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.

Before I get into today’s reviews, I got a few local comics-related links I wanna throw at you.

• First, if you haven’t visited Star Comics’ website in a while, you may have missed that they’re doing some podcasting now — specifically, the new “Nerd Alert!” podcasts.
• Second, self-proclaimed Nerd Bully Todd Gray has started his own local comics blog, Fanboy Fun, with tons of reviews and occasional cemetery spookiness.
• Third, if any of y’all are on Facebook, you can find the Hero Sandwich Facebook page right over here.
• And finally, a non-local comics link: Cole’s Comics is a blog focusing on the artwork of Jack Cole, creator of Plastic Man and one of the greatest cartoonists of the Golden Age (or come to think of it, any age). Go check it out.

And now: Reviews!

The Atom and Hawkman #46

As part of the “Blackest Night” crossover, DC is temporarily reanimating old cancelled comics. This issue focuses on Ray Palmer, the Atom, in his new role as a member of the Indigo Tribe, powered by compassion. He battles the zombified Hawkman, Hawkgirl, and Jean Loring, and is appointed to guard Indigo-1 while she summons the rest of the Indigo Tribe so they can start teleporting all of the various Lantern Corps to Earth. We also learn something about the powers of the Indigo power rings — they can capable of channeling any of the other power rings’ abilities if a user of one of them is nearby. Indigo-1 pukes blood like a Red Lantern when she gets mad, and Ray calls up the power of Larfleeze’s Orange Lantern ring while demanding that he wants his friends back. But when Jean shrinks herself into Indigo-1’s ring to attack her, will Ray be able to stop her in time?

Verdict: Thumbs up. Very well-written and beautifully illustrated. Loved the new details about how the Indigo rings work, loved the flashbacks to Ray’s previous life, loved the way Ray’s Indigo Tribe costume ends up calling back to his sword-and-sorcery adventures among the tiny aliens in the Amazon rain forest. And I loved the ending, too.

The Phantom Stranger #42

And another revived “Blackest Night” crossover issue. The Phantom Stranger and Blue Devil try to stop the Godzilla-sized Black Lantern Spectre, to more or less no effect, but he takes off when he senses where Hal Jordan is. The Stranger and the Devil turn their attention to the opened grave of Boston Brand — a.k.a. Deadman. They soon track him to his old Himalayan stomping grounds at Nanda Parbat, where he’s trying to stop a bunch of Black Lantern zombies by possessing them with his ghostly form. Unfortunately, possessing zombies tends to mess up Brand’s mind, and the Stranger has to break him out of his spell. That still leaves the problem of Brand’s long-dead skeletal body, which is being operated by one of the black rings. The key to saving Nanda Parbat is to get Deadman’s body and spirit re-united long enough to slip through the city’s mystic shield — but Deadman has previously been unable to possess his old body. Can he do it now?

Verdict: Thumbs up. Not the best of these crossovers, as there’s a bit too much jumping around from one place to another. But it moves the larger story forward, and the Phantom Stranger always has been one of my favorite of DC’s mysterious mystic characters.

Justice Society of America #35

Last issue, the JSA was all set to take on the evil wizard Mordru. But this issue, they each find themselves trapped in pocket dimensions fighting off a variety of magical threats. Liberty Belle beats the stuffing out of a cat-man who keeps duplicating himself every time he gets defeated. Mr. Terrific changes the rules on a riddling sphinx. Wildcat meets up with a bunch of snuggly plushie toys. Mr. America gets chased by rat monsters. Dr. Mid-Nite has to contend with zombies desperate for medical attention. Lightning is gonna get eaten by giant electricity monsters. Flash has to deal with oversized superspeed bees. Green Lantern has to take on Mordru all by himself. Dr. Fate, meanwhile, is almost powerless and can’t figure out how he can help.

Verdict: Thumbs up. I was actually prepared to dislike it, but it’s a good story, with lots of personality, good dialogue, a few interesting and elegant solutions, and a nice dose of humor.

