Lumberjanes #13

In this issue, we travel back in time to see how our heroines met each other on the first day of camp. We see Jo and her adorably doting (and probably very wealthy) dads; Ripley and her gigantic family of mostly identical siblings — and Ripley’s gorgeous long hair that gets gum-filled and then cut down to the short style we’re familiar with; Mal, showing up with a cab; April with her take-charge attitude and weary father; and Molly, who goes on a grand but short adventure, narrowly avoids certain doom, and acquires her raccoon hat.

Verdict: Thumbs up. So very much fun. It’s great to see how kickass all these girls were even before they met each other and started going on insane adventures together.

Sensation Comics #9

Our first story in this issue is written by Lauren Beukes and illustrated by fan-favorite artist Mike Maihack, as Wonder Woman must battle Circe, Medusa, and Cheetah — but what dire, mind-shattering secret lurks behind the scenes? The second tale is written by Cecil Castellucci, with illustrations by Chris Sprouse, Karl Story, and Jordie Bellaire, as Lois Lane interviews Wonder Woman for the Daily Planet. Diana initially dismisses Lois as a shallow, disinterested scandal-monger, while Lois thinks of Diana as just a short puff-piece feature. But when a giant robot attacks, both spring into action to prevent chaos.

Verdict: Thumbs up. It’s like every issue of this series is better than the last. These aren’t just fantastic Wonder Woman stories — they’re just plain fantastic stories, period.

Ms. Marvel #14

Kamala Khan has a boyfriend! Her childhood friend Kamran grew up so dishy, and he’s an Inhuman, too, just like her! Kamran takes her on a whirlwind romance — he even sneaks her out of her house at night! So scandalous. But true love never turns out the way it should, does it. All this, plus Aamir and Bruno have a serious talk — Aamir knows Bruno loves Kamala, and he tries to lay down some hard truths about how utterly unlikely that romance is.

Verdict: Thumbs up. It’s a great story — one moment sweet and romantic, the next tense and claustrophobic. And the conversation between Aamir and Bruno is excellent — Aamir may be holding the opinions we don’t want to accept, but he makes his case well and doesn’t play the villain. He’s a big brother worried about his sister, and even if we think his concern is directed the wrong way, we still have to respect him. It’s fantastic characterization.

Today’s Cool Links:

• A friend of mine is running this Kickstarter for his new novel, Becoming Phoebe. I’ve read excepts of the book already, and it’s quite excellent. Go throw money at the project, go go!
• Snell brings us the tale of Bizarro Springfield.
• The Saga of Dog President and Butch Chewy.
• The time Phil Ochs almost got disappeared, tortured, and executed by a conspiracy of Latin American dictatorships.

The Unbeatable Squirrel Girl #3

Squirrel Girl needs to get to the moon to stop Galactus. She has Iron Man’s armor — but that just makes Whiplash show up, and then there’s a big ol’ fight that wastes some more time. Plus there’s a bank robbery, and Doreen’s roommate Nancy has been taken hostage! Doreen takes out the bank robbers, too — using powered armor that is actually made of squirrels which is pretty much the weirdest and most awesome thing on this or any other planet. But can Squirrel Girl still make it to the moon in time? And how can a girl with squirrel powers, along with one backup squirrel, defeat the Devourer of Worlds?

Verdict: Thumbs up. Again, the squirrel armor is just gloriously audacious. And Nancy’s denunciation of “sucky Larrys” is probably the best single line in any comic this week. And for a comedy book, the beginning of Doreen’s confrontation with Galactus is appropriately epic.

Lumberjanes #12

Trapped in a dinosaur-filled lost world with the cranky shapeshifting Bear Woman, Molly and Mal make their plans to escape — by retrieving the Bear Woman’s lost glasses! And back in the somewhat more normal world, April, Jo, and Ripley are still gunning for merit badges, finally settling on the scrapbooking badge. But they’ll have to decide whether they want to win the scrapbook competition or just make a scrapbook they can all be proud of.

