________________________________________________________________________ ------------------------------------------------------------------------- " C O M I C B O O K E - M A G " Issue 18 - July 17, 1995 "Brought to you by the fine folks at the COMIC BOOK Network!" Editors: Ed Dukeshire Network Administration: Mike Imboden Mike Imboden Ed Dukeshire David Leblanc Bobb Waller Special Thanks: Ryan Brewster Anthony Palacio Walter Tietjen Chris Oarr David Leblanc William Hughes Nathan Bredfeldt Jeff Watts John Keady Jim Murdoch ________________________________________________________________________ ------------------------------------------------------------------------- T A B L E O F C O N T E N T S ------------------------------------------------------------------------- -1- The Bullpen ........................... Ed Dukeshire -2- The 25th Hour ......................... Mike Imboden -3- Some Stuff ............................ Nathan Bredfeldt -4- Retcon 1 Comics ....................... Jim Murdoch -5- CSNsider .............................. W. Batty & C. Biggers -6- Komic Komments ........................ John Keady -7- Recent Reads/Random Thoughts .......... William Hughes -8- Feedback .............................. Mail -9- BBSes Linked into CBN ................. Net Admin Team ________________________________________________________________________ ------------------------------------------------------------------------- -1- The Bullpen by Ed Dukeshire This is a rush job this time around (and not as beefy as it has been lately). Summer is _definately_ here in New England! We had a nice heat wave this weekend, so I stayed away from the computer as much as possible considering I don't own an air conditioner. ;) News about ComicBook Net -- we've picked up our first Mexico node! If you live near Mexico City and want to check out the network, give Emilio Karam's BBS a call at 525-264-2994. Welcome aboard Emilio!! ComicBook Net is now 77 systems strong and growing! If you still haven't checked us out, what are you waiting for? ;) Since CBN is building up nicely, it's about time we started our very own APA (Amateur Press Alliance) or is it Association? I can never remember which one it is. If you want in, log onto one of the CBN systems and check out the "Writers & Artists" or "CBN FanFic" conferences and join in on the fun. This APA will be exclusive to CBN members only. Still plenty of open slots available, and the starting account fee is only $5 to get you in. Well, that's enough for me, I'm typing this at 2:15am and need to get some sleep. ;) Catch ya next week (with a couple of surprises). -- ed ________________________________________________________________________ ------------------------------------------------------------------------- -2- The 25th Hour by Mike Imboden THE 25TH HOUR I had promised to have another review this week but so much has been going on that I haven't had time to get around to it. Hopefully by next month... In the meantime I'll try to pad this enough to get a column's worth. I had a pretty strange experience a couple weeks ago. A friend of The Wife invited us to go canoeing with her and her husband one Saturday. The Wife and I are not exactly what you would consider outdoor people - to us experiencing nature is when we have to pull over on the highway becuase there's no restroom in sight - but we agreed nontheless. The Wife had never been in a canoe in her life and I hadn't stepped a wobbly foot into one in about eight years so we weren't sure what to expect. Aside from a few miscalculations on the onset, ramming into trees, winding up going sideways, backwards and almost tipping numerous times we managed to get things in line and were mastering the whole thing within a half hour. No sooner do we get the whole paddling and going straight thing down pat then a very LARGE, BLACK AND FURRY spider decides to drop in on us off a branch. Now, I don't know about you but me and spiders are like cats and dogs - I can't stand 'em. The Wife is better and is usually the one who I call to kill the darn things. Well, I was in the back of the canoe and she was in the front. The Son was seated in the middle and was diligently following our orders of "No Standing Up" when this creature lands in front of me. Summoning some unknown power I manage NOT to scream and quickly whack at the thing with my paddle. I miss and we nearly tip. I then spell out what is wrong so as to not frighten The Son; "There's a big S-P-I-D-E-R in the C-A-N-O-E with us and it's heading your way." The Wife looks down and tries to stamp it, rocking us even further to the side than my swipe with the paddle. The Son then asks us what we are doing and why we are "..trying to tip us over". I then see the spider appear on The Wife's back. Do I