Welcome back to This Week in Comics, my reviews of whichever comics I’ve bought for the week. As always, reviews contain SPOILERS. If you can’t stand the spoilers, get out of the kitchen.

Booster Gold #20 | Captain Britain and MI-13 #13 | Lockjaw and the Pet Avengers #1 of 4 | X-Factor #43

BOOSTER GOLD #20
Writer: Keith Giffen
Pencilers: Pat Olliffe, Dan Jurgens
Publisher: DC

Booster Gold and Rip Hunter are looking for Booster’s sister Goldstar in the time stream, but Rip’s time sphere has broken down. While Rip repairs it, Booster grabs a handheld time device and decides to kill some time by living out his Happy Days dreams by visiting the year 1952. Upon his arrival in a small Nevada town, he’s immediately spotted by Task Force X, aka The Suicide Squad. Booster made the mistake of arriving the the height of McCarthyism, when all of the classic superheroes (such as the original Justice Society) were outlawed for not revealing their identities to the government. Because Task Force X is in the midst of a covert operation that even the US government can’t know about, they decide to keep Booster’s presence quiet under the condition that he helps them expose a Communist spy. The operation goes bad, but it’s more or less a success. Booster travels back to Rip’s time sphere, and Rip helps Booster pull off a wacky Happy Days reference.

This was mostly a filler/guest issue, where Jurgens surrendered writing duties to Giffen for a fun little story. Jurgens also draws very little of this issue, leaving a majority of the art to Olliffe. Presumably, Jurgens will get back to writing and art duties next month, when the story of Booster’s runaway sister continues. Despite interrupting the current story arc, this was a well written issue with a well thought out story, and a little bit of that rare post-Golden Age/pre-Silver Age love.

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CAPTAIN BRITAIN AND MI-13 #13
Writer: Paul Cornell
Pencilers: Ardian Syaf, Leonard Kirk
Publisher: Marvel

With vampires no longer magically banned from Britain, Dracula launches his undead armada from the Moon. Pete Wisdom asks for aid from the United States, but Norman Osborn answers the call, and refuses to help due to his secret agreement with Dr. Doom, who is himself allied with Dracula. Hank Pym’s Avengers team attempts to help, but Dracula has erected a magically barrier that is preventing anyone but Dracula’s forces from entering. Meanwhile, Lady Jacqueline seems to have finally come under Dracula’s mind control, and is one of the generals leading the vampiric army. MI-13 receives a message from Lady Jac, which they know must be a trap. When they meet with Lady Jac, she surrounded them with vampires, manages to knock Captain Britain outside of the magical barrier (possibly cutting him off from his powers, as well), and apparently kills everyone but Blade. Dracula seems to have single-handedly killed the whole of Parliament, and declares victory.

Things are looking bad for MI-13. With the entire team dead or otherwise disposed of, and the UK’s government literally bleeding to death, it looks like there is nothing in Dracula’s way. However, I wouldn’t be surprised if the deaths of MI-13’s members turned out to be some sort of ruse, and they were all back in commission by the end of the next issue. Still, one thing I admire Cornell for is having the balls to decimate the United Kingdom on a regular basis. With most superhero stories, part of a city block will get damaged during a fight, with the entire nation being threatened during one of the larger crossovers. This is the second time since this series’ launch that Britain has been successfully invaded. Much like that first story, we’re also seeing the (likely temporary) death of at least one main character. This was a pretty intense issue, and the tag teaming artists work well together.

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LOCKJAW AND THE PET AVENGERS #1 OF 4
Writer: Chris Eliopoulos
Penciler: Ig Guara
Publisher: Marvel

The Infinity Gems, the six most powerful objects in the universe, are missing. Mr. Fantastic believes one of the gems may be on the Moon, and so asks the Inhumans (who are still living there at this point) to help him find them. Lockjaw, their large teleporting dog, finds one of the gems, but is shooed away by Medusa before he can show it to Mr. Fantastic. Lockjaw decides that his best option is the find the Infinity Gems himself, with the help of some of the most powerful super-pets on Earth. He first recruits Throg, a man who was magically turned into a frog, then used a fraction of Thor’s hammer to turn into a talking amphibious Thor-frog. Lockjaw and Throg then go to Xavier’s School (which was still up and running at this point) to recruit Lockheed, Shadowcat’s pet dragon. Lockheed is heartbroken at Shadowcat’s recent death, but decides to help them anyway. They next find Redwing, the pet bird of Falcon from the Avengers. They then track down Niels (aka Hairball), Robby Baldwin’s pet cat that also got superpowers in the accident that turned him into Speedball. Aunt May’s dog Ms. Lion (who it turns out is really a boy, but doesn’t seem to mind the name or bows in his hair) tags along on the basis that his master’s nephew is Spider-Man. Lockjaw teleports the whole team to the Savage Land, where the next gem is. They find the gem, but also run into a T-Rex.

Grab the kids, folks. This is a comic for the whole family, and it’s just plain fun. Despite being animals, the team consists of the types of character’s you’d expect from a classic superhero comic. Lockjaw makes for a strong and silent leader, Throg is basically Thor trapped in Kermit’s body, and Hairball is the guy who gets all the one-liners. Falcon is a bit of an jerk, though, with his belief that animals that fly are superior to all other forms of life. Guara provides art not unlike what you’d see in a more serious comic, but manages to keep things silly enough to make the more visual humor work. If there’s any non-Marvel Adventures comic I’d recommend you give to your kid, younger sibling, or niece/nephew, this would be it.

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X-FACTOR #43
Writer: Peter David
Pencilers: Marco Santucci, Valentine DeLandro
Publisher: Marvel

Longshot is in the midst of protecting X-Factor’s client, when they’re suddenly attacked by the client’s mother. Longshot’s luck powers cause the woman’s gun to backfire, saving the client, but putting her mother in the hospital. Meanwhile, in the future, Jamie meets the all new, all cyborg Cyclops. Cyclops and Layla acquaint him with the environment of the future, while Jamie and the now adult Layla start to fall in love. Cyclops then informs Jamie that something bad may have happened to a teammate of theirs named Hecat’e, and he needs Jamie’s detective skills to find out what it was. Back in the past, Monet tries to examine the mind of their client’s mother, but falls under mind control herself. Elsewhere, Rictor and Guido have tracked down Jamie’s dupe John, and they begin to ask him about what happened to Jamie when they’re suddenly attacked by a mind controlled Shatterstar.

This is a very action packed issue, and the story of who or whatever “Cortex” is seems to be building up. Jamie’s adventure in the future appears to be completely separate, though engaging all the same. As usual, Santucci and DeLandro have divided art duties based on the time period each scene takes place in. Their art styles are clearly distinct, but similar enough for the transition not to be completely jarring. I hope this art team stays on the book for a while, though I’d still be a lot happier if the colorists did a better job with certain characters.