So, What comics did you buy this week?

[jjreason]

BatCat 12 (not sure whether it was 2 or 3 weeks ago, something like that)

Saga e60. So 59 wasn't the end of the arc, this was. Another good issue, even though the price has gone up about a buck since I started buying them this way. 48 issues to go, according to the letters page, but we don't get the next one until January 2023.

[Tom Foolery]

The Amazing Mary Jane 1-6. Mary Jane goes out west to star in a movie about Mysterio directed by Hollywood’s hottest new auteur director, Cage McKnight. But then MJ discovers McKnight has been replaced by the actual Mysterio who is trying to bring his own life story to the screen. MJ decides to HELP Quentin Beck and what follows is a fun and hilarious tale of all the behind the scenes drama of getting a movie financed and shot, with the addition of Vulture and his Savage Six trying to sabotage the production. Issue 6 was the first part of a new arc where MJ is doing publicity for the new movie and she witnesses a murder and gets whisked off to Montana and put in witsec…but Covid hit and the series got canned mid story. They had actually solicited issues 7-10 at that point. Issue 10 has a now semi-famous cover of MJ dressed in Princess Leia’s metal bikini that never got published. At any rate, this was a fun series from Leah Williams and Carlos Gomez.

MODOK: Head Games 1-4. Jason Blum and Patton Oswalt wrote this mini series where AIM tries to assassinate MODOK in a power grab from Monica Rapucini and Scientist Supreme Forson. MODOK is seeing visions of his family from the animated TV show, and he teams up with Tony Stark to infiltrate a black market tech auction, then has to deal with Gwenpool coming to assassinate him, before finally confronting his own father, the founder of A.I.M. about how he was originally created. Surprisingly great series that tied the show to the comics version with a lot of funny banter and some great deep dives into continuity. I love it when superfans do their homework when writing B-list stuff like this. The fourth issue was actually in the newer boxes and I made the rare decision and went and dug it out to finish the series.

Monsters oneshot. This was part follow up to the Monsters Unleashed series from a couple years ago, and part…Handbook, I guess? Kid Kaiju finds a mysterious textbook on a bunch of the old monsters from the 50’s Tales stories and most of the issue is the “pages” of that text with breakdowns of a bunch of the old monsters. Then it bookends the story by introducing Max Frankenstein, a teenage mad scientist, and possibly a nemesis to Kai, creating new monsters and Kid Kaiju summoning his monsters to fight them.

Moon Knight Annual 1. I think this was an annual that came out in between MK’s series, so does that technically even count as an annual and not just y’know…a oneshot? Anyway, it was part of the ‘Acts of Evil’ annuals that came out that summer. In this one, Kang goes back in time a steals three powerful totems from Konshu; the staff, the ankh, and the crescent, and uses them to alter the future where Kang rules everything. Moon Knight realizes time is messed up and starts traveling backwards thru time, teaming up with past Moon Knights(old west MK, Viking MK, Victorian top hat MK, and literally dozens of others) to unsteal the totems and retro-actively stop Kang. It was okay.

Morbius 1-2. The first two issues of a new Morbius series that only lasted 5 issues. As always, Morbius is trying and failing to find a cure for his disease. The sister of the guy he killed when he first became Morbius is hunting him and Spider-Man showed up on the last page of the second issue. I am not in a great rush to track the other three issues down, but I’m confident I’ll stumble across them eventually.

Morbius:Bad Blood oneshot. One of those issues Ralph Macchio writes when a movie comes out, to have more comics on the stands or whatever their thinking is. But this came out back in 2021 before the movie got delayed several times. Lol. The son of the guy he killed has a terminal disease, so Morbius goes to Calvin Zabo to get a cure in exchange for Morbuis getting Zabo his Hyde formula. But the kid dies anyway, and then Morbius has to fight Mr Hyde because he’s feeling guilty for making a bad decision again. Dumb.

