So, What comics did you buy this week?

[Tom Foolery]

3/24 Part I

Absolute Wonder Woman 18. After being rescued and freed by Zatanna, she and Diana still come to blows because of what Zatanna did. But after they sort it out, Diana regroups and heads back to fight Zatanna’s zombie flaming corpse father with the mythical Troika lasso.

Amazing Spidey 25. Death Spiral continues. Venom and Spidey face off against Carnage and Torment. But then Eddie wakes up and gets Carnage back under control. Carnage reveals Torment’s plans on killing Brocks, Watsons, and Parkers as he gets closer to their loved ones. Thinking Aunt Anna and May are in danger, MJ calls Anti-Venom Flash Thompson for help. But the true target is revealed when Torment shows up at Paul’s house looking for Dylan.

New Avengers 10.
Detective Comics 1107. At a wake for Ted’Wildcat’Grant, his students gather for mock tournament where Dinah and Bruce have a no-touch boxing match judged by Cassandra, who can ‘see’ intentions of each blow. Pretty sweet. Then, Batman, Green Arrow, and Black Canary reminisce about a heretofore unrevealed FOURTH protégé of Ted’s named Prion.

Dungeons of Doom 3. Each of the four horror stories concludes. This wasn’t quite an anthology, but it was an interesting idea for a series. Time will tell if any of the conclusions have impact anywhere else in the Marvel U.

Fantastic Four 9. The alt-earth Susan Storm calling herself the Invincible Woman shows shes no match for the FF as she uses Sue’s powers in interesting new ways to basically replicate ALL the FF’s powers. The Four are forced to retreat and regroup.

Fantastic 4:First Foes oneshot. Set in the MCU Earth-828, the FF battle their one time mentor, Rene Rodin, the Mad Thinker and his Super-Adaptoid droid.

Flash 31. Ryan North, super nerdy writer of Unbeatable Squirrel Girl and the current Fantastic Four series takes over the Flash series. His first order of business is to cheekily skewer how much of a catch-all the ‘Speed Force’ is to cover all the physics bullshit and catastrophic damage for someone running that fast would do. But then he gets to the first story arc where someone has created an app that monetizes Flash saving people by encouraging them to jump off building to earn $10,000. Flash confronts the guy, only to discover he’s technically not breaking the law. I wasn’t buying Flash regularly, but I super enjoy Ryan North, so add another ongoing to my pile.

Generation X23 2. Laura and Gabby have found a group of experimented on kids in an abandoned franchise of the Facility that created X23.

GIJoe:ARAH 24. Reprint of the classic issue with notes from Hama in the back of the book.

Godzilla Infinity Roar 2. Godzilla and Knull attack the Shi’Ar empire. Reed Richards convinces Galactus to eat Godzilla as if he were a planet. But after being eaten, Godzilla regenerates inside Galactus and bursts out of him like an Alien, the sight horrifying the Fantastic Four as their plan backfires. Meanwhile, Odin has recruited the Avengers and the X-Men to join him in Asgard as they prepare for was against Big G(the living lizard Big G, not the dead purple guy).

Green Lantern 33. Don’t normally get GL, but it’s Legacy #600. After whatever happened in the previous arc, the focus of the series shifts back to Kyle Rayner as the main GL. He’s back on Earth, hunting down escaped sciencell criminals and trying to have a normal life back in Los Angeles. I feel like everything Kyle has gone thru; being the Last Green Lantern, kickstarting the relaunched Corps, becoming Ion, becoming the White Lantern, etc that he would be a bit more confident and mature. The writer seems to be doing him a disservice by making him look like a rookie jackass. Maybe thats just me.

Iron Man 3. Madame Masque and AIM are torturing young geniuses, trying to recreate the next ‘Tony Stark’ thru adversity. Tony figures out Whitney is holed up in his old Helicarrier from when he was briefly director of SHIELD post-Civil War. But she’s ready for him and has prepared a gauntlet when he gets there.

