Batwoman #0

Did you need another introduction to Batwoman? Just in case you were a schmuck and hadn’t read her story earlier this year in Detective Comics? Well, that’s what this issue is. The new series will start up soon enough, so we get Bruce Wayne following Batwoman and Kate Kane around incognito for a few days trying to figure out what makes her tick.

Verdict: Thumbs up. It’s great to see J.H. Williams III’s artwork again — and this time, Amy Reeder is apparently doing half of the pencils — it looks like Williams is going to be drawing the Batwoman side of the equation, while Reeder will draw whatever Kate is up to. Will it work? I have no idea — I need more than one issue to evaluate this stuff, man.

Madame Xanadu #29

Well, crud, it’s the final issue of this comic. Nimue spends some time instructing her new apprentice, Charlotte Blackwood, in the intricacies of the Tarot, the crystal ball, and the benefits and disadvantages of being able to see the future. She cleans up a loose end — Betty Reynolds, last seen as the innocent woman forced to serve as Morgaine le Fey’s host body, and now living a thoroughly rotten life because of it — and she has one final meeting with the Phantom Stranger, in which both of them contemplate the coming age of superheroes.

Verdict: Thumbs up. Not happy to see that this series is ending, but I’m glad to see that Matt Wagner was able to bring Amy Reeder back for one final issue. And her art is as top-notch as ever here — beautifully expressive work all over, though my favorite is the snarl that Nimue greets the Phantom Stranger with — if there’s an award for “Best Facial Expression of the Year,” that one should be in the running.

Detective Comics #871

Scott Snyder and Jock make their debuts on this title with Dick Grayson opening up a new forensics lab for the Gotham PD. After discovering that a teenager who morphed into a crocodilian monster was actually dosed with Killer Croc’s mutagen from the police evidence locker, Dick investigates as Batman — the teenager’s family butler is soon killed by the lady of the house — who’s been exposed to a mind-control patch developed by the Mad Hatter. When Batman finally traces the stolen evidence to a former cop, he learns about some guy called “The Dealer” who runs illegal auctions selling villain paraphernalia. But before the cop can spill too much, he’s killed by a vine that erupts out of his throat. Who’s behind all this?

Verdict: Thumbs up. We’ve all gotten to know Scott Snyder through “American Vampire,” so I figured this was going to be worth reading. Very nice character work with both Dick Grayson and Commissioner Gordon, and I love the developing mystery so far. I’ve got my suspicions of who the Dealer really is, but we’ll see how it all plays out…

Billy the Kid’s Old Timey Oddities and the Ghastly Fiend of London #3

Billy and Sproul have cornered Edward Hyde, the ape-faced freak who seems to be Jack the Ripper — but then he turns into H.H. Holmes, who Isadora identifies as the Ripper. Billy and Sproul chase him, but Billy has already been identified by the police as the Ripper, and he runs out of bullets just as he runs into an angry mob. They beat the snot out of him, but he’s rescued by Hyde — it appears that Hyde is the good version of Holmes. Now the group must try to figure out a way to get rid of Holmes without killing innocent Hyde. And in the backup story, the Goon and Franky chase after the hobo who stole their weiners. The Goon beats up an alligator, but will he have such an easy time when he has to fight an army of hobos?

Verdict: Thumbs up. Good story, fun art, and some entertaining whuppins. And the Goon story is chock full o’ hobos, so that’s another one in the WIN column.

Batman and Robin #17

Paul Cornell takes over this title from Grant Morrison and gives us Dick Grayson and Damian Wayne taking on a really twisted bridal party in the process of investigating the death and disinterment of a woman named Una Nemo, one of Bruce Wayne’s former flames. And the question that seems to be on everyone’s minds — what are we missing? And how does the answer to that question affect Batman and Robin?

Verdict: Thumbs up. A seriously freaky story — excellently weird villains from beginning to end and nicely bizarre mystery to clear up.

