So, What comics did you buy this week?

[jjreason]

I wish Russel Dauterman was doing the interiors as well as the covers.

[jjreason]

X-Men 5 - haven't read 4 yet. 2 & 3 are like Powers & House.... still waiting for the awesomeness.....
X-Force 1 - mainly to see that critical incident that mattered 5 months ago but also mainly suckered by another Dauterman cover
New Mutants 6 - I actually liked 2-4, haven't read 5 or this yet. Ed Brisson took over for a couple of issues & the story is ok
Valkyrie 7 - haven't even started this yet. I have the whole previous volume of Thor & War of the Realms to get through first.

[Tom Foolery]

Moon Knight! I dropped Lemire’s run after 4 issues but bought them all cheap later on.

5–13. Lemire and Smallwood, with help from some other artists (Stokoe, Francavilla etc) take Spector on a journey thru his own head and he tries to deal with his DID. I didn’t really enjoy this story arc. The arc finished in issue 14 which I had bought a couple years ago, but had no frame of reference since I hadn’t read the rest of the series.
188-193. Legacy numbering resumed and Max Bemis took over with a seriously fun arc. A mental patient becomes obsessed with Amon Ra, the Sun God and is compelled to destroy Konshu and his avatar the Moon Knight. He enlists Bushman’s help to kidnap Marlene Alraune and her daughter, who she had with the Jake Locksley persona in secret so Marc doesn’t know he has a child. Moon Knight has to unleash his crazy to defeat the bad guys and save his family. I haven’t read a MK story that was so on point with the character in a long time. Good stuff.
194-200 Bemis finished off the current series with some shorter arcs that all connected to each other involving his former Rabbi who was secretly a Nazi who escaped Germany after the war and was the source of the trauma that made Marc create his alternate identities when he was a child. I’m missing issue 199, but Bemis’ entire 12 issue run was good.

Mosaic 4-8. I had dropped this originally after 2 issues, but after reading the 3rd issue where he possesses Spider-Man I wanted to read the rest of the series. It only lasted 8 issues, but I have begrudging respect for Marvel trying new characters and concepts in this current market rather than relying on regurgitating proven IPs.

Next up, Ms. Marvel.

[jjreason]

I liked Lemire on Moon Knight. It was close to the top of my pile for most of its duration. Trying to sell the run to raise money to buy it in TPB form has proven fruitless though.

[Tom Foolery]

I don’t like the runs where the hero wakes up in an asylum and goes ‘Is he a superhero, or was he just crazy and THINKS he was a superhero this entire time...???’ because I’ve got plenty of issues from Avengers West Coast to Spider-Man and plenty in between that confirms it’s not all in his head. So 14 issues of ‘plot twist’ is unnecessary. And what was with the Space Cadet version on the moon? They spent like 3 or 4 issues coming back to that subplot and then he’s the first to vanish and never comes back. So that was what, fucking filler in those issues to pad the page count? I just think the ‘Moon Knight is crazy!’ is a well they’ve gone back to too many times. We get it, he’s multiple personalities. That why I liked Bemis’ issues more, he’s using the other personalities, but they aren’t the FOCUS of the book.

[jjreason]

It was probably good for me since I don't have the history of reading that character. I don't think I'd ready any of it other than Fist of Khonshu a thousand years ago & maybe the first couple of issues by Warren Ellis that didn't do anything for me.

[jjreason]

So I'm reading through X-Force 1 and as I approach the centre of the book I encounter a page that someone has clearly dropped some food or beverage into & closed back up as though nothing happened. I was able to clear out the stuff but it pulled the color off one side & there is minor moisture waviness on both pages facing each other. Who the fuck eats & drinks while they're reading comics that cost $6 each off the shelf???

[Tom Foolery]

Savages. Fucking savages.

[Tom Foolery]

Back with more ‘M’ books. I read the Ms Marvel run pretty quick last week, then dawdled on the Multiple Man series for over a week.

