Okay, so here’s the premise: It’s a rally race, and the racers are wacky.

Are you still with me? Okay.

Hanna-Barbera made 17 episodes of this show with that very simple premise in mind. It was pure insanity, but you like insanity in your cartoons, don’t you? Of course you do. There was one clear theme across every episode, and it’s that the villains (Dick Dastardly and his dog Muttley) spent every episode trying to sabotage the other racers, only for their plans to backfire. Dastardly and Muttley were by far the funnest characters on the show, but let’s not forget the other 10 racers on the show.

Peter Perfect was your typical hero archetype guy, driving a phallic race car he named the Turbo Terrific. He was the most straight-forward racer on the show, and wasn’t opposed to lending a hand to his opponents when they were in distress. He lost more times that you’d think.

No, he’s not trying to compensate for a small penis at all…

Rufus Ruffcut was a lumberjack driving a car made entirely out of wood. That doesn’t sound too wacky until you realize his sidekick is a beaver named Sawtooth who sat there eating pieces of the car the whole time.

Next was the Army Surplus Special, which was literally a tank driven by two soldiers who weren’t shy about shooting other cars on the track.

My second favorite car on the show was the one driven by the Ant-Hill Mob. They were seven dwarf mobsters in pinstripe suits driving an old bulletproof hooptie. They later appeared on the spin-off series about Penelope Pitstop.

Penelope Pitstop was a southern belle dressed in pink with a dainty little pink car that contained gadgets that automatically put on make-up for her. She wouldn’t become the least bit interesting until she got her own spin-off show.

Why Women Shouldn’t Drive

Professor Pat Pending was an inventor whose car looked like a frankensteinian construction made from a car, motorboat, and an old airplane. He was always converting the car into a pure airplane and flying over the competition.

The Bouldermobile was driven by two cavemen who looked not unlike Captain Caveman.

The Creepy Coupe was a miniature haunted house mounted on wheels, complete with its own thunder cloud and a dragon hidden in the belfry.

The Red Max was like a parody of the Red Baron. He didn’t have a car so much as he had an airplane, and it had a machine gun mounted on the front that he’d use to shoot other racers.

The Arkansas Chug-a-bug was a steam-powered jalopy driven by a hillbilly and a bear.

Finally, there was Dastardly and Muttley. Dastardly and Muttley were simultaneously the antagonists and protagonists of the series. They were the villains, but nobody else in this cast was half interesting enough to carry the show on their own. They were also, by far, the dumbest flipping idiots to ever cheat in a race. Here’s how a typical race would go for this: They pull way ahead of every other racer, set up a booby trap, lie in wait for the trap to spring, and then have the trap backfire in their faces after every other driver has passed them up. Did you catch what they did wrong? They had a car that was fast enough to leave every other racer in the dust, but they wasted their time by setting traps. No only that, but they stayed behind to see if their traps were sprung rather than pulling further ahead.

And why exactly were they the villains? Everyone else was cheating but Peter Perfect and Penelope. Others were shooting military grade weapons, doing drive-bys, breathing fire, swinging clubs, and flying over one another all the time. Yet somehow Dastardly and Muttley took last place in every episode because their methods of cheating were a tad more Machiavellian. Maybe they would’ve walked away with a few wins under the belts if they resorted to throwing explosives out the window.

Wacky Races lasted for one season on TV, but its legacy lived on with two spin-offs: The Perils of Penelope Pitstop and Dastardly & Muttley in Their Flying Machines. Both spin-offs were pretty good, and I’d say a little bit funnier than Wacky Races. Still, if you’ve got the Boomerang network, you can catch Wacky Races every night around prime time and in the wee hours of the morn.

Click to Enlarge

Marvel is planning to relaunch Astonishing X-Men along with a whole new line of comics under the Astonishing brand. That piece of work by Kaare Andrews will be the X-Men’s new looks. If you think it’s as hilarious bad as I do, then don’t worry. Marvel’s Astonishing comics will be vaguely disconnected from regular continuity.

Full story from Marvel here.

You’ve probably seen The Twilight Zone before. It started airing in the late 50’s through mid 60’s, and repeats of those classic episodes have been airing on miscellaneous TV stations throughout the decades. It was brought back with new episodes in the 80’s, and again at the turn of the century. Basically, if you’re not familiar with The Twilight Zone, then you’ve probably been living under a rock for the past 50 years.

