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

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

Today's trip to my LCS.

Incredible Hulk #4
House of Slaughter #17
X-Men Red #15
World's Finest: Teen Titans #3
X-Force #44

Last week's adventures in comics.

Star Trek: Defiant, Vol. 1 ★★★
This spins out of Star Trek, Vol. 1: Godshock. A rogue group of Klingons are murdering anyone they consider to be Gods. Worf and Spock leave Sisko's crew and steal the Defiant to go on their own hunt for the Klingons because Worf's son, Alexander, has sided with the zealots. B'Elanna Torres of Voyager, Ro Laren, and Lore also get sucked into the crew.

The Liminal Zone ★★★
Junji Ito is back with four longer short stories written over the Pandemic. He's the first to tell you in the afterword that he feels he may be out of ideas.

Wash Day Diaries ★★★★
Four vignettes revolving around four female best friends living in the Bronx. Each story is about a different subject with the intricacy of black women's hair care being shown in detail in each story.

Pinup Girls Around the World ★★★
A bunch of pinups from around the world like the title says. There are all more recent but most have a retro feel to them. There's nothing really risque about these. It's all pretty tame especially compared to what you could find within five minutes of an internet search.

Asadora!, Vol. 1 ★★★★
A manga about a girl in the 50's looking for the doctor because her mother is about to give birth. Meanwhile she gets kidnapped by a burglar right as a typhoon moves in. The burglar is a down on his luck pilot and they both help the survivors. This ends on an odd cliffhanger.

Spider-Man: Miles Morales, Vol. 4 ★★★
A good but not great ending to one of the best, long-running series in comics. Bendis has written every issue of Ultimate Spider-Man over the last 18 years often showing up the main Spider-Man books.

Spider-Men II ★★★★
The long awaited followup to Spider-Men. This is almost more of the origin story of the Miles Morales from the prime dimension, 616. Bendis retcons some major pieces of a Spider-villain's backstory but in a way that makes sense. The end of this almost left like a end to Miles's book.

Star Trek: Resurgence ★★★
A solid story set in the Star Trek universe but not about the characters from any of the TV shows or movies. It's about the Resurgence, a completely different Star Fleet science vessel. This is the prequel to an upcoming video game but it doesn't feel like it.

Bad Medicine ★★★★
Four indigenous teenagers sit around a campfire in Canada telling ghost stories.

Stranger Things Library Edition Volume 3 ★★
This collects The Tomb of Ybwen and the holiday specials. The Tomb of Ybwen tales place after season 2 when Will is trying to process Bob's death. The holiday specials are complete fluff like the majority of these Stranger Things comics.

Everything is Fine Volume Two ★★★★
A disturbing story about people living in this town where they pretend everything is fine while they are constantly watched to make sure they comply with the rules. In volume 2, our protagonists have just killed a police officer and have to get away with his murder.

Underground, Volume 1: Fight Club ★★
A manga about fighting. There's not much else to this than lots of fighting.

Star Trek, Vol. 2: The Red Path ★★★★
I thought this volume was an improvement over volume 1. The story is much clearer. Sisko takes the Theseus to Cardassia on the hunt for some missing Bejoran artifacts. The Cardassians put him on trial for all the people who died on Cardassia during the Dominion War. The rest of the crew go looking for the artifacts before the Red Path can get to them.

Freaking Romance Volume One ★★★
A manga about a girl who is told she's rented a haunted apartment. But it seems to be something else, maybe an alternate reality type thing as she can see a boy living in her apartment sometimes but he can't see or hear her.

Totem ★★★
Two lovers go on a road trip through the Southwest. Interspersed are meetings with the dead that I'm still not sure how it's all connected. The storytelling is sparse and the artwork is really good. By the way, if the artwork looks familiar, Laura Pérez is the woman behind the cool title sequence on Only Murders in the Building.

Graveneye ★★
It's an interesting concept. A horror story told through the eyes of the house itself. The narration is from the view of the house as its owner, Ilsa, wanders the woods hunting bigger and bigger game while timid caretaker, Marie, takes care of the house itself, coming in bruised and bloody.

Clear ★★★
It's a definite possible dystopian future Snyder and Manapul have come up with. Humanity is circling the drain and doesn't want to know about it so everyone is using augmented reality to hide the truth. In the middle of this scenario is a man searching for his ex-wife's killer. Francis Manapul's art is absolutely terrific.

Death Strikes: The Emperor of Atlantis ★★★
An unproduced opera that was never performed because the authors were killed in a concentration camp during World War II. It's a really neat idea to finally show this to the world.

Hellboy and the B.P.R.D.: The Secret of Chesbro House & Others ★★★★
Some better than average Hellboy stories mostly set in the Eighties. He tackles haunted houses, Greek Gods, men filled with snakes and ghosts in this collection.

The Weirn Books, Vol. 1: Be Wary of the Silent Woods ★★★★
A spooky book for middle schoolers where the danger feels real. The main character is a weirn. They have these odd familiars that float around them. There's plenty of other horror types represented as well. The kids go to the Night School, which is what the normal school turns into each night. While working at their grandmother's shop, the kids find out their great uncle went missing when he was a child and never seen again. Now the headmistress from that time appears to be back to abduct more children.

Batman: Wayne Family Adventures, Vol. 1 ★★★
Takes a goofy mangaesque approach to the Batfamily. There are no stories of anyone fighting villains. It's all 5 page stories of fighting over the last cookie or deciding to join a club at school.

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: The Armageddon Game -- The Alliance ★★★
A bunch of ancillary stories that fill out a bit of what's going on with all of the supporting characters in the TMNT universe.

Janus Silang and the Creature of Tabon ★★
There was definitely a lot lost in translation here. It has a ton to do with a lot of Filipino horror traditions. Most of it is explained very poorly though and there's subpar dialogue translations everywhere. I suggest you go and read Trese instead for your horror fix.

