Knights Of The Dinner Table #195 - A Review

As I noted before in my review of last month's Knights of the Dinner Table, I don't usually write reviews for this book.  And yet, here I am - reviewing it again one month later.  Why?  Did I suddenly have some change of heart regarding this book being inaccessible to non-gamers?  Well, yes and no.

I still think that a large part of the humor of this book - enjoyable as it is to me - would fly over the heads of new readers.  However, in the wake of KODT #195, I think the greater problem is the rich continuity between the characters rather than this book's focus upon a minority within a niche group - comic fans who roleplay.  Truth be told there's very little direct gamer humor in the book now and most of the comedy is born of the conflicting personalities and the interplay between them rather than three idiots thinking a gazebo is some kind of monster. 

More than that, KODT now contains enough drama to match the comedy.  A fine example of this comes in one scene between Sara (the book's main female protagonist) and local game shop owner Pete, during a gamer gathering at the local biker bar.  It's been a running gag since the beginning how many of the men in the local gaming community have a crush on Sara - a fact that mystifies her.  Pete suggests to her that it isn't that she's a woman who games - it's the fact that she's a genuinely nice person and that most of the men she knows aren't used to anyone being nice to them.  


It's a brief moment and it's immediately off-set by the running gag about Pete bad-mouthing his ex when he's drunk but it's still there.  And it's far deeper than one would expect given that Pete is usually portrayed as a miserly skin-flint who would sell his own mother for a deal.  This scene also hit me because I know a few women like Sara who have the same problem with being hit on because of the assumption that "being nice equals "digs me" and not knowing why their being a decent person seems to bring unwanted advances. 

This is also shown in the comedic highlight of the issue, where the rest of the titular Knights are indulging in one of the gathering games - creating characters based on some of the people in attendance.  There's a lot of funny stuff in here, mainly stemming from the unwitting misogyny as our boys wind up turning their friends, ex-girlfriends and current love interests into action heroines worthy of a Quentin Tarantino/Robert Rodriguez/Frank Miller film festival.  B.A's reaction to the absurdity of all of this is priceless and the descriptions and ideas are hilarious but a bit of the humor is lost if you don't know all the characters being described, such as Moe and Bridgette. who do not appear in this issue. 


As before, I can't really recommend this comic to neophytes.  I can and do strongly suggest that anyone who thinks they might like this sort of thing check out the collection of freebie strips on Kenzerco's website and then consider in investing in the earlier Bundle of Trouble collections of the earlier issues. 

Knights of the Dinner Table #194 - A Review

Knights of the Dinner Table is a comic I've picked up monthly without fail for over a decade now.  Despite this, it's not a comic I review all that often.  There's more than a few reasons for that.  Chief among them are that it's now more of a magazine than a comic book, with over half its' pages now devoted toward articles on game reviews, gamer war-stories and content for publisher Kenzer and Company's own RPG releases.  I also can't really critique the artwork, most of which is copy-pasted from the original character sketches by writer/artist Jolly Blackburn's original comics nearly 20 years ago.


Another issue is that the humor of the comics in KODT is aimed at a niche market that doesn't include the greater number of comic-book readers.  Unless you're an old-school pen-and-paper gamer, much of the humor will likely be lost on you.  That is not to say that there isn't some comedy based on the character's personalities.  Indeed, KODT has a huge cast and the brunt of the humor now comes from the conflict between warring factions and personalities.  Even with the helpful Stan Lee style footnote boxes at the bottom of some pages, it is hard for a new reader to pick up the newest issue and understand immediately about what is going on and who hates who and why.

Case in point.  As this issue opens, the cast is newly returned from a big gaming convention.  Brian, one of the titular Knights, has been thrown off his game and finds himself unable to focus on anything gaming related after seemingly having been given a  set of cursed dice by gamer goddess Felicia Day.  In truth, the dice were sent to him by Shelia - girlfriend of Bob, one of Brian's gaming group, who has longed nursed a grudge against Brian for several reasons, including nearly getting Bob killed by a semi-feral dice-hording cat.  The rest of the Knights know about Shelia's trick but all of them - even those not sworn to secrecy by Shelia - are reluctant to break the bad news to Brian. 


At the same time, local game shop owner Weird Pete has announced a Liberation Day sale at his store, in honor of his recent victory over Brian in a World War Two board game the two have been running for years. This crosses-0over with Bob's conflict between his oldest friend and girlfriend (Bob works Pete's store) and brings us an update on Crutch. Crutch, a local biker/petty thug who got into gaming while in prison, recently decided to start game-mastering his own crew but has proven unable to get a team together. And then there's the on-going story of Pete's gaming group, The Black Hands, and their attempts to take over the kingdom their characters live in through running a farm that is becoming more and more of a forced labor camp/militia.

And that's just the story lines covered in THIS issue!

Knights of the Dinner Table used to be a fun comic full of simple jokes but it has grown heavy under the weight of its' own expanded universe.  It's a fine thing for those of us who have been reading since the beginning (or, at least, somewhat closer to the beginning) but that same rich universe makes this book largely inaccessible to new readers.  I can't recommend this issue whole-heartedly but I will suggest that comedy fans look into acquiring one of the KODT Bundles of Trouble or Tales From The Vault collections that either collect the smaller strip collections or self-contained story-lines.  You can also check out Kenzer And Company's collection of free web-strips. 

Random Bits Before The Weekend Beigns

1. I didn't write any reviews last week because I only got one book - Knights of the Dinner Table: Blackhands Special #2

2. It was very funny. The only reason I don't review the KODT books here on a regular basis is that - well, there's only so much I can say about a book that utilizes an unchanging art/writing team, based around the humor of a non-mainstream hobby (i.e. role-playing games). Suffice it to say, if you're any kind of gamer, you will probably love Knights of the Dinner Table and should check out some of the sample strips on their website.

3. I'll be writing my reviews for everything I got this past Wednesday on Monday. Been a busy week at work and I've got quite a lot going on this weekend.

4. I wasn't going to review it until I got caught up on back issues, but I would like to say before then that the new Batgirl book rocks. Seriously, this is the happy, upbeat book centered upon an interesting young heroine that we've been dying to see for a while.

5. If anybody wants to pay for my DC Online membership, I'll be more than happy to write a review of the game ASAP. If not, it will have to wait until I've recovered from paying my car insurance for the next six months.

6. The only reason I didn't write anything about Joe Quesada stepping down as Marvel's EIC is because nothing is going to change so long as he is still their CCO.

Fast Thoughts On The Comics Released The Week of 02/03/2010

CINDERELLA: FROM FABLETOWN WITH LOVE #4 - I love this mini-series SO much. It reminds me of why I loved Fables so much before Bill Willingham began phoning it in. And I especially loved this one - even though the shoe-making subplot has been brought to it's obvious and inevitable conclusion - because it let me see the Fables take on one of my favorite characters as a kid - Puss N'Boots.





It may be too late to catch the early issues at a reasonable price, but you should all definitely consider ordering the trade-paperback.



CONAN THE CIMMERIAN #18 - More flashbacks as we learn how Conan lost one command only to gain another, much more to his liking as a leader of fighters rather than as a leader of men.





One touch I did like here was how the cliche of Conan's boorishness and/or a princess's fickleness leading to violent conflict is avoided. Despite an undignified dismissal at the hands of his rival and Conan's angry response, Conan is still allowed to leave the kingdom unmolested and actual parts ways in relatively good circumstances.



DOCTOR WHO #8 - A stirring conclusion to last issue's cliff-hanger, with the Doctor and his new companions weathering an assault that leaves the TARDIS coming apart at the seams and The Doctor struggling to find a path back to the control room.

We do start to get a sense of The Doctor's new companions (Emily Winter and Matthew Finnegan) here, as our villain attempts to sow dissension in the ranks. Indeed, the villain offers a rather insidious explanation for why it is The Doctor seems to take on more female companions than male ones and why he only ever seems to take male companions on under duress. It's frightening but it does make a rather odd sense given most of the women The Doctor has adopted, so to speak. And it sets Matthew to questioning everything about just why he is traveling with The Doctor. Emily doesn't get quite as much development, being sort of a Rose Lite here, but at least she is presented as being spirited and competent, even if her main accomplishment here is persuading a group of aliens to take her where she needs to go.

