Eoin Colfer attained international recognition with his splendid series of novels about a twelve year old genius thief named Artemis Fowl. The sixth book is coming out later this year. Those books are full of fun and fantasy, with laughs coming as quickly as danger.

However, Colfer has outdone himself with his latest novel. Just released, Airman literally soars the heights of grand adventure. Although the book is listed in the children’s section, adults will be able to curl up with this one and remember a childhood filled with wronged heroes who have to fight their ways back from incredible losses to battle the evil villains.

The pacing and characters in this book are different from those in the Fowl books and Colfer’s other novels. Conor Broekhart is the kid and the hero I wanted to be when I was just discovering adventurous fiction (and part of me would still like to be even now). He’s strong, courageous, intelligent, and a trained swordsman. Everything a dashing hero needs to be.

Usually novels like this end up with the hero saving the princess and earning her undying love. Colfer starts out with Conor doing that. That left me wondering what was next.

Well, what was next took a page from Alexander Dumas’s The Count of Monte Cristo and blended it into the fabric of Conor’s story in a way that kept me hurriedly turning pages. Raised in the Saltee Islands, Greater and Lesser, Conor was the son of King Nicholas’s most trusted captain, Declan Broekhart.

The islands are fictitious, but Colfer builds them with splendid fascination. Originally an insult, the islands were granted to the original king and granted their independence. The one of the world’s largest diamond mines were discovered there. Overnight, the Saltee Islands became a world player.

The time is the late 19th century and airplanes haven’t been invented yet, though they’ve been dreamed about. Conor and his mentor, Victor, spend their days together designing airplanes, hoping to build the one that will actually fly.

I loved Conor’s relationship with his parents as well as his mentor. It made me remember so many other good books of derring-do I’d read as a kid. Victor trains Conor as a swordsman, martial artist, and scientist, and Conor naturally excels at all those things – exactly as a hero cut from this cloth is supposed to do.

But when the villainous Marshall Bonvilain kills the king and Conor’s mentor, Conor witnesses everything. Unable to kill Conor because it would give his plot away, the Marshall develops an insidious plan for getting rid of him.

The twists and turns of the Marshall’s plot don’t get revealed for some time, but I couldn’t believe how things turned out for Conor. Not only was he consigned to the diamond mines, where most men died while digging, but no one – not even his family or the princess who loved him – tried to help him.

I hung on every adventure Conor had while in prison. His struggles against Malarkey, the man the Marshall had hired to thrash him every day for weeks, as well as the Battering Rams, the gang that ran the prisoners, all had me flipping pages in an effort to find some hope for him.

The writing is great and feels like a narrative, to a degree, from those classic novels of adventure. There’s just enough worldly scope and bouncing around the various characters to reveal everything else that’s going on to make everything feel more real and interesting.

The details of the flying machines Colfer talks about and designs are magnificent, based in fact but extrapolated to push the story into the fantastic. I loved Conor’s hideout. The wind tunnel felt like some kind of Batcave and I got to ride along as he ventured forth.

The way he was stymied from simply returning to his family was extremely well done and logical to boot. No matter which course Conor tried to take, fate and Bonvilain wouldn’t let him escape. I haven’t read a novel where a kids’ hero was so severely trounced in a long time. Usually kids have problems in these books, but the odds against Conor’s happiness just kept stacking up against them.

Although this book is slightly over 400 pages, it’s the perfect took to read aloud to kids. Or to give to reluctant readers, especially boys. Colfer has delivered a story that reaches back to entertainment and heroes that have been around hundreds of years, and he’s made it all new again.

Hopefully the Airman will soar again. I’d love to see Conor up against another worthy foe and have to struggle to overcome insurmountable odds – again!

The Black Book of Secrets by F. E. Higgins has one of the most intriguing premises I’ve seen in a juvenile novel, or an adult novel, in a long time. A quiet man of questionable means moves into a neighborhood where everyone is being bullied by a man who owns everything worth owning. The quiet man, Joe Zabbidou, opens a pawnshop and starts buying what is basically worthless junk from the poor people who live there. Then, shortly after acquiring a young, homeless thief as his apprentice, Joe begins buying the darkest secrets of anyone who will sell them to him during the midnight hour.

I read about the book in a forthcoming announcement and wanted to think about it before I just purchased it. I was in Minnesota over the holidays and stopped in at a bookstore. The Black Book of Secrets sat on the NEW ARRIVALS shelves. Immediately fascinated, I picked up a copy.

The packaging is as compelling and intriguing as the story’s premise. The covers, front and back, are a flat black with the illustration and the back cover copy on them. My eye didn’t catch the designs worked into the book until I felt them. The most eye-catching part of the whole package, though, was the black gilt that framed the pages all the way around. I’ve never seen a book like that. The treatment made the book feel almost…dangerous. And certain foreboding.

I was mesmerized, really. Whether the trade dress (publishing term for how a book looks) was really that good or I was just a soft touch, I don’t know. But the book’s designer is fantastic. The only real bright spot on the book’s cover is that curious and brightly colored frog.

