So, What comics did you buy this week?

[Tom Foolery]

The second half of this(last) week’s books.

Action Comics 1069. Technically from a few weeks ago. Gail Simone’s final issue before Waid took over. Set in the early days of Superman’s tenure, he’s fighting in some sort of interstellar cage match with the entire planet watching.

Action Comics 1072. Still weekly. Mon-El explains how he’s posing as the pirate capt Xa-Du in the Phantom Zone to investigate a divine creature called Aethyr that has turned the Zone into his personal penitentiary.

Superman 19. All In. Lois Lane has powers now and is running around as Superwoman. She and Superman face off against Doomsday. And the Time Trapper from the future shows up and reveals that HE is Doomsday from the very very far future, and he needs Superman’s help!

Conquest 2099 2. Miguel and Logan are fighting until Spider-Woman 2099 tells them to knock it off. Then the three of them, along with Phoenix and Cyclops 2099 head into space to deal with the war between the Araneons and Dracula’s vampires. Dracula’s hordes are overrunning the Araneons, and then Silver Surfer 2099 shows up.

Venom War: Carnage 3. Carnage decides he’s not a fan of Meridius’ plan and they fight. Then Cletus decides he’s had enough of Carnage’s grand plans for conquest and separates himself from the symbiote.

Venom War:Lethal Protectors 2. Sable and her team of Wild Pack, each augmented by one of the original Life Foundation syms, open the cannister they were transporting to find Shriek inside. After they escape a horde of zombieotes, they go hole up on Dominic Fortune’s river boat.

Venom:Venomous 3. Black Widow and Liz Allan are fighting zombiote hordes in Alchemax’s HQ. Liz uses her symbiote’s anti-venom to replace all the foam in the building’s fire suppression system to kill all the syms inside, but Black Widow’s Sliver sym is also a casualty.

Void Rivals 13. Pythona of Cobra-La makes a gratuitous cameo. Bunkle descends into the heart of the planet, and Flistle confronts his father.

Werewolf by Night 3. Jack decides the safest place for him to hang out is the Savage Land. When he gets there, he gets into a fight with Ka-Zar. And back in Transylvania, the necromancers make a move against the Hood and he sics his new Werewolf clone on them.

Wonder Woman 13. The issue I missed from last month. Absolute Power tie-in. Damian and Diana find the secret prison where they’re keeping all the heroes locked up and free everyone. Diana and Steve Trevor smooch and Damian thinks thats gross.

X-Factor 3. The team gets sent to the moon to ‘protect’ a billionaire tech CEO’s secret research base, only to find out that the guy’s AI got out of control and they’re actually there to destroy it. Plus, they’re not allowed to talk about what an asshat the guy is, because they all singed NDAs.

X-Men 6. While a bunch of protestors are outside the X-Men’s new base, Idie notices one of them throw the secret ‘M’ sign so she gets Magik to go and try to recruit the young mutant.

Zatanna:Bring Down The House 5. The series concludes with Zatanna embracing her new magic abilities, and getting recruited by the JLA. Meh.

And also Task Force Z 4, 6, 8, 11. From the garage sale last month. Two-Face and Red Hood are running a Suicide Squad team of zombies resurrected from dead supervillians. There’s lots of double crossing and no clear cut motivation for the team to exist. The entire series is a hot mess.

I’m slowly working thru the rest of the Hulk stuff, but the next batch will probably be tomorrow’s books.

[Tom Foolery]

It was a five-week month, and the DC stuff didn’t show up yesterday, so it was a super small week(for me anyway). Barely spent $50.
Here’s what I got.

Amazing Spidey 60. Zeb Wells finishes up his run on the book.
Captain America 14.
Chasm:Curse of Kaine 3.
Deadpool Team Up 3.

Phases of the Moon Knight 3. This series was supposed to be different historical iterations of the Moon Knight. At least that’s how it was pitched in the solicits. But this issue had some anime variant, and a future alt universe MK. So this has just become the Moon Knight equivalent of the Spider-verse and Venomverse books. The Moon-iverse? At least Chris Giarrusso’s Mini Marvels back up story was pretty funny.

Namor 4. Namor heads deep in the depths of the ocean to face the Beast King, lord of the coral and seaweed monsters. Then, to try and broker peace, Namor confronts Orca, who’s running an undersea whaling operation out of a submerged, refurbished helicarrier.

NyX 4. Kamala figures out the Krakoan is secretly Hellion and goes to confront him in Times Square. After Hellion beats her down, Prodigy has to step in to defeat him, but at the cost of revealing his identity and losing his sweet new teaching gig at the University.

Sonic the Hedgehog 74. Didn’t read it.
SW:Battle of Jakku 3. Didn’t read it.

Venom War:Zombiotes 3. She Hulk uses her sonic hand clap to clear the syms off their allies, Hellcat and the rest of the Deadly Foes. Boomerang is ressurected and he has an emotional reunion with his bff Shocker. Then everybody heads back out in the city to fight Zombiotes.

Venom War:Fantastic Four oneshot. Kang and Doom have carefully constructed a power play decades and centuries in the making between the Red Goblin and Flexo to turn the tide of the Venom War in their respective favors. But Kang tried using a time traveling FF as a proxy, and after Reed realizes he and the FF are stuck in an infinite time loop, he uses all the extra infinite time to outwit both Kang and Doom. It ultimately amounts to nothing, but Adam Warren had fun concocting an incredibly complex time caper.

Wolverine:Revenge 3. After killing Mastermind and Sabretooth last issue, Logan tracks down Omega Red and breaks his neck, pushes Wade into a nuclear reactor, and finds Colossus and finishes him off with three blades thru his head. But wait, Logan’s killed everyone he was getting revenge on and there’s still two issues to go. What gives?

I also read the Wastelanders oneshots from the garage sale I found. Black Widow, Doom, Star-Lord, and Wolverine all got stories set in the Old Man Logan Wasteland universe. From what I remember, these were all based on podcasts with voice actors and whatnot, that got adapted into comics later on. They were decent. Not sure Wolverine needed another one, but whatever.

It’s a good thing it was a small week and I got the reading finished already, because I got a project to work on this weekend that’s been almost thirty years in the making. More on that later…super excited.

[Tom Foolery]

The rest of the Hulk stuff.

Planet Hulk:Worldbreaker 1-5. Greg Pak did a ‘sequel’ to his Planet Hulk run. It’s 1000 years from now. Bruce, Amadeus, and Jen have all taken up residence on Sakarr and lived there for centuries. Bruce has isolated himself away from everyone. Jen has sacrificed herself to becoming a gamma battery to keep a floating sanctuary city alive. And Cho is living with the regrets of poor choices that have done more harm than good. When one of Cho’s grandchildren shows up looking for help against the High Priestess kidnapping gamma children, she gets Cho to recruit Jen and Bruce to come back and set things right. Meh. I read it last week and I already can’t remember how it concluded.

Joe Fixit 1-5. Peter David came back for a retro-series set during Grey Hulk’s tenure in Sin City. Peter Parker is in town promoting his photobook, and crosses paths with Joe amd his boss, Michael Berengetti. When Kingpin shows up trying to muscle Berengetti out of town, Spidey and Hulk team up to stop him. Then he uses some kind of juju to brainwash Joe into working for him. Spidey has to fight Hulk and also the super powered muscle Kingpin brought into town, like Rhino and Electro. Then Count Nefaria shows up with his own super villains to protect the Maggia’s interests in Vegas. Fun stuff.

Incredible Hulk 1. Philip Kennedy Johnson starts his run on the series, following up Cates and Ottley’s run. A new Hulk identity called the Fractured Son is pissed at Banner using him as the ‘engine’ during the previous series and is actively trying to eliminate Banner from their mind. Meanwhile, after the events of Al Ewing’s fantastic run, the Green Door has been shut, and an ancient eldritch creature calling herself The Eldest is trying to free/resurrect the original monster, the Mother of Horrors. But they need the Hulk’s body to do so, so the Eldest calls upon the world’s monsters for one purpose. Find the Hulk. Banner(and the Hulk) are doing the wandering across the country againd, and find a new sidekick; a young teenage girl named Charlie who has run away from an abusive home, and is now wanted for questioning in her father’s death.

2-3. The first monster Banner and Charlie come across is Udru, aka Brother Deep and the devoted followers of his undead church.

4-5. Next up, Sally Barstow, the Swamp Witch lures victims into her swamp with visions of loved ones. Man-Thing pulls Hulk into his psyche to warn him of the Eldest’s plans.

6-8. The third monster is Jinni Dagaal, the War Devil who posseses soldiers come home from war. When he attacks a family of migrant farmers, a Ghost Rider from WWII named Sal who is protective of a young migrant boy, fights and then teams up with Hulk to stop the War Devil.