Not a bad issue by any means but I can't help be feel sort of nonplussed at the ending. Not two issues into a story where The Doctor picks up some new companions and is getting ready to move on to new and better things... he's getting called by Martha, begging for help.

If this comic really is going to fill in some stories in the gap between Season Four and The Specials, I think it would be best if it did it free of most of the trappings of the regular series. If we are to enjoy the new companions, let us enjoy the new companions for a bit before dragging Martha back into the mix.



KNIGHTS OF THE DINNER TABLE #158 - We go back to basics with most of the comics this time around, getting several short, funny slice-of-life comics depicting the various games and events involving the gamers of Muncie, Indiana. They're all pretty funny but my favorite is Bob's understandable confusion to Weird Pete's return to a dark and illegal business that he swore off in college even as he now swears to keep it out of his turf and out of the hands of kids.

What? He means weighted dice. What did you think he was talking about?

The Gaming The Movies column continues to be a waste of paper and a sad replacement for the gamer movie reviews of Spoony from The Spoony Expriment. This month, they discuss the Underworld movies and how you can use them and other resources for your Vampire/Werewolf themed role-playing games. (sarcasm) I'm sure this is wonderful news for all of you numerous White Wolf players who had NO IDEA that these movies were here. (/sarcasm)

They even talk about other movies and book series you can use for your game. Because we really need a three-page column to tell us how you can steal ideas from Blade and Dresden Files for an RPG.


WARLORD #11 - A few more flashbacks this time around but we finally get some action toward the end and a little bit better idea of what Grell has been building us towards for the past few months as well as an explanation regarding just how the magic/science of big bad Demios has caused some of the series events to occur.

It's a must read for any fan of good fantasy.

One Good Thing And One Bad Thing About Knights of the Dinner Table #155

GOOD THING: More convention-based hilarity, as the gang reunites and finds out that that the LARP they signed up for is a war game: not a fantasy RPG.

BAD THING: The Gaming The Movies column still stinks on ice.

Comic Reviews - 09/30/09 and 10/07/09

I still haven't gotten my comics for this last week yet and I probably won't be able to until next weekend. Still, I have two weeks worth to catch up on... so let's get to it, as I give you my thoughts on the issues of the past two weeks plus one page scan (or, in one case, one scan made up of parts of two pages that go better together) from each book.

So come along, if you are at all interested in Batman: The Widening Gyre #2, Blackest Night: Titans #2, , Green Lantern #46, Jack of Fables #38, Knights Of The Dinner Table #154, Warlord #7 and Wonder Woman #36



BATMAN: THE WIDENING GYRE #2 - Kevin Smith's writing seems to be hit and miss with most people; you either hate it or you love it. With me, it hits. And in reading this most recent issue, I've noticed something regarding one of the more common complaints about Smith's take on Batman; specifically, how Smith's Batman curses and uses common slang.

"I'm embarrassed I let him run me this far. Look at him, the big fat mess. Under any other circumstances, at this point, I'm watching Gordon's men load him into the meat wagon, with breaks that will never heal. You're so lucky you fat, bloated turd... So lucky you're holding that kid. He plays the hostage card, banking on me going after the (falling) girl instead of him. Dammit... I hate being predictable."

The interesting thing is that after this issue I think I can justify this by comparing it to Principal Skinner from The Simpsons and the old line "I know you can read my thoughts, Bart. Just a little reminder - if i find out you cut class, your ass is mine! Yes, you heard me. I THINK words I'd never SAY." Because if you look carefully throughout this book - and Smith's other Batman works - you'll note that Batman never actually says "Dammit." or "You bastard!" or the like... but he sure does THINK them loud.

This is not to say that this isn't jarring for those of us who aren't used to getting an internal dialogue in a Batman book. They haven't been in vogue for a while now. And Smith's other great flaw is that the story so far - and this issue in particular - go all OVER the place on the fanboy in-joke/continuity scale.

Here's the quick summary: We start out with Batman in an amusement park, fighting a child molester/serial killer with a hostage who appears so have been taken from the Doll's House book of Neil Gaiman's Sandman. Batman has a quick flashback to himself and Robin fighting Toyman with an assist from Superman. He returns home to have a quiet moment with longtime 70's love interest Silver St. Cloud. And the issue ends with Batman going after Cornelius Stirk -a telepathic cannibal from the Dark Age of Comics. And throughout all of this, there is a mysterious goat-masked hero who is helping Batman out from the shadows

Yes, that's the QUICK summary.

So what does Smith get right? A lot more than he gets wrong, for my money.

While the story does go over the place and is a bit reference heavy, Smith explains it all effortlessly and without making it feel like he's info-dumping on the reader. And the Funland reference is more of an Easter Egg for Sandman fans more than anything, as you don't have to have read Doll's House to appreciate this story.

And I must say that more than any writer in recent memory, I do love Smith's take on Alfred.

The artwork is excellent as well, with Walt Flanaghan effortlessly switching between 70's kitsch, 80's grit and 90's horror as the scene warrants.

All in all, it's not so great that you can't wait for the trade but there are much worse things to spend your money on if you're up for a good classic Batman story.



BLACKEST NIGHT: TITANS #2 - This book is pretty much what we were afraid all of the Blackest Night tie-ins would be; a pitiful excuse for the heroes of the DC Universe to get smacked around by super-powered zombies, while being written horribly out of character.

And I'd like to officially nominate Donna Troy for the title of Dumbest Heroine Ever just for this moment alone.

What's that? My dead husband wants me to hold my dead son? No problem!




GREEN LANTERN #46 - This issue is titled Uneasy Alliance. And boy does that sum it up.

* Hal Jordan, Sinestro, Carol Ferris and Indigo One form the titular Uneasy Alliance as Zamaron is captured by the Black Lanterns.

* We find out that the mysterious dead couple, whose endless love created the violet star sapphires that the Zamarons used to power their love-based Corps were a previous reincarnation of Hawkman and Hawkgirl. Way to tie it together, Johns!

* Sinestro finally confronts - and defeats - Mongul, as they fight for control over the fear-powered Sinestro Corps. Bonus Points - Sinestro does this in order to save the homeworld that has shunned him. Nice thematic resonance for the Green Lantern saga as the idea of a hero having to save the people who rejected his heroism has come up several times (Hal saving the Earth after the Parallax incident, Sodam Yat saving Daxam...)

Lots of cool moments, but for my money, the best is Carol giving voice to the thoughts that 90% of the reading audience had about the new Star Sapphire uniform.

JACK OF FABLES #38 - Not much to tell in this issue. Jack is continuing to get fatter and balder. His son, Jack Frost, has undertaken his first serious quest as a hero. Plot wise nothing much has changed. So now for something completely different - the adventures of Babe The Blue Ox!

KNIGHTS OF THE DINNER TABLE #154 - A nice jumping-on issue for those who have been curious about this book but haven't dared tried an issue yet because of the on-going storylines. The Knights and The Black Hands gear up to go to a gaming convention but Bob, Dave and Brian get locked in Brian's basement before they can get on the road.

Hilarity ensues as three gamers resort to children's board games in order to get their gaming fix, though playing Mystery Date using the cards from a nudie playing card deck in lieu of the actual dates is rather inspired as are Bob's attempts to run a Hackmaster campaign without his usual gear.

Who would have thought you could turn Clue into Ravenloft? Only a mad genius like Bob!



WARLORD #7 - Honestly, how much you will enjoy this issue will depend upon four factors.

1. How much you like Mike Grell's writing.
2. How much you like Mike Grell's artwork.
3. Your tolerance for mystery stories where you are left to puzzle things out along with the hero.
4. How much you like big pages with lots of artwork, few panels and a good deal of violence and near nudity - both male and female.

My one complaint? I wish Grell had done this as a Vertigo series, because the lengths taken to keep the toga-clad virgin from showing anything while she is running around and falling out of her ripped garment are just comically ridiculous. Give that man points for being inventive, though.



