Five Reasons Oliver Queen Is Awesome

Despite the popularity of the show Arrow, fans of Oliver Queen still get a lot of guff about our favorite hero being a half-hearted Batman rip-off.  While it may be true that Green Arrow spent a goodly portion of The Silver Age following in Bruce Wayne's footsteps, later comics turned Oliver Queen into his own man.

So what is it that separates Oliver Queen from all of the other billionaire playboy superheroes and all of the other archery-based superheroes?  Besides epic facial hair, of course.  Well, the man said it best himself in JLA #123.

"...I can't leap tall buildings in a single bound and I don't wear any fancy power rings. Hell, I'm not even the world's second greatest detective, whatever THAT means. But I am a guy with a hell of a lot of chatzpah. And that's got to count for something in a crisis, right?"

More than anything, Oliver Queen is defined by that word - chatzpah.  Call it guts, nerve, boldness, balls or just plain audacity if you want to use a ten-dollar word.  Oliver Queen is a man who will say the unthinkable, attempt the impossible and just plain refuse to back down no matter how badly the deck is stacked against him.

To that end, I've put together a list of five deeds that I think exemplify Green Arrow's awesomeness.  And to make it fair, I've eliminated all of the stories where he dies a heroic death in the name of his principals.  Because that is its own Top Five list.


5. Oliver Queen - The One Man Justice League. 



As Seen In: The Dark Knight Returns & The Dark Knight Strikes Back

I'll admit this one is implied more than it is stated.  But the facts are there on the page.  For those who haven't read The Dark Knight Returns, it's a classic Batman story set in an alternate future where superheroes were made illegal in the United States and a middle-aged Bruce Wayne comes out of retirement to become Batman one last time.  The sequel, The Dark Knight Strikes Back, is not as well regarded but it continues the story of DKR and shows what happened to all of the other Justice League members.

Apart from Superman, Green Arrow is the only Justice League member who appears in The Dark Knight Returns.  We don't get the full details of his story but we do get enough to paint a vivid picture.  Oliver Queen was in prison for a while, escaping five years previously.  He spent that time on the run, striking against the corrupt American government as best he could from overseas.  And at some point before Ollie was imprisoned, Superman was responsible for him losing an arm.

The Dark Knight Strikes Back reveals the fates of the other JLA members.  Wonder Woman and Captain Marvel joined Superman in working for the American government, which we find out is secretly being run by Lex Luthor and Brainiac.  The rest of the team either went into hiding in remote locations or were captured and imprisoned by Luthor and Brainiac.

Logically, that means that for a time, both before being imprisoned and afterward, Oliver Queen was The Justice League.  He was the one hero who didn't back down or give up or agree to fade into the shadows in a world that was going to Hell.  And he did that while single-handedly facing two of the world's most dangerous villains and three of the most powerful superheroes on the planet.

And when I say single-handedly, I mean that in the literal sense as well.  Yet despite that disadvantage, he could still use a bow with Olympic-level accuracy.  Even though he had to pull the bow-string back with his teeth!


4. Oliver Queen Holds His Own Against The Forces Of Apokolips.



As Seen In: Final Crisis #4

At the time of this story, Black Canary was the leader of The Justice League.  And as Apokolips once-again tried to invade the Earth in the name of Darkseid, The JLA Watchtower was attacked.  Knowing the importance his wife held in planning a retaliation against the invaders, Oliver Queen stayed behind to hold off the pursuit as the rest of the team teleported to safety.  

One man with a quiver full of arrows against a horde of soldiers with the strength and endurance of Superman, riding giant hunting hounds and a few brainwashed superheroes as well?  Doesn't sound like much of a fight.  And it isn't.  Ollie tears them apart.

He brings down the hounds and the soldiers with them.  And if Ollie hadn't stopped to try and talk some sense into a brainwashed Black Lightning, he might well have won.  But he didn't and one good shock to the system was all it took to bring Oliver Queen down long enough for a mind-control helmet to be slapped down on his head.

This battle would rank higher, but this fight was a loss for Oliver Queen.  And yet it was a victory, because Ollie did accomplish his goal of buying enough time to let the love of his life and the rest of his teammates get to safety.  And while the villains may have technically won the fight,  it was a hard-won victory that shouldn't have been nearly as difficult as Oliver Queen made it.


3. Oliver Queen Overcomes The Black Mercy



As Seen In: Green Lantern (Vol. 4) #8

Created by Alan Moore for his Superman story For The Man Who Has Everything, The Black Mercy is a sentient alien plant with telepathic abilities.  Parasitic in nature, the plant latches on to a host, to whom it broadcasts a hallucination of an ideal life.  The host slowly wastes away, blissfully unaware that its body is being sucked dry by The Black Mercy in the real world as their every fantasy is seemingly brought to life.

So how strong is a Black Mercy plant?  Strong enough that even Superman couldn't break free of its control without Batman pulling it off of him by force.  And then when it latched on to Batman, Robin had to pull the plant off of Batman for him to be freed of its influence.  Even Hal Jordan was unable to resist the lure of the perfect world that The Black Mercy created for him.

And yet... Oliver Queen did.  He resisted.  He saw through the illusion and dragged himself and Hal back to reality after a single Black Mercy plant latched on to them both.

After the fact, Hal Jordan guessed that the plant had chosen to focus on him since his will was stronger and that instead of giving Ollie a vision of what really would be his ideal world, it had given him what Hal thought would be Ollie's perfect world within the context of Hal's perfect life.  Fine and dandy.  Except that does nothing to explain why Hal Jordan thought to set-up Oliver with Connor Hawke's mom (a woman Ollie hadn't seen in decades and whom Hal had never met) and why there was no place for Dinah Lance or Roy Harper in Ollie's "perfect life".

I think Hal is kidding himself.  I think the truth is that The Black Mercy may be strong enough to cloud the mind of Superman, subvert the fortitude of Batman and even overcome the willpower of a Green Lantern.  But that's nothing compared to Oliver Queen's ability to question everything around him.


2. Oliver Queen Resists Poison Ivy



As Seen In: Batman/Green Arrow: The Poison Tomorrow

Dennis O'Neil earned his place in comics as a living legend with his work in the 1970s on both Batman and Green Arrow.  It was he who developed Green Arrow into the modern-day Robin Hood we know and love and turned Batman into a Dark Knight Detective once more.  He teamed the heroes together in The Brave and The Bold and a few more times besides!  And yet, I think O'Neil's 1992 graphic novel The Poison Tomorrow may be the best thing he ever did with both of these heroes together.

The Poison Tomorrow sees Batman and Green Arrow joining forces after they discover they are working the same case from different angles, with Oliver Queen racing time to save Black Canary's life.  The trail leads from a diseased scientist to Poison Ivy and a plot to use toxic baby food to make a fortune selling an antidote.  In the exciting climax of the story, Batman moves to stop the first shipment of the tainted food as Green Arrow retrieves the antidote from Poison Ivy, who is currently hiding out in a housing development that was built on a toxic landfill!

To his credit, Ollie does try to go in protected.  But he didn't count on how hard it was to draw a bow while wearing a Hazmat suit.  Or on Ivy having a muscle-bound henchman who shared her immunity to toxic waste.  Deciding he can risk the poisoned environment for long enough to hand out a beating, Ollie slips out of the suit and beats down the henchman only to be confronted by Ivy herself.

Ivy, being Ivy, pours on the charm along with the pheromones.  The full "oh my brave hero, let me take care of you" act.  And for a moment, Ollie is tempted.  He's taken a few good lumps from the henchman and he's starting to feel the effects of the toxins around him.  And a little voice tells him he's as good as dead anyway - what harm could one kiss do?  But Oliver Queen's love for Dinah Lance is too strong to be overcome by such cheap tricks.  And with one open-handed strike to the face, Green Arrow shuts Poison Ivy down.

A few years ago, I achieved a modicum of fame for taking Judd Winick to task for his depiction of Oliver Queen as an unrepentant womanizer who cheated on Dinah Lance continually.  This story was largely responsible for my attitude.  Because while a lot of stories show how passionate Oliver Queen is in his love of Dinah Lance, I don't think any story has ever quite so well depicted just how strong that love truly is and how love is a more powerful force than lust any day of the week.  That's why I have nothing but contempt for anyone who tries to sum up Oliver Queen as "a horndog who chases skirts and can't stay faithful".


1. Oliver Queen Walks Out Of Heaven.


As Seen In: Green Arrow (Vol. 2) #10

Oliver Queen was dead.  Astonishingly, to him at least, he went to Heaven.  Or some kind of paradise where he had found the peace that was denied him in life.  As such, when his best friend Hal Jordan (who, at the time, possessed the power of all but one of the Guardians of the Universe) breached the boundaries between worlds to offer him a second chance at life, Oliver Queen turned it down.  But he did agree to let Hal bring him back after a fashion, creating a soulless clone that would possess all of Oliver Queen's memories up to a certain point.

