Free Comic Book Day 2019

The first Saturday in May has come and gone for another year, and like last year I celebrated it at Nerd Out Comics and Comics & Stuff in sunny Tampa.  Comics & Stuff has since moved to a new location, but the experience was comparable.  Inexplicably, Tampa folk just aren't interested in queuing up, with or without costumes!  This was always a highlight for me, in three other states, three other stores, by which I know I have a decent sampling of the event.  Comics & Stuff, with its larger new location, had a bigger turnout than last year.  I got there after it opened, but the place was crammed, I mean literally crammed (also, I hate people who have no spatial awareness, as in won't even consider moving unless you ask them, and then ask them again when you come by again).  Nerd Out, I arrived early.  Like last year they had a table of this year's releases, and other tables filled with older freebies, right outside the store.  I got a ton of comics there, all freebies.  Didn't go inside.  Comics & Stuff, obviously I went inside, bought a few new comics, too. 

Anyway, here's what I came away with (Comics & Stuff had a four comic limit, Nerd Out three), for this year's releases:

• Animosity Tales (Aftershock) I've sampled Marguerite Bennett's comic as a paying customer in the past. 
• Bloodshot (Valiant) I've been a fan of this incarnation for a few years now. 
• Deadly Class (Image) Kind of want to see the TV version.
• H1 Ignition (Humanoids) Mark Waid's attempting another startup...!
• Interceptor (Vault) Written by Donny Cates, who I imagine to be one of those current writers capable of securing a real audience.
• Punchline (Antarctic) Looked good.
• Stranger Things (Dark Horse) With all due respect to fans of the TV show, my hook was the Black Hammer backup.
• Year of the Villain (DC) This was actually a twenty-five cent comic released a few days earlier, but Nerd Out was giving it away.  (Yay, Nerd Out!)
• Star Wars Day: May the 4th Be With You (Marvel) Another unofficial Nerd Out freebie that didn't count to its limit.

And what did I score with Nerd Out's older freebies?

• Avatar (Dark Horse) A FCBD 2017 release.  A lot of people have been attempting to downplay James Cameron's achievement in the past decade.  I've kind of been part of it, by dismissing the basic story as Pocahontas redux.  But I've been coming around.  It's still like nothing else anyone has done.  The last time that happened at the movies, it was Star Wars.  See where that one went?
• Bad Machinery (Oni) A FCBD 2017 release.
• Battle Angel Alita (Kodansha) A Halloween ComicFest 2018 release.  I have yet to see the Robert Rodriguez movie.
• Comic Book Legal Defense Fund: Defender Vol. 2 #2 (CBLDF) Released in 2017, featuring Batwoman on the cover.
• Help the CBLDF...Defend Comics (CBLDF) A FCBD 2017 release. I feel bad not really having supported the fund financially.  But certainly a worthy cause.  Featuring Jeffrey Brown.
• Fresh off the Boat (Boom!) A FCBD 2017 release, featuring Gene Luen Yang and Jorge Corona.
• Guardians of the Galaxy (Marvel) A FCBD 2017 release.  Also featuring the Bendis Defenders.
• The Incal (Humanoids) A FCBD 2017 release.  Apparently a much-admired graphic novel, by Jodorowsky and Moebius.
• Marvel Previews: Captain Marvel (Marvel) I liked the movie.
• Marvel Previews: Avengers Endgame (Marvel) I haven't seen it yet...!
• Ms. Marvel  (Marvel) A Halloween ComicFest 2018 release.  Revisiting the beginning of a run I much admired in the beginning.
• People of Earth: Experiencer's Guide to Aliens (DC) A promo comic for the TV show.
• The Amazing Spider-Man #1: Behind-the-Scenes Edition (Marvel) The Spencer/Ottley reboot, pencil art only...!
• Spill Night (First Second) A FCBD 2017 release.  Written by Scott Westerfeld.
• Steam Wars: Strike Leader (Antarctic) A FCBD 2017 release.  I think it might be safe to say that a project that began as a steampunk Star Wars has become its own thing at this point.
• The World of Krypton (DC) A promo comic for the Krypton TV series, featuring a vintage John Byrne reprint...!
• Wonder Woman (DC) A FCBD 2017 release...!  Clearly a good year for Nerd Out...not to have given away enough of its freebies.  And a good year to find good stuff two years later.  Reprinting the Rucka Rebirth launch.
• Marvel Universe: War of the Realms (Marvel) The Jason Aaron event primer.
• Captain America 75th Anniversary Magazine (Marvel) Pretty sure I've actually gotten and read this before.  Didn't seem to hurt to pick up another copy and do it again.  Dude just helped defeat Thanos (uh, spoiler!!!).

