Only a few more weeks until Christmas! That doesn’t particularly mean much in the grand scheme of things, but it definitely works to open up this comic review article. We’ve also got new issues of the likes of Batman and Transformers to enjoy.

Comic Book of the Week goes to Birds of Prey #4 for an action and character-focused issue that really kicks things up a notch.

Meanwhile, I’m almost done with Star Wars Jedi: Survivor, but mostly that game was all about building my own lightsaber. I think I should share my endgame creation! I’m also finally working my way through the fourth season of Harley Quinn. It’s not as strong a show as it was at the beginning, but it’s still enjoyable.

Comic Reviews: Batman #140, Birds of Prey #4, Fantastic Four #14, Thunderbolts #1, Transformers #3 and X-Men #29.

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Batman #140
Writer: Chip Zdarsky
Artist: Jorge Jimenez
Colorist: Tomeu Morey
Letterer: Clayton Cowles

I am loving pretty much everything happening in this story.

While Zur-En-Arrh chases the Joker, planning to end him permanently, Batman fights off an army of alternate reality Zur-En-Arrh’s inside his mind. The mentor that Joker kidnapped, Lucie, is able to bring Bruce back out for a second, but it doesn’t last. Zur chases down the Joker and breaks his back.

Inside his mind, Bruce summons his Mind Palace and uses it to pick off the Zurs one by one, before finally duking it out and defeating The Dark Knight Returns Zur. Bruce gets his mind back and wakes up to discover that his personal Zur has transferred his consciousness into Failsafe.

Comic Rating: 8/10 – Very Good.

This issue is both badass and silly, and they balance each other nicely. It’s just so silly to see the Keaton, West, animated and DKR versions of Zur-En-Arrh, but I also love it. It’s so weird, but it’s also a great way to expand that storyline. And then Zdarsky ends the issue by combining Zur with his own original creation, Failsafe. So that works as an escalation event as far as I’m concerned. And I’m all for these stories escalating. Put Batman through the wringer! Granted, it’s getting to be a very complicated wringer, but it still works for me. Batman fighting a bunch of Zur variants in his Mind Palace is wild and crazy fun, and Jimenez is doing career-defining work on all these variants.

I also enjoy some serious consequences for the Joker. The character’s over-saturation has started to bug me. He’s especially annoying in this issue, pressing all of my Joker-hate buttons. So seeing him get totally bodied by Zur is awesome. I only hope DC has the courage to make this something real. But that’s just my personal taste on the Joker these days. I trust in Zdarsky to see where this goes.

TL;DR: Parts of this issue are so gosh darn silly, in all the best ways. Couple that with some badass action and fan-pleasing artwork, and this is one bonkers fun story.

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Birds of Prey #4
Writer: Kelly Thompson
Artist: Leonardo Romero
Colorist: Jordie Bellaire
Letterer: Clayton Cowles

All notches get kicked up in this issue, and I am here for all of it.

The plan to rescue Sin has gone belly up, and the Birds are fighting their way through a bunch of angry Amazons. Wonder Woman has also shown up, and we get some cool fights between her and Barda and Batgirl. But eventually the Birds are caught and imprisoned, while the Amazons try to figure out what’s going on. They realize too late that they’ve been infiltrated by this villain, Megaera, who quickly takes over the Amazons and defeats Wonder Woman. Meanwhile, Batgirl was never captured, so she frees everybody, and now the Birds have to face off against the mighty Megaera.

Comic Rating: 9/10 – Great.

This was a phenomenal chapter of the ongoing story and a really fun comic to boot. It’s all cool fights, fun little moments and then epic escalation. The writing is a ton of fun, and the artwork can be both epic and low key, when required. This is definitely a series firing on all cylinders as its story moves along, pitting our characters up against some crazy odds, in all the best comic book ways. I do have a couple of personal nitpicks, but they pale in comparison to what we get on the page. For instance, I would have liked a longer fight between Barda and Wonder Woman. I get that WW is the best of the best, and she’s put on quite a pedestal these days, but Barda is no slouch and this could have been a real drag on, knockdown fight between the two. So I’m disappointed that Barda got taken down in a single punch, but then the following scene, where Batgirl goes full stealth assassin on WW, makes up for it a little bit.

