Chad’s Comments (group member since Mar 22, 2018)

Chad’s comments from the I Read Comic Books group.

Last week's adventures in comics.

Fortune and Glory: The Musical ★★★
Bendis's story about how he was approached to write the book for Spider-Man: Turn Off the Dark, the famously failed musical of the past decade. That's just a small part of the book though. At least half of it is how he became a writer and got into comics. For those of you who haven't read his earliest comics, he also started out as an artist before learning that his real talent laid solely in writing comics.

Captain America: Scourge of the Underworld ★★
I remember Scourge randomly showing up and killing criminals in the Marvel universe in the 80s and thinking it was really cool. And the story at the Bar with No Name in Captain America was pretty cool. Yes, they are mostly obscure villains that die but they had been in other comics back then. And a bunch of these guys get resurrected decades later during Dark Reign to become Punisher fodder. But to get back to this. This story becomes a real muddled mess with Scourge working for the Red Skull. What the Hell is that? It makes no sense that a guy who kills criminals would work for the freaking Red Skull. The U.S. Agent mini at the end tries to make sense of it all but it's too little, too late. This is put together really strangely too. There's only a few full issues. Over half of it is excerpts from comics, only cherry-picking the pages where Scourge shows up. The whole thing is just a real mess.

Star Wars: The Stark Hyperspace War ★★
A really lackluster story told in flashback by several Jedi masters. The story structure makes this even more boring than it would seem even. Ostrander is typically a very reliable writer. It's about a couple of groups scheming to limit bacta production to raise profits. The art's not very good either. This was just an all around pass.

U.S. Agent ★★
The biggest jerk in comics got his own miniseries back in the 90s. Finally lays down the deal with Scourge who was this person who went around murdering costumed criminals in the Marvel universe in the 80s and 90s. It was all very unfulfilling after dragging it out for about 10 years.

JLA: Year One ★★★★★
I love this comic. I loved it when it came out in the 90s and it's still just as good in 2024. Waid and Augustyn provide the perfect combination of action, story and subtle humor. I love how they mix so many obscure DC heroes into the story as well, yet they never seem out of place. My only complaint is that they didn't ever do a Year Two with Green Arrow, Hawkman and Hawkwoman, Zatanna, Red Tornado and Elongated Man joining the team. Barry Kitson's art is just terrific too. I don't where he's been lately but I'd welcome his return. His team-ups with Mark Waid are always golden.

Frank Miller’s Ronin Rising Manga Edition ★
Frank Miller continues to tarnish his legacy in the 21st century with this nonsense sequel to Ronin. I had absolutely no idea what was happening. It was all pinup pages of gigantic monsters floating in space (or the womb, who the Hell knows) with the same repetitive dialogue for 300 pages. Then there's a mother and a toddler with Superman's powers killing them and talking repeatedly about Virgo and one of the other zodiac signs that I can't be bothered to remember. This is easily the worst comic of the year. This new publisher, Cana, needs to pay people to get them to read it. It's that bad. It wasn't even worth reading it with the free ARC I received.

Star Wars: Rite of Passage ★★★
Jedi Quinlan Vos and Padawan Aayla Secura take on this newer race that has kidnapped Aayla's child cousin who is the heir to a big Twi'lek clan. There's a lot to like. Jan Duursema's art for one which is much better to me than Davide Fabbri's.

Star Wars: 30th Anniversary Collection, Volume 4: Jango Fett & Zam Wesell ★★★
Two separate but connected stories featuring the bounty hunters from Attack of the Clones. They are fine.

Star Wars: Jedi Quest ★★
An all over the place story about people being put to slavery by some random bad guy. Anakin and Obi-Wan randomly work to free everyone. The story is kind of a mess and the art isn't very good.

Star Wars Legends Epic Collection: The Menace Revealed, Vol. 3 ★★
Proof that not all of the Dark Horse Star Wars stories were golden. One of the weaker Star Wars Epic collections. It's full of just OK art and stories.

Godzilla's 70th Anniversary Deluxe Edition ★★★
The 70th Anniversary special is pretty good. I gave it 4 stars when I first read it. This deluxe edition adds these random Best of Godzilla comics that I think bring down the collection as a whole. They are all very random. Some of them are incomplete stories. If you're a Godzilla fan, you've probably already read all of it in previous collections. It just seem like a scam to take more of your money.

Thief of the Heights ★★★
A YA dystopian comic about three friends who create prosthetics for people inflected by some disease that requires limbs to be amputated. The best of the best get lifted out of the darkness to cities higher up on the food chain with better resources and daylight. It's fine. My problems are that we've read this story many times before. So many times before that Son M. doesn't really even bother to go into details about much of this world. You're supposed to just take what was given and go with it. But this is also 240 pages long so what else were they were doing with these pages? The ending feels like it comes out of nowhere too. All of a sudden there's a revolution plot that wasn't really there at all before. It was so rushed that I thought maybe towards the end, the publisher told the creators that they were not getting a second book and they had to cram the rest of the story in the last 50 pages.

