So, What comics did you buy this week?

[Tom Foolery]

Last time I read a big chunk of SW books, I started with the mini series tying all the main books together. This time, I’m leaving the two minis, Crimson Reign and Hidden Empire, until the end and starting with the four main ongoings. Starting with the main SW series, here is everything up until the Dark Droids crossover.

SW 22-24. Crimson Reign tie-ins. Kes Dameron is launching a rescue mission to retrieve his wife Shara Bey from Commander Zahra’s Star Destroyer. Qi’Ra gives Leia and the Alliance the location of the last Alliance fleet still in hiding, and the means to ensnare Zahra in a trap. But Zahra outmaneuvers the Alliance and even though she’s only one ship, still manages to fuck up half the remaining Rebel fleet. The only reason they bring her ship down is that while Dameron and Shara escape, his infiltration team sacrifice themselves to sabotage the Star Destroyer and crash it into the planet. Leia and a small Pathfinder squad chase Zahra into a cave system where she further dwindles their forces. But in the end she gets eaten by a giant cave spider.

25. Was a stand alone issue with 4 separate stories that was writer Charles Soule’s 100th Star Wars issue since the IP had returned to Marvel.

26-28. Two deep cover Crimson Reign agents working for Moff Jejerrod on the super secret DS II, break cover with their children and escape. But their requests for assistance are met with skepticism from the Rebels, who think Imperial spies with secret DS II plans sounds like an obvious trap. Only Luke thinks maybe its legit and he infiltrates Coruscant as an Imperial Officer to rescue thr family and confirm to the Alliance the Empire is building a new Death Star.

29-33. Amilyn Holdo is following up on an urban legend about a bunch of missing space fuel from the High Republic era. She leads Luke, Leia, Lando, and Chewie on a mission to steal an ancient Nihil Starpath Drive, but when they use it, they get stuck in a “No-Space” pocket dimension where the original lost convoy of fueling ships have created a colony of survivors over the last 200 years. Luke gets his robot hand mangled and his yellow lightsaber is damaged. Lando and Leia convince the descendants of the survivors to use the Drive to return to realspace and give them the missing fuel and other supplies.

34-35. Luke heads to Christophsis looking to repair and/or replace his damaged lightsaber. There he finds a kyber crystal expert who gives him a red crystal to “heal” and a raw crystal which he turns green. He takes both because we’re gonna have artificial drama for the next dozen issue as to which path he’s gonna follow; the light side or dark side.

36. Leia sends a bunch of A-Wing pilots and the Falcon on a dangerous mission to Coruscant to blow up a statue of Palpatine as a symbolic gesture. A bunch of the pilots die, but Lando rescues Nein Numb and they do blow the head off the statue.

Up next, the Darth Vader issues.

[Tom Foolery]

Star Wars:Darth Vader 20-24. Crimson Reign. Not sure if this was an actual story line tying in with the miniseries of the same name, or just a SW wide banner. But in this arc, Sabe has infiltrated Crimson Dawn with the intent of getting close to Vader to assassinate him for killing Padme. She plants a list in Imperial Archives of suspected CD double agents. Since Palapatine has tasked Vader with rooting out CD, he just starts killing off all these Imperials whether they are actual double agents or not. But the twist is, he knows its just a bunch of random names, but he’s trying to find whoever planted the fake list. Once he comfronts Sabe, she reveals she knows his secret; that he’s actually Anakin Skywalker. Vader recruits Sabe to help him restore Order to the Galaxy.

25-28. As she ponders Vader’s offer, she brings him to a colony of former Tatooine slaves that she and the other Handmaidens freed, among them Kitster and Wald. The colonists are being exploited by an imperial Governor who is also a Crimson Dawn agent. Vader helps Sabe being down the Governor’s operation and finds out she was being backed by Palpatine as yet another ‘test’ for Vader.

