So, What comics did you buy this week?

[Tom Foolery]

The post-FF stuff in the box.

Fight Girls 1-5. A mini series from Frank Cho from AWA. On a distant planet in an intergalactic empire, ten women compete in a series of deadly trials to get chosen to be the Emperor’s next wife. The plot and the plot twist don’t really matter. This is just Frank Cho drawing what he draws best; good looking women and dinosaurs and giant sharks and giant scorpions and cool shit.

Fire and Ice: Welcome to Smallville 1-3. The first three issues of a six issue mini. Fire and Ice get sent to Smallville by Supermen after a fracas Fire had with Guy Gardner. Fire wants to prove she’s a hero by getting villains to come to Smallville so she can defeat them. But Ice just wants to open a hair salon and chill out. Supposed to be a quirky, humorous girlpower story, I guess?

Firefly 27. I had to go back and reread my synopses from like three years ago so catch up on what was happening in this book. Mal is living alone on a planet and finds a stray pet dog. Capt. Kaylee and the Serenity crew show up to ask him for help on a new mission, but he’s reluctant to go because he’s all mopey and shit about Book, and Wash, and his mom dying. But eventually he comes aboard.

28-36. Alliance Assassins are using a space portal to instantly travel around the ‘verse to find Serenity’s crew. The crew comes up with a plan to sabotage the space portal, but they get blown thru it. Jayne blows it up from the other side and they crash on a unknown planet that turns out to be Earth That Was. There are warring factions of survivors that were left behind during the mass exodus 500 years ago, and also looters from the new ‘verse digging up “artifacts” to take back and sell. The Serenity crew gets scattered amongst these various factions, either as hostages or as allies. They all eventually reunite and get the different factions to call a truce. Then they have to decide who wants to stay on Earth, and who is going back thru the portal that they are going to permanently destroy once they leave. Lots of unnecessary drama, because everybody eventually decides to go back, except the robot Wash, who elects to blow up the portal from the Earth side. Bleh. However, a large part of the story takes place in Sioux Falls, SD. Which is where I lived from the time I was three years old until I was sixteen. All my childhood memories and where I discovered everything from Star Wars to Transformers to comics to Monty Python and every other damn thing was in Sioux Falls, so I got a chuckle from that.

Firefly:River Run oneshot. The expanded story of Simon plotting the rescue of his sister. It takes a few elements from the show and fills in the blanks on the rest. It was okay.

Firefly Holiday Special. A Christmas Carol “homage” with Jayne bumping his head and getting visited by ghosts. Book being one of the ghosts makes sense, since he’s dead. But the other two ghosts are Mal and River, who are both alive during this timeframe, and not Wash. Meh.

Firefly 20th Anniversary Special oneshot. A flashback where the original crew find a mysterious crashed ship, that is run by an AI. Book worked on the project when he was with the Alliance and reprograms it to not be a murderbot ship. Then the new crew led by Emma crosses paths with the ship several years later.

Firefly: Keep Flying oneshot. This seems like a coda to the future stories of Emma’s crew that I haven’t read yet. Someone named Rose proposes to River. Then they(“they” is hard to decipher because everyone gets drawn the same and there are equal parts OG crew and brand new crew whose names I don’t know or care about) are transporting some sheep in the Serenity and it crashes and all the sheep are in a liferaft, and then Rose uses her psychic powers to make a copy of everyone’s memories of River or something. Then Emma casually buys a new bigger ship, so she gives Serenity back to Mal or something. Ugh. I don’t…why even put Firefly on the cover?

In the entirety of all those issues, Mal said something about the “doctorishness” of something Simon had done, and THAT was literally the only time I was like ‘oh hey, that sounds like something someone on the show would’ve said.’ The rest of everything I read had no resemblance to any aspect of what made this IP fun and unique.

Up next, the Brand New ‘Verse mini, another short lived All New Firefly ongoing that only lasted ten issues, the Fall Guys mini, and a couple more oneshots. Once I muscle thru it, up next is The Flash.

[Diabolical]

I'm not sure why I bought all of the Firefly Comics.
The Boom stuff started out ok, with some fairly interesting ideas, but it never truly felt like Firefly.
And the art usually sucked.

[anarky]

I have several but still haven't read most of them. I remember The Shepherd's Tale (I think that was the name) was an unsatisfying "conclusion" to the mysteries surrounding Shepherd Book.

[Tom Foolery]

I'm not sure why I bought all of the Firefly Comics.

Same here. There are literally dozens of franchises that I would call myself a fan of that have licensed comics and I have no strong urge to keep up with them.

The Boom stuff started out ok, with some fairly interesting ideas, but it never truly felt like Firefly.
And the art usually sucked.

The last two points bolded for truth. Except in very rare circumstances, they never capture the dialogue/banter from the show. And if the only way to tell Mal from Jayne is Mal is the one wearing suspenders, or Kaylee is the one in pants, and River is the one in a dress…man you suck at art.



But anyway, here’s the rest of the Firefly books.

Firefly:Brand New ‘Verse 2-6. I had previously read the first issue a few years ago. Emma is Capt. of the Serenity twenty years from now. They take a questionable job transporting another frozen person that ends up waking up, then have to escape the clutches of the Alliance/Blue Sun people who want the person because they were going to exploit the world the young woman was heading to in hypersleep from Earth That Was.

All New Firefly 1-10, plus a Big Damn Finale oneshot. Set after the previous ongoing, the crew is low on cash/food/fuel as usual so they set down on a moon where there’s fabled treasure. It turns out there’s a monastery collecting old Earth relics for posterity. A local “tax collector” is extorting the monks for all their meds and food, so the crew steps in to protect them. The series was Jayne-centric as each issue would flashback to his youth where he got into trouble trying to steal meds for his brother and destitute mother. Eventually, Jayne’s brother shows up with Jayne’s now adult bastard son in tow. It turns out the monks were grabbing old earth relics via another portal to Earth That Was, and there’s another group of mercs out in space that are fucking with both the monks AND the tax collectors. Eventually, Serenity blows up the portal and brokers a truce between the tax collectors and monks. Jayne reconnects with his son, but in the Big Damn Finale oneshot(which was shipped in a polybag with a card covering the spoiler cover) Jayne gets a space mine attached to his space suit, floats out into the big black to save everyone, and explodes.

