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.

Venom, Vol. 3: Dark Web ★★★
The first half of this was solid with some new revelations for Dylan and then Eddie's involvement in the Dark Web nonsense. Those issues are uneven because the setup for it isn't in this collection. Grrr.

Venom, Vol. 4: Illumination ★★★
I think it's ironic that this volume is called Illumination when this run has been anything but illuminating. The 2nd half of this arc does get more straight forward as Eddie finally returns to Earth and really amps up his power level. Now he finally feels like the new King in Black.

All Talk ★★
Some dummies in a street gang in Berlin try and up their game. This was kind of terrible with really bad art.

The Web of Black Widow ★★★★
A straight forward noirish story where Black Widow is trying to catch the person who is impersonating and framing her. Each issue has a cameo with a different friend of Natasha's.

Matt Wagner's Grendel Tales: Four Devils, One Hell ★★
The story of four Grendels whose stories converge in New Orleans. The story is disjointed and unfocused. The art is terrible.

Grendel Tales: Devil's Hammer ★
Some Grendels wipe out a village and leave one survivor who trains to be a Grendel so that he can exact his revenge one day. Not a very compelling story. The art is nothing special.

Grendel Tales: Devils and Deaths ★★★★
Grendel Draco has radiation poisoning and goes on one last mission to save the village from the monster eating livestock. The late Biuković's art works very well with the rustic setting and theme.

Grendel Tales: Devil in Our Midst ★★★
A suicidal Grendel washes up on the shores of Antarctica where he meets up with a team charged with protecting a large toxic waste dump. The crew are contracting a virus that makes then ultra-violent and bleed from the eyes in the shape of Grendel's mask. (Looks cool but doesn't make a lot of sense.) Borrows heavily from The Thing.

Grendel Tales Omnibus: Volume 1 ★★★

Daredevil: Gang War ★★★
Starts off pretty strong but starts to meander as it kind of just becomes check ins to what Elektra is doing during Gang War. Mainly she's randomly fighting The Heat who is a repurposed X-character we haven't seen for a while.

Luke Cage: Gang War ★★
A really weak tie-in to Gang War. Luke Cage is the Mayor of New York City now but there's that pesky anti-vigilante law in place that keeps him from helping stop criminals during the big gang war. So Cage gets a terrible new costume and then gets his wife and best friend to help out but they don't bother to wear masks. So dumb. Then they fight some generic Spider-Slayer robots.

Deadly Hands of Kung Fu: Gang War ★★★
Meh. Some standard ancillary story for Gang War. Shang-Chi tries to keep Chinatown safe while the ten rings are locked away from him.

Sabretooth & The Exiles ★★
The Exiles here are not your old Exiles traveling dimensions. They are the other mutants who were banished to the Pit along with Sabretooth. Now they are free and on the run from Orchis. This whole series is just kind of a mess with this team hitting up another Orchis station that gets ruined with each issue. The bad guy is a doctor with no ethics. A Dr. Mengele for mutants basically. The last issue does lead in to Sabretooth War over in Wolverine.

Wolverine, Vol. 8: Sabretooth War, Part 1 ★★★
Finally a Wolverine comic by Percy that's not about Beast. This is about Sabretooth out for revenge. You are going to want to make sure you read the 2 Sabretooth miniseries that Victor LaValle wrote. This spends directly out of that and X-Force #50. LaValle is actually a cowriter on this.

Wolverine, Vol. 9: Sabretooth War, Part 2 ★★★
The Krakoa era of Wolverine ends with this long fight between Wolverine and Sabretooth. It's OK. Healing factors don't mean much in this story. That's what you can say about the artwork and the backup stories in issue #50. It's all OK.

Pound for Pound ★★★
A female MMA fighter has to go after the cartel who took her little sister. There's a lot of twists and turns here, some of them not making the most sense. It's over the top graphic action. It reminded me some of Machete but less cheesy.

Snowpiercer - The Prequel: Part 1: Extinction ★★
Full of a lot of fluff for a 100 page story. It feels like it was padded out to get two volumes of content out of this. Adding in unnecessary historical things like the Krakoa volcanic eruption added nothing to the story except filling out that page count. Surely the story could have been made long enough just with these ecoterrorists and the lead up to the coming disaster. A better explanation for how this train stays operable and free of snow would be great too. Both my parents worked as engineers on the railroad and snow is an issue, especially when it's dozens of feet deep.

