Afterbirth: DC's "Rebirth" initiative, week 16

Okay, so here's a question that didn't occur to me until literally five minutes ago: Is Gotham Academy: Second Semester, the only new DC comic to launch this week that wasn't on the new Young Animal imprint, part of the "Rebirth" initiative or not?

I had been operating under the belief that it was, seeing as how it was a shared-universe, DCU book that was canceled around the time as all of the other such books, and being relaunched with a new #1 during the roll-out of all the other "Rebirth" titles, even if it was near the end of that roll-out (I believe there are just two more books yet to debut, Teen Titans and Trinity).

But when I sat down to write about Gotham Academy: Second Semester #1, I see that it lacks the "Rebirth" branding along the top that all of the other "Rebirth" books have:

Which reminds me that when DC first announced the line-up of Rebirth books, Gotham Academy didn't appear on that list, which lead to fans wondering for a few days if it was being canceled and staying canceled, rather than being canceled just to be relaunched.

I can't imagine why it wouldn't be considered part of "Rebirth," as it's a non-imprint, DCU title set in the shared-universe (unlike, say, DC Comics Bombshells or The Legend of Wonder Woman or Scooby-Doo Team-Up or Scooby Apoaclypse), but there is clearly now "Rebirth" logo atop the first issue.

As a relatively poorer-selling DCU comic that is nevertheless high-quality and all-ages in address, it's the sort of book that DC should be publishing and continue to publish as long as they can, and one that could probably use any sales boost it can get. Which, I suppose begs a question for the retailers in the reading audience--Does the "Rebirth" banner across the top help sell more books if all other factors are even?

Like, would Gotham Academy: Second Semester #1 see a sales increase based solely on the "Rebirth" logo? Little else here in direction or creative team has changed, so it's difficult to even find another comic in the exact same place as Gotham Academy. Given how relatively deep a corner of the Bat-Family books Gotham Academy occupies, I suppose it's theoretically possible that the "Rebirth" logo might have hurt it, as a long-time reader who only reads that book from DC's line might be intimidated, thinking it's part of a bigger crossover?

I have no idea. I'm just wondering aloud, basically.

Given that I'm not sure, I suppose I won't offer a review here...especially since I just reviewed it as part of this week's "Comic Shop Comics" the other day.

I will recommend it, though, and Gotham Academy in general. The series centers on an unofficial Detective Club as a prestigious, Gotham City boarding school, the members of which are constantly finding themselves engaged in the weird goings-on there, and at the weird city in general.

It's not really a Bat-Family title, despite its participation in the fringes of certain events, having published an "Endgame" tie-in one-shot and participated in "Robin War." Bruce Wayne gets mentioned and occasionally appears, and Robin Damian Wayne has appeared more frequently, striking up a friendship of sorts with Maps, the weirdest and quirkiest and most mystery-obsessed member of Detective Club. And the faculty of the school seems to consist of one Professor MacPherson and a bunch of Batman villains, ranging from Dr. Langstrom (Man-Bat, natch) to Mister Scarlet (Batman '66's Bookworm).

I like it a lot. I will note that it reads better in trade than in single issues, though.

Comic Shop Comics: September 14

All-Star Batman #2 (DC Comics) Writer Scott Snyder's collaboration with the great John Romita Jr continues to be an absolute blast, with the pair conceiving of these earliest issues as if they were a little paper action movie, complete with set-pieces and dumb/clever quips from the action hero. There's a plot, but it isn't foregrounded, and is still in the process of unfolding anyway, so the emphasis goes instead to the premise: Batman trying to transport Two-Face 500 miles with apparently every villain John Romita Jr. feels like drawing appearing to stop Batman and collect on an astronomical bounty.

Last issue we saw heavily visually re-vamped versions of Firefly, Killer Moth, Black Spider and a de-re-vamped Gentleman Ghost (the latter of whom Batman apparently dispatched between issues). Here we see Cheshire, Copperhead (not that one, a different one), Killer Croc, King Shark, Amygdala (who I was, oddly enough, just talking about) and The KGBeast, who unlike the others we've seen so far is being set up as a bigger threat; his introduction, in which three name Gotham City villains hire him, takes longer than some of the fight scenes (Still other villains get name-checked, like Orca, who would have fit in quite nicely in the group participating in the train-top fight scene).

Snyder simply machine-gunning all these characters at the reader works in large part because they amount to little more than cameos of varying length; in most cases, all that really matters is that they are colorful opponents. And that, of course, works on two levels. Longtime fans who know/care about Amygdala, KGBeast and Orca get the delight of seeing those essentially trivial characters, or at least having them acknowledged, while newer readers get to meet them for the first time.

And each of them looks great. It's hard to imagine an artist redesigning such a large chunk of Batman's rogues gallery (and the wider DCU supervillain community) and having it work as well as JRJR manages. Some characters look about as one might expect; Croc, for example, looks as he has since Flashpoint, just bigger, pointier and more threatening. Others, like King Shark, are completely different than last time we saw them, but they are generally all being redesigned in a way that looks appropriate to their starting points (for example, there are no horrible aesthetic misfires akin to the redesign of Gentleman Ghost, who appeared in his previous form here). The Beast, for example, looks less 1980s, but keeps the same basic costume motif.

I can't quite get over the King Shark design, which is so different from his three previous incarnations (Superboy, Aquaman: Sword of Atlantis and The New 52). It may be an entirely new character, I don't know; it's only vaguely shark-like, but the panels he appears in, lumbering next to Croc and Amygdala, are so effective. They look like kaiju stomping toward Batman.

Those are a whole bunch of words, but to simply repeat what I tweeted as I first read the book earlier, Scott Snyder and John Romita Jr.'s All-Star Batman has been completely bonkers, in the very best sense of that word.

How bonkers? Well, I'm very glad you asked that question!

This immediately reminded me of that time Batman shot his own ears into a foe's face, revealing that they are projectile weapons. I love the fact that Snyder found a second way in which to weaponize Batman's ears.

Because that means Batman has more than one cowl in which the ears are weaponized. When he's getting dressed for the night, Batman has to therefore decide if he wants to wear a standard cowl with normal ears, or if he's likely to be in a situation where he might need to hit someone with sharp projectiles but he won't be able to throw because his arms are pinned, or if he's more likely to be in a situation where he needs to stab someone, and therefore needs to wear the cowl with the ears that are also knives.

So as not to gush overmuch, I suppose I should point out a continuity error:

That is in line with Croc's original origin (I just read and am working on a post about Batman Arkham: Killer Croc, so Croc continuity is particularly fresh in my mind at the moment), but The New 52 Killer Croc was actually from Gotham City, originally.

(Also, Croc going after Batman for a bounty here is pretty out-of-line with what we've seen from him in the Snyder co-written Batman Eternal lately, and certainly doesn't jibe with Suicide Squad, where he is currently incarcerated in Belle Reeve when not being sent out on suicide missions.)

(Also also, Batman sure uses some potentially deadly force to remove Croc from the battle in this issue.)

I was less enthusiastic with the back-up, drawn by Declan Shalvey and featuring Duke Thomas as the star. It occurred to me while reading this particular issue that Snyder seems to have transferred chunks of Tim Drake's origin to Duke's, and, in fact, the character's are written more or less identically. The villain is Mr. Zsasz, and while Snyder does seem to have at least re-read "The Last Arkham" before proceeding (he would have almost had to, in order to remember Amygdala), both Zsasz's physical appearance and competency seem...off. This isn't a complaint unique to Snyder and, of course, but it always kind of irritates me that someone meant as a one-off character like that keeps getting trotted out over and over, despite the fact that nobody has much of anything to say or do with him. In fact, I don't think he's ever had any further or deeper characterization than what co-creator Alan Grant came up with for him in "The Last Arkham."

DC Comics Bombshells #17 (DC) By spreading out the countries of origin of the dozens of American DC superheroes, writer Marguerite Bennett occasionally manages to really surprise with the reveal of a new DCU character in the Bombshells-iverse in a way that would be easy to see coming if the character were American and had their traditional American name.

