#i'd like to make a reboot comic with these designs but i have so many projects right now

[theaxolotlkween]

POV: You watch your friend die of radiation poisoning in his basement.

[chiscribbs]

Asking some AU comp competitors & supporters:

- Are there any AUs you weren't familiar with that have recently caught your attention, or that you would like to learn more about?

- What are some AUs/fanworks that you enjoy, and would encourage more people to go check out? (Doesn't have to be in the comp!)

Oooooooooooh my gosh, SO many!! I wasn't terribly involved in the fandom before this, mostly just stayed in my little remote corner and got whatever happened to find its way into my space. This contest has introduced me to a whole host of fascinating AUs that I'm definitely going to be checking out in the near future. Just to name a few: @noval1t's Void Brothers AU, @theemployees AU, @theserpentsnight's Red Rover AU, @phoebepheebsphibs's Until I Found You AU, @twinpathy AU, @separatedleoau (which I'd seen some content of before, but had yet to check out for myself), @donniesbrows' REBOOT: Second Chance AU, @getindumdums' AU (that I got a brief, but very memorable, glimpse of via that one comic lol), and uuuuhhh...oh gosh, so many. Just- A *lot* of really neat and interesting AUs to be had around here that I found thanks to this competition. THANKS, @tmntaucompetition!!! ❤

I've been a big fan of @vangh17a's Wanderer comic and @kathaynesart's Replica comic for awhile! I also absolutely adore @star-sparkler's fanchild Augustine Hamato and @shiveagit's Spiderverse AU is one of the coolest I've seen, the designs are just - *chef's kiss* - SO beautiful! I also have to take this chance to promote an incredible fanfic series that a friend introduced me to awhile back that I have not been able to put down and as someone who typically isn't the most avid fanfic reader, that means a lot - it's called "Mind Over Matter" by @danzinora-switch on AO3. It's SOOOOO GOOOOOD - the characterization is so on-point, the plot is so well thought-out and developed with good pacing that makes it easy to blow through several chapters in a sitting. I especially love the way the author shows whose perspective a chapter is being told from, it's easy to tell which brother is "narrating" based on the way that they think and how they see things. Mikey's has to be one of my favorite examples of this. Anyway - I won't spoil any of the plot, but I highly recommend giving it a read if you haven't already. 👌

Thanks for the ask, btw - this whole event has been such a fun and thrilling experience for me and it's nice to see people out here spreading love & appreciation for each other's works. Hope you have yourself a nice day!

[so-i-grudgingly-joined-this-site]

I don't get why Dream found his purpose so hard it's not like dreams are that fundamental and they don't have any real power. They are just dreams. I could understand if he was any of the other six. Delirium is in charge on the human mind, Desire and Despair in charge of the human emotion, Destruction is in charge of destruction itself, Destiny is in charge of everyone's fates and of course Death who is in charge of death. What is Dream in charge of the unreal.

Lol this sounds more like a question for Neil Gaiman, since he's the one who put the guy in the situation to begin with. But, I think I can offer a bit of an explanation/analysis.

I do agree that Gaiman's choice of division for the Seven Endless is a bit odd and arbitrary. I would've had Death/Life and Destruction/Creation all be one person, for example, and given the whole "defines their opposite" thing I have no idea why Delight was ever a separate person from Despair (since wouldn't the opposite of despairing over something be delighting in it???). The reason he named Dream "Dream" is partly due to deciding on a "D" theme for all their names (Destiny was a preexisting DC character he used, so presumably it all came from there), and partly because The Sandman started as a reboot of an old dream-themed superhero comic but ended up very, VERY different by the time it actually went to print. Dream's weird helmet is likewise a leftover from that superhero's mask design.

As for why he's important and why his job is hard: he doesn't just handle dreams as in "the crazy shit your brain projects when you sleep." I would define him more as Ideas, or Culture, or maybe Mythology, or Social Constructs. He handles the intangible aspects of human society that nonetheless have MAJOR impacts on how humanity functions. If Destiny handles the bare bones "what happened" of history, Dream handles the more complex "WHY did that happen?" of history. He handles the societal values, religious myths, and really popular stories that affect people's actions beyond simple emotions. The human mind is more than just emotions or base sanity/insanity (which is more how I'd define Delirium's realm), and that's what Dream's purview is.

