So, What comics did you buy this week?

[Tom Foolery]

Here is the end of IDW’s Transformers run, but there were a couple other ‘T’ books before that.

Teen Titans Academy 2021 Yearbook. Sort of like their annual for the year, I guess? There were a couple short stories, and mixed in were some pin-up art styled to look like Yearbook photos. Nothing memorable.

Timeless 1. At the end of each year, Marvel puts out a Timeless oneshot. This is the third year they’ve done it, but they all have 1 on the cover. In this issue, a futuristic old man Luke Cage possessing the powers of the Sentry, the Hulk, and the Iron Fist faces off against the Immortal Moon Knight, who has mastered StarkTech and Eternals tech, as well as Dr Strange’s magic. The avatar of Konshu is sacrificing millions of humans to his god. It turns out to be Danny Rand. Luke defeats Danny/Konshu and is thrust back to the “present” where he will presumably show up in one story arc and then subsequently be forgotten.

Titans 1-2. The newest ongoing featuring the original Teen Titans all grown up. They fight Giganto in issue one, and find Wally’s dead body, but Dick calls Wally to help them investigate, so apparently it’s a future Wally’s body. While I was reading the two issues, because I dropped the series after this, I had an epiphany about the Titans which I will detail elsewhere.

And now, onto the Transformers.

Transformers:Escape 3-5. End of the miniseries detailing Wheeljack and his team’s attempt to make the five remaining Arks spaceworthy. They are forced to compromise with Straxxus, the leader of Darkmount, to evacuate ALL his citizens on two of the Arks, and getting all the organic refugees onto the next two, leaving just one Ark without a working engine. Meanwhile, there’s an increasing horde of Insecticon Clones causing problems across the planet. Eventually, the four working Arks get away.

Meanwhile, back in the main ongoing, writer Brian Ruckley continues to give every single Transformer ever some page time. This is what has been slowing me down as it did before, because I’m on TFWiki half the time. Also, TFWiki is hilarious and very thorough so I kept going down rabbit holes. Anyway…

TF 28-30. The Decepticons upload a data-bomb into the cybertronian network that corrupts the Titans in orbit around the planet, causing their orbits to decay and making it so neither side can use them in the war. A Titan crashes into the archives destroying them, and Provoke’s body is found, unbeknownst to anyone, she has been possesed by Exarchon. Eventually he/she inhabit the body of the recently deceased Ruckus. After Optimus and Megatron call a parley where Optimus pleads with Megatron to stop further catastrophe across the planet, the Autobots flee from Iacon and cede it to the Decepticons.

TF 31-32. After getting an experimental upgrade from Perceptor, Jumpstream the teleporter from the Torchbearers, accidentally time jumps into the future where Exarchon of the Threefold Spark has resurfaced and taken over Cybertron. She manages to make it back to the present with this info.

TF 33-36. Bumblebee contacts Swindle to help him rescue Elita-1, and receives information that the Decepticons know Termagax as the Enigma of Combination and are planning an attack to take it from her giant mobile walking House/base. The Autobots send a team to protect her and the Enigma. After a big battle on the edge of the rust sea, Skytread ends up with the Enigma but is consumed by rust worms and the Enigma is lost to both sides.
Also, Exarchon has overtaken Ruckus and Provoke, which raises Flatline’s suspicions, so he too is consumed by Exarchon.

TF 37-39. Optimus goes to consult Codexa one last time and she tells him details about Exarchon. Decepticons show up as he and his security team are leaving and Ultra Magnus is captured to ensure the others’ escape. Smokescreen and a team enlist Swindle’s help to break Ultra Magnus out of the the senate prison, but when they get back to Swindle’s, Sixshot and a bunch of Decepticons are waiting. Swindle’s bar is destroyed. Exarchon abandons Ruckus’ body and upgrades into Deathsaurus.

TF 40-43. As the series reached the end, a second mini series called TF:War’s End was launched. I feel like IDW saw their publishing days were winding down and needed to resolve a bunch of plot lines simultaneously. Anyway, the Decepticons launch an all out attack of the last Autobot stronghold in Crystal City. Optimus calls a truce with Megatron and says the threat of the Insecticon clone swarm, the increasing threat of the rust worms consuming the planet, and now the return of Exarchon is too much. He offers to team up with the Decepticon to stop these three threats and then he will cede Cybertron to Megatron and Optimus and the rest of the Autobots will leave permanently. Megatron at first resists, but then grudgingly agrees. The main book dealt with Termagax and the other nerds capturing an Insecticon and fiddling with its source code which would tapeworm into the rest of the swarm and cause them to attack the rust worms, thus destroying both threats with each other.

TF:War’s End 1-4. As Exarchon’s power grows, he recruits Shockwave, Onslaught and others to help him retake Cybertron. But he oversteps when he tries to upgrade from Deathsaurus into Devastator, who is already six minds full. After Provoke and Flatline are destroyed, leaving just Deathsaurus, the Decepticons trick him into leaping into the last remaining TitanSpark, and then they destroy it.

TF:The Fate of Cybertron. The final oneshot that tied up Ruckley’s three year run on the title, and also IDW’s last book as publisher. Megatron decides to double cross Optimus one last time, but then says fuck it and lets them load up the final Ark and leave. While Ruckley’s run was nowhere as good as the massive epic that unfolded before they had him relaunch the continuity, it wasn’t bad and I feel like he had more story planned that he had to scrunch together and tell in much less time. I can’t say I dug him sticking every obscure botcon exclusive character into the book for the sake of it, but I admire the audacity. And I discovered several dozen TFs I had never heard of before.

Up next, five Transformers miniseries, an annual, and a Halloween special. And that’s all of the TF stuff from IDW and also I’ll be caught up to when I started reading Venom when I started going in reverse order.

[Tom Foolery]

The rest of the Transformers stuff…

TF Annual 2021. The Technobots travel aboard the Titan Lodestar to a distant space station outpost run by Thunderwing because the rogue Titan Vigilem has docked there. Thunderwing has had Airachnia doing illegal experiments and an artificial Enigma of Combination fuses the Technobots into Computron. After a fierce battle, Lodestar is forced to use an imploder to destroy Vigilem. Then word gets back that all the other dormant Titans around Cybertron crashed to the surface. So Lodestar is the last functioning Titan. Bummer.

TF:Helloween oneshot. Starscream ventures into the wastelands to confront an old myth of haunted screams. After his mind is swapped with a alien creature and he perceives what its like to be organic, he realizes the “myth” is his old mentor who was trying to go immersant and ended up bonded to a primitive organic creature. She tries to usurp his body, but he stops her and then rather than mercy kill her, he leaves her to be the haunted scream myth.

