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

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

Last week's light graphic novel reads:

Zaroff ★★★
I'll just start by saying I don't know that we needed a sequel to "The Most Dangerous Game", (This is a sequel to the movie, not the original short story.) but if we are going to get one at least it's good.

Elma, a bear's life - Volume 1 - The Great Journey ★★★
A little girl who is being raised by a bear go on a big journey. The story is pretty slight but the illustrations are a delight.

Hedge Fund - Volume 1: Money Men ★★
It's interesting I guess. Movies have done this type of financial crisis type thing so much better while making it easier to follow. You probably need to actually work on Wall Street to follow some of this.

Last of the Atlases ★★★
I liked what I read of this but this volume was too short, maybe the length of an American comic. It's mainly about some gangsters running hidden poker machines in France. But it's also about some birds that aren't migrating.

Operation Copperhead Chapter 1 ★
A story about Peter Usinov and David Niven's time in World War II. The framing sequence set during Death on the Nile and just the storytelling in general made this hard to follow. It's also incredibly short even for a European comic. Harambat's terrible art also made this a chore to read.

Atom Agency - Volume 1 - The Begum's Jewels ★★★
I loved the pop art look of the book. The story though, relies on the detective agency fumbling around until things fall in their lap without much detective work or it relies on Dad's contacts from the war helping out.

The Battle, Vol. 1 ★★
There were so many characters in this with similar uniforms that it was really difficult to maintain who was who. I know it was one of Napoleon's main battles but it was extremely difficult to keep up with what was happening.

Glory Days (1. Chaos) ★★
Flits back and forth between three women in their twenties. One is depressed after breaking up with her boyfriend. The second incredibly stressed out about writing her dissertation. Finally, the third girl screwed her roommate's boyfriend and has been ostracized from her social circle.

The Midlife Crisis ★
This was very dated, originally written in 1996. It's about how all husbands leave their wives in their 40's (except I never did). The art style is terrible. It looks like caricatures from a comic strip. It's about how the wife gets through life after her husband leaves her but the storytelling is very disjointed.

Bob Marley in Comics! ★★★
A succinct look at Bob Marley's life. The comics are written by Gaet's while the text that sometimes appears between chapters is by Sophie Blitman. The text does provides a bit more depth to what you've already read.

The Undertaker, The Vagrant & The Assassin (Stern, #1) ★★★★
I quite liked this tale from the Old West about an undertaker in a frontier town in Kansas who no one really talks to. He becomes more involved with the town members when he autopsies the recent death of a drunk.

Welcome to the New World ★★★★
This began as a connected series of comic strips that appeared in the New York Times. It was later turned into a book with many more strips after winning the Pulitzer. It's about a real family of Syrian refugees who came to America the same day Trump won the election in 2016. That however is not the main focus. It's about the family itself and how they had to quickly acclimate to life in Connecticut. Learning English, sending the kids to school, finding a job so they could support themselves, etc.

Forbidden Harbor ★★★★
The story of a teenage boy who wakes up on a beach with no memory. He's taken on as part of the crew of a ship when he's discovered by its captain. There he travels from Asia back to England. Along the way he picks up all of the duties on the ship as if he's done them before. When he returns to Plymouth, he's taken in by three sisters who are trying to run an inn after their father was accused of treason and disappeared. He also meets a madame that he reads poetry to every day. It's a good story if a little long at 300 pages. Like a lot of European comics there is plenty of nudity and adult situations. It's all illustrated in gorgeous, highly detailed, black and white pencils.

X-Men '92: House of XCII ★★
This is a "What If?" story about what if the X-Men cartoon entered the Krakoan era back in the 90's. An interesting idea that really didn't go anywhere new.

Green Arrow: Stranded ★
A very quick read that adds virtually nothing to this YA version of Green Arrow's origin story. Nor does it at all make me think he'd become Green Arrow after reading this. Ollie is a kid on a hunting trip with his dad, his jerk of a business partner and his asshole son. They crashland while flying home and Ollie has to learn to shoot things in order to eat. That's pretty much the entire plot.

DC Pride 2023 #1 ★★
This year's group of Pride stories were some weak sauce. Even Grant Morrison's story didn't make a lot of sense but then again it's about a Green Lantern on an alternate earth and his Green Lantern book was terrible and didn't make any sense. Honestly what I liked best was the prose which I typically hate in comic books. But Phil Jimenez's foreword and the written tributes to Rachel Pollack's passing were the best parts of the book.

House of Slaughter Vol. 3: The Butcher's Return ★★★
The Boucher's find one of Jace's charges and he goes back to New Orleans to find him. Better than volume 2 but it's still moving too slowly for me at this point.

Fury (2023) #1 ★★★
A solid 60th anniversary one shot about a new Scorpio. Ewing does a good job of weaving the story around both Nick Fury and Nick Fury Jr.

Bishop: War College ★★★
Bishop and Tempo get transported to another dimension where all of the X-Men are black. Meanwhile the mutants they are training have to stop the Fenris twins from breaching the pit. This was OK.

Lore Olympus: Volume Three ★★★
Not much happens in this but talking... and more talking... and more talking. The relationship between Hades and Persephone cools off as Minthe steps between them and Hades is trying to make it work.

Lore Olympus: Volume Four ★★★
This thing moves at a glacial pace. It all tends to be fan service. It's kind of the Twilight of comics.

Batman by Grant Morrison Omnibus: Volume One ★★★★★
Did a reread of this run when I discovered the library had this omnibus. It's terrific. If you haven't read Grant Morrison's Batman run you should. It only gets better from here.

Giant-Size X-Men ★★★★
Five loosely connected stories with some killer art, all by Hickman.

Superman & Robin Special (2022) #1 ★★★★
Even though Jon Kent's been ages up to 18, there's no reason the Super Sons can't still get together. Jon and Damien Wayne team up when something gets loose inside the Fortress of Solitude.

Carnage: Black, White & Blood ★★
Even though carnage is a character I care little about, these stories were surprisingly bad given the writers on at least half the stories are top notch.

Fantastic Four Anniversary Tribute (2021) #1 ★★★
For the Fantastic Four's 60th anniversary, artists tagteamed in to each redraw one page of Fantastic Four #1 and Fantastic Four Anniversary #3 where Reed and Sue get married. I thought this would be a chore to read as the comics from this era can be hard to get through but this wasn't half bad and it was cool to see all of these current artists draw 2 classic comics.

She-Hulk, Vol. 1: Jen, Again ★★★
She-Hulk resets with a new job as a lawyer again, this time working for Mallory Book. That doesn't go very far though as for at least these 5 issues there's no lawyering. Obscure Avenger Jack of Hearts shows up on Jen's doorstep with little idea of where he's been since he caused Jen's powers to go haywire and blew up in space. This comic gives new meaning to deconstruction. Almost nothing happens in this thing. Yet, it was still OK. There's just no advancing of any plots.

Today's trip to my LCS.

