CONAN: THE DAUGHTERS OF MIDORA AND OTHER STORIES

I grabbed this digital volume in a sale when Dark Horse's Conan license ended a couple years ago. It contains a number of stories of varying length, which were originally published between 2004 and 2012. So without further ado, let's dive in!

"TROPHY"
Script by Tim & Ben Truman | Art by Marian Churchland
Letters by Brandon Graham

This eight-page tale is a short, light-hearted opening to the volume, but it's a nice showcase of what Conan is all about, hitting all the major marks. Conan, lugging a sack with him, wanders into a desert village and stops at a fancy inn for some refreshment. He regales the patrons with stories of how he acquired the various treasures in his bag, getting them drunker and drunker until they all pass out -- at which point he purloins their valuables and departs for the next inn on the road.

Like I said, it hits all the marks: Conan the wanderer, coming out of the desert to civilization. Conan the barbarian, as we see, through his stories, scenes in which he kills various powerful warriors through increasingly creative and violent means. Conan the carouser, drinking heavily and enthralling a roomful of revelers with his tales. And Conan the thief, making off with their belongings after his stories are done. If somebody knew nothing about Conan, this would be a nice little primer for the character -- which is possibly why it was placed first in this collection!

POWER GIRL #9 - 12

"THIS CITY IS A ZOO" | "WAR ON TERRA"
"TERRA ALERT!" | "THE LITTLE THINGS"
Writers: Justin Gray & Jimmy Palmiotti | Artist: Amanda Conner
Colorist: Paul Mounts | Letterer: John J. Hill
Assistant Editor: Rex Ogle | Editor: Brian Cunningham

My Thoughts: Power Girl's final story arc brings things full circle and wraps up all the major Palmiotti/Gray plot points as they depart the series. First Satanna comes after Power Girl to get revenge for the Ultra Humanite's fate, but she's defeated with aid from an increasingly bloodthirsty Terra, who is eventually revealed as the Humanite himself, in a new body.

Power Girl defeats Terra-Humanite and tracks down Satanna, dismembering her with heat vision in order to get her to reveal the whereabouts of Terra's brain, which is trapped in the Humanite's badly burnt ape body. PG takes both Humanite and Terra to Terra's homeland of Strata, beneath the Earth's crust, where Terra is restored to normal and the Humanite's brain is transplanted into a clone of his original human body, now without the genetic defect which had forced him to transplant his brain into an ape all those years ago.

POWER GIRL #7 - 8

"LUST IN SPACE!" | "A GROOVY KIND OF LOVE"
Writers: Justin Gray & Jimmy Palmiotti | Artist: Amanda Conner
Colorist: Paul Mounts | Letterer: John J. Hill
Assistant Editor: Rex Ogle | Editor: Brian Cunningham

My Thoughts: The light-hearted fun continues into POWER GIRL issues 7 and 8, as our heroine becomes the object of affection for Vartox the Hyper Man, a goofy character from the Superman comics of the seventies, whose appearance is inexplicably based upon Sean Connery in the movie ZARDOZ. It seems that an "infertility bomb" was detonated on Vartox's home planet, rendering reproduction there impossible. Vartox decides that he will mate with Power Girl in order to repopulate the species, both because her Kryptonian DNA makes her compatible with him and because "...[her] physical endowments best complement his own."

The resultant comedy of errors finds Vartox attempting to woo Power Girl with a "musk rifle" and then trying to impress her by loosing a monster called an Ix Negaspike, which he intends to defeat to prove his strength. But the creature proves too much for Vartox alone, so he and Power Girl defeat it together.

POWER GIRL #4 - 6

"GIRLS' NIGHT OUT"
"SPACE GIRLS GONE WILD!" Part 1 | "SPACE GIRLS GONE WILD!" Part 2
Writers: Justin Gray & Jimmy Palmiotti | Artist: Amanda Conner
Colorist: Paul Mounts | Letterer: John J. Hill
Assistant Editor: Rex Ogle | Editor: Brian Cunningham

My Thoughts: Okay, this is more like what I was expecting from a Gray/Palmiotti/Conner POWER GIRL series. "Girls' Night Out" is a one-off adventure featuring Power Girl and Terra teaming up against an elf girl using a magical book to "purify" Earth, and then "Space Girls Gone Wild!" presents a trio of spoiled alien princesses landing in New York and causing trouble as they attempt to elude an agent of their father, sent to bring them back home.

