#but i got no ideas for what team scott would either join or make. ive never watched him

[lastlifesouthlands]

the only season past last life to have a dark oak forest (as far as i remember) is lim life so what if. southlanders in lim life

[tisfan]

Say It Again

Square: B3 - Deaf Creators: @tisfan & @27dragons Title: Say it Again Warning: None Rating: Teen Characters: Bucky, Tony, Clint, FRIDAY Tags: temporary deafness, tech doesn’t solve everything, caretaker Tony, dyslexia, ableist language and self-hatred Summary: Bucky loses the ability to hear… and learns something new about himself... Warning: This fic contains some mild amounts of cultural ableism, particularly in Bucky’s views on himself, not being able to read.  Link: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19396732 Word Count: 3397 Posted for @winterironbingo​

Bucky always seemed smaller, somehow, in the infirmary, than he did in the rest of the world. Presence. Tony knew something about that; people were constantly shocked by how much shorter Tony was than they’d imagined, and, to some degree, how much less loud in a personal setting than a professional one.

The fact that he had lifts in the Iron Man armor probably didn’t hurt, either.

Bucky had come awake very suddenly that morning; the damage from the fall, combined with being at ground zero of a non-nuclear explosion had sent him into a coma for several days. Not unexpected, and while nerve-wracking, Tony admitted that sleep was the best thing for him. Let the serum heal the damage, just as soon as the medical trauma teams finished closing up the wounds.

He’d… laid there for a long time, not answering anyone. Eyes opened, looked around the room, and then closed again. He didn’t entirely seem… aware.

Around noon, he’d finally given medical something they could work with. He’d pointed metal fingers at his ear, and then shook his head.

His hearing was gone. Entirely, though the medics were confident that the serum would heal the damage in time. They didn’t, however, have any idea how long that would take. A few hours? A few days? A month? No clue. Ears, it turned out, were finicky and fussy constructions.

But other than that, he was in great shape, only a few bruises and nicks left to highlight where the worst of the damage had been, so they were cutting him loose.

Which left it to Tony to take care of his boyfriend. That was a switch; usually it was Bucky hovering at Tony’s side as he laboriously and without the serum healed from his injuries, or hacked his way through whatever bug had run rampant through the building.

Tony had whipped up quick app for Bucky’s tablet -- as long as he was within range of the Compound, anything anyone said to Bucky would be displayed on the tablet’s screen, in a discreet little bar at the top of the screen, where it wouldn’t interfere with the rest of the tablet’s function. “Here you go, babe,” he said, demonstrating the functions. “I’m pretty sure I can make it work outside of FRIDAY’s range, but the native voice-to-text translators are... lacking.”

Bucky stared down at the tablet, then back up at Tony’s mouth, back down to the tablet. He hadn’t said anything, at all, since the med techs turned him loose, even though nothing was wrong with his vocal chords. He scowled at the tablet again, then, very slowly, tapped out Thank you, and showed it to Tony. Followed by a scribble of Bucky’s normally terrible handwriting -- he’d been left handed before the accident, and Hydra hadn’t cared about his penmanship -- you talk too fast.

(more below the cut)

“You already knew that,” Tony pointed out, grinning. “I’ll try to slow it down a little for you. Is this better?�� It felt like talking through molasses, honestly. “You know you can still talk, right?”

Bucky nodded. Medtex md me. Fezl weird.

Tony squinted at the message, then nodded. “Okay, as long as you know you can. Whatever makes you more comfortable. They said you should take it easy for a while, so... What do you want to do? Play chess? Watch a movie? We can put in something you’ve already seen, turn on the subtitles.”

Bucky stared down at the block of text that Tony had spewed out, even talking slower, he tended to say at least four times as many words as strictly necessary. Movis good. Die Hard? Unlike Steve, who complained constantly about the gunfire scenes in various action movies, Bucky’d always seemed to enjoy them; everything from Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy to Indiana Jones and back, the more ridiculous, the better.

