Tag: capsule reviews

The Watch On The Heath: Science and Religion Before Darwin

Keith Thomson
8.3/10 · January 6, 2022

This was an entertaining high-level survey of a moment in time, where what we would end up calling “science” was colliding with centuries of religious tradition, reaching a breaking point where one could really no longer accommodate the other. Along with good, clear summaries of both Darwin’s thinking and the countervailing ideas of the time, it touches lightly and enjoyably on the personalities and relationships of a whole bunch of players at this moment in history as they struggle to reconcile things like the fossil record with the literal reading of Genesis that had been accepted as divine truth for so long. Reading it was more work than pleasure for me, but for work, it was a lot of fun.

~100 issues of Mockingbird

Marvel
7.7/10 · January 18, 2022

This reading turned out to be very timely, as the MCU Hawkeye show ended up very strongly hinting that Laura Barton is “Agent 19”, which was Mockingbird’s agent number in the comics. Problem is, there’s already a Bobbi Morse in the MCU, though she was never called Agent 19. (Nor Mockingbird, not that Laura Barton was either.) This messy situation is actually pretty in keeping with the character — as CBR points out, Mockingbird’s earliest comic appearances were a mess too. She only settled into her superhero identity in Marvel Team-Up #95, after a bunch of weird Ka-Zar stuff and a false start as “Huntress.” Then very shortly she became Hawkeye’s wife, and ended up in the West Coast Avengers as his, well, adjunct I guess. She has a cool look, but her power set seems like it comes down to acrobatics and “battle staves” — a pretty thin gimmick. She gets some character development eventually when she kills a creeper without Hawkeye knowing, but overall these first 100 issues are fairly weak sauce.

~33 issues of Deathlok

Marvel
6.7/10 · January 24, 2022

Deathlok was always one of those characters who hovered on the edge of my consciousness and understanding, in a “what’s the deal with this guy?” kind of way. Turns out there have been many Deathloks, so I had good reason to be confused. I was surprised how few appearances the original had, so much so that he’s really not even considered the “main” Deathlok anymore. Well now I’ve read all those original appearances, and I kind of feel like there’s less than meets the eye. His first stories were kind of standard-issue 1970s futuristic dystopia — it’s the 1990s and cyborgs have taken over! — and kind of a mess narratively, with various twists introduced that either get dropped, truncated, or wrenched in another direction entirely.

Deathlok finally ends up getting shunted through the dimensions to land in Marvel 616, where he has a few appearances each decade. (In the actual 1990s he had long hair and a tattered trenchcoat, because the actual 1990s really were a dystopia, at least when it came to most Marvel comics.) Stories never really rose above the level of “just okay”, and always felt fairly incoherent. Plus, boy oh boy was it (apparently) hard to hand-draw computer lettering back in the 70s.

Captain America Epic Collection #10 – Of Monsters and Men (Marvel Unlimited equivalent)

J.M. DeMatteis, David Anthony Kraft, Mike Zeck
9/10 · February 3, 2022

DeMatteis and Zeck were a great combination on Captain America, with Zeck providing a classic (and ever-so-slightly cartoony) style, which DeMatteis deepened with strong character development and an exploration of philosophy and ideals. I particularly enjoyed how JMDM engaged with the less shopworn elements of Cap’s past, such as the various “substitute Caps” who emerged while Steve was in the ice. Also, though he doesn’t make a big deal of it, he strengthens the supporting cast with a gay best friend (Arnie Roth) while giving prominent roles to his Jewish girlfriend (Bernie Rosenthal) and Black ex-partner (Sam Wilson). A welcome and righteous commitment to diverse viewpoints, especially for the early 80s.

Venom Epic Collection #1 – Symbiosis (Marvel Unlimited equivalent)

David Michelinie, Todd McFarlane, Erik Larsen, et al
7.4/10 · February 14, 2022

Venom is very far from my favorite character, but this collection is about as enjoyable as a Venom book could get for me, because most of it portrays him as a villain rather than the verrry 90’s anti-hero he ended up becoming. In fact, much like I stumbled into the first Elektra issue as a kid, I also seem to own the first Spider-Man issue where he discovers that his new “costume” is a symbiote. This is a cool idea in itself, and even having it combine with someone who hates Spidey (though his reasoning doesn’t have to be QUITE so thin) is good. It’s just that from there, we end up tipping over into “gross and scary monster kills people and stuff but you should root for him! Because, um…”

The Blind Watchmaker

Richard Dawkins
9.1/10 · February 20, 2022

This book emerged in 1986, and was almost certainly the inspiration for Moore’s watchmaker references in Chapter 4 of Watchmen. It’s an excellent, patient, convincing explanation of evolution via natural selection, at least as it was understood in 1986. Like Paley before him, Dawkins makes great use of analogies to reinforce and explicate his point, except Dawkins’ analogies are a) meant to deny creationism rather than support it, and b) based in the technology of HIS day, often 80s-era computers, such as when he compares “fossil” genes to “deleted” data on a floppy disk. Still persuasive, and still a pleasure to read, 35 years later.

Thor Epic Collection #19 – The Thor War (Marvel Unlimited equivalent)

Tom DeFalco, Ron Frenz, Pat Oliffe, et al
8.9/10 · February 21, 2022

Thor was never one of my favorite characters, because he seemed so uber-powerful and above-it-all. I like the notion of comics as modern mythology, but Thor seems a little on the nose. Finding out that Don Blake was never really an actual person removed him even further from humanity. In this arc, DeFalco gives the Thor identity to a member of the supporting cast, Eric Masterson, and thereby makes the Thor book an inquiry into Impostor Syndrome. This was pretty intriguing to me, especially in light of the way that Thor starts having Spider-Man-esque problems of his secret identity screwing up his personal life. It’s also amusing to see all the various godly Asgardians get frustrated with Masterson’s ineptitude.

Spider-Man: Bloodline [Issues 1-5 of Spider-Man (2019)]

J. J. Abrams, Henry Abrams, Sara Pichelli
5.5/10 · February 21, 2022

Sooo… this is yet another iteration of an alternate universe where a bunch of the heroes we know die or somehow check out, and new heroes have to arise. This is a very shopworn concept by now, and this series doesn’t do anything inspiring with it. Peter Parker acts pretty out of character (I can believe he would abandon being Spidey, as he does periodically, but abandon his child? For 10 years? This is a guy fundamentally driven by responsibility, so no.), and aside from a few dead Avengers accounted for, the other bazillion heroes of the MU are MIA without explanation, as are the villains. It seems to me that with Spider-Man and the Avengers off the board, lots of moves would happen on both the villain and hero sides, and we hear about none of these. The Abramses introduce a good villain, and the story is reasonably well told for what it is, but nothing made me care, and nothing made much sense.

X-Men (2019) #17-21

Jonathan Hickman, et al
9.2/10 · February 22, 2022

So, I’m not at all caught up on all the “Whatever Of X” series that have changed the status quo of the X-Men in the MU, but here’s what I gather: They live on Krakoa (and have made friends with Krakoa.) Some kind of Krakoan magic allows them to resurrect mutants whenever one dies. Prof X and Magneto are in charge. Things are pretty good for mutants overall. Hickman leaves the extended soap-opera format behind in this iteration of the book, instead telling compact sci-fi/superhero tales with a rotating cast of characters, taking liberal advantage of the resurrect button. There’s a space opera, a timebending odyssey, a time/space heist, etc. It’s pretty fun! Hickman dials down the persecution and gives the X-Men a great swagger, a pleasant change of pace for the book. I only read a few issues, and they were part of a GIGANAMOUS arc that I don’t really understand, but I enjoyed them.

