There Is No Hope in Crime Alley, Night 18: Tourist Trap

from Booster Gold/The Flintstones Special (DC, May 2017), script by Mark Russell, pencils by Rick Leonardi, inks by Scott Hanna, colors by Steve Buccellato, letters by Dave Sharpe
(Click top picture to Future Times Square-size)

Today in Comics History Future, March 15, 2472: Farewell, the noble mole

from "Booster Trouble" in Booster Gold/The Flintstones #1 one-shot (DC, May 2017), script by Mark Russell, pencils by Rick Leonardi, inks by Scott Hanna, colors by Steve Buccellato, letters by Dave Sharpe
(Click top picture to giant mole-size)

Say, Britney, what was that weather report again?

Today in Comics History, March 7, 20XX: Bruce Wayne points a gun directly at us, the readers

from Batman (2016 series) #47 (DC, July 2018); script by Tom King; pencils by Tony S. Daniel; inks by Tony S. Daniel, Danny Miki, and Sandu Florea; colors by Tomeu Morey; letters by Clayton Cowles
Now here's the thing...


from Fantastic Four (1961 series) #51 (Marvel, June 1966), script by Stan Lee, pencils by Jack Kirby, inks by Joe Sinnott, letters by Artie Simek
...Bruce is telling Booster to take him back to the night of his parents' murder. Since when did that become March 7? It has always been June 26 until this story, and I refuse to change my mind and calendar on that unassailable fact!

(Durn Flashpoint!)

Let's Kill Hitler

Hey, the New York Times would like to know if you (yes, you) would kill Baby Hitler? Well, wouldja? (As opposed to say, just punching Adult Hitler.)


I imagine after they decided 'let's poll everyone to see if they'd kill Baby Hitler,' it wasn't that far a leap to making the infographic look like a rattle. I'm betting that at one point during the design process, that rattle had a toothbrush mustache.

Anyway, would you kill Baby Hitler? Booster Gold wouldn't!


Panels from Booster Gold (2007 series) #25 (December 2009), script and pencils by Dan Jurgens, inks by Norm Rapmund, colors by Hi-Fi, letters by Travis Lanham
Even Midnighter (The Batman from Another Universe, Who's Now in the Same Universe As Batman So Why Bother, Really?™) wouldn't kill Baby Hitler.


Panel from Midnighter (2007 series) #2 (February 2007), script by Garth Ennis, pencils by Chris Sprouse, inks by Karl Story, colors by Randy Mayor, letters by Phil Balsman
We've established that heroes and anti-heroes wouldn't kill Baby Hitler (the vote is still out on, say, the Punisher or Wolverine), but would comic book characters kill adult Hitler?

Well, let's find out today, all day, on Let's Kill Hitler!

Today in Comics History, November 4, 1990: First appearance of Booster Gold on the front page of a newspaper not accompanied by the world "alleged"

from Justice League Quarterly #1 (DC, Winter 1990), plot and layouts by Keith Giffen, script by J.M. DeMatteis, pencils by Chris Sprouse, inks by Bruce Patterson, colors by Gene D'Angelo, letters by Bob Pinaha

365 Days of DC House Ads, Day 197: Thank you for coming home / I'm sorry that the chairs are all worn

House ad for Booster Gold (1986 series) #1 (February 1986); printed in Crisis on Infinite Earths #11 (February 1986)
Ad art: pencils and inks by Dan Jurgens

You were expecting maybe...? (Snappy Answers to Stupid Questions Department)

For all their vaunted popularity in their own particular worlds of excitement and amazement, comic book characters sometimes aren't very good at recognizing each other...even when it's dead obvious. I mean, you can forgive blind-as-a-bat-who-got-hit-with-radioactive-waste-in-his-eyes Matt Murdock of maybe not recognizing his pals Foggy Nelson and Karen Page...or is that Heather Glenn? You know, put a headband on her and it kinda looks like Gwen Stacy, don't it...?



Maybe the problem, therefore, is just that instead of a superhero, everybody seems to be expecting somebody else!



Or maybe, just maybe, too many people are stuck on the obvious.



So let me now present to you a literally virtual gallery of Smart Answers to Stupid Identifications of Comic Book Characters. Enjoy, won't you?





I had to look this next one up. Here's who Gabriel Heatter is. (It's a nice pun, too, even if it's misspelled. Whoever said that spontaneously combusting androids don't have a sense of humor? I think that was Namor who said that, right?)





Sometimes even civilians get mistaken for superheroes! I know I am frequently asked if I am the Incredible Hulk, especially when I am wearing my Hulk Hands. Bully Smash!











How square is Clark Kent? So square that he can't even get the lyrics of "Rubber Biscuit" right!




Finally, we must all bow down before the king of being mistaken for somebody else...this guy:



...whoever he is.

366 Days with Alfred Pennyworth, Day 23

Two-page spread from Booster Gold v.2 (November 2008), script by Chuck Dixon, breakdowns by Dan Jurgens, finishes by Norm Rapmund, colors by Hi-Fi, letters by Sal Cipriano
(Click picture to Booster-size!)

Fun Fifty of 2008: Part 5 of 5

Yay! Hooray! Whoooo! Spongebob Squarepants, everyone, with a musical tribute to Gob Bluth and also to one of the most eagerly awaited comics of 2008! Let's get him back up on stage again, folks...let's hear it for Spongeb...oh, he's being used to clean up Mickey Rourke's dressing room. We'll catch up with him a little later.

We're back only fifty-eight hours after we kicked off the proceedings. And even then we're still running faster than the Oscars hosted by Jon Stewart! But after a few dozen more commercials, we'll be ready to kick off with the...ahem...Final Fun Countdown! Last time, you may remember, Green Lantern was in a tough pickle as Sinestro was dangling him upside down over a vat of creamy corn chowder...oh wait, that's the wrong "last time." Last time we counted down from 20 to 11...that leaves only numbers 5, 2, 7, 4, 10, 1, 3, 6, 9 and 8 to cover...and just to make things more exciting, I'm not even gonna do 'em in that order! Who sez this isn't the Mighty Bully Age of Shock and Surprise?!? Let's roar around the final curve and into the home stretch, Stig-style, with...


