So, What comics did you buy this week?

[Tom Foolery]

Next up is the Spider-Men II mini and then Peter David’s Spidey 2099 ongoing that ran 25 issues.

Just for context, That quote is from August of last year.

I read half the Spidey2099 series, then read all those Secret Wars tie in books back in November.

I finished up Spidey 2099 towards the beginning of the year, but the website was down. Short recap of the entire series. Miguel is trapped in the present, working for Peter at Parker Industries. He’s trying to figure out to repair his 2099 timeline which had become an apocalyptic wasteland(I forgot how) and ended up in a pitched hero battle in 2099 with the 2099 Avengers (who worked for Alchemax) on one side, and the 2099 Defenders on the other. In the end he had to ‘fake’ his own death to close some time loophole and fix his future. Typical Peter David banter throughout. Good, but not essential, series.

Annnd I just caught up with The Unbeatable Squirrel Girl issues 21-41. Now that MTMTE is over and done, this is probably the funnest comic currently going.
Issue 21 was a standalone where Koi Boi, Chipmunk Hunk, and Brain Drain all take over crime fighting duties in the city while Doreen and Nancy are on vacation in the Negative Zone.
22-25 had the team head to the Savage Land and team up with Kraven the Hunter and some Latverian kids to stop a T-Rex Ultron from destroying the advanced alien equipment keeping the Savage Land all prehistoric and not frozen like the rest of Antarctica.
26 was a one-off where the characters all wrote and drew ‘zine fanfic versions of themselves in short 3-5 page stories. Iron Man, Galactus, Howard the Duck, etc all “contributed”
27-30. Nancy and TippyToe get abducted to a planet full of alien squirrels that’s being threatened by the “Silver Surfer”. Doreen enlists the aid of Loki and Drax to rescue them and the real Surfer shows up. Lots of cosmic wackiness ensues.
31 is another one-off where Doreen and Nancy get trapped in hyper time and live their entire lives at super speed over one weekend while trying to construct a Dr Doom-esque time machine to undo it before they die of old age. It was original artist Ericka Henderson’s last issue on the book, so it was kinda sweet.
32-35. The gang participated in an Escape Room challenge that turns out to be run by forgotten 90’s villain Mojo II. They end up going to jail because they’re hanging out with Kraven. There’s a trial and then a showdown with Spider-Man.
36 was a one-off silent issue.
37-40 was about a Skrull hiding out from Secret Invasion copying Squirrel Girl and then Tony Stark.
41 was the most current issue.

This book is hilarious and has a lot of positive energy. And the single issues give you the bonus of the hilarious recap pages as well as 2-3 worth of letters pages with responses from the creators every issue. That stuff probably isn’t in the TPBs. Highest recommendations.

Next up, I think are a couple of short lived Star Lord series(one ran 8 issues, and the other 6) and then it’s on to Star Wars, which between the three ongoings is gonna be around 70 issues at least. I’m TRYING to be more consistent in my reading. I really am.

[Tom Foolery]

Lookee there, finished not one, but TWO Star-Lord series in less than a week.

The first one, from 2016, ran 8 issues. Written by Sam Humphries, The first arc awkwardly tried to shoehorn the MCU film origin of Peter Quill into the comics origin, complete with space pirate Yondu as his mentor. They added all this unnecessary baggage, like Quill’s mom’s best friend is this astronaut chick who is in charge of a massive space exploration program on earth training hundreds of astronauts for a colonization mission in deep space(remember this is when Quill is a child/teenager, so all of this is slightly before the FF even went up in their rocket, or right around that time given the nebulous “sliding time scale” of the Marvel U. Colonization projects?? WTH?) And Quill is working there as mechanic.
So he gets salty about not being chosen for the astronaut program and steals a spaceship and then gets “kidnapped” by Yondu’s crew and becomes a space pirate for awhile before having to choose sides when they attack the recently launched colonization ship from Earth led by his mom’s bff and sorta surrogate mom to Quill. It’s just...no.
The second 3 issue arc deals with how Peter and Kitty Pryde broke up after he became King of Spartax. They both get kidnapped by the Collector, and have a Rashomon style argument dealing with their split.