Justice League Unlimited 17. In the aftermath of DC-KO, Superman is gone and the League is in the process of bringing back the billions of citizens that were evacuated. And against Batman’s judgment, they are trying out a new policy by giving villains a chance to reform should Earth need protection from the NEXT world ending crisis. So villains like Lex, Giganta, Lobo, King Shark, etc are now probationary Justice League.


Up next, Part II

[Tom Foolery]

3/24 Part II

Knull 3. Knull and Thanos go at it. Knull wins. And next he sets his sights on that punk upstart that usurped his throne, Eddie Brock. Except he gets pulled into an alt universe where an Eddie Brock is a knight made of light. Or something. Wait, is this the Eddie from that oneshot I read a few months ago?

Marvel Free Previews 55. Solicits for June including the big summer Event; Avengers Armageddon. Also, there’s a Jay and Silent Bob/Marvel crossover oneshot.

Psylocke Ninja 3. The retro events catch up to the original X-Men storyline where Wolverine let Psylocke ‘invade’ his mind and break her brainwashing. Then Logan leaves Betsy and Jubes alone and they get in trouble with the Yakuza. And the Elektra shows up again, looking for revenge.

Punisher 2. Micro takes Frank to a neurosurgeon to fix whatever is causing his headaches. But the doctor says, apart from all the scar tissue, there’s nothing wrong with him. Jigsaw is consolidating his power as the new(est) Kingpin while Tombstone is in custody.

Punisher:The World to Come 4. Having survived his own suicide attempt, and getting rescued by Everett Ross, Frank returns to the druglord’s compound and basically kills everyone singlehandedly.

Rogue 3. Rogue goes to confront Constrictor to ask him about the events she can’t remember. Constrictor is dead and his son is the new Constrictor. But apparently this writer can’t be arsed to do even the tiniest bit of research. Lemme look at the cover to see— oh shit. I should’ve guessed it was Erika Shultz shitting out another terrible miniseries.

Superman 36. Superman is missing after the events of DC KO. But Metropolis still needs a Superman. So Superboy Prime steps up to be the new Superman while Superman is missing. His secret identity gets a job at a comic book store.

Superman/Spider-Man 1. The main story has Webs and Supes team up against Doc Ock and Brainiac. Back up stories include Tom King and Jim Lee on a story with Lois and MJ hanging out while their SOs fight a Sentinel, and Jim Lee throws a sweet splash page of Gambit in for good measure. Man, that’s awesome. LoSH era Superboy teams up with Spidey2099 and Batman Beyond. Carnage eats Jimmy Olsen. Lois faces off with Jonah Jameson on Jack Ryder’s talk show over bias and objectivity in superhuman reporting. And Power Girl and the Punisher team up. There were like 700 variant covers, but I only bought the main cover this time around.

Ultimate Endgame 3. We see what various heroes are doing around the planet to bring down the Maker’s Council. But inside the dome, Tony uses the Immortus Engine to send a version of himself millions of years from the future to warn the team about something. But Maker’s inside man Doom shoots the future Tony. Then the Maker corrupts Spidey’s pico suit and turns into ‘Carnage’ and uses it to kill Peter. Yup. Ultimate Spider-Man dies. Bummer.

Void Rivals 28. The Quintesson War continues. Honestly, I glaze over as I read this every month. I should probably just drop it.

Wolverine:Weapons of Armageddon 2. Logan and the “forgotten” Capt America David Colton are tracking down the kid that escaped from the new WeaponPlus facility. And Nuke is tracking both the kid and them, looking for payback or whatever.

Inglorious X-Force 3. While trying to figure out which member of X-Force is the assassin who kills President Kamala Khan in the future, they come across a fake tiny Americana town filled with BoomBoom clones. Haha, Tim Seeley manages to tie back into NEXTWAVE and Dirk Anger! I forgot when they decided NextWave was just an hallucination or brainwashing or whatever, but Seeley un-retcons the retcon and makes the events of NextWave canon again. Well played, Sir.

