Sunday, February 07, 2010

Fun Fifty of 2009: #10-1

Orpheum

It's back! And, it's almost over except for the shouting, the screaming, the fat lady singing, the Hulk busting in through backstage during the musical number, a wardrobe malfunction, some muggings in the parking lot, tears and recriminations, and Carol Burnett's charwoman character sweeping up the confetti. So what are we waitin' for, huh? Let's get this show back on the road with numbers 10, 9, 8...and so forth down to number 1...of The Fun Fifty of 2009!


#10: NOMAD: GIRL WITHOUT A WORLD • C'mon, you thought exactly the same as me. "What good could ever come out of Rob Liefeld's Captain America v. 2 reboot?!?" It was one of those "it seemed like a good idea at the time" moves—turning over the flagship books of the Marvel Universe to the Image artists for a year could actually result in some new and fresh blood and ideas. Yet now, those "volume twos" of Marvel are best considered swept under the stairs, forgotten above, only useful for giving Marvel an opportunity to never mention Teen Tony again. And Cap? Oh, a Cap by Rob Liefeld and yet no "A" on his forehead is a scary thing indeed. After all, it's the comic book that gave us this wonderful moment of anatomy:

Captain America


His...legs...are five feet long! And take a big steamin' gander at this one:

Captain America


Um...yeah. To be fair, maybe Dum-Dum is really short and Sharon is really tall.

Captain America


Oh my achin' head.

I could give Nomad props simply for not being as bad as Liefeld's Cap. But y'know what? Despite the title character being the Bucky of that universe and being reintroduced in (shudder) Onslaught Reborn, this miniseries is actually really good...just downright fun. Rikki Barnes, trapped in the Marvel Universe (hence the series subtitle!) finds out exactly what millions of schoolkids around the world already think: that her teacher's a supervillain: namely the (sorta lame) Professor Power from Marvel Team-Up. Except, like Rikki herself, Prof Power's been upgraded (thanks to a good story) to a genuine threat backed by the all-new, all-different, presumably non-Nixon-helmed Secret Empire. The customed hero action story is great, but it's the civilian subplot that stands out here: Rikki (and her brother from another Earth), their friends and schoolmates are all well-drawn and believable. Sean McKeever and David Baldeon give Rikki an' her pals realistic dialogue and designs, and her attempts to find a place for herself on a world where she technically doesn't exist is a unique twist to a human hero. The series has great covers, lovely dramatic art, and a solid plot that doesn't tip into pathos. It's been a long time since Marvel gave a new hero such a solid send-off to a series of adventures, and with the new Nomad set to make backup appearances in the high-profile Captain America and a potential for team-ups or membership in the Young Avengers, Rikki Barnes could be the next big young star of the Marvel Universe. I'm certainly eager to follow her future adventures.


Lantern Rings

#9: LANTERN RINGS • Whoda thunk that a plastic giveaway toy would become one of the most fun promotional items in the world of comics this past year? Serving to build excitement around DC's ultra-zombie multi-crossover "Blackest Night," the rings dramatically increased the monthly sales of second-tier titles and even frontrunners in the DC stable: at its very heart, to the fans the promotion was more "buy a ring and get a free comic" than the reverse. Once you pick up Booster Gold or Outsiders or R.E.B.E.L.S. just to get the ring, you might, just might, get interested in the series enough to keep buying it. Only future analysis of the DC monthly sales will tell, but even if the sell-through of these books drop back to their usual level, it was good for the comic shops, it was fun for the collectors, and it was dynamite for DC. And even yours little stuffed truly had a lot of fun with 'em too! Not bad at all for a little plastic toy that in years past, would have been packaged at the bottom of a cereal box.


#8: DOCTOR DOOM AND THE MASTERS OF EVIL • The most Shakespearean villain in the Marvel U, Dr. Doom has a rich and varied history of stories not only in the pages of Fantastic Four but in virtually every Marvel comic at one point or another. I've never counted 'em, but there must be a heck of a lot of Doom stories out there. The best of them treat Doom absolutely straight: a man of skill and honor and obsession, who is utterly and unerringly convinced that he is right and he is mighty...in fact, virtually above the level of ordinary humans, even the superheroes. The greatest Doom stories play on that hubris as Doom's greatest strength and flaw. Paul Tobin's splendid miniseries surrounds Doom with a wide cast of criminal characters from around the world, but you never, never forget who the boss is here. It's virtually a tour of villainy in the MU, from the Circus of Crime to Mysterio, from the Enchantress to the Sentinels, accompany (or oppose) Doom's elaborate odyssey to unlock an ancient power that will destroy his greatest enemy. Princess Python serves as the reader's avatar, voicing our own fears and doubts about Doom at the same time explaining the darkest corners of the Marvel Universe. All of this would make for a pretty good Doc Doom story, but it's the final plot twist, when Doom achieves exactly what he had planned for, that brings this to the top pantheon of the many adventures of Victor von D. Tobin's twist is brilliant, absolutely apt, and a sharp, appropriate coda to the series. It's easy to write a villain, and it's tough to get them right. Tobin hits a dead-center bullseye with Doctor Doom and the Masters of Evil, giving us a Doom you're both terrified and envious of.


Today's excursion is to Bergen Street Comics

Bergen Street Comics#7: BERGEN STREET COMICS • A comic book shop on my list of fun things of the year? Sure, why not? 've bought a lot of comics in a lot of comic book stores over the years, and many of them have been great comic book shops, beginning with Dream Days and Twilight in Syracuse, Queen City Books in Buffalo (where I got personal recommendations to pick up Bone and Sandman), and the famous Chicago Comics. But I've never felt a comic book shop was my "local" until Tom and Amy Adams opened Bergen Street Comics in Park Slope, Brooklyn, this past year. Part of the retail renaissance of this strip of Bergen Street with many fine destination stores, this is one of my favorite destinations in Brooklyn, period. Step into the store and you'll get a friendly welcome from Tom and Amy, who will frequently step out from behind the register to help you personally. It's a gorgeous space, with wide, spacious areas, well-stocked shelves and a large table of ever-changing interesting new releases, plus rotating comic art shows on the walls. Marvel, DC, Image, and other superhero publishers are well-represented, but it's in the extensive stock of independent and alternative comics and graphic novels that Bergen Street really excels. From the first day we stepped into the store we felt welcomed and valued, and Tom and Amy took the time and care to get to know our tastes and likes to be able to recommend and suggest new titles and creators. Not just us: this is a store where we regularly see an extremely wide range of customers, including Brooklyn-based creators (and those visiting from out of town), families with kids (Bergen Street has solid kids' comics and GN sections), women and teens, attracting a wider and more diverse customer base than I've seen before in a shop. More to the point, it's a fun shop: small but spacious, with plenty of treasures to persuade me to pick up something each time I'm in. Tom and Amy also run an extensive and impressive series of events and signings in the shop (I've got to get to them more often!). It's not enough to have a passion for comics; you also gotta have a good business sense, and I'm impressed by the amount of savvy and work that the Adamses have put into the store. In Brooklyn there's at two other really great comic book shops (Rocketship and Desert Island), but Bergen Street feels like home. You know how Englishmen have a pub they always call their "local?" Well, Bergen Street's my local, and I'm looking forward to many more years of giving them business. Bergen Street Comics on the web and on Facebook.


