Daredevil #4

Well, looks like the Shroud has betrayed Matt Murdock to the Owl, and he’s getting dropped into a below-floor furnace for his troubles. But it’s a switchup — the Shroud gets Matt’s staff to him, and he makes his escape — but the Shroud has kidnapped the Owl, desperate to learn where his ex-girlfriend is. But the Owl has a price, and he has the Shroud get him into a scientific facility with a plan to use the technology inside to make him omniscient — all-seeing and all-knowing. Daredevil intervenes, he and the Shroud fight, all while the Owl tries to harness the fancy photon tech. Can they stop the Owl in time?

Verdict: Thumbs up. Wonderful action, wonderful art, a nice rebirth for the Owl and maybe for the Shroud, too. Also some nice glimpses into Matt Murdock’s new fame. Not easy having no secret identity, is it, Matt?

Red Sonja #10

Sonja has to convince the world’s greatest swordsman to come with her to prevent thousands of slaves from dying — but he doesn’t want to go, and he’s really much better with a sword than Sonja is. She never manages to hit him even once, and he leaves her completely humiliated. Is there any way for Sonja to defeat him?

Verdict: Thumbs up. Again, excellent action, art, humor, and a liiiiittle bit of angst in a wonderfully written and clever story.

Rat Queens #6

I heard a lot of good stuff about this and finally picked up the first trade paperback last month. It was great fun, so I figured I’ll pick it up ongoing from here on out.

Our setup here is a fantasy series starring a team of hard-partying mercenaries — Hannah, a cynical elven rockabilly spellcaster, Violet, a hipster dwarven fighter, Betty, a childlike drug-abusing halfling thief, and a human atheist cleric who gets her abilities from an eldritch abomination she refuses to worship. In their first storyarc, they beat up a bunch of monsters, a vast conspiracy tried to kill them, they abused a lot of substances, and they got busy with people they loved, or at least lusted after.

So, with this new issue, we’re working on wrapping up old storylines and starting a few new ones. Hannah’s on-again, off-again relationship with Sawyer, the city’s leading law enforcement agent, gets more contentious, but probably gets wrapped up permanently. The Rat Queens fight off a bunch of mushroom people. Dee’s husband makes his entirely unexpected return. And the Cult of N’Rygoth is coming back in a big way.

Verdict: Thumbs up. This series is crude and hilarious and action-packed and awesome. Go pick it up — the trade paperback is out, and this issue also makes a good jump-on point.

Red Sonja #9

Sonja is seeking the world’s greatest artisans in order to get a dying tyrant to release thousands of slaves. Her quest this time sends her to collect Aneva, the world’s greatest courtesan — but she’s hampered by the fact that she has no money to get into Aneva’s presence, and by the fact that it’s been a long time since Sonja enjoyed any carnal pleasures of her own, and she’s a bit… distracted. She offers Aneva the tyrant’s promised gold, but Aneva is more interested in staying where she is to start a courtesan’s guild and to keep her cruel master Captain Ferox from torturing her friends. Can Sonja convince Aneva to accompany her? Can the two women learn anything about each other’s lives?

Verdict: Thumbs up. Great art and story, and a rare chance to see Sonja’s rarely displayed ability to rock a gorgeous dress while still kicking ass.

Black Widow #6

Natasha has been captured aboard the yacht of an old enemy called Damon Dran, the Indestructible Man, who doesn’t seem to be as unstoppable as he used to be. She manages to escape the armed thugs guarding her, only to run into the monk assassin she thought she’d killed, now outfitted in built-in metal armor to make him even more difficult to harm than he’d been before. Even then, Dran is captured easily — but what if the conspiracy Natasha’s fighting goes even deeper? Is there anyone she’s able to trust?

Verdict: Thumbs up, but it’s another near thing. The art is exceptionally nice, but the story still feels a bit light and inconsequential.

Y’all up for a bunch of comics about redheads?

Red Sonja #8

Sonja has successfully corralled Gribaldi, the world’s greatest chef, on the orders of a corrupt emperor, who wants to experience the talents of the greatest artisans in the world before he dies. Gribaldi is obsessed with cuisine, which doesn’t endear him to Sonja, who sees food only as sustenance — and she’s also frustrated because she can’t convince Gribaldi to help her satisfy her more carnal hungers.

