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

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

Grimlock wrote: "Picked up guardians last week, gonna pick up x-force next week but I’m out of the country this week, looking to pick up Suicide squad: get joker in French, though."

Get Joker isn't great. I'd only pick it up on the cheap.

The trailer looks really good. But then again WB makes a lot of trash superhero films and this also has the Ezra Miller baggage attached to it. I hate to give this any kind of money due to that nut job starring in it.

Today's trip to the LCS.

Bishop: War College #3
X-treme X-Men #5
X-Force #39
Nightwing #103
Nightcrawlers #3
House of Slaughter #14
World's Finest #14
The X-Cellent #2
The Forged #2

Last week's late trip to the LCS.
Predator #2
Storm and the Brotherhood of Mutants #3
X-Men #21
Guardians of the Galaxy #1

kaitlphere wrote: "Re: Veronika: What is the sequel series to Eve? Goodreads is not helping me find it."

The Eve sequel is Eve: Children of the Moon. Only the single issues seem to be on GR so far. Looks like the trade hits in August. https://www.simonandschuster.com/book... I may just read it in singles now off Hoopla. The first one was really good.

kaitlphere wrote: "Re: Chad: I have had Mouseguard on my tbr forever. Maybe I'll finally get around to reading it after your reviews! Thanks for the reminder!"

Just finished the last Mouse Guard this morning. It's well worth checking out. Great stuff!

No worries. I've just been reading comics for a very long time. I still have my original Batman: Black and White's from the 90's.

Batman: Black and White aren't backup stories. It's a commissioned anthology from bigger creators. That's why the stories are shorter so they can get bigger creators to commit. DC has done these three different times now. They did a new one just a couple of years ago plus Superman, Wonder Woman, and Harley Quinn ones. The Superman one used a red and blue palette while the WW one was black, white, and gold and the Harley Quinn was black, white and red.

Adam wrote: "Chad wrote: "Last week's adventures in comics."

I'm glad you enjoyed Mouse Guard, that's such a good staple for me when recommending comics."

How can you not? I've still got one more to read this week.

Last week's adventures in comics.

BRZRKR Vol. 3★
This thing made absolutely no sense. Yet, it's getting turned into a Netflix series (likely due to Keanu's involvement). If you were expecting answers, "Good luck!"

The Union: The Britannia Project★★
Due to Covid, this thing was butchered. It was originally supposed to be an ongoing series about a British superhero team. Changing it to a 5 issue miniseries and then also having a half-assed King in Black tie-in just made this a mess.

Savage Avengers, Vol. 1: Time is the Sharpest Edge★★★
This serves as Conan's exit from the Marvel universe. A bunch of Marvel heroes get transported back to the Hyborian age with Conan where they are pursued by Deathlok and the cult of Set as Thulsa Doom looks to kill Conan. So you get some classic Conan as he moves on to Titan comics.

Savage Avengers, Vol. 2: Escape from Nueva York★★★
Now that the Savage Avengers sent Conan packing off to Titan Comics, they have been transported from the Hybarian Age to 2099 where they teamup with Punisher 2099 and Doom 2099 to tackle Ultron. He's turned most of the world into Deathloks which he controls.

Harley Quinn 30th Anniversary Special (2022) #1★★★★
This was better than I expected. All of the big creative teams of Harley's past return to do new stories for Harley's 30th anniversary.

Maw★★
Two sisters go to a remote commune for women. One of the sisters was brutally raped years ago and understandably never got over it. Now the first night there she goes out and is raped again. Afterwards she begins to change...

Dune: House Atreides, Volume Three★★★
This is OK but it reads so dryly. I'm afraid if you want to read about Dune, you need to venture into the thicker novels for more enjoyment.

King in Black: Planet of the Symbiotes★★★
Marvel puts together a little King in Black anthology together for characters on the scrap heap. The stories aren't bad at all (nor is the art), they are about characters no one cares about, nor are any of them essential to the storyline.

Fairest: In All the Land★★★★
A tag team of artists illustrate this story of revenge as someone is out to kill the most popular women of Fables. This is pretty good. I prefer the regular Fables series but this is a solid one-off.

