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.

Cyanide & Happiness: Twenty Years Wasted ★★★
A twenty year retrospective of the very funny webcomic. Some of it's really funny. Some of the themed weeks just try and be as depressing as they can with no other payoff. Then there's lots of pictures of the creators that I could care less about. I do really like that they provide commentary for all of the strips in here. That's pretty funny.

Jim Henson Presents #1 ★★★
Three fluffy stories set in the worlds of Fraggle Rock, Farscape and The Dark Crystal. I thought this was supposed to be a one-shot but The Dark Crystal story was too be continued so apparently there will be more. The art in The Dark Crystal story can be hard to follow, especially the conflict at the end.

Briar, Vol. 1: Sleep No More ★★★
A re-imagining of Sleeping Beauty where Prince Charming left Briar to sleep while he foundered away the country. Briar wakes 100 years later to a dystopian world on its last legs. She meanders around this world, trying to figure out what's going on while being chased by the minions of one of her fairy godmothers. I found the dialogue really stilted. I know it's a choice, but it's one I didn't care for. This reminded me some of Coda. It has some potential, we'll see how volume 2 goes.

Briar Vol. 2 ★★★
I found this 2nd volume of darker Sleeping Beauty kind of rudderless. It all feels like meaningless side story until some deus ex machina with some cranes bails everyone out at the end. Hopefully volume 3 gets back on track. I'm also hoping for a different artist as Alex Lins just wasn't doing it for me.

The Innkeeper Chronicles: Clean Sweep The Graphic Novel, Volume 1 ★★
I really hope the book this is based on is better than this. Ilona Andrews is a big time author duo but this book is not good. It's overly long. 320 pages for the first half of a graphic novel adaptation? It's not presented well, considering all of the goofy concepts like werewolves and vampires from outer space. There's no introduction to the characters. It took me a long time to settle in on the setup here. The art is crappy manga house style. It's a by the numbers approach with all of the short cuts that implies.

Cyanide & Happiness: Stab Factory ★★★★
A bunch of very funny but very dark cartoons. I like their sense of humor. It's funny stuff. There's 30 new strips plus a bunch of twisted nursery rhymes.

Farscape 25th Anniversary Special #1 ★★★
A nice little one shot for the 25th anniversary. There's not much introduction to the characters in these 4 stories so I don't know how much new readers will enjoy this. Fans of the show certainly will though.

Secrets of Camp Whatever Vol. 1 ★★★★
This was a great book for kids. It's about a girl who moves to a new town and is almost immediately dropped off at camp where things are more than a bit weird. Willow has hearing aids but it never defines her. I love how parts of this get pretty spooky but it never gets overly scary. It's the perfect balance for kids.

Batman: Year One ★★★★★
The parallel stories of Batman's first days and Lieutenant Gordon's first year after transferring to Gotham. It's interesting in that the bad guys are Gotham's crooked cops. Catwoman is getting started in this as well. I think a lot of the Catwoman stuff has ben retconned as Miller had her starting out as a prostitute who changes careers to become a cat thief. I really like how Gordon's and Batman's stories run in parallel until they eventually cross. This go around I did notice a panel that was backward of Bruce Wayne skiing while doing a flip. He was facing the wrong direction for how he lands in the next panel.

Batman: Year Two ★★★
This book is full of great art from Alan Davis and Todd McFarlane but the story isn't great. The Reaper is kind of a joke. I did like how Bruce finds love and is ready to give up being Batman. But Batman with a gun and working alongside Joe Chill, even undercover? Give me a break.

Cyanide & Happiness: A Guide to Parenting by Three Guys with No Kids ★★
A bunch of Cyanide and Happiness comics that can be found in other collections, interspersed with horrible advice on parenting. The "advice" got real old and too long real quick. I guess I'm just here for the funny cartoons, most of which were not new.

Today's trip to my LCS.

Absolute Batman #5
Feral #10
Geiger #11
Immortal Thor #20
Bitter Root: The Next Movement Ashcan --> I had no idea ashcans were even still a thing
Transformers #17
X-Men #11
One World Under Doom #1
Aquaman #2
Deadpool / Wolverine #2

Last week's adventures in comics.

Incredible Hulk Epic Collection, Vol. 9: Kill or Be Killed ★★★
Hearken back to the days when comics were only 35 cents and your mom would buy you one off the spinner rack every time you went to the grocery store. It surprised me how simplistic this is. There's a little bit going on with Betty, Thunderbolt Ross and Doc Samson but they all quickly disappear and it's just the Hulk travelling across the Americas. Maybe they were trying to emulate the TV show a bit, because that's plastered across the cover of each issue. Even Bruce Banner takes a back seat to the Hulk speaking in third person all the time and jumping to a different location with each story. The main villains are Master Mold, Moonstone (who is kind of awesome), some shadowy organization called The Corporation and these clowns called They.

John Byrne draws an annual with the Angel and the Beast in it and it's awesome. The main artist on all of it is Sal Buscema. He and his brother sure were prolific back in the 70s. His art is much better here than when he drew Spectacular Spider-Man in the 90s and I couldn't stand how angry everyone looked.

Disney Villains: Cruella De Vil ★★
It's alright. It's about what happens to Cruella after 101 Dalmatians. Cruella is struggling to hang on to her fashion empire and, of course, every dog in town is out to get her. So she teams up with another thief to go after the crown jewels. It's fine, but I think Sweeney Boo is better off doing her own thing.

Girl Rebels ★★★★★
Five true stories of young girls in the 21st century making a difference, rising up against all odds to make their voice heard. Malala, the youngest winner of the Nobel Peace Prize to stand up against Taliban oppression of women. Greta Thunberg, the young Swede who spoke out at U.N. assemblies against climate change. Yusra Mardini, the Syrian swimmer who swam at the Olympics as a refuge. Emma Gonzalez, one of the survivors of the Parkland Massacre, who fought for gun control legislation. Melati and Isabel Wijsen, who fought to get plastic bags banned in Indonesia. They are truly inspiring tales. Ones that can hopefully inspire others to rise up and make their voices heard in what currently feels like a very ominous time.

