So, What comics did you buy this week?

[jjreason]

DKIII 9 hardcover, complete with box to put all 9 issues in. Done. As it stands, I believe I made the wrong choice buying the expensive version.

Secret Whatever 5
Iron Doom 9
Dr Aphra 8 (done Marvel Star Wars)

[Tom Foolery]

I don't know what the Canadian conversion is, but the hardcover set down here would've cost over $100 when you add in tax and shit. Totally not worth it.

[jjreason]

$17 plus tax per issue, closer to $200 up here. ><

In other news, I think I'm down to 3 titles being put aside for me at store A, which will all soon be done. Secret Empire is half over and I drop Cap once that's done. Lemire I believe is leaving Thanos, and I'll have to figure out where to jump off Iron Doom, that's a bit tough like Jason Aaron Thor. I want to keep going for as long as the creators stay with it.

[Tom Foolery]

Iron Doom and Caps are ending this fall.

[Tom Foolery]

Back to the beginning of the box!

Amazing Spidey 26-28. Norman Osborn is back, and he's ugly. Peter teams up with Silver Sable to oust Norman from her home country of Symkaria which he has taken over in her absence. Unfortunately Peter using the resources of his company to attack a sovereign nation upsets his number one customer, and SHIELD cancels their contract with Parker Industries and puts Petey on their watchlist.

ASM Renew Your Vows 6-8. In the alt universe, Prof X offers to let Annie attend his school for gifted youngsters. Magneto attacks. And then MJ decides siphoning Peter's powers isn't enough and she gets a venom symbiote instead. Yeah, that'll end well.

ASM Spider(fly) Effect 1-3. This was a digital first series co-starring Silk. After reading the first 3 issues, I realized I was missing the fourth and final issue. Hydra invents a time machine and Spidey and Silk accidentally get sent into the past. The ensuing butterfly effect makes them lose their powers since somehow they never got bit by the spider. So they have to team up with Uncle Ben in the past to fix time and get back to the present. It was a'i'ght.

A-Force 3-7, 9-10. The majority of the all estrogen Avengers team. Nothing remarkable happens. I can see why it got cancelled after 10 issues. I'm missing issue 8, but the final 3 issues were CW2 tie ins.

Uncanny Avengers 18, 22-24. 18 was the issue I was missing. They finally resolve the Red Skull/Professor X brain story line. Skull is defeated, and brain surgery is performed resulting in the Prof X part getting destroyed. Then Rogue and Deadpool make out and it causes Wonder Man to return to life as Duggan wraps up his run on the series. Jim Zub takes over with issue 24 and it's an unremarkable Secret Empire tie in.

Avengers 7. Doom hires the Avengers to clear witches out of a prep school in upstate New York. The interaction between Nadia's fan gushing and the reformed Doom is priceless. I may restart this series if Doom sticks around. This was a fun issue.

U.S.Avengers 5-7. All Secret Empire tie ins. Since AIM is now a branch of SHIELD, Capt Hydra, Steve Rogers orders Roberto to sit the invasion out, not knowing that Steve is the bad guy. Ewing manages to make a limp event a little entertaining.

Bane Conquest 1-2. First two issues of a 12 part maxi series by Bane's original creators, Dixon and Nolan. Pretty good so far, but it's early.

Batman 20-25(except 22). 20 was the conclusion of the I Am Bane arc with a brutally epic issue long fist fight between Batman and Bane. Holy shit.
21 and 22, as well as Flash 21 and 22 were a crossover event called The Button about Batman finding Comedian's smiley button during the Rebirth oneshot. All four issues had fancy lenticular covers. Unfortunately, Diamond shorted my guy his entire run of issue 22 and I didn't realize this until I was buying issue 24 a month later and asked him about it. Since they're fancy lenticular cover, reordering is a bitch and I may never get one. Fuck you Diamond. Also fuck you DC for trying to cram Watchmen into the DC universe.
23 was a Swamp Thing issue where Alec Holland enlists Bruce's help to track down the guy that killed his father. When they find him, Swampy kills the guy. Batman is pissed that he was used.
24 was the proposal issue.
25 is the beginning of a new story arc that looks to be pretty epic. The War of Jokes and Riddles. Joker and Riddler start a gang war to see who gets to kill Batman. All of Gotham will suffer.
Tom King's run on this series was been fantastic.

Blackbolt 1. The Inhuman's(former) King gets his own ongoing. For a few issues anyway. Blackbolt wakes up in a cosmic jail(it was supposed to be Maximus, but ol' Maxi pulled a fast one on everyone and is over in the Royals book posing as Blackbolt). There wasn't anything here that made me want to read the second issue. Dropped.

[jjreason]

I really like Tom King on Batman as well. Always entertaining.