New Fantastic Four: Hell in a Handbasket ★★★
We flash back to the 90's when Art Adams brought us a new Fantastic Four team for 3 issues during Walt Simonson's FF run. Here the foursome of Spider-Man, Wolverine, the Hulk and Ghost Rider go to Vegas where the homeless are being taken over by demons.

Black Mass Rising ★★★
It may be better to go into this cold without any expectations. It's something of a religious horror comic. These people in medieval times are plagued by demons until a monk appears. He and another young woman go off to track down the source of these incursions.

Two Graves, Vol. 1 ★★
Death and Emilia who apparently can't die go on a road trip. They stay in cheap motels while being pursued by some of Death's contempories. The storytelling in this is very vague. Little is explained. The best I can say about it is it's a thing I read.

The Forgotten Blade ★★★
An OK but tropey filled story about a few rebels trying to stop the all powerful church in this fantasy world of the Five Rivers.

TKO Presents: Tales of Terror ★★★
A bunch of short horror comic book stories. These weren't half bad. I'd read "The Father of All Things" and "Night Train" before when TKO released their TKO shorts separately so you could have some deja vu here.

Today's trip to the LCS.

Shazam #2
Shazam #3
Doctor Strange #7
Ghost Rider / Wolverine: Weapons of Vengeance Omega
X-Men #26
Immortal X-Men #15
Birds of Prey #1 <-- Kelly Thompson's 1st DC comic

Last week's adventures in comics.

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: The Last Ronin - Lost Years ★★★
Just not nearly as good as the original The Last Ronin miniseries. Part of it was that the story wasn't nearly as compelling. This was about what Michelangelo was doing in the many last years between the regular series and The Last Ronin.

Box of Bones: Book Two ★★★
Volume 2 feels more like Hellraiser than a look at all of the atrocities committed against black people over the last few centuries.

Azula in the Spirit Temple ★★
These new Avatar stories lately just seem like leftover crumbs you're licking your fingers in order to pick them up that leave you unsatisfied.

The Flying Ship Volume 1 ★★★
A YA queer comic about a a one legged girl putting together a crew for her flying ship in a world where magic is outlawed but not always enforced.

Not a New York Love Story ★★★★
A quick read about a man in New York who keeps seeing his dead girlfriend. They go and do things they never got around to when they were together like go to the Mermaid Parade and then he wakes up alone each day.

Earthdivers, Vol. 1: Kill Columbus ★★★★
In 2112 the world is ending. Four Native Americans find a cave where they can make a one way trip to the past so one of them goes back to kill Columbus before he can discover America and start centuries of persecution towards Native Americans.

Stranger Things: Holiday Specials ★★
More Stranger Things fluff with these Holiday Specials.

Stranger Things: The Tomb of Ybwen ★★★
Another one of these kind of fluff Stranger Things minis. This one takes place after Season 2. Will is still sad about what happened to Bob. He finds an old map to a "treasure" that Bob created as a teenager and the boys go to find it.

Shadow Hills ★★★
People in a washed up town start popping up covered in an oily substance. Sink holes are also opening up. It's interesting but enough isn't explained. Things just happen.

Night Club Volume 1 ★★★
Three dumbass teenagers become vampires and decide to get famous on Youtube doing parkour. They end up coming across a stereo-typically bad group of vampires and a fight ensues. Kudos for the $1.99 cover price of each issue. I'm not going to say no to any comic that's only $2 an issue.

Frank Lee, After Alcatraz ★★
This is a hypothetical about what happened to Frank Lee after he escaped from Alcatraz, famously played by Clint Eastwood in the movie. This suggests he only moved 14 miles away and was taken care of by a married couple. The storytelling in this is pretty dry and obtuse and the art is often fugly.

The Lost King (The Queen's Favorite Witch #2) ★★★
Not as focused on the Queen's favorite witch as the first book. This gets more into the English politics of the time when Elizabeth was queen and wouldn't marry.

Miles Morales: The Ultimate Spider-Man Omnibus ★★★★★
When Marvel first decided to kill off the Ultimate version of Peter Parker, I was really upset. Bendis was writing the best Spider-Man title I'd ever read. Thankfully, the book continued to be just as good with Miles Morales taking over.

Spider-Man: Miles Morales, Vol. 1 ★★★★
Secret Wars has allowed Bendis to retcon some things. I hate this kind of thing, because I no longer know what part of Miles's history is still canon and what is now a figment of my imagination. Miles also appears to be a bit older now looking more like 16 than 13.

Batman/Superman World's Finest Vol. 3: Elementary ★★★★
First up Supergirl and Robin go on a date and it goes poorly to say the least. Then Simon Stagg turns up dead and it looks like Metamorpho did it.

The Lucky Poor ★★★
A kid's comic about growing up poor in Canada. This was kind of a memoir and the focus keeps on changing, keeping it average instead of terrific.

Sea Serpent's Heir Book Two: Black Wave ★★★★
Aello goes all in as the reincarnation of the sea serpent that's destined to destroy the world. She begins to pull in her powers as necessary to unite the pirate clans against the religious institution trying to destroy them.

Milky Way ★
A really off-putting sexual story about a young couple. The guy suddenly becomes obsessed with lactating breasts and his girlfriend is babysitting this grossly overweight woman's baby who he has an affair with. All of the characters are very unlikable. The art is fugly. This will put you off from having sex for awhile. It's all just gross.

Spider-Man: Miles Morales, Vol. 2 ★★★★
Miles reacts to all the stuff going on with him in Civil War II.

DEN Volume 2: Muvovum ★★★★
Richard Corben's tale of two humans trapped in a strange fantasy world continues. Presumably because this was originally serialized in Heavy Metal, there is a ton of nudity in it, both male and female. Most people in this world only wear cloaks and are otherwise completely naked for no apparent reason. Given that it's Corbin, there are plenty of grotesque monsters as well.

