Beacon press seeks artist for graphic novel of Octavia Butler's Kindred | Nalo Hopkinson

Interesting. I would have thought that to be something that was incredibly difficult to adapt. I know that I've read it once, listened to a very good audio dramatization featuring Alfre Woodard once, and then never gone near it again. It's a very good story, but very hard to get through -- especially a re-reading/experiencing where you know what happens in the end.

I also wonder if, after the artistic and critical success of Nat Turner, they tried approaching Kyle Baker. That would seem an almost perfect match of artist and material. (Though, that said, given that Beacon is nonprofit and small, they might not have been able to afford him.)

(Purely a side note: the small corner of me that remains from my webmaster days just wants to have a small headdesk moment regarding Beacon's website. Not the design, per se -- though part of me would like to have a very firm word with them regarding the blue text on blue squares with a blue background for the side and top links. No, the issue is that they don't have their own complete press releases on their own website. They have some things on their Beacon Broadside weblog -- and again, if I were a designer god, we would be having some very firm words about the utility of making the only discernable link to your weblog look like exactly the sort of ad people have been long trained to ignore. On the other hand, they have resisted the urge to Flash; THAT said, I have a sneaky suspicion that the Javascript menus at the top do not degrade gracefully if you have Javascript turned of. [Which, granted, almost nobody does these days -- but that said, if you've got a chunk of your press devoted to Disability Studies, as they seem to, wouldn't you want your site to reflect a commitment to that?] Nonethless, all the preceeding aside, Beacon also doesn't have complete press releases on their weblog. They sent the complete press release out -- it's up at Racialicious, to which I declined to link because the pop-up survey ad thingie they've got going now annoys the snot out of me, and a few other places. But still, most people who are truly interested will want to come back to the Beacon site, since it should be authoritative, and you want to make sure the other places didn't leave out anything important. Seriously, they're a small press already. Why handicap their website from doing what it's supposed to be doing, which is publicising and selling their stuff?)

Final Crisis 6 of 7, "How to murder the Earth" (Morrison and a plethora of artists; DC):

Or, to give the issue the title it should have had, "Batman RIP, penultimate issue." I have certain very definite opinions about that, but I'll leave them aside today.

As far as the story itself goes, it's ... odd. Interesting and good, but odd. The rogue monitor came back to himself last issue, and looked like he was about to do something big; we see him again near the end of the issue and see, more or less, how he fits in. We also find out what happened to Superman when he got taken out of time back in Lois' hospital room, as well as getting a most startlingly literal deus ex machina. We see the continuing battle of Mary Marvel (whom Supergirl does not quite call a slut, after Mary specifically calls her one) versus Supergirl and Captain Marvel Jr and Black Adam and maybe a few other people. We get Black Canary and the Ray and Mr Richards the Tattooed Man on the JLA satellite versus the possessed Green Arrow, Black Lightning and more of Darkseid's minions. We get Renee, Ray Palmer and Ryan Choi in Checkmate's last bunker and Checkmate's endgame. We get Luthor, and we get the Flashes about to run to save the universe (again). We also get Batman vs Darkseid, in what may be the simplest and most direct scenes in the entire series to date. Of course, this also brings up the issue of when Final Crisis takes place, relative to RIP, but there's still really no way to tell at this point.

The artwork in this issue is, understandably given the raft of pencillers and inkers and colorists, all over the board; that said, it mostly works pretty well, even though the stylistic differences are pretty glaringly obvious.

As a whole, FC 6 is a spectular, profoundly irritating, kind of glorious mess, all of that concentrated in the final image of the issue. I'll certainly read the last issue, of course, but I can tell already that it's going to be a very irksome experience. I just hope it's worth the ride.

Wonder Woman 27, "Rise of the Olympian, part 2: A sense of loss" (Simone/Lopresti; DC)

...Yes. Well.

OK, I would like to make one thing perfectly clear: I am not a continuity wonk. I absolutely am not. As long as you give me good character and good story and enough to enjoy that particular tale, I could give a rat's ass. But this issue is so problematic on those grounds that I couldn't help but notice.

The story itself is simple enough. Nemesis, Etta Candy, Cassie and Donna all team up to rescue Diana from the situation in which Genocide left her. Genocide took Diana's lasso of truth, which in fact has more powers than that -- and for anyone who was paying attention, way back in the Captain Nazi story arc, this won't be a surprise. In the meantime, Athena seems to be dying or fading away, and Zeus takes the opportunity unleash his master plan ... and therein lies the continuity weirdness.

The roots of this weirdness go back to Amazons Attack and Countdown, with incidental involvement from DC Universe 0. At the end of Amazons Attack, the Amazons are dispersed through the world, and their memories removed by Circe. Except ... it turned out that "Circe" was really Granny Goodness, operating an apparently quite long range plan to get rid of Amazonian opposition prior to Final Crisis. As far as we can tell from Amazons Attack and Countdown, the Olympian gods had already been taken prisoner by the New gods before the Amazons were dispersed. The Olympian gods were gone for a very long time, even in DC universe time, before they got rescued by Mary Marvel as she started steppin' to the bad side. They shouldn't know what happened to the Amazons. By all rights, all they will know is that the Amazons have disappeared. (Yes, Zeus says "They will not remember. They have been altered, as have we," just before he recalls the Amazons. But how does he know any of that? Why would he? And how have they been "altered", anyway?) Yet the Olympians have been prepositioned, ready to take the place of the Amazons, way back in DC Universe 0, before we knew that the Olympian gods hadn't yet ocme back from ... wherever it was that they were. So Zeus has clearly had a very long term plan, based largely on information that he couldn't have had, gathered during a time when he was, as far as can be told, possibly not in this universe at all. How does that work?

Recommended, on the whole, but very confusing. The issue taken on its own is really pretty good, as long as you can ignore the really intrusive continuity questions. And I assume that the end of this arc will also go some way to explaining why the Olympian gods didn't do anything with Final Crisis; however intervention-phobic they may be -- and they rather clearly aren't -- having so many humans taken over by antilife is the sort of thing you'd expect to bring them out. Plus, a chance to do battle against the New Gods that imprisoned them; you'd think they'd have to be held back from that.

Anna Mercury 5 of 5 (Warren Ellis/Facundo Percio; Avatar): Anna vs. a giant cannon. Anna versus a giant cannon. Oh, and incidentally, the entire military of New Ataraxia. Seriously, people, as your big fight comix big fight goes, there's pretty much nothing about this that isn't utterly awesome. Highly recommended.