This "hollow Ollie" would go on to reestablish the name of Green Arrow in Star City in Kevin Smith's Quiver and become a target for all manner of supernatural evil.  When that evil threatened Connor Hawke - Oliver Queen's illegitimate son - the hollow Ollie was somehow able to breach the boundaries of Space and Time to deliver his older, wiser self a much-needed dressing down.  That and the knowledge that his son needed him was enough to stir Oliver Queen into action and demand to be returned to Earth.

Oliver Queen defied his enemies.  He defied his friends.  He defied his government and alien invaders.  He overcame a mind-controlling parasite and the most powerful seductress on Earth.  And all of that is awesome.  But for sheer awesomeness, I don't think anything can top Oliver Queen finding the strength of will to walk out of paradise.


Agree?  Disagree?  I await your comments.

Regarding Dan Didio, The New 52 and "No Crisis Events"

SOURCE: DC Comics Co-Publisher Dan DiDio: No 'Crisis' Events In DCnU

A lot of people have been freaking out over this point. Because it seems contradictory that all of these big events couldn't have happened. Because if Final Crisis didn't happen, then Bruce Wayne never died and there was no reason for Dick Grayson to become Batman! And if Crisis Of Infinite Earths never happened, then Barry Allen never died which means Wally West never became The Flash, which means that Grant Morrison's excellent JLA run never happened and... well, you can see the endless logic loops that this line of thinking can cause.

This is all rather silly and indicative of the general attitude most geeks have - i.e. we can't stand to be wrong about an intellectual pursuit. We hate feeling stupid and not knowing what is going on. And being thrust into a new DC Universe where everything we know is wrong is irritating. I get that, believe me. I'd be lying if I didn't say I had concerns about just how the whole of the Green Lantern saga since Hal Jordan first got the ring had been crammed into six years but I'm willing to ride it out and see where the story goes from here.

Nevertheless, I have thought of a simple, easy solution for explaining all this away. And like most confusing things, it involves Doctor Who.

Doctor Who is the longest running science-fiction show in the world, being on the cusp of its' 50th anniversary. Over the years, there have been a lot of Doctor Who comics, novels, radio plays, movies and original audiobooks in addition to the actual shows. As one can imagine, there are quite a lot of stories that contradict one-another, even when limited to a single medium. Ask a Doctor Who novels fan sometime about how Time Lords are born and get ready for much wailing and gnashing of teeth. But I digress.

There was a gap in the production of the show, with the original series ending in 1989 and a new series starting in 2005. The New Series has drawn off of The Original Series, as needed, taking what bits of the mythos it needed and moving forward from there. Some of the new series has conflicted with previous stories but the show has a grand escape-clause in The Time War - a battle which we are told warped Time and Space, causing catastrophic damage that eventually healed but left some things changed.

Well gee, that sounds an awful lot like what just happened in Flashpoint, doesn't it?

So - The New 52 books? New Series. The old DCU? Original Series. The one borrows from the other as needed and until we hear otherwise, we can't assume that anything that happened in the past happened here.

Simple. Easy. Done.

Class Dismissed.

Thoughts On Final Crisis: Final Crisis #7

Hulk Am Confused!



p.1 - This has nothing to do with President Obama. Not a thing.

p. 2-3 - And there's a Black Wonder Woman called Nubia. Not a Jack Kirby reference, but definitely an early-70s DC one.

p. 4 - Well, at least Renee didn't say "A whole %#$@%$ Multiverse and they all look like you people." Still, I thought Renee was clearing the path to settle a new reality - not gather the shock troops to save it.

p. 5 - When did Power Girl start growing her hair long again?

p. 6-7 - Okay, so Lois Lane, Jimmy Olsen, Captain Marvel and Supergirl make a time capsule for humanity, telling the story of the final battle and it's nominally the one we are reading right now. Is that why this doesn't seem to be making sense? Reality warped it in transit?

p. 8 - This is a good line. "You turned your back and I wrecked your world. I robbed your people of their powers, their hopes, their future themselves. What will you do when your friends, your enemies, your lover are all Darksied? When there is One Body. One Mind. One life that is Darksied. Will you be the enemy of all existence, then? What irony that will be, Son of Krypton."

p. 9-12 - So... The Flashes guide The Black Racer to Darksied, as he fires the god-killing bullet that goes back in time to kill Orion. So since Batman got the bullet AFTER it killed Orion... where did the bullet come from in the first place? And what the hell does Aquaman's prophesied return have to do with any of this?

p. 13 - Heroes and Villains, working on building something while trying to find a Life Equation. Presumably The Miracle Machine Superman was given a glimpse of last issue. But when are they doing it? Post Darkseid's death? Another world?

p. 14-15 - Here's Checkmate going down in flames and the Japanese superhero team going through a Boom Tube... somewhere.

p. 16 - And here's Supergirl telling stories to a bunch of kids, about what is going on. They look as confused as I feel.

p. 17 - At least we didn't get a full-on splash-page parody as we see Ubermensch mouring the death of Uberfrauline. (NEEEEEEEEEEEIN!)

p. 18-19 - And thus did Frankenstein show up on a giant dog to beat up Wonder Woman and Lex Luthor showed up save Superman, uniting Good and Bad in a war against Evil. But what the heck is all this about a bacteria that strips away superpowers? That wasn't mentioned anywhere in the last six issues!

p. 20-22 - Ah, okay. The kids Supergirl and Wonder Woman are talking to are being stored... somehow... to be revived later, along with Lois. Somehow, Superman is going to use The Miracle Machine to fix everything later. And Wonder Woman somehow got un-Darkseid Zombified and used her lasso to tie the guy up without hurting him.

p. 23 - So Superman sings the Life Equation into the machine and uses that to kill Darkseid. Or reverse the effects of the Anti-Life Equation. Or something.

p. 24-25 - We're sorry Mario, but your princess is in another castle. And Darkseid's plot was all a build up to the appearance of Mandrakk. Yes, Mandrakk.

Not Marduk. Not Mandark. Not Mandrake. Mandrakk.

p. 26 - Annnnnnd, the Green Lanterns FINALLY show up.

p. 27-28 - And it's the League of Supermen. Kinda.

p. 29 - And then it turns out that one guy is The Monitor of the Universe and he uses his powers to summon what appears to be The Legion of Superpets of Earth 35, The Armies of God and... Captain Mother%#$ing Carrot!

Somewhere, Scott Shaw! is smiling.

p. 30 - Maybe now that Marvel is writing Samuel L. Jackson out of all their movies, Sam can get hired to play the Monitor in the Final Crisis animated movie? Because who else could say "No one #$%% with the judge of all evil." the same way.

p. 31-36 - So basically, The Monitors write themselves out of existence, having decided the best way to prevent their interference is to not exist at all? And Superman wound up using The Miracle Machine to put everything back the way it was so that none of this ever really happened. And Earth 51 is now officially the home of every crazy ass thing that Jack Kirby ever thought of that doesn't fit into mainstream continuity. Works for me.

p. 37-38 -

Yes. Batman is not dead. But we already knew that.

Thoughts On Final Crisis: Final Crisis #6

WARNING The following comic synopsis contains descriptions of sheer randomness and sheer awesome glory far in excess of the daily recommend dosage. Consult your family physician or witch doctor before reading this comic.



p. 1-3 - Oh yeah. Superman WAS taken away a few issues ago to deal with this, wasn't he? I completely failed to notice he wasn't around the last issue or two.

