Spider-Man is correct.

There are quite a few mad scientists in my men's social club, and a few of them actually proved spider strength's superiority to bald guy's strength scientifically. They irradiated me and then had me bite a puny high school nerd.

Did the kid gain the proportional strength of a bald guy? The results were inconclusive, as my strength is pretty much the equivalent of your average puny high school nerd. But the test subject's hair did get a bit thinner within the week, and I had to have some skin abnormalities removed a few months later.



(Panel scanned from Marvel Adventures Avengers #37, written by Paul Tobin and illustrated by Dario Brizuela and Leandro Corral)

Captain America sure asks a lot of questions...

The back-matter in last week's Young Allies Comics 70th Anniversary Special #1 included a couple of ads for Captain America's Sentinels of Liberty, described in one as "the greatest army of red-blooded young patriots ever assembled under one flag...waging a war to the finish against spies and traitors to our country." Another says that each Sentinel of Liberty is "a member of Captain America's own mighty legion."

It sure sounds fishy. Is it a cult? A nationwide boys' gang? An early 20th century militia, for children?

I don't know. I'm afraid I'd need to read more about it, and maybe talk to some of its former members, to really get to the bottom of it. But it must have been tempting to join. For one thin nickle, the price of a comic book, you would get an official membership card and a real badge, as well as the knowledge that you were part of Cap's own personal army of paranoid neighborhood children, "on the constant look out for spies..."

Here's the "Sentinels of Liberty Secret Club News," through which Captain America and Bucky transmitted their orders directly to their Sentinels:

Let's take a closer look at the "Orders of the Month":
Sheesh, that seems like an awful lot of information to send in to Captain America.

I mean, sending him the personal information and "records" of your pals? And what's with this permanent record business? Even if Cap could be trusted not to do anything unethical with all that information, what kind of privacy protection did he offer?

What ever happened to all of that information Cap collected when he was frozen in a block of ice for decades? Or when he died at the end of the recent superhero civil war? Did Bucky Barnes assume ownership of it, along with the Captain America identity? Or is there a dusty box of folders in a SHIELD or Marve Comics warehouse somewhere, containing the records of our grandfathers?

This whole thing makes me feel weird. How much do you really trust this man?
How much can you really trust this man, this man who always wears that creepy mask?

PSA: Attention Ohioans! Your libraries need you!

If you don't live in the great state of Ohio, this likely won't matter to you at all, but I know a lot of you guys do, so I figured I'd post this here. If you do live in Ohio, then you've probably heard that the state is in a pretty dire budget crunch, and needs to pass it's biennial budget by July 1. There's currently a $3 billion gap that needs closed. Among Governor Ted Strickland's plans for closing that gap is to cut $227 million from the money being allotted to state libraries.

That is an awful lot of money. The way libraries in Ohio are funded is that they receive 2.2-percent of all tax money the state collects, but because tax revenue has fallen so sharply in the rough economy, they've already been receiving less and less money from the state each month—$30,000 here, $75,000 there, and so on.

In other words, most Ohio libraries are having an extremely bad year funding-wise, and were bracing for an extremely bad rest-of-the-year, before these new rounds of cuts were made.

Now, I'm no economist, and don't have any advice for Strickland and the state legislature as far as what might be better to cut, or how they could maybe make some more money (Beyond the obvious, "Hey, maybe you guys oughta raise taxes on something other than cigarettes once in a while?"). But I'd really, really, really rather them not cut any more funding from the state's libraries, especially at the levels they're talking.

This is mostly for a very selfish reason. As some of you know, my day job is working part-time at a local library; that's how I keep a roof over my head, food in my belly, electricity in my lap top and a handful of comics in my lap every Wednesday afternoon. Most (if not all) libraries would have to cut hours of operation if their funding is cut too severely, which will likely be pretty bad news for folks like me, who are eking by on the few hours a week we work.

Also, it likely means libraries will take a hit in their materials ordering budgets, and as I mention fairly frequently, a significant amount of the graphic novels I review here tend to come from the Columbus Metropolitan Library system (which I don't work for, but they're the biggest system in town, and order pretty much any graphic novel that gets published). So I guess, in that respect, it might affect you too. At least, it would jeopardize my ability to review collections of comics too terrible or too expensive for me to pay to read (like, Jeph Loeb comics, or anything Marvel publishes at their evil $3.99 price point).

Oh, and the scanners I use to put images on my site and on Blog@ are the ones at my local library. I don't have a scanner of my own, and won't be buying one any time soon. So if my local library loses hours of operations...Christ, blogging's gonna get a lot harder.

Less selfishly, as a person who lives in Ohio, I think everyone in the state benefits from having a healthy and thriving library in their neighborhood. Free books, free graphic novels, free movies, free music, free access to computers, free research assistance—libraries offer an awful lot for very little, and are especially important in tough times like this.

So, what can you do?

Well, you can visit the Ohio Library Council's website, olc.org. You'll find plenty of info about what the hell is up exactly, from people who communicate such things a lot more clearly than I do. For example, here's how the site frames the problem:

Libraries could close or face significant reductions in operations as a result of the Governor's proposal. With some 70% of the state's 251 public libraries relying solely on state funding to fund their operations, the reduction in funding will mean that many will close branches or drastically reduce hours and services.

The Governor's proposed funding cuts come at a time when Ohio's public libraries are experiencing unprecedented increases in demands for services. In every community throughout the state, Ohioans are turning to their public library for free high speed Internet access and help with employment searches, children and teens are beginning summer reading programs, and people of all ages are turning to the library as a lifeline during these difficult economic times. Ohio's public libraries offer CRITICAL services to those looking for jobs and operating small businesses. Public libraries are an integral part of education, which Governor Strickland says is critical to the state's economic recovery. But it is unlikely that many of Ohio's public library systems, especially those without local levies, can remain open with these proposed cuts.

You'll also find suggestions of who to call or email (the governor, your elected representatives) and what to say when you do.

Anyway, if you live in Ohio and care enough to have read this far into this post, please take the five minutes or so it takes to poke around the OLC site and fire off a few emails.


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Meanwhile, here's what a typical night at a typical library is like:



What delightful, dynamic destruction!

Meanwhile, at Blog@Newsarama...