The second 6 issue(plus one Annual) came out in 2017. Subtitled ‘Grounded’ deals with the fallout of the Civil War II event where the Guardians’ ship gets blown up during the climax and the GotGs were all stranded on Earth for awhile. Rocket and Star-Lord both got short series out of the deal, everyone else had their adventures in the main GotG book, I guess.
Anyway, Peter is stuck on Earth. He goes and tries to reconcile with Kitty, then goes drinking with Old Man Logan. They get in a bar fight, Quill gets arrested and has to do 100 hours community service, so he starts hanging out with an old Man in a retirement home. The old man’s son runs The Bar With No Name, and Quill gets a job bartending there. Which leads to a jewel heist and a confrontation with new NYC crime lord, Black Cat.
Chip Zdarsky did a better job with this series. Not great, it was okay, but ultimately forgettable.

Next up, many Star Wars books. I don’t think there was a lot of crossover between them, so I’ll probanly just catch up on the main series, then Dr. Aphra, then finish the complete Vader series(which began and ended since I stopped reading last year. Yikes.) Might be a couple minis in there somewhere. I stopped trying to be a completist on the SW stuff after several weak ass minis like Chewbacca and that Qui-Gon/Obi-Wan one. And I didn’t bother with the Poe ongoing at all.

[Diabolical]

Poe Dameron isn't bad. The hunt whats his name at the beginning of TFA takes up quite a lot of time, maybe most of it (with some diversions), IIRC.

And recent issues explain where his crew was during TLJ, since Rian Johnson forgot, didn't care, or dropped the ball. Probably all 3.

[Tom Foolery]

Star Wars, Part I!!

The first thing I didn’t read was Kanan:The Last Padawan. I was mostly getting them out of back issue bins because of the sweet Mark Brooks covers. I haven’t watched enough Rebels to have that connection to the main character(not that I need it, because it’s a prequel) but primarily I skipped it because I’m still missing three of the 12 issues, and I’ll just get back around to it when I have the full series.

Also have the 4th issue of Chewbacca and the ObiWan/Anakin books. Not even sure where the rest of those series are, scattered about in boxes, so no point in reading single issues of either.

So I began where I left off in the main 2 titles, which was the Screaming Citadel crossover between Aphra and the main book. Aphra tricks/recruits Luke to help her unlock an ancient Jedi doohickey she found. Han,Leia, and Sana assume Luke’s been kidnapped and follow. They go to a planet with a queen who can unlock it for them, but she’s really a hivemind collection of spidercrab things that like to take over interesting people(like a new Jedi-esque farmboy that just blew up the Death Star. He’s interesting). Eventually they defeat the evil queen and Luke realizes he didn’t need the ancient Jedi doohickey after all because what he needed was in his heart the entire time.

At this point I had to choose which of the two books to binge read. I decided to read the Aphra series first. After Screaming Citadel;

9-14. Aphra keeps the Jedi doodad and offers it up to a bunch of criminal syndicates and other assorted interested parties at a fancy underworld auction. Chaos ensues when her two murderbot companions betray her and blackmail her into “freeing” them from her ownership. Also, the Jedi doodad has an ancient Jedi consciousness in it that can take over machines. The entire auction goes south, Vader shows up, many people die. Aphra manages to barely escape.
15-19. Aphra is now unwillingly working for 000 and BT, being the figurehead of their crime ring on Son-Tull. 000 sends Aphra and a team of mercs to retrieve his backed-up memories(including his very first murder) which were being held by the late Wat Tambor. However, everything has since been acquired by the Empire amd is held in a huge, heavily guarded data storage star base. So the mercs, go and kidnap General Syndulla(I had to look her up, because again, limited Rebels knowledge) to trade and break and steal the data. Aphra double crosses everyone and gives the Rebels ALL the data and 000 his original memories, but encrypts them so they have to pay to unlock them. There’s also an Imperial chick who got demoted after her last run in with Aphra who’s chasing her and they kinda have the hots for each other. This ends with Aphra being arrested and sent to Imperial prison...
20-25. ...aboard a giant star cruiser where the prisoners are used as cannon fodder in battles. Aphra befriends a shape changer and they plan an escape. Syndulla sends Sana to “rescue” Aphra so they can unlock the data. Aphra calls her Imperial booty call to come get her out before the interrogation droids make her reveal what she knows about Vader’s plan to overthrow the Emperor. Vader shows up again, and Aphra has to sacrifice her GFs memories to escape with the shapeshifter and 000. Turns out the shapeshifter is really Dr. Evazan and he knocks the two out and puts proximity bombs is them so they have to stay within 20 meters of each other...
26-29. Aphra and 000 are forced to work with each other while stranded on a planet controlled by the Imperial PR division. Evazan starts broadcasting their adventure thru 000’s eyes to the entire planet as sort of a reality TV show, and everyone is looking for them.
There’s also a couple annuals in there.