#10: FINAL CRISIS DC's flagship cross-over event of 2008 is the big kahuna, all right: every single comic they've been publishing since, oh, let's say 1954, has been tied into and leads up to this event. I was no big fan of Identity Crisis, right-out loathed Infinite Crisis, enjoyed 52, but have given Countdown and Trinity a miss to preserve my piggy-bank-sized budget. Why, then, does Final Crisis work where most of the big crossovers of 2007-2008 don't? Simple answer: Grant Morrison. I'd pretty much follow Grant Morrison to a Witchblade comic book and beyond, and his meta-hyper super-entwined event of The Day Evil Won in the DCU has me on the edge of my seat. It's not an easy read...but I don't believe that superhero comics need spell everything out in big bold captions for you. It's a big, all-encompassing company-wide event, but unlike so many of 'em in the past, it's not messy. Bring the skills you use reading fiction and non-fiction (you are reading more than just comic books, ain't ya? Good!) to FC and you'll find that Morrison's simply bringing the superhero comic tropes up to the same narrative level as you'll get in a book with an actual spine and a dust jacket. While this isn't great art by any means, it's both a quantum step forward for the usual by-the-numbers crossover event. (It's okay to need a guide to the galaxy of players, though: I highly recommend Gary Greenwood's lovingly thorough Annotated Final Crisis, and Benjamin Birdie's solid analysis at CBR, which prompted me to read with a more critical little button eye. But side from taking the crossover event, in the words of Suggs, one step beyond!, Final Crisis is chock-full o' heroes and villains in the kind of DCU-spanning, high adventure, derring-do, and—by issue #6, especially—do or die voyage that provides a sense of wonder and (oh yes) fun that I haven't felt since the original Crisis on Infinite Earths. You can tell a book by its covers: designed by Chip Kidd and realized gorgeously by cover artist J. G. Jones, FC's covers have taken the usual "comic book" look and brought it up to the twenty-first century with a design that can proudly stand alongside...excuse the expression, please..."real" books. Quibblers may quibble, but hey: I'm thinking Final Crisis is pretty darn fun. And if you think Batman ain't coming back from his big bug-zapping...well then, boy howdy, you ain't read many comic books, have ya? (Or at least you shoulda read this one.)


#9: THE AGE OF THE SENTRY Almost missed out on this one, and that woulda been a shame. I passed over the Age of the Sentry miniseries based solely on my dislike for Marvel's Thor-Lite/Miracleman-wannabe/deus-ex-prankia in the pages of The New Avengers and World War Hulk, but I read enough rave reviews (like this one) about how crazy-wild-cool the book was. I should have known it: it's written by Jeff Parker and Paul Tobin, two of my fave creators at The Big M these days, and instead of mirroring the sobby-angst-stuffed modern-day crazy-ass Sentry (boo hoo hoo), this is the 1960s Marvel Pop Art-era Sentry, in the let's-get-retro 1963, Fantastic Four: The World's Greatest Comic Magazine, and those wonderfully goofball Supreme issues by Alan Moore. Sentry faces off against over-the-top monsters like Ursus the Ultra-Bear, Warloo the Galactic Gigolo, The Mountain Man, and Truman Capote. Yes. Truman Capote. The art is gorgeous: bright, colorful, and frantic in the style of (but not slavishly imitating) the 1960s Marvels, and there's a cornucopia of great illustrators at work here: Nick Dragotta, Ramon Rosanas, Michael Cho and, in a story guest-starring Millie the Model, Colleen Coover (I loves her artwork to pieces!). Every time you weep tears for the lost innocence of Marvel, for every Janet van Dyne squashed by a hammer or eaten for dinner, there's still one romping around in one of the little but lovely fun corners of Marvel that produces books like The Age of the Sentry. This might not be the real history of the Earth-616 Sentry, but whatever Earth this is set on...I call it Earth-Fun.


#8: BOOSTER GOLD (In 2007: #1) My #1 Fun Choice of 2007 drops a few notches (but still remains firmly in the Top Ten) following the departure of both initial series writers Geoff Johns (the man who knows more DC history than anybody since Rascally Roy Thomas) and Jeff Katz, and of Booster's sidekick, best friend, and cannon fodder Blue Beetle (Ted Kord model). An entertaining two-parter focusing on the Batgirl history by Chuck Dixon wasn't bad (whodathunkit?), but in issues by new writer Rick Remender and then regular scripter Dan Jurgens, the series seems to be circling already-used concepts. In a series that hasn't even reached Year Two yet, that's troubling. A couple special issues (#s 0 and 1,000,000) that only peripherally tie into the crossovers and context of the original Zero Hour and DC One Million series are fun, but Goldstar is no Blue Beetle. Still, removed from the dark and doom-filled regular DC Universe timeline, Booster Gold maintains a sense of fun and adventure. I'd like to see the series get back to re-visiting, from Booster's POV, famous events in DC Universe history. How about Booster in the Haunted Tank fighting alongside Sgt. Rock and teaming up with the Viking Commando! Now that's history!


#7: KING-SIZE SPIDER-MAN SUMMER SPECIAL Warning! The following stories did not really happen! warns the introduction page to King-Size Spider-Man, winding up with Unless you want to read a few fun stories. Then these count. And holy cow, do they count! This is the single most fun-packed Spidey comic in years, and that counts the classic Fun-Size Spider-Man Goes to Fun Town and Teams Up With The Funtastic Four. A retcon or reimagining of Spidey's first meeting with the Falcon, a Chris Giarrusso Mini-Marvels Spidey versus Venom strip are worth the price of admission all by themselves. And remember that iconic eight-word recap of Superman's origin in the first issue of All Star Superman? Well, it's beaten by two words in the intro page's Spider-Man origin, which just happens to be The Most Fun Panel of 2008:



But the webbed icing on the Spider-Cake is "Un-Enchanted Evening" by Paul Tobin and Colleen Coover, my admiration for both of whom runneth over even before this glorious team-up of Clea, Marvel Girl, She-Hulk, Scarlet Witch, Patsy Walker (Hellcat), Millie the Model and...Mary Jane Watson?!? Versus The Enchantress? And they don't need Spidey or Thor to bail them out? Verily, sisters art doing it for themselves! Coover's bright and expressive cartooning and Tobin's funny and brisk dialogue make them a heckuva team (in real life as well as on the page: they're married!) Even better, this tale has spawned, like Happy Days, a heck of a spin-off: Tobin's upcoming Models Inc. miniseries, to be published in 2009. Can't wait for it, and if it's half as good as this story, expect to see it this time next year on my Fun Fifty of 2009!


