|
I was just listening to a YouTube video talking the Diamond fiasco. Sounds like a bunch of the smaller publishers having problems with Diamond not paying them for their stuff (and trying to sell it to cover Diamond's own debts) are teaming up to take legal action.
I hope everything works out for them.
|
|
Lady Baltimore: The Daughters of Medusa - this was a holdover from another week. It was part 2 of 2, a short but nice little miniseries where the Lady and her allies rescue the new Queen of the Gorgons (who always takes the name Medusa) from the Nazis. Turns out, the Germans wanted her so they could control all the gorgons and win the war. That didn’t turn out well for them.
New Gods - So the gods of New Genesis are settling in on Earth. Izaya has given up being Highfather (for now). And Serifan is a traitor serving Apokalips. Not sure I like that part. Then again, maybe he’s not Serifan. And Max Lord is now a disciple of a possibly not dead Darkseid. The dudes who wiped out Apokalips and New Genesis? Don’t know.
Battle Beast - Fun with physics in space. Plus lots of bloodshed. And convincing an AI to be reasonable. This series is simple, but entertaining.
Redcoat - continuing the Northerner’s first story arc. He and Simon are after another evil time traveler. Apparently not the only one either. They seem to be less interested in preserving the twisted future they come from, and more concerned with causing some trouble. To be honest, time travel stuff always gives me a headache, usually because it’s written so poorly. We’ll see how this goes.
|
|
Watching the Justice League Animated series (the second one), and I guess I never realized - the episode based on For the Man Who Has Everything is one of the only times Alan Moore actually allowed his name on the adaption. Considering his notorious dislike of any adaptions of his stories, that’s cool.
On a whole, I think the JL series were great, in part, because you had so many actual comic book creators involved. The aforementioned adapted episode alone was written J. M. DeMatteis.
|
|
I also see that Marvel is apparently killing off the Silver Surfer to replace him with a new female herald. I do often support replacing old characters with new ones. And it's interesting to seem them go the "kill them off" route, instead of just having another former herald running around.
Still, given Marvel's overall lack of good storytelling these days, I have my doubts a new character can take off. Instead, we'll probably get the usual continuous reboots or guest-starring shots in order to make the character seem popular.
Unclear if that will stick. Also Age of Revelation will replace some titles for a bit... but honestly, only thing I'm interested in Rogue/Storm and X-Avengers.
|
|
Didn't get around to reading my new books until later yesterday evening. The boy and I had been busy helping another scout with his Eagle Project for several hours. It was one of my heavy weeks, with lots of books (for current me). Anyway...
The Rocketfellers - We finally get more background into what drove the Rocketfeller family to seek refuge hiding in the past. It's the usual stuff - evil corporation, dangerous new tech, scientist who turns against evil corporation. There's a twist in this one, in that the sister of the main character (the scientist/dad of the family) is allied with the evil corporation, and appears to be infected by the new tech (called Borganics). They didn't finish the background, which makes me think we'll see more next issue.
New History of the DCU - Interesting, but nothing ground breaking. Still not crazy about some of these new cosmic entities they retconned into the comics in the last few years, but at least they seemed to have fixed it so there was only one Monitor again. The art alternated between decent and just plain horrible.
Lost Fantasy - They're doing a slow build on this one. We get to see that there appears to be some kind of governing council of supernatural entities, and one of them is the bad guy behind whatever shenanigans are going on. He's got minions among the normal populace, and a fun way of making sure they don't talk. There's some good action. They seem to be settling on two main characters. They both look human, but clearly are not. One's they white-haired protagonist who was introduced in the first issue. The other is a dude who wears sunglasses all the time and wields what looks like a lightsaber (but one that can shoot a beam).
Huck: Big Bad World - Huck and his mom continue on their roadtrip looking for other people with powers from the same origin. It seems an old witch (Baba Yaga, I think) went around giving people some magic soup to consume, which gave them abilities. Huck seems to have been born with his, however. Anyway, I don't trust the dude who approached them about doing this gig. He's hinky.
Green Lantern - I kept hearing good things about this series. Since it seemed to be starting a kind of new arc, I figured I'd jump on. This 25th issue was pretty cool. Guy was being Guy. Hal was being Hal. It looks like the dude is heavily influenced by the old GL animated series, because Aya and Razer are both around. It was cool seeing Ameythyst and Gemworld again. There are a lot of other characters I'm unfamiliar with, having given up on GL books back when they did that Third Army and Volthoom nonsense. Still, this issue was enjoyable enough I might keep going with it.
Mr. Terrific - I'm loving these flashbacks to his past, with him not being as physically capable, and even kind of getting his ass kicked. This Athena Prescott is funny, thinking she can actually intimidate Lex Luthor and not come out on the losing end. Especially when she's just a lapdog of Darkseid. The current time of the story had the Palace of Eternity. That goes back a ways. Cool.
Moon Knight - This was a good issue. Plenty of action. Plenty of moments for everyone. Lots of lesser villains showing up. I loved it when Hunter's Moon threw Killer Shrike out the window, then had that little interaction with MK . Tigra being all bad-ass. That shot of her with all the little blades sticking out of her was awesome. I'll be interested to see what happened to Fairchild at the end there. Although I was disappointed to see Zodiac back. Maybe he reminds me of someone, but for me he just comes across as a kind of annoying little asshat. Still one thing about him is he seems to be a villain who has to outthink Moon Knight, since he'd probably get his ass handed to him in a straight up fight. The art is great.