Firefly:Fall Guys 1-6. The crew is hired by a rival crew to break into a safe to steal a deed to a mine, but the entire thing is a set up to blame them for an assassination of the Alliance’s Prime Minister; a woman Zoe has personal animosity towards when they faced off against each other during the war. The assassination attempt fails, and the entire town goes into lockdown, with the crew on the run from Alliance troops. In the end, Zoe ends up saving the PMs life and the traitor is revealed to be the PM’s aide. Afterwards, Zoe decides to take Emma and leave the crew. This was the most recent series. I was annoyed the PM kept calling Zoe by her married name Washburn(or Washburne, they can’t even keep the spelling consistent) instead of the name she would have known her by during the war. And some of the covers I have are cool variant portrait covers and others are not, but I had no control over which one I got because my guy would only order one copy. The same thing happened at the end of the 36 issue ongoing series, there were some cool ‘constellation’ portrait covers, but I only have a few of them. It’s not something I would want to spend time/money/effort correcting.

Firefly: ‘Verses oneshot. An elsworlds/what if story where the Browncoats won the battle at Serenity Valley and end up winning the war. The Confederation ends up becoming the assholes with Mal, Zoe, and Wash being part of the oppressive regime, and Book, Jayne, and Kaylee being insurgents smuggling a box with Simon, who was the one experimented on, for his sister River. After Book is killed, Mal and Zoe realize they’re the bad guys, and switch sides, and everybody escapes on an old Firefly which they name Shepard.

Firefly:Malcolm Reynolds Year One. A oneshot that tells the story of Mal getting caught on a failed stagecoach hold up, getting forced to join the Alliance to have the charges dropped, then switching sides during the war when he and his friend Monty meet Corporal Zoe Alleyne and her unit during the war.

So that was the underwhelming Firefly series. Up next is a spotty run of Flash. I stopped buying it regularly, and then found a bunch of random issues to fill the gaps. But not all the gaps. And after that, a Flashpoint Beyond mini.

[Tom Foolery]

This week’s books.

Absolute Batman 5. Batman takes the $200M that Black Mask offered him(and that he accepted) and piles it on top of a giant spotlight, then turns the spotlight on making a giant bat symbol in the sky of all the money burning. So, in this universe, Batman is a fucking idiot. Roman has his goons beat the shit out of Batman who barely escapes with his life. Then Roman sends animal masks and weapons to every citizen in Gotham and asks for them all to hunt down Batman. I haven’t got around to reading Snyder’s Nu52 run, but was it as shitly absurd as this comic has been? The other two Absolute books have been pretty solid so far, but this is farcical.

Amazing Spidey 67.
Aquaman 2.
Batman & Robin 18.
Batman:Dark Patterns 3.
Cable:Love & Chrome 2.
SW:Captain America 2.
Eddie Brock:Carnage 1.
New Champions 2.
Deadpool 11.
Deadpool Team-Up 5. This is Liefeld’s final issue from Marvel. I flipped thru it. He wrote himself into the book.
Deadpool/Wolverine 2.

One World Under Doom 1. This year’s big Marvel Event begins! Sorceror Supreme Doom announces himself Emperor of Earth. He has two rules. First, no nations can fight with each other. And second, everybody gets universal healthcare and free education. Baron Zemo is like ‘fuck that, Hydra aren’t bowing to a goddamn gypsy.’ and attack Latveria. But a little while later, Zemo gets on TV with Doom and he’s like ‘I was wrong, and Hydra is gonna start building schools and hospitals in underdeveloped nations, and also clearing out all the minefields on Earth, because minefields suck.’ So, the Avengers and FF are suspicious and they attack Hydra and figure out Zemo is a Doombot that Doom replaced the real Zemo with. When they broadcast the duplicitousness across Earth, Doom is all ‘okay yeah you got me. I killed Zemo. He was a fucking Nazi. I also killed Red Skull a few weeks ago, he was a shitbag Nazi also. Two less Nazis in the world, that the Avengers had been trying to stop SINCE WWII. YOU’RE WELCOME. And I’d convinced Hydra to actually do some good for once by getting rid of mines and building useful shit, but the Avengers just ruined all that…clown shoes.’

Magik 2. Illyana and her new tag along amateur magician head to Tokyo to track down why demons from Limbo are attacking mutants. The demons’ boss Liminal is trying to get Magik to turn into her Darkchylde persona that she keeps in check.

Marvel Mutts oneshot. Print collection of a bunch of Marvel Unlimited digital shorts featuring the dogs of the Marvel U, including Lucky the pizza dog, Cosmo, Bats the ghost dog, Lockjaw, and Ms Marvel’s new pet, Mittens. Not as cute and funny as the other Unlimited collections like Alligator Loki and Jeff the Land Shark.

Moon Knight:Fist of Konshu 5. Marc accepts a one on one brawl with the new criminal drug dealer, Achilles Fairchild. When he starts getting his ass kicked in the ring, Marc figures out Fairchild isn’t what he appears to be, and he’s actually an exiled Asgardian.

Psylocke 4. Kwannon breaks into the estate of the guy who’s been haranguing her for the past few issues. He introduces himself and we get his origin story. Then he knocks her out and pins her to a wall like a bug collector would. Amusing side note, the printers accidentally put an in house ad for Venom War 5 in the book, which came out like six months ago. Get it together, Marvel!

Spider-Boy 16. The conclusion of the Dragon tournament. After ceding the victory to Bullseye at the end of the last issue, Daredevil lawyers his way into getting Bullseye disqualified. Which means Spider-Girl has to choose a new partner for the final fight against the current leader of the Gaping Maw. Spider-Girl chooses Bailey as her partner and they defeat Dragon’s Mist, leaving Bailey as the head of the Gaping Maw’s bevy of assassins. He tells them to disperse and go do good in the world, and then he and DD head back home. Meanwhile, back home, a jealous Boy-Spider has figured out how to make himself look human and usurped Bailey’s place at home because he wants his mother’s love.

Spider-Gwen 10. Gwen FINALLY figures out her new boyfriend is also the antihero Black Tarantula she’s been fighting for ten issues. When she confronts both Tarantulas, to get them to stop the social media execution of a corrupt judge, the younger BT steps in front of his father’s gun and gets shot. Gwen is holding him as he dies…and then an alt universe Loki from the TVA shows up and whisks her off into a completely different adventure!

