So, What comics did you buy this week?

[Tom Foolery]

Totally Awesome Hulk 5. An issue I had missed during the initial run before I dropped the book. Cho faces off against the Enchantress.
TAHulk 13-14. NBA Star Jeremy Lin guest stars for a couple issues, I guess because Grek Pak is a huge Lin fan? He helps Cho fight some giant robot dragons over Texas.
TAHulk 15-18 A team of predominantly Asian heroes(Jimmy Woo, Silk, Ms Marvel, Shang-Chi, etc) team up with Cho when a portion of Manhattan is teleported to an alien world and the heroes and civilians have to fight against being dinner.
TAHulk 19, 21(I’m missing 20, 22) The WMD crossover with Weapon X. The issues I’m missing are ridiculously expensive because it’s the first appearance of Weapon H, an amalgamation of Hulk and Wolverine that literally nobody gives a shit about, but his issue is thru the roof and now I don’t have a complete run. Fuck.
TAHulk 23. The final issue before the legacy renumbering, Cho feels like the ‘monster’ personality is trying to usurp his smart Amadeus personality so he shoots himself into space, continues in the Legacy Incredible Hulk 709, but first...

Hulk 3-6. She-Hulk was ‘promoted’ to Hulk after Banner was killed during Civil War II. She wakes up from her coma to find her cousin murdered and she is suffering from PTSD. I initially dropped this after the second issue because the “Hulk” wasn’t appearing in the Hulk comic. But when you pay a fraction of the price for the entire series, I can appreciate the moody, horror-esque storytelling of attorney Jennifer Walters refusing to change into the Hulk and dealing with a creepy shut-in client who has made a pact with an eldritch creature killing people to keep her safe. And the buildup to her actually Hulking out in issue six was narratively satisfying.
Hulk 7-10 In the second arc, a YouTuber gets accidentally doused with an MGH derivative and turned into a monster on a livestream for hits, and Jennifer reluctantly has to release the Hulk to subdue him. The 11th issue was the final before the series reverted to Legacy She-Hulk numbering, but I do not have issue 11. The entire 11 issue run was better than I gave it credit for when read in one sitting.

Incredible Hulk 709-713. Cho gets sent to Sakarr to deal with a new Warlord and has to face five trials without succumbing to the rage beast within. At first I was bothered because the last I knew, Sakarr had been eaten by Galactus during Skaar, Son of Hulk’s series a few years ago, but internet research revealed it had been reconstructed from an infinity stone during Infinite Countdown.
Incredible Hulk 714-717. World War Hulk II. Cho returns from Sakarr with the monster in charge and it takes all his friends and allies to stop him. Pak ended his run on the character for now, and Banner returned in the new ongoing Immortal Hulk series by Al Ewing.

Hyperion 1,2. Was missing these first two issues of Hyperion working as a truck driver trying to blend into humanity. Eh. It was written by that shitty Star Wars writer Chuck Wendig.

Iceman 5-11. The overall theme of this short lived Iceman series was him coming out to his family and friends. The issue where he confronts his intolerant parents was particularly good.

Illuminati 5. The only issue I was missing from the super short ongoing where Parker’The Hood’ Robbins recruited a bunch of villains for yet another super villain team.

Next up, since I just got Empire Ascendant, I’m gonna finish up the two ongoing Star Wars books, then continue the “I” list with Infinity Countdown, Inhumans, and various Iron Man books(Iron Riri, Iron Doom, etc)

[Tom Foolery]

Star Wars 70-75. Grek Pak came in after Gillen left to wrap up the main ongoing. Luke, Leia, Han and the gang go on separate missions to throw the Empire off the scent of where the new Rebel base is on Hoth. I was annoyed they were using comms with each other for casual banter while they were all in different systems.

Dr Aphra 35-40. Aphra double crosses the Rebels and the Empire and inadvertently saves the Emperor in order to get revenge on the Imperial officer who killed her mom. Then she has one last confrontation with Vader and escapes his clutches again.
Aphra Annual 3. Aphra coordinates with monster hunters Winloss and Nokk, and Krsantann to get revenge on the bartender in Chalmun’s cantina who doublecrossed her years ago.
Empire Ascendant oneshot. Four separate stories that set up the four new ongoing SW books that start next year; Star Wars, Aphra, Vader, and Bounty Hunters. All set in the year between ESB and RoJ.
Also a Star Wars Saga oneshot that recapped everything that had happened in the four main ongoing SW books that have come out since 2015.