Batman: Resurrection ★★★
I thought it was odd to write a new prose book based on Batman '89 in 2024. After all, why wait 35 years? But it actually wasn't half bad. It takes place between Batman and Batman Returns, bridging the gap. It answers some perceived plot holes in the first movie with the Joker. Batman is having nightmares about the Joker still being alive and it seems like he may have returned. I do remember those rumors being told about what Batman Returns would be about. Two more Batman villains make their debut in the Batman '89 universe and I thought they were both done pretty well. They both maintained their comic book roots while getting updated to fit this world. Miller does a good job of bridging the gap between the two films. He also seems to have laid some seeds for another Batman book to come out next year, Batman: Revolution.

Yeah, Erin, on the last day of the month, I typically spend an hour deciding on how to use the rest of my borrows so I don't waste them.

Adam works at a library and knows what he's talking about.

Check out those bonus borrows Nick. They should be available till Saturday.

Another pro-tip with Hoopla. I use my wife's library account too so I can double the amount of borrows I get each month.

I'm not sure how many of you use Hoopla but it's a great resource that many libraries use in the U.S. If your library participates, all you need is a library card to access it. Like for me, our library allows 15 checkouts a month. Almost every comic publisher has comics there, available digitally. That's where I find a lot of the small press stuff I read, along with European comics that have been translated to English. There's also a ton of Manga. There are literally thousands of graphic novels available. They have their own app to read your graphic novels in too.

The other nice thing is the last week of the month, they offer 12 bonus borrow graphic novels from a variety of publishers They don't cost against your monthly borrows at all . Those are out now. It's typically older but good stuff. This month they have Gotham by Gaslight, Do a Powerbomb, Hellblozer, Time Before Time, a couple of manga books, etc.

https://www.hoopladigital.com/collect...

Marvel Unlimited is on sale this week if anyone is looking to get it. It's $45 for the year.

https://www.marvel.com/articles/comic...

Last week's adventures in comics.

X-Men Epic Collection, Vol. 23: Fatal Attractions ★★★★
This volume has some key moments in it, mostly depressing ones. The Legacy virus takes its first victim. Colossus goes into a downward spiral, joining the Acolytes. Gambit's first miniseries. Magneto pulls the adamantium out of Wolverine's skeleton. Magneto gets turned into a vegetable. Fatal Attractions was a bunch of extra thick issues with holograms on the cover for the 30th anniversary of the X-Men. There's a lot to like here. I will warn you that 90s comics are very verbose.

Gambit ★★★
Gambit heads to New Orleans after his brother is murdered. There his past catches up to him and he gets embroiled is a power struggle between the Thieves and Assassins Guilds. Rogue tags along and accidentally steals some of Bella Donna's memories. The plot is convoluted and motivations sometimes don't make sense. Lee Weeks provides artwork reminiscent of Joe Kubert.

Dune: House Corrino Vol. 2 ★★
The art seems to be getting worse in these adaptations as it goes along. Maybe Boom is looking to save some money towards the end of these? Anyway, it's still houses Atreides and Harkonnen going at it with one another with the Emperor doing real shady stuff behind the scenes. I'm suddenly glad it's almost over as it's losing my interest.

Transformers: Infiltration ★★★
This is OK. It's a tad bit confusing as to what's going on here as not enough info is doled out. The autobots and decepticons are lurking in plain sight. Three humans happen upon them while holding onto a macguffin that's not explained.

Transformers: Escalation ★★
The story is pretty simple at this point. The Decepticons are trying to start a war and the Autobots are trying to stop them. The subplots though get started and then forgotten about, like the capture of Sunstreaker and one of the humans. Not the best writing overall.

Transformers: Devastation ★★
Whew! this is a lot to follow. A ton of new elements get thrown into the mix including some dumb ones like bringing the headmasters back. I thought those were dumb even as a kid. Then there's stuff with Galvatron and the Reavers. It's a whole lot to keep track of in the background while the main thrust is Sixshot kicking the crap out of the Autobots. This isn't a series that you get eased into. If you don't have instant recollection of the 80's cartoon, there's a good chance you'll be lost.

Barda ★★★
This is OK. I was impressed that Ukazu was able to update the New Gods story in a relatable way without really changing it. But this is also a dumbed down version for kids. Some of it didn't quite fit together almost as if pages were in the wrong order. The art's not very good and that's compounded with zero backgrounds. Still it's not bad for a simplified version of the Big Barda and Scott Free story.

Magic Book Two ★★★★
I like that you don't need to know anything about the Magic card game to enjoy this. It's just straight up fantasy, concentrating on the Planeswalkers. It does pick up from Book One, even though the main characters in this one are three different planeswalkers. They are trying to get back to Ravnica which their access has been blocked. The big bad is revealed and a big confrontation happens as this story ends and another one is alluded to.

