So, What comics did you buy this week?

[Tom Foolery]

The ASM finale was rockin’ balls. Sinister War had Spidey going up against five different Sinister Six teams all at once. Then a sixth team consisting of the villains SinEater had stripped of their powers including Juggernaut and Morlun tip the scales completely. Spidey is about to be defeated until Boomerang steps between him and Morlun and is killed. Boomerang’s death shocks several other villains into coming to their senses and helping Spidey. And then finally Doc Ock figures out how to counteract the brain slugs Kindred was using on all the villains and basically shuts them all down. Not because he’s trying to help Spidey, but because he didn’t like being manipulated by Kindred. So Spidey can finally go confront Kindred in…

ASM 71-74. Norman and MJ went to confront Kindred who they think is Harry, but the plot twist is that there were two Kindreds and they were Gabriel and Sarah Stacy! This story arc retcons them being Norman and Gwen’s children, but instead cloned experiments from a rogue AI based on Harry and Norman’s brain patterns created to ruin Peter’s life. Harry really has been dead since Spec Spidey 200 and the Harry running around since was also a clone. The clone Harry shows up and saves Peter, dying in the process. The Kindred twins, having failed to destroy Peter both die because the eldritch power keeping them alive was rescinded by Mephisto who lost a bet with Dr Strange to stay away from Peter, thus retconning not only Sins Past, but One More Day as well. The final page is Peter and MJ atop the Chrysler Building back together as a couple. Spencer spent his entire run building up to this last arc and it paid off. Fun stuff.

So next is/was Aaron’s Avengers run. But in between Amazing and Avengers there were several smaller series and I read all those first.

[Tom Foolery]

Some ‘A’ books.

America Chavez:Made in the USA 1. First issue of a 5 part mini, dives into a mystery when someone attacks the family that raised America after she landed on Earth. I thought her last ongoing, where she was enrolled at some interdimensional high school was boring, but this issue got me hooked for the rest of the series, which is in my “newest’ boxes and I won’t get to for awhile.

Annihilation:Scourge. Two bookend Alpha and Omega issues, and oneshots for the FF, Nova, Surfer, and Beta Ray Bill. The Cancerverse invades the Negative Zone and Annihilus has to ask for help from the posi-verse heroes to repel a corrupted Sentry and his cancerverse minions. I’m behind on my cosmic stuff from Marvel, so there was a lot of stuff, like the destruction of the newest Nova Corps and how/why Surfer is black/intangible but for the most part it was a solid story.

Ant-Man and the Wasp 1-5. This came out in 2017? Jeez, I’m behind. Scott Lang and Nadia Pym meet and team up for the first time and get into microverse hijinks thanks to clever writing from Mark Waid.

Ant-Man and the Wasp:Living Legends oneshot. Came out around the time the movie did. Scott and Janet VanDyne team up to battle some aliens from an obscure Tales to Astonish issue from the 60s.

Ant-Man 1-5. 2018 mini from Zeb Wells. Scott and his daughter Cassie team up to fight Swarm the Nazi Bee Guy and some ancient bug lords in the Savage Land. It was okay, but forgettable.

Aquaman 41, 42, 49-66. The usual Aquaman stories. Arthur and Mera and their allies fighting Black Manta and Ocean Master for the fate of Atlantis. Arthur and Mera have a daughter. I was buying DC variant covers at the time; not a big Aquaman reader.

Aquaman 100 Page Giant 1-4. Didnt read these. It was one or two new stories and a bunch of NU52 reprints per issue. I’ll circle back to them eventually. Maybe.

Asgardians of the Galaxy 1-10. This book got greenlit because of it’s title and you know it. The first five issues “tied into” Infinity Wars and the last five tied into War of the Realms. Hard to get any traction going for your character development when your narratives are playing second banana to somebody else’s Event(s). Writer Cullen Bunn did his best though.

Aspen Splash 2018 Swimsuit Spectacular. Pin-ups of characters who I don’t know.

