Pandemic Comics #1 “A Fortuitous Midtown Order”

By sheer coincidence, just as the lockdowns were beginning, I had placed another order with Midtown Comics. A decade back I dug myself into a steep financial hole recklessly ordering comics every week through their website. Longtime readers of my blog (through its many names and locations) know I spent years putting together an annual listing of the fifty best comics I’d read. The Midtown addiction allowed me to expand it to a hundred one year. So it was a long time before I ordered from them again. The first time back it was to help complete my Stuart Immonen Superman collection (which was finally completed last year when I rectified one last oversight). Then last year I began an irregular comeback. This most recent order was deliberately patterned after the old days, when I’d comb the weekly release lists and see what looked interesting. In recent years my comics reading has been drastically limited. The only sequential reads I’ve done have been limited series. I gave up trying to catch Tom King’s Batman in every individual issue (though I’ve collected all the trades), even.

Well, anyway, these are, at the moment, not only some of the last new comics I personally have read, but that got to be released at all...

The Argus #1 (Action Lab)

I found the art to be kind of shoddy, but the familiar concept of time travel being filtered through a single person pulled from various points of his life is still a good one. Could absolutely be salvaged. Kirkman’s Walking Dead, after all, had a different tone and even different art at the beginning.

Billionaire Island #1 (Ahoy Comics)

The latest from Mark Russell is another biting satire skewering privilege. The end of the issue teases the badass who will help find some justice for victims who’ve been locked up. To be clear, involuntarily. Not because, y’know, of a pandemic.

Birthright #42 (Image)

Randomly checked in with the Josh Williamson epic fantasy. Would probably get more out of it with having read more than, oh, the first issue in an Image dollar reprint.

Daredevil #19 (Marvel) 

Checking back in with the excellent Chip Zdarsky run.

Doctor Tomorrow #1 (Valiant)

Valiant may have finally gotten a big screen adaptation (horribly timed though it turned out to be), but in the comics its boon period has officially ended. Would really love for another creative resurgence.

Far Sector #4 (DC’s Young Animal)

Another fine issue in this Green Lantern maxi-series. 

The Flash #123 (DC)

A facsimile edition of the famous “Flash of Two Worlds” issue, one of the truly legendary moments in superhero comics. It’s interesting to have finally read it. Just the recaps of Jay Garrick and Barry Allen’s origin stories, as they were told then, was interesting. 

Flash Forward #6 (DC)

The final issue of the mini-series saw Wally West take on a new destiny. Just had to read it.

The Flash #750 (DC)

One of several big anniversary comics DC was able to get in before all this happened (I was a little too soon for the Robin 80th anniversary celebration). Geoff Johns probably had the highlight. Real shame that Mark Waid seems to have totally rejected his DC past(s) at this point. Should have been a part of this.

Folklords #1 (Boom!)

This was a fourth printing or so (otherwise the series was up to its fourth issue, I think), another fine argument that Boom! may actually be the most consistently excellent alternative publisher of the past decade, still working with Matt Kindt, launching another excellent concept. It may have a lower profile than Image, Dark Horse, or IDW, but it’s consistently reinvented itself over the years and, hey, still boasts Grant Morrison’s Klaus on its release calendar, and is probably the only publisher that would do so.

King of Nowhere #1 (Boom!)

Here they are again. This one looks like it could’ve been published by Image, Dark Horse, or Vertigo, and that’s not something you can say for just any publisher. Was worth a look.

The Last God #5 (DC Black Label)

The shuttering of the Vertigo imprint didn’t mean its aesthetic was dead. This is clearly DC’s biggest bid for old school Vertigo in years. But ended up not being my cup of tea. High fantasy, as it turns out.

Omni #5 (H1)

Pretty annoyed that Devin K. Grayson, who launched the series, was still listed as a creator when, as of this issue, she’s not really an active member of the creative team anymore. Kind of felt like a bait-and-switch.

Plunge #1 (DC/Hill House)

The end of the Vertigo imprint came at the same time as an incredible flowering of new DC imprints, from the Sandman family to the Bendis line, and now Hill House, from Joe Hill (Stephen Kong’s kid). But what brought me here was the Stuart Immonen art. Immonen has once again elevated his game. After he went over to Marvel I thought he was allowing himself to lose what made him distinctive, but it led to, well, this. I love his Superman, always will, as it was, but of course, now I’d love to see him return, with this more detailed approach.

Skulldigger + Skeleton Boy #3 (Dark Horse)

The best thing Dark Horse has done post-Mind MGMT has been Jeff Lemire’s Black Hammer universe. At some point I want to read all of it. This latest installment is basically its Dark Knight Returns.

Stealth #1 (Image)

By far the best surprise in scanning through the releases was discovering Mike Costa had a new series. Costa is an all-time favorite thanks to his G.I. Joe/Cobra comics. In recent years he’s had a small resurgence at Marvel, so it’s nice to see him getting another crack, even if once again it’s someone else’s concept, in this instance Robert Kirkman’s. But, as Costa explains in a postscript, he’s more than capable of internalizing the idea. And he executes it perfectly.

Strange Adventures #1 (DC Black Label)

The latest from Tom King, starring Adam Strange, in Mister Miracle mode with Mitch Gerads and “Doc” Shaner. Love love love that Mister Terrific pops up at the end of the issue. Might be the breakthrough Michael Holt’s been waiting twenty years for...

Wolverine Through the Years (Marvel)

This was a freebie promo for the new ongoing series (which I decided to skip). There’s a code in it that I unscrambled: “Who is the Pale Girl?” Hopefully someone interesting!

Wonder Woman #750 (DC)

Could’ve read this for free at the library, but the pandemic shut those things down before I could get around to it. Ironically still open when I ordered this. Historically speaking, the first time Wonder Woman topped the sales chart. Also the soft launch for DC’s G5.

Watching the Walmart Giants 2 "September 2019"

This month saw the latest revision of the Walmart DC 100-Page Giants line.  I haven't had a chance to read them yet (and it's worth noting that my store apparently wasn't carrying the Aquman, Teen Titans Go or Super Hero Girls Giants), but I figured it was worth outlining the contents:

Batman Giant #1

• A new story from Michael Grey & Ryan Benjamin featuring Clayface.
• A new story from Steve Orlando & Tom Mandrake featuring Batwoman.
• Batman #1 from the New 52 (Snyder & Capullo).
• Detective Comics #23.2 from the New 52 featuring Matt Kindt's brilliant Harley Quinn origin.
• Nightwing #1 from Rebirth.

The Flash Giant #1

• A new story from Gail Simone & Clayton Henry.
• A new story from Jeff Parker & Miguel Mendonca.
• The Flash #13 from the New 52 (still featuring the sweet art of Francis Manapul.
• Green Arrow: Rebirth #1.
• Blue Beetle #1 from 2006, the first of several ongoing series featuring the Jaime Reyes version of the character  Still ashamed to admit I stopped reading after this series ended.

Ghosts Giant #1

• A new story from Dan Jurgens & Scott Eaton featuring the Spectre.
• A new story from Keith Giffen & Priscilla Petraites featuring Gentleman Ghost.
• A new story from John Layman & Andy Clarke featuring John Constantine.
• Various shorts from Cursed Comics Cavalcade, DC House of Horror, DCU Halloween Special 2010, and Justice League #35.

Superman Giant #15

• The penultimate chapter of Tom King & Andy Kubert's twelve-part "Up in the Sky" series.
• Superman/Batman Annual #2.
• Beach Blanket Bad Guys, featuring Lex Luthor.
• The Terrifics Annual #1 featuring new writer Gene Luen Yang.

Swamp Thing Giant #1

• A new story from Mark Russell (!) & Marco Santucci featuring Swamp Thing.
• A new story from Andrew Constant & Tom Mandrake.
• Swamp Thing #1, the 2016 miniseries from Len Wein & Kelley Jones.
• The Hellblazer #1 from Rebirth.
• Zatanna #1, a Paul Dini miniseries from 2010.

Villains Giant #1

• A new story from Mark Russell (!) & Victor Bogdanovic featuring Batman and Joker.  Russell's involvement in these things is a further example of DC's expansion of his visibility, and a good thing, in my mind, in establishing him as a future lead writer for the company.
• A new story from Tom Taylor & Daniel Sampere featuring Deathstroke.  Taylor's profile has risen considerably thanks to DCeased, so his presence in these things is also a sign of confidence from the company.
• A new story from Gail Simone & Priscilla Petraites featuring Harley Quinn.
• Justice League #23.1 featuring the New 52 version of Darkseid's origin from Greg Pak.
• The Flash #8 from the New 52, featuring the origin of the Reverse-Flash.
• Secret Origins #10 featuring Poison Ivy.

Wonder Woman Giant #1

• A new story from Amanda Conner and Jimmy Palmiotti & Inaki Miranda featuring Wonder Woman and Harley Quinn.  (Knew Conner & Palmiotti would turn up somewhere.)
• Wonder Woman #2 from Rebirth, the Year One arc.
• Green Lantern #29, skipping the Sinestro Corps War to "Secret Origin."
• Sword of Sorcery #0 from the New 52 featuring Amethyst.

Reading Comics 220 "Spotlight Nation...and a sort of Batwedding"

Picked up one of Marvel's Free Spotlight comics with Dan Slott's Fantastic Four on the cover, with four pages from this month's relaunch.  There's been a lot of talk that Marvel took the FF off the board as a bargaining chip (seems to have worked) to get the movie rights back, dating back to Jonathan Hickman's Secret Wars, where Reed Richards and Doctor Doom had their most epic showdown to date.  Since then Johnny Storm and Ben Grimm have appeared in various team books.  And of course it's Johnny and Ben who appear in these preview pages.

