The Authority #6

This book is, as has been mentioned before, what the JLA would be like if the writers were allowed to level Los Angeles every few issues (and if they had actual characters...) In this issue, which we've chosen to entitle 'Big Can of Whup-Ass', our heroes take on an invasion fleet from another dimension. An invasion fleet of surly British types from another dimension. Stiff upper lip, eh wot? Good, clean fun for the whole family. Plus, any comic where people can say "Hi." "Welcome to Los Angeles." "We're here to hit you." before taking out their frustrations on assorted mooks has gotta be good.

Promethea #3

More 'iconic' stuff from the America's Best Comics line (pretentiousness a-go-go!). Anyway, our heroine, the lesser Incarnation known as Promethea, cleans up some loose ends from last issue, where she fought off two hit-things from the Goetia, but had her best friend sucked through a portal after them. Whups. This time, she goes into the Dreaming... er, I mean, the Misty Magic Land(tm, pat pending) to rescue her friend, only to find herself faced with a surly Little Red Riding Hood with an uzi, the Archetypical Dark Forest (literally) and the Archetypical Surly Huge Wolf. Except, of course, that this is where stories are real, and the Wolf kicks a lot more ass in such a place than you'd expect. Run away!

Heart of Empire #5

Whoa. Talk about deeply screwed up. An alternate reality British Empire (they seem to be all the rage these days) seems to be the crux of an event that will destroy the multiverse. Plus, the main character ends up world-jumping after drinking a bit too much hallucinogen. Grife. Plus the requisite orgies, madhouse scenes, and the soft patter of intestines raining down after people are accidentally detonated. Egads, this is one to keep away from the kids, it'll warp their fragile leetle miiiiinds.

Legacy #1

Fred "Gold Digger" Perry starts up another series, about, um, the reincarnations of ancient heroes battling Bill Gates? No, wait, it only looks like Bill Gates, it's really an evil mage. Or something. Not particularly interesting, save for a few amusing bits (like, if a great warrior spirit is supposed to be reincarnated at a certain time, what happens when the child born at the appointed time... has an identical twin?) May get more interesting in the future. May not. Ya never know.

Young Justice #14

Look, everyone, it's the pointless company wide Event Issue! Demons, demons everywhere, and... um, well, demons, demons everywhere. YJ's mentor figure, Red Tornado, fights demons. The team themselves fight demons. One of their minor villains who got whacked in the past comes back from the dead, and they fight him too. It's some small consolation, at least, that the writer (PAD) doesn't like the Event much better, and voices his objections in the customary tone of extreme sarcasm normally reserved for reviewers. "Day Of Judgement", indeed. You know, if I see just ONE MORE demonic Event or millenium thing this year, I swear I'll... um... be really sarcastic about it?

Thieves & Kings #28

If you haven't been reading T&K, then... um, actually, now's not a good time to start. Your best bet would be to acquire the Trade Paperbacks and read them. Read them now, monkey boy! Now this is how fantasy ought to be. A reincarnated princess! A twisting plotline! An army of trolls! Clockwork warriors versus undead knights! An immortal and amusingly loony magician! Just... where are the main characters? I'm sure they're supposed to be in here somewhere... Look out! The minor characters have taken over the plotline! Run! Run now!

Birds of Prey #11

And now, it's the Weird Inconsistencies Issue! Oracle uses the orbital laser again, despite the fact that using it in the first place is causing an international incident! And then she calls Superman up as the weapon of last resort, and he shows up, one-punches the villain (a surly alien Guy Gardner clone), clears things up and leaves. Um. Okay, it's the revenge of the giant Deus Ex Machina. If Superman could solve all of this in about five minutes, no muss, no fuss, then why'd Oracle wait so long to... oh, yeah, it's not his book. But if you're going to use Superman at all...

Deadpool #33

Now, apparently this is marked as a 'funny book', because Deadpool, the Merc with a Mouth (my god, it's a new competitor for 'dumbest slogan'!) is sarcastic and surly through the whole thing. But, while this is funny, it's a sick, South Park kind of funny. I mean, a cheery song about disembowelling is sung by our hero to the tune of 'The Love Boat' while he charges into battle. That's just amazingly sick. Which is why it's so good! Plus, we get to see Deadpool burst out laughing as T-Ray (our cosmic menace for this issue) tries to guilt trip him with the souls of all the people he's killed over the years. "I wouldn't apologize to you if you threatened to consign me to spend all eternity smothered in chocolate sauce and trapped in a Roseanne Barr/Star Jones sandwich! I'm GLAD you're dead! If I could, I'd kill you again!" Ah, now that's a surly hero we can all empathize with.

X-51 The Machine Man #3

Which I will mention solely because it actually mentions the Y2K bug... as a way of showing what a badass inventor X-51's creator was? "Simply eliminate [X-51] -- or wait for the highly-touted Y2K problem to eventually render the machine's system's inoperative. It IS, after all, only a MACHINE." "I think you underestimate the GENIUS of Abel Stack. He thought of EVERYTHING -- even factored in an answer to the Y2K thing years before anyone ELSE even thought to ask the question!" The sad thing is, the writer seems to not be jesting. Groan. This is just... just bad. If you're dealing with a fully artifically intelligent android with transforming capability and incredible computational power, the "Y2K Bug" ain't even gonna be an issue. It's not like they've got to conserve memory space or something. Shoot them. Shoot them NOW.

Tom Strong #4

Every iconic hero eventually gets around to fighting Nazis, and Tom Strong is no different, as he faces off against an old nemesis, the super-human Ingrid Weiss, and her surly hench-girls. Except Weiss has gotten a bit smarter since the two last faced off, and has acquired some powerful allies in other enemies of Our Hero. No doubt justice will prevail in the end, but it'll take a lot more work and brains to do than the other menaces that've popped up so far. Also marks the first multi-issue arc for this series, as we get a 'to be continued' at the end...

Neon Genesis Evangelion Part 4 Number 7

Shinji and Asuka face off against the latest Angel in a test of coordination and speed, and manage to pull it off despite having gotten far, far too little sleep the night before. Much fighting, which is, well, giant robot fighting, and not really as effective in the manga as it was in the anime, as you don't get the musical accompanyment. It's the character bits, squeezed in around the battle, that make this interesting. Mmm. Character bits. Maybe Asuka's level of surliness will be reduced in the manga... or not. If I remember correctly, this is the 'high point' of the series, and it's after this that things start slowly, inevitably coming apart. At least, that's what happened in the anime.

Nadesico #1

Okay, um. So there are people from Earth fighting people from Jupiter. And then there's a Monolith. And then it's later and maybe on Mars. And then there's a gratuitous panty shot and the guy who I assume will be Our Hero gets slapped. And then we discover that there's a secret space battleship being crewed with a bunch of neurotic geniuses. And then the captain gets lost... Okay, I admit it, it's really confusing. What the hell is going on here, anyway?

Rant 'o the day contains no additives, preservatives or alien spores of any kind. Use only as directed. Do not expose to direct sunlight. Do not fold, spindle, multilate or remove identifying tags. Handle with care. Contains less than 3% milk fat by weight, not by volume. Certified 'Syndicate Approved'. Squeeze the lemon. Four out of five dark elves surveyed agree: It's surl-a-riffic!

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