So, What comics did you buy this week?

[jjreason]

Ok I actually went today & I'm eagerly anticipating finding out if I bought some issues.... I already bought last time! That's what tends to happen when you don't go for a few weeks....

Marauders 14 & 15 (new)
X-Men 14 (new)
Giant Size Fantomex 1 (unsure)
Giant Size Storm 1 (known duplicate - but it's the Dauterman cover & I couldn't say no when I had it in my hands)
League of Extraordinary Gentlemen "Century" trade paperback which they're calling volume III.... doesn't "Black Dossier" count???

[Tom Foolery]

Ok I actually went today & I'm eagerly anticipating finding out if I bought some issues.... I already bought last time! That's what tends to happen when you don't go for a few weeks....

I hate when that happens. And since everybody seems to love multiple covers these days, it makes things even more bullshit.

League of Extraordinary Gentlemen "Century" trade paperback which they're calling volume III.... doesn't "Black Dossier" count???

Maybe the first two minis were retconned into the first volume? I dunno.

[Tom Foolery]

Characters who should also be getting Alex Ross timeless variants, but thus far have not.

1. Hawkeye
2. Vision
3. Frank Castle

Those three definitely because they’re in the fucking mural Marvel commissioned from Ross that’s in their HQ.

Well, Hawkeye is getting one at least. Avengers 42 in the new February solicits.

[jjreason]

So, regarding LXG, Moore is having these published through TOP SHELF these days and only counts volumes 1 & 2 in with the main continuity. Black Dossier was published originally during his struggle with DC if I read it right so it's not even recognized (and honestly, it's pretty bad compared to the first 2 books). Century, Tempest & the collection of one-shots all count & are under the newer banner. I also read that both TOP SHELF & VERTIGO publish the same books & that if you feel strongly enough about it, you can choose which publisher you want to support with your purchase.

[Tom Foolery]

Honestly, the only thing I remember about ANY of LXG is Mr Hyde buttfucking the Invisible Man to death.

[Tom Foolery]

Catching up on more reading from the ‘C’ box!

Champions 1-10. The second volume from Jim Zub and artist Steven Cummings. The first four issues had Ms Marvel leading an expanded roster of teen superheroes with multiple teams doing good deeds all over the world simultaneously. But when a battle in India goes badly and Kamala and Viv are killed, Miles and Amadeus make a deal with Mephisto to reverse the deaths. The deal weighs heavily on Miles and Kamala steps down as team leader.
5-6 were War of the Realms tie-ins, with adult Cyclops coming back to aid his Champion teammates because he retained the memories of teen-Cyclops before he time shunted back to the past.
7-8 sees Sam Alexander retrieve his Nova helmet with the help of an old nemesis because she doesn’t want to kill him while he’s depowered and “unworthy” to face her in battle.
9-10 the series wrapped up with Blackheart “infecting” most of the newer Champion recruits and the originals had to face off against their new teammates. They defeat Blackheart and it negates the “deal” his father had made with Miles, which makes Mephisto furious.

Champions 1-2. The current series just started. It’s part of the “outlawed” branding where all teen superheroes are now illegal and on the run from C.R.A.D.L.E., the law enforcement agency created to stop them.

Conan:Serpent War 1-4. I don’t usually buy Conan, but this had Moon Knight in it, so the completist in me bought it. An ancient rivalry between Set, the serpent god, and an other-dimensional rival of his called The Wyrm brings different Robert E Howard creations together to fight them. Conan, Solomon Kane, Dark Agnes(and also Moon Knight)are pulled from their own times to stop Set cultists, until Konshu shows up and tells them they’ve been bamboozled and the Wyrm is the true villain. Mildly interesting just for the REH crossover aspect of it, but mostly forgettable.

Contagion 1-5. A weekly event mini that came out last fall before anybody knew there was a pandemic looming. An ancient virus escapes Kun-Lun and starts infecting all the heroes trying to fight it. The Thing, Iron Fist and a handful of other heroes are the last ones standing until Moon Knight figures out a way to defeat the virus from the inside because he’s craaaazzzzzyyyyy...and speaking of...

