Friday, September 27, 2013

Issue Review: Miss Fury 6

Miss Fury desperately calls out for Captain Chandler on the train platform, but he is not there.  As she looks around for him, she spots Schauburger, the time-traveling Nazi from issues 1-5.  She realizes that she has come back to a timeline different from the one she remembers.  The military police on the train platform try to capture her, but she dodges past an oncoming train.  She tries looking for Chandler at his apartment, but there is no evidence that he ever lived there. She heads back to her own place, but then she sees another version of herself, already there wearing an evening gown.  The two Marlas lock eyes and the other timeline's Marla toasts herself.  The Miss Fury whose exploits we've been following decides to get help from a rich young man who has a crush on her. He calls in favors in Washington and discovers that Chandler went AWOL 13 months ago -- which means he does exist.  Miss Fury heads to a rooftop to try and figure out what is going on, and concludes that Schauburger somehow plucked Chandler from the time stream.  She concentrates, and starts seeing visions of other times all in the same place.  She enters a building that seems to be shifting in time, and after fighting midieval knights, she comes face to face with Schauburger. But she can't hurt him, because he's already dead, and he says that he needs her help again.  Hermann has not really been stopped, and Chandler is Schauburger's way of guaranteeing Miss Fury's cooperation.

Thursday, September 26, 2013

Issue Review: Captain Midnight 3

Fury Shark seems to have Captain Midnight and Charlotte in her grasp. She wants to make Midnight watch as polar bears rip apart Charlotte. But Midnight breaks out of his bonds, and starts battling Fury's team.  He throws one of them into the path of the polar bears, buying Charlotte time.  Charlotte tries to stop Fury from escaping, and the two fight, but Fury kicks her out of a moving plane. Captain Midnight glides up and rescues her. Meanwhile, back on the ship, Commander Johnson learns that men died carrying out his plan with Midnight, and starts to come clean, but is shot by a sniper called Helios.  After the fights end, Agent Jones and Marshall regroup with Midnight and Charlotte. They explain that as he died Johnson mentioned something about a Mr. Jones and "Black Sky." Although Midnight recognizes the name, and it is connected with his time-traveling disappearance, he pretends to know nothing about it.  Midnight, Charlotte, and Marshall agree to go after Fury Shark, while Agent Jones returns to his job to work his angle "from the inside."  As the story concludes, Helios reports to a wheelchair-bound man who seems to be in control of Midnight's company, Albright Industries.

Wednesday, September 25, 2013

Issue Review: Jupiter's Legacy #3

As the Utopian discusses the fate of his pregnant daughter Chloe with her boyfriend Hitch, Walter and Brandon plot against him.  They somehow launch a mile-wide asteroid lined with nuclear devices at the earth to trick Utopian into trying to stop it. While this occurs, the entire team attacks Chloe and her mother (Grace), and they slaughter Grace.  Then they try to kill Chloe, but Hitch uses his teleportation powers to help the two of them escape.  Back in the desert, the rest of the team beats Utopian to a pulp, and then Brandon uses powerful eye-beams to literally drill two holes in the Utopian's skull and kill him.

Sunday, September 22, 2013

The pull list and keeping your word

Today, I'd like to discuss a service offered by most comic-book shops that is used by many customers: the "pull list."  I'm going to discuss that service because of an argument I started having on a comic-based blog, and the irresponsible attitude taken by one or two of the folks there.

First, a little history.  Originally, comic-books were printed on pulp paper, very cheaply, and sold for a few cents. When I was growing up, comics could be had for 30-40 cents, depending on the exact year.  They were mass-marketed through news stands, much like regular newspapers, and the rules for selling and distributing were very similar. The distributor would bring the news stand its allotment, and the news stand put them out.  The news stand owner could return all unsold copies, and was not financially responsible for them. Now, to be sure, the owner wanted to sell them -- he made a small profit on each one, so comics did make him some money.  But if he didn't sell some, it was no skin off his nose -- ultimately, the cost of unsold comics was borne by DC, Marvel, and the distributors.