Braba: A Brazilian Comics Anthology ★★★
An anthology of short comics from Brazilian creators. Some are pretty good, some not so much. I like the ones that tell an actual story as opposed to getting esoteric.

Star Wars: Purge ★★★★
These series of one shots set after Order 66 are surprisingly pretty good. Most of them are about Darth Vader hunting down the remaining Jedi. The final one, The Tyrant's Fist was really interesting in how Vader undercut the Jedi's influence on a planet.

Star Wars: Darth Vader and the Lost Command ★★★
This is set between Episode III and IV. Darth Vader is sent on a mission with another Captain when Admiral Tarkin's son goes missing. They go to a system where no one speaks basic looking for Tarkin Jr. while murdering everyone left and right. While there some Lady offers to help them if they make her queen of the system. Honestly, this isn't written the best, especially towards the end. Nothing feels earned, particularly all the double crossing.

Star Wars: Dark Times, Vol. 1: Path to Nowhere ★★★★
The Empire has newly risen. Most of the Jedi have died from Order 66. It is the dark times. This first arc follows Jedi Dass Jennir from Star Wars Republic #79-80 as he tries to help his friend save his family from slavers. It's MUCH darker than your typical Star Wars story but I thought it was really good. Dark Horse editor Randy Stradley actually wrote this series under two ghost names, Welles Hartley and Mick Harrison.

Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic, Vol. 1: Commencement ★★★★★
Well, that end of the first issue is a real stunner. I never expected to see that in a Star Wars comic. Zayne Carrick is a padawan and he's also a screw up. Anything that can go wrong for him, will. He and the other padawans on this planet are about to become knights. That's when the record scratch happens and this all veers askew. Just great stuff. Can't wait to read the rest of this.

Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic, Vol. 2: Flashpoint ★★★★
Zayne and his team of rogues are hiding out from the rogue Jedi that framed them. I'm still really curious the deal with these guys as they are certainly acting like the end justifies the means of straight up killing people when they are supposed to be Jedi. They don't seem at all conflicted about it. Anyway the actual good guys meet a bunch of Mandalorians in the main story. Then they go to a bank planet to get Camper's money from his accounts. They run afoul of these dummy hammerhead brothers that are both idiots and hilarious. I'm really enjoying this series. It's way better than the current Star Wars comics Marvel is putting out.

Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic, Vol. 3: Days of Fear, Nights of Anger ★★★★
We split into two separate storylines as our group splits into two. One going off to fight in the war with Mandalor and in the other we finally see what Jareal and Camper have been hiding from on their home planet. It's all great stuff. The art is really good too, rotating between Brian Ching, Dustin Weaver and Harvey Taliboa. I'd forgotten how much better the Star Wars comics were at Dark Horse than they are now at Marvel.

Star Wars Legends Epic Collection: The Empire, Vol. 1 ★★★★
A bunch of the Dark Horse stories set right after Order 66 was given wiping out most of the Jedi and the rise of the Empire.

Star Wars Legends Epic Collection: The Old Republic, Vol. 1 ★★★★★
So this is set around the Knights of the Old Republic video game. It is its own thing though. Just set in the same time frame and the characters cross over at times. This was terrific. The setup for that first issue is just the best. It's about a screw up Padawan who keeps trying to catch this one roguish character. Then we get to the end of the issue where he's supposed to meet the Jedi and other padawans for a Jedi Knight ceremony and you can hear the actual needle scratch occur in your head as things completely change. I almost don't even want to say anymore. Just that Zayne is now on the run, being chased across the galaxy. Meanwhile the Mandalorians are the big threat in the galaxy at this time. This thing is just packed with good stories and good art. It collects the first 3 trades of the series. Just toss aside the current Marvel Star Wars comics. These puppies are where the real good stuff is hidden.

Dudley Datson and the Forever Machine ★★★
Another Comixology Original from Scott Snyder. One thing I'll give him, he has no shortage of ideas. This one is an all ages story about the power of ideas. Dudley Datson is a teenage inventor who meets up with a talking dog and has to go on the run from an alien race that wants to enslave humanity.

Discipline ★
Shaw took actual correspondence from the Civil War and built this out of it. It's the story of a Quaker boy who sneaks away from home and signs on with the Union army. All of the story is correspondence between him and his sister. The pages tell the story wordlessly of what is actually happening.

I had two large problems with this. One, all of the writing is in cursive and I detest cursive in my comics. It's so difficult to read. The second is that Shaw refuses to use any kind of panels. It looks like a book of sketches instead and that's what it reads like at times too. It's really difficult to write a wordless story that works. It's even harder when there's no structure to it. Comics need structure or they aren't really comics, just artwork.

Dog Days ★★★
The story of a Korean couple who adopts a dog. They decide to move outside of Seoul to the countryside where dogs are often treated quite differently. Frequently neglected, sometimes much worse. I was pretty shocked when she met someone who butchered dogs like livestock. Thankfully, she mentions in the afterword that those laws have changed as of 2024, no longer allowing it.

