Superheroes

Wow. 2018 has just flown right by! Hard to believe we've seen twelve incredible cosplayers already, and with our January 2019 Critical Blast Bombshell, it looks like there's no end to the creative people who are out there making our heroes pop out of the pages and screens and into the real world!

And every once in a while, you find a cosplayer who does a character you not only merely recognize, but whom you would swear was lifted right out of the medium and placed into the world. This month's Bombshell is definitely in that category, and one month in is already on target to be our Bombshell of the Year for 2019. (Granted, he's in a field of one right now, and we'll be adding eleven more to the competition before the year is out -- but for the next 31 days, the odds are definitely in his favor!)

So let's draw back the curtain on a new year -- and a new cosplay Bombshell feature -- as we proudly present to you, our readers, the...

P:andora has arrived on Earth, and worldwide people ask two questions: Is the combined might of Project: Superpowers enough to stop him? And how the heck do you pronounce a name with a colon in it?

Rob Williams and Sergio Davila weave an action-packed and dynamically-presented superhero yarn that pulls out all the stops and includes all the things we love about the classic comic book story. Where else can you see an 80-story giant get swatted down by The Might Samson by using a skyscraper as a baseball bat? Where else can you find an American Flag with a life of its own that seeks to bind with a human host and become an entity powerful enough to stand against evil? 

Rob Feldman's miniseries, CYKO KO, from Alterna Comics, finishes its three-issue arc with the titular hero facing off against the fiendish foe who killed his father -- the Devil Spider!

CYKO KO is a hero that's part Madman, part Ambush Bug, part Freakazoid, and completely all-ages friendly. The art and coloring are done in a flattened style reminescent of 1970s comics that adapted cartoons from television like SUPER FRIENDS. This actually broadens the appeal to younger readers who will fall in love with the antics and interactions of Cyko, Peachy, and Karate Bot -- and the newly introduced interdimensional uber-fan of Cyko, Blipso Facto aka Cyko Jr, a being from a dimension where everyone has modeled their lives after the adventures of Cyko KO.

Here's more of what you need to know:

I was a huge fan of the FREEDOM FIGHTERS comics in the late 1970s. These books featured the Quality Comics characters acquired by DC -- Uncle Sam, Phantom Lady, Black Condor, Doll Man, The Ray, The Human Bomb, and The Red Bee -- and formed them into a team of heroes, banded together to fight the Nazis on Earth X, a parallel dimension where Germany won World War II and conquered the United States.

There have been various attempts to revive the team with a more modern angle to them. This newest version from Robert Venditti and Eddy Barrows, however, succeeds by sticking the closest to its roots. The book opens in 1963 with what remains of the Freedom Fighters planning an assault on a Nazi robot-making factory. However, their plans are foiled by an infiltration of Plastic Men (or PlaSStic Men, with the SS done in the Nazi SS style), and they are captured and summarily executed. Only Uncle Sam remains, barely escaping the Plasstic Men by pulling a Jedi death.

The schedule must be getting tight on the 20-page comic (remember when they were 22 pages?) HEROES IN CRISIS, because the former lead artist, Clay Mann, was only able to turn in the first page and the last page of this issue, which were basically the confidential confessional pages. Lee Weeks picks up the rest of the in-between, where Tom King's plot doesn't move the action forward from the previous issue (or even the issue before that).

That's because this issue is done entirely in flashback, to fill in the gaps and answer some of the questions about what Sanctuary was and how it operated.

I’ve gotta say, the Joker of the future is looking pretty spry for a (very) white guy.

The Clown Prince of Crime has been hinted to still be alive during the time of the BATMAN BEYOND comic book series, which has this reviewer questioning whether or not the animated movie BATMAN BEYOND: RETURN OF THE JOKER has any bearing on the comic book canon, which seems to be an anchor-point in actual DC Comics future history. At the end of the previous issue, he brought down a high-rise owned by Bruce Wayne, although nobody as yet knows he’s responsible. He only took credit for it when he confronted Barbara Gordon, surprising her in her office and narrowly missing her with a bullet.

It's Thanksgiving on THE FLASH, and the parallel themes running triplicate through this plot are all about fathers and daughters, and the relationships that build between them.