Then in the 1980s, comic-book specialty shops started springing up with more and more frequency (I remember when the first one opened in around 1981 in my local mall).  These shops were not news stands.  They would get comics directly from the companies (these were called "direct sales"), and sell them to the customers.  Because of the differences in distribution, direct-sales shops could not return unsold quantities of comics. Therefore, they had to order the number they wanted, pay for each one they ordered, and then hope to sell each and every one.  Unlike the news stand, comic-shop owners took a loss from every unsold copy.

Wednesday, September 18, 2013

Story Arc Review: Invincible vol. 1 - Family Matters

Collecting issues 1-4 of the series Invincible, volume 1, "Family Matters," chronicles the story of how teenage high-school student Mark Grayson starts learning to use his super-powers.  Grayson is the son of Omni-Man. One day, as takes the trash out, Mark tosses the garbage bag so far that it practically goes into orbit.  Now, he realizes, he's starting to have super-powers.  Eventually Mark discovers that he has other powers, including flight and invulnerability.  His father takes him to get a costume, and Mark takes the name "Invincible." Shortly after getting his powers and costume, Mark goes out flying at night, and stumbles upon a villain named Mauler who is stealing video game processors.  As Invincible and Mauler fight, a group of teenage superheroes -- the Teen Team -- shows up, including Robot, Atom Eve, Rex Splode, and Dupli-Kate.. They help Mark collar Mauler.  Eve, it turns out, is one of Mark's class-mates, and they recognize each other the next day.  She invites him to join the teens as they go on their next assignment -- they follow Mauler to his hide-out and capture him and his brother.

Back at school, Eve and Mark learn that several kids have gone missing.  Meanwhile, Omni-Man takes Invincible out for a "team-up," and starts teaching him what it means to be a superhero.  Eventually, the two get involved in an alien invasion. They defeat the aliens and close their inter-dimensional portal. Then on the way home, they find one of the missing kids at the mall, strapped to a bomb.  Omni-Man throws the kid out of the mall so that when he explodes, no one else dies, but then another portal opens and the aliens capture him and take him away. As the story arc concludes, Robot uses his detective abilities to track down who has been setting the bombs -- it turns out to be Mr. Hiles, the physics teacher.  Invincible and Atom Eve go to confront him, and he admits his guilt. He explains that his son was bullied into committing suicide by one of the popular kids, so now he is killing off the popular kids in revenge.  He also has a bomb strapped to his own chest, set to go off.  Invincible grabs him and takes him to Antarctica, so no one is hurt when he blows up.

Monday, September 16, 2013

Issue Review: Ghosted 3

Winters and his team need to steal the mask of a voodoo priest from their employer, Markus Schrecken.  Winters pays Schrecken a visit in the middle of the night, surprising him in bed with two young women, to argue with him about the job Schrecken has hired him to do - steal a ghost.  The argument is a distraction, though, and while Winters and Schrecken verbally spar, Anderson, Trick, and King sneak around the mansion and Trick uses sleight of hand to steal the mask.  The team then returns to the Trask mansion, where the medium, Edzia, attempts to commune with the ghosts.  Although she does not seem successful, in other parts of the mansion, other team members are attacked. Joe Burns is attacked by a ghost in the video editing room.  And Winters sees a vision of a young woman who asks him to save her, and then is thrown off a balcony with a noose around his neck by an unknown stranger (possibly a ghost).  King says to steal the ghost they may need to have it possess one of them.... but no one is aware that Joe and Winters may be hurt, dying, or even dead.

Sunday, September 15, 2013

Issue Review: Red Sonja 3

Fevered and dying of plague, Red Sonja collapses in the snow and falls into a delirious state where she starts seeing visions of her past.  As a child of twelve, she hunts with her father and brothers, but when she finds the white stag they are after, she lets it go -- she is too gentle to kill it. Her father says she may never be a hunter.  But then they hear noises, and discover that their village is under attack.  Sonja watches from the sidelines as Ryshak the Grand and his followers burn her village and kill everyone she has ever known and loved, including her entire family.  One of Ryshak's men finds her and tries to rape her, but she stabs him in the heart and kills him.  Then she spends the rest of the day burying the dead of her village. At night, she stalks out into the woods with her bow and arrows, and one by one picks off Ryshak and his men and kills them.  After reaching this point in her fever-dream, Sonja awakens. She is barely able to stand. She sees wolves coming for her, and falls back to the snow, waiting for death.  But Ayla and Nias, her self-appointed "body-guards" from Corinthia, drive off the wolves... only to discover that Sonja is dead.

