So, What comics did you buy this week?

[Tom Foolery]

This week’s books.

Absolute Wonder Woman 7. The finale of a two-part story arc. Diana has to fight a Tiger to rescue her mother from the clutches of Hades in Hell. She’s given a choice of abandoning her mother permanently, or dying and being stuck in Hell permanently. But there’s a secret third option thanks to pomegranate seeds she was given as a child by Persephone. Diana outwits Hades and saves her Circe. This book has been pretty solid so far.

Absolute Martian Manhunter 2. John spends way too much of the comic being confused by this alien voice in his head, as he tries to stop a gunman shooting random people. I think I’m gonna drop this series and just find cheap copies later on.

Amazing Spider-Man 2.
Avengers 25.

Batman 159. Htoosh continues. Batman brings a mortally wounded Joker to Leslie Thompkins to save his life. Then he brings Joker back to the Batcave to recover, where Jason Todd breaks in and fights Batman for saving Joker’s life. But it was a ruse, as Jason is working for Hush and escapes with the comatose Joker. If all of this sounds stupid, it’s because Jeph Loeb is writing it.

Eddie Brock:Carnage 3.
New Champions 4.
Deadpool/Wolverine 4.

One World Under Doom 3. The Avengers join forces with a bunch of super villains(Doc Ock, MODOK, Arcade, Goblin Queen, Baron Mordo, and Mysterio) to attack Doom. But Doom flips the script and teleports both Avengers and Masters of Evil to NYC to stop a breakout at the Raft. Then Doom takes credit for it and implies the Avengers were working for him. Dormammu realizes Doom isn’t doing his job as Sorcerer Supreme keeping spells in place for Earth’s protection and plans his invasion from the Dark Dimension.

GIJoe:ARAH Silent Missions:Roadblock oneshot. Roadblock has to rescue Lady Jaye from an Arctic Cobra convoy. Then the two of them have a showdown with a Wild Weasel pilot in a Rattler.

GIJoe 6. Duke finally faces off against Cobra Commander, who’s going to set off Dr Monev’s brain bomb and turn all of Washington DC into mindless Cobra recruits. After Duke pulls CC back into the bomb radius, CC kills Monev to stop the bomb. Everybody retreats to their respective bases. Then Clutch’s jeep transforms into Hound. Oh yeah, the Joe and TF books are in the same universe. I forgot.

Infinity Watch 4. In the alternate reality, Star gets a hold of the Infinity Sword from Green Goblin and resets the universe back. Then they give the sword to Zavala so he can defeat the Aiperom, which he does. But then he decides to keep the sword so he can resurrect his universe and the umpteen billion souls he’s been storing in his head. This book went from boring to interesting back to boring.

Justice League Unlimited 6. Part 2 of the crossover with World’s Finest. Gorilla Grodd has collected Martian Manhunter’s missing telepathic powers and added them to his own. And he’s gone back in time to recruit the Legion of Doom from the past to wreak havoc in the present as the mysterious Inferno organization.

Magik 4. Illyana and Dani Moonstar are trying to prevent the next seal from being destroyed down in Central America, and Dani is worried about the deal Illyana made with Liminal to free the Darkchylde.

Sabretooth:Dead Don’t Talk 5. I think I missed an issue. Victor’s new assassin gf was killed by a Crocodile dude last issue, and he’s out for revenge. The Croc guy is the avatar of the Egyptian god Sobchek.

Predator vs Spider-Man 1. It’s a sweltering summer in NYC and a serial killer is skinning people alive and stealing body parts. Peter snaps some photos for the Daily Bugle, but realizes something more sinister is afoot. Kraven the Hunter shows up on the last page.

Superman 25. The super powered Lex Clone, X-El is running amok. It takes the power of Superman, Superwoman, and Lex in a power suit. Lex realizes the clone is never going to stop and blows his head off, which is against Clark’s code. And Lois loses her powers fighting the Clone.

Ultimate Black Panther 15. T’Challa and Storm try to retrieve a piece of dark vibranium from the President of Nigeria, but he gets killed by a sniper.

X-Force 10. Aka legacy #300. This was the final issue. They wrap up the story arc, but it was a boring story, so who cares. There was a montage of all the covers in the back.

X-Men 15. The unborn twin of the missing kid from town expels itself from her and turns into a giant sludge monster. The monster is being influenced by Cassandra Nova and convinces it to attack the town. The X-Men rally to protect the town, but another team of brand new X-Men arrive.

[Tom Foolery]

The rest of the SW:High Republic books.

SW:HR The Blade 1-4. Set even earlier than the other HR series, two Jedi head out into the frontier systems before the galaxy wide communications relays were in place. They have to settle a dispute when an outpost falls under seige from a neighboring city-state. But the more they try to calm things down, the more murky and complicated things get. One of the Jedi is super skilled with his lightsaber, so much so that his reputation precedes him. This one wasn’t bad. Supposedly there’s a sequel mini in the works.

