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

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

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.

Yesterday's trip to the LCS.

Midnight Sons #1
Maskerade #1
AXE: Judgement Day #4
Predator #2
Savage Avengers #5
Superman: Son of Kal-El #15
X-Men Red #6
Batman Vs. robin #1
Dark Crisis - Worlds without a Justice League: Wonder Woman

Ed wrote: "And because it is locked, I can't respond to this:
"the deluxe editions, which should be titled as "Saga, Book One (Saga, #1-3)", and so on. "

Is that correct? The use of "#1-3" is ambiguous, possibly meaning floppy issues 1 to 3 or trade paperbacks 1 to 3. I'm genuinely not sure what the correct thing to do there is. (If I were creating the entry, I would be explicit in the description, but I'm not sure whether those numbers go in the title field.)"

Everything in parenthesis comes from the first series page the book is associated with. Typically, you'll see this when it comes from a series page for the regular collections and then the larger Deluxe collections from Image gets listed lower to indicate the first three paperbacks. The book could also be tied to a deluxe series page and it's not listed as the first one if you look at the series it's tied to.

It's all part of the reason why the format Tiago was switching the titles to is unsustainable. Not to mention that every book published in the future would then need to be found and changed in perpetuity.

Ed wrote: "Rivka has locked the discussion thread and removed some of the posts.

One of my posts contained nothing more than a link to the librarian manual and she deleted that. What is up with that? That wa..."

Welcome to discussions where Rivka gets involved. I typically try and resolve issues outside of the GR Librarian group just because she or one of the other librarians almost always shut it down without resolving anything. If this case she also deleted half the posts!

Ed wrote: "I often resort to searching on google and letting it find the correct GR page"

I doubt that will work for long when "Daredevil Volume 6: Doing Time" is now just called "Doing Time".

Last week's adventures in comics.

Batman: Black and White ★★★
An anthology of top creators writing short black and white Batman stories.

Batman: The Caped Crusader, Vol. 6 ★★★
Not a whole lot of note in this other than solid Batman stories. Rene Montoya's first appearance is here, first as an aide to Commissioner Gordon then as Harvey Bullock's partner.

Star Wars, Vol. 2: Operation Starlight ★★★
The Rebels are in disarray and pursued by a zealous Imperial admiral.

Star Wars Vol. 3: War of the Bounty Hunters ★★★★
Follows Luke around while we keep checking in with Leia, Chewie, and Lando as they try to rescue Han over in War of the Bounty Hunters.

Star Wars: War of the Bounty Hunters ★★★
Boba Fett has Carbonite Han Solo stolen from him and Han gets put up for auction to the highest bidder bringing all four Star Wars titles together.

Star Wars: Bounty Hunters, Vol. 1: Galaxy’s Deadliest ★★★
The storytelling is muddled with way too many characters and too many flashbacks that should have used different art or coloring to denote.

Star Wars: Bounty Hunters, Vol. 2: Target Valance ★★★
This volume becomes the full-on Valance show. Sacks starts doling out Valance's history along with sending Zuckuss and 4-LOM after him.

Nocterra, Vol. 2: Pedal to the Metal ★★★★
Sundog Convoy is out of options and ideas on how to find Eos and bring daylight back to Earth. As a last resort, they go after Blacktop Bill.

Sleeping Beauties, Vol. 1 ★★
An adaptation of the Stephen and Owen King novel. Women across the world are being cocooned up as soon as they fall asleep.

Spider-Woman Vol. 1: Bad Blood ★★★★
This was entertaining as hell. Jess gets slipped a mickey and now her powers are out of whack and will eventually kill her. And she has to work with the douche bag who did it to try and fix herself.

Spider-Woman Vol. 2: King In Black ★★★★
Spider-Woman continues to be action packed and fun. Jessica's anger is spiraling out of control as she takes this temporary serum while trying to find the High Evolutionary to effect a permanent cure.