TF:Shattered Glass 1-5. What if the Autobots were tyrannical asshats and the ‘Cons were the heroic freedom fighters? Well, here you go.

TF:Shattered Glass II 1-4. The premise was good enough it got a sequel, except I’m missing the fifth final issue. Dammit.

TF:King Grimlock 1-5. What if Grimlock was in a Dungeons & Dragons story? Grimmy gets pulled thru a wormhole to a planet where they need his help to defeat the ancient wizard who is making “fake” Transformers out of wood and magic. Sounds like a fun premise, but it was executed dully. And the writer using the ‘Me Grimlock’ dialogue gets old very quickly. Shame.

TF: Wreckers Tread & Circuits 1-4. On the planet Velociton, the ruler is picked by a massive road race. So basically the fastest guy becomes president regardless of how qualified he is. A terrorist organization called Mayhem is advocating…elections. The Wreckers are trying to…stop them? Dumb.

TF:Last Bot Standing 1-4. After eons of war have ravaged thousands of worlds and killed trillions of lifeforms, Rodimus thought he was the last Cybertronian and had disguised himself as a wagon on a pre-industrial alien world(like the 1890’s but with blue and green people). Until a bunch of bots show up, having run out of energon millennia ago, go from world to world using “biofuel” to sustain themselves. Which is to say, they grind up the lifeforms on the planet and use them as fuel. Hot Rod has to help the citizens of his new world and end the threat of Cybertron once and for all.

There were also a bunch of ‘Best of’ collected oneshots featuring various fan fave characters. But I had previously perused thru them and their definition of ‘Best’ and mine varied, so I shan’t bore you with all of them.

So technically up next is the Star Wars box, but I’m not really in the mood for like 250 issues of straight SW. so I’m skipping to the next box which is mostly Spider-Man(I know, a glut of SW vs a glut of Spidey? But I’ve made my choice) I’ll get back around to the SW stuff, or read small chunks of it as I’m working backwards. I’ve got six weeks to sit around and do nothing but read!

[Tom Foolery]

The Spider box! There were about 30-40 issues of Sonic the Hedgehog comics in the front of the box that I buy for my two adult children to read, but I skipped over them. So first up…

Spawn!
Gunslinger Spawn 1. Gunslinger has been pulled from the Wild West era and dumped in the present. He’s riding a motorcycle instead of a horse. I have three different covers that I got thru blind box purchases.

King Spawn 1 and 11. Some dickhead blows up a school full of children and detective Spawn is on the case. Or something. 11 had a moody cover that I liked.

Spawn 336 and 350. 336 had a cool cover, and I purchase every 50th issue of Spawn because they’re ‘anniversary’ issues. But I swear, every single Spawn comic I read has the same plot. The forces of Hell are trying to get out and everybody is fighting over the throne. That’s it. That is the plot of every Spawn comic. How can you have a comic running for over thirty years with ZERO character development? Ugh.

Spider-Boy 1-5. Spinning out into his own ongoing series. The premise is this, Bailey Briggs was/is Spider-Man’s sidekick for several years. Then he got erased from the web of destiny, so nobody remembers him or any of his exploits. Now he’s back, and trying to find his missing mother and reclaim what’s left of his life with Peter and Miles’ help. He’s getting himself a silly rogues gallery. While the premise is groan-worthy, the book is pretty okay.

Spider-Gwen:Gwen-Verse 1-5. A super villain at the end of time called Finale:The Living Meme tries to reset history, but the blast catches Gwen and spits out variants of her throughout the past which threaten to alter the present of her Earth-65. It’s just an excuse to make Thor-Gwen, Cap-Gwen, Iron-Gwen, Capt Marvel Gwen, etc. A silly convoluted plot to feed cosplay fodder.

Spider-Gwen:Shadow Clones 1-5. While Gwen is fighting the Sinister Six from the 616(how they got to Earth-65 is never explained) a scientist’s husband is killed and her research is all destroyed. Naturally she blames Gwen, so she mixes Gwen’s DNA with the DNA of the villains and makes Gwen clones of Doc Ock, Sandman, Vulture, Kraven, and Rhino. Gwen manages to get the Six(five actually) to switch sides and stop the new super-villain.

Spider-Gwen Annual 1. Part of the Contest of Chaos that ran thru all the annuals and that I’m reading totally out of order. In this chapter, Gwen is matched up against Ami Han, the White Fox.

Spider-Gwen:Smash 1-4. Gwen’s band, the Mary Janes is asked to open for Dazzler on tour. A Hulk keeps attacking Dazzler because the Bruce Banner of Earth-65 is a toxic stalker. He accidentally releases Mary Jane’s Carnage symbiote before they defeat him, which leads into….

Giant-Size Spider-Gwen 1. Marvel is doing 50th anniversary GS oneshots all year long in honor of the first GS issues. I was wondering why Spider-Gwen would rate a special, but apparently it’s because Gwen Stacy has been around a long time, not Spider-Gwen. Anyway, Gwen and MJ are dealing with the resurfaced Carnage symbiote and a new threat from Otto Octavius’ son. In the end, MJ goes with Natasha Romanoff to try and reconcile her symbiote.

Gwen is getting a new ongoing next month where she’s moving to the 616 universe permanently, so what does that mean for all her supporting cast on Earth-65?

Up next, Miles’ ongoing series that ran 42 issues from 2019 to 2022. I can’t remember if I started reading this the last time I binged a bunch of Spidey titles. So either I’m starting in the mid-20s, or from the very first issue, which I have to go track down.

[Tom Foolery]

It turns out the first half of the series was in the to-read pile back when I was doing my 2020ish Spidey binge, but stacks of books were getting redistributed into different boxes, and then again, and then the move, etc. So while I read all the mini-series around that time, the ongoing Miles Morales got forgotten. So here are the first 24 issues, some of which are now up there in price; between $40-60. Nice.