And as for why that's depressing? Oh god. Listen to some humanities majors talk about what they're studying sometime... historians, cultural studies majors... it's depressing as FUCK. It's one thing on its own to learn about some horrific historical event, like, say, a genocide (pick any of them really, there's a lot...). But then to find out why so many people died horrific deaths? Nothing more than an idea. A construct. Someone had the idea that the other group was inferior, and needed to be wiped off the face of the earth, or permanently enslaved. You'll read primary documents by genocide perpetrators or enslavers, and where you expect to find frothing hatred you instead find just plain, basic, disgusting belief. "It's a fact of nature" or "god willed it" or "this is how we've always done things"; they don't consider it their fault, it's just fallen to them to continue this system and they aren't going to question it. It's a comforting story to tell themselves.

We see this aspect of Dream at the Cereal Convention, where he is able to strip the serial killers of their beliefs/constructed narratives to make them realize how horrific their actions are.

And Dream has had to deal with that horrible side of humanity as his job, never having any day off because he IS his job, for all eternity. As much as I point out that he's an asshole a lot of the time, it's honestly a miracle he managed to be as relatively kind and balanced as he is. Some of the worst things humanity has ever done were based on ideas and social constructs alone, and he has to deal with that, and possibly BE that. No wonder he's depressed as hell.

Things that are "unreal" do not lack importance or influence in reality. Ideas are incredibly, terribly powerful, and it is unwise to forget that.

[pandorkful]

These are not new years resolutions, but some things I'd really love to get done in 2023 hopefully:

Start Art Streaming! I'm planning on doing my first stream soon, hopefully in mid-january! Still trying to decide on twitch vs youtube, kinda leaning towards yt since that seems like the easier way to keep a stream vod and I don't have much in the way of free space for video backups at the moment... (I think my backup drive just died too :-/ )

Extended edition of MerFolk, to make it a page-a-day MerMay coloring book! I forget how many more pages I'd need to draw, but I've also been wanting to tidy up some of the pages and add interesting backgrounds to color for a while--this would be an excellent excuse to do both!

Start drawing one or more of the many, many comics I've been writing over the past year!! Or at the very least, figure out how best to share scripting updates with my patrons... hmm....

Finish the mini comic (boobtrain) I started last February... I kinda need to figure out an ending for that one. :B

Get a webstore open!!! I have a foursquare account, I just gotta fill it with designs!!!

Make! More! Stickersssss!!!

I really wanna design a few enamel pins someday....

Make a completely new coloring book! Still need to decide on a theme... but MerFolk was so fun to make, I really want to make more coloring books!!!

reboot/continue @ask-ghaleon :3c and get back into customizing dolls in general.

And some personal goals:

Get driver's license!!!!!

Go table at more conventions!!!!

Make enough money. To, like, live.

Figure out a better state to move to possibly????¿

[4th-make-quail]

Okay, now that I'm back on my actual account...

The premise of MTMtE (More Than Meets the Eye) is like. The war is over, they have made a very awkward peace because of a lot of bullshit (there's a long leadup to it all and I think I can find you a link to just all of it in chronological order plus a list of what issues to skip because there were a lot of comics and some of them were not that great, but honestly I got into the comics through MTMtE and I was mostly fine, it's pretty self contained) but some of them just can't sit still, so they get a ship called Lost Light and go off on A Quest to find this mythical group of knights for whatever reason.

So they get a lot of oddballs and weirdos on board (not all that many Decepticons tbh, but they do eventually just get motherfucking Megatron as a co-captain, so that's neat).

Cyclonus is one of the original crew. He's technically neutral (he missed the whole war due to multiverse shenanigans) but he would make a really good Con.

He has an actual legit slow-burn romance with this harmless minibot they foist on him as a roommate, it's kinda neat.

The others I mentioned are Pharma:

If medical malpractice was a person, it would be him. He's one of the recurring antagonists during the comic. Half of his personality is that he's very pissed at his ex.

