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

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

Last week's adventures in comic books.

Heavenly Demon Reborn! Vol 1 ★★
This bored me to tears. It's about a guy who is reincarnated into a cult where he wants to take revenge on some of the members. He's young and it's about how he trains alone for the next ten years.

The Panic (Comixology Originals): Ten Survivors ★★
A subway train derails while going under the river into Manhattan. It's post-Pandemic and there's all kinds of arguments from both the Left and the Right about utterly pointless things when their goal should be getting out from under the river. Nothing is explained, especially the terribly ambivalent ending.

Avatar: The High Ground, Volume 3 ★★★
A solid prequel to the new film. Jake Sully and Ney'tiri now have a family. The 2nd volume pretty much sets up this finish.

Outpost Zero: The Complete Collection ★★★
A story about a space colony that was lost on an icy planet decades ago. They are slowly losing their knowledge of how things work. The story revolves around some 14 year old kids who survive after one of them commits suicide.

Eve Online: Capsuleer Chronicles ★★
Like a lot of Dark Horse tie-in books, it requires you to have played the game to know at all what's going on. It's about the backstories of four capsuleers in this space battle they can't win.

Wiper ★★★
Some solid future noir. It's about a private detective. She's a Wiper meaning that she wipes out her memory after each case. A robot hires her to find a missing person which eventually takes her off Earth.

The Golem of Venice Beach ★★★
Chanan Biezer's debut graphic novel is about a 400-year old golem surviving in Venice Beach. He's protecting the last family of the Rabbi who created him.

Project MK-Ultra Vol. 2: Sex, Drugs, and the CIA ★
I couldn't follow this at all. The story is super-complicated and lots of drugs are given making the storytelling suspect.

The Mare ★★★
A story about a young, down on her luck woman who suffers from sleep paralysis. Nothing is working so that she can sleep soundly.

Destroy All Monsters ★★★
It's 1988 now and Ethan is feeling old as he takes on a case about a shady real estate developer. I think that's part of the reason why I didn't like this book as much as the rest of the Reckless series, the weak villain. I typically love anything Brubaker and Phillips touch.

Nomen Omen, Vol. 1: Total Eclipse of the Heart ★★★
This book is seriously complicated. It's urban fantasy. It's about a color blind girl who only sees magic in color. There's some stuff tucked away in there about fairies and old Irish gods. I think multiple reads may be necessary to figure it all out once I've finished all of it.

Zatanna: The Jewel of Gravesend ★★
Another DC YA reimagining of one of their characters. This is about a rich teenage Zatanna Starr (It's not even the correct last name.) living at an elephant-shaped hotel at Coney Island. Her parents, Ezra and Lola, are illusionists with a show at their hotel, expecting their daughter to follow in their footsteps.

Buffy '97 ★★
A pointless and not very good one-shot for the 25th anniversary and 15 pages of stories from the 25th anniversary special plus some reprint stories.

Spider-Man: The Darkest Hours ★★★★
Jim Butcher, the author of The Dresden Files once wrote a very good Spider-Man novel.

Arkham City - The Order of the World ★★
A Vertigo take on some of Batman's weirder villains. It's set after A-Day when Arkham was destroyed and all the inmates went free. Dr. Joy happened to be off work that day and was one of the few people working at Arkham to escape death. Now she's working to "capture" the inmates as she descends into madness.

Young Justice, Book Six ★★★
This is alright. It finishes off the original Young Justice series by Peter David and Todd Nuack.

Artifacts, Volume 1 ★★★
Longtime comics Witchblade and The Darkness are the foundations for this Top Cow event series. Turns out there are actually 13 artifacts that give people powers and if they are all combined the world will be "born anew". This is all setup for the series as the users of the artifacts align into two factions for the rest of the series.

Supernatural: Origins ★★★
A John Winchester origin story. It takes place shortly after Mary's death. John is lost and learns to become a Hunter while abandoning a young Sam and Dean for awhile.

Mohammad wrote: "Serial was my first book of Terry Moore. now I'm going for Stranger in Paradise @Erin"

All Terry Moore is pretty great. But this is where you should start.

Erin wrote: "I might have to try this one out! I was so obsessed with his series Rachel Rising a year or two ago."

Serial is about the young girl from Rachel Rising.

A small 5th week at the LCS today.

Nightwing 2022 Annual
Strange Academy: Finals #1
Strange Academy: Finals #2
Justice Society of America #1

kaitlphere wrote: "Re: Chad: Scurry looks great! I'll have to check that out. It sounds like it could be similar to Cottons: The Secret of the Wind."

I'll let you know when I've read it. I just put it on hold at the library.

Manu wrote: "Reading Klaus as part of my annual getting into the holiday spirit theme."


That's a good pace to start. There's some smaller one-off adventures that are solid too.

I liked Young Avengers quite a bit. The Keiron Gillen / Jamie McKelvie series is really good too although it's a different team.

Jason Aaron's Avengers is big, bombastic and rarely makes sense. It may be his first Marvel stuff I haven't really liked. Heroes Reborn was a complete waste of time.

I think Miles in this universe is just as good, at least while Bendis was writing it. It just takes some time to adjust to the changes.

