DC's January previews reviewed

DC released their solicitations for the books they plan to publish in January of next year just this past Monday, and I am just not getting to posting about them, because I am lazy. So while I apologize for the lateness of this post that many of you were no doubt awaiting with bated breath all week, I did have some really great conversations on the phone and took some really amazing naps, so it was totally worth keeping you waiting on my end.

In general, this seems like a pretty normal month for the publisher. No real big, huge new books, nor any cancellations: In fact, the words "FINAL ISSUE" don't show up in any solicitations this month.

The theme for the variant covers is "adult coloring book," which sounds like something completely different than what it actually is (just covers with no color, basically). They mostly look like the sort of things a person in an institution with a set of markers would enjoy working on, as many of them have insane levels of detail (That's Derec Donovan's variant for Cyborg above). I'm curious about the paper stock, and if it's such that it's really meant to be colored upon or not. Personally, I think children's coloring book images would have been funnier and more fun, but, as always, no one at DC Comics asks me of my opinion on any of their publishing moves before they embark upon them.

For DC's full-ish solicitations, I would recommend you check out Comics Alliance, as they are a website that pays me money and also runs the solicits, but I actually looked at them here, as I prefer that format, with the comics and collections all in one post, and the cover images next to the relevant solicitation text. Of course, CBR's ads have been frustrating and freezing my ancient computer quite a bit lately. So maybe don't go anywhere to look at the full solicitations? Just stay here, and look at the one ones I want to point out to you? How's that sound?

BATMAN: ARKHAM – SCARECROW TP
Written and illustrated by various
Cover by JASON FABOK
On sale FEBRUARY 3 • 288 pg, FC, $19.99 US
The Scarecrow, one of the Dark Knight’s greatest foes, stars in this new best-of collection that includes tales from DETECTIVE COMICS #73, 389, 486 and 540, BATMAN #189, 296, 373, 523 and 524, DETECTIVE COMICS #23.3, BATMAN ANNUAL #19, JOKER’S ASYLUM: SCARECROW #1 and WORLD’S FINEST COMICS #3!

This appears to be the next in a series of "greatest hit" style books, collecting "best of" stories from various Batman villains. As is so often the case with these sorts of collections, they're not actually the greatest or best stories, they're the greatest or best stories that are short enough to fit in an anthology collection format like this, which often discounts many stories (I've noticed some of the publisher's "A Celebration of 75 Years" collections getting around this by sometimes publishing part of a story, however; the Captain Marvel Shazam collection, for example, includes one chapter's wroth of the recent Geoff Johns/Gary Frank reinvention of the character for the New 52, even though the entire story is long enough to fill a collection of its own.

I wouldn't normally go into anywhere near this level of detail, but, since The Scarecrow is one of my favorite characters, what the hell...

So let's look at what they've put in here...

1.) The 1943 appearance of The Scarecrow by Don Cameron, Bob Kane, Jerry Robinson and George Roussos...

2.) A 1969 match-up by Frank Robbins, Bob Brown and Joe Giella...

3.) A 1979 Robin vs. Scarecrow story by Jack C. Harris, Kurt Schaffenberger and Jack Abel...

4.) A 1984 Doug Moench/Gene Colan Batman vs. Scarecrow (and some alligators!)

5.) A 1967 Batman and Robin vs. The Scarecrow story by Gardner Fox, Sheldon Moldoff and Joe Giella (Check out Carmine Infantino's evocative cover, with the Scarecrow's face showing like a skull through his mask)...

6.) David Vern and Sal Amendola's 1978 story with what is probably the scariest Scarecrow cover to to date...

7.) A 1984 encounter featuring the Jason Todd version of Robin, by Dough Moench (him again!), pencil artist Gene Colan (and him again too!) and inker extraordinaire Alfredo Alcala...

7.) A 1995 two-parter from on of my favorite runs from one of my favorite creative teams on a Batman title. Moench, Kelley Jones and John Beatty...

8.) The kinda sorta Forever Evil tie-in from September of 2013, from which the collection will apparently take its cover, by Peter Tomasi and Szymon Kudranski. That was actually a tie-in to the mini-series Forever Evil: Arkham War, which was itself a tie-in to Forever Evil. Maybe the worst comic included, it basically just involves Crane wandering around talking to other Batman villains in the most goofily-conceived, poorly drawn comic you can imagine (I reviewed it in this post, if you'd like to read me talking about it in great detail).

9.) The 1995 "Year One" origin story by Moench, Bret Blevin and Mike Manley (one in which Jonathan Crane uses a sort of Crane-style kung fu–get it?–based on Ichabod Crane's dance moves)...

10.) The Joe Harris/Juan Doe one-shot that was part of 2008's Joker's Asylum suite of books...

11.) And, finally, The Scarecrow's first appearance,  the story "The Riddle of the Human Scarecrow" in 1941's World's Finest Comics, by Bill Finger, Bob Kane, Jerry Robinson and George Roussos. Crane is not pictured on the cover, obviously...although I think he may be pitchhing.

Notably, all of these appearances are from the "real" DC Universe, whatever that may have consisted of at the time of the individual stories' publication, and there are no alternate versions of The Scarecrow. That is, there arent' any from the various Batman Adventures books based on any Batman cartoons (generally a good source for done-in-one stories highlighting individual villains), nor anything Arkham video-game related, although that version of The Scarecrow is markedly different in design than the more standard models, and has reached a pretty wide audience.

They are also all from Batman comics. The Scarecrow is a big enough villain to have wandered away from his "home" adversary, taking on other Batman antagonists in in their own books, like The Joker and Catwoman, and he's also appeared in generally rather one-note roles in books from Anima to Hawkman to Scooby-Doo Team-Up.

The most notable absence is probably 1993's Batman: Legends of The Dark Knight Halloween Special, one of the earliest collaborations by the Jeph Loeb/Tim Sale that introduced their peculiar version of The Scarecrow to Batman's "Year One" setting; their Scarecrow would play a small role in the team's epic-length The Long Halloween and Dark Victory, both of which grew out of this original seed (It has been collected, along with the creators' later LOTD Halloween specials, in Batman: Haunted Knight.