Hellsing, Vol. 7 ★★★
A volume all about Seras Victoria which was cool. It's also pretty much one big long fight. The panels though are so overfilled with crap that it's sometimes really hard to pick up what's happening. Sometimes less is more. I also can't get over how ridiculous the soldiers for the Catholic church look in their Klan robes.

X-Men by Gerry Duggan Vol. 6 ★★★
I'm not sure who at Marvel think this is a good idea. All of the X-titles at the moment seem to be all part of a puzzle where the pieces are all blank. You have no idea what order you are supposed to read them in and they all have spoilers for other titles. It really grinds my gears that all of these aren't numbered properly if they are more or less all part of one big crossover.

X-Men: The Wedding Special (2024) #1 ★★
I feel like this was a bit of a bait and switch. It's billed as the never before told wedding of Mystique and Destiny but it's really just a renewal of their vows. I wanted to see this be all about their original wedding. This is all just a bunch of fluff, padded out with two reprint stories to drive up the cover price.

Avengers: Twilight ★★★★
Kind of a by the numbers future Avengers story we've seen before with the current Avengers. And if you've read Captain America you've seen this same story multiple times. The O.G. Avengers have been outlawed after a day where a lot of people were killed. Now Iron Man and Wasp's kid work for an Avengers team run by the government. The government is fascist and what you see in the media is being controlled. Sound familiar?

Shook! A Black Horror Anthology ★★
This was a real mixed bag for me. Some stories had solid art, some I couldn't even tell what was happening or didn't assist with telling the story through sequential art. There are some authors I enjoy in this like Rodney Barnes and David F. Walker. It's a real shame that this didn't work more.

Star Wars: Darth Vader - Black, White & Red ★★★
Nothing special short stories about Darth Vader. I don't think this format works very well for Marvel. Only one story, the one by Marc Bernardin took advantage of the limited color palette. Of course they were also only one of two stories that actually used a color artist and it showed. Every other story just looked like uncolored art that didn't use any shading or techniques a book intended to be black and white would use to give the art more nuance.

Monstress, Vol. 1: Awakening ★★★★★
A breathtaking new series. Marjorie Liu and Sana Takeda are firing on all cylinders with this series. Takeda has taken the best of Eastern and Western comics and created an original world with a somewhat steampunk look mixed with the lands of fairy. An uneasy truce exists between humans and Archons (basically fairies). Humans have discovered an Archon's essence can be distilled down to give humans magic. Those on both sides are hunting for a teenage girl trying to control the elder god hidden inside her.

Monstress, Vol. 2: The Blood ★★★★★
The closest thing I've read to a true illustrated fantasy novel. The art and story combine with Manga and Lovecraftian influences for a unique experience. I'm not sure how a book can look both ethereally beautiful and gut-wrenchingly bloody and awful at the same time. Reading this often feels like the first time I read Sandman back in the day, like we're in on something uniquely special that no one else has discovered yet. BTW, I love Kippa. At first, she comes across as this stupid little girl and then says something insightful or profound out of the blue. Everyone seems extremely annoyed by her, but then finds themselves looking after her.

Monstress, Vol. 3: Haven ★★★★★
I will say that this reads much better in big chunks. Reading this straight through has made things clearer. There's a ton going on with a lot of characters weaving in and out. In this volume. Maika Halfwolf heads to a new city that was able to sit out the previous war due to a magical dome over the city. That dome though is on the fritz now with factions approaching. Queue up Maika and the old one inside her Zinn to get it back up and running again. Takeda's art is just as lush and gorgeous as the previous volumes.

Monstress, Vol. 4: The Chosen ★★★★★
Maika meets her father who she immediately doesn't trust. We get a lot of backstory into what's been going on as everyone prepares for war. I love that Kippa gets a chance to shine too. She's my favorite character in this harsh, violent world. Takeda's art is just perfect. Such a terrific blending of East and West.

Monstress, Vol. 5: Warchild ★★★★★
The war between humans and the arcanics begins with the humans invading the city of Ravenna. Maika helps out in a hopeless cause to defend the city. The story continues to be dense and fantastic. The art is amaze balls.