Blackest Night: JSA #2

The Black Lantern zombies are attacking the JSA Brownstone, and while Mr. Terrific tries to pool some of the members’ powers to create a solution, the rest of the team tries to figure out how to stop the zombies. But there are an unusual number of zombies with personalities here. The zombified Earth-2 Lois Lane asks Power Girl to let her see the Earth-2 Superman’s body, then to help her die. Black Lantern Johnny Quick appeals to his daughter, Liberty Belle, to go for a run with him. Black Lantern Damage blows himself up to take out a bunch of the other zombies. But was it all a ruse? The Brownstone’s defenses are now all wrecked, and Lois severs her own connection to her ring… just so her late husband can get it.

Verdict: Thumbs up. Lots of weird stuff going on here — I still haven’t figured out if all those zombies were just faking it, or if they really were having some kind of personality break-through. But that point looks to be moot now, as the JSA gets to take on the Zombie of Steel in the next issue…

Astro City: The Dark Age, Book Four #1

It’s 1984, and Charles and Royal Williams are still after Aubrey Jason, the man who killed their parents decades ago. They’ve given up their former lives and turned themselves into semi-paramilitary vigilantes, scavenging equipment, weapons, transportation, and even a base from former villains. But while the ’80s may look sunny and upbeat, times have actually gotten a lot darker, with more heroes willing to kill randomly, more monsters raging on the streets, more murderous gangs — is it all being caused by something evil hidden away from sight? Charles and Royal meet up briefly with the Green Man, a plant elemental, Gloo, a sadistic blob, and Nostradamien, a criminal who can only see awful futures. The brothers pursue Jason to Las Vegas, but he knows they’re after him, and he’ll do anything to get them off his trail.

Verdict: Thumbs up. I really enjoy the Williams brothers — they make excellent protagonists, and their continuing evolution is fun to watch. The background is also pretty interesting, and as always, some of the background characters are people I wish we could learn more about, particularly the Green Man.

Chew #8

Tony Chu, a government agent who get psychic impressions from anything he eats, is visiting a tropical island called Yamapula on the trail of a mysterious plant that tastes like chicken. Why is that important? Because chicken has been outlawed in much of the world after a bad outbreak of bird flu. Tony is briefly tossed in the local clink because he was seen associating with a secret agent who was later found murdered. After beating on a couple of abusive inmates, Tony gets a taste of their blood, learns that they’re murderers, and leads the local police chief to the dead body and then on to where the criminal cartel has stashed the illegal chicken. Well, actually, it’s not really a bunch of chicken that you’d cook and eat — it’s a rooster. A rooster in a luchadore mask.

Verdict: Thumbs up. More bizarre, morbid, violent fun. Lots and lots of plot twists, most of them more bizarre than any of the previous ones, and more intrigue than you’d expect from a comic featuring a part-time cannibal, fighting roosters, and prison swirlies.

The Incredible Hercules #140

Hercules, Amadeus Cho, and the Avengers are still in the lobby of the Olympus Group, trying to stop Hera’s mad scheme to rewrite the universe. Athena has been turned to stone by Delphyne Gorgon, who delivers the statue to Hephaestus, craftsman of the gods, who intends to create a golden automata of the Goddess of Wisdom. Herc and Amadeus fight a robotic dragon, but are soon captured by Hephaestus, who pits them against each other in a test of heroism and friendship. But can any of them stop the secret betrayer who is working against all of them?

Verdict: Thumbs up. Great action, great humor, and some very clever problem-solving. As always, you should take the time to read all of Greg Pak’s sound effects, because they’re very funny. The backup story with the Agents of Atlas is okay, but mostly forgettable.

Blackest Night: The Flash #2

Barry Allen is just getting his legs as a new Blue Lantern, trying to take on zombified versions of Kid Flash, Firestorm, the Reverse-Flash, and Solovar. Meanwhile, the Rogues have invaded Iron Heights Prison and must fight off the Black Lantern zombies of former Rogues, including the first Mirror Master, Captain Boomerang, the Top, Golden Glider, the Trickster, and the Rainbow Raider.

Verdict: Ehh, not bad at all. I love seeing Scott Kolins do art for Flash comics, and I’m enjoying Barry’s reactions to joining up with the Blue Lantern Corps.

