#i can’t even reread the hoo books because it’s all just ‘x character was a fat fucking idiot while y character was skinny & attractive’

[rosesradio]

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[davidmann95]

This week's comics? Specifically, new Tom King Batman/Green Lantern?

Hoo boy, this week was a hefty one. Tackling your requests at the top, and no spoilers this week:

The Green Lantern #2: It’s surprising how non-action-driven this has been for the first couple issues - it really is space cop stuff first and foremost, in this case an interrogation. I see what Morrison meant in interviews when he said people would take Hal’s voice as odd in this, and I hope he’ll follow though when he said the core of his take’ll be a little clearer soon, but even so I’m liking him well enough as the traditional straight-take superhero anchor to the 2000ADness of it all. The Oa spread on page 7 is absolutely jaw-dropping, and the guest villain of the issue explaining his name is the best thing in superhero comics this week, and possibly this year.

Batman #60: I’ll admit the last 5-6 issues or so haven’t been tremendously doing it for me, but it certainly looks like it’s about to pick back up. And good lord, Jorge Fornes had better be getting any assignments he pleases.

Justice League #13: Grisly at it gets, the best word I can think of for this issue is a romp. It’s total old-school superhero adventure and villainous monologuing, just minus the hero part of that. Honestly, I’m almost worried about these Legion of Doom one-shots’ role in terms of the integrity of the run as a whole *as a Justice League run*, because it’s this side that feels so much more vibrant and fleshed-out. Granted Snyder and Tynion get full ownership of the villains involved so there’s more room to play, but I almost feel like this team would rather just be doing a Legion of Doom book period, because this is where the whole thing sings, great as the regular League stuff in here always is too.

Adventures of the Super Sons #5: I rag on Tomasi, but he’s not a bad writer, he’s a writer with specialties. And Super Sons is hitting all of those specialties, and I love it.

Shazam! #1: I checked this VERY tentatively on a recommendation and from how great the premise sounded, and unbelievably, it’s good. Not the next big thing by any means, but great superhero stuff that takes a modern bent on the material but maintains the warmth and wonder that defines Marvel at his best. It reads for all the world like a writer doing a very deliberate course-correction from how horrifically Geoff Johns fucked up the character top to bottom…except it’s actually Geoff Johns, essentially pulling a 180 on his own reboot? Whatever, Johns somehow rules (though there’s one or two lines in the backup that feel like notable Johnsisms), Dale Eaglesham rules, Mayo Naito rules on the backup, and this book, on the whole, rules.

Archie Meets Batman ‘66 #5: Feel like it’s lost some steam, but on the whole it remains a delight regardless.

Border Town #4: Everyone should still be reading this.

DIE #1: Kieron Gillen is a writer whose craft I can always respect, but usually it isn’t until reread that I truly get a kick out of his work. Don’t know what the difference is here - Stephanie Hans, the premise, the tone, the small core cast - but this seems to be the one that’s gonna grab me right off the bat.

The Wicked + The Divine #40: On the other end of the Gillen spectrum, I’ve been lost here for awhile, so I appreciate this issue essentially reestablishing the fundamentals of what’s up as we head into the finale.

West Coast Avengers #5: Digging this! Quietly one of Marvel’s upper-tier titles at the moment. Still wanna grab Thompson’s Hawkeye run someday.

Marvel Knights #3: Fine. Exactly good enough for me to stick around for 3 more issues, knowing Cates is coming back for the end.

Shatterstar #3: I’m not convinced this shouldn’t have just been a one-shot about him as a landlord, but it’s still fun and it’s easily got me for the two remaining issues.

Killmonger #1: Top-tier shit by two creators I already loved but still underestimated. Hill has a remarkable talent for switching up his style with each project, and Ferreyra is going to be The Next Big Thing.

The Merry X-Men Holiday Special: Initially more miss than hit for me, but the ratio improves over the course of the book. However, while I was glad to see Hanukkah represented a fair deal, I can’t help but wish they called it the X-Men X-Mas Special.

Venom #9: Issa ittle-bittle Venom pupper! Otherwise solid but mainly left me more looking forward to the immediate future than getting much from what we had here (even if it laid the foundation here for what makes said future worth looking forward to).