Dark Knights of Steel #11
Immortal X-Men #12
Invincible Iron Man #7
X-Men #23
By the Horns: Dark Earth #9
Bishop: War College #5
Flash #800
Empire #1
X-Men: Mutant First Strike #1

FCBD Reads. Yes it took me a couple of weeks to get to them.

TOM HOLLANDS FRIGHT NIGHT #1★★
It's mainly a retelling of the original film with a little stinger on the end to show they intend to extend the series. The art is terrible with huge cartoonish heads on much smaller bodies.

Red Sonja (2023-) #1★★★
A solid intro into a new Red Sonja series. Walter Geovani has worked on Red Sonja before and I like his art while Torunn Gronbekk branches out beyond Marvel. Red Sonja is cursed and goes on the run.

Conan #1 (2023) Free Comic Book★★★
Conan shifts over to Titan Comics with this little Conan entry for Free Comic Book Day. It's really little more than fluff. De La Torre has a classic look to his art that makes this look older than you'd expect.

Free Comic Book Day 2023: Uncanny Avengers #1★★★★
This one looks pretty promising. A human gets a hold of the Captain Krakoa suit and starts framing mutants presumably causing a New Uncanny Avengers team. There's also a little 4 pager from Jonathan Hickman and Valerio Schiti's new book G.O.D.S.

The Sacrificers #1★★★
Some kind of harsh fantasy world where a birdman father beats one of his children for some reason. There's also a ruling family of sunpeople in the other half of the story. Given that it's Remender it's probably going to be harsh and brutal.

Frank Frazetta's Frazettaverse FCBD #0★★★
I gotta say, this was way better than I expected. I hadn't even heard of Opus Comics, but it looks like they have some decent creators on these books. There's a Death Dealer story, a Mothman intro and then a shorter Dawn Attack. All three looked pretty decent.

Archie Horror Presents: The Cursed Library FCBD 2023★★
Unfortunately, Archie Comics offering for FCBD is terrible. It's not even all complete stories. It's excerpts from various one-shot horror comics they did. Just go buy those instead even though most of them are awful.

Free Comic Book Day 2023: The Umbrella Academy/The Witcher★★
Gabriel Ba writes and draws a not great comic set in the world of The Umbrella Academy for FCBD. I think Umbrella Academy is pretty incomprehensible unless you start at the beginning at this point. The Witcher story is fine. The art though is awful. It's a take on the fairytale of the Frog Prince.

Free Comic Book Day 2023: Fishflies★★★
This was a FCBD issue from Lemire. It's a new Image series. Kids in a small town are inundated by mayflies. There's also some adult running around with a gunshot wound. Not sure if it's the same kid and this is in the future or not. Lemire is just a guy whose stuff reads better in trade. At the moment I have no idea what is going on.

West of Sundown #1★★★★
Just read the the first issue as part of FCBD. This seems really cool. Seems like the Hammer films set in the Old West. This was not new. It's already in trade.

Gamerverse Spider-Man 2 #1 FCBD 2023★★★
Miles and Peter take down the Hood with some help from MJ. It's surprisingly self contained for a lead-in to the Spider-Man 2 video game coming out this fall.

Dawn of DC Primer Special Edition #1: 2023★★★★
The story in this was actually pretty good. Amanda Waller is back and this time she's sending out the villains to kill superheroes.

Dawn of DC Knight Terrors FCBD Special Edition #1: 2023★★
It looks like I won't be buying many DC comics this summer. July and August are going to have a bunch of miniseries with everyone fighting nightmares. This story was fine, but this type of dream story holds little interest to me.

Free Comic Book Day 2023: Spider-Man/Venom #1★★★
Spider-Man fights an ape with some of Osborn's tech. Then a flashback to the 40's for some new foe for Venom. And a little sneak peak into Hickman and Hitch's Ultimate Invasion this summer.

Last week's adventures in comics. I also finally went through all of my FCBD comics but I'll list those on their own.

Avengers Forever, Vol. 2: The Pillars★★★
The Omni-Avengers are gathering their troops in preparation for Aaron's big finale to his Avengers run. Each issue is a focus on a different Avenger in some other universe as they rise from the depths to claim their name. It's neat, but it also feels a little like treading water while we wait for the finale to happen.

Captain Carter: Woman Out of Time★★
Captain Carter wakes up in modern times and becomes a super hero in Britain. She works for STRIKE until she realizes something is wrong. As a writer, Jamie McKelvie makes a terrific artist.

Captain America: The Ghost Army★★
It was a weird choice to have Cap and Bucky go up against a Dr. Strange villain in World War II. Baron Mordo never seems threatening as he could have been anyone working on his machine to bring the dead back.

Spider-Man Invasion of the Spider-Slayers★★
This summer event when Marvel books went bi-weekly wasn't even that good back in the 90's. The Spider-Slayer is a weak villain. The subplot with Pete's parents ultimately gets pretty goofy later on and they already couldn't figure out what to go with MJ back then. Her subplot is she's so stressed out that Peter is going to die that she starts smoking.

Lazarus Planet: Revenge of the Gods★★★★
Like most things Wonder Woman related these days, completely pointless. I cannot wait until Tom King takes over and hopefully breathes new life into these books. Hera takes over as the Queen of the Greek Gods and teams up with the wizard Shazam. They've decided to rule mankind. On the other side is Wonder Woman and the Marvel family.

Valkyrie: Jane Foster, Vol. 1: The Sacred and The Profane★★★★
Spinning out of War of the Realms, Jane Foster is now the lone valkyrie. She's back on earth trying to find the right balance between being a super-hero and maintaining being a doctor. Aaron and Ewing keep the stories short which for some make the storytelling feel herky-jerky. I think it just feels a bit more old school and not so drawn out to fit a trade.

Valkyrie: Jane Foster, Vol. 2: At the End of All Things★★
I liked the first half of this quite a bit, but volume two couldn't keep the writer or artist around plus the pandemic. The series lost all of it's fun and just got bleak.

Robin, Vol. 3: Secrets and Shadows★★
In all honesty if you read the Shadow War crossover and then skip directly to Batman Vs. Robin you won't miss a thing.

Spider-Punk: Battle of the Banned★★★
Spider-Punk is back and headed on a road trip with his band. They tackle more fascists with the power of rock. It's fun stuff.

Teen Titans: Robin★★
Basically a 180 page training montage. Absolutely nothing happens in this book. Gar, Raven, Maxine, her mom, Damian and Dick Grayson hang out at the beach while hiding from Slade Wilson.

Batman and Son★★★★★
What a terrific beginning to Morrison's run. Teamed up with Andy Kubert, the book looks fantastic too. This is Damian's introduction. I'd forgotten how much of a psycho he is at the beginning, straight up murdering the bad guys before Batman can stop him.

Batman: The Black Glove★★★★★
I love the initial story about all of the international Batmen meeting on an island and getting murdered one by one like the Agatha Christie story "And Then There Were None".