WONDER WOMAN #36 - Taking it as read that anything Gail Simone writes is brilliant and funny, what else can I say about this issue?

I like how the contrived romance with Nemesis started and promoted by the previous writing teams has finally been ended.

I like how Giganta calls a momentary truce to talk relationship conflicts with a clearly upset Diana - something she can full well relate to being a growing supervillain who is dating a shrinking superhero. (The Atom shout out for the win!)

I like the continued resistance that the female amazons (especially the former queen's honor guard) show to their new male counterparts.

But mostly? I love this moment as Diana confronts the newly-crowned Amazon King Achilles.

If you aren't reading this book, you should be.

Thoughts On Nearly Everything I Read In August

There's a few things I feel the need to write full reviews for. So apart from all those books (and all the Blackest Night tie-ins, which are going to get their own post), here are my thoughts on everything else I've read this mont.



CONAN THE CIMMERIAN #12 - The Black Colossus adaptation comes to a close but not quite soon enough for my tastes. Don't get me wrong - this was a good read. But it did feel slightly padded in the middle chapters. Some characters can benefit from decompressed storytelling but Conan is not one of them. And they fail to save the ending of the story (Conan ravishes a princess on the altar of the evil god he just saved her from being sacrificed too) from seeming cliched, even though this is probably one of the most definitive sword and sorcery tales ever.


DOCTOR WHO #2 - Your love of this issue will depend upon two factors; how much of a Doctor Who fan you are and your ability to cope with a silent-film tribute in the middle part of the issue, where the Doctor's pursuit of the villain becomes a Keystone Cops skit. Take that as you will - but note that I loved it.


DOCTOR WHO: COLD BLOODED WAR - Another Doctor/Donna tale, this one centers upon the duo being dragged into a civil war regarding sexism and monarchies in the Draconian empire. Ugly artwork distracts from a decent story where Donna does more to save the day than The Doctor. Only required reading for the most dedicated of Whovians.


EX MACHINA #44 - The plot thickens. More is revealed about the source of Mitchell Hundred's amazing powers and the purpose he was meant to serve. It is awesome. Get the trades and start from Issue #1 if you aren't already reading this book.


FABLES #87 - Oh good. After last month's origin of just how Mr. Dark escaped from his prison and a crossover which has nearly ignored the mental breakdown of one of my favorite characters in the whole series (Rose Red), I'm overjoyed to see that this issue... continues to ignore her breakdown and instead focuses upon all the bad evil magic stuff that is now running loose and the power struggle among the witches of what was the 13th Floor.

*sighs* You'd think at least Snow White would give a damn about her sister and what might have happened what with Jack raping her. But no - Red Rose doesn't even get a bloody mention, though Bigby, Beast and Cole can't stop talking about what a scoundrel Jack is without even MENTIONING Rose.


HELLBLAZER #258 - Crap. Utter crap. The art is about the same as ever - and that's not a good thing - but Milligan makes multiple continuity mistakes that only further aggravate the problems with his portrayal of John Constantine. To make a long story short, John tries to use his magic powers to resurrect his murdered girlfriend - something which, according to the widely available and very popular Hellblazer story Son of Man - you CAN NOT do with magic under any circumstances. Throw in John, who is no idiot, trying to use a magical device that depends on the user being pure... yeah. John hasn't been written this sleazily or stupid since the Brian Azzarello days. In my personal continuity, these stories DID NOT HAPPEN. Period.


JACK OF FABLES #37 - Jack is going bald and fat. Gary lost his power to make inanimate things come to life. And somewhere in the Homelands, Jack Frost - son of Jack Horner - is embarking upon a quest to become a great hero or at least a much better person than his parents. At last this book is still awesome and knows how to keep a plot thread going.


KNIGHTS OF THE DINNER TABLE #153 - Most of the comic space is devoted toward some of the series regulars playing a Car Wars style board game, which is quite amusing. The on-going stories advance somewhat, with magical things being afoot in Bagworld and the fight for who owns Hackmaster getting ready to go into overdrive.

The Gaming At The Movie column continues to be a blight upon the printed page, with this month's column advising you on how to best rip-off the Pirates of the Caribbean movies for your D&D campaign. Yeah - I'll still clear of anything which advises me to use Jack Sparrow as an GM NPC who "wouldn't overshadow the player characters."

Son, if you're doing CAPTAIN Jack Sparrow any justice, he'll steal every scene he's in. Savvy?


POWER GIRL #4 - Pure unadulterated win. The best new book to come out this year.


RED SONJA #47 - Last issue, Sonja was racing northward against her sworn enemy toward their mutual vague goal. This issue... they are both still racing northward toward their mutual vague goal. But Sonja does kill her traitorous sister and give her niece up to another family. And then at the end of the issue, everyone is STILL racing northward toward their mutual vague goal.

The one bit of good news? Apparently the series is ending and restarting as Queen Sonja, with Mel Rubi returning as artist and a good writer this time!

Knights of the Dinner Table #151 & #152

Well, they sure knew what they were doing when they named Issue #151 Jump The Shark as I'm sure the letter columns and message boards at Kenzer & Company will be flooded with people accuses them of coping out and giving into that oldest of comic book cliches; the character who is not really dead.

But you know what? Screw it.

The truth is that I'm more excited about the return of Gary Jackson after his apparently death than I am about Steve Rogers returning. And unlike that story-line, it turns out that this one was planned out well in advanced and isn't just a desperate grab for readers from an ever-dwindling customer base.

But more entertaining than the subplot with Gary Jackson returning (and the strips explaining just how they have been hinting to his not really being dead for a while) is the strips detailing the player outrage at Heidi Jackson's "New and Improved" Hackmaster, which clever readers might have noticed subtly parallels many gamer complaints about 4th Edition Dungeons and Dragons. In this case, I am using an obscure meaning of the word subtly which means "as subtle as a silver dragon attempting to tap dance."

It's a good laugh, though - as are the strips detailing gamer group 'The Black Hands' inadvertent use of a cattle stampede as a weapon as well as Bob returning to playing a thief for the first time in a long while and a contest between the local GMs as to how far they can get their players to lower themselves for bonus XP. ("I'm pretty sure naked Twister is illegal in the state of Indiana...")

I wish I could hold the same praise for the columns of this magazine as I do for the comics. Sadly, I cannot.

Comic Critic Tony DiGerolamo proves - as he reviews the Faces of Evil: Kobra one-shot - that he is in desperate need of an editor or treatment for temporal confusion, as he starts out talking about how Kobra was the inspiration for Cobra from G.I. Joe at the start of the review and then complains about Kobra being a Cobra Commander rip-off at the end of the review.

He also complains about Kobra's goals not being as clearly defined as a real terrorist group like Al Queda. Forgiving that that may be because Kobra's more of a doomsday religious cult than a terrorist group, it's not like Cobra's ultimate goals were all that well defined either.

Curiously, he seems to slam the DC books at the same time that he is praising all the Marvel materials. A fandom bias? Must investigate further.

And of course, what review of Knights of the Dinner Table magazine would be complete without mentioning the stupidity that is Gaming At The Movies and mourning the loss of former gamer movie critic Spoony?

The basic way this column works is that the guy who writes it rehashes the plot of a classic movie, tells you what game systems could be used to replicate that movie and then gives you GameMaster 101 Advice on how to run a game using that scenario... ignoring the fact that most novice GMs already rip off movies to create their adventures.

Last month, he spoke about how you could recreate Apocalypse Now in space. This month, he spoke about how you could create a really great superhero game based on X-Men.

You know... I can rant about this all day. But I think it's more effective to let the words speak for themselves. From the most recent column, about how to use the X-Men movies to provide fodder for your superhero RPG...

At the heart of any X-Men campaign is the tension between fearful humans, altruistic X-Men and believers in mutant supremacy.

Because there aren't any humans who don't fear mutants, altruistic believers in mutant supremacy or X-Men who are just in it to save their own asses because it's easier to hide in a school than go to war.