The more I read the series, the more I appreciate having a character that’s not hampered by fact they are recognized characters from the main film series, whose story trajectory is predetermined. It gives the writers Gillen and Spurrier much more freedom to explore the galaxy with a unique, morally questionable character. I do NOT like the droids. “Hey, what if R2 and 3PO were murdering sociopaths lol??” works for an issue, or maybe an arc. But they just grate on me. Otherwise, I enjoyed it.

So next up is the main series. Then after that the new Vader book.

[Tom Foolery]

Star Wars Part II!

The ongoing main Star Wars title! After the Screaming Citadel crossover(see above) Jason Aaron finished off his run on the book with a series of stand alone issue showcasing the main characters.
33 had Luke and Leia crash land on an alien moon and use the surrounding environment to guerrilla fight the local Imperial presence before they could escape, so as to leave the indigenous people safe from retribution.
34 had Sana rope Lando into a complicated smuggling scam which pitted alien arms dealers, the Imperials, and the Hutts against each other where she got paid by all three for 13 crates of stolen weapons, and managed to keep the weapons in the end.
35 had Han and Chewie “smuggling” a captured Hutt to a Rebel safehouse on the other side of the Galaxy.
36 had Artoo singlehadnedly invading a Star Destoyer and rescuing the captured Threepio.
37, Aaron’s final issue, saw the return of the Stormtrooper SCAR Squadron, and one last Obi-Wan short story.
38-43. Kieron Gillen took over writing. His first arc sent the team back to Jedha where the Imperials are trying to salvage the last of the Kyber from the crumbling world. Leia wants to recruit what’s left of Saw Guerrera’s partisans into the Alliance. The Queen of Shu-Torun, while publicly assisting the Empire, secretly forms an alliance with Leia to help the Rebels build a navy.
44-49. Leia and the team go to Mon Cala to convince them to bring their vast merchant navy to the Rebels aid, but they won’t do it because their king(is this the kid from Clone Wars?) still being held. They go to rescue him, and he dies in the attempt, but not before leaving a stirring message calling upon his people to rebel. They do, and now the Alliance has its Navy, outfitted with comms and hyperdrives from Shu-Torun. Unfortunately, the Queen was a double crossing bitch who calls Vader.
50-55. Absolutely heart breaking story arc. The secret Rebel base and their newly formed fleet are caught with their pants down when Vader and the Imperial fleet show up led by the Executor. None of their vessels work because the Queen sabotaged them all and many notable Rebel leaders like Generals Willard, Draven, and Jan Dodonna lose their lives before the Rebels barely escape and go on the run through the Galaxy. Also the birthplace of Rogue Squadron. As a result of the decimation, Leia, Han, and Luke are receive promotions in the Alliance hierarchy because there’s hardly anyone else left.
56-61. The team is hiding out on an isolated planet while being chased by the Empire. SCAR Squadron shows up and the team joins up with the locals, who are descendants of some mysterious merc squad for decades ago(I don’t know if this is a reverence to something or not) to escape. Also, Leia is planning her revenge against Sho-Turun.
And also a couple Annuals in there.

I would gather that the series is about halfway through the three year period between ANH and ESB at this point.

Next up is the Vader series, and a couple minis I actually bought, Phasma, Thrawn, etc. Then I think the run of Action Comics leading up to issue 1000 is after that.

