Billionaires Shouldn’t Exist

Because certain concepts, especially involving extremely large numbers, are difficult for us to wrap our heads around we are starting off this review like this:

One million seconds is exactly 11 days, 13 hours, 46 minutes, and 40 seconds (approximately 11.57 days).

To put this in perspective:

·         1 million seconds: ~11.5 days

·         1 billion seconds: ~31.7 years

·         1 trillion seconds: ~31,709.8 years

We’ve done this to demonstrate the massive gap between a million seconds and a trillion seconds. The same can be said about dollars. Having done that, let’s get into this book.

The Graphic Novel, F*ck Billionaires is a 304-page, full-color, oversized (8.25” x 12.25”) hardcover graphic novel written and illustrated by Jim Di Bartolo who is a book, comic, editorial, and freelance mixed media artist who has written and co-written a number of graphic novels.

The story is an edge-of-your seat thriller where the warning “Billionaires should not exist. Get ready.” begins appearing graffitied across skyscrapers worldwide. The one question on everyone’s minds, is who could possibly be writing these messages, Unfortunately, no group is claiming responsibility for these worldwide coordinated threats how serious should they be taken? How was it even possible for someone to scale these massive skyscrapers to paint the messages on the side of the buildings all around the world apparently instantaneously,

Needless to say, the very smug and complacent top one percent ignore it, determining that it’s a hoax. That they are safe and absolutely protected by their own money, standing, and bunkers. However, much to their dismay, they won't be ignoring it for long. F*ck Billionaires is twist-filled whodunit/howdunit kick in the teeth to the ubar-wealthy elite, told in the form of a 300-page, full color, oversized, hardcover graphic novel.

The story begins with an attractive, well-dressed blonde woman (whom we later learn is Valerie Cooper, a morning newscaster) approaching a well-dressed man (Leo Vargas, whom we later learn is an F.B.I. agent) in a coffee shop. After some light flirtation between them, they get their coffee and donuts and exit the shop, only to be confronted by the first graffitied skyscraper. From here the story grows exponentially as Agent Vargas and his team attempt to track down who is behind the messaging, and Valerie sits behind her news desk reporting on the contusing graffitiing of skyscrapers around the world. Meanwhile we also see how these “incidents” are affecting the wealthy and powerful.

As the story unfolds, we are randomly treated to how people on social media are reacting to the various elements of the story. Everything from showing support for whoever is posting the messages, to showing sympathy for the 1%ers (“Hey, billionaires are people also, they deserve what they have.”) Still, perhaps the best part of this part of the story is not so much the “posts” themselves, but the often misspelled or abbreviated words used in the posts.

The story continues to play out on four levels, first, we have Valerie operating in her role as a morning news anchor holding roundtables on her show with various experts (politicians, billionaires, security experts, etc.) to discuss the implications of the messaging. Second, there is Agent Vega and the F.B.I. attempting to unravel the cryptic messing and determine who is doing it and why. And then there are the Billionaires themselves who are alternating between circling their wagons, defending their position as industry leaders, and using their own muscle to root out the culprits. Finally, there are vignettes of everyday people whose lives are made worse by the fact that the running elites are sucking up all the resources and making their lives miserably and significantly worse. Along with these everyday folks there is an independent blogger who is also following the story and reporting on aspects of it not covered by corporate media.

Then, just in case you haven’t as of yet figured out on which side of this argument Di Bartolo is on, he goes way out of his way to make it crystal clear by not only illustrating the billionaires with far less than flattering features (they often have rugged, cragged, or even cruel faces), but they are given nasty-sounding names (Nicolas Lister, Manuel Hines, Albert Nazl, Kendall Squigi, and the like). He also depicts them doing evil and cruel things.

As the story progresses, the billionaires begin to die in the most grewsome of ways (violently, decapitation, defenestration—love that word—and always very messy). Sometimes in private behind locked doors, sometimes publicly in front of numerous people, but never by anyone identifiable, and always in some impossible fashion. Always, Agent Vargas and his team are one step behind, and Val Cooper is analyzing the attacks on national TV. No one knows what is happening (or how), but the bodies keep piling up, and the skyscraper messages keep appearing. Meanwhile “regular” folk weigh in on the crisis (even though they don’t know anything) while the billionaires themselves rail about how unjustly they are being treated, while they demand that their security (and the politicians they’ve paid off) protect them.

