So, What comics did you buy this week?

[Tom Foolery]

Where should I file Tales of the Dark Multiverse:Batman:Knightfall? Under ‘T’ for Tales? ‘D’ for Dark? Or with the Bat stuff?

[jjreason]

It's bat crap, keep it all together. I have Detective & annuals/specials followed by Batman & annuals/specials followed by any other ongoings, then limited series & one shots to finish.

[Tom Foolery]

I guess I’ll have to see if they release any other “Dark Multiverse” oneshots or series.

[jjreason]

History of the MU 4
X-Men 1 (regular & Art Germ variant because fuck you guys for getting it making it impossible for me to say no)
Batman 80-something
Jane Foster: Valkyrie 3

Abrams Spider-Man 2 was sold out but more are coming apparently.

[Tom Foolery]

I’m annoyed the big finale to King’s Batman run is being marred by JRJr art.

Went to a different store and got House of X 6, so I can read the series now.

[jjreason]

Marauders 1 (yes, I did confirm that I was only buying Hickman issues but they suckered me with a Kitty & lockheed variant)
King Thor 2
Valkyrie 4
Big Old Spider-Man Full Circle 1 (Hickman on the list of writers).

Frustrating - I was able to find 1 really nice of 2 of these comics today. The rest all had significant flaws. Not that I'm sending my kids to college with them, but I hate paying full price for shit that is already worth half or less due to spine splits & the like. Fucking cheap Marvel & their fucking cheap cover paper.

[Tom Foolery]

I’ve noticed those heavier comics with higher page counts, and cover prices, have difficulty arriving without some kind of blemish on the corners or spine.
Annoying af.

[Tom Foolery]

Finished up the ‘C’s and the box.

Captain America 695-697. After Secret Empire ended both the previous Cap titles, Waid and Samnee took over the Legacy numbered series with Steve traveling cross country trying to undo the damage to his reputation by the evil Hydra Cap. It turned out to be a non issue as Waid made it clear that most people understood it was an impostor and not the real Cap.
Cap 698-700. While fighting a new evil organization called Rampart, Cap is refrozen and wakes up in what he thinks is a far future post-apocalyptic America. It ends up only being 2025 but still after a recent nuclear war. With the help of Bruce Banner, he returns to the present and prevents the disaster from happening.
Cap 701-704. Waid finished off the series with a story of Steve’s descendant in the future unraveling a conspiracy in a world where society has distilled Cap’s serum down to be used to stop all kinds of diseases. The series ended and Ta-Nahesi Coates took over with the current Cap book.

Mighty Captain Marvel 2-4. I had previously read 0 and 1 a long time ago, but they were forgettable and I didn’t know how the arc began. An alien bounty hunter is chasing an alien Kree child from a refugee camp and she seeks asylum with Carol aboard the Alpha Flight space station. The girl has some sort of energy field that’s affecting Carol’s powers.
Capt Marvel 5-8. The Secret Empire tie-in. Evil Cap erects a planet wide shield that Marvel and all the world’s most powerful heroes are trapped on the outside of, continually fighting and endless horde of invading Chitauri. Eventually, Carol crashes the Alpha Flight space station into the shield to destroy it.
Capt Marvel 9. The aftermath of destroying your several trillion dollar space station and thus putting yourself and your entire crew out of work.
Capt Marvel 125-129. Reverted to Legacy numbering for the final arc, where Carol gets trapped in a “Dark” mirror universe where she’s a pirate and Thanos is an Ultra Magnus type super cop arbiter of galactic justice. The series rebooted after this for like the seventh or eighth time.

Champions 11. Secret Empire tie-in. The young heroes sift thru the rubble of Las Vegas looking for survivors.
12. The team fights Psycho-Man and his psycho-box-thingie blows up and affects Teen Cyclops.
13-15. The previously discussed crossover with The Avengers that ended with Vic Vision being “evolved” by the High Evolutionary into a real girl.
16-18. Waid and Ramos finished their run on the series with a recruitment drive, adding Ironheart and Wasp to the team. Cyclops leaves.
19-21. Jim Zub and Sean Izaakse take over and introduce a new young Canadian hero, Snowguard in a northern adventure involving the Master of the World and Alpha Flight.
22-23. The team deals with change as Nova loses his helmet, Cho deals with the return of the actual Hulk and Man-Thing pops up in Africa.
24. One off issue. There’s a school shooting at Miles’ school.
25-27. The series wrapped up with the heroes getting sent to WeirdWorld to find their missing teammates, Nova and Wasp.

