Sir Maurice Newbury and Veronica Hobbes are special agents to the Queen who specialize in the outre. Their world may seem to be another steampunk genre adventure, but it is much, much more than that. It's as though the best Victorian-era Doctor Who episodes were used as the backdrop for the forerunners of Jonathan Steed and Emma Peel.

Our saga opens with Sir Maurice and Miss Hobbes in a street brawl, battling masked cultists. But these are no mere anarchists, for behind their masks lies a gruesome discover -- they are a mesh of man and machine, operated on by some mad genius who has advanced science and stunted ethics.

On April 17th, 2011 HBO premiered a show that would raise the bar for television so high, you'd need to mount a dragon to reach it. And season 8 was the perfect swan song.

Base on the popular (unfinished) book series by George R.R. Martin GAME OF THRONES has captivated audiences around the globe for eight seasons. Its long break between season 7 and season 8 only served as a way for fans to debate at length over how the Night King would be defeated and who would sit on the Iron Throne.

I'm familiar with Roy Thomas and Barry Windsor-Smith's creation, Red Sonja. But it's a passing familiarity. I recognize the character, I've read a few issues in my life. But there are years of story that I have not read, an entire mythology that I do not know.

Fortunately, I don't need to know any of that with RED SONJA: BIRTH OF THE SHE-DEVIL. Narrated by Ozzyus, the warrior who found and raised the red-haired little girl who grew up to be the scourge of despots, this tale from Luke Lieberman finds a somewhat younger Sonja on a quest to find a childhood friend, Shashana, who has been taken by Raka the Forsaken. To do what she has to do, Sonja is presented as a mix of ruthless and beguiling, strong and nubile. She dispatches warriors with ease, whether in combat or by drinking them under the table, and it would be a challenge to find a rendition of Red Sonja anywhere in comics sexier than the way Sergio Davila portrays her in this issue.

1:8 Scale ECTO-1 Build-Up to Debut at Official Ghostbusters Fan Fest in June

[June 7, 2019 – New York, NY]  Eaglemoss Hero Collector, designers, manufacturers and publishers of high-quality collectibles from across the many worlds of pop culture, gets all spooky in June when it introduces the Build the Ghostbusters Ectomobile subscription program at the first-ever Ghostbusters Fan Fest, presented by Wizard World at the Sony Pictures Studio Lot in Culver City, California on June 8.

CAPTAIN MARVEL was, perhaps, the first Marvel Cinematic Universe film to come with pre-release baggage. The marketing machine started things off by signalling how much of a milestone it was that this was the first Marvel film to have a female lead, as though that were a reason to watch the film. Then lead actress Brie Larson began making disparaging comments about the opinions of white male critics. There was simply too much pre-movie commentary that came off as "You will enjoy this movie for the reasons we tell you, or else you're a bad person."

That was before the film hit the theatrical circuit, where I did not see it. More time has passed now, and viewing CAPTAIN MARVEL on Blu-ray is my first exposure to the film. And with the hype and anti-hype simmered down, I could actually sit down and watch this without being told that I have to have a feminist mindset, or that there's a politically subtextual nuance to every comment, or that Brie Larson doesn't smile enough.

Let's face it. Even the youngest of television viewers can figure out the plot of a Scooby-Doo cartoon after seeing three or four of them. The Mystery Inc gang was a group of meddling kids who knew how to ride mine cars, run back and forth across the screen, and drop a net on a ghost who would end up being a guy in a rubber mask.

Something had to be done to keep the kids coming back.

One of the ways the folks at Hanna-Barbera stroke to keep Scooby-Doo fresh and relateable was to bring in guest stars, people or characters whom the viewers already knew. Thus was born the New Scooby-Doo Movies, a series where the gang would meet up with famous celebrities or other Hanna-Barbera cartoon properties. This added a new layer to the mysteries -- which, nonetheless, involved the being taken for accidental rides, running back and forth across the screen, and dropping nets on ghosts who ended up being someone in a rubber mask. Only now they had help.