That is a story I'm honestly surprised isn't in here, along with at least a chapter from the 1990 Alan Grant/Norm Breyogle Batman #456-457 story arc, in which Tim Drake proved himself ready to be the third Robin after rescuing Batman from The Scarecrow, and, of course, 1986's Detective Comics #571 by Mike Barr and Alan Davis.  That classic Barr/Davis story does appear in DC's previous Scarecrow anthology, 2005's Batman: Scarecrow Tales (published to coincide with/capitalize on the character's appearance in Batman Begins). Comparing the contents of each, I suppose it's a good thing that they barely overlap after their Golden Age inclusions, meaning this particular reprint volume doesn't simply reprint much of what was previously reprinted.

BIRDS OF PREY VOL. 2 TP
Written by CHUCK DIXON
Art by GREG LAND, DREW GERACI and others
Cover by GREG LAND and BRIAN STELFREEZE
On sale FEBRUARY 24 • 200 pg, FC, $19.99 US
In this thrilling collection from BIRDS OF PREY #1-8 and the RAVENS one-shot, Oracle and Black Canary investigate a vicious slave trader, run into deadly female mercenaries, take on the Kobra crime organization, fight a prehistoric monster, try to bring a war criminal to trial, and cross paths with Dick Grayson!

Having only read a handful of these comics when they were originally published (that was before I ever had a "real" job, and thus my comics-buying budget was pretty limited), I'm really looking forward to these big, fat collections of the original Birds of Prey comics, particularly now that these particular versions of the characters, the ones I know and like (the new Batgirl and Black Canary comics have been pretty okay, though, particularly the former, after its new writing team and artist Babs Tarr took over).

Please don't let the words "Art by Greg Land" scare you away as they likely would attached to when attached to a post-2000 Marvel comic; this was back before Greg Land discovered that sickly, photorealistic, image-appropriation and remixing style, and actually drew comics as pieces of sequential art devoted to telling a story.

DC COMICS ESSENTIALS AND CHRONOLOGY CATALOGUE 2016
Cover by IVAN REIS and JOE PRADO
On sale JANUARY 13 • 114 pg, FC • FREE!
The DC ENTERTAINMENT GRAPHIC NOVEL ESSENTIALS AND CHRONOLOGY is back! Newly updated for 2016, this FREE catalogue features a new cover by superstar artist Ivan Reis! And you won’t want to miss the revised version of the DC 25 Essential Graphic Novels, reading guides and more!
Retailers: Quantities may be limited. There is no freight credit for this item.

I sincerely hope I never run across one of these, as I'm pretty sure I'll be compelled to argue with it, and at over 100-pages, that would likely lead to millions of words of blogging.

I do like the Ivan Reise and Joe Prado cover on this version of the catalogue.

...

Although I suppose we could quibble about the particular characters' reading choices, and the fact that they didn't knock up and sit atop the lady villains the way they did the male villains, but simply tied them up in the background. Come on, World's Finest; treating men and women equally also means you have to punch the female villains as hard as the male villains, and throw them in the same pile (Beside, Harley can take harder hits than, say, The Joker or Luthor or Penguin). Or, if you're worried about the possible optics, you could always just not include them in the image at all, rather than segregating them out like that.

Still not canceled! I guess! That's a particularly strong cover image in a series that has been full of strong covers...and images in general, really.

GOTHAM ACADEMY #14
Written by BECKY CLOONAN, BRENDEN FLETCHER, HOPE LARSON, KATIE COOK, KEN NIIMURA, DEREK FRIDOLFS and ZAC GORMAN
Art by DUSTIN NGUYEN, KATIE COOK, KEN NIIMURA, ZAC GORMAN and ADAM ARCHER
Cover by MINGJUE HELEN CHEN
On sale JANUARY 13 • 32 pg, FC, $2.99 US • RATED T
An all-new era of GOTHAM ACADEMY begins here with the four-issue “Gotham Academy Yearbook” story! It’s yearbook time at Gotham Academy, and Olive, Maps and the gang share some lost adventures from the past year. Some of the best writers and artists from comics and beyond join forces with the creative team behind Gotham City’s top boarding school for this very special new chapter.

There are plenty of interesting guests on the creative team for this issue, in both the writing and the drawing camps. I was particularly interested to see Hope Larson's name, as it seems like it's been quite a while since I've seen any new work from Larson anywhere. Of course, that could simply mean I haven't seen any, not that she hasn't been producing any...


GREEN LANTERN CORPS: EDGE OF OBLIVION #1
Written by TOM TAYLOR
Art and cover by ETHAN VAN SCIVER
1:25 Variant cover by IVAN REIS and JOE PRADO
On sale JANUARY 13 • 32 pg, FC, 1 of 6, $2.99 US
RATED T
...
Picking up where GREEN LANTERN: LOST ARMY left off! As the universe around them reaches entropy, the Green Lantern Corps must find a way home! Along the way, they’ll face dying gods, worlds torn asunder and a desperate group of survivors whose only hope is these cosmic heroes.

Green Lantern: The Lost Army was one of the several DC comics cancelled recently, although the publisher retroactively dubbed it a mini-series, and here they are launching a new (mini-?)series. I guess they're going to try and go the series of mini-series route with the secondary Green Lantern book, which is sort of insane, considering that the Green Lantern franchise was so popular that it boasted between four and five monthly ongoings not so long ago. Now it's down to just three: The ongoing Green Lantern, starring Hal Jordan, but in a new direction that has divorced him from the Corps and his role as GL; Sinestro, about Hal's archenemy and the leader of "the yellow lanterns," The Sinestro Corps; and now an apparent series of miniseries starring the rest of the Corps (Kyle Rayner's in Omega Men, if you lost track of him; no idea where Simon Baz has been...