Batman: R.I.P.★★★★★
Batman and The Black Glove confrontation finally happens and it's glorious. Morrison is so good at taking hokey concepts from old comics and using them to make something all together different and terrific.

Challenge of the Super Sons★★★
These Peter Tomasi Supersons stories are always worth a read. In this one, Damian and Jon have to secretly save all the members of the Justice League from a plan Vandal Savage and Felix Faust put together 500 years before.

House of El, Vol.2: The Enemy Delusion★★★★
I like how this dovetails perfectly with Superman's origins. It's about his future cousin, Sera, (not Supergirl) and Zahn the boy she's interested in from the other side of the tracks so to speak. He's part of the elite while she's a soldier.

House of El, Vol. 3: The Treacherous Hope★★★★
The plots of the last two books come to a head while Krypton marches to its impending doom. In the midst of this we see Superman's beginning. With some Romeo & Juliet type influences as well. Really well done for something I initially didn't think would be very interesting.

The Mighty Valkyries: All Hel Let Loose★★★
I really wish Marvel would just let Jason Aaron have his Jane Foster series. These miniseries are really difficult to follow along with as they keep changing names and they keep getting cut short.

Jane Foster & The Mighty Thor★★★
Marvel is doing its best to make these Jane Foster books as hard as possible to read in the proper order by changing the title of each series. With this one you can't even search on 'valkyrie'. But this is still Jane Foster and Runa (cinematic valkyrie) acting as the last two Valkyries. Some shadowy person is gathering all of Asgard's enemies to unleash them all all at once. Runa defends Asgard from them while Jane Foster searches for a missing Thor.

The Hardy Agency - Volume 1 - The Vanished Perfume★★★
A European comic about a woman in 1950's Paris who starts up a detective agency after her husband goes missing. She's looking for a missing chemist from a perfume company who has designed something that may have other more lucrative capabilities.

Bootblack - Volume 1★★
There's an interesting story here. It just needs to be told linearly. There's no transition to time jumps just leaving you confused. It starts off with a soldier in World War II flashing back to when he used to shine shoes in New York as a kid. He's in love with a girl who thinks he's beneath her and doesn't do much to prove her wrong.

Reading Quirks: Weird Things that Bookish Nerds Do!★★★★
Little comics about the idiosyncrasies of bibliophiles. I loved these comic strips of going crazy over new book smells or how you're instantly attracted to another lover of books

Frank - The Story of a Forgotten Dictatorship★★
This is presented almost like a picture book. It's abstract to the point that it doesn't really get the point across that it's about the Franco who ruled Spain with an iron fist for decades.

The Passenger - Volume 1★★
Two young Newlyweds are caught in the middle when the husband is forced to drive around a mafia capo as he takes care of business. His pregnant wife is held somewhere unknown.

Paul your list of 5 star comics isn't actually a link.

Extremely small week this week at my LCS. I actually had no comics in my pull. Ended up picking up Dr. Strange #1-3 and Alien #2.

Last week's adventures in comics.

I Am Batman 3: The Right Question ★★★
The Question comes to New York when Renee Montoya considers becoming the NYC Police Commissioner.

Justice League Incarnate ★★★
The bridge between Infinite Frontier to Dark Crisis for all intents and purposes feels very unnecessary. It's bunch of universe hopping with a different artist illustrating each world while the team searches for Barry Allen.

The Adventure Zone, Vol. 5: The Eleventh Hour ★★★★
Our illustrious heroes get stuck in a time loop in a Western town in this one. I like how we actually learned some personal things along the way about their regrets in addition to all of the humor.

Blue Beetle: Graduation Day ★★★
This is something of a Blue Beetle primer presumably for the movie coming out in August. Blue Beetle has graduated high school and is finding his way after deciding not to go to college. He goes to work at his aunt's diner in Palmero City, leaving El Paso (because DC only seems to operate in made up cities.) The Reach is rumored to be returning and the Justice League is grounding Jaime.

Black Adam (2022-) Vol. 1: Theogony ★★★★
The movie may not be good but this series is. It takes place before the Death of the Justice League. Black Adam shares his power with a descendant when his power is corrupted and he believes he will die.

World of Krypton ★★★
I don't know that we need another retelling of Krypton's doom, especially one that doesn't add anything new. My other complaint is Krypton's society and look seems to get reinvented every time we see it.

The Joker Presents: A Puzzlebox ★★
A good idea in theory spoiled because of how long and tedious this is. The Riddler's dead and all of Batman's Rogues are in custody while they try and determine who murdered him.

Sabretooth: The Adversary ★★★
How Sabretooth Got His Groove Back after being sent to the pit during HoX/PoX.

Shazam! Fury of the Gods Special: Shazamily Matters (2023) #1 ★★
This is about what you'd expect when all of the actors from the Shazam films write some comic book stories.

X-Terminators ★★★
The warning at the beginning of the book proved to be more letdown than anything else. Other than some slightly crude language calling each other sluts, the curse words were still bleeped out. Really the only thing this did was make Jubilee, Boom Boom and Dazzler sound even more shallow and superficial than normal. The girls go out drinking and get captured by vampires and chaos ensues.

GENIS-VELL: CAPTAIN MARVEL ★★★
It was nice to see Mar-vell return but this didn't do much for me. It was mainly treading water except for the very end.

Wolverine: Patch ★★★
This fits in right before Larry Hama began his long run on Wolverine. All of the usual Madripoor suspects along with the Russians, the Yakusa and SHIELD are searching through the jungle to find an escaped Russian mutant family.

Batman/Spawn (2022) #1 ★★★
Todd McFarlane has written over 300 issues of Spawn since the last time he crossed over with Batman in the 90's. His writing has not gotten any better unfortunately.

Batman/Spawn: War Devil ★★
You'd think this would be better than the Image Batman / Spawn crossover but you'd be wrong. Having 3 Batman writers and Klaus Janson on art made it worse.

Spawn / Batman ★★★
Batman comes to New York after he fights a cyborg that is just a human head on a robot. Miller's Batman is punch first, think later or not at all. Everything is black and white. The villain's very uninspiring, some rich lady that wants to kill most of humanity off.

Strange, Vol. 1: I Belong to Death ★★★★★
Clea is now the Sorcerer of both Earth and the Dark Dimension now that her husband Dr. Strange has died. She has one goal, to bring him back. I really like how MacKay writes Clea. She doesn't suffer fools at all. Every time she gets ticked off, she bursts into flames like Uncle Dormammu.

Strange, Vol. 2: The Doctor Strange of Death ★★★★
I actually wish this was longer. (Yes, I am aware MacKay is also writing the new Dr. Strange series. I just would have liked more time to explore Clea in the Sorcerer Supreme role.) It ties up the Blasphemy Cartel well.

Moon Knight, Vol. 2: Too Tough to Die ★★★★
I'm having fun with this Moon Knight series. But then again I can say that for most things Jed MacKay writes. The art is subpar, mistaking kinetic action for a lack of skill, particularly with character's faces.

