Thanks to having the blog shut down for a week and then spending most of last week promoting the Comic Book Expo, I’ve fallen way, waaaay behind on my comics reviews, so I’m gonna try to get as many of these out of the way as I can.

DC Universe #0

This is the one everyone was talking about last week. Superman hangs out with the Legion of Super-Heroes in the distant future, Batman hangs out with the Joker, a bunch of bad guys want Wonder Woman dead, the Green Lanterns are unaware that the Black Lanterns are coming for them, a minor villain called Libra is trying pretty weakly to get a bunch of villains to join the Cult of the Crime Bible, and Barry Allen comes back to life.

Verdict: Thumbs down. It’s an ad for “Final Crisis,” and it’s not even a particularly well-done ad. And was anyone here really jonesing for Barry Allen to come back? I wish DC would quit being stupid and quit screwing their comics up for no good reason.

Justice League of America #20

A nice little done-in-one story about Wonder Woman and the Flash taking on the Queen Bee.

Verdict: Thumbs up. Seems like the Queen Bee should be more of a regular threat — I thought comics thrived on things like hyper-evolved space bees, right? Still, fun stuff, some good speed tricks from the Flash, and a nice Silver-Age feel to the story.

Tangent: Superman’s Reign #2

The Tangent Universe’s Green Lantern gets her magic lantern back, restoring her youth, and the Tangent version of the Flash, along with the regular DCU Flash and Green Lantern come along for the ride. The Tangent GL summons the spirit of the Tangent version of the Joker, who was a superhero, to fill in the gaps of the Tangent Superman’s ruthless rise to dictatorial power.

Verdict: Thumbs up, but just barely. The characters are pretty interesting, but I’m having trouble accepting this as a story that needs 12 issues to tell. They could make it a heck of a lot shorter by cutting out those useless history lessons that take up about a third of the pagecount.

Teen Titans #58

We focus on Miss Martian, trying to make a life for herself and ignore the voice of her evil future-self, who has taken up residence in her head. On top of that, she’s also being stalked by the Terror Titans’ Disruptor, and Kid Devil is still being horribly tortured to try to get him to turn evil.

Verdict: Thumbs up, I think. I don’t much like the idea of Evil Miss Martian, but the story is well-done and does a good job of continually raising the stakes.

The Flash #239

The new supervillain Spin managed to use Keystone City’s fears about the Flash’s money problems to turn him, temporarily, into a superspeedy thief. Now everyone’s more afraid of Flash than ever. He also manages to mind-control Jay Garrick into attacking Wally. Oh, and Wally has gotten a legitimate job at last — watching videotapes at super-speed? Weird…

Verdict: Thumbs up. Spin is still a pretty dumb villain, but the scheme is getting better, bit by bit. Still, next time they want to use a supervillain with fear and mind-control powers, why don’t they just raid Batman’s rogues gallery for Scarecrow and Mad Hatter?

She-Hulk #28

She-Hulk gets arrested again after causing a ruckus at a football stadium while trying to apprehend the guy who knocked down an apartment building a few issues ago.

Verdict: Thumbs down. Dangit, this storyline completely vanished several months ago, then it’s back and running hard like we’re supposed to remember it again? Guys, please stop jumping randomly from one storyline to another.

Oookay, that’s enough for now. Another review-burst tomorrow…

 

The Goon #22

There’s a new Zombie Priest in town, and he’s got the zombies givin’ the old Zombie Priest the bizness. He’s also got some bad news in store for the rest of town, too. More of the more docile zombies around town are starting to go bad — and I don’t mean smelly — and Momma Norton, the crazy gypsy mother of the local pub owner, is gunned down, possibly by Labrazio, a guy who the Goon killed years ago. But if it’s not Labrazio, who’s behind the killing? What will Norton do to get revenge? Will the Goon get to beat anyone to pieces with a shovel before the end of this?

Verdict: Thumbs up. Not quite as much riotously funny stuff as in previous issues. This is really a dead serious story, with lots of emotion, from Momma Norton’s bloody prediction of death to Norton’s complete sorrow over his momma’s passing. Even the Goon is deeply affected by all this — he cries twice, whether from sadness for Momma Norton or his own tortured past with Labrazio. It’s easy to forget that this is a horror comic, what with all the crazy, funny stuff that happens here, but it’s clear that some truly horrific stuff is on the way.