#6: CAPTAIN BRITAIN AND M13 • Remember everything I said about Agents of Atlas the other day? Well, that goes double for Captain Britain and M13, a comic that barely made it past its first anniversary despite being one of the most acclaimed and raved-about superhero books in the past few years. You guys know what a little stuffed Anglophile I am, so it was a wonderful thing to read a superhero comic that actually felt as if it were taking place in contemporary England rather than some parody of a Miss Marple setting. If you were to take a cross-section of England's urban population, you'd wind up with a sizable percentage of Muslims, so team member Faiza Hussein is the first hero who actually makes me feel I'm reading adventures set in contemporary Britain. That doesn't mean it's a slow or dry sociological read, oh no: Paul Cornell (frequent writer for Doctor Who and now getting some well-deserved attention and sales writing Dark X-Men) has made Captain Britain an adventure at breakneck speed, spinning recent events (Secret Invasion) into an all-out battle to save Britain against the invasion of Dracula's vampire armies. The plots are clever and inventive, the dialogue is sparkling, and the entire series is filled with OMG and WT*! moments including some of the most hair-pulling cliffhangers I've read this year. This title, too, will be much missed. Cornell gave the characters a happy sendoff in issue #15 (including the return of one long-lost character), but let's hope they're not all permanently riding into the sunset. After all, the sun never sets on the British Empire.


#5: BATMAN AND ROBIN • Grant Morrison no longer on Batman? For a Morrison fan, that's a hard pill to swallow. Luckily it's been made much easier by the new Batman and Robin series, which brings us not only a new Batman, not only a new Robin, but also Morrison's return to partnership with his All Star Superman artist Frank Quitely (at least, for the first three issues). I'm one of those "Bruce Wayne forever" kinda fanbulls, but I'm lovin' Dick Greyson as Batman and Damian Wayne as Robin. The new dynamic duo bring a freshness and electricity to juice up the Batman mythology, but Morrison isn't content with just dropping new heroes into the mix: there's grotesque new villains—The Toad, Professor Pyg, and the Flamingo—and, at least until the reappearance of a Lazarus Pit in the most recent issue, no reliance on the usual old tropes and trends that can tax a Batman fan's patience. I knew to expect a new Morrison title to be inventive, but I never dreamed how new it would look and feel. It's a crazy-ass, hallucinogenic, hyperactive Batman title, bright and brilliant without sacrificing the moody darkness and weirdness of Gotham City. If we're going to have to do without Bruce Wayne for a while anyway, well, Grant Morrison makes the change a thrill ride to be savored,


Beasts of Burden #4: BEASTS OF BURDEN • Two of my favorite creators in comics teaming together? Sign me up! A comic about animals battling ghosties, goblins, and ghouls? Oh boy oh boy oh boy! That it's a cool idea and beautifully illustrated and written is no surprise. I'm head over hooves in love with these characters and (please please please, Dark Horse!) can't wait for a continuation—the miniseries is self-contained, but Dorkin and Thompson set up a sequel that has gotta be told. Sure, there's almost a whole genre of this sort of story now, not only in comics like We3, Pride of Baghdad, or Laika but books like Hank the Cowdog, the Bunnicula series, Watership Down or Redwall and their many impersonators, or even The Incredible Journey. You could event describe it as Hellboy, but with dogs and cats. I've loved Jill Thompson's fanciful artwork for years, especially on the Scary Godmother and Magic Trixie books, and she brings a lush palette and incisive realism to the looks and personalities of the animals. These are not generic cartoon dogs and cats, these are distinctive and different breeds to match their personalities. It's not for young kids—there's a lot of scariness and some ghoulishly scary moments—but it's an excellent comic for teens as well as adults.Freaky, moody, sometimes genuinely scary or deeply emotional, Beasts of Burden is one of the great comics of 2009 and deserves to stay in print—and have new adventures—for years. Anybody who complains that there's no great brilliant new series in comics these days—well, I'm just going to hand them Beasts of Burden. (You can read some of the tales that led up to the miniseries on Dark Horse's website.


#3: BATMAN: THE BRAVE AND THE BOLD • I considered Batman: The Brave and the Bold cartoon brilliant from the first episode, but it's really bloomed in its first full year and the beginning of its second season. Playing Batman straight but in an over-the-top world, this is a DC fan's dream, the ultimate team-up cartoon. The bigger guns and the obscure heroes of the DCU are spotlighted in episode after episode: Kamandi?!? Ace the Bat Hound?!? Enemy Ace?!? Detective Chimp!?...and, as far as I'm concerned, the finest and most entertaining portrayal of Aquaman ever (a bombastic personality that's very viable for a comic book Aquaman). The animation is brilliant, bright and fluid, and I love the designs—barrel-chested Batman, Dick Sprang-style Joker—and the cool professionalism with which Batman travels through time or to another planet. Basically, it's the 1950s moon-mystery Batman in a form we love! And if your minds weren't blown by the Bat Mite episode, or the all-singing "Mayhem of the Music Meister!"— well, then, your hearts are made of stone. I didn't think I'd enjoy a Batman cartoon after the great evolution of the character through Justice League Unlimited. I was dead wrong to think that. Only complaint? Give us a full Season One DVD set, Warner! You know we'll buy it!