Avengers by Jonathan Hickman vol 4 (Marvel Unlimited equivalent)

Jonathan Hickman, et al
5.9/10 · February 28, 2022

Avengers (2012) #24-34 and New Avengers (2013) #13-23. It was interesting to read this right on the heels of some of Hickman’s X-Men work. Where the X-Men stuff was bright and wild, these Avengers stories were grim, sad, and ugly. Dr. Strange selling his soul, Iron Man creating a planet-killing device, Black Panther being super-nationalist, Mr. Fantastic being the shitty caricature that anti-FF people think he is. It’s a retread of the Illuminati idea, which was good the first time but of course is not going to go well if we treat the characters like they’ve learned nothing.

On the one hand, Hickman is again taking the premise and writing pretty much straight sci-fi out of it, but in jarring the premise out of its accustomed track, everybody felt wildly out of character — bad where they should be good, dumb where they should be smart, petty where they should be generous. I know Hickman has a ton of cred, and maybe I’m missing something awesome about this work, but I read 22 issues’ worth and did not feel enriched by it.

Avengers Academy #21-39

Christos Gage, et al
9/10 · March 5, 2022

So this feels about as close as we get to a New Mutants book on the Avengers side of Marvel, and I really enjoyed it. Gage does a lovely job of mixing mayhem with genuinely moving emotional beats, such as Juston’s relationship with his Sentinel, Lightspeed comforting Striker over his childhood trauma, and Hazmat/Mettle’s sexual & romantic frustration. Also, Gage really engages his community via the letters page, and facilitates some civil and interesting debates on what’s fair game in a comic, and what are the most effective ways to portray difficult topics.

Incredible Hercules #121-137

Greg Pak, Fred Van Lente, et al
9.1/10 · March 13, 2022

This series was great fun, and seriously engaged with Greek mythology, beautifully blending Herc’s classical exploits with his adventures in the Marvel Universe. This is a guy who can very easily become a caricature, but the writing grounds him well. It feels a little less justified in its title when it focuses on Amadeus Cho for entire issues, but the explicit shout-outs to Joseph Campbell help. I wasn’t along for the ride with Cho, so this is my first time reading much of him in his pre-Hulk form, and to be honest I tended to miss Herc when he wasn’t around. However, by far the BEST thing about this series is that it uses sound effects better than any comic I’ve seen. When hunky Thor (dressed as Herc) strikes the ground, the sound is WHATAMANNNN! When Herc punches Thor unexpectedly, the sound is sukkaPUNCH! And so on. At one point, Herc crashes into something with the sound effect “BOSCH!”, at which point I realized, yep, he’s fighting inside a Bosch painting.

Silk (2021) #1-5

Maurene Goo & Takeshi Miazawa
8.3/10 · March 17, 2022

This is straight-ahead superhero storytelling, albeit with a bit of extra millennial snark & tech. Pretty much the same mold as Peter Parker & Clark Kent — intrepid reporter investigates stuff then punches it later in superhero clothes. The character doesn’t really fascinate me, though the representation is nice. The art was pretty sketchy (er, sketch-like) overall, though there were some cool choices, e.g the penthouse elevator button bloodied by the cat demon’s finger. Pretty much a pleasant, lightweight, un-memorable read.

Natural Theology

William Paley
5.3/10 · April 4, 2022

I mean, obviously I disagree with the premise, and from this historical vantage point (especially after reading The Blind Watchmaker), it’s easy to see where Paley’s reasoning goes off the rails. But it is a pretty charming book at times. As I said in my Watchmen essay, his reaction to the natural world and mine to Watchmen are the same: an intense aesthetic rapture, followed by the desire to inventory and analyze. When he gets into arguing for the goodness of God, he’s on shakier ground, especially when he grounds that goodness in how good the privileged have it. Certainly more work than fun to read, but not as tedious as it could have been, and still thought provoking after all these years, even if most of the thoughts are about how wrong it is.

Morbius Epic Collection #2: The End of a Living Vampire (Marvel Unlimited equivalent)

Marvel
7.7/10 · April 9, 2022

(Marvel Unlimited equivalent: Fear #27-31, Marvel Premiere #28, Marvel Two-In-One #15, Spectacular Spider-Man #6-8 and #38, Savage She-Hulk #9-12, Vampire Tales #9-11 and annual #1, Marvel Preview #8) Morbius feels to me like a byproduct of the 1970s loosening of the comic code, so that monsters were allowed back in comics again. Suddenly there was this big artificial spurt of vampires, werewolves, zombies, etc. Morbius, not being undead, felt safe enough to appear in a Spider-Man book aimed (at least in part) at kids. They tried him out in formats ranging from adult black-and-white to shiny She-Hulk and Spider-Man, but he’s kind of a limited character, so in the end he was “cured” and abandoned. At least for a while. Anyway, vampire creepshow (or antihero) isn’t really my thing, so this was Mor than enough Morbius for me.

The Amazing Spider-Man Omnibus Vol. 5 (Marvel Unlimited equivalent)

Gerry Conway, Len Wein, Ross Andru, and Gil Kane et al
9.3/10 · April 21, 2022

[Marvel Unlimited equivalent: Amazing Spider-Man (1963) #143-180, annual #10-11, and Nova (1976) #12] So, this starts out with the seeds of the damned clone saga, which was dopey the first time around. That’s its downside. Its upside is a mountain-sized helping of rollicking adventure, with lots of delightful Bronze Age high-flying heroics and humor. This was a time when the original Lee/Ditko issues were a living trunk from which new story possibilities kept branching, creating a dramatic unity that still feels satisfying. Even the clone stuff gets its emotional weight from the fact that Gwen is DEAD for real. I loved touches like Spidey forced to team up with Doc Ock, or having to weigh whether he objected to the villain, the Punisher, or JJJ the most. Good supporting cast stuff too, like Harry and Liz getting together, Aunt May becoming a Grey Panther activist, and MJ sorting out her place in Peter’s life.

Daredevil (2019) #31-36

Chip Zdarsky et al.
8.9/10 · April 23, 2022

I’ve skipped over a lot of Daredevil continuity to read these contemporary issues, and a lot of it feels pretty familiar. The same characters doing the same dances — Matthew, Elektra, Kingpin, Bullseye. Daredevil’s identity teetering on revelation again, Daredevil in prison again, somebody else taking the DD identity in Hell’s kitchen again. But I do enjoy Zdarsky. He’s a skilled and compelling writer, so watching the dances and variations is still a pleasure, and I still believe in the emotional reality of the characters.

