COMIC UPDATES

Muppets Noir, Absolute Batman, It's Jeff Meets Daredevil, Minor Arcana, Feral, Redcoat, Where Does The Rainbow End, Daredevil & Punisher, Archie, Batgirl, Harley Quinn, Hello Darkness ...

Trying this week to finally get up to date with what I have so far comics-wise, so that in future I can review new titles as and when they arrive. We’ll see how smoothly these well-intentioned plans go…

THE MUPPETS NOIR #1

This is definitely a cute comic. While frantic with worry over the theatre’s next big show Kermit also has concerns for the night’s performance, and has to be convinced to take a short break. He reluctantly retreats to a side room and picks up a gumshoe novel. A troupe of performing brick dancers have clearly been lacking rehearsal as a stray brick sails through the air and connects with Kermit’s head, leaving him unconscious and dreaming, transported into a detective story in which he is the star, asked to track down a recently vanished beauty who bears an uncanny resemblance to Miss Piggy.

ABSOLUTE BATMAN #17

More of the usual gritty fare but this time we meet Absolute Poison Ivy. There’s no indication she means Batman any harm but she certainly makes for an imposingly weird adversary.

As I’ve mentioned before the appeal of Jeff lies in the fact he doesn’t really do anything. In this beautifully drawn set of cartoonish short stories he just ambles around as ususal, playing and eating, while everyone does whatever they can to help him because he’s so charming.

The main story concerns him being arrested for damaging a statue, when it was actually Daredevil that did the damage. Jeff is successfully represented by Matt Murdock in court (great shot from behind of the tiny Jeff seated on top of the barrister’s table), and Daredevil ends up in a hi-viz jacket litter picking during his community service.

The other stories are equally fun, and in one there’s Jeff logic to enjoy. Having been so soundly threshed in a video game where he fights Hulk and loses, he takes his revenge by lobbing his computer monitor through Hulk’s window while he’s having breakfast.

Oh and I had to get the variant cover below. Very classy.

MINOR ARCANA 11 – 13

So having slowed in pace this easy going psychic-in-peril comic finally seems to be getting somewhere, and I’ve noticed certain issues disappearing on Forbidden Planet which must indicate it’s reasonably popular.

Theresa’s mum has a new boyfriend who has recently been beaten up for running a petition against a local power plant run by Bad People. Theresa tries reading him while her mum takes a break from the hospital as he lays in bed, unconscious. Little does she know that the bad guys are monitoring the psychic shop and have just installed a spy camera.

While Theresa’s explorations have led her into a psychic realm where she meets dead people or visits locations that help her understand what is affecting people, she doesn’t enjoy this

And holds off. Her mate is looking for her brother who vanished a whie back, and she’s been told by one local unscrupulous character that once employed him as an errand boy that he’s dead. Theresa is determined to assist and does eventually locate Jason, along the way trying out a local psychic herself, who has obviously been monitoring her. Another little strand of the storyline.

Locating the brother Theresa lays her hand on his arm and is transported. This time she doesn’t even understand what she’s seeing and it scares her. Later she sees her mate’s partner, a policeman, about to face off with armed gangsters. A shot rungs out…

So policeman Brad gets shot, Theresa feels like she ruins everything, her mum’s new boyfriend is out of hospital and living at her place, her mate’s brother comes home … and we see the main thug go to visit his boss, which gives an inkling as to what is going on. It actually (finally) starting to hot up.

It’s a good comic but the artwork can get in the way as some of the character start to look like one another, even Theresa’s ancient ill mother resembling her mate; two blondes, vaguely identical despite an obvious age difference of a good few decades! It’s the same with all the resolutely scruffy male characters. You need to be vigilant!

FERAL 16 – 20

The comic I always dread opening. We have our gaggle of charming cats currently trapped inside a pet megastore, which is run by a Mother Cat who has her own gang running the place, including treating kittens as food! Having been told some of them are to be ‘disciplined’ our cats determine to escape and manage to open the store doors, allowing the rabid cats outside in, which causes instant carnage.

In issue 16 some of heroes, who have been arguing amongst themselves and becoming petulant, try to escape, but soon run back indoors, where cats fight cats, until their friend the big dog outside burst in and soon restored the odds in their favour, even dealing with Mother Cat and her main minions.

Now they could escape the male cat who take over their gang says there’s no reason to run. Worryingly, he decides he’ll simply take over from Mother Cat left off.

