Every Day Is Like Wednesday

Don't get excited. That is not the cover for the sixth and final issue of DC's thunderously disappointing DC Universe Vs. Masters of The Universe crossover series, nor is it a cover for an upcoming issue of DC's ongoing He-Man and The Masters of The Universe series. Rather, it is simply a pin-up that artist Stewart McKenny drew, and which I noticed on his Facebook feed the same day I happened to buy the previous issue of the DCUvMOTU series.

I post it here simply for contrast. If you're familiar with the characters (i.e. you grew up in the 1980s), then you'll notice that they are a) slightly tweaked versions of the characters as they appeared in the, let's face it, pretty terrible animated series, based on toy line (McKenny's Skeletor is much thinner, almost skeletal, and Evil-Lyn's neckline plunges deeper than I remember from the cartoon, but otherwise, they look like an artist filtering the original designs through his own style) b) the core line-up of the villains, Skeletor's "Evil Warriors" (well, the core line-up, plus Stinkor).

Of those eight villains on the image, only Skeletor and Evil-Lyn actually appear in DCvMOTU, and then in severely redesigned, you-might-not-recongize-'em-form. It seems inconceivable to me that you would do a miniseries based on the premise of a clash between these two worlds and not even include the obvious encounters that occurred to toy makers years ago*...
...but hell, what do I know.

I guess what I found so incredibly disappointing about the series is that I tend to view these sorts of crossover stories as once-in-a-lifetime sorts of exercises (Think JLA/Avengers or Marvel Vs. DC), and therefore I expect them to be both very good and to get in everything a fan might want to see happen. It's hard, but not impossible. Marvel Vs. DC isn't a great example, but JLA/Avengers is...I'm pretty sure writer Kurt Busiek and artist George Perez worked in every member of every team ever, all of their villains, all of their supporting characters, chunks of their history and every available location.

This is nowhere near as ambitious, perhaps because Giffen plotted it to simply be another chapter of the ongoing DC He-Man and The Masters of the Universe comic book DC is publishing, which has set about redesigning the characters costumes just as severely as the New 52 initiative redesigned DC's superheroes, and rather radically altered the status quo.

Seen that way, I guess it makes sense this is really just another terrible story arc of a terrible ongoing comic book series, and wasn't approached as anything special or historic or something-somebody-somewhere-might-conceivably-give-a-damn-about. And, unlike those DC/Marvel crossovers mentioned above, I guess there's no reason DC can't publish another, better DCU/MOTU crossover at some point in the future.

I'm fairly certain that they can't publish a worse one those, as comics don't get much worse than this.


COVER:
The third cover artist to contribute to this six-issue series is Mikel Janin, regular artist for Justice League Dark, who is not exactly doing his best work ever here. That big, toothy pile of color effects in the background is "Dark Orko," the villain of the piece, while various members of the Justice League and the Masters of the Universe line-up rather asymmetrically on either side of the cover, Battle Cat doing the best job of hiding himself in shame from the readers' eyes (He's mostly obscured behind the UPC symbol and creator credits).

Wonder Woman's head, neck and raised fist, and at least half of The Flash, are still visible behind the tagline, reading "FINAL BATTLE! DARK ORKO VS. EVERYONE!"

While there is a sort of George Perez, Anti-Monitor vs. the DC Universe homage panel near the climax, "Everyone" here is a lot less ambitious than one might expect, given that two entire universes full of characters are mentioned right there in the title. In truth, the "Everyone" refers to the eight characters from the Masters of The Universe universe and maybe two dozen DC characters max, only a relative handful of whom actually do much of anything, or even get lines of dialogue.

For the final issue, the creative team re-falls apart a bit. Keith Giffen is responsible for the plot (Boooo!), whereas the script can be blamed on Tony Bedard (Boooo!). The art is mostly by Pop Mhan, who badly draws 14 pages, while an Eduardo Francisco draws six pages. There are two colorists, but they don't split their page assignations to correspond with that of the artists.

If you've forgotten where we left off, or succeeded in blocking it from your memory because it just hurt too much to think about, let me remind you of what has come before. Orko discovered the magic evil skull of Hordak's dad, and it turned him into "Dark Orko," a big, evil, monster version of himself; he conquered his home dimension of Trolla, turned all the other Orkos there into scary monsters, and then sent Skeletor to the DC Universe. There, the redesigned New 52 Skeletor teamed up with Black Alice, who was apparently just there to give Skeletor someone to talk to, and placed 12 magic siphons all around the world; these draw magic from the DCU and will channel it to the Orko, destroy Earth-New 52 in the process (So I guess that means we should root for Orko and Skeletor...?).

To keep the heroes off his back, Skeletor possessed the Justice League and pit them against He-Man and other arrivals in this dimension from Eternia, the first battle seemingly ended with He-Man stabbing Superman through the torso and making the Man of Steel disappear (In actuality, he was simply teleported to Trolla).

As of last issue, all the heroes were finally all on the same page, and they decided to team up with Skeletor to stop Orko. In retaliation, Orko possessed all of the super-people in the DCU and sent them to the House of Secrets to fight Skeletor and whoever was un-possessed. Why not just possess everyone via this global mind control spell? Because...

Because...

....

...Okay, I can't think of a good reason.

Anyway, let's read the last issue of the most disappointing comic book story of my life!

PAGES 1-4: According to Skeletor, "Orko sent your world's mightiest beings to destroy us!" These consist of Blue Beetle, Firestorm, Orion, Cheetah, Black Manta and a bunch of Batman villains—including The Joker (again), although I'm pretty sure that's an(other) art mistake.

