[Fysh]

I realised a little while ago I've accumulated a bunch of digital comics via Humble Bundles and haven't read most of them, so have started making a dent on those. I got through Nailbiter (I liked the premise but it went pretty stupid towards the end, and was overly reliant on bad thriller tropes for my tastes) and 4 trades of Revival (felt like two stories struggling to co-exist - the rural noir part was fine, the supernatural gubbins that underpins the larger plot not so much) a while back.

More recently, I finished up all the trades of Stray Bullets. I enjoyed the original series quite a lot - it felt like something halfway between Criminal and Love & Rockets, which is right up my alley. This got me excited for Sunshine & Roses, but unfortunately that one outstayed its welcome by, realistically, the end of the first trade. It's got that classic prequel problem of trying to tell interesting stories during a time-jump period in the original series, which means the characters can't really change too much. Realistically I was probably done by the end of the second volume at most, but the third and fourth volumes of Sunshine & Roses really confirmed that. Orson's stories remained good, but nothing interesting did (or could, due to the series chronology) happen around Beth or Nina other than them continuing to be massively selfish arseholes. Which gets tedious after a while.

I'm now torn between getting started on some of the Humanoids stuff I picked up recently, or some of the Bloom County comic strips...

[Ridley]

Dragon Ball Super 7
Dragon Ball Super 8
Dragon Ball Super 9

Story moves past the point where the anime ends with an ancient evil goat escaping space prison and ripping off earlier Dragon Ball villainy.

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: The IDW Collection (V1) - A re-read as I decided to throw a lot of disposable wealth amassed during COVID at getting the rest of the available volumes based on how good the first book was. It still is. I'd rather Splinter was established as being a Japanese rat Spoiler: rather than 'just' the reincarnation of Hamato Yoshi at some point so he's actually from there even if the turtles aren't but it's still better than the original character having a photographic memory of martial arts or Michael Bay's Splinter being the product of hideous computer wizardry. I've bought the first Transformers collection on the strength of this and hope to get to the GI Joe and Sonic the Hedgehog ones eventually although digital may be the only option at a reasonable price.

James Bond: Kill Chain
James Bond: Felix Leiter

Donald Duck: The Pixilated Parrot - I do enjoy these books. Perfect two-panel gag for which this description will be just as good where a woman accosts Donald against a white picket fence to ask if he can see any wrinkles on her face (cause those mid-20th century fictional lady folks amirite, fellas?) just as the titular bird - compelled to count - walks past behind the fence and throws out a figure in the tens of thousands. Speech balloon comes up from behind the fence over the duck's head. Amazing.

The Boys Omnibus 1* - Prefer the TV series which could just be down to the order in which I experienced them but I'll take the post-MCU reaction of that show over dat whole out-Preachering Preacher DC thang.

Green Lantern: Earth One 1* - Meh, feels like change for the sake of change with the origin. The creative team do better with Planet of the Apes and Star Wars.

Batman: Cataclysm - Liked it the most of the stories on the road to a No Man's Land re-read so far. Ground level heroics in the face of a natural disaster which actually suffer when They threaten to make it the result of a villain's scheme. I think they missed a trick by having Bruce Wayne's buildings be quake-proofed because he respects the science or some such and not having been seen as an extravagant expense in an incredibly unlikely set of circumstances that he just happened to luck out on. That's my one giant penny's worth, I'd afraid. Alfraid. It works.

Star Wars: Poe Dameron 2: The Gathering Storm

Black Panther: Who Is The Black Panther?* - Informs the movie a fair bit and has the benefit of John Romita Jr. art. Spoiler: The answer is Chadwick Boseman.

X-Men Gold 1: Back to the Basics* - So Syaf just shot his anti-semitism salvo all over that two-page spread of Kitty Pryde standing up against bigotry in the first damn issue, huh?

The Amazing Spider-Man: Worldwide 2 HC- Looking back through the thread, it's been about two years since I read the last one and I'm hoping it won't take as long to get to the conclusion. After that, I hope to go back over and get through The Gauntlet so I'll have read every ASM since JMS. This book is something of a middle-act between the first volume and the next. Accidentally spoiled myself on some Clone Conspiracy stuff but I do prefer the Anubis Jackal look to the green furry gremlin of old.

Thor: Latverian Prometheus*
Siege: Thor*
Thor: Siege Aftermath*

Clor's so good I forgot that was a thing twice. I don't normally get on Kieron Gillen's work but credit to him for just running with the ball from JMS' departure. Don't think I would have been able to tell there'd be a writer switch if I hadn't known better. The Thor-in-Hell arc is his strongest work for my tastes Spoiler: with one issue almost free of Thor dialogue until the end. Interesting take on Loki's mischief being a compulsion for that is his role so he will fulfil it, and magic being held together through belief. Spoiler: You can't break the rules if you know you're breaking them but you can if you know they don't apply to you.


