So, What comics did you buy this week?

[Tom Foolery]

Tales from Earth-6:A Celebration of Stan Lee oneshot. This $10 book revisited Stan Lee’s interpretations of DC’s biggest characters. It was DC’s way of acknowledging Stan after he passed, but also let them profit off his death. Even though there’s not a single J anywhere in the title, I put it in the J box because it’s a continuation of the Just Imagine…series of oneshots from the early 2000s.

Justice League 60-63. Bendis had Black Adam and his new unicorn Naomi join the League. In his first arc, the super villains from Naomi’s universe invade the main one. The League preemptively heads to theirs to shut off the tear, but Flash gets the math wrong and everybody’s powers are wonky. They manage to beat down the main bad guy and give him a warning to stay away before heading back to Earth-Prime. Eventually Naomi would single handedly beat them all in her own series. There’s also a back-up tale starring Justice League Dark in every issue.

JL 64-67. Synmar Utopica, a cosmic level badguy Bendis made up for his Superman run, attacks and destroys the Hall of Justice. The League is on the ropes, even with the help of a new cosmic super team called the United Order, but then Batman uses the Phantom Zone generator on him. And Flash rebuilds the Hall at super speed.

JL 68-71. A mysterious new super spy called Daemon Rose, who is actually Lois Lane’s little brother, Leo Lane approaches Green Arrow about Checkmate. A bunch of fake Deathstrokes are trying to kill Daemon. The whole thing s an elaborate set up by the Royal Flush Gang to steal the Fortress of Solitude so they can get a fancy meteor inside and sell it. They accidentally release all the evil monsters Superman keeps there, but the League recaptures them all(almost as an afterthought). They don’t explain how they stole the Fortress, or how they put it back. It was a dumb arc.

JL 72-74. The JL Dark back up story becomes the main story when an ancient chaos lord possesses Black Adam. The League is powerless against her. Except Naomi whose swiss army power set is conveniently enhanced by magic. Naomi saves the day yet again. Bendis’ last issue.

JL 75. The Death of the League! The League head into another dimension to stop Pariah and some dark dimensional god. He kills them all. Only Black Adam makes it back. Sets up the Dark Crisis event.

Justice League:Road to Dark Crisis oneshot. Nightwing, Jon Kent, and others are dealing with the League being dead in a bunch of short stories. Nightwing is about as skeptical as the readers about how long they’ll stay that way.

Justice Society of America 1. I got this foil embossed cover. The series is on issue 10, but I only got issue 1. I’m not sure if this is on a different Earth, or set in the future or what. DC keeps changing their minds. Helena Wayne watches the entire current JSA get killed, and she gets shot back thru time and wakes up in the 30s in front of the original JSA.

Next up, Kang, Ka-Zar, and bunch of short ‘L’ series. Also, the current read pile is getting pretty stacked again.

[jjreason]

Saga 67, digital copy, as well as re-buy of the last 6 issues due to losing them in the separation. I jumped right into the new issue & 12 year old Hazel is as engaging as she's always been. Good all-character-but-no-action start to the new season.

[Tom Foolery]

My guy didn’t get his DC/Image books. Since it was a “5th week” there wasn’t a lot coming out. I didn’t get Saga or Red Hood 6. They should arrive Friday.

[Tom Foolery]

Kang the Conqueror 1-5. Kang heads back and recruits his teenage self to turn him into Kang. He brutally trains the younger version for a year in what will be the ground zero of the asteroid that destroyed the dinosaurs. The younger version steals his tormentor’s time armor and leaves him for dead, then stumbles into Rama-Tuts war with Apocalypse. Rama-Tut recognizes him and forces him into the role of Scarlet Centurion until he offers a betrayal to En Nabah Sur. Next he crosses path with the ‘original’ Kang fighting the Avengers back in issue 9. The two Kangs team up to fend off Dr Doom, then the youthful version betrays the classic Kang, usurping his identity, then returns to ancient Egypt as Rama-Tut. But he falls into the predestined defeat at the hands of the FF, so he travels far into the future. There he spends centuries amassing his armies before he goes back to recruit his teenage self. It’s a möbius loop story. I love that Kang is his own origin story. Like Kang became Kang because of Kang.

Ka-Zar:Lord of the Jungle 1-5. After KaZar died during Empyre, Shanna used the same magic that brought her back to life with new powers to her husband. As he’s adjusting to being attuned to all the flora and fauna of the Savage Land(and able to use those connections like channeling a Pachyosaur and turning himself into a tank) a new biotechnic threat called the Polyscion is infecting Savage wildlife. Kevin and Shanna’s son Matthew seems to have naively aligned with Domavoy the flesh weaver, the ancient alien entity behind the Polyscion. They eventually defeat Domavoy, but accept the mutated Polyscion creatures into the diverse Savage Land. Eh.

