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

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

Last week's comic book adventures.

Slaughterhouse-Five ★★★★
A great adaptation of an unadaptable novel.

The Photographer of Mauthausen ★★★★
Th true story of a prisoner of war in a WWII concentration camp who risked his life to smuggle pictures of the atrocities committed out of the camp.

Jungle Girl Vol. 2 ★★★
More Mysterious Island type story with some schlocky 50's B-movieness thrown in.

Nicnevin and the Bloody Queen ★★
A really cool idea with piss-poor execution.

The Resistance ★★★★
A worldwide pandemic sweeps the globe killing 400 million people before mysteriously stopping. The survivors gain superpowers. The first issue came out right as the Lockdown started.

Year Zero ★★
Ben Percy bites off more than he can chew in this zombie story or 5 stories actually and that's the problem.

Batman, Vol. 1: Their Dark Designs ★★★★
Batman gets wrung through another gauntlet as 5 assassins arrive in Gotham including Deathstroke. That's how this all starts.

Legion: Secret Origin ★★★
Legion has been rebooted so many times that even longtime fans like myself have a hard time following it.

Ms. Tree: Skeleton in the Closet ★★★★
Ms. Tree is a hard boiled detective reminiscent of Mike Hammer. That's not surprising since Max Allen Collins has also written some Mike Hammer novels with Mickey Spillane. It's great to finally see these back in print.

JSA by Geoff Johns Book Four ★★★★★
Geoff Johns's run on JSA continues to be terrific (or Mr. Terrific if you prefer).

Wolverine: The Daughter of Wolverine ★★
To fit the premise of this run of Marvel Comics Presents, Wolverine has to fight a demon every decade with a witch and her descendants.

Archie & Katy Keene ★★
This was a lot more like classic Archie. There's very little story. There's no drama, nothing interesting happening at all. Most of it trends towards a vapid fashion show.

Baltimore Omnibus Volume 1 ★★★★★
Lord Baltimore quests across World War I era Europe in search of a master vampire who unleashed a supernatural plague and monsters upon humanity.

This week's comic shop trip:

Tales from the Dark Multiverse: Batman - Hush
Sweet Tooth: The Return #1
Wolverine: Black, White & Red #1
Marauders #14
X-Men #14
Star Wars #8
Black Widow #3
Crossover #1
Firepower #5
Thor #9
Year Zero Vol. 2 #1
Grendel: Devil's Odyssey #2-#4
Web of Venom: Empyre's End
La Diabla! #1
Spy Island #3
The Walking Dead: Deluxe #2

Last week's adventures in comics:

The Phantom of the Opera ★★★
A faithful adaptation of the story with beautiful, timeless art.

Fairy Tales Art Portfolio ★★★★
A poster size art book of some of Zenescope's best covers.

Shoplifters Will Be Liquidated ★
The worst comic I've read in a long time.

Lady Mechanika Vol. 6: Sangre ★★★★
Steampunk and vampires, what more can you ask for?

Gung-Ho Vol. 1 ★★★★
Horny Teenagers mixed with the Walking Dead.

Dark Red Vol. 2 ★★★★
Reminded me some of True Blood.

Psi-Lords ★★★
Valiant's version of Green Lantern.

Kidz ★★★
If the kids from Stranger Things survived a zombie apocalypse, this might be that book.

Billionaire Island ★★★★★
Another great social satire from Mark Russell. He has such a great biting wit.

Avatar: The Last Airbender: The Search ★★★
A solid continuation of the TV series. This volume explains what happened to Zuko's mother.

Marvel Universe: Time And Again ★★★
A bunch of Marvel annuals from 2018 where the stories all flashback to earlier times in the character's history.

Hawkeye: Freefall ★★★★
Don't let those terrible Kim Jacinto covers fool you. The interior art is fantastic.

DC: The Doomed and The Damned ★★★★
DC's annual Halloween anthology book.

Ant-Man: World Hive ★★
Very goofy but not very funny. Schlubby Ant-Man like schlubby Spider-Man wears thin on me very quickly.

Iron Man: The End ★★
This is actually the one shot of Iron Man: The End plus a bunch of reprints to drive up the price.

Old Man Hawkeye, Vol. 1: An Eye for an Eye ★★★★
Set 5 years before Old Man Logan, Clint Barton finds out he's losing his vision and decides to go out getting revenge.

Old Man Hawkeye, Vol. 2: The Whole World Blind ★★★★
Nonstop action. Great art by Marco Checchetto.

