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!



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



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...



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



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:



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!

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.

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!

The Return of the Prodigal Reviews

I think it's been 'bout sixty-leven months since I last did a batch of weekly reviews. Tight finances and scheduling've prevented me from buying a large stack of comic books since the beginning of the year, but don't think I've fallen out of love with the form—comics books and I are still very affectionate to each other and I know I always have a date for the prom with comics, even though sometimes she'll kick me in the face and roar away laughing maniacally, declaring she's the g---d---ed Batman. It's been a busy and hectic and weird week, however, so what better way to give my little stuffed self a treat than to make a list, check it twice, and head on over to Midtown Comics at my lunch hour for delicious deep-fried floppy comic books? It was good for what ailed me, because whodathunkit?—every single one of 'em I picked up this week was fun. Let's get down...and back...to it, shall we?


THE IMMORTAL IRON FIST #8: This comic is fun. I was never a big fan of DC's obsession with legacy heroes until James Robinson's Starman, which I don't think gets the credit it should for revitalizing and energizing the legacy hero emphasis that has made JSA a fan favorite. It influenced the line (and made fictionopolises (fictionopoli?) cool again with the wonderfully drawn Opal City). You can't swing a Wildcat in the DC Universe without hittin' a legacy hero these days, but as comics world with a later origin, the Marvel Universe has always remained staunchly first-gen in its heroes. Sure, there's a few Marvel exceptions: crazy 1950s commie-basher Captain America IV, the cheerfully optimistically seventies-styled alternate future of Spider-Girl and her Amazing Friends—but for the most part the heroes of the MU are the ones and only. Brubaker and Fraction's quirky and elegant Immortal Iron Fist therefore brings a new twist to seventies kung-fu kicker: he's discovered that he's merely the latest in a long line of Iron Fists. This is a dandy plot development that opens all sorts of story potential of Iron Fists throughout the ages; there's already been a nifty flashback issue last month in the vein of Starman's "Times Past." Issue #8 starts a new storyline that's an updated twist on the original Iron Fist's seventies style: as that series was influenced by the Bruce Lee and other martial arts movies of its time, this series is reminiscent of the mystic and detailed (yet still ass-kicking) contemporary Asian movies like Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, House of Flying Daggers, The Promise, Hero and even the frenetic energy of Kung Fu Hustle. Worried about jumping on board a book eight months into its run? Don't, because there's a great recap page at the beginning. This is only the first part of a multi-issue story, and if you read it closely enough you could argue that not a lot of action happens yet, but it's stuffed full of characters, a developing mystery and a great last-panel hook for the rest of the story: a "final four"-type ranking board showing the match-ups for the next several issues' martial arts fights. It's an extended story and yes, this is decompression—but there's a lot of narrative and story in this opening issue, and I'm hooked for the rest. (Incidentally, I started picking this title up because of all the love being shown for it in the blogosphere, which only goes to show: you guys have influence! Over a little stuffed bull, but it's a start.)


SUPERMAN #999: This comic is fun. Well, here we are with Superman #999. Wow, how time flies! We're only one issue away from big landmark issue #1000, and DC is really...

Wait. I'm holding the comic upside down.


SUPERMAN #666: This comic is fun. I love Superman, you betcha. I love Walt Simonson—even before Thor, I was diggin' his portrayal of Starbuck (the guy one) in the 1980s Marvel Battlestar Galactica comic. And hoo boy, do I adore the expressive and distinctive letting of John Workman. Also, I love Satan love stories about demonic possession and the limits to which heroes can be driven. This is a cleverly-written and beautifully-drawn done-in-one comic that still doesn't sacrifice continuity from the monthly Superman books...I'm not reading those and I could recognize references to current events, but they're all so quick that you don't need to be reading the book every month to pick up this...and you really should pick this up, because it puts every other "Superman cuts loose" story to shame as our boy Kal gives into his dark side (no pun intended). There's some great and gruesome fight sequences, an honestly chilling series of deaths that even though we know won't "stick" still don't feel like cop-outs, a great "why has no one ever thought of that" idea for a villain from a dead world's hell, and an eleventh-hour twist that proves Supes is and will always be a step ahead of the baddies. And oh, that gorgeous Simonson art. Some get Simonson and Workman back on a regular, or even semi-regular book, please. (How about giving them All Star Superman after Grant Morrison's run?)