SW:HR Shadow of Starlight 1-4. After the Starlight crashed and the Nihil took over a section of the Outer Rim called the Occlusion Zone with a galaxy wide forcefield that Republic ships can’t penetrate, all the Jedi were recalled to the Temple on Coruscant to regroup. This mini series covers the year long gap after from four different perspectives; the Jedi at the Temple, a Jedi who was caught in the Occlusion Zone, rogue Jedi who attempt to cross back over against the will of the Council, and finally from the perspective of the Nihil themselves. Sets up the third ongoing…

SW:High Republic 1-10. The third ‘ongoing’ series which only lasted 10 issues, follows the survivors from the first ongoing as the patrol along the border of the Nihil’s Occlusion Zone. After breaking up a potential alliance between the Nihil and the Hutts, the small team of Jedi find a way into the OZ to tentatively rescue the former Master of the Padawan from the first series who has been promoted to full Knight status. While in the Zone, they team up with a character from the second ongoing(which was set decades before the first series) who is now elderly with a beard, to fight the Nameless Jedi killing monsters and find the Ithorian scientist who’s been breeding them for the Nihil. They rescue the Jedi Master and bring the Ithorian back as a prisoner.

SW:HR Fear of the Jedi 1, 2. The newest series is a direct follow up. Lourna Dee, a former mercenary antagonist from the previous first series, is now a reluctant ally of the Republic, and she’s trapped in the OZ with Kelnacca from The Acolyte on Naboo, where a big resistance battle is brewing.

Annnnd that’s enough Star Wars for awhile. I’m gonna binge a run of Titans I bought a few months ago. Then dip into the ‘D’ box for a few series. And then come back for some more Star Wars.

[Tom Foolery]

Titans Together! I picked up the first two issues when they came out. Something about them finding a future version of Wally’s dead body, but didn’t keep up with the series. A few months ago, there was a store closing, and a dealer show and I found most of the missing issues. Starting with…

Titans 5. An alien parasite was possessing people close to Wally, including his wife Linda. She tries to kill him, but Nightwing figures it out and stops the assassination, thus closing the timeloop. Also, the rest of the Titans are in Borneo, helping Swamp Thing stop a company chopping down the jungle.

Issues 6-8 tied in with a big Titans-centric crossover event with its own series, and a bunch of tie-in minis and oneshots called Beast World. I have none of these, including the three issues of the main series. So we jump ahead to…

Titans 9-15. Tom Taylor ended his run on the series with a big storyline where the Raven persona has trapped her Rachel persona in a mind gem. Raven is trying to fulfill her destiny as the Dark Winged Queen as per a prophecy by her father, Trigon. She gathers her power by defeating her demon siblings and combining their power, and then unleashing Trigon on Earth. But Beast Boy talks her down and gets the Raven and Rachel personas to re-combine and stop the apocalypse.

Titans 16-19. John Layman took over for the new All-In initiative. Nightwing steps back as team lead and puts Donna in charge. The Titans are chafing in their new role as ‘Justice Leaguers’ along side every hero on Earth. The Titans face off against Clock King, Mammoth and Shimmer, and Killer Frost in one off adventures. But each villain is secretly being recruited by the recently resurrected Deathstroke, who is putting together a new Crime Syndicate.

I skipped 20 and 21, but bought 22 last week. We get the origin of how Terra brought Slade back as insurance against Amanda Waller’s Absolute Power play, and what he’s been doing behind the scenes since. Donna and Roy might be hooking up. And Beast Boy secretly thinks they should take a more extreme stance against Slade.

So, except for a handful of issues, I’m now current on Titans. Whether I keep up with it though….shit’s expensive yo. Can’t buy everything.

Up next, the ‘D’ box. Dark Ages, Dark Crisis, Darkhold,Dark Web, and other assorted Dark stuff.

[Tom Foolery]

This week’s books. With the exception of one Star Wars book, I have gotten far enough in my backlog of reading that I read everything I bought this week. Questions about cessation of Wonders abound.

Detective Comics Annual 2025. A billionaire tech mogul is found dead in his highly secured home, with a message to Batman to NOT solve his murder scrawled in his own blood. Classic locked-door mystery is turned on its head in this one off from Al Ewing.

Doom Academy 3. OWUD tie-in. Zoe and Greta are trapped in the Latverian Fairy Tale book fighting assorted creepiness. Doyle and the other Academy kids find a way to rescue Zoe, who immediately demands to go back to rescue her new friend.

Doom’s Division 2. OWUD tie-in. Tiger Division has been tasked with bringing in insurgent leader Sunfire. But their newest recruits; Karma, Wave, Aero, are secretly part of Sunfire’s resistance! Plot twist! Except all these characters are boring so nobody cares.

Red Hulk 3. OWUD tie in. Thunderbolt Ross has depleted his Hulk energy escaping Doom’s underground prison, but he and his fellow prisoners, Machine Man and Deathlok, are still on the run in Latveria, chased by a swarm of Doombots.

Thunderbolts Doomstrike 4. OWUD tie in. Bucky’s team heads to Wakanda to stop Doom from taking their Vibranium supply. Their, they face off against the original Thunderbolts team who are working for Doom. When Doom threatens to blow up the vibranium leading to a gargantuan catastrophe for Wakanda, Bucky is forced to surrender.

Fantastic Four 31. OWUD tie in. Ben’s power loss by Doom is having a cascade effect on the other Family members. To jumpstart his powers, they surf the multiverse to expose him to the cosmic rays that gave them their powers, but the multiverse frequencies are different enough that it’s not working. Finally, they timejump back to their own fateful day where the exposure turns him back into the Thing! But he accidentally blocked the rays from hitting the original team, which changes history….and erases everyone!