This motley crew, visually identified as mind-controlled by the red lightning rising out of their eye-sockets, are meant to take out The Eternians, Batman and the Justice League Dark line-up. In order to cut off Orko's power supply (an save the world), Skeletor sends various teams of the un-mind-controlled to attack the siphons.

PAGES 5-8: Prince Adam, which we all know is He-Man before he says "Shazam!" and gets all big and muscular, has tried sneaking into Trolla in order to rescue Superman. After he exchanges some words with Orko, Adam shouts his catch prhase, turns into He-Man and cuts the magical shackles imprisoning Superman.

Orko sics "a billion" Trollans on them.

PAGE 9: We see four of the teams who have gone to destroy four of the siphons, each of which is apparently guarded by a mind-controlled DCU character. In Greece, John Constantine and Evil-Lyn are faced with Wonder Woman. In Egypt, Man-at-Arms and Madame Xanadu are faced with Black Adam. In Cambodia, Stratos and Deadman-in-Battle Cat are walking around (Not sure why Deadman is in Battle Cat; this version of Deadman doesn't need to possess anyone in order to speak to the living the way he did before the reboot). And, finally, in France, Roboto and Frankenstein fight Cyborg.

PAGE 10-11: Skeletor is fighting the mind-controlled Deathstroke, Batgirl, Scarecrow, Clayface, Bane and Killer Croc, but by "fighting" I simply mean he is posing and talking, while they are posing in his direction.
The rest of the page is devoted to Batman giving Black Alice a pep talk: "You have the ability to tap into the powers of those you've been in contact with," he says incorrectly (She has the ability to tap into the power of any magic-user, whether she's met them or not). At Batman's urging, she uses her power to borrow some of Orko's magic.

Now, the neat thing about Black Alice is that when she does this, she generally gets a one-time costume redesign, appearing in a generally scanty, goth version of a costume worn by a DCU magic user.



So one might expect her to appear, for at least a panel, in a naughty goth Orko get-up. This does not happen.
Instead, she just appears as a pair of eyes in the sky, breaking the mind-control spell, thus sparing Man-At-Arms from having his arms ripped off by Black Adam and Constantine and -Lyn from being similarly dismembered by Wondy.

PAGEs 12-14:

Superman tells He-Man he's "not much good against magic," so He-Man lends him his Sword of Power. They don't have to fight long though, as Orko opens a portal in Earth in order to collect the power he's had siphoned—but Skeletor jumps through it shouting "It's Mine!!"

While they wrestle, Superman and He-Man fly through the portal back to Earth, and Skeletor and Orko stumble after.

PAGES 15-16:
Dogpile on Orko!

This is the page that reminded me of that pretty famous COIE cover by Perez.
Although now that I look at them both at once, the Perez image is a little more detailed and dynamic, huh...?

PAGES 17-19:

Using his X-Ray vision, Superman sees the evil Hordak's Dad skull inside Orko, and hurls He-Man's Sword of Power at it, impaling it and instructing He-Man to "Get ready to light him up!"

He-Man intuits that this means to shout "By the Power of Grayskull!" This causes lightning to SHA-KOOM the sword-impaled skull, which...shatters the skull and doesn't something bad to Orko. Skeletor jumps on Orko's back, still shouting about the Power and that he must have it.

Constantine then snaps his fingers, and SWHFF the two villains disappear.

"Where are they, Constantine?" Batman asks, to which the mage responds "Gone, Batman. Forever, if I got it right."

Man-At-Arms isn't so sure; he cooly regards the closing vortex and says, "Let's hope so...But if there's one thing I've learned about Skeletor, it's that he always comes back."

PAGES 20-21: And then, Man-at-Arms and company suddenly react completely differently, raising their arms into the air and cheering at the defeat. He-Man and his mom hug (Oh yeah, He-Man's mom was in this, if you forgot. She's a lady from the DCU, and is somehow cursed so that she can never return to Eternia).

The best part is Teela and Man-at-Arms pondering their next move. "What do we do now? " Teela asks. "I mean, we did come here hoping to recruit Skeletor in our war against The Horde."

"We'll just have to find a different way to liberate Eternia," Man-at-Arms responds. The Justice League and a handful of superheroes from the DCU, who just accepted He-Man and company's aid in saving their world from Skeletor and Orko, not only don't volunetter, but Madame Xanadu and Constantine immediately open up a portal to Eternia and say "Godspeed to you all" and "Don't forget to write."
Nice heroing, a-holes.

At the bottom of the final page, there's a tag saying "Don't miss the origin of She-Ra starting in He-Man and the Masters of the Universe #13!" but, if you somehow made it through all six of these awful issues, I can't imagine you would be at all interested in following the Eternians on to their next adventure. Or the heroes of the DC Universe on to any of their further adventures. Rather than serving as some sort of incentive to sell the He-Man comics to DC readers or DC comics to He-Man fans, this miniseries was basically a strong argument for never reading any comics featuring any of these characters again.

But don't judge all of the DC line of comics by this miniseries! While it's true many of them are not very good, and most of them are mediocre, few if any that I've read have been as poorly made as DC Universe Vs. Masters of the Universe, which we need never speak of again, and can, in fact, now being consciously trying to forget.

