Chad’s
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(group member since Mar 22, 2018)
Chad’s
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from the I Read Comic Books group.
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Canavan wrote: "A ton of things still remain on my to-be-read pile. For example, someone here (sorry, I don’t remember who) recommended Joe Hill’s Locke & Key. I fully intended to read the series during the month of October, but simply failed to carve out sufficient time. Maybe next October!."That could have been me. It's one of my favorite comics of the last 15 years. I've read through all of it a few times. The good thing is by waiting there's a couple more things you can read. These days Hill and Rodriguez just return occasionally for one-shots and miniseries featuring ancestors of the Locke's. Now there's another miniseries and a crossover with Sandman you can add to the pile. The Sandman crossover is done exceptionally well, without messing up the existing mythos of Sandman. Every time Locke and Key releases a new one shot, IDW rereleases the same collection of one-shots with the new one added. It's a case where buying the one-shots is ultimately cheaper than buying yet another collection of mostly the same stuff.
Today's trip to the LCS.Dark X-Men #5
X-Men Red #18
Batman #428 <--- This is the version that was never released where Jason Todd lives instead of being killed by the Joker.
The Bloody Dozen #1 <--- A new comic from Charles Soule
House of Slaughter #20
Immortal Thor #5
Worlds Finest: Teen Titans #6
Captain America #4
Silent Knight #2
Punisher #2
Titans: Beast World #2
Last week's adventures in comics. Spider-Man, Vol. 1: End of the Spider-Verse ★★★
I was excited to see Dan Slott and Mark Bagley back on Spider-Man. This Spider-Verse story was just OK though. There's definitely some fun moments and new characters. The back half of this gets bogged down in a What If? story about Peter Parker though that dragged on too long.
Legacy of Mandrake the Magician ★★★
A solid next generation story of Mandrake the Magician. Don't worry, you don't need to know anything about Mandrake.
Bad Dreams ★★★
From the cocreator of Lucasfilm's video game Maniac Mansion. Mary is lost in a dream world sent on a quest with some friends she meets. It's all your standard stuff for this kind of story.
Miles Morales: Spider-Man, Vol. 1: Trial by Spider ★★
I was glad to see Miles back in his old suit. I hated the one from the last series with the stupid turtleneck look that didn't cover his face. The villain seemed kind of stupid. She hated Miles because he won a random lottery along with a bunch of other kids and she didn't.
Shang-Chi and the Quest for Immortality ★★★
A fluffy graphic novel for kids set in more of the Shang-Chi movie timeline. Shang-Chi goes on the hunt for the immortal peaches from Chinese lore while his father is away.
Angela Della Morte: Unleash the Beast ★★★
This is some cool sci-fi where you never get a complete hang of what's going on. I'm guessing some of that explanation was lost in translation to English. The art is top notch. These pages are beautiful.
Season of the Bruja Vol. 1 ★★★
I quite liked this. It's a cool world. It's about a girl and her abuela who is teaching her to be bruja or a witch. The problem with the story is that it feels like you've started on volume 6 of an ongoing story. All of these different elements are introduced without any explanation of what they are or mean. Even just some footnotes would have helped.
The Dark Age ★★★
A pretty good dystopian future comic where one day all metal dissolved to dust. It's now 15 years later. The cities are filled with cannibals and the U.S. has broken down into smaller territories.
Riptide ★★★★
Completely ridiculous but fun and over the top. It's a disaster movie turned up to 11. A meteor going by the Earth affects the tides and causes the seas in the Western hemisphere to retreat 100 miles from shore. The story follows a group of people who survived their cruise ship tipping over as they try and outrun the tsunami that's coming when the waters return.
Riptide: Draken ★★★
The stars of the first volume of Riptide meet again after college. Alex now works as an engineer on an oil platform while Hannah films documentaries all over the oceans. The story is absolutely ridiculous where they not only discover Nessie but it attacks Inverness. Still it's a lot of fun, just not to be taken seriously.
