Edison Beaker, Creature Seeker - Frank Cammuso

Edison Beaker, Creature Seeker - Frank Cammuso

The titular Edison, whose father disappeared under mysterious circumstances, accidentally discovers that his uncle is not an exterminator but a hunter of monsters, whose realm lies beyond the "night door."  When his sister's pet hamster goes through the door, Edison and his sister go looking for him.  With the help of a special flashlight and a pugnacious elf-type girl called Knox, they try to get the door's keystone away from the evil Baron Umbra.  With slapstick action and Calvin and Hobbes-style artwork, this is much more kid-oriented than the plot implies.  I really enjoyed the nasty collector and trader of things, Ma-Bob, and Baron Umbra's design is visually stunning as well.  A fun kids' story that proves there can be magic and thrills without the grim and gritty.  [4]

Kerry and the Knight of the Forest - Andi Watson

Kerry and the Knight of the Forest - Andi Watson

In this dreamlike fairy tale, Kerry, a young boy bringing medicine to his ailing parents, gets beguiled into entering a forest controlled by a malevolent spirit.  Creatures such as giant birds, living bushes, and a colony of aggressive brambles try to trap and harm him, but a one-eyed sentient rock pledges to him Kerry find his way home.  It's well written, with a good story and dialogue.  I was a little disappointed in the ending, which doesn't really add up.  It's very much a "pull tab here to defeat villain" kind of scenario.  But the rest of the story is well done, and as I noted, the book is basically a fairy tale anyway.  [4]

Turtle in Paradise - Jennifer Holm

Turtle in Paradise - Jennifer Holm

In 1935, young girl Turtle is sent (with her cat) to live with her cousins and aunt in Key West while her mother tries to make some money as a maid.  Turtle is very much out of her element, and her cousins, who have a baby-sitting enterprise called the Diaper Club, don't make her feel entirely welcome.  Still, she makes some interesting acquaintances, like a sponge fisherman who seems to be an old flame of her mother's, and her crotchety, mostly silent grandmother.  This is a terrific story, educational, fun, and at times even moving.  It's full of real-life details of 1930s Key West, from the conch and turtle fishing to the unusual ice cream flavors, the scorpions to the food to the hurricanes and buried treasure.  All these details of the kids' escapades, mostly unsupervised, really brought color and verisimilitude to the tale.  I wasn't a big fan of the art, which is fine but a bit blocky and uses anime shorthand instead of facial details.  [4]

The Golden Hour - Niki Smith

The Golden Hour - Niki Smith

After witnessing a favorite teacher get shot in his small-town Kansas school, Manuel suffers from PTSD and uses photography as an anchor to ground himself when he gets panic attacks.  He befriends two kids, Sebastian and Caysha, and begins to break out of his shell slowly.  Sebastian rises cows and Caysha raises chickens, and Manuel provides photographs for the farm show.  But after an overwhelming attack at a four-day overnight camp, the farm show may be a no-go.  This is an optimistic, poignant look at how friendships can help people recover from trauma and how strength returns slowly.  The title is explained only in the after-pages that show various stages of character development and so on: it's a photography term for sunset light.  There is a not-so-subtle undertone of queer romance between Manuel and Sebastian, never actually named or shown.  [4]

Oh My Gods! - Cooke & Fitzpatrick

Oh My Gods! - Cooke & Fitzpatrick

Karen, a typical girl from New Jersey, must move to Greece to live with her estranged Father, Zed.  The school is strange, Zed is the mayor and the principal, and everything is hard to process until the obvious kicks in.  Her father is Zeus, she's a demigoddess, and her peers at the school are Greek gods and goddesses, reborn as teens (to keep immortality novel).  Then someone starts turning students to stone, but who could it be?  Despite being Greek gods that know all about Mt. Olympus, the teens are totally stymied and even think Karen might be responsible.  They go to find the culprit, who is obviously Medusa.  This is strictly for children.  Although the dash of Greek myths might be nice for kids to learn, the myths are twisted and revamped, so not really all that helpful.  The conceit of the story is wholly unoriginal, and not well told.  The pacing is odd and jarring, with scenes that cut into the drama, or go on oddly long, or apparently are meant to be dramatic tension but go nowhere.  The mystery is paper-thin, and the world-building even thinner (the god-teens have flip phones and pagers, for some reason, but Artemis also suddenly understand how the gorgons' DNA can reverse the petrification — deus ex machina, indeed).  Why this took two authors is beyond me.  The art is unexceptional.  [2]

Shirley & Jamila - Gillian Goerz

Shirley & Jamila - Gillian Goerz

Save Their Summer - Jamila is a fifth grader who wants to play basketball all summer, but her mom threatens to enroll her in science camp.  She meets an unusual girl, Shirley Bones, and their mothers agree that they can hang out together.  Bones solves playground mysteries; she is a kid-friendly pastiche of Sherlock Holmes, and Goerz doesn't skimp on the more disagreeable parts of the original character's personality.  Soon Shirley and Jamila are at odds, but Jamila is curious about the mystery, and finds herself wondering if she and Shirley are friends.  The drawing is superb, and if Shirley comes off as rather flat, Jamila is a fully fleshed-out character.  A fine addition to the burgeoning field of elementary graphic novel series.  [3.5]

