Bumblebee and Killer Moth fight over buttlerflies.

I was pleasantly surprised by the first of Shea Fontana and Yancey Labat's DC Super Hero Girls original graphic novels, all of which to date have been very well-made and offered more than enough Easter Eggy content to engage a middle-aged DC Comics fan like me. That said, I would have totally ignored this book, DC Super Hero Girls: Butterfly Battle by writer Courtney Carbone and illustrator Pernille Orum-Nielsen if I could have, because a) It's totally not meant for me at all and b) it feels kind of cruel to critique a book in the "Step Into Reading" program, which encourages kids to read (This is, by the way, a "Step 3" book, meaning it has engaging characters, easy-to-follow plots and popular topics...like the escapades of Killer Moth. There is no topic more popular among children who are ready to read on their own than what hijinks moth-themed criminal Drury Walker is getting up to!).

But come one--how could I not devote the three-to-five minutes of my time it took to read this? It's Bumblebee vs. Killer Moth, with space butterflies as the prize!

The premise is familiar from all those graphic novels I mentioned previously. If you're not familiar with the toy-line-turned-all-around-lucrative-IP, it imagines many of DC's superheros as teenagers attending Super Hero High School in Metropolis, where Amanda Waller is principal and various villains and Golden Agers are on the faculty. A clique of heroines serve as the main characters.

In this background-free story, "Bumbelee is giving a presentation in science class about alien butterflies." A breed of alien butterflies called "Space monarchs" apparently visit earth once a century--and they are headed to Metropolis right now. Everyone, the book says, was excited:

I don't know. "Excited" isn't a word I would use to describe Killer Frost in the above image.

But maybe that's just the way Killer Frost always looks. She has the same expression on the next page, and later when she is incapacitated by a villain and everyone else is freaking out. (Oh, by the way, apparently Killer Frost is just "Frost" in the Super Hero Girls-iverse; I guess "Killer" is a little too hardcore for the target audience? The last OGN in the line I read, Date With Disaster, listed her simply as "Frost" on the opening spread introducing the cast). It makes me wonder if they will go ahead and call Killer Moth "Killer Moth" or...just...Moth? That doesn't sound quite right. Of course, "Killer Moth" probably doesn't sound right to most people either.

As everyone is enjoying the butterflies, "the Mothwing," a moth-themed plane descends: "And that means Killer Moth!" Batgirl, in her stupid hoodie, says. Huh. Well I guess they can say "Killer" sometimes...

No comment.

Killer Moth then busts out his butterfly net and...begins collecting butterflies...? Is that illegal? Is that a crime? Are Space monarchs an interplanetary protected species or something? Look how happy the guy looks!

Bumblebee shrinks down to bee-size, gets herself scooped up in his net and brought aboard his ship, and then she grows back to girl size and blows open his ship, freeing the butterflies and kicking his ass.

Look how happy she looks to be about to punch Killer Moth in the face!

Punching Killer Moth makes Bumblebee feel the way that collecting butterflies makes Killer Moth feel.

The day saved, I guess, Amanda Waller delivers a pun so terrible I think she should have a tiny bomb implanted in her brain, which can be detonated if she ever makes a joke that bad again. She tells the girls, "I'm nominating you all for..."

Look at Babs grabbing her stomach like it was so funny that she might burst from laughter. What a brown-noser.

Meanwhile...

I reviewed Papercutz's translation of French comics creators Arnaud Plumeri and Bloz's Les Dinosaures series for Good Comics For Kids the other day. The resultant four books--now entitled Dinosaurs--is far from perfect. Like so many of Paperctuz's translated works, I would personally prefer a larger size, since I have big man hands and an enfeebled, middle-aged mind, but I suppose the reduced size of what were presumably once European-sized comics are just fine for the hands, eyes and brains of children. And as I mentioned in the review, not all of the gags land, sometimes because of what seems like awkward translation--or the simple fact that humor doesn't always translate from culture to culture--and sometimes because the jokes just aren't funny. The above one, which is the climax of a strip which began with the two little green dinosaurs laughing at Carnotaurus' tiny little arms when they saw him waving at another dinosaur, isn't necessarily the best or most funny of the gags, but it's probably the one that surprised me most.

If you like comics and dinosaurs as much as I do, then you'll definitely want to check the series out.

On The Silencer #1

*Just like the previous of DC's "New Age of Heroes" books, Damage #1, the first issue of The Silencer features "Dark Nights Metal" in the blue tier of the corner box, the space which indicates which family of books individual titles are part of.

And just like the first issue of Damage, The Silencer doesn't have any apparent connection to the events of Dark Nights: Metal...at least, not the issues of Metal that have shipped to date, #1-#5. So if Damage and The Silencer and the other "New Age of Heroes" books are going to be Metal spin-offs, then there are either going to be a lot of set-up in that sixth and final issue of Scott Snyder and Greg Capullo's event series, or else these books are going to have to do something in future issues to retroactively tie-in to Metal. (The one exception among the announced "New Age" books seems to be The Terrifics, as 50% of that book's stars have been prominently featured in Metal, and the fifth issue of the series starts to reveal how it ties in; I suppose there's a good chance Immortal Men will be a clear tie-in too, as a group of immortals played a small role in Metal near the beginning).

*I figured this vertical gatefold cover out very quickly, after struggling a bit with the one on Damage. It's an awkward space to fill with art, really.--I'm not sure why they didn't go horizontal, which is the sort of space comics artists and readers are more familiar with--but artist and character co-creator John Romita JR did a pretty good job of filling that space; much better than Tony S. Daniel did. Romita has  the title character in the center of the image; the space below her is filled with a pile of dead ninjas, which she is standing atop, and the space above her is filled with more, live ninjas raining down on her.

Now that I've seen two, I guess I understand the image on the other side of the cover as well (part of what confused me with the Damage cover was that it looked like three un-related images by Daniel, while the back was a portion of another image). The back of each cover are portions of an image previously seen in promotional material showing many of the characters from the "New Age" line standing side by side. I guess you can collect them all, tear the covers of, put them together like a puzzle, and BAM! you have a poster.

Also, as I previously mentioned, I am dumb, which contributed to my bafflement about the covers.


*After the three-panel, in medias res opening page, there's a heavily narrated seven-page sequence, much of which appeared in previews in the back of previous DC comics, in which Honor Guest is confronted by a cyborg tough named Killbox. It's a pretty flinchily violent scene involving a fistfull of sharpened pencils--I woulda jumped in my seat if I saw it in a movie--but aside from her ass-kicking abilities, The Silencer has a kind of cool, rather unusual super-power, too; one I don't think I've ever seen before.

When she puts her fingers to her lips and goes "Shh," she's surrounded by a sizable field in which there's no sound; this lasts until she snaps her fingers.

 I wasn't sure if there was more to it too, given that it looks like she's embedding her hands fingers deep into Killbox while, um, killing him, but that was likely just the way JR JR is drawing the violence, with people's fingers and fists striking so hard they seem to smoosh or even enter the body of their victims..


*Pasta fagioli is one of my favorites. My mom, my late grandfather, my friend's mom, a local restaurant in my home town, the folks that make it for the churches in Ashtabula to sell on Fridays during Lent, they all make it completely differently, and yet they all make very good pasta fagioli. I'm sure someone somewhere makes terrible pasta fagioli, but I've yet to find it.