Shazam! Vol. 1: Meet the Captain ★★★★★
This is the kind of fun comic that Mark Waid excels at. He breaks Captain Marvel down to his core by examining each of the Gods that give him his powers. Along with having the Gods manipulate Billy, there's goofy fun stuff in it like space dinosaurs who require tons of paperwork. It's a nice balancing act that looks amazing due to the 8th Wonder of the World, Dan Mora, who draws two Mark Waid books each month for DC
X-Men, Vol. 5 ★★★★★
These were great. You do want to make sure and read this year's Hellfire Gala first. The X-Men are in bad shape. Almost all mutants are missing, scattered to parts unknown. Orchis has won. Enter Kitty Pryde and she's taking no prisoners, killing humans left and right to keep her secrets as she attempts to bring about a resistance to stop the genocide of mutants and eventually anyone with powers.
Ghost Rider, Vol. 1: Unchained ★★★
Ghost Rider gets a new comic where you don't need to really know Johnny Blaze's history because Blaze doesn't really remember it either. He's had some kind of head injury with something growing out of it. Meanwhile he's hoboing it around the country like David Banner in the old Incredible Hulk TV show.
Ghost Rider, Vol. 2: Shadow Country ★★★
The story seems to be coming together in vol. 2. I liked this quite a bit better. It's got something of a Vertigo feel to it, right down to very graphic and disgusting horror scenes.
Ghost Rider, Vol. 3: Dragged Out of Hell ★★★
Danny Ketch is finally back. He's Blaze's brother along with being the Ghost Rider of the 90's. These issues feel almost like an introduction to what will happen after the crossover with Wolverine, which the last issue leads into.
Ghost Rider/Wolverine: Weapons of Vengeance ★★★
It makes sense to cross over Ghost Rider and Wolverine since Percy writes both of them. This felt kind of bare bones though. The two of them are teaming up to go after a demon who possessed a kid years ago and is now killing mutants just because it's Fall of X season I guess.
Shy Ninja ★★★
A fun read for kids. The main character is a girl with severe anxiety. As part of her therapy, she starts a ninja class, one that's for real ninjas and not just a martial artist class. She is told she is the one as she continues her training. You can see where it goes from here.
Captain America: Sentinel of Liberty, Vol. 2: The Invader ★★★
This whole conspiracy thing is too complicated. It's just a conspiracy to be a conspiracy without really making sense other than the rich getting richer I guess. It's really just a game for the idle rich. Anyway, Bucky has went over to the other side to try and bring them down from the inside. MODOK captures Manhattan. Cap and his team have to get it back.
The Amazing Spider-Man, Vol. 5: Dead Language, Part 1 ★★
Joe Kelly and the Dodsons step in for two issues as Pete and Felicity head upstate for the weekend and get involved with some evil tech bros? It's pretty stupid. Then Wells and JRJR return for the beginning of the story of what happened before the first issue of this run. We find out some of why everyone's pissed off at Spider-Man. It's told so confusingly that it's difficult to tell what is happening now and what happened a year ago. The villian is back from the Brand New Day era and I can't even remember him even though I read all of it. It's weird. The bad guy basically just spouts gibberish and is looking to make some king of sacrifice to a Mayan God. I like Wells as a writer. How is this title this bad?
The Amazing Spider-Man, Vol 6: Dead Language, Part 2 ★★
We finally see why Pete's lost all his friends and been an ass since this series began. It's all because he couldn't spend 5 minutes to tell his superhero buddies why he was taking their stuff. So he spent even more time fighting them for it. It's all just stupid. Then a character dies for like half a second only to be resurrected before they even throw dirt over their grave so they can be part of the next Marvel event. It takes any kind of emotion out of what should be a cathartic Fallen Friend one shot. The nonstop editorial mandates on this book are killing Spider-Man. I feel bad for Wells and JRJR because if they were just left alone to make Spider-Man comics I think it'd be pretty great.
H.P. Lovecraft's At the Mountains of Madness, Volume 1 ★★★
Lovecraft can be an obtuse read for people. The original story is filled with long passages of very detailed prose describing everything and giving you that feeling of existential dread. Tanabe has turned this into a faithful adaptation while reordering some things and turning things around so that the story is mostly told through the art and dialogue. (There's not much dialogue in the original version.) There are times where there are too many panels. I don't know if we really need 20 two-page spreads of the black mountains. This probably could have been shortened enough to fit in one volume, but who knows, I haven't read the latter half of this yet.