1-3. Saladin Ahmed took over the writing from Brian Bendis, who had up til now written ALL of Miles’ story. Big shoes to fill. Miles is struggling to balance super-heroing and school, and maintain a sorta relationship with his new maybe GF Barbara. His teacher suggests he keep a journal for his writing class, so ‘narration’ for the series is Miles’ journal entries. Anyway, when Barbara’s cousin disappears, Spidey vows to find him, and teams up with The Rhino, whose niece is also missing. Eventually Capt America also shows up, and the three of them take out a mutant who can hypnotize kids and is selling them as power weapons to crime lords like Tombstone.
4 was a Ferris Bueller type one off where the Vice Principal has it in for the perpetually tardy Miles, and he and his classmates decide to play hooky to go see a hiphop exhibit at the museum.
5-6. While Miles is tracking down Tombstone to ask him about the kidnapped kid trafficking, he meets the winged vigilante granddaughter of the Vulture, calling herself Starling, who is there to kill Tombstone. They team up and take Lonnie down, and there’s a little smitten-ness going on.
7. Miles goes to confront his Uncle Aaron about some incriminating evidence he found in Tombstone’s safe. Aaron swears he’s retired from crime. Jeff and Rio tell Miles they’re having a baby. Then Miles gets grabbed by some robot thing…
8-9. Miles is being held by the Assessor and run thru batteries of tests for days. gauging his physical and mental stamina. Jeff goes to Aaron for help, who reluctantly suits up as the Prowler again and they go rescue Miles.
10. Oversized “250th” issue. While Miles celebrates his birthday(they cleverly keep it ambiguous by only having the ‘1’ on the cake and saying the other number fell off or the balloon got deflated, etc. Fun sliding timescale in joke from the writers) the Ultimate Green Goblin and a new villain called Ultimatum start making a play for control of Brooklyn’s criminal turf. Ultimatum, dressed up in a mash of Ultimates gear like Giant-Man, Cap’s shield, Iron Man’s boots etc is revealed to be the 616 version of Miles that got shunted into the 1610 Ultimate universe during a previous Spider-Men mini.
11-13. While tracking down the new mystery crimelord, Miles comes across his uncle about to assassinate a drug dealer. The price he paid to get his new Prowler suit in order to save Miles was to one job, no questions asked. After Miles talks him out of it, a city wide bounty is put on Prowler’s head. Spidey and Prowler have to make it all across Manhattan to NJ so he can negotiate getting the bounty rescinded. They make it, but the price is Prowler has to exclusively work for Ultimatum.
14-15. Miles’ little sister, Billie, is born. While he’s out fighting crime, Miles realizes he’s misplaced his journal! It ends up in the hands of the vice principal who dislikes him, but while he doesn’t outright say it, it is implied the teacher read it and understands why he’s always tardy. And being a fan of Spider-Man, he’ll be forgiving going forward. It was a nice plot twist.
16. Miles spends the afternoon babysitting his little sister.
17-18. Part of the ‘Outlawed’ mini event. After teen heroes are outlawed, a bunch of C.R.A.D.L.E. Agents show up at the school looking for ‘suspicious activity’. The rest of the students stand up to the fascist actions and are arrested. Until Capt America shows up and gives the agents what for. Meanwhile, Miles finds a copy of himself in his house and they fight. The clone defeats him and he wakes up in the Assessor’s chair again!
19-21. The final showdown between Ultimatum and Spider-Man. Ultimatum has been using Ult GG’s blood to make a drug he’s been distributing all over Brooklyn. The drug turns users into mindless goblinoids which he’s going to use as an army to consolidate his crime syndicate. With help from Cap, Starling, Bombshell, and Prowler, they stop him. And then Aaron sacrifices himself to blow himself, Ultimatum and Green Goblin thru a dimensional portal, presumably back to Earth 1610.
22. Miles hangs out with Starling on a patrol/date. At the end he takes off his mask to reveal his identity and she gives him a quick kiss.
23. King in Black crossover. Knull is on Earth. Miles fights a symbiote dragon, then he has to might a Knull-possessed Kamala Khan. He zaps her free of Knull’s control with his venom blast.
24. In the aftermath, Miles and Kamala hang out and catch up. When he gets home, the news is covered with a story of someone dressed as him kidnapping a scientist.


Ahmed did a good job keeping the pacing up. I flew thru two years worth of books in only a couple days. Now I can read the rest of the series that’s in the new boxes.

[Tom Foolery]

Finishing off Ahmed’s Miles Morales run.

MM:S-M 25-28. A Spider-Man impostor is kidnapping people and raiding labratories. After a brief showdown with Peter, Miles tracks the fake Spidey and finds out it’s THREE fake Spideys. They are clones of him made by the Assessor who escaped. When Spidey smashes their lab thinking they were attempting more clones, they tell him they were trying to find a cure for their decaying bodies. The leader, Selim, blames Miles and he goes to kill Rio at the hospital. Miles manages to convince one of the other clones, a mute shapeshifter called Shift, to help him. They reach the hospital only to find it was a decoy, and Selim has kidnapped Billie. The four Spiders confront each other on top of the Brooklyn bridge, where Miles and Shift convince the creepy spider-looking psychic clone, Mindspinner to abandon Selim as well. Angry, Selim tackles Mindspinner off the bridge and they both die in an explosion.

29. Miles and Ganke find Shift hiding in the sewers and work on rehabilitating him. Then Miles gets a kid he saved from bullies way back in like issue 3 or 4 to make him a new costume, since his got destroyed in the clone battle, and also because the clones were wearing it while they were destroying his rep.

30-32. Miles goes on a date with Starling that gets interrupted by Taskmaster. Miles thinks Tasky is after him, but really Starling is his target. Somebody has ordered her to be delivered by a certain time. Starling frees herself, and then she and Miles attack Tasky until he realizes he’s missed the delivery window, and thus nulled the contract. At which point he just stops fighting and leaves.

33-35. Part of some ongoing story in the main ASM series, The Beyond Corp delivers a cease and desist to Miles using the name Spider-Man. After he and Ganke do some sleuthing, Miles and Shift back track some tech to the Assessor’s new secret hq. They fight Quantum and the Asssessor, eventually defeating him by destroying the computer servers that control him. In the computer records, they find out his Uncle Aaron didn’t die in the explosion, so without telling his parents or letting anyone know they…

36-37…jump into the multiverse. They help a wild west Black Panther, briefly jump into Spider-Ham’s universe, and get chased by zombies, before shunting into a sort of ‘nexus’/rest stop where they find Ultimatum. They quickly beat him, and he tells them which portal Prowler went into, so they jump into…

38-41 …an alternate future where Selim defeated Miles on the bridge and built a dystopian future Brooklyn inaccessible to the outside world because of a protective shield. A resistance led by an elderly Ganke, and a now adult Billie grab Miles and Shift, thinking they work for Emperor Selim. Once they convince them they’re good guys they go to rescue an elderly Peter whose being held and used to keep Selim young. Then they find out Selim is using the Prowler to power the shield. Miles frees his Uncle and Ganke sacrifices himself to destroy Selim. Miles tells Billie who he really is before he, Shift, and Aaron return to their universe.

42. Ahmed wrapped up any lingering storylines in his final issue, including having Miles, Starling, and Rhino re-team up to defeat the bad guy from the very first arc who was stealing kids again.

