Ray found the best con costume ever. Though, sadly, it seems doubtful that DC would ever put a costume that fits so well on a cover now.

Also of note, in the preview for the new DC solicitations, was this little…gem?
COUNTDOWN PRESENTS: LORD HAVOK AND THE EXTREMISTS #1
Written by Frank Tieri
Art and cover by Liam Sharpe
Don’t miss this special 6-part COUNTDOWN miniseries featuring the most powerful beings on Earth-8 — Lord Havok and his Extremists — written by Frank Tieri (GOTHAM UNDERGROUND) and illustrated by Liam Sharp (TESTAMENT)!
Lord Havok! Dr. Diehard! Tracer! Gorgon! Dreamslayer! Carny! Meet these dangerous individuals and learn why they are so integral to COUNTDOWN and the fate of the Multiverse! Guest-starring Monarch, the Monitors, Donna Troy, Jason Todd and Kyle Rayner!
On sale October 31 • 1 of 6 • 32 pg, FC, $2.99 US

Okay, an Extremists mini-series? I blame all of you with paranoid fantasies about Dan Didio trying to “destroy” the Giffen-era Justice League for this. This is DC’s answer to your complaints, you realize.

“So, instead of reporting facts, I’ll just be reporting any nonsense I make up? So it’ll be like that summer I worked for Fox News?”
“Exactly Billy!”

What follows is a montage of Captain Marvel staying in various haunted locales in search of inspiration for his stories. So it’s kind of like one of those “Ghost Hunters” type shows, only without easily spooked idiots running around in the dark.

Well, Billy is a total disaster as a writer of ghost stories, so eventually Station Whiz has no choice but to, er, try to retain the good employee they made no attempt to keep in the first place…

So the station manager and Captain Marvel show up at I.J. Scarum’s house, and force the butler to allow them to spend the night so that they can meet up with Mr. Scarum and persuade him to come back to work. Because intimidation, assault and trespassing aren’t crimes if you’re a big shot radio television station owner, apparently.
Ah, but do the fates have a cruel twist in store for our heroes?

What follows is the most anti-climatic villain reveal ever:

Did Captain Marvel just resolve a conflict by bribing a ghost? Man, I love comics…

I haven’t seen a lot of good, enthusiastic, fun posts about female super-heroes lately. Good thing I got my hands on Mary Marvel #23, from 1948. A book which shows us that, if anything, Billy was the normal one.

Mary pops a balloon with a pitchfork (no, I don’t want to know what was inside the balloon, and neither do you):

Mary hugs furniture:

Mary dresses like a ghost in order to scare poltergeists (no, I don’t know how that works either):

Mary punches an elephant:

Mary spreads imperialist Western propaganda:

Also of note: everybody knows that Billy Batson is really Captain Marvel. Mary Marvel keeps showing up whenever Mary Bromfield is in trouble, looks just like Mary Bromfield, and is the sister of Captain Marvel just as Mary Bromfield is Billy Batson’s sister…and no one ever puts two and two together.

A minor emergency* arose over the weekend, scuttling all my original plans, so I’m left with nothing for you but this oddly compelling yet strangely disturbing shot of Captain Marvel with his shirt off.

_{* Nothing to worry about, but the cascading results of this event permanently alter all of the plans Pete and I had made for the rest of the year.}

So, the popular rumor of the day is that Jake Gyllenhaal is being considered for the title role in any Captain Marvel (the good one, not any of the Marvel ones) adaptation that may come out. Personally, I think it’s premature to worry about casting in a film like that, and Gyllenhaal is a bit younger and trimmer than I think Captain Marvel should be, but it’s not as if he’s a bad actor or couldn’t add muscle to his frame.

But go ahead and guess how comic book fans reacted to the “news.” Go ahead. Did they make reference to his latest role in Zodiac? Or perhaps to the role that first brought him to prominence, the sci-fi film Donnie Darko? Or perhaps his early, ground-breaking performance in Bubble Boy?

If you guessed that they made trite Brokeback Shazam jokes, well congratulations, you’ve obviously encountered fanboys before.

But then, everything creates uproar in the Doctor Who online community. Fans spend hours logging what’s right – and what’s wrong – with Davies’s doctor. He just ignores them. ‘In the community of sci-fi shows, I think we’re the only one that actively ignores its online fanbase. American shows seem to court them, or pretend that they do. That way lies madness. I can’t think of a show that’s improved its quality, or its ratings, by doing it. It’s like going in search of a massively biased focus group – why would anyone do that?’

You might as well retitle that paragraph “Why no one cares about Star Trek anymore” or “What will kill (what’s left of) the comics industry.”

Ahem…that being said, I would be perfectly happy to see Davies quit the blatant Judeo-Christian symbolism in series 3. The Torchwood finale and Impossible Planet were rubbish.

Shazam! The Monster Society of Evil by Jeff Smith, published by DC Comics

It’s no exaggeration to say that this is one of the best comics of the year so far, and easily one of the best super-hero comics of recent memory. Smith manages the extremely difficult task of retaining the innocence and child-like charm of the original C.C. Beck Captain Marvel comics, while maintaining the gravitas readers have come to expect from contemporary super-hero comics. The result is a book which feels both nostalgic and modern.

The story is the by-now familiar retelling of Billy Batson’s first encounter with the wizard and his bonding with the mighty Captain Marvel. Smith does an excellent job here of portraying the misery of Billy’s existence, the horrible conditions he must live in while still possessing an optimistic innocence. A suggestion is made, briefly, that Marvel and the wizard are fantasies of Billy, which only serves to heighten the wish-fullfillment aspect of his transformations into Marvel.

Smith’s art is also exceptional here, a nicely detailed work that doesn’t stray far from the friendly, rounded world that Beck created. Smith isn’t afraid to let the art carry the burden of the story-telling either, going for several pages at a time without words, letting Billy soak in the strangeness of his experiences just as the reader soaks in the art.

The strongest recomendation in the book’s favor, though, is that Smith has created a fun, innocent comic for all ages that doesn’t shy away from the kid-oriented origin of the material. Smith doesn’t try to inject any false notes of seriousness or importance, or attempt to make the work more than a charming fable for adults and children.

Yakari and the Grizzly by Derib and Job, published by Cinebook

I’ve been filling a gap in my comics collection: I simply don’t have enough European comics that aren’t attempting to be “high art” available to me. And since I don’t care for rampant heterosexuality of Heavy Metal-style comics, and since Trondheim doesn’t appeal to me, and iBooks and Humanoids in limbo, what I’ve been scrounging for are interesting European kid’s comics.

Yakari is a Native American boy who can talk to animals and helps them when they’re in trouble. In this particular adventure, he helps a group of animals who are being forced to gather food for a bear. It’s a very simple story, with a not very threatening menace, and everyone turns out to be all right in the end and very friendly with one another. It’s cute, but is clearly on the extreme young end of the kids comic spectrum. It would be a very good book for the younger brother or sister of a child getting into comics with super-hero or manga titles, as it’s straight-forward story makes for good practice in reading, and the conflict resolution is handled in a clever and non-violent way.

The art is attractive, and about on a par with other European kid’s comic. If you’ve ever read any Asterix books or Peyo’s Smurf comics, you know what to expect, art-wise. The animals are cute, and everything is appealingly stylized against more realistic backgrounds. Again, if you’re looking for something for younger children and you want to avoid any potentially problematic content, this is an eminently suitable choice.

Aw man, that’s just harsh. I mean, really, for a children’s comic that’s terribly upsetting.

Luckily, Mr. Tawky Tawny has a rather pervy solution.