So, What comics did you buy this week?

[Tom Foolery]

11/12. Part 2.

Star Wars 7.
Star Wars Han Solo:Hunt for the Falcon 3.

Strange Tales 2. Green Goblin breaks into the Sanctum Sanctorum to steal some magic stuff and Spider-Gwen tries to stop him. I just realized this miniseries is basically an advertisement for Marvel’s Role Playing Game.

Supergirl 7. I only got it for the Soizmaka variant cover. I skimmed it. There’s some shark lady and then everyone has Thanksgiving. Or something.

Action Comics 1092. General Sam Lane tracks the trajectories of Superboy’s flight paths and narrows it down to Smallville. He goes to confront the hero with an army battalion, but the citizens all stand up for Superboy and tell the General to kick rocks.

Transformers 26. Thundercracker thinks the Autobots have been torturing Skywarp, but Optimus informs him it was the Decepticons who hooked Skywarp up to Teletran-1. When Prime makes Skywarp’s recovery the priority, it’s enough to make TCracker switch sides.

Venom 251. Mayor Cage thinks Rick Jones is Venom and asks Robbie for a meeting. Rick Jones is actually bonded with Toxin(did I miss an issue?) and is trying his hand at super-heroing. Doc Ock is the new head of SCAR(the anti-symbiote task force) and they go to confront Toxin, so Venom and MJ have to put aside their differences to assist Toxin. But since symbiotes are unappreciated, MJ has the clever idea to just pose as NYC’s favorite superhero; Spider-Man!

Ultimate Black Panther 22. Storm is being held captive by the priest cult. She gives birth to T’Challas baby and the priests annoint it, prepapring for the baby to be the vessel for the Vibranium god or whatever. T’Challa and Killmonger go rescue Storm and the goddess Bast prepares them for the final battle. This series has been underwhelming. All the Ultimate titles are drawing to a close before the Endgame.

Ultimate Wolverine 11. Colossus and Magik send a fighter jet with a cerebro bomb to take out the resistance. Logan tries piloting a Sentinel to stop the bomb, but he’s too late and…HOLY SHIT, they just killed everybody. Like…ohmygod. Ten major characters just died. Wow.

Sinister’s Six 2. AoR tie-in. Mr. Sinister employs a team of symbiote bonded mutants to try and take down Revelation, but they are confronted by his elite agents, including Logan.

Rogue/Storm 2. AoR tie-in. In the flashback portion, Rogue’s team tries and fails to stop Storm when they are betrayed by one of their own teammates who kills everyone and frees the demon trapped inside Storm. In the present, a blind Gambit shows up looking to confront Storm before she finds Rogue.

Iron and Frost 2. AoR tie-in. Emma is looking for Tony to help build her a suit to keep her alive so she can switch out of her diamond form and use her telepathy once more. But Tony has been mutated by the virus and become a metal man whose mind has merged with his AI operating system. The real Tony is trapped in its subconcious. War Machine might have found a cure to fix Tony but it requires Emma’s powers. And Tony just blasted Rhodey.

X-Men:Tales from the Age of Apocalypse oneshot. $10 reprint book that has each of the first issues of the original AoA miniseries; Factor-X, Weapon-X, Astonishing X-Men, and Amazing X-Men. It occurred to me that $10 is more than what the original issues separately cost, and perhaps even more than what you could track them down for even today.

Youngblood 1. Liefeld has relaunched Youngblood yet again. This comic was pre-bagged and boarded. And I thought ‘there’s no way whatever is in this issue isn’t going to be an underwhelming read that’s worth opening the bag’. So I just left it. It’s already gone to a 2nd Printing.

And now, this weekend I shall dive into 11/19’s pile. Which is also a pretty big stack. And then, eventually, Catwoman.

[anarky]

Is the little weasely dipshit still president of Wockecuckuckland (which I think is the actual spelling)? It's obvious that Hama was setting up some new intriguing subplot with him being forced to deal with Darklonia despite being 200% sycophant right as the original series was canceled, but may or may not remember that and doesn't reread his old stuff. (Sneak Peek, cough, cough.)

[Tom Foolery]

I can barely remember the plot of the last 30 or so issues of the original ARAH run. Vaguely there was some attempt at a Transformers crossover somewhere in there, and the Ninjas somehow became the focus of the entire series for a bit. And at this point, I’d be reluctant to go dig them out because they’re all like $40 apiece and I’d be afraid of spilling grape juice on them or some shit.

Anyway, here’s 11/19’s books. Part 1.

Amazing Spidey 15, 16. Somehow I missed 15 from a couple weeks ago and had to find it and 16 at another shop.
AstroBots Vol2 2.

Batman Deadpool 1. I got the main cover and also Mark Brooks’ variant with Zatanna and Wanda. Grant Morrison serves up a very meta story, writing himself into the team-up as Bats and Wade search for a laptop that can literally rewrite the plot of the comic. Suitably hilarious and self-reflective. There were also backup stories featuring Constantine/Dr Strange, Ms Marvel/Static, Hulk/Harley Quinn, and an excellent story with Nightwing and Laura Kinney by Tom Taylor that was *chef kiss* perfect. I read that Marvel and DC are already planning more digital crossovers thanks to this matchup being a huge success. Yes. More please.

Capt America 5.
Catwoman 81.

One World Under Doom 9. The conclusion of the event. After the devastating death of last issue, Doom uses all his magical energy to go to the Vishanti first(who reject his plea) and then to the Living Tribunal himself to make a bargain to save Valeria’s life. The extent of Doom’s payment will be explored in upcoming stories, but whatever it was was extreme, including giving up the mantle of Sorcerer Supreme. A ravaged dying Doom makes one last visit to Reed to make sure Val is safe and healthy and they have a heated exchange about the fallout of Doom’s worldwide empire collapsing. Reed tells Doom he won’t come rescue him ever, and Doom gives Reed his faceplate with his Last Will and Testament engraved on the inside of it. The book ends with Reed reading the will(we the reader don’t see it) and uttering a single word; “#%$@.”

GIJoe 14. The Dreadnok War continues. Duke and Cobra Commander are being chased by a convoy of ‘noks. Destro assumes the ‘noks have offed CC and takes over Cobra. Duke and CC find a small abandoned town where they prepare for a last stand against the incoming assault, but they are ambushed by a large man with a concrete hammer and a bunch of pigs….