Anyway, Sonja and Gribaldi are now off on their second quest — to obtain the services of Kalayah, the world’s greatest animal trainer. Unfortunately, Sonja would really rather see him dead, messily, because of his sadism and cruelty to the animals in his shows. But when attends a show in which a trained bear is savaged by starved dogs, Sonja mercy-kills the bear, and she and Gribaldi are thrown into the dungeon. Even if Sonja can escape execution, how will she obtain the Beast Lord’s services?

Verdict: Thumbs up. Great art and story, wonderful characterization, and an outstanding villain given an appropriate comeuppance. I hope you’re enjoying this comic, people.

Black Widow #5

Natasha is on the trail of a terrorist killing machine called the Hammer of God, a former Russian Orthodox monk. She tries to stop him from blowing an airplane out of the sky, but he still manages to get it on the ground. He’s killed when he’s sucked into the airplane engine, and Natasha learns that the airplane had only a single passenger. Who is he? Who paid for a whole flight just for him? What does he know, and who wants him dead?

Verdict: Thumbs up. A nice mix of action and intrigue, though it’s frustrating how the Black Widow’s leads keep getting killed off so quickly. But this is finally feeling like an exciting comic, and that’s definitely a good thing.

Hellboy: 20th Anniversary Sampler

Yes, Hellboy is obvously a redhead. And definitely as dead sexy as the other two.

We get an excellent collection of short stories here. First, Mike Mignola and Fabio Moon tell a tale of Hellboy’s fight against the Coffin Man, a demon who raises and steals the dead, and his shapeshifting demon donkey. And yes, this is entirely as funny and awesome as you’d expect it to be. Next, there’s a tale written and illustrated by Mignola about Hellboy going up against a poetry-quoting ghoul who has previously masqueraded as a normal family man to hide his hunger for dead bodies. We also follow Abe Sapien and Johann Strauss as they face a zombie plague with an unusual genesis. All that, plus a bunch of wonderful cartoons about Hellboy by R. Sikoryak — in the form of Peanuts, Popeye, Garfield, Dilbert, Ziggy, and more.

Verdict: Thumbs up. It’s grand, glorious fun, with all the strongest, most enjoyable aspects of Mignola’s Hellboy storytelling on display. And that definitely includes the humor — aside from Sikoryak’s wonderful cartoons, I haven’t enjoyed a line in a comic in months the way I did Hellboy yelling “SIT DOWN, DONKEY!” at a shapeshifting monster mule.

Today’s Cool Links:

• You can’t be persecuted when you’re the overwhelming majority and when your side holds vast political, social, and economic power.
• Why it’s crazy to insist that everyone should be armed to stop gunman rampages (Spoiler: It’s because life is not a cartoon, and the bad guys don’t wear supervillain uniforms.)
• Erotica Written by an Alien Pretending Not to Be Horrified by the Human Body.

Daredevil #36

Matt Murdock is being blackmailed, forced to defend a murderer and a member of the racist Sons of the Serpent, because if he won’t, it’ll be revealed to the world, with ample proof, that he’s really Daredevil. So Matt upsets the chessboard — he testifies in open court, reveals his superheroic identity, and tells all the secrets that the Serpents were going to reveal. The Serpents lose their temper and attack the courtroom with a strikeforce of assassins, revealing the full extent of their conspiracy against Daredevil and against the city. But in the aftermath of the attack, what will the revelations about Matt’s secret life — and the way he’s used and abused the law — mean for his ability to remain in New York City?

Verdict: Thumbs up. Great drama and action — as well as excellent courtroom drama.

Having said that, I do have some quibbles. How’s Foggy Nelson? Is he even alive? The beginning of this issue seemed to imply he was at death’s door, but I really can’t imagine them killing him off, especially not off-camera.

Second, we know that the series is going to be relaunched soon, with Matt practicing law in San Francisco instead of Hell’s Kitchen. How the heck is that even going to work? I don’t know that I can imagine Daredevil outside of Hell’s Kitchen or New York — partly because his entire history is tied to closely to those locales, and partly because there’s no city like New York for giving superheroes tons of great, tall buildings to jump off of and swing from. Is Daredevil going to have to get a car to get around the City by the Bay?

Still, just quibbles — I’ve loved just about every issue of this series, and I’m looking forward to the continuation over on the Left Coast.