There's also Gerry Duggan offering a look at Infinity Wars, which apparently will feature an Infinity Watch of heroes and villains protecting the various Infinity Gems.  Clearly calculated as an event to follow on the heels of Avengers: Infinity War at the movies.  Then there's Extermination, another X-Men event; a page detailing various Miracleman collections, including a Neil Gaiman volume called The Golden Age perhaps in the hope more material will eventually follow; various other one-and-two-page ads, including for Charles Soule's Return of Wolverine featuring the infamous new flaming claws; four pages of Cullen Bunn's Asgardians of the Galaxy, which is another cue from the movies, borrowing elements from Thor: Ragnarok; and finally four from Kelly Thompson's West Coast Avengers, which features both Hawkeyes and land sharks that do not try and pretend to be delivering things.

DC Nation #0 (DC)

Besides looks at Brian Michael Bendis's Superman and Scott Snyder's Justice League, this quarter-priced special released just before Free Comic Book Day this year featured a wicked Joker story from Tom King in anticipation of the Batwedding, in which the Clown Prince breaks into someone's home and he waits there, along with the poor guy, for an invitation.  It's as perfect a representation of Joker's twisted logic and sense of humor as I've ever seen.  A lot of fans swear by Alan Moore's Killing Joke, but I think that one speaks more to Moore's proclivities than it does Joker's.  King's Joker had a great spotlight in "War of Jokes and Riddles," in which he tries to figure out why nothing seems funny to him anymore, before realizing that Batman gives him bold new context, a challenge that will never get old.  Here he's just free to terrorize the poor guy, using his singular logic.

Batman #50 (DC)

The main event, though, the issue that promised the actual Batwedding, angered a lot of fans because the wedding...doesn't happen.  Instead, it proves an elaborate setup to the events of "I Am Bane," the earlier arc where Batman prevented Bane from attaining his Psycho-Pirate happy ending.  Holly Robinson, who has proven so crucial to King's Catwoman, turns out to be a stooge of Bane, and whispers in Catwoman's ear doubt about what a happy ending would do to Batman.  So the issue is instead really another caption character study of Batman and Catwoman's perspectives.  No one has done that sort of thing as well as King since Jeph Loeb's early Superman/Batman. 

Eternity #2, 4 (Valiant)

I went back and read #3, which I'd caught earlier, too, and that turned out to be a good idea, because it reads better in context, obviously, and is just a pleasure to read again in general.  Eternity is the fourth volume of Matt Kindt's brilliant Divinity suite, in which Kindt reimagines the idea of the omnipotent hero previously featured in Moore's Watchmen under the guise of Dr. Manhattan, this time as a Russian cosmonaut and his colleagues, one of whom became his wife and the other a foe, while he inspired a fanatic who has proven far more troublesome than he could've possibly imagined.  Eternity was pitched as beyond imagination, so its ending is apropos, the true consequences of Abram Adams's transformation far more wild than anything he discovers from the world that changed him forever.  Hopefully there's a fifth volume of this stuff.  The ending of this one certainly suggests that the story continues, anyway...

The Flash #50 (DC)

Josh Williamson continues his Rebirth buildup of previous lore by concluding the "Flash War" fight between Barry Allen and Wally West amicably and bringing back the classic Bart Allen in his classic Impulse costume.  Howard Porter's career renaissance continues, and that's great to see from a reader who well-remembers his JLA heyday.

Reading Comics 204 "Fifth Trip 2017"

American Gods #2 (Dark Horse)
Amazingly, this adaption of the Neil Gaiman book still really hasn't reached the actual concept of the story.  Although Spider does drink an amazing amount of mead, and beats up a rather tall leprechaun.

Bane: Conquest #1 (DC)
Chuck Dixon and Graham Nolan reunite and return to the chronicles of Bane.  The results may baffle readers who are less familiar with Vengeance of Bane (parts 1 & 2) and more "Knightfall," Dark Knight Rises, Tom King's recent "I Am Bane," or any manner of terrible Bane appearances over the years, but they're entirely in-character, especially, again, for the Bane of Vengeance of Bane (parts 1 & 2).  The luchadore mask Nolan gives Bane for this comic is a fun little nod to the fact that the character is, technically, Latino, even though that never seems to come up other than his base of operations and/or origins.

Batman #21 (DC)
The Flash #21 (DC)
Batman #22 (DC)
Parts 1-3 of "The Button" see Tom King and Josh Williamson collaborate on a sequel to Flashpoint (the importance of this classic story to yours truly is chronicled in the early period of this blog) that also helps set up later DC-wide storytelling first introduced by DC Universe Rebirth.  Very, very good storytelling here.

Blue Beetle #8 (DC)
Giffen/DeMatteis have apparently taken over the title as of this issue, and bring a strong Larfleeze feel to the proceedings.  I loved the original Jaime Reyes series post-Infinite Crisis, and so it's great to read his Blue Beetle again.  The big draw for the issue, however, is that the magical scarab that has granted him powers (and/or de facto Iron Man suit) all these years has been taken from him.  So he and Ted Kord (the second and most famous Blue Beetle) make a bold decision: Jaime will now, even if temporarily, revive Ted's classic costume.  Yeah!

Divinity III: Stalinverse #4 (Valiant)
Matt Kindt will be moving on to Eternity, a sequel rather than continuation to Divinity, so this is the conclusion of this particular vision.  And I think, having read it twice, he came up with a good one:

"This world you've built may be real.  But you know it is not true.  You read books when you were younger.  Just as I did.  Do you not remember?  We are similar, you and I.  We were not forced to read.  We were encouraged.  But my adoptive parents raised me.  Treated me as their own.  They gave me books.  Science fiction was my favorite.  I read everything they gave me.  It wasn't until much later that I realized what they'd really done.  My parents couldn't force me...or anyone to be good.  Just as the Soviet Union cannot.  All they could do was present me with their example.  And with stories.  With writing.  With ideas.  Through those books I learned the danger of power.  I learned of the terrible effects of violence and conflict.  Of the unending cycle of war that we should be working to break.  And I learned the importance of love and to be loved.  Earth...humanity?  They are our children, Kazmir.  They can't be forced to learn.  They must learn by example.  They must be taught with stories.  With experience.  We have the power of gods, Kazmir.  Yet you choose to live a parasitic life inside Myshka.  And you choose to obey a small-minded oligarch.  But there is an entire universe out there for you.  Worlds to see.  Galaxies to explore.  Just like in the books we read when we were younger.  I am sorry for what happened to us out there...in the unknown.  I am sorry I did not bring you back when I returned.  And I am sorry that Myshka broke your heart.  I understand why you came back for revenge.  What I don't understand is why wouldn't you stay out there?  Why wouldn't you go further?  Why wouldn't you want to see more?  Our conflict will have a winner and a loser.  That is the nature of the game.  But why should we confine ourselves to the game?  Ti these pieces?  To this artificial boundary?  To Earth?  When there is the unknown all around us?  Waiting to be explored?  I tell you all of this, Kazmir, not to "win."  But to set you free."

That's the best argument an hero has probably ever made to their enemy, in a comic book.  It's an argument that can only be made in a comic book, I think.  It's a perfect synopsis of superhero logic, as has Divinity been from the start.  I don't know why Divinity hasn't become more important among comic book readers.  It's the Watchmen of intellectual superhero storytelling.  It's surely one of the most fascinating comics I've ever read.  Every issue has someone involved in creating the issue provide commentary.  Most of it is somewhat hugely overblown praise. Most of it seems to miss the point.  It's not just how it's executed that makes Divinity great, but its ideas.  I'm hugely glad to have read along.  And to see where Kindt goes next.

Planet of the Apes/Green Lantern #3 (Boom!/DC)
This latest mash-up is about as good as Green Lantern/Star Trek (which is to say, good), but it's the art I came to see.  Omega Men's Barnaby Bagenda, to be precise.  That guy deserves to reach the stratosphere, like his collaborator, Tom King.  Hopefully it'll happen at some point.

Green Lanterns #22 (DC)
The adventures of upstarts Simon Baz and Jessica Cruz have now reached the stage where they're actively interacting with the rest of the Green Lantern Corps.  Continues to be what I've long hoped to read in a Green Lantern comic again.

Nightwing #19, 20 (DC)
Well, hot damn.  Tim Seeley has turned Nightwing into a must-read after all.  Nightwing has been so hit-and-miss since the Dixon/Grayson years, a lot of creators coming in hot and then sort of sputtering out.  This includes Grayson, Seeley and Tom King's bold revision that saw Nightwing become a spy for a couple years.  But to take Nightwing away from Dick Grayson is to take away the essential part of the character, no matter how intriguing the results.  Too many of these writers have tried to forget this or that element of the character.  Seeley seems to have built not only on the Grayson momentum, but folded Dick's Batman and Robin days back into his adventures.  "Nightwing Must Die" is a Dr. Hurt story (the whole thing plays nicely with Batman and Robin, Grant Morrison memories), but it remembers that Dick's whole history is what defines him, perhaps more than any other superhero.  Possibly the two best issues of Nightwing I've ever read (Grayson: Futures End notwithstanding).