Marvel Unlimited is running a special of $55 for the first year with the code HOLIDAY23 until January 4th. If you read digital comics, this is by far the best way to get access to all of Marvel's back catalog that is available. You do have to wait 3 months for new comics to get added but this is my modern version of the dollar bin where I read all the comics that I don't like enough to own but still want to read.
Today's trip to the LCS.Invincible Iron Man #13
Shazam #6
X-Men #29
Birds of Prey #4
Transformers #3
Silent Knight #1
Avengers #8
Fire and Ice #2
Last week's adventures in comics. I finally finished Spawnsgiving just in time to avoid a Spawnmas in December.MCU: The Reign of Marvel Studios ★★★★★
Not a comic but a must read for any fan of the MCU. It's packed full of stories about how the MCU came about, what could have beens (like Tom Hidldleston originally auditioned for Thor, John Krasinski as Captain America, etc.), fun tidbits and then the stories you've heard before like how Ike Perlmutter didn't want to make a Black Widow movie because female action figures don't sell. (Those are Ike's words, not mine.)
Big Game ★★★★
Mark Millar puts all of his comics in the same universe and does it way more successfully than I would have ever imagined. I'm actually impressed he pulled this off. By themselves, they feel so disparate but Millar gives characters from most of his books a chance to shine.
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: The Armageddon Game ★★
I felt let down by this. TMNT is pretty consistently good. Anytime we head to Dimension Z though, things get real boring and this big event spends way too much time there and way too little time with the other prongs of Rat King's plan.
Breath of Shadows ★★
This one was boring. It's about a rockstar in the 60's who is strung out on heroin. He hears about a lost city in Mexico where he can get right. There's a lot of drug induced hallucinating centipedes crawling over everything until they eventually become real. Yawn. I'm over random body horror for body horror sake.
Void Rivals, Volume 1 ★★★★
There's a huge reveal at the end of the first issue. You've probably heard about it by now but in case you haven't I'll put some spoiler tags in. (view spoiler)
This is about two warring races who are on opposite sides of this ring built around a black hole. The war has been going on for generations, to the point where no one even knows why they are fighting at this point. They both wear full armor and have never seen what the other race looks like. A pilot from each race crash lands on a remote planet and they have to work together to get off it. It reminded me quite a bit of Enemy Mine.
Titans Vol. 1: Out of the Shadows ★★★★★
Yeah baby yeah! The Titans are back. This book has all the feel of the old Wolfman and Perez era. Tom Taylor is doing his typical Taylor magic. Nicola Scott is one of those artists that evokes Perez similar to Phil Jimenez.
Crypt Of Shadows (2023) #1 ★★★
Some good short stories featuring the darker corners of the Marvel universe.
The Incredible Hulk, Vol. 1 ★★★★
I'm digging this new Hulk book. It reminds me a ton of Al Ewing's Immortal Hulk run with its own flavor. Less body horror and more traditional horror. It does reference the Green Door and there's this new big bad, the Mother of Horrors. She's sending all of these old horrors after the Hulk and here he goes up against zombies and some kind of river monster.
Carriers: Season One ★★
This is better than I expected for such a dumb concept. It's about these pigeons protecting New York City from other animals like rats and hawks. They play it completely seriously. So you have a pigeon looking at a radar screen in their roost while the rest of the team flies through the city looking for rats or seagulls and the like causing mischief.
Invincible Iron Man by Gerry Duggan Vol. 2: The Wedding Of Tony Stark And Emma Frost ★★★★
This actually dovetails nicely with the Fall of X which isn't a natural fit. But with Feilong and Orchis as the villains, it works. I like seeing Iron Man without all of his money and gadgets.
Doctor Who: Doom's Day. A Doctor In The House? ★★★
Part of this Doom's Day event that is really hard to read and expects fans to enjoy reading or listening to a variety of formats. I think that's stupid. This is fine as a stand alone. It's fun to have Missy acting like she's the Doctor, but it will never be more than just OK due to the pain in the ass nature of trying to track down the various pieces of this story from all over the place.
