Wonder Woman is Not Lame

There has been a lot of talk around the internet this past week on the subject of Wonder Woman and how lame she is. This is thanks to Hollywood it-girl Megan Fox's recent dismissal of rumours that she will be cast as the Amazon Princess. Her response:

“Wonder Woman is a lame superhero… She flies around in her invisible jet and her weaponry is a lasso that makes you tell the truth. I just don’t get it. Somebody has a big challenge on their hands whoever takes that role but I don’t want to do it.”

What weaponry do you have, Megan Fox? And what colour is your jet?

I sincerely hope that no one in Hollywood offered the role to Ms. Fox. As nicely as I am sure she could fill out the costume, I don't think she has the acting abilities to pull off a lead role, let alone a character as iconic as Wonder Woman.

Noted internet mega-douche Rich Johnston recently submitted a post about Wonder Woman by Adisakdi Tantimedh to BleedingCool.com. It includes absurd statements like:

"She only does two things: hit people or tie people up."

"Frank Miller found some spark recently by depicting her as a ball-busting bitch who secretly wants to be taken, preferably by Superman (since he’s the only one strong enough to be able to beat her up)"

"So for more than half a century, DC Comics has been marketing a scantily-clad dominatrix to children. She’s a heroic dominatrix, and she does it for free, so I guess that’s all right."

Most of the post seems to be arguing that, because Wonder Woman was created by a man with a bondage fetish, she is not capable of being developed past that point. Much like fans don't hold Superman's silver age dickery against him now (because it was the god damn 1950s and 60s), I think we can look beyond the flaws of Wonder Woman's early comics. When I say we need to overlook the bad Wonder Woman comics, I realize that this means overlooking a lot of comics, but that's ok because by doing so we'll discover the delicious centre of this character. With regard to her costume being silly...is it? Really? Is it more ridiculous than any other super hero costume? Is that really an obstacle to enjoying the character or taking her seriously?

Like ANY character, Wonder Woman is as good as the person writing her. When she is written well, she is a compelling and inspiring heroine.

Wonder Woman is a lot of things, but she is certainly not lame. Here's a run-down:

Wonder Woman is Royalty

She is Princess of the Amazons, carved from clay by her mother and given life by the gods. Joining her in this category are non-lame heroes such as Namor the Sub-Mariner, Aquaman, Orion and Black Panther. Not only is she royalty, she is on a first-name basis with the gods.

Wonder Woman is a Leader

Like Superman, Batman, or Captain America, Wonder Woman commands awe and respect when people encounter her. She has gotten this reaction from children, the citizens she rescues, the villains she beats up, and fellow super heroes. She can not only lead an army into battle, she can also take on the role of a teacher to her fellow Amazons, and to some of the younger heroes in the DCU.

Wonder Woman is a Warrior

I feel that this, above all others, is Wonder Woman's defining characteristic. Her instinct is to fight, to kill if necessary, and to lead her army into battle. She is not a detective, a scientist, or a mild-mannered reporter. She is the DC Universe's most ruthless warrior and most capable battlefield commander. She makes the hard decisions that Superman and Batman don't want to know about. She has a magic lasso and an invisible jet, and she also has a shield and sword, bullet-deflecting wristbands, and, oh yeah, superstrength, stamina and the ability to fly.

Wonder Woman is a Government Agent

It's easy to forget that Wonder Woman has a pretty impressive day job. Like Sgt. Fury, Mr Terrific, or Iron Man, Diana Prince fights to protect humanity even out of costume. And let me remind you that she is working to protect a world that she doesn't have to care about at all. She could be home on Paradise Island, eating grapes and lounging beside the pool. She is a princess, afterall, but she is a princess with a punch card.

Wonder Woman is an Outcast

Like Superman, Captain America, or Martian Manhunter, Wonder Woman is living outside of her comfort zone. She was sent as an ambassador to "man's world," she fought in World War II, she was banished from Paradise Island for making a difficult decision, she was shunned by the Justice League for making a difficult decision more recently. Now she has chosen to isolate herself from her fellow Amazons once again. Wonder Woman has long suffered for her habit ignoring the rules in favour of doing what needs to be done.

Wonder Woman is a Hero

Wonder Woman doesn't have to waste her time at boring Justice League meetings, but she does it anyway. She is often given a third-place standing in the DC Heroes Trinity, but when you really think about it, an Amazonian princess sculpted by the gods clearly outranks an alien who has super powers by fluke chance and a miserable billionaire with too much time on his hands.