Dark Knights of Steel Vol. 2 ★★★★
DC's Elseworlds set in a fantasy world comes to a good conclusion. The true manipulators behind the war of the three kingdoms is revealed and makes complete sense.

Mother Nature ★★
This eco-horror was adapted by a screenplay. Jamie Lee Curtis is clearly meant to be one of the characters in it. This may work better as a movie because it didn't work as a comic. Honestly, this is exactly what I expect when a star's name is attached to a comic book these days. They are barely involved and the comic is terrible. Keanu Reeves, Oscar Isaacs, Emilia Clarke, now add Jamie Lee Curtis to that list.

Doctor Who: Empire of the Wolf ★★★
The Eighth and eleventh Doctors team up when the Rose from the other Earth and Bad Wolf Empress Rose start having visions of one another.

Spider-Man/Spider-Gwen: Sitting in a Tree ★★★★
Miles Morales's dad has disappeared while working for SHIELD so Miles goes looking for him on Earth-65 (or Earth-GS. Get it? As in Gwen Stacy.). He meets up with Spider-Gwen and they go look for him in a club that's owned by an evil version of his dad from Earth-65. He's hooked up with S.I.L.K. to steal more stuff from Earth-616. They end up dimension hopping while trying to stop S.I.L.K. and evil dad.

Marvel Age (2023) #1000 ★★★★
An anthology anniversary issue from some of the industry's top talent. This thing is thick.

Battlecats Vol.1 GN: The Hunt for the Dire Beast ★★★
Thundercats in a generic D&D setting.

European comics do this all the time. To save money and only buy them once, you need to do your research. They typically come out in 50 page segments. Then get collected with 2 of them put together. Then if they are popular enough it'll get expanded to 4 volumes. Always check the page counts. And some American publishers like Ablaze will take those 50 page bande dessinées and split them up into 2 chunks for American comic shelves when translating them.

Evilblacksheep wrote: "I'll gladly give it a try but is the series over yet ? It won limited series so I wanna assume the whole story is contained in the 2 volumes (12 issues) but i'd just wanna make sure."

It is finished. Not sure if there's a trade of the whole thing out yet. I read it on DCIU. It's really good. The 80's Justice League kind of reimagined as a noir. Smallwood's art is sublime.

Today's trip to the LCS.

The Plot Holes #1 <-- A new comic by Sean Murphy from a new publisher Massive.
Incredible Hulk #3
Danny Ketch Ghost Rider #4
Ultimate Invasion #3
Wolverine #36
Marvel Age #1000
The Hunger and the Dusk #2

kaitlphere wrote: "The Adoption by Zidrou The Adoption ★★★★★
This is an oversized bande desinee about a grumpy old man whose son adopts a little girl. The end is quite bittersweet. I feel like this fits in with books like Lulu Anew and Always Never, where people find new meaning later in life.."

I read The Adoption a couple years back. Absolutely terrific.

Last week's adventures in comics.

The Unlikely Story of Felix and Macabber ★★★
The story of a young monster who is picked on by the other monsters until he meets an old monster who used to be the best wrestler in the world. Juni Ba only drew this and I didn't think it was as appealing as his previous work like Monkey Meat.

Ultimate Comics Spider-Man, Vol. 3 ★★★★★
The first few issues are really the end of the last arc with Miles facing his uncle, the Prowler. It's some rough but terrific stuff. Then the Divided We Fall/United We Stand crossover fills the rest of the volume.

Spider-Men ★★★★★
Peter Parker and Miles Morales meet for the first time as the Marvel universe and the Ultimate universe collide.

Ultimate Comics Spider-Man, Vol. 4 ★★★★★
I like how the Ultimate versions of the Daily Bugle employees differ from their 616 counterparts. Betty Brant's change is not one for the better. Venom returns and this volume is just gut wrenching.

Ultimate Comics Spider-Man, Vol. 5 ★★★★★
It's been a year since the last issue and Miles is still no longer Spider-Man. Bendis is doing the Lord's work with Miles Morales. It's all just terrific.

Miles Morales: Ultimate Spider-Man, Vol. 1: Revival ★★★★★
Miles is back with the first of many rebooted series. You should go back and read the 3 part Cataclysm: Miles Morales series. It's mostly tangentially connected to the event but that's where Miles tells his dad that he's Spider-Man and it doesn't go well at all.

Miles Morales: Ultimate Spider-Man, Vol. 2: Revelations ★★★★
You can tell the end of this was really rushed and condensed to accommodate Miles's move to the 616 universe with Secret Wars.

Dungeons & Dragons Library Collection, Vol. 1 ★★★
These 2 stories honestly don't bring much new to the table even though they are both written by R.A. Salvatore.

Bad Karma ★★★★
The story of two washed up mercenaries. One is missing a leg, the other has major head trauma. They meet a death row inmate who they know didn't kill anyone 10 years ago, because they did it. Now they have to try and make amends.

Star Trek Vol. 1: Godshock ★★★
A solid extension of the Next Generation era of Star Trek. It's 3 years after the end of Deep Space Nine. Captain Sisko has finally returned from the Prophets and set on a mission. He puts together a crew of Star Trek's version of the Avengers (Data, Beverly Crusher, Worf, Tom Paris, and Scotty along with a couple of new bridge crew.)

Animalheads ★★★
This was alright. It's about 4 kids that graduate college and kind of fall into becoming criminals. It's all centered around this one event that they dance around for 300 pages. Just get to the point already.

Project Monarch ★★★
It's interesting to see Oeming and Santos team up because their art styles are so similar even though Oeming just sticks to writing this one. I gotta say though that this story about the Illuminati operating behind the scenes was really obtuse and not very entertaining.