This may be the first time I've seen it mentioned in a comic book, but it could also simply be that I have forgotten prior mentions of it in comic books.


*I was somewhat surprised to see Talia al Ghul show up. As drawn, in business suit, she's completely unrecognizable. JRJR draws her so that she looks exactly like Honor Guest, only with white skin and brown hair instead of brown skin and blonde hair.

DC has done a good job of keeping Joker appearances rare and fairly consistent, particularly in comparison to years past, but at the same time they seem to have really lost control of other Bat-villains. Ra's al Ghul and Talia al Ghul are good examples, as they seem to show up pretty much anywhere any bat-related character appears--and that's a lot of different comic books--and there's little evidence that the editors and writers are keeping track of them in even the most cursory ways.

For example, this Talia, in both appearance and status, doesn't really seem to match the one we've seen just four or five issues of Batman ago.


*Leviathan, the organization she lead in the pages of Grant Morrison's Batman comics, which awkwardly span the Flashpoint/New 52 reboot, is mentioned.


*Killbox is followed by two more assassins with dumb names, Bloodvessel and Breacher. None of them survive the issue, so the dumbness of their names isn't really anything to be concerned with, I guess.

*Talia gives Honor some kind of disc-shaped gadget which she only reluctantly takes and I guess it is her costume...? In disc-form? We barely see it in this issue, as she only dons it at the climax, but it's pretty lame-looking (you can see it in the "New Age" house ad; she's the character in profile you can't recognize, because she's wearing a mask she lacks on the cover of The Silencer).

I'm so used to that cover image at this point, that I was surprised to learn she even has a costume. Having seen it in a couple different places so far, I think it's probably better than she not have one. I suppose it could grow on me, though.


*Hey, guess what? This comic book contains no splash pages at all! Not a one! In fact, the fewest number of panels per page in this book is three, and some pages have as many as seven panels. There are several passages with a six-panel grid lay-out. This is in sharp contrast to the first "New Age" book released, which had a gratuitous amount of page real estate wasted on multiple splash pages and double-page splashes.

Comics Shop Comics: January 31st

Dark Nights: Metal #5 (DC Comics) It's not too terribly surprising to hear that Scott Snyder will be heavily involved in whatever is happening next with DC's Justice League franchise (details are still pretty scant; all that has been announced so far is a weekly miniseries and a few participating writers, with no mention of the artists involved or how many books and who will be doing what to follow*). After all, for all its promotion, and all of its (too) many tie-ins, Metal is basically just a Justice League story with a few big, interesting ideas thrown in there (and as someone who started reading Justice League comics when Grant Morrison, Howard Porter and John Dell launched JLA, I've always thought "a few big, interesting ideas" was the baseline for what all Justice League stories should involve). I haven't read all of those tie-ins yet (I plan to catch up in trade later), but the ones I have read seemed mostly unimportant, even trivial, and once you divorce those from Metal, what you're left with is a big story posing an existential threat to the DC Universe--hell, the DC Multiverse--that is addressed by the Justice League recruiting some allies, splitting up into different teams and then attacking elements of the problem. It's not hard to see this as a modern version of an old Silver Age or Satellite Era novel-length adventure, a "Crisis In The Dark Multiverse!" sort of story.

In fact, this issue doesn't do anything to change that. The various "teams" continue on their missions, meeting new characters along the way. Batman and Superman are at the cosmic Forge of Worlds with the corrupted Hawkman. Aquaman and Deathstroke are at the center of the Earth. Green Lantern Jordan, Mister Terriffic and Plastic Man-in-static-"egg"-form are on a Thanagar, where they get an assist from Martian Manhunter in fighting Starro and Onimar Sinn. Wonder Woman and Hawkgirl Kendra Saunders are at The Rock of Eternity, fighting with Black Adam. Everyone is on the ropes, as one would expect from the penultimate issue of the series, and the various nightmare Batmen appear to snatch victory from the hands of the League teams, as the Morrison-mapped Multiverse looks like it's about to be conquered by Morrison's bat-demon god. (Speaking of Morrison, Metal seems like a pretty good way to use the writer's past work to do something interesting and/or new. Snyder seems to be taking inspiration from past Morrison stories, and building on them, as opposed to what his fellow DC writer Steve Orlando, for example, has been doing, which is basically just taking Morrison creations that he likes and presenting them in his work, as if their presence alone gives value to a story).

As a Plastic Man fan, I was most interested in the bit where Mr. Terrific explains Plas' role in the story and, curiously, his origin. Dan Jurgens drew Plas into a Justice League International image in the early days of the New 52, implying that the character existed already in the New 52-iverse (He did the same with The Creeper). Then Geoff Johns presented a version of Plas' origin during Forever Evil, and...non one ever did anything with it.

Snyder seems to imply that Plas has been around for a while. Here's Mister Terrific explaining Plas to Hal:

One night, he fell into a vat of chemicals. My best guess, some attempt by the owls or S.T.A.R. Labs to approximate cosmic metals.

Now his molecutlar structure changes with his desires. His body is a super-conductor for cosmic energies, which is why they're after him.

Since dark energy started rising, the nightmares of every living thing run through his head, trying to pull him toward evil.

As I said, he's still in egg form, so apparently he's not going to do anything before the final issue, where one assumes he will play an integral role. While reading this issue, I couldn't help but think how Snyder had the makings of a pretty damn good Justice League line-up, give or take a character, running throughout the series: Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman, Aquaman, The Flash, Green Lantern Hal Jordan, Cyborg, Martian Manhunter, Hawkgirl and/or Hawkman, Plastic Man, Mister Terrific, Deathstroke, maybe Doctor Fate. I know that Plas and Mister Terrific won't end up on a League line-up, as they are one-half of DC's weird-looking Fantastic Four-esque series The Terrifics (which definitely would spin-out of Metal, unlike the first issues of Damage, The Silencer and Batman and The Signal, all of which had slugs on the cover suggesting they spun out of Metal despite any evidence of such in the first five issues of Metal or the first issues of those series).

DC Super Hero Girls: Date With Disaster (DC) I confess to finding this latest of Shea Fontana and Yancey Labat's Super Hero Girls original graphic novels somewhat disappointing, mainly because I was more interested in the dating than the disaster. I was promised Batgirl and friends trying to find a date for her dad, Commissioner Gordon, and while there is some of that in here, there is also a secret, STAR Labs program to create super-powered people, a villainous mayor and the introduction of Rampage and some Suicide Squad characters. I suppose it says more about my age that I am more interested in adult-dating than superhero fisticuffs at this point in my life but, on the other hand, even as a teenager I think I would have been more interested in the kids getting ready for the spring Winter Formal--Killer Frost is helping make it wintery--than the superhero business.

So there's a lot going on in this volume. Batgirl is upset that her dad went on a date with Silver St. Cloud--I'd say Bruce Wayne must be pissed, but I'm not sure there is a Bruce Wayne or a Clark Kent in the Super Hero Girls-iverse; I mean, Lois Lane goes to the dance with Barry Allen of all people!--so she sets up a dating profile for him in order to find him a better match (Spoiler alert: She finds him Plastique instead). Meanwhile, some of the girls are getting ready for the dance, which inspires a few of them to play matchmaker, trying to get Steve Trevor to ask Wonder Woman to the dance. Also meanwhile, Floyd Lawton is putting the moves on Principal Amanda Waller. And also also meanwhile, Dr. Kitty Faulkner of STAR Labs and the mayor are up to some suspicious stuff involving super-powers, and the secret-ish origin of this version of Poison Ivy. Also! Jimmy Olsen, Ron Troupe and Perry White are all in here, as Lois and the Planet-eers work angles of the STAR Labs story. Whew!