Reading Comics 226 "Detective Comics #1000, Chip Zdarsky, Tom King, & More"

I've gotten really bad about documenting the comics I read on this blog, but I figured this latest batch was worth talking about.  Let's dive in!

Batman #67 (DC)
I've been collecting all the trades in Tom King's run (actually, pretty much every Tom King trade in general, as he's beyond any doubt my favorite comic book writer working right now).  I haven't been as diligent reading the individual issues.  Once I fell off that track, I figured it was okay, since the trades (I have officially become a trade waiter, I guess).  But I still check in with the odd issue, such as this one, which reunites King with Lee Weeks (they get in another nod to the famous Batman/Elmer Fudd special, don't worry), and it's Weeks in the spotlight (well, I guess not anymore than usual), as this is a mostly silent issue, a chase sequence.  I dig it.

Detective Comics #999 (DC)
The final issue before the big one, Peter Tomasi and Doug Mahnke conclude the improbable tale of Thomas and Martha Wayne's second murder.  Because it's a dream sequence, essentially, a training program Batman has run for years, this time in virtual reality.  I know there will be readers who feel cheated by that big reveal, but Tomasi has become a reliable interpreter of Batman's psychology.  I think it tracks.

Detective Comics #1,000 (DC)
(Incidentally, I learned from the 80 years hardcover collection that "DC" doesn't stand for Detective Comics, as the popular story goes, but rather Donenfeld's Comics.)

Here's the reason for the most recent visit to the comics shop!  I got the Frank Miller '80s cover.  Like Action Comics 1000 last year, DC put out covers for each decade of the title's existence, and I figured I'd give Miller the nod.  Here's some quick thoughts on the stories:

"Batman's Longest Case" (Scott Snyder/Greg Capullo)
Snyder and Capullo, the much-celebrated New 52 team, again reunite (after Dark Nights: Metal) for a tale that sees Batman ultimately join a team of famous detectives.  Seems about right, for a Detective Comics anniversary tale.  The detective aspect of the Dark Knight hasn't really been emphasized much in the modern era.  Amazing, Brad Melzter has never been asked to do an extended Batman adventure.  Seems like an oversight.

"Manufacture for Use" (Kevin Smith/Jim Lee)
Smith and Lee are high profile collaborators, about as high profile as the issue gets.  The tale is maybe a little lightweight, and never gives Lee a chance to highlight his work, but at least it gives Batman a chance to finally reconcile the gun that was used to shoot his parents.  It's also nice to see Matches Malone.

"The Legend of Knute Brody" (Paul Dini/Dustin Nguyen)
This one was a highlight for me, even if the twist at the end seems to diminish it.  The gag is that there was an all-time terrible henchman named Knute Brody who worked for most of Batman's enemies.  The reveal is that Knute was actually a disguise Batman's allies used to get insider information.  Seems like something that could fill out a longer story.

"The Batman's Design" (Warren Ellis/Becky Cloonan)
I'm not sure Ellis nails this one, a sort of spiritual sequence to "Knute Brody," in which we learn Batman doesn't just dismiss and brutalize all those henchmen, but rather thinks of them as individuals worth a kind of sympathy, even a chance to walk away.  He spends too much time away from the particular henchman at the end of the tale to really sell it.

"Return to Crime Alley" (Denny O'Neil/Steve Epting)
One thing is certain to rankle fans: for a story not to automatically side with Batman.  But that's exactly what O'Neil, the oldest Batman creator in the issue, does, as a sequel to the first appearance of Leslie Thompkins, as she again questions whether or not Batman's crusade is healthy for him.  It's a more than fair question, and more than fair to bring up again, the rare pessimistic beat in another upbeat issue.

"Heretic" (Christopher Priest/Neal Adams)
What's interesting about this one (other than art from another long-time Batman creator, Adams) is Priest remembering that the League of Assassins doesn't begin and end with Ra's al Ghul, but rather also includes, y'know, the League itself, all the fanatics who comprise it, including one who decided to leave not later known as Batman.  It's a worthy subject, especially in the age of Islamic terror. 

"I Know" (Brian Michael Bendis/Alex Maleev)
Before I reached the credits with this one, I thought it was the Tom King entry, as it heavily features a vocal tic, which is kind of a King trademark, but no, it's Brian Bendis helping Penguin along, as an old Penguin meets with an old Bruce Wayne, confessing he knew Wayne was Batman all along.  And the twist in this one is much more satisfying, thank you.  Bendis apparently should've been writing for DC all along, as he's a complete natural.