Saturday, September 14, 2013

Issue Review: Captain Midnight 2

Captain Midnight argues with Agent Jones, Charlotte, and Marshall about the status of world events, and is horrified to learn that his old enemy Fury Shark is a wealthy and successful tycoon.  Jones tries to take Midnight into custody and they get into a brawl, which ends when they agree to work together to investigate how Midnight was allowed to escape from the USS Ronald Reagan in the first place.  Jones and Marshall head back to the carrier to look into the details there, while Charlotte and Midnight stay at the Secret Squadron base to continue going through files that have appeared without any sign of who left them.  Fury Shark, meanwhile, sets in motion a plan to lead Midnight to his doom.  On the USS Reagan, Marshall and Jones investigate who let Midnight escape, only to find that it was the ship's captain, Commander Johnson.  As soon as he is discovered, Johnson has the MPs take them into custody.  Back at the Squadron base, Midnight detects the fake signal from Fury Shark, and takes Charlotte on an airplane recon mission to find the source of the signal.  They are shot down and end up at the old base of Ivan Shark, captured by Fury and her men.

Friday, September 13, 2013

Issue Review: Miss Fury 5

In 1942, Captain Chandler's plane explodes on a bombing run in the South Pacific.  In Manhattan of the near future, the time traveling Nazi air force is bombing the city.  Miss Fury listens as Schauberger explains what has been going on.  Harmon is really Hermann, a Nazi spy, who was a rival of Schauberger's.  When Hermann killed Schauburger, and then Miss Fury fell through the skylight into the time machine, their paths through time were linked.  He hands her a strange ball and tells her to travel through time and kill Hermann.  Schauberger tells Fury to shoot down the planes coming at them, but she refuses.  She's had enough killing, and enough of people controlling her.  Schauberger rages at her, telling her that Hermann rigged Chandler's plane to blow up, and Miss Fury then takes control of her time traveling and sends herself back to 1943.  There, she confronts Hermann, and says she won't kill again... after this. Then she shoots him, and destroys the crown and the time machine that started it all.  Finally she travels back to 1942, to the train platform, so she can see Chandler again. But he's not there.  And Schauberger, watching from the side, leers at her confusion and travels in time once more.

Thursday, September 12, 2013

Issue Review: Miss Fury 4

Miss Fury battles an army of Nazi robots in the year 2013.  As the battle rages, the Nazis Pinkston and Schauburger argue.  Schauburger throws a glowing sphere into the sky and a portal opens, teleporting in a giant Nazi battleship from World War II.  Miss Fury jumps off the battleship onto a roof-top, where she tries to attack Schauburger, but the two of them vanish through time while behind them, the battleship plows through Washington, D.C.  Next a flash-back shows Marla kissing Captain Chandler good-bye as he boards a train to go back to the War.  Later we see her receive a telegram that he is dead, and she faints.  Back in the future, Miss Fury battles Nazi robots, but then flees into the basement of St. Patrick's Cathedral.  There Shauberger explains that he is dead, killed right before Miss Fury fell through the timeline.  Schauburger claims that Agent Harmon is also moving through time, and that Harmon is the real villain  Back in 2013, Harmon confronts Pinkston, whose legs were severed by the passing battleship, and asks him where the time machine is.