Malignant Man★★★
Yes, that James Wan wrote some comics. The creator of Saw and The Conjuring along with the director of the Aquaman movies. This is about a guy who is about to die from cancer when he discovers it's not cancer but an alien parasite in his body.

Mouse Guard: Legends of the Guard, Vol. 1★★★★
A Mouseguard anthology series centered around a fantasy trope. The mice are all in an inn and whoever tells the best story has their bar tab wiped.

Mouse Guard: Legends of the Guard, Vol. 2★★★★
Follows the exact same format of volume one. Guests at an inn compete to tell the best story to have their tab forgiven.

Mouse Guard: Fall 1152★★★★★
I've been meaning to read this for years and I'm glad I finally got around to it. It's a medieval story of mice living in hidden towns in the forest hidden away from all of the dangers tiny mice would find in the woods (like snakes and even crabs on the shoreline.) The mice are protected by the Mouse Guard, the knights of this age.

Mouse Guard: Winter 1152★★★★★
David Petersen is such a talented artist. He makes the lives of little mice struggling to survive in the woods in the middle of winter completely believable. Everything about the artwork is superb. Not just the linework, but the paneling and storytelling as well. It all serves to pull you into this story of the Mouse Guard as they struggle to survive the severe winter while carrying messages and items between the outposts.

Dune: The Waters of Kanly★★★
A pretty good side story about Gurney Halleck and what he was doing while House Atreides was in hiding.

New World★★
Began as a story about European colonialism before devolving into monsters masquerading as humans and lightning bows.

NOLA★★★★
A story of a woman left for dead right before Hurricane Katrina. The person who did it attempts to use the hurricane to cover up his crime while she goes to track down all those involved now that she has been declared dead.

Persephone★
It's not really a retelling of the Greek mythology of Hades and Persephone. It's more of a completely unrelated story using some of the same names. It's about Persephone, the adopted daughter of the witch Dementer. She secretly has no magic of her own and gets used as a bargaining chip after a war to open up the losing side. The storytelling is terrible. The art is extremely loose and dull.

Protocol: Orphans★★
Oof, this was not good. A generic group of secret government agents stop random things from happening. There's zero characterization. There's no story.

Poe★★★
Poe is known as the father of the modern mystery story. So it's only fitting he solves a mystery in this comic. It's in the days after he has lost his wife when he goes to a murder with his brother who is a police officer. They discover someone is murdering people for 5 rare coins.

North Wind★★
Your standard postapocalyptic story of an Earth 200 years into a new Ice Age.

Ultimate Spider-Man is exactly what I was going to suggest for Spider-Man. It's my favorite run of Spider-Man. It does take place on an alternate earth that eventually gets merged into the regular 616 earth but it ultimately doesn't matter. The whole purpose of the Ultimate line was to give new readers a fresh entry point without 50 years of baggage. The universes do differ at times but at their cores the characters are the same. The Ultimates (The Avengers) on that earth and the Fantastic Four comics are really good too.

Antonio wrote: "Don't know how to do a quote in this app, sorry.
."

Yeah, I don't ever use the app so I can't help you there. (I think the GR app sucks and use my desktop.) No worries. If you just want a general overview I'd just start reading the current comics. When you find something you like ask about it. Then you can choose what characters you want to do a deeper dive on. First I'd mention how you are reading your comics, through Marvel Unlimited? Buying physical comics? Buying digitally? The library? That'll help us help you.

Grimlock wrote: "I feel like such a bad comic fan sometimes for thinking this, but I do enjoy the streamlined stories more in general."

There's no reason to feel bad about it. They were a product of another time. You're allowed to like what you like. No judgement.

Ha! I don't think McFarlane even cares if he makes money with Spawn anymore. He's already got so much money he can make it each month just for fun. I think it's the only comic that hasn't raised the cover price above $2.99 too because again, he doesn't need the money and he likes to keep it affordable. I quit reading it regularly 20+ years ago but there's still some things to admire about the guy. I have bought some of the Spawn Humble Bundles even though I haven't ever gotten around to reading them.