I love Wonder Woman because she doesn't brood. There is nothing emo about her. She is, in fact, one of the toughest sumbitches in comic books, yet still manages to have a comforting motherly aura.

Wonder Woman is loved. By me, by her fellow super heroes, by her fellow Amazons, and by the world. Her importance to the DCU cannot be overstated.

We don't need a Wonder Woman movie. I'd love to see one, but not so badly that I would settle for Megan Fox.

"You'll Have To Hire A Lot Of New People." Special Advance Review of Darwyn Cooke's Parker: The Hunter!

It seems as though writer/artist Darwyn Cooke has been a fixture of the comic industry a lot longer than he has. Consider this—his breakthrough graphic novel, Batman: Ego, was released a mere nine years ago, showcasing a creative sensibility already finely honed by years spent in design and animation. Since then, Cooke has increased his profile with his work on Catwoman (first with the original graphic novel Selina’s Big Score, and followed by penciling duties on the most recent run of the ongoing series), his epic re-imagining of the Justice League’s origin in the New Frontier miniseries, and his relaunch of Will Eisner’s The Spirit. Cooke entered the comics field with a clear idea of what he wanted to do and how he wanted it done, and that straightforwardness of purpose has never been more clear than in his latest graphic novel, an adaptation of Richard Stark’s (AKA Donald Westlake) first Parker novel, The Hunter, available at finer comic and book stores everywhere July 22.

The Hunter formed the basis for the 1967 film Point Blank, starring Lee Marvin, and 1999’s Payback with Mel Gibson. However, unlike its cinematic ancestors, Cooke’s graphic novel sticks to the book’s plotline exactly, following tough-as-nails professional thief Parker as he punches, chokes, stabs, and shoots his way to the top of a criminal organization known alternately as the Outfit, the Syndicate, or the Organization. We learn through various flashbacks that Parker was betrayed and left for dead on his last job by both his wife and his fellow thieves, and after a stint on a work farm for vagrancy, Parker hits the mean streets of New York looking for satisfaction (and the $45,000 that constitutes his end of the job’s take). As Parker works his way up the food chain, he learns that the money from the heist was used to pay off an outstanding mob loan, which means that the only way for him to get it back is to shake down the Organization for it. Outnumbered and outgunned, Parker nonetheless meets the criminal conspiracy head on, bumping off various lieutenants and assorted underlings in order to instigate a final showdown.

In the first of four proposed hardcover Parker graphic novels for IDW publishing, Cooke has stripped his style down to the bare essentials, in a way that matches Stark’s famously blunt prose. The only colour that appears is a gunmetal blue tone, and even the panel borders have disappeared. The result is a sparse, high-contrast look that resembles images glimpsed in the muzzle flash of a pistol. The book’s 1962 setting allows Cooke to run wild with the kind of settings and fashions that clearly grip his imagination. The confident, no-nonsense storytelling doesn’t lead you by the hand—for instance, at one point Parker uses a pocket knife to disfigure a corpse before hiding it, and we don’t learn why for several more pages. However, there’s never any doubt that we will learn why, and that the answer will make perfect sense. As a character, Parker is wholly unsympathetic; at one point, he accidentally kills an innocent woman while attempting to subdue her. He doesn’t even really register remorse over this, but instead finds a way to use her death to create a distraction that brings him closer to his prey. Stark and Cooke never ask us to empathize with Parker, though—we’re merely witnesses to his relentless pursuit of what he sees as fair retribution. Readers seeking morally upright, or at least morally conflicted, protagonists might want to look elsewhere. The Hunter feels exactly like the book Darwyn Cooke was born to do, in terms of setting, characters, and subject matter. Reading it, you can tell he had the time of his life creating it, and that kind of enthusiasm is always infectious.

Archie Sunday: Veronica tries to do something nice

In this week's Archie Sunday installment, from Veronica #143 (October, 2000) Jughead feigns heterosexuality to thwart Veronica's attempts to do the first authentically nice thing she's ever done in her life.

It starts when Veronica, a lonely only child hidden under a bitchy exterior of wealth and vanity, feels left out when Betty arrives at the beach with her sister.

As an aside, I like how in the Archie universe the siblings of the main characters can age, but not the core characters themselves.

Veronica finds someone she can talk to on the beach: Jughead's kid sister, Jellybean.