Today's trip to my LCS.

Storm #2
House of Slaughter #27
Geiger #8
Batman - Superman / World's Finest #33
Exceptional X-Men #3
Immortal Thor #17
Ultimate Spider-Man #11
Space Ghost #7
Jonny Quest #4
Rocketfellers #1
Predator Versus Black Panther #4

Went to Mexico last week so here are the last 2 weeks of my adventures in comics.

Cagaster Vol 1 ★★★
This was OK. It's a manga set in a dystopian future. One in a thousand people turn into giant bugs and start eating people. Those left live in desert cities. Exterminators are basically bounty hunters taking out the remaining giant bugs. The main characters are a surly bounty hunter and a young woman that he saves. There's a lot of your standard tropes here and the plot doesn't get very far in these 200 pages.

The Zombies that Ate the World Vol. 1: An Unbearable Smell ! ★★
I like Guy Davis's art. The stories though were just stupid. People have come back from the dead but they mainly just sit there like they are still just dead bodies for the most part. Then there's this messed up brother and sister that help people who want to get rid of zombies because it's illegal. None of this makes a lot of sense or is well established.

Archie Horror Presents: Chilling Adventures ★★★
This works best when the stories are feature length. The Madame Satan stuff is pretty good. The rest though, the stories are so short that they rarely have time to develop. Just more of things to flip through quickly than enjoy.

Absolute Swamp Thing by Alan Moore, Vol. 3 ★★★★
The first half of this I find to be terrific. Swamp Thing and Abby's relationship becomes public and she suffers some pretty big repercussions from it. It could have been pretty silly in other hands with what happened but Moore handles it perfectly. I like the Batman appearance as well. Then Swamp Thing tours the universe and that's where it kind of loses me. Don't get me wrong, parts are still great like the couple of issues on Rann. But parts of it also get really esoteric like issue #60 and it's awful. I give the entire run other than the 2nd half of this one 5 stars. Overall it's a very iconic run and one of DC's first forays into making comics for adults. I also really like the new coloring by Steve Oliff with modern coloring techniques.

Sorceline ★★★★
An interesting comic for kids. It's Harry Potter for magical creatures. Sorceline and the other students she meets are learning how to take care of magical creatures on an island. There's a mystery involved as well. The art is excellent. The complete opposite of what you'd find in a manga with fully realized and gorgeous panels full of colors that pop. There's zero corners cuts in the art department here.

The Kurosagi Corpse Delivery Service, Volume 1 ★★★
Kind of a Japanese version of Scooby Doo. Five volunteers (who just happen to all have specialties that can help) find dead bodies and help put them at peace. One of them can talk to the dead so they can figure out what they need to do and they are constantly carrying corpses in bags all over Japan without anyone saying a word. It's like a nonstop Weekend at Bernies if Bernie was carried around in a body bag. Somehow they try and turn this into a cash business as well, by lucking out with lottery tickets and the like, because of karma.

GUMAA: The Beginning of Her ★★★
Really dark urban fantasy about a woman forced into prostitution. She discovers a magical dagger that gives her magical powers. Years later a young girl tries to stop her and her growing cult. There's a lot here for a great series but it's missing the connective tissue to tie it all together properly. The art is very good as well.

Anfield Road ★★★★
Really good. It's about a teenager from Liverpool in the 80's. He's living with his grandmother after his parents abandoned him when he was a kid. His grandmother is really overbearing and he refers her as the Ogre. The city is obsessed with football even though he's never been to a game. All he wants to do is get into art school in London. It's a slice of life comic about growing up poor in the U.K. 30 years ago.

Jim Butcher's Dresden Files: Ghoul Goblin ★★★
Dresden heads to small town Missouri to help a cursed family whose members are being murdered. It never gets heavily into why things are happening. It's pretty clear as to the division of writing. Butcher came up with the scenario and plot and Powers actually wrote the comic. And there's where it's not as good as the books. Powers completely wiffs on Dresden's humor and snark that make the books so much fun. It all feels a bit generic because of it.

Killtopia: The Complete Collection ★★★
Even though there's a forward here by the author that he wanted to break some of the cliches of cyberpunk with this, I felt like it followed a lot of the same cliches. It's got all of the standard poor getting tromped on by the ultra rich here, kept in line by the hope of making it big in Killtopia where the winner of the battle royale strikes it rich while everyone else dies. There's also a robot faction that is being killed off due to a plague they unwittingly released on humans. It's not bad, but there's nothing new here either.

Leviathan Volume 1 ★★★
Lord of the Flies / Battle Royale in space. A class trip on a space liner goes awry when asteroids strike it and kill all of the adults, leaving the kids to fight over one cryopod. The art does a nice job of setting the mood.

Manhole Volume 1 ★★★
A parasitic disease is unleashed in Japan leading a pair of police detectives to stop it. There’s body horror as this worm travels under the skin to your eye then causing the brain to explode. This was actually not bad.