Antonio wrote: "I just started reading Marvel comics for the first time in my life and I'm feeling a bit overwhelmed 😅 and now I'm starting with The Amazing Spider-man #6. It didn't age so well imho."

From the original run in the 60's? I wouldn't recommend that as a good place to start. Comics were written very differently back then. I think you're better off picking a current or celebrated run and checking that out. Then if you enjoy it you can work back picking and choosing what you want to read.

Comics really started to change this century in how they were written trusting more and more to tell them visually rather than through exposition. Even reading something from the 80's and 90's can be a chore to get through and that's when I started reading comics regularly back in the mid-80's. One of the things you'll quickly learn is that no matter how hard you try, you'll never be able to read all the comics being produced. You just have to find some you're interested in and dive in.

If there are certain characters you're interested in, you can list them and I (and probably others) will give you some suggestions on good places to start. I will say that if you don't have Marvel Unlimited, you should check and see if it's available in Spain. It costs $70 in the U.S. a year to get access to pretty much all of Marvel's back catalog digitally. It runs about 3 months behind on new comics and has tens of thousands of Marvel comics. That's one of the ways I supplement my comic book reading without growing broke. I then just buy the Marvel comics I really want to own or don't want to wait 3 months on to read from my local comic book store (LCS).

Last week's adventures in comics.

Tank Girl: King Tank Girl ★★
This is one of those things where if you'd always enjoyed Tank GIrl, you'll probably like this. If you haven't, you probably won't get this at all.

Mage and the Endless Unknown ★★★★
An almost wordless comic about a mage wondering through a dark and dangerous world. At first glance it may seem this is for younger readers, but it becomes more dark and violent as it goes along.

The Talk ★★★★★
Wow! What a powerful graphic memoir. Darrin Bell and I are of a similar age. The difference between us is I'm white and grew up in a small Midwestern town. He's of mixed heritage and grew up in L.A. He discusses the times throughout his life we was made to feel less than, the times he was frightened or threatened by the police or others in authority from the time he was 6 until now.

Dungeons & Dragons: Ravenloft--Orphan of Agony Isle ★★
A mediocre return to Ravenloft with a Frankenstein motif. The only difference is the roles are gender swapped.

Sapiens Imperium ★★
Some generic, old-school sci-fi about an oppressed group of people and a stereotypically evil emperor's son.

Robyn Hood: Outlaw ★★★
Robyn Hood is a female version of Green Arrow with a harder edge. She's been framed and discovers the Underground, a place under New York City for those with powers.

Tim Drake: Robin, Vol. 1 ★
Oof, this was awful. The story grew more and more incoherent as it went along. I like the idea of Gotham's marina being a hipster / LGBTQ+ area of Gotham. That was about the only thing I liked though. Rossmo's art is so bad. It's not just the out of proportion body parts though where Robin looks like a balloon being blown up in some panels. The panels don't flow at all. I had no idea what was happening in any of the action sequences. It looked like random, unconnected panels regurgitated onto a page

X-Force, Vol. 6 ★★★
Beast's character assassination continues as he creates a hidden prison in space. Then we find out who the man behind the peacock tattoo is which I thought was actually kind of cool.

The Amazing Spider-Man, Vol. 1: World Without Love ★★★
Six Months have went by since the end of Spencer's craptastic run on ASM. Something traumatic happened to Pete in Pennsylvania causing him to burn all his bridges with his friends, Both Peter's and Spider-Man's. MJ has moved onto some new relationship. Pete has no job and lots of bills piling up from being in the hospital. There's zero answers in this first arc, so I guess we'll need to wait to find out all the dirt. Tombstone gets into a turf war with the Rose with Spider-Man in the middle due to Robbie Robertson and his girlfriend, Janice, AKA the Beetle.

Shazam! Thundercrack ★★
This was really weak. It takes place during the beginning of the Shazam movie when Billy is first learning his powers. He joins the football team for the last game of the season and is instantly elevated to be the star player of the team. (I don't think Mercado has ever actually played sports because that's not how they work.) The whole thing is about the rival football team getting turned into robots or something stupid like that.