When I opened the book, I found the inside was just as different as the outside. The book’s generous margins, clear and easy to read font, and the thin, almost fragile feel, of the pages made me want to turn them.

I read the opening chapter, a short but very intense five pages, and was instantly gripped by poor Ludlow Fitch’s predicament. Ludlow lives in the City, but it can’t be any other city than 19th century London, and the mean, downtrodden existence he leads is properly Dickensian. His lowlife parents have taken Ludlow to a foul dentist to sell the teeth right out of his head. They strap him into the dentist’s chair and the dentist, Dr. Gumbroot – another nice, Dickensian touch, grabs a pair of pliers and latches onto one of Ludlow’s teeth. In that scene alone, I was as hooked as Ludlow.

I picked the book up. Due to the work load I’ve got, I couldn’t get back to it until yesterday. I started it to take a few minutes at lunch. Instead, I ended up captivated and read the entire novel. At 260 pages, it’s fairly short by today’s standards.

But I was swept away through the dirty streets of that neighborhood, got to know all the broken dreams and lost hopes of the people that came to Joe Zabbidou’s pawnshop to sell their darkest secrets, and became even more curious about why Joe was buying them. I also discovered that our hero, Ludlow Fitch, wasn’t the most reliable person Joe could have trusted.

I’m torn over calling this a children’s book or an adult one. I think it plays equally well for both. The novel offers a compelling story with rich characters and a unique time and place that still stands apart from 19th century England in the same way that Joseph Delaney’s The Last Apprentice books do. In some ways it breaks the tenets of juvenile books because it spends so much time with the adult characters. But it never discusses anything inappropriate about their lives or motivations that the 9-12 year olds won’t understand.

The building sense of mystery and dread is fantastic, but I have to admit that when everything was said and done, I was somewhat disappointed. After all the tension that was raised, I really expected more at the end. Still, everything made sense and it satisfied.

This is F. E. Higgins’s first book, but that doesn’t show. Her writing is spare and lean, and not overly descriptive. The narrative pacing is well done – it obviously kept me glued to the book and turning pages till I reached the end, and I’m not always an easy audience. She writes with authority and confidence, and I liked her characters quite a lot because they were so real.

One of the best parts of the book was being a voyeur and listening to the secrets those townspeople came to tell. Each one of them seemed almost like an Edgar Allan Poe short story, filled with twists and turns and surprises.

I don’t know yet if the book is going to be a series, but it could. Each Black Book of Secrets could be about a different place, with different secrets. Given the nature of people’s curiosity about other people’s secrets, I think this is a hook that would make a series work for a while. If Higgins can keep up this kind of quality, I’d definitely read another book or two about Joe and Ludlow.

Higgins does have a second book coming out in March 2008. It’s called The Bone Magician and sports a blood-red cover with a skull. I’ll be picking that one up when it comes out.

These days I find it easier and easier to sink into a fantasy novel written for juvenile readers. I don’t know if it’s the worlds I enjoy, or if it’s the break from “adult” problems and issues. After giving the matter considerable attention, I’ve decided that part of what draws me to fiction for 9-12 year olds is that sense of wonder and fun that is lacking in many of the adult books. They just take themselves too seriously. Or maybe I want to take myself less so.

Whichever is the case, I sat down with Leven Thumps and the Gateway to Foo and found myself whizzing right along in no time because the book offers tons of wonder and fun. Admittedly, I stumbled over the first chapter or two because they are a little dense and weird. But the story straightens itself right out and pounds to the finish line – which is really only the start of a series that currently includes three novels.

When I first saw the character’s name, Leven Thumps, I have to say that I wasn’t interested in reading the book at all. It was just too strange, and the back cover copy didn’t promise me enough to make me purchase the book. But I’m glad I read it.

Where else are you going to find a book chock full of action and adventure, and with candy that will – temporarily – rearrange your body parts? Particularly your eyes, nose, mouth, and ears. When Leven ate some of the candy that Clover, his sycophant – magical protector — gave him, he ended up with his nose between his toes.

The book takes place in Oklahoma, which is where I’m from. However, other than a few superficial details, it doesn’t really feel like Oklahoma. Granted, the book isn’t about Oklahoma, so that shouldn’t matter.

Leven has a hard life (it seems like all the kids heroes these days do) and isn’t loved by anyone (another common problem), but is destined to do great things because he’s an offing. Although it takes a while to get to the part where Leven gets his powers, waiting is worth it. His powers are cool and kids will love them. Heck, even I would like to be able to see into the future and control weather. However, I’d really like to have Winter’s power to turn everything to ice too.

Winter is a young girl whose own life has been horrible. She was raised by her mean mother. In reality, though, Winter is a nit, a citizen of Foo who came to our world to help Leven find the Gateway, find out what his real identity is, and keep safe from Sabine, the villain that has escaped from Foo and means to kill Leven.