Dr. Strange Epic Collection #9 – The Vampiric Verses (Marvel Unlimited equivalent)

Roy & Dann Thomas et al.
8.4/10 · May 7, 2022

[Marvel Unlimited equivalent: Doctor Strange, Sorcerer Supreme #14-33 and Ghost Rider (1990) #12]. By Roy & Dann Thomas et al. We’re edging into the 90s here with the Doc, and the art is starting to get embarrassing. Lots of cheesecakey shots of women, a whole harem of whom seem to be fawning and fighting over Strange. Counterbalancing this, though, is Roy Thomas, as old-school as it’s possible for a Marvel writer to be, constantly calling back to Silver Age and even Golden Age characters and tropes. The result is writing that sustains pleasure even when the art provokes winces. There are also very fun lore-heavy extras at the end of many issues, detailing stuff about the Darkhold, or vampires, or voodoo, or werewolves, or what-have-you. These are Thomas at his nerd-scholarly best, almost like OHOTMU articles written in Dr. Strange’s voice.

Fantastic Four (2018) #35-39

Dan Slott et al.
9.5/10 · May 7, 2022

I’m so relieved to have my beloved FF in Slott’s hands. I’ve got this whole run collected to read in physical form, but it was fun to get a little preview of it here, starting with an anniversary issue that very cleverly uses Kang to revisit various points in FF history. It’s the ongoing story that grabs me even more, though. In some places, Slott is rearranging familiar tropes — e.g. making Johnny an uncontrollable monster instead of Ben — but in other places he’s doing more interesting work. I love the idea of Franklin in therapy for all the fricking trauma he’s endured as a kid, and that his teen self is drowning trying to live up to the various versions of him we’ve seen over the years. What a brilliant take. Oh, and hats off to using Trauma as the therapist. Great Marvel deep cut. Also, Reed saying, “Our love for you is a universal constant.” That’s MY Reed Richards.

Way of X #1-5

Si Spurrier and Bob Quinn
9/10 · May 10, 2022

So it seems clear that, at least in part, the whole Krakoa storyline for the X-Men is meant to actualize the marketplace fact that none of them can really die. By bringing that fact into the light in the fictional universe, the writers get to explore some pretty fascinating metaphysics, and Nightcrawler is the perfect character to take point on that. (Well, Wolfsbane would be the perfect character, but again marketplace realities rule.) I really enjoyed this series as our way of working through the psychological effects of removing death, of how those social changes would affect Kurt, and of how something sinister is able to creep up through the edges. The idea that Xavier and Magneto are in charge of this utopia and that where they are, so must also be Onslaught, begins to nibble at redemption for some of the worst 90s crimes.

Star Wars: The High Republic – Trail of Shadows #1-4

Daniel Jose Older and Dave Wachter
7.8/10 · May 12, 2022

I’ve been pursuing this “Marvel Previews Unlimited” project for almost three years now, and I’m finally getting to the point where I’m actually catching up with current comics. This limited series came up on the wheel, but I can’t finish it because its final issue isn’t on MU yet. In this particular case, that’s not a horrible loss, because although this series is enjoyable enough, I’m not enough of a gung ho Star Wars fan to be super curious about it. One thing I do like about the Star Wars comics, though, is that they can tell different kinds of stories in that universe, vs. the very repetitive movies. The storytelling here was pretty disjointed, but there were some nice character moments, in particular the plucky little Chadra-Fan who stands up to evil.

Hulk (2021) #1-3

Donny Cates and Ryan Ottley
3.4/10 · May 12, 2022

Fuckin’ Donny Cates, man. The guy clearly has an audience, but I very clearly am not in it. So much stupid gore, so much stupid testosterone, so much stupid extremism. So much macho bullshit that maybe some 14-year-old boy (or one at heart) would super dig. So much fucking nonsense. Very glad there were only 3 issues of this on MU.

Dante

John Took
3.7/10 · May 10, 2021

This was a real slog. Took’s writing style involves interminable sentences with clause after clause strung together by lots of commas and occasionally other punctuation, and peppered with foreign and hyper-academic words. Example picked from a random page (304): “And specularity is indeed the order of the day here, for while on the face of it, and right up to the moment of its evaporating somewhat after the manner of the morning mist, Dante’s, in the remaining part of the text, looks to be simply an exercise in prescription, in a laying down of the rules for composition, what in truth we have here — and on analogy with the notion of speculative grammar — is something close to a speculative poetic, a hymn to the canzone stanza as but a mirror held up to self in the now perfect resolution of self.” Plus page-long (or longer) excerpts from Italian and Latin texts translated in tiny print down at the bottom of the page. O M G. There were 545 pages of that. Pretty painful and slow overall.

There were diamonds to be mined, but it took a lot of hammering. Took’s argument (when it occasionally appears) centers around reading Dante as an allegory/metaphor about the evolution of self, in particular the three parts of the Comedy as self-confrontation (Inferno), self-reconfiguration (Purgatorio), and self-transcendence (Paradiso). This is useful, as are the biographical insights. But boy is it a lot of work to get to the useful parts.

Spider-Ham (2019)

Zeb Wells and Will Robson
8.4/10 · May 11, 2021

This is some rollicking fun, with lots of kooky meta stuff, almost verging on a Not Brand Ecch vibe in places. I dig all the wacky animal equivalents of Marvel characters — Moose-ter Fantastic, Sandmanatee, the Bee-Yonder, etc. I also like how Spider-Man gets unwillingly dragged through the whole thing and spends the entire series trying to figure out how to make it stop. Certainly not anything I’d want to read on a regular basis — 5 issues was a little more than enough — but a pretty enjoyable romp.

Web of Venom: The Good Son (2020)

Zac Thompson and Dio Neves
2.6/10 · May 11, 2021

Oh boy, an evil child corrupting an innocent child. And the parents + caretakers have NO idea! What a great trope, totally not bored and repulsed by this at all.

Star Wars: Age of Republic (2019)

Jody Houser, Cory Smith, and Luke Ross
8.0/10 · May 23, 2021

This was a series of 9 one-shots — 4 focused on heroes, 4 focused on villains, and one with a bunch of micro-stories — set during the prequel era. Obviously this is not my favorite Star Wars era, but this series did a creditable job of putting the characters in good stories that bring out their core themes and provide some fun along the way.

Annihilation Omnibus

Marvel
9.5/10 · June 5, 2021

Or the Marvel Unlimited equivalent anyway. Drax the Destroyer #1–4, Annihilation: Prologue, Annihilation: Nova #1–4, Annihilation: Silver Surfer #1–4, Annihilation: Super-Skrull #1–4, Annihilation: Ronan #1–4, Annihilation #1–6, Annihilation: Heralds of Galactus #1–2. Missing Annihilation: Nova Corps Files.

This is a comics event I’ve heard about for years, but never really read until now. Cosmic Marvel has never really been my favorite flavor, so I wasn’t super-motivated to seek it out. Now that I’ve read it though, I’m glad I did. It’s easy to see why the storyline jump-started the cosmic characters again — a big part of it comes down to structure. The Drax book revives the character in an Earthbound setting, with a smart-alecky human counterpart, making him more grounded and moving him beyond his Starlin-y origins. Then they introduce the wave, then pull back and deeply characterize four different protagonists, a melange of heroes and anti-heroes, with varying motivations, before bringing them all together against the common enemy.

That enemy, Annihilus, is WAY more of a threat than he’s ever been before, and for once it’s not about his cosmic control rod. His characterization is great too, especially in his interactions with Thanos. The weird mix that goes into fighting him breaks the “heroes vs. bad guys” mold in some pretty interesting ways, as they come together then splinter apart again with all of us understanding each other a little better. A satisfying experience that lives up to the hype!