We Are Not Strangers ★★★★★
I'm not going to lie. This story made me bawl like a baby. There's something about it that's so touching, that these immigrants from completely different parts of the world would look after one another and keep it pretty much secret. It's about a Jewish man from Turkey who immigrates to Seattle in the 1930s. Meanwhile, he also becomes friends with some people of Japanese descent who also immigrated to Seattle. World War II breaks out and everyone of Japanese ancestry is hauled off to camps. Well, I'll let you read the rest of the story from there when you're up for a case of the feels.

This is based on family stories the author heard told about his grandfather. He always wondered why his Papoo would go to downtown Seattle to go to the fish market and run his errands even though they lived in the suburbs. And everywhere they went, they all knew his Papoo and welcomed him warmly. Just a wonderful and touching story.

Dean Koontz' Fear Nothing Volume 1 ★
Well, that was terrible. It's only part one of an adaptation of a Dean Koontz novel. It ends in the middle of the story and it came out 15 years ago so I don't think we'll see it finished. Two big thumbs up Dynamite. (This part was sarcasm.)

It's about a guy who has a disease that makes him hypersensitive to light. His father dies and he falls into some conspiracy happening in his small town. There are murderous, smart monkeys around and everyone else in town appears to know what's going on. We never get an inkling. Did I mention that the art and coloring are both horrible? Because they are awful. The whole thing feels like I went to ChatGPT and said "Draw me a comic about the novel Fear Nothing.", but only the first part.

Silence - tome 1 ★★★
A French manga of all things. It's a dystopian future where the sun no longer shines. Snow is everywhere and resources are scarce, plus the countryside is filled with monsters. Everyone speaks in sign language so as to not attract the monsters. I didn't realize this for awhile though. The sign language is presented as regular word balloons and I just thought they were talking until I figured that out. So when they actually talk as opposed to using sign language I was typically confused because the art isn't always reflective of it. One of the group meets a woman that is able to easily defeat a monster with some kind of stew that turns her into a monster. The group decides to follow her to a monastery where they will be safe and that's where this first volume ends.

It's a solid first volume and I'll probably read the next one when it gets translated. These Kana translations are weird though. The pages read left to right. The panels though read like a typical manga, right to left. Every time I get one of these I get confused until I figure that out as there is no indication in the book of how that works. It's the most confusing scenario they could have come up with and I really wish they'd stop it.

Star Wars: Blood Ties - A Tale of Jango and Boba Fett ★★★★
Back in the day, Tom Taylor worked his magic on Star Wars. He takes what was a weird concept of Jango Fett with all these clones and makes the Fetts threatening again. It's a simple quick read. Chris Scalf's painted art looks great. Good stuff.

Star Wars: Blood Ties - Boba Fett is Dead ★★★★★
Boba Fett is dead? Yeah right! We all know where that's headed just from the title. Taylor and Scalf put together a terrific sequel to their Boba Fett mini. Boba Fett's dead and his clone Conor Freeman gets dragged into the whole thing. Taylor does what he does best, make awesome comics. Scalf's painterly style makes the book look fantastic.

Deep State Complete Collection ★★
A completely more confusing version of the X-Files. The first arc is fine. It's 2 agents investigating a case where something alien crashlanded from the moon and is taking over a town. But the last 4 issues try and pack in about 3 years of conspiracy mythology into them. It's all just a jumbled mess. It's completely dissatisfying. This story is so unmemorable that I actually read this before when it came out as 2 trades and remembered absolutely nothing about it.

American Cult ★★★★
A really interesting look into cults that have operated in the U.S. going back hundreds of years. Who would have thought that Louisa May Alcott grew up in a cult or that Oneida was founded by a failed cult. Then you have the heavy hitters, Jim Jones, Heaven's Gate, NXIVM, etc. This was extremely interesting. And who would have thought the founder of Cheesecake Factory was a cultists?

Star Wars Legends Epic Collection: The Old Republic, Vol. 3 ★★★
The regular series is really good. It's about former Padawan, Zayne Carrick, and his friends. He's no longer wanted for murder after being framed by some Jedi. Now they are acting as a roguish element saving people across the galaxy. One of Zayne's friends is a former slave and they get involved trying to put an end to the slave group, the Crucible, who abducted her as a child. There's some real nice twists and turns here. But the regular series ends with issue #50 and this also included the War miniseries that took place afterwards. Even though it's by the same author, it is awful. It feels like someone ghost wrote it under his name because everything about it just kind of feels like a betrayal to what had been a really good series.

Loki Modern Era Epic Collection, Vol. 1: Journey Into Mystery ★★★★
I love Kid Loki. He has this way of doing the right thing in the worst way possible. He's so much better than mustache twirling Loki. The beginning of this run gets a bit derailed with the Fear Itself event. To get the most out of it, you'd want to read both in conjunction with one another. Nothing bad but not nearly as good as the book gets once it's unfettered by events.

Max wrote: "I’m going with The Dark Knight Returns by Frank Miller. His Daredevil stuff blew me away."

Just don't read the sequels from this century. Miller is almost a parody of himself these days. Anything from the 20th century is golden though. Batman: Year One is another great choice if you enjoyed his Daredevil.

Man I hate those oversized DSTLRY comics. Just make them regular size so they'll fit in a comic box with normal bags and boards.

Today's trip to the comic book store.

Thundercats #12
Book of Cutter
Absolute Superman #4
Avengers #23
Birds of Prey #18
Rocketfellers #3
Spectacular Spider-Men #12
Ultimates #9
Justice League: The Atom Project #2
Gatchaman: Only One Earth

He's even cuter now. That was back in the Pandemic days when both of us weren't allowed to get a hair cut.

Here's what he normally looks like.

Last week's adventures in comics.

Tegan and Sara: Crush ★★★★
The second book in Tegan and Sara's fictionalized version of their childhood. If you don't know who Tegan and Sara are and like good music, go check them out. I'll wait.
This book follows the twins as they begin their burgeoning career as musicians while also attending 8th grade. It's clearly intended for middle school readers. It delves a lot into their insecurities and anxiety. It also takes place now instead of in the 90s when they actually grew up.

Free S**t ★★★
I'll just start off with saying I freaking love Charles Burns. I can't get enough of his comics. This reminds me of the set of Charles Burns magnets on my fridge. It's a collection of random sketches he's done over the years. He used to hand them out at conventions back in the day. Now he's put together this little 5x5 inch hardcover book. I'd say this one is for completists only as it's like getting a book of just the backmatter in a collection.

