Meanwhile...

This week in Caleb-writing-about-comics-somewhere-other-than-here: I have a short piece up at Las Vegas Weekly recommending a some trades featuring Batman, Bane and Catwoman (another neat thing about that Knightfall trade? Each chapter is done by alternating creative teams, which generally doesn't serve a story very well, but in this case it does manage to give a casual reader a nice overview of what the Batman books looked like during a decade that represented one of the long-lived franchises high points; one can get whiplash going back and forth between the work of Norm Breyfogle and Jim Aparo, but, on the other hand, Norm Breyfogle and Jim Aparo art! And Kelley Jones cover!), and at Robot 6 I have a review of sorts of the first issues of two IDW series based on two very diverse licensed properties, Battle Beasts and The Crow.

You can go read them if you like. Or just click on those links, and give LVW and Robot 6 your page-views, whether you read them or not. I don't really care.

The above image, by the way, is not—I repeat not—a variant cover for Battle Beasts #1, but it totally should have been! (You know, having spent some time looking up images of the original toys, I don't think the character designs of the new comic are quite as awesome as the ones above—look at that fucking rabbit guy, for example—but it's still early; maybe they'll get more awesome and include more of the toy designs in the future).

In the meantime, fingers crossed IDW is working on a heat-sensitive sticker variant cover...!

Comic shop comics: July 11-18

Daredevil #15 (Marvel Entertainment) Props to Mark Waid and Chris Samnee for figuring out a way to do cut down on the amount of artwork that needs to be provided for an issue of a Daredevil, and to do it in such a way that entire pages of black panels with nothing in them but lettering is actually integral to the story.

Matt Murdock is completely deprived of all five his senses and trapped in Latveria, but after awhile his sense begin to return, and Waid and Samnee show us the action from DD's point-of-view as well as from an omniscent point-of-view, the formers allowing color artist Javier Rodgriguez and letterer Joe Caramagna to do an awful lot of noticeable, noteworthy storytelling (Personally, I liked the empty dialogue bubbles that were nothing but solid colors, conveying that Murdock could tell someone was saying something and the general emotion—blue-sad, red-angry—but he couldn't actually make out the actual words.

It's a beautiful comic, and it's a smart comic, even if it's a Superhero 101 sort of plot, about a hero escaping from a villains' clutches under incredible odds.

Bonus! We get to see a few panels of Samnee's Iron Man, and get a good look at the new Captain Marvel's stupid banana-clipped hairstyle:

If she wants to shave the sides and make that a mohawk, I am all for that. But long hair piled on top like that with what I imagine must be a banana clip? I do not care for that.

Saga #5 (Image Comics) One of the neat things about this book so far is the way Brian K. Vaughan and Fiona Staples have made all of the characters interesting enough that it's easy to find oneself rooting for them all on some level. Even the badder of the bad guys, like Prince Robot IV and The Stalk, are beautifully designed and rendered, making it difficult not to sympathize with them.

In this issue, Vaughan's plotting gives The Will a pretty incredible and noble motivation to agree to do something at odds with the fates of our protagonists—that is, to murder them for money. And that noble thing he wants to do is protect a very young child from a very terrible thing, so that the conflict has now taken the shape of two parents on the run trying to protect their child...versus a guy trying to kill them in order to protect another child.

That's some nice, strong plotting, Vaughan.

Also in this issue, Prince Robot IV goes to the bathroom and, we learn, has previously knocked up his wife. I hope Image eventually publishes a Official Handbook of the Marvel Universe style companion to this book, explaining the biology of the Robot royalty characters, because I'm not entirely sure how it works, but find myself curious.

Also also, a horribly sad ending, mostly because Staples is so great at drawing awesome breasts...and the beautiful/scary/crazy-looking creature that has them.


Saucer Country #5 (DC/Vertico) Say, I bought six comic books at the shop this week, and four of them start with the letter "S." Huh.


Smurf Vs. Smurf (Papercutz) Smurf Village falls into civil war over the correct usage of the word "smurf" in compound nouns. It's awesome. There are three shorter stories of less ambitious length and subject matter (and thus awesomeness), but the one where Gargamel's benevolent cousin decides the Smurfs are socialist vermin that need to be exterminated because they don't believe in money and thus won't pay him for the candy he gives them is kind of funny seen through the suggested frame of capitalism = sinister sorcery/elfin genocide justification, socialism = mostly peaceful co-existence.


