the vynsane asylum

Venom 36. A Venom War tie-in. As his friends Baile Briggs, Liz Allan, and Normie Osborn give their lives in a last stand, Old Man Dylan leaves his apocalyptic future to return to the present and recruit his younger self to stop his dad from becoming the next Knull. Then he travels even further back in time to when his parents first met. He has some mysterious objective to extract some of Molten Man’s blood or DNA or something, but he’s stopped by that era’s Amazing Spider-Man!

Venom War:Carnage 1. Alchemax has developed some kind of anti-symbiote elixer and Carnage wants to find an antidote preemptively, so he starts killing Alchemax scientists to infiltrate the company.

Venom War:Spider-Man 1. Peter reluctantly lets the Venom sym reattach itself to him so they can stop the fight at MSG, but along the way they are attacked by Hobgoblin and a bunch of innocent victims he’s brainwashed into surrogate Hobgoblins. Peter/Venom teams up with Jackpot to stop them. When an apex symbiote shows up, Venom insists they need to re-bond to defeat it.

Venom War:Venomous 1. Black Widow and Flash Thompson team up to investigate some shady Alchemax symbiote research that is infecting people with mindless syms.

Venom War:Zombiotes 1. Meridus has released swarms of mindless symbiotes on NYC. Hellcat nicknames them zombiotes before she’s turned into one. She-Hulk has to team up with the survivors of the Sinister Six; Speed Demon, Shocker, and Overdrive to fight them, but then Speed Demon also gets turned.

Venom:Separation Anxiety 4. The Purple Man sym is still looking for the macguffin thingie. When Eddie shows up to fight him again, Roxxon send out the Rhino to stop Venom. Roxxon then manages to capture Purple Man, not realizing that was what he wanted.

Venomverse Reborn 3. A couple cool stories. In Webweavers universe, Cindy’s brother Albie became Silk, and Cindy herself is a Venom that was experimented on for long range space exploration. A silly T-Rex Venom short story. And finally, a terminally ill cancer patient uses his make-a-wish to meet Venom, then convinces the sym to leave Eddie and turn the kid into something much worse.

Void Rivals 12. After dramatically storming off last issue, Gribble spends half the damn issue explaining her decision to leave. Forknut gives her his exposition hand, then they hug it out. When their headstones touch, something with green eyes wakes up somewhere in the dark.

Werewolf by Night 1. Not a fan of this new Red Band polybagged nonsense. But the first issue had villains Deathwatch and The Hood in it, and I was suffciently intrigued to keep buying the series.

Wolverine Annual 1. Part of the Infinity Watch event. Logan is trying to visit Rose’s grave and is interrupted by Apex and Multitude, who think he has an Infinity Stone.

Wolverine:Revenge 1. Greg Capullo returns to Marvel! Along with Hickman, they craft an alternate universe tale. When Asteroid M crashes to Earth, a dying Magneto releases a worldwide EMP that leaves the northern hemisphere dark. Nick Fury recruits Logan, Cap, and Bucky on a SHIELD mission to repower things, but Mastermind and the Brotherhood of Evil, including Sabertooth, Omega Red, Deadpool, and Colossus, quickly decimate the remaining helicarrers and surviving SHIELD personnel. Then they put bombs in the chests of the captive Cap, Bucky, and Wolverine. Deadpool sets off the bombs, killing Cap and Bucky. Logan’s body eventually repairs itself, and he’s got one thing on his mind. Hint, it’s the title of the comic. Oh shit! Good stuff.

Next up, more current reading.

Wonder Woman 12. Absolute Power tie-in. Diana and Damian Wayne are taking turns using different methods to coerce the hidden location of Amanda Waller’s secret superhero prison out of Capt. Boomerang, but neither are getting it done. Then Boomerang slips and tells them while he’s bragging about them not getting it out of him.

World’s Finest 30. The first ever team up of the Trinity. Diana invites Bats and Supes to Themyscira to solve a locked room murder of an Amazonian.

X-Factor 1. America has a new super-team/reality show/suicide squad. I detest when writers take marginal characters and kill them off for shock value in the first issue, so they can introduce the “real” team at the end. And it’s even worse that Rusty ‘Firefist’ Collins, who died on Avalon back in the 90s only just got resurrected on Krakoa(and not even in a legit issue, but in a Marvel Unlimited digital comic that nobody reads) and they immediately off him again. Same goes for Feral. Whatever happens next, this book already has a sour taste.

X-Force 2. Forge’s new threatball detects a threat in Wakanda and X-Force doesn’t have permission to enter Wakanda to stop it. Drama ensues.

X-Men 2, 3. The X-Men head to San Francisco to rescue a new mutant during an alien invasion, only to discover the alien invasion is the manifestation of the new mutant’s powers. Then Scott has a confrontation with the head of the new O.N.E. organization, while ONE is trying to sneak into the X-Men’s base and sabotage Cerebro. The X-Men stop them, and Scott delivers a badass monologue “You want my team to continue what they’re doing and being X-Men. Otherwise they could be my Brotherhood…” Took a couple issues, but MacKay is settling into the new series.

Zatanna:Bring Down the House 3. Everyone is insisting Zatanna is using magic, and she’s insisting she’s just a Vegas stage magician. Then John Constantine shows up.