9-11. The fourth monster is Nephele aka Frozen Charlotte. Once the queen of Lucifer, the banished Nephele haunts New Orleans, taking in innocent young girls to “protect” them by turning them into porcelain dolls. Hulk defeats her, but not nefore Charlie is transformed and trapped in a doll!

12-13. Seeking a way to undo the spell, Banner/Hulk goes to Brother Voodoo at the Strange Academy for help. He sends them into a Soul Cage where eldritch creatures have their souls trapped. The cage splits Banner and Hulk into separate souls who have to work together. They confront Sumanguru, the flesh-weaver. But he tells them he can only create a body, but can’t reattach the soul trapped in the doll to it. He says theres a special hidden shrine under Las Vegas that can give them what they need.

14. Banner and Hulk arrive in Vegas. Betty Ross, aka the Harpy is now an agent of the Eldest. She invades Banner’s psyche and tells him the shrine will turn Charlie into a monster. The only way to bring her back safely is if Banner agrees to give up the Hulk’s body to the Eldest’s people. Banner has to choose. Hulk or Charlie.

15-16. The Eldest recounts a confrontstion between her and Enkidu(the ancient Hulk from Ewing’s run) that led to her original death and entrapment in Egypt.

17-18. When the Hulk finally confronts the Eldest, Banner betrays him so that Charlie can be set free. They mystically bind the Hulk and are keeping Charlie locked in a room. But another woman who was reluctantly turned into a monster helps her escape. Sets up the next issue which is Legacy issue 900.

Giant Sized Hulk oneshot. Set during Banner’s trip to Vegas. Banner is train hopping with some transient minors. They are confronted by Patchwork Jack, a monster who takes body parts as tolls for traveling on his trains. Hulk fucks him up. And a back up reprint of Hulk 372, right before Hulk joined the Pantheon and became Prof. Hulk, Bruce went looking for Betty at the convent.

I’m really digging Johnson’s run. At the end of each arc, he’s writing a one or two page text story to fill in the origins of the monster that was defeated. He’s really leaning into the horror aspects of the series. It’s hard to keep 50+ year old characters fresh, but this take is interesting.

Up next, there’s a very small amount of books left in the box. Iceman, Iron Fist, and a couple other things. After that the next box is Doom Patrol thru GIJoe.

[jjreason]

I'm sighing wistfully reading the Hulk breakdowns. I've got lots of old issues to read here but that's about as close as I've come to wanting to go by a new #1 in a long time.

[Tom Foolery]

Finally finished the G thru I box.

Hulkling & Wiccan oneshot. This was a digital first series they reprinted in a floppy. Hulkling and Wiccan invite Northstar, his husband Kyle, and Iceman to a dinner party, because Marvel wants to make sure you know who’s gay in the Marvel U. They smooch every other panel, so you know they’re married. Then Agatha Harkness wipes their minds and sends them to different planets, where they each find a new love interests. But deep down they know something’s not right and find each other and smooch some more.

Human Target 12. Tom King did a twelve issue maxi series starring Chris Chance. I only got this issue because it had a cool Dave Nakayama cover of Ice(as in Fire and Ice from the Justice League) because she was a supporting character in the series. Some quick searching shows Artgerm did a couple variant covers of Fire and Ice earlier in the series that I will keep an eye out for.

Astonishing Iceman 1-5. After the Hellfire massacre, Iceman was killed. His Inhuman boyfriend brought him back with his empathic love powers, but Bobby can only keep himself cohesive for a short time before he has to return to a secret antarctic ice base he created where his boyfriend recharges him. Meanwhile, Orchis has made Bobby their number one priority and keeps sending assassins to lure Bobby out. Bleh.

Infinite Frontier 1, 3. This was a six issue mini that set up some new status quo at DC involving the Justice League Incarnate, a super ultra deluxe version of the League made up of variants from across the Multiverse. I think it may have set up Dark Crisis, but I only have the two issues.

Iron Cat 1-5. Spin off from Jed Mackay’s Black Cat series. Tamara Blake, Felicia’s ex and also a former protoge of the Black Fox, blames Felicia for Fox’s death(in a story I haven’t read yet). So she steals the Iron Cat armor (Felicia made when she broke into Stark’s tower to steal some shit) in order to get revenge. Tony goes to Felicia for her help to get the armor back. Tamara uses the trapped AI of Sunset Bain as her OS in the armor, but the AI double crosses her and threatens to send every Stark nuclear reactor on the planet into meltdown. So Stark, Felicia, and Tamara have to team up to stop the rogue AI. MacKay always writes fun stuff.

Iron Fist:Heart of the Dragon 4-6. I read the first three issues way back in June 2022, so my collection is a little rusty. Some dude is killing the dragons of the Heavenly Cities to absorb their power. Iron Fist and the Immortal Weapons are trying to stop him. Okoye is investigating an attack on Wakanda, and the surviving dragons tell her she needs to kill them and take their power to restore balance. To stop the bad guy, Danny Rand gives Okoye the power of the Iron Fist, and when she defeats him, she places the power into an unhatched egg of Shou-Lou the undying. So Danny is no longer the Iron Fist. Which sets up…

Iron Fist 1-5. Lin Lie, the Swordmaster, had his sword smashed and the fragments buried in his hands. When he wakes up, he’s in Kun Lun and Shou Lou has decided to just give him the Iron Fist power (completely circumventing 50 years of previously established lore, and god knows how many Iron Fist comics where the main narrative point was everyone competing for the Fist and Danny defeating them with kung fu). Lin is having trouble using the UNEARNED Iron Fist power because the mystical sword shards in his hand aren’t jiving with them. Also, his brother is back and is trying to mystically imprisoned deity that the shattered sword was preventing from escaping. I am so annoyed they’ve hamfistedly shoehorned this new character into the Iron Fist role because it was ‘culturally insensitive’ that a white savior had been Iron Fist this whole time. Even though Marvel had already established a successor in Pei, the spunky preteen who also happens to be the politically correct enthinicity that checked whatever box Marvel needed.

Iron Fist 50th anniversary oneshot. A bunch of short stories focusing on mostly Danny, but they had one with Pei and Lin. At least they’re acknowledging Pei is a legitimate Iron Fist. Then, they threw a curveball in the final story. Paying off a set up from Fraction and Aja’s Immortal Iron Fist run, Danny is celebrating his 34th birthday because he broke the curse that every Iron Fist dies on their 33rd birthday at the hands of Ch’i-Lin. Then Ch’i-Lin shows up possessing Razorfist’s body and he KILLS DANNY. Then I looked at the cover again, and hidden in the black border of the cover is a slightly different shade of black with the words ‘Rest in Peace’ embedded in it. Haha what the fuck?? And then, on the final page of the issue is a giant QR code. Which takes you to Marvel.com for the true final page of the issue. Wild ending.

[Tom Foolery]

I’ve been sorting comics and haven’t been getting as much reading done. Here’s LAST week’s books. I’ll try and read this week’s books this weekend.

Absolute Superman 1. Kal is a wandering outsider that sticks up for migrant workers against unjust corporate overlords and their heavily armed brute squads. He’s got a solar powered kryptonian supersuit with a convenient expository AI that talks to him(this is becoming a new narrative pet peeve of mine. Writers can’t think of clever ways to relay information, so they give the hero a bodiless talking voice to converse with and throw out whatever narrative info dump the story requires after they/it ‘scan’ or whatever. Weak.) After he overloads and sets off an energy surge fighting the corporate goon squad, he’s about to leave, but he gets handcuffed by Agent Lois Lane. We flashback to Krypton and find out his parents weren’t scientists, but the lowest cache farmers, and Kal was at least six or ten years old before he left Krypton. Eh. Not as dopey as the first issue of Batman.

Avengers 20.
Aliens vs Avengers 2.
Batgirl 1. Also got the Artgerm variant cover.

Batman 154. Batman and Jim Gordon are investigating the Mayor’s murder with minimal assistance from Bullock, since Commissioner Vandal Savage is anti-vigilante. Batman confronts the new head of the Court of Owls and Riddler, who just happen to be hanging out with the newly promoted deputy mayor. And a ‘long lost’ Wayne heir is trying to make a claim on Bruce’s fortune, and his CFO(who is secretly in cahoots with Riddler) is trying to grt him to sell his shares and rebuy them later on. I’ll be glad when Zdarsky’s run is finished. Bring on the Hush sequel, baby!

Batman:Last Halloween 2.
Blood Hunters 4.

Green Arrow Annual 1. Flashforward. Ollie is retired and living on his island. The children of all his protégés are visiting, and he’s telling them Green Arrow stories. I think this is Josh Williamson’s final issue.

JSA 1. All In. After the events of Absolute Power, something happened to the JSA. The kids of Infinity Inc are the new JSA and there’s some fracturing about morality between the members. Honestly, there’s just too many characters here and no real hook to keeo me invested. Plus, when half your first issue is just all the heroes sitting around their big round table arguing with each other, it is kinda boring.