Savage Dragon #223 (Image)
If you were to read, in 2017, only one comic book series in its entirety to figure out what superheroes are all about, I think Savage Dragon would have to be that series.  Erik Larsen is the Image creator who never gave up on the original vision of the company, who never decided to pursue other interests at the expense of the creative freedom and opportunity his vision gave him.  The letters column is almost more important than the comic itself this time:

"Change is inevitable and being more stuck in the past is no solution. Styles change, people change. You loved that old stuff because you were 12 and that was your sweet spot. You may not want change but I crave it. Doing the same drawings the same way for decades is mind-numbingly monotonous. I love nothing more than finding new ways of tackling a similar problem. I look at the older issues and see all the mistakes. I see all the poor drawings and attempts to hide my deficiencies behind a wall of crosshatching and it doesn't do much for me. The lines aren't defining shapes and establishing light sources. They're lines for the sake of lines. Emulating that seems insane. 

Strong iconic poses are great, sure, but ultimately, I'm trying to tell a story here, not compose pictures to be popped onto T-shirts and lunchboxes. And given the choice of repeating a familiar shot or finding something new--nine times out of ten I'll go with the new.

It's not an easy path. Some artists get stuck in a rut, forever repeating and emulating their old work. Readers get bored and move on. Others keep trying new and different approaches but that can alienate old readers who liked the way things had been. There's no simple solution, clearly, but in order to preserve my sanity, I need to keep moving. If I'm not kept engaged, I can't expect my audience to be. If I'm bored, it's reflected in the work. So I tend to try something new. Sometimes it's successful and sometimes it's not, but hopefully it's worth your attention. 

And honestly, it's important to unlearn what you've learned. A lot of what made earlier work vibrant and full of life was the learning process. I was figuring stuff out. And part of that involved screwing up. I can look back at old art and see where arms were clearly too long or faces were constructed poorly, where compositions and anatomy and perspective are all skewed and line work makes no sense. It's hard to recreate that--and why would I want to? It would be like going back to high school."

To my mind, it reads like Larsen becoming the Bill Watterson of comic books.

Superman #22 (DC)
I really need to read more of this run.

Old Man Logan #22 (Marvel)
Jeff Lemire continues his concluding run with Wolverine exploring the character's fictional past, brilliantly, literally revisiting famous stories (at one point his origin in the pages of a Hulk comic, complete with the original dialogue).  If anyone had to tell Old Man Logan stories as a surrogate to actual Wolverine stories, I'm glad it was Lemire.  He proves why it was such a good idea all over again.

Quarter Bin 101 "The Grievous Journey of Ichabod Azrael and other finds"

Black Knight #2, 3, 5 (Marvel)
(from 2016)
Frank Tieri is one of those comics professional I linked up with on social media before really knowing much about them much less having actually seen their material.  That's pretty much social media in a nutshell, I think.  Anyway, so this is the first time I've read his work, and I like it.  Black Knight is one of those fascinating characters that've just never really gotten their due.  Here his Ebony Blade is like a demonic Excalibur.  Seems to have spun out of Secret Wars.

Bloodshot Reborn #1 (Valiant)
(from 2015)
Although I'd read subsequent issues and the preceding inciting event in The Valiant, I hadn't read how the series began.  Explains all over again why I love Jeff Lemire's work with the character.  I wish more readers were aware of the truly stellar work Valiant has been doing with some of its material.

The Grievous Journey of Ichabod Azrael (and the Dead Left in His Wake) #2, 3, 4 (2000 AD)
(from 2015)
Reprinting material previously serialized in 2000 AD itself, this mini-series is like a secret origin of Rob Williams' later Martian Manhunter.  It's brilliant.  I found out that you probably shouldn't try reading it if you're struggling to stay awake, because it's printed small and your instinct will be to give up on it.  But it's a great find, it really is. 

Klaus and the Witch of Winter (Boom!)
(from 2016)
Unlike the other comics here, this one was bought at retail and not out of an actual quarter bin (Newbury stuck little orange tags on all of them, which I still haven't tried to remove), so it doesn't really belong, but I got it on the same day, so...Anyway, this was a follow-up to Grant Morrison's Santa Claus origin story, the first of a proposed yearly one-shot return engagement with the concept. Morrison exhibits his typically explosive imagination in ways that he hasn't since Joe the Barbarian.  Which suddenly puts Klaus into a new context, actually.

Letter 44 #13, 15, 16,17 (Oni)
(from 2015)
Charles Soule's vision of complicated alien contact is something I've been reading sporadically the last few years, really only when I get a chance at my semiannual trips to the Maine Mall, where Newbury Comics is (I previously had regular access to a different Newbury location in Burlington, which was where I discovered another Oni series, Wasteland, along with a lot of other good stuff, including my first Free Comic Book Day, which I'll remind you is coming up on the first Saturday in May).  Honestly, if I had regular access to Letter 44, I'd be reading it regularly.  Soule has come up with something that's kind of Arrival meets George W. Bush. 

Ninjak #2 (Valiant)
(from 2015)
Having just read the most recent issue of the series, I know that the stuff that happens in this second one continues to develop over the next two years.  Matt Kindt at this point is very much channeling his Mind MGMT, which at the time was still unfolding.  And just like that I have another Valiant series I want to read in its entirety...

Reading Comics 203 "Fourth Trip 2017"

Grant Morrison's 18 Days #20 (Graphic India)
I love to keep tabs on it.  Would love to read the whole thing sometime.

Atomic Robo: The Temple of Od #4 (IDW) (2016)
Still an absolute pleasure to read.

Avatarex #3 (Graphic India)
This was the best issue of Grant Morrison's other Graphic India project to date.  Issues seem to be released sporadically.

Batman #20 (DC)
Best issue of Tom King's run so far, ties a lot of stuff together, including some further personal reflections he'd hadn't gotten to yet.

DK III: The Master Race #8 (DC)
Can't help but feel as if Frank Miller envisioned this as a career statement, his current role and how he remains as relevant as Batman.  Also, the Amazons are truly Amazonian basically for the first time ever.  Wonder Woman has really joined the trilogy.

The Fall and Rise of Captain Atom #4 (DC)
To say that Captain Atom has had an interesting publishing history would be an understatement.  Cary Bates returns from the past, too, to co-write a thoroughly considered story.

Green Lanterns #20 (DC)
Checking in.  Still loving it.  Still am hugely pleased that someone is finally getting Green Lantern(s) right again.

Ninjak #25 (Valiant)
Here's a character who always seems so important when I see him in other Valiant titles.  Despite the fact that Matt Kindt has been writing his solo adventures, I hadn't read them until now.  A mistake.

Providence #12 (Avatar)
The conclusion of Alan Moore's latest comics vision, an ode to Lovecraft and those obsessed with him.

WrestleMania 2017 Special (Boom!)
The recent Boom! launch of WWE comics has placed an emphasis on retelling stories originally presented in WWE programming itself.  There's a good bit of that to be found here, and it's done excellently.  Plus the New Day!

Superman #7, 20 (DC)
I had a look at an older issue because I'd heard Tomasi/Gleason were up to their old tricks of telling personal, standalone stories again.  I thought it was drawn by Gleason, too, but it turns out to have been Jorge Jimenez, who is typically excellent.  The latter issue is also the newest one, and once again features guest-stars from Tomasi/Gleason's last project, Batman and Robin.  You guessed it, Batcow and, ah who am I kidding?  Tomasi/Gleason continue to be master storytellers.

Old Man Logan #20 (Marvel)
Jeff Lemire will be taking a trip down memory line in his final issues, and this one's the setup.  A good one.

Reading Comics 202 "Third LCS Visit 2017"

American Gods #1 (Dark Horse)
An adaptation of Neil Gaiman's novel, which is soon to be debuted in another adaptation, for television.  I haven't read the book in years, but I liked it quite a lot.  Still, reading some of it in comics form makes me realize it really has been years, so I may have to reread it.

Batman #19 (DC)
Tom King sets up an epic clash between Bane and Batman.  He continues to write sensationally.

Divinity III: Stalinverse #3 (Valiant)
Matt Kindt likewise continues to write sensationally.

The Amazing Spider-Man #25 (Marvel)
Dan Slott's epic run continues, this time with Norman Osborn.  I actually picked this up because Stuart Immonen begins his run (he's done Peter Parker before in the pages of Ultimate Spider-Man) with the issue.  Thankfully he retains his return to streamlined work previously seen in Empress and other recent work.  Actually, the most notable thing about the issue is Slott introducing...the Superior Octopus.  Which is really, really awesome.

Star Trek: Waypoint #4 (IDW)
The first Enterprise-focused comic ever!  Phlox was featured in a doctors confab a few years ago, but this is the first time the fifth live action series has gotten its own comics adaptation.  The writer somewhat flubs the opportunity, but still rightfully puts Porthos in the spotlight.  It's always about Porthos!

Superman #19 (DC)
Action Comics #976 (DC)
Peter Tomasi and Patrick Gleason are their usual sensational selves in the first issue, while Dan Jurgens continues to struggle to adapt to modern storytelling in the second.  But I like the "Reborn" concept and how Mxyzptlk was revealed to be behind the Clark Kent mystery, and how Jurgens gets to unique disparate continuities in the conclusion, which feels right regardless of my other qualms.

X-O Manowar #1 (Valiant)
Matt Kindt again, in this quasi-reboot of the franchise, completely nailing it.  Might be viewed as the Dark Knight Returns/"Old Man Logan" for comics' most famous Visigoth.

Reading Comics #200 "First LCS Visit of 2017"

Batman #14-15 (DC)
This two-issue interlude features Tom King working alongside signature collaborator Mitch Gerads (Sheriff of Babylon) exploring King's vision of the Batman/Catwoman dynamic.