Science Comics - various

Science Comics - various

Bridges: Engineering Masterpieces - Dan Zettiwoch

Bea, Archie, Trudy, and Spence — the B.A.T.S. (Bridge, Arch, Truss, Suspension) gang — take us on a tour of a few dozen of the most remarkable bridges in the world (and in history).  They also introduce the concepts of loads (live, dead, and environmental), and forces (compression, tension, torsion, and shear — CaTTS).  I don't think I'm the best audience for this one, because the science didn't engage me.  Instead, I wished I could read more about the history of the bridges and the people behind them, rather than their materials, span, chords, abutments, trusses, etc; that's the liberal arts brain in me.  For example, the short page on how pig iron is made was more interesting to me than the pages of different truss bridge styles.  I also found the characters somewhat shoddily drawn, and their silly puns distracting rather than amusing.  [3.5]

 

Cars: Engines That Move You - Dan Zettiwoch

The history of the car, from Bertha Benz's 120-mile drive in 1888 to the driverless electric cars of today.  Along the way, a plethora of information, some only tangentially related to cars, is presented in a fascinating and entertaining manner.  From ox-drawn carts and King Tut's war chariot, how a four-stroke engine works, the inner workings of the Model T, attempts at aqueous cars, the first cross-country road trip (by Horatio Jackson, in 1903), various car horns through history, the first drive-in (Red's Giant Hamburg), a brief history of gas stations, hot rodders and pony cars, down to the Weinermobile, hardly a pebble is left uncovered.  And yet, with such a broad topic, naturally nearly every page could be a book in its own right, leaving the reader wanting more.  It's a terrific introduction to the automobile, with the vast majority covering the history of car development, although there are excellent diagrams and explanations of how the engines work. Gorgeous technical art, with only one or two bizarre choices when it came to faces.  [4.5]

 

Coral Reefs: Cities Of the Ocean - Maris Wicks

A yellow goby introduces the reader to the world of coral.  A brief explanation of the taxonomic classification system shows them in the phylum cnidarians (along with jellyfish).  Other chapters show the vast biodiversity of coral reefs, and a handful out of the thousands of species of coral.  There's more on the importance of coral to the ecosystem and why and how we might work to reduce harm to the oceans.  I enjoyed the information (for example, I learned that coral gets its color from algae that live on it symbiotically), and the art is simple and appealing. However, on the whole I think this is a weak entry in the series.  First, it seems thin, with a good amount of information at first but petering out over 100+ pages.  A nearly six-page goodbye sequence at the end seems to corroborate the thesis that some of this is padding.  Also, while I do enjoy the art, there's not a lot of detailed, vibrant art of fish and corals that I would have expected from the topic.  There is a lot of blue space.  [3.5]

 

Flying Machines: How the Wright Brothers Soared - Alison Wilgus

A very thorough look at the Wright brothers' trials and tribulations over the years perfecting an airplane, as narrated by their adult younger sister.  Starting from the Wright boys' fascination with a model helicopter, the book shows many iterations (and the specs) of their various machines, interspersed with the less advanced steps the French were taking.  The book does spend a few more pages on Frank Whittle, inventor of the turbojet engine, but this is mostly the Wrights' story.  (A handful of other pioneers are briefly outlined in the endpages.)  To me the tale is more history than science, although Wilgus does include a great deal of the science of how flying machines work (lift, Newton's laws, ailerons, etc).  Sadly, while the text is informative and likely to inspire aficionados to seek out more, I didn't find the blocky, two-color art very appealing.  [4]

 

Solar System: Our Place in Space - Rosemary Mosco

Framed through the conceit of a girl trying to cheer up her sick friend by telling about an imagined crew of anthropomorphic animals touring the solar system, this book gives a general overview of the solar system and our exploration of it so far.  It's a lot of solid information, although much of it is basic.  I found the information about Jupiter's and Saturn's moons to be most interesting (Titan has an atmosphere! Enceladus has water! Ganymede has an iron core!).  On the negative side, I was disappointed that the book used many times the very misleading picture of the planets all in a line next to the sun, all terribly out of scale, which gives a completely distorted view of the size of the orbits.  Also, the drawing of the characters is sketchy and their antics were not particularly amusing.  [3]

Middle School Misadventures - Jason Platt

Middle School Misadventures - Jason Platt

Newell, a middle-school slacker, is late one too many times and has summer school on the horizon -- unless he participates in the school talent show.  In one week.  All his friends seem to have talents, but Newell can't think of anything.  Worse, his frenemy Clara signed him up to perform in a penguin suit and a tutu.  Can he wing it?  Can he stop putting his foot in his mouth with his friends?  Can he stop daydreaming long enough to save his skin?  This is a funny, charming tale with a dollop of introspection and optimism, with art reminiscent of Calvin and Hobbes.  [4.5]

Glitch - Sarah Graley

Glitch - Sarah Graley

When game-obsessed Izzy finds out that she can actually enter her new video game, she's equal parts elated and terrified.  She meets Rae, a robot who says that her world will be destroyed unless Izzy can save it.  So Izzy starts spending a lot of time in the video game leveling up, to the detriment of her real life, annoying her parents and totally alienating her best friend, the apparently gender-fluid (?) Eric.  Of course, all is not what it seems, and Dungeon City has more dangers than Izzy realizes.  I enjoyed Graley's Donut the Destroyer despite its simplistic story and sketchy art, but this one mostly bored me.  No surprises and no character development means this is strictly for kids.  [2.5]

This Was Our Pact - Ryan Andrews

This Was Our Pact - Ryan Andrews

On the night of the annual Autumn Equinox Festival, a town floats paper lanterns down a river to celebrate.  Ben and his friends make the pledge: "No one turns for home. No one looks back."  And they bike along the river, determined to find out where the lanterns go.  Legend has it that they drift into the sky and become stars.  One by one, the kids peel off, until nerdy Nathaniel is the only one accompanying Ben.  Together, they travel into the unknown, into a dreamlike, magical place (?) in which a talking bear tells them his story and helps them along.  They meet a crotchety old potion-maker who helps them and then needs their help in return.  This is an enthralling, fantastical tale full of twists and turns.  It has a strong Japanese influence, with washed out colors that add to the ethereal tone.  [4.5]