Tales from the Dark Multiverse II ★★
These weren't nearly as good as the first go-around. I think mainly due to the creators involved. Outside of Phillip Kennedy Johnson this is a murderer's row of overhyped writers who just aren't very good.

Quick Stops ★★★
Kevin Smith returns to tell 4 solo tales set in the Askewniverse. It answers questions like where Holden came up with the idea of Bluntman and Chronic and why Elias thought there was a troll in girls' pants.

A Legacy of Violence Vol. 1 ★★★
A guy in a Great Value Punisher logo mask is torturing and killing people in a village in Honduras. Enter a team of doctors from Doctors without Borders. One of the doctors had some kind of tragedy happen with his grandfather when he was a kid. (This is only the first four issues of a 12 issue maxiseries.) Now the killer seems to be focusing on him while murdering others for some reason and he keeps hearing the words Unit 731 (which is a unit of the Japanese military that experimented on prisoners in World War II).

Frontera ★★★
Mateo is a Dreamer. He was brought to the U.S. by his parents at the age of 3 without his knowledge. While in high school his family was discovered and deported back to Mexico. Now all he thinks about is getting back to Phoenix in time for his senior year to live with his grandmother. So he crosses the border on his own where he comes across a ghost who attempted the same trip 70 years before. Guillermo now does his best to help those making the trip across to keep from dying. Even with a ghost, the book felt pretty realistic until the jaguar showed up.

Silver Sable: Payback: A Marvel: Heroines Novel★★★★
Fresh off her excellent prose book about Black Cat, Cath Lauria shows us what she can do with Silver Sable. It's about Silver going after a gambler who has the Clairvoyant, a device that allows you see possible futures.

The Kill Lock: The Artisan Wraith ★★★
A pretty good successor to a terrific first volume. I would suggest rereading the first volume before tackling this one. I'd forgotten a lot about this universe full of killer robots that act more human than you'd think.

Captain America: Sentinel of Liberty, Vol. 1: Revolution ★★★
There's a new conspiracy (seems to happen with every new run) and this one goes back to when the shield was created. After a Captain America #0 that kicks off both new Captain America titles, we switch over to the regular creative team and this OK conspiracy. What is more than OK is Carmen Carnero's art.

Batman: The Dark Knight Detective Vol. 7 ★★★
Some solid Batman stories but going back and reading these again now I can't believe how few villains there are. It's typically a hitman or a crazy person in one of these. The only member of Batman's Rogues to appear is Ra's al Ghul in the annual that was part of Armageddon 2001.

John Constantine: Hellblazer Vol. 2: The Best Version of You ★★★
Spurrier gets Constantine. it's nice to have a writer on the series that evokes the original series. I don't think either artist on the book though is that great.

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Reborn, Volume 6 – Game Changers ★★★
A bit of a filler volume with only two regular issues as we wait for The Armageddon Game to finally begin.

King in Black: Thunderbolts ★★★
One of the better King in Black off shoots. Doesn't do much for the overall King in Black story but who cares? It's fun. Mayor Kingpin gathers a bunch of D-level Marvel villains and sends them off to kill Knull.

X-Men, Vol. 3 ★★★
A couple of Judgement Day issues then a return to the Children of the Vault story. It was fine but didn't feel as finely tuned as past volumes.

Skybound X 1-5, 25 ★★★
An anthology series to celebrate 10 years of Skybound at Image.

King in Black Gwenom Vs. Carnage ★★★
The main event of Gwenom vs. Carnage was just one lame prolonged fight.

King in Black: Atlantis Attacks ★★
First of all, this has nothing to do with King in Black, this was one of those casualties of the Pandemic that got this reshuffled to a miniseries and two King in Black pages tacked onto the last two pages of the miniseries. It's a continuation of Agents of Atlas with the New Agents of Atlas confronting the old ones and everyone trying to stop a war from breaking out between Atlantis and Pan. It's OK.