Like, for example, when Batwoman Kate Kane spends a few pages talking with the little Jewish girl in a red dress named Miriam in a German ghetto the night before she and the other Bombshells plan to lead an uprising, I never expected that girl to turn out to be "Miri Marvel." Her patrons, Jewish heroines, are detailed in the above splash page. It probably wouldn't work in the DCU, as those patrons don't exactly offer the formal suite of typical Marvel Family powers like flight and super-strength and invulnerability, but they always did play kind of fast and loose with which god or "god" offered which power. It was generally just an exercise in matching mythological characters to fit the pre-existing acronym of "Shazam."

And I suppose Mary, er, Miri only demonstrates that she can fly and has magical abilities, so I suppose it works just fine. Plus, you know, anything basically goes in this extended Elseworlds/"Imaginary Story" narrative.

I really liked the sequence, as well as the surprise of it (which I may have just ruined for some of you) and the simple presence of a member of the Marvel Family, a group of characters I love and DC can't seem to find a good showcase for.

As always, Bombshells remains wonderfully drawn.

Gotham Academy: Second Semester #1 (DC) Gotham Academy is back, and with more byzantine art credits than ever! Brenden Fletcher, Karl Kerschl and Becky Cloonan all share a story credit, while only the first two get credited for the script. As for the art, Adam archer pencils, Sandra Hope inks, Chris Sotomayor and Serge Lapointe color, a "Msassyk" gets credited with "background painting" and Rob Haynes gets "breakdowns" credit. So...rather than the typical two or three artists, I guess each page passed through the hands of five different artists...?

It looks great, and I do generally like the Gotham Academy aesthetic, which can call to mind that of animation cels, but holy moley it seems pretty labor intensive, and I wonder if the book might not read just as well with a single talented cartoonist or more traditional art team.

In this issue, Fletcher and company seem to be easing us back into the world of Gotham Academy, and providing an easy entrance for new readers (so, you know, good jumping on point, guys and gals). Olive Silverlock is spending the holidays pretty much alone at the more-or-less closed down campus, with only Professor MacPherson there to occasionally keep her company.

That is, until, a new transfer student–a bad girl–shows up as her new roommate, and immediately begins being a bad influence on Olive. She entices her to break into one of campus' many weird buildings, and there they encounter the boy version of Maps, who has made some notes and maps about a new mystery that will no doubt play a big role in the story that follows.

The rest of Detective Club doesn't assemble to the very last page.

With the hiatus and the fun but time-killing "Yearbook" storyline over, it's good to resume a Gotham Academy story proper.

Lumberjanes/Gotham Academy #4 (Boom Studios) Well, writer Chynna Clugston Flores has certainly honored one aspect of the Lumberjanes side of this crossover: This story arc seems to be going on an issue or two longer than its story offers support for. We're just about at the turning point here, where the kids all figure out a potential way out of their predicament, only to have it fall apart on the last page, meaning we've got two more issues of climax to go.

Like your typical Lumberjanes arc, it's not tedious or anything, it's just notably shaggy and loose. It's not a problem because the characters are generally fun to hang out with, and Rosemary Valero-O'Connell and Maddi Gonzalez's art is fun to live in, but this is really a book that really just hangs out more than moves.

SpongeBob Comics #60 (United Plankton Pictures) I've been thinking about Chuck Dixon a lot lately. It can be hard not to, if you read many DC Comics from the '90s, and I've been reading DC's collections of Birds of Prey, Robin, their Dark Horse crossovers and some Elseworlds collections, so, thanks to DC's current slate of reprints, I'm probably reading as much Chuck Dixon as I ever have. Additionally, some of his creations and characters he is closely associated with have returned to the Bat-books in relatively big ways of late.

It can be surprising to see his name show up in the credits of a SpongeBob comic then, in part because it's so far removed from what he's best known for, and he's so far removed from the rather eclectic line-up of other SpongeBob contributors (In this issue, that includes James Kochalka, Maris Wicks, David DeGrand and Charles Brubaker...not exactly folks I would think to seat at the same table at Dixon if I were planning a wedding to which Every Comic Book Professional Ever were invited).

I just wonder why he's contributing short gag comics here instead of working on any of those characters the spent so much time on at DC, a publisher which sometimes seems like it could use more writers of Dixon's skill and experience, as while I'm sure this is a rewarding enough gig, it doesn't carry quite the same prestige as a Batman comic in certain circles (nor, I imagine, royalties).

And then the other day one of the comics sites linked to another comics site that linked to an interview about diversity in comics that Dixon gave to Breitbart, and I found myself wondering why, conservative in his politics or not, Dixon might be talking to such an odious media institution about anything. And then just now, when I went to look at that interview and see if it was worth linking to or not, I see that Dixon adapted Peter Schweizer's Clinton Cash into a graphic novel. It was previously adapted into a film which was funded by Breitbart News executive chairman and current Trump campaign CEO Steve Bannon, who, if you've read the work of or read much of anything about, you know is one of those deplorables in Hilary's first basket.

And man, Breitbart, Bannon, Trump, the alt-right and conspiracy theories about the goddam Clintons aren't really the sort of thing I want to be swirling around in the back of my head while reading funny comics about an anthropomorphic sponge.

Suicide Squad #2 (DC) Trust me, I'm as surprised as you.

Rob Williams' Suicide Squad is still divided into two smaller chunks, a 13-page story featuring the title characters that is apparently of a size pencil artist/co-publisher Jim Lee can fit into his schedule and an eight-page back-up story spotlighting the origins of one of the Squad's members.

The first half features the team from the movie attempting to break into a highly-fortified base, which includes killing many of the people within, rescuing a character who is apparently going to join the team (Harley Quinn super-fan Hack) and finding a mysterious object containing a Superman-level threat that the Squad certainly can't survive on their own (Well, unless June Moon becomes Enchantress).

On the third-to-last page, one of the Suicide Squad members appears to die, getting disintegrated from the boots up in a blast of super-powerful heat. I just sort of assumed he wasn't really dead, because A) He's one of the two members you've gotta have on your Suicide Squad book, B) They had killed him off previously and spent a lot of rigamarole bringing him back (before rebooting the universe anyway) and C) His death looked an awful lot like someone else's death this week, and that death was immediately revealed to be a fake-out (also, the two characters had an unusual connection, from one of the worst-written and better-drawn event series in DC history).

The short page-count must help focus Williams' scripting, because this is pretty much just all action and quips. There are a few particularly good Captain Boomerang moments, as he "boomerangs" something that is not at all a boomerang in an action scene and, in one panel, Harley admonishes him, "You're good at boomerangs. WE GET IT."

Jim Lee's pencil work, here inked by his frequent collaborator Scott Williams, is both one of this iteration of Suicide Squad's stronger selling points, and one of it's weaker points. Yes, this by far the best looking Suicide Squad book DC has attempted since the relaunch (and remember, this is their third try), and Lee's work is perfectly easy to read in a way so many other issues of the previous two attempts and so many DC Comics of the last five years haven't been.

That said, it could and should be better, but hell, how does an editor tell his boss, the company co-publisher and still one of the most popular artists in comics, to redraw some panels or pages? He has a weird habit of making Harley look grim and determined all the time, so that she never smiles when she's cracking a joke, nor does she ever look slightly crazy. That image of her on the cover? That's about as close to happy–psychotically or otherwise–she ever looks in the book. She doesn't look much like the Harley of Harley Quinn, nor Margot Robbie's of the Suicide Squad Film (who inspired her new hairstyle), nor even the Harley in DC Comics Bombshells, while we're at it.

She quips in Williams' script, but she does so with a humorlessness and lack of enthusiasm in her delivery that makes me think of Bruce Willis or Arnold Schwarzenegger deadpanning "lines" in movies.

And then there's this bizarre sequence:

I had to take a picture of it rather than scan it, because my scanner is not that big. It's a hallway fight with a fixed point-of-view, showing Harley and Katana killing their way through a crowd of shoulders at lightning fast pace, while Captain Boomerang's boomerang sails over their hands, taking out just the one, last guy. Lee draws it well, and it's a cool action scene that shows off the various characters' abilities while also including a bit of a dark joke in the contrast in the efficacy of their fighting styles.