If in case you don't read Blog@Newsarama every day for some mysterious reason, then you may have missed some of the many reviews I'd posted there over the course of the last few days. If that is the case, and if you're starved for Caleb-generated content (and hey, who isn't?), then you might like to know that I kinda sorta reviewed Jeffrey Brown's Funny Misshapen Body here (although it's not much of a review really), I reviewed Fred Chao's excellent Johnny Hiro Vol. 1 and Lamar Abrams's also excellent Remake here and I reviewed Neil Swaab's predictably completely fucked-up Rehabilitating Mr. Wiggles Vol. 3 here.

Magic Trixie totally cock blocks her own dad:

Hmmm...robes, wine, cheese, crackers, strawberries-dipped-in-chocolate, bearskin rug and snuggling, on a night when they thought their grade school-aged daughter Magic Trixie was spending the night at a friend's house. I wonder what Magic Trixie's parents were planning to do with the rest of their evening, before Magic Trixie activated her pre-cast return spell and she and Scratches appeared out of thin air?

I think the look on her dad's face tells the tale.



(The above page is scanned from Jill Thompson's Magic Trixie Sleeps Over, and thus concludes this weekend's lazy just-post-some-art-from-the-same-graphic-novel-over-and-over posting plan. Non-Magic Trixie related posting to resume shortly)

PSA: Hey, kids!

Being a vampire isn't quite as cool as some of the Young Adult horror romance novels might make it seem. Remember: Don't be a twit! Don't get bit!



(This message is brought to you by Magic Trixie Sleeps Over, Jill Thompson's second all-ages graphic novel about a little witch girl)

My latest comic book character crush: Magic Trixie's cousin Tansy

Magic Trixie is a cute-as-a-button little witch who lives with her parents, little sister, grandparents and cat friend Scratches in a house above her mom's cafe, Elixir. Her cousin Tansy works there, and Tansy is dope.

As you can see, she's obviously quite beautiful, and has a cool look which says "Yes, I'm a witch, but I'm not just a witch."



She has a pretty boss ride, a flying broom with branch-like handle bars.

And, of course, her job is working in a cafe, which serves delicious-looking food. Doesn't your mouth water just looking at those pancackes? And check this cake out:


Tansy will make some lucky warlock very happy some day.



(The above images are scanned from Jill Thompson's Magic Trixie Sleeps Over, with the exception of the pancake one, which was taken from Magic Trixie's blog. Like Magic Trixie Vol. 1, Magic Trixie Sleeps Over is a very good, gorgeously illustrated all-ages comic which I highly recommend. A third volume, Magic Trixie and the Dragon, is scheduled for release next week)

Chris Gall is a super-genius

Author/illustrator Chris Gall is a super-genius. His newest children's book is Dinotrux (Little, Brown) and, as far as a piece of writing, I wouldn't say it was brilliant or anything, or even all that good. Conceptually, it' s a little muddy, and not as sharply defined as I would personally like, but the exact execution is eclipsed by the brilliance of the idea.

What are two things little boys like? Like, more than anything else? Dinosaurs and trucks, right. Now what if one combined the two into a single thing, huh? How awesome would that be?

Well, it would be pretty awesome.

You see the Tyrannosaurus Trux on the cover there. Here are the rest of the Dinotrux, from the inside front cover:
On the page opposite of this one is a page with the modern day, real world truck equivalents of the Dinotrux. So on the page above you see the Firesaurus, the Dozeratops, the Dumplodocus, the Rollondon and so on, and on the opposite page in the same arrangement are a fire truck, bull dozer, dump truck, steamroller and so on.

So here's the gag: "Millions of years ago, prehistoric trucks roamed the earth...they weren't helpful like they are today. They rumbled, roared, and chomped. And they did not get along will with others. They were called..."

Well, you know what they're called. The bulk of the book involves introducing a dinotruck or two on each two-page spread. So here's a page with a Craneosaurus eating the treetops, and then here's a picture of the primitive garbage truck Garbageadon eating a mouthful of dirt, followed closely by some sort of bulldozer-y, steam-shovel-looking Digasaurus. One spread trades in in some pretty scatalogical vehicular humor, with a bashful-looking Cementosaurus ejecting brown, stinky stuff from his growling, turning stomach on one page, while the Blacktopadon lifts a hind leg and squirts a black, tarry liquid fom it's little spigot.

I think Gall must have had some bad experiences with delivery companies, based on the behavior of the Deliveradons...
...who were "napping when they should have been working."

After all the beast are introduced, Gall tells us that "one day, there was a flash of light and a terrible storm" which signaled the end of their age, while the smarter ones escaped, moved south and evolved over millions of years into the trucks of today. Then there's a weird spread of a bunch of normal trucks helping excavate a fossilized part of a dinotruck in a city street, and a portentuous final page:
The evolution of trucks from dinosaur-trucks is a neat idea, although the book's view of evolution is kind of weird. The dinotrux live side by side with pterodons, little bird-like dinosaurs, and various reptiles like snakes and lizards. Also, there are cavemen. Cavemen, dinosaurs and dinotrux? What kind of crazy creationism is this? I can't quite wrap my head around it...

Er, not that I have to, as this is a kids book, and I'm not a kid. But I love Gall's designs for the various dinosaurian trucks, and the names he comes up with for them. If I were six, I'd want nothing more than a line of toys based on these. Actually, er, I think I still might like a line of toys based on these. Just to collect and display of course, not to play with.

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If you're interested in the Dinotrux, be sure to click on Gall's name up there and visit his site. There are some online trailers there with plenty of images. Gall's Dear Fish is also a pretty good book, with gorgeous, surreal-ish images of undersea creatures visitng the everyday world in bizarre ways.

Check out these Guillemgoyles:

My paymasters have a seven-page preview of next week's Gotham City Sirens #1. The book's artist, Guillem March, whom I've fairly raved about here before, sure draws some cool Gotham gargoyles, doesn't he?

I like how Gotham City's various architects and zoning people all seem to be completely insane, so not only is the city full of the sorts of classical, Gothic or medieval gargoyles that resemble birds, angels, demons and whatnot, but you'll also occasionally see gargoyles that look like they were inspired by 1980s heavy metal albums, arcade game cabinet art and Todd McFarlane toys.