Getting your music placed on a television show is a major career achievement. That recently happened for music phenom Serena Foster when her single "Oh Oh Oh" found its way onto the Netflix series, Lucifer. Having had past experience with the #SaveLucifer campaign when it was dropped from traditional network, I can speak to the size of the audience Foster reached with that little number.

Striking while the iron is hot, Foster has dropped her newest single. "I <3 CA" is an up tempo, playful melody with light and cheery lyrics. And, as one might surmise from the title, it's a bit of a love song to the coastal state, and could quite likely find its way into one of those California Department of Tourism ads you see on television.

So pop on your headphones, and maybe a pair of designer shades for effect, and take a listen to your newest earworm. You're welcome.

When high tech thefts occur in Gotham City, pulled off by stealthy ninjas, eyewitness accounts place a team of metahumans at the scene of the crime; "lizard men" Batgirl (RACHEL BLOOM) calls them. But these are not lizards. They are a quartet of terrapins, previously exposed just over a decade ago, to a DNA-altering substance that changed them into anthropomorphic creatures who were trained from an early age in the ancient Japanese martial arts. Yes, they are Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, and they've come to Gotham City from New York hot on the trail of the evil Shredder and his minions, the Foot Clan.

It's another Number One issue for Bettie Page from David Avallone and Julius Ohta. And yes, it's continuing the Lovecraftian tale of Secret Agent Bettie Page, who stands against the elder gods and ancient aliens, but it's a new chapter, a new theme, and thus deserving of a new starting point. (Really, the BETTIE PAGE books have all just been standalone reads of a larger arc anyway.)

BETTIE PAGE UNBOUND is something altogether different. That is, it continues the ongoing adventure of Bettie and friends trying to stop Cthulhu and Nyarlathotep from entering our realm, but this time the creative team has an entirely new angle: a dimension-hopping Bettie who winds up in the form of a different adventurer with each hop. In this issue, she's Bettie the Page, chain-mail bikini warrior of Hyperborea.

Yes, Hyperborea. Bettie is a bad-ass, sword-wielding warrior, aka Red Sonja, a property currently under license to Dynamite.

John Barron and Shawn Remulac aren't the first to jump on the presidential parody train, certainly not this administration. But they are certainly doing what they can to milk the satire out of politics and comics as they approach Donald Trump with the raunchy eye of lampoonists. 

Hot on the heels of TRUMP'S TITANS, the Keenspot creators introduce THE DONALD WHO LAUGHS, a dark version of Donald Trump [insert obvious political jab here] who has, with his daughter, Darkvanka, kidnapped the real President and First Daughter so that they can take their place. As President, this evil Donald Trump [insert reflexive coughing fit here if needed] can muck about with the direction of the country while his daughter complains about how boring Jared is as she impersonates Ivanka. 

The village of Berk has become overrun with dragons. For most fictional medieval villages, this would be the apocalypse. But Berk is a dragon sanctuary, and their leader, Hiccup (JAY BARUCHEL), leads a rag-tag band of raiders on rescue missions to save dragons from trappers and poachers, bringing them back to the ever-more-crowded town.

Things take a turn, however, when dragon hunter Grimmel (F. MURRAY ABRAHAM) enters the scene. More than being ruthless and relentless, Grimmel is a strategist who plans three steps ahead, and he has a single minded goal: destroy all dragons. For that, he needs to get his hands on the alpha dragon -- Hiccup's partner, Toothless.

No, your eyes do not deceive you. After having missed May, we have a new cosplayer for our monthly Critical Blast Bombshell feature. This go round, we pull in another member of the male cosplay community (because we're all about equal representation that way).

You might say he's a bit of an outsider. He's built solid enough to take a hit from a crowbar. (Am I robbin' the pun jar too much?) 

Okay, enough with the attempts at cleverness and let's move on to why you're really here: to meet our...