Red Sonja #7

Sonja has been forced to take a contract by a corrupt quasi-Egyptian ruler. He’s dying, and he wants the very best of everything for his funeral. He wants Sonja to track down his list of the world’s greatest entertainers and craftsmen in one month — if she succeeds, he’ll free every slave in the city; if she fails, he’ll have them all put to death.

Sonja’s first assignment is to find Gribaldi, the world’s greatest chef. As it turns out, he lives in the swamp, and he works for a tribe of savage cannibals. Will Sonja be able to free the loony chef from his far loonier man-eating gourmands?

Verdict: Thumbs up. A wonderfully, bleakly hilarious comic. The bogmen are savage, cannibal nitwits — and perhaps the most sophisticated, enthusiastic foodies ever depicted. Gribaldi’s culinary artistry is praised by everyone who eats his food — except for Sonja, who sees food solely as fuel for the body. And what’s really funny is how she reacts when she finds out he doesn’t respect good beer…

I’m still trying to clear space for more holiday gift recommendations, so I’m gonna see if I can clear all my regular comics reviews all at once. Strap on your seat belt, kids — we’re gonna do a review marathon…

FF #15

The Future Foundation has everything planned out, and they’re ready to take down Doctor Doom. They send in a bunch of robots controlled by the kids to distract Doom and his robots and to wreck up his Latverian castle, while the grownups and their allies infiltrate and sabotage Doom behind the scenes before finally moving in for the final confrontation. But will all their preparation allow them to succeed against Doom the Annihilating Conqueror?

Verdict: Thumbs up. Great action, great humor, intrigue, drama — and thanks to co-writer and scripter Lee Allred, the story is jam-packed with in-jokes geared directly to fans of the late, lamented City of Heroes, the best dang superhero MMO ever. I loved it, and I want a lot more of it, so I’m crossing my fingers that the series will continue, despite its predicted demise.

Red Sonja #6

Sonja was prepared to duel Dark Annisia to the death, but they’ve both been surprised by the re-emergence of the genocidal tyrant Bazrat, who reveals that the plague that afflicted Sonja and the kingdom wasn’t actually a plague at all — it was all poison administered secretly to the populace. Can Sonja and Annisia stop fighting long enough to stop the madman?

Verdict: Thumbs up. Excellent action, drama, and art, and a genuinely smart story, all wrapped up in a nice chainmail bow.

Itty Bitty Hellboy #5

Abe’s little sister Eve is having a birthday, and everyone is invited to the party! Hellboy, Liz, the Rogers, Baba (and her chicken-leg hut), Hecate, Lobster Johnson, Johann Kraus, and many more all show up. Presents are opened, seaweed cake is devoured, hot sauce is splashed on people, and Hellboy gets turned into a chicken. Just like every other day then, right?

Verdict: Thumbs up. Very funny, very cute — it’s too bad this is the final issue, because Art Baltazar and Franco did a great job making Hellboy and his supporting cast look so adorable.

Young Avengers #14

Evil has been vanquished, and it’s time for the after party. A wide selection of artists are on hand to help document the first half of the Young Avengers’ last big party, along with most of the other young superheroes in the Marvel Universe. Wiccan and Hulkling reconcile for good, we learn more of Miss America’s origin and about her secret connection to Wiccan, and Kate Bishop decides where she stands with Noh-Varr.

Verdict: Thumbs up. A bunch of excellently crafted stories about relationships — both romantic and familial — all backed up by a bunch of cool artists. I’m gonna miss this series, but it’s nice to see they’re going out pushing the envelope.

A Voice in the Dark #2

Zoey is worried that her urges to commit murder are going to get the better of her, so she starts up a campus talk-radio show, hoping she’ll be able to quell her homicidal desires by basking in other people’s darkness. And her very first caller is someone who’s contemplating suicide. Can Zoey keep her from killing herself? Can her uncle and his fellow police officers find the girl in time?

