Justice League of America #28

It’s the Justice League vs. the Shadow Cabinet. For the most part, it’s a story about a bunch of super-people beating each other up, though the confrontation between Superman and Icon is… interesting. Very interesting.

Verdict: Thumbs up. Yes, I’m still grooving on the return of the characters from Milestone Comics. But there is a lot of excellent fisticuffs going on here. I approve.

Madame Xanadu #7

Nimue is now in Victorian London, using her fortunetelling and spellcasting to try to protect people from Jack the Ripper. And of course, the Phantom Stranger appears, infuriating Nimue with his failure to act to save anyone. She offers to help the police, but finds her ability to see the future mysteriously stymied when it comes to discovering the Ripper’s identity. She lays mystic alarms around Whitechapel to alert her to any attacks, but will her spells be enough to stop the madman? And whose side is the Phantom Stranger really on?

Verdict: Thumbs up. Obviously, this isn’t nearly as heavy as Alan Moore’s classic Ripper story “From Hell,” but there’s some good stuff in here. Ripperologists will find several interesting tidbits to enjoy.

Justice League of America #27

Well, there’s really just one reason I bought this one: the return of characters from Milestone Media and their integration into DC Comics’ continuity. Milestone was a comics imprint that was published through DC, but it had no connections to the regular DCU. It was probably the most successful comics publisher to specialize in fully multicultural comics. Its lead characters included Icon, Static (who made his new re-appearance in the pages of “Terror Titans” a week or two ago), Hardware, the Blood Syndicate, and the Shadow Cabinet. In this case, we’re getting re-introduced to the Shadow Cabinet, with the idea that they’ve somehow existed in the DC Universe all along, but somehow, few DC characters have ever met them before. It’s a bit of a stretch, but I guess it’s no more outlandish than Spider-Man making a deal with the Devil to end his marriage, so I guess we’ll roll with it.

Anyway, we start out focusing on Dr. Kimiyo Hoshi, the second Dr. Light, the one who wasn’t a supervillain. Her powers have been working only sporadically for years, so she’s mostly retired to raise her family. She is confronted in her apartment by the Shadow Cabinet, a clandestine, black-ops superhero team, including Hardware, Donner, Blitzen, Iota, Payback, Iron Butterfly, Starlight, Twilight, and Gloria Mundi. She tries to give them the slip, but is captured easily. Luckily, she has time to activate her old Justice League International distress signal.

Meanwhile, back with the current JLA team, the relationship between Red Arrow and Hawkgirl hits a major stumbling block because Hawkgirl keeps having dirty dreams about Hawkman. Oh, come on, Red, you’ve fathered a child with a supervillain — you got nothing to complain about. Elsewhere, Vixen’s powers are back to normal, and Black Canary finds out that Superman, Wonder Woman, and Batman have been having secret meetings about the future of the League because they don’t trust her as the leader. She very sensibly tells them to get over themselves.

But back to the Shadow Cabinet. When the Justice League shows up to investigate Dr. Light’s distress call, they find that everything seems okay. But Batman quickly realizes that the Cabinet has disguised themselves as Dr. Light, her kids, and her babysitter. And other members of the Cabinet are attempting to infiltrate the Justice League HQ. All this means there’s gonna be some fightin’.

Verdict: A conditional thumbs up. I like seeing Milestone’s characters again. I loved these guys, and it’s wonderful to see them back in print. (But where’s the Blood Syndicate? SYNDICATE RULES FOREVAH!) It’s also nice to see the return of the “scrib,” a scribble in the word balloons that Milestone used to indicate profanity. And I am very fond of Black Canary’s characterization — of course, she would absolutely rake Supes, Wondy, and Bats over the coals for trying to undermine her leadership of the team, and it’s way past time that their secret meeting room got exposed.

On the other hand, the stuff about Vixen, Hawkgirl, and Red Arrow is completely useless soap-opera crap. And someone really needs to take artist Ed Benes aside and tell him to cut back on the gratuitous butt-shots. It gets really, really creepy after a while. I’m still not a big fan of Benes’ art — seems fine if you’re looking for something glossy, plastic, and Liefeldesque, but there are a lot better artists out there who should be drawing DC’s flagship series.