Still, this does lead to Crowning Moment of Awesome #1 - Brainiac 5 gives Superman access to the Controller's perfection of the Guardian's technology - a machine that turns thoughts into things. No projections. No hardlight copies. Actual things. Of course Superman is about to fade out of existence within a minute of them getting to said device and the Inertron Shield(If Jack Kirby didn't create that, it sure sounds like one of his ideas) that holds it in check.

p. 4-5 - The new Tattooed Man decides to become a hero. Dinah - being as kick-ass as she should be - makes him an Honorary JLA Member and then reaffirms that means that "now you're taking orders from me." Crowining Moment of Awesome #2 Too bad the bad guys show up at this point just as Wally's kids get done raiding the JLA armory.

p.6-9 - If anybody cares, Evil Mary Marvel is - despite previous appearances in other comics- wearing black underwear under her far too short skirt. Sensible bikini underwear, no less. And yes - it has come to this - a Supergirl/Evil Mary Marvel catfight complete with "Slut/You're calling ME a slut?" dialogue. Also, Liberty Belle and Hourman are cool.

p.10-11 - Here's Crowning Moment of Awesome #3 Tawny/Tawky Tiger starts wailing on trapped in a tiger-man body Kalibak. And oh thank heavens I can go on living (note the heavy sarcasm) ... we now know that Supergirl is - despite previous appearances in other comics - wearing blue underwear under her far too short skirt.

p.12-13 - So Freedy Freeman does what someone should have done in Countdown (why didn't he do that? Oh yeah... he was busy being Judd Winick's bitch in a comic everyone is trying to forget) and shouts Shazam! while holding Mary, zapping them both and turning her back to her normal - and very mortified at what has been happening the last few years - self.

p.14 - And.... the tiger-men all follow Tawny/Tawky now. Coolness.

p.15-17 - Finally, an explanation. That weird tatoo/symbol that Shiloh's team of Japanese superhero wannabees are all wearing (as well as the "circuit" Tattooed Man copied is a symbol in the New God language that is capable of blocking/short-circuiting the Anti-Life equation. It means "Freedom From Restriction". Trust Mister Miracle to know that one, eh? And we finally get a rundown of the different team members and what their powers are.

Yes, cheesy as it is, I still have to laugh at Superbat - who has the power of being so rich he can do anything.

And, oh yeah, Wonder Woman and the rest of the new furies show up and start beating up the JSA.

p.18-19- And here is Crowning Moment of Awesome #4 - sure to bring a smile to 's face - Dinah attempts to win Ollie free of the power of Anti-Life with the power of True Love. And when that fails, she smacks the hell out of him.

The sad thing is this is STILL the least Ollie has been beat up in a long time.

Anyway, the tatoo shorts out the Anti-Life control somewhat. Not that it matters since the big red energy wave is starting to envelope the space around Earth and The Watchtower.

p.20-21 - This does not get a Crowning Moment of Awesome because this is way too out of left field to really seem planned or even hinted at. Basically, we find out Checkmate's plan for evacuating the Earth to another Universe (it involves both Atom's riding gravitons), assuming the psychics can't purge the Anti-Life effect from the minds of all the people on Earth and the mystics can't contact The Spectre to do something about all this. And, oh yeah, there's a secret room where they are operating on the evil Nazi Supergirl from a parallel Earth that doesn't officially exist. And the want Rene Montoya to go to the next universe to organize a Checkmate branch there. Seriously.

p.22-23 - Crowning Moment of Awesome #5 - Luthor and Dr. Sivana both independently come up with a plan to deal with Libra, while planning on the other one having come up with a plan to come up covering the eventualities the other one didn't bother to deal with.

p.24-25 - They pretty much confirm what was already hinted at before - Barry Allen hasn't died yet but has been outrunning Death for the better part of a decade. Crowning Moment of Awesome #6. And referring back to a story that Mark Millar wrote (but Grant Morrison probably had a hand in planning) they all but confirm that The Black Flash who chases after speedsters who are about to die is just another form of Kirby creation The Black Racer.

p.26-27 -Crowning Moment of Awesome #7. Batman makes a one in a lifetime exception regarding his policy on guns... so he can shoot Darksied with the god-killing bullet that killed Orion. And he beats an Omega Beam to do it. Barely.

p.28-29 -Well, I DID say barely, didn't I?

p.30-31 -Hawkman goes all creepy-stalker about Hawkgirl again - something Geoff Johns managed to avoid quite easily when he wrote the character. I'm just saying. Jimmy Olsen tries to call Superman with some woman who... looks like Lois, but isn't she in the hospital? The Green Lanterns ride the wave of destructive energy to Earth with Hal declaring that even if they die trying to reach Earth, they are not abandoning their people to that. Metron is talking with... I think, the exiled Monitor... coordinating what is happening next and "heralding the arrival of the 5th World - The Age of Men As Gods". And... oh yes... the demonic fury Wonder Woman says "Look, Up In The Sky!" as everything starts to go red and evil...

p.32-33 -It's Superman. And he. Is. Pissed! Heat vision blasts the heck out of everything, knocks Supergirl out of the air with the explosive fury of his wake... as Hourman and Liberty Belle look on and basically say "Wow... we're screwed" as the sky turns red.

p.34 -And... well, it's an iconic shot. Superman holding someone's dead body while looking pissed. But we've never before seen it with the smoking corpse of Batman.

Thoughts On Final Crisis: Final Crisis #5

p. 1-6 - The Trial of Hal Jordan begins and ends with a good deal of efficiency. This scene is actually a microcosm of the Green Lantern books in general. Everyone is focused on Hal. Guy and Kyle do all the hard work. And John is absent, doing the most thankless work out of the four off-camera. So what have we learned kids?

* The Earthers are always right.
* The Guardians are arrogant, blue idiots.

p. 7 - Okay - so Checkmate (at least, the part Amanda Waller is running) wants The Next Question to join their team of non-super heroes.

p. 8-9 - And yeah. Darkseid broods as his followers kiss-up. And the Female Furies dressing, if you care about that.

p. 10 - JSA fighting the minions of Darkseid. I didn't know Tempest was still alive...

p. 11-13 - Hey! Mr. Miracle isn't dead. And apparently they painted their faces that way for a reason. Something to do with the circuit The Tattooed Man had last issue?

p. 14-15 - Kalibak the Tiger-Man and his folllowers.

p. 16-17 - And... there's the heroes. I recognize about half of them.

p. 18 - Hey! There's John Stewart!

p. 19 - And there's Crazy Mary Marvel. With Black Adam trying the lighting gambit to depower her.

p. 20-21 - And it doesn't work. And Freddy tries fighting her but doesn't do too good. And the tiger-men show up to help her as Tawny Tiger shows up to help Freddy.

p. 22-24 - Okay. The crazy artist kid is locked up with everyone else immune to Anti-Life and... one of his drawings is of the female Monitor. So I guess he was the exiled Monitor. And then some guy completes a Rubik's Cube in 17 moves and things get weird.

p. 25 - Hmmm. Calculator is about to get hung for treason just after someone messed around with a Rubik's Cube. That can't be a coincidence, that being his symbol and all. And yeah.... Lex is looking WAY too cowed. 10 To 1 Lex is responsible for the leak to the superhero resistance.

p. 26-27 - Darkseid rises as Kara figures something out... and then heat-waves the sides of Mary's head... did a Mr. Mind get inside her?

p. 28 - The Green Lantern cavalry are free-falling into the big black hole where Earth is and the art is all Black Hole Sun as they do so.

p. 29-32 - And... Darkseid is risen, half the world is under his control... and the Rubik's cube causes The Monitor kid to be reborn as "The Judge of All Evil".



Clear as mud?

Not-So-Fast Thoughts - Comic Reviews for 10/29/08 and 11/05/08

Between things going on Halloween and this past weekend - which was, amazingly enough NOT spent at Wizard World Texas - it was a while before I picked up my comics, much less read them.



FINAL CRISIS: RAGE OF THE RED LANTERNS- More of a Green Lantern tie-in than a Final Crisis one on the surface, this continues the events of The Sinestro Corps War. And not only do we get to see a mess of Red Lanterns, we also get a look at what appears to be The Controllers getting ready to establish the Orange Lanterns and the very first Blue Lantern. So... yeah. Not a good jump-in issue but a continuation of the greatness that we've come to expect from Geoff Johns.


FINAL CRISIS: RESIST - I should have known better than to buy a Greg Rucka book sight unseen... but I thought this was going to tie-in to the much more enjoyable Final Crisis: Submit. It's not that it's all that bad, really, but a bit of a tough plow for those of us who don't read Checkmate and are wondering when Snapper Carr became a teleporting secret agent. Still, for those Kirby fans who were afraid that Final Crisis would not feature EVERY crazy idea The King had while working at DC Comics, have no fear... by the end of the story, Mr. Terrific is leading an army of OMACs against the New Gods.


GIANT SIZE RED SONJA #2 - Lots of good, short stories here to enjoy. A character-defining quickie where Sonja is separated from the more traditional literary amazons by being paired up with a true man-hating psychopath... an illustrated version of Frank Thorne's famous "Red Sonja Stage Show" drawn by the man himself... and a classic "Red Sonja vs. Undead Wizard" story by Roy Thomas himself. The only one that falls flat is a very strange and very creepy story involving an angel falling to Earth, falling in love with Sonja and then screaming as he is dragged back up into the Heavens as he begs Sonja to come with him. Overall, a fine issue.


GRANT MORRISON'S DOCTOR WHO #2- A darn good read, even if this IS a Sixth Doctor story and the ending is in no way possibly in cannon. Second Doctor fans will want to check this out for the heroic end of Jamie. Grant Morrison fans will want to check it out because... well, it's a good read and rather easy to follow even with the inclusion of a shape-shifting penguin.