The Best Defense: The Immortal Hulk #1: Rules. It’s Ewing Hulk (or really in this case Ewing Banner, the first story where he’s truly taken center stage other than kind of #2, making it in my opinion fairly indispensable to Immortal Hulk thematically if not plotwise), of course it rules.

The Best Defense: Namor #1: Also rules! I knew Zdarsky more than had the chops for heavier material, but this still came as a surprise that excites me for his Invaders, and Carlos Magno was a name I don’t believe I’ve seen before but quite liked. Kind of dislike though that each of these is a #1 when the recurring sequence and checklist in the back really does give this an implicit reading order; it’d definitely confuse readers who didn’t go in already knowing how this was gonna be structured.

The Immortal Hulk #10: Still the best comic on the stands, though there’s an ad placement at the end I really feel detracts from the big moment. And someone asked about the title, and I’m pretty sure it’s the mythic reference rather than an SCP one, even if I could imagine Ewing having seen that at some point.

Martian Manhunter #1: Absolutely brilliant on every level, more than carrying me through a startling premise I’m not at all geared to accept by default. Keep an eye on this one, I can’t imagine it not being one of DC’s most acclaimed books for the entirety of its run, and J’onn’s definitive story pretty much by default.

The Unexpected #7: Sharply picks up as it screams into the finale, but it’s still in every way a pale shadow of what it should have been.

Doomsday Clock #8: Well, it’s certainly still fascinating. At the 2/3rds mark Superman finally takes his place as the advertised co-lead, and while it’s probably the least technically ambitious issue so far (on that note, for a series as meticulous as this tries to be, it’s very noticeable and distracting that Superman switches between the plain red cape and having the yellow s-shield on the back), it’s probably the most thematically interesting and true to the described premise of the whole thing, showing Superman at his best trying and failing to function in a DCU that’s had its narrative underpinnings usurped by Watchmen. This is definitely on the better end of Johns’ treatment of him, with the whole issue anchored by a genuinely wonderful scene between him and the other major hero taking point for this specific installment,* and that’s what makes it work when everything goes to hell.

* It took me an embarrassingly long time to figure out why Johns picked the character he did here, even if ‘long time’ in this case means ‘actively thought about it for literally seconds’: (rot13.com) ur'f gur Ahpyrne Zna. Trqqvg? Nyfb, juvyr fbzr crbcyr unir ernq vg gung jnl, V qba'g guvax gur vqrn ng gur raq vf fhccbfrq gb or gung Sverfgbez vf Znaunggna, whfg gung gur raretl fcvxr orsber gur gryrcbegngvba ng gur raq orybatrq gb uvz engure guna Ebaavr. Nyfb, Puevfg V ubcr gurl qba'g ernyyl chg gur WFN onpx nf choyvp urebrf cerqngvat Fhcrezna naq gur erfg ol qrpnqrf. Jbefg ynetr-fpnyr ergpba QP rire chyyrq, yrffravat yvgrenyyl rirel punenpgre vaibyirq.

[flightfoot]

1, 2, 41, 51

1. What was the first fandom you got involved in?: Digimon. I stumbled onto Fanfiction.net when I was around twelve (no idea how I did that, I normally didn’t stray from the sites that my mom had found for me to play around on) and immediately found the digimon part of the site. I’ve been into fanfiction ever since. That being said, I’ve only ever really read and reviewed Digimon fics: I never actually produced content for a fandom until Trials of Apollo.

2.  What is your latest fandom?: Trials of Apollo. It’s the third series in the Greco-Roman section of the Riordanverse, for any of my followers who don’t know (though I don’t know how that would be possible at this point, my blog is mostly a ToA blog now). I actually started reading/listening to the books on tape for PJO since I was around 11 or 12, back around the time that Sea of Monsters came out. Or maybe Titan’s Curse. I definitely was into it no later than Titan’s Curse, since I actually attended a book signing for it. It was really cool, Rick let all us kids walk up and ask him a single question. I asked him what happened to Uranus after he was cut up, because I thought that might have something to do with the plot in the future. I think he just gave me some generic answer about what happened in Greek Mythology, though.

