Parents And Children: Justice League #25, Justice League of America #10 and Cataclysm: Ultimate Comics Spider-Man #2 Quick Hit Reviews

Editor’s Note: It’s The End Of The World As We Know It, And I Feel Spoiled.

So between spending the week helping the new cat get used to a life where the searing agony of a shot to the nuts happens to stupid humans, and dealing with the first ice and snow falls of the winter (Three times in eight days! I love New England! And I am apparently alone in this affection, since clearly God has forsaken us!), so I am well behind in reading this week’s comics. You’d be surprised how hard it is to concentrate on a simple piece of graphic literature when the cat is yowling and my co-Editor Amanda is asking if I think it would help if she plunked his sack in a snowbank.

It’s hard being a parent, even to a lower beast who shits in a box, loves the taste of network cable, and thinks a laser pointer is the best thing ever despite not being a seven-year-old boy in 1977. So I found it interesting that the first three books I peeled off my stack this evening – Justice League #25, Justice League of America #10 and Cataclysm: Ultimate Comics Spider-Man #2 – all were about, on some level, the relationships between heroes (or anti-heroes) and their parents.

And all three books range from pretty good to excellent, but while I would normally review each of them in depth, well, it is Monday, and to compose my usual type of review for each comic would take me three hours and about 1,200 words to review, meaning there is no way in hell I could get them done before the new comics drop on Wednesday. So for a change, I’ll just write a couple of paragraphs about each, in ascending order of my opinion of them.

Assuming, of course, that this cat doesn’t decide to use my leg to sharpen his claws to remind me that I should be spending my money on scratching posts rather than silly things like neutering. Or comic books.

Secret Origins Of The Most Famous Character In The World: Frankenstein: Agent of S.H.A.D.E. #0 Review

I haven’t really paid much attention to Frankenstein: Agent Of S.H.A.D.E. since its first issue, which, if I recall correctly, we felt only merited a summarizing in our first podcast as “a mildly entertaining yet inferior Hellboy knockoff.” However, given the combination of a new zero issue – meaning a one-and-done – and the news from San Diego Comic-Con that the title would be taking part in Jeff Lemire’s and Scott Snyder’s Rotworld crossover, it seemed like a good time to jump back in, re-familiarize myself with the character, and see if things have become any different.

However, based on my initial impressions of the first issue of the book, I’m issuing myself a challenge, here: I want to try to get through this entire review commenting on the book on its own merits, without mentioning Hellboy or B.R.P.D. even once.

Flips to page with panel of Frankenstein battling a giant Nazi spider…

Ooookay. Strap in; this might be a bumpier ride than I originally thought.