#2: LOCKJAW AND THE PET AVENGERS • Here's the thing I love about Marvel today. Even in a climate where their bestselling books are dark, moody, multi-part sagas stretching over years, where the villains have won and the heroes are on the run...well, even then, there's still room for an utterly charming, witty, and fantastic series like Lockjaw and the Pet Avengers. And what a concept! An incredible journey through time and space by the animal sidekicks of the great superheroes to capture and keep safe the Infinity Gems (see: one billion issues of Marvel books written by Jim Starlin) pokes into all the grandest and most bombastic corners of the Marvel Universe, including a character I thought I'd never see again after the 1980s: Frog Thor. (You can call him Throg.) Scripter Chris Eliopoulos, no stranger to writing fantastic and fun books like Franklin Richards, treats this outrageous concept perfectly normal, and when you come down to it, in a world filled with aliens and superheroes and Norse gods and demons, it's probably even more likely that animals are going to have adventures behind our backs, right? Ig Guara's artwork is bold and fantastic; he gives wonderful expressions to the animals, and Colleen Coover, one of my favorite artists, contributes an absolutely charming origin of Throg tale in issue #2. Eliopoulos even does the impossible: bringing that annoying yapper Ms. Lion from the 1980s Spider-Man and His Amazing Friends into the real Marvel Universe, and making me shed a tear over her acts. (I'm sorry I ever said all those awful things about you, Ms. Lion!) Really great news: the Pet Avengers will return in a one-shot and another miniseries soon. Even better news: the joy and fun of the Marvel Universe is always there—sometimes you just have to look down around your ankles to find it in the cat nuzzling your feet.


#1: SUPERGIRL: COSMIC ADVENTURES IN THE 8TH GRADE • If you'd told me in 2008 that a Supergirl comic book would top my 2009 Fun Fifty, I'd have laughed and laughed and laughed. Then, wiping my eyes, I would have said...no, actually I would have burst into laughed again then, rolling on the floor in hilarity at your statement. Supergirl? When nowadays Supergirl looks like this?:

Supergirl #0
Ewwwwwwwww. (shudder) Now, to be fair, nowadays in the DC Universe Kara has gotten a makeover (and bike shorts) to produce beautiful covers like this:

Supergirl #43


But still, at the time, you say "Supergirl," and I think this:

Supergirl vinyl


All of which left me utterly unprepared for this:

Supergirl in the Eighth Grade


Yes, that's fourteen-year old Supergirl, spunky and fiery and curious and wide-eyed. (Literally!) I up picked the first issue of Supergirl: Cosmic Adventures in the Eighth Grade because it looked cute. I kept on buying it, however, because I was intrigued by the continuing storyline where I'd expected simple straightforward done-in-one plots. But all that merely makes a good comic, not necessaily a great one. I'm giving Supergirl the Most Fun of the Year Award for its beautifully distinctive art (it copies neither the DC universe nor the DC animated character designs), surprisingly touching story, and frantically funny escapades. This much hasn't changed: Kara Zor-El as rocketed from the planet Argo to Earth, where Superman forges her a secret identity and becomes her role model. Trouble is, Kara's stuck in eighth grade at a boarding school where she's the class freak ("So computers don't respond to thought control? What stops them from uprising and rebelling them?"), leaving her to retreat into her daydreams of being a beloved hero, frequently on the moon since Earth doesn't appreciate her. I think every kid—heck, even every stuffed bull—has had this feeling one time or another, and wished for superpowers to deal with it.

Kara's life is complicated when she accidentally creates an evil duplicate of herself (how bizarre!) and must vie with the new girl for attention among her schoolmates. Nobody's on Kara's side, not Principal Pycklemeyer or her classmates, until Kara falls in with another outcast: the brilliant whiz kid Lena Thorul. Uh oh! For those of you with a solid degree in Superman Studies, that name can only spell trouble!

That's another delightful aspect of Supergirl: while Landry Walker's script and plotline is a new approach and wonderfully fresh to Kara, he's put in enough references to Supergirl history to please a long-time fan without distracting newcomers to the character. Streaky's here, and Comet, and references to the Legion of Super-Heroes, red skies, the "emergency secret weapon," the Supermobile and more: "I think all I got was the power to talk to fish. Who wants to talk to fish?"

The art by Eric Jones is extremely appealing: beautifully expressive faces, dynamic action and wonderful character design. Linda Lee looks gangly and gawky even though she's the exact same build when she's Supergirl thanks to Jones's picture perfect take on the same sort of bewildered, bedraggled and can't-be-herself posture that Christopher Reeve gave Clark Kent. The scenery is delightful, from classrooms to outer space, dormitories to mad scientists' lairs. There's a wonderful sense of action in cause-and-effect scenes like Kara trying to write her detention on the blackboard a la Bart Simpson and winding up punching through the wall, or throwing a chunk of Kryptonite out the window, where it bounces into an electrical line, down to an alleyway, and fizzles and crackles in front of an alley cat with a lightning streak on his side. I've gotta give praise to to colorist Joey Mason, using a wonderful palette that pops Kara out against the dull everyday life of her school, makes a Red Kryptonite meteor storm shimmer and glow, and gives a brilliance to the whirlpool of matter at the beginning of time from which emerges the hand of...but no, that would be telling!

But all of these elements would be only gimmicks if the story itself wasn't so good and the characters so appealing (yes, even the evil ones...well, except for one). I presumed that this six-issue series would give us six different unconnected adventures of Supergirl, but it's a saga—the trials and tribulations of the girl who never fit in trying to come to grips with her peers, her arch-villains, and herself, living in the long shadow of her famous cousin. Kara's cutaway daydreams are funny, funny stuff ("Oh no! The meteor energy and the kryptonite combined to turn me into pure cheese. I'm too delicious to live!") but their progression also show how Supergirl is growing: the fantasy sequences grow fewer and fewer as the book goes on, and there's not a single one in the final issue. Dreaming is over, action is what's needed, and the lost girl from a faraway planet grows up to realize that who and what she has become is pretty special when you can save the world.

And hey: how could I not love a Supergirl who saves cows?

Supergirl and Cow


I recommend Supergirl: Cosmic Adventures in the 8th Grade to everybody who loves fun in comics: action, angst, humor and switch-a-roos that I didn't see coming. It might look like a book for kids, and they, especially girls, will love it just fine. No knowledge of the Superman universe is needed other than the bare minimum: do you know Superman? Do you know he fights Lex Luthor? You're all set now. Inventive while still retaining tremendous respect for the Supergirl mythos, funny without being silly, emotional without being maudlin, Supergirl needs and deserves a sequel (Adventures in the Ninth Grade, anyone?). Until then, read, enjoy, and wonder at the surprise of a mostly-overlooked miniseries in the Johnny DC line that I consider The Most Fun Comic Book of 2009. I'll go further than that: This is the finest Supergirl story I've ever read.