#6: THE IMMORTAL IRON FIST (In 2007: #2) Another Top Five favorite in 2007 slips a handful of rungs down the ladder but still delivers a face-kickin' adventure and a time-spanning saga. I miss original series writers Ed Brubaker and Matt Fraction, but new scripter Duane (inhale) Swierczynski is admirably carrying the torch of Marvel's immortalist hero Danny Rand...and his entire family from wife Iron Lady to Iron Dog. What, that's not the Iron Fist dynasty? No, it's even better: for the first time in this series we learn that the Iron Fist is not merely one twentieth-century hero but a legacy of champions spanning into the distant past (and future). DC Comics has done this for years with its "legacy" titles like Flash and Justice Society, giving a fuller sense of history to its superhuman worlds, but aside from extending the careers of Captain America and a handful of its heroes from WWII to today, Marvel has eschewed (thank you, Word of the Day Calendar!) the legacy character before this. Fraction, Brubaker, and now Swierczynski have done the concept proud, however: the best of the Immortal issues remind me of Starman, my favorite legacy hero series. Flashbacks and flashforwards fill in the storyline on past and future Iron Fists, and its not simply history-building: as a great man once opined, future events such as these will affect you in the future. In the main title and and one-shot specials like the title-stretchin' The Immortal Iron Fist: Orson Randall and the Death Queen of California,Danny gradually learns the history of the Iron Fists. He uses it in one of the extended arcs of 2008 in which he finds out that no Iron Fist has lived past the age of 33 (and guess which birthday Danny's celebrating this year!) and to plot his assault on the Mystical Eighth City we're gonna be seein' in 2009. The history and plotting shows there's a grand plan behind the story and even tho' the driver has changed, it's a heckuva ride. Immortal Iron Fist is more than my favorite Marvel comic series of 2008; it's shaped up to be, so far, one of my favorite series of all time.


#5: ALL STAR SUPERMAN (In 2007: #10) Oh noes! An iconic DC Universe superhero...dead! Sacrificed himself to save us all from terror and destruction! Leaving behind his mourning comrades and friends and millions of grieving fans! What will we do...what will we do? Well, if you're anything like me...declare it the fifth most fun comic of the year! It took us a while to get here, but Messers Grant Morrison and Frank Quitely have, in the space of twelve slim but elegant issues, brought us one of the finest deconstructions and reconstructions of the Supes story since...um, I'd say since Christopher Reeve, but your mileage may vary. Shorn of its DC Universe constraints in the All Star continuity, this Superman faces familiar friends and foes in the classic Morrison way: with quantum physics and solar shifting...and Lex Luthor. Issue #12 is the big finale of the final three issues (all three came out in 2008), featuring the culmination of Lex's deadly plan to destroy Supes which actually looks like it's gonna work. Thankfully, as he did in all those great Silver Age stories, Superman defeats his arch-enemy using the knowledge and power of science!! (Do you know how massive gravity affects the passage of time? Superman does.) For me, the stand-out of this series has been re-reading for subtlety: the wonderful little stage business Morrison plots and Quitely displays of Clark stumbling to prevent an off-stage auto accident, or a bag of oranges tumbling out of Lois's arms when she realizes, hey, maybe if you take off Clark's glasses and give him a spit curl, he looks a little like holy cow could he really be Superm..., and, in the final issue, Quitely's literally portrayal of the old Archimedes saw Give me a lever long enough and a fulcrum on which to place it, and I shall move the world. And us, as well. All Star Superman joins the ranks of Alan Moore's "Whatever Happened to the Man of Tomorrow?" as another of the greatest final grand adventures of our greatest hero.


#4: HARVEST IS WHEN I NEED YOU THE MOST The Force is what gives a Jedi his power, says Obi-Wan Kenobi (old Academy Award-winning actor version). It's an energy field created by all living things. It surrounds us, penetrates us, and binds the galaxy together. Also, there are little tiny little microscopic beings inside us that affect our ability to use the Force and which if you don't have 'em, you'll probably be...no, wait, forget that last part. It's pretty silly. And who are we to disagree with Obi-Wan? Like the Force, Star Wars fandom surrounds us and pulls us all together (how's that for a segue, folks?), and while I've been a pretty big little stuffed fan from way back, I've been (Clone Wars excepted), pretty disappointed by the licensed Expanded Universe adventures, novels, comics and sagas that have filled in every vacant corner of the Georgeiverse. The authorized Star Wars comics especially seem to be lacking the fun, joy, and occasional hysterical giggles that I got from the original first trio of movies. (Where have you gone, Star Wars Tales?) Notice I say "authorized," because like doing the Kessel Run in less than twelve parsecs...sometimes it takes a pirate to deliver.

(Okay, okay, I'll stop it with the Star Wars metaphors now.)

Harvest is When I Need You the Most, a gorgeously-designed minicomic (it's got a glossy tip-in right on the cover) that is most definitely not an official Lucasfilms tie-in, but there's more of delight here than in a truckload of Phantom Menaces. A squadron of noted and talented comics artists have contributed nine tales set in the original SWU: quirky and funny and colorful and sad stories of Luke's friendship with Biggs, Artoo and Wicket's adventures, the Cloud City dinner with Vader after the doors closed behind Han, Leia, and Chewie, and my two favorites, Box Brown's "Obi the Lonely" is Ben Kenobi's quiet desert reflection on what drove Anakin to betray the Jedi, and Shelli Paroline's strikingly gorgeously illustrated (and beautifully spot-colored) "Rancorous Love," in which The Tentacled Go-Go Dancer Tossed to the Monster in Jabba's Pit. For those of you who pay close attention to G-Canon, that's Oola the Twi'lek and the Rancor, but honestly, all you need to know is it's a heartbreaking love story. Between a girl with tentacles on her head and a monster. Cool. You too can buy this bundle of Star Wars joy online: believe me, it's an absolutely fun Star Wars comic and a true celebration of what makes the saga still so alive for me: the joy and delight it is capable of bringing to its fans.


#3: HERBIE ARCHIVES I've read about Herbie Popnecker for years but never actually read him: the classic cult 1960s comics which, I kept reading in criticism, history, and commentary, still remained among the pantheon of the industry's most enjoyable and charming comic books. One flip through the first volume of the hardcover Herbie Archives in 2008, however, and I was instantly hooked: Shane O'Shea and Ogden Whitney's tubby hero is a hoot and a half, the most unflappable and powerful hero of them all, able to face down the devil, the sun, and alien monsters with a firm stare and a lick of one of his magic lollipops. Dark Horse has digitally restored the original stories without overcoloring them with bright modern techniques: they're clear, sharp and crisp reprints that at the same time look the way they should: like old comics books. Many of the stories are similar, and you're best served by reading only a few at a time, but the brilliance of each one shines through with Herbie's deadpan reaction to everyone and everything, and glorious period metacommentary: UN head U Thant desperately hires him, screaming girls ditch the Beatles for his favor...even Jackie Kennedy swoons for Herbie! That's my cue to say, you will too!