HELLBLAZER PRESENTS CHAS: THE KNOWLEDGE - Last issue of this mini-series came out this week. I finally got the rest of it shortly before this. And I really wish I hadn't have bothered. Don't get me wrong - Chas is a great supporting character. But even with a story centering around the Cabbies of London sitting on top of a secret that keeps a demon imprisoned in the roads of London and John completely out of the picture, save for the scenes showing just WHY he is out of the picture... Chas just doesn't hold the interest very well.

And the scenes at the end of this issue, where he extols the virtues of a simple life, ring somewhat true... the whole thing seems a bit tilted given that Chas is made out to be some sort of virtuous paragon because he refuses to cheat on his shrewish wife... even though All His Engines - a story which no less an expert than Neil Gaiman considers to be the quintessential Hellblazer story - showed Chas cheating on her easily and almost running off to America with the woman involved. Of course I'm picking nits, but that's rather a big one to pick given the popularity of the story and how relatively recent it is.


JACK OF FABLES #27 - You have to love any book where the living spirit of the Deus Ex Machina shows up to save the day and everyone is pissed off that he won't do more, because it would kill the story.


JUSTICE LEAGUE OF AMERICA #26 - While the idea of an alternate-reality Justice League fighting to restore a reality that might erase them from time has been done before (Indeed, Dwayne McDuffie wrote The Once and Future Thing episode of Justice League Unlimited), this issue is a good one. Comic History Fans might get a chuckle out of "The Brown Bomber" - a character who seems to have been created as a parody of DC Comics' original idea of an African-American superhero before Tony Isabella slapped some sense into The Powers That Be and convinced them that a redneck who transformed into a super-powered Black man was a BAD IDEA. I'm a little confused as to where this leaves Animal Man (are his powers coming from Anansi now too?) but still... good read.


KNIGHTS OF THE DINNER TABLE #144- The comics are good as always. The new movie column is an abomination. Seriously. Instead of the brilliant comedy and sarcastic kvetching of Noah Antwiler, we are - thanks to the whining of a few people who shouldn't be allowed to handle sharp objects - now being treated to a column that gives us gamers advice on how to "game" various geek movies for material for their role-playing games.

Because apparently there are a lot of game masters out there who have no idea rip off movies and TV Shows for game fodder who have been demanding such hot tips as "You could easily recycle some of the gangs from the movie, such as the Disco Boys, the Red Eyes or the Susies" for their comedic superhero games.

I'd protest but Jolly Blackburn and company have made it clear that they'll only listen to the hyperbolic exclamations of everyone who is willing to devote time to trolling their message boards claiming to have stopped reading the magazine rather than the people who actually buy the magazine. And I have no desire to demean myself by saying that I will no longer buy the magazine, am burning all my back issues and that I will not rest until Jim Davenport is living in a cardboard box under the freeway.


KULL #1- A new Kull the King mini-series. Soon to become a regular series? We can but hope, because this first issue - as Conan #0 did several years ago - perfectly defines Kull as a character while separating him from Robert Howard's other famous hero. Whereas Conan is a definitive man-of-action who has no problem with splitting hairs or skulls as needed, Kull is an educated warrior, trying to raise himself above his barbaric past. A must read for all fantasy fans.


RED SONJA #38 - My patience is starting to run thin with this "bold new direction", even if I am intrigued as to how they are going to end this and if/when they will return to the status quo.


SECRET SIX #3 - I'm not sure what I find more disturbing: on-the-wagon, paternally protective Bane or just-plain Ragdoll. I really wish they had found someone other than the "dear gods why has nobody killed her yet" Devin Grayson creation Tarantula to be the centerpiece of this story... but given the average mortality rate of the guest stars in this series, I figure it's only a matter of time...


SHEENA, QUEEN OF THE JUNGLE: DARK RISING #1 - The good news is that - apart from one fan-service shot while she's doing a back-flip in the middle of an action scene (unlike most rich American heiresses, Sheena DOES wear proper undergarments) - there isn't any gratuitous cheesecake artwork in THIS Jungle Girl book. The bad news is that the interior art isn't all that good. The story is as good as previous Sheen installments though, but one wishes they would find a good, steady artist and try and keep this book coming out monthly.

Green Arrow Coolness...

Someone finally put most of it up on scans_daily...

Fast Thoughts - The Week of 10/22/08

BIRDS OF PREY #123 - Well, THAT was anti-climactic. The last issue ended with the promise of a big show-down between Babs and The Joker and we get... nothing. And to add insult to injury, most of the issue is devoted to giving us background on "The Syndicate" and the comically awful ideas used to make these guys worse than your usual group of robber-barons. Like it wasn't enough that one of their number is Gizmo from the Fearsome Five and they were willing to bring The Joker in as a partner.

Case in point: the CEO of "YourSpace", we are told, has gone out of his way to make it easier for child predators and serial killers to gain access to the personal information of young children using his service. This is all part of the plan to gather more material for his secret underground porn empire. And then there's the head of the "auction" website who has kidnapped numerous people and forces them to live in an underground Utopia he built, killing them if they fail to care for the collectibles in their new homes...

This kind of thing seems more appropriate to a Garth Ennis Hellblazer storyline than to an issue of Birds of Prey and it doesn't speak well of a story when The Joker is the least disturbing baddie in it.


FINAL CRISIS: SUBMIT - A must read if you plan to get Final Crisis #4. I discussed most of my questions about this book in my review of that issue, but the short version is that the background we get for Mark Richards (aka The Tattooed Man) doesn't gel with what we've seen in the past. Still, this is Grant Morrison working with a vastly underrated character and spelling out a little more detail of the post-Anti-Life Earth. Worth a read, even if I am confused as to how this fits a few things.


HELLBLAZER #248 - An awesome issue, all around. Not just for the first half in which John handily undoes the plans of two villains who are united against him but for the second half in which John makes his peace with Chas regarding... oh.... most of the events of the later part of the Mike Carey run. And the last page and the set-up.... wow! If you aren't reading this, you should be.

Thoughts On Final Crisis: Final Crisis #4

Fair Warning. You'll want to read Final Crisis: Submit before this issue. It's kinda important and is a direct lead in.



p. 1-2 - So... the Anti-Life Equation is now being broadcast across every electronic medium in the world and everyone who listens is turned into an apathetic zombie, incapable of independent thought and eager to be abused by the ruling elite. Insert your own Fox News/talk radio joke here.

p. 3 - The Ray? Isn't he dead? Or did they bring a new one back in one of the many comics I'm not reading?

p. 4-5 - For that matter, I'm confused by this new Tattoed Man. What we see of him here and in Final Crisis: Submit doesn't really gel with his background in his previous appearances. He's supposed to be an ex-Marine who disappeared, learned the art of "sin-grafting" and began killing bad people and taking their sins (in the form of mystic tattoos) onto himself. Cool concept for a dark vigilante when Geoff Johns came up with it... but it doesn't gel with the hero-hating, married man and father of two we see here.

p. 6-7 - And.... it's a whole bunch of dead people I don't recognize or care about.

p. 8 - Ah, okay. So they're genetically altering Dan Turpin to become Darkseid's new body. No wonder he was going bald and looking horrible...

p. 9 - Kalibak reborn in the body of a tiger-man? I see a fight with Tawny Tiger coming up. Because that is how Grant Morrison rolls.

p. 10 - Marvel Comics eat your heart out. It turns out it was Barbara Gordon who ripped the Internet in half... and she did it to save the world (or at least, everyone on-line at the time) from being enslaved by The Anti-Life Equation. She was also tough enough to see part of it and NOT go crazy.

p. 11 - And let us begin the "who is still active?" scene and mix it with the "We shall fight them on the beaches..." speech as Ray becomes an electric signal and allows a quick communication between The Six Watchtowers.

p. 12-16 - So here is the standing...

Watchtower 1: Checkmate Headquarters
Watchtower 2: The Hall of Justice
Watchtower 3: Fortress of Solitude
Watchtower 4: Uh... no idea. Gorilla City?
Watchtower 5: Superbia (which I could have sworn was blown up...)
Watchtower 6: The Great Wall (home of China's State-Sponsored Superteam - The Great Ten)

4 and 5 are pretty much trashed. 6 is about to fall. And barbarians are at the gate at the Hall of Justice.

p. 17 - Okay. So Black Lightning gave The Tattooed man a pattern for a circut.... so that gives him electrical powers which he uses to.... break the shield on the Hall of Justice? Still, nice to see Dinah being written as the competent tactician she is and being the one to figure a way out - turning Ray into an electronic signal and using him to power the teleporter system. THAT is how Dinah should be written.

p. 18-19 - So how is Barry Allen back from the dead? "An unknown force just reverse engineered me to life out of a blizzard of faster-than-light particles." Well, it's not as cool as spending the better part of a decade out-running Death... but it beats the pants off of "Superboy punched reality."

p. 20-21 - Two speedsters vs. four mind-controlled heroes, only one of whom has any enhanced speed and is nowhere near as fast. No contest.

p. 21-25 - Ladies and Gentlemen... if a few pages ago was how Dinah should be written, THIS is how Green Arrow should be written.