Well, there you go: fifty of 'em, stuff I liked and loved and hope you do too. Were there more that didn't quite make the cut-off? Oh, sure, there always are: Models Inc., The Wizard of Oz, Fables and Jack of Fables and the spin-off novel Peter and Max, Stitches, Dark Reign: The List, You Shall Die by Your Own Evil Creation!, Detective Comics, You'll Never Know, Masterpiece Comics, Prince Valiant, The Toon Treasury of Classic Children’s Comics, Millar and Hitch's Fantastic Four, Neil Gaiman's "Whatever Happened to the Caped Crusader"...there must be dozens more I'm forgetting. And two of the most acclaimed books of 2009, Asterios Polyp and 20th Century Boy, what did I think of them? Gulp—haven't read 'em yet! My point (and I do have one) is this: any comic you like is a fun one. Buy what you love, read what you enjoy. That's true in 2009, true in 2010 and beyond. We're living in a golden age of superheroes, reprints, indy and art comics, web comics, movies and TV series from comics, and—after oh so many years—the beginnings of the recognition of our favorite medium as a fine art form. That in itself is fantastic, and can be fun on so many levels. But your number one, whether it be Blackest Night or Kramer's Ergot, is the test. Read it, savor it, love it. After all: isn't that feeling what got you into comics in the first place?

365 Days with Hank McCoy, Day 38

UXM #15
Panel from [Uncanny] X-Men #15 (December 1965), script by Stan Lee, layouts by Jack Kirby, pencils by Werner Roth, inks by Dick Ayers, letters by Artie Simek



Ten of a Kind: The game never ends when your whole world depends on the turn of a friendly card





















(More Ten of a Kind here.)


Saturday, February 06, 2010

365 Days with Hank McCoy, Day 37

UXM A 1998
Panel from Uncanny X-Men/Fantastic Four '98 (September 1998), script by Joe Casey; pencils by Paul Pelletier and Leo Fernandez; inks by Andrew Pepoy, Keith Champagne, Rob Leigh, and Ray McCarthy; colors by Felix Serrano, Wilson Ramos, Chris Sotomayor, Tom Smith, and Schigiel; letters by Richard Starkings and Comicraft. You know, I think I might have worked on this one too.



Saturday Morning Cartoon: Thor in "Enter Hercules"



The Marvel Super Heroes Thor in "Enter Hercules" (1966) featuring the voices of Chris Wiggins as Thor, Bernard Cowan as the Narrator and Odin, and Peg Dixon as Jane Foster.



Friday, February 05, 2010

Fun Fifty of 2009: #19-11

Live from the fabulous Bully Arms (and legs) in beautiful Park Slope, Brooklyn, it's The Fun Fifty, the nightly countdown, now for one night only 10% less filling!

spotlights


Oh, no, that's not the scene of the Fun Fifty. That's actually The Three Batsignals.

Batsignals


What, you haven't heard of The Three Batsignals? Well, how else do you think Commissioner Gordon is going to summon three members of The Legion of Batmen?!?

Superman: The Man of Steel


Three Batmen are needed in Gotham to hunt down Two-Face-and-a-Half, so that leaves plenty of Batmen to attend our awards ceremony. Why don't you settle down as we kick tonight's festivities off with...

#19: STAR TREK • I was skeptical about how good The Lord of the Rings or Spider-Man could be on film, and boy was I wrong. But from the moment I first saw that new trailer, I was ready to line up for May 8th's Horta-hot event of the year, the opening of the new Star Trek movie. I'm a little Trek fanbull from way back, but I'm no purist at the expense of entertainment, so Big-Screen Trek was everything I'd hoped for, and more. The bag of popcorn sat unforgotten in my lap while I gazed wide-eyed at the new Enterprise and fantastic space battles and a talented new crew and that green girl in her underwear. It wasn't necessarily Trek with a message (unless the message is, you can settle for a less than ordinary life, or you can be something better, something special) but big, bright, shiny sheer entertainment: the kind of movie I'll gladly plunk my twelve bucks down to see again and again. You can quibble about little bits and pieces if you want—I'd rather have had it be a full reboot rather than a changed history, and Kirk landing the Captain's chair before he'd finished the Academy?—but suspend your inner Trek nitpicker and you've got a movie that's not just a good Star Trek film, it's a good film, period. I especially loved McCoy: ten seconds after his first appearance and Karl Urban has already utterly nailed McCoy. (And I certainly didn't expect to be laughing at funny bits as much as I did!) Bring on the next one, I say.


#18: MARVEL SUPER HERO SQUAD SHOW • Cool little toys (of course I have the Ben Grimm one!) become a cool little TV show on Cartoon Network featuring superdeformed versions of the Marvel heroes and villains fighting a deadly Civil War which will lead to an invasion by shape-shifters and the death of...NO! This is just all silly and over-the-top fun, made for kids...but us little bulls, and my human pals, like it too. Doc Doom and his team of villains race Iron Man, Captain America, the Hulk, Falcon, Wolverine, Thor and the Silver Surfer to find MacGuffins...I mean, Infinity Fractals that can help you rule the world! Bwah-ha-ha-ha! Sort of a halfway point between Marvel Adventures Avengers and Chris Giarrusso's Mini Marvels, it doesn't take its heroes too seriously: Hulk is the friendly dumb smasher, Captain America is straight-laced and frequently oblivious, and the Silver Surfer has a California beach bum accent. (I'm not too sure about that last one, but hey.) Super Hero Squad definitely isn't high art: it knows what kids find funny (there are a lot of burp and fart jokes here), but for long time Marvel fans it's great fun to see superheroes stripped to their primal components: guys and gals in bright costumes fighting the baddies, throwing punches and zapping with power rays, and nobody ever gets hurt any more than Daffy Duck used to.



And yep...that's Stan Lee as the Mayor. And how can you resist a show that has one episode titled "Mental Organism Designed Only for Kissing"?



There's enough in-jokes and Marvel Universe references to keep you amused even if you're not a kid or a little stuffed bull, but when you're tired of all the angst and blood and Ares's intestines getting all over the carpet and making a mess, give Super Hero Squad a try to just have some fun with Marvel's heroes.