Or should we instead keep it in the back of our mind at all times? Well, I don't know that we should, but certain comic book publishers, editors and creators should think of it as a good example of how not to do a cross franchise story. After all, those that forget the past are doomed to repeat it, and therefore I assume that those that forget DC Universe Vs. Masters of the Universe are doomed to repeat it, and nobody wants that...


*In addition to an Aquaman Vs. Mer-Man two-pack set, Mattel also produced a Superman Vs. He-Man, a Lex Luthor vs. Skeletor, She-Ra Vs. Supergirl, Green Lantern vs. Zodac, Bizarro Vs. Faker and Hawkman Vs. Stratos...that last match-up is the only one to actually occur in the comic book series, aside from the He-Man and Superman fight. Is it even worth pointing out that the toy lines have the characters in their classic looks, rather than the New 52 redesings of the DC characters and the updated looks of the MOTU characters? For the most part, it looks like the designs from the Super Friends or Super Powers show doing battle with the designs from the original He-Man cartoon...with the Bizarro and Supergirl hailing from Superman: The Animated Series.

This week DC shipped the penultimate issue of their big event series pitting some of the most powerful characters from two alternate universes against one another, in the pages of Forever Evil #6. It wasn't very good, nor was it terribly interesting in any way. But it could have been worse. It could have been the penultimate issue of another DC event series pitting some of the most powerful characters from two alternate universes agains one another: It could have been DC Universe Vs. Masters of The Universe #5.

As you'll recall if you're reading the series, or just reading my series of blog posts about the series, one-time court jester and created-for-the-dumb-cartoon-series comic relief character Orko, tired of being laughed at, became an all-powerful monster wizard guy, so powerful that Eternian Big Bad Skeletor now works for him.

He sent Skeletor to the DC Universe, specifically, Earth-New 52, where Skeletor enlisted teh aid of Black Alice, who has yet to use any magical powers of her own, or do much aside from occasionally sass Skeletor. They set up a bunch of magical "siphons," their intent being to drain this world of all its magical energy, destroying it in the process.

To keep those pesky superheroes in the Justice League out of the way, Skeletor had them all possessed (except Batman, who could not be possessed, because he's Batman) and sent them after He-Man, He-Man's mom, Teela and Evil-Lyn, who have journeyed to the DCU to stop Skeletor. At one point, He-Man impaled Superman on his magic sword, causing the latter to disappear and, because everyone in this book is an idiot, they assumed that meant He-Man murdered Superman.

The remaining Justice Leaguers, plus some of the guys from Justice League of America, the team in a book that DC launched exclusively to tie-in to "Trinity War" and Forever Evil and are will therefore soon cancel in a few months, go after all the good guy Eternians, which now include Man-At-Arms, Stratos, Roboto and Battle Cat, who have arrived looking for He-Man and friends.

Then the members of the third Justice League, the Justice League Dark, show up with Batman and break up that fight.

And, that's pretty much where plotter Keith Giffen, scripter Tony Bedard, artist Pop Mhan and the pair of colorists splitting up random chunks of the book to work on—Veronica Gandini and Tony Avina—left off.

So once more into the breach, dear friends...

COVER:
This is the first cover of the series not drawn be Ed Benes, an artist who I think I've made pretty clear in the past that I am not a fan of. This one is drawn by Bernard Chang, who is a pretty good artist, but it's hard to tell based on this terrible cover. Maybe this project is just cursed?

Just as this storyline has completely squandered the scores and scores of characters and settings that combining not one, but two fictional shared-setting universes have to offer, this cover ignores the 20 or so characters involved to present just two: Superman and, well, you might not be able to tell, but his name on the cover should serve as a pretty good clue that the abstract, vaguely skull-like shape in the background is Skeletor.

Superman is being beset by monstrous versions of Trollans, the native inhabitants of Trolla, Orko's homeworld in yet another dimension. The colorist, whom I think is Chang himself as no one else is credited, saw fit to make their blue skin and the red lightning auras about them almost the exact same shade as the red and blue of Superman's costume, so it all blends together into one big, ugly mess...with a little neon yellow trying to peek around the text and figures in the background.

"Trapped in Skeletor's Grasp," the cover says, despite the fact that, as we saw last issue, Superman is actually on Trolla now, trapped in Orko's grasp.

PAGES 1-4:

He-Man, his mom, Teela and Evil-Lynn arrive at the bottom of a rocky hill dotted with bare trees, the top of which is occupied by a shack that the caption tells us is The House of Secrets, which is where Skeletor has been holed up for much of the last four issues.

Inside, Skeletor is pretty happy about how well the magic power siphons are working—for evidence, we see that it has made Black Alice's legs and one of her arms very, very skinny. Black Alice is kinda sorta magic, I think—at the very least, she has a super-power which allows her to temporarily steal and use the magic powers of magic-powered DC characters—although I don't think that's been mentioned at all in this series yet.

Orko appears as a wall of fire with angry eyes to tell Skeletor about He-Man and mom are closing in, and, rather than leaving it to Skeletor to handle, Orko casts a spell that is variation of the one Skeletor used "to enslave the so-called 'Justice League'...Of course, my version is much bigger."

PAGES 5-7:

To emphasize how much bigger, we see the planet earth in long shot, surrounded by a red aura, while big, bolts of red lightning emanate from somewhere in North America, streaking all over the globe.

Meanwhile, in Gotham City, Man-At-Arms and his posse are staring down Batman and his posse, having apparently agreed to come to team-up since we've seen them last. "Then it is decided, Man-Of-Bats, we join forces against Skeletor."