I can't find a scan of this page and sadly, my scanner is busted, so let me describe it. Dinah is getting everyone in the Hall of Justice to evacuate to the JLA Satellite. Ollie pushes her into the tube and insists that he has to stay behind to blow up the tubes so they can't be used by the villains.

Dinah protests and Ollie points out that he's the only one who can afford to stay behind out of their group. Ray is needed to be the signal. Tattooed Man has "the circut" that Black Lightning died to get to the other heroes. Dinah is the JLA leader. Babs is needed to handle the communications. "And The Flash'l kill us both if anything happens to his wife or his kids."

OLLIE: Nowhere on the planet is safe, but I have an idea.

DINAH: Don't do this. I can't lose you. (brings her hand up on the glass wall of the tube)

OLLIE: (bringing his hand up to match hers) I worked out the angles. They won't get me... I'll use the Anti-Anti-Life Equation arrow. Pretty bird.

DINAH: (kissing the glass) Ollie. My beautiful Robin Hood.

(Dinah teleports just as the Apokolyptian forces - all riding giant dogs - break into the Hall of Justice. Black Lightning is leading the group, wearing one of the Anti-Life Mind-Control Helmets being used to control the Superheroes)

BLACK LIGHTNING: Destroy! Anti-Life justifies our actions!

OLLIE: (shooting at least a dozen arrows in a blur as he jumps out and starts strafing the mob) Is that so? Well my absolute hatred for dog-riding totalitarian @$$@&%# justifies THIS!


If Judd Winick weren't almost off of Green Arrow/Black Canary, I'd suggest that these pages needed to be taken from this book and stapled all around his work-space. (Not his forehead... that would be cruel) He would then be required to write 500 times on a little slate board "I will not write any Green Arrow stories until I think of something that is HALF this awesome."

p. 26 - Oh gods. Dinah is pissed. And she's got access to every single weapon on the Watchtower and a sniper's eye view. This is not going to go well for Darkseid.

p. 27 - The Omega Offensive? That sounds bloody impressive. And that isn't a New God weapon?

p. 28 - "To Die On The Job Is To Die For Darkseid" signs in a factory. Mobs of heavily armed sycophants maintaining order as they preach judgment of others, condemnation of the different and exploitation of the weak. Insert your own joke about the McCain/Palin platform here.

p. 29 - Okay. Skeptical as I am about Barry's return.... damn me, but this is a cool scene.

Love breaks Anti-Life it seems.

p. 30 - Rains of blood. Dead rising from the grave. Where are the Ghostbusters when we need them?

p. 31 - Some Mister Miracle if he can't dodge a bullet. But wait! That's not Shiloh Norman! Cunning bastard - he escaped death by getting some Asian guy to put on his costume and claim to be him!

p. 32 - And... Kirby/Turpin/Darkseid gives humanity the thumbs down. But wait! In Ancient Rome, that actually was a GOOD thing... so he's really saying humanity is great. Right?

Fast Thoughts - The Week of 10/15/08

Picked up quite a few IDW titles special this week. Let's see if I regret it...



COMIC FOUNDRY MAGAZINE #4 - Quite a lot to appreciate and quite a lot I could care less about. Your typical issue of Comic Foundry, in other words; something for everyone and that's what makes it the best magazine about comic books on the market.

If you're like me and you don't want to read an article about Mark Millar's begging and pleading for a chance to write a Superman movie, you can go on to read Tony Harris talking about his moving on to creator-owned projects only (unless something REALLY good comes up). If you could care less about an exclusive preview of Greg Rucka's latest project, there's a Gail Simone interview. Don't much care what Jimmy Palmiotti's office looks like? Take a gander at some TP reviews which tell you about a more obscure title you should check out if you enjoyed a more famous one. (Like Walking Dead? Check out Wasteland). And, of course, there's a lot of articles on politics and superheroes.


CONAN THE CIMMERIAN #4 - A half-way decent cover this time. I can't believe it's Frank Cho though - there's no unclothen bootylicious wenches! As for the comic itself, it's the same as before - a lot of Conan grandpa flashbacks and precious little Conan action. Still a good read, but enough is enough!


DOCTOR WHO: THE FORGOTTEN #2 - Second Doctor and Third Doctor flashbacks this time. Thankfully, these take up the better part of the issue so the Martha-taint is relatively minor. Lots of fun fan-fic ideas here, such as the 2nd Doctor using the recorder he played for fun as a weapon... and the 3rd Doctor fights greyhound men from outer-space (funny if you know that The Brigadeer's call-sign was Greyhound One) behind the wheel of Bessie. Good Whoish fun.


FABLES #77 - Lots of goodness here as always, which is to be expected. What wasn't expected, however, was a parody of Fritz Leiber's fantasy heroes Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser... here presented as "Freddy and Mouse".


FINAL CRISIS: ROGUES' REVENGE #3 - A perfect and wonderful comic... up until the very end when we find out that not only is Barry Allen coming back, but that he's going to be going after The Rogues - who just want to be left alone at this point - with a vengeance. Which is a real shame because this series spelled out - in no uncertain terms - why The Flash has the best villainous characters of any hero in comics.

Spider-Man may have a more varied Rogues Gallery. Batman may have a scarier one. But for pure complex characterization, nobody can touch The Rogues - the guys who go out of their way to bring to justice (albeit rough justice) the villain who actively was trying to kill Bart Allen.


GHOSTBUSTERS: THE OTHER SIDE #1 - This comic reads just like an episode of the old cartoon series... after J. Michael Straczynski quit in disgust. The only things missing are a cutsey, dancing Slimer, thank goodness. But everything else - including the hokey jokes - is intact.

Seriously - you can hear the second-rate Dave Coulier impression of Bill Murray as you read the precious few pages that Venkman is in.

Here's the story in a nut-shell; The Ghostbusters crash a meeting of ghostly gangsters only to have Peter get possessed and forced out of his body. Dragging their catatonic comrade back to base, the rest of the team determine that the lights are on but nobody is home - body is alive but soulless. Eventually they figure out that Peter is in Purgatory only to be gun-downed by tommy-gun wielding poltergeists, who got approval from the heads of the ghost Mafia (including the ghosts of Lucky Luciano, Bugsy Malone and Meyer Lansky) to put out a hit on The Ghostbusters.

The plot, such as it is, shows just why The Ghostbusters mythology has always equated ghosts to monsters and never chose to explore the serious issues regarding the nature of The Afterlife and rarely dealt with the ghosts of re-world figures. Ignoring the touchy religious and spiritual issues regarding the details of how the afterlife is structured, it's just creepy to consider that lost souls are being prevented from going to Heaven, Nirvana or wherever by a bunch of scientists out to make a buck on supernatural pest control. This issue also neatly sidesteps the issues as to just what ghostly gangsters steal and how they hurt their rivals... issues that have never stood up in the purely comedic rules of physics that back The Ghostbusters universe.

Avoid like the plague, children. Wait for the video game and a Ramis/Ackroyd written story.


GRANT MORRISON'S DOCTOR WHO #1 - If you like Grant Morrison, you should pick this up. If you like Doctor Who, you should pick this up. If you, like me, like both, you really should pick this up. And if you don't see the beauty of a comic that features a shape-shifting alien penguin as The Doctor's sidekick... well, why are you reading comics?

Fast Thoughts - The Week of 8/27/08

AMBUSH BUG: YEAR NONE #2 - Should I even bother trying to review this title? I mean, you either hate Ambush Bug or you love it. Trying to describe the plot is pointless - there isn't one. And some of the items covered here - such as The Amber Butane Corps - are so obscure you can't even find articles about them! And it wouldn't be much fun for me to just run down a list of obscure references. Must leave Jess Nevins some work, after all. Anyway... this is a very silly book. If you like silly books, you will probably like it.


FINAL CRISIS: ROGUES REVENGE #2 - The thing I like best about Geoff Johns writing is the way he can take some of the sillier or more confusing aspects of the DCU and explain them away, simply and easily, with a throwaway sentence.

