So, What comics did you buy this week?

[Tom Foolery]

The coin flip was Iron Man. But there were some smaller ‘I’ runs in the box before Iron Man, so I read those first.

Invaders 1-12. Spinning out of some events in Avengers and a Defenders oneshot with Namor. Namor had a beef with Roxxon and straight up executed some Roxxon employees, which set off a new Cold War between the surface and Atlantis. Namor’s former Invader buddies Cap, Bucky, and Jim Hammond try to talk Namor out of his new plot, but Namor is under the influence of a subconscious avatar created by DOUCHEMAYOR PROFESSOR X when Namor was supposedly suffering from amnesia and this figment of his imagination is based on a human soldier whom Namor befriended during WWII and who died during the war. So Namor chops off Jim Hammond’s head and tricks the Avengers into attacking Atlantis, which gives him plausibility to launch an attack on the surface and turn an entire New England into water breathers. His madness grows when he recovers the Serpent Crown and becomes embroiled in a fight with Roxxon, who are exploiting the new water breathing humans. Eventually Namor realizes the subconscious avatar has been influencing him and fights back, but the avatar uses the Serpent Crown to possess another Atlantean and be the new biggie to start a war, and the Invaders(including Namor) all reunite to stop him. The series ends with Namor being an uneasy enemy of the surface world once more. Solid work from Chip Zdarsky and artist Carlos Magno.

Invisible Woman 1-5. Writer Mark Waid introduced the idea in his SHIELD series from a couple years ago, that Susan volunteered her unique sneaky skills to SHIELD and the CIA and is a quite competent part-time/amateur spy. This series picks up when she gets a distress message from her former partner who has been captured by some Eastern bloc nogoodniks. With the help of guest stars Nick Fury, Black Widow, and Maria Hill, she finds the guy and plot twist that surprises no one, he’s the bad guy. By perpetual idea machine Mark Waid and fantastic art by newcomer Mattia DeIulis.

IronHeart 1, 5, 7-9. The very few issues I have of Riri’s short 12 issue ongoing. Riri is up against the Ten Rings, a new secret bad guy organization which wasn’t a thing until the movies came out. Not great, not bad.

Okay, NOW I’m onto the Iron Man run by Dan Slott.

[jjreason]

I heard Slott on Iron Man was pretty good, but I was gone by that point. Ross covers on those?

[Tom Foolery]

I think the current series which is on issue 3 or 4 has Ross covers.
Slott’s run may have had one or two, but from the first half dozen issues I’ve gotten thru, I haven’t seen any.

[Tom Foolery]

Spent over $100 on books today because of all the ridiculously expensive issues that came out today.

DC’s Very Merry Multiverse oneshot. $9.99
Death Metal:Last Stories of the DCUniverse oneshot $8.99
Transformers 25 $7.99
Tales of the Dark Multiverse:Flashpoint oneshot $5.99
Batman:Black and White 1. $5.99
The variant covers of Wonder Woman and Detective were both $4.99, as was the first issue of S.W.O.R.D.

The other 16 books were $3.99.

[jjreason]

Good news, you only what, like half your blood & organs to survive?

[jjreason]

Actually made a good old fashioned trade over the past couple of weeks. I trade my 200 plus issues of Dark Horse SW stuff for a big batch of Web & Parker issues I was missing. Haven't gotten anything new for own collection that I was excited about in quite awhile, but I am enjoying seeing these as I rebag & reboard. Should put a good dent into my lists when I can finally get that squared away too.

[jjreason]

First few new comics in what must be nearly 2 months. New issues of X-Men & Marauders along with BatCat #1 which the store actually did put aside for me. Guess I'm on board that train for the next 2 years.

[Tom Foolery]

Moved into the new house over the weekend. In addition to all our furniture and normal boxes of stuff, I moved approx 30 long boxes from the apartment, and approx 50 long boxes out of my storage unit. The rest of the storage stuff will be coming over to the house over the next few weekends, including about 60 more long boxes.

But here, for posterity, are the first books I bought in the new house!