Kahhori, Shaper of Worlds oneshot. Kahhori chases the Loki from her world into the 616. She teams up with Daredevil and Echo, then jumps thru another dimension and teams up with Moon Knight(s). Meh.

Multiversus 4. DCAU Joker is looking for Animated Harley. The Justice League are trying to stop the ‘collisions’. Meanwhile, back at the Fortress of Solitude, Steven Universe, Bugs, Scooby, etc are tired of sitting around, so they steal some of Superman’s vehicles and go join the chase.

Penguin Special. This was one new short story, and three reprint stories from older comics, including his first Golden Age appearance. I guess they released it to promote the new HBO series.

Saga 70.

Spider-Man:Black Suit and Blood 4. Final issue of the anthology series.

Spider-Society 4. All the Spideys team up to defeat the evil Aunt May who is threatening the web of destiny. Arana has to sacrifice herself to save the universe, but then she’s okay at the end because there are no consequences to these Spider-Verse crossovers. Every Spider is someone’s favorite Spider, so they all have plot armor.

SW:Battle of Jakku 4.
SW:Ahsoka 5.

Action Comics 1074. Somehow, I missed an issue. Clark was in the Phantom Zone, but now somehow he’s on Krypton in the past. His solar battery wrist braces aren’t working, so he goes to the only scientist he knows in the past; his father! Then the science nerds show up and take Jor-El’s phantom zone projector, and Kal’s wrist thingies. But he needs those! They don’t like him getting all persnickety, so they knock him out.

Ultimates 6. The Avengers go on a rescue mission, but it turns out to be a trap set by the Hulk and his Immortal Weapons of the seven heavenly cities, who are all now gamma powered. There’s a big battle, and Iron Lad is killed!

Venom War 4. Now that Venom has bonded with both Eddie and Dylan, the fight turns against Meridius. Eddie uses Flash’s Anti-Venom symbiote to create a virus to take out all the Zombiotes. Carnage gives Meridius the Necro-spear, which causes a feedback and corrupts all the Zombiotes and Eddie. Dylan realizes this was his vision of the future, and KILLS EDDIE!

Wonder Woman Uncovered oneshot. A collection of variant covers from recent WW issues.

X-Factor 4. The team has to rescue a subterranean drill in the earth’s core from giant volcano spiders. Cecilia Reyes is having drama with her ex-bf, who just joined the team.

X-Force 5. X-Force fights, and then teams up with the Assyrian Avengers to fight Nuklo before he opens dimensional gates and releases monsters everywhere. Surge has to sacrifice herself to stop Nuklo and save the world, but she dies doing it. Sage quits the team in frustration at Forge sacrificing Surge.

X-Men 7. The story of how the X-Men(really it was just Scott and Magneto) saved the town from the rogue sentinel. And Magneto is in a wheelchair because he’s got a degenerative disease that’s a side effect of all the Krakoan resurrections. And possibly everyone can get it.

Up next, this week’s books.

[Tom Foolery]

This week’s books.

Absolute Batman 2. Batman has giant spikes that protrude out of his armor when he’s cornered. So Porcupine Man, not Batman. He blows up Gotham Aquarium, doing millions of dollars in damages, and kills all the fish(including some probably rare and/or endangered species) but he pwns the doofuses wearing animal masks, so take that! Then they figure out where his secret lair is, in one of the unfinished skyrises, so he blows that up. Millions more dollars in property damage, but it makes a cool Batman face in the wreckage, so take that! Then Bruce goes and plays poker with his friends, Oswald, Harvey, Eddie, and Waylon. They were all childhood buddies growing up in crime alley. Selina couldn’t make it to poker night.

Amazing Spidey 61. New writer Joe Kelly and artist Ed McGuinness start their run.
Batman & Robin 15.
Batman:Gotham by Gaslight:Kryptonian Age 6.
Captain America 15.
Deadpool 8.

GIJoe 1. The new ongoing series kicks off. The team gets sent on its first mission to protect some alien tech retrieved from a part of Cybertron that crashed in the ocean. It’s being held at a secure lab in Colorado(I thought maybe this was some obscure M.A.S.K. easter egg they were setting up, but maybe not). Cobra sends a contingent to steal the tech, and the Joes face off against Cobra for the first time! Cobra has developed laser guns(which I’m sure is a reference to the cartoons) and it doesn’t end well for one of the Joes. I won’t spoil who, but the shocking last page is someone getting perforated with lasers. If they survive, I will know what direction this entire series is taking. If they don’t survive, then we will know that ANYONE is expendable, and writer Josh Williamson is gonna be going thru characters quickly. Fan faves don’t get plot armor.

Multiversus:Collision Detected 5. After rescuing Steven Universe from drowning, the heroes regroup. Avia(the daughter of Mr Miracle and Barda releases a energy beam at the Source Wall at the edge of the universe. A message comes thru and lights up the sky “Select Your Fighters”. Then Avia gets possesed and punches a hole thru Brainiac and the Trinity realize she’s possessed by Devoid, the big bad. To be concluded.

NyX 5. The Cuckoos have been stoking anti-mutant sentiment(for some convoluted reason that will benefit Mutants long term?) until Sophie has a change of heart and comes clean to her fellow NyX’ers. Sophie burns out her psychic powers to free city council members under the Stepfords’ thrall to vote down an anti-mutant bill. And Ms Marvel shows up at the protest with a bunch mutants and allies and gives a riveting speech about standing up for what’s right. It works and the protesters disperse.

Psylocke 1. Kwannon gets benched by Cyclops, so she goes and stays with her boyfriend John Greycrow(formerly known as the un-PC Scalphunter from the Maruders) for a bit. Then she heads out on her own mission to find kidnapped mutant kids that are being sold by A.I.M. and Donald Pierce. When the Reaver Skullbuster ODs on some MGH, she kills him to protect the kidnapped kids. I got the regular cover and the Artgerm variant.

Spectacular Spider-Men 9. One of their fellow Arcadium survivors starts developing powers that make her turn into different elements. Spidey decides Morris Bench might be a good mentor for her, and also maybe Johnny Storm.

Star Wars:Ewoks 2. Didn’t read it.
Action Comics 1075. Clark and his parents have been put in science jail on Krypton. The Science Council decides to use Jor-El’s phantom zone projector to house criminals against Jor’s will. Meanwhile, back in the present, Connor and Kenan are looking for all the missing stuff from the Fortress of Solitude, and they are dealing with some Khund warlords. And back in the Phantom Zone, the big villain is using Earth’s sun to power his portal to unleash the Zone, and the sun is becoming large and unstable.

Transformers 14. A bunch of MARS mercenaries have found half of Starscream in molten lava and attached his upper body to a HISS Tank wired with explosives so he doesn’t double cross them. He suggests they team up and connives them into rescuing Astrotrain and the Combaticons, so he can take back Decepticon leadership from the traitorous Soundwave. When the humans start to realize Starscream is using them, they try setting off the explosives, and it doesn’t work. Starscream smooshes them. Honestly, this issue…didn’t suck. This series has not been great, and this issue was by no means great, but Starscream was behaving exactly like Starscream should. And welding a TF to the top of a tank is exactly the kind of goofy shit Budainsky would’ve done in the original run. It doesn’t make up for the rest of the garbage in this series though.

Conquest 2099 3. Dracula fights Silver Surfer 2099, who doesn’t want the excessive wanton destruction Dracula’s legions are laying on the Araneons. When Dacula is all “nope”, the Surfer is all ‘welp, I tried’ and just fucks off away. Meanwhile, Miguel, Logan and their team are on the Vampire planet, and decide they need to go stop the war. Logan calls Red Hulk 2099 for help and they all teleport into the vampire armada flagship while they are in a giant battle with the Araneon armada. And Dracula head to Breakworld with his pet dragon Darkhawk 2099 to eat their sun, and Starlord 2099 shows up to stop him. Steve Orlando is having fun with all these new 2099 characters he’s spent time creating over the last few 2099 minis.

Venom 39. Venom War tie-in. We follow Meridius from the very beginning of time where he was stranded, until he moves in across from Eddie Brock’s parents right before he was born and watches Eddie grow up. Meanwhile, Old Man Dylan needs Loki’s help to fashion the weapon he needs from the Chthon powered molten element he took from Molten Man in the past. The dwarves make two golden bullets for him, and Dylan heads back to “our” present just in time to see young Dylan stab the Carnage-possesed Eddie at the end of Venom War 4. Everything concludes next month! I got the regular cover, and also a variant with the ‘All New’ Venom on it.

Venom War:Deadpool 3. Wade, bonded with his symbiote dog Princess, fights Poison, the alt universe son of Wolverine, who’s bonded with a poison sym, and tries to convince him to help protect innocent lives with the Monsters Squad. Afterwards, Deadpool turns Poison over to the TVA’s Agent Mobius. Silence, aka Andi Benton, gets the top world to recognize the heroics of the Monsters living under the city and becomes a liason to Monsteropolis.

