They join Shulkie/Aquaman on my list of ships that will never happen

This is hands down my favourite panel of 52 ever, and this is a comic that has Lobo followed around by a space dolphin. I cannot tell you how much I wish I had the opportunity in real life to hear "This is Sobek, the talking crocodile. He's my best friend." Brilliant. I also appreciate Gar's and Raven's shocked looks. You'd think with all the crap they've seen, a talking crocodile would be nothing to them.

I love love love the Black Marvel family and I absolutely cannot explain why. I think I'm just a sucker for bad people redeeming themselves, especially if it involves the power of love.

Background: the Avengers go to the ghetto and just stand there, and everyone's like, "wtf?" Luke explains for the cameras that sometimes police will send squads to bad neighbourhoods and just kind of stand around in order to scare off thugs, and this is what they're doing. I love the dramatic leadup and then the kind of anti-climactic conclusion to his speech though: "We are going to come to your neighbourhood! And we are just going to stand there!" Luke, that doesn't sound as epic as you think it does.

I confess, for a split second when that chick on the left mentions setting Dick up with a Tabitha, I had a brief moment of "BOOM BOOM???" I now ship those two, FYI. So wrong, and yet SO AWESOME.

Doom seems to have quite a few weaknesses

Some people realize just a little too late that maybe capes aren't the best plan:

I always like when Doom tries and fails to retain his dignity.

There are three things I love about Mr. Miracle's series:

1. Barda

2. The relationship between Barda and Scott, and

3. How every character narrates their every thought and action.

Moving on:

Oh NAMOR. You big romantic softie.

POWER PACK

I used to be really into Marvel when I first started reading comics, but I've been into DC almost exclusively for a pretty long time. My favourite comics are those with strong female characters, of which DC has many and Marvel doesn't. Recently I thought to myself, "what did I ever see in Marvel? There aren't that many characters I even like." Then I read Power Pack, and all became clear: Marvel is home to Katie Power. And Katie Power is awesome.

Katie's power is the absorption of energy which she can then attack others with. In one issue, the Power Pack team up with Iron Man and occasionally Rhodey to take down a bunch of old Iron Man suits that come to life in a museum through the machinations of the Puppeteer. They're doing okay with the older costumes, but the newer costumes are proving to be a bit of a problem. There are sensors on the wall in case of theft: if you touch one, you get a blast of 10 000 volts (which, sure: I'M GONNA GO UP AND TOUCH THE SENSORS ON THE WALL). Katie decides to absorb the power these sensors provide:

And singlehandedly destroys like ten Iron Man costumes. She's the strongest member of the Power Pack AND SHE KNOWS IT.

In Thor and the Warriors Four, the Pack go to Asgard and meet up with Thor and Beta Ray Bill. Katie immediately takes a shine to Bill and he doesn't really know how to handle it.

I remember seeing the first panel where she asks if he wants a bite of her carrot (she thinks he's a horse) but it took me forever to notice the second panel, WHERE HE ACTUALLY EATS THE CARROT.

There can never be enough of Katie Power being held by other superheroes. So cute.

And then he gets blasted by Katie Power, who is sick of this shit.

As a side note, I'm loving that they put him in his new costume. They don't use that costume enough, methinks.

I want these two to team up forever. How awesome would that be? Super awesome.

Party at the Frees

Guys. Mr. Miracle's solo series is AMAZING. Admittedly, I only really like it when Barda's there, but she's in almost every issue so the point is moot. Vol. 1, written by Jack Kirby is great of course, but the nice thing about Mr. Miracle is that as far as I can tell (I haven't read much beyond the Kirby run) is that it retains the original characterization and quality. Take this issue by Doug Moench, in which Barda throws a party, which is as awesome as it sounds:

Things I love about this: 1) J'onn's civvies. 2) Ted uses his millions to buy designer lampshades for the purpose of partying. 3) Kil is confused about party lingo (and who is he talking to?). 4) Is Oberon hitting on Fire? That's the most random pairing I've seen since I read a JSA comic with Wildcat and Catwoman and started shipping them.

I'm not totally sure why, but Kilowog and Ted on the right there crack me up EVERY time. I think it's because everyone else is having a laid back evening chatting about stuff, while Ted just desperately wants to be at a rowdy party. Also, J'onn surrounded by women reminds me of the part in Formerly Known As the Justice League where Batman jokes that "Martian pheromones. The women go absolutely wild."

It's not a party until two feral Mr. Miracles with a hate-on for the JLA show up.

The party parts are amazing enough, but we're not even getting into the actual plot, which involves an Albanian noodle monster (EXACTLY what it sounds like) turning Mr. Miracle and his protege/mentee/not sure, Shilo, into feral monsters. Barda turns Scott back into himself by threatening to divorce him, but this still leaves the matter of the noodle monster. Guy, Ice, and Fire take care of him by, well...

For some reason "I should be al dente!" makes me laugh so hard. I'm not sure which my favourite villain solution is: this, or when Deadpool defeated Tasky by dancing.

Oh, and:

Next time I go to the Dance Cave, I'm going to do this move while shouting "Now you're doing the Blue Beetle Bump!" Trust me, that's not going to be the weirdest thing that ever happened at the Dance Cave.

I've never really looked at the background in any depth, but now that I have there are some things I like. Kilowog is apparently slow dancing with Mama Mound while everyone is dancing to what seems to be an upbeat song, that guy who I'm assuming is a New God over to the left, J'onn dancing by himself, and Guy making a platform appear for no other reason than that he probably just wants to be above everyone else, because that's the kind of amusing jerk that he is.

I've played piano for close to 15 years, and I have never seen that music symbol in the middle there that looks like it's a Chinese symbol. I'm going to assume that's some kind of Apokalips musical notation.