Shark Summer - Ira Marcks

Shark Summer - Ira Marcks

One summer, Hollywood comes to Martha's Vineyard to film "Jaws" (never actually named in the book, but all the details are accurate otherwise).  Gayle, once a softball star pitcher but disgraced since she broke her arm, meets up with a shy aspiring cinematographer names Elijah (son of a visiting cultural reporter).  Together with Maddie, an outcast who lives in the lighthouse, they look into a spooky historical legend that the island seems determined to forget.  This was a really well-crafted book, with surprising twists and fully fleshed-out characters.  Gayle's mother who's following her dream to open a shop but has to settle for cleaning a hotel, the hinted-at romance between Gayle and her estranged best friend, and even the Hollywood workers are distinct, vibrant characters.  Marcks is a talented artist when it comes to detail and background, so I found the loose, cartoony faces a bit jarring.  Other than that, I loved it.  [4.5]

Whatever Happened To the World Of Tomorrow? - Brian Fies

Whatever Happened To the World Of Tomorrow? - Brian Fies

A sweeping overview of how technology, optimism, and the concept of "the future" entranced and galvanized Americans from the late 1930s to today (and a hypothetical future beyond).  Through the decades, a boy named Buddy and his father (aging in comic book time) visit the 1939 World's Fair, build a bomb shelter, watch the first rocket launches and then satellites.  Buddy reads comics that reflect the time as he wonders about Walt Disney's vision, microwaves,vacuum tubes, transistors, the space program, and more.  It's very well paced, crammed with history, from the canals of Mars to Mariner probes to Chesley Bonestell's science fiction paintings.  Despite the clear conclusion that America has lost its love affair with science and progress, it ends positively, noting that the idea of progress has involved: visions of grand machine-driven cities has been discarded because what actually happened was a gradual infusion of technology into everything.  [4.5]

Donut the Destroyer - Sarah Graley

Donut the Destroyer - Sarah Graley

Donut the Destroyer, daughter of famous villain couple the Destroyers, lives in a world in which most people have some kind of power and are either heroes or villains.  Despite her heritage, she wants to go to Lionheart Academy and be a hero.  Her parents and best friend object, and once she attends, she finds suspicion from the instructor.  Luckily, she finds a couple of nerds who take her in, but will they be enough to keep away her scheming villainous ex-friend?  Yes.  This is not a meditation on morality, Watchmen or Irredeemable style.  It's for kids.  Donut's parents love and support her despite her decision.  It's basically a shiny happy story. The sketchy, cartoony art put me off, but the writing is fairly sharp and funny, and I wouldn't mind reading a sequel.  [3.5]

Aster - Thom Pico

Aster - Thom Pico

1. Aster and the Accidental Magic - This adventure for kids is translated from the original French in two volumes (Aubépine: le génie saligaud and Aubépine: le renard furax).  In a world not quite like our own, a couple bring their young daughter, Aster, to live in the countryside to avoid a race of intelligent and angry birds engaging in their annual migration, destroying everything in their path.  Exploring the "boring" countryside on her own, Aster discovers a very naughty genie who grants her three wishes with a monkey's paw style literality.  Also, she befriends an ancient woman who keeps a flock of woolly dogs and her frenemy, a distrustful fox that wants to rule the world.  It's entertaining enough, but a little too wacky and "anything goes" in its world-building; I'm not sure what the birds have to so with anything.  [3.5]
   
2. Aster and the Mixed-Up Magic - Aster is alienating her older brother and her classmates by seemingly ignoring them, but in reality her duties as the magical Queen of Summer take up all her free time. Saving the town from a bureaucratic talking ram and his army of rebellious, albeit inept, sheep requires Aster to let Reed in on her secret, and seek help from her classmates and neighbors. Later, Aster explores a magical realm and continues her epic battle of wits against the valley's trickster spirit.  I thought this one was funnier and more carefully plotted than its predecessor.  I especially like how Aster devises clever, nonviolent solutions.  [4]
   

History Comics - various

History Comics  [First Second] 

The Challenger Disaster: Tragedy In the Skies - Pranas T. Naujokaitis

A thorough, informative look at the 1986 Challenger disaster, from the first plans to start up a shuttle program to the day of the tragedy itself and its aftermath.  The author uses the conceit of setting the story in 2386, on a space station orbiting Mars.  Four children have been tasked with a report on the Challenger disaster on its 400th anniversary.  While they have quirks, the kids are rather two-dimensional (the serious student, the nerd who gets sick at virtual reality, the slacker, etc).  I'm not sure how much the kid characters (or the future setting) add to its readability, but possibly it's a good hook to keep children readers interested.  The art is somewhat more cartoony than I like for something this technical, detailed, and, let's face it, somber.  But the information is good, and presented very clearly.  [3.5]

 

The Roanoke Colony: America's First Mystery - Chris Schweizer

An entertaining and comprehensive investigation into the famous lost colony. narrated by two historical Native Americans, Manteo, a Croatan, and Wanchese, a Roanoke, who traveled to England and eventually became, respectively, a friend and an enemy to the invaders.  It's absolutely fascinating reading; I didn't know half this stuff, or maybe had forgotten.  Schweizer doesn't spare the reader the atrocities that the English inflicted on the inhabitants, and ends the book with some plausible-sounding theories about what may have happened to the colonists (backed up by some hearsay evidence).  He also includes some rather fanciful theories involving aliens, which I thought was odd until I looked up some of the "sky battles" reported in 1561 and afterwards. He even includes some ideas on why Simon Fernandes may have been a traitor to the expedition, or (Rashomon-style) not.  Great art and superb story-telling.  [5]