Today’s Cool Links:

• Here’s a video that compiles every anime opening ever. Really!
• Holy cow, everyone check your hotel room peepholes…
• This is a little creepy and a little heartwarming and a lot funny.
• So there’s this “only property owners get to vote” garbage getting pushed, and I’m wondering if you lose your right to vote when you take out a mortgage? Do you get extra votes if you buy more than one house?

Detective Comics #863

Serial mutilator Cutter has kidnapped Kate Kane’s cousin Bette — and he’s got an accomplice as crazy as he is, a heavily bandaged woman who wants Cutter to cut off Bette’s ears so she can have them. Bette used to be a superhero called Flamebird, but she wasn’t wildly successful and she’s kinda tied up now, so she doesn’t have much of a way to resist. Batwoman is trying to track Cutter down (paralleled by how Bruce Wayne tried to track Cutter down years ago, the first time he kidnapped someone), but can she find them in time to save Bette?

Meanwhile, in the backup feature starring the Question, Renee Montoya and the Huntress have been caught on Oolong Island, international haven for mad scientists, and get tortured to find out what they’re doing there. Soon, they’re brought before Veronica Cale, president-for-life of Oolong, and they persuade her that directing them to the smuggler they’re after is a lot easier than having to deal with a bunch of superheroes who’ll eventually come looking for them.

Verdict: Thumbs up. Great art, great storytelling. And that’s for both the main feature and the backup. Don’t know that I need to say a lot more than that — this is just a wonderful, wonderful comic book. Greg Rucka is going to be greatly missed when he leaves this book.

Madame Xanadu #21

This series finally leave pre-Arthurian Britain and returns to 1950s America, where Nimue has been ambushed by her sister Morgaine le Fey and buried under the rubble inside her shop. Luckily, the mysterious, super-strong, telepathic detective John Jones comes to her rescue. While Morgaine cavorts with her suburban Satanists, Madame Xanadu and Detective Jones locate a group of mobsters who have transported a strange magical artifact from Chicago to New York. They take out the gangsters fairly easily (and Mr. Jones gets to show off some more of his unearthly talents) and finally gain control of Morgaine’s artifact. But what is it, and what place does it play in Morgaine’s plans?

Verdict: Thumbs up. So very, very glad we’re finally continuing this part of the story again. Aside from getting more of Amy Reeder Hadley‘s fantastic art, we also get a lot more of the disguised Martian Manhunter, and the story is proceeding very well. Weirdly, one of my favorite parts of this issue was the dialogue between the gangsters, both playful and menacing at the same time.

Detective Comics #862

We get a look at how the serial mutilator Cutter was created, courtesy of a flashback with Bruce Wayne. And we get a look at Cutter today — with knives imbedded into his skin to make it easier to cut superheroes like Batwoman when she comes after him. In the aftermath after Cutter get away, Kate Kane gives her college-going cousin Bette a call — Cutter’s attacks are making Bette consider putting on her old Flamebird costume again. And it might be a good idea, too, cause Cutter actually has Bette targeted. Our second feature sees the Question and Huntress turn to Oracle for help, head out to take down a high-tech computer hub for a bunch of human smugglers, and later find themselves on the biggest mad-science island in the world.

Verdict: Thumbs up. Still enjoying the ongoing Batwoman story. I want someone to give Greg Rucka an ongoing “Batwoman” comic to write — this is all just too good to have to give up when Bruce Wayne eventually comes back. And the backup feature is incredible fun. Cully Hamner’s artwork is just so wonderful and expressive — it’s great to see comics starring three different women who all actually look distinctive from one another. And Babs Gordon plays wheelchair basketball. I want to say that feels weird… but of course Babs Gordon plays wheelchair basketball!

JSA All-Stars #4

Sand is back in action after a very, very long hiatus. And he’s got bad news for everyone — Johnny Sorrow has summoned the King of Tears, an eldritch monster-god, with the reluctant help of the Injustice Society. By the time the All-Stars make it out to where the Injustice Society is waiting, the King of Tears is still in the process of rising from the earth, and it’s a knock-down, drag-out fight from there. King Chimera apparently gets killed by Johnny Sorrow, who gives Stargirl an ultimatum — the King of Tears will kill everyone unless she surrenders and gives up her weapons. How bad are things about to get for Courtney?