In 2002, a new team of producers got together to revive The Twilight Zone for radio. Dozens of creator Rod Serling’s old TV scripts were rewritten for radio and recorded with many of today’s celebrities in starring roles. Actors like Jim Caviezel, Lou Diamond Phillips, Jason Alexander, Jane Seymour, Hal Sparks, and Adam West lend their voices throughout the episodes, with Stacy Keach taking the role of narrator.

You might even recognize some of the episodes in the radio series. Tim Kazurinsky (Sweetchuck from Police Academy 3 & 4) stars as the main character in “Time Enough At Last” (you know, the one where his glasses break now that there’s time to read after the apocalypse), and they even cover that creepy cornfield kid episode “It’s A Good Life.” Obviously, wholly visual episodes like “Eye of the Beholder” (the one where it turns out everyone but the leading woman is ugly) are left out. The rewrites to the episodes are sometimes subtle, such as when they expand a scene or two by adding in another few lines of dialogue. This is understandable, since most classic Twilight Zone episodes were only 30 minutes long, while the radio adaptations are expanded to roughly 40 episodes (which will probably get you an hour with commercials). Some rewrites, however, add entirely new and ridiculous scenes, such as adding a conversation about someone’s cellphone losing its signal purely for padding. For the most part, however, Rod Serlings scripts remain in tact.

I’ve listened to a few episodes of The Twilight Zone Radio Dramas, and it makes me wonder why my generation (and quite frankly, the generations immediately prior to mine) grew up without radio shows. They’re engaging, entertaining, and they make for better listening material in the car than that Lady Gaga album you’ve been listening to since November. You can get a 10-episode CD set for $40, although they’re buy one/get one free, so you can technically get 20 episodes for $40. You also have the option of downloading individual episodes for $2 a piece, making this by far the cheapest modern radio series I’ve seen (not that there are too many out there).

There are several ways to view superheroes who have been around for decades. Some prefer to see Spider-Man as a well-balanced everyman, while others see him as exceptionally nerdy. Superman might be an alien pretending to be human, or he could be as human as they come in personality. However, I believe no superhero has created interpretations as divisive as Batman.

When Batman started off in 1939 (well, after the rarely credited Bill Finger fixed a few things), he was donning a gray and black costume. He was dark, mysterious, and frankly more akin to pulp comic heroes like The Shadow or The Spirit. He also carried a gun and wasn’t afraid to unload a few rounds into whoever had it coming. I don’t know too many fans who gravitate toward this early interpretation, and I’m willing to bet there are quite a few out there who’d call such a version blasphemy if it were to show up in a modern movie or TV show.

In the post-WWII era, the entire comic book industry went through a dramatic change. Batman was too dark for the children, so they attempted to lighten him up piece by piece. They introduced Ace The Bat-Hound, the original Batwoman and Bat-Girl, and this was also the era that had all of those goofy comic covers we all like to laugh at. Some would argue that these attempts to lighten up the ol’ Bat went too far by the 1960’s. Robin’s Aunt Harriet came to live at Wayne Manor, Batman got his own Mxyzptlk-like magic imp named Bat-Mite, and you couldn’t go five issues without some incredibly stupid shit happening. This era was remembered as one where Batman started wearing blue, and I’m sure we all remember a certain TV show starring Adam West.

Shake what your mother gave you, old chum

It wasn’t long before Batman was brought back to his more noir days, though. While most people like to credit Frank Miller for making Batman dark again with his over the top portrayal in The Dark Knight Returns, I think a lot of credit should go to writer/artist team Dennis O’Neil and Neal Adams. Though Batman continued to wear a blue cape & cowl throughout the 70’s, the comics became much darker in tone, with Batman being treated once again as a serious character.

Because of these dramatic shifts in character portrayal, Batman has had many different forms when he appears in other media. Tim Burton’s movies made Batman a dark and mysterious character in a world gone mad. Joel Schmacher’s movies made Batman a snarky yet conflicted man in a world not only gone mad, but in love with its own neon insanity. Christopher Nolan’s movies have made Batman a focused man of conviction in an increasingly corrupt city. Cartoons have ranged everywhere from pulp hero to walking joke. The animated world established by Bruce Timm, Paul Dini, and Dwayne McDuffie alone has shown Batman do everything from futilely fighting organized crime, to defeating evil goddesses by singing Billie Holliday.