[Tom Foolery]

Something I noticed on today’s comics purchase. Avengers 16 is Legacy 706. Avengers:No Road Home 4 is Legacy 711.
So even though NRH is a separately numbered 12 issue maxi-series coming out weekly, it is still part of the ‘main’ series as far as the overall numbering is concerned. Went back and checked and so far, it’s 13/703, 14/704, 15/705 and the first 3 issues of NRH are 708-710.

Interesting. Now I know where to slot the limited series in my collection.


——————————


Also, should ‘Meet the Skrull’ go in the M’s or the ‘S’s?

[jjreason]

Fuckers, forcing the purchase of multiple series to keep up with the numbering. I call BS (although it's not any more BS than DC making us buy 2 Batmans & 2 Detectives per month - maybe I withdraw my initial statement....).

Detective 999
Batman 66
Flash 66
Doomsday Clock 9.

[Tom Foolery]

Star Wars Part III!

The second Vader ongoing picks up immediately where RotS leaves off(“Nooooooo!” gets reduced to a single ‘NO!’ which is a little more dignified I guess) and follows Vader’s ascension to the Emperor’s official right hand man.
Issues 1-6 have him tracking down a rogue Jedi so he can take his lightsaber and make it a red blade Sith saber thru some hokey ritual that make the crystal bleed from sadness or some shit. I’d never heard of this before. He also gets introduced to the Inquisitors, which I assumed was some Rebels reference.
7-12 has him training the Inquisitors and hunting down Jocasta Nu, who has a secret data file of all the force sensitive children in the galaxy. Eventually he kills her and destroys the data file rather than hand it over to the Emperor. There was also a dangling subplot that never gets resolved about some Imperial underlings trying to assassinate him which he curtailed by having the Emperor officially announce him as the 2nd in command of the Empire and then immediately force choking five random Imperial Officers in front of everyone.
13-19 sent him to Mon Cala to stop the insurrection there and take the King hostage. And also kill another Jedi padawan who had escaped and was starting a Rebel cell.
20-25 after killing the last hidden Jedi Eeth Koth, he headed to Mustafar where he built his imposing lava castle with the help of an ancient Sith trapped in a helmet.
So, the great Jedi Purge that Vader is infamous for was him tracking down 4 Jedi. Unless I missed some things.

After that was Cassian/K-2SO oneshot that showed how they met. Meh.
Captain Phasma 1-4 was about how she made it off the Starkiller Base before it exploded and how she avoided execution for being the punk ass who let it happen by foisting the blame on a different FO Officer who figured out the truth and then killing him.
Thrawn 1-6 is, I guess, an adapatation of a Zahn book about his rise to power? I’m not sure what is canon and what isn’t when it comes to Mitth’raw’nuruodo, but I like the character and I’m glad he avoided the Legends continuity purge.

That’s it for Star Wars. All caught up. Now for Action Comics 987-1000.

[anarky]

The bit about red sabers comes from the Ahsoka novel. It's quite good, even though I'm not crazy about this detail.

Inquisitors are indeed from Rebels. And, judging from the saber Maul has in Solo, we're going to see them again elsewhere. (His red saber is pieced together from the weapons of at least one Inquisitor.)

Thrawn is an adaptation of the Zahn book about his origins, and leads into his appearances on Rebels. It's canon, but Zahn has been meticulous about ensuring the Thrawn novels he's written so far for the new canon also jive with the EU. (Not sure how much longer he can keep that up, because they diverge widely very soon.)

[Tom Foolery]

Back with the last of “S” books! Yeah, Action Comics is in the ‘S’ box. Big Whup. Wanna fight about it?