I had started, then stopped, then started, then stopped Ms Marvel. So it’s spotty at the beginning. I have the entire series, but these were the unread ones.
Ms Marvel 5-6. Kamala made a bunch of clones to do her schoolwork and family obligations while she’s busy superheroing. Clones are never a good idea.
9. Tie in to Civil War 2.
14-17. A sentient computer program called Doc.x is possessing people and he/it knows Kamala’s secret identity. She has to team up with her online Clan to stop him/it.
18 was a one-off about her friend Bruno in Wakanda.
19-22. A former Hydra agent worms his way into being the Mayor of Kamala’s Jersey town and institutes some segregationist policies towards Inhumans and others with powers. It’s a metaphor for intolerance and racism against Muslims, y’all!
23-24. The Pakistani boy Kamala met in the first story arc moves into town. And the mysterious super-hero, the Red Dagger, she met while in Pakistan shows up too. What a weird coincidence!
25-28. “Legacy” begins(but unlike almost every other Marvel book, this one kept the current books numbering. Probably because it would’ve been weird to jump from 25 to 44) Ms Marvel has disappeared, so her unpowered friends are taking turns being “Ms Marvel” and patrolling the city. The Cockatoo returns.
29-30. Kamala has her first kiss with the Red Dagger, just as Bruno returns from Wakanda and it’s two issues of awkward teenage romance drama.
31. The giant 50th issue(now that start putting the Legacy numbering on). Kamala’s sleepover with her friends keeps getting interrupted by super hero stuff. At the end she reveals her identity to them. They all already knew.
32-35. Bruno and Kamala decide to run tests to figure out how her powers work. It turns out she “borrows” mass from her past and future selves to power her embiggening. Her cells “time-travel” within her. That’s the wacky kinda science shit I love about Marvel. It doesn’t have to make sense, it just has to make sense. Oh, also the Shocker shows up and opens up a dimensional rift that threatens all of reality. Yes, the D-list Spidey villain.
36-38. G Willow Wilson wrapped up the series and her time on the book with the final three issues before Saladin Ahmed took over with the current series which is on issue 12.
Overall, I enjoyed the series. The book is just as much about Kamala’s immigrant Pakistani Muslim culture as it is about the super-heroine stuff.

Multiple Man 1-5(minus issue 4). Jamie Madrox died from M-Pox during that whole stupid X-Men/Inhumans/Terrigen Mist bullshit phase. This mini series is about one of his dupes being found alive, and then stealing Bishop’s time travel tech, going into the future and becoming a tyrant with an army of dupes, then time traveling back to the present to stop himself from becoming a tyrant by recruiting more dupes who get super powers, like a Hulk dupe, a Dr Strange/Cloak hybrid dupe, and Cable/Warlock dupe, a Deadpool/Wolverine dupe etc and going back to the future to join a resistance led by Jamie and Layla Miller’s son, then time traveling again to undo the time traveling, etc. It ends with the Hulk dupe killing the original dupe and causing a chain reaction killing the entire army of dupes and the tyrant version. Then a dupe who was sent into the future to find help from Stark or the FF or whomever, but who got sidetracked and got a job as a bartender time travels back right after everyone dies and just becomes the new Jamie prime. Wacky stuff from Rosenberg.

Next up, the ‘N’s. New Mutants and a couple of short lived Nova ongoings.

[jjreason]

I'm caught up on the X-Books. I was all but done with Marauders but they threw up a wicked cliffhanger so I'll need to purchase at least issue 7.

New Mutants is just ok. I really hate Roberto Dacosta's character - I don't remember hating him anywhere near this much when New Mutants was up and running back in the old days. Making him just another rich dick (was he ALWAYS a rich dick or was this a Hickman thing during the lead up to Secret Wars???) is cliche, even by Marvel standards.

X-Men is fine, but again you're missing something if you're not reading them all. I need to research how someone that got popped in X-Force 1 was back in time for X-Men 4.

[Tom Foolery]

Back with the ‘N’ books.

