Surprisingly hot illustrations from Andrew Lang's Yellow Fairy Book

The witch-maiden from "The Dragon of the North," having chained up the protagonist prince in a cave, where he'll spend the majority of the rest of his life. He deserved it though, so don't feel bad for him—in this story the prince is actually more of the bad guy then the witch. This is a plate by H.J. Ford.


The Snow-daughter from "The Snow-Daughter and the Fire-Son," shown here walking around on a snowy winter night "with very few clothes on," as she was happier the colder she was (Hence the name). Another plate by Ford.


The title character from "Thumbelina," being crowned Queen of the Flowers and rechristened "May Blossom" on her wedding day. There's no credit listed for this woodcut, but I assume it is also by Ford.


Thumbelina from earlier in the story, riding upon a lilypad pulled by a butterfly. This is another woodcut, presumably by Ford, as the initials in the lower left corner look like they could be H.J.F.


That's an awfully sheer dress Thumbelina is wearing, isn't it?


Why, just look at the way that fish is leering at her.

I sure hope Geoff Johns' Black Lantern Corps will include the following:

Pa Kent!


Pantha!


The Rainbow Raider!


Porm!


Arthur "Aquababy" Curry Jr.!


Dr. Thomas and Martha Wayne!


The Red Bee


...and his prize bee, Michael!


Baron Hans Von Hammer, The Enemy Ace!


And President William Howard Taft!

Meanwhile, in Las Vegas...

Bill Kelter and Wayne Shellabarger's Veeps: Profiles in Insignificance isn't a comic book or a graphic novel, despite being published by comics publisher Top Shelf Comix. The above image by Shellabarger is actually the sequential artiest part, depicting Warren G. Harding's veep Calvin Coolidge, at rest. It is a pretty great read though. Here's a review of it I did for Las Vegas Weekly.

Weekly Haul: November 19th

The Age of The Sentry #3 (Marvel Comics) What a weird Wednesday in Sentry comics. He briefly appears in Avengers/Invaders #6, demonstrating what’s so unlikable about the character. His appearance there is his typical one, in which the writers address him as a story problem to be considered and overcome, something to be pushed out of the way so they can just get on with telling a story that doesn’t involve someone in Superman’s weight class mucking up an otherwise perfectly Marvellian Marvel story. (In this particular appearance, he fights the original Human Torch for six panels, before getting upset and flying away crying. Which is all he ever does in Avengers comics).

And, of course, he appears here, in Jeff Parker, Paul Tobin and company’s gentle parody/love letter to Silver Age Superman comics. This being the third-issue and mid-point of the miniseries, I assume anyone who’s interested in this series is already reading it (But if you’re a wait-for-the-trader, wondering if this is worth the waiting, I say thee yay. Er, sorry; weeks where I read more Marvel than DC does that to me).

The cover pretty much tells you all you need to know (even the above image, which is missing the jokey dialogue and blurbs): You’ve got The Setnry being fought over by a tentacled space alien gal in go-go boots and a farmer’s daughter, while a pitchfork and ray gun are waved in his general direction, you’ve got Manoo and, in the corner, you’ve got Millie the Model.

The lead story, “Sentry Vs. Mountain Man,” is Parker’s, and is drawn by Nick Dragotta and Gary Martin. Sentry travels to the Ozarks, where he does battle with a super-powered hillbilly and, despite the fact that he’s bulletproof, finds himself in a shotgun wedding to the fetching Ellie Easter. He’s able get out of it, and turn the hillbillies into the Hillbillionaires in a way that only The Sentry could. Well, only The Sentry and Superman. (And maybe Captain Marvel).

Then, in “She Loved a Monster!!”, Tobin joins forces with Colleen Coover for a story in which The Sentry seeks out Millie to advise Manoo on how to impress a lady. There’s Coover drawing the Marvel U, a Fin Fang Foom cameo, and some punching, behind a fake cover for Millie The Model Super-Size Special!, which blurbs “The Sentry becomes a Super-Seamstress to sew a dress of a million exploding colors!” Which never actually happens. Still! Tobin and Coover in a Millie/Manoo team-up! What the hell else do you want? DeCarlo art?

Yes, that would have made this perfect, but that’s sadly impossible at the moment. And Coover’s not exactly shabby herself.


Avengers/Invaders #6 (Marvel) Hmm..too much Human Torch, not enough Namor.


Fantastic Four: True Story #4 (Marvel) This was actually realeased last week, but my shop was sold out by the time I got there, so I missed out. Does that mean this series has been really popular? Or only that my particular shop didn’t order all that many issues? I don’t know. But I do know that this series has been a lot of fun, even if writer Paul Cornell often seemed to lose control of the weirdest elements of his plot and his meta-metafictional gags and plot points as the story wore on.

The premise and concept—in which FF villain Nightmare invades the realm of fiction to attack Earth through it, and the FF must journey there and ally themselves with characters as diverse as Dante and the casts of Sense and Sensibility and the Wind in the Willows to stop him—was certainly promising, but the final execution was in now way a great comic book. But it was certainly great fun while it lasted.

In this final installment, Reed Richards kicks Nightmare’s ass “ontologically, philosophically and literarily,” Johnny Storm’s bad tastes save the day, Indiana Jones, Daniel Craig’s Bond, Michael Bay’s Transformers and the gals from Bring It On join the fray, and it ends as happily as any story can—with everyone gathering around the TV to watch the live-action Josie and the Pussycats.



Marvel Adventures Avengers #30 (Marvel) This Jeff Parker-less issue of MAA introduces Tigra into the fold. She’s a private investigator hired to spy on the Avengers, and the issue splits its time between scenes of her secretly trailing characters (which must be difficult to do when you have orange skin and disguise yourself in a turn-of-the-20th-century dress and hat) while discussing them in striped narration boxes, and the Avengers battling The Griffin, a Marvel villain whose crazy character design I’ve never quite understood (Dude looks nothing like a griffin, but a lot like a manticore). It’s a lot stronger on characterization and a lot lighter on zaniness than usual, but still a pretty decent read, and it’s nice to see a comic that ends with a superheroine jumping up and saying “Yay!” once in a while.

The computer coloring on this book is just completely out of control, though. I didn’t even recognize EDILW favorite Graham Nolan’s art under all those textured colors on the cover until I just now spotted his signature, and I’m not sure why we need to see the sun glinting off of The Griffin’s golden, shampoo commercial-style hair or why New York City pigeons need to shine like polished gun metal.

By the way, did you know The Griffin could control birds? I didn’t know that. It is a fantastic superpower, the ability to control birds. Especially if you’re super-strong, can fly, and have wicked teeth, claws and a prehensile tail. How often would you even need to summon a bird to attack your foes?