Verdict: Ehh, thumbs down. The artwork on this one is entirely freaky, and not in any good way. Johnny Sorrow is probably one of my favorite DC villains, but his characterization seems a bit off, too.

Green Arrow #30

Okay, I got this for the “Blackest Night” crossover and for that cool inversion of the famous “Green Lantern/Green Arrow” cover from the ’70s. Green Arrow has been taken over by a Black Lantern ring because he once died and was brought back to life. While his zombie-side tries and fails to kill Hal Jordan, Black Canary, Connor Hawke, and Mia Dearden, the real Oliver Queen ends up watching it all from the inside, mostly helplessly.

Verdict: Thumbs down. At least Ollie wasn’t as uselessly dull as Wonder Woman when she got take over by the black ring in the “Blackest Night: Wonder Woman” miniseries, but it’s still not a very interesting story. I dig the artwork by the awesomely-named Diogenes Neves, though…

Batman and Robin #9

And speaking of zombies, this issue had several resurrected dead people, and it isn’t even part of the “Blackest Night” stuff at all.

We start out with Batwoman, who is, um, dead. She was injured terribly in the cave-in from last issue, but ultimately, it was a suicide, assisted by Dick Grayson. The plan: Batman, the Knight, and the Squire will dig out the buried Lazarus Pit again, and then dunk Batwoman back in it. Meanwhile, the resurrected clone of Bruce Wayne has traveled to Gotham City, where he’s trying to kill Alfred Pennyworth and Damian Wayne, still recovering from spinal replacement surgery. The Batman clone is starting to rot from within pretty quickly, but he’s still got plenty of time to commit low-IQ mayhem. Back in England, Batwoman is successfully revived, but will she and Batman be able to make it back to America in time to save Damian from being thrown off the top of Wayne Tower?

Verdict: Thumbs up. Nicely claustrophobic action — can Damian even survive fighting a zombie clone Batman when he’s wearing a neck brace? Great personality work, too. Batwoman’s father has his first meeting with Batman and looks entirely delighted, and it’s great fun read dialogue between the Knight and the Squire. And there are a couple hilarious keeping-the-secret-identity-secret moments — Damian’s mock-innocent “Who ARE all these terrible people?” and the not-heterosexual Batwoman just flat-out flirting with Dick Grayson, partly for the sake of her secret ID, and partly because Dick is, frankly, such an over-confident dork.

Green Lantern #50

The Black Lantern zombies are attacking Coast City, and the various power ring slingers — and their new human recruits, including Green Lantern Ganthet, Red Lantern Mera, Orange Lantern Lex Luthor, Sinestro Corps member Scarecrow, Blue Lantern Flash, Indigo Tribe member Atom, and Star Sapphire Wonder Woman — are busy busting superpowered zombies. But they’re all in trouble when the Black Lantern version of the Spectre shows up — he’s too powerful for any of them to take down. So Hal makes a pretty desperate gamble — from his time serving as the Spectre’s human host, he remembers that the Spectre was afraid of Parallax, the fear-based cosmic parasite that empowers the Sinestro Corps and formerly operated from inside Hal. So he brings Parallax back and lets it take him over. Why do I figure that’s going to be a bad, bad move?

Verdict: Thumbs up. I’m not real fond of the idea of bringing Parallax back for yet another round, but the rest of the comic is just too much fun. The return of Aquababy, Larfleez and Luthor brawling over who gets the orange rings, Scarecrow’s absolute glee over his ring, Hal’s brief service in the Black Lantern Corps (and that means the only rings he hasn’t worn yet are Indigo and Violet… and the inevitable White Lantern), and Doug Mahnke’s fantastic, gory, glorious artwork. Sure, some of the crossover books aren’t so good, but the comics carrying the main story? They’re still rocking.

