Archie Meets Batman '66

Archie Meets Batman '66 by Jeff Parker
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Tired of being defeated by Batman, Joker, Penguin, Riddler, and Catwoman set their sights on a new target: Riverdale! Will Batman, Robin, and Batgirl be able to stop the United Underworld when the town's entire adult population is in the thrall of those malicious malefactors?

When I saw this being solicited, I knew I'd have to read it at some point. Batman '66 is tons of fun and I loved Archie vs Predator. Totally worth it.

Archie Meets Batman '66 starts simply enough. Batman and Robin are battling Poison Ivy and her Snapdragon while The Bookworm and Footnote are plotting to steal the world's first electronic book. Poison Ivy's inevitable defeat provides Joker, Penguin, Riddler, and Catwoman with the spark they need to pull up stakes and move somewhere else, a town with no criminal elements whatsoever, the town of Riverdale!

Dick and Barbara go undercover in Riverdale and the usual teenage hijinks ensue. Circe the Siren is a nice foil to use, her siren song being the main part of the plot. Wasn't she a Wonder Woman villain originally? The writing captures the spirit of Batman '66 very well, not surprising since Jeff Parker has been writing the caped crusader for something like 10 years at this point. There is a lot of humor, poking fun at both Batman and Archie. "How many classes does that crone teach?" was one of my favorites.

The art is a nice mix of Archie style and silver age DC. The Archie characters look great. The girls even have some curves. I love that Dan Parent even took the time to drawn in Cesar Romero's mustache under the Joker makeup. He also did a better job capturing the likeness of the actors than some other Batman '66 artists.

From a pure fun standpoint, Archie Meets Batman '66 is hard to top. 4.5 out of 5 stars.

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Mech Cadet Yu Volume 3

Mech Cadet Yu Vol. 3 by Greg Pak
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

The final battle with the Sharg is upon us! Can Stanford Yu and the other Mech Cadets defeat the armada without sacrificing their mechs?

Greg Pak's adaptation of an anime that never existed ends in this volume. It's pretty much one long battle with the Sharg and with authorities on earth urging the cadets to sacrifice their mechs to activate the super mech. Honestly, it was kind of a letdown.

Spoilers - proceed with caution:
It felt like an issue and a half stretched into four. The mech combat was still good but Buddy trying to make a big sacrifice was long and drawn out, robbing it of emotion. The ending was a little too safe as well. The mech battles and designs were still great, though.

I liked the Mech Cadet Yu series quite a bit as a whole but the ending leaves something to be desired. Three out of five stars.

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Fantastic Four by John Byrne Omnibus Volume 1 - Revisited

Eight years after I initially reviewed this volume, I chewed my way through it again. I have many thoughts, some conflicting.

Byrne's back to basics approach to the Fantastic Four brought Marvel's first family back to prominence. The Skrulls seemed like a viable threat, Annihilus was a world-beater, and Byrne even got some serious mileage out of Terrax. Terror in a Tiny Town and Legacy are among my favorite Fantastic Four stories. The battle with Gladiator is high up on my list as well.

Galactus is given more depth by Byrne than a lot of his previous scribes. I think it was illogical for everyone to rally to save Galactus' life after he was defeated but business is business, as they say. While I think Byrne leaned on Galactus a little too much in this part of his run, the world-eater never looked better to me.

Doctor Doom was used sparingly by Byrne at this point, far from Lee and Kirby trotting him out every three or so issues back in the day. Like Galactus, Byrne showed Doom's complexity. Another thing I liked was that Byrne took some deep dives into the Fantastic Four's past, like Doctor Doom's mind-swapping power and the Skrull cows from issue #3.

Byrne's back to basics approach, while initially a great idea, was also the book's weakness in the long run. The book reads like a cover of Stan Lee and Jack Kirby's greatest hits at some points. While Byrne injected some new ideas into the old concepts, he didn't really create anything new, in my opinion. I think the reason his run is so well received is that he modernized a lot of old Fantastic Four concepts, making them easier to read and better stories in general. His dialogue is still '80s comics dialogue, though.

I digested this omnibus a lot more slowly than the list time I took it on and I think I appreciated it a lot more. Byrne was on his A game in this volume and it shows. Unlike a lot of monthly comics for the time period, there weren't many filler stories. The Fantastic Four went from one world-threatening story to the next, as it should be.

Marvel is the house that the Fantastic Four built and John Byrne's run was a big reminder why. Four out of five stars.

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DC's Greatest Imaginary Stories Vol. 2

DC's Greatest Imaginary Stories Vol. 2 by Bill Finger
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

DC's Greatest Imaginary Stories Volum 2 collects ten out of continuity tales from Batman's past.

On the heels of reading Back Issue #111, I resolved to pick this up, primary for Batman #300, The Last Batman story. Fortunately, I was able to find it on the cheap.

Most of the stories collected within are from the late '5os or early '60s. Aside from a story where Batman marries Lois Lane and another where Batman thinks Superboy murdered his father, they primary feature Batman marrying Batwoman and their son teaming with Robin as Batman II and Robin II, complete with Roman numerals on their outfits.