hit her with the paddle? I was in a pinch and decided I had to alert The Son to The Spider's precence. "Whack Mommy's back with your hat" I say. Ever alert, The Son looks to see why I'd ask him to perform such a task and see's our stow-away. "Ah-ah-ah-ah-ah" he starts to stamer. Now keep in mind The Son is only three and a half and is in a very new situation - he cannot move more than an inch or two to the side and suddenly sees this monster of a spider staring at him. Then, without warning The Spider lunges forward and leaps onto his head and quickly scurries over and down his back. I've never seen a kid remain as composed as he did right then. Yeah, he started trembling and looked about to go into convulsions but he didn't leap up as much as his intincts probably told him to nor did he start to cry as I expected. Filled with a mix of admiration and awe, I found a second unknown inner power and slammed the paddle down again - missing. I started to panic - this creature was more than likely VERY PISSED at us by now - and considered leaping out and attacking him from the water. Realizing that was no option I looked around - there he was on my shoe! We stared at each other for what seemed like, I dunno, seconds maybe. I think it was then we both knew this thing was coming to head and was time for a little man to spider confrontation. I watched as he slowly made his way up my leg until he was on my knee. Closing my eyes I brought the paddle down hard across my leg. I didn't want to open my eyes for fear that I'd discover I had missed a third time. Slowly I let my eyes edge open and peered down - there on my knee was the splattered remains of our hitchhiker. Later, after this forray into terror we decided to land for a quick lunch. We hadn't been on land for more than five minutes when a large man carrying a larger shotgun ambled out from nowehere and asked us what we were doing on his land. Now, if you've seen DELIVERANCE you'll understand my hesitation in answering this guy. As "Dueling Banjoes" played in my head I finally said "Having lunch, sir." "You ain't here to take no hogs are you?" "Uhhh, no sir. We have some of our own back home." "Well, iffin you aren't here to steal muh hogs you can stay. BUT! Don't come no further in here, hear?" "Loud and clear, Junior Samples." The man wandered off leaving us to question who he was and if he knew who Junior Samples was.... I won't even get into the confrontation with a tree snake. The moral of the story? Stay the hell out of canoes. Next Time: I promise I'll have that review for you. Maybe something extra as well. -M!ke (who isn't making any of the canoe story up and has vowed to remain on land unless he wins a cruise on the Love Boat) Send comments and flames to me at COMICBKNET@AOL.COM or via netmail to 1:109/748 or on CBN to 23:403/0. ________________________________________________________________________ ------------------------------------------------------------------------- -3- Some Stuff by Nathan Bredfeldt SOME STUFF by Nathan Bredfeldt It gets into the upper nineties here in Dallas, and wouldn't you know that our air conditioner would break down the evening of July the 3rd? It's gonna be a hot 4th of July for us Bredfeldts. Every week I like to go out to Target, and look over the selection. Sure, I know I can't compete with the speculators who have some secret method of hogging up all the hard to get stuff before the rest of us have a chance to get them, but we're not here to talk about those little weenies. I did find a Two Face figure (not from Batman Animated, though. Anyone else have trouble finding Batman Animated villains?). He's pretty ok. I can't remember when I started liking Harvey so much, but I think it's the psychology of the movies. See, when there are two villains present, you have to pick which one you like better. This time out, though I have yet to see the movie, I'll take Two-Face. Jim Carey's voice grates on my nerves. For BATMAN RETURNS, I liked Penguin better (until I saw the movie. Was that rendition lame, or what?), and for Mask of the Phantasm, I liked Phantasm better than Joker. Back to Two-Face: so, I picked up the action figure. There are three parts to it: the coin, the cannon, and Two-Face. The coin is pretty spiffy. A bit on the light side, but still flipable. What is with the Statue of Liberty head, though? I keep seeing it in BF related merchandise! Is there a SoL in Gotham City, too? Why? The Cannon is kind of weak. It doesn't stand up well, unless Two-face is holding it. But, who cares; Two-Face never uses a cannon. The figure is the most important part. He's sturdy, but the left half of his face isn't really all that messed up (maybe keeping with the movie. I don't know). I wanted something more grotesque than just purple paint. His