 

Justice League of America #21

I’m amazed this one came out as well as it did. The first seven pages of this one are Superman, Batman, and Wonder Woman sitting around talking, just summing up the current state of things in the JLA. Wheee, exciting! The rest of it is a couple of extremely minor supervillains fighting a couple of really minor superheroes. The Human Flame, a pudgy guy who had one appearance fighting the Martian Manhunter a few decades ago, tries to rob a bank, fights Red Arrow and Hawkgirl pretty unsuccessfully, then gets rescued by Libra, another supervillain who had just one appearance in a JLA comic back in the ’60s. Libra takes the Human Flame before a whole trainload of supervillains and offers him anything he wants. And the Flame says he wants to be able to kill the Martian Manhunter. If you wanna see what happens from there, you have to read “Final Crisis.”

Verdict: I think I’m actually going to give it a thumbs up. The Big Three sitting around and talking gets really, really boring, but I didn’t mind the stuff with the Human Flame that much. Of course, it’s all leading to Grant Morrison killing J’onn J’onzz in the first issue of “Final Crisis,” which is going to really suck. But this issue wasn’t that bad.

 

Justice Society of America #15

Basically, the entire issue is a fight scene with the Justice Society trying to beat up Gog. No, really, that’s it. A few highlights include Obsidian fighting Gog from the inside, Lightning’s spiffy new battlecry, and Citizen Steel effortlessly withstanding Gog’s punches.

Verdict: Thumbs up. This isn’t particularly subtle storytelling, but it’s a good brawl, so we’ll call it a win.

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.

Looks like Friday Night Fights is back on! And you know what that means, right? Right? No, not macramé and lemon cookies! Not feeding the duckies down by the lake! Not going to the mall to buy new underwear! It means FRIDAY NIGHT FIGHTS!

Our little chunk of violence tonight is from 1997’s JLA #9 by Grant Morrison and Oscar Jimenez. In it, we see the Key, a guy who got his name by digging in his pants pockets, preparing to traverse an interdimensional lock to attain omnipotent power.

 

Sounds like bad news. Perhaps an off-panel Connor “Green Arrow” Hawke can help foil his evil plan to, um, walk through a glowing door?

 

WHHHHUNNTCH! Is there no more joyful sound in all the world than “WHHHHUNNTCH?”

 

Aaaaand… Scene.

Merry Weekend, everyone. May you have several delicious WHHHHUNNTCHes.

Justice League: The New Frontier Special

You might remember that I recommended DC’s “The New Frontier” graphic novel last December November. Well, DC has now released a sequel, published to help promote the recently-released “Justice League: The New Frontier” direct-to-DVD animated movie. We get three short stories, all written by “New Frontier” creator Darwyn Cooke, all set in his version of the retro-cool 1950s/60s.

We start off with an “outtake” from the original graphic novel, with Superman ordered by the government to take down Batman. Next up, Robin and Kid Flash star in “Dragstrip Riot” as the two go undercover to break up gangs of murderous drag-racers and saboteurs. Finally, Wonder Woman and Black Canary strike a blow for Women’s Lib in the Playboy Club.

Verdict: Thumbs up. The first story is the big winner — it’s the only one that’s actually drawn by Cooke, and there ain’t nothing finer than a story with Darwyn Cooke art in it. On top of that, it’s got one of the best Superman-vs.-Batman slugfests I’ve seen since “The Dark Knight Returns.” The Teen Titans story isn’t as epic, but it’s exactly the kind of stuff the original Titans specialized in, and it’s completely drenched in early ’60s coolsville. The Wonder Woman/Black Canary story is, in some ways, the weakest. The art is tremendously cartoony, Wonder Woman’s personality is badly warped for comedic purposes, and Black Canary has little purpose other than reacting to Wondy. But it’s definitely the funniest story in the book, with a couple of funny guest stars, several cool moments, and numerous funny lines.

Oh, and while we’re on the subject of “New Frontier,” I’ll have my own review of the movie on Monday.