29-34. Sabe joins Vader as a Commander in the Empire and their next mission is to take down the grandson of Wat Tambor who is trying to retake control of his family’s former power base. Meanwhile, the rest of the Handmaiden’s mount a rescue mission to save Sabe, thinking Vader has taken her against her will. When she gets nabbed by Tambor, the other Handmaidens are forced to join forces with Vader to get her back, but after they het her back, she willingly returns to Vader’s side. However, energy surges in the Force are fucking with Vader’s power and he ends up throwing her into the ocean(is she dead? It’s not definitive. I feel like she’ll show up again).

35-36. Vader tracks down Doctor Aphra and gets her help in finding an ancient artifact that can help him keep his Force powers from acting wildly. Then he faces down an army of surviving droids that he had personally destroyed. He co-opts them with corrupt code and turns them into his personal droid army.

I did not enjoy Greg Pak’s Vader series as much as I did Charles Soule’s main SW series. Pak relied too much on flashbacks from the movies.

Up next, this week’s book, which I may split into two reads, and then eventually the Doctor Aphra and Bounty Hunters ongoings.

[anarky]

Bounty Hunters was consistently the weakest SW title each month. It was like a forgettable Dark Horse era comic.

This run of Aphra is good, but nowhere nearly as good as the first run.

[Tom Foolery]

Bounty Hunters was consistently the weakest SW title each month. It was like a forgettable Dark Horse era comic.

This run of Aphra is good, but nowhere nearly as good as the first run.

I think Doctor Aphra in general benefits from being the only ongoing SW series that is not constricted by anything in the movies. She gets to chart her own course, whereas the main SW and Vader series have a predetermined finale point that they cannot deviate from. While this can help with foreshadowing and such, it also hinders any sense of uncertainty. Cheli also has a certain moral flexibility that is refreshing.

[Tom Foolery]

8/3’s books. Part I. In addition to the regular purchases, I picked up six more Alex Ross Timeless variant covers of Cloak, Dazzler, Havok, Prof X, Rogue, and Sunfire.

Absolute Superman 11. Kal is being brainwashed by Brainiac to make him a tool for the Al Ghul’s using a VR simulation where he relives dark scenarios of him killing the Kryptonian Science League over and over thousandss of times a day(it’s basically a twisted reimagining of the Black Mercy storyline). Lois and Jimmy are being held prisoner, as Kal’s final task will be to kill them in cold blood when the reprogramming is complete. But Lois’ dad, General Sam Lane, breaks into the facility to free Lois and Jimmy, and Lois in turn refuses to leave without Kal. But they might be too late…

Absolute Green Lantern 6. FBI Agent Cameron Chase has been placed on Administrative leave due to her attitude towards a conflict of interest in her former caseloads on the west coast. Which becomes relevant later on. Meanwhile, The consciousness of John Stewart and Guy and the rest of the victims are ‘alive’ in the black soup emanating from the giant lantern. They explain to Hal and Jo the purpose of the Lantern is to judge worlds and prepare them for the coming of Mogo, the black world full of Weaponers and Blackstars But Jo has been judged as a ‘Tomar’ which is an anomaly given the power of the Lantern, without the knowledge. Basically, she’s got free will to use the GL power how she sees fit. And she’s not buying into the bullshit she’s hearing, so she breaks her and Hal free of the soup and heads to her exGF Cameron Chase’s place for help.

Amazing Spidey 11.
Batgirl 11.

Batman 1. A brand new First Issue. Killer Croc has escaped Arkham. Batman thinks he’s broke bad again, but his doctor asks Batman to give him the benefit of the doubt and bring him in peacefully.

Cheetah and Cheshire Rob the Justice League 2.
Doctor Strange 450. Giant sized ‘oneshot’ with several stories from various creative teams, celebrating different eras of Dr. Strange. The final short story is from Derek Landy setting up the new ongoing book in a couple months, where Asgard has been cut off from the rest of the realms due to the events of the Thor series. Stephen is now the Sorcerer Supreme of Asgard, but he’s trapped there with no way back to Earth.

GIJoe:ARAH 320. The two teams, one on Cobra Island, and the ninjas in Springfield, both continue to make their escapes.

