People, it’s the weekend. I know you may be used to the idea of starting your weekend by sitting quietly at home, enjoying a light meal of celery and bean curd, and catching up on your sock darning, but the rest of us can’t stand to see you treat yourself that way any more. That’s right — this is an intervention, and we’re going to set you on the path to healing and happier weekends with a little something we call… FRIDAY NIGHT FIGHTS!

I might shoulda saved this evening’s battle ’til somewhere in December… but that’s way, way too far away, so we’re just gonna use it tonight. From January 1995’s “Jolly Ol’ St. Nicholas” story in the Batman Adventures Holiday Special (by Paul Dini and Bruce Timm), here’s Batgirl assisting Detectives Renee Montoya and Harvey Bullock as the mushy menace known as Clayface robs a department store:

There’s kicks-to-the-face… and then there’s kicks-through-the-face…

Prince of Power #1

In the aftermath of Hercules’ death, Athena has orchestrated to put his friend Amadeus Cho, the seventh smartest person on the planet, in charge of the Olympus Group. Amadeus has accepted the position mainly because it gives him the resources to try to locate Hercules, since he’s learned that Herc isn’t in Hades, the Greek god afterlife. So while he runs around beating up supervillains like the Griffin (using Hercules’ magical Adamantine mace and an energy shield developed by Bruce Banner), he’s also got Banner spending a half-trillion dollars’ worth of the Olympus Group’s money to build a machine capable of scanning the entire multiverse for signs of Hercules. Unfortunately, the quantum observer effect means that the simple fact of making a scan of that magnitude creates even more multiverses, making the search vastly more complicated.

After that, Amadeus gets a visit from a guy named Vali Halfling, an Asgardian supervillain with a tendency to fight the Hulk. Halfling tells Amadeus that he has a plan to steal various mythological artifacts from a number of different godly pantheons to enable humans to become actual gods themselves. Amadeus gives Halfling a whuppin’, but realizes that godly omniscience would sure help speed up the quest to find Herc, so he sets off for the first item on the quest list — the Golden Apples of Asgard.

Verdict: Thumbs up. All the usual brilliant characterization, dialogue, humor, and action we’ve come to expect from Greg Pak and Fred van Lente. The battle against the Griffin is entirely excellent, but there are also some wonderful scenes that are very low-key and quiet — Amadeus’ monologue with the incarcerated and generally displeased Delphyne Gorgon, his snake-haired ex-girlfriend, is nice, and the scene with townspeople from Broxton, Oklahoma running a food drive for the recently wrecked Asgard (the entire realm had taken up residence over Oklahoma until the end of the “Siege” crossover) is both awesome and funny.

Batgirl #10

The Calculator has lost it big time. He’s keeping his son Marvin’s corpse around to talk to, and he’s planning revenge on Oracle for keeping his daughter Wendy away from him — ’cause after all, he’s so freakin’ crazy and criminal, he should have all kinds of visitation rights. Oracle suspects he’s about to pull something rotten, and so she’s unplugging all of her Internet connections — and it turns out it’s for a very good reason, ’cause Calculator manages to broadcast a nanite-technovirus over the Internet that lets him turn half the population of Gotham City into robot-zombies, all trying to track down Barbara Gordon — including the students in her classroom and her own father. And as bad as things start with thousands of Gothamites turned into Calculator-controlled drones, it gets much worse when other costumed crimefighters get added to the mix…

Verdict: Thumbs up. Very nice story with a lot of claustrophobic tension. Very funny dialogue between Steph and Detective Gage. Not a lot else to say — just a really good superhero comic…

Secret Six #21

Catman is on his own, torturing and killing anyone who he thinks might have killed his son. Deadshot, Scandal Savage, Ragdoll, and Black Alice are trying to track him down, either to rescue him or to help him. Bane and Jeannette are trying to keep the Secret Six going under their own leadership by hiring a bunch of other metahuman crooks. Catman tracks his next victim down to South Africa — a big superstrong sadist called Loki. Does he have a chance against someone that powerful? And will the remainder of the team tear itself apart without him?

verdict: Another thumbs up. Loved the background material on Catman’s entirely rotten father. Lots of excellent dialogue, too, and a ton of blisteringly gruesome violence. I know there are other comics focusing on supervillains as the protagonists, but this one really is the best one out there.

