Batman Inc.: Leviathan Strikes! #1

There is so much stuff going on in this comic, people. SO MUCH STUFF!

First things first: This is set before Flashpoint and before the DC Reboot! HUZZAH! It’s a Christmas miracle!

We get Stephanie Brown as Batgirl one more time, infiltrating a sinister finishing school where the students are trained to be assassins. We get Barbara Gordon as Oracle one more time, organizing all the Batmen all over the planet. We get Batman stuck in some kind of bizarre drug/time-travel hallucination as he tries to battle Otto Netz. We get betrayals and double-agents and sacrifices and mind-control and old friends and old enemies. And we find out who’s really running Leviathan. Is it Jezebel Jet? It’s Jezebel Jet, isn’t it?

Verdict: Thumbs up, people. Oh, mercy, just to see another glimpse of the pre-Reboot continuity. That alone is worth a thumbs up. Plus Stephanie Brown, Oracle, Dick Grayson as Batman, and a chance for even more next year? That’s solid gold, baby.

Daredevil #7

After the office Christmas party, Matt Murdock volunteers to escort some blind kids from a local school on a field trip. Unfortunately, there’s a crash in the middle of a blizzard, and Daredevil has to lead the kids to safety. Easy-peasy, right? Nope, all the snow messes with DD’s radar senses, and his injuries from the crash have got him in danger of bleeding out. Can a blind, injured superhero save a bunch of kids in a raging snowstorm when he has no idea where he is or where to find safe shelter?

Verdict: Thumbs up. Nicely tense storytelling, beautiful art, fun dialogue, and an unexpected challenge for the Man without Fear. If nothing else, this comic is worth getting for Matt Murdock at a Christmas party wearing an “I’m Not Daredevil” sweater.

Wonder Woman #4

While Wonder Woman soothes herself from abandoning Themyscira by taking in a London rock show, the gods plot against her, and Hera herself prepares to revenge herself upon the Amazons.

Verdict: Ehh, thumbs up. Not a lot happening here, really. But I enjoyed the idea of Ares as an old man hanging out in war zones. And Diana hanging out in a headbangers club was pretty cool, too. If I’ve got a serious disappointment, it’s that Hippolyta may now be written out of the series, and that’s just way too early for that to happen.

Tiny Titans #47

Bumblebee attends a meeting of the Team Nucleus club and is looking forward to getting her Babysitting Patch. Mrs. Atom offers to help out, so they volunteer to take Damien, Jason Toddler, Kid Devil, Arthur Jr., and Miss Martian on a trip to Metropolis. Too bad that they lose all the kids in the city almost immediately! Can Bumblebee and Miss Martian round up the rest of the kids? Or will Bee have to do without her new patch?

Verdict: Thumbs up. Much humor and lunacy and cuteness all over the place here. Y’all know why I love this series already, okay?!

Today’s Cool Links:

• Here’s an Ogden Nash Christmas poem you can read to your kids, or to anyone else who likes silly poetry.
• And for you grownups, here’s a darker but still humorous Christmas story by Charles Stross.
• Kalinara ponders the lack of passion in the Rebooted DCU.

Daredevil #6

Daredevil just got beat like a drum and thrown into the ocean by a metahuman enforcer called Bruiser. DD is still able to get himself out of that situation, but he’s got to save his client, Austin and his boss, Mr. Randall, from a consortium of the Marvel Universe’s biggest criminal cartels, including A.I.M., Hydra, the Secret Empire, Agence Byzantine, and Black Spectre. Can Daredevil survive his rematch against Bruiser, get Austin and Mr. Randall to safety, and find a way to let the five biggest superterrorist organizations in the world let him walk out the door unharmed?

Verdict: Thumbs up. Another grand issue, with action and smarts, great writing and great art, all wrapped up in a nice little package. You’re reading this, aren’t you? You should be reading this.

Tiny Titans #46

Robin is going off on a secret mission with Batman, but he’s got a replacement on the way — not good news for Robin’s evil mirror-universe counterpart, Talon, who wants to be allowed to take over in Robin’s stead. Instead, the guy taking over for now is a guy called the Protector — a guy who showed up really briefly as a replacement Robin in a “Teen Titans” anti-drug commercial in 1983! And appropriately, in an issue dedicated to way-out continuity trivia, we get this character:

It’s the weird purple cloaked lady who’s been showing up in all the rebooted DC Comics! Or is it…?

