Comic shop comics: March 27-April 3

Classic Popeye #8 (IDW) Another month, another helping of Bud Sagendorf Popeye comics. In this issue, Wimpy wants to go into business, operating his own hamburger stand, which maybe isn't the best business for Wimpy to be in; there's a prose story I totally didn't read, a Sappo and Wotasnozzle story and a story about Popeye being called into a small Western town to figh the local bullet salesman, only to have Swee'Pea stand in for him.

I like this comic.

I have no idea who or what Zoopy is, though; he's not mentioned in Popeye: The First Fifty Years by Bud Sagendorf, which I'm currently working my way through.

Green Lantern #19 (DC Comics) I unfolded all of the gatefold covers that were part of DC's April promotion that was apparently gong to be called "WTF Certified" until cooler, classier, less crazy heads prevailed. None of them looked particularly shocking, or even mildly surprising, to be honest, with the cover for Animal Man probably teasing the biggest event (but even a character death doesn't really seem like that big of a deal, when the character's only really been around in this form for about a year and a half).

The shocking cover of Green Lantern #19...? Sinestro, still wearing the Green Lantern uniform he's worn throughout The New 52, holding a yellow power battery. Not exactly "WTF" material.

This issue is mostly focused on Sinestro and, to a much lesser extent, Hal Jordan, while new Green Lantern Simon Baz only gets a few panels. Volthoom, the First Lantern, Xanshis Korugar, and Hal Jordan commits suicide in "The Dead Zone" in the hopes that doing so will allow him to wear a Black Lantern ring and escape.

Regular artist Doug Mahnke is MIA, perhaps hard at work on whatever monthly DC's got him scheduled for when the Green Lantern franchises messily changes hands (Shazam, maybe? He'd be a good Shazam artist), so the art chores are divided between Szymon Kudranski (who "pencils" the Dead Zone bits, which don't really contain much in the way of legible visual information anyway), and Ardian Syaf, who draws everything else. Three inkers and two colorists help them get the book in on time.

This issue's labeled "Wrath of the First Lantern Part Nine," and I'm actually kind of lost at this point, since I'm only reading the parts that appear in Green Lantern, and skipping the parts that appear in Green Lantern Corps, Green Lantern: New Guradians and Red Lanterns.

It's not really the bang I was hoping Geoff Johns would go out on, and I fee like there's a whole lot of his emotional spectrum mythos that he hinted at but never quite got around to thoroughly exploring, particularly regarding the White Lantern and White Light.

Ah well.

Hey, when did Sinestro wear the get-up with the white cape...?

And dude went his whole life with only one hairstyle? Weird.

Joe Kubert Presents #6 (DC) This is the sixth and final issue of the post-humously published, DC-lets-Joe-Kubert-do-whatever-he-wants series that's been a real joy to read. Brian Buniak returns for a chicken fat-filled final Angel and The Ape story, which includes a killer two-page spread of a crowded street scene full of animals, visual gags and weird cameos, and Sam Glanzman presents one more U.S.S. Stevens story, focusing on the end of the war in the Pacific (odd timing; I just read a comic about the development of the atomic bomb for this roundtable discussion of Trinity at Good Comics For Kids).

Kubert's contributions are a long story (maybe the longest of the series) about Spit, the little orphan boy working on a whaling ship, a story that gives considerable detail to the hows of 19th century whaling. Then are there are two short story fragments that Kubert apparently didn't get to before he passed away.

There's a five-page seqeunce written by Kubert (with Pete Carlsson) but drawn by Henrik Jonsson that tells of how the boy who would grow up to be Sargon the Sorceror first got his magical ruby, and an eight-page Kamandi story that marries Kirby's Demon to Kirby's Kamandi; that's co-written by Kubert and Brandon Bietti, who also provided the artowork (Damn, I would have liked to see Kubert's Etrigan).

Here, by the way, is one half of that two-page Bunkiak splash I mentioned.

Can you see cameos appearances of The Penguin, Joe Kubert and a certain swamp monster that will likely force Mike Sterling to buy this issue, if he wasn't already planning on doing so?

The Lake Erie Monster #4 (Shiner Comics Group) It's the fourth and penultimate issue of Jake Kelly and John G.'s 1970s era monster story, and things are coming to a head. I was sorta surprised to see the monster tear into all those kids like that; movie makers don't generally visit violence onto children so much as threaten the with it.

"Matinee," the back-up story, is a pretty good one. I'm not sure what the future holds for Kelly and G after they wrap up the title story—whether the book will continue on with the same title but a different lead feature, or if they'll launch a new series, or what—but they're pretty good at coming up with short horror stories.

Legends of the Dark Knight #7 (DC) This issue is devoted to one, single, long story, "Haunted Arkham," in which the latest in a long line of crazy doctors gets a job at the home for the criminally insane, and is experimenting on them for the purposes of...well, it's all kind of out there, really. It's essentially a ghost story, albeit one involving Batman, The Joker, Maxie Zeus and other inmates.

It's pretty different, to the extent that it might even be slightly out of bounds for the regular Batman millieu, but it works okay in book like this one, which is devoted to stories of just that sort. Writer Joe Harris does good Alfred dialogue. I'm not cazy about artists Jason Masters' style, but it's not bad work so much as not really my cup of tea.

Superman Family Adventures #11 (DC) It's the penultimate issue, as more villains appear—Doomsday, Terra-Man, Lunch Lady Darkseid—and everything seems to be building towards an Everyone Vs. Everyone finale.

Young Avengers #4 (Marvel Entertainment) If there's a better-drawn Big Two super-comic than this, I'd sure like to see it.