Annihilation Scourge

Marvel
7.4/10 · June 5, 2021

Well, this was a disappointing follow-up. This was partly because it continues some stories I never connected with — the “Cancerverse” (never read it) and the Sentry. But also it was much less ambitious, by like a factor of five. Consequently, there wasn’t much interesting character development, and some of the character interactions we did have weren’t credible, such as the nihilist Annihilus, who sought the destruction of all life in Annihilation, now suddenly caring enough about the Negative Zone’s life forms to seek out help from Nova of all people, and turn himself into kind of a comic relief figure by doing so. A real degradation of what was built in Annihilation. Also, rather than picking up under-used characters and making something interesting out of them, this shoehorns in characters in the middle of other story arcs, and thus has to deal with stuff like the Silver Surfer’s intangibility. It was okay, but forgettable and not really deserving of the Annihilation imprint.

Star (2020)

Kelly Thompson, Javier Pina, and Filipe Andrade
8.7/10 · June 7, 2021

Thompson’s writing is a pleasure as always — she’s great at mixing humor with emotional themes. In this case, the emotions are confusion, compassion, and fear. I didn’t read the Captain Marvel arc that initiated this character, but I get the gist — emotionally stunted person carrying around childhood trauma suddenly gets to control her own reality. The Scarlet Witch is the perfect character to bring in here, and I love how Wanda sees herself in Star. Captain Marvel, on the other hand, is acting like a cop, understandably. This was a really interesting dynamic, though the series is too short to do much with it. Maybe we’ll see more?

The Empyre crossover

Marvel
8.7/10 · June 18, 2021

For somebody like me with a lot of Marvel reading history, this was pretty enjoyable. I thought the Road to Empyre book did a great job of setting up the history, and I really appreciated the connection to the Byrne story of the Kree & Skrull fighting for eons on the moon. (Though apparently that connection was more fleshed out in the previous event.) Also, the notion that the “Celestial Messiah” was JUST for plants made for a nice twist. Nothing mind-blowing, but good solid comic book fun.

Danteworlds

Guy P. Raffa
7.1/10 · June 22, 2021

I probably didn’t give this the treatment that would have extracted the most value from it. I used it as a guide for reading the Inferno in chunks, and then read all the summaries, etc., at once rather than going back and forth between the poem and the reference. Then I did the same thing with the notes in the Mandelbaum translation. So I wasn’t quite as directly engaged between the lines and the apparatus as it might wish. Still, it provided useful descriptions and explanations for various references. The “study questions” felt a little more dubious, or perhaps just not suited to my purpose. I did like the significant lines — a nice touch.

Inferno

Dante, translation by Allen Mandelbaum
9.6/10 · June 24, 2021

After all this time, Dante still blows me away. Revisiting it here was a real pleasure, bringing back lovely memories of class with Ed Nolan, the manifesto of my teenage self, etc. That final moment of emerging to see the stars is just breathtaking. One of the best parts this time has been hopping onto the Walking with Dante podcast. I’m definitely going to keep it going even after I’m done with the Watchmen post. It feels a lot like being in a class with an excellent teacher. Can’t wait to write about it all.

X-Men/Avengers: Onslaught Volume 1

Marvel
4.7/10 · June 25, 2021

I suppose people can have nostalgia for anything, but to me the entire Onslaught fiasco was a real nadir for Marvel, right down there with the Clone Saga. Spread across a bazillion issues, a huge mess narratively, constantly privileging art over story. And worst of all, the way it ended runs that had been going since the 1960s — ESPECIALLY Fantastic Four — was unforgivable. To be fair, there’s a germ of a good idea in there — Xavier’s frustration & absorption of Magneto turning him into a monster — but the execution, ugh. Really, it felt like a storyline symbolic of what was happening to Marvel during that time — an onslaught of greed and mutant overload destroying everything in its path.

X-Men/Avengers: Onslaught Volume 2

Marvel
3.7/10 · July 2, 2021

I guess it was supposed to be fascinating that the X-world was infested with all these Age of Apocalypse holdouts (Dark Beast, X-Man) even as the next mega-event unfolded, but to me it just felt like an already grossly swollen “What If” story had overflowed its bounds into regular continuity and was throwing even more nonsense into the pot on top of everything else. Hard to maintain an emotional impact when narrative threads are all over the place and still awaiting resolution. Verdict remains for this section — a mess that needed much better editorial control, and a monster that killed too many undeserving books.

100 issues with Taskmaster

Marvel
7.9/10 · August 2, 2021

Tony is a real utility character, so it’s not surprising that this was all over the place. He’s at his best when he shows up in stories with an overall comedic touch, given that he’s fairly ridiculous. The Taskmaster limited series, therefore, was probably the highlight of this selection, since it was not only funny but gave him a good reason for being in the story — needing to unlock tech that only took “kinesic signatures” from certain people, thus giving him a MacGuffin to chase and providing an interesting angle on his powers. Mostly, he’s just a supporting character in somebody else’s storyline, but these stories can be good. I quite liked the extended Spider-Man storyline in which Kraven captured a bunch of animal-themed villains and let them be hunted in a barricaded Central Park.

100 issues with Miles Morales

Marvel
8.8/10 · August 25, 2021

So for this, I read the full runs of Ultimate Comics Spider-Man, Spider-Man (2016), and Miles Morales: Spider-Man (so far). I also read the first 18 or so issues of Champions. I did NOT read Secret Wars, or whatever the heck series it was that brought Miles into mainstream 616 reality, so I ended up pretty baffled at how major plot points (i.e. who knew MM’s secret identity) got reshuffled from one reality to another. Ultimately, this felt like one cohesive story from Bendis that was truncated and interrupted, then turned into a different cohesive story from Bendis, until he left and Saladin Ahmed took over in a mostly smooth transition. Ahmed even addresses some of the weirder plot points, like why the fuck any Black parents would name their kid “Jefferson Davis.” Champions was much more scattered, more prone to crossover-itis, and (naturally) less focused on Miles. Wonderful work by Bendis (and Pichelli, and Marquez, and etc.) plus good work by Ahmed, plus okay work on Champions.

Team Topologies

Matthew Skelton and Manuel Pais
6.5/10 · September 5, 2021

Certainly not a fun read — I read it because I’d heard that’s what’s in our leadership’s heads around organizational structure, and I wanted to be able to speak in its terms when I talked to them about reorganizing the team I’m on. Predictably, that discussion did not go the way I wanted it to, but I did feel like I was able to use the book’s concepts to my advantage at least. Main takeaways for me:

• Conway’s Law: the idea that software architecture tends to mimic team structure
• Four kinds of teams: stream-aligned, complicated-subsystem, platform, enabling
• Three kinds of interactions: collaboration, X-as-a-service, facilitation. You can also build trust with communities of practice, internal conferences, etc.
• Everyone does not need to communicate with everyone
• Focus on reducing cognitive load for teams
• A good platform should simplify the developer’s life. Doing so results in faster flow & better quality
• Development and operations should not be split. Rather, operations should be an input to development.
• Team interactions, user feedback, telemetry & metrics are analogous to an organization’s senses — crucial for obtaining the feedback necessary to make good decisions.

