Sorry Power Girl: I Just Can't Do It.

In honour of the end of what will surely be remembered as the best run of Power Girl appearances (that's right, not just in her own comic: anywhere) I was going to put together a timeline of PG appearances that would necessarily showcase the changes to her costume and *ahem* carriage over the years. The longer that I worked on it though, the more it became evident that I was going to end up with a thirty-year history of one character's boobs. Which was kind of the point, I admit, but it was far to creepy for me to go on. Instead, here's an abridged form of the same. From her very first appearance in All-Star Comics No. 58:

 

And from last year's astonishingly good Power Girl No. 1:

Everything in between was either a variation on the same theme or an aberration best forgotten.

Man, Am I Ever Getting Sick Of That Damn Green Arrow Preview: New Comics For May 26th

 It’s felt like the last few weeks have been particularly bleak and dreary in the world of comics, with lots of pain and death and suffering. However, this week’s new releases had a lot more fun stuff going on, and generally made me feel a whole lot better about the industry in general and superhero comics in particular. That’s not to say that some things weren’t depressing (shame on you, Amazing Spider-Man) or horribly violent (can at least one issue of Green Lantern pass without somebody being skeletonized or skinned alive?), but overall, things were looking up.

 

Dazzler #1: A few weeks back, I was pretty hard on 1984’s Dazzler: The Movie graphic novel. I’ll stand by that, but this Women of Marvel one-shot was a much better vehicle for everybody’s favourite disco-themed superheroine. The story involves Arcade (I love that guy!) using a bunch of killer robots, who correspond with a lot of the villains from Dazzler’s solo series, to try and kill the mutant songstress at the behest of her evil sister. There are some fun callbacks to the most ridiculous moments of Dazzler’s book—she once again has to face Dr. Doom and Galactus, albeit robot versions—but most ridiculous of all, she is forced to fight for her life in her original roller-skated, KISS-makeup’d costume. This was written by Jim McCann, who is also going to be scripting the upcoming Hawkeye and Mockingbird ongoing (I got my fingers crossed for that one, and this comic gave me a lot of hope), and drawn with great style by Toronto guys Ramon Perez and Kalman Androsofszky. There’s a short back-up that makes this into a Necrosha tie-in, but the main feature is the reason to check this out.

 

Hey, that's enough outta you!

 Thunderbolts #144: Steve Rogers puts Luke Cage (himself a reformed criminal) in charge of a new team of T-bolts, mostly villains out to redeem themselves in this Heroic Age crossover. The team, made up of old school ‘Bolts like Songbird and Moonstone, as well as newbies like Crossbones and Juggernaut, is an odd mix that might make for some good readin’—strangest of all, Man-Thing is on board, using his connection to the Nexus of All Realities to provide the team’s transportation abilities. Jeff Parker continues his streak of writing great team books for Marvel (once again, if you missed Atlas last week, you need to get on that ASAP), also proving himself to be either a big fan of Aziz Ansari’s stand-up routine or the MTV reality dating show Next, or both—a female prisoner declares of Luke Cage, “If he’s got a neck tattoo, I’m gonna lick it!”. There’s also a great last-page villain reveal that is extra cool for longtime Thunderbolts readers. If Moonstone can just get herself a less slutty outfit, this book will be in great shape.

 

See? That is one trampy getup. 

The Thanos Imperative: Ignition #1: This was maybe not the most new-reader-friendly one-shot, as it builds out of several Annihilation and War/Realm of Kings miniseries, not to mention the ongoing (but maybe now cancelled?) Nova and Guardians of the Galaxy books, but it did make me want to check out the next installment. Apparently, in some of those books, it was revealed that there’s a parallel universe that is slowly bleeding into the Marvel-verse, one where life has triumphed over death I guess? Even so, this happy-sounding place has been dubbed the Cancerverse, so it can’t be that great. Anyway, the denizens of this ‘verse want to invade the Marvel universe and eliminate death, starting with the avatar of death himself, the recently-resurrected Thanos. This was a confusing but intriguing first issue—it practically requires a flow chart to keep track of all its dozens of characters. But once again, the last-page reveal of the avatar of life from the Cancerverse—in other words, the big villain of the upcoming Thanos Imperative miniseries—is a cool shocker that, in retrospect, makes perfect sense.