Divinity III: Stalinverse #2 (Valiant)
Divinity III: Aric - Son of the Revolution #1 (Valiant)
Divinity III: Komandar Bloodshot #1 (Valiant)
Divinity III: Shadowman and the Battle of New Stalingrad #1 (Valiant)
Matt Kindt's epic vision continues, this time in full-on event form with multiple writers participating in spin-off one-shots.  Love the debut and concept of Red Legend, as well as where Kazmir, the third cosmonaut, has been all this time.

The Flintsones #3, 5, 8 (DC)
Figured I'd check out this Mark Russell (Prez) interpretation of the classic cartoon.  I learned more about his creative vision, certainly.

Justice League of America: Rebirth #1 (DC)
Steve Orlando has officially joined the ranks of elite writers at DC.  Love his Lobo, which is the classic one and not the much-derided New 52 version.

Kamandi Challenge #1 (DC)
Dan DiDio (can't believe I hadn't created a tag for the guy until now) and Dan Abnett help launch this latest ode to Jack Kirby with his Last Boy on Earth, which is a concept as set up by DiDio could really be a great story well before he ever learns the truth. 

Star Trek #57 (IDW) (2016)
Star Trek: Waypoint #3 (IDW)
The first issue features the third of four installments from an ode to Spock's legacy as a tribute to the late Leonard Nimoy.  The second features Voyager and Deep Space Nine stories that I found pretty insightful.

Superman #11, 14 (DC)
Pete Tomasi and Patrick Gleason set up Super Sons with the first issue and begin "Multiplicity," which is a direct ode to Grant Morrison's Multiversity, with the second.

X-O Manowar #50 (Valiant) (2016)
I was never particularly a fan of this Valiant rebirth title, but I figured I'd have a look at the final issue.  Most notable are the bonus stories from Fred Van Lente and Matt Kindt, whose effort gives a brief preview of his upcoming relaunch.  I hadn't really considered until this issue that the character is pretty similar to Alpha Centurion. 

Reading Comics 196 "DC Rebirth Week Eight, Divinity II, Moon Knight"

Covered this edition: Detective Comics #937, Divinity II #4, The Flash #3, Moon Knight #4, Nightwing #1, Red Hood and the Outlaws: Rebirth #1, Action Comics #960, Titans #1, and Wonder Woman #3.

Detective Comics #937 (DC)
Batman escapes from the custody of the bad guys this issue, which features the return of Ulysses Hadrian Armstrong (I remember him fondly from the pages of '90s Robin), who is a little criminal genius in the making.  As this is the bulk of the issue, it's a slam dunk of a sequence.

Divinity II #4 (Valiant)
The final issue of this particular story in the saga (an ad promises Divinity III this December, as does some quick foreshadowing) is a remarkable conclusion to Abram Adams' war with Myshka in which he's able to connect with his fellow cosmonaut-turned-god on a strangely human level.  Matt Kindst's work with Divinity remains some of the best stuff being published today.

The Flash #3 (DC)
I can't even begin to describe how happy I continue to be about this relaunch.  I haven't been (with all due apologies to Geoff Johns) been this interested in a Flash comic since Mark Waid's prime.  The cleverness just doesn't stop.  One would think Central City being flooded with new speedsters would diminish the role of Barry Allen as a significant figure, other than as budding mentor (can you say Max Mercury?), but then his new sidekick August Heart says something brilliant like, "Do you know how fast you were going?" 

Moon Knight #4 (Marvel)
Jeff Lemire continues to knock this one out of the park.  (If chosen carefully, the things you enjoy shouldn't be so difficult to enjoy.)  I decided to catch up with this weeks-old issue, and damn if this isn't one of my favorite comics in recent years.  It's really that good.

Nightwing #1 (DC)
This is a strong follow-up to the Rebirth one-shot, in which Nightwing repositions himself as a mole in the Parliament of Owls and then meets Raptor, the latest dude who thinks Dick Grayson can't hack it on his own.

Red Hood and the Outlaws: Rebirth #1 (DC)
This is Scott Lobdell's restating of the Jason Todd biography, although this time he makes the point that Jason is uniquely suited to appear like he's the compromised Batman, which is interesting.  I know Frank Miller probably has conniptions every time a comic book suggests Boy Wonders aren't destined to become lunatics, but I don't have a problem with it.

Action Comics #960 (DC)
Wonder Woman enters the fight, but other than getting some readers up to date about Doomsday's origins, nothing much significant happens this issue.

Titans #1 (DC)
This fairly Wally West-centric issue also features Linda Park.  Hey, I can't argue with that.  Dan Abnett lets other Titans in on the act, notably Lilith, who's one of the more obscure members of this family, before shockingly revealing that Abra Kadabra is claiming responsibility for Wally's disappearance.

Wonder Woman #3 (DC)
Greg Rucka does a pretty powerful study of Cheetah, one of Wonder Woman's most famous foes, who probably comes off better in this one issue than she has in all her other collective appearances combined.

Reading Comics 191 "DC Rebirth Week Four, Divinity II, Totally Awesome Hulk, Justice League, Robin"

Covered this edition: Divinity II #3, The Flash #1, The Totally Awesome Hulk #7, Justice League #52, Robin: Son of Batman #13, Action Comics #958, and Wonder Woman #1.

Divinity II #3 (Valiant)
Matt Kindt continues the second volume of his visionary superhero saga, in which Russian cosmonauts Abram Adams and Myshka engage in the ultimate duel, across time and reality, as they attempt to determine whose will triumphs in this high-stakes game of god-like beings.  For the second straight issue, it seems the villainous Myshka has once again come out on top, but there's a telling moment when Abram visits the young Myshka, years before the mission that was to change their lives and the whole world, and whispers something into her ear.  Abram has taken great pains in explaining to the adult Myshka that you can't change the past. The suggestion is that whatever he said to the girl is more crucial than the adult currently realizes.  I assume something of that sort will be involved in the conclusion next issue...

The Flash #1 (DC)
My name is Tony Laplume, and I am the happiest Flash fan alive.  Well, maybe one of them, because this debut issue of the series proper lives up to the promise of the Rebirth preview, as Josh Williamson sets up a bold new arc in which the gift of the Speed Force starts spreading around.  Williamson's best bit of storytelling is actually the whole issue, which starts out explaining Barry Allen's origin again, while inserting a key new player, who by the end of the issue is the first (there will be others) to experience the expansion of speedsters.  This series is in excellent hands.

The Totally Awesome Hulk #7 (Marvel)
Easiest some of the best Marvel comics I ever read were Incredible Hercules and its several continuations, which featured Amadeus Cho as the Hulk's (and yes, Herc's) biggest fan.  This shouldn't have worked, right?  In the modern era, the "kid sidekick" idea is passe, but Cho's enthusiasm, not to mention his smarts, puts him in a league all his own.  And in this era where every Marvel superhero is being replaced by their biggest cheerleader (of various extractions), this is the best variation possible.  But the issue actually puts the focus on Bruce Banner, who is totally free of the Hulk for the first time ever, and he's struggling to deal with it.  You'd think it would be a good thing, but when you're Bruce Banner, it's much more complicated than that.  If you like your Hulk to be good for something other than smashing (although that's good, too), then this is a good time to be a fan.  Spearheading this new era is Greg Pak, who knows a thing or two about the big green guy.

Justice League #52 (DC)
The final issue of the series strangely harkens back to the very beginning, as a new hero is introduced to the world.  This time it's Lex Luthor, presenting his version of Superman.  The writer is Dan Jurgens, providing a bridge between where Geoff Johns left off with Luthor and where Jurgens picks up again in the pages of Action Comics.  Lex Luthor was one of the characters who benefited greatly from the New 52, and Justice League.  It's only appropriate to give him the nod like this.  What I love perhaps even more is that the artist is Tom Grummett, making this a mini '90s Superman reunion. 

Robin: Son of Batman #13 (DC)
The final issue of the series, which I decided to read so I could say I was fair to the creators not named Patrick Gleason who worked on it.  (Okay, so technically it would have been more fair to read more than one issue, but still...)  As it turns out, Ray Fawkes is once again better than I seem to have given him credit for, as his version of Damian and friends fits in wonderfully with Gleason's, and even serves as a truly fitting finale.  Nice one, Fawkes.  I'll try to remember next time.

Action Comics #958 (DC)
Jurgens, Lex Luthor, and Superman, and Doomsday, and Clark Kent, oh my!  Clearly there are things going on that aren't quite what they seem, but I love, love, love that Jurgens is getting the chance to further expand on his Superman legacy, which admittedly he's had many chances to do over the years.  I think he's really nailed it this time.

Wonder Woman #1 (DC)
I thought Greg Rucka would be fixating somewhat exclusively on Wonder Woman's origins, despite the alternating storylines ahead, but this issue presents a wrinkle in that idea, as the end of the issue reveals that she's been locked out of Themyscira, and she's had to turn to Cheetah, of all people, for help.  I also like Rucka's characterization of Wonder Woman's reluctance to fight, and Steve Trevor's reclassification back into a military guy.  All around good stuff here.

Reading Comics 190 "DC Rebirth Week 3, 4001 AD, DKR: The Last Crusade, Dept. H, and catching up with Secret Wars"

4001 AD #1 (Valiant)
Valiant's latest event series takes a look at the future courtesy of the ever-resourceful Matt Kindt, imagining the tyranny of New Japan and the rise of a new Rai to challenge it.  Once again Valiant has proven that its unique superhero vision, the first comprehensive ongoing revision of the 21st century, has incredible legs, where just about anything's possible, and it nearly always seems completely plausible, not to mention remarkably cohesive.  It's not like others haven't tried, but it helps to have talent like Kindt and Jeff Lemire leading the charge.

