Mars Needs Brian Blessed!

[Steven]

Quirkyreader wrote: "Eight more till Everest 🐸"

Shouldn’t be too far away, then. I’m slowly catching up — the stint in hospital and skilled nursing let me make up some lost ground.

[Steven]

#93 - Stumptown, Vol. 1: The Case of the Girl Who Took Her Shampoo by Greg Rucka and Matt Southwarth

P.I. Dex Parios is pretty much made for TV, and that’s just where she ended up, played by Colby Smulders.

As we meet her here she’s been kidnapped, tossed into a car trunk, and driven off to the edge of Portland, where she’s shot and left for dead. Flip back 23 hours, and here’s Dex, losing her shirt at craps and being called in to the casino owner’s office...where she’s given the job of finding a missing grandkid.

What follows is a wild ride, as Dex is bounced from pillar to post, runs afoul of local gang lords and their families, has to deal with a couple of very thick thugs, and gets abused a *lot*. She’s also trying to deal with a younger brother with from Down’s Syndrome.

It’s a solid mystery story with scratchy, gritty artwork. Surprisingly, given the Northwest Noir style, nobody actually gets killed.

[Steven]

Quirkyreader wrote: "This year you are going to get to the top before me. 🐸"

We’ll see...I still have 57 to go (55 after today.) while I *think* I can make it, I’m not keeping up the daily pace through the Ed McBain books.

[Steven]

#94 - Doctor Who: The Third Doctor Volume 1 - The Heralds of Destruction by Paul Cornell, Christopher Jones
#95 - Doctor Who: The Fourth Doctor Volume 1 - Gaze of the Medusa by Gordon Ronnie, Emma Beeby, Brian Williamson

Two entries in Titan’s ever-expanding Doctor Who Collection. Both fairly standard outings, though Cornell injects his (supposedly final Who story) with a great degree of wit, and an unexpected character return.

The 4th Doctor story seems to have a few Easter eggs related to long-past attempts at a reboot of Doctor Who, but is mainly concerned with merging Greek mythology with science fiction and the Weeping Angels.

[Steven]

#96 - Stumptown, Vol. 2: The Case of the Baby in the Velvet Case by Greg Ruck & Matthew Southworth

The second of the Portland-based Dex Parios mysteries finds Dex turning down one job and taking another — finding a rock star’s missing guitar. As this is Dex she’s quickly up to her neck in trouble with the DEA giving her grief and skinheads getting into the act.

This one was a lot of fun, and, again, no actual body count.

[Steven]

#97 -Doctor Who: The Ninth Doctor, Vol 1: Weapons of Past Destruction by Cavan Scott, Blair Shedd, Rachel Stott

The Ninth Doctor, Captain Jack, and Rose are pulled into a massive temporal conflict when the planet they were intending to visit turns out to have been mysteriously destroyed. It’s fairly by the numbers stuff, but at least coherent.

[Steven]

#98 - Doctor Who: The Tenth Doctor, Vol. 1: Revolutions of Terror by Nick Abadzis, Elena Casagrande

New days, new companion, New York (the old one.) Ten is traveling alone, tracking strange phenomena, when student Gabriela Gonzalez is propelled into his life. The main story is a fast-paced and sometimes quite funny piece, but the second story, where Ten takes Gabby to meet a galactically famous artist, is excellent — it’s from her perspective, and there's a real sense of wonder to it, even as things get dangerous.

[Steven]

#99 - Doctor Who: The Tenth Doctor, Vol. 2: The Weeping Angels of Mons by Robbie Morrison, Daniel Indra, etc

Ten and Gabby land up in the middle of World War One, unsure why they’re there...until the Weeping Angels appear. Thereafter it’s a mad scramble to survive, until a solution is found. Morrison has some fun playing with the effects of the Angels’ powers, with some of the minor characters doing okay out of it — and some finding themselves immediately doomed. The final pages are quite affecting, honoring the soldiers who died in that conflict.

The second story in the volume is much more lightweight, a quick story of the phantasmagoric spacewhales being hunted by globs on flying platforms.

[Steven]

#100 - Doctor Who: The Twelfth Doctor, Vol. 1: Terrorformer by Robbie Morrison, Dave Taylor

Morrison’s take on Twelve falls a bit flat, despite grappling with some good concepts in the second story. The first seems to be an exercise in writing something like “what would it be like if Stephen Moffat tried writing like Douglas Adams?” and falls resoundingly flat. The second story tackles India past and future, tossing in alien demons.

[Steven]

Quirkyreader wrote: "Yea you have scaled Mt. Everest 🐸🦋"

Now for the rest!

I just jumped to the next level with Virtual Mount TBR as well.

[Steven]

#101 - What If... Why Not? by Brian Michael Bendis, Peter David, Chris Claremont, Ed Brubaker, etc

One of the periodic revivals of What If...?, a Marvel series that had the Watcher telling tales of possible alternate realities that rang a change on the usual to see where it might lead (as opposed to the Dc Elseworlds which go right for full alternate realities.) This one looks at The Hulk, Spider-Man, Daredevil, the X-Men, Jessica Jones, and the Fantastic Four. As with the original it varies from pretty good to pretty stupid; unlike the original many of the stories leave out the Watcher.

I’m looking forward to the TV series.

[Steven]

#102 - Doctor Who: The Ninth Doctor, Vol. 2: Doctormania by Cavan Scott, Adriana Melo, Cris Bolton

Nine, Jack, and Rose continue their adventures as a garbled message from the pre-memory wipe Jack shows up. They end up distracted by cosmic Banksy, then a Slitheen identity theft, and, finally superheroes, gargoyles, and a very grown up Mickey Smith in 2016 San Francisco.

Fast-paced, but not really very deep.

[Steven]

#103 - Doctor Who: Four Doctors by Paul Cornell, Neil Edwards, etc

The title of this event piece is a bit of a fudge, as it’s mainly Ten, Eleven, and Twelve throughout, with alternates of all three showing up as well, along with War and Nine. Basically, Clara tries to prevent the three Doctors meeting and going to the ruins of Marinus, only for all of them to discover that it’s an elaborate trap. From there it gets, well, wibbly-wobbly timey-wimey.

Fun writing from Cornell, as always.

[Steven]

#104 - Doctor Who: The Eleventh Doctor, Vol. 1: After Life by Al Ewing, Rob Williams, etc

Eleven, post rebooting the universe, is off traveling alone for a bit...when circumstances bring him and a “rainbow dog” into the life of Alice Obiefune, grieving for her late mother, out of her job as a library assistant due to cuts, and about to lose her flat to a deal with luxury developers. Before she knows it, she’s propelled into the Doctor’s life. There’s a deal of commentary on political lunacy and corporate greed and violence, too, and the arrival of a David Bowie expie complete with a pile of Bowie Easter eggs.

Not great, but fun.

[Steven]

#105 - Doctor Who: The Eleventh Doctor, Vol. 2: Serve You by Al Ewing, Rob Williams, etc

The opening story has a nice conceit in that it runs in reverse, but after that things get a bit messy. The Serveyou Inc story wraps up, but it’s a bit scattered, and part of it depends on Alice being again depressed and angry. Jones, the David Bowie expie, just gets to be annoying.

[Steven]

#106 - Doctor Who: The Eleventh Doctor, Vol. 3: Conversion by Rob Williams, Al Ewing

Still not quite done with the Serveyouinc story as it turns out, as the Talent Scout is still out and about. There’s some bright spots amidst the chaff, though, and after a period of Really Sad Doctor everybody gets a happy ending.

[Steven]

#107 - Doctor Who: The Eleventh Doctor, Vol. 4: The Then and The Now by Si Spurrier, Rob Williams, etc

Eleven is to be executed for something the War Doctor supposedly did — something he can’t remember. Cue the usual jailbreak, the mysterious Squire, and the arrival of Abslom Daak, former Dalek Hunter. This ends of a cliffhanger, unfortunately.

[Steven]

#108 - Doctor Who: Supremacy of the Cybermen by Cavan Scott, George Mann, Alessandro Vitti

Four Doctors versus Rassilon and the Cybermen. The stakes are ultimately high! Except for that reset button, of course.

[Steven]

#109 - See Them Die by Ed McBain

The 13th book in the 87th Precinct series finds the detectives and patrolmen more as supporting characters to the Puerto Rican drama going on in the barrio section of the City. There’s a drunken sailor looking for a hook-up, the girl he finds himself fascinated with (and she finds herself as fascinated with him), the honest, hard-working store owners, 16 year old. Op who wants to make his name with murder, and the desperate Miranda, who Zip idolizes even as cops surround Miranda’s building and all hell breaks loose.

The book’s taken a lot of heat fir deviating so much from the procedural formula, but by now McBain (aka Evan Hunter was hitting his stride and willing to break from the formula.

At this point, too, he was building up Detective Andy Parker to meet a bad end, or so it seems.

[Steven]

#110 - Lady, Lady, I Did It! by Ed McBain

Book 14 of the 87th Precinct starts off with a boring day livened up by the detectives teasing Bert Kling, who is madly in love with the vibrant, smart Claire Townshend. Bert and Claire make their plans for the evening, then Claire sets out to buy textbooks for her studies. A while later, a call comes in — a shooting, multiple injuries, at a bookstore.

There are four dead, and one of them is Claire Townshend.

It’s a deeply emotional book, emotionally violent at intervals, and sometimes just outright violent — Kling should recuse himself from the investigation, but instead gets into the middle of it, with awful results (by the end strait laced Steve Carella “was already writing the false report in his head” after Kling beats a suspect half to death.

It’s a twisty tale that pokes hard at certain social mores and reveals things about Claire that Kling was ignorant of, as well as, of course, the evil that men do. We never find out if the killer was convicted....

[Bev]

Been doing great!

[Steven]

Bev wrote: "Been doing great!"

Thank you. Still WAY behind, though. I’ll catch up, mayyyybe.

[Steven]

#111 - Crisis on Infinite Earths Companion Deluxe Edition Vol. 1 by Roy Thomas, Gerry Conway, Steve Englehart, others

Provides something by way of connective tissue for this giant event, but good lord there’s a lot of cheese. Roy Thomas enthusiastically overwrites and purple proses through the All-Star Squadron while Steve Englehart brings back the forgotten Guy Gardner as a brain-damaged lunatic who wants to kill Hal Jordan because something something Green Lantern ring gazpacho. That leaves an issue of DC Presents and two issues of The Fury Of Firestorm...both fairly good.

It’s not hard to see why a lot of this material has gone uncollected for decades even as Crisis on Infinite Earths has been repeatedly reprinted. More than 500 pages of this is something of a slog...and there’s two more volumes after this.

[Steven]

#112 - Doctor Who: The Tenth Doctor, Vol. 3: The Fountains of Forever by Nick Abadzis, Elena Casagrande, Arianna Florean

Ten gets mixed up in a complicated story involving a weird artifact that leads him to further involvement with the Osirans from “The Pyramids Of Mars.” Twisty and complicated, though it doesn’t make too much sense at the end.

[Steven]

#113 - Doctor Who: The Tenth Doctor, Vol. 4: The Endless Song by Nick Abadzis and various

Three stories and two cliffhangers as the Doctor and Gabby sort out a mysterious plague affecting unusual beings, Gabby’s friend Cindy finds herself in deep trouble but with Captain Jack Harkness stepping in, and the Doctor and Gabby journey back to the dawn of humanity only to find slavers and ever more trouble.

The dual cliffhangers do render this volume problematic, sadly.

[Steven]

#114 - Doctor Who: The Tenth Doctor Archives Omnibus Volume 1 by Gary Russell, Tony Lee, etc

Two stories together, the first being a bit of a muddle as it bounces around inside its story, with apparent bad guys not being what they seem, and numerous twists in the tale that don’t quite work.

The second story, by Tony Lee, fully embraces the Doctor’s long history to good effect and is by far the better of the two — and reads fast and enjoyably, too.

[Steven]

#115 - Doctor Who: The Twelfth Doctor, Vol. 2: Fractures by Robbie Morrison, etc

Twelve and Clara versus a multiverse version of the Reapers, then up against alien gangsters in 1963 Las Vegas. Fun read, but really disposable.

