Comic Three-In-One

Batman: Contagion

Batman must put a stop to an Ebola outbreak in Gotham, but shouldn't that be the CDC's job? I mean, what next, he's got to stop a snowstorm?

RATING: 22%




Darkhawk: Return to Forever

This is the point at which Darkhawk jumped the shark, or should I say the point at which Darkhawk jumped the Evilhawk.

RATING: 35%





Supreme Power Vol. 3: High Command

This collection is more stellar writing and art, but unfortunately it will be the last time the heroes' origin as an alien invasion force will ever be referenced (boo), and also the last time we'll see boobs in this comic.

RATING: 79%

The New R3 Logo

Seeing this is the crowning achievement of my life. Please can we keep it?!

On only a marginal aside, a Darkhawk/Satan buddy cop movie would complete my life on so many levels.

An excerpt:

EXT. CONVENIENCE STORE, EVENING

(DARKHAWK and SATAN stand over JOHNNY TUNICCIO'S CORPSE)

SATAN: In all my years on the force, I've never seen anything like this.

DARKHAWK: I'm a series of cliches, wrapped up in some weird early-90's art.

SATAN: You're right...we can't tell the Chief. We're going to have to settle this on our own, and before this is over, we may have to turn in our badges.

DARKHAWK: Does anyone know who I am?

SATAN: Let's punch it, DH...I've gotta be back in Hell by midnight.

RATING: 99% (just about perfect)

(image courtesy of Glenn, I assume)

Batman Knightfall Part 2: Who Rules The Night

This isn't as much of a fiasco as Part 1, but it's not exactly graphic storytelling at its finest. It picks up where the first installment ended: Batman is paralyzed and Bane is victorious. So, Batman's student Azrael takes over as Batman while Bruce Wayne is in a wheelchair except Azrael ends up having serious anger issues and almost kills a bunch of bad guys including Bane, which to Batman is a no-no. Anyway, it's bland but I always kind of liked Mike Manley's Az-Bat armor, but then again I always kind of liked Darkhawk in case you couldn't tell, btw guess what tag this review gets even though he appears nowhere in this book.

RATING: 60%

Comic Three-In-One

Darkhawk: Heart Of The Hawk

The "best" Darkhawk story, involves DH fighting as many Spider-man villains as possible in six issues, and also he gets his amulet ripped out.

RATING: 62%



What If... Why Not?

This collection of What If... comics from 2004 forgets that the only reason people read What If... is to see lots of heroes die, not to discover how different their lives would have been if only they ate the cheese sandwich instead of the egg salad.

RATING: 18%


Ultimate Spider-man Vol. 5: Public Scrutiny

Total bummer when a crook dresses up as Spider-man and goes on a crime spree, and then he gets, like, dumped by Mary Jane, which is major lamesville, dude.

RATING: 89%

Amazing Spider-Man: Round Robin: The Sidekick's Revenge

Spider-man! Punisher! Darkhawk! Moon Knight! Nova! Night Thrasher! Early 90s! Garbage!

RATING: 17%

All Over Coffee by Paul Madonna

All Over Coffee is a comic strip published in the San Francisco Chronicle. It consists of short, poem like text often dealing with people and their difficulties interacting with others juxtaposed with barren images of a cityscape in which all the people and vehicles have been removed. There is one hardcover collection that is moving, beautiful, and often funny, but you can also check out the weekly strip by following this link. I can't believe somebody put together comics and poetry so successfully. It's almost like it was custom made for me. Now if only Paul Madonna could find some way to write in Captain Kirk and Darkhawk, I'd be set.

RATING: 91%

Earth

Earth is a place you might know by looking around right now. It is the only planet in the solar system to have produced three Knight Rider television series, sentient life, and pornography. If you want to go to CiCi's Pizza and eat all the pizza you can until you puke for $4.99, then Earth is the planet for you. If you want to immediately die of asphyxiation and extreme atmospheric conditions, then try any one of the other seven planets why don't you. Other things Earth has produced that no other planet we know of can get credit for: poetry, love, the Chick-Fil-A advertising campaign "Eat Mor Chikin," hate, witty bumper stickers, jock straps, and Darkhawk.

RATING: 100%

The Loners

Let me sum up this trade for you: boring boring boring boring DARKHAWK! boring boring boring boring DARKHAWK boring boring DARKHAWK boring boring boring boring boring DARKHAWK VS. DARKHAWK!

RATING: 37%

U.S. War Machine

Chuck Austen might not be the worst comic book writer in history, but he certainly was given a whole hell of a lot of great comics for a long time considering how awful he's been since always. He wrote Uncanny X-Men for like two years, Avengers, JLA, Superman... Jesus Christ, it infuriates me to think about it! His "best" work is on the 12 issue maxiseries U.S. War Machine, an alternate reality sort of look at the character War Machine. War Machine is Jim Rhodes (Terrence Howard in the movie Iron Man), one of Tony Stark's best friends, and in regular continuity took over the role of Iron Man while Stark was dead for a while, and eventually got his own suit of armor with a lot more guns, a way better color scheme, and named it War Machine. This trade envisions a world in which Rhodey is drafted by SHIELD to stop some white supremacist plan of killing all minorities everywhere. On paper it sounds good, but it actually is terrible, and one of the most racist things I've read in a comic. Thanks, Chuck Austen, white man, for relaying to me all the angst and misery that black people feel just for being black. The only reason I'm giving this piece of garbage any points at all (oh, I forgot how sexist it is, too - somehow Chuck Austen can draw a woman's nipples poking through any surface, including StarkTech armor), is because War Machine's armor always looks cool and there's some crazy stuff with an alternate reality Darkhawk in it. Boo, Chuck Austen, boo.

RATING: 19%

Darkhawk Issues 1-9

When I was a kid, Darkhawk was the first new superhero book I ever bought. Until then, I was buying mainly Star Trek comics and the occasional Spider-man book. But with issue 5, I was hooked. He looked so great, and he was kind of flawed when he was his regular high school self, Chris Powell. Little did I realize that a) the book was really terrible, and b) he was a ripoff of Spider-man/Peter Parker anyway. However, all these years later I have a soft spot for the character, and still love to see him pop up every now and then. Basically, Darkhawk is powered by this alien amulet that whenever Chris Powell touches it and wants to become Darkhawk WHAMMO! he does. There's a lot of interdimensional nonsense that I can't get into right now because it's ludicrous. Anyway, long story short, I love Darkhawk but the first 9 issues of his comic sucked, and so did the other 41 to be fair.

RATING: 32%