A few random thoughts:

--Commissioner Gordon apparently calls his daughter Barbara "Babsy Bear."

--Labat's version of Deadshot--I'm not sure if he's ever shown up in the animated incarnation of this IP or not--is pretty fantastic. As Floyd, his mustache makes look both cartoon dashing, like a caricature of Clark Gable, and silent movie villainous, which is pretty perfect for his role here. I also really dug this version of his costume, which is basically just de-cluttered and modernized version of the one he wore back in the 1980s, before there were different versions of Deadshot in differing media.

--The thought of him going on dates with Waller was pretty fun, considering the last time I've seen either of them were in the pages of John Ostrander and company's Suicide Squad Vol. 7: The Dragon's Hoard, and the two aren't exactly friendly in those comics, let alone romantic.

--"Giant Turtle Boy" has a two-page cameo. Also, Jimmy Olsen is a shitty journalist. Thank God Lois puts him in his place, re The Truth.

--Lois Lane is awesome, in almost any incarnation.

--I like how after Steve was all nervous about asking Wonder Woman to the dance, and how the matchmakers schemed and failed to get Steve to ask her, she just walks up and asks him herself. Oh, Wonder Woman.

--I was highly disappointed that no one wore dresses or suits to the dance, but just wore their normal clothes. Steve didn't even change out of his work clothes!

--It was pleasantly surprising to see same-sex couples in this. Bunker and Piper go to the dance together, apparently; they're not, like, slow-dancing and kissing or anything, but I suppose readers who are familiar with the characters from other comics who seem them standing side-by-side will put two and two together. Similarly, they do that thing where Harley and Ivy are probably dating without ever coming out and saying it. When characters mention that Harley, the head of the dance committee and one of the characters most invested in the match-making endeavors, didn't have time to find a date of her own, she throws an arm around her best friend and says, "I don't need a date! I got Ivy--"

--Gordon asks Waller to dance, and she shoots him down. Then he and Babs dance. Those things all make me uncomfortable.

Star Wars: Forces of Destiny--Rose & Paige (IDW Publishing) The fifth and final issue of IDW's weekly Forces of Destiny series features Rose Tico, the breakout star of The Last Jedi, played by the totally adorable and infectiously enthusiastic Kelly Marie Tran, and her sister Paige, who was briefly seen in the film's opening battle. In many respects, their story is similar to the one that was in the last issue of Star Wars Adventures I read, where Rose's smarts and the faith placed in her by her big sister and General Organa help her overcome the vocal doubting of a male superior and help her save the day.

Where it differs, and differs quite dramatically, is in its visuals. Derek Charm, an artist who I am an enormous fan of, drew the Adventures issue. This comics is drawn by Nicoletta Baldari, in an extremely lush, picture book-like style that, in the movement of the characters and the expressions on their faces, calls to mind a traditional 2D Disney animated movie. In fact, the art is really the best of both worlds, as it looks as thoroughly rendered as if it were created for a picture book, but is highly animated-looking, as if consisting of stills from a film.

Baldari is paired with prose and occasional comics writer Delilah S. Dawson, responsible for the recent pretty-dang-good Phasma prose novel and...the previously mentioned issue of Star Wars Adventures, which both explains and makes strange the similarities between these two stories.

The specifics of this one involve Leia conducting a Resistance meeting in which she asks her people for ideas on exploring a hard-to-explore planet in order, preferably one that doesn't involve their traditional vehicles. Rose comes up with what resemble a pair of fast-moving golf carts--they've got wheels! How primitive!--and she and Paige go exploring. When Paige's breaks down and she has an accident, Rose is forced into adventuring to save her sister. Along the way, she meets a particularly goofy-looking indigenous species that follows the obviously successful Porg formula of combining bird and mammal-like characteristics into a single animal.

I was much more interested in the art part of the equation in this book, but it's an all-around solid all-ages Star Wars comic, and, like the Leia one-shot, it's head-and-shoulders above the content Marvel has been publishing.



*Hopefully current Justice League writer Christopher Priest gets to keep doing what he's doing on one of the new League books, but given that that would be a great idea, I'm afraid it won't occur to those who make such decisions at DC.

Comic Shop Comics: January 24th

Justice League #36 (DC Comics) Christopher Priest has written four issues of Justice League so far. I've had trouble reading it, despite being fairly on top of DC Comics. First I read the second issue, because I had missed the first issue. Then I read the fourth issue, having missed the third issue. Then I read the first issue. And this week, finally, I visited another comics shop and found and thus read the third issue. So I'm all caught up, I guess.

What was the problem? I suppose it was mostly the fact that I didn't add the title to my pull-list as soon as I heard Priest was taking over with a certain issue, and then, failing that, my inability to notice the book the week that Priest's run started.

Certainly the fact that there are more than one Justice League book and they aren't too terribly distinguishable in terms of their titles--Justice League and Justice League of America--was a factor, as was the bi-weekly shipping of Justice League, which makes it very easy to fall behind if you miss an issue. After I originally missed the boat, I probably should have just trade-waited the series, but I did want to vote with my dollars for Priest on the Justice League, as that is a very, very good idea that has thus far yielded very good results.

Anyway, this one was another very solid issue all on its own. The opening sequence, in which Superman is in congress while a congress lady speechifies at him, brought up unwanted memories of Batman V. Superman: Dawn of Justice, and the sequence at the end was super-strange--why did Simon go with that lady into the bathroom and let her open his shirt and kiss his chest, or was he purposely springing the trap to get caught?--but the bits with the submarine and Aquaman's dual status as a Justice Leaguer and the king of a sovereign nation were all pretty interesting. Those sorts of conversations about jurisdiction and politics and charters and suchlike? I love that stuff. It's really too bad none of that is ever established in a clear way, but seems to fluctuate, depending on who is writing the book at a particular time. Like, even the fact that Batman is the leader of the League seems like a new invention of Priest's for this run.

In general, if there was a clearly established status quo of some sort, than stories that use that status quo as their starting point would have much more resonance.

Pete Woods drew this issue.

Predator: Hunters (Dark Horse Books) The simplicity of the Predator concept makes it one that is endlessly adaptable and riff-uponable, one that is perhaps perfect for comic book crossovers. Nigh unstoppable, mysterious alien big-game hunters who travel to earth in order to hunt the most dangerous prey and...that's it, really. Change the setting and the opponents, and Predator comics are essentially infinite. The one problem that quickly presents itself, however, is that it can be something of a challenge to keep doing those stories forever, and each new adaptation crosses another setting off the list of potential stories (And, additionally, after seeing Predator fight Batman, Superman Judge Dredd and the cast of Archie Comics, well, a guest star-free outting can lose some of its razzle dazzle).

For the five-issue miniseries Predator: Hunters, which could really lose the semi-colon for a more accurate title, writer Chris Warner has upended the original film's the-hunters-have-become-the-hunted premise, which just about every sequel and comics adaptation has riffed on, in an interesting way, the premise of this series being the-hunters-have-become-the-hunted-but-look-out-the-once-hunted-are-hunting-the-hunters-who-hunted-them. Or something like that.