Wednesday, September 11, 2013

My month without the New 52 continues

Back in late spring/early summer, +DC Comics announced "Villain Month" for September -- that instead of publishing their regular issues, they would publish one-shots showing the origins or back-stories of important villains in the New 52 DC Universe (aka. "the DCnU")..  These one-shots were set to have special "3D covers" (thought to me they look like clear plastic with stickers on them), and were clearly designed specifically as a marketing gimmick.  I began to balk at the idea, and then when I heard how DC was screwing over the retailers by playing games with the ordering system, I became so fed up with the whole thing that I swore off of DC's New 52 line of comics for the month.  I've discussed this at length elsewhere, so I won't go into further detail about my dislike for this "event" here.

But along with swearing off DC's mainstream comics for the month, I wanted to make sure that my own retailer in North Carolina was not harmed by my decision. None of this is the comic-shop's fault, and in fact they did everything they could to make all their customers happy with this Villain Month nonsense.  So to help out my retailer, and also to provide me with something to read as well as explore some non-DC options for buying comics, I decided that for me, instead of being "Villain Month," September would be "Independent Month." This month, I will be spending twice as much as I normally spend on DC's New 52 line, but instead of buying New 52 issues, I will buy product from the other companies out there, like Dark Horse, Image, and Dynamite.

Issue Review: Captain Midnight 1

During World War II, genius inventor Jim Albright was too valuable to the U.S. war effort to allow him to risk his life on the front lines.  Unwilling to sit out the battle against the Nazis, he disguised himself as Captain Midnight, and joined the fray.    As the story opens, Midnight's team attacks the North Pole base of Ivan Shark, a German leader.  Shark sends his daughter Fury away, and faces Midnight himself.  He dies when Midnight knocks him over the wall and he is killed by polar bears.  In the present day, Charlotte Ryan is sent by her grandmother, Captain Midnight's girlfriend Joyce, to find him.  Midnight vanished late in the war, but he resurfaced in the present day, flying out of the Bermuda Triangle.  The FBI captured him, but he escaped.  Joyce wants Charlotte to help him.  So Charlotte climbs to the base of the old Secret Squadron, where she encounters FBI agents and her ex-husband Rick.  As they look for Captain Midnight, Fury Shark, still young looking and rumored to be immortal, hears of Midnight's return and sends assassins to kill him.  When Rick and Charlotte conclude that Midnight is still in the Secret Squadron's base, half their team turns on them, and starts shooting the other half -- they turn out to be green-faced villains working for Fury Shark.  Captain Midnight shows up and takes down the green-skulls, and then offers his services to the surviving Feds.

Monday, September 9, 2013

Issue Review: Miss Fury 3

Miss Fury continues to travel back and forth through time.  In 2013, she flees across the streets of Washington DC, trying to get away from Nazi robots.  She grabs a motorcycle from a passing biker, gets on it, and tries to run over the robots.  Back in 1943, as Marla, she gets drunk after receiving the telegram that Captain Chandler was killed, and jumps from the top of a building, saving herself and her drinking partner by grabbing onto an American flag hanging off the edifice.  Back in 2013, she works with Harmon to discover who the time traveling Nazi is.  They discover that he is Erhard Schauberger, a Nazi scientist who disappeared in 1942.    Harmon sends her to capture billionaire Mel Pinkston, who has been replaced by a Nazi spy.  Miss Fury sets up on a rooftop, firing a sniper rifle at the guards as Pinkston gets out of a limo.  Then she attacks him and grabs him, but he tells her that America is already in Nazi hands, and when she turns around, everyone on the street around them is a Nazi robot.

Saturday, September 7, 2013

Issue Review: Jupiter's Legacy 2

The story begins with Brandon, son of Utopian, trying to use his powers for good. He and his friend move a large freighter through the air with Force Fields and Telekinesis.  However, they're drunk, and end up tipping it over and causing the containers to go sliding off the deck. Utopian and the other heroes have to show up and fix the situation, after which Utopian reprimands Brandon.  Meanwhile, in the hospital, Chloe recovers from her overdose and learns that she's pregnant.  She leaves the hospital and meets up with Hitch, her boyfriend, to tell him he's about to be a father.  Back in DC, Walter tries to use his mental powers to convince people in the White House to change the economic situation in America, and Utopian shows up to stop him.  Angry, Walter approaches Brandon, who is again drinking heavily in a night club, and asks him if he's willing to take down his father and replace him.