Crazy oneshot. For its ongoing 80th anniversary celebration last year, Marvel was releasing all kinds of oneshots and specials. Some of them were callbacks to old comic series and magazines This was one of those. Just a bunch of humorous 3-4 page stories, parodies, and advertisements. Sort of on par with Not Brand Ecch, What The—??!, and other comics making fun of Marvel.

Crescent and Io oneshot. The origin of the tiny taewkondo master and her giant spirit bear featured in the new Agents of Atlas series. Technically, the title of the book is “Future Fights Firsts Presents:Crescent and Io” because these characters were created for a Marvel fighting app game and migrated over to the comics. But it’s a fun character, so I’ll allow it.

Crisis on Infinite Earths 100 Page Giant 1-2. Each of these featured a couple new stories set in the CW-verse(I think?) and a couple reprint issues from the original 1985 CoIE series, like the issues where Flash and Supergirl died. To be honest, I only skimmed them because I don’t really care about Felicity Smoak’s side adventures and I’d already read the reprints when they originally came out. I’ll probably get back around to reading them eventually.

Next up Daredevil!

[jjreason]

Honestly, the only thing I remember about ANY of LXG is Mr Hyde buttfucking the Invisible Man to death.

It stands alone in terms of memorable comic book deaths, that's for sure.

[Diabolical]

Sounds like something written by Ennis.

[Tom Foolery]

Daredevil! Picking up where Charles Soule’s series ended.

Man Without Fear 1-5. A bridge mini series. It starts out with Matt still in his coma from the end of Soule’s series. He wakes up, but his body is broken and he’s not sure he wants to be DD anymore. He drives Kristen McDuffie away and blows off his hero friends like Luke Cage and Jessica Jones who are reaching out to help him recover. But after a bunch of soul searching he decides the city “needs” him and he suits back up, leading into...

Daredevil 1-5. Chip Zdarsky and Marco Chechetto take over the new ongoing. Matt is back to being DD, but he’s not 100% ready. During a fight with some burglars, he accidentally kills one of them. DD is now wanted for murder. A recently transferred police detective is assigned to bring him in and Matt tries to figure out who is framing him. But after a run in with Frank Castle, eventually he realizes he may have actually killed the guy. Spider-Man shows up and tells him it’s time to hang up the cowl and Matt agrees. He stops being DD.
6-9 No longer DD, Matt gets a new job as a Probation Officer and starts banging a bookstore owner who happens to be the daughter-in-law of a Crime Family Head who is fighting a turf war in Hell’s Kitchen with the Owl. Mayor Fisk is trying to make a move to legitimate business/politics and runs afoul of two ultra-rich siblings manipulating the turf war for a real estate scheme. With no DD in the Kitchen, ordinary citizens start copycatting him.
10-18. Things getting worse in the kitchen as dirty cops turn their backs to the turf war, thanks to the Stromwyn Twins interference. Fisk gets a personal beat down from their goons. Elektra shows back up to “retrain” Matt as his new “Stick”. Then they break into the Stromwyn’s server farm and reroute billions into Hell’s Kitchen’s citizens bank accounts. The turf war comes to a head.
19-20. The Stromwyn’s send Bullseye, Crossbones, and other assorted super goons to the Kitchen to destroy it. Kingpin and Matt are fighting to save it side by side. And I must’ve missed a story arc somewhere, because the nun Matt’s been talking to for the last 20 issues was an amnesiac Typhoid Mary and apparently both Matt and Wilson knew it, because Matt gets pissed at Fisk when Rhino attacks their church and the Mary personality re-emerges. An army of average citizens inspired by DD stand up to fight also. When Bullseye kills one of them, Matt takes his mask and returns to being the real DD. After the battle is over, Daredevil turns himself in to face the murder charges....as Daredevil.
21-24. The current arc. Using the bs Supreme Court ruling from Soule’s run, Foggy makes the argument that costumed vigilantes can be tried as their super hero identity. Absurdly, the DA goes along with this, when Matt reveals his ID to his former boss and says if he gets outed, all the cases he tried as a DA will get tossed. Foggy brings in Matt’s ex-GF Kristen McDuffie as co-counsel, and because she doesn’t know Matt is DD, Foggy has Matt’s “brother” Mike pose as “Matt” to be on the legal team as well. Confused yet? Daredevil agrees to a plea deal for 2nd manslaughter. So next issue he’s going to prison...as Daredevil! And now I’m all caught up.