Detective Comics #861

Batman and Batwoman are both on the trail of a serial killer who abducts college students, then cuts off parts of their bodies — hands in one case, the lower jaw of another. Batwoman encounters the killer, nicknamed Cutter by the police, and is able to save his victim, though he gets away. After the fight, Kate Kane visits her cousin, Bette Kane, college student and former Teen Titan, to see that she’s not in danger. Bette tells her not to worry, but we know how that’s going to turn out, right?

Verdict: Thumbs up. Good art, nice thriller, interesting mystery, and it’s always nice to see Flamebird, even if she’s running around as a college student instead of a superhero.

Madame Xanadu #19

A flashback issue, all the way back to the days before Camelot. We get to know Nimue as the adventurous deer-chasing girl she used to be and Morgana as a deceitful, conniving princess. We watch mankind grow from cavemen to more civilized people, even as Morgana schemes to put them all under her thumb.

Verdict: Thumbs down. Just didn’t feel a big thrill with this one.

Detective Comics #860

The conclusion of Batwoman’s origin story opens with Kate Kane pulling undercover surveillance work from inside a sleazy bar. When the place gets busted by the Gotham City Police Department, she runs into her old flame Renee Montoya, who thinks she’s hit bottom and turned into a bar skank. However, Kate’s been collecting intelligence on gunrunners — she busts them up, but her father busts her later — he’s discovered that she’s been stealing military gear from the base. He tells her to drop the crimefighting nonsense, but she insists that, without the military, this is her way to serve the greater good. Her father agrees to let her, but insists she take on extensive combat training and study while he rebuilds her makeshift base and gets her an actual superhero costume. After that, we jump back to the present day, where Batwoman gets her confirmation that the twisted maniac Alice was actually Kate’s twin sister Elizabeth, who she’d believed died years ago.

Verdict: Thumbs up. More freakin’ outstanding storytelling and art from Greg Rucka and J.H. Williams III. It’s great that this comic is so amazingly fun and mind-blowingly excellent.

Madame Xanadu #18

Nimue’s sister Morgaine le Fey has returned to the mortal world after taking over the transformed body of 1950s housewife Betty Reynolds. She spent hundreds of years refining her magic and living amongst goblins, and she’s grade-A certified bananas. The two sisters quarrel, magic attacks get thrown, and Nimue ends up buried under her own house. Meanwhile, detective John Jones is tracking a related case using his unearthly powers of telepathy.

Verdict: Thumbs up. I liked this one a lot less than previous issues, though. Morgaine’s story just doesn’t come across as particularly compelling, and beyond that, there’s mostly a lot of magic zapping. Gotta say I love seeing the Martian Manhunter in here, even if he’s still running around in a trenchcoat and fedora.

Booster Gold # 27

The Black Lantern Blue Beetle is running amok, threatening Booster, Skeets, the new Blue Beetle, Booster’s ancestor, Daniel Carter (wearing his always-spiffy Supernova costume), and Booster’s possible ancestor, Rose Levin. They’re not making much headway against him, since it’s almost impossible to harm the Black Lantern zombies, so Booster makes a strategic retreat through time to Rip Hunter’s hideout. Realizing they need something that emits a lot of light to break the connection between the black ring and its undead host, Booster, Skeets, and Jaime visits Ted Kord’s mothballed HQ in Kord Industries to get Ted’s old light gun. Will it be enough to stop the Zombie Beetle before anyone else dies?

Verdict: Thumbs up. Nothing to earthshaking — just a nice story, with a bit of hitting, a bit of superhero angst, and a nice solution to the problem of the Black Lantern rings.

Detective Comics #859

The origin of Batwoman continues, as we join Kate during her time as a cadet at West Point. She’s at the top of her class, but the brass finds out she’s a lesbian. She’s given the chance to say it’s all a mistake, never to happen again, so she can stay in the Army, but she chooses to maintain her honor — she admits her sexual orientation and accepts her discharge. She breaks the news to her dad, who is proud of her for keeping her integrity. Directionless, Kate throws herself into a hedonistic lifestyle, meets up with and starts a doomed romance with Gotham cop Renee Montoya, and has her first run-in with the Batman after she fights off a mugger. In the backup story, Renee Montoya, as the Question, tracks the human smuggling ring, with the assistance of another superhero.