Mr and Mrs X. 1,2, 4, 5, 10-12. Half of the short ongoing series where Rogue and Gambit got married. Kelly Thompson and Oscar Bazaldua crafted an entertaining series considering this was Marvel’s most annoying couple for decades. The first arc is about their honeymoon getting interrupted so they can go to space to save the daughter of Xavier and Lilandra from Shi-Ar power grabs(I’m missing issue 3 which is going for bug bucks because it’s the first appearance of the kid). Guest starring Cerise, Imperial Guards, Starjammers, and the Technet. The second arc took them to Mojoworld(I’m missing most of this arc) and the final two issues were dealing with Gambit being the King of the Thieves Guild. Thompson kept the energy and pace up, and Bazaldua is a solid artist. Call it a win on this series. Have to track down the missing five issues.

That was a good entertaining run of books. Only the Morbius whiffed for me. Mary Jane, MODOK, and MMX were all great reads.
Next up is Ms. Marvel’s third ongoing.

[Tom Foolery]

Saladin Ahmed took over the writing chores for the third Ms Marvel ongoing, handpicked by original writer G Willow Wilson to carry on Kamala’s adventures.

Magnificent Ms Marvel 1-6. Kamala’s mother tells her father her secret, and they confront Kamala about her super-heroing, and also tell her that jer dad has a super rare incurable disease and that he’s dying. But just then, aliens come and whisk Ms Marvel and her parents away to another planet where she’s been anointed the destined savior of their world. She has to do a bunch of world saving in front of her parents and gets a new costume thanks to some Kree nano-tech. After saving the alien world, her parents begrudgingly come to accept that she’s a hero. Then the aliens mindwipe her parents when they send them back to Earth, so her identity is secret from them again. Issue 6 had a gratuitous Iron Man cameo when she asks Tony about her dad’s illness and also about her new Kree suit.

7-8. Kamala and her friends go on a road trip, and have to stop a “zombie” invasion when a bunch of employees at a tech start-up get infected by their CEO, a new super villain called Monopoly.

9-12. Iron Man and Dr Strange come to do some magic surgery on Kamala’s dad, but Mr. Hyde starts wrecking the hospital, so Ms. Marvel has to lure him away. Then her new supersuit tries to kill Hyde, so Kamala rejects it and the AI turns into a new supervillain called Stormranger and tosses Kamala in the ocean. She defeats the AI being and it escapes, but the delay means a blood transfusion from Kamala that would’ve cured her dad, only prevents him from dying.
13. Introduces a new hero called Amulet that Ms. Marvel teams up with.

14-18. The aftermath of the Outlawed oneshot. Kamala wakes up from her coma and discovers she’s the unwilling poster child for the anti-teen superhero law that’s been enacted. Dum Dum Dugan and his agents of C.R.A.D.L.E.(I am not making this shit up) are pursuing leads on the identity of Ms. Marvel while she continues to be a hero, saving people from a flood and stopping her rogue AI suit from killing a member of her rogues gallery. Dugan realizes she’s a hero and decides to let her go.

Annual 1. Part of the Acts of Evil sub-event. Super Skrull starts posing as a new hero called Captain Hero in order to do something to change Earth into the new Skrull homeworld(??) but Kamala convinces him with the power of friendship that it’s a stupid plan and then he leaves. Dumb.

Wasn’t awful, but wasn’t as good as the previous Ms Marvel runs. Giving the dad a disease felt like artificial drama for drama’s sake and then just giving him a limp with a cane felt like a copout. And the Stormranger suit was just her version of Venom. Haven’t read the Miles or Champions books, but the Outlawed/CRADLE storyline seemed to fizzle as well. I guess the plots were weak, but Kamala and her interactions with her friends and family were decent. So the good cancels the bad for this run.

Next up, a smattering of ‘N’ books. I’m skipping the New Mutants, so it’s just Naomi, Nebula, and a verrry spotty, inconsistent run of Nightwing.

[Tom Foolery]

Naomi 1-6. Bendis and David Walker, along with artist Jamal Campbell, created an original character for Bendis’ DC Imprint Wonder Comics focusing on the youthful characters in the DC line. Young Justice and the Wonder Twins also had series under the imprint. But this was by far the breakout series. A young woman from middle of nowhere Oregon begins a journey to discover her origins after Superman randomly fighting Mongul for 14 seconds becomes the biggest thing to ever happen in her town. They creatively pace out the mystery over the six issues. The reveal of the source of her powers is fairly generic(she’s an orphan of super powered parents from another dimension’s Earth) but the character and her supporting cast are very Bendis-y. Her popularity eventually got her her own CW series and the first issue goes for a good amount.