#17: WOMAN OF A.C.T.I.O.N. • Super secret agent action spanning from London to Monte Carlo! Guns, girls, gambling and goons! Tight leather catsuits, monocled madmen, and lacy lingerie! No, you're not reading one of the approximately ten bajillion Black Widow comic books on the market now, but the all-new, all-adventure book from your pals and mine at Action Age Comics! Yes, that means it's written by pal Chris Sims, he of the face-kickin' Invincible Super-Blog, tongue firmly in cheek (with gorgeous art by Chris Piers and Steve Downer), and it's almost like Chris is writing it for me, playing on every over-the-top action trope that I loves to pieces in a spy movie, book, or comic. Sexy, troubleshooting (and troublemaking) agent Penelope Devlin's career in spydom may be overshadowed by her overenthusiastic approach (wherever she's been, there's usually something that's blown up) and her star-spy brother Ricky (given a lovely Wodehousean personality and dialogue, including an ultra-competant valet at his side). I've been enjoying all the comics coming out of Chris and his stable of slaves collaborators at Action Age Comics, but Woman of A.C.T.I.O.N., with its Ian Fleming antics set in a Bob Haney world, leaves me hungry for more. Hey, Chris...why doncha quit that dead-end retail job of yours and go into writing full time? Naw, he never listens to me. You can't buy Woman of A.C.T.I.O.N. at your local comic shop, but you can read it for free at the Action Age website, or download a .cbz file here!


#16: YOTSUBA&! VOL. 6 • I don't read a lotta manga...in fact, I think the X-Men: Misfits book I reviewed the other day might have been the first time I talked about manga on this blog. Well, add Yotsuba&! to that small new list of manga I love! 2009 was a good time to be a fan of the curious and outspoken little girl with green lucky-charm hair: Yen Press made us all happy by picking up the license from ADV and bringing out the long-delayed Vol. 6 (and Vol. 7 came out right at the end of the year; look for it, no doubt, in 2010's Fun Fifty!). Bright, giddy, and gentle everyday adventures of Yotsuba "and" everything and everybody...look, how can you pass a book with this as the cover copy:
Yotsuba’s getting a biiiiike, Yotsuba’s getting a biiiiiike!! Didja know the wheels of a bike go round and round and round and round and round and round and round and round and round and round and round and round and roun —oh, Yotsuba’s getting dizzy...whoooooa...
That nails it, really, right there: gentle humor and enthusiastic exploration of her world is the Yotsuba trademark, without any cloying Pollyanna überniceness or Dennis Mitchell destruction. Just like Darkseid, Yotsuba is. After all, who could have charmed the Grey Lady herself, the austere New York Times, to go from this bewildered "WTF?" description of Vol. 6...

NYT


...to this more savvy and appreciative summary three months later:

NYT


Yotsuba's set up shop in my right-hand column for quite some time, as an avatar of exactly what this blog is about. In case you haven't seen that recently:

Yotsuba


With Yotsuba, it always is.


#15: TALES DESIGNED TO THRIZZLE VOL. 1 • Fantagraphics has brought out a great-looking hardcover collection of Michael Kupperman's brilliant Tales Designed to Thrizzle, reprinting the first four black-and-white issues in color! (Now that's extra added value from your pal Gary Groth right there!) Without hyperbole, Thrizzle is simply the funniest, most guffaw-out-loud comic book they're going to have to pry out of your cold, dead hands when you die laughing. Kupperman's style is to take a relatively simple if absurd situation (asking your friend if you smell like a hobo) and take it completely to its illogical conclusion (a plea to buy more Fireman Octopus merchandise) within the span of four pages. Thrizzle's stuffed from front cover to impressive back page blurbs with Kupperman's splendiferous pulps-meet-woodblock-print artwork and lunatic stories; it's one of those rare humor books that actually is downright hilarious. Truth in disclosure: yours little stuffed truly, and my pal John, work for W. W. Norton, which distributes Fantagraphics titles to the bookstore trade.


#14: AGENTS OF ATLAS • Really, just what the Sam Scratch is wrong with you people? Every week you buy umpteen-ump copies of Deadpool to inspire Marvel to put out four more series, while you let inventive, imaginative, and just-plain-crackjack comics like Agents of Atlas dwindle down to sales of 17,500 copies a month and get cancelled. Restarted this year with a new #1, Agents didn't even reach a full year of publication. So what'd you miss? Great high adventure including an innovative "Dark Reign" tie-in pitting the supposedly-villainous-but-really-good Atlas against the supposedly-good-but-really-villainous Norman Osborn, guest spots by the Avengers and the Hulk, the accomplished storytelling and natural dialogue of Jeff Parker, the beautifully textured and nuanced art of Carlo Pagulayan, Clayton Henry, Gabriel Hardman and Dan Panosian, and the most unique team of heroes in the Marvel Pantheon. Including a talking gorilla. A freakin' talking gorilla. Luckily for fans, the adventures of Marvel's most subversive superheroes continues in a series of minis teaming them with the X-Men and Avengers, back-up features , and (it looks like) some leading, starring roles in the Marvel Universe. But the regular Agents of Atlas? There ya go, and there it went. This is probably the strictest and scold-iest I will get during the Fun Fifty, but hey! Do you remember when your mom told you "If you can't take care of your nice things, you don't get to have them anymore!" And that's what happened with Agents of Atlas. I've got nothing against Marvel Zombie consumerism...heck, look at my pull list!...but seriously, guy who's buying every Red Hulk title on the shelf...try something new once in a while.


#13: THE IMMORTAL IRON FIST/IMMORTAL WEAPONS • For as goofy a concept as it was in the 1970s, Iron Fist has slid into the twenty-first century with remarkable ease and grace: from a kung fu exploitation hero (teamed up with a blackspoitation hero) to a modern multi-generationed hero encountering—and battling— his history and legacy. Duane Swiercyznski's admirably kept Danny Rand's adventures up on the same historical high-adventure zen as series originators Ed Brubaker and Matt Fraction, teaming Iron Fist with his former fight opponents Five Immortal Weapons, a quartet of beautiful and bizarrely compelling characters. Brubaker and Fraction introduced the Weapons, but it's Swiercyznski who breathes true life and personality into them in Iron Fist's final arc and the Immortal Weapons miniseries. What I said about Danny Rand in the early issues of this series, that goes five times for the Weapons: this series has revived my interest in the zen outer edges of the Marvel Universe with dramatic but innovative continuity implants that granted these characters more import and weight in their world. Behind each of its dramatically gorgeous covers, Immortal Weapons is a true Marvel Universe comic in its purest form: pitch-perfect origin stories, world-sweeping grand adventure, and the choices and tragedy that build a Marvel hero.