Venom War:Wolverine 3. After Wolvie and the X-Men defeat the guy with the zombiote army in the small Maine town he was hanging out in, Logan is gonna leave town. But then he realizes the guy’s decapitated head has possesed his son and turned him into a weird new zombie sym hybrid using Logan’s healing factor, so he has to go back and save the kid and his mom.

Werewolf by Night 4. The Hood is solidifying his takeover of the Darkholders by eliminating disloyal members. And in the Savage Land, Ka-Zar is keeping Jack imprisoned. But then some big nasty Savage Land monster attacks and Elsa convinces Ka-Zar to let Jack out to fight it. Jack beats the monster, but the collateral damage is unacceptable, so Ka-Zar banishes Elsa and Jack from the Savage Land.

Uncanny X-Men 5. While Gambit, Logan, Jubilee, Kurt, and their new young mutants stave off an invasion by Sarah Gaunt’s creepy undead army, Sarah is giving Rogue a beatdown. Almost dead, Rogue gets a visit from the ghost of the dead mutant kid who died in issue 1, and he gives her his mutant powers to boost her enough to get back in the fight and kick Sarah’s ass.

I’m slowly starting on the next box, with Doom Patrol, Eternals, Excalibur, and Fables being up first. But between the sorting of older issues in the basement, and reading the current stuff, it might take a while.

[Tom Foolery]

This week’s books. I missed a couple issues because my guy only ordered one copy and somebody else snaked ‘em.

Absolute Batman 1. Noir Edition. A B&W version of the first issue.
Avengers Assemble 3.
Batman & Robin:Year One 2.
Batman:Full Moon 2.
Predator vs Black Panther 4.
Catwoman 70.
Chasm:Curse of Kaine 4.
Daredevil 15.
GIJoe:ARAH 311.

Jenny Sparks 4. With the Justice League dead at the hands of Capt Atom, Jenny is forced to go into the bar and deal with him directly. She asks for two hostages. He counteroffers one hostage, and Jenny has to choose which one. Tense.

Moon Knight:Fist of Konshu 2. MK and his team deal with obscure villain The Cubist(I love how MacKay pulls these guys with like three or less appearances back and reuses them). Then he goes to Stark to try and find a counteragent to the new magic drug the bad guys are peddling. Stark sends him in the direction of the best biochemist he knows, but unfortunately the guy is dead, and also the babydaddy of Tigra’s son; Hank Pym. And he’s not dead. It’s complicated.

Phases of the Moon Knight 4. An Egyptian archeologist from the 1880’s accepts the mantle of Konshu’s fist to stop he country’s artifacts being pillaged by the British. And the original Moon Knight, a Mesopotamian king who accepts Konshu’s help to fight vampires who have aligned with his traitorous eldest son to usurp his throne.

Phoenix 5. Jean fights Gorr the god butcher, who kills her. But she’s the Phoenix. In her mind, she has a chat with Eternity about the(lack of) limits of her powers. When she comes back, she kills Goor and turns him into a sun. This alarms the galactic council, who inexplicably turn all their power over to Thanos in exchange for dealing with the Phoenix.

Question:All Along the Watchtower 1. I was all,’oh cool, The Question is getting a mini’ until I read this issue. The newly formed Justice League has a giant city sized space station where literally thousands of heroes can be stationed. Except they seem to think someone is trying to undermine everything, but they don’t know who or what(conveniently lazy writing that Batman wouldn’t be all over this, whatever it is) so they hire Renee Montoya to be the ‘sheriff’ of the Watchtower, with her own pre-selected team of specialists including both Blue Beetles, Animal Man, the Challengers of the Unknown, and Renee’s ex, Batwoman. This is sooo the opposite of what Denny O’Neil’s Question was all about. Ugh.

Scarlet Witch 6. Agatha Harkness shows up with a new, young witch named Amaranth that needs a mentor. After they go out for pizza and get attacked by an Eliminator, Wanda agrees to take her in.

Sonic:Knuckles 30th Anniversary oneshot. Didn’t read it.

Spider-Gwen 7. Gwen stakes out a meeting with Black Tarantula that he set up with her when he creepily left flowers at her apartment. When he shows up, they fight for a bit, then he asks her to join him. She still doesn’t know his secret identity is guy she met at the coffee shop, but the reader knows, which makes everything he does even more skeevy.

Miles Morales 26. Miles, in his new vibranium suit gets a rematch with the Vulture, who’s still pissed Miles is dating his granddaughter. Until she steps in and tells him to take a hike. Then T’Challa shows up again and says he might have a permanent cure for Miles’ vampirism, but they gotta go to Wakanda.

Spider-Man:Reign 2 5. In this final issue, Spidey returns to the present with Old Man Miles and Kitty to fight the Kingpin and his plan to euthanize the entire population of the post-apocalyptic Manhattan. Peter gets totally smushed by Kingpin, so he unleashes the Venom symbiote he brought back with him and uses it to sacrifice himself to destroy the nuclear reactor under Manhattan and collapse the dome over the city. It turns out everything outside the dome has been normal this whole time, but the Avengers couldn’t break thru to let everyone know. This was a solid, unhinged adventure. I liked it.

SW:Battle Of Jakku 5. Or 1 of the second phase. Didn’t read it.
Storm 2. Ororo is dying of radiation poisoning from stopping the nuclear meltdown in the first issue. She’s got less than 24 hours to live, so She goes to an anti-X-Men doctor in Oklahoma, who refers her to Doctor Voodoo.

Action Comics 1073, 1076. Found the issue from a couple weeks ago that explained how Clark wound up on Krypton in the past. And in the current issue, he wrestles with not telling his parents of their impending doom while he finds a way to recharge his battery gauntlets and get back to the phantom zone.

Thor 17. After getting turned to stone and smashed by Grey Gargoyle last issue, Thor has a vision with the evil Donald Blake warning him of a dire future. Enchantress helps reform his body before it reverts to flesh and he is upset with the four villains sent by Dario Agger to kill him. Then, as thanks, he offers to resurrect Amora’s dead son Iric from the afterlife. But she doesn’t actually say Iric’s name during the ceremony, and instead brings back her and Thor’s unborn son from a possible future from way back in Dan Jurgen’s early 2000s run of Thor.

Ultimate Spider-Man 11. Spidey fights Mr. Negative and his goons in a bank robbery. Then Peter visits the memorial one year later and Ben tells him he’s figured out Peter’s secret.

Venom War:Lethal Protectors 3. Silver Sable uses Shriek to send out a worldwide sonic blast to prevent the Zombiotes from spreading. Striklan double crosses the team and Puma blows him up.

Wolverine 3. Wolverine is fighting the Wendigo and the Dept H kill team sent to kill them both. Meh.

Wonder Woman 15. With the help from her Wonder “girls” Cassie, Yara, and Donna, as well as Cheetah, Diana systematically decimates the entirety of the King of America’s vast fortune.

World’s Finest 33. The Justice League and Justice Society team up to defeat Eclipso and throw him into the sun.

Exceptional X-Men 3. Kitty fights with Emma, before Emma convinces her to rent a warehouse and turn it into a school fro their three new mutants. Emma gets them all uniforms. Then Iceman shows up.

I’m still slowly reading the ‘E’ stuff, but it’ll be awhile.

[Tom Foolery]

Just finished last week’s books. Will try to read this week’s books tomorrow while watching the football.

Absolute Wonder Woman 2. After Diana defeats the giant monster from the first issue, she’s introduced to the US Army General, whom she tells that she isn’t going to follow his orders, but she’ll assist with instances like this in the future. And we get a flashback to how she met Steve Trevor.

Amazing Spidey 62.
Avengers Assemble 3. The regular cover.
West Coast Avengers 1. The Artgerm cover. I’m getting a regular cover eventually.
Batman:Brave and the Bold 19.
Batman:Last Halloween 3. Mark Chiarello on art for this issue.
Detective Comics 1091. Bruce is feeling his age creep up on him, so he decides to accept an offer for a procedure that will reverse his aging. And the mew serial killer strikes again; this time its a young thief that Batman and Robin had hidden in a safe house while they dealt with his boss, the Penguin.

Black Canary:Best of the Best 1. A new mini from Tom King and Ryan Sook.
Predator vs Black Panther 3.
Dazzler 3.

Green Arrow 18. A new writer takes over. Ollie is dealing with a new serial killer who is targeting executives at a Chemical plant.

Hulk 19. Giant 800th legacy issue. Bruce and Hulk have been captured by the Eldest and turned into a gross tree monstrosity. Their ward/sidekick makes a pact with an eldritch being and becomes a werewolf creature. Hulk breaks free and destroys the Eldest's body, turning her into a shadowy wraith. Werewolf Charlie is now on the run.