Annual 1. As part of the Infinite Destinies event that was running thru several annuals that summer, Miles teams up with Amulet to defeat a really old wizard that cursed a bunch of objects with captured demon souls in them. Meh.

FCBD 2022 Spider-Man and Venom. A couple of stories that set up whatever was happening in Amazing and Venom at the time.

Overall, I enjoyed Saladin Ahmed’s run on Miles Morales:Spider-Man. The book restarted that December with a new writer and a new #1. I think it’s up to issue 18 or so. It’s somewhere later in this box, so hopefully I’ll get to it in the next week if I keep my reading pace up.

Up next, a bunch of Spidey minis that came out around the same time. I have this system where ongoings go in the box first, followed by minis. And whenever a new “era” of books starts, I’ll put all the new ongoings, followed by the minis etc. But with Spidey recently, it seems like his ongoing series that AREN’T Amazing are barely lasting longer than the minis, so it’s a big jumbled mess in this box. And book like S-M 2099 and Spider-Verse get put in after (verse comes after man in the alphabetical order) but again, there’s such a high turnover of titles, it starts to become meaningless.

[Tom Foolery]

Here’s a bunch of Spidey mini-series.

Non-Stop Spider-Man 1-5. Someone is distributing a new drug called A+ that makes you smarter for a brief time, but then it siphons your intelligence and kills you. Spidey reluctantly teams up with reporter Norah Winters to find out who is responsible. But they are thwarted by the luchador themed Zapata Bros who are somehow now genius level intellects thanks to receiving an infusion of the A+. The trail leads to Baron Zemo and his new enforcer Wülf who are trying to reinstate race purity. But Wülf has a secret agenda and double crosses Zemo and injects Spidey with A+, leaving them both on a remote island. In order to prevent himself from becoming a mindless veg, his body reverts to a savage spider-beast working on instinct and base fight or flight responses. Cliffhanger ending leading into…
Savage Spider-Man 1-5. Wülf and his cabal called the Immaculatum want to disperse a drug around the world that will kill anyone of slightly less than 99% racial purity(regardless of the race). Savage Spidey is forced to team up with Zemo to stop them, but then Zemo double crosses Spidey again and switches sides. Savage Spidey goes thru a second change and becomes a coldly clinical Spider-Man working on pure logic. He outwits the Immaculatum and saves humanity. These two series were fantastic!! Joe Kelly’s writing never let off the gas. And Chris Bachalo on the first series, and Gerardo Sandoval on the second series delivered non stop action artwork. Great stuff. Highest recommendation.

W.E.B. of Spider-Man 1-5. I can’t tell if this was supposed to be in main continuity, or movie continuity or what. Tony Stark has a team of young brilliant heroes including Moon Girl, Squirrel Girl, and Amadeus Cho working at Worldwide Engineering Brigade. Peter Parker is also invited, but it seems weird that Stark would put Peter on this team of children, because he’s more of a peer. But it’s also making a lot of references to stuff that’s mainstream 616 continuity. Anyway, the bad guy ends up being a digital download of Green Goblin’s old partner Mendel Stromm. It was a weak series written by some guy from Robot Chicken. Pass.

Symbiote Spider-Man:Crossroads 1-5. Peter Davis has been having a lot of success with these ‘retro continuity’ minis set during the time Peter was wearing the black suit before it became Venom. This is like the third or fourth one. An obscure d-list villain tries stealing a dormant Norn stone from a museum, and sets off an adventure involving Black Cat, Dr Strange, Queen Karnilla, the Hulk, and the Eternals. Lots of witty David banter and art by Greg Land. Pretty good.

Spider-Man:Life Story Annual 1. A oneshot set in the world where Peter lives out the 60 years in real time, but told from the viewpoint of J Jonah Jameson, who spends most of the story in prison after his failed attempts to get Scorpion and the Spider-Slayer to take out Spidey.

FCBD Spider-Man books from 2020, 2021, and 2023. Each one had a couple short stories for Spidey and Venom for whatever arc was happening that summer. I don’t know why the 2022 was in a different section earlier in the box.

Ben Reilly:Spider Man 1-5. Bwahahah! You know how they’re doing those ‘retro’ comics from earlier eras? Somebody thought one set during the Clone Fiasco when Ben was the “main” Spider-Man was warranted or wanted. Ha. I won’t even recap the story for you. Moving on.

Spider-Man 2099:Exodus Alpha, 1-5, Omega. There was a confusing 2099 event from a couple years ago where they reset/combined a bunch of divergent 2099 timelines and restarted the entire thing. This is the first story arc set after that reset. A hyper-rich cabal of industrialists led by a recently thawed Norman Osborn has crashed a dead Celestial into the earth and are going to reap the benefits of strip mining him/it. Miguel and a bunch of other new interpretations of 2099 heroes like Winter Soldier 2099, Valkyrie 2099, Moon Knight 2099, Black Widow 2099, X-Men 2099 etc team up to stop them. It was confusing, but Once I figured out this was a soft reboot, I sorta enjoyed all the new reinterpretations of classic characters. There are a couple more Spidey 2099 minis later in the box.

Spider-Punk 1-5. Hobie Brown is a guitar playing anarchist fighting totalitarian fascism in alt universe. Not my cup of tea I’m afraid.

Into the Spider-Verse 1-5. Setting up another upcoming Spider-Verse event, catching up with some old faves like Spider-Man’s Noir, India, Ham etc and also introducing some new ones like Night-Spider(Felicia Hardy as a Spider) and WebWeaver. As with all anthology series YMMV, but I thought the Peter Parkedcar who is secretly Spider-Mobile was hilariously dumb(in a good way) and one called Spinstress that was basically a Disney movie complete with singing and an animated art style that was sorta clever.

Next up, more Spider stuff. I’m about halfway thru the box.

[Tom Foolery]

Spider-Man. Dan Slott and Mark Bagley returned for an ongoing that only lasted 11 issues. It picked up the Legacy numbering of the McFarlane series. So issue 1 thru 11 are 157-167.