New Mutants:Dead Souls 1-6. A six issue mini from Rosenberg and Gorham. Karma starts a special X-Men team dealing with paranormal activities led by Magik. Rictor, Boom Boom, Strong Guy, and Wolfsbane on the team. But the team is really compiled because Karma is looking for the escaped soul of her twin brother Tran who is wreaking spiritual havoc in the real world. There is also a subplot with Warlock and Dani Moonstar. And the entire thing ends on a cliffhanger. I had to look it up to make sure I wasn’t missing issues, but apparently Rosenberg resolved the story arc when he took over Uncanny later on.
Gorham’s art is subpar.

Nick Fury 2-6. I had dropped this after the first issue because I dislike Robinson. I looked it up. May, 2017 was when I read the first issue. That’s how far behind I am on reading. Anyway, this book wasn’t that bad. Artist Aco is doing his best to capture the bombastic Steranko vibe of the old SHIELD series and each issue is pretty much a standalone story. I think this was an “ongoing” that just got cancelled right away.

Not Brand Echh 14. The Legacy oneshot that ‘picks up’ the numbering from the previous series. Just a bunch of humorous short stories(some only one or two pages long) poking fun at Marvel and comics in general.

Nova 5-8. The middle part of Sean Ryan’s 11 issue Nova run. If there’s one thing I can say about Sam Alexander as Nova, it’s that he shouldn’t be. And his mother is an enabler. This kid is clearly addicted to his helmet and superheroing and he should be concentrating on school.

Nova 1-7. Loveness and Perez’s even shorter follow up ongoing teams up Sam and original Nova Rich Rider who is back from the dead after he escaped the Cancerverse where he sacrificed himself to destroy Thanos years ago. But when he escaped he brought something evil with him. This wasn’t a bad series, but when you get cancelled after seven issues, you can’t get any traction story wise.

Next up is the ‘O’s which I think is mostly just my spotty, incomplete run of Old Man Logan. Of the 50 issue run, I’m missing 21 issues, and I had already read/bought a bunch of them when it was coming out. So what’s in my read pile is whatever isn’t in those two categories.

[jjreason]

X-Men 6
X-Force 2,3
Marauders 7
Valkyrie 6

Iron Man Epic Collection 1 (collecting Tales of Suspense 39-72). My collection of these is getting pretty close to finished, for at least what they've produced to collect the onset of the Marvel Age.

I just realized today that Warren Ellis is doing a 12 issue Batman series for DC with art by Bryan Hitch - his old Authority artist. I picked it up then put it back down. Maybe I'll buy a collected trade some day.

[Tom Foolery]

I’m reading that Ellis/Hitch run. It’s okay. I think it’ll read better in one sitting than how it is now. Batman and Alfred are a little cheekier with each other than other writers portray them.

Back with the ‘O’s. Okay really, it’s just Old Man Logan. I’m gonna do it a bit different because my run of this book is full of holes. I’ll do the entire 50 issue series, but the issue numbers (in parentheses) are issues I don’t have but I could glean what the story was from the issues I do have. So; Have it. (don’t have it)