Action Comics 1083. When a reformed villain relapses and kills a civilian during a botched bank robbery, Clark feels like there’s more to the story, and he starts investigating, both as Clark, and as Superman, to get to the truth.

Thor 20. Thor is hanging out with his mom, Freyja, getting her caught up on what’s going on in his life. Then Utgard-Thor shows up in Asgard, pinned to a giant wheel. He’s been tortured by the other Utgard-gods and sent back to Thor as a warning. Thor mercifully ends the giant’s life, then has Sif send him down the Black Bridge to confront his destiny. The first person in his way is the Executioner. Al Ewing is heavily foreshadowing that this is the beginning of Thor’s final adventure and he’s gonna die.

Transformers 17. There’s like three or four sublots going on. Thundercracker is trying to rescue his disassembled bff Skywarp. Beachcomber and Arcee looking for Ultra Magnus. Optimus and his handful of Autobots are trying to save people in Seattle while Bruticus and Devastator are demolishing it while they fight each other(good bye Space Needle!). But the main story is Cliffjumper and the other Autobots on Cybertron break into a Decepticon lair and use their sparks to power up a machine that creates….SHREDHEAD! Who or what is Shredhead? Well, I’ll tell you. He is some stupid fanfic TF the writer made up and wanted to put in this comic because just when you think it can’t get any shittier than it already is…you. are. mistaken.

I also love(ironically used here) that in the letter pages, readers keep asking if such-n-such a character is gonna show up, and the writer is always ‘I have no idea who any of those characters are! Lol.’

All New Venom 3. The mercenary Chance and some AIM goons confront Venom and eliminate the possibility that it’s Luke Cage. Dylan shows up and he and Venom discuss why Venom abandoned him. Then Madame Masque shows up(eliminating her from the suspect list) and she steals some vial of macguffin for MODOK.

X-Men 11. Corsair crashes on Earth trying to warn Scott some alien mercenaries are after him. The X-Men think the aliens are after Corsair, but they’re after Scott. And Alpha Flight shows up.

[Tom Foolery]

Jeremy Adams run on Flash. Sporadic and incomplete. But here’s what I read.

Flash 768, 769. Wally has decided to settle down and just be a family man, so he asks Barry to separate him from the Speed Force to avoid heroic temptation. The experiment goes awry and Wally’s consciousness is getting bounced thru other speedsters throughout time, first into a neanderthal being chased by raptors millions of years ago. Then into Bart’s body in the future, where he teams up with Gold Beetle, an energetic young woman who’s a fan of Blue Beetle and Booster Gold. The next person he jumps into is WWII era Jay, but I don’t have the rest of the story arc.

773. Wally is fighting the allegedly reformed Heatwave trying to figure out why he relapsed into crime.

775. A chaos spear is imbedded in the street in Central City, and it’s making everyone around it angry and irritable with each other, including Superman and Mister Terrific. Wally has to find the new villain responsible and stop him. Then Doctor Fate gets involved. Don’t have the story conclusion.

786. Dark Crisis tie-in. Wally and his entire family are helping fight crime during the event. Including his kids, and his wife, who also now has superspeed.

788-789. Warden Wolfe of Iron Heights is now the Mayor of Central City, and he’s deputized the Rogues as new special police officers. Whereas Wally, being a vigilante, is a criminal. But Pied Piper shows up to help Wally convince Wolfe they can work together. Also, Linda finds out she’s pregnant, and the baby is why she has superspeed.

790-796, and a Special. The One Minute War. An alien invasion force has figured out how to manipulate the Speed Force to take over worlds without firing a shot. While the rest of the world is ‘frozen’ only the speedsters(basically the entire Flash family) can stop the aliens and reverse time so that Iris isn’t killed at the beginning of the invasion. Also, we find out none of the heroes Wally killed during Heroes in Crisis actually died, but were shunted into a fractal area outside time and space(conveniently making him a non-murderer) and they all come to help out in the final battle.

798-799. Wally and Linda’s new baby Wade is born and he’s immediately kidnapped by Granny Goodness. Flash, Mister Terrific and the Terrifics head into space to get his child back.

800 was the giant sized finale to the series, which restarted with a new first issue. Several former creative teams, including Mark Waid, Geoff Johns, Josh Williamson, as well is incoming writer Simon Spurrier, had stories from different Flash eras.

Up next is Spurrier’s current run with artist Mike Deodato.

[Tom Foolery]

Si Spurrier and Mike Deodato’s Flash run was terrible. Deodato’s art was fine, but his page layouts were cramped with unnecessary panels. Spurrier was using like three diifferent fonts in his dialogue, which was annoying. And the story was incomprehensible. Some geometrically hypothetical next dimensional beings are in a fight with some other hypothetical next dimensional beings, and they were using time as a weapon, threatening to destroy time; starting in the future and erasing it backward. I understood the macro-gist of the plot, but the specifics were like trying to study for a calculus exam. The first 13 issues, and the annual were devoted to this story arc. By the time, I got to the annual, I was so bored, I just skimmed it.

Issue 14 started a new arc where Wally and his family decide to go on vacation…to Skartaris, the ancient world of Warlord, with the dinosaurs and whatever else that can eat you. A dumb vacation spot. 14 is the last issue I have, but the series is currently on issue 19.

Flashpoint Beyond 0, 1-6. We revisit the Flashpoint universe where Thomas Wayne is trying to figure out why the word he specifically helped erase is still in existence. He’s trying to figure out how to re-erase it, and also find a new serial killer called the Clockwork Killer who is murdering time travelers. The killer ends up being his wife, The Joker, who casually built a time machine to go back and save Bruce from getting shot. And we find out the entire Flashpoint world still exists because the main continuity’s Batman built a micro universe in a snowglobe and he’s using Jenny Slater’s wristwatch as a stabilizing tachyon field, all so he can keep his father alive, much to the chagrin of Rip Hunter and the Time Masters. The end of the book sets up a bunch of other future DC bullshit when thirteen paradox characters “escape” into the timeline, setting up future retcons, including some teenage girl who’s looking for the Watchmen. Ugh. At one point in the fifth issue, Mister Terrific is on a talk show, literally arguing with some other person, with charts and graphs, explaining DC’s version of the multiverse, metaverse, omniverse, etc. because they have genuinely fucked their continuity up so badly, they’ve gotta waste several pages of a comic to explain and codify what the fuck is going on in the DCU. Gimme a fucking break.