Case in point: even by the standards of super-villains, The Rogues dress funny. What's even more maddening is that they have a professional tailor who caters exclusively to the villain crowds. With just a few quick notes and one page of action, Johns explains that The Rogues go to Paul Gambi - not for his sense of style - but his practicality in design.

Yes, a blue fur eskimo suit with skier-sunglasses doesn't look very menacing... but when you're like Captain Cold and your powers involve generating Absolute Zero levels of cold and enough snow to cause permanent snow-blindness... well, suddenly a fur suit and eye-protection make a whole lot of sense. So does an insulated, water-proof costume for a weather manipulator. And so does Heatwave's bulky, ugly fire-proof suit - which proves to be the deciding factor in his battle against another fire-starter who didn't think to protect himself form his own flames.

We also get an explanation for why arch-baddie Libra should care about The Flash villains not wanting to join his gang. It's not the usual "no one refuses Doom!" shtick. No, he practically notes that The Flashes - with their ability to strike unseen and time-travel - are the biggest threat to his plans and that it is very important that he have people with extensive experience fighting Speedsters and winning most of the time on his team.

A very entertaining read. If you like stories told from the bad guys' point of view, this is a good book to pick-up.


JACK OF FABLES #25 - The 4th Wall as a narrator. Babe the Blue Ox as a friendly pirate. Jack actually proving to be every bit the ladies' man and hero he thinks he is. All this, and more hot librarian sex! It's everything you could want in a comedic Vertigo title. Well, everything I could want anyway...

Thoughts On Final Crisis: Final Crisis #3

Cover - I know you shouldn't judge a book by them. but MAN that is a lousy Supergirl picture. Can anyone give me a non-pornographic reason she is pointing to her mouth like that?

p.1-4 - No idea what is going on here or who these people are. The presence of The Next Question also rids me of most of my curiosity in finding out. Ubergirl is interesting, though the presence of a Nazi Supergirl is disturbing in and of itself.

p. 5 - Monitor Man is fired and... nothing much happens.

p. 6-9 - Ah okay. So it seems that Barry Allen isn't really dead but has been out-running Death for the better part of a decade. That's almost cool enough to make up for the fact that they are undoing one of the few heroic deaths that still means anything.

p. 10-11 - And Libra suddenly loses 50 million cool points when it is revealed that he's working with The New Gods and the idiots behind The Church of Crime. Don't care, don't care, don't care.

p.12-13 - Wow. The first honest-to-New-God conversation in this whole issue I care about. But how did a Centauri dignitary find out Clark Kent is Superman?

p.14-15 - Huh. I just realized that someone took control of an Alpha Lantern from Apokolips to seal off Earth from the rest of the universe. Nice. Also nice to see Alan Scott taking charge... which totally makes sense given his position with Checkmate, The JSA and his being an old, powerful superhero who survived damn near everything.

p. 16 - I don't know what shocks me more - That Oracle has a dolphin contact just for the purpose of contacting Aquaman or that Tawny Tiger is back in the Mainstream DCU.

p. 17 - I don't know what makes me happier - Supergirl being shown to have a life outside of superheroing again, Dinah actually being shown to wear a bra under her costume or Ollie's ranting about the evils of a superhero draft.

p. 18 - Not that it stops Ollie from showing up, along with half the other superheroes, mind you. :)

p. 19-21 - Norman Shilo forming a set of new New Gods among humanity? Gathering old good ones disguised as humans as the bad ones were? Curious.

p. 22-27 - Okay. Anybody who actually read Countdown and knows what the hell is going on with Mary, raise your hands.

*chirp chirp*

Any of you who can justify why Donna never told Diana about Mary going evil or why Captain Marvel Junior hasn't been trying to find Mary over the last year?

*chirp chirp*

p. 28 - And after much bragging and boasting of Marvel, it turns out that DC Comics really did break the Internet.

p. 29 - Okay... so Barry Allen was dead, but now he isn't. I guess this means that Quiver is still in continuity after all...

p. 30 - This photo has already had pornographic fan-fics based on it. I guarantee it.

Fast Thoughts - The Week of 7/16/08

BIRDS OF PREY #120 -

Still kind of on the fence about Bedard so far. The best part of the issue comes early as Black Canary fights Manhunter and proves that unlike certain other writers we won't mention, he does have a handle on how a fight with Black Canary should be handled.

Manhunter: So why, with all the heat I'm packing, aren't you cutting loose with your famous Canary Cry?

Black Canary: Frankly Kate - I'm trying REAL hard not to put you in the hospital.


Anyway, Dinah chews out Babs about sending someone to spy on her family. Babs claims she was actually having Manhunter scout out Mia for her, but I don't believe it and neither does Dinah. And then Babs chews out Dinah for not having been exactly honest with her how her adopted daughter Sin "died" and Dinah walks off, telling Babs that the next time she wants to know what is going on, she should call her.

Priceless.

Too bad the rest of the issue isn't nearly as good or as interesting, except for the introduction of Babs' newest operative: a "ghost" who can walk through walls and see into the minds of dead people called Infinity.

Slight tangent: Is Infinity a new character? She seems oddly familiar but I can't find anything about her on-line.

The rest of it is more of the blah blah blah about Platinum Flats, more grade-Z super-villains who even Blockbuster wouldn't employ coming out of the woodwork and the ultimate sign of desperation... Joker has been brought in as a special guest villain.

All in all, the character moments are great and Bedard has a real handle on the core team. Would that he could come up with a menace that actually seemed... uh, menacing... for The Birds to deal with.


FINAL CRISIS: ROGUE'S REVENGE #1 - It's Geoff Johns' writing with Scott Kollins' artwork doing a story about The Flash Rogues' Gallery. If you liked Johns/Kollins run on The Flash, you'll probably love this. If you didn't, stay away. It's just that simple.

For the rest of us... well, I'm afraid that this story may be too little/too late. Johns has his hands full trying to explain away three separate Flash-related messes, including...

1) The death of Bart Allen and how - while everybody seemed to be living to make Pied Piper and Trickster miserable in Countdown - the rest of The Rogues got ignored for the better part of a year.
2) The cheap-ass way in which The Trickster was killed and what he was really up to.
3) Barry Allen's return from the dead.

Still, give Johns credit. While he might not be able to explain away all these problems, he does give us a lot of good character moments with The Rogues. And he does explain away one of the bigger questions that most people who hate The Rogues have - namely, Why do a bunch of guys with ice guns, flame-throwers and mirror powers who have no chance of honestly fighting a man with superspeed even bother when they can't really hurt The Flash?

The answer? It's not about hurting him. It's definitely not about killing him. It's about slowing him down just enough to make a living. And from that perspective it makes a lot of since. Sure, Captain Cold knows he'll be lucky to hit the Flash with his freeze ray. But he can endanger enough people to keep The Flash busy long enough to make a getaway.

Think I'll easily see this one through to the end, if only to see Inertia as Kid Zoom. :)


HELLBLAZER #246 - Very understated issue, this one. We don't get to see the big fight between John and the big-bad. Then again, we don't need to. We see plenty of horror as John walks toward the confrontation, thinking of all the friends he's lost, all the innocents he's hurt and everything that has gone wrong because of Newcastle.

Interesting experiment - read this comic while Green Day's "Boulevard of Broken Dreams" plays in the background. It really brings out the torment of John's cursed life as well as what the lousy punk music John's band created as a youth must have been like.


HUNTRESS: YEAR ONE #5 - Lots of good, time-line and character defining moments here. We get a foundation for Barbara Gordon's longtime hatred of The Huntress that goes deeper than "But I'm Supposed To Be Batgirl!" and "She Slept With Nightwing!" and the idea that Catwoman helped Huntress out with getting established in Gotham. This is, simply put, the best book that nobody is reading right now and we need to get Ivory Madison on a regular monthly title ASAP.

Fast Thoughts - The Week of 7/10/08

COMIC FOUNDRY #3- The least enjoyable issue of this magazine so far, but I'm willing to concede that's a personal thing. See, I can't stand G4TV or any of the people on it. So while there probably are people who will enjoy a interview with Blair Butler, I'm not one of them.

Give them credit though - she's sensibly dressed in jeans and a t-shirt throughout. None of the bikini model shite you see in other comic-book/pop-culture magazines.

Thankfully - from an article on the much maligned art of inking to a profile of several couples who both work in the comic business - there's a lot in this issue to enjoy despite the cover story. And there's plenty of humor, as always. My favorite bit is the Summer Comic Convention Bingo card featuring such entries as "Rob Liefeld Lynch Mob" and "Hungover Creators".


FINAL CRISIS: REQUIEM - This is the comic Final Crisis #2 SHOULD have been. At the very least, it is the send-off that J'onn J'onzz deserved.