Iron Man 2. Exciting stuff where Tony is trying to convince members of the board to vote with him in the proxy takeover of his company by A.I.M./Roxxon. Just what every kid wants to read.

Justice League Unlimited 1. The Justice League is back! And is now thousands strong and they all live on the giant space station above Earth. Prepare for a deep dive into obscure DC heroes like Airwave as Mark Waid and Dan Mora begin a new JL era post-Absolute Power.

Marvel Previews 39. Stuff coming out in Feb.

Mystique 2. Raven goes to recruit Avalanche, who is sitting in a cabin up in the mountains not doing anything, but he’s wearing his full on costume for some reason. And Nick Fury Jr survived his house exploding because he just happened to be wearing his old SHIELD battle armor under his regular street clothes. Convenient writing. Bleh.

Negasonic Teenage Warhead oneshot. This was a reprint(?) of some digital first issues. Ellie gets a vision of the future where she destroys the universe unless she can find and kiss her girlfriend…who she’s never even met or heard of…in 24 hours. With the help of a murderer’s row of strong female Marvel characters; Emma, Jean, Shuri, Sue Storm, Wanda, etc, she heads out into space and faces her alt-possible future self, who has turned into Galactus. This sounds awful, but is was pretty well done, and her banter with Deadpool was hilarious. Andrew Wheeler wrote a banger.

Nightwing 120. The new villainous corporate entity Spheric stages a break-in at one of their facilities, and then uses the break-in as a pretext to introduce the new sponsored Police unit Helios to the city. The Helios team then goes and starts shit with the criminal gangs in Bludhaven and kills a thirteen year old gamgbanger. Nightwing is not happy.

Spider-Boy 13. Bailey and Daredevil sneak aboard a jet headed to Madripoor to enter a fight tournament so they can retrieve a priceless artifact. Bullseye and his protoge Spider-Girl are waiting.

Spirits of Vengeance 3. Danny meets up with Johnny to find out whose hunting them. And the Vengeance spirit is still looking for his host, Micheal Badalino, so he throws down with the Spirit of Corruption.

SW:Battle of Jakku 6. Or 2 of the second mini. Either way.

Action Comics 1077. Superman is back in the Phantom Zone and deals with Aethyr. But now he has to head back to Earth to stop the sun from exploding. A Superman's work is never done…

Superman 20. Superman and Superwoman are dealing with the return of Doomsday. Their ally Parasite(??) enters the fray and gets ripped in half by Doomsday, which sends Superman over the edge and he nearly beats Doomsday to death.

Ultimate Black Panther 10. T’Challa has a dream about how to defeat Konshu. Meanwhile, Killmonger and Storm have recruited the Sorceress Supreme, but their ship gets attacked by pirates or something, so they all spring into action or whatever. The other two Ultimate titles are pretty great. This one is mediocre. The X-Men one sucks.

Venom War:Spider-Man 4. Having unbonded from Venom in the main book, Peter heads back to rescue Jackpot from the Arachniote the ancient megaklyntar.

Venom War:It’s Jeff! oneshot. Jeff, the baby landshark gets a symbiote of his own, and with the help of his friends, Hawkeye, Gwenpool, and America Chavez, fights zombiotes invading Coney Island. Adorable!

Venom War 5. It all ends here! Meridius has tainted the anti-venom with the necrospear, turning all the zombiotes into Carnages. As he throws the spear at Dylan, Old Man Dylan shows up and fires the special bullet he made in the past from Molten Man and the eldritch energies of Chthon, and forged by the dwarves. The bullet hits Dylan-Venom and turns him gold, the Anti-Carnage! Meridius and Dylan fight, but Meridius gets the upper hand, until a mortally wounded Eddie distracts him, allowing Dylan to “corrupt” the necrospear and drive it thru Meridius’ back, destroying him and all the zombiote syms. But the feedback from the spear means Venom is also corrupted, so he has to forcefully eject Dylan from him(Dylan is half sym because he was in Anne’s womb while she was She-Venom; it’s complicated). Venom has to flee the scene when cops armed with the new anti-sym K weapons show up. And a mortally wounded Eddie crawls into the church where he originally bonded with Venom to die. But the recently separated Carnage sym is there with an offer… This was a wild ride of a series. Fun stuff. The story continues next week when All New Venom begins.

Void Rivals 14. This is why it took me so long to read this week’s books. I got stuck on this piece of shit. I would be reading pages and none of it was being absorbed. It was just random shit on a page with made up names and stuff. I restarted it like four times. Hot Rod shows up at the end.

What If…Minnie Mouse was Capt Marvel? The Disney oneshots continue.

Uncanny X-Men 6. The new mutant kids have to enroll in school, and are immediately bullied by douchey, entitled white rich kids. Jubilee and one of the new kids get abducted by the Greymalkin goons.

Up next, this week’s books. And perhaps some back issues.

[Tom Foolery]

This week’s book.

Absolute Superman 2. The Lazarus Corp. military squad tries to kill Kal while he’s handcuffed to Agent Lois Lane. His “cape” is red dust that swarms and does whatever he needs it to, and helps them escape. When her after-action report is mis-summarized by the Brainiac AI, she feels the need to write the report herself(she’s a writer now, get it? Subtle.)

Avengers 21.
Avengers Assemble 4.
Batgirl 2.

Batman 155. It turns out Commissioner Gordon was having an affair with Mayor Nakano’s wife and he’s now the main suspect in his murder. He looks guilty, but Batman find’s Mad Hatter tech in Jim’s glasses. Bruce confronts his “brother” who’s looking to inherit his half of the Wayne fortune and gets beat up by his security detail.

Deadpool/Wolverine:Weapon X-Traction oneshot. A collected edition of a bunch of back-up stories from various comics a few months ago.

Holiday Tales to Astonish oneshot. Three holiday tales featuring the FF, Kitty Pryde circa issue 143 of Uncanny X-Men, and the Spectacular Spider-Men.

NyX 6. The gang goes to a Dazzler concert and ends up fighting Mr. Friend aka Mojo. A timely intervention by original NYX-er Kiden Nixon helps them defeat Mojo and a happy reunion with her and Laura.

Spider-Gwen 8. Black Tarantula has set up an app where users can vote on the death penalty for a corrupt judge he’s kidnapped. With the city on edge, Mister Fear decides to strike in all the chaos. Gwen tries to stop him and gets doused with his fear gas.

Miles Morales 27. Leaving Shift to cover for him at school, Miles and T’Challa head to Wakanda to find a permanent solution to his vampirism. After being judged by Bast, Miles is allowed to enter her spiritual domain with the help of Shuri.

Star Wars:Battle of Jakku 7.
Action Comics 1078. Returning to the real world from the Phantom Zone, Clark has to stop the sun from exploding. But he and all the other Kryptonians like Jon, Connor, Kenan, etc are weakened by the state of the sun. Also, the device in the middle of the sun will cause a feedback that will destroy the Phantom Zone and kill everyone in it. Kandor refuses to allow Clark to release all the prisoners, so they threaten to ban him from Kandor if he saves the prisoners. He has Steel and Mr Terrific build him a suit to protect him from the sun, and has Jon and Paige take the Phantom Zone gun to a red sun planet to temporarily release the prisoners so they don’t all die. But when he destroys the machine, they all get released in the sun and head towards Earth. Uh oh.

Conquest 2099. The heroes get in between the fully arrayed forces of the Araneons and the Vampire hordes to try to stop both sides from annihilating each other. And Starlord attempts to stop Dracula from destroying Breakworld. But Dracula defeats her and shoots a giant planet sized silver bullet at the Araneoen homeworld…

Two-Face 1. Apparently, in Gotham, there’s a secret criminal court where criminals charge each other with criminal-on-criminal crimes and Two-Face is the defense attorney. Dumb. Super dumb. One and dropped.

Ultimates 7. After Tony’s death, the rest of the Ultimates are dealing with it in their own ways on the eve of the first anniversary of the Stark Tower explosion that killed thousands. And then, its revealed Tony isn’t dead, he’s in hibernation or a coma or whatever.

All New Venom 1. After the events of Venom War, Al Ewing begins the next chapter of his Venom saga. Madame Masque is on trial for the Gang War event from last year. A.I.M. sends guys in giant robot suits to kill her and the mysterious All New Venom shows up. The four suspects of who is in the suit are 1. Madame Masque, 2. Robbie Robertson, 3. Mayor Luke Cage, and 4. Rick Jones and Ewing has plenty of cheeky fun making all of them suspicious. Meanwhile, Dylan has hired Jackpot and her boyfriend Paul to figure out who ‘stole’ his symbiote.