Up next, a Fury oneshot, the Get Fury MAX miniseries, Future State:Gotham, and then we get into the ‘G’s with some Gambit, Game of Thrones, Gamma Force, Ghost Rider, and GIJoe ARAH which will conclude this box.

But first, I’m behind a week on current stuff, which is like 50 issues worth of reading. I might combine last weeks and this weeks reading piles together.

[Tom Foolery]

Here’s the last two weeks worth of books combined into one giant reading pile, but split into three reads.

Absolute Wonder Woman 5. Diana uses the magic lasso her mother Circe gave her, which transforms her into whatever she needs at any particular moment. She turns into a giant Medusa and turns the eldritch beast attacking the city into stone. Then Steve Trevor has to talk the Medusa down and get her to turn back into Diana. Once the danger has passed, everything is hunky dory…and then the ground opens and Diana gets swallowed into Hell! Solid first arc in the Absolute universe.

Amazing Spidey 68.
Amazing Spidey 68.Deaths.
West Coast Avengers 1. The regular cover.
West Coast Avengers 4.
Aliens vs Avengers 3.
Ultraman x Avengers 4.
Batman:The Last Halloween 5.
Batman & Robin:Year One 5.

Detective Comics 1094. Having barely survived Asema’s attack, Batman saves young Spencer’s life and gets him into protective custody. When they find all the victims had a juvenile detention center in common, Batman sends Damian in undercover as a delinquent.

Black Canary 3, 4.
Capt America & Volstagg oneshot.
Catwoman 73.
Daredevil 18.
Daredevil:Unleash Hell 2.

Doom Academy 1. One World Under Doom tie in. Doom reopens Strange Academy in Latveria, and all the students and faculty, including Zelma and Doc Voodoo, are apparently okay with it. The Academy kids start investigating the disappearance of a student who went missing years ago.

Red Hulk 1. OWUD tie in. Doom is keeping Thaddeus Ross and other ‘heroes’ like Machine Man and Deathlok, imprisoned in a think tank to run world conquest scenarios. The prisoners plan a breakout.

Thunderbolts:Doomstrike 1. OWUD tie in. Doom tries to recruit Bucky as the head of his secret police. Bucky tells him to suck eggs, then retaliates by trying to sneak into Doom’s orbiting space station where he’s keeping the world’s entire nuclear arsenal. Doom sees him coming and nukes Bucky’s childhood home of Shelbyville, IN and kills 20,000 people, pinning the destruction on Bucky as a global terrorist. Ugh. That kind of mass killing never goes over well in comics in my opinion.

Weapon X-Men 1. OWUD tie in. Somebody decided putting Wolverine, Deadpool, and Cable on the same team would sell books. They throw in Chamber and Thunderbird for good measure. The plot is incidental, but Baron VonStrucker is trying to steal Logan’s adamantium.

Fantastic Four 29. OWUD. Emperor Doom is using immigrants..er.. I mean vampires as scapegoats for all the world’s ills. When Ben and Sue rescue a couple of young vampires from MAGA crowd..er..I mean from an unruly mob, Reed stays up late and invents a blood substitute to stop the blood lust of vampires worldwide. But the damage is done, everyone has drunk the koolaid and are flying Trump flags…er..I mean Doom flags everywhere.

GIJoe:ARAH 314.

GIJoe 4. The team is trying to get Dr. Monev to safety, but the Crimson Twins and the C.G. capture the entire Joe team. As they get led into Cobra HQ in shackles Duke says he has Cobra right where he wants them!

Hellhunters 3. While the Unhallowed plague spreads across the European front, preventing the advance of the Allies, Fury recruits Bucky to the team. Fury, Logan, Peggy, Bucky, Zardos, and Sgt Romero take the fight to the zombie Nazis. This has been a fun book.

Hellverine 3. Dr Strange tells Daken he’s the reason all the mutants are getting possessed by demons, then tells Daken he’s on his own, and fucks off to Asgard. Daken returns to the village in Japan where his mother was killed to fight a demon killing all the village’s children. The demon turns out to be his dead mother.

Hulk 22. The Lycana demon inside Charlie is maybe killing people while Charlie is sleeping. The subdued Banner persona speaks to Charlie from the local fauna and convinces her to go see Dr. Strange in NYC, but she has to convince Hulk to go without letting him know it was Banner’s idea. A young women killed by Lycana rips her way out of Charlie’s skin , leaving the husk behind, and a little demon takes possession of the skin and uses it to confront the Hulk. Creepy.

Infinity Watch 2. The stone bearer from a different dimension easily rips thru the entire Watch, killing them all and taking their stones to make an Infinity Sword. Except Star wrestles the sword away from him and rewrites reality where she’s the CEO of a giant Oscorp type corporation and she’s holding the dimension hopping stone bearer in a secret cell in the basement.

Up next, the second batch. Iron Man thru Superman.

[Tom Foolery]

Next stack of the last two weeks’ worth of reading.

Iron Man 5. Tony and Ironheart team up to fight Lucia VonBardas, the ex-ruler of Latveria, who is controlling a repurposed Sentinel alongside a racist militant group of ex-cops called the Heat.

Jenny Sparks 7. The conclusion of the series. Capt Atom has erased all of existence. Then he erases the remaining hostages. And finally, he erases Jenny. Then, after he ‘rebuilds’ society from the ground up several times, he realizes the problem wasn’t society, it was him. Which is how Jenny figured it was gonna turn out. ‘You can’t change the world. You can only change yourself.’ Put it on a t-shirt.

Justice League Unlimited 4. To stop the Inferno from destroying the Amazon forest, the League recruits Swamp Thing’s daughter Tefe to turn the tide. Batman finds J’onn hiding out in a cave in the middle of nowhere and coaxes him to come back so they can deal with the loss of his powers.

Marvel Free Previews 42. Stuff coming out in May.

Women of Marvel:She-Devils oneshot. Every year Marvel does an issue by women creators focused on its women characters. This issue had a forgettable story with Laura and Elektra teaching Blade’s daughter Bloodline self defense in the Savage Land and Shanna was in the issue as well. Echo and (I think) Black Widow(?) were on the cover, but nowhere in the book.

Nightwing 123. When a member of the Flybois(one of Bludhaven’s gangs) gets caught blowing up a police precinct, NW backtracks and finds out the guy was set up by the evil corporation running the cops. His sister, the Mayor, increases the funding of the cops at the CEO’s behest.