#2: BATMAN: THE BRAVE AND THE BOLD A smiling, swashbuckling Batman? Heresy! Or...to put it another way...fun! Warner Brothers premiered their new Batman cartoon in 2008, and it's a most rollicking and entertaining celebration of Batman (no dark-tinged The definite article needed here). Patterned after the long running Batman team-up comic series (also the source of the title) and featuring a Dick Sprang-influenced beefy, broad Batman, Brave and the Bold preserves Justice League Unlimited's exploration of the DC Universe through its galaxy of guest-star heroes and villains while providing a lighter, less-angst-filled, more swashbuckling approach to the Caped Crusader than any of the previous Batman series. Most of the stories are high on action and light on soap opera: Bruce Wayne so far hasn't appeared once; neither have the supporting Bat-cast. Instead, each episode kicks off mid-stream with a action sequence reminiscent of the James Bond pre-credit sequences and guest-starring a different hero than the main portion of the story. The series shows a great affection for all corners of the DC Universe: hey look, it's Kamandi! And Guy Gardner! And Plastic Man! And...good golly, is that B'wana Beast? (Yes. Yes, it is.) From its energetic jazz score theme song and its always-in-exclamation-point titles to the final gentle lesson learned, this is grand stuff, fit for an audience of kids, adults, Batman fans and newscomers, and most certainly little stuffed bulls. Sure, purists might quibble with some minor liberties taken with characters for the sake of the story (glory-loving Aquaman, teen Black Lightning), but there's many wonderful touches that outweigh this: Batman's voice-over narrative and his role as a senior but approachable mentor to many of the superheroes is a great counterpart to the gruff loner of recent DC animated series. And is it just a rumor, or will we really see Bat-Mite pop up in a future episode? Every TV show...even the best TV show...can only be improved by a guest-starring Bat-Mite. Remember that episode of Friends where Bat-Mite helped Rachel get a job in the fashion industry the same night he impersonated Joey on a double date with two supermodels? Now that...just like The Brave and the Bold...is must see TV.


#1: BATMAN (In 2007: #21) And, if you prefer your Batman of a different tenor...

insert sound effect: record scratching across LP

Hold on! Batman, R.I.P....the most fun comic of 2008?!? Why yes, Bully boosters! As you can tell by numbers 10 and 5 above, I'm a big Grant-groupie, and I've much enjoyed the quantum twists that Morrison's been bringing to DC's big guns over the past couple years. His Batman storylines have been a great delight to me, especially last year's "Club of Heroes" trilogy, and even the disjointed parts of the line-wide "Resurrection of Ra's Al Ghul" were solid Bat-fun in this household. Little did I realize that not only was every story building up to 2008, now forever to be known in comicdom as the year Morrison's Bruce Wayne went totally bat-crap-crazy with the introduction of (say!) Bat-Mite and the Batman of Zur-En-Arrh. It was a storyline that at times made me think Batman (and Morrison) were in over their heads, but hey, as the final chapter of R.I.P. reminds us, "That's the thing about Batman Batman thinks of everything." The over-the-top rampage of a red raging Batman leads a betrayal by someone dangerously close to Bruce, and the usual "entire Bat-cast to the rescue" last act fight-fest, but there's very little else that's by the book in R.I.P....like he's doing in Final Crisis, like he's done in All Star Superman, Morrison's work makes us read carefully, makes us read harder, filling in the obvious stuff between the lines and between the scenes in order to keep the action moving, presenting us with unreliable points of view and...

But that stuff, which I'm lovin', is all part of the complaints that I've read about R.I.P.: it's too complicated, it's not linear, it's not connected, it's too disjointed. I respectfully gotta disagree, although I won't argue with you if you didn't care for Batman: R.I.P. Let me put it this way. Another bit of entertainment I loved this year...and it shoulda been somewhere in my Top Fun Fifty if I hadn't forgotten to count it in...is Quantum of Solace, the newest James Bond installment that breaks a lot of the rules of 007 films. Like Morrison's Batman, Quantum challenges us: it's fast-moving (at 106 minutes, Bond #22 is shorter than any other Bond film) but is filled with so many great set pieces and characters that it seems fuller than say, [pick your least favorite Moore or Brosnan film]. It picks up in media res, but neither has a recap at the top of the film nor initial talking head sequences recapping Casino Royale. You can have done your homework and know the business behind the story, or you can leap in and enjoy the ride: either way of experiencing it acceptable and fun, and it's a solid streamlined way to present a story in the same way that contemporary fiction does: not everything is spelled out for you. Sure, the pieces fall into place faster if you realize that Vesper Lynd did such and such or that Batman "actually" went to a planet named Zur-En-Arrh in 1958's Batman #113—or you could just ride along with the story of Batman, a man who has a contingency plan for everything, forming a secondary (and kick-ass) identity that will emerge if under psychological torture, turning the tables on the bad guys.

Enough of that. If you didn't like it, that's cool. But Batman during this year was the comic book in which I couldn't wait to see what happened next: what I wanted from Hush and was still starved for, a roller coaster Bat-Ride that combines Morrison's love of 1950s Bat-tales and the contemporary unflappable, unstoppable, undefeatable "The" Batman. I've mentioned before that although it's a subtle change rather than a big-event reboot, the post-Infinite Crisis Batman is the best improvement on the character since Morrison's JLA #1. After a long period of Batman being a jerk...post-Infinite Crisis Batman is still the greatest strategist and warrior in the DC Universe, but now gives full props, support, and attention to his impressive cast of characters. If Tony Daniel's workmanlike art wasn't entirely to my tastes, the layouts were always crisp and frequently inventive. The true "death" of the storyline may have occurred in Final Crisis, but oh, like Batman hasn't planned for that eventuality. After all, practice makes perfect:



So there you have it, folks. Please join me in a toast and salute to my favorite fun comic of the year, and to the only man who can make dying into 2008's most fun story: Batman.


There ya go, numbers fifty, down to one. That's merely fifty of many, many fun things that came out of 2008, a year in which you might be hard-pressed to find a lot of joy or hope indeed. We live, as the Chinese proverb goes, in interesting times, but, as they also woulda added: Look! Up in the sky! Because there's fireworks everywhere if you look in the right place.

I thank you all who've stuck with this feature despite several installments having day-gaps between them: sometimes real life gets in the way of blogging, as those of you waiting for the next installment of "A Wodehouse a Week" will have discovered. (It resumes next week, promise! Cross my little stuffed heart and hope to cry if I'm wrong!) But this blog absolutely, positively, continues. Of everything fun in 2008, most of all I've found it fun writing this blog and getting your comments and questions, not because I'm an attention-seeking little stuffed animal (well, okay, not completely because) but because I really, truly enjoy celebrating my favorite manta: Comics Oughta Be Fun. They were in 2008...they will be in 2009. And beyond.