Spider-Woman Vol. 3: Back to Basics ★★★★
Jessica is back in her old costume with her powers fixed, but she's so wrapped up in getting her powers back to normal that she starts neglecting her non-costumed life.

Story of Lee 1 ★★
A Chinese girl from Hong Kong meets a British boy in her father's grocery store. It's fine.

Undiscovered Country, Vol. 1: Destiny ★★★
Scott Snyder at his bat-shit craziest. "Let's take every nutso idea I've ever had and cram it into one comic." This is all world building and lacking on any kind of explanations on what's going on.

Spread, Vol. 1: No Hope ★★
Imagine if John Carpenter's The Thing infected Canada and turned it into an arctic Mad Max. Meanwhile Lone Wolf and Cub roam the countryside. Jordan and Straihm confuse gore for horror.

Marvel-Verse: Thor ★★
If these Marvel-Verse books are meant to introduce new readers to the characters, I don't know why Marvel keeps including out of continuity versions of the character.

The Secret Spiral of Swamp Kid ★★★★
This isn't a true graphic novel. It's Swamp Kid's journal, filled with his doodles. I love how it's written in a spiral notebook and it even has little doodles around some of the binder holes just like I used to do as a kid.

Daredevil Vol. 6: Doing Time ★★★
Daredevil's in prison while all his buddies are trying to get him out while he's being an ass and insisting on staying. Elektra taking over as Daredevil is for more interesting, as she does things like taking protection money from the protection rackets in Hell's Kitchen.

Witchblade Rebirth Volume 1 ★★★
Sara Pezzinni moves to Chicago as transitions from a police detective to a private eye. She gets attacked by Lady Gaga in a living meat suit and some witches wearing leather chaps and bikinis so Top Cow still hasn't transitioned out of the women in lingerie comics.

One of the head GR librarians did make the decision several months ago in the library group. They just never made any changes to anything besides The Walking Dead and Y the Last Man. They're understaffed and know nothing about comics so probably would never get around to make lasting changes. About a month ago though, Tiago decided to make this his personal mission to implement the changes to every graphic novel and has been changing hundreds of titles.

I'm not sure if everyone here is aware but Goodreads has made the decision to rename all graphic novels only by their subtitles instead of the long accepted format of "Series Title, Volume Number: Subtitle". This is also the format that publishers like DC or Marvel use to name their graphic novels which Goodreads has decided to ignore. So now we have GNs being renamed from "Darth Vader, Volume 1: Vader" to just "Vader". "Descender Volume 3: Singularities" has been renamed "Singularities". You can no longer search for Descender Volume 3. You have to know it's now just called "Singularities" only on Goodreads. Amazon has it named correctly. I'm sure you can see what kind of havoc that is wreaking on searches.

There's a new thread in the Goodreads Librarian group about this issue. I urge everyone here to voice their opinion on that thread before this site becomes unusable.

https://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/...

Francis wrote: "I’m going to take advantage of my prime subscription and read Snow Angels, Vol. 1. I don’t know anything about this title, but I’ve enjoyed Jeff Lemire’s writing before, so I’m givi..."

I gotta wonder who votes on this stuff. Snow Angels was super generic.

Today's trip to the LCS.

AXE: Death the the Mutants #2
All-Out Avengers #1
Dark Knights of Steel: Tales from the Three Kingdoms #1
Dark Crisis #4
Immortal X-Men #6
Marauders #6
New Mutants #29
Wolverine #24
Once & Future #29
Image! #5

@Omni, all those early Valiant comics are so good.

Last week's adventures in comics.

Squirrel Girl: Universe: A Marvel Heroines Novel ★★★★
Squirrel Girl and her friends get transported to the other side of the galaxy in this prose novel of the eternally positive hero.

The Wheel of Fortune (The Queen's Favorite Witch #1) ★★★★
A commoner witch girl wishes to be more than a potion maker and auditions to be Queen Elizabeth's royal witch.