SpongeBob Comics #10 (United Plankton Pictures) Still a fun, funny, superior gag comic for the very same reasons repeatedly cited. This issue is perhaps noteworthy in that James Kochalka provides a full eight-page story, rather than the handful of three-panel, newspaper funny pages-style comics he usually contributes.

Wonder Woman #11 (DC) Two more Olympians are introduced this issue: Artemis/Moon (awesome design!) and Demeter/Harvest (less so; the wrinkly green Skrull chin doesn't work for me), and Wonder Woman and her allies battle against two Olympian gods, and Zeus' empty throne—a well-designed chair atop a well-designed Olympus that looks nothing like the previous DC version—gets two rival claimants at the book's climax.

The story arc that the book has been telling for almost an entire year now seems to be reaching its overall climax, which I'm glad of. It's been a pleasure watching Brian Azzarello and Cliff Chiang reinvent classic Greek mythology and set it in modern times while maintaining enough fantastical weirdness to make it feel mythological and fantastical rather than clever and mechanical, but it's gotta be leading somewhere, and a year is an awful long time to get there, isn't it?

I'm enjoying this serially, but I bet it will read even better as a series of trade collections somewhere down the road.

Here is a Ward Sutton drawing making that connection you've probably heard a thing or two about.

So apparently the Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney-as-Dark Knight Rises villain Bane-based-on-the-fact-that-he-used-to-work-for-an-evil-company-homonymously-named-"Bain" thing has become a thing (Here's Robot 6 and ComicsAlliance on that very subject, for example).

That this thing became a thing is thanks, I guess, to Rush Limbaugh and/or John Stewart and/or some combination of the two.

At any rate, I thought now would be a good time to re-link to this collection of Ward Sutton images featuring Romney as comics characters, including the above image.

It was originally posted on June 24; does that mean Sutton was first to the Bane/Bain party...?

At any rate, it's a swell drawing, as are all of Sutton's drawings, and there are several more at the link (I like the Richie Rich and Plastic Man ones the best; I believe I've already mentioned which two comics characters Romney reminds me of the most, though).

Review: The Flowers of Evil Vol. 1

Shuzo Oshimi's manga series, recently translated and published for U.S. audiences by Veritical, takes its name from 19th century French poet Charles Baudelaire's single volume of poetry, Les Fleurs du mal.

Baudelair'es book was quite controversial upon it's 1857 publication, and re-read today, in decadent old 2012, it still seems remarkably blunt in its discussion of sex and the female body, and boasts a sort of rebellious, teenager-trying-to-piss-of-the-parents interest in demonology. It's not hard to imagine it outraging or embarrassing readers in, say, the Greatest Generation's generation, so it's easy to see how it could scandalize the mid-19th century.

Oshimi explains in his author's notes that he read it in middle school—this series is heavily influenced by his own school experiences, apparently—and he "didn't understand much of it, but the book's feel, suspicious, indecent, yet nastily noble" made him think, "I'm so cool for reading it."

His protagonist is Takaso Kasuga, an average Japanese high-schooler separated from most of his classmates by his devastating crush on the sweet, pure and innocent Nanako Saeki, a long-haired beauty in his class. That, and his fascination with books, chief among them being Baudelaire's book, which Oshimi designs a neat cover for:

He based it on Odilon Redon's cover...

...but made it his own (and made it creepier), returning to that imagery repeatedly throughout the book at important points.

One day Kasuga is alone in the classroom after school and notices that Saeki forgot her gym bag. On a strange whim, one he struggles with for a panel, he takes her dirty gym clothes home with him.

Unfortunately for him, not only was the incident noticed, with the whole school abuzz over what kind of pervert might have stolen a school girls dirty gym clothes, but his act was witnessed by Nakamura, whom the back cover copy calls "the weirdest girl in class."

She's very pretty, probably prettier than Saeki, and given how aggressively she wants to spend time with Kasuga,and how does things like strip him, ask him to smell her masturbating hand and smells his, well, one wonders why he doesn't just go for her instead of the more unattainable seeming Saeki.

It may be because Nakamura seems insane, as well as evil. When we first meet her, her teacher scolds her, and she responds:

When the teacher raises his hand to slap her for calling him a "shitbug," she stops him with this look alone:

Soon Kasuga is under her thumb, and she blackmails him into forming "a contract" with her. Her goal is to take something precious from him, to strip him away and reveal to him that he's just a pervert at heart, that the whole world is full of perverts and "shitbugs" or something.

