Superman's Good Guy Gang 2025 FCBD Special Edition

From Most Excellent Comics and Gaming in Enfield CT USA for Free Comic Book Day 2025.

Title: Superman's Good Guy Gang 2025 FCBD Special Edition
Issue: 1
Date: 2025
Publisher: DC Comics
Writer: Rob Justus, Ben Clanton
Artist: Rob Justus, Cassandra Federman
Letterer: Lucas Gattoni

This Free Comic Book Day giveaway previews two upcoming DC graphic novels for young readers. 

The title story, clearly influenced by the current Superman film, has Superman and Green Lantern (Guy Gardner) meeting Hawkgirl for the first time. Hawkgirl is wielding a sort of studded soccer ball instead of her usual morningstar here. We get the standard sequence of misunderstanding, fight, and team-up, but the team-up part gets cut to a cliffhanger just as the giant-robot villain shows up.

The second story is the more surreal Aquamanatee, who makes several sea cow puns while failing to address the issue that all manatees are, by definition "aqua" (though not the color aqua, but then, Aquaman isn't the color aqua either). The jokes were okay, as cow puns go, but it was hard to see where this was going. Is there a story, or do Aquamanatee and his fish sidekick just tell jokes?

I understand the need to market, but this book might have been better off devoting its full page count to previewing one of these books.

Rating: 4.5/10

Yu-Gi-Oh GX Volume 4

From a Little Free Library in Rindge NH USA.

Title: Yu-Gi-Oh! GX
Issue: Volume 4
Publisher: Viz Media / Shonen Jump
Date: 2010
Writer: Kazuki Takahashi, Naoyuki Kageyama
Artist: Naoyuki Kageyama
Editor: Mike Montesa, Jason Thompson

I picked this up from a Little Free Library, and might not have given it a try were it not for the fact that I just read the Yu-Gi-Oh Official Handbook (also from a Little Free Library, and reviewed here), which gave me some idea of the backstory.

Yu-Gi-Oh GX takes place years after the original series and features a next-generation scenario with a group of aspring duelists attending a Duel Academy, one of several such schools around the world dedicated to the Duel Monsters game.

This is the fourth volume, so we're in the middle of things, in this case, a tournament for the honor of dueling legendary champion Zane "Kaiser" Truesdale. The semifinals have come down to Jaden Yuki against Bastion, and Chazz versus David Rabb.

Jaden has to deal with an opponent who has constructed his deck specifically to beat Jaden's strategy, while Chazz finds himself up against dark magical forces as David engages him in a shadow duel where damage causes real pain.

A flashback to ancient Egypt gives a bit more background on the long-term storyline as the stage is set for the finals. Meanwhile, Duel Academy teacher Ms. Hibiki suspects something unusual is happening involving David, but David's sister, Reggie, is aware of her suspicions.

This exceeded my expectations by a lot. First of all, I was impressed with how interesting the book managed to make the card duel sequences that were at the heart of this issue. Even with my (extremely) limit knowledge of the Yu-Gi-Oh TCG, I was able to follow the action and ended up really enjoying these scenes. 

The flashback sequence did a nice job of building up some of the lore. This had, admittedly, a lot of characters to keep track of, but I found it surprisingly accessible considering I was jumping in at Volume 4. 

Rating: 7/10 

Cats As Food (Not Really)

From the 2025 Flywheel Zine Fest.

Title: Cats As Food (Not Really)
Publisher: My Monster Hat
Date: April, 2018
Writer: Anne Thalheimer
Artist: Anne Thalheimer

I picked up a whole pack of cat-themed zines from Anne Thalheimer at the Flywheel Zine Fest this year. This one was inspired by a crew of second-graders in a class on comics that the artist was teaching. The sketches feature the avo-cat-o, the purrito, and everyone's favorite palindrome, the tacocat!

I also like how the cat on the front cover is looking a bit nervous at the title.

Good, silly fun.

Rating: 6.5/10

Speed Racer #0

From Free Comic Book Day 2025 at Most Excellent Comics and Gaming in Enfield CT USA.

Title: Speed Racer
Issue: 0
Date: 2025
Publisher: Mad Cave
Writer:David Pepose, Mark Russell
Artist: Davide Tinto, Chris Batista, Sabrina Cintron
Colorist: Rex Lokus, Carlos Lopez
Letterer: Buddy Beaudoin
Editor: Chas Pangburn

An updated reboot of the classic anime with two stories, one for Speed himself and one for Racer X. The setting is the fictional Palm City and the vibe is very definitely borrowing from the Fast and Furious films. Speed is a street racer, driving his heavily modified Mach 5 through the streets of a city obsessed with the anything-goes sport of "Formula X" racing. Spritle, updated as a youtuber, provides most of the dialogue here as Speed is more of the silent type, and is busy evading the police for most of the scene. A veteran cop clueing in a rookie on life on the streets of Palm City provides a bit of extra story perspective as well as giving some setting background. 

Speed as the outlaw street racer makes sense, although it makes so much sense that it feels like to most obvious possible direction that this reboot could have been taken in. The action was fun, though. Car chase scenes don't always translate well into comic panels, but the artists here did about as good a job as was possible to convey the pacing and movement of the action. The end of the story teased some of the other familiar characters who will have roles moving forward.

The second story has Racer X beating up some gangsters and keeping Speed from getting shot by a sniper. Pretty standard comic-vigilante jobber squash, but it kept the feeling of Racer X watching over Speed that was such a part of the show.

This was a good start to this new vision of Speed Racer, and it had enough action and plot development to be more than just a teaser.

Rating: 7/10

Quick Announcement

Excited to announce that my story, "Soup" will be in the upcoming Best-Of anthology from Swords and Sorcery Magazine! Please consider signing up to back the upcoming crowdfunding campaign! 

Harley Quinn Lootcrate Exclusive #1

From a Little Free Library in Rindge NH USA.

Title: Harley Quinn Lootcrate Exclusive
Issue: 1
Date: February, 2016
Publisher: DC Comics
Writer: Amanda Conner and Jimmy Palmiotti
Artist: Amanda Conner, Chad Hardin
Colorist: Paul Mounts, Alex Sinclair
Letterer: John J. Hill
Editor: Chris Conroy, Dave Wielgosz

Harley finds a genie bottle, complete with wish-granting genie, and she is sure that she is going to be way better at this than anyone who has ever found a wish-granting genie and messed things up.

Spoiler: She's not better at this.

And that's pretty much the whole story, along with an above-average number of poop jokes, which were sufficiently clever that you might be amused if you like poop jokes. 

The ending of this did redeem it a little bit, as it finishes up with a feel-good vibe. And another poop joke.

Rating: 4/10