Nebula 1-2. Nebula finds an alien scientist who has created a device/software that predicts outcomes based on patterns. Nebula incorporates the machine into her body to give her an edge in battle, and it promptly fries her memory. And then….the series got covid cancelled.

New Mutants:War Children oneshot. I skipped the new ongoing, but this one of those issues celebrating Marvel’s 80th anniversary where they brought back old creators to do new stories. Claremont and Sienkiewicz nailing it. This could easily be an issue from their original 80s run. I know Claremont has missed a step in recent years, but this issue does not. Well done.

Nightwing. I would start and stop the NW series randomly.
Nightwing 51. This one was one of those gimmick metallic covers they put out that month. It was right after KGBeast had shot Dick in the head in Batman and he’d lost his memories. He’s driving a cab and calling himself Ric. At the end of the issue, a Bludhaven cop sees the need for a Nightwing and raids the destroyed ‘Nightwing Cave’ to don an extra uniform.

Nightwing 62-64, 66. Three cops and a firefighter have collectively taken over the roll of Nightwing using various previous NW uniforms. Ric is helping them in a generic black jumpsuit, calling himself ‘The Cabbie’. He knows he used to be Robin/Nightwing because Babs and Alfred have told him who he was, but he doesn’t remember it. But he has the muscle memory of it. Meanwhile, the Talon(who is Dick’s great grandfather) and the Court of Owls try to brainwash a susceptible Dick into becoming the Court’s new Talon.

Nightwing 73-78. Joker brainwashes the continuously amnesiac Dick into being his new henchman Dickieboy, and Babs, Tim, and Jason have to fight him and stop Dick, Punchline, and Joker from blowing up the new Alfred Pennyworth hospital. Eventually, they get Dick to remember everything. 77 was the end of Jurgens run as writer, and 78 was the beginning of Tom Taylor’s run where Blockbuster returns and Tony Zucco’s daughter becomes the new mayor of Bludhaven. It figures I stopped right when the new writed started and his first issue was pretty good.

Nightwing 80 and 88. I just picked these two issues up last weekend. Dick inherited Alfred’s fortune(Alfred was a billionaire also, as it happens) and Dick is using the money philanthropically in Bludhaven, which makes him a target. 88 was a great issue where Blockbuster tries to assassinate Dick and the Titans show up to back him up.

I randomly restarted buying it again recently, but 91 thru the current issue 94 are in the new boxes. I’m liking Taylor’s run so I’m gonna track down the missing stuff.

Next up, the ‘O’s? The ‘P’s? I already read the Punisher stuff, so I’m not sure how much there is in the next batch of reading.

[Tom Foolery]

Busting thru ‘O’ thru ‘R’ pretty quick. Not much in there, and I’d already read some of it.

Old Man Hawkeye 1-12. Prequel to Old Man Logan. Hawkeye is developing cataracts, so he sets off on one last mission to hunt down his former Thunderbolts teammates who switched sides in the final battle in Las Vegas where the Avengers died. In pursuit of him is Marshall Bullseye, fitted with Deathlok tech and deteriorated copies of Jamie Madrox who have bonded with the Venom symbiote. Ethan Sacks and Marco Checchetto add an excellent chapter to the Wastelanders saga.

Outlawed oneshot. The Champions fight some bad guys and a dragon in a school and it gets blown up and Kamala Khan ends up in a coma. Teenage super-heroes get banned as a result. Kicked off a ‘this changes everything!’ arc that ran thru all the Teen heroes books for awhile. Interestingly enough, there was an ad for a new New Warriors ongoing that never got made. I looked it up, and apparently, they were gonna do some LGBTQ characters and it got backlash from their community for being in bad taste, so they postponed it, then eventually cancelled it altogether.

Power Pack:Grow Up oneshot. Part of the 80th anniversary celebration. Louise Simonson and June Brigman returned for a story where the Brood attacks while the kids are at a Lila Cheney concert. There was a backup story by Gurihiru, so this issue celebrated both eras of Power Pack. Nice touch.