"The Last Crime in Gotham" (Geoff Johns/Kelley Jones)
Here's perhaps the highlight of the whole thing for me, in the subtle way Johns uses the issue to establish his Joker credentials, ahead of his much-anticipated Three Jokers.  In this future, Batman and his extended family are investigating a murder scene, trying to figure out who did it.  Turns out it was the Joker's son, who wanted to end the cycle of violence the old man helped perpetuate for years, sacrificing himself in the process.  Some readers will lump the results in with the Batman-family-friendly vibes of the whole issue, but it's really someone else's triumph.  Maybe the impact is thrown off by Jones, who will always dominate whatever he works on (by the way, nice for him to represent the veterans, too), but the story, if you follow it, carries its own weight.  It's one of the best things I've read from Johns.

"The Precedent" (James Tynion IV/Alvaro Martinez-Bueno)
Tynion likely got the nod to contribute thanks to his early Rebirth era run, which helped jumpstart the significance of the series after drifting back into relative obscurity, in the New 52 era, when all anyone could really talk about was Snyder's Batman.  I like what Dick Grayson (it's his tale) says in one of the final panels: "I'm not the precedent.  You are.  And you're just the start."  It's easy to get caught up in the Batman craze, and dismiss all his allies and so many sidekicks, but if Batman achieves anything at all, it's his ability to inspire others, not in fear but hope.  That's something Christopher Nolan concluded, in a different way (but with a Robin figure, too) in The Dark Knight Rises.  It's just nice to see someone else notice.

"Batman's Greatest Case" (Tom King/Tony S. Daniel/Joelle Jones)
King, as always, seems to have bewildered his readers.  But really, he's coming to the same conclusion Tynion does above, that Batman's legacy won't ultimately be about what Batman himself can achieve, but what he's been able to inspire in others.  So this is a tale about his many current allies coming together and talking, and eventually, someone realizes that "Batman's greatest case" was about solving that original problem of having lost a family and thinking that was always going to define him.  But it really didn't, and the appearance of the original Robin, so soon after Batman himself first appeared, was kind of proof from almost the very start.  He's just needed reminding every now and then.  This time he reminds himself, by taking a picture, and leaving it on the graves of his parents.  That's what King's Batman has been concerned about all along.  I think this will make an excellent addition to King's collected Batman tales, wherever DC might slot it in eventually.

"Medieval" (Peter Tomasi/Doug Mahnke)
Current Detective Comics creators Tomasi and Mahnke (see above!) get to introduce video game character Arkham Knight to continuity in this one, and it's great to see something new(ish) in all the reflective splendor.  Hopefully another villain worth remembering years to come.

Great issue.

Books of Magic #6 (Vertigo)
Part of the Sandman Universe corner of the Vertigo corner of DC these days (...), I thought I'd have a look, as I've always been interested in the concept of young Tim Hunter learning how to be a wizard.  Yeah, Harry Potter later made the concept much, much more popular, and Vertigo in turn had The Unwritten (which didn't star Tim) (maybe should've?).  But the existence of Harry only increases Tim's shine, not diminishes.  And this issue proves it.  Glad at least for this revival.

Daredevil #3 (Marvel)
Holy crap.  So Chip Zdarsky just rocketed into the upper echelons of Marvel lore.  His take on the traditional Daredevil's-life-is-being-ruined! tale not only involves the cops (amazingly, very few comics seem to understand this maybe would be a...natural element to any superhero story) but finally addresses the element in the room.  If this were happening to a superhero, especially a very-well-established one like Daredevil...wouldn't the rest of the superhero community have something to say about it?  Turns out that someone is...Punisher.  Hell yeah!  The fans like claiming that Marvel has nothing much to boast about these days, but they're really just feeding perceptions.  Zdarsky has been working toward this moment, and I'm glad to witness it.  He's going to be in that echelon hopefully for years.  Unless DC gets to benefit.  Just sayin'!

Dial H for Hero #1 (DC)
Part of the second Bendis imprint (after Jinxworld) at DC, Wonder Comics, this is Sam Humphries kicking down the door to once again establish himself as a writer worth taking seriously, owning a familiar if somewhat obscure DC concept.  I have a blogging acquaintance who's gone over all the heroic identities to emerge from the H Dial over the years.  I'm sure he's paying attention to this, too.  And I hope he's as impressed as I am.  The superhero conjured this issue is a stereotypical '90s archetype, which is pretty fun in and of itself.  But Humphries manages to make the H Dial itself more interesting than anything else.  I don't know if he's covering new ground or not, but I love it.