In issue 18 the male cat Lucky starts to impose his rules which isn’t going down too well, but the cats that live in the store know he bested their queen, plus he hays obedient dog Moosh doing his bidding. Things are tense. Gigi just wants to keep her kittens safe and knows they will be with Lucky’s protection, while Elsie says they should scram and look after each other on the outside, just like they always used to. That’s when Gigi drops her bombshell. She’s pregnant!

19 - 20 … and although things hot up inside the store, it’s what happening outside that accelerates the story as a team of humans notice lights have come on the store, they come in to check it out and apparently now have orders to capture animals alive. Before you know it all our favourites are inside a van, being transported somewhere.

REDCOAT 16

Christ, why the infernal delays on some Image titles? I ordered Redcoat #17 in November and now it won’t even appear until March. (Hyde Street is running even later.) Anyway, Simon Pure finally has a calm family life, but then Albert Einstein turns up at his door with the news that arch nemesis and fellow immortal Benedict Arnold has resurfaced in New York. Arnold actually arranges to meet Simon, and goes all weird, claiming to envy Simon as he too desires love and aims to make Simon’s family immortal.

WHERE DOES THE RAINBOW END? #1/’2

I adore the artwork of Stefano Cardoselli who clearly has a thing about robots, as shown in recent mini-series’ ‘LOVE ME: A ROMANCE STORY’ and ‘LONG CRUEL WINTER’ with their topsy-turvy cuteness and pastel shading.

In this world we’re visiting there are lots of robots, divided into two areas, away from humans who have the posh part of town, then there’s an okay area where docile robots who hold domestic jobs get to live. Then there’s a wasteland area populated by former military robots.

The docile robots live happy lives, and one small group find their routine horribly disrupted when they come across an abandoned baby. They elect to bring it up themselves to show it more love than whoever left it there. The baby Gilda develops fast and is eventually a whizz at software engineering and repairing robots. When the bad angry military robots learn of this they decide to take her for themselves. This happens just when Gilda finally meets another human, believes she has been tricked and betrayed by her robot family, and runs away.

It’s touching and dramatic. Gilda, some may recall, was the woman in the “Love Me” series from two years ago! Full circle, people!

Daredevil/Punisher: The Devil’s Trigger #3

I mean, okay, two good characters who have faced off before, here struggling to take down bad guys who have mysteriously been getting out of prison long before they’d even be considered for parole. Punisher wants to kill them all, solving the problem in his own emphatic way, Daredevil wants him to be more considerate.

After these two basic issues they finally work out who is behind the scheme and it’s just going to end in another big fight scene, with high potential slaughter rates.

Really pointless fodder.

ARCHIE X THE ARMY OF DARKNESS

Now this is fun!

When I was just a kid and into comics if the two local shops selling them had run out of the best main titles I would resort to any of the Monster magazines that were so prevalent, but if even those had gone I had to turn downmarket for the soppier comics, the basic cartoony stuff like Richie Rich, Quick Draw McGraw, Casper The Friendly Ghost .. and if there was nothing else whatsoever you’d end up with Archie comics. And believe me they were always the last to go because they just never fitted with English tastes being so totally American.

This one is certainly different. The characters remain as you’d expect, holier than thou, catastrophically idiotic but … with a modern horror twist, so one minute the stupid one is blabbing on about burgers and the next someone’s getting their eye gouged out. Worth trying. (The comic, not the gouging.)

Batgirl #16

Sometimes I just go for a decent cover and I liked the look of this one. I’d given up on this series ages ago, so being suddenly plunged back in, I didn’t get much out of it. Batgirl fights Nyssa Al Ghul, with a samurai type pal by her side, with some resentful army of fighters also in the mix. Symbolic flowers play a part. All pretty boring.

Harley Quinn #56 (Cover C Rahzzah Card Stock Variant)

Again, just for the over which you have to admit is delightful. No idea who’s who, as I have never liked Harley, but this a crazy ride as her and some former enemy team up to take down a crazed trophy hunter that collects second rate superheroes or villains. It’s amusing enough. Just.

Hello Darkness #16

Horror anthologies aren’t really my sort of thing as you usually only find yourself struck by one or two stories out of five, or however many they cram in, but I did like this cover, and I haven’t paid the Hello Darkness series much heed to date.

It certainly varies proceedings, unlike the DC and EC anthologies, including some unrelated full page artwork, and there’s one really sad story at the end where a father dies while trying to protect his son, unaware the son was only joking about a monster being in his closet. Horrific in its own way then…

Again, just for the cover.