A rich woman who belongs to a family that has hunted Predators since the 19th century--You know the story of Spring Heeled Jack? Actually a Predator--has assembled a sizable private operation devoted to finding and exterminating Predators whenever they arrive on Earth. In an interesting move, the woman, Jaya Soames, has assembled survivors from past attacks, some of which have delineated in past Dark Horse Predator comics, like 1992's Big Game andn 1993's Bad Blood (Soames' ancestor's meeting with a Predator occurred in 1997's Nemesis).

That Big Game survivor, Enoch Nakai, is our point-of-view character, and we follow his recruitment into Soames' organization and on their first big hunting trip. Reports of a Predator on a remote island in the South Pacific send them there, posing to the locals on a neighboring island as scientists. They find not one but four Predators there, and, gradually, a rather extraordinary story that once again reiterates an on-again, off-again theme of the Predator stories: That the alien hunters may seem monstrous, but nothing out-monsters humanity.

Francisco Ruiz Velasco provides the art, and it is pretty strong for the most part, although it is occasionally slightly glitchy, with panel-to-panel continuity errors, like in one panel a Predator might be holding a huge club, and in the next his hands are empty. Stuff lie that here and there.

I really liked the designs of these Predators, as their armor and masks are radically different than those of their predecessors, and there's a reason why provided, although I don't want to discuss it, as it's something of a spoiler. I will note, however, that it took me a few issues to remember that the Predators don't just wear their high-tech masks for show, but they actually have breathing apparatuses in them, as they can't breathe Earth's atmosphere for too long. So I guess they really should have been gasping and wheezing throughout this whole story.

Anyway, Warner has found some interesting areas to work in with this series, and it checks all the necessary Predator boxes while doing a few things that are either new or different, and the art is pretty good too.

Scooby-Doo Team-Up #34 (DC) As is so often the case these days, the best versions of particular DC superhero concepts are the ones that writer Sholly Fisch and artist Dario Brizuela come up with in order for them to team-up with Scooby-Doo in Scooby-Doo Team-Up. This month, it's the Birds of Prey's turn.

This particular version of BOP features Batgirl and Black Canary (both dressed in the costumes they would have worn in, say, the late 1960s) and The Huntress (dressed, somewhat inexplicably, in her short-lived Jim Lee-designed crop top and booty-shorts costume from "Hush"), with a few panels worth of Lady Blackhawk.

When Gotham City is being terrorized by mythological birds, the Birds of Prey call upon the women of Mystery Inc to help them out, and Scooby comes along because, well, because his name is on the comic book, I guess. Fred and Shaggy appear on the first and last pages, book-ending Daphne and Velma's adventure with the Birds.

The mystery turns out to be ridiculously easy to solve--in fact, you've probably already guessed the perpetrator just by hearing about the theme of the crimes--and one wonders why Batgirl needed Daphne and Velma's help in the first place, but then, as is often the case with Scooby-Doo Team-Up, the plots are really only ever excuses to introduce, re-introduce and/or define various DC superhero characters by bouncing them off of the Scooby-Doo cast for about 20 pages.

Star Wars: Forces of Destiny--Hera (IDW PUblishing) Okay, I had to visit a second comic book shop in order to do so, but I finally got my hand's on last week's Forces of Destiny one-shot, which I was interested in more for the writer, Devin Grayson, than the title character. I used to really dig Grayson's writing on the various Batman and Titans related titles, and often when I read a particularly sub-par issue of a comic featuring those characters, I'll wonder where the hell Devin Grayson is, what she's doing and why she's not writing Detective Comics or Teen Titans or whatever.

This issue, while technically fine, isn't really that great, though.

Grayson teams with artist Eva Wildermann for a done-in-one story featuring Hera Syndulla, the Rebel Twi'lek pilot from the Star Wars: Rebels cartoon series (Cantankerous droid Chopper is the only other member of her crew featured, and he's there mainly to give her someone to talk to when she would otherwise have to be alone). The pair are on a mission to recruit an agricultural planet to take the rebels' side in the war, but the Empire beat them to it, so Hera and some sympathetic natives hatch a plan to make exploiting the planet seem like a lot more trouble than it's worth. Save for a climactic chase, it is mostly devoted to detailing Hera's plan to oppose the Empire by incremental resistance, as opposed to open warfare.

Widermann's art hews pretty close to the designs of the cartoon, although something feels slightly off about it, given the show's 3D imagery and the comic's flattening of the characters and milieu down to a more traditional 2D plane. While most of the characters are fairly familiar humans and alien types, one of the new characters that allies himself with Hera appears to be an anthropomorphic otter. Here he just looks like a cartoon character, like an extra from Disney's Robin Hood cast as an extra in this comic, but that sort of design reminded me a bit of Saga, where alien races so often resemble Earth animals on their hind legs.

The design of the imperious Imperial leader is pretty cool; he's blonde and has a little mustache that made me think of Princess Bride-era Cary Elwes.

As fits the character that inspired it, this issue struck me as even more kid-friendly than the Leia issue I had previously read; they are all all-ages, of course, but this one seemed more "for kids" than "all-ages," if that distinction makes sense.

Marvel's April previews reviewed

ALL-NEW WOLVERINE #33
TOM TAYLOR (W) • RAMON ROSANAS (A)
Cover by DAVID LOPEZ
...
OLD WOMAN LAURA BEGINS!
In the not-too-distant future, the world is a utopia where heroes have succeeded in bringing peace worldwide. At the head of this utopia is none other than Laura Kinney, who’s passed on her mantle of Wolverine and is living her best life as Madripoor’s benevolent queen. But a long simmering evil will force Laura, out of retirement and back into the blue-and-yellow. This final journey will take everything Laura has to give….maybe even her life.
32 PGS./Rated T+ …$3.99

Somehow we've gone from "New" to "All-New" to "All-New, All-Different" to "Old."

I'm not sure I like the sound of the "This final journey," given the fact that this month also features a solicit for the first issue of a series apparently devoted to returning the dead version of Logan to the land of the living. I haven't even had a chance to miss that version of Wolverine, what with Laura, Old Man Logan and even Ultimate Wolverine Jr. running around the Marvel Universe all this time.

That said, the fact that this story is set in the "not-too-distant future" means it could be a "final journey" for Laura Kinney without really impacting whether she is alive or dead or Wolverine or not in our present.

Damn, that hat is secure.

My initial to this funny-looking Darth Vader cover was to wonder about how he could float with all his robot parts and armor, but then I realized if I tried to make a dumb joke about it, someone would just point out that he's using the force so never mind.

That said, this probably the closest we'll ever come to a professionally produced image of what Vader would look like in a hot tub...

This is Michael Del Mundo's cover for Doctor Strange #388, and I am posting it here just to say that I think those dice are super cool.

DOMINO #1
Gail Simone (W) • DAVID BALDEON (A)
Cover by Greg Land & Frank D’armata
...
BAD LUCK AND TROUBLE Part 1
Impossible curves. Impossible shots. Impossible targets. Marvel’s #1 soldier of fortune is back in an explosive new ongoing series! The product of a failed super-soldier program, Neena Thurman always made her own luck as the sharpshooting mercenary known as Domino… but what happens when her own powers betray her? The hunter becomes the hunted as every mercenary in the game smells blood in the water! Plus: A pair of beloved Marvel characters return!
32 PGS./Rated T+ …$3.99

Huh. Greg Land is still getting work for some reason.