Verdict: Thumbs up. Fantastic art and a great story that does not go where we expect it to go. Is there anything Zoey can do to keep from getting completely washed over in blood? Maybe not — and it’ll be fun seeing how it all turns out for her…

Daredevil #34

Matt Murdock wants to strike a serious blow against the racist Sons of the Serpent — and he particularly wants to take their ally, the Jester, out of circulation. He’s managed to obtain the Darkhold, an ancient mystical book that the Sons consider their Bible, and he’s also gotten hold of a device that will allow him to broadcast to every TV, radio, and web browser in New York City. He enlists the aid of Kirsten McDuffie and then makes his broadcast, warning New Yorkers about the Sons and threatening to destroy the Darkhold if they don’t turn over the Jester. Can the gamble pay off? Or will the Sons kill McDuffie as revenge?

Verdict: Thumbs up. It’s an excellent story, with some real shining moments for McDuffie. The action is quite nice, and as always, Javier Rodriguez’s artwork is phenomenally beautiful.

Revival #16

The authorities are now exterminating the local livestock, which has gotten a serious dose of whatever is causing the revivals, and Ramin and Sheriff Cypress are the targets of a low-level terrorist attack. Dana Cypress enlists her ex-husband Derrick and her sister Em — a secret Reviver — to help investigate whoever murdered Em. And Derrick runs into a mysteriously deformed arsonist. What the heck’s going on?

Verdict: Thumbs up. The series is definitely trending away from horror right now and back toward noir. Not a bad thing at all — great characterization and art, and I’m still loving the story.

Pretty Deadly #3

Ya know, I’m not sure I could tell you the plot in a way that’ll really make sense. But we learn more about Ginny and Fox and Death, how they got the way they are, and what may be coming up for them eventually.

Verdict: Thumbs up. I liked this issue a lot more. It made a lot more sense, I could keep track of who the characters were, and there were multiple really good, really powerful scenes. I hope they can keep the quality high on this one.

Today’s Cool Links:

• Paul Dini reveals how spectacularly stupid Hollywood is.
• And you can’t talk about “spectacularly stupid” without mentioning how DC Comics is ruining Superman.
• On gender-switching characters in stories you read to your kids.
• There’s gonna be a Sandman movie? Well, alright!
• I think we can all agree that Shia Labeof is the worst person working in either film or comics.
• Them teabaggers are pretty much just dumb as stumps.
• Time for the best new end-of-year tradition — the new Filmography 2013 by GenRocks.

Daredevil #33

Matt Murdock went and got himself shot by the Sons of the Serpent, but luckily, he’s got some new friends who are going to keep him alive — the Legion of Monsters — Werewolf by Night, N’Kntu the Living Mummy, Satana, the Monster of Frankenstein, and the Zombie Simon Garth! They do manage to get Daredevil stitched back up, and he manages — barely — to convince them to tell him what the Darkhold is. Turns out it’s a spellbook of fabled power, held by an occultist named Lucien Sinclair. He can use it to destroy the creatures of the night, so the Legion of Monsters want to get it away from him. Daredevil volunteers to steal it away, but he’ll have to withstand horrifying hallucinations that could drive him mad. Can the Man without Fear survive the terrors of the damned?

Verdict: Thumbs up. Fantastic storytelling, wonderful characters, great dialogue, and absolutely glorious artwork. The splash page of Daredevil standing in the room of flames needs to go into Chris Samnee’s portfolio, if he even needs one anymore.

Red Sonja #5

Sonja and her fledgling bodyguards begin their campaign against Dark Annisia’s forces. She learns that the king has been buried in an anonymous grave, mostly to keep his body safe from Annisia’s raiders, and the king’s scientific son figures out a way to cure her of the plague. Finally, Sonja meets Annisia in battle — but a much more terrible foe has been manipulating both of them…

Verdict: Thumbs up. Lots of adventure, action, and humor, along with outstanding art. It’s really nice to be able to read Gail Simone stories without having them tainted by DC, isn’t it?

Today’s Cool Links:

• RIP Al Plastino.
• This article — about a teenaged girl who suddenly finds herself being followed on Twitter by a bunch of porn spambots, is both extremely informative and wildly funny.
• If you like Doctor Who — and if you enjoyed the recent 50th anniversary special — you should also enjoy “The Five(ish) Doctors Reboot.”