JUSTICE LEAGUE #48
Written by GEOFF JOHNS
Art and cover by JASON FABOK
Adult Coloring Book Variant cover by SCOTT KOLINS
On sale JANUARY 20 • 32 pg, FC, $3.99 US • RATED T
...
The epic “Darkseid War” continues as the League is forced to unite with their evil counterparts, the Crime Syndicate, to defeat the nigh-omnipotent Anti-Monitor! Plus, what is the terrible secret behind Superwoman’s newborn child?

Still going! Given the fact that Johns introduced the half-Amazon, half-god daughter of Darkseid, Grail, in the pages of this book recently, I wonder if "the terrible secret behind Superwoman's newborn child" isn't that it was sired by The Anti-Monitor....somehow. I thought when matter and anti-monitor came into contact they both exploded, which would seemingly make sexual congress rather problematic....

THE LEGEND OF WONDER WOMAN #1
Written by RENAE DE LIZ
Art by RENAE DE LIZ and RAY DILLON
Cover by RENAE DE LIZ
...
On sale JANUARY 13 • 40 pg, FC, 1 of 9 $3.99 US • RATED T DIGITAL FIRST
...
A new WONDER WOMAN 9-issue miniseries begins here with a story written and pencilled by Renae De Liz (The Last Unicorn)! In the beginning there was only chaos. But Hippolyta, Queen of the Amazons, saw a better future—and eventually, her daughter would be destined to bring that new world to life! Before her ultimate fate unfolds, though, Diana of Themyscira must learn the important lessons of an Amazonian childhood!

That's not a creator I would have had on my radar for a project like this, but this sounds pretty cool. It should offer a nice alternative to the "real" Wonder Woman book (The Finchs' Wonder Woman), a decent replacement to the canceled Sensation Comics Featuring Woman, and I've long maintained that some of the best potential for future Wonder Woman stories would be Wonder Girl stories, as in Wonder Woman's adventures when she was a girl. Plenty of talented creators have looked to that period for inspiration in stories of varying degrees of quality of recent years, with maybe the most fun being the Noelle Steventson-illustrated short from Sensation and the most epic being Ben Caldwell's feature in Wednesday Comics.


POISON IVY: CYCLE OF LIFE AND DEATH #1
Written by AMY CHU
Art and cover by CLAY MANN
...
On sale JANUARY 20 • 32 pg, FC, 1 of 6, $2.99 US • RATED T
...
Life. Death. Poison Ivy has power over both. But can she keep her friends and hold down a regular job at the same time? As Dr. Pamela Isley, she joins the prestigious plant sciences department at Gotham Botanical Gardens, but things quickly get complicated when a fellow scientist is murdered and it looks like the work of Ivy. Don’t miss the start of this new 6-issue miniseries!

Just wanted to note that this exists. It sounds like it may at least be in the same ballpark as the successful Harley Quinn series, which Ivy has frequently appeared in, in terms of its tone. On the other hand, it also sounds like an origin story. Either way, it's interesting that DC is publishing this; Ivy's the only major Gotham villainess without her own title at the moment, and she's never had one before, although she did share a book with Harley and Catwoman in the short-lived Gotham City Sirens comic.

I suppose this could be testing the waters for a potential Poison Ivy ongoing down the line...or just an effort to get a an evergreen collection featuring a fan favorite character into circulation.

RED HOOD/ARSENAL #8
Written by SCOTT LOBDELL
Art by JAVIER FERNANDEZ
Cover by LEONARDO MANCO
Adult Coloring Book Variant cover by SCOTT McDANIEL
On sale JANUARY 13 • 32 pg, FC, $2.99 US • RATED T
...
Red Hood and Arsenal and—Joker’s Daughter?! As the boys deal with their newfound success as a rent-a-hero company, a new crop of catastrophe puts Jason and Roy to the test! But with a new hire like Joker’s Daughter, who needs enemies?

Wait, Red Hood and Arsenal have a "rent-a-hero" company? Does that make them, what's the term, Heroes For Hire...?

Well whatever the case, there's no way of knowing exactly how indicative of the actual story the cover is, but it sure looks like The Joker's Daughter is ready to kill Jason Todd. Is there a phone number I can call, or an address I can email, in order to encourage DC to let her do it? Or, at the very least, destroy his costume design once and fore all...?

That is not how snorkels work, Scooby.

SINESTRO #19
Written by CULLEN BUNN
Art and cover by BRAD WALKER and ANDREW HENNESSY
Adult Coloring Book Variant cover by DEREC DONOVAN
On sale JANUARY 20 • 32 pg, FC, $2.99 US • RATED T
...
The Pale Bishop has declared a holy war on all emotion—and his minions are about to invade Earth! Only the power of fear stands against them. In an attempt to bolster his defensive line, Sinestro has dispatched yellow rings across our world, adding many heroes and villains to the ranks of the Sinestro Corps!

I know that when DC announced the cancellation of GLC: The Lost Army (or that it was actually just a miniseries, whatever), a lot of folks wondered why they were scrapping the secondary GL title, the one co-starring Green Lanterns John Stewart and Guy Gardner and a small ensemble cast, rather than the tertiary title in the shrinking franchise.

Now that I see this cover and solicitation, I can't help but wonder if this upcoming storyline is what stayed Sinestro's execution. That many co-stars, and the at least temporary relocation to Earth, ought to boost sales quite nicely for the duration of the arc.


STARFIRE #8
Written by AMANDA CONNER and JIMMY PALMIOTTI
Art by EMANUELA LUPACCHINO and RAY McCARTHY
Cover by AMANDA CONNER
Adult Coloring Book Variant cover by DAVE TAYLOR
On sale JANUARY 13 • 32 pg, FC, $2.99 US • RATED T
...
Is Dick Grayson here to stay? Starfire has tackled some big threats during her stay in Key West—from hurricanes to intergalactic bounty hunters, from insane murderers to gargantuan monsters from the deep and everything in between. But our hero’s biggest challenge may be choosing between an ex and a new love interest.

Wait, did Dick Grayson and Koriand'r even date in the New 52? I wasn't even aware of the fact that they had ever met, let alone dated. When did that happen, exactly...?