Yet there are fans out there who insist that their favorite version of Batman is the only correct version of Batman. I’ve known people to flip out at the mere sight of Batman in a blue cape, and I’ve heard complaints of the character being too brutal in a fight.

“Why the hell is this new cartoon funny?! Batman’s not funny!”

“Why did Batman let him die at the end of the movie? Batman doesn’t let people die!”

It’s not that simple with Batman. He has too many faces to pin him down to only one interpretation. You’re free to choose your favorite, but try to remember that other versions of the character aren’t going to change the stories you’ve already read or watched. There are too many ways to see Batman for any one to be truly wrong…

…except for the Knightfall-era. That period where Bruce’s back was broken and Jean-Paul Valley was Batman? Utter shit.

This movie doesn’t begin with the luxury of peace and tranquility. There is darkness. There is thunder. And yes, there is also blood.

That’s gonna hurt tomorrow

The Amazons are at war with the army of Ares god of War. Amazons, men, and beasts are getting slaughtered left and right. Right off the bat, it’s clear that maybe you should exercise caution when showing this movie to small children. Of course, the gore is minimal, so don’t expect the violence to be up to 300 standards.

Soon we’re introduced to Hippolyta, queen of the Amazons:

From the way she starts tossing dudes around left and right, it’s established that the feats of strength we’ll be seeing Wonder Woman perform later in the movie won’t be unique to her. Apparently all Amazons are incredibly strong, and Queen Hippolyta is the baddest mamma-jamma of the bunch.

See the way her lasso returns in a perfect loop? Respect.

Hippolyta finds Ares himself, and (after she calls him bad in bed) a vicious fight ensues. Hippolyta kicks Ares in the face. Ares punches Hippolyta across the room and into a pillar. Seriously folks, the action here is pretty good for an animated movie.

Back on the battlefield, a couple of Amazons named Artemis and Persephone (not to be confused with the goddesses of the same names) compete in killing male soldiers. Meanwhile, an Amazon who’s more philosopher than warrior named Alexa is getting her ass kicked.

Persephone and Artemis save Alexa’s life a few times, but Alexa’s habit of running away accidentally gets one of Persephone’s eyes slashed, partially blinding her. Meanwhile, Hippolyta and Ares’ illegitimate son is slaughtering Amazons left and right. When Ares points this out, Hippolyta reenters the battlefield and decapitates her murderous rape-baby.

You know he dead!

Hippolyta then beats the crap out of a grieving Ares, and is mere seconds away from putting him out of his godly misery until the clouds part and the mighty Zeus tells Hippolyta to stop. Ares is, after all, one of Zeus’ many many many children. Hera also appears in the sky, and promises to punish Ares by allowing the Amazons to keep him prisoner for all eternity. A pair of bracelets are then placed on Ares’ wrists that prevent him from using his powers. Hera also decides to give the Amazons a new beginning by placing them on a hidden island where they can rebuild their lives.

Marg Helgenberger provides the voice of Hera, and I’ve got to say she provides the worst, most phoned in performance in the entire movie. So far Alfred Molina is doing a good Ares, Virginia Madsen a good Hippolyta, Vicki Lewis a decent enough Persephone, Tara Strong as good as ever as Alexa, and Rosario Dawson finds an almost surprisingly good mix of humorous bravado and ferocity as Artemis. David McCallum also does well with his brief role as Zeus. Helgenberger as Hera? Totally phoned in.

Time passes, and we see Hippolyta form the shape of an infant child out of clay. She cuts herself and places some of her own blood onto the clay statue, making it her of own flesh. The clouds part in the sky, and the light of the gods strikes the statue, making it a real child. Diana is born.

And I’m unimpressed. I wasn’t expecting beasts and creatures from across the island to gather as Hippolyta holds her child over a cliff for all to see, but a little fanfare for the birth of the title character would’ve been nice. Instead, we’re treated to 3 seconds of the baby crying before fading to the title.

Years have passed, and Diana is now a young woman whose hair sticks out a little too far from her head.

Seriously, comb it down a little.

