Booster's back, baby!

War! What is it good for? (Absolutely nothin'!) Especially when Civil War wrecks havoc by burning Atlanta to the ground shuffling so many publication schedules that there's no Marvel Comics I wanna spend my dimes on this week, making it a light (but fun) purchase of two comics:

52 WEEK 19: This comic is fun. Hey, guess who's back? Dan Didio's worst nightmare, baby: Booster Gold! Well, sorta...Skeets is obviously intent on turning Booster's ancestor Daniel into the new BG, and there's a nifty "not everything you know is true" twist at the end which shows that Skeets has his (its?) own very definite agenda. Add to that a possible twist to the Supernova storyline that this little stuffed reader never even suspected and 52 is back on track throwing us mysteries that would have Ralph Dibny's nose a-twitching. I'm not entirely convinced about the suggestion of Supernova's secret in this issue (for one thing, I think his height has varied from issue to issue), but it's all done in a light-handed spirit that has me eager for the next issue. Plus, Starfire in Animal Man's shirt. She's still cute!


THE ESCAPISTS #3: This comic is fun. The Escapists both feels more fantastic and more realistic than most superhero comics (which it really isn't; it's really a comic about comics and the power of myth). Suspend your disbelief that the comic-within-the-comic becomes a massive smash hit (especially in this day and age) and you have one of the more charming adventure and love stories in the four-color format with a quirky elegance: bold, distinctive art by Steve Rolston and Jason Shawn Alexander (as I've said before, I love Philip Bond but this art team is jus' dandy), funny and realistic dialogue and a "da-da-da!" of a cliffhanger ending. (And yes, that Otis elevator hack is the real deal. If I could reach the buttons in an elevator, I'd try it myself.) Plus, the mildly politically-incorrect but still-funny Best Line of the Week: "Chief, my pencils are so tight, Katharine Hepburn could ink them." For all these reasons, and not simply because this little stuffed bull thinks Case Weaver is unbearably cute, THE ESCAPIST #3 is the most fun comic of the week!

Comics must, by nature or by force, be worthy of Doom!

Bah! Doom does not comprehend the fascination of these flimsy, overpriced, adolescent power fantasies have to you, unless it is to fuel some inferiority that all beings must feel given the existence of Doom. Nor do I comprehend the concept of "collectibility": while Doom admires and respects a thing of beauty, all items must serve an end and a purpose, whether 'tis to give a castle the regal splendor befitting its monarch, or to serve as a tool with which to destroy the accursed Richards and his foolish cohorts for all time. No purpose is served in storing items which have cost you money in small snug plastic bags and hiding them away that Doom can perceive, especially when you consider the cost of purchasing them on the weekly salary of such poorly paid lackey wages as you surely make. Doom considers comics are poor value for money.

Doom is also angered at the injustice shown to this man by the giant faceless corporations of the industry. He was one of the few men Doom respected enough to allow him to portray me, and he did so with the proper representation of power and regalness. I do not believe this man was afraid of me—his was the personality that suggested he was afraid of no man, Doom included—but I can respect such a man of honor, conviction, and intense skills.

Finally, Doom does not subscribe to the saying "Comics Oughta [sic] Be Fun." There is no true need for anything to be "fun," much less colored pieces of paper stapled together and distributed to the masses like some addictive narcotic. Doom instead demands you subscribe to the undeniable concept that comics must be worthy of Doom!

Let us examine this week's offerings and determine which comics shall fulfill this obligation and which shall fail.


52 WEEK 10: This comic is worthy of Doom. What better way to appease Doom than to offer him a comic upon which a hero falls to his certain death on the cover? Doom admits he does not recognize many of the characters in this so-called "funnybook," but the equal emphasis on the weak and pathetic "heroes" and the powerful and controlling force that some call villains makes this an Earth I would consider a challenge to visit—and conquer. Doom must give especial praise to the considerable space afforded to Black Adam, another international monarch who understands the needs of keeping a tight grip over his country. This Adam appears to be a formidable opponent, and forming an alliance with him at first to use him to my ends may prove beneficial to the Lord of Latveria. Doom was even compelled by the ending, with the promise of an all-powerful worm, and wishes, nay, demands that the next issue be in place in no more than one week's time, available at that gathering place of the great unwashed, the "comic book store." Doom will be waiting for you, 52 Week 11. This I promise.