SUPERMAN: LOIS & CLARK #4
Written by DAN JURGENS
Art and cover by LEE WEEKS
Adult Coloring Book Variant cover by AARON LOPRESTI
On sale JANUARY 20 • 32 pg, FC, $3.99 US • RATED T
...
The mysteries surrounding Lois and Clark are just starting to unfold! In this issue find out what happened to the man who would have been the Cyborg Superman! Learn what else is hidden in this Superman’s Fortress! And discover why Lois gave Clark his new, black uniform!

Good question; why did Lois give Clark a Superman uniform? I wondered that while reading the first issue of the series, a spin-off from Convergence. The premise is that the pre-New 52 Lois and Clark escaped from their imprisonment on the planet Telos, traveled back to the events of Crisis On Infinite Earths with pre-Crisis Supergirl and pre-Crisis Flash Barry Allen and Zero Hour-era Parallax, and somehow prevented the Crisis, thus re-re-re-re-re-setting DC's Multiversal continuity, but not, apparently, undoing the various re-sets that lead to the existence of the present DC Universe (The New 52-iverse). Clark grew a beard and he and Lois changed their names and began living quietly on Earth-0 (i.e. The DC Universe/New 52-iverse), keeping their real identities a secret from everyone, even their five-year-old son.

Clark occasionally puts on a black Superman costume, S-shield log and all, and flies around the world, trying to prevent enemies he knew of on his world from ever coming to be on this world.

It doesn't sound very Superman-ly to live in secret and screw with the universe in such a manner, nor does the fact that this Superman pretty much stood by and let the heroes of the New 52 save the world again and again without ever feeling the need to lift a finger himself (Also not very Superman-ly).

It seemed to be another case of DC giving fans what they want–the "real" Superman back, Superman and Lois Lane together again–but in a way they couldn't possibly want it (See every single Convergence tie-in, for dozens of more examples of this phenomenon).

Anyway, one of the many things that stuck out to me as very weird is that Superman would suit up in a costume that announces to whoever might see him that he's totally Superman, instead of something else. That is, he's wearing a costume or uniform here, when what he would logically need or want would be a disguise.

SWAMP THING #1
Written by LEN WEIN
Art and cover by KELLEY JONES
1:25 Variant cover by YANICK PAQUETTE
On sale JANUARY 6 • 32 pg, FC, 1 of 6, $2.99 US • RATED T
...
Swamp Thing returns in an all-new series written by his co-creator, legendary writer Len Wein! Swamp Thing has received an ominous warning, and now he finds himself under attack from the forces of dark magic. These are more than just your average monsters—and there’s something much worse looming on the horizon for Alec Holland!

I have to assume this is something of a Convergence spin-off too, as Wein and Jones were the creative team on the two-part Convergence: Swamp Thing mini-series.

While reading a few issues of Scott Snyder's New 52 run on Swamp Thing, I realized that I had probably read all of the Swamp Thing stories I ever needed to read in my life time already.

But I don't think I'll ever read enough Kelley Jones comics, so I'm pretty excited about this miniseries.

TEEN TITANS #16
Written by SCOTT LOBDELL and WILL PFEIFER
Art by ALISSON BORGES
Cover by JORGE JIMENEZ
Adult Coloring Book Variant cover by TIMOTHY GREEN II
On sale JANUARY 27 • 32 pg, FC, $2.99 US • RATED T
...
While the Teen Titans try to deal with the aftermath of the Robin War, they search for a new direction. Can Red Robin hold the team together?

Hopefully not! Hopefully they will disband forever, and all burn their costumes and get new ones.

WE ARE ROBIN #8
Written by LEE BERMEJO
Art by JORGE CORONA
Cover by LEE BERMEJO
Adult Coloring Book Variant cover by FREDDIE E. WILLIAMS II
On sale JANUARY 27 • 48 pg, FC, $3.99 US • RATED T
...
The Robin War is over. From the rubble a new force rises, one that is attacking Duke and his Robins one by one. This new movement laughs at hope and justice. They believe in anger. They believe in fear. They believe in chaos. They are…JOKERS.

Is introducing a gang of Joker-themed villains really the most interesting thing to do in this comic? I can't believe it is. Also, the Joker-gang idea seems like it's been fairly done-to-death already in episodes of Batman Beyond, and the comic based on it, and the tie-ins to "Death of the Family" and...

This was the first and only of the books that has an "Adult Coloring Book Variant" that I saw where I thought that "Adult" might mean something other than what it does on the others...

Comic Shop Comics: October 21

Batman & Robin Eternal #3 (DC Comics) So remember last week when I went on and on about how weird it is that Jason "The Red Hood" Todd hangs out in a bar called Noonan's when he's in Gotham, which seems nothing at all like Noonan's Sleazy Bar from the pages of Hitman and now Section Eight, and then awarded myself a No-Prize for theorizing that there are two bars called Noonan's in Gotham; one in The Narrows called Noonan's, where Todd hangs out, and one called Noonan's Sleazy Bar in The Cauldron, formerly owned by the late Sean Noonan and now run by Baytor? No? Oh. Well, you can re-read it if you like.

Anyway, in this issue, script-writer Tim Seeley ruins all of that, with a text slug in the very first panel identifying the bar as "Noonan's Sleazy Bar," and, in the second panel, artist Paul Pelletier draws a framed picture of Noonan's regulars Six-Pack and The Grappler in it.

I don't like that. Hitman/Section Eight just plain don't seem like they should have anything to do with the New 52-iverse, and, if Noonan's really does exist in the same Gotham as The Red Hood and Red Robin and company, then it really should only be in comics written by Garth Ennis and drawn by John McCrea.

So, in this issue: The Red Hood, wearing his hood and helmet in a bar, points a gun at Cassandra Cain for no reason, and then she kicks him across the room for no reason, and then he reveals his Batman-shaped gauntlets have giant blades in them, and then they fight until Dick Grayson, Red Robin, The Spoiler and the badly wounded Harper Row all run from Harper's apartment (in The Narrows) to Noonan's, in the space of a few seconds.