Uncanny X-Men 25. The X-Men and the Legion of Monsters, having been fighting for the last two issues, team up to stop Lady Darkhold from kidnapping the X-kids.

I keep trying to start the next batch of back issues to read, but the new weekly pile shows up every Wednesday. And since I’m almost to the beginning of the alphabet, I’m reading the majority of the 20-24 new books now. Which leaves less time for the back issues. C’est la vie.
So, up next 4/1’s books. And maybe I’ll squeeze in some Cable issues.

[anarky]

I took advantage of a B2GO sale and got Absolute Superman and Batman Volumes 1, just to see what the fuss is, and the X-Men '97 prequel, even though I know there's a 110% chance of something in Season 2 rendering it non-canon.

[Tom Foolery]

I took advantage of a B2GO sale and got Absolute Superman and Batman Volumes 1, just to see what the fuss is, and the X-Men '97 prequel, even though I know there's a 110% chance of something in Season 2 rendering it non-canon.

Absolute Superman is great and continues to get better with each arc. Jason Aaron is taking all the familiar characters of the Superman mythos and flipping them to come up with something entirely new, but keeping them just familiar enough to justify calling it Superman.

Batman, on the other hand, is petrified orangutang feces disguised as fanfiction slop that Snyder is trolling fans with to see how much insulting stupidity he can get away with before readers will rightly call him on the asininity. Unfortunately, readers are dumber than Maga and are gobbling up this shit with two spoons like it’s raisins in a box of raisin bran. I despise that this series is being rewarded with high sales and ‘critical acclaim’. It’s not even Lobo-style levels of satire(although I’m sure there are fans who would argue that’s what it aspires to be, so they can feel justified in their slavish devotion) it’s merely wanton excess draped in degenerate turpitude.

*sigh* but I digress….here’s April 1st’s reading pile. The first half anyway.

Absolute Superman 18. Talia goes to free her father(who, as a converted Superman disciple doesn’t want to be rescued) and Lois shows up to assassinate him. Superman intervenes to stop them both, and R’as smashes the last Lazarus Pit, unleashing Absolute Shazam/Black Adam(who is the same character in this iteration). Also a mysterious Absolute Steel shows up. As I said above, this series continues to get better with each arc.

Batgirl 18.
Batman 8. Three narratives weave together in this issue. Batman asks Alan Scott for advice on how to deal with Police Commissioner Vandal Savage. And Savage asks new Mayor Pamela’Poison Ivy’ Isley permission to officially treat Batman and Robin as criminals and issues APB arrest warrants for them.

Bizarro:Year None 1. Kevin Smith is back writing a new take on Bizarro’s origin. The first issue is mostly just a Daily Planet issue with coffee boy Jimmy Olsen asking Perry White for a job. Then they both get sucked thru a portal to Bizarro World. But Smith has a solid handle on the banter between all the Planet regulars like Ron Troupe, Steve Lombard, Kat Grant, etc. And barely any dick jokes. Smith is maturing. I needed two extra issues to roundnuo for the free one. This was one of the two I picked, but I made a good choice.

Capt Marvel: Dark Past 1. A new Carol Danvers mini(since she can’t seem to carry an ongoing anymore) has her dealing with spotty memory issues after Rogue stole her personality all those years ago. A mysterious DNVR project keeps popping up, and we are getting both swimsuit era Ms Marvel Carol and current era Carol investigating it in their own respective times.

Daredevil 1(Legacy 688). Oooh. Fancy cardstock cover! I only got the main cover, but this is the newest fad from both Marvel, DC, and other publishers called ‘Blind Bags’. Buy a bagged copy of the issue and potentially get just the boring regular cover inside, or possibly a unique one of a kind personally drawn cover, or any ratio’d version of one of several rare variant covers in between. Oye. Anyway, Matt starts his new job as a professor teaching law classes at ESU. He meets a potential new love interest(that poor woman…) and then some mysterious masked dude is waiting for him in Mudock’s apartment(not knowing Matt is DD) and warns him that Murdock’s life is in danger because of a prophecy before kicking him out the window. Gotta say, solid start from Stephanie Phillips. And Lee Garbett’s art is fantastic.