Manhunter 38, "Some Years later: Family business" (Andreyko/Gaydos, Calero; DC): In which Kate goes up against the Sweeney Todd-possessed Bones and Mrs Lovett during her son's graduation party, of all places. And in which Kate handles the issue of Ramsay wanting to be a superhero in pretty much exactly the way you think she will. The issue ends with a blurb on the DC Nation page that notes that the character will be back in 2009, so I'd imagine she'll be shifted to other DCU titles as desired. A nice way to go out. Recommended.

Detective Comics 852, "Last Rites: Faces of Evil: Hush: Reconstruction" (Dini/Nguyen; DC): In which we see what happened to Hush after "The Heart of Hush". Basically, he roams the world, reaping the benefits both of having Bruce Wayne's face, and of Bruce having disappeared after "RIP" (about which, of course, he knows nothing useful). It's a nice little setup for the next issue of Batman, in which we get to see what happens when Hush and Catwoman meet. Given what he did to Selina Kyle during the "Heart of Hush" it ought to be very interesting indeed. (I assume that Catwoman's issue is also going to be a "Faces of Evil" issue.)

Runaways: Dead End Kids (Joss Whedon/Michael Ryan; Marvel, trade paperback edition):

So it only took, what, two years and change for these six issues to meander out?

Anyway, the story picks up more or less at the end of the Brian K. Vaughn run. The Runaways are off in New York, looking to do a sort of contract job for the Kingpin, of all possible people, stealing a device for him. (And establishing near-perfect paradox in the process.) Needless to say, they have misgivings, and needless to say, things really don't go at all well -- although little Molly does manage to take out the Punisher. It turns out that Kingpin is having them steal a time device; moreover, it fits into the Leapfrog console as though it were made for it. The Runaways wind up travelling back in time to 1907 New York, meeting the mutants of that day, as well as a few other interesting people.

The trade this time is a full-sized book, rather than the digest format normally used for the title. In some ways, it's a bit annoying, since the set isn't likely to be shelved together. That said, printing the larger format allows the art to breathe, so to speak; and Ryan's art is simply glorious. Appropriate to the story and style, beautifully saturated, exquisitely drawn.

Highly recommended.

SuperTeenTopia: Invisible Touch (Kushin/Martinez/Abella):

The story takes place in a world where people have superpowers. Kevin, geek nerd extraordinare, keeps trying to get his best friend Cameron to join him on a super team. Cameron, being rather more sensible and risk averse than his friend, elected to try to keep to the sidelines. That somehow doesn't quite work, and he winds up getting drawn into Kevin's various rescues. This happens even more once he meets Diva, a young Hispanic woman with powers, who may or may not be infatuated wiwh Cameron. Along the way, they also meet Paige, a young woman from a deeply religious, fundamentalist family that seems to regard powers somewhat dimly. We watch the team as they slowly begin to build and become more familiar with each other, and as they go about living their daily lives.

Super Teen Topia effectively covers the same sort of ground as early Runaways, about trying to get to know each other and build a team, albeit entirely without the trauma of discovering that their parents are essentially the embodiment of alien-directed evil. Unfortunately, Runaways covers the team-building ground more compellingly, as does Freshman. It's not at all a bad story; it's just not anywhere near as interesting, comparatively speaking. Martinez' artwork is very clean and neat, and very traditional looking, which works for the story.

Overall, it's OK. Just OK.

The War at Ellsmere (Faith Erin Hicks; SLG)

Jun arrives at The Ellsmere School, having won a coveted scholarship to the acclaimed private middle/high school. She's given up her family and friends in the clear-eyed recognition that without the sort of boost that Ellsmere can give her, especially academically, the chances of getting into the sort of college she wants later on are slim. Her father died when she was young, and her mother is a struggling hairdresser, so this is going to be her best shot. Her roommate Cassie is a somewhat flighty but very sweet person. However, Jun almost immediately joins battle with Emily, queen of the mean girls. Part of it is pure academic rivalry -- they've both been the best in school until now. Part of it is, frankly, that Emily is in fact very mean, and Jun tends to start things sometimes without thinking them through. Eventually, things escalate to a breaking point.

Hicks draws the situation very realistically. Almost anyone who was in junior high or high school can remember having some sort of situation with others, some sort of competition, some sort of rivalry, people who instinctively disliked each other, sometimes for no good reason. Hicks' artwork makes it easy to distinguish even minor characters, and the expressions easily convey the emotions the characters feel. The school itself almost feels like a character, a heavy gothic presence around the girls. The mystical element introduced at the end is a bit ... odd; frankly, it feels like the sort of thing that might be setting up future stories at the school. It's properly set up by the story -- unlike, say, the Minx story Clubbing, it doesn't come winging in completely without warning -- but it feels a bit out of place. That said, I'm not sure how the situation could have been resolved without it.

Highly recommended, for anyone above the age of 12.

Batman 682: "Last Rites: The Butler Did it" (Morrison/Garbett/Scott; DC): The first of DC's major titles to acknowledge that Final Crisis exists, it's a more or less direct connection. It makes absolutely no concessions to anyone who hasn't read Final Crisis, so if you haven't read that title, you're probably going to be largely lost through this one. Mind, I think even if you have read it, you're going to be lost until the end; it's just that the end will make slightly more sense. Up until near the end, it's a fragmented tour through Batman/Bruce Wayne's past, sort of guided by Alfred. It's very confusing -- although, as a side effect, the identity of the Club of Villains' Dr Hurt is revealed, and Batwoman is apparently momentarily unretconned out of lesbianage. I think. As I said, it's all very confusing. (I think somewhere in DC continuity, the current Batwoman is supposed to be related to, but not the same as, the previous Batwoman. I think.) It's going to be very interesting to see where it goes from here. Also terribly surreal.

Gear School (Adam Gallardo/Nuvia Peris/Sergio Sandoval; Dark Horse): Teresa Gottlieb, 13 years old, is one of the students enrolled at Gear School, a military academy where students learn to use Gear -- basically, flying mecha/giant robots -- to fight in the endless war with the unknown alien race that's attacking the planet. Like other girls of her age, she's just getting interested in boys. She's got the odd rival or two. And unfortunately, she's not actually the best at running the Gear simulations, tending to crash things here and there. Teresa needs to pull it all together in a hurry, because the battle is going to come sooner than anyone expects. (One does wonder why anyone thinks it would be a good idea to combine angstful teens and appallingly powerful war machines, but whatever.) Gallardo manages to invoke the horror and chaos of war, yet manages to do it without quite getting anyone killed. Peris' artwork is both appropriate and evocative, manga-inflected -- big eyes, big head -- without reaching quite that degree of exaggeration. Strongly Recommended for ages 12 and up.