hair is the same way (just purple). Oh, and he has a gun attached to his hand (dosen't come off). Makes my Arkham Asylum scenes look strange, but, what the hey? A good figure, all around. Sure, it dosen't live up to the old SECRET WARS or SUPER POWERS figures, but what does? While I was caught up in the midst of Two-Face Fever, I dug through my meager back issue collection, and found some Two-Face comics to read. The first to come up were LEGENDS OF THE DARK KNIGHT #s 28-30, subtitled "FACES". This story is written and penciled by Matt Wagner (of Grendel fame); and, what a treat! Wagner attacks this story with as much gusto as he can muster (and boy, can he muster gusto), and turns out a tale of suspense, action, mystery, manipulation, and betrayal. He gives Two-Face a cause to fight for (or commit crimes for), and manages to give depth to just about everyone present. Wagner also manages to work in a few suprising twists and turns, and (as usual) tells the story from a lot of different viewpoints. Overall a pretty special, if not overly joyful, story that made me glad I spent the time and money to hunt it down way back when, and took the effort to dig it up, and give it another read. Excellent job! Big thumbs up! (Nathan is Comic Book Net's resident crazy teen-ager. He aspires to write for a living, or maybe get his own talk show. In his spare time, Nate ponders the mysteries of life ("What would happen if I stuck a banana up my nose?"), and plays Trivial Pursuit (for juniors). He can be reached on CBN, or at ComicBkNet@aol.com) ________________________________________________________________________ ------------------------------------------------------------------------- -4- Retcon 1 Comics by Jim Murdoch Retcon 1, July 10! Testing. Testing. Ahem. We here at Retcon 1 were testing the Rectonic Cannon for an upcoming Death-X-Blood-Force when it malfunctioned, wiping out most of El Dub City and replacing it with a large amount of grape juice. Needless to say, it's now been fixed, and we should be back on track, bringing you news and reviews of LAST WEEK'S COMICS on a regular basis. This time: ERT! Not Available Comics TPB, Caliber, BW, $12.95 Legionnaires Annual #2, DC, Color, $3.95 Batman Adventures #35, DC, Color, $1.75 Savage Henry: Headstrong #2, Caliber Iconographix, BW, $2.95 Groo #8, Image, Color, $1.95 Usagi Yojimbo #14, Mirage, Color, $2.75 Rare Bit Fiends #12, King Hell, BW, $2.95 Maison Ikkoku Part IV #7, Viz, BW, $2.95 Nexus: Wages of Sin #4, Dark Horse, Color, $3.95 Hardware #31, Milestone, Color, $2.50 My Name is Holocaust #5, Milestone, Color, $2.50 Deadbeats #12, Claypool, BW, $2.50 Taboo #8, Kitchen Sink, BW, $14.95 ----------- Some NEWS before the reviews. Rob Liefeld and his girlfriend got married last week. The chromium-covered Prophet #1 will have a 1 in 4 non-chromium alternate by Boris Vallejo. That cover will be a buck cheaper. This book was solicited for August, but will ship the last week of July, in time for San Diego. Mike Barr confirmed Outsiders is cancelled, and he's putting together a few new projects for DC. As for Mantra, all he said is that he gets paid as long as they print the character. Those Scarlet Spider #1's in the new Marvel catalogue are one month only. Thunder's Mouth Press is soliciting a Sam & Max Freelance Police collection for September. They're also working on publishing collections of The Cowboy Wally Show by Kyle Baker, Puma Blues by Murphy and Zulli, and possibly Miracleman. And finally, APL (Artistic Productions Limited) is soliciting a primer (ashcan) in September. It features the professional comics-writing debut of one James S. Murdoch, he said with a sheepish grin. :) Available through Capital, or from me on the 40 and 5 plan. --------------- Review time! In reverse order from above, and roughly from worst to first in my opinion. SPOILER SPACE CAUSES CANCER! B u y s o m e n o w ! O n l y $ 1 . 9 5 ! Okay, go! TABOO: Steve Bissette talks about the death of Taboo, and where a number of projects that started here or were scheduled ended up. Behind that are the usual mixed bag you get in anthologies, doubly so for horror ones. The best two stories are: a sick story about a child killer with a loopy sci-fi twist at the end by Matt Howarth, and Jeff Nicholson's "Cat Lover", part of his Through the Habitrails series, and a distrubing look at a doomed relationship. David Sexton and P. Craig Russell's story about a love affair between Jesus and Lucifer is beautifully drawn, and properly blasphemous. A little pricey for a half-good book. DEADBEATS: The first story cycle wraps up as the confrontation between King Hermano and the Deadbeats draws in the vampire hunters, and Richard Howell throws in a twist or two I was not expecting. This title has passed Soulsearchers as