Along the way, Palmiotti and Gray continue to develop Power Girl's personal life, giving her a new apartment in Brooklyn and revealing that she's a huge fan of horror movies. We also get more from Terra too, her naive innocence leading to some cute jokes as she attempts to adjust to life on the surface world as Power Girl's "ward" of sorts. A sub-plot materializes as well, as someone snaps photos of Karen changing into Power Girl on her apartment roof, then later sends her the pictures as blackmail material.

POWER GIRL #1 - 3

"A NEW BEGINNING" | "UNLEASHING THE BEAST" | "GORILLA WARFARE"
Writers: Justin Gray & Jimmy Palmiotti | Artist: Amanda Conner
Colorist: Paul Mounts | Letterer: John J. Hill
Assistant Editor: Rex Ogle | Editor: Brian Cunningham

My Thoughts: Palmiotti and Gray begin Power Girl's continuing adventures by setting her up in Manhattan and restoring her secret identity as Karen Starr, CEO of Starrware Labs, a company dedicated to bettering the world through technology. The opening issue introduces us to Karen's employees, Donna Anderson and Simon Peters, as well as the newest member of the Starrware team, Dexter Nichols. We also get an ominous appearance by Xander Blevin, a callous researcher with designs on reprogramming the minds of the world's citizens.

But the main threat in this opening arc is the Ultra-Humanite, a brilliant scientist whose brain resides in the body of an albino ape. Here, the Humanite's plan is to lift Manhattan into the sky with his airship and hold it hostage in order to force Power Girl to give him her body as the new receptacle for his brain. While Power Girl struggles against the Ultra-Humanite aboard his craft, her teammates from the Justice Society are busy on the streets of Manhattan, fighting against the Humanite's robots.

I'm only familiar with Ultra-Humanite, as with many DC characters, via his appearances in the JUSTICE LEAGUE TV series, where he was generally played as a comic relief villain; or at least as a foe not taken overly seriously by anyone. But this version of the Humanite is quite deadly, using his mental powers to warp the people of Manhattan into a violent frenzy, and causing the deaths of over sixty people during his plot -- which seems kind of thematically out of place given the very "Silver Age" nature of the scheme.

SUPERGIRL #12 & TERRA #1 - 4

"ROCK ON!"
Story: Jimmy Palmiotti & Justin Gray | Pencils: Amanda Conner
Inks: Jimmy Palmiotti | Colors: Rod Reis | Lettering: Rob Leigh
Associate Editor: Jeanine Schaefer | Editor: Eddie Berganza

My Thoughts: Somehow the complete works of Jimmy Palmiotti and Justin Gray have become a major part of this blog, as clicking either gentleman's name in the "labels" at the bottom of this post will pull up seven mini-series written by the pair, and we've got more to come, starting with these early appearances of the new Terra.

First up, SUPERGIRL 12 is apparently this Terra's very first appearance, but I'm not sure I would've known that if the cover hadn't said so. She's given little fanfare. We begin the story with Supergirl -- Kara Zor-El, Superman's cousin -- suffering some personal crisis and blowing off steam by dancing at a nightclub. She comes across Terra fighting something called the Empathosaur -- an empathic dinosaur -- and Terra talks her into helping the fight. The girls defeat the Empathosaur and Terra lectures Supergirl about using her powers for good before disappearing.

There's a bit more to the story, featuring Supergirl ultimately coming to the decision that maybe it is okay for her to be selfish once in a while -- but that's it as far as Terra goes. Her first appearance teaches us that she has earth-based powers, thinks very highly of Superman, and wants to make a difference in the world. And that's about it. We'll have to wait for her limited series, two years later, to learn anything else about her.