Wolverine 4. Somebody tries breaking Constrictor out of a prison convoy and Wolverine just conveniently happens to be staying in a nearby cabin, helping rehabilitate the teenage kid who turned into a wendigo. Then Lady Deathstrike shows up and infects Logan’s adamantium with some ancient curse, like the adamantium is sentient.

X-Force 6. After Surge’s death, Forge is feeling guilt that he’s processing with AI versions of Ororo and Mystique. Sage returns and says she’s figured out who the new bad guy is, a female ripoff of El Diablo, the alchemist calling herself El Diabla. She tries infecting Forge’s AI program, but then does something wonky to Rachel and Betsy.

X-Men 7. Raid on Graymalkin Part 1. After Beast got kidnapped, Scott and the Alaskan X-Men decide the Graymalkin prison has to go, and attack it. Rogue and her team show up at the end, setting up the first crossover between the two new ongoings.

And also Wonder Girl 2, 4-7. I caught up on some back issues I bought awhile ago. Yara Flor is the chosen member of a secret third Amazonian tribe. The Themyscirians and Bana-Mighdall send Cassie and Artemis respectively to decide whether she’s a threat(because of some old prohecy). Meanwhile Hera recruits Yara to be trained in Olympus to take her side as her new right hand. But after thinking it thru, Yara passes on immortality and earns Hera’s ire. Joelle Jones wrote and drew this new character that showed up after Dark Crisis, or some other Crisis. One of the Crises. She’s since become a main supporting character in Wonder Woman’s books.

Up next, I’m slowly getting thru the beginning of the next back issue box, but I’m also doing that major comic box sort in the basement, so I’m not getting much reading done.

[Diabolical]

NyX 6 - I only bought it because Kiden was in it (and on the variant cover I got). The art sucked and the story was a pain to follow.
Nice to see some OG NYX back. I missed their only appearance outside of the 2 minis in an X23 onee-shot that goes for like $30-40 for some reason.

Star Wars: The Battle of Jakku Part 7 - This feels like the Poochie episode of The Simpsons, where Milhouse starts crying and says, "When are they going to get to the fireworks factory?"

[Tom Foolery]

This week’s books, plus some stuff I bought at last weekend’s mall show.

Amazing Spidey 63.
Batman & Robin 16.
Batman:Dark Patterns 1.
Dazzler 4.
Deadpool Team-Up 4.
Deadpool Roleplays the Marvel Universe. A $10 prestige oneshot.
Petpool:Pool Party oneshot.

Incredible Hulk 20. Charlie is rockin’ her new powers, until Jack Russell shows up and explains the curse attached to her wearing the Lycana wolfskin. Sje mistakes him offering her advice as a threat, and they throw down. Meanwhile, the Vegas skinwalker cult has made a pact with an elder wolf-god called Varcolac to bring the Lycana skin back.

Marvel Must Have. These aren’t numbered perse, but I think this is the fifth one they’ve released in the current run.

Infinity Watch 1. The Infinity Watch has gathered, and built a secret island base, but they really don’t have anything to do. Fortunately, the writer comes up with a multiversal threat of Infinity stone hunters from another universe who kill stonebearers and steal their powers.

Phoenix 6. Thanos and Perrikus are hunting Jean in exchange for the Galactic Council just turning over all authority to Thanos(like, why did they think that was a good idea?) Jean and her new sidekick, Nova Richard Rider are having trouble psychically tracking Thanos because he’s got some obscure mystical amulet from an old Thor issue, but Thanos can find Nova, and gets him to attack Jean. She snaps him out of it, and then the back up help she called arrives; Sif, Capt Marvel, and Rocket Raccoon.

Scarlet Witch 7. Wanda, her new protoge, Amaranth, and Wanda’s two boys, are visiting New Salem, CO for a witch festival celebrating some old witch. But the entire town turns against them because Nicholas Scratch, the estranged son of Agatha Harkness, has some beef with Wanda being Agatha’s favorite or whatever. They kick Nick’s ass and Wanda sends him to the witch’s underworld where Wanda’s evil clone or mirror or whatever she is is waiting for him.

Spirits of Vengeance 4. We get some Michael Badalino backstory while he’s getting tortured by some Rider hunters who are trying to lure his Spirit. Johnny and Danny and Vengeance all show up pretty much at the same time. Time for a Spirits of Vengeance style beat down.

SW:Battle of Jakku 8. Or 4.

Storm 3. In order to save her life from radiation poisoning that will kill her in six hours, Doc Voodoo makes a bargain with an eldritch being to absorb the excess radiation. But in exchange, Storm can’t use her powers for seven days. So she goes and hangs out with the Louisiana X-Men and hooks up with Logan. Then she gets summoned by Doctor Doom, the new Sorcerer Supreme, to Latveria.

Superwoman Special. Kara and Lana Lang(who is also, also a Superwoman..what the hell, everybody got superpowers now??) invite Lois out to fight crime and burn off steam and we get the origin of how Lois got Superpowers in the aftermath of Absolute Power.

Transformers 15. Soundwave and his ‘cons are attacking cities to draw out Prime and his Autobots. Cliffjumper wakes up on Cybertron and finds Bluestreak and some other ‘bots surviving by brutal mean; namely killing Ramjet and harvesting his [blood/energon]. Arcee and Beachcomber leave to go find Ultra Magnus, who ditched in the middle of battle. Wheeljack finds enough narratively-driven scarce energon to revive another Autobot so Trailbreaker joins Optimus’ team. Just in time for Soundwave’s squad to attack. But he gets interrupted by Starscream(still attached to a HISStank) and his Decepticons who are looking for revenge against Soundwave. It’s gonna be Bruticus vs Devastator y’all.

Ultimate Universe:One Year In oneshot. Nick Fury, agent of H.A.N.D. is working for the Maker’s council doing their dirty work. He sets up a meeting where they all gather so he can blow them up, but it turns out he’s a clone who tries this every year or so, and they just dispose of him and turn on another clone to replace him.

Laura Kinney:Wolverine 1. Laura hers her own ongoing again(legacy issue #69. Nice.) where she’s tracking down missing, exploited mutants in Dubai amd reuniting them with their loved ones. Her next mission take’s her to Hell’s Kitchen where she confronts the new Daredevil aka Elektra.

X-Factor 5. X-Factor arrives at a super secret base that immdediately gets attacked by mutant terrorist organization X-Term, who are trying to rescue an incarcerated mutant there. I feel like the writer is trying to make this book satirical, but it’s just not getting there.

Uncanny X-Men 7. Raid on Graymalkin part 2. Rogue and her team arrive to rescue Jubilee and new student Calico, but butt heads with Scott’s team, who is there to rescue Beast. Ideological differences escalate and the two teams end up fighting with each other instead of the shitty humans who are imprisoning their friends. I get that Rogue and Scott are having opposing views on the future of the X-Men, but the escalation felt forced.

And some other assorted back issues.

Batman, Inc 5. A team of anti-Batmen gathered by Lex Luthor have trapped all the Batman, Inc guys and one of them has a beef with Ghostmaker. There’s just too many characters here and they all have vaguely Bat-looking uniforms with ears. Meh.

Green Lantern 7. From the 2021 series. The cover says “Kilowog’s Last Stand!” and he’s not even in the book. Anywhere. John Stewart gets sent back millions of years in time by a New God to witness the first confrontation between the Oans and the New Gods.

Midnighter Annual 2021. An annual in 2021 to a series from 2017. Some time traveling alt-dimension bs.

Robin 3. Damian is on Lazarus Island for the fighting tournament, and he meets up with Connor Hawke. They discuss their superhero fathers, then Connor is forced to attack Damian by the League of Shadows and Damian is rescued by his grandfather, R’as.

Suicide Squad 14. After Amanda Waller got the Squad to help her steal and entire Earth from the multiverse last issue, the team is without direction or leadership. Rick Flag decides to get new funding by planning to kidnap Lex Luthor. I think the next issue was the final one of this run.

Teen Titans Academy 3. Amanda Waller sends the Suicide Squad to the Academy to retrieve one of their students with the help of Red X, but they run into problems when all the other students object. And Red X double crosses the Squad because he’s got his own agenda.

Up next, maybe some more back issues. Which I’m very slowly getting thru. Very slowly.

[Tom Foolery]

Finally got thru the first batch of back reading from the ‘D thru G’ box. It’s because I had a camera up my wahoo yesterday and decided to take an extra day off work. It’s been over a month since I finished the previous box. At this rate, I will catch up on the back reading at the same time I fill up what’s left of the drawerboxes in the front room and begin the next cataloging effort in 2026.

Anyway, here’s what I read.