OK, so I am going to try (note the word "try") to review an average (note the word "average") of one title per day through the end of the year, for reasons that will become obvious around, say, February. So, to begin!

Batman 681, "RIP Conclusion, Hearts in Darkness" (Morrison/Daniel; DC):

...Huh. So Morrison did have a good reason for naming her "Jezebel Jet", after all. But, given context, he still probably shouldn't have.

That aside, Morrison does indeed seem to deliver on the premise of the arc's title, one way and another. It's not definitive -- and I would think that Warner Brothers would have had a massive snit fit if it had been -- but you really can't say that he didn't deliver. And it becomes even more apparent this issue that Morrison really meant it when he said that he viewed everything through RIP as one big book unto itself, with callbacks to everything that's come so far in this one arc. The Club of Heroes even makes an appearance, in a way that may be indicative of the way forward after "The Battle for the Cowl". Batman even gets "help" of a sort -- if that's at all the right word -- from the Joker, of all people. And Batman winds up going much much farther in his pursuit of ... well, in his pursuit than he's ever gone before. I will say that the revelation of the identity of the Black Glove himself, while tying in to the entirety of Morrison's Batman to date, does leave you sitting there scratching your head and thinking, "Huh? What?" And there's no real reason for him to have undertaken this horribly complex plot, other than "he's barking mad."

Morrison's been quite clear that RIP predates Final Crisis. Wonder what that means for the whole RIP idea, or, more precisely, what exactly he meant by it? The epilogue takes place well after the body of the issue, so it's clearly post-Final Crisis, and probably post-"Battle for the Cowl", for that matter.

Wonder Woman 26, "Rise of the Olympian 1 - Plague and Pestilence" (Simone/Lopresti): In which the Secret Society looses Genocide upon the world, the Olympian gods return to a nearly-destroyed Olympus, Director Steel goes more than slightly mad and has Traynor/Nemesis arrested, and there is the fight to end all fights between Wonder Woman and Genocide. But honestly, I kept getting distracted by the timing question. If I understand what I'm seeing -- and I freely admit that I might not -- then the Olympians are just returning home after Countdown. So how long has it been? Where have they been all this time? Why did it take so long? After all, they were rescued by Mary Marvel, and she's been back wreaking havoc for ages already. The fact that Athena is only just discovering that Wonder Woman is no longer her champion does argue for this being post-Countdown and not post-Final Crisis. That aside, I have to admit, I really liked the story as a whole, but especially the Traynor subplot, and the fact that his fellow soldiers were abusing him mightily and he just took it, but when they tried to take away the pendant Diana gave him, that got him going. Lopresti's artwork is, as usual, very very good. Recommended, but mildly confusing.

Flash Gordon 3, "The Mercy Wars, chapter 3: Arena" (Dineen/Green): I have to admit, I'm enjoying this series far more than I thought I would. It's mildly surprising that a comic book series was greenlit so soon after the television series, but I'm glad that it was. One thing that you get from this that you didn't really get from the TV series is that sense of high adventure fun. I mean, talking bipedal lions, landsharks -- well, technically, "shark men", but landsharks -- sword and sorcery and technology-a-go-go, Ming looks ... um, Mingly and not surfer-dudely (I know he was created as a sort of racist stereotype, originally, but somehow, in my head, he always looks like Klaus Kinski in the movie, and that's kind of what this ming looks like -- though everyone else looks distinctly different). Dale is exactly as competent, physically and otherwise, as you'd expect a federal special ops agent to be. Green's artwork is highly stylized and appropriate to the story -- also, very orange, for some reason. Highly recommended. Fun for most ages!

Galaxy Quest, "Global Warning issue 4" (Lobdell/Kyriazis): In which we get treated to a tour of Jason's recent past that winds up being slightly off kilter, for reasons that become obvious as we go on. Again, a series that's a lot of fun, if quite sincerely late to the table -- seriously, ten years ago, people. Anyway, it's overall the best issue of the series so far, but I do begin to wonder about the pacing of this series. The film, once the action got started, went charging forward without a let-up; this tends to have distinct rises and falls. There's only been one strong action beat so far, in issue 3; the rest have been largely character development. Which isn't bad, but it does take patience. There's also the fact tha tif you weren't a fan of the movie, you're not really going to enjoy the comic. But anyway, since I was a fan, it's been fun so far. Recommended for fans, no recommendation if you're not.

B.P.M. (Paul Sizer; Cafe Digital)
$15.99, 94p.
50 page preview online at paulsizer.com

Roxy wants to be a DJ. In fact, she is a DJ, but she wants to be a great one, not just a good one. She starts investing more of herself in finding out just how to do this, spending more time with her friend Atsuko, who is a very good DJ, with her friend Dominic who is both a DJ and a recording engineer. This causes conflict in her romantic relationship with her girlfriend Hannah, who wants Roxy to spend more time with her. At the same time, Roxy gets some unsolicited but very good advice from this guy whom she's never met before. After doing a little research, she discovers that he's Philippe Robicheau, a one-time luminary on the club DJ scene who self-destructed in a haze of drugs and sex, among other things. She starts working with him, absorbing his knowledge to make herself a better DJ. In the meantime, her relationship with Hannah pretty much implodes, and Roxy's forced to make hard decisions about her life. How much does she want to give to her work? How much to a relationship? Where does she want her priorities to lie? Just how much does she want this, anyway?

Sizer does a very good job of depicting how it feels to be a young adult, just beginning to take your work seriously, deciding just how driven you are and how successful you want to be, and what sorts of sacrifices it takes to get where you want to be. Roxy gets portrayed a bit inconsistently -- in most of her life, she's forthright and assertive, but when it comes to the breakup of her relationship with Hannah, she just takes the hits without pointing out that Hannah's doing the same thing that she's doing, prioritizing her career over the relationship. That really is the one character quibble I do have about the story. Sizer's New York is also very inclusive -- it takes place in a New York with all sorts of people, as opposed to the "Friends" New York, for example. The colors are strong and vibrant throughout, with a playlist running along the bottom of the book for evocative music. The one place where the artwork has a few -- a very few -- problems comes in his depiction of faces; there's something about a few of the faces where he's drawing them full-face or close to it where they look clunky and squished; a perspective issue of some sort. Again, that's in a very few places; otherwise, the faces are very expressive and distinct.

BPM is a very enjoyable read. Older teens and adults who like stories about music and the people who work in that world might like it very much. Highly recommended.

Originally published 15 July 1999 in a slightly different version; content has been edited to remove dated references and links

---

Bread and Wine: an erotic tale of New York
story by Samuel Delany; art by Mia Wolff
Juno Books (March 1, 1999)
80 p.
$14.99, if you can find it.