 

Justice League of America #19

The Justice League heads out to the prison planet where the government has been stashing supervillains (in the “Salvation Run” series). They take along Rick Flag, a government agent who helped put the villains away. Unfortunately, when they finally arrive at the planet the government has been sending everyone to, they find it deserted, except for a few illusions of supervillains. They are taken prisoner by strange glowing tentacles of energy that only Hawkgirl is able to escape from. It turns out that their captor is the mostly useless space-tyrant Kanjar Ro, and he reveals that the villains’ teleport beams were intercepted by teleport beams from… somewhere else… before they arrived here. After that, the heroes escape and, um, I guess they go back home.

Verdict: Thumbs down. So much awfulness. Kanjar Ro? What, was Crazy Quilt not available? And he uses energy “drawn from the fabric of space-time” that just happens to be weakened by Hawkgirl’s all-purpose “Nth Element?” Isn’t that fairly stupidly convenient? And finally, I’m just completely sick to death of Ed Benes’ plastic, Michael-Turneresque penciling.

 

The Flash #238

Flash and his family are having money troubles — Wally can’t get a job, and being a superhero doesn’t really pay very well. There’s a new supervillain in town called Spin who can turn people’s fears real — he actually causes an earthquake by latching onto people’s fears of an earlier quake. And when Flash gets caught on camera complaining about his money woes, the media launches the soundbite into a major scandal. And when Wally goes after Spin, the villain manages to use his power to turn people’s fears about Flash selling out into reality.

Verdict: Thumbs up, more or less. Spin is, honestly, a fairly lame villain, but I liked the way they introduced Wally’s money troubles. One of the things that’s always bugged me about superheroes is that most of them, as written, should be unable to keep a job and just a shade above abject poverty anyway. So it’s not at all bad, but Spin is just a lousy villain.

 

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?!

The Umbrella Academy #5

There’s a lot of stuff going on here. Number 5 effortlessly kills a bunch of mysterious villains in a diner, implies that he had something to do with the Kennedy assassination, suddenly acquires a fondness for Hargreeves’ monocle, has disturbing visions about the Academy’s uplifted chimpanzee caretaker Pogo, and faints. Spaceboy and the Rumor have a quiet moment together, then Rumor uses her powers to get a liplock with Space — which is kinda creepy, since Rumor and Space have spent their whole lives thinking of each other as siblings. And Vanya, now operating as the destructively musical White Violin, does a very bad thing to a very nice person. Next Issue: The End of the World.

Verdict: Thumbs up. Ye gods, I love this series. The characters are just so wild and weird and vibrant — when Vanya makes her move, you don’t know whether to be mad at her, sad for her, or hopeful that she can somehow pull herself out of this part of her life. You should be reading this now, and if you don’t get with it, I’m gonna come to your house and hit you with boulders, I swear it.

Booster Gold #6

Booster defies Time Master Rip Hunter’s wishes and goes on a mission to save Ted Kord, the Blue Beetle who died prior to the Infinite Crisis, with three other Blue Beetles — Dan Garrett, the Golden Age Blue Beetle, Jaime Reyes, the Blue Beetle of today, and a mysterious Blue Beetle from the future. And things appear to go swimmingly — Booster and the Beetles manage to stop Mazwell Lord before he can shoot Ted. But can they really get away with disrupting the proper timeline? And is Rip Hunter planning to use Booster’s own ancestors to get back at him?

Verdict: Thumbs up. This is just a great series, and no one was expecting much of anything from it.

The Flash #236

The Flash and his kids save the JLA and save the world from the invading aquatic aliens, but they have to sacrifice their connection to the alien “Planet Flash” where they’ve occasionally traveled.

Verdict: Thumbs down. Okay, remember how bad the last issue was, with that insanely retch-inducing garbage about the JLA getting into “warrior-rage mode”? Well, that one was so cosmically bad, that its unholy stink reached forward in time to infect this comic. If any of y’all are ever in the same room with writer Mark Waid and a whiffle bat, please strike the former with the latter. Tell him I said “Hi.”

Well, the good news: Star Comics down on 34th has finally re-opened after their short Christmas vacation. Huzzah, I can get comics again! The bad news: my evening was a bit unexpectedly busy, and I haven’t even had time to read everything I picked up yet. And the worser-than-that news: the two I had time to read last night were dogs. The year is still young, but at least one of them is so bad, it may end up being the worst comic I read this year. So let’s get straight to the craptastic reviews…

The Flash #235

Well, the Flash recruits Wonder Woman, Green Lantern, and Black Lightning, from the Justice League, to help him take the fight to the aquatic aliens’ homeworld. Or homesea. Or wherever it is. It’s actually underwater, but the water there is so heavily oxygenated that it’s actually breathable. Yes, just like in “The Abyss.” So they’re all kicking sea monster butt until Flash suddenly realizes that they’re fighting illusions. He can’t get the rest of the heroes to break off their attack (because they’ve moved into “warrior-rage mode.” I’m sorry, but WHAT?!) so he heads back to Earth, since he figures the aliens have re-invaded the planet since they’re all distracted.