Next up, a smattering of current books, and then I’m gonna do some(but not all) Batman stuff.

Detective Comics 1088. Gotham Nocturne has almost reached its conclusion. Batman’s allies Mr. Freeze and Two-Face each face off with and execute their Orgham adversaries, and Batman confronts the queen and prepares to rescue Jonathan Crane from her grasp. Also, Talia resurrects Arzen Orgham and enlists him to overthrow his mother.

Incredible Hulk Annual 1. Worldmind, the posessor of the Mind Stone asks Colleen Wing to meet him in a forest in Oregon. There, he confronts Thanos, who quickly kills Worldmind and takes the Mind Stone for himself, but not before Worldmind sent out a psychic distress call. The Hulk shows up and beats the shit out of Thanos and the Mind Gem ends up in Colleen’s posession and she stabs Thanos thru the head. Epic Hulk vs Thanos throwdown.

Marvel 85th Anniversary Special oneshot. Anthology with five stories celebrating the rich history of Marvel. Eh. It’s been done better elsewhere. The highlight for me was Alan Davis returning to do an early Excalibur adventure set in the lighthouse.

Marvel Must Have. Freebie with three full sized reprints of recent comics. This is the 4th recent one they’ve released.

Phases of the Moon Knight 1. Marc Spector was not the first Fist of Konshu. This series will tell the stories of earlier Knights.

NyX 2. Wolverine is investigating a ‘Mr Friend’ who is recruiting young, impressionable mutants. She figures out it’s Mojo slumming in the main universe, but she gets her ass kicked by him and has to go ask Kamala and the others for help.

And I’m all caught up until Wednesday! Next up, I’ll continue reading Batman minis and oneshots until I get tired of Batman, then I’ll start on the G thru I box.

Apart from the two main ongoings, the last time I did a Batman binge read was March, 2022. When I’m filing these books in the boxes, I always have a system in my head that makes sense. But when I get them out to read them months or years later, I’m perplexed as to what the fuck earlier me was thinking. Anyway, here’s the first batch of Bat-reading.

Next Batman:Second Son 1,2, 4. John Ridley came aboard at DC with a plan to create a black Batman. This first series didn’t have an actual Batman in it perse(other than Luke Fox running around as Batwing briefly). Tim Fox returns to Gotham, wanting to be called Jace instead, and reconnects with his estranged family, who are now billionaires thanks to Lucius “inheriting” WayneTech and the Wayne fortune after the Joker War. There’s some internal sibling drama, and the series ends with Jace finding a secret basement with Batman’s tech in it. He realizes his dad and Bruce Wayne were Batman’s support staff. This led into the ongoing series…

I Am Batman 0, 1. This ongoing ran 18 issues, but I only picked up the first couple. Jace ‘borrows’ a prototype Bat armor he finds at Foxtech, and almost immediately destroys it while being Batman for a night. Then he designs his own new Bat uniform and goes out patrolling. The first issue ends with the cops finding Anarky’s murdered body in an alley, but I don’t know what happens next because I have none of the issues. If it is Lonnie, it seems like an inglorious end for the character.

Legends of the Dark Knight. 1-3. Yet another attempt to relaunch the ongoing. This one only lasted eight issues, and I only have the first seven. The first arc has Batman on a very long 40+ hours night trying to stop a Russian gangster attempting to sell sarin gas to Joker, Riddler, and other villains while he’s strung out from lack of sleep.

4. Batman solves some murders from the 1800s using some VR bullshit so he can swing around ye olde Gotham in real time.

5. Batman teams up with Martian Manhunter to stop Calendar Man from using an ancient Martian calendar to perform some magic rituals and call forth a Martian witch to ask for superpowers or something.

6. Batman deals with Solomon Grundy in the first story, and teams up with Killer Croc to fend off some hi tech thieves using a flood to break into an underground server farm to steal cybermoney.

7. Batman faces off and then teams up with Azrael to stop Ra’s Al Ghul from stealing some ancient Italian macguffin to help him with his Lazarus pits. I had to google how Jean Paul was still alive. It was Nu52 bullshit. Again, I’m missing the final issue, but none of the stories were very remarkable, so I can see why it only lasted eight issues. It’s like they needed a place for all their inventory stories that weren’t strong enough for their own minis.

Batman/Superman Annual 2021. Clever flipbook issue. Batman’s story is one side of the comic, and Superman’s is on the other, and they converge in the middle.

Batman:The Adventures Continue: Season 2 1–3, 6. I’m missing issues 4, 5 and 7. Alan Burnett and Paul Dini are back telling more solid TaS stories with artists Ty Templeton and Rich Burchett. The first arc had Batman facing off against the Court of Owls with Deadman’s help. The rest of the series was just as solid. There was a Third Season which is somewhere later in the box. Of everything I read in this first batch, this was the most ‘pure’ Batman.

Batman:Black & White 5, 6. The final two prestige issues that had five or six short B&W stories from various creators. As with all anthologies, some better than others. As I memtioned before, they had bios for each writer and artist, so you knew their claims to fame when you read their individual stories. A nice touch.