BATMAN #668: This comic is fun. I enjoyed Superman #666 more than the couple-months-ago Batman #666, but the current "Club of Heroes" trilogy, of which this is Part 2, is sheer and joyous fun of a sort we've not seen in the Dark Knight's world in ages. Like he does in All Star Superman, Grant Morrison aptly demonstrates that the silliness and whimsy of the 1950s DCU can be smoothly integrated into the twenty-first century without sacrificing the modern sensibilities of the title characters. In this case it's a reverent sequel of sorts to the "Batmen of All Nations" story in Detective Comics #215 (1955), crossed with Agatha Christie's And Then There Were None: years after they banded together, a league of gentleman adventurers inspired by Batman are called to a remote island, only to be stalked and murdered one by one. Lucky for them, Batman and Robin are along for the adventure. Morrison continues his post-Infinite Crisis revamp of Batman, and I've said it before but I can't help still mentioning it with respect and awe: this Batman captures the best of all worlds. He's tough and mysterious and definitely the hardest man in the world to beat, he's always thinking several steps ahead and he has a plan in mind for nearly every eventuality...but he's at last a likeable hero. He treats Robin as an equal (rightfully so: Robin does some solid detective work in this issue); he gives respect and kudos to the work and skills of the Club of Heroes, and while he's definitely the star of the magazine, he's a much better team player than he has been in years. That's a Batman I love to read about. J. H. Williams's art is wonderfully expressive and moody; there's a lovely retro section at the beginning that reproduces the feel of a 1950s comic (complete with age-yellowing margins and artwork bleeding through the pages), and there's several innovative pages that use large bat-figures or Batman's glove as panel borders. All that plus The Best Line of the Week: "You've never been mind-controlled by a gorilla?" Again, this is a "to be continued" issue, but there's so much in here—not crammed, but elegantly and intricately paced—that I'm chomping on the Bat-bit for the next issue's conclusion.

As an aside, I should take off points for that awful, creepy, disturbing MAD magazine/Ball Park Franks advertising insert, partly because the idea of MAD positioning itself as an advertising skill goes against everything the MAD of yesteryear taught us, but mostly because the general motif...a massively-muscled "third arm" emerging from the lower belly...is close to suggestively obscene. Yes, even in Sergio Aragonés's cartoons in the center section. But, hey! I discovered you can tear this section out and throw it away with no effect on the rest of the comic. I heartily recommend you do the same.


THE SPIRIT #9: This comic is fun. Man, I'm gonna miss Darwyn Cooke and J. Bone when they leave this comic in a couple months. Until then, as Mama Bull useta tell me, "enjoy what you've got while you've got it." This one's worth enjoying—a creepy and violent face-off between the Spirit and El Morte, a dark mirror of Denny Colt who didn't emerge from the grave lookin' as handsome and brawny. Cooke's artwork is wonderfully done: each page is beautifully designed and colored; there's some really lovely lighting effects, and a flashback sequence uses a scratchier, suitably-hallucinogenic art style. I at first was alarmed at the high level of narration in the first couple pages straight from the Spirit's brain to the panels; I was even ready to dock it a couple points for "telling, not showing." Read the whole comic, however, and you realize how much this is a story about characters telling the story; how perceptions and events are influenced by and change with the POV of the ever-changing narrator characters. It's not a Rashomon approach, but it's suitably effective, and Cooke even uses it to wonderful effect to get inside Ebony's brain and take a peek at his love life. Like all the best Eisner stories, the Spirit takes a heck of a beating in this one. Even Dolan doesn't escape without a scratch. Like other books I enjoyed this week, that final page just shouts "to be continued" (even though it says "The End".) This isn't the finest of the Cooke/Bone Spirit issues that have come out so far, but even the least of them is a thing of a wonder and a beauty to behold.