This includes threatening him, slapping him, stripping him naked and forcing him to wear Saeki's gym clothes and, at the climax, well, I don't want to spoil it, but suffice it to say that once Kasuga starts trying to be his self around Saeki, and takes an interest in her, she notices that he seems like a decent guy as well, and they plan a date, while Nakamura hovers in the background, able to destroy him at any moment with her knowledge of the one, weird, perverted thing he did, a prod she uses to get him to do more and more.

The tone of the book, I should note, is not a comic one, although it is often darkly funny, with Oshimi delivering what would be "jokes" in other manga with a straightforward sincerity that may or may not be deadpan. It's an uncomfortable funny, akin to the funny parts in, say, David Lynch movies—you laugh at how weird it is, but you're not entirely sure if you're supposed to be laughing, or if Lynch wants you to laugh at that point, or, if he does, what about it he wants you to laugh at, if that makes any sense. (I'm pretty sure a Japanese schoolboy with a framed picture of Baudelaire in his bedroom staring at it and saying, "Baudelaire....give me strength!" is supposed to be funny, though).

Another thing the book shares in common with the book that inspires it, beyond the title and interest in the intersection of the erotic and the dark, is that it is, of course, the work of a different culture, written in a different language. Just as any American who can only speak English (like me!) can't really read Baudelaire's original poetry, only English translations of it, so too can that same American only read Oshimi's manga as it's been translated into English.

Now, comics, unlike poetry, has a component beyond the verbal, one that needs no translation to convey it's meaning. That is, you don't have to speak fluent Japanese to understand what Oshimi is trying to communicate about the way that Kasuga feels in this panel:

Still, I found myself wondering how much has been changed in the translation, and if the original was at all softened, or if that "softness," for a lack of a better word, comes from the naivete of the young characters just learning to become adults. For a book about perversion, a book whose central act involves the theft of a teenage girls gym clothes, the sexual content is remarkably tame.

For example, when Kasga opens the bag he remarks upon the smell, but somewhat unconvincingly adds "...of shampoo..."

During the hand-smelling scene, Nakamura coyly says, "My hand smells really good these days. Wanna sniff it?" He demurs, and later she grabs his right hand, smells it, then looks at him and says, "So, you've been using this hand to stroke and rub...Saeki's gym clothes all over yourself?

Perhaps the most explicit it gets is when Nakamura forces him into the stolen gym clothes—which happens so fast we don't see him naked—and proclaims:

Kasuga, listen. I've felt antsy for a while now. It feels so hazy inside of it down there that I could scream. I'd like this whole world to just turn into shitbugs in that haze

It's very funny, it's very weird, and it's remarkably suspenseful. I've already broken out my Lynch metaphor, so I really shouldn't return to it in the conclusion here, but Flowers of Evil shares that same tension between the normal, happy, everyday world and the darker world of lust and gratification that is at the center of so much of Lynch's best, most Lynchian work. I suspect Kasuga, like I suspect Oshimi already has, will come to the conclusion that those worlds are really one in the same, and everyone has a private pervert in them somewhere. I'm enjoying watching the unpredictable Nakamura threaten to out him as one though, and use the word "shitbug" over and over again, as I have no idea what it means and have never heard it. Shitburd, yes. But shitbug? And how does the haze of a vagina transform the people of the world into shitbugs? Perhaps Volume 2 will have the answers.

********************

By the way, I really like the cover. Oshimi's name is in a hot pink, and, on the spine, where the picture of Nakamura continues, the title, volume number and Oshimi's credit are all in the same pink.

Review: Wolverine & The Black Cat: Claws II

As the roman numerals after the title indicates, this is the sequel to the 2006 miniseries of the same title, first serialized last year. Unsurprisingly, I did not like it as much as I liked the original, in large part because so much of what I liked about the original was the way it surprised me: My general unfamiliarity with what a skilled comics artist Joe Linsner was, how much fun Jimmy Palmiotti and Justin Gray's script turned out to be, the fact that they managed to find a new character without a long history of Wolverine team-ups to play off the character with a sort of superhero screwball comedy rapport, the nature of the Kraven appearances and the true villain behind the plot. That plot, too, was a lot more straightforward, or standalone: It was essentially just Wolverine in The Black Cat in "The Most Dangerous Game."

This three-issue sequel picks up immediately after the events of that miniseries, with the title characters finishing the date they started at the end of the previous one; they save the restaurant from a robbery, eat dinner, totally do it.

The villains are still stranded in the Savage Land, where they were left to die buy dinosaur ingestion, but manage to escape and cause problems for our heroes by, rather randomly, finding an alien spaceship from the future, and using a time-travel doohickey from it to send Wolvie and Black Cat into the pages of Amazing Adventures #18

through #39

or thereabouts.