Avengers:Curse of the Man-Thing 1.
Batman/Catwoman 4.
Beta Ray Bill 1.
Black Cat 4.
Captain America 28.
Firefly 27.
Flash 768.
Future State:Superman vs Imperious Lex 3.
Future State:Teen Titans - Ruins oneshot.
Ghost Rider:King in Black oneshot.
Symbiote Spider-Man(KiB) 5.
Return of the Valkyries(KiB) 4.
The Union(KiB) 4.
Marvel Action Spider-Man 1.
Silk 1.
Strange Adventures 9.
Transformers 28.
USAgent 4.
X-Men 19.
X-Men Legends 2.

[jjreason]

Exciting. Congrats & enjoy getting settled in!

[Tom Foolery]

Moved 52 long boxes from storage to the house yesterday. Took three trips. They’re sitting in the dining room until I can figure out the logistics for putting them with the rest. Also, theyre fucking heavy and I needed a break. I’ll move a few at a time over the next couple days.
The stacks are getting pretty impressive, though. I am contemplating investing in a large shipment of DrawerBoxes. Usually I do 5 or 10 at a time, but some of these lid boxes are looking raggedy, so I’ll use some of my stimmy check to buy a large replacement order.

[anarky]

I ordered the few new canon SW comics I was missing, expecting the Moderna second dose to take me out of commission for a few days. (Accurate call.)

How have I not read Aphra before? A dark parody version of the main team of heroes, going around the galaxy finding crazy old shit and changing allegiances like underwear during a diarrhea storm?

[jjreason]

I was begrudgingly entertained by Dr Aphra & the dark droids. They were written very well. I will eventually have to re-read Marvel Star Wars since I haven't been caught up in a couple of years.

[Diabolical]

I spent about $15 on a shitload of digital Star Wars comics, including the entire OG Marvel run (5 volumes), Dark Empire trilogy, DH Droids Omnibus, The Star Wars, Infinities trilogy, and the Shadows of the Empire collection.

[jjreason]

X-Men 21, the last Hickman issue. I will continue on with Gerry Duggan's issues for the first bit to see what's going on.
Marauders 21
Planet Sized X-Men

Mighty Valkyries 1-3

Bat/Cat 5

[Tom Foolery]

I started Dan Slott’s Iron Man run back in December, and got thru most of it by February/Early March. Then we moved into the new house, and reading got sidelined. Then I started getting beaucoup OT at work and reading got more sidelined. So this morning, six months later, I finally sat down and finished the Iron Man 2020 mini-event and its tie-ins that culminated Slott’s run.
Normally, i’d break down the series by arcs at least, but I’m so far removed from reading the beginning of the run, I’d have to go back and freshen up the details.
The overarching premise of the run is that Tony isn’t entirely sure he’s the real Tony after he died during CivilWar2 and was ressurected with a backup of his memories. He creates a virtual playground(ala the OASIS from ReadyPlayerOne) called the eScape and starts marketing it to the world. But its really a virtual workshop where he can figure out if he’s real or not. He also starts advocating for equal rights for sentient AI. Meanwhile, his brother Arno teams up with Sunset Bain to try and discredit Tony, claming he’s dead and the current Tony is fake so Arno can seize control of Stark’s companies and fortune because he is convinced there is an Extinction Level Event coming to Earth that only he, Arno, is destined to prevent and its the reason his parents hid him away as a baby. The grand finale was the six issue IM2020 event where Tony decides he’s not human, renames himself Mark One and leads a robot rebellion against Arno, who now controls Stark Unlimited and the name/identity Iron Man. Tony eventually realizes he’s the real Tony, comes back with a fancy new IM suit and stops Arno, until the final issue where the giant Celestial Cosmic Entity shows up threatening Earth and Tony and Arno team up and stop it. But then the twist is that the eScape, the cosmic threat, and the entire fucking run was just Tony bamboozling Arno because his disease that had kept him in the iron lung for most of his life had returned and Tony wanted to make Arno think he had saved the world before Tony puts him in the eScape virtual world permanently to save his life. Ugh.
I’d be annoyed if the entire thing ultimately wasn’t memorable enough to get annoyed about.
And one of the tie-in books was a two-part mini called iWolverine2020, which had zero to do with the main story’s plot and its just Larry Hama writing a fun Albert and Elsie-Dee story.

Next up, I think, is Donny Cate’s Venom run which just finished up with Venom 200 and had a couple line-wide events pinned to it. There was Absolute Carnage, and The King in Black. Hopefully it wont take me a year to read it.