When Wally gets back to Earth, he finds that his son Jai has gone off on his own to fight the aliens. Flash finds him quickly enough and learns that Jai knows that the powers he and his sister have could kill them at any time. Wally tries to talk him out of his depression, then they go to fight the aliens.

Verdict: Thumbs down. I really can’t get over that howling bulldada about “warrior-rage mode.” Yes, a minute ago, a bunch of the world’s top-notch heroes were perfectly fine, after fighting for hours, and now they’re mindless berserker drones, and the world’s fastest man just can’t think of any way to break ’em out of the spell. Wow. That’s some high-quality monkey fertilizer right there, baby. And really, the rest of the issue ain’t all that great anyway. But “warrior-rage mode” was the 60-ton girder that broke the camel’s back.

Teen Titans #54

Most of the Titans and the future evil Titans Army have been taken over by Starro, who besides being an evil outer-space mind-controlling starfish, also has a Sinestro Corps ring. Umm, okay. The only people who are non-Starroed are Robin and Miss Martian (who both pretty much just watch stuff), Blue Beetle, and evil clone Kid Flash. Beetle and Kid Flash take out Starro, then the Titans Army all try to kill Beetle, Ravager, and Supergirl. Then some of the Army suddenly turn good. Then they all disappear. Then, um, something happens in the future, or maybe not, with some characters who are dead, and, and…

…

It makes no sense. None whatsoever. Holy cats, is this rotten stuff. I’ve been enjoying the recent “Teen Titans” comics, for the most part, so it’s a bit of a shock to see something this stupefyingly awful come out of this book. It’s just staggeringly inept.

Verdict: Thumbs down. Several thumbs down. Several dozen thumbs down.

It’s been a long week, the holiday stress is starting to pile up, ice is forming on your skin. Is there any relief? Yes! You need FRIDAY NIGHT FIGHTS!

From 1997’s “Secret Origins” story from JLA: Secret Files and Origins #1 by Grant Morrison, Mark Millar, Howard Porter, and John Dell: Flash gets an evil, mind-controlling interstellar starfish stuck to his face and proceeds to smack the tar out of the Justice League.

Luckily, Batman knows the perfect way to break people of starfish-hypnosis: SAVAGE BEATINGS.

In any battle between Batman and sushi, always put your money on the guy in the bat-suit.

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.

 

Teen Titans #52

The Titans are stuck in the crossfire between a bunch of mind-controlled villains and the evil Titans from the future. Robin’s plan to kill himself to stop himself from turning into Evil Future Batman is foiled by Prometheus showing up to knock him around. Blue Beetle has to contend with Evil Future Clone Flash. Miss Martian gets a beat-down from Evil Future Martian Manhunter, Kid Devil and Ravager have to fight off supervillains and Evil Future Red Devil, Wonder Girl isn’t getting anything but lectures from Evil Future Wonder Woman, Supergirl is fighting Evil Future Clone Superman. And there are even more Future Evil Threats on the way…

Verdict: Thumbs up, mainly because I dig stories about Future Evil Superheroes.

 

The Trials of Shazam #9

Freddy Freeman wants to move up from being just Captain Marvel Jr. to being the new Captain Marvel, but to do that, he’s gotta be tested by the various gods of magic — and Apollo wants Freddy dead for trying to take away his new, happy, mortal life. And Sabina is still plotting against Freddy behind the scenes.

Verdict: Thumbs up. Good fight scenes, a decent moral/philosophical backstory, and evil schemes going on in the background. This one should start accelerating very quickly toward the ending…

 

The Flash #233

The Flash Family gets rid of the alien invaders, with a little help from the Justice League. Later, Superman demonstrates some of the worst choice of wording ever (“We’ve come for the children” instead of what he really meant, which was “We’ve come to talk to you calmly and unthreateningly about our concerns about your children’s safety.” Superman is an idiot.) and Wally and Linda worry about how long the kids will live with their hyperaccelerated metabolisms.

Verdict: Thumbs down. It’s boring, and I’m a little tired of all this focus on the Flash’s kids. Isn’t it past time for the Flash to fight some Rogues?

Ya know what’s nice? Lazing around all weekend and not writing on the blog. I listened to two CDs I hadn’t listened to in years, I enjoyed the beautiful weather, I visited my grandmother, my brother, and my niece, and it was awfully nice. Unfortunately, that brings us to yet another Monday, and it puts me even farther behind on my comics reviewing, so let’s get a few of them done real quickly.