Last week's adventures in comics.

John Carpenter's Tales of Science Fiction: Vortex 2.0 ★★★★
It's 20 years later and somehow Dixon has reappeared. Turns out the monsters from the first series have been integrated into people as prosthesis but appear to be benign. Yeah, right. Like that will last.

John Carpenter’s Tales for a Halloween Night Volume 8 ★★★★
The 2022 edition of the annual Halloween anthology. I do skip the one-page interstitials (They finally switched from cats to an Egyption theme.) as they make no sense to me but the stories themselves are fantastic.

Scurry ★★★★★
Fantastic art. Great story. It's about a starving mouse colony after humans have all disappeared. Highly recommended.

Godzilla vs. the Mighty Morphin Power Rangers ★★★
A by-the-numbers crossover of the two properties.

Batgirls Vol. 1 ★★★
Most people seemed to like this more than I did. It was fine, just nothing special. Each of the Batgirls all had series previously that I enjoyed more than this.

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Reborn, Volume 5 – Mystic Sister ★★★
First up is a kind of pointless silent Christmas issue. Then Pablo Tunica illustrates most of the Punk Frogs story.

Red Lightning ★
I got through this, but just barely. I thought about quitting several times. It's about a young man who finds out David Bowie died and is transported 200,000 years in the future, just because.

Lastman, Volume 1 ★★★
A French comic that reads like a Manga. It's about a martial arts tournament in Medieval times. A young man named Adrian who isn't very good is not going to be able to compete in the tournament until a stranger, Richard Aldana, shows up at the last moment who is fantastic. He's clearly somehow from the future, but one of the few people in the tournament who doesn't use magic.

New Masters ★★★★
A story soaked in Afrofuturism. Hundreds of years in the future, the Earth is seen as a planet with dwindling resources while Jupiter is the jewel of the solar system. The only two gates off planet are in Africa. A young girl and her parents are the main characters. They get embroiled in a scheme that could remake Earth as a go-to world again.

Ava's Demon, Book One: Reborn ★★★
This is a long-time webcomic that Image is now re-releasing. There's an enormous amount of exposition and standing around talking in this. It's about a girl in a sci-fi universe that is plagued by a demon who turns out to be the reincarnation of a past galactic ruler who is looking to get the band back together. There's some multimedia stuff that is missing from the physical release since it's no longer a webcomic here.

Today's trip to the LCS.

Dark Crisis: The Dark Army #1
DC Vs. Vampires #11
Image! #8
Parker Girls #3
X-Force #34
X-Men #17
Once Upon a Time at the End of the World #1

Last week's adventures in comics. Winding down with the Halloween leftovers. Back to work now so the list is much shorter.

Sacred Six V. 2: War of the Roses ★★★
I didn't know quite what was going on a lot of the time but I still liked it. Priest's nonlinear storytelling got too nonlinear in this.

John Carpenter's Tales of Science Fiction: Vault ★★★
Falls into the trapped on a spaceship trope, ala Alien or Event Horizon.

American Vampire, Vol. 8 ★★★★
The series is still fun but it's getting pretty outlandish. I mean "Vampires... in space, really?!"

John Carpenter's Tales of Science Fiction: Civilians ★★★
Not one of Swierczynski's best stories. It's about people randomly going nuts in L.A. and people can't figure out why.

Constantine: Distorted Illusions ★★★
As with most Kami Garcia comics, this is fine. It's a YA version of Hellblazer. It's way more focused on John's new girlfriend than the basic demon possession story.

750cc Down Lincoln Highway ★★
Everyone seems to be doing travelogues these days. Which is fine when they serve a point.

John Carpenter's Tales for a Halloweenight: Volume 5 ★★★★
A really good Halloween anthology series, much better than most.

Spider-Man: The Return of the Sinister Six ★★★
The title pretty much says it all. The Sinister Six gets together and makes their play in the 2nd half.

John Carpenter's Tales of Science Fiction: Hell ★★★
A lot of these John Carpenter stories follow traditional tropes from horror or monster movies. This follows the trope of an underground world filled with reptilian people and monsters.

John Carpenter’s Tales for a Halloween Night Volume 6 ★★★★
If you actually want scary stories for Halloween, this is the place to go.

John Carpenter's Tales of Science Fiction: Vortex ★★★★
At this point, there's rarely original stories set in space, especially horror ones. So it's important to do the tropes very well if you are going to do them. And that's what this is. It's The Thing set in The Expanse.

John Carpenter’s Tales for a Halloween Night Volume 7 ★★★★
This annual Halloween anthology is consistently good. I do skip the one-page cat interstitials as they make no sense to me but the stories themselves are fantastic.

kaitlphere wrote: "Re: Chad: You read SO MANY books! I added a number of these to my to-read list. I do most of my reading through the library, but I really might just buy Dreams Factory after your glowing review."

Having to take a month off to relax and recuperate was very good for my book backlog. I went from over 100 books out at the library to less than 12 now. I'm back to work now. Today makes a week.

Today's trip to the LCS.