Alien, Vol. 1: Thaw ★★
This was a bit of a mess. Shalvey tried to have his cake and eat it too, packing way too many elements into this one story. You don't care about the majority of these characters dying as most don't even get names. They are just there to add to the body count. The family at the heart of the story doesn't get much actually explained until the last issue.
There are a lot of oddities to this as well. I read this in single issues and it started as a 6 part story that went down to 5 by issue two. There's also curse words that are bleeped out in later issues. I guess editorial changes were made mid stream. It was just strange. I also hate how every Marvel Alien miniseries is just called Alien. How are you supposed to tell them apart, especially when there are multiple miniseries in a single year?
Machine Girl: Just a Girl in the World ★★
A sci-fi comic about a girl who doesn't know her past. She lives with her father on an alien planet fighting in a ring and is some kind of cybernetic. While she has no memory of her past, her father is hiding it from her as mercenaries come looking for her. This thing really gets bogged down with infodumps. Infodumps that conflict with each other so that you're not even sure what the truth is and not in a good way.
Sam and Twitch B&W, Book 1: Udaku ★★★★
Bendis wrote this fucked up noir and it's really good.
Hellspawn: Complete Collection ★★
Bendis also wrote this and it sucks. Plus Ashley Wood looks like he gave his kids some crayons and let them do the art.
King Spawn, Volume 1 ★★★
No, I can't tell you the difference between this title and regular Spawn. Pretty much, the bad guys just want to make him wear a crown.
King Spawn, Volume 2 ★★★
Spawn and the Spawnettes fight bad guys.
King Spawn, Volume 3 ★★★
...and some other bad guys.
Gunslinger Spawn, Volume 1 ★★★
Old West Spawn gets shocked by indoor plumbing. This is seriously the best part of volume one.
Gunslinger Spawn, Volume 2 ★★★
Cowboy Spawn and his ridiculous hat ride a steel horse.
The Scorched, Volume 1 ★★★
A team full of all the Spawns even though they are in all of the other books too. Very little of this expanded universe is actually interesting. As you'd expect.
The Scorched, Volume 2 ★★★
More scorching happens abroad.
Aows wrote: "G.O.D.S by Jonathan Hickmanhighly recommended, it's new plot by the wonderful Jonathan Hickman."
Yes, but it's not even done yet, let alone been collected. Maybe the next go around.
Jeff Lemire and Gabriel Walta's Sentient was really good.So were Ascender and Descender by Lemire and Dustin Nguyen.
Today's trip to the LCS plus some back issues I picked up on Saturday when comics were 50% off.Alien #5
Penguin #2
Penguin #3
Penguin #4
Punisher #1
Outsiders #1
Titans #4
Captain America #2
Captain America #3
X-Men Blue: Origins #1
Fire Power #29
Something Is Killing the Children #35
Titans: Beast World #1
The Devil That Wears My Face #2
Last week's adventures in comics. Yes, I'm still stuck in Spawnoween hell leftovers. I guess it's Spawnsgiving at this point. I'm really hoping to avoid Spawnmas.Silver: Of Hunters and Prey ★★★★
The supervising animator of What If finishes his story of a heist within Dracula's castle. This was cool.
Doctor Who: The Tenth Doctor Archives Omnibus Volume 2 ★★★★
Where this gets cooking though is the back half. It's an ongoing story where the Doctor is put on trial by the Shadow Proclamation for interfering with history. It brings in a ton of races and plots from the TV show and mixes it up wonderfully.
Doctor Who: The Tenth Doctor Archives Omnibus Volume 3 ★★★★
The Advocate's plans come to light. I like how it all comes together. Great representation of David Tenant and the show itself.
Eye of Newt ★★★
A new take on King Arthur's origins where he's apprenticed to Merlin as Newt and goes on a quest to become a wizard. Some of the elements are still there like Morgan Le Fey and Uther Pendragon but the main focus is on this quest which is all new.
The Golden Voice: The Ballad of Cambodian Rock's Lost Queen ★★★
A biography of one of Cambodia's most popular singers before the Khmer Rouge took over the country. It details her life from early adulthood until her untimely end.