I've just been reading the most remarkable book.

Comic book, actually.



Samuel Delany is an author of many acclaimed works, in several genres, including science fiction, biography and essays, among others. He also happens to be gay and black.

Bread and Wine: an erotic tale of New York constitutes the most recently published chapter of Samuel Delany's autobiography, published as a full graphic biography, rather than as a prose book. Of course biographies frequently have photos, pictures, other things, but these are always either publicity photos, or other things that are somehow public moments, family photos or school photographs and the like. Oh, maybe your mother delights in showing that picture of you running naked down the street when you were two, or maybe you're having a bad hair day in that picture, or you've got teminal red-eye, but still and all, those photographs, even the very personal ones, are still somehow of public moments. Sometime when others were looking at you.

The drawings in this book are frequently of much more intimate moments.



The general synopsis of it would be: college professor meets and befriends homeless man and they eventually become lovers. But the synopsis would leave out just about everything important: the feel of the book, how well the emotions come through.

Delany notes that his publisher didn't quite understand why he wanted to make it into a comic book. I confess, in some ways, it does seem like an odd choice. However, there are moments illustrated in this book--moments where, one assumes, no photographs exist or would exist--that somehow gain power from being forced to see them in exactly the way that the author sees them. (Or rather, the artist's rendering of the author's memories, but still, I think it works out the same way.) Some of the drawings are thoroughly surreal, as in Dennis' (the homeless man) view of Central Park. Some of them are fairly straightforward. There's also the plain fact that a straight-ahead prose retelling of just the time when he met and fell in love with Dennis would be, frankly, terribly short.

What startled me, what seems to be the most powerful, were the moments showing him and Dennis when they first go to a hotel, when they first make love. I mean, in a more conventional autobiography might have used the same words he used to describe it, but your concept of what Dennis looked like, what the bath was like -- Dennis, having been homeless and on the street for a while, was staggeringly filthy -- it would all have been more of a hybrid of what you brought to it and what he gave you. Doing it this way forces what he gives you and your impressions into consonance in a way that simply might not happen.

The book is, as noted, billed as an erotic tale, and there's certainly sex in it, but it's not simply erotic as in "boy, that gets my engine running!" It's erotic as in, it's a love story with sex in it.

Another odd bit is the interview at the end, where the artist, Delany, Dennis, and Delany's now-adult daughter talk about the book, and what some of the events were like, how their memories differ. That's when you realize that his daughter has actually read this, that she's seen those drawings of her father and his lover together. It's a very strange moment for the reader; I can't imagine how strange it would have been for his daughter.

For those of you who might have read Delany's The Mad Man, reading this will bring one of those great moments of enlightenment, when you realize where at least some of it came from. (I don't know if all of it came from this relationship, and I don't want to know, thank you very much. I don't know how much his life informed his writing in that case.)

I suppose, if I were talking about this to someone (as I guess I may be, right?) I'd say: I recommend it, but know that you may not actually like it. It's fascinating and it's interesting, and if you like Delany and his work, it's certainly illuminating.

---

At the recent 2008 Reeling Chicago Lesbian and Gay International Film Festival, I saw a screening of The Polymath, or the Life and Opinions of Samuel R. Delany, Gentleman (I'll note that the Frameline site has a better description; "highly sexually active", inDEED!). A short clip from the documentary is available at the filmmaker's website (NOT WORKSAFE! NOT EVEN VAGUELY WORK SAFE AUDIO! ... unless your workplace is entirely comfortable with hearing a gentleman talk about the perigrinations of his sex life, in which case, go right ahead!) As far as I could tell, the relationship in Bread and Wine is never explicitly referenced, though there may be some more oblique mentions.

A (very) few reviews, to get my hand back in. But first, a cheesy science fiction television mention.

So apparently Stargate: Universe will effectively be recycling the Starlost or Star Trek: Voyager concepts. (And for those of you -- i.e., everyone -- who is thinking "Starlost? What the heck is that?", try this. and also maybe the videos here. I swear, for a long time, I used to wonder if I'd imagined the Starlost; nobody I knew had ever seen or remembered it. And then I saw this announcement.)

Max Headroom is now available on AOL's In2TV. Huzzah! And also, people who were in Chicago at the right time will remember watching our very own TV channels get zapped, maybe a week or two after the Max Headroom episode on the very same topic.

Cleopatra 2525 and Jack of All Trades -- one of Bruce Campbell's few attempts as a regular on series television before Burn Notice, I believe -- are now available at Hulu. This makes me very happy. (It seems that the entire audience for Cleopatra 2525 consisted of gay men. No, I do not know why. All I can think is that possibly watching Gina Torres kick ass in skimpy clothing made us all really happy. Plus, it was also one of those shows where the men were frequently in skimpy clothing, which helped. But still. Weird audience composition.)


OK, then! On to the reviews!

( On the next page! )

100 Girls (Adam Gallardo, Todd Demong; Simon and Schuster/Simon Pulse)

Sylvia seems to be your average teenaged girl, having your average teenaged girl problems. Her adoptive parents don't seem to understand her, she's having problems with the popular girl at school thinking she's poaching her boyfriend, she's having bad dreams about dozens of girls in these big incubation chambers -- you know, the usual. Only it turns out that she's got freaky super strength, so she accidentally flings the popular girl across the hall and then breaks her arm with her bare hands when she attacks Sylvia again. And it turns out that she was one of the girls in the incubation chambers, and was cloned from the tissue of various scientists involved. Because the government -- or someone -- is demanding results of the project, the people who created her suddenly want her back. She was stolen from the project by scientists who disagreed with what the project was for, which was to turn teenaged girls into weapons with superhero/villain-type powers through the use of Mad Science. (They'd already tried with boys, and with a very few exceptions, it doesn't seem to have worked.) Sylvia doesn't want to go back, and lets the bad guys know this with Extreme Violence. She then seeks out the other few girls who were taken out of the project, trying to stay one step ahead of the bad guys.

I call them bad guys, but the fact is, the mad scientists are drawn up as surprisingly complete characters. They have feelings for each other as well as the girls they've created, and that some of them have taken away from the project. You don't really understand why they're doing this -- even a moment's thought should have told them why this would be a terrible idea, adolescent rebellion to the extreme not withstanding, and Sylvia's extra little ability (you'll know it when you see it) is both understandable from a battlefield viewpoint, and terribly terribly misguided -- but that aside, both the girls and the scientists are very well developed. There are also people of various visible ethnic backgrounds who are involved in the project, as well as in trying to rescue some of the girls, which is a nice touch. (And mildly confusing at first; it's not until they explain that Sylvia seems to have been adopted as a teenager that it makes even vague sense that her adoptive parents are black.)