NYX 8. Laura, Sophie, and Kiden break Julian Keller out of a prison transport, and he and Laura deal with their complicated past. This series has been pretty weak, but this was a decent issue.

Rogue:Savage Land 2. Rogue and Magneto go rescue KaZar, who got kidnapped last issue.

Sabretooth:Dead Don’t Talk 3. During a giant gang war, Victor throws down with Dragonfire, the K’un L’un assassin sent to kill him. Halfway thru the fight, they decide to fuck instead.

Miles Morales 30. Part 2 of a crossover with Deadpool. I didn’t read the first part in DP. DP and his daughter have been hired to kill Miles, but they accidentally shoot and wound Shift instead. Miles is not happy.

StarWars:HighRepublic: Fear the Jedi 1.
SW:Rise of Skywalker 1. Adaptation of the film.
SW:Ahsoka 8.

Storm 8. OWUD tie-in, sorta. Storm died last issue for using her powers during the seven day moratorium Doc Voodoo brokered to save her life from the radiation poisoning. Death uses her body to attack Dr. Doom. Meanwhile, Infinity and Oblivion challenge each other to combat over the fate of the entirety of existence, and Infinity chooses Storm to be his avatar or whatever.

Superman 23. The TimeTrapper, who is Doomsday from the end of time, makes an offer to Lois to help him stop an unfavorable future. She rejects him, just as Clark did, then Lex traps the current time’s Doomsday, and the aliens who came to eradicate him, in bottled city tech. But Jimmy Olsen was severely hurt during the battle, and his GF Silver Banshee blames Superwoman and swears vengeance, not knowing she’s Lois.

Next, the final batch, Ultimate thru X-Men.

[Tom Foolery]

The last batch of last week’s reading.

TVA 3. The team tries to figure out who attacked Mobius, and the evidence points to Jimmy. But pretty much everybody thinks he’s being framed for it. Gwen explores a hidden area in the TVA and finds the Scarlet Witch in stasis. It’s weird how the comic universe and the MCU are so casually intertwined in this series.

Ultimate Black Panther 13. Inan, the Sorceress Supreme confims T’Challa’s suspicion that vibranium is alive and then she manifests its conciousness into a creature that attacks the Black Panther.

Ultimate Spider-Man 14. While escaping Kraven’s ‘savage land’ hunting zone under Manhattan, Harry is killed. And now Peter and his family have to go on the run!

Ultimate Wolverine 2. The X-directorate doesn’t believe the scientist they hired to creat the ultimate killing machine built the ultimate killing machine. So they send their best spec ops soldiers on a training mission against the ultimate killing machine. Then the ultimate killing machine easily kills the spec ops team.

LK Wolverine 3. After the mutant bomb went off, Elektra/DD brings Laura back to her place to heal. Then they track down the guy that triggered the bomb.

Wonder Woman 18. The Sovereign is holed up in the White House. Diana casually walks thru the US Military, and Sgt Steel, and General Glory, and Grail to get to him in the Oval Office. Another fuckin’ badass issue from King.

World’s Finest 36. Bats and Supes are trying to stop the Floronic Man from starting an undersea war between Aquaman’s Atlanteans and another undersea kingdom called the Tritonians. And they almost get everyone to stand down. But then King Ronal of the Tritons sees his queen Lori Lemaris making out with her ex-bf, Superman.

X-Factor 7. OWUD tie in. X-Factor is sent to Genosha, which has been reinvented as al algorithm governed country called Gigosha. The US wants X-Factor to destroy the advanced AI running the country before Doom gets ahold of it.

X-Force 8. Colossus attacked the team, but it’s not Colossus, or it’s a mind controlled Colossus. I’m not sure. But Alchema is still trying to fuck with the team with her ill-defined powers. This book serves no purpose.

Exceptional X-Men 6. The new students at Kitty and Emma’s school/dojo all conveniently get internships at the same consulting firm. A mutant named Sheldon Xenos has created a new app to improve people's lives by creating a DNA database to help tailor self improvement. While Bronze and Melee are suspicious, Axo buys into Xenos’ pitch. But the next issue’s cover gives away the twist. Xenos is Mr. Sinister up to no good.

Uncanny X-Men 10. The Sentinel dogs are attacking the kids at the mall, then they turn on the regular civilians. The kids, and the X-Men save everybody and look like heroes in the process.

X-Men 12. Alpha Flight shows up and helps the X-Men rescue Cyclops from the aliens that came to kidnap him. All five X-Books this month ended on an awkward cliffhanger setting up next month’s big X-event where Xavier escapes and all the teams are hunting him.

Zatanna 1. Zee is setting up a new magic show in San Francisco when something kidnaps her assistants and traps them in old movie posters or something.

All caught up(for a day or two). So back to the Nick Fury stuff.

[Tom Foolery]

This week’s books (what?? already? You just bought them yesterday! I did, and there was inclement weather so I skipped work yesterday and read my new pile o’ comics…)

Batgirl 5.
Batman:Full Moon 4.
Birds of Prey 19.

Dr. Strange of Asgard 1. OWUD tie-in. Now that Strange has lost his job to Emperor Doom, he needs a new one. So he goes to Asgard and asks Thor if he can be Asgard’s Sorcerer Supreme. A whole new cast of characters is introduced. Then the lasy who’s gonna give Strange the go ahead to learn Asgardian magic gets stabbed by Loki(who’s screaming that he didn’t do it, so something’s up there) and Stephen is left alone with the dead body and people knocking on the door.

Green Arrow 21. (And also 19, 20). The new issue came out, so I granned the two previous issues from this weekend’s Big Score to catch up. A giant chemical corporation that Oliver briefly was CEO of poisoned a bunch of people in a town called Freshwater. The victims are all now running around in the same costume murdering anyone involved in the cover up. Even though Ollie is one of the targets, he’s not unsympathetic to their goals.

Moon Knight 6. After getting his ass kicked into a coma by the rogue Asgardian Fairchild, Tigra and the Midnight Mission team have to align with Konshu to find him and rescue him.
NYX 9. See Below.

Scarlet Witch 10. Wanda’s new protoge Amaranth learns her origins. She is the daughter of two primordial entities, Control and Freedom(or ‘Witchcraft’ and ‘Chaos’ but why would any primordial being be ‘Witchcraft’? That’s dumb. Hey look, it’s Eternity, and Death, and Eternity and Oblivion, and…Witchcraft…) so she sets off on her own to do her own thing. The series ends with this issue, but a new Vision and SW series is starting up soon by the same writer.