Comic Book History of Comics1-4. The follow up miniseries from Fred VanLente and Ryan Dunlavey. Explores different histories such as manga, European comics, copyright issues, and more. Both of these series(the first one was six issues) are really entertaining and informative reads. Highly recommended.


Next up, the new box Daredevil thru GIJoe. And everything in between.

[Tom Foolery]

The beginning of the ‘D’s!

Daredevil 25. The end of the arc where Matt takes his case to the Supreme Court and they preposterously side with him on a law that says masked vigilantes can now testify in court. Haw. No.
DD 26-28 Matt heads to Japan to find his protege Blindspot, who has made a deal with the Hand to replace his eyes that were taken by the serial killer Muse and betrays Matt in exchange. Then he un-betrays DD and gets his mother killed. Matt returns to NCY and finds out Kingpin is now the mayor.
DD 595-600. Legacy Numbering returns. In trying to unseat Fisk as the new Mayor, Matt accepts the position as Deputy Mayor. (In case you’re confused, Matt put the genie back in the bottle and his identity is secret again. Only Foggy knows). Muse shows back up, the Hand attacks and puts Fisk in the hospital, and Matt becomes Mayor.
DD 601-605. Mayor Matt deals with a crisis as The Hand lays Siege to NYC.
DD 606-608. The Inhuman, Reader, accidentally brings Matt’s fictitious twin brother to life.
DD 609-612. The Death of Daredevil. The end of Soule’s run. Matt pushes a kid out of the way of an oncoming truck and winds up in the ER. The rest of the story arc has him unmasking to his friends, banging Elektra, and taking down the Kingpin once and for all, but it ends up all being a hallucination while he’s dying on the operating table. He dies. The series ends.
DD Annual 1. A flashback story from when Misty Knight was still a cop and not a cyborg and she crosses path with DD early in his vigilante career.

Dark Nights:Metal 1-2, plus all the “Evil Batman” oneshots. Red Death(Flash), Murder Machine(Cyborg), Dawnbreaker(Green Lantern), Drowned(Aquaman), Merciless(WonderWoman), Devastator(Superman), and the Batman Who Laughs. Didn’t get the rest of the Event/Mini.

Darkhawk 51. The “Legacy” oneshot. Chris Powell is no longer Darkhawk. He’s a rookie NYPD and has a fiancé. Then his amulet is targeted by the Raptors and he rejoins with Razor to become like a deluxe version of Darkhawk 2.0.

Dazzler oneshot. Dazzler deals with Inhuman/Mutant intolerance while touring with her new band.

Next up, a whole lotta Deadpool. Lots of minis and ongoings and such.

[jjreason]

So what are they doing with DD? It started back up right away, didn't it? Is it Blindspot?

[Tom Foolery]

I lied. He didn’t die. The very last page shows an ekg flatline restart with a blip.

[jjreason]

Shocking.

[Tom Foolery]

Deadpool!

Deadpool 34-35. Secret Empire tie-ins. After DP kills Phil Coulson at Steve Rogers request, he begins to suspect he’s on the wrong team. He ends up killing Agent Preston as well.
DP 36. The series “ended” as Wade slips away from his heroic leanings after feeling “betrayed” by Captain America. He burns down Avengers HQ and embraces his mercenary roots.
DP Kills the Marvel Universe Again 2-5. Obviously an alt-universe mini. The villains of the world brainwash Wade with Secret kill phrases and send him out to kill all the heroes. Gwenpool reveals the truth to Wade just as he skewers her and she mutters the phrase with her dying breath. The final issue is Wade killing all the bad guys also.
DP vs Old Man Logan 1-5. Wade and Logan bump heads when a young mutant is being tracked by a paramilitary firm who want to use her as a weapon. Declan Shalvey, who is usually an artist, wrote this one, and let someone else draw it.
Despicable Deadpool 287-291. Deadpool kills Cable. The series returned to its legacy numbering. Stryfe calls in his marker for saving Wade’s daughter’s life by making him assassinate 4 people. Irene Merryweather, Evan Na-Sabur, some random chick, and Cable. Wade is forced to comply or Stryfe will time travel and kill his daughter despite several attempts by Wade to double cross him. Duggan was wrapping up his 100 issue run on the character and was really putting him thru the ringer, undoing every positive thing he’d bring to the mythos.
Despicable Deadpool 292-296. The Bucket List. Tying up many loose story threads. Wade confronts “Stevil” the evil Hydra Cap in prison, confronts former co-Avenger and brief love interest Rogue, and deals with Madcap one last time, before having a showdown with former best bud, Captain America.
Despicable Deadpool 297-300. The Marvel Universe kills Deadpool. Duggan finished off his epic run. Wade realizes he’s not hero material and pushes everyone away, including his daughter, for their own safety. Then he puts a $20M hit out on himself before finally overdosing on Butler’s mindwipe elixir and giving himself permanent amnesia. Just in time for the newest series to begin. If you add the 7 issue digital series DP vs Dracula, Duggan finished with 101 issues of Deadpool and it was a fantastic, heartbreaking journey. He really added a lot to the character.