It's a very good, entertaining book, with interesting characters and artwork that's just cartoony enough to keep the violence from being too offputting. And make no mistake: when I say there's Extreme Violence, I mean there's a good bit of barehanded killing, killing through explosions, some interesting dismemberments, a bit of torture that we thankfully don't get to see ... really, it's pretty much all there. Depending on how you define things -- and allowing that every single thing she does, until the very end, is clearly in self defense -- Sylvia might be considered one of the biggest mass murderers in the country's history. All that violence does bring up the question of who, precisely, the audience of this book is. Mind, the question only comes up because of a certain cultural sexism. You've got a book meant primarily for boys in which a teenaged boy kills and maims and dismembers in a slightly cartoony way, no problem. But allegedly, boys don't read books with girls as the principal characters, which means that this would be aimed at girls, and people's biases change in interesting ways regarding girls and violence.

According to an interview I read elsewhere, Gallardo and Demong hope to continue the title, which was originally published through Arcana. I hope they get the chance. Any road, it's a very interesting story. Recommended.

Rapunzel's Revenge (Shannon and Dean Hale/Nathan Hale; Bloomsbury)

Once upon a time, there was a girl. Her parents wound up selling her to the wicked witch after they stole some lettuce from the witch's garden. The girl was brought up in ignorance of that fact, until she found out about the realities of her world. And then she decided to do something about that.

The Hales recast Rapunzel as a fairy tale of the old west. Evil witch Gothel has some sort of magic that makes things grow very fast, but it also sucks the life out of other areas, which means that much of the kingdom she reigns over is dead and sere. Rapunzel is raised inside the castle, and knows nothing of this. One day she gets very curious about what's outside the castle, and eventually gets around her mother's proscriptions, and takes a look, only to discover an enslaved, blighted world beyond the walls. She also accidentally finds the mother who gave birth to her, a slave in Gothel's mines. Needless to say, her view of things is changed dramatically. Furious that Rapunzel has disobeyed her, Gothel takes her to the forest and shuts her up, not in a tower, but in a very tall tree, with a hollow space near the top. Gothel uses the forest as defense of sorts, and causes things in it to grow very fast, including as it turns out, Rapunzel's hair and nails. Rapunzel refuses to give in to Gothel's demands to apologize and go back, so eventually Gothel abandons her, and causes the tree-prison to start growing closed. Rapunzel uses her now-lengthy hair and the rope tricks taught to her by one of the guards when she was a child, and escapes from the tree, and then has a raft of adventures in her attempt to free her real mother. Along the way, she runs into the prince who has come to rescue the maiden from her high prison -- only not so much, really. And then she meets Jack, of beanstalk and giantkiller and other fame; he's clearly meant as a sort of Jack portmanteau-trickster archetype, much as Jack of Fables.

Characterization in this story works in really pretty typical fairytale ways, setting aside. Rapunzel is a spunky young woman who rescues herself through most of the story, and rescues Jack a few times. The villains of the story are very very villainous, including Gothel, who seems to regard Rapunzel more as a possession to be subdued, rather than a daughter to be cared for. Nathan Hale's art is very expressive and fun to look at.

Very technically, Rapunzel's Revenge is sort of an all-ages book. More practically, it's the sort of thing you give to kids who are just old enough to read comfortably on their own. I don't think teenaged girls would like it -- or would admit to liking it -- which is a bit of a pity, since it really does show a teenaged girl being both very thoughtrul and very competent physically in ways that aren't often depicted. Recommended.

Air #1, "Letters from Lost Countries, part 1" (G. Willow Wilson/M.K. Perker; DC/Vertigo):

We meet Blythe, a flight attendant for a Dutch airline, as she and some guy are falling through the air out of a plane crashing into the ocean. We then jump back in time to when Blythe first meets this guy, having what appears to be a charmingly racist moment of terrorist neurosis about him -- he's from somewhere Mediterranean or Middle Eastern or somewhere (it's very very confusing) -- and then running into a charmingly racist/nationalist group that wants to take advantage of her feelings. Then, in a wildly improbable way, she gets talked into taking a travel bag for one of those guys. She gets talked into looking into the bag by That Guy -- he's now apparently a Spaniard, so he says -- and discovers some Very Bad Things inside. Then lots and lots of very bad things happen.

I really don't know about this one. I think I need to give it another issue -- although, that said, it's probably going to get dropped to trade, just because this is the sort of story that's probably going to read better in chunks. Judgement reserved, for now.

Anna Mercury #3 (Warren Ellis/Facundo Percio): In which Anna's current mission to New Ataraxia is completed, we see the real woman behind Anna, and we even discover that there's a reason for that magnificent and highly distinctive mane of red hair and those interesting boots (which are slightly less sensible than they first appear). We see boomerang commit -- and so does she, from an angle that would be positively insanity inducing if she weren't already apparently insane anyway. It's essentially an issue-long action sequence, and a whole hell of a lot of fun. I have to admit, I'm hoping that next issue we get to see Anna during her downtime, so we can see more what she's really like. Highly recommended, of course.

The Brave and the Bold 16, "Superman and Catwoman: Tempted", (Mark Waid/Scott Collins; DC): I don't normally read this title, but that particular teamup is so wildly unlikely that I had to give it a shot. It was really a lot of fun, a lighthearted done-in-one romp in which Superman is forced to team up with Catwoman to try to break up a criminal auction for something very dangerous. Highly recommended. (I do wonder what's going to happen with this title when DC Animated starts a cartoon with the same title, but very different content, next year. I'm guessing that it's either going to be discontinued, or shifted over to Jonny DC and the content changed; otherwise, it's going to be very confusing.)

Wish I'd saved Genius for this update. Oh, well. Who knew? Included this time: Anna Mercury 2, Tales of the Starlight Drive In, Robin 174, Robin/Spoiler Special 1, Devi 20, Checkmate volume 3, Rogue Angel 4.

Also, I use the word "awesome" a lot. It's that kind of set of reviews.

( Cut here because, WOW, is this thing LONG. )

Burnout (Rebecca Donner/Inaki Miranda; DC/Minx):

Danni and her mother have moved in with her mother's alcoholic and borderline abusive boyfriend after the disappearance of Danni's father -- apparently, he just deserted them. Danni winds up falling in love with Haskell, her sort-of stepbrother, and getting involved in his brand of radical ecological activism. Becoming involved with Haskell means that Danni winds up having to make a lot of tough decisions about her actions and bearing the consequences of them.