#12: STRANGE TALES • What happens when you let a group of top-notch indie comics artists loose in the Marvel Universe? Chaos, bellylaughs, beautifully distinctive art, and—surprise!—a remarkable level of knowledge of and love for the Marvel heroes. It's tentpoled by the long-shelved Peter Bagge story "The Incorrigible Hulk," but golly, what treasures there are in here: Paul Pope's Lockjaw and the Inhumans, James Kolchaka's "Hulk Sqaud," Iron Man versus Baloney-Head by Tony Millionaire, Stan Sakai's Japanese samurai Hulk, and my favorite: R. Kikuo Johnson's Puppet Master/Alicia Masters/Thing story, which proves the politically-incorrect but absolutely hilarious point that a blind woman just ain't that good in the workplace. Strange Tales is a minty-fresh triumph—that old moniker "The House of Ideas" is as fresh and applicable as ever. You have do this again soon, Marvel.


#11: THE INCREDIBLE HERCULES • The best mix of mythology and modern superheroing since Walt Simonson's Thor, Herc kept hitting them out of the park again and again in 2009: the Prince o' Power's clash with his crazy-ass relatives on Midgard Earth, the breaking of the Herc/Amadeus Cho fellowship and young AC's origin, and the craziest Thor cosplay since a frog picked up the Uru hammer. But Incredible Hercules deftly balances tragedy and pathos with the high-adventure and comedy; we're never far away from a story of deep regret or shame in Hercules's past. Make what you will of rumors of Hercules' (and his book's) demise in the not-too-distant future: he's a freakin' god! Just you want and see...he'll be back.

...and, so will I, Sunday, to wrap up The Fun Fifty of 2009, with a few laughs 'n' giggles, at least one more scolding that a great book ended way too soon, and (I'm guessing) a #1 that will come as a surprise to ya. Little Stuffed Bull over an' out and to all my friends and comrades out there in blogosphere land, remember this: don't bet too heavily on the Super Bowl.You need that money to buy more comic books!


365 Days with Hank McCoy, Day 36

Amazing Adventures #15
Panel from Amazing Adventures #15 (November 1972), script by Steve Englehart, pencils by Tom Sutton, inks by Frank Giacoia and John Tartaglione, letters by Jean Izzo



Thursday, February 04, 2010

Fun Fifty of 2009: #20

Welcome back my friends to the blog that shows the trends! That's right, it's time for another installment of The Fun Fifty of 2009, and today we're going to do a little something different—I'm only going to give you one entry in the list! Why? Oh, why? Well, because it's actually really cool, it's got lots of keen pictures, and if you stick around you just might learn something before we're through! Clear the stage, cue the lights, and raise the curtain for...NUMBER TWENTY!


#20: MARVEL DECADE VARIANT COVERS • Along with Wolverine Art Appreciation (#33 on the Fun Fifty '09), Marvel issued a number of other series of themed covers including parodies of famous and iconic Marvel Comics images using their cute-as-a-button Super Hero Squad, and an anniversary updating of the 1986 25th Anniversary "frame" covers. But by far my favorite, and the theme that actually did for the first time in my little stuffed life have me scouring the shelves for variants, was Marvel's "Decade Variant" covers. When I first heard of these I thought it would be a fairly mundane exercise in making the covers of the 2009 books look as if they had been published in different decades, like a Daredevil cover with the Atlas 1950s monster look, or Spider-Man as he might have been published in the 1940s by Timely Comics. Marvel was a little more offbeat and inventive than that: they produced covers that sent their heroes back in time to experience the great pop culture of those decades, complete with newly designed period logos, which I just loved. As variant covers, these didn't reflect in the least what was goin' on inside, although in many cases I wish they had. I think these are fun in its purest form: they just amuse the stuffin' out of me. And hey, Marvel? Will you please put together a pamphlet collection of these like you did with the Wolvie covers? Pretty please?

Here's just some of the Decade Variant Covers, which take you back to the last century...

...from the disco seventies...





...through the metal nineties...





...an idealized 1950s...





...a patriotic, gung-ho 1940s...





Could 1939 be comics' finest year?





In the 1970s it was hard to tell who was and wasn't a crook.





This would have made Shuri the first black heroine to have her own comic. Ah, if only.





But the following four are my favoritest, and as far as I'm concerned, the funnest of the bunch!

Daken would like to say "Thankyuh, thankyuh verra much."





Whoa! Either Emma's at a drive-in showing 'Yellow Submarine,' or Iceman slipped some of the brown acid into her bubbles.





In the nineteen seventies, everybody loved a disco guy who showed off a little chest hair.





And let's face it: the 80s were quite a thriller!





So, remember, comics are not only your best entertainment value (if you discount their high cost and the short timespan it takes to read them)...they're also a valuable and historically accurate lesson into how we all lived in the twentieth century! Why, I'm sure you all remember doing this:

Kitty Pryde and Ororo
Dazzler and Magneto
Cannonball, Wolverine
On a comics magazine

Beast and Cyke and Grey, Jean
Archangel and the White Queen
Psylocke, Northstar, Stacy X
Mutant powers, mutant sex

Cable, Juggernaut and Sage
Made you want to turn the page
Iceman, Pixie, Gambit, Xorn
Hope Maggott won't be reborn

Mutants trained by Prof C.X.
Hangin' round in tight spandex
Get into that bright costume
Strike a pose in the Danger Room!

Rogue!




See y'all tomorrow for the Fun Fifty #19-11!

Oh, I almost forgot! Click here for the rest of the Decade Variants!


365 Days with Hank McCoy, Day 35

Defenders #125
Panel from [The New] Defenders #125 (November 1983), script by J. M. DeMatteis, pencils by Don Perlin, inks by Kim DeMulder, colors by Christie Scheele, letters by Janice Chiang



Wednesday, February 03, 2010

Fun Fifty of 2009: #30-21

Comic RackHi hi hi, everyone! Good evening, ladies and germs and all the ships at sea! It's me, your little stuffed host, Bully, back with another action-filled, tension-thribbled, groundhog-free installment of The Fun Fifty, the only awards show that takes place not on a stage but entirely on a spinning comics rack! (Also, the Cable Ace Awards.) When we last left you, we were at.,..let me check my clipboard here...number three thousand and thirty! So let's count down the next ten, starting with number 3,029...the comic where Guy Gardner throws up blood!:

#3,029: GUY GARDNER: BLOODPUKER #43 • If you were lookin' for some high-adventure blood-puking in 2009, then there's only one comic you could have gone to. Actually, there were several, but only one featured everyone's favorite plasma-barfer, Guy Gardner! This crimson-stained comic had everybody reaching for the bucket in 2009 when Guy became a member of the Blood Puking Lantern Corps and began to...

Wait a minute! Number three thousand and twenty-nine? Who's been messing with my clipboard???

Groundhog


What did I tell you, you darn groundhog! Get outta here! Go bother Sims for once!

Now that he's gone, let's get on with the real countdown, 'kay? Here we go again with...