Power Pack:Outlawed 1-5. New miniseries that tied into the Outlawed event. The kids get busted for being teen superheroes, so they have to find a adult mentor hero. Their new mentor Agent Aether turns out to be super villain The Wizard in disguise and he steals their powers, so the kids have to team up with Wolverine to steal their powers back. Fun stuff from writer Ryan North, who wrote the unbelievably hilarious Squirrel Girl ongoing for a few years.

Skipped all the Punisher stuff I already read.

Quantum & Woody 1. Valiant brought the Klang brothers back in this new ongoing. I only got the first issue. It was okay, but not as hilarious as the original 90s book.

Quicksilver:No Surrender 1, and 4. Only have two issues of this 5 issue mini. Honestly thought tracking down the other issues would’ve been easier at this point.

Ravencroft 1-5. Finished this mini just last weekend, just in time to read the whole thing. Mayor Fisk rebuilt Ravencroft after Carnage destroyed it in Absolute Carnage and staffed it with “former” supervillains Taskmaster, Scorpion, Moonstone, Hobgoblin, and new administrator Norman Osborn. Also on staff are Misty Knight, John Jameson, and Dennis Dunphy. A bunch of demons in the basement break out and the staff and some of the inmates, including Frank Castle(??) have to team up to defeat them. I’m not a fan of Frank Tieri’s writing. He’s not awful perse, but he keeps getting work at Marvel, and it keeps letting me down.

Red Goblin oneshot. Norman Osborn had the Carnage Symbiote at some point, and these are three stories featuring the new pastiche villain. Might’ve enjoyed it more when it came out, but it’s become irrelevant storywise.

Next up, a run of Red Hood:Outlaw and then we are onto the ‘S’s and more than halfway thru this box already!

[Tom Foolery]

Started Red Hood:Outlaw right around the Year of the Villain tie-ins. Back tracked a few issues before that, but not much. Series ran until 52.

Red Hood 31. Finished up the previous storyline. No idea what’s going on.

32-35. Jason returns to Gotham and takes over the Iceberg Lounge, using it as his base of operations in the city. Cobblepot has a problem with this. Eventually Jason turns the Lounge over to some of his supporting cast.
36-41. Lex Luthor makes Red Hood an offer to train the next generation of super-villains in a school for villains. Jason realizes if he doesn’t do it, Luthor will get someone worse to do it. Red Hood’s two former Outlaws; Bizarro and Artemis also return.
45-50. Lobdell wrapped up his run by tying up what looks like all his plots from the last three Red Hood/Outlaws series by having the current team meet up with a time traveling version of the Starfire/Arsenal/Hood team and fight a group called the Uninvited or something led by Trigon against a secret warrior sect called the Chaste that trained Todd after he came back from the dead. Lots going on. I was sorta following it, but a lot of it was context clues from books I haven’t read. Lobdell finished his run on the series and it should’ve ended but inexplicably…
51-52. A new writer came in and had Jason head back to Gotham and set up shop on The Hill and introduced a bunch of new supporting cast for the final two issues.
Annual 3. Focused on what happened to Bizarro and Artemis after they left in issue 25.

Resistance 1-6. J Michael Straczynski and Mike Deodato started a new imprint called Upshot for publisher AWA. A global pandemic(this book came out in early 2020 and was obviously conceived, written and drawn before the actual pandemic, but the coincidence is eerie) and the resulting breakdown in society kills millions. In the aftermath, 5% of the survivors get powers. The idea for the imprint was that different creators could do different series in the same “universe” without being fettered by a constrictive continuity. I mostly just got this because it was Deodato’s first post-Marvel work. There were follow up oneshots and minis that are in the newer boxes. I was going to try and get all the Upshot titles, but eventually my bank account decided no.

Robin 80th Anniversary oneshot. Stories celebrating the original sidekick. Features stories of all the different Robins.

And now, onto the ‘S’s….

[Tom Foolery]

Started the ‘S’ books. Lots of minis and short ongoings. A nice variety of books.

Scarlet 1-5. The Jinxworld/DC series that wrapped up the story by Bendis and Maleev. I hadn’t read any of the previous issues(but I have them all somewhere), but from the context of the story, the heroine was done dirty by a cop, so she starts a revolution that spreads thru Portland and eventually the entire country. The hook is that she’s livestreaming the whole thing. I felt like it escalated quickly and then ended abruptly.