Honestly, I think this is the first Minx title where I can say that the issue is that I'm absolutely not the target audience, even though I've liked other Minx books, sometimes quite a lot. Donner's writing isn't at all bad, and Miranda's artwork works well with the story. But it took me three times to get through it, despite its brevity. Part of the issue is that because of the different things she's been going through, and the terribly awkward living situation, Danni's personality comes across as very muted, despite being the first-person narrator. For that matter, for all that he's a radical ecoterrorist of sorts, Haskell comes across as surly and quiet, and not actually there all that much. Danni's mother, aside from making one bad decision after another, is barely there. To be sure, much of this is the result of Hank's verbal and near-physical abuse of Danni's mother and of Haskell; one of the things you learn about being around an abusive person is to be as quiet and withdrawn as possible, because you never know what will set them off. But that means that everyone in the story, aside from Danni's best friend, feels terribly buttoned-down a lot of the time.

I don't know ... I think overall, this story just wasn't to my taste, so I can't really rate it.

Gemini 2 of 5 (Faerber/Sommariva/Plascencia; Image): ...Yeah. I'm guessing, given the events that occur in issue 2, that perhaps issue 3 is where they explain the concept, and why anyone would do such a damnfool thing as these people are doing, because at the moment, this makes less than no sense. Why in the name of sanity would you want to run a superhero like a machine, and wipe his memory of his civilian life when he's in costume, and vice versa when he's not? Yes, it would have the benefit of not allowing them to betray any knowledge of each other, but the way this story has been put together, Dan seems not to have chosen to be a superhero. The science nerds who are running the show picked him, so he's putting his life in danger entirely without his knowledge or consent. Moreover, Dan's control circuits were in his contact lenses, without any backup, so when, say, one's head gets blown off, and one's regenerative powers cause it to grow back (...yeah, that's another handwave moment there), and he no longer has contacts, you have to find another way to control him. There's no redundancy in the system that's actually connected to Dan, for some reason. So then you send in another one of your controlled superheroes, whom no other superhero in the city knows, and, well, Very Bad Things happen. And then it turns out that Dan's former control agent, who was fired because she started having issues of various sorts with what they were doing, is out and running around with full knowledge of everything in her head. She wasn't killed, doesn't seem to have been mindwiped, and has the ability to throw a wrench in the works. Seriously, at this point, there is no level on which this series makes sense, which is a pity, becausse it's kind of ... weirdly cool throughout much of it. With the exception of those (many) moments where the concept intrudes forcefully into the storytelling in awkward ways, it's an interesting superhero/mad science story. The fairly stylized artwork is really a perfect match. But the concept, so far, it sucks the bilge water. (I'm guessing that when the concept is explained, when they have to tell the newbie why they're doing what they're doing, it's going to shake out basically as "Because we could." I can't conceive of any sensible reason why even vaguely ethical people would do what they're doing, but I hope Faerber can.)


Pilot Season: Genius (Bernardin/Freeman/Afua Richardson; Top Cow):

Imagine a balkanized and divided Los Angeles, in which the people don't really trust the police, and vice versa. (Or don't; that's pretty much the situation in the city today.) Imagine that gang warfare suddenly seems to be becoming ... oddly organized. Against the police. That's the setup for Genius, from the writers of last year's Monster Attack Network and Highwaymen. Destiny, a young black woman, has organized the gangs in and around her Compton neighborhood into a very good, appallingly strong paramilitary force. Something specific -- we don't quite know what just yet -- happened to make her decide that their neighborhood would be better with them maintaining control than with the apparently corrupt police. So she and her people kill off a few police and send one back to give headquarters the message.

In the meantime, inside HQ, Detective Reginald Grey has been putting together the clues and realizing that there's a "Suspect Zero", someone controlling all the action, someone setting up the LAPD to take a fall. Of course, nobody at HQ quite believes him -- after all, nothing like that's happened before now, so why should they believe that things have changed so drastically? Except then the cop that Destiny didn't kill gets back to HQ and lets them know that, in fact, the map has changed dramatically.

Bernardin and Freeman convey the situation and characers very well in the limited space they've got. Richardson's art at first seemed a bit stylized for the story but ... it really does work. All the characters are easy to distinguish, and it keeps the story from looking quite like the grim trip that it's likely to be. Tonally, the closest things to it I can think of are Walking Dead and Rex; the former because of the way it deals with people driven to doing difficult things that they otherwise would never consider, the latter because of the gritty and dark way it deals with the police and official corruption and people taking the law into their hands after they've been pushed Just That One Step too far.

I really hope this title is one that survives Pilot Season to become a continuing title. I'd really like to see more of this one. The one thing that I think might give it problems in the voting is that it is in no way, shape, or form, a superhero story, and I wonder if maybe that's all that people are expecting from Pilot Season. I hope they're expecting more than just that. Highly Recommended.

Pilot Season: Twilight Guardian (Hickman/Reza; Top Cow): Twilight Guardian, I suspect, is going to have a much tougher time than Genius in the voting. The story follows a young woman who, because of various difficult events in her past that we really only see the edges of, decides to become the superhero the world clearly needs. Only ... she's just a regular person, as far as we can tell. No particular powers or special abilities, just a decided lack of certain aspects of sanity. It's somewhat like Millar's Kick-Ass, only the Guardian herself comes off as somehow more reasonable and sane that Kick-Ass (and considerably less pummeled by the end of the first issue). It's not really that nothing happens in the issue -- although it is more about introducing the character than anything else -- but it's not jam packed and full of action, and I think that might hurt it against titles that are more conventionally busy, like Genius or Lady Pendragon (the other Pilot Season titles published to date this year). Reza's artwork is perfectly serviceable, helping tell the story without drawing attention to itself per se. Recommended.

Yes, I'm beating a dead horse.

No, it's not the dead horse you think it is. Or not just that particular dead horse, anyway.

And it's entirely not my fault! Really! You'll see!

Today's reviews include: Batman, All-Star Superman, Boy Meets Hero, Corridor and others, including the one which inspired today's title.

By the by, being told that you have by far the most esoteric pull list in the store is quite the experience. Consider that a warning...