Gwenpool 5. The evil villain behind Gwen Stacy’s resurrection turns out to be…the writer of the series. God, I fucking loathe that trope so fucking much. Cavan Scott was already on my mediocre list for all his underwhelming Star Wars series, but now he’s reached Daniel Warren Johnson levels of actual avoidance when I see his name. The story concludes with the two Gwens teaming up for potential future stories. Hopefully written by a different writer.

Imperial War: Exiles oneshot. A Praetorian SuperGuardian who claims to be the bastard of former Shi’Ar Emperor D’Ken stages a coup against Xandra and her bodyguard/aunt Deathbird. Luckily, her newly ressurected mother Lilandra(see the X-Manhunt crossover from a few months ago) and her dad, Charles Xavier show up and rescue them at the last minute. After a harrowing chase, they escape to a secret Shi’ar safeworld where Xandra can mount a proper rebellion to retake her throne by recruiting various Cosmic heroes for a new team of Exiles, including Rocket, Corsair, Danger, and Kid Gladiator. Sets up the new ongoing series.

Up next , 8/3’s other books.

[anarky]

Ooh, boy. I can't wait until someone in Absolute Green Lantern gets cut off in traffic and calls the guy a Jack T. Chance.

[Tom Foolery]

8/3’s books, Part II

It’s Jeff! & Other Marvel Tails oneshot. Yet another collection of digital first shorts from Jeff, Alligator Loki, and Marvel Meow online series. It’s funny to think of these whimsical little vignettes as being in continuity. Like vicious supervillain Sabretooth just hanging out with Gambit and Rogue’s pet cats.

Magik 9. As Illyana, Dani, and Cal escape from the cultists in Las Vegas and return to their secret lair to confront Embodiment, the leader of the secret society of magic users. We get Embodiment’s tragic back story and the three heroes are forced to flee from the lair thru a gauntlet of magic powered cultists.

Moon Knight 12. The Wrecker helped free Konshu from his Asgardian prison during Blood Hunt, so that Konshu could resurrect Marc to fight the vampires. Now Wrecker is back asking for help with a bunch of ghosts that keep haunting him and says MK owes him. Then Scarlet Scarab shows up and says the ghosts are all Wrecker’s murder victims.

Spider-Man’94 1. A continuation of the animated series. I dig that the logo and Publisher masthead are in the style of books from the mid 90s. I never watched the show, so I don’t know what changes there were between the comic’s and show’s continutiy, but thid story features Ezekiel Sims, Morlun, and Kaine in different roles than the books. Also, MJ died and Peter married her clone, and then the clone died? Again, never watched the show.

Sonic 81.
Star Wars:Han Solo Hunt for the Falcon 1.
Star Wars: Legacy of Vader 8.

All New Venom 10. After MJ breaks up with Paul, and Dylan confronts Venom about lying to him and being bonded to MJ right under his nose, Venom and MJ have a serious inner monologue about Venom’s previous hosts and MJ repeatedly being a target/victim of Venom all those years. It’s such an intriguing relationship. They both agree maybe Venom needs to find a new host. And the wounded Toxin symbiote bonds with Rick Jones. And also Knull is back, setting up next month’s 250th Legacy Issue.

Wolverine 13. Logan does the granddaughter of an old friend a favor by becoming the Don of a Chicago Mafia family for a day, so they can broker a peace deal with a rival Irish Mob family. Final issue while this Age of Revelation crossover hijacks all the books for several months.

Laura Kinney:Wolverine 10. Laura and Xaros go rescue Gabby from the witch living in the catacombs of Paris.

Uncanny X-Men 20. Logan and Ransom head to Buenos Aries to confront a cult of anti-mutant bigots who are powering up kids, including Random’s younger half brother. While there, they come face to face with Ransom’s estranged father.

And now back to the SW pile.