A MAN CALLED KEV #1: This comic is worthy of Doom. Upon arrival in the place of business where the tiny bovine purchases these comics, Doom swept his gauntlet across the rack of gaudy pamphlets and demanded: "Bah! Show me a book that does not feature a simplistically moral 'hero.' Show me a book that demonstrates the folly of humanity and the righteousness of those in power. Show me a book the tiny bovine would have been afraid to buy; that would make him cower and shake in fear." The shop attendant handed me A Man Called Kev. While it is filled with the uttermost profanities and near-pornographic violence that its possession in Latveria would be cause for instant and justifiable punishment, this story interests Doom for displaying the greed and foolishness of a weak man and the whirlwind of violence he reaps from his mistakes, yet he does not fall into the trap, like the accursed Richards, of trying to do well to others. He is looking out merely for himself, which shall serve him well in his life and career. Doom is also pleased this seems to be the first "Kev" series without those odious guest-stars The Authority, whose appearances have been growing thin in previous series. Doom salutes you, Garth Ennis—you are a dangerous and violent man. Doom can respect that.


DOOM PATROL #18: This comic is not worthy of Doom. Doom has been tricked and betrayed by this comic; he purchased it based solely on its title and was later angered and infuriated that it has nothing whatsoever to do with me at all. Doom does not enjoy being tricked, and vengeance shall fall upon those responsible. I promise, that no more issues of this mockery of the name of Doom shall disgrace the industry—consider yourself, "Doom Patrol," in the parlance of your medium, canceled. Doom has spoken!


THE ESCAPISTS #1: This comic is both worthy, and at the same time unworthy, of Doom. Doom does not subscribe to the sort of "hero worship" bandied about as a theme of this book, and yet it is a story oddly compelling: a man who, despite the foolishness of those about him, works and strives to achieve his dream of total and complete authority over what he wishes. Doom admits a respect for that, as well as a clear and straightforward story with an interesting twist at the end. What Doom does not respect is the realization that he has read this story already in an issue of Michael Chabon Presents The Escapist; it is a reprint to remind Doom of what has happened already, wrapped up in a new gaudy cover by Frank Miller. One might argue that this book was a necessity to launch new stories in this series, and that it only costs one American dollar. Still, Doom did not realize this. Doom demands that if such japery is to be performed in the future, it be clearly marked with a sticker or balloon on the cover that says "Attention my Lord Doom: Contents are a reprint." Take this as warning, Brian K. Vaughan, Philip Bond, and you as well, Michael Chabon, else you learn the truth of an old Latverian proverb: "Fool me once, shame on me. Fool me twice, Doom shall destroy you—utterly destroy you."


THE SENSATIONAL SPIDER-MAN #28: This comic is worthy of Doom. Close your surprised jaw, lackey—you heard Doom correctly. Doom does not make mistakes in that manner. Yes, "this comic is worthy of Doom," despite the fact that it stars that upstart popinjay Spider-Man, one of the most constant and annoying thorns in the regal hand of Doom after the despised Richards. One example of this is Spider-Man's clear sense in adopting an armored costume of great power and versatility; no doubt he has learned his lesson in his many defeats at the hand of Doom that armor will protect his soft underbelly. Even more worthy of Doom, however, is the conceit that Spider-Man has "revealed" his secret identity as the photographer Peter Parker. Doom is greatly amused by and in admiration at this development and raises his chalice in respect to Spider-Man's clear but effective plan to draw attention away from what must be his true identity, for surely this milquetoast tool of the American media cannot be the insolent yet powerful opponent Doom has crossed swords with in the past. Surely this is part of a greater plan to distract and deceive the American public, and Spider-Man is to be commended with paying Parker to "admit" he is Spider-Man. Doom knows the truth, however—no man with the power and strength of the spider would be content to remain a faceless no one, a photographer and teacher struggling to support his trollop of a wife and his infirm and feeble aunt. The true Spider-Man knows and appreciates the meaning of power, and would not lower himself to such a life. His use of Parker as a distractionary pawn is to be commended, and I look with interest towards future stories to see in which manner this pawn must be sacrificed to serve Spider-Man's ends. I salute you, Spider-Man: you are more ruthless and clever than I gave you credit for.


ULTIMATE FANTASTIC FOUR #31: This comic is worthy of Doom. Zombies threaten the safety of the Baxter Building. The whelp Johnny Storm is infected with some debilitating disease. These elements alone would be enough to make Doom content, yet there is even more: in this issue, as should be in every issue, Doom is triumphant over Reed Richards. Is there indeed any other way a comic book should, nay, must end? Richards is broken and imprisoned within the scarred shell he himself inflicted upon me, and I am free and empowered in the body of Richards to destroy the Fantastic Four from within. It is not enough to defeat Richards either, at the end of the issue he is in tears, for I have completely and utterly humiliated him. Not for naught is this character justly named Ultimate Doom, for as he says in the best utterance by Doom of this week: "You told people that I'd made a mistake. You told them the accident was my miscalculation...and that, dear trash, was an insult to my honor." Doom applauds the new direction of this comic heartily and awards it the comic most worthy of Doom this week. Clearly we can look forward to dozens, nay, hundreds of succeeding issues in which Doom inflicts his vengeance monthly upon the Fantastic Four.