One of the funniest bits in the book is what happens to Geth. He was the king of Foo and ended up getting trapped in a tree seed that’s planted on earth. He grows into a huge tree that can move independently, till the day he decides it’s time to find Leven and get to Foo. Then he causes problems, gets chopped into firewood, and eventually ends up as a toothpick throughout the rest of the book. I ended up chuckling out loud at his antics and my wife had to ask me what was so funny. It was too hard to explain. Even after I tried, I knew that the only way to truly get it was to read the book.

I have to admit that I was disappointed about reading 360 pages and not quite getting to journey around in Foo. Of course, there are two other books in the series that seem to offer exactly that.

Leven Thumps and the Gateway to Foo focuses on the journey Leven has to take in order to get to that magical world. The writing is fast-paced and action-packed. The characters are neat and imaginative. And there are parts of the story that are so far over the top I could feel my jaw drop. Like when Winter freezes the ocean so Leven can drive their “borrowed” car across it to escape pursuers. I was really amazed at how quickly I read the book.

With short, punchy sentences and a rapid pace, this book is a great one for reading aloud to kids that might seem daunted by the book’s length. The action and adventure will pull them right in. But they will probably pull you in too, and you may find yourself reading long after you’ve tucked the kids in.

In his latest book, Diary of a Wimpy Kid: Rodrick Rules, Jeff Kinney nearly put me into the hospital. That man is going to have serious medical bills to pay if this keeps up. I almost busted a gut laughing out loud and almost aspirated my Diet Dr Pepper on a few occasions. And, yes, I hold him completely responsible.

If not for Kinney’s dry wit, keen insight into the lives of elementary school boys (especially their rationalization for EVERYTHING), and fantastic line drawing on nearly every page, I wouldn’t have had so many close brushes with death in his latest book. But he put me there time and time again. Even when I thought I had things figured out (because I was once an elementary school boy with a wild imagination without a governor), Jeff would throw a wrinkle at me that I didn’t see coming. He ambushed me with regularity throughout the pages.

But it’s not just me that Jeff has his merciless sights on. He’s taking out EVERYBODY. My wife teaches elementary school and Jeff’s books are all the rage among the students. I have to admit to adding to that bonfire because I talk about his books all the time (and I have to admit that I haven’t quite become the responsible adult either, because I’ll rile my wife’s fourth grade class up and take my leave—taking her out to dinner usually gets me off the hook and my cool points go up with the kids).

Parents have become interested in the books and I’ve told them they need to keep up with what their kids are reading. After all, they’re supposed to be responsible parents. (I, myself, have been known to buy extra copies of Jeff’s books and give out as gifts – some parents have accused me of inciting subversion, but I point out that Jeff’s first book was a New York Times bestseller and that is a far better recommendation than I could ever make. Except the Times doesn’t give away Jeff’s books as gifts that I know of. That’s why they hold me more accountable.)

But when I recommend the books to parents, I issue a stern warning. I call it the PYP warning. I especially give it to pregnant mothers and people with weak bladders who read in public places. PYP is Pee Your Pants. The books are just that funny. You’re reading along, and the next thing you know, WHAM! — you’re laughing so hard you’re peeing your pants.

The funniest thing about Jeff’s humor, and the life of his main character, Greg Heffley, is that everything in the book COULD BE COMPLETELY TRUE. Speaking from experience, a lot of what’s between those pages has been true. But I’m not going to incriminate myself now when I got away with those things all those years ago. And there should be some kind of time statute on most of them. I still don’t want my mom to know, however.

Greg is THE man when it comes to taking a boring day and turning it upside down. People who underestimate the creativity of a bored child are simply asking for trouble. Nuclear war pales by comparison.

And Greg has an excuse – or a rationalization – for everything he does. Worse than that, half the time I get sucked in and totally buy into his point of view. Because, upon occasion, that point of view has been mine as well (or at least my defense). That’s where Jeff’s magic truly lies: he’s never lost touch with his inner child. And boy, his wife must be mad and his kids must be terrified!

In this second book, I was totally blown away yet again. Greg is a middle kid, which means that his life is made miserable from both ends of the spectrum – from his older brother Rodrick and his younger brother Manny. Rodrick is the sulky teen with a band called Loded Diper. And their music stinks, so they’re appropriately named. Manny is three and gets into all of Greg’s stuff.

I love how Jeff sets something up in the books and continues to play off of it at appropriate times. His sense of pacing is fantastic. The work of “art” Manny creates out of toothpicks and aluminum foil is great, and I’ve seen that done, actually. Greg’s mom tells Greg he should keep it around and he does – until it impales Greg’s semi-best friend Rowley.

Another sequence in the book focuses on Greg’s ringleader abilities. Kids will follow anyone with a semi-great idea. Or at least one that will bring pain or embarrassment to another kid. See, Greg is NOT hero material. At least, not yet. He does show some potential, but it’s really far into the future.

One of those ideas involved making believe one of the other kids didn’t exist. Following Greg’s lead, the rest of the class pretends the kid doesn’t exist so much that Greg gets called into the principal’s office, then gets read the riot act by his parents.