The Wild Mustang: Horses of the American West - Chris Duffy

An extremely thorough and well-researched examination of the importance, use, and history of the American wild horse.  Told by a Pueblo-looking horse figure to a couple of Pueblo-looking humanoid figures, it covers an astounding amount of information, from the proto-horses of prehistory, to Apache raids on horses, to Wild Horse Annie's grassroots efforts to save horses,  to modern-day protections of mustangs on public lands.  Duffy is an accomplished writer with a breezy, witty style, and Falynn Koch, the artist, brings his words to life with truly beautiful horses, landscapes, ships, and so on.  A really superb summary that should be on the shelf of anyone interested in American history.  [5]

Garlic And the Vampire - Bree Paulsen

Garlic And the Vampire - Bree Paulsen

A small anthropomorphic garlic lives with a king witch and all her sentient vegetable helpers.  Gralic is kind-hearted but clumsy and unsure of herself.  When a vampire moves into the castle across the valley, she is nominated to go confront him in case he proves to be a threat.  Mustering up all her courage, she goes, despite her fears.  The resolution is rather unexpected and gentle.  Some might dislike the lack of traditional conflict in the plot, but the story is so sweet and silly and gentle, and the drawings are so cute, that I found it a thoroughly charming, quick read.  [4]

The Way of the Hive - Jay Hosler

The Way of the Hive - Jay Hosler

The life of a bee, Nyuki (Swahili for "bee;" all the bee characters are named after words for "bee" in various languages), from larva to her death.  Nyuki is at first afraid to venture outside the hide, preferring to build the hexagon cells.  But after her mentor is fatally wounded, she learns to go forth and adventure.  The author, a biology professor, masterfully blends good science (there is a short bibliography at the en, mostly articles from peer-reviewed journals) with charming drawings, humor, and drama.  With shades of Pogo and Bone influencing his dialogue, he breathes life into the bees, flowers, and other insects while providing a thorough education on how bees life, eat, swarm, defend the colony, and more.  It's rare to see someone who is so talented at two different fields, biology and cartooning, but Hosler does it all in this book.  [4.5]

Gender Queer: A Memoir - Maia Kobabe

Gender Queer: A Memoir - Maia Kobabe 

A memoir of growing up female from birth, but never understanding what it's like to be a girl.  Wanting to be a boy, sort of, but not being romantically inclined.  Asexual, but interested in slash fiction.  Feeling like your body is wrong somehow and not fitting in socially.  Not knowing what to wear and seeing no representation or models of what you think you might be.  Kobabe's elegant lines, evocative of Erika Moen's art, are simple and clean. The panels are arrnaged with a sure and confident hand.  I bought this for two reasons (other than a general interest in both graphic novels and gender studies): one, because it was banned by bigots, and two, because I thought it might be instructive or appealing or my step-daughter, who might have some nonbinary traits.  In any case, this is an honest, poignant story of questioning and learning to carve out your own identity, written and drawn very well.  [4.5]

Amazing Spider-Man - Dan Slott

Amazing Spider-Man - Dan Slott

1.  Big Time: The Complete Collection Vol. 1 - Collects ASM #648-662 of the 2010 series, with a couple of issues by Gage and Van Lente.  I read this after I read the 2014 series with Superior Spider-Ock and what came after, but it was still a delight to read.  Petey gets a real job at last in the high-tech sector; has a girlfriend (who doesn't know his identity, but is a police investigator), goes to pay his respects to the FF (because the Torch is "dead") and gets to join them on an appropriately bizarre cosmic adventure; butts heads with mayor J. Jonah Jameson; and fights enemies old and new, including an emotionless spree killer and a new, improved Scorpion, courtesy of the plotting Spider-Slayer.  Slott is at his best here, with often funny, sometimes poignant, masterfully plotted superhero story.  Slott never forgets that a Spider-Man title is at its core about two principles: no matter how well things may be going in his life, Parker is at core a relatable, lovable nerd, but also the closest thing Marvel has to Superman in terms of his noble heart and soul.  [4.5]
   

 

2. The Parker Luck - Collects #1-6 of the 2014 series.  Finally back in his body after Dr. Octopus sacrificed his being while occupying it as Superior Spider-Man, Parker finds himself regarded as a feared CEO and genius.  He must answer for things that Octavius did, such as kindle a romance, destroy the Black Cat's life, and torture Electro.  Trying to repair the damage, he stumbles upon Silk, a woman who was also bitten by his power-giving spider and has been living in a bunker for a decade.  Wonderful writing, allowing Spidey to be his noble, funny, wisecracking self, with lots of action.  [4.5] 
3. Spider-Verse Prelude - this is all material from the Spiderverse collected addition.
4. Spider-Verse - collects ASM #9-15, all material covered in Spiderverse.
5. Graveyard Shift - Parker tries to rebuild Parker Industries with a bid to create a new supervillain prison, which alarms his coworkers and brings the worst out in his rivals.  The Ghost is hired to destroy the company.  Meanwhile, the Black Cat is back and out for vengeance.  This TPB also includes an annual with some funny stand-alone stories.  [4]

