My short review: I like it.

Of course I’m not going to let you off that easily. I’ve got far more to say about it than that. It’s a pulpy, splashy romp with classic Bat-villains let loose on their own and teaming up to cause trouble. It owes more to Tarantino’s grind-house classic Kill Bill, with women in stylized costumes performing acrobatic fighting feats never seen in nature, than to common superhero mythos, though of course there’s that, too.

I picked it up because I can’t resist the bad girls. They’re easy to do wrong, sure, but I think there’s so much more possibility for a really interesting female character, at least in superhero-dom, in a transgressive villain. I love Catwoman because she’s always walked that line–she’s part noir femme fatale and part straight-up supervillain, with just enough heroine in her to keep your sympathy.

Here she isn’t quite up to her old tricks, and a run-in with a frat-boy wannabe bad guy takes more out of her than she’d like to admit. Poison Ivy saves her and brings her to the house she’s sharing with Harley Quinn and another familiar face, who hasn’t had much say in the matter. The all-bad-girl team-up is fraught with tension and mistrust from the beginning, of course, and the biggest problem is the one question that Harley and Ivy assume the Catwoman must know the answer to: Who is Batman?

I’m sure there have been complaints about the art–that the girls are oversexualized, that Harley’s wearing a schoolgirl uniform–and maybe it just says something about my comic-reading tastes, but I didn’t find them offensive. Guillem March’s art is hyperstylized and kinetic, with characters male and female twisting and bending into shapes not usually seen in nature, and the characters strike me as less sexualized than simply, well, comic-booky.

The three leads are very different women, and by virtue of their constant second billing have always been a bit of a stereotype, but giving them their own series allows for them to be fleshed out a bit more. I’m hoping for more especially from Harley, who has less to do in this first issue as far as character development goes, though she does get to kick some butt. Paul Dini is definitely capable of doing dark, as is hinted in the treatment of poor Eddie Nigma by Ivy and by the brief mention of the Mad Hatter, and I rather hope he goes for it in this series–I’d love to see a series where these three characters can really let loose all the screwed-up bits of their psyches and yet retain our interest and sympathy.

IGN has a cool interview up with DC Direct’s Georg Brewer, about what sorts of figures will be coming out during the upcoming Green Lantern megaevent, Blackest Night. A highlight:

I always love when we work on project with Geoff. Not only is he a great storyteller, but he is a huge toy collector as well, so his insight and participation always makes things better. We run as much by him as is practical, from selecting the figures, to writing the copy, and he is a great collaborator. Out of our brainstorming sessions sometimes cool ideas come up that he then can support or play with in the story as it unfolds.

I found that to be particularly interesting — that the toys and licensed products might actually give back to the story side of the equation. But then again, I’ve heard of editors and artists occasionally looking at toys and statues for reference (because seriously, how many of us know how to draw ’80s Nightwing’s back without reference?), so maybe I’ve just been underestimating toys all this time!

In addition, Brewer announced the list for the upcoming waves of figures that will come out soon:

Wave #1
- Black Lantern Earth-2 Superman 6.5″
- Alpha Lantern Boodika with removable face plate 6.75″
- Blue Lantern Saint Walker with power battery 7.5″
- Atrocitus with power battery 7.25″

Wave #2
- Black Lantern Martian Manhunter 7″
- Green Lantern John Stewart with power battery 6.75″
- Indigo with Power battery 7″
- Kryb with removable back cage that stores 2 alien children 7″

Wave #3
- Black Lantern Aquaman 6.75″
- Green Lantern Arisia with power battery 6.5″
- Star Sapphire with power battery 6.625″
- Larfleeze The Orange Lantern with Glomulus and power battery 7″ GLOMULUS is 2.375″

Wave #4
- Black Lantern Firestorm 6.75″ to top of head (helmet increases height)
- Green Lantern Kyle Rayner with power battery 6.75″
- Black Hand with Batman skull 6.75″
- Wonder Woman 6.625″ to top of head (hair increases height)

Brewer mentioned that figures for Hal Jordan and Sinestro would not be forthcoming, only because they have had their own figures released fairly recently.

It’s been a long time coming, but Watchmen fever has finally decreased a bit.