Collateral Destruction is always fun.

And you wonder why humanity hates and fears you?

Death of a mutant is quite rare.

What X-Men books have YOU been reading, bub?

Remember the player characters are the heroes. Don't let them be overshadowed by other known X-Men or mutants.

If you need to be told to make your players the stars of the game, you should hang up your GM Screen NOW.

Overall, KODT is still the best gamer magazine on the market. Just skip that stuff in the back half between the comics and the other comics.

Fast Thoughts - The Week of 05/13/09

This time: Another War of Light Battlefield Report, a double-size Knights of the Dinner Table, a review of Power Girl (finally!) and the funniest issue of Secret Six yet!



FABLES #84 - The great crossover continues, with Jack's bastard son finally catching up with dear old dad as Jack throws the Animal Farm into semi-chaos by masquerading (somewhat accidentally) as a resurrected Boy Blue and romancing a listless, depressed and suicidal Rose Red. Again, I shall say it; grab the trades and catch up on this book ASAP.


GREEN LANTERN CORPS #36 - Okay. Not a lot of expansion on the Green Lantern Mythos here, but a lot of good character moments and some information that will likely be vitally important later.

* Sinestro reveals exactly how he has a daughter who is now a Green Lantern. Long story short - Mom went into hiding and gave the daughter to her friends to raise after a political argument with Sinestro - something he agreed to wanting to keep his daughter safe and having some idea of the battle he would be fighting to "save" his world from chaos.

* Along with the prophecy about the threat to his planet he received from Empire of Tears member and Red Lantern leader Atrocitus, Sinestro also received this prophesy: Two Korugarians with One Mind and One Corps to right all that is wrong in this corrupted and darkening universe. He believes it refers to himsekf and Soranik and warns her that the Red Lanterns intend to kill his daughter but, for now, they have no idea who precisely she is.

* Things are becoming nine kinds of worse inside the sealed prison levels underneath Oa.

* Back on the Fear-Corps beseiged planet of Daxam, Green Lantern Sodam Yat makes an apparent suicide run on his planet's red sun in order for reasons that are too complicated to go into. Suffice it to say, I can't wait for the next issue.


KNIGHTS OF THE DINNER TABLE #150 - Annoyingly, none of this issue's comics deal with the major cliff-hanger that came of the end at last issue. But for a ten-years-in-the-making sequel to the classic "Luck of the McCaw" pirate RPG story as well as Sara's revenge on the guys for killing her character on the weekend she was away from the game, I can deal with it. All this, and an honest-to-dawg "Dawg, The Roleplaying Game" based on cast character BA's infamous failed first attempt at publishing an RPG, all for $9.00 American.


POWER GIRL #1 - My shop was sold out of this last week, so make of that what you will regarding the quality of this book. Sure, Amanda Conner's artwork is heavy on the cheesecake. But like PeeGee herself, buxom and showing it doesn't equate to exploitative. And you have to give props to any comic that follows the First Rule of DC Comics; when in doubt, have the hero fight a gorilla. And when said gorilla is a psychic madman known as the The Ultra-Humanite, you just know it's got to be even better.


SECRET SIX #9 - A Battle For The Cowl tie-in that really isn't, this issue sees the Secret Six reduced down to a Recondite Trio as Bane and Catman work to stop a series of anarchist attacks on the children of noted captains of industry as Ragdoll tags along to play Boy/Girl/It Wonder... in his/her/its' own Robin costume.

Honestly, Ragdoll steels the show every issue but this one was a more difficult battle than usual with Catman - the most moral of the Secret Six - playing at being a hero because there's a part of him that honestly DOES want to be a hero and Bane playing at heroism because of his own issues with children being endangered. All the while, both of them deny their own heroic impulses AND that either one of them would wish to follow in Batman's footsteps. But even the touching scene Bane gets with a child he is horribly unprepared to comfort and Catman's own "awwwww" moment cannot compete with Ragdoll facing the revelation that ANYTHING sounds perverse when he says it... and proceeds to spend most of the rest of the issue testing that.

"Pea Pods! Velvety Throw Pillows! Tuna Salad! Hold the Mayonnaise! Ewwwwwwwwww!"

Greatness. Absolute greatness. And I'm not just saying that because Simone writes a heroic Bane the same way I wrote a heroic Bane, once upon a time during one of my few stabs at fanfic.

Fast Thoughts - The Week of 4/1/09

Particularly fast this week because I only got one book apart from The Flash:Rebirth #1



FLASH: REBIRTH #1 - Well, in case you haven't read my humorous and graphic-less summary of the plot (what plot?), I was less than impressed.

Johns is one of my favorite writers but he seemed to be running on auto-pilot, no pun intended. Thrusting a dead parent and an angsty trauma into the life of Barry Allen just seems to be counter-productive, given that the apparent hook of the character (as we are told repeatedly) is how honest, decent and simple a man Barry Allen is. Turning his father into an apparent murderer who killed his own wife doesn't add anything to Barry's backstory and is - from what little I know of The Flash history Johns is supposedly a slave to - completely contradictory.

Simply put, there's very little going on here that we didn't already see in Green Lantern: Rebirth, leaving me to wonder if maybe this should have been called The Flash: Rerun


KNIGHTS OF THE DINNER TABLE #149 - I'm disappointed that after the major bombshell of last issue (i.e. Tuley - the heart and soul of Hard 8 since Gary Jackon's passing - decides to leak the new "improved" version of Hackmaster to the public), that we didn't see any development of this thread this issue.

That's not to say that there's not some good stuff here, with Bob successfully convincing B.A. to let him run a descendant of his famous thief character Knuckles and the Black Hand's Cattlepunk game descending into even deeper depths of depravity as a real old-wet legend enters the game. All this and a cliff-hanger that is likely the biggest fakeout in KODT history.

Fast Thoughts - The Week of 2/25/09

CONAN THE CIMMERIAN #8 - A new story arc begins and no more stories of Conan's grandfather. We begin with a gorgeously illustrated retelling of the first chapter of Howard's Black Colossus and continue on to Conan's first time joining an army. Lots of good character moments here, including Conan righting a toppled statue of Mitra - not out of worship or respect but practicality.

Line Of The Issue: "Conan feared no god but Crom. Still, why tempt the ire of another... especially in that god's land?"


GREEN LANTERN #38 - Lots going on here, most of it tying into the War of Light. For those of you keeping score at home...

* A newly single Carol Ferris, while trying to get a hold of Hal, is once again ensnared by the Star Sapphire, becoming one of several Star Sapphire agents for the Zamarons now backing the Violet Lantern Corps of Love.

* Hal Jordan - after being enslaved by the power of a Red Lantern Ring, is able to make projections of red fire. Something that none of the other Red Lanterns were capable of.

* The Blue Lanterns have one rather huge weakness. Their rings only work so long as they have an active Green Lantern to piggy-back off of. So once Hal goes over to the Red Side... poof for the Blue Lanterns.

* Slapping a Blue Lantern Ring on someone wearing a Red Lantern Ring can burn out the Red Ring and restore the person's mind... but Hal is now stuck in some kind of weird power-feedback loop from wearing Blue and Green rings at the same time.

* Sinestro escaped to Qward in the middle of the fight between the Blue Lanterns and the Red Lanterns. He is aware of Mongul's attempts to rebuild The Yellow Lantern Fear Corps on Daxam and plans to fight him for control of the Corps... as soon as he attends to "a family matter" on his home world, which he must tend to immediately thanks to Atrocitus, the Red Lantern leader.

* Though we haven't seen them in any stories yet, John Stewart will apparently be the first to fight The Orange Lanterns of Greed.

So yeah... great stuff!

Line Of The Issue: "Hope is nothing without the Willpower to enact it."


JACK OF FABLES #31 - Wow. Just... wow.

Line Of The Week: "I'd love to say I had some happy memories of the place. But I only had sex there seven times. And aside from the tacos, the food was uniformly terrible. Still, all in all, I DID have sex there seven times. So I guess it wasn't such a bad place."