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Champions - Eve Ewing

Champions - Eve Ewing

1. Outlawed - Containing Outlawed #1 and Champions (2020) #1-5.  This Champions team starts out perforce in media res, so I'm not really sure who some of the characters are.  I dislike needless exposition, but some brief introductions might have been nice.  Anyway, this story starts with yet another terrible tragedy involving young superheroes, this time the Cole tragedy, in which a mission to protect a young environmental activist goes awry.  A fiery dragon (from the War of the Realms?) attacks,a nd Viv Vision gets frustrated and enraged at their inability to stop it and goes berserk, so must be stopped, at which point there's a big explosion.  Viv's gone, and before you know it, it's the Superhero Registration Act again only this time aimed at minor superheroes (it has the rather funny acronym CRADLE) , some of whom are locked up in reeducation camps.  The Champions go on the run, but someone seems to be giving away their location.  With an even more assured and vibrant progressive voice than in Waid's mighty fine run, this is a well-told, if rather unoriginal, story; Ewing gives her characters on both sides a wide range of feelings and points, and argues both sides competently.  It's a natural continuation of Waid's intent, but I would have preferred some more of the fun side as well.  [3.5]
   

The Owl - J.T. Krul

The Owl - J.T. Krul [Dynamite]

A Project Superpowers offshoot.  The Owl, former police officer Nick Terry, finds himself transplanted to the modern world form the 1940s as a result of being trapped in the Urn, yadda yadda.  Anyhoo, mooning over the loss of his old flame Belle, the former Owl Girl, he comes upon a new, tech-enhanced Owl Girl, all shiny armor and cutting edges.  He wants to know more about this person who has a link to his past, but is repelled by her wanton cruelty.  This is a very basic superhero story, with rough art and rudimentary, by-the-numbers storytelling.  No twists, no ambiguity, and no surprises.  [3]

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Scene of the Crime - Ed Brubaker

Scene of the Crime - Ed Brubaker

P.I. Jack Herriman, son of a slain cop hero and nephew of a crime photographer, is asked by a woman to find her sister.  He tracks her down easily enough and finds her apparently connected to a cult.  The next day, she's been murdered.  Jack goes looking for answers, and finds out some creepy similarities between this cult and a decades-old sex cult house that ended in deadly arson.  With the help of another friendly P.I., he looks into the cult and finds even more old secrets than he bargained for.  This is one of Brubaker's earliest works, and in my opinion one of his best; he is fortunate to be teamed with Michael Lark early on, whose angular drawing style fits his dark noir stories.  Some people critique that the book is a bit wordy, but I didn't think it was overly so.  I loved the pacing, the twists, and the smoldering anger that drives Jack, slowly revealed over the course of the story.  It first appeared as a four-issue limited realistic detective story that, sadly, never got a sequel.  (However, this volume does include a short and rather depressing short story featuring Jack that appeared elsewhere.)  [5]

Spider-Man/Deadpool - Joe Kelly

 Spider-Man/Deadpool - Joe Kelly

1. Isn't It Bromantic? - Deadpool gets it into his head that he wants to be Spidey's best friend, and also that he wants to try to be be good.  Or at least better.  So, naturally, the way to accomplish both these things is to assassinate Peter Parker, an entitled one percenter tech genius who must have an evil agenda.  Makes sense if you're Deadpool.  This is a chaotic cluster of a comic story, jumping from one unbelievable scene (prisoners of Dormammu for some reason??) to the next and peppering nearly every panel with the multiple talk bubbles of these two verbose jokesters.  It gets to be a bit much, honestly, though I do like Joe Kelly's fast-talking silliness usually.  Styx and Stone make good villains and I actually liked the "double date" with demons that Deadpool planned.  Still, once Parker dies and goes to the afterlife, it kind of jumps the shark for me.  [3.5]

Gold Key Alliance - Phil Hester

Gold Key Alliance - Phil Hester

Four characters from the old Gold Key line -- Samson, Dr. Solar, Turok, and Magnus Robot Fighter -- go about their usual business.  Well, Samon is in a world he doesn't understand and knows is wrong, but the other three act as normal.  Dr. Solar, a black woman, helps out in an African village, Turok is a ranger in a dinosaur park, and the spy Magnus fights a war against AI-driven robots.  Eventually, all of them start to feel wrong somehow, as if they aren't in their real place.  And they're right.  Another Gold Key character that I've never heard of, Dr. Spektor, explains that the infinite varieties of these four characters have been dreamed up by the real Dr. Solar in order to protect the multiverses from his own exploded power.  I'm not very familiar with these characters, but I knew enough to realize that the initial versions weren't the ones from their old Gold Key runs, so I enjoyed the story.  I think it would have been better with a multiverse-threatening Big Bad, instead of "oops Dr. Solar simultaneously endangered and then reimagined the multiverse in order to save it."  But it was a fun read.  [4]

Maestro: Symphony in a Gamma Key - Peter David

Maestro: Symphony in a Gamma Key - Peter David

Intelligent Hulk wakes up and is told by an aged MODOK that he's been held in a bunker during a devastating nuclear war.  Rick Jones is old, all the heroes are dead.  Mutant animals roam the wastes, but one outpost of civilization is ruled by a figure they call the Maestro.  Enraged that the humans all the heroes worked so hard to protect ended up destroying themselves, Hulk decides to take over and rule with an iron fist.  Although I'm familiar with the storyline, I haven't read any of the Hulk issues that introduced the Maestro future, so to me this was a bit choppy.  I assume that some of the "missing scenes" (Hulk refers to having broken his neck at one point, and he seems to whip up some robotic dogs rather quickly) were actually allusions to things explained in previous issues.  It's a fun story regardless, with a couple of twists and great fight scenes.  [3.5]

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5,000 Km Per Second - Manuele Fior