Inspired by the marketing on the Zack Snyder film (and eventually transcending the atrocious reviews of the commercial flop), Watchmen has been sitting pretty on the sales charts for nearly a year — at #1, to be exact.

Well, ICv2 has reported that for the first time since June 2008, Watchmen was no longer the king of BookScan’s list of top-selling graphic novels, with the top spot now being taken by Bleach Vol. 27.

Manga has traditionally dominated the list, with only Grant Morrison’s Final Crisis hardcover and Joss Whedon’s Buffy the Vampire Slayer Vol. 4 representing from the top mainstream companies.

Well, if you live in Las Vegas and loved Batwoman as much as I did, then I have some good news for you.

Artist J.H. Williams III, via his blog, has announced that the Dynamic Duo behind Katherine Kane will be rocking Las Vegas on Saturday, July 11. Attendees will be able to get the special commemorative print seen above.

Ich Liebe Comics reports that the event will begin from 11-2pm at Alternate Reality Comics, and will move to Comics Oasis from 4-7pm. All proceeds from the event will go to the Hero Initiative, which helps creators in economic need.

Need a little bit of music with your webcomic? Well, look no further!

Matthew Petz, creator of the supernatural western adventure The Corpse Carries A Gun, has written a nice little theme song for his Zuda comic.

You can rock out to the song here, and learn more about the series by clicking here!

While we at Newsarama are proud of our Best Shots feature, the Hero Initiative has created some best shots of a different kind…

That’s right. Shot glasses based on the Brian Azzarello series 100 Bullets.

These shot glasses can be yours if you purchase your tickets to the Hero Initiative’s 100 Bullets: Last Shot party on July 11th, at Meltdown Comics in Los Angeles.

This party will be to celebrate the 100th and final issue of the acclaimed crime series, which explores a shadowy organization and its offer of giving anyone 100 untraceable bullets to fix their lives.

The Last Days of Animal Man #2

Written by Gerry Conway

Pencils by Chris Batista

Inks by Dave Meikis

Cover Art by Brian Bolland

DC Comics

My comics tastes tend toward the offbeat and that’s what made me curious about The Last Days of Animal Man. It’s a pretty odd title and the Brian Bolland covers are really eye-popping.

The cover to Issue One has Animal Man and a pack of various animals running toward the reader, all as skeletons, which is a tribute to the first run of Animal Man in the same pose with the same animals. Issue Two has Animal Man suspended in midair as a Green Lantern whale keeps him aloft with a powerful green light beam. Bolland’s art has graced quite a number of Animal Man covers over the years and so it makes sense for him to be around for this six issue limited run. It also makes sense to have Gerry Conway killing off Animal Man since he’s the guy who killed off Gwen Stacy, Peter Parker’s famous first love. That alone makes it interesting to me but this isn’t the offbeat read I had expected.

Animal Man began with a few appearances in Strange Adventures in the ’60s and never took off until, twenty years later, Grant Morrison turned him into something cool and experimental. Buddy Baker was no longer just some guy who finds himself with super powers after a fateful encounter with an alien. With Morrison, the whole language of comics is explored with Buddy Baker speaking back to the reader as well as Morrison. Animal Man was offbeat and unconventional and found a home with Vertigo but, after being passed along to different writers, the trend has been to make Animal Man less weird and more a superhero which this current run conforms to.

It’s not a bad little story so far. It’s one of those fantasy segments with events twenty years or so into the future. Buddy Baker and his lovely wife, Ellen, still live in San Diego, which has undergone a rebirth after suffering a Katrina-like deadly storm. Buddy is starting to feel his age and is struggling with a mid-life crisis that only gets worse each time he’s called upon to use his super powers which continue to fail him. Ellen sells time shares instead of being an artist. The kids have left home. Life is a bit boring. Buddy and Ellen maintain a sunny California youthful look but that is little consolation. Not even Botox can smooth away the pain.

The domestic troubles seem more a hint at what Animal Man used to explore more fully in its heyday. Issue Two, with its Green Lantern tie-in, really makes no bones about the fact Animal Man is being marched out for review as a standard-issue superhero. The Green Lantern sequence is fun with the whale’s charming salutation, “Friend, of my friends.” The other workhorse in this issue goes back to Animal Man’s archrival, Mirror Master. Twenty years have passed, long enough for Mirror Master’s daughter to be all grown up and ready to kick some ass in her brand spanking new identity as Prismatik.