Weekly Haul: June 17th

Batman: Streets of Gotham #1 (DC Comics) I don’t know why Gotham City’s new District Attorney Kate Spencer was so excited to meet Commissioner Gordon in the Manhunter back-up. He’s, like, the worst policeman in the world. In the lead story, for example, he decides to let Harley Quinn walk away un-arrested from a jewelry store when he learns she wasn’t trying to rob the place, she only knocked out the proprietor when he refused her service due to her insane criminal past. I’m pretty sure punching a dude unconscious for refusing you service is still breaking some sort of law, as is taking jewels from a store and leaving a pile of money on the unconscious employee, not to mention throwing a police officer through the jewelry store’s glass door.

“No point,” Gordon says when asked if maybe they should, like, arrest the villain who just committed a whole bunch of crimes in front of them. “Gotham Central’s burned and Arkham is destroyed. We let her go, she’s one less headache for us.”

Pfft. Gotham’s top cop indeed.

The rest of Paul Dini’s first script for the first issue of this new fourth contemporary, ongoing Batman title is competent enough, checking in on a bunch of different characters to let readers know where they’re at after that Battle For the Cowl business and what direction they’re going in, and introducing a couple of conflicts that will presumably pay off in the short and long terms. (I coulda done without the child prostitution, though). Dustin Nguyen and Derek Fridolf’s art is pretty fantastic, and the only complaint I have about that is bigger than them; Nguyen’s Damian looks to be an older teenager, whereas Frank Quitely draws him like a little kid, and they can’t both be right.

The nine-page Manhunter back up by Mark Andreyko, Georges jeanty and Karl Story is predictably good, dedicated to setting Manhunter up as Gotham vigilante #62 and Spencer as the city’s new D.A.


The Brave and The Bold #24 (DC) I was pretty disappointed by this comic, but not necessarily because it was poorly done—I was just expecting a lot more out of it, given the historic-ish nature of the team-up. This is the first meeting between DC’s first black superhero character, Black Lightning, and the electricity-powered teen hero he obviously partially inspired, Static, formerly of the Milestone Universe.

Don’t get me wrong, it’s perfectly decent, and there’s nothing wrong with either Matt Wayne’s script or Howard Porter’s art, it just doesn’t really feel at all important, or sing the way I was hoping it to. It’s basically a rather run-of-the-mill Character A meets Character B superhero punch-up, one that could have starred almost any two characters. It was also remarkably continuity heavy, referring to B.L.’s time in the Luthor administration (Luthor was elected in 2000) and featuring a villain I’ve never heard of, who I assume must be a Milestone villain.

So, fire-powered villain Holocaust attacks Hemingway High School, where former education secretary and current Justice League member Black Lightning is giving the commencement speech. This is also the school Static goes to. Static doesn’t much care for B.L., given that he used to work with Luthor.

But he changes his mind after he watches B.L. battle Holocaust, and the two become more friendly afterward. There are some fun moments in here, mostly offhanded comments the two heroes make, but it’s still disappointingly ordinary.

Porter’s art seems to fall into a love-it or hate-it category; I’ve always been more of a love-it guy, perhaps in large part due to affection for his work on JLA with Grant Morrison, but even so far removed from that time period and my associations with it, I appreciate the kinetic weirdness to his lay-outs and panel designs. There’s a touch of Jack Kirby in Porter’s work, and he excels at big superhero action, even if his acting and character work isn’t quite so strong (He at least knows how to move an eye around a page though, so he’s head-and-shoulders above too many of DC’s art hires).

What’s up with this cover though? That image on the poster is a panel from inside the comic, re-used.

Question time! Has it been explained how the Milestone Universe was folded into the DCU yet? I didn’t read the JLoA issues wherein Dwayne McDuffie introduced the Milestone characters, but, based on this, it seems like the characters and settings were always part of the DCU…?


Captain Britain and MI13 #14 (Marvel Comics) In the last issue, Dracula had completely conquered Great Britain and decimated the ranks of the titular team. This issue, Paul Cornell throws a curve ball at the reader, a twist dramatic enough to perhaps lean toward playing unfair with the reader, but I’m going to withhold throwing a yellow flag on it, since the elements were all previously in place before, and since Cornell piles on the surprises so quickly this issue (I will not, however, withhold mixing sports metaphors).

In this issue, the good guys strike back against Dracula and his army of vampires and that’s all I really want to say, so as not to risk spoiling anything. I will note that now I kinda regret not having picked up the recent Captain Britain and MI13 annual, which bore a Greg Land cover (those affect me much the same way crosses effect Dracula), and that a scene in this story even redeems the titles too-long, too-slow second story arc a bit.

By the way, Killpower? That’s a pretty funny name.


Marvel Adventures Avengers #37 (Marvel) I think I’ve mentioned my personal distaste for the stocky, big-footed, big-handed Super Friends character designs seen in DC’s Super Friends title before. Actually, I think I’ve mentioned it every single time I read an issue of the book. I mention it again now because this issue is penciled by Dario Brizuela, who has drawn Super Friends before, and Brizuela transfers that style here.

Yes! This month’s MAA looks an awful lot like a more detailed issue of Super Friends, complete with short, stubby superheroes with trunk-like appendages and giant feet, only printed on slick paper.

This is, of course, a travesty. More of a travesty than usual, since this story, guest-starring The Invaders, is entitled “Doll Winners Squad” (Get it?!) and involves The Puppet Master using dark matter-infused radioactive clay to summon mind-controlled Golden Age heroes from the past. Pretty awesome premise, huh? Too bad the interior couldn’t look a little more like the cover, or the interiors of past MAA issues, or anything other than Super Friends, damn it!

Well it’s 1954, and Golden Girl and a blond Miss America* are seeking out their missing comrades. Whizzer shows up to help out, but then promptly disappears, and they follow him to the present. There the Golden Age gals team up with Captain America, Wolverine and Spider-Man to stop the Puppet Master’s nefarious plan to conquer the past using its greatest heroes.

It’s another decent script from Paul Tobin, although a little lighter on humor than previous issues. He does offer a pretty clever strategy for combating super-speedsters though, one other writers may want to steal.

Oh, quick question though! Shouldn’t the part set in the past be occurring in 1944, not ’54, given that it occurs around the time Cap disappears/“dies”? Not that it much matters, given that this is out of continuity, it just struck me as curious.


Marvel Pets Handbook#1 (Marvel) I actually haven’t read this whole thing yet. So far I’ve mainly flipped through it to make sure favorites of mine were included (Son of Satan’s steeds Amon, Hecate and Set? Check), and read the more insane looking entries (Hellcow, Hellhorse, Giganto, Moleman’s Monsters). But it’s pretty much exactly what it sounds like—one of those prose-with-pictures, fact-heavy guidebooks Marvel publishes in the size and shape of comics books now and then, this one focusing on the various pets and pet-like animals throughout Marvel history. (There are a surprising number of winged horses).

