Birds of Prey #115

Huntress goes on a road trip with Lady Blackhawk and her impossibly adorable dimples to find the evil villain Killer Shark, who used to inject her with Evil Drugs back in the ’40s. Their plane crashes in the ocean, and they go swimming, where they get attacked by monster eels. Once they make it to Killer Shark’s island, he gets the drop on them. Meanwhile, magic-using goth Black Alice joins the group, and of course, Misfit hates her, because Oracle treats Black Alice as a valued team member and never has a kind word for Misfit. Anyway, in the end, Black Alice ends up stealing Misfit’s powers.

Verdict: Thumbs up. Black Alice is an amazingly cool character, and it’s great to see her get a bit more exposure. Misfit’s reactions to Black Alice seem appropriately realistic, and Huntress’ fear of drowning is also pretty well-done. And again, Lady Blackhawk has the world’s most completely awesome dimples. Go pick this one up — it’s lots of fun.

 

The Brave and the Bold #10

The Challengers of the Unknown tangle with the monster inside the Book of Destiny and find out what Megistus is after. Meanwhile, within the stories of the Book of Destiny, Superman travels in time to team up with the Silent Knight, and the Teen Titans team up with Aquaman. And an unexpected hero is fighting on Megistus’ side.

Verdict: Thumbs up. The Teen Titans/Aquaman story was ehh, okay, but I was really surprised by how much I liked the Superman/Silent Knight story. You’ve never heard of the Silent Knight, have you? He’s an old, old character, created for the very first issue of the original run of “The Brave and the Bold” back in 1955, which is just part of what makes his appearance here so cool. He lives in medieval England, and he’s just a kid who’s found a suit of magical armor. He can actually talk, but he stays quiet when he’s wearing his armor because if the guy running his village finds out about him, he’ll try to have him killed. Anyway, that little burst of out-of-the-blue Silver-Age fantasy made the story way, way more fun than I was expecting it to be.

 

The Flash #237

Flash flunks some job interviews and helps Superman fight a robot yeti. The kids try to steal Superman’s cape and fight Livewire.

Verdict: Thumbs down. Groooaaan, why isn’t this comic book cooler than it is? The Flash is just about the coolest character DC has, with the best powers, and they still can’t find anyone who’ll put together a good story about him. Even the robot yeti is dull. Who ever heard of a dull robot yeti?!

I love the stuffing out of this cover, so I’m posting it a bit larger than normal, so we can all groove on its awesomeness.

The Brave and the Bold #9

This whole issue is nice — it’s got three different stories about DC Comics characters, both mainstream and obscure. The stories are all connected, even though they seem, at first glance, to be completely unrelated.

Our framing device is the Book of Destiny… but its pages have come to life, animated by the malevolent power of the mysterious Megistus, to attack the Challengers of the Unknown! In fact, June Robbins reads all these stories while the book-monster is trying to kill her…

Our first story focuses on a team-up between the Metal Men and Robby Reed, the kid with the hero-creating “H-Dial” in “Dial H for Hero.” A robot dragon (mindlessly chanting “ME-GIS-TUS”) is attacking the city, and the Metal Men are powerless to stop it — until weak, stuttering robot Tin gets the H-Dial and turns into a superhero called Manbot the Mighty!

Next, we travel back to World War II, as the Blackhawk squadron and the Boy Commandos try to find the mystical Orb of Ra and fight off mummies serving Megistus.

And finally, in the present day, Hawkman and the new Atom battle the Warlock of Ys, a wizard and Z-list supervillain trying to curry favor with Megistus.

Verdict: Thumbs up. All three stories are great fun, and the characters and plots are first-rate. George Perez’s art is awesome, as ever. The ongoing mystery about Megistus is still going strong, and it’s just getting more interesting as more evidence of his/her/its plots through the years are revealed.

Two comics this week featuring the Flash? Let’s get right into ’em!

The Flash #234

This issue sees the Flash family discovering some more superpowers. First, Flash is able to synch his vibrational aura to his kids’, which allows him to pull the kids to him no matter where he’s at. Jai thinks it’s fun, because it’s like flying. Iris hates it because she thinks of it as being pulled around by a leash. Also, Jai is depressed because he overheard that his and Iris’ unstable powers could kill them at any time, and he accidentally triggers a new power — he can vibrate his genetic code up and down through time, allowing himself to take on a monstrous appearance. No, these powers don’t make a bit of sense, but comic-book science should always be taken with about 20 tons worth of salt.