And the DJD (Decepticon Justice Division) is this group of violent torturers and Megatron-fanatics who used to hunt down deserters and traitors and whatnot and execute them in various ways. They are Not Happy that the war is over.

Sadly, most TF media outside of the comics is aimed at younger audiences, even if they do tend to sometimes gesture at interesting topics, but the new movie is pretty good. The humor was hit and miss for me, but the drama and action was well done imo. It's an origin story/new reboot, so everyone is young and dumb, but the central drama is lifelong friends to bitter enemies and that part was very well executed. Doomed yaoi leading to a divorce so bad it causes a civil war, just an average day on the job.

From the older series, TF:Prime was aiming at a bit more serious tone, had a decent run with a competently executed ending so it's pretty self-contained and the obligatory human kids are the least annoying they've ever been probably. It has Steve Blum playing Starscream as the most neurotic diva on high heels you can imagine.

They also had some unique designs that are holding up pretty well for a show that's like a decade old now.

It does show its age in the fact that it has a zombie shtick. It was made in the early 2010s when everything was zombies.

HI TC!!! Oh man, I can see why u said I'd be into the DJD, they're giving IVth Legion Vibes 👁️👁️👁️ and Pharma too, very hot oh my god...

I'm not sure I have it in me to get into such a large franchise, but I might check out the new film sometime!

[flowerchildwren]

2023 Art Recap

Every year I like to look over an art piece from each month and go over what I like and don't like about it as well as how my art has changed over the year. Also I consistently posted my art on tumblr for a whole year which has never happened before I think

January

It's weird seeing SVO stuff after making the decision to reboot it like a month later. I don't know what is going on here perspective and anatomy wise this piece is just bad.

February

The only piece of Tome art I drew this year, SVR has kept me busy. After doing so much character design this year I look back on some of these designs and think about ways I could make them better but that will have to wait. I don't have to much to say considering this is just a sketch page.

March

I still really like this, It's not my favorite but I like the motion. I think the design and anatomy could be better but I'm just glad I made something considering my biggest issue this year was just not making things.

April

Nothing! Actually it's all just beta designs for SVR most of which are outdated at this point and contain spoilers so I don't want to post them, sorry.

May

Mermay art, Idk what to say, its fine. The shadows on the skin look more like light which doesn't look awful but It's a pretty obvious mistake

June

I'm a big fan of bright cool colors if you couldn't tell. I wonder if next year I'll play with Aria's design more, I feel like I nailed her design pretty early. I hope to have the comic up next year though so I might not.

July

I had not original art here's a study that I did. It doesn't look much like the original and kinda sucks but the point of a study is to get better so it's fine I guess.

August

Where's that Gordan Ramsey "wheres the light source" image I think it really applies to this image. Idk why I decided to draw an image with so many light sources when I already struggle with that.

September

I joked about how the shading on this sucks but honestly I kinda like how it turned out. I have no idea how I ended up doing this and have been trying to figure out how to redo and have failed every time.

October

Backwards hands. Well not really but they're in a really uncomfortable position. I had a lot of fun with this piece but I think that's just because It's Saph and I love her.

November

PFP redraw, I don't actually draw wren that much which is why their design hasn't changed in years. This piece also has the shadows being way to bright because I really wanted to use purple. My brand I guess.

December

This piece destroyed me, I started it during finals as a way to de-stress but it escalated. I do love it though (probably because I spent 12 hours on it) I said last year that 2023 was going to be the year I worked on backgrounds and I just decided to cram all of that into this one piece.

Goals for next year are to start publishing SVR (I'd like to finish act I but knowing me that isn't going to happen)

[sallyacornsmackdown]

Hey, I just want to address this regarding the descriptions of each version. Before I get into a wall of text, I should start with:

!! I done goofed and I apologise for that !!