Dune: House Harkonnen, Volume Three ★★★
These Dune prequels are surprisingly good. Even though this is called House Harkonnen it's more of an ensemble of all of the older characters in Dune as they grow into their roles to come.

Breakdown (The Reckoner Rises, #1) ★★★
I haven't read the YA series that this continues. That's the problem with switching media. However, this seemed to be your standard experimenting on teenagers and giving them superheroes schtick, just in Canada with indigenous people. The main character is having hallucinations and that's where things got confusing. The art was good but it got super confusing with these visions about what was real and what wasn't.

Star Trek: Defiant, Vol. 2: Another Piece of the Action ★★★
This new story taking place after the inclusion of the Day of Blood crossover feels like a prelude to something else. Worf and the crew of the Defiant are kicked out of Starfleet officially but operating in secret, going after characters seen across episodes of the various series. They are operating as bounty hunters in places where the Federation can't officially interfere. My issue is that they kind of just seem to be collecting characters instead of having any growth. It feels a bit stagnant.

Conan the Barbarian Vol. 3: The Age Unconquered ★★★
Conan gets thrown back in time where he meets up with Kull. Kull seems very bland and without a whole lot of characterization even though he's another Robert E. Howard creation. I'm not digging this run as much as Zub's time on Conan while at Marvel.

Star Trek, Vol. 3: Glass and Bone ★★★
Even though it's still an all-star crew of Star Trek characters, this is very much the Benjamin Sisko show. The crew of the Theseus gets stuck in the middle of this new race descended from dinosaurs and the Romulans. It all feels very cookie cutter Star Trek for the most part though. Like most things from Kelly and Lanzing, it's just OK.

Bristlemouth: A Cove Horror ★
Man, this was filled with filler. It was about one issue of comic worth of content stretched out to four 44 page issues. It's about these nurses who go out camping to relieve the stress of their jobs. Some weird creature starts biting them and turning them into creatures like itself. Much of it didn't make sense. The art was really bad and made it hard to follow as well. I couldn't tell what was happening a lot of the time.

Grim Vol. 4 ★★★★
More character backstories while the main plot begins to coalesce in the background. Flaviano and Rico Renzi's art is just perfect. I'm really curious to see what happens in this. Plus Jess's parents had a messed up relationship.

Absolute Power ★★★
This was a cool idea, setting up Amanda Waller as the villain, trying to take out all of the metas, good or bad. But it's spread out across too many titles, making this core event feel very disjointed. Read as a whole it's probably really good. Reading this alone, it's just OK. Which is a shame when you have Mark Waid and Dan Mora on it and they are both terrific.

DC All In Special #1 ★★★★
The kickoff for DC's new initiative "All In". All of the books are getting new jumping on points along with new titles and the Absolute universe begins in this as well. I thought this was well done and I'm all in as well. Plus, the return of the Justice League and a cool spin on the Legion.

Lotus Land ★★★
An OK future noir. It seems to get pretty dark but it's also very confusing as to why things were happening. Almost everything is left unexplained along the way. I was fine with the ambiguous ending but there were several other things I had questions about along the way. It often felt like they were pages or scenes missing.

Dune: House Corrino, Volume One ★★★
The last of the Dune prequels begins. Even though it's about House Corrino, it's also about House Atreides and Harkonnen as we march towards the original Dune. The art's not bad, but not as good as Fran Galan or Michael Shelfer in the previous adaptations.

Magic, Volume Three ★★★★
Some new Planeswalkers take center stage when the three from the first two arcs are trapped on Ravnica. Chandra Nalaar is blocked repeatedly from crossing the plane to Ravnica and the three go on a quest to stop the larger plot of a Planeswalker trying to conquer the multiverse. It's good stuff, but what else would you expect from Jed Mackay.

Magic Volume Four ★★★
The story of the first three volumes ends here as the confrontation with Tesseret comes to a head. The multiple artists and color artists make the last couple of issues a very mixed bag. Some of the pages are terrible. Still I like the story overall.

This week's trip to my LCS. I was on vacation so it's 2 week's worth of comics.

Black Lightning #1
Feral #7
X-Force #5
Aliens Vs. Avengers #2
Ultimates #6
X-Men #7
Birds of Prey #15
X-Factor #4
JSA #1
Avengers #20
Something Is Killing the Children #0
Batman: Dark Age #6
GI Joe #1
Captain America #15
Spectacular Spider-Men #9
Transformers #14
Uncanny X-Men #5
Resurgence of the Valiant Universe: X-O Manowar
Gatchaman Jun
Gatchaman Ken
Absolute Batman #2
Absolute Superman #1

That was a really good one Vampla.

The Garth Ennis runs are excellent. Greg Rucka too. Those are both good places to start.

I really wish there were more volumes of Rust. It's such a terrific series.

I really liked the Last Ronin. The sequels are cash grabs though.

Rucka's Punisher run is pretty good too.

Last week's adventures in comics.