Fear Itself: Journey Into Mystery ★★★★
I love Kid Loki. He's the best kind of character. Where adult Loki is often a straight up moustache twirling villain, Kid Loki is trying to do the right thing, just in the worst way possible. And he has to deal with everyone hating him due to all the terrible things his past self did. Here he's manipulating things in the background to help defeat Bor in Fear Itself. It's just a whole lot of fun which are the best kind of comics.

Journey Into Mystery, Vol. 2: Fear Itself Fallout ★★★
These Fear Itself issues aren't as compelling stories as the normal Kid Loki stuff. Mephisto and Volstagg each get issues devoted to them and I want Kid Loki all day, all the time. These work better when read in conjunction with Fear Itself.

Journey Into Mystery, Vol. 3: The Terrorism Myth ★★★★★
This is when this book truly begins to sing. All of the Fear Itself stuff is out of the way. It's just about Kid Loki trying to do the right thing in the most spectacularly wrong way possible. Along for the ride is Hela's handmaiden Leah and Thori, a puppy from Hel. It's so much damn fun. Gillen does a nice job with Hellstrom and the Fear Lords too. Great stuff!

Wanted & Big Game ★★★★
The comic that started the Millarverse and its sequel 20 years later. Wanted is very different than the movie. It's about a universe where the villains secretly won Crisis back in 1986 and have been controlling the world ever since. Wesley is introduced to this world and takes to it quickly. You can tell it was written 20 years ago. There's all kinds of triggering language in it that is no longer used today.

The sequel, Big Game, shows how all of the comics from Millarworld are connected. Who would have thunk it. Wesley and crew are back and they are out to kill all the heroes that have sprung up in the last 20 years. There's no way this should work and yet it does very well. Kudos to Millar. I don't like all his stuff but this was a fun read.

Kinky Karrot Presents: Off The Beaten Path ★★★
A young woman goes off to the big city for college where she finds a sex shop and explores her sex life extensively. The art and her character makes her something of an x-rated Disney princess. A lot of the book seems to be educational. One of her caveats is that she overshares but everyone else is well-adjusted and so it's always OK. I know they added all this stuff about how she can't keep a job to make it more humorous, but living in a big city is ridiculously expensive and she never at all struggles even though she's buying expensive stuff for the bedroom left and right. What story there is is kind of all over the place.

Superior Spider-Man, Vol. 2: Superior Spider-Island ★★★
Dan Slott ends this iteration of Superior Spider-Man and it's fine. It's not bad, but not as good as the first go around either. I do like that Otto gets reset to just back to normal Spider-Man villain again.

Green Lantern, Vol. 1: Back in Action ★★★
I like the back to basic approach to this new Green Lantern book. Hal is back on Earth. In fact, he's trapped on Earth. The United Planets have quarantined section 2814 off. Hal's got a new ring with some unknown power. Sinestro is trapped on Earth as well. Hal knows how he's still a manchild incapable of being an adult. Carol needs to just kick him out of her life completely because he's looking very childish at best in this current setup. Adams sets up a lot of subplots in this volume. Enough that they need to start paying off very soon. Those two Knight Terrors issues right after issue #2 completely derail the flow of this. It was a dumb event that I skipped and DC is trying to pull me into it. I hate nightmare stories. They are all exactly the same.

Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic, Vol. 7: Dueling Ambitions ★★★★
Zayne is free of being framed for the murder of a bunch of Jedi. Now the former padawan and his friends are acting like robin hoods across the galaxy. It's all surprisingly good stuff. I like that Zayne is typically the only human as Star Wars really should be.

Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic, Vol. 8: Destroyer ★★★★
This new storyline of going after the Crucible, the slaver group who kidnapped Jarael as a kid is working for me. Some good twists and turns here. Bring on volume 9.

Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic, Vol. 9: Demon ★★★★
These were some damn good Star Wars comics. I like that they were set back in an unburdened era where Miller could do whatever he wanted without editorial stepping in to neuter which is how the current Marvel comics feel. It nicely ties up all the loose ends of the previous arcs and sets them up nicely for the future. I never thought I'd care about this comic and boy, was I wrong.

Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic, Vol. 10: War ★★
Man they should have just left well enough alone and not came back for another miniseries. It's missing all the charm and adventure of the regular series. This is all about Zayne being drafted into the war between the Republic and the Mandolorians. Somehow Zayne ends up on both sides of the war and so do some of the Jedi. It doesn't make any sense. Nor does it that in a war, they allow Zayne to go around without killing anyone instead of throwing him in prison. It's extremely hard to believe this is the same writer as the regular series. It's like he never read the rest of his own series.

Happy Endings ★★★
Three decent low-key short stories. One is about someone posing for an artist on New Years Eve. The next is about two agents stranded in the past after fixing a time paradox with a cat. The final story is about a young man who works in a cemetery and thinks he's seeing a ghost. These were originally in French so there is the occasional grammatical or spelling error.

Black Dynamite ★★★
This is ridiculously over the top trying to ride the line between parody and homage to blaxploitation films. At one point he fights a shark and racist whites who own Slave Island as a tourist attraction. There's some anachronisms since this is supposed to be in the seventies. The stories are all over the place. The Illuminati are in one. People get flung into the sky. As long as you don't take it too seriously it can be fun. There's a lot of artists working on this. I thought they were all decent except for Ron Wimberly. His art sucks.

Batman: Justice Buster, Vol. 3 ★★★
Still unsure where this story is headed. Seems to take a long time for things to happen. Still I'm curious how this reconfigured series winds up. I mean, you'd never expect Jason Todd to be the Joker in this iteration.

Bramble Vol. 2: Neon Flowers ★★★
The story can be hard to follow at times but it's still intriguing. At the very end, we get some exposition that explains exactly what's going on with this detective story / tale of nature versus the city. The art's good but it can contribute to the confusion. The panels are all coming from oft-kilter angles but I still kind of like it.

Bramble Vol. 3: Wilted Foundations ★
With volume 3, this story devolves into an indecipherable mess. I couldn't tell what was going on. The ending meant absolutely nothing to me and felt like a nonending. Like the book was cancelled and that's what we're stuck with. Such a disappointment after such a cool start.

The Lonesome Hunters ★★★★
The rare artist turned writer who succeeds at doing both. With this new series, we've got this scared old monster hunter who has been hiding for years. We also have a teenage girl who has lost all her family and is quite brave when thrown into the fire while also being terrified. We kind of step right in the middle of this, so at 4 issues, there is still a lot to learn. But I'm sure as hell looking forward to more. Which there is! There's a follow up series coming out very soon.

The Lonesome Hunters: The Wolf Child ★★★
Not very much world building in this one. Our two main characters come across a kid that needs help along with his giant wolf mother. It's a strange, roadside attraction story that doesn't advance the story much at all. Crook, of course, makes it look great. But it does leave me wanting another story with more substance.

Captain America Modern Era Epic Collection, Vol. 1: The Winter Soldier ★★★★★
Ed Brubaker takes over Captain America and it is glorious. If you're looking for a Cap treatment close to Captain America: Winter Soldier, this run is the impetus for that movie. Bucky was always one of the sacrosanct Marvel characters like Uncle Ben who couldn't be brought back. Well, not at least until Brubaker came along. He comes up with a treatment so great that it just works terrifically. This could have been really dumb. Go look at the Clone Saga over in Amazing Spider-Man on how not to do a major retcon. This however is fantastic. Brubaker injects the book with this espionage edge and it is so damn good.

Then you bring in Steve Epting as the main artist. His work has both a dynamic and yet classic look to it. It just works perfectly for something that could look silly with Cap running around wrapped in a flag. This book is where Epting officially declares he is one of the top artists working in comics.

This epic collection collects the first 3 arcs of the smaller collections along with issue #10, a House of M issue which has never appeared with the rest of this run before, getting collected with House of M books instead. There's also a treatment and script for the first issue. A cool letter column where Kurt Busiek writes in, Epting's artwork and a few other odds and ends.

Every time I get one of those my dog wants to climb into my lap and sit on it.

This was one of the New 52 Batman omnibuses I was trying to read during the pandemic. Enzo clearly wasn't putting up with it.

But it's all in one impossible to read volume.

Erin wrote: "I've been hemming and hawing over what I would pick for this month, but I think I'm going with One Piece, Vol. 1: Romance Dawn! I've certainly heard a lot about One Piece over the l..."

You should read this version of One Piece Erin.



https://www.theguardian.com/books/202...

Today's trip to the comic book store. Diamond books lag by a week for me because I'm not waiting until later in the week when they maybe come in.

TMNT #6
Hornsby & Halo #3
Redcoat #9
House of Slaughter #29
X-Men #10
West Coast Avengers #3
Ultimate X-Men #11

I also noticed the Daredevil comics with Muse on the cover are all on the wall now with the release of the Daredevil: Born Again trailer.

Last week's graphic novels continued. There's not much else to do this time of year other than read.

The Amazing Spider-Man, Vol. 10: Breathe ★★
Jeebus, Marvel can no longer seem to get any kind of handle on Spider-Man. This is all over the place. First is a 2 issue story where we fix Aunt Anna after the Krakoa tainted drugs made her a psycho. This was actually the best story in this. Then Chasm and Hallows Eve return and they are apparently a couple of idiots to trust the Goblin Queen. The last issue is a Blood Hunt tie-in. It's actually not bad until it ends with go check out Spider-Man:Blood Hunt for the rest of the story. Then there's some real tacked on BS with some small stories from the Web of Spider-Man and FCBD issues that make little sense out of context. I hope Joe Kelly can assert more control when he takes over.

Lumine, Vol. 2 ★★
Nothing at all happens in this for the first half of this book. I get that this witch kid is unliked in his school. You've beaten me over the head with this fact. I need about 5 pages to pick that up, not 125. This school is normal except witches and werecreatures go there. The second half picks up but it's just page after page of werecreatures tossling around. It's so damn repetitive. I just didn't like this at all.

Avengers: Beyond ★★
Marvel in its infinite wisdom called the sequel to All-Out Avengers, Avengers Beyond. I swear to God, you need a road map to figure out how to read half their comics. They brought back the Beyonder and gave him some stupid bigger story of infinite Beyonders. This thing is almost incomprehensible. I liked All-Out Avengers but this was just a muddled mess of a story.

Ultimate Galactus Trilogy ★★★★
I read this before over a decade ago when the original trades came out and decided to give it another whirl with the whole thing collected together. The first thing I'll say is that you also get Vision #0 in here which isn't in the individual trades. It's a cool take on Galactus. The three miniseries work very well on their own building up the story and the threat, along with bringing in the Ultimates, Fantastic Four and The X-Men as the story calls for it. We also get new and very different Ultimate versions of characters like the Silver Surfer and Moon Dragon. Also Galactus is completely different other than being a planet destroyer. It's good stuff but then all of the early days of the original Ultimate universe is.

Last week's adventures in comics.

Gone ★★
Jock's second foray into writing as well as drawing his own comics goes OK. It's about a really poor girl on a planet that is attempting to steal food from a space liner. She gets trapped there and due to a FTL drive, years will have passed for her while only months pass back at home. She's hiding away on the ship but so are a bunch of rebels. The captain is also her dad who left or someone who knocked up her mom. It's very unclear and that's part of the problem here and what I've seen as DSTLRY's biggest problem. These books need editors, really badly.

Captain America: Winter Soldier, Vol. 1 ★★★★★
This run on Captain America is one of the reasons why Ed Brubaker is Ed Brubaker. (Yes, I know there are other terrific runs by Brubaker before this but this is both one of his best and most iconic.) It starts off with the Red Skull planning something big. Then that first issue ends with a record scratch that completely sets up something new. I love how Brubaker both pays homage to Cap's past and yet spins things in a wholly different direction. And then there's Steve Epting's art. It's just perfect. So detailed and yet both classic and gritty. This run should be handed out to anyone in art school as how to do comics.

Captain America: Winter Soldier, Vol. 2 ★★★★★
These Modern Era collections are out for Brubaker's Cap run so any excuse to reread it is OK by me. Just lights out. This hits Cap so hard, that Bucky could be alive and was working for the Russians. It really knocks him off his game. Lukin really messes with him with this. It's all so freaking great and all of these arcs up to Civil War are the basis for Captain America: Winter Soldier maybe the best of the MCU movies.

Captain America: Red Menace, Vol. 1 ★★★★
Crossbones and the Red Skull's daughter go all Mickey and Mallory across the country. Cap and Sharon Carter go looking for Bucky and discover an AIM project that could be a problem down the road. Then we get a special WWII untold story for the 65th anniversary that's a lot of fun and ties into the ongoing story.

Star Wars: The High Republic Adventures Phase III Volume 1 ★★★
Phase III of the High Republic begins. It's a year after Starlight Beacon has fallen. Most of the Jedi are scattered or dead. The Nihil have taken over a large portion of this part of the galaxy and they are the only one who can move through it. These five issues are mainly about getting some of the Jedi back into play and finding out what happened to them over the last year.

Amazing Spider-Man Epic Collection, Vol. 10: Big Apple Battleground ★★★
Some solid Spidey stories from the 70s. There's lots of villains you don't see much of these days like Rocket Racer, Will-O'-the-Wisp, Big Wheel (Yes, this was a real villain who drove around in a giant wheel.) Stegron, the Molten Man, Silvermane (before he became a cyborg) and classics like the Lizard and the Green Goblin. I really like the pairing of Len Wein and Ross Andru. Their stuff is a lot of fun.

Alley ★★
A weaker collection of Junji Ito stories. Most of these are just quirky more than scary. Even the creepier ones don't make a lot of sense like the longest story in the collection about a girl whose family starts spying on her. She decides to go to her Aunt's and for some reason the town she lives in has turned into one endless house where they have to let everyone walk through and people wear masks to hide their identity.

Mickey Spillane's Mike Hammer: The Night I Died ★★★
MIke Hammer gets a comic, It's a story from Mickey Spillane translated into a comic from Max Allan Collins who I love. However, this isn't as good as Ms. Tree or Nathan Heller. The story's kind of basic, probably why Spillane never released it.

Bramble Vol. 1: Electric Roots ★★★★
I wasn't completely sure what was going on here but I liked it. It's about this giant of a man who worships nature. He heads to this steampunk city where people are being murdered. A cop that lets everyone walk all over him is investigating. I quite liked the art. All of the panels are from odd points of view giving the book an off-kilter look.

Naked City ★★
Almost a slice of life comic about New York City if it was more realistic. It's about 3 different people struggling to make it in New York. The main character is a girl who comes to the city with only her guitar to make it big. She makes it pretty quickly with very little struggle which is not the real NY experience. My other quibble is how much she smokes. Yes, I know it looks cool on the page but having lived here very few people smoke. It's banned everywhere. You can barely even smoke outside buildings. Not to mention that cigarettes are over $14 a pack and have been for over 20 years. Not someone who is really struggling to get by can easily afford.

X-Men: A Skinning of Souls ★★★★
An X-Men book between events. X-Cutioner's Song had just ended with Fatal Attractions immediately following. In the first story, Colossus heads to Russia with the X-Men to visit his family and more tragedy strikes. The Soul Skinner is kind of a dumb villain so at least Omega Red pops in. Then Revanche shows up claiming to be the real Psylocke and we head back to Japan to figure the whole thing out. Lurking in the background are the Upstarts who I found kind of stupid, killing people for points. The Legacy virus is beginning to rear its head too, a goodbye present from Stryfe that kicks around for a LONG time. The art by Andy Kubert and Brandon Peterson still holds up.

Vincent: A Graphic Biography ★★★★
Not a true graphic novel, but more of an illustrated text. It's Van Gogh's life from the perspective of his sister-in-law. It's through her eyes we see not only Vincent's mental struggles but how much it affects her husband and Vincent's brother, Theodore. The two were extremely close with Theodore looking after Vincent for most of his adult life. After she's left with a house full of Vincent's paintings, we also see how she and her son (also named Vincent) spent their lives promoting his work, getting it into the public consciousness, and eventually creating the Van Gogh museum in Amsterdam.

Quick Stops Volume 2 ★★★
Instead of 4 one-issue stories this go around, we get a complete story about how Mooby was created. Given that it's Kevin Smith, there's lots of sex involved and then it gets crazy. It's really over the top by the end.

X-Men Epic Collection, Vol. 22: Legacies ★★★★
Bridges the gap between X-Tinction Agenda and Fatal Attractions. Stryfe has unleashed the Legacy virus after X-Tinction Agenda and that slowly begins to rear its ugly head for what felt like years at the time. Then you also have the rise of the Upstarts. They are stupid, powerful mutants who kill other mutants for points in some game. Then we get more tragedy for Colossus in Russia with the Soul Skinner. Colossus couldn't catch a break in this era. The Acolytes return just in time for issue #300 of Uncanny. Then Revanche pops in for her confusing story with Psylocke. We also get the first appearance of X-Cutioner. That was the year Marvel polybagged all its annuals with a trading card of a new character to try to suck you into buying two copies.

Four Gathered on Christmas Eve ★★★★
Following a long time Victorian tradition of telling spooky stories on Christmas Eve, four terrific creators tell us theirs. I love the setup for this. Eric Powell draws the four of them in Victorian England as cantankerous storytellers meeting to tell their stories. It's a lot of fun and probably more fun than the stories even. I'll not go into the stories themselves as they are all only 10-15 pages except to say that Becky Cloonan won an Eisner for hers.

Superior Spider-Man, Vol. 1: Supernova ★★★
Dan Slott's time on the original Superior Spider-Man was one of the best time's to read Spider-Man. It was an original take that dealt with a lot of my frustrations with Peter Parker not living up to his potential for over 40 years. Slott had to jump through a whole lot of hoops to make this happen though. I read his explanation and it had so much Spider-Verse stuff in it that I could barely follow. The basic thing I got from it is this Doc Ock is from an earlier point in his timeline and he's still an asshole. Anyway the gist is that due to an unseen time from when Doc Ock had taken over Peter Parker's body, he created a new menace with the powers of a Supernova. Now she's back and out for Spider-Man's blood. Also back is Anna Maria who Supernova kidnaps leaving Spider-Man and Dr. Octopus to team up to save her. Of course, this short volume ends midstory, leaving one to pick up volume 2 to finish this thing out because Marvel is sometimes infuriating in how they collect stories.

Superman Vs. Meshi 1 ★
Superman loves Japanese food and heads over to Japan everyday to eat lunch. That's the whole plot. How are there 3 volumes of this?

Erased: A Black Actor's Journey Through the Glory Days of Hollywood ★★
A look at racism in Hollywood in the mid 20th century through the eyes of a fictional actor of color. He was light enough skinned to portray almost any race. This would have worked better if it had been a real story instead. Not sure why you'd even need a fictional one when there's so many real ones. The conversations in this sound like preaching at times instead of real conversation.

The Lonesome Hunters Library Edition ★★★★
I really hope Crook continues this story. It's about an old man with a sword that makes him immortal and a young girl who has lost her family. The old man is a coward in hiding until the girl in the apartment next door gets in trouble with some magical magpies. Meanwhile they are also being pursued by the crazy church the old man used to be apart of. Crook's art is great. So is the story. This is my second time reading through the first 2 miniseries and it was just as good this go around.

Batman: Justice Buster, Vol. 2 ★★★
An alternate Batman story where someone else was identified as the murderer of Bruce's parents. Jason Todd is a private eye and Dick is his kid assistant. And the big one, the Joker is working with Batman.

Today's trip to my LCS. Big week this week.

Absolute Wonder Woman #4
Detective Comics #1091
Detective Comics #1093
Gatchaman #6
Hyde Street #3 <-- Complete with a cover just in time for Christmas. Oh wait!
Justice League Unlimited #3
Ultimate Spider-Man #13
Uncanny X-Men #9
Void Rivals #16
Space Ghost #9
Mystique #4
Wolverine: Revenge: Red Band #4
X-Men: Xavier's Secret #1
Doctor Doom & Rocket Raccoon #1

Yeah, I can't read that at all. I can barely even recognize they are actual letters. I eventually gave up even trying and just skipped those word balloons.

Last week's adventures in comics.

Gannibal Vol. 3 ★★★
The mystery of cannibalism is this small Japanese town deepens as the police officer investigates what's going on secretly. We actually get a bit of progress in this volume with 2 weeks left until the festival where they supposedly kill a child happens. Somehow, it hasn't occurred to this officer that he has a child of his own that could be in danger though.

High on Life ★★
I decided to check this out because Alec Robbins also created Mr. Boop, this strange comic strip where he was married to Betty Boop. This was kind of terrible though. Apparently, it's an extension of a video game I've never heard of. The premise is basically the Mad Balls toy from the 80s with guns instead of balls. None of it made a lick of sense really. Kit Wallis's art was pretty good though.

Zerocalcare's The Armadillo Prophecy ★★★
Zerocalcare's first dip into humorous self-differential comics. This one isn't as focused as his later comics which I dig quite a bit. It's fine. It's supposed to be about finding out an old friend has died (that he hadn't talked to in years.) but he keeps getting distracted by other minutia and very little is actually about that.

The Second Chance of Darius Logan ★★★★★
I had a great time with this. It's from a very good writer of comics and now you can say a very good writer of novels. It's about a teenager whose family died 10 years ago in a huge tragedy involving super heroes. He's been struggling ever since, barely surviving as he is thrown into worse and worse situations in the system. When he really screws up, he's given the choice of prison or joining the Second Change program at Super Justice Force where he'll grow to become part of the support system supporting the superheroes of this world. This book has a lot of heart and hits all the beats I wanted to see as this kid grows into his own. I really hope Walker gives us a follow-up. Great stuff.

Ms. Tree Vol. 6: Fallen Tree ★★★★
More noirish tales of the badass female private detective, Ms. Tree. This starts off real strong with a tale that we've seen in recent headlines. A disgruntled person wants revenge on the president of an insurance firm for denying his wife's coverage and hijacks a New Years party. Then Ms. Tree's police detective father is killed and framed leaving her to find out who murdered him. The case on the cruise ship with Mike Mist wasn't as thrilling as most of her cases. Then there's a couple other smaller stories. I'm going to be sorry to see this series go now that Titan has reprinted all of it. Thankfully, I still have the prose Ms. Tree novel Collins wrote sitting here to read.

Sleep, Little Batman ★★★★★
I'm not typically one to read picture books but when I saw the title I knew I needed to give this a whirl. I love how the dad is dressed like Superman and Little Batman is fighting going to bed like every kid does. I also love how the kid refuses to take off his Batman mask even in the tub. Great idea for a book as I think a whole lot of us have lived this book at one point in their life or maybe even more than once, as both Little Batman and Superdad.

Rompepistas ★★★★
A very good graphic novel adaptation of a coming of age novel about a young punk in the 80's. He's returning to his hometown for the first time in decades and reflecting back to when he was 17.

Doctor Strange Epic Collection, Vol. 8: Triumph and Torment ★★★
The shining star in this collection is the graphic novel, Dr. Strange and Dr. Doom:Triumph and Torment. Roger Stern and Mike Mignola are both at the top of their game with the two doctors teaming up to try and save Doom's mom from Hell.

The regular series is not very good. Peter Gillis has some good ideas at the start of this new series. Strange's powers have been lowered and he's missing an eye. Dormammu takes over his body leaving Strange in the body of a rat. It all sounds cool but it's so overwritten that it bored me to tears. Then Roy and Dann Thomas take over the book with the fifth issue. The writing is a little better but the plots aren't great. Jackson Guice's art is terrific though. We get the return of Baron Mordu and then some Acts of Vengeance issues. There's a dumb subplot about a tell all book coming out about Dr. Strange being a sorcerer that all gets hand waved away.

Spider-Man/Doctor Strange: The Way To Dusty Death ★★★★
A barely clothed woman appears on a bridge trying to kill herself and Spidey saves her. When demons show up trying to kill her, Dr. Strange gets involved. Her magician boyfriend gets involved and its a whole ordeal as everyone winds up in the Death Dimension. There's a larger collection that contains this story along with Xandu's previous 3 appearances and I think that collection works better so that you know more of what's going on.

Doctor Strange & Doctor Doom: Triumph and Torment ★★★★
Back in the 80's, Marvel used to create the occasional stand alone graphic novel. This one is from 1988 and still holds up pretty well today. Doctors Strange and Doom are summoned to a mystic temple to battle it out for the title of Sorcerer Supreme along with a bunch of other magicians. The battle is a bit cheesy but out of it Dr. Strange owes Doom a boon. Each year Doom battles Mephisto for his mother's soul on Midsummer's Eve. So after a training montage complete with an 80's soundtrack, Strange and Doom descend into Hell to rescue the soul of Doom's mommy. This is where the book gets really good. Mignola was made to draw hellish creatures. (Four years later, he'd create Hellboy and start his own cottage industry of comics.) Mephisto looks menacing and evil. You can feel the heat of Hell come off the pages. All in all it's just great stuff as Strange and Doom battle and attempt to outwit Mephisto.

The Unbelievable Unteens ★★★
Jeff Lemire does his riff on X-Men and Teen Titans by reusing the plot for Black Hammer. The team members have all forgotten who they were until they are woken one by one 10 years later. Snapdragon is in trouble and needs the team to save her. It's a little to by the numbers for me. Tyler Crook's art remains great though. I really like his stuff.

Skulldigger + Skeleton Boy ★★★★★
Puts a new spin on the Batman / Robin / Joker dynamic by putting a Punisher spin on Batman. Skulldigger comes across a kid whose parents have just been murdered and takes the Joe Chill character out permanently. You'll need to read the rest yourself to see where the story heads. One of the best of the Black Hammer spin offs.

Marvel Her-oes ★
Oof. Marvel heroines reimagined as teenagers worrying about boys and the like. Come on Marvel. You're better than this.

Spider-Man Invasion of the Spider-Slayers ★★
This summer event when Marvel books went bi-weekly wasn't even that good back in the 90's. The Spider-Slayer is a weak villain. The subplot with Pete's parents ultimately gets pretty goofy later on and they already couldn't figure out what to go with MJ back then. Her subplot is she's so stressed out that Peter is going to die that she starts smoking. I'm one of the few people that doesn't like Pete and MJ together. (Mainly because of how weakly she was portrayed in the 90's, always at home worried about Peter. MJ should be stronger than that.) Oh, and the Black Cat gets a new costume that belongs more in porn than a comic book. I've always liked Mark Bagley's Spider-Man art though.

Kalevala: The Graphic Novel ★★
I finally gave up on this turkey halfway through. It's kind of the Finnish version of Beowulf with a bunch of poems put together to form this conglomerate. The art reminds me of something Dave McKean would draw but with way more nude women in there for no good reason. For spells, the font switches to some kind of Ye Olde English type lettering that I couldn't read one word of. I finally gave up before I went cross-eyed. This was a nice idea that just didn't pan out. I can't imagine anyone but maybe scholars who have read the original text would like this.

The Awl Vol 2 ★★
The comic about trying to start a union in a grocery store in South Korea continues. It's not a bad idea, but having this as a comic is SO boring. It's also difficult to follow all of the characters. I think it would work a lot better as a TV show or even prose than it does as a comic.

The Prism Vol. 1: Burn ★★
The visuals in this are really cool. I just had no idea what was going on. It starts off with some part of the world being completely inhabitable. Then it cuts away to a concert with a rock star entering from space to the show. Then to save the Earth, 5 rock stars head to space in a giant guitar ship to make music that will save the world. Even though I had no idea why things were happening I was intrigued enough to kind of like it. It just felt like someone had removed some very important exposition from the final cut.

The World of Black Hammer, Vol. 4 ★★★★
Skullkicker + Skeleton Boy rocks. The Unbelievable Unteens does not.

Amazing Spider-Man Epic Collection, Vol. 24: Invasion of the Spider-Slayers ★★★
This was alright. It's mainly about the return of Peter's parents after being locked away in a Russian prison for 20 years while everyone thought they were dead. It's not in this volume, but their ultimate story is pretty dumb. There's a bad subplot about Mary Jane starting to smoke. This is the era where MJ becomes a nonstop worry wort who can't stand the stress of Peter being Spider-Man. It's a story that gets old real fast and runs for a decade or so. It's the whole reason I don't like the two of them together. Then there's the Black Cat. She gets a new costume that belongs more in a porno than a comic.


Man's Best ★★
We3 if it was terrible. A cat and two dogs get some mech suits in a space ship and are trained to work together. They crash land on some space ship full of different environments. A large part of the problem is Jesse Lonergan's art. There's too many panels, the art is often weak and the panels don't flow together to tell the story. By halfway through, I just wanted it to end. I'm a dog lover but even he couldn't make me love this. It stinks.

Leviathan Volume 2 ★★★
Battle Royale in space. That is ALL this second volume is, kids fighting to the death on a doomed spaceship.

Manhole Volume 2 ★★★
A comic about some crazy, unseen guy who's trying to start a pandemic with infected mosquitoes for unknown reasons. They carry infected worms that crawl under the skin up into the right eye driving the person into a zombie.

Today's trip to my LCS.

Behemoth #1
Exceptional X-Men #5
Feral #9
GI Joe #3
Immortal Thor #19
Incredible Hulk #21
Ultimate Wolverine #1
Storm #4
New Gods #2
Challengers of the Unknown #2

Humble Bundle has brought back its Terry Moore bundle. If you haven't read Strangers in Paradise, you really should. It's terrific. Plus you get Rachel Rising, Echo, Five Years, Motor Girl and Serial on top of that. Terry Moore is one of my favorite comic creators. $20 for all of his independent work is a steal.

https://www.humblebundle.com/books/ul...

Last week's adventures in comics.

Hawkeye Epic Collection, Vol. 1: The Avenging Archer ★★★★
If you ever wondered about Hawkeye's history, this is probably the book to get. It took 19 years for Hawkeye to get his own comic (which is included here). He bounced around in all kinds of weird, hard to find comics along with Iron Man and the Avengers. His first appearances as a villain in Iron Man are here being spurred along by a Black Widow still working for the Russians. Then we get when he joins the Avengers and when he becomes Goliath for awhile. Two comics in the middle don't even have Hawkeye in them, but his future wife Mockingbird. You get to see her as a SHIELD agent before becoming Mockingbird. The two finally meet in the Hawkeye miniseries which is surprisingly good with the rare pencils by Mark Gruenwald. I can't recall him drawing anything else even though he wrote a ton for Marvel. You also see how Hawkeye loses some of his hearing which plagues him a lot in his series in the 2000s.