Towards the end of the issue, Animal Man finds a way to get his mojo back and, in a fight scene with the formidable Prismatik, is close to killng her until the Justice League descends upon him. Apparently, Superman, The Flash, Power Girl, and all the rest, need to have a talk with Animal Man. He is a standard-issue superhero and he better not forget that.

Sidewise, an online comic by Dwight MacPherson and Igor Noronha which is in this month’s Zuda competition, has unveiled this new trailer for the comic:

All I can say is, while I’m pretty new to the webcomic, that’s a pretty slick trailer from a motion comics standpoint. Is it weird that I think this looks more put together than the BET Black Panther cartoon? What do you think, Rama readers? While I can’t endorse the comic over its competition (there’s so many to choose from!), you can read more about this time-traveling steampunk comic here.

[Tip of the hat to Steve Ekstrom for showing me this]

The above panel is a portion of one from this week’s Justice Society of America #28, written and pencilled by Jerry Ordway and inked by Bob Wiacek. You can’t tell by the way I cropped it, but The Spectre III there is drawing a portal in the air with his left hand, in order to transport the various JSA members with him. Power Girl notes that she hopes they’re not going too far, or else she’ll wish she’d have gone to the bathroom first.

Which naturally got me thinking—Holy crap, I bet it’s hard to go to the bathroom when you’re wearing a superhero costume! And Power Girl has got it super-rough.

A lot of superhero costumes seem like they’d be awfully cumbersome to get in and out of enough to, um, go, but some have it a lot easier than others. The Flash and Superman have such remarkable speed they can probably zip back to their home bathrooms and back without anyone even noticing. Iron Man has a system built into his suit, and I wouldn’t be surprised if Batman, who thinks of everything, probably has a catheter system built in to his costume which leads to a bottle hidden in his utility belt. As for Aquaman, I’m pretty sure he used to just say he had to be immersed in sea water every half hour just so he could go in the water.

But poor Power Girl! First, her costume is a one-piece thing, so I guess he has to wriggle out of the neck hole, or maybe there’s a zipper in the back of front for getting undressed…? Either way, seh’s gotta take her whole costume off to pee. And that cape probably doesn’t help matters; that’s gotta go before she can sit down, right? And I imagine she’d want to take the gloves off too. What a pain! Power Girl really needs a two-piece suit, akin to Wonder Woman’s.

You know who else probably has a hard time relieving himself?( Well yes, Penance. I’m pretty sure he just wears an adult diaper now though). Spider-Man. His costume is two peices, so he doesn’t have to take the whole think off every time he has to pee—and with all those stops at the cofee bean, he probably has to go constantly—but  where does he go to pee? Does he swing back to his apartment every time? Because he can’t really use public restrooms in his Spider-Man costume, not being a wanted man and everything, and he’d certainly be vulnerable just, like, swinging in to the men’s restroom at a restaurant or the public library or something. Sure, he could always find a private corner of a rooftop where no one ever goes, but public urination is a crime, and Spidey doesn’t really strike me as the lawbreaking kind.

I was pleasantly surprised by this week’s Gotham City Sirens #1, which featured a so-so but not awful story and fantastic artwork. This was by far my least favorite part, though:

That’s a portion of a panel near the end of the book, wherein a character named “The Broker,” an evil real estate agent with evil customers, is leaving the book’s protagonists in the abandoned cat shelter he just sold them, and is apparently talking to classic Batman villain Jervis “The Mad Hatter” Tetch (In the previous panel he answers his cell phone with a, “Hell-oo, Jervis! I’ve lined up something very special for you.”

Note that last bit, “best of all, just down the street from an all-girls academy.”

The implication being, of course, that The Mad Hatter isn’t just a crazy, colorful criminal obsessed with stealing various hats for his hat collection, and/or obsessed with Lewis Carrol’s Alice books, and/or a mad scientist who has perfected mind control through super-science hats. No, he’s also an honest-to-goodness pedophile.

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This week kicked off with some interesting news, with Wizard CEO Gareb Shamus announcing that the ailing entertainment company would be assuming the reins of FunFare, a toy magazine aimed at younger children.