Dungeons & Dragons: Saturday Morning Adventures ★★
Maybe David Booher should stick to creator owned stuff like Canto (which is fantastic) because this doesn't add anything to the terrific Dungeons & Dragons cartoon of my youth.

Cain ★★★
Basically this is a "What If?" story about if Matt Murdoch became a hitman who killed bad guys instead of a superhero.

Marvel Comics: A Manga Tribute ★★★
This is mainly a bunch of Marvel variant covers by Japanese artists like Peach Momoko and Sana Takeda. There's a few pieces of original art and covers specifically for the Japanese market. With all of the different artists involved some pages are excellent while others are awful.

Dr. Moebius and Mister Gir ★★
Surprisingly few drawings considering Moebius was an artist for his entire life. What it is is almost 300 pages of interviews Sadoul conducted with Moebius at three different periods of his life before he passed away. It's extremely in-depth. The kind of thing that only his biggest fans would want to read.

Hellboy and the B.P.R.D.: 1957 ★★★
Collects all of the 1957 one shots. I thought the book end stories were the best of the 6 stories.

Illegal Cargo ★★★★
A bleak story about an El Salvadorian man who goes searching for his daughter after she goes missing in Mexico while trying to make it to the U.S. This was harsh but ends like it probably does for a lot of parents.

Box of Bones: Book One ★★★
A college student writing her dissertation decides to write it on the Box of Bones. It's kind of like the box from Hellraiser but with a whole history of being downtrodden and treated just awfully over the years. Each issue is a new stand alone story with a different illustrator. Some work better than others, especially when you get to panel structure.

Oni Ronin ★★
Some really generic, ronin claptrap. I couldn't keep the first half of the story straight. Too many characters that didn't matter to the story and the like. The last half is told in Hell and didn't make a whole lot more sense either.

Clementine: Book Two ★★★
Walden continues her tradition of making these Clementine books way too long at 280+ pages. Nothing happens for most of the first 75% of the book. Clementine and their friends find an island in Canada to hide out on from all the walkers until it inevitably comes crashing down at the end.

Today's trip to the LCS.

Dark X-Men #1
Planet of the Apes #5
Penguin #1
Uncanny Avengers #1
Big Game #2
Night Club #5
World's Finest #18
Something Is Killing the Children #32
X-Men Red #14
Dark Knights of Steel #12
Fire Power #26
Iron Man #9
X-Force #43
Immortal Thor #1

* I was on vacation last week so this is two weeks worth of comics. I didn't pay attention to what came out this week versus last.

Had to separate this into two posts to get them all to fit.

Ultimate Comics Spider-Man, Vol. 1 ★★★★★
I remember back in the day when I heard they were killing off Peter Parker in the Ultimate universe, I was screaming "What?" Bendis and Bagley had such a great run on that book I couldn't believe they were doing it. It may be Bendis's best work period. Thankfully, it didn't stop there. Miles Morales's Spider-Man is just as good.

Ultimate Comics Spider-Man, Vol. 2 ★★★★★
Miles's Uncle Aaron (the Prowler) figures out he's Spider-Man and attempts to blackmail him into teaming up. Meanwhile, the Ultimate version of the Scorpion (who is way more scary) is coming to New York because the Prowler screwed him over and now he's planning to take over the NYC underworld. I'm still adoring this series. It has so much heart and say what you will about Bendis, he has found his way straight into the heart of Miles.

Brooms ★★★
A story set in the 1930's South. Everything is the same as normal history except there is magic. Given that everything else is the same, minorities are not allowed to practice magic just like the rest of the racist practices of the time period. So they have underground broom races like the underground race circuits of the time period.

Andrzej Sapkowski's The Witcher: The Lesser Evil ★★★
The Witcher goes up against a darker version of Snow White in this story about a wizard hiding in his tower because Snow White is hunting him down.

Dungeons & Dragons: Cutter ★★
Two half-drow siblings fight over a cursed blade. It's interesting at first but then spins its wheels in the middle issues to draw this out to 5 issues.

Dungeons & Dragons: The Legend of Drizzt - Neverwinter Tales ★★★
An original Drizzt comic that doesn't really stand on its own. Without having read the Neverwinter stories, it's hard sailing and seemingly not much happens. Drizzt and his companion search for a vampire while said vampire dwarf refuses to kill anything other than monsters.

Planeta Blu: Rise of Agoo ★
This was incredibly bad. Poor story, poor art, ruddy coloring. It's about 4 kids who are on a school trip when some guys show up to kill them. They are wading in the ocean off Massachusetts, talking about cooling off when they get home even though they are standing in the ocean when they are saved by dolphins. All of a sudden the dolphins are talking and these kids are breathing underwater. They are taken to Atlantis to a conclave of talking animals at the bottom of the ocean where they learn some other some guy has poisoned 90% of humanity and is going to launch nuclear weapons. None of this makes any sense. Seeing talking bears at the bottom of the ocean is a real head scratcher.

The Matriarchs ★★
A comic about a bunch of vampire / snake women operating in secret. Needs to be a little less obtuse about what's going on, but has some potential.

Hellboy in Love ★★★
Back in 1979, Hellboy met and fell for for an archaeologist, Anastasia Brumfield. This details their adventures as their relationship develops. She's on the hunt for evidence of some ancient secret society.

Last 2 weeks of light comic book reading. Belated on vacation edition.

Me the People ★★★
A bunch of editorial cartoons skewering the first two years of the Trump administration. These are some powerful images. Pia Guerra of Y the Last Man fame doesn't hold back.