*Digital version

[Jayd0g]

Those IDW collections are gorgeous. I've the first few Transformers volumes and they were a great introduction to the franchise. A tad too expensive for me to continue collecting though.

[CastorTroy]

So DC's Death Metal ends and
Spoiler: Reboots/restarts/brings back the DCU. The multiverse is back to being infinite and everyone remembers all their past lives.
The coming weeks are going to be Future State so will see what happens after that.

[Fysh]

Originally Posted by CastorTroy

So DC's Death Metal ends and
Spoiler: Reboots/restarts/brings back the DCU. The multiverse is back to being infinite and everyone remembers all their past lives.
The coming weeks are going to be Future State so will see what happens after that.

Spoiler: Future State is only a couple of months long and then devolves to a less tightly-woven approach to continuity, as I understand it.

[CastorTroy]

Originally Posted by Fysh

Spoiler: Future State is only a couple of months long and then devolves to a less tightly-woven approach to continuity, as I understand it.

Yeah the last issue is first week in March, I think. The fact they're all 2 or 3 issues long seems to imply some will become ongoing in some way, especially with the new Wonder Girl/Woman tv series planned with the new character

[Fysh]

I don't really have much involvement in any of the mainstay DC or Marvel series these days.

I had been hopeful about Si Spurrier's Hellblazer revamp getting a long run, but that got axed before the first trade dropped, because it's not like expanding the following via trade collections was ever part of the strategy with Vertigo titles The first trade is really good and feels like old-school Hellblazer at its best, it's just really frustrating knowing that there's only one more trade to go before it goes back in its box and another well-intentioned but daft variation on the character gets trotted out instead.

[Ridley]

Dragon Ball Super 10

The StoryTeller: Witches* - Pink on purple watercolours in one tale is nice and artistic an' all but a devil to read on a monitor. Largely lip service to the TV show except for the adaptation of another unused teleplay (which is also where it's apparent where the puppets would be) so, y'know, try to lean into that more, plz. Still, it's giving creators an issue to retell folklore around a supernatural creature from lesser known stories around the world that doesn't have Disney's name on it.

Aliens: Dust to Dust - Aliens the third thing after Star Wars and Conan I've sought to complete the Dark Horse collections of before Marvel just saunters over to be handed the rights after DH did all the work. Miniseries with a Xenomorph attack from a kid's perspective. Not that it's use here is bad but I just groan now when an android pops up cause of how overused they are in this franchise. Androids always have to be in an Alien story, making the lead character female every time is a leap too far apparently. The suggestion that Spoiler: a Xenomorph can carry over the mother's protective instinct when it takes on its host's traits is cheesy as hell in text but it's ambiguous enough in the book to get away with it.

Star Wars: Age of Resistance - Heroes
Star Wars: Age of Resistance - Villains
Star Wars: The Storms of Crait#1*
Star Wars: DJ - Most Wanted #1*

Not normally one for one-shots but I am finding Marvel's Star Wars works better that way. TV and films out the wazoo will constrain them to an extent and yet most of the ambition on the transmedia side is coming from the novels compared to the comics where the opposite was the case pre-Disney buyout (eye em oh).

Fantastic Four 4: Thing vs Immortal Hulk
Fantastic Four 5: Point of Origin

Putting Reed Richards' defining mistake in the hands of someone else is silly.

She-Hulk 2: Disorderly Conduct - Anthology series where every issue is a different Jamie Madrox dupe, plz.

X-Men Blue 1: Strangest* - Both Blue and Gold do Sentinel stories at the same time for some reason forcing me to look up what happened just to even type this sentence.

Uncanny Inhumans 4: IVX - Enjoyed it actually. Character gets revived based solely of the written account of other people with X-istential results then switches over Maximus' attempts to recreate the Terrigen Crystals Spoiler: before deciding that building a giant mecha is a much more worthwhile use of his time.

Avengers Disassembled - I mean, it's not a story. Three issues of everything going wrong until Dr. Strange pops up to explain it all.

The Vision 1: Little Worse Than a Man*
The Vision 2: Little Better Than a Beast* - Unashamed background reading in time for WandaVision. Nothing weird about Spoiler: Scarlet Witch hooking up with Wonder Man and giving Vision a copy of her own brain pattern so he can make a wife at all. Doubt it'll have much in common with the TV series.




*Digital version