[Tom Foolery]

Star Wars Bounty Hunters 16. This was part of the War of the Bounty Hunters event. I was missing this issue and found it at a LCS this weekend. Valance and Dengar are trying to find Boba Fett so they can rescue Han, but when Fett points out Han’s body had been abducted by the Empire, he and Valance have a better chance of infiltrating the Star Destroyer if they work together, so Valance ditches Dengar.

19. In the aftermath of WotBH, Valance is now in the employ of Darth Vader. Vader sends Valance on a mission to take out an Imperial officer suspected of being Crimson Dawn who was once Valance’s inspiration for joining the Imperial Academy and becoming a pilot. After he offs the guy, we find out Vader knew the guy wasn’t CD but had Valance kill him anyway as Vader is cleaning house of disloyal Imperials.

21-26. A young woman who is the heir to two criminal organizations was being kept hidden by Valance. When Crimson Dawn kidnaps the girl, the crew of Bounty Hunters led by T’onga is trying to infiltrate Crimson Dawn and rescue her before her rivals in both criminal factions came to power and start a turf war. They capture one of the leaders(as leverage?) and then fight the Knights of Ren aboard the CrimsonDawn flagship. But when they finally find the girl, she tells them she doesn’t want to be rescued, so they leave empty handed. And the crimelord chick escapes and kills their pet Nexu. So, all around the entire mission was a waste of time.

27-28. The crew is hired as bodyguards to protect a Pyke warlord, but when Kanji assassins show up, Tasu Leech’s loyalties are tested and he kills the guy himself. Also, Valance is getting comfortable as an Imperial enforcer, but he doesn’t know that his loved ones, who Vader was holding over his head to keep him in line, were killed when an Imperial sortie blew up the Rebel base where they were hiding out.

29-31. T’onga and Valance’s teams come up against each other when her crew is hired by Crimson Dawn to stop a shipment of weapons to an Imperial base. Valance’s team is there to protect a shipment of food and medical supplies and catch Tonga’s team. When they confront each other, T’onga asks Valance why he’s working for Vader after the Empire killed his loved ones, which triggers him into destroying the shipment(which was weapons and not medical supplies) to lure Vader out. An all out battle between the Bounty Hunters and Vader concludes with them managing to survive and escape with Valance.

32-34. Vader sends his Bounty Hunter hunting team called Inferno Squad after Valance because his robot cpu might have inadvertantly recorded top secret DSII plans while he was talking to Vader. They finally track down the crew and rather than prolong a battle where more of his friends will get hurt, Valance agrees to let them delete the memory files. But the process will eventually wipe out all his memories.

35-36. T’Onga sells her ship to pay the bills, and hires another ship and team of Hunters to help her track down Boba Fett, who she needs to tell her where she can find a cyberneticist to stop Valance’s memory deterioration. Fett agrees to help them if they help him assassinate a Black Sun crimelord.

And that brought us up to the Dark Droids crossover. I’m ambivalent about the series. The ‘draw’ Bounty Hunter characters from the movies, while being in the book, seem to be regulated to supporting roles thoughout the series. And they’re frequently one-note caricatures. Bossk hisses some threat about eating people. Zuckuss make ‘predictions’ about things that are currently happening(“I feel we are walking into a trap.” as they walk into a trap…) Also, they are less Bounty Hunters and more just mercenaries. The ‘main’ character T’onga seems only to exist to have a ship that the other BHs can team up on. She doesn’t seem to have a thru objective that defines protagonists in narratives, other than she loves her wife. Meh.

Anyway, up next is this week’s sizable stack of books, and then the Doctor Aphra series after that.

[Tom Foolery]

9/10’s books. The first half of the pile.

Aquaman 9. I needed to round up for a free book and this is what I picked.
Absolute Batman 12. After his friend Waylon has been turned into a human crocodile and escapes into the sewers, Bruce returns home, only to find Bane also visited his other friends; Ozzie, Harvey, and Eddie, and completely fucked all of them up. Ozzie had every bone in his body broken, some in multiple places. Harvey’s skull was split down the middle, and he has third degree burns all over his body. And Eddie has been lobotomized to the point he isn’t sure what’s real, and is questioning everything. All as a punishment/warning to Bruce. Fucking dark, dark issue. Selina returns on the last page, so I’m sure the first appearance of ‘Absolute Catwoman’ will send collector’s into a tizzy.