Moon Knight, Vol. 3: Halfway to Sanity ★★★★
Moon Knight addresses some of his D.I.D. issues while the vampire issue in New York rises up. I think it's hilarious that Tutor uses a classic pyramid scheme to build his vampire nation.

Star Wars: War of the Bounty Hunters Companion ★★★
Some tepid solos tales of the bounty hunters which are tangentially related to the big awkward crossover that was collected in a way to make it difficult to read.

Batman: Hush ★★★★★
This is one of those terrific Batman stories that I've pulled out again and again every time they add something new. This 20th anniversary edition of Hush gave me an excuse to crack it open again.

Mockingbird: Strike Out: A Marvel: Heroines Novel ★★★
Aconyte's Marvel Heroines line continues with a spy novel about Mockingbird. Instead of following the comic continuity, this one is an amalgam of the comics and Agents of SHIELD. Mockingbird has just divorced Hawkeye and returns to SHIELD for a mission in Oxford, England. A scientist she worked with early on at SHIELD has gone missing while working as a professor at Oxford. She meets Lance Hunter from Agents of SHIELD.

All-Out Avengers: Teachable Moments ★★★
This is a fun idea. Each issue you're dropped into the last issue of a longer story and you have to pick up what's going on. It's the dilemma that comic book readers have fought since the beginning of time, that you just have to jump in a long running series and go with it. Each issue is like that as the Avengers try and figure out what's going on.

The Amazing Spider-Man, Vol. 3: Hobgoblin ★★★
This could be a really good series if Marvel would just leave it alone instead of constantly interrupting it with events. Begins with Hellfire Gala and AXE: Judgement Day issues. Then three issues about the Hobgoblin followed by a prelude to Dark Web. It's just way too much interruption.

Avengers, Vol. 11: History's Mightiest Heroes ★★★
The Avengers tread water for 6 issues before Jason Aaron's last Avengers story. The Avengers barely appear in some of these as they bop around time trying to save lost lorn previous versions of their archetypes from Mephisto.

Today's trip to the LCS.

Nightwing #104
X-Cellent #3
Fury #1 <-- A Nick Fury one-shot by Al Ewing for the 60th anniversary
Thor #34
Bishop: War College #4

Last week's adventures in comics.

A Spark Within the Forge ★★★
A brother and sister turn down different paths in this world where they are oppressed by soldiers based on Roman iconography.

Sisters of Sorrow ★★★★
People in a women's shelter decide to get revenge on the men who ruined their lives when the justice system fails them. It doesn't set any new standards but it is a well done revenge story.

Grace Randolph's Supurbia Vol. 1 ★★★★
There's some solid stuff here. It's about the families of the premier superteam in this universe. Basically everyone is knockoff versions of the Justice League with more flaws. "Wonder Woman" only cares about her daughter even though her son is more inclined to follow in her footsteps. "Batman" is secretly having a relationship with his adult Robin that's just come out. "Superman" is a dick who is holed up with a former supervillain who is strung out on drugs while trying to cope. A new hero has joined whose wife is a nurse and wants to help turn family members into support staff.

Grace Randolph's Supurbia Vol. 2 ★★★
This doesn't feel as focused as the first volume. There are two main plots plus tons of subplots. One is that Batu has kidnapped her son to take him back to her homeland to have him put to death for defeating her. The other is about Hella Heart and the Lois Lane analogue that is trying to out Sovereign and how he's kept this murderer out of prison because they've become lovers.

Grace Randolph's Supurbia Vol. 3 ★★★
Some solid superhero drama. The story is a bit more muddled than the original mini. Russell Dauterman kills it on art.

Station ★★
A murder occurs on the International Space Station and things quickly go south from there.

The Harbinger Book 1 ★★★
Peter Stanchek is back. Something has made him forget everything. He just sees people's reaction to him when they realize who he is. He's fled to a section of Chicago called Psiot City that has become a refuge to the mutants of the Valiant universe. He's pursued by some generic villains called The Warning. It's OK. It feels overwritten.

The Harbinger Book 2 ★★
Faith shows up but this gets compacted down and feels like it ended prematurely. It's really overwritten with way too much inner dialogue that doesn't say a lot.

Thomas Alsop Vol. 1 ★★★
Clearly John Constantine is an inspiration for this series. Thomas Alsop is the Hand of New York. His family has been the supernatural caretakers of the city since before it was created. It's a slow burn of a story. He's going around killing ghosts but at the same time there's a larger story going on when he sees all of the ghosts from 9-11 are still trapped at Ground Zero.

Thomas Alsop Vol. 2 ★★★★
Wow, That ending was terrific. Powerful stuff. I've lived in New York for the last 15 years. This is probably exactly how it would go if you announced you were going to exorcise the ghosts of 9-11 on its anniversary. And man that ending.

TANPOPO COLLECTION VOL. 1 ★
Oof, this is the worst thing I've read in a long time. It collects all of d'Errico's Tanpopo books. They are adaptations of classic works like Faust or The Rhyme of the Ancient Mariner. I only know that though because it says so in the index.

The Adventure Zone Vol. 4: The Crystal Kingdom ★★★
Our irreverent tabletop gamers have to stop a flying research satellite from crashing to the ground and destroying the planet this go-around. There's some more substance mixed into this iteration with these goofballs.

Toil and Trouble ★★★★
A retelling of Macbeth from the perspective of the three fates. I really liked how this was done. It doesn't change any of the decisions or motivations of the characters in the play. It does add a whole another layer though as the witches war and feud over who should be king.

Translucid ★★★
The Horse and the Navigator have a codependent relationship as they play their Batman / Joker games. As the Horse finally decides to end the Navigator once and for all, we flash back to the Navigator's awful childhood. I love how the depictions of Navigator's synthesia is drawn.

Talent ★★★
This had potential but it was obviously planned to be a longer series and most of it is left unexplained by the end. A plane is downed and one man survives. He gains the abilities of everyone on the plane in order to settle their loose ends.

WildC.A.T.S Vol. 1: Better Living Through Violence ★★
I was severely disappointed in this but it's about what I expected. I don't know why we don't get any introductions to the gazillion Wildstorm characters who appear here. If you haven't read any of their old series, you'll probably be lost.

Turncoat, Vol. 1 ★★★
A very solid future noir. The creators have done a ton of world building in 4 issues. Takes place in a Manhattan where aliens have left after occupying earth for 300 years. Our main character is a former police officer turned private detective who gets involved in a missing persons case that draws her into a much darker scheme that involves the local NY bigwigs in typical noir fashion.

GCPD: The Blue Wall ★★
Starts off really strong as a hard look at three rookie police officers, all three minorities as they discover what it's really like to be a cop in Gotham. At the same time, it's also about the police Commissioner, Renee Montoya, who has recently taken over from Jim Gordon. I was along for the ride until the book took a hard right into absurdity.