But, for the life of me, I can't figure out why Lee resorted to this sort of lay-out. The five thin, horizontal, fixed-perspective panels would quite easily have fit on the same page, making for a faster, smoother, more focused read–not to mention a hell of a single page.

Instead, Lee splits the repeating perspective panels into two different pages, so the gutter between them breaks the flow, and starts everything off with a too-big panel of Harley and Katana pose-fighting, and then ends the spread with two panels the same size as the hallway fight ones, but with wildly shifting-perspectives.

It's just a weird thing, where you see a better lay-out right there, screaming at you, while the artist took another direction. Or maybe I'm just assuming it was Lee; it's possible that Williams wrote it that way, and co-publisher Lee didn't ask if he can do it better, but just drew it as written because deadline loomed. I don't know.

That's followed by "Boomerang, Agent of Oz" written by WIlliams and drawn by pencil artist Ivan Reis and inker Oclair Albert. It's amazing, and one for the Greatest Captain Boomerang Stories Ever Told, if such a book ever sees print (It won't).

In it, Amanda Waller interviews the incarcerated Captain Boomerang, trying to get him to review his Geoff Johns-written origin, but he tells his own version, which is essentially just a James Bond pastiche in which Captain Boomerang is the 007 of Australia. It's as awesome as it sounds, if not more so, and it includes a scene in which Boomerang "boomerangs" something else that's not a boomerang. I love the fact that Williams names the villain Drop Bear, but doesn't explain what the fuck a drop bear is. Um, do you guys know what drop bears are...? I only do because I talked to a girl who went to Australia at a party like five years ago.

Anyway, this is a surprisingly good book, one that's so good one wonders why it took DC like five years to get the concept to work at all (did they really just need to see the trailers for the movie to inspire them?), but it's not perfect, and, because it is so good, those particular imperfections can seem glaring.

Finally, this has nothing to do with this particular comic, but it just occurred to me. For the life of me, I couldn't understand how Katana ended up on the roster for the team that appeared in the film Suicide Squad, but as I was reading Suicide Squad Vol. 4: The Janus Directive (which is great and you should totally read; I forgot how awesome 1980s Peacemaker was), it occurred to me that she basically fills Bronze Tiger's role as the martial artist and more-or-less token "good guy" on the team.

Her inclusion on the the squad in the film probably makes the prospects of a Batman and The Outsiders film that much less likely at this point, huh?

Wonder Woman #6 (DC) Nicola Scott returns for the third chapter of Greg Rucka's version of Wonder Woman's origin, which here devotes about 20 pages to covering what Grant Morrison and Yannick Paquette handled in about a half-dozen in Wonder Woman: Earth One. Wonder Woman arrives in man's world, a fish out of water who can't understand anyone's language, and only knows the word "Steve," and she is immediately taken into custody by the Navy, and just rather patiently endures captivity. She meets Etta Candy for the first time, but this is basically just the same dull version of Etta that George Perez introduced, with a few changes (now she's black, and apparently has a higher rank than Steve). She also meets future Cheetah Barbara Minerva, who is presented here as a sort of Indiana Jones figure.

It's fine, but nothing special, and certainly a disappointment compared to the other Wonder Woman origins we've seen recently. It's kind of too bad that the dullest of the three is the one that is meant to be canonical.

And it still strikes me as weird how prominent Steve Trevor is in Wonder Woman's origin story. Rather than an inciting incident, he is essentially a co-star, and this issue he gets more panel time and more lines than Diana. I know he is (and should be) a big part of Wonder Woman's story, as Lois Lane is and should be in Superman's story, but rather than serving as a point-of-view character in Wonder Woman's story, he seems to edge her out sometimes. That may be more noticeable in this issue, which focuses on her introduction to his world, though. I suppose we'll see.

I like it enough to keep it on my pull-list indefinitely, but like Rucka's last run on the character, individual issues just strike me as decent and diverting enough to keep reading, but nothing to get excited about.

Four noteworthy images from Superman #6 (three of which feature his dog)

Given that Superman and Action Comics share the same editor in Eddie Berganza, it's not a coincidence that both titles began their new, "Rebirth" era runs by telling pretty much the exact same stories. In the pages of Superman, Superman has been battling against a threat made popular during the "Death of Superman" era of the franchise that is bound and determined to do harm to his wife Lois and son Jonathan. In the pages of Action, Superman has been battling against a threat made popular during the "Death of Superman" era of the franchise that is bound and determined to do harm to his wife Lois and son Jonathan. In the former, it's The Eradicator, in the latter, it's Doomsday.

It's not a coincidence, but it is a decision I can't really understand.

Of the two books, Superman has told that story in a far better fashion, and it helps that creators Peter Tomasi and Patrick Gleason have determined goals they accomplish in their too-long, six-issue arc. That is, they want to demonstrate that through his feats here, the new (old) Superman has convinced the public that he is indeed the "real" Superman, and, further, to introduce Jonathan as the new Superboy. (In Action, meanwhile, writer Dan Jurgens has been teasing a mystery, as both the new/old Superman and a Clark Kent are present in the same place at the same time throughout much of the story, and the Mr. Oz character lurks in the background, talking cryptically to himself).

The art in Superman is just really, really good too. That in the sixth issue comes courtesy of pencil artist Patrick Gleason, inker Mick Gray and colorist John Kalisz. I thought there were four extremely striking images in the book.

First, there's this bit of body horror. The deal with this version of The Eradicator is that he has sucked in the souls of all the dead Kryptonians, and now wants to "eradicate" Jonathan, whose Kryptonian DNA is tainted by Lois Lane's contribution to his genetic make-up. Superman wants to stop him from eradicating his son. So they've been fighting for like 100 pages or so.

At various points, Superman is able to convince the Kryptonian ghosts to stop power-ing up The Eradicator and help him and, as their fight reaches it's climax, Superman opens The Eradicator's mouth and shouts into it, calling for his dog. In the next panel, Krypto starts to emerge...as a giant fucking st of canine mouth pushing up through The Eradicator's S-shield.

I don't mind telling you I found this image to be deeply terrifying, as well as just plain weird (Why didn't Krypto just come out of his mouth? Burst through his chest? Why is his gaping maw so gigantic as he tries to push his way out? Why does it look more like The Eradicator's chest is turning into Krypto's snout and mouth than that the super-dog is trying to force his way out?)

Then there's this rather delightful image. Superman encourages to Krypto to bite down on his arm through the stretched skin of The Eradicator, and then just pulls him through. I've stared at this panel for long minutes on several different occasions, and there's no way around it: Gleason drew Krypto upside down, as a comparison to the position of his jaws on the previous page makes clear.

No matter. I love the fact that Krypto is upside down here. It's every bit as weird as the previous image, but not as scary. I just imagine Krypto rotating around Superman's forearm there.

After man and dog team up to finish The Eradicator, Superman takes his fallen foes cape and ties it around his dog. Huzzah, a more "classic" conception of Krypto has returned to the DC Universe, after the saber-toothed dire wolf version seen early in the New 52.

Finally, there's this perfect ending splash page, in which Superman introduces his son to the other two points of the trinity.

I love this page so much. The expressions on all four characters' faces are all perfect and, at least in the case of the three I know best, perfectly suited to what one might expect their faces to look like in that situation.

If you read just one six-issue story arc about Superman battling against a threat made popular during the "Death of Superman" era of the franchise that is bound and determined to do harm to his wife Lois and son Jonathan this year, I'd recommend you make it the first six issues of Superman.

Afterbirth: DC's "Rebirth" initiative, week 15

Cyborg: Rebirth #1 by John Semper Jr., Paul Pelletier, Sandra Hope, Tony Kordos and Guy Major

Like most of the (in-story) third generation of DC superheroes, Marv Wolfman and George Perez's character Cyborg suffered from the 2011 continuity-scrambling Flashpoint/New 52 initiative, but he did so in a rather unique way. He survived the purge that affected much of that generation of heroes, and while his history (i.e. that which made him him) was completely erased, he was promoted (or re-promoted, I guess) from a Titan/Teen Titan to a member of the Justice League in the new continuity.