Knights of X 1-5. Follow up mini after Excalibur ended. Merlyn has taken over Otherworld and closed the Krakoan gates. Roma and Saturnyne task Captain Britain with gathering a team of Knights including Rachel, Shatterstar, Gambit, Rictor, and Meggan to track down the Seige Perilous to use as a gate so Krakoa can come to Otherworld and restore Saturnyne to power.

Legion of X 1-5. Nightcrawler and Legion, along with their team, are the “cops” of Krakoa. The first arc has them tracking down a rogue mutant who can swap bodies with other mutants. The ‘skinjacker’ is the disciple of a rogue Arraki god that was unleashed by Ora Serrata.

6 was an AXE Judgment Day tie in, with Legion taking on Uranos singlehandedly while Nightcrawler and others rescue as many Arraki as possible from Uranos’ onslaught.

7-10. An overly complicated arc where Nimrod kills Warlock’s father, the Technarc, so he can use the Phalanx to invade the astral plane and infect Warlock in Legion’s astral plane adjacent psychic plane, and then uses Warlock’s connection to Krakoa to infect the island and start turning residents into Phalanx zombies. And Nightcrawler and others are distracted by random secondary mutations that are developing thanks to a magic spell by Kurt’s adoptive mother Margali Zsardoz at the behest of Orchis. The series ended on a cliffhanger that was resolved in a Sons of X oneshot that I read earlier, but had no clue what was going on.

Lilo & Stitch 1, 4. A couple issues of the Dynamite series I got because I liked the covers. I only glanced thru them. It’s set after the movie.

Local Man 1. An Image book I picked up because it had a cheesy 90s style foil cover. A disgraced hero is fired from his super team and returns to the small midwestern town where he grew up, and is met with unenthusiasm from his family, friends, and townsfolk. Not what I was expecting. Not a priority, but I might track down more issues if I find them cheap.

Loki 1-4. Loki is disinterested in his role as the new king of Jotunheim. When a pair of frost giants steal Loki’s ancient longship made of dead vikings’ fingernails and crash it into the world tree, Loki has to track down the broken pieces and restore them to the ship. Pretty good series from Dan Watters.

Alligator Loki oneshot. A collection of Marvel Unlimited shorts told with pictures, but no dialogue, of a cheeky Loki variant interacting with Thor and other heroes. It’s like Jeff the Land Shark, but its a little Alligator.

There’s very little left in the box, a Magneto mini, Marauders, and a couple Marvel Action issues.
But the current pile has quickly gotten ridiculous again, so I’m gonna grind that down.

[Tom Foolery]

The current pile is approaching 50 books. I’m gonna have to do weekly reading to keep up.

Amazing Spidey Annual 1. Infinity Watch Part 2. Following the Thanos annual. Infinity Stone bearer Overtime fights Spidey, then he uses his timestone to travel back 24 hours repeatedly to prevent a minor supervillain from dying so Spidey won’t have extra guilt. Then Overtime meets up with the other stonebearers Star and Quantum.

Immortal Thor Annual 1. Infinity Watch Part 3. Tryco Slattery, the Champion is looking to retrieve the Power Stone from it’s new bearer, Prince Otherone, aka Prince of Power, aka Powerstone, aka Apex.

Ms Marvel Annual 1. Infinity Watch Part 4. Ms Marvel meets Multitude, the synthetic person who is the current Soul Stone bearer, and helps him fight The Inventors, a bunch of cloned bird people who think they are reincarnated famous scientists like Madame Curie and Nicola Tesla. The next chapter is in the Wolverine Annual.

Detective 1086, 1087. Batman is back in Gotham and he’s bringing the fight with the Orghams for the soul of the city. He’s recruiting both his allies like Azrael, Cassie, and Nightwing, but also villains like Two-Face and Mr Freeze to help him. Meanwhile, the Joker has triggered Duela Dent to throw chaos into the mix.

Iron Man 20. Gerry Duggan finishes his X-adjacent run on the series. Rhodey is aquitted. Tony has imprisoned Feilong on Arrako. His autobiography comes out and he fights Crimson Dynamo at a book signing. And Tony wants to stay married to Emma, but she declines. As a goodbye, she leaves Tony several billion dollars, which she “stole” from several dozen villain organizations thru stock manipulation and insider trading thanks to her psychic powers. Tony and Rhodey head out west to start a new company and possibly the West Coast Avengers. Pretty cool cover on this final issue.