Jughead is pretty uninterested in the whole thing. He chooses a picnic basket over his sister:

After Veronica selflessly plays frisbee with the kid for, oh let's say hours, Jellybean sets a playdate with her new friend:

 That diabolical bitch!

 

Well of course you do, Jughead. You're a giant douchebag.

Things start to take a wrong turn, I guess, when Veronica starts playing with Jellybean into the wee hours of dinnertime:

"Enough is enough!" says the Jones family, oddly.

Which bad habits is Jellybean picking up? Selflessly sharing your time with children? Accessorizing? Anyway, Jughead has a crazy plan:

You are a weird and terrible guy, Jughead. But, hey, at least you've crushed your little sister's happiness.

Open Up For the Dog Extermination Squad!

Well, it's Sunday morning. Once more I have proved myself very bad at preparing something in advance of a busy day. Ah well. We're dipping into the Sack of Silver Age Strangeness today and hauling out Superboy No. 126, because I know that you all want to learn about Krypto the Super-dog's family tree and because stuff this dumb practically writes about itself.

Under the flimsy pretense of trying to figure out why Krypto is frightened of a tiny bug, Superboy uses some of his amazing technology to look into his pet's earliest memories and ends up listening to his father Jor-El give a mini-lecture about the new puppy's family tree. A really detailed lecture, actually, given that up to the age of five or six Kal-El was basically about as smart as Bizarro on nitrous oxide.

Jor-El starts off by telling the tale of Krypto's father, who lived with a little girl in Zaro city and was named, well, Zypto.

 Now, obviously the people of Zaro City are insane. I have a theory that it served as some sort of massive asylum for the people of Krypton ("Granpapa just wouldn't stop watering the cat, kids, so we had to send him to Zaro City"). I mean, here's a city on a planet that was dedicated to science, right? They were ruled by a Science Council, for Rao's sake. And yet their first response to their dogs getting sick after bing struck by lightning isn't quarantine or a search for a cure, it's DOG EXTERMINATION SQUADS. Join the Dog Extermination Squad, for a satisfying, meaningful career.

Valla's father, who as far as I can tell is named Dik-Ki, demonstrates that maybe Jor-El wasn't such a revolutionary problem-solver as we had thought. Or perhaps Kryptonians had some sort of built-in impulse in times of stress to put something in a vehicle  and get it as far away as possible, fast! I mean, think about how many times Superman has flung something into space or tossed it in the ocean and then considered the problem solved. I'll bet that the Kryptonian wheel was invented by a man who lived at the top of a hill and had a stressful family life.

Of course, Kryptonians also seem to have uncannily good aim, as demonstrated by Zypto's surprise appearance at the Zak-Zil Aviary ("Zak-Zil Aviary: we cram birds into the smallest cages we can! Come see the parrots cry!") Professor -Zil seems to bear out my theory about the inhabitants of Zaro City: he's spent years and years and who knows how much money and how many birds making a serum  that should give him wings, but hasn't even thought to test it in any way other than by slugging it back himself.

Ugh. Ag. "Distillation from the glands of a thousand birds," skeezes me out. It's very similar to the origin of Man-Bat and half a dozen other Silver Age animal-based superfolks and it conjures terrible images into my head, either of a thousand birds (or bats, or ocelots) having lots of problems in life because someone has removed their adenoids or similar. Of course, the alternative is to picture Zak-Zil maniacally feeding a thousand birds into some sort of giant juicing machine, so having a them sadly lining up across my mind's eye, waiting for their thyroid medication and gently coughing, is maybe preferable.

So Zypto was now a winged dog. He went back home and it turns out that the people making up the Dog Extermination Squad were dumb enough to believe that he was some type of dog-like bird. Which makes sense, really. I mean, think of your relatives: which one is most likely to end up in a Dog Extermination Squad?

You picked the dumbest one, didn't you? Just goes to show.

So Zypto has wings for a while and then he loses them when he fans some radioactive gas away from his owners.Everything's neat and tidy.

Now Zypto's father, Nypto, he was Dik-Ki's dog when he was a boy:

Dik-Ki had trained Nypto as a meteorite-hunting dog, which must be pretty tricky outside of an asteroid belt. Also, I have to assume that he dyed that poor beast. That's the sort of thing that kids get up to, right? you've got a meteor retriever, so he'd better look the part, all blue with crazy spots?