 

G.I. Joe: Hearts and Minds #1: I haven’t read anything by Max Brooks prior to this, but the author of such bestsellers as World War Z and The Zombie Survival Guide manages to keep the living dead out of this miniseries (so far, anyway), telling two short stories focusing on a Cobra operative and a Joe soldier, respectively. First up, in the better of the two stories, we get a look at what makes cold-blooded mercenary (and lousy poet, if I remember his action figure’s file card correctly) Major Bludd tick, and the second story gives us some background on Joe tracking expert Spirit. Bludd's story contrasts his cold-bloodedness with his surprisingly tragic and decidedly mundane family history, while the Spirit story focuses on how the character hates that everyone just assumes, because of his Native American heritage, that he is an expert tracker...but, of course, he is an expert tracker anyway, hence his surly disposition. I have no idea where this fits in terms of continuity, if there even is such a thing where a bunch of action figures are concerned, but I was able to enjoy it purely based on my nostalgia for the G.I. Joe universe. Next up is Tripwire and Firefly! Man, I hope they get to Beach-Head at some point.

 

Seven Psychopaths #1: This is really getting to be the year of “guys on a mission” stories, what with The Losers, The A-Team, and The Expendables, isn’t it? This new book from Boom! Studios stars a disgraced British Army Colonel in London during the Blitz, who gets a letter from an old guy named Goldschmidt in an insane asylum, advocating the use of a team of certified lunatics to drop into Berlin and assassinate Hitler. That’s so crazy, it just might work! The Colonel springs Goldschmidt and they begin assembling their team, on the premise that these guys (and gals) will be so nutty and unpredictable that the Nazis won’t be able to catch them or stop them—also, that the mystical significance of the number 7, as in there will be seven of them, will give power to their cause. I don’t know where Sean Phillips found time to draw this, between his stints on Criminal and the new Dark Tower series, but I’m glad he did. Fabien Vehlmann's script is tight, and funny too—my favourite part is when Goldschmidt notices that the Colonel’s file on the project is labeled “Seven Psychos”, and he gets all offended by it. I have not idea where this story could be going, but I hope the creators go all Tarantino with it and create their own batshit crazy ending for WWII.

Secret Avengers #1: Not that it took much, but this book really blew the doors off last week’s Avengers relaunch. Like Thunderbolts, this is a totally strange assortment of Marvel characters from different eras and genres (War Machine, Nova, and Moon Knight, together at last?!?), but Ed Brubaker sells it. This shadow-ops team deals with all sorts of crazy threats before they can even become threats, and their varied specialties come in mighty handy. The result is a cool mix of real world (well, Marvel real world) action and cosmic intrigue that has lots of callbacks to old-school House of Ideas. The Serpent Crown? That dastardly Roxxon corporation? Now you’re talking my language, Brubaker! There’s a predictably cheesecakey opening scene where Valkyrie and Black Widow have to go undercover as call girls—the superheroine glass ceiling at work—but otherwise, artist Mike Deodato, who I’m not normally a big fan of, turns in some surprisingly good work here. His shadowy visuals work the conspiracy angle nicely, and he shifts gears ably from “realistic” scenes, like the opening gambit in Dubai, to the trip to Mars in the final pages. Also, Marvel pulls the hat trick for final page bad guy reveals this week, with this issue’s mastermind being the most surprising of the three. Also, I cannot overstate how awesome it is to have the Beast on an Avengers team again. We gotta get Wonder Man in on this so they can be all rowdy ‘til dawn like they used to.

Who wouldn't want to party with those guys?

John Buys Comics: Why Doesn't John Remember Last Week's Reviews?

Brevity is once again the order of the day! Uh, not because I’m drunk again, though. No, this time it’s simple procrastination - if I don’t curtail my wordcount I won’t write anything at all.

Captain Long Ears, by Diana Thung

In common with Calvin and Hobbes: a young boy has crazy imagination-fueled adventures with a stuffed 

animal. Crazy space hijinks.

Unique to this book: a compelling and more-accurate-than-usual look at the emotional life of a child, a very cool combination of imagination-adventures and reality. An obsession with poop, including one of my favourite poop jokes of all time (on the last page). An ending that manages to be happy without being sappy. Just terrific on all fronts.