Coffin Hill #1

Today, Eve Coffin is a heroic Boston cop who just captured a serial killer known as the Ice Fisher — until she has a run-in shortly after her great success with a furious former friend with a gun. And ten years ago, Eve was the pampered punk-rock daughter of the scandalously wealthy and notoriously rotten Coffin family. While her family preferred more mainstream debauchery, Eve had a fondness for the occult, which leads to her spending a dark night before Halloween hanging out with friends and reading from an old spellbook. But the next morning, Even woke up covered in blood and dead rodents to find one friend mysteriously vanished and another completely insane. And now, fresh from the scandal of being shot in the head by a friend, Eve has returned to her family homestead on Coffin Hill.

Verdict: Thumbs up. A cool story from Caitlin Kittredge and a wonderful shot of horror to start the Halloween season. A nice merging of misguided youth, wealthy decadence, and cop drama, too. And weird, weird, weird, so much creepy, low-grade weird, like a really quiet turn-of-the-century New England ghost story. Outstanding art from Inaki Miranda, too.

Red Sonja #4

While Dark Annisia holds the town captive and kills anyone who tries to escape, still insisting in her delusions that the town is afflicted with the plague and that vengeful ghosts offer her counsel, Red Sonja is being dragged back from the wilderness to be cured. But blinded by fever, will she be able to fend off an attack by sea-going savages?

Verdict: Thumbs up. Excellent action, drama, artwork — just an all-around fun fantasy comic. Never thought I’d be enjoying this so much.

Watson and Holmes #4

Pinned down on a roof by a sniper, Holmes, Watson, and drug-dealing preacher Darius Rice are in deep trouble. But with the preacher dead and the final piece of the puzzle in place, Holmes must deal with a bit of brutal blackmail from the mercenaries who want the case buried. Is there any chance to both survive and solve the mystery?

Verdict: Thumbs up. Some more excellent twists on the mystery, along with plenty of drama and great dialogue. And I’m glad to see it looks like this series will continue — both of our heroes have set up shop in familiar 221B Baker Street and are ready to take on more cases…

X-Men #6

Grrrarr, crossovers!

It turns out the X-Men from the future are actually the Brotherhood of Evil Mutants. Wolverine gets stabbed in the stomach by a son he apparently had with Mystique — and his healing factor has gone bye-bye, so he could actually bleed to death. Future Jean Grey and Future Xavier brain-zap multiple X-Men, Jubilee goes vampire to fight ’em off. Psylocke bashes Future Iceman to pieces. Cyclops’ band of mutant supremacist X-Men show up with the real Future X-Men, and learn that one of them is actually Shogo, Jubilee’s adopted kid, grown to adulthood.

Verdict: Thumbs down. Grrrarr, crossovers! And I don’t believe that Molly Hayes would ever turn evil.

Today’s Cool Links:

• Not a good weekend for the New York Comic Con. First they got caught hijacking attendees’ Twitter accounts, then they refused to act on attendees’ reports of organized racist and sexist harassment. The NYCC is going to have to clean house — even small conventions are working to reduce thuggery, not enable it.
• I surely can’t be the only person who’s worried that DC is bringing Stephanie Brown back just so Dan DiDio can kill her, right?
• A beautiful and unique motion comic, for free, about the experience of falling asleep in the car as a kid.
• This Pokemon/King of the Hill mashup is glorious.
• Stupid book censors are going after Neil Gaiman in New Mexico. The TV station is in full “WON’T SOMEONE THINK OF THE CHILDREN” mode, but the comments are, for once, quite sensible.
• Together at last — comic books and lamps.
• So much apples and poutine and stringcheese and pickle chips and chocolate thingies…

Mighty Avengers #1

The Avengers are all off in outer space dealing with some intergalactic threat, which makes Thanos figure he can invade Earth ’cause the Avengers aren’t around to stop him. Of course, there are plenty of other heroes running around the joint. Which brings us to the newest incarnation of the Heroes for Hire — Luke Cage, White Tiger, and Power Man (who’s a completely different guy — a smartass teenager nowadays). But that team only lasts ’til the Superior Spider-Man shows up, talks some smack, and convinces White Tiger to take a hike.

Elsewhere, Monica Rambeau is back in town, now wearing a new costume and calling herself Spectrum. She has a mysterious, shadowy benefactor, too. Aaaaanyway, Thanos’ minions finally attack New York City — does this ragtag band of do-gooders stand a chance?

Verdict: Thumbs up. Fun dialogue, action, humor, and drama. Excellent characterization, too. This is a darned interesting group, and I’d really like to read more about them as quickly as possible.