I love books like this, even if they don’t quite fire my imagination the way they would have when I was younger and in school and thus more given to spend long periods of time daydreaming and wondering about things like whether or not Zabu or Old Lace would win in a fight.

I’m not sure if a recommendation is necessarily in order or not. If you’re interested in reading synopsis of Marvel animal characters prominent or obscure, then you’ll be interested in this; if not, you probably won’t. I’m really digging it so far, and while it’s been a while since I’ve read one of Marvel’s handbook projects, this one seems better designed than any I remember, and makes good use of a lot of classic art by taking the figures out of panels and putting them on a white field, so they retain the personality the artists who drew them infused them with, but all seem to share the same world, since visual context, background and coloring don’t play such a strong role.

Hey, have you ever seen Kirby’s drawings of Agatha Harkness’ cat, Ebony?


That is some scary shit.


Power Girl #2 (DC) I really, really want to like this new series, since I dig artist Amanda Conner’s work so much, and co-writer Jimmy Palmiotti seems like such a genuinely nice guy (and is a fellow contributor to Blog@), but he and his writing partner Justin Gray sure aren’t making it easy.

I mean, there’s an Austin Powers (1997) reference from our heroine/narrator right there on page two, there’s this use of heat vision which I don’t understand and I’m afraid they’ve completely lost me in terms of continuity. This issue is mostly devoted to Ultra-Humanite’s origin, and thus underlines the importance of his story, making it extra-difficult to just roll with it.

First, I was pretty sure Ultra-Humanite died at the end of the “Stealing Thunder” arc of JSA, in a pretty final, hard-to-come-back-from way. Without opening up a long box and checking, I thought his disembodied brain was flopping around on the floor, and someone—I want to say the Crimson Avenger II—shot it full of holes.

But whatever, that’s not too big a deal; he was more recently in a team called “The Time Stealers” in Booster Gold, so maybe this is supposed to be an Ultra-Humanite from a prior point in his timeline. No big deal, with time-travelers really. But! In telling his origin story here, Gray and Palmiotti place him at age 21 in a college lab with a female assistant named Satanna who is wearing a belly-exposing tank top reading “C U next tues.” A lab that’s being protested by PETA, which was founded in 1980. Given that (Post-Crisis anyway), Ultra-Humanite was a Golden Age villain who used to fight the JSA in the 1940s, that can’t be right, can it?

Also in this issue, a woman fucks a gorilla. Off-panel of course, but still. I read three DC comics set in the DCU this week, and one featured a child prostitute about to get pimped out before a vigilante intervened, and another featured a woman whispering to a gorilla with a man’s brain implanted into it how she’d really like to go do it with him.


Tiny Titans #17 (DC) In this issue, Raven uses a book of magic spells to summon Mr. Mxyzptlk and Bat-Mite, the Tiny Titans try to wrest Batman’s cape and cowl away from a cow in “The Battle For The Cow,” Robin’s teammates try to have a costume intervention with him at his birthday party, and there are a couple more stories too. Art Baltazar and Franco’s Tiny Titans remains the jewel in the crown of the Johnny DC sub-line of comics, and I think their Bat-Mite might just be their cutest character yet; it’s hard to tell if he quite out-cutes Lil’ Barda or not.


(Above: Can you guess which one was published in 2009?)
Young Allies Comics 70th Anniversary Special #1 (Marvel) Marvel could probably just go ahead and continue to publish these special on a weekly basis from now on and I’d be as happy as a clam. A comics reading clam. That’s really enjoying the comics he’s reading.

This one features Bucky, Toro and the boy gang of stereotypes they used to pal around with in the pages of Young Allies: Fat Buy, Black Boy, The Smart One and Monkey-faced Asshole. Roger Stern writes it, and Paolo Rivera (!) draws it and holy shit Paolo Rivera rules! Seriously, everyone of these I read, it’s almost always the very best-looking book I buy that Wednesday, and that’s certainly the case again this week.

Roger Stern sets this one in the present—sometime between November of 2008 and late January of this year to be precisely precise—as Bucky “New Captain America” Barnes visits Arlington National Cemetery and decides to look up his old Young Allies. Two are still alive, and he visits them, along the way flash-ing back to some period adventures. First, it’s the time he first met the boys and they all took on The Red Skull and then, later, how they all met up again in Paris, when each was serving in the war in some capacity.

It’s all quite sober, and surprisingly effective. I even felt a little choked up here and there, it was so dramatic. A great deal of credit is certainly due Rivera, but Stern has turned out a hell of a script here. This might be the best Roger Stern story I’ve ever read (or at least the only one I remember liking htis much). Oh, and he even explains why the kids seemed like such crazy stereotypes in the comics rather elegantly. Those were comics produced as propaganda from the clueless crooks that were running the comic book industry back in the day; the real Young Allies were obviously much more, well, realistic.

Oddly, the back-up comic isn’t a Young Allies story (boo!), but instead features Terry Vance, The Schoolboy Sleuth, and his pals cub reporter Deadline Dawson and Dr. Watson, a monkey. There are also some period ads encouraging kids to join Captain America’s Sentinels of Liberty pyramid scheme/cult, and a pair of prose stories by Stan Lee which, surprise!, aren’t very good, but holy shit are they full of exclamation points! Try reading them out loud.


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By the way, speaking of the Young Allies, did you know if you put "Young Allies" into the search bar at comics.org, you'll see this?
And then you won't be able to un-see it, no matter what.



*What’s the deal with her hair anyway? On the cover of Miss America #1 and last week’s Miss America Comics 70th Anniversary Special #1 she’s blonde; in the interior of the latter she’s a brunette, just as she is in X-Statix Presents: Dead Girl. Why are women so fickle?