Marvel Zero. Oneshot which collects all this year’s FCBD issues in one book. And costs $7.

Giant Size Little Marvels oneshot. Skottie Young’s adorable little characters in a bunch of short stories. Like the X-Babies, but every Marvel character. Cute stuff.

Vengeance of the Moon Knight 7. A Blood Hunt tie-in. A more detailed story of Tigra and Hunter’s Moon breaking into Asgard with the Wrecker to free Konshu, so he can resurrect Marc and the rest of the Moon Knights. Tigra and Marc have an emotional reunion.

Moon Knight:Fist of Konshu 0. A recap issue of the current MK saga, told thru the eyes of Konshu, bringing readers up to speed on the supporting cast of MK’s book.

Namor 1. I thought Jason Aaron was gonna shit on Namor like he did Frank, but he did one worse. The book opens with Namor in prison, having turned himself in for various crimes against the surface world. But in the few weeks he’s been gone, the various factions of Atlanteans have fallen into a giant civil war and they’ve sent assassins to kill Namor. Stingray shows up and tells Namor he’s the only one who can stop the civil war before it boils to the surface and becomes a problem for the rest of the world. So Namor, and stop me if you’ve read this particular Namor story before, has to go reclaim his throne and reunite the people of the sea. Jesus fucking christ, that’s what Aaron pitched to Marvel? Namor, the perpetual outcast, once again becoming king of the sea? It’s the first issue, so maybe there’s plenty of time to throw a twist into the series, but ugh.

Nightwing 116. Fall of Grayson part 3. Dick Grayson is in police custody as the serial killer Heartless. He breaks out and leaves Bludhaven to go find Boston Brand in Nanda Parbat so he can fix his phobia of falling. Meanwhile, the real Heartless, identifying as Dick, forces the Titans to leave Bludhaven or he’ll kill a random person every half hour until they do. Left without a protector, Bruce Wayne steps in and takes up the mantle of Nightwing. Pretty badass last page. Tom Taylor’s run is almost over.

NYX 1. In the aftermath of Krakoa, several young mutants have taken up residence in NYC. Ms Marvel, Sophie Cuckoo, Anole, Prodigy, and Laura Kinney are dealing with a new pro-mutant terrorist calling himself the Krakoan. We learn its secretly Hellion, who along with Empath and the rest of the Cuckoo sisters are up to no good. Eh.

Up next, much many more current reading.

[Tom Foolery]

Phoenix 1. Now that Krakoa is gone, Jean Grey decides to head into space and a be a cosmic force for good. The Universe sees the Phoenix as a force of chaos and destruction and Jean wants to change their minds. First up, stop the maximum security space prison, the Kyln, from falling into a black hole. She saves the prison, but Perrikus, an old Thor villain escapes. Guest starring Nova and Morg.

Boy Wonder 3. The early adventures of Damian as Robin continue. This time he teams up with Tim Drake to break into a fancy soirée in Penguin’s penthouse tower.

Scarlet Witch 2. Wanda is dead. While Darcy and Pietro deal with the Griever, Wanda meets the Never Queen in the afterlife, and sends her on a perilous quest. To return to life, Wanda must travel the Witch’s Way; a gauntlet of the afterlife where defeat will permanently erase her from existence. And Darcy has to recruit a mysterious magic user with whom she has a history.

Giant Size Silver Surfer oneshot. Norrin must use brain over brawn to defeat Terrax who has vowed to take Norrin’s cosmic power for himself. Also has a reprint of a SS issue from the 90s.

Spider-Boy 9. Bailey asks Arana to try and redo the spell that brought him back so that everyone will actually remember him. The spell backfires again and Bailey ends up in the Leopardon mechsuit, fighting a giant robot bowling ball. Then he gets shuffled into the old 1960s animated series where JJ is demanding pictures of Spider-Boy!!

Spider-Gwen 3. Chameleon is commiting petty crimes as Ghost-Spider to ruin Gwen’s heroic reputation. When she confronts him, she has a mysterious power surge that blows up the neighborhood. And Chameleon seems to have upgraded his mimicking abilities where he can use super powers like Sandman and Electro’s powers.

Miles Morales 22. Blood Hunt tie-in. A vampiric Miles and Hightail, with help from Bloodline, re-defeat the vampire R’ym’r and put him back in his sealed prison stone. Then Dracula shows up and he, Miles, and Bloodline head off to the final confrontation in Blood Hunt 5.