my favorite Fear City book. Good solid storytelling and easy to follow art make a comic you should try. HOLOCAUST: Nothing happens here we didn't already know, thanks to Long Hot Summer. The Mayor is Holly's mom, and he gives up his name and becomes Pyre. Sub-par for Milestone. Not for casual readers. HARDWARE: BIG plot twist! As the riot spreads at Utopia Park, Alva slips into the Hardware 3.0 armor, only to die saving people, just after naming Curtis his successor as head of Alva Industries. With no arch-enemy, what will he do now? Nice Kent Williams cover. NEXUS: Two stories, a ho-hum Judah tale about his life with Gladys, and a great short featuring Nexus discussing the long-martyred Giz with a photog. Hellpop also says he and Sundra are thinking of having a child. The light-hearted opener and the downer backup caused mixed feelings in me. I'd rather see a full-length book for 4 bucks. I think Baron wrote this in his sleep. Usual great Dude art. MAISON IKKOKU: Another mixed issue. A great, funny story about a softball game up front, backed with a story that implies date rape. The change in tone dropped me right out of this one. Other usual ravings about Takahashi's work remain in place. RARE BIT FIENDS: An ideal place for new readers. Rick talks about the origins of RBF, and discusses dreams in general. USAGI YOJIMBO: We're into the upper level now, and talent will out. Usagi flashes back to when he was a samurai, and escorted a princess to meet her future husband. They fall in love, yet their love is forbidden. A bittersweet tale of romance set in feudal Japan, with animals. Mirage is giving up publishing this year, and Usagi will be homeless again. I suggest Image. With this, Groo, and Bone, Image could make a big push for younger readers. GROO: Introducing Pipil Khan, a new adversary for the Wandering One. He talks like Elmer Fudd, and has about the same amount of luck once Groo gets involved. For once, Groo doesn't destroy everything, but is merely the catalyst. Again, Image should make a direct effort to try and get a younger audience. You think? SAVAGE HENRY: Matt Howarth is, to me, a God of Comics. That said, Henry has become his own muse. And female. Hijinks ensue. Cthulu and Zeus have a fight. With cigars. By the end, everything is back to as normal as Bugtown can get. BATMAN ADVENTURES: Batman's lost his memory, and Catwoman's found him. Bruce joins her in crime until Robin finds him and takes him back to the Batcave, where he thinks he's still a kid. To be continued, with the Joker up next for the finale of the series, soon to be Batman & Robin Adventures, with Two-Face and Riddler as the first villains. LEGIONNAIRES: Year One comes to a crashing end, as the Daxamites attack Earth. The Legion and Workforce get beat around, until Brande comes through with his secret weapon, Jan Arrah, the last Tromite. The Daxamites are defeated and Earth is safe, but at a terrible cost. Andromeda is thought dead but is really locked on the prison planet, and poor Apparition is dead. Those heartless fiends killed Tinya! Where'd I put that Retconic Cannon? On the plus, Imra is cured, Garth's back in the group, and Valor is coming! ERT!: That's the sound of a vehicle stopping in a collection of strips from the world's greatest mini-comix artist, Matt Feazell. All his heroes are here: Cynicalman, Stupid Boy, Cute Girl, even Scribbles the Pup! Yes, I know it's stick figures, but it's GOOD stick figures. Have I ever let you down before? ----------- Well, that's it. I promise to come back next week for sure. And don't forget, force your retailer to order the APL Primer, shipping in September, and available in the current ADVANCE COMICS, page 34! Jim, Master of Comics smiv@primenet.com ... EL DUB CITY and RETCON 1 COMICS are tm and (c) 1995 Jim Murdoch. ________________________________________________________________________ ------------------------------------------------------------------------- -5- CSNsider contributed by David Leblancc This is the CSNsider from CSN #423, which will be in shops on 7/26/95. It is reproduced in its entirety with the expressed permission of COMIC SHOP NEWS! Bart Sears' short-lived Ominous Press is about to come back to life again: Acclaim will definitely be publishing more of the Ominous Press material in the near future and they may even publish it under the Ominous Press name... A&E is preparing an episode of Biography that spotlights Marvel's Stan Lee; look for it this fall... Artist Steve Lieber is leaving Hawkman later this year to work on other projects... Negotiations are underway to produce a series of NASA-inspired comics chronicling famous moments from the American space program (Apollo 13, perhaps?...)