Verdict: Thumbs up. Really powerful storytelling. Kate Kane and her dad are both really controlled people, emotionally, not given to outward displays of any kind — but this is a deeply emotional and fantastic story, beautifully emphasizing just how off-kilter the military’s Don’t-Ask-Don’t-Tell policies are. Greg Rucka is doing a great job writing both of these stories. Lots of detail, outstanding characterization, and wonderful dialogue, helped out by J.H. Williams III’s heartstoppingly beautiful artwork in the main story and by Cully Hamner’s less spectacular but still great art in the Question backup.

Detective Comics #858

We’re finally going to be treated to Batwoman’s origin. Most of this story is set 20 years in the past, when Kate Kane and her twin sister Beth were army brats living with their butt-kicking military parents. Unfortunately, the family gets moved to Brussells for an assignment with NATO, and one day, Kate, Beth, and their mother are all kidnapped by a terrorist group. In the backup feature starring the Question, we finally get the end to the first storyarc, as Renee Montoya escapes from the kidnapping ring and then tracks the smugglers down to a freighter preparing to sail with a cargo of abducted women. Can she manage to take down the whole crew by herself and save everyone?

Verdict: Thumbs up. The Batwoman story is simple and straightforward, and in a way, predictable. But it wouldn’t be a Bat-origin if there weren’t tragedy involved. And as always, mad kudos to J.H. Williams III’s artwork, which is richly painted in the present and more simply penciled — but still beautiful and emotional and thrilling — for the sequences in the past. The ending of the Question story is perfect as well — Greg Rucka wrote both, and he’s doing an outstanding job with this comic.

Green Lantern #47

The Blackest Night rages across the universe. On Ysmault, the homeworld of the Red Lanterns, four of the demonic Five Inversions have risen as Black Lanterns, and we get a rare bit of good news — the Black Lanterns can’t kill the Red Lanterns — since their rings keep them alive, tearing out their hearts doesn’t affect them at all. Things aren’t going so well on Korugar, where Black Lanterns Abin Sur and Arin Sur are giving Hal Jordan, Sinestro, Carol Ferris, and Indigo-1 a good fight. On the reborn undead planet of Xanshi, John Stewart is walking into one colossal ambush. And on Okaara, Agent Orange is badly outnumbered by Black Lanterns — and he may not want the help that’s on his way.

Verdict: Thumbs up. As dull as the main “Blackest Night” book was, this one is much, much more interesting and exciting. Though the Black Lantern zombies are everywhere, it’s all a great deal less silly here. It also helps that Doug Mahnke’s artwork is so freakin’ awesome.

Detective Comics #857

So it’s the end of our first storyarc, as Kate Kane bails on the ritzy party to fight Alice and her goons. Abbot and his shapeshifting pals tag along to help out. Alice has kidnapped Kate’s father, a colonel at the local military base — the plan is to take a big shipment of chemical weapons, hijack a plane over Gotham, and gas the whole city into extinction. No big spoiler that Batwoman saves the city — it’s what happens during her confrontation with Alice that’s really interesting. In the backup feature, the Question continues her investigation of the kidnapping ring.

Verdict: Thumbs up. I haven’t really said enough about the amazing artwork here by J.H. Williams III. Every panel is a masterpiece of design and layout — perhaps none better than the first three pages, especially the way pages 2 and 3 mirror each other, or the yin-yang battle between Batwoman and Alice. This is developing into one of the richest and most rewarding comics out there, and you should go pick yourself up a copy as soon as you can.

The Incredible Hercules #135

Hercules’ name may be on the cover, but he doesn’t actually appear inside this issue. Instead, the emphasis is all on boy genius Amadeus Cho, who is simultaneously playing D&D with as a child with evil boy genius Pythagoras Dupree, and fighting during World War II against Doctor Japanazi, the Man with Two Evil Axis Brains! But does Amadeus have a chance to win when his foes are able to determine everything that can happen to him?