Sent after  a fireball in the sky one night he finds not a chunk of space-rock but a pair of green and hunched aliens who have a truly diabolical scheme:

They're going to steal a couple of fish! Truely, these intergalactic tyrants put Mongul and Darkseid to shame with their awful schemes. Give an alien a giant fish, as they say, and he'll... eat that fish and be happy. Damn his blue and terrible bones!

I don't know if I can take any alien seriously when he's holding a fish bowl liike that. Do Skrulls keep pet fish? Is that why I could never quite take them seriously, or is it the chin corrugations? Actually, the most menacing alien that I've encountered recently in a comic book is Starro the Conquorer, which I call ironic. In any case, they want to eat dogs, so I guess they must be evil, despite their piscophilic tendencies. 

Really, though, from what I hear, dog is a horrible thing to eat. Maybe these guys could go legit with their meat-wrangling business, taking things like skunk and hagfish and such off the hands of butchers across the galaxy. Or processed ham, that's pretty unbearable.

The dog-chase rages on, with Nypto desperately fleeing for his very steaks, until he gets a great idea:

Pork! No alien can resist pork!

Also, every planet in the universe has the same basic life-forms? Are there pigs on Mars, except that they're red and can levitate? Fire-breathing pigs on the moons of Alpha Centauri IV? A race of amorphous pigoids living under the frozen ammonia sheets of Strompar Maximus? Do I like a universe with infinite variations on the porcine form more or less than one without? A man could go mad envisioning the many variations on the gentle pork chop alone.

Philosophical musings on the nature of intergalactic ham aside, the story ended in a fairly standard manner, as Nypto lured the aliens close enough to a magnetic mountain to wreck their ship and send them fleeing in their two-man-no-dogs escape craft. Their evil scheme foiled, the aliens returned to their world to watch their people starve to death.

Finally, we have Vypto, Krypto's great-grandfather, and his super-boring story. See, Vypto was a normal dog, except for the fact that he could apparantly dive one mile underwater. Now, it's possible that the Kryptonian mile was actually about six metres or something but any way you slice it I'd call that extraordinary. Vypto spots some treasure on the sea floor and then gets mixed up with some crooks that are searching for it and fools their telepathic hounds by scaring them with a picture of a scary bug that his owner drew.

The important part of this whole stoy? Jor-El took the time to track down the picture of tthe scary bug and show it to Kal-El and Krypto, and that's the origin of why Superman's dog is scared of a bug. Damn you, Silver Age. And damn you for your dog-naming conventions, too. I love you, but it's going to take me a little time to get over this.

One final note: this wan't a last-minute, the-story-that-the-regular-guy-handed-in-has-Superboy-eating-kittens-oh-god-get-the-mail-boy-to-write-something kind of thing.

Yep, they planned this debacle. Uh, enjoy the hobby shop comic that I forgot to edit out.

Happy Sunday, folks.

This Week's Haul: Huh? Wha? Comicssszzzzzzz...

Alright, I still haven't had a chance to catch up on my sleep from HeroesCon, so I'm going to make this brief. In exchange, I will write the hell out of this week's Archie Sunday post (which I swear will actually happen this week).

Daredevil #119

Listen Daredevil. Here's what you need to do: You have to start with the man in the mirror, and ask him to change his ways. Trust me, man, no message will be any clearer.

Matt Murdock's life continues to suck in an epic way. His wife is crazy, he's working with Kingpin, he has Lady Bullseye on his ass, he's cheated on his wife with Dakota, and now he's been fired. He's so depressed he isn't even shaving anymore. His only friend in the world is a big fat crime boss who talks to ghosts and hates his guts.

And yet this is still one of the best comics on the stands.

Wolverine: Weapon X #3

Guns that shoot cancer!

Zorro #14

This issue wraps up what has basically been the romance portion of the Zorro story. Based on some sneak peeks I saw of the next story arc (with art by Francesco Francavilla), the next part of the story is going to be darker and maybe have more action. But I have enjoyed every issue of Zorro so far. The first trade finally came out last week, and I encourage people to check it out.

Superman #689

So, wait, Mon-El isn't gay now? He's flying around the world meeting heroes and villains and smooching ladies? Man, that handsome guy at the café back in Metropolis is gonna be disappointed.

Green Lantern #42

I love that the Orange Lantern guy is basically just a horrible nerdy collector.

Patsy Walker Hellcat TP

I'm pretty excited that Marvel decided to collect this mini-series into a trade. Kathryn Immonen, who will soon be writing Runaways (yay!) really did a great job writing an extremely underused Marvel character. And David Lafuente provided some really nice art.