I loved when Greg gets involved in the role-playing game Magic and Monsters and his mom becomes concerned. She decides to show up and play with them. And her rules don’t involve all the violence and bloodshed all the kids are used to enjoying. Worst of all, some of Greg’s friends start liking the way his mom plays!

Another instance is when the parents leave for a weekend trip and put Rodrick in charge. They’re no sooner gone than Rodrick is on the phone calling people over for a party. Madness ensues. A door gets painted with permanent marker. Rodrick gets Greg to help him change out doors so the parents don’t find out. Later, when they’re punished, Rodrick says he’s going to study the effects of decompression of the spine suffered by astronauts during prolonged weightlessness. He does this by sacking out on the couch and sleeping all the time while he’s grounded.

If you want, you can even read the books for free on the internet. Just go to Funbrain-dot-com to read them. One of the most interesting things about Jeff’s books is that they’re given away for free and STILL sold enough to make it to the top of the New York Times bestseller list.

You see, Jeff wants everyone to read his books that wants to. However, kids want books they can hold in their hands, share with friends, and put on a shelf. Plus, it’s kind of hard to take your computer and internet along when you’re stuck in the car on a family trip or out with a parent at a doctor’s appointment or a shopping spree.

One of the best features about Jeff’s books after you put them in your kids’ hands is that you don’t have to worry about batteries going dead. They’re kid powered: fueled by imagination and driven by humor. They’re good for the environment. Except for that whole PYP warning.

Jeff’s books are hilarious. I just can’t recommend them enough. Call me subversive if you want.

Green Lantern: No Fear is far less technically ambitious than its predecessor, Rebirth. The previous novel in the “new” adventures of Hal Jordan basically had to re-invent the character and discard a decade and more of maltreatment of the character, in my opinion.However, that said, No Fear offers a lot in the way of great character building. Geoff Johns’s first graphic novel in the Green Lantern saga was all about getting back to the basics and skewering missed approaches to Hal Jordan. This volume reintroduces Hal Jordan and Green Lantern to the world as a human being and a hero. It’s about history and family, about dreams and responsibilities, and the fact that there’s precious little wiggle room for anybody trying to balance all those things and live a good life.

I especially loved the first story. The art by Darwyn Cooke was amazingly simple and really underscored the light but deep tale as Hal remembered his relationship with his test pilot father. The fact that Hal and Kyle Rayner (the latest Green Lantern, and the character that really split the polls on favorite Green Lanterns) are shown together and we get a sense of how that relationship is going. Johns could have totally blown off the Rayner character, but he chose to embrace him in the series to offer the readers the best of both possible worlds.

From there, the stories move into more Green Lantern history with the threat of a Manhunter, the androids created by the Guardians to police the spaceways before they created the Green Lantern Corps. The art is pretty cool, shows lots of action, and allows a great pacing for Johns’s story.

I enjoyed the sequences with Hal’s brother a lot too. Johns seems intent on advancing stories as much as he is on introducing back stories that we hadn’t before seen. The story of why Hal got dishonorably discharged from the United States Air Force was especially emotionally compelling.

Johns also broadens his current Green Lantern universe by bringing in other old enemies: Hector Hammond and Black Hand. Both of those characters are far creepier and more dangerous than we’ve ever seen them before.

I have to admit that the scene where Hal pounded away at Hector Hammond when the man couldn’t defend himself made me uncomfortable. On one level, I understood it because Hammond had used his mind-probing powers to assault Green Lantern, but it still just didn’t seem like something Hal would do.

This collection of stories was much lighter than the arc that ran through Rebirth. Since I read them so close together, I’m glad there was such a difference. Rebirth emotionally exhausted me, but No Fear was – mostly – a fun romp.

The scene where Hal busted General Stone in the mouth the way he had all those years ago, and the fact that that clue was what gave away Hal’s secret identity as Green Lantern, was great. I think having a USAF general know that Hal and Green Lantern are the same guy can’t be anything but beneficial. (You still have to wonder how Clark Kent can go missing all the time from the Daily Planet.)

I’ve got two more of the graphic novels lined up to read, and I’m really looking forward to them. Johns is making magic again, and it’s fun to watch.

Hal Jordan has got to be one of the most abused heroes ever created in comics. In the whole history of the field, no other hero – in my opinion – has been through such a mishmash of soap opera wallowing and evil plotting.In the beginning, Hal Jordan was one of the coolest heroes ever in the 1960s. He was the second hero to be brought back to be updated to modern times and given a makeover in Showcase comics (as long as you don’t count Lois Lane). As a test pilot, Jordan was fearless. He was a skirt-chaser and always out for a good time. I loved those intergalactic adventures he had in the early books.Then the 1970s came along and Denny O’Neil paired him with Green Arrow, turning the whole series into a tour through the social issues and growth problems the United States was going through. I enjoyed that run and thought it was great, especially since Denny recreated Green Arrow into the fantastic, opinionated character he now is. However, I didn’t see how showing Hal Jordan having questions about whether or not he was doing the right thing during that era was undermining what Green Lantern was all about.