Unstoppable Doom Patrol 1-2. The first couple issues of a six issue mini that got bumped up to seven issues. Part of the Dawn of DC branding. The first issue had a gimmick cover with Crazy Jane looking at a “mirror” with that grey stuff you see on scratch tickets. So, if you scraped it off, one of several different Jane identities would be revealed, so there’s possibly several variants of the first issue, depending on whether someone deliberately made their $5 comic less valuable. The second issue’s cover gimmick was a Glow-in-the-dark headshot of Negative Man. Eh. I stopped after that. The premise of the series is that Amanda Waller and other govts around the world are looking to recruit and exploit superhumans and use them as cannon fodder in Suicide Squad. The Doom Patrol decides to preemptively rescue the ‘monsters’ before they get taken. I’ve never been a big DP reader, so while I know the characters by name and by site, I don’t know a lot of their history and personalities. So I dropped it after two unread issues, figuring I’d find them later for cheap.

Dune:House Atreides 1. Variant cover. I got this issue for ordering a certain amount of drawerboxes last year. Or the year before. It’s in a fancy bag and board. I didn’t bother opening it or reading it.

Echolands 1. A gimmick Image title by JH Williams where the comic is ‘sideways’ i.e. the staples are at the ‘top’ of the comic and you read the whole thing turned lengthwise. Presumably to better showcase Williams’ art style. I got it as part of a blindbox a couple FCBDs ago. Didn’t read it.

Elektra:Black White & Blood 1-4. Anthology series of B&W stories with red highlights. Three or four stories per issue. As with all anthologies, some are better than others. One of them was by TMNT creator Kevin Eastman, which I thought was kind of interesting.

Elektra 100. Accounting aside(which I brought up elsewhere), this issue had a story that establishes Elektra and Typhoid Mary were both in a mental institution at some point when they were younger. Is this a retcon? There were a couple other short stories as well.

Eternals 4-6. It had been awhile since I read the beginning of Kieron Gillen’s relaunch of the Eternals. This entire run’s ‘narrator’ is the Machine aka the Earth, whom the Eternals are pledged to protect. The narration boxes were black, with dark blue lettering. Which was incredibly frustrating for my 50 year old eyes to focus on and try to read. But the premise of the first arc is that one of the Eternals is sabotaging the resurrection machine that brings Eternals back to life when they die. Ikaris, Sprite and some of the other main Eternals are investigating. Meanwhile, Druig is plotting an insurrection by bringing Thanos back to life and making him Prime Eternal. The saboteur turns out to be Phastos, but it’s because he figured out that every time the Eternals resurrect, it’s at the cost of one human life. When they all realize how many times they’ve all died and came back over the million years they’ve been on Earth, it shocks them to their core. So they leave Olympia and decide to go live with the deviants.

6-12. The second arc had Thanos assume the Prime Eternal position thru manipulative voting. The core cast of Eternals, still struggling with the revelation from the previous arc, vow to stop him. But to figure that out, they need to unlock what makes Thanos part deviant, part Eternal. And the only answer lies within the dead Celestial the Avengers are using as their base. So there’s an Avengers-Eternals throwdown. Eventually, Thanos gets defeated because Druig outplayed him with a failsafe in case Thanos killed him. Which leaves Druig in charge as the new Prime Eternal. And he sets his sights on the “excessive deviation” that is Krakoa. The series concluded with issue 12, but it set up the A.X.E. Judgment Day crossover event.

Eternals:Thanos Rising oneshot. The back story of the schism between the brothers, Zuras and A’Lars, and A’lars voluntary banishment to Titan, where he and Sui-San had their sons, Eros and Thanos. And then they both died at Thanos’ hands. Then got resurrected and put it Exclusion back on Olympia. Pretty tragic issue.

Eternals:Celestia oneshot. The backstory of Ajak being the high priestess and communicator with their gods, the Celestials, and how they eventually stopped talking to the Eternals. As well as, Ajak’s first meeting with 1M BC Avengers, and how she currently regrets not destroying them then, so they wouldn’t have to deal with superhuman team like the current Avengers today.

Eternals:The Heretic oneshot. After Thanos becomes Prime Eternal, he goes deep into the prison catacombs of Olympia to find Uranos, the first banished Eternal, and we get his origin and backstory. Eventually Druig would unleash Uranos on Arrako/Mars during the Judgment day event.

Eternals Forever oneshot. This was one of those oneshots they release around the time of the movie to have more Eternal-related product on the shelves. I can never tell if these are set in the MCU or the 616 or what. It gives you just enough backstory to familiarize yourself with the main characters, without having any consequences whatsoever. Pretty bleh.

Excalibur 20. It’d been over two years since I’d read the previous 19 issues. I had to go find my recaps and reacquaint myself. In this issue, Betsy and Kwannon need to confront Malice, who’s bouncing around people on Krakoa, and convince her they can resurrect her in a new body and give her a fresh start. Professor X, being a professional dickhead, who can’t read the room, says shes a threat and if she gets resurrected he’ll immediately throw her in the pit.

21. The first Hellfire Gala. Rogue gets tapped to be on the new X-Men team. The priests of Akkaba attend the Gala and formally rescind the U.K.s treaty with Krakoa and declare the Excalibur Lighthouse to be sovereign British territory. Then they go home and sacrifice Pete Wisdom to bring Morgan LeFey back to life. Rictor uses his new druid powers to literally separate the lighthouse from the main continent and declare Braddock Island is Krakoan territory.

22. Merlyn starts making a play for Saturnyne’s rule of Otherworld. Pete Wisdom gets resurrected on Krakoa and realizes he can’t return to England. So he gets the Five to resurrect his old team of Psychics, S.T.R.I.K.E.(which is a deep dive obscure callback to minor characters from the original U.K. Captain Britain comics. Props to Tini Howard on that).

23. Dr Doom wants to go thru the Krakoan gate into Otherworld to retrieve something from his ex-gf Morgan LeFey’s castle. Excalibur escorts him thru Otherworld as the tensions between Merlyn and Saturnyne’s forces escalate. Doom senses something is up and gives Captain Britain a heads up on what Merlyn is planning, bringing back King Arthur to challenge Saturnyne's authority.

24-26. A lot happened in the final three issues, but the short version is Merlyn and Arthur’s forces put Saturnyne and Excalibur on their backfoot, forcing them to retreat back to the Krakoan gate. When they go thru, the Priests of Akkaba, Morgan Le Fey, and Merlyn unleash a carefully choreographed spell that destroys the gate while they are all inside. Only Capt Britain, channeling her mystic powers thru her sword saves the team, but everybody is trapped back on Earth at the light house, while Betsy is alone in Otherworld fighting Arthur’s hordes alone. This cliffhanger ending was continued in the Knights of X miniseries I read back in August.

Fables:The Black Forest 151-162. This was a 12 issue maxi series that continued where the previous Fables run ended. And I was going to read it. But then I decided I wanted to go back and read the original series first. So I went online last night and found a majority of the issues I still needed. I also just collated all the issues into one run during my sorting in the basement last week. I may take a break from the current back issue boxes when I finish this box and binge 160 issues of Fables. Maybe.

But either way, next up is Fantastic Four. The end of Slott’s run, and the current ongoing by Ryan North. Hopefully it won’t take a month to read.

[Tom Foolery]

I’m a week behind on reading because of Holiday stuff. But I am still reading. Here’s from the 18th.

Absolute Batman 3. Batman and Alfred escape from the cops in Batman’s giant Bat-dumptruck equipped with a jet engine so it can outrun all the cop cars and physics at the same time. It’s also waterproof and can drive underwater. Bruce asks Edward’s creepy A.I. skeleton robot if there’s a way to defeat the bad guys. The robot skeleton says nope, so Batman reluctantly agrees to Black Mask’s deal to stand down and let them fuck over Gotham for the sum of $200M. So he can use that money to fund more Batman stuff, like the stupid stilt things in his cape that make him look like a strider from Dark Crystal. It’s on the cover.

Batman & Robin:Year One 3.
Blood Hunters 5.
Captain America 16.
Catwoman 71.
Challengers of the Unknown 1.
Daredevil 16.
Deadpool 9.

GIJoe 2. Well, I guess they’re killing off characters in this series. Everybody is someone’s favorite. After the Joes retreat from their first deadly mission, General Hawk introduces a new team member; a rich, douchey jetsetter codenamed Risk who immediately gets in a fight with Duke. And Clutch stole a Viper uniform on the mission and snuck back with the Cobra guys to their HQ.

Hellverine 1. Daken’s ongoing as the new Ghost Rider begins. He thinks he’s fighting evil and punishing bad guys, but he’s slowly realizing that maybe his demon is just recruiting people into Hell for his ‘old’ boss Mephisto.

Jenny Sparks 5. We flashback to when Batman and Superman recruited Jenny to be the person they call when one of the heroes is compromised and turns bad. In the present, she talks with the hostage she chose to have Capt Atom release, an elderly psychiatrist whose cancer Atom cured.

Namor 5. The next ‘king’ surfaces. It’s the ghost of Namor’s mom. She’s leading an army of orphans from the ruins of Atlantis.