GIJoeARAH Silent Missions: Duke oneshot. Duke breaks into a Cobra facility to stop a scientist’s experiments that have turned him into a half-shark like predator. The twist is the guy was once a member of Duke’s unit whose family was killed in friendly fire and it radicalized him into joining Cobra.

Hellhunters 5. The conclusion of the story. Sgt Romero sacrifices himself and his flaming ghost bomber to destroy the ancient demon possessing the Nazi zombie so Zarathos can drag the demon back to hell. The rest of the team gets chewed out for insubordination that saved the world.

Kid Juggernaut oneshot. Reprint of some digital first book about a gay Korean kid who immigrated to Canada. He discovers his grandfather was the Juggernaut before Cain Marko, and that his recently deceased father left him the Cytorrak amulet to carry on his family’s legacy.

NYX 10. Final issue. The writer hastily wraps up the conflict with Mojo and other subplots with the premature cancellation of the series due to low sales.

Rogue: Savage Land 4. Rogue and Ka-Zar try to deter the conflict between the Tree People and Zaladane’s Mutates. Magneto shows up and blames Rogue for his powers going wonky. This series has been underwhelming.

Star Wars High Republic:Fear the Jedi 3. The battle to take back the Occlusion Zone heads to Eraidu where Jedi forces engage in a space battle over the planet. Until a bunch of starship sized fear-generating Nameless creatures show up!

SW:Rise of Skywalker 3. The one book I didn’t read this week. But I saw the movie, so I sorta kinda read it.

TVA 5. The Scarlet Witch and Nightmare face off. Ingrid, the TVAs new receptionist, reveals herself to be the Dream Queen who’s been manipulating things behind the scenes, including the stabbing of Mobius. Eh, the conclusion was left kinda open ended and unresolved.

Void Rivals 18. The Transformer at the center of the planet gives Sklerpy super powers, and she goes up to tell Brimbo they can unite the planet now. But Brimbo’s dad calls for Sklerpy’s immediate execution. Also, Hot Rod and Springer are in the issue, talking about gas prices or some shit.

Ultimate Spider-Man 16. Mysterio is revealed to be Gwen Stacy. She’s been part of cabal that have taken turns being Mysterio for years, a position she inherited from her father. She also faked Harry’s death at the hands of Kraven.

Wolverine and Kitty Pryde 1. Claremont returns for a sequel set immediately after the original KP&W series from 1984.

World’s Finest Annual 2025. Part 3 of the We Are Yesterday crossover. Present day Gorilla Grodd has recruited the villains of the past to steal tachyon energy in the past to spring a surprise attack on the new Watchtower space station in the present. But while the tachyon heists are happening, pubescent Boy Wonder Robin of the past gets shunted onto the Watchtower in the present, where he is confronted by Batman and Nightwing! Fun stuff from Mark Waid.

Up next, still working on the ‘D’ books. And I just bought a whole bunch of new reading material at FCBD. Will I ever catch up??

[Tom Foolery]

The ‘D’ box(technically the box before this one is where the ‘D’ books start, like Daredevil, but I won’t get to those until later).

Dark Ages 1-6. An alt universe tale. A cosmic being called The Unmaker, who is the antithesis to Galactus, is destroying entire, worlds and galaxies. After an epic battle with the Living Tribunal, the dormant Unmaker is sealed in a proto-planet. Billions of years later, the Unmaker awakens and threatens to collapse the entire planet from within(yup, its Earth). A team of heroes is sent to stop him/it, but most of them are killed fighting it, including the Thing, Scarlet Witch, etc. With his final breath, Dr Strange opens a portal to another dimension that is essentially one gigantic electromagnet. The energy burst freezes the mechanical Unmaker permanently, but the open dimensional rift leaves the world permanently without electricty. The survivors adapt to a new, more simple world. Many years later, Apocalypse, with the help of Purple Man, brainwashes several heroes like Stark, Reed Richards, and Capt America to help him awaken the Unmaker so he can transfer his mind into its body. The other heroes who survived band together to stop Apocalypse.
Pretty decent what if/elseworlds story.

Dark Crisis 1-7. After issue 4, the full title was revealed; Dark Crisis on Infinite Earths. So, after the Justice League ‘died’, Deathstroke leads an army of supervillains against the remaining heroes, starting with an attack on Titans Tower. Jon Kent is desperate to restart the League, but Black Adam tells him he’s not ready. Nightwing steps up to lead the heroes. Eventually we find out the Justice League didn’t die, but were transported to proto-universes custom made to pacify them with their fondest desires by Pariah. Pariah is also supplying Deathstroke with Dark energy from the Great Darkness for some purpose….but it’s all just the same goddamn multiverse shit like every other goddamn DC Event for the past fucking decade. That’s it, at the end of the series, the Justice League is back and the infinite multiverse is ‘reborn’ yet again. I’m sure in a couple years, there’ll be another “Crisis” where the multiverse gets erased or whatever. Pluck a different string on the banjo, DC, for fucks sake.

In addition to the main series, there were a bunch of oneshots. There were several ‘World without a Justice League’ oneshots focusing on the different Leaguers who ‘died’. I read the Batman, Superman, and Green Arrow ones. There were also GL and WW oneshots, but I don’t have them yet.