Sentry 1-5. A 2018 mini from Lemire and Kim Jacinto. Dr Strange and Iron Man built an artificial virtual world where Bob can freely be the Sentry, so that he can be boring old Bob Reynolds in the real world and not accidentally release the Void. But his former sidekick gets jealous and tries to replicate the se try serum, forcing the Sentry to re-enter the real world. He then has an epiphany and lets the Void combine with him, making a super powerful, morally ambiguous Sentry. After a tense confrontation with the Avengers, and some veiled threats on both sides, Sentry fucks off into space. I’m pretty sure I read the Annihilation mini/event that came out after this where he wound up in the Cancerverse.

Secret Warps. This was a mini series disguised as Annuals disguised as a mini event. I thought it was going to be a chore to get thru, but Al Ewing was having lots of fun coming up with ridiculous mash-up characters, and eventually mashing up those mash up characters into even more mashed up versions. Each Annual; Soldier Supreme, Weapon Hex, Ghost Panther, Arachknight, and Iron Hammer, itself was a thematic mashup of previous Marvel Events. “Acts of War”, “The Inferno Gauntlet”, “Days of Future Mars”(featuring 2099 mash ups), “SupremeUniversal”(featuring mashups of the Squadron Supreme and the New Universe), and “Secret Infinity Warp Wars”. An outlandish excercise in creativity from Al Ewing. I liked it way more than I thought I would.

Shang-Chi 1-5. A 2020 mini that probably was supposed tp coincide with the release of the film. Trying to distance himself from the legacy of his dead father, Shang discovers he’s the head of one of five houses his father set up to compete with each other to oversee his criminal empire. He has to team up with his “siblings” to defeat his little sister from taking over the criminal army. The writer is trying to set up a new mythology for Shang-Chi that doesn’t rely on him being tied to the problematic FuManchu book series and all its licensing headaches. It was okay.

Legend of Shang-Chi oneshot. This also presumably came out so that there would be lots of Shang Chi on the racks for the film before it got delayed a year. Shang’s ex-gf the MI6 chick asks Shang to steal a mystical sword from the London Museum before someone else gets their hands on it. He ends up fighting Lady Deathstrike and destroys the sword so noone gets it. Meh.

[Diabolical]

Scarlet started strong, but limped along after the restart.
I think the long wait between issues didn't help build any excitement.

Infinity Warps sounded too much like a cheap Amalgam.

[Tom Foolery]

Continuing the ‘S’s

Shatterstar 1-5. Shatterstar has “retired” and is living as a landlord for an apartment complex for displaced people from other universes. But then the Grandmaster sends a bunch of his former mojoverse gladiators, including his ex-lover, to kidnap his tenants and force him to come to a battle world to rescue them. Tim Seeley does a decent job of making a characteristically one-dimensional C-list mutant into a rounded protagonist.

She Hulk Annual 1. One of the ‘Acts of Evil’ annuals. Bullseye gets Machinesmith to swap bodies with SheHulk so he can “assassinate” himself and collect the inheritance of a billionaire he murdered. SheHulk wakes up in a robot android body and has to stop Bullseye/Hulk while also fighting the actual Bullseye. It was such a ridiculous concept. It’s exactly why I love reading comics. She Hulk didn’t even have a series at the time, so this was just a random oneshot labeled as an Annual.

Shuri 1-10. I'm missing issues 1, 6, and 9. When T’challa went missing in outer space in his own comic, Shuri has to step up, navigating Wakandan politics, and fill in as Black Panther. She also has to fight a giant cosmic space mantis that ‘feeds’ on music and memories. This book only had a ten issue run, and it still had a fill-in arc where she teams up with Kamala and Miles to fight Graviton. Wasn’t great, but it wasn’t bad either.

Sideways 13. For some reason I picked up the final issue of this short DC ongoing that spun out of Dark Metal. The hero finds out who killed his mom, but I didn’t read the other 12 issues, so no clue who he is, what his powers are, or how he got them.