Tales of the Sinestro Corps: Parallax

It’s not really about Parallax; it’s really about Kyle Rayner. He’s trapped in his own head, watching Parallax use his body to wage war on the GL Corps, drawing on walls to distract himself. Parallax shows up from time to time to taunt him and make monster faces. Kyle stays trapped, but he’s not beaten yet.

Verdict: Thumbs up. Kyle really is a wonderful character, and it’s been a long time since we got to spend enough time with him, especially when the story is written by Ron Marz, the guy who created Kyle.

The Flash #232

Wally’s been dragged under water by weirdo aliens, and his kids are on their own, trying to find their way home and fight off the aliens. There’s more, but — ugh, man alive, this one was just dull. Put me to sleep and everything.

Verdict: Thumbs down. Nice art, but gyaah, so boring.

Booster Gold #2

Booster gets Rip Hunter to agree to help save the late Blue Beetle if Booster will help him save time. First mission: go back in time to when Sinestro was still a good Green Lantern and somehow keep him from talking to future Green Lantern Guy Gardner. Just talking to Sinestro will cause Guy to become a GL and die earlier and allow the Sinestro Corps to be formed earlier and conquer the galaxy. The problem is that Sinestro is way, way, way out of Booster’s league. How can he stop someone so much more powerful than he is?

Verdict: Thumbs up. It’s a good, clever, well-written story. I’ve already heard people say this book reminds them of some of the stuff DC was producing in the mid-1990s, which isn’t a bad thing.

The Flash #231

Well, the last time we checked, we had a single issue of “All-Flash” and before that, 13 issues of “Flash: Fastest Man Alive.” What’s with the #231? Well, before they cancelled the series before that, something like two years ago, they were up to #230. So they’re starting where that series left off.

Of course, a lot has changed since then. Wally West and his family have spent an unspecified amount of time in the other-dimensional Speed Source, his kids have prematurely grown into their pre-teens, and his wife Linda has used her pre-med skills, with the help of an alien race, to set up a ton of scientific equipment and expertise.

Anyway, the twins, Iris and Jai, have powers of their own — Iris can turn insubstantial by vibrating her molecules at superspeed, and Jai can “temporarily superaccelerate the myofibrillar hypertrophism” in his muscles — in other words, he can get superstrong, but only for a few minutes at a time. And the whole family is investigating a mysterious ferry accident that seems mundane until some fairly creepy monsters make their appearance.

Verdict: Thumbs up. I was expecting to be happy with Mark Waid’s story, but Daniel Acuna’s art is a pleasant surprise. I was really worried it would be too dark, but so far, he’s able to get the proper style of light humor and drama that a mainstream comic like “The Flash” requires. Of course, this level of detail usually means the artist will have to take a few breaks, so we should expect some fill-in artists over the next few months, too.

MODOK’s 11 #2

Last issue, we were given the basic skinny: MODOK, the Mental Organism Designed Only for Killing, wanted a bunch of low-rent supervillains to rob an alien super-fortress for him. This issue, we get to see the bad guys train (and mostly fail), the much-too-overconfident Mentallo goes snooping around in the other villains’ brains, and the Chameleon reveals some unexpected secrets. And what’s MODOK really up to? You can bet it’s nothing good…

Verdict: Thumbs up. So far, we’ve got a perfect heist caper. A devious plan, a bunch of expert operatives, and a few twists, betrayals, and surprises. I hope the rest of the series can keep up with the first two issues.

B.P.R.D.: Killing Ground #1

The B.P.R.D. — the Bureau for Paranormal Research and Defense from the “Hellboy” comics — is back with another miniseries. We see some new changes to the team. Johann Kraus, previously just a spirit confined to a diving suit, has acquired a new body — one of the manufactured superhuman bodies that the B.P.R.D. acquired in their last adventure. Ben Daimio finds himself frustrated by his coworkers’ mistrust of his grandmother’s Nazi past. Liz Sherman is seeing more and more disturbing visions of the future. Meanwhile, an unknown enemy has gotten access to many of the Bureau’s codes and secrets, Panya the mummy takes up residence in the B.P.R.D., and a savage wendigo captured by Hellboy years ago is brought to the Bureau’s containment facility.

Verdict: Thumbs up. I always expect good things from the B.P.R.D. comics. We’re just getting re-introduced to everyone now — Johann Kraus’ reaction to having a body after so many years is pretty amusing — he now spends all his time eating and chasing women. And Ben Daimio’s reaction to everyone’s suspicions is also good. They say things are gonna start going nuts next issue, so hold on tight.