Fantastic Four, Vol. 1: Whatever Happened to the Fantastic Four? ★★★★
I found Dan Slott's run uneven and plagued with tiny little volumes full of special issues. These 6 regular issues of the series were a delight. They are all one and done. The first few issues feature various members split up, alluding to something happening a few months before which you find out about in issue #4. Each issue is full of smart writing, humor and a lot of heart.
Spawn: Resurrection Volume 1 ★★
Paul Jenkins has gotten his overwrought hands on Spawn. Every issue is the same. Spawn meets a different character, they talk for forever as they try and sway Spawn, and then Spawn quickly says no and kicks their butt.
Spawn: Satan Saga Wars ★★★
Erik Larsen takes over the book for a while here writing it with McFarlane and drawing it with McFarlane doing inks. With McFarlane as the inker, Larsen's stuff looks much better. I found Larsen's writing refreshing as well. It turns more into the punchy-punchy and far less of the endless introspective exposition blocks.
Spawn: Hell On Earth ★★★
So Spawn has returned from Hell with only a fraction of his powers. He promised Wanda he'd watch over her family. Erik Larsen writes and draws the first several issues so this turns into more of a superhero comic with some of his characters from Savage Dragon. Then McFarlane and Kudranski return and the book gets darker again. Cyan is now 14. She's in a rehab facility and gaining powers like Spawn's.
Spawn: Dark Horror ★★★
Jason Shawn Alexander comes onboard and gives the book an all different look. Certainly more of a horror edge and vibe to it. Cyan is hiding out in Tokyo after the last volume until some gangster types with a Japanese horror element to them cross her path.
Spawn: Vengeance ★★★
The buildup before it sounds like Spawn is going to kick heaven and Hell's asses.
Spawn: The Record-Breaker ★★★
This was actually pretty solid. The status quo changes for Spawn as he goes after heaven and hell. The one thing I would have liked more is a little uncertainty. Spawn is so confident that everything will work out that it sucks some of the drama out of it.
Spawn: Aftermath ★★
Now we've got multiple Spawn's floating around including She-Spawn. You really couldn't come up with a better name than that Toddster? The last two issues, I guess in the future, were very confusing. They mostly sounded like gibberish.
Spawn: Omega ★★
Gunslinger Spawn enters the picture but overall this feels all pretty inconsequential with lots of wheel spinning. I'm officially out of trades for the main Spawn title. Thank God, the end of my labors is in sight.
Spawn's Universe: #1 ★★★
All of these Spawn one offs never seem to make it into any of the collections and that trend continues here. It spins out of Spawn #318 and sets up the three Spawn spinoff books, King Spawn, Gunslinger Spawn and the team book, The Scorched.
Junior ★★★★
Some solid sci-fi here. This woman, Junior, and her miniature hippo alien partner gets stranded on a prehistoric planet. While there they discover what happened to her mom along with an incredible secret. It's fast paced and full of action, not burdening itself down with a ton of exposition or backstory since this is only 4 issues.
James Bond: Agent of Spectre ★★★★
Bond goes undercover to work for Spectre. There's a civil war brewing between Blofeld and one of his lieutenants with Felix Lieter being used as leverage in order to force Bond to work for him. Quick and action packed.
Today's trip to my LCS included a comic book signing by the writer of new Dark Horse comic, Lunar Lodge.Uncanny Spider-Man #4
Titans #5
Justice League vs. Godzilla vs. Kong #2
Batman / Superman: World's Finest #21
Immortal X-Men #17
Invincible Iron Man #12
Nightwing #108
Wolverine #39
Void Rivals #6
Lunar Lodge #1
Incredible Hulk #6
The Plot Holes #4
The last 2 weeks of light comic book reading with a vacation to Charleston in the middle of it.Spawn, Compendium 4 ★★★★
The first two-thirds of this are actually pretty good. David Hine actually has things happen in the book. Then McFarlane comes back in issue #185 and wipes it all away. The thing is he doesn't do anything to really signal a reboot. There's just a new Spawn and most of the things Hine setup are retconned. It's odd and confusing.
Spawn, Compendium 5 ★★★
I wish I'd taken out stock in black ink while Szymon Kudranski was drawing this book. I could have made millions. This is all about the new Spawn. Al Simmons is gone now and this new Spawn wakes up from a coma at the exact same time. He's got new powers including the power to heal others. Parts of this are pretty good. Parts of it are issues long info dumps.
Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser Omnibus ★★★★
Some fine, classic adaptations of Fritz Leiber's Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser stories. Mignola's art is terrific. Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser are a fun duo, always getting themselves into trouble in this old school fantasy world.
The Night Eaters, Vol. 1: She Eats the Night ★★★★
From the creators of Monstress, it's the odd tale of an immigrant family from Hong Kong by way of Hawaii to NYC. The mother is a chainsmoker who is very hard on her adult children who run the family's restaurant. The father is laid back and cool. Across the street is a haunted house realtors are trying to sell. After a slow burn with some humor, the story finally begins to pick up as we veer into the supernatural.
The Night Eaters, Vol. 2: Her Little Reapers ★★★★★
At the end of book one, the twins found out (view spoiler). Now their parents aren't telling them anything more leaving them to figure it out themselves as they are pursued by some kind of cult and all of these Asian mythological creatures show up.
Witch of Thistle Castle Vol. 1 ★★
A generic manga set in current time where witches exist but are frowned upon in Great Britain. Nor are they really needed much with modern technology. The subplots all felt half-baked and poorly laid out.
Doctor Who Vol. 1: Alternating Current ★★★
After a previous adventure with Doctors 10 and 13, time is all screwed up and the Sea Devils have taken over the earth. With only 4 issues, this feels very by the numbers.
Lone Sloane: Babel ★
This was awful. I couldn't even tell you what it was about. It's that old school kind of sci-fi from the 50's and 60's that talks a lot without saying much. It feels like an adaptation of a book from the way it's written but I think it's just an extension of the original books.
The Cat from the Kimono ★★★
This was solid. It's almost like an anthology but the stories all eventually connect through the cat. It's quirky and odd and a perfectly fine way to spend an hour.
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Reborn, Volume 7 – Isolation ★★★★
IDW does a poor job of putting these events together. This is part of Armageddon Game but from reading this you won’t know much about it even though this is the main title. It’s about Donatello and Jennika holding down the fort while the other Turtles are I guess doing the actual event stuff.
Noir Burlesque ★★★★★
I really liked this. It’s great noir with some terrific art. The sepia toned color palette with a red exception worked very well.
Silver: Of Treasures and Thieves ★★★★
A sneaky good, pulpy heist comic. It’s got a Hellboy vibe in that they are robbing vampires. It’s black and white with some cartoonier Mignola influenced art. This is only the first half of the story.
Moriarty: The Clockwork Empire Vol. 1 ★★★
Steampunk Sherlock Holmes meets Jekyll and Hyde.
The Shadows of Thule ★★★
Some natives of preGreat Britain (the Picts) fight Elder Gods and the Romans.
UTown ★★★
A story about a failing loser artist living in a project that’s about to be brought down. He consistently makes wrong choices and blames others for his own mistakes. This was fine. Nowhere near as good as CAB’s Nuclear Winter though.
Frank At Home On The Farm ★★★
This was an odd one. A man returns home from the war to find his family missing and some kind of Animal Farm thing going on with the farm. The art added to the madness.
Boogeyman ★★★★
This was cool. A little boy is attacked by boogeymen and an ancient boogeyman arrives to save him as they go on the run.
Family Time ★★
A decent comic for kids. It's about a family that's transported back to ancient Ireland on a generic adventure.
Die!namite Lives ★★★
The licensed characters of the Dynamite universe fight more Deadites. It doesn't shed any new ground but it does travel some well trod ground well.
Doctor Who: The Eleventh Doctor, The Sapling Vol 3: Branches ★★★
It's no surprise that this story with the Sapling just kind of peters out rather than ends satisfactorily. At this point the comics were just kind of limping along.
Unforgiven ★★
The three Unforgiven one-shots, Spider-Man, X-Men and Captain America, are awful. They feature some vampires with zero character who don't drink human blood. Sid Kotian may be a good artist some day but today isn't that day. The Blade: Vampire Nation one-shot in the back, however, is terrific.