Oh, but I do have some serious quibbles. First, the art. Hey, it’s by Greg Land, who is infamous for tracing other people’s art and photos. Looks like he’s up to the same gig here, with lots of weirdly awkward facial expressions and poses that you just know look like that because he copied them somewhere else. Why does Marvel still employ this guy? Does he have some serious blackmail photos of Joe Quesada?

Another thing that bugs me is the way Monica Rambeau looks in this. I’m not a big fan of the new costume — I actually liked the look of the jacket she wore in her previous appearances. But new costumes show up all the time for B-list characters, and really, this costume isn’t all that bad. But I do think her hair is a more serious problem.

Look, “Mighty Avengers” is pretty much getting marketed as Marvel’s “Black Avengers” comic, much like Brian Wood’s new “X-Men” book was billed as the “Female X-Men” book. It’s got more African-American characters than any mainstream superhero book has had since Milestone’s glory days.

Among the female characters we know of, Spectrum is black, White Tiger is Hispanic, and She-Hulk is, regardless of her skin color, Caucasian. And all three of them have straight hair. I might be able to excuse it if Monica had ever been depicted with straight hair, but in her most recent appearances, she had cornrows. And taking your only African-American woman and giving her chemically-straightened hair isn’t really the most enlightened thing to do. I’ve got to assume Monica’s hair has been straightened because the women Land traced had straight hair, but that’s just another reason not to use Land as your artist.

The True Lives of the Fabulous Killjoys #4

Red and Blue, the porno droids on the run from BLI, are trying to make it out of Battery City. Their power will shut off once they pass the city limits, but they figure they’ll be able to die together. Elsewhere, Korse’s secret — he’s fallen in love — is revealed, and his lover has been killed. Now he’ll be taken away to be reprogrammed. And the Girl is stuck in the desert, forced to hang out with the rotten Val Velocity as he barrels down the road into paranoid psychosis and self-destruction. Can any of them survive BLI’s crackdown?

Verdict: Thumbs up. All the storylines are really picking up and turning seriously enjoyable. Great art, great storytelling, great characters — excellent pop/sci-fi comics, and it’s worth picking up.

Red Sonja #3

Sonja is wandering the wilderness, burning with fever as the plague begins to overwhelm her. Forced to surrender to an enemy in the last issue to protect innocent villagers, she’s been cast out and humiliated — and she’s beginning to hallucinate as the plague starts to destroy her mind. She sees her long-deceased father and relives the nightmare of her childhood when sadistic raiders destroyed her family and village. Will the hopelessness of her past predict her own doom?

Verdict: Thumbs up. More excellent storytelling and art. Sonja’s childhood is simultaneously incredibly grim and grandly badass, and the latest cliffhanger is very nice, though I’m pretty sure we know how it’s going to turn out…

Today’s Cool Links:

• ShadowWing Tronix has some thoughts on superhero marriages and superhero social lives.
• An excellent long-read on the outstanding “Clue” film from 1985.
• Looks like Grand Theft Auto has decided they wanna be on the side of the immature manchildren.
• These Power Ranger cosplayers are all awesome.
• This re-telling of “The Little Mermaid” is very, very rude, and very, very funny.
• Work to live, people. Never live to work.
• This article about adoptee-trafficking is genuinely sickening stuff.

Two new comics from Gail Simone? Let’s check ’em out, shall we?

Batgirl #23

Commissioner Gordon is leaning on Cherise Carnes, wealthy socialite who secretly moonlights as vengeful, murder-prone vigilante Knightfall, trying to get information about Batgirl. This somehow convinces Carnes that Gordon is in league with Batgirl, so she orders her team of supervillains, the Disgraced, to be ready to kill the Commissioner. Meanwhile, the gangsters who Barbara and Ricky beat up last issue have kidnapped Ricky’s brother. They’re threatening to kill him unless Ricky comes out to meet them so they can kill him. And even worse, Ricky assaults a cop while trying to get to the meeting location. Can Barbara — who isn’t wearing her Batgirl costume anymore — save Ricky from both the gang and the cops?

Verdict: Thumbs up. Great action, suspense, drama, moments of sheer terror, and one holy heck of a cliffhanger. It’s an absolutely fantastic issue, and it’s a great beginning to this new “Wanted” storyarc.