Besides those, there was DC:The Deadly Green, DC:The Dark Army, DC:War Zone, and DC:Big Bang where different groups of heroes went off and did things that affected the main series.
There were some cool moments in the series, and it was cool to see Nightwing step up. But it was just another ret-ret-ret-retcon of DC continuity for the umpteenth time. The Event that followed this was Lazarus Planet as part of the Dawn of DC branding.

But up next is Darkhawk, Darkhold, Dark Knights, and Dark Web. Then it’s back into the Star Wars box.

[Tom Foolery]

This week’s books.

Absolute Superman 7. The origin of Brainiac. It’s creepy. Jason Aaron may have whiffed on Namor, and his ‘Punisher’ sucked. But this series has been pretty solid.

Absolute Green Lantern 2. More flashback to how Hal got the Black Hand and Jo got the Green Ring. And what happened to Guy Gardner.

Amadeus Cho oneshot. The 20th Anniversary of Amadeus. Didn’t read it. Wasn’t sure if I should put it in the ‘A’s or in with the Hulk stuff. I have his first appearance in Amazing Fantasy 20. It’s quite possible I have every single one of his appearances.
Amazing Spidey 3.
West Coast Avengers 7.
Batgirl 7. This was supposed to be a six issue mini. Looks like it got bumped up to twelve and/or ongoing.
Birds of Prey 21.
Black Canary 6.
Sam Wilson:Capt America 5.
Deadpool 14.
Deadpool Kills the MU One Last Time 2.

Fantastic Four Fanfare 1. A new anthology featuring two or three short stories by different creators every issue. Marvel still seems to think the movies bring people into the comic shops.

GIJoe:ARAH 316. A Seigie family defects and requests asylum. It’s the perfect oppurtunity for the Ninjas to pose as the family and go undercover in Springfield. Mindbender defects to Revanche with his brainwave scanner tech and the original Serpentor clone. Cobra Commander is hostage/guest of Destro and they discuss new alliances…

It’s Jeff! Jeff Week! oneshot. More adorable one and two page stories featuring everyone’s favorite baby landshark.

Sonic the Hedgehog 78.
Spider-Gwen 13. Gwen teams up with Phoenix to try and gain control of her new Cosmic Cube powers.

Star Wars 1. Didn’t read it. The third ongoing SW book in the Marvel era. This one begins after the events of the Battle of Jakku in the new era of the New Republic.
Storm 8. Thor comes with a warning that a war between the various gods of thunder is approaching, with half supporting the return of the original weather god, Hadad, and the rest like Thor opposed to his return. Maggot starts a Fight Club on Storm’s floating fortress. And Storm gets called in for questioning by the FBI about abetting Xavier’s escape.

Ultimate Wolverine 5. Victor Creed is a bar owner who is part of an underground railroad for mutants. While helping two young mutants hide out in his bar, he’s attacked by his old teammate Logan aka the new Winter Soldier. A fierce bloody battle ensues before Black Widow shows up and tranqs Logan. Why doesn’t his healing factor counter the tranq? Because the two young mutants are Artie….and Leech.

All New Venom 6. The flashback to how Mary Jane and Venom are now bonded. He/it was dying from the poison effects at the end of the Venom War event that ended the previous Venom series. And MJ’s Jackpot gauntlet finally rolled three death heads that would’ve killed her instantly. Venom bonded with her and now each one is keeping the other one alive, so they can’t unbond.

Laura Kinney:Wolverine 6. Laura is living with her dad Logan, and sister Gabby. She’s been told her superhero persona and all the fantastic heroes and villains in the world are just imaginative drawings she created to cope with the death of her mother in a car crash. Ahhh..the ol’ ‘its all in your head’ chestnut.

X-Men 16. The X3 mutated humans show up claiming to be a new X-Men team. Cyclops’ team has a show down with them. Meanwhile the giant goop monster is headed for town, so Magneto gets a booster shot from Beast and jumps into the dormant Sentinel outside the factory to go fight goopy.

Next up, still working on the ‘D’ pile. I got sidetracked this weekend reading a couple new Hunger Games books and it ate into my comic time.

[Diabolical]

Star Wars 1. Didn’t read it. The third ongoing SW book in the Marvel era. This one begins after the events of the Battle of Jakku in the new era of the New Republic.

I read it.
It sucked.

[Tom Foolery]

Star Wars 1. Didn’t read it. The third ongoing SW book in the Marvel era. This one begins after the events of the Battle of Jakku in the new era of the New Republic.

I read it.
It sucked.

I think I read the teaser chapter for it in the FCBD issue last week and thought it was about as exciting as dry toast.

[anarky]

They're finally touching that era, and reintroduced the Nagai... and it sucks?

Man, you have to try to fuck that shit up. I know they're kinda hamstrung by the plot of the sequels, but the previous runs have been hamstrung by the OT and didn't stink.