Batman #1 (DC)
Tom King's first regular issue of the series once again demonstrates his remarkably analytical mind, as Batman and Duke Thomas pull back the curtain on what it takes to pull off the impossible.  Of course, it's also Batman doing so at the expense of his own life, in yet another layer of King showing that Batman isn't like other superheroes.  When an out-of-control plane threatens to crash in Gotham City, he can't just fly in and guide it safely down.  No, for someone like Batman, it takes considerably more effort.  If this were the movies, you might expect something like this from the show-stopping exploits in the Mission: Impossible series.  Few writers would be bold enough to expose Batman's limits in this way.  King is merely setting himself up for that moment you though you'd never see: some other hero calling Gotham his home, someone who can fly, who represents everything Batman can never be.  This ain't no Superman.  Is King preparing to White Martian us?  Time will tell...

The Dark Knight Returns: The Last Crusade (DC)
This prequel to the original Dark Knight Returns depicts the circumstances in which Batman originally retires.  It's in effect his last statement on Robin, the Boy Wonder, too.  In the Dark Knight universe, Frank Miller offered up his judgment quite effectively: Dick Grayson goes insane.  Yet there was also, before "A Death in the Family," a dead Robin to account for.  The Last Crusade is a rephrasing of "A Death in the Family," actually, the Joker once again being responsible for the death of Jason Todd, under the same circumstances, the second Robin increasingly demonstrating that he isn't mentally prepared for Batman's crusade.  And yet, unlike "A Death in the Family" and its follow-up, "A Lonely Place of Dying," Miller (along with co-writer Brian Azzarello, around so Miller can't go wildly out of control again) has determined that the problem isn't Jason's attitude, but Batman's notion of having a kid sidekick in the first place.

This was what he was getting around to explaining in All Star Batman and Robin, the Boy Wonder, I think, and as I'd hoped, The Last Crusade is the finishing statement we'll probably never get from the earlier project.  All Star Batman became a joke among readers for its brutish portrayal of the Dark Knight, a true maniac who was difficult to root for, in a story featuring Dick Grayson's initiation into crime-fighting.  Miller never conceded that it was a good thing.  Comics fans never really picked up on that, and they probably still won't with The Last Crusade, even though by this point his conclusions are unmistakable.  The Batman of this story is aging, and his body is fast betraying him.  He reveals that he hoped Robin would prove to be his successor.  On the second try, he's proven brutally wrong.  You can only duplicate so much of what created Batman. 

It's an incredibly bold statement.  I think the whole concept of the Dark Knight stories is creating a reality where Batman exists in a finite world, where he can't escape consequences.  This can never exist in the ongoing comics, because fans will always clamor to see old favorites return, and creators will always be there to help them in that goal.  In Miller's reckoning, Batman is human, and as such is completely fallible, and bad things happen as a result of his actions, whether to himself, to those around him, or in the world around him, not because of anything he does, but because that's just a fact of life. 

As a summation, The Last Crusade may be the most crucial element of the most important Batman story ever told.

Dept. H #2 (Dark Horse)
Matt Kindt again, in his creative follow-up to Mind MGMT, his innovative look at the spy world.  Dept. H seems to be an unrelated story, but Kindt is once again handling writing and art chores, so the look is the same, and so is the storytelling.  In this second issue, someone has died, and someone else, burdened with a perfect memory, realizes that it could only have been murder.  Clearly, Kindt continues to have the mind on the mind, and this continues to be a good thing.

Green Arrow #1 (DC)
I tended to skip Green Arrow in the New 52, but figured I'd give the guy another shot in the Rebirth era.  Not only is Black Canary back in the picture, but so is Oliver Queen's moral compass.  At his best, Green Arrow will always be the Batman whose inner Bruce Wayne dominates his goals more than his crime-fighting.  This is one of those rich guy characters whose transformation into a superhero made him socially conscious for the first time in his life.  This issue does a good job of bringing that back into focus.

Green Lanterns #1 (DC)
Jessica Cruz and Simon Baz don't play well together.  They have conflicting mindsets, and as rookies, they both have plenty to prove.  That rounds out to good Green Lantern storytelling, as we learn more of what makes Baz stand out (we now have him deemed the bearer of Emerald Sight), which is an important distinction for all these human Green Lanterns, as the new Red Lantern threat continues to unfold.  I'm so glad DC is letting this franchise return to its recent Geoff Johns roots.

Secret Wars #9 (Marvel)
Flashing back to the last Marvel event, and its ending, we find Jonathan Hickman closing out the book on his Fantastic Four adventures, imagining the last conflict between Dr. Doom and Reed Richards.  Doom had found himself in possession of ultimate power, and decides Richards is, once and for all, jealous of him, because he could never do as good as Doom.  Someone decides to put that to the test, and so the Marvel landscape is reshaped (to its current state), and Richards retires from the superhero game to act as a kind of gatekeeper (thus allowing Marvel to remove the Fantastic Four from its lineup).  Hickman was always a big game hunter, and I guess it was appropriate that he wound up telling the biggest Fantastic Four story ever, so we'd see what that finally looked like. 

Superman #1 (DC)
Tomasi and Gleason reprise their Batman and Robin act, this time on the grand stage.  Once again, a DC icon has a son struggling with his place in the world, and once again, Tomasi and Gleason are ready to knock it out of the park.  I couldn't be happier for them.  The story starts out pretty heavily focused on Superman, but then we meet his son Jonathan, who is struggling with his new powers.  This was something Tomasi and Gleason touched on in Batman and Robin, when Damian briefly gained superpowers in the wake of his resurrection.  It's one thing to have an indomitable youth on your hands.  It's another when it's Superman's son.  All these years, whenever someone wanted to tell a story about the young Superman, it was always the exception, and then more often than not something glossed over until he hit puberty and, in some continuities, became Superboy.  This is the first time we'll see it play out in an ongoing capacity.  Framed as Superman's son, this is an intriguing opportunity, and again, Tomasi and Gleason are well up to the task.  They know when they need to provide dialogue, and when the story speaks for itself.  Anyway, I'm hugely, hugely glad this is happening, no matter how long it lasts.

Titans: Rebirth #1 (DC)
The return of Wally West continues, as he reconnects with his oldest friends, the original Teen Titans, in a series of encounters that prove all over again how personal these DC stories are to these characters, and how they can connect on an emotional level with fans, too. 

Divinity II #2 (Valiant)

When I saw, in Valiant's 2016 Free Comic Book Day release, the direction Matt Kindt planned to take with the next installment of Divinity, I knew instantly that this was a concept with legs.  Now that I've had a look at Divinity II, I know I was right.

Divinity was the story of Russian cosmonaut Abram Adams, who was sent on an extraordinary mission at the dawn of the Space Race, and returned in the present day a changed man, to say the least.  He became a superman.  In a lot of ways, he was transformed into Dr. Manhattan, imbued with powers that put him far beyond mortal man, able to manipulate reality on a whim.  Thankfully, he was fully benevolent, although Valiant's heroes weren't comfortable making that judgment, so they ended up trapping him in a prison of his own memories.

DC has made that same kind of conclusion with Captain Atom, who in recent years has become more and more like Alan Moore's Watchmen vision of him, Dr. Manhattan, so that in itself was not a breakthrough.  It's Kindt's storytelling, which keeps a human focus the whole time, Abram's focus on his tragedy, the family he left behind and couldn't, except in his unique prison, return to, that grounds it, makes it something new.

In the sequel, Kindt returns to the beginning and revisits Abram's colleagues, two other cosmonauts marooned at the edge of mystery same as him, but who didn't return.  Until now.  One of them, anyway, Myshka, whose arc is defined by the perceived abandonment by Abram.  Her return is a savage confrontation with Abram, who reveals to his would-be captors that he was willingly imprisoning himself all along...

It's this clash of perspectives that has made Divinity so great, Kindt's exceptional ability to navigate the conflicts that ensue, that's at the heart of all great storytelling.  If Divinity is a Watchmen story (which is not how you have to read it), then it's another way of viewing how things would look different, from a different perspective.  Which is kind of the point.

Divinity continues to be a must-read, and the best thing Valiant has published.

Reading Comics 186 "Free Comic Book Day 2016"

So, Saturday was National Comic Book Geek Day, otherwise known as Free Comic Book Day, which to further clarify (because every time I bring up to my sisters, they assume you can pick up just any comic for free), is when pretty much every publisher puts out a special release that's absolutely free.  It's the best comics advertising of the year, and what they provide often gives you keen insight to what they consider important.

Take DC, for instance.  This year they published a special reprint edition of Suicide Squad, somewhat obviously because the next DC movie is...Suicide Squad.  But more importantly, because DC's next big event is DC Rebirth...which is just around the corner, and the big reveals are waiting to be discovered in Justice League #50 and DC Rebirth Special.  So this year there wasn't really much point in doing something other than what it did for the freebie.  The company has brownie points to earn for its next movie, because no one actually thought Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice was as cool as DC did, and Deadpool looked like it just created a revolution earlier this year, and so yeah, the somewhat tonally-similar Suicide Squad looks like a pretty good horse to back.

But enough about that.  But a little more about movies!  Because after visiting my local haunt, I went and saw Captain America: Civil War.  It was a pretty good movie, all told.  It's my favorite Avengers movie, somewhat easily, I might add.  Although plot-wise it's full of holes (about as many as people tried really hard to see in Batman v Superman), it does the Marvel method better than any other in that franchise to date.  So that's pretty cool.