Monstress, Vol. 6: The Vow ★★★★★
A few volumes in, I feel like we're finally getting some shape as to what is going on here. Although there are still a ton of factions here and some of them flit back and forth frequently. Starts off a bit slower with some smaller stories while there's a lull in the war in Ravenna. Then things heat up again towards the end with more revelations.

Those are great places to start Luke. There's a Rachel Pollack omnibus coming out next week of all the post Grant Morrison issues of Doom Patrol, well at least of that run. (There's been 4 or 5 other Doom Patrol series since the Vertigo one.) I haven't read those since they originally came out in the 90s.

Today's trip to the LCS.

Avengers: Twilight #6
Fall of the House of X #5
Ultimate Spider-Man #5
Wolverine #50
Marvel Voices Pride: X-Men: The Wedding Special #1 <--- Mystique and Destiny's untold wedding day
Batman: Dark Age #3

Did Rocafort ever do Teen Titans? I just remember Brett Booth and his awful character designs. So. Many. Special. Effects. Everyone looked like Christmas trees with all of the lighting effects on the costumes. And then all of that Harvest nonsense.

Not surprised that G. Willow Wilson did great work outside of Ms. Marvel too. I have a few questions about runs whose authors I have admired elsewhere. Are these good?

Aquaman: Andromeda, because of Christian Ward.
Batwoman Haunted Tides, because of J.H. Williams III.
Sideways and Teen Titans (volume 5), because of Kenneth Rocafort.

I think Wilson's Poison Ivy run is just OK. Ms. Marvel was much better. She also has written a pretty good Sandman comic and got started at Vertigo with a comic called Air.

Andromeda looks pretty but Ram V. has written better stuff like These Savage Shores.

That JH Williams Batwoman run is very good. It fizzles out though when he leaves the book because DC wouldn't let Batwoman get married. He also drew all of Promethea.

Sideways and Teen Titans are awful even if Kenneth Rocafort makes them look pretty. DC's publisher, Dan Didio, during the New 52 era tried to character assassinate all of the Teen Titans because he didn't like the 2nd generation of heroes. All of their comics then are awful. Scott Lobdell wrote most of them and that didn't help.

Sideways was part of this odd initiative where DC made clones of a bunch of Marvel comics and tried to put them in DC comics. All of them have been forgotten about. Sideways was their Spider-Man. Didio made a lot of stupid decisions when he was in charge.

a.g.e. montagner wrote: "As always, thanks for the insight. I thought the question concerned the main DC series; many Vertigo titles are classics. (but wasn't Astro City published by Image Comics?)"

Astro City did originally start at Image under the Homage comics imprint. It came over to DC when they bought Wildstorm from Jim Lee.

All of the Wildstorm comics are at DC now too. Even though Warren Ellis is persona non grata these days, he wrote some terrific comics that are now published by DC, Planetary and The Authority are two must reads for any superhero fan. Although I'd maybe hold off until you've read some more DC and Marvel to get what they are upending. The Authority actually begins when Ellis takes over Stormwatch. Just skip straight to the Ellis comics. The stuff before that is garbage. If you can find it the early Stormwatch trades include a crossover with Aliens that is maybe the best intercompany crossover ever created. It's not your typical crossover with characters dying and staying dead in it. He also wrote a 12 issue miniseries called Global Frequency that I just think is the best thing since sliced bread.

I forgot to mention Alan Moore before. His Swamp Thing is excellent. (It's also where John Constantine came from.) Watchmen was revelatory. Batman: The Killing Joke with Brian Bolland might be the best Batman comic ever. He also wrote WildCATS for about 10 issues and got his own imprint at Wildstorm, America's Best Comics. Top 10, Tom Strong and Promethea are all really good.

And then there's Geoff Johns, everything he does is magic as far as I'm concerned. Check out his really long Flash and Green Lantern runs, plus Aquaman and the Justice League, Batman: The Three Jokers, Batman: Earth One. Just anything with his name on it.

Last week's adventures in comics.