And so he ascended to number seven in the overall ranking of all DC superheroes (above Martian Manhunter, who traditionally held that spot for decades), but he was now a blank slate, nothing more than a name and set of kind of generic computer-related powers. For much of the last five years in the pages of Justice League, Cyborg was little more than a receptionist and transportation system for the other six Leaguers.

DC awarded him his own ongoing monthly series–his first since his 1980 creation–in 2015, and it lasted the same 12-ish issues as the other series DC launched around that time, just enough to fill two trades. Did it get canceled due to poor sales, or simply because DC canceled everything around that time, in order to relaunch many of the books as part of the "Rebirth" initiative...?

I don't know, but I would imagine from the fact that Cyborg is one of the latest of the "Rebirth" relaunches, followed only by low-selling (but good!) Gotham Academy, that it was a combination of the two.

Cyborg 2.0 has an entirely new creative team, in writer John Semper Jr. (David F. Walker wrote the majority fo the previous volume, followed briefly by Wolfman) and pencil artist Paul Pelletier, here inked by Sandra Hope and Tony Kordos. I would like to say they have an entirely new story to tell, but they don't seem to have anything to say about the new, New 52 version of the character that hasn't already been said in the previous volume, Justice League and related comics.

An unseen narrator, who isn't revealed until the surprise ending, tells Cyborg Victor Stone's origin story, starting with the meeting of his parents and ending in his joining of the Justice League, while the superhero battles against a big, monstrous artificially intelligent threat with self-repair powers and its own dialogue bubble style. The bad guy, named "Malware" (If I were texting you this review, I would hear include the eye-roll emoji), is trying to get to and through the Red Room in S.T.A.R. Labs, which is either where the little, backwards talking, funny-dancing guy from Twin Peaks hangs out or where Doctor Silas Stone and Doctor T.O. Morrow keep all the alien technology, I forget which.

Then he reaches a secret room, where Stone keeps a secret about his son's recreation as a cyborg. Are you ready for the big revelation? Get this. What if Cyborg, being mostly mechanical, doesn't have a soul? What if he is more machine than man? What if–hey, did you pass out? Wake up, wake up! Yes, I know this is like, Robot Guy Plot 101, and DC and Marvel have been writing various versions about this since before Cyborg was even created, and yeah, you can probably think of a dozen different manga and anime series with the same conflict, and while I don't read prose science fiction because of all the words, something tells me someone or eighty authors have covered that ground pretty thoroughly as well, but, well, that's what they're going with here, I guess. Maybe the series will last 12 issues...?

(Why is it only androids and cyborgs who worry about that stuff, by the way? In real life, don't we all wonder if we have souls or not? Why isn't there a Batman series premised on his philosophical questions?)

The one aspect of the book I did find interesting was the second-to-last page,where we see the surprise-ish bad guy looking at a huge bank of monitors on which we sell a whole mess of various robot and cyborg characters from throughout the current DCU–The Metal Men, OMAC, Robotman, Red Tornado, The Brain, Cyborg Superman,  Steel (for some reason), some characters I don't recognize–and intimates that they are all part of some bigger plan.

The artwork is fine. I've always like Pelletier's pencil work, which is well-suited to classic super-heroics, but here he's inked in such a way that it all looks a little too New 52 to me. It's the same visual white noise that makes so many of the DC comics of this area (although they are steadily improving!) boring to look at, which is something a superhero comic book should never be.

I'll read the first issue of the series proper, for the purposes of this feature on my blog, but I'm not looking forward to it, and can't imagine I'll be reading #2. (Well, maybe I'll play "The Night Begins To Shine" on repeat while I read the Cyborg #1. Perhaps that will improve it. It certainly can't hurt it!)

...

You know, while I'm on the subject of a Wolfman/Perez-era Titans creation, it may be worth considering how DC has made use of that group of characters since their reboot. While DC kept Cyborg's basic origin–suffering what should have been a fatal accident, Victor Stone's super-scientist father saves him with robot parts-–itt was now attached to Jack Kirby's Fourth World characters, and occurred in the pages of Justice League, where he was the team's sole teenage member.

Starfire hung out with Robin II-turned-The Red Hood Jason Todd and Arsenal Roy Harper in the pages of Red Hood and The Outlaws, briefly earned her own ongoing series and is now poised to join the next iteration of the Teen Titans, as its sole adult member (the membership of this line-up will reflect that of the recent Justice League Vs. Teen Titans movie, and Geoff Johns' basic conception of a post-Young Justice Teen Titans series in which Starfire, Cyborg and Beast Boy served as mentors to the fourth generation of heroes.)

And Beast Boy and Raven? They're a good five years younger than their two former peers, and have been appearing in the pages of Teen Titans, where they have been peers of characters who used to be among the fourth generation of DC's heroes, like (Red) Robin Tim Drake and Wonder Girl Cassandra Sandsmark.

None of the four are involved in the new Titans series, which features the grown-up sidekicks who were the original Teen Titans which...I actually can't make sense of following Flashpoint/The New 52/Convergence/DC Universe: Rebirth. From what I've read of it so far, it seems to me a more appropriate title might be Nightwing and The Donna Troys.

...

Oh! One more thing, and then I'll move on, I swear. The narrator is extremely specific about how long Cyborg has been Cyborg in this comic, even counting the seconds. But the years he places at five, and then a few months, suggesting only five years and a few months have passed since Justice League #1-6. That's fine...except time seems to move faster in Gotham City than anywhere else in the world. At least twice Scott Snyder's scripts have suggested a year has passed (between The Joker having his face flayed off and "Death of The Family," and then again between "Death of The Family" and "Endgame"). And, of course, in DC Universe: Rebirth we saw 10-year-old Damian Wayne blow out the candles on his birthday cake which indicated he was now 13.

So a few months in Detroit is three years in Gotham City, I guess...? Man, Alan Moore and Doctor Manhattan must have really did a number on the DC Universe!

Supergirl #1 by Steve Orlando, Brian Chin and Michael Atiyeh

It may be in large part because the Rebirth special braced me for the many ways in which the new Supergirl series will cover very similar territory to the television series, but do so by veering in different directions, but I found this issue a lot easier to parse. And a large part of that is also definitely the art by Brian Chin, which features more distinct character designs, so that for example, the four blonde women all look like different people.

Writer Steve Orlando attempts an All-Star Superman homage on the first page, attempting to boil Supergirl's origin down to just four panels and short phrases just as Grant Morrison and Frank Quitely managed to do with Superman's origin in their book, but it doesn't really work here. That's partly because Superman's origin, for all the tinkering it's gone through over 75+ years, has had enough commonality in all of those versions that Morrison and Quitely could pick the phrases and images that repeated in all of them. No such luck with Supergirl, whose origin changes so greatly from version to version, and even having read the Rebirth special, I'm still not entirely sure of the specifics as presented here (I think Supergirl is from Argo City, a floating city in a forcefield above Krypton, that was destroyed along with Krypton...?).

It's rather unfortunate, because the homage attempt is so obvious, the fact that it doesn't quite land is sort of embarrassing to watch, like a basketball player on a fast break going for a three-pointer and getting an air ball, rather than going for the easy lay-up (Sports metaphor!).

Things improve on pages two and three, and remain strong after that. While a relatively large part of the Rebirth special was devoted to info-dumping, here Orlando re-states the new book's premise by showing rather than telling: Because adolescent Supergirl didn't grow up an Earthling the way her cousin Superman did, the government doesn't trust her as much. So Department of Extranormal Operations head Cameron Chase has made a deal with S-girl. In exchange for restoring her lost super-powers, they've assigned her foster parents who are DEO agents and the secret identity of Kara Danvers, via which she will attend high school in National City and continue to acclimate to Earth. As in the TV show, Supergirl and the DEO will work together to fight super-threats (I hope Orlando's DEO better-resembles the version from D. Curtis Johnson's Chase, John Ostrander's Martian Manhunter and other comics of that era, rather than the version on the TV show, which consists of a base with four rooms and like a dozen not particularly bright agents in matching black uniforms.)