Up next, a lengthy run of Batman:Urban Legends, which was a prestige style $8 book that had multiple ongoing stories like the old Marvel Comics Presents. Not sure how I’ll break down the recaps for each arc, or if I even want to. We will see.

Every week, I buy between 16 and 24 new books. Some weeks it’s even more. I’m trying to keep current on the stuff I’ve caught up. So, of the 24 books I bought this week, six are in the A thru I boxes I haven’t read yet. The other 18 are in the back half of the alphabet. So I’m getting to the point where I can’t let the pile build up at all. It’s gonna get tougher to get thru the older stuff while making the new stuff the priority because I don’t want to backslide and be in the same predicament as before.

Here’s literally what I bought this week(the first time in several years the topic title is accurate). Including the books I didn’t read yet.

Absolute Power 3.
Batman 152. Absolute Power tie-in. And a ridiculous in story reason for Batman to be wearing ugly purple gloves like his original 1939 appearance. Rubbish.
Daredevil 13.
Firefly: Malcolm Reynolds Year One oneshot. Why are all the Firefly books from Boom! $8 all the time? Fuckin’ ‘ell.
Get Fury 5.
Scarlett 4. Scarlett and Jinx keep a secret weapon out of Cobra’s hands, but put into Stormshadow’s hands, which may not be much better.
Hulk 16.

And here’s half of what I did read.

Moon Knight Annual 1. Part of the Infinity Watch event. Colleen Wing now has the Mind Stone. Nightmare wants it for himself, so Moon Knight has to help Colleen traverse the nightmare realm to defeat Nightmare.

Penguin 12. Tom King’s series reaches its conclusion, with Penguin back in charge of Gotham’s underworld. And him offering an uneasy alliance with Batman to play double agent against the Govt entities who think they are controlling Penguin’s control of Gotham. This has been a solid read, as pretty much everything from King is.

Plastic Man No More 1. A new Black Series mini from Chris Cantwell. Plastic Man’s powers go wonky and he discovers they might be coming to their natural conclusion after so many years. He’s dying. But he doesn’t want his estranged son to suffer the same disease, so he goes to a molecular chemist to find a solution. I’ve liked Cantwell ever since his Doctor Doom series. I don’t know if I’ll keep up with this one though.

Boy Wonder 5. Final issue. As Damian squares off against his grandfather, Batman and the other Robins show up to assist him. This was an interesting series, but in hindsight I’m not sure I’d spend $30 on it again.

Scarlet Witch 4. Wanda faces off against the Griever and unleashes her Chaos Nexus powers to set up a hyper speeding Quicksilver to literally punch Griever into a million pieces scattered over millions of years. The battle is won, but then Wanda realizes Chthon has escaped the prison where Wanda was keeping him in her soul.

Spider-Boy 11. Everybody remembers Spider-Boy! Including his mother, who is furious he’s been heroing about and skipping school for the past several months. She makes him put away the spider-costume, until he saves a busload of kids, then she realizes maybe NYC needs Spider-Boy. But everyone’s memories returning also means a young protoge of Bullseye has a score to settle with Spider-Boy that she didn’t remember…

Miles Morales 24. When Starling’s grandfather, the Vulture, shows up to “warn” her about her boyfriend, Vampire Miles shows up and kicks his ass. This new vicious Miles gives Tiana concern. Black Panther shows up later with maybe a solution to Miles’ venom powers interacting with his vampiric bloodlust. (I read solicits for upcoming issues a couple months ago. He’s getting a vibranium costume.)

Spectacular Spider-Men 7. Peter and Miles fight the new evil A.I. system that has teamed up with the Jackal. The cops show up and arrest Jackal for killing his own brother and assuming his identity. The A.I. is defeated, but the survivors of the Arcadium are now left to deal with the fantasies that played out among them.

Star Wars:Acolyte:Kelnacca oneshot. It’s SW so I didn't read it yet. But I bet they weren’t assuming the show would’ve been cancelled before the issue came out.

Up next, the rest of this week’s reading. Then back to Batman.

Saga 68. Hazel is wearing makeup. ><

The rest of this week’s books.

Immortal Thor 15. Having absorbed all of Zeus’ power, Thor is left with a quandary with how to safely process all the extra energy. He crafts a golden belt to hold the excess power, then he dismisses Loki, whom he feels is not serving Thor’s best interests as his advisor. That will probably come back to bite him in the ass. When he returns to Asgard, he meets with Enchantress, who is responsible for Thor being wanted for murder on Earth to discuss resurrecting her dead son Iric(who died in the Strange Academy series). And finally, thru the use of science and a willing sacrifice, Dario Aggar is returned to life on Earth, and he’s got revenge on his mind.

Ultimates 4. A brilliant issue told in four panels on each page, each panel a progression of time in different eras, that explains how the Reed Richards of this universe became the Doom of this universe. Heartbreaking.

Venom War 2. Meridius, undercover at the Life foundation, releases the Zombiotes on NYC. Meanwhile, at Madison Square Garden, Peter and the Symbiote try to talk Eddie and Dylan down from their conflict. But Eddie ain’t having it and bonds with the Bedlam symbiote. When his other variant selves hesitate, he absorbs Tyro and Wilde to become a super-symbiote to throw down with Peter-Venom. Dylan decides to get in on the action by merging with Sleeper and Flexo into his own mega-symbiote. It’s a three way fight! And Cletus shows up and offers his services to Meridius.