... Are the rumors true? Are we about to discover that one of Marvel's best-known heroes has actually been an LMD for many, many years? That could be the Stark truth!... Marvel's Mighty Morphin' Power Rangers comic, first mentioned here months ago, is on the schedule to launch in September, with the very capable creative team of Scott Lobdell, Fabian Nicieza, Ron Lim, and Mark McKenna... Among other films that superstar Tom Hanks is considering for his next project is an adaptation of Robert A. Heinlein's Stranger In a Strange Land... Sentry, the Dan Jurgens miniseries that is based on premises introduced in his _Brave New World_ storyline in Solar, is slated for November release... Forget those reports of a Sin City film in the works; Frank Miller is focusing on Sin City as a comics project only right now, and has no plans to bring the project to the big screen at this time... Joe Jusko is supplying the painted art for SkyBox's Superman 1996 Master Series trading card set... Big Entertainment, parent company of Tekno Comics, has acquired controlling interest in the acclaimed mystery news/review magazine Mystery Scene... Ninjak has been removed from the Valiant schedule as an ongoing series, but the character is far from dead; look for him to appear in a miniseries later this fall... Magnus is also going to miniseries route later on this year, with Keith Giffen doing the writing and Jeff Johnson supplying the pencils... Donruss, well known for its sports card products, is aggressively moving into the non-sports card market in '96... Neil Gaiman fans will want to keep an eye open for the first issue of Donna Mia; the September-release comic from Dark Fantasy will feature Gaiman as a character in the comic, a confidant for the sexy succubus... Acclaim has a new imprint, Dime Comics, in the works; this imprint will offer a home to pulp-fiction style adventures and mystery series as well as sophisticated humor comics; Bob Layton is doing the first humor book, entitled Tooth & Nail, while Bob Hall is writing one of the crime comics. CSN #423 features a cover feature on The Outcasts from Acclaim Comics plus more news and the complete August checklist. You won't find a complete checklist in any of the catalogs because of their exclusive deals. However, you will find it is CSN because our only exclusive deal is with you! The only way to get Comic Shop News is to visit a shop that carries CSN. The publication costs the shops just a dime each and is generally free to customers. If your shop doesn't carry CSN, nag 'em until they do. After all, isn't your business and satisfaction worth a dime a week? Visit our WWW site! http://www.actwin.com/csn Ward Batty wardo@netdepot.com Cliff Biggers cliffbig@netdepot.com (c)1995 CSN, Inc. All Rights Reserved. Transmitted by: úúúúÄÄÄÄÍÍÍÍ*David LeBlanc> ComicBkNet@AOL.COM david.leblanc@linkbbs2.iii.net RIME->5179 FIDO 1:322/743.1 ________________________________________________________________________ ------------------------------------------------------------------------- -6- Komic Komments by John Keady Keady's Komic Komments By John Keady SUPERBOY #19- It's a three way slamboree as Superboy, Valor & Knockout beat each other silly. For fun value, there isn't a more fun to read comic out there! Grummet's work is it's usual wonderful and the upcoming Future Tense storyline promises to be a good one! GOOD Primal Force #11- One by one, the members of the Leymen are captured by the August until only Black Condor remains to save the team. Not up to the recent issues of this title but still a good read. I will follow this title until its end at issue #14. It will have an Underworld Unleashed connection in #13. GOOD FLASH #105- Wally is trapped in the dimension of the Mirror Master where he unwittingly assists him in finding someone who doesn't want to be found. The artwork in this issue was not good but the story made up for it. AVERAGE Superman MOS #48- Aquaman makes an appearance as big ugly sea monsters wreak havok on Metropolis and Superman assumes that the one handed wonder is responsible. I'm not a fan of big monster stories so this one was not too interesting to me but it is still better than it was a couple of months ago! AVERAGE ________________________________________________________________________ ------------------------------------------------------------------------- -7- Recent Reads and Random Thoughts by Wiilliam Hughes Recent Reads/Random Thoughts By William Hughes SOLAR #51 Solar returns home, and makes it as far as the moon before he encounters an alien being who wants to use him for his own purposes, with the entire Earth in peril as a result. I would have prefered to see a few answers to some questions, like how could Solar create a new Earth, live there for millions of years, and yet return and no time has passed at all on this Earth? Have I missed something? Could