Last week had a plethora of moments that just made a guy say “…huh?” They weren’t necessarily confusing or incorrect. They just made you pause on the panel and wonder if you had just missed something. Perhaps most huh-worthy was Justice League: Cry for Justice, in which shadowy figures perched on gargoyles watched our heroes deliver their exposition, Supergirl gets the warm tinglies for Captain marvel, and Plastic Man shows up on the last page to help mete out a little Justice of his own.

Click on the thumbnail for a full-page excerpt.

Jordan’s DNA? Huh.

Justice League: Cry for Justice #4

In issue #3, Clayface detonates a bomb which causes more confusion among the assembled heroes than actual bodily damage. Supergirl muses: “He’s not that clever. His explosion… it wouldn’t have killed me or Freddy [Captain Marvel], so…” Her words are cut short by Hal “Green Lantern” Jordan and his ring:

Jordan: My ring says different.
Ring: Analysis of explosive compound — laced with molecular nanobytes — reconfiguring substance of blast every .000034 milliseconds. At moment of explosio — trace elements of Kryptonite. Also active ingredient Jordan DNA, making possibility ring would override protective screen.

Huh? Where would anybody get Jordan’s DNA?

Oh, yeah…

Vegetables? Huh?!

X-Babies #1

Having just discovered Jacob Chabot’s charming work at Mid-Ohio-Con, I was intrigued to check out his new project, X-Babies. This book would have fallen flat on its face quicker than a one-year-old with vertigo had it not been for Chabot’s art. During one particularly telling passage, the X-Babies discover that they’re in danger of being replaced. By an even younger version of themselves. The X-Infants are drawn incredibly round, shiny and colored in an ultra-pastel scheme. When Chabot swings around to catch the X-Babies’ reaction, their white eyes stare in silent shock, intensified by the dark, murky colors that colorist Emily Warren surround them with. It’s a brilliant visual, and it’s the kind of thing that carried the issue. Well, that and moments like this:

Baby Wolverine: LAME! Someone’s been sleeping in our bed… ‘cept the only thing they got just right is that Cyclops is a dink.

Live-Blogging Super-Villain? Huh?!?

Amazing Spider-Man #608

Spider-man, sadly sans Black Cat, drops in on a would-be super villain who has stolen millions of dollars worth of bearer bonds. The villain goes by the handle “Screwball,” and insists that she is not actually a super villain at all:

Screwball: For the Gajillionth time, I’m not a “bad guy,” I’m a performance artist. The world’s first live-blogging super villain.
Spidey: I hate to tell you, but super villains are bad guys.
Screwball: Tell that to the eighteen-million people who subscribe to me Web site.
Spidey: Fine She’s a bad guy folks. You should stop giving her your attention and use the Internet for what it was invented for… using Googles to find Norman Osporn. Everybody knows that.
Screwball: Obviously, you haven’t checked out the age-restricted pages on my site.

Putting the “huh” in “hubris”

Batman and Robin #5

After discovering that Gotham newcomer, “The Flamingo,” has massacred a jetliner full of models (and, yecch, ate their faces), Commissioner James Gordon radios the caped crusader:

Gordon: Batman. Eduado Flamingo is the aplha-enforcer for the Penitente Cartel. Nobody, nobody walks into my town like this….

Huh?! Now, I love Commissioner Gordon as much as the next guy, but a statement like that is just embarrassing. Making one’s presence known by a grizzly act of criminal insanity is practically a prerequisite enforced by Greater Gotham Area real estate agents.

As a side note, what is it that writer Grant Morrison has with faces, anyway? First Professor Pyg disfigures peoples’ faces with grotesque masks, and now this Flamingo character is into eating visages with fava beans and a nice chianti.

Pancakes? Huh??

Deadpool #16

Having been initially turned down by Cyclops for X-Men membership (maybe Baby Wolvie was right), Deadpool prepares for a follow-up meeting by Domino — who is sent to negotiate membership with the mercenary. Of course, Deadpool’s meeting prep consists of making pancakes. 372,844 of them, to be exact.

Later, Deadpool maneuvers Domino over a ceiling window where she crashes and falls into — what else? — a swimming pool filled with his morning’s efforts. Then invites her to breakfast.

Domino: Why?
Deadpool: Oh, Well, if Cyclops really had sent you here to whack me, he’d have sent a back-up crew. Minute you went down, they would have made their presence known. They didn’t. had to be sure, y’know?.
Domino: You knew I was coming?
Deadpool: Okay, you got me — I actually made all these ’cause I was bored..
Domino: But… What if Cyclops had sent me to whack you?
Deadpool: Woulda blown out your brains an’ had some pancakes.

Wisely, the Merc-with-a-Mouth changes the subject rapidly. To his new X-Men uniform. Which he designed: “Check it out — even has my name on the back.

Language of Null? Huh?

Doctor Voodoo #1

In the opening passage of the new Doctor Voodoo series, Jerico Drumm, having assumed the new mantle of Sorcerer Supreme, sets of to protect his universe against other-dimensional threats like the dread Dormamuu. The Flaming One ensnares the novice doctor with his Orbs of Goqa’xius — which Drumm abruptly destroys with, well… chanting, shrunken heads.

Dr. Voodoo: I have a message from Stephen Strange. The Orbs of Goqa’xius that guard your chamber — they are vulnerable to the Language of Null!

I think we may be mere centimeters away from bringing in the “Knight who say Nie.” And, from what I can hear, the Language of Null sounds an awful lot like the language the aliens were speaking in Tim Burton’s “Mars Attacks” — which, come to think of it, would seem to be much more threatening to Dormamuu than a flock of crows. Ack, indeed.