[Steven]

#116 - Doctor Who: The Twelfth Doctor, Vol. 3: Hyperion by Robbie Morrison, George Mann, etc

Twelve and Clara meet Charlotte Bronte and Lord Marlborough and deal with a (giant) spider invasion. That ends in fire. The next story starts in fire as the Hyperions, living suns gone nuts, invade Earth. It’s not a great story, and had me wondering...how does Earth bounce back from worldwide devastation and the deaths of so many people?

[Steven]

#117 - Doctor Who: The Twelfth Doctor, Vol. 4: The School of Death by Robbie Morrison, Rachel Scott

Twelve and Clara go up against the Sea Devils, though these are a much tougher form than the enclave blown up by the Brigadier during Three’s time. The story tries to be a little Lovecraftian, but eventually too much tech is being thrown around. Things are rounded out with a revisit of Four’s “Robot” and a silly fourth wall breaking story.

[Steven]

#118 - Deathtopia 1 by Yoshinobu Yamada

19 year old Koh Fujimara is hit by a car and winds up in hospital, his eyes injured. While he’s there a woman tries to kill him; she’s fought off by three gun-slinging women, later revealed as specialist police officers who are seconded to a secret unit tracking atavistic killers.

Koh, healed, finds that he can see something strange — some people seem to have heads consisting of smoke with bizarre eyes. Koh, it seems, has the ability to see the atavistic types, the killers walking among us.

Worse, those killers are using the Internet to find each other...and there’s more of them than ever. It’s going to be up to Koh and the three fan service officers to track them down and deal with them.

The book has an interesting premise, though I believe it’s biological underpinning has been debunked. It’s unfortunate that Manga tropes come to the fore — giant breasts, lots of nudity, improbable hair and clothes. Hopefully later volumes will be better.

[Steven]

#119 - Deathtopia 2 by Yoshinobu Yamada

The mystery around Koh deepens, even as he’s inducted into the Special Crimes 6 operation. His sister is kidnapped, which draws him into the heart of the battle, giving them new clues as to what’s going on with the atavistic “cheaters”. The story is interesting, but the fan service nudity is frankly annoying.

[Steven]

#120 - Deathtopia 3 by Yoshinobu Yamada
#121 - ＤＥＡＴＨＴＯＰＩＡ（４） by Yoshinobu Yamada
#122 - Deathtopia 5 by Yoshinobu Yamada

The mystery of Koh Fujimara deepens more as he develops new abilities and the “cheaters”, the atavistic humans with junk DNA-driven extra abilities, close in around Special Unit 6. Gets more brutal and horrific, and unfortunately a lot more rapey. The fan service goes off the charts, too.

By volume 5 we’re at least finding out who the three women of SPU6 are, though unit captain Kokonoe remains a mystery.

[Steven]

#123 - Deathtopia 6 by Yoshinobu Yamada

HD’s plan starts to reveal itself as Yui goes after the “cheater” who murdered her parents and brother, only to find herself on the pointy end. Like Fujimara, she evolves abruptly, as do Maya and Saki. During her recovery from the battle with Reverse, she stumbles on a meeting between Ud and his lieutenants, Musame and Rinzai, though what she learns is confusing.

The story is definitely getting interesting, and there’s less fan service and more grue this time around.

[Steven]

#124 - Deathtopia 7 by Yoshinobu Yamada
#125 - Deathtopia 8 by Yoshinobu Yamada

The truth finally comes out, and history is peeled like an onion as Ud enacts his plan...only to see it go horribly wrong. The true villain is revealed, and Special Unit 6 heads into the final battle, striving to prevent a coup by the atavistic humans. Mayhem ensues.

[Steven]

#126 - One Piece, Volume 2: Buggy the Clown by Eiichiro Oda

Fresh from recruiting ex-pirate hunter Zolo, Monkey D. Luffy, rubber man and wannabe Pirate King, tries to recruit the thief Nami as navigator and finds himself facing off against crazy pirate Buggy The Clown, who can split himself into floating parts.