Secret Six 1. In the aftermath of Absolute Power, Amanda Waller is in prison. Except she’s already escaped or been broken out. So Jon Kent and his bf have to form a new team with Dreamer, Black Alice, Deadshot, and Catman to find her. I guess it would make more sense why those six if I had read AP.

Spider-Boy 17. Bailey returns home to find he’s been replaced by Boy-Spider. Until his mother makes them stop fighting and explains they are both her son, so now Bailey has a brother, Boyd. Then a couple of super powered thugs attack the F.E.A.S.T. center and the Spider bros team up to stop them.

Spider-Gwen 11. Earth 65’s Loki and Gwen are out in space on an adventure. He’s trying to teach her how to unlock her new reality warping powers to save the universe. And we get a flashback that explains why she’s been hiding out on Earth 616 and why the TVA was so interested in her. She accidentally absorbed a cosmic cube back on Earth-65.

Spectacular Spider-Men 13. The Spideys have been defeated by the Electros. But the Lizard shows up looking for Curt Connors kidnapped son. When the Spideys teack them down, Connor’s son is missing, and now the Lizard starts attacking the Spideys.

Web of Spider-Verse:New Blood oneshot. Three new Spidey variants are introduced in this oneshot leading into the Spider-verse vs Venom-verse event coming this summer. The vampire Count Parker, Spider-Hulk, and Spider-Prowler.

StarWars:Jedi Knights 1.
Storm 6. See Below.
Immortal Thor 21. Thor faces off against Skurge the Executioner, who wants to save Thor from his fate. After they fight for most of the issue, Thor accepts Skurge to accompany him on his journey into Utgard.

Ultimates 10. The Ultimates invade the fortress of the Red Skulls, a militia cult inspired by Johann Shmidt and Frank Castle. They are there to recover the body of Namor, who’s been pinned to a wall as a decoration. The twist is the leader of the Red Skulls is Bucky.

What if…Mickey and Friends became the Avengers? Another Disney/Marvel mash up that, apart from the Disney humor, sticks pretty close to the original story.

Wolverine 7. Romulus is back and he’s got the ancient mythical metal adamantine, and he wants Logan’s adamantium. Ugh. Logan is such a boring shit character anymore. And adding one of his shittiest, least interesting archenemies just makes this series an even bigger turd.

X-Manhunt( Uncanny X-Men 11, NYX 9, Storm 6). The X-crossover. Xavier gets a psychic distress call from his daughter, the Empress of the Shi-Ar empire. So he breaks out of Greymalkin Prison. Except he’s been diagnosed with a fatal tumor that’s making his powers dangerously unstable. Greymalkin calls the X-teams to try and bring him back. He plows easily thru Rogue’s team at the prison. Prodigy and the NYX team tell him to fuck off when he comes to them for help(good on you, Prodigy!) and when Scott’s team shows up at Storm’s floating fortess, she uses her new cosmic powers to help Xavier escape and fucks up Scott’s team.
I find it annoying that both X-Men teams are on Greymalkin Prison’s speed dial and will come do what they want when they call, considering they’re the guys using their old school to illegally detain mutants. Also, when the two teams spat like two months ago, Scott’s team was the one advocating let Xavier rot in prison, and Rogue’s team wanted to spring him. But Rogue’s team was the first one to show up at the prison to keep him locked up. Pick a fucking lane you guys.

[Tom Foolery]

Some more back reading.

Fury oneshot. Al Ewing wrote this celebration of 60 years of the world’s greatest superspy. He deftly weaves a tale of different eras of Nick Fury, from WWII thru the “60s” era(sliding timescale notwithstanding) up to the present day with Nick Fury Jr carrying on his dad’s legacy and the OG Nick being Uatu’s herald or whatever. The story revolves around the Scorpio Key, and introduces the idea that not only are there multiple Scorpio keys, but that they unlock mysterious Scorpio Doors, setting up future potential storylines. It was a fun, bombastic spy romp.

Get Fury 1-6. Garth Ennis returned to the MAX-verse with another Vietnam era tale of Fury and Frank Castle. Fury gets captured by NVA, and the CIA is worried he’ll crack under torture, so they send Castle to terminate him. Frank has other ideas, and breaks into the Hanoi Hilton to bring Fury out alive. Another brutal, insanely violent chapter in Ennis’ saga that started in his Punisher ongoing and continued in Fury:My War Gone By.

Future State:Superman vs Inglorious Lex 3. I think I skipped reading the majority of the FS books because by the time I got around to reading them, they were irrelevant. This was no different. An elderly Superman and Lois free a planet from Lex Luthor, who has taken it over. Meh.

Future State:Gotham 1-3, 5-8, 10, 11, 13, 17. Case in point, this was the only FS that wasn’t a miniseries or oneshot. A b/w ongoing where the Magistrates run a future Gotham City. Batman is presumed to have died, and a mysterious new Batman is running around Gotham. Most of the Bat-family are keeping up the fight, but Red Hood has joined the Peacekeepers, at the behest of a Bruce Wayne in hiding(that turns out to be Hush). Red Hood and new Batman team up to stop new threats like Warmonger and Next Joker. Then Nightwing gets psychic powers and the real Batman returns, and they are looking for Damian who has embraced his future as Batman666, but he gets possessed by the soul of Joe Chill. The series ran until issue 18. I don’t know when this series released in relation to the real Peacekeeper saga in the main Batman book, but obviously it didn’t play out the same, so this is more of an Elseworlds tale than anything else. It wasn’t awful; wasn’t great.

Future State:Teen Titans:Ruins oneshot. A reprint of the first two issues of FS:TT that introduced Red X into DC continuity. I’ve read several Titans books since then, and I still don’t know who Red X is under the mask. If it’s someone we’ve never met before, making his secret identity a mystery seems silly. ‘Ohmigod, it was Bob Jeffordson this whole time! That guy who we just made up and has no backstory! Shocking!!’