Batman politely declines to mention that Man-Of-Bats is a different guy in a bat costume.

Suddenly, Constantine shouts "INCOMING! and FWOOSHes a spell to protect them from "some bad mojo" that "felt like mind-control, but on a massive" scale.

A message "squarks" in Batman's cowl: "To all who heed the master's call: Proceed to the encolsed coordinates. The Master's enemies must die!."

"That's the Justice League's global emergency frequency," Batman says, "There's o telling how many heroes might be receiving this." Really, notorious control freak Batman who builds secret backdoors into all Justice League technology and operating systems? No way of telling how many heroes are on the global emergency frequency?
Page seven is broken into an eight-panel grid, each showing a different meta-human, none of whom I think would be on that emergency frequency, but, as Constantine says, that spell will likely bring "every bleedin' metahuman" to the House of Secrets. Those shown here, each with glowing red eyes indicating they are being mind-controlled, are Black Canary, Killer Croc, Black Manta, Firestorm, Cheetha, OMAC, Blue Beetle and Orion.

PAGES 8-12:

He-Man and Evil-Lyn storm the front gate of the House, and while Evil-Lyn attempts to betray He-Man, Skeletor stops her, and immediately launches into a completely un-provoked three-page expository story, recounting some of the events from that terrible six-issue He-Man and the Masters of The Universe mini-series DC published a while back.

It goes like this. A long time ago Hordak killed his dad, Hordak Prime, and took his skull, which became a super-powerful, super-evil artifact. Skeletor used it to take over Eternia in the previously mentioned shitty miniseries, and Orko had attempted to stop him by destroying the skull, but, because Orko sucks and his spells always backfire, he instead absorbed all the evil power in the skull. "All his life Orko wanted to be a great wizard," Skeletor says, "Now he is a mad god."

Apparently a very distracted mad god, as he was just monitoring the situation in the House of Secrets, but now doesn't seem to be listening while Skeletor plots with He-Man to stop him.

PAGES 13-15:

Maybe he was busy playing with Superman, who he has held in unbreakable magical bonds on Trolla. He messes with Superman a bit, in the process showing Superman the evil magic skull and wear he keeps it. I wonder if that will come back to bite Orko in the ass later..?

That's a rhetorical question. Orko doens't have an ass.

PAGES 16-19:

Batman and Man-At-Arms' team are now at the bottom of the hill that He-Man and his gang were at the bottom of on the first page.

When Man-At-Arms, shown clutching an Eternian dildo gun, asks about the rather-humble House—on Eternia, after all, Skeletor hung out in a mountain fortress called Snake Mountain, with a giant snake carved into it, a waterfall pouring out of its jaws like it was eternally vomiting— Batman tells him "It's a dimensional nexus—undetectable by technological means. The Secret Six used to hide out here."

This is interesting because this is the first mention, so far as I know, of a Secret Six in the New 52 continuity. And this story does take place in the New 52 continuity, as the costuming is a pretty dead giveaway, as is the presence and make-up of the Justice League of America and The Justice League Dark.

The thing is, I don't think the Secret Six existed in The New 52. The team changed quite a bit over the years, but it was originally formed by Lex Luthor during the events leading up to the out-of-continuity Infinite Crisis, in the also-out-of-continuity Villains United.

Some of the original Six—Deadshot, Catman, Scandal Savage, Ragdoll II, Cheshire and a Parademon—still exist. Of those, I think Catman is the only one who has yet to be re-introduced into the New 52, but, of the others, they all seem pretty different (I've seen Ragdoll pop up in Arkham War, and there was a DC Comics Presents arc about Vandal Savage and a daughter; was it Scandal?). In fact, I'm not sure that the Parademon could be on the team, since they seem to be robots now...? (At least, The Justice League sure slaughtered them like they were completely artificial creatures).

The line-up rotated pretty much constantly, with only Deadshot, Catman, Scandal and Ragdoll sticking around for each incarnation, but a few of 'em don't seem to have existed yet—Jeanette, Knockout—and a few of them have been introduced, but in forms that it's difficult to imagine them in that particular team (Bane, for example).

And, of course, all of their adventures in Secret Six and the Villains United stories were tied into DC continuity no longer existent, so pretty much all of those events would need to be chucked out if the Secret Six did still exist in The New 52.

I imagine this was just a mistake on Giffen and Bedard's part though. Otherwise, the Secret Six, like The Justice League (only less so, given their much shorter life span), would be one of those teams wherein they supposedly had all the same adventures, just radically different, the differences of which DC doesn't know and won't tell readers.

Anyway, Skeletor meets them all at the door, and between he and Queen He-Man's Mom they convince the newcomers that they all need to team-up to fight Orko and save the DC Universe...and that before they got there, Skeletor snuck He-Man into Trolla to try and free Superman.

PAGE 20:

This is just a short, three-panel page, in which Deadman interrupts everyone to tell them that "pretty much everybody" is in the process of attacking the House.
The figures are in long-shot in the second panel, so it's sort of difficult to make some of them out, aside from those already shown as being mind-controlled, like Black Manta, Blue Beetle, Killer Croc, OMAC, Cheetah and Firestorm. There's also Batgirl, Bane, Hawkman, Deahstroke, a second, female Firestorm (New 52 Firehawk?) and...hey, whose that guy in purple with green hair...? That's not...
Oh shit, it is! That's The Joker, completely with his New 52 sliced-off face—the one I thought The Joker's Daughter was currently wearing on her face—like a mask.
(In fact, there was an ad for that gross Joker's Daughter one-shot in this very comic. Did you guys check that out? She eats The Joker's long-ago flayed-off face that she finds in the sewer on the very first page.)