One of the scenes Denny did that I will take to the grave with me was of an old black man talking to Hal, saying how he’d heard Green Lantern had helped a bunch of purple skins, and orange skins, but why hadn’t Green Lantern ever helped people with black skins? Words to that effect.

At that time, I thought that was powerful writing. And it was. Except for that whole little bitty thing of putting the cracks into Hal Jordan. Later writers came along and made Hal more human. By that, I mean they turned him into a failure. They gave him an alcohol problem that seemed straight out of the pages of Iron Man.

Then they destroyed Coast City, his hometown, on his watch. And they turned him into Parallax, the worst villain EVER in the DC Universe. (Except maybe for Superboy-Prime at this point.) They even had his old friend Green Arrow kill him with an arrow through the heart.

After that, they turned Hal into the Spectre, the spirit of vengeance. The Spectre is another character that’s been all over the place as writers have each tried to put their unique spins on that hero. So you had these two out-of-control entities somehow going to make a better hero together. (Kind of the you-got-chocolate-in-my-peanut-butter/you-got-peanut-butter-in-my-chocolate thing I suppose.)

The Hal Jordan/Spectre combo didn’t work for me at all. The costume looked dumb. All the personal issues the writers created seemed to come out of left field.

In the end, Hal Jordan had been stripped of everything that had made him unique and likeable as a superhero. When I’d been young, I’d wanted to be Hal when I grew up. (During those times I hadn’t wanted to be Batman, and I have to admit that the Batman thing is still there. I’ve grown more realistic over the years, you see. But if power rings are ever discovered, the Batman thing is subject to change.)

The fans were outraged. They howled for years. They didn’t buy the Hal Jordan/Spectre comic books and the series was cancelled. The universe was without Hal/Green Lantern/Spectre. Then writers started going back in time and meeting the young Hal/Green Lantern. They found excuses to do this. They even brought young Hal/Green Lantern to the present for a while.

Now matter how much Hal Jordan got killed or had his body thrown into the sun to save the world and redeem himself, he wouldn’t go away. Fandom remembered him much too vividly. Then the DC archives started getting published and a lot of people started asking, Where’s this Hal Jordan/Green Lantern?

The decision was made to bring Hal Jordan back and make him Green Lantern again. Wailing and the gnashing of teeth was heard throughout fandom. I was one of the worst.

Even when I heard Geoff Johns was going to be doing the comic book, I wasn’t happy. After everything that had been done, I figured that this was one save, one retcon (one of the most hated words among comic book fans – except when a character or a storyline was so badly butchered nothing else could be done – and don’t even get me started on the “Spider-Man: One More Day” nonsense) no one could pull off.

I snorted in derision. I stamped my feet in annoyance. I bellowed my displeasure for all to hear.

The comics came out and I blew them off. Wasn’t going to read them. I was too busy to read comics at that time anyway.

Then the graphic novel containing the five issues of Green Lantern: Rebirth came out. I was curious, but I resisted. After all, wasn’t I inordinately busy? And then there was that whole doubting thing.

The fans, however, loved what Geoff Johns did. And I have to admit, after reading the graphic novel, I totally have to agree. Geoff Johns is one of the most brilliant writers I know. He pulled a hero out of the burning building that had been made of Hal Jordan’s life. From the tattered fabric of the Green Lantern Corps history, Johns saved the best part of the mythos and made it stronger by making it more detailed and complete.

The writing in the graphic novel is intensely introspective not only for Jordan, but for several other major characters as well. Johns reforged views on Kyle Rayner, the newest Green Lantern who some of the old guard hated from the time he took over Hal’s magazine, Guy Gardner, and even Sinestro, a long time villain of Hal’s who had at one time trained him. Everyone was a part of what had happened to Hal Jordan, and we get to see how Parallax came about.

Johns figured out why the Green Lantern’s rings were vulnerable to yellow, and he told all of us. He was the first among us to notice it when Hal first started to lose it, and why. When we thought Hal had killed Sinestro, Johns knew the true story. He even knew about the deal Sinestro struck with the being known as Parallax while Sinestro was imprisoned within the Power Battery on Oa, the planet of the Guardians.

The answer to what had gone wrong with Hal Jordan as a man and a comic book was simple. Johns’s restitution of the character was elegance.

You truly won’t read a better book about redemption. And if you’re a Hal Jordan/Green Lantern fan, you’ll be cheering by the time you turn to the last page of the book.

There were so many high marks and emotional points in the story that I could make a laundry list of them. But one of the best, one of the most surprising, is when Green Lantern gets tired of Batman’s lip and punches him out!

Of course, for long-time comics geeks like myself, this was just a play on the events Keith Giffen set up in his run on the Justice League when Batman punched out Guy Gardner. But man, I loved that scene! A guy who will punch out the Bat? Now that’s fearless!