Godzilla Destroys the Marvel Universe 5. Godzilla battles T’Challa’s giant mech suit controlled by all the heroes, but eventually Godzilla wears the suit down. But Reed and the others return from the Negative Zone just in time to implement a plan where they tie Godzilla up in the crimson bands of Cytorrak and Thor uses his hammer to throw G thru a giant portal created by Magik to an uninhabited world in an uninhabited solar system and the Earth is saved…until they get a transmission from the future that tells them whatever they do, DON’T send Godzilla into space or Billions will die. And then the coda is Knull finding Godzilla and giving him a symbiote. Lol. To be continued at some point.

Nightwing 132. NW is battling Olivia Pearce in an evil NW costume that mimics his fighting style. While the entire city watches the fight on live TV, we get a flashback to Olivia setting a trap when she was a kid, thinking Batman and Robin would come save her from it. When they didn’t she actually ended up dying, and the Zanni has been animating her corpse this whole time. The Zanni abandons her body, but to the cameras it looks like NW straight up decapitates her on television. Uh oh.

Nova Centurion 1. New ongoing series from Jed MacKay. As the last Nova, Rich Rider needs money to pay for the upkeep of the Xandarian WorldMind. Rich hires Pip the Troll as his agent to find paying gigs. His first client is an upstart criminal organization calling itself KreeSkrullWar. The KSW’s vaults were robbed and they want to find out who ordered the theft. They caught the culprit hired to do the actual job; it’s Cammi Benally! Nova agrees to help them if they turn Cammi over to him.

Punisher Red Band 3. Kingpin is using Microchip to send Frank* on missions to disrupt criminal enterprises around NYC via a control chip embedded in his skull. Tombstone is torturing people to get the identity of whomever is disrupting his network, and they describe a scary man wearing a skull. Frank* kidnaps a couple EMTs and their ambulance and requests they help him take the chip out of his skull. *they mention Weirdworld, so this is the guy we here at vynsane have established is a clone created by the Jackal and not the actual Frank who is still at the bottom of Lake Michigan in a special jailcell, but whom everyone has forgotten since Secret Wars soft rebooted the universe and the real Frank slipped thru the cracks.

Sonic the Hedgehog 82.
Spider-Gwen:Ghost Spider 4. Gwen and Agent Anti-Venom head to Riker’s Island and request the authorities stand down while they attempt to stop Gwen’s former symbiote(who she has dubbed Tantrum) from infecting all the inmates on the island, including Gwen’s new bf the new Black Tarantula and his father, the original Black Tarantula. Gwen and Flash are almost overwhelmed, but Silk and Miles show up on the last page to help out.

Spider-Man Holiday Spectacular oneshot. When May decides to take a cruise over Christmas, Peter is going to be all by himself. So all the other heroes get together and invite Spidey to spend the Holiday with them. A Christmas party on Avengers Impossible City, DD asks him to help break into a homeless shelter to leave gifts for the kids, and the X-Men invite him to dinner down in New Orleans. Fun story from Rainbow Rowell.

Star Wars Jedi Knights 9. Qui Gon Jinn wakes up from his coma and figures out the guy that’s been hassling him has something to do with a mission he went on as a padawan with Dooku years ago.

Up next, 11/19 Part 2.

[Tom Foolery]

11/19 part 2.

Ultimates 18. As the final hour approaches, Iron Lad sends out one last broadcast to the entire world asking them to join the Ultimates’ revolution against the Maker and his Council.

Wonder Woman 27. Ratman reveals he’s kidnapped Diana’s daughter. WW responds by repeatedly punching him thru every single wall in what looks to be the entire island. Man, she just beats the ever loving shit out of this guy. Don’t fuck with her kid, man.

World’s Finest 45. Lex and Joker team up and steal some wonky macguffin that combines them into one person and then he/they use it turn Batman and Superman intangible.

X-Men of Apocalypse 1. The writing in this is dreadful. Stop giving Jeph Loeb work. This is set immediately after the original AoA event. The AoA X-Men arrive in the main 616 universe and convince Nate Grey they are legitimate. Then they get into a fight with the actual X-Men outside the X-Mansion. Before the fight concludes, the AoA X-Men time travel back to take out Professor X in the past and go up against the original five student X-Men.

Last Wolverine 2. AoR tie in. Heather Hudson convinces Leonard, the Wendigo who took up the mantle of Wolverine, and a depowered Nightcrawler to go on a mission to ‘rescue’ Logan from Revelation’s influence. But when they get there, she pulls out a Muramasa Blade because she’s not saving Logan. She’s gonna kill him.

Omega Kids 2. AoR tie in. Quentin’s prodigy team of psychic spies are secretly planning to overthrow his and Revelation’s empire. But one of the kids might actually be a sociopath, and is just turning off the brains of anyone she doesn’t like.

Radioactive Spider-Man 2. AoR tie in. Aunt May has mutated into a horrifying creature, but she doesn’t realize it. Peter and Cecilia take care of her in a rare moment of lucidity. Miles and Gwen show up and there’s tension between them because Peter is keeping May alive after she killed MJ and Miles’ family. But when May sees Gwen and gets confused why she’s still alive, she regresses back into the monster.

Unbreakable X-Men 2. AoR tie in. Shuvahrak has awoken, and the Outliers made a vow to stop her when they were kids, so eveyone is being recalled from their separate lives to come back and fight the demon living under the X-Men’s house in New Orleans. But Shuvahrak blows up the house and escapes, heading to possess the most powerful mutant she can find, Namor of Atlantis.

X-Men:Book of Revelation 2. AoR tie in. Kitty Pryde rescues the newest Chorister Elbecca after Fabian Cortez tried to throw her off a building. Then they go confront Fabian in front of Revelation during a meeting. Then Revelation reveals to Elbecca that Kitty Pryde tried to assassinate him so he fucked with her intagibility power. But the real plot twist is that Elbecca is secretly a trojan horse sent by Apocalypse of Arrako to end Revelation’s rule on Earth.

Up next, gonna get started on Catwoman, but I’ll probably read the books I get tomorrow before that.

[Tom Foolery]

11/26’s books.