Yet at the same time, we’ve also heard reports of even more layoffs, in addition to general complaints about Wizard’s online store. With competition looming in the convention department, and Wizard’s staff and funds shrinking to the point of consolidating into one New York office, what’s the company’s next step?

You may be surprised, but apparently it’s taking over a new convention — in Toronto.

According to the Beat, Wizard has announced that it has purchased the Toronto Comicon. “We’ve always had a strong following in Canada, so buying the Toronto Comicon is something that allows me to give back to our fans. These attendees are known to be serious collectors and comic industry followers,” Shamus said in a press release.  “I am thrilled to offer the guests, celebrities, artists, dealers and exhibitors to our Canadian audience for the very first time.”

Peter Dixon, the former owner of the con, will be “intimately involved” with the new management, who are scheuled to debut the all-new, all-different con in 2010. But with Wizard’s shrinking fortunes, is this a sound reinvestment strategy, or a Hail Mary in the face of opposition from exhibitors like Reed and websites like, well, us? What say you, Rama readers?

It seems what happens in the Titans Tower, doesn’t stay in the Titans Tower, with this picture of Batman and Starfire, courtesy of the Source.

Say it with me now: Bat-chika-wow-wow!

Comics Nexus has just unveiled the latest of Neill Cameron’s A-Z of Awesomeness series, which has some pretty hilarious comic-related alphabetery (see what I did there? I made up a word, and it rocked).

That’s not to say that this is the best letter — they’re all equally the best. Well, the Inebriated Iron Man (for the Letter “I,” or as some lazy people type, the lower-case L) is sick and wrong, but also funny. As is Hagar’s actions to Hello Kitty. As is the Letter J.

[A tip of the hat to Manolis Vamvounis for introducing me to this debauchery]

Via Francis Manapul and the Source:

I don’t know about you, but this cover for Adventure Comics #3 makes me really happy.

Did you give Mysterius the Unfathomable a try during its DC Comics WildStorm six issue run? After reading the last issue of the series, out last week, I’m as big a fan as when I started and I can only hope that this is not the last we see of the magician/mystic/detective and his lovely assistant, Delfi.

Created by the team of writer Jeff Parker (Agents of Atlas) and artist Tom Fowler (Mad Magazine), this series says goobye for now. A lot has been said about the quality of this series to which I add that this is one you’ll want to read more of once you let yourself inside this fully realized world of quirky supernatural goodness.

It’s in the last couple of issues that things come to head between Mysterius and Delfi. With their lives in mortal danger, Delfi lashes out at her boss for being so selfish as to allow them both to get into such a mess. Just when he needs her the most, she abandons him. Of course, Mysterius does not realize how badly he’s behaved or how badly he needs Delfi. In the end, they both may need each other far more than they could ever admit.

And that is at the heart of this story. Nevermind, for a moment, the witches, the zombies, and the pits of hell that also make up the plot. Basically, this is a buddy story. Mysterius may seem to be a dapper yet bumbling middle-aged man with a pot belly. But, when he’s teamed up with the right assistant (this time it would be Ella Tamblyn aka Delfi) he has a better than even chance at summoning his formidable magical powers. It also helps if he can somehow make a human connection with his Delfi and, despite himself, he just might be able to inspire her to help him. Some pretty successful comics titles are based on much less. The foundation is in place for this series to come back with a bang and I would prefer it to be sooner than later. Check out the Word Balloon interview with Jeff Parker where he says he’d love to pursue more Mysterius comics and would definitely see a possible TV show. His first choice for an actor to play Mysterius would be Geoffrey Rush. I still see Bill Murray as a contender but I can see why Rush would fit right in.

Thanks to the artistry of Tom Fowler and colorist Dave McCaig, all hell can break loose spectacularly in this final issue. Human (and nonhuman) excess runs amok in this satire of Burning Man which is worthy of the best Mad Magazine parody. Much has been said about the European look of this comic. I would go ahead and say it is a European style, both in the writing and art, which is made up of elegant detail, delicate exaggeration, and overall irreverence. Most of these characters are mercilessly drawn with more than a little junk in the trunk. Things are played up for laughs and it works quite well here even when depicting minions from hell battling zombies. Americans can sometimes take things too seriously, including minions from hell and zombies.