The early Silver Age tales are pretty cheesy, as was the style at the time. The art is fairly typical of the time period, although Curt Swan outdraws Sheldon Moldoff, and Chic Stone by a wide margin. It's interesting that some of the stories seemed to inspire Grant Morrison's run with Dick and Damian as Batman and Robin.

The Last Batman Story from Batman #300 was worth the wait. An adult Robin and an aged Batman take on a criminal organization that seems to be consistently one step ahead of them. The story takes Batman to his logical next step in his fight against crime AND features the adult Robin costume that I've always liked. Plus the art is early Walt Simon and still looks pretty fresh thirty years later.

DC's Greatest Imaginary Stories Vol. 2 is a fun look back at when Batman and his world weren't so damn serious all the time. 3.5 out of 5 stars.

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The Unstoppable Wasp: GIRL Power

The Unstoppable Wasp: G.I.R.L. Power (The Unstoppable Wasp by Jeremy Whitley
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Nadia Pym, daughter of Hank Pym and his first wife, spent the first part of her life in the Red Room, learning to best hone her genius. Now she's tasting life for the first time and looking for other female geniuses and fighting crime as The Unstoppable Wasp!

I originally read this on Marvel Unlimited on loved the shit out of it but knew I wanted a physical copy at some point. Fortunately for me, the digest size version came out recently and I snapped it up.
The second time through was just as good. I was worried my initial enthusiasm had blinded me but this is still great shit.

Nadia, raised in the Red Room that also spawned the Black Widow, is a ray of sunshine, bent on making the rest of her life better than the first sixteen years. Once she gets her footing, she goes about assembling a group of girl geniuses and taking on the assassins that trained her.

This isn't a typical super hero book, although there is a good amount of action. It's more of a character book with super hero stuff on the periphery. The relationships between Nadia and the rest of the cast are more interesting that people in tights punching each other anyway.

I'm not going to get too deep into the nuts and bolts but the character of Nadia won me over completely, from her interactions with Mockingbird to the Grapplers to Janet Van Fucking Dyne herself. Honestly, I didn't care much for Mockingbird or the original Wasp when I first picked this up but now I'm a fan.

Jeremy Whitely writes great characters. Period. About the only knock I have against the book is the rotation of artists, though they all do the job done, the shift is a little irritating. The book has some great panels in it, though, like the Wasp fighting as she falls down stairs, which my description is woefully inadequate for.



At the time I first read this, The Unstoppable Wasp had been cancelled. Fortunately, it's back now but it still irritates me that it was cancelled in the first place.

The Unstoppable Wasp is the best legacy character Marvel has introduced in recent years and GIRL Power is a great example of that. 5 out of 5 stars.


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Marvel Two-In_One Epic Collection: Cry Monster

Marvel Two-in-One Epic Collection: Cry Monster by Steve Gerber
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Marvel Two-In_One Epic Collection: Cry Monster collects Marvel Feature 11-12, Marvel Two-In-One 1-19, and Marvel Team-Up 47.

The Fantastic Four has been one of my favorite comics for decades and, by extension, The Thing is one of my faves. Combine that for my love of Bronze age team-up books and this one was a slam dunk.

The ever-lovin' blue-eyed Thing was once one of Marvel's top guys, the tough guy with a heart of gold who headlined his own book in addition to co-starring in Fantastic Four every month before Wolverine eclipsed him. The stories within this tome were just a sprinkling of his adventures.

In this epic collection, The Thing teams with Marvel stalwarts like Ironman, Captain America, and Spider-Man, as well as less notable characters like Son of Satan, Morbius, and Man-Thing. The book boasts an all-star cast, with Bill Mantlo and Steve Gerber doing the bulk of the writing and Sal Buscema and Ron Wilson heading up the artist ranks.

The stories aren't anything spectacular, not surprising since Marvel Two-In-One was a team up book so writers had to come up with an excuse for The Thing to team with someone new every issue. MTIO had its moments though, even in the early days. The art is peak 1970s, though. In addition to Ron Wilson and Sal Buscema, Gil Kane, Jim Starlin, George Tuska, Herb Trimpe, and others grace the pages. The Thing has such an iconic look and the art has a unified feel, even with the stylistic differences of the artists. The 1970s pop culture references are great. I love that The Thing was a Space: 1999 fan!

My favorite part of this book is seeing how Benjamin J. Grimm is the glue that holds the Marvel Universe together, a gruff tough guy who knows everybody and will do anything for his friends, from Wundarr to Ka-Zar. It's crazy to think how far The Thing has fallen in the Marvel pecking order in favor of characters like Wolverine, Deadpool, and the Punisher. The Thing is the rocky guy with the gooey center, a softie at heart.

Marvel Two-In_One Epic Collection: Cry Monster is an interesting look back at a time when one of Marvel's top guys was encrusted in little orange rocks. 3.5 out of 5 stars.

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