Doomsday Clock #9 (DC)
I began tradewaiting this series almost immediately.  The shop I went to for the first issue was already upcharging for it (dick move, Banner), so I...lost the motivation quickly, and just started randomly checking in.  This was my latest check-in, in the apparent mistaken belief that the Legion ring on the cover belonged to Saturn Girl.  But the issue still has a major revelation worth reading, involving Firestorm and a patented Geoff Johns character revision.  He always seems to know exactly how to do that.  It's his superpower...

The Forgotten Queen #2 (Valiant)
The last time I checked in with a new Valiant title I wasn't impressed, but this time I was.  Valiant remains the best-kept secret in superhero comics, it seems.

G.I. Joe: Sierra Muerte #2 (IDW)
When I realized that was Michel Fiffe art on the cover, I snapped it up.  Fiffe, of course, is the creator of Copra, the best-kept secret in indy comics these days, kind of the official insider handshake.  But the showstopper in the issue is an essay details the history of Snake Eyes, one so intriguing it makes you wonder if Snake Eyes is the best kept secret of the best creators in comics.  Did Alan Moore have him on the brain was conceiving Rorschach?  Now I'm pretty convinced!  Was Snake Eyes responsible for Wolverine's incredible ascent?  Now I'm pretty convinced!  All hail Snake Eyes!

Heroes in Crisis #6-7 (DC)
Well, did Wally crack?  King tackles head-on whether or not Wally himself was capable of viewing himself as that mythical "symbol of hope" fans thought he was starting in DC Rebirth, while Booster and Harley continue to compete against each other as the sole survivors.  Two more issues.  I think King has once again produced magic.  Can't wait to see how it ends.

Meet the Skrulls #1 (Marvel)
Having seen and enjoyed Captain Marvel, when I saw Meet the Skrulls referred to s Marvel's successful attempt to finally recapture that Tom King Vision magic, I thought I knew what to expect.  But someone seems to have misinterpreted another family intrigue with the same kind of storytelling, because what King did, what King always does, is reinterpret family intrigue.  This story merely follows it, perhaps finding another character who'll fit the classic Marvel tragic model, but it would have to significantly upgrade itself to even begin to resemble King's Vision properly.

Spider-Man: Life Story #1 (Marvel)
Here's Zdarsky again, with Mark Bagley, revisiting the life of Peter Parker, one decade at a time.  It'll be interesting to see how things develop.  This issue almost seems standard, but it's also part of Marvel's current initiative to reintegrate its characters into historic moments, in this case the Vietnam War, with Spidey struggling to reconcile his absence from the battle field with his famous mantra about great responsibility.  Iron Man is depicted on the field, and then Captain America makes some bold choices.  Well, like I said, it depends on what happens next.  But Zdarsky is quickly proving that there are few things he's unwilling to breech, and he's been proven right in his instincts so far.  I'm willing to bet that trend continues.

Marvelous X-Men #1 (Marvel)
This is a kind of sequel to Age of Apocalypse, which is pretty great to see.  This issue, meanwhile dithers most of its space, but still brings up some interesting points. 

Young Justice #3 (DC)
Another Wonder Comics entry, this title famously brings back classic '90s teen heroes Impulse (yeah!), Superboy, and Robin, the heart of the original team and backbone of DC's '90s teen heroes in general.  This issue follows Superboy's journey to Gemworld, which was featured for a hot minute in the New 52, and I'm glad it's back.  This is a whole dream come true.  I guess that's the other reason Bendis was allowed to take the Rebirth Superboy off the table, to make room for the other one.  Hell yeah!

Reading Comics 225 "Grass of Parnassus, Superman 100 Page Giant #7"

Grass of Parnassus

This is a new webcomic that made me use Instagram for one of the first times ever.  The hook, for me, is Stuart Immonen, working once again alongside wife Kathryn Immonen (realized when I was composing this and adding labels that she didn't have one yet).  Stuart's one of my all-time favorite comics creators, so it's always fun to see what he's up to. 

Grass appears to be an attempt at a kind of slice-of-life-in-the-future.  Readers seem a little baffled as to what exactly is going on, but it seems pretty straightforward to me. The Immonens have an excellent track record (I haven't read all of their work, but Russian Olive to Red King and Moving Pictures are fantastic).  Here's a compilation of Stuart's best-regarded work.  As much as I love Stuart's art, and his collaborations with Kathryn as writer, I really wish he got back into writing; his Superman comics, as artist and writer, have yet to be rediscovered, but they should be.

