From IDW:

SUBJECT: Tom Cruise

PROFILE: Cruise portrays MI agent Ethan Hunt in some of the most action-packed movies known to man. The films are specially encoded via laser cryptography onto high density disks in a high dynamic range, offering four times the clarity and brilliance of HD. There are currently five such films, known as the MISSION: IMPOSSIBLE series.

YOUR MISSION: Obtain all five of these films, known as the MISSION: IMPOSSIBLE series, utilizing every means at your disposal through the tools you will be provided. Familiarize yourself with the rules and regulations, then proceed. You may assemble your team for this mission, but each team member will have to act as an individual.

Good luck.

(This notice will self destruct.)

When we concluded JUSTICE LEAGUE #1, an entity called "The Totality" was on a collision course with the Earth, with less than a minute to go.

With the advent of JUSTICE LEAGUE #2, that minute has passed, The Totality has landed, and it's a big, giant head of a corpse, sending out some sort of universal code. Waylon Jones -- aka Killer Croc -- has already gone into it, and came out changed into a cross between Doomsday and Godzilla, his genetics totally rewritten. What Croc was doing there, we don't know. Let's assume it was part of a Suicide Squad mission, because otherwise he really had no business being there other than to provide us a really cool "New Killer Croc" image.

Welcome back to Critical Blast’s long-running weekly look at what new comics you should check out each week.   Just a warning, I make these picks pretty much a week BEFORE I actually get to read any of these comics, so if something is a stinker, I take no blame on that.  Let's get to it!

Good things really DO come to those who wait. Fourteen years between movies is a big gap, but it allows for nearly two generations of fans to build hype for a single movie.

When the first INCREDIBLES movie came out, back in 2004, you could still buy "fullscreen" format on DVD. Fourteen years ago, before the golden age of superhero movies began with IRON MAN and THE DARK KNIGHT, Disney's Pixar released a movie about a family of 'supers' who have been forced into a life of mediocrity.

Now, with studios raking in billions of dollars with superhero properties, Pixar makes its return to the superhero genre with a long-awaited sequel.

TwoMorrows has carved a niche industry out of mining the past. And not just wistful retrospectives, but deep-dives into the history of cartoons, comic books, and superheroes, unearthing tidbits of pop culture archeology unknown by most fans today.

It's only a trailer -- and it's only a joke. Nevertheless, Huw Parkinson has gone viral with his video editing job that combines scenes from the James Bond franchise with audio and video of President Donald Trump and other political figures to create what would surely be a blockbuster hit of the summer: GOLDENHAIR!

Playing off current events with Korea, this trailer displays masterful technique in combining disparate audio and video, resulting in a seamless comedic enterprise. We've watched it several times already, and it leaves us both shaken and stirred.

Enjoy!

I love me some good Plastic Man. And while I have some questions stemming from this first issue from Gail Simone and Adriana Melo, this is still some good Plastic Man.

As any first issue should go, PLASTIC MAN #1 introduces us to the character and gets into his origin story. Simone does this with a flashback sequence while Plastic Man -- Eel O'Brian -- comes to terms with being told that he shot and killed a guard during a robbery during the criminal past he's trying to make up for. Of course, he has limited memory of the robbery, and he's told he was the shooter by one of the other crooks involved -- information which conflicts with the flashback panels Melo provides -- so there's a chance that Eel isn't the killer after all.

SHERLOCK GNOMES -- the sequel nobody asked for after GNOMEO & JULIET -- finds the Capulet and Montague gnomes being transported from Stratford on Avon to London, just in time to become the victims of an unnoticed crime spree of kidnapped garden gnomes. Unnoticed by all except one gnome, that is -- Sherlock Gnomes, sworn defender of all the garden gnomes of London.

Oh, and Watson.

Sherlock (JOHNNY DEPP) is in a slump in the days following the defeat of his arch-enemy, Moriarty (JAMIE DEMETRIOU) -- the mascot of Moriarty's Pies. As in "Moriarty's (s)Pies are everywhere." But when whole gardens of gnomes begin to go missing, Sherlock believes his enemy has returned, and sets out with his beleaguered and mistreated partner, Watson (CHIWETEL EJIOFOR) to solve the clues, left at each scene with Moriarty's traditional playing card motif.

I have good news and bad news for you: Superman's world will never be the same.

Eisner award-winning writer, Brian Michael Bendis, has hardly scratched the surface on his time as Superman writer. Yet that small scratch has turned out to be a deep gouge of which will scar the Man of Steel going forward for many years to come.