Atlantis Attacks 1-5. The final mini in Greg Pak’s Agents of Atlas trilogy. Namor attacks the inhabitants of Pan to recover the Atlantean dragon they’ve been using to power their teleporting tech. Both the new and old Agents of Atlas teams get involved, but everyone has different motivations on which side they should help.

Real Science Adventures 1-5. An old fashioned heist set in 1033 Constantinople. Clevinger always delivers great storytelling.

Atomic Robo: Dawn of a New Era 1-5. Robo is building a body for his ‘son’ the AI of Alan Turing that tried to destroy Earth. This leads to moral and ethical issues with the rest of the Action Science team about nature vs nurture. Also, Vampires are getting ready to attack. We haven’t had new AR in almost four years. This bums me out.

Okay, NOW for some Avengers…

[Tom Foolery]

Jason Aaron kicked off his Avengers run with artist Ed McGuiness by bringing back the ‘Big Three’ for the first time in a long while. Tony had been in a coma post-Civil War 2, Cap had been Hydra-Cap for a few years, and Thor had been ‘unworthy’ while his ex-GF was Thor. So Aaron wanted to get ‘back to basics’ with an A-list Avengers line up.

FCBD 2018 kicked off the series, with Black Panther visiting Odin who told him a tale of the Avengers 1M BC. Odin, Agamoto, the first Sorcerer Supreme, the original Ghost Rider and his flaming mastadon, the OG Iron Fist, a caveman with the Starbrand, and the OG Phoenix fought a Celestial billions of years ago and left the carcass buried deep in the Earth.

Avengers 1-6. Aaron went BIG with his first arc. The Celestial they defeated had come looking for another Celestial who had got sick and died on Earth more billions of yesrs ago. This Celestial, called the Progenitor released then virus that killed it into Earth’s infant ecosystem. Humanity, and basically all superpowers are the equivalent of antibodies developed to fight this cosmic virus called The Horde. Flash forward to present day; Celestials are falling to Earth dead and the Final Host of Celestials arrive to destroy Earth. These few remaining Celestials are infected by the Horde by way of being manipulated/aided by Loki. Thru different circumstances, the Big Three, Captain Marvel, Black Panther, Dr Strange, She-Hulk, and Robbie Reyes all get involved and become the new Avengers accidentally. There’s a super bad ass final fight where She-Hulk and Thor eat some magic frost giant fruit and get super big, Robbie Reyes ‘pilots’ a dead Celestial becoming a giant Ghost Rider, and Iron Man had a leftover Galactus sized armor hiding on Mars or some shit and deploys it. So 4 mega sized Avengers fighting the evil Celestials at the North Pole. Fucking LOVE comics! The ‘anti virus’ humans destroy the Horde infecting the Celestials and as a thank you, they bring the Progenitor’s body for the Avengers to use as their new base. Dope start to the series.

7 was an origin story for the OG Ghost Rider. A Wendigo attacks a primitive’s entire clan and kills them all. The kid wanders thru a blizzard and meets a stranger(*cough*Mephisto) who gives him Spirit of Vengeance powers and he finds the Wendigo several years later and defeats him.

8-12. The Avengers set up their new HQ in ‘Avengers Mountain’ and elect Black Panther as the chairman. This doesn’t sit well with the USA so they turn their backs on the Avengers and introduce the Squadron Supreme of America thanks to a mysteriously not dead Agent Coulson. Russia also reactivates its super team the Winter Guard, and tensions arise between Atlantis and the surface with Namor taking a hard stand against polluters. Black Panther also introduces a “support staff” of Spies, IT support, and others because Jarvis is old and can’t run an entire dead Celestial mountain base like it was the Mansion. So Gorilla-Man, Ka-Zar, Broo, Okoye, Janet Van Dyne, etc are added as supporting players. I think they might’ve got their own spinoff book called Agents of Wakanda at some point, but I digress. Also, Thor and She-Hulk start dating and Blade joins the team. Mostly this arc is putting pieces in place for future story arcs. I’m assuming.