Tiny Titans #10 (DC Comics) This may actually be the girliest comic book I’ve ever read. I’m not complaining, mind you; many of my favorite DC characters appear in this issue—Beppo! Comet! Streaky! Krypto! Ace! Bizarro!—which is differentiated from previous issues of the series by its lack of Titans (Supergirl and Batgirl are the only tiny characters in it) and the fact that it’s one big, long story, rather than a series of shorter gag strips.

The plot? Batgirl and Supergirl go to play with the Titans, but forget to feed Ace the Bat-Puppy and Streaky the Super-Kitten. They can’t find the Titans, so the two girls decide to have a tea part instead. Meanwhile, the World’s, um, Furriest (…?) team-up to find their forgetful mistresses and get fed. Hilarity, cuteness and girliness ensue.


Trinity #25 (DC) Okay, now it just seems like writer Kurt Busiek is trying to win a bet against someone who said he couldn’t possibly write a series—even a 52-issue series—that included every single DC character ever in a logical(-ish) fashion. How else to explain the presence of Space Ranger and the pre-Neil Gaiman Black Orchid alongside Vibe and Fire in this altered world’s version of the Justice League?

Marvel's February previews reviewed

Dear comics-buying public,

Please buy the living shit out of this title. Thanks.

Your friend,
Caleb



THE AGE OF THE SENTRY #6 (of 6)
Written by JEFF PARKER
Penciled by NICK DRAGOTTA
Cover by DAVE BULLOCK
This is it, the full-length story that, oddly enough, you keep demanding... THE DEATH OF THE SENTRY! How will the Man of Gold finally fall to his arch villain, The Void? How will the world go on? What about his best gal Lindy (sniff) and Scout n' Li'l Watchdog (who never hurt anybody 'cause he's a good dog) and Harrison Oogar and the Hillbillionaires and.... (sob)... we- we can't do this... excuse us, please...

I never thought the day would come when I would a) be reading a Sentry solo series, let alone b) being sad to learn that it was going to end in a few months.



DR. DOOM AND THE MASTERS OF EVIL #2 (of 4)
Written by PAUL TOBIN
Penciled by PATRICK SCHERBERGER
Cover by KARL KERSCHL
The Masters of Evil have themselves a plan, and all that stands in their way is the Circus of Crime and their ringleader...Doctor DOOM! When an untouched Hittite temple is found deep inside a New Mexico cave, the rush is on for the untold wealth, and a map where "eternal life" is the X that marks the spot! But where is the original Ringleader, and even with Doom now leading them, what can a bunch of circus performers do against the MASTERS OF EVIL?

I like how the title of this comic sounds like the name of a rock band.



FANTASTIC FOUR #564
Written by MARK MILLAR
Pencils & Cover by BRYAN HITCH
Dear Readers, you have our word that nothing this lame happens inside this very special Christmas issue. Yours sincerely, Mark and Bryan. Part 1 (of 2).

Yes, nothing’s lamer than a family sitting around a table, about to eat a meal together…how could a comic book about that possibly be interesting at all? What would it entail? Dialogue? Pages and pages of it? Like, whole conversations? Feh.

You know, sometimes I wonder if Mark Millar has Benjamin Button’s disease, as it seems like his work is getting less and less mature as time goes on.


INCREDIBLE HERCULES #126
Written by FRED VAN LENTE & GREG PAK
Penciled by RODNEY BUCHEMI
Cover by ED MCGUINNESS
A special DOUBLE-SIZED issue that is the perfect jumping-on point for new readers! Proudly presenting, for the first time in Marvel continuity ... the ORIGIN OF HERCULES! How did the young man who becomes the Lion of Olympus learn of his divine heritage? In what battle did he earn the title "Prince of Power?" And, most importantly, why does the goddess HERA hate him so, now that her DARK REIGN begins to fall across New Olympus? PLUS: In the aftermath of the Skrull invasion, AMADEUS CHO goes on "The Quest for Kirby!"

Regular readers already know how much I like this title and, in fact, may be getting sick of me praising it. I just wanted to call attention to the fact that this is described as "the perfect jumping-on point for new readers," and while that's something a solicitation copy writer would say, I wanted to take the opportunity to fully endorse the sentiment. Come on new readers, jump on!


MARVEL ADVENTURES THE AVENGERS #33
Written by PAUL TOBIN
Penciled by IG GUARA
Cover by ROGER CRUZ
Ka-Zar's in town, and needs the Avengers' help! While helping the Natural History Museum install a new dinosaur diorama, Ka-Zar decides he should get a driver's license, and the Avengers are pegged to help the lord of the Savage Land learn to drive! As if THAT isn't bad enough (and it IS) the manical villain Stegron steals a rare dinosaur bone he believes can raise his powers to enormous levels, and he's right! Drive on up to this issue for action x 3 with slugfests, dinosaurs, and driving lessons, in "You're Driving Me Crazy!"

The best solicitations are the ones that you only need to read a few words of to get super-excited about, no matter what the rest of the paragraph says. For example, "Ka-Zar decides he should get a driver's license."


MODELS, INC. #1 (of 4)
Written by PAUL TOBIN
Pencils by VIÇENC VILLAGRASSA
Cover by SCOTT CLARK
Fashion Week is always a hectic time for models, and this year is no exception. Between escaped wolves, robbery attempts, and overly friendly police officers, Mary Jane Watson, Patsy Walker, Jill Jerold, Chili Storm and Millicent (Millie the Model)
Collins are testing the limits of their endurance. But when a brilliant young set designer is found murdered with three bullet holes in his back, and Millie proves to be the prime suspect, the models are forced to play detective in order to save one of their own!

Hey, it's kinda sorta the team from King-Size Spider-Man Special #1! Too bad Colleen Coover's not drawing this outing.

I'm not familiar with Villagrassa, but he (or she?) would have to be really, really, really, really good to get me to buy a $3.99 22-page comic book.

Please don’t go $3.99 Land, Marvel; it’s a place I just can’t follow.



PUNISHER: FRANK CASTLE #67
Written by DUANE SWIERCZYNSKI
Penciled by MICHEL LACOMBE
Cover by DAVE JOHNSON
“SIX HOURS TO KILL, PART 2: FIELD DAY”
W.C. Fields once mused that he’d rather be dead than play Philadelphia. Well, if you cross paths with Frank Castle, you’ll be able to have it both ways. Castle has been injected with a slow-acting poison that will kill him in less than hours—but don’t think he’s going to spend them moping around. As long as blood is still pumping through his rock-hard veins, the Punisher plans on killing as many dirtbags as possible. But the Philadelphia underworld isn’t going to roll over so easily. Neither is the top-secret black bag ops unit that dosed Frank. And don’t forget the Mayor of Philadelphia, who only sees one way of saving his already-shaky political career: killing Frank way before his six hours are up.

You know what was a cool movie? Crank.