I may be wrong, but outside of the Conan/Wonder Woman crossover series, which is off in its own little crossover corner, I think this will be the first comic Simone has written for Marvel or DC for quite some time. The odds of it sticking around too long aren't great, particularly since it seems like it's being published solely because the character will be in a movie soon-ish, but provided Simone writes it evergreen enough, it won't hurt to have a Domino collection or three in the catalog.

EXILES #1
SALADIN AHMED (W) • JAVIER RODRIGUEZ (A)
Cover by DAVID MARQUEZ
...
INTRODUCING THE ALL-NEW VALKYRIE!
DON’T BLINK – THE EXILES ARE BACK!
Fan-favorite X-Man Blink once joined a team destined to save not just the world, but the entire Multiverse. And now, her teleporting talents are needed once again! When a mysterious threat begins eating away at the fabric of the Multiverse, the Unseen – the man once known as Nick Fury who now can only observe Earth from a lofty post on the moon – must recruit a champion to save it. But she can’t do it alone. Who will join Blink’s new team – and can they ever go home again?
32 PGS./Rated T …$3.99

As a guy who has never read an Exiles comic, I've detected at least two problems with the book, ones that may have held back the generally interesting premise.

The first is that because the book was always about alternate dimensions--characters coming from different dimensions, and then going into other dimensions to solve problems there--the book always had an aura of "none of this really counts for much," which isn't the sort of thing that mainstream comic book readers are interested in...certainly not as much as they are interested in "This stuff totally counts!' And since there was never an Exiles book out at a time when there were less than, like, a half-dozen other X-Men comics, well, the book's premise almost guaranteed that it would be at the bottom of most fans' shopping lists.

The second is that it was all X-Men related, and while other Marvel characters naturally were a part of the alternate dimension locales journeyed to in each story, the potentially wide remit of the book--"an infinite multiverse of alternate versions of the Marvel Universe...!"--was generally narrowed down to, "...but only as pertains to the X-Men!"

This book seems to solve that problem, as only two of the five characters on that cover seem to be mutants, and they are dealing with Old Nick Fury and there's not mention of X-Men and mutant business in the solicit, so that's cool.

Also cool? That the element about this new title seemingly getting the most attention is a version of Valkyrie that looks to be Tessa Thompson's Valkyrie from this year's Thor: Ragnarok imported into the cast. If it is the film character, or just someone who looks just like her, is, I suppose, a potentially big deal--I can't think of any other instance of the Marvel Cinematic Universe and the Marvel (comics) Universe explicitly crossing over.

It's maybe a little strange that they are doing this here, though, as it wouldn't exactly be difficult to introduce a Thompson-esque Valkyrie into the Marvel Universe. Valkyrie is, after all, just one character who uses a name that was assigned to many Asgardian warrior women. It's a job description more than a name, really.

FALCON #7
RODNEY BARNES (W)
JOSHUA CASSARA (A)
Cover by JAY ANACLETO
As Brooklyn becomes vampire central, Deacon Frost continues his quest to destroy everything that Sam loves. Who’s up first? Misty? Patriot? Or perhaps someone even more dear to our hero?
32 PGS./Rated T+ …$3.99

Well, the color scheme is certainly growing on me, but I'm not sure what's going on with the shoulders. I kind of hate the squared and prominent shoulder thingees.

Also, the first arc of the new Falcon book had Sam squaring off against Blackheart, a demon from hell. And now he's on to...vampires? Is it weird that a book starring the Falcon is becoming devoted to supernatural menaces...?

Well, the presence of vampires does increase the likelihood of a Blade guest-appearance, so I'm all for that.

MARVEL RISING #0
DEVIN GRAYSON (W) • MARCO FAILLA (A)
COVER BY HELEN CHEN
KICKING OFF MARVEL RISING!
This April SQUIRREL GIRL meets MS. MARVEL – for the very first time! When Doreen Green (also known as the unbeatable Squirrel Girl) volunteers as head counselor for an extra-curricular computer programming camp, little does she know that junior counselor Kamala Khan moonlights as crime fighting super hero Ms. Marvel! But this coding camp is more than just ones and zeros when A.I.M. makes an appearance! Will our heroes be able to save the campers without blowing their secret identities? Join Ms. Marvel, Squirrel Girl, America, Inferno, and Patriot as they learn exactly what it means to be a young hero in the Marvel Universe – and what it means to be a hero to each other.
32 PGS./RATED T …FREE

Can it really be true that Squirrel Girl has never met Ms. Marvel Kamala Khan? That sounds impossible, right? Even if one never guest-starred in the other's book, it seems like they would have to have bumped into one another during a secret or civil war or something, right? Just, statistically speaking...?

That said, even after racking my brain for minutes upon minutes, I couldn't think of a single panel in which I had seen the two characters together, let alone them having an actual conversation. That's...that's actually kind of mind-blowing, isn't it?

I am assuming that this is a comic to promote an upcoming cartoon of some sort, as that image and the characters in it are so familiar, but I'd be interested in reading it. Not only is the price right, not only do I like a handful of those characters an awful lot, but it's written by Devin Grayson, one of the better Batman writers of the 1990s.

This is a pretty great cover. That's Becky Coonan's cover for an issue of Moon Knight.

So I can't imagine what exactly is going on here, but I'm really into it.

THANOS ANNUAL #1
Donny Cates, Kieron Gillen, Al Ewing, Ryan North, Christopher Hastings, & Katie Cook (W)
Geoff Shaw, Katie Cook, Frazer Irving & TBD (A)
...
STARRING COSMIC GHOST RIDER!
Thanos is likely the most evil being in the universe…and if anyone would know, it’s the all-new Cosmic Ghost Rider. Let the spirit of vengeance be your guide on a tour through the worst of the worst, as he reveals the most heinous deeds ever perpetrated by the Mad Titan…or by anyone else!
40 PGS./Parental Advisory …$4.99

That is such a varied line up of contributors that this comic probably deserves a pretty thorough flip-through upon the week of release.

VENOMIZED #1 (OF 5)
CULLEN BUNN (W) • IBAN COELLO (A)
Cover by NICK BRADSHAW
...
VENOMIZED Part 1
The story that began in VENOMVERSE reaches its epic conclusion with VENOMIZED! The POISONS, a species that hungers for super-powered symbiotes and their hosts, have picked their next target…THE MARVEL UNIVERSE ITSELF! Their first objective? Put every superhuman in a Klyntar symbiote – and CONSUME THEM! But with VENOM and the X-MEN still missing after the events of “Poison-X,” the planet, and its heroes, is defenseless!
40 PGS./Rated T+ …$4.99

Oh. So "Poison-X," which will be available in trade collection in April, and then this series. So I guess I know know where the storyline that started with Venomverse continues. I liked that okay, although I admittedly liked it as much a a comic book about costume re-designing than as anything else. Based on the solicitation copy, there will be many more such redesigns in this series.

The Nick Bradshaw covers are so damn great, too; I wish one of the super-comics publishers could find a monthly series for him to do interiors for.

Wait a minute, that's not actually how a Venom-ized Iceman's powers would work, is it...? That...doesn't really make sense...

DC's April previews reviewed

ACTION COMICS #1000
Cover by JIM LEE and SCOTT WILLIAMS
Stories and art by an all-star lineup of top talent
Celebrate 1000 issues of Action Comics with an all-star lineup of top talent as they pay tribute to the comic that started it all! From today’s explosive action to a previously unpublished tale illustrated by the legendary Curt Swan to the Man of Tomorrow’s future—this very special, oversized issue presents the best of the best in Superman stories!