Absolute Batman 14. With the help of Harley Quinn and Killer Croc, Batman heads in for the final showdown with Bane as it broadcast across Gotham via Harley’s drone cameras. Batman starts the fight off by dropping an entire building on Bane. Bane keeps using his venom to grow to roughly the size of a barn(not to worry, in the Absolute Universe, physics don’t matter and absurdity is encouraged) until he has maxed out power. Batman was supposed to use his own supply of venom to counteract Bane’s advantage, but instead he had it extracted from his blood and launches it into Bane, overloading his already maxed body, so he swells up like Akira and bursts like a balloon. Then Batman uses his Bat-dumptruck to dump Bane’s gooey remains in the river. Joker, being displeased with Bane’s performance, has Santa Prisca nuked.

Absolute Wonder Woman 14. Diana is fighting her own negative energy manifestation which she surmises is a reaction by Gaia to bring balance to the world due to Diana’s arrival. But Diana seeks audience with Gaia and convinces her that dark energy has compromised the Earth(which is true, the entire Absolute Universe is a tainted manifestation of Darkseid) and Diana herself is actually the balance to counteract the evil. Gaia agrees and absorbs the negative energy being.

Arcadia 1. A Black Label mini starring Batman, Green Arrow, and Question by Gabriel Hardman. Didn’t read it yet, but it looks awesome. Like a series from the 80s, but in a good way.
Detective Comics 1103. Batman has less than 36 hours before the virus in his body becomes active and kills him. He enlists the help of Lois Lane to track down the researcher who developed the virus. Lois, the intrepid investigative jourlanist that she is, suggests that Batman isn’t finding clues to solve the case, but is actually being fed bread crumbs to lead him into a trap.

Battleworld 3.
Black Cat 4.
Daredevil & Punisher 1.

DC KO 2. The next round in the tournament begins. 16 powerful artifacts of DC lore are spread around the arena, like Blue Beetle’s scarab, the Lasso of Truth, a MotherBox, etc. Of the 32 remaining contestants, whoever is in possession of an artifact when the final bell rings, moves on. The other half dies. I will say this, Scott Snyder swings for the fences with these Events. Lobo on Venom? Superman with Omega Beams? There’s like an ‘oh shit!’ moment on every other page in these books.

GIJoe ARAH 26. A Reprint of the original ARAH issue with Snake-Eyes origin story, and some added notes from Larry Hama in the back of the book. And they reprinted it on newsprint, which is kinda cool.

Infernal Hulk 1. The Eldest has taken over Hulk’s body. She annihilates an entire Army regiment and turns their carcasses into her new minions for a resurrected demonic city she calls up from hell in the middle of Kentucky. Horrifying beginning to Phillip Kennedy Johnson’s next chapter in his excellent Hulk run.

Undead Iron Fist 3. Danny Rand has become the Fist of Anubis and he must fight the possessed bodies of his former allies, The Immortal Weapons, who are being controlled by Quan Yaozu. He defeats them all and expunges the demons, but there’s one more obstacle between him and Yaozu, the demon possessed Mayor of NYC, Luke Cage…

Justice League Unlimited 13. DC KO tie in. Mr. Terrific and his suicide squad of time displace heroes keep making their way thru the levels of Hell to confront Neron.

MK:The World To Come:Punisher 2. An older Frank continues to be under the influence of a South American drug dealer, working as his assassin. The US sends Everett K Ross in undercover.

Marvel Free Previews 51. Decembers solicits for February. New ongoings for Daredevil and Deadpool. Jar Jar gets a oneshot written by Ahmed Best.

Up next, the second half of 11/26.

[Tom Foolery]

11/26 Part 2.

1776 1. So I bought this a couple weeks ago, and when I got home I saw my issue had a big gash in the cover. I took it back over to my LCS guy and he said he’d reorder it for me since he’d only got in like 3-4 copies and they’d sold out already. I went in Wednesday, and he’d got the reorder in, but they only had Variant covers because I guess it sold out at the distributor really quick. Fuck. I mean, it’s a cool Steve Rude cover and all but I wanted the main one. There’s a show the mall next weekend. Hopefully someone will have a copy.
Anyway, the premise is Morgan LeFay goes back in time to fuck with the American Revolution and make sure the Brits win. Dr. Strange gets a visit from ghost of Ben Franklin sent into the future by Cogliostro to warn him. Strange sends Capt America, Iron Man, Spidey, the Hulk and Clea back to stop LeFay in the past.

Star Wars Boba Fett Black White & Red 3. Fett tracks down a bounty that got away when he was very early in his bounty hunting career. Another solid story. This series has been 3 for 3. Recommended.

Superman 32. DC KO tie in. Lex Luthor’s POV of how he and the other villains found out about and then crashed the tournament. Meanwhile, Lois and Superboy-Prime defeat the evil Legion at the Fortress of Solitude and discover the truth about the tournament that they have to get to Time Trapper.

Mortal Thor 4. We take a break from Sigurd’s story in New York and return to Asgard where Magni, the son of Thor from a discontinued alternate future contemplates taking the throne and dealing with Ulik the Troll diplomatically.

Trinity 5. Wonder Woman’s daughter heads back to Gotham looking for the time-breaking corgi dog, and goes on a second crime fighting date with Jason Todd.

Venom: Black White & Blood 4. Three more anthology stories. The Chris Bachalo one was pretty cool.

Cloak & Dagger 2. AoR tie in. The Fenris Twins are trying to distribute the X-virus to civilians in Cleveland. Cloak is wounded them, causing Dagger and their daughter to breach the safety between world where they’ve been raising her.

Undead-Pool 2. Wade has a brief reprieve from his zombie-ness, so he’s escorting the last mutant to the safety of St. Louis. But then Cable shows up, infected with a version of the techno-virus, to ‘recruit’ the young mutant. Deadpool manages to fend off Cable and send him packing, but the energy he uses makes his zombie version kick back on just as they are getting to St. Louis.

Expatriate X-Men 2. The X-Men discover the mutant they’ve been hired to rescue and deliver to Magik, might actually be a double-agent planted to set them up for an ambush. Or something. This writer’s narrative is disjointed and messy. I kept thinking the issue was missing pages the way the narrative kept jumping around.

X-Vengers 2. Dani Moonstar’s Avengers team is dealing with a variant of the X-Virus that’s killing mutants. Revelation thinks it’s a deliberate attack by the US Govt and wants to escalate the war, while Dani’s team is trying to calm everyone down.

Up next, I’m starting to read like 50+ issues of Catwoman. It might take awhile.

[Tom Foolery]

Here’s the first chunk of Catwoman books. The last issues I read were like four years ago, so it took me a couple issues to catch up on what had previously happened.