1-3(4,5) Trapped in his past(our present) Logan realizes the horrible future he’s from has not yet come to pass. So he makes a list of everyone who ruined his life in the future to preemptively kill them. But eventually realizes this timeline is different from his and his death list is useless.
(6) 7. Logan travels to Canada to find his future wife when she’s a child. But the Reavers and Lady Deathstrike show up and kill half the town because Logan is a shit magnet and ruins everything around him.
8. In his future, all the bad guys teamed up in one night and killed all the heroes. Every night Logan fears that this night is that night, so Jean Grey rounds up some of Logan’s friends to help him thru the night with booze and cards.
(9)10(11)12(13). Logan heads to Japan to find Lady Deathstrike after what happened in 6-7 but gets ambushed by a ninja death cult he killed in the future and who somehow know he kills them later on, so they’re trying to kill him instead.
(14-17)18. 14 and 15 were something with vampire Jubilee. 16-18 was a Brood story out in space.
(19-20) Something with Miles Morales.
(21)22,23(24) Logan frees some kind of mystical/ancient/demon guy or something and the guy throws Logan back thru time, so he’s inhabiting/reliving key moments of his past. Eh, the covers were cool.
25-30. I had 25-28 because Deodato was the new artist, but the story was kinda dumb so I re-dropped the book. The hillbilly Hulks that killed his family are alive on this world now and being led by The Maestro from Future Imperfect, also stuck on this world. Maestro stole a bunch of Canadian nukes and is planning on destroying major cities all over the world, and Logan and Hawkeye have to stop him.
31-33. Gorgon and the Hand are trying to steal a prototype drug called Regenix from the Yashida Corp. Logan is forced into an alliance with the new Silver Samurai to stop Gorgon and his new general, the Scarlet Samurai, who is revealed to be a resurrected Mariko. Logan gets his hand chopped off(yes, right thru the adamantium) so going forward his left hand is still metal claws, but his regenerated right hand is bone claws.
34-35. Mariko is free of her control of the Hand, she and Logan go to Madripoor to destroy the rest of the Regenix before it gets on the black market. Gorgon is defeated and Mariko gives the last Regenix to Logan because his healing factor is failing him.
(36-38). Some kind of hassle with Bullseye.
39(40). Logan returns to the school. Glob Herman gets abducted by Purifiers while he’s on a mutant date. I’m assuming Logan went and rescued him.
(41)42. Kraven abducts Logan and takes him to the Savage Land to hunt him.
43(44-45) Rematch with Bullseye that also happens to tie up both the Kingpin and Bullseye mini series from around the same time. I guess Brisson wrote all three.
46-47. One last team up with Alpha Flight as they investigate some weird alien plant that crashed in a meteor in some little Canadian town. Logan admits to Puck that he’s dying and he’s ready to be with his family.
(48)49-50. The series wrapped up with Logan finding Maestro in another small Canadian town and the two clash one last time before Logan cuts his head off.
Annual 1. A tale from the Wastelands where Logan teamed up with Old Man Castle to wipe out some ruffians that were using the name Punisher for no good.
The series ended and was replaced with the 12 issue Maxi-series Dead Man Logan where Logan made it back to his timeline and eventually dies there.

As you can see, it’s an incomplete run, but overall I enjoyed it. The idea of Logan being old, mortal and his heart not being in it anymore gave the series and interesting hook. And Sorrentino’s art in the first few arcs was fantastic. The only thing is disliked was handicapping the Maestro as a villain.

Next up, lots of “P” stuff!

[Tom Foolery]

As I have almost looped back around to where I started playing catch-up with my reading, I looked thru older posts to see how long it’s been. These N,O,P, and R books I was sorta keeping up until November of 2017. Then I stopped and didn’t start back up in the ‘S’ stuff until May 2018. It’s taken me over two years to read six drawer boxes worth of floppies.

Anyway, hers a big chunk of reading from the last couple weeks.

Phoenix Resurrection 1, 4, 5. Rosenberg is a really busy writer! I feel like many of the mini series I’ve read in the last few weeks/months have had his name on them. Is he the new Bendis over there at Marvel? This book did a decent job of the mystery/buildup of Jean’s return considering the ‘plot twist’ is in the title. I’m missing the middle of the series, but the end result is Jean is back and she rejects the Phoenix Force. And Kudos to Marvel for making her death stick for like ten years.

Power Man and Iron Fist 1-5. Dave Walker and Sanford Greene bring back the Heroes For Hire duo in a shortish ongoing that only lasted 15 issues before they split up into their own even shorter ongoings right around Legacy time. The first arc has their former office administrator, who went to prison in the original 70’s-80’s series, getting released and teaming up with Black Mariah to take the Supersoul Stone from Tombstone and wreak havoc in Harlem with it.
6-9 was a Civil War II tie-in arc and completely justifies why Carol’s Prior Restraint bullshit argument was the wrong side of that war.
11-15 finished off the series with a huge gang war over Harlem between Tombstone and Alex Wilder, the Runaway turned upstart supervillain that features many of Power Man’s classic foes as supporting characters.
I’ve never been a big fan of Walker, but this was a pretty good run. Equal parts silly and serious, you can tell Walker is a huge Luke Cage fan.