Red Sonja #2

Sonja is leading a hopeless battle, facing a superior force of soldiers and monsters, lead by a former friend, Dark Annisia. Sonja and Annisia survived a grueling career as enslaved gladiators. But Annisia has gone mad and believes she’s haunted by the ghosts of the slaves she killed, and the only way to soothe their anger is to offer them more deaths. And Annisia reveals that Sonja has the deadly plague that’s been killing scores in the countryside. But she gives Sonja a chance to save the people of the city. All she has to do is… surrender. Can the undefeatable Red Sonja accept this blow to her pride?

Verdict: Thumbs up. Another really grand issue. Tons of excellent action and drama, and multiple outstanding cliffhangers. This one is still early in its run, folks — there’s still time to get in on it at the beginning. So go pick it up now.

Today’s Cool Links:

• Need more reasons to skip the “Ender’s Game” movie? How ’bout because Orson Scott Card is a monstrous racist?
• There’s a move on to name a bridge in San Francisco for Emperor Norton. This sounds completely awesome to me.
• What if animals were round and bouncy?

Red Sonja #1

It has been an awfully long time since I read a comic from Dynamite. Honestly, I mostly think of them as just a shade above Blue Water Comics — mostly there to publish comics in hopes that they’ll become collectibles, always with lots and lots of variant covers. But hey, they got a comic written by Gail Simone? Sure, I’ll give it a shot.

So we got Red Sonja, She-Devil with a Sword, who we’re first introduced to as a just-released prisoner of the brutal Zamorans. A group of 80 prisoners were kept in the dungeons and forced to fight to the death — only Sonja and a woman named Annisia survived when they were rescued by an invading army. Years later, Sonja is called back to civilization by her rescuer, King Dimath — his kingdom is wracked by plague, his soldiers are dead, and the Zamorans have built up a mighty army of psychos and monsters. And Sonja is asked to train the remaining citizens to fight in a war. Can Sonja accomplish the impossible?

Verdict: Thumbs up. Excellent writing — well, of course, it is Simone, and she tends to bring her A-game for almost everything. Good action and dialogue. Very nice cliffhanger. All in all, I approve. Nice work, Dynamite — always better to go with quality above variant covers…

Day Men #1

It was a pretty good week for new comics. This is a nice one, written by Matt Gagnon and Michael Alan Nelson, with art by the great Brian Stelfreeze. We’re focused on a guy named David Reid, a guy who works for the Virgos, a major crime family. Specifically, the crime they specialize in is drinking blood. Reid’s job is to take care of chores the vampires need done during the day, when they’re all stuffed in their coffins. His duties involve everything from running off suspicious mortals to cleaning up bloody crime scenes to paying off cops and informants. The serious trouble for David starts when he has to pick up Nybor, a family member who’s been on a drunken bender for a few days. Turns out he’s passed out in a room with the dismembered body of one of the Ramses family, a rival vampire clan. Can David get Nybor to a safehouse before the Ramses find out and start a vampire war? Probably not…

Verdict: Thumbs up. Great art, fun story. We’ve got a nicely realized background, with the underground vampire gangsters coming out as a combination of brutal Mafia stereotypes and twisted vampire stereotypes. David Reid and his coworkers are nicely drawn, though I expect we’ll learn more complexities in their characters as the series goes on.

Batwoman #22

Batwoman and Hawkfire are working to track down clues to Batman’s real identity — which involves beating up Bane and then interviewing a bunch of supervillains, including Black Mask, Professor Pyg, the Mortician, and Fright. Meanwhile, Joseph Kane is continuing his training of Bette — while he and his wife worry that she’s not ready, the mercenaries he’s using to provide her fight training feel like she’s doing a great job kicking their butts.

Verdict: Thumbs up. Fantastic action all the way through. Man alive, so much ass-whuppery. And it’s great to see Bette turn into a great fighter. Really, this was an incredibly fun comic all the way through.

Today’s Cool Links:

• Here’s a really cool Wonder Woman fan movie. Why do people keep saying a Wonder Woman movie would suck? Are they paying no attention at all?
• Hey, cool — I went to high school here. Loved watching the Eagles play hoops. This is why I still can’t believe more teams don’t run a full-court press during the whole game.
• This is all the information you ever needed to know about the sea pig.