Beantown wrote: "Did a quick Google search and will probably be reading Whiteout or finally sitting down with Sin City Volume 1: The Hard Goodbye"

Those are both excellent choices.

Bri wrote: "I also plan on reading Vol 13,14 and 15 of This Flash Series as well. I’m planning to also read Ms. Ma..."

I'd keep going even past this with the Flash. I really like what I've read of Jeremy Adams's current Flash run even more than I liked Williamson's.

Today's trip to the LCS.

Batman and the Joker:The Deadly Duo #6
Fables #158
Immoral X-Men #3
Wolverine #32
Night Club #4 <-- How can you not support a comic that's only $2?
Planet of the Apes #1

Last week's adventures in comics.

Einstein ★★
A very detailed look into Einstein's life at a 300 page graphic novel. The majority of it focuses on his advances in physics. They are certainly remarkable. They are also very dry and sometimes require repeat reading to understand. Depending on your interest level, they may go completely over your head. I was already familiar with most of them and have a background in science and engineering so I was OK. The book seems to be written for those in advanced sciences.

Breath of the Giant ★★★
A middling story about two sisters striving to make it all the way North to defeat a giant whose breath can restore their mother to life. It's a common story trope, a struggle to bring a loved one back only to find out they no longer belong in this world.

Barbaric Vol. 1: Murderable Offenses ★★★★
A twist on Conan the Barbarian. Owen was the baddest barbarian around until he was cursed to only do good and to aid anyone who asked for his help. Now he and his magic axe that only he can hear are forced to help those in need whether he likes it or not.

Camp Pock-a-Wocknee and the Dynomite Summer of '77 ★★★
A graphic memoir about the author's senior year in a Jewish summer camp in 1977. Yes, it's raunchy. There's talk of scoring, poop, farts and jerking off. It's about teenage boys after all. But it can also be fun. It reminds me a ton of the movie Meatballs which is also about a summer camp in the 70's, although it never achieves that level of humor.

GremoryLand Volume 1 ★★
This isn't very original or even very well done. It's about a group of friends who go to a new amusement park as influencers or something and have to get through all the rides without dying. It has a lot of the same elements as Five Nights at Freddy's and the Nic Cage movie Willy's Wonderland.

ZVRC: Zombies Vs Robots Complete, Volume 1 ★
This was awful. It didn't even make any sense. Zombies have taken over the world leaving not just robots but dumb robots as the only ones left to stop them. At some point after nuclear bombs have destroyed the world but not robots or zombies, Amazons show up. Presumably so they can run around naked before being eaten.

Bruce Wayne: Not Super ★★★★
A middle school graphic novel where Bruce goes to a school full of what will be DC's superheroes and villains. He's the only kid with no powers (other than being rich.)

Tank Girl: King Tank Girl ★★
This is one of those things where if you'd always enjoyed Tank GIrl, you'll probably like this. If you haven't, you probably won't get this at all. I fall in the latter category.

Rorschach ★★
First of all this is not a book about Rorschach. It's about an unnamed private investigator who is investigating the assassination attempt on a presidential candidate. It's 35 years after the original Watchmen but one of the shooters was wearing a Rorschach mask. It's basically its own story and outside of a couple of cameos you don't even need to have read the original Watchmen really. You'll just miss out on some nuance. But this thing is REALLY tedious to read at 12 issues. It should have probably been 6 because at least half of this is unnecessary and pointless. It was really issue 9 before this began to head anywhere.

Batman: Gotham Knights - Gilded City ★★★
An OK prequel to the Gotham Knights video game. It takes place now and 150 years ago with both eras fighting a manmade virus plaguing Gotham.

DC Horror Presents: Sgt. Rock vs. The Army of the Dead ★★★
It's a quick read. As you could expect from the star of theEvil Dead movies, Campbell puts the action first. BTW, these aren't your typical zombies. These Nazis are undead but still retain their brains and memories, they are just extremely hard to kill.

Superman: Son of Kal-El, Vol. 2: The Rising ★★★★
I thought this was much better than the first volume. There's less focus on Jon's relationship with uninteresting Jay and more about how Jon tries to deal with being Superman.