MARVEL ADVENTURES: FANTASTIC FOUR #14: This comic is not worthy of Doom. Doom vows vengeance upon the misbegotten creature who slipped this pathetic rag into Doom's pull bag this week. As I have just declared, Doom does not read these simplistic moral fables of his most hated enemies unless they display what is the one true and obvious conclusion: that Doom must and will triumph in every instance, and, barring the appearance of Doom, the Fantastic Four must run from danger like young swatted whelps with their tails between their legs. Doom especially did not find this tripe of the Fantastic Four battling the Grandmaster as fit for human reading—even the younger population for whom it is apparently intended. Instead, Doom suggests this profane piece of propaganda be ground up and fed to the pigs as swill, for that is all it is fit for, although those pigs shall surely vomit it up again. No respect is to be afforded the Grandmaster, either, whose deathtraps and conundrums for the accursed Four are clichéd, hackneyed, and unworthy of the machinations of a truly great mind such as Doom would use. Doom laughed heartily at the foolish Biblical paradox allusion that Richards used to defeat a computer. Were the Fantastic Four in the same situations they are in this magazine but under the thumb of Doom, their lifeless bodies would be even now paraded through the streets. Doom supposes he owes a debt of gratitude to the Grandmaster for allowing the Fantastic Four to believe they can escape from any deathtrap, for it will make their defeat at my own hand even more sweet. Yet Doom has naught but contempt for the Grandmaster, and upon the next time I rightfully reclaim the power cosmic from that glittering fool the Silver Surfer, this universal elder shall at last know the meaning of fear as Doom defeats first him, and then Richards. Despite the ending of this accursed comic book, I shall destroy you, Richards! Destroy you!

This was not the Batman comic book I was expecting

Hi hi hi comics and Bully fans! Here's some of the comics I got to read this week:

ALL-STAR BATMAN AND ROBIN THE BOY WONDER #1: This comic is not fun. I musta misunderstood. I thought this was gonna be a comic kids could read—that it was gonna be a good introduction to Batman for new readers, a little like the Ultimate books that Marvel does. Even John did because he gave it to me without looking! Then I turned the page and I was so embarrassed! It was just like the old joke: "What's black and white and red all over?" "A little stuffed bull blushing because he saw Batman's girlfriend in her underwear!" Yikes! I don't need to see that in my Batman comic. So I turned the page real quick. And there was more pictures of Batman's girlfriend in her underwear! So I turn the page again and guess what! There were lots of picture of Batman's girlfriend changing clothes in and out of her underwear! STOP THAT, Mister Frank Miller and Mister Jim Lee! You just stop that right now! If I want to see women in their underwear I will watch MTV, do you hear me!!!

So, okay, even if Batman's girlfriend is running around in her underwear, I'm still trying to read the comic book. Except Batman's girlfriend is talking to herself and I just have to say: "People don't really talk to themselves like that...do they?" I mean, my tastes in literature are not that sophis-ticated and even I think this is some pretty darn hokey dialogue. And then Robin's parents get murdered. Except instead of someone tampering with their trapeze ropes they get shot. Wasn't their murder s'posed to look like an accident? Huh? And then there's some really, really bad cops. I think they are trying to show that Gotham City's cops are corrupt. But these guys are so, so bad they're just cartoons. And even in a comic book, that isn't a good thing. A lot of people on the internet are talkingabout how they liked the last page, where Batman tells Dick Grayson he's "just been drafted into a war." But I've got two problems with that. Number 1! One good panel doesn't make a comic book. And Number 2! I felt like I was drafted into this sorry excuse for a comic book. Aside from the fun cover this comic book was not fun at all. And I can't believe I'm gonna read something this year that I wanted to read as much but was so disappointed in. You guys blew it, DC! You're not gonna get me to buy this next month. I may just be a little stuffed bull...but I bet I'm not the only one!