Spectacular Spider-Men 5. After fighting with each other for a bit, Peter and Miles realize they aren’t robots and team back up. Hammerhead takes matters into his own hands and goes into the Arcadium to fight the Soideys with a bunch of crime lord robots backing him up.

Symbiote Spider-Man 2099 5. Final issue. After Gabriel is killed, Miguel and Kron have a final battle. Miguel uses his symbiote to communicate directly with Kron’s Venom sym and convinces him to bond with Miguel instead. He lets a depowered Kron fall to his death, then uses a sonic charge to destroy both symbiotes.

Spider-Man:Reign2 1. Ten years after the first Reign series, Peter is woken from a Matrix style VR he was asleep in by Felicia’s daughter. The world is on the verge of an apocalyptic ending. Peter and Kat go to an ancient Norman Osborn and are sent back in time to have one chance to prevent the apocalypse. The Kingpin recruits an elderly Miles Morales.

Spider-Woman 9. One of the Assembly shows up at Jess’ door and thinks she and the other junior heroes might be brainwashed Hydra agents. They go to break Angmar the Screamer out of Alcatraz so he can short circuit the other Assembly kids. But Titan isn’t affected because he is secretly the Gremlin in an armored body, and he tells Jess that he’s the one responsible for Gerry turning into the Green Mamba.

Up next, more current reading!!

[Tom Foolery]

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles 1. Not a reboot, but they stopped the ongoing at 150, and restarted at #1 when new writer Jason Aaron took over. I don’t read TMNT ever, so I don’t know if this is continuing from the previous series, or if there was a time jump or what. But Raph is in prison, secretly working for/being blackmailed by the warden looking to uncover corruption or whatever. Then the warden is murdered in his office, and Raph is framed for it.

Thor 13. Thor teams up with Hercules(with Loki tagging along) to fight the evil goddess of night, Nyx, who was defeated by the Avengers, but who has found a way back after the King in Black and Blood Hunt events left the world in darkness. Nyx and her children defeat Thor and Herc and send them to a dark dimension where Herc’s deceased father Zeus is waiting.

Transformers 10. So the whole premise is there is barely enough Energon for the survivors, and they’ve had to pick and choose to who even to repair because it’s so scarce. But Shockwave builds a machine that eats whales and converts them to energy; enough to bring ALL of Cybertron thru a wormhole into Earth’s orbit. This shit got nominated for Eisners??

Annihilation 2099 1-5. Steve Orlando goes cosmic for the next 2099 series, which he just comes up with clever 2099 versions of heroes. This time around Nova 2099(who is a reallly old Logan), Starlord 2099(a Mexican orphan using Wakandan tech), Red Hulk 2099(a Roxxon explorer who gets rejuvenated by a dying Planet Ego), and Silver Surfer 2099(a reluctant tool of Mephisto) get spotlights. The final issue was a continuation of Dracula’s story from an earlier Spidey 2099 series, that sets up the next 2099 series in October, Conquest 2099.

Ultimate Black Panther 6, 7. Konshu and Ra are using the green meteorite to perform miracles and sway Africans to their cause. T’Challa tasks Killmonger and Storm with finding a sorceror to help them.

Ultimate Spider-Man 7. With the help of Otto Octavius, Harry and Peter activate the AI in their StarkTech uniforms. Robbie gives Ben and Jonah some inside info for their new paper that he knows the Bugle won’t let him publish. Fisk meets with Capt Britain about countering the new heroes with six new villains. And Iron Man shows up, asking if Peter is ready to take the next steps.

Ultimates 2. Captain America catches up on 90 years of history in a week. He’s not happy about the current state of America. He and the Ultimates invade the White House and rescue America Chavez, who the King of America has been using as a power supply for the eastern United States.

Ultimate X-Men 5. I’m about to drop this book.

Venom 35. After Carnage destroyed the Garden and unmoored all the Brock variants in time, they realize they are all separate entities, and no longer the same version of Eddie along the same timeline. As such, they rebel and team up against Meridius. Eddie had a vision of the future where Dylan turns all of Earth into a giant Venom if he keeps the symbiote. Meanwhile, Dylan has had a vision of the future where Eddie becomes the new Knull if he has the symbiote, and his Old Man Dylan future self arrives to help him stop his dad. And the symbiote decides to hide out in the one place he knows the host won’t try and bond with him, Peter’s closet! So both Eddie and Dylan have formed up sides to prevent the other’s future from happening! Ohhhh snap…it’s Venom War!