Reviews: Back from the pond

Hullo folks hullo! I'm back from my fishin' trip. The fishies weren't bitin', but never worry: I still managed to hook a basket of last week's comic books! Let's review 'em, shall we...before they go off and start smelling bad!


GREATEST HITS #2: This comic is fun. I mentioned in my last review of Vertigo's Greatest Hits that I was impressed David Tischman and Glenn Fabry had taken the concept of "The Beatles as Superheroes" and run with it fancifully and furiously, but it didn't really sink in until this second ish that altho' the inspiration surely is The Fantastic Fab Four, Greatest Hits avoids the cliché of an easy parody. This isn't a thinly disguised John, Paul, George and Ringo—Solicitor, Crusader, Vizier and Zipper have vivid and different personalities, gradually becoming more distinct as the series progresses and the current-day documentary subplot takes shape. Give or take a Stu Sutcliffe-as-the-Hulk subplot, this is fun and original, and Glenn Fabry's bright and sharp-lined art is a perfect fit, especially in facial expressions and the wild two-page party scene that opens the comic. It's been a long time since Vertigo did superheroes, and this is a fine return to form.


BOOSTER GOLD #13: This comic is sorta fun. I'm not as fond of the post-Geoff Johns/Jeff Katz Booster as I was the original issues (the series was #1 on my "Fun Fifty of 2007 list). Chuck Dixon and now Rick Remender seem to be struggling to make concepts that sound like solid fun come alive on the page. In this issue, Booster and Goldstar chase Starro across time and space, trying to prevent the re-creation of the DC Universe in the image of the evil mind-controlling asteroidean. The concept's solid and the dialogue's fine, but our heroes spend too much time reacting and chasing behind the villain that the plot seems oddly flat and muted. We know Booster will save the day, but we're not seeing a sign of his cleverness here. To be fair, it's a to-be-continued story, so I'm reserving judgment until I see the wrap-up. Remender might just pull a rabbit out of his hat after all. And hey, you can't hate a comic book which features The Best Panel of the Week, a world in which everything is controlled by Starro's starfish, from the President to Oprah and Tom Cruise to starfish-faced Superman helping a starfish-faced little girl by rescuing her starfish-faced cat:



ENTERTAINMENT WEEKLY #1017: This magazine is fun. Hey, that's not a comic! Who cares! This week's EW brings this little stuffed Trekker the first inside look at 2009's big-screen Star Trek movie, with plenty of photos and news behind the screens of J. J. Abrams's revisioning of the voyages of the Starship Enterprise. I love the sneak peek, brief as they are, of the characters and the interiors...I'm no hater lamenting that Chris Pine's eyes aren't the same color as William Shatner's or that the bridge looks too bright! Sure, there's other great features in America's Most Entertainingist Magazine™: Eminem, Britney, Elizabeth Banks and Sarah Vowell are all among the surprise guest stars you'll find in these pages. But for me, I've got full-color clipout pictures of Kirk 2.0 and company to hang up on my walls, and then I'm going to stand in line and wait for the movie to open in 200 days.


RASL #3: This comic is fun. RASL! It's a candy and a gum! It's also a heckuva fun comic. Let's face it, Jeff Smith coulda followed up Bone with Bone: The Next Generation or Son of Bone or Bone 2: Electric Booglaloo and I woulda happily climbed aboard for another fanciful ride. But just doing something different isn't the sole reason to follow a creator you like: s'gotta be good and compelling too. I'm enjoying RASL quite a bit: Smith's giving us a tension-building world-hopping mystery of an extra-dimensional thief lost between realities. His characters are vibrantly drawn; tho' they may need a bit of fleshing out motivation-wise, it's still early days yet. That's my only quibble about the book: its quarterly schedule leaves a lot of down-time between issues, and this is one of the current books I honestly can't wait to see what happens next.


SIMPSONS COMICS #147: This comic is fun. "Never a disappointment, always a delight" is my usual feeling about Bongo's line of Simpsons comics, and this issue is as almost always, genuinely funny and fast-paced. At the same time it's dense with dialogue and visual and verbal jokes: this is not a comic you whip through in three minutes, and if you are, you're missing lots of the fun. While Lisa conducts a science fair experiment with startling results (could her mother really be someone other than Marge?), Bart and Milhouse challenge each other to stay awake for two weeks. I love me some homer, but it's always a delight when the brightest little Simpson takes the spotlight, and Lisa's tale is well-paced with a funny twist to the ending. And it's a Chuck Dixon comic! Whodathunkit?!? More proof that if you're not reading Simpsons Comics, you're missing out on the most consistently fun four-color experience at your comic book store!


DOCTOR WHO: THE FORGOTTEN #2: This comic is fun. I've praised Rich Morris's wonderful whimsical "The Ten Doctors," his webcomic that's a loving tribute to those great Doctor Who episodes of yesteryear where all the incarnations of our favorite Time Lord are spotlighted in front of the BBC cameras. (It's still going strong and Rich is currently on page 125; don't miss the fun!) Last year the BBC brought back the tradition of Multiple Doctors with its David Tennant/Peter Davison team-up "Time Crash", and there's rumours that all seven current living Doctors—yes, even Tom Baker, the story goes—will join Tennant on screen for an upcoming episode. In the meantime, you can whet you appetite with Doctor Who: The Forgotten, a clever and nostalgic story of the Tenth Doctor facing off against a mysterious enemy that's forcing him to remember previously-untold adventures from his past nine incarnations. It's very lovingly and authentically done (the Second Doctor flashback in this issue is even done in black-and-white) and shows a great knowledge and love of the Doctor, past and present: dialogue, action, and humor is spot-on, and everyone from Martha Jones to Brigadier Lethbridge-Stewart...and faithful old Bessie...has their moment in the spotlight. I've not been a huge fan of IDW's movie/TV comic tie-ins, even the previous Doctor Who series, but The Forgotten is great fun and a wonderful romp, even if the only Doctor you know is the current one. That's why DOCTOR WHO: THE FORGOTTEN #2 is the most fun comic of the week, don't you know!

Reviews: Curse you, Joe Quesada!

THE AMAZING SPIDER-MAN #550: This comic is fun. Oh, Joey Q. is laughing his butt off now, isn't he? 'Coz Amazing Spider-Man has actually turned entertaining, action-packed, and jus' plain fun. (Then again, anything in comparison to "One More Day" would seem fun. A viewing of The Sorrow and the Pity would be a gay romp in the park after "One More Day.") I'm not nuts about Salvador Larroca's slightly-murky, photo-realistic art, and the Jackpot subplot seems unrealistic: there's no way Pete wouldn't recognize MJ is it were here, so despite the anagram-soundin' "Sara Ehret" name, I'm bettin' there's more to the Jackpot mystery than it seems on the surface, tiger. That said, the action is solid, the soap opera compelling, and Spidey is snappier than he has been in several years. Curse you, Quesada! Curse you!