Stargirl: The Lost Children #1 - Geoff Johns returns for a Stargirl miniseries.
World's Finest #9
By the Horns - Dark Earth #6
Worlds without a Justice League: Batman
DC Vs. Vampires: ll-Out War #5
Gambit #5
Immortal X-Men #8
Junkyard Joe #2
Nightwing #98
Something Is Killing the Children #26
Batman: One Bad Day: Mr. Freeze

Last week's adventures in comics. Lots of Halloween leftovers still.

Aquaman/Green Arrow - Deep Target ★★★
The two switch places during a bunch of time travel nonsense.

Verse Book 2: The Second Gate ★★★★
A Gate is opened and it's bad news for the world. Civilization seems to be on its last legs unless something can be done.

Spider Man: Hobgoblin Lives ★★★
Back in the 1980's, Hobgoblin's identity was a big mystery that went on for years. Only Roger Stern knew his identity. Then Stern left Marvel for DC without divulging said identity and Tom DeFalco and Ron Frenz took over, blaming Ned Leeds in Spider-Man vs. Wolverine. For years, he was the first Hobgoblin until Roger Stern finally returned to set the record straight in the mid 90's.

Spirits of Venom ★★★\
Spider-Man, Johnny Blaze, Ghost Rider, and Venom end up in the sewers trying to protect a priest.

John Carpenter's Night Terrors: The Coffin Road ★★★
Your standard ghost story set in the woods of Maine. A tow truck driver has to get this dead girl off the Coffin Road before dawn hits and she's stuck there forever.

Nottingham Vol. 2: A King's Ransom ★★★★
A way more complicated and violent take on Robin Hood than I've seen before where the Sheriff may actually turn out to be the hero.

John Carpenter's Night Terrors: Sour Candy ★★★★
Solid comic book horror based on a novella by Kealan Patrick Burke. It's about a guy who witnesses a crazy kid and crazier mother freak out in a Wal-Mart. He ends up becoming the kid's new dad when the mother kills herself.

John Carpenter's Night Terrors: Second Nature ★★★★
Denis Calero writes and draws a murder mystery in a town full of werewolves.

American Vampire, Vol. 5 ★★★★★
The last of the truly great Vertigo titles. In volume 5, we get two concurrent stories. In the first one, Agent Hobbes is in Europe with Felicia Book and Gus trying to stop the return of Count Dracula. Then over in the main book, Henry and Pearl head back to Hollywood when they are attacked.

John Carpenter's Night Terrors: Black Sparrow ★★★★
You had me at Supernatural Western.

John Carpenter's Night Terrors: 13 Horsemen ★★★
Non stop fighting demons that mostly seemed like vampires. No exposition or reasons why all these bikers have turned to demons.

John Carpenter's Night Terrors: Graveyard Moon ★★★
A simple, short story from Steve Niles about a Earth in the future where there is nowhere left on Earth to bury the dead so the rich ship their dead to Jupiter.

Shuri and T'Challa: Into the Heartlands ★★
A middle school aged graphic novel featuring T'Challa and Shuri as children. The two bicker constantly and it gets the land in trouble when a techno-organic virus is introduced.

Batman: Shadow War ★★★★
A surprisingly good crossover of Batman, Robin, and Deathstroke Inc plus some special issues.

Deadman Tells the Spooky Tales ★★
A DC Halloween anthology for children.

Miles Morales: Stranger Tides ★★★
Fine for kids but lacking for adults. It's about the Stranger coming to Earth to take over the world through a video game.

Titans United ★★★
This was a bit odd just because it clearly wasn't set in the current DC Universe or in the TV show. It's more of an evergreen story I guess with most of the core Titans plus Superboy and the Red Hood.

American Vampire, Vol. 6 ★★★★
Two one-shots that bridged the gap while American Vampire was on hiatus.

American Vampire, Vol. 7 ★★★★★
The Second Cycle begins as we head into the 60's. Pearl is back on her family farm operating an underground railroad for vampires.

Days of Sugar and Spice ★★
An OK story about a woman in Paris whose father dies and leaves her his small town bakery.

Future State: Gotham Vol. 2: The Next Joker ★★★
I liked this better than the first volume as it felt more focused. It's about a new but boring Joker coming on the scene and all of the Bat-Family trying to stop him.

John Carpenter Presents Storm Kids: Hyperbreed ★★
An uninspired sci-fi comic about three hyperbreed long-haulers in space who are framed by the corporation they work for.

John Carpenter’s Tales of Science Fiction: Redhead ★★★★
A girl who has felt unseen uncovers a power to blow people's heads off if they come too close to her.

The Marvels, Vol. 1: The War In Siancong ★★
Kurt Busiek's attempt to bring Astro City into the Marvel Universe.

John Carpenter Presents Storm Kids: Monica Bleue A Werewolf Story ★★★
Something of a bare bones werewolf story about a teenager who gets turned into a werewolf and discovers the wolf who turned her is murdering children.

The week before last's comic book reading.

Trial of the Amazons ★★
A pointless crossover. It begins with a major character dying that never satisfactorily get resolved. The murderer eventually gets revealed without any reasoning behind it and then is forgiven, just because.

DC Horror Presents: Soul Plumber ★
This was billed as horror. However, the creators of the Last Podcast on the Left confuse horror with just being gross. The story doesn't make a lick of sense. It's more concerned with showing, feces, urine, vomit, etc than any kind of comprehensible story.