5,000 Km Per Second - Manuele Fior

Translated by Jamie Richards.  A young Italian girl, Lucia, moves in next to Piero, who is smitten instantly.  And maybe his friend Nicola is as well?  Years later, Lucia is in Norway as an exchange student, living with a woman and her son, Sven. Piero goes to Cairo to join an archeology dig.  Lucia gets pregnant, but her marriage falls apart.  Later still, Piero now has a wife and son, and lives much of the year in Egypt.  They reconnect and reminisce. The title refers to how far away the two are and the slight delay in communication via telephone.  I'm not sure I fully understood the interplay between the characters; the ending took me by surprise, and not necessarily in a good way.  Gorgeous watercolor art, though. [3.5]

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Trio - John Byrne

Trio - John Byrne [IDW]

A new superhero team from John Byrne.  Come for the art, stay for the... art.  This is old school, '60s era Fantastic Four, but in 2012.  There's a rock guy, a stretchy woman (who talks like that old chauvinist Stan Lee wrote her dialogue) and a man whose arms turn to swords.  They're named One, Two, and Three, but the people call them Rock, Paper, and Scissors.  In the story, a proud fish-man with wings raises an enormous leviathan to attack the city.  Sound familiar?  Then, a gigantic ship arrives and Galactus a giant alien named Kosmos (!) comes to eat the planet's energy steal its water.  It's genuinely comical how slavishly derivative this stuff is of the 1960s FF (there's even a bad guy in armor wearing a green cloak, and he's also a Nazi skull-head).  Dialogue is corny.  Even the sleazeball reporter talks like Stan Lee's histrionic narration box.  But man, can Byrne draw fishermen good.  And I must say, point for diversity in the cast.  [2]

 

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Disquiet - Noah Van Sciver

Disquiet - Noah Van Sciver

A dozen or so short stories, from the comic to the poignant to the fantastic and weird.  In one, a sort of modern take on Hansel and Gretel makes an unexpected turn when the girl finds not a witch but a floating cow head in the woods.  In another, a man falls into a hole while spelunking and discovers a brutal world of underground mole people.  Other stories seem to be slice-of-life autobiographical like Pekar's work, or just tales of everyday people like Daniel Clowes'.  A young man meets his genial but largely uninterested deadbeat father for the first time in a decade.  A girl works at a bakery until she has saved enough for a car to move away.  Mostly black and white art, with meticulously detailed hatching and shading.  The scenes of rocky shores and New Mexico desert are masterworks of freehand drawing by themselves.  [4]

 

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The Fox - Mark Waid

Vol. 2: Fox Hunt - Mark Waid

Paul Patton, Jr, son of the original Fox, is trying to put away his superhero life and focus on his family.  But a psychopathic businessman named Mr. Smile, fixated on Fox, puts a million dollar bounty on his head, which becomes complicated when Paul's own son and even his wife decide they want to be masked vigilantes.  I wasn't very impressed with this one for several reasons.  First, it starts off with what seems to be a long-term story about going home again, saving a dead town, etc, but then that storyline is abruptly dropped.  Second, its fights are cartoonish, about the same level of verité as a GI Joe or Super Friends cartoon.  Paul is thrown through windows without a scratch, enemies that are supposedly intent on killing him capture him or watch him sleep, etc.  Paul's son somehow changes into a costume while on the floor not ten feet away from a bank robber with a gun.  It lacks internal consistency: Paul's son calls him "Dad" when he's in his civilian clothes, but then says not to say his real name out loud.  Later, Paul opens his shirt to reveal his costume with a shopkeeper watching him.  Also, though it is a humor book, I didn't find Fox's constant chatter, or the silly pratfalls, very amusing.  A final thought, it's interesting that Waid uses "the villain is in love with the hero" that ultimately forms a plot point in his otherwise utterly dissimilar Irredeemable.  This one's not for me.  [2.5]

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Daredevil - Charles Soule

Daredevil - Charles Soule

1. Chinatown - Murdock has somehow handwaved away his public identity (with plot magic!) and is back in NYC working as an unappreciated ADA, not beloved defender.  Daredevil has taken a young superhero, Blindspot, who happens to be an illegal alien, under his wing.  A charismatic cult leader named Tenfingers has amassed a following in Chinatown.  He has mystic power and proclaims he wants to "save everyone" (his actual motives and endgame were unclear to me), but then the Hand comes knocking.  I enjoyed this rebooting of Hornhead's story, but the story felt a bit rushed, with an ending that doesn't answer much about the villain.  And I'm not a fan of the ziptoned, washed-out gray and redscale coloring.  [4]
   
2. Supersonic - Ambushed by an enraged Elektra who thinks he's kidnapped her daughter, DD realizes she's had a false memory planted, as part of an attack on him.  He goes to Macao to track down the Black Cat, and asks Spider-Man to help him retrieve some information.  It's not clear to me how he knew that Black Cat is behind the false memory.  I did enjoy the interplay between DD and Spidey, especially the part where Spider-Man gets DD to open up to him.  I thought that was very in-character for both of them.  This volume also includes the annual with a story in which DD and Echo team up to stop a sound invasion by Klaw, and a rather brutal Gladiator story.  [4]
   