Getting back to the comics, my local haunt put a three-book maximum, and so I had to be pretty careful.  The first choice was really obvious, and so that left two.  I'll walk you through my thought process:

Avatarex FCBD Special Preview (Graphic India)
This is Grant Morrison.  You know Grant Morrison, right?  Chances are, if you've read this blog at all, you'll catch a hint that he's one of my favorite comic book writers.  So this was the gimme.  Avatarex is something I first learned about last year, but it was a pretty exclusive affair in 2015, being available only through a special online bundle (I assume it was digital, but Graphic India did not go out of its way to make this easy to decipher).  Once I'd read this preview, I found out what Avatarex is all about.  Basically, it's Morrison's modern 18 Days, featuring Superman as depicted in Man of Steel and Batman v Superman.  The whole thought process is very clearly spelled out in the preview.  Also included in the preview is an excerpt from 18 Days, which is a project I've wandered from recently but fully intend to read completely at some point, because it's fascinating.  This is the primordial superhero epic, the Crisis in Ancient India, as it were.  Morrison himself isn't writing the complete story, which is part of the reason I've found it easy to stray, but it's such powerful stuff, a vision Graphic India would really have needed to screw up.  And thankfully, from everything I've read to date, the company really hasn't.  Which is really good.  It's also good that we're getting a writer of Morrison's caliber presenting comics from a totally different landscape than we're used to.  And bringing his A-game...

Civil War II FCBD (Marvel)
Brian Michael Bendis and Jim Cheung present this preview of the upcoming sequel (-ish thing).  In terms of what they present here, I'm glad I read, and relished, Charles Soule's Secret Wars effort, because as of this material, I have no idea what the fight will be about.  This is more like random material they tossed in (which is kind of how most of Captain America: Civil War plays out, but again, I say that out of admiration, because eventually, weird logic ensues), including completely downplaying Thanos.  (Somewhere along the way, I have to assume someone making the movies decided Thanos wasn't as important to the overall arc as Joss Whedon suggested, because he's been almost completely insignificant, even in Guardians of the Galaxy.)  Unlike the reprint synergy DC brought to FCBD this year, Marvel's just reads cynically.  Which is weird, because Bendis is literally one of the chief sources of inspiration that brought about the hugely successful movies, and his work subsequently just looks like afterthought.  Even weirder, the special also slips in a random All-New, All-Different Avengers excerpt, which is Mark Waid literally riffing on last year's Ant-Man.  I just don't get it.  Here's Marvel doing exactly what DC usually does, and ending up looking like it wasted the whole thing.  But at least it reminds everyone that Marvel's got comics, too...

Valiant 4001 A.D. FCBD Special (Valiant)
This is a company I've grown quite fond of in the last year.  I haven't been reading a lot of it lately, but it made for an easy selection, because there are various previews of upcoming projects, including the titular latest crossover event and Divinity II, both from writer Matt Kindt, who is easily the company's greatest steal, if nothing else than for his Divinity.  The second volume of this saga looks just as fascinating as the first, with Kindt pulling back the curtain a little and having a look at the two cosmonauts left behind last time and maybe more about what's really going on.  I look forward to reading more of that.

And finally, I was also to slip into another shop later in the day.  Predictably, the pickings were slim, but I came away with:

Camp Midnight FCBD Special (Image)
In the spirit of Lumberjanes (which is a huge buzz book I've sampled thanks to comiXology), Camp Midnight is a young readers adventure set in summer camp.  The writer is Steven S. Seagle, whom I'd shockingly not yet made a label here, despite his rather formative accomplishments (including the seminal if sparsely-referenced It's a Bird... Superman graphic novel).  He's part of the creative group behind Ben 10 and Big Hero 6.  And his writing chops are in evidence here, which is an excerpt from a graphic novel.  A lot of times, material aimed at younger readers tries to be too clever, so that it ore represents Adult Swim-inspired material like Archer, or the caffeine-inspired cartoons that kids have today.  Seagle wisely backs off from that approach, but still maintains an edge.  Glad I had a second chance to catch a look.

It's also worth talking a little about the character of FCBD as I experienced it this year, in Virginia.  My last two experiences were in Maine, and waiting in line there was a little like experiencing riffraff congregating (plus some Stormtrooper cosplay).  This year I had a better sense of the comic book fans who saw this as a special occasion.  I got to overhear, and participate, in some of the better chatter I've heard at a comic book store.  These places can sometimes be a wretched hive of scum and villainy (it's no wonder geeks largely define the dialogue of the Internet), so it was nice to experience something better for a change. 

On the whole, it was a pretty good day.

Countdown to QB50 2015: August

18 Days #2 (Graphic India)

• Notable creators: Grant Morrison (writer)
• This second issue jumps into the narrative of the superwar and features a show of respect from the good guys to the bad guys, some of whom turn out to be pretty okay, too.
• Definitely a welcome issue for the project.

ARCHIE #1 (Archie)

• Notable creators: Mark Waid (writer), Fiona Staples (artist)
• I saw that my local shop had it available, so I decided to have a look at this Archie reboot.  The second issue was available at the time.  In hindsight I probably should have just gotten both.
• Waid continues to look better than I've seen in him in years, after this and Strange Fruit.
• Staples (Saga) somehow manages to charm without all the gross-out elements.  Imagine that!

BATMAN #43 (DC)

• Notable creators: Scott Snyder (writer)
• Commissioner Batman (I had another name the last time I talked about it, but I think I like this one better) continues.
• In much more interesting news, Superman stops by, and Alfred discusses how Bruce Wayne came back, and the unlikelihood, at this point, of resuming the crusade.
• Pivotal issue.  Has nothing much to do with Commissioner Batman.

ROBIN: SON OF BATMAN #3 (DC)

• Notable creators: Patrick Gleason (writer/artist)
• Damian's girlfriend, Nobody's daughter Maya, continues to prove to be excellent company for the errant Boy Wonder.
• Talia returns from the dead.
• Deathstroke shows up.
• Seriously, could this series be any better?

BLOODSHOT REBORN #5 (Valiant)

• Notable creators: Jeff Lemire (writer)
• Bloodsquirt, Bloodshot's irritating figment of nanite imagination, surprisingly does an excellent job of moving the story along.
• Like Wolverine before him, Bloodshot has a mysterious past.  This issue he allows someone to read the file that explains who he used to be.  Decides he doesn't want to know what it says.
• Marvel never did figure out how to make Wolverine's past life as interesting as his post-Weapon X days.  This is probably a good decision.

CIVIL WAR #2, 3 (Marvel)

• Notable creators: Charles Soule (writer), Leinil Francis Yu (artist)
• I stand by the assertion I made previously that out of all the Secret Wars spin-offs/extensions of past arcs, Soule's Civil War is arguably the most significant.
• Yes, the war continued.  No Captain America did not end up assassinated.  Yes, Spider-Man still has problems stemming from his decisions.  Infiltration is the name of the game on both sides,  
• Then we discover a true game-changer, the presence of a character who did not previously make a Civil War impact: Black Panther.

Between Civil War and Star Wars: Lando, Soule was one of the August standouts, easily.  That was four solid issues from both series for Soule.  I used to dread his Marvel contract.  Now I am really, really happy.  He's doing excellent, relevant, subtle work with both series, and as far as I'm concerned significantly raised his profile.  He's poised to become a major force.

DARK HORSE PRESENTS #13 (Dark Horse)

• Notable creators: Jerry Ordway (artist), Craig Rousseau (artist)
• This anthology title offers a number of stories, including the start of a new chapter in Ordway and Alex de Campi's Semiautomagic.
• My main interest, however, was for Rousseau and Rick Woodall's Kyrra: Alien Jungle Girl, which I got to see in print for the first time, after discovering it digitally from comiXology.

DESCENDER #6 (Image)

• Notable creators: Jeff Lemire (writer)
• Hey, there he is again!  Lemire, along with Charles Soule and Paul Cornell, was a welcome repeat creator.
• Dr. Quon's full story is detailed, as we discover more about Descender itself while he relates exactly how he stole the awesome breakthroughs in robotics that made his name (and cost him an arm).  
• And we meet another Tim!

DIRK GENTLY'S HOLISTIC DETECTIVE AGENCY #3 (IDW)

• Notable creators: Chris Ryall (writer)
• Dirk begins to make actual progress in his investigation.
• (Somehow.)

DOCTOR WHO: FOUR DOCTORS #1, 2, 3 (Titan)

• Notable creators: Paul Cornell (writer)
• The four Doctors in question are David Tennant (Tenth Doctor), Matt Smith (Eleventh Doctor) and Peter Capaldi (Twelfth Doctor). 
• Wait, did I say four?  The fourth is John Hurt (War Doctor).
• There are also a bunch of companions running around.  Fans will probably be able to identify them a lot better than I can.
• Even for someone who doesn't have too much experience with the Doctor(s), this is a fun read.

EARTH 2: SOCIETY #3 (DC)

• Notable creators: Daniel H. Wilson (writer)
• Evil mastermind (and one-time Mr. Terrific) Terry Sloan is assassinated!
• Prime suspect: Superman!
• (The other one.)

FABLES #150/FABLES VOL. 22: FAREWELL (Vertigo)

• Notable creators: Bill Willingham (writer)
• The final issue comes in the form of a collection, with the kind of ending Peter Jackson gave his Lord of the Rings.
• As in, a lot of epilogues.
• A little hard for someone who didn't actually, y'know, read the series to fully appreciate, but it's also a heck of a novelty.
• I like novelties.