Hellions 18. The book I just bought this afternoon that finishes off the Hellions run I read a few months ago. After Orphan Maker killed a bunch of humans attempting to rescue the AI robot baby Nanny was raising, the Quiet Council elects to put him in the pit. Nanny insists on sharing his punishment. The rest of the Hellions call bullshit on the Council since Orphan Maker is basically a child. They disband. The Council resurrects Madeline Pryor and she has an awkward reunion with Havok. Kwannon and Greycrow share a tender moment as the series ends, with both of them seeing the potential good in each other, rather than seeing someone who’s ‘broken’.

That’s it for the ‘F’ stuff, the box concludes with some ‘G’ series. After that, the next box is ‘D’ stuff up to and including the One World Under Doom event, which I’m keeping current with already.

[Tom Foolery]

The ‘G’ books.

Gambit 1-5. Chris Claremont returns with this retro-series set around X-Men 267 when Gambit was first introduced, and he and de-aged Ororo were getting up to mischief. A mafia boss is trying to oust an ex-Marine and her mother out of their home with the help of obscure superhuman Warhawk. And another subplot with some alien bounty hunters coming after Lila Cheney. Claremont likes to recycle his little used characters from other projects back into circulation, such as the bounty hunter, aptly named Bounty, from his early 2000s FF run, and the giant metal skinned Warhawk from his Iron Fist run. I looked up Warhawk because of the obvious comparison to Colossus, thinking he was a ripoff character. But they debuted the same month in 1975. Hmmmm…

Clash of Kings Part II 12-16. The end of the second GoT adaptation. The giant battle of King’s Landing, Tyrion losing his nose, Roose Bolton sacking Winterfell, and Jon Snow joining the Wildlings as a spy were the main plot points. Kinda makes me want to start re-reading the series all over again.

Gamma Flight 1-5. A spin off of the Immortal Hulk series from four years ago. Puck, Doc Samson(in a sasquatch body, Crusher Creel, and Titania are all fugutives after failing to bring the Hulk in. They stumble onto a plot by the recently revived Abomination and Skaar, son of Hulk, to poison an entire town with microdoses of Gamma radiation to build an insurgent hulk army. They implied more stories would be forthcoming, but that kind of petered out.

Next up, Ghost Rider stuff. A 21 issue ongoing(the 10th volume) and a few miniseries and oneshots.

[Tom Foolery]

This week’s books.

Absolute Superman 5. In the present, Kal is hunting down the Peacemaker who killed 23 innocent civilians. He gets contacted by the AI Brainiac algorithm, who offers Smith's location if Kal meets with him/it. In the past, Krypton finally explodes and everybody except Kal dies.

Amazing Spidey 69. Nice.
West Coast Avengers 5.
Batman & Robin 19.
Batman:Dark Patterns 4.
Deadpool 12. Part of the crossover with Miles Morales.

Nick Fury vs Fin Fang Foom oneshot. J Michael Straczynski is doing a series of six team up oneshots, where he pairs random Marvel characters for interesting new stories. The first two were Dr Doom/Rocket Raccoon and Capt America/Volstagg. This one is set in 1940, prior to the US entering the war. Fury gets sent to China to assist the civilian air corps ‘Flying Tigers’ aiding the Chinese against Japan aggression. But something is attacking the planes. While he’s there, he basically is introduced to all the members of what will become the Howling Commandos. And they figure out Fin Fang Foom is attacking the planes, but the giant dragon realizes WWII is imminent and he can just hibernate for a few decades while humanity goes to shit, and he can take over afterwards. This motivates Fury and his team to enlist so they can change the outcome of the war.

Hellhunters 4. As the Zombie hordes are on the brink of total victory in Europe, Zarathos is having none of that shit. So he imbues Fury’s team with the demonic tools they need to get the job done(like giving Logan metal blades years before he actually gets them), and Sgt Romero gets a B-52 bomber imbued with hellfire…Ghost Flyer! Pretty dope.

Hellverine 4. Akihiro defeats the demon wearing his mother’s face, and rescues the children of the Japanese village. Then he heads to Gigosha(formerly Genosha) where his father drowned him in an issue of X-Force. The water in Gigosha is possessed by his ‘demise’ or whatever and it’s killing people. So Aki has to fight his evil water doppleganger.

Iron Man 6. OWUD tie in. Stark is secretly meeting with exiled Latverian insurgents in Russia who want to overthrow Emperor Doom. Their meeting is interrupted by the Winter Guard, who now work for Doom.

Marvel Must Have, March 2025. Reprints The first issue of Brubaker and Epting’s Capt America series that introduced Winter Soldier, and recent first issues of Phoenix and Spider-Man:Reign 2.

Namor 8. The series conclusion. Namor wins the battle for the throne, and then immediately abolishes the monarchy, setting up a council in a new city of Atlantis that can move wherever it wants in the ocean(s). After forming this new govt, Namor fucks off into the ocean to become a boogeyman vigilante for anyone who’s trying to topple the new peace he just brokered. Weak ass shit from Jason Aaron. I regret paying full price for this series.

Phoenix 9. Jean emerges from her cocoon as the next stage of evolution of the Phoenix force, and her allies are worried Jean’s humanity is being subsumed by the cosmic entity. Phoenix goes to confront the child she gave a fragment of the Force to.

Power Man:Timeless 2. Old Man Cage with the power of the Iron Fist, the Sentry, and the Hulk, fights the Inhuman Aeon who was raised by the Kree as the ultimate pacifier. They fuck up the planet of Venus with their epic brawl, and Power Man finds a Celestial brain hiding inside Mercury. Aeon heads to Arrako(formerly Mars) but Apocalypse is waiting for him, and he’s not having any of that shit.

Star Wars:Legacy of Vader 2. Didn’t read it.
Action Comics 1084. Superman confronts the aliens stealing telomeres from supervillains to power their immortality. After kicking their asses, we find out Major Disaster took the blame for the murder of that guy, to protect his daughter who accidentally killed him. Clark doesn’t know how to deal with this info and how it conforms with his whole ‘Truth and Justice’ schtick.

Transformers 18. Fanficbot shows up and rescues the Autobots on Cybertron!! He easily defeats like twenty Decepticons because he’s so awesome!! I bet Optimus will see how kewl he is and give him the Matrix and Megatron will be soooo scared of him that he’ll just surrender!! Maybe writers shouldn't be allowed to dig their shitty crumpled up notebook creations out of their third grade trapper keepers and make them canon. Speaking of Maegatron, while Starscream and Soundwave’s forces are fighting each other and destroying Seattle(seriously, Bruticus and Devastator are fucking shit up), Megatron shows up with Buzzsaw wired to him as his eyes, and gets the ‘Cons to fall in line. Optimus and his THREE Autobots retreat.