KNIGHTS OF THE DINNER TABLE #148 - Things continue to build toward Issue #150 as pressure builds on several fronts. Bob has lost his character and Brian is already plotting on how to exploit the loss to his own advantage. The Blackhands continue their disastrous Cattlepunk game. And the riots at Hard 8 over the "new and improved" editon of Hackmaster are quelled... but one staff member may be ready to make the ultimate act of betrayal for the love of the game.

Line Of The Week: "Ya know - when you're driving a thousand head of cattle a thousand miles... Probably not a good idea to DRIVE THEM ON FOOT!!!"


WONDER WOMAN #29 - There's STILL a lot about this book that confuses me. How Cheetah is now almost as fast as The Flash. Why Donna Troy just freaked out and abandoned Diana in mid-fight. And who the hell this new villain Genocide is... or what she is. On the other hand, this comic does feature a one-on-one battle between Ancient Greek God of Thunder and Lightning Zeus and Hawaiian God Of The Heavens, Kāne Milohai... so the parts that confuse me are balanced out by the purely awesome god battle. So yeah... take that for what you will.

Line Of The Issue: "You may give birth to the thunder and lightning, Zeus. But their canvas is mine. And the heavens have fire, as well."

Fast Thoughts - The Week of 1/21/09

A bigger week than usual for me. Sadly, a lackluster one. But amazingly, the books that have disappointed me the most of late were the ones that excited me the most this month.




BIRDS OF PREY #126 - Good news - most of the gigantic waste of space that was The Syndicate (aka the techie-based super-villain group that has been the main source of eeeee-vil in BoP since Tony Bedard took over) has been killed off.

Bad news - in order to do that, they turned The Calculator into a Borg/Matrix Droid. This would be kind of a cheeseball move, even if the design of "Calculator 2.0" and the circumstances of his empowerment at the hands of the sentient program Kilgore seems awfully similar to when Brainiac forcibly assimilated Barbara Gordon during Gail Simone's run.

I'd drop this book if the end weren't so close.


CONAN THE CIMMERIAN #7 - Either the flashback stories of Conan's grandfather are growing on me or I didn't mind this one as much since it had a more direct bearing on the action of the on-going story than previous stories, as Conan's mother tells him of his grandfather and how the old man would wander off into the woods alone for days at a time but always returned, his wanderlust not quite so great as his desire to stay with hearth and home.

As for the current action, Conan's latest romance - and his departure from his village - are settled in perhaps the only way they could be settled. Still, the images are powerful, despite being heavily foreshadowed. I am sure Robert Howard would approve.


DOCTOR WHO: THE FORGOTTEN #6 - The Doctor sums up my own thoughts on last issue's ending beautifully with his first sentence. "... now that's just stupid." It turns out that the revelation that the ultimate villain was... well, who they said it was... another fake-out. And a beautifully pulled off one I fell for hook, line and sinker.

I don't want to spoil too much of this story or the final chapter, except to say that this is easily one of the best bits of Doctor Who writing that isn't a part of the TV Show. The eventual trade paperback is a must-read for any fan of Doctor Who.


GREEN LANTERN #37 - Geoff Johns is writing an epic here, with more and more revelations coming out with every issue as The Final Crisis ends and The Darkest Night approaches. This issue?

* Confirmation that the Red Lanterns are little more than rabid dogs with no intelligence.

* Removing a Red Lantern's ring kills them.

* Blue Lanterns can not only recharge the rings of other Corps Members at will - they can drain power from them as well, as we see in this issue as they depower a slew-load of Yellow Lanterns.

* The leader of the Red Lanterns Atrocitus (aka the guy who prophetically predicted both Abin Sur's death and Sinestro's betrayal of the Green Lantern Corps) gives Hal a prophecy. "One day, you will become renegade once more. The Guardians will take your greatest love from you. You will revolt. And you will lose everything as the universe divides." Now taking bets on if this involves Carol Ferris, Cowgirl or Hal's Family.

Please do not spoil the secret of the last page!


HELLBLAZER #251 - Somehow, I missed the news that Peter Milligan was taking over as the writer on this book from Andy Diggle. A damn shame, especially since - after the bang-up job that Diggle did on Green Arrow: Year One - I was really hoping he might wind up on Green Arrow/Black Canary if his schedule freed up.

I'm not bitter at all, mind you.

So how was Milligan's first solo issue? Well, I'm giving it another issue or two before making any big judgments... but so far, so good. Milligan has already passed my first test for any Hellblazer scribe: must be British. And I rather like John's new love interest even though I give her a cheesemaker's chance of surviving past the next issue. Still, the plot - involving John's developing a very odd scabby rash mixed with seemingly unrelated tale of a union worker turned scab in a strike - is your standard, high-quality Hellblazer concept so far. One to keep an eye on.


JUSTICE LEAGUE OF AMERICA #29 - Lame. Just... lame. I don't care if this IS setting up something for Dwayne McDuffie next month, this book looks and reads like what it is; a one-shot fill-in issue that was probably commissioned solely to be a "Faces of Evil" tie-in. The artwork leaves one longing for Ed Benes, ass-shots and all and Len Wein - while capable of writing a good Justice League story - doesn't do his legend any favors here.


KNIGHTS OF THE DINNER TABLE #147 - Not even the typically lame and lackluster 'Gaming The Movies' column could ruin this issue. With a wonderful review of Fallout 3, an article introducing a wonderful Sanity mechanic for base-line d20 games, another presumably useful article that introduces wizard familiar rules that 4th Edition D&D was somehow released without and a spattering of hilarious comics depicting things coming to Hard 8 Enterprises as well as The Black Hands attempts at a Cattlepunk game... this is the best KoDT in a goodly while.

Unsurprisingly, there are no letters praising the new column. But there was another intelligent, thoughtful letter written by a Gamers Rant fan who notes that as disappointed as he is with Jolly Blackburn's decision to knuckle under to the whims of a devoted team of trolls with too much time on their hands, he isn't going to stop reading the magazine because of it or even make threats to that effect. This proves once and for all, I think, that all intelligent, right-minded and generally dashing and handsome people support Noah Antwiler and his snarky, unapologetic reviews.

Fast Thoughts - The Week of 12/24/08

The last batch of new comics of the year.

Crap! That means I need to pick out by best of 2008 picks...



KNIGHTS OF THE DINNER TABLE #145 - The comics were funny, as usual. I particularly liked all the nice touches as to how B.A. used the previous campaigns to build upon his usual game world - all while apparently putting the screws to his players even as they cheer about how Bob's old character is being worshiped as a god while another of his characters went on to establish a splinter-group religion in an unforgiving terrain.

But the real surprise - for me at least - was that my letter on the Kenzerco forums regarding the firing of Noah Antwiler was printed. And even more surprising was how badly it was mangled by someone who apparently doesn't understand the difference between sarcasm and irony. Seriously. The version in the magazine omits my disclaimer of ironic content (included only because I know that few get Swiftian humor these days) and changes (irony) to (sarcasm).

The original letter is up here, and goes a little something like this.


WARNING: The following post contains irony and the use of sarcastic ranting as parody. The irony-impaired are advised to use caution before reading this.

(irony on)

Gaming the Movies stinks!

Seriously. We lost Gamers Rant for this?

Instead of the brilliant comedy and sarcastic kvetching of Noah Antwiler, we are - thanks to the whining of a few people who aren't trusted to handle sharp objects (my personal theory for why the "dotted-line" failed) - now being treated to a column that gives us gamemasters advice on how to strip-mine 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 how to rip-off movies and TV Shows for game fodder, whom 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." and they needed an entire three-page column on how to do this.

Wow. Thank you, Jim Davenport. Thank you for this great service you have done for the gaming community - devoting three pages to giving instructions on how to do what 90% of all hack gamemasters already do!

(irony off)

In all seriousness, I think the new movie column is a poor substitute for The Gamer's Rant. Not only does it lack the humor that I read KODT for - it's also fundamentally useless as a column since all of it's advice boils down to "Rip This Off For Your Game" (which I don't think most GM's need someone to tell them to do) and it's reviews read like transcripts of the old Chris Farley Show skits on Saturday Night Live (Remember when you walked across the broken glass in Die Hard? That was awesome!)