Why, it's the first in-continuity appearance of The Joker since Scott Snyder and Greg Capullo and company's "Death of The Family"...!

That's gotta be an art mistake, right?

Right below that panel revealing that The Joker has returned not in the pages of Batman or Forever Evil, but in DC Universe Vs. Masters of The Universe #5, are printed what, by the time I finished this issue, were among my three favorite words in the English language:

See that? That's just a single image from this fantastic gallery of painted Masters of The Universe-related artwork at Monster Brains, which more than one of my Facebook friends linked to last week. That gallery pretty accurately sums up what the inside of my head looked like at least an hour every day between the ages of, oh, 5 and 8. But even if you don't click on the link to see all the pictures, just take in the one above. Look at all of those colorful characters, almost each of which had its own unique power or gimmick. Look at those crazy vehicles, all based on monsters or animals. Look at those playsets. And in that image above, among those dozens of characters, there are at least three distinct and warring factions of bad guys—Skeletor and his Evil Warriors, Hordak and The Horde, The Snake Men—with whom the Masters of the Universe must contend.

There's just so much there to work with.

Guess how much of that has made it into DC Universe Vs. Masters of The Universe?

Four issues in, the only characters from the Masters of the Universe universe to appear have been the drastically redesigned, "New 52" versions of He-Man, Teela, Man-at-Arms, Roboto, Moss Man, Stratos, Battle Cat, Evil-Lyn, Skeletor and Orko. Orko is, it turns out, the ultimate villain of the piece, with Keith Giffen having turned the annoying/funny magical sidekick from the cartoon series into an all-powerful, unstoppable magical force—a little like what Alan Moore did with Mr. Mxyzptlk in "Whatever Happened to Man of Tomorrow?" and a little like what Sean McKeever did with Wonder Dog during his rather unfortunate run on Teen Titans.

As for the DC Universe, it has thus far been represented by the rosters of the three Justice Leagues, plus minor villain/anti-heroine Black Alice. And that's it, really.

In terms of scope and sweep, it's a pretty narrow, limited to some cherry-picking of characters, and the plot doesn't draw anything of any particular interest to either shared universe setting: Working at Dark Orko's behest, New 52 Skeletor travels to Earth-New 52 in order to drain it of all magic, a process that will destroy the planet. To keep the heroes off his back, he manipulates He-Man into seemingly killing Superman, so the Justice Leagues are hunting for and fighting the Masters of the Universe rather than looking for Skeletor.

And that's it, so far. It's been a very weird crossover so far, with no real indication that this is meant to be a once-in-a-lifetime meeting between two huge franchises full of scores of characters that intersect, compare and contrast in interesting ways. It reads more like your average JLA/JSA crossover from back in the day, when those things happened annually or so; just two teams of super-people sharing a brief adventure to fill comic book pages and if the results are nothing special, well, so what? There's always next time.

JLA/Avengers it ain't, in other words. Hell, JLA/Titans or Avengers Vs. X-Men it ain't. I'd say it's more like New Avengers/Transformers, but I never finished reading that miniseries; and I suppose it's always possible it got better after the first few terrible issues.

To recap, in the first three issues: He-Man's mom came to DC's Earth, where she is apparently from, seeking help to stop Skeletor, who is working with Black Alice for Orko. She finds John Constantine, who, oddly enough, seems to be the main character in this story, getting more panel-time than just about anyone else. They're soon joined by He-Man, Teela and Evil-Lyn.

Skeletor possesses all of the Justice Leaguers save Batman, who is too cool to be possessed, and has them attack He-Man and friends; during the melee, He-Man seemingly impales Superman, who vanishes upon being stabbed. This makes all of the Leaguers mad, and they go hunting the Eternians. And then another group from Eternia, including Man-at-Arms and the others, arrive on Earth, searching for the first group. They run into the Justice League of America.

Things seems to be under control with the creative team at last, at least, with Tony Beard still scripting from Keith Giffen's plot, but Pop Mhan back to handling all of the artwork himself again, after some rather substantial assistance last month.

COVER:
Look, see? There's John Constantine again. Dude's like the face of the DC Universe in this thing. He's appearing alongside He-Man, Teela and, in the center, Zatanna, who does not appear in this issue, and has not appeared in any issue of the series so far.

PAGES1-3:

Evil-Lyn, Teela, He-Man and He-Man's mom are at Stonehenge, recapping the plot, where they've found one of the magical siphon thingees Skeletor is using to drain Earth-New 52 of its magical essence. Evil-Lyn tells them they can use it to find Skeletor. A determined He-Man tells her to "hurry," because "if we don't stop my uncle, who will?"

That sets up the next two pages, full of people who would like to stop his uncle, Skeletor.

PAGES 4-6:

A terrible scan, as the book is bigger than my scanner. Please note Mhan's Roboto and the J'onn/Battle Cat fight, though.

It's (some of) the Master of the Universe vs. (some of) the Justice League of America! Stratos vs. Hawkman! Man-at-Arms vs. Green Arrow! Green Lantern Simon Baz versus the most poorly drawn version of Roboto you can imagine! And, most amusingly, Martian Manhunter vs. Battle Cat!

That last match-up shouldn't be much of a fight at all, given that Martian Manhunter's powers include super-strength, invulnerability, invisibility, intangibility, shape-shifting, telepathic powers and devastating eye-beam weapons referred to as "Martian Vision."

Battle Cat, on the other hand, is a large, green tiger.

J'onn's strategy for fighting Battle Cat, however, is to turn into a cat-man and try to tackle Battle Cat, who grabs him, throws him down, and then slaps him across his stupid Martian face. Congratulations, Martian Manahunter! You've just reached the nadir of your career!

While the battle rages across five whole panels, Colonel Steve Trevor, hiding behind a car, uses his cell phone to call Wonder Woman's bracelet and ask her if these are her hostiles. She says she'll be there to help capture and interrogate them with her magic rope.
This final page looks so much like it was drawn by Howard Porter, I had to re-check the credits to make sure that it was indeed Pop Mhan who was drawing every page of art in this issue.

PAGES 7-8:

In conversation with Alfred, a brown-haired Bruce Wayne realizes that Superman isn't really dead, because it's just a little too convenient that his body completely disintegrated after being stabbed to death. Also, there's no way DC would kill Superman off, even temporarily, in a stupid little miniseries like this that no one's reading.

PAGES 9-10:
Dark Orko tells Skeletor and Black Alice his plan, which involves converting all life into his Horde or whatever, and they realize that serving Orko may not actually be in their best interests.

PAGES 11-13:

We rejoin the MOTU vs. JLOA battle already in progress. The Savage Hawkman tries stabbing Stratos, who is mainly just avoiding him, and then he KRAKs him with his big, golden, spike-covered mace.

Martian Manhunter has completed his transformation into a large, green, cat creature and is trying to reason with Battle Cat, who slaps the shit out of him again.
Green Lantern, having apparently defeated Roboto off-panel, now goes after Moss Man, who uses his plant-controlling powers to smack him around with some trees. GL responds by creating a large green chainsaw which he is about to chop Moss Man's arm off with (!!!) when suddenly...

PAGES 14-16:
Swamp Thing snatches the chainsaw out of the air, grabbing its whirling blade in his hand (SHLP SHRP SKLUSHHH is the sound a chainsaw blade makes in the palm of the hand of a muck-encrusted mockery of a man, if you're wondering), and slowly tells GL to stop this madness and that his "construct...is in very poor taste."

Justice League Dark, having been recruited by Constantine last issue, has come to break up the fight—by beating on Justice League of America. Frankenstein blocks Hawkman's mace, which he was about to use to crush the skull of poor, helpless Stratos (JLoA is pretty fucking hardcore, if this is their idea of taking the Eternians alive). Deadman possesses Green Arrow, uses a flame arrow to chase Martian Manhunter away from Battle Cat (and, incidentally, make J'onn say "SQUEEEE--!", but not in the Internet's general usage of that word), and Black Orchid runs up and punches out Steve Trevor.

The Masters are the JLD are then teleported away by magic.

PAGE 17-20:

Madame Xanadu cast the spell to rescue the two teams from Trevor's Leaguers. Together with John Constantine and Batman, they plan on stopping Skeletor and figuring out where Superman is being kept so they can rescue him.

While Batman narrates an inspirational speech, the artwork jumps around to show us who is where: He-Man and his team are just outside Skeletor's headquarters in the House of Secrets. Skeletor and Black Alice are still talking to Orko. And Superman? He's trapped in the flaming portal in the torso of Dark Orko, the portal that used to be the big, black O on his little purple cloak, back when he was the wacky sidekick and court jester in Eternia.

Next? "The Story of Dark Orko," according to the last-page blurb. I can't wait.

You start shit with some superheroes, and you can expect to be hit in the head with a car.












But you start some shit with Orion, and you can expect to be hit with cars until someone stops him.

Or he runs out of cars.

Whichever comes first.


(Above sequence from Firestorm: The Nuclear Man #34, by Dwayne McDuffie, Pop Mhan, Rob Stull and Ron Randall. And yes, the rest of the issue is as good as these four panels indicate)

A Little Snow Fairy Sugar Vol. 1
ADV Manga

This is an aptly named series. The phrasing of the title is strange way past the point of being awkward, and it definitely clues you into how sweet the stories inside are; hell, they’re downright saccharine.

The credits are a little tough to decipher and, honestly, I’m not entirely sure who does what. Haruka Aoi is listed as “creator,” but Koge Donbo is listed under “original character design.” And someone/some group/some thing “BH SNOW + CLINIC” are listed as “illustrator.”

As for the story, it stars Saga Bergman, an orphaned little girl who lives with her grandma in an idyllic Germanic town of Guttenberg (note the cutesy architecture and the “Morgen!” greetings). She’s a bit of a control freak, and by “control freak” I mean anal retentive to the point of being possibly OCD. But her strictly scheduled life of hard work, punctuality and regimented fun gets turned upside down one day when she discovers a doll-like little fairy by the name of Sugar, a fairy that only Saga can see.

Sugar is an apprentice “season fairy,” an invisible being responsible for controlling some aspect of the weather (snow, wind, sunshine, etc). In an English pun, the season fairies are all named after seasonings, so that Sugar runs with fellow apprentices Salt and Pepper (not to be confused with the all-female rap group of the ‘90s with the same name), and we also meet full-fledged season fairies Ginger and Turmeric.

To achieve similar status, the apprentices must gather enough “twinkles,” but they have no idea what twinkles are, and so they rush off after everything that seems to fit the description (Basically, any source of light or shiny object). It takes Saga some time to make peace with having invisible mischievous fairies in her life, but as she and Sugar go through a cycle of fighting and making up, it appears that twinkle is actually some sort of act of kindness, friendship or love. After all, each time they make up or do one another a solid, the magic plant Sugar needs to feed twinkle to grows a bit more.

The designs and illustrations are all cute as the dickens, even if the characters are all a little stereotypical. The first volume contains four stories, yet by the second it establishes a predictable cycle that successive chapters adhere to. Sugar and Saga have an argument/misunderstanding, then they make up/come to an understanding, and their relationship grows a little more. I can see it getting very tedious very fast, but it was certainly fun enough for the first volume at least.

Beauty Pop Vols. 1 and 2
Viz

The three boys who call themselves “the Scissors Project” and give select girls makeovers are the kings of their school. There’s their alpha male Narumi, a cocky hairstylist; happy-go-lucky and always hungry Kei, who specializes in nail art; and Ochihai, who has a computer-like brain (which you can actually hear computing) and is the consultant in “overall beauty.”

Everyone may revere the Scissors Project, but new girl Kiri is not impressed. She is an incredibly talented stylist herself, but she has little interest in becoming a hair stylist like her parents, who own a beauty shop and, we later learn, require her to do strange stylist training after school.

In fact, Kiri seems to have little interest in anything at all.

Bored, blasé and seemingly always half asleep, Kiri’s not your average shojo heroine (just as creator Kiyoko Arai’s Beauty Pop is not your average manga). While Narumi gives makeovers to bring fame and glory to himself—a sort of egomania tinted with some daddy issues— Kiri does so only on the sly, occasionally being moved to work her magic on girls she feels sorry for, like a grade-schooler who’s teased for having helmet hair.

Naturally, the two philosophies lead to conflict (and, perhaps later, romance? At least there are some hints dropped). Narumi fumes when it seems someone of great skill is giving girls makeovers around school, and it all culminates in an epic stylist showdown at the end for the first volume. Arai makes the battle so dramatic that it’s practically impossible not to pick up the second once you’re committed; of course, she sort of cheats, as the first volume ends with audience members voting on the winner, and the announcement, “Okay, now…who will win?!”

Blank Vol. 1
Tokyopop

American artist Pop Mhan has done plenty of comics work for hire in his distinctive, manga-influenced style, including a few favorites of mine, like his Dark Horse series with Peter David SpyBoy and the last good Batgirl stories for DC. But this original, digest-sized graphic novel marks his first attempt at not only writing and drawing his own story, but doing so in the form and format of the Japanese comics that so obviously inspired much of his past work.

The book is named for its amnesiac hero, a dimwitted, horny, teenaged martial arts master who escaped from a mental institution with only one memory, the name “Aki Clark.” He believes he’s a secret agent assigned to protect her, and follows her around in a variety of silly, transparent disguises (a mailbox, a school lunch lady, a wall).

In truth, she doesn’t need protection, as she’s just as good at martial artist as Blank is, and he may actually be a terrorist assigned to kidnap her. Her father is working on a satellite project for the government, one which he envisioned as a weapon for peace, but which can also be used in the manner of most other weapons. Holed up in his lab and hard at work, Aki is left to her own devices.

When she meets Blank, hilarity ensues—as does some rather bloody slapstick and the will they/won’t they romance of so much manga. There’s an awful lot of cartoony violence, which Mhan distinguishes from regular cartoon-style violence by adding gushing blood. Blank may lose a pint or two of it in every fight (or every time he tries peeking up Aki’s skirt), but it’s not to be taken too seriously—it’s simply an artistic flourish.

As a writer, Mhan seems to be quite proficient at what he’s doing, but it’s hardly the most original or ambitious story. The subject matter is mostly gag driven, and these mostly seem to be PG-13 sex gags. As a designer and draftsmen, however, Mhan’s in better form than ever, and any fan of his past work should find plenty in here to justify a purchase.

Kilala Princess Vol. 1
Tokyopop

I realized that I was really, truly, unequivocally a grown man the day I purchased this Disney Princess manga. Sure, it was a weird trigger for an epiphany, but I knew I must really be an adult when I carried this slim, pink Princess manga out of the comic shop and didn’t feel a twinge of embarrassment, shame or self-consciousness. This may be the single girliest comic one could possibly purchase, and if anyone saw it tucked under my arm and thought it was cause to question my manhood, I didn’t.

A far cry from when I would by an issue of Superboy from the mall and hope no one saw me carrying it.

Anyway, this latest collaboration between Disney and Tokyopop, carried out by writer Rika Tanaka and artist Nao Kodaka, promised to further exploit the manga/movie mash-up of the Kingdom Hearts manga; books I read faithfully and enjoyed on an aesthetic level, even if I found the stories boringly simplistic (for which I blame myself; clearly, I wasn’t the target audience for those, any more than I am for this).

While Kingdom Hearts is the most obvious book to compare this girls adventure too, I found this to be a little more pure, since it could bypass the Final Fantasy video game middleman between Disney and manga, and a little more grown up, as the storytelling was slightly less redundant.

The story is of young Kilala, who lives in a maybe orphan who lives in a fictional country wishing her parents would return from their extended trip and being the otherwise perfect Disney consumer the Mickey Mouse corporation no doubt wishes all little girls were.