I could rave forever about the accompanying art in the book. The space scenes are genuinely cool. The urbanized sprawl of cities is easily recognizable. Each of the dozens of heroes in the book are drawn in unmistakable fashion. Artists Ethan Van Sciver and Prentiss Rollins have drawn one of the most beautiful books I’ve ever seen, and they did it all while working with a HUGE cast.

If you’re an old Green Lantern fan that has walked away from comics for a time out of disgust, Geoff Johns will strap you back into one of the best adventures you’ll ever take. If you’re a new fan drawn to comics because of all the superhero movies coming out of late, this is definitely a graphic novel you’ll want to pick up. Especially now that a Green Lantern movie has been (pun intended) green-lighted.

I loved this book and it’s one I’m going to read several times. I’ve picked up the other graphic novels in the series and can’t wait to get to them.

Though I’m ashamed to admit it, I’ve never read a single issue of The Spirit until Darwyn Cooke’s graphic novel collecting the first six issues of the new series put out by DC Comics. I’ve read comics nearly my whole life, and heard about Will Eisner and the Spirit for nearly as long.To tell you the truth, the Spirit didn’t fit my idea of a superhero. For one, there was the problem of no superpowers. And two, the costume was really lame for a kid who grew up with superheroes wearing Spandex and their underwear on the outside. The Spirit just looked too…real. That meant boring to the child that I was.So I went on for nearly fifty years with my assumption that I wouldn’t like the Spirit.Enter Darwyn Cooke. Actually, I didn’t know that I liked him at first either. I thought his art was too raw at the time, too two-dimensional and unfinished. Then he did New Frontier, which became an overnight bestseller and is coming out as a straight-to-DVD animated movie soon. I picked up New Frontier and really liked Cooke’s writing and art. His artistry is flamboyant and unique. He played fairly with the characters and showed real talent when reimagining the DC Universe for his story.

Now he’s brought that same understanding of character to The Spirit, a monthly comic from DC. He writes and pencils the comic, something that few people in that business do any more, or are skilled enough to accomplish. From what I understand of the character since I’ve been poking around after getting curious, he’s captured the flavor, pacing, and zest of Will Eisner’s work.

Denny Colt is a private investigator that cracks a big case but gets overwhelmed by the villains. He is also doused in chemicals that makes it look like he is dead. After he recovers and crawls out of the family crypt, he decides to remain “dead” and adopt a new identity to fight crime. He does this with the reluctant acquiescence of Central City Police Commissioner Dolan. Dolan also happens to be the father of Denny’s girlfriend, Ellen.

Even though he looks like a 1940s private eye with a domino mask under his slouch hat, the Spirit is much more than a bare knuckles hero. He doesn’t just investigate; he has adventures. Those adventures are by turns deadly serious, humorous, absolutely loopy, or anything in between.

As I read the stories, I was at first confused. Then I realized that the Spirit was a lot like Jack Cole’s Plastic Man series. Totally malleable. (Yep, that’s a pun, and I’m not sorry.) I settled into the graphic novel for a light-hearted and fun read that vamoosed through the panels with the pacing of a runaway avalanche.

I call the volume a graphic novel, but that’s doing the book an injustice of sorts. In this day and age when every writer and artist is trained to produce a five- or six-issue arc that will fit neatly and conveniently into a graphic novel format a few months later, Darwyn Cooke decided to be daring and write standalone tales. That’s right, you can sit down and read a single comic-length story and get it all in one shot. That was like a breath of fresh air. It also made for more tightly plotted stories.

One of the other things I really liked about the book is the collection of secondary characters culled right from Eisner’s works: the ever missing-in-action Octopus, P’Gell, and others. Cooke even introduces us to Silk Satin, a hard-as-nails female character and member of the CIA, and she’s tough enough to take out Dirty Harry. You never know what to expect from story to story within the pages of this beautiful hardback book.

I do wish that some kind of primer with an art gallery of iconic Spirit characters had been included with the graphic novel as added value. I understood from the stories that some of the characters were ongoing from Eisner’s original run, but it would have helped with more. Eisner evidently created a deep, rich world and Cooke is running elegantly with the ball. There’s no reason for Cooke to try to stumble through all that had gone on before for Denny while in the middle of his own stories, and you can pick up enough to get by. But now that I’m hooked, that little bit of extra would have been great.

If you haven’t read the comics and still maintain your love of great storytelling combined with sheer fun, pick up this graphic novel and prepare to be wowed. Cooke has brought major wowness to a whole new level.

Teen Titans: Titans East is the latest graphic novel gathered from the pages of the newest incarnation of the young heroes in the DC universe. Led by Robin (Tim Drake, actually the third person to wear the Robin uniform), the team consists of Wonder Girl, Miss Martian, Kid Devil, Ravager, Cyborg, Raven, and Jericho. They formed the new team after the events of Infinite Crisis (which would take a HUGE column to explain).This volume opens up with an introspective peek into Kid Devil’s life. Since he mysteriously appeared in the pages of the monthly comic series, writer Geoff Johns works his familiar magic in bringing the character to three-dimensional life. I love watching Johns write stories like this, and I knew I was going to be in for a treat when I started in with first-person narrative from Kid Devil.