TINY TITANS #1: This comic is sorta fun. I was looking forward to the first of the new batch of DC's comics oriented for kids, and the artwork is charming and innovative: there ain't nothin' cuter than a pint-sized Beast Boy. But I'm not really certain, on reading it, just who this comic is supposed to be for. It's a series of light short comedy stories starring child versions of the Teen Titans. I expected, and hoped, for slightly more involved light comedy adventure stories: the Tiny Titans stopping neighborhood crimes and getting into the sort of adventures Little Lulu or the Little Rascals would. As much of the comedy seems geared for those who know the Titans already (you only giggle if you know that Trigon is Raven's father, f'r instance), it's a very young approach using characters and situations that you'd have to be familiar with the Teen Titans cartoon series to understand. It's utterly cute and charming, and p'raps the only quibble I have with it is that it's a little too young for me. (Even the Superfriends preview seems skewed extremely young.) Try it out on a young kid and I bet you they'll upgrade it to full-fledged fun.


FANTASTIC FOUR #554: This comic is sorta fun. I'm always interested in a good FF first issue: those by Byrne, Simonson, and Waid have signaled the start of solid and entertaining runs that I've loved. So I approach the first ish by Millar, Hitch, and Neary with a good deal of excitement but also a little nervousness: I'm not a big fan of their work on Ultimates in specific or that brand of attempting photo-realistic art in general. But this is a solid start with an intriguing premise and some apt character bits: the final page splash of an Earth and moon under construction had a lovely Slartibartfast at Magrathea vibe to it, the opening time escape from the Old West is frantic and funny (ignore the fact that the Indians seem to be firing not only bullets at the FF but also cartridges), and Reed Richard's lecture to schoolkids about the global economics of paying for an anti-Galactus suit are both laugh-out-loud funny and so absolutely Reed. And it does feature The Best Line of the Week: "Oh God, I've just realized...my little brother's Paris Hilton." So why doesn't this tickle the full Bully fancy? Well, there's a few minor and one major thing problems which knock this new run down a notch. Ben's suggestive come-on to a teacher seemed so risqué I was wondering if Millar had misdialogued the Human Torch instead—and anyway, aren't the Thing and Alicia back together again? (Hmmm, maybe Ben's a Skrull!) I was bothered rather than amused by Reed producing Doombot robots to help around the Baxter Building—come on Reed, this is a deadly villain who has endangered your family multiple times, and more to the point, has terrorized you children. What's next, Annihilus jammies for Franklin? (Hmmm, maybe Reed's a Skrull.) But most of all, with the exception of the opening scene, there's really no action in this issue. The storyline is obviously being written for the trade, but to have a FF issue without an action scene seems muted and dull to me. Don't get me wrong—there's enough in here to be excited and delighted by, and I'm certainly going t5o hang around for the first four-issue opening arc. But Millar is going to have to impress me a lot more in #555-557 to get to pick up the full run.


BLACK PANTHER #34: This comic is fun. I don't normally pick up Black Panther. (I'm still a little miffed I never got a thank-you note from Ororo and T'Challa for the toaster I sent them for their wedding!) This ish, however, caught my interest immediately with its lovely and funky cover of a Pam Grier-inspired Storm. Warning: this scene does not actually appear in the cover, and at its heart it's a pin-up, but it was beautiful and intriguing enough to get me to pick up the issue. Didja hear that, Joey Q.? Comics with intriguing covers that hint at the contents get readers to pick up the issue. (Here's the cover, enlarged.) The story picks up at the end of an extended storyline, but the recap page 1 is brief but detailed enough to get me up to speed immediately: the FF (pre-return of Reed and Sue) are trapped on the Skrull gangster world. Man, I love the gangster Skrulls...anybody remember Floyd Donahue, the Skrull who looked like Bogart? Hudlin goes even better in this with Skrulls who look like Martin Luther King and Malcolm X, working together to overthrow the oppressive hierarchy of their world. As opposed to the true FF issue appearing this month, there's a good deal of action and battle. I kinda quibble at the bloodlust shown by everyone in this issue: the Black Panther using deadly force isn't surprising, but to have both Storm and the Thing roar that they are going to burn the planet to the ground is a little startling. Never mind. I loves me some Skrull action, and you know, if you were looking for a continuity point where Ben Grimm was replaced by a Skrull, you could do worse than to point to this issue...hint, hint.


BOOSTER GOLD #0: This comic is fun. Waaaay back in 1994, DC produced a massive cross-over series entitled "Zero Hour." Every DC Universe comic tied into it, and when the universe was reset at the end of it, we were treated to a "#0" issue of every comic to flash back and fill in the characters' new origins. Some great stuff came out of these zero issues: the revamped and at last continuity-settled Legion of Super-Heroes, the sublime Starman—and now we can add, fourteen freakin' years later, the cleverly numbered Booster Gold #0 tie-in to Zero Hour. Booster and Beetle zip through time to the events of Zero Hour, providing as tidy and neat a tie-in as can be (even Parallax and Extant are along for the ride), but then we revisit Booster's origin in 2462 Metropolis. Booster Gold is shaping up to be much more than merely "Quantum Leap for the DC Universe"—it's clearly not merely a tour of events past and future but also a heckuva funride. I'm sure hoping for a red-skies Crisis crossover somewhere on the horizon for the Blue and the Gold!


FANTASTIC FOUR: THE LOST ADVENTURE: This comic is fun. 1970's Fantastic Four #103 was supposed to be the final issue worked on by Lee and Kirby as a team, but it never quite came together. Marvel substituted another issue and then Stan cut up and redialogued Jack's original artwork for a quite different story printed in FF #108. Many commenters have remarked that the great Lee/Kirby run on Fantastic Four ended with a whimper rather than a bang—in fact, the fun faux-Kirby maxiseries Fantastic Four: The World's Greatest Comic Magazine was a 12-issue modern attempt to fill in what might have been the final Lee/Kirby saga with a big, bombastic story that involved the entire cast of the Marvel Universe). The Lost Adventure takes a different approach by reprinting Jack Kirby's original pencils for #103, with an essay and annotations by John Morrow of The Jack Kirby Collector. The original story is then reconstructed using as many penciled pages as could be found, plus new Kirby-esque art by Ron Frenz, to approximate what Lee and Kirby intended for #103, a very human tale of twin brothers, one evil and one good, and how a quest for power brings them into conflict (including a boisterous fight sequence) with the FF. Just for good measure, the complete issue #108 is reprinted so we can see how Jack's pencils were chopped up and repurposed. It's an amazingly detailed and effective look behind the scenes of how Stan 'n' Jack worked, and the reconstructed story is not only fun but also serves to close the curtain on their long run with a quiet but utterly typical FF story. I might make a few quibbles about some of the modern references in the reconstructed story (DSL lines, digital cameras, Doonesbury), but that's all very minor stuff. Fantastic Four: The Lost Adventure gives you not only the last great Lee/Kirby saga, it also provides a dynamite look into how stories are made and remade. And the Kirby pencil art alone is worth the price or admission. That's why FANTASTIC FOUR: THE LOST ADVENTURE is the most fun comic of the week.