Catwoman 30-34. As ongoing protests against the police in Alleytown escalate, Penguin hires an assassin called Father Valley to kill Selina so Oswald can make a move on her territory. Selina rescues Poison Ivy from Simon Saint, who was using Ivy to manufacture some designer drug. A mysterious man who’s been helping Catwoman turns out to be Clayface, who has recruited a bunch of villains to safeguard Gotham from Simon Saint’s Magistrates that are running the police. Eventually, Father Valley lures Catwoman into a confrontation where he has a sniper rifle pointed at Selina’s sister and demands a fight to the death. After he loses the fight, he triggers the remote on the rifle and blows up the building he and Catwoman were fighting in. But the cop who Selina met in issue 1 and transferred to Gotham later on, figures out Maggie was the target and takes the bullet instead, killing him.

CW 35-38. The Fear State tie-in issues. After the last issue, Maggie decides to leave Gotham so Selina doesn’t have to keep protecting her. Penguin makes a move to re-kidnap Poison Ivy and assault Alleytown. Catwoman and her Clayface allies, including Killer Croc, Firefly, Cheshire, and Knockout defend Alleytown. CW and Harley Quinn pull a double cross on Riddler, who was helping Selina but had secretly been working with Penguin to get Ivy, but CW was on to him from the beginning. At the funeral for the cop, Valley confronts Selina one last time and apologizes for the wrong person getting killed. As amends, he says the contract is nullified and he leaves town. Ram V finished up his run by having Selina leave Alleytown in the hands of her cohorts at the orphanage, so she could get back to just being a thief.

CW 39-42. Tini Howard took over as writer. A bunch of various crimelords around town (including Black Mask, and Selina’s quasi-flirtatious frenemy and substitute Catwoman Eiko Hasigawa) are jockeying for position and CW returns to let them know Alleytown is still off limits. A dancer at the stripclub where they were meeting gets killed. A new adversary/love interest called Valmont arrives in town trying to recruit Selina into his team of thieves. One of the crimelord, tries to have his gay son killed by the kid’s lover, so the lover can inherit his criminal empire. When CW saves the son’s life, he becomes an uneasy ally and informant for her. Catwoman figures out Black Mask was behind the stripper’s death, so she steals his precious mask and blows it up in front of everyone as a show of force.

CW 43-44. Selina and Harley have a girl’s weekend together where they join a roller derby team, and spoon with each other in a motel room. Black Mask sends an assassin to kill CW because of the mask thing, but after a few failed attempts, the assassin ends up teaming up with Selina and Harley to deal with an actual creepy stalker guy that was being gross and weird to the girls at the roller rink. Selina also continues to get more confrontational and flirty with Valmont.

CW 45-47. CW asks Valmont for help with some human trafficking on the docks, and they continue their flirtation. Selina gets some help from the Batgirls, then she goes undercover at a high end gentlemen’s club to get answers on who’s behind the trafficking. While there, she encounters Nightwing, who is also investigating. Meanwhile, Black Mask is consolidating his alliances among the other four crimelords, and he questions Eiko’s allegiance, given her complicated relationship with Selina. So Eiko and Selina concoct a perfomance to distance Eiko from CW by having her fall into a “trap” on Eiko’s yacht that she blows up thereby satisfying Black Mask’s skepticism. Then Valmont and Selina head to Europe to track down the trafficker’s funding, but back in Gotham, her ally Dario gets kidnapped.

CW 48-50. Val and Selina head to Italy to try and bargain for Dario’s life from his extended family by exploiting some ancient sicilian family ‘rules’. On the plane trip back, Val is doublecrossed by his team(it turns out Val is a lapsed member of the League of Shadows), and he and Selina have to bail out of a crashing airplane. It turns out almost getting dying in a crash really gets the blood pumping and Selina and Val finally bone. When they get back to Gotham, they rescue Dario, then they have to deal with Punchline who is using an abandoned warehouse to create some new designer drug. When Batman shows up, things get complicated between her, Val, and Bruce. Punchline unleashes Amygdala on them, and Valmont kills him. Batman insists on taking Valmont in for the murder, but a girder collapses and while Bruce is holding it up to save CW, Valmont goes in for the kill on a compromised Batman. CW is forced to make a choice and kills Val before he can kill Batman. In the aftermath, Selina is taken into custody for Amygdala’s murder, and Eiko steps in as the new Catwoman.
Howard’s run has been pretty solid so far.

Up next, this week’s books, then more Catwoman.

[Tom Foolery]

12/3’s books.

Absolute Green Lantern 9. While Jo is hiding out in Cameron’s apartment, they hash out some domestic issues about their break-up and then do some trial and error on how Jo’s power ring works. Cameron’s partner at the FBI, Simon Baz is looking for Hal after the Evergreen incident, but their CO is secretly a stooge for Hector Hammond, and he sends the assassin Foldfsce to find Jo at Cam’s apt and shoots her.

Batgirl 14.
Batman 4. A brand new villain is introduced. The seven fingered Minotaur has consolidated crime in Gotham right under Batman’s nose. The only reason Batman finds out is that Anarchy accidentally steals the wrong truck and sets off a deadly confrontation to retrieve it.

Birds of Prey 28.
Cheetah and Cheshire rob the Justice League 5.

Knightfight 2. Batman is fighting an older Dick Grayson Batman in the future, when he realizes he’s in some sort of simulation created by the Heart of Apokalips. He glitches into another simularion where Jason is Batman and Bruce is an inmate in Arkham. Or rather the entire city of Gotham is now one big Arkham.

DC KO:Superman vs Captain Atom oneshot. There are only 16 contestants left, so this month they are doing eight issues, some of them in ongoings, and some oneshots, for each of those showdowns. Superman wins.

Doctor Strange 1. Doctor Strange is the new sorceror supreme of Asgard, which is cut off from Midgard after Thor’s ‘death’. While mediating a dispute between the Light Elves and the Angels of Heven, Strange accidentally reawakens an eons old Elf wizard who wants to kill every child in the Nine Realms.

Fantastic Four 6. After stopping an interdimensional invasion, the FF finds a message in the background static of the universe: Galactus is asking for Sue Richards help.

GIJoe 15. Dreadnok War part 3. Duke and CC have been recaptured by the Dreadnoks. Clutch and CoverGirl have become aware of Duke’s absence and decide to do something about it.