We’re gonna look at a trio of the old canceled comics that DC has resurrected for “Blackest Night”…

Starman #81

This is the one I think everyone was nervous about. James Robinson’s “Starman” series was one of the best comics of the ’90s — or any decade, really — but his recent DC work has been pretty unimpressive, to say the least. There was a lot of fear that he’d tarnish the “Starman” legacy with some badly-written garbage, but as it turns out, he brought his A-game to this one.

Jack Knight, the Starman from the ’90s series, doesn’t appear, and neither does his dad, the Golden Age Starman who died at the end of that series. The villain here is the zombified David Knight, Jack’s brother, who was very briefly Starman before Jack was. While David slaughters cops in Opal City, we learn that the Shade, immortal darkness-controlling former villain, and Hope O’Dare, lone distaff member of a large family of police officers, have become lovers. With the Black Lantern Starman threatening to wipe Opal City off the map and track down Jack Knight to kill him, is there any way to stop him? Especially after he tears out the Shade’s heart?

Verdict: Thumbs up. This was a huge relief — and I’m glad Robinson was inspired enough by the return to Opal City to put out a great story. It’s a great Shade story, a great O’Dare story, and we even manage to catch a few glimpses of the glorious Opal City architecture. My only disappointment: they got James Robinson back to write it, they got Tony Harris back to do the cover, but I wish they could’ve arranged for Peter Snejbjerg to come back to do the pencils. At any rate, Fernando Dagnino takes care of the art, with Bill Sienkiewicz inking, and while it’s a different look, it looks pretty good.

Catwoman #83

Catwoman tangles with the zombified Black Mask, a gangster who she killed after he tortured her sister. In fact, when he realizes he can’t terrify her, he decides to track down her sister in an insane asylum and finish the job. Selina enlists the aid of Poison Ivy and Harley Quinn, but will they be able to stop him before he kills Catwoman and her sister?

Verdict: Thumbs up. Good story, good art, decent characterization, and they even tossed in some set-ups for future stories… if there are any future “Catwoman” comics…

The Power of Shazam! #48

A bit of an odd one here, as this story focuses on a character who wasn’t even around until long after this series was cancelled — namely, Osiris, the young counterpart to Freddie Freeman in Black Adam’s “Black Marvel” family from the “52” series a few years ago. Osiris is resurrected with a Black Lantern ring, but he doesn’t have the murderous attitude of the other Black Lantern zombies. In fact, he doesn’t even know he’s dead, doesn’t understand why everyone is so afraid of him, and successfully resists all of the black ring’s influences. Unfortunately, Sobek, the evil crocodile monster who killed Osiris has also come back from the dead, and he’s still very, very hungry…

Verdict: Thumbs up. It was weird to have a story where one of the Black Lanterns wasn’t evil, and it was weird to have a Captain Marvel comic where Captain Marvel only appeared in civilian guise on a single page, but I liked it anyway. Osiris was a cool character, and it’s nice to get to see him again, even if he’s all withered and rotten…

Suicide Squad #67

This is another of the old cancelled titles that DC has resurrected for just one more issue during the “Blackest Night” crossover. And it’s a bit misleading. There’s only minimal material with the Black Lantern zombies, and the Suicide Squad aren’t the main characters. Most of our focus is on the Secret Six. After the overprotective Bane interrogates Scandal Savage’s date, Liana, the rest of the team gets called out on a mission to rescue a drug dealer from Belle Reve prison. The team gets into the prison no problem — Black Alice borrows Giganta’s powers, which surely ought to make a few kinksters out there happy — but the whole thing was a trap set by Amanda Waller and the Suicide Squad. Waller wants Deadshot back on her team, and she’s willing to wipe out the rest of the Six to get him back. But the fight between the two teams may have to wait once the latest crop of Black Lantern rings find the many deceased Suicide Squad members…

Verdict: Thumbs up. A bonus “Secret Six” issue! Huzzah! And co-written by both Gail Simone and John Ostrander! Funny stuff with Bane and Ragdoll, plus Nightshade and the rarely-seen female Fiddler make appearances. All that plus Amanda Waller, DC’s foremost scary, driven, badass government bureaucrat! Everyone loves Amanda Waller!

