Valentine

ONE NIGHT ONLY! Tensions run high between JEM AND THE HOLOGRAMS and THE MISFITS as their tour kicks into high gear! And now, the sound buried in Synergy programming-the one that’s been profoundly affecting all those who hear it-has just changed its tune! For one night only-Valentine’s Day-it’s making friends of enemies with sometimes dangerous consequences!

Kelly Thompson and Jen Bartel bring cutesy, chaotic spark to the love potion trope in “Jem and the Holograms: Valentine’s Day Special.” After Kimber goes overboard with a “resentment softening” potion, the Holograms and the Misfits find themselves enamored with various hipsters, strangers and/or foodstuffs, and it’s up to Jerrica and Rio to run damage control. Though the plot device is familiar, the execution brims with fun character moments. Things admittedly resolve themselves a bit too easily, but — as with so many issues of this series — the joy and good humor are infectious. “Jem and the Holograms Valentine Special” is a sweet holiday treat. From the first page, Thompson handles the setup superbly. The love potion plot isn’t exactly original, but it’s also perfectly suited to Kimber’s unique foibles. Thompson wisely plays this up in the opening scene; the screw-up seems inevitable in all the best ways — not because the plotting is over-obvious, but because the audience immediat

Harley Quinn will do just about anything to win a date with Bruce Wayne, including breaking and entering, robbery and inducing great bodily harm in Amanda Conner and Jimmy Palmiotti’s “Harley Quinn Valentine’s Day Special” #1. Despite that, there’s still a backhanded kind of sweetness in Harley’s misguided infatuation, as at least her selfish and destructive desires are motivated by a charitable effort and even Batman himself cuts her a break. In fact, she finds herself on the side of the angels in that enemy-of-my-enemy kind of way and things pretty much end well for everyone that deserves it, even for Harley herself in this case. Conner and Palmiotti engage in a bit of satire against the wealthy, and the real-life individual they choose to parody is a safe one, in that it’s someone who pretty much everyone is all-too-willing to vilify. Some of the satire is turned inward, breaking the forth wall occasionally and poking fun at the comic book creative and editorial process by jabbing

“Young Romance: The New 52 Valentine’s Day Special” #1 contains “six love stories from all corners of the DC Universe,” with a variety of characters and couples, some long-established and some new. “Think It Through” by Ann Nocenti, Emanuela Lupacchino and Jaime Mendoza is one extended flashback, and a trip down memory lane reveals a lot about The New 52’s Catwoman then and now. Selina Kyle comes off as a headstrong, impulsive girl rather than a confident woman of the world or a worthy foe. Lupacchino’s pencils are great in the climactic scene as Batman holds Catwoman in his arms, and Gabe Eltaeb does a very pretty coloring job with the light refracting through purple glass. All the romance of “Think It Through” is in those two panels, but Nocenti’s moral symbolism and the physical metaphor of falling has zero subtlety. As a character and mood sketch, “Think It Through” does its job, but as a “how they meet,” it’s a let-down. The plot of “The Lighthouse” by Cecil Castellucci and Ina

The Backstagers are back — just in time for Valentine’s Day. BOOM! Studios’ The Backstagers 2018 Valentine’s Day Special was announced during “The Future Is LGBTQ” panel Saturday afternoon at New York Comic Con. The one-shot will reunite the creative team of James Tynion IV and Rian Sygh, for a 40-page romance-themed one-shot set during V-Day. RELATED: BOOM! Studios Announces “The Backstagers” From Tynion, Sygh The Backstagers, an all-ages series from BOOM! Studios’ BOOM! Box imprint, tells the story of an all-boys private school theater crew — with a backstage door that leads to different worlds. The original miniseries ran for eight issues from August 2016 to March 2017, and issue #1 won the first-annual Prism Award for “Best Single Issue From a Mainstream Publisher.” The Backstagers 2018 Valentine’s Day Special variant cover by Veronica Fish is below, along with solicitation text for the issue. Sygh&r