There were times during this issue where I wondered why Black Canary didn’t just talk to Wonder Woman about this whole thing. I don’t remember if this was previously addressed. Where did Black Canary get her information about Sin being in danger? And why not just talk to the Amazons about it, since they clearly don’t actually support this monster villain. Was Meridian feeding Canary bad info?! Are they going to make Future Maps a villain?! That dog won’t hunt, monsignor…

TL;DR: A really exciting, action-packed, well-written chapter of this ongoing tale, with great art and some truly fun character moments sprinkled throughout.

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Fantastic Four #14
Writer: Ryan North
Artist: Ivan Fiorelli
Colorist: Brian Reber
Letterer: VC’s Joe Caramagna

While I appreciate everything Ryan North is doing in this comic, sometimes it goes way over my head.

An evil businessman has invented an app that motivates people to do random good things in the world, but he’s using it to gather data on crowd movements and decision-making, which somehow allows him to predict the future. It’s a little hard to understand, like a lot of Ryan North’s really scientific stuff. He discovers that someone has infiltrated his network, and then Mr. Fantastic tricks the guy into letting Reed into the control room, and Reed destroys the whole system.

Then the F4 return to the Baxter Building site so that their building and children can return, it being one year since the big event that started this series…but nothing shows up.

Comic Rating: 6/10 – Pretty Good.

Look, I really like the idea of Ryan North being real world science and super intelligence into this comic. But has so often been the case with this series, he ends up having to spend several pages simply explaining the big concept, and sometimes it’s just hard to follow. We’re not all super geniuses! And I really don’t grasp what this dude’s app was supposed to do. I get that it predicted the future in ways he could control, and I get that shutting it down probably led to the building not showing back up, but this issue was still all about the F4 standing around while some random dude exposited his villain scheme. I enjoyed the appearance of the Syndicate, but felt they were wasted in a too-quick brawl at the start of the issue.

TL;DR: The super science in this one is a little too much to take in, especially when it’s nearly an entire issue of just explaining how it works.

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Thunderbolts #1
Writers: Jackson Lanzing and Collin Kelly
Artist: Geraldo Borges
Colorist: Arthur Hesli
Letterer: VC’s Joe Sabino

Is Marvel really this oppose to coming up with new team names? It was only a year ago that we had an entirely different Thunderbolts title, and now here’s this one. Granted, they needed to get the Thunderbolts comic in line with the upcoming Thunderbolts movie…

Bucky has put together a new Thunderbolts, consisting of the Contessa De Fontaine, Destroyer and Red Guardian. They travel to South America, fight their way into the Red Skull’s castle and kill the bastard.

Comic Rating: 8/10 – Very Good.

On the one hand, this is an enjoyable action comic in which some familiar characters fight bad guys and kill Nazis. That’s good stuff. On the other hand, this is clearly just a movie synergy comic, and that does carry a bit of stank to it. Does it deserve to wear that stank? Probably not. Like I said, it’s an enjoyable enough comic, as Bucky and his team banter and fight and eventually succeed in killing the Red Skull. But there are also all manner of hints and mentions about how he’s not going to stay dead. Honestly, the comic should embrace that resurrection angle. The characters mention in the issue that they know he will be back at some point, but I’d like a little more meta knowledge, almost, without breaking the fourth wall. That they know what they’re doing is temporary, but that they’ll take whatever peace they can get.

TL;DR: Writing, character banter and artwork are all strong, even though it’s a little too clear that this comic only exists because of the upcoming movie. Not that there’s anything wrong with that, in theory.