Venom War:Spider-Man 2. Jackpot and Peter-Venom team up to fight the apex symbiote Arachniote that has absorbed Hobgoblin and all his brainwashed minions. Jackpot absorbs a fraction of Venom to power up her sonic powers and they defeat the Arachniote. But after Peter-Venom leaves for MSG in the main Venom War series, the Arachniote springs back to life and envelops MJ!

Kid Venom 2. This manga style series set in feudal Japan has EXTREMELY LARGE lettering on every page. My brain is thinking they cropped a regular issue and zoomed in on every page. I don’t know if this is a limited series or ongoing. But if it’s the latter, I might drop it.

What If…Donald Duck became Thor? The second Disney/Marvel What If? mash up. It’s about what you’d expect, but I kinda surprised at how faithful it is to the actual original Thor issue of Journey into Mystery. Like straight up Stone Men..er..ducks and the cave with the walking stick in Norway. Just with Donald Duck instead of Donald Blake.

Trinity Special:World’s Finest 1. The second collection of back up stories from Tom King’s Wonder Woman series. The dynamic between Lizzie, Jonathan Kent, and Damian Wayne, whether its them as children, or as the new trinity in the future, is just fantastic and hilarious. Trinity is getting her own ongoing soon, hopefully King is writing that as well.

Exceptional X-Men 1. Kitty Pryde is done with heroing and just trying to maintain as a bartender in Chicago. Until a confrontation at a concert happens between a young mutant and some trigger happy security guards, and Kitty has to jump in and rescue the girl and get her home safely. Also, Emma Frost is up to something. Eve L Ewing’s writing has been hit and miss with me in the past, but this was a solid start.

Back to Batman:Urban Legends.

Batman:Urban Legends was a Prestige squarebound ongoing with 4 different 12 page stories in each issue. Some were one issue standalone stories, and some were serialized chapters in a longer story. I’m just gonna recap the different arcs in small chunks of the series, rather than try to recap each issue individually. I read the first issue like three years ago, but caught up with the stories contextually.

2-6.
A six-part series. Batman and Red Hood team up to stop a new villain called Cheer who has created a variant of Scarecrow’s fear toxin that produces delirious happiness and is being distibuted as the drug Cheerdrops. Along the way, Bruce and Jason resolve some of their disputes. Jason decides to stop using guns, and Batman gifts him a new costume/armor that closer aligns him with the Bat family.

A five-part series. Grifter is hired to be Lucius Fox’s bodyguard but really it’s a double cross at the behest of Leviathan. But really it’s a triple cross as Cole is trying to keep Lucius alive. But really it’s a quadruple cross because Cole was just trying to get access to the servers in the Wayne building that have all of Batman’s crime files so he could give them to the WildCATs. I guess the WildCATs are in DC continuity this week?

A three part series. Katana has been kidnapped by her dead husband’s mother and her goons because she thinks her son’s soul has left Katana’s blade on account of her having feelings for Jefferson Pierce. Black Lightning and Metamorpho are trying to rescue her, but by the time they get there, she’s resolved the problem with her mother-in-law. I think it set up the Outsiders ongoing.

A three part series. Tim Drake’s friend has been kidnapped by some thugs, and during the course of rescuing him, Tim decides he’d like his weiner sucked by people who also have weiners.

There were also one off stories for Lady Shiva, Oracle, Batwing, the Batgirls(which set up their ongoing series) and Black Canary(which set up her ongoing team up book with Deathstroke).

7 had four one-off stories featuring future versions of Batmen. Batman Beyond had Terry investigating Bruce’s death and setting up a new Beyond mini. The other three stories were Batman666 aka the adult Damian, a FutureState version of Batgirl, and Batman 1,000,000.

8-10.

A three part series. Azrael questions his faith. It seems like that’s every Azrael story arc doesn’t it?

A three part series…that only had two parts. Maybe the third chapter will show up in a later issue. Tweedledee and Tweedledum are retired and living modest lives off the cash from their last score. When Dee gets sick, Dumford has to traverse the frustrating, bureacratic nightmare of pharmacies, hospitals, and insurance companies where his bag of cash is totally unhelpful. Eventually Batman shows up to help, but it involves both the Tweedles going to prison to get the medical help he needs.

A two part series. Someone is trying to frame Cassandra for murders, so Batwoman and her sister Beth aka the occasional villain Red Alice have to find the culprits.

A two part series. The Outsiders from the far future have to send Katana’s sword with Jefferson’s soul inside back to the present so that he can enlist the current Outsiders team to stop a future villain called The Fearful from bringing about an apocalypse.

And solo stories for Professor Pyg, Tim Drake coming out to Batman, and a Christmas Carol type story for Nightwing where the three Batgirls; Babs, Steph, and Cassie are the ghosts of past, present, and future. But really it’s because Dick is trying to stop a tanker truck of Scarecrow’s fear toxin from arriving in Gotham and he got exposed to the stuff.

Back after I’ve read another half dozen or so issues.

Finished Urban Legends.

6-11.