As a sequel, it is therefore a very strange one, in that rather than featuring the titular team-up front-and-center, they themselves team-up with the cast of another, long defunct Marvel comics feature (which does get revived here and there rather regularly, I suppose), in Killraven and his running crew.

The plotting is fine, but the chemistry of the leads has mostly evaporated after the consummation of all their flirtation, and much of their exchanges amount to little more than leering at one another, alluding back to that time at the beginning when they totally did it and how they are eager to do it again.

What it does have going for it is Linsner's superb art, which has to be the main reason anyone reading this book is reading it in the first place. As I stated in the review of the previous volume, he is a perfect superhero comic book artist, and his many virtues in that arena are on display throughout.

Our heroes are costume-less, due to the fact that they came right from a date, so Black Cat spends the majority of book in her evening gown (plus a domino mask she keeps in her handbag), while Wolvie is naked from the waist up.

Once again Linsner demonstrates facility with the female form, drawing breasts that actually look and move like human breasts (whey, they even have nipples, something I wasn't sure women in the DC Universe or Marvel Universe actually had, like women here on Earth-Prime do!). And their sometimes pervy dialogue aside, Linsner manages to bring a old-school pin-up sense of flirtiness and fun to his drawings of sexy ladies, rather than the sort of creepy, exploitive quality that dominates so many superhero books; you know, that quality that makes you feel a little queasy while you're reading, worrying if everything is okay with the artist in his personal life and/or how his childhood was, and sort of hoping no one looks over your shoulder and asks what you're reading (I don't know about you, but I'd feel more comfortable being seen on a park bench reading something with a cover like this

or this

than, oh, I don't know, this

There's a scene where the characters have to swim through (mildly) acidic water to get to their destination, and when presented with an opportunity to draw Black Cat's dress eaten away by acid, barely even trims it:

(Killraven, who is under the acid-water longest, having become entangled in a robot eel monster, has almost zero damage to his clothes, but then I guess he's mostly wearing metal anyway.

As with the first volume, the best part is not only Linsner's art, but the subtleties in it (in the above panel, for example, note the look on his girlfriend's face as she regards Black Cat regarding K.R.), and there's a scene I feel forced to call bullshit on.

In the first volume, it was Wolverine hurling Black Cat into a helicopter flying above as if she were a baseball (he doesn't even need two hands!), here it's Black Cat catching a 300-pound Wolverine after he falls to the ground after being hurtled into the air by an explosion...

...and not being squished. Not only is that full-grown, all-muscle man, but the dude has a metal skeleton!

The collection also includes a 2001 Killraven one-shot, entitled "Killraven: 2020," which was both written and illustrated by Linsner (which explains its presence here).

It's...nothing special really, although the art is pretty (a little too pretty, when it comes to Killraven's long, shampoo commercial-perfect locks), and its presence here does allow one to get a sense how the artist's work has evolved over the last ten years or so.

*********************

Before I call it a post, here's two more scans of neat little scenes that I think are pretty illustrative of the charms of Linsner's work on these Claws comics.

First, here's Wolverine trading high fives with Killraven:

I, like just about anyone else who reads superhero comics, have read a lot of comics with Wolverine in them. And yet I don't think I've ever seen a scene like that. What's noteworthy is that it's just some action in the background...something Linsner draws while Black Cat and one of the future ladies have a conversation about their superhero love interests.

Even when it's more-or-less standard genre chore stuff, the artwork makes it worth reading.

And second, here's Wolverine having a standard superhero conversation with the time-traveling alien lady...while totally checking out Black Cat's butt:

You know, I can't recall seeing Wolvie ogling a lady like that either...at least, not while making that face.

Well, I still haven't gotten around to seeing the movie...

...but the cookies ain't half bad.

Keebler's limited edition The Amazing Spider-Man Fudge Stripes Cookies taste just like the regular Keebler Fudge Stripes Cookies, only the shortbread is red in color rather than shortbread-colored, probably thanks to what I imagine must be a generous amount of the red #40 that's listed in the ingredients.

In other words, these cookies are just like the cookies that already existed, but with superficial, surface difference accomplished by new and different ingredients.

That might make this the perfect cookie tie-in metaphor for the film it's cross-marketing with, but I don't know for sure. Like I said, I still haven't gotten around to seeing the movie. But the cookies ain't half bad.