Following up on his chronicling of the Justice League's 100 Greatest Moments, comics historian and science fiction veteran Robert Greenberger manages to top himself with DC Comics Super Heroines: 100 Greatest Moments. And while I wasn't particularly fond of the artwork selected for the packaging, finding it not particularly attractive, there's an adage about "books and covers" that comes into play.

This beautiful hardcover book isn't one that you rush through. You linger over each page and, if you're like me, you find yourself in one of two places: you're either recalling happily the first time you saw this event happen, perhaps when it was new to everyone, or you find yourself discovering something you've never known happened and now have something to seek out and add to your collection.

The year 1992 marked a turning point for animated superhero adventure. After years of shows like SUPER FRIENDS and THE NEW ADVENTURES OF BATMAN AND ROBIN, the time was ripe for the Dark Knight to return to the screen, especially after the second coming of Batmania that followed the Tim Burton film starring Michael Keaton. Rumors began swirling on the prenatal Internet (BBSs in those days) of an animated Batman in the works, and there was even leaked a writers bible for the series written by J.M. Straczynski.  

For the most part, Tom King does a fantastic job delving deeper into the mystery of HEROES IN CRISIS, leaving us with more clues but coming no closer to the truth of who massacred all the heroes (and villains) who were being treated at Sanctuary, the pscyho-therapy institute created by Superman, Batman and Wonder Woman for super-people to come to deal with their post-traumatic stress.

A crucial clue to the mystery is discovered during an autopsy conducted on Commander Steel by the Trinity. Batman extracts an object (that apparently Superman couldn't detect with his x-ray vision) that would almost clearly indicate Harley Quinn commited the crime. But when they close in on her, she maintains her claim that it was actually fellow patient Booster Gold who did the deed -- and she gets away after casting serious suspicion on Batman that the other two cannot ignore.

Sometimes I watch an episode of THE FLASH and I'm all excited about the cool things that happened in the story. And then I catalog them in preparation for reviewing, and I thing, "Yeah, it was great except for this... and this... and this..." Eventually, I've picked it apart enough to realize that maybe I didn't like the episode as much as I initially thought I did.

Which is why "News Flash," in retrospect, is such a stinkeroo.

Here's what you need to know: When Flash (GRANT GUSTIN) and X/S (JESSICA PARKER KENNEDY) punched The Thinker's satellite into smithereens, those smithereens -- all infused with the same dark matter that once bathed the city at the beginning of the series -- fell where they had consequences. One of them created Cicada and his lightning-bolt dagger-of-power-dampening.

I'm going on the record right now declaring that this episodes title is (a) a lie or (b) better be a lie.

This season's big bad, Cicada, wants to finish what he started with Vibe: killing him. Why he picked Vibe over Flash, or even Elongated Man, we can't say. Guess a man's got to have his priorities. Meanwhile, Team Flash is on the hunt for Cicada, who we learn from XS is a sort of metahuman serial killer -- who was never captured; not by Team Flash, the Legends, even the League (yes, that's a reference to a future Justice League).

XS's plan to find Cicada involves bringing in a detective. And it's not Ralph, which has to sting. No, it's time to approach... the Council of Wells. Yes, the WORST idea ever to inhabit the Flash Writers' Room is back -- or at least one of them is back. And he refers them to yet another Wells we've not yet met: Sherloque Wells, consulting detective with a string of ex-wives to whom he owes alimony.

The fifth season of THE FLASH makes it two-in-a-row with some great storytelling. With Team Flash now knowing that Nora (JESSICA PARKER KENNEDY) is not trapped in this time period but here because The Flash (GRANT GUSTIN) never returns from his disappearance in the Crisis that sits five years down the road, Barry settles into the role of mentor to teach his future-daughter how to become the best Flash she can be. But XS is too eager to prove herself, and takes chances that put both her and her dad in danger.

It takes a conversation with Joe (JESSE L MARTIN) for Barry to realize what XS is doing, with the understanding that all the knowledge of her father comes to a museum built in tribute to him. So he takes the time to show her some Season 1 highlights where he made mistakes on his path to becoming a capable hero.