The Crow: Lethe ★
Has very little to do with The Crow. It's about a circus freak who has last his memory and is being hunted by an immortal serial killer. Terrible storytelling.

Batman: The Three Jokers ★★★★
Some really strong moments with the Red Hood and Batgirl. Almost secondary to the Three Jokers. Jason Fabok's art is phenominal.

Meyer ★★
Posits that Meyer Lansky went on one last caper while living in a retirement home in Florida. Unfortunately, this was hard to follow.

On The Verge ★★
A bunch of one panel cartoons I didn't get.


...And a couple of 1st issues I read.

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: The Last Ronin #1 ★★★★★
A return to the dark, gritty tone of the original Eastman and Laird comics. In the future, the last Ninja Turtle returns to NYC.

American Vampire 1976 #1 ★★★★
American Vampire moves into the seedy 70's.

This week's LCS run:

TMNT: The Last Ronin #1
Hellboy and the BPRD: The Return of Effie Kolb #2
The Autumnal #1-#2
Colonel Weird: Cosmagog #1
Star Wars: Dr. Aphra #5
Strange Academy #4
X-Ray Robot #3
Suicide Squad #10
Legion of Super-Heroes #10
Hellblazer #11
Death Metal: Rise of the New God #1
Action Comics #1026
X of Swords: Stasis #1
Batman: Three Jokers #3

Last week's reading:

Jungle Girl Volume 1 ★★★
Some campy old, B-movie style fun.

Hellblazer, Volume 5: Dangerous Habits ★★★★
Kudos to DC for finally collecting these Jamie Delano stories in the first half but I can see why they didn't. they stink. Then Garth Ennis comes in like a crack of thunder and instantly makes the book interesting.

Amazing Spider-Man by Nick Spencer, Vol. 8: Threats & Menaces ★★★
Meh. Spencer's run on Spider-Man isn't doing it for me.

Hardware: The Man in the Machine ★★★
Revisiting some of the Milestone Comics line.

Red Mother Volume 1 ★★★★
A slow burn horror comic about a woman who loses both her eye and her boyfriend in the park one night while walking through New York. Perfect for Halloween.

Willie Nelson: A Graphic History ★★★★
Willie's a true rebel and music legend, doing things his way.

Batman: Knight Out ★★★
It was refreshing to see 15 Batman issues from the 90's in a row without any interruptions for events. However, these stories weren't anything special.

DC Universe: Rebirth/a> ★★★★★
Went back and re-read this to see what insights it gives into Batman: Three Jokers.

Creepshow ★★★★★
Bernie Wrightson was the perfect choice to illustrate these adaptations of the movie anthology. For years, I've chanted "I want my cake!" on my birthday since I saw this movie as a kid.

Road to Empyre ★★★★
Surprisingly no reprints and all new stories for this lead in to Empyre.

Meet the Skrulls ★★★★
Basically The Americans TV show with skrulls. It's fantastic. Read this before Road to Empyre.

Two Dead ★★★
Loosely based on a true story, a WWII vet with PTSD joins the Little Rock police department where he's saddled with the loose cannon, chief of detectives..

Shadow Master Series Volume 1 ★
Good god, this was awful. The Shadow is barely in it. It's set in the 80's instead of going for the noir of the 40's. The Asian characters were painted yellow. Nuff said.

Star: Birth of a Dragon ★★★★
Spins directly out of Captain Marvel, Vol. 2: Falling Star. Kelly Thompson has created an interesting character with this morally ambiguous character.

Sir Edward Grey, Witchfinder, Vol. 6: Reign of Darkness ★★
Jack the Ripper in the Mignolaverse should be fantastic. Unfortunately, that story is mostly ignored and this was just boring.



And some first issues I got to this week:

Juggernaut #1 ★★★★★
Much better than I expected. Juggernaut helps a kid he finds squatting in a building about to be demoed.

Werewolf by Night #1 ★★★
Taboo from the Black Eyed Peas introduces a Native American Werewolf by Night.

We Live #1 ★★★
The book is set 50 years in the future on a ravaged Earth that is soon going to die. Aliens have sent devices to allow 5,000 children to leave the planet. The children and their guardians now need to make it to the extraction points through jungles full of mutated creatures.

Shang-Chi#1 ★★★
Shang-Chi's past comes back to haunt him. If you want to get all the references though, you'll need to go back and read Master of Kung Fu from the 70's.

The Department of Truth #1 ★★
A cool concept ruined by Martin Simmonds terrible artwork. I couldn't tell what the fuck was happening in half the panels. It might as well have been prose. The art made me furious.