The Terrifying Tales of Vivian Vance: A Graphic Novel ★★★
Not a bad monster story for junior high age kids. The backstory could be fleshed out more and there were numerous spelling mistakes which drove me nuts. But not bad. It's about a Veronica Mars type, who finds out these flesh-takers have infiltrated the community. There's some light body horror but nothing too gross.

Doctor Strange Epic Collection, Vol. 3: A Separate Reality ★★★
This starts off very strong with some great stories from Roy Thomas and Gene Colan. Colan's art is really inventive, especially the panelling giving the book a feeling that is weird and magical. Then the title ends and there's some odds and ends. Dr. Strange returns in Marvel Premiere and it's awful. I was surprised how terrible it was considering Gardner Fox wrote it. It's a knockoff of the C'Thullu mythos. The dialogue is mindnumbingly bad. It gets better towards the end when Steve Englehart and Frank Brunner take over, bringing in Baron Mordo and Silver Dagger as villains.

Swamp Thing, Vol. 3: The Curse ★★★★★
After the Nukeface story based on the real town of Centralia, PA where the fires are still supposed to be burning underground, we get the introduction of John Constantine. Hells yes! Constantine is one of my all time favorite characters in the DC canon. Here, he keeps randomly popping up, stringing Swamp Thing along and growing his powers as the coming apocalypse gets closer. Swamp Thing is running around the country dealing with the issues of the day with a horror spin on them. It's all just great stuff. So is the art.

Swamp Thing, Vol. 4: A Murder of Crows ★★★★★
The story with John Constantine continues and reaches its conclusion. It's very good. I loved the Parliament of Trees. Such a neat idea. You'd think tying this into Crisis for an issue would be really odd, but Moore makes it work pretty easily. I wouldn't think these big world changing stories would work well with Swamp Thing but instead it works surprisingly well. The art continues to be fantastic. I love how Swamp Thing's look changes with the environment around him.

Swamp Thing, Vol. 5: Earth to Earth ★★★★★
The world finds out about Abby and the Swamp Thing charging her with sex crimes. It seems weird as Hell but Moore makes it work with ease. Then they all wind up in Gotham and what you'd think might be a dumb confrontation with Batman is pretty much genius instead. It's astounding how Moore can take something that sounds dumb at the outset into something so fantastic. Just terrific stuff.

Swamp Thing, Vol. 6: Reunion ★★★
Swamp Thing floats around in space for most of this, hopping from planet to planet. It gets really esoteric and some of it lands like a thud. Issue #60, I'm talking to you. God, that issue was just awful. Still, overall we're talking one of the iconic DC runs of all time.

Blacking Out ★★★
That sure does look like Keanu Reeves on the cover. He's nowhere to be found inside though and that's a good thing. This is a really dark book. It's about a washed up drunk former cop investigating the murder of a girl in a small Californian town. That ending. God! It certainly went down the darkest timeline. Works well as crime fiction.

Space Ghost Vol. 1: With Only Ghosts to Comfort Us ★★★★
Pepose plays it straight in this new Space Ghost comic. Jan and Jace see their parents die and Space Ghost takes them in as they fight all the bad guys you remember from the fantastic cartoon. It's exactly what I wanted if you're a fan of the Alex Toth designed TV show.

Star Wars: Vader's Castle - The Deluxe Library Collection ★★★
Star Wars gets spooky with these Halloween tales for kids. The larger story revolves around some Rebels who wind up in Vader's castle on Mustafar. A story gets told each issue while the framing story progresses. There's nothing too scary here so it's an easy one for the kids to read at Halloween. There's enough fun stuff there for Star Wars fans of all ages though.

Magic Book One ★★★★
Some of this was intriguing, some of it confusing. Mackay could have done a better job of introducing this world. I mean it's based on a card game, you can't expect everyone to know the worldbuilding and history aspects of the game. (Yes, I know there are some novels and comics that were published elsewhere.) The sign of a good comic based on an existing property means I don't have to have read anything else to enjoy this and this doesn't do the best job of that. I did enjoy Ig Guara's art quite a bit. I did enjoy this more the second go around.

Lore Olympus: Volume Seven ★★★
Finally! We get to Persephone's trial at the end of this. But of course it ends without a resolution because this series is nothing if not ridiculously drawn out. I still have a problem with how many side characters there are and the character designs aren't different enough to remember who they are when they pop back up. This would be a lot better if they had their names hovering above them like an avatar when they pop up again after dozens of chapters. I'm sure it's fine if you read the webtoon where you can read it all at once, but when you get a physical book only once every 6 months it's an issue.

Book of Evil ★★★
When I saw Scott Snyder and Jock were working together again, I thought "Great, we're finally getting that long delayed sequel to Wytches." It's even put out by a comic book company, first on Comixology, then in print from Dark Horse. But nope. This isn't even a comic. It's prose, written like a journal, with illustrations from Jock.