Blackest Night: Wonder Woman #2

We jump back to the period when Wonder Woman was a Black Lantern not-quite-a-zombie, fighting Mera, Queen of Atlantis and Aquaman’s ex-wife. The fight doesn’t generally go in Mera’s favor, seeing as how Wonder Woman is way, way more powerful than she is. Wonder Woman is apparently conscious inside, unable to stop herself from trying to kill Mera. Wondy briefly gets control back, flees to some nearby island, then kills Wonder Girl and Donna Troy, tries to kill her mother, and goes all smoochy on Bruce Wayne. Wait, what? Did I forget my medication this morning?

Verdict: Thumbs down. I agree with a lot of what Chris Sims has to say here, but the thing that kept irritating me the most was the way non-zombie Diana, sublimated under the control of the black ring, kept whining. DC’s most prominent, most powerful female character has an inner voice that’s one continuous whine. Better to have the inner voice completely absent than to make the character look that weak.

Jonah Hex #51

The West’s meanest, ugliest bounty hunter has been hired by a preacher to track down the men who killed the founder of a small town. Naturally, Hex starts out getting on everyone’s nerves, accusing the deceased’s widow of having something to do with the murder and later needling the preacher about why a preacher would hire a murderous bounty hunter. Meanwhile, the killers return to town and kidnap the widow, believing she can help them use the founder’s divining stick, rumored to allow them to find gold instead of water. Can Hex get to the bottom of the mystery, and will anyone be left alive by the time he gets through?

Verdict: Thumbs up. A nice, razor-edged mystery with a couple of fun twists, plus art by the legendary Dick Giordano. All that plus all the grim fatalism and brutality you’d expect from a Jonah Hex comic.

Weird Western Tales #71

Hey, waitaminute, didn’t DC quit publishing this series clear back in 1980? What’s it doing back again? What’s it doing with the “Blackest Night” trade dress? Holy banjos, you mean the Black Lantern rings are now bringing whole comic series back from the dead?!

Yeah, it’s a gimmick, but it looks like a fun gimmick. DC’s bringing back a bunch of old cancelled comics for “Blackest Night” one-shot issues, but with the original numbering on the cover.

So we got a funky combo of high-tech super-science and retro Western here. Crooked businessman Simon Stagg, his pet caveman Java, and the Ray have captured a Black Lantern ring and brought it to a lab for study — a lab run by Joshua Turnbull, a descendant of Quentin Turnbull, one of Jonah Hex’s nemeses. Turnbull prefers to run around the lab duded out in Western gear, he’s situated his lab underneath an old Western ghost town, and he’s obsessed with rehabilitating the reputation of his disgraced ancestor. Not the most stable guy around, I reckon. The scientists have barely had time to start studying the ring when it summons a bunch of new Black Lantern zombies from the nearby Boot Hill cemetery — including a bunch of DC’s long dead Western heroes, including Scalphunter, the Trigger Twins, Firehair, Super-Chief, Bat Lash, and Jonah Hex himself.

Verdict: I’ll give it a narrow thumbs up. There’s not a lot of logic in this one, Simon Stagg disappears from the scene unusually quickly, we never find out if the Ray survived the battle, and the characterizations and dialogue are purely one-dimensional. And it’s written by Dan DiDio, which is a huge strike against anything. But on the other hand, you got a gorgeous cover by Bill Sienkiewicz, you got Bat Lash looking like a dandy even in death, you got skeletal Jonah Hex looking fantastically badass. And finally, I just can’t bring myself to thumbs-down a bunch of zombie cowboys, so that’s that.

Blackest Night #6

Nekron has managed to turn most of the resurrected DC heroes into Black Lanterns, including Superman, Wonder Woman, and Green Arrow. Hal Jordan and Barry Allen manage to escape the rings with their names on ’em, but there’s also a gigantic army of Black Lantern zombies on their way to Earth, including the entire planet of Xanshi. The power ring wielders on Earth realize that they’ll need every single one of their corps members to beam light at the Black Lantern power battery to destroy it, but it’s going to take a while to gather them all up. Ganthet rejoins the Green Lanterns — not as a Guardian, but as an actual ring-slinging Corps member. Then he duplicates each of the other ring-bearers’ rings (including Larfleeze’s, much to his greedy displeasure) and sends them out to find new members. No spoilers here, but this leads to a splash page that practically defines “Crowning Moment of Awesome.”