Batman: Bruce Wayne, Murderer? ★★★★
Bruce Wayne and Sasha Bordeaux come home from a night of crime fighting to find Bruce's ex-girlfriend, Vesper Fairchild, murdered in Wayne Manor and take the blame.

Teen Titans Academy, Vol. 2: Exit Wounds ★★
This was finally released and I don' even know why I bothered.

Black Panther Legends ★★★
A middle grade version of the Black Panther's origins.

Spider-Ham: Hollywood May-Ham ★★★★
I thought this was a fun children's book featuring one of my favorite goofy characters. Spider-Ham follows Mary-Jane Waterbuffalo to LA when she picks up a role on a movie about Spider-Ham.

Snake Eyes: Deadgame ★★
Exactly what you'd expect when Rob Liefeld writes G.I. Joe.

Wonder Woman: Evolution ★★★
Wonder Woman gets wrapped up in a battle where she doesn't know what's real.

Batman: One Dark Knight ★★★
Batman is escorting a new villain E.M.P. across town from Arkham to Blackgate. E.M.P. wakes up and knocks out all the power in the city. Now Batman was to take E.M.P. across the city on foot while avoiding gangs and someone with ulterior motives to make sure he doesn't make it.

Spider-Man: Round Robin ★★★
Moon Knight thought his old partner, Midnight, had been murdered by the Secret Empire. Turns out thy rebuilt him as a cyborg and twisted him into working for them. Now Spider-Man, Moon Knight, Night Thrasher, Nova, the Punisher, and Darkhawk all team up to try and take both Midnight and the Secret Empire down.

Vuzz, L'intégrale ★★★
Comics from a simpler time. Vuzz had few goals in his barren wasteland world. To fight. To eat. To have sex. The comic is that simplistic, with long wordless passages and big, battle scenes.

M Is for Monster ★★★★
A different take on the Frankenstein story.

Avatar: The High Ground, Volume 2 ★★★
This was written by James Cameron as a prequel to the new movie coming out at Christmas. It's surprisingly pretty good considering how the original movie is all flash with little substance.

Witchy Vol. 2 ★★★
not as good as the first volume but more focused

Verse Book 1: The Broken Half ★★★★
A book set in a fantasy world where magic has went away. What is left is controlled by mindless creatures called the Vel.

The Last Halloween: Children ★★★★★
A very long and enjoyable read about 10 year old Mona, who is humanity's only hope to stop the destruction of the world on Halloween. Mona and her nightmarish friends are mankind's last hope to find out and stop what's happening.

Maze ★★★★
A story about a hero and his boy transversing insane worlds. But when the boy stops coming, the world begins to fall apart leaving Goreck alone.

The Collector: Unit 731 ★★
A story about an immortal who collects objects from people. He was a prisoner in a real-world prisoner camp in China during World War II.

Blitz T01 ★★
None of these sports-type manga have ever done much for me. This one isn't any different.

Titan ★★
A sci-fi graphic novel about an aging colony on Titan where the Titans have been engineered for over the last 100 years for a low gravity environment to work in this factory.. The regular terrans come in for shorter spans as management. Da Silva is the new plant manager trying to keep things going in this aging plant that time has passed by.

Mr. Lovenstein Presents Failure ★★★★
Some fun but dark web comics about anxiety and the struggle to try. I liked how they had a punchline and then you turned the page for a second punchline.

Elle(s), Vol. 1: The New Girl ★★
Everyone else seemed to love this book but me. I did like how each different color hair she has in a panel is a different personality. I just didn't think it ran true to how Dissociative Identity Disorder works.

Naughty List: The Complete Series ★★★
This had the potential to be fantastic but suffers from being all exposition. It's about Santa Claus if it was a curse.

Little Monsters, Vol. 1 ★★
Not the most original comic these two have come up with. It's about child vampires in a post-apocalyptic future playing games with one another and reduced to eating rats until they come across their first human in centuries.

Venus in the Blind Spot ★★★
This is labeled as a best of the best collection from Juni Ito but I'd only read "The Enigma of Amigara Fault." and the really short insubstantial story following it before.

American Vampire, Vol. 1 ★★★★★
It's not too often that good vampire comics come out. That's probably why I decided to re-read "American Vampire" now that it's finally over.

Shiver: Selected Stories ★★★★
A curated collection of some of Ito's better stories along with some short commentary for each one.

American Vampire, Vol. 2 ★★★★★
We've moved from 1925 to 1936. There's two main stories, one with Skinner Sweet, the other with Pearl Jones.

Smashed: Junji Ito Story Collection ★★★★★
This was the best short story collection of Ito's I've read out of the last few.

Green Lantern: Alliance ★★★
This sequel to Green Lantern:Legacy was really done well. It's mainly another generation of Green Lantern and Flash team up as Tai meets and teams up with the Irey, Wally West's daughter and the latest Kid Flash.

American Vampire, Vol. 3 ★★★★★
The third stop on my American Vampire re-read. This time we've moved to the 1940's after a one issue Skinner Sweet flashback. It's an extra long volume that contains a miniseries in addition to the regular run.