Marvel's September previews reviewed

Despite their best efforts to get out of the serial comic book publishing business with rather random 33% price hikes throughout their line, Marvel will still be int he publishing business come September of this year. And what will they be publishing? You can see everything here, and you can listen to me mouth off about it here:


ESSENTIAL SUB-MARINER VOL. 1 TPB
Written by STAN LEE, ROY THOMAS, RAYMOND MARAIS & ARCHIE GOODWIN
Penciled by WALLY WOOD, GENE COLAN, JACK KIRBY, JERRY GRANDENETTI, BILL EVERETT, DAN ADKINS, WERNER ROTH, MARIE SEVERIN & JOHN BUSCEMA
Cover by JOHN BUSCEMA
Ten years after the last issue of the Golden Age's SUB-MARINER COMICS, the Avenging Son finally claimed a monthly feature in TALES TO ASTONISH, the entire run of which is presented here! Namor's on an undersea quest, braving the Seaweed Man, the Demon of the Diamonds and other oceanic oddities for the power to protect his kingdom from his perennial would-be usurpers: Attuma, Byrrah and Krang! But even if he reclaims his crown, Puppet Master and the Secret Empire want him as their puppet king! Plus: Namor learns secrets of his past, but does his future lead only to...Destiny? Guest-starring Daredevil, Iron Man and the Hulk! Collecting DAREDEVIL #7, TALES TO ASTONISH #70-101, TALES OF SUSPENSE #80, IRON MAN & SUB MARINER #1 and SUB-MARINER #1.
504 PGS./All Ages ...$19.99

Fuck yes.

Um, that’s all I really have to say about this.


HULK #15
Written by JEPH LOEB
Pencils & Cover by IAN CHURCHILL
Variant Cover by ED MCGUINNESS
The battle you've been waiting for: THE RED HULK VS. WOLVERINE.
Plus: Deadpool! Elektra! Punisher! Vs. X-Force! All this and a shock ending that will have all of Marveldom twittering! Superstars Jeph Loeb and Ian Churchill continue the action packed part 2 of CODE RED!
32 PGS./Rated T+ ...$3.99

Woah, woah, woah, Ian Churchill? When did this start? Has this been going on for a while? I just sort of assumed the saving grace for Loeb’s Hulk run, the reason people were buying it despite Loeb’s scripting and the extra-dollar cover price was the presence of Ed McGuinness.


Hercules looks wrong to me wearing so much clothing.


I always like images of Iron Man’s mask that make it look sad.


Skottie Young draws a nice web-line.


MARVEL MYSTERY HANDBOOK: 70TH ANNIVERSARY SPECIAL
Written by MICHAEL HOSKIN, RONALD BYRD, ANTHONY FLAMINI, STUART VANDAL, KEVIN GARCIA, JACOB ROUGEMONT, DAVID WILTFONG & SEAN MCQUAID
Cover by MITCH BREITWEISER
As the Marvel Universe celebrates 70 years of the world's greatest comics, journey back to where it all began -- OFFICIAL HANDBOOK OF THE MARVEL UNIVERSE style! Featuring the greatest characters of Marvel's first year -- a year that not only gave us the Sub-Mariner, the Human Torch, the Angel and Ka-Zar, but also THE TWELVE's Black Widow, Phantom Bullet, Electro, Mister E, Dynamic Man, Phantom Reporter, Fiery Mask, Master Mind Excello and Laughing Mask! Also featuring a host of oddities from Fletcher Hanks' Whirlwind Carter to Taxi Taylor! Plus: an introduction by Timely comics scholar Dr. Michael J. Vassallo!
64 PGS./Rated T+ ...$4.99

Man, it is a good time to be a fan of Golden Age superheroes.

Now if only JMS and Weston would finish up The Twelve…


THE MARVELS PROJECT #2 (of 8)
Written by ED BRUBAKER
Pencils by STEVE EPTING
Cover by STEVE MCNIVEN
Variant Cover by STEVE EPTING
Variant Cover by GERALD PAREL
The award-winning and best-selling team of Ed Brubaker and Steve Epting bring you CHAPTER TWO in this definitive tale of the origins of the Marvel heroes. As 1940 hits the world is already changing -- The Human Torch is on the run, The Angel makes his masked debut, The Sub-Mariner stalks the surface-worlders who have targeted his people -- and a young soldier named Nick Fury saves a German scientist from the Nazis and leads him to the USA. The battle-lines drawn in this race to create superhuman weapons of mass destruction still reverberate today in the Marvel Universe -- as this epic espionage thriller continues to unfold and reveal new twists!
32 PGS./Rated T+ ...$3.99

So, is this going to be, like, Brubaker doing a Marvelized version of All-Star Squadron? Because that would be awesome. Actually, it sounds pretty awesome as is. Too bad that it’s at the wait-for-trade price point. I guess I’ll look forward to reading this in…fall of 2010…?


M.O.D.O.K: REIGN DELAY
Written by RYAN DUNLAVEY
Pencils & Cover by RYAN DUNLAVEY
Down on his luck, MODOK moves back into his parent's house in Erie, Pennsylvania and discovers that his family, old classmates and apathetic locals can thwart his plans for world conquest better than any super hero. Featuring obligatory guest appearances by Norman Osborn and some Canadian mutant super hero you've probably never heard of.
40 PGS./One-Shot/Rated T+ ...$3.99

I went to college in Erie, Pennsylvania. I would probably buy this simply because I would be curious to see the Erie of the Marvel Univrse, but it’s also by the artist Action Philosophers and Comic Book Comics, two great series I love.


PET AVENGERS CLASSIC TPB
Written by STAN LEE, STEVE DITKO, MARY JO DUFFY, SCOTT EDELMAN, PETER GILLIS, STEVEN GRANT, BRUCE JONES, LARRY LEIBER, WILL MURRAY, FABIAN NICIEZA, GREG PAK, LOUISE SIMONSON, DAN SLOTT, MARC SUMERAK & ZEB WELLS
Penciled by JACK KIRBY, STEVE DITKO, JUNE BRIGMAN, BOB BUDIANSKY, ANDREA DIVITO, CHRIS ELIOPOULOS, GIL KANE, VAL MAYERIK, TAKESHI MIYAZAWA, MICHAEL NETZER, DON PERLIN, JAVIER SALTARES, PAUL SMITH & SKOTTIE YOUNG
Cover by KARL KERSCHL
The Falcon, the Two-Gun Kid and many another will tell you: A hero's best friend is his animal sidekick! A teleporting dog, a winged horse, a bouncing cat...and lookit the cute puppies! All part of the Marvel Universe animal kingdom showcased in this offbeat collection! Lockheed gone solo! The origin of Zabu! The Super-Apes triumphant! Magic; super-science; and squirrels, squirrels, squirrels! Featuring rarely seen early work by Fabian Nicieza, Greg Pak and other present-day Marvel headliners! Collecting material from THING #4, CAPTAIN AMERICA #220, KA-ZAR THE SAVAGE #14-15, X-MEN UNLIMITED #43, MARVEL COMICS PRESENTS #72, SPEEDBALL #6, MARVEL TALES #100, MARVEL SUPER-HEROES #8, AMAZING FANTASY #15, FANTASTIC FOUR #94, NEW DEFENDERS #150, NEW MUTANTS ANNUAL #4, FRANKLIN RICHARDS: HAPPY FRANKSGIVING, NEW WARRIORS #2 and JOURNEY INTO MYSTERY #57.
208 PGS./ Rated A ...$24.99

I’m not sure about the title and/or branding on this thing, but it looks like a whole lot of fun. I wonder if I’ll have an extra $25 to spend in September…? If there are any Marvel PR people in the reading audience, I would like to take this opportunity to remind you that I’m always more than happy to accept review copies.