Hulk Smashes Everything 1. The Leader poses as Dr. Strange to trick Hulk into attacking the Sanctum, so he can break in and steal and artifact that will let him break into Doom’s castle to steal Doom’s time machine. After a lengthy battle with Hulk, Strange and Wong figure out Leader was responsible and just teleport Hulk to Latveria to become Leader’s problem. Leader uses the time machine to send Hulk back in time…to the Yucatan Peninsula…you see where this is going, right?

Marvel Black White & Blood and Guts 3. Three more anthology stories featuring Blade, Hit-Monkey, and Punisher. The Punisher one was pretty solid.

Spider-Girl 7. Final issue. While in Hawaii, Maka is fighting some creepy dog-monkey hybrid creatures. Then an even creepier centipede man hybrid shows up. He’s a former colleague of her father who gives her a flashdrive to release all the data proving her dad’s boss and his company are up to some shady shit. Then they all move back to NYC. Seems unfinished, so the series was probably cancelled due to low sales.

Miles Morales 41. Miles and Rabble reluctantly team up to fight the newly upgraded Assessor.

Spider-Man Noir 4. Peter informs Gwen that Spider-Man killed her father, and now she wants to hire him to find out Spidey’s secret identity. Also, Spidey fights some more Nazis.

Star Wars:Legacy of Vader 11.
Ultimate Universe:Two Years In oneshot. It would’ve been better to just call this Ultimate Guardians of the Galaxy.

Venom 252. In an homage to ASM 252(the first app of the black suit/symbiote) Venom becomes the Amazing Spider-Man and helps Mayor Luke Cage, and Captain Spider(aka Rick Jones wearing the Toxin sym) to publicly defeat Doctor Octopus in front of a bunch of New Yorkers.

Binary 3. AoR tie in. Madeline Pryor tries to take the Phoenix Force from Carol. Jean Grey’s essence reforms and Carol realizes they cannot share the Phoenix power and defeat Pryor, so Carol sacrifices herself to let Jean be reborn.

Laura Kinney:Sabretooth 3. AoR tie in. Revelation uses his power to force Laura to go to Arrako and bring back all the mutants that ‘escaped’ there. There, she gets into a huge fight with Gabby and Aki. The battle upsets her so so much, it triggers his latent mutant power and the resulting explosion kills everyone. Apocalypse is like ‘damn, son, you’ll make me a good hier’ while the kid cradles his dead mother. I laughed because both of these final issues killed off the main character, and now I’m hoping every issue of these AoR tie ins ends with the main character biting in.

Amazing X-Men 3. I realized I had somehow skipped issue 2, so I’m waiting to read it until I track down the previous issue.

Still working thru that Catwoman run. But it’s going quicker than I thought it would.

[Tom Foolery]

Here’s 12/10’s books. I had typed out like 90% of it and the iPad erased what I had written. I’m not retyping it out again. Here’s what I bought.

Absolute Batman 15.
Amazing Spidey 17.
New Avengers 7.
Batman & Robin 28.
Batman Gotham by Gaslight:A League For Justice 6.
Aquaman 12.
DCKO: Wonder Woman vs Lobo oneshot.
GIJoe ARAH 323.
Infernal Hulk 2.
Nova Centurion 2.
Punisher:The World To Come 3.
Spider-Gwen 5.
Spider-Man & Wolverine 8.
Spirits of Violence 3.
Star Wars Han Solo: Search for the Falcon 4.
Action Comics 1093.
Transformers 27.
The End 2099 1.
Ultimate Black Panther 23.
Ultimate Spider-Man 23.
Ultimate Wolverine 12.
Iron & Frost 3.
Longshots 3.
Sinister’s Six 3.
Unbreakable X-Men 3.
Amazing X-Men 2.

[Tom Foolery]

Here’s the next batch of Catwoman issues.

CW 51-56. While Selina is in jail, Eiko steps up and pulls double duty as Catwoman, while also pretending to oppose her as the head of her crime family. Selina recruits a bunch of female prisoners to plan an escape, and set up a larger plan for Gotham. While inside, she confronts Punchline again. After they escape, she goes after the remaining crime families and put them under her thumb for what she has planned next, and she settles the score with Black Mask by returning his Mask to him.

57-58. The Gotham War crossover with Batman. I remember being annoyed with this entire premise when I read the Batman issues a few years ago. Catwoman turns all the criminals in Gotham into self sufficient cat burglars and violent crime in Gotham drops to near zero. The rest of the Bat Family is on board with there being near zero actual crime in town, but Batman inexplicably becomes a zealot about it and fights his own allies, even going so far as to DOUSE Jason with a Fear Toxin derivative to make him stop being a vigilante(goddamn Zdarsky’s run was shitty) and the entire thing was like a smokescreen or some bullshit to trick Vandal Savage or something. Ugh.

59-68. Tini Howard wrapped up her run with an epic ten issue long arc called ‘Nine Lives’. In the aftermath of Gotham War, Selina gets a shard of the meteorite that gives Vandal his immortality embedded in her skull, which makes her immortal. Initially, she thinks she’s been given nine lives by the Egyptian Cat Goddess Bastet, as indicated by nine tattoo scratches on her back that fill in every time she ‘dies’. She takes this opportunity to go after her ‘bucket list’ of impossible heists she’s never attempted because they were all basically suicide missions. As she uses up her lives on these heists, she attracts a new group of nemeses, who all join forces to get revenge on her. Everything eventually comes full circle, where Selina returns to Gotham to protect the docks with all the allies she’s accumulated during Howard’s run on the series. We find out that it’s not Bastet bringing her back to life, but the shard in her skull which is also slowly killing her, and Hush shows up and operates on her to remove the shard.

Torunn Gronbekk took over writing duties with issue 69. The most current issue 82 just came out yesterday, so I’m gonna start that final run and be caught up on Catwoman this week. Somewhere in there I’ll also read this week’s books.

After Catwoman, there’s a bunch of shorter ‘C’ series like Champions, Children of the Atom, Children of the Vault, Crime Syndicate, etc. And after those, a lengthy run of Daredevil, and this box will be finished.

[Tom Foolery]

The rest of the Catwoman run. Up until issue 69, I had getting the Variant covers since issue 1. Artgerm had done the first like 15 issues or so, and I just kept with them after that. But DC was initially only doing one variant cover per issue when I started buying them, and by the end they were doing 4-6 different variant covers per issue, so with 69, I just went back to buying the regular covers.