All New Venom 4. Madame Masque teams up with MODOK to confront Forson and his AIM squadron. Venom shows up to stop them, and then Rick Jones shows up wearing the Sleeper symbiote. So I guess Rick Jones ISNT Venom. But Jones+Sleeper is pretty fucking dope.

Void Rivals 17. Zeta Prime tells her origin story to Flakula in the heart of the planet and why they have to unite the two sides. And Blamuel’s dad tells him the origin story of the planet and why they can’t unite the two sides. I swear to god, if this planet ends up being Unicron…

X-Men 13, and X-Factor 8. The next two chapters of X-Manhunt. The X-Men manage to subdue Xavier, then X-Factor shows up and frees him, so he can show everybody what’s hiding on Utopia; the very last Krakoan resurrection egg. X-Factor 8 was also Legacy issue 300, and they had the cover mosaic in the back of the issue of all 300 covers.

[Tom Foolery]

This week’s books.

Absolute Batman 6. Some of Bruce’s friends find out he’s Batman. After he recovers, he heads out to Roman’s big fancy yacht and beats everyone up and stabs Roman in the eyes with his Bat-ear-knives, then he shuts down the servers broadcasting kill $ totals to all the masks Roman provided everyone in the city. After the yacht explodes, Alfred recovers a wounded Batman from the water. This book is so goddamn silly, I want to stop recapping it.

Absolute Flash 1. The next wave of Absolute books begins. Army brat Wally West gets caught in a science experiment that kills the researcher Barry Allen at the secret military site that Wally’s dad is in charge of. Wally gets super powers, so his dad sends a military goon squad to recover him. The goons are all analogs of the Rogues; Capt Cold, Boomerang, Heatwave etc. The first issues of Abso WW and Superman(and to an extent, Batman) had interesting setups to differentiate from the main books. This was just kinda dull and more derivative that intriguing.

Avengers 24.
Batman & Robin Year One 6.

Detective Comics 1095. Bruce finds out his father saved Joe Chill’s life and then his parents got Joe’s family away from him, so he wonders if his parents’ murder was premeditated. After a talk with Leslie Thompkins, Batman goes to confront Chill at his shitty apartment, but Chill never knew the name of the doctor who saved him. Then he gets Clark to release a story about Elixir using children’s DNA to rejuvenate wealthy individuals, and breaks up with Scarlett because she knew about it. Lastly, as Batman, he goes to confront Scarlett about the serial killer, but a bomb goes off in her office…cliffhanger!
This story arc is fantastic.

Cable:Love and Chrome 3.
Sam Wilson:Capt America 3.
Eddie Brock:Carnage 2.
Catwoman 74.
New Champions 3.
Daredevil:Unleash Hell 3.
DC x Sonic the Hedgehog 1.
Deadpool/Wolverine 3.

One World Under Doom 2. After providing free education and healthcare in issue 1, Doom gives the gift of Open Borders so that anyone, anywhere in the world can move to wherever they want. Val meets with Uncle Victor, and he convinces her his benevolence is genuine. When the FF go to confront him, he uses his magic to cure Ben permanently, which Reed has been unable to do for decades. The Avengers are still suspicious of his motivations, and recruit the Masters of Evil.

GIJoe 5. Clutch helps the Joes break out of Cobra HQ. Cobra Commander reveals his plans to use the brainwave array on the city of Washington DC, but he’s stopped by Duke, setting up their very first face to face encounter!

Magik 3. While Illyana is trapped in Luminal’s realm for what feels like weeks, she makes a bargain to remove her Darkchylde safeguards in exchange for being released. When she gets out, its only been a couple days. Her sidekick, Cal, has moved to the next seal in Equador and called in Dani Moonstar for help.

Nightwing 124. Dick is trying to keep the peace with the different gang factions under his care. His sister, the Mayor, has authorized Spheric to release giant robots to incapacitate the city’s gangs, but she soon realizes that maybe Dick is right, and the big evil corporation is big and evil and has an ulterior motive.

Psylocke 5. Kwannon is trapped in the lair of the Taxonimist, but she breaks free and kicks his ass.

Saga 72. I’m way behind on reading this, but I get nervous for whomever is on the cover, because I think they die in that issue.
Sonic the Hedgehog 77.

Miles Morales 31. Part 4 of the crossover with Deadpool. Both DPs, Miles and Shift team up to defeat Agent Gao, who’s been powered up by Ares, the god of war. Thor has a chat with Anansi because there’s a subplot with Anansi having a beef with the Olympic pantheon of gods, and using his new champion Miles to further his objectives.

TVA 4. Mobius wakes up from his coma and confirms Jimmy didn’t attack him. Gwen, Ingrid, and Gambit head to New Orleans to find a book or something. Gwen heads back to the secret area of the TVA to release the Scarlet Witch(its heavily implied this is the MCU Wanda) and the secret villain reveals himself; Nighmare!

Ultimate Black Panther 14. The living embodiment of vibranium possesses a mercenary in Nigeria who was trying to steal a chunk. T’Challa makes Killmonger his general.

World’s Finest 37. The two undersea kingdoms work together with Batman, Robin, Superman, and Swamp Thing to stop the Floronic Man from infecting the entire ocean.

X-Force 9. X-Manhunt part 7. Sage helps Xavier escape from the X-Men and they hatch open the last krakoa egg. Lilandra is inside. Meanwhile, the rest of X-Force is fighting Alchema and Colossus in a story that has nothing to do with the X-Manhunt crossover. Which will be awkward for whoever is reading that TPB down the road.

Exceptional X-Men 7. An X-Manhunt tie-in. The extent of the tie-in is that Bobby comes in and tells Emma and Kitty that Xavier has escaped. And they both gasp. Meanwhile, Axo is still cozying up to Sheldon Xenos, the entrepreneur using mutant DNA to map his new app. Then Xenos reveals he’s really…Mr Sinister! It was the twist everyone saw coming.

Zatanna 2. Zee has a giant magic sword stuck in her that only she can see and feel. She goes to the Oblivion Bar and gets help from Detective Chimp and Blue Devil. The story isn’t all that, but Jaime Campbell’s art is pretty great.

Up next, I’m slowly working my way thru the Ghost Rider stuff.