13 was the origin for OG Iron Fist. A KunLun girl is caught teaching king fu to ‘humans’ out in the world and is sentenced to death by great dragon. But instead, she inadvertently kills Shao-Lou the ‘undying’ and gets the Iron Fist accidentally and is banished for it. Which then changed the entire culture of KunLun. Lol.

14-17. A civil war erupts in the Vampire world when a group of vampires led by the Shadow Colonel attack Dracula’s followers. Blade and the Avengers get involved, Robbie gets ‘turned’ into a bad guy for a couple issues. Dracula requests asylum from Russia in exchange for information he’s accumulated for the last 500 years and gets sent to Chernobyl. The Avengers defeat the Colonel, but the whole thing was a double cross?? because the Colonel was Dracula’s son Xarus and Dracula wanted all the vampires destroyed so he could start over?? Makes no sense. Huge whiff on this arc unless it pays off down the road.

[jjreason]

Saga 56, digital copy. I will need to go pick up my Bat/Cat 10 at some point. Also bought some X-Men annuals, New Mutants & Alpha flight issues I was missing. I think New mutants is done now except for Annual 2, the Psylocke 1st appearance.

[Diabolical]

I think New mutants is done now except for Annual 2, the Psylocke 1st appearance.

I picked that up back in the 90s for like $10.

[jjreason]

That's lucky. I think it's going to wind up costing me a bit more than that. ><

[Tom Foolery]

Back with more Avengers.

Avengers: No Road Home 1-10. The sequel to No Surrender, Ewing, Zub, and Waid tag team the writing chores on this weekly maxi-series. Why is it the Avengers’ run I’m reading? Because the Legacy numbering on this book was included as part of the main title’s legacy run. Voyager returns and put together an ad-hoc Avengers team when a forgotten Greek goddess of darkness returns and kills off the entire Greek Pantheon on Olympus and threatens everlasting night on Earth. Hercules, Vision, Wanda, Hulk, Clint, Spectrum, and Rocket have to find missing shards of Nyx’s power that Zues hid away in different realms before she cam reacquire them. The big mid-story plot twist was re-introducing Conan the Barbarian into the proper Marvel U since they got the rights back from Dark Horse. Eventually the story concludes with a bit of meta-storytelling as Vision goes to the literal House of Ideas and defeats Nyx with Marvel Characters he thinks up as defense against darkness. Kinda cheesy, kinda cool end. Sounds like something Ewing and Waid would hatch.

18-20 War of the Realms tie-ins. Aaron was writing the main WotR book and Thor at the time, so with these Avengers issues he could work in ongong subplots and not focus so much on the main WotR arc. Coulson’s Squadron Supreme of America are LMDs he’s programmed with superpowers and he’s alive because he made a deal with Mephisto. Gorilla-Man defends Avengers Mountain against invading Frost Giants, but we also discover he’s been turned and is a double agent working for the Vampires. And She-Hulk is dealing with her amplified powers after the first Celestial arc.

21 was a post-WotR downtime issue with Mephisto and others setting up future storylines, like Tony finding a calcified 1 million year old Iron Man helmet in a cave.

22-25. Robbie wants to be rid of the Ghost Rider curse, so they bring in Daimon Hellstorm to perform an exorcism on his car. Robbie ends up in Hell amd is challenged to a race by the new King of Hell, Johnny Blaze who wants Robbie’s power to hold the throne against Mephisto. The car is “possessed” by the Cosmic Ghost Rider, Frank Castle from the future, who possesses Avengers Mountain and fighting the Avengers before realizing he was duped by Blaze and they all go to hell to save Robbie.

26 was an origin story for the Caveman who got the Starbrand powers a million years ago and joined Odin’s 1M BC Avengers.

[Tom Foolery]

Finishing up the Avengers stuff in the box.

Avengers 27-30. The Starbrand is reborn in a Shi’ar prison galaxy(yes, the entire galaxy is a prison…) and everybody from Majestrix Gladiator to a trio of former Galactus heralds; Terrax, Firelord, and the Surfer, want it. The Avengers ride in to save the pregnant Earth women who received the ‘Brand. Along the way, Thor get turned into a Brood, Black Widow dons some war machine armor to become War Widow. The woman sacrifices herself and the Starbrand is transferred to her baby who is given to the Avengers to rake care of.