Die Hard was not a Christmas movie, even if some people insisted it was, but they’d started it as a tradition around then, and sometimes Bucky would ask to watch it in July anyway. It might not be a Christmas movie, but Tony knew something about comfort films.

“You got it, sugarlips. You want to get it set up and I’ll get us some snacks?” Especially since Bucky had been in a coma, healing, for a couple of days. He was bound to be hungry; IV nutrition just barely sustained him. Something calorie-dense -- nachos, maybe, with meat and veggies and cheese, protein and fat and carbs all at once, and at least a nod toward nutrition. And some cookies for dessert.

Tony put it all together, a heaping platter of food and a selection of drinks, and carried it all back out to the movie room.

For a while, it was just them, and then Nat came in, wearing old leggings with holes in them and an oversized sweatshirt that Tony was pretty sure belonged to Steve. And then Steve joined them. And Bruce. And Clint.

And of course, everyone talked.

Bucky spent more of the movie scowling at his tablet than he did watching the film.

Tony nudged him. “Okay?”

Bucky nodded. Then, taking advantage of what appeared to be yet another Steve-against-gun-phyics argument, said in a voice that was probably meant to be a whisper. “It’s a lot.”

Tony glanced down at the tablet, which was scrolling text across the top in a continuous marquee, one line for Steve’s rant, and another for the movie, and a third of Clint arguing with Steve. Tony grimaced. “Sorry,” he said. “You want to do something else?” He pointed over his shoulder with his thumb to underscore his question.

Bucky nodded. Wrksp? Can just watch u

Tony nodded quickly. “Yeah, absolutely, we can do that.” He set aside the various dishes and bottles piled on their laps and then helped Bucky to his feet. “We’re just going to go somewhere a little quieter,” he told the others’ curious looks.

“He’s deaf,” Clint pointed out. “It doesn’t get much quieter than that.”

Tony made a face. “I can still hear you, birdbrain.” He curled his hand into Bucky’s. “Come on, Buckaboo.”

Being deaf was not at all like what Bucky had thought -- if he’d even given it any thought at all before it happened, and he was pretty sure he had not. 

First off, it wasn’t pure silence, if there could ever be such a thing. Bucky’s serum had enhanced most of his senses, turned them up to eleven, as Peter Parker had once explained it. He could hear breathing and heartbeats and the pulse of blood through a person’s veins, including his own. So, silence was a concept, not ever a reality.

Even being deaf, apparently, wasn’t no noise.

It was just senseless noise.

His head rang like a bell, constantly. Like a headache, with no pain. What he “heard” was the audio equivalent of the shimmer of sunlight on too-hot pavement. Directionless. Meaningless. Noise.

But it wasn’t silence.

There were some sounds he could still, sort of, hear. Gunfire. Someone yelling. It didn’t mean anything, out of context as it was, but he could hear it. 

So, that was good, at least. He didn’t have to worry about not hearing someone who was shooting at them.

Not that Steve would let him back into the field, even if Bucky wanted to, while he was operating impaired.

Bucky wasn’t sure he wanted to.

He relied on his hearing, the way a person moved in the space around him. Several times, recently, Tony had startled him, badly, just because he came up behind Bucky, out of his peripheral vision, and Bucky-- couldn’t sense him coming.

The shop, at least, was nice.

There was always noise -- Tony talking to his projects, the fabricators, FRIDAY, the bots -- but very little of it required Bucky’s attention at all, once he’d gotten FRIDAY to stop putting up song lyrics. He really did not care about the tribulations of Bon Scott.

Tony didn’t slip as seamlessly into his work as usual, coming back every ten minutes or so to check on Bucky. “Did you get enough to eat? Need a drink? A blanket?”

Bucky couldn’t decide if it was nice, or infuriating. It was very easy to get lost in the not-quite-silence. Like slipping away, sometimes it would take someone a moment to get his attention. So, it was nice to be reminded that he wasn’t… quite as alone as he’d felt. 

On the other hand, he was the goddamn Winter Soldier, and if he needed a blanket, he could bloody well get one.