Batman 677 (Morrison/Daniel; DC): In which the Black Glove unleashes its attack on Bruce, and Jezebel Jet tries to get Bruce to see what she thinks is reason. Honestly, the story as a whole baffles me a bit, in part because there are gaps in my Batman knowledge. For example, when did Gordon come back to be Commissioner again? The last I heard, he'd retired, went off somewhere, divers villains killed his new wife and he moved back to Gotham, but that other guy was still commissioner during the Gotham Central days ... and even in DC time, he's getting quite long in the tooth to be commissioner again/still. The Black Glove also clearly knows that Bruce Wayne and Batman are the same person. They set out to destroy not only Bruce Wayne, but Thomas Wayne and Alfred, of all people, knowing that if they strike at Bruce's identity and the one anchor in his world, they might be able to break him psychologically. In the meantime, Jezebel Jet begins to realize just who it is that she's fallen in love with, and all that it means. Of course, the structural problem with this story remains: we still don't have any reason to care about Jezebel Jet, and no reason to care what she thinks. We know both that she's quite right -- Bruce is obviously a few bats short of a full belfry -- and that it doesn't matter. After all, he couldn't function if he were sane, now could he? In any event, it builds to a compelling and interestingly gory end. The art's OK, although there's a moment of problematic artwork, when Alfred expresses concern over a wound he couldn't possibly have seen -- at this point, as weird as the second half of the issue wound up being, I wonder if maybe that was also A Clew, or if it was just bad art. Anyway, just OK; I'll still hang around to see what happens next.

All Star Superman 11 (Morrison/Quitely/Grant; DC): The first page is maybe the most awesome Superman page I've ever seen, even if you absolutely know that it's not going to stick. The second page is also terrifyingly awesome. And then you hit the middle of the story, in which the clearly unwell Superman sums up his life for himself and his robot, and in which Luthor makes his plans. And then superman battles Solaris, knowing full well that he's one of Luthor's allies. There's the rather peculiar moment when one of the Superman robots insists he must atone for a mistake, and the rather peculiar moment when Solaris starts speaking binary--I thought it was supposed to be alive. And then, of course, that final, awesome, peculiarly iconic final image. Honestly, the middle of the story is perfectly serviceable, if maybe that's all it is; the problem is that it comes after those very very good first two pages, and you can't live up to a beginning like that. The story does tie together what had seemed to be random strands from the earlier issues, such as Superman's new powers that have been referenced but never really seen, and the robots, and Luthor in prison. I'm really looking forward to seeing what happens in the last issue, which I assume will be out ... someday. (Seriously, when DC rethinks the All-Star line, which they are allegedly doing, the one thing they need to focus on, aside from getting interesting stories, is timely delivery.)

Aletheia 1 (Bob LeFevre; Image): The story starts with the origin of the Greek gods Zeus, Poseidon and Hades, collectively known as Aletheia (the truth). Them we zip to Olympia, Washington, where we see a young black woman with purple-wrapped dreds working on her motorcycle. Judging from the license plate, her name is Thea. She gets a call from her boyfriend and decides to head to his place -- at which point all Hades breaks loose. And also all Zeus and Poseidon, as well. The Greek gods manifest on this plane of existence, after a very long time away, and immediately they notice Thea, who is apparently the "Formerly departed." The formerly departed whom, they do not say. Thea evades the attacks of the gods and reaches her boyfriend's apartment (or her biggest fan's apartment, as she describes him, which opens the question of why she'd have fans), only to discover that he's been attacked, and he dies in her arms. Then the gods and their agent, whoever the brown thing is, attack her again, and then ... something happens. I'm not trying to be coy -- although, given that it's the ending of the issue, I should -- but I simply have not the slightest idea what she does. On the one hand ... I do like the story well enough to see what happens next. On the other, the story is perhaps not well served by its highly stylized art -- as I say, I really don't have a clue what happens in the last four pages. I hope LeFevre gets rid of most of that clearly deliberately ponderous narration for the next issues. It sets the mood and is well used in the beginning, but during the chase and in the boyfriend's apartment building, it just gets in the way and annoys. Having set up the big emotional moment, you need to trust the reader to know when it arrives. All that said, I'm curious enough to stick around for at least the next issue; I'd really like to know who she is and why the gods are so afraid of her when she quite clearly has no idea. Recommended.

Dan Dare 6 of 7 (Ennis/Erskine; Virgin): I have to admit, Ennis kind of astounds me from time to time. His bread and butter is stuff like Punisher or The Boys or Chronicles of Wormwood, titles clearly meant for adults, dealing with sex and violence and being exuberantly foul-mouthed. And then he comes out with something like Dan Dare, which I wouldn't hesitate to give to give to, say, a kid maybe 10, 12 years old, real boys-own adventure stuff, fun (if somewhat violent but surprisingly lacking in grue) space opera. Anyway, in this penultimate adventure, Dare gets rescued (of course), with everything going more or less as planned. The Mekon expresses his displeasure with his people in ways that ensure that one of the planets develops, at least temporarily, a thoroughly gruesome ring. And then the final confrontation commences. These are all -- well, except for that second thing -- thoroughly obvious beats that had to be hit in this story. It would not, after all, do to have Dare expire before the last issue of his own title, and there is also a last issue to come. (I think at some point this series might have expanded a bit; I'd have sworn that it was solicited as a six-issue mini, and now not only is it seven issues, but the last is to be double-sized.) To be sure, after the rescue, this issue is mostly, but not entirely, marking time; the "not entirely" bits are thoroughly entertaining. Really, the whole thing is just an amazing amount of fun. Buy all the issues, then find a kid and give something to read. And, really, who'd think you'd say something like that about recent Ennis work?

Beyond (Deepak Chopra/Ron Marz/Edison George): We start with a man pushing through a crowd going the other way. Behind him, the dome of the Taj Mahal has been blown up. He walks past television where we see something in Karachi and Tel Aviv and somewhere in Palestine have also gone kaboom. Then we leap back three months in time to Benares, India, where Michael, his wife Anna and his son Ty are on vacation, a gift from Michael's mother-in-law. It's a working vacation for Michael, and he's an entrepreneur of sorts, which means that he doesn't really see much point in vacations and is constantly working. Suddenly, Anna disappears, and moreover, Ty discovers that he's been slipped a magic comic book called "The Rishi" (published by Virgin. Arf arf, even) in which the story of their trip is being told ... right up to the point they're actually at, after which the pages are blank. There are magic doors, and signs and symbols and ... honestly, it's interesting enough, and I do like the art, but since it's a four issue mini, I'd just as soon wait for the trade. It's not quite that gripping.