Superman Giant #7

I'd be remiss if I didn't chime in on this one.  Apparently these Walmart 100-page giants finally made the news for something other than merely existing.  This was last month's edition (I just scooped up this month's full slate, which included the first revamp and expansion of the line, but haven't had a chance to read it yet).  When I read it I thought it was just another typically intricate narrative from Tom King (my favorite among all active writers in the medium, easily), but...

So the story is this: Superman, on a desperate quest to rescue a young girl kidnapped by aliens, places an extreme-long-distance call, deep in space, to Lois back on Earth.  The whole process is tedious and slow, and on top of that Lois seems to take forever to answer.  Superman spends the time imagining all kinds of worst case scenarios, Lois dying horrible deaths from any of the many emergencies Superman's usually there to prevent.

Sounds fairly normal, doesn't it?  I mean, Superman's been saving Lois Lane from certain death since the very beginning.  It's one of the most recognizable tropes in all of superhero storytelling.  Lois actively puts herself in danger all the time as an intrepid reporter.  You'd think no one could possibly object to a story that just sort of points all that out.

But...

Well, people are always kind of outraged about one thing or another.  It only seems that outrage dominates public discourse more than ever before.  Right?  Anyway.  The outrage this time is that this was a comic that featured Lois dying.  Repeatedly.

This was a reported case of a mother being shocked at what her kid was being exposed to.  Big surprise, right?  Story of comic books right there.  Mom buys these Walmart comics every month, never imagining that there was anything to object to, until she takes a gander and...

So you can't really help that sort of thing.  King is no stranger to provoking readers, of course.  He's been doing that since seemingly killing off Kyle Rayner in the Omega Men preview, and he's made an ongoing spectacle of Batman with regular intervals of similar acts, shocking readers who should have possibly seen it all before.  He did it again with Heroes in Crisis (if I get around to it, I'd love to talk more about that one, especially how #5 lets the cat out of the bag, assuming readers were aware that there was a cat, and a bag, and that you could've anticipated that from the very beginning, without really harming the story, because it's all about how masterfully King commands the page, as always).

What I love about all this is that it does put the focus on the content rather than the existence of these giants, and hopefully will get more readers checking them out. 

Back Issue Bin 124 "The Weather Man and other comics"

True Believers - Jessica Jones: Alias #1 (Marvel)
The True Believer comics are dollar reprints, which have been popular in recent years from a number of publishers to help catch fans up.  This particular one was intended to celebrate both Marvel Knights, twenty years this year as the last time Marvel fans really celebrated a whole creative moment (the Ultimate line coincided with it) and the Netflix shows, of which Jessica Jones is one of them.  Alias was the original title, before Jennifer Garner and J.J. Abrams made it more famous.  But when you think about it, it's appropriate for this particular character to be advertised under a proper name, a post-Starman expansion of the post-Watchmen deconstruction movement, where superheroes could walk away from the life.  Anyway, this is also one of Brian Michael Bendis's most famous creations, and the pattern he's been following in Jinxworld ever since.

Bane: Conquest#10 (DC)
TV shows get revived all the time these days; it sometimes happens in comics, too.  Dan Jurgens was doing it before it was cool, revisiting Doomsday in a series of projects.  Chuck Dixon and Graham Nolan have done it with Bane a few times, too, most recently in this mini-series, whose only real questionable decision was the mask revision, where we see Bane's nose.  Yeah, no.  Anyway, otherwise this is perfectly identifiable as continuing the original Bane narrative, perhaps last seen in Vengeance of Bane II.  I never really liked the Bane revisions, which is another reason to admire Tom King's comics, as they're the first time Bane has really been Bane since the old days.

Image Firsts: Curse Words #1 (Image)
Here's another company with dollar comic reprints!  And here's me finally reading Curse Words!  And I really feel bad about it now, more than ever.  I've been a big fan of Charles Soule for years now.  Unfortunately "big fan" for me doesn't mean the same thing it used to.  If I were spending money on comics like I have before (rashly, unwisely, in terms of general finances), I'd've been reading everything Charles Soule I could get my hands on.  I'd've read the complete Letter 44, his complete Daredevil, and this.  But I haven't, and hadn't even had a proper look until now.  But it's great!  This is the story of a fantasy world a wizard escapes from, after realizing his mission to destroy Earth was a bad one and subsequently settling in as a wizard-for-hire.  The whole issue reads wonderfully.  Soule positively crackles with creative energy, and this whole concept encapsulates that really well.  So I will probably have to read more at some point.