#30: DARK REIGNWhat's that?!? Bully enjoyed a Marvel mega-event? Is up now down? Is black white? Is Batman Owlman? Is Mr. Fantastic The Brute? I haven't made secret my feelings about the past...can it be six years of Marvel's heroes rolling down the slippery slope that started with "Avengers Disassembled": ranging from pretty general indifference for some storylines and outright little-stuffed-entitled-rage over others. Iron Man: Director of S.H.I.E.L.D.? (*Strategic Hound Intelligence, Encompassing Little Dalmatians) I'd call that book Iron Man: Director of J.E.R.K.*! (*Justice Eliminated, Revering Kaos) But you know, getting me interested in the newest twist in the Marvel Universe is as simple as 1-2-3: #1: Make the villains the villains. Enough pitting hero vs. hero, let's show that when supers squabble the sinisters slither in. (Oooh, that's good!) With Stormin' Norman Osborn in charge, there's an entirely new status quo, and it's compelling to see how the heroes—from the ground level to the cosmic—react. #2: As Stan once said, Bring on the Bad Guys! We've been privy to a level of intimacy with 616's supervillains that we haven't had since the last time Doctor Doom and the Red Skull got together for brunch. I've become somewhat sympathetic to Hercules's brother Ares, thrilled by the loose-cannon exploits of Bullseye/Hawkeye, intrigued by the machinations and madness of Norman himself. It's a clever twist on the usual "hero fights villain" trope of superhero comics. Heck, there were a few moments (a few) when I even liked Daken. And of course, #3: keep it fun. With the entire event spreading across the MU, there's plenty of heroes and villains to follow, but whatever book you're reading, there's high adventure and drama and suspense and even a lot of laughs. (You gotta love the bickering the Dark Avengers mutter behind Osborn's back; squabbling among themselves just like the Fantastic Four or the Avengers.) The triumph of Spider-Man as he tricks Osborn in Spider-Man: The List, the roller-coaster twists of a hero betraying his team to save his child, and even the Sentry's Kenny McCormick impersonation every few issues, made me feel that even if each individual title didn't appeal to me, this was a world that was different and unique. After decades of promising "the Marvel Universe will never be the same," they finally did it. Dark Reign: I wouldn't wanna read about it forever, but it's a fun place to visit.


#29: SIMPSONS COMICS • Like Futurama, the Simpsons line of comics from Bongo is consistently one of my favorites: there's always at least two or three, very often a few dozen laugh-out-loud moments and sheer animation-to-page entertainment. And that's a lot of entertainment: the Simpsons family of comics includes Simpsons Comics, Simpsons Super Spectacular, Bart Simpson, Treehouse of Horror, Summer Shindig, Winter Wingding, and The Love Stories of Moe Szyslak. Among this year's stand-outs: Sergio Aragonçs came aboard to write and illustrate Bart's fiftieth issue and he continues with the charming "Maggie's Crib" feature in subsequent issues; interconnecting stories of life in the information age take our favorite yellow family into cyberspace; plus the three-issue crossover event (and future "Monday Night Mural") Radioactive Man Saga parodies everybody's favorite hobby (and it ain't collecting stamps, bub!) With jokes and dialogue as sharp and witty as the Sunday night TV show, Simpsons Comics never fail to entertain me. Why thank you, young man...I will have a cow!


#28: THE AMAZING SPIDER-MAN • Your mileage may vary depending on the writer and artist on a particular arc, but I've been digging the whole post-MJ (who?!?) Spidey-saga more than I've thrilled to our friendly neighborhood you-know-what in years. New characters, old characters kept fresh with new intriguing subplots, an unexpected wedding, the meanest mayor in Manhattan, and the ever-growing threat of Dark Reign: all these elements thrown into the mix and spun out intricately kept me hanging like a...well, you know. My favorite arcs included "24/7," a fun twist on how nothing ever works out for Spidey no matter how hard he tries, the aforementioned wedding story, done reverently and joyfully, and may I say, 'bout time May found a new man of her dreams, and the main Dark Reign tie-in: "American Son," the last temptation of Harry Osborn that pits him against his father, with Spider-Man in the middle. Add in the return of Stan the Man for a funny tale of Spidey visiting his therapist, and the return of that red-headed stranger, and you've got a Spider-year that 2010's going to have to work hard to beat.


#27: THE INVINCIBLE IRON MAN • Tony Stark makes you feel he's a cool exec with a brain of oatmeal, thanks to Matt Fraction's scripting on one of the finest Shellhead tales in recent years, "World's Most Wanted." On the run from Norman Osborn and his Dark Avengers, Tony's not only got to keep not only Stark Industries's technology out of the hands of H.A.M.M.E.R....but the secrets of the entire superhero world that Tony has in his head. Stark sets off on a global chase to destroy his factories...and his knowledge...by systematically erasing his brain bit by bit. As Norman gets closer, Stark gets dumber...and his Iron Man armor is downgraded every time until he's clomping around in the old grey metal shell. But even a disgraced Tony's got allies, especially perky Pepper Potts, who gets to try on a tin suit of her own. #19's final faceoff between Stark and Osborn is one of the best single issues of 2008. Hey, movie guys...looking yet for a great plot for IM3? You could do yourseves, and us, a favor by picking up Fraction's story!


#26: MARVEL ADVENTURES: AVENGERS • 2009 saw a farewell to my favorite Avengers book since...oh, around the glory days of Michelinie, Byrne, and Perez. Paul Tobin's kid-friendly Avengers are nevertheless the real deal: wisecracking Spider-Man, earnest Captain America, innovative Iron Man, regal Thor...but all with a sense of humor and rollicking fun missing from New and Mighty Avengers. This past year saw more action in each single issue than most entire Bendis arcs: the Avengers time-travel to Ancient Egypt and team up with Sgt. Fury and his Howling Commandos (stopping for pancakes with Abe Lincoln along the way); join a dating service to thwart Batroc's schemes; face off against a vengeful genie intent on stomping Bruce Banner...and they clean up Avengers Mansion. I can think of no finer Marvel book to introduce kids...or, indeed, anyone...to the Marvel superheroes and their sense of justice and fun. By the end of the year MA: A was gone and Marvel Adventures Super Heroes rebooted the Avengers with even more diverse characters (Nova! The Invisible Girl!), but I'm already nostalgic for the genial but dense Hulk and the Spider-Man with wisecracks that actually do make you laugh of MA: Avengers. This book will be missed.