This week's comic book pickups:

Dark Nights Death Metal: Robin King
X-Men #13
Venom #29
Spider-Woman #5
Something Is Killing the Children #11
Skulldigger and Skeleton Boy #5
Shadow Service #3
Maestro #3
Excalibur #13
Stillwater #2
Batman: White Knight Presents Harley Quinn #1
Juggernaut #2
Iron Man #2
The Scumbag #1
Werewolf by Night #1
Devil's Highway #4
Star Wars Bounty Hunters #6
Dead Day #4

Will wrote: "Chad wrote: "I'm going to throw DCeased out there."

DCCeased was pretty cool. Eventhough I really don't like zombie stuff."

Yeah, I thought Taylor did a great job with it. I loved the spin off series he did too, The Unkillables

I'm going to throw DCeased out there.

Last week's light comic book reading.

Carthago Omnibus Volume 1 ★★
There's a great story buried within this hunt for a megalodon and eventually Atlantis. What was just an OK comic could make a great movie with some streamlining to the storytelling.

Doom Patrol: Weight of the Worlds ★★★
Focuses way more on being bizarre than telling a cohesive story, probably having to do some with all the writers and artists that had to pitch in to get this done with Gerard Way only "co-writing" each issue.

Vampironica: New Blood ★★★
It's 3 issues of "You don't know what's going on" frustration followed up the big reveal in issue #4 that's just prologue for another series. Audrey Mok's art though is terrific.

Great Pacific, Volume 2: Nation Building ★★★★
This was a really cool series about a young heir who takes his money to build a new micronation on top of the Great Pacific Garbage Patch.

Great Pacific Volume 3: Big Game Hunters ★★★
Joe Harris does his best to burn this series to the ground after he got the series cancellation notice.

Amazing Spider-Man by Nick Spencer, Vol. 7: 2099 ★★
Although titled 2099, Spider-Man 2099 is only a minor subplot in this book.

John Constantine, Hellblazer Vol. 1: Marks of Woe ★★★
Spurrier ignores the previous 3 John Constantine books of the last 10 years, only acknowledging the original Vertigo series.

Savage Avengers, Vol. 2: To Dine With Doom ★★★
This is not an Avengers book. It's a Marvel Team-Up book starring Conan set in the current Marvel universe.

Red City ★★
A sci-fi noir that doesn't work.

Jungle Girl Volume 1 ★★★
This is like an old campy "B" movie. Jungle Girl helps a group of people when their plane crashlands on an island full of dinosaurs.

The Legend of Korra: Ruins of the Empire ★★★★
Written by one of the cartoon's co-creators. A great continuation of the show.

Strangelands Vol 2 ★★★★
This series is sort of a Mr. & Mrs Smith if they had opposite superpowers that kept them apart but also required them to stay in close proximity.

Just got back from the comic book store.

Dark Nights: Death Metal #4
The Batman's Grave #11
Rorschach #1
Once and Future #12
Strange Adventures #6
New Mutants #13
Hellions #5
Cable #5
Atlantis Wasn't Built for Tourists #2
Superman #26
We Exist #1
Seven Secrets #3
The Doomed and the Damned #1

Last week's light comic book reading.


Uzumaki ★★★★
A strange horror manga about spirals found in nature. Reminded me quite a bit of House of Leaves.

Batman: Curse of the White Knight ★★★★★
A terrific follow up to Batman: White Knight.

Wonder Woman by John Byrne Vol. 3 ★★★
Byrne's run on WW was kind of boring.

Class Act ★★★★
The follow up to the Newbery award winning New Kid .

Artemis & the Assassin ★★★★
Time travelling, assassins and World War II spies. Does it get any better than that?

Moon Lake Vol. 1 ★
This was like a bad, schlocky, 80's horror film. Dan Fogler mistakes being gross with being funny.

Batman: The Demon Trilogy ★★★
The first book in this, Batman:Son of the Demon was Grant Morrison's inspiration for Damian Wayne.

Dragon Hoops ★★★★
A fun read about basketball from an artist who couldn't care less about basketball when they started this project.

I Am Legion ★★★
Once upon a time, John Cassaday worked on a French comic about strigoi in World War II.

The Flash by Geoff Johns Book Six ★★★★
I'm still not happy about Barry Allen returning and taking the Flash mantle back from Wally West but at least Geoff Johns came up with some good reasons for it and did some interesting things with Professor Zoom.

Ed wrote: "Volume 1 is included in Comixology Unlimited. I enjoyed it enough to purchase volume 2. It also led me to discover the publisher "Ahoy Comics" and I also read their High Heaven: The Austerity Gospel about a guy who dies and goes to heaven and it is awful and everyone there hates him.