Verdict: Thumbs up. I love the fact that we’ve got one storyline that’s a genuine crisis — Molly and Mal are stuck where they have to worry about dinosaur attacks and may never get home — and one that’s an absolute non-crisis — April, Jo, and Ripley want merit badges! — and they’re both treated as equally earth-shattering, and that makes both of them even funnier.

She-Hulk #12

Alas, another “She-Hulk” series cancelled before its time. Has there ever been another character so cool and fun who had so much trouble keeping a series going for the long haul?

The Big Bad has been revealed — the minor superhero Nightwatch was never actually a superhero at all. He cast a spell that sacrificed everyone in a small town to make everyone think he was a hero — and the only person who knew otherwise was George Saywitz, whose lawsuit became the Blue File. Nightwatch then cast other mind-control spells to make sure that anyone investigating the Blue File would come to a bad end — and he uses his mind-controlling abilities to make Jennifer attack Hellcat. Is She-Hulk going to kill her own friend? Will Nightwatch get away with everything?

Verdict: Thumbs up. Or is it down? This would’ve been a very acceptable end to a simple storyarc — the bad guy is revealed and defeated, other mysteries are solved, some others are not solved, everyone prepares for the next challenge. But for the end of a series? I think we needed more than this. Maybe not more punching — Shulkie did plenty of punching in this issue — but maybe a bit more lawyering, since that’s really one of the things that Jenn Walters does best.

Sensation Comics #7

Our first story is a sci-fi mini-epic in which Wonder Woman accompanies a space station exploring the planet Venus — only to learn that there are giant monsters out there willing to attack the station and steal away anyone they can. Our second story focuses on Lt. Angel Santiago, a soldier in Afghanistan assigned to engage with Afghani women to encourage them to influence the men in their villages to oppose the Taliban. Lt. Santiago and her fellow soldiers come under attack by insurgents — and she starts seeing Wonder Woman helping them all survive. Is she hallucinating?

Verdict: Thumbs up. Both stories are really good, but they are especially cool for some of the smaller details. In the first one, with the visit to Venus, Diana has two different costumes — when we first see her, she’s just gotten back from a crisis in Karachi, Pakistan, so she’s wearing an incredibly cool star-spangled hijab. After that, she changes to a metal spacesuit version of her classic costume. And after that, she and a supporting character discuss the trials and tribulations of the modern superheroine — all very funny stuff. And in the second story, I love the fact that we never actually know if we’re operating in the DC Universe or the normal world — the story works wonderfully either way. And there’s some great attention to detail, too — several of the Afghans are depicted with red hair, which is actually not uncommon there. And the art in both stories — by Neil Googe and Bernard Chang — is exceptionally well-done. An absolutely outstanding superhero comic here, people — go pick it up.

Lumberjanes #11

Molly and Mal are trapped in a lost world — with dinosaurs and everything! — with the shapeshifting bearwoman. And they’re going to be stuck there a really long time unless they can run a gamut of deadly threats so the bearwoman can get back… her reading glasses? And back in the real world, Ripley, April, and Jo are trying to earn some entirely mundane merit badges — and failing miserably at almost all of them? How can butt-kicking adventurers have so much trouble decorating cakes, making their beds, and dancing?

Verdict: Thumbs up. Not as pants-wettingly awesome as some previous issues have been, but we get tons of outstanding characterization and lots of funny stuff.

Ms. Marvel #12

Loki gets dropped off in Jersey City to look for the Inventor’s henchman and ends up inventing a scheme to get Kamala to fall for her pal Bruno — mostly against Bruno’s wishes — involving slipping Kamala a cheesy love poem and enticing her to come to the school dance. Things don’t go particularly well after that.

Verdict: Thumbs down. The story wants to be funny — it wants to be funny so very, very badly — and it just can’t do it.

Today’s Cool Links:

• Siskoid lists off his favorite original GURPS settings. He gets a lot of my favorites, too — though I’d add the International Super Teams to the list.
• What’s the best thing to do when you’re the only legislator who shows up for work? Fix everything.
• If you don’t know and love Steve Earle, here are some records you can listen to.