Catwoman 69-78. When someone takes a shot at Selina during a high society function she’s working, she has to figure out who has put a bounty on her. It turns out she was part of a crew under an assumed name when she was younger, and someone has made the connection between her fictitious cover and her true identity(that has nothing to do with her being Catwoman). The killer is eliminating all the other member of the crew, so Selina has to steal three keys from the sons of the crimelord who orchestrated the team in order to break into the now deceased father’s impregnable vault to find out what secrets he had on Selina. Trying to stay one step ahead of the assassins while outsmarting the brothers, who are all now gangsters themselves takes Selina all around the world, from Tokyo to Spain and back again. Pretty solid first arc from Torunn Grønbekk.

79-82. The current arc, issue 82 just came out this Wednesday, has Selina infiltrating a secret High Society bacchanal to steal a priceless pearl necklace that had a sentimental connection to her mother. There’s also an ongoing flashback story to her contentious relationship with her father. A huge ‘oh shit’ moment concluded the most recent issue when the Court of Owls shows up at the party, so I’m looking forward to the next issue.

Annual 2021. Going back to Ram V’s run on the series, we get the secret origin of the assassin Father Valley. When Jean Paul’s father, the previous Azrael, purged the Order of St. Dumas on orders from his superiors, one of his victims was a young man named Karl whom he taken on in a mentorship role. Karl discovers Ludovic is secretly Azrael and he’s the one killing all the Order members. Karl flings himself off the roof to save Ludovic the burden of killing his ‘son’. But Karl survives the fall, and after recovering, becomes an assassin himself. After several years, Karl confronts Ludovic again, where Azrael professes regret at what happened, and gives Karl a new identity with his surname. Karl Valley lets Ludovic live, but says if they ever meet again he’ll kill him.

Catwoman Uncovered. A oneshot with a bunch of variant covers collected. I got the foil Artgerm cover.

So that’s Catwoman all caught up with. Next up, this week’s books. There’s also a very small pile of Star Wars Bounty Hunter issues I want to get to, just so I can get them off the dining room table.

[Tom Foolery]

12/17’s books.

Amazing Spider-Man:Torn 3.
Avengers 33.
Battleworld 4.
Black Cat 5.
Black Panther Intergalactic 1.
Alien vs Capt America 2.
Catwoman 82. See previous post.
Daredevil & Punisher 2.

DCKO:Harley vs Zatanna oneshot. Fight month continues. Round 5(Round 4 is the Titans issue further down the list) has Harley squaring off against Zatanna. Harley knows she can’t beat a powerful magic user like Zatanna, so she bascially sacrifices herself to toughen Zatanna up and morally prepare her to take the tournament seriously, even if it means killing friends and allies.

GIJoe 16. Dreadnok War part 4. The Dreadnoks are about to execute Cobra Commander, but they cut Duke down to give him a chance to ‘make a case’ for CC’s life. But then the Joes show up to rescue Duke and a huge firefight breaks out. CC manages to escape and overpowers Buzzer, taking his saw/hand, setting up a showdown next issue between him, the Dreadnoks, and the Joes. Also, Destro tries to make a deal with General Hawk and then kill him when he turns the deal down, but Hawk beats up a bunch of Cobra guys and escapes.

Moon Knight:Fist of Konshu 15. Final issue. MK threatens to break out his soul eating sword unless the Executor releases all the souls possessing the Wrecker. After the Executor realizes he's not bluffing, he de-possesses Wrecker and leaves. But MK is pissed that Wrecker killed all those people, and then conned the Mission into helping him, so he gets Clea to pull Wrecker into the Dark Dimension as punishment. The series ends with someone drugging and kidnapping Moon Knight, setting up the FOURTH ongoing series in Jed MacKay’s MK saga; Marc Spector:Moon Knight starting in February. I love that MacKay is literally recycling every previous MK ongoing’s titles on this run.

Nightwing 133. Nightwing is wanted for the public beheading of Olivia Pearce. With public sentiment against him, he knows the search for the abducted children the Zanni is recruiting is getting difficult. He gives his Pennyworth fortune to his half-sister, then he gets Martian Manhunter to somehow open a gateway to the Fifth Dimension(how is this a power that J’onn has??) to take the fight directly to Zanni him(it?)self.

Planet She-Hulk 2. Jen is stuck on Sakaar trying to keep the peace between several factions all vying for the throne, but she doesn’t understand the rules and customs of the planet, so shes perpetually behind the curve.

Star Wars Jedi Knights 10. Final issue. Qui-Gon finally confronts the bad guy that’s been hunting him the entire series, but in the end he asks the guy ‘can’t we all just get along?’ and diffuses the situation. Ugh. What a lame ending.

Strange Tales 3. The Hulk is rampaging thru Wakanda, and Shuri gets help from Dr. Strange, Wanda, Nico Minoru, and the invisible, intangible Spider-Gwen, who’s still tagging along with the group hoping someone will realize she’s there and reverse her condition.

Mortal Thor 5. Odin confronts Loki about the fuckery he’s unleashed by ‘erasing’ Thor from history. Sigurd is being questioned by the police about all the Hydra guys he killed at the construction site. But a lawyer sent by Donald Blake gets him released so Blake can personally tell a confused Sigurd that Blake is going to steal his soul.

Titans 30. Fight Month continues. Round Four is Cyborg vs Swamp Thing. Cyborg defeats Swamp Thing, who makes him promise that he’ll go just as hard against Darkseid when the time comes. A lot of these fights have been ‘won’ thru dubious means, where basically one of the combatants throws in the towel and lets the other move on. Of the five rounds so far, I’d say only Aquaman legit beat Hawkman by blood bending him into submission(that’s an Avatar the Last Airbender reference). Capt Atom and Lobo got knocked out by the judges for ‘breaking rules’ allowing Superman and Diana to move on. And Harley and Swamp Thing both pretty much decided to give their victories to Zatanna and Cyborg.

Wonder Woman 28. The Mouse Man saga concludes with Diana freeing the citizens of Mouse Island, but Bruce and Clark both warn her the consequences of her actions might cause bigger problems. And in the future, the Matriarch defeats and kills the five enemies of WW who defeated Diana at some point in between then and now(King’s narrative has been that of a future that’s already happened being told to Diana’s daughter by an incarcerated King of America.)