31. Tony got zapped a million years into the past and has had to survive with only his intellect and his dwindling power supply from his armor. He is confronted by Mephisto of the past who tries to make a deal with him for his soul and he learns an unpleasant truth about how Howard Stark became so rich and powerful. He rejects Mephisto and gets back to the present, but he is shaken by the events.

32. We discover Mephisto has been surreptitiously influencing Namor, Dracula, Red Widow of the Winter Guard, and of course, Agent Coulson putting them all on collisions with the Avengers. The Avengers deal with their new baby Starbrand. And Namor calls the Phoenix Force back to Earth…

33-37. Konshu forsees Mephisto taking over Earth, so he sends his Fist, Moon Knight to take the weapons and powers of Earth’s most powerful heroes; the Iron Fist, Ghost Rider’s powers, Thor’s Hammer, and the Eye of Agamotto to create a new Egyptian kingdom on Earth. Eventually Moon Knight turns on Konshu, and helps restore things to normal using the newly arrived Phoenix Force, but the threat of Mephisto still remains.

38. More behind the scenes stuff with Mephisto, as he brings Howard Stark back to life as his new aide-de-camp. The Phoenix Force has made a nest outside Avengers Mountain. Moon Knight rejects T’challa’s invite to the Avengers.

39. The origin story for the stone age 1M BC Phoenix Host.

40-44. The Phoenix decides to choose a new host. It picks a bunch of heroes and brings them to the White Room where the battle it out bracket style. Maya Lopez aka Echo becomes the new Phoenix.
That’s everything from the old boxes. The series is currently on issue 56, but if Aaron’s run on Thor is any indication he’s got a long plan for the Avengers so I can come back later and finish the series.

Avengers Halloween Special. Bunch of spooky short stories. Not really Avengers-centric, more of a Marvel Halloween special, but maybe putting Avengers on the cover sold more copies. Some decent stuff in here. The Daredevil one was great.

Avengers:Wakanda Forever. The third part of a story started in Spidey and X-Men oneshots featuring the Dora Milaje. Meh.

Avengers:Loki Unleashed oneshot. Part of Marvel’s 80th anniversary was bringing back veteran creators to work on new stuff. This one was Roger Stern and Ron Lim teaming up for a story set right after the Masters of Evil destroyed Avengers Mansion.

Avengers Gamerverse oneshots. Iron Man, Thor, Hulk, Cap, and Black Widow all get issues set in the new video games universe.

Avengers:Mech Strike 1,2. Part of a 6 issue mini. I feel like this has to be a toy tie-in, right? Large mystical monsters invade Earth and Tony Stark just happens to have giant ass Pacific Rim-style Jaeger robots for all the Avengers(and Spider-Man) to pilot to fight them. Ridiculous. But also, apparently, in continuity…

So I got thru that entire ‘A’ box in like seven weeks. I’m debating on whether to head into the next box with Savage Avengers and a variety of ‘B’ books because I’m caught up on Batman so there’ll be less to read. Or stick to my original plan and do Slott’s FF run next. Coin flip!

[Tom Foolery]

Savage Avengers! Marvel got the publishing rights to Conan back and plopped him into the current Marvel U. This series by Gerry Duggan has Kulan Gath returning to destroy/conquer Earth and Conan teaming up with everyone to stop him.

1-5. Conan was dropped in the Savage Land after the events of No Road Home. Kulan Gath has a secret city of cultists there and has teamed up with the Hand to take over the world. Doctor Voodoo arrives looking for his newly resurrected brother Daniel. Wolverine shows up looking to rescue Voodoo. Frank Castle shows up because THE HAND DUG UP HIS FAMILY’S CORPSES TO LURE HIM THERE. Elektra shows up. Conan finds an ancient symbiote Kulan Gath was keeping prisoner and it bonds to him as a sleeve/gauntlet that forms a symbiote sword. Together they defeat Gath as he brought forth a cosmic demon or some shit, but his true purpose was to infect the “warriors” to serve under him at some point in the future. Voodoo goes after Gath to figure out his master plan. Elektra goes to warn Dr Strange. This was Mike Deodato’s last work for Marvel at the time(not sure if hes come back since) but he’d been doing art for them for almost exclusively since the 90s and wanted to do creator owned stuff.