JSA CLASSIFIED #1 - 4

"POWER TRIP"
Writer: Geoff Johns | Penciler: Amanda Conner | Inker: Jimmy Palmiotti
Colorist: Paul Mounts | Letterer: Rob Leigh
Assistant Editor: Harvey Richards | Editor: Stephen Wacker

My Thoughts: The first four issues of 2005's JSA CLASSIFIED ongoing series are dedicated to cleaning up the history of Power Girl. This is an admirable goal, considering that I knew the bare minimum about the character coming into this series, but even then I was aware that her backstory was considered a royal mess.

To put it as simply as I can, Power Girl was a denizen of Earth-2, a parallel world from DC's Silver and Bronze Age past. But Earth 2 was destroyed, completely wiped from both existence and history in 1986's CRISIS ON INFINITE EARTHS limited series. And since the Power Girl of Earth 2 was Superman's cousin, but it was established post-CRISIS that Superman would be the one and only surviving Kryptonian in the newly re-formed universe, a new origin was required for Power Girl. Thus she became Atlantean rather than Kryptonian.

I don't know what happened from that point, but the gist I get from JSA CLASSIFIED is that Power Girl's powers varied in the intervening years, and perhaps even her origin was played inconsistently. Whatever the reason, writer Geoff Johns decided to fix the mess by simply declaring that Power Girl is from Earth 2 after all, having crossed over to Earth 1 (or Earth Prime or whatever DC calls it) sometime before the CRISIS ended.

POWER GIRL

I've been sitting on this one for a while, unexpectedly. Last March I picked up the POWER GIRL: POWER TRIP trade paperback, reprinting almost all of Amanda Conner's work drawing the character. I actually read this stuff last summer, before I began reading my NEW TEEN TITANS OMNIBUS collections for the review series that went up through the first half of this year. I wrote up some Power Girl posts at the time, but put them away for a rainy day.

My intention, as I stated at the beginning of this year, was that somewhere around this summer I would begin a series called "DC Saturdays" in which I would cover various DC trades in my collection. Obviously that never happened. I just haven't had time to read as much as I had expected when the year began. The Power Girl posts were intended to kick off that series, but since it didn't materialize, I have continued to hold them in reserve.

But now, with some weeks to fill as we come to the end of the year, I figure it's time to put these out there before they can get shuffled to the back-burner yet again. So we'll end 2015 the way it began: with some DC material.

The POWER TRIP trade reprints JSA CLASSIFIED issues 1 - 4, by Geoff Johns and Amanda Conner, then follows that with POWER GIRL issues 1 - 12 by Jimmy Palmiotti, Justin Gray, and Conner. Conspicuously absent from the collection is TERRA issues 1 - 4, a limited series also by Palmiotti, Gray, and Conner, which guest-stars Power Girl alongside a new character taking the name of the Teen Titans' Terra. This Terra actually debuted a little earlier in SUPERGIRL #12, which was also produced by Palmiotti, Gray, and Conner, though Power Girl doesn't figure into that one.

I got my hands on an out of print TERRA trade, which includes the SUPERGIRL issue and TERRA limited series, to make this series of posts as complete as possible. So, for the next six weeks we'll cover the following:

• JSA CLASSIFIED #1 - 4
• SUPERGIRL #12 & TERRA #1 - 4
• POWER GIRL #1 - 3
• POWER GIRL #4 - 6
• POWER GIRL #7 - 9
• POWER GIRL #10 - 12

Time to find out if there's anything more to like about the character beyond the costume that captured my imagination as an adolescent.

AME-COMI GIRLS VOLUME 3

"EARTH IN CRISIS"
Writers: Jimmy Palmiotti & Justin Gray
Artists: Adam Archer, Steven Cummings, Horacio Domingues, Ted Naifeh,
Eduardo Francisco, Andres Ponce, & Ruben Gonzalez
Colorists: Randy Mayor, Wes Hartman, & Adam Archer | Letterer: Wes Abbott

Like volume 2, this third installment of AME-COMI GIRLS opens with a large-scale threat uniting all the characters, followed by some smaller pieces. This time the major villainess is Sinestra. Armed with her yellow and black power rings and an army of Black Lanterns, she invades first the planet Thanagar and then proceeds to Earth. Alana Strange, a scientist/adventuress from the planet Rann, rescues Shyera "Hawkgirl" Hol from Thanagar and together they recruit Earth'e heroines to oppose Sinestra.