Unfamiliar, Vol. 1 ★
A twee little webcomic for little girls. I hated the artwork. It looked like an old Betty Boop cartoon with witches. The stories were so lite they made the Baby Sitters Club look tough.
Lovecraft: Unknown Kadath ★★★
Basically a travelogue through a imaginary land in search of Kadath, a city no one's ever seen. Through the lens of Lovecraft, it's a darker world than one might expect.
Doctor Who: The Tenth Doctor Archives Omnibus Volume 1 ★★★
Collects two stories, Agent Provocateur and The Forgotten. The first story has the Tenth Doctor and Martha Jones having a lot of fun as the Shadow Proclamation tries to box them into helping their plans. In the second story, the Doctor and Martha wake up in a museum devoted to the Doctor. He's lost his memories and uses objects from his past to remind himself of past adventures with each era.
I'm actually OK with it. They typically nominate a bunch of garbage that is in no way the best of comics every year anyway. I'd rather not have any voting than voting on a list that was put together by someone who knows absolutely nothing about comics.The romantasy thing is so ridiculous that I basically said whatever. At least it gives me a list of books I make sure I never read.
Today's trip to my LCS.Transformers#2
Uncanny Spider-Man #3
Abbott 1979 #2
House of Slaughter #19
Shazam #5
X-Force #46
X-Men Red #17
Birds of Prey #3
G.O.D.S. #2
Last week's adventures in comics. Still reading a lot of Spawn comics on a buddy read where all the buddies quickly dropped out. Can't say I blame them but I'm a glutton for punishment.Nature's Labyrinth Vol. 1 ★★★
This is a story you've seen several times before. The Battle Royale type story where strangers are left on an island containing a changing maze and have to kill one another to win a treasure. The subplots are very much secondary to the fighting.
Third Shift Society Volume One ★★★
A burgeoning witch and a guy with a pumpkin for a head investigate supernatural mysteries.
Miss Truesdale and the Fall of Hyperborea ★★
It's starting to be diminishing returns with the Hellboy universe now that they've mined pretty much every story. This was terrible. It wasn't at all helped by the rudimentary art and coloring.
Spawn Origins, Volume 21 ★
Oof, now we just seem to be resetting everything back to how it was a hundred issues ago. Wynn's back in charge with a little Violator devil on his shoulder. This is an era of Spawn that should definitely be skipped.
Spawn Origins, Volume 22 ★
Wanda and Terry have moved away to parts unknown and I hope they never come back. Wynn is possessed by the Violator and starts murdering Wanda look-alikes while Spawn helps Twitch save his vampire son who is trapped in a haunted house. Nyx is still around and not doing much except probably repeatedly dying her hair to keep that striped look going.
Spawn Origins, Volume 23 ★
Violator is back and jumping bodies and controlling multiple people. Nyx is mainly still doing nothing as Satan attempts to get her to betray Spawn in order to save a friend who is in Hell.
Spawn Origins, Volume 24 ★
The first issue by Nat Jones is like a big tease. His art looks like Michaelangelo compared to normal artist Angel Medina. The way these stories are put together though, this is the third issue of a three part story.
Spawn Origins, Volume 25 ★★★
I've never been so glad to see a creative team leave. Angel Medina's art is grade A garbage. Brian Holguin's writing isn't much better. They do the first two throw away issues. Then David Hine and Phillip Tan take over. I wasn't sure of all that was happening at first, but they clearly have a plan and Phillip Tan's art looks like a career professional to Medina's 5th grader carving dicks into his desk.
Spawn Origins, Volume 26 ★★★★
I can't believe how much better this book has gotten since David Hine and Phillip Tan took over. Or maybe it's that the 49 issues that Brian Holguin and Angel Medina did are some of the worst comics ever made. It could go either way. If you've ever been curious about Spawn, just skip straight from issue #100 to #150.
Spawn Origins, Volume 27 ★★★★
The Armageddon arc finishes up. Things are really crazy there for awhile. Now there's no more angels or demons. It's just mankind at its best and worst. Al realizes he was a piece of shit before he died. I can't believe I'm saying this about Spawn, but good stuff.