How do I love it? Let me count the ways...

1. I love the extended fight scene, because it reveals that what we saw in Final Crisis #2 was just the first blow and not the death blow.

2. I love that it reveals that J'onn was tranquilized WELL before the scene in Final Crisis #2 and that it was Effigy - who I've always liked as a villain - who brought him down.

3. I love that the villains - at the very least, Effigy and Libra - treat J'onn as the threat that he is.

4. I love that even tranquilized and on fire, J'onn is STILL able to take on at least a dozen villains at once. Nice someone remembered how powerful he is.

5. I love how J'onn telepathically attacks the villains with their vision of their respective enemies and that nearly all of them imagine dying at the hands of a hero. Luthor imagines Superman punching through his chest. Effigy imagines drowning in a Green Lantern construct. And I love that Talia - by contrast - imagines Batman sweeping her off her feet and kissing her.

6. I love the subtle clues for the fans that "the cavalry arriving" is an illusion, even before the "killing" starts. Hints like Aquaman still being human and Ralph Dibny still being alive.

7. I love how Dr. Light apparently still lives in fear of a pissed-off Ralph Dibny constricting him to death.

8. I love the five perfect choices J'onn made to continue his legacy. Hal and Dinah, because they are the only two members of the original five JLA members left. Bruce, because of their days running JLI together and their connection as detectives. Clark, because of their bond as survivors of a dead world. And Gypsy, as his adopted daughter and the last surviving member of The Detroit Justice League.

9. I love this exchange - when Dinah gets a telepathic message and an illusion of her body being on fire as J'onn is dying. I apologize for the lack of a scan, but my scanner is still busted.

PANEL 1: SCENE: Ollie and Dinah in bed.

PANEL 2: CLOSE-UP: Dinah suddenly sits up with a start. Half of her face is Martian, as a foxfire glow fills the room.

PANEL 3: SCENE: Dinah looks down as the fiery glow covers her body.

Dinah: Um, Ollie? I'm on fire.
Ollie: (half-asleep) I know, babe. But I'm just too tired.

10. I love the quiet scene with Hal and Ollie and the conversation which appears to be leading into James Robinson's upcoming Justice League book. And I love that Ollie made the "My Favorite Martian" joke.

11. I love the history of the character - and the references to past stories in JLA and his all-too briefly published solo book - and how beautifully recounted it is. And I hate that nobody could think of anything better to do with him than give him a new costume and make him more "hard-core" in the wake of Infinite Crisis.

12. I love Batman slipping the Oreo into the coffin at the end. 80's JLA reference for the win!


RED SONJA #35 - This is the first issue with the new, permanent creative team of Brian Reed and Walter Geovani and it's a pretty good first issue, though I'm uncertain where we stand or where we are going. It starts in the usual fashion, with the quote from The Nemedian Chronicles regarding Sonja...

"Know also, O Prince, that in that selfsame days that The Cimmerian did stalk the Hyborian Kingdom, one of the few swords worthy to cross with his was that of Red Sonja, warrior-woman out of majestic Hyrkainia. Forced to flee from her homeland because she spurned the advances of a king and slew him instead, she rode west across the Turanian steeps and into the shadowed mists of legendry."

We then get this little addition, summing up the book until this point.

"Know this, reader of these texts - Red Sonja has perished! Fallen in battle with the vile sorcerer Kulan Gath, Sonja gave her life to save all of Hyboria. For a time, the red-maned warrior did journey through Hades at the side of the boatsman Charon. Here, she did learn the truth of her own creation at the hands of the face Goddess Scathach.

Twenty winters have passed since last Sonja walked the land. However, now that she has returned, her new incarnation has yet to learn the truth of her existence or the reason for her miraculous rebirth..."

The rest of the issue moves between two different storylines. The first involves a man - a warrior and shaman from the look of him - who battles a voice in his head as he tracks down Sonja's false goddess at the request of a shadowy figure who may or may not be Kulan Gath.

The other story involves a red-haired noblewoman named Sonja, the conflict between her husband's family and another noble house that is trying to take their lands and her awaiting his return from a quest to find a magical artifact that will protect them. This Sonja - though not the warrior we know - certainly has an admirable strength of character and her story is an intriguing one.

I'm not exactly sure where this story is going and what it has to do with the Red Sonja we all know and love. And I love that - for once - a story has not been spoiled for me and that I can't see where things are going. I have some idea that this may be Sonja's equivalent of "For The Man Who Has Everything" and that we may be seeing an ideal life made for Sonja - where she has power, safety and a man who respects her as an equal.

I'm reserving judgment until there's a few more issues. Color me intrigued but concerned. As for you new readers, now is the time to give Red Sonja a shot if you had ever hesitated before.


WONDER WOMAN #22 - The art isn't really helping this story at all. It looks good enough at times, but it's very difficult to identify certain characters. I didn't recognize anyone amongst the heads on pikes in the opening scene but Circe and Darkseid and I just now realized that the Conan look-alike from last issue was meant to be Wildstorm's cursed Conan-lite character Claw.

Still, Simone's writing is as good as ever. Though I suspect Ends of the Earth (hmm... Robert Howard reference?) may read better in one sitting. And now I really want to see Gail write a Red Sonja story.

The Secret Final Crisis Invasion!

My friend Don Cook of Deranged Comics has put forth an interesting theory about why Final Crisis has been... well, somewhat confusing and nonsensical thus far.

So who would win in a drinking contest? Skrull Grant Morrison or Mark Millar?

Thoughts On Final Crisis Thus Far

I tried to review this book in a conventional way. But Grant Morrison being an unconventional writer and large chunks of this story involving things I can't explain, I find myself unable to do so. Every time I try and write thoughts on this book, it comes out reading like the dialogue of Vic Sage.

So rather than fight this, I've decided to embrace it. So here - with page references - are my random, disjointed thoughts on the first two issues of Final Crisis.


p. 4 - Fire from the gods. Morrison's love of mythology modernized made into a visual pun.

p. 5 - Vandal Savage. The first villain vs. The first hero. Technology makes the different. Anthro as a Stone Age Iron-Man.

p. 8 - Classic transition. Man of today more powerful than the gods of yesterday. Making fire easily for a less practical purpose, i.e. smoking.

p. 12 - The New Question, Rene Montoya, appears as a New God of light, Orion, dies. Know New Gods of darkness being reborn as humans - foreshadowing of further rebirths, metaphorical and actual?

p. 13 - The Dark Side club. Doesn't take detective to see trouble there.

p. 14-15 - Green Lanterns acting like the space cops they are. More procedure and code-talking than usual.

p. 16-17 - always a treat to see Mirror Master written by Morrison. Dark humor with Dr. Light wanting to get some drugs for a date. Impotence implied. Amazed he still has the parts to lift up after Identity Crisis.

p. 18-19 - Libra. Cosmic balancer of scales. Villains to beat heroes for once? "My creed is Luthor". Classic. Twilight of the Gods mentioned - reference to lost Alan Moore's proposed "final crisis" or opera? Both? Neither?

p. 20 - Martian Manhunter burned far easier than he should have been. Hard to capture, harder to kill. Will likely survive... somehow.

p. 22-23 - Evil New Gods reborn. Children as slaves. Named Anti-Life. Equation found?

p. 24-25 - Green Alpha Lantern's sealing Earth off. Beginning of the End?

p. 26-27 - Earth 51 gone. 52-51= 0? New Earth the foundation. Foundation cracking?

p. 28-29 - Confusing. Many monitors. Crime to love. Crime to show emotion? Too much like Guardians. Too much like Watchers. And yet... metaphor? No longer nameless guardians. No longer the same, day after day. "Faceless once. We all now have names and stories. There are heroes and villains... secrets and lovers." Metaphor for how superheroes in American comics progressed from generic guardians to fully developed characters?

p. 30-31 - First hero meets last hero. Statute of Liberty... where are apes who evolved from man?

p. 32 - Who is this man? Another god reborn?






p. 1-3 - Amazed nobody before now made a Japanese hero called "Rising Son". Rising Son's criticism of Japanese heroes who just hang around in clubs and reminiscing over Japan's proud tradition of heroism, particularly giant monster fight.. metaphor for modern relationship-based Japanese Manga of today being inferior to classic action Manga of 1950s and 1960s Japan?

p. 4-7 - Japanese superheroes. Stereotypes, but not as bad as Morrison's Chinese superhero team. Sonny Sumo is likable character. Bar brawls between costumed heroes - reference to Kingdom Come? More 'beginning of the end' references...

p. 8 - Shilo Norman - the human Mister Miracle - forming a team to fight reborn Evil New Gods. Good New New Gods?