(no links)

So this week is San Diego Comic-Con International, and there were so many publishing announcements that I don't really feel up to sorting through them at the moment (at least, not here. So there won't be the regular Sunday evening links post (I've only got like three or four tidbits from pre-Con saved up, at this point); instead, I'll catch-up with a super-long links post next Sunday, and include only the con news and announcements I'm still excited about, interested in or befuddled by (Archie/Glee crossover, the history of characters, numbering and titles of Marvel's Hulk and Incredible Hulk books over the last three or four years, etc).

Come back later tonight for a trade paperback review though and, in the mean time, feel free to order your copy of The Mothman Comics, which you can keep on hand to pull out and read whenever I fail to post something and you need some emergency Caleb content.

Marvel's October previews reviewed

Remind me to take the week of San Diego Comic-Con International off next year. I'm pretty sure no one is reading comics blogs this week...at least, not little personal ones like this, not when 99% of the comics community seems to be concentrated in one city at the moment, and a year's worth of comics news and hype is all being released at the same time.

Well, I'm in Ohio, so I'm gonna soldier on, even if I'm playing to an emptier than usual room.

So, how about Marvel's publishing plans for October, huh? The month their "Marvel NOW!" (remember to emphasize that last word if you're reading aloud) starts with the first of their somewhat rejiggered titles, and the final issues of a bunch of their series, which are going to be relaunched with new #1s over the course of the next few months.

As always, you can read the full solicits at Comic Book Resources and/or ComicsAlliance.

I didn't understand half the words in the solicitation text, but I like the cover for this month's issue of Astonishing X-men. Save for What's Her Face's costume, which I can't really make any sense of, mechanically-speaking.


AVENGERS ACADEMY #38
CHRISTOS GAGE (W)
TOM GRUMMETT (A)
Cover BY GIUSEPPE CAMUNCOLI
• Guest-starring the staff & students of WOLVERINE & THE X-MEN!
• Because you demanded it: the flag football game between Avengers Academy and the Jean Grey School!
32 PGS./Rated T …$2.99

I did not actually demand that. But now that you mention it...

Well that guy on the cover of Daredevil sure is scary looking...

I like this David Aja cover for Hawkeye #3 as much as I despise John Tyler Christopher's cover for Dark Avengers #182 (so Marvel is renumbering many titles with new #1's, and just attaching ridiculously high numbers seemingly at random to other series...?), which I will not post, so as not to hurt your eyes.

That's a pretty neat cover. Say, is Hawkeye rabid...?


Thanos: Son of Titan #1 (of 5)
Joe Keatinge (W) • Rich Elson (A)
Cover BY Ed McGuinness
Variant Cover by MARKO DJURDJEVIC
• Find out the story behind the biggest surprise cameo from the Avengers movie!
• Learn the brutal, violent secrets behind the galaxy’s greatest villain courtesy of Joe Keatinge (Glory). and Rich Elson!• It’s called the Marvel “Universe” for a reason.
32 PGS./Rated T+ …$2.99

What, Thanos is in the movie?! Geez, how about a spoiler warning, Solicitations Writer Guy!

Oh hey, you know who they shoulda got to do a miniseries on Thanos' origin? Thanos creator Jim Starlin.

ULTIMATE COMICS SPIDER-MAN #16.1
BRIAN MICHAEL BENDIS (W) • DAVID MARQUEZ (A)
COVER BY SARA PICHELLI
• The Daily Bugle is on the hunt to find out everything they can about the new Spider-Man
• What they discover will surprise them, you…and him!
32 PGS./Rated T+ …$2.99

A special ".1", jumping-on point issue for an Utlimate book, part of a line that was designed as easily-accessible takes on the characters that would be free from all the direct market audience-tolerated static that some find so unappealing about comics, like relaunches, renumberings and big, inter-book crossovers?

Oh wait.

Well yes, a "jumping-on point" for a book that's only been around a little over a year, featuring a character who has only existed that long probably doesn't need a jumping-on point at this point, but do note this special only costs $2.99; I guess the idea with this is it's an introductory price, and that Marvel's hoping new readers like it so much that they'll be willing to pay $4 a month to follow the continuing adventures of Ultimate Comics Spider-Man.