The Sensational She-Hulk, Vol. 1 ★★★★★
I'm a sucker for 80's John Byrne. I think this is just so much fun. She-Hulk knows she's in a comic book and is able to cross panels while fighting the goofiest villains of the Marvel universe. I had a ball with it. Byrne is one of my favorite artists too and he justifies it with this.

Quests Aside Vol. 1: Adventurers Anonymous ★★★★★
Once in a while you take a stab in the dark on something on Hoopla and are pleasantly surprised. I loved this. It's a light-hearted book about a retired adventurer running a bar. One day the king shows up and tells him he's commandeering the bar in a month for his new barracks. The book follows the lives of the people working at the bar as they get in and out of trouble. Nothing earthshaking but sometimes all you need is well-written and fun.

The Pale Queen ★★★★★
A delightful story about a young tutor in a small valley who wants more but her family can't afford to send her off to university. She comes across the fae who offer her a boon in return for a favor. She slowly begins to be pulled in their world while at the same time the niece of the rich man she tutors for has come to town for the summer and there could be a spark between the two. While intended for that middle school age group, there's enough to like here for all ages. And the art is wonderful. It really draws you into the pastoral setting that can sometimes be slightly sinister.

Freedom Was in Sight: A Graphic History of Reconstruction in the Washington, D.C., Region ★★★★★
Delves into personal accounts of African Americans mainly during Reconstruction. I think this is an important reminder of history and the struggles this country has dealt with throughout its history. For every two steps forward we take, there always seems to be one step backward. Its amazing, some of the progress we made as a society immediately following the Civil War while at the same time still managing to be very racist at the same time. It's a struggle we have to continue to fight for every day so that everyone in this country can truly be equal. These true stories were inspiring.

The Book of Elsewhere ★★
This was not good. I know others here enjoyed it but the way it was written made it a slog to get through. If I hadn't already read the not good comics as well as the fact that I really like Keanu Reeves, I wouldn't have kept at this like a scab that you feel you need to rip off again and again, always too soon.

To be honest, I don't remember if this dovetails with the comics or this is the same story in a new medium. I can tell you the comics did not have an 80,000 year old boar in them that continuously sought out B for no good reason other than "There can be only one!". That was SO dumb. Because I'm a sucker for punishment, I know I'll wind up reading those stupid comics again just to put together how they connect even though it ultimately doesn't matter. Chances are the Netflix show will change up B's story again anyway other than he's an immortal John Wick who goes into BRZRKR rages.

The chapters are broken up into 3 separate areas told in first, second and third person to differentiate them. This infuriated me to no end. Sections often did strange grammatical things like combining words and abandoning punctuation completely that drove me batty. Sorry, I must have been a proof reader in a past life. The current story and the only one that matters is told in third person. B in the past was told in second person while stories in the past from random people who knew B / Unute were in first person. The latter two were all pretty much pointless and I guess added to get to 300 pages. That's the only reason I can see they exist.

The story is mainly about how some people see B as a god while others see him as a devil or death versus life if you will. This entire book inspired a lot of eyerolling from me as I was constantly counting pages until the end of each chapter so I could force myself to finish this in chunks because I certainly wasn't digging it.

The Interceptor ★★★
In the far future vampires have taken over the earth leaving humanity to escape to another planet. When two vampires show up on this new planet, a scout is sent back to earth where she finds out humanity is still alive. She teams up with some crazy girl to fight them. It's all fine. You can tell this is one of Donny Cates earlier works. It's just OK. There are some goofy things like a president who looks like he's 12, smoking cigars for some reason.

No One's Rose ★★★
This was alright. It's a dystopian future comics where the last dregs of humanity live under a dome with a giant tree that fills the whole thing. (Yeah, I don't know how that'd work either.) There's a brother and sister who are the main characters. The sister works for the haves as an engineer. The brother is working for the underground which is trying to burn it all down. Both sides are pretty awful. There's just way too much going on in this for 5 issues.

Gannibal Vol 2 ★★
I've been trying with this series. Everyone else seems to love it but it moves so slowly. We do find out what happened with the main character's family before he moved to this village. The mystery about this zombie or whatever it is completely takes a back seat though. It's just not well-written enough for me to care about all these feints and tangents.

Guardians of the Galaxy Epic Collection, Vol. 1: Earth Shall Overcome ★★★
This isn't the Guardians of the Galaxy that most of you are use to today from the movies. These are the original Guardians that lived in the 31st century. They were all from Earth colonies that had evolved to their environments giving them powers. The Badoon had killed the rest of the colonies off leaving them the lone survivors of each planet. The Badoon had also conquered the Earth which was the focus of their first several appearances. Eventually they got their own title for about 10 issues in the 70s. Steve Gerber wrote it giving the book a Star Trek feel to it. Even their spaceship looked like the Enterprise. It honestly wasn't all that good and the stories got better in the last few issues once Roger Stern took over. The book ends with the team fighting Korvak who became their main villain for awhile with a major story in the Avengers with the Korvak Saga. That gets collected in the 2nd volume.

Shepherdess Warriors Vol 1 ★★★★
It's been 10 years since the men of the village left for war leaving the women to defend themselves. Hence, they started the Shepherdess Warriors, a group of women riding rams while defending their lands. A new group of girls are apprenticing when a monster enters their territory threatening the village. Now it'll be up to these girls to drive it off. This was a quite good all-ages story, full of danger and excitement.

Deadpool Epic Collection, Vol. 4: Dead Reckoning ★★★
And so the first ongoing series for Deadpool ends with this last of 3 Epic Collections. It's the culmination of the Landau, Luckman, and Lake plotline that's been going on since the beginning of the book. That's Wade's slated to stop the end of the world by Tiamat to usher in an era of bliss with the entrance of the Messiah. It's honestly not the best story as you can see exactly where this is headed. Then of course, T-Ray returns one last time to get his revenge on Deadpool. The revelations in the last issue of the series are a bit dumb and if any writers pursued them things would be quite different with the character. All in all just an OK set of comics here from Joe Kelly with Pete Woods and Walter McDaniel as the main artists.