p. 9 - Mysterious man from before. Nobody trapped in lousy job. Doodling heroes. Looking for magic words. Another New God or a metaphor for comic fans?

p. 10-11 - Dan Turpin survived encounter with Anti-Life children. How? Roughing up Mad Hatter - trail leads to Bludhaven.

p. 12 - superhero funeral. pray for resurrection. Another metaphor or foreshadowing?

p. 13-14 - Luthor makes his demands. What does Libra really want? What does Human Flame owe?

p. 15-16 - Alpha Lanterns unstable. Still, nice to see Batman shot down and having authority questioned.

p. 17 - Theotoxin - a poison for a god?

p. 18-20 - Hal Jordan possessed again? Framed? Now see why main Green Lantern book devoted to six-month flashback story.

p. 21-22 - Batman gets beaten up again for second time in as many weeks. Alpha Lantern gone rogue. Name of Kraken - another sign of end times. The Kraken that is, not Batman losing a fight.

p. 23-25 - Street preacher working for Granny Goodness. Last hero in cage with slave children. Time jumping how? Dan Turpin also wonders how he got here. A fragment of Darksied within? Scattered about world? More than one avatar?

p. 26-27 - Lois Lane dead? Don't believe it.

p. 28-30 - Barry Allen not dead? And a not-dead New God who is Death in tow? Curiouser and curiouser...

Fast Thoughts - The Week of 6/18/08 and 6/25/08

Just now got my comics. Partly due to busy work stuff and partly due to my birthday festivities last weekend.




BIRDS OF PREY #119: I know a few months ago I was wishing that Tony Bedard was writing this book. Now I'm starting to think that I should have been careful what I wished for.

Oh, don't get me wrong - there's a LOT to admire in this issue. Bedard is trying to set The Birds up on their own, taking them out of the Shadow of The Bat AND The S-Shield and - at the same time - positioning them in such a way that they can easily reabsorb Black Canary into the fold and into this book, where she belongs. There's a lot of seeds being planted, from the mysterious Visionary behind Platinum Flats to Oracle's manipulation of The Calculator. And who doesn't like seeing Manhunter at work?

Still, there's a lot of things about the issue that make me uncomfortable and worried. For one thing, The Visionary isn't an inspiring crime-lord ala The Kingpin or even Blockbuster from Chuck Dixon's 'Nightwing'. I'm also worried that they're pressing forward with the cliched "two people can't stand each other, so their obviously long-lost siblings" storyline between Misfit and Black Alice. And then there's the unanswered question as to just why Oracle has Manhunter tailing Black Canary and Green Arrow in the first place and how any reason other than the obvious - Babs is checking up on the best friend she never gets to talk to anymore -

The artwork inside the book is pretty good, though the cover... with yet another Dinah's costume is coming unzipped cleavage shot - is horrible beyond words.


CONAN OF CIMMERIA #0: A nice, basic story based around Conan's slaughter of several Vanir warriors and Robert Howard's poem Cimmeria, this issue is both a look back - in flashback paintings - of the 51 comics that came before and an introduction to the character of Conan for those who have yet to be exposed to the character through books, movies, comics or video games. We see that Conan is a man of action, but also a man of principal and compassion as he spares a younger man with a lyre, forced into combat, and urges him to go home "sing of this day... and of how Conan slew your kin." Those this reboot to a new title with a new #1 may be pointless, this comic isn't and I'll be surprised if it doesn't get an Eisner nod like Conan #0 before it did.


EX MACHINA #37: Again, regarding the pink-leather clad, conservative fighting bad girl who is now making many Republicans uncomfortable and - by proxy - Mitchell Hundred's life more difficult... I think I'm in love with a fictional character. Again.


FINAL CRISIS #2: I've decided to write all my comments on Final Crisis as separate posts from now on. Look for that later today.


GREEN LANTERN #32: The plot thickens as Johns continues to build and expand on the Green Lantern mythos and Hal Jordan's background in particular. Tying some of Hal's more powerful villains closer into his own life is an inspired idea and in doing this Johns has eclipsed John Byrne who tried - and failed - to do much the same thing in Spider-Man: Chapter One.

For some reason, it just seems to makes sense for Hector Hammond to get his telepathic powers after tampering with alien technology he doesn't understand rather than from his random discovery of an intelligence-enhancing, radioactive meteor. We also get an extended version of the first meeting between Sinestro and Hal Jordan that we saw in Green Lantern: Rebirth as well as the first ever scene I know of which depicts how Tom "Pie" Kalmaku found out about Hal's secret identity. Throw in a scene that seems to show the creation of the power behind The Red Lanterns and you have one hell of a story.


HELLBLAZER #245: The production team for a "Where Are They Now?" show about punk rockers does a story on John Constantine's old band and apparently awaken something evil as they go looking for the nightclub in Newcastle where a younger John tried to fight a demon, went mad in the process, failed to save a little girl from Hell and was blamed for the girls' murder.

John's absent for most of the issue, but his presence is felt none the less. Like many classic Batman stories where the legend of Batman and the influence of the character are felt even if the character is never seen, John Constatine's legend fills this story to the point where John's first appearance on the last page is almost gilding the lily. Another good issue for newbies who have never been exposed to the world of Hellblazer to jump on with.


HUNTRESS: YEAR ONE #4: I liked the first three issues of this series for creating an origin for Helena that didn't seem like a rehash of The Godfather or make her into a supporting player in her own origin story. I love this issue for the first meeting between Helena and a younger, pre-wheelchair Barbara Gordon and a bunch of little touches, such as..

1) Barbara being a revealed as a legal librarian. It makes perfect sense given her interest in crime-fighting as a teenager and her father putting his foot down over her becoming a cop. And as a librarian myself, I appreciate someone acknowledging that most of us are specialists in some aspect of the research sciences.

2) The idea of Bruce Wayne making his home available for a Mafia social function and then bugging his own house. Of course we've seen Bruce using his position to get information from the high class criminals before... but this is such a brilliant conceit, I'm amazed that I haven't seen it used in a Batman story before.

3) The Selina Kyle cameo. Nice continuation of the use of the character in The Long Halloween.

I know Tony Bedard just got back on the book... but we need Ivory Madison writing Birds of Prey as soon as he is ready to move on to something else.


JACK OF FABLES #23: Ex Machina is probably the best written book I read every month. And Fables is the best overall package. But for my money, no book can quite get me to laugh like all the bits with Babe, The Blue Ox in this book. And the main story with bandit king Gentleman Jack Candle in the Ol' West staying one step ahead of Sheriff Bigby Wolf is a good one too.


JUSTICE LEAGUE OF AMERICA #22: Some say that Brad Meltzer is the best writer working at DC when it comes to getting inside the character's heads and giving us a story that may not have a lot of action, but perfectly captures the heart and spirit of a character.

With all due respect, these people are full of it. Because Dwayne McDuffie - in this single issue - has built upon every thing Brad Meltzer did in his one year on JLA and then blown it out of the water as...

* An incorporable Red Tornado answers more questions than we ever wanted to know about his sex life and proposes to his long-term, common-law wife.

* Vixen pours her heart out about her failing powers to ex-boyfriend Bronze Tiger.

* Superman goes Dr. Phil, and gives Roy Harper his philosophy on how conflict and arguments benefit a relationship.

* Black Canary takes charge and actually acts how a professional woman, a legacy hero and the leader of the Justice League SHOULD act when she finds out that one of her teammates has been lying to the team and been putting them in danger. She chews Vixen out, kicks her off the team and dismisses all requests for leniency.

* She then pulls Vixen aside, and because Dinah has always been a nurturer as well as a warrior, asks what she can do to help Vixen with her problems.

* Batman actually loses a fight. This happens so rarely, I thought I should mention it.

As I've said before, give McDuffie the freedom to write his own stories, and he's one of the best writers on the planet. Shame he's stuck with Ed "Cheesecake" Benes on art... but you can't have everything, I guess.


KNIGHTS OF THE DINNER TABLE #140: Just in time for Convention-Season, all the standard storylines went on hold for this tribute to traveling to the convention. From bad road-trips to surly gate guards and the magical powers a chainmail bikini can bestow upon a girl amidst gamers, this issue is something that comic geeks and game geeks can both enjoy. If you've ever been curious about KoDT, this is a good issue to jump on with.

Three Week Catch-Up - Comic Reviews for 5/29, 6/04 and 6/11

To all my fans: Sorry this took so long. I am alive. Just ludicrously busy with work, acting gigs, computer problems, car problems and the end of the world as we know it.

To all of my detractors: Sorry. I haven't quit or decided to hang it up just yet.

Three weeks of what we will charitably call "Fast Thoughts" behind the cuts.