This issue is mostly devoted to demonstrating Kara's difficulties in acclimating to her new world, as Orlando and Ching continually flip-flop back and forth between daily life on Krypton to that on Earth. In this issue we also meet Cat Grant, who appears to be characterized more closely to how she is on the TV show than how she has been previously in the comics (that is, she scans here more like a particularly bitchy Lois Lane than anything else). We also meet a new supporting character (the guy in the glasses in the lower left-hand corner). And Kara comes face-to-face with the same villain introduced in the epilogue of the special, The New 52 Cyborg Superman, who is apparently her father and whom I know absolutely nothing about (I think his presence here is particularly wonky, though, given that the television show has used "Hank Henshaw," the secret identity of the original, pre-Flashpoint/New 52 Cyborg Superman as the director of the D.E.O. who never, ever turns into a cyborg of any kind).

I liked this a lot better than the special, as I've already mentioned, and actually think it makes for a better starting point, particularly since it also demonstrates the visual style of the series (the special was drawn by several different artists, none of whom were Ching). I think it will take a few issues before we can really get a sense of how good it may or may not be, and if DC has finally gotten around to giving fans of the show a solid, in-universe comic to enjoy, but so far so good.

Comic Shop Comics: September 7

Jughead #9 (Archie Comics) First, let me just note that this review will contain a spoiler which may or may not ruin your experience of reading this comic, so, if you have not yet read it and think that the surprise ending will impact your enjoyment of the comic, then maybe don't read any farther than this particular paragraph. For those of you about to leave, just allow me to say that this particular issue is excellent, and even if you're not a huge fan of Jughead and/or Archie Comics in general but are at least somewhat interested in what the publisher has been doing lately and were wondering a good place to check out one of their "New Look" Archie books, than I would recommend this one, which starts a new run by a new writer (Note that while the upper left-hand corner of the cover has a little "#9" on it, the upper right-hand corner reads "(It's kinda like a) BRAND NEW #1 except it's issue #9."

The first eight (excellent) issues of the series were written by Chip Zdarsky, and he is gone now, but he's been replaced by Ryan North, of Dinosaur Comics, Adventure Time, Midas Flesh* and Unbeatable Squirrel Girl Fame (North also brings the "alt-text" style gags to the bottom of the pages, noting that it gives us "extra jokes...FOR THE SAME LOW< LOW PRICE!!" and that, of course, "Chip was RIPPING YOU OFF.". If you're teen comedy comic must lose the writer of Marvel's current, excellent Howard The Duck, who better to replace him with than the writer of Marvel's Squirrel Girl...?

Derek Charm, who drew the previous two issues, remains on as the artist, and that is good news, because that guy is excellent. I think he may be my favorite of the half-dozen or so artists who have drawn the new Archie comics, and that is saying something, because that is some strong company (Fiona Staples, Veronica Fish, Erica Henderson, etc).

So in this issue, Jughead, famous among the Archie characters for his complete and total lack of any and all interest in romance of any kind, meets a girl who is is interested in. She is a burger mascot working outside of Pop's, who appears to be a giant hamburger with only her clearly feminine arms and legs sticking out. Jughead's brain, which has long ago learned how to access burgers and ladies, can't deal with a "burger lady," and shuts down.

Gradually, the two strike up something of a friendship, since he does go and eat a burger or 50 there a day, and, eventually, she confesses to be new in town and not knowing anyone, and, since he seems normal, she asks if perhaps she would like to hang out. He agrees, to which she replies "It's a date," which would make this...Jughead's first date?

When he, and we, finally meet her on the second to last page, he has no idea who she is. You'll recognize her though, and, if not, she introduce herself on the last page. Guy, it's Sabrina The Teenage Witch. WHO IS ON THE COVER OF THIS VERY COMIC BOOK. And also on all of its variants. And now that I look at the back cover, I see there's a paragraph summary of the contents that actually says that Sabrina The Teenage Witch is the Burger Lady. And yet somehow, somehow, I was still shocked when it was revealed that she was the Burger Lady in the story.

This means either one of two things. First, I am dumb. Or second, North and Charm did such an excellent job on this comic, so thoroughly drawing me in to this particular version of Riverdale that I had forgotten what I had seen on the cover. Or, I suppose, some combination of the two. Anyway, that's why I wanted to spoil this, although it looks like Archie Comics kinda went ahead and tried its best to spoil it anyway, for some reason. The central mystery of this issue was so strong that it still shocked me with its reveal, even with the answer having been waved in front of my face for weeks and weeks now.

North makes excellent use of the supporting cast, as they react to Jughead's disinterest in the opposite sex and then the prospect of him actually having a date and he gets advice from each of their unique perspectives. Archie's is, in particular, rather delightful, to the extent that I found myself wondering how great a North/Charm Archie might be (not that that book needs a new creative team or anything).

In all of the cases of character interaction, it's Charm's art that sells the gags. Archie's conspiratorial face when he explains his one drink, two straw plan, or Sabrina's elbow to Jughead's chest shortly after she first means him sans hamburger costume--the "acting" is just superb.

Anyone worried about the fate of Jughead once Zdarsky left need worry no longer. It remains just as good as it was previously.

Paper Girls #9 (Image Comics) If I could travel through time like the third Erin who enters the narrative at this point, I would--well, there's a lot I would do I guess, and none of it would have anything to do with Paper Girls. But if I could travel through time solely for the purposes of adjusting my pull-file at my local comics shop, I probably would use that very limited if fantastical power to tell my past self to not read Paper Girls monthly, but instead trade-wait it.

My past self might not listen to my future, time-travelling self. Paper Girls is by a writer we both like, it's by an artist we both like and it's ony $2.99--why wouldn't we read it serially?

Well, because it doesn't read particularly well serially. Brian K. Vaughan fills it with the big, perfectly timed beats of his best books, but unlike, say, Saga, because the mysterious goings-on of the book are the focus, rather than the characters, it can sometimes read a little like "And then this crazy thing happens," and, read 20-ish pages every 30 days or so, with hundreds of pages of other comics read between each installment, it can be a little overwhelming to the point of confusing, and I feel like I would appreciate the overall package a lot more if I were reading it in trade paperback-sized chunks, instead of monthly story slivers.



*Did you guys read Midas Flesh? It is sooo good! You should totally read it. It's funny, in that it's got some jokes in it and the characters are fun to hang around, but it's also serious science fiction and fantasy with a tone unlike any of the other things in that list of North-written comics, except maybe some of the more sober Dinosaur Comics strips. Also, it too has a dinosaur in it.

Wait, that worked?

But Wonder Woman didn't even say "Clear!" first! Wonder Woman defibrillates Superman's heart with one of Zeus' thunderbolts in JLA #9 by Bryan Hitch and Daniel Henriques. He survives...but only to die for real in Superman #52, which came out...in May, three months prior to when this scene was published.

Afterbirth: DC's "Rebirth" initiative, week 14

There were five Wednesdays in August, so on the fifth week of August–and the fourteenth week of DC's "Rebirth" rollout–no Rebirth-branded specials or new series launched.

Afterbirth: DC's "Rebirth" initiative, week 13

Blue Beetle: Rebirth #1 by Keith Giffen, Scott Kolins and Romulo Fajaroo Jr

This is the Blue Beetle relaunch at least some DC readers have been anticipating since at least 2013, when writer Geoff Johns introduced Ted Kord into the post-Flashpoint DCU in the pages of Forever Evil. As promised in the pages of the Johns-written DC Universe: Rebirth #1 special, however, this book isn't about the old universe's Blue Beetle II becoming this universe's Blue Beetle II, nor is it a third volume of Blue Beetle starring the old universe's Blue Beetle III, Jaime Reyes. Rather, this is going to co-star Kord and Reyes as different parts of Team Beetle, with Reyes using the scarab-generated suit and Kord working behind-the-scenes as a sort of advisor and engineer.

It's at least something different, which means maybe this will last longer than the last Blue Beetle series. Just to recap, Reyes was introduced as the new, third Blue Beetle during Infinite Crisis, a series that was the climax of a chain of events originally investigated by Kord, who was killed off in a scene that no one anywhere on Earth liked at all. Infinite Crisis was followed by a Blue Beetle series that lasted 36 issues, from 2006-2009. Giffen co-wrote the series at the outset.

After the 2011 line-wide reboot "The New 52," Blue Beetle was relaunched, but this short-lived incarnation lasted just 16 issues. It was written by Tony Bedard, which I point out only because this volume was Giffen-less. I don't think that's the reason it was canceled, so much as that it was competing against 51 other DC super-comics, and a five-year-old character wasn't exactly ripe for a reboot.

So now we start a third volume, with original co-writer Giffen back. He shares a "story by" credit with artist Kolins, while he scripts the dialogue (unfortunately).

The premise seems something like a compromise one meant to appeal to fans of both Beetles, but it's pretty shaky. Reyes goes to Kord, a brilliant billionaire genius with a reputation for having a heart, in order to have him help remove the alien scarab that has attached itself to his spine (and thus transformed him into Blue Beetle). Instead, Kord builds a mobile, blue beetle-themed headquarters (The Bug) and wants to become part of a dynamic duo with Jaime, who hates that idea.

It can't sustain itself like that for very long, as Jaime has no reason to agree to the arrangement, so hopefully Giffen and Kolins write a change-of-heart for the title character into the story STAT. Otherwise, the plot of this issue reads like a weird cover version of Giffen's original series: There's Jaime's big family, his two bickering best friends and there's local super-crime boss, the aunt and guardian of one of those friends.

In this issue, Jaime suits up to fight weird villains Rack and Ruin, who are holding up a Starbucks Sundollars just to pick a fight with him, and a Doctor Fate shows up (I think there's two, possibly three at the moment).

Because I've read much of the 2006-2009 series, much of Jaimie's non-superhero life seemed repetitive to me, and the fact that Giffen gave his friends such annoying, mean-spirited dialogue as they argued made me think of them as I did Giffen's Sugar and Spike in Legends of Tomorrow–I don't really want to be around them at all. (Similarly, Jaime seemed so belligerent with Ted that it only made it harder to suspend one's disbelief regarding the new direction).

As with the Sugar and Spike feature, however, Blue Beetle: Rebirth has some excellent art work...if only the story was half as fun and intriguing as installments of the Sugar and Spike strip.

I really like Kolins' re-design and rendering of the Blue Beetle costume. He looks very close to his previous incarnations, but with a much more expressive face and dynamic body. The eyes and mouth are great, the scarab's antennae are great, the fingers, the toes...I really love the way Kolins draws the title character.

That is easily my favorite part of this issue, and the thing that would most likely make me want to read Blue Beetle #1 and beyond.

Deathstroke #1 by Priest, Carlo Pagulayan, Jason Paz and Jeromy Cox

This issue made me curious about the rationale that went into choosing which books received Colon Rebirth #1 specials and which did not. In some of the cases, where the more popular characters were involved and the events of those specials would spin out in to multiple books (or storylines, in the case of Wonder Woman), it seems obvious that the specials functioned as deck-clearing exercises, jumping-on points for new and lapsed readers that simultaneously served as bridges to regular readers.

Other books featuring characters in transition from one status quo to another–like, say, Dick Grayson, whose Grayson book ended and who was being relaunched into another volume of Nightwing–similarly make sense.

I'm not so sure about Deathstroke, though. Certainly it's writer Christopher Priest, who is just going by "Priest" in the first two credit boxes, treated the script for Deathstroke #1 as if it were Deathstroke #2, rather than a second #1, following the Deathstroke: Rebirth #1.

Not that I can say I blame him. Starting any new book with two consecutive #1s is like something of a challenge, and it will be interesting (well, interesting to me at least) to see how the specials are collected. Will Batman: Rebirth #1 appear in the first collection of the new, "Rebirth" era Batman or All-Star Batman....? Will some of the collections read extremely poorly, with narratives that start, stop and star again, all within the first twenty-some pages...?

The first Deathstroke collection by Priest, Pagulayan and Paz won't have that problem, at least, although I can't help but wonder if someone decided to skip Deathstroke: Rebirth #1 and start instead with Deathstroke #1 will be a little lost.

Not only is this the second chapter, but Priest isn't exactly doing any hand-holding in the way he tells his story, stringing together a series of vignettes along two time-lines that interact with one another, and leaving it to the reader to sort out exactly who is who.

This issue seemingly ends a 40-page story, with Deathstroke reuniting with Wintergreen, his family life layed-out and his extremely complex moral code demonstrated in almost byzantine fashion. Priest did some extremely cool stuff with Clock King here, although that seems to be the last we'll be seeing of him for a while; the other villain, the African warlord called "The Red Lion," seems to be sticking around though.

Priest infuses the story with a welcome, and somewhat unexpected, sense of humor, and it's very elaborately plotted in a way that can seem challenging, but also makes for a rewarding read.

Visually, I can't remember a time a Deathstroke book looked better, but I know it was more than five years ago.

This past week there was some online titterings that the villain of the next Batman movie would be Deathstroke, which seems like a terrible idea to me (He's such a...normal character, of the sort that could have appeared in pretty much any action movie of the last 40 years, that seeing him fighting a "realistic" Batman who is also rocking body armor and guns and shit just sounds...boring). If that does turn out to be the case (Sorry, Catman! Maybe next time!), then it's a good thing that DC's Deathstroke is in such solid shape at the moment.

Between collections of this and the original series, DC will certainly have enough material to put together plenty of decent trades to put in the hands of new readers curious about the character from the film.

The Hellblazer #1 by Simon Oliver, Moritat and Andre Szymanowicz

After the The Hellblazer: Rebirth special, writer Simon Oliver and artist Moritat's run on the latest volume of the constantly relaunched John Constantine ongoing series* begins in earnest.

It includes a few flashback panels to the previous series, the short-lived Constantine: The Hellblazer, which only serves to underscore how drastic the changes to the character, at least visually, were between the two series. The Constantine: The Hellblazer version, drawn by Riley Rossmo, had short, well-groomed hair and was dressed in tighter-fitting, more stylish clothes...even an actual coat, rather than a trench coat, which made him look like someone you might actually pass by on the streets of New York City, rather than a television police detective. For this series, the character's third since the cancellation of his 300-issue, 1988-2013 book, he's back to looking like the older, rumpled, ill-groomed, Vertigo-era Constantine, who wears a trench coat the way Superman and Batman wear capes.

The plot hearkens back farther still, to Constantine's original appearances as a supporting character in the pages of Alan Moore and company's Swamp Thing, as the big, green guy with red eyes and orange dialogue bubbles grows himself a body in the greenhouse behind Chas' house asking for a favor. He wants Constantine's help tracking down Abby, who is no longer where he (and we) last saw her.

To help, Constantine makes Swamp Thing ride in a cab, and introduces him to his sorceress friend who helped him get back into London in the Rebirth special.

Meanwhile, we are introduced to a pair of very long-lived supernatural beings who look like men and have differing views about how openly to act in history. In fact, when we first meet them, one of them is about to prevent Archduke Franz Ferdinand from being shot, but his brother stops him before he can stop the assassin. They appear at the end, where they exchange words about escaping the notice of the creator (Interesting point that Oliver puts in one of their mouths).

It's an interesting set-up, and Oliver writes nice Constantine/Swamp Thing banter. Additionally, Moritat's art is pretty excellent, and doesn't look much of anything like what one might expect a Constantine or a Swamp Thing comic to look like. All that said, there's nothing so remarkable about the comic to really justify its existence at this point, or to suggest that this comic will succeed where the last three failed. Rather, I would guess that after a few months of a Rebirth-inspired uptick in sales, this will fall back to the same place as the previous series, meeting the needs of the too-few John Constantine fans out there.

Constantine, like Swamp Thing, could probably both use a couple of years off at this point, and Oliver and Moritat could both use better vehicles for their considerable skills.




*It's likely growing tiresome for you guys to hear me constantly repeating the same point, but this is such a salient example that it's kind of hard to pass up. If the premise of DC Universe: Rebirth #1 and therefore the status quo of the DC Universe, is that Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons' Watchmen characters are villains who "ruined" the DC Universe by creating The New 52 (in-story), then the most obvious reading is that Moore is in part responsible for the current sorry state of the DC Universe, relative to the pre-Flashpoint DCU. Naturally then the publisher plans to move forward with a slate of relaunches that includes...an Alan Moore creation. And one once deemed too dark and mature for DC's superhero line, and had to thus be relegated to asomewhat walled-off mature readers imprint.

Comic Shop Comics: August 31

Afterlife With Archie #10 (Archie Comics) Well this wasn't at all what I was expecting, even after more closely studying Francesco Francavilla's awesome cover and seeing all the bats on it. This $5, 33-page issue is a departure from the ongoing story arc, somewhat reminiscent of the sixth issue, which similarly shifted focus from the main cast's battle against the hordes of zombies to devote an issue to another Archie Comics character (Sabrina) and other supernatural elements (witchcraft, Cthulu,other Lovecraftian stuff). The difference between the sixth issue and the tenth, however, is that Sabrina was already an integral part of the narrative, as it was one of her spells that initiated the zombie apocalypse, and, based on the ninth issue, she would play a future role as well.

This issue, which is essentially just writer Roberto Aguirre-Sacasa's riff on Anne Rice's Interview With a Vampire (with bits of her later Lestat books and a detour into The Great Gatsby thrown in), barely connects to the ongoing plot at all. On the final page, Josie and The Pussycats' plane is set to land in Riverdale, where they were to be playing a show on Halloween, the same night as the big dance that "Jugdead" interrupted.

The other connections are merely in the way that Aguirre-Sacasa and Francavilla include another Archie Comics property into a sort of alternate horror universe.

On that fateful Halloween, a reporter is interviewing the notoriously reclusive Josie McCoy of the band Josie and The Pussycats, who, we are told are the biggest thing in music at the moment, but about who almost nothing is known. She tells him her entire life story, starting with her birth in 1906 and continuing on to her being turned into a vampire and turning her fellow vaudeville performers Melody and Valerie as well. Each decade or so they would disappear and reinvent themselves as a new band with a new name, keeping up with the changing style of music. Josie and The Pussycats is only their current incarnation; a Riverdale-based garage band six years ago whose songs went viral on YouTube and they became what they are today.

I like the idea of story, particularly the idea of an immortal pop band that's been popular since vaudeville. There's something to that immortality aspect that fits with the idea of these characters, like the other stars of various Archie Comics, as teenagers who never age a day as decades upon decades pass, although Aguirre-Sacasa doesn't really do anything with it.

I can't say I found much to like in the execution, however. Because the bulk of the book is osie narrating her life to a reporter, and because this is a 33-page comic book and not a first-person novel, it doesn't read quite so much like a story as it reads like someone summarizing a story.

Additionally, Josie and The Pussycats doesn't really seem like a 2010-2016 act, and it's weird that they took on their 1960s identity in 2010 or so, rather than in the 1960s (during that time, they were The Velvettes, with Valerie as the lead singer and Josie and Melody back-up. The other characters are basically non-entities. Josie isn't exactly a deeply fleshed out character or anything, but she's on-panel most of the time. Melody and Valerie, by contrast, barely get any dialogue; the former is just a drawing in the background, the latter only really comes up a few times when race is an issue, reducing her (unintentionally) to role of "the black one."

Granted, there are still things in here I would never have expected to see in an Archie comic, as is, ironically, now to be expected from Afterlife With Archie. Here, that would be a cameo from Charles Manson. Aguirre-Sacasa has some neat ideas about vampires, and I suppose there's still the promise that this will connect to the main narrative in the future. There were, after all, a trio of 110-year-old vampires on the ground in Riverdale when the zombie outbreak first occurred, but unlike the previous nine issues, I found this one merely interesting, as opposed to compelling.

Black Panther Vol. 1: A Nation Under Our Feet (Marvel Entertainment) I bought this today, but didn't read it. I look forward to doing so though, and I'm sure I'll tell you all about my thoughts and feelings about it after I do. So far my only comment is that Ta-Nehisi Coates' name is really, really big on the cover, and placed in a way that is unusual for the writers of most Marvel comics. Much bigger than that of his collaborator Brian Stelfreeze, who gets an "Illustrated by" credit, rather than an "and." Which seems wrong, since Coates doesn't get a "written by."

DC Comics Bombshells Annual #1 (DC Comics) Regular Bombshells writer Marguerite Bennett teams with artist Elsa Charretier for this rather excellent side-story of her ongoing "What If A Bunch of Scantily-Clad DC Superhero Women Fought World War II?" story.

The honestly rather unfortunate cover by Terry Dodson shows Bombshell Batgirl (borrowing Hawkeye's mask, apparently), and nothing else, not giving readers a very good idea of what to expect from the interior. What should you expect? A lot. Bennett's story starts in the "present" of 1941, in which Lieutenant Francine Charles, codenamed "Oracle," is given an assignment by Amanda Waller: Find the long-missing Batgirl and bring her back.

Who is Batgirl Barbara Gordoun? Her origin is explained during an 11-page sequence presented as visuals to a song that the Bombshells play for Charles. It's the sort of sequence that would appear in Bennett's monthly series, in which the backstories of various characters are generally presented in interesting ways that ape particular media and/or styles, but here in the annual she and artist Charreteir get plenty of room to make the sequence breathe.

Gordoun was a pilot who fought for the Allies in World War I, and fell in love with a German pilot, Luc "The Flying Fox" Fuchs. It took me a while to realize who he was supposed to be–his red Fokker triplane made me think of Enemy Ace and The Red Baron, in that order–but this is the Bombshells-iverse's Luke Fox, aka Batwing II, who briefly dated Barbara Gordon during the "Burnside" era of the character's solo series (Where Frankie Charles played such a big role< as well; it's interesting that Bennett looked to such recent Babs stories to inform her alternate universe take on the character). When she lost him, she traveled the world, looking for the means to restore the dead to life, and ended up a vampire (Yes, that makes two books about red-headed vampire ladies in this little stack of comics I brought home from the shop tonight). She's forms a coven with the Bombshells versions of Ravager and The Enchantress in a Belle Reeve Manor House in a Louisiana Bayou, which is frequented by Killer Croc.

It's up to the dashing Charles to find, defeat and recruit them all. Spoiler alert, she does, and, in the process, forms the Bomshells-iverse's answer to a particular DC Comics super-team, which is known to be based in a place called Belle Reeve and to include the likes of Enchantress and Croc in its ranks.

The annual was a particular delight, mainly because of how goddam charming Bennetts' fast, flirty, swashbuckling Frankie Charles is and because of how charming Charretier's artwork is. Bombshells generally has pretty great art, but because of the nature of the book, it usually has more than one artist per issue. So it's nice to see Charretier getting a whole 38-pages to herself.

There is so much to like here that I'm tempted to just scan a bunch of panels and say, "Look at this!" over and over, but perhaps I'll just say that I'd highly recommend the book, particularly as an introduction to the Bombshells ongoing, which has to my great surprise turned out to be a consistently high-quality series (And maybe, just maybe, the gayest comic book on the stands...certainly among the mainstream super-books, anyway).

Before moving on to the next book, I would like to point out two things of special note. First, I think this is the first time that Bennett has made it explicit that this alternate history is quite so alternate. In addition to all the superheroes running around, she is apparently not repeating the All-Star Squadron formula of Real WWII History + Superheroes.

There's a scene where Waller asks if Frankie uses a cane because of polio, and she responds "If it's good enough for the president, it's good enough for me." Waller replies, "I'll let her know you feel that way...Eleanor is more dangerous on two wheels than half the German army crawling along on the spiked treads of their panzers."

