Hughie and Robin are young and in love, and it feels like it will last forever. Sadly, it only lasts thirty seconds, as Robin is killed in the middle of a super-powered incident, leaving Hughie emotionally bereft. That puts him on the radar of Butcher, a covert operative who runs a team of agents specially trained to take out metahumans and keep others in line if necessary. Now Hughie must decide if he wants to slink into pain and suffering or do something about those who took away his life so that others can be spared his pain. Of course, it doesn’t hurt that Hughie discovers that his world’s superhumans are an unrepentant group of deviants and bastards and they deserve every bit of what The Boys can offer.

In fact, the main group of heroes in The Boys’ world is as far from your class kid cartoon supers as possible. They’re greedy, dishonest, and blackmail a new female member of the team for sex in exchange for her acceptance to the group. They’re a rotten lot. But they’re on the backburner for The Boys right now, as the primary group of sidekicks (think TEEN TITANS) takes priority. And what The Boys have planned isn’t pretty. But it is delicious.

The publishing history of this no-fuckin’-lie-For-Mature-Readers title is well known and easily located on the web. I had been waiting for the trade paperback, and had actually pre-ordered it from the original solicitation. Now I’m sorry I did; THE BOYS is delightfully mean, black-hearted stuff, nearly as cold as the villains of the book themselves. Wait- that’s not quite true, either. Because excepting Hughie and the poor girl victimized by her own teammates (mentioned above), no one in the book is anything but a complete shite. You just like the shites without super powers a lot better than those with.

If issue seven was the one that broke DC’s back, it isn’t hard to see why; it takes a particularly nasty poke at the comics industry, the “Big Two” in particular, and especially one legendary creator. But I can’t take issue with it; hell, I can’t take issue with any part of THE BOYS. Ennis and Robertson have put together one of the most gleefully demented and wrong books of the past decade and I ate it up with a spoon. I honestly can’t recommend it to everyone; it isn’t even remotely for everyone. But it is for those who have a sense of humor and/or a heart as black as coal, and that’s certainly me. More, please, and make it snappy.

Marc Mason

When last we left the modern Galactica crew, things were, as usual, going poorly. A ship had been found that contained disease carrying clones of the ship’s loved ones, and a majority of the fighting men and women in the fleet were incapacitated. A terrorist group within in the fleet had risen to prominence, their goal to prevent Earth from ever being found (so that the Cylons could never find it, either). And classic model Cylons had been located and, happily, they still liked humans… though they took an instant dislike to Sharon (Athena) the newer model Cylon, killing her just long enough to download near a pirate ship and create a true duplicate of herself. Now, with all these factors in place, the main modern Cylon fleet is approaching, thanks to that download, and with FTL drives down and pilots sick, everyone still standing is a sitting duck, waiting to die.

If you read that and thought, “Gee, the Galactica comic seems awfully densely plotted and potentially confusing,” you’re right. There’s no question that you have to pay complete and total attention to Pak’s story. He’s using the comicbook format to his best advantage in trying to tell a story that Ron Moore and company don’t have nearly the budget for. One of the reasons I like to read multiple issues at a time is for that reason; I can absorb more of the writer’s intentions and get a more solid grasp on his broader plotting this way.

The only thing that drags it down and holds it back, though, is Raynor’s work. At times, through these three issues, it looks he like he loses focus and gets sloppy and/or rushed. Some of the character detail that goes into making the characters look like their TV counterparts without being likenesses stumbles, especially in Starbuck’s case. But when he really puts his mind to it, he can produce amazing work. There’s a two-page spread at the end of issue eight that really sings, and shows what he’s capable of. I’d just like to see it come through in the quieter moments a bit more.

Pak’s cliffhanger at the end of issue eight is a dandy, the best one yet- one that rivals some of the best the show has offered, and maintains the book’s status as a solid and entertaining read. I hope he can deliver a resolution that pays it off for maximum value.

Marc Mason

The first arc of HIGHLANDER ended with a bit of a whimper, but writer Jerwa wrote and assured me that the story picked up a bit from there, and as much as I hate to make him happy and tell him he was right… he was right. These two issues represent a “righting of the ship” for the book, and it now feels much more like a series with some heft and some stakes at the core.