Understandably, Mysterius the Unfathomable is a special taste, sort of like Seaguy, but easily accessible. Once you get the collected trade to this year’s best kept secret in comics, you’ll see what the fuss is about and you’ll enjoy lingering over it. Here’s a sample of a nice added touch of spookiness. Delfi and Mysterius are en route to see a client when Delfi thinks she sees something strange:

Delfi: Wait–No…How did he turn the other way so quick? Look here, bird!

Mysterius: You…can’t see his face?

(pause)

Mysterius: Did that bird not have a face?

Delfi: Well, I’m sure it did, I just couldn’t see it. No big deal, sorry to stop everything. I just do that.

Mysterius: No, it is a big deal if it was a portent. Faceless bird…

Delfi: Can’t a portent be for something good?

Mysterius: Almost never.

Towards the end of this story, just when everyone should be resting easy in a comfy epilogue, off in a corner, there it is again, that bird without a face. What a cool and eerie way to say that Mysterius remains at your service.

Wow, is it that time already? Sometimes, you have to give a shout-out to the men who have raised us. But in comics, sometimes having a dad isn’t all it’s cracked up to be. For every Luke Cage, we get a Magneto — because villainous fathers have always been a time-honored trope in the comics community. So with that in mind, we at Blog@ decided to take a look and create a light-hearted, sometimes tongue-in-cheek (and obviously subjective) look at the top ten best and worst dads in comics!

The Top 10 Best Dads in Comics: With parental fatalities often being the impetus for superheroics, it’s tough to find a good dad in comics. But the good dads are often the best, even if they’re no longer with us. Let’s take some time to tip your hats to these great men in sequential art.

10. Ted Knight: Ted shows that it’s never too late to connect with your kids. Somewhat estranged from his son Jack until his son David is killed, Ted soon establishes a bond with his son through advice and adrenaline. While Jack first was all about himself, now he’s a hero, partially because of circumstance, but mainly because of the interaction he has with his dad.

9. Mr. Fantastic: While Reed Richards is a bit of an absent-minded, albeit good-hearted, space case, it’s clear how much he loves his kids. It’s one of the reasons he’s pushed himself as hard as he can go, to support his children, and while he can sometimes be a little distant, when push comes to shove, you know Franklin and Valeria come first to this super-stretchable polymath.

8. Wally West: When he had to make a work-related trip, he took his kids along for the ride. This might be a glib way of looking at Infinite Crisis, but that’s pretty much what happened — during his battle with Superboy-Prime, Wally was being sucked into another dimension. But he brought Jae, Iris, as well as his wife Linda along with, and raised his kids — despite their superspeed aging — in that parallel world. He has since fought the Speed Force itself — taking a hit on his own limitless speed — to save his children from its shackles. This guy? A great dad.

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Two comics for the price of one: that’s the idea. You get a regular full-length comic, and then you get a nine-page original extra story at the back. In this case, you tag a nine-page story of a character with a cult following that has been bitterly disappointed with her cancellation onto a brand-new original monthly that ties in to the other major DCU event of the moment. It’s win-win, right?

Well, it doesn’t have to be, but in this case it definitely is. I was one of the people more interested in the Manhunter backup than the Streets of Gotham story, but I’m glad I had to buy one to get the other. Streets of Gotham may tie into the rest of the Bat-books, but I didn’t feel at all lost reading it. Paul Dini knows his noir, could do it in his sleep, but here he’s having fun giving a bunch of lesser-known (translation: I hadn’t heard of ‘em) Gotham characters a workout.

Dustin Nguyen’s art manages to be cheery and dark in the same book, often in the same panel, but the book’s real charm is in living up to its name. It’s a superhero story, but one that takes place on the street and feels more like a crime drama, bringing a grittier, more realistic feel to the stories. It’s Batman from an outsider’s view, and it’s worth a read.

The street feel leads nicely into the backup feature. Kate Spencer’s been transported to Gotham to act as the new DA, but she hasn’t left her crime-fighting proclivities in LA–though she has left her son, a feature that will no doubt come back in later issues. Nine pages is basically only enough to set up a story, so this one was mostly exposition, but it manages to fill in the gaps with Kate beating a story out of someone rather than with simple conversation.

Manhunter was already a pretty dark book, and things are probably unlikely to lighten up for Kate Spencer in Gotham. The real question will be managing to make the backup features worth the money for readers who aren’t thrilled with the main title, but the creative team on this one (Marc Andreyko and Georges Jeanty) suggests that DC isn’t skimping on the backup book any more than they are on the front.