UNCANNY AVENGERS #1
RICK REMENDER (W) • JOHN CASSADAY (A&C)
Variant Covers by ADI GRANOV, DANIEL ACUNA, SKOTTIE YOUNG & TWO MORE TO BE ANNOUNCED!
Sketch Variant Cover by JOHN CASSADAY & TBA
Deadpool Call Me Maybe Variant by TBA
Uncanny & Avengers Variants also available
Blank Cover also available
ALL NEW ONGOING!
• THIS IS IT! The greatest era of the Marvel Universe starts here! From the ashes of AvX an all-new, all-different Avengers assemble!
• Captain America begins his quest to create a sanctioned Avengers unit comprised of Avengers and X-Men, humans and mutants working together – so why is Professor Xavier’s dream more at risk than ever?
• The first attack of the most loathsome villain in history will quake the Marvel Universe forever!
• The funeral of one of Marvel’s greatest heroes!
32 PGS./Rated T+ …$3.99

—I just can't see how John Cassaday draws a monthly comic book. Maybe if Brian Michael Bendis were writing it, and half the panels were just headshots of people with their mouths open, but I don't know.

—This strikes me as a sort of weird concept, given how long various X-People and mutants have been Avengers (Beat, Wolverine, Scarlet Witch, Quicksilver), but I suppose it makes sense coming out of Avengers Vs. X-Men.

—I hate the new Scarlet Witch costume, which is basically a red Black Widow costume with her forehead tiara.

—That's a pretty neat cover design though...I imagine that will pop off the racks pretty well.

—I'm interested in seeing that Skottie Young variant; I bet that looks very different than the fifteen other variants.

DC's October previews reviewed

Better late then never...?

Well, I don't know about that, but here's my monthly look at DC Comics that won't be released for three more months yet, based solely on the information DC has just released. Full solicitations at Comic Book Resources and ComicsAlliance, if you want to follow along.

That right there is the "Ame-Comic Catwoman (Holiday Variant) PVC Figure." Now that DC is doing a comic book series based on these statues, I look forward to seeing an issue devoted to Holiday Variant Catwoman.

AQUAMAN #13
Written by GEOFF JOHNS
Art and cover by IVAN REIS and JOE PRADO
1:25 B&W Variant cover by IVAN REIS
On sale OCTOBER 24 • 32 pg, FC, $2.99 US • RATED T
Retailers: This issue will ship with two covers. The variant cover will feature the standard edition cover in a wraparound format.
• The finale of “The Others.”
• Aquaman pushed to the breaking point!
• Who is Black Manta working for?

Who is Black Manta working for? Well, based on how much Geoff Johns likes Challenge of the Superriends and regards it as a source of DC's most iconic villains, I would guess either Lex Luthor or the Luthor-lead Legion of Doom.

Although it would be kinda silly if Johns was putting together something like that, given how thoroughly Alex Ross and company already did a very thorough "serious Challenge of the Superfriends" comic book series, and it would be awfully hard to beat...

Or maybe he's working for The Trench? Would that explain why there's a Trench face reflecting in one of his eyes...?

I don't like the look of this cover; I hope that's simply because they're not finished with it.


BATMAN #13
Written by SCOTT SNYDER
Backup story written by SCOTT SNYDER and JAMES TYNION IV
Art by GREG CAPULLO and JONATHAN GLAPION
Backup story art by ANDY CLARKE
Cover by GREG CAPULLO
Variant cover by AARON KUDER
1:100 B&W Variant cover by GREG CAPULLO
On sale OCTOBER 10 • 40 pg, FC, $3.99 US • RATED T
...
• The Joker returns in “DEATH OF THE FAMILY”!
• He crippled Batgirl. He killed Robin. What will The Joker do now that he’s returned to Gotham City?
• What must Batman do to protect his secret identity and that of those who fight alongside him?

Well yeah, he crippled Batgirl. But she got better. And yeah, he killed a Robin, but he got better too. Kinda deflates the menace of The Joker when his most horrible crimes against Batman's sidekicks have been reversed by continuity hijinks, doesn't it? And calling attention to it as a selling point sure doesn't work all that well. Oh no, The Joker is back! What horrible thing will he do this time that we'll eventually have to reboot away?!

BATMAN: THE DARK KNIGHT #13
Written by GREGG HURWITZ
Art and cover by DAVID FINCH
1:25 Variant cover by DAVID FINCH
On sale OCTOBER 24 • 32 pg, FC, $2.99 US • RATED T
Retailers: This issue will ship with two covers. The variant cover will feature the standard edition cover in a wraparound format.
• Batman is pushed to his limits as he faces a fear toxin unlike any he has ever encountered!
• What is Batman most afraid of? Find out here!
• More on The Scarecrow’s origin.

I swear to God I've read the exact story being described above like 15 times already.

Also, what is Batman most afraid of? Being chained up in a beaver dam, apparently. I never would have guessed that.

BATMAN AND ROBIN #13
Written by PETER J. TOMASI
Art and cover by PATRICK GLEASON and MICK GRAY
On sale OCTOBER 10 • 32 pg, FC, $2.99 US • RATED T
• Gotham City is being devoured by zombies!
• Learn the dangerous secrets of the 2-Club!