Green Lantern #53

The Blackest Night is over, and the primary representatives of the various Lantern corps are continuing on with their lives. While Hal Jordan and Carol Ferris try to figure out if they can continue their always-stormy relationship, Sinestro reveals that a white power battery has appeared and demanded to to see Hal. Saint Walker helps the Flash rebury the dead of Coast City, a mysterious someone from Sector 666 is holding secret telepathic conversations with Hector Hammond, and Larfleeze gets manipulated by Lex Luthor. All that, plus Atrocitus is making some very surprising new allies.

Verdict: Thumbs up. The story is fine, if a bit all over the place. Doug Mahnke’s art is what really makes this issue sing. From the blasted surface of the dead planet Ryut, to Hal and Carol flirting in a bar, to Saint Walker’s benedictions in the cemetery, to Sayd‘s look of sorrow as Larfleeze’s captive Guardian, to Luthor’s beautifully thoughtful and evil expressions — they’re all rendered just about as perfectly as I could ever imagine them. There’s no way DC is paying Mahnke enough for work this gorgeous.

Batgirl #9

Stephanie saves a train from a mad — okay, mostly just angry — bomber, while Barbara Gordon continues mentoring the recently-paralyzed Wendy, brother of the late Marvin and daughter of the Calculator. Wendy is generally hostile to getting any help beyond just fixing up electronics. But the Calculator has some evil new plans, including a new binary nanite system that can control and kill people over the phone, and some all-new and all-crazy plans to get rid of Oracle once and for all.

Verdict: Thumbs up. Great and fun superheroics, with plenty of excellently crafted action, dialogue, characterization, and suspense, courtesy of writer Bryan Q. Miller, and some outstanding action-packed and downright cinematic artwork from Lee Garbett.

Booster Gold #31

This is Dan Jurgens’ last issue on this title. Booster and Skeets head into the city to beat up some high-tech thieves. Booster is still angry about having to help ensure the past destruction of Coast City in the last issue, as well as being worried about his sister Michelle, who is still upset at the death of her boyfriend in the same disaster. Unfortunately, Booster isn’t paying close attention, and he accidentally deflects an energy blast the wrong way and kills a little girl’s dog. He can’t console the girl or replace the dog, and he leaves the scene feeling like he’s still a colossal failure. Can Booster make peace with his sister and make amends for the dog’s accidental death?

Verdict: Thumbs up. This series has had its problems, but this is a pretty nice issue, mainly because it’s low-key and simple, with more emphasis on emotions and character than on convoluted time travel.

Billy Batson and the Magic of Shazam! #15

Freddy Freeman has accepted power from Black Adam, turning himself into Black Adam Junior. Captain Marvel and Black Adam battle clear to Egypt, neither able to hurt the other, while Adam seeks a scarab necklace that he believes will make him vastly more powerful. Mary, meanwhile, alternately beats up on Freddy and tries to talk some sense into him. Eventually, Mary and Mr. Tawny go to see if the wizard can help out, leaving Cap to take on Adam and Freddy solo.

Verdict: Ehh, neither one. It seems perfectly well done, but it’s just not keeping me interested.

Oh, one final note: y’all be here tomorrow — I got a special announcement to make…

Batgirl #8

Stephanie has her big meeting with her ex-boyfriend — Tim Drake, now calling himself Red Robin. He’s angry that she’s back in costume risking her life again, and she’s angry that he keeps treating her like she’s useless. But the League of Assassins apparently followed Tim back to Gotham, and they’ve targeted a heck of a lot of people for death. Stephanie and Tim put on their fancy dress duds to go visit a ritzy party where the assassins plan to attack Dr. Leslie Thompkins. They manage to rescue Dr. Thompkins and the other partygoers by stomping on a dozen of Ra’s al Ghul’s assassins… but there are a heck of a lot more assassins running around Gotham tonight…

Verdict: Thumbs up. Very nice action. Great characterization and dialogue. And lots of excellently funny stuff, including the robot drones programmed to speak like fortune cookies, Stephanie’s absolutely perfect zing on the Red Robin costume, and the wonderful patter between Stephanie and Tim.

Red Robin #10

I went ahead and picked this one up because it’s the second part of the story from “Batgirl.” In the aftermath of the big fight, Steph gets to meet Tim’s most recent ex — Prudence, a bald killer for the League of Assassins who’s been assigned to kill Batgirl. So to Tim’s amazement, his “completely useless” ex-girlfriend beats the professional assassin down. And it comes out that Tim was a recent leader of the League of Assassins himself, which doesn’t go over very well with Stephanie. Then a bunch of stuff happens that I had a little trouble following. Vicki Vale is in there, for some reason, and Lucius Fox’s daughter, and a bunch of assassins in funny costumes.