Verdict: Thumbs up. The whole comic is great, but that final splash page is just joyously cool. I hope they give out rings to every single DC character now. And yes, I’m pretty amazed that the core books of this crossover are still so blasted great. Sure, some of the secondary comics aren’t so hot (I’ve got two of ’em listed below), but the main “Blackest Night” is hitting on all cylinders.

Green Lantern #49

Half of this issue focuses on John Stewart running around on the resurrected zombie planet Xanshi. He runs into Driq, an old Green Lantern who was actually a zombie back before the Black Lanterns — he’s now half Black Lantern and half Green Lantern and looks even freakier than normal. He also runs into his late lover Katma Tui. There’s a great deal of military angst before Stewart wisely heads off to find backup. In the second half of the issue, Jean Loring miniaturizes the Atom and Mera and drags them into one of the Black Lantern rings to rant at them and reveal how Nekron was created.

Verdict: Thumbs down. Deadly dull.

Blackest Night: JSA #1

The Justice Society comes under attack from a bunch of Black Lanterns, including Wesley Dodds, Charles McNider (and his zombie owl, Hooty), Terry Sloane, Johnny Quick, the Earth-2 Lois Lane, and the recently-deceased Damage.

Verdict: Thumbs down. It’s a lot of hitting and yelling and angsting and dismemberment. It’s far too frantic, too chaotic to make any real sense.

Blackest Night: The Flash #1

The ever-expanding “Blackest Night” crossover moves into a three-issue miniseries starring Barry Allen, the Silver-Age Flash. He’s warning as many heroes as he can about the dangers of the Black Lanterns and how they can be stopped — he’s even making sure some of his enemies know — namely, the mostly honorable Rogues, Captain Cold, Heat Wave, Mirror Master, Weather Wizard, the new Trickster. And it looks like all of them will have to pitch in — many of the zombified Black Lanterns are former Rogues who are probably going to be going after their former friends. While Tar Pit and the new Captain Boomerang wait for the arrival of the original deceased Captain Boomerang (the old one was the new one’s father), Barry tangles briefly with the zombified Professor Zoom, the Reverse-Flash, then heads to Gorilla City to get advice from his old friend Solovar, the ruler of Gorilla City. Unfortunately, Barry doesn’t know that Solovar died years ago, and Barry has to fight an undead psychic gorilla who keeps trying to convince him that he’s not all bad. Meanwhile, the Rogues are preparing to take the fight directly to their Black Lantern counterparts with a raid on their new hideout in Iron Heights Prison.

Verdict: Thumbs up. A big part of the reason I enjoyed this is the artwork — Scott Kolins was one of my favorite artists during the Wally West glory days of “The Flash, with a gritty style that perfectly suited the more blue-collar vision of Flash, the Rogues, and Central/Keystone City of the early 2000s. To be honest, I’m looking forward to this miniseries more for the Rogues than for Barry — Wally West was the Flash I knew and cared about, but the Rogues are classics, and anything that shines a good bright spotlight on them is great with me.

Blackest Night: Wonder Woman #1

And another new “Blackest Night” crossover, as Wonder Woman goes to Washington, DC, to confront Black Lantern Maxwell Lord, the former ally turned enemy who Wondy killed a few years back. She finds him in Arlington National Cemetery, where he’s using his psychic powers to hold hostage the guards of the Tomb of the Unknowns. She isn’t having much difficulty with Max until his reinforcements arrive — enough Black Lantern rings to zombify everyone buried in the cemetery, including a few members of the WWII Blackhawk Squadron and DC’s original Unknown Soldier. How does she deal with several thousand zombies? She makes her magic lasso emit pure, blinding light and incinerates all of them.

Verdict: Man, I don’t know. I absolutely love Nicola Scott’s always outstanding artwork, but I got some serious squick going on with the idea of desecrating every body in Arlington National Cemetery and cremating them all down into random piles of ash. No, not even if it’s just fictional. “Hey, families of American soldiers! Wonder Woman just torched your grampa’s dead body! Wheee!” I know, I know, probably getting carried away, but that was my reaction when I first read it, and I don’t feel a lot better about it yet.