Batman & Robin 25.
Batman:Dark Patterns 10.
Batman Gotham by Gaslight:A League for Justice 3.
Birds of Prey 25.
Bring on the Bad Guys:Dormammu oneshot.
Captain America 3.
Eddie Brock:Carnage 8.

One World Under Doom 7. Now that Doom’s secret is out, his hold on the world begins to erode. The combined heroes see an opening and do a full attack, until Reed can challenge Doom to battle. Reed has been busy learning magic to put himself on equal footing with Doom. But it’s not enough. After an epic battle on the Astral Plane, Doom defeats Reed and scatters his atoms across a pocket dimension, but keeping him alive, imprisoned, and in constant agony.

Superior Avengers 6. OWUD tie-in. Kristoff and the Ghost battle the other Avengers from the future and the Annihilus they’ve released on the world. Doom shows up, is disappointed in Kristoff, and defeats the Avengers and Annihilus by himself.

Red Hulk 8. OWUD tie-in. Deathlok and Machine Man show up to rescue Ross and his new ally Wildstreak from Captain Ryker’s facility. Then he heads to Washington DC to warn the Pentagon that Ryker is supplying Doom with WMDs. When Ryker’s assault helicarrier shows up, Red Hulk uses the Washington Monument as a baseball bat. Uhmmm…that’s not how that works. It wouldn’t stay intact like that. *sigh*

Hellverine 10. Final issue. Akihiro teams up with Mephisto to stop Severith and Hell Hulk from invading the world with a demon army. Severith is returned to hell, Mephisto gets his throne, and the HellHulk as his new toy/enforcer. And Aki discovers the real treasure was the friendships he made along the way or whatever.

Imperial War; Nova:Centurion oneshot. Richard Ryder has to return to Xandar to reactivate the backup Nova Worldmind so they can figure out who’s behind the upheaval of the Galactic Council that has led to multiple civil wars. But the catch is, it takes a lot of power, and it’s the last version of the Worldmind, so if it gets destroyed the Nova Corps is truly gone forever. And keeping it powered up is going to be very expensive, so Nova is going to have to start charging for his services. Sets up the new ongoing series after Imperial.

Undead Iron Fist 1. Danny Rand is back from the dead, trying to stop a demon invasion of Earth.

Phoenix 14. The foundational Cosmic Entities (Eternity, Oblivion, Living Tribunal, etc) gather to make sure Jean reabsorbs/kills her sister Sara that she manifested with the Phoenix Force after she split off a chunk of her power to give to that little girl. When Jean refuses, a bunch of other former Phoenix hosts like Rachel, Quentin, and Hope, show up to assist her in opposing the Entities.

Punisher 1. Red Band series. The Punisher wakes up with amnesia in the middle of a drug deal aboard a ship. He doesn’t know who he is, but his instincts kick in and he kills a bunch of guys and escapes the police. Tombstone wants to know who is starting a turf war with him, and it’s revealed Kingpin had a microchip placed in Punisher’s skull that turns him into a compliant killing machine at the flip of a switch. I keep saying Punisher and not Frank, because I’m not convinced there won’t be a twist somewhere that this isn’t actually Frank. That aside, it was a solid Punisher story. Best I’ve read in awhile. Hopefully Ben Percy doesn’t fuck it up.

Red Hood 1. Already canceled, so the story doesn’t matter. After the events of Htoosh, Jason is no longer in Gotham. So he heads to New Angelique(a pastiche of New Orleans in the DCU) and teams up with Helena Bertinelli, the Huntress to investigate a mysterious spate of cop suicides who killed themselves on camera after saying ‘The Tower says Hello.’ ‘Twas a 17+ series so there was naughty words and partial nudity. But not anymore, because people can’t express themselves when fashies get the bashies.