Perdy Volume 1 ★
This was terrible. It's a European comic set in the Old West that for some reason Image reprinted. It's about this woman who just got out of prison who is obsessed with sex and crime. She goes to find her daughter who has grown up on her own. They get in this competition over a French doctor in this small town. Perdy's main deal is that she has huge boobs. She even uses them to suffocate someone at some point. The art is awful. It looks like the artist of Ziggy made a bawdy Western.

The Black Bull of Norroway ★★★
This is supposed to be based on some Scottish folklore I haven't come across before. A girl has her fortune told that one day she'll marry a bull and she goes with it. When he arrives when she's older, she's already sold off all the livestock and is ready to hit the road. She discovers he has been cursed along with others in the court. It's a bit maddening how short in information the girl is even though she keeps chugging along with this bull.

Dry County ★★
A complete dud of a mystery. The only part of this mystery I cared about was how to get my time back. It's about a guy who starts dating a girl who is kidnapped and then gets absolutely nowhere trying to locate her.

Eternal Empire, Vol. 2 ★★
Better than the first volume but not by much. This seems like the kind of nonsense a cult would give its members about the true ancient history of the world with people descended from dragons and other assorted horseshit.

The Pervert ★★★
A series of vignettes about a transsexual prostitute in Seattle. They are trying to support their transition through being a nurse and a prostitute which seemed a bit contradictory since she has all kinds of unprotected sex. The jump between vignettes made this feel really disjointed at times.

Cyber Force: Awakening, Volume 1 ★★★
A reboot of Cyber Force that also involves Aphrodite. That's where it gets super confusing. I'm not sure what's going on with her involvement. It appears there's also time travel involved.

The Dead Hand, Vol 1: Cold War Relics ★★★★
I thought this was a pretty cool story of something someone would have actually came up with during the Cold War. It's definitely going to draw a lot of comparisons to Ed Brubaker's and Steve Epting's comics. Think The Truman Show if it had to do with spies.

Rose, Vol. 2: Ghosts ★★★
The plot in this book moves so slowly. This 15 issues series could have probably been condensed into half the issues and been a better book. Also, the women in this book are drawn with barely any clothes on. Very odd for a book written by a woman.

Dissonance, Vol. 1 ★
Sami Basri's art is always welcome but this overwritten and yet halfbaked story is the pits. Some aliens have given Earth technology and some people merge with these aliens because the author says we have to. There's a secret cabal running the world and one alien that I guess is worse than the others. I don't even feel like explaining any further because this thing sucks.

Star Trek, Volume 3 ★★★
I'm liking these new takes on classic episodes. It's a different timeline so I'm OK with some changes. This one hints at some shady Starfleet stuff going on in the background, maybe section 31? The episode it's adapting is "The Return of the Archons" about the old computer that had taken over these colonists. Then we get an original take on "The Trouble with Tribbles".

Star Trek, Volume 4 ★★★
The first two issues are about minor characters from the Kelvin timeline movies and are good. The first one is about the Red Shirts from the perspective of Hendorff who was a thorn in Kirk's side in the first movie. The last two issues are about the Mirror universe version of the Kelvin timeline cast and it's not very good.

Noble Causes Volume 9: Five Years Later ★★★★
The series jumps 5 years ahead. Doc has remarried and his new wife and her adult kids are all part of the team now.

VS, Vol. 1 ★★
The only reason to check this is out is for Esad Ribic's terrific art. The story is bunk. It's your standard war has been taken over by corporations riff, complete with stoppages in the fighting for commercials.

Maestros ★★★★★
I can't believe I let this slip past me for this long. Steve Skroce doesn't do many comics these days but when he does they are terrific. This is about Will, a banished magician who becomes the new Maestro of a magical kingdom when his father and his many wives and kids are all wiped out. It's OK though because his father was a POS. Will grew up on Earth and wants to induce positive changes. The only thing is the people who killed his father are coming after him as well. This book is not for kids.

Scarlet Witch Vol. 1: The Last Door ★★★
A Steve Orlando book that I didn't hate. It actually started off pretty strong. Wanda is operating a book shop in a small town now that contains the Last Door where those on their last hope walk through and Wanda helps them. I don't like how powerful Scarlet Witch is now. She's no longer a mutant and now can apparently do anything with magic including fly effortlessly. Characters aren't very interesting when they have no limitations.

Underwinter: Queen of Spirits ★★
Follows two paramedics as they try and help the people in a building where a bomb went off. Meanwhile the dead are trying to decide to go meet this death creature for help or not. Lots of flowery language that doesn't say anything.

Ice Cream Man, Volume 2: Strange Neapolitan ★★★
This is OK. I haven't found the love for this series that others have. The horror in these stand alone issues feels more like random things happening than a focused story.

The Fade Out, Act One ★★★★
No one does comic book noir like Brubaker and Phillips. It's about a screenwriter who has had writer's block since the War. He secretly partners with someone who has been blackballed for being a communist. He realizes some shady things are going on when the star of his latest movie is murdered and covered up.

The Fade Out, Act Two ★★★★
Great stuff. Go read it instead of letting me spoil it.

A Tale of Sand HC ★★★
This is an adaptation of an experimental screenplay Jim Henson wrote with Jerry Juhl back in the 60's. They attempted to turn it into a film for several years with no success. That's not at all surprising since this would have cost a fortune to make.

The Hundredth Voice ★★
When I saw the only other creator listed other than the writer / artist was a sensitivity reader, I got a little nervous but it was fine. It's a comic for probably middle school kids about a vocal school on an island off England shortly after World War I. It seems like a lightened up take on Faust for kids.

Star Wars: Tales from the Death Star ★★★
Four spooky stories set on the Death Stars for Halloween.

Star Trek Volume 13 ★★★★
NO reimaginings of old episodes in this volume. The first half continues the first of the Kelvin timeline movies. Vulcans are looking for a new homeworld while the Romuluns are looking to finish them off. The second half is about a time / space anomaly (I know they happen all the time in Star Trek.) that is causing the members of the Enterprise from both timelines to switch universes. Good stuff.