The Incredible Hercules #138

Hercules, Amadeus Cho, a few renegade Greek gods, and the Avengers need to storm a skyscraper housing the Olympus Group, where the rest of the Greek gods are holed up while Hera prepares to unleash her “Continuum” plan that will eliminate human life from Earth. With so many gods watching over the building, a frontal assault can’t succeed, but a little cleverness and misdirection gets everyone in the front door and ready to fight. But can anyone survive when the God of Death makes his appearance? And in a backup story starring the Agents of Atlas, Venus is freed from her hypnotic spell, depriving the monster Phorcys of the legions of mortals he was about to eat. He retreats to the sea, and the Agents prepare to make their own assault on the Olympus Group.

Verdict: Thumbs up. What I’m enjoying the most about this story is the characterization. Hercules, Amadeus, Zeus, Hebe, and Spider-Man are all excellently represented here, but the real standout star as a character is, of all people, USAgent, who comes across as a cross between a monotheist and an atheist by insisting that Hercules, Zeus, and the rest are merely garden-variety metahumans who’ve convinced themselves that they’re actual gods — and he’s actually allowed to make a good case of it, too. Definitely not the standard treatment for comic-book skeptics, who are usually not much more than comic relief.

Green Lantern #48

Basically, what happens here is that a bunch of representatives from the seven colors of rings run around fighting and arguing. We got Hal Jordan for the Green Lanterns, Carol Ferris for the Star Sapphires, Sinestro for the Sinestro Corps, Atrocitus for the Red Lanterns, Saint Walker for the Blue Lanterns (along with the Blue Lantern Guardians, Ganthet and Sayd), Indigo-1 for the Indigo Tribe, and Larfleez as the sole Orange Lantern. There is a heck of a lot of yelling and smacking people around and ring-slinging and all that jazz.

Verdict: Thumbs up. I know, it doesn’t sound like all that much happens, but there’s good characterization going on, beautiful artwork by Doug Mahnke, and a lot of behind-the-scenes plot development for the “Blackest Night” crossover.

Blackest Night #5

And speaking of “Blackest Night” — the “All-Lantern Corps” arrives on Earth, but with the death of Damage, the Black Lanterns have finally recharged their battery up to 100%, and their ultimate leader rises — Nekron, who’s some kind of undead god of the underworld. He’s raised the entire population of Coast City from the dead, but Barry Allen has some friends to call on for aid — the Justice League and the Teen Titans. Black Lantern Jean Loring grabs the Atom and Mera, and miniaturizes them into one of the Black Lantern rings. The All-Lanterns destroy Skar, the evil Black Lantern Guardian, then combine their ring power in an attempt to destroy the Black Lantern power battery — but that doesn’t work at all. And Nekron reveals one of his two secret weapons — first, there’s Black Lantern Batman, but more devastating is the fact that all of the superheroes who’ve risen from the dead, including Wonder Woman, Superman, Superboy, Kid Flash, Green Arrow, Barry Allen, and Hal Jordan, have only returned to life because Nekron let them — and that means he still has control over them.

Verdict: Thumbs up. And I really wasn’t expecting to give this a thumbs up. The All-Lanterns reciting their various oaths as they recharge their rings was dadgummed awesome, and the revelation of Nekron’s power over the risen superheroes was especially cool. I hope they can maintain this level of coolness for the rest of the miniseries.

The Goon #33

Not your typical “Goon” comic — this one is almost entirely wordless. There are word balloons, but they’re usually filled with other cartoons, symbols, and abstractions to represent what the characters are thinking or saying. A floozy sets her sights on the Goon and Frankie, a black-hearted villain runs amok with a meat cleaver, and a little kid thinks happily of robots and candy. All that plus notes from Eric Powell about burlesque, cage fighters, Cracker Barrel, the in-production “Goon” movie, and a bunch of prisoners with “Goon” tattoos.

Verdict: Thumbs up. A fun little experiment, and it still holds true to the spirit of “The Goon.” And Eric Powell’s post-comic notes are always fun to read — there aren’t many comic creators who sponsor burlesque dancers, cage fighters, and roller derby teams…