The story grows more and more tense as the body count increases with no clues as to who is doing this, or what their motivation is (other than that billionaires themselves simply shouldn’t exist. To his credit, Di Bartolo keeps the tension up throughout the book, alternating the lighthearted moments of romance between Cooper and Vargas, with the terror of not knowing who is doing the killing or how it is being done, the backroom mechanizations of the billionaires and their lackies to stay ahead of the killer, and the FBI Investigation teams. This story is truly an edge-of-your-seat thriller in a way that most comics and graphic novels are never able to achieve.

It isn’t until about three-quarters of the way through the book that we, the readers, get our first glimpse of who is doing the killings, why it is being done, or even how they are being accomplished—and let me tell you that you simply won’t see any of it coming. It is genuinely, that out-of-the-box amazing. To reveal any more would be to ruin the unadulterated fun of the tale. So, if you were unfortunate enough to miss the Kickstarter, I strongly recommend you hurry over to their web store and pick yourself a copy.

As an illustrator, author, and fine artist Di Bartolo has contributed covers, artwork, and interior art to most major book publishing houses including Scholastic, GRAPHIX, Marvel Comics, Penguin Random House, Little, Brown Books, Abrams, Dark Horse, IMAGE Comics, and others. He has done commissions and sold his work to private collections.

Oh, and one last thing, when Di Bartolo sent out the graphic novels to backers, he apparently forgot to autograph them, so several weeks after the book arrived, I received a letter containing an explanation and a sticker with a printed signature on it with instructions as to where in the book to place it. Seriously, how totally cool is that?

Almost forgot, because I was a backer to the original Kickstarter push, I was also sent this very cool F*ck Billionaires patch that will most assuredly wind up on my vest. 

 

 

Lenovation’s Section 12 and More

     

Lenovations, the Indie comicbook company from Len Mihalovich recently announced that they will start being distributed through Philbo Distribution. “Lenovations Press has officially entered comic shop distribution through Philbo Distribution, beginning with Section 12 #1. The 48-page issue is currently available for retailer orders in Philviews Catalog #16, with a Final Order Cutoff of December 1 and an in-store date of January 13, 2027.” The Section 12 series was created by Len in ‘94 and first published by Dilemma Productions as part of an anthology from that company. It then appeared in its own series from Mythic Comics. The Section 12 series told us about super-powered individuals who are being forced to work for a secret government agency that’s keeping scientific failures from the public eye.

    Given all that above, we’d like to begin this slate of reviews by writing about Section 12 (Megasize) Flashback; 2025 (which reprints the first four issues of the Flashback series, which originally appeared in 2018). This series presents us with the origins of the secret governmental organization tasked with housing the results of botched scientific experimentation. While some of you may have caught these stories the first time around (not me), others (like me) may have read Len’s prose novelization of those issues which he published in 2025. Here we learn that Army Lieutenant Michael Batterson had volunteered for a special project that unfortunately turned him into a monster Hulk-like creature full of rage. Even though he was given a suppressor drug, it only lasts for about nine hours, and then he reverts into his (now) natural state.

    The complex is under the command of the iron-willed Whitney Thorne who promptly puts Batterson to work when a breakout at the facility occurs. Over the course of those first four issues, Batterson cobles together a team of the “rejects” so that they can travel around the U.S. to corral other “mistakes” and cart them back to the Section 12 facility. We had previously reviewed the novel here.

    A second comic we have here is Section 12 Lost Adventures #8 (which gives us a back story from the team’s past. This particular story, titled Road Rash Dash has the Section 12 team become characters in a videogame in order to beta test some new security software. Once inside the game, they must free themselves by racing each other and face strange but familiar foes in a bizarre virtual world. Truthfully, this is a rather off-beat issue, but not entirely without its own charm.

    

    Next up is Lenovations Press Unmasked (2025) which is a first character directory that features nearly 100 character profiles, exploring heroes, villains, and supporting casts of the Lenovations universe (much akin to the versions developed by Marvel, DC, and other comicbook companies. This edition covers characters from Section 12, Edge of Adventure, guest characters, and more.