Johns has got a deft, sure hand with every character he touches. I’ve yet to hear him strike a false note. To be honest, I wasn’t very enamored of the Kid Devil character. He looks kind of neat and is probably fun to draw for the artists, but he just didn’t appear to have much depth. After Johns’s first arc of the Titans East storyline, I can safely report that just isn’t true.

Eddie Bloomberg (Kid Devil) is, literally, a tormented soul. Hero worship was what brought him into the hero biz when he wanted to be the sidekick for Blue Devil. I never much got into Blue Devil either, but he was pretty interesting the way Johns presented him. And, in the end, it was hero worship that boomeranged and trapped Eddie in a situation that could leave him as one of the devil’s own – literally – when he turns twenty in three years. That story detail is left dangling for the time being, but I was good with that.

As the story moved into the next section of the arc, Deathstroke the Terminator attacked the Teen Titans with a group of super-powered kids he’d gathered and called Titans East. Long-time readers of the Teen Titans will remember that Deathstroke has been a main opponent of the Titans since writer Marv Wolfman created him for the reboot of the series he did back in the 1980s.

Johns is very clever about his plotting. He generally is. Sometimes he lays all his cards on the table and lets the readers simply watch him work magic. Other times, he keeps a card hidden or turned over or turned so that it looks one way when it’s really another. That’s what he does in this graphic novel and it makes it a little difficult to talk about much of the plot without giving too much away.

Jericho and Ravager are the son and daughter of Deathstroke. Jericho He tells the Titans that he’s there to reclaim what is his. Of course, a battle to end all battles ensues.

In Deathstroke’s corner there is Batgirl (who we find out later is drugged into listening to Deathstroke), Risk, Sun Girl, Bombshell, Kid Crusader, Match, Inertia, Enigma, and Duela Dent. If you’re not a comic geek, the names aren’t going to mean much and it would take too long to explain. Just let me say that the line-up is impressive and filled with a lot of Teen Titans history.

Johns’s scripts crackle with energy and vitality. The characters, complete with strengths and weaknesses, transcend the page and become real. Wonder Girl is still struggling with the death of Conner, as is Robin, and they’re conflicted about the attraction between the two of them. (If Conner ever resurrects and comes back, that’s going to be a can of worms!)

Tony Daniels’s art matches Geoff Johns’s writing. They are really a good match. Johns provides plenty of room to work and lots of emotion and action to draw. There aren’t any static pages, no filler. It’s all high-action storytelling that keeps readers turning the pages.

I love supergroups because of all the dynamics possible within them. Teen Titans has consistently provided that kind of storytelling, and this current volume delivers again. I had a blast reading the story, even slowing down and re-reading scenes and pages to savor the smart dialogue and the beautifully drawn sequences.

The flip Johns provides at the end of the novel is fantastic. I didn’t see it coming, and I’m used to his kung fu. But his kung fu is mighty. If you like the Teen Titans, you’ll have to pick this one up. Sadly, this is one of the last story arcs Johns will be writing on the book for the foreseeable future. But I continue to enjoy what he’s doing on Justice Society of America and Green Lantern.
 

Billed as the first in the Cape Weathers, PI series, Stealing the Dragon starts out with a bang. A cargo ship filled with knock-off designer jeans ends up wrecked. But the ship wasn’t just carrying clothing. It was also filled with illegal Chinese immigrants who had paid large amounts of money or had agreed to become slaves of “snakeheads” (the men who arranged for the illegal immigration to the United States) in order to get the chance to improve their lives.Those illegal aliens aren’t the only secret, though. The ship carries a young woman aboard it that is one of very few. Trained as an assassin, the woman slips through the ship and kills the snakehead’s group as well as the crew.Looking at the plot, you’d expect to find something like this on one of those direct-to-DVD actioners starring Lorenzo Lamas. When I read the cover copy on it, I dismissed it, thinking I’d probably saved myself some money.

But that beautiful cover with the intriguing tattooed woman lurked – ninja-like – in the back of my mind. Then I saw a few generous reviews and thought, Well, the author has a few friends. Finally, I looked at the price and thought, the cost isn’t so much, and that cover is outta sight.

When I got the book and opened it to the first page, I became a believer. I didn’t put it down for almost a hundred pages. Granted, you’re not going to find anything new here. Cape Weathers is the obnoxious, laconic private eye that gets stamped out by a lot of writers. And, interesting though she is, Sally Mei isn’t exactly original either.

So you’re getting what you expect, which isn’t a bad thing.

The thing that came as a complete surprise, especially in a first-time novelist, is just how easy the novel is to read. Stealing the Dragon is simply the fastest reading detective novel I’ve perused outside of Robert B. Parker. Come to think of it, I enjoy a lot of the same qualities about the Spenser novels that I liked in this one.

Tough guy private eye? Check. (Although Spenser could take Weathers with one arm tied behind his back.)

Really deadly partner? Check. (It would be interesting to see Hawk matched up against Sally Mei. She comes with a lot more deadly accessories and looks great in a dress.)