Superman: Son of Kal-El, Vol. 3: Battle for Gamorra ★★★
Jon and the Henry Bendix storyline wraps up just in time for the crossover with his Dad to start next. I really like that Taylor brought back the Revolutionaries from his Suicide Squad run back.

X-Cellent Vol. 1: New Blood, New World ★★★
This was really weak. It couldn't even be saved by the Allreds' timeless art. This just rehashes a bunch of the stuff from X-Static. The focus though is on this new team of bad guys, The X-Cellent, as they try and build followers.

Nightwing, Vol. 2: Get Grayson ★★★★★
We return to our regular scheduled programming after the Fear State interruption with Bruno Redondo. Dick has a price on his head after publicly declaring he'd be giving billions to the less privileged of Bludhaven. The first issue is all two page spreads with Dick jumping across them. It really invoked David Aja's time on Hawkeye. I loved it.

Legion of X, Vol. 1 ★★
Si Spurrier might as well be writing gibberish. Most of this doesn't make much sense. It takes a big whiff at some high-concept stuff (which I feel is pretty common with Spurrier.)

WHAT IF...? MILES MORALES ★★
Just bad. Labeled What If?, it's alternate realities where Miles becomes a different hero but Uncle Aaron is still a douche. All of these alternate origins all share a sameness that doesn't make sense. Nor is there much story in any of these.

Wolverine, Vol. 5 ★★★
Beast has went full on evil during the Krakoa era. It's like Marvel is trying to assassinate Beast's character. Here he gets one over on Wolverine and uses Wolvie as his own personal hitman in the shadows while Logan is basically a vegetable.

Harley Quinn Vol 2: Keepsake ★★
Riley Rossmo continues to be the worst artist in comics outside of Erika Henderson. Actually it's a tossup.

Miles Morales Vol. 8: Empire Of The Spider ★★★
Miles and Shift get transported to another universe where he lost the fight with his clone Selim and was killed. Selim has siloed Brooklyn off with some kind of rift and taken over. Ganke is an old war General leading the rebel forces. This has been done so many times before that it all seems a bit generic now.

This week's trip to my LCS.

Dark Knights of Steel #10
Parker Girls #6
Something Is Killing the Children #30
Strange Academy Finals #5
Thor #32
Invincible Iron Man #4

Last week's adventures in comics.

Batman - One Bad Day (2022-) : Clayface★★★★
Clayface leaves Gotham behind and heads out to Los Angeles to try and make it as an actor. I thought the story structure and how it all breaks down was cool.

Batman - One Bad Day (2022-) : Catwoman★★★★
Catwoman comes across a new foil in the Forger. An old broach that her mother owned when Selina was a kid comes up for sale when someone realizes it has a pedigree. So Selina decides to steal it back. I found this to be the best one of these since The Riddler.

Batman - One Bad Day (2022-) : Ra's Al Ghul★★★★★
A really nice bookend for these One Bad Day books between this and Tom King's one for The Riddler. Ra's comes up with a plan to take out the 30 worst heads of companies on the planet and has a plan to carry it out.

Hilda: Night of the Trolls: Hilda and the Stone Forest / Hilda and the Mountain King★★★★★
These are really good stories for kids and kids at heart. Hilda is wild and not afraid of anything but has a good heart. She's nonstop getting into dangerous situations by not thinking things through. It's a bone of contention between her and her mother. The two of them get transported inside the mountains outside Trollburg and have to find their way out while avoiding trolls. (It's Sweden, of course there are trolls.)

Avatar: The Last Airbender Chibis Volume 1--Aang's Unfreezing Day★★★
A slight and short Avatar: The Last Airbender story for younger readers.

Harry Rides the Danger★★
This children's book made no sense to me. Harry wakes up and feels in Danger which seems to be his wolf. He says some lines that make no sense and then it's over. It's almost more poetry than a children's book.

Pearl Volume 3★★★
This is fine. The storytelling can be obtuse at times and sometimes Gaydos makes some odd coloring choices with some of the monochrome pages. This volume seemed to meander without having a strong story to keep this thing going.