Justice League: Generation Lost No. 2

It’s only the second issue, so I may be completely wrong, but at this point [Generation Lost] looks like it has a far better chance of hauling the DCU out of the rape-and-murder hole that it’s had one foot stuck in for the last few years than its biweekly sibling Brightest Day, if only due to the fact that the latter’s narrative arc (at 10% completion, natch) looks like it’s going to involve things getting bad and then better. All of the returned characters are going to have some terrible trials and tribulations and then emerge triumphant and the mass happy ending is going to change things FO-EVAH.

In contrast, what has happened in Generation Lost so far has been incredibly encouraging. I may just be reading what I want to here, but it looks like Giffen and Winick are actually going to be examining some of the reasons/events behind the darker storytelling trends that have been the norm for a while now. If Max Lord is alive and nobody on Earth including Wonder Woman remembers that she killed him, is she still a murderer? Hell, how does that change the perception of how events played out afterward?

Anyway, nobody was killed with a knife.

Mystery Society No. 1  

You know I love stories of paranormal investigation, and it’s actually kind of awesome that the main character is a smug asshole - it’s an underused heroic archetype! I think that I need to call a SECOND ISSUE OF JUDGEMENT on it, though - right now this is essentially a pile of interesting ideas. It’s going to be how they’re deployed that swings the Like-o-meter one way or the other - you can cram your comic full of as many psychic 1950s teenage girls and skull-masked undead… teenage girls as you want, but by god you’d better come through on some tasty plot or I will... not read no more.

So watch out.

The Brave and the Bold No. 34 - The Legion of Super-Heroes and the Doom Patrol are two of my favourite things of all time. How does mixing them together produce such a tepid and uninteresting comic? Maybe the second part of this story will retroactively make this one better somehow? I command you to wait for my analysis! Bite your nails with tension!

Green Lantern No. 54/ Green Lantern Corps No. 48 - See now, this is what I was talking about. Have most of this portentous stuff in two reasonably self-contained books and I’m kind of okay with it. Also: the triumphant return of Dex-Star, rage-fueled kitty!

War of the Supermen No. 4 - Superman is home! No more military/industrial conspiracies! Whoopee!

Detective Comics No. 865 - Hey, wait. So Vandal Savage is the Biblical Cain, and Cain from Sandman is kind of Cain, and Rage-Entity the Butcher is strongly implied to be Cain… that’s a lot of Cains. But Vandal Savage is also still a caveman? I don’t know how smoothly the two origins jibe.

"I Want You To Stop Me."

It’s not every day you can say that you survived a run-in with a murderous android, yet here I am, alive and well. Yesterday, at Park Lane cinema here in Halifax, I ducked out of work early to attend a special screening of the 1986 thriller The Hitcher, followed up by a Q and A session with star Rutger Hauer. The actor was here in town filming the feature-length adaptation of local director Jason Eisener’s award-winning Grindhouse movie trailer, Hobo With A Shotgun. The screening, part of Jason’s superfun Thrillema series, which screens cult movies with a pre-show reel of crazy genre trailers, raised money for David Brunt, the star of the original Hobo trailer; if you haven’t watched this energetically gory mini-revenge flick yet, check it out here, but be warned—it’s most definitely not safe for work!

 

Hauer, who takes over the role from Brunt for the big-screen adaptation (Brunt has a cameo in the feature version, and was reportedly on set for the bulk of shooting), is probably best known as lead replicant Roy Batty in the 1982 sci-fi classic Blade Runner, but has done about 180 films, including Batman Begins, Sin City, Ladyhawke, Blind Fury, and Wanted Dead or Alive. His role as the enigmatic, homicidal John Ryder in The Hitcher might be his second most famous role behind Roy Batty—the character, a seemingly unstoppable, strangely tormented, almost supernaturally destructive figure really comes alive thanks to Hauer's darkly humourous interpretation, not to mention those piercing blue eyes. Hauer ‘s Q and A afterwards was a real treat; the 66-year old actor clearly loves talking about cinema, slyly dropping F-bombs among praise for his collaborators and insights into his process. He even hung around to sign stuff for the fans afterwards—I got my Blade Runner Limited Edition Gift Set signed by Roy Batty himself! How cool is that?