FEATURING ALL-NEW ART AND STORIES BY:

BRIAN MICHAEL BENDIS
JOHN CASSADAY
OLIVIER COIPEL
PAUL DINI
JOSE LUIS GARCIA-LOPEZ
PATRICK GLEASON
BUTCH GUICE
GEOFF JOHNS
DAN JURGENS
TOM KING
JIM LEE
CLAY MANN
BRAD MELTZER
JERRY ORDWAY
TIM SALE
LOUISE SIMONSON
SCOTT SNYDER
CURT SWAN
PETER J. TOMASI
MARV WOLFMAN
…AND MORE!

DECADES-SPANNING OPEN-TO-ORDER VARIANT COVERS BY:

STEVE RUDE (1930s)
MICHAEL CHO (1940s)
DAVE GIBBONS (1950s)
MICHAEL ALLRED (1960s)
JIM STERANKO (1970s)
JOSHUA MIDDLETON (1980s)
DAN JURGENS (1990s)
LEE BERMEJO (2000s)
…PLUS A BLANK VARIANT COVER!
PRESTIGE FORMAT • NO ADS • On sale APRIL 18 • 80 pg, FC, $7.99 US • RATED T

Here it is, the one-thousandth issue of Action Comics, a milestone that loses a bit of its impact thanks to DC's Marvel-ous numbering shenanigans with the title over the course of the last few years. Of the involved creators, the big name there is definitely Brian Michael Bendis, the long-time Marvel creator who will be making his DC Comics debut with this comic. Bendis is also an artist, although nothing he's drawn has been published in...well, a damn long time, really, not counting reprints of his older, pre-Marvel comics. I would love to find out that he is illustrating his own contribution to this book, but I am almost certain that is not the case. Fun fact: Bendis and Superman share a home town; they both come from Cleveland.

The rest of the contributors are all fairly predictable ones, so I find myself most curious about the "...AND MORE!" creators. Hopefully Jon Bogdanove's one of them...he has to be, right? And Garth Ennis and John McCrea, who were responsible for one of the better Superman stories I've ever read. Hell, maybe the "...AND MORE!" will even include a second female woman lady contributor! Imagine a woman drawing Superman...anything is possible!

BATMAN #45
Written by TOM KING • Art by TONY S. DANIEL and SANDU FLOREA • Cover by TONY S. DANIEL
...
“THE TRAVELERS” part one! Booster Gold has come to Gotham City, and he’s enlisting Batman and Catwoman to go on a time-traveling mission to rescue…Booster Gold! It seems a younger Booster Gold has gone back in time to kidnap an even younger version of himself, and to rescue his own past, Booster must pursue both of his previous incarnations through Batman’s history to find out what is going on. The start of a new story that will sow the seeds for a whole new epic to come—and also the return of Master Class artist Tony S. Daniel (DAMAGE) to BATMAN!
On sale APRIL 18 • 32 pg, FC, $2.99 US • RATED T

Huh. A Booster Gold story by someone who is not Dan Jurgens; this could prove pretty interesting. Writer Tom King's portrayal of DC superheroes who aren't part of the Bat-family proper in this book have been pretty hit or miss so far (Superman? Hit. Wonder Woman? Miss), so I'll be curious to see what he does with a character like Booster Gold, especially considering how divorced from the regular Batman milieu time travel is.

I was a little surprised to see that Tony Daniel is handling the art on this, though, as he has his own regular book he's supposed to be drawing and creating coming out on a monthly basis now. Perhaps he got so far ahead on Damage that he had room in his schedule to do a few issues of Batman...?

BATMAN ’66 OMNIBUS HC
Written by JEFF PARKER, TOM PEYER, ART BALTAZAR, FRANCO, LEN WEIN, HARLAN ELLISON, MIKE W. BARR, RAY FAWKES and others
Art by JONATHAN CASE, TY TEMPLETON, RUBEN PROCOPIO, CHRIS SPROUSE, CHRISTOPHER JONES, MICHAEL AVON OEMING, DARIO BRIZUELA and others
Cover by MICHAEL ALLRED
Put on your go-go boots and get ready to “Batusi” as DC reimagines the classic Batman TV show! In these tales, the Dynamic Duo takes on the Riddler, Mr. Freeze, the Penguin, the Mad Hatter, The Joker and more of the world’s most colorful Bat-villains! And in BATMAN ’66: THE LOST EPISODE #1, an outline from the original TV series featuring Two-Face is adapted to comics for the first time!
This new Omnibus collects BATMAN ’66 #1-30, BATMAN ’66: THE LOST EPISODE #1 and a story from SOLO #7.
On sale AUGUST 8 • 928 pg, FC • $125.00 US

Any excuse to post a Mike Allred image! So, this is just about everything Batman '66 DC ever published, excepting only the various crossovers with other TV shows or, in that one case, the Legion of Super-Heroes. That's a pretty great package, then. I can't imagine this is the best way to experience those comics--omnibuses that big can be hard to hold together for too long, I've noticed from too-fat comics collections circulating at the library--but those are some pretty great comics and man, just look at that line-up of writers and artists above...

Wow. That is a damn fine cover by Freddie Williams II. It will be affixed to the cover of the final issue of Batman/Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles II.

DAMAGE #4
Written by ROB VENDITTI • Art by CARY NORD • Cover by TONY S. DANIEL
Poison Ivy attacks a group of fieldworkers, forcing Ethan to choose between transforming into Damage and saving them—or protecting his own sanity! And will Colonel Jonas and her squad capture him before he discovers the truth about what he really is?
On sale APRIL 18 • 32 pg, FC, $2.99 US • RATED T

Oh. So that's how Tony Daniel was able to find the time to draw this month's issue of Batman. That's weird, because this suite of books--originally announced as "Dark Matter", but later changed to the more anodyne "New Age of Heroes--was specifically sold as a line of books created by and drawn by particular artists. In the case of Damage #1, Daniel even got top-billing over writer Rob Venditti in the first issue.

Now, Cary Nord is a great artist, and I would be much more likely to read a comic book with Cary Nord art in it than I would be to read a comic book with Tony Daniel art in it, but I can't imagine that this is good for the sales of a comic book which has been marketed and sold for a few months as "the Tony Daniel book." As I said of the first issue, Daniel seems to be the only selling-point of what is otherwise a pretty naked Hulk analogue/rip-off.

There's something very first-few-years-of-Image Comics about this...

That's a pretty nice cover by Tim Seeley for April's issue of Hellblazer.

NIGHTWING #42
Written by COLLIN KELLY and JACKSON LANZING • Art by JORGE CORONA • Cover by JORGE JIMENEZ
...
“THE CRIMSON KABUKI”! When Damian Wayne disappears during a solo mission to Tokyo, Nightwing must enter the seedy underworld to save the boy who was once his Robin. But Dick will have to ascend the Crimson Kabuki’s tower of crime and survive a game of death against three of Japan’s most powerful fighters. Can Nightwing defeat an entire building of elite fighters, or will he lose Damian forever?
On sale APRIL 4 • 32 pg, FC, $2.99 US • RATED T

NIGHTWING #43
Written by MICHAEL MORECI • Art by MINKYU JUNG • Cover by JORGE JIMENEZ • Variant cover by YASMINE PUTRI
“THE BRAVE, THE OBNOXIOUS AND THE INEPT”! All Dick Grayson wants is a night to himself. But when Robin and Arsenal come calling in need of his help, Dick has to throw on his Nightwing costume and get to work. Before he knows it, he’s neck-deep in League of Assassin ninjas and trying to stop Arsenal’s sometime-girlfriend from killing them all—assuming Robin and Arsenal don’t kill each other first!
On sale APRIL 18 • 32 pg, FC, $2.99 US • RATED T

Wow, those pants do not go with that skin-tight superhero costume at all, Dick...