ASTRO CITY: THE DARK AGE #1: This comic is fun. Now, here's a comic that's a good example of a little grim 'n' gritty but which is still fun! (Are you listening, Misters Miller and Lee?) I've always liked Astro City (even tho' it doesn't come out half as often as I'd like it to!) 'cos it really captures the sense of wonder and awe that normal people would feel in a city full of superheroes. (It kind of reminds me of what it must have been like to read those early Fantastic Fours when they first came out and realize, "Yes! Hey! This is fun—we get to see what the normal joe on the street thinks about a stretchy man or a big orange-rocked monster living on their block!") The Dark Age begins a new maxiseries (don't take years to finish it, Misters Waid Busiek (thanks, Blam!) and Anderson, puh-leese!) about a little-explored period of Astro City's history when the heroes began to fall out of favor with the general public. But it's not really a story about the guys with muscles in spandex: like other AC stories, this is how a world of superheroes affects the man on the street. Or in this case, the men on the street: two brothers, Charles and Royal Williams. One's a cop, one's a small-time crook. This is only the beginning of a story: we see flashes and hints of a dark secret in the brothers' past. There's still a lot of mystery here about what's going on but it's enough of a story to keep me hooked. This is a little dark, but it's fun! And it fills the most important definition of a fun comic: will it make me want to pick up the next issue? Heck yeah!


BANANA SUNDAY #1: This comic is fun. John doesn't allow me to read Colleen Coover's other comic books (I don't know why! From what I can see they are jus' filled with cute girls.) I like cute girls just fine but you know what I really like? Monkeys! And this comic is chock-full of monkeys. If it were a barrel then I could probably say it was a barrel of monkeys. (But it's not. It's a comic book.) Banana Sunday is about Kirby Steinberg, a (really cute) girl who starts at her new high school with her three amazing talking monkeys! There's Chuck, the really really smart one, Knobby, who is very emotional and falls in love a lot, and my favorite, Go-Go! (Remember how Robin—the real one, not the one in ALL-STAR BATMAN AND HIS GIRLFRIEND IN UNDERWEAR—was declared "The sensational character find of 1940?" Well, I'm gonna be the first to declare Go-Go is the sensational character find of 2005! Yay!) Go-Go likes to eat—bananas in particular but everything in general! John said something about the three monkeys possibly being "symbolic of Freud's ego, id, and superego" but all I know is that they are monkeys! Who doesn't like monkeys? Not me, brother, that's for sure. I also like cute girls, and mysteries, and great art and storytelling. And I can't wait for the next issue! That's why BANANA SUNDAY #1 gets my award for the most fun comic of the week!

And P.S.: On the back cover of BANANA SUNDAY is an ad for what looks like another fun comic: POLLY AND THE PIRATES! You can't go wrong with pirates! Looks like Oni Press is gonna get a lot of my dimes this summer!)


THE BRONTES: INFERNAL ANGRIA #1: This comic is fun. I sure do like the work of Mister Rick Geary: his artwork is clean and clear and cartoony but very dynamic and moody. Which came as a surprise to me, because when John handed me this comic and told me I should read it, I thought this comic would be a little like reading the worst of a batch of home-schooling books: a story about dead people who were real but don't seem alive. Boy was I wrong! Just like a great, great man once said: "If you're not careful, you might learn something before it's done!" John told me the Brontes are very famous sisters who wrote some very famous books that I have read as CLASSICS ILLUSTRATED comics or seen on Masterpiece Theater. But in this story about their lives, the sisters and their brother go through a magic doorway into a amazing fantasy world! (It's kind of Jane Eyre in Narnia). It's suspenseful and has a good cliffhanger. I even liked the back cover, which has a family tree and a little map of the area in the book. It reminds me a lot of the old Dell Mapback paperbacks John collects with maps of the book's setting on the back. This is the most fun I've ever had reading about authors of great English literature. (And I read the novelization of Shakespeare in Love!)


MICHAEL CHABON PRESENTS THE ESCAPIST #7 FEATURING MR. MACHINE GUN This comic is fun. This is another kinda dark comic but it's a li'l campy and outrageous...c'mon, it stars a guy with a machine gun instead of a hand! John says this reminded him a lot of the old pulp comics like Doc Savage and The Spider and it had some great artwork by Ed Barreto, who you don't see too much from these days. All I know is that it was eighty pages long (and no ads!) so it felt like a real comic book, not just a pamphlet. (And it told a whole story!) This one was all written by Mister Michael Chabon, who's a big-name fiction writer but you can just tell he loves comics, too. I know that Dark Horse Comics republishes these keen Escapist series comics in to small trade paperbacks and sells them in the graphic novel sections of bookstores, but it's too bad so many of the people who have read and loved The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay will never realize these comics by Chabon exist! Dark Horse oughta package an Escapist collection to look like a thick paperback book, price it comparable to a thick paperback novel, and them shelve them in the 'fiction' section of a bookstore with the Michael Chabon books. Jus' imagine that: gettin' somebody who never read a comic book to buy one, maybe? But the comic book industry jus' doesn't think like that sometimes. Sigh!