 

Incidentally, the first thing I saw Hauer in—when I was far too young to be watching it, probably—was a 1981 cop thriller called Nighthawks, which pitted the actor, playing a terrorist named Wulfgar, against a New York cop played by a fully-bearded Sylvester Stallone. Hauer is absolutely ruthless and terrifying in this movie, but it’s also worth watching for the geek-friendly supporting cast of Billy Dee Williams, Lindsay Wagner, and Persis Khambatta. In other words, it not only has Rocky/Rambo fighting Roy Batty, but it also stars Lando Calrissian, the Bionic Woman, and Ilia from Star Trek: The Motion Picture!  A bit obscure, but worth keeping your eyes peeled for (check out the trailer here).

 

Unprecedented Carnage

Lois Lane No. 27. 1961. "The Last Days of Lois Lane." There are three interesting things about this story, and one of them pretty remarkable.

The first of these things is the setup: Clark Kent and Lois Lane are on location covering a story.

Now, I'm not saying that there is no place in this world for atomic energy, and we definitely need to do research to ensure that what technology we do have is as safe as possible, but the experiment that Clark and Lois just observed was a nuclear explosion. A nuclear explosion has very few peacetime applications, and I can't imagine that any of them require a rigorous series of experiments. Wait a second, I've just worked up a little questionnaire that should render further research unnecessary:

1. Can the problem at hand conceivably be solved by a massive explosion?

2. Is the problem worse than a heavily-irradiated landscape?

If you've answered yes to both questions, then call the Atoms for Peacetime Project today! 

The second interesting thing about this story is fact that Superman has nothing to do with Lois' dilemma. Unlike the bulk of the "something bad is happening to Lois" stories that I've read, this isn't a prank or a lesson or a scheme to keep his secret identity a secret, it's just a plain old mistake - Lois believes that she is dying of radiation poisoning. She believes it so hard, in fact, that when she asks the doctor about it, well,

He tells her that she is fine and she takes that as proof that she is so bad off that he's lying to her. Frankly, I didn't realize that doctors were allowed to do that.

The third interesting thing, and this is the remarkable one, is not that she immediately starts taking crazy risks in order to become an even more renowned reporter whose memory will live on forever,

And it's not quite the fact that a lot of the stunts that she tries seem... unlikely to result in good stories, seeing as they'll probably cause her grisly death before she can get her byline.

Not that that's not odd - heroically writing a story only to have it consumed by flame or the ever-hungry sea seems less like the sort of thing that people will remember one fondly for and more like a Darwin Award in the offing.

No, the strangest thing about this story is its fairly high body count. This is a time in which almost nothing - man, monster, animal, whatever - died in the DCU. Stories would go out of the way to mention that Superman had only hit a rabid bear hard enough to knock it out, say.

First, you have Lois in an experimental moon rocket, one doomed never to return to Earth:

Note the brave animals. Even though Superman went and got this particular rocket, I'm certain that they were eventually jammed into another. Not far from the old JLA Watchtower lies a tiny skeleton in a miniature spacesuit. You can still see the look of betrayal on the wizened face.

More tiny martyrs, though as the former owner of an ungodly number of guinea pigs, I have to admit that I can sympathize with someone who might want to blast the occasional screaming poop-factory with radiation, if only to teach them a lesson.

This, however, was the biggie:

After all, the sacrifice of animals in the name of science was much less controversial back in the day than it is now, but this is a Superman comic and people have just fallen off of a mountain, and Superman doesn't show up for a couple of hours. A couple of hours! Not one second later! This might, in fact, be the only instance of a death by falling in any Superman comic, ever. I'm still flabbergasted. 

John Buys Comics - Ill-Advised Edition

Yes, it's the weekly comics review by me, Johnathan. This week: I have been lured away from my post by old university friends and am, to put it euphemistically, suffering from heat exhaustion. 

Jersey Gods No. 12 - Oh, hell. I was really enjoying this series, but I guess that 12 is one of the magic "YOUR BOOK ISN'T SELLING ENOUGH" numbers. Wait, why wasn't this book selling enough? It was great! The entire population of a planet fused together into one colossal cosmic entity to destroy an asteroid! Kirby-style cosmic being had to meet Earth-style in-laws! There was a fast guy named Rushmore! Dammit, there are Philistines all around me.

Kill Shakespeare No. 2 - I may not have read quite as much Shakespeare as I convinced my English professors that I had, but I have to admit to being downright excited by some of the character dynamics in this comic. Richard III and Iago, two of the most deceitful characters in history, leading Hamlet, one of the most credulous, around by the nose? Only hijinks can ensue! And the art continues to delight! Please stifle any reverse-snobbishness that might be preventing you from picking this up: it is wonderful on any level of in-the-knowishness.