Venom War 1. The new big event with lots of tie-ins and minis begins! Eddie and his remaining variants show up in Madison Square Garden preparing to fight Dylan for the symbiote. Dylan and his team of Sleeper, Toxin, Red Goblin and Flexo arrive. Eddie demands the sym from Dylan, who tells him the sym is gone. Then Peter shows up, wearing the black costume! This shit’s gonna be good, yo.

Venom:Separation Anxiety 3. While Eddie is looking for Purple Man, the Kingpin hires the Ghost to break into Roxxon and steal some crystal macguffin thingie. Eddie, Purple Venom, Sunturion, and Ghost all show up at the same time.

Venomverse Reborn 2. Three more Venom variant stories. A viking Venom, a silly Capt America Venom who recruits a bunch of villains to form a basketball team, and a return of the Venom:The End sym and it’s perpetual battle against the AI horde at the end of time.

Kid Venom 1. The 10th century Japanese Venom gets his own miniseries. It’s a got a manga style. I only quickly flipped thru it. Not my style.

Up next, the rest of the current reading, then back to the rest of ‘M’ box.

[anarky]

Transformers 10. So the whole premise is there is barely enough Energon for the survivors, and they’ve had to pick and choose to who even to repair because it’s so scarce. But Shockwave builds a machine that eats whales and converts them to energy; enough to bring ALL of Cybertron thru a wormhole into Earth’s orbit. This shit got nominated for Eisners??

I've come to the conclusion that professional comic critics all suffer from a rare disease that makes them think that the quality of Transformers comics are inversely proportionate to their actual quality. Therefore, this pile of shit series and that absolutely unreadable IDW TF vs Joe series (the one everyone said was "Kirby-esque," proving they'd never actually seen a single panel by Kirby before) are lauded as masterpieces, while Simon Furman doesn't not only have multiple awards, but the awards are named after him.

[anarky]

Duke Volume 1
Cobra Commander Volume 1

How the hell is it that the Skybound Transformers is one of the most absolute dogshit series I've ever read, and closely tied into Void Rivals, which is so fucking boring that it doesn't even rate being called dogshit, but then it spins off a new Joeverse thar, dare I say it, is actually really frigging good so far?

Even moreso than the IDW series or that Devil's Due alternate universe (Reloaded, I think?), this is completely fresh and embraces a lot of the more bonkers shit from the cartoon in a way that works. Even crazier that it's so original, but Transformers is just a moronic retelling of the same old shit. The story flows like it should, and I didn't once have to reread a page six times before deciding it was unreadable and just move on. (Though Megatron being in Cobra-La's possession makes Prime just suddenly having his arm even more nonsensical.)

Fuck it, they've conned me into buying two horseshit series to keep up with a really good one. At least their paperbacks seem to be cheaper than IDW or Marvel, so it's not going to bankrupt me.

I fucking loved seeing Adele Burkhardt and the fugly red-masked Cobra Commander armor worked in, too.

[Tom Foolery]

Fuck it, they've conned me into buying two horseshit series to keep up with a really good one. At least their paperbacks seem to be cheaper than IDW or Marvel, so it's not going to bankrupt me.

You can drop Void Rivals. Yes, it’s in the same universe. But there’s nothing essential in it that requires it to enjoy GiJoe. And apart from Energon being the connective thread, even TF is barely needed.

And Destro and Scarlet have both been equally good. I was hoping they’d continue with more ramp up minis, but it looks like we’re getting an ongoing Joe series, sooner than later.

[Tom Foolery]

The last of the catch-up reading(although several issues have come out since I started catching up the current batch, so they’ll get shuffled to the next catch-up batch).

Void Rivals 11. Schlerkky and Buntzle and Springer fight off a bunch of soldiers from one of their armies. Then they have Springer give them a pdf file on how not to starve to share with both sides. When Waffle asks Nurrgler about her secret space macguffin, she abruptly says their partnership is over and splits. I was hoping that would mean the series was over, but, alas, there’s a solicit for next issue. There was also some b-plot with the Quintessons and HotRod, but who gives a fuck.

What If…Donald Duck became Wolverine? It’s more like what if Donald WAS Wolverine, because he doesn’t really become Wolverine during the issue. Mickey is Hawkeye, and Goofy is Hulk. You can imagine how the story goes in your head, and it’s about as blah as what you came up with.

Wolverine:Deep Cut 1-2. Claremont came back to tell the secret unwritten story of where Logan was during Uncanny 247-251. Sabretooth finds Logan on his birthday and Logan kills him, then he realizes it was a clone, and he goes to find Mr Sinister in Omaha.