Geiger - We continue with the fallout (pun intended) from the battle with Ashley Arden. It seems to me Doctor Molotov has some stones referring to Geiger as a monster, since it was use of his weapons that largely turned the world into the s#@thole that it currently is. And now we see that Tariq has been affected way more than first thought, with perhaps his powers changing (growing?) for the worse. I think the guys coming after them were more soldiers from Vegas, but I kind of hope we move away from those guys and expand into the wider world. There has to be more bad guys out there.
|
|
Picked up the new preview magazines from Marvel and DC. Not much of interest there in the way of new books.
Marvel didn’t even have an Epic Collection that piqued my interest. And whatever they’re doing with the X-books looks horrifically pathetic.
DC K. O. looks….silly. No thanks. I did note that they’re putting out the first collected run from the new Aquaman series. It covers issues 1-8. So I think I’ll get that, then pick up the regular series with issue 9. And I’m starting on with Green Lantern and Green Lantern Corps as well. That Adams kid can write.
I did note two new collected editions from DC. One is Batman by Darwyn Cooke. It’s got Ego (which I already own), plus a bunch of other Batman and Batman-adjacent stories. The other is Batman: The Demon Trilogy. That’s a new hardcover edition with all three graphic novels.
|
|
A very slim week. Just two comics, plus the new issue of Heavy Metal (that’ll take a bit of time to read through).
Werewolf by Night: Blood Moon Rise - This one-shot wasn’t as good as I hoped. Also wasn’t as horrible as I feared it could be. The first story was decent. I think they’re trying to set up for some future story. I wasn’t thrilled about the whole half-transformation, talking wolf Jack. At least they had some potential hints at maybe undoing some of the other crap they’ve allowed to happen, hinting Dracula had him imprisoned and under control for awhile. The second story….reminded me why I ultimately gave up on the recent series. At least we got to see Lissa Russell again, but seemingly retconned.
Batman: The Last Halloween - Finally got another issue. I’m still not sure where Loeb is going with this story. It’s certainly not his best work. Far from it, in fact. The story’s adequate enough. What I’m really enjoying are the different artists. This time it was someone named Becky Cloonan. She did a decent job.
|
|
I was listening to this dude Perch on Youtube. He's usually got some pretty decent insights into the industry. I think he even knows some folks at Marvel and DC (at least, that's the impression he gives).
Anyway, someone wrote to him asking his opinion on what could be done to fix the current mess that is Marvel. I pretty much agree with his initial assessment - first thing you do is clean the hell out of editorial. Without that fix, nothing else matters.
He's not wrong. There's some in that editorial that have no business being in there.
|
|
Lost Marvels No. 2: Howard Chaykin Vol. 1 was waiting for me at my comic store today. This one had collected stories of Dominic Fortune, Monark Starkiller, and Phantom Eagle stories.
I also took note this was volume 1 of Chaykin work. Thus implying there will be a volume 2 somewhere in the (hopefully) near future.
|
|
Good week - lots of books.
Hello Darkness - this series started off pretty strong. The last couple of issues have had more bad stories than good, though.
Sisterhood: A Hyde Street Story - It’s the old tale of revenge. My guess is, we’ll find out the spirit of the dead girl is using the body of her friend to enact her revenge. And the living girl will ultimately get the blame.
Wolverine - This was, I think, a reprint of an older Claremont story. Or maybe a revisit and reinterpretation. Either way, it was damned interesting. It showed just how great a villain Sabertooth can be in the hands of a good writer. Although the title is a misdirect, since Wolverine is barely in the story.
Hellboy in Love: The Art of Fire - I wasn’t expecting another of these miniseries, but here it is. The art isn’t the greatest, but the story seems cool, continuing the character arc of Hellboy’s girlfriend from the late 70s.
JSA - We get a bit of insight into the Kid Eternity identity. Otherwise, the good guys don’t get to do much of anything. And the bad guys seem to be winning by the end. For now, anyway. And I guess I’m just realizing they made there Kobra leader a chick. Also still noy really a fan of some of these other retconned superheroes and villains. Kind of wish they could have just erased some of the more idiotic ones. It’s still cool seeing classics like Wotan and Gentlemen Jim again, though. Anyway, considering how long they’re dragging this first story arc out, I may not stick around beyond that.
Moon Knight - That was a fun little issue. I kind of wish Marlene would have shown up again, though. It’s always nice to see older characters on occasion. And it’s nice to see the Midnight Mission back again. Maybe that’s what they intended all along. Or maybe fan backlash convinced them it was a silly move. Although I think they should get rid of that sword. It’s way too powerful.
Resurrection Man - I don’t particularly like time travel shenanigans, mostly because writers typically suck at making it good. I can see Ram V seems to be using this as a way to reconcile some of the past retconned origins of the character. I appreciate that. And next issue is the last. That’s a shame.
Daredevil: Cold Day in Hell - What a cool finish to a wildly entertaining story. Bullseye and Daredevil in a fight to the finish. Loved the “tooth” thing as a final play by Bullseye. And I was glad to see Frank go out with style. Great miniseries. I’m sorry to see it’s over. I wouldn’t have minded exploring that alternate future a little more.
|
|
I was entering my Immortal Hulk issues into my database, and the app will show every variant cover. You then just check-box the one you own. In the database, the different variants have a letter (or combo of letters) added so issue 1A, 1B, 1C, and so forth.
Issue #1 of Immortal Hulk went up to something like issue 1N. The first issue of Fantastic Four (volume 6) went up to 1CA. That’s something like 79 variant covers. Granted, though, that last one was a second printing variant.
That is insane! Is there any moron who would actually buy that many different variants? Or even maybe 10 of them?