Corridor (Sarnath Banerjee; Penguin, 2004); An interesting mostly black-and-white graphic novel, telling the story of a group of friends and their various obsessions, centered around Jehangir Rangoonwalla and his bookstore and his tea. Brighu has a thing about Ibn Batuta and obsessively collects various things, none of which he can allow himself to use or enjoy, because doing so would ruin them. Digital Dutta -- with the longest full color segment in the volume -- is obsessed with the pursuit of an H-1B visa; why, we never really learn. He also gets periodically obsessed with Karl Marx and/or Chris Evert. Newly married Shintu, whose story has a few full-color pages, is obsessed with sex and aphrodisiacs. Strangely enough, he actually finds one that works, more or less. (The advice he gets from the guy who gives him the aphrodisiacs is hysterically funny. For example, did you know that frequent nocturnal emissions are a sure sign of impending impotency? And impotence can be prevented by frequent kegeling -- which, if not quite true, is certainly useful -- and eating curried goat's testicles -- which isn't particularly true or useful.) I really like Corridor; the artwork is stylized without being so much so that it overwhelms the writing. There's no overarching story being told; we're just learning about this group of men and certain aspects of their lives. Periodically very funny, periodically touching, and always interesting. Highly recommended, if you can find it (and it may be difficult, given its age). Sarai currently hosts a 24-page preview.

Boy Meets Hero (Chayne Avery and Russel Garcia; Bruno Gmunder):

A hardback compilation of the former webcomic, Boy Meets Hero tells the story of Derek -- secretly Blue Comet, superhero -- and Justin -- secretly in love with Derek. The latter secret constitutes one of the major difficulties for our guys; Justin wants to be out and proud, while Derek fears losing his job -- in their world, being a superhero is a paid position, just as in the Luna Brothers' Ultra -- and his reputation. To keep the public off guard, Derek is participating in a phony romance, orchestrated by the public relations department, with his superhero partner Sunstar, who also happens to be Justin's sister Jillian. The villains are, of course, conspiring to bring Blue Comet and Sunstar down in revenge for having been beaten in the past.

The artwork is comparatively simple, but mostly works for the story. There is a certain amount of comic-book nudity -- no full frontal (not even in the panel where Justin is told that his junk is hanging out), a bit of buttock here and there -- and romantic sex of the sort you'd see in any mainstream superhero book. The main characters kiss, and we see them on the way to sex, but nothing explicit. And we actually see black gay guys in this story! who get put into peril, but live through it! Granted, they're purely incidental characters, but still.

Those incidental characters bring up one of the few things that annoy me a bit. The story does lean a bit on stereotype here and there. Not a lot, but when it happens, it's somewhat jarring. For example, deeply closeted Derek says at work at one point, "You go, girlfriend!" To his theoretical girlfriend, for that matter, in front of pretty much everyone he works with. It's just hard to believe that someone that deeply closeted would make that sort of mistake in that situation; moreover, he doesn't say anything like that through the rest of the story.

The other issue with the story as a whole is that the guys kind of ... talk too much. The two of them are just spritzing angst everywhere over Derek and his closet and talking about it to each other, to Jillian, a lot. Almost the only frames with the guys that don't contain great whacking chunks of dialogue or narration are those in which they're making love, and it's not as though there are more than a couple of those frames scattered in the story. The villains also have to acquaint us with their unfortunate past with a great heaping hunk of dialogue -- and the curious thing there is that in one case, we actually get thrown into a more effective flashback, with a bit less dialogue. Granted, you don't want to be flashing backward and forward all that much in a 120 page book, but it points out that the authors are entirely capable of showing and not telling quite so much.

Anyway, those flaws aside, it was still a very entertaining and worthwhile read. Recommended.

Jimmy Zhingchak, Agent of D.I.S.C.O. (Saurav Mohapatra/Anupam Sinha; Virgin/UTV-Spotboy Motion Pictures)

And at last we reach the titular ... er, title. Surely you understand now why, especially after the previous poster entries, the title for this review entry had to be what it is. Honestly, although I'd bought the issue before the posters, I hadn't looked at it all that closely. Then, after the posters, I finally got around to reading the stuff I hadn't gotten through yet, and well ... there it was.

The back cover bills it as "the world's first Bollywood comic" and ... I kind of can't argue that point. Although I will note that there is a profound lack of entire cities suddenly bursting into song and mindnumbingly spectacular production numbers.

The story? Oh, yes, the story. We start in Mumbai in 1984, with later occasional excursions back in time and elsewhere in India. One of DISCO's operations has just been compromised by the Naada Ninjas -- who wear white and bright colors, for some reason. We jump to Jimmy Grover's residence, where he's yelling at his mother for spending his hard earned cash on that "foul Desi moonshine". Said "foul Desi moonshine" pretty much immediately puts her in the hospital. The doctor tells Jimmy that his mother's liver has failed, and she needs expensive drugs and an operation. He offers to drop the price if Jimmy will, shall we say, put out. Jimmy responds by slapping the doctor and declaring, "You should be ashamed of yourself trying to exploit a lachaar mazboor najuwan like me!" (According to the funny yet seriously incomplete glossary at the end, this means "helpless strapping young lad headed straight for Oprah".) To make money quickly, Jimmy heads for the DISCO Fights (no, really, that's what they're called) to take on all the DISCO champions (no, REALLY) at once. Suddenly, just as he's clearly about to get clobbered, a mysterious man's head appears in a cloud and tells him to use the zhingchak(TM). What, you might be wondering, is the zhingchak(TM)? And well might you wonder! In any event, Jimmy pummels the champions of DISCO, wins the money, pays for his mother's transplant, and is thereupon recruited immediately into DISCO, which turns out to be the Department of Internal Security and Covert Operations. (For reasons external to the story, I had a small hysterical fit when the chief said, "Jimmy, your country needs you.") Moreover, Jimmy's father was in fact one of DISCO's best agents, until he was killed by the dreaded FIRANG. Jimmy of course agrees to work with DISCO, and is thereupon given his father's DISCO Battle Suit ("100% polyester, machine washable"), keyed to his family DNA. There are, of course, all sorts of absurd twists, turns, gadgets and villains -- I suspect people may be particularly fond of Britney Hypnotits, as well as the Fabled Mithunkwalk (the pelvic thrust that really will drive you insane).

Essentially, the story aims for a sort of Indian Austin Powers vibe, Bollywood does Our Man Flint (much cooler and more mod than James Bond). Mostly, it gets there. Mostly. I suspect if you're Indian, it may get there much better than if you're American. There are chunks of ... um, language to deal with. Not a lot, and I don't think any of it's at all important -- but that's just it; I don't know that the ... er, language isn't important. (Seriously, Hindi? Bengali? Something else? No clue here.) Linguistic weirdnesses aside, it's funny and entertaining, and the artwork is highly stylized and insanely detailed. It's definitely a worthwile, fun read. Just, you know, periodically linguistically aggravating.

Given the Virgin/UTV coproduction, I expect that it will be a Bollywood movie for real any day now. Wonder if it'll make it here?