Issue five finds Connor MacLeod contemplating voluntarily giving up his head after his new mortal wife is critically injured in an auto accident. Aided by his cousin Duncan, he has to reach back into his past and locate something within himself that will allow him to continue living his immortal existence. But it’s issue six that grabs you by the throat; Connor begins to find himself in the grip of strange rages that make him actively stalk and murder other immortals unnecessarily. The reason? Since he took the Kurgan’s head and energy, he’s felt like he might have absorbed the villain’s spirit as well, and it wants to have its way.

Now that’s a hell of an idea, isn’t it? Stuck with the soul of the man who raped your wife and killed your mentor in your body, and acting to his whims. Horrific. Plus, there’s a new threat on the horizon, and one that could easily best him in swordplay: ninjas. That’s more fun than every HIGHLANDER film sequel put together, all in one comic. The book makes an artistic jump as well in issue six; Kevin Sharpe’s work in issue five is a little bland, but Fabio Laguna turns in a beauty of a job in issue six. Really, both issues are a step above #3-4, but six holds so much promise that if you had to pick one, I’d definitely point you that way. Go see why.

Marc Mason

LOST, MIDDLEMAN, and SUPER SKRULL scribe Grillo-Marxuach turns his pen towards CLASSIC BATTLESTAR in this action-heavy and fast-paced story. The Hatch/Benedict version of Apollo and Starbuck find themselves observing an incredibly bizarre battle between the Cylons themselves. In the meantime, the main crew has discovered a transmission that has passed through a nearby wormhole, and it might just be from the lost colony known as Earth. Unfortunately, there’s a planet inhabited by nothing by Cylons blocking access to that wormhole… and a rogue faction of the Cylon empire isn’t going to let anything survive who saw that battle between raiders and basestar… including the fleet’s best pilots.

Whew… this is more like it. The regular, ongoing CLASSIC BATTLESTAR series got off to a good start, but began losing steam quickly, and there was always one problem that I couldn’t put my finger on. APOCALYPSE helped me figure it out right away: budget. Where Rick Remender’s main book settled in for the more talkative type of story we saw in the back half of the series’ one season, Grillo-Marxuach takes the exact opposite approach. There’s no episode budget to be spent, so he’s pulled out all the stops and ratcheted up the tension, action, and spectacle. When a dozen Cylons reconstitute themselves as a single form thanks to some sort of strange bio-goo, you see something you’d never get on TV because of what it would cost.

A terrific cliffhanger and a genuine element of mystery make this maybe the best issue of GALACTICA new or old that we’ve seen since Dynamite acquired the property. More, please.

Marc Mason

I’m sure there are stranger ideas than cosmic-comic master Jim Starlin putting out a full-length graphic novel that qualifies as a kid-friendly, all-ages book, but I’m hard-pressed to think of one right now. The man who brought us Thanos’s obsession with death and Captain Marvel’s bout with cancer now delivers the story of a young orphan boy named Ray Torres. Ray has been chosen as the latest in a long line of cosmic guardians, a group of super-powered individuals who protect the galaxy at large (showing that, at least, we’re working with a Starlin we’re familiar with thematically). But Ray’s basic lessons are about to get a twist when an alien named Hyperion Mors snags him from his mentors and shows him the face of the enemy he’s being taught to battle… and that there are other forces playing in the middle of the grand war for the fate of the universe.

As a child of the comics of the 70s and 80s, I have more than a passing nostalgia for Jim Starlin’s work, so I went into KID KOSMOS with certain expectations. No one does cosmic stories like Starlin, and no one draws them like him, either. His gift has always involved drawing wondrous creatures, strange ships, and a bizarre universe, and them making them accessible to the reader, and that’s on full display here. But his weakness has always been in how his cosmic characters react to their great power- almost inevitably, he winds up having them defeat themselves because they know they are ultimately unworthy of the gifts they’ve been given. Wisely, though, this problem isn’t present here, as Ray is young and hasn’t taken his powers for granted or adopted a belief that he truly deserves them.

The only serious problem I had with KID KOSMOS is that the dialogue ranges from flat to leaden; Ray sounds like what Starlin believes a kid sounds like, not like an actual kid. And the supporting cast, outside of Mors, delivers their words like they actually know they only exist for expository purpose. But in the end, I still enjoyed KID KOSMOS for the fun it offered and the way it worked as a reminder of the comics I loved as a youth, and that’s more than enough for me to recommend it.

Marc Mason