World’s Finest 46. The Lex/Joker created by using the Absorbascon allows him complete access to every thought on Earth. The Joker half starts making people go crazy and kill each other. Superman and Batman have both become immaterial, but Green Lantern uses his ring to bind them into a single composite Superbat to go stop Lex/Joker. But Lex/Joker can know access every person’s mind on the planet, and he decides to tell the world Bruce and Clark’s secret identities…uh oh.

The Last Wolverine 3. AoR tie in. Heather Macdonald wants to use the Muramasa blade to end Logan’s life. Leonard convinces her to let him try talking Logan down. After a huge fight between Leonard and Logan, Heather cuts Logan’s arm off and the shock breaks Logan out of his trance. Then Heather, Leonard, and Nightcrawler all sacrifice themselves so Logan can escape the Mutant Hunters sent to recapture him.

Omega Kids 3. AoR tie in. The Omega Kids are using their psychic powers to switch off mutant’s minds killing them. Rachel breaks Quentin out of the ‘psychic subroutine’ the kids had placed him in. While he’s impressed they could do that to him, he nevertheless goes and confronts them about being better people. He gives them a chance to say their sorry and start over, which they do. Then he just kills them anyway, lol.

Rogue Storm 3. AoR tie in. Something something an ancient entity that Storm had been keeping at bay escaped and she has to meditate to try and stop it. Rogue dies in the process, but somehow comes back to life at the end. I dunno.

Radioactive Spider-Man 3. AoR tie in. After everybody and their mother telling Peter that Aunt May can’t be saved and all the friends and allies he’s gotten killed trying to fix her, Peter finally realizes that Aunt May can’t be saved, and he bombards her with a lethal dose of radiation. As she lays dying in his arms, she gives a gut wrenching speech about parent’s saying goodbye to their children when they grow up and send them out into the world.

X-Men Book of Revelation 3. AoR tie in. Elbecca, Revelation’s newest Chorister, is secretly Virta the Subtle, sent by Apocalypse from Arrako to assassinate Doug. When she goes to confront him, he reveals he knew she was sent there and that he needed her to open the gate to Arrako because Apocalypse’s invasion is part of his master plan to turn himself into the Earth ala Ego the living planet. Then he kills her.

For the record, last week’s Iron & Frost, Sinister’s Six, and Longshots(which I typed out but they got deleted and I didn’t want to retype) also ended with the majority of the main cast all biting it. So far, only the Unbreakable X-Men mini had the main characters surviving the end of the series.

Up next, more ‘C’ titles.

[Tom Foolery]

Some more from the ‘C’ box.

Challengers of the Unknown 1. I only got the first issue of this mini. In the aftermath of Absolute Power and Darkseid's demise, DC rebranded with ‘All In’ and basically gave ongoings or minis to every single IP they had, including CotU. The Challengers join the new Justice League Unlimited as their support staff(they’ve got Rocky unclogging toilets on the new satellite. How demeaning.). Mr Terrific assigns the Challengers a task to investigate when a bunch of artifacts show up on different places on Earth and Mars bearing Darkseid’s energy signature. Ace and Superman go to Mars to study the first one, and it infects Ace without anyone knowing. I only bought issue 1, so who knows how it plays out.

Champions 6-10. The final arc of the second(or third) short Champions ongoing from back in 2021. The kids are trying to get Kamala’s Law repealed, and Roxxon starts up a new social media app for teens called Roxx On! to influence teens into supporting the Law that bans teenage superheroes. Miles, Sam, and Kamala go undercover as interns at Roxxon to find out what they’re really up to. Kamala gives a speech at a supposedly pro-Roxxon rally where she goes off script and convinces the world teen heroes are beneficial and Roxxon sucks, and gets the law repealed. Then they fight some big Roxxon robots or whatever.

New Champions 1-8. Marvel did a variant cover theme last year depicting fake teen ‘sidekicks’ for heroes who didn’t have one. Several of these characters were then actually made legit in a Spider-Woman arc later on, where Hydra kidnapped a bunch of powered kids and made them think they were a new super team called The Assembly. Once Spider-Woman freed the kids from Hydra’s clutches they decided to become an actual super team and recruited a bunch more young teen heroes. And here we are. The series wasn’t bad. The characters are interesting enough. But how many times has Marvel dumped teams of entirely new characters onto the racks, and after a few sporadic appearances, they’re never heard from again? Quite a lot. Avengers:Initiative? Avengers Academy? Avengers Arena? Infinity:Hunt? Several New Warriors reboots? How many of the later X-Men classes have stuck around?

Chasm:Curse of Kaine 1-4. Ben Reilly, the spider clone who used to be good and is now bad, and Kaine, the spider clone who used to be bad and is now good cross paths yet again when Druig the Eternal, literally out of sheer boredom, manipulates Mole Man into attacking the surface, and then gets ahold of Chasm(Ben Reilly’s newest persona) and fucks with his mind. There was zero point or consequences to this miniseries other than to keep the TM current.

Checkmate 1, 2, 5, 6. Brian Bendis’ follow up to DC’s Event Leviathan series where former Manhunter Mark Shaw took over Leviathan and wiped all the other secret spy agencies, ARGUS, Spyral, DEO, etc off the map. In this series, Lois Lane and a small group of heroes, Green Arrow, Question, Manhunter, etc reform Checkmate to counter Leviathan. Eventually Talia Al’Ghul double crosses Shaw and kills him, taking over Leviathan for herself. I had the rest of the series in an earlier box, so I read them out of order.

Up next, another short batch of ‘C’ books and probably this week’s reads.

[Tom Foolery]

The next batch of ‘C’ books.

Children of the Atom 2-6. I read the first issue back in 2021 when it came out. This was promoted as a team of new X-Men sidekicks of the original X-Men. But the actual series is more forgivable and fun. A group of normal human kids who are X-Men fans that hang out in fandom chatrooms and cosplay as mutants accidentally stumble across an alien spaceship(like you do) while hiking in the mountains. They take the alien tech they find in the ship and fashion vigilante identities patterned after their favorite heroes; the X-Men. Even though their actions are low key, like saving kittens and stopping purse snatchers, it puts them on the radar of the anti-teen vigilante laws and Krakoa itself. Eventually, one of the kids manifests as an actual mutant and is invited to Krakoa, which causes a riff with her friends. I was prepared to hard eyeroll this premise, but it was a fun little diversion of a story.