It's about a dystopian future where 92% of people turn into psychopaths when they hit puberty. All of the kids work in a special part of the city that's cordoned off until they become "adults" and join the rest of the population. There's a group of 5 kids who yearn to escape and join a mythical place where there is a cure. The 2nd half of this the pacing feels off. Every time they get somewhere something immediately happens and they have to run again. Plus I didn't think the ending was very good. Again it felt very rushed without a real ending at all. Still, if you're a Scott Snyder fan it's not a bad read.

Batman: Detective Comics, Vol. 3: Gotham Nocturne: Act II ★★
I found this kind of incoherent, especially the flashbacks that aren't indicated very well. To me it reads like a comic book written by 3 different authors which is what it is. These backup stories kill any kind of momentum. If you're going to increase the page count so you can charge more money, you need to still tell just one longer story instead of adding filler.

Where Monsters Lie ★★★
Ever wondered what movie killers do between killing sprees? Apparently they live in this gated community. Things go awry when one of them starts capturing and killing off boys at home and one gets away. Enter a nonstop gory killfest when the police are called in. There are analogues for most of your famous villains, Jason, Michael Myers, Leatherface, Chucky, etc. It does end in a nice twist for a volume 2. Dark Horse's insistence on 4 issue miniseries keeps this from being better than it could be though.

Welcome Nick! The Punisher may not be around as much these days but in the 90's he had multiple comics a month. GL had multiple titles a month throughout the New 52 era as well. At one point, I think there were 4 Lantern titles. Popularity ebbs and flows. Anyway welcome. Anytime you want to talk comics feel free to hit me up.

Yesterday's trip to the LCS.

Thundercats #9
Defenders of the Earth #3
Wolverine: Revenge #3
Redcoat #7
Devour
Ultimate X-Men #8
Captain America #14

Last week's adventures in comics.

Red Sonja: Black, White, Red Volume 2 ★★★
Volume 2 felt a bit lackluster compared to volume 1. The first volume was stuffed with A talent with the less popular creators in volume 2.

Titans Vol. 2: The Dark-Winged Queen ★★★★
Raven been locked away leaving her demon side to manipulate the Titans. It does feel like Taylor may be a bit distracted by other projects at times. It's still solid stuff but not quite as good as the rest of the run. Lucas Meyer takes over on art and it's real solid stuff.

Medusa ★
This was completely incoherent. I had no idea what was happening for the most part. Something about Medusa acting as an action hero who fights some kind of infection. There's some other Greek mythological creatures involved too but their appearances didn't really make any sense either.

John Carpenter's Night Terrors: Blood of the Taken ★★
Two best friends get turned by an old vampire and meander through their new lives. The storytelling was a mess in this. Sian needs to learn some more from their parents (Tom Mandrake and Jan Duursema) on how to tell stories. Sian's art is considerably sloppier than their parents as well. I was also aggravated on how this ended on a random cliffhanger instead of telling a complete story too.


Satan's Swarm ★★
This was OK. Like a lot of Niles's stuff these days, it seemed more like an idea than a fully fleshed out story. It uses the trope of bringing a bunch of strangers to an island under false pretenses. Then it gets even weaker as we almost don't even bother with a plot, just some random kills.

Mortal Terror Volume 1 ★★★
Dracula but flipped on its ear. Everyone are now vampires living below London. Dracula is mortal and some kind of terrorist. Jonathan Harker and Lucy are vampire soldiers working to stop the humans. It's an interesting take. I do wish this had went farther than the normal 4 issues Dark Horse likes to collect in order to have more of a complete story.

Rook: Exodus, Volume 1: Fight or Flight ★★★★
Rook has been left behind on an engineered world that its corporation has abandoned. He is part of the Wardens, trained by the corporation to control a species with a specialized helmet. The Wardens have been left behind on an oft-kilter world whose resources are under threat. Jason Fabok's art makes this book sing.

Third Shift Society, Vol. 2 ★★★
A burgeoning witch and a guy with a pumpkin for a head investigate the supernatural. There's a larger plot going on to with these two demons up to no good. Not bad, especially for spooky season.

Absolute Swamp Thing by Alan Moore, Vol. 1 ★★★★★
First, I'll just say that this Absolute edition is stunning. The oversized pages, the new coloring from Steve Oliff that pops off the page, it just looks fantastic.

The story from Alan Moore, it hits the ground running. Tying up a whole bunch of plots from the previous issues so he can delve into his stories. First issue he delves into how Swamp Thing is not actually Alec Holland but just his memory. To think of that off the bat back in the early 80s is just mindblowing. The stuff was Arcane, Matt and Abby, just all terrific. I love how he mixes in horror elements and at the time, all of the obscure DC supernatural characters, even Cain and Abel and their Houses of Mystery and Secrets appear long before Sandman.

There's also about 30 pages of backmatter. Sketches from the artists along with pages written by Stephen Bissette about how the stories came about and how Bissette, Veitch and Totleben all met at the inaugural class of the Joe Kubert School and then rented a house together, barely scraping by while they made these comics. I loved reading about all of it.