[anarky]

Not bought, but I read Ms. Marvel Vol. 1 (1-4, I think).

Holy shit, are all the seemingly forced attempts at diversity this good?

[Tom Foolery]

Not bought, but I read Ms. Marvel Vol. 1 (1-4, I think).

Holy shit, are all the seemingly forced attempts at diversity this good?

Quite a few of them, yes.

It's sad that "old school" readers are scoffing at many of these characters and not giving them a chance because they're "different" from their classic core heroes. This is why people should at least read the first issue of a new series/character. If it's not your cup of tea after that, fair enough. But don't badmouth a character or series without doing your due diligence first. It just makes you look like a wanker.

[anarky]

I've never had a problem with it. It does seem a little forced, though, when a bunch seem to come out at once.

[Tom Foolery]

After a brief hiatus, I finished the "c" books. I got stuck halfway thru the Capt Marvel series and stopped reading for over a week. Then I knuckled down and got back to it and read the rest of the C books this weekend.

Black Knight 4-5. The final two issues of his verrry short lived ongoing from a couple years ago. Dane Whitman is in Weirdworld as the leader of a faction called New Avalon. He is cursed by his black blade, so the Uncanny Avengers show up and take his sword away, thinking they know best. The sword possesses Steve Rogers and they end up giving the blade back to Dane. So if they hadn't shown up at all, the entire series wouldn't have needed to be told. You can see why it only lasted five issues. Honestly, I think Marvel just needed to publish a Black Knight series to retain the copyright or whatever.

Capt America Sam Wilson 21-23. In issue 21 Sam finally steps down as Cap and goes camping out in the middle of nowhere. While he's camping, Secret Empire happens, the entire world goes to shit, and in the next two issues he ends up becoming a sort of Underground Railroad conductor for Inhumans trying to escape into Canada.

Capt America Steve Rogers 15-18. In 15, the prelude to SE Steve makes his play against Red Skull and kills him to take over Hydra. Then in the next few issues it's actual SE stuff where he's being Capt Hydra, king of the douches taking over America, blowing up Las Vegas etc.

Capt America: White 2-5. The long gestating mini by Loeb and Sale. The first issue came out like ten years ago, then the rest of the mini came out two years ago, and I'm just reading it now. While I was reading it, my copy of issue 3 was a little dirty and I thought at some point I'll need to replace it. Then when I went over to my folks to sort the DC stuff, I found I had already purchased a better copy. Ha. Noice! In the series there's a point where Red Skull is spouting some facist bullshit and Cap calls him on it, I thought it was ironic that in the current Cap book, Steve is the one spouting that exact same facist bullshit.

Capt Marvel 2-9. The series before the current one. Everything except the final issue 10. The first five issues was the establishing arc that introduced the new Alpha Flight as the worlds space defense initiative which Marvel is the head of. I don't mind so much that they repurposed AF, but it didn't make much sense to have Sasquatch, Puck, and Aurora as supporting characters just because they were part of the Canadian team with the same name.
The second five issues were CW2 tie ins where Carol tries to convince her allies that her stance is the correct one and fails dismally each time since her position was wrong.

Then a bunch of CW2 minis I finished off; Choosing Sides 6, Gods of War 3, Ulysses 2,3, and X-Men 4. Nothing much worth mentioning. Gods of War was decent. The rest were meh or below.

Comic Book History of Comics 6. The final issue focused on the underground comix scene of the 70s. I felt like this series could've kept going. Jim Shooter's contentious Marvel in the 80's, the corporatization of DC and Marvel, the founding of Image, the speculator boom and bust, Marvel's bankruptcy, the current pop culture dominance at the box office, etc. There's more story to tell. But this series was great, and if you find the TPB definitely read it.

[jjreason]

Well, too many sadly. I figured with the series all ending/being renumbered, I had best go back & fill in some runs that I would eventually want complete. To that end, today was expensive.

RiRi 6,7,8
Ultimates2 issues 7,8 (and an extra 6 I wound up already having)
Dr Strange & the Sorcerers Supreme 5, 6, 7, 9 (need 8 & 10, hopefully easy to find)
Jessica Jones 7-10 (not that it's ending but I got carried away)
Jason Aaron God of Thunder Thor issues from the recent but on sale bin ($3 each, so not dirt cheap but pretty good) 1-5 & 25, as well as a Fraction issue #1 from a previous Marvel NAO run I don't have any issues of
All-New X-Men 1 (first volume), series complete
Battle of the Atom 2 (chapter 10, which again was a double because I knew I needed one issue & wasn't going to pass if it was the right one for $3)

Also got WildStorm 5 (which might be yet another dupe) as well as an old Planetary one shot (Terra Oculta, an elseworlds JLA story that was the only Planetary book I missed during the series' run) & 2 Classic GI Trades for 3.99 each. Bingo.