Witty repartee? Check.

Running his own game against cops, feds, and criminals alike? Check.

The book is very familiar in a lot of ways, but it’s just so enjoyable it really shouldn’t be a first novel. I can’t wait to see what a few more years and a few more books under his belt do for Tim Maleeny.

One of the major contributors to the pacing is the incredibly shortness of the chapters. They hurtle along filled with action or dialogue, both of which are easy to read.

The book is for the most part divided between Cape’s search for his missing partner and Sally’s backstory of how she came to be an assassin trained by the Chinese Triads (organized crime). San Francisco, particularly Chinatown, comes to life on the pages.

I really enjoyed the writing, even though it was like a lot of other tough guy stuff I’ve read. Then again, I’ve read a lot of other tough guy stuff. There’s no harm in knowing what you want and how to get it.

The story is pretty straightforward. Cape goes around bumping into cops and criminals alike and pretty much becomes a lodestone for trouble and violence. The trick soon becomes staying out of jail while at the same time staying alive.

Sally, other than the revealing flashbacks, is offstage till nearly the end of the book. But I really liked her history and her story.

I’ve read few books this year that move with the same kind of rapid-fire pacing and yet manage to convey a fairly intricate and complex plot. I never once stumbled or got lost along the way. And even though the novel is nearly 370 pages long, I read it in four sittings over the Christmas holidays.

I’ve already ordered the second book in the series and am looking forward to reading it. Hopefully this is just the start of a long career for the author and the detectives.

Geoff Johns is one of the hardest working writers in the DC Comics universe. Especially now that the universe there contains 52 worlds, some of which have yet to be explored. But he’s the guy I’d definitely want taking me on the tour.

Johns has a gift of seeing the iconic heroes, a way of peeling down through decades of stories about them, to strip them to their bare bones. Once he’s hit bedrock, he rebuilds them in exactly the way they were originally created and somehow brings them into our world and our now in ways we haven’t seen before. He can take a hero that’s been around for generations and introduce him or her to today’s readers in a way that makes those readers think the heroes were just created for them now.

I’ve followed his runs on the Flash and Hawkman, and now in the pages of Green Lantern. But the greatest achievement Johns has ever done, in my humble opinion, was bringing the Justice Society of America to pre-eminence to comic book fans everywhere.

I loved his run on the previous volume of the book. I have all the copies in monthly magazine format as well as graphic novels. He’s lately reintroduced the JSA once again in Justice Society of America: The Next Age.

In this latest series, spinning out of the events of the year-long event known as 52, Johns once more brings his considerable talents to the re-envisioning of the JSA. The first graphic novel of the new series contains the first four issues of the new monthly title. We get to see old favorites (the Alan Scott Green Lantern, Jay Garrick Flash, and Wildcat – who has been one of my personal heroes for a long time) as well as get introduced to new heroes/heroines.

Johns revisits the JSA’s history to give us Cyclone, the super-powered granddaughter of Ma Hunkle, the original Red Tornado, a new Wildcat (with surprising twists), and even a new Steel (though we don’t get to see the culmination of that origin story in this graphic novel). All of these heroes fit perfectly with the old favorites Johns has lined up.

I’ve loved the JSA from the first time I saw them crossover from Earth-2 back in the pages of the 1960s Justice League comic book. Not all of those heroes were revamped and reintroduced to the world in what has become known as the Silver Age of comics. Mr. Terrific, Hourman, and Dr. Mid-Nite – as well as others – never found their way to Earth-1 except to visit.

In the early pages of this graphic novel, Batman tells Flash, Green Lantern, and Wildcat that the JLA wants to help the JSA rebuild. As Batman points out, the JLA has always been something of a strike force or weapon, while the JSA has always been about family.

It’s wonderful touches like that simple declaration that keep bringing me back to the JSA and to all of Johns’s work. I’ve never read a comic of his that I didn’t like. Story and character always work well in his scripts, and no one plays more fairly with the history of even the most long-lived heroes.

The plot in this graphic novels focuses on the rebuilding of the JSA with new blood while at the same time learning of the attacks against the families of heroes. The action is fast, violent, and bloody, with a number of deaths within the architecture of the story. Johns doesn’t take any shortcuts, and he makes the violence – so he says – as real as he can because readers want to feel like they’re living in hero worlds.

Johns’s words and Dale Eaglesham’s incredible artwork kept me turning pages, and wanting more when I’d finished. The story switches back and forth among several of the characters, and Johns conveys those different narrators skillfully. But he’s definitely aided and abetted by Eaglesham. The panels are beautiful to look at, and they push the story forward with exquisite pacing. With a book dedicated to introducing new characters to readers, there are a lot of dialogue sequences that could have dragged in the hands of a less skilled artist. Johns trusted Eaglesham enough to make it all work, and he does.

I enjoyed this graphic novel a lot, and I can’t wait for more. I hope that Johns and Eaglesham have a long stay on the title. I can’t wait to see what they do next, because they’ve opened up a ton of possibilities.