Dick takes everyone to the Batcave, puts Spyral on speaker phone, flashes back to the night he and Batman dealt with The Scarecrow a few years ago and then tells the other five characters to stay put while he rushes off to save Bruce Wayne all by himself.

I'd be lying if I said I knew what the hell was going on with Spyral, exactly, or that anything terribly interesting happened in this issue. I like the characters, though, and Seeley writes them well. The art is pretty messy on account of the no-doubt unforgiving schedule (Pelletier draws 17 pages and Scot Eaton draws three, with three inkers finishing their work) and, as I imagine I will complain every month for the rest of the series, everyone's costumes look terrible all the time.

Actually, Harper just wears a bloody tank top and a pair of pants, as she had taken off her dumb Bluebird costume when she was first attacked, which means she is, as of this issue of the story, the best-dressed member of the cast.

Bizarro #5 (DC) Oh man...Bizarro started pretty good, but is now really hitting its stride and firing on all cylinders and...this is the penultimate issue of the series. That doesn't mean writer Heath Corson and artist Gustavo Duarte can't return to Bizarro and Jimmy Olsen again for a second miniseries, of course, but I imagine this road trip through America to find Canada (aka Bizarro America) will find some sort of resolution in the final issue and next month and, well, that's kind of too bad. This has been a pretty great premise, really, one that has allowed for easy access to various guest-stars and locations.

In this issue, the gang infiltrates the secret, military-run alien prison and weapons depot at the behest of a pair of ARGUS agents that look exactly like caricatures of David Duchovny and Gillian Anderson. There they meet members of both Kilowog and Ch'p's respective races and General Samuel "Lois' Dad" Lane, with Lois, CLark and half a page of Rafael Albuquerque all making brief appearances. Also, Bizarro goes to a Vegas casino.

As further, frustrating evidence that this all-around winning series is reaching its end, both Chastity Hex and Colin the Chupacabra bid our heroes farewell and go their separate ways, while Bizarro and Jimmy have a penultimate issue argument which will most certainly be resolved to everyone's satisfaction the next issue.

It's just too bad that the next issue will be, as the next issue box indicates, the "epic first issue" featuring "the boring beginning of the series."

That's almost certainly just Bizarro-speak (I occasionally wonder why this they didn't number this series backwards), but I for one wouldn't mind if the last issue of this series really was the beginning of a series of Bizarro/Jimmy Olsen miniseries by this creative team.

Black Canary #5 (DC) Pia Guerra is still here on art, so this remains a pretty great-looking comic book. Something still feels kinda off about the story to me though, perhaps because of the mix of a radical new take on Black Canary with some leftover baggage from her pre-Black Canary, New 52 continuity. It seems pretty clear that every random-ass occurrence of the previous issues is all connected in one big, weird plot–something Dinah herself notes at one point–and it seems just as clear that it's all coming to a head, likely/hopefully next issue.

This remains a very strange superhero book for me, because the components are generally pretty great–the art, the color, even the scripting of individual scenes–but it's just not all coming together for me in a compelling way, and it's hard to diagnose exactly what's missing.

I can't think of any other comic book I'm currently reading that I want to like as much as Black Canary, but still can't quite get into it.

Doctor Fate #5 (DC) I sincerely wish that all the crazy stuff on this cover actually happened inside the book, but sadly that's not the case; other than fighting some looters who seem more or less equivalent to the guys in the third panel, the still-embryonic main character continues to deal with Bastet, Anubis, the magical flood, his own self-doubt and his family. As in the previous four issues.

Is this what happens when an old-school comic book writer and editor attempts to write for the trade...?

Perhaps. I'm really looking forward to the seventh issue of this series, as I have to assume writer Paul Levitz's plan, at this point, was a six-issue origin story arc, so that the first trade collection will include the new Doctor Fate's entire, over-long origin story.

Gotham Academy #11 (DC) The kids take a field trip to downtown Gotham City in order to watch the school's tennis tame take on that of Metropolis Academy (which sounds a little like the title of a spin-off or sister series, really), and Detective Club uses it as an excuse to look for clues into the origins of Olive's presumably late super-villain mother, the flame-creating Calamity.

Maps and Olive go to Gotham City Hall of Records, and just as I was beginning to ask myself why on Earth the tennis match between two prestige, private academic institutions was happening late at night in the worst city in the world, Red Robin Tim Drake shows up, demonstrating that as great an artist as Karl Keschl is, he too is powerless against that terrible, terrible costume.

I mean Tim looks great. He looks like a teenager, he looks a bit older and fitter than the other teens in this issue, and he looks handsome and heroic, but gah, that costume...!

I was a little unconvinced by how blase Tim was when he saw Maps in a mask and throwing a Batarang (the one Damian gave her), immediately taking her to be part of the Robin movement (of We Are Robin). I just sort of assumed Tim and the other "real" Robins would frown on a vigilante movement of untrained, civilian teenagers fighting crime and occasionally dying (spoiler for We Are Robin #3, I guess) in their name, but I guess not...?

Lumberjanes (Boom Studios) I thought there was one really strong gag in this issue, and that was Mal's rambling disbelief of how things work in the underwater mermaid world, but it otherwise chugged along quite nicely. There are several fun, funny bits, but that was probably the hightlight.

Well, that and April's mention of the Mermaid Lemonade Stand series of juvenile fiction. I kinda want to read those myself now. Maybe Boom will someday do a Lumberjanes spin-off that's a comic book adaptation of those books...

Teen Titans Go! #12 (DC) Sholly Fisch writes both of the stories in this issue, the first drawn by Lea Hernandez and the second by Dario Brizuela. I don't think the comic adaptations generally do justice to the particular charms of the show, as no matter how on-model the artists might be and no matter how "animated" their art might be, the visual/verbal pacing never quite matches the hyperactivity of the show.

That said, the first story is pretty fantastic, and of the sort that even someone who might not be a fan of the cartoon can enjoy, or at least "get." Starfire signs both Raven and herself up for some sort of online dating site, and a steady stream of DC cameos show up to take the girls out.

Like this guy:

Note that Raven is wearing a big fancy bow, which Starfire apparently affixed upon her during "the primping."