Hey is that…I mean, it looks like… Nah, couldn’t be.


SPIDER-MAN: THE CLONE SAGA #1 (of 6)
Written by HOWARD MACKIE & TOM DEFALCO
Penciled by TODD NAUCK
Cover by PASQUAL FERRY
You’ve been asking for it...and now it’s here: THE CLONE SAGA!!! Marvel’s most controversial event of all time returns with a vengeance, presenting the Clone Saga as it was originally intended to be told! From the minds behind the crossover that changed comics forever and the artist that introduced Spider-Man to President Obama, it’s six issues of twists and turns that will shock fans old and new alike! Be here as Peter Parker’s worst nightmare begins again...now with an ending you have to see to believe!
32 PGS./Rated T+ ...$3.99

I’ve read this paragraph over and over again, and I’m still not entirely sure I understand it. Is this just a six-issue What If? miniseries…?


Hey look, Paul Pope draws the Marvel Universe! This is the cover for that Marvel version of Bizarro Comics that was announced something like 29 years ago now. I wonder if I'll have the will power to wait for the trade?


WAR MACHINE #10
Written by GREG PAK
Penciled by ALLAN JEFFERSON
Cover by FRANCESCO MATTINA
A DARK REIGN TIE-IN! For the last nine issues, Norman Osborn and James Rhodes have attempted to destroy each other's most precious hopes and dreams – all without ever seeing each other face to face. But now everything comes to a head as Iron Patriot and War Machine finally throw down! And this ain't just another show fight, kids -- by the end of this issue, only one armored giant will remain standing! Find out why ComicBookResources.com says, “Little did I know how far Greg Pak would take this concept...this issue proves that it refuses to let itself be overlooked. It won't sit quietly in its little corner and play nice.”
32 PGS./Rated T+ ...$2.99

Hmm. I thought this was a mini-series for some reason. I guess not…?

DC's September previews revieweid

This September, DC will release Red Tornado, the comic book you demanded! Well, not you personally, but someone, somewhere. And not demanded so much as though, Hm, yeah, I guess I'd probably read a Red Tornado miniseries. What else does DC have in store for fans this September? Let's find out! The full solicitations are here, and my thoughts on some of 'em are here:

BATGIRL #2
Written by Bryan Q. Miller
Art by Lee Garbett & Trevor Scott
Cover by Phil Noto
As the new Batgirl continues her nightly mission, the mystery of her secret identity intensifies. Now she has become the target of both Gotham City’s heroes (who don’t take kindly to a new person wearing the cape and the cowl) and its villains (who want to see the entire Bat-family six feet under)!

Hey, remember when there was a mysterious new Batgirl running around Gotham, and no one seemed to know who she was under the mask, leaving fans to guess and debate her identity for months? Sure you do. It was during the first half of the “No Man’s Land” mega-story, and it ended up being Helena “Huntress” Bertellini, although she eventually relinquished the costume, which Barbara Gordon and Batman then gave to the mute super-ninja teenage girl they had coincidentally just started hanging around with.

Well, I guess it’s time to do that story again.

My guess is Stephanie Brown, but I don’t really care enough to actually read this book.


BATMAN AND ROBIN #4
Written by Grant Morrison
Art by Philip Tan & Jonathan Glapion
Cover by Frank Quitely
Variant cover by Philip Tan
Meet the Red Hood and his sidekick Scarlet, Gotham City’s vicious new “protectors,” in the start of a new arc! This dangerous duo is out to destroy the very reputation and legacy of the Batman by replacing it altogether. Writer Grant Morrison (FINAL CRISIS) teams with hot new artist Philip Tan (GREEN LANTERN) to bring you what’s sure to be the new Batman and Robin’s biggest challenge yet!

When I think of artists who would be appropriate to follow Frank Quitely on a book, Philip Tan doesn’t come to mind. I haven’t read as many Tan books as I have Tony Daniel ones, but he seems a lot closer to Daniel in style and technique than he does Quitely, so I guess after just three issues, the Bat-editors are chaining Morrison with another poor artist?

Meanwhile, Batwoman gets this guy. What a world, what a world…


BATMAN: THE BRAVE AND THE BOLD #9
Written by Landry Walker
Art and cover by Eric Jones
Batman teams up with a mysterious figure to stop the Penguin and The Riddler, but is this anti-hero a friend or a foe? Be here for all of the cataclysmic catastrophes in “The Tale of the Catman!”

Did you see the episode of Brave and the Bold with Bat-Mite, the one that opened with Ace the Bat-Hound beating up a tiger and then tree-ing Catman? That was awesome. I really liked the Catman design; he had a real maniacal, kinda disturbing face, and really, a man dressed up like a cat should be pretty disturbing. I wonder if this was created before artist Eric Jones saw the cartoon’s designs for Catman, as the Catman on the cover there looks closer to more recent DCU versions than the one on the show.


BLACKEST NIGHT: SUPERMAN #2
Written by James Robinson
Art and cover by Eddy Barrows & Ruy José
Variant cover by Shane Davis & Sandra Hope
It’s a crisis in Smallville as Psycho Pirate attacks! Plus, Superman’s dead bride returns as a Black Lantern! And she joins in on the haunting of Smallville in the second part of this terrifying 3-issue epic from writer James Robinson (SUPERMAN, STARMAN) and artist Eddy Barrows (TEEN TITANS, ACTION COMICS)!