Atomic Robo and the Revenge of the Vampire Dimension No. 4 - Look, my love for Atomic Robo is a matter of public record, but independent of that, I wish to state that Dr Dinosaur is one of the greatest comic book characters of all time. In support of this, I refer you to page 3, panels 2-5. That is all. 

War of the Supermen No. 3 - I know that I have been harshing on the Superman family of books on and off all year, but ultimately I would have to say that this is how you should run an event: keep it in the pants of the character's books. In the case of superman, things have been playing out in his own book, Action, Adventure and in half a dozen miniseries like this one. Tons of other heroes appear, sure, but in supporting roles, because there's no real need for the JLA and the JSA and the Teen Titans and Simon Dark and Oberon to each have their own special in which they battle an enraged Kryptonian. You can already picture how each of those fights go, right? TAH DAAA! No need for one thousand crappy tie-in issues.

Zatanna No 1 - Oh dang, I totally bogarted this from Dave even though he had something to say about it. Sorry Dave!

Wait, I have something to say too! AHEM: this issue has about one hundred really cool ideas, tied together by so-so writing. I'm going to blame the so-so-ness on the fact that this issue is chock-full of exposition and such, because there is the core of a really cool series here. And some very cool villains, too. I just hope that things even out in subsequent issues, because I really like the idea of a war against the magical Mob, complete with bearded guys in robes as enforcers. Keep on keepin' on, Dini!

The Spirit No. 2 - A huge improvement over No. 1, even if Yvette Plaisir/Angel Smerti had a weirdly and inconsistently rendered head and neck (I'm talking disconcertingly small, here). I'll continue to reserve judgement.

Legion of Super-Heroes No. 1 - I am definitely not the right person to tell you just how accessible this is to folks who aren’t already familiar with the Legion, as well as the DCU in general. I think that this issue and by extension this series are fairly accessible, barring having to pick up the trade of that Action Comics story from a couple of years back. Basically, as someone who reads comics that were written before I was born as a hobby, this sort of thing is super-plus great. For those of you that live in the now, I reckon that it could be regular great. Trust me.

Hey, I wrote this one while I was sober! "Brightest Day No. 2 - Okay, it looks like there aren’t going to be as many people saying “Brightest Day” in this as the Number 0 issue made it look, so instead I’m going to start tracking the ratio of horrifying events symptomatic of the kind of storytelling that this series is supposedly part of a general trend away from AS COMPARED TO the total number of issues. So far: 3/3.

On a positive note, it kind of looks like Firestorm is black in this issue, like he’s a combination of Ronnie Raymond and Jason Rusch(sp?)’s physical forms, and that would be a cool way of addressing the whole “inadvertent whitewashing” aspect of rolling back so many of the legacy heroes. In this one case, of course; it doesn’t make Ryan Choi less dead. Also, it might just be all of the weird lighting effects on Firestorm’s face because of his head being on fire."

Later Addendum: I don't really think that he looks black. I just want to. Dammit DC, THROW US A BONE HERE.

American Vampire No. 3 - THIRD ISSUE RECAP!

Pearl, an aspiring actress in 1920s Hollywood, is lured to a party and used as fodder by aristocratic European vampires. Despite being driven out into the desert and tossed into a mass grave, she manages to survive long enough for her friends to find her and get her to a doctor. She is still slowly dying, though, which prompts the enigmatic vampire Sweet to turn her and set her on the path of revenge. Bloody hijinks ensue.

Also, there is a backup story written by Stephen King and detailing exactly how Sweet came to be the only American vampire. Lots of beheadings!

Weathercraft - Came out last week, but I was lazy. It's no better this week, because I really have to go to bed soon, so in lieu of a legitimate review, here is an anecdote. 

When I used to work in a library, I abused my powers to take The Frank Book out for more than six months, in which time I read it maybe a dozen times. Jim Woodring's work is fascinating, folks, and Weathercraft is no exception. If you don't have a visceral dislike for books that are wordless and in black and white then I heartily recommend it.

And that's that. No pictures this week, unless I get really ambitious in the morning. Just the drunken truth, ayup. 

Good night, folks.