The Boys - Garth Ennis

The Boys - Garth Ennis

1. Omnibus Vol. 1 - Containing #1 - 14 with bonus material.  After the brutal death of his girlfriend at the hands of a negligent and uncaring super, Hughie is recruited by the Boys, five individuals backed by the CIA who want to keep tabs on and sometimes take out bad supers.  And the supers of this world are very, very bad indeed.  They use surveillance equipment to blackmail the hedonistic young group Teenage Kix, infiltrate a Russian/CIA plot to overthrow Moscow using supers, and investigate the death of a young gay man who hung with sidekicks.  So here's the deal with this book.  It's vile, way over the top, sometimes funny, sometimes not so much.  Ennis' highly puerile anti-superhero fixation is given free rein; he's at his worst and least mature when mocking superheroes.  Here the supes are not only amoral and brutal, they are all, every single one, sexually neurotic or "poofs." There's even a scene where a gerbil crawls out of KO'd supe's rectum.  Gag.  The satire here is vulgar, cheap, mean, and over the top, but worst of all, childish. It's about a subtle as three hammers to the crotch.  All that said, though, as it gets going it becomes more palatable.  The Boys' mission is sympathetic, it's a decent story, and everyone is so terrible that you keep reading just to see somebody get some kind of comeuppance.  The world-building is pretty terrible though.  [2.5]

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Letter 44 - Charles Soule

Letter 44 - Charles Soule

1. Volume I: Escape Velocity - Collects #1-6.  The new US President, Stephen Blades, learns from a letter written by his predecessor, Carroll (a very thin stand-in for George W. Bush) that in the asteroid belt, an alien presence has built something that seems to be a mining operation.  A nine-person crew of military personnel and scientists is already en route, but of course contact is slow and sparse.  Blades makes some changes, such as using the super space technology that Carroll kept secret to win the quagmire oil wars, and his chief of staff is attacked.  When the crew makes contact, there are more questions than answers.  [4.5]
   

Ivar, Timewalker - Fred Van Lente

Ivar, Timewalker - Fred Van Lente 

1. Making History - Ivar, a time traveler, appears to Dr. Neela Sethi, who is about to invent time travel, and takes her on a voyage through time while being chased by strange entities representing a "sentient city" and 'clockwork holocaust" who want to get Neela, or perhaps rescue her from Ivan, who may not be the savior he claims he is.  The mix of action and humor and craziness I have come to expect from Van Lente; great stuff.  [4.5]
2. Breaking History - Neela is taken captive by her evil future self and it's up to Ivar and his two similarly immortal brothers to rescue her.  More madcap Grant Morrison-esque technobabble and wildly improbable derring-do ensues.  While less happens in this volume than the previous, it's still terrific fun.  [4]
3. Escaping History - Neela, now an experienced timewalker herself, resolves to make things right, and enlists the help of... Ivar?  But a young Ivar, taken from ancient Babylon.  Unfortunately, her future self is still out there trying to erase the universe, and Ivar's not who he will later be.  They end up in a world of Roman carnosaurs, who treat plant-eaters as slaves and mammals as gladiators.  Ivar teams with a world-weary humanoid ankylosaur while Neela tries to make things right.  Terrific comedy, pathos, adventure, and absolutely gorgeous art.  [4.5]

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Youth - Curt Pires

Youth - Curt Pires

1. Season One - A mixed-race teenage gay couple, Frank and River, angrily leave the dead-end situations in their bigoted small town and go on the road.  The meet up with three other youths in a van, and get fucked up.  Then a meteor hits, and they gain super powers.  It's a tale that's been told a million times, but this is in a sense a fresh take on the idea.  It's set in the "real world," and these troubled youths act in a way that you might expect super powered youths to do.  They mope, do drugs, question themselves, steal money, party, hook up, get jealous, and lash out.  People are killed, and there are some explicit sex scenes.  I never really connected with the characters because they're all so distasteful and unsympathetic, at least from my aged vantage point, but maybe more will happen in the next "season."  [3]