10 issues with Iron Man stealth armor

Marvel
8.2/10 · September 12, 2021

For as much focus as the stealth armor gets in games, toys, etc., it seems to be incredibly minor in the overall Iron Man canon. It debuted in Iron Man #152 for a special stealth mission, and from that point forward seemed to mostly show up in issues where a bunch of armors appeared. That said, reading those issues meant I got to hit some big highlight moments in the IM narrative, plus the 2008 Iron Manual which provided a thorough breakdown of IM continuity prior to the movie. Pretty enjoyable stuff. I especially liked the Armor Wars issues, which I’d never read before.

The Surrealism Reader

Edited by Dawn Ades and Michael Richardson
4.8/10 · September 29, 2021

This was a real challenge to read. Very academic, and lots and lots of texts in translation. Also, it’s tough for me to get my mind around surrealism as a concept past the visual arts, and I find I don’t care much about it in poetry, etc. Much of it felt like grandstanding, infighting, or naive posturing. The Dalí essay — at 4 pages — was by far the most interesting part. That said, it gave me a grounding in some of the core surrealist concepts, and even beyond the Dalí provided a few good and possibly usable touchpoints — on masks, dreams, and humor.

100 issues of Ghost

Marvel
8.0/10 · October 10, 2021

My main takeaway from this was to try using reading order instead of ComicVine for these character dives. It was quite frustrating jumping around in time and picking my way through non-US releases. My second takeaway was that while Ghost started out as a one-note villain (that note being “hates corporations”), it was really Jeff Parker’s work on Thunderbolts that gave him the depth and pathos he needed to become a more interesting character. I’m happy to have done my homework on him, and I’ll be happy to do a more linear path through the other characters coming up.

Dalí

Dawn Ades
7.5/10 · October 12, 2021

It’s difficult to judge this one, because my copy arrived with 16 pages having been ripped out from various parts of the book (accounting for 32 total pages of reading — about 15% of the total). So my reading experience had a lot of frustrating skips and gaps. This was especially aggravating because the pages torn all had reproductions of paintings on them, to which other parts of the book referred. That monumental annoyance aside, this book was certainly much more accessible than the Surrealist Reader, and Ades does a creditable job of combining a broad biography with an examination of the major themes in Dalí’s work.

Essential Dalí

Kirsten Bradbury
8.4/10 · October 30, 2021

Well this was certainly better than my other Dalí book, which had tiny reprints and a bunch of THOSE torn out. This book has gorgeous full-color reproductions of 100+ Dalí works, and useful commentary that almost always frames the work in contrast to some other piece from another part of the book. Unfortunately, it is distressingly error-prone. For instance, the description of The Enigma of Desire mentions a bunch of stuff not shown in the reprint, because the reprint is just a detail from the painting, not that the book seems to realize that. Elsewhere, two different sculptures are labeled “The Profile of Time”, or rather, one is labeled that and the other is labeled “Profile du Temps”, when in fact the one labeled in English is actually Nobility of Time — even the description gets this one wrong. So an enjoyable tome, if not entirely trustworthy.

~100 issues of Constrictor

Marvel
8.1/10 · October 31, 2021

Using the reading order site for one of these runs was a MUCH more satisfying experience. It was cool to watch Frank move from a “villain of the week” to a character with some moral compass (in the Captain America arc), to a wacky neighbor for Deadpool, to a redemption arc in Thing, to a regularly appearing antihero in Avengers: The Initiative. In the process, I got to pop through a bunch of different pieces of Marvel history, including some of Priest’s run on Black Panther, which I dug, and his run on Deadpool, which not so much, though it was okay. There was some overlap with my Taskmaster read-through, especially towards the end as those characters joined up in Initiative. Uneven quality, as you’d expect, but a fun ride overall.

~100 issues of Spider-Woman

Marvel
8.2/10 · November 15, 2021

She-Hulk and Spider-Woman turned me off Marvel when I was 8 — they just felt like cheap weird copies. Now I know they were made to protect trademarks, for fear some other company would knock them off! Now I’ve come to enjoy each character on their merits, and this course on early Spider-Woman was enjoyable, though it was clear Marvel had no idea what to do with the character, and ended up depowering her (then walking that back a bit.) Interestingly, uncostumed Jessica in Wolverine was probably the most compelling version of her in this initial batch.

Fantastic Four – Walt Simonson run (#334–354)

Walt Simonson with occasional other artists
9.4/10 · January 2, 2021

So, overall this era of FF — with the She-Thing & the human Ben Grimm — is not my favorite. I’m cool with titles going through growth & change, and I appreciate the opportunities for character development, but I miss the real Thing. That said, what Simonson does with the book is absolutely awesome. The time-hopping issue (#352) is one of the coolest things I’ve ever seen in comics, and overall his exploration of time & formal depictions thereof is just sheer brilliance. It doesn’t hold a candle to Byrne (or Lee/Kirby for that matter) when it comes to character, but when it comes to form, Simonson’s FF is TOPS. Just a master class in comic book storytelling. Not to mention, Grimm becomes the Thing again by the end! Woo!

Einstein and the Poet

William Hermanns
3.4/10 · January 7, 2021

Overall this is just not a good book. For one thing, its production values are simply terrible — strewn with typos, and lacking even page numbers! Moreover, Hermanns himself, assuming he’s accurately portrayed in these pages, is a pompous jackass who seems to think he’s much more important to Einstein than he actually is. It’s a bit odd, really, given that he wrote the book himself, but the portrait I got was of somebody who tested Einstein’s patience over and over again, just as he tested mine. In the end, the pieces of Einstein himself that come through in these interviews are interesting and worthwhile, but they’re hardly worth the annoyance of the rest.

Fantastic Four – John Byrne run (#232–295)

John Byrne
9.5/10 · January 29, 2021

Of course, some of this is going to be colored by the fact that I read these comics as a teen in the 80s. But I still think these are great comics. For one thing, Byrne’s art is just gorgeous and perfect. His super-clean version of Thing, Reed, even She-Hulk, goes down so smooth. And the writing is just as good. In both areas, Byrne simply excels at characterization, and at reworking some of the earliest FF tropes. Standout stories are the anniversary issue (“Terror In A Tiny Town”) and the Skrull milk annual. His treatments of Doom are awesome — the Liddleville one being the best, but the Kristoff and cosmic/Terrax storylines are also great, and the follow-up towards the end of the run where he takes over the Latverian embassy as the “Invincible Man”. In general, there was a lot of pleasure to be had from how Byrne revisits FF iconography (Infant Terrible, Galactus, Negative Zone, Mole Man, etc.), though his run was more about looking backward and ringing changes than looking forward and building more foundations.

Fantastic Four – Waid/Wieringo run (v3 #60–70 + 500–524)

Mark Waid, Mike Wieringo, and other artists
9.3/10 · February 3, 2021

This captured my heart from the very first issue — the moments with Reed & Valeria are one of the few times a comic has made me choke up. And “Sentient” was almost a perfect first arc — a brilliant new villain rooted in the FF as a family, with an excellent solution (and twist on the way there.) Wieringo’s art is gorgeous, especially compared to those who fill in for him. I also appreciated the character development on Johnny — giving him more responsibility made him more responsible! I think this tactic of creating a vacuum for a learner to fill rings true to family dynamics. The series remained at a high level, albeit with ups and downs, throughout. One of my more favorite Waid accomplishments.