The fact that there’s a black and white colored zombie version of Psycho Pirate makes me somewhat interested in Blackest Night: Superman #2, but I don’t think I could stand to read 22 pages of Eddy Barrows’ art.


So I recognize Mockingbird, KGBeast and maybe a Blockbuster and…that’s it. Who are all these other goofballs? Like the one with a crazy mullet about to go for Batman’s crotch? If this issue involves Batman and the Robins vs. all the dead Bat-villains, then maybe we’ll get to see The Ventriloquist with a ring-generated construct of a Scarface? And maybe an Orca The Whale Woman?


BLACKHAWK: BLOOD AND IRON TP
Written by Howard Chaykin
Art and cover by Howard Chaykin
Howard Chaykin’s 1988 miniseries is back in print! Polish pilot Janos Prohaska — better known as Blackhawk — is on American soil and in trouble. Accused of Communist leanings, he stumbles across a plot to overthrow the U.S. government and bomb New York City concocted by former Nazis out for revenge.
Advance-solicited; on sale October 28 • 160 pg, FC, $19.99 US

So have any of you read this? Is it any good?


BLOOD AND WATER TP
Written by Judd Winick
Art by Tomm Cooker
Cover by Brian Bolland
The acclaimed five-issue miniseries from writer Judd Winick is collected at last! Adam Heller is dying, but before it’s too late, his best friends offer him a chance at immortality. Now Adam is a vampire — and it's everything he could ever want. But his eternal party crashes to a bloody halt when an ancient monster awakens and comes looking for Adam.

I didn’t like this either, and never did read the last issue. The first issue was really good and showed a lot of promise in the premise, but it quickly settled into more generic vampire story territory. I loved and still love the logo, though, and hey, you can’t go wrong with Brian Bolland covers.


THE BRAVE AND THE BOLD #27
Written by J. Michael Straczynski
Art & cover by Jesus Saiz
The wait is over as J. Michael Straczynski arrives on THE BRAVE AND THE BOLD! First up, the best-selling scribe pairs Batman and...Dial H For Hero? Robby Reed and his grandfather thought their brief visit to Gotham City would go smoothly until one of Gotham’s petty thieves made the score of the century in the form of Robby’s H-Dial! Batman’s on the case, but The Joker’s crime wave has the city in a panic, and the power of the H-Dial has had a very unexpected effect on the hood who stole it. The choices he makes could change his life – and Robby’s – forever! Features the stunning art of Jesus Saiz (OMAC PROJECT)!

It’s been sooooooo long since DC announced J. Michael Straczynski would be taking over this title that I’d pretty much forgotten it was supposed to happen at some point, and the title has been host to constantly rotating creative teams for so long that I had pretty much forgot DC was even still publishing a Brave and the Bold team-up title. It’s been off my pull-list—and off my radar—so long that I’d probably pass on this, were it not for the pairing of Batman with the H-Dial from Dial H For Hero. That’s definitely a creative, “Huh? I’ve gotta check that out!” sort of pairing for JMS to start his run with.


JUSTICE LEAGUE OF AMERICA #37
Written by Len Wein
Pencil art by Tom Derenick
Cover by Joe Prado
It’s the epic finale of the 3-part Royal Flush arc as Roulette and Amos Fortune raise the stakes, and the JLA go all in! But with the odds against them, the team had better pray for a last-minute miracle before their chips are cashed in for good.

I’d really rather just ignore JLoA until DC figures out what to do with the title (hint: hire a writer, then let him or her write it without dictating plot points and mandatory tie-ins), but they just had to go and put Plastic Man on the cover, didn’t they? Maybe I will check this Len Wein written fill-in run out after all, at least for the first arc. I do like that Tom Derenick character, so even if the book still seems to be drifting, at least it will look nicer than it has under Ed Benes and Whoever-Is-Filling-In-For-Benes-This-Month.


JUSTICE LEAGUE OF AMERICA 80-PAGE GIANT #1
Written by Chuck Kim, Josh Williamson, Rich Fogel and others
Art by Mahmud Asrar, Adrian Syaf and others
Cover by Jay Anacleto
With a tale this massive, we could only fit it in an 80-page giant! When a battle between Epoch and the Time Commander spills over into our era, the Justice League finds itself scattered throughout time. That leaves Superman and Dr. Light fighting alongside a tornado-powered Samurai, Green Lantern and Red Arrow locked in a showdown with Cinnamon in the Old West, Green Arrow and Firestorm facing the Bride of Frankenstein in WWII, John Stewart and Vixen drawing swords alongside the Shining Knight, and Black Canary and Zatanna evading gangsters with the original Crimson Avenger!
Reintroducing the classic, extra-sized issues for a whole new generation, this special issue features the writing of TV’s Chuck Kim (Heroes) and Rich Fogel (Batman Beyond, Justice League) along with writer Joshua Williamson (Dear Dracula) and artists such as Mahmud Asrar (Dynamo 5) and Adrian Syaf (BLACKEST NIGHT: BATMAN)!
On sale September 30 • 80 pg, FC, $5.99 US

Hmmm…I don’t know/remember the work of any of these creators, but I do like the 80-Page Giant format, particularly if it’s one of those big, epic, “novel-sized” single stories, and it sure will be hard to resist any comic with The Shinking Knight, hat-wearing Crimson Avenger and Seven Soldiers: Frankenstein’s four-armed version of The Bride of Frankenstein on the cover. And at $6, that’s a pretty good value: almost twice as many comics pages as you’d get for the price of two DC 22-pagers.

What’s this business about “reintroducing the classic, extra-sized issues for a whole new generation business” though? The last JLA 80-Page Giant, #3, was only published nine years ago. Has a whole generation passed already? Is that how fast time is moving now?


MAGOG #1
Written by Keith Giffen
Art and variant cover by Howard Porter & John Dell
Cover by Glenn Fabry
Introducing the latest member of the Justice Society of America to break out into his own monthly series! Tired of chafing at the restraints that being a member of the JSA put upon him, Magog decides to take justice into his own hands and track down who’s behind the dealing of high-tech arms to lowlife scum around the DC Universe! Be here as the hunt starts Magog on the path to discovering his own unavoidable destiny thanks to writer Keith Giffen (JUSTICE LEAGUE INTERNATIONAL, DOOM PATROL) and artists Howard Porter and John Dell, the acclaimed team behind JLA!