#25: TORCHWOOD: CHILDREN OF EARTH • 2008 only gave us five episodes each of Doctor Who and Torchwood, but whoo-hoo, what a ride! I was glued to the edge of my seat (darn you, Shelly! Put the paste away!) through the five-night Torchwood miniseries in sorta-real-time: darker and edgier than most of the regular episodes, with mysteries and cliffhangers that send a chill up your spine. For best results if you have the DVD, watch a chapter a night, but don't watch the accompanying documentary until after the miniseries! Even saying too much might ruin the fun, so I'll simply say that we find out one of the darkest moments of Captain Jack's past, and I don't wanna work for Torchwood anymore. It's just too dangerous. Fine, spooky, moody stuff reminiscent of alien-vistation films of the fifties and sixties with a twist of the twenty-first century (when everything changes).


#24: WEDNESDAY COMICS • Some comics look great. Some comics are innovative in format. Some are thrilling to read. Wednesday Comics, while flawed, hit pretty close to those three marks each of its twelve weeks. This clever and cool anthology replicates the big Sunday comics sections of old, with a modern DC twist: each of the strips is a continuing adventure of DC heroes big and small. Curiously, the three least effective strips were those of DC's big guns: the trinity of Batman (fairly standard and somewhat mundane Bat-adventure), Superman (poorly-paced, frequently action-less), and Wonder Woman (pretty to look at, strenuous to read: a dream does not a story make). The strips that stood out—the ones I looked forward to every week—were those that took experimental new approaches to not only their starring heroes but the format of the strips. Dave Gibbons and Ryan Sook's Prince Valiant-flavored "Kamandi" gave a grandeur and solemnity to Kirby's over-the-top world. Neil Gaiman and Mike Allred's playful and sixties-tinged "Metamorpho" played games with panels and layout, including a snakes and ladders board game and trippy hip-hop through the periodic table where Metamorpho changes into every element plus works each chemical abbreviation into his dialogue. Kyle Baker's "Hawkman" is big, gorgeous, all-action fun of a guy with wings and a big-ass mace fighting dinosaurs; best cliffhangers in the series. But by far my favorite couple features were Karl Karschl and Brenden Fletcher's "The Flash," where a time-zipping Barry Allen shared a page with the soap opera comic "Iris West," paralleling his adventures from his wife's POV; and "Supergirl" by Jimmy Palmiotti and Amanda Conner, with Kara chasing superpets-gone-wild Streaky and Krypto with the aid of guest-stars Dr. Mid-Nite and Aquaman (and his "shell-phone"). Conner's artwork is bright and energetic; I'd love to see her draw a regular Supergirl series. Wednesday Comics is a mixed bag: some duds, an assortment of good but uninspired comics, and a few polished gems. In the Silver Age, DC spotlighted characters and artists in rotating books like The Brave and the Bold and Showcase. The best of Wednesday Comics has the right stuff to stand alongside those classics.


#23: DARK REIGN: FANTASTIC FOUR • I loved Mark Millar and Bryan Hitch's FF with its way-out science concepts and inventive twists on the mythology of Marvel's First Family (altho' I'll say it one last time: where the heck was Alicia during all this?!? Nice handkerchiefy ending to the Ben wedding story, tho'). As up and down as the FF's book can be in recent years...heck, throughout its existence...I was a little worried about the departure of Messrs. M. & H. and the arrival of Jonathan Hickman as my favorite team's new scripter. I needn't have worried, and didn't, when I read Dark Reign: FF. Hickman's got the characters voices and personalities down perfect (I love, love, love his Ben Grimm!), and he uses the wonderful emphasis on family that few other superhero teams have to spin off new and interesting stories. DRFF (durff?) features Reed opening alternate realities to find one in which his recent, Civil War-period errors might have been rectified, while Sue, Johnny and Ben tumble through diverse Earths, encountering and teaming up with different versions of themselves. So who's left behind to hold the fort against Norman Osborn and his invading Dark Avengers? Why, Franklin and Valeria, "home alone" in the Baxter Building, of course! I'm enjoying Hickman's regular ongoing issues of the FF series (especially the recent birthday party story and the wonderful covers by Alan Davis), but DRFF tickles me pink with its concept and execution, not to mention The Most Fun Panel of 2009:

Clobbering Hour




#22: FIN FANG 4 RETURN • Okay, you were paying attention last night when I told you how much I enjoy Roger Langridge's work on The Muppet Show, right? Well, that goes quadruple for the sequel to his much-beloved monster team-up, setting loose four of the Atlas Era's classic monsters (shrunken to handy-human scale) in today's Marvel Manhattan. Googam (son of Goom) has a therapy session with Doc Samson and plots to be adopted by a child-collecting celebrity; Gorgilla has a "curious" adventure; Fin himself works the grill at a Chinese restaurant and (ultimately) bums out Professor X as well as saving Christmas with the help of Dr. Strange's right-hand man Wong.; Elektro falls in love (again? but that trick never works!) Golly, this is goofy, grand fun for anyone who doesn't take the Marvel Universe too seriously...and with ancient monsters running around it in their underpants, why should you?


#21: MARVEL DIVAS • Sure, Models Inc. had the better covers by far (really, what was up with that T&A-tastic Marvel Divas ish #1 cover that Marvel still had to use it on the trade?), but Marvel Divas bought a joy and gentle humor to the quartet of Hellcat, Firestar, the Black Cat and Captain Marvel Photon Pulsar the smart one in Nextwave Monica Rambeau. Solid and mostly subtle writing by Robert Aguirre-Sacasa and lovely nuanced and cartoony art by Tonci Zonjic highlight the lives of four superhero women partying, gossiping, shopping and dealing with the tough things in life: love, money troubles, cancer, and an ex-husband literally sending you through hell. The ending's a little pat and predictable but leaves room open for a sequel (please!) and it's wonderful to see four strong and well-defined women in an adventure that doesn't involve punching someone on every page. This series is a great kick-off to Marvel's focus on their female characters in 2010's Girl Comics and Marvel Her-oes. Just try to keep those covers classy, guys, okay?


Whew! That's a whole spinner rack of fun-osity from the past twelve months. And we haven't even gotten to The Plaid Lantern Corps, Giant-Sized Thor Goes Shopping on the iTunes Store Annual, Dark Power Pack, and It's Called Superman But Superman's Not Actually In It, No, No, Work With Me Here, Hey, Don't Put Me Back on the Rack! And can you even believe #1 is going to be Ultimatum? Oh, whoops, darn!!! I've spoiled the big surprise. Well, if you come back tomorrow I'll give you candy? Will that work?

Candy and a nickel. That's my final offer.

Okay, a dime.