“Reminds me,” Bucky said, and that was always so strange, talking. He knew he was talking, he could feel everything working just the way it was supposed to. He didn’t feel like he was drunk, or slurring, or anything. He just couldn’t hear it. And he didn’t know how loud he was being. “Of being the Winter Soldier.”

Tony blinked, startled, and tipped his head to the side curiously. “How?” he asked, or at least, that was the shape his mouth made.

Bucky gestured at the space around his head, like that meant anything. “I’m here. And there’s a wall of --” he tried to lower his voice, the pinched expression around Tony’s eyes a subtle clue, maybe, that he was talking too loud. “--nothing. Around me. Like, I’m here, but I’m not… important? Or I don’t understand. They would talk, near me, of course. But it never mattered what they said.”

Tony’s face got tight and pinchy, and he sat next to Bucky, reaching for Bucky’s hands. “You matter,” he said, very slowly, like it was very important that Bucky be able to understand him. “I love you.”

Bucky watched Tony’s mouth moving, memorizing each twitch of lip, the way his teeth moved, closing around the sounds. “Say it again.”

“I. Love. You.” Tony punctuated that with a light kiss, just a brush of his lips across Bucky’s.

“Thanks,” Bucky said, and his throat ached and it had nothing to do with whether or not he could talk, or hear. “Love you, too.”

He closed his eyes, felt Tony under his hands. He hated having his eyes closed, it made everything feel even further away than it was when he couldn’t hear it. But sometimes he just needed to not-- be.

God, his head hurt. Reading had always made his head hurt, for as long as he could remember. “Sometimes the best thing about bein’ the Winter Soldier was that I didn’t hafta read,” Bucky said, speaking into the blackness. 

Bucky felt Tony freeze for a moment, felt the vibrations of Tony’s voice, for a brief moment -- no more than a few words, before he remembered that Bucky couldn’t hear him. Tony moved, leaning closer, and he was nuzzling gently against Bucky’s cheek, his breath warm as it spilled over Bucky’s skin.

Bucky stubbornly kept his eyes shut for a few more moments, not wanting to try to read, or figure out, or… anything. Waited there, in the darkness. Heart thudding in his chest; he could feel the way it tripped, beating faster than normal. His blood pressure was probably through the roof, honestly.

What if it never comes back?

Finally, he sighed, opened his eyes, looked at Tony. Wondered if Tony was going to scold him for trying to ignore everything. Or something. Bucky wasn’t sure. The whole not-being-able-to-hear thing was giving him the serious creeps. Like he was always… missing something.

And that he might never get it back.

Tony was looking at him, forehead creased with worry and confusion. He opened his mouth, then shook his head a little. He opened his hands like a book, then made a comically exaggerated yuck face, tipping his head and raising an eyebrow.

“Yeah, I swear, I dunno how you all don’t have headaches, like all the time, stupid squirmy shit,” Bucky said. “First thing I did, when I moved in, back-- you know, back when it was JARVIS. He read everything to me, right in my ear. It was great.”

Tony’s lips moved, slowly repeating squirmy. His frown deepened, until Bucky felt the urge to reach up and smooth it away. And then all of a sudden, his eyes widened, and he said something that Bucky couldn’t read. And then started chattering a mile a minute, so Bucky could only interpret maybe one word in five. “--believe-- --help-- --so much-- --better--”

Bucky scowled down at his tablet, then “What’s sldexic mean?”

Tony stopped, and the scrolling letters paused, thank god. He turned his head, saying something to FRIDAY, and the monitor Tony had been working on flickered and cleared, the schematic replaced with a single word in a typeface -- font, they called it now -- Bucky hadn’t seen before. It was... heavy, like the bottoms of the letters weighed more than the tops, the lines there thicker, and it didn’t stop the letters from wriggling around, but it slowed them down, anchored them in place. DYSLEXIC, the word said. Underneath, a new line of text unfurled, in that same weighted text. A disorder that creates difficulty in learning to read or interpret words, letters, and other symbols.

Tony was watching Bucky closely.

“Slow,” Bucky said. “S’what my teacher tol’ Ma. I wasn’t-- I mean, I’m not. I ain’t… I ain’t dumb. I can read.” He felt that familiar shame, that what had been so easy for everyone else, Bucky had labored over and laughed around, and gotten out of by being charming. And… by a sticky fingerprint on a flashcard that told him that one word, the one he kept getting wrong. Was building.

Tony nodded, shook his head, made a face. “You’re damn smart,” he said slowly, carefully. “It’s not intelligence. It’s how you see the words. The letters...” He made a wriggly gesture with his hand. “Move.”

Bucky rolled his eyes. Of course they moved. That’s what words… did. They moved around, like they were playing musical chairs and Bucky could catch them, sometimes, and pin them to the page, enough so that he got the general idea of what he was looking at. But mostly, he just hadn’t bothered. Shooting a gun made… sense. “Well, yeah?”

Tony shook his head. “They should not,” he enunciated. “They should stay still.” He pointed at the monitor. “Better?”

Quieter. More still. Like he could pick the whole word up. Which, yes, better, but the fact that something had to be changed, just so Bucky could deal with it-- “Something’s wrong with me,” Bucky said. It wasn’t a question. Something had always been wrong with him, but hell, he was just a dumb gun, he didn’t need… except now he couldn’t hear, and apparently he couldn’t read. 

And he was alone inside his head.

His eyes burned and then words disappeared in a sudden wash of blurry tears. 

Tony’s arms were around him, holding him close, voice a subtle vibration against his chest, hands stroking soothingly over his hair.

Maybe it was that soft touch, or the way Tony’s voice was nothing but more wah wah in the wall of nonsense noise that flooded him, or just, realizing how big the gap was that separated them. Tony was a genius. A genius, and everything that came with it, and Bucky was not. Not even as good as a whole person anymore, and he didn’t deserve Tony.

And he couldn’t hear himself talk, so the whole story came flooding out. How he struggled so much in school, and hearing that there were places for kids like him. Hospitals for kids that weren’t right in the head. And so he learned. He got his sister to read to him, and she was two years younger, but he could get away with being loud and trouble because he was a boy, and she’d read to him and he’d memorize it. No one had to know.

Tony’s hands tipped Bucky’s face back to look up at him, brushing away hot tears. “You are smart,” Tony insisted. “Bruce is not dumb because he needs glasses to read. You are not dumb because you need help holding the words still. And I love you.” He pressed a kiss to Bucky’s forehead, to Bucky’s nose.

“Okay,” he said, because what else was he going to say? Tony obviously didn’t believe that Bucky was an idiot, even if Bucky felt stupider and slower than he ever had in his entire life. And maybe, maybe he could figure this out, cover it up, learn-- there were sign languages, weren’t there? Clint used them sometimes, when he didn’t feel like putting in his hearing aids. Bucky could learn that, maybe.

Something. 

Tony wouldn’t stand for it, if Bucky decided to just… give up.

He let Tony’s gentle, exploratory kiss brush over Bucky’s mouth. “Say it again.”

“I love you. I love you. I love you.”

A week after that breakthrough, Bucky was learning ASL -- mostly from Clint, but supplementing with actual lessons, otherwise he’d mostly only know long-range weapons tactical words, and how to order a pizza, and a week after that, he was back in the field. 

Friday could translate Bucky’s sign into words when the team needed it, and the new font meant that Bucky was back on comms, with FRIDAY scrolling necessary information on his HUD.

Three weeks after that, Bucky had surprised Tony with an impromptu waltz around the shop, being able to feel the music rhythms in a special headset that Tony’d been working up. It wasn’t the same as being able to hear, but it was something, at least.

And every night, before bed, Bucky would ask him, very seriously, “Say it again.”

And every night, Tony would tell Bucky, as many times as he wanted, “I love you. I love you. I love you.” He signed it as he said it, occasionally dipped into other languages, but always came back to the simplicity of English, and punctuated each declaration with a kiss.

“Love you, too, peaches,” Bucky signed back. He talked less than he used to, signed more. Tony missed the sound of his voice, sometimes, but tried not to mention it. Things were better, so much better, than they had been the first few weeks.

When Tony was woken from a sound sleep to Bucky’s cry, he was utterly shocked. Bucky didn’t make… involuntary sounds. Not anymore.

He was sitting up in bed, clutching at his head, and whining.

Tony sat up as well and put a hand on Bucky’s back, rubbing in small circles. He didn’t bother trying to talk, not while Bucky wasn’t looking at him. He turned up the lights a bit, though, so they could see to sign, if Bucky decided to tell him about it.

“Oh, god,” Bucky said, a whisper, barely a sliver of sound, and then again, louder. “Tony--” He stared up, eyes wide in the half light. “Tony, say something.”

“What is it, sweetheart? I’m right here.” Tony signed as he talked. He didn’t know as much ASL as Bucky had learned, yet, but it was hard not to pick it up, surrounded by it so much.

“I-- I can hear you,” Bucky said, almost reverently, like an old fallen sinner who’d just found God. Again. “Tony, I… Tony, I can hear you.”

“What?” Tony’s hands faltered. “You can? You can hear me?” He caught Bucky’s face in his hands. “Really?”

“I can hear you,” Bucky repeated.  “I didn’t--” he started crying, almost silently, little hitches of breath and the tears rolled down his cheeks. “I got used to it, I thought that was, it was just always… I got used to it.”

“Hey.” Tony pulled Bucky into his arms, tucked Bucky’s face up against his throat, rocking gently. “It’s all right, sweetheart, it’s okay. We didn’t know when, or even if. It wasn’t going to change anything important.”

“Scared me,” Bucky admitted. “Woke up… there was a noise, and I woke up. I didn’t even know… what was happening. Oh, god, Tony, I missed you-- so stupid, I missed your voice, all the time. The way you laugh. The way you say--” He looked up again. “Say it again.”

“I love you.” Tony kissed Bucky’s lips, his cheek, his jaw, and then nuzzled at his ear. “I love you,” he whispered.

“Love you, too, peaches,” Bucky said. “God, I missed that. More than anything else.”

A/N: https://www.dyslexiefont.com/en/typeface/

Dyslexia, as a disorder, became more widely known in the United States in 1944, the year after Bucky Barnes fell from the train. For quite a long time, it was still thought of as being a lack in education, rather than a disorder. Bucky, having gone to school in the 20s and 30s, would have been classified as Learning Disabled and treated accordingly. (Not well.)

Divider Line by the way, Tumblr, I hate you. Give me my damn line back.

[aion-rsa]

Justice League Keeps Building the Wider DC Universe

https://ift.tt/2MMAInz

Justice League has embraced the sheer lunacy of the DC Universe in ways fans never could have expected.

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If you've been following Justice League over the last year or so, you'll know that this isn't a book that does small stories. If you're going to roll out the heaviest hitters in the DC Universe, then the threats and situations you put them in have to get even bigger and wilder to compensate. For some, the ultimate apogee of "big Justice League ideas" came during Grant Morrison's tenure as writer of JLA in the late '90s. But it's been 20 years since then, the DCU itself has become even bigger and weirder in that time with the return of its storied multiverse, and many creative teams are no longer aiming for blockbuster movies on the page, and instead are embracing all of the storytelling possibilities that only comics can offer.

And the writers of Justice League, Scott Snyder and James Tynion IV, are certainly in the latter category. After rising to fame as the writers of Batman and Detective Comics respectively (and Tynion will return to Gotham City to take over writing duties on the main Batman title in 2020), the pair have gone from outsized detective stories starring the Dark Knight, to tales that play with the very foundations of the entire DC Universe, from the Source Wall itself to the source of heroes powers, to nothing less than the very nature of humanity and where heroes and villains fit into it all. Justice League is sometimes a dense read, even for DC continuity scholars, but nobody would ever accuse this book of being unambitious or resting on its laurels.

It's a story that has been building across the entire DC line for quite some time. The pieces were set in motion in Dark Nights: Metal in 2018, have continued through Justice League all the way through "Justice-Doom War," into the pages of Superman/Batman with the machinations of the Batman Who Laughs, the line-wide Year of the Villain event, and will ultimately lead to Hell Arisen. "It's one huge story, and we want fans to feel rewarded," Snyder says. "If I had one thing I could say to fans, it's that everything matters."

It's all building to a still-unspecified event in DC's future (one we're willing to bet features the word "Crisis" in its title), and a brand new timeline of DC Universe continuity. 

“The reason that we're doing the time-spanning, geographical scope of the story where it goes everywhere and everywhen in the DCU and incorporates all these different characters is because it is meant to show that the stakes of this story are the highest they can be,” Snyder says. “It's going to roll into the very thing that begins setting up the reestablishment of that kind of a timeline. The idea is to show you all these characters in one universe.”

A key point of this "one universe" philosophy came in a recent Justice League issue. You would think a story that is responsible for finally returning the Justice Society of America to DC Universe continuity for the first time in nearly a decade would have enough heavy lifting to do. But a key detail about this "first" meeting between Barry Allen and Jay Garrick reveals much about how DC continuity is being constructed, and the teamwork it takes to make it happen behind the scenes. While it has long been teased in The Flash that Barry has merely forgotten his past interactions with Jay (as he had with Wally West before Rebirth), this was the first time it was explicitly discussed. Specifically, the more time Barry spends with Jay, the stronger the feeling he has that they already know each other. Jay, on the other hand, has no idea who Barry is. Why? Because the Jay of 1940 hasn’t met Barry Allen yet, that event is still in his future, while it’s in Barry’s past. Snyder and Tynion say they often consult with Joshua Williamson (writer of The Flash and Batman/Superman) and other writers to keep little details straight.

“We trade scripts and all of that stuff,” Tynion says. “Sometimes, and this is, I think, true of our entire Justice League run, there's an element of lunacy to all of this, and sometimes you've just got to point at it. Because if you don't point at it and you pretend it's not there, fans are just like, ‘Wait, they don't realize that this is nonsense?’ The Flash, especially, is a character who's time-traveled, he's experienced so much in his life, so of course, he is the perfect voice to be like, ‘Oh, yeah, this is all just fricking nuts.’”

Justice League is often gleeful in the way it plays with the weightiest concepts in the DCU, none moreso than with the recent introduction of the Ultra-Monitor, which is what happens when Crisis on Infinite Earths baddie the Anti-Monitor, the Monitor, and the recently introduced World-Forger, join together like Voltron to become an even more powerful cosmic being. It's the kind of reveal that could have been set up with an entire issue of exposition, and instead it's presented in an almost matter-of-fact way, the universe-shattering madness of it all just one more big idea in a book that's been full of them from the start.

“We had talked about that idea so many times, that the brothers form together one singular monolithic Guardian Monitor, that it didn't even occur to me that we hadn't really shown it before,” Snyder says. “Some of this stuff we've talked about so long that it's almost like I don't even remember we made it up and that it's not old DC mythos. ‘Oh, right when Jim Starlin was writing about Perpetua…’ You know what I mean? 'Oh wait, we made that up.' It's tremendous fun dealing with these huge cosmic figures and getting to revisit some of the real touchstones of the DC Universe in terms of its mythology and its legends and its own origin story.”

But despite all this cosmic weirdness, there's an almost primal question driving Justice League, and that's the matter of whether or not human beings are inherently good, like the heroes we admire in superhero tales, or willing to give in to our baser instincts, like the villains they fight.

“I feel like it's a story that's really personal and urgent and resonant for us, because it's about Lex Luthor believing that we're essentially designed to be selfish and cruel and that that's our final form,” Snyder says. “The Justice League is fighting against that belief, and it's a leap of faith in either Justice or Doom, what they meant in their original forms. But like James was saying, the best thing is to be able to have Jarro or whatever be like, ‘It's time for us to cosmically link all of the multiverse threads, stop the meteor of Vandal Savage's moonbeams,’ like that. It's such a fun combination of absolute bombastic ridiculousness and also deep, emotional, truthful storytelling from the two of us. It's just a pleasure. I love working on this book. I really do.”

Snyder isn't alone in his enthusiasm. "The stories that we're telling are some of the most exciting work that I've done since joining DC Comics eight years ago," Tynion says. "It's freaking amazing working with Scott and bringing it all to life.”

Don't believe us about how big this book is? Check out a preview of Justice League #35, which hits stores on Nov. 6. Here's the official synopsis...

It’s called the “Year of the Villain” for a reason— in this issue, Lex Luthor wins! Everything Lex has been working for over the past year and a half comes to fruition as he finally possesses the fully powered Totality and plans to bend Hypertime to his will. The Legion of Doom's leader will defeat the Justice League once and for all and make his final pitch to serve at Perpetua's side-and the Multiverse will never be the same! Francis Manapul returns to Justice League for a key issue on the path to Year of the Villain: Hell Arisen—and beyond!

Justice League #35

Written by Scott Snyder & James Tynion IV

Art by Francis Manapul

Color by Manapul & Hi-Fi

Cover by Rafael Albuquerque

Variant Cover by Tyler Kirkham & Sabine Rich

In Shops: Nov 06, 2019

SRP: $3.99

And check out these killer Francis Manapul preview pages! Even without words, everyone's body language sure says a lot about what went down at the end of the previous issue, doesn't it?

Mike Cecchini is the Editor in Chief of Den of Geek. You can read more of his work here. Follow him on Twitter @wayoutstuff.

Read and download the Den of Geek NYCC 2019 Special Edition Magazine right here!

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Feature Mike Cecchini

Oct 17, 2019

DC Entertainment

Justice League

Scott Snyder

James Tynion IV

NYCC

NYCC 2019

from Books https://ift.tt/2BlCLcK

[loserlikescomics-blog]

Top 5 - February 2017, Week 2

Hey guys! I hope everyone’s having a great week this week! Don’t really have anything going on to tell you guys about, so let’s just get right into the spoilers and what have you, shall we?

5) Ms. Marvel #15 (G. Willow Wilson, Takeshi Miyazawa)

I know I say this about every stylized artist, but god, do I love Miyazawa’s art. Kamala is just the cutiest cutie ever and everyone and everything just looks so good in his style. I mean, shit man, just look up some panels from this run and you’ll see what I mean. I totally don’t have a crush on Kamala or anything you fuckin nerds shut up. Anyway. I really like the way that this arc is going! Lately we’ve really been getting a feel of just how overwhelmed Kamala is, what with keeping her two lives separate, the stuff with Bruno wanting nothing to do with her, etc etc. So, NATURALLY, we want to see her get threatened with someone (or something?) being like “I’m gonna tell everyone who you are” like every single superhero that cares goes through.

I was a lil’ hesitant at the first issue of this volume, what with the whole video game thing. It seems like it’s getting dropped, though, so my anxiety has gone down from that. I was really worried it would end up being like “KAMALA HAS TO GO DO A RAID TO BEAT THE VILLAIN” but it seems like it was more of a means to get this villain. Speaking of the villain, I’m super interested with the stinger of this issue, where it’s revealed that they ARE the virus, and I’m excited to see how Kamala deals with it all.

4) The Unworthy Thor #4 (Jason Aaron, Olivier Coipel) 

I think Thor is just cool as fuck. I mean, not just Odinson, or Thor, but like, the idea of Thor in general is really cool. So, I’m really glad that I get two different runs where I can read Thor(s) doing cool shit. I really love what Aaron’s been doing with Odinson. I remember when I was catching up to Mighty Thor, and we would keep getting glimpses back to Odinson really briefly, and I was like “Man, I wonder when we’re gonna get something about him” and then I found out that he was getting his own series and I got super stoked! Odinson being a badass and fighting his way out of this prison just by never giving up because he just needs that hammer is so awesome. This is also the first thing I’ve ever read with Beta Ray Bill, and I like ol’ horseface.

This issue in particular is probably my favorite so far of the run. I mean, it’s only 4 issues deep, but still! I like the flashbacks to Young Thor trying to lift Mjolnir, because it really sends home that message of how much Mjolnir means to him. I also really enjoy some jailbreak fights. I think it’s really awesome for Odinson to use the Ultimate Mjolnir too, because I’ve always liked the design. Not as much as the 616 Mjolnir, but I still like it. The second-to-last panel in this issue is also super fuckin’ cool, and I’m so excited that he finally got the hammer. I can’t wait for him to kick some ass next month.

3) Justice Leage/Power Rangers #2 (Tom Taylor, Stephen Byrne)

I’m not sorry. I think that even if this comic wasn’t great (it is), that I’d still love it as much as I do. There’s something about seeing the Justice League talk to the Power Rangers that just hits me in the chest super hard and makes me the happiest boy in the world. I mean, what can you not love about Superman flying next to the Pterodactyl Dinozord, tapping on the window, and saying “Miss, I need you to pull the Pterodactyl over.”? Another moment I absolutely loved is all of the Rangers shitting on Batman for being so dark and grim, and Superman is just like “Yeah, sorry, he’s just kinda. Like that.” 

In all seriousness, I think this is a fantastic cross-over. They only spent an issue and a half on the teams fighting each other for vague reasons, and I enjoy the dialogue that the two teams have with each other. I mean, the reason for the actual team-up/cross-over is kinda bullshit, but at the same time it totally makes sense and kinda works. I also think that Brainiac and Zedd teaming up is the best possible combination of villains, because it’s not too much of a threat, but enough of a threat to actually have a team-up over. Naturally, I’m super excited for next month’s issue.

2) Red Hood and the Outlaws #7 (Scott Lobdell, Mirko Colak)

I’m NEVER gonna shut up about how much I love Jason Todd. The thing I love about him the most, something that this issue especially shows off, is how his anger and cool-guy act is all a front. Deep down, he’s actually an extremely caring and compassionate person, and his recent actions have definitely shown that he’s trying to be the best version of himself that he can be, by (starting to) reconcile with Bruce, and helping him. Jason is often seen as the angry Robin, and while he does have his moments of anger, I think he’s actually a huge softie who won’t admit otherwise, completely evident by him not being able to kill Bizarro in this issue, despite Artemis telling him otherwise. 

This issue also gave some insight into Bruce and Jason’s relationship when he was Robin. Obviously, Jason was an angry problem child, but it’s nice to see that Bruce still believed in him the entire time, otherwise he wouldn’t have taken him under his wing. I also love Alfred being the mother hen to anyone that Bruce ever brings into the Batcave, always having something nice to say and some food to give them. Alfred is the true star of the Batfamily tbh.

1) Detective Comics #950 (James Tynion IV, Eddy Barrows)

Gotta be honest, I was somehow oblivious to the fact that this was a giant-sized issue until I got halfway through Azrael’s story and I ws like “Huh there’s still a lot left here isn’t there��. But I loved that it was so big! I really enjoyed all three stories that we got in this issue. Cassandra’s was my favorite for sure, though. I really liked her throughout this run, but I felt like she wasn’t getting enough attention, and I feel like this was the perfect way to give her the spotlight. Now that both Tim and Stephanie are gone from the team, Cass is probably my favorite, and I’m glad to find out mroe about her. The idea of someone’s first language being body language is really interesting, and I think that Cassandra is really well-executed in general.

I feel like I missed something, though. Did I like, skip an issue, or just forget something? Like, when did Azrael join the team? Either way, I enjoyed his story with Batwing, because their dialogue was really fun to read, and to find out more about Azrael. I’m also excited to see where that bit at the end goes, with the suit apparently hearing Batwing’s idea about being independent. The third story was the shortest, but I think it’ll probably be the most important one in the near future. Basically, Tim confronts Bruce about how he’s seemingly preparing to go to war, what with sending out Dick and Jason on missions and setting up the team that’s in Detective Comics. I just really loved this issue, and I’m excited for the stuff that’s being hinted at!