This Country: Searching for Home in (Very) Rural America ★★★
Two city folk from San Francisco move to rural Idaho purely because they can afford to buy a house there so they buy a tiny house and set it in the middle of nowhere on the 6 acres they bought. It starts off two-fold as the story of 2 dummies that don't know anything about owning a home now have to fend for themselves in harsh country. The other half is moving to a rural and very conservative area filled with racism and conspiracy theories right as Trump became president. Meanwhile, the author is Iranian. It all quickly becomes very surface level though as Mahdavian can't decide what stories he wants to tell. It starts to become more and more about very little.

Always Never ★★★★★
A story about the one who got away. Begins with chapter 20. An elderly couple go on their first date after decades apart. Each chapter steps back in time as things introduced in chapter 20 are explained along the way. Zeno is the boy who left town to travel the world as a sailor while Anita has been the mayor for the last 20 years. It's a terrific love story as long as you overlook one foible that I'm guessing bothers Europeans less than it does Americans.

Contagion ★★★
It's actually a good idea but the execution is lacking. A contagion is unleashed on Manhattan and spreads by touch. It quickly turns into a cameo fest without much plot until the end though.

Punisher Kill Krew ★★★★★
Absolutely ridiculous and absolutely terrific. After the War of the Realms, the Punisher avenges some war orphans. He gets a hold of one of Thor's battle goats and starts traveling the nine realms in search of war criminals. So much bloody fun. Juan Ferreyra makes this book look spectacular too.

Justice League Vs. Godzilla Vs. Kong ★★★★
This was surprisingly good. It's simple in concept. The Legion of Doom sends the Legendary monsters to the DC universe where the Justice League fights them. This is out of continuity. Superman and Lois aren't married yet for one thing. There are some really fun moments in this.

Cobra Commander Volume 1: Determined to Rule the World ★★★★
A different take on Cobra Commander. I certainly didn't expect them to lean into the Cobra-La stuff. That's when the cartoon jumped the shark when we were kids. This version of Cobra Commander seems to be full on crazy.

Wasted Space, Vol. 1 ★★
It was really hard to get past the awful art in this. The art was sketchy and lacked much detail. It was almost like they took thumbnails and blew them up full size. The story was OK but confusing at times, especially the first couple of issues. Once it got rolling, I was able to figure out what was going on, but initially this just meandered into nothingness.

Wasted Space, Vol. 2 ★★
Man this book has not gotten any better in volume 2. Hayden Sherman's art is so terrible. I didn't realize one of the characters was even a woman until they were referred to as "she" in issue #7. I honestly thought she was having a gay relationship with Dust until that point. Besides that, I have very little idea about what's going on with the plot other than pretty much everyone in this universe thinks it's shit. At this point, I'd rename this comic Waste of Time.

Wasted Space, Vol. 3 ★★★
This side volume where the main characters split up and Billy takes a look at himself and how much of a douche he is, was better.

Wasted Space, Vol. 4 ★★★
These clowns finally make it to Earth where they have to decide if they are going to kill the creator or not. I've grown to accept Sherman's poor art on this thing. The story is still way too convoluted though with way too much talking.

Wasted Space, Vol. 5 ★★★
Actually, not a bad finale to this after a weak start. Sherman has upped his game in this volume too. His art is not too shabby when it used to make my eyes bleed.

Nightwing, Vol. 6 ★★★★
Bea from the Ric Grayson era returns. Nightwing goes off with her to play pirate and wear some ridiculous shirt that's completely nonexistent in the front. We're just leaning into the Nightwing is hawt thing at this point, I guess. Stephen Byrne is a great artist for when Bruno Redondo's not around. The backup stories by Michael Conrad are a waste of time.

Rom: The Original Marvel Years Omnibus Vol. 1 ★★★★
After 40 years of infighting and lawsuits between Mattel and Marvel, we finally get a collection of the first 29 issues of Rom. Rom was a really cool toy back when I was a kid, one that also had a pretty cool comic.

I still remember those X-Men issues with the Hybrid freaking me out as a kid. Rom along with the rest of the Spaceknights gave up their humanity to battle the evil Dire Wraiths, shape shifters who could take any form and turned to dust when murdered. The book often has a real Invasion of the Body Snatchers vibe as you never know who is actually human and only Rom can see them through his neutralizer before dispatching them to Limbo. He's come to Earth to root out all the Dire Wraiths that are secretly permeating our society.

There's a ton of great DC comics out there. Kingdom Come is a great stand alone comic about a possible future DC where the heroes are older. It's by Mark Waid and Alex Ross.