[anarky]

G.I. Joe (Volume 2,375,397) Volume I: I have to be honest, I didn't hate it like Tom did. At this point, I've just accepted IDW Joe continuity is just plain old nonexistent, and it felt like a decent enough "not a Joe comic, but a comic with Joes." The characters were consistent enough here, at least with their portrayals in this book, that it was a fun read. I kinda liked the art, too--not my favorite, but not bad.

Maybe it's because I had low hopes here and high hopes a couple of years ago, but I'd take this over the Van Lente series any day. Even with the hamhanded apparent introduction of the Inhumanoids.

Till All Are One Volume 2: Holy shit, why is this book getting the axe? This is a fucking masterpiece. I love this more than the Barber series at the moment. Windblade is God(dess).

No joke, I shouted out loud in surprise when Carcer revealed himself to be Vigilem (though it helped that the trade reprints the Revolution tie-in that explicitly states his allegiance to Liege Maximo so that was fresh in my mind). So it turns out Elita-One isn't a batshit despot after all.

And then, fucking Liege Maximo himself? Fuuuuuuck!! I guess we know the villain of the upcoming Power of the Primes. All I can say is we'd better get a figure of the bastard from that line.

[jjreason]

Star Wars 33
Secret Empire 6
Batman 27
Action 983
Detective 960
Superman 27
Black Panther 13,14,15
Thor 21
RiRi 9
Dr Strange 23
OM Logan 26

Still missing Dr Strange & the Sorcerors Supreme 8 and 10. The store was able to order 8, 10 is apparently sold out. Awesome, let the hunt commence.

[Tom Foolery]

Finished off the "D' pile.

Daredevil 19-24. 19-20 conclude the story of how DD put the secret identity genie back in its bottle. The children of the Purple Man used a macguffin device and broadcast their powers worldwide to make everyone forget Matt is Daredevil. 21-24 is an arc about Matt trying to male it legal for costumed vigilantes to take the stand in court and testify while leaving their masks on. The process is making its way up the appeals process and will reach the Supreme Court in issues 25.

Deadpool 30-33. Issue 30 was an oversized, overpriced issue with DP heading out into space to find a weapon he can use against Madcap and giving him and excuse to interact with the cosmic side of the Marvel U. Way too padded. If you can spend four pages on an Abbot/Costello style joke about Knowhere, the Celestial head spacestation, then you've got too many pages to fill to justify a $10 comic. 31-33 are Secret Empire tie ins, with Wade on Team Cap. Duggan has spent a lot of time building up the friendship/idolization between Cap and Wade and it pays off here. Wade kills Phil Coulson.

Deadpool vs Punisher 2-5. A rare good crossover where both title characters come across well. The underworld's banker is targeted by Frank and under the protection by Deadpool. When the banker's wife and son fake their death, the rest of the villainy get involved. There's a pretty badass fight between Taskmaster and the two protagonists. Good stuff.

Deadpool Kills the Marvel Universe...Again 1-2. Deadpool is killing everyone... a second time.

Deathstroke 18-21. 18 finished the previous arc where Jericho's fiancé is killed. Then there's two parts of a crossover with Titans and Teen Titans that I didn't read the rest of. 21 has Slade starting his own super team. And Adeline puts Terra on his team as a mole. Irony!! This book is very well done. Priest knocks it put of the park with every issue.

Defenders 1-3. Bendis is writing the street level Netflix super team's adventures. DD, Jessica Jones, Cage, and Iron Fist battle a resurrected Diamondback as he tries to take over NYC's underworld. It feels like pandering to the Johnny-come-lately TV viewers with a bit of a disconnect to the rest of current Marvel continuity. Even though it's not.

Doctor Strange 20-23. 20 has Aaron and Bachalo finish up their run on the series. Wong leaves and Imelda takes over as Strange's assistance. 21-23 are Secret Empire tie ins by new writer Dennis Hopeless. Strange teams up with Spider-Woman and Kingpin.

Doctor Strange and the Sorcerors Supreme 2-7. Merlin recruits a bunch of Supremes from the timeline to fight some random bad guy. Meh. Ending in a few issues.

Drax 3-4, 9-11. Drax's short lived ongoing. He rescues some space orphans and then rescues a baby from the alien dragon race that Fin Fang Foom comes from. It was okay. It was cowritten by CMPunk, who is a wrestler or a rapper, or an adult film star, or a golfer or a standup comedian. He's something semi famous.

[jjreason]

I just read Jessica Jones 7-10. I can't drop this book.

I think I'm going to go back & fill in Daredevil & the current Avengers run as well as the previous titles mentioned above, just so they're done when the renumbering hits.