New Gods 1. All In. In the wake of Darkseid’s death, Apokalips and New Genesis are all in chaos. Highfather receives a premonition that a newer set of gods are about to be born. When a young girl of immense power shows up on Earth, he sends Orion to kill her. Orion is conflicted, so he goes to Scott Free first, and gives him a week to find the girl and “escape” with her before Orion does what he’s been sent to do. I’ve never been a big New Gods fan, but I’m intrigued enough to read another issue.

Nightwing 121. Under the pretenses he wants to invest in the big evil corporation, Dick bugs their offices. Then he goes and picks a fight with the Teddy Bear gang, only to realize they’re all just homeless kids. So he helps them escape the cops, and then lets them crash at one of his secret lairs. Barbara finds out the CEO lady is someone from Dick’s past with a grudge.

Psylocke 2. Kwannon finds out it was Shinobi Shaw who tipped her off about the kidnapped mutant kids, so she guilt trips him into helping her rescue more kids. After they're successful, she gets home and finds her boyfriend John Greycrow has been kidnapped, but they left his arm nailed to the wall.

Sonic the Hedgehog 75.
Spectacular Spider-Men 10. The two Electros have been bickering the last few issues about who should get to use the name. This issue they decide the first one to kill a Spider-Man wins. Its Electros vs Spiders!

Star Wars:Ahsoka 6.
Star Wars:Ewoks 3.

Action Comics 1080. All the phantom zone prisoners are free and wreaking havoc across the galaxy. Superman and his allies are running around with mini phantom projectors rounding them back up.

Thor 18. Thor and his newly “resurrected” son Magni, along with Sif and the Enchantress, team up for a rematch with the four villains who tried killing Thor a couple issues ago. Thor and friends kick their butts.

TVA 1. Spider-Gwen has joined the TVA. So, these are straight up the MCU characters from the Loki show like OB and Mobius, interacting with the comics Spider-Gwen and Jimmy Hudson, the son of the Ultimate Wolverine who has been bouncing around the 616 as Poison, the anti-Venom for awhile. There’s also a Gambit, who looks like he’s the Zombieverse version because he’s moping about his dead wife Rogue, and the animated What If show’s Captain Carter. Weird.

Conquest 2099 5. The heroes stop the war between the Araneons and the Vampires. Dracula defeats Spider-Cide, but before he can kill him, Silver Surfer steps in and blasts Dracula into space. Dracula’s daughter revives leads her people to peace. Madame Web succeeds Spider-Cide to lead a peaceful Araneons. But the final page has Galactus finding Dracula’s body floating in space, setting up the next series/event.

Ultimate Spider-Man 12. A nice, mundane Christmas issue where everyone is enjoying the holidays at the Parker’s home. Until the last page, where the rug gets pulled out. That’s not Peter….

Wonder Woman 16. Detective Chimp is “investigating” Steve Trevor’s death and keeps pestering the King of America, but really he’s just fucking with him until Clark Kent, intrepid reporter for the Daily Planet writes a series of articles exposing the Sovereign’s hidden power structure at the core of the US government. Another Delightful issue from Tom King.

World’s Finest 34. A one off. Superman, Batman, and Robin have disappeared. It’s up to Batgirl and Jimmy Olsen, along with Ace and Krypto to find them and rescue them.

Next up, this week’s books. And, in addition to the FF books I’m slowly reading, I have a bunch of stuff from the going out of business sale from last week, Green Arrow, Green Lantern, and a bunch of Supermans, etc to read before they get put away.

[Tom Foolery]

Here’s the 26th’s books.

Absolute Wonder Woman 3. After describing in terrible detail the creature that is attacking the city, Diana calmly explains to the citizens over TV that she has to temporarily deafen everyone and not to panic. Of the three new Absolute books, I think I’m enjoying this one the most, even if the art isn’t to my taste.

Amazing Spidey 64.
West Coast Avengers 2.
Ultraman/Avengers 3.
Batman:Brave and the Bold 20.
Batman:Last Halloween 4.

Detective Comics 1092. The kid Batman and Robin saved last issue gets killed by the serial killer. The Dynamic Duo crosses paths with some govt stooges while investigating the crime scene. After Bruce took the rejuvenation serum, he’s getting checked on by his lady doctor friend. Which leads to dinner. Which leads to a sleepover. Which Bruce takes advantage of by hacking her laptop.

Black Canary 2.
GIJoe:ARAH 312.

Hellhunters 1. The origin of the Harley riding 1940’s Spirit of Vengeance from the Hulk book. A bunch of Nazis make a bargain with an eldritch demon. Sgt. Sal Romero’s plane is shot down and he makes a bargain of his own. Then he teams up with Nick Fury, Peggy Carter and Sebastian Szardos to go after the undead Nazis. Good stuff from the guy writing the Hulk book.

Iron Man 3. The Stark-Roxxon War concludes. When the board of Stark votes for the merger, Stark makes a plea to Belasco, who is working for some other dimensional beings. Tony points out that Roxxon, A.I.M., and Justine Hammer perpetually lose to the Avengers and the risk-averse otherworld beings cancel the deal.

Justice League Unlimited 2. The League is dealing with a Parademon and a creche of unhatched parademon eggs. J’onn’s powers are on the fritz and he doesn’t want anyone to know so he won’t get benched.

Marvel Previews 40. Solicits for books coming out in March. Man, there is A LOT of tie-ins for that Dr Doom event.

Metamorpho the Element Man 1. An All In miniseries from Al Ewing. Leaning into the goofy 60s vibe of the original stories. Rex and Sapphire, Simon Stagg and Java. Fun stuff.

Moon Knight:Fist of Konshu 3. The police raid the Midnight Mission and a chick with an asgardian sword KILLS the Mission. MK and his allies are forced to flee amidst allegations that THEY are the ones distributing the new designer drugs. R.I.P. to the ghost house that they’ve been living in for the past forty issues.

Sabretooth;The Dead Don’t Talk 1. Logan is drinking to Victor’s demise at the end of his last ongoing series. When he notices a photo from the turn of the 19th century where Victor was running around with the gangs of NYC with Wilson Fisk’s grandfather.

Spider-Boy 14. Bailey and Daredevil continue to fight in the tournament in Madripoor.

Kidpool/Spider-Boy oneshot. Kidpool jumps dimensions and gets hired by the Owl to kill Spider-Man. When she runs across Spider-Boy she develops a crush on him. Then they have to team up to protect Stegron the Dinosaur man from a crazy AIM scientist who is obsessed with marrying a dinosaur and turned herself into a dinosaur hybrid. Completely goofy adventure. I hope they make more.

SW:Battle of Jakku 9. Or the first issue of the third and final mini. Either way, haven’t read it.
Action Comics 1081. The weekly series ends. J’onn J’onnz mimics the leader of the last of the escaped Phantom Zone prisoners and lures them to a machine that will kill Superman and his allies. But it’s a giant Phantom Zone projector and everybody gets recaptured.

Superman 21. Clark and Lois go on a date to the moon, and Gemworld ‘cause they’re both Super now. And apparently Jimmy is dating Silver Banshee. And also Lex has amnesia, but is developing a crush on Mercy. I need to catch up on my Superman reading.

Timeslide oneshot. At the end of every year, Marvel does these oneshots that tease “future” Marvel events. They’re usually called Timeless. Anyway, the Children of the Vault have created a being that can bore thru time and erase key moments in history. Tempus arrives from the future and recruits Cable and Bishop to help her stop the chrono-being. They jump around time(teasing upcoming events) and trick the being into returning to its point of conception and erasing itself from ever being created.

Ultimate Black Panther 11. Konshu challenges T’Challa to single combat for the leadership of Africa and an end to their war. T’Challa stops some mercs from stealing medical supplies. And then decides to accept Konshu's challenge.

Void Rivals 15. HotRod shows up on MagooWorld. Springer shows up to greet him. All the little aliens are freaked out, but the one guy is all like ‘nah these guys are cool.’ The other guy(girl) has been falling thru the planet for the last two or three issues, but she finally hits the bottom and finds the planet’s brain or whatever. It’s the Transformer Springer and HotRod have been looking for.

Exceptional X-Men 4. Bronze wants to join drama club to be closer to her crush, but she's afraid of losing control of her powers. Kitty thinks Bobby is spying on her. She finds out he was sent by Rogue’s team because they’re worried about her. During their argument, he brings up her killing Orchis soldiers during the Fall of Krakoa, which freaks out the new students.

X-Men 9. Raid on Graymalkin part 3. The two teams settle on helping each other again, until Rogue insists on them freeing Xavier, and Scott telling her absolutely not. Juggernaut decides to break open the vault holding Prisoner X, but the twist is that it wasn’t Xavier in there, because he’s already been freed by Nightcrawler and Psylocke. Which may turn out to be a bad thing.