the Justice League while Superman, Green Lantern, Booster Gold, and Rip Hunter try to figure out a way to follow him when they don’t even have a time machine anymore. Wonder Woman hits Batman with her Lasso of Truth and learns that his armor is now possessed by Darkseid’s last doomsday weapon while deadly Omega Radiation burns him from the inside out. Is there any way to save Batman and save the world?

Verdict: I think I’m gonna thumbs it down. There was a lot of good stuff here, but it was all just a bit too frantic. And coming after Bruce Wayne made his return last week in “Batman and Robin,” it takes a lot of the oomph and thrill out of this one. Maybe it’ll all look better in the trade paperback…

Batgirl #15

After a great opening where Stephanie tries to explain the ins-and-outs of the Bat Family to Wendy using funny cartoons, we jump to Batgirl beating on a bunch of robed bad guys when she’s interrupted by a guy calling himself the Grey Ghost — actually an obsessive train bomber who Steph corralled a few issues back. Unfortunately, the Grey Ghost’s inept intervention allows the robed guys to kill a university student — and who’s gonna get the blame for that one, huh?

Verdict: Thumbs up. The opening cartoon is just plain wonderful, and the rest of it ain’t bad either. Excellent dialogue, action, humor, you name it. Have I told y’all before how great this comic book is?

Today’s Cool Links:

• Oh, great — J. Michael Straczynski is going to get to make followups to his “Superman: Earth One” comic. But on the bright side, he’s also not going to be ruining the regular Superman and Wonder Woman comics anymore! Has DC finally seen the light on this doofus?
• This letter that Mike Sterling found in an old Wonder Woman comic made me laugh. Especially Robert Kanigher’s response.
• And finally, here’s a mariachi band performing “Welcome to the Jungle”!

Oh, and while I got y’all here — don’t forget the meeting that’s being held TONIGHT about possible future comic conventions in Lubbock. Remember, it’ll happen at 8 p.m. this evening in the Metro Tower/NTS Building downtown, up on the 19th floor. If you’ve got any interest in comic-cons in Lubbock, don’t miss it…

Tiny Titans #33

The two Robin-wannabes, Tim and Jason Toddler, are back, making life tough for regular-Robin. They visit Aunt Harriet‘s Day Care Center and are introduced to the other new students…

That’s Stephanie Brown, the current Batgirl, Carrie Kelley, the Robin from Frank Miller’s “The Dark Knight Returns,” and Cassandra Cain, the ninja Batgirl from a few years ago. And yes, Tim and Jason have brought Robin costumes for everyone, including Jericho, Miss Martian, Kid Devil, and Wildebeest. When Robin and Alfred go to pick up Tim and Jason after school, they end up with a carload of extra Robins, too. And once they all get to the Batcave, Jason makes a new costume so he can be the Red Hood, and Cassandra gets her own Batgirl costume. And there are even more Robins!

Verdict: Thumbs up. This one is awesome and funny from beginning to end. I really enjoyed all the extra guest stars. It’s great the way this comic can appeal to kids and to their grownup parents who know a little more about all the continuity gags being dropped on every page.

Bruce Wayne: The Road Home: Batgirl #1

I wasn’t planning on getting any of these “Road Home” comics, ’cause they just seem like another bunch of crossover comics I didn’t much want to buy. But hey, the “Batgirl” comic is written by Bryan Q. Miller, the writer of the current “Batgirl” series, so it’s like an extra issue of the regular comic! Yay!

Anyway, Bruce Wayne has finally made it back from his spectacularly long trip through time (even though the “Return of Bruce Wayne” comics haven’t wrapped up yet), and for whatever reason, he’s running around Gotham City in a high-tech costume pretending to be a supervillain so he can “test” his fellow crimefighters. Stephanie cat-and-mouses after him for much of the issue before she finally manages to track him down, and he unmasks himself. Stephanie’s reaction surprises even herself…

Verdict: Thumbs up. I loved this one. It’s far more about Stephanie and her methods and reactions as Batgirl as it is about the much-anticipated return of Bruce Wayne. It’s got all the humor, action, and great dialogue we’ve come to expect from the “Batgirl” title, so it’s definitely worth picking up.

Chaos War #2

Hercules’ entire superhero army has already been brought low, taken out by the Chaos King’s access to Nightmare’s abilities to send mortals to sleep. With only himself, Thor, and Amadeus Cho still awake to save a world gone snoresville, Hercules briefly stops time to allow Thor the chance to save more people. Meanwhile, in Hades, Pluto finds his realm of the dead invaded by the Chaos King’s forces — in desperation, he promises to free the dead superheroes and supervillains in his kingdom if they’ll fight to stop the Chaos King — but when Zeus appears to die again, the psychic feedback forces Hercules to drop his time-freezing spell. Herc also summons Eternity, the entity representing all living things, to fight on their side — but he can’t do it, as the Chaos King is his polar opposite — he couldn’t fight him without fighting himself. So finally, Herc summons Sersi of the Eternals, Galactus, the Silver Surfer, and Daimon Hellstrom to serve as the new God Squad.