Action Comics 987-992 “The OZ Effect” I am really out of the loop on all the post-Post Crisis post NU52 Rebirth continuity fuckery. Apparently Clark and Lois have a son. And not like an adopted Kryptonian orphan or something. From the way it reads, Lois straight up had a super baby at some point and now he’s 8-12 years old(I can’t tell the way different artists are drawing Jon). Huh. Weird. Anyway, this Mr. Oz guy has been mysteriously lurking for a few issues(which I don’t have/haven’t read) and he finally reveals himself to be Jor-El who didn’t die on Krypton when it exploded. He’s been hiding out on Earth for awhile and has come to the conclusion that people are shitty and he regrets sending Kal here as a baby. As such, he wants to leave and make Kal go with him. To “prove” to Kal that humans are shitty, he’s been going around influencing situations and then watching as people make the “bad” decision, leading to violence, chaos etc. Superman disagrees with him, they fight blah blah.
993-998 Kal has to know whether Jor-El is for real, so he steals Flash’s cosmic treadmill to back in time to witness the destruction of Krypton to see if his father actually died. This sets off Booster Gold’s Time Travel Warning Whatever and he goes to stop Supes from accidentally altering the past. So, back in 2007 Booster got his own second ongoing series, that spun out of the weekly 52 series where all the DC books “time jumped” ahead one year, and then they had a weekly gimmick series that filled in the blanks of what happened. One of the things was that Dan Jorgensen got to sort of reinvent Booster as the protector of time, and the jackass “celebrity endorsement” hero he played was just a cover. It was a really fun series that ended with Flashpoint(Booster’s ongoing was the ONLY series that tied into Flashpoint as it finished its run. All the other titles abruptly ended and were replaced with all the 3-issue minis before the NU52 relaunch). This story arc is very much a continuation of that series more than it is an Action story arc. It was a nice farewell from writer Jurgens who was finishing his stint on Action with 1000 before Bendis took over.
999 was a sort of one-off where Jurgens tied up some dangling plots lines,one with Cyborg Superman and one with General Lane meeting his grandson and reconciling with Lois.
1000 was obviously a big celebration with lots of stories by various writers and pin ups by artists. Jurgens did his last story, amd Bendis did his first one.

Man of Steel 1-6. Bendis takes over the Superman books. Introduces a new bad guy who wants to destroy everything Kryptonian. He breaks into the Fortress of Solitude and smashes the bottled city of Kandor, so now Kal and Kara are the only two left. Also introduced some new supporting cast for the Bendis’ books.

Tales to Astonish 100-104. Part of the Legacy renumbering gimmick phase from Marvel. This is a new Hawkeye/Winter Soldier miniseries using the original numbering from the 60’s title that ended when Cap and Iron Man each got their own titles in ‘68. After Black Widow was murdered by fake-Steve Rogers during Secret Empire, someone is going around killing Red Room agents. Clint thinks it’s Natasha, Bucky thinks it’s someone posing as Nat. It turns out the Red Room has spare Clone bodies of all their agents and a mutant who can upload memories via electrical synapse blah blah. So Black Widow is alive in a new body. That part is stupid and the entire plot is cringe deus ex machina. But the banter between Clint and Bucky was fun. So, while this particular story was weak ass, I’d maybe try something else from writer Matthew Rosenberg. EDIT and it looks like I’ll get the chance. He’s been writing Punisher for awhile, and also currently the newest Uncanny X-Men series. Marvel obviously seems to think he’s hot shit.

Next up, the Thanos series by Lemire, and the end of the Jane Foster Thor run by Jason Aaron.
After that, the Transformers.

[Tom Foolery]

Man, I’m really proud of the progress I’m making after almost a year of non-reading.

Thanos 3-6(I read the first two when I got them, but that was like 2 years ago, so I can’t even remember, but the recap pages caught me up). Thanos is dying from some mysterious disease, and his lieutenants in the Black Order are fighting over his domains. His son, Thane, recruits Starfox, Nebula, and Tryco Skatterus, aka the Champion of the Universe in a scheme to kill Thanos and rid the universe of him once and for all. But really he just wants a Phoenix Egg that former Galactus Herald Terrax is keeping aboard his vessel. He gets it and attacks his father, turning him mortal and leaving him for dead on the ruined moon of Titan.
7-12. Some time has passed. Thanos is alone, starving, feverish, living off rats on the dead Titan. Starfox, Nebula, and Tryco show up to rescue him. They feel duped and know Thanos is the only one who can stop the Phoenix powered Thane. But Thanos need his powers back, so he goes to some called the cauldron of something where the Infinity Witches can restore his powers. Thing is, he always had them. Phoenix Thane shows up. They fight. The Infinity Witches call dirty pool on Thane having the Phoenix Force amd dismiss it mid battle. Things don’t go well for Thane after that. Thanos is back!
13-18. After Lemire’s run ended, Donny Cates came in for the final arc, and it was fucking crazy! Lots of fun from Cates. Cosmic Ghost Rider comes from millions of years in the future to bring Thanos back with him. Cosmic Rider’s boss, Thanos in the future has defeated almost everyone and everything, but Death is still ignoring him. He needs current Thanos help to defeat the final adversary, a dark Silver Surfer possessing Mjolnir. After they defeat Norrin Radd, they fight each other, but current Thanos refuses to give the old king Thanos the satisfaction of death and instead vows to change the past so that he will never come to be. Thanos wins. Cosmic Ghost Rider was so popular(?) he’s already had a couple spin-off miniseries.
There was also an annual with a few short stories about how awful Thanos is.