The womens' ace in the hole is Metra, the first of a race of "New Gods", who arms the entire group with white power rings to combat Sinestra. They do their best but aren't a match for their foe, dropping one by one to her Black Lanterns, and it is Metra's direct intervention which saves the day in the end as she reveals that Sinestra is possessed by the Black Hand, and reborths both halves of this evil as twin planets of light and darkness.

First off -- White Lanterns? Black Lanterns? I know -- it sounds silly, but here in this alternate universe story, completely unrelated to actual DC continuity, it's a fun little diversion. Let's just hope nobody ever reads this story and gets the asinine idea to insert a spectrum of Lantern colors into the mainstream DCU! That would be... dopey, I guess, to say the least.

(This concludes the scathing sarcastic commentary portion of our post.)

AME-COMI GIRLS VOLUME 2

"RISE OF THE BRAINIAC" | "THE CHOSEN"
Writers: Jimmy Palmiotti & Justin Gray
Artists: Santi Casas, Eduardo Francisco, & Derec Donovan
Colorists: David Lopez & Santi Casas of Ikari Studio, Randy Mayor & Wes Hartman
Letterer: Wes Abbott

Art: Eduardo Francisco

Last March, I wrote a bit about DC's AME-COMI GIRLS, volume 1. While it didn't blow me away, it was a fun alternate universe story where the only superheroes are female "manga style" versions of various DC luminaries. In some cases these are the existing distaff characters standing in for their male counterparts (Power Girl for Superman, Batgirl for Batman, etc.), while in other situations we simply have (to my knowledge, at least) new female versions of existing characters such as Steel and the Flash.

AME-COMI GIRLS volume 2 picks up where volume 1 ended, with the assembled heroines facing off against Duela Dent and her gang, along with Brainiac, in rural Kansas. The battle has just been joined by Wonder Woman, but even she seems unable to turn the tide against Brainiac and her mind-controlled pawn, Supergirl. However Duela and friends defect in order to preserve themselves, while Power Girl meets up with a race of beings beneath the Earth's crust who also oppose Brainiac. Together the heroines save the day, but the villainesses escape. In the aftermath of Brainiac's invasion, Power Girl and Wonder Woman lead their allies in forming a "League" to defend the world against future threats.

WOLVERINE & THE BLACK CAT: CLAWS II

"CLAWS II: BACK AND FORTH"
Writers: Jimmy Palmiotti & Justin Gray | Artist: Joseph Michael Linsner
Colorists: Dan Brown & Nick Filardi with Ian Hannin | Letterer: Jeff Eckleberry
Production: Maya Gutierrez | Assistant Editor: Jake Thomas | Editor: Mark Paniccia
Editor-in-Chief: Axel Alonso | Chief Creative Officer: Joe Quesada
Publisher: Dan Buckley | Executive Producer: Alan Fine

The first issue of CLAWS was marked "1 of 6". But inexplicably, the following two issues were labeled "of 3". Then, four years later, CLAWS 2 came about -- a second three issue series, picking up exactly where the first left off. Was this originally intended as a six-issue series that got split into two three-parters? I don't know. But at any rate, I decided that even though I had barely tolerated the first CLAWS, I might as well check out its sequel.

As noted above, this story begins precisely where the last concluded. Wolverine and the Black Cat are celebrating their victory over Arcade and the White Rabbit, but the villains are not idle in the Savage Land, where our heroes had dumped them as punishment after their first adventure. Arcade and his hare-brained paramour encounter an alien with time travel technology, knock her out, steal her gizmos, and teleport Wolverine and Black Cat to the far-flung future.