Hulk #2

Well, SHIELD has tracked down the handgun used to kill the Abomination, and sure enough, it was somehow stolen from a SHIELD Helicarrier. How on earth did the Hulk get on board a Helicarrier to steal a frickin’ huge handgun? Maybe they can ask the Hulk since he’s RIGHT BEHIND YOU! Well, right behind SHIELD director Tony Stark. Red Hulk takes down She-Hulk pretty easy, ambushes Gen. Thunderbolt Ross and Doc Samson, hits Iron Man with jet planes, and wrecks the Helicarrier, mainly by taking out a few specialized systems that keep it in the air. Meanwhile, thousands of miles away, the Hulk also confronts Rick Jones, who has one heck of a surprise up his sleeve.

Obviously, we finally get our first real look at the new Red Hulk. On the Helicarrier over New York, he’s mostly a growling animal, though he knows exactly what parts of the ship to take out to make it crash. But in Alaska, he talks normally and intelligently, though he still seems pretty dadblasted murderous. Obviously, Rick Jones isn’t the Hulk after all, so who is this new Hulk?

I got a theory — of all of the people listed on the “character page” in the front of the comic — Bruce Banner, the Abomination, Iron Man, She-Hulk, General Ross, Doc Samson, Maria Hill, and Rick Jones — there are three who we never actually see at all in this issue — Banner is in lockdown in a prison in Alaska, the Abomination is dead… and Doc Samson just isn’t there. And isn’t it funny how Samson, a guy trained in psychology, was pulling off a full CSI analysis of last issue’s crime scene… almost as if he actually knew in advance how the crime was really committed? Of course, there’s still a possibility that there’s more than one Red Hulk — he seems to get from New York to Alaska awfully fast, and he seems to have a different personality from one place to the other, too.

Verdict: Thumbs up. Mystery!

Justice League of America #18

A bunch of supervillains afraid of getting sent off by the government to a prison planet (in other words, the “Salvation Run” miniseries) surrender to the Justice League in exchange for being given asylum. The Suicide Squad, a bunch of former villains who work for the government doing dirty black-ops jobs, show up to take custody but get turned away. Later, they sneak back when all the big guns are out, but they get their butts handed to them by Vixen, who now copies various metahuman powers instead of just animal powers. There’s also a backup story about Red Tornado deciding whether to take the risk of getting a new body, or continuing on as just a computer system aboard the JLA HQ.

Verdict: Thumbs down. The fight where Vixen takes out almost the entire Suicide Squad single-handedly is pretty cool, but this issue suffers the same problem as the last — they assume we all know about the “Salvation Run” series, they assume we know who Amanda Waller is, they assume we know who the Suicide Squad is. They assume we’re all fanboys who are clued in on all the minutiae of the DC Universe, and that we’re all reading every single pointless “event” comic that comes out. It’s not just that it’s the type of thing that’s going to confuse new readers and run them off — it’s also just plain sloppy storytelling.

Teen Titans Lost Annual

This is one of the maddest mainstream comics I’ve ever seen. And I mean that in a good way.

The whole story is set in the ’60s, and the original Teen Titans — Robin, Wonder Girl, Kid Flash, and Speedy — discover that President Kennedy has been kidnapped by aliens and replaced by a doppelganger. They travel to the aliens’ planet and discover that his abductors, a bunch of mod aliens with Beatles haircuts, have brainwashed JFK into believing he’s their general in the war against the hippie aliens. Wonder Girl romances one of the hippies for a while, and in the end, everyone makes peace, Kennedy is freed from his brainwashing, and everyone returns to Earth. And at that point, there is a plot twist so brain-breakingly awesome that I really can’t reveal it to you at all. Seriously, just go buy it yourself.

This story was written by Bob Haney, the co-creator of the Teen Titans, and one of DC’s maddest writers. He wrote the story a few years ago, and DC shelved it for way too long ’cause they thought it was too freaky to sell. Since then, there’s been a revival of interest in the Silver Age’s great comics madmen, including Haney and Bob Kanigher, and DC brought the story back into play. It’s illustrated by Jay Stephens and Mike Allred, who both have a good grasp of Haney’s style of geeky psychedelia. Unfortunately, Haney died about three years ago, so he didn’t get to see his last comics work published.

At any rate, the story really is grandly fun for all the wrong reasons. Haney, bless his heart, never managed to get the hang of the way teenagers talked, but his fractured slang and purple-prose narration actually work really well for the story. It’s a time capsule of Silver Age wackiness, reminding you of how wild comics could be back in the ’60s…

Verdict: Thumbs up. Grand fun, no question about it.