Verdict: Ehh, I think I’ll give it a thumbs up. I like the kids’ reactions to things, but I do wish we could see some more Flash-centric superspeeding.

The Brave and the Bold #8

Obviously, this issue sees a team-up between the Doom Patrol and the Flash — actually, with the entire Flash family. Niles Caulder, leader of the Doom Patrol, offers to examine Jai and Iris and see if there’s a way to stabilize their powers. Wally and Linda are nervous, because Caulder is, at best, a kook, and at worst, a fairly ruthless mad scientist. Still, they travel to Prague to hear Caulder out. The kids end up getting good and creeped out by Robotman, Negative Man, and Elasti-Girl, and Caulder reveals his plan to link the kids up through another special guest — Metamorpho, the Element Man — and give them a micro-cellular scan to see how to stabilize them. Unfortunately, Metamorpho mysteriously vanishes in the middle of the procedure, leaving the kids dissolving into their component atoms! Caulder thinks Robotman’s body can contain one of the kids — and Wally has to decide which one of his children to save. And bizarrely, it’s found that Metamorpho left the word “Megistus” behind — the same mysterious name that cropped up last issue.

Verdict: Thumbs up. This was a very cool comic. I loved the way the Doom Patrol was portrayed — they’re usually written as somewhat offbeat heroes, but here, they’re terrifying freaks. Even Elasti-Girl, who looks perfectly normal, smiles all the time, no matter how inappropriate, because she thinks it’s the only way anyone will like her. The story is like riding through a really fun carnival haunted house. The whole series has been grand fun, so go check it out.

“Sure!” WHAMMO!

The Brave and the Bold #7

The new storyline starts off with Wonder Woman and Power Girl fighting a horde of mummies. Once they’re dispatched, Power Girl accidentally reveals, while touching Wonder Woman’s magic lasso, that she’s heading for the Fortress of Solitude to kill Superman. Whuh?! Well, PG’s been hypnotized by someone — a short investigation leads the two heroines to the supposedly-destroyed-but-secretly-hidden Library of Alexandria. There, they run into the rotten Dr. Alchemy, an old Flash villain, who manages to transfer his mind into Power Girl’s. From there, Alchemy ambushes Superman at the Fortress and turns the whole place into Red Kryptonite, which brings about a thoroughly grody sequence where Supes mutates rapidly through a bunch of gross-and-drippy alien forms. Wondy ends up saving the day, but no one can figure out why a minor Flash villain like Dr. Alchemy would come up with a scheme to take out Big Blue.

Verdict: Thumbs up. Red Kryptonite is a darn fun plot device, though it’s been a while since we’ve seen it used as lightheartedly as it used to be in the Silver Age. The character interplay is pretty good, and George Perez’s artwork is as dandy as ever.

Powers #26

Quick recap: Former superhero Christian Walker lost his powers and became a cop, paired with Deena Pilgrim. They spent several years solving murders of super-people. Pilgrim accidentally got superpowers from a supervillain, and they burn her up unless she kills people. Walker, meanwhile, was chosen to become an intergalactic super-cop protecting Earth. In this issue, Pilgrim is on the run from the law, is apparently Patient Zero for the Powers Virus that’s been killing people all over the city, and she’s madder’n heck at Walker because she thinks he lied to her about his powers. Meanwhile, mysterious drug pushers (or powers-pushers? Can’t tell yet, but they’re muy mysterioso) are victimizing kids all over the city.

Verdict: Thumbs up. Whoa, Deena’s gotten way scary. I got a bad feeling this storyline isn’t gonna end well for her. And by gum, I think this is the first “Powers” issue in at least several years where no one got nekkid and no one got bloodily dismembered. There’s still swearing galore, so you know it’s still Bendis doing the writing.

Booster Gold #3

Some bad guy’s stolen the powerful Supernova costume from Booster’s 21st century ancestor, and they plan to use it to kill Superman! But Rip Hunter, Time Master, discovers that they have a very devious plan — they’re going to kill the doctor who delivered Jonathan Kent’s great-grandfather, leading to his death during childbirth. As a result, the Luthors find baby Kal-El and Lex ends up killing him as a teenager. So, Booster and Rip have to travel to the Wild West, where Booster gets drunk with psycho gunfighter Jonah Hex, and Skeets gets to ride a horse (not an easy thing for a hovering robot the size of a dinner plate). Booster saves the doctor, gets back to Rip Hunter’s time machine, and then crashes into a couple of guys on a Cosmic Treadmill.

Verdict: Another thumbs up. The art is fun, the story is fun, and this series hasn’t made any serious missteps yet.