So, what's going on with Nightwing? That's two consecutive issues by two entirely different creative teams, neither of which includes current regular writer Sam Humphries. Was Humprhies run only meant to be a single arc, or is he just taking April off, and because the book is bi-weekly, that means we get two fill-in issues by two fill-in teams...?

Well, I suppose I'll stick around a bit, as I do like the Dick Grayson/Damian team. I would really be interested in seeing Damian and Roy Harper interacting...were this Roy Harper still the "real" Roy Harper. I don't have any interest in or knowledge of the rebooted version of Roy, let alone any affection for him, as I did for the pre-Flashpoint version of the character.

Scooby-Doo Team-Up: The best DC superhero comic, or the best superhero comic from any publisher?

I like how hard the title character of The Silencer is smooshing her gun into Deathstroke's face on this cover. I suppose it's worth noting that John Romita JR is just drawing the cover of this issue of his comic, while Viktor Bogdanovic is drawing the interiors. So of the four "New Age of Heroes" books shipping in August, two of them already have fill-in artists drawing them. Not a good sign for a group of books that was always going to have an uphill battle to survive the modern direct market.

SUPERMAN #44
Written by PATRICK GLEASON and PETER J. TOMASI • Art and cover by PATRICK GLEASON • Variant cover by JONBOY MEYERS
“BOYZARRO RE-DEATH” part three! Gathered together from the cosmic recesses of the universe are the most powerful forces of bad ever assembled! Now the Super Foes face the Legion of Fun—and the only heroes who dare to stand against this intergalactic threat of the Bizarroverse are Superman and son!
On sale APRIL 4 • 32 pg, FC, $2.99 US • RATED T

SUPERMAN #45
Written by PATRICK GLEASON and PETER J. TOMASI • Art and cover by PATRICK GLEASON • Variant cover by JONBOY MEYERS
“BOYZARRO RE-DEATH” finale! The challenge of the Bizarroverse continues as the Super Foes battle the Legion of Fun! As Superman and Son return to Hamilton for a quick recharge, they learn what the little town truly meant to them—and what they meant to the locals of the town.
On sale APRIL 18 • 32 pg, FC, $2.99 US • RATED T

Damn, that is a great-looking cover. I dropped this title a while back in order to switch to trade. It's going to be difficult to not buy these issues in the shop the week they come out.

SUPERMAN BY MARK MILLAR TP
Written by MARK MILLAR
Art by ALUIR AMANCIO, MIKE MANLEY, SEAN PHILLIPS, MIKE WIERINGO, GEORGES JEANTY, JACKSON GUICE and others • Cover by BRIAN STELFREEZE
This collection brings together timeless tales from Superman’s goodbye to Earth to Lois Lane’s personal account of a life forever changed by Superman. And from his Eisner-nominated run on SUPERMAN ADVENTURES come stories that explore the heart of Superman and the root of Lex Luthor’s obsession with him. Plus, a tale of a world in which Detective Harvey Dent goes from man to Superman.
Collects SUPERMAN: TEAM SUPERMAN #1, TANGENT COMICS: THE SUPERMAN #1, SUPERMAN ADVENTURES #19, 25-27, 30, 31, 36, 52 and stories from SUPERMAN 80-PAGE GIANT #2 and DC ONE MILLION 80-PAGE GIANT #1,000,000.
On sale MAY 30 • 280 pg, FC • $29.99 US

So if you only know Mark Millar from his mostly garbage Millarworld comics and his annoying interviews, it may surprise you to learn that he used to write some damn fine comics, and that his Superman comics of the 1990s were some all-time classics, particularly his work on Superman Adventures, the comic based on the Superman: The Animated Series cartoon. Swear to God. I've read all of these save the Tangent Comics special and the short from the 80-page giant (God, I used to love the 80-page giants, though!), and they are all pretty great. I would not be surprised to find that the two I didn't read were pretty good too.

TITANS ANNUAL #2
Written by DAN ABNETT • Art by TOM GRUMMETT • Cover by PAUL PELLETIER and ANDREW HENNESSY
“Titans Apart” finale! Arsenal and Donna discover the truth about the Bliss conspiracy…only they’re too late! With the Justice League off the board and the Titans divided, who will stand against the evil Brain as he attempts to create his new world order—and kill everyone on Earth in the process?
On sale APRIL 25 • 48 pg, FC, $4.99 US • RATED T

Okay, stupid question: Have Monsieur Mallah and/or The Brain appeared in the New 52-iverse yet...? It seems like they would have had to by now--like perhaps in Forever Evil somewhere...?--but I can't remember seeing them anywhere.

#plashtabula

While one can't tell simply by looking at the above image--although the long, flexible neck is certainly a clue--the character riding in the Batmobile passenger seat next to Batman is Plastic Man. In "Double Cross," the twenty-third episode of Justice League Action, Batman has Plas use his shape-changing abilities to disguise himself as Two-Face, in order to draw an assassin away from the real Two-Face and into a Justice League trap.

Thrilled to be working with Batman, Plas delivers the above line, which reveals for the first time that Plastic Man's mom--and therefore perhaps even Plastic Man himself!--is from Ashtabula.

Ashtabula, as you may know, is a city in northeast Ohio on the coast of Lake Erie. It is also my hometown, the place I was born, raised and spent the first, oh, 20-22 years of my life in.

So Jack Cole's Plastic Man, one of my favorite superheroes, is perhaps from Ashtabula, my very own hometown. Is this canon now? Yeah, let's just go ahead and declare this canon now.

Comic Shop Comics: January 17th

Batman #39 (DC Comics) Say, did you guys read and do you remember 2000's Action Comics #761, by writer Joe Kelly? Because Tom King sure did.

In that nicely crafted done-in-one story, Superman and Wonder Woman get whisked off to another dimension where they spend what they think will be all of eternity battling a never-ending horde of monsters. Superman and Wonder Woman are both super-hot, long-time friends who were at one point at least attracted to one another, and are now stuck together forever; Superman, as far as he knows, will never, ever find his way back to his then-wife, Lois Lane. And so Wonder Woman comes on to him on what may be the very last night of their lives, and he turns her down, because a) he's Superman, and b) he loves Lois that much.

Again, a pretty great story. (If you haven't read it, here's a 2005 synopsis from Mr. David Campbell.)

Anyway, in this issue of Batman, Tom King sends Batman and Wonder Woman to another dimension where they spend what they think will be all of eternity battling a never-ending horde of monsters. One night, Wonder Woman comes on to Batman, and the "To Be Continued..." tag appears at the end of the very last panel, just as the two are leaning close to one another and looking at one another's lips.

The story made me uncomfortable, based, in large part, on how it is somewhere between a rip-off and an homage to Kelly's story...although given the fact that said story is so (relatively) old, there's a damn good chance that a large percentage of the people who read this week's issue of Batman won't have read that issue of Action, and so, intentionally or not, this issue's plot is being presented as if it were an original one, rather than a riff (There's not even a "Special Thanks to Joe Kelly" and company in the credits panel.

