If you've been wondering why I've been a little more excited lately, why bird songs are a little sweeter or why food tastes a little better, it's because the latest storyline of DC's digital-first Batman '66 comic has involved Batman and Batgirl heading to Japan to take on Lord Death Man.

Jeff Parker, Sandy Jarrell and Jordie Bellaire have done a pretty amazing job creating story that I wish would've happened on television, but giving it the unlimited budget for stuff like a new Japanese Batmobile and an army of ninjas, and it's pretty great. To get some insight into just how it all happened, I spoke to Parker for his thoughts on bringing in other period-specific villains, why Lord Death Man is so much more exciting than his original American counterpart, and ideas for other non-Gotham location that could use a visit from the Caped Crusaders!

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Originally scheduled to arrive last year, the Hot Toys Captain America: The Winter Soldier STRIKE Suit Captain America has been a figure I've been waiting an extra-long time to obtain. I was more than willing to wait for a high-end reproduction of one of my favorite characters in one of my favorite costumes. Now that I've got this mini-Steve Rogers in my hands, I can say the wait was worth it--for the most part.

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If you're interested in the history of superhero comics --- and I sincerely hope you are, since I've spent an awful lot of time writing about that very subject --- then here's something that you might be interested in. As part of the edX series of online courses, the Smithsonian Institute is launching a series of lectures on the history of comics, featuring Stan Lee and Michael Uslan.

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ScreenCrush editor, comic-book lover, and undiagnosed masochist Matt Singer is systematically watching every single (American) comic-book movie ever made in the order in which they were released. This week in The Complete History of Comic-Book Movies: A forgotten hero flies again.

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Hire This Woman is a recurring feature on ComicsAlliance that shines a spotlight on female comics pros, whether they're relative newcomers or experienced pros who are ready to break out. In an overwhelmingly male business, we want to draw your attention to these creators --- and to raise their profile with editors and industry gatekeepers.

Cartoonist Maria-Elisa Heg does a bit of everything including writing, drawing, coloring, lettering, and singing. She's primarily worked on anthologies, educational comics, and auto-bio comics. She's also co-head of Zinefest Houston. Just like last week's featured person, C.M. Bratton, you can see her in person at the Hire This Woman panel at STAPLE! in Austin, Texas, on March 7th.

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The world of pro wrestling can be a beautiful thing. For proof, you need look no further than the recent developments in lucha libre, in which there are not one, not two, but three different groups of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle-themed factions that have recently begun warring with each other. I can only assume this conflict was inevitable, but it came to a head when AULL's Tortiguillos Karatekas were taking on the IWRG's Tortugas Ninja in a four-on-four tag team match that was interrupted when a third faction, Las Tortugas Mutantes, ran in and started attacking everyone.

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There aren't many decades that brought as much change for women as the 1960s. The roles and rights of women changed and the world met second wave feminism --- and yet, especially at the beginning of the decade, women were still often expected to fill only the role of a housewife and mother.

This is where Joëlle Jones and Jamie S. Rich's Lady Killer comes in, set in 1962. Lady Killer's heroine Josie is exactly the housewife and mother that the times demanded she be, and a focused career woman who happens to make a career out of assassination. It's a book that carries a lot of weight as a story about a woman in a time of great change. It's also a book that's easy on the eyes.

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Over the past 40 years, Tom Batiuk’s Funky Winkerbean has transitioned from a gag-a-day comic strip about a high school to an ongoing chronicle of pure, abject misery. Thanks to the commentary on Josh Fruhlinger’s Comics Curmudgeon, I am now completely obsessed with it, which is why I spend a little time every month rounding up its finest examples of crushing despair.

I'm not going to lie to you, folks: Tommy B was in rare form last month. After crushing every ounce of hope I had left in me with January's monumentally disappointing Dick Tracy crossover, I assumed, having never learned my lesson about assumptions in the years that I've been reading this strip, that February would bring an upswing in quality. I mean, mathematically speaking, it would almost have to. And yet, Funky Winkerbean continues to defy all expectations. These strips might not have made me quite as angry as January's did, but believe me, folks: they get dark, even by Westview standards.

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This morning, Hot Toys formally unveiled the Avengers: Age of Ultron Iron Man Hulkbuster sixth-scale figure. As arguably the most anticipated collectible from the series, fans had been salivating and speculating for months about what to expect. Judging from the announcement, those expectations will be met, and then some.

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Brian Hibbs has put up his great yearly analysis of the Bookscan numbers over at Comic Book Resources, and they reflect a change that's slowly dawning on many people in comics right now: books for women and children are where the money is. Nine of the top twenty books sold and tracked by Bookscan last year were by women, and twelve of the top twenty were books for kids.

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