Life of Wolverine oneshot. All the major events in Logan’s life, recapped in chronological order. With annotations in the back half of the book from which issues the stories were pulled. I remember a 4 issue Prestige series back in the 90s that did the same thing when they had filled in WAYYYYYY less holes in his backstory.

Wonder Woman 11. Absolute Power tie-in. WW and Justice League Dark are hiding out from Waller’s agents, and they end up fighting an Amazo droid obsessed with Dickens literature.

World’s Finest 29. While Superman and Robin stall the Doom-mite, Myxptlk and Bat-Mite gather the world’s magic users together to magically force the extra dimensions out of the Doom-Mite until he’s a boring, average 3D person with no real powers. Bat-Mite “sacrifices” himself. This was fun arc from Mark Waid and Dan Mora.

X-Men Legends 12. A back issue I found in MI. Set between Fall of the Mutants and the beginning of Excalibur, a recovering Kitty and Kurt are trying to protect Forge from the wrath of Mystique for having “killed” Rogue and the other X-Men in Dallas.

Dead X-Men 3. Another issue I missed to fill in my run. The dimension hopping X-Men are trying to stop Moira from backtracking thru her own previous lives.

X-Men:Heir of Apocalypse 3, 4. The twelve candidates get whittled down, until only Doug Ramsay is left, and he takes up the mantle of Revelation, with Bae Bloodmoon and Warlock as the first of his new horsemen.

X-Force 1. Forge starts a new team with Sage, Askani, Betsy Braddock, Surge, and Deadpool to stop “fractures” in the world, which are potential dangers to mutants around the world on a sphere he created. Meh.

Uncanny X-Men 1. Legacy 701. The bad guys have gutted the School and turned it into a prison. Rogue, Gambit, and Wolverine fight a Mexican dragon-god, who offers them an ominous death omen. Then they visit a terminal child patient. None of them are sure if they want to even restart the X-Men after Krakoa(and there’s been some falling out with Scott’s team) until a bunch of wayward mutant children stumble into their camp looking for help.

X-Men 1. Legacy 301. Scott’s team of Beast, Magik, Juggernaut, Psylocke, Quentin, and Magneto have taken up residence in a former Sentinel manufacturing plant in Alaska. They are fighting a leftover Orchis splinter group who is mutating latent humans with artificial X-genes to create temporary super powered antagonists.

Zatanna:Bringing Down the House 2. I got the Artgerm cover. Whoever needs to hear this, Zatanna sleeps in men’s boxers and no shirt, and walks around her apartment in the same when she wakes up.

Next up, Magneto, Marauders, and Marvel Action.

[Tom Foolery]

They released an unannounced secret ‘Thank You’ variant cover to Transformers 11 today. It’s like 1 per store. I just thought it was a cool cover of Ultra Magnus, so I grabbed it not knowing it was special or anything.

It came out TODAY and it’s already going for $50-100.

Well done, me. #humblebrag.

[Tom Foolery]

Finally finished the ‘M’ box. I was super sick last weekend and didn’t get much of anything done other than sleep.

Magneto 1-4. A retro mini from JM DeMatteis set right after Magneto took over Xavier’s school circa X-Men 200. Magneto has to earn the trust of his new students while reconciling his terrorist past. Matters get complicated when a new villain and her Sisterhood of Evil Mutants show up and her rage-inducing mutant powers cause him to backslide into villainy.

Maleficent 1. One of the Disney villain series from Dynamite. A traveler meets Maleficent in the woods and spurns her generosity by trying to steal her staff. So she turns him into a pig.

Marauders 19. The crew of the Marauder’s hands are tied by UN resolutions while Reavers attack Madripoor. But it doesn’t stop a secret team of Morlocks from teleporting in and stopping them.

20. Storm says goodbye to the team ahead of her new duties(that we as readers don’t know about) on the terraformed Mars.

21. The first Hellfire Gala. Emma makes friends and enemies at the event. They show everyone’s reactions to the Mars event, but since they hadn’t released the Giant Size issue yet, everyone’s reactions are vague and non-specific. Lol.

22. They retcon an older issue of Classic X-Men where Emma reveals Shaw’s dead GF didn’t die in a Sentinel attack, she just wanted to get away from Shaw.

23. Banshee helps the team defend a Krakoan drug warehouse from raiders.

24-25. An alien bounty hunter who Emma ‘borrowed’ his spaceship, returns to get it back. Even after they pay him off with mysterium, he still tries to doublecross them for the slight.

26. The Five resurrect Harry Leland; Emma and Shaw ask him to become Krakoa’s UN Ambassador. Fin Fan Foom tries stealing some Krakoan whiskey off the Marauder and Iceman grows supersized to fight him.