This Land Is Our Land: A Blue Beetle Story ★★★
Blue Beetle's origin story again. It's pretty much the same as the last 5 times it's been retold. This time though they added in Jaime dealing with white supremacists marching in Texas as well. I found it to be heavy handed but I get it. There are plenty of people living in border states that have been citizens for generations that are treated as lesser because they aren't white even though they ARE American citizens.

Avengers: The Children's Crusade ★★★★
Wiccan and Speed finally meet their mommy. All throughout the Young Avengers run, the question was "Are Billy and Tommy really the Scarlet Witch's kids?". Well now we get an answer and it's pretty well done. (Hopefully, Agatha All Along can do it justice. I don't know that they can pull it off.) Along the way the Avengers and the X-Men get involved and they are all dicks, especially the X-Men. But given that the Scarlet Witch did take away almost all of mutant kind's powers they do have a legitimate beef. I do miss the days when Jimmy Cheung used to draw comics. He's a killer artist, even if there are way too many 2 page spreads.

Hulk Modern Era Epic Collection, Vol. 6: Who is the Red Hulk? ★★★
There's a new Hulk in town and he's pissed. He's smart and can fight. Most of this is just nonstop donnybrooks where this new Hulk stomps people into the ground. We still don't know who the Red Hulk is by the end of this. Loeb doesn't do a great job with this mystery. It's pretty clunky. This is the "Hulk Smash!" of writing. Where this book shines is the art. Ed McGuinness does the majority of it with Art Adams and Frank Cho filling in for 3 issues. That's a murderer's row of terrific artists.

X-Men, Vol. 1 ★★★
The Krakoan age is over. Now Cyclops's band of X-Men are using a Sentinel factory in Alaska as a base. New mutants are suddenly popping up that are older, having left puberty behind long ago. The story is moving pretty slowly, especially since they are now publishing 18 issues a year. The art is pretty good, although Stegman has adopted a cartoonier style here.

Star Wars Adventures: Tales from Vader's Castle ★★★
Star Wars goes spooky for Halloween. These are meant for children so nothing too scary here. A rebel crew crash lands on Mustafar and tells ghost stories while they try and escape. It's fun for kids but a little light for adults. Since these are ghost stories told by IDW for a Marvel property I don't think any of it can be considered canon.

Star Wars Adventures: Return to Vader's Castle ★★★
More spooky stories for kids set in the Star Wars universe. The main story is a continuation of volume 1. One of the crew from the first story got left behind and is being tortured by the Sith. Stories come out more or less naturally as the story progresses. Not bad, and certainly something the kids can read without having nightmares.

Star Wars Adventures: Ghosts of Vader's Castle ★★★
More spooky stories for kids set in the Star Wars universe. The framing sequence for these stories is a bit of a stretch to try and tie it into the first two. Great for kids, not bad for older kids and adults.

Batman/Superman: World's Finest Vol. 6 ★★★★
Mr. Myxlptylk and Batmite return to Earth for a serious story where Earth's champion will have to fight the champ of Myx's dimension to the death. Then we get a story about the Trinity investigating a death on Themyscira. Good stuff. Dan Mora handles most of the art even as he's leaving to do Absolute Power because he's a beast.

Scarlett, Vol. 1: Special Mission ★★★
Scarlett goes undercover with Arashikage in order to help Jinx who has been undercover with them for 2 years. Storm Shadow plays a strong part in this too but still no signs of Snake Eyes in this new Energon universe. It's a decent story but feels slight for 5 issues. The art isn't very good.

Doctor Strange Epic Collection, Vol. 3: A Separate Reality ★★★
This starts off very strong with some great stories from Roy Thomas and Gene Colan. Colan's art is really inventive, especially the panelling giving the book a feeling that is weird and magical. Then the title ends and there's some odds and ends. Dr. Strange returns in Marvel Premiere and it's awful. I was surprised how terrible it was considering Gardner Fox wrote it. It's a knockoff of the C'Thullu mythos. The dialogue is mindnumbingly bad. It gets better towards the end when Steve Englehart and Frank Brunner take over, bringing in Baron Mordo and Silver Dagger as villains.

Today's trip to the LCS.

The Goon: Them That Don't Stay Dead #3
Flash Gordon Quarterly #1
X-Factor #3
Cheetara #4
Avengers #19
Incredible Hulk #18
Rook Exodus #6
Void Rivals #13
X-Men #6
The Hunger and the Dusk: Book 2 #3
Death in the Family: Robin Lives #4
TMNT #3
Gatchaman #4
Galactor #3
Absolute Wonder Woman #1
Flash Gordon #2

Ian wrote: "“Tarzan, Lord of the Jungle” is the title of an existing book by Edgar Rice Burroughs, with a totally different plot. They may have avoided the full title to avoid complaints while still getting so..."

Yeah, Dynamite's notorious for dancing around rights issues and using public domain characters. He's called Tarzan in the comic just not on the cover.