The original description was not meant to deminish the notion that any version of Sally could be bisexual, but I can see how it read that way. For a bit more context:

At the start of the tournament, I received the really good suggestion to add descriptions of each version of Sally for people who might be less familiar with them. This made sense, considering a lot of the contestants were prototype designs, like Princess Acorn, or merch from SEGA World Sydney that, if you're not more familiar with the character, you might not know about. For Pre-SGW Sally's first match she was up against the long-haired version of Sally from after the tossed in space arc up until, well, Bunnie cut her hair again. Her description was initially written as a way to say "This is not that version of Sally, this is the version of Sally from before that (but not when she was pink) and after that (until the reboot)". Which is a quite confusing concept to explain

However, as the tournament progressed I didn't change the description as I should've done. It was an oversight on my part, as I was mostly just copying and pasting the descriptions from previous matches and editing the wording where it had referred to their previous opponent (e.g. "both these versions are from Archie Comics" to "this version is from Archie Comics", etc.). It was laziness and I apologise for that

If I could go back in time, I'd tell myself to axe the descriptions for the finals completely, as most people voting would be familiar with these two versions, so the purpose of the descriptions is null, and whatever I put about either version I may be accused of bias. I didn't really think twice about using them at the time, since I had been all along. Sadly, once a poll has been made you can't edit it and I'm not deleting and reposting at this stage because it's been several days and that would be unfair to everyone who's already voted. Also, I kind of want this tournament to be over after all the harrassment

So far, the hate I've received towards Post-SGW Sally has been divided into two camps:

1. People who are angry at the notion that Sally could be bisexual at all and are directing that towards Post-SGW Sally

2. People who are angry that I've ignored the Sallicole in Pre-SGW in my description

Honestly, I don't care what the queerphobes think, but the people in category 2 do deserve my apology. All I can really say to defend myself is that we know the Post-SGW team were working towards making Sallicole a definite thing, with Spark of Life being the start of that, and that's such a huge deal: To have a same-sex relationship between two female characters (or two male character, but that's not what we're talking about here) in official Sonic media would be a big deal. We're seeing that happen more with Whispangle in the IDW Comics now and a fan-made conclusion by the official writers of Fleetway made TekAmy semi-canon, but we still don't openly have that yet in official Sonic media (except for Don & Nite, but they're not main characters like Sally was) and that's what they were heading for with Post-SGW Sally

I shouldn't have overlooked their moments in the Pre-SGW comics, however. Stargazing as a standalone story is a powerful touchstone for many people and most likely the reason we have Nicole the Holo-Lynx at all. And while Pre-SGW did end with SonSal sharing a kiss, that doesn't take away from the Sallicole moments that were there, nor does it take away from Sally being bisexual

I suppose it was more the excitement that they really were going for a same-sex relationship in this Post-reboot that meant a lot to me. I'm sure I don't need to mansplain to anyone how hard us queers have to fight to be seen at all

But this really has devolved into a wall of text now. The bottom line is that I'm sorry. I was thoughtless and I'm sorry. But you all came out swinging and showed that you'll stand up for the version of Sally that you love (both versions) and I'm glad to see that

THE FINALS

Information on these Sallys: Sally Acorn from the Post-SGW (post-reboot) version of the Archie Sonic Comics. In issue #252, the series was rebooted, giving the SatAM cast redesigns to match more closely to the modern design tropes of Sonic characters. Sally's design loses the cheek-fluff, making her look a little more like the Pink Sally prototype, and she also gains cool electric blades as weapons. Oh yeah, and she said bisexual rights, as before the series was cancelled, the Spark of Life arc was the beginning of a potential romance between Sally and Nicole the Holo-Lynx Regular Sally is what I'm calling the version of Sally that we mostly see in the Pre-SGW comics. She spent a lot of the early run looking like this, until Sonic got tossed into space and she grew her hair long for a while and was purposely kept away from being a Freedom Fighter (boo!). Soon after writer Ian Flynn came on board, Sally asked Bunnie to cut off her long-hair and she returned to looking like this to symbolise that she's part of the team once again

[wereh0gz]

Alright, since pretty much everyone on here who reads the IDW Sonic comics has talked about it, I thought I'd throw my two cents on the topic out there

*inhale*

Sonic's characterization

(More under cut)

To be really, really honest, I don't think he's that out of character compared to his game counterpart. He's still definitely a bit ooc though, specifically in some moments where he shows Eggman and the Deadly Six (pretty much irredeemable villains who refuse to change their ways no matter what) mercy and giving them second chances.

In the games he's a really kind person and values freedom over anything. He's pretty much the same in the comics. But Sonic in the comics takes that kindness and value for freedom a bit too far and extends it to people like Eggman, who prove time and time again that they will not change.

Now, this could be explained by the whole Mr. Tinker situation, where he saw Eggman was capable of good deep down. But after Eggman regained his memories he went right back to who he once was, and hasn't shown any desire to change.

You could also say it's because of the many rivals/antagonists he's befriended, but they weren't really evil in the first place and were willing to change, unlike Eggman.

Game Sonic didn't have this issue. He wasn't constantly after Eggman's life, sure, but he definitely wouldn't care too much if he landed a really good hit on one of his mechs and it ends up exploding in his face.

He has killed a villain in the past, too, with him trapping Erazor in his lamp and throwing him into an incinerator (kind of gruesome if you think about it,) and doesn't mind being seen as a villain if it means doing what he believes is right (as we see in satbk.)

So yeah, I do think he's a bit out of character, but not egregiously far off. At least he's not a fucking asshole like in Sonic the Comic or constantly getting into relationship drama like in pre-reboot Archie. And I can actually see this kind of flaw coming from a character like Sonic, it just wasn't there in the source media before. I also appreciate the writers at least trying to give Sonic more depth and am starting to see his idea of "giving second chances to everyone no matter what" being challenged in the comic itself, so it's possible we see him change into something closer to the games in the future.

(Alright, before anybody brings up the scene with Sonic pretty much manipulating Shadow into sparing Mr. Tinker, we've seen Sonic do that before. Not often, but we have seen it. He can be manipulative if he deems it necessary. The biggest example that I can think of off the top of my head is the one episode of Sonic X where he's on a cruise ship going stir-crazy and tries to manipulate his friends to take him back to land. It's mostly played off as comedy, but still. Not saying that's a GOOD thing, mind you. Sonic's character is not without his flaws. But I don't think showing that flaw makes him ooc.)

Now, do I think the writers of the comic are solely responsible for him being ooc? No, not really. Sega is more involved with the comics, and the writing has to be approved by them. So if Sonic is the way he is, it's because Sega approved it. Same with Shadow and Eggman, which I've also seen complaints about their characterization (which I do agree are off from the games, Shadow moreso than Eggman, but this post is about Sonic specifically.)

Despite everything, I still enjoy the comic a lot. I love seeing all the new characters and their stories and the artwork. Surge and Kit immediately became my favorites ever since their designs were revealed, and Tangle and Whisper are great as well. The other characters' personalities are done really well, it's only Sonic, Shadow, and Eggman that I've seen people get really angry about.

The comic has more good things more than bad things going for it. I just wanted to ramble about this a little since I've seen a lot of talk about this and haven't seen many people who are like. In the middle ground I guess? I've seen a lot of people who either think he's outrageously ooc or not at all, and not many in between.

So TLDR; he's a little ooc, but it isn't that big of a deal for me. I still enjoy the comic a lot, and honestly, it could be worse (trust me, it could be so much worse.)

[greenhills-montana]

My Thoughts on IDW Sonic comic Issues 1-10

WARNING: THIS POST CONTAINS SPOILERS FOR THE IDW SONIC COMIC RUN. IF YOU HAVEN'T READ IT-- PLEASE PROCEED WITH CAUTION.

Also, this comic is apparently four years old-- wtf are you doing? me @ myself.

So like my last post, I think that the rebooted comics taking place post-sonic forces is a great idea. It works really well in my opinion because there are a lot of themes and characters you can tinker with from that game. I would have loved to have more clarity about more events during the war or even the aftermath of those events to clarify the feelings each character had about it.