ULTIMATE SPIDER-MAN #131
Written by BRIAN MICHAEL BENDIS
Pencils and Cover by STUART IMMONEN
Ultimatum tie-in!
The hits just KEEP ON COMING! Just when our waterlogged webslinger thought things couldn't get any worse, Spidey finds himself face-to-face with none other than the HULK! PLUS Spider-Woman, Daredevil, and Doctor Strange amidst the destruction... and not everyone lives to see the next issue...!

Can Brian Michael Bendis maintain his standard level of better than 90% of super-comics on the most consistent title in the history of ever when faced with his greatest challenge ever, a tie-in to a Jeph Loeb event comic? Tune it to find out!

And, by the way, a tie-in to an event comic in an Ultimate title? I thought the whole point of the Ultimate line was that it was the place to go to avoid tie-ins, event comics and the insidious influence of Jeph Loeb.

DC's February previews reviewed

100% HC
Written by Paul Pope
Art and cover by Paul Pope
The edgy, groundbreaking epic from visionary Eisner Award winning creator Paul Pope is now available in hardcover! Collecting all five issues of the hard-hitting miniseries that takes a peek inside a cyberpunk vision of the year 2038 through the lives of six different people, this new volume includes a host of sketches, designs and other never-before-scene material from Pope.

If anyone’s wondering if this is any good, I tell you now that it is.



BATMAN #686
Written by Neil Gaiman
Art by Andy Kubert & Scott Williams
Covers by Andy Kubert and Alex Ross
“Whatever Happened to the Caped Crusader?” part 1 of 2! Best-selling author Neil Gaiman (THE SANDMAN) and superstar artist Andy Kubert (BATMAN, Marvel 1602) join forces for a special 2-part BATMAN event! “Whatever Happened to the Caped Crusader” is a captivating and mysterious tale the likes of which Batman and friends have never experienced before. Delving into the realms of life, death and the afterlife, Gaiman leaves no stone unturned as he explores every facet and era of Bruce Wayne’s life.

DETECTIVE COMICS #853
Written by Neil Gaiman
Art by Andy Kubert & Scott Williams
Cover by Andy Kubert
Variant sketch cover by Andy Kubert
“Whatever Happened to the Caped Crusader?” part 2 of 2! This second part of Neil Gaiman and Andy Kubert’s special collaboration is sure to be a BATMAN story for the ages. This extraordinary tale, told as only Gaiman and Kubert can, explores the intricate relationships between Bruce Wayne and his friends and adversaries and builds toward an exciting and unexpected climax. It’s a classic in the making!

If probably any other writer in the world attempted to riff on Alan Moore’s classic “last” Superman story, “Whatever Happened to the Man of Tomorrow?”, it would have seemed pretty uncool to me.

But DC didn’t get any other writer to write “Whatever Happened to the Caped Crusader?”, they got Neil Gaiman. (Hopefully this won’t kick off a trend though; I don’t really want to read Geoff Johns’ “Whatever Happened to the Emerald Gladiator?” or “Whatever Happened to the Fastest Man Alive?”)

That’s quite a nice cover image by Andy Kubert for the first chapter. (The one for TEC ain’t too shabby either). I’ve stated and restated (ad nauseum) my displeasure with Batman artist Tony Daniel, who became the regular artist to take over for Kubert (who only managed, what, six issues? Five?). Not only do I not like Daniel’s art (I don’t), or think it’s awful (it is), but I think it was essentially ruining what seemed like a pretty interesting, once-in-Batman’s-life take on the character.

Looking at these images, I’m again reminded that we really missed out when Kubert failed to keep a monthly-ish schedule.



Why, that’s just a plain old army jeep Batman and Robin are riding around in. Doesn’t Batman have a Bat-jeep?



BATMAN CONFIDENTIAL #26
Written by Christina Weir & Nunzio DeFilippis
Art and cover by Jose Luis Garcia-Lopez & Kevin Nowlan
From the late ’60s Batman TV show comes King Tut making his first comic-book appearance in Gotham City ever in part 1 of a 3-part arc! A trail of murders involving museum executives and the mysterious riddles left behind lead Batman to suspect an old foe is back at work. But the Riddler is safely locked up – and not too happy that someone has stolen his M.O.!

No one’s put King Tut in a DCU comic book yet? Really? Huh. What about Egghead? I haven’t read any of Weir and DeFilippis’ comics for the Big Two, but I’m sure with Garcia-Lopez and Nowlan involved, this will at least look great. And I thought King Tut was totally bad-ass when I watched him on TV. Of course, I was like six-years-old and hadn’t yet realized the show wasn’t totally serious yet.



BATMAN: GOTHAM AFTER MIDNIGHT #10
Written by Steve Niles
Art and cover by Kelley Jones
Death strikes close to home for The Dark Knight as an important person in Bruce Wayne’s life dies at the hands of the Midnight Killer. But what’s Catwoman’s involvement? Will her heart belong to the murderous Midnight – both literally and figuratively – or can Batman stop this St. Valentine’s Day massacre before it’s too late?

There’s a good chance that I’m the only one in the world who cares, but I saw this cover image and got excited about seeing what Kelley Jones’ version of the newer Darwyn Cooke-designed Catwoman costume will look like. It definitely doesn’t play to his strengths, and I can’t recall seeing Jones draw an in-continuity Catwoman for much longer than an image or two.

Kind of interesting how much the solicitation copy for this particular issue seems to echo the plot of Paul Dini’s just-completed “Heart of Hush” arc which just wrapped up last week (and the trade collection of which is also solicited this month)


BATMAN: HAUNTED GOTHAM TP
Written by Doug Moench
Art by Kelley Jones, John Beatty & Jason Moore
Cover by Kelley Jones
The team behind the popular BATMAN/DRACULA: RED RAIN, BLOODSTORM and CRIMSON MIST reunited in 2000 for the 4-issue miniseries HAUNTED GOTHAM, collected here for the first time. Cut off from the rest of the world, Bruce Wayne must prevail against a nightmare army of demonic villains, led by a patchwork Joker.

I’m kind of surprised to see this series—originally a four-part prestige format mini—getting a collection. Perhaps the recent reprinting of the Moench/Jones Batman vampire books sold really well?

As a standalone Elseworlds story, this isn’t bad. The entire city of Gotham is haunted with ghosts—good and bad—and Batman is a human being contending against the forces of the supernatural at the behest of his ghost father. It’s enjoyable in the peculiar, acquired-taste way that most Moench-written projects and most Jones-drawn projects are, but I dug it.

In addition to supernaturalize-ing the regular Batman rogues, Moench and Jones create some of their own, original characters, like a snake man who leads an army of snakes against the city. I kinda liked that guy.

Also, Batman fights zombies, with his bare hands.



Hey look, blood and boobs on a DC cover! Again!



So DC is drawing covers just for Sally now, huh?