Verdict: Thumbs down, solely because I didn’t know all the background players. The thing Marvel does excellently that DC doesn’t even attempt is putting recap pages at the front of every comic. You don’t increase readership by making things too confusing for new readers to catch on to.

Tails of the Pet Avengers #1

The Pet Avengers, from the recently completed miniseries and the soon-to-begin ongoing series, are back in a one-shot full of short solo adventures. Frog Thor returns to his frog tribe in Central Park to fight off alligators and ponder whether his godlike power is too powerful for his tribe’s own good. Zabu fights off some raptors and adopts some new kids into his family. Ms. Lion helps save a cruise ship from poisoners. Lockjaw battles Mad-Dog for the Inhumans’ Terrigen Mists. Lockheed helps make a lonely girl’s prom night perfect. Redwing must deal with unwanted help as he stops jewel thieves.

Verdict: Thumbs up. Fun stories for kids of all ages. Heck, there’s not a bad story in the whole bunch.

Batgirl #7

Batman has been shot down by a trio of supervillains so gambling queen Roulette can take bets on who will manage to kill him first. Batgirl gets ditched by bratty Damian Wayne, the new pre-teen Robin, so Oracle gets her a shiny new Batgirl-Cycle so she can make it in time to help. At that point, it’s Robin and Batgirl, plus a wounded Batman, vs. Dr. Phosphorus, Roxy Rocket, and Riot, with the Dark Knight’s life on the line…

Verdict: Thumbs up. Nicely frantic action, lots of great dialogue and banter, and great characterizations. Bryan Q. Miller has a talent for writing incredibly charismatic superheroes — even Damian is likeable in this, and everyone hates Damian!

Marvel Super Hero Squad #2

I had no intention of ever picking this series up — from the character designs, I assumed that all the stories would boil down to “We can stop Doctor Doom… with the power of FRIENDSHIP!” What changed my mind? I watched a couple episodes of the cartoon series — namely, the pilot episode (see here for Part II and Part III) and this amazing little thing called “Mental Organism Designed Only for Kisses” (see here for Part II and Part III). So it’s a good deal goofier and more subversive than it looks on first glance, and I decided that made the comic series worth checking out.

Anyway, this issue is dedicated to Valentine’s Day and all things love-related. We start out with a trio of supervillainesses — Enchantress, Mystique, and Screaming Mimi — trying to use their feminine wiles to get the good guys in the Super Hero Squad to give them the awesomely-powerful superpower-granting crystals called fractals. While Enchantress uses her magic to ensnare Wolverine, Thor, the Falcon, and the Silver Surfer (though Hulk is completely immune, ’cause all he wants to do is fight monsters), Mystique impersonates Ms. Marvel to try to get Iron Man to lead her to the fractals, and Screaming Mimi hangs out with Hulk mainly for something entertaining to do. Our second story features teen dinosaur-transformer Reptil, who is hoping Valentine’s Day will mean all the girls in school will be swooning over him. And finally, the rest of the “Squaddies” learn who Hulk’s true love is…

Verdict: Thumbs up. Very cute stuff. Not particularly edgy, but it’s going to be fun for all-ages readers, or for anyone who enjoys the cartoon.

Reed Gunther #3

Rough and tough (but not real smart) cowboy Reed Gunther and his bear Sterling are waiting on a train so they and Reed’s kinda-sorta gal-pal Starla can go after the dastardly Mr. Picks, who’s stolen a bunch of cave monsters so he can display them and make a fortune. But the train won’t let bears aboard, so Reed smuggles Sterling into an empty cattle car. While Reed and Starla travel in style, the old idol packed into the car with Sterling starts floating and glowing… and making monsters, including a steel-driving railroad zombie. Eventually, everyone makes it to Topeka, but can they keep Mr. Picks from finding out about idol’s other powers? All that plus pinups, a sketchbook, and a guest appearance by Grover Cleveland! Holy baloney, Grover Cleveland!

Verdict: Thumbs up. Good all-ages Western fun from Shane and Chris Houghton. The artwork combines cartoonish, exaggerated characters with lots and lots of detail on everything else. Lots and lots of excellent humor, and the zombie is good and scary, too.