But some of the other comics I picked up weren’t near as much fun.

Justice League of America #17

What an irritating, depressing comic this is.

To understand what’s happening, you should know that there’s a DC miniseries going on right now called “Salvation Row” where the government is in the process of kidnapping every supervillain in the world and shipping them off to a hellish planet on the other end of the galaxy. So in this issue, a bunch of supervillains on the run go to the Justice League for help. And in a backup story, Vixen discovers that her weirdly messed-up powers are even more weird than anyone expected.

The big problem with the main story is that, if you’re not following “Salvation Run” (which I’m not, mainly because I’m tired of DC suckering me out of my cash for more miniseries), you have no idea what’s going on. You don’t know what’s driving the plot, or even who the supervillains are (and most of the story focuses on them). The writers make no effort to give any exposition — they just assume everyone is a long-time and obsessive comics fan who already knows what’s going on. And that’s really what’s wrong with so many DC comic books these days — the continuity is impossibly convoluted, and the writers assume that everyone knows what the heck is going on. It’s a rotten way to run a comic book company, because it actively runs off new readers who aren’t hip to all the history and crossovers.

Verdict: Thumbs down. The story is okay, but I can’t help being aggravated by the way this comic seems to be written only for the fanboys.

Green Lantern Corps #20

Kyle Rayner and Guy Gardner are moving from Earth to Oa, partly to serve as members of an honor guard protecting the planet and partly to open up a bar. Meanwhile, the evil and already-very-powerful Mongul has been given a yellow power ring; he spends several pages of the story shouting at his dead sister’s decapitated and worm-eaten head.

Verdict: Thumbs down. When the most exciting moment is the supervillain having a screaming fit at his sister’s wormy skull, you know you got a booooring comic book.

 

Justice League of America #16

This is another one of those stories that’s gonna require some fairly extensive background info first. Back in 1997, DC published a small number of comics under a new imprint publishing arm they called “Tangent Comics.” The gimmick was that this was a superhero universe where all the characters had the names of DC characters but were completely different otherwise. Their version of the Atom was an atomic-powered energy-blaster; the Flash was a teenaged girl with light-based powers; the Joker was a crimefighting anarchist; the Green Lantern was a mystical artifact that could temporarily return the dead to life. In fact, Tangent’s version of the Green Lantern actually turned up in the regular DC Universe a while back, and it’s being kept in a storage locker by Guy Gardner.

And that’s where this story picks up, as a couple of no-luck lowlifes burglarize Guy’s storage building and somehow manage to activate the Green Lantern, which acts as an interdimensional teleporter, causing one of the burglars to switch universes with Tangent’s mega-powerful Atom. The Justice League — well, just Black Canary, Red Arrow, and John Stewart — respond to a police call about the incident. They manage to subdue the Atom and move him back to his proper universe, but they don’t realize that there’s another Tangent Universe hero in their universe — the Flash is stuck over here and doesn’t know how to get back home.

Verdict: Thumbs up, with some reservations. I really dug the Tangent concept when it first came out, so it’s neat to see some of these old characters. I wish they’d given the Atom more of a chance to shine, though. The JLA, on the other hand, gets plenty of opportunity to kick off some cool moments and lines — the best moment is probably Red Arrow defeating the Atom by beating him with garden implements. Unfortunately, this story isn’t going to be concluded in the next “Justice League” comic — it’s going to be in a miniseries about the Tangent Universe. I HATE comics that serve only to promote another comic series.

 

Countdown Presents: The Search for Ray Palmer: Superwoman/Batwoman

Wow, that is one way too long comic book title.

Well, we’ve got Donna Troy, Kyle Rayner, Jason Todd, and (ugh) Bob the Monitor searching, for some durn fool reason, for Ray Palmer, the Atom, who’s gone missing for the last couple of years. Since his miniaturization powers allow him to travel to other dimensions, they’re jumping from one alternate earth to another trying to track him down. This issue, they visit Earth-11, where genders are reversed. They watch as the world’s superheroines fight Wonder Man and his invading army of extremely hairy male Amazons. Aaaaand that’s about all that happens.

Verdict: Thumbs down. Boooooring.