And for the most part, I'll say the comics have excited me about the story going forward. It gave me some of what I wanted and many more questions I didn't think of. Coming at it strictly from the perspective I have, mainly being a game fan-- I always felt a Knuckles and Amy friendship would have been stellar, so it's cool to see that realized. Actually, Amy's character overall has been given this second wind that I didn't see coming at all. I always figured she had a deep respect for Sonic and that's where her crush comes from, but to have it outright stated and how Amy's and Sonic's powers complement each other is really really sweet and interesting. It leads to the art of these panels being dynamic!

Amy's leadership role in the absence of Sonic has really matured her, and you can honestly feel it in issue two. In fact, Tails and Amy both have retained a lot of change from Sonic Forces that I didn't expect, but I'm not opposed to. I'm really in favor of these little micro-expressions of anxiety or stress that both Sonic and the audience can intuit from the art. It makes for something you have to pay attention to and be rewarded for doing so.

Issue six is where the story starts to really pick up with the reintroduction of the Chaotix, Shadow, and Rogue. (or, as I like to call them Team Dark Plus)

Shadow will always be a complex character to portray, given the fandom's broad interpretation of him. But I think this issue sets up his internal conflict pretty well and doesn't make Shadow out to be a hypocrite-- he's just someone who's exhausted of fighting. Or at the very least fighting Eggman. I also thought it was interesting that Shadow was coming at it from the angle of "well, what about you, Sonic? doesn't it matter that he tried to hurt you?" instead of making his motivation selfish. Sonic then defuses the situation by pointing out that Shadow got a second chance; therefore, they have to extend the same to Eggman. It will be interesting to see if they keep this characterization up or default to a regular grumpy aloof jerk.

I will say the art in issue six was really hit or miss with me, especially when it came to renderings of Rogue. There was just something about her that seemed really off-model, like her eyes are at this constant half-lid which makes her look odd-- and not to mention her chest-- I don't know what it is about comic books and boobs but they just don't ever seem to mesh well. I think the comic peaked at the Sonic and Shadow fight scene, though; a lot of it just felt perfectly moody with the colors and lighting.

That is not a problem in issue seven. Issue seven's art was so fantastic I thought it boarded on too good. You know what I mean? Overall that issue was probably my highlight. It'd be the one I'd send to someone to get them on board. That being said I still think its weird they haven't redone Neo Metal Sonic's design, I can't imagine that being fun to draw repeatedly for several pages. I mean even Sonic makes fun of how Neo Metal Sonic looks.

Gosh, I may be skeptical of Shadow's characterization, but Silver-- oh my gosh-- I didn't think it was possible for this character to be treated so lovingly by the canon. I'm tempted to tell my brother (a self-proclaimed Silver stan) about the number of cute things they kept from Sonic 06 to embellish Silver's character. I found his naivety and gratefulness towards Whisper to be adorable!

Speaking of, the comic introduces a few new characters along with our familiar faces. Whisper the wolf and Tangle the Lemur. I'll be real I think they have a lot of potential to be interesting characters, especially Whisper-- but I do think Tangle's first impression was kind of uninteresting to me. I was a little surprised they brought her back because the narrative was so lowkey about her existence. I assume this might have something to do with those SEGA mandates or something. Speaking of, Doctor Starline's entrance was anything but lowkey, his design was immediately eye-catching and striking and his little villain monologue about how he's made a habit out of studying Eggman is interesting. Like the idea that there are some of Sonic's kind that seems to agree with Eggman's philosophy is interesting to me and I want to see that explored. It's such a shame that Mr Tinker had so much crap happen to him though, I think the "what if Eggman was a theme park engineer without all the evil" was a cute stay for a few issues. It just strikes me that deep deep deep down Eggman has this need to make people happy, or at the very least he wants to be liked at his core. Which seems to be the only thing Eggman and Tinker have in common.

This post has gone on a bit too long, I wanted to talk a little bit about my new appreciation for Blaze, but I'll save that until the next post.

That all out of the way, I easily give this first arc of the comic a high eight out of ten! I really look forward to the rest of it. Thank you for joining me on this journey.