Hernandez gives Star a nice hair-do and dress, too.

The second half of the book is dominated by "Opposite Day," in which the Titans try to out-opposite one another, but then go too far, opening a portal to an anti-matter universe, and out jump the Anti-Titans (totally different than Nibor's Bizarro Titans, by the way). There's some clever verbal bits in this, and the interactions actually sounded more akin to those on an episode of the TV show, although it seems a little short.

Review: Thor Vol. 2: Who Holds The Hammer?

(I wrote about a single aspect of Jason Aaron and Russell Dauterman's Thor series for Comics Alliance this week; if that sounds like something you'd like to read, you can find the piece here)

This second and final volume of Jason Aaron and Russell Dauterman's short-lived, eight-issue Thor series completes their story arc, finally answering the question of the sub-title...in the very last panel of their storyline, frustratingly enough (So I guess they really did make readers of the serially-published comic book series spend eight months and about $32 before telling them who the new Thor was, then).

Don't worry though, this isn't the end of the creators' run or their excellent new version of Thor. Marvel simply "cancelled" the book while taking a good chunk of 2015 off of their regular publishing schedule to make room for Secret Wars and its dozens of tie-in miniseries. Aaron, Dauterman and the new Thor will return in The Mighty Thor #1 next month.

Yeah, that's right, they're relaunching the book with a new number one and a new title, despite retaining the same creators, character and direction, for maximum confusification (So if you start reading the saga of the new, female Thor in trade in the future, you'll be reading Thor Vol. 1, Thor Vol. 2, The Mighty Thor Vol. 1 and so on; make sure you get the right Thor Vol. 1 and the right The Mighty Thor Vol. 1, though, as there are a bunch of collections with those titles! But let's not get into all that again so soon after last night).

This collection includes the final three issues of the Thor series and, because that's not enough to fill a $25 hardcover collection, there's some filler material, with varying degrees of relevance to the preceding story. The first is Thor Annual #1, featuring three short stories by an all-star creative line-up, and an issue of What If? from the year I was born, which actually spoils the identity of the new Thor, so if you've managed to not find out who it is by this point–hey, congratulations!–you might want to stop reading now, as I am going to discuss the reveal in a bit.

As for the climax of the story arc, it is every bit as solid as the issues that preceded it, although in keeping with the fact that Aaron has been writing a great superhero/Norse myth mash-up comic but a lousy mystery, there's a rather desperate, last-minute attempt to make it seem as if SHIELD Agent Roz Solomon were really the new Thor–even going so far as to rearrange the timeline so that she's staring at the hammer and thinking about how great it would be if she were Thor–shortly before Thor appears at a place Solomon was headed, Thorring it up.

We learn Roxxon CEO Dario Agger's origin story as he and Malekith do a deal that is amusingly one-part comic book super-villain, one-part real-world corporate raider ("Roxxon will receive the mineral rights to all realms you conquer, from now until the end of time").

Odin unleashes The Destroyer (like in the movie!), controlled by his brother, upon the new Thor, in an attempt to bring her down and take Mjolnir back from her and the Old Thor finishes up his investigation, finally deciding that it must be Agent Solomon on the other end of his magic hammer (but it's not!).

In the penultimate issue, he rounds up his almost his entire suspect list and leads them to Thor's side, finally overwhelming The Destroyer and making Odin realize the war against his own wife isn't on he can win.

As far as resolutions go, it's a rather weak one. Old Thor never does learn who holds the hammer, as New Thor is about to tell him her identity when they are interrupted, but we do. It is, of course, Jane Foster.

This is a pretty intriguing choice because while she's disappeared from the ongoing mega-story for years upon years at a time, she was a part of it from the very beginning, and is in that respect the most likely candidate, even if she's also in many other ways the least likely candidate. For one thing, she's currently dying of cancer and refusing all Asgardian super-science or magic medicinal aid, and using Mjolnir is somehow only accelerating the sickness.

The other intriguing reasons have less to do with this comic and more to do with Marvel Studios' movies. Jane Foster is a bigger presence in the Thor movies than she has been in the Thor comics for years, and hey, if this leads to Natalie Portman playing Thor in a future movie, I'm all for that; it's a role that would seem to suit her far better than the living maguffin she played in Dark World.

And so the series ends about halfway through the second trade, complete with a little "There is Only Secret Wars" tag in the last panel, as you can see above.

The annual features a story of King Thor at the end of time, by Jason Aaron and Timothy Truman (!!!), another of the current Thor by Noelle Steenson (!!!) and Marguerite Sauvage (!!!) and, finally, a flashback to "Young Thor" by CM Punk and Rob Guillory.

The Aaron/Truman story, set "Untold Eons From Now" has the now-ancient Thor's scantily-clad granddaughters Frigg, Atli and Ellisiv ("The Girls of Thunder") trying to come up with the perfect birthday gift for the old man. They finally do so, and it's a a very fitting one that turns into a sort of creation story, appearing where such a story might be least expected–in a sense, it echoes the concept of Ragnarok as a sort of cyclical event, an un-creating and re-creating of the world. It's only 10 pages, but that's 10-pages worth of glorious Tim Truman art.

It's followed by a ten-pager by the dream team of Noelle Stevenson and Marguerite Sauvate, the former writing and latter drawing and coloring. In this story, the new, female Thor meets the old, male Thor's best bros, The Warriors Three. After a bonding bar-fight, the Warriors take this Thor out to "test" her, which turns out to be little more than a night of shenanigans, culminating in a one-page montage.

It's basically just Thor making friends and having fun with Fandral, Hogun and Volstagg...and readers get to tag along. No surprise that Sauvage's art is great, but I was a little surprised at what a fine job she does on the Warriors, as I'm so used to seeing her draw female rather than male characters. In a perfect world, Stevenson and Sauvage would be doing a Thor and The Warriors Three ongoing series, with Stevenson filling in on art occasionally, but ours is not a perfect world (besides, Sauvage is already pretty busy drawing the hell out of DC Bombshells.)