Batman Incorporated Vol. 1: No More Teachers ★★★
Ghost-Maker takes over the Batman Inc. team of international Batmen. In the main story, someone is going around and killing Batman and Ghost-Maker's mentors. (It would be helpful to read Batman: The Knight to see their mentors training them. Joshua Williamson's recent Batman arc would be helpful as well but not necessary.

Punchline: The Gotham Game ★★
Spinning out of the back of James Tynion's Joker, Punchline gets her own shitty miniseries. She's teamed up with a new version of the Royal Flush Gang to sell drugs. Punchline is just a one note character, especially here. Oh, you also need to be reading Tini Howard's Catwoman to know what's going on as the whole story changes after Catwoman #50.

DCeased: War of the Undead Gods ★★★★
A really good end to the DCeased story. Darkseid and the rest of the New Gods have been turned by the Anti-Life Equation. It'll soon be the end of the universe if our remaining heroes can't stop them. This brings out some of the cosmic beings of the DCU. There's just some terrific moments in this.

The Joker, Volume Three ★★★
We somewhat find out what happened on A-Day as Jim Gordon's story concludes. Because that's what this is, Gordon's story, not the Joker's. It's all fine. It's not very exciting though, even with a bunch of cannibals involved even.

The Joker: The Man Who Stopped Laughing Vol. 1 ★★
This was pretty terrible. It's about a guy who gets shot in the head and thinks he's the Joker while the real Joker is running around the West Coast.

Batgirls Vol. 2: Bat Girl Summer ★★
Robbi Rodriguez does a good job drawing the first two issues with a little cleanup from Fear State. Then Neil Googe has switched up to a really cartoony, goofy looking art style that looks awful. The Ripper is FINALLY caught but it's a real bore getting there.

Today's trip to the LCS.

World's Finest #15
Predator #3
X-Force #40
X-Men #22
Dawn of DC Primer <-- Some free thing DC put out this week
House of Slaughter #15
Avengers #1
Titans #1 <-- Excited about this one after how Taylor has used the Titans in Nightwing.
Danny Ketch: Ghost Rider #1
Planet of the Apes #2

Last week's adventures in comics.

Olympus: Rebirth #1★★
A really boring one-shot about Hippolyta after her ascension to Godhood. This, along with Artemis: Wanted, are really an addendum to the Trial of the Amazons event and should have been in that collection. The current Wonder Woman run is like traversing the minotaur's maze to discover all of the comic books involved.

Robins: Being Robin★★
After reading this, It's pretty clear Tim Seeley doesn't know much about the various Robins. For a book about all the Robins, they didn't have a whole lot of characterization other than he's the detective, he's the unhinged one, etc.

The Amazing Spider-Man, Vol. 2: The New Sinister★★★
I'm liking where Wells is taking Spider-Man. I do wonder how long we will have to wait to find out why Pete blew up his life.

Alien, Vol. 2: Revival★★
I think Marvel may need to let this license revert back to Dark Horse. They just hit the same story beats again and again that were in the movies. Aliens are unleashed upon a colony and destroy everyone. The company let them loose to see what would happen. Yada. Yada.

The Adventure Zone Vol. 2: Murder on the Rockport Limited!★★★
I didn't like this nearly as much as the first book. Part of it was probably that a train setting seems out of place for a D&D campaign and is more of a Western campaign but whatever.

The Adventure Zone Vol. 3: Petals to the Metal★★★
This is a fun series turning the podcast into graphic novels. It is odd to me with the mixing of technology into a traditional fantasy type campaign. This volume revolves around racing. It's like a goofier version of the podracing scene from Star Wars turned into a comic.

Batman: The Knight★★★★★
An addendum to Batman's origin story. I enjoy how Bruce's emotions and morality keep getting in the way as he begins to establish his outlook and moral code. Great stuff, along with terrific art. Really enjoyed the stuff with Ghost-Maker.

Batman vs. Robin★★★
This starts out really strong with Damian possessed and out to kill Batman. The whole Lazarus Planet thing kind of derails the series though as it all comes out before the last issue. I mean, who thought that was a good idea, especially when all Lazarus Planet is is little introductory stories for DC's new comics for the year. It's basically a Not Free Comic Book Day for DC.

Monkey Prince Vol. 2: The Monkey King and I★★
This is put together horribly. The story with Aquaman was cut in half between the two volumes. Then the Monkey Prince gets tangentially involved in Lazarus Planet and none of it is explained here.

The Invincible Iron Man, Vol. 1: The Autobiography of Tony Stark★★★
Solid writing and art all around. Tony has pretty much hit rock bottom. He's out of money. He no longer owns any of his old companies or properties. The only thing he hasn't done is start drinking yet. Someone is out to get him. Someone new.

Black Cat Social Club★★★
Three down on their luck witches are trying to make it as a punk band in L.A. They can't get people to come to their shows even when casting spells to charm them. Then along comes a demon to buy their souls and strengthen their powers. Now they're rocketing through the scene but how are they going to get out of this?

Phenomena Vol. 1: The Golden City of Eyes★★★
This reminded me of a European sci-fi comic where very little is explained and you as a reader have to figure it out as you go along. It's set in a far future Earth with tons of aliens. There's two kids along with a fighter that end up teaming up to go to the aforementioned city in the title.

Ronin Island, Vol. 2★★★
There's about 6 issues of story here expanded into 12 with multiple needless flashbacks about how the main characters were treated as kids before the zombies came. The art is just OK and suffers from a lack of backgrounds.

Ronin Island, Vol. 3★★★
This YA zombie/oni story set in feudal Japan just ended OK.

Image! 30th Anthology #7★★★★
With the 7th installment we get a new Wytches story, Noble Causes and a new Keiron Gillen story in addition to the ongoing ones.

Image! 30th Anthology #8★★★
With the 8th installment we get a new Casanova story and a preview of Worldtr33 which is just coming out now in 2023.

Image! 30th Anthology #9★★★
With the 9th installment we get a new Criminal story!

Image! 30th Anthology #10★★★
With the 10th installment there's a Bitter Root primer.

Image! 30th Anthology #11★★★★
With the 11th installment there's a Pretty Deadly primer and John Arcudi and Doug Mahnke reunite.

Image! 30th Anthology #12★★★★
With the 12th installment all the running stories come to a conclusion. Along the way Robert Kirkman and Cory Walker do a new Science Dog story and Greg Rucka and Leandro Fernandez return to Old Guard.

Stargirl: The Lost Children★★★★
Geoff Johns is still telling the same long form story he's been telling since Rebirth began with someone manipulating time. It's always nice to see him return to his Stargirl roots as well. It's about a ton of Golden Age sidekicks who have not only disappeared but been erased from time.

The Phoenix Chase: A Marvel: School of X Novel★★★
This continues Aconyte's line of School of X novels set in the X-Men period of about 10-15 years ago after Schism and Avengers Vs. X-Men. Kid Omega and Havok head to space when some of Quentin's friends are held hostage unless they find a Phoenix Egg and make a trade.