Friday, September 6, 2013

Issue Review: Wonder Woman 23

Wonder Woman's team faces down the Firstborn in the middle of a ruined Westminster Abbey.  The Firstborn has an army of bipedal wolf-creatures fighting for him, so Ares summons an army of dead soldiers from ages past to battle on Wonder Woman's side.  As the battle progresses, each team member contributes.  Orion takes on the Firstborn in a knock-down drag-out fight, but loses. Wonder Woman takes off her wrist-bands, unleashing her full power, but is unable to defeat the Firstborn and ends up bruised on the ground.  Ares battles the Firstborn with martial arts skills, but loses as well. As the Firsborn prepares to kill Ares and take his powers as the god of war, Wonder Woman takes a spear and runs both of them through, killing Ares. This keeps the powers from the Firstborn and instead transfers them to Wonder Woman.  As the story concludes, the Firsborn lies on the ground defeated, but not dead, and Hades appears to take Ares to the underworld.

Thursday, September 5, 2013

Issue Review: Miss Fury 2

Miss Fury stands in bombed-out Manhattan facing down a pair of Nazi jet airplanes with a sniper rifle.  She fires, taking out one of the pilots, who crashes into the other one. She leaps into the cockpit of another, previously-downed plane and pulls the ejection seat to get out, landing unconscious on a roof.  Then we switch timelines and she is being interrogated by Harmon, in 2013, now working for the CIA, not the OSS, and claiming never to have met her (or lived during World War II).  She tries to break out of the interrogation room, but is tasered.  Next she's back in 1942, having a romantic interlude with Chandler, a wounded solder, and is clearly falling in love with him.  Back in 2013, she is sent to assassinate a Congressman whom she is told is secretly a Nazi. She kills him,  but the people surrounding him turn out to be Nazi robots and turn to attack her.

Wednesday, September 4, 2013

Statue 5: Batgirl - New 52 Covergirls series

Several months ago, I heard about DC's "New 52 Covergirls" line of statues, which includes two of my favorite heroines - Supergirl and Batgirl.  Both of these characters already had "DC Covergirls" statues in the past, featuring older "classic" costumes (I have reviewed the Supergirl version here).  Photos of the new Batgirl statue looked particularly good, with a flowing cape and having her in a great pose ready to throw a "batarang."

Today when I walked into the shop, I saw a box for this statue on one of the shelves -- it had just come in this week.  I was a bit surprised by this, as the DC website says the statue doesn't ship until end of September, but I was not going to argue the point.  I had no comics to pick up this week (I am not buying DC's "Villain Month" issues, and the Indy titles I currently pull at the shop aren't due out until later in the month), and was only at the shop to update my pull list (I added Ghosted and Miss Fury to it), so I decided to go ahead and pick up the statue today.

I have to say, when I took it out of the box, I was very impressed.  Whatever problems I may have with DC editorial and the content of their current New 52 line of comics, I have nothing but favorable comments to make in general about their statues, and in particular about this one.  This is a truly outstanding sculpt of Barbara Gordon as Batgirl, with the flowing fiery red hair, the swirling cape, the cocked-and ready batarang, and the deadly serious expression on her face.  She looks every inch the heroine from the comics. The statue is highly detailed and holds up to the closest inspection. The colors are excellent and the proportions look good.


One of the very best features of this statue is the cape.  It flows very nicely and looks realistic.  The way it seems to flutter around her legs is perfect given the position of her body, and provides the illusion of real kineticism.



Overall, this is one really gorgeous statue, and if you like Batgirl at all, or heck if you just like really well-sculpted superhero collectible statues, this one is definitely worth a look.  This is a high quality collectible that will look lovely on the shelf for years to come.  I highly recommend it to anyone who likes items such as this.  Just beware the wallet -- this statue retails for $99.95 + tax.  But it's well worth it, in my opinion.