American Vampire, Vol. 4 ★★★★★
Continuing along in my American Vampire re-read as we head to the 1950's.

A long list of stuff I've read as I try to get back on a regular weekly schedule. I was off work for a month so I read a ton. I planned on making this list the 2nd half of October but I reached the character limit. Just to the 26th.

Doughnuts and Doom ★★★★
A witch who has trouble performing in public and a aspiring singer meet under strenuous circumstances. Will they realize they could be something much more? A light and sassy sapphic romance.

Sacred Lamb ★★
A cool idea with poor presentation. It's about a secret town in the middle of nowhere for survivors of slashers.

Night Terror ★★★★
Pure nightmare fuel. Images of children accompanied by horrific creatures. All with looks of ennui on their faces.

Spa ★★
I didn’t get this. It was just random things happening at this spa. There was no thru line or story to speak of. The characters all had the same doltish, fugly look.

We Have Demons ★★
Snyder’s first foray into digital comics is a generic snooze fest set at the end of the world. It’s about a group of people who fight demons.

Snow Angels: Season Two ★★
I couldn’t make heads or tails of what was happening with this story. Lots of chasing outside the trench. Didn’t really pick up why though. I expected a lot more out of Snyder and Jock.

Dreams Factory ★★★★
Gorgeous art and story. It’s about a young girl working in a coal mine in poor working conditions when her little brother goes missing. She finds him in a factory where the children have forgotten who they are and work as automatons.

I Am Batman, Vol. 1 ★★★
There's not much digging into Jace's character here. That was done more in Second Son. Here, he finally becomes a second Batman and operates at the peripherals of Fear State.

Cowboy Bebop: Supernova Swing ★★★★
The first comic book miniseries based on the Netflix series. A vest that collects luck has been created and everyone in the solar system wants it after it’s used to rob a casino.

Hawkeye: Go West ★★★★
You can rarely go wrong with a Kelly Thompson penned series. This repackaging is actually a couple of series put together.

West Coast Avengers, Vol. 2: City of Evils ★★★★
Thompson sort of ties up some of the loose ends from her previous Hawkeye series as we finally get some rushed answers about Kate's mom, although both of her parents' stories (and Madame Masque's) are unresolved.

The War of the Realms: Journey Into Mystery ★★★★
Doesn't play much into the actual War of the Realms but it sure is a lot of fun. Turns out Thor has a baby sister and Sindr wants her. Enter in a bunch of c-level heroes to go on the run with her across America.

Gyo ★★★★★
Gross-out horror at its best. A couple on vacation come across a fish walking on legs. The smell is beyond awful. The next thing you know, there's a shark with legs attacking. It's terrifying in its simplicity.

Deserter: Junji Ito Story Collection ★★★★
One of Junji Ito's elder horror anthologies. But being older, doesn't make it any less scary.

Heroes Reborn: America’s Mightiest Heroes Companion, Vol. 2 ★★
These alternate world one-off stories aren't very interesting.

Jessica Jones: Purple Daughter ★★★★
The Purple Man was thrown into the sun. So why did Luke Cage and Jessica Jones's daughter turn purple two days later?

Godlings and the Gates of Chaos ★★
Feels like it's trying to be the next big property. It's about the Gods of old having returned as teenagers.

Wolvenheart, Vol. 1: Legendary Slayer ★★★
The Blade / Wolfman / Van Helsing mashup never lives up to it's potential, but it's all right and the art is solid.

Fuck Off Squad ★★★
A slice of life comic about three teenagers in a band in San Diego.

Captain America Epic Collection: Sturm Und Drang ★★★★
After an adventure in an alternate future with Dreadlok, we switch focus to the Falcon miniseries, consisting of a shelved Marvel Fanfare story and a 3 part story with a local gang kidnapping President Reagan. Then it's almost all build up to the return of the Red Skull for issue 300 along with Mother Superior and Baron Zemo.

Justice League Infinity ★★★
A Justice League adventure set in the animated universe. Crisis is even taking place there.

The Lords of Earthly Vengeance (Avengers Forever, #1) ★★★
This book is fine. Completely unnecessary but fine. It tries to be its own thing after the events of Avengers #750 which surprised me. It's about Robbie Reyes and some alternate universe Avengers trapped in a doomed universe.

Deadpool: Samurai, Vol. 2 ★★
if you prefer speed lines over backgrounds and a story, this may be for you. These Marvel Viz comics are terrible.

The Agency ★★
Sex positive but somewhat incoherent vignettes.

Hendrix: Electric Requiem ★★
A flyover approach to Jimi's life.

Pearl of the Sea ★★★
This was shown more than told. It's about a young girl and her down on his luck dad in a small town. They are going to need to move because he can't find a job. She comes across a sea monster in her times at sea.

Empty Eyes ★★★★
A short and creepy graphic novel about 3 kids left alive and alone in a orphanage after a typhus outbreak during World War I.

Cinderella Speaks Up: An Untraditional Graphic Novel ★★★★
A modern version of the Cinderella story where Cinderella makes a friend who stands up for her.

Behind the Curtain ★★
The rare World War 2 comic that didn't really go anywhere. It's about 2 preteen half-Jewish girls living in France.