Finally, You Are Deadpool 1-5. Al Ewing came in with this incredibly clever ‘choose your own adventure’ branching story series, complete with dice rolling, involving the Tomorrow Man and a stolen Time Variance Authority helmet. I had to read each issue like ten times to get to every alternate branch in the story. And he did this while he was writing like three other ongoings at Marvel. Impressive. If I hadn’t said so before(I have, repeatedly) Al Ewing is one of my favorite, if not my favorite writers at Marvel right now.

Next up is Deathstroke, but that only has a couple issues(49 and 50) left before it ends, so I’m gonna skip that and come back next month when it’s all wrapped up. So up next is Bendis’ Defenders, some Doctor Strange, I think maybe Doomsday Clock, and whatever else is in the ’D’ pile.

[Tom Foolery]

Back with the rest of the ‘D’s.

Defenders 4-10. One of Bendis’ final books at Marvel. The street level “Netflix” Defenders team up to stop a NYC gang war between Diamondback and Black Cat trying to be Kingpin’s successor now that he’s mayor. Eventually The Hood also gets involved. I feel like Bendis truncated his last storyline because he was leaving for DC and the series ends on a cliffhanger, but also works as a cool farewell with a double splash page of pretty much every hero Bendis had written for the last 20+ years all getting ready to throw down with The Hood’s army of villains. Decent, but not great.

Dejah Thoris 0,1. Issue 1 was a 25 cent intro issue and 1 had a J Scott Campbell cover. Other than that, not really vested in the series. I checked, it only lasted 10 issues anyway.

Dr. Strange 23-24. Secret Empire tie-in. Strange is trapped in NYC under the dark energy dome and has to team up with Wilson Fisk, Ben Urich, and Spider-Woman to stop Baron Mordo and try to break the dome.
25-26 John Barber came in for a couple one off filler issues before Donny Cates started his Legacy numbering run.
381-384. Reverted to Legacy numbering as Cates and Walta took over. The first arc had Loki as the new Sorcerer Supreme and Strange trying to get the job back. He enlists the help of the Sentry, which ends up being a mistake because the Void always shows up and wrecks everything. Also introduced Stephen new talking ghost dog, Bats, who is adorable and hilarious. Missing the last issue 385 in the arc, but in the end Loki gives the title back and restores magic to its previous undepleted levels.
386, 388-390. Damnation. After Las Vegas was destroyed during Secret Empire, Strange uses massive magic to resurrect the city and its inhabitants, but the consequences are that Mephisto gets a foothold on Earth and a new team of Midnite Sons has to stop him. The series concluded and Mark Waid took over with a new number one.
Dr Strange and the Sorcerers Supreme 9-12. The end of short ongoing where Merlin recruited a bunch of SS’s from throughout time to fight some big bad magic guy. I read the first eight issues so long ago, I couldn’t remember what the premise was. Not bad, but meh.
Dr. Strange:Damnation 1,2,4. The magic ‘event’ tie-in series. Las Vegas. Mephisto. Midnite Sons. See above. Johnny Blaze ends up becoming the new king of Hell.

Doomsday Clock 1-11. The final issue hasn’t come out yet, but I decided to read the rest of it. Ugh. Geoff Johns trying to “mimic” Moore’s writing style and Gary Frank attempting to copy Gibbons. First off, leave Watchmen alone. But secondly, it became clear this is just DC using the Watchmen characters to try and “fix/explain” their fucked up continuity problems for like the twentieth time. There’s some not atrocious stuff in here (I like the Marionette and Mime characters) but what would be even better was to not attempt this at all. Also, I didn’t realize there were multiple covers for each issue while I was buying it, and now I have like an inconsistent set of covers. Which is only mildly annoying and also my own fault, but it just adds to my discontent with the entire bullshit. I could rant about this more, but I’d like to hear your thoughts before I do.

Up next, Drax, Elektra, Falcon, and First Strike, the IDW Hasbroverse event.

[jjreason]

New Mutants 1 & Batman 82.