Booster Gold #26

While Booster goes back in time to watch himself fail to give Ted Kord, his best friend and the second Blue Beetle, a proper eulogy after he died, the Blackest Night is running wild in the rest of the DC Universe. And the latest Black Lantern zombie is Ted Kord himself. He ends up attacking Skeets, Jaime Reyes, Daniel Carter (Booster’s ancestor), and Daniel’s girlfriend Rose. By the time Booster makes it back to the present, Ted is thoroughly trashing everyone else. Does Booster stand a chance?

Verdict: Thumbs up. For a “Blackest Night” tie-in, most of the emphasis here was on character issues, particularly Booster’s continuing sorrow about Ted’s death and his ongoing resentment about the shabby treatment he and Ted received from most of the rest of the superhero community over the years.

Secret Six #15

It’s an all-Deadshot issue, and it’s written by John Ostrander, writer of the most acclaimed run of DC’s “Suicide Squad” ever. Floyd is feeling the urge to go on a thoroughly random killing spree, just for the fun of it. He has a long chat with a preacher buddy of his and tells at least part of his origin — spoiled rich kid of a couple of deeply dysfunctional parents, he attended a costume party at Wayne Manor with a plan to use hired thugs to rob the guests — instead, he ended up being the hero of the evening after shooting one of his own men. He roleplays as a hero for a while, all the while taking protection money from Gotham City’s gangs, but he eventually gets taken down by Batman. Does his past hold the key to let Deadshot get control of his homicidal urges?

Verdict: Thumbs up. Good, murderous fun. Nice focus on Deadshot and all the weird quirks that make him tick. His origin is great, too, and it’s cool that Bruce Wayne is the only person at the party who catches onto the obscure film that Floyd based his costume on. Gee, they should let John Ostrander and Jim Calafiore make more comics, don’tcha think?

North 40 #5

I really thought this miniseries was over already? I’m a nut, that’s what I am. In this issue, a bunch of mutated EMS workers are trying to sacrifice some people to raise a malevolent god from the crater in the middle of town, but Amanda and some of the other local mystically-transformed folks are able to save them. The mayor is on a rampage because his son has been bitten by zombies, and he wants Sheriff Morgan and his new deputy, the indestructible Wyatt Hinkle to pay for it. Denny Pittman’s giant robot and his superpowered kids interfere, and Wyatt has a vision of the chubby nerd who helped cause all the trouble in Conover County — while his goth friend is trying to make things worse by creating more monsters, he’s trying to improve things by creating new heroes. But is there too much chaos going on for anyone to keep control of?

Verdict: Another thumbs up. I am so glad this series isn’t finished yet. Great dialogue, lots of wonderful and bizarre characters. And hey, Sheriff Morgan, the only normal guy in town, may not be so normal after all. One more issue to go…

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.

Blackest Night #4

A bunch of dead supervillains, including Copperhead, Dr. Light, Maxwell Lord, Alex Luthor, Jr., Killer Frost, and Madame Rouge, have been broken out of the Justice League headquarters and are busy attacking the Flash, the Atom, and Mera. Atom gets the three of them to safety by riding some telephone signals, but the zombie invasion is continuing. The Scarecrow escapes Black Lantern Azrael because he can’t feel fear anymore, and Lex Luthor is sealing himself into the depths of his corporate HQ to avoid all the hundreds of people he’s killed over the years. The Flash gives Mera and Atom a pep talk, then we join the Justice Society in New York as they try to fight off a bunch of undead Golden Age heroes. Unfortunately, Jean Loring shows up and manages to get the one death that pushes the Black Lanterns up to the dreaded 100% power levels — and that enables a cosmic zombie supervillain called Nekron to enter our universe.

Verdict: Ehh, thumbs down. Right on schedule, I’m starting to get bored with DC’s crew of zombies. The story isn’t that bad, but it’s badly disjointed, with lots of plotlines being created and abandoned, with lots of seemingly high-profile zombies showing up and then being ignored. The cover has Copperhead larger than life, looking like someone who has something to do with the story, and he doesn’t even have a single line of dialogue. Something tells me this series has just hit the “Bored Now” level that most of these mega-crossovers eventually pancake into.

Marvel Divas #4

Angelica “Firestar” Jones has been cured of cancer — but Patsy “Hellcat” Walker has been dragged off to spend eternity in Hell! Angelica, Felicia “Black Cat” Hardy, and Monica “Photon” Rambeau go to Doctor Voodoo for assistance, but he’s hesitant to help, so Monica uses the Monkey’s Paw to wish the three heroines into Hell. Meanwhile, Patsy learns why Daimon Hellstrom has brought her here — his ego has been bruised because he was barely mentioned in Patsy’s book! The rest of the Divas charge in, but they’re no match for the Son of Satan! Perhaps the only thing that can save them is if Patsy can negotiate a better bargain with her tempter…

Verdict: Thumbs up. Good story, fun artwork, outstanding characterization and dialogue. Roberto Aguirre-Sacasa and Tonci Zonic did an outstanding job with this series — hopefully, they’ll be given an ongoing series for this one…

Madame Xanadu #16

Amy Reeder Hadley is back in the artists chair for this book as a new storyarc begins. The year is 1957, and most of our story focuses on Betty Reynolds, a dutiful, submissive, fashion-conscious, 1950s-style wife and mother — at least until her life starts to go completely topsy-turvy! She starts levitating, her hair changes color, she starts growing taller, her fingernails become almost indestructible, and she starts spitting up insects! A friend refers her to Madame Xanadu, and a quick Tarot reading by Nimue confirms that someone is casting spells on her. But why?

Verdict: Thumbs up. It’s nice to see Hadley’s artwork again, and Matt Wagner’s story is already very intriguing. Betty Reynolds is turning out to be an entertaining and well-envisioned character — I’m looking forward to finding out what’s wrong with her…

Batman and Robin #5

The Red Hood and Scarlet have got the drop on Batman and Robin, who are trying to stop them from wantonly slaughtering criminals. They make their escape, and we learn that the Red Hood is actually Jason Todd, the second Robin, back from the dead, with yet another new costume, and the same old rotten attitude. For some reason, he now has red hair with a white streak down the middle. He looks like a younger, angstier Jason Blood. What the heck is up with that? Anyway, there’s a new villain who’s come to town — an assassin named Eduardo Flamingo, who just flew in on a pink plane from South America with a whole bunch of beautiful women — all of whom he’s killed by cutting off and eating their faces. And the guy’s gunning for the Red Hood and Scarlet.

Verdict: Thumbs up. Not real thrilled with the odd revamp of Jason Todd’s hair color. (And a tad disappointed that it’s Jason under the hood and not the Joker) But the rest is pretty good. Wow, who woulda thought a guy named Flamingo would be so creepy?

Green Lantern #46

Zamaron, the homeworld of the Star Sapphires, is under attack by the Black Lanterns and the Sinestro Corps. Sinestro and Carol Ferris are sniping at each other when Hal Jordan and members of the Indigo Tribe arrive. They reveal how to defeat the zombies — expose their rings to light from more than one color of power ring, and the Black Lanterns collapse. Unfortunately, that doesn’t stop everyone from fighting each other. And even more unfortunately, the Black Lanterns are able to resurrect the crystallized, embracing skeletons that the Star Sapphires revere, prompting the near-total destruction of the Star Sapphires.

Hal, Carol, Sinestro, and Indigo-1, the leader of the Indigo Tribe, retreat to Korugar, Sinestro’s home planet, which has been taken over by the guy who’s trying to take control of the yellow rings, Mongul. Of course, there’s a huge struggle between Sinestro and Mongul. But the Black Lanterns are in hot pursuit, leading to the arrival of the newest zombies — some of the most important people in Hal’s and Sinestro’s lives.

Verdict: Thumbs up. The zombies are a bit less over-the-top, which is a good thing, because it gives our main players a lot of great chances to interact, conflict, and play against each other. The characterizations here are really wonderful, as is Doug Mahnke’s stellar artwork. And I gotta say, the best moment of this issue was the revelation of who the crystallized skeletons on Zamaron originally were…

Marvel Mystery Handbook 70th Anniversary Special

Like all the Marvel Handbooks, this is a collection of biographies and stats for various Marvel characters. The emphasis in this one, obviously, is on many of the characters from Marvel’s Golden Age during World War II. This includes everyone from well-known heroes like Namor, the Human Torch, and Toro to much more obscure ones like Philo Zog, Taxi Taylor, Flexo, the Phantom Reporter, Mister E, and the Black Widow, a Satanic superhero.

Verdict: Thumbs up. Lots of goofy Golden Age fun to be had here, and reading all of it will take days. Even with the sky-high five-dollar price tag, that’s a pretty good bargain.

Blackest Night #3

We start out with Jason Rusch, the new Firestorm, and his girlfriend Gen, who is his current co-pilot in the Firestorm fusion matrix. She wants to talk marriage — he doesn’t. From there, we switch to the Flash and Green Lantern fighting against the Black Lantern Justice League — the undead versions of the Martian Manhunter, Elongated Man, Sue Dibny, Firestorm, Hawkman, and Hawkgirl. Hal and Barry are soon joined by the Atom, who stowed away inside Hawkman’s Black Lantern ring — they speculate that the rings are channeling energy to somewhere else in the universe, that certain people are being resurrected specifically because their reappearance would elicit strong emotional responses, and that the rings function as organic computers that animate the dead — as the Atom puts it, the dead aren’t wearing the rings, the rings are wearing the dead — though the zombies act somewhat like they did when they were alive, it’s all a put-on by the rings themselves.

Luckily, the Purple Lanterns — or as they call themselves, the Indigo Tribe — finally make their appearance. They are powered by compassion, and their staffs are able, when combined with the energy of any other color of power ring, to disrupt the black rings’ connections to the hosts and dissipate the bodies — in fact, they’re able to put down Ralph and Sue Dibny that way. Hal, Barry, Ray, and the Indigo Tribe meet up with Firestorm and Mera at the Justice League HQ, but they’re surprised by the rest of the Black Lantern Justice Leaguers. Ronnie Raymond manages to separate Jason and Gen, re-fuses with Jason, and uses his knowledge of chemistry to turn Gen into NaCl. After that, another bunch of black rings come in and resurrect the dead supervillains in the JLA’s basement.

Verdict: Thumbs up. Probably the most fun about this series so far is seeing who else gets turned into a zombie — in this issue alone, we get treated to walking-dead versions of Dr. Light, Copperhead, Alexander Luthor, Madame Rouge, Maxwell Lord, the Psycho-Pirate, the Unknown Soldier, Rocket Red, and Osiris. Not a bad turnout this time.

Secret Six #13

The Six are still stuck on Smyth’s slaver island — Scandal, Bane, Jeannette, and Artemis trying to free the Amazons, and Catman, Deadshot, and Ragdoll left guarding Wonder Woman on behalf of Smyth and staring down the crucified demonic horror called Grendel. Ragdoll tries on Wondy’s boots, Scandal confronts a bunch of guards and gives them 30 seconds to call their loved ones — and the guards DO, and it’s kinda heartbreaking, ’cause she kills ’em all anyway. Catman goes rogue and frees the captive Amazons, and Grendel gets loose.

Verdict: Thumbs up. This was kind of a weird issue — it seems that pretty much everyone was having visions of one type or another. Jeannette sees everyone wearing old period clothing, Scandal relives her childhood, Deadshot imagines himself killing everyone, Bane is having happy, weepy memories of his life in prison, Ragdoll is unusually spacey, even Wonder Woman is making cryptic pronouncements. Something even stranger than normal is going on here…

Green Lantern #45

Most of this issue is devoted to the ongoing “War of the Light” — as Carol Ferris and the Star Sapphires fight Sinestro and the Sinestro Corps, as the Green Lanterns fight the Red Lanterns, as Agent Orange’s orange constructs attack the tiny Blue Lantern Corps. And in the middle of all the fighting, the Black Lanterns make their appearances. Among the newly risen are the entire destroyed planet Xanshi, former GL and Red Lantern Lara, former Yellow Lantern Amon Sur, and the Weaponers of Qward. The best moment, however, was Larfleeze’s somewhat panicked discovery that his own hideout, already littered with hordes of dead aliens he’d killed, was now a breeding ground for zombie enemies — and all of his energy constructs are far, far away…

Verdict: Thumbs up. Nothing real spectacular going on here, but the storytelling is solid, the dialogue is good, and the artwork is fun. Larfleeze’s “Yuh-oh” gets some extra prizes all its own.

Justice Society of America #30

Flash and Stargirl are the only Society members still standing against the army of supervillains. Since the bad guys are all refusing to attack Stargirl, Flash takes off to get help while Courtney lays some smackdown on some of the villains. Flash soon returns with the new Dr. Fate, and all three keep the bad guys busy ’til the rest of the JSA can recover. After that, the villains get their butts stomped good. Unfortunately, Mr. Terrific has been stabbed back at the brownstone and is near death, and the two new recruits, King Chimera and the All-American Kid, have conflicting reports of what’s been going on (actually, they have the only real clue about what’s been going on, if anyone would listen to them). And the stresses of the evening have Wildcat and Magog at each other’s throats.

Verdict: Thumbs up. Still not a great story, but it’s acceptable. It’s a bit frustrating that when the team’s looking for someone who tried to kill one of their members, everyone would just ignore the only people who were in the building at the same time. That’s a pretty obvious clue to overlook…

Blackest Night #2

The zombie invasion of the DC Universe really gets going, as we get treated to zombified versions of Hawkman, Hawkgirl, Aquaman, Dolphin, Aquagirl, Deadman (though the ghost version of Deadman is still fighting the good fight), Hawk (but not Dove), Pariah, Firestorm, Crispus Allen (For an omnipotent avenging spirit serving God Himself, the Spectre sure does get spanked a lot, doesn’t he?), and even a bunch of zombie sharks, with Tempest as our spotlighted B-list zombie convert. Green Lantern and the Flash drop a car on the Martian Manhunter to stop him, but it doesn’t put him down for very long. DC’s magic users fall under attack and lose one of their most powerful members. But the bulk of this issue is devoted to the harrowing attack by Aquaman and his undead underwater minions.

Verdict: Thumbs up. I know a lot of folks object to the darkness of this series — and I know I’ve often had my share of gripes about gratuitous, shock-value deaths used by DC to pump up sales and look like tough guys. But DC sure has spent the past decade killing off and reviving as many of their characters as they could — maybe the time’s come for DC itself to take a closer look at their use of the dead-superhero crutch. Also, zombified superheroes, free of the nudge-and-wink giggles that marred “Marvel Zombies,” is just too good a concept to pass up.

Yes, we’ll get really, really, really sick of spandex-wearing zombies by the time this is through. But I think the ultimate test of the worth of this series is going to lie at the end of the run. Namely, if they’ve returned at least 95% of these characters to life by the last issue (which is what I think they’ll do), then we can say it’s all been worth it. If it’s just another slaughter-them-all-and-pray-for-good-sales gimmick, then we’ll be safe writing off Dan Dildio’s DC once and for all.

Astro City: The Dark Age, Book Three #4

Charles and Royal Williams completely screw up and fail to kill Aubrey Jason, the criminal who murdered their parents years ago. A cosmic being called the Incarnate is preparing to destroy the world. The Apollo 11 have been permanently stripped of their powers. An idiot superhero called the Point Man uses an awesomely powerful weapon called the Innocent Gun against the Incarnate — too dumb to listen to warnings to stop, he learns too late that the gun is only supposed to be fired once, by someone with a pure heart, at the time of Earth’s greatest need, and as a result, he may have doomed the whole universe. The Silver Agent is able to control the omniversal wormhole in time — or has he?

Verdict: Even for a comic called “The Dark Age,” I wasn’t expecting anything quite this depressing and grim. I’ll give it a thumbs up anyway, ’cause it’s incredibly well-written and illustrated, because I expect it’ll all make sense at the end, and because of the awesome announcement Kurt Busiek makes in the letter column — the series is going to be publishing monthly soon. But I am very disappointed about the loss of the Apollo 11 — they were fantastically cool in the brief glimpses we got of them, and it’s too bad they won’t be around any longer.

Dethklok versus the Goon

Oh, mercy. Someone up there must like me.

Who do we got here? We got “The Goon,” Eric Powell’s crude, hilarious, hyper-violent, horror-noir pulp, and we got Dethklok from Adult Swim’s “Metalocalypse,” Brendon Small’s crude, hilarious, hyper-violent heavy-metal cartoon. It’s all written and illustrated by Powell, with Small stepping in to help. We start out with an evil plot to control the world using William Murderface’s inbred brain, combined with a brainwashed Dr. Rockzo the Rock and Roll Clown (He does cocaine!) trying to kill Dethklok. But things go improbably awry, leaving Dethklok’s gigantic headquarters Mordhaus stuck in the same dimension as the Goon’s Lonely Street. So the Goon and his pals initially mistake Dethklok for some of the new girls at the local brothel before some hijinx get started. Skwisgar does the nasty with Mama Norton, Rockzo introduces Franky to cocaine, Dethklok plays a concert, and the Goon slaughters untold multitudes of Dethklok’s henchmen.

Verdict: You gotta ask? Thumbs up. This ain’t deep storytelling, but if you love Dethklok and you love the Goon, you will love the bleeding screaming snot out of this. Powell is a lot better at drawing the Goon than he is at drawing Dethklok, but he’s absolutely got the cartoon’s brand of humor down perfectly. Tons of hilarious moments and lines here — I won’t spoil the best line in the comic, but you’ll know it when you see it. I also loved Murderface’s reaction after their manager questions the wisdom of promoting the band’s new album by shooting a thousand bald eagles out of a cannon and into George Washington’s face on Mount Rushmore: “Well, I’m sorry! I didn’t know you hated America!” And Dethklok’s concert is just brilliant, as is Franky’s critique of it — “What’s that sound?! It tells me my skin is alive and it hates me!”

Repeating for emphasis: LOVED IT.

Green Lantern #44

The Blackest Night has started, as one of the black rings revives the Martian Manhunter, who goes after Hal Jordan and the recently resurrected Barry Allen. Do they have a chance against a shapeshifting telepathic zombie Martian Superman? I wouldn’t bet on it. Meanwhile, the evil Guardian called Scar reveals to the other captured Guardians what’s going on — emotions are the cause of chaos in the universe, so she plans to bring order by extinguishing all emotions and killing all sentient life. And John Stewart is about to find out what happens when the black rings zombify an entire planet.

Verdict: Thumbs up. J’onn makes an excellent villain here — tossing buildings, shapeshifting, reading minds, and decisively knocking the stuffing out of a couple of DC’s heaviest hitters. The rationale behind Scar’s plot is good, too, and I’m looking forward to seeing what a Black Lantern Planet is going to be like. And yes, Doug Mahnke really is the perfect artist for this — he does great action, he does wonderful square-jawed heroes, and his monsters and zombies are the best in the biz.

Blackest Night #1

We reviewed the prologue yesterday, but DC’s big summer crossover officially gets started with this one.

It’s semi-official pay-respect-to-your-superheroes day in the DC Universe, giving lots of super-people opportunities to visit the gravesides and memorials of their fallen comrades. Earth’s Green Lanterns do a flyover of Coast City, the Kents visit Jonathan Kent’s grave, Flash’s Rogues hold a wake in their secret graveyard, Hawkman and Hawkgirl reflect on their never-ending cycle of death and reincarnation, and the recently resurrected Barry Allen learns how many of his friends have died in the years he’s been gone. But bad doin’s are afoot. A bunch of mysterious black rings descend on Earth and into the Green Lanterns’ mausoleum on Oa. And holy gee whilikers, the dadgum rings actually raise the dead as horrific zombies! Among the confirmed zombies we get here are a gobsmackingly staggering number of dead Green Lanterns, the Martian Manhunter, and Ralph and Sue Dibny… along with a surprise couple of recent deadlings leftover from “Final Crisis”…

Verdict: Thumbs up. So far, so good. I really hope they can sustain this. But for this issue at least: ZOMBIES!

Crossed #6

Our small band of survivors continue their trek north, where they hope they’ll have a better chance of survival. They’re still running into packs of the deranged and diseased serial killers/zombies called the Crossed, and they have to deal with personality conflicts within their own group. We get some flashbacks back to the earliest, most terrifying days of the Crossed outbreak, the group acquires a new canine buddy, and learns that some monsters don’t come with bloody red cross-shaped rashes on their faces.

Verdict: Thumbs up. Outstanding characterization work in this issue, along with a genuinely surprising twist. Garth Ennis and Jacen Burrows are really doing great work with this one.

B.P.R.D.: 1947 #1

The sequel to the earlier “1946” series focusing on the early days of the Bureau for Paranormal Research and Defense opens with a bunch of captured German SS officers mysteriously getting slaughtered in Nuremberg. Back in New Mexico, Professor Bruttenholm suspects the vengeful vampire, Baron Konig, has committed the murders, and he receives a visit from Varvara, the impossibly creepy, vodka-swilling little girl/demon who appeared in the last series. The BPRD designates four new operatives to travel to France to investigate the killings, which also seem to be tied to a terrifyingly blasphemous opera performed in 1771. But as always seems to be the case in the “BPRD” stories, ominous things are on the way. Can any of the new operatives survive what’s coming?

Verdict: Thumbs up. The story by Mike Mignola and Joshua Dysart pops along very well, but the art by Gabriel Ba and Fabio Moon is just plain awesome.

Green Lantern #43

Wow, this one was just wildly creepy.

We focus on an old GL villain called Black Hand. Always a bit of a creepy kid, he loved his family’s mortuary business mainly because it allowed him to get, ahem, up close and personal with dead bodies. After accidentally acquiring a weapon from the demon Atrocitus that allowed him to absorb power from Green Lantern power rings, he became a supervillain in the strange belief that he should try to snuff out the green energy in the universe. After having a run-in with the Black Lantern power battery, he’s become aware of every important death in the DC Universe and has a voice in his head that tells him he can fix everything. After returning home to kill his family, he commits suicide and is then resurrected by a renegade Guardian named Scar as the first Black Lantern.

Verdict: Thumbs up. Again, wow. Yes, very creepy for Black Hand’s bizarre necrophiliac tendencies, but possibly more disturbing for his murder of his family and his own suicide and rebirth, rendered in close-up, loving detail by Doug Mahnke. Also especially good is the four-page sequence where Hand sees visions of the heroes and villains who have died, and the heroes who have been raised from the dead already. If they can maintain this level of creepy glory, “Blackest Night” may go down as one of the best crossover events ever.

Booster Gold #22

The Black Beetle has managed to kill Dick Grayson as Batman by going back in time and killing him when he was Robin in the Teen Titans. Booster and Skeets rush back to the time of the early “New Teen Titans” series in the ’80s, masquerade as security guards at S.T.A.R. Labs, and save Cyborg from the Ravager, Deathstroke’s son. Ravager gets away, with the Black Beetle’s help, so Booster and Cyborg recruit the help of the rest of the Titans. But instead of the Titans plus Booster vs. a Ravager who’s about to be killed by his own powers, they have to fight Deathstroke, Black Beetle, and a vastly energized Ravager… and the good guys don’t stand a chance.

Verdict: Thumbs up. This title has been through several months of sub-par stories, but this one is quite good.