Silver Surfer: Black 1-5. Not a fan of Trad Moore’s art style, but holy shit, Donny Cates writes a hell of a story. After all the heroes got sucked into a black hole at the reading of Thanos’ will, Norrin manages to rescue everyone with the power cosmic before he gets sucked back billions of years to the beginning of the universe. There he has to team up with an infant planet Ego to fight the dark god Knull and also save and then spare an incubating Galactus. In the end, Surfer uses all his cosmic energy to ‘seed’ the universe with his own atoms and each atom becomes all the planets that he regretted helping Galactus destroy. Heavy shit. Amazing work.

Meet the Skrulls 1-5. A deep undercover family of Skrulls on Earth are trying to rescue their youngest daughter that is being used by a nefarious govt entity trying to track down and eliminate all Skrulls on Earth. Off-beat story arc, but I enjoyed it.

The rest of the box is a bunch of Sonic the Hedgehog I bought for my kids, which I’m not in a hurry to read, so it’s getting skipped. And a few issues of Spawn when it hit issue 300. So this box is basically done. On to the next one!

[Tom Foolery]

I rifled thru next box to see what’s in store, reading wise. A majority of it is Star Wars and Superman. There’s a smattering of other ‘S’ series in there, and some ‘T’ books like Taskmaster, and Teen Titans at the very end of the box.

But first, I’m reading a bunch of random books from previous series I was caught up on before the move, or issues that I tracked down to fill in holes. It’s a relatively small pile, But they’ve been piling up nonetheless, so I’m gonna read them and get them filed away in the proper boxes.

Captain America 27. After successfully rescuing Thunderbolt Ross and the others last issue, Cap is exonerated and gives a rousing speech about being a better hero. Alexander Lukin/Red Skull concocts another dastardly plan, and when Cap and Sharon go to infiltrate and break up a fascist right wing protest in Central Park, Lukin sets off a massive bomb, killing a bunch of protestors, then goes on TV to blame Cap. The series only went three more issues, but those are in the new box.

Captain Marvel 24-27. Carol is trapped in the dystopian future of 2052, where Namor’s son, Ove, has a tyrannical hold on what’s left of humanity. With the help of the new heroes of the era, like Thor’s daughter and Rhodey’s daughter, and Jessica Drew’s son, Carol frees the people, but not before Ove uses a captured Magick’s powers to send himself back into the past to conquer the world before it went to shit. Carol jumps back to the present and breaks up with Rhodey because she met his daughter in the future and she doesn’t want that person to potentially not exist if she and Rhodey are still together. Rhodey thinks its a dumb reason to break up. So do I. Issue 27 was Jessica and other gal pals taking Carol speed dating to get her to stop moping about Rhodey. Kelly Thompson’s banter between bffs Jessica and Carol is always a delight.

Catwoman 28, 29. Back in Alleytown, Selina is solidifying her control as the new crime lord by outthinking her rivals.

Catwoman 80th Anniversary oneshot. I thought I had read this, but apparently I only read the King/Janin story that led into Batman/Catwoman, and just skimmed the rest. Like all the other 100 page celebrations, stories from many previous creators and artists from every era of Catwoman. As always, some stories were better than others.

Champions 3-5. The Outlawed story arc continues. Most of the underage heroes have been contained in a “reeducation” facility. Only Miles, Nova, Kamala, and Ironheart continue to elude C.R.A.D.L.E. agents who can track them thanks to Viv Vision’s help. But Viv has a crisis of conscience, and adult Cyclops shows up to help his former Champion teammates, which allows them to turn the tables and figure out Roxxon is behind the new law and the holding facility. They make a last stand and Amadeus Cho gets footage from the detainment facility to sway public opinion. The series was intended as a five issue arc, but it did so well, a different creative team came in for another five issues, which are in the new boxes. I’m curious as to how Marvel decides not to make that a separate mini series instead of just continuing the numbering of the first mini.

[Tom Foolery]

Daredevil 25-28. Daredevil starts his prison sentence(as Daredevil, not Matt; he gets to wear the mask in prison. Absurd.) and Elektra takes over as DD while he’s in jail. 27-28 were King in Black tie-ins. After KiB, Typhoid Mary is in the hospital, and Elektra has taken in an orphaned foster child who’s mother died during the Knull invasion.

Eternals 3. The murder mystery in Olympia continues as the Eternals try to figure out which of them is the traitor. I’m torn between how much I enjoy Kieron Gillen’s writing and how little I care for these characters.