I imagine there's some sort of twist on it, but "Batman vs. zombies" is another comic book story I've read several times before...

...including twice in the past few years. And the guy writing this is the same guy who wrote one of those above comics.

Nicely designed and drawn cover by Patrick Gleason, though.

Just in case you're not getting enough blood-vomitting from Red Lanterns.

Keep Rob Liefelding, Rob Liefeld!

Uh-oh. That sure as hell doesn't look like black-colored lightning that Black Lightning is emanating. Don't fuck this up, DC.

Also, BL's gloves look really dumb.

Huh. I don't really care for this version of the new Green Lantern costume as much as the previous image I saw of it.

The GL symbol is that of the 2002 Jim Lee redesign of Kyle Rayner's costume (Although I guess Dave Gibbons and Stan Lee's GL design predates that), rather than the more Lantern-like one seen on the preview image above, which was apparently altered before Earth 2 #2 eventually shipped.

Also, the solicitation notes that there's a Grundy in this issue, and the big, monster person on the cover is apparently wearing a dress. Is Earth 2's Solomon Grundy a lady? Or a transvestite? Is the new gay Green Lantern fighting a new transvestite Solomon Grundy? Damn, this is one progressive comic book!


THE FURY OF FIRESTORM, THE NUCLEAR MEN #13
Written by DAN JURGENS
Art by DAN JURGENS and RAY McCARTHY
Cover by DAN JURGENS and NORM RAPMUND
On sale OCTOBER 24 • 32 pg, FC, $2.99 US • RATED T
• Ronnie and Jason not only not only have to deal with a new twist to the Firestorm powers, but they also must face off against the murderous DataXen!
• New series writer/penciller Dan Jurgens blasts Firestorm in a whole new direction beginning this issue!

Well look who's taking over Firestorm, poor old Dan Jurgens who, with Keith Giffen, seems to me who DC turns to for last-minute fill-in work.

I don't think Firestorm is long for this world, which is kind of a shame—if a predictable one—given that DC's most successful writer Geoff Johns spent a year establishing a new status quo for the character in Brightest Day, and then DC ditched all that work and rebooted it for a new take that, by the time October arrives, will have featured—let's see here...Ethan Van Sciver and Gail Simone, then Van Sciver and Joe Harris, then just Joe Harris...four different writing teams, for a change every three issue or so.

Hopefully the guy with the sword succeeds in his objective in this issue, which I assume is slicing off Green Arrow's dumb-looking shinguards. Then he can head to Metropolis to take on Superman's new costume.

Well at least the new black Green Lantern wearing a ski-mask doesn't have a handgun on this cover.

I imagine the white guys in the background of this cover (and the other three Green Lantern titles, which interlock to form a single, horizontal image, are supposed to be The Third Amry. They look awfully generic and unimaginative compared to the first two armies—The Manhunter androids and the Green Lantern Corps—although I suppose the designs of those armies' uniforms were based on those of specific superheroes designed to cary their own features, and thus there was a pre-fab, pizzazz-filled starting point.

I'm sorry, but all I can think of when I look at this cover, is this:

MASTERS OF THE UNIVERSE: THE ORIGIN OF SKELETOR #1
Written by JOSHUA HALE FIALKOV
Art and cover by FRAZER IRVING
One-shot • On sale OCTOBER 31 • 32 pg, FC, $2.99 US
• Take a look at the twisted origins of Eternia’s most loathsome and terrible villain.
• What horrific events from Skeletor’s secret past defined the evil despot he became?

So DC's comics effort to exploit the Masters of the Universe license is unbelievably fucked-up at this point. That said: Fraizer Irving doing a Skeletor comic?!

NIGHTWING #13
Written by KYLE HIGGINS
Art by EDDY BARROWS, RUY JOSE and EBER FERREIRA
Cover by EDDY BARROWS
On sale OCTOBER 17 • 32 pg, FC, $2.99 US • RATED T
• Lady Shiva makes her New 52 debut!
• Why has one of the world’s most deadly assassins returned to Gotham City?

Okay, I give up.

Is that supposed to be Lady Shiva on the cover? If so, what is she wearing? And is the lady who was the world's most deadly hand-to-hand combatant in the old DCU someone who fights with a goofy ball and chain in the New 52U?

That, like here headgear, is super-dumb.

Wow, the producers of Smallville really expected Tom Welling to bulk up in order to play Superman in the hypothetical eleventh season. No wonder they never made that season!