[thankskenpenders]

Since you enjoyed the IDW stuff so much, I'd like to see what you think of the post reboot Archie stuff someday, since it was a lot of the same people now on IDW basically doing a more focused take on old Archie/SatAM stuff. They introduced some really great characters who were often considered better designed and developed than so much of the old fluff even if they didn't get alot of time to shine.

Oh yeah, I’m very excited about the prospect of getting to those eventually. People talking about how good the rebooted Archie comics were was actually what lead me to start this blog back in the day! I wanted to get to those, but I was also nostalgic for the original continuity, so I was like “I wanna go back and read ALL of it! And I know I’ll probably wanna post a bunch of weird screencaps, so I might as well make a side blog about it!”

Of course I now realize that saying you’re going to read ALL of the Archie comics and liveblog it is a lot like saying you’re going to draw EVERY Pokemon in order, one a day. Many have tried. Few have survived

[ty-talks-comics]

Best of Marvel: Week of September 12th, 2018

Best of This Week: Fantastic Four #2 - Dan Slott, Sara Pichelli and Marte Gracia

I won't lie to you, I thought the Fantastic Four were cheesy for a long time. My first exposure to them being one of their late 90s comics at around the time Avengers: United they Stand was still on TV and they were cheery and loving. And I didn't start seriously collecting until the series ended when Time Runs Out started before Secret Wars (2015). But, as confused as I was during that series and having matured in my comic tastes, I felt what so many others had experienced while they had been reading Fantastic Four for years; The love between the family.

I'd gone through many of their books and stories since then and coming into Marvel Two-in-One, I was so excited for them coming back. And damn it was good. Sure the first issue felt like kind of a fake out, just Reed and Sue sending out the signal to Ben and Johnny and leaving on a cliffhanger there. This issue, however is a second half to that one, focusing on Reed, Sue, Franklin, Valeria and the rest of the Future Foundation rebuilding the multiverse with the use of Franklin's universe forming power and Molecule Man's molecules.

They explore these beautiful worlds and universes like the scientists they are, Valeria even finding a cute guy that Reed and Sue remark seems very Namor-ish. One day, however, Franklin loses his ability to remake universes and everyone is puzzled, suddenly a hole is ripped in space time and a villain calling herself The Griever at the End of All Things appears, destroying the last few universes created by the FF, killing Molecule Man and chasing them across the multiverse. This leads Valeria to disobey her father, driving back to Namor-lite's universe and making their final stand there. As they're all defeated, Franklin included, Reed bluffs that if the rest of his family were around then they could defeat her.

And we round right back around to the ending of the first issue and you might think oh yeah, they only teleported Ben and Johnny... BUT NO. EVERY MEMBER OF THE FF AND CLOSE FRIENDS ARE THERE AND ITS SO BADASS.

Not only is the story good, but I think this is undoubtedly some of Pichelli's best art, like almost better than my first exposure, being Ultimate Spider-Man. She really has improved with faces, posing, dynamic angles and especially character design with The Griever being absolutely horrifying and strangely arousing at the same time. Gracia's coloring only makes things much more impactful, nailing the cosmic look that the book was going for. Highest recommend.

Runner Up: Journey Into Mystery: The Birth of Krakoa #1 - Dennis Hopeless, Djibril Morissette-Phan, and Rachelle Rosenberg

I had no idea this was coming out. Genuinely had no idea that Journey into Mystery was even going to have something published, but it was pretty good.

As far as I'm aware, Krakoa first appeared in the 80s (citation needed) as a living island that the X-Men battled after being stranded on. But this story, as the title suggests offers up the origin story for it, being a result of US Military Nuclear Weapons testing. Sergeant Nick Fury and his Howling Commandos are caught in the middle of one of one of the tests and their plane goes down. Immediately it becomes an eldritch horror tale as one of the soldiers begins to mutate after touching some kind of radioactive goo, Fury hears voices coming from out of nowhere and and the island begins to act against them until Fury convinces it that they are not the ones at fault and let's them live until someone finds them. The art is great and if there were a reboot of The 'Nam, I would love to have this artist on it and these kinds of One-shot stories, especially since they involve Fury (hint hint, Ve'Nam) are awesome and I want more.