If you're checking out Ahoy Comics, you should take a look at Second Coming and Billionaire Island, both by Mark Russell.

Last week's comics:
Dept of Truth #1
Giant-Size X-Men #1 Tribute
Shang-Chi #1
Artemis and the Assassin #5
The Goon #12
The Resistance #6
Doctor Alpha #4
Strange Academy #3
X-Factor #4
X-Ray Robot #2
Year Zero #5
Batman: Three Jokers #2
Dark Night: Death Metal - Multiverse's End
Hellblazer #10
Legion of Super-Heroes #9

This week's comics
Spy Island #2
X-Force #13
Wolverine #6
We Only Find Them When They're Dead #2
Thor #8
Marauders #13
Locke & Key: ...In Pale Battalions Go... #2
Black Widow #2
Adventureman #4
American Vampire: 1976 #1
Disaster Inc. #4
Fire Power #4
The Walking Dead Deluxe #1 - The Walking Dead in full color for the first time.

Last week's light comic book reading now that notifications have returned.

Sam and Twitch: The Writer ★★
When I found out an Italian comics creative team made a Sam & Twitch comic, I was excited, but this was disappointing.

Aquaman Vol. 3: Manta vs. Machine ★★★★
Black Manta just may be my favorite DC villain.

Scene of the Crime: A Little Piece of Goodnight ★★★★
One of Brubaker's earliest works, originally published by Vertigo in 1998, Scene of the Crime is a modern day noir set in San Francisco.

Birds of Prey, Volume 1: End Run ★★★★
Ed Benes's art is oversexualized, but Gail Simone's story rocks.

Milkman Murders ★
Joe Casey has become one of the worst writers in comics.

Hawkman, Vol. 3: Darkness Within ★★★
Shadow Thief gets a major upgrade in this Year of the Villain story.

Justice League of America: The Nail: The Complete Deluxe Edition ★★★★
One of my favorite Elseworlds stories. What if Ma and Pa Kent had a nail in their tire and didn't see Kal-El's ship crash? This may be the best art of Alan Davis's long career.

Iron Man 2020: Robot Revolution – Force Works ★★★
The stories were solid, but unnecessary other than Machine Man 2020 as part of the Iron Man 2020 event.

Iron Man 2020: Robot Revolution - iWOLVERINE ★★★
A collection of completely superfluous tie in books. They have nothing to do with Iron Man 2020 other than they star robots.

Iron Man 2020: Robot Revolution ★★★
Back in the 80's Marvel produced a Machine Man miniseries set in the future where he fought the Iron Man of 2020. Marvel now has created the 2020 version of that story.

Spider-Verse: Spider-Zero ★★★★
Way better than I expected. Miles Morales tours the multiverse teaming up with various incarnations of Spider-Man. Marvel brought in some of their better talent for this book.

Dark Knight Returns: The Golden Child ★
This didn't make a lick of sense. Trump is running for office now in the DKR universe and he's backed by Joker (who is inexplicably alive again.) and Darkseid. WTF?

Erin wrote: "Finally did some reading!

For the Discord book club, I read The Woods, Vol. 1: The Arrow - very excited to continue this series!

I also read Coyote Doggirl. I don'..."

I loved The Woods. I'm glad you're digging it Erin.

Gregory wrote: "I’m currently reading the Green Lantern 80th anniversary book and Dark Nights Death Metal."

I thought the GL 80th anniversary book was great. I loved how they brought back all the previous creative teams to write each character.

Last week's comic book adventures:

A Radical Shift of Gravity ★★
Neat premise, poor execution.

Captain Ginger: Volume Two: Dogworld ★★★
A Star Trek type comic where cats and dogs have evolved to be the dominant lifeform.

Happiness Will Follow ★★★
Mike Hawthorne's graphic memoir growing up in a cycle of abuse and poverty.

Grimm Tales of Terror, Volume 1 ★★★
Some EC Comics or Tales from the Crypt type horror comics.

Pistouvi ★★★★
Some adorable and strange comics with fantastic art.

Irena: Life After the Ghetto ★★★★★
The incredible story of Irena Sendler ends. During WWII, she saved over 2,500 Jewish children from the Warsaw Ghetto.

Ash & Thorn: Volume One: Recipe for Disaster ★★★★★
What if the next Slayer was chosen and she was an octogenarian?

He-Man and the Masters of the Multiverse ★
This was just plain dumb without the fun. It's basically Crisis on Infinite Earths with He-Man characters.

