Do you remember The Heckler?

Of course you don’t. Nobody does! The absurdist DC Comics hero’s “ongoing monthly series” lasted a mere six issues, has never been reprinted or anthologized and wasn’t even an afterthought in DC’s company-wide reboot The New 52. And that’s too bad because The Heckler was an absolute gem and deserved to be remembered and to outlast like any of the best periodicals sold under that familiar “Hey!! Kids Comics!” tin sign.

The Heckler’s main asset was insanity. Complete and total abject, surreal, absurd insanity, from the stories themselves to the page layouts to the splash pages to the very letter columns. There wasn’t a full three inches inside of a Heckler comic that wasn’t funnier than Dan Rather dressed in Rocky’s boxing trunks with a clown nose on.

EXCLUSIVE PREVIEW

The Preview you’re about to read is just great…it’s exactly the right mix of knuckles-to-the-wall action and globalist puzzlemaking intrigue. Exactly the mix you’ve come to expect over the course of the past eight issues of Worlds’ Finest. Once again Paul Levitz has managed to engage his Finest in brutal hand-to-hand combat. But this time the stakes are even higher.

Huntress, now recuperating on Starr Island in the South Pacific, is forced to take down a high-tech armored assault team. They’ve come full-bear on this infiltration, ostensibly after data that is near-impossible to hack at a distance. Data demanded by their shadowy, as-yet-unrevealed employer. The same employer who sent the nuclear-powered villain Hakkou in the first storyarc.

The ‘90s were a heady, postmodern time. I’m richer for having survived it, but sometimes I want my money back. Especially when I relive the trauma of Grant Morrison’s the Invisibles (Volume Two). My particular trauma, not yours.

EXCLUSIVE PREVIEW

No spoilers, but this month’s issue of Supergirl sees a pitched battle between the Justice League, led by Superman, and an unexpected adversary—Superman cousin, Kara Zor-El, Supergirl. The battle is for the Fortress of Solitude, the legendary Superman hideaway. But there’s more at stake than just the Fortress as prize—it’s quite possibly the whole of the New 52 venture.

EXCLUSIVE PREVIEW

Much was made of obituary writing last year, with The New York Times Public Editor Margaret Sullivan combing the archives to discover that “the number of front-page obits more than doubled in 2012 over the year before.” Sullivan noted that 30 obituaries appeared on page A1 in 2012, including those that marked the passing of Maurice Sendak, Joe Paterno, and more.