Spawn Origins, Volume 28 ★★★★
Just when you think the book can't get darker, it does. Hine has morphed this into something of a Vertigo book, especially when tied in with the darker, less cartoony artwork. First Sam and Twitch investigate an apartment building where tenants keep going crazy and murder people. Then Nyx returns and we learn more about Al's past. After 28 volumes, we've finally run out of Spawn's origins.
Spawn: New Flesh Collection ★★★★
After the Armageddon craziness, everyone is settling into this new reality. They soon realize this world without angels and demons still has plenty of monsters.
Spawn: Neo Noir ★★★★
Spawn remembers his family and time growing up with his brothers. Every time we find out more about his past, it seems he was even more of a dirtbag than we previously thought.
Spawn Volume 1: Endgame ★★★
In the typical writing of past Spawn, there's a new Spawn but nothing is explained. This new guy has woken from a coma and things happen very slowly. I'm assuming we may get some answers in volume 2. I really wish David Hine was still writing this. Apparently there's some random retconning again as now angels and devils are back in the picture even though they were supposed to be cut off from this new reality. At least there's some terrific art from the rarely seen Whilce Portacio.
Spawn Volume 2: Endgame Part 2 ★★★
This new Spawn is more of the same with less whining about Wanda. McFarlane is writing it so it's still crappy storytelling, just with A-List artists this go around. I'm still having difficulties following the herky-jerky story. All of the stuff from the David Hine run seem to have been reset. It makes it very confusing to just forget what happened 12 issues before.
Today's trip to the LCS.Canary #1
Avengers #7
Spider-Boy #1
Ultimate Universe #1
Snow White Zombie Apocalypse #4
X-Men #28
Dr. Strange #9
kaitlphere wrote: "The Seeds by Ann NocentiIt's not very often that I don't like a book, but here we are. About half the text was pretty abstract and sometimes I couldn't tell what something was supposed to be in the dark gritty art. Somewhere in between the abstract big picture commentary and the gross bad guys there was a story I would like to follow, but not enough to read more of this."
You can pretty much guarantee if Ann Nocenti is involved the book will suck. She's been an awful writer for Marvel and DC since the nineties.
I liked Earth Divers and Hollow.
Max wrote: "I ended up reading The Red Mother Vol. 1 b/c I liked the cover on Hoopla. It was a good book, but felt like it ended in the middle of story. Daisy's encounters with the Red Mother r..."I remember reading the Red Mother. Parts of it were really cool, a nice slow burn horror. However, it didn't pay off in the end. It just kind of fizzles out and you still don't know what was happening. Boom's dependence on 4 issue trades was a problem as well. 3 trades for a 12 issue story that doesn't pan out is a problem. The art is really good.
Last week's adventures in comics.Spawn Origins Vol. 9-20 ★★★
Spawn actually wasn't bad through issue #100 in vol. 17. But it's pretty clear once Spawn beat the bane of his existence there's no real plan going forward. Greg Capullo leaves after issue #100 and Angel Media replaces him on art. His art is just awful. It looks more clowny and cartoonish than scary, like it's being reflected in a funhouse mirror. Medina's grasp of human anatomy seems to be filtered through lots of magic mushrooms. Thanks to Sam for suggesting this terrible buddy read that I'm now taking as far as I can stand like I'm playing a trick on myself for Halloween. I may not be sane by the time I reach the other end of this nonsense.
Spawn: The Dark Ages Complete Collection ★
I found something much worse than Spawn, Medieval Spawn. This series is pretty awful. It's mainly just kind of boring with some gross art.
The Secret Service: Kingsman ★★★★
Mark Millar and Dave Gibbons attempt at creating their version of James Bond. The main character is a poor English kid living in public housing. His uncle gets him out of trouble from time to time and after his latest screw up, tells Eggsy that he's really a spy. His uncle ships him off to spy school to learn along with a bunch of upper crust Brits. In the background a rich nerd is kidnapping his favorite famous people before depopulating the world.
Today's trip to my LCS.Immortal Thor #3
Fire Power #28
The Plot Holes #3
Something Is Killing the Children #34
Dark X-Men #3
Void Rivals #5
Predator Versus Wolverine #2
Uncanny Avengers #3
Uncanny Spider-Man #2