There's a ton of great Batman runs. Grant Morrison and Scott Snyder immediately come to mind. I liked Tom King's recent run as well. Jeph Loeb and Tim Sale have made a bunch of celebrated Batman comics set in his early days. They also did Superman: A Man for All Seasons. Jeph Loeb also did a year long run on Batman with Jim Lee. The current Nightwing run by Tom Taylor is the best Nightwing's ever been. Greg Rucka and Ed Brubaker also did good runs on Batman and then made Gotham Central which is a police procedural set in Gotham. It's awesome. Arkham Asylum.

There's a ton of awesome Vertigo comics, Sandman, Preacher, American Vampire, Doom Patrol, Hellblazer, Swamp Thing, 100 Bullets, Scalped, Animal Man, Astro City, The Books of Magic, Coffin Hill, Fables, DMZ, iZombie, Lucifer, Stardust, Northlanders, Sandman Mystery Theatre, Sweet Tooth, Transmetropolitan, Terminal City, The Wake, Y: The Last Man, Ex Machina. These are all stand alone comics for the most part set outside of the normal universe and aren't superhero comics. Exceptions are things that just became adult versions of existing comics like Animal Man, Swamp Thing and Doom Patrol.

For Wonder Woman, I'd look at the New 52 run by Brian Azzarello. Greg Rucka, George Perez and Gail Simone also had very good runs.

Mark Waid's current Superman / Batman: World's Finest is really good and has a timeless quality to it. Anything you come across by Mark Waid is more than likely worth reading. Same Goes for Tom Taylor. I think those are DC's current best writers. Marv Wolfman and George Perez's Teen Titans is excellent for 80's comics. Same thing for John Byrne's Superman.

Grant Morrison's JLA is weird and bombastic, full of big ideas. For older Justice League Keith Giffen and J.M. DeMatteis's Justice League is still hilarious with plenty of action. It can feel misogynistic now though. I'm sure there's a tom more I'm forgetting.

If I was just getting into comics now, I'd get a subscription to DC Infinite Ultra. It's a digital comics service. I think it's the easiest one to use. The Ultra tier gets you access to all of the Vertigo comics and there's even trades there which makes figuring out reading order much easier. Plus, you only have to wait a month for comics to hit the service. Marvel has one too, Marvel Unlimited. I'd recommend it too. It's just not quite as easy to use and you have to wait 3 months for comics to hit the app.

Also, check out your library Grace. I see you live in Novi. I used to live in Rochester Hills and they had a ton of graphic novels. Plus, you can order books from anywhere else in the state if your local library doesn't have it.

I don't know if it's still there but the Barnes and Noble in Rochester Hills would sell used graphic novels for $3-$5. I'd buy them on the cheap there all the time. It was a special extra large B&N where they'd do book signings and stuff and had a huge used book section.

It gets better after issue #150 when a new team comes in. Then it gets weird again around #185 when there's a new Spawn for a while without any explanation.

There's a lot of editorial messes in Spawn. Characters' names were sometimes changed (often poorly) in the trades after lawsuits were filed. McFarlane was a big hockey fan and used the names of real players for some of his mobsters (Tony Twist was the big one but there were others). The compendium has it changed in some places but not in others and sometimes has a third name. I think he must have done the editing himself and just used find and replace.

Then there's the lawsuit over Angela which Neil Gaiman won and then just gave her to Marvel as an FU. So all the printings after that was resolved are really messed up. I bought the first 200+ issues in a Humble Bundle I got years ago as I'd given up on Spawn after issue 12 or so, whenever those guest written issues finished. That's also why the Cerebus issue isn't in most of the collections. Dave Sim refused to allow it in the collection but you can find that issue by itself on Hoopla.

BTW, once Capullo leaves after issue #100, the art gets real bad. Angel Medina takes over for 50 issues and he's an awful artist.

kaitlphere wrote: "Also, I was interested to see your thoughts about the Doctor Who FCBD. I thought the first issue with the new doctor was very promising!."

I'm woefully behind on the show but I'm looking forward to catching up now that I checked out the new Doctor in the comics. I feel the writing comes and goes on the show with whoever the showrunner is.

Big week at my LCS this week.