    The Lenovations comic Uneven Ground #1 goes in a very different direction in that it delivers a pair of historic stories from WWII about a Colonel Draža Mihailović (who may or may not be related to Len), who fought for Yugoslavia against the Germans. Based on true events, this powerful debut comic follows the resistance leader who fights against an overwhelming force, even though his country has already fallen to the invader. So, without a king, an army, or even a country behind him, Colonel Mihailović led his rag-tag forces (comprised of solders, farmers, and townspeople against the Axis. One man who refused to surrender but chose to stand up and fight. Giving us a nearly forgotten chapter of WWII comes to life in this stirring first issue. The comic delivers two tales, a new one, as one that was reprinted from Real Heroes #6 from 1942.

    The final comic we’ll be discussing here is The Edge of Adventure (Mega) #1 which is an anthology comicbook that explores westerns, public-domain heroes, golden age crimefighters, historical tales, and standalone adventures outside of their main Section 12 universe. This particular issue collects the first four issues of the regular title featuring the Old West historical figure, Buffalo Bill, and his traveling show. These stories are written in a much lighter vein than the Section 12 stories, and offer up un-apologetically historically inaccurate, tales that are filled with wild west action, circus freaks and strange adventures. What we are treated to are stories where Bill assists the local law enforcement to solve a strange case in which three unrelated town’s people have robbed the local bank. Then one where Bill and the Wild West Show find themselves facing a very dangerous monster. And finally, a story that has Bill and his allies face their most dangerous ambush as they set a trap to stop an armored stagecoach on a rampage across Colorado.

    All the stories from these comics, as well as other Lenovations Press comics (which I reviewed over here) are all highly entertaining and thoroughly engaging, all of which helps bolster our initial point that Indie comics are every bit as readable as corporate comics, and quite often better, as Indie books are driven by story and content not marketing, so are often simply better as they are singularly driven by their creators and not some marketing team, or creators who have simply “inherited” the characters adventures decades after the original creators have moved on or forgotten by the company that now owns them. (No disrespect meant to the creators themselves.)

 

 

 

A Random Batch of Kickstarter Comics

I love comics, I really do. They have—on some existential level—been the one constant in my life. I initially discovered them in ’61 at the age of six, this after first discovering syndicated comic strips in the daily newspaper (back when there still were daily newspapers). The comicbooks were on the newsstand of my uncle’s neighborhood grocery store. Back then I read the comics and put them back on the shelf (hey, 12¢ was a lot of money for a six-year-old). Eventually, when I got to high school, I actually started buying comics. In 1981 I wrote an article that was published in a magazine about comicbooks (Amazing Heroes). That kicked me off on a journey where for some two decades I worked as a journalist in the field, writing for several magazines as well as producing marketing and PR material for a number of comicbook publishers.

    In 1983 I got a gig working as an editor and writer for Videogaming Illustrated, in ‘84 I was assigned to write the comic strip Video Victor that appeared in the magazine. I wrote four episodes of that strip until the magazine itself was canceled. Then in ‘86 I got the opportunity to create my first comic, (Agent Unknown for Renegade Press). Unfortunately, it only lasted three issues before the B&W crash of ’87 put an end to it. I didn’t return to creating comics until 2006 when I created the Wülf Girlz for Psychosis #1. Between then and now, I have created numerous comicbook stories for a number of indie comicbook publishers. These days I also create and publish my own branded comics.

All of this is preamble to what I want to write about today. I have been steeped in comicbooks since ’61, cementing my place in this industry in ’81 when I became a journalist in the field. Needless to say, even though I spent the majority of my life reading corporate comics (and still enjoy them) I truly enjoy Indie comics because not only are many of them written, illustrated, and produced by my friends, but as the are driven by story and not marketing, they are far and away more enjoyable for me.

    Having said all that, let’s start off with a pair of comics both titled The Clock Strikes by John A. Short. The comics feature new stories about George Brenner's character, The Clock who is widely recognized as the first fully masked vigilante in American comic book history. The Clock made his debut in November of 1936. His first appearance was in Funny Pages #6; roughly 18 months prior to Superman’s debut in Action Comics #1. The Clock moved through a number of companies before eventually entering the public domain and seeing references by DC and other comic companies —including ourself, in a story I wrote for InDELLible’s Popular Comics #7 (2023).