The Wicked + the Divine #7

Laura and Inanna believe that the people who tried to assassinate Lucifer (waaaay back in Issue #1) weren’t actually opposed to the gods — they were really fans. So Laura has traveled to Fantheon, a huge London convention for god fans. She’s a minor celebrity here, as one of the few confidants of Lucifer, so she has to sign a lot of autographs and attend a few panel discussions. She finally gets to meet up with Woden — he wears a Daft Punk/Tron costume, his only power lets him empower his specially designated Valkyries, and he’s considered a creepy racist, at best. When he humiliates a former Valkyrie at the convention, she tries to take the fabled Prometheus gambit — murder a god, and you gain his powers. It doesn’t work out for her at all. After that, she meets up with Baphomet and the Morrigan, who invite her to party, and reveal there’s a new god being introduced: Dionysus.

Verdict: Thumbs up. Great art and story, but I say that every time. Gotta give extra credit to the great pun-filled map of the London Fantheon. And do we talk enough about the outstanding work Matthew Wilson is doing on the coloring? ‘Cause a lot of the reason this book looks so gorgeous is because of all the amazing work he does with the colors.

Captain America and the Mighty Avengers #4

Cap has recently been de-inverted and is back to his old self, but he’s still dealing with all the bad publicity he created for himself by going hardcore fascist. Luke is also back to normal, but he’s pretending to be evil so he can find out what’s up with Jason Quantrell, the thoroughly evil CEO of Cortex, Inc. But he’s not quite as undercover as he thought he was. And Power Man and White Tiger are investigating the death of racist supervillain Gideon Mace. What monster is waiting for them? What’s the connection to Cortex? And will Sam Wilson get his spirit back?

Verdict: Ehh, not at all bad. But it’s nothing earthshatteringly fantastic either.

Lumberjanes #10

While April, Ripley, and Jo decide they’re going to finally get some merit badges — starting with the badge for cake decorating — Molly and Mal go off in the woods for their picnic, but before anything romantic can go on, they end up chasing the mysterious Bear Woman, who then accidentally leads them through an otherworldly outhouse into a world full of dinosaurs! Will they be able to make it back home?

Verdict: Thumbs up. What we expected to be a low-key day of loafing around ends up with dinosaur chases. Holy cheese. And that’s not even counting the oh-so-awkward-and-sweet picnic or Ripley dancing with a raccoon.

Today’s Cool Links:

• Milestone Comics are coming back!
• Never forget that the nerds won the war that the moral guardians fought against Dungeons & Dragons.
• This is something that should happen a lot more often. Not enough people are willing to run the Klan, the neo-nazis, and the teabaggers out of town on a rail.

Lumberjanes #9

The Lumberjanes are trying to earn a new merit badge for telling ghost stories, so we get a variety of wacked-out, odd stories, illustrated by luminaries like Faith Erin Hicks, Becca Tobin, Felicia Choo, Carolyn Nowak, and more. Will they all earn their badge? Will they all scare each other silly? Is there something more terrifying waiting and watching them all?

Verdict: Thumbs up. Lots of great stories and lots of great art — and as always, lots of weird, hilarious stuff. Looking forward to the next storyarc of this series.

Sensation Comics #5

Wonder Woman has been sent on a mission to retrieve a couple of Amazons who’ve journeyed into Apokolips. It’s not long before she tangles with the Female Furies and gets rescued by a group of scavengers. But can they help Diana find the missing Amazons? And what were they doing on Apokolips in the first place?

Verdict: Thumbs up. It’s a good done-in-one story with a fun combination of superheroics and superspy intrigue.

The Sandman: Overture #4

Morpheus is traveling with a small girl named Hope and a version of himself that is a cat. He meets up with his father to see if he’ll help save the universe, but his dad is generally unhelpful. We learn how Dream created this crisis — by refusing to destroy a dream vortex until she’d inadvertantly driven an entire planet insane and then refusing to destroy the sun powering the planet, he’d driven the sun into madness and instilled within it a desire to extinguish everything in existence. And with his allies either distant and aloof or completely deleted from the world, Dream finds himself imprisoned somewhere he cannot escape.