The Protector seems popular with everyone, but Talon isn’t going to let that get in his way as he organizes the Batcave’s bats and penguins to serve him. Will he triumph over Robin’s replacement? And who the heck is that lady in purple?

Verdict: Thumbs up. Spectacularly funny and clever stuff. Not the best issue of this title ever, but it’s close to the top, and it’s a great example of what makes this series so much fun.

Dungeons & Dragons #13

Adric Fell and his frequently-not-very-merry band of adventurers are stuck in the dwarven stronghold where Khal, the group’s paladin, hails from. He suspects something bad has happened to his girlfriend Danni, and they all soon find themselves trapped between the insectoid Kruthik monsters and Khal’s fellow dwarves, who have been ordered by Danni’s mother to kill them! They make a narrow and altogether amazing escape, but find themselves in another underground structure, one filled with hundreds of slaughtered Kruthiks, tiled in bone, dominated by an obviously evil temple, and infested by the deranged and monstrously creepy Foulspawn. Is there any way out of this for Fell’s Five?

Verdict: Thumbs up. Vastly fun. Great atmosphere, wonderful dialogue, great characterization, outstanding action. The group’s desperate flight from the Kruthiks is fantastic, and the slow, ominous buildup inside the foulspawn tunnels is amazingly well-done. John Rogers and Andrea De Vito are putting out the very best fantasy comic book you’re ever gonna read, right here.

Today’s Cool Links:

• Begun, the Alan Moore-Frank Miller Flamewar has.
• Female bloggers, I apologize on behalf of my gender. And I truly wish there was more that could be done about these douchebags.
• Man, Batman is creepy.

Still tired of doing reviews all the blasted time, so I’m hoping to get all the reviews out of the way before the weekend. Can I do it? Let’s see!

Abe Sapien: The Devil Does Not Jest #2

Abe is in a bad way after getting mobbed and cut to ribbons by a bunch of little monsters. He meets up with the ghost of the demonologist Van Laer while he’s hallucinating — he tells him how he let his arrogance convince him to raise a powerful demon. He was able to destroy it, but not before it infected his wife with a poison that turned her into a monster. Will Abe and the sheriff be able to survive before help arrives?

Verdict: Thumbs up. Monsters, monsters, monsters. Fishmen, ghosts, demons, axes. Everything I need in a pre-Halloween comic book. Yes, get both chapters of this, if you can.

Daredevil #5

Blind translater Austin Cao has hired Matt Murdock to represent him in a wrongful termination suit. But Cao was fired because his boss feared he’d overheard some shady dealings, and the crooks employing his boss decide to deal with both Cao and Murdock with a hit squad. It’s a good thing Matt Murdock is Daredevil so he can beat the stuffins out of the assassins. Matt gets Austin to a safe location, then helps him remember the conversation he’d accidentally overheard — a scheme to register the ships of criminal organizations with Latveria to make sure they’ll be able to fly below any legal radar. Daredevil moves to protect Austin’s boss from the bad guys, but there’s a new assassin on the way — a superstrong killing machine called Bruiser.

Verdict: Thumbs up. Smart, smart writing from Mark Waid, and amazingly gorgeous art from Marcos Martin. You’re reading this comic, aren’t you? Why aren’t you reading this comic?

Secret Avengers #18

Steve Rogers, Sharon Carter, and Shang-Chi, Master of Kung Fu, are in a secret hideout in another dimension — a broken dimension, actually, with laws of physics that don’t work right. However, some matter in this broken dimension can be transported to our own — and due to its weird physical properties, this transmatter can very easily be made to undergo nuclear fusion. This means that a small amount of it could be used to completely destroy the Earth. So they need to stop a degraded clone-copy of Arnim Zola from transporting the transmatter back to Earth. What’s this all boil down to? A heck of a lot of Shang-Chi beating up people.

Verdict: Thumbs up. Come on, this issue is basically a tribute to how much fun it is to see Shang-Chi beat people up. And that’s a very, very good thing.