A six part series. When they were younger and dating, Bruce and Zatanna performed a magic ritual to be able to talk to each other telepathically. The spell had unintended consequences and they’ve spent the last several years doing an annual protection spell to keep an eldritch energy contained from spreading into the main world. But when it breaks thru, they need John Constantine’s help to close the rift permanently.

A six part series. This was by far the best story of the entire Urban Legends run. It’s an Ace the Bat-hound story. Part origin story, part current; when Batman gets sabotaged and kidnapped by Russian traffickers, Ace and some other unlikely captured animal(a russian bear, and super-fast turtle, a talking, chess-playing chicken, and a thief mouse) team up to save Batman. It sounds absurd, but I assure you, this was a great tale.

A three part series. The Wight Witch, a brand new character, is being programmed to be the perfect assassin. Each time she finishes a mission, she’s killed and uploaded into a new body. But she’s remembering her past life…

A three part series. Kid Eternity moves to Gotham to work for the police in the morgue and as a forensics tech. And along the way, he’s using his special abilities to talk to the deceased and solve crimes.

A three part series. The Birds of Prey are trying to stop a tech mogul from using his new app to steal peoples memories. Or something. It was forgettable.

Three stand alone stories had Batman team up with Plastic Man in one, The Question in the second, and Alfred in the third one.

Issue 17 had four stand alone stories with Batman teaming up with Flash, Aquaman, and Black Adam respectively, and a fourth tale where he faces off against the Riddler.

I’m missing issues 18 and 19 for some reason.

20-23 finished off the series.

A four part series. Time Commander John Starr has a new racket where he offers people the chance to kill someone who’s already dead. The Court of Owls tricks him into going into the past so they can change history by killing Joe Chill before he kills the Waynes, thus erasing Batman. The story’s mechanics allow the Waynes to show up in the present and see what’s happened to Bruce. At first, they disapprove of the idea of Batman, but eventually realize all the good he’s done. They get to meet their grandson Damian, and Dick. And Bruce gets some closure with his parents. This is a pretty big idea storywise, I feel like they shouldn’t have burned it in the final issues of a dying anthology series.

A three part series. Arkham Academy. The city is taking juveniles who are children of super villains and making them go to a reform school in the remains of Arkham Asylum. And they make them wear costumes. This premise is so dumb, I didn’t even bother reading the last two chapters.

A two part series. Someone is uploading footage of Nightwing’s heroics, and purposefully endangering people to increase the stakes of each “movie”. Dick and Babs have to track down The Director before people die. Decent story from Jamal Campbell doing both art and story.

A variety of one chapter stories. An Elseworld Batman story. Alfred stops a burglary at the museum. Renee Montoya does some soul searching before accepting the Police Commissioner job. Batman and Talia verbally spar about parenting after Damian is injured. Batman and Robin chase a getaway driver who has latent speed force abilities. Batman faces off against Anarky when Lonnie puts Batman’s tech online for people to 3D print batarangs and shit. And lastly, an early tale of Batman and Dick where they are building trust with each other as partners.

So yeah, there were some decent stories in there, some mediocre, and a few wretched ones. This prestige series was replaced by the current prestige series called Brave and the Bold. I’m not sure if that’s also an anthology series, or more of a full story each issue type of thing.

Up next, this week’s current books, but after that I think I might do one more batch of Batbooks and then jump into the G thru I box.

This week’s books.

Amazing Spidey 57.
Avengers Assemble 1.
Batman & Robin 13.
Death in the Family:Robin Lives! 3.
Batman:Gotham by Gaslight:Kryptonian Age 4.
Blood Hunters 2.
Captain America 13.
Fantastic Four 25.

And here’s what got read.

Vengeance of the Moon Knight 9. The price for Marc’s resurrection by Konshu is the life of the impostor Moon Knight, the Shroud. Marc and the Shroud fight to the death, then Mar has Hunter’s Moon do CPR and bring Shroud back to life so the debt was technically paid. Final issue, Fist of Konshu begins next month.

Spider-Gwen:Ghost Spider 5. Gwen and Chameleon are on the run from the cops and Black Tarantula’s army. They figure out Gwen’s power surge amped up Chameleon’s nanobots, so he can’t control his powers. They team up to fight the Tarantulas(including the guy Gwen just got coffee with last issue, so the readers know, but Gwen doesn’t. Drama!) and Chameleon sacrifices himself to the cops so Gwen can get away.

Spider-Man Reign 2 3. The origin of how a distraught MJ bonded with the Venom symbiote after she came home and found Peter dead. As she and the time displaced old man Peter fight, she explains that he keeps coming back in time to “save” her and they keep stopping him because it’s fucking up the timeline. Peter doesn’t believe her and keeps trying to save her, until Old Man Miles shows up and basically says the same thing. I know I joked when they announced this sequel, but this has been a fun story so far.

Star Wars 50. Didn't read it, but it’s the final issue. Leads into RotJ, and whatever SW books come after is going to be the unexplored time between the OT and the Disney Trilogy, starting with the Battle of Jakku.

SW:Inquisitors 3. Didn’t read it. The unread SW box is looking daunting.

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles 2. I wasn’t gonna keep up with this new series, but I rounded up my purchase to a free issue. Mikey is a quasi-celebrity doing shitty b-action movies and commercials in Japan. He gets attacked by some ninjas.