Verdict: Thumbs up. Nice action, nice dialogue. Nice work on raising the stakes even more in this series, and it’ll be fun to see how many of these “dead” characters actually make successful resurrections when this is all over.

Supergirl #57

Bizarro World is in deep, deep trouble — the Godship is actually a gigantic alien, and it’s much, much too powerful for Supergirl or any of the Bizarros to defeat. Supergirl exposes herself and Bizarro #1 to blue solar radiation, giving them the ability to create even more Bizarros, but it’s still not enough. If the planet’s defense is going to require Bizarrogirl’s aid, will she be able to summon enough courage to get the job done?

Verdict: Ehh, kinda in the middle. The story seems fine, but I’m just not sure that the Bizarros should be in a story this serious and angst-filled — I always enjoy ’em more when they bring a lot of absurdist humor to the story.

Today’s Cool Links:

• Here are some fun Halloween links: 13 great horror comics, the 10 scariest manga, and Mike Mignola’s ten favorite horror movies.
• People, you can go vote for the new leader of the Legion of Super-Heroes! But why isn’t Matter-Eater Lad on the ballot?!
• Kalinara gives us the heads-up on why she thinks Starfire is a great character.
• The Halloween costume industry could really benefit from a tall cold glass of “Please Go Out of Business Forever.”

American Vampire #6

It’s 1936 in Las Vegas, and Police Chief Cashel McCogan is struggling with a vastly expanded population, thanks to the still-being-constructed Hoover Dam, and a shortage of prison space or police officers to deal with the resulting crime wave. He gets some small amount of assistance from two federal agents, Jack Straw and Felicia Book, but two feds aren’t gonna make much of a dent in the crime situation, especially with one very high-profile murder — local businessman Howard Beaulieu, found withered and drained in his hotel room bed. His only companion for the night was a working girl in the employ of the notorious Mr. Smoke. Hey, don’t Mr. Smoke look kinda familiar to y’all?

Verdict: Thumbs up. You might notice that Stephen King’s name isn’t at the top of this comic anymore. Well, he’s moved on with the end of the first storyarc, but Scott Snyder and Rafael Albuquerque are still on board and lightin’ things up. We don’t see much of Pearl Jones or Skinner Sweet this time, but we don’t even miss ’em that much — it’s good fun getting introduced to McCogan and his supporting cast and getting a handle on our new Depression-era Vegas setting. Plenty of time to catch up on our American bloodsuckers soon enough…

Batgirl #14

More vampires! This all gets started when Supergirl shows up in Gotham City to hang out with Stephanie Brown (Not real sure why — I guess it’s just tradition for Batgirls and Supergirls to be friends, kinda like Flashes and Green Lanterns). And when you’re not rockin’ the spandex, Gotham can be as dull as anywhere, so they go to take in an old vampire movie. And due to a spectacularly unlikely accident with spectacularly unlikely hologram technology, there are suddenly 24 black-and-white Draculas running around the city. Unfortunately, they’re able to hurt Supergirl, but the local spectacularly unlikely scientists realize that the Draculas will disappear if they’re staked by high-tech control rods. So Batgirl and Supergirl run all over the city staking cheesy Draculas.

Verdict: Thumbs up. It’s a spectacularly unlikely premise, but it’s all used to cook up some spectacularly awesome jokes. Anything that includes Draculas on Segways and in photobooths, and jokes about Stephanie’s “bat-bra” — well, I’m always in favor of hilarious stuff, right?

B.P.R.D.: Hell on Earth – New World #2

Two major plotlines working out here — first, Johann Kraus does not trust ancient Egyptian mummy Panya, who seems to be trying to get some keys so she can release her hybrid monsters. They both get on Kate Corrigan’s nerves and she gives ’em a well-deserved chewing-out. Meanwhile, Abe Sapien has run into Ben Daimio — long thought either dead or turned into a wendigo — in the Canadian wilderness. They’re both trying to discover where a small town’s population has vanished to. Abe and Ben follow the trail to a local lake, and Abe goes for a swim, finding what one might expect to find in a supposedly bottomless lake nicknamed the Hell’s Kettle…

Verdict: Thumbs up. Great to see some actual character development for Panya, and even more wonderful to see Ben Daimio again. And the last page brings the creepy stuff that Guy Davis seems to do so very well.

Batgirl #13

Stephanie Brown is enjoying a normal collegiate life, if normal includes stuff like “epic ping-pong.” But she gets called out by Proxy, Steph’s new tech manager, to help take care of a shootout. Only thing is it ain’t just a common shootout — the shooter is actually Clayface in disguise. Clayface gets away, but Proxy traces him to a nearby bank, so Batgirl leads Det. Gage and the rest of the Gotham P.D. in, where Steph finds him trying to enter the bank vault in the guise of the bank manager. Of course, this leads to Batgirl fighting a shapeshifter who looks exactly like… Batgirl. Can Steph get out of this without the Gotham cops filling her full of lead?