Up next, the second half of 8/10’s books. And then Doctor Aphra.

[Tom Foolery]

8/10 Part II

Spider-Verse vs Venomverse 5. Peter gives a wounded alt-dimension Eddie a blood transfusion to save his life, and he becomes…Spider-Venom! And since he’s both a Spider and a Venom he convinces both the Web of Destiny and the Venom hive mind to NOT go thru with their ridiculous contest and everybody stops fighting. Oye. Dumb.

Star Wars:Jedi Knights 7. Aayla Secura and Mace Windu head to a planet and kill a giant creature in exchange for the antidote to a poison that’s slowly killing Qui-Gon. And Aayla’s nipple pops out of her shirt. Just blue titty right there in a Star Wars comic. Just checking who actually reads these recaps.

Transformers 24. Daniel Warren Johnson's run comes to its merciful conclusion. Megatron beats the shit out of Optimus and skewers him on the antennae of the Sears Tower(fuck you. It’s the Sears Tower and always will be.) and then forces Prime to choose between him killing Beachcomber or Spike and Carly right in front of him. Prime chooses neither, so Megatron transforms into Starscream’s hands to kill all three of them. But then Starscream has a vision of Omega Supreme and is instantly overcome with guilt and uses Megatron to blow his own head off. Then the Fanfic deus ex machina Autobot shows up and easily beats up Megatron and all the other Decepticons including Devastator and Bruticus and all the other Autobots and humans are all like ‘oh man, you’re soooo cool. You’re like the best Transformer ever and we wish we’d had a toy of you when we were little and can you also fix everythiing that’s ever been bad like soil erosion and apartheid and my dad leaving when I was ten and he’s like hell yeah because I’m the most awesomest thing ever and you can tell because we cherry picked the seven letters from the hundreds we received that blew the writer for making me up, while all the other letter were like this shit blows. Poochie this fucker post haste…’

Trinity 4. The youngest of the three Lizzies chases the Damian Corgi thru time and winds up in Wayne Manor on the day of Bruce and Selina’s(canceled) wedding. She hangs out with Alfred and the Damian Corgi frolics with Ace. Sweet coda to King’s Batman run.

Ultimate Wolverine 9. The resistance goes on another mission to blow up the Sentinel factory, and Logan has a shot at the scientist who was brainwashing him all that time, but she escapes.

Ultimate Spider-Man Incursion 4. Miles and Maystorm battle Illyana to rescue Miles’ baby sister, but Emmanuel DaCosta wisks her away again.

Edge of Venomverse oneshot. I think this was a collection of digital first stories about different multiverse Venoms. $7. Nothing remarkable in it.

Wolverines and Deadpools 3. Cody Ziglar ends his run on Deadpool with this mini. Shadow King is trying to possess Ellie, but Wade shoots himself to end up in the astral plane, and then Ellie’s mom’s ghost shows up and all three of them defeat Shadow King and eject him from Ellie’s mind. Then Ellie breaks the fourth wall for the first time, and Wade gets super emotional.

Exceptional X-Men 13. Final Issue. The students travel back into the past to retrieve present-Kitty before she interacts with her past self. But first they have to stop a Sentinel that traveled back with them from attacking past-Kitty.

X-Men Age of Revelation 0. Couldn’t find this and had my guy reorder it. Then I found one elsewhere, but the one he ordered for me came in, so I bought the second copy.

X-Men of Apocalypse Alpha oneshot. The Age of Apocalypse X-Men are wondering why their timeline still exists when they all clearly remember dying in the atomic explosion that wiped out Apocalypse. Sinister and Forge convince them that they are actually the correct timeline and the original one is the abberation, so they jump into the main 616 timeline and X-Man Nate Grey is there telling them they shouldn’t be there. They’ve done two(or more) other series about the aftermath of Age of Apocalypse, but apparently Jeph Loeb gets to do whatever he wants and not follow continuity established by other writers. Also, Loeb has been phoning it in for close to twenty years now and his writing is limper than overcooked pasta.