Spider-Man 5. The Abrams mini finally concluded. MJ is alive and Peter dies. Ugh. Who cares. Money ill spent.

Spider-Woman 7-10. The first two were KiB tie-ins. Jess overdoses on the serum killing/saving her to fight a symbiote, then her friends lock her up after she’s mean to them. Her nemesis Octavia Vermis breaks her out and they go steal a bunch of shit to take to the High Evolutionary so he can cure Jess. Octavia double crosses HE, but Jess gets cured and saves the day.

Star Wars:High Republic 1-3. Introduces a bunch of new characters set before the prequels. This is why I’m leery of jumping into the next box. It’s a ton of Star Wars I have to wade thru and I’m afraid it’s gonna be between dull and dreadful. The Superman stuff is the same, but I’m hoping Bendis will keep it fresh. But as for this High Republic series, it’s pretty forgettable stuff.

[Tom Foolery]

Thor 10-13. The Donald Blake persona steals the Midgard Serpent’s power and escapes the pocket dimension he was trapped in by switching places with Thor. Then he breaks the staff, trapping Thor. He begins a rampage against Thor’s loved ones, depowering Beta Ray Bill, and trapping the other Asgardians in a Blood Dimension, killing Red Norvell, and assaulting Frog Thor. Jane Foster tracks down a drunk Odin and tells him to come back and fix his mistake, and Thor finds a loophole by possessing the Destroyer Armor. Exciting arc from Donny Cates. The finale is in the new boxes. I’m half tempted to go find it to see what happens.

Uncanny X-Men Annual 1. For some reason I bought a 2nd printing of an issue I already had the 1st printing of. The new cover probably threw me off.

Uncanny X-Men:Winter’s End. This was a oneshot that finished off the loose story plots in the two short Iceman ongoing series. Bobby confronts Jean Grey for outing him and taking away his choice, and confronts his future time traveling self for decisions he hasn’t made yet.

Merry X-Men Holiday Special. A oneshot done in an advent calendar style where every page is a single page story about a different X-Man set during the holidays.

Batman Annual 5. Clownhunter and Leslie Thompkins have a heart to heart and we kinda get Clownhunter’s origin story. I don’t much care for Clownhunter. I think he’s a pointless, ineffective character.

Punchline oneshot. After the Joker War, Punchline’s trial becomes a media circus as we get to see more of her origin on the road to becoming Joker’s new main squeeze. Pretty good stuff.

Previously in Marvel Comics. After Marvel paused its publishing for a few months during the pandemic, they put out this freebie issue that recapped and brought readers up to speed on virtually every ongoing they had. I didn’t read it before because I was behind on everything, but now I’m caught up on everything except the X-books so nothing was spoiled.

Next up, another stack of random books that’s even older than this batch.

[Tom Foolery]

Black Bolt 2-5. I’d read the last half of his 12 issue ongoing, but I hadn’t read how he and his fellow prisoners escaped from the Jailer in the first place. Now I know. Lockjaw busted him out.

Cable 153. Cable had recruited a bunch of X-Men before they became X-Men in the past to fight a time-traveling Gideon who is killing the other X-Ternals…in the past. First off, Malin’s art is awful. Second, the time doesn’t make any sense. Brisson doesn’t understand the concept of the sliding time-scale, so he thinks 13 years ago means stuff published in 2005 actually happened 13 years ago. Thirdly, who gives a shit about the X-ternals?
Cable 157, 159. A techno-organic monster is traveling thru time attacking Cable at different moments in the past. It turns out to be his childhood friend, a shape shifting mutant, that he accidentally infected before he could control the virus with his TK.

Captain America 22. From Remender’s run. Last issue, Steve got the super serum sucked out of him by Iron Nail, so he’s old now, just as Arnim Zola launches his attack on Earth from Dimension Z. Sam would become the new Capt America four issues from now.

Deadpool 10 and 12. From the beginning of Duggan and Posehn’s run. Wade is recovering souls for a demon who granted people powers. In one issue he fights the Superior Spider-Man, in the other issue he double crosses the demon by making a deal with Mephisto to save his friend Michael’s soul.

Patsy Walker AKA Hellcat! 16. Not sure what’s going on, and the art was wayyy too cartoony for me. This was the final issue, even though there was one more issue after this one. So figure that one out.

