Who'd Like A Cocktail? #201

You'd think the daughter of an archaeologist would read something better, wouldn't you?

Comics on a Sunday afternoon.

ALL STAR WESTERN #13 - The Haly Circus is in town and what does that mean? Clowns, of course. Or at least one clown driven to a psychotic rage by a snake-oil cure-all made from the same recipe as Dr Jeckyll's potion. The result is particularly Joker-esque mad clown killing priests before Jonah Hex and friends  track him back to the circus, just in time for other members of the troupe to go as mad as the clown. It all ends with the reveal of Mr Hyde desiring the return of a certain black diamond.

Good fun as always - even amidst the bloodshed - and the back-up has an updated Tomahawk story.

CROSSED: BADLANDS #16 - Clooney makes his escape from Welles's compound and, as I predicted last issue, it turns out to be a set-up orchestrated by Welles to get Clooney out of the way in order to shock him on his return. Trouble is, Welles doesn't know what Clooney discovers in the town: the arrival of the Crossed. The guy who helped him get away from the compound (on Welles's orders) ends up infected and imprisoned by Clooney back at the compound and it looks like he's going to be used by Clooney to get some revenge next issue.

Not bad on the whole.

GHOST #1 - picking up from the Dark Horse Presents story, the new Ghost series brings back a couple of Ghost's antagonists from the old series but without you needing to know anything about them. Ghost has no idea who she is right now but her origin seems tied up with one Dr October and the Mayor who happens to be playing host to another familiar face from the past, Cameron Nemo.

It's a good continuation but I was a bit hacked off when I realised the three chapters from DHP had been collected in a much cheaper Ghost #0. Very naughty, Dark Horse.

NATIONAL COMICS: MADAME X #1 - a tarot reader on retainer of a law firm, Madame X is an ex-stage magician who happens to be able to tell the future for real and when a local councilman is found dead, murdered apparently by a zombie wielding a knife sent to the councilman by a Voodoo priestess, the case is right up her alley. With such a small cast, the culprit isn't difficult to guess but the story's done well and the art's lovely. It ends with something of a cliffhangar as the previous National Comics one shots have and I can't help wonder whether there's an intention to bring them all together somehow, or if they're simply try-outs to find potential new series.

Either way, this one's pretty good.

THE SHADOW #6 - Garth Ennis's story of the Shadow preventing the Japanese claiming a secret power to make a death ray comes to an end with the revelation that it's nothing so sci-fi; what they've all been after is the uranium that will ultimately be used to fuel the atomic bombs dropped by the Americans on Japan.

It's well done but felt somewhat hollow; a short story that did nothing new, really. With Ennis now off the series, I shan't be carrying on with it.

TEEN TITANS #13 - Wonder Girl tells her origin story, an everyday tale of an archaeologist's daughter caught up in lust with a bad guy with whom she embarks on a torrid, global affair. Eventually she discovers him struggling to cope with the possession of a mystical mask and, trying to help, she dons some nearby armour and challenges the mask. She ends up possessed by the whole thing and her boyfriend's consumed by jealousy as he really wanted it. Trying to help Wonder Girl, the team head back to where she found the armour, discovering the mark of Trigon! Elsewhere, Amanda Waller's hiring someone to bring the Titans in alive.

Not bad, although the anime-esque art was a little off putting at times.

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And what made me smile:

The new Ghost is as mean as the old one!