Great backstory, good art. An excellent handful of moments spent reading this one. ( )

Cute. You'll probably like it if you liked the Sing-Along Blog, but aren't expecting too much character development...it's pretty much just cute and funny. ( )

Not much by way of new content...

(Full disclosure: I received a free e-ARC for review through Edelweiss.)

Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog is a three-part musical comedy-drama series that was written by Joss Whedon, Zack Whedon, Jed Whedon, and Maurissa Tancharoen and released online in 2008. It stars Nathan Fillion as the do-gooding but self-aggrandizing hero, Captain Hammer; Neil Patrick Harris as his Nice Guy (tm), wanna-be nemesis, Dr. Evil; and Felicia Day as the kind-hearted but down-on-her-luck Penny, who's caught between the two. It's a sometimes-silly, maybe-feminist send-up of the superhero trope, though in light of recent events I do feel a little weird applying that term to anything Joss Whedon has touched ("feminist," not "superhero"). The web series reportedly earned Whedon more money than the first Avengers movie, and spawned several comic books.

Chances are, if you're reading this review, then you already know all this, but a little refresher never hurt.

So the first edition of this trade paperback, Dr. Horrible and Other Horrible Stories, collected the original one-shot comic book ("Dr. Horrible"), the three digital comics from MySpace Dark Horse Presents ("Captain Hammer: Be Like Me!," "Moist: Humidity Rising," and "Penny: Keep Your Head Up"), and featured an all-new story about the Evil League of Evil ("The Evil League of Evil"). The second edition contains all of the above, as well as the comic "Best Friends Forever," released last year for the show's tenth anniversary. The only really "new" material to speak of is the original script for "Best Friends Forever," which is underwhelming at best.

If you don't already own any of the Dr. Horrible comic books, sure, this is the one to get. But if you've been buying them all along, there's no reason to drop more money on the second edition.

As far as the *actual* content goes, the only comic in the bunch I didn't really care for is "Moist: Humidity Rising." "Captain Hammer: Be Like Me!" is fun enough, and who can object to more Nathan Fillion, if even in cartoon form? "The Evil League of Evil" is a comedy of errors, and "Penny: Keep Your Head Up" was relatable AF. "Best Friends Forever," in which Captain Hammer and Dr. Horrible form a weird and unlikely friendship thanks to some nefarious goings-on, is probably my favorite of the bunch.

I gave the first edition 4/5 stars when I read it way back in the day. I guess I was just disappointed that the new edition didn't really add anything to the canon.

http://www.easyvegan.info/2019/07/23/dr-horrible-second-edition-by-zack-whedon/ ( )

Incredibly silly, but clever and fun. There's really not a lot more to say about it, other than you need to check out "Dr. Horrible's sing-along blog" before reading this. It might make more sense :-) ( )

I actually read four of the stories online when Dark Horse had some available for free once a week or some such... but it's nice to have a hard copy. A good fleshing out of the 'verse. ( )