[Tom Foolery]

The ‘D’ box continued…

Darkhawk:Heart of the Hawk oneshot. Celebrating the 30th Anniversary of Darkhawk(wow. That makes me feel old). Original creators Fingeroth and Manley tell an untold tale set during the original series’ run. Then a story set during one of the Annihilation arcs. And finally, a current story where Chris is on the verge of being sucked into some power nexus, so he downloads his memories into the Gem and sends it back to Earth before he sacrifices himself, setting up…

Darkhawk 1-5. Teenage basketball star Connor Young is having a good life, looking forward to a scholarship to college. Then he gets diagnosed with Multiple Sclerosis. When him and his best friend get jumped by some goons, he finds Chris’ Darkhawk amulet and becomes the new Darkhawk. Before I read this, I hard eyerolled at Darkhawk needing a “legacy” hero reboot. But the MS angle as well as Connor’s best friend secretly being part of the gang of thieves he’s tracking, who then gets murdered by his new arch-villain was exciting stuff. Throw in guest appearances by Spidey and Capt America, and a teaser that Chris is still alive somewhere. I bought in. Good stuff. But that was 2021, and apart from a brief appearance in the Devil’s Reign event, he hasn't shown up since.

Darkhold. A mini event consisting of an Alpha and Omega bookend issues, and five oneshots focusing on Iron Man, Blade, Wasp, Black Bolt, and Spidey. Dr Doom is looking for the Darkhold book, so he can keep Cthon safely locked away. Scarlet Witch is supicious of his motives and recruits a team of heroes to stop Chthon herself. But she needs the five heroes to read from the book just enough to ‘innoculate’ them from its influence. It doesn’t work and the heroes become dark versions of themselves. The five oneshots are sorta dark ‘what if’ body horror tales for each hero. In the end, Wanda has to team up with Doom to stop the heroes under the influence of Chthon, and she absorbs the Darkhold into herself, essentially absorbing Chthon. For some reason they also brought Omega the Unknown into the main 616 continuity as a subplot. The five oneshots were great, so overall this was a decent read.

Dark Knights of Steel. A twelve issue Elseworld maxi-series. I have 1-3, 6-8, and 11, 12, so I read the beginning, middle and finale. Set in a middle ages/ D&D world with knights and magicians, etc. In this version, Jor-El and pregnant Lara escaped Krypton’s destruction and end up ruling their own kingdom. Another kingdom led by King Jefferson(Black Lightning) is at odds with the Els because of a prophecy foretold by a young John Constantine. Prince Bruce is a loyal knight to the Els(and eventually we find out he’s Jor-El’s bastard son with half-Kryptonian powers). A third kingdom, the Amazonians, has a tenuous alliance with the Storm Kingdom, but their princess Diana is in a relationship with the El’s daughter Zara. Things escalate when Jor-El is assassinated by the archer Oliver with a special arrowhead given to him by the mysterious Green Man. The Els retaliate by killing Jefferson. Eventually we find out everyone was being manipulated by White Martians, and the three realms join forces to defeat them. What I read was pretty entertaining.

DKoS:Tales from the Three Kingdoms oneshot. A follow up book with three stories set in the DKoS world.

DKoS:All Winter 3-5. A follow up mini of which I only have 3 of the 6 issues. Set in the frozen northern land of Gyllenjem, a viking named Slade is escorting a young boy called Alec who is imbued with the “Green” to help overthrow the magician Viktor who cast a spell that froze everything. A clever bit of storytelling, everything is shaded without color except for Alec.

And Finally, Dark Web. This was a mini event that crossed over between the X-Men and Spider-Man, with Venom, Ms Marvel, and MJ and Black Cat. There was an opening oneshot, a two issue Ms Marvel mini(I only have the first issue), a three issue X-Men mini, and another Finale oneshot. It wasn’t a straightforward story arc. More like a bunch of subplots threaded together against the backdrop of Inferno II. The premise is that Ben Reilly convinced Madelyn Pryor to unleash Limbo on NYC again(a sequel to Inferno from the 80s) because they are both salty about being clones. Pryor resolves her issues with Jean and the X-Men, and then helps everyone defeat Ben, who gets imprisoned in Limbo. I feel like both of those characters have resolved their clone issues several times, and they conveniently regress whenever the narrative finds it necessary. As such, this was the only batch of books that missed the mark for me.

The other three, Darkhawk, Darkhold, and Dark Knights, were all stellar or above average.

Up next, after this week’s books, it’s back to the Star Wars pile. Since I read all the High Republic stuff, I guess I’ll go chronological and root around for whatever Prequel era books there are.

[Tom Foolery]

This week’s books.

Absolute Batman 8. Ugh. Batman is fighting Mr. Freeze, and getting peptalks from his friends. This book is just lame. And the worst part, I realized, is that it won’t end. There will never be a conclusion to the Absolute books. They’ll just continue on as a new neverending drain on creative resources at DC. They won’t replace the main continuity and they won’t ever have a finale. I’m giving this book until issue 10 or 12 or thru the next arc to become utterly brilliant or I’m dropping it and just start finding them in $1 boxes in a couple years.

Batman & Robin 21.
Batman:Dark Patterns 6.
Daredevil 21. Ha. Even my LCS owner remarked on JRJr’s hideous cover art on this book. And he’s usually pretty neutral about everything.

One World Under Doom 4. Dormammu has invaded Earth from the Dark Dimension after banishing all the heroes into a different realm. Dr. Doom faces off against Dormammu alone and is getting his ass kicked. Until his secret spell that he cast kicks in and the heroes all return.

Red Hulk 4. OWUD tie-in. General Ross, Deathlok, and Machine Man avoid the Doombots and make it to an abandoned farmhouse. There Ross checks the internet and realizes Doom has taken over the world. He gets Machine Man to hijack an orbital nuclear arsenal and aim it at the farm so he can turn back into the Red Hulk.