Separated at Birth: Now who's got the most fun comic of the year?!?

L: Booster Gold #7 (August 1986), art by Dan Jurgens and Mike DeCarlo
R: Action Comics #594 (November 1987), art by John Byrne
(Click picture to dish-served-cold-size)

Fun Fifty of 2007: Part 5 of 5

Look! Fabulous stars and celebrities are arriving in their stretch limousines and stepping onto the plush red carpet to stroll into the amphitheater as we prepare for the Big Awards Night: The Top Ten of the Fun Fifty of 2007. Quick! Sidestep Joan Rivers before she makes fun of your outfit and avoid Isaac Mizrahi's wandering hands, duck away from Amy Winehouse before she collapses on you, and find your way to your seat. You may have to whack Jack Nicholson on the head if he's bobbing around in front of you, but look!: the lights are going down and the curtain is coming up, and here comes Billy Crystal soaring into the theater on a jet pack...oh my gosh look out Mister Crystal...oh, no! Oh no! He landed right on Miss Jolie! (Boing!) And Michael Douglas's hairpiece has burst into flames! Oh the humanity! Oh the humanity!

Um, so, while they're all sorting that out, let's duck quick to the café around the corner for a cup of tea and some hot buttered toast and do the rest of the Fun Fifty here, shall we? It's been a long a winding road that's brought us to this point in four parts (One • Two • Three • Four), but the end is near. In fact it's here:


#10: ALL STAR SUPERMAN Only four issues of the finest and funnest Superman comic came out this year, but I'll gladly trade four of Grant Morrison and Frank Quitely's comics for a truckload of most other creators'. All Star Superman (don't acronymize it!) has a modern spirit infused with the nanotechnology and quantum theory thinking that's a trademark of Morrison's works, while, like his work on Batman, at the same time it homages and salutes the joy and goofiness of the 1950s Superman stories without making them seem silly or outdated. It's like the Reeses Peanut Cup of comics: delicious, creamy nostalgia surrounded by a sweet savory twenty-first century shell. 2007's stories advanced the general meta-saga—the slow death of Superman—at the same time individual stories took front stage: the Bizarro World, new Kryptonians...but the stand-out of a fine year was #6's "Funeral in Smallville," bringing the concept of mortality home to Clark in a very personal way.


#9: THE SPIRIT Darwyn Cooke's year-long tenure on The Spirit is over, but I'm gonna look back on this run with extreme fondness. Cooke, J. Bone, and Dave Stewart clearly had a lot of love for Will Eisner's blue-masked mystery man and his extensive supporting cast (including the gorgeously re-realized Central City). With a great mix of humor and drama, the new Spirit has been brought up to modern times (including a street-wise but no-longer politically-incorrect Ebony). But there's still plenty of room to acknowledge the great stories of The Spirit's past, as Cooke has in a couple beautifully drawn and touchingly scripted Sand Sarif stories. Even #7 and #13's triple-storied anthology issues were a delight, which just goes to prove that The Spirit isn't simply a Cooke-only franchise. That said, while I'm very much looking forward to Aragonés, Evanier, and Ploog on the title, these first twelve issues will remain near and dear to my little satin heart for keeping the spirit of Eisner's great hero alive.


#8: THE BRAVE AND THE BOLD I try not to have a sense of fan entitlement (it's not becoming in a little stuffed bull), but the revived Brave and the Bold was one comic I was definitely being a back-seat driver: it wouldn't work unless Batman was co-starring in every issue; it needed done-in-one stories rather than a continued saga; you can't mix Legion of Super-Heroes mythology with the Batman mythos. And boy, was I wrong! There's been dozens of team-up titles over the years and I have a weakness for 'em, but Brave and the Bold may just outfun 'em all in my book. (Yes, even Marvel Two-in-One!) The initial extended "Luck Lords" storyline brought in everyone from Batman to Green Lantern to Supergirl and the Legion, and the inclusion of these diverse heroes seemed organic and logical rather than haphazard and coincidental. Bonus points for introducing the merged Batman/Tharok (Batrok?), minus a couple points for the slightly skeevy attraction of Green Lantern towards the teenage Supergirl. If the second story arc is half as fun as the first, however, then this series might have a shot at outlasting the original B&B. Heck, they can even bring back Bat-Hulk if they do it right.


#7: BIFF-BAM-POW! What this world needs: more comics by Evan Dorkin. Biff-Bam-Pow! (don't forget the exclamation point!) is an anthology title by Dorkin and wife Sarah Dyer with more action, humor, and pure punching power per page than all other comics released in 2007 had in their entire run combined! (Note: hyperbole about level of punching power is for entertainment purposes only and not a legally-binding contract). It an all-ages comic that's perfectly appropriate for kids, but manly, yes, adults liked it too! Meet One Punch Goldberg, the fightin'-est girl around: she can lay out a brigade of monkeys with a single fist! (And I'm not using monkeys metaphorically...they really are monkeys!) If that's not enough, the ever-thrilling Kid Blastoff, plus a couple comedy-action reprint comics (that I hadn't seen before) round out BBP!, and the only disappointment is that the comic comes to an end and there was only one issue in 2007. More, Mister Dorkin, please!


#6: RATATOUILLE Not merely the finest animated movie of 2007—Ratatouille is quite simply one of the best movies, period, of the year. You may not like rats...you may certainly not like rats in your kitchen...but rats in a kitchen in a movie is cinema gold, and for the folks at Pixar, a way to chalk up another acclaimed success. But look beyond the million computer-generated hairs on the plump little body of Rémy the rat or the gorgeously-realized cityscape of Paris's alleys and rooftops and you'll find a story of love...love of food, love of your work, and love for a beautiful and spunky French chef (the quirky Collette, aptly voiced by Janeane Garofolo). In fact, it's the mix of human and animal characters that make Ratatouille more than just another Disney animal fable—to the little button eyes of this stuffed bull living among human, it's one of the first and one of the finest cartoons that have mixed the animal and human worlds without giving either species' story time short shrift. It may be that the CGI technology has finally reached the point where the human characters—charicactured tho' they may be—look as realistic within their world as the animal figures, but I think it's also because the script gives both its two- and four-legged heroes room to shine. Also, it taught me how to pronounce and spell the word "ratatouille," so it was educational as well.