Up next, Doctor Aphra. And then the Crimson Reign and Hidden Empire miniseries. And then I think it’s another batch of DC stuff.

[Tom Foolery]

10/17’s books.

Amazing Spidey 12.
New Avengers 4.
Batman & Robin Year One 11.

Deadpool/Wolverine 9. Director Talyn, Wade, and Maverick assault Styfe-pocalypse’s floating lair, where Talyn has a one on one showdown with Stryfe. The mutant Legacy re-absorbs his virus from both Wade and Maverick, freeing them from Talyn’s mind control, and they in turn attempt to break a hulked-out Logan free from Stryfe’s control. But that’s easier said than done.

Deadpool/Batman oneshot. The first Marvel/DC crossover in decades is here! The Joker hires Deadpool to kill/distract Batman while he plans some chemical terrorism plot on Gotham. I found it suitably entertaining. There were also several short back up stories; Wonder Woman and Capt America, Jeff and Krypto, Daredevil and Green Arrow, Rocket and Green Lantern, an awful Frank Miller story featuring Old Man Logan and DKR Batman, and lastly, an Amalgam inspired mash-up of Logan and Lobo called Logo.

Runaways 4. OWUD tie-in. After all the Runaways finally reunite, there are tears and hugs and strong words and accusations and everything you’d expect from a family reunion. Doombot realizes the only way to keep the Runaways safe is to leave them and return to Doom. All the feels.

Fantastic Four 3. OWUD tie-in. The FF have to figure out a way to stop Doom from using time travel to constantly defeat them before they can implement any plans against him. Clever time travel fun from Ryan North.

GIJoe 11. Clutch, Risk, and Hound battle MARS thugs while looking for Energon for Hound. And the Baroness and Cover Girl have girl bonding time while they defeat Bludd and Raptor and save Baroness’ parents from assassination. After they get back to base, we find Duke had secretly deployed Night Force to eliminate Baroness if she had decided to make a break for it.

Hulk 29. On the Requiem Plane, Betty leads Hulk to the dark door and gives the secret history of the Mother of Sorrows. She’s been kidnapping Gamma Powered beings and siphoning their power to create a being strong enough to open the door, and now that she has Hulk’s blood it’s go time. Her vessel? The Abomination!

Krypto 4. Krypto finds another dog to romp around with, and they find some kids playing in the woods. When the kids accidentally trigger a Brainiac prototype, it kills the other puppy and Krypto angrily smashes the Brainiac to dust.

Magik 10. Final issue. Illyana, Dani, and Cal are battling their way out of the Society’s lair, and having an interminably long and boring debate with Embodiment about prior restraint or some shit. Talk talk talk talk. Enough talking already. But they convince Embodiment’s lieutenants that she’s wrong, and Illyana traps her in a Limbo prison and then they trick Liminal out of Cal’s body and every other loose plot thread is wrapped up. Bleh.

Nightwing 130. The Justice League visits NW about Nightwing-Prime, the 11 year old boy who now has Kryptonian super powers thanks to the 5th dimensional imp Nite-Mite. Dick convinces the kid that maybe he’s not ready to be superpowered and offers him an elixir to delete his powers. But at the last minute, he decides maybe all the kid needs is some training.

Phoenix 15. Final issue. The Cosmic entities and Jean’s squad of former Phoenix hosts are locked in battle over whether Jean’s sister Sara can exist. But then Sara steps in a gives an inspiring speech about what if they didn’t fight, and everybody is like ‘oh man, that’s a good point’. Ugh.

Miles Morales 38. Misty Knight and Miles recruit Black Cat to help them track down the two super powered burglars. When they catch them, they find out the kids are only stealing because they owe money to some mid-level crimelord, so they all go and beat the guy up.

Star Wars 5.
Star Wars Boba Fett:Black White & Red 1. Rather than several short stories, this is one full story per issue. A completed bounty puts Fett in a tenuous position between the Empire, a splinter faction of the Rebels, and a crimelord. But Fett outmaneuvers all of them, because he’s all about the $$$. Pretty solid story.