All Star Western #2

Jonah Hex and Amadeus Arkham are in big trouble. They know that Gotham City’s serial killer is actually supported by a secret conspiracy of many of the city’s most powerful people, all belonging to something called the Religion of Crime, and they’ll never let them live with that knowledge. Of course, you send a squad of gunmen to take on Jonah Hex, you’re likely to end up with a squad of dead gunmen. But Hex and Arkham are still just two men against a whole city of evil. All that, plus there’s a backup story starring the new version of Western hero El Diablo, riding into town to save a bunch of townspeople from zombies.

Verdict: Thumbs up. Nice to see that the Religion of Crime hasn’t been scrapheaped with the old DC Universe. Nice to see Hex shooting a buttload of bad guys. But I do hope we see Arkham doing something other than merely observing the action soon.

Avengers Academy #20

In the aftermath of “Fear Itself,” Veil has decided to leave Avengers Academy — and she calls mega-wealthy metahuman sociopath Jeremy Briggs to see if he’ll give her a job with his company. In addition, Speedball has also decided to quit the group, finally feeling that he’s made up for the Stamford disaster and wanting to be a regular hero again. So is this the beginning of the end of Avengers Academy, or just the end of the beginning?

Verdict: Thumbs up. The farewell to Veil, Speedball, and some other characters is nice — but honestly, the ones leaving were the ones that were the least interesting characters in the comic. Still, I’m fairly keen on the fact that this really cool comic is going to continue.

All reviews complete? ALL REVIEWS COMPLETE!

Today’s Cool Links:

• Another article on how DC is shooting itself in the foot by marketing themselves solely to immature white males — and why it’s important to keep saying so.
• This was a really interesting article about scientists who study octopus intelligence and the suprising things they’re learning.
• If you’ve been missing Allie Brosh’s posts on “Hyperbole and a Half,” she has the sad but inspiring story of where she’s been.

Daredevil #4

Everyone at least suspects that Matt Murdock is Daredevil, so every time he steps into a courtroom, his case gets derailed and thrown out because people won’t stop talking about Daredevil. So Matt and Foggy Nelson are now working to coach people who have good cases but can’t afford a lawyer on how to represent themselves successfully in court. Of course, there’s still plenty for Daredevil to do, including fighting lions at the Bronx Zoo, beating up muggers in a diner, and rescuing kids from a tenement fire. But Matt’s new case is a wrongful-termination suit with a blind man, a translator who knows over two dozen languages who was fired numerous commendations after somehow running afoul of a couple of Latverian investors. Uh-oh, Latverians, huh?

Verdict: Thumbs up. Okay, the story is just great, but holy baloney, the artwork by Marcos Martin is just absolutely amazing. That’s all I can say about it — just amazing, beautiful artwork. The fight with the lions alone should be put up in a museum somewhere. That cover definitely deserves to be framed and admired.

Batman #1

Well, I loved Scott Snyder’s work when he was writing “Detective Comics,” so I figured I should follow him to see how he does in DC’s new Rebooted “Batman” series. So we get Batman facing off against nearly his entire rogues gallery — and getting helped out of the jam by the Joker?! We get Bruce Wayne and all his most trusted sidekicks visiting a big social event to sell the city’s movers and shakers on a rebuilt, improved Gotham City. And we get Batman visiting a gruesome crime scene to discover that the killer may be someone who’s very, very unexpected.

Verdict: Thumbs up. This might be the best of DC’s Rebooted comics so far, mostly because it doesn’t read like a series that’s been rebooted. Our cast of characters doesn’t change significantly (the Riddler gets a mohawk, and that’s about it), and Snyder gets to focus on writing a good Batman story. Greg Capullo’s art is fun — Gotham and Arkham’s villains are appropriately grungy, the details of the Batcave are grandly realized, and the action sequences are fantastic. Put this one on your pull list, gang.

Dark Horse Presents #4

This anthology series seems to be getting better and better. Besides a new episode of Evan Dorkin and Jill Thompson’s enlessly awesome “Beasts of Burden,” we’re treated to new chapters of Howard Chaykin’s “Marked Man” series, Richard Delgado’s “Age of Reptiles,” Carla Speed McNeil’s “Finder: Third World,” Steve Niles and Christopher Mitten’s “Criminal Macabre,” Robert Love and David Walker’s “Number 13,” the wonderfully funny “Adventures of Dog Mendonca and Pizzaboy” by Filipe Melo and Juan Cavia, and much more.