Death of the New Gods #1

Actually, this is one comic I absolutely refused to buy. DC kills off a whole boatload of Gentleman Jack Kirby’s characters. Why did I skip this one?

Because DC Comics has spent the last couple of years wallowing in cheap deaths of good characters for nothing more than shock value, hoping for some “Death of Superman” media coverage and a short-term boost in sales.

Because none of these shock-value comics have been worth spit, and I don’t expect this one to be any different.

Because relying on nothing but shock value is a good way to get your readers completely bored with shock value.

Finally, and maybe most importantly — because the New Gods were created by Jack Kirby. You don’t use cheap shock value as an excuse to go mess with characters created by the King of Comics, and that’s all there is to it.

 

The Brave and the Bold #6

The first storyline of DC’s new team-up book wraps up. The evil (and very big-eyed) Luck Lords have used their mastery of the Book of Destiny to conquer time and space, even defeating the Legion of Super-Heroes in the distant future. Meanwhile, in our present, Green Lantern, Supergirl, and Adam Strange are trying to avoid the Luck Lords and get the Book away from General Mondath, but they’re continually thwarted by Mondath’s ability to use the Book to predict and counter their attacks. The trick, they decide, is to let Supergirl use her telescopic and X-ray vision to read the book from a few dozen miles away to locate Batman, then Adam uses the planet Rann’s Zeta beam teleportation technology, amplified by GL’s power ring, to extract Bats from where he was trapped in the future and bring him back to the present. Why? So he can find the only four people in the universe who have slipped off Destiny’s radar and so are completely invisible to the book. Can they help defeat the Luck Lords before everyone runs out of borrowed time?

I gotta tell you, this is hugely, hugely complicated. Holy moley, all the back-and-forth time travel, all the complex schemes, all the plot twists, all the narrow escapes. But wow, is it ever worth it. This is a white-knuckle ending, right down to the wire, almost as good as some of Grant Morrison’s old “JLA” stories a few years ago.

Lots of really great moments, too — tons of great fight scenes, Supergirl paralyzed by all she’s learned about the future from the Book of Destiny, a big splash page of most of DC’s time travelers, all the wild Rannian super-scientific weapons. This is wonderful end to a wonderful storyline.

Verdict: Big thumbs up. Mark Waid’s writing and George Perez’s art make this an unbeatable combo. I hope they keep this title running a long time.

Time to get the reviews for the rest of my comics out of the way today.

The Brave and the Bold #5

Well, last issue ended with Batman merged with the evil cyborg Tharok and transported to the distant future. This issue starts out with the 31st century’s Legion of Super-Heroes using their amazing super-science to split the two characters apart. Unfortunately, despite the many technological advances of the future, they’ve never managed time travel (or at least this version of the future hasn’t — lots of previous versions of the Legion had time travel), so Batman may be permanently stuck in the future. Even worse, his presence is causing the manifestation of dangerous time rifts that could wreck the entire fabric of time. Everyone figures that, since the Haruspex super-weapon managed to send Batman forward in time, maybe it could also send him back. Unfortunately, no one can get it to work anymore.

Frustrated by his situation and by the arrogant Brainiac 5’s constant put-downs of his relatively primitive intellect, Batman seemingly goes nuts, steals a Legion Flight Ring, and leads the Legionnaires on a wild chase. In the process, he ties Triplicate Girl into a Siamese Human Knot (just like in the old ’60s “Batman” show!) and has a grand mid-air martial arts battle with Karate Kid.

Back in the present-day, Supergirl, Green Lantern, and Adam Strange are on the distant planet Rann trying to locate the Book of Destiny before the evil Luck Lords get their hands on it.

Verdict: Thumbs up. So many cool things, all in one book. Action, humor, wonderful dialogue, great plot twists, and George Perez’s outstanding art — all of it in one little comic book. Go git it.

All-Flash #1

This is a one-shot issue to link the old “Flash” series with the new one. In it, the resurrected Wally West goes after Bart Allen’s killer (and clone!) Inertia. He picks an ironic end for him that is indeed uncommonly cruel for what we know about Wally (just as Bart’s death was uncommonly cruel for what we knew of the previously non-murderous Rogues), but it is something that Inertia will be able to escape from pretty easily so he can come back over and over as a villain.