Ultimate Black Panther 20. T’Challa is in the dreamworld where Bast is giving him the choice to take his power to the next level by embracing the true secret power of Vibranium. Lots of fortune cookie bullshit like ‘wakanda is not a kingdom. It is a promise.’ Pffft. Whatever that means.

Ultimates 16. We follow a young girl as she gets caught up in the Ultimates resistance movement. After her teacher, and best friend get disappeared, she finds the courage to become radicalized. Until creepy no-faced Finger Men show up and kill her parents and she has to go on the run.

World’s Finest 43. Batman, Robin, and Superman team up with Bizarro Batman and Superman to stop Bizarro world from imploding and finding a cure for the virus that’s turned everyone ‘normal’.

Uncanny X-Men 21. Wolverine and Ransom head to a comic convention in Brazil to save Ransom’s half brother from kidnappers, and deal with Ransom’s estranged piece of shit father.

Up next, Almost done with the Doctor Aphra pile.

[Tom Foolery]

The SW:Doctor Aphra series.

SW:DA 18-21. Aphra and Sana Starros have been tasked by Domina Tagge to find different artifacts from an anti-Sith cult called the Ascendant. They are racing against a former fellow student that is one of the many, many people Chelli has doublecrossed over the years. They discover the trail leads back to their own University where they all met. In the caverns below the school is a gem powered machine that Aphra manages to grab first. It turns out to be a Force-powered sentient AI that takes over her body.

22-30. The Ascendant Spark is now controlling Aphra for its own ends. As she tries to compromise its control from within her own mind, Sana recruits a team made up of a bunch of Chelli’s ex-girlfriends, estranged family members, or other people she’s screwed over to try and rescue her, including the murderbots 000 and BT-1. There’s a subplot where a rival Tagge tries to usurp Domina’s power. The narrative was tangentially affected by the events of the Hidden Empire mini and reaches a conclusion where the Spark tries to assassinate Darth Vader. But all of Aphra’s loved ones work together and get the AI out of her body, but as it ‘dies’ it shares a tender moment with Aphra.

31. In the aftermath of the Ascendant Spark arc, Aphra has to deal with her unresolved feelings for Magna and Sana. She reconciles with Magna, but chooses Sana. Then Sana drops the bomb on her that until Aphra changes her mindset on relationships, its toxic to be in one with her and Sana breaks up with her and leaves(to go star in her own miniseries that I read a few months ago).

32-34. Aphra kidnaps Luke Skywalker(and Artoo) to help her unlock some Force Macguffin on a secret Jedi temple world. The ‘vault’ turns out to be a prison for some alien being called a Starweird, and she and Luke have to work together to escape the creature.

This whole run felt more like super-hero comics nonsense and less Star Wars-y to me. And since Aphra wasn’t herself for a good portion of it, the middle story arc just seemed to drag on. Nobody gives a shit about Just Lucky and his boyfriend. Quit trying to wedge subplots with him into the book.

I also read the Revelations oneshot, that was basically setting up future events in all four ongoings, as well as the Hidden Empire and Dark Droids crossover events.

Up next, the Crimson Reign and Hidden Empire mini series wrap up this chunk of SW books. The next time I circle back around to Star Wars I’ll finish up the Dark Droids event and all the tie-ins. Perhaps I’ll even just read thru to the end of all four ongoings. I know Aphra and BH ended right after Dark Droids, so reading the last dozen issues of both SW and Vader won’t take that much longer. After that, it’s the Battle of Jakku maxiseries and the current stuff.

But before all that, some DC backreading, and then diving into the ‘C-D’ long box.

[anarky]

Agreed on her possession dragging too long and Just Lucky not being an acceptable replacement.

Crazy thing is, the Starweird is a DEEP EU dive. They were made up for the RPG in the 80s, and never appeared elsewhere because the concept was just too fucking bonkers.