Verdict: Thumbs up. Favorite stories? “Beasts of Burden,” of course. Loved the Dog Mendonca story. Chaykin’s “Marked Man” series is getting better by the second. And “Finder” is amazingly fun and entertaining. But I don’t believe there was a single bad story in this issue. That’s pretty good for an anthology comic.

Frankenstein: Agent of S.H.A.D.E. #1

Another star from Grant Morrison’s “Seven Soldiers” makes his way to the Rebooted DC, as the badass, Milton-quoting man-monster called Frankenstein gets his own spotlight.

As a member of S.H.A.D.E., the Super Human Advanced Defense Executive, he pays his first visit to the Ant Farm, the organization’s hyper-miniaturized headquarters, designed by Ray Palmer, and meets up with the organization’s leader, Father Time — who, to Frankenstein’s distress, has cloned himself a new body — a Japanese schoolgirl in a domino mask. He receives a new assignment — to investigate a small town overrun by monsters, where his wife, the Bride, has already vanished. And he gets some sidekicks for the job — the Creature Commandos, including the vampiric Vincent Velcoro, Dr. Nina Mazursky, a fish/human hybrid, the lycanthropic Warren Griffith, and Khalis, a genuine Egyptian mummy. But do five monsters stand a chance against an army of hundreds more?

Verdict: Thumbs up. Lots of fairly mad action and a nice big dollop of humor to go along with it. Frankenstein is the same action-pulp hero he’s been in previous appearances, and Father Time’s new look is pretty hilarious. The Creature Commandos are barely sketched-out personalities for now, and the Bride barely appears at all. My primary disappointment is the lack of over-wrought pulp captions that were so prominent in the “Seven Soldiers” comic — there’s not a single “All in a day’s work… for Frankenstein!” to be found here. Still, it was a bucket of fun, and I’ll keep reading.

Daredevil #3

The Man without Fear has been captured by a bunch of partial sound-clones of the sonic-powered supervillain Klaw, and they’re trying to build him into a new remote-controlled body they can use to cause more chaos. Is there a way for Daredevil to escape when the clones’ sound forms wreak such havoc with his superpowered senses? And even if he can get away, is there a way for him to help an innocent man win a court case when no lawyer in the city will take him as a client?

Verdict: Thumbs up. A very tense and smart story by Mark Waid, and beautiful art by Paolo Rivera and Joe Rivera. Not much more I can say about this — it’s a really wonderful superhero story, without too much of the angst we’re seeing in other comics.

Daredevil #2

Daredevil finds himself under attack by Captain America, who wants to arrest him for various long-ago crimes. He manages to convince Cap that he was under someone else’s control during that time and tells him he needs to go prove a man’s innocence. Matt’s investigation soon uncovers evidence that all of Ahmed Jobrani’s previous attorneys had been threatened off his case, and when he learns that Jobrani planned to spend his settlement money to buy back his old electronics shop. And when Daredevil goes there to look around, he finds the sonic-powered villain Klaw — but why are there so many of them?

Verdict: Thumbs up. Top-notch superheroics and freakin’ awesome artwork by Paolo Rivea and Joe Rivera. Love the dialogue and action, love the characterizations. Did I mention how much I love the artwork? I just love the artwork.

Power Girl #27

Final issue of this series. And I like the way we see a lot of elements of PeeGee’s older stories brought back, even if just for one issue. After beating up some robots who had been “programmed to reject stratagems from old “Star Trek” episodes,” (Noice one!) Power Girl discovers a holographic message written for her. It warns that three dangerous situations have been set up — and she has only 60 seconds to deal with ’em. She has to rescue her JSA teammate Cyclone, keep a villain called Typhoon from killing a random little girl, and keep Da Bomb (from the awesomely funny JSA #39 in 2002) from wrecking the Leaning Tower of Pisa. Can Kara save all those people in time and stop the bad guys behind the plot?