If you’ve ever wanted a practical demonstration of Einsteinian relativity, you can always rely on the man’s simple explanation: “An hour spent talking to a pretty girl can feel like a minute. A minute touching a hot stove can feel like an hour.” For us fans of THE FLASH, a summer waiting for the new season to begin can feel like an eternity, and the hour we spend watching it can go by in a second.

We pick up immediately where Season 4 finished: with the family and friends all gathered at the West home, when a young lady shows up claiming to be Nora West-Allen — Barry and Iris’s daughter from the future. She’s also a speedster who goes by the name XS. This, and a throwaway reference to Lightning Lad means the future of the Legion of Super-Heroes is closer than we thought. It also means there’s a Legion on this Earth — or is it the same Legion we saw on SUPERGIRL last season?

DC's latest crisis has just kicked off, and the first repercussions of it are felt in the pages of GREEN ARROW #45, as Oliver Queen and the various members of the Justice League, Titans, and Birds of Prey attend the funeral of Roy Harper -- aka Arsenal and former sidekick and ward to the Green Arrow.

The ceremony takes place on a remote butte, where friends and family give their eulogies while Oliver continues to blame himself -- and the Justice League -- for everything that happened to Roy, from his addiction problems to his ultimate murder at the Justice League's so-called Sanctuary where heroes go to get help and support for their personal problems. Ollie's upset enough to throw a punch at Clark, and threaten to use his ultimate trump card against the Justice League.

Having crossed the halfway point of this 12-issue crossover between the DC Universe and the world of the WATCHMEN, we finally get to a place where we get answers. What has Doctor Manhattan been up to all these years, what is Ozymandias ultimate plan, and, of course...

Whatever Happened to the Justice Society of America?

Johnny Thunder has been convinced that he had a genie at his command once upon a time. So why does nobody remember him? Why does nobody remember Alan Scott, the Green Lantern of the Golden Age, and the rest of the age of heroes that followed him?

The answer is pretty simple: Doctor Manhattan altered the events.

One thing about Tom King that I've noticed: He loves writing for the 3-by-3 grid. You'll see that frequently in HEROES IN CRISIS #1, the latest so-called crisis to hit the DC Universe, and the first to hit it since the promise of an optimistic restart that came with REBIRTH.

Something else came with REBIRTH as well besides optimism, and both are dead after this issue.

The main narrative of the story follows Booster Gold and Harley Quinn, who meet out in the middle of flyover country, have some pie and coffee, then end up in a bloody battle. I will say that Harley is written wonderfully nutty here -- not the non-sequitur, fourth-wall-breaking whacky that we see in SUICIDE SQUAD, but someone who is psychotically out there, but with a sympathetic side. And Booster Gold is written, in foil, as normal and plain as can be imagined.

Of all the so-called Arrowverse shows, CW's televised adaptation of DC Comics superheroes, SUPERGIRL has been the most problematic. Besides taking place on an entirely different Earth than the other three shows, necessitating a cosmic crisis for the annual uber-crossover to occur, the show has a distinctly different feel to it. Perhaps it's because it's adopted into the Arrowverse, having been taken up after cancellation on it's original network. Perhaps its because the scripts have an undertone of agenda-driven plotting that shoehorns its way into the plots rather than rising organically out of the stories.

Whatever it is, it makes SUPERGIRL more difficult to watch, especially in binge-doses.

BATMAN: DAMNED #1. It's the first book from DC's "Black Label" imprint. It's the book with the singular event everyone's talking about. It's the book that's trending on eBay because of a singular, unimportant image.

It's not the book that's selling because people are talking about the story. That's possibly because the story is dense, hard to follow, and nonsequential in its telling. So let's go there.

It's a toss-up as to which Marvel "hero" has the largest body count -- The Punisher or Wolverine. But I do remember way back when Wolverine finally got his own series, some few years after the Frank Miller miniseries, that the body count was what helped sell the title. The promo poster even showed Logan -- man without a past -- standing atop a pile of bodies, claws extended and ready for more.

So it's not much of a surprise that this is what people in the Marvel Universe would know him for -- being a killing machine. But Charles Soule puts a different spin on those perspectives, with not one but two ordinary people trying to remind this new Logan that he's seen as a hero.

Yeah, I said "new Logan." I'll get to that in a minute.