Transformers 12. Ugh. I can’t sufficiently sum up the stupidity of this issue. Cliffjumper gets knocked thru a portal back to Cybertron while they are trying to rescue him. Optimus jumps thru to save him. On the way back, Elita-One blows up the portal and says Optimus is needed more on Cybertron. Elita-One argues that all the energon that Shockwave sent thru already is enough to save ALL the Transformers starving on Cybertron. But Optimus is like ‘No, Cliffjumper is more important! I must blow up all that energon!’(dude, if you want details, I can’t even. It’s that stupid…) but here’s the thing. Optimus is holding a damaged Cliffjumper in one panel while he’s arguing with Elita-1, and then Cliffjumper just disappears, like the artist forgot about him. Optimus blows up the energon and the explosion sends him hurtling to Earth, until Beachcomber on a Silver Surfboard flies up and saves him(I cannot make this shit up). The last page has Optimus on his knees ironically asking ‘Oh no, what have I done?’ Presumably he left Cliffjumper back on Cybertron because he has the attention of a three year old. I’m suspecting this book is a satire at this point.

Ultimate Black Panther 8. T’Challa fights Ra and Konshu’s Moon Knight on the battlefield. He gets knocked the fuck out and wakes up a week later in bed, but now he can telekinetically control vibranium. Also, Storm and Killmonger are looking for the sorcerer supreme.

Venom 37. Venom War tie-in. Old Man Dylan is in the past getting extract from Molten Man. The Spidey fight teased last issue turns into a nothing burger. Then he enlists Dr Strange’s help after convincing him that Strange’s future self sent Dylan to him for help. They head into the nether realm to find Chthon for something.

Venom War:Carnage 2. Carnage uses a Life Foundation scientist to sneak in and see all the anti-symbiote weapons they are developing. When they discover he’s a sym, they attack and Carnage starts fucking them up, forcing Meridius to step in.

Venom War:Wolverine 1. Logan tries to intervene in the Zombiote attack on Manhattan by letting a symbiote attack him, but he realizes it’s not a proper sym, so he leaves New York to hang out in a bar in upstate or whereever. But the guy that runs the cemetery had an altercation with Logan years ago and he’s salty about it, so somehow all the dead bodies are zombiotes or what?? Wolverine doesn’t need to be in every goddamn Marvel event.

Venom:Separation Anxiety 5. Before Purple Man can send out a signal using the macguffin gem ordering the entire world to kill itself as some sort of weird revenge plot against Dr. Doom, Eddie reabsorbs his sliver of symbiote from him and beats him up.

Venomverse Reborn. A couple more alt universe Venoms. One has Okoye ascending to the Queen of Wakanda with a vibranium infused symbiote, and another has Nighthawk from the Squadron Supreme using a symbiote to defeat Hyperion and eventually turning the entire Squadron into Venoms.

Wolverine 1. After Krakoa, Logan just wants to be left alone, so he’s hanging out in Canada with a pack of wolves. But Cyber comes looking to kill him, and Nightcrawler comes looking to recruit him to a new X-Men team, so Logan realizes Marvel is never gonna let him not be in every goddamn event. Be beats the shit out of Cyber and leaves him for dead, but he gets possessed by a Wendigo.

Uncanny X-Men 2. Four teenage mutants show up looking for help from Rogue’s new team. So naturally the X-Men throw down with them first, until Jubilee of all people shows up and tells everyone to start acting like fucking adults. Also, there’s a creepy witch lady hunting mutants for the Greymalkin prison, and it’s implied she has a history with Xavier.

Zero Hour 30th Anniversary Special. $10 issue. Dan Jurgens and a bunch of 90s artists return to tell a tale of Kyle Rayner getting trapped in an alt timeline where Superman stayed dead, Bruce’s back stayed broken, and nobody has heard of Kyle or the Green Lantern Corps. Fun to see Kelly Jones, Tom Grummet, Jerry Ordway, Paul Pelletier, and others, along with Jurgens jamming on a story that ultimately has little impact on anything.

Next up, gonna try some more Batman until I get burnt out on Batman(which is getting easier because there’s only so many Batman stories you can tell before all Batman stories start feeling like the same Batman story. It’s been 80 years. It’s not a fresh concept.)

More Batman reading.

Batman Beyond:Neo Year 1-4. A six issue mini, but I’m missing the final two issues. A hyper sentient A.I. comes online and dubs itself the Living Gotham. The first thing it did was kill Bruce Wayne(this was in an issue of Batman:Urban Legends). Now Terry is on his own in a city that controls every camera, every microphone and all the city’s resources. The Batcave and all the tech equipment are gone or compromised, so every time he uses a batarang or whatever, it’s the last time he can use it. This was a pretty decent series. Looking forward to finding the final two issues eventually.

Batman/Catwoman 1-12, + a Special. I read these as they came out, except the Special, which had each page feature a specific Christmas day in Selina’s life starting with her in the orphanage, and showing her growing up, becoming Catwoman, as Batman’s adversary, then his ally, then his wife, as they raised their daughter and grew old together. For the Bat/Cat series I have every Clay Mann cover, and every Jim Lee cover of all 12 issues, except issue 12 I’m missing the Mann cover.