6. Frank and Conan bond by taking Frank’s family THAT THE HAND DESECRATED out of the Savage Land and across Antarctica to Halley’s Station. It takes several weeks, dragging three coffins with them the entire way. They barter passage on freighters to get back to NYC. Conan leaves off in Brazil along the way.

7-10. Dr Doom ‘kidnaps’ Conan and brings him to Latveria, then they team up with Strange to go battle Kulan Gath in Egypt. Gath considers Doom and Strange the only real threats to his efforts, so he’s targeting them. After they ‘defeat’ him, they drop Conan back in South America.

11-12. Elektra and Strange(who are hooking up?) make a deal to get Voodoo back from the dead in exchange for his ressurected brother. They also discover Kulan Gath is secretly devouring Shuma-Gorath a little piece at a time and using his(its?) power to increase his own. Strange recruits Conan, Magik, Black Widow, Damon Hellstrom and others to help stop Gath.

14-16. Two teams are created. Wolverine, Frank, Elektra, Black Widow and Hellstrom go to Central America to destroy a drug opereation thats lacing coke with Shuma-Gorath to make an unwitting worldwide army of Gath worshippers, and the other team of Magik, Black Knight, Juggernaut, and Conan go to retrieve an eye of Aggamoto amulet from an asgardian dragon.

17-19. King in Black tie in. Conan ends up in Ryker’s after a hard night of drinking and meets Deadpool and obscure d-villain Night-Flyer, where they concoct an escape and heist of the abandoned Hellfire Club. They get in a tussle with the X-Men when they arrive, who ask for their help because Cyclops and Storm have been compromised by Knull. Fun to see Duggan writing Wade again.

Annual 1. Set between issues 6 and 7. Conan teams up with Black Widow and Hellstrom to take out human traffickers in South America.

Issue 0 was a reprint of the two Uncanny X-Men issues where Kulan Gath took over Manhattan, bookended with a few pages to tie it into the current series when Strange heads to Krakoa to recruit Magik.

That was it from the older boxes, but since there was only 9 issues left and the story was good, I went into the new boxes and finished the series.

20. Conan finds himself in the Bar with No Name and decides to help Rhino rob a bank, which puts them at odds with Spider-Man.

21-22. Conan crosses paths with Ghost Rider, who can sense the Gath infection in Conan. Strange makes a deal with Shuma-Gorath.

23-27. Final arc. Gath put his final plans in motion. He defeats the heroes and takesmover Earth. Several years pass. Elderly Conan arrives in Dr Dooms armor to try and save a captured and tortured Dr Strange. Strange tells Conan how to make one last hail mary play before Gath incinerates him. Conan recruits Kang the Conqueror and then goes to fight Gath. The battle lasts two minutes before Conan dies, but its enough time for Kang to recruit heroes and go confront Gath in the past. They finally defeat him, and then Conan and Kang go back to the distant past and change Kulan Gath’s destiny so he becomes a warrior trained by Conan and not a sorceror.

28. The coda. Kang leaves Conan in the past because he sees Conan could become a threat to him in the future if stays in the present. After his death, King Conan leaves a message on his greatsword to Kang, saying ‘this isnt over’ and Kang relents and brings Conan back to the present as a sort of begrudging respect.

They’ve solicited a second series coming out in a few months. This book was great fun. Not only was it Conan interacting with a bunch of different Marvel characters with great effect and humor, but the villain was a serious threat, there were lots of cool last page reveals and the overall narrative was solid. Very enjoyable. Highly recommend.
But let me just say this. THE HAND DUG UP FRANK’S FAMILY TO PUSH HIS BUTTONS and he reacted accordingly. I read this AFTER I read Punisher last week and I was annoyed how he reacted then. But knowing what they did in this series and THEN seeing how Jason Aaron’s series is playing out?? I’m just…no. No fucking way. Nosiree. Nope. There is no goddamn way Frank would then team up with the assholes that desecrated his family’s remains a few months later and be totally cool with being their new assassin king or whatever.