Amazing Spider-Man: Beyond, Vol. 4 ★★★★
Peter's on the mend while Ben's brain is melting.

E-Ratic Vol. 1 ★★
Just another teen superhero. Kaare Andrew’s writing has never lived up to his art.

Miles Morales: Spider-Man Vol 7: Beyond ★★★
Miles and his unstable clone shift go after some payback with the Assessor.

The Resistance: Uprising ★★★
This story is basically "What if on the tail end of a pandemic 20 or 30 million people gained superpowers?" There's a fascist President in power who throws superpowered beings into camps.

Archangel 8 ★★
Something about angels being treated like Garth Ennis's Punisher. It's incredibly violent with a confusing story behind it that doesn't make much sense.

Wonder Woman Vol. 2: Through A Glass Darkly ★★★
Wonder Woman finally returns to our universe and has to deal with people thinking she was dead for the better part of a year.

Redemption Vol. 1 ★★★★
A Western slant on Mad Max.

Star Wars: Darth Vader Vol. 2: Into the Fire ★★★★
Vader has shown weakness and the Emperor is pissed. He crushes Vader and leaves him broken on Mustafar to try and reclaim himself.

Star Wars, Vol. 1: The Destiny Path ★★★★
Picks up immediately after The Empire Strikes Back. Both fills in some of the unanswered questions between Empire and Jedi, but also adds in little Easter eggs to tie in The Force Awakens, Rebels, and the High Republic and none of it feels forced.

Frankenstein ★★★
Junji Ito adapts Frankenstein plus 10 stories about alternate realities.

The Book Tour ★★
A befuddled author goes on a book tour where he's repeatedly conned and pushed around by those he meets as he just rolls with whatever nonsense is thrown at him.

Justice League: Last Ride ★★★★
The Justice League gets back together for one last mission.

Vampirella: Seduction of the Innocent Vol. 1 ★★★★
Vampirella is seeing a court appointed therapist after being the only survivor of a plane crash. I love how he thinks she's absolutely nuts as she talks about being an alien with vampire like powers fighting actual vampires and werewolves with paramilitary nuns.

Mann's World ★★
A poorly written Deliverance set in outer space.

Canavan wrote: "I read the first volume (collecting Issues 1-5) of Something is Killing the Children by James Tynion IV (author) & Werther Dell’Edera (artist) (BO..."

The first 3 volumes are one arc. I really dig it but if you aren't hooked already you may want to call it and move onto something else.

The first half of Snyder's and Capullo's Batman run is excellent. The back half gets a little wonky at times. I just reread it myself over the summer.

That Black Widow comic is fantastic too.

Yesterday's trip to the LCS.

House of Slaughter #8
We Only Find Them When They're Dead #13
Gambit #2
Knights of X #5
X-Force #31
X-Men #14
Thunderbolts #1
Batman - One Bad Day: The Riddler
DC's Saved by the Belle Reve #1
Amazing Fantasy #1000 <--- Spider-Man 60th Anniversary issue.

Whitney wrote: "Sandman is very good! I haven’t read the comics (it’s on my unending list of stuff to get to) but the show is great."

I haven't finished the TV show yet but what I've watched so far adheres to the comic pretty well other than character's genders and ethnicities being swapped and I'm cool with that as long as the characters are the same.

Whitney wrote: "Erin wrote: "Whitney wrote: "I’m rereading Paper Girls."

I really need to do that! Have you watched the show at all yet?"

Sorry, I didn’t see your question until now!

Yes and no. I am really rea..."

I watched the first 2 episodes. They seemed to have changed both the tone and subject of the show and not for the better. It's a much more serious drama now. The Goonies type action and fun are missing. The focus seems to be on adult Erin versus kid Erin and not living up to childhood expectations. I decided to switch over and watch Sandman instead which I'm enjoying much more.