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Irredeemable - Mark Waid

Irredeemable - Mark Waid

• Vol. One - The Plutonian, a straightforward Superman analogue, has turned bad, and not just bad, but genocidally murderous, ruining entire cities and killing his former teammates.  What made him lose his faith and good heart?  And how can the other heroes and villains, who are all dramatically less powerful than he is, stop him?  In this volume, which only collects four issues, the first question is hinted at, a bit, although it's not clear yet, as it's not likely that mere ingratitude and learned helplessness by the people of Earth could turn a saint into a murderer of millions.  The answer to the second question seems to be: they can't.  This is by-the-numbers comic book trope inversion that has been done before, as early as Miracleman, but Waid's machine gun story telling had my pulse pounding.  [4.5]
• Vol. 2 - The Paradigm, or what's left of them, race to find out what happened to Plutonian's deadliest enemy, Modeus.  Meanwhile, more fragments of Plutonian's past come to light: he was having an affair with a teammate's wife; and far worse, his accidental inaction was behind one of the worst events to happen before his turning.  This series just keeps on thrilling me, with twists and reveals that keep me reading.  Waid takes the Samaritan and Miracleman and combines them into a much more flawed character.  If I have a complaint, it's that Waid stuck too closely to his JLA pastiche for me; I'd like a little more originality in the characters.  [4.5]
• Vol. 3 - Dang, son!  What if Superman had never been adopted by a loving family, but bounced from foster home to foster home?  And then he tried to do right but everyone was scared of him anyway?  We also learn what happened to Modeus, and it isn't good.  The quality of this dystopian super world doesn't diminish.  However, I do think after the big reveal of what Bette Noir did and how she blames herself is a bit over the top, and, from what we know so far, it still doesn't explain such a drastic change in Plutonian's personality.  [4.5]
• Vol. 4 - This volume contains a few standalone stories about Max Power, of whom this is the first we've seen, Hornet, and Kaidan. Then it continues with the main story, where Plutonian fights the Paradigm and a demon along with his resurrected and highly sus sidekick.  They have him where they want him, but Qubit plays his own hand, ruining their shot.  So many twists!  [4]
• Vol. 5 - Plutonian and his resurrected sidekick, actually Modeus, try to make things right by using a magic gem, while Qubit reveals what he alone knew: Hornet, the first hero Plutonian killed, had years earlier set up a plan in case Plutonian ever snapped.  Unfortunately, it involved making unsavory deals with vicious alien invaders.  Two things on finishing this volume: one, the pace of the story is still whirlwind, but the revelations aren't as shocking and fresh, simply because that kind of intensity can't last as things become familiar; and Hornet's deal with the aliens seems to be a big plot hole since there doesn't seem to be a cover explanation for how he got the fleet to leave Earth.  [4]
• Vol. 6 - Oh snap!  With Plutonian in a coma-like state in the hands of alien tyrants, back on Earth the egotistical Survivor steps in to replace him.  Qubit wonders if his intentions aren't as suspect as Plutonion's, and what they're going to do with all these supervillains.  Meanwhile, Plutonian seems to be getting psychic help, in some way, from Modeus.  The Plutonian plot had me rolling my eyes a bit, as Waid obviously can't off his big bad, reason-for-the-whole-story so easily, but "mental asylum on a sun" is a bit out there even for comics.  I enjoyed being surprised by the story on Earth more.  [4]  
• Vol. 7 - With the help of a motley crew of powerful aliens (shades of Planet Hulk), Plutonian escapes the Sun Asylum, through a helpful McGuffin Hole (there's a guard station at the core?  Why oh why would there ever be one?).  Oh, and it wasn't Modeus helping him after all, I was wrong about that.  Meanwhile Qubit and Modeus work together to track down Plutonian, using the teleportation tech Hornet gave to the aliens.  What ensues is lots of bad news all around for everyone on Earth.  [4]
• Vol. 8 - Some big reveals take place in this exciting volume, setting up expectations and then dashing them to the ground.  The people and governments of Earth just got finished celebrating the defeat and exile of Plutonian when he comes zipping back, making his mark literally in North America in a big way.  Faced with the total destruction of anything resembling law and order, the new president (who inherited the job when everyone else died) makes the huge decision to rouse a couple of nuclear-powered monsters whose powers apparently dwarf Plutonian's.  Meanwhole, Survivor goes to get help from another source of power, who refuses to cooperate.  Bette Noir remains a pawn of Plutonian, but things are not what they appear to be.  And Kaidan and Gil apparently destroy any hope of getting Survivor's power increased.  Truly thrilling twists and turns here; I particularly enjoyed Bette's analysis of Plutonian, and how deep rooted his self hatred is.  This is grim but very well put together material.  [4.5]
• Vol. 9 - The radioactive aliens take Plutonian through a series of flashbacks, showing his true origins, then effortlessly imprison him at the heat death of the universe and depart.  And that's a wrap for this series, as the world begins to hea -- no, not really.  At the last moments a helping hand reaches out!  Then it's the origin story of Max Power, last seen in volume 4, who knew Plutonian when they were both boys and wants to destroy him.  [4]
  

Jack Of Fables - Bill Willingham

Jack of Fables - Bill Willingham, Lilah Sturges

1. The (Nearly) Great Escape - Flung out of Fabletown after flaunting his identity for money, Jack hits the road, only to be captured by Mr. Revise, who is trying to lessen the presence of magic in the world by shutting away the Fables.  So he plans an escape.  Jack is a terrific character, full of bombast and ego, and it's a joy to see him repeatedly smashed and thrown around, though of course as the hero he always triumphs.  [4.5]
2. Jack of Hearts - Jack wakes up in Vegas married to an heiress, but some Belgian terrorists on behalf of Lady Luck are after him because she wants all the luck for herself, and Jack doesn't share.  Also, a flashback to how he became Jack Frost.  [4]
3. The Bad Prince - Jack and Gary the Pathetic Fallacy, along with some other escapees, get scooped up by Revise's librarians, but immediately crash in the Grand Canyon.  Jack gets stabbed through the heart with Excalibur, because he's the stone, the center of every story.  Then he learns he's a copy of Wicked John, the original Jack of all stories.  [4]
4. Americana - Jack, Raven, Gary, and Humpty Dumpty set off through the lore of America (gangsters, musicals, Puritans) to find the secret city of lost gold, only to fall afoul of another librarian, this one of the book-burning variety.  Babe the (miniature) Blue Ox's one-page absurdist fantasies are a highlight, but there's laughs aplenty throughout.  [4]
5. Turning Pages - Jack's years as a bandit in 1883 are put to an end by Bigby, causing their rivalry from then on.  We hear from the fourth Wall sister (get it?!) about the early lives of the Page sisters, even as Bookburner marches on Revise with his army of Forgotten Fables. This series remains consistently funny, grandiose, and over the top fun.  [4.5]
6. The Big Book of War - Revise and Bookburner battle it out, while Jack imagines himself a great general, beds the Page sisters, and eats tacos.  Jack's total idiocy and egotism keep things fun and lighthearted.  We learn more about Jack's origins, and boy does he as well.  [4.5]
7. The New Adventures of Jack and Jack - This book comes after the Fables crossover, so some scenes are missing.  It's not as bad as usual, though, because we go straight into the tale of Jack's son Jack Frost II, who is a brave and valiant hero.  Meanwhile, Jack of Fables starts turning into a dragon because he's been hoarding treasure for the last three books.  Fun, fresh, and always reinventing to be original.  [4]
8. The Fulminate Blade - No Jack of Fables in this one; it's all about his son, Jack II, who strives to become a hero, accompanied by MacDuff, his magical wooden owl.  He finds a quest in a kingdom featuring an intriguing mix of magic and technology.  Despite being naive and not seeing obvious threats around him, his nobility carries him through, especially once he befriends a fairly nice witch.  This new take on the beanstalk fable is well done, humorous, and fun.  [4]