Comic reviews: Spoliers, and you might want to google "Shazam!"

I went to the comic store today.


And I will annoy you endlessly about what I bought, and you have no one to blame but yourself.



Fanastic Four #564

The Four Visit Reed's Scottish cousin Hamish in his Small, Peaceful , Nothing-every-happens-here-Except-the-stuff-we-cover-up town For Christmas.

None of Reeds telephone gizmo's works



Their is a zero crime rate



A women tries to talk about to Sue about her kids' safety and is quickly dismissed as the local crazy women( a surprisingly young crazy women. She must of been a prodigy at Stock Horror story character academy. She than apprenticed under the greatest "crazy-but-right" character of all, Crazy Ralph from Friday the 13Th )


The police lay animals to rest in the human graveyard.



Hamish's Face gets Dramatically Shaded when they start talking about going to church



Nobody finds any of this odd.



Granted, this is the FF. This must seem Down-right clam compared to what they usually deal with.


Sue: Um, Reed? I think to locals are going to sacrifice Our kids to some ancient, evil, deity.

Reed: That's nice. But you know those tube socks you like? I found an eight-pack. For half off.


Sue: Awesome.


(The idea of Susan Richards, the most motherly mom in all of Marvel-Dom saying awesome makes me giggle. Go figure)





Anyway: I give it ***1/2 out of *****. It's good, for a set-up for what is basically The Shadow over Innsmouth, But with Superheros and a lot less racism. And in Scotland. And no Fish-men. Probably. Don't Quote me on that.

Justice Society of America 24

Billy leads to the JSA to The Rock of Eternity, were Isis and Black Adam are talking. I like the role-reversal between the two, As Isis is the anger, vengeful one ( Getting killed by Death and having your Brother eaten by a talking Crocodile will do that to you) And Black Adam is the calm, reasonably one( or rather, wanting Isis to go back to being the person who'd stop Adam from ripping a dude's arm off, instead of being the kind of person who advocates it).

They Talk, they fight, Billy gets thrown into the mist surrounding the Rock, gets rescued by the Flash, But the Flash gets lost in the mist. Billy and Courtney get separated form the group and run into the now-evil Mary Marvel

Okay, fan boy rant time, be warned.

I Hate Evil Mary Marvel

I was Fine with Bill becoming the Guardian of the Rock of Eternity after the Wizard's Death.

I was fine with Freddy Freeman becoming the Captain Marvel/Shazam/whatever, after all he did call himself Captain Marvel Jr., makes sense that he'd get a promotion with Bill

But Evil Mary Marvel? Maybe It's just that i hate Heroes-turn-evil stories, or maybe it's because I used be a Marvel Family Fan boy, But that just seamed Dumb. Could DC just not think of any thing better to do with the character?

It's not even clear how show became evil. Did Black Adam's powers corrupter her? Was she Body-jacked by an evil God? Both? Why didn't Bill try harder to stop her from going nuts?

Luckily, this story seems to be clearing that up.

Anyhow, The Flash is guided through the Mist by a voice, that turns out to be Billy's Dead Dad, who can help if Flash comes to The Rock of Finality, with next issue promising "the Seven Vital Virtues of Man!"

The Characters Geoff Jones is Focusing on-Stargirl, Atom Smasher, Black Adam, Captain Marvel, and Power girl, plus the three old men-are characters who he helped developed, or in Star girl's case, created. It's very fitting as these is his swan song after writing all the currant volume, and co-writer a lot of the 80+ Previous volume

I give it a ***** out of ***** if you're a JSA Fan, and a **** if you are a causal reader .

New Avengers 50

Our heroes start off watching Norman Osborn, Former Green Goblin-turned-Head Honcho-of America's super people unveil his team of Dark Avengers (t.m.) , using the identities and costumes of some of the Real Avengers, which miffs them to no end, especially Clint, the Former-Hawkeye-now-Ronin II, who spent most of Career in the Avengers.

It's the equivalent of having a really nice house, going a way for a month, and coming back not only to discover that a random stranger had a party there, he also put cyanide in the beer keg .

(thought here, if the first Ronin was girl pretending to be a scary male ninja, Does this make Clint a Cross-Cross Dresser?)

(Another thought, Norman must have the Greatest publicist of all time. We can't forget that Tom Cruise jumping on a couch, but every one in the Marvel universe forgot that the previous high point of Norman's life was pushing a 17-year-old girl off a bridge).

So, they come up with a clever plan! Lure Osborn and his thug, turn on some Stark De-powering Doohickeys, and get them to confess mid-battle, like all good villains.

But Osborn's a clever Bastard. Instead of his team going to fight them, He sends The Hood's gang of super-villains after them! The fight drawn by a different artist each, focusing on thoughts of a different character( i.e. Spider-man reflecting on the fact that when he finally joins the avengers, they have no fame money or awesome butlers, Mocking Bird enjoying an old fashion villain-bashin' after being cooped up in a skrull ship, Spider-women feeling shitty about how an evil alien empire used her face for an invasion and now this happens etc.)

After narrowly winning the Fight, Clint goes a fries the biggest Goddamn Bullet he can find at Osborn: The Media

2 Problems with the art: 1) it uses the panels with the dialog changed. I expect that from web comics, pros. And 2) Greg Horn' s art is awful. He should stick to doing covers

Overall, I give it ****1/2 out of *****

BTW, I got the awusome Alex Ross cover for JSA, not the one I'd shown here. sorry.