Masks, Volume 1: The Mask without a Face ★★★
A lot of this hasn't really been explained yet. There's these masks that give certain teenagers powers. A kid who gets in trouble with a Mexican Cartel is the focus of this story.

Welcome to Pandorient (The Music Box #1) ★★★★
A sweet little world about a girl who discovers her recently dead mother used to visit another world in a music box called Pandorient.

Abyss (Batman, #6) ★★★
Williamson knew he was only writing Batman for a short time and so gives us a short arc. Gotham City is celebrating after the end of the Magistrate. Batman end up heading to a third world country where Batman Inc has apparently murdered this Abyss character.

RWBY/Justice League ★★★
I know nothing about the world of RWBY except what I read here. You don't need to know anything about the Justice League. This is definitely an Elseworlds with all the JL characters set within the world of Remnant.

Batman: The Imposter ★★★★
this is a standalone Elseworlds tale where Batman grew up without the influence of Alfred and Gordon was ran out of Gotham for helping Batman. It's also a real-world approach to Batman where he was actually making a difference until someone started impersonating Batman and killing criminals

Superman '78 ★★★★
Playing hard on nostalgia vibes, Superman '78 is set after Superman II when Richard Donner was replaced as director. It sets its sights firmly on Braniac giving the standard 80's version of the character.

War of the Bounty Hunters (Star Wars: Darth Vader, #3) ★★
By far the worst of the War of the Bounty Hunters volumes. Vader has been humbled and back in he Emperor's graces, but he's sent of to do ancillary things during the crossover.

The Ghoul Next Door ★★★
A kids' graphic novel about making friends in the strangest places. One day while cutting through the cemetery, Grey sees a ghoul, although he thinks he must be crazy. Eventually, the two become friends which set off all kinds of warning bells with the other ghouls.

Mezek ★★★
The story of foreign mercenary pilots in Israel right after the end of World War II.

Superman: Action Comics, Vol. 2: The Arena ★★★★★
Superman does epic sci-fi fantasy. Superman and this new version of the Authority head to Warworld where they get their asses kicked.

Nancy wrote: "I enjoyed White Ash by Charlie Stickney, Conor Hughs and Fin Cramb which originally came out on Kickstarter before Scout Comics published the first volume. It is a fantasy story set in a coal-minin..."

That is a fantastic series. I keep waiting for the next volume to come out.

I had a small stroke two weeks ago. I'm getting back to normal (but eating better) What I read while on the mend..

Marjorie Finnegan, Temporal Criminal Vol. 1 ★★★
Becomes a super complicated plot about two scumbags trying to subtly change our history for the worst.

Snow Angels: Season Two" ★★
I couldn’t make heads or tails of what was happening with this story. Lots of chasing outside the trench. Didn’t really pick up why though. I expected a lot more out of Snyder and Jock.

Black Hops: U.S.A.-*-G.I.: Omnibus Volume 1 ★★
An extremely smart rabbit works with other altered animals to protect America.

Hegemony (Delta Squadron Book 1) ★★
Some kind of military story. Nothing was explained and it was only 17 pages long. Left me pretty confused as to the point of it.

We Have Demons ★★
Snyder’s first foray into digital comics is a generic snooze fest set at the end of the world. It’s about a group of people who fight demons.

Silk Hills ★★
This one didn’t make a lot of sense. It’s about a private eye looking for someone in a small town. They quickly start seeing strange things doing with moths and deer that turn into people.

Usagi Yojimbo: Tengu War! (Usagi Yojimbo (2019-)) ★★★★
Sakai goes eerie supernatural for most of the stories in this book.

Wonderland Vol. 2 ★★
Wonderland goes after Callie and her daughter again. Pretty much exactly the same as the last time.

Bettie Page: Queen of the Nile ★★★★
The queen of the pinup girls blasts off across time and space.

Doughnuts and Doom ★★★★
A witch who has trouble performing in public and a aspiring singer meet under strenuous circumstances. Will they realize they could be something much more? A light and sassy sapphic romance.

Angel, Vol. 1: Parallel Hell ★★★
Angel set in alternate universe where Angel and Cordi are TV detectives. Behind the scenes everything is pretty much the same as the main universe.

Dejah Thoris vs. John Carter ★★★
Dejah Thoris and John Carter are cut off from their Allie’s with the Longborns threatening to return.

Robin, Vol. 2: I Am Robin ★★★
The League of Lazarus tournament ends with the real reason behind it revealed.

Black Adam: The Dark Age ★★★★
Black Adam’s wife is dead. So is most of Kahndaq. Black Adam is the most wanted person on the planet. All he wants is to bring Isis back to life.

Blue Beetle, Vol. 1: Shellshocked ★★★
A new Blue Beetle appears in El Paso. This one is extraterrestrial with all kinds of powers.

Blue Beetle, Vol. 2: Road Trip ★★★★
I thought this was cleaner an more assessable than the first volume.

Tart Vol. 1 ★★★★
A bit confusing at times but still very enjoyable. It’s about some women who were killed and now have one back as some kind of spirits that help people and kill demons.

Concrete Jungle Vol. 1 ★★★
A hard boiled detective comic set in future Miami. There’s lots of alien scumbags along with a dirty cop and a clean telepath.