Now, I know from my littlest sisters and nieces just how popular the Disney princesses are, even if, as a grown man who’s experienced them each individually, I never really “got” the idea of all the Princesses hanging out together (Perhaps it’s my superhero background, but I always imagined each Disney movie being set in it’s own dimension, one which could never crossover with the others).

Still, junior high student Kilala seems a little old for this princess worship, and calling the Disney logo “cute” and decorating one’s school uniform with it seems a little unrealistic, even if I’m willing to accept the weird alien-looking pet Kilala keeps and the whole, you know, magical princess thing.

K. finds a prince charming type and awakens him with a kiss, but soon finds that her best friend has been whisked away through a magic door, and she and her boy friend follow, landing in the world of…Disney’s Snow White. Visits to the other Disney princesses will presumably follow. Now that the awkward set up and required marketing is done with, I suspect the following issues will be more fun than this one, though it’s certainly a meta-pop culture thrill to see a manga heroine interacting with Snow White and the seven dwarves, drawn in that old, classic Disney style. As with Kingdom Hearts, I imagine repeating that trill will be enough to keep me coming back for each successive volume, no matter what faults I find with it.

RE:play Vol. 1
Tokyopop

The name “Christy Lijewski” doesn’t sound all that Japanese, and RE:play reads left to right, which makes me believe this is one of those mangas that’s not really manga, but an original graphic novel told in the manga style and published as a digest.

I usually regard such books with suspicion, as they feel fundamentally dishonest to me—as if they’re tricks being played on the reader—but Lijewski dispelled my suspicions pretty quickly. In fact, by page 12, I was sold on this mysterious romance manga about a rock and roll band and their supernatural stalkers.

Lijewski is the creator of Slave Labor Graphics series Next Exit, which I read a few issues of based on the strength of the designs and art, but quickly lost interest in. But this is a big, fat 180-page story, making it quite easy to get quite wrapped up in rather quickly.

Our heroine is Cree, the 18-year-old lead singer of London rock band Faust. After her boyfriend/bassist bails on her, she finds the brilliant (and cute) homeless kid Iszak playing bass in the subway, and impulsively asks him to join the band and move in to her apartment as payment, neither of which sits well with her bandmate and brother-like friend Rail.

Rail doesn’t quite trust Iszak, and he has good reason not to. Izzy is severely amnesiac, sports some strange scars all over his back, and is being followed by two mysterious figures; one is a buxom black woman, the other is a creepy little white Goth kid who has some sort of weird shadow/claw powers like the succubus in the Darkstalkers videogame (which I wasted may a quarter on one summer).

Lijewski teases the mysteries out, and by the end of this volume it’s not clear exactly what’s up with Iszak and the villainous characters following him, only that something is up. Whatever it is, it causes a lot of problems for Cree, who rather quickly (yet convincingly) falls in love with Iszak.

There’s a level of artificiality to the world of RE: play, in the way that all of the characters have such strange stage names and costumes and in the behavior of the musicians, who scan more like a Josie and the Pussycats-style cartoon band than a real band, but when the artificiality is as stylized as it is here, and the emotions as genuine, that’s not exactly a bad thing.

Like Next Exit, Re:Play features wonderful designs (with the characters’ pop punk aesthetic giving Lijewski lots of latitude to design cool costumes and clothes to dress them in), this time in service of an intriguing story. I eagerly anticipate seeing where this is going.



Yakitate!! Japan Vol. 1 and 2
Viz

Teenage baker Kazuma Azuma has embarked on a seemingly impossible quest: To create a bread that the Japanese people will like more than they like rice, a bread so famous and distinctive that it will represent Japan to the world in the same way that French bread represents France.

He calls it “Ja-pan” (Pan being Japanese for bread), and he’s already on his fifty-fifth version of Ja-pan when we first meet him in Takashi Hashiguchi’s incredible new series.

Azuma is a sort of innocent, idiot savant, blessed with a good heart, the warm “Hands of the Sun” the greatest bakers possess and an intuitive baking genius, but he seems to have very little in the way of street smarts (He’s never heard of a “croissant,” for example, which leads to one of several silly sequences in which he panics over a misunderstanding).

He competes for a place on the staff of Pantasia, the greatest bakery in the country, and ends up at the company’s small branch location, working alongside a scheming rival (our entry point into the story), a cute young love interest who also happens to be the manager, an eccentric manager with a permed fro and a tendency for bad puns, and a personality-less background character who’s lack of defining traits are, is, in fact, his defining trait.

Comparisons to that other popular cooking manga, Iron Wok Jan, are probably inevitable, as Yakitate!! Japan (which translates into “Fresh-baked Japan”) similarly brings the tropes of action, fighting and comic manga and anime to the world of cooking, but Hashiguchi’s tale benefits from a tighter focus on bread-making and a more likable cast (If Jan is like the Vegeta of cooking, Kazuma is like a young, Dragon Ball-era Goku of baking).

The first volume introduces us to the main characters, and a few of Kazuma’s variations on Ja-pan, while the second volume introduces us to the Pantasia branch’s rival baker, and a mysterious masked baker who has a past with both the manager and the rival.

Infused with food science, baking trivia and even an occasional recipe, Yakitate!! Japan is an incredibly fun read, and I feel quite safe in declaring it by far the best bread-baking comic book you’ll read this year.

*I realize many of these have not, in fact, come out within the last month. They're all fairly recently released digests that I've read within the past two months, though some are even older than that. I was planning on posting this at the beginning of the month, but fell behind with all the various best-of lists that accompanied the changing of the years. In the future, I'll post new manga reviews once a month.