[EDIT: Kathryn Immonen's first issue of Runaways actually came out this week. I just picked it up. This is what happens when you send your husband to pick up your comics for you...you miss stuff).

The Something Something John Buys Comics

I've shuffled the comics and fed the cat and now it's time to revieeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeewwww!

Detective Comics No. 854

WHOOOEEE! Good goddam! This, my friends, is a pretty, pretty comic.

JH Williams is the arteest on this one and has just destroyed it. The art style shifts to reflect mood and tone! The panel layout is astonishing (and enough too make my poor rectangular-marquee-using panel sampler's heart cringe with sympathy for the mento-bloggers of the future)! Batwoman's outfit actually looks like black leather, rather than a thin sheen of body paint! Actually, all of the clothing looks pretty darned good.

On top of this, Dave Stewart, the World's Greatest Colorist, is on the job. If you've been reading DC comics at all this month then you've probably seen the preview for this book. Well, it continues in that incredibly vibrant vein. Woo Dave!

Meanwhile, the story. Basically, it boils down to the Church of Crime setting up shop in Gotham again and Batwoman wanting this not to happen. You know, because they stabbed her in the heart that one time. The Crime religion is something that could have some legs, I reckon - this might end up being a pretty damn good run. But even if it isn't, even if this story ends up going nowhere... I can maybe forgive that if it keeps looking this good. Anyway, the dialogue is decent and they don't avoid the fact that Batwoman is a lesbian, so I shall wait and see with my trademark optimism.

ALSO: there's a Question backup to this tale, featuring Renee Montoya taking a missing persons case via her website (which is also the Web's shtick... that's two similarly themed comics on the shelves in August again, DC. This is a weird pattern).Looks like it's shaping up to be a decent detective tale with good art by Cully Hammer, but I'm going to have to pass on going into specifics while still under the lead story's influence. These two-featured books are making me happy so far - now to wait impatiently for the Doom Patrol/Metal Men book to come out.

Final Crisis Aftermath: Ink No. 2

You know, I'm still not too sure what to think about this comic. It's a decent book, sure, but it just doesn't have the high-concept trappings of Escape or the intriguing subject matter of Run or Dance. Super-villain turned super-hero attempts to remain heroic in the face of adversity, that's not a bad theme, just not a new theme. Still, the Tattooed Man was always an interesting if slightly goofy villain and it was nice to see his newest incarnation get some time in the sun in Final Crisis. Hopefully this series puts him in something like a good position at the end and doesn't just turn him back into a cheap and/or rage-filled villain again, like my John-sense is warning might happen.

Good thing there are lots of interesting uses of the tattoo superpower to keep me interested. Bat-winged skull ahoy!

The Actress and the Bishop No. 1

I bought this one one a whim, I must admit. How could I pass up that title, huh? How?

The Actress and the Bishop live in domestic bliss in a wee house in a British suburb or small town, stock characters from a dozen jokes brought to life and drawn real nice.

I mean, really, really nice. Brian Bolland did both the art and the writing on this, and he has produced some damn fine black and white pictures. The whole thing reminds me strongly of the Italian comics that I have read like Dylan Dog or... okay, mostly Dylan Dog. We need more translations of Italian comics. Back on track: as in these Italian comics of which I speak, Bolland has drawn this thing with a lot of clean, precise, beautiful art, lovingly detailed (check out the neato illustrations on the Bishop's robes) and inked. Be warned, prudish-at-heart: the "MATURE READERS" tag on the front is code for "there are some boobies".

As for plot, well, there isn't really one. As I said, the Actress and the Bishop are stock characters living in a house, so this is one of my favourite set-ups: a strange situation with no explanation and no apologies, just further strangeness. The A and the B take a trip, throw a party and have something living in their shed - no origin story necessary. AND: the whole thing's told in rhyme! Pretty decent rhyme, too, though I reckon that I say a few words with a different number of syllables than Brian Bolland does. Curse you, regional differences in the English language!