Thunderbolts: Doomstrike 4. OWUD tie-in. Doom is trying to convince his prisoner Bucky that he’s right and Bucky is wrong. Bucky is just biding his time until his teammates show up to rescue him.

All New All Deadly Gwenpool 1. Gwen Poole is fighting Fin Fang Foom with help from Hawkeye, Spidey, and Jeff. Then a new deadly Weapon X version of her shows up…it’s the resurrected original Gwen Stacy all dark and gritty.

Godzilla vs X-Men oneshot. Set during the 90s, the animated X-Men line up use a SuperAdaptoid android using all their powers and infused with Pym Particles to make a giant capable of fighting Godzilla. But then big G and the Adaptoid have to team up to fight a mecha-sentinel mash up of three of Godzilla’s old foes; Biollante, Battra, and Rodan. Somehow, I missed last month’s Godzilla vs Spidey oneshot.

Hellverine 6. As Aki resumes working with Project Hellfire, he’s using his new demonic divining rod powers to find different body parts of a Hell Hulk that the Project is sewing back together. This seems like a really bad idea. The cover implies that there’s a fight between Hell Hulk and Hellverine, but it’s just him finding like his big toe and shit.

Phoenix 11. Jean finds out her long lost dead sister is alive and is harboring the souls of victims to a safe space in the White Hot Room.

Miles Morales 33. God War Part 2. Anansi challenges Ares to a showdown using their heralds. Ares gives Miles 30 seconds to recruit a team, and he panics, choosing his clone brother Shift, a former enemy Gust…and his therapist. The therapist turns out to have superpowers.

Spectacular Spider-Men 15. Final issue. When their newly superpowered friend goes missing, they recruit everybody they know to find her. The book is literally just twenty pages of cameos of people helping in the search.

Spider-Verse vs Venom-Verse 1. This horse has been beaten so much, it is glue. The Web of Destiny and the multiversal Hive Mind have each decided that they can’t coexist, so they carefully choose Spiders and Venoms from across the multiverse for a contest. Winner gets to exist. Loser and all their avatars cease existing.

Star Wars:Jedi Knights 3.
Supergirl 1. Kara returns to Midvale where an impostor Supergirl has supplanted both her hero identity and her secret identity as Linda Danvers. DC continuity is so fucked. I didn’t think the 1950’s Linda Danvers backstory stuff existed anymore. I wanted the Artgerm variant but they didn’t have it. But otherwise, dropped.

Thor 23. Thor and his allies reach the center of the Impossible City and face off against Kemur, the original God King, who was defeated by Atum the Demiurge at the beginning of time. Thor brings the creature down, but it is Loki who strikes the killing blow. Thor banished Loki from his sight earlier in the series, but the reader realizes that Loki has been the narration captions the entire time, and as was previously established in the series, means he’s been there the entire time. Only two more issues before the series concludes and Thor ‘dies’. If ever I get a chance to re-read this run, I feel it will be one of the better Thor runs, knowing the ‘twist’ from the get go. Clever stuff.

Transformers 20. Astrotrain challenges Megatron for past slights. Megatron easily defeats him, but keeps him alive. Then he has Starscream repaired, so he can utterly beat the shit out of him and then forces him to use Megatron’s gun mode to obliterate Astrotrain. Meanwhile, the Autobots, who conveniently never have the energon resources to repair anyone, unless they need to introduce characters, somehow have enough resources to resurrect ALL the Aerialbots, and also Jetfire. Meanwhile, back on Cybertron, Cliffjumper and the writers fanfic stupid ass new TF….I stopped paying attention.

Energon Universe 2025 oneshot. The FCBD issue, but with a $3.99 cover price.

Wolverine 9. Logan heads back to Howlett Manor(that nobody has lived in for like 150 years. I feel like the land would’ve been turned into a stripmall or an Amazon DC or something) because his mother sent him a letter. When he gets there, a couple of the Marauders attack him.

X-Factor 10. Final issue. Don’t even care enough to recap this inconsequential issue or series. It’s over.

Uncanny X-Men 14. The Outliers reach the secret morgue protected by the Man-Thing, and find Lady Henrietta waiting for them. She’s the woman from the flashbacks from the last couple issues. She’s been the guardian of the tomb for the past century and is tired of her job, so she wants to find a successor.


Up next Star Wars. There were way less Prequel Era books than I thought there would be.

[Diabolical]

Supergirl 1. Kara returns to Midvale where an impostor Supergirl has supplanted both her hero identity and her secret identity as Linda Danvers. DC continuity is so fucked. I didn’t think the 1950’s Linda Danvers backstory stuff existed anymore. I wanted the Artgerm variant but they didn’t have it. But otherwise, dropped.

Artgerm is doing cover for issues 1-6.

[Tom Foolery]

I bought 36 issues this week. Granted, several of them were second copies of books because there’s another wave of Alex Ross ‘Timeless’ covers this month. But that’s still 30 books in one week. It’s a good thing my guy has a buy 3 get the 4th free policy, or it would’ve been an even more expensive week. Anyway, I’m splitting the recap in two, here’s the first batch.

Absolute Flash 3. The Rogues release a tiny alien monkey called Grodd to retrieve Wally back to the Army Base. But Grodd mind melds with Wally and they team up to both escape.

Amazing Spidey 4.
Batman & Robin Year One 7.