Diana and Artemis have a friend sparring match, and it’s made clear that Diana is the better fighter. Hippolyta walks in on the match, and Diana asks her why even bother training if there’s no one to fight. Diana even suggests (and whimpy bookworm Alexa backs her up) that maybe it’s time they rejoined the outside world. To show Diana just how evil men really are, she finally takes Diana to Ares’ prison cell to see how twisted and cruel the Y-chromosome is.

By the way, one-eyed Persephone is the guard who’s been watching over Ares for centuries. This will come up later during his inevitable escape.

Just above the Amazons’ invisible island of Themyscira, Colonel Steve Trevor and a couple of other fighter pilots take the audience right into the danger zone. A dog fight ensues in the air, which ends with Steve as the only survivor in a damaged jet. Steve flies right through Themyscira before landing in the middle of one of their rivers. His arrival doesn’t go unnoticed (especially since Hippolyta and Artemis watched the entire jet fight through a magic mirror), and a group of Amazon soldiers chase him down. It’s Diana (who may or may not be able to fly– this is never made clear) who finds and confronts and captures him.

Now tied up and held prisoner, Steve gets the lasso of truth wrapped around him as Queen Hippolyta interrogates. This scene is used to establish the lasso’s ability (which we’d only seen used as a regular lasso til this point), but it also breaks up the tension in the scene when Hippolyta inadvertently forces Steve to admit Diana has amazing boobs. Hey, I laughed. This also sets up the movie’s first running gag, which is Steve saying the word “crap” and Diana getting offended by it.

Since Steve Trevor poses no threat to the Amazons, they’re going to allow him to leave, but not before they choose an emissary to escort him back to the outside world. A tournament is held to decide which of them will do it. I’ll save you another paragraph or two of tedious details and just tell you that Diana won.

Meanwhile, Alexa has joined Persephone on guard duty while every other Amazon on the island is either participating in or watching the tournament. When Alexa turns her back to read a book, Persephone sneaks behind her and kills her.

“That’s for my eye, bitch!” -What Persephone should’ve said.

Persephone then frees Ares, and the two passionately kiss. Yeah, turns out she fell in love with him while guarding him all these centuries.

By the way, the comic reader in me can’t help but point out the absence of bracelets on the Amazons’ wrists. In the comics, all Amazons are forced to wear bracelets by the goddess Athena as a reminder that they had once allowed themselves to be taken advantage of by men and chained up. They can never take them off, and they’re completely indestructible. This movie sorta skips over the fact, and the Amazons only wear their bracelets into battle for the explicit purpose of blocking things like arrows with their wrists. Go figure.

Anyway, Diana wins the tournament, and is given a garment designed to resemble the American flag on Steve Trevor’s jacket as a sign of peace. Hippolyta then summons the Invisible Jet– goddess only knows why they know it’s arrived if they can’t see it, and it exists with no explanation. There’s no “we’ve studied your modern aircraft before” or “the gods gave it to us decades ago” reason given. Diana just suddenly has an Invisible Jet, and she’s going to use it to take Steve Trevor back home.

Word is also out that Ares has escaped. As soon as Diana escorts Steve home, she has a second mission to find Ares and bring him back to Themyscira. And now we have the conflict that will carry us into the next Act.

Wonder Woman and Steve Trevor arrive in New York City, and they land the jet in the middle of Central Park, which startles the living hell out of a nearby wino.

Diana gets her first up close look of NYC, and it’s mixed with both good and bad. She’s happy to see children for the first time since she looked in a mirror years ago, but she’s saddened to see a little girl whose guy friends won’t let her play pirates with them unless she pretends to be a damsel in distress. Diana gives the little girl a quick sword fighting lesson, and tells her to “unleash hell” on the little boys. This all makes for a pretty amusing scene, which is topped off with Steve being afraid that cops will think he’s Diana’s pimp if he doesn’t put her in some regular clothes.

What follows is a scene you’re about to endure a small rant about:

That vacuous blonde holding Steve Trevor’s arm is Etta Candy. Etta Candy! See, whereas Etta Candy in the comics is a capable if not slightly curvy Air Force officer who becomes Diana’s best friend and is a little Amazon-like herself, the version who appears in this movie is a skinny little bitch whose idea of flirting with Steve is pretending she can’t reach the pencil under her desk unless a big strong man moves the desk for her. Really?! THIS is the Etta Candy we’re given? They’ve ditched the friendly soldier with a love for chocolates for this?! Are they freaking kidding us? To make a comparison, I want you to picture Superman’s buddy Jimmy Olsen as a gun-toting maniac. Now picture Batman’s butler Alfred as an aging hipster. Seems weird and out of character, doesn’t it? That’s because you don’t do this shit to the superhero’s best friend!