Batgirl #6

Stephanie got shot in the head last issue — well, grazed only, which is a good thing, ’cause it’d mean this series ended too early. At any rate, she escapes from the ambulance with Oracle’s help, spars with the always-attitudinal Robin, and gets ordered by Batman to stop pursuing the case of her kidnapped friend, Francisco Gracia. Of course, she ignores him. In fact, she and Robin start their own independent investigation, interviewing the kidnap victim’s girlfriend to find out that Francisco’s father has a bad gambling problem, and he’s made a deal to get the debt erased — Roulette, a slinky villain who runs a gladiatorial arena and casino, is going to take bets on three villains who are hoping to kill Batman.

Verdict: Thumbs up. This is turning into a really fun superhero comic. Great dialogue and humor, excellent action, metric tons of personality and smarts. It’s fun watching Stephanie try to fit her less-angsty personality into the mostly dysfunctional Bat-family. Favorite moments this issue: Stepanie and Damien’s interrogation of Francisco’s girlfriend, and the great dialogue between Dick Grayson and Babs Gordon.

Booster Gold #28

Booster smacks around the Royal Flush Gang, then gets called back into the timestream for another chronal crisis. In this case, it’s a mission he’d prefer to skip — he has to save the shuttle mission that ended with astronaut Hank Henshaw becoming the evil Cyborg Superman. Unfortunately, he’s not there to prevent the disaster — he’s supposed to make sure the shuttle goes into space as scheduled to make sure Henshaw’s position as a supervillain isn’t prevented. Meanwhile, Booster’s sister Michelle, on the run through time, realizes that she’s stuck in Coast City mere hours before the Cyborg Superman blows the city to cinders. Our second feature focuses on Jaime Reyes, the Blue Beetle. Concerned that his Scarab is acting up, he and his friends take a trip to Egypt to visit the pyramid where the original Blue Beetle found the Scarab in the ’40s. Unfortunately, his attempt to get the Scarab back to normal may actually be too successful…

Verdict: Thumbs up. Lots of fun stuff here — the Royal Flush Gang makes for entertaining cannon fodder for Booster, and it’s kinda nice to get to see the Cyborg Superman again in all his inglorious glory. The backup Blue Beetle story might be even better, with one of the better cliffhangers I’ve seen in these second features.

Tiny Titans #23

Robin’s having to share his home with a whole lot of penguins and bunnies. Bad enough they’re filling his bathtub with ice and trying to get him to eat carrots and fish for breakfast, but they’ve scared all the bats out of the Batcave. And Batman wants his bats back in the Batcave ASAP! Can Batgirl, Batmite, two familiar toddlers, and a bunch of miniature Batman costumes fool the Dark Knight Detective? And where did all those bats go anyway?

Verdict: Thumbs up. It’s an awesome and hilarious story, and that should be enough, but then Baltazar and Franco show us, on the Bat-Computer, the Tiny Titans version of Two-Face:

That may be the coolest Two-Face ever.

And there’s this:

The Tiny Titans versions of Jason Todd and Tim Drake, the first two post-Dick Grayson Robins. I laughed out loud when I saw that. Does this mean we can look forward to Stepanie Brown, Damian Wayne, and Carrie Kelly showing up in “Tiny Titans”?

Batgirl #5

There are a series of arsons targeting a building development on the rougher end of Gotham, and Batgirl tracks down the arsonist, a weirdo named Diesel who has gasoline for blood. Batman and Robin (Dick Grayson and bratty Damian Wayne) show up to grab the glory, and to stop Diesel from torching Robin, Batgirl hits both of them with some freeze-arangs. As expected, this makes both Dick and Damian very snippy, which makes Barbara Gordon, Stephanie’s mentor, very snippy. Once they’re off the clock, Barbara meets a cop that her dad is trying to set her up with and proceeds to get snippy on him for no real reason, and Stephanie spies on a dishy classmate whose dad may be involved in shady business connected to the arsons. Stephanie later has an amusing argument with Damian and tries to meet up with her classmate for an improvised date, only to run into a bunch of kidnappers with murder on their minds.

Verdict: Thumbs up. Outstanding dialogue, funny situations, and top-notch superheroics. Stephanie is an extremely charming lead, Barbara is almost as much fun as she was in “Birds of Prey,” and even the normally insufferable Damian comes across as merely a ten-year-old pill. This book is getting some of the best buzz of any DC series right now, and it’s still early in its run, so there’s time for you to jump aboard and enjoy the ride.