BART SIMPSON #37: This comic is fun. If I had such a category (and it wouldn't be a bad one to judge weekly comics by), this one would be awarded Pleasant Surprise of the Week. Not that I don't enjoy Bart's comic; quite the reverse! I think I've very seldom given this title, or indeed most anything from Bongo, anything less than an unqualified fun rating. But Bart always has seemed to have been designed to skew to a younger reading audience than Simpsons Comics, less an imitation of the show's epic and detailed lengthy stories, more short gag or adventure stories, usually two or three per issue. This issue throws those expectations out like Moe hustling a broke Barney out of the bar, however—it's a full-length done-in-one story with a great gimmick: evil scientist Doctor Colossus strikes back at Springfield by turning every resident ten years old. For Lisa and Maggie, that's a definite plus. For Homer, Marge, and the rest of our yellow crew, it's a step back to childhood. For Bart himself, there's no change whatsoever, and he can't understand why everyone is not ecstatically happy to be the best age on earth. While it's a more fantastic story that wouldn't quite fit in on The Simpsons TV show or even in the regular Simpsons comic (Bartman as a superhero has always been considered pretty "non-canon"), it's still got the quirky energy and fast-paced roller-coaster feel of a decent episode, complete with running gags and some very in-character reactions to their new ages (Homer isn't old enough to enjoy the taste of beer, Lenny finds that it's only slightly more difficult to gamble online). There's even a very TV-esque joke at the end about what Maggie's voice must have sounded like (even tho' we never saw her speak on page). Plus...and how could you not love it for this...a guest appearance by Brad Garrett!


X-MEN: FIRST CLASS #3: This comic is fun. I've made no secret of my love for Jeff Parker's reimagining of the original X-Men, the five mutants who got me interested in Marvel Comics in the first place. Parker's approach is exactly what I like to see in "flashback" implants like this: the idea that continuity does not need to fit perfectly with every issue and reference that has gone before, but rather that's what's important is the concept: five super-powered teens and their mentor protecting a world that is sworn to destroy them. At the heart of it, that concept is all the continuity you need. It's a wonderful book, issue after issue, full of genuinely funny humor, plots that aren't telegraphed pages before the revelation, kid heroes who are actually smart and savvy enough to work out the mysteries before them, and—my favorite part—the idea (in almost every issue) that just because something attacks you, it doesn't necessarily mean you must attack it back. X-Men: First Class returns to this theme several times through its original miniseries, special, and now the ongoing book. Reminiscent of Star Trek's "The Devil in the Dark," it's an admirable approach that fits in with Professor Xavier's "live in peace with humanity" ethos and yet still doesn't skimp on action or fight scenes. In this issue, for example, there's some great Monster Island sequences, culminating in the kids not punching out or knocking apart a giant monster, but instead using him as a ride towards their goal. And what a monster: a beautifully big pudgy frog-eyed guy who looks like a cross between a Totoro and one of David Horvath's Uglydolls. Notice I said "kids" above. Yes, for the first time in ages the X-Men read like real teenagers, with humorous asides and an easy, friendly camaraderie, but not lumbered with fast-out-of-date slang. (Do I have a complaint? A mere one: that the frenetic and action-packed Roger Cruz pin-up inside the book shoulda been the cover.)

And oh yes. The best thing about it all? The Marvel Girl backup. I. LOVE. Colleen Coover's artwork. Like Roger Cruz, she draws teenagers who look like teenagers:


You can sum up the story in a single sentence: Marvel Girl and Scarlet Witch hang out together and thwart a robbery. But that doesn't come close to the sheer joy and giggles I got from this short story with wonderful details like a shopping trip because Wanda doesn't have any civilian clothes. Quicksilver is a pest. Warren has so much money he doesn't know what to do with it. Wanda talks with an Eastern European accent—I don't think anyone's ever done that with her, and it makes perfect sense! (There's even a lovely, almost Natasha Fatale element to her speech before Marvel Girl admits she might be coloring the accent towards mysterious.) It's only four pages, but by golly, I'd pay the whole three clams for those four pages alone. There's a glee and exuberance in this that's missing from much of the Marvel Universe, highlighted by Jeff Parker's apt and funny script and Colleen's fluid and expressive artwork. Can you tell I simply loved this?


To paraphrase SW and MG: Can superhero comics really be this fun? They can be. Jeff and Colleen's wonderful whimsical back-up lifts X-MEN: FIRST CLASS #3, in a week of some tough and talented competition, from "merely" a tremendously fun book to the most fun comic of the week! Heck, now I want a regular MG book by Jeff and Colleen! (Write to Marvel and tell them "More, please!")