It’s cheerfully goofy stuff, if occasionally bloody, bearing no resemblance to anything in our consensus reality. It’s a long journey ahead....

[Steven]

#127 - Kill Shakespeare, Vol. 1: A Sea of Troubles by Conor McCreery, Anthony DelvCol, Andy Belanger

A grand conceit of a story - all of Shakespeare’s characters live in a single world, and the Bard himself is seen as either a mighty wizard, or a God. Prince Hamlet is lost at sea during a tempest, and found by a Richard III, who tells him that he’s the prophesied Shadow King, destined to find Shakespeare, kill him, and bring back his magical quill.

As you might imagine there are plots within plots, betrayals, twists, turns, and all manner of malarkey (especially where Falstaff is concerned.)

Great fun. The collection includes a short story looking at the antics of Julius Caesar.

[Steven]

#128 - Kill Shakespeare, Vol. 2: The Blast of War by Conor McCreery, Anthony Del Col, Andy Belanger
#129 - Kill Shakespeare, Vol. 3: The Tide of Blood by Conor McCreery, Anthony Del Col, Andy Belanger

Hamlet reluctantly goes after Shakespeare, but with a far different agenda, while Juliet, Othello, and others face off against Richard III, Lady MacBeth, and Philip the Bastard. Nothing is as it seems, of course, but even Shakespeare has to make decisions.

The third volume visits the Tempest and fills in some of the backstory. Prospero intends to unmake the world, revenge for being spurned. Not quite as good as the other two volumes, sadly.

[Steven]

#130 - Kill Shakespeare Vol. 4: The Mask of Night by Conor McCreery, Anthony Del Col, Andy Belanger

The 4th and so far final book in the series (there’s a Juliet-focused prequel also.) Prospero’s Island has been destroyed, Hamlet, Juliet, Othello, and Shakespeare have been adrift, with poor old Will in a near coma. Othello is out of his mind. When the notorious pirate Cesario and his partner Viola find the four tied up in a locker on a ship they’ve just taken, it’s off to the races — should Cesario offer them up to the conqueror Titus, or take them back yo Illyria to rejoin the Prodigal rebellion?

This chapter of the story, unfortunately, is a bit of a rushed and compressed effort, and ends somewhat inconclusively — Othello is still nuts, Shakespeare mostly dead, Lady MacBeth still on the loose. I’d like to see more of this story but it seems not to be forthcoming.

[Steven]

#131 - Christmas in Absaroka County by Craig Johnson

Four short Christmastime tales of Sheriff Walt Longmire of the fictional Absaroka County, Wyoming. There’s no deep mysteries here, no action, just Walt dealing with the things life throws at him, whether that’s a Marine Chaplain doing a Toys For Tots stint, a fancy bible salesman who finds himself on the wrong side of Walt, a dementia patient, or a half-frozen hitchhiker with interesting depths to her.

It’s nice to read stories like these. They’re unsentimental, but good character pieces.

[Steven]

#132 - One Piece, Volume 3: Don't Get Fooled Again by Eiichiro Oda

Luffy, Nami and Zolo wrap up their battle with Buggy The Clown, and set sail with half of Buggy’s treasure (to Navi’s annoyance, given that she liberated the whole lot.) after Luffy leaves half of it to rebuild the village. When Nami points out that they need a better ship and supplies, they head for a small island with a village on it...and complications of its own.

The series is getting steadily goofier and more surreal, taking nothing particularly seriously.

[Steven]

#133 - Kaleidoscope Eyes: Psychedelic Music From The 1960s To The 1990s by Jim DeRogatis

Starts with a history of LSD-25 and then dives inyo a very subjective survey of psychedelic and garage psych music, spending little time on most mentioned artists and bands. He also confines himself mainly to England and the US (Germany gets paid some attention in the context of Krautrock.) unfortunately this results in some significant oversights, such as Porcupine Tree and The Bevis Frond, and dismissals of such as Ozric Tentacles.

There’s a decent discography in the back, however, and the book does have some value in tandem with better works such as The Knights of Fuzz by the late Timothy Gassen.