[Tom Foolery]

West Coast Avengers 1-10. This short lived ongoing is Kelly Thompson’s continuation/follow up to her Kate Bishop ongoing. Kate has an emergency with some mutant land sharks and calls Clint and America Chavez to help, and this leads to a new WCA being formed with Gwen Pool and Quentin Quire joining and also Kate’s new bf who is sorta like Absorbing Man jr? The series was lighthearted with lots of banter and no serious threats. MODOK turned Tigra 100 ft tall and had her attack LA, then Noh Varr(Kate’s ex bf) showed up and needed help with some vampires, and Kate’s mom(who was dead) is/was retconned into being a vampire. It was all silly. Gwen and Quentin constantly bicker, then start making out; that sorta silliness. Issue 7 is becoming valuable because its the 1st app of Jeff the baby Land Shark.

Avengers of the Wasteland 1. This was a five issue mini, but I only picked up the first one. I think it may have been one of those books that got cancelled and then uncancelled during the pandemic, but wev. Takes place after Old Man Logan and Dead Man Logan in that apocalyptic future. Dr Doom starts a ruckus and Hulk, Thor(who I think is Luke and Jessica’s daughter? I haven’t read DML yet) and Ant-Man have to stop him. Meh.

Next up, I’ve been keeping up with the main Batman book, but there’s other Bat stuff like Batgirl, Outsiders, and various Bat minis as we start in on the ‘B’s!

[Tom Foolery]

Batgirl. The 2016 Rebirth series. I didn’t buy an issue until the ‘Year of the Villain’ event with issue 37. Then I backtracked to issue 25, getting the variant covers. For some reason the variant cover for issue 23 by Josh Middleton is ridiculously stupid expensive and I can’t figure out why. But here’s the last half of the series.

25. Extra sized issue with multiple shorter stories. Babs invites Dick over to her hotel room, where they just cuddle, watch old movies and talk about relationship goals, not necessarily with each other. Boring. The third story had one of her rogues gallery named Grotesque(never heard of him)stealing art from rich people after killing them. There’s also on ongoing subplot that runs thru the entirety of the remainder of the series where Babs “civilian’ job is her working for a Congresswoman’s election team who is at odds with the corruption in the GCPD and thus butting heads with Jim Gordon, with Barbara stuck in the middle. Jason Bard is the Conngresswoman’s head of security and he has history with both Batgirl and Commissioner Gordon, so there’s more conflict. Mairghread Scott and Paul Pelletier on writing/art duties.

26-29. Batgirl is tracking Grotesque, who is working for an organization and/or a villain named Dark Web. But the real Grotesque is dead and new killer is the detective assigned to his case being blackmailed into being bad. Batgirl and Bard stop him from blowing up a campaign fundraiser at a museum.

30-32. Someone hires Cormorant to assassinate the congresswoman because she wants to close Blackgate prison and build a better supermax farther out of town. Bard kills Cormorant in cold blood when he threatens the congresswoman.

33. James Gordon Jr is released from Arkham on good behavior. Babs doesn’t trust that he’s better and it causes more problems between her and her father.
35-37. The ringleaders of a hedonistic cult in Gotham are extorting their members to keep them same from the law and the Bats. Batgirl takes down their business. Scott and Pelletier’s last issues.

38-42. The new writer Castelucci takes over for the YotV crossover. Somebody reboots the rogue version of the Oracle network and it sorta becomes AI and returns to Gotham looking for its creator who ‘abandoned’ it.

43-44. A famous fantasy writer has been living in a magical realm created by his own imagination. He returns to Earth to woo his former editor and Batgirl and Bard have to fight a giant dragon. Uhhh…what?