Die!namite Vol. 1 ★★★★
The dead invade the many realms of Dynamite. Red Sonja, Vampirella, Peter Canyon, Thunderbolt, Evil Ernie, Project Superpowers, John Carter and a few others all get involved when zombies threaten all their worlds.

Moon Knight Omnibus Vol. 2 ★★★
The second half of the original Moon Knight series along with the second miniseries and some odds and ends. Almost 1,000 pages of comics.

DC Pride 2021 ★★★★
This is one area where DC is far better than Marvel, with their Pride characters. They are much more in the mainstream.

Sacred Six Vol. 1: Numerology ★★★★
Picks up where Vamperella: Seduction of the Innocent left off. Six women are pulled to a small town outside Atlanta where vampires live in peace. Someone is trying to start a war with the undead here after 2 boys go missing.

Marvel's Voices: Pride ★★★
Because of the nature of these types of anthologies, the stories can sometime feel forced. This is the case for some of the stories here but each year they get better and better and get further away from the cliched stories we are used to .

Marvel's Secret Reverse ★★
Another crummy stab at a Western Marvel comic from Viz.

Red Sonja: The Superpowers Collection ★★★
A bit of a generic story about Red Sonja joining the Dynamite’s superpowers team.

Ito Junji's Cat Diary ★★★
It's amazing how Junji Ito can take a rather mundane book about his new family getting two cats and turn it into horror.

Marvel's Voices: Legacy ★★
Marvel has pushed a bunch of these specials out, but this one is not good at all.

The Realm Vol. 2 ★★★
Will and the Rook separate from the rest of the group to go after the orcs that set up the last arc's ambush. Eventually everyone gets sidetracked underground where they fight some spider-people, gelatinous cubes and other creatures.

The Realm Vol. 3 ★★★★
UInfortunately, this seems to be the last volume of this series and it's far from being resolved. That being said, this is another great volume of D and D fueled adventure

Space Bastards Vol.10: Special Delivery ★★
Random stories featuring the space bastiches who run the postal service.

Captain America: Heroes Return - The Complete Collection, Vol. 2 ★★★★
The majority of this deal with the return of the Red Skull, now with the powers of the Cosmic Cube.

Family Reunion (Hawkeye: Kate Bishop, #3) ★★★★
Kate and Clint team up in L.A. to stop Eden and Madame Masque. There's a top of great quips and some character moments with Kate's screwed up parents.

Last week's adventures in comics.

Blood Stained Teeth Volume 1: Bite Me ★★
A vampire is in trouble for making other vampires to earn cash. The vampire council has given him a month to track all of these vamps down and kill them.

He Who Fights With Monsters ★★★
As a last resort, some Jews hiding from the Nazis revive a Golem. He doesn't do a whole lot in the long term though and this story overall seemed a bit pointless.

Batman: Urban Legends, Vol. 3 ★★
Batman and Zatanna team up in the first story. While Ace the Bathound has to save Batman in the latter story.

Nubia & the Amazons ★★
If you like your Amazonian stories to be about women in Greek dress standing around talking, this is the book for you.

Punchline: The Trial of Alexis Kaye ★★★
Punchline is on trial for her part in the Joker War but is a master of manipulation, especially on social media.

Hotell Vol. 2 ★★★
Five more interconnected horror tales of weary travelers stopping at Pierrot Courts off Route 66.

Knighted Vol. 1 ★★★★
This really feels like something Garth Ennis would write. It's about a nebbish fellow who accidentally kills The Knight and takes over for him.

Fortnite x Marvel: Zero War ★★★
I only read this on Marvel Unlimited so my nephew could have the codes for Fortnite.

Telepaths Vol. 1 ★★★★
A solar flare causes 10% of the population to gain telepathy, setting off a collision course between a Boston cop and a man on death row.

Jinx Grim Fairy Tales ★★
These could have been good if fleshed out to full stories. Instead the 3 stories are crammed into a 20 page one-shot for Archie's horror line.

Moths ★★★★
This follows around a woman who chooses to gain powers that will kill her in 6 months. Good stuff.

Casual Fling ★★★
Your typical sensual thriller.

American Ronin Vol. 1 ★★
An assassin seeks revenge on the corporation he used to work for. Meanwhile the corp has sent an assassin after him. They both have the ability to take your DNA and inject it into themselves to see your memories. Yeah, it makes no sense.

Last week's adventures in comics

Blacksad: They All Fall Down · Part One ★★★★★
More fantastic anthropomorphic noir in Blacksad

Critical Role: The Mighty Nein Origins--Yasha Nydoorin ★
This thing dragged on much more than a 50-page comic should. The art was awful.

Critical Role: The Mighty Nein Origins: Fjord Stone ★★★★
Fjord Stone grows up as a half-orc facing abuse and prejudice before apprenticing as a sailor.

Vampirella Vol.2: Seduction of the Innocent ★★★★
Christopher Priest manages to tie all of Vampirella's disparate origins together. It's batshit crazy, fun, sexy and cool.

Fight Girls Vol. 1 ★★★★
When the queen of a galactic empire abdicates, 10 women compete in a series of contests to be the next queen.