DC Universe: Last Will and Testament (DC)
This was a one-shot from Brad Meltzer, who famously made a big bang comics debut with Identity Crisis, and then a sting in Justice League of America.  This is a wonderful spotlight for Geo-Force, a character who otherwise never really stands out.  But this is really, really a story that should've corrected that, and a terrific way of demonstrating a compelling story can be found for any character.

True Believers: Infinity Incoming! (Marvel)
A repackaging of Jonathan Hickman's first issue of Avengers, it's clear how epic Hickman wants to feel, but I'm not sure as a storyteller he ever quite hits the notes he reaches for, which is why I've never gotten into him. 

Marvels #2 (Marvel)
I've never read the complete Marvels.  In fact, this is now the most I've ever read!  It always seemed like a Marvel-exclusive tale, a celebration, and I spent a lot of time not feeling like that kind of reader.  But it was so famous, I've read some of this already.  But not all of it.  The issue is actually geared toward the X-Men and the "mutant problem."  I'm not sure anyone's ever really adequately explained why superpowers in Marvel are considered bad (mutant or otherwise), so I guess that's just a story I'll have to keep looking for.

Mera: Queen of Atlantis #1 (DC)
I love that Mera finally has her own comic!  Even if it's just a mini-series.  That's one of the biggest things Geoff Johns has accomplished over the years, elevating Mera to known status, and I think she's got farther to go.  Curiously this debut issue sort of spends most of its time...focusing on Aquaman-specific elements.  So you can see how far it can still go...

Orion #23 (DC)
The Walt Simonson series; Simonson is one of the few creators who can get away with revisiting the New Gods without anyone thinking he's revising them.  This particular issue doesn't really have anything to do with the New Gods, which is actually a lot like how Jack Kirby himself first used them. 

Thanos #2 (Marvel)
Jeff Lemire!  Another modern creator I'd love to read more extensively, and another comic I'm reading for the first time.  The only thing I don't get (otherwise it's a lot like the Guardians of the Galaxy movies, but without the humor) is why Thanos would fear death.  Maybe I'm not thinking clearly about this because I'm not exhaustively versed in it, but isn't Thanos obsessed with Death?  If he can be united with her in death, wouldn't that help him fulfill his fondest desire?   But maybe this is something Lemire explores elsewhere in his tale.

The Twelve #12 (Marvel)
I read this series as it was originally published, even enduring the long delay halfway through with patience, but it was fun to revisit.  I honestly think that what's happening with Marvel now is that it tried extremely hard to reinvent itself over the past twenty years as a more dynamic House of Ideas, but now that it's gone back to its more traditional mode, fans realize that there was something missing.  There's no reason why The Twelve shouldn't be considered an evergreen title.

The Weatherman #1-5 (Image)
Being a Star Trek fan, (I want to say of course here, but it hasn't been that simple with Star Trek fans for at least twenty years), I watched the first season of Discovery, which featured a lot of twists, one of which was that one of the characters was a Klingon all along and didn't even know it.  I don't know if Jody LeHeup and Nathan Fox were at all inspired by that, but it was impossible not to think about while reading, and remains my favorite way to think about these issues.  Because otherwise they're a lot like...most Image comics, in that they seem to exist merely to indulge shock value, with [hang narrative description here] merely an excuse to do so.  Few of them seem at all interested in anything more than a shallow understanding of their characters, and it's really no different here.  It's not that most comics have more depth, but that as a rule, Image seems to be, well, image-deep.  Back at its founding, it was famously led by artists, with writing that was never really a priority, until it was pointed out and they started bringing in better writers.   But then they seemed to forget, all in the interests of championing independent comics that still had a reasonable chance of, y'know, selling.  So they took shortcuts.  All the time.  And so the image stays the...same.

Reading Comics 224 "King is King, and Morrison's Green Lantern, and Orlando's Wonder Woman"

Batman Secret Files #1 (DC)
Back in the day the Secret Files comics were more or less updates of the old Who's Who files, and they were more or less excuses to hype upcoming events in a particular series or family of books.  They also contained short stories and other throwaway materials like diagrams and timelines, all of it fun little celebratory stuff.  But in the final analysis, you could probably skip them.  Some readers complained when they saw this updated take, which includes...nothing but storytelling.  Why even call it Secret Files?  But if I may...repurposing a title is perfectly fine, especially in an era that really doesn't have any other space for the kind of stories that appear in it.  It's like a one-shot Batman: Legends of the Dark Knight, or Batman: Confidential. 