Power Pack 63. The oneshot Legacy issue that picked up where the old series left off. Katie Power is now in high school and never gets to hang out with her siblings and be a super hero, so she’s venting about an old Bogeyman adventure she had thru a creative writing class. While I would like to see more Power Pack, this did not make me want to read more Power Pack. Dull.

Project Superpowers 0. Introductory free issue of a new six issue PS series that I didn’t get or read.

Prowler 3-6. The end of the mini that tied into Clone Conspiracy. It mostly rehashed the Clone Event, but from Hobie’s perspective. Or rather, Hobie’s Clone’s perspective before he dies in the fifth issue and then you find out Hobie wasn’t dead, just in storage, and then he navel gazes for the final issue about his future. It was frightfully dull and padded and just proves Prowler only works as a supporting character and the only thing he has going for him is a cool moniker and costume design.

Punisher 16-17. Becky Cloonan finished off her run with a two parter where Frank faces off against The Face one last time. Cloonan actually turned him into a scary villain at the end before she crushed him in some industrial gears.
Punisher 218-223. Rosenberg took over with the Legacy renumbering and has Nick Fury ‘give’ the War Machine armor to Frank to use to overthrow an Eastern European dictatorship. He does and becomes the UN and the Avengers number one target.
224-228. Instead of giving the armor back, Frank heads back to NYC and uses it to bust mafia heads. The Avengers are pissed he’s using Rhodey’s armor and tarnishing his legacy and Captain Marvel points out Frank is a hypocrite because he joined Fake Cap’s Hydra regime. Frank concedes the truth of this and decides to make it right by breaking into the CIA to get the files of current Hydra members and takes the fight to Baron Zemo in Bagalia. The series ended when a newly resurrected Rhodey shows up and talks Frank into giving up the armor. Which led into the newest Punisher book.

Punisher:The Platoon 1-6. I had already read the first couple issues, but I just read the entire thing. Ennis and Parlov hit it out of the park with this book set in Vietnam as Lt Castle takes over his first command. Excellent.

Red Sonja 0. 25 cent intro issue from Amy Chu and Carlos Gomez has Sonja somehow transported to the present running around in modern day NYC subway until she emerges from a manhole to be surrounded by cops. Interesting idea for a story, but I didn’t buy the rest of it.

Rocket Racoon 4 and Rocket 6. A couple issues of Rocket’s perpetually short lived ongoings. He and Groot have had like 10 ongoings between them, or featuring both of them, and nary a one has made it more than eight issues. (maybe one of them made it to ten, but most are shorter than that.)

Rogue & Gambit 1-3, 5. In a contrived premise, Mutants are going missing from a paradise therapy retreat, and Kitty decides to send Rogue and Remy for “couples therapy” as a cover. And then they actually do couples therapy while uncovering the mystery of some forgettable villain doing some clone shit or something. To be fair, Kelley Thompson, does a decent job unpacking their complicated baggage over the course of the story. But at this point does anyone care?

Royals 8-12. The end of Al Ewing’s short ongoing feature the Inhumans out in space searching for a replacement for the Terrigen that got destroyed on Earth. This led into Inhumans:Judgment Day, which led into Death of the Inhumans where everyone dies anyway...so, not a happy ending.



Next up, the ‘S’ books Scarlet Witch, SHIELD, Scarlet Spider, and a spotty run of Spider-Gwen.
After that, full circle I just have the unfinished issues of Spidey/Deadpool and SquirrelGirl and I will be finished with pre-legacy stuff and can jump into the “current’ 8 going on 9 long boxes from the last two years.

[jjreason]

I bought jean & Emma 1 as well as wolverine 1 from last week.