[jjreason]

Has the main series showed them getting to Hoth then? Did they include the Bounty Hunter on Ord Mantell that we've heard about so many times??? I was good through issue 50 of the main & up to the end of Vader v1 but dropped out due to cost. I need to get the trades & get caught up.

[Tom Foolery]

They’ve not been to Ord Mantell and that has bugged the shit of me as well.
Thereve been some brief scenes on Hoth in the main series and in the Empire oneshot.

[Tom Foolery]

Continuing with ‘I’s

Infinity Countdown:Adam Warlock oneshot. Picking up where the GotG series ended in 150. Adam steps out of his cocoon in Kang’s fortress at the end of time. Kang enlists Adam into an alliance to defeat some unnamed all powerful baddie and sends him back to ancient Egypt for Rama-Tuts assistance. Rama says Adam is needed in the year 2018 to stop the bad guy, but he can’t time travel or he’ll know, so Rama kills Adam(again) and entombs him until his cocoon is ready in present day.
Infinity Countdown:Prime. After Secret Wars destroyed and then reset the Multiverse, the infinity stones have been missing. Now they’re showing up again. Wolverine has the Space gem. Captain Marvel, Reality. Turk Barret, minor Daredevil thug has the Mind Gem. Drax and the Nova Corps are sitting on a building-sized Power gem with both the Chitauri and Shi-Ar armadas bearing down on them. Super-Skrull finds the Time gem on a resurrected planet Sakaar. And the Magus has the Soul gem, but Ultron/Pym wants it for himself. Leads into...

Infinity Countdown 1-5. Players are trying to reassemble the stones and others are attempting to stop them. The big changes in the series are Groot gets returned to his full size and can no speak in complete sentences other than ‘I am Groot’ and the Silver Surfer convinces Galactus the life bringer to revert to his Devourer mode in order to stop Ultron from dispersing his Ultron army across the galaxy. In exchange, Surfer binds himself to Galactus as his Herald once more and Adam Warlock acquires the Soul stone. Leads into Infinity Wars.

IC:Black Widow oneshot. Wolverine leaves the space gem in Natasha’s toilet with a note saying ‘you’ll know what to do with this’ and then she starts getting chased across the globe by bad guys.

IC:Captain Marvel oneshot. With her reality stone, Carol can access all the Captain Marvels across the multiverse for suggestions on how to defeat bad guys, but she’s getting too much info and too many choices so she’s becoming ineffective. Eventually she has an epiphany that maybe she should just do what she thinks is best. The message is lame, but some of the alt versions she meets are cool What If scenarios.

IC:Darkhawk 1-4. Razor(the Darkhawk suit’s AI) calls Chris Powell into space to deal with the Raptors looking for the infinity stones. The real Raptors come out of null space and destroy the new Raptors and kill Chris, but he taps into some deep hidden Darkhawk power and becomes like super ultra mega Darkhawk 3.0 or something. Kinda cool series adding to the DH mythology. At the end Sleepwalker shows up and says he needs Chris’ help. Two 90s heroes for the price of one!

IC;Champions 1-2. Nova gets called to action to help the corps against the Chitauri and his Champion buddies go with him. They end up getting caught between the Chitauri warlord and Yhanos who has taken over the Chitauri home world. Nova beats Warlord and tells his army to stand down. Then Thanos easily defeats the Champions, destroying Ironhearts armor like tissue paper. And Nova, for all his troubles, gets his helmet taken away by the Nova Corps since he wasn’t authorized to have it. Bummer.

IC:Daedevil. Turk is using the mind gem to set up his power base as the next potential Kingpin and ends up on DD’s radar. Nothing gets resolve, I’m guessing it’s setting up a future arc in either DD or the Infinity Wars.

Infinity Wars Prime. They are setting up Thanos as the big baddie for the upcoming cosmic event series, only to have him beheaded at the end by Requiem, the REAL super secret new big baddie. Sadly, I am spoiled and know who Requiem really is.