Deadpool:April Pool’s Day oneshot. A bunch of forgotten characters from comic genres that don’t sell anymore, like westerns, war comics, romance, fantasy, etc are preparing to invade the 616 thanks for former Star comics character, Wally the Wizard. Deadpool goes to warn everyone of the impending invasion, but no one takes him seriously because it’s April 1st. Except Ben Grimm. He believes Wade and rallies the rest of the heroes to quell the invasion and come up with a solution to enshrine the forgotten characters in a “Genre-World” theme park. Entertaining stuff from Gail Simone.

Doctor Strange 5. Before the wizard Vyrbodin can make good on his plan to kill every child in the Nine Realms, Dr Strange threatens him with a mysterious sphere that will trap the wizard permanently. Vyrbodin and Strange come to an agreement that he won’t use the sphere and Vyrbodin will cease his efforts, but part of the agreement is that Stephen can’t remember what the terms of the agreement were. Hmmm…intriguing.

Eternals oneshot. 50th anniversary celebration of the Eternals has three stories from various eras, and introduces a “new” Eternal character setting up a possible new storyline in the future. Honestly, Kieron Gillen did such a good job codifying, updating, and reimagining the characters a few years ago, this feels like step backwards.

GIJoe ARAH Silent Missions:Baroness oneshot. The second wave of weekly Silent issues focusing on Cobra this time around. Joëlle Jones draws a magnificent Baroness story where Cobra Commander sends both Baroness and Destro on the same assassination mission to see who will fare better and earn his favor. The story takes a back seat to Jones’ gorgeous art.

GIJoe:ARAH 49. Another reprint of the original series with notes and musings in the back by Hama. I haven’t reread any of these in probably close to 25 years, so dipping back in is a real treat.

Up next, the second half of 4/1’s pile.

[anarky]

I keep seeing high praise for AbBat, but it's the same people who thought the Skybound Transformers is the pinnacle of storytelling, and that shitty acid trip GIJoe/Transformers was Kirby-esque because they apparently think Jack Kirby was a pink ghost who ate shit. I value your opinion more, and you've consistently said it's crap. I was morbidly curious and Target didn't have a wonderful selection of third books for the sale. (I would've gone with Absolute Martian Manhunter or Green Lantern, as I've heard those are solid.)

[Tom Foolery]

The people who love AbBat are the same people who started reading comics when DC did Nu52, so Snyder’s run is their first Batman experience. But there’re SOOO MANY absurd plot points in this run. And I could forgive one or two or three of them. But they just keep stacking on top of each other.

MM was interesting but I only picked up the first two issues because it was supposed to be a six issue mini. I figured I could find them later for cheaper. But then they expanded it to 12 issues and this entire Absolute thing has exploded WAY more than I think DC was expecting it to. So I can probably find them, but it would be as if I had just bought them when they came out.

GL is interesting because it’s as if they gave the writer the premise for Green Lantern, but left out the “space cops” aspect, and said ‘okay, now what is it about?’ It’s a trippy alien culture invasion story that’s barely Green Lantern, but still compelling.

WW has been just as good as Superman. They’re neck and neck, but I’d give the edge to Superman.

Flash was pretty mid. Jeff Lemire is one of those writers I think is overrated. I think he had a decent indie career and he did SweetTooth which everyone loved. But a lot of his superhero stuff is just meh. That includes Flash. I dropped it after six issues.

The other problem is that either DC has an endgame for this cashcow, and will have to end it like Marvel did with their Ultimates line. Or it will continue, and they will keep adding titles(like the upcoming Green Arrow and Catwoman series) to the point where it gets diluted and it’s not special anymore. Are y’all excited for issue 67 of Absolute Batman six years from now where Absolute Tim Drake fights Absolute Clock King?? Me neither.