But since King is writing this story for DC Comics, who also own the Kelly story is referencing, it's all, well, legal and above-board, but it still makes me feel a little icky, you know? It's legal, but is it ethical? Is it cool? Is Kelly cool with it? Does Kelly know? On the other hand, how many times have various DC writers--and now CW TV show producers--referenced the goddam Black Mercy flower from the Alan Moore-scripted 1985 Superman Annual...?

Wonder Woman goes to pick Batman up for a pre-planned stint filling in for "The Gentle Man," a warrior who does endless battle with a horde of monsters representing each of humanity's sins, staving off their invasion of Earth (Why they just don't let the monsters come to Earth and fight them there, where everyone can team up against them together, rather than making one poor sap due all the fighting, I don't know). Time passes differently in that dimension, however, and at the point that they have been there about ten years, they begin to suspect that The Gentle Man is not coming back for them. That's when, after the third or fourth mildly flirtatious thing Wonder Woman says to him, Batman finally leans in for what looks like it could be a kiss. Not as dramatic as the tension in the old Superman story, of course, given that Batman and Catwoman aren't engaged, just dating, and, well, I think it's a pretty safe bet that they're not actually going to marry and, even if they do, it won't last as long as many comic book marriages do.

After taking the last two issues off, Joelle Jones returns as the artist. She does a fine job on all the characters, even when it comes to selling a particular costume Batman wears as either cool or ridiculous, depending on how you want to look at it, which is how everything Batman should look. King gives Wonder Woman a slightly weird syntax, as if English wasn't her first language--and, duh, it wasn't--that sounds kind of off, given how established she should be in Man's World at this point/how she talks in all the other comics she appears in.

Batman remains far better than bad, and this is hardly the worst issue of King's healthy, 40-ish issue run, but this issue has more, well, issues than most.

Bombshells United #10 (DC) Mirka Andolfo and David Hahn illustrate this issue, the next chapter in the Batwoman and Renee Montoya vs. Black Adam storyline. Miri Marvel, who we are apparently calling Shazam for some reason now, is drawn into the conflict this issue and, guys, I could have sworn that when Black Adam first appeared he was a giant who was, like, 12 feet tall or so, but now he seems to be normal-sized again. Was I hallucinating before...?

Justice League #37 (DC) My efforts to catch-up with this book are still a work in progress, but it's on my pull-list now, so I shouldn't miss any more issues, as I did with #36. Apparently what I missed was that a Justice League super-fan has risen to the League's defense, murdering someone while impersonating Batman last issue, and here attempting to kill another critic of the League while dressed as Green Lantern Hal Jordan, who he thinks is the best Green Lantern (Characters repeatedly refer to him as a or the fan, and writer Christopher Priest is literally making the character reflective of an old sub-group of fans, specifically the ones who freaked out about Hal Jordan's heel turn in the 1990s).

It works in the context of the issue, but I remain a pretty poor judge of Christopher Priest's run on the book so far, given how fractured my reading of it has been. Pete Woods is MIA, replaced by Phillipe Briones. There's a flashback sequence, apparently showing the fan when he was a little boy, and it's got the League's costumes all wrong: Batman, Superman and Wonder Woman are all wearing their current costumes rather than their first New 52 ones, and they are fighting alongside Martian Manhunter who...well, I never quite figured out at what point J'onn was with this League, other than "briefly" and somewhere between the first New 52 Justice League arc and the second one.

Also, I think that's supposed to be a cigarette in the character's mouth when he was a little kid--again, not sure if that works with DC's current nobody-is-paying-attention 6-9 year timeline--but if so, it is the tiniest, weirdest-looking cigarette I've ever seen.

Those little things aside, Briones' work is pretty okay, but it's a jarring change from that of Pete Woods, and an unfortunate one to make mid-arc like this. That's the downside of the accelerated publishing schedule (well, one of them). Artists have to change frequently, and if the stories aren't planned out all that well, it means they change

The cover, by the way, has absolutely nothing to do with the interior, so I'm curious why it ran this issue, and if it was meant to run with the previous one, or perhaps the next one...

Nightwing #7 (DC) Remember what I saying about artists in reference to Justice League? Well, this issue of Nightwing also employs a guest-artist, and does so effectively. The majority of the issue is set in the past, in the earliest days of Dick Grayson's career as Robin. So while one artist draws the framing sequence, the entire flashback is drawn by Klaus Janson. Yes, it is a sharp change in style, but that change falls right where such a change is natural, even expected.

If you recall where we left off, Grayson is trying to stop a villain with some sort of weird mind-control powers known as the The Judge, and he's been telling us that he's failed to stop him twice before. In this issue, we see his first failure to stop him, alongside Batman and a rather unexpected Bludhaven vigilante with a name like a roller derby player.

Star Wars Adventures #6 (IDW Pubishing) The latest issue of IDW's all-ages Star Wars comic features everyone's favorite breakout star from the latest Star War, adorable Resistance mechanic and Force Awakens super-fan Rose Tico. Writer Deliliah S. Dawson and artist Derek Charm (whom I am an even greater fan of than I am of Rose or Kelly Marie Tran) craft a 14-page short story in which the Resistance has just moved into a new ship, and the mechanics are all still trying to get to know it via various methods. To the befuddlement of some, Rose's preferred method is reading. Naturally, when there's a malfunction that puts dashing, handsome pilot Poe Dameron in mortal danger, Rose is the only one who has the requisite knowledge to save the day.

As is so often the case with the films' "Expanded Universe" outtings, the story has the contrary effect of making the film's universe seem smaller as it tries wring new content out of it, so that rather than just being a semi-anonymous mechanic whose sister died in a battle at the beginning of Last Jedi (in service of a questionable plan launched by, um, Poe), here Rose rubs shoulders with Poe and Princess General Leia and her sister Paige even makes a brief appearance.

Still, it's a well-made short story revolving around the most recent film's non-porg breakout star character, and Charm does a pretty great job of capturing the core physical and emotional traits of both Rose and Poe.

Because that's too short a comic story to fill 20-pages and thus ask $3.99 for, there's the usual back-up feature: "Tales From Wild Space," this time young Anakin Skywalker from his Jake Lloyd days is the star. Though it's a six-page feature, two of those are devoted to a framing sequence, leaving writer Shaun Manning and artist Chad Thomas just four pages to devote to a story of Ani doing the right thing...a habit he will grow out of pretty quickly. The crew in the framing sequence are, by necessity, kind of tiresome, but the feature is redeemed by Thomas' drawings of super-cute slave child Anakin. I much prefer drawings of Baby Darth Vader to seeing him played by a child actor in live-action, I think.

Oh, and on the subject of Star Wars, I had Star Wars: Force of Destiny--Hera on my shopping list when I went into the shop today, but they were all sold out. Again, I was more interested in a creator than the title character--long-time Batman writer Devin K. Grayson was scripting that one-shot. I just mention that here in the off-chance that anyone from IDW or in a position of hiring creators at any other publishers are reading: You should totally offer Grayson well-paying gigs, because I will totally buy comics that she writes. That's at least one (1) guaranteed sale!

Rose and Paige will appear in the final of the five Forces of Destiny one-shots...I hope my shop doesn't sell out of that one before I get there...