[Tom Foolery]

Uncanny Inhumans 7. The one issue I was missing from this run. Some Inhumam macguffin gets stolen, but Frank McGee, former NYPD detective and current NuHuman is on the case!

Inhuman vs X-Men 5,6. The end of this dumb event. Remember M-pox? The disease caused by the Terrigen mist explosion that only affects mutants? Yeah, that storyline gets resolved. This was just an excuse to have two teams fight each other on the flimsiest of premises assuming nobody stops and explains to the other why they’re fighting. Dumb as rocks. Ugh.

Inhumans:Once and Future Kings 2-5. Chris Priest and Phil Noto tell an intriguing “flashback” story from before Blackbolt was king. There is an attempt on the previous king’s life and it’s made to look like Blackbolt and Maximus are responsible, so they and Medusa go on the run. Kinda messes with the timeline, because they are running around NYC as teenagers and the FF and Spidey are already established in the Marvel U. I’m not familiar with the Inhumans first appearance in FF, but this implies BB had JUST become King when they are first introduced. Still, a decent read and leaves room for potential sequels in that diminishing timeframe.

Inhumans: Judgment Day oneshot. The follow up to the two short lived ongoings, Royals and Blackbolt, trying to re-establish a status quo for the Inhumans.

Death of the Inhumans 1-5. Holy shit, talk about razing a franchise. Donny Cates came in and cleaned house. The Kree decide they’re getting back into the Empire building mode and decide the Inhumans are legally their soldiers as they were intended eons ago. All that world building that Hickman did in FF with the Midnight King prophecy and the four queens of the other Inhuman tribes gets destroyed in the first issue. The four other tribes are decimated, the queens killed, and when Blackbolt and the others find the bodies, a booby trap kills Triton in an explosion. And while they are away, the Kree and their new super general, Vox, attack Actilan and wipe out all the Inhumans on the Moon including Maximus and Lockjaw. That’s just the first issue y’all.
By the end, Black Bolt’s throat is slit and he loses his powers but not before destroying a laboratory of gengineered Inhumans so that the Kree can’t use them. Also, Ronan the Accuser dies during the series and the Royal Family, what’s left of them, haven’t been seen since in the Marvel U. Fucking dark, yo.

[Tom Foolery]

The rest of ‘I’s.

Iron Fist 7. The last issue of an arc where Danny is fighting a possessed Shang-Chi.
Iron Fist 73-77. Reverts to Legacy Numbering. Somebody wearing the Constrictor costume breaks into Danny’s penthouse and steals a book that lets you enter K’un L’un without having to wait ten years. Danny goes to Sabretooth for help. The serpent society gets involved and some former KunLunians(?) are trying to get back in for a hostile takeover. There’s a big battle and dragons and shit. Pretty good arc.
Iron Fist 78-80. The series ended with a three part Damnation tie-in. Mephisto is having the former Iron Fist Orson Randall fight in a 24 hour cage match to get his soul and life back. Danny and Fat Cobra get involved and Orson sacrifices himself so that Danny’s half sister comes back instead.

Iron Doom 6 and 12. Still missing a bunch of issues, but Victor was trying to turn over a new leaf, but faces skepticism from heroes especially Ben Grimm who is heading up an anti-Doom SHIELD task force.
Iron RiRi 3-11. After Tony went into a coma after Civil War2, the series followed his protege as she fights Tomoe and the cyber ninjas, butts heads with Sharon Carter and SHIELD, and defeats Lucia von Barda and takes over Latveria. Doom and RiRi’s series both combined into...

Invincible Iron Man 593-600. The book reverted to Legacy Numbering as Tony’s comatose body disappeared and everyone is searching for it. I didn’t realize that the book had two art teams as Maleev continued from Doom’s book for the Doom parts, and Caselli continued for the RiRi stuff. Pretty cool. All the villains Doom had incarcerated in his book break out of Ryker’s and go looking for revenge and Victor’s face gets re-destroyed. Both of Tony’s biological parents show up, and Tony brings Rhodes back to life. 600 was Bendis’ last Marvel book. Like he had three or four books that ended when he left, but this was the last last one, so he was wrapping up a bunch of his loose ends after 19 years at Marvel.