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Transformers #3
Writer and Artist: Daniel Warren Johnson
Colorist: Mike Spicer
Letterer: Rus Wooten

Alright, here we go, now this series is taking off.

Sparky Witwicky gears up and regroups with other soldiers at the VFW, and everybody is loaded to bear. But they don’t know the difference between an Autobot and a Decepticon, so they keep shooting Cliffjumper when he follows them to check on Carly. Then Skywarp shows up and wreck the place up, and it’s only the timely intervention of Optimus Prime that saves them. Of course, the people still don’t learn, and they end up attacking Optimus just when he’s ready to put Skywarp down. It gets really, really hairy, and really really awesome. Johnson goes all out on this issue. And then Spike accidentally gets shot, and a very wounded Optimus believes he can save the boy.

Comic Rating: 9/10 – Great.

Speaking of notches being kicked, this issue definitely delivers in the action department. I am glad for that, because I have largely been lukewarm on this series so far. But issue #3 is where it takes off. We see some real change happening, from Optimus getting injured to Spike getting shot. So the story still isn’t very big, but it doesn’t need to be when it’s this good. Johnson goes whole hog on the artwork in this issue, bringing his legendary skill at drawing fight scenes to the ‘fore. These are big, awesome fight scenes, with some wonderful full-page spreads and big, glorious moments.

This is the sort of work that draws one to a Daniel Warren Johnson comic. And he was clearly made to draw the Transformers. The scenes of the big, iconic Optimus Prime are just damn awesome, especially when transforming. It totally works. He also instills all sorts of fun little creative bits into his pages, like smarmy faces on the villains, or real fear and desperation in the humans. This issue is the whole package, and is exactly the sort of adrenaline-fueled issue this series needed to really get going. And now we’ve got some drama in store, as Sparky gets to know the Autobots after what just happened. I’m for sure digging this series a lot more now after this third issue.

TL;DR: The shot in the arm this series needed; an insane fight issue that pushes Daniel Warren Johnson’s skills to a limit that he easily crosses and far exceeds.

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X-Men #29
Writer: Gerry Duggan
Artist: Joshua Cassara
Colorist: Marte Gracia
VC’s Clayton Cowles

I haven’t been doing much with Fall of X because, honestly, it’s kind of all over the place. But I wanted to check into this issue for a very specific reason.

The X-Men have traveled to Latveria to find some mutants, but it turns out Doctor Doom found them ages ago and turned them into a squad. So it’s a big scrape between the X-Men and the Legion of Mutants, composed of Volta Doom, Slag, Nerium, Ironcloak and The Dreamer. It’s a good fight and the X-Men lose, but Doom invites them back to dinner and accommodations before they leave in the morning. Doom and the Legion explain, in their own subtle way, that they will help in the fight to come against Orchis.

Comic Rating: 8/10 – Very Good.

I love the idea of Doctor Doom forming his own little squad of mutants. Mostly, I love the idea of acknowledging Latverian mutants in the first place. Obviously there would be mutants in Latveria, and it makes total sense that Doctor Doom would seek them out and train them into his own team of X-Men (of sorts). The characters don’t jump out at me immediately as being really cool or special, but they exist now, and could be really neat characters going forward. They can stay loyal to Doom and still be their own people. This issue is a nice introduction as they get into a big fight with the X-Men, and then have a big dinner with Doom. Who doesn’t love Doctor Doom being a good, if arrogant, host? So that combination of fun fight, some great Doom scenes and some potentially cool new characters makes this a winning issue.

Seriously, I want these mutants to have long lives in the comics going forward.

TL;DR: I love the idea of Latverian mutants being a loyal Doctor Doom squad of X-Men, and this issue serves as a great introduction to the squad.

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The comics I review in my Hench-Sized reviews are just the usual comics I grab from Comixology any given week, along with a few impulse buys I might try on a whim. So if there are any comics or series you’d like me to review each week, let me know in the comments.

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