Tomahawk Angel Volume 1 ★★★★
A solid new manga set in Greece in the new future. A girl with no memory wakes up in a world overrun by Kaiju. We find out what's happening as Valerie does. I was intrigued. Seems like a combination of Kaiju and maybe a Resident Evil type thing.

All Eight Eyes ★★★
Some homeless people fight giant spiders in New York City. There's not much to the concept other than that.

Macbeth: A Tale of Horror ★★★
Macbeth is the Shakespeare story I'd choose if I had to give it a horror slant. I mean, it honestly has one to begin with, with all of the witches and macabre visions in it already. The creators just expand upon it while maintaining a Shakespearian vibe.

Captain Marvel, Vol. 8: The Trials ★★★
Carol disappears leaving Binary to figure things out for herself. Carol is on trial for what she did to the Enchantress's son in Strange Magic. There's a lesson to be learned here, one that I think you typically learn by 1st grade or so.

Captain Marvel, Vol. 9: Revenge of the Brood, Part 1 ★★★★
This was one of the best Judgement Day tie ins because it focused on Chewie. It was a ton of fun. Then Carol goes old school to hang out with the X-Men when she receives a garbled message from Rogue (who stole all her memories in X-Men back in the 80's). Enter the Brood. I love when the Brood show up, even if they are knock off Xenomorphs.

Dying Light: Stories From the Dying City ★★★
Some solid comics of humans trying to survive in a world of zombies as a prequel to the video game Dying Light 2.

Star Trek: Discovery - Succession ★★★★
Definitely don't read this unless you're seen the first season of Star Trek: Discovery. (view spoiler)[This extrapolates on the ending showing the fight to be the next emperor in the Mirror universe. (hide spoiler)]

Today's trip to the LCS.

Snow White Zombie Apocalypse #3
Ghost Rider / Wolverine: Weapons of Vengeance: Alpha #1 <-- Could this title be any longer?
Avengers #4
House of Slaughter #16
Immortal X-Men #14
World's Finest: Teen Titans #2

Last week's adventures in comic books.

Tenements, Towers & Trash: An Unconventional Illustrated History of New York City ★★★★★
Julia Wertz's love letter to New York City. It goes back and forth between oddball stories from New York like Typhoid Mary or why NYC's tap water is superior to everyone else's. (It definitely is. Although it's not mentioned most people I've talked to say it's from the aquifers upstate.) Then there'll be a bunch of pages of a street corner how it looked in the thirties and then how it looks now. Or things like the best independent book stores in the city. Or how there used to be a pneumatic tube system all through Manhattan. (It's still in a ton of the buildings and I always wondered if it still worked. I worked in Midtown for several years.) I love how she sees NYC the same way I always loved to see it, by walking through it.

Men of Wrath ★★★★
This may be Aaron's bleakest story yet. It's about the Rath family and the cycle of violence passed from father to son. Each issue begins with the violence committed by another generation of Rath men. Ira Wrath is one of the baddest hitmen in the South. The book begins with him murdering an entire family. His latest job is to kill his estranged son who is a fuck up with a pregnant girlfriend.

Grendel Omnibus, Vol. 4: Prime ★★★★
This contains all of the stories with Grendel Prime. He's this bad ass cyborg Grendel who is the preeminent Grendel. The two big main parts are Grendel: War Child and Grendel: Past Prime plus a couple of smaller stories. In War Child Grendel Prime rescues the boy who will be the next Khan from his crazy mother and most of the book is spent on the run. Past Prime is actually a prose novel by Greg Rucka with illustrations from Matt Wagner. It's about a true Grendel from War Child who is on a quest to find the missing Grendel Prime. They are both terrific.

Tim Drake: Robin, Vol. 2 ★★
Whoo. I'm glad that's over. That's the worst Batfamily title I've read in a while.

Batgirls Vol. 3 ★★★
This was actually the most consistent volume of the series. The decision to have the Annual continue on into issue 13 and beyond is kind of a crappy one.

The Forged Vol. 1 ★★★★
Badass cloned women soldiers in mech suits fighting giant alien worms. Does it get any better than this scenario?

Prism Stalker, Vol. 1 ★★★
A sci-fi comic about a girl from a downtrodden people who is chosen for a school where she can become some kind of warrior. There's a lot of interesting visuals but the storytelling is often really hard to follow.

Wytches: Bad Egg Halloween Special ★★★★
A prequel to Wytches about a kid and his mom who are wytch hunters. Wytches are very different than your traditional witches and I'm here for it.

Flavor, Vol. 1 ★★★
A nice setup for a world that revolves around cooking, with a main character that I guess can make killer crepes. Unfortunately, this is all setup for a future volume that probably isn't happening now that it's been 4 years.

The Hchom Book ★
Even though Image put this out, it's not a comic. It's just little blurbs about the author's favorite foods and clothes with the occasional little goblin drawing peeking out along with drawing of her food or outfits. It was completely pointless and boring.

Twisted Romance ★★
Twisted romance that wasn't at all twisted. It was all very bland. You could definitely tell there was some indie creators involved. Some of the artwork was not at all good.

Paradiso, Vol. 1: Essential Singularity ★★★
I only have half an idea of what's happening yet I still dig it. It's a post apocalypse comic where technology is defunct except in this one city that no one can get into, Paradiso. We only get a little glimpse in this city of floating skyscrapers and basically no people other than a few robotic guardians. I hope things are explained better in the back half of this.

Paradiso, Vol. 2: Dark Dwellers ★★
Instead of answering all of these many questions, Ram V. raised in volume 1, we go off on a tangent with the Dark Dwellers that feels like an OK Star Trek episode. So the series just abruptly ends with zero answers to what is going on. Grrr!