Marvel Knights 4 #1–30 (complete run)

Roberto Aguirre-Sacasa and various artists
8.7/10 · February 9, 2021

Coming off the Waid/Wieringo run, this was tonally jarring in both words and images. Steve McNiven’s initial issues made the FF and everyone around them look grotesque, not to mention everybody’s hair looked like it was underwater. Plus, the FF were somehow broke out on the streets in this book at the same time as Johnny was successfully taking over the financial helm in the other. So it was a bumpy start, but my appreciation increased over time, in particular for the psychological explorations. Unsurprisingly, the Psycho-Man arc was strong, with a fantastic twist when Alicia was swapped for Sue. The littler moments were the best part of this run.

Star Wars (2015) #50–67

Kieron Gillen and various artists
8.8/10 · February 17, 2021

This isn’t the start of the Gillen run, but it’s enough. Builds on the strong work of Jason Aaron — more adventures in between episodes 4 and 5. I appreciated getting to spend more time with Han, Leia, Luke, and the gang from episode 4. The new characters added some great color too, especially the drama-queen shapeshifter Tunga, and the Partisans — it makes sense there would be people who are in the Alliance because they hate the Empire, but are not necessarily “good guys.” In fact, these new characters were the highlight of the best arc, a heist-like caper called “The Scourging of Shu-Torun.”

The Ultimate Quotable Einstein

Collected & edited by Alice Calaprice
7.7/10 · February 18, 2021

Ultimately, reading a book of quotations (especially a 500+ page book of quotations) is a bit of an odd way to acquaint oneself with a person. I’m grateful I’d read the Isaacson book before wading into this one, as it provided crucial context for many of these free-floating utterances. There were certainly useful nuggets to be found, given that I’m researching a (wrong) Einstein “quote”, but it felt a bit sloggy much of the time.

X-Men Blue #29–36

Cullen Bunn and various artists
8.0/10 · February 23, 2021

This is the finale of the time-traveling original X-Men saga, winding up with them getting ready to go back to their own time with scrubbed memories and reset powers. Normally this kind of thing would seem like the height of pointlessness to me, between the “everything snaps back to status quo” and the “alternate universe versions of familiar characters”, two of my least favorite comicbook tropes. However, the X-Men were at their height in the 90s, and that meant that they caught the worst of the 90s-ness, with almost everybody taking a turn turning evil, or getting killed then cheaply resurrected, and with a lot of (for many of them) character “development” that felt like grotesque disfigurement and distortion. Consequently, bringing them back as they were to see what had happened to them later yielded some good story moments, though again it’s not as if they’re going to be able to learn anything from the experience. But we can.

Marvel Knights 20th

Donny Cates + various writers and artists
6.6/10 · February 25, 2021

So this is Cates, who I’ve determined I’m not crazy about (thanks to Thanos), writing yet another iteration of “all the heroes have lost their memories and powers, and now must become superheroes again.” This is a pretty well-worn trope, and nothing astonishingly new happens with it here. The arc has to do with them figuring out that they erased their own world and why, then reversing their decision, with final undertones of impending doom. Also, the art changes every issue. Enh, it’s okay — more palatable than the average Cates, but still nothing I’d seek out, recommend, or read again.

Death of the Inhumans

Donny Cates and Ariel Olivetti
2.8/10 · March 1, 2021

More Cates testosterone poisoning, more alternate future bullshit. It’s like he writes “What If?” issues, except they last for 5 or 6 issues instead, and instead of thoughtful explorations about life choices, they’re bloodthirsty, rancid avalanches of existence at its worst. No thank you. (Pretty good art, though, especially the covers.)

Guardians Of The Galaxy (2019)

Donny Cates, Geoff Shaw, and Cory Smith
4.8/10 · March 3, 2021

Whyyyyyyy do I keep randomly pulling Cates comics? In fairness, this was far more tolerable than the others have been, but it’s still just full of bloody nonsense, and “awesome” reveals or battles that just make me roll my eyes. The Abnett & Lanning runs get so much praise, and if they spawned the movie version of the Guardians, rightly so. But these issues were full of letters saying that Cates returned to the DNA spirit, which makes me wonder about those runs. So much of this is just thrown-together crap with no apparent point or thought behind it. Repetition passing for theme. So yeah, great for a Cates comic, mediocre at best for a Marvel comic.

Marvels Annotated

Kurt Busiek, Alex Ross
10.0/10 · March 21, 2021

I always loved Marvels, and it was an absolute joy to return to it in this version, with tons of extra notes, full scripts for each issue, and lots of bonuses. Like Watchmen, it rewards the time put into it. Also, it felt remarkably prescient and relevant to me in 2021. Take the mob violence of the mutants issue: “The real story was the people who’d been scared too long. Who’d been wound tight by talk of mutant menaces and hidden conspiracies and shadows under the bed. Who’d been wound tight — and cut loose. The real story was the people who started breaking things.” Sounds familiar, right? Or Phil’s exasperation with people constantly suspicious of those who keep doing nothing but trying to help them: “What do you people need? The world to ACTUALLY END?” I felt those more deeply this time than in any previous reading.

Apocalypse and the X-Tracts (Age of X-Man)

Tim Seeley & Salva Espin
2.4/10 · March 21, 2021

Oh hey, it’s yet another alternate universe, with yet more alternate versions of characters. Yeah, you know that guy you know of as a villain? Well here he’s a HERO! Get that! Except… maybe not REALLY?? Mysterious, right? Oh, and those other characters you like, well here’s some people who are almost exactly like them, but DIFFERENT. Why wouldn’t you care about that? That’s meaningful, right? How about if we do it 100 times in a row? Still meaningful, right? God forbid we try to just tell ongoing stories that enrich characters over time. Screw that! We are WIPING THE SLATE CLEAN for a NEW REALITY where everybody is A LITTLE DIFFERENT!

The Quote Verifier

Ralph Keyes
8.0/10 · March 22, 2021

An impeccably researched book full of little historical nuggets, organized around quotes and determining who really said them. Turns out a whole bunch of them aren’t original to those whom we typically credit for them. Pretty entertaining to read, though it skims the surface of a hundred things rather than diving in deep to one. My favorite parts were the sidebars that collected quotes (or misquotes) around a given person or flavor.

Marvel Masters Of Suspense – Stan Lee & Steve Ditko Omnibus, Volume 1

Stan Lee & Steve Ditko
8.2/10 · April 27, 2021

Including Journey Into Mystery #33 and #38, Strange Tales #46, #50, and #89, Tales To Astonish #1–26, Tales of Suspense #1–24, and Amazing Adventures #1–6. There are lots of other issues in the print omnibus, but these were the ones on Marvel Unlimited. (That turns out to be an ironic name in this case.) On the other hand, I read the entire issues, not just the Ditko stuff. These were quite a hoot, especially Astonish and Suspense.

On the one hand, they were clearly disposable stories — often the same Twilight-Zone-lite plots recycled over and over, and SO many kooky-named monsters & aliens set on either invading or elevating us (the latter of whom are always driven away by our fear and ignorance.) On the other hand, they really illuminate and pave the runway to the Marvel Universe, and recontextualize the first year or two of many classic comics (especially Fantastic Four). And Ditko really is great — an instantly recognizable and wonderfully dramatic style. His pre-superhero stuff is a fantastic prelude to Spider-Man and Dr. Strange.