This issue has several different artists, but at the end we get a glimpse of Daniel Acuna’s art for the new “Flash” series — and I’m not really very encouraged by it. You see, Acuna is a painter — an excellent one, in fact — and his artwork, like the recent “Uncle Sam and the Freedom Fighters,” is dark, dark, dark — lots of very dark colors, accentuated by brilliant flashes of light. It’s beautiful, but it makes his artwork hard to look at — you can’t see it clearly in anything less than direct light — anything less is like looking at dim silhouettes. And his best work is fairly grounded in the realism of the human form — but here, he goes for some grotesque cartooning — Flash’s son is a kid, and elsewhere in this issue, he’s depicted as a normal-looking kid. But in Acuna’s artwork, he has powers, and his arms and upper body are muscled like a professional bodybuilder. He looks utterly freakish — he’d look freakish drawn by anyone, but Acuna’s realistic style makes it more pronounced and ugly. Acuna’s artwork for “The Flash” makes me a lot less enthusiastic about the upcoming series — I’m a big believer in the idea that the writer doe the most work toward creating a good comic book, but there’s no doubt that poor — or in this case, just bizarre — artwork can kill a lot of the pleasure of reading a well-written comic.

Verdict: Thumbs up, but just barely. There are large chunks of this story that I like a lot, but the Acuna artwork just makes me so nervous…

Stephen Colbert’s Tek Jansen #1

Yes, this is the same Stephen Colbert who anchors Comedy Central’s “Colbert Report.” The comic isn’t written by Colbert, but he is credited with “Galactic Overlording.”

Tek Jansen is a Colbert-created space hero who looks just like Colbert and talks just like his comedy persona — egotistical, conservative, casually xenophobic, but very, very, very heroic and always right about everything. He gets sent on intergalactic missions, engages in wild derring-do, takes the law into his own hands, and makes fun of both the radioactive robot monkey he works with and Overseeress Braina, a floating disembodied brain wearing a pretty bow.

He sleeps with a gross skeleton alien, brutally assaults numerous monstrous alien menaces (and innocent alien passersby), fights evil in the nude, and destroys planets for no good reason. There are lots of funny sciencefictionisms, as well as wonderful dialogue, especially from the evil Meangarr, a caged inkblot who constantly issues over-the-top threats like “I’ll tear your head off and make it my wife.” (Note: Please try to use this phrase in conversation today.)

Verdict: Thumbs up. Clearly, we need more comics inspired by Stephen Colbert monologues.

 

Just like high school, except in space and the leather-clad blondes aren’t beating me up and stealing my lunch money.

Let’s take a quick look at another new comic, this time the fourth issue of “The Brave and the Bold,” DC’s new revival of their classic team-up comic. So far, in a cosmic quest for a pair of artifacts, one mystical, one super-scientific, we’ve seen team-ups of Batman and Green Lantern, Green Lantern and Supergirl, and Batman and Blue Beetle. At the end of the last issue, a terrible accident had occurred while Bats and Beetle were fighting the futuristic Fatal Five, leading to Batman sharing a body with the evil cyborg Tharok — in other words, Batman is currently half-Batman and half insanely murderous robot!

In this issue, we start out with our focus on Batman and Blue Beetle. Bats is having trouble controlling the robotic half of his body and Beetle can’t figure out how to split Batman and Tharok back apart. The rest of the Fatal Five attack, and Batman seemingly sacrifices himself to remove the Fatal Five from the equation.

After that, we switch to this issue’s main team-up — Supergirl and psycho space-biker Lobo. Supergirl’s lost in space, and Lobo’s been hired to get her to the distant planet Rann, where Green Lantern has been teleported. Supergirl and Lobo are teleported from a scummy interstellar bar to, of all places, the Garden of Destiny — as in Destiny, the elder brother of Dream from Neil Gaiman’s “Sandman” comics. Destiny, normally one of the most powerful beings in the universe, is a bit scatter-brained because he’s lost the Book of Destiny, which lists every moment of history, from the beginning of time to the end of everything. Supergirl decides to find the Book, and Destiny returns them to normal space, where Lobo takes her to Rann (and Supergirl welshes on paying him!).

And finally, we catch back up with Batman, still merged with Tharok, transported to the far future, where he’ll team up, next issue, with the Legion of Super-Heroes.

I’m a big fan of this book. George Perez’s artwork is as awesome as ever, and Mark Waid really has a knack for depicting multiple different characters and giving them enough personality to make them all distinctive from each other. The story is entirely rollicking, even in the places where it doesn’t make a lick of sense, and the idea that anything can happen at any time (who ever expected a character from the “Sandman” comics to make a guest appearance?!?) means you anticipate the next new surprise all the way through.

Verdict: Big thumbs up. Go git it.