you explain it to me? -- ELFQUEST I just received the hardcover collection of ELFQUEST that I ordered, FIRE AND FLIGHT, which collects the first five issues of the series. I read the series back when it first came out in the late seventies/early eighties. It was one of the first independants that I ever read, and I really loved it back then. A friend of mine and I would ride a bus, then catch a subway, then ride yet another bus, to get to the only shop that we knew of that carried the title. This was a really big deal to a pair of eleven year olds! (I don't even recall if our parents were aware of the fact that we were doing this.) Anyway, after a while it became too much of a hassle to get the ELFQUEST material, and somewhere during the series, I just lost touch with Cutter and his crew, and never got caught up. I've seen the solicitations for all the new Elfquest stuff, and always wanted to check them out, but I always felt that too much time had passed under that particular bridge for me to ever catch that Elfquest magic again. Then recently I saw one of the hardcover editions. Wow! A chance to rewind the clock, start over from the very beginning... how could I pass up on that? So I ordered the first tpb, hoping that the series would be everything that I'd remembered. I've been disappointed with childhood favorites before, with the old ULTRAMAN t.v. show, and 90% of the stuff on THE CARTOON CHANNEL that during my youth I thought was better than anything. Would ELFQUEST still cut the mustard? Would it stand the test of time? Would the jaded eyes of a twenty-six year old find the same fascinations as the eleven year old? Happily, I am here to report, yes. Part of the thrill is of course nostalgic in nature. To revisit lost friends from a youth gone by. But beyond that, ELFQUEST is still an incredible epic tale, that hasn't lost any of the elements that made it so special. The art is great, the story hooks you immediately. I sort of wish the hardcover version was in the original black and white, but that's a minor concern. I will most assuredly pick up the rest of the hardcover volumes. If you missed out on ELFQUEST the first time around, or if you're like me and would like to become reaquainted with the book, these hardcover editions are a tad on the expensive side, but in my mind they're worth it. It's a nice package for what has become an American comic book classic. -- NEXUS: WAGES OF SIN #4 I'm very disappointed in this final issue of an otherwise outstanding mini-series. I like the character of Judah just fine, but I would prefer the time to be spent on Hellpop and his world, instead of Judah. Especially a two-bit domestic dispute with some wrestling thrown in. The saving grace is of course the Steve Rude art, that is in a class unto itself. I hope it won't be too long before we see more of Nexus, I wish that this last issue had ended on a better note. -- ACTION COMICS #713 Nothing overly exciting happening here, Superman takes on a two-bit villian who still believes that the true man of steel is dead and buried, and he wants to prove to the world that the guy in blue is a fraud. Decent art, okay story. Nothing to write home about, but not the worst book of the week... -- SUPERMAN: MOS #48 I enjoyed this one a bit more than ACTION COMICS this week. Guest-starring DC's atlantean, Aquaman and Supes team up to find out if Engine City still poses a threat to both undersea and air-breathing life. In the process discovering a real threat... -- AZRAEL #8 This is one of my favorite super-hero titles right now. This issue has the half-insane (maybe more?) Azrael and friends escaping the place of his birth. Yet another book that's broken up the art chores between two pencilers this month, and again it doesn't effect the feel of the story for me. Although I must say I think Barry Kitson's work suits the book more, and it's what I have come to expect. -- EXTREME JUSTICE #8 I may have missed an issue or two somewhere... I have no idea what's going on here. Somewhere along the line Monarch has popped up, and turns out to be... Captain Atom? I know that the original Monarch was supposed to have been the Captain, until the word got leaked on the pay services and the Internet. But I thought it was changed to The Hawk at the last minute? Apparently everyone in the book is confused as I am by this turn of events. Anyway, the storyline is interesting enough, but I think the art needs work... -- BATMAN #522 Batman tracks Killer Croc to the Florida swamps, determined to bring him back to Gotham and justice... but the Swamp Thing has other ideas. Kelley Jones isn't my favorite Bat-penciler, but this ish wasn't so bad. Never been a big Swamp-Thing fan either, so not much happening here to catch my fancy. -- SUPERBOY #19 Karl Kessel and Tom Grummett bring us the finale to Superboy versus The Champion. Nothing startling about the revelation that Champion is really Valor (or Mon-El or Lar Gand or...) and he's suffering from the lead poison he thought had been cured forever. Superboy's solution may have doomed Valor to a fate worse than death! (yeah, I don't believe it either.) The team of Grummett and Kessel never fail to please, and this issue is not an exception. -- ROBIN #20 Kesel and Grummett may have some competition for coolest teen super-dude in the DCU, now that the team of Dixon and Wieringo is here. 