Verdict: Thumbs up. Not necessarily the farewell for the character and her awesome supporting cast that I would’ve preferred, but the story is good, the humor is excellent, the personalities are fun, and I had a good time reading it. I would’ve liked seeing Terra or Vartox or her horrible, horrible cat — but I liked getting to see Da Bomb, who I always thought was hilarious.

Zatanna #16

Zatanna hasn’t been getting enough sleep lately, thanks to all the shows she’s been performing. When she finally gets the chance at some extra shut-eye, she gets a visit from a magic-using kid named Uriah, from Limbo Town, the same place where Klarion the Witch-Boy hails from. Uriah says he wants to be Zatanna’s apprentice, but when she turns him down, he’s off like a shot exploring his way through Zee’s mansion ’til he finds her library. After he finds the magical Book of Maps, he leads her on a chase through a dozen alternate worlds. Will she be able to stop him before he causes some serious havoc?

Verdict: Ehh, thumbs down. This was really kind of a crummy farewell to the character, with too much emphasis on Uriah and not enough on Zee or any member of her supporting cast. But it looks like this title became one of DC’s red-headed stepchildren when they decided they’d stop supporting it, so it’s been passed around from one creator to another an awful lot…

Today’s Cool Links:

• Floating inflatable remote-controlled fish? Okay, I’d like some of those.
• Cookie Monster + Tom Waits = Awesomeness.
• This may be the best set of engagement photos ever.
• And because we can’t have nothing but happy links all the time, here’s something about criminally abusive “Christian” youth homes that’ll make your blood boil.

Daredevil #1

And that right there is the dadgum prettiest cover I’ve seen in a couple weeks. If you can’t see it clearly enough, the entire background is made up entirely of sound effects — the skyscrapers and streets are made of “HONK”s and “SKREEE”s and “WHOOSH”es, the water tower is made of “GLUG”s and “DRIP”s, and the pigeons are made of “FLAP”s and “COO”s. It’s an outstanding piece of work.

Inside, we get a new introduction to the Man Without Fear, as he prepares to crash a Mafia wedding. He’s heard a rumor that someone is planning a hit on someone in the wedding party, and Daredevil’s enhanced senses allow him to track the supervillain named Spot as he gets ready to kidnap the don’s granddaughter. Daredevil is able to keep the little girl out of the teleporter’s grasp, but the mobsters think DD is the kidnapper. Of course, he eventually stops the bad guys (and lays a killer liplock on the bride), and then has to face the major struggle — everyone in New York knows that Matt Murdock is really Daredevil, and it’s making it impossible for him to keep any courtroom clients.

Verdict: Thumbs up. This is a seriously brilliant comic. We get new insights into what it’s like to live with Daredevil’s vastly enhanced senses, particularly his radar sense. We get jaw-dropping action, outstanding dialogue and characterization, clever humor, you name it. Writer Mark Waid completely kills both stories in this issue, and artists Paolo Rivera and Marcos Martin may be even better — the artwork is simply amazing. Better start picking this one up now — we may be seeing the beginning of one of the greats.

Xombi #5

The villainous Roland Finch has taken over the Ninth Stronghold, a giant floating city made out of the skull of a Biblical giant, and he plans to either take over the other floating strongholds or destroy them. David Kim and his allies must prepare to chase down Finch, lay siege to the Ninth Stronghold, and somehow oust him before he causes more destruction. Can they do it?

Verdict: Thumbs up. Frazer Irving’s art continues to wildly impress, and John Rozum’s writing continues to blow minds. This is a story with a wealth of wild ideas, from the immense Nephilim, the giants of the Old Testament, whose bones are used to build the Skull Stronghold, to the brief hints of the magical wonders common to all of the strongholds, to David’s struggles with his own immortality and the knowledge that his girlfriend may reject him for it. It’s deeply disappointing that this series will be cancelled after the next issue, because weirdness this wonderful is certainly something that only comics really do well…

Today’s Cool Links:

• An interview with the Batgirl cosplayer at Comic Con who dared to question the DC Reboot.
• Laura Hudson has a brilliant essay examining why it’s important — and sad news — that DC has so drastically reduced the number of female creators they work with.
• Siskoid wonders if the DC Reboot is going to end Green Ronin’s DC Adventures RPG before its time.
• Jemma Salume makes some really amazing redesigns for some of Dr. Strange’s villains.