The final section of the annual is written by professional wrestler CM Punk (one of his earliest, if not first, comics scripts) and drawn by Rob Guillory of Chew. A comedic piece, it is set in Thor's old, pre-Mjolnir days as an arrogant carouser. He's attempting to prove his worth, and doing so by out-drinking everyone in the realms. A time-traveling Mephisto shows up, and Loki ropes him into going toe-to-toe...er, mug-to-mug with the Odinson.

It's mostly just drinking humor, but I snickered at The Odin's Beard...

...and the last panel is a pretty amusing way to end the story.

Sure, it's silly, and somewhat sophomoric in its humor–particularly compared to that of the preceding stories–but it's not bad or anything (especially considering its writer is new to the medium) and it presents a nice opportunity to see a handful of Marvel characters filtered through Guillory's distinct style.

The final 35 pages of the collection are filled by 1977's What If? #10, which tells the story of What If Jane Foster Had Found The Hammer of Thor?

It's sort of unfortunate that this is here at all, because, if it wasn't, I sure as hell wouldn't have known it even existed. Now that I do know it exists, I can't help but wonder if or to what degree it might have inspired Marvel and/or Aaron to pursue their current storyline.

On the other hand, the story, by writer Don Glut, pencil artist Rick Hoberg and inker Dave Hunt, does show how far the publisher has come in terms of treating female characters as, you know, characters in the past 38 years. From a strictly compare and contrast angle, it's a fascinating read...although I think I would have preferred one very big, eight-issue (plus the annual) collection of Thor, rather than having the single story arc split into two collection, with Marvel relying heavily on this old reprint to make the second collection seem like less of a rip-off.

Like most of the old What If? comics, this one begins with The Watcher asking the reader an inane question, and then looking into one of the infinite parallel realities to find a world which will answer his question. It begins with Thor's original origin recapped across a two-page spread, and then we plunge back into his origin, now tweaked to include Jane...and to have her find the hammer and become Thor instead of Donald Blake...who I guess was Thor, but in disguise...?

I don't really understand how this works at all, to tell the truth.

Anyway, when Jane gets her hands on Mjolnir, she transforms, getting bigger and blonder. Thor's costume gets sexier for her, like a "naughty Thor" Halloween costume for a college girl, and so rather than having leggings, her legs are bare. Also, those weird dots on Thor's tunic? Two of them become big, metal bullets that encase her breasts. Since Thor is a boy's name, she decides to call herself "Thordis." Why? "I remember from nursing school a NOrwegian girl named Thordis; that has a nice sound to it!"

The remainder of the story is over-wordy in the way of the comics of the day, as Glut needs to rush through pretty much the entire history of Thor up until that point, before settling on a rather unsettling ending.

My favorite part may be when Thordis first journeys to Asgard and meets The Warriors Three; it's a pretty different meeting than in the Stevenson/Sauvage story, as they all just hit on her. Here she deals with Fandral The Dashing, by dashing him against the ground:

Whatever you do, don't look too closely at Hogun's expression in the first panel.

I sure hope she grabbed him by the goatee when she judo tossed him over her shoulder.

Eventually, Odin takes the hammer from Thordis and awards it to Don Blake, who becomes the male Thor for the first time in the story. To make it up to her, Odin grants Jane immortality, making her a goddess. She's pretty bummed though, since that only means she'll have to live forever knowing the man she loved–Don Blake–doesn't love her, but is instead into Sif.

Odin has another, grosser idea for Jane, though:

Having just realized that the love of her life is lost to her forever, Jane decides to marry his hairy old dad instead.

They all live happily ever after...although one has to imagine Odin lives a lot more happily ever after than poor Jane does.

Review: Secret Avengers Vol. 1: Mission To Mars

Here's a pretty good example of how needlessly difficult Marvel makes it to read and/or buy their comics in trade, due to the publisher's laser-beam focus on short-term sales success over long-term sales success (i.e. constantly rebooting and renumbering their books).

It's easy enough to stay on top of the Marvel comics line if you're reading the books serially–that is, Wednesday in, Wednesday out, as they're published–or even in trade, so long as you're reading the trades as those are released. But wait a few years and then try to get into, say, The Avengers, or X-Force, or Thunderbolts or–God help you–the X-Men, and it can get tricky.

So say you want to read Secret Avengers, a book devoted to, as the title implies, an off-the-books, covert superhero team independent of the various other public Avengers. The concept is only five years old, so it shouldn't really be that hard to figure out where to start, right?

So, where to begin? With Secret Avengers Vol. 1, Secret Avengers Vol. 1, Secret Avengers Vol. 1, Secret Avengers by Rick Remender Vol. 1 or Secret Avengers: Run the Mission, Save the World, Don't Get Seen. Yes, Marvel has relaunched the book three times in the last five years resulting in three books entitled Secret Avengers Vol. 1, one of which is also published as Secret Avengers by Rick Remender Vol. 1, and the Run The Mission collection, which doesn't have a number attached, is actually a collection of issues from halfway through the first run of the comic, before it gets relaunched.

So once you figure out which Secret Avengers Vol. 1 to start with, which can be difficult if you're trying to buy the damn things online or order them from your local library online (the correct answer, by the way, is Secret Avengers Vol. 1: Mission To Mars by Ed Brubaker, Mike Deodato and company), you then have to choose between Secret Avengers Vol. 2 and Secret Avengers Vol. 2 (a third Secret Avengers Vol. 2 hasn't been published yet, but should be shortly) and Secret Avengers by Rick Remender Vol. 2. It gets easier as it goes on, with only two volumes of Secret Avengers Vol. 3 so far extant.

But instead of reading, say, Secret Avengers Vols. 1-8, the actual reading order is something like this (I think):

Secret Avengers Vol. 1

Secret Avengers Vol. 2

Secret Avengers Vol. 3

Secret Avengers Vol. 1

Secret Avengers Vol. 2

Secret Avengers Vol. 1

Secret Avengers Vol. 2 (not yet published)

Secret Avengers Vol. 3 (not yet published)

Numbers! Fuck 'em!