My score: 10/10

Issue Review: Jupiter's Legacy 1

The first issue of this new series begins with a flash-back to 1932. In the middle of the depression, Sheldon Sampson, his girlfriend Grace, his brother Walter, and several of their friends chartered a ship to take them into the middle of the ocean, where Sheldon dreamed of finding an island.  On the island, Sheldon and his friends gained powers, and became the world's first superheroes.  The story then picks up in the present day, with Chloe, Brandon, and Jules, super-children of these original heroes.  The old-time heroes are battling a villain named Blackstar, and have put out an emergency call to everyone with powers. The kids don't seem to want to step up and walk in their parents' footsteps, however, and their failure to do so triggers an argument between Walter, who thinks that the heroes should use their powers to fix the economy, and Sheldon (the Utopian) who thinks that the government will right itself, and that heroes have no business getting involved in politics.  As the heroes wrap up their fight with Blackstar and get ready to transport him to a maximum security prison, Chloe, Sheldon and Grace's daughter, complains to her friends about having to live up to her parents.  In the middle of her monologue, however, she falls down unconscious.

Tuesday, September 3, 2013

Issue Review: Ghosted 2

Winters and his ghost-hunting team have split up, and while daylight remains, continue to investigate the supposedly-haunted Trask Mansion.  The Burns brothers are mainly scoping the place out for camera positions so they can film their TV show. King is trying to find ways to prove that there is no such thing as ghosts.  Edzia attempts, unsuccessfully, to commune with the ghosts.  And Trick, while looking for something to steal, finds his way past a secret door, down a long hallway, into what looks like another dimension -- but only for a minute. When he looks again it is an empty room.  As the team gathers and prepares to depart, a local cop comes by to investigate all the cars outside. The Burns brothers pretend to be scouting shooting locations (which they are doing, sort of), and the cop, a fan of the show, lets them be.  After he's gone, the team departs, just barely missing being attacked by the ghosts inside.  Edzia asks Trick to obtain some special items for her, most of which he can, but one of which is owned by Schrecken, their employer -- and they know he will never part with it. So Winters decides to steal it.  Meanwhile, at the cop's house, Anderson sneaks in and garrotes him, then calls Winters and says that the cop took a bribe and agreed to "forget" the whole incident.

Monday, September 2, 2013

Issue Review: Miss Fury 1

The story begins with a battle on a museum rooftop between Miss Fury and some Nazi agents, but one of them tells her that he can travel in time.  An OSS agent, Harmon, saves her from the time-traveling Nazi, but when she looks through the museum skylight at a jeweled crown, the skylight smashes, and she falls down into a glowing machine that then teleports her to 2013 Manhattan.  From this point on Fury keeps switching every few pages from one time to the other, first the 1940s, then 2013, then back to the 1940s.  In the 1940s, she plans to steal the jeweled crown. She flashes back to when she got her powers, during a magic ritual in Africa, and to the word on the ship back home that her father died. Then at the museum party, as she scopes the place out to steal the crown, the time-traveling Nazi touches her, and she ends up back in 2013, with modernized Nazi warplanes bombing New York.

Sunday, September 1, 2013

Issue Review: Lazarus 3

Forever Carlyle is in Mexico on family Morray's lands.  One of the Morray troops tries to disarm her, but the Morray Lazarus, Joacquim, orders him to leave her alone, and when he questions the order, Joacquim kills him and escorts Eve to a meeting with his father.  Back at Family Carlyle's HQ, James, the family's chief medical officer, is questioned by Jonah about Eve's location, and refuses to tell him where she is.  James knows, but Malcom has forbidden him to reveal her position to anyone else. Jonah turns to Johanna, and the two discuss what to do about their Lazarus.  They decide to kill her as soon as she returns to Carlyle lands.  Meanwhile, down in Mexico, Eve negotiates with Edgar Morray, head of the Morray clan.  The Morrays agree to provide interdictor craft in return for grain and seed. They must also agree to stop collaborating with the twins.  Edgar agrees, and sends Joacquim back to the border with Eve.  They pause for a quick drink as they prepare to part ways, but are hit from the air by a missile.