THE FUSE #13 (Image)

• Notable creators: Antony Johnston (writer), Justin Greenwood (artist)
• The series returns from hiatus for its "Perihelion" arc.
• "Perihelion" means the space station is at its closest to the sun.
• Which means everyone gets crazier than usual.
• Which means plenty of crime for Klem and Marlene to investigate.  Yay!

GRAYSON #10 (DC)

• Notable creators: Tim Seeley (writer), Tom King (writer)
• Guest-stars Lex Luthor, erstwhile member of the Justice League and, oh, the guy who killed Dick Grayson during Forever Evil, which is the event that led to this innovative relaunch.
• Yeah, even if I've failed to read this series regularly, there's no chance I was going to miss that.

JUSTICE LEAGUE #43 (DC)

• Notable creators: Geoff Johns (writer)
• "Darkseid War" continues!
• The Mobius Chair won't tell Batman who the Anti-Monitor is.  The reader knows Anti-Monitor is Mobius.  
• Superman and Lex Luthor have some nice quality time together.
• Up next?  Darkseid versus Anti-Monitor!

JUSTICE LEAGUE: GODS AND MONSTERS: WONDER WOMAN, 1, 3 (DC)

• Notable creators: J.M. DeMatteis (writer), Bruce Timm (writer)
• To be clear, what I read here was the Wonder Woman one-shot, plus the first and third issues of the Gods and Monsters event itself.  
• Wonder Woman emerges as the most likable of the alternate Big Three, and hailing from Jack Kirby's New Gods.
• This could be seen as Timm's version of the complicated Man of Steel reality where Superman isn't automatically accepted as a bright shining superhero.  

MIND MGMT #36/NEW MGMT #1 (Dark Horse)

• Notable creators: Matt Kindt (writer/artist)
• This coda to the MIND MGMT saga reads like a blueprint to how to avoid the huge mess the series unraveled.
• And its lingering effects.
• With a big happy, completely unambiguous ending!

MS. MARVEL #17 (Marvel)

• Notable creators: G. Willow Wilson (writer)
• Ms. Marvel meets Captain Marvel!
• Not quite as awesome as the Wolverine team-up.
• (Would that even be possible?)

PREZ #3 (DC)

• Notable creators: Mark Russell (writer), Ben Caldwell
• Corndog Girl begins building her presidential cabinet!
• The blogger reaction to Prez I've read has been considerably less enthusiastic than mine has been.
• For me, this thing is an instant classic, a portrait of our current political cynicism in a satire of what it could lead to.

SPIDER-VERSE #4 (Marvel)

• Notable creators: Mike Costa (writer)
• Peter Parker and Gwen Stacy, together again at last!
• Sort of!

STAR TREK/GREEN LANTERN #2 (IDW)

• Notable creators: Mike Johnson (writer)
• Again, what could be a horrible gimmick continues to show considerable restraint.
• Uhura (Star Sapphire; best quote of the issue: "Spock!  I need your help, not your analysis!)), Chekov (Blue Lantern), Gorn warrior (Red Lantern), Chang (Sinestro Corps), Romulan politican (Orange Lantern), and Bones (Indigo Tribe) are all inspired crossover choices.  
• Sinestro shows up on the last page.  
• Larfleeze is featured on the cover next issue.
• Seriously.  Good fun!

STAR WARS #8 (Marvel)

• Notable creators: Jason Aaron (writer), Stuart Immonen (artist)
• Seriously, Immonen begins art duties on Star Wars, and you thought I wouldn't be there?
• The big story in this Marvel series is the appearance of Sana Solo, the apparent wife of Han Solo.
• Guess who vigorously denies that throughout this issue?
• Immonen is a perfect fit, by the way.

STAR WARS: LANDO #2, 3 (Marvel)

• Notable creators: Charles Soule (writer), Alex Maleev (artist)
• By the second issue, we may know why Lobot is considerably less animated in The Empire Strikes Back than Soule presents him here.
• The Emperor's Imperial Guard (the dudes in read) in action!
• Chanath Cha continues his efforts to prove he's as awesome a bounty hunter as Boba Fett.
• Lando discovers what the reader already knows: that Palpatine is steeped in Sith lore.

SUPERMAN #43 (DC)

• Notable creators: Gene Luen Yang (writer), John Romita, Jr. (artist)
• This is it!  Lois Lane reveals Superman's secret identity to the world!
• She does it so that Hordr can no longer bribe Superman.
• It's a big, big moment, obviously.
• In this continuity, it makes perfect sense.
• Yang even makes a connection to Grant Morrison's Action Comics run.
• Where, you'll remember, Superman himself briefly "killed" Clark Kent.
• Probably will be endlessly debated.  But we already had a tidy wedding in previous continuity.  In this one, there are fewer certainties.  This is a good thing.  Allows the mythos to breathe.

THIS DAMNED BAND #1 (Dark Horse)

• Notable creators: Paul Cornell (writer)
• Seeing this listed in Previews originally, I didn't know how much I should be interested in it.  Besides Cornell...?
• But it reminds me that I have a considerable history at this point reading comics that involve rock n' roll: Night Trippers, the Brian Wilson issue of Hawkeye, Mysterious Strangers, Comeback, even a Prince comic...
• So this is kind of...destiny.

Cornell, meanwhile, more than earns being in the spotlight, between This Damned Band and Doctor Who: Four Doctors.  And I'm happy to see so much material from him.  From Captain Britain to Knight & Squire to Saucer Country to his Lex Luthor arc in Action Comics and even Demon Knights, Cornell carved out a considerable legacy for himself, and I always hoped he'd take his rightful place within the comics elite.  But wide success always eluded him, and he became the opposite of the famed British Invasion, in that he went back home.  Went all British.  Returned to one of his true loves, the very British but expanding Doctor Who.  I'm glad I've now had the opportunity to experience Cornell's Doctor interest first-hand, and to find something new from him, too.  Welcome back!

THE UNWRITTEN: APOCALYPSE #12 (Vertigo)

• Notable creators: Mike Carey (writer)
• I finally had the chance to read the conclusion to Carey's Unwritten saga.
• To my mind, much more satisfying than Fables'.
• Fables, in part, by the way, circled around to an allusion to Harry Potter.
• Unwritten, meanwhile, was perhaps the most clever Harry allusion anyone's yet produced.

Four more months left in the year.  Miller and Azarello will be launching The Dark Knight III in November.  Gaiman's Sandman: Overture is ending.  Morrison is launching Klaus.  And I'm sure there are plenty of highlights yet remaining.  This has been a pretty good year.

Reading Comics 170 "From 7/22/15 plus more"

Covered this edition: Grant Morrison's 18 Days #1, Cyborg #1, MIND MGMT #35, Prez #2, Superman: Doomed #2, and We Are Robin #2.

Grant Morrison's 18 Days #1 (Graphic India)

Back in 2010, Dynamite and Liquid Comics released what was intended to be a kind of graphic novel trailer for 18 Days, which became an online animated series.  Now, that series is being adapted into a comic book.  The original graphic novel was actually more like an elaborate series bible.  And so this first issue covers familiar material, more setup than actual storytelling.  The art is not exactly the lush work from the graphic novel, and that took some getting used to, but that's what the animated series looks like.  I have no idea how long this will last, but I intend to read it for as long as it exists.  This is Morrison's Morrison Version of the Indian epic Mahabharata, which might be described as The Iliad by way of The Lord of the Rings.

I'm reading this one on delay because I had to request the series from the local shop, and it took a while for it to come in.  If I hadn't asked last week about its status, I still wouldn't have seen it yet, because the shipment came up damaged and the shop owner didn't want to sell it like that.  Listen, I don't read comics, much less buy them, as investment potential.  The best comics are some of the best things I read, period.  For me, that's the best reason to read them.

Cyborg #1 (DC)

Incredibly, this is the first time Cyborg has ever had an ongoing series.  He was originally introduced in Marv Wolfman and George Perez's New Teen Titans.  Since the start of the New 52, he's been a member of the Justice League.  Very wisely, this series seems to have been taken directly from the pages of Geoff Johns' work, written by David F. Walker and especially aided by the art of longtime DC standout Ivan Reis.  Everything that isn't familiar, in the best possible way, sets up space robots who will likely further complicate Victor Stone's relationship with his new body.  I think it was incredibly wise to wait this long to launch the series.  Here I'm thinking of Mr. Terrific from the start of the New 52, which had to reinvent the wheel twice over.  Not only did that series also star someone who had never had an ongoing series before, but far less track record and to that point only one context, as a member of Johns' Justice Society.  And it was not only introducing a theoretically new version of the character, but in totally new context.  It's no surprise that Mr. Terrific was one of the early failures.  And so hopefully, doing everything exactly the opposite, Cyborg will be the success it deserves to be.

MIND MGMT#35 (Dark Horse)

Technically the end of the story, since as far as I know the next and final issue is an epilogue (apparently solicited as NEW MGMT #1), because this issue the good guys defeat the bad guys.  Anyway, I guess what I really want to address is editor Brendan Wright, who spent every letters column I saw fawning over the series, saying how proud he was to be involved in it.  I guess it was a pretty big deal for him (as outlined in how he presents his career).  For a series that lasted three years, which would be a long-term failure for a lot of other companies if it hadn't been the creator who dictated its length (the series was originally commissioned at six issues, and was allowed to expand from there), this is the kind of reaction you'd normally expect from a Vertigo series like Y: The Last Man or Sandman.  It is odd, because MIND MGMT in a lot of ways seems like it should have been published by Vertigo rather than Dark Horse.  I have no idea how or why it happened this way.  The advantage to having it Vertigo would have been to bring Matt Kindt into the DC fold.  Except he's been doing exceptionally well in the Valiant fold.  He's the rare talent who helps comics as a whole rather than merely himself or try and puff up his and/or a given company's chest (the way Image tends to do it, say).  But I don't want to read about how special he is from the editor who probably will never be associated with something this good again.  I want to hear from Kindt himself.  Because in my experience, this is a novelty for Dark Horse.  Which is why I'm confused about how it was published by them to begin with.