Bendis is a tireless writer who can balance many projects at once, as proven during his time at Marvel. He doesn't often bounce around from story to story as he's able to balance so many at a time. While we have no idea how long his reign on Superman will go, his story that launched his tenure has been nothing short of game-changing.

I'd like to think that cosplay started simply enough; that fans saw a character, realized they could make themselves look like that character, then surprise their friends and fellow fans at conventions by showing up in imitation of that character. I'd like to think that this came first, before cosplay became inartfully synonymous with fetish photography and roleplay sexuality, but they probably happened nearly concurrently, as certainly some of the costumes couldn't exist in real life without being conforming, revealing, and fetishistic.

Sometimes a person appears on the big screen in an unforgettable moment, then disappears from the public view. Most of them are never heard from again. Maybe the film was a flop. Maybe they decided the life wasn't for them. Maybe they were too identified with the role and couldn't be seen as anyone else afterward.

One of those shining stars is Tami Stronach, who captivated audiences in THE NEVERENDING STORY as The Childlike Empress. Several years would pass before Stronach would again grace the screen, but she's been far from idle in those years.

With a new venture, and some new projects in the works, Tami took a few moments to speak with us about where she came from, and where she's going now.

You were barely 11 when THE NEVERENDING STORY came out, and obviously younger than that during all the filming. What do you remember most vividly from that experience?

So here's my childhood: Get up. Watch cartoons. Play. Go to school. Watch after school cartoons. Play. Go to bed, safe in the assurance that when I grew up, I woudln't have to work because we'd have jetpacks, flying cars, cooked food on demand, and robots.

Now that I've left 50 in the taillights, and ponder the weight the advent of microwaves and Uber Eats has put on me, I finally get one more step closer to the future that I was promised in comic books and LOST IN SPACE.

The robots are here!

Yes, they've been here for a while, I suppose. But for the most part, consumer-obtainable robots have been pretty much RC cars with special effects.

Welcome back to Critical Blast’s long-running weekly look at what new comics you should check out each week.   Just a warning, I make these picks pretty much a week BEFORE I actually get to read any of these comics, so if something is a stinker, I take no blame on that.  Let's get to it!

Comics shipping this week

June is LGBT Pride Month. If you've not turned on your Internet in the past 12 days, this may be something that has escaped you. Nationwide, the LGBTQ community has gathered in cities to throw parties, hold parades, and declare their personal independence.

But apparently it's just not a party until someone masks up and starts a fire.

Movie fans looking for something fronted by a strong, kick-ass female character will no doubt go into the reboot of TOMB RAIDER with high hopes. The video game character, Lara Croft, is resourceful, smart, cunning, and capable, so why would the movie version be any different?

I've watched more than my share of horror titles over the years, and the most terrifying ones weren't the ones with slashers or monsters, but where the source of fear was a child. And not necessarily the ones involving Damien or Regan or Rosemary's baby (although they absolutely scared!), but just evil children. MacCauley Culkin's THE GOOD SON was chilling in that respect.

Abby May might just qualify for that special class of frighteners, although her ghostly status certainly gives her an advantage.

Pat Shand (ROBYN HOOD) and Olivia Pelaez (THE KITCHEN WITCH) team up to tell the story of a haunted stuffed penguin.

No, come back. I'm being serious!

Post-apocalyptic fun in the Lego Universe!  The events of Taco Tuesday have left the entire land in dire straits...but Emmet (voice by the always brilliant Chris Pratt) still seems pretty enthustiastic.

My family loved THE LEGO MOVIE, and it definitely looks like the second movie will be more of the same!  THE LEGO MOVIE 2: THE SECOND PART is coming February 2019.

A funny thing happened on the way to writing this review.

Sure, I read it. I was enthralled by it, captivated by it, and completely drawn into what was largely a soliliquy from the Joker, in one of his "less manic but just as mad" moments. I mean, he's almost lucid in his insanity through most of this book.

But then it came time to actually write the review. And like most journalists, I rely less on my own means and more on Google's. I mean, I needed to have an image to go with the review, right? And that's when things got funny.

Because I asked for images from BATMAN #48. Because that's this issue, right? And naturally I'm expecting to see Joker. And I do see Joker. And it is BATMAN 48. But it's the previous incarnation of the BATMAN series, where Bruce is trying to have a normal life and finds himself talking civilly with a stranger who could only be a remade Joker talking about the futility of his life.