Iron Man:Hong Kong Heroes oneshot. This book introduced a new Chinese hero wearing a variation of the Iron Man armor. Not even sure if this is in the main continuity or what. It wasn’t bad, it was just... eh.

Next up, Jean Grey, Jessica Jones, Luke Cage, and some Marvel stuff and this box will be done. Then it’s the box I started with a bunch of Spidey stuff at the end, so I just have to get thru the first half of the box, with the M thru R stuff. And then I can catalog another dozen boxes.

[Tom Foolery]

Back with all the ‘J’ thru ‘L’ reading.

Jean Grey 7,8, 10, and 11. Teenage time travel Jean had a premonition the Phoenix Force was gonna come try and possess her, so she went on a tour of the Marvel U meeting mystics and psychics and previous Phoenix avatars to get prepared. Between issues 10 and 11, the five part weekly mini event series Phoenix Ressurection came out and the original Jean Grey came back to life. I’m not sure if that was the plan all along or not. I know they brainstorm story ideas way ahead of time, so I have to think they knew. Either way, it was an okay series.

Jessica Jones 13-18. Bendis wrapped up his Marvel run with the first character he ever wrote at Marvel. It’s clear this character is his baby (even though he piles tons of shit on her). Gaydos’ art is fantastic. This was a wonderful send off. Highly recommended.

Kingpin 1-5. I originally read the first two issues back in May 2017(because I did a search on here). Wilson Fisk hires a journalist to ghost write his autobiography and her life gets enmeshed in his with problematic results. Interesting stuff by Rosenberg.

Legion 2, 3, and 5. David Haller goes to a psychiatrist to help him with his multiple personalities. Missing 2 issues. It was eh.

Vote Loki 4. The final issue of a mini where Loki runs for President. An intrepid reporter keeps uncovering his lies, but he keeps turning her discoveries into more popularity with the voters. A satire of elections seems like low hanging fruit to me and I did not care for the art, but there was some clever writing here and there. But mostly a pass.

Luke Cage 166 and 168. Missing 167, 169, 170. Cage’s new series reverted to Legacy numbering and I don’t have enough of the issues to comment one way or the other.

Next up, Marvel Legacy, Marvel Rising, and Marvel Two-in-One.

[jjreason]

I got a few today: ASM 31 because of the cover & Absolute Carnage 5 - just wanting to read a little Spidey & I've heard the Carnage series went quite well. We'll see. Also got another Batman 85 (other cover), X-Men 4, New Mutants 3 & 4, History of Marvel U 5 & 6.

EDITED: Actually got New Mutants 5 as well - and in doing some research it appears X-Men has fallen behind schedule. Next issue is going to be Jan 29, almost a month later than planned.

[Tom Foolery]

Finished up the box yesterday.

Marvel Legacy oneshot. A bunch of short interconnected stories that were setting up the post-Legacy storylines in many of the ongoings when it came out. Sort of like the recent Incoming! oneshot. These kinds of book have more impact when you read them the day they come out, and not several years after the story arcs they are setting up have concluded.

Marvel Rising 0(FCBD) Alpha, Omega, Ms Marvel/Squirrel Girl, and Squirrel Girl/Ms Marvel. So, I know there’s a cartoon(or several cartoons) and I THINK the idea of Rising is to capitalize on the younger heroes of the MarvelU that do better in digital sales(?) but this was their initial comic foray that teamed up Kamala and Doreen to fight a nuhuman who is being manipulated by Arcade. The new character, Emulator, can create video game characters and settings after absorbing electricity. America Chavez and a forgettable nuhuman named Inferno are also on hand to help out. The oneshots were co-written by the writers on the main books and Ms Marvel and Squirrel Girl are fun characters in the right hands, so this was a decently fun series. The cartoons are on Disney+ so I might check them out.

Marvel 2 in 1 1-12, Annual 1. In the vacuum of a lack of ongoing FF books, Chip Zdarsky wrote a fun team up book with Thing and Human Torch skipping thru the multiverse looking for Reed, Sue, and the kids. Infamous Iron Doom was tagging along for good measure and Zdarsky has fun bouncing dialogue off of Victor, Ben, and Johnny while dropping them into What If alternate dimensions. Towards the end of the book, they had restarted the actual FF series, so this series wrapped up its short run, but it was good while it lasted. Recommend.