Prez #2 (DC)

Last time I believe I talked a lot about artist Ben Caldwell.  I love that guy.  Increasingly, I wonder if it's because his work reminds me of Jeff Smith.  Either way, I need to stress that I love Prez for its storytelling, too, which means I need to stress Mark Russell's contribution a little more directly.  I hadn't even made a label for him, so now there's that.  Prez is such an oddity.  There's nothing superhero about it at all.  I have no idea why it's being published by DC and not under the Vertigo imprint.  Ostensibly, it's because it's a new version of a classic DC concept.  And because there are now a lot of series with superhero connections that are aiming for the youth vote, it's harder for Prez to stand out, especially when it seems like it's nothing more than the stupid gimmick the original was.  This Prez is flat out great political and social satire.  "Corndog Girl" is only elected president this issue, expressly because of all the shenanigans the arrogant official candidates were up to, and the compromises the electoral college (anyone still wondering what that's all about in the wake of the...2000 election might look here for an explanation).

And unfortunately, originally set to be a twelve-issue maxi-series, Prez was just shortened to six.  As someone who absolutely loves what Prez is doing, I'm sad that it's been reduced like that, but at least that's not as bad as when The Great Ten, originally scheduled for, well, ten issues, was dropped to nine.

 Superman: Doomed #2 (DC)

It's been hard to make me care about Superman comics in the New 52 era if it weren't being written by Grant Morrison or Geoff Johns.  Every now and then I check in with what other people are doing.  I was aware of the Doomed event, which was the New 52 version of Doomsday, which was actually a pretty interesting idea.  This and the first issue are the bookends, and are now everything I've read from it.  The writers this time are Greg Pak and Charles Soule, although it's Scott Lobdell who continues to be associated with the concept thanks to his new Doomed series (which does not feature Superman, but will, eventually, have Alpha Centurion in it, which is good enough for me).  There are about a million artists involved in the issue, as well as Lois Lane in her most notable New 52 arc to date (in the least likely way imaginable, unless you're thinking of the Silver Age or Jimmy Olsen), plus Brainiac.  And I read this issue trying to figure out how it related to Convergence, and for most of the issue, I thought not at all, until at the very end.  And I don't know, maybe I'll have to do further research, but that ending makes it look like it might actually completely redefine Convergence.

But getting back to Doomsday, having the concept become something like a Venom parasite is probably better than what DC originally did with Doomsday in the aftermath of killing Superman.  He ended up being a Kryptonian monster who reincarnates after each defeat, no longer able to be defeated that way again, and he and Superman fought again many other times (Dan Jurgens at one point tried his best to further his legacy solely in this way).  While I haven't read the Doomed series itself yet, and generally I've been far more forgiving of Lobdell than fans tend to be, I'm glad this new vision exists even though I'm not immediately interested in delving into it myself.

We Are Robin #2 (DC)

Where you might have expected the second issue to have spent time with members of this Robin gang other than Duke Thomas...Nope, not so much.  This is still the Duke Thomas show in all but name.  I mean, other members are addressed, but they're not really featured.  They exist.  The issue begins to explore the mystery of who has been recruiting them.  There's also teasing of the villain who will apparently kill one of them soon.  Dead Robin.  It's a thing.  So it figures that We Are Robin will be waiting very little to reach its own Dead Robin story.  All the better!  Writer Lee Bermejo's covers continue to represent not at all the interior art, but I guess that's okay.  I can learn to live with it.

Reading Comics 167 "Comic Bento"

Last week somewhat atypically I didn't have any new comics to pick up, so instead I bought Green Lantern Vol. 2 The Revenge of Black Hand, the second of three New 52 era Geoff Johns collections, and I enjoyed reading that material again a great deal.  I don't have all of the Johns Green Lantern collections (not even close), but now I have all three New 52 volumes.

So, as long as we're on the subject of collected editions, let's talk Comic Bento.  This is one of those subscription services that sends you a bunch of stuff in a box every month.  I figured I'd give it a shot.  May was my first month, and by now I've read June's material as well (boxes ship at the end of the month).

As far as May's shipment goes, here's what I got and what I thought (anyone unfortunate enough to follow me on Goodreads already knows):

1) Marvel's The Avengers: Black Widow Strikes (Marvel) - just an absolute train wreck of a mess that completely wasted an opportunity to do something useful with the one cinematic Avenger everyone wishes would get a little more decent material.  The most disappointing part for me is that the writer is Fred Van Lente, whom I first discovered through Action Philosophers, Comic Book Comics, and Incredible Hercules (alongside Greg Pak), all of which was exceptional material.

2) Green Hornet Volumes 1 & 2 (Dynamite) - an adaption of Kevin Smith's lost movie; not nearly as embarrassing as Black Widow Strikes, and technically, the best stuff in an otherwise mediocre at best selection for the month.  But it's still disappointing both from a guy who's watched Kevin Smith movies and read Kevin Smith comics.

3) Predator: Prey to the Heavens (Dark Horse) - total waste of space.

4) Star Trek: Countdown to Darkness (IDW) - This was by far the biggest disappointment of the two shipments to date.  The original Star Trek Countdown was a terrific selling point both for the 2009 movie and IDW's Star Trek comics in general.  Apparently time has not been kind, because neither is true of Countdown to Darkness.  I mean, I know that IDW's Star Trek efforts have considerably lapsed in recent years (the ongoing Abrams-continuity series I haven't really made an effort to read, but I have read good material within it; John Byrne's New Visions photo comics are easily the best thing the company has done, however, and are the strongest argument against what I'm saying), but this is still shocking.  It wastes time on an irrelevant and terrible Robert April tangent and barely features "the Mudd incident" at all, and by the time it features "John Harriman," it's the end of the story.  I mean, really?  (If Pat makes a comment, he will reiterate that he hates the Abrams era on general principle, so there's that.)

June's shipment was better, with caveats:

1) Captain America: Winter Soldier Ultimate Collection (Marvel) - Features the contents of the first two volumes from the Ed Brubaker era.  A decade ago I would have been very happy to be reading this, because I was in fact convinced to join the bandwagon early on and loved what I found, to a point.  But then it degenerated when it became clear that beyond the return of Bucky, and the complicated way it came about (ably represented in the Captain America: Winter Soldier movie), Brubaker really had no idea what he was doing.  He's just not a superhero guy, and I think he realized that (thank goodness), but only after driving his creative legacy into the ground for anyone worth their critical muster.  Still, I'm happy to have this material in my collection again, if only to commemorate it at its peak.

2) Captain Midnight Volume 1: On the Run (Dark Horse) - Between this and the Predator volume, I don't know if it's Comic Bento or Dark Horse itself that wants to make Dark Horse look terrible in these boxes.  I could've sworn that writer Joshua Williamson responded here when I last wrote about Captain Midnight trying to offer a defense of my calling the character what I will now call a blatant knockoff of Captain America, maybe the comment was deleted at some point (I had Google+ comments for a while).  Either way I'm no longer taking either one seriously.  You don't get a free pass unless your bad material is atypical, like Van Lente's Black Widow Strikes.  (But seriously, Fred Van Lente, what the heck?)

3) Terminator: Revolution (Dynamite) - Strippers have been inserted.  For some reason.

4) The Valiant (Valiant) - Easily, easily, easily the best thing from two months of Comic Bento and kind of making up for the quality of everything else, and perhaps not coincidentally the most recently published material; in fact three of the four issues was originally released this year.  I've become a real fan of Valiant's comics, whether from The Death-Defying Doctor Mirage or Divinity.  When it was originally launched, the most prominent comic in the schedule was Robert Venditti's X-O Manowar, which I finally had a look at when Venditti replaced Johns in Green Lantern.  And at the time, I dismissed Valiant on what I thought was pretty mediocre material.  But apparently that was premature.  Jeff Lemire (Descender) and Matt Kindt (MIND MGMT) wrote The Valiant.  After a slow start they really nailed it, and convinced me that I absolutely have to check out Lemire's Bloodshot: Reborn, because Bloodshot is easily the breakout star of the story, which is bold enough to introduce a dramatic game-changer in his adventures.  Over at Goodreads I compared The Valiant to the next logical progression from Marvel's Ultimate comics, with all necessary freedom to do the best possible comics.  And it looks like Valiant really is.

On the whole, I'm not overly impressed with Comic Bento's quality control.  In an effort to be everything to everyone, it's going for the lowest common denominator.  I guess it's unfair to criticize the approach, and in some ways the company hobbles itself by trying to bring together a theme for each box (May's was movies, obviously, while June's was time travel; July's is supposed to be "the little guy").  The hook, and the argument against hasty judgment, is that every box is a complete surprise, and there's always going to be an appeal to that, because (hope against hope!) there's always the chance that The Valiant will find its way into the assortment, and not just terrible stuff like the Predator and Terminator collections.  And really, seeing something like the Captain America volume is a good sign, regardless of how I feel about Brubaker now, because there was a time when I would have been perfectly happy to come across something like that randomly, just like Countdown to Darkness.  I figure three boxes is a good representation of Comic Bento's overall worth, so I'll give this trial run one more box.

We'll see.