Art & Franco take a lighthearted all ages approach to Mike Mignola’s Dark Horse superhero and movie star Hellboy in Itty Bitty Hellboy #1, Chris Burnham curates a send-off to his team-up with Grant Morrison in Batman Incorporated Special #1, and Adventures of Superman #4 gives us some all star shorts in red shorts! Wash it down with a post-apocalyptic ComiXology Submit creator owned title Fighting Stranger Vol. #1.
ITTY BITTY HELLBOY #1 (of 5)
WRITERS: Art Baltazar & Franco
ART: Art Baltazar
Publication Date: August 28, 2013
Price: $2.99
Publisher: Dark Horse Comics
UPC: 76156823936200111
Buy it HERE
Aw, Yeah Hellboy!
You might recognize the team of Art & Franco from Tiny Titans at DC as well as the most recent Superman Family Adventures.
Perhaps you’ve seen the DC Super-Pets on Cartoon Network. The point is, Art & Franco have been doing kids or all ages comics for years and now they have broken away from DC to give the cute mischievous humor and art to the Hellboy Universe and the fun keeps on coming!
From our usual inside jokes, referring to running gags on the Aw Yeah Podcast to Lil’ kid versions of everyone from Johann the spirit, Liz and Hellboy this book is just pure fun. They face off against kid friendly Karl (with exclamation point on his head), Rasputin and Herman The Head in varying sizes of cardboard box forts.
The book is worth the price of admission for the Johann chicken soup gag alone. True Story!
BATMAN INCORPORATED SPECIAL #1
WRITERS: Chris Burnham, Joe Keatinge, Nathan Fairburn, Mike Raicht, Dan DiDio
ART: Chris Burnham, Ethan Van Sciver, Emanuel Simeone, John Paul Leon, John Stanisci
Publication Date: August 28, 2013
Price: $4.99
Publisher: DC Comics
UPC: 76194131789200111
Buy it HERE
Chris Burnham was the artist chosen to work with Grant Morrison to close out the chapter of his Batman run known as Batman Incorporated. Burnham filled in on issue #11, featuring Jiro and Canary, the Batman of Japan (Introduced in Batman Inc., Vol. 1 #1). The first internationally franchised Batman character Jiro (also known as Mr. Unknown – too many names) is more Bruce Lee than Wayne and all of his adventures are fantastical weird sci-fi kung fu flick futurist tales of Tokyo.
Burnham introduces a new organ harvester villain, Dr. Inside Out in this issue that has the best use of a capsule hotel as a story device I’ve ever seen. Let’s hope Burnham moves to the writer/artist part of the business because I think he is great at both.
This book is an anthology looking at various international Bat-Associates from El Gaucho, the somewhat controversial Night Runner, Squire, Raven Red and Man-Of Bats. You’ll never guess it, but when DC Co-Publisher Dan DiDio writes a story about some wacko DC C-Lister (See OMAC, Wednesday Comic’s Metal Men), its quite good. DiDio and Ethan Van Sciver drive it home with a Bat-Cow backup that’s something to be seen to believed. Damian Wayne’s former pet, Bat-Cow, is absolutely the hero. And he has a cape. Bat-Cow wears a cape.
ADVENTURES OF SUPERMAN #4
WRITERS: Dan Abnett & Andy Lanning, Tom DeFalco, Rob Williams
ARTISTS: Wes Craig, Pete Woods, Chris Weston
Publication Date: August 28, 2013
Price: $3.99
Publisher: DC Comics
UPC: 76194131596600411
Buy it HERE
The second anthology pick of the week is Adventures of Superman #4, a digital first book reprinted here on floppy format.
Sometimes, you do judge a book by its cover. Clark is depicted #clarkkenting, in classic animated series style by none other than Bruce Timm! Also, the names Abnett, Lanning, DeFalco and Craig are surnames I respect, so on with the show!
The current Adventures of Superman stories exist in the sweet spot of not being a part of the New 52, nor sullied by the non-red shorts wearing Man of Steel movie costumes. These are stand alone 8-pagers like the Silver Age adventures of our favorite heroes. I put this format as the test great and simple storytelling. Perhaps digital comics are unknowingly re-introducing this format to a new generation of writers and comic fans!
The Abnett and Lanning (see Marvel Cosmic) story is a day in the life of Lex Luthor contrasted to a day in the life of Superman. We’re taken elegantly from Breakfast to Midnight with Luthor plotting to kill Superman, and firing LexCorp employees over the course of the day. Supes catches up with him for an interaction, though not a conflict at the end of the story. Wes Craig’s art is incredible.
Former Marvel Editor-In-Chief Tom Defalco follows to workers over lunchtime arguing about Superman’s real abilities, as one wholly doubts that one man can really do all of that world saving without any help.
Rob William’s story features The Daily Planet, Lois Lane, Braniac and most importantly some Ma and Clark Kent moments we would have liked to see in the movie. In all three short stories, Clark is busy saving the day as Superman, with barely any witnesses, and performing superhuman feats by single handedly saving the world.
He still finds time to visit his Mom.
FIGHTING STRANGER VOL. #1
Writer: Adam Monetta
Art: Juan Romera
Price: $4.99
Imprint: HicksVillian Productions
Page Count: 115 Pages
Digital Release Date: 8/28/13
Age Rating: 17+ Only
BUY IT HERE
A man wakes up, an effortless amnesiac, on his feet with no memory of his identity and his weapons gone missing.
He makes his was to the walled city of Felicitas below, where robots, humans and mutants make fight over ration credits and means for escape. A dancing robot, C4D befriends the stranger and shows him around but also gets him into trouble.
This is a fun post-apocalyptic tale with great action and art. Formatted for the screen and the ComiXology app, the future tale reads great on digital devices.