I'll still keep reading the KODT, of course. As a customer who buys through my FLGS instead of the website, I already know - by The Powers That Be's own admission - that my opinion is worth less than that of those of other fans. But I have too much self-respect to troll the boards and I'm happy with Noah's work at The Spoony Experiment. KODT'S loss in the Internet's Gain.



RED SONJA #40 - And here it is - the new status quo. Lady Sonja as a sort of Avatar of Morrigan (the name isn't used, but the general description of Red Sonja does fit) with Red Sonja as a secret identity, Osin the geriatric Barbarian Bard as her sidekick and a long-running quest to get some magical doo-dad before Sonja's treacherous sister and her scoundrel lover can.

It isn't my Red Sonja but it is by no means a bad story. And we still have the monthly features in Savage Tales for those of us who prefer a more Conan-ish Sonja. Definitely an underrated title.


WONDER WOMAN #27 - Okay, I'm officially lost. I'll confess to having not studied the Wonder Woman mythos as closely as I have some aspects of DC Comics history. And I freely admit to having not read the better portion of the Titans/Young Justice oeuvre. But is it just me, or do Donna and Cassie seem REALLY out of character here?

Seriously. Donna being all hard-core, bad-ass "this is how a proper Amazon must act"... is that how she is now, after the... what is it, the third or fourth rebirth/reimagining?

I don't know. The last time I read anything she was in regularly was the Wonder Woman comics that came out just after she and Kyle Rayner broke up in Green Lantern. But my vision of Donna has always been that of a slightly less uptight Diana, who treated all the Amazon ritual stuff like a lapsed Catholic treats Christmas.

And while I've heard quite a bit about how Cassie's characterization in Teen Titans of late has been so off-course they had to hand-wave it as being mind-control (funny how often this happens to the teenage heroines, isn't it?), I don't really see Cassie - who if I recall correctly - got schooled on the Amazon thing a LOT more than Donna ever was requiring a lecture on bearing up under pressure.

And I'm still unclear as to where we're going with Space Zeus, Athena dying (wasn't she more powerful than him now?) and all of the Amazons apparently being hand-waved out of the normal lives they were magically waved into during Amazons Attack so that we can usher in Zeus' new defenders of Olympian ideals. Which, if we're going to be accurate to Greek myth, is going to involve a whole lot of drinking, rape and nude male wrestling. Probably not in that order.

I suspect it will all be clear in the trade...

Fast Thoughts - The Week of 11/26/08 & 12/4/08

The week of Thanksgiving, all the comics I got were for my girlfriend. This week, all the comics I got were for me. Kinda funny, that.



BIRDS OF PREY #124 -

Line Of The Issue: "Hear that sound? That's Black Canary's motorcycle. Six other pissed-off heroes are right behidn her and about to walk in. Wanna show them too?" - Misfit, to The Joker, after being told that he just killed Barbara and asking "Wanna see?"

Fans of Barbara Gordon and all other Bat-fans take note - this is a must-have issue. I've ragged a bit on Tony Bedard - justifiably, most think - for some of the stupid, over-the-top villains presented as part of the ruling class of techie town Platinum Flats. But I can forgive all of that for the moment in which Barbara Gordon manages to get back at The Joker in the perfect fashion. Highlight the text below if you really want to know...

Barbara smacks The Joker in the teeth with an escrima stick, breaking most of his teeth and ruining his famous smile. Eye for an eye, tooth for a leg justice at its' best. And while Joker has kidnapped a dental surgeon and had his teeth repaired in the issue denouement and the only thing that saved Barbara from being killed after that was the timely intervention of The Birds, I still count it as a moral victory. Barbara, for better or worse, embraced her physical changes and refused to become a victim whereas The Joker couldn't deal with the effect of a physical assault changing who he was and went out of his way to put things back to normal while denying the original attack. In the end, Barbara proved she was stronger than The Joker.

Given BoP's cancellation, this panel seems oddly bittersweet.

It's okay, Dinah. You've got a writer who will actually let you do stuff in your own book again starting next week!


DOCTOR WHO: THE FORGOTTEN #4 -

Line Of The Issue: "The problem with non-intervention is that someone always ignores it." - The Seventh Doctor

At last - it all gets explained. Well, sort of. There's still a lot up in the air but at least most of the inaccuracies and inconsistencies I noticed before have been explained away with one revelation. Highlight for the spoiler.

The Doctor isn't really trapped in a museum devoted to him but is under some form of psychic attack by the same bug creature that attacked Donna in the 4th Season episode "Turn Left". All the inaccurate things from before - Martha calling herself a doctor when she hadn't become one yet and the phrase "There's something on your back" sounding familiar when The Doctor didn't hear that said until after Martha stopped traveling with him among them - were hints that something is up and The Doctor is trying to stop his memories from being erased using the Museum mind-scape as a battle ground.

As before, the highlight of the issue is the flash-backs with older incarnations of The Doctor. While this issue's flashbacks aren't quite as execiting to me as last issue, I'd put that down to my loathing of The 6th Doctor and my unfamiliarity with the 7th rather than any fault with the stories themselves. The 6th Doctor is every bit the blustering loud-mouthed con-man he should be though the 7th Doctor seems oddly subdued given what I know of the character. Still, should be an interesting read when we get to the virtually unknown 8th Doctor in the next issue and return to the Christopher Eccleston days as well.


JACK OF FABLES #28 -

Line Of The Issue: Next: I eat some tacos. Oh, and I win the war, then everyone stands around for three issues telling me how fantastic I am as they give me more medals. Oh, and in the issue after that? All three of them -- at once.

Still the funniest damn book on the market, bar none. Not much else to say.

This one is for an old friend - a simple man of simple wants, who, like Jack, dreams of being able to tell attractive women to fix him tacos and wait for him at his place.

KNIGHTS OF THE DINNER TABLE #145 -

Line Of The Issue: "No need to Bob... He umm... inserted it (Bob's severed arm) into your, um, body for easy "carry-all retrieval". - Sara, retrieving a fallen party member's body, after being reminded to be sure to get his severed arm as well after a an ape attack.

The plot thickens in the Hard 8 offices with Waco Bob joining Jo Jo Zeke in quitting his job. And in the Knights campaign, their past continues to haunt them as they find out the helpful villagers caring for them are cultists of a thief god religion started by one of Bob's old characters.

And yes - the replacement movie column for Spoony's "Gamer's Rant" STILL sucks. This month "Gaming The Movies" instructs you on how to spice up your Car Wars campaign the bargain-bin DVD in the making "Death Race". That's assuming, of course, you still have a copy of the 1982 RPG around and are willing to sit through a movie that has less plot than most video games these days. Of course that's probably a given if you're one of the people who kept trolling Jolly Blackburn into firing The Spoony One.

Mr. Blackburn - I know you probably can't bring Noah back. But couldn't you at least replace his column with a gamer movie column that is funny?


SHEENA: QUEEN OF THE JUNGLE - DARK RISING #2 -

Line Of The Issue: "Curious you did not object when MY garments were taken, Bob Kellerman." - Sheena, to her environmentalist sidekick, as he is forcibly stripped by cannibals.

Query - is it fan service when your attractive female lead is stripped of everything save her jewelry and a few strategically replaced floral leis for reasons which are, at best, ambiguously related to the plot, if...

1) her male companions receive the same treatment.
2) there are no gratuitously posed shots or splash-pages during the entire scene she is effectively naked.
3) the one part where her lei slips and you see a flash of butt crack, is illustrated in a long shot and there's nothing sexual about the moment.

I find myself torn in considering this question. Because there's very little reason for Sheena to go through with this plan where she allows herself and her companions to be captured without fighting by a group of Nazi-worshiping cargo-cultist cannibals in order to buy them time while awaiting the collapse of a dam she thinks is coming other than to allow for a cheesecake scene where Sheena (and her companions) are stripped down to nothing, prepared and then tied up basically naked over a hot fire.