Children of the Vault 1-4. After the Fall of Krakoa, the safety dream dome Forge had in place around the Vault collapses. The Children escape into the world and proceed to infect the world with a psychic virus that makes everyone see them as the saviors of the planet. Cable and Bishop have to team up to stop them. Written by Deniz Camp, who has been rocking it on the Ultimates title, came up with a good arc that had a serious threat by credible villains. I enjoyed it.

City Boy 1-5. Part of DC’s Dawn of DC initiative, a young man has the power to talk to the ‘spirits’ of Cities(whatever that means) and crosses paths with Superman, Nightwing, and Swamp Thing as he looks for the mother that abandoned him when he was little, and also tries to stop Intergang from using his power to prep for Darkseid’s arrival. Not bad, but kinda meh. I’m missing the last issue.

Up next, this week’s books, and then a final batch of about a half dozen more ‘C’ miniseries and oneshots.

[Tom Foolery]

12/24’s books.

Absolute Superman 14. The final showdown between Kal and R’as Al Ghul. Sol sacrifices itself to destroy the Brainiac code. R’As stabs Kal with a Kryptonite sword and is on the verge of killing him. But Kal’s determination inspires the citizens of Smallville to stand firm, and the Lazarus troops realize maybe they’re the assholes and stand down. Kal rallies and beats the shit out of R’As and drops him off in Nigeria to stand trial. The seige of Kansas ends. When Kal goes back to the nursing home to visit Martha, he finds out she passed away in the night, but she stayed up and made him something. When he opens the box, it’s the traditional Superman costume. Lump in my throat.

Absolute Wonder Woman 15. Diana heads to Gotham to investigate mysterious greek sigils at murder scenes. The first ever Absolute team up between WW and Batman. Twas a ploy to possess Diana with magic and get her to kill the Batman, but he uses a hiketia Diana gave him to break the spell.

Amazing Spidey 18.
Detective Comics 1104. Batman reaches the zero hour for his infection and has to quarantine inside a special bat-suit. Batman and his bat family head into an ambush by the Lion in order to rescue the Scarecrow, who reveals the Lion is his former assistant and everything that’s happened is Batman's fault.

DC KO Red Hood vs the Joker oneshot. Round Eight(Rounds six and seven are further down the list). Jason defeats Joker and gets closure, but Joker has a secret defibrillator that restarts his heart after the third fight ends, so technically the Joker wins and moves on. Seeing who ‘wins’ these rounds, it becomes very apparent who they’re setting up to be the final four and final two competitors, which completely dilutes the excitement of the premise.

The Will of Doom oneshot. In the aftermath of One World Under Doom, the Red Hulk planting the US flag in Latveria is having serious repercussions. Meanwhile, Doom’s Will is read. He left everything to Valeria. She sells off everything and donates all the money to charity to help rebuild all of Doom’s bullshit, but she keeps a secret island and repurposes all his Doombots into ‘FF’ bots…just in case…

Flash 28. Fight Month continues. There’s an ongoing story arc where Wally and Bart went back in time to stop Darkseid in the past and got their asses kicked. But this issue detours so that Jay Garrick and Guy Gardner can face off in the Tournament. Guy defeats Jay and moves on.

Green Arrow 31. I think this is the final issue. GA meets up with the lady cop from the past few arcs on the roof and they have a conversation. She reveals she’s a little girl he helped out nearly in his career whose mother died and she needed someone to talk to.

Harley Quinn 57. Aka 200th Legacy issue. I only skimmed thru it. The art is atrocious. It’s like Riley Rossmo’s art but even worse.

Harley and Ivy:Life and Crimes 2. The secret untold story of how Harley finally left Joker with Ivy’s help.

Justice League Unlimited 14. Mr Terrific’s team of time displaced heroes delves deeper into the underworld to confront Neron. They must travel on Charon’s boat across the River Styx and 90s Aquaman sacrifices himself along the way. Meanwhile, the remaining villains on Earth are making the final evacuations impossible for the Justice Leaguers left behind.

1776 2. Stuck in the Revolutionary War, Capt America and Spidey try to convince General Gates and Benedict Arnold of a coming battle. Tony tries to convince Ben Franklin to evacuate Philadelphia. Bruce steals a British officer’s uniform. And Clea confronts Morgan LeFay.

Sonic the Hedghog 83.
Star Wars 8.
Superman 33. Fight Month continues. Round Seven is Lex Luthor vs The Demon. Lex defeats Etrigan by summoning him away from Jason Blood and becoming Lex/Demon, then banishing him back to hell because Lex’s “willpower” is stronger or whatever. Also, Lois and Superboy Prime are trying to get key info they discovered back to the League in time.

Trinity 6. Trinity tracks down the last Corgi and has a special afternoon with her dad Steve Trevor on the day he dies. When she accidentally reveals his fate and begs him not to go, he tells her she only exists because Diana made her after the grief of losing him. So he goes and dies so she’ll get made.

Void Rivals 25.The Quintesson War begins. Two guys with triangle heads are fighting over the throne and then a giant penis, oh no wait that’s the Quintessons ship, drills into the planet. Murglee talks to his robot hand. And Frorshia gets reactivated by Zerta.

X-Vengers 3. AoR tie in. It turns out the secret baddie is MODOK. After Sunspot and Hawkeye get killed by him, the Avengers and President Sam Wilson defeat him.

Cloak or Dagger 3. AoR tie in Cloak and Dagger manage to stop the Fenris twins by separating them and sending one of them into the dark dimension. Then they take their kid home and read bedtime stories. One of the very few AoR books where everybody doesn’t die.

Undeadpool 3. Deadpool gets Fearless to the safety zone. But then Cable shows up and warns DP that Fearless is a plant sent to spy for Revelation. Deadpool kills and eats Cable because he’s in his zombie mode, but when he reverts he’s devastated that he killed his BFF. So he goes and confronts Fearless. She overpowers his healing factor and he stabs her to death at the betrayal and then he burns up and dies. Yeah, that’s more like it for these books.

Expatriate X-Men 3. AoR tie in. Meh. One of the X-Men was secretly trying to rescue Kitty and didn’t tell the rest of the team(which makes no sense because Eve Ewing is a shitty writer) so they confront Illyana and they blow up their boat so she can’t have it. And some other stuff, but I don’t care. The series and event are almost over.

Up next, the rest of the ‘C’ books.