Star Wars #108

Matthew Rosenberg and various artists
7.7/10 · April 28, 2021

So, I never really read the original run of Marvel Star Wars comics. I liked Star Wars, and LOVED Marvel, but my comicbook attention was pretty fully on superheroes. This comic was clearly a love letter to that run, so a lot of the nostalgia escaped me. Still, it was an enjoyable enough story on its own merits, even if most of its references bounced off me. Not as much fun as the newer runs by Aaron and Gillen, and the rabbit-head character seemed TOTALLY out of place, but a reasonably fun comic read.

Spider-Man: Life Story

Chip Zdarsky and Mark Bagley
9.2/10 · April 28, 2021

I crack a lot in here on alternate-universe stories and how I find them boring. But this series put me in mind of the old What If? comics, which I loved. It felt like a 6-issue What If? arc — What If Spider-Man Aged In Real Time? — and I really enjoyed it.

So what’s the difference? A couple of things, I think. First, What If? tended to shape its alternate universes on a single inflection point in a hero’s life, and explore what happened from there, while most modern alt-universe stories (

Secondly, What If? (at least the classic run of it that I remember) tended to be shaped around character first, action second, where Cates and his ilk are the other way around, treating the characters like action figures rather than people. (And in Cates’ case, Sid owns all the action figures.) So okay alternate universes, you’re allowed, but only with creators at the level of Zdarsky and Bagley, because Life Story was pretty great.

Hawkeye (2016)

Kelly Thompson, Leonardo Romero, and others
9.3/10 · April 30, 2021

I had read parts of this before, in my big Marvel Legacy read, but the entire 16-issue run was quite charming and loads of fun. Thompson’s writing style with Kate is breezy, genuinely funny (sometimes LOL funny), and also moving when it wants to be. Also, the art trick where she notices a bunch of things at once as she takes in a scene — circled in purple and labeled in her voice — was a fantastic way of capturing how her Hawkeye-ness truly does function as a superpower, and how it could make her an awesome P.I. A real joy, that ends too soon.

Marvel Action Captain Marvel (2019)

Sam Maggs and Sweeney Boo
8.4/10 · April 30, 2021

This was a pretty enjoyable all-ages comic, written with some verve. Not nearly at the level of Kelly Thompson’s Hawkeye, which I just came off reading, but pretty fun. Plus, the whole arc was about flerkens, so there were lots of cats. Yay, cats!

Marvel Action Spider-Man (2018)

Delilah Dawson, Fico Ossio, Erik Burnham, Christopher Jones, Davide Tinto, and others
7.3/10 · May 5, 2021

The interesting thing about this series is that it plops Peter Parker, Miles Morales, and Spider-Gwen together, without any alternate universe shenanigans. They’re just three spider-people — kids, actually — who get thrown together because of an internship or something. There’s a pretty enjoyable riff on Kraven, an okay Black Cat arc, and a meh Venom story (just not a Venom fan.) Lightweight comicbook fun for kids, mostly.

Marvel Action Avengers (2018)

Matthew K. Manning, Jon Sommariva, and Marcio Fiorito
8.3/10 · May 9, 2021

These are pretty good all-ages Avengers comics, though I can’t say I’m a huge fan of the art. I appreciate the psychological engagement with the characters — Tony’s emotional connection with team members even alongside his arrogance, Panther’s vulnerable bond with his father, etc. Good thick story too, interweaving Masque, AIM, Modok, aliens, etc. Lightweight but tasty.

Moon Knight Annual (2019)

Cullen Bunn, Ibrahim Moustafa, and Matt Horak
8.3/10 · May 9, 2021

This was apparently part of something called “Acts of Evil!”, which based on the name and the “Acts Of Vengeance” font seems like it’s going to be more villain-swapping. And indeed, here Moon Knight fights… Kang! This is mostly an excuse to have MK travel through space and time to meet with lots of other historically-bound MK equivalents — a Roman centurion Moon Knight! A minuteman Moon Knight! A Chicago gangster Moon Knight! Given that MK has a very cool design, these are pretty enjoyable visually. The plot itself is something about finding the first MK and then our MK and Khonshu setting the timeline right. So basically time-travel nonsense and the same “restore the status quo by undoing timeline damage” plot we’ve seen many times, but well-drawn and fun.

Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Man (2019) #14

Tom Taylor, Marguerite Sauvage, and Ken Lashley
9.5/10 · May 9, 2021

Due to vagaries of randomness, I ended up only reading the final issue of this run, but I thought it was great. A Spider-Man story full of heart and compassion, plus subverting some common Spider-Man (and superhero) tropes. I loved the way he KEEPS his promise to Aunt May despite the superhero shenanigans, rather than having them undo his ability to be reliable. Also, the fact that he confronts the villain without punching, and gets him some help, is fantastic, as is the fact that the villain decides to stand down because “We all owe you.” Lovely composition and emotionally satisfying. Well done!

Invincible Iron Man (2015) #6–#14

Brian Michael Bendis, Mike Deodato
7.5/10 · May 7, 2020

Bendis at his worst is glib and facile, reiterating dialogue mannerisms like tics across every character and blithely wrenching characters into increasingly implausible and inconsistent actions. Bendis at his best is deep and emotional, striking to the very heart of what’s essential about a character while radically reworking their iconic qualities into startling and fresh configurations. This was somewhere in between — some wonderful moments with Tony, especially his post-AA conversation with Carol, plus the introduction of Riri Williams, who disrupts the whole “white male genius” vibe. At the same time, blowing past narrative cohesion in an extremely frustrating way — e.g. at the end of one issue there’s a giant explosion engulfing all the characters, and in the next issue everybody is fine with no explanation why — and some pretty tiring “You’re telling me this?” “I’m telling you this.” dialogue.

Thunderbolts (2016) #1–12

Jim Zub, Jon Malin, et al.
7.0/10 · May 14, 2020

There seems to be tons of affection for the original Thunderbolts series, and given that it was Busiek + Bagley that makes sense. Never read it myself. This iteration is much of the original cast but led by Bucky, and centered around Kobik, the cosmic-cube-as-precocious-preschooler from the Pleasant Hill event. It has its charms, though the art is mostly ugly 90s pastiches.

Avengers: Standoff (2016)

Marvel
7.2/10 · May 22, 2020

Kind of a harebrained plot, engineered mostly to de-age Steve Rogers and set up Secret Empire. Mostly pretty silly. I did enjoy seeing the backstory to the Thunderbolts run, and getting to see a bit of Roberto da Costa running his own renegade Avengers squad. Also, Al Ewing continues to be great.

The Haunted Mansion (2016)

Joshua Williamson, Jorge Coelho
4.8/10 · May 23, 2020

There are probably people who have fond memories of Disneyland’s Haunted Mansion. I’m not one of them. Also, seemed to be aimed at kids, with some questionable messages about taking ridiculous risks. Overall, this was not for me.

Venom: Space Knight (2016) #11–13

Robbie Thompson, Gerardo Sandoval, et al.
6.8/10 · May 23, 2020

This felt like being dropped into the midst of a story with a bunch of characters I don’t know or care about. Also, Venom is not my favorite character. But I do like the Flash Thompson part, and this series had a nice Spidey cameo, just post-Superior. Also, there was a moment with Spidey and the symbiote that felt redemptive. Con: the ugly art.