    As stated, the Clock was the first costumed crime fighter to appear in American comicbooks and could be considered the “missing link” between pulp and comicbook heroes. He was the first attempt to transpose a pulp magazine style “Mystery Man” into comics. John Short has taken the now Public Domain Clock and is penning new stories with him as the protagonist. First, a little bit about the Clock, when not parading around in a three-piece suit, fedora, and black curtain mask covering his entire face fighting crime, he was Brian O'Brien, a wealthy member of high society. As the Clock, he demonstrated mastery of disguise and used clever gadgets such as a cane whose head became a projectile and a diamond stud that fired tear gas. He usually left behind a calling card bearing the image of a clockface over a domino mask and the words “The Clock Has Struck”

    This first anthology opens up on a team of cops entering an office only to discover several men who have been gunned down and the words “The Clock has struck” etched on the wall of the office. As the cops walk through the rooms, they discuss the Clock. From there the story is really a fairly standard ‘50s noir crime drama with beautiful dames, snitches, newsies, smokey bars, and all sorts of interesting characters. Don’t get me wrong, this is a solid tale, told in the genre of dark, cynical crime dramas that emerged in Hollywood during the 1940s and 1950s. The second comic, like the first, is rendered in B&W, but while the first was all darkness and shadows, this one offers more open, white spaces, all wile still delivering the same kind of pulp feel to the story.

    Next up is War Lion #s 1–3, from Onri Kompan, who has given us Marx: A Tale of Survival and his Yi Soon Shin series. The story of War Lion follows a hardened vigilante and former warrior who lives in a futuristic dystopian region known as Sector 2687, controlled by an evil tyrant called the Overseer. After his wife is brutally murdered, he slays her killer and goes into exile. He later returns to the city with his daughter to pass on his legacy and settle the score

This third comic in the series serves as the epic conclusion to the epic miniseries. The story culminates in a violent and emotional showdown. delivering unrelenting action as the old warrior's quest for vengeance against the vicious tyrant who destroyed his life reaches its breaking point. In this final chapter the protagonist and his daughter settle the score in a bloody, high stakes battle to reclaim their future and pass on his legacy.

    Now we have a trio of books titled Samson by Ben Lacy and published through Biting Comics dealing with a pair of Jewish twin brothers who were taken prisoner during WWII and experimented on by the Nazis. The brothers, Solomon and Samuel Zucker were each injected with experimental serums and “stress-tested” to see how the formula worked on them. Much to everyone’s surprise it worked all too well, granting Samuel enormous strength, and Solomon the ability mind control so that he can possess and influence others. The book jumps back and forth from the war to the present day, where Samuel has become the costumed superhero Samson, while Solomon has emigrated to Israel where he works with the government. Issue #1 starts off with the twins being experimented on in Auschwitz 1 and then jumps to the present day where Samson confronts Oliver Dannekker, A German officer who was also enhanced. Is still alive and living in Chicago. Samson tracks him down and after a brutal fight, captures him with the intention to bring him back to Israel for trial. In a parallel story, the twins escape from the camp and make their way across Europe to freedom.

    The second issue reveals some of Samson’s history as a hero fighting various villains, his ex-wife and their children, both of whom have suffered deformities due mostly to the chemicals that had been injected into his system. Then we again move back into the past to see how the twins evolved, only to return to the present to head off to Israel for the trial of Dannekker. The issue winds up with Samsom heading to Berlin to uncover some hidden documents, only to run afoul of a cadre of New Reich enhanced villains.

    Issue three gives us not only the fight between the major characters as Samson attempts to recover the files he was sent to find, but more backstory of the twins as they attempt to flee from Germany while learning about their own powers. All three issues offer up thrilling, engaging, and historically based fiction. The series delivers a standout anti-fascist message as it re-writes WWII history to include superheroes into the story of the Holocaust while giving us a new slate of Jewish heroes.

    Finally, we want to mention The Asaniverse which serves more as an introduction to the cast of the upcoming series, than an opening chapter as it endlessly lists one character after another giving us little if any actual action. Personally, I’m reminded about the joke where a student tells his teacher that he did his book report on the Metropolitan Phone book by writing, “Not much of a plot, but boy what a cast.” To be sure, the art on the comic is amazing, but I was a bit confused as to why this particular approach was chosen to promote this new universe.

Still, we still are a huge fan of Indie comics, and very often find new, different, and interesting comics on crowdsourcing sites.