Bloodstrike: Brutalists ★★
I get what Fiffe was trying to do here by filling in the gaps of some missing comics in the Bloodstrike run, but those issues are missing because Rob Liefeld's Extreme Studios was poorly run and the comic was terrible.

Death Or Glory Vol. 1 ★★★★
Glory's dad needs a new liver. She grew up an off the grid trucker princess with a penchant for badass driving. Enter her ex-husband who is selling drugs and she intends to rob. Don't stop too long to think about this one. The plot is bananas with all kinds of kooky and despicable characters. It's nonstop balls to the walls action with Bengal providing some killer artwork.

Eight Limbs ★★★★
A comic about a troubled teenage foster kid who is always getting into fights. Then she meets a woman and her husband who run a Muy Thai club and they begin to teach her how to actually fight.

Hellboy: The Silver Lantern Club ★★★
This isn't really a Hellboy book. He only appears in the framing sequence of each issue. It's the 1950's. Hellboy and the Professor are meeting his uncle at the pub to hear old stories of the Silver Lantern Club. So it's really a Sir Edward Grey and Sarah Jewell story in disguise.

Justice League: Generation Lost, Vol. 1 ★★★★★
Spinning out of Blackest Night, Maxwell Lord has returned from the dead and made everyone on Earth forget what he did during Infinite Crisis. Now only some members of the old Justice League International remember him and try to stop the evil bastard. Lord's a great villain because his huge ego allows him to believe he's doing this all for the greater good. And I love any change we get to revisit the old JLI days.

Justice League: Generation Lost, Vol. 2 ★★★★
Very well done. If you missed the Giffen and Maguire era of the Justice League, this brings it all back. All of the action but without the goofball part of the humor. It's a real shame that the return of the Justice League International that's promised here never happened due to the New 52 reboot.

Doctor Strange, Vol. 1 ★★★★
Dr. Strange is back from the dead. Clea and he are reunited while Wong has joined SHIELD's magical division WAND. Meanwhile someone is going around murdering magical beings. Everyone thinks that the murderer is Clea after how she dealt with threats while she was the Sorcerer Supreme. MacKay is killing it at Marvel these days.

Rivers Of London: Deadly Ever After ★★★
At this point we are just farming out comics for minor characters and Aaronovitch isn't even writing it. In this case it's the twin daughters of the river god. They are vapid and uninteresting as they investigate this case where people's wishes are coming true. I'd say this is for completists only.

Green Monk: Blood of the Martyrs ★★★
An orphaned baby is raised by monks. As he grows up, he begins to have fantastical visions that go on for dozens of pages. I personally thought it was too much as this ends where the real story should be starting. Dayton does a great job of showing over telling as the words are minimal.

Isola, Vol. 1 ★★★
This book is filled with lush, gorgeous artwork by Karl Kershl and Msassyk. It's like looking at a Studio Ghilbi cartoon. Unfortunately, Brenden Fletcher's story can't keep up with the artwork. I had no idea what was happening half the time, you can't tell when we're in a dream sequence or flashback. I started getting frustrated because nothing is explained well.

Crude Vol. 1 ★★
The art certainly doesn't help this book. A lot of the characters looked the same. It's about a retired hitman in Russia who has a poor relationship with his son. His son leaves to find work in a company town (which is bad but aren't sure why.) Year later he returns in a body bag and the father heads there for vengeance.

Star Trek, Volume 1 ★★★
This is an interesting idea. Adapt two of the classic episodes of Star Trek, but with the new crew from the Kelvin timeline.

Star Trek, Volume 2 ★★★★
I thought this was better than the first volume, probably because the second half was an original story. The first two issues are an adaptation of "Operation: Annihilate!" where we are introduced to Kirk's brother. Then we get a follow up to the movie with a small group of Vulcans looking for vengeance for the destruction of their home world.

Noble Causes Volume 5: Betrayals ★★★★
Great series combining super heroes and soap operas. The story revolves around a family of super heroes.

Kate wrote: "I'm curious what the next one will be about (if there is another)."

I've wondered if there will be more too now that they are entering high school and all separating into different schools.

Kate wrote: "Veronika wrote: "I recommend this middle grade graphic novel series , , and by Jerry Craft!"

Yes, I adore..."

The first two were very good. The third was more about a school trip than a poor kid at a rich junior high and I didn't think it was quite as good. But I get the desire to try something different with the 3rd iteration.

Today's trip to the LCS.

Fire and Ice #1 <--- I have no idea what this is but Bill Willingham and Leonardo Manco made it so I gave it a shot. This is the first non Fables comic Willingham has made in years.
Dr. Strange #5
Dr. Strange #6
By the Horns: Dark Earth #11
Parker Girls #9 <-- Gotta buy whatever Terry Moore makes.
X-Men #25
Conan the Barbarian #1 <-- Decided to pick up the first Conan book from Titan Comics
Avengers #3

Last week's adventures in comic books.

Parasomnia Volume 2: The Dreaming God ★
Makes even less sense than the first volume. Now we've moved into some kind of cyberpunk dream world. Nothing is explained. Nothing makes any sense. This is Bunn at his worst.

Dune: The Official Movie Graphic Novel ★★★★
A straight up adaptation of the new film version. All of the character likenesses are spot on. This isn't going to add anything new as there's no additional scenes but it does the movie and book justice.

Star Trek: Discovery - The Light of Kahless ★★★
A solid backstory to the Klingons that make up the early part of the antagonists for Discovery. This is by no means necessary reading for the show but it does flesh some things out

Doctor Who: Prisoners of Time, Volume 3 ★★★
We finish out our run of 11 Doctors (at the time) before they team up at the end to stop the big bad behind it all.