Rook Exodus #2
Thundercats #4
Batman / Superman: World's Finest #27
Cobra Commander #5
Fall of the House of X #5
Immortal Thor #11
justice League Vs. Godzilla Vs. King Kong #7
Nightwing #114
Something Is Killing the Children #37
Titans #11
Void Rivals #9
Ultimate Black Panther #4
Spectacular Spider-Men #3
Feral #1-3
Blood Hunt #2

Those original TMNT comics are pretty great. I love all of the annotations in those ultimate collections. The later ones start collecting things out of order as the relationship between Eastman and Laird started to disintegrate. They started alternating issues and getting more and more fill in artists on the book. If you haven't read the IDW TMNT series that just ended. It's pretty well written. Eastman was involved with those as well and does some of the covers.

Good luck trying to find all of those old Image comics Mike. Your best chance may be the bargain bins at the back of the comic book store. I went through a similar frustration when trying to read the compendiums as well. I lucked into getting some of them with an old Spawn Humble Bundle I bought like 6 years ago. I finally read all of it last fall on a dare. None of it is very good and there are lots of editorial mistakes.

Last week's adventures in comics.

What If We Were... ★★
The first half of this got real tedious, real quick and had to be read in small doses. It's about two best friends as they play this game called "What If?", like "What if we were superheroes?" or "What if we wore different clothes?" It was basically a series of 2 page web comics that did the same thing over and over.

What If We Were... Book 2 ★★★
This book works best when it abandons the "What if we were" format and tries to tell an actual story. I was by no means surprised when I got to the end and Lenoir talked about how she wrote these as short strips for a magazine because that's exactly what these feel like.

The Boys Omnibus Vol. 1 ★★★★
Garth Ennis at his most over the top. It's even more graphic and vulgar than Preacher but not as bad as Crossed. Dynamite let him do whatever he wanted. And in the foreword it says this was originally set to be part of the main DC universe. I can't even imagine what that would have looked like, but it certainly would have been neutered to say the least. It's about a small group (The Boys) working with the CIA to corral the worst superhero behavior. And that behavior is worse than you could possibly imagine.

Rivers of London: Detective Stories ★★★★
I thought these one off stories were actually the most well done so far in the series. Grant is seeking a promotion and an officer is going over his old cases. Each issue is a look at a different untold story in Grant's time with the police department and the Folly.

Rivers of London: Black Mould ★★★★
Peter Grant investigates some sentient mold that is invading apartments. It's actually a nifty little story. There's more to it but that's all you really need to know in this between the numbers Rivers of London story.

Rivers of London: Action at a Distance ★★★★
We take a step back from the regular series to look at a story from 1957 when Nightengale had to help an old friend track down a serial killer. It's real good stuff, especially for this series which can fell slight at times.

Rivers of London: Water Weed ★★★★
Peter Grant investigates a new drug operation who is delivering pot along the Thames. The person behind it all is pretty scary. A unique take on a subject that's been tackled plenty of times before.

Rivers of London: Cry Fox ★★★★
This s a sequel to Rivers of London: Night Witch. The little girl from it gets kidnapped while her parents are in prison. Peter Grant's niece is also in the picture now and gets involved as well. They've reduced these between the numbers series to 4 issues now and I do feel this one could have been longer.

Rivers of London: The Fey and the Furious ★★★
Peter Grant goes poorly undercover to investigate street racing which somehow lands him in fairy. It's alright. I don't think the actual racing comes across well in the comic.

Rivers of London: Monday, Monday ★★★
Four interconnected issues told in nonlinear fashion from different view points. The story is is very slight. It's more about making readers happy with nice little moments. I will say this is the best art I've seen in one of these spinoff comics.

Batman & Dylan Dog ★★★
Batman and Italian comic character Dylan Dog team up when the Joker heads to London to join up with Dr. Xabaras. Dog is a self proclaimed nightmare investigator digging into the supernatural. I do like that they open this up to some other DC characters besides just Batman. This kind of feels like a couple of different stories slapped together though.

Vampirella Dracula: Unholy ★★★
This was alright. Like a lot of Priest's comics, his disjointed storytelling style can make this hard to follow. Vampirella marries some guy who is "destined" to become Dracula due to some kind of virus. Again, it's a strange book.