Batman Incorporated 1. I only have the first issue of this 12 issue series. Ghostmaker leads the team of International Bat-Men as they try to figure out who’s killing all the people who trained Batman and Ghostmaker. I feel like the ‘killing Batman’s mentors’ story has been done once or thrice before, so either they keep retconning the timeline with all their Crises bullshit, or Batman was trained by like 200 people.

Batman:The Imposter 1-3. Prestige Format Black Lable series set in it’s own continuity from screenwriter/director Mattson Tomlin. Batman has only been around for a year or so and his actions have had more real world consequences than the typical Batman. Gordon has been fired for helping Batman, and several convictions have been overturned as a result. Then, an impostor starts showing up in videos killing people, further muddying the public’s perception of the caped crusader. Batman has to team up with a patrol officer to find the killer. This was a solid series.

Robin & Batman 1-3. Prestige series from Jeff Lemire and Dustin Nguyen retelling Dick’s first foray out as Robin after he’d been training with Batman for months. Bruce and Alfred have different ideas about raising Dick. Bruce sees him as a soldier, Alfred rightly sees a child. Robin confronts Killer Croc and meets the other Teen Titans over the course of the series. I’m not sure how established Robin’s history is. Was Killer Croc his first major super villain in other stories also?

Batman:The Detective 1-6. From Tom Taylor and Andy Kubert. A supervillain named Equilibrium with an army of Bat-attired goons is killing off all the people who have been saved by Batman’s actions over the years. Batman heads to Europe after the new Knight is injured. Batman and Squire, with reluctant help from Henri Ducard, traipse across Europe trying to figure out who Equilibrium is; it turns out she’s Ducard’s other protégé and her family was killed by a drunk driver, who was only alive because Batman had saved his life years earlier. Andy Kubert gave Batman a weird new costume which was a trenchcoat instead of a cape, and goggles on his cowl that he never actually wears. Whatever. It was okay.

I’ve got another half dozen Batman miniseries in this box, but they’re all partially complete. Batman’89, Batman vs Bigby, Batman:The Knight, Batman:Reptilian, and Batman:Fortress. I’ll stop reading Batman until I can fill them in better. So now it’s the G thru I box!

Tom Foolery wrote: ↑Thu Sep 19, 2024 11:26 amRobin & Batman 1-3. Was Killer Croc his first major super villain in other stories also?

I think it's historically been Two-Face. I recall the 90s comics (particularly Prodigal) setting Two-Face up as a Robin villain, with him tying into the origins and earliest adventures of both Dick and Jason (which had been established earlier). Can't recall if they tied him into Tim as well.

I still say bringing Jason back permanently as a hero was the worst decision ever. And Damian should've been a blowjob.

This week’s books.

Avengers 18.
Batman:Last Halloween Prologue 0. One of Tim Sale’s last work. DC took a oneshot from last year, put a new cover and title on it, and rereleased it. So I bought the same book twice from a shady publisher.
Catwoman 68. Last issue.
Dazzler 1.
Deadpool 6. Deadpool dies.
Deathlok 50th Anniversary oneshot.
GiJoe ARAH 310.
Destro 4.
Incredible Hulk 17.

And here’s what I read

Jenny Sparks 1-2. Black Label series from Tom King. Captain Atom goes crazy and thinks he’s god. He takes some people hostage in a bar and the JLA sends the foul mouthed spirit of the 20th Century in to deal with him.

Multiversus:Collision Detected 1. Book setting up the new WB video game. Bat, Supes, and WW are getting visions of stylized glyphs; a starchild, a rabbit, and a witch. It’s an obvious cashgrab, but I’m interested in seeing Steven Universe, Finn and Jake from Adventure Time, and others interacting with the DCU. Bugs Bunny, Scooby-Doo, Tom & Jerry, etc are also involved. Might suck, but it might be fun.

Nightwing Uncovered oneshot. Collection of variant covers from recent NW issues. Even though I was mostly collecting variant covers, I switched back to the regular covers, so ironically I don’t have most of these.

Tim Drake:Robin 8. Back issue I found. Batwoman crashes into Tim’s houseboat with no memory of the last few months. She and Tim have to team up to solve the mystery.

Sonic 73. Didn’t read it.

Spider-Boy Annual 1. Part of the Infinity Watch story. Multitude and Apex show up to help Bailey deal with the Circus of Crime. Then they find the new owner of the Mind Stone, Colleen Wing. As they are deciding the next step, Star and the other infinity stone holders show up. To be concluded in the Avengers annual, and I guess an upcoming Infinity Watch mini series.

Spider-Man:Black Suit & Blood 2. More anthology stories. There was a cool Dan Jurgens story that had Spidey and DD team up to fight Bullseye.

Spider Society 2. The remaining Spiders try and rescue Miguel. The leader of the baddies is revealed to be an Aunt May who is Madame Web variant. All the Spiders get defeated except the Weapon VIII.

Spirits of Vengeance 1. New Ghost Rider series(I’m not caught up on the main GR series) but Michael Badalino is separated from his Spirit, who is being used as a scarecrow in a cornfield. And Johnny Blaze is dealing with some angry mermaids of something.