1-7. The End of the Spider-Verse. Picking up from stories seeded thru the Edge of Spiderverse mini immediately preceding it, Queen Shathra has returned and has been stinging Spider-people and turning them into her minions, or stabbing them with the Totem Dagger and severing them from the web of destiny and thus erasing them from having ever existed. Julia Carpenter has been recruiting a team to stop her. When Shathra makes her move against 616 Peter(who is working with Norman Osborn at Oscorp! I need to catch up on the main title), Julia sends her secret weapon to help; Morlun! Morlun has consumed so many Spiders that the web recognizes him as one. Combined with the fact that Shathra turned the Aunt May Spider Ma’am who was watching over the infant Inheritors on Loomworld at the end of SpiderGeddon and she ATE THEM, Morlun is now the last Inheritor and seeking revenge. The heroes are protecting Peter when Noir shows up and double crosses them by stabbing Jessica Drew wit the Totem Dagger and erasing her from existence. The few remaining heroes are on the run and are getting picked off one by one since the wasps are part of a hive mind and they know all the heroes plans once one of them gets changed. Then Peter gets stabbed and erased! But erasing him as Spidey just means he lived as regular Peter Parker and went on to become Cindy Moon’s “guy in the chair” since she still got bit by the spider and became the 616’s main Spider Hero. A plan to stab Shathra with the Dagger doesn’t work, but Morlun accidentally does get stabbed, which releases EVERY Spider he’s ever consumed. Now with an army of alt universe Spiders, the heroes manage to revert all the co-opted spiders back and defeat Shathra. Then they bring back Jessica. And also Kaine(who had also been stabbed, but everybody forgot him, see? Clever) and finally…Spider-Boy, who nobody remembers. Finally, the non-Spider version of Peter gets returned into the one and only Amazing Spider-Man!!! Slott had a lot of fun tying up his Spider-Verse trilogy. Fun read.

8-10. Using some left over Spiders from Man of Spiders(he and the Norman Osborn Spider-Man sacrificed themselves during the previous arc) Peter and Norman try to boost his Spider-Sense. It works for awhile and Peter is swinging around NYC saving tons of people, until he gets electrocuted and it overloads his sense so he feels EVERYBODY’s danger. Spider-Boy has to convince Norman to find a cure before Peter gets overwhelmed and is almost defeated by Electro.

11. The secret untold origin of Spider-Boy as he explains to Peter how he’s been his sidekick for years before he got erased. The books ended because it was replaced with the ongoing Spider-Boy series, as well as a new ongoing Superior Spidey series.

Annual 1. Part of the Contest of Chaos annual story. This one has Spidey and Wolverine fighting over a whatchamahoozit in an Incan temple.

Next up, Miles current ongoing series.

[Tom Foolery]

Miles Morales:Spider-Man, the current ongoing Miles series. Writer Cody Ziglar took over from Saladin Ahmed as writer. The only thing I remember him writing is that Spider-Punk mini I just finished and was not impressed with. Joining him on art is Federico Vicentini who has a dynamic fluid art style I’m kinda diggin’. Anyway,

1-5. Ziglar kicks things off with the usual; Miles having a tough time juggling school, his GF, and his crime fighting. Then he introduces a new nemesis for Miles called Rabble. She’s a technopath who can control machines telepathically and is an engineering genius who is selling tech upgrades to various Spidey rogues like Scorpion. She also knows Miles’ secret identity and is attacking his friends(Starling and Ganke) and family(culminating with the blowing up of his family’s townhouse). Her “reason” for being his arch-nemesis is bafflingly stupid. She was one of the lottery winners that did NOT get picked to go Brooklyn Academy. That’s it. That’s her motivation. And as you’ll see, Ziglar is setting her up to be Mile’s Norman Osborn. Dumb. Also, Miles has sorta become Misty Knight’s protoge to learn how to be a better detective while fighting crime.

6-7 were part of a crossover with Carnage and Red Goblin called Carnage Reigns. Cletus Kassady is no longer bonded to Carnage. Instead, he’s got a new symbiote that’s bonded with StarkTech(?). Miles is also running afoul of Agent Gao and her squad of ‘cape-killers’ who are enforcing the anti-vigilante laws that I thing were enacted before or during Devil’s Reign. Her team has Taskmaster, Scorpion, Electro, and a new super speedster called Hightail.

8-9. Miles and Starling are on a date that gets interrupted by the return of Hobgoblin, who is trying to break into the now-closed Beyond Corp( a lot happened in the main Amazing book that I won’t get to for awhile) to retrieve something. Foreshadows the upcoming Gang War event.

10-12. Miles tussles with Hightail while on patrol, then later he bumps into guest stars Blade and Bloodline. They are chasing a vampire lord from Atlanta. When he possesses Hightail, Spider-Man has to stop her without killing her and defeating the vampire so Blade can trap it’s soul in a totem or something.

Giant Size Spider-Man oneshot. Miles and Misty are tracking myterious new tech and team-up with Venom to stop some no name thugs using it. When their methods start to diverge(Venom wants to kill them) Miles and Misty have to throw down with Venom. The tech is revealed to be the work of Rabble, who is working with Hobgoblin before Gang War breaks out.

13-16. Gang War! While the main storyline is happening over in Amazing, Miles and his allies are focused on getting Hobgoblin and his crew out of Brooklyn. Shifting alliances between Gao’s cape-killers, Prowler acting as a secret double agent infiltrating Hobgoblin’s crew, and the return of Ms. Marvel lead up to a final battle where Rabble once again is focused on destroying Miles. She betrays Hobby and he’s defeated, but Rabble gets away.

17-18. After Gang War, the anti-vigilante law is repealed. But Gao has it in for Spidey, so she makes an alliance with Rabble, who upgrades the cape-killers tech for one last go at Spider-Man. His allies show up to help him in the giant 18th issue(the 300 Legacy issue). Rabble betrays the cape-killers by taking over their suits and end up killing(?) Miles’ clone brother Shift. Leading into next month’s conclusion; a showdown between Rabble and a very angry Miles.

Web of Spider-Man oneshot. An oversized issue that just came out a couple weeks ago with like a dozen stingers that set up storylines across the Spider-books for the rest of the year.

Spectacular Spider-Men 1. A new ongoing that features BOTH Spider-Men teaming up. Written by Greg Weisman, the guy that created Gargoyles, and art by Humberto Ramos. The first issue had some pretty funny quips and some deep continuity references(anybody remember Flash Thompson’s old girlfriend Sha Shan? Yeah. That’s obscure.) Only one issue, but so far, so good.


Next up, a bunch more recent Spidey minis, and Spider-Woman’s last two ongoings.

[Tom Foolery]

Here’s a bunch of Spider-Man minis, oneshots, and a new ongoing(?) that I thought was a mini.

Deadly Neighborhood Spider-Man 1-5. Peter is in LA(for no reason) working on new tech(that’s not really in his field) with a random new scientist chick, and he accidentally enters the dreamworld to do battle with a Demon Bear and has to reconcile his inner demons or whatever to stop the Bear from wreaking havoc on the entire real world. Written by one of the BlackEyedPeas, they just came up with a random Spider-Man adjective and slapped it on a random miniseries. Bleah.

