Supergirl: Cosmic Adventures in the 8th Grade #2

Supergirl’s life continues to be generally sucky, including having to stay late after school, getting exposed to Kryptonite, and getting a superpowered imperfect-clone rival named Belinda Zee, but she does at least meet her first real friend, a red-headed genius named Lena Thorul. Umm, why do I suspect that last name would scramble into something ominous?

Verdict: Thumbs up. I would’ve enjoyed this one anyway, but any comic that includes the line “Must… fight crime… Save… cow!” is definitely a winner.

Terra #4

The final issue of this miniseries has Terra and Geo-Force work to stop the rampage of the maddened crystal-powered Richard What’s-His-Name. All that, plus another guest-appearance from Power Girl, clothes-shopping, and spitting out sushi. It makes more sense in context, trust me.

Verdict: Thumbs up. Again, I just love Amanda Conner’s artwork. I hope she’s working on some new comics coming out? Oooh, what’s that? Conner, Palmiotti, and Gray are working on a new “Power Girl” ongoing series? Wonderful!

Supergirl: Cosmic Adventures in the 8th Grade #1

This is a new all-ages book from DC, and it features the best version of Supergirl we’ve seen in a comic book in ages. A native of Krypton’s moon, Argo, which was transported into another dimension when Krypton exploded, Kara sneaked into a rocket to Earth in a misguided attempt to get back at her parents and didn’t expect to get trapped on Earth with no way home. But Superman decides the best thing for her is to learn to fit in on Earth, so she enrolls in a local school as bespectacled Linda Lee. Of course, it’s one disaster after another — she has no idea how things on Earth work, so she asks lots and lots of embarrassingly stupid questions. Can Supergirl escape back to her homeworld or at least find a way to communicate with her parents again?

Verdict: Thumbs up. This version of Supergirl is pure awesome, and it’s too bad she’s not the one who appears in the regular “Supergirl” comic. I love the art, I love the story, I love the humor. Go pick this one up.

Terra #3

Well, Geo-Force has been taken over by an undead necromancer named Deathcoil, and Terra has to defeat Deathcoil without also harming Geo-Force. She manages this in only a couple of pages, but Geo-Force is still left in bad shape from the possession, so Terra has to take him to her home — a world deep, deep underground called Strata, populated by an advanced race of kinda-sorta squids. And it turns out that Terra, despite her outwardly human appearance, is also one of the Stratans. Gifted at birth with earth-moving powers, she was chosen to live aboveground among humans as a super-ambassador of sorts. Meanwhile, Richard, the engineer-geologist who got turned into a living diamond, takes his girlfriend to see the mystical underground pool where he got his powers. Wanting abilities like his, she jumps into the pool… and of course, it doesn’t turn out the way she hoped. When an angry Richard shows up in Strata looking for revenge, can Terra and Geo-Force handle him?

Verdict: Thumbs up. Wow oh wow, Amanda Conner’s art on this is sooooo cool. And yeah, we gotta give props to Justin Gray and Jimmy Palmiotti for the excellent story, too, as well as Paul Mounts’ coloring, which is just plain dandy.

Terra #2

It turns out that the new Terra is an exact genetic match for the old Terra — namely, the crazy one who had underaged sex with Deathstroke and tried to kill the Teen Titans. Power Girl and Dr. Mid-Nite try to calm her down while she runs around Mid-Nite’s lab in her birthday suit. When she and Power Girl finally leave, they have to deal with an attack on a subway by Silver Banshee. She’s after a guy who’s stolen a mystical artifact, and when he accidentally steps on the third rail, his death allows the ancient Sumerian god who was inside the artifact to take over his body, grow to giant size, and try to take over the planet. Meanwhile, Richard Whozits, the wealthy geologist guy who got turned into living rock in the first issue, hangs out with his nekkid girlfriend and tries to decide what he’s going to do with his life. And finally, zombies invade Markovia, and Terra shows up to help Geo-Force fight them all off.

Verdict: Thumbs up. The story’s pretty good, and the dialogue is fun and funny, but the best part of this is Amanda Conner’s wonderful artwork. Yes, she has a near-perfect eye for classic good-girl art (you did notice that cover up there, right?), but she’s also stellar at action, facial expressions, body language, and everything else she decides to draw. She’s one of my favorite artists out there, and I hope she gets lots more comics work.

Kull #1

Dark Horse continues their recent trend of making awesome comics out of old Robert E. Howard stories with this new series about Howard’s barbarian king. We get a story about siege warfare, political intrigue, and a really ugly monster. Can Kull, Atlantean exile and new king of Valusia destroy the monster and unite his kingdom?

Verdict: Thumbs up. Excellent story, excellent action, excellent monster. Hope they keep making this one, ’cause it’s fun.

Ambush Bug: Year None #4

Dan DiDio is dead, Jann Jones is the ultimate romantic manga heroine, Argh!yle is running around bothering people in the “52” mega-series, and Ambush Bug gets kicked in the jollies by Batwoman.

Verdict: Dan DiDio is dead? Thumbs up!

Terra #1

Longtime DC Comics readers know Terra as the underage blonde Teen Titan who betrayed the team. Obviously, this looks to be a different character, darker hair, a more heroic attitude, but the same mineral telekinesis powers. She’s racing around the planet saving folks from underground menaces and races, who have all been stirred up by something else deep underground. And speaking of underground menaces, a wealthy engineer demonstrating a new, more powerful laser drill for the government unexpectedly gets turned into a rock-skinned super-psycho with a special talent for killing large numbers of people. Meanwhile, Terra finds herself in big trouble in Hawaii, but gets saved by Power Girl, and a later medical examination by Dr. Mid-Nite reveals some unexpected surprises in the new heroine’s DNA.

Verdict: Thumbs up. The story is really fine and dandy — absolutely no complaints here. But the real selling point is the artwork by the always crackerjack team of Amanda Conner and Jimmy Palmiotti. Conner’s penciling is insanely reader-friendly, expressive, action-packed, and Palmiotti’s inks complement her wonderfully. I expect I’ll get every issue of this one, just so I can enjoy the artwork.

She-Hulk #34

She-Hulk teams up with an informal team called the Lady Liberators that includes the Invisible Woman, Valkyrie, and Thundra. They’re planning on providing earthquake relief for a region where a corrupt government is hoarding all relief supplies for itself. And while initial relief efforts go well — the government may be rotten to the core, but they don’t have anything capable of shooing off a bunch of angry superheroines — the good times can’t last forever.

Verdict: Another thumbs up. The patter here amongst the Liberators while sitting around Shulkie’s trailer is just awesome.