(UPDATE: I guess that this is collecting appearances of the Actress and the bishop from other places. I felt that I should mention that, in case rabid A&B fans got mad at me after buying it for more A&B action and found none)

Superman No. 689

Hot damn! now this is the sort of thing that I've been talking about! I don't know if there's some sort of editorial mandate to show off more of the super-human--infested world over at DC but they've been doing a decent job of it for the past month or so. And in this issue things get crazy, as Mon-El, newly interested in the joys of life and the pleasure to be found in experiencing new things, takes a trip around the world, encountering old favourites like the Rocket Reds, Freedom Beast and Rising Sun as well as a wide selection of (as far as I know) new international characters including a super-cool German paranormal detective type named Will von Hammer (!!!) and a disturbing new Blockbuster. Seriously, James Robinson could write a monthly series consisting entirely of one-page super-hero vignettes. Especially if he had the same art team. But Blockkbuster should not wear Daisy Dukes.

Good lord I hope that some of these characters/concepts get expanded upon in the future and not just trotted out as cannon fodder during the next crossover. DC! I will buy The Very German Mysteries of Will von Hammer! For real!

Gotham Sirens No. 1

Cue mixed feelings.

I have no idea whether Birds of Prey was cancelled in order to make room for this book. I hope not, because they could have played off of one another in interesting ways, as the good and the bad-ish ladies of the DCU went about their business. I'm also not sure whether this book is supposed to sell based on T&A potential, but that doesn't seem to be its mission statement, cover aside. Am I conveying my problem here? I want to be cynical about this comic, especially given its kind-of-lousy name, but none of my snark seems to be panning out. The basic idea behind the story - Catwoman, Harley Quinn and Poison Ivy teaming up in the face of the dangerous times going on in Gotham - is sound enough to pass, given the characters' history. Hell, they even bothered to set it up during Battle for the Cowl.

So I can't find anything ideologically wrong with Gotham City Sirens, so what? What's up with the contents? Well, they're not bad, not bad at all. Paul Dini and Guillem March team up to write and draw these characters with a good deal of individuality - Ivy is cold and slightly inhuman, Harley is goofy and slightly insane, etc. There are lots of good facial expressions (particularly on Harley and chump-super-villain-of-the-issue Boneblaster), plenty of nice kinetic fight scenes and yadda and yadda and yadda. The colour ain't up to Dave Stewart levels, but it looks real pretty.

You know what the trouble with this issue is? It's a set-up issue. It's concerned with getting the characters to the physical and interpersonal places that they need to be for the rest of the series to play out. So while the lameo title and cheesecake cover and the vein of cynicism that runs through my tiny heart say that there is way too much potential for terribleness here to give it a pass, the characterization and potential for nutty fun and the inventiveness that's been shown so far swing me back the other way. I'm afraid that I'm going to have to reserve judgement for now. Check with me after Issue 2.

The Last Days of Animal Man No. 2 (of 6) - You know what's really nice? The occasional tale set in a non-apocalyptic future. Here's Animal Man, some time in the future, and there hasn't been a giant war or a plague or a zombie uprising. Time has continued to pass and things have changed somewhat, as is the nature of comics (blue whale Green Lantern is possibly the best idea of the week. Okay, tied with Will von Hammer), but being set in the future has not been taken as license to destroy the world to a level just below that of the average issue of What If? or Elseworld featuring the Justice League. Good show, guys. May this book continue to be a good time for the next four issues.

Buck Rogers No. 1 - This looks like it could be a very good time. We shall see how the old "stranger in a strange land" scenario pans out over the next few issues as Buck figures out a) that he is in the future and b) that this is an opportunity to kick a lot of ass. Features a cybernetic bear and an air force man too dumb to wait until a plane lands to try to commandeer it.

Viking No. 2 - Ivan Brandon and Nic Klein have put together another incredible comic here. Amazing and atypical art and colouring, crazy-good and definitely not comics-norm story... This is fast becoming one of my go-to comics for giving people who claim not to be into comics. Man, and the final page on this one is incredible. I don't often lust after original art, but... damn.

Batman: The Brave and the Bold No. 6 - Batman plus Kid Eternity! Plus - thanks to the Kid's powers - Vigilante and Shining Knight and Viking Prince and GI Robot! Versus General Immortus! This series is doing a great job of capturing some of the down-home good times of the cartoon, including the great dumb jokes and the very loose adherence to DC continuity in favour of reinterpreting characters as necessary to tell a better story. Good show!

Rapture No. 2 - The post-apocalyptic fun continues! Our heroes, Evelyn and Gil, are struggling to survive in a world that has been devastated and subsequently abandoned by its super-heroes. Evelyn seems to be becoming some sort of devine avenger type, righting wrongs and fighting cannibals. Gil plays his guitar. Featuring! A very amusing old man named Old Man! This series looks like it's going to be a good time, as superheroics in the rubble so often is.