Critical Blast Bombshell, June 2019

Jay Pines

PETER CANNON, THUNDERBOLT wraps up its story arc with this fifth issue, whereupon the titular character takes on the titular character. It's Peter Cannon vs. Peter Cannon, but really it's more Charleston Thunderbolt takes on Watchmen's Ozymandias. But there's more going on here than simple homage from Kieron Gilen and Caspar Wijngaard.

Perhaps one of the things that sets country artists apart from pop ones beyond just the style of their genre is that country artists will almost invariably -- and comfortably -- cross over into the gospel genre. In the past, some pop stars would release an album or two, most notably Elvis Presley, and it was common for R&B singers to have some gospel in their repertoire. But by and large it's the country artists who find church music in their roots and carry it forward into their own music.

ISN'T IT ROMANTIC is an entertaining rom-com that sets out to prove all rom-coms are fomulaic drivel -- and quickly becomes formulaic.

Not that this is a bad thing. Formulas work, and attempting to subvert audience expectations is a tricky business that is more risk than reward. Formula brings people back. I watch every Hallmark Channel Christmas movie with my wife, and within the first fifteen minutes have written the ending, and that still doesn't stop her from watching each and every one of them.

In this film, we meet Natalie (REBEL WILSON) who from a young age has been told by her mother that happy endings don't happen for girls like them. Believing this, Nat has grown up to be mildly successful as an architect but without her own voice and a lack of respect from her own employees. When discussing romantic comedies with her assistant, she ticks off a lengthy laundry list of items that are everything she feels is wrong with them.

When the superheroes became popular, lo many decades ago, an attempt was made to draw in more readers by adding characters that would be (or so the theory went) relateable to girls. There was already Wonder Woman, Phantom Lady, and others, but none of them had quite the popularity of a Superman or a Batman.

And so the quick-and-easy path seemed to be to create female versions of these characters. It was a hit-or-miss process, with more misses than hits. In the Superman comics, a Superwoman was introduced in Action Comics #60 in 1943. She was easily forgotten (although has resurfaced in one incarnation or another over the years), and largely eclipsed when sixteen years later Kara Zor-El made her debut as Supergirl in the pages of Action Comics #252.

So many comic book superheroes passed into the public domain that they have become golden again -- golden for independent publishers that is, who are free to use these characters to tell their stories. They're at the heart of Dynamite Comics PROJECT: SUPERPOWERS series, and have shown up in other various series.

To date, there's only one comic book hero who, at the mere utterance of his name, has the ability to evoke either dreamlike awe or cold fury from the comics fan who hears it. His name is CyberFrog, and he's the creation of comic book artist Ethan Van Sciver.

Originally created in the 90s, CyberFrog is finding new life through an Indiegogo project which has drawn acclaim for its detailed preview artwork, and criticism for it being behind its self-imposed schedule. To date, CYBERFROG: BLOODHONEY is eight months behind. If this were a car, it would be repossessed by now.

A Song of Ice and Fire. For many people, including myself, we thought that meant Jon and Dany would rule the Seven Kingdoms together, happily ever after. A fairytale ending for a fantasy series. Even though nearly every episode in the series bludgeoned us with the idea that there is no truly happy ending.

In reality, this show has done everything to show us there is no "happily ever after" and yet we still held out hope it would happen. There are real consequences to the conquest of a kingdom. Robert Baratheon rose an army to stop the "mad king" and ended up sitting on a throne that was less than rewarding. He hated politics. He was a soldier, a lover, a hunter, a drinker, and was never fit for the throne. However, the Lannister's had other ideas as they saw him as a pawn to have their family sitting on the Iron Throne for all time.

Some of life’s biggest pleasures come from the most unexpected sources. One such pleasant surprise is Come From Away making it’s St. Louis debut at the Fabulous Fox Theatre May 14-26, 2019. It is a rare production without an obvious lead actor—it’s essentially an “all ensemble” show where every actor has a multitude of parts to play. Everyone in the cast is delightful, the music catchy, the vibe surprisingly upbeat for a story about the terror attacks of 9/11. That's right--somebody made a musical about 9/11 and it's brilliant!