WOLVERINE & THE BLACK CAT: CLAWS

I really hadn't intended on going through the entire Palmiotti/Gray back catalog, but I keep finding random one-shots and mini-series by them, and I mostly like their stuff -- so here's another one from their vault:

"CLAWS"
Written by Jimmy Palmiotti & Justin Gray | Illustrated by Joe Linsner
Colorist: Jason Keith | Letterer: Jeff Eckleberry
Assistant Editor: Daniel Ketchum | Associate Editor: Warren Simons
Editor: Axel Alonso | Editor-in-Chief: Joe Quesada | Publisher: Dan Buckley

I like a story that doesn't take itself seriously once in a while. But I don't like a story that doesn't take its characters seriously, and unfortunately, that's exactly what CLAWS is.

I was still reading new Marvels when CLAWS was published in 2006, and I even considered picking it up. At the time I had read very little, if anything, by Jimmy Palmiotti and Justin Gray, and I had never even heard of Joe Linsner -- but the idea of Wolverine and the Black Cat teaming up seemed to have some "odd couple" type potential. The only thing that kept me from giving the series a try was the hideous costume Linsner had put the Black Cat in. That ugly mask, those stupid ears -- what an awful design!

DAUGHTERS OF THE DRAGON

"ON THE RUN" | "AND THEN THERE WERE TWO"
"CAPES, LIES, & MICROCHIPS" | UNTITLED | UNTITLED | UNTITLED
Script: Jimmy Palmiotti & Justin Gray
Penciler: Khari Evans | Inker: Jimmy Palmiotti
Colorist: Christina Strain | Letterer: Artmonkeys' Dave Lanphear
Assistant Editor: Nathan Cosby | Editor: Mark Paniccia
Editor-in-Chief: Joe Quesada | Publisher: Dan Buckley

The first three issues have titles. The remaining three don't. The final issue is also missing credits! In a way, these production peculiarities symbolize the unevenness of the entire series. It starts out strong -- Palmiotti and Gray have given Colleen Wing and Misty Knight a new profession. Their company is still called Nightwing Restorations, but rather than being simple private detectives, they now work as bail bondswomen for the super-powered criminals of New York. It's a pretty neat idea; after all, assuming there aren't different laws for supervillains in the Marvel Universe, one would figure the lower level types who only do things like breaking and entering and robbing banks probably would be able to get out on bail after an arrest.

The story follows Colleen and Misty chasing down four criminals who have skipped out on their bonds and joined forces to carry out a robbery. Their target is Celia Ricadonna, a media and fashion mogul who, we are told, rivals Oprah in both popularity and net worth. But she's also a major player in the underworld, and has come into a posession of a computer virus which she plans to auction off to the highest bidder for billions of dollars.

And that's when the story goes irrecoverably off the rails.

UNION JACK AND THE DAUGHTERS OF THE DRAGON

(No, sadly this is not the title of an upcoming Marvel team-up style series. But could you imagine...?)

Remember the other day when we covered CAPTAIN AMERICA #254, in which young Joey Chapman took on the guise of Union Jack? Well, that was in 1981. Not much came of Union Jack for several years afterward. He made some appearances in the Marvel U.K. comics, where he joined the super-group called the Knights of Pendragon, and he popped up in John Byrne's NAMOR series in the U.S. for a two-parter involving Spitfire and a reunion of the Invaders. But overall he was dormant for quite some time.

Then in 1998, Ben Raab and future superstar artist John Cassaday produced a limited series titled UNION JACK, which served as a sequel to the original Roger Stern/John Byrne origin. Jack remained relatively low profile in the years that followed, with only occasional appearances in CAPTAIN AMERICA and a brief stint as one of Chuck Austen's NEW INVADERS, until he again popped up to headline a mini-series in 2006.

SHANNA THE SHE-DEVIL: SURVIVAL OF THE FITTEST

Writers: Jimmy Palmiotti & Justin Gray | Pencils: Khari Evans | Inks: Jimmy Palmiotti
Colors: Paul Mounts with Christina Strain
Letters: Artmonkey's Dave Lanphear & Natalie Lanphear
Assistant Editor: Alejandro Arbona | Editor: Warren Simons
Editor-in-Chief: Joe Quesada | Publisher: Dan Buckley

Storywise, "Survival of the Fittest" is a vast, vast, vast improvement over Frank Cho's first SHANNA THE SHE-DEVIL. Palmiotti and Gray squeeze more material into the first issue than Cho covered in his seven. The story begins with a group of pirates boarding the yacht of a crime lord called the Axe-Man and stealing his diamonds. But the ship is attacked by a monstrous leviathan. The pirates escape as the yacht goes down with all hands and passengers aboard.