The lead is written by Tom King.  It can be interpreted as a cheap way to get Batman thinking about the past, or as another way King ruminates on the cumulative toll being of Batman.  Then a bunch of new creators have a shot at exploring Gotham, and that's pretty awesome.  Ram V and Jorge Fornes set the tone nicely with a Brubakeresque tale of a cop who was caught in the crossfire of Scarecrow's latest caper, and can't shake the effects of his fear gas.  Cheryl Lynn Eaton and Elena Casagrande offer fairly similar material, although they have a lot more space for Batman, and leave a lot more ambiguity to the aftereffects of a girl on the street being forced to defend herself with a gun.  Jordie Bellaire and Jill Thompson help Batman spend time with himself, waiting to find out what Man-Bat's up to, and for someone like Batman that's almost as bad as confronting Man-Bat right away...Finally, Tom Taylor and Brad Walker revisit Dark Night: Metal's take on Detective Chimp as Batman acknowledges his skills and they try to help a former Riddler goon.  It's a great collection of stories and showcase for these creators.  Anyone who's begun to wonder whether King's the only creator outside of Detective Comics DC's willing to entertain in Batman comics should definitely check it out. 

Batman #59 (DC)
After we learned that the Batwedding didn't happen thanks to Bane's manipulations, it was only a matter of time before Batman once again clashed with one of his most famous foes.  This issue, solicited as part of Batman's unlikely team-up with the Penguin, is really all about Bane driving a wedge between Batman and Commissioner Gordon by pretending to be a vegetative inmate of Arkham, and even allowing the ruse to reach the point where Batman himself questions his conclusions.  In the long run this will prove a highly crucial issue.  Mikel Janin's art has apparently reached an evolution, meanwhile.  He's begun taking on a more stylized approach as opposed to his cleaner look previously.

Green Lanterns #57 (DC)
The final issue of the series, Dan Jurgens completes a short run with another look at Cyborg Superman and whether or not his threat will ever be concluded, this time in the context of what he famously did during "Reign of the Supermen" to Coast City, and what effect that had on Hal Jordan.  But the series ends with Jessica Cruz deciding to once and for all leave her comfort zone, and Earth! 

The Green Lantern #1 (DC)
It's here!  Grant Morrison is now writing the adventures of Hal Jordan!  And of course, once again, he's managed to approach his subject as no one else has before!  After more than a decade of storytelling dominated by the big ideas of Geoff Johns, Morrison grounds Hal back in a more personal context.  In interviews he's described it as putting the focus on the effect Hal's life as Green Lantern has on him, which is something previous decades used to do all the time, how he went through a whole series of civilian jobs because he couldn't hold anything of them and have a power ring's responsibilities at the same time.  And also the mundane oddities of being a space cop!  Liam Sharp (I hate the composition of the cover image, which was available in poster form at the new location of Comics & Stuff, which I declined to accept on that basis, even though it would've otherwise been a great thing to celebrate on a wall) is great in the interiors, bringing a bright new vividness to Green Lantern.  All I can say is, wow!  Never expected this to happen, but am very, very pleased that it has, and that Morrison is clearly bringing all his celebrated wild imagination to it!

Heroes in Crisis #2 (DC)
A lot of fans have obsessed over the fact that Wally West died in the first issue.  I just don't know how to make sense of that.  Wally just returned.  He's been gone for years!  But...he just returned!  You really think he can't, I don't know, do that again?  Really?  But we live in outrage culture these days.  You really would think we'd never seen anything at all before.

Anyway, the idea of Booster Gold and Harley Quinn on the run, suspected of the massacre at Sanctuary, it's great, and it's a totally new story, and Booster and Harley are great choices as leads.  Booster hasn't truly been relevant since 52 (anyone with even a fleeting grasp of my favorite comics knows how much I love 52, of which you can find an annotated commentary right here at Thought Bubble Comics).  It's also crazy to think, and also funny that DC's event comics have slowed down so much, that since she became a significant corner of the DCU during the New 52 era, Harley has never been in this position before.  This is acknowledging the changing landscape.  This is helping legitimize Harley.  I get that there's a certain style of Harley storytelling that's been the standard over the years, but allowing her to be seen in different ways, in more dramatic ways, in an important step in solidifying Harley's legacy.

Mister Miracle #12 (DC)
The end of King's epic mini-series (I also picked up a Director's Cut of the first issue, a rereading of which helped me understand this final issue) makes clear that the story was always about Scott Free coming to grips with life, basically, as a war veteran.  It joins Omega Men and Sheriff of Babylon as a trilogy of King's experiences from the Iraq War, and as such an essential artifact of the modern era, in and outside of comics.  Some readers, for any number of reasons, are just not going to be able to appreciate that.  Fine.  Good for them.  Some of them are going to continue to look toward The Vision as King's definitive work, and Mister Miracle as a poor attempt to duplicate it for DC.  A lot of them only discovered King through Vision.  Having first encountered him as a solo creative voice in Omega Men, Vision for me was actually jarring, a slowed down version of what I already knew, impactful but at a scale that seemed small in comparison.  Over the years I've come to appreciate Vision more, and have of course read a lot more King, and if anything, Mister Miracle helps put it in greater context.  This is what he's been doing in the pages of Batman for three years.  Just imagine if he'd done only twelve issues! 

Nightwing #53 (DC)
What I liked about this latest installment of the amnesia saga was the cop who attempts to fill the Nightwing void.  It's become a full-blown tradition for impostor Nightwings to pop up! 

Adventures of the Super Sons #1-3 (DC)
With the dawn of Bendis Superman, Pete Tomasi was forced to vacate his space, and take his Superboy along with him, and also Robin, who he'd been bringing along since the last time he was asked to move on.  This time he leaves with a huge parting gift!  One grand adventure with Jon and Damian, and I think that's exactly the spirit of how he decided to approach this next generation World's Finest from the start.  And just like that, his Superman has officially acquired its final context, just in case anyone was still wondering.

Wonder Woman #51-52 (DC)
I've spent a lot of time at the library over the past year reading comics.  Most of them have been collected editions, but this particular branch also has a somewhat extensive collection of solo issues for Superman and Wonder Woman, which apparently began at the very end of the New 52, so that's how I ended up reading the majority of Tomasi's Superman, and how I eventually first read these two comics.  The first was the one I definitely wanted to own.  Steve Orlando's run is going to be more of a sprint, sandwiched between James Robinson and G. Willow Wilson, but as far as I'm concerned?  It's going to loom large.

#51 is great issue.  It's a one-shot in which Diana makes a series of trips across many years to visit a villain she randomly came across in someone else's story.  It's a redemption arc, as the villain struggles to find peace with what happened, and Diana's insistence on the visits.  It's a perfect encapsulation of what makes Diana different.  You can't really picture Batman doing this, and for all the Superman stories that have been created over the years, I'm fairly certain he's never done it, either.  Anyway, it was instantly one of my favorite comics of the year, and the reread confirmed that.

#52 is the start of an arc, and it features a new female Aztek, a character who debuted in the '90s, written by Grant Morrison and Mark Millar, who eventually joined Morrison's JLA.  Kind of instantly became obscure, especially for having been a Justice Leaguer in an era where it was once again composed almost exclusively of all-stars.  But Aztek was always a great concept, and Orlando instantly grasps it.  He also brings in Artemis, who was recently part of Red Hood and the Outlaws, but who also comes from the '90s, the lesser known Wonder Woman replacement from a time when all the big characters were being replaced.  It feels like a big Wonder Woman story in ways that rarely happen, and it's also kind of a comic book version of the allies she assembles in the blockbuster movie.  Orlando's Wonder Woman will definitely be a collection I will add to my collection.

The Wrong Earth #3 (Ahoy)
Ahoy Comics launched to some amount of buzz in part thanks to landing a Grant Morrison prose backup feature.  The company's whole thing seems to be another of those "we're bringing comics back to how you remember them!" deals.  But these aren't comics as I want to read this.  The Wrong Earth reads like a shallow parody.  Nuff said.

Uncanny X-Men #1 (Marvel)
I haven't particularly cared about the X-Men since the Hope saga ended.  Of course I've never been a dedicated reader.  Still haven't even read Morrison's complete New X-Men!  So to say I've been part of the legion (heh) of observers who've been wondering if the X-Men were ever going to be relevant again, it doesn't carry the same weight as fans who've spent more time with them. But I wanted to see what this latest effort was going to be like.  I like Bishop being right there on the cover.  Ever since I came across him in the '90s I've always thought this was a character with at least equal potential as Cable.  Both of them were time-traveling mutants from dystopic futures, but Cable always hogged the spotlight.  A number of creators working in converging narratives come together to explain the latest mutant crisis, another drug threatening to take their abilities away.  But this time as a vaccine, that will prevent new mutants from ever knowing they were ever even mutants.

Now, this has a ton of storytelling potential.  A lot of fans accused Marvel in recent years of trying to replace the X-Men with the Inhumans, whose major recent story was the roving Terrigan mists that randomly created new Inhumans.  But this is something very different.  This isn't people being scared that they're