Verdict: Thumbs up. Beautiful art, excellent writing, wonderful tension. I do wish this was being produced on a more regular basis — as it is, it would probably be preferable to just collect this into a single graphic novel, rather than collecting the individual issues.

Today’s Cool Links:

• The history of NORAD’s Santa Tracker is much, much cooler than you expected.
• Darlene Love has performed the same song on David Letterman’s show every Christmas for about 30 years.
• Cards Against Humanity is a fun game for horrible people, but our Congresscritters are by far the worst.
• Apple Cabin Foods is having another big sale!

Lumberjanes #8

Jo has been turned to stone, and the devious Diane — secretly the goddess Artemis — blackmails the group to discover where she can go to gain ultimate power before she’ll release Jo from the curse. But once Jen solves the clues in the cavern, Diane double-crosses them, leaving them under attack from the demon-possessed boys from the rival camp. Molly’s skills with anagrams let her reveal how to restore Jo — THE POWER OF FRIENDSHIP! But only one can wield the power that Artemis and Apollo want — and what happens when that one person is one of the Lumberjanes?

Verdict: Thumbs up. An incredibly fun, exciting story, with fun art and characters and tons of great funny stuff. Who would’ve imagined that a raccoon with a funny hat could be so awesome?

Loki: Agent of Asgard #8

Loki and the Enchantress have both gone through the Axis flip afflicting Marvel’s heroes and villains. As a result, both of them are now unquestionably heroes, though they’re not very nice or humble heroes. Verity, the mortal who can always tell when someone’s lying, is less than happy with the result, because Loki and Amora are both grade-A jackasses. And Loki is summoned to Las Vegas to corral someone else who’s gone through a flip of the axis — Thor, god of villainy!

Verdict: Thumbs up. I’m not sold on all the Axis stuff, but this one has some gloriously funny moments, particularly Oddball, the Man with the Deadly Balls! and Loki turning into an adorable magical unicorn to run through Vegas.

Daredevil #10

Daredevil’s contact with the emotional powers of the Purple Man’s children has left him with crushing depression — just in time for the Purple Man himself to come swinging at him with a 2×4. He manages to push past his frazzled emotional state to run Killgrave off, but he’s still stuck with the problem of how to find a bunch of kids with mind-control powers. But even once he tracks them down, he’s going to have to deal with their powers and with the Purple Man’s, too.

Verdict: Thumbs up. Great art, excellent story. Decent segment discussing depression, and a nice double-ending with Matt and Kirsten McDuffie.

Lumberjanes #7

The Lumberjanes want to get their hands on the blue crystal that scoutmaster Rosie is keeping in her office, so they stage a daring heist to distract her, get in, and get out with the trinket without being discovered. Once they get it, Diane has them combine it with the golden eye that Jo has been hiding — and a golden deer appears, calls Diane “Artemis,” and tells her to follow it. Artemis? Yes, apparently, Diane is the goddess Artemis, in a competition with her brother Apollo to take over the throne of the gods. The group makes it to the cave that the girls visited a few issues ago — they’d already solved all the puzzles and beaten the guardians, so it’s a breeze to get through. Unfortunately, the last puzzle in the cavern is guarded by a bunch of magical lightning bugs. And the only way to save everyone is for someone to make a sacrifice.

Verdict: Thumbs up. Another fantastic issue. Lots of fun, humor, and action, with a giant scoop of serious drama, too. My favorite parts? Other than the (seriously intense) sacrifice at the end? Rosie whittling logs into axe handles, Jen’s sweatshirt reading “Ringwald High Physics Club,” and the formerly antagonistic animated statues waving at the girls while they play chess.