Verdict: Thumbs up. This is the most abstractly brainy comic I’ve read in a while, and what makes that even more awesome is that it didn’t make me feel like a moron when I read it. Sure, it’s got crazy theoretical comic-book super-science, but it’s crazy theoretical comic-book super-science that I can understand. On top of that, the D&D theme is fun, and Dr. Japanazi is pure hilarious.

Batman and Robin #3

While Batman interrogates Professor Pyg’s fire-powered meta-terrorist (by zooming around the city in the Batmobile and holding him about a quarter-inch above the asphalt), Robin finally wakes up in Pyg’s hideout just before the bad doctor is preparing to lobotomize a girl named Sasha, one of his artificially doll-faced victims. Pyg introduces himself to Robin by… doing a really creepy sexy-time dance. Wwwwwow. That’s a pretty horrifically memorable way to introduce yourself to the world, I gotta say. Luckily, Robin has been working his way free of Pyg’s ropes this whole time and unleashes on Pyg and his dolls. Batman discovers that Pyg’s scheme involves releasing a aerosolized bio-weapon virus on Gotham City, and he comes to Robin’s rescue at the abandoned carnival. But they can’t find Sasha afterwards. And it turns out that the dollmasks don’t come off once they’ve been put on. Sasha wants revenge — and she meets up with a new partner to help her.

Verdict: Thumbs up. So much awesome stuff here — Batman’s near-face-scraping interrogation in the Batmobile, Pyg’s uber-creepy dance, Dick and Damian both dropping the whupass on the baddies, and some excellently creative sound-effects captions. This was a fantastically fun comic.

Detective Comics #856

Batwoman and her military dad make a narrow escape from Alice, thanks to the assistance of Abbot and his shapeshifting pals, all former members of the Church of Crime. Dad and daughter argue about the crimefighting biz, and later, Kate, her dad, and her stepmom — along with cousin Bette “Flamebird” Kane — attend the annual GCPD Charity Ball. Kate makes a scene by showing up in a spiffy tuxedo, to the disappointment of her stepmom. Kate runs into the only other woman wearing a tux — Major Crimes Unit leader Maggie Sawyer, formerly of Metropolis PD. After sharing a dance with Sawyer, Kate gets a visit from Abbot and his friends, now non-shapeshifted — they share some info about why they broke with the Church of Crime and reveal that Alice wants to succeed where the old leader, Mannheim, failed — they plan to destroy Gotham City. But has the warning come too late? Meanwhile, in our backup story, the Question is on the trail of the kidnappers and survives two different attempts on her life in only a few pages. But will she ever get the answers she needs to break the case?

Verdict: Thumbs up. Great characterization work for Batwoman and her family. Excellent action, too. Some great intrigue as well. This is big fun. The Question backup story is good, too — very heavy on the action here, and Renee Montoya makes such a cool protagonist.

Wonder Woman #35

Wonder Woman and Black Canary are in Tokyo on some downtime from their next battle in Roulette’s metahuman fight club. Wondy’s down in the dumps about, um, various stuff, so Dinah tries to cheer her up, with some success. Their next bouts go well, until they’re matched up against a single fighter — and Wondy’s not strong enough to beat her. The new fighter is the goddess Pele, the daughter of the god Kane, Wondy’s chosen patron when the Olympians deserted Earth. Pele is angry because Zeus killed her father, and she plans on taking her revenge by killing Wonder Woman. Is there a way to survive a goddess’s wrath?

Verdict: Thumbs up, but largely for some of the smaller points. Wondy’s reaction to the over-sexualized toys of her in the Japanese stores was very funny, all the dialogue between Wondy and Black Canary was great, B.C. taking on all the villains in the arena at once was thoroughly and awesomely cool. But I’m getting a bit tired of the over-reliance on Roulette’s fight clubs as a storytelling gimmick, and Diana has spent much too much time lately fighting gods and goddesses.