[Tom Foolery]

Hulkverines 1-3. This pandering bullshit. Weapon H fight/teams up with both Hulk and Wolverine when someone threatens his family and then manipulates Clay, Banner and Logan into attacking each other.

Infinity Entity 2. I can’t remember if I read any other parts of this mini, but damn Starlin can still bang out solid cosmic storylines. I wish they’d release his OGNs in softcover. He’s done like six so far.

Iron Fist 3, 4. Ed Brisson and Mike Perkins worked on this ongoing from 2018. Danny joins a fight tournament on a mysterious island inhabited by former citizens of K’un L’un. Lots of kicking and punching and stuff.

Infamous Iron Man 2 and 5. Victor VonDoom briefly took over as Iron Man when Tony was in a coma. SHIELD Agent Ben Grimm wanted a word with Victor. Then Victor’s “mom” showed up. Victor wasn’t buying it. They had a magic fight.

Iron Man 595. After the Legacy renumbering, the two ongoing Iron Man books(Riri’s and Doom’s) got combined into one as the search for Tony commenced and Bendis was wrapping up his entire Marvel run.

Jean Grey 9. Emma Frost and the ghost of the adult Jean Grey are trying to prepare time traveling teen Jean to fend off the Phoenix when it arrives for her.

Love Romances oneshot. One of several oneshots Marvel put out celebrating their 80th anniversary. This one celebrated its long history of romance titles through the years with four short stories from various writers. Wasn’t bad.

[Tom Foolery]

The home stretch…

Luke Cage 167. Luke is in a prison down in Louisiana, but he and the other inmates can’t remember who they are. But one of the other prisoners knows Cage, because he’s famous. The Ringmaster is up to some nefarious shit.
Luke Cage 170. The final issue. Luke spends time with Dani and tells her a bedtime story.

Marvel Tales:Fantastic Four. Giant reprint book with three reprinted issues from different eras.

Moon Knight 199. I overpaid for this to finish my complete run of Moon Knight books. The story was confusing.

Old Man Logan 4. Elderly Captain America intervenes and takes OML to the then current Logan’s dead body trapped in adamantium, to prove OML is in a different timeline, so his vengeance quest is pointless.
OML 14. Logan teams up with the new creature Howling Commandos to track down vampire Jubilee in Dracula’s castle.
OML 16. Logan is hallucinating he’s back in the wastelands, but he’s really trapped on a space station fighting Sasquatch with rabies or something.
OML 21. A sorcerer gives Logan a magical amulet that makes him jump thru time into his older bodies.

Runaways 21. Chase goes to buy groceries and gets hit on by the checkout girl. He comes home and has a good talk with Molly. Then he barges in on Gertie and Victor making out.

Red She-Hulk 64. Ugh, this book is so old, I have no idea what was going on storywise almost ten years ago. Betty and Machine Man team up to fight Mole Man’s son.

Agents of SHIELD 3. Tie in to the Standoff story where Maria Hill used a sentient cosmic cube to make a bunch of villains think they were living in a Norman Rockwell town. Remember when they put all the characters from the SHIELD show into the comics, and then they voooomped just stopped being referenced ever. Hahah.

Spider-Man 2099 8. Miguel finds out his girlfriend isn’t dead, she’s in a coma, and her mother lied to Miguel about it. He also fights Man Mountain Marko.

Spirits of Vengeance 2, 5. I don’t remember reading the rest of this book. Maybe I was waiting to find these last two issues. Anyway, there’s sort of a peace summit every 1000 years between Heaven and Hell. A lowly sorcerer wants to use Judas’ 30 pieces of silver to craft a weapon to assassinate Michael and throw the neverending war into chaos. Ghost Rider, Blaze, Hellstorm, and Satana team up to stop him. Pretty good stuff. Wish I’d read it in order.

Venom 159. I had a 2nd print of this before, but I found a first print. Part of the Venom, Inc crossover with Amazing Spider-Man from like five years ago.

All New X-Men 15. The teen X-Men from the past fight the Goblin Queen after perpetual idiot Hank McCoy dabbles in the mystic arts.

Boom! Done. Now to file these in the proper boxes and get back to other reading.