Anyway, Steve and Diana get access to some computers at the Air Force base to try to track down Ares. They find a trail of escalated crime and violence, and figure that’s likely the general sense of fear and hate that Ares leaves in his wake just from walking by. A definite pattern hasn’t yet formed, however, so Steve and Diana will need to wait a while before they can pinpoint Ares’ location.

Until then, it’s time for tequila shots!

No, seriously.

With Diana holding her liquor like a champ, a sloppily drunken Steve tries to move in for a kiss, but instead misses and hits the floor. After thinking Steve tried to get her drunk to take advantage of her, Diana storms out of the bar and into an alley. Steve quickly follows, but the pair is confronted by a group of muggers. Diana tosses around the muggers a little, which turns Steve on a little. But if you thought the action in this scene ends with Diana kicking a few thugs around, you’re wr–

OH MY GODS, MONSTER!

For the next few minutes, Diana and the monster Deimos proceed to beat the living shit out of one another.

The fight ends with Deimos killing himself so he won’t have to submit to the lasso of truth. They find a medallion in Deimos’ remains that bears the symbol of Tartarus, the hellish portion of the Greek afterlife. Diana knows where the gate to Tartarus is, and that’s where they’ll find Ares.

Sure enough, Ares is at the gates of Tartarus, preparing to make a blood sacrifice to the god Hades to gain entrance. Diana and Steve try to stop him, but Ares casts a verbal spell to unleash the stone harpies in the temple. When Diana tries to fight Ares head-on, she’s taken by surprise from a harpy that sneaks up behind her. The harpy crushes Diana, but Steve saves her life by throwing a grenade in its mouth. With Diana already unconscious, Steve is knocked out by the explosion, and there’s nobody to stop Ares from entering Tartarus.

In Tartarus, Ares meets with his uncle Hades (god of the dead), who looks more like he eats the dead.

That is the ugliest transvestite I’ve ever seen.

Because Ares needs another god to remove his bracelets, he asks Hades to do it in exchange for more dead slaves once he sparks a new war on Earth that will surely kill millions. Hades agrees to do it, but not before taunting Ares by abusing the soul of his dead son (the guy Hippolyta killed at the beginning of the movie).

Elsewhere, Steve has checked Diana into a hospital. Diana wakes up to find that Steve didn’t stop Ares, and instead chose to save her life. She accuses him of being sexist, and says he wouldn’t have saved her life if she were a man. Steve gets fed up with all of the verbal abuse he’s had to deal with since he first crashed on Themyscira, and yells at Diana for making so many assumptions about men after having barely met any. He then lets it slip that he cares about her. Steve then moves in for another kiss, but is instead met with a hard slap across the face. Diana then gets out of bed, puts on her costume, and prepares to go into battle.

In Washington DC, Ares has assembled an army, and they’re ready to begin a war that should leave the entire human race… well, extinct. The US government notices this, and send the military to stop him. But that’s not all! Hippolyta and Artemis brought their own army as well, and an all-out battle is about to begin in DC!

The US president is informed that an island (Themyscira) has spontaneously appeared, and they (incorrectly) believe Ares’ mystical forces originated there. To retaliate, the president launches a nuke at Themyscira. Steve Trevor sees the missile launch, hops in the invisible jet, and chases after it. Not only that, but the launching of a nuclear weapon is an act so destructive that it fills Ares with more power than ever before, turning him into a god with the powers of other gods.

Ares uses his newfound abilities to command the dead, and creates a new army of undead Amazons. Among the undead Amazons is Alexa, who immediately finds and fights Artemis. As the two fight, Alexa keeps repeating a strange phrase. Artemis realizes this is a spell, and says it herself. The spell releases the dead Amazons from Ares’ control. It turns out Alexa learned the spell from the constant reading she did while alive, and even as a zombie she still had enough free will to tell it to Artemis so she could set her free.

And then Ares sends the dead Amazons back to the underworld.