 

Steve Ditko is the Other Reason I’m Here

    In 1961 I was six. My uncle (mom’s older brother) owned a family grocery store. In addition to food, he sold newspapers, magazines, and comicbooks. That’s when I first discovered comics. Whenever we visited Uncle Frank, I would park myself on the newsstand and read comics for the entire time we were there. I would—quite literally—read any and all comics that were on the newsstand. Everything from Marvel & DC to Harvey Comics, to Archie, to Gold Key, to whatever was there. Then, in August of 1962, I discovered Amazing Fantasy #15, Spider-Man, and of course, Steve Ditko. For me, Steve, Stan, and Spidey were the most amazing things I had ever discovered.

For the years that followed, I became a huge fan of Steve, and his work—on Spider-Man, Dr. Strange, Hawk and Dove, The Creeper, The Question and dozens of other characters, including his independent characters, like Mr. A, Static, Killjoy, Shade the Changing Man, The Question, and more. More to the point, and in hindsight, I was actually aware of Steve long before I discovered Spidey, due to Steve’s extensive work on multiple monster and mystery comics for Marvel, Charlton, and elsewhere.

I was immediately attracted to Steve’s artwork which is marked by clean, angular line work, deep urban shadows, and an unmatched ability to convey psychological tension, vulnerability, and bizarre surrealism. Some key characteristics of his art are his inking and composition: His lines were precise with minimal use of white-out, employing feathering for both texture and solid renditions delivering dramatic contrasts. The exaggerated body language he employed for his characters giving them a rubbery, dynamic agility especially noticeable seen in the acrobatic, contorted poses of Spider-Man. He gave his characters individualized distinct, anxious faces, with no two characters looking alike. Unlike the idealized pristine, square-jawed all-American heroes of the time, his faces were far more expressive, nervous, or simply weary capturing angst and internal burdens of each character.

In titles like Doctor Strange, he delivered worlds of uncanny absurdist surrealism, pioneering mind-bending, psychedelically geometric, and organically extradimensional landscapes that felt indisputably otherworldly. This distinctive style was particularly well-suited for characters like Doctor Strange, where he created visually striking and imaginative landscapes that stayed with the reader. His antagonists very often looked like warped, eccentric urban characters rather than monolithic brutes, giving them a unique psychological edge in their appearances.

    In September of 2025 I was invited to attend DitkoCon in Steve’s hometown of Johnstown, PA, and it was a totally cool experience. I got to meet many of Steve’s nieces and nephews, tour the Ditko museum, and hob-knob with some very cool comicbook celebs. For that event I took the first two comicbook articles I ever wrote and combined them into a special magazine about Spidey. The two articles The Ditko Days (Amazing Heroes #5, 1981) and Here’s Johnny (FantaCo’s Chronicles #5, 1982). I combined those two articles with a piece I wrote about Steve Ditko and Robin Snyder’s Kickstarter #9 from back in 2014. I’ve been invited back to attend DitkoCon 27 next September.

In 2025 I backed an IndyGoGo crowdsourcing pitch, and acquired a trio of Ditko comic reprints. What I came away with were Steve Ditko’s Mr. A. The Lost Adventures, Steve Ditko’s Static #1, and Steve Ditko’s Fantastic Giants. Now, as I’m actively looking forward to attending DitkoCon ’27, I figured it was as good a time as any to review these seminal comics.

Back in 1990, Mort Todd commissioned Steve to create a new mini-series of his most personal and controversial hero, Mr. A. However, this new series would be the first time MR. A would appear in color (by his publisher, Mort Todd). Unfortunately, due to a number of reasons, the series was shelved. Mr. A: The Lost Adventures #1 includes three stories; The Best Deal, Exploder, and Mr. A and the Knifer. These stories are all classic Ditko, brought to life in full color with Mr. A. dispensing justice in his typical fashion. This first story deals with crocked businessmen and corrupt politicians in Mr. A.’s city and how Mr. A. deals with them With swift, harsh finality.

Next up is the Exploder who is determined to blow up various art pieces unless he gets what he wants. Thankfully, Mr. A. is around to put an end to his explosive ways. Finally the Knifer has a father complex, in that he wants to be more successful than his father and is going around knifing people. That winds up in a cliffhanger that is scheduled to conclude in issue #2 (not yet available)

With Fantastic Giants, Ditko explores his monster side. This comic reveals the origin how the behemoth, Konga, went from a tiny primate to a giant colossus. It also includes three other bonus stories from the Charlton era, featuring other giant creatures from the mind of Ditko. Konga is Ditko riffing on the legend of King Kong, by giving us the tale of a monstrous gorilla. We follow Konga from Africa to the arctic, to a land populated with dinosaurs and other Kaju even as he is being chased by humans. This comic has two short back-up stories. Imagination where a young lad wanders into the woods only to discover that he has become smaller and everything around him as grown larger. The second story has an explorer searching for a secret substance that he believes will increase his stature, only to learn the harsh truth.