Dark Knights of Steel Vol. 1 ★★★★★
An Elseworlds set in a fantasy world where Kal-El along with his parents came to a Medieval world. Twenty years later a prophecy has set the House of El, the Kingdom of Storms, and Amazonia at odds.

Eternals, Vol. 2: Hail Thanos ★★★★
More bad news for the Eternals. They just found out that a human dies every time an Eternal is resurrected. Now Thanos has taken over as the Prime Eternal.

Eternals: A History Written In Blood ★★★
I'm not sure why these three issues weren't just included with Eternals, Vol. 2: Hail Thanos where they belong.

Moon Knight Omnibus Vol. 1 ★★★★
This omnibus collects all of Moon Knight's early appearances up through the first 20 issues of his own comic.

X-Men: Hellfire Gala (2022) #1 ★★★
This year's Hellfire Gala mainly serves as a lead-in to AXE: Judgement Day.

Chilling Adventures Presents Weirder Mysteries ★★
The rare dud from Archie's horror line of comics.

Fantastic Four: Full Circle ★★★★
Alex Ross pays homage to the Lee and Kirby days of the Fantastic Four.

Fire Power by Kirkman & Samnee, Vol. 2: Home Fire ★★★★★
It's 15 years later. Owen has left the monastery and started a family hoping that his old life never finds him again. Of course, that's not going to happen.

Fire Power by Kirkman & Samnee, Vol. 3: Flame War ★★★★
This arc completes the immediate story presented but with plenty of unanswered questions for future installments. This book still really excels with fight sequences worthy of a kung-fu movie.

Children of the Grave ★
Three soldiers are visited by ghosts of their past while on the hunt for a cliched terrorist in a made up country.

The Red Mother Vol. 3 ★★
All of my fears were realized in this final volume. This series was such a slow burn throughout its 12 issues that nothing was explained. Haun didn't even try and bother with it.

Today's trip to the LCS

X-Terminators #1
AXE: Judgement Day #5
World's Finest #7
DC Vs. Vampires: All-Out War #3
Fables #155
New Mutants #30
Nightwing #96
X-Men Legends #2
Black Adam #4
Harley Quinn 30th Anniversary Special
Batman - One Bad Day: Two Face #1

Last week's adventures in comics.

The Batman's Grave ★★★★
Batman uncovers a far-reaching plot to murder those in Gotham's Justice system. I really like how Batman uses his detective skills in this, using memory palaces to recreate crime scenes.

Something is Killing the Children, Vol. 5 ★★★★
Starts off a lot like the first arc with Erica showing up in a town where kids are dying. The difference now is Erica no longer has the resources of the House of Slaughter behind her and this monster is a heavy hitter that she doesn't even know how to kill.

We Found a Monster ★★★
Casey is really into old-school monsters. He's so into them that he's got gremlins living in the basement and a vampire in the attic, among other things. The book is written as Casey's diary, full of his doodles and drawings. I think it's a quite interesting format, especially for a kids' book.

Witchblade, Vol. 1 ★★
I was really excited about this Witchblade reboot with a female writer and artist. But after a strong start, the story falls apart.

Lockdown (Daredevil, #7) ★★★★
Matt's still in prison, but now he's become an FBI informant trying to find out why so many prisoners are dying. Meanwhile Bullseye is out on the town murdering random people left and right, leaving Elektra to take him out.

Devil's Reign: A Marvel Event ★★★★★
This is really just a culmination of Zdarsky's Daredevil run, along with a Civil War and Dark Reign redux.

Devil's Reign (Spider-Woman, #4) ★★★★
The book is just the perfect combination of action and fun. Spider-Woman is hilarious. Jess always refers to Lady Bullseye as "Lady Boobsout".

Nancy Drew and the Hardy Boys: The Big Lie ★★★★★
Nancy drew and the Hardy Boys all grown up in a noir take. I loved it.

Batman: Fear State Saga ★★★★
The full Fear State with the Alpha and Omega issues thrown in reads much better.

Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Vol. 8: A Rainbow Upon Her Head ★★
What a shock! Another crappy and short volume of Buffy where nothing happens to a gazillion characters.

Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Vol. 9: Forget Me Not ★★★
Silas, the dimension-traveling, memory vampire is in town and the Scoobies have to figure out how to stop him. I actually liked this volume because things actually happen.

Sonjaversal ★★
There is a Red Sonja multiverse? I think it surprised the writer Christopher Hastings too.

We Live, Vol. 2: Age of the Palladions ★★★★
It's six years later. Hototo and and Tala are grown up and working to protect what's left of humanity as Megapolis 9's defenses begin to fail. The world building and character designs are top notch. I love all these crazy creatures the Mirandas come up with.

Sleeping Beauties, Vol. 2 (Graphic Novel) ★★
Now I need to read the original because this adaptation of the Stephen King novel stinks.

Jim Butcher's Dresden Files: Bigfoot ★★★★
An adaptation of the Dresden Files Bigfoot trilogy of short stories from various anthologies.

Not All Robots, Vol. 1 ★★★
Another social satire from Mark Russell.

Fragments of Horror ★★★
A horror anthology manga from Junji Ito.