#5: JACK OF FABLES Rogues and con men are always fun to read about (long as it's not your pocket they're pickin'...hey, hands off my Hello Kitty change purse!), which is why Jack of Fables overtook regular-flavored Fables on my fun list of 2007. After he was banished from Fabletown, I wondered exactly what sort of adventures Jack could possibly have. The short answer is: he's taking his act on the road, from that most famous of American destinations (Las Vegas) to his current extended road trip around mythological America, all in search of fame, fortune, gold, and a pretty girl. As the makers of The Han Solo Show will tell you, however, a rogue's nothing without his extended supporting cast, and Jack's got some of the finest: Gary the Pathetic Fallacy, sexy librarian (aren't they all?) Hillary, and certainly my role model when it comes to comic book heroes: Babe, the Tiny Blue Ox with a very rich fantasy life. While Fables itself seems to be heading towards an ending, Jack's still got plenty of road to travel, and I'm happy to tag along with him.


#4: DOCTOR WHO: THE TEN DOCTORS Nope, you didn't miss picking up this Doctor Who comic at your local Android's Dungeon: this is a fan-made webcomic that you'll find online here (click on the arrows in the upper right to progress through the pages) and you'll be transported into the dream of every Doctor Who fan: an extended, time-spanning adventure featuring not just one or three or five but all ten Doctors...their entire cast of companions (including several time-versions of some companions)...a rogue's gallery of the Doctor's Doctors' greatest villains from Cybermen to Daleks...and K-9, of course! Sure, this is fan fiction, but it's done with sincere love and knowledge of the characters and stories throughout Who-story. (If you're not sure who's who, so to speak, check out the comments below each page to get a gist of the characters). Rich Morris's expressive and fluid artwork deftly captures the Doctors' energy and idiosyncrasies, and it's fun to see Four teaming up with Seven, Eight taking control, and One and Ten, the first and the latest Doctor, have a conversation:



I'd love to see Morris's work fully inked and colored and lettered professionally (a few but not many finished pages are displayed on the site), but for the moment this story—eighty pages and growing—will bring even delight to even the most cynical Doctor Who fans. Rich Morris's ComixBlog Site.


#3: X-MEN: FIRST CLASS The best X-Men title being published today? Well, your mileage may vary. But don't let the complaints of anal fanboys that these stories "don't matter" because they "aren't in canon" keep you from picking up the most fun mutant-stuffed comic on the market. It's got the original X-Men of the Lee/Kirby issues, the light humor of the early Claremont/Cockrum run, and the "teen heroes" riff of the first few dozen New Mutants. There's a wonderful emphasis on learning experience for Cyclops, Angel, Beast, Iceman, and Marvel Girl in every issue: the discovery, so important to the theme of mutant comics, that hideous or monstrous does not equal villainous. At the same time the heroes are having a heck of a lot of fun (almost as much as we are): road trips, extra-curricular excursions, clever and inventive text page introductions and some of the natural teen dialogue without being over laden with quickly-outdated slang. The icing on this X-cake? Colleen Coover's occasional Marvel Girl backups are funny, charming, beautifully drawn and inventive. I don't care if canon tells us Jean and Wanda never hung out together—by golly, reading about them doing so seems right. And more important, fun.


#2: THE IMMORTAL IRON FIST P'raps the fact that it's been mostly divorced from the widespread super-upheavals of the past couple years (Civil, Hulk, and Skrull wars all cascading into one another) gives The Immortal Iron Fist its appeal and charm—stripped of the need for massive tight continuity with every other book in the line, Iron Fist is free to be an inventive globe-trotting adventure. Maybe it's just that deep down, Danny Rand was a heck of a character whose past has always been acknowledged but never deeply examined. Or it might be that this book features a high level of kicks to the face in every issue. Whatever! At the recommendation of Chris Sims, a man who knows kick-ass when he sees it, I picked up IIF in mid-story-stream but not only was I not lost, I rushed back to the store to grab as many of the back issues I could find. It has the same vibe I felt when I first read James Robinson's Starman: a legacy hero done right, even including periodic flashback tales that dovetail into the main narrative, but it's got its own vibe and energy, especially in the current storyline featuring an extreme fighting tournament against a cast of skilled warriors from competing mystic cities, while on the outside Luke Cage, Misty Knight, and Colleen Wing fight the Hydra hordes. It's that rarest of superhero comics: thoughtful and subtle, reverent of its past, but with amazing fight sequences. Kickassery. It does a comic good.


#1: BOOSTER GOLD 52's MVP makes the big leap to his second solo series. Like the first, it's got a gimmick, but this time it's custom-made for those of us who love comics: Booster is now the appointed guardian of the history timeline in the DC Universe. Like Doctor Sam Beckett, he travels back in time, putting right what once went wrong, hoping that his next leap will be the leap...to save his dearest friend. As a gimmick, it's dandy. What's even better is the execution: in the first six issues alone Booster zips from Green Lantern history to the Cosmic Treadmill-era Flash, from the old west of Jonah Hex to the hard-learned lessons of history and temporal causality when he tries to save Barbara Gordon from Alan Moore The Joker. And, a chance to undo one of the most misbegotten stories of recent years and reunite the Blue and the Gold? I'm with Booster all the way. Like the new Brave and the Bold, this series is a reward for those of us up on our iconic DCU history (but isn't inaccessible if you're not). In lesser hands, this might devolve into fan fiction, but the team of Geoff (Johns) and Jeff (Katz) clearly have a great love of the DCU, its varied characters and history highlights, and more important, a deft comic skill to give Booster some great quips without reducing him to a joke himself (a very thin line some writers trip over). There's a great joy in reading such a fun superhero comic—there's an even bigger joy when it's inventive and unique. I'm not certain how long the situation at the end of issue #6 will last, but for the moment, the return of a disappeared character made me grin and laugh with glee and excitement. That's the best kind of comic, I think—one that if it were a movie, you'd stand up and shout out "YEAH!" So..."YEAH, Booster Gold! YEAH!"


So! There ya go: fifty things that I found fun in 2007. That's five times better than most people's top ten lists. And if I didn't mention your favorite? Well, that's all well and good. There's plenty of fun things out there for everyone, and that's what makes it America, pal. Little pink houses for you and me. That's the most vital lesson I've learned from comics and other entertainment: all that's important is that you enjoy it. If you do, it's all well and good.

Unless you enjoyed World War III. Hoo boy, that was a stinker.

See ya next year, Fun Fifty!