That being said, while I liked it and read the books, I was never part of the fandom for it. I never looked up fanfics for it or read theories on it. I liked the series a lot, but I wasn’t obsessed with it. I followed it up through Mark of Athena. After that, with the long gap in-between books, I fell off the series for a solid 8 years, until I started reading @unknownunseenunheard‘s excellent From the Heart KH X PJO crossover fic. I kinda knew the HOO characters from when I read it before, but I didn’t remember them all that well, plus I found it kinda weird how much emphasis Apollo was getting. Finally I decided to give another crack at the series, so I reread The Lost Hero and Mark Of Athena (I actually skipped Son of Neptune on the reread) and read House of Hades, Blood of Olympus, The Hidden Oracle, The Dark Prophecy, and The Burning Maze all in one go summer of last year. I found the description of The Hidden Oracle to be interesting right from the get-go, and due to how easy it was to get my hands on it, I actually started reading it before I’d fully finished Blood of Olympus! 

I. GOT. HOOKED. I’ve liked PLENTY of series, but I hadn’t had something click for me in that way since Kingdom Hearts. I haven’t had this level obsession with anything besides Digimon and Kingdom Hearts. With how long it’d been since I’d had an obsession like that, I was kinda afraid that I’d never be able to get into something to the same extent ever again! I mean, I got into Digimon when I was 11 and KH when I was 13 (though I didn’t get to play any KH game until 358/2 Days released when I was 14. I got into it through the manga initially). I thought that maybe that was it, I was only able to get into those things so much because of the age I was when I was introduced to them. And then Trials of Apollo happened and showed that I still had it, that I could still have this new thing (or kinda old thing, since I’d read PJO before) become an obsession for me, with a story and characters that I’ll carry with me forever. It was actually really important for me, to know that I hadn’t lost the ability to connect with a series that deeply. Don’t get me wrong, I’ve liked a lot of other series quite a bit, but they never became part of my soul the way these three series have, even if I thought they were technically better. Like how I think that Avatar: the Last Airbender is the best cartoon I’ve ever seen, but Digimon Adventure 02 is still my favorite. 

41. List and link to 5 fanfics you are currently reading:

Bookmark, sequel to Book Cult. It’s a Reading the Books fic covering HoO instead of the more typical PJO, with Leo being sent back to read with the demigods and the gods directly after the end of The Last Olympian. I literally make high-pitched squealing noises whenever I see an update!

From the Heart II, Sequel to From the Heart I. The PJO X KH fic I was referring to.

Ashes of the Past, though I still need to catch up on the latest update. Basically Ash gets sent back in time to stop the end of the world, with the ability to restore the memories of certain pokemon and people of his timeline. Surprisingly, it’s not angsty and Ash actually behaves like himself.

Another Brother, which recently started updating again. Basically Zuko somehow ends up nearly dying and losing his memory when he’s about ten years old, and is taken in by Chief Hakoda, who raises him alongside Katara and Sokka. It appears to be a For Want of A Nail fic, and I have some guesses on the exact nail. If you want to know my guess, hit me up, but beware: I might refer to spoilers for the fic in my explanation.

Class 78th Watches the Future is a “watching the video game” type fic for Danganronpa: Trigger Happy Havoc. If you can’t guess, I like that genre. Pre-Tragedy Class 78 watches the video game unfold and react.

Of course, there are other fics I’m currently following, but those are five big ones that tend to make me excited whenever I see an update for them, ESPECIALLY Bookmark. Like I said, I make squealing noises whenever I see an update for it.

51.  Rant or Gush about one thing you love or hate in the world of fanfiction! Go!: Honestly I don’t have that much left in me after typing all that but I do want to say this: I love how fanfiction can shape a person’s appreciation for the plot or characters in a work. I didn’t think much of Daisuke Motomiya from Digimon Adventure 02 until I saw how he was written in dozens of different fanfics and gained a new appreciate for him, for instance. Fanfics can be a way to really make a character shine, in a way that they weren’t able to in their original material, even if implications for their potential was there.