And that is the end of that box. Next up from the final old box I have to plow thru; Moon Girl! Moon Knight! Ms Marvel! Nova! Old Man Logan! Punisher! Royals! and getting back to where I started, the ends of Squirrel Girl, Spidey/Deadpool, and whatever assorted minis, oneshots, and tie-ins are scattered throughout the box.

[jjreason]

I enjoyed that Marvel 2 in 1 for as long as I kept up with it. Not sure if I have the full thing or not - I stopped when new FF 1 came out. I was also reading Moon Girl & Devil Dino which had some FF attachment at the time, and it was also pretty young-readery good.

[Tom Foolery]

The ‘M’ box begins.

First up, Year of Marvels. This was a digital first series that posted once a month with a new story starring various heroes in the MU. The digital stories were then (re)printed in actual floppies in the form of five oneshots with various subtitles. But for some reason “a year” of Marvels is only ten months because it started in February and ended in November. Which is why only five issue instead of six. I only have two of the five books. I’m missing The Amazing, The Unbeatable, and The Unstoppable.
The Uncanny had a Kate Bishop story and a Punisher story.
The Incredible had a story about an average citizen fed up with super hero antics and one where X-23 and She-Hulk team up.

Master of Kung-Fu 126. The Legacy oneshot that picks up the numbering of an older Marvel ongoing. This one had an offshoot of Hydra or AIM or someone experimenting on animals and Shang-Chi rescues one of the chimps and teaches it martial arts. It was fucking stupid.

Monsters Unleashed 1-12(minus 7 and 11). The short lived ongoing that spun out of the event series of the same name. Kid Kaiju and his giant monsters live on Monster Island and help save the world from giant monsters. It was a fairly fun, if irrelevant, series.

[Tom Foolery]

Moon Girl!
Issue 6. The issue I was missing from before. The first arc was Lunella trying to avoid the Terrigen cloud. The cloud caught up with her in this issue.
23. The end of the Girl-Moon arc where Lunella reunited Ego the Living Planet with his daughter, the Moon. At the end she used the Omni-wave device to return Devil Dinosaur to his own time.
24. Several short stories where Lunella is looking for a new partner now that DD is gone. Guest starring X-Babies, Ghost Rider, and Daredevil.
25-30. Fantastic Three. Lunella decides her new partner(s) will be the Thing and Human Torch. Silver Surfer and Galactus guest star as the F3 stops Super-Skrull from bringing an extra dimensional being to Earth to eat our universe.
31. An anti-smoking issue with D-list Spidey villain Swarm.
32-36. Mayor Fisk is threatening to shut down Lunella’s school for some nefarious real estate scam unless they can pass a standardized test. The Wrecking Crew shows up.
37. A Christmas one off where Lunella and DD save Santa.
38-41. Lunella teams up with Dr Strange and Sleepwalker to fight Nightmare and his new protege Bad Dream.
42. Lunella fights and then teams up with Spidey in this one off.
43. War of the Realms tie-in.
44. Lunella time travels back to the 50’s and meets her grandmother as a young girl.
45. The class goes on a field trip to the Museum of Natural History and Lunella accidentally reanimates Dino skeletons.
46-47. The final two issues had the Fantastic Four show up as Reed takes an interest in the little girl who usurped him as the smartest person on Earth.

Overall, this was a cheeky fun little series. I’m glad I stuck with it even though I’m not the target audience.
Next up, Moon Knight!

[jjreason]

I purchased Marauders 4-6 today because there was nothing in my file at the store. I hadn't been there for about 3 weeks.

Read the X2s - X-Men, Marauders & New Mutants - not bad but I won't remember what happened by the time I wake up tomorrow. Apparently I missed something important in X-Force 1. Read them all or get left behind - and I'll choose to get left behind at this point I guess.

I'll read the 3s & 4s before X-Men 5 finally comes out on Wednesday.

[Tom Foolery]

For some reason, Marauders 5 wasn’t in my box when I was sorting yesterday. I have 4 and 6, but no 5.