Oh shit, is it the debut of Superman Family Adventures Stee...?! I think it is.

The owl-masked dudes in suits on the Guillem March's cover to Talon #1 are pretty creepy. Do drink in the anatomy on Talon, too; it's pretty fucked up, but hasn't drawn as much criticism as his Catwoman #0 cover, for the obvious reasons.


TEEN TITANS #13
Written by SCOTT LOBDELL
Art by ALE GARZA
Cover by BRETT BOOTH and NORM RAPMUND
1:25 B&W Variant cover by BRETT BOOTH and NORM RAPMUND
On sale OCTOBER 24 • 32 pg, FC, $2.99 US • RATED T
Retailers: This issue will ship with two covers. The variant cover will feature the standard edition cover in a wraparound format.
• Wonder Girl must battle her former lover for possession of her stolen armor!
• Is something wicked coming for Tim Drake?

How old is Wonder Girl supposed to be in the New 52U...? Old enough to have a former lover...?

I was curious to see this month's cover for Worlds' Finest, because the last few have shown Power Girl doing something superheroic, while the Huntress stands or hangs ineffectually off to the side, looking on, and maybe sort of gesturing with her crossbow.

This time they decided to just leave her off the cover all together, perhaps so as not to continue to embarrass her.


Finally, here are two especially interesting looking offerings for October:


GHOSTS #1
Written by GEOFF JOHNS, JOE KUBERT, GILBERT HERNANDEZ, PAUL POPE, CECIL CASTELLUCCI, MARY H.K. CHOI, AL EWING and NEIL KLEID
Art by RUFUS DAYGLO, GILBERT HERNANDEZ, PHIL JIMENEZ, JOE KUBERT, JEFF LEMIRE, JOHN McCREA and AMY REEDER
Cover by DAVE JOHNSON
1:10 Variant edition cover by PHIL JIMENEZ
One-Shot • On sale OCTOBER 31 • 80 pg, FC, $7.99 US • MATURE READERS
...
Check out this all-new anthology from some of the biggest talents in the industry! Stories spotlight a space heist on a ghost ship, a spirit who wants to play synthesizer in a techno band, a ghost-for-hire haunting agency and others dark, twisted tales.
With stories and art by some of comics’ greatest talents, this special features a cover by Dave Johnson, and a variant cover by Brendan McCarthy!

A FLIGHT OF ANGELS TP
Written by HOLLY BLACK, BILL WILLINGHAM, ALISA KWITNEY, LOUISE HAWES and T.D. MITCHELL
Conceived by REBECCA GUAY
Art and cover by REBECCA GUAY
On sale NOVEMBER 28 • 128 pg, FC, $17.99 US • MATURE READERS
ANGELS: Guardians. Messengers. Warriors. Fallen.
All these angelic aspects and more are explored in A FLIGHT OF ANGELS, a riveting tale in the tradition of The Decameron and The Canterbury Tales. A mysterious angel plummets to Earth and lands deep in a dark forest, where his dying body is found by the mystical denizens of this strange place. As the gathered fauns, fairies, hags and hobgoblins debate what to do with him, each tells a different story of who they imagine this celestial creature to be: a hero, a lover, a protector or a killer. Once the stories have been told, a verdict is rendered – and the outcome will leave you breathless. Conceived and stunningly illustrated by fantasy art legend Rebecca Guay (Magic: The Gathering, Veils), A FLIGHT OF ANGELS is written by an all-star lineup of today’s top fantasy talent, including Bill Willingham (FABLES) and Holly Black (The Spiderwick Chronicles) in tales that will grip your heart and make your imagination soar.

Eight bucks seems awfully steep for a comic book, even if it is 80 pages, but I like just about everyone involved with Ghosts to one degree or another. I'd really be interested in reading Johns' piece, as I'm curious about his skills as a writer, and what divorcing him from his pet subject matter (i.e. in-continuity DC superheroes) might reveal about his talents.

Every artist drawing the stories in that thing is a great one, and McCrea, Pope, Kubert and Jimenez have all been among my favorite comic book artists ever at various points.

That second one looks like it will do very well in book stores and (especially) libraries, where "Holly Black" and "Bill Willingham" can certainly move paper. It also sounds like exactly the sort of dark fantasy thing Vertigo has always done very well, and surprisingly doesn't do as much of as they used to (Vertigo really ought to be burning up book stores these days, given how mass audiences have embraced paranormal romance and modern adaptations of myths and fairy tales...you know, the sorts of stuff that Vertigo was founded upon).