Spider-Man:The Lost Hunt 1-5. As a companion piece to that retro-series when Ben was the main Spider-Man, this series follows powerless Peter and MJ after they moved to Oregon. Gregor, the disciple of the original Kraven and the mentor to Kraven’s son, the Grim Hunter, comes knocking looking for revenge. Featuring the never before told and completely unnecessary super secret origin of Kraven the Hunter. Oye, can we leave this era alone? Please?

Spider-Man India 1-5. Since he was featured in the Spider-Verse movie, Pavitr Prabhakar gets a sequel mini series twenty years after the first one came out. A rich corporate shmuck wants Spidey’s slum neighborhood evacuated so they can raze it and put up luxury condos or whatever. As such, he starts using an army of paid influencers to flood social media with anti-Spidey tweets. There’s also the Indian version of Curt Connors who is transformed into the Lizard and ends up being in cahoots with the rich douchebag. Fairly straightforward story, but Spidey gets a lot of good quips in. I liked it.

Uncanny Spider-Man 1-5. Kurt Wagner is hiding out after the Hellfire Gala massacre, posing as just another Spider-Man in NYC. Orchis has hired the Vulture to apprehend him and he farms out the task to Silver Sable’s Wild Pack. She immediately gets damp panties after meeting Kurt and they start banging on rooftops. When Kirt discovers Vulture is using the imprisoned Warlock to create technarch infused hounds out of captured mutants, he realizes he needs to get back in the game of saving the mutant race. He also finds out his true parentage, as the X-Men Origins:Blue oneshot came out during this mini.

Symbiote Spider-Man 2099 1-2. Peter David returns to 2099 with a new series. It reads like it’s set after the conclusion of the original ongoing from the 90’s and NOT in the rebooted new continuity. Venom 2099 shows up trying to kill Kron Stone, and Miguel, who is now in charge of Alchemax, gets infused with a new symbiote to stop him.

Spider-Punk:Arms Race 1-2. A sequel to the last Spider-Punk mini. Breezed thru the issues just to get them out of the way. Could not get into it.

Spider-Man 2 freebie. A Gamerverse oneshot giveaway that was promoting the new video game. Peter and Miles team up to fight the Gamerverse version of The Hood. Eh, not bad. Probably makes more sense if I spent $500 on a PS5 and $100 on the new game. I’m good.

Spider-Man:Unforgiven oneshot. First part of a trilogy of oneshots where Spidey teams up with an obscure team of “good” vampires. I had already read the second part in an X-Men oneshot. Not interested.

Superior Spider-Man Returns oneshot. For the tenth anniversary of Doc Ock being Spidey, we get an untold tale when Otto hired an assistant, as Spider-Man to help him complete his original unfinished experiment. He accidentally turns her into a living sun, then traps her in a specially designed cell and forgets about her. In the present day, Otto returns to the lab, having no memory of his time as Spidey, and accidentally releases her. But she thinks her nemesis is Spider-Man, which led into…

Superior Spider-Man 1-5. A current ongoing(I think) where Supernova is gunning for Peter, not knowing it was Otto. She kidnaps Ana Maria Marconi, and Peter is forced to team up with Otto to try and rescue her and stop Supernova. Dan Slott is writing both this and the Spider-Boy ongoing as they spun out of his short Spider-Man ongoing that only ran 11 issues.

Up next, some more Spidey minis, including mostly Spidey 2099 and the Edge of Spider-Verse, as well as Spider-Woman. The box is almost finished.

[Tom Foolery]

The last of the Spidey box.

Spine-Tingling Spider-Man 0. An infinite digital comic they released a few years ago, gets a hardcopy release. Peter keeps hearing a creepy song in his head(which they provided a QR code, so you could also hear the creepy song) and has to stop the entity that’s possessing people’s dreams and killing them. Suitably creepy.

Spine-Tingling Spider-Man 1-4. The oneshot proved popular, they did a sequel mini where Peter wakes up and nobody recognizes him; his landlord, Aunt May, MJ etc. He’s also lost his powers etc. The entire thing turns out to be a giant hoax perpetrated by the Jackal using a brain-hijacked Mysterio and Spidercide, the third Jackal clone. Started out creepy, finished okay.

Spider-Man:Shadow of the Green Goblin 1. A new miniseries retconned about a month after Uncle Ben died and Peter started being serious about fighting crime. Retcons Gwen, Harry, and Norman way earlier than when they originally met Peter.

Edge of Spider-Verse 1-4 and Edge of Spider-Verse 1-3. Two minis, one from last year, and the other currently coming out that showcase various Spiders from throughout the Spider-Verse. Some are new characters, some are characters being revisited. I think they are setting up another team book(remember Web Warriors?) with Miguel running a squad of dimension hoppers(y’know like in the movies) YMMV.

Spider-Man 2099:Dark Genesis 1-5. Some rich Alchemax asshole was holding onto the Carnage symbiote. It breaks free and possesses the guy’s corpse and uses it to start a cult. Spidey, and a bunch of other 2099 heroes like Moon Knight, Daredevil, Spider-Woman, Punisher, and Venom have to team up to destroy the symbiote and all the zombies it’s creating.

Miguel O’Hara:Spider-Man 2099 1-5. Stand alone issues that introduce 2099 versions of Marvel’s monsters like Werewolf by Night, Man-Thing, and the Zombie, as well as the original versions of Dracula and Terror, Inc who are still operating in 2099. Issue 3 was the 100th Legacy issue of S-M2099. Some of the updates were pretty clever. The final issue teased some big 2099 event coming later this summer.

Spider-Woman 11-12. After returning from space with the High-Evolutionary’s cure for her niece, Jess tries to get back to a normal life. But her need to fight crime interferes with her relationship with her boyfriend Roger and he breaks up with her.

13-16. When villains break into her apartment looking for the HE’s source code, Jess chases them across NYC, fighting several super villains like Bruiser, and Lady Bullseye along the way. It turns out they were working for her shitty ass brother, the pharmaceutical CEO who tried to reverse-engineer HIS copy of the HE cure and ended up destroying it rather than giving it to his daughter like HE wanted. Jess teams up with her bestie Lindsay McCabe and also her niece, whos running around in another Spidey-themed costume, to defeat the brother and his gf/assistant.

17. Lindsay invites Jess toma movie set where she’s working as a stuntwoman to meet the pretentious overbearing star of the film. They get attacked by irish ninjas who Lindsay stole money from, but make short work of them.