Junkyard Joe, Volume 1★★★★
Hmm...a much smaller story than the other Mad Ghost comics have been. Muddy first met Junkyard Joe in Vietnam when he appeared on a mission. He thought he'd hallucinated seeing this robot until he shows up at his house 50 years later. Joe was the inspiration for a comic strip Muddy created once he returned from the war. Joe is a robot who doesn't talk so the story is told through the eyes of Muddy and the kids who just moved in next door. Of course, if Joe is showing up after all this time he must be on the run from someone...

Rowans Ruin★★★
Your more or less standard haunted house story. This one with a twist that was telegraphed from miles away. Solid enough but nothing special, especially when Mike Carey has done far better.

I Am Batman 2: Welcome to New York★★★★
A surprisingly solid Batman story featuring a black Batman. Jace and some of his family have moved to New York while his sister recovers from a serious injury. He decides to keep being Batman. The mayor decides if there's going to be a Batman in New York, he's going to work with the police and follow procedure so they set up a task force and Batman is officially sanctioned.

Rubicon★★
A neat idea with poor execution. This was supposed to be Seven Samurai set in Afghanistan. It's not a bad idea at all. The story telling and art though were very poor.

Run Wild★★★
Beautiful illustrations that are the highlight of this. Like The Cloud, the story gets really muddled and bogged down by a ton of exposition later in the story. The story is about a brother and sister, the last two humans on Earth. They are being pursued by these talking animals while other animals help them.

Scream Queen★★
This is not good. At best it's a schlocky B-Movie. Imagine if Sloth from Goonies started murdering people in the mall instead of meeting Chunk and his friends.

Shmobots★★
Would have worked better as satire ala Mark Russell. Didn't really see the point when the robots were just filling in for stupid, lazy humans.

Today's trip to the LCS.

Invincible Iron Man #6
Junkyard Joe #6
Wolverine #33
X-Men Red +11
Green Lantern #1 <-- I was on the fence with this until I found out you get a Green Lantern ring with it.

Last week's adventures in comics.

Werewolf by Night ★★
Taboo from the Black Eyed Peas wrote a comic. He probably shouldn't have, although Marvel is giving him more work. This was about a new werewolf kid who is also Native American.

Batman: Detective Comics Vol 1: Gotham Nocturne: Overture ★★★★
Ram V. and Rafael Albuquerque take over Detective and it's instantly better.

I Am Stan: A Graphic Biography of the Legendary Stan Lee ★★★
Even though this is the first graphic novel biography, I do think other biographies give you a better sense of who the man was, good and bad. These feel like a series of one page strips in Lee's life more than a coherent look at his life.

Sorceline Book 2 (Volume 2) ★★
The illustration is great but the story feels like it was written by a kid. I know this is meant for children but the story has a stream of consciousness feel to it and is all over the place. Very little makes a bit of sense.

The Tyrant Skies: A Marvel: Untold Novel ★★★
Finishes the trilogy of untold prose stories about Dr. Doom by David Annandale. This one is about the Red Skull invading Latveria for a second time.

Night of the Ghoul ★★★
A story told back and forth in two time periods. One is happening now while the other is a flashback to a legend of film that was never released. The main characters are a film historian and his son. They've found the man who created the film in a rest home and what's left of the film in an old vault at the studio. The best thing Scott Snyder has written in a while.

Image! 30th Anthology #2 ★★★
Image just finished an anthology series for its 30th anniversary and I'm going through it now. It's uneven but they do have some bigger creators like Geoff Johns involved.

Image! 30th Anthology #3 ★★★
Image just finished an anthology series for its 30th anniversary and I'm going through it now. It's uneven but they do have some bigger creators like Geoff Johns involved.

Image! 30th Anthology #4 ★★★
Image just finished an anthology series for its 30th anniversary and I'm going through it now. It's uneven but they do have some bigger creators like Geoff Johns involved.

Image! 30th Anthology #5 ★★★
Image just finished an anthology series for its 30th anniversary and I'm going through it now. It's uneven but they do have some bigger creators like Geoff Johns involved.

Image! 30th Anthology #6 ★★★
Image just finished an anthology series for its 30th anniversary and I'm going through it now. It's uneven but they do have some bigger creators like Geoff Johns involved.

Batman & the Joker: The Deadly Duo ★★★
Batman has to help the Joker when someone sends a bunch of creatures with Joker DNA after him. He's kidnapped Jim Gordon in order to force Batman to team up with him. The story is about what you'd expect from one of the Image founders. It's just OK. The art, though, is really good.

Nubia & the Justice League Special (2022) #1 ★★
A fluffy one-shot where the Justice League drools all over Nubia when she comes to visit for the first time. The whole League feels like they are under someone else's control as they fanboy all over Nubia and preen like a bunch of peacocks about how great she is.

Batman: The Knight, Vol. 1 ★★★★★
If it was a reality show, it'd be called Becoming Batman or something similar. Yes, these origins have been told before but it's been a while and this origin has been updated to include newer characters like Orphan Maker in addition to Ducard and even Hugo Strange at the beginning.

Wonder Woman, Vol. 3: The Villainy of Our Fears ★★
Just some really bland and unexciting stuff. Dr. Psycho's back (working for Fox News basically) and he's got his little Villany Inc. team together that's never at all threatening. The whole threat of Milk Xtra feels like a joke without a punchline. I can't wait for Tom King to take over this book!

Artemis: Wanted (2022) #1 ★★★
This honestly should have been the finale of Trial of the Amazons because that's really what it is.

THE MARVELS VOL. 2: THE UNDISCOVERED COUNTRY ★★★
This is really trying hard to be the Astro City of the Marvel universe and suffers for it. (Yes, I'm well aware of the original Marvels series by Busiek and Ross.)

Serial, Vol. 1: The Glass Tomb ★★★★★
Zoe, the eternal demon child from Rachel Rising gets her own comic. A friend of hers is murdered sending her on the path of a female serial killer. Do not read this until you've read Rachel Rising or you'll have no idea what Zoe's deal is.

Serial, Vol. 2: Cat & Mouse ★★★★
I like what Moore did with this. I also liked the little twist at the end. Maybe we'll get more to this story one day.

Suicide Squad: King Shark ★★
This digital first DC series was more of a turkey than a shark. King Shark becomes friends with Defacer who is just a woman who vandalizes stuff from Nightwing. She's a throw away character. She's needed I guess because there's so very little to King Shark's character. He's just a shark man who eats people from the Suicide Squad.

Saturday's free comic book day haul.

Spider-Man / Venom
Marvel Voices
Spider-Man 2 #1 <-- From the terrific video game
Knight Terrors <-- DC's summer event
The Cursed Library <-- Archie Horror comic
West of Sundown <-- A new Tim Seeley and Aaron Campbell comic from Vault
The Umbrella Academy / The Witcher
Frazettaverse <-- Something from Opus comics which I've never heard of
Fishflies <-- New Jeff Lemire Image book
Conan the Barbarian <-- Conan has moved to Titan Comics now.
The Sacrificers <-- New Rick Remender and Max Fiumara Image comic
Uncanny Avengers
Fright Night
Red Sonya

This year's Free Comic Book Day is tomorrow! Below is a list of all 44 titles available.

https://www.freecomicbookday.com/Arti...

Also, if you happen to be lucky enough to be near these stores, they are also giving away free codes for Antman 3 as well as ant sized copies.

https://www.laughingplace.com/w/news/...

Today's trip to the LCS.

Parker Girls #7
Astro Bots #1 <-- Suggested by an employee. It's by Simon Furman, the guy who wrote most of the Transformers stuff for IDW before they lost the license.
Immortal X-Men #11
Batman and the Joker:The Deadly Duo #7
Shazam #1 <-- Look at Dan Mora drawing two comics a month.

Last week's adventures in comics.

Hex Americana ★★★
An LGBTQ+ book about a teenage monster who gets involved with racing. Along the way a romance with a ghost develops.

Constellations ★★★★★
I thought this was terrific. It's about a teenager in upstate New York who is trying to determine their identity in the 80's. They were born a girl but likes to dress as a boy and hang out with boys. They cope with their unhappiness by drinking which eventually gets them in trouble sending them to rehab. Most of the book takes place at rehab as they find theirself and delves into the lives of some of the other kids there.

Merry-Go-Round ★★
A bunch of short stories revolving around some college students in Bologna, Italy. The stories are mainly about them changing relationships and being untrue to one another. It was a quick but unfulfilling read.

The Rock Gods of Jackson, Tennessee ★★★
A ridiculously over the top story about 4 losers in high school getting an opportunity to open for a washed up rock star while a horror movie about mutant pigs slowly develops in the background. It's a tropey ode to the 80's.

The Little Red Fish ★★★
The story of oppressed fish in a Persian reef, beset by herons. The book is an allegory to the Iranian Revolution in 1979 up to when the Khomeini takes over. However, unless you know the history very in-depth, you probably wouldn't realize it.

The Faint of Heart ★★★★
June wants to grow up to be an artist. The problem is no one else cares. Everyone else has had their hearts removed to make life easier. Now she's the only one left who cares about anything until one day she finds a heart in a jar sitting in an alleyway...

Five Years Vol. 1: Fire In The Sky ★★★★★
Terrific. Terry Moore seamlessly brings all of his characters into one book. That's way more difficult than it sounds given his different comics have conquered the worlds of romance / espionage, sci-fi and horror. Until this comic came about I just assumed all of his comics just appeared in their own universes. This is not the series to start with for new readers. You can and should start with whatever other Terry Moore series you want though. He's on my all time favorite list of comic creators.

Five Years Vol. 2: Stalemate ★★★★
The Strangers in Paradise stalwarts do most of the heavy lifting as they attempt to stop the world's most dangerous bomb from being developed. It does feel like this may have initially been planned for a longer run until the Pandemic got in the middle of it. Still at this point I'd read Terry Moore's grocery list if he let me.

Batman/Spawn (2022) #1 ★★
Todd McFarlane has written over 300 issues of Spawn since the last time he crossed over with Batman in the 90's. His writing has not gotten any better unfortunately.

Catwoman, Vol. 1: Dangerous Liaisons ★★★
Catwoman steps out of Alleytown and back into Gotham proper. We're somewhat returning to the crime family setup as Catwoman gets mixed up from the five crime families currently running Gotham.

Catwoman 2: Cat International ★★
The first volume of Howard's run wasn't too bad but this is all over the place. Howard can't decide which way to go and tries to go all of them.

Strange Academy: Finals ★★★
Finals ties up all the loose ends from the end of the previous series. All of the school stuff is quickly dropped in order finish everything up and it all goes pretty much how you expected it to.

Batman, Vol. 1: Failsafe ★★★
Chip Zdarsky takes over Batman (I guess Daredevil wasn't enough for the guy.) and puts him in an over the top, nonstop action flick. Batman is framed for murder (which has happened a gazillion times. Why didn't Failsafe deploy those times?) and a T-1000 version of Batman deploys to take Batman out.

Batman: Detective Comics, Vol. 3: Arkham Rising ★★
Most of this is a mental health discussion as this new Arkham Tower is being built and if it will help Gotham or just be full of Batman's rogues. It's thoroughly boring and very short.

Batman: Shadows of the Bat - The Tower ★★
I cannot wait for Tamaki's run on Detective to end. The writing is so shoddy and poorly thought out. The volume that immediately preceded this was about Arkham Tower being built and a discussion among the Batfamily about mental health. But this immediately starts with the Batfamily investigating shady stuff within the Tower. They've already decided it's bad between issues. The whole thing is so the doctor in charge can run a insurance scam for $6 million? The skyscraper probably cost over a billion dollars. He should just have become a general contractor. He could have bilked the taxpayers out of far more while building the damn thing.

Batman: Shadows of the Bat - House of Gotham ★★★★
This collects the back up stories from Detective's 12 part weekly run and frankly should have been the main story because it is much better written. It's the story of a boy who witnesses the Joker murder his parents. Batman shows up immediately after and the kid associates the two of them together. Throughout a decade or so, Jason Todd's turn as Robin, Knightfall, No Man's Land and onward, this kid continues to fall through the cracks and it's the villains that keep him from falling too far.

Batman: Detective Comics, Vol. 4: Riddle Me This ★★
Unsurprisingly, Tamaki finishes her Detective run off with a whimper. Riddler is some kind of DJ now and is somehow supposed to be involved in making this group in therapy commit crimes. It's way too convoluted for a 3 issue story.

Sins of Sinister ★★★
This is pretty much a variation of HoX/PoX where Sinister wins and how it all goes wrong.

Image! 30th Anthology #1 ★★★
There's a lot of stories here in this anthology, quite a few which are going to run the full 12 issues. The big draw is the 12 part Geoff Johns story.

Marauders by Steve Orlando, Vol. 2 ★
And so ends this horrible iteration of the Marauders. It's amazing how quickly things can change. This was one of my favorite books during its initial run. Then Steve Orlando took over and the book turned to shit. This was the perfect storm of terribleness with Orlando writing and Eleonora Carlini on art.

Today's trip to the LCS.

By the Horns: Dark Earth #8
Alien #1
Sins of Sinister: Dominion
Invincible Iron Man #5
Image! 30th Anniversary #12
Thor #33
Strange Academy: Finals #6

Last week's adventures in comics.

Regarding the Matter of Oswald's Body ★★★
Oliver Stone did it better with JFK. At least he gave you a reason for why it happened.