Static is an iconic superhero where Stac Rae acquires superpowers from a special suit that turns him not Static where he has the power to do amazing things. Soon he gets caught up in an adventure when a pair of thugs make off with one of the professor’s inventions. When they push Stac into one of the professor’s devices his suit becomes supercharged, and Stac chases after the thugs. A second Static has him, the professor and the professor’s daughter, Fera. As he is forced to don the suit again to once more keep the Professor’s inventions from being stolen.

In addition to these two Static adventures, is the first appearance of Steve’s Killjoy character. Killjoy who was essentially designed as a humorous version of Mr. A. Killjoy is a silent, satirical superhero who blends slapstick comedy with Ayn Rand's Objectivist philosophy as he spends his time battling crybaby criminals. There are those who say that it could be said that the character was one of the inspirational characters for Deadpool.

These comics and others can be found on the Ditkoverse website.

Oh, and just for fun, I want to talk about this very cook Spidey Little Golden Book that I was a recently gifted with (No, it has nothing to do with Steve Ditko, but it is Spider-Man, and I’ve been trying to find a place to talk about it for some time now, and this seemed to be an ideal spot. As with other (more traditional Little Golden Books) it is a picture book targeted at young readers as a way to introduce them to The Amazing Spider-Man. It gives a brief background as to how Peter Parker acquired his powers, as well as a series of encounters as Spidey chases down several villains from his rogues’ gallery. It is ideal for young readers, and yes, even I got a kick out of it.

All the Supergirls, all at Once

 Supergirl: Rated “PG-13” Runtime 1h 48m

Director:  Craig Gillespie

Stars:  Milly Alcock, David Corenswet, Eve Ridley, Matthias Schoenaerts, Jason Momoa

Back in June the new Supergirl film dropped. It was based on the DC comicbook series which was originally published in 2021. The collected graphic novel came out in February 2022, which is where I came aboard with this story. So, before I get into the film itself, I need to take a couple of little side trips. According to IMDB the story for the film is about how Superman’s cousin, Kara Zor-El, A.K.A. “Supergirl, joins forces with an unlikely companion on an interstellar journey of vengeance and justice when an unexpected adversary strikes too close to home.”

    To be sure, while The Woman of Tomorrow story from the comic is—at its core—the same as the story from the film, it does take a different track once the base story is established. (We’ll get to how in a bit,) Needless to say—as much as I liked and thoroughly enjoyed the film, The comic from which it was adapted is so much incredibly better that the film that came out of it. In fact, I’ll go further and say that The Woman of Tomorrow story is far and away the finest Supergirl story I have ever read. It has depth, subtly, nuance, character development, and, what’s most important, A story that keeps you hooked from beginning to end. Kudos to Tom King for penning a most amazing story.

When I started reading comics in the early ‘60s I read my fair share of Supergirl comics, so what follows will (hopefully) make sense). In 2016 Scarlett Johansson guest hosted on SNL and the sketch comedy show used her appearance to skewer her upcoming role headlining the Black Widow movie (be patience, this will all tie in shortly). What they produced was a faux trailer for the film Black Widow Age of Me where Johansson as Black Widow spent the entire three-minute trailer worrying about her hair, her clothes (she breaks a heel walking in NYC) and her dating life. All of which pretty much sums up the majority of the Supergirl comics that I read back then. When Supergirl first came to CBS (2015) and then to the CW in (2016) on her own TV show many of the early episodes also seemed to concern her worrying about her hair, her clothes, her dating life.

She did seem to grow out of that, but still…Interestingly enough, when the Black Widow film dropped, it was nothing short of a slam-bang action/adventure spy film and nothing at all like either the Supergirl comic,

    After the success of the Christopher Reeves Superman films (1978, 1980, 1983) Tri-Star Pictures decided to make a Supergirl film, casting the 18-year-old Helen Slater in the title role. Unfortunately, what they delivered was what I now (after watching it again) consider quite possibly the worst superhero movie ever made. From what I was able to determine, there was little if any story, barely a plot, and absolutely no quality control of DC comics overseeing the final product, because no matter how silly the Supergirl comics of the 1960s were, this film was worse.