'Ringo's art suits this series perfectly. And, what could be cooler than being Robin, with your own car, cruising the streets of Gotham on your own? I really like the personal life of Tim being a major part of this book. This issue's cliffhanger was especially pleasing on that front. -- BATMAN ADVENTURES #35 Batman has amnesia, and Catwoman knows just how to help herself with this situation! One of the best series on the market, and it's only got one issue left... -- THE MAXX #17 Are we finally getting some answers around here? Is The Maxx really a monstorous bunny rabbit, or a plumber who's lost his mind? What's the secret of the Outback? What's really going on between Sarah and The Maxx? All these questions and more... aren't exactly answered here. But it's a start! -- NEGATIVE BURN #24 High points: GANGSTER STRIP DRAGWAY by Paul Pope SHADOW by Martin Conaghan & Mike Perkins A KILLER STORY by Bill Jankowski & Mark Gallivan CORPS CREADH by Kevin Gunstone & Jon Haward Low points: WALKING THE PIZZA by Paul Erickson & Paul Fricke CLASSICS DESECRATED by Doug Wheeler & David Gatzmer Also featuring MR MAMOULIAN by Brian Bolland, KILROY IS HERE by Joe Pruett & Kevin Landwehr, and STRANGEHAVEN by Gary Spencer Millidge. I really liked SHADOW and CORPS CREADH, they reminded me of the old horror type comics that I read as a kid in the seventies, after the evil code had come around... A KILLER STORY was funny, and the Paul Pope piece was cool because Paul Pope _IS_ cool. WALKING THE PIZZA is just plain silly, as was CLASSICS DESECRATED. The rest of the pack didn't do much for me either way. -- X-MAN #6 This is currently my second favorite X-book, behind GENERATION X. Unfortunately, it doesn't have alot of competition right now, as the rest of the mutant titles have fallen back into their pre-AoA slumps again. This book is holding my interest with the final remnants of the AoA world, and now with the return of Madelyne Pryor. -- UNCANNY X-MEN #324 Robert Cruz is the latest guest artist to take on an X-book. He's obviously influenced heavily by the Image boys, especially GEN 13. His work is passable, but he needs to develop his own style. I remember a time when UNCANNY X-MEN's list of artist's was a veritable who's who list of the best artists in the industry. No insult to Cruz intended, but it seems that anyone can get a shot on UNCANNY these days. (sigh) Storywise, minor developments on the Gambit front, as Psylocke attempts to use her powers to psi-spy on him, and a hint of things to come with Bobby Drake and Emma Frost. Other than that, just another punch'em up mutant book, all fluff, no substance. -- CABLE #23 Interesting layout on this book, with two different artist's taking different subplots. It actually works. Regular penciler Ian Churchill depicts the story surrounding Cable, as Tim Sale is the man on the Domino/Grizzly subplot. -- CAPTAIN AMERICA #443 I've absolutely nothing nice to say about this book. That's not true- the one nice thing I can say is that the storyline is almost over. It's almost a crime how the character of Captain America has been treated in the last decade. Mark Gruenwald points out that his time on Captain America has been longer than any other creator, including the great Jack Kirby. I wish his time had been as fruitful. All I can say is, I hope Mark Waid can bring the character back to the stature he deserves. -- ULTRAFORCE #9 Even though George Perez is gone, I still find the involvement of the Black Knight to be interesting enough to continue buying this book. The new art team of pencilers Royle and Alexander are not on par with Perez (who is?) but they do a pretty decent job. Even though the Ultraverse is on it's last leg these days, I still find ULTRAFORCE to be a cool team book. I like the characters, so I'll keep reading- at least until we see what BLACK SEPTEMBER has in store... ________________________________________________________________________ ------------------------------------------------------------------------- -8- Feedback --- Send feedback to: Internet .......... ComicBkNet@aol.com Fidonet ........... ComicBkNet at 1:324/134.0 ComicBook Net ..... 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