Also, Ares is spending most of this battle kicking Diana’s ass with his new powers. Steve Trevor finds the missiles on the invisible jet and blows up the nuke before it reaches Themyscira. Hippolyta confronts the traitorous Persephone and slays her, but Persephone’s final words are a warning that the Amazons are still women, and they deserve to fall in love.

After getting slapped around for a while, Diana eventually comes up with a plan. She lures Ares into the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool, and tricks him into being struck with one of his own bolts of lightning. While Ares recovers from the shock, Diana grabs a sword and leaps at him. Ares cries out for Zeus to save him like he did before, but…

That’s no way to get ahead in life.

The war is over! Ares is dead! Themyscira is safe! Steve Trevor finally gets his kiss! But most surprising of all, Hades has turned Ares into one of his dead slaves, satisfied as if he knew all along that Ares would get himself killed.

You clever old double-wide tranny, you.

Later on, we’re back at Themyscira. After realizing the value of reading, Artemis is forcing herself to go through some of the old books in Themyscira’s library. She and Hippolyta notice that Diana has been miserable ever since returning, so Hippolyta gets an idea. She tells Diana that she’s giving her a new mission to be Themyscira’s ambassador to the rest of the world, as it’s time to “open the lines of communication between man and woman.”

Look who got herself a secret identity.

Diana is back in New York, apparently living with Steve Trevor. She still has trouble accepting his chivalrous acts like holding a door open, though. But when trouble is afoot, she springs into action– now finally being referred to by the public as Wonder Woman!

So there you have it. The origin of Wonder Woman has been put to animation, and I’ve got to say it was pretty good. There were a few missteps along the way, and a lot of things were changed or just plain excluded like the origins of the Amazons. Overall, however, the whole package comes together nicely. The animation is smooth, the action is hard-hitting without getting gruesome, you get a pretty good idea of who most of the characters are, and the story moves along at a nice quick pace without moving too quickly. The whole “Amazons think all men are evil” thing gets old after a while, but the writers at least had the decency to break it up with Steve Trevor’s monologue.

If you like a good action movie (even an animated one) that isn’t mindless but also isn’t exactly complex in its story, and you don’t mind an action hero who’s “just a girl,” and for whatever reason you’re one of the few people who hasn’t seen this movie since it came out in March, then I definitely recommend it.

By the way, in case you were wondering, I totally ripped off that first line from Wonder Woman #14, as written by Gail Simone.

The Doctor (Matt Smith) and companion Amy Pond (Karen Gillan)

New TARDIS exterior design

The Doctor and the TARDIS

Amy Pond

Professor River Song (Alex Kingston)

Photos courtesy of The Daily Mail and The Sun.

Writer: Zeb Wells
Penciler: Diogenes Neves
Publisher: Marvel

Legion is back, and his many personalities fully intend to kill everyone who defeated him the first time– starting with Danielle Moonstar. Thanks to a mishap with the local townfolk and M-Day, Dani is now powerless and trapped in a city jail cell. Legion is now free and knows where she is. How will Dani survive?

Fair warning: My reviews often summarize entire issues, and are thus heavy on spoilers.

The issue begins with Legion’s Jack Wayne personality taunting Dani, threatening to rape her before he kills her. Despite being powerless, however, Dani is more angry than fearful, and tells him to bring it on! This scenario is rendered a bit moot, however, when Cannonball and Sunspot come blasting through the walls and dropkick Legion into next week. Dani thanks her teammates for the rescue, but then Sam does something incredibly stupid. He thinks that Dani is safe locked inside of the jail cell that Legion just had her cornered in, and decides not to let her out. Needless to say, Dani is a little upset.

Cannonball: Heap Big Bastard

What follows is Sam & Bobby tag-teaming against Legion and his many personalities. One of those personalities sits on the ground and begs for the duo not to hurt him, but is secretly using his powers to remotely attack Dani in the jail. With nowhere to run, Dani is nearly impaled through the head, but is quickly rescued by Magma and Magik. After realizing that Dani is still under attack, Sam and Bobby rush back to the jail, but Sam is greeted by Dani’s left hook to the jaw. Dani then runs out to find herself enough guns to give Rob Liefeld a chubby.

That’s for the smallpox-infected blankets!