Together, the two make a nice pair of noir stories to roughen up your pile of superhero books–or to superhero-up your pile of rough books, in my case. In this case, the experiment gets two thumbs up. My only suggestion would be a bigger indication on the front cover that there’s another feature in the back. I wouldn’t have noticed the band across the bottom on the stand, particularly on the stands that some stores have that obscure the bottom half of the cover.

My excitement for DC Direct’s output to kick off 2010 was tempered just a tad this week with the latest solicitations (Sept. 2009). Not to say that the product is bad, necessarily (I’m actually quite excited that DC Direct is doing a third series of “Women of the DC Universe” mini-busts), but it’s hard to muster up enthusiasm the months where they unveil what amounts to repainted action figures.

Take the Batman: Mad Love Collector Set. Now I don’t doubt for a moment that there’s an audience for this item, but it’s “been there, done that” for me since I got Joker and Harley Quinn the first time around.

It’s mostly the not-lacking-for-colons “JLA Classified: Classic: Series 2:” set of four figures that caught my attention for not all the right reasons. For one thing, the lineup of Aquaman, Superman Blue and Kyle Rayner certainly underscores the fact that DC Direct has confoundedly ignored an incredible opportunity to do a wave or two of Justice League figures based off Grant Morrison’s classic run on JLA. I was almost dumbstruck when I realized that, for all the Aquaman figures produced over the last 10 years, this is only the first time they covered his bearded/hooked design. Though, to be fair, this figure is anything but a simple repaint despite DC Direct using the Ed McGuinness template for the umpteenth time. I have plenty of the EM2-based figures in my own collection, but getting that Aquaman and Superman Blue (of which I have Mattel’s far superior version anyway) for the first time ever from DC Direct based off that distinctive style is sort of a letdown.

Though what’s downright puzzling is the inclusion of Batgirl Cassandra Cain. At what point has she EVER been in a Justice League story, much less illustrated by McGuinness? Why they went with her over — oh, I don’t know — Green Arrow Connor Hawke (still inexplicably untouched by DCD), Aztec, Zauriel, Prometheus or Tomorrow Woman, just for starters, I’ll never know. Going through Morrison & Co.’s seminal Justice League output, I would’ve gone through over a hundred heroes and villains before even considering a Batman character outside Bruce Wayne himself.

What say ye all collectors? Did DC Direct push the right buttons with this lineup (all of this actually dropping in February 2010, not next September), or do retailers have their latest batch or peg-warmers?

Zuda Comics, the online imprint of DC Comics, has posted the following tease about what looks like a new series, called Bottle of Awesome:

This tease, called “The Unattainable,” looks very… bald. There’s another teaser here.

While there’s very little information past the author, Transmission-X creator of “Raising Hell” Andy Belanger, we’ll keep you posted on any and all updates of this seemingly tongue-in-cheek series.

UPDATE: As soon as I sent this blog post, another, more retro tease came out. What is in that Bottle of Awesome?

DC, via its blog the Source, has announced that the new ongoing creative team for Justice League of America will be writer James Robinson and artist Mark Bagley.

Robinson has some experience with the League under his belt through his miniseries Justice League: Cry for Justice, while Mark Bagley just spent the last 52 weeks drawing all the heroes past and present of the DCU for the weekly series Trinity.

“It’s a thrill to be given the reins of DC’s flagship team book and to know that my partner in crime(fighting) will be the esteemed Mark Bagley who’s dynamic storytelling skills I intend to make full use of,” Robinson told the Source. “It’s further exciting/gratifying for me that I can dove-tail the events of Cry For Justice into the main book where post-Blackest Night will emerge a new team and a new exciting direction as they get caught up in the next wave of events building throughout the DCU.”

Robinson, of course, replaced the departing Dwayne McDuffie, who reported in May that he was fired from the series.

From a production standpoint, I’d have to say that this is a pretty nice decision by DC, as Bagley especially is a lean, mean drawing machine. Based on the portrait of the now-indisposed Big Three on this cover, I guess we’ll find out what happens to Vixen and company in October, when the new team’s first issue comes out. What say you, Rama readers?