Parasocial★★
A limp story about a washed up turd of an actor going to conventions and giving lip service to fans. Eventually he comes across a fan who gives him the Misery treatment. Erica Henderson's artwork is weak, looking even worse for wear by doing her own coloring. It's terrible.

Paper Planes★★★
A modern tale of relationships between Dylan who is nonbinary and Leighton who is asexual. They are sent to some kind of camp for misbehavior and we see their relationship in flashbacks throughout the story. They were younger than expected as they just enter high school at the end of this. The conflict in the story isn't because of their sexual natures, but because Dylan comes from the wrong side of the tracks.

House on Fire★★★
A simple story of a man going out to find medicine for his wife during a pandemic. No, it's not COVID, but it obviously pulls from that time. Don't expect any answers. It's a snippet of their story so we don't get a lot of worldbuilding, just a snapshot of this one day in their life.

Missing You★★
A children's comic about a family presumably surviving the loss of their mother. The kids find an injured fawn and decide to nurse it back to health. I find this all kinds of problematic as normal people are not trained to take care of wild animals, let alone little kids. More than likely the fawn would have just died.

Lost and Found: A Heart of the City Collection★
I couldn't even make it halfway through these "comics" before giving up. They are way more concerned with telling a moral lesson than telling a joke.

Cottons: The Secret of the Wind★★★
There's a lot of worldbuilding here but not a lot of storytelling to explain why. You just have to have faith that it may be explained in a later book. It's about a vale full of rabbits who work at a carrot factory to make cha. The foxes are evil and want the factory for some reason even though they couldn't presumably run it or even get into the underground factory.

Batman/Superman: World's Finest Vol. 2: Strange Visitor★★★
In the 2nd arc of this flashback series, Superman and Batman come across a boy from a parallel dimension with an origin similar to Superman. He has some issues with getting too emotional though as he fights the Key and the Joker.

Lazarus Planet★★★
This is basically a sampler of the new titles DC is starting up in the next year as part of it's Dawn of DC initiative for 2023. It's all hands on deck as pretty much every creative team at DC gets a chance to tell a lead in story for a new character. The premise is that the goo from the Lazarus pits rains down across the Earth giving out super powers to mainly new characters.

Into the Dark Dimension: A Marvel: Crisis Protocol Novel★★★
The end of the prose trilogy with Dormammu threatening the universe. Actually in this one, he's taken over all dimensions with only a few heroes unaffected. Everyone else now worships Dormammu.

Tales from Earth-6: A Celebration of Stan Lee★★★
A celebration of when Stan Lee came to DC and did the Just Imagine event 20 years ago. He reimagined the DC universe through his eyes only keeping the names of the characters. The best stories are front-loaded by Michael Uslan and Lee Weeks and then one by Mark Waid and Kevin Maguire. It's interesting to revisit this Earth for the first time in decades but by no means essential.

DC's Legion of Bloom★★
DC's quarterly book this go around is about spring and flowers returning along with making it through the winter. There's even more try out creatives than usual in this one. The art and stories are OK but nothing special either.

Muros: Within Magical Walls: The Case of the Cemetery Girl★★★
A solid beginning to a new Filipino comic filled with their mythology. It's not as good as Trese but along the same lines.

Triage★★★
A nurse meets up with her doppelgangers from other dimensions while someone is trying to murder them. They are given a way to hop between dimensions when this person arrives on the Earth they are on.

Excellence, Vol. 1: Kill the Past★★
Thomas does a great job of writing about a son angry at his father but that's all there is. The rest is all very vague even though the inner monologue goes on and on. There's not enough worldbuilding in it for me. There's rules for magic that all seems very arbitrary. There is no why. It just is.

Max wrote: "I liked her Longshot book a lot. In hindsight, it was a mess, but the character interactions were enduring and Mojo is still one of the most unique villains I've read"

You are right in that it's one of her few bright spots and Longshot is one of my favorite X-Men. Mojo is a tedious villain these days though. Every time he appears it's the exact same story.