And yet, despite this contrivance, the artwork doesn't even approach the cheesecake-ridden excesses reveled in by other books starring blonde jungle goddesses. Sheena is depicted as being competent and in-control the whole time - not a helpless piece of eye candy by any stretch of the imagination,

That, along with the brilliant plotting, wonderful comedic timing and characterization which makes plans like this seem feasible is all I need to recommend this book to any comic book reader. Thank goodness that at least one of Will Eisner's creations is in the hands of a writer who know how to uphold his legacy and write a heroine who can be sexy without being trashy.


WONDER WOMAN #26 -

Line Of The Issue: "I gave you an order, soldier. You were to observe the saboteurs, not screw around with them on some *%##$ magic clam shell." - Director Steel, to Nemesis, regarding a photo of him and "enemy of the state" Wonder Woman.

Could somebody who has been reading all the New Gods books and everything connecting Amazons Attack explain something to me, please?

It was my understanding that The New Gods had taken the Olympian Pantheon hostage and that their apparent absence and abandonment of The Amazons in their time of need was what spurred Diana to abandon her position as champion of the Olympian Gods and start seeking favors from a South Seas deity. And I can swing with that.

Explain to me then why the Olympian Gods are now returning home after having apparently been cruising around deep space - IN A FREAKING SPACESHIP - and are curious as to why their home is trashed and they can't seem to remember who they are/were? And apparently Athena is now about to die since she used the last of her power to make the last of their champions (I assume that's Diana) immortal again.

I suspect all will be explained shortly but I'm still very confused.

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.

Fast Thoughts - The Week of 10/01/08 and 10/08/08

Been so busy with work and HEROES musings I forgot - oh yeah - I actually DID get a few comics this past week.



GREEN LANTERN #35 - Secret Origins concludes and continues the wonderful trend Johns started with this series.

My favorite touch? Using Quill of the Empire of Tears - a prophetic villain created by Alan Moore for one of his Green Lantern stories - to doom Sinestro as he doomed Abin Sur.

In the story Tygers, it was Quill who inspired the paranoia that caused Abin Sur to travel in a space-ship after giving him a prophecy that he would die when his ring failed him in deep space. In this story, Quill predicts that Sinestro's home-world will fall into chaos and ruin - a fate that orderly-minded Sinestro swears to prevent.

If you're read Emerald Dawn 2, you know where this is heading - how Sinestro went too far and began to rule as a tyrant, relying on fear to keep his own people in line with his own laws. Still, I find this retelling of the story preferable to that older story for many reasons - not the least of which is Johns tying together several great, yet unrelated tales. He's also done a much better job of creating a convincing student/mentor relationship between Hal Jordan and Sinestro than Gerard Jones did.


GREEN LANTERN CORPS #29 - The plot thickens in the search for a Sinestro Corps alien who is kidnapping the children of Green Lanterns. The Green Lantern Saarek, who also has the power to talk to the dead, seeks the corpse of the Anti-Monitor. The first of the new Star Sapphire Corps is chosen. And Ice goes to visit Guy on Oa. And for those of you who were wondering just how Tora was able to hitch a ride to Oa in the first place, we get an explanation; her wish to go to Oa was foreseen by a Green Lantern who is part of an race of precognitive aliens. Lots of stuff going on, but it's all fairly accessible for new readers. Good old fashioned space opera and soap opera, mixed in perfect harmony.


KNIGHTS OF THE DINNER TABLE #143 - It does my heart good to see BA getting one over on Brian. And I hope that the continuing Hard 8 storyline isn't heading for another dramatic twist like when Gary Jackson died. Still the best gamer comic on the market, even without The Gamers Rant.


JUSTICE LEAGUE OF AMERICA #25- A lot to like here - from the final resolution of Red Tornado's story arc to some nice character moments with Black Lightning and Hawkgirl. But the center of the issue - and the best part - involves the big reveal of trickster god Anansi being the one pulling the strings of Vixen and Animal Man's erratic power changes.

I admit a bias here. I'm a sucker for a good trickster villain and good Elseworld ideas... and the idea of a storyteller god who can alter reality by deciding to change the story... well, it's been done with Mark Waid's "Queen of Fables" but not quite this effectively or as scarily. The Queen of Fables may have put Wonder Woman in an eternal sleep but Anansi effectively erased the Justice League from history simply by causing Bruce Wayne to pick up a gun and shoot the man who killed his parents...

And Bruce Wayne as the black-clad Western hero Paladin... the Have Gun, Will Travel in me is pleased.


SECRET SIX #2- Not quite so great as last month, but it still has the Line of The Month so far...

RAGDOLL: If I had known we might die, I would have done something filthy enough to shame the Heavens as my last act.
DEADSHOT: What have you got left on that list, Doll?
RAGDOLL: Only what my allergies won't permit, I'm delighted to say.


WONDER WOMAN #25- Much as I do rag on The Queen of Fables in the JLA review, I do like her appearance here. Then again, Gail Simone is at her best using serious characters in an unserious situation and... well, forcing Diana to play herself in a bad version of her own life story makes for some good action and some amusing comics.

Fast Thoughts - The Week of 9/03/08 & 9/10/08

EX MACHINA #38 - We finally have a name for my new crush - Trouble.

I like it.

Apart from that, not much happens except that we find out that Kremlin has nothing to do with Trouble and we get the most appropriate quote of the week given what is coming tomorrow.

"9/11 doesn't belong to the Republicans, no matter what the out-of-towners they're busing into Madison Square Garden think."


FABLES #75 - This would have been the perfect ending for the series.

How fortunate for us then that Willingham and Buckingham have elected to keep it going. And fitting as well, for this series has proven that there really isn't any such thing as a pat, perfect "happily-ever-after" ending. So I'm glad to see that this comic about what comes after the end of the most famous stories in the world isn't ending itself either.


GREEN LANTERN #34 - This is Geoff Johns doing what he does best.

No, not coming up with disturbing images of innocent people being killed to create new characters. I was referring to his ability to take the broken fragments of other writers works and reforge them into a stronger mythology. He did it in JSA and later in Hawkman when he rebuilt the Hawkman/Hawkgirl mythos. And now, in Green Lantern, he is doing it again by explaining away some of the countless unbelievable aspects of the classic Green Lantern days.

*considers how Johns' explanation of the Green Lantern's yellow weakness involves beings of living fear and an entire spectrum where emotions are manifested as light energy*

Well, RELATIVELY unbelievable by the standards of DC Comics science. Things such as Hector Hammond's exposure to an intelligence-enhancing radiation are made more plausable as is William "Black Hand" Hand's creation of a device that drains the energy of Green Lantern rings. It turns out he stole it from an alien. But more importantly than that, we are given our first glimpse of a plausable student/mentor relationship (to say nothing of a friendship) between Hal Jordan and Sinestro as well as the first inkling that Sinestro - rather than being a bad egg who somehow slipped through The Guardians screening process - is a tragic hero brought down by hubris.

Which somehow makes him a much cooler enemy than "that putz who looks like a pink Vincent Price who really hates Green Lanterns".


GREEN LANTERN CORPS #28 - Two cool things from past issues that go even better together. The serial killer striking against the families of rookie Green Lanterns returns as does the Green Lantern who has the power to talk to the dead. All this and Ice shows up on Oa to surprise Guy... just before he gets the call to duty.

Call me a sentimental ol' wag, but I'm glad to see that someone is using Tora now that she's been resurrected by Gail Simone... especially if it's to ground that greatest of Green Lanterns. God knows Guy deserves it after all the abuse he's suffered in the last 20 years.


HELLBLAZER PRESENTS CHAS: THE KNOWLEDGE - I wonder how this series got green-lighted. Out of all the characters in John's life who deserve a mini, Chas is... well, probably not a bad choice. He is the only one of John's long-term friends to have survived the relationship and he did suffer some major personal losses at John's hand during the Mike Carey run on the series. A mini exploring what Chas has done with his life and his family since he told-off John would be entertaining in a Garth Ennis' Heartland way.