Annual 1. Since he was ‘made real’ by the Inhuman Reader, Mike Murdock is going crazy because he doesn’t have any memories from before, so he steals a norn stone from The Hood and has a OneMoreDay type flashback as we see him and Matt growing up together through their life, including Matt being blinded and their father getting killed.

[Tom Foolery]

A few older issues that needed reading before they go in the boxes I sorted last year(or the year before; time is weird when you get old)

Blackbolt 11. The penultimate issue of his short series. Back on Earth, after burying his ally on the prison planet Crusher Creel, Blackbolt’s new young friend and ally is possessed by the Jailer and BB has to stop him without destroying her.

Luke Cage 5. This story line was weak and not worth recapping here.

Old Man Logan 5,6 11, 13, 19, 20, 24. A bunch of the issue I was missing from the first time I reviewed the series. I inferred the plots of the issues I was missing back then, so the recaps(back on page 190 of this topic)don’t change. Still need six more issues for a full run.

Runaways 19, 22-24. The current series. After the Giborrim tried eating everyone’s souls and failed, the kids are trying to adjust to the pitfalls of young love and whatnot, and also dealing with their Doombot who has defaulted to its original programming and trying to kill them. And Karolina and Nico try to be vigilante crime fighters in LA and meet the mysterious Dr Justice. As I’ve said before, I was surprised at how much I’m enjoying Rainbow Orwell’s writing and I’m looking forward to tracking down the dozen issues I’m still missing.

She-Hulk 162, 163. The final two issues of the Legacy renumbered ongoing that was originally titled Hulk. Jen goes to see a therapist to deal with her Hulk issues after she woke up from her coma when Thanos beat the shit out of her in CivilWarII. Mariko Tamaki’s name garnered my attention when I read the rest of this series. She’s now writing Wonder Woman at DC, so I’m looking forward to that based on her writing here.

Weapon X 7 and 22. The final two issues I was missing from the run. 7 was the beginning of the Weapon H crossover with Hulk. 22 was the start of a new arc with mostly villains on the team; Sabretooth, Deathstrike, Omega Red, Mystique breaking up a cult led by Mentallo so Victor can rescue his “ex-girlfriend” Monet.

Next up, more catch up on the few series I’ve read in the newer boxes and “caught up” with but new issues have come out since then.

[jjreason]

I'm starting X of Swords which meant finishing off the x-shrapnel first. Giant Sized Storm actually had really nice Dauterman interior art so that was great. The story was fine but I won't remember anything about it. Giant Sized Fantomex had art either similar to or by the New Mutants artist that turned me off that book in the first place. It was supposed to be read before Storm but... oops I guess. Hopefully that's it for the Giant Sized issues.

[anarky]

Luke Cage 5. This story line was weak and not worth recapping here.

Not trying to sound snarky, but is this a first?

[Tom Foolery]

I’m pretty sure I’ve done that a couple times before.
I probably recapped the rest of the story arc earlier, but bringing up to speed for this one issue wasn’t worth the effort.

EDIT. Ha. I must’ve really not enjoyed this series. This is from page 189 of this topic.

Luke Cage 166 and 168. Missing 167, 169, 170. Cage’s new series reverted to Legacy numbering and I don’t have enough of the issues to comment one way or the other.

EDIT EDIT And this is from page 170. Clearly this series missed the mark for me.

Luke Cage 1-3. Like get his own series again, and there's a bunch of retcon bs going on with the guy that gave him his powers and a bunch of other "test subjects". David Walker's writing isn't bad perse, but it's not my cup of tea. This is the third series he's written that I couldn't get into. I'm debating on whether to drop it or stick it out until the legacy numbering kicks in.

[Tom Foolery]

Some more recent issues so I don’t fall behind again(I say that knowing full well, I’ll probably fall behind again at some point)

Captain America 25. With the Daughters of Liberty captured by Alexandra Lukin’s Watchdogs in Madripoor, Cap and his allies stage a rescue. Narrative captions by Sharon Carter combined with subpar art by Leonard Kirk make this a muddled uninteresting affair where Lukin and her husband the wannabe Red Skull escape before being apprehended. Also had a backup story about an immigrant Cap befriended right after he came out of deep freeze and Cap giving an eulogy at the guy’s funeral.