The finale of the Mighty Thor run. Jason Aaron has been doing a long, slow buildup to this year’s mega event War of the Realms. Like 2-3 years worth of stories in the Thor book.
20-23. The War Thor. After a bunch of light elf refugees from Alfhiem are killed when Queen Cindr of Muspelheim attacks the dwarf world of Nidavellir, Volstagg is devastated and picks up the the hammer of Ultimate Thor. It turns him into a rage fueled War Thor and he has to be stopped by Thor amd Odinson.
700-706. The book went back to Legacy numbering for the final arc. So, every time Jane turns into Thor, it erases all the chemo from her body, but not the cancer. So being Thor is killing her and she is warned by her friends that if she becomes Thor one more time, it’lol push her past the brink and she’ll die. So she decides to put the hammer down and restart the chemo. Then Mangog shows up and started destroying Asgardia amd sends it towards the sun. Even Odinson and Odin can’t defeat him. So Jane Thor’s up one last time and defeats Mangog by wrapping him in Uru chains, tying it to Mjolnir and throwing it into the sun. Mjolnir and Mangog are destroyed, Asgardia is saved, and Jane collapses and dies in front of everyone. Heartbreaking ending.
But then Odin goes to let her into Valhalla and she tells him her story is not finished, so Jane comes back to life, but Thor and Mjolnir are no more. She goes back to Earth to start her chemo.
There was a final one shot called At The Gates of Valhalla where Jane meets Thor’s time traveling granddaughters from the future.
Good stuff. When all is said and done, Jason Aaron is gonna be the definitive Thor writer. He’s already racked up like 80 issues across like 4 different books.

Next up Transformers. Not sure how I’m gonna read those, since I can’t really binge read one series. We will see. After that is a bunch of True Believer issues, which I think I’m gonna skip, and go straight to the next box, which is V-X, starting with Venom and Ultimates2.

[jjreason]

Detective 1000 (Tim Sale)
Detective 1000 (Frank Miller)
Batman 67

At the counter, the young fella working looks at the Miller cover & says "This cover's kinda weird." with a teenager's smile on his face. I interpreted the comment as "I'm working at the comic store & have never read The Dark Knight Returns. Nor have I read any of Frank Miller's Daredevil or Sin City. Who, by the way, is Frank Miller?" As the single tear slipped quietly down my cheek, I advised him the art matched that of a half decent Batman series the guy had done back in the 80s & left it at that.

Then I cancelled my subscription to the last of my new comics & left.

[Diabolical]

You should have laughed and then schooled him and made him look like a fool.


Although in reality, to him you'd look like an uppity, stereotyped, comic nerd ala Comic Book Guy from The Simpsons.

[Diabolical]

I also picked up the Tim Sale cover.

I just wish they could have found a rare or unused Norm Breyfogle piece for a cover.
I'm not a fan of the decade covers anyway, like they did with this and Action 1000. Just have great artists doing the version they do best, like Lee, Miller, and Sale did.
Seriously, how do you have Bruce Timm and not have him do a TAS style cover?

[jjreason]

I saw the Bruce Timm & shook my head. Did not compute. I had the Wrightson up in my hands as a potential 3rd choice but couldn't justify it. I'll always be able to see the covers online.

And speaking of covers to Detective 1000, there are likely about 1000 of them available. Every google search I do turns up another gem, like this Sienkewicz interpretation of the Dark Knight Batman & Kitty Kelly Robin: