#at least with kirby i can understand that bc kirby is a child and lots of ppl love the hc that mk is his dad

[vaugarde]

i feel like the biggest buzzkill not liking metadad content fjfjfjdr

[eddycurrents]

For the week of 30 April 2018

Quick Bits:

Avengers #1 represents the cyclical nature of comics. While the story continues on from Marvel Legacy and highlights themes of legacy heroes and returning hosts of Celestials, on a functional level it also represents a circling back to a kind of “status quo” of the Avengers big three. Similar to what happened during Marvel’s Heroic Age branding and Avengers Prime some eight or so years ago. Jason Aaron’s meta-commentary in the book, about the changes and return of the characters is certainly interesting.

That being said, it’s also a fun book. The art from Ed McGuinness, Mark Morales, and David Curiel is suitably bombastic. I particularly like the new designs for the Final Host, weird, but still within a similar enough Kirby aesthetic. It’s also nice to see the Million BC Avengers again.

| Published by Marvel

Black Science #35 returns from its most recent break with a bit of a mindfuck. Kind of par for the course. Rick Remender basically gives us “Saving the Eververse through Couples Therapy” and it encapsulates one of the larger themes in the series of the problems with family, the mistakes made, and the lengths people go to in order to try to make things right. As usual, Matteo Scalera and Moreno Dinisio makes it look gorgeous. I think Scalera can probably make anything look visually interesting at this point.

| Published by Image / Giant Generator

Breathless #2 steps up the action, with Scout and Grace-Eisley trying to fight their way out of the labs, only to discover that the appearance of the drinkers hints to a deeper conspiracy. The story Pat Shand and Renzo Rodriguez is telling is fairly good. I like the use of flashbacks to flesh out Scout a wee bit more, and the art from Rodriguez and colourist Mara Jayne Carpenter, particularly some of the layouts and character designs, is quite impressive.

| Published by Black Mask Studios

Captain America #701 starts Mark Waid’s end run on the series before it gets relaunched with Ta-Nehisi Coates guiding the ship. Again, Waid is playing with time and legacy here, with the story set in the 24th century, but with an eye to travelling through Cap’s history. It’s fairly captivating, with some great art by Leonardo Romero and Matthew Wilson on the main story and flashbacks from Adam Hughes and JG Jones & Paul Mounts.

| Published by Marvel

Coda #1 is an incredible debut from Si Spurrier and Matías Bergara. The fantasy world that Spurrier and Bergara have created here feels rich, deep, and sorrowful. Living in a world where it seems like evil won, stripped magic and hope from existence, and most of those who remain live by a kind of brutal and bleak lawlessness. Or cling to what our protagonist, “Sir Hum”, would consider useless grasps at the world gone by. It reminds me a bit of The Last Unicorn mixed with Mad Max, and it’s wonderful. Spurrier’s dark humour shines through and Bergara’s art (with colour assists from Michael Doig) is stunning.

| Published by BOOM! Studios

Come Into Me #2 hits a few technological, biological, ethical, and moral walls as they try to figure out how to excise a dead person’s mind from Sebastian’s body. Lonnie Nadler and Zac Thompson have something existentially frightening here, tapping into the kind of intellectual body horror that David Cronenberg is known for, beautifully illustrated by Piotr Kowalski and Niko Guardia.

| Published by Black Mask Studios

Dark Ark #6 begins a new arc, giving us flashbacks of Shae learning about Noah’s ark and the methods he uses to begin building his own. I like that Cullen Bunn is going back to fill us in on how the second ark came about.

| Published by AfterShock

Death or Glory #1 is a beautiful comic. Bengal’s art, from character designs, page layouts, vehicles, composition, colour choice, and more is just amazing. Visually, this is a feast. The story too is captivating. The Last Days of American Crime taught us that Rick Remender can write a mean crime story and the start of this one is really not to be missed. Glory Owens is an interesting character, her reasons for turning to crime understandable, and the world that Remender and Bengal are creating seems to be deep and fascinatingly populated.

| Published by Image / Giant Generator

Doctor Star and the Kingdom of Lost Tomorrows #3 continues this excellent look at the possible real world ramifications of a Ted Knight Starman analogue missing out on the life of his wife and child. Jeff Lemire excels at family dynamics and this series has just been one gut punch after another.

| Published by Dark Horse

GI Joe: A Real American Hero #251 begins a new arc of largely single issue stories focusing on an individual Joe or member of Cobra. This first part spotlights Stalker and has some great art from Alex Sanchez and Ronda Pattison.

| Published by IDW

The Gravediggers Union #6 revels in its glorious madness with an epic confrontation between the Black Temple and the Gravediggers Union for the fate of existence. Toby Cypress and Niko Guardia do a great job portraying the action and insanity of the battle.

| Published by Image

Harbinger Wars 2 Prelude #1 is pretty epic, even just as set up. This issue serves as a sequel to Eric Heisserer, Raúl Allén, and Patricia Martín’s excellent Secret Weapons mini-series, as well as the massacre of the Generation Zero kids in Harbinger Renegade last year, and the titular prelude to Harbinger Wars 2. It’s good. The American government has basically gone insane and have taken to trying to kill every psiot on Earth, so Livewire does something drastic. It’s huge.

| Published by Valiant

Hunt for Wolverine: Weapon Lost #1 is the first of the four mini-series with groups looking for Logan. It’s also the one with the most tenuous of reasons for existing, given that Kitty went to Daredevil because Multiple Man is dead (at least until the summer) and they don’t have any other detectives. Ignoring, of course, the whole load of psychics they could use, hunters and trackers like the Weapon X group, mutant trackers like Prestige and Caliban, Agent X, hell...even Deadpool. This is more just the group of people that Charles Soule wanted to write, even if the remit’s ridiculous. Regardless of the in-story or meta reason for coming together, this isn’t bad. Soule’s set up here is mostly a gathering of the group, giving us a look into the previous cop life of both Frank McGee and Misty Knight, before leading us to a welcome return of the final member of the team. It also looks damn good with art by Matteo Buffagni and Jim Charalampidis. 

| Published by Marvel

Infinity Countdown #3 advances the overall story a bit, giving us an underlying mystery as to characters coming to an understanding that reality has changed since Infinity. How, why, and what remain unknown, but it’s an interesting tidbit. Also, the conclusion of the battle over the power stone is absolutely ridiculous, it needs to be seen.

| Published by Marvel

Koshchei the Deathless #5 details the twist in the tale where Koshchei became a slave to Baba Yaga. It’s interesting how Mike Mignola dovetails Koshchei’s story with events and characters through Hellboy and BPRD history. And how horrible Baba Yaga was in her thirst for revenge.

| Published by Dark Horse

Red Sonja/Tarzan #1 is likely to make a lot of people angry. Not because it’s bad, not because it’s controversial, or anything like that. It’s because Gail Simone has created a villain in Eson Duul, an arrogant bully and poacher, that is so despicable, so cruel, so heartless, that you’ll likely want to punch him yourself. It’s interesting to see both Red Sonja and Tarzan at such a disadvantage.

| Published by Dynamite

Rogue & Gambit #5 is only partially a conclusion to the series. Sure, Kelly Thompson brings to a close the bizarre mutant stealing couples retreat arc and gives a sense of closure and reconciliation in Rogue and Gambit’s relationship, but she leaves open the door for more. Especially with questions about the series’ villain, Lavish, left up in the air. I certainly hope to see this plot thread picked up on. Also, the art from Pere Pérez and Frank D’Armata is gorgeous.

| Published by Marvel

Scales & Scoundrels #9 is a largely silent issue with Lu coming across a man who’s lost his voice, a lonely siren, and a hunt for treasure at the bottom of the ocean. This issue’s storytelling rests largely upon Galaad’s ability to portray everything visually and it pays off in spades. The art is beautiful and story flows incredibly, with the silence adding a necessary depth to the fable that Galaad and Sebastian Girner are telling here. Great work. If you haven’t picked up this series before, this is a wonderful single issue story to jump in with.