So having previously read Secret Avengers: Run the Mission, Don't Get Seen, Save the World (also published as Secret Avengers Vol. 3: Run thee Mission, Don't Get Seen, Save the World and the third Secret Avengers Vol. 1 (Secret Avengers: Let's Have a Problem), I finally ran across a Secret Avengers Vol. that seemed to be the first Secret Avengers Vol.1, volume one of the first volume of Secret Avengers. That's the one sub-titled Mission To Mars; Reverie is actually the fourth collection, and Let's Have a Problem the sixth, in terms of reading order, even though those two are also labeled volume one.

If it turns out that this post about this particular volume spent far more time on describing the insanity of Marvel's trade-publishing program, well, that's probably fitting. I spent more time figuring out which volume to start with and where to order it from then I did actually reading the book.

Launched in 2010 as part of the publisher's "Heroic Age" branding initiative, longtime Captain America writer Ed Brubaker begins very much en media res, assuming a little not-terribly-vital familiarity with the goings-on of the Marvel Universe. Convicted serial killer and former supervillain Norman Osborn had just vacated his Obama-appointed position as The Boss of All Superheroes (as head of the SHIELD-replacement organization HAMMER, which doesn't actually stand for anything; they just liked the sound of it). The new Boss of All Superheroes is former Captain America Steve Rogers (whose title and shield were both being used by Bucky Barnes at the time), and in addition to running SHIELD he has assembled a secret team of super-heroes whose skill-sets lend themselves to subterfuge, espionage and ass-kicking, depending on the character.

That team, revealed mostly on the cover, consists of Rogers himself, Black Widow, Valkyrie, Beast, War Machine, Nova and Moon Knight, plus Sharon Carter and Ant-Man III (Irredeemable Eric O'Grady).

Brubaker's plotting is very reminiscent of what he had done on Captain America for so long, balancing more tactile, real-world espionage and military adventure with the more fantastic elements inherent in the superhero genre, especially a shared-setting superhero comic taking place as fantastical as the Marvel Universe. The dials and knobs are merely turned and tuned differently here, as he includes a whole team of heroes, and goes bigger and crazier with the plots. I mean, you saw the sub-title, right? A large portion of this collection (of the first iteration of Secret Avengers first five issues) is set on the planet Mars, and cosmic hero Nova plays a significant role.

The very full, very fast-paced first issue introduces the entire team, in action in the present and being recruited by Rogers during flashbacks, as they recover an artifact from Roxxon that isn't The Serpent Crown, but seems to be very much like it. Rogers had space-hero Nova investigating Roxxon's mining operation on the planet Mars, where he came into contact with another crown artifact, and so the team needs to go save him. Meanwhile, a shadowy group of espionage-types in matching black uniforms with Eastern dragons on them are also after the artifacts. And they are lead by...Nick Fury?!

The first four issues are a single story arc, in which Brubaker proves particularly adept at juggling a superhero team. Despite the more real-world focus of the first issue, things get big and crazy fast. The Avengers take a spaceship to Mars, they get cool space-suits with their symbols on them, they encounter a robot from an ancient alien civilization, Nova is possessed and evil, Steve Rogers puts on Nova's power ring helmet and temporarily becomes a Captain America-ized member of the Green Lantern Corps Nova Corps, every member of the team gets to show off their powers and/or worth in some spotlight scene or another...it's big, dumb superhero comics written very smart and very sincerely, without a trace of irony or cynicism (O'Grady is the closest thing we get to a point-of-view character, as he's the only one really impressed by things like "going to Mars" and so on).

It's all drawn by Mike Deodato (with Will Conrad on one issue), who has a very particular style that he never deviates from, sometimes to the detriment of the story. His muscular figures swelling out of their spandex works well enough here, as does his attempts at hyper-realistic backgrounds and civilian scenes. This isn't a terribly subtle book, and thus Deodato's action-figure style is a good fit.

The fifth and final issue explains how and why there is apparently an evil version of Nick Fury working with the bad guys on The Shadow Council, which is kinda long and unimportant to get into here, but it's based on a bit of old Marvel trivia that one not need know to understand and/or enjoy how it unfolds. Same goes for all of the Marvel stuff, really; Brubaker name-checks Roxxon, The Serpent Crown, Celestials, Zodiac and stuff like that, but it's all thoroughly contextualized to the point that if you've read stuff about them before, it's fine, and if you haven't, the way in which they operate within the comic is apparent.

That last issue is drawn by David Aja, Michael Lark and Stefano Gaudiano, and has a different colorist than the previous four (Jose Villarrubia, rather than Rain Beredo), and it's an aesthetic 180. It's a smartly planned one, though, as the Avengers battle on Mars is over, and Brubaker turns his attention to a secret history of a Fury lookalike and his place in the world.

It's pretty good stuff, really...if you can find it.

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My favorite part of the comic came during the first issue/chapter, during which Black Widow and Valkyrie, pretending to be escorts (ugh) break cover and beat up a bunch of guys, and a super-jet hovers outside the building they are in, with Steve Rogers bounding in wearing his navy blue spandex with a giant star on the chest to evacuate them and steal a chest with the super-artifact in it.

"We won and we're getting away with no one knowing who we are," the unmasked Rogers in the colorful costume who happens to be the most well-known superhero in the world, tells his unmasked colleagues. I know the comic wouldn't e as much fun to look at if all the heroes wore black clothes and matching ski-masks all the time, but they're hardly the most inconspicuous group. I guess it's a good job Valkyrie didn't bring her pegasus with her...

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Speaking of costumes, I really liked the team's (mostly) red and blue space suits with their own icons on them (a star for Cap, a circle for Ant-Man, an hourglass symbol for Black Widow; Moon Knight gets his own all-white space suit), and I even liked Beast's Avengers romper.

Remember, this team is a secret team, and Beast does most of his work behind the scenes. In this panel, for example, he's in a lab looking at computers or whatever and explaining science shit. He still thought he should wear a big Avengers-logo while doing so, though.

I guess if you have that in your closet, you take whatever opportunities you have to wear it...