SW Darth Vader 50. Final issue. Didn’t read it.

Venom War: Deadpool 1. Wade and Silence aka Andi Benton on her fourth codename, and Wade’s symbiote dog are fighting zombiotes. They head down to Monster Metropolis, where Wade isn’t exactly weelcome, to ask for help, but the zombiotes attack down there, so the monsters, Frankenstein, Man-Thing, etc fight back.

Venom War:Lethal Protectors 1. Liz Allan(who just got thrown out of the window at Alchemax by Meridius) calls in Silver Sable and the Wild Pack to retrieve a top secret package. In order to defend against the zombiotes, the Wild Pack bonds with the syms; Phage, Riot, Agony, Lasher, Scream, and Flicker.

Venom War:Venomous 2. Black Widow and Flash Thompson fight their way out of the zombiote hoards in Alchemax and meet up with Liz Allan. Then Flash leaves to go deal with the Venom fight at MSG, so Widow and Liz continue to fight the zombiotes.

Wolverine:Deep Cut 3. Logan is fighting all the clones of the Marauders deep in Sinister’s secret cloning lair. Sabretooth breaks out of his cloning vat and frees all the original Marauders to start round two with Logan.

World’s Finest 31. Eclipso breaks out on the Justice League satellite and takes over half the League. Fun start to a new arc.

X-Factor 2. Polaris invites Havoc to a secret mutant support group, and he films the entire thing with his hidden button camera for his govt puppet masters for their suicide squad/reality TV show.

X-Men 4. The X-Men rescue a young mutant from Trevor Fitzroy and his new Upstarts youtube channel. Like and subscribe! Fitzroymis secretly working for SugarMan. Holy shit, that guy is still alive??

I pulled all the “new” books from my big haul this weekend. It was like two dozen books. Most of them I can file in the boxes I haven’t read yet, so the actual catch up reading is like 8-10 books. That’s not as daunting as I was expecting, so I’m just gonna do the G thru I like I originally planned and pepper those 10 books in over the next couple weeks.

Beginning the ‘G’ box(the Gs actually start in the box before this, and GIJoe is at the beginning of this box, but I’m not gonna read the newest Skybound ARAH issues before I catch up on the end of the IDW run, sooo…)

Gold Goblin 1-5. Chris Cantwell wrote this mini. Norman Osborn is trying to be a hero now that Sin-Eater blasted all his sins away. But, of course, he’s still conflicted and mopey about his past deeds. Then Queen Goblin shows up and explains she only exists because his “evil” had to go somewhere and infected her, Ashley Kafka. Norman has to team up with his new BFF Spidey to defeat her, and he ends up killing her. Two of the five issues were a Dark Web event tie-in. Also, I think Norman has reverted back to villainy already.

Gotham City Sirens 1-4. A weekly series that literally just finished up last week. Harley, Ivy, and Selina are back together! Punchline is peddling a new energy drink, complete with a rewards program to boost sales. But it’s secretly a delivery system for nanotech so rich assholes can use the brainwashed drinkers as avatars to do whatever they want, like commit crimes, fight each other, etc, without consequence. The Sirens have to stop Punchline and her shirtless cowboy henchmen from getting investors to take the drink global. Another wacky unhinged story from Leah Williams. She did an X-Terminators story, and the Mary Jane ongoing from a couple years ago that I enjoyed. Good stuff. More please.

Gotham City:Year One 1-6. Noir mystery from Tom King set in the 60s with P.I. Sam Bradley solving a Wayne child kidnapping. I read these as they came out because it’s King, but I didn’t get the final issue until recently. Solid story with lots of twists.

Green Arrow 80th Anniversary oneshot. Lots of previous creators returned to tell stories from different GA eras. Pretty good.

Green Arrow 1. The new Dawn of DC launch. It started as a six issue mini, that got promoted to 12 issues, and then to ongoing. Josh Williamson erases an egregious travesty perpetuated by shitking James Robinson wayyyy back in Justice League:Cry For Justice in 2009. Roy Harper is reunited with his daughter Lian, who is now a tween badass calling herself Cheshire. I got choked up reading this. Had I known, I would’ve been buying it every month.

Green Lantern 1, 2. The 2022 series. Lots of political info dumping as the Corps cedes a third of its domain to the new United Planets. John Stewart and a 1,000 GLs head into space on a secret mission and someone blows up the Oan power battery. Meh.

Green Lantern 2, 3, 8, 9. The new Dawn of DC launch, including a couple issues I picked up at the garage sale this weekend. Earth has been quarantined by the United Planets and have completely disbanded/co-opted the GLC. Hal is trapped on Earth with an imitation ring that can’t break Earth’s orbit. Then he finds a power battery the Guardians left deep in the bowels of Earth as a safety insurance policy. Little better.

A bunch of Grimm Fairy Tales pin up specials.

Groot 1-4. Dan Abnett crafts a tale set in the past where a young Groot teams up with Private Mar-Vell of the Kree and a Centauri warrior named Yondar to protect his world from a pirate organization called the Spoilers and their Chainsaurs(cybernetic chainsaw dinosaurs). Pretty good stuff.

Up next, Guardians of the Galaxy and also this week’s reads in there somewhere.