Kings in Disguise ★★★
Set during the Great Depression, a 12-year-old boy is left on his own and goes off to become a hobo. This is really bleak and never really gets any better or even really ends. Life just keeps going on, like real life. It's interesting with really detailed artwork.

Resonant: The Complete Series ★★★★★
I really like this series. This is actually my 2nd time going through it. There's no real setup. It's about a family in a post apocalyptic world. There are these waves of madness that come through and turn everyone incredibly violent while they are happening. Shortly before they happen the cicadas go crazy giving people time to quickly prepare to keep from hurting others. A father has to go off and find medicine for his sick son leaving his older brother and sister in charge even though they are still kids as well. And the sister is on crutches, missing a leg. So the story takes place in two locations, one about the father trying to get back to his children. The other, the kids trying to survive alone in this cabin in the woods.

These Savage Shores ★★★★★
Absolutely stunning. Ram V's story execution, Sumit Kumar's gorgeous art, all of it is brilliant. Set in 1760's India where the English are trying to invade, a vampire is exiled from London to India where he comes across an Indian demon, a Rakshasa. The story spirals out from there.

IMMORTAL X-MEN VOL. 5: X-MEN FOREVER ★★★
Yet another Fall of X book that's not a self contained story even though it's a miniseries. What the Hell is Marvel doing? I need a board with all of the Fall of X comics on it and pieces of string between them to figure out the reading order of these goddamn comics and I'm reading them as they come out. It's ridiculously frustrating.

Patience & Esther ★★★
A recommend due to something we don't see very often, an Eduardian queer romance along with body positivity. The story's a bit basic. Think Downton Abbey if two of the servant women were a secret lesbian couple with Skinemax level sex scenes.

Alec: The Years Have Pants ★
I made it through about 150 pages before finally giving up on this nonentity of a book. It's kind of a diary where nothing happens. There's panels but they rarely tell a story. The art's not very good either. I just didn't get the point of this tomb of a book and figured I'd stop punishing myself by continuing with it.

CoolBro86 wrote: "Yeah it’s the 2015 one"

It's pretty good. I'd start at the beginning of Slott's run though or you're going to miss a lot of good stuff and probably be somewhat confused.

CoolBro86 wrote: "No im talking about Spider-Verse by Dan Slott"

Which one? There was a crossover Slott did back in 2015 called Spider-Verse. If you're referring to that one, I'd go back to the beginning of his run. That's more towards the end and you're probably going to be lost. Then there's the new Spider-Man comic he did last year that was The End of the Spider-Verse as the first trade for that new Spider-Man book. Marvel makes their Spider-Man books almost impossible to figure out the reading order these days so you need to be pretty specific.

By Spider-Verse are you referring to the Edge of Spider-Verse comics they keep making? Those are just OK. They are just little stories with Spider-Men from other universes.

Dan Slott's run in Amazing Spider-Man, then Superior Spider-Man, then back to Amazing Spider-Man is really good.

The Spider-Man books before that are solid too. There's a few different writers, Mark Waid, Zeb Wells, a couple more people I can't remember off the top of my head. Nick Spencer's recent run on ASM I thought was terrible. This current run by Zeb Wells is hit and miss. Part of the problem is ASM comes out biweekly now making it really difficult to keep consistently good Spider-Man books coming out, that and events twice a year.

As far as Miles Morales goes, the Bendis stuff is really good. Marvel just made 2 omnibuses for his entire run a few years ago.

https://www.goodreads.com/series/3392...

The Saladin Ahmed series was fine, but nothing special. Haven't read the Cody Ziglar series that's happening now yet.

That Wolverine comic is a modern day team-up with Gambit. It's one of the first times they worked together and not set back in the far past like their one color books at Marvel or the Batman and Superman stuff they did for DC. It's fine but not at the same level of the others.

Yeah, Spider-Man: Blue is on par with the other Loeb and Sale books. There's a bunch of Marvel ones, Hulk Grey, Captain America: White, Daredevil: Yellow

Michael wrote: "If you have to narrow it down to just one title - - that has been consistently good over the decades (with some exceptions) - - - I'd have to recommend DAREDEVIL."

Since Bendis took Daredevil over in the 2000's yes. There's a lot of clunkers between Frank Miller and Bendis though.