Extraordinary X-Men Annual #1 (2016)

Ollie Masters, Brandon Montclare, Carlo Barberi, and Rosi Kampe
7.7/10 · May 23, 2020

A fun prison break story. Fluffy and lightweight but enjoyable enough. Same goes for the secondary story between Forge & Moon Girl (they’re spending time together why?) Pretty art on the first story.

Marvel (2020) #1

Alex Ross, Frank Espinosa, Kurt Busiek, Steve Rude, et al.
8.2/10 · May 23, 2020

First issue of an anthology series — Marvel-themed “anything goes” stories done by various people from inside and outside of Marvel. The frame story did nothing for me, but both the shorts, a Spider-Man/MJ marriage story by Espinosa and an old-school 1960s-style Avengers story by Busiek, were pretty good.

Civil War II

Brian Michael Bendis, David Marquez, Olivier Copiel, et al.
8.8/10 · May 23, 2020

I like it when Marvel digs into the metaphorical value of their characters by having them clash over serious philosophical differences, and this one paid off mostly. It still felt a little unsatisfying, as some of the more obvious arguments remained both unstated and unrefuted, replaced by more punch-outs. And it loses points to the original Civil War in being that much further removed from real-world debates (I mean, I guess the future predicting is like profiling, but that’s also a bit of a stretch.) Overall enjoyable combo of writing & art though, and some good character moments, though none as good as the argument outside an AA meeting that Bendis wrote for Tony & Carol in Iron Man.

Guidebook to the Marvel Cinematic Universe – Marvel’s Agents of SHIELD Season Three (2016)

Mike O’Sullivan et al.
5.3/10 · May 24, 2020

Lots of character-by-character recaps covering the same plot ground over and over. And not my favorite season of AOS either. (Though not my least fave…) But pretty dull to read, and a little too divorced from the fact that it’s a show — why not say who played what?

Miracleman Book One: A Dream Of Flying

Alan Moore, Garry Leach, and Alan Davis
9.7/10 · June 1, 2020

Moore’s original superhero deconstruction, before Swamp Thing and Watchmen. It feels like a younger Moore, but still fantastic. It’s the redemption of the ludicrous all over, a Shazam-like hero brought to our earth and his implications examined, his foundations overthrown. Essential. Thank goodness Marvel brought it back into print.

The New Teen Titans Volume One

Marv Wolfman, George Pérez, Romeo Tanghal
8.3/10 · June 10, 2020

Reading these as background for the Mayfair DC project, but they’re enjoyable in their own right. I’m a fan of Wolfman’s Marvel work, and he doesn’t disappoint here, though the grating DC goofiness/silliness is always in place. Also, Pérez’s art and composition are consistently fricking gorgeous.

The New Teen Titans Volume Two

Marv Wolfman, George Pérez, Romeo Tanghal
8.6/10 · June 20, 2020

Pérez is still wonderful. Reading these in tandem with the RPG rules, and it’s amazing how some of them really feel like RPG scenarios, especially the quest to find the Doom Patrol, which splits the team, then has encounters in a hidden temple, then reunites the team, then a plot twist, then a redemption, then a boss fight, etc. Also, Pérez, man. Wow.

The New Teen Titans Volume Three

Marv Wolfman, George Pérez, Romeo Tanghal
8.8/10 · June 29, 2020

A bunch of little one-off stories, either revisiting past Titans stuff (pre “New” series) or experimenting with different narrative structure, like the “Dear Mom And Dad” story. The real winners though are the limited series issues where they all go camping together and we get a BUNCH of backstory and character development on Cyborg, Changeling, Raven, and Starfire. The Starfire one in particular sets up much bigger stories for Vol. 4.

100+ issues with Medusa

Marvel
8.0/10 · July 3, 2020

Highlights of this were the Lee/Kirby Fantastic Four stuff, Charles Soule’s Uncanny Inhumans (it’d be fun to read Soule’s whole Inhumans arc across various titles), and Fraction/Allred’s FF. Ant-Man’s “sociopath” speech to Doom while giving him the beatdown in the final issue of FF was GREAT.

Elektra (1996) #1–19 and #-1

Peter Milligan, Larry Hama, and Mike Deodato
2.8/10 · July 7, 2020

OMG the awful, AWFUL, horrendous 90’s-ness of it all. What a terrible time for comics. Page after page of grotesqueries — anatomical abominations, exploitative sexualization, laughably flowing ponytails & cloaks, cheesiness masquerading as grit, and lordy the shoulder pads. Pages centered around poses. Close-ups on slitted eyes. Strands of hair EVERYWHERE. Just bad bad bad. But also the storytelling just sucks — threads outright dropped, or stuff happening “because badass”. What did I like? Uh, the hints of Frank Miller Daredevil were pretty cool. And, uh… maybe the Greek stuff? Overall just no.

The Unbelievable Gwenpool: Head Of M.O.D.O.K. (Issues #5–10)

Chris Hastings, Irene Strychalski, & Gurihiru
7.1/10 · July 8, 2020

The concept of somebody getting thrown from our universe into the Marvel Universe, and exploiting her meta-level knowledge of how stories are structured, etc., in order to prosper, is a fun one. But the character is way too nihilistic, willing to murder people because they’re “background characters”. It’s like if Zero Sum Game from Comp97 were a comic book character. Kind of a bummer.

The New Teen Titans Volume Four

Marv Wolfman, George Pérez, Romeo Tanghal
8.9/10 · July 10, 2020

The book is maturing at this point, and laying in richer characterization and deeper themes. Brother Blood stuff explores cults, and the epic space opera gives us much more background on Starfire, as well as giving her character some development & cultivating her romance with Robin. Also we’re getting increasing hints that all is not well with Raven. Absorbing and fun.

The New Teen Titans Volume Five

Marv Wolfman, George Pérez, Romeo Tanghal
9.0/10 · July 22, 2020

Strands getting thicker and stronger. The introduction of Terra and verrry slow burn on her sketchiness. Increasing unreliability of Raven. Development of Robin separating from Batman — probably the best character development in this volume, though Raven’s was good too. Brother Blood was strong, Thunder and Lightning weaker.

Thanos (2016) #1–12

Jeff Lemire, Mike Deodato, and German Peralta
5.4/10 · July 25, 2020

I don’t love series that center on villains, and seeing one broken down only to build himself back up again isn’t exactly inspiring to me. I guess it’s fun to see other takes on cosmic characters, but overall really not my cup of tea.

DC Heroes RPG 1st edition

Greg Gorden
7.4/10 · July 29, 2020

I wish I could be part of a game of this run by somebody else. In my head, the logarithmic AP mechanic and the fact that you have to keep looking stuff up on a table feels clunky, and I still have trouble wrapping my head around the notion that the “health bar” is so low, but maybe in play it would feel natural. Certainly it’s got its fans, who call it elegant and transparent. EvilDM’s videos, Hero Points podcast, and DC All-Star Games have been invaluable resources in understanding the living, breathing feel of the game beyond the rulebooks.

Nick Fury (2017) #1–6

James Robinson and ACO
7.3/10 · August 1, 2020

Wild and crazy art feels like a tribute to Steranko (though not an aping), and the writing has a freewheeling 60’s-James-Bond energy. Those are the pluses. On the minus side, the whole thing felt kind of disconnected from the overall universe, and consistently failed to generate any feeling of stakes.