Ms. Marvel #9

A giant robot has attacked Kamala Khan’s school, but she’s having trouble getting her shapeshifting powers to work. She’s eventually able to take the fight to the robot, but gets kayo’d after she destroys the bot. Luckily, Lockjaw shows up with Medusa, and they transport her and her friend Bruno to New Attilan. She gets healed up and learns that she’s not a mutant — she’s an Inhuman. And her healing powers don’t work as well the more she uses her shapeshifting powers, and vice versa. Once she returns home, she has a chat with her parents, then heads out to fight the Inventor again — this time she has a plan to cut off his supply of innocent victims he uses to power his devices. But even after beating the bad guys, things don’t turn out the way she expected.

Verdict: Thumbs up. It’s an excellent story all the way through, and it finally gives us a chance to see Kamala among the Inhumans. Plus we get more great interaction with Kamala’s parents, who are just plain eternally awesome.

Today’s Cool Links:

• If GamerGate cared about ethical journalism, they’d be attacking unethical reporters. But they don’t do that, do they?
• In fact, let’s face it, after they got Anita Sarkeesian to cancel a speech by threatening to go on a mass shooting, GamerGate is actually a terrorist organization.
• I didn’t manage to count all 87 bounces — I guess I got distracted by the rest of the video.

Lumberjanes #6

The Lumberjanes are competing in a game of capture the flag, and they’re on the losing end of things, partly because one of the girls on the other side is a secret teleporter who is definitely not who everyone thought she was. Everyone suspects Jo of being some sort of ancient mythical being in disguise, despite her vehement denials. Will the girls win the game? How will they escape from jail? And who the heck are the ancient mythical beings in disguise?

Verdict: Thumbs up. Wonderfully funny, with great action. The dialogue is fantastic — my favorite wildly hilarious interjection in this issue is “For the love of Sister Rosetta Tharpe.”

Loki: Agent of Asgard #6

It’s been a few months since this one came out last, I think. Most of this issue is centered in Latveria. Dr. Doom is time-traveling, with the help of Valeria Richards. He encounters a vast wasteland in the far future, inhabited only by old Loki and a skull spirit, who inform Doom that he’s standing in the ruins of Latveria itself. Then they puke bugs at him and completely freak him out before Valeria is able to pull him back to the present. This convinces Doom that he needs to eliminate Loki now. After kidnapping him with his time portal, Doom tells him they’re going to have a magical duel that will take the form of a conversation about the nature of stories, and then about the nature of Doom himself — is he flesh and blood, is he a robot, or is he a god himself?

Verdict: Thumbs up. This is really something else — it goes from scores of beetles crawling out of old Loki’s mouth and eyes — and genuinely frightening Dr. Doom himself — to a lengthy philosophical conversation. And it’s still a fascinating, action-filled comic. Definitely worth reading.

Mighty Avengers #14

The Deathwalkers have merged into a single monstrous being and enslaved the world with crippling illusions. Only Luke Cage seems to be immune — he manages to get the Deathwalkers’ chalice to Kaluu, who uses it to combine the Avengers’ spirits into the Avenger Prime. But can even the united Avengers stop the Prime Deathwalker?

Verdict: Thumbs up. The action is good, though the metaphysics are maybe a bit flaky. Not really sure how Luke managed to get free from the Deathwalkers’ influence when no one else worldwide was able to do it. This is apparently the final issue, but it’ll be relaunched in a couple months as Captain America and the Mighty Avengers. Hopefully, it’ll be completely free of the curse of Greg Land.

Lumberjanes #5

Rosie, the badass camp leader of the Lumberjanes, has left to investigate the strange goings-on in the forest, leaving Jen, the woefully-unprepared-for-monsters camp counselor, in charge. Everyone is disappointed they won’t get to go to the Raccoon Rodeo, but Jen gets everyone started making friendship bracelets (the comic actually includes instructions so you can make your own). But things get chaotic fast when velociraptors attack! This leads Jen to yell the best thing ever: “HOLY bELL hOOKS!” Yes, with partial lower-case letters, which is just perfect. Anyway, our heroic Lumberjane scouts capture or subdue most of the dinosaurs, but the last one is stopped by a huge bear who quickly reveals herself as an old woman — the legendary Bearwoman! And she’s not happy with how things have been run at the camp…

Verdict: Thumbs up. Fun art, hilarious dialogue, lots of weird stuff, and absolutely fantastic action. This series gets to be more and more fun the longer it goes on.