The Bionic Woman Volume 1 ★★
Dynamite's first attempt to reboot The Bionic Woman. Bad art, boring story.

Superman/Batman: World's Finest ★★★
Dave Gibbon's story is forgettable but Steve Rude's art is terrific.

Powers: The Best Ever ★★★★★
Finally, new Powers. Unfortunately, it looks like it will be the last one.

House of Secrets: The Bronze Age Omnibus Vol. 2 ★★★★★
This was glorious. 900 pages of old horror comics all recolored and remastered.

Iron Man: The Ultron Agenda ★★★★
The set up for Iron Man 2020.

Edgar Allan Poe's Snifter of Terror: Volume Two ★★★
Irreverent and snarky retellings of Poe's stories in this goofball title. Mark Russell's story about cereal mascots was the best of the bunch.

The Flash: Savage Velocity ★★★
I'm glad to see DC finally reprinting some of these runs from the 80's that have never been collected before and I really hope they collect the rest of William Messner-Loeb's time on the book. However, Mike Baron writes the first 14 issues and his writing is boring.

Booster Gold: Future Lost ★★★
Again, I'm glad DC is finally reprinting these books from the 80's but this is just boring. The Rainbow Raider is one of the bigger villains Booster fights in these 400 pages.

Prophecy ★★★
I don't know how Dynamite keeps pulling off these crossovers of disparate properties.

Pantha, Volume 1: The Goddess and the Dangerous Game ★
The best part of this book are the Mark Texeira covers. Everything in between is garbage.

This week's comic book haul.

Immortal She-Hulk #1
Suicide Squad #2
Shazam #15
Death Metal: Speed Metal
Action Comics #1025
X of Swords: Creation
Spider-Woman #4
Skulldigger + Skeleton Boy #4
Shadow Service #2
Maestro #2
Star Wars: Bounty Hunters #5
Venom #28
Juggernaut #1
The Walking Dead #1 15th Anniversary Retailer Edition - I had to buy this since it was a variant created for my LCS

Ed wrote: "Cool! I love some of the writing of Wilfrid Lupano. Glad to see some more is being translated."

Europe Comics and Humanoids have been translating a lot of European comics into English. Even Ablaze is getting in on the game. It's nice to read comics from other perspectives.

A small week of reading comics while I begin preparing my house for Halloween.

Wild Thing Or: My Life as a Wolf ★
Poor art, poor story. A farm dog's story about how he ran off with wolves.

The Old Geezers: Volume 1 ★★★★★
What a delight! Three septuagenarian friends grow old in their own way, raising their own version of hell.

Vampire State Building ★★
Die Hard + Towering Inferno + Vampires. Unfortunately, the book is never as good as that premise sounds.

Hellblazer, Volume 2: The Devil You Know ★★★
I really liked David Lloyd's bleak art in the Horrorist.

Hellblazer, Volume 3: The Fear Machine ★★★
Constantine hangs out with some hippies and gets involved in some conspiracy theories.

Hellblazer, Volume 4: The Family Man ★★★
Constantine vs. a serial killer. Thankfully this is Jamie Delano's last book. He's a boring writer with too much flowery exposition.

Justice Inc. ★★★
The Shadow, Doc Savage and The Avenger team up for some pulpy goodness.

Hexed Omnibus ★★★★★
Damn, I love this series. If you're into horror, adventure, urban fantasy and heist stories this book is for you. It's about a thief that steals magical artifacts from demons.

Low Road West ★★★
Phillip Kennedy Johnson loves his dystopian futures. This one has a lot to like about it if he ever learns how to write a miniseries instead of leaving you hanging by adding in multiple unanswered subplots.

Imperial ★★★
A normal joe is picked to be the next Superman. Superman learns to become more human while attempting to train this rookie.

Warlords of Appalachia ★★★
In this Phillip Kennedy Johnson dystopian future, Kentucky is an occupied state fighting back against an oppressive fascist state. Surprisingly, this came out right BEFORE Trump was elected.

Miss October 3. Very Bad Memories ★★★★
European comics pay ode to 1950's L.A. noir.

Miss October - Volume 4: A Cop and a Gentleman ★★★
Probably an unnecessary 4th volume to the series, that wraps up some subplots.

Wonder Woman by John Byrne, Book Two ★★★
John Byrne is still a talented artist but these Wonder Woman stories are boring.

JSA by Geoff Johns Book Three ★★★★★
Man, I love Geoff Johns's run on the Justice Society. I love how the original and legacy heroes work together.