Detective 1097. The new criminal organization, Elixir, who funded the last story arc’s serial killer is being investigated by Harvey Bullock. When Harvey gets kidnapped for it, Batman has to go to eastern Europe to rescue him, but instead of Harvey, he rescues Oswald Cobblepot.

Catwoman 76.
Daredevil Unleash Hell 5.
Dc x Sonic the Hedgehog 5.

Superior Avengers 2. OWUD tie in. We get a flashback to why this team of time-displaced heroes has a grudge against Doom, and they are secretly building a bomb infused with magic. Then, in the present they track down and catch the escaped El Diablo. And Killmonger is secretly sleeping with Kristoff.

Doctor Strange of Asgard 3. OWUD tie in. Stephen and a bunch of his new allies head off to find a Dark Troll skull for a magic incantation he needs to perform. They meet up with some Dark Trolls and hang out and drink with them. When they get back to town, Thor and Sif are waiting with questions about the deceased Hulda.

Doom Academy 4. OWUD tie in. Zoe, Doyle, and Shaylee head back into the magic fairy tale book to rescue Greta. But when they all escape, Greta is magically tethered to the creatures from the book and now they are invading the real world.

Thunderbolts Doomstrike 5. OWUD tie in. Bucky’s team rescue him and they have a final showdown with Val’s Thunderbolts and an army of Doombots. Fixer decides to switch sides and deactivates all the Doombots, as well as release footage of the Shelbyville disaster that exonerates Bucky. As a result, several insurgencies start popping up all over the world, inspired to fight back against Doom’s oppression.

Fantastic Four 32. OWUD tie in. The FF have accidentally erased themselves from existence, leaving only Val and Franklin in invisible spheres from their mom as they are lost in the timestream. Val alone enters the body of an alternate version of herself where the FF never became heroes. She realizes she’s in a world where an infant, omnipotent Franklin defeated Galactus and then took over the world to keep it “safe” but his naive childlike sensibilities has everyone living in fear. Val makes a machine to send her consciousness back to before the FF erased themselves, but she only manages a single four-word message before Galactus/Franklin finds her and this timeline also erases.

Incredible Hulk 25. Thor seeks to bring Charlie back to Asgard for wearing the Lycana skin. Hulk has an issue with this. Epic Hulk vs Thor battle ensues.

Hulk & Dr Strange oneshot. The fourth of JMS’ random pairing issues. In this one Banner seeks out Strange’s advice about why Hulk and Banner are two different entities, while other Gamma powered people are not. Strange sends Banner’s astral form back to the moment he was created at the test site for answers.

Iron Man 8. OWUD tie in. Tony needs his munitions plant to build weapons for Doom, so he can secretly finance the Latverian insurgency. Trouble is, the plant is on strike, so we get an exciting issue of….union negotiations!

Moon Knight 8. MK is in a fight with Fairchild’s enforcer Carver. She stabs MK with her enchanted sword, but it’s what he wanted. The enchanted sword has the soul of a dragon who hoards other souls. But Moonie’s soul is already spoken for, and Konshu overpowers the sword’s hold on Carver, freeing her. And Moon Knight gets a cool new sword that now answers to him.

Nightwing 126. The Captain Hollow boogeyman, is really just a bunch of corrupt ex-cops with some equipment they stole from the evidence locker. When they target police commissioner Maggie Sawyer, she and NW shut them down.

Up next, the second half of this week’s pile.

[Tom Foolery]

This week’s books, Part II

Vision and Scarlet Witch 1. I’m putting this mini with the other Scarlet Witch series because she’s had two ongoings and one mini with Quicksilver all written by Steve Orlando. This is just issue 25 of an ongoing series being cleverly marketed with occasional new first issues. A bunch of magical doors are appearing all over the world. People walk thru them and disappear. Vision comes to help Wanda investigate them, but when he returns home, he’s attacked by a newly resurrected and powered up Grim Reaper that was buried in his backyard(my god, was King’s Vision series already ten years ago?!). Grim Reaper slices thru Vision with his scythe, killing him. Wanda uses a magic spell to save his life and it turns Vision into his all white and spooky version.

Spider-Man and Wolverine 1. Replacing the recently ended Spider-Men series, Logan and Spidey team up to find a computer file of every secret double agent ever(why would anyone keep track of double agents but not do anything about them…??) and have to face off against Kraven and Omega Red. Afrer getting knocked out, Logan wakes up in a buried coffin(ala Kraven’s Last Hunt) and Spidey wakes up in Weapon X gear, but it’s all a ruse by Mysterio. However, the jaw dropping twist is that Peter finds footage of his secret agent parents, the night they were killed in the plane crash….the killer was Weapon X!! WHAT THE FUUUUUCK!! Okay, even if it ends up being a misdirect, that has got to be an all time greatest cliffhanger ending. Solid start to a new ongoing.

Star Wars:Legacy of Vader 4.
SW High Republic:Fear of the Jedi 4. Everyone is reeling from giant Nameless creatures attacking the Jedi fleet with their fear powers. Until Keeve Trennis overcomes her fear and realizes they are using the child of the storm, H’Tar to project the Nameless threats onto regular old attack droids.