27. The end of the first series. Duggan finished up his run wrapping up several dangling plotlines.

Annual 1. When Daken gets kidnapped by Brimstone Love, Kate and Bishop recruit a new team to rescue him. Sets up Steve Orlando’s second ongoing series.

Marauders 1-5. When Kate finds a mysterious 2 billion year old box with her name written on it, and a map with a cryptic message inside, she and the new team recruit Cassandra Nova and head into space to confront the Shi’Ar and an ancient cult protecting a secret about the original Mutant society called Threshold that existed billions of years ago on Earth. Using Tempo’s time abilities, they find three cocooned Threshold mutants on the Avalon space station during Holocaust’s attack and bring them back to the present for resurrection.

6. Judgment Day tie-in. Several team members face their ‘judgments’ from the Celestial.

7-10. The team decides to time travel back several billion years and fight the twin sentient bacterias, Sublime and Arkea to protect the Threshold mutants. Kate traps Cassanda Nova in the past as retribution for the Genosha massacre where her father died.

11-12. Kate decides they can use all the genetic DNA from the Genosha massacre to fill the mysterious box and send it back in time, effectively “creating” Threshold and completing the circuit of her finding the mysterious box to begin with. Oye. Dumb.

Marvel Action Capt Marvel 2-5. IDW’s all ages series. Capt Marvel deals with Mad Thinker trying to influence people on Tiktok. Then she gets trapped in a VR simulator designed by Tony Stark and Squirrel Girl has to help her escape.

Marvel Action Black Panther 6. T’CHalla and Shuri stop some insurgents from using some macguffin Shuri built.

Marvel Action Origins 2-4. Simplified origin stories for Capt Marvel, Green Goblin, Hulk, Venom, Miles, and Rhino.

Marvel Action Spider-Man 1-5. Peter starts at a new school where Otto Octavius is principal, Mac Gargan is the PhysEd instructor, Mysterio is the Drama teacher etc.

M.A.Classics; Spider-Man Two-in-One 3-4. Reprints of older Marvel Adventures stories.

Marvel Age 1000. An oversized oneshot celebrating sixty years of Marvel comics with various stories.

Marvel Meow oneshot. Looks like Marvel Unlimited reprints of various stories about heroes and their cats. Cute.

That box is finished. Next up is GIJoe thru Iron Fist, but I think I’m gonna do some more Batman first to whittle that down. But before that, the current pile is already getting big again. When you’re buying two dozen new books a week, it doesn’t take long for an unread pile to form…

[Tom Foolery]

The current reading…

Vengeance of the Moon Knight 8. Marc Spector is alive! He reunites with his Midnight Mission team to take on the straggler vampires who are no longer affected by sunlight. And Konshu tasks him with killing his usurper imposter Moon Knight aka The Shroud.

Namor 2. Namor begins his methodical reclaiming of the Atlantean throne by beating up Attuma and his entire army. Then he meets another half-atlantean he had a crush on as a child, and she’s laid claim to the title of King.

Nightwing 117. Fallen Grayson Part 4. While Bruce stands in for Dick as Nightwing, Dick tries to deal with his fear of heights in Nanda Parbat. When he realizes he was poisoned by Heartless, he returns to Bludhaven and confronts Tony Zucco with the truth; that Dick was his target that night, not his parents! Next issue is Tom Taylor’s last.

Phoenix 2. Jean teams up with her father-in-law Corsair to find victims being kidnapped by the Black Order to be sacrificed to some zombie Asgardians. Uhmmm…okay.

Red Hood:The Hill 6. The conclusion of a boring mini series. I’m not even sure anything got resolved.

Boy Wonder 4. Damian returns to confront his mother and grandfather in the League of Shadows.

Scarlet Witch 3. Wanda has to fight her interdimensional double, Lore(last seen in Wanda’s 90s miniseries), to get back to reality. Darcie convinces Hexfinder to make Wanda a new body, while Pietro and Lorna distract the Griever. In the end, a resurrected Wanda walks thru the door, ready for round two.

Sensational She-Hulk 10. Rainbow Rowell finishes up her She-Hulk run. Jen tries to juggle her new Avengers responsibilities with her other commitments. This was a solid, fun series.

Spider-Boy 10. As Bailey continues to bounce around the Spider-Verse, Arana, Cindy, and Madame Web try to bring him back to the 616. Eventually Peter sacrifices his memories from the alternate reality where Uncle Ben survived in order to anchor Bailey back in the main universe with everyone’s memories of him fully intact.