Verdict: Thumbs up. Nice, self-contained story. Stephanie’s ping-pong battle is great fun, and as always, the dialogue and humor are fantastic. And it’s always fun to see Clayface in a story.

Strange Science Fantasy #2

Scott Morse‘s whacked-out pulp fiction series continues, this time with a story about mankind on the ropes from an invasion of deadly sea life. A Japanese warrior is inspired to forge an armored spacesuit and travels into space to consult with a being called the Cosmic Mind. He tells the Shogunaut that he must destroy a sea-going brute called the Knucklehead. But someone is hiding the true story from the combatants — can the Shogunaut and the Knucklehead find common ground?

Verdict: Thumbs up. Like the first issue, this one is a great experience. Wonderful artwork, wonderful paper, captions that demand the comic be read out loud, and a great one-page backup from Paul Pope.

Today’s Cool Links:

• Project Rooftop has some neat costume designs and artwork from the late, great Mike Wieringo.
• Johanna Draper Carlson ponders the end of the “Cathy” comic strip.
• An art show devoted to the greatest three movies of all time.

Daytripper #8

Brás de Oliva Domingos is now 47, and for the first time, he doesn’t actually appear in this issue. Our focus is on his wife and young son — Brás is traveling on business. But he keeps in touch with frequent phone calls and e-mails, telling them how much he loves them, making up new bedtime stories for his son, and telling them he’s looking forward to coming home soon. And of course, this series being what it is, we all know that’s not going to turn out the way Brás had planned…

Verdict: Thumbs up. Good grief, this is just a great series — very likely the best we’ve seen so far this year. If you’re not reading it, you shoulda been, man. Just two issues left of this one…

Batgirl #12

While Oracle fights against the Calculator inside his own subconscious, Batgirl makes her way through the deathtraps in his secret headquarters. Can Stephanie save Oracle and everyone in Gotham City from Calculator and his techno-zombie virus?

Verdict: Thumbs down. It’s an awesome cover, but I just couldn’t get excited about the story. Do we really need Wendy Harris as a second Oracle?

Birds of Prey #3

The Penguin is hallucinating from blood loss, a bunch of rogue cops attack the team with a couple of tanks, Savant and Creote aren’t actually dead after all and have shown up to kidnap Oracle, the White Canary manages to injure Hawk and force him to switch to his unpowered form, and there’s a secret mastermind — maybe several secret masterminds — behind everything.

Verdict: Thumbs down. There’s just too much going on — and even with all the stuff going on, we’re still not seeing the plot advance quickly enough.

Today’s Cool Links:

• Gavok has an idea on how to make Superman’s walk across America more fun and less lame.
• In related news: Thor walks across America! And Thor battles heart disease!
• All right-thinking Tim Tebow haters will get a kick outta this.

Marvel Super Hero Squad #6

We start out with Reptil and Speedball in their biology class, where their professor accidentally picks up a reality-bending fractal crystal and is turned into the dinosauroid supervillain Stegron. Able to control all reptiles, he quickly hypnotizes Reptil and has him fly him to the Savage Land, a tropical lost world in the middle of Antarctica. Speedball manages to hitch a ride and has the Thing notify the Super Hero Squad to meet him in the Savage Land. Once they’re all there, Ka-Zar, Shanna, and Zabu also show up, and we learn what Stegron’s plot is — he wants to hypnotize the dinosaurs of the Savage Land and lead them in a war against humanity. Can all the heroes manage to defeat all those dinosaurs plus Stegron?

Our second story focuses on Klaw, master of sound and harmonics. He makes big promises to Dr. Doom that he can take out the Super Hero Squad and find lots of fractals, and that he’s so awesome he can even project the legendary Perdue Frequency, which can make anyone who hears it act like a chicken. (Unfortunately, he can’t direct it, so everyone around, including Klaw, ends up acting like a chicken. Obviously, this is hilarious.) Anyway, Klaw hits Super Hero City at the same time as the Squaddies are having epic arguments about what music to listen to during workout sessions. Klaw whups the Squad members easily, leading the heroes to combine their musical tastes to fight sonics with sonics.

Verdict: Thumbs up. Most of it is very pleasantly goofy. If I’ve got anything I really disliked, it’s the Squad members’ band at the end. Let us never again speak of those awful, awful lyrics, okay?

Batgirl #11

Barbara Gordon is hallucinating a life of domestic bliss with Dick Grayson, though she quickly realizes that this is all the fault of the Calculator and starts working out a strategy to strike back at him. Meanwhile, Batgirl is on the run from a few thousand Gotham citizens, including Catwoman, Huntress, and Man-Bat, who have all been taken over by the Calculator’s zombifying techno-virus. She gets some help from Wendy Harris, the Calculator’s daughter, but she still has to figure out how to get to Calculator’s hideout so she can rescue Babs and find a cure for the virus.

Verdict: Thumbs up. It’s mostly one long chase scene, but it’s pretty well-done, with enough of the trademark Batgirl humor to keep things rolling.