18-19. Part of the Devil’s Reign event. Kingpin has Lindsay kidnapped and sends the worst person to go kidnap Jess’ son Gerry. Thought dead, it’s Veranke, the Skrull Queen who posed as Jess for years coming back to destroy her. Probably the best holy shit moment of the entire series. With Carol Danver’s help, Jess defeats Veranke and rescues her family.

20-21. Writer Karla Pacheco wrapped up the series by jokingly having almost every villain Jess had come across during the previous 20 issues team up to take her down. The series wrapped up in 2022 and Spider-Woman wouldn’t get another ongoing until this year…

Spider-Woman 1-4. Part of the Gang War crossover, but also spinning out of the Spider-Verse event. Jess got erased from existence and was brought back, but it seems like her son was erased and only she remembers him. As she searches for proof of him, she goes up against Diamondback, who is being backed by Hydra in the turf war going on in Amazing Spider-Man. Hydra’s new super-powered thug, the Green Mamba, turns out to be her toddler son Gerry, artificially aged by Hydra science and bearing a grudge against his mother for ‘abandoning’ him. Green Mamba double crosses Diamondback and manages to escape. Pretty dark stuff, yo.

5-6. Spider-Woman teams up with Spider-Boy to defeat Screwball. Then she decides to take a road trip and move to San Francisco, to help clear her head about finding her missing son(Lol wft??) and gets into a fight with Star(Capt Marvel’s newish villain) aboard a train. Are you kidding me? Her son got artificially aged and now he hates her and she’s like ‘damn, i need a vacation…’ Fucking stupid. Anyway, issue 6 literally came out on Wednesday, so I’m all caught up with the series.

And that’s the box! The next box starts with Nightwing and goes thru She Hulk, Silk, and Silver Surfer.

[Tom Foolery]

Hmm…I guess the next box started with New Mutants.

NM 17-24. Several of the younger mutants on Krakoa have grown disenfranchised because they want to be resurrected in non-grotesque bodies like they had before their powers emerged, and the Quiet Council has refused. As such, they have fallen under the influence of Amahl Farouk, the Shadow King and he’s teaching them to transfer their minds into other organisms like flowers. He also makes a case to Dani and Xian that Krakoa is making mutants soft and they won’t be prepared when Humans and Orchis come to wipe them out. When Gabby Kinney finds out the ‘Lost Kids’ want to try transference on dead bodies in the boneyard, she’s conflicted about it and goes to confront Farouk…and winds up murdered! Since she’s a clone of a clone, she is also not qualified for the resurrection protocols, but the Five take their case to the Council and they lift the ban on clones being resurrected. Eventually, the Lost Kids and the og New Mutants confront Amahl in his psychic realm and defeat the Shadow King persona, leaving just Amahl who apologizes and decides to leave for Arrako. The Council finally comes around and the young mutants No-Girl finally gets a proper body and renames herself Cerebella.

25-28. Once the clone ban is lifted, Madelyn Pryor is resurrected and Magik decides she is going to cede her rule of Limbo over to Pryor. Her friends Dani, and Rahne are skeptical of the transfer of power because of Pryor’s history, but they go along. Once they are Limbo, Sy’m attacks and destroys Ilyana’s Soulsword so she can’t teleport them out of Limbo. Magik, along with Dani, Rahne, Pryor, and Colossus, have to team up with her younger self and older version of herself, to defeat Sy’m and an alternate timeline version of herself(Limbo’s timeline is weird but not unprecedented) so she can purge her childhood trauma and complete the ritual. Madelyn Pryor becomes the new Queen of Limbo.

29 was a one off where Warpath and Daken bond over sibling trauma. Warpath is dealing with his brother finally getting resurrected, and Daken is worried about Gabby.

30 writer Vita Ayala ended her run with a giant sized issue celebration of the 40th anniversary of the original New Mutants OGN release. It was a bunch of short vignettes from past runs framed by a pool party Roberto is throwing on Mars.

31-33. New writer Charlie Jane Anders came aboard and focused on a completely new character that was introduced in a Marvel Voices oneshot. Escapade is trying to avoid a future shown to her by Destiny and the White Queen where her best friend dies because of her powers. When the U-Men and John Sublime resurface and try to reaquire Martha Johannson aka No-Girl aka Cerebellum, a new team rescues her, but it leads to the exact scenario Escapade was trying to avoid. She changes the future by sacrificing herself to save her friend, but her new teammates intervene and save her also. The series ended, but was immediately followed by…

New Mutants:Lethal Legion 1-5. Basically issues 34-39, but relaunched due to lackluster sales I imagine. A romance is starting to bloom between Escapade and Cerebella in her brand new body, and they decide the best way to process these complicated feelings is to rob some rich guy. Unfortunately, the guy they pick is Count Nefaria. For some convoluted reason, Escapade and Gabby go undercover as “villains” being recruited by Nefaria for a new Lethal Legion and Cerebella sneaks into his fortified basement to recover a macguffin. When things go sideways, Dani, Rahne, and Xian join the others to stop Nefaria and his Legion from using some secret Inhuman weapon he has to destroy a convention center. In the end, they defeat him and Escapade and Cerebella become a couple. In the afterward, the writer thanks everyone for following Escapade’s introduction into the Marvel U and that is the first time, in the entire eight issues, that I found she was Trans. It was more of a ‘huh.’ moment than anything else, as it it didn’t impede or improve the story one way or the other, but one shouldn’t assume a reader dropped $10 on the Voices issue where I would guess they introduced her as a Trans superhero, but then never mention that again for the rest of her story arc in an entirely different comic. Anyway…

I liked that while the other X-books were focusing on external threats and basic bitch superhero antics, this series, at least that first arc, was delving into the moral inconsistencies thru the eyes of the younger mutants that exist on this supposed mutant utopia. The cracks were showing from the beginning. The Fall was inevitable, mostly because the people picked to lead are all shitty.

Next up is Nightwing.

[Tom Foolery]

Nightwing. I had already read a few issues of Tom Taylor’s run, and I’m still missing a few issues of it towards the beginning, but I’m starting with his first issue. I also have multiple copies of several issues, because I found both the main and Variant covers in back issue bins and, not knowing which issues I was sure I had and which I didn’t, bought both. Until issue 94 when I just started buying it each week.

Nightwing 78-80. After Alfred died, he left Dick all his money in his will, and it turns out he was a billionaire. Dick decides he wants to use it help the homeless people and children of Blüdhaven. When a new serial killer called Heartless shows up, Dick gets accused of murder. Blockbuster tightens his grip on the city by killing the mayor and promoting the asst mayor, the daughter of Anthony Zucco.

