Comics

They’re B-a-a-a-a-ck!  The comedic duo of Booster Gold and the Blue Beetle reunite as Booster travels back in time to save his best friend.  The DCU will never be the same.

The All-New Booster Gold #6
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“Booster Gold, the future of Ted Kord depends on you!”

For five issues Booster Gold has saved the world, the DC Universe, and time itself.  But now, without the help of Rip Hunter who refuses to be a part of the endeavor, Booster travels back in time with three Blue Beetles from different time periods to save his friend Ted Kord from being killed by Maxwell Lord.

Dan Garrett, Jamie Reyes, and an unknown Blue Beetle from a future timeline show up to stop a time disturbance the Scarab has detected and help Booster save his friend’s life.  The threesome show up in the futuristic time sphere with the ability to make Solidified Time malleable enough to change.

The foursome travel back into the past to a castle in the Swiss Alps and are successful in changing time and preventing the death of Ted Kord.  The reuniting of the two heroes is great including a fun short discussion the two have while battling Lord’s troops involving his purposeful attempts to make the Justice League ineffectual.  Heh.

The issue ends with the group returning to present time with the understanding that Ted Kord must appear to remain dead in order to preserve history.  So now the greatest hero the world has never known on a mission to save time has become the two greatest heroes the world will never know.

We’ll have to wait until the next issue to see the ramifications of rescuing Ted Kord, including what actions Rip Hunter must now take and what they have to do with Booster’s ancestor, but for now I’m just happy to have the pair back and in action together.

One of Season Five’s best episodes from Angel (read our Season Five DVD review) involved Angel’s transformation into a puppet.  Well, now it’s Spike’s turn!  The recent mini-series from Brian Lynch and Franco Urru is now available in a trade paperback which includes an army of puppet ninjas, a telepathic fish, a guy with a giant brain and a helper monkey, oh, and did I mention Spike is turned into a Wee Little Puppet Man!

Spike: Shadow Puppets
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“No, No, No…I’m a…I’m a…Wee Little Puppet Man!”

 

“I feel as though I should be on a lily pad with a banjo.”

The story follows Lorne and Spike making a trip to Japan where the Smile Time demons have set up a new base of operations.  On arriving in the Land of the Rising Sun the pair are immediately attacked by a horde of puppet ninjas (how cool is that!), and their reunion with Beck and Betta George (introduced in Spike: Asylum and their new ninja pal Tok Shinobu.  Together the team makes a run on the Smile Time Japan facility, but it seems Spike, Lorne and Beta George take a small wrong turn and end up in the “Don’t Room.”

Those familiar with Season Five‘s “Smile Time” (and if you’re not, why did you pick up this book?  how did you even find it?) know what that means.  The threesome find themselves puppetized, and then the fun can begin in earnest.  Brian Lynch captures Spike’s spirit, insecurities and insanity (all exponentially maximized in Puppet Spike).  Puppet Spike is quite a bit of fun to watch, as is the comic relief of Puppet Lorne.  Franco Urru‘s drawings are the perfect fit for the zaniness and the madcap puppet savagery unleashed.

I love how this book gets crazier and manic as it goes along.  Spike takes on puppet ninjas, then is turned into a puppet, then is forced to take on puppets made to look like Angelus, Fred, Gunn, Wesley, Drusilla, and others.  Through all of this our hero takes hits to his pride and vanity along with a real beating including getting his arm ripped off and getting impaled.  Fun, fun, fun!

The trade paperback also contains a short writer’s commentary where Lynch discusses some of the hidden jokes of the script and background props (my favorite by the way is the Angel puppet hanging by a noose in Spike’s apartment early in the tale).  Also included are all the covers for the mini-series, which I always appreciate being included in collections like this.

 

Fans of the show, and fans of Spike in particular, will really enjoy this tale.  Although you don’t need to have read Spike: Asylum or seen “Smile Time” to enjoy the read, both are referred to and built on in this new story and fans who have experience with both will get the most out of it.

Faith’s arc now finished, Buffy creator Joss Whedon returns to Buffy the Vampire Slayer Season 8 for a this one-shot tale of relationships and consequences of choices long past.  Here’s the review for “Anywhere but Here.”

Buffy the Vampire Slayer Season 8 #10
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“We could have move on.  Raised Dawnie, moved somewhere nice…but I chose.  I chose to put Tara in a bullet’s path.  I choose you over her.  I can’t do that again…to the woman I love.”

After the Faith arc from Brian K. Vaughn (read more about that here) the season shifts back to our main heroine and the relationships which are at the heart of the Buffyverse.

Joss Whedon returns as well to pen this stand-alone issue which, although it contains action, horror and adventure, its true purpose is to get back to the characters and relationships of Buffy and Willow, and to a lesser extent Xander and Dawn.

Starting out with a humorous dream sequence, the tale jumps into Willow and Buffy’s trip to talk with a demon known as the Sephrilian who can tell them about the future and help them understand the unbalance and coming Twilight.  But be careful what you wish for, especially in the Buffyverse.

What is revealed is a simple truth and stabbing at old wounds.  The death of Tara and Willow’s response bring back issues of trust, friendship, and love as Willow admits to Kennedy and Buffy the worst mistake she ever made, and her reluctance to do anything like it again.

The B story of the issue finally reveals the events which caused Dawn’s growth spurt, although, as with the main tale, the real interest here isn’t the revelation but the reconnection between the two characters who have had some nice moments together including one of my favorites of the entire series involving Xander’s speech to her at the end of “Potential”.

Although the story doesn’t do much to move the season’s main arc along, it does give us a better understanding of the characters and the state of their relationships since the Scoobies left Sunnydale.  The melancholy ending, though foreseeable, fits well with the format of the show and Willow’s discussion here is an important event in the lives of these characters which we finally get to see here on the comic page.  She has come to terms with the choices she’s made (much like Buffy at the beginning of Season Five‘s finale “The Gift”) and realizes the limits of how far she is willing to go in the future.  We’ll see how if her decision holds up, and if Kennedy (nice to finally see her) survives the season.  Anyone want to take odds?