Miles Morales 23. Blood Hunt is over, but Miles is still a vampire. His venom blast is affecting his vampirism. And Starling’s grandfather shows up.

Miles Morales Annual 1. Miles heads to Puerto Rico to hang out with his Abuela. Pretty cool story celebrating Miles’ PR heritage.

Next up, more current stuff.

[Tom Foolery]

Spider-Gwen:Ghost Spider 4. After her disastrous energy discharge last issue, Gwen gets a visit from Silk telling her the rest of team Spidey wants her to stop heroing. Then Gwen meets a cute guy at the coffee shop. Then a powered up Chameleon shows up again asking Gwen for help and they have to escape the cops together.

Spectacular Spider-Men 6. Peter and Miles fight Hammerhead and his team of robot crimelord villains. After they defeat them all a gross A.I. sim called K.N.A.I.V.E. shows up as the final boss.

Spider-Man:Shadow of the Green Goblin 4. Final issue of this retcon mini where we learn what happened to the proto-goblin from a ‘Minus one’ issue from the late 90s. Nobody cares.

Spider-Man:Reign 2 2. Old Man Peter and his sidekick Kittycat are in the past to stop the future armageddon. But Peter realizes MJ is still alive in this era and goes to find her, killing Vulture and Beetle along the way. He is finally ambushed by Venom, who reveals herself to be MJ!

Spider-Man:Black Suit & Blood 1. Anthology title featuring b&w stories with red color highlights from various writers and artists. All the stories are about the black costume, either Venom, or just the black pajamas. As with all anthologies, some stories are better than others.

Spider-Society 1. Another version of the Spider-Verse(there was one a few years ago called Web Warriors that lasted like 10 issues). The first half of the issue is taken up introducing or re-introducing a bunch of Spider-variants. Then a bunch of villains, like a Gwen Stacy Green Goblin, attack and defeat most of the Spiders. The remaining Spideys go to rescue S-M 2099 and get betrayed by a Kraven-Spider. I got the main cover and also an Artgerm variant.

Spider-Woman 10. Final Issue. Jessica defeats Titan aka Gremlin aka Titanium Man, and helps the brainwashed teen heroes The Assembly to escape Alcatraz before it blows up. But they don’t resolve Jess’ missing son Gerry or any of the Hydra subplot because of low sales I guess.

Immortal Thor 14. Thor and Hercules fight Zeus in his alternate dimension prison realm or wherever he is. Thor keeps dodging Zeus’ thunder until Herc suggests he just absorb all of it, and super charges Thor up.

Giant-Size Thor 1. When Herc showed up in the main Thor book last month, they made a casual comment about a recent team-up they had. This is that story. Some aliens kidnap Thor and are using him as a battery in a giant Thor robot(it’s literally a giant-size Thor. Haha Al Ewing, you clever boob). Anyway, Herc shows up and rescues Thor, then they both kick the aliens’ asses. Also had a reprint story from Thor 356.

Transformers 1. 40th anniversary reprint of the original Marvel 1st issue.

Transformers 11. Shockwave has enough Energon to power a space portal for the entire planet of Cybertron, and also filled up all their energy reserves, but there’s not enough resources to fix Ravage. And Prime and his entire team of two other TFs( Arcee and Elita-1) go to rescue Jazz and Cliffjumper from Shockwave. Then they teleport in their remaining two Autobots(Wheeljack and Ultra Magnus) as “reinforcements”(why they just didn’t come with to begin with? Since OP and the rest seemed to breach the ‘Cons lair pretty easy so OP could have a cool point-his-gun-at-Shockwave reveal) but then UM has a fucking panic attack and transforms and drives away. I seriously laughed out loud.

Ultimate Spider-Man 8. Spidey and Green Goblin have a talk with Iron Man about their armor. Peter’s armor starts talking to him while he’s not wearing it, which causes his some alarm. And Kingpin calls all his lieutenants in to deal with the Spidey and Goblin problem.

Ultimates 3. Iron Man, Thor, and Sif visit ‘monster island’ where Banner conducted his gamma bomb tests that turned him into Hulk. There they discover a bunch of gamma-mutated survivors and recruit a ‘She-Hulk’ who agrees to join the team if they can reverse all the gamma damage on the island.

Ultimate X-Men 6. I am officially dropping this title. It barely has anything to do with the other three Ultimate books, and is even less an X-Men title.

Up next, more current reading. Followed by more current reading. And then even more current reading. I’m hoping to get the entire pile done this weekend, before I purchase next week’s two dozen books.