Catwoman 27. Selina makes a deal with a local crime lord to get rid of a rival crime lord in exchange for unhindered access to the Gotham docks. After CW and her team of street urchins execute a heist of a truckload of drugs, she’s double crossed by the first crime lord, but the assassin sent to kill Selina kills the sniper sent to kill her instead.

Spider-Man Noir 3-5. A murder mystery in NYC sends Noir and the victim’s sister to Berlin, Istanbul, and then Cairo where he meets up with the Noir versions of Tony Stark and Black Widow. Then the sister turns out to be a Nazi and doublecrosses them, but then she also turns out to be an ancient goddess trapped by some mystical thingamajiggie and Spidey, Widow and a Dora Milaje named Ha-Ri team up to stop the goddess and a bunch of Spidey’s dead villains released from the underworld.

Spider-Man 4. JJAbrams’ kid’s perpetually late miniseries(the first issue came out LAST November) is a confusing dull mess. There’s a giant spider-creature and zombie Avengers and some convoluted backstory involving Richard and Mary Parker’s work with SHIELD years ago. Honestly, who gives a shit. Thankfully there’s only one issue left.

Spider-Woman 4-6. Now that we’ve established Jessica has a brother, a nice, and her mom’s not dead, we discover her mom’s an evil clone and Jessica has to find the High Evolutionary to find a cure for her new disease or whatever, so she enlists her BFF Carol Danvers for a trip to outer space to find Counter-Earth. Not great, but not bad. Writer Erika Pacheco is leaving no stone unturned in Jessica’s complicated and convoluted backstory.

Thor 9. Holy shit, this book is pretty great! Donny Cates is definitely going big, not home. Thor is having trouble lifting his hammer, so he wants Loki’s help to bring back the Donald Blake persona, which hasn’t been used in years. But the Blake persona was trapped in an idyllic dreamworld created by Odin for when he wasn’t switched out with Thor. After years of unuse, he realized he was trapped there and “woke up” so when Thor finally switches again, he releases a psychotic genocidal maniac. The reveal was epic. First part of a new arc.

Next up, either I’m gonna dive into that Venom run, so I can go back and read Absolute Carnage, or I’m gonna dive into Dan Slott’s Iron Man that culminated with the IM2020 event. Gonna flip a coin.

[Diabolical]

I recently realized I'm not buying anything Marvel on a monthly basis anymore for the first time maybe ever.

Still buying and playing catch up on Batman and Detective Comics.

Batman: White Knight presents Harley Quinn #1-2 - the side sequel to Batman: Curse of the White Knight. Harley is helping the GCPD catch a killer.

Firefly #0, 20-22 - The current Sheriff Mal story has gone on far too long, but it's still entertaining. Nitpick: this series is missing the Chinese language element.

The Boys: Dear Becky #1-5 - I guess it's an epliogue of sorts to The Boys, with Hughie receiving and reading Butcher's diary about the early days of The Boys. I'm having a hard time remembering how the original series ended because it's been a while.

Batman: The Adventures Continue #1-6 - The Animated Series story of Jason Todd/Red Hood, who apparently existed between Dick and Tim.

Bill & Ted Are Doomed #1-3 - Basically a retelling of what happened between Bogus Journey and Face the Music, as we heard a lot about in FTM, but Evan Dorkin is back writing the series (but not drawing unfortunately).

And some smaller/indie titles.

Big Girls #1-4 - A world where some boys turn into giant monsters who attack cities and some girls grow just as large and fight the monster boys. Fun stuff with good world building.

Sea of Sorrows #1 - A crew looks for a lost sunken ship full of gold. Creepy mermaids appear. All set up, but interesting.

Black of Heart #1 - Serial killer murder mystery in the late 1940s.

Giga #1 - Something about people who without and live in giant mechs after a robot war. Preachy and meh.

Lonely Receiver #1-3 - a dystopian future story where a woman's A.I. wife leaves her and it drives the woman a bit nuts. Weird.