The Reason for Dragons ★★★
A nice little story about a nerdy kid and his mechanic stepfather. They don't understand one another and get in a fight. The boy, Wendell, wanders across an abandoned renaissance fair where he meets a knight who thinks he's in medieval times and being pursued by a dragon. The story proceeds from there.

The Remnant ★★★
This had the feeling of a TV pilot. Unfortunately, no other episodes were ever made. It was surprisingly really good up until that shit ending. The mystery is just getting started as it ends. It's about a former CIA agent and his newlywed wife. They are initially blamed when a federal building they just left is bombed. The government is looking to blame them while they are also being hunted by the true culprits.

Primordia ★
Billed as a new mythology, this was more of an excuse to show scantily clad women and men. It's about two babies left behind in some kind of fantasy wood. They grow up as rivals, both in love with the same green fairy woman. One is of the light, the other the dark. Then it gets into some god pantheon stuff. It reads like antiquated sci-fi.

Hellboy and the B.P.R.D.: The Return of Effie Kolb and Others ★★★★
A bunch of very good Hellboy one-offs. There's some bigger artists drawing Hellboy like Adam Hughes this go around.

Prism Stalker: The Weeping Star ★★
This was alright. It's a continuation of the Prism Stalker series that Image published in 2019. It's about a woman going through some kind of training to be a space police officer with other aliens.

Past Tense ★★★★
I really liked this. It's about some technology in the near future that allows us to see anything in the past. The woman running the session realizes her client is a serial killer that no one knows about. Then we get a game of cat and mouse as the two try and take the other one out.

Mariko Between Worlds★★★
Mariko and her alien boyfriend Rem are breaking up because Mariko has lost her Visa to the Portal of Worlds or whatever it's called. They have one last day to spend together before Mariko needs to leave. What follows is something of a stream of consciousness adventure through dimensions because it can be difficult to connect the dots between story elements.

Naji and the Mystery of the Dig, Graphic Novel ★★
This story for young children didn't do much for me. It's about a little girl in Iran whose family needs a new well dug for their house. She's afraid of monsters being everywhere until she realizes they aren't real. Then the diggers find some underground bazaar where the story ends feeling unfinished.

Hansel and Gretel ★★★
For this version of the Hansel and Gretel story, the illustrator drew all of the drawings first for an art event. Then Gaiman came along and basically gave the traditional telling of the short story with the darker spin on it. Gaiman never likes to lighten up the original Grimm versions. So the book alternates between two pages of prose and a two page illustration. The illustrations are terrible. It's just black on black and then add some more black. I thought they were a waste of time. Gaiman's prose, of course, is delightful in his own demented way.

Clive Barker's Nightbreed Archive Vol. 1 ★★★
Even though the first 4 issues are a faithful adaptation of the movie, I suggest watching the movie if you haven't seen it. It just conveys more emotion than the comic. Then the next 6 issues are the original ongoing Nightbreed comic from Epic Comics, Marvel's adult line and attempt of making their own version of Vertigo. I really liked the ongoing back in the day as Boone was given a mission to find a new version of Mideon for the Nightbreed to live in. The arc here is about a new group of Nightbreed who are breaking the laws against eating humans with Boone and his friends out to stop them. The final two issues are the crossover between Hellraiser and Nightbreed.

The Returning ★★
Started off interesting but then didn't bother to answer any questions. It's about a teenage girl who has a near death experience. People across the country have been having them and then returning and killing people. But why doesn't this girl want to kill people? Why are so many people having near death experiences?

Nightwing, Vol. 3: The Battle for Blüdhaven's Heart ★★★★★
Taylor and Redondo continue to impress with DC's best book. It's all out war between Nightwing and Blockbuster.

Mouse Guard: The Black Axe ★★★★★
For the 3rd volume of Mouse Guard, we actually flash back to the history of the Black Axe and how Celanawe obtained it.

Milestone 30th Anniversary (2023) #1 ★★★
This is such a strange special. I know it's in honor of the 30th anniversary but it would have been a lot less confusing if this had come out before the Milestone reboot. The two different versions are really close to one another and having them cross over got really confusing.

X-Treme X-Men: A New Beginning ★★★
An untold X-Men story from the X-Treme days with the original creative team of Chris Claremont and Salvador Larroca. It's about Ogun's spirit returning to try and repossess Kitty Pryde. Some other new mutants and Purity are thrown in there as well. I gotta say, it's strange to read a Claremont X-Men story without any inner monologue or narration.

Thor, Vol. 5: The Legacy of Thanos ★★★
I know this mentions Donny Cates but this is when he leaves the book due to personal issues. Nuff said about that. Al Ewing writes the 2 issues with Venom. It's OK. Then the stuff with Thanos very slowly begins to happen.

Avengers, Vol. 10: The Death Hunters ★★★
Aaron's Avengers run has been uneven to put it mildly. Now we return to solid ground with the Multiversal Masters of Evil finally coming to Earth-616 in the pursuit of Deathloks who are trying to alert the Avengers.

Superman: Kal-El Returns ★★★
This crossover isn't really a crossover per se. It's a bunch of little stories centered around Superman's return to Earth and a lot of spinning wheels while waiting for Action Comics #1050.

Batman: Urban Legends, Vol. 4 ★★★★
Some of these stories are only very tangentially related to Batman but as long as they are good, who cares? There's 17 different stories in these issues as there's lots of leftovers in this anthology volume.

Captain America: Symbol of Truth, Vol. 1: Homeland ★★★
Of the two Captain America titles right now, I think this is the stronger one. Sam and Joaquin (the new Falcon) are on the trail of what they think is someone trying to make more Super Soldier serum. The White Wolf (of Black Panther fame) is using Crossbones to lead them into a confrontation with Wakanda.

Star Wars: Doctor Aphra, Vol. 1: Fortune and Fate ★★★
It seems like we're playing the greatest hits with this new edition of Doctor Aphra. She's got a new crew that's pretty dull and uninteresting. She's after some new artifact and there's lots of double crossing. It's a duller version of the last iteration and the villain of the piece is stupid. Some rich guy wants to be the last person to touch one of a kind objects before destroying them. He's like some kind of James Bond villain but dumb.

Nightwing, Vol. 4 ★★★★★
This title never fails to make me smile each month. Taylor just absolutely gets Dick Grayson. I love what Taylor is doing here by attempting to raise Nightwing's profile to the tops of DC's pantheon. I'm really looking forward to see what he does with the Titans as well.

I have a feeling this thing has been reedited to downplay Ezra Miller's role in it while giving Michael Keaton and other heroes from alternate universes more screen time. Anytime films are reedited that heavily, the quality suffers enormously (I'm talking to you Justice League.). I just have a feeling that whoever is making the trailers is doing a much better job than the people actually editing the movie. Given DC's track record, I'd lean more towards this being a dumpster fire. But we'll see. I'd love nothing more than to be pleasantly surprised. I love DC. I hope with James Gunn and Peter Safran in charge we'll finally get some higher quality movies once their stuff gets to a release point.