Secret Six #16

The Six get hired to help a serial killer escape from the police? But it turns out that one of his victims actually hired the Six, so too bad about your drastically shortened lifespan, Mr. Serial Killer! But they’ve been found out by Black Alice, a somewhat nutty gothpunk with the power to duplicate the powers of any magic-based superhero or villain. And she’s willing to blackmail them into letting her join the group. They stop off at the nudie bar where Scandal’s sweetie works when the rest of the team shows up and tells Alice to get lost. Then the cops show up, Black Alice steals Jeanette’s banshee powers and beats up on the cops… and the rest of the Six. Is there any way to calm her down and get her to lay off?

Verdict: Thumbs up. Good grief, Black Alice is awesome. I mean, the rest of the group is fine — Ragdoll gets to crack his usual ton of great one-liners. But Black Alice is just the bee’s knees.

Dr. Horrible #1

If you loved “Dr. Horrible’s Sing-Along Blog” — the genre-busting Emmy-winning web-based musical-supervillain-romantic-tragicomedy created by “Buffy”-creator Joss Whedon and family, and starring Neil Patrick Harris, Nathan Fillion, and Felicia Day… Wow, I’ve already forgotten how this sentence started. Anyway, Dark Horse Comics just put out a one-shot comic about Dr. Horrible! The story is written by Zack Whedon, who is not only Joss Whedon’s brother but one of the screenwriters! This looks like a prequel, with Dr. Horrible’s origin and his earliest misadventures. See Dr. Horrible plant bombs in parking meters! See his first pain-filled confrontations with the heroic but dim-witted Captain Hammer! See the whinnying villainy of Bad Horse! See Dr. Horrible’s terrifying conveyance, the Horrible Mobile! See Dr. Horrible’s plot to even the odds against his arch-nemesis by giving himself Captain Hammer’s powers!

Verdict: Thumbs up. Loooooved it. Great story, great art. Don’t know what else I could say about it — if you were a fan of the “Dr. Horrible” miniseries, then you’re probably going to love this one, too. Here’s hoping they’ll be able to turn this into an ongoing series.

Batgirl #4

I’ve had enough people tell me this was a good series that it finally wore down my resistance. For those new to the series, it stars Stephanie Brown, who used to be the Spoiler and, briefly, Robin. She’s now taken up the mantle of Batgirl, with the technological assistance of Barbara Gordon, the first Batgirl and the current wheelchair-bound super-hacker Oracle. Much of this story is told during a blackout in Gotham City — Barbara needs to see to a personal matter at Leslie Thompkins’ clinic, leaving Stephanie to take care of much of the city’s chaos by herself. She stops a purse-snatching and takes on the electricity-powered supervillain Livewire.

Verdict: Thumbs up. Outstanding dialogue and lots of good, humorous situations going on. The subplot with Wendy, formerly the Teen Titans’ resident code-monkey before she was attacked and paralyzed by a shapeshifting demon dog, was very good. It’s too bad “Birds of Prey” isn’t around anymore, but I’m glad to see there’s still a place in the DCU for Barbara Gordon.

The Unwritten #7

Tom Taylor is stuck in a French prison, suspected in the brutal murders of a half-dozen people — and he’s just met Frankenstein’s monster, who seems to want to help him, except Tom doesn’t want to believe he exists. On his way back to his cell, he’s attacked by a bunch of guards who’ve been paid to kill him, but he’s saved by Savoy, his cellmate — and one of the guards is accidentally killed. Lizzie Hexam, meanwhile, has gotten herself sent to the same prison, hoping to help Tom out of his predicament. Tom and Savoy are placed in isolation cells after the guard’s death, and Savoy reveals that he’s not really in jail for any crime — he’s a journalist who bribed his way into the prison so he could write about Tom. And while Tom is telling the story from “The Song of Roland” — when they see a vision of Roland himself, blowing his horn to summon Charlemagne. Does this portend more bad things for Tom? Probably…

Verdict: Thumbs up. Weird, spooky, literary stuff. Oh no, not literary! Settle down, young ‘un, it won’t hurt you to learn something once in a while. I am grooving on the “Song of Roland” stuff, and I’m dying to see how it’s all going to play out.

Okay, folks, it’s Friday night, and I’m in the mood for a big thick steamin’ bowl of Wolf Brand Whupass!

In other words, it’s way past time for FRIDAY NIGHT FIGHTS!

For tonight, I dug out my recent copy of Ambush Bug: Year None #1 by Keith Giffen, Robert Loren Fleming, and Al Milgrom, in which the Golden Age Batgirl gives poor Ambush Bug a moderately undeserved kick to the face:

Good gravy train, she kicked him so hard his head exploded!

Blondes in short skirts and masks kicking you so hard your head explodes is what Friday Night Fights is all about…