So apparently it is Eleanor rather than Franklin D. who is the President Roosevelt of the Bombshells-iverse...and she had polio and was confined to a wheelchair instead of him. That firs part may make some sort of sense given how diverse and cosmopolitan the WWII era of this book is compared to that of the real world...and even 2016, if we're being honest.

Second, The Ravager in this book is a prophetess, who speaks her prophecies in snippets of backwards dialogue, all smooshed together with no break between words. There's one point at which she refers to Frankie as "the new Oracle," which was apparently where Brenden Fletcher and Cameron Stewart were going with her in their Batgirl, which spent it's last half-dozen or so issues apparently assembling an awesome new Birds of Prey line-up...only to have it dashed by DC's "Rebirth" plans.

At any rate, I found it interesting that while the Earth-0 Frankie Charles never got to officially be dubbed "Oracle," the Earth-Bombshell Frankie Charles gets called "the new Oracle" here.

Gotham Academy Annual #1 (DC) Like the Lumberjanes/Gotham Academy crossover, this annual should help tide fans over until the new series launches. Regular writers Becky Cloonan and Brenden Fletcher reunite with Adam Archer and two other pencil artists, three inkers and three colorists for an oversized adventure that demonstrates just how weird this series can be.

There's a mystery afoot at the Academy, with many students falling to a mysterious illness. The clues? A caped figure seen from afar, apparently carrying something large, rectangular and wooden. An increase in the rat population. The disappearance of all garlic from the kitchen. Sketchy guest-lecturer Derek Powers.

With Olive sidelined by the sickness, Colton and Pomeline come up wit their own theories, and Detective Club splits into two factions, each operating on their own theory. Colton thinks Powers is somehow poisoning the studnet body, while Pomeline thinks there's a vampire on the scene.

Turns out, they're both right! Powers is a supervillain (Blight from Batman Beyond, here to destroy Terry McGinnis' ancestor, who goes to school with our heroes), but there's also a vampire on campus, Gustav DeCobra (from Detective Comics #455). So yeah, Gotham Academy Annual #1 has as its villains an extremely minor vampire character from a one-off appearance in 1976 and a time-travelling super-villain from a 1999-2001 Batman cartoon. That's just the kind of book this is.

I enjoyed this a lot more than I have many of the individual issues, in large part because the extra page-count allowed for the complete story to be told all at once. One of the problems with Gotham Academy, I've found, is that it doesn't read terribly well serially. The annual, obviously, doesn't have to, as it's a nice, big, done-in-one.

Kuma Miko: Girl Meets Bear Vol. 1 (One Peace Books) I bought this today too, but haven't yet read it. I plan to as soon as I hit "publish" on this post. I just really liked the cover. And the back cover. And the promise of the solicitation copy saying it is the story of a girl raised with a talking bear trying to come to grips with modern society.

The Legend of Wonder Woman #9 (DC) This is the last issue of the series as originally announced, but apparently Renae De Liz and Ray Dillon's series has done well enough that DC has decided to continue it. As a last issue, then, this seems to reflect that a bit, as there are a few passages that seem promise events in the future.

I was pretty surprised that The Titan, the big, world-ending giant monster that Wonder Woman faces at the end of this, is apparently a sort of Manhunter android. De Liz doesn't hit a reader over the head with the allusion to Green Lantern comics, but it's there to recognize is you're familiar with that bit of lore. It's an awfully interesting bit of world-building, actually.

More delightful still is the bit at the end, where Etta manages to track down Wonder Woman after she has saved the world, but fled from her life with Steve, Etta and the Holliday Girls so as not to endanger them. When Wonder Woman, hanging out on an island, is shocked to see Etta sail up and wants to know how she found her, Etta replies:

I triangulated your location from word of your heroics. You know, "Wonder Woman Seen Punching The Lights Out of Thugs In Brazil" or "Nutty Woman Wearing American Flag Saves Kitten From Tree In Africa"...

...Not to mention your team-up with the Justice Society at the end of the war!

Get Hourman's signature for my brother, Mint, okay?

For the most part, this Wonder Woman's existence in the a DC Universe has been confined to the occasional unexpected cameo, like young reporter Perry White or Dickensian street urchin Alfred Pennyworth, but here's a pretty explicit mention of a team full of super-heroes, which should hearten the JSA-starved DC fans of the post-Flashpoint era.

I do hope we get to see that team-up, and, of course, plenty more of Wonder Woman's adventures of this era.

Now that this series...or at least this opening arc is finished, I can say with certitude that De Liz's The Legend of Wonder Woman is a pretty great Wonder Woman comic and is, as I suspected it may beafter the first few issues, finally the sort of standalone, origin story comic starring the character that can be serve as her equivalent to, say, Batman: Year One.

Saga #37 (Image Comics) Hey, ever wonder what goes on in the head of Prince Sir Robot while he masturbates? Well, thanks to his monitor face, all you need to do is look at it while he's masturbating to see, and guess what? This issue contains just such a scene!

It also contains a group of aliens that are essentially just meerkats in clothes, which of course it does.

Suicde Squad Special: War Crimes #1 (DC) This unusual one-shot raises an interesting question: Why didn't DC just invite John Ostrander back to write Suicide Squad when they relaunched it in 2011? The three Suicide Squad series that DC has published since 2011–Suicide Squad, New Suicide Squad and Suicide Squad–have had seven writers, none of whom were John Ostrander (They were, instead, Adam Glass, Dwayne Swierczynski, Ales Kot, Matt Kindt, Sean Ryan, Tim Seeley and Rob Williams.) It's curious to me that somewhere around the fourth writer or the second relaunch in a few years they didn't think to see if Ostrander wanted to come back for a while.

This $5, 38-page special is a curious comic, as it is simply a single and straightforward classic-style Suicide Squad mission with no subplots or dalliance with the inner lives of the characters. It's too short to be a graphic novel, although it's not hard to imagine Ostrander having fleshed it out into being an original graphic novel, or even a miniseries. I...don't really know why this book exists, to be frank, other than to give the guy most responsible for the current incarnation of the Suicide Squad a chance to make a little more money off of it than he's already getting in royalties form the collections...which DC is just now finally getting serious about releasing (Hopefully the less-than-warm reception of the film doesn't torpedo efforts to collect the whole series in trade!).

As Chris Sims said at Comics Alliance today, it does function quite well as a sample of what one could expect from the classic Suicide Squad collections; starring a team of characters from the movies but reflective of the original Ostrander (and, later, Ostrander/Kim Yale) run, this is a pretty good gateway comic...even if at $5, it's like one-fourth the cost of a trade.

You've got the shockingly hardcore Amanda Waller, you've got Deadshot and Captain Boomerang, you've got foreign metahumans adversaries which can only properly be met by some of America's, you've got geo-politics and international intrigue with the flimsiest veneer of fictionalization. There's even the return of the theater-style briefing room that was central to the original run of the series.

The plot here is that a group of European metahumans have kidnapped a fictional composite of Donald Rumsfeld and Dick Cheney and delivered him to the Hague to be tried for war crimes, and it's up to the Squad to return him safely to the states or die trying.

The Squad, as I said, is movie-viewer friendly: Deadshot, Boomerang, Rick Flag, Harley Quinn, El Diablo and Mad Dog (Guess which one gets killed in action!). The artwork is by Gus Vazquez and Carlos Rodriguez, colored by Gabe Eltaeb, and its among the best Suicide Squad art I've seen of the post-Flashpoint period. The character designs are mostly composites of their original looks, New 52 looks and movie looks, so that pretty much all of them are easily identifiable, no matter where you know them from. The art is overall bright, clear and easy to read: Unlike just all of the Suicide Squad comics I've read in the last five years, it wasn't an unpleasant chore making my way through this.

It is perhaps unfortunate that this is such a standalone book, though, as those are the kinds of books a lot of super-comics readers tend to ignore, or at least not prioritize in the way they do the "main" books. This isn't the current Suicide Squad book, after all, nor does it appear to have anything in it that will impact that book.

It is a pretty damn good, 1980s-style action comic, though, with fine characterization from the guy who re-invented so many of these characters.