Noble Causes Volume 1: In Sickness And In Health ★★★
A series I always wanted to try out but always had a hard time finding. Finally found a few old trades at the library. It's about a superhero family on top of the world as its biggest celebrities. Behind the scenes they have all kinds of family drama on top of being powerful enough to murder each other. This was a promising start and I had no idea Patrick Gleason was the main artist at the beginning.

Noble Causes Volume 2: Family Secrets ★★★
The family is still mourning Race's death while Zephyr's baby daddy is the big mystery. I like how this is used to actually tie into some of the other Image titles of the day. This is truly a soap opera hidden behind a superhero family and I dig it.

Justice: A Tale of the Nepali Civil War ★★
This isn't a bad story, it's just too short to be a very interesting one either. The author tries to make it end on a cliffhanger so draws it out to where not much happens until the every end and then we have to wait for at least one more book for the rest of the story.

Wolverine, Vol. 6 ★★★
Beast's character assassination continues. I feel like Percy really just wants to write two Beast comics at this point as that's all Wolverine and X-Force have been about for a long time. Beast has realized the gig is up and fled Krakoa. But he's still attacking mutantkind's enemies because he's become a sociopath devoted to mutantkind whether they like it or not.

Star Trek: The Next Generation: Mirror Broken ★★★★
Next Generation finally enters the Mirror Universe. I can't believe it took the comics to make this happen. I like all of the changes to the characters. It's bearded madness.

Grendel: War Child ★★★★★
It was nice to be able to revisit this series. I remember back in the 90's when Grendel moved to Dark Horse with this book and I started buying Grendel regularly. (Before that it was at Comico and hard to find even at comic book stores). It takes place centuries after the original Grendel, Hunter Rose. The leader of the world had passed in the previous book, leaving his son to succeed him. His stepmother though was attempting to usurp power for herself. (You figure out all this as you go along.) Grendel Prime kidnaps the boy, Jupiter Assante, at the beginning of this and most of the book is the two of them on the run.

X-Men: Hellfire Gala 2023 ★★★
Basically 80 pages of the X-Men getting fucked (and not in a good way).

Star Trek: The Next Generation - Through the Mirror ★★★★
This go around the evil mirror universe Next Generation crew have their eyes set on our universe. They've figured out how to cross over and are raiding spaceships in our universe for salvage and murdering the crews like pirates of old.

Star Trek: The Next Generation: Terra Incognita ★★★
Nowhere near as good as the previous Mirror universe trades. Mirror Barclay captures this universe's Barclay and takes over his life. The stories are really unfocused and barely connect.

Grendel: Past Prime ★★★★
Years ago, Dark Horse started releasing original prose novels featuring their most popular characters. Greg Rucka is a terrific comic book writer. He's also written a bunch of novels, both with his own characters like bodyguard Atticus Kodiak or extensions of Queen and Country along with properties he doesn't own like Grendel. This is the next story in the Grendel cycle after Grendel: War Child. Susan Veraghen is the main character. She's been searching for Grendel-Prime for the last 3 years after he disappeared at the end of War Child.

Grendel: Devil Quest ★★
I typically love all things Grendel but this little ditty was difficult to follow. Just the way it's presented and changes back and forth to different characters. It's certainly not something I'd hand to someone who has never read any of Grendel before.

PREDATOR BY ED BRISSON VOL. 2: THE PRESERVE ★★★★
This uses a lot of the elements from Predators where a bunch of killers wake up on a foreign planet hunted by Predators. It takes off from there, with the people all from various times on Earth. Although it's been many years, Theta from the first series returns as well.

Blood Will Tell (Star Trek Graphic Novel Collection, #127) ★★
Telling some of the original Star Trek episodes from the Klingon perspective is a great idea. However, these droned on and on.

The X-Cellent vol. 2: Unsocial Media ★★
This wasn't at all good. Zeitgeist will become a god if he gets enough followers. X-Statix feel like they are barely in this. I hate making social media nonsense the center of a plot. It all felt pretty pointless. The Allreds are better off sticking to their own comics.

Kriss: The Gift of Wrath ★★★★
The story of a young boy, found as a babe, and raised in a village where no one likes him, except Anja, the blacksmith's daughter. When a tiger attacks the village he goes out and kills it. That's when he starts seeing visions of old dark gods that fuel his power and rage.

Land of the Sons ★★
A brutal dystopian world with two boys living on a boat with their father. When he passes away one brother is obsessed with what his father wrote in his journal. The problem is neither boy knows how to read. So they go on the hunt for someone who can read delving a bit more into this brutal world.

Star Trek: The Next Generation/Doctor Who: Assimilation², Volume 1 ★★★
The Eleventh Doctor arrives in 1940's San Francisco with Amy and Rory. But it turns out it was something else. That was a genius way to begin this crossover given how much the Enterprise crew spends here. Somehow the Borg and Cybermen have teamed up. The particulars on how Star Trek and Doctor Who have merged are not divulged in this first half, although the Tardis can go anywhere in time and space.

Star Trek: Mirror Images ★★★★
Takes place completely in the mirror universe. It's a game of cat and mouse between Kirk and Pike as they battle for the captain's chair of the Enterprise.

Today's trip to my LCS.

Ultimate Invasion #2
Danny Ketch: Ghost Rider #3
Night Club #6
The Ribbon Queen #1 <-- A new Garth Ennis and Jacen Burrows comic
Fire Power #25
Invincible Iron Man #8
Predator #5
Wolverine #35
X-Men: Hellfire Gala (2023) #1
Incredible Hulk #2
The X-Cellent #5

Ed wrote: "I've been watching the "Doom Patrol" show, season 1. I think I'm liking it more than the books. The story is stretched-out, often a full episode will be dedicated to one of the characters. This is ..."

We tried to watch it and found the episodes long and boring. I'm a much bigger fans of the comics going back to the Grant Morrison days and beyond.