The pirates, their boat damaged by the sea creatures, arrive at nearby "Monster Island". They run around, chased by dinosaurs and giant bees, and meet up with Shanna, who takes them to her "Swiss Family Robinson" style treehouse, where she now lives with Doc. But the pirates are pursued to the island by Axe-Man and his minions.

The ensuing story covers Shanna's and the Pirates' attempt to get to Axe-Man's seaplane, and their misadventures as they run afoul of a group of savage neanderthals living in a city of Nazi gold, and hordes of veliciraptors out to eat them. After lots of violence and running around the city, our heroes are whittled down to Shanna and two pirates, Dirk, and Ivan. Axe-Man is killed, and his surviving henchmen agree to help the pirates leave the island in exchange for some diamonds.

Shanna shares a kiss with the pirate leader, Dirk, and then he departs with the rest of his people.

SHANNA THE SHE-DEVIL

This is old news to many comic fans, but please bear with me (or as relates to Shanna, bare with me).

Back in 2005, Marvel produced a limited series under the Marvel Knights imprint, written and illustrated by the great cheesecake artist Frank Cho, titled SHANNA THE SHE-DEVIL. It was a reimagining of the character who was originally Marvel's answer to Sheena, Queen of the Jungle, set in its own universe independent of Marvel's main continuity.

The thing is, the title was originally intended for Marvel's adult-targeted MAX imprint, and was to feature plenty of gratuitous nudity. I was looking forward to the series, until Marvel changed it to Marvel Knights. At that point I resolved not to support it.

AME-COMI GIRLS, VOLUME 1

Writers: Jimmy Palmiotti & Justin Gray
Artists: Amanda Conner, Sanford Green, Ted Naifeh, Mike Bowden,
Santi Casas, Tony Akins, Walden Wong
Colorists: Randy Mayor & Paul Mounts | Letterer: Wes Abbott

Art by Amanda Conner

When I started my GUNDAM reviews, I noted that I'm not a huge anime/manga person, which is true. However, I do like the art style quite a bit. I even bought a few of the DC "Bishoujo" statuettes based on that style (I own one single Ame-Comi figure as well).

I've read a few things by Jimmy Palmiotti and Justin Gray and generally liked what I saw, so I figured on a lark that I would check out the AME-COMI GIRLS trade paperback when it was released (it didn't hurt that exaggerated female anatomy and skimpy costumes are right up my alley as a discerning collector).

The story is a reimagining of several DC characters, set in a universe where all the superhumans seem to be women -- either female versions of male characters like the Flash, Robin, and Steel, or simply characters like Power Girl and Batgirl filling the roles of Superman and Batman, respectively.

THE UNBOXING - MARCH 2014

This may be my smallest box ever from Discount Comic Book Service: two books. It was supposed to be three, but the CAPTAIN AMERICA EPIC COLLECTION: DAWN'S EARLY LIGHT volume dropped off my order to ship next month instead, due to a shortage from the supplier. I had no plans to read that book any time in the immediate future, however, so I'm fine waiting another month. Thus, without that sole Marvel offering, all I have this time are two volumes from DC -- and just as receiving only two books is a first, so is having my entire order be in the form of DC volumes.

First is BATMAN: MAD LOVE AND OTHER STORIES, a trade paperback collecting most of the Batman comics by Bruce Timm and Paul Dini set in the universe of BATMAN: THE ANIMATED SERIES, along with works from some of their other BTAS collaborators. I have most all of these stories in comic book format (I read the cover off of the single issue MAD LOVE when I was a kid), but this is the first time I will have purchased them as a trade. I believe this book came out a while back in hardcover format, but I passed it up. The trade may in fact have been released previously as well, but when this edition came up for pre-order a couple months ago, I jumped on it.