Magik remembers that Karma’s mind is still trapped inside of Legion, and decides that maybe it’s time to rescue her. Sam & Bobby inform her that everyone who goes near Karma’s body becomes pulled in to Legion’s mind via Karma’s mental powers, and warn Magik to stay away. Magik doesn’t listen, and teleports to Karma’s body. She immediately gets pull in to Legion, and becomes trapped among Legion’s many personalities. She then summons her soul sword and kills a few of her more hostile mind-mates.

First of all, I want to commend Neves on not only drawing Legion’s freaky signature eyebrows, but drawing a few close-up panels that make his eyes look like how most artists draw Professor Xavier’s. It’s not often you can look at a comic book character’s relative and think “yeah, that’s definitely his son.” I also have to give credit to Adam Kubert and Justin Ponsor for the cover, which features a humorous amount of guns and a few John Woo doves for good measure.

As for the story, Wells is crafting not only a reunion of some old characters, but he’s clearly recalling as much old continuity as possible. Not only do the characters reference specific details from their pasts (some of which eludes me, but doesn’t make the story any less enjoyable), but Sunspot is actually being called “Bobby” again instead of “Berto.”

Writers: Dan Slott, Christos N. Gage
Penciler: Khoi Pham
Publisher: Marvel

After an amusing battle of egos between Hank Pym and Reed Richards, Hank now has everything he needs to transport the Avengers to their new pocket dimension base. Jocasta has fully integrated into the new base’s computer systems, and the team is both eager and cautious at what their new home could possibly be. However, we must first go back to the history of the modern day Inhumans to uncover a dirty little secret no one has mentioned in years, and how it could shake the planet to its core.

Fair warning: My reviews often summarize entire issues, and are thus heavy on spoilers.

Our story begins many years ago, when many of our favorite Inhumans such as Black Bolt, Medusa, and Karnak were still teenagers. The king at the time was beloved and feared, but there was a problem. A device known only as the “Slave Engine” would have provided the city of Attilan with enough power to shine as a great example to the rest of the world, rather than hide in the snow. However, the king (whose name is redacted throughout this story) hid the Slave Engine because it gave Attilan too much power. This upset Prince Black Bolt, who (along with Karnak, Gorgon, and his girlfriend Medusa) confronted the king, dethroned him, and had one of Black Bolt’s signature sweet nothings whispered into his ear (which supposedly killed him, of course).

That brings us to the present day. USAgent and Quicksilver have been tracking an incredibly powerful Inhuman signature in China. Quicksilver sees who it is, and (having once been married into the Inhuman royal family and knowing their history) recognizes the Inhuman man as “The Unspoken,” a powerful dethroned king whose very name has been outlawed. The People’s Defense Force of China confront the Unspoken, as he’s trespassing in Chinese territory, but the Unspoken easily dispatches them. It’s very clear that USAgent and Quicksilver are going to need a lot of help.

Meanwhile, Hank Pym has unveiled the Avengers’ new base: The Infinite Avengers Mansion. Existing in a dimension all its own, the Infinite Mansion seems to go on forever. Its doors all lead to different locations on Earth, and Pym has the ability to create more doors in the future. As for Jocasta, she has multiple spare bodies scattered throughout the mansion. There’s a different body for every mile down the hallway, and each one has a different fashionable style. Jarvis nearly has an anxiety attack until Jocasta informs him the Infinite Mansion is self-cleaning.

There’s a better image, but I’m not editing a 2-page spread together.

The storylines in Mighty Avengers aren’t exactly evenly divided. Slott (and now also Gage) clearly aren’t writing for trade paperback convenience, and good for them for that. Plot threads carry across multiple issues, and although this is technically the beginning of a new storyline, it picks up from the cliffhanger at the end of the previous issue. Cassie’s issues with Scarlet Witch (who is still just Loki in disguise) resurface, as Cassie spies “Wanda” exploring the Infinite Mansion. It’s a great blend of stories and plot threads, and it’s making each issue feel unskippable.

Pham returns to art in this issue, after several issues of substitute artists. Though I’d love to see Rafa Sandoval return to this series, I still like Khoi Pham, who suits this series. I’m a big fan of classic style superhero stories with interesting characters that are unmarred by politics and inconceivable premises (I’m thinking of Civil War and Osborn’s Dark Avengers respectively), and I recommend this series for anyone who feels the same.