Tiny Titans: Return to the Treehouse #4

The Tiny Titans may be able to get themselves a new treehouse in Atlantis, so Robin and Wonder Girl take a ride in Batgirl’s new submarine (and admire her awesome new costume) to follow Aqualad and Lagoon Boy to meet Aquaman (and Black Manta) (and Aqua-Cow) in Atlantis. Not wanting to miss out on the fun, Beast Boy, Miss Martian, and Offspring tag along.

Verdict: Thumbs up. It’s awesome and very funny. It’s great to see Offspring again, and the dessert-loving Aquaman is the best version of the character since the “Brave and the Bold” cartoon went off the air.

Today’s Cool Links:

• I really, really want these Cornetto Trilogy figures.
• Y’all remember the “Homicide: Life on the Street” TV show? Man, that was a really outstanding show.
• Speaking of Baltimore, the Ravens coaching staff and management should all be fired. And Roger Goodell should be fired, too — and he should have his teeth punched down his throat. Two-game suspension, wheee!
• There sure are a lot of treasonous douchemooks out there lately. How come the cops never gun them down in the streets? Oh, wait, it’s because they’re white, isn’t it?

Lumberjanes #4

The Lumberjane Scouts are enjoying a nature hike in the weird spooky woods around their camp and trying to figure out a way to slip away from their cabin leader, Jen, so they can explore the mysterious tower in the distance. Then they run into a yeti. No, no mere yeti — judging from that handlebar mustache and doofus tattoo, this is a hipster yeti. He scares the whole bunch of them into running down a slope and straight into a huge patch of poison ivy.

Luckily, they meet up with the very wholesome and very orderly Scouting Lads from the exceptionally clean Mr. Theodore Tarquin Reginald Lancelot Herman Crumpet Camp for Boys. They have skin ointment for the girls, as well as freshly baked cookies. The girls are a bit disturbed by the Scouting Lads, but they agree to distract Jen while the Lumberjanes go explore the tower. Will the girls be able to get past the hipster yeti guards? Will they learn the tower’s secrets? And what horrible secrets are the Scouting Lads hiding?

Verdict: Thumbs up. This is so wonderfully funny and weird. Probably the single funniest thing in this whole issue is the Scouting Lads’ camp director, who is so overflowing with machismo (and cookie-hatred, which is how you know he’s evil) that when he leaves, he shouts that he’s “going to catch a fish by wrestling it away from a bear.” But the rest of it is also remarkably and creepily weird, particularly the odd artifact in the tower and the terrifying tranformation of the Scouting Lads. This series is getting more and more interesting the more I read it.

Captain Marvel #5

Carol discovers that the Spartax Empire is secretly mining Vibranium from the planet Torfa, and the symptoms so many of the residents are suffering are caused by Vibranium poisoning. And the Empire is prepared to invade and wipe out or imprison everyone on Torfa as soon as possible. Can Captain Marvel save everyone? With no backup? Against a full alien fleet?

Verdict: Thumbs up. The Vibranium discovery was a nice surprise, and what really sells the issue is the interplay between all the species on Torfa, as they try to work out how much of this disaster is their own fault, and try to figure out whether they can resist against the imperial forces. And the art remains just plain dandy.

Today’s Cool Links:

• I do really love the look they’re planning for Batgirl — but I’m still not planning on reading it. Can’t trust DC Comics anymore…
• If you read and love “Mouse Guard,” you may be interested in this Kickstarter for the strategy game the mice play in the comic.
• The horrible Rick Perry continues to be horrible, but at least this time, we get the chance to laugh at his buffoonery.