45-46. Some d-list villain is killing homeless people so she can use them to make precious metal to fuel an eco-friendly power station to run a suburb of Gotham. Batgirl teams up with Batwoman to stop them. Or something. I zoned out after the dragon arc and this one was even more bleh.

47-50. Joker War tie in. Joker attacks Babs in her apartment and re-cripples her. She recovers with the help of Jason Fox. Then someone starts killing redheads dressed as Batgirl. Surprise(said noone), its her brother. He throws himself off a building. The series wraps up with Barbara going steady with Bard and convincing Bruce to commit funds to rebuilding Gotham and helping her boss the congresswoman effect positive change or whatever.
Scott and Pelletier’s stuff was good(and by good I mean okay enough I guess), I look forward to finding the first 25 issues. The final writer’s stuff left a lot to be desired.

Next up, Batman & The Outsiders, as well as Batman/Superman both started in 2018/2019 and both ran about 20 or so issues each. I’m not sure if I finished full runs of either one. We will see.

[Tom Foolery]

Batman & the Outsiders 1-17, + an Annual. This spun out of an arc in Detective. Bruce starts a new Outsiders team and puts Black Lightning in charge of Katana, Signal, and Orphan. Bat tasks them with rescuing a metahuman girl after her father is killed by agents of Ras Al Ghul. The entire series is just them trying to defeat Ras and save the girl. There’s some “character development” for everyone, but nothing remarkable. I had the entire run, which I wasn’t sure about.

[jjreason]

I liked that group in Detective. I figures James Tynion would get the Batman job based solely on how interesting he made Clayface... and wouldn't you know it, he did. Did he write this batch of stories too?

[Tom Foolery]

It was someone named Hill. Didn’t recognize it. Dexter Soy was on art. He’s like David Finch lite. He does a pretty good Batman.

[Tom Foolery]

Batman/Superman 1-6. Part of the Year of the Villains event. The Batman Who Laughs infects six heroes with his toxin in order to bring his version of the Justice League satellite into our universe and infect everyone on Earth. Batman and Superman have to figure out the mystery of which six heroes have been transformed and then stop the multiverse rift from happening. Solid big stakes first arc from writer Josh Williamson and artist David Marquez. The six heroes were Jim Gordon, Hawkman, Shazam, Donna Troy, Blue Beetle, and Supergirl.

7-8. General Zod goes up against Ras Al Ghul because he wants to use the Lazarus Pit to resurrect the Kandorians after Rogol Zaar destroyed the bottled city.

9-11. Ultra Humanite uses the Atomic Skull as a pawn to attack Gotham and get Batman riled up as a revenge plot against Superman. Eventually Batman gets turned into Atomic Batman before the Humanite is defeated.

12-14. A fragment of Brainiac’s processing chip bonds with an threat assessmemt algorithm Bat and Supes created and takes over a moonbase populated with an army of synthetic villains. Batwoman and Steel have to fly to the moon and rescue Batman and Superman and also stop a new Composite Batman/Superman attacking Metropolis or Gotham or wherever.

15 was a standalone issue where Poison Ivy helps Bat and Supe return Solomon Grundy to the swamp where he was created before a bunch of mercs can steal him for their own nefarious purposes.
Annual 1. Bat-Mite and Myxlptlk argue about who is better, Batman or Superman.

The series ended with issue 22, so I’m missing the final seven issues. The catch is trying to find the variant covers. This book was replaced by the new World’s Finest ongoing by Mark Waid which just started last week.

Batman:The Adventure Continues 1-8. Alan Burnett and Paul Dini along with artist Ty Templeton return for more adventures set in the DCAU continuity, just in comic form. Batman fights Deathstroke, teams up with Azrael, and deals with the return of Jason Todd!! I could hear Kevin Conroy and Mark Hamill’s voices when I was reading these. Pretty dope. There is a ‘season 2’ series, but my collection of that is spotty.

Batman:Secret Files 1-3. For some reason, I always think Secret Files are like Handbook style info guides like the old Who’s Who issues. But they’re just anthology oneshots with various short stories about Batman and/or his rogues and allies. Some are better than others.