Er, “the latest member?” He’s actually the first and only member. The only JSA members who have had their own books before—Stargirl, Damage—had them before they joined the team. (UPDATE: As Patrick reminds me in the comments section, Power Girl just had her own book spin out of JSoA a couple of weeks ago, which I completely forgot about, despite having read it and wrote about it and everything. Sorry about that, DC Comics Solicitation Writers! You were right and I was wrong).


Joshua Middleton’s Supergirl covers are always pretty great, aren’t they?


SUPERMAN: SECRET ORIGIN #1
Written by Geoff Johns
Art by Gary Frank & Jon Sibal
Covers by Gary Frank
Hot on the heels of their acclaimed run on ACTION COMICS, superstars Geoff Johns and Gary Frank reunite to present a 6-issue event that spells out the definitive origin of Superman for the 21st century – and it all starts with a gigantic 48-page issue! Chronicling Clark Kent’s journey from the cornfields of Smallville to the skyscrapers of Metropolis, you'll witness a whole new look at the beginnings of Lex Luthor, the Legion of Super-Heroes, Lois Lane, Metallo, Jimmy Olsen, the Parasite and more! It's a look at the mythic past of the Man of Steel with an eye toward the future!
Retailers please note: This issue will ship with two covers. For every 10 copies of the Standard Edition (with a cover by Gary Frank), retailers may order one copy of the Variant Edition (with a cover by Gary Frank). Please see the Previews Order Form for more information.

Wow, I can’t believe how completely uninterested in this series I am. A large part of that is probably because I had just read Mark Waid and Leinil Francis Yu’s definitive origin story, Superman: Birthright a few years ago, and there was absolutely nothing wrong with that. Although between the comics and movies and cartoons and suchlike, there are few comic book stories I’ve experienced more often than Superman’s origin.

And my disinterest is coming from someone who thinks this story more or less needed to be told, since DC began futzing with Superman’s origin in 2006 with Infinite Crisis, and have since been retconning elements here and there rather willy-nilly.

Of course, the ideal time to say what his “new” origin is would have been shortly after IC three years ago, since that’s when they made a big deal about DC continuity having been re-written. Or, at the latest, a year later at the end of 52 when we saw how that continuity was rewritten. Of course, I guess in Final Crisis continuity/the multiverse was torn down and rebuilt again, so, at this rate, any time is a good time to clarify what exactly continuity is in the DC Universe.

Sigh.


SWEET TOOTH #1
Written by Jeff Lemire
Art and cover by Jeff Lemire
From out of the deep woods and the mind of acclaimed indie cartoonist Jeff Lemire (THE NOBODY, The Essex County Trilogy) comes a new Vertigo monthly ongoing series like no other! After being raised in total isolation, Gus – a boy born with deer-like antlers – is left to survive in an American landscape devastated a decade earlier by an inexplicable pandemic. Even more remarkable is that Gus is part of a rare new breed of human/animal hybrid children who have emerged in its wake, all apparently immune to the infection. Enter Jepperd, a violent, hulking drifter who soon takes in Gus and promises to lead him to “The Preserve,” a fabled safe-haven for hybrid children. Along the way they’ll have to contend with science militias, deadly scavengers, rival bounty hunters, and hybrid worshipping cultists as they fight to make it to safety and solve the mysteries of this deadly new frontier.
This bizarre and haunting new series is boldly written and illustrated by Eisner-nominated creator Jeff Lemire and elegantly colored by fellow Eisner nominee Jose Villarubia. A little boy with antlers, a big man with guns, a world without hope – SWEET TOOTH #1 ships in September for only $1.00! Plus, don’t miss a free preview of this title in August’s JACK OF FABLES #37!
On sale September 2 • 32 pg, FC, $1.00 US • MATURE READERS

I’m really looking forward to this one.


TEEN TITANS #75
Written by Felicia D. Henderson; co-feature written by Sean McKeever
Art by Joe Bennett & Jack Jadson; co-feature art by Yildiray Cinar & Júlio Ferreira
Cover by Joe Bennett & Jack Jadson
Variant cover by Andy Clarke
Come celebrate our gala 75th issue with an all-star cast of Titans past and present! Joining this issue for the extravaganza is new ongoing writer Felicia D. Henderson, a co-executive producer on TV’s hit show Fringe! Don’t miss this start to a fresh new take on DC’s premier teen team!
And in the Ravager co-feature, Rose lies nearly dead in the Arctic when a horrific discovery chills her even more!

Hmm. On the one hand, hey look, a woman! Writing an ongoing superhero comic for one of the Big Two! On the other hand, it’s a TV writer with no comics experience, and for the most part those don’t tend to work out too well. On another hand, she’s been writing for TV since at least 1995, so hasn’t just fallen off the turnip truck, like some of DC’s recent “Well, he works in TV” writers.

Also in the plus column, some of the shows she’s worked for have involved teenage characters, and I wonder if a writer from the world of TV will be able to work with Teen Titans’ editors well, as there’s been some sort of undisclosed friction between the last regular writer and the editors, culminating in an issue being published in which no one was credited as a writer.

I don’t know the writer and don’t like the artist, so I won’t be reading this anyway, but I guess I’ll go ahead and say this is a positive hire. Like, if anyone’s going to be writing a book I don’t read or care about at all, it’s nice to see that it’s going to be woman, and that Gail Simone’s no longer DC only female writer on an ongoing. Also, I guess Henderson is black, as is Angela Robinson, who will be writing The Web, which also launches in September. DC (and Marvel) have historically had somewhere between zero and hardly any female writers and somewhere between zero and hardly and black writers, so it’s cool to see a couple more females and a couple more black writers getting involved with the DC line of super-comics.

On the other hand, I’ll be surprised if The Web makes it to 15 issues, and while Teen Titans is better shape due to its brand name, it’s been selling worse and worse for a long time, and I’m not sure simply finding a regular writer will be able to pull it out of its downward spiral.

At any rate, good luck ladies!


VIGILANTE #10
Written by Marv Wolfman
Pencils by Rick Leonardi & John Stanisci
Cover by Walter Simonson
Now Vigilante finds himself on the run and living on the mean streets of Gotham City where he must now avoid the FBI, the mob and the Bat. But Vigilante has a few tricks up his sleeve and a few Gothamites in his sights!

Still not cancelled! Nice Simonson cover, by the way.


********************

And that's DC's solicitations combed through. I'm running a little behind, but come back tonight and we'll do Marvel's. Two posts in one day! Value!