It starts out with her on Argo City (the chunk of Krypton that got blown off of and thus saved from destruction when the planet exploded). The domed city itself looks like it was cobbled together with cast off props and sets from 1976’s Logan Run, and even though the cast was stocked with film luminaries like Faye Dunaway, Peter O'Toole, Mia Farrow, and Brenda Vaccaro, all of their very impressive talents were wasted on what passed for this drivel that was this script. From Argo City she went to Earth winding up in an all-girl’s boarding school, the sole purpose of which was to catch her classmates in various states of undress. Farrow plays a sorceress who comes into possession of a supposedly “magical” globe from Argo City that Kara went to Earth to retrieve. (“Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.” Arthur C. Clarke)

That film ends with her saving the day and flying off into space to save Argo City. And yet, even before the new Supergirl film had come out there were cries from the peanut gallery of how Slater was a better Supergirl than Milly Alcock (who wasn’t “pretty enough” to be Supergirl—personally, we happen to think that Alcock is drop-dead gorgeous). But enough of all that.

Here in this modern version of Supergirl, we are given a deeper look into the maid of steel. We see a woman who watched her world die…twice, came of age on a world alien to her, with everyone she once knew now dead, living in the shadow of her world-famous cousin, with little if anything to call her own. While the story bounces back and forth between Argo City, Earth, and deep space, we see the pieces of her life much akin to the scattered pieces of a jigsaw puzzle that don’t quite fit together in any way that makes sense.

    At 25, she has been traveling off world to planets circling a red sun so that she can drink herself into sensory numbness in order to escape the emptiness and pain of her own unfulfilled life. Traveling with her dog Krypto, she lands on Holzherr where she crosses paths with the Brigand Krem of the Yellow Hills. Krem has recently murder the family of Ruthye Knoll. He was looking to acquire swords from Ruthye’s father, but wound up killing everyone save for Ruthye, who manages to secure the help of Kara to extract her revenge on Krem.

Kara and Ruthye follow Krem to Bilquis where they—along with Lobo (Jason Moma)—brawl with Krem and his brigands before ultimately confronting them on Barenton (a planet orbiting a pair of suns, one yellow and one green, which is toxic to Supergirl) where they have their final showdown. Now while the film’s story is shorter, and less complex than the comic, it is no less thrilling. To be sure, the film has added a human trafficking of young girls element to the storyline that wasn’t in the comic (perhaps current real-world concerns bled into the script). Or it was added to the mix simply to speed up the final confrontation and ultimate resolution who can tell. Either way it added an air of immediacy to the story which wound up playing out in a very different conclusion to the film than to the comic.

It goes without saying that we very much enjoyed the initial brawl in the bar, the the fight on Bilquis, as well as the final confrontation on Barenton , as well as the dust up with the space tech pirates, giving the film all of the action we have come to expect in a superhero film, but it also gave us all of the emotional content an actual story needs, Kara's connection to Krypto, her interactions with her cousin Kal-El, and even How she interreacted with Ruthye. We could tell that Ruthye's grief and need for revenge was real, and how Kara's own grief initially kept her from recognizing Ruthye's. We even rather liked how when Superman gave her her costume telling her “It's so people will know we're good” wasn't just a schmaltzy line, but a call back to the last thine Kara's mother said to her. “to be good” (not nice, but good), showing that the writers knew what they were doing when they wrote that line. 

    In the final analysis, none of that actually matters. The film was good, Alcock was amazing in the role of Supergirl, and Moma was fun with his cameo of Lobo. Finally, while we mourn the loss of seeing Sasha Calle play Supergirl (Kara Zor-El from the 2023 superhero film The Flash we do look forward to seeing Alcock fill the role in upcoming DCU films.

 

Aw Yeah, Comics!

     

So, there’s this comicbook shop near me—just across state lines, about half an hour away called, interestingly enough, Aw Yeah, Comics. The shop has three locations, the one near me (in Harrison, NY), one in Skokie, Illinois, and one in Muncie, Indiana, and needless to say, they each sell comics. I recently visited the one here in Harrison and discovered something truly wonderful, a set of four comicbooks specifically produced by Aw Yeah for young readers. I honestly couldn’t be more excited.