[Steven]

#134 - One Piece, Volume 4: The Black Cat Pirates by Eiichiro Oda

The Captain Kuro story continues as Usopp tries to warn the village, only to be chased off as a liar. Quiet butler Klahadore reveals himself as the dreaded Kuro, and Luffy’s group tries to take down the incoming pirates, only to find that Kuro is more than he seems.

At this point the story does seem a little stretched, but it’s fast and occasionally funny.

[Steven]

#135 - One Piece, Volume 5: For Whom the Bell Tolls by Eiichiro Oda

The Black Cat Pirates story wraps up with a decisive win, and Luffy and his growing crew move on, now with a brand new caravel. The next stop: the Baratie Ocean-Going Restaurant, and their first face-off with a Navy ship, an incident that results in chaos and Luffy nearly being dragooned into servitude.

[Steven]

#136 - Doctor Strange: The Oath by Brian K. Vaughan and Marcos Martin

One of the more fun revivals of Doctor Strange, casting him as a bit more of a man of action. Strange’s factotum, Wong, is dying of a brain tumor, so Strange ventures to another dimension to retrieve an elixir that might help. When he sends a sample for testing, it triggers an attack on Strange himself, who’s shot. That gets Night Nurse into the story, and the pace rarely slips after thst.

[Steven]

#137 - The Dark Side of the Road by Simon R. Green

The first of the Ishmael Jones books. It’s set up as a spooky manor house mystery, with dead bodies and hot toddies during a winter storm, but then the investigator turns out to be an ageless alien with golden blood and the killer is likewise rather out of this world (she’s a vampire, which...really?)

Overall pretty ham-fisted stuff.

[Steven]

#138 - One Piece, Volume 6: The Oath by Eiichiro Oda
#139 - One Piece, Volume 7: The Crap-Geezer by Eiichiro Oda

Shenanigans continue at the Baratie Ocean-Going Restaurant as, first, pirate Captain Krieg shows up, then impossible swordsman Hawkeye Mihawk shows up to destroy Krieg’s ship and wallop poor Zolo. Plus, Nami lets her thief flag fly and takes off with the Caravel and their treasure. Eventually we get the story of Sanji, the souls-chef and maitre’d, and head chef Red Shoes Zeff. Much fighting ensues, of course, in the surreal manner this series does things.

For all the goofiness, this storyline is a little more serious. It is, however, leavened by the chapter splashes that tell the story of what happened after Buggy was defeated.

[Steven]

10 in a moment. And 8 days...

[Steven]

#140 - One Piece, Volume 8: I Won't Die by Eiichiro Oda

The Baratie Ocean-Going Restaurant story wraps up as Luffy takes on Captain Krieg in a hugely destructive battle. At the end Luffy has another ship...and a cook, as Sanji joins the crew. Next up: tracking down Nami...who, it seems, is not what she claims, but is a pirate herself, in league with Arlong the Fishman. As always, the story is packed with bizarre and surreal characters.

[Steven]

#141 - One Piece, Volume 9: Tears by Eiichiro Oda

Nami’s story continues as her history with Arlong is revealed, as is her true situation. Luffy and his crew sit In-N-Out for a while, until Arlong contrives to cheat Nami and cause her to break down...and Luffy is back in.

This is a much darker episode than previous arcs, with a lot of character work. Much less humor, too, even with the weird characters.

[Steven]

#142 - One Piece, Volume 10: OK, Let's Stand Up! by Eiichiro Oda
#143 - One Piece, Volume 11: The Meanest Man in the East by Eiichiro Oda

The big fight against Sawtooth Arlong continues, with Luffy nearly drowned and Usopp discovering his personal honour. Despite everything Luffy keeps going and going. Once Arlong is town, the very petty, corrupt Captain Nezumi of the World Navy is next, leafing to Luffy and his crew gaining an outsize reputation as they sail for the Grand Line.

That leads to the pirate hideaway island — the beginning and end of the Grand Line. As it turns out, it’s also where somebody Luffy’ s enemies catch up — first Alvida, then Buggy. Zolo gets new swords, one reputedly with a curse on it, Nami buys clothes, and Sanji buys a giant fish.

The humor is back again, happily, so things get pretty silly after Arlong is defeated. And the legend is starting to build.