NIGHTWING #153
Written by Peter J. Tomasi
Art and cover by Don Kramer & Jay Leisten
It’s the fateful, final “Batman” Last Rites” issue featuring an “Origins and Omens” backup! As Robin, Dick Grayson fought alongside Batman as part of the dynamic duo, the greatest crime-fighting team in history. As Nightwing, he teamed up with his peers to combat injustice in the Titans and the Outsiders. Now, Dick Grayson faces the most important battle of his life. Batman is dead. The Mantle of the Bat must be passed, but it will require all of Dick’s training and skills to carry out the last wishes of Bruce Wayne and protect Gotham City. Will it be enough to protect himself from the dangers that await him? Or is this the last the world will see of Nightwing?
FINAL ISSUE

In a world in which “Prodigal” never existed, I think the prospect of Dick Grayson becoming Batman would have been tremendously excited. As it is though, I find myself wondering how derivative the new direction of Batman will ultimately be.

If Nightwing does quit being Nightwing, I wonder if it will before this Nightwing meets the new Kandorian Nightwing popping up in the Super-books…?


SHOWCASE PRESENTS: AMBUSH BUG VOL. 1 TP
Written by Keith Giffen, Robert Loren Fleming, Paul Kupperberg
and Paul Levitz
Art by Keith Giffen, Robert Oksner, Carmine Infantino, and others
Cover by Keith Giffen & Bob Oksner
Collecting DC COMICS PRESENTS #52, 59 and 81, SUPERGÎRL #16 (1984), stories from SECRET ORIGINS #48, ACTION COMICS #560, 563 and 565, AMBUSH BUG #1-4, SON OF AMBUSH BUG #1-6, AMBUSH BUG STOCKING STUFFER #1 and AMBUSH BUG NOTHING SPECIAL #1 — whew!

SHOWCASE PRESENTS: JUSTICE LEAGUE OF AMERICA VOL. 4 TP
Written by Gardner Fox and Dennis O’Neil
Art by Mike Sekowsky, Dick Dillin, Sid Greene,
George Roussos and Joe Giella
Cover by Neal Adams
The JLA continues to fight evil in this new bargain-priced volume collection JUSTICE LEAGUE OF AMERICA #61-83. These epic tales feature the JLA debuts of the Red Tornado and Black Canary, plus the annual adventure with the Justice Society of America!

I am going to buy these.

I hope they decide to keep printing Showcase collections of Justice League right up until the debut of the Detroit Era League, if not through the debut of the Giffen/DeMatteis team.


SUPERMAN: THE COMING OF ATLAS HC
Written by James Robinson and Jack Kirby
Art by Renado Guedes, Jack Kirby, Jose Wilson
Magalhaes and D. Bruce Berry
Cover by Alex Ross
Titans clash in this first hardcover collection of SUPERMAN tales from fan-favorite writer James Robinson (STARMAN)!
Featuring SUPERMAN #677-680, this is the battle to end all others as Superman faces off with Atlas, lost god of myth. And when Atlas stakes a claim on Metropolis, it’s up to Superman and Krypto to take Atlas down.
As a bonus, this collection also includes FIRST ISSUE SPECIAL #1, the 1975 tale by Jack “King” Kirby that introduced Atlas!

Ha ha ha! “Coming.”


REIGN IN HELL #8
Written by Keith Giffen
Art by Tom Derenick & Bill Sienkiewicz
Cover by Justiniano
The bloody denouement arrives as the heir to the throne of Hell is chosen! Will Blue Devil regain his soul? Will there be a Hell left once Lobo’s had his way? Will Dr. Occult convince his lost love to come home? Find the answers here!
On sale February 25 • 8 of 8

THE WAR THAT TIME FORGOT #10
Written by Bruce Jones
Art by Graham Nolan & Dan Green
Cover by Justiniano
The secret’s out! The puzzling mystery of the island is revealed...but has it come too late for those who hoped for a life beyond its shores? Get set for some of the strangest, most explosive TNT clashes between men and beasts ever chronicled!
On sale February 25 • 10 of 12

TANGENT: SUPERMAN’S REIGN #12
Written by Dan Jurgens
Art by Carlos Magno & Julio Ferreira
Cover by Dan Jurgens & Will Conrad
The duel universe-spanning epic concludes as the Justice League of America attempts to rally against Tangent Superman. It all comes down to one last-ditch effort as all hope remains with one lone individual. Who’s this being, and what’s their relationship to the Man of Telekinesis? And what will become of the Tangent Universe?

Damn, these are some long-ass miniseries, aren’t they?


SIMON DARK #17
Written by Steve Niles
Art and cover by Scott Hampton
Tragedy tears apart Simon Dark’s patchwork life! There aren’t many people who’ve gotten close to Simon Dark, but the events of this issue will leave them all hurt...or worse! Can Simon’s fragile world ever be stitched back together?

Every time a new round of solicits comes out, I expect to see a “FINAL ISSUE” attached to the end of the Simon Dark one, and it’s never there. So congratulations to Niles and Hampton—they’ve kept this thing going a lot longer that I expected was possible.



I don't have anything to add really. This image speaks for itself, and does so quite eloquently.

So I understand the Obamas are looking for a new dog...

Provided they don't have their hearts set on one that's both three-dimensional and, what's the word, real, then I might have a few suggestions...


Krypto The Superdog

Breed: Kryptonian

Current owner: Superman

Positives: Has all of Superman's many powers, only scaled to dog proportions, making him an ideal guard dog, watch dog, bloodhound and, should the need arise, attack dog.

Negatives: Would be difficult for human owners or handlers to take him for flies into outer space for exercise, or throw trees for him to fetch; could render the president's secret service detail superfluous, costing hundreds of them their jobs



Ace, The Bat-Hound

Breed: German shepherd

Current owner: Batman (estranged)

Positives: Batman would likely be willing to give Ace up, given how the Dark Knight tends to be ashamed of his occasional canine sidekick and is constantly trying to distance himself; an experienced tracker, Ace could help find people when the president can't (Look out, bin Laden!)

Negatives: Previous owner was kind of insane, so Ace might have a difficult time adjusting to living with a normal family that never wears capes or assaults anyone; background check could compromise Ace's secret identity, and thus that of Batman



Rex, The Wonder Dog

Breed: German Shepherd

Current owner: A national treasure, Rex is owned by us all

Posiitves: A superb polymath and jack-of-all-trades, Rex's skill set and resume are unparalleled by any dog in history (and, come to think of it, few humans); in addition to being an excellent guard dog, he could easily fill in as a nanny for the girls, a secret service agent, White House chief of staff, Secretary of State, Vice President, or whatever Obama needs, really

Negatives: It might not do to have the First Dog showing up the president of the United States, and the fact that Rex would likely crush the back of al Qaeda, capture bin Laden, turn the economy around, solve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, and invent a new source of cheap green energy within his first 100 days pretty much guarantees he'll be making Obama seem incompetent in comparison.



G'Nort Esplanade G'neesmacher

Breed: G'Newtian

Current owners: The Guardians of the Galaxy

Positives: As a biped that can speak English and has opposable thumbs, G'Nort needs little in the way of care, and could be more useful than most first pets tend to be(he could feed himself, reach things on high shelves for the girls, etc.); his magic wishing ring is sometimes referred to as the "most powerful weapon in the universe" and can create any form of energy and matter in any amount, so long as he has the necessary willpower and imagination

Negatives: Past unsavory personal connections include Guy Gardner, The Scarlet Skier and Justice League Antarctica; allegiance to an immortal race of remote, controlling aliens may present the appearance of a conflict of interest; less intelligent than most species of earth dogs; a little of him goes a long way



Lockjaw

Breed: Attilanian giant bulldog

Current owner: The Inhuman Royal Family, or possibly Ben "The Thing" Grimm

Positives: An exceptionally good dog for watching after the daugthers of the powerful; has experience working with ruling families; in addition to his great strength, his ability to teleport would be a useful form of transportation for the president; would be the first First Pet with a tuning fork in its head

Negatives: His great size may be problematic, potentially causing damage to the White House; the United States and the Inhumans have had several recent conflicts, and it may be impolitic to invite one of them to live in the White House; drools



Scooby-Doo

Breed: Great Dane

Current owner: Some beatnik

Positives: Master of disguise (for a dog); will do absolutely anything for a scooby snack; can talk (albeit with a speech impediment); friends with ghost-breakers Mystery Inc., who could prove useful in solving the mystery of the White House ghosts

Negatives: Extremely cowardly and somewhat paranoid (Get ready to hear “Sp-Sp-Spirit?!” every time you mention “The spirit of bipartisanship," Mr. President-Elect); needs held a lot; enormous appetite could put an unusual strain on the White House's pet food budget



Dynomutt, Dog Wonder

Breed: Android

Current owner: The Blue Falcon/Radley Crown

Positives: As his dog hair is synthetic, he's hypoallergenic; miraculous system of transistors allows him to telescope his limbs to great lengths and pull a gadget for almost any emergency out of his chest; worked for the first black mayor in a Saturday morning cartoon; former All-Star Laff-a-Lympic athlete; his partner Blue Falcon says he’s “as strong as a train…fearless, scare-less” and “a go-go dog person” (that’s a compliment, right?)

Negatives: An inveterate bumbler; kind of an idiot (for a talking android dog); has an extremely annoying laugh; has amassed a long list of goofy but potentially dangerous villains like Madame Apeface, Queen Hornet, The Red Vulture, The Glob, Fishface, Lowbrow, The Blimp and so on; according to his partner Blue Flacon he has “a so-so brain” and is “a little too careless”



Goofy

Breed: Human canine hybrid

Current owner: The Walt Disney corporation

Positives: Has opposable thumbs and walks bipedally, so he can manipulate most basic tools; can dress, feed and walk himself; can speak (although mostly just says “Gorsh!” and “A-hyuck hyuck”)

Negatives: Severely mentally retarded (or possibly brain-damaged); unsavory associations include a gigantic rodent and a duck with severe anger management issues



Snoopy

Breed: Beagle

Current owner: A depressed, round-headed grade school student

Positives: Good with kids; extremely affectionate toward little girls; quite a dancer; his Easter Beagle schtick would be a hit at White House lawn Easter egg rolls and hunts

Negatives: Prone to hallucination and elaborate delusions, has trouble separating his imagination from reality; ties to MetLife may present conflict of interest when the new president tackles health insurance reform

Review: The Burma Chronicles

Thank God for Guy Delisle. When a deadly cyclone hit the country of Myanmar in the spring, killing over 80,000, leaving millions homeless and threatening a humanitarian crisis that could cost thousands and thousands more their lives, news of the small Asian nation began hitting the notoriously indifferent to the rest of the world American media.

For a while after the cyclone, I’d hear about Myanmar and it’s ridiculously reclusive and secretive military government on a daily basis, and was full of questions about this Asian nation I’d never really heard of (I’m somewhat ashamed to admit that I hadn’t even realized Burma’s name had been changed to Myanmar, so ill-informed was I).

So Canadian-born French cartoonist Delisle’s latest graphic novel travelogue/cartoon diary, The Burma Chronicles (Drawn and Quarterly) isn’t just welcome, but timely as well.

Delisle has previously spent time in inhospitable places and turned out books on his experiences—Pyongyang: A Journey in North Korea and Shenzhen: A Travelogue From China—but gets access to Burma not because of who he is or what he’s done, but because of who his wife is and what she does. She’s an administrator for the French Doctors Without Borders, and, at book’s open, Delisle is watching Star Trek in Spanish (“El Star Trek! La ultima frontera…”) in anticipation of his little family being sent to Guatemala.

A phone call later, that’s been changed to Myanmar, a country whose language isn’t even an option on Delisle’s Star Trek DVD (I was comforted about my own ignorance about current Asian geography when I saw the Delisle avatar respond “Myanwhat?”)

So stay-at-home dad and work-from-home cartoonist Deslisle is stationed with his wife in the country formerly known (and sometimes still known, depending on whom you ask) as Burma, watching after his toddler son Louis, whom the cartoonist depicts as a little boy with a giant, bell-shaped head, capable of speaking in an idiosyncratic version of pig Latin (“Ada!” is dad, for example).

The book is structured as a series of short, episodic strips of various length, each covering a specific topic or event during Delisle and company’s 14 months or so in Burma.

If Delisle’s Chronicles were devoted to nothing more than educating the reader about Burma/Myanmar, it would no doubt be an effective work, but because of the way Delisle inserts himself into the book, it makes for a highly engaging read—one that’s as much a highly observational, occasionally profound family sitcom as it is a graphic novel about a country and culture.

History, politics, geography, social customs and everything a kid might need to do a report on the country is in here, but so too are anecdotes that reveal the nature of the country or the experience of being an outsider there. And then there are plenty of details that are just fun to read about, like the disparity between the way everyone treats little Louis versus how they treat his dad Guy.

If this is your first experience with the author, his style is stripped down to a sort of highly evocative minimalism. The characters are defined by a few simple geometric shapes, but the settings are representational (without ever looking fussy), and when Delisle slips into a more explanatory mode—when discussing what vehicles, buildings or pieces of equipment look like—his drawing will grow quite detailed. He’s spent a decade in animation, and it certainly shows in his command of the page, and the time and space the panels suggest upon it.

I know nothing about Delisle’s wife save what I’ve read here, and I certainly don’t know anything about his real-life relationship with her, and yet I still feel pretty confident in saying Delisle married well, if only because his wife’s job brings us books like Burma Chronicles.

The most depressing thing ever

This week director/gay joke factory Kevin Smith returned to comics stores with the first issue of his first new comic book series in years: Batman: Cacophony, drawn by his friend Walt Flanagan (who apparently had a very fast dog at one point) and pitting DC’s flagship hero up against a supervillain Smith created in his brief run on Green Arrow.

I didn’t buy it. Not because I don’t like Smith’s comics writing (His Green Arrow and Oni Press spin-offs of his films were rather good, his Daredevil was readable, and, well, his Marvel stuff was just awful, but there are worse track records than that), or that I hated the art (on an in-store flip-through, it seemed decent enough to me; my first thought being, Well, it’s better than Tony Daniel…), but rather because I’ve learned my lesson with Smith comics.

At this point, I can’t imagine buying a series he was doing before it was collected in trade, having been made to wait four years between two issues of Spider-Man/Black Cat: The Evil That Men Do, and I’m still waiting on the second issue of 2003’s Daredevil: The Target (Was President George W. Bush the target Bullseye was hired to kill or not goddamit?!)

I know DC has very publicly promised that the scripts were in and that this would totally ship on time, but then, that’s what comics creators and editors always say; it’s practically a promise that the book actually will be late. (To add fuel to the how-late-will-this-one-be speculation fire, DC was only able to assure folks that the first two scripts were done as of September…this is a three-part series. Let’s see, if the average length of time it takes a comic book to go from script to publication is six months, and assuming Smith got to work on September 10th on the third script, then that means…the third issue will be at least two months behind schedule…?)

So anyway, I just figured I’d save myself $12 and just borrow the trade from the Columbus Metropolitan Library in 2012 or so.

Now, what’d I miss? Let’s see what the critics who did read this issue had to say…


“I mentioned yesterday that I couldn't recall enjoying any of Smith's superhero comics; having read this one, I still can't.”

—Joe McCulloch, Jog—The Blog


“Boy, Kevin Smith's not a very good superhero comic book writer, is he?… [A] sloppy mess that smacks of an inside joke (note artist Walt Flanagan's presence) that somehow went a bit too far up the editorial chain.”

—Kevin Church, Beaucoupkevin.com


“Pretty Goddam terrible…Batman: Cacophony is what you'd get if you asked a twelve-year-old to write his idea of an "adult" comic: Everyone wears trenchcoats so that you know they're super-badass, and there's a string of sex jokes…that's just embarrassing for everyone concerned. Not because they're sex jokes, but–again–because they're the sex jokes a kid trying to sound edgy and grown up writes in his fan-fiction. Which is pretty much what this is, but without the level of quality control you get from the online community that actually wants to read about the Mad Hatter trying to fuck the Joker.”

—Chris Sims, The Invincible Super-Blog


“It's the sort of thing that makes you stop and wonder: how the hell did this reach publication? Did no one, at any point in the long and complex process of creating a comic stop to think…this piece of dreck is not going to help DC or the comics industry?”

— Diana Kingston-Gabai, The Savage Critics


“In the end, Batman: Cacophony feels like a massive sine wave of peaks and valleys, never quite succeeding or failing for more than a couple of pages. Hopefully things will level out in the remaining two issues; right now, this is truly an example of the proverbial mixed bag."

—Greg McEllhaton, Comic Book Resources


That last one is also the most positive review I’ve read, save maybe for Hanibal Tabu’s in his weekly Buy Pile column for CBR. If those are reviews, and not just explanations of why he buys some things and why he doesn’t buy others; I’ve never been 100-percent clear on that (If you do click through to read any one of those though, I’d recommend McCulloch’s; his isn’t just well-written and well thought out, but it’s also the longest and spends some time on Smith’s career in comics in general, and how it’s affected segments of the industry).

The consensus seems to be this is an awful, awful comic book, due mainly to the writing, which I gather is crass, remarkably focused on male-male couplings and male genitals, creatively bankrupt and far too wordy for the medium. Critics seem a little more mixed on the art, with some liking it and some not, but the overall assessment seems to be that this Flanagan guy is pretty damn good for someone who seems to have mainly gotten the gig by being Smith’s friend.

One thing that sticks out in the reviews is the expression that it seems wrong that DC would even publish this—Church, Kingston-Gabai and Sims all say something along the lines that this is something that should have been stopped by editorial before reaching stands (even if they say so jokingly).

And that brings us to the depressing part.

I mentioned up top that I kinda liked Smith’s Green Arrow. It’s actually pretty difficult to judge the quality of the writing given the nature of the story. He was returning the then-dead Green Arrow Oliver Queen back to life in a mysterious, supernatural way, and the bulk of the series involved Smith hitting the beats that every reader wanted him to hit, and any writer would have had him hit (Ollie meets his lover for the first time since returning to life, he meets his best friend for the first time since returning to life, his son, his former sidekick, his former teammates, etc).

There were more gay jokes than your average DCU comic, a ton of dialogue, and some minor continuity glitches (none of which seem that big a deal in the post-Identity Crisis era, in which continuity no longer really exists), but it was all competent enough, and Smith at least went to the trouble of a more or less original and extremely complex hero resurrection story (This was my first exposure to Stanley and His Monster, so upon reading it the first time through, Smith’s ridiculously dark take on the characters didn’t offend me as much as it would have if I’d read some Stanley... comics first; it’s worth noting that Smith’s approach to that revamp set the tone for pretty much the rest of the DCU afterwards, though).

I wonder what’s changed? Is it Smith? Going out on a limb here, I would hazard a guess that it’s the absence of then-Green Arrow editor Bob Schreck. Schreck’s then new Oni Press was the first comics publisher that Kevin Smith ever worked with, meaning all of my favorite Smith-scipted comics also involved Schreck (To further evidence Schreck’s abilities as an editor who works to bring out the best in his writers, he also edited the only Brad Meltzer comics I would define as Not Beyond Terrible, Meltzer’s “Archer’s Quest” arc of Green Arrow).

I don’t know who edited Cacophony, since I don’t have a copy handy*. Mike Marts seems to be running the Bat-office these days; Ian Sattler wrote the DC Nation announcement of the series, and given Smith’s star-status, certainly Dan DiDio was involved at some point. So maybe one of those three…?

Now, is this so bad because no one was there to point out to Smith that the Batman cast’s homosexual undertones work best when they’re UNDERtones, or that it probably doesn’t work to have Deadshot die here since he’s starring in this other book at the moment, or that Frank Miller can get away with that gonzo over-the-top shit because he’s Frank fucking Miller and his Batman book is in its own line anyway, whereas this is a DCU book, and so on?

I don’t know. But I do know that it is entirely possible that whoever edited the book, whoever read and okayed the scripts and proofed it and signed off on it, it’s entirely possible that those people could be one-hundred percent completely aware that the book they were about to publish was complete, irredeemable shit (I’m not saying it is; I haven’t read it), and they would still go ahead and publish it.

Because no matter how bad it is, it’s celebrity Kevin Smith writing Batman (the first issue coming out just as Smith is finishing up a round of press presence to promote his latest film, even!) and it’s guaranteed to sell really well for DC, and they need a hit these days because nothing is working for them.

And the thought that, despite all this talk of the medium having grown-up and come into its own, one of the major American comics companies still has to publish whatever will sell, no matter how poorly done it is, well, God that’s depressing.



*UPDATE: Well, now I know who edited it, thanks to one of the comments. Apparently, it was Jann Jones and Dan DiDio.

Please enjoy this repurposed content

So the plan for tonight's post was an art-heavy one, but I was unable to get access to my scanner (and by "my" I mean "the one at the public library that I use"), so that post is now a no-go. As I don't want to let a day pass without any new content here, however, here are two reviews of recent Dark Horse Comics trade collections, which originally ran in Monday's Best Shots @ Newsarama column. (I don't know, do you guys even read Newsarama? How about Best Shots?). Fresher content tomorrow, and I'll probably do that art-heavy one on Monday, when people are actually reading again...


The latest volume collecting Dark Horse’s long-running series of series based on the 20th Century Fox aliens with a capital-A boasts the same amount of bang for your buck that all the company’s omnibus volumes do: $25 gets you some 371 full-color pages worth of comics.

This particular volume has the added bonus of being full of stories by people who you wouldn’t expect to be doing Aliens comics and, while the results aren’t always great comics, they are always interesting comics.

The collection climaxes with “Havoc,” a Mark Schultz-scripted jam comic featuring a different artist on almost every page, with the who’s who in comics contributors including Ducan Fegredo, D’Israeli, Arthur Adams, Peter Bagge, Kelley Jones, Jay Stephens, P. Craig Russell, Sean Phillips, Gene Ha, Sergio Aragones, Moebius, Tony Millionaire and 30 other similarly disparate artists.

There’s a John Byrne story in which a ship bearing an Alien crash-lands on 1950s earth (It sucks, but still; John Byrne Aliens!), a story about religious fanaticism featuring art by horror master Richard Corben (That's a Corben alien on the cover above), a story by Jim Woodring, Justin Green and Francisco Solano Lopez, and another drawn by Guy Davis, and that’s only about half the book.

Regardless of how you feel about the films, or the seemingly endless life they’ve taken on in the comics (Personally? I kinda dig them), this particular trade is well worth at least a flip-through for almost any comics fan. Who can resist Guy Davis’ spindly, inky monsters, or Peter Bagge’s high-energy panels of a space marine going nuts with a machine gun, or Sergio Aragones’ downright cute Aliens?



In B.P.R.D. 1946, the second world war has just ended, and the ruined Berlin is split in half, with the American and Russian armies co-occupying it, each side scrambling to scoop up everything of value before the other can get their hands on it. In Mike Mignola’s Hellboiverse, this includes not only Nazi treasures and rocket scientists, but also Hiter’s occult weapons and mechanically augmented ape warriors.

It’s basically The Good German, with demons, vampires and simian cyborgs.

Back then, Hellboy is still just a boy, and the B.P.R.D. is similarly young, so when Trevor Bruttenholm arrives to start combing Berlin and cataloging Nazi occult programs, his only allies are the solders the U.S. military assigns him. His Russian rival is a creepy little doll-like girl, who is wise (and powerful) well beyond her years, and they slowly uncover something called “Project Vampir Sturm.”

Mike Mignola and co-writer Joshua Dysart tease the plot out so that the story starts off quite realistic, slowly becomes something of a mystery and then something of a ghost story that gets a little scarier with each page turn. Right up until the climax, at which point it explodes into the sort of full-on zany pulp horror readers have come to expect from Mignola’s Hellboy related efforts.

Tonally, the book is something of a labyrinth, with Mignola and Dysart leading readers from a more-or-less true war story into a Hellboy comic.

It’s taking a lot of willpower not to reveal the final application of Hitler’s vampire weapon, as it’s so giddily inspired, but discovering it as the protagonists do is one of the best parts of the book.

Mignola's contribution to the art stops at the cover, but Paul Azaceta’s art is perfectly suited to the story, as he excels in the bombed-out, post-apocalyptic period details and the more ethereal horror elements, and his aesthetic isn’t too far from that of Mignola’s own, nor other B.P.R.D. artists like Guy Davis.

All in all, it’s a remarkably new-reader friendly trade; you could quite easily get away without not knowing anything about Mignola’s ever-growing franchise and still enjoy this on its own merits.

Weekly Haul: November 12th

Action Comics #871 (DC Comics) Foul! It’s just not fair to tease us with images of Krypto The Super-Dog, particularly a fully-painted Krypto The Super-Dog square in the center of a group shot, on the cover of a Superman comic, and then fail to include any Krypto The Super-Dog in the actual book.

Ah well, what is in here isn’t so bad, even if it’s all playing out in fairly predictable fashion, save maybe the last few pages, which is either a big huge deal, or Geoff Johns at least teasing his readers that hey, maybe this will be a big, huge deal.

General Thaddeus “Thunderbolt” Ross, forever upset that his daughter has gotten romantically mixed up with a bespectacled milquetoast and his super-strong alter ego, recruits Lex Luthor to build him weapons (for some reason, Johns has Lex refer to Ross as “Lane” repeatedly; probably just lazy editing); Doomsday is savagely beaten to death by Kryptonians, while Superman kind of stands by looking horrified (Nice job, hero!);* and, in the big reveal of the issue, we meet the new Kryptonian superheroes of Kandor, Nightwing and Flamebird and, get this, Nightwing has the power of tactile telekinesis. Which he announces, out loud, while using it. Hmm, now who does that remind me of…?

So typically skilled and over-violent Geoff Johns super-scripting, typically well done Pete Woods art, big “Oh no he di’n’t!”Johns cliffhanger, and not nearly as much Krypto action as I—and probably only I—would have liked. So pretty much your average Superman book at the moment, which is better than your average DC book at the moment.


Hulk: World War Hulk—Incredible Hercules (Marvel Comics) This trade collection of the Amadeus Cho-centric stories that appeared in The Incredible Hulk during World War Hulk isn’t new or anything, but I picked it up at the shop this week, so I guess I should mention it here, given this is a list of new comics I got today.

As I’ve probably mentioned a few times before, the Greg Pak and Fred Van Lente written Incredible Hercules series is currently my favorite Marvel comic, and maybe the best ongoing superhero universe comic in general (It’s certainly the one I enjoy the most), so I was curious to see how the Cho/Hercules team-up originally started.

Taken on its own, this trade is kind of a mess and, read in a vacuum, is probably completely incomprehensible. The art teams are all decent, but there are at least three of them in this one trade, so it doesn’t look so pretty, and the vast majority of the story is focused on how Cho reacts to the events of WWH, so unexplained things happen in the background that you’d only fully understand if you have already read WWH.

There are a lot of great, giddy moments though and plenty of neat ideas (Cho’s Hulk reservation is actually a pretty great idea; why didn’t anyone ever try that?), and most of my favorite Marvel characters appear at some point. Cho, Herc, Namora and Angel form the core cast, but Cho also tries recruiting She-Hulk and Namor. It’s not as strong as what ultimately follows, but taken as a warm-up for Incredible Hercules, it’s not bad at all, and definitely gives a greater depth to that reading experience.



JSA Kingdom Come Special: Superman (DC) Oh, fuck you DC Comics. Because Justice Society of America writer Geoff Johns just hasn’t had enough space for his twenty-part (and counting!) sequel to Mark Waid and Alex Ross’ Kingdom Come, DC is giving the story still more room to breathe by publishing a trio of laboriously-titled one-shots—I went with what the legal indica referred to as the title at the beginning of this paragraph; the cover actually reads Justice Society of America Kingdom Come Special Superman One Shot.

This one-shot is written and illustrated by Alex Ross, and costs $3.99. Since that’s a dollar more than your average DC universe comic book—or a 33% price increase—you might expect, as I did, that it would be an oversized issue, with a higher page count. After all, this isn’t a Marvel comic.

Well, if that’s what you expect, as I did, then you’re wrong, as I was. This fucking thing is just 23 pages long. So lesson learned—always count the pages of your DC Comics purchases when the cover price if jacked up, I guess.

After the 23-page story, there’s twelve pages marked “Bonus Material” (Confidential to DC: It ain’t “bonus” if we pay for it), which features Alex Ross explaining his process of dressing people up, taking photos of them, and then drawing from the source material, for anyone who has never, ever read any Alex Ross comics before, which is no one who would buy this thing. (You know what would be cool though? One of these stupid “this is how Ross does what he does” sections devoted to how he paints Krypto The Super-Dog, like on the cover of this week’s Action Comics. See that image of Krypto all splayed out awkwardly up there? Did Ross find a white dog, make a little cape for it, and then have two friends hold the dog aloft while he photographed it?)

As for the story, it’s Kingdom Come Superman recapping the events of Kingdom Come and JSoA for the benefit of those who haven’t read either, I guess (and why would they then be reading this, exactly? I don’t know) and having a few emotional chats, with Cyclone, Lois Lane and Alex Ross’ dad. The only real fresh material here is an expanded version of the scene in Kingdom Come where The Joker kills Lois, notable mainly because here Ross goes to great pains to hide the stupid ponytail Kingdom Come Superman was sporting when the scene originally played out in Kingdom Come.



Nightwing #150 (DC) Oh hey, this story still isn’t over yet, is it? Like writer Peter J. Tomasi’s first over-long arc on the title, this one apparently has a whole series of endings (this is conclusion #2, and solicits promise at least one more conclusion to come). After having failed to save the day last issue—the goriest, nastiest issue of Nightwing ever—Nightwing is being super extra Batman-like, all being grim and gritty, staying awake for superhuman amounts of time and showing off his super-scarred body while he changes costumes. Two-Face is planning a kind of novel attack on New York City, which he announces in a pretty novel way, and it’s up to Nightwing to save the day, and hopefully actually do it this issue. But first he’ll have to scare a bunch of stoolies, including covering one in gravy so rats will chew on him…?

Like most of Tomasi’s run, this was a pretty not-terrible issue, if a little on the mean and nasty side for a book about grown-up Robin. The art was once again by penciller Don Kramer, who, at this point, I’m pretty sure has put in more fill-in issues than “regular” artist Rags Morales has, and two inkers. Kramer’s a decent artist, and he understands how to draw a comic book, which makes him a better Batman artist than the one currently drawing Batman, but he’s also not Rags Morales, who was the reason I started picking this book up in the first place.

Anyway, this is my last issue of the series. As it’s being cancelled in expectation of some sort of relaunch, depending on the outcome of Grant Morrison’s “Batman R.I.P.” story arc, the remaining issues are guaranteed to be irrelevant. Er, more irrelevant than usual.

On the positive side, this comic is 38-pages long, so at least you won’t feel tricked and robbed for shelling out $3.99 for it.



Tales of The TMNT #52 (Mirage) Well this was…weird. And weird even by the standards of a comic with an acronym for “Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles” right there in the title.

It’s a kinda sorta crossover with the 1992 cartoon series The C.O.W.boys of Moo Mesa, the creation of TMNT artist Ryan Brown, who co-plotted and thumbnailed this issue, while Steve Murphy scripted it and Dario Brizuela finished Brown’s art.

Check it out, here’s the plot: On the C.O.W.boy’s planet or maybe in their dimension/time period, an evil Utrom (those little brain octopus guys who live in robot stomachs) is riding around in an android anthropomorphic cow man suit, which is riding on a horse, and this Utrom allies himself with a mutant bat man named “Bat Blastagun” (get it?) as part of an evil plot by a group of evil Utroms. Meanwhile, a good Utrom, Donatello, Raphael and Casey Jones travel there, and team-up with the C.O.W.boys to foil the Utrom plot, joined by the most insane character creation of the old Archie Comics TMNT comics** (which I won’t spoil here, but it’s actually kind of obvious once you see him…or her…or it). Then an alien appears and says something about a mutation crystal.

The plot (which Peter Laird also helped with, according to the credits), is pretty wild and disjointed feeling, with a breathless “and then this happens, and then this, and then this” pacing, with no room spared to acknowledge—let alone develop—the characters, or the significance of anything happening in it to really set in. It’s just a series of cameos leading up to nothing, although it is “To be continued,” so perhaps the pay-off comes in the next issue.

I was deeply impressed with the depths of terrible cow puns Murphy came up with (including one character asking for his lawyer, “Johnny Cowchrane”), and I really liked Brizuela’s artwork, particularly the turtle character designs.


Trinity #24 (DC) Oh Trinity, at least you’re always there for me. No matter how few super-books come out, no matter how bad they may be, at least it’s comforting to know there will always be an imaginative, well-written, competently illustrated super-comic full of surprises each and every week. Seriously; I did not see that last panel coming, and it’s fun watching Busiek and company picking up various plotlines that they had seemingly abandoned and weaving them back into the story.

I especially liked the part where Despero asks an underling to shoot him out into space to fight Green Lantern, and the underling’s like, “But you have no space suit,” and Despero’s all, “Air is for cowards!” That made me laugh.



*Is that even really Doomsday? Or a clone of him? It seems to me that Doomsday’s already died, like, fifty times. I blame Jeph Loeb, but I suppose it’s the Super-office’s fault for using Doomsday over and over as much as it is Loeb’s fault, who was writing for the Super-office during the period where Doomsday kept popping up, and Loeb did send, like, an army of Doomsday clones to fight the Trinity in Superman/Batman.


**Fact: I would kill for a Showcase Presents/Essential-style series of black and white phonebook collections of Archie’s TMNT books