Last week's comics, today

First of all, I want to thank everyone, from the bottom of my little stuffed red satin heart, who chipped in with cheer, encouragement, happy suggestions and over-the-internet hugs. You all helped make a very hard day seem a little lighter, and I'm very grateful. I especially enjoyed everyone's suggestions about things to help make you happier when you're ultra-down, and I'm jotting them down in my little Book of Happiness to remind myself of during a blue day. Like Woody Allen in Hannah and Her Sisters, I'm partial to settling down with Duck Soup and letting myself be swept away to Freedonia, and now I've got a lot of other ideas as well. (And I absolutely hooves-up agree with the suggestion of the early eighties pop music of Miss Tracey Ullman...especially her cover of the late great Kirsty MacColl's "They Don't Know." Sublime.)

Anyway, thank you so very much. You don't know how much it meant.

And now, let's talk comics!

52 WEEK 46: This comic is fun. Whoa, looks like Mary Marvel isn't the only one who takes the lightning of Shazam straight to the chest, huh? Egg Fu, Doctor Cyclops, T.O. Morrow, Dr. Sivana (and the rest of the eggheads on Oolong Island) batten down the hatches as Black Adam comes flying in...and he ain't selling magazine subscriptions! (Although that would kinda be an interesting issue, wouldn't it?) The mad scientists are all written with a quirky tongue-in-cheek that wouldn't be out of place in, say, an episode of The Venture Brothers, and even the slowwwwwwwest arrest in the history of Metropolis doesn't detract from the chuckles over a bidding war for Red Tornado on eBay.


52 WEEK 47: This comic is fun...sorta. Which leads us right into this week's book-stabbin', Robin-guestin', Animal-Mannin', Montoya-Questionin' installment of 52, which after the kick-ass action of last week seems to be spinning its wheels and biding its time. Maybe Messrs. Johns, Morrison, et. al. are just getting everyone onstage for the big Cossack number, but there's more setting and situation than conflict and forward motion in this issue. With five weeks to go, better ramp up the action, and fast: there's a lot to get in. But I am enjoying the concept that as the series spirals towards its complicated conclusion, more and more of the big players of the DCU are stepping back into the spotlight and getting ready to dust off their supersuits for One Year Later.


SIMPSONS COMICS #128: This comic is fun. The Simpsons comic tends to do straight parody more often than the TV series, but even when they're spoofing TV themselves, the four-color floppy does a solid job of providing some decent belly-laughs and a compelling and intricately-involved plot. This parody of 24 covers one hour in the life of Springfield per page, and there's at least one decent joke or sight gag on every page. All this plus a special guest-appearance by Jack Bauer! (And, if you don't blink, Bender's in this one too!) You'll enjoy this if you're a 24 or Simpsons fan, and if you like both, why, this is seventh heaven.


THE BRAVE AND THE BOLD #2: This comic is sorta fun. Since I'm a week late in reviewing this, I don't know what I have to add to the comments of everyone in the blogosphere that, geez, that is a skeevy scene, isn't it? While Supergirl in this issue is more cheerful and sunny than in her own weird-ass book, hoo boy, Hal Jordan don't need to share those thoughts with us, does he? Most of all, it colors a perfectly decent book with a fun updated twist on Haney- and Schwartz-era characters and concepts with a cheap suggestive snarkiness that doesn't add anything to the characterization or plot. As Captain America might say, "Eyes front, soldier...we've got a job to do."


THE SPIRIT #4: This comic is fun. Gorgeous design (a cover you might actually think is covered with sand until you try to brush it away), sharp and genuinely witty dialogue (now that's a way to do suggestion, guys. Also? Use adults.), the ever-intricate mystery of the Octagon and The Octopus, desert sequences so starkly lit you can feel the heat, and a battle of the sexes, The Desperate Ones-style, and one of Eisner's classic femme fatales extensively updated by Darwyn Cooke but never seeming out-of-place or untrue to the source material. And, like an Easter Egg spread out over two pages, Cooke continues his winning streak of innovative and beautiful splash pages with the trademark Eisner titles spelled out in the art (in this one, the wavering hazy shadows of desert cactus and our heroes spell out Denny Colt's alias.) There's a delight to this series all-too-missing from so many other monthly comics: check out the cocky grin on the Spirit as he surprises Silk Satin at a Mexican border hotel stake-out, or the charming snake oil of a slick villain with a heart of gold, or the calm confidence of Ebony zooming through back streets in his cab. Every issue is a sheer knockout, and while I would certainly forgive a slight slip in the excellence in this series, that's four Spirits a row that rack up the honor of the most fun comic of the week. And a fun comic like that...that will make you feel better when you're blue.