| Published by Image

Sherlock Holmes: The Vanishing Man #1 is off to a good start with a new mystery from Leah Moore and John Reppion. I really like Julius Ohta’s style. It’s somewhat similar to Cully Hamner and Adam Pollina and it adds to a pretty nice looking book.

| Published by Dynamite

Spawn #285 is another issue made so much more by the art from Jason Shawn Alexander and Lee Loughridge. The series has stepped back from the oblique horror with this arc with Todd McFarlane resuming writing duties, opting for the more familiar government and military conspiracies that have been part of the series since the beginning, but it’s entertaining.

| Published by Image

Spider-Man #240 is the second-to-last stop on the Bendis Farewell Tour, but this one feels like the big goodbye. Partially because of the long heartfelt letter from Bendis at the end of the issue, reminiscing about his years of work on Ultimate Spider-Man and all of the wonderful people he collaborated with over the span. And because this really is the end of nearly two decades’ worth of work, first with Ultimate Peter and then with Miles Morales. This conclusion is more personal, evidenced largely due to the story structure itself, being an issue of reflection and recuperation.

| Published by Marvel

Star Trek: The Next Generation - Through the Mirror #1 continues on from the recent Mirror Broken series, bringing the main timeline crew into the mix. This issue is split into two stories, a lead one with art by Marcus To and Brittany Peer in the main timeline and a back-up in the mirror universe with art by J.K. Woodward. The art throughout is great.

| Published by IDW

Transformers vs. Visionaries #5 ends the series in a pretty spectacular fashion as plots and machinations come to fruition. Wonderful art from Fico Ossio and David Garcia Cruz. It’s just a shame that we won’t really be getting more of the Visionaries with the line ending soon, because Magdalene Visaggio gave us an interesting starting point here for a new wrinkle on Cybertron.

| Published by IDW

Venomized #5 brings Cullen Bunn’s Poison trilogy to an end in a rather interesting fashion that gets to spotlight the Monsters Unleashed monsters and give a bit of closure and justice for the original five X-Men who were pretty badly beaten up in the centre act. Iban Coello also really gets to cut loose on the art in this issue as well, elevating his work even higher than before with some of the sequences.

What this series unfortunately also highlights, like the new Avengers, is the current mishmash of timing with Marvel’s continuity. This has to be after the current X-Men Blue arc because the X-Men are back on Earth, but before the recent Mighty Thor arc because of Lady Thor, and...undoubtedly other things you could point out that would probably seem like nitpicking. It kind of feels like some things in the “Fresh Start” are necessitating things to be rushed in places. So, in terms of continuity, this is a bit of a mess. 

Still, taken on its own terms, without trying to figure out how it works in the broader shared universe, this has been fun.

| Published by Marvel

Weapon X #17 begins the process of the characters wondering why this team still exists, as the status quo is shaken by Sabretooth taking lead of the team while Logan recovers from the last two issues’ birthday brawl. It feels like the beginning of the end, but Greg Pak and Fred Van Lente are still making the story fun.

| Published by Marvel

Other Highlights: Astonishing X-Men #11, Avengers: Back to Basics #5, Black Science #35, East of West #37, Giant Days #38, Go Go Power Rangers #9, Jazz Maynard #10, Maxwell’s Demons #3, October Faction: Supernatural Dreams #3, Red Sonja #15, Rick Veitch’s The One #3, Sex Criminals #24, Star Wars #47, Xerxes #2, You Are Deadpool #1

Recommended Collections: Archie - Volume 5, Reborn, Extremity - Volume 2, The Gravediggers Union - Volume 1, Scarlett’s Strike Force - Volume 1, She-Hulk - Volume 3: Jen Walters Must Die, Star Trek: Boldly Go - Volume 3, Stray Bullets: Sunshine & Roses - Volume 1, Young Terrorists

d. emerson eddy knows who put the dog in the dog house.