Sure, sure, I’m an adult who has been reading comics as long as I’ve been able to read, and yes, I totally love adult, superhero, corporate comics, but I also love Indies, Westerns, Sci-Fi, historical, and others. Comics are comics, and well-written, entertaining comics that are fun to read are my favorite kind of comics. And these four Aw Yeah comics, are just that. Each of the four comics are by Art Baltazar (writer and artist) and Franko (writer) and feature cartoon-style art with stories about Action Cat and Adventure Bug, who are, not only the official mascots of Aw Yeah Comics, but—by their own admission—are the greatest super-heroes ever.

The first issue opens up with a bear named Hammond (the owner of the comic shop) calling out to Cornelius and Alowicious (who are secretly Action Cat and Adventure Bug), and then sending them of to lunch, where, at a local diner they happen to cross paths with their old for, Evil Cat, who has just ordered a giant pancake, and then electrified it into life. As can be expected, this action galvanizes our heroes into action. Ironically, Evil Cat’s great plans for his Giant pancake fall apart when the sentient pancake doesn’t want to do what Evil Cat wants, but, hilariously, do his own thing.

In the back-up tale, we are introduced to Adorable Cat and her sidekick who are looking for the Goojie-Nana. The rest of the comic is packed with one and two-page vignettes featuring numerous other characters from the comic as they play out a number of humorous actions.

Issue #2 has Action Cat accidentally hypnotized by an app only to discover that the App has now taken over his mental state, and it is up to Adventure Bug to rescue him. Apparently, it is the evil Cell-Phone-Guy’s intent to have Action Cat and the other Apps to head to the mall, unplug the cell tower so that he can take over the world. Fortunately, Adventure Bug manages to un-hypnotized Action Cat and together they manage to put the kibosh on Cell-Phone-Guy’s plans in the second half of the story. Once again, the final pages of the comics are filled with an entertaining back-up story involving multiple characters.

Issue #3 begins with Action Cat and Adventure Bug in Italy chasing a buzzard on a motorbike tossing bombs into the street. They disarm him in short order and then break for lunch. We are then treated to three full-page pin-ups of what the comicbook duo would be called in different countries. This story is followed by an origin story for Hammond who is now known as Awesome Bear. According to this story he not only came from a distant plant, but was born a mutant, and bitten by a radioactive bug, and now he too is looking for the Goojie-Nana.

As it turns out, this is all a story that Hammond, the comic store owner, is telling Cornelius and Alowicious when new comics arrive, being delivered by Alice (whom we actually met way back in issue one). Cornelius thinks that he recognizes Alice but is unsure. Moments later, Hammond sneaks out the back door of the shop and becomes Awesome Bear for real. In the next story Awesome Bear helps a little girl rescue her football that is stuck up in a tree. Two more shorts fill out this issue, one where a pair of costumed dogs track down a cat that ate all the fish in a pet store, and another where a bunch of evil characters are meeting in their secret headquarters.

The fourth issue introduces Zombie Cat in a story where Evil Cat and Zombie Cat are in something of a beef over who gets to keep Ghost Bug as a sidekick. Story #2 has Adorable Cat helping out Action Cat who is being assaulted by yet another cat. In the stories that follow we get to meet Anti-Gravity Bear, Blorg the giant robot, as well as a number of other adorable characters in a couple of silly adventures.

What we enjoyed the most about these comics were the outright silliness of them, and that they were most assuredly targeted for a younger audience. Personally, in all my years of reading comics, I’ve often felt that we as an industry have forgotten kids start reading comics when they are kids. Over the years comics have gotten more sophisticated, and intricate, and “aged up” as we all got older. There should be more comics that target younger kids as that is the way to hook them into not only reading but reading comics as they grow older.

The fact that Aw Yeah has done just that is really a pretty cool business model. The comics are bright, colorful, easy to read, and thoroughly engaging. Also, as the series has progressed, the original creators have been joined by a number of others, who have helped create subsequent stories. Meanwhile, the comics themselves are affordably priced at $3.00 and available at the stores, or online from their website. According to their website, Aw Yeah Publishing has not only produced their own comics under their house banner, but they’ve also worked with other comicbook publishers including Dark Horse, Dynamite, and Action Lab to bring all-ages fun to every reader!