I’m missing 81 where NW confronts Heartless the first time.

82. Melinda Zucco reveals she’s actually Dick’s half sister, being the daughter of John Grayson and her mother, who was Zucco’s mistress and ran away for a brief time. But this was before John and Mary were a couple, so Dick’s father wasn’t a cad. Whew. Anyway, Melinda is secretly trying to bring down Blockbuster’s criminal empire from within and becomes her brother’s ally on the inside.

83. NW has a tussle with Blockbuster and his corrupt Blüdhaven police force outside the mayor’s house. After he recovers, and after seeking advice from his family and friends, Dick announces his new philanthropic endeavor, the Alfred Pennyworth Foundation.

84-86 were Fear State tie-ins. I only have issue 86, but this arc mostly served to set up the new Batgirls ongoing for Steph and Cassie.

Missing 87. 88 I already had and read before, where Blockbuster tries assassinating Dick at the opening of Haven, his new homeless shelter/rec center and the Titans all show up.

89 was a team up crossover with Jonathan Kent that concluded in an issue of Superman.

90-91. Flash/Wally guest starred for a couple issues. When Blockbuster hires a super secret assassin guild to blow up Dick’s apartment building with everyone in it, he and Wally go on the offensive and find their secret hq in South America and shut it down.

92-96. Blockbuster escalates his attack on controlling Blüdhaven. A bunch of thugs sent to burn down Haven turn out to be corrupt cops, which leads to the police chief ousted. He has a spreadsheet document he was using as leverage against Blockbuster that falls into the heroes hands after the chief is killed in the interrogation room. Blockbuster figures out Melinda Zucco is the mole. NW rescues his sister, while his Bat family and Titans allies strike at all Blockbusters criminal empire in one night, shutting it down. Blockbuster and NW have one final showdown, and BB escapes, only to be killed by Heartless, after BB had refused his earlier offer to team up and had thrown Heartless out a window.

97-98. While protecting Blockbuster’s top lieutenant Boss Maroni on a prisoner transfer, Dick and Barbara wind up in a safehouse, where Dick’s former alias Ric shows up in his cab. It turns out to be Dick’s very own 5th Dimension Imp Nite-Mite, who needs NW’s help to rescue the daughter of Blockbuster after her dad sold her soul to Neron, king of the underworld.

99. Tony Zucco returns to town and tries to rob a secret bank that’s older than the city of Blüdhaven itself, set up on an ancient ship called The Hold on a secret cavern under the city. After NW successfully stops the robbery, the ‘manager’ of the bank called the Harbormaster, tells NW he has a box that somebody set up for him in the Hold. Ooh! Mystery!

100 A double sized issue. Heartless breaks into Blüdhaven prison to break out Zucco, and releases all the inmates in a bid to take over the city. NW and the Titans stop them. Then Dick buys the prison and tears it down and builds a new Titans Tower.

101-104. When Neron comes again for Blockbuster’s daughter, NW and the Titans take her to Themyscira to keep her safe, then stage a heist in hell to get the original contract. Then Dick legally outmaneuvers Neron by filing paperwork to be her legal guardian.

105. Was a fun one off that was entirely first person view from NWs pov. A couple of villains steal a drug from a pharmaceutical company to help stop an epidemic in a small European country that can’t afford the company’s exorbitant prices. NW and Batgirl end up helping them. Then we discover the CEO of the company is secretly Heartless. And he’s also the bully Dick beat up in a flashback way back in the first issue 78!

106-109. Dick goes to retrieve his mysterious box from The Hold and gets caught up in a power play between pirates over control of the secret pirate empire just off the coast of Blüdhaven. His ex-gf from when he was amnesiac is also the adopted daughter of the Harbormaster, and her brother is trying to usurp her rightful claim to The Hold. After they stop the brother, Dick opens the box and finds video proof that Zucco cut his parents ropes.

110. Was a Beast World tie-in where Damian gets turned into a kitten monster fighting in an underground animal fight club, and Jon and Dick have to rescue him and shut it down.

111-112. When a young boy’s father is killed by Heartless, NW and Batman team up to solve the case. But it turns out it was a copycat killer because the boy was heir to a telecommunications empire and his uncle wanted the boy’s parents out of the picture so he could get the kid’s inheritance.

113. The most current issue was also the 300th Legacy issue. Dick and Babs receive the Key to the City for all their work with Haven and the Pennyworth foundation. And then they all celebrate Dick’s birthday at a local pizza joint called George and Marv’s. Marv is an obvious homage to Marv Wolfman, and the pizza owner gives a hefty 2 page monologue to Dick about why he’s so great that was actually written by Wolfman. Pretty cool.

Annual 2022. The secret origin of Heartless told thru the eyes of his evil butler, who’s sort of an anti-Alfred. The kid was catatonic until he witnessed the deaths of the Graysons and snapped out of his stupor to become a psychopath. Who was then enabled by his butler. When the double murder of his parents backfires, the kid is forced to get an emergency heart transplant from his father, and now needs new hearts to keep himself alive.

This series has been great. The snappy patter between Dick and Babs and all the other Bat-siblings, and NW not being afraid to rely on his friends in the Titans. He’s Batman without all the dour baggage. An upbeat positive vigilante. The villains are compelling and even when the stories dipped into goofy, like Nite-Bite it didn’t feel out of place. Loving it. High recommended.

Next up O-P. I feel like there’s not a lot there. I already read Punisher. After that there’s a lot of “Red” titles. Hood, Sonja, Goblin, etc.

[anarky]

Okay, I have to ask: does it explain how Alfred is a billionaire? I'm assuming it had to be after the Waynes were murdered, or even he would've retired.

[Tom Foolery]

Okay, I have to ask: does it explain how Alfred is a billionaire? I'm assuming it had to be after the Waynes were murdered, or even he would've retired.

He was Bruce’s legal guardian. And he invested wisely.

[Tom Foolery]

I’ll get back to our regularly scheduled recapping soon enough, but today I bought issue 8 of Daredevil, which was also Legacy issue 670. The main cover was a mediocre JRJr cover(which I bought) but they also had variants by J Scott Campbell and one by Frank Miller. It was $10 because it’s the 60th anniversary of Daredevil.
But the reason I’m bringing it up is because inside they had one of those cover montages that take up several pages of every single DD cover so far. EXCEPT…they screwed up. It only went up to issue 120/500 of the Brubaker run which ended in 2009. Which means, neither of Mark Waid’s runs, none of Soule’s run, neither of Zdarsky’s runs, and none of the current run. It’s missing 170 covers. Ouch. I’m gonna keep an eye on the message boards to see who else noticed.