Superman Unlimited 1. Kicking off the Summer of Superman branding on all DC’s Super books. Dan Slott’s new ongoing is basically a big recap/primer issue of Superman’s origin and big story beats like his death, marriage, Jon’s birth etc while he’s stopping a meteor made of kryptonite from hitting earth. He wakes up from a coma three months later and finds out the meteor crashed in South America and has become the most valuable element that is now being used in everything. The threat of kryptonite is everywhere, but the other last page twist is that Superman is immune because he’s got like a golden protective aura over him now.

The Thing 1. A new mini. Based on the FF’s costumes, this looks to be set during the 80s run with the white collars. A childhood neighbor from Yancy St shows up and asks for help finding his missing niece. While looking for answers, Ben fights a powered up Gladiator(the DD villain with saw blades, not the Shi’ar guy) and somehow Kingpin is involved.

Titans 23. Donna is still pushing back against the Justice League’s excessive authority over the Titans. Slade and Clock King prepare for the Titans with their secret weapon; Terra.

Ultimates 12. Tony wakes up from his coma and accuses Doom of fudging with the time stream to have stopped all the Ultimates from dying during the battle that almost killed Tony. When Doom confirms it, the entire team decides to refocus their efforts on stopping the Maker in six months. And Janet is double crossing the team by spying for Nick Fury(who we know is a clone working for the bad guys, but Janet does not) in exchange for keeping her and Hank safe when shit goes sideways.

Wonder Woman 21. Diana and Batman solve the murder of Ares and get Hippolyta freed.

World’s Finest 39. We Are Yesterday Part 4. Robin of the past is stuck in the present and Batman is having conflicting memories of Dick disappearing years ago, but also Nightwing is right there with them. Then present day Superman, Batman and Nightwing get sucked into the past, while the trio from the past gets sucked into the present(their future). Hijinks ensue.

Exceptional X-Men 9. Kitty and Emma go after Mr. Sinister, whos been manipulating one of their students as tech billionaire Sheldon Xenos.

Zatanna 4. Zatanna goes to rescue Blue Devil from the clutches of Brother Night and Lady White.

Up next, I’m almost done with a stack of Star Wars reading.

[Tom Foolery]

Some more Star Wars books. As near as I can tell, these were the ‘Prequel Era’ series that I have. There may be more, like the Halcyon cruise ship miniseries and maybe the Han Solo/Chewbacca book. I’ll read those during the next batch of SW books down the road.

Mace Windu 1-4. A young(ish) Mace is tasked with finding a stolen formula for some new and improved super fuel for starships. He teams up with the young orphan/thief who stole the formula and they deal with Hutt bounty hunters who are also after the formula. The art was horrible and the story was forgettable.

Jango Fett 1-4. Jango is somehow both the most famous bounty hunter around and also nobody knows who he is, depending on the requirements of the story. Jango is hired to find a thief who stole a famous statue that is important to two different planets. Someone hires Aurra Sing to stop Jango, but they end up working together because of some doublecross or whatever. The whole thing was a set up by Dooku behind the scenes setting up whatever. The only interesting thing is that Jango’s actions during the story out him on Dooku’s radar and we all know where that went. But mostly another forgettable series.

Yoda 2-10. I'm missing the first issue, but there’s three different story arcs and a coda issue. I don’t know if this was an ongoing that got cut short, or was always planned as a ten issue series. Yoda is hanging out on Dagobah and getting pestered by a mysterious voice(that we eventually learn is Obi-Wan’s force ghost) about getting back in the game. But while he’s waiting, Yoda reminisces about earlier adventures and the life lessons that came with them. Mostly pretentious and forgettable guff. Yoda is kind of a weenie bitch. The only interesting thing is that while in the Dark Force cave on Dagobah in the final issue, Yoda learns that Dooku killed Yaddle. And also hints at High Republic main character Keeve Trennis’ ultimate fate and Yoda feels responsible for what happened to her. Oooh, foreshadowing! But mostly a third forgettable series.

Inquisitors 1-4. A Jedi named Tensu Run survived Order 66 and is spreading hope thru the galaxy. Vader sends the Inquisitors after him, and one by one they fail, so Vader goes and finishes the job in the final issue. I guess Lucasfilm must assume that anyone buying any SW media must also be ingesting every other source of SW media, because this series did nothing to explain who the Inquisitors are or how they came to be. You’re just supposed to know already. Which I don’t. The entire series felt unnecessary. A Jedi is on the run and Vader kills him. Was he important? Was he from some other media source that I don’t know about? Or was he made up for this series just to die? Bleh.

Obi-Wan 1-5. Obi-Wan is on Tatooine waiting out a sandstorm, and starts remembering earlier adventures and the life lessons from them. Unlike the Yoda series, this one was actually not bad. There was an adventure as a youngling, one as Qui-Gon’s Padawan, two different Clone Wars stories; one with Cody, and one with Anakin, and finally a story set on Tatooine after he was in exile. Of all the SW books I read this time around, this was the only one I could say I enjoyed.

And finally, Star Wars:Jedi Knights 1-3. A current ongoing series that just started. Issue 3 literally came out this week. Set during Valorum’s chancellorship, it’s stand alone stories featuring any number of Jedi Knights on different adventures. So far it’s been pretty okay. Nothing spectacular, but compared to the very low bar set by what else I read in this batch, it was good.

Up next, another batch of DC back issues, I think a bunch of Superman titles. And then it’s back into the ‘D’ box starting with Dazzler and plenty of DC stuff.