The problem is that Chas has always been - in most stories - the comic-relief with the stereotypical evil wife. They're about as deep and complicated as Andy and Flo Capp. So while the broad concept of this series (Chas takes on a new job working for an attractive American woman without telling his wife and then gets dragged into a supernatural mystery) could be funny or powerful, the execution is woefully lacking. Add in the fact that the only reason John isn't getting involved in this particular madness is that because he spends the entire issue raving it up somewhere else and wakes up on a beach somewhere with some kind poking him in the face with a small plastic spade.

It doesn't speak well of this series that I'd rather see how John spent an evening getting wasted rather than watching his sidekick fight demons. The only way I can picture this being worse is if it were centered upon the Chas from the film Constantine universe and I had to pay three bucks to watch Shia LeBeouf mince around for 32 pages.


KNIGHTS OF THE DINNER TABLE #142 - Even in an issue where Brian gets his comeuppance and Jo Jo Zeke is fired in what will hopefully become known as the biggest mistake in Heidi Jackson's career... this issue still seems less than complete.

Why? I put it to one factor and one factor alone - the dismissal of Noah Antwiler as KODT's film critic.

It seems some people - most of whom apparently have nothing better to do than to sit on KenzerCo's forums and grouse about how they weren't buying another issue until Noah was fired (yet still kept writing about how bad the latest reviews were) - finally convinced The Powers That Be to give Noah the boot on a temporary basis after a frankly flawed poll that only consulted people who visited the KenzerCo website and not... oh... say... all of the people who were actively buying the magazine week after week.

Well, I hope those people are happy. The new film column is a rather dull and lifeless piece about how to adapt old sci-fi/fantasy movies for your campaign; something most GMs I know are already fairly adept at and hardly need any help with now since D&D became WoW. Then again, these people who weren't satisfied with KODT printing a helpful dotted line as well as instructions on how to remove Noah's columns from the magazine (perhaps because they aren't allowed to handle sharp objects in the institutions they live in), so I doubt they'll be happy with anything other than Noah's head on a spike and a letter from Dane Cook nailed to the spike assuring them that he is the true god of comedy.

Still, KODT's loss is The Internet's gain as Noah's website - The Spoony Experiment - has been updated with more and more fresh video-based content, including a review of Yor: The Hunter From The Future that is easily funnier than most things Mike Nelson has done with RiffTrax in that last two years. Check it out.

And continue to enjoy the comic parts of Knights of the Dinner Table... which are, for the moment, the only parts worth reading in this author's humble opinion.


RED SONJA #37 - All the fuss over how this comic involves a reincarnation of Sonja and I had failed to notice that Osin - Sonja's old (now old before his time it seems) bard companion and new trainer - has two hands. This issue explains that as well as how Osin was able to track Sonja down and how he got his hand back. Bad news for Osin - he apparently cut a deal with the god Jullah (aka The Black Gorilla God) to do all this which can't possibly end well. There's worse news on the way though, as it seems that Sonja's beloved sister (in this life, anyway) has turned traitor and is sleeping with the enemy in every since of the word.

I'll give Brian Reed credit - he's got me hooked now to see where he is going with this.


SAVAGE TALES #9 - I honestly skipped most of the stories in this anthology, having little interest in Alan Quartermain or the Battle for Atlantis. The rest more than make up for my need to skip half the book.

The first comic - Valaka - centers upon a sorceress who offers a young warrior help in fighting the wizard who has destroyed his village and taken his love. Of course, as always in these Hyborian lands, the help of a magic-user is rarely helpful.

The final tale tells a story of the young Osin, proving that anyone who says bards are useless in a fight don't know how to play one properly, as Osin uses his natural gifts with a sword, with magic and persuasion to turn an entire village against an evil wizard.


SECRET SIX #1 - It just figures. Not a few weeks after I struggle to find the perfect Deadshot quote for my Neutral Evil comic book character alignment poster, Gail Simone comes along and gives me the perfect one.

All you need to know about the rest of the comic is... more Ragdoll, more Nicola Scott/Doug Hazlewood artwork and Deadshot stopping a robbery only to decide to rob the place himself, all while giving the original group of robbers pointers on "how to do it right".


WONDER WOMAN #24 - Speak of Gail Simone books...

Am I the only one who didn't find much funny in Nemesis (now Sir Tom of Cleveland) being taken to meet Wonder Woman's mother? Maybe I've just had too many weird mom/daughter encounters to be unbiased.

On the other hand, this is more than made-up for by the idea of Diana having to deal with an unauthorized Hollywood blockbuster biography based on her and her mother... and Diana's albino gorilla bodyguards reaction to the contract negotations after being offered a snack and a drink.

"We would like to hear more about this fresh fruit portion of the negotiations."

Still...After seeing Gail's take on the Wonder Woman movie in this issue... I really want to see Gail write a Red Sonja special of some kind more than ever. I can't help but wonder if this is in reference to some meeting that Gail had...

I can dream, can't it?

Please do not reveal the secret behind the villain at the end of the issue.

Fast Thoughts - The Week of 8/6/08

JACK OF FABLES #24 - And so ends the ballad of The Jack Candle gang. Not with a bang, but a whisper. The last page is priceless and so is the description of next month's new storyline. This book should be required reading for any comics fan.


KNIGHTS OF THE DINNER TABLE SPECIAL - A special worthy of the name, this "nothing but the comics" issue of KODT Magazine picks up on some hints dropped in recent issues regarding an Urban Assassin LARP game while building upon the recent issues set at the KODT equivalent of Gen-Con. If you've never been exposed to the wonderful world of Knights of the Dinner Table, this is a good issue to start with. No big story lines to worry about. No cumbersome continuity. Just a bunch of quickly defined characters and a lad of paintball guns...


RED SONJA #36 - Brian Reed has one more issue to make me start caring about this new Sonja... who may be the old Sonja. Even with the revelation that the old warrior we saw last issue is an aged Osin and the question as to who the "old man" tormenting Osin is still there... the tone here is a radical shift from what has come before and the scripts reek of padding with too many pages being devoted to Sonja's shipwreck and her splash-page decorated breakdown. I fear this may be decompressed to an insane degree - something which is disastrous in most superhero books but may be suicidal in a sword-and-sorcery epic like Red Sonja.


SUPER STUPOR #1 - My friend Patrick was kind enough to pick this up for me at the San Diego Comic Con from another friend - Something Positive author R.K. Milholland.

I've plugged Randy's work before and he hardly needs my help to sell it. Still, I'll refrain from a full review and limit my comments to saying that I enjoyed this book. You'll probably enjoy it yourself if you're a fan of the Giffen/DeMatthias Justice Leauge or The Tick.

Check out the on-line comic for yourself before you decide if it's worth $4.95 American to see a story centered around a superhero convention (It totally is though!)

Fast Thoughts - The Weeks of 7/23/08 & 7/30/08

Since there's been so much negativity in the world lately, I'm going to focus on the one thing I liked most about all the books I got this week - all of which are well worth picking up.



AMBUSH BUG: YEAR NONE #1 - The best thing? Ambush Bug's quest for a refrigerator that DOESN'T have a dead DC Comics female character in it and the spiral of increasingly bizarre dark comedy that continues throughout the book.


COMIC BOOK COMICS #2 - The best thing? The image of a cigar-chomping Jack Kirby having to write the advice columns for the romance comics he drew.


GREEN LANTERN #33 - The best thing? Using a flashback to expand on the past of the characters, even as they set-up the future of the series, re: The Blackest Night.


GREEN LANTERN CORPS #26 - The best thing? Mongul, son of Mongul is finally dead and no more creepy cradling the corpse of Mongal ever again!


HUNTRESS: YEAR ONE #6 - The best thing? Huntress telling everyone who is trying to control her to bloody well piss off.


JUSTICE LEAGUE OF AMERICA #23 - The best thing? Dwayne McDuffie actually surprised me with the clever use of Vixen's altered powers. It's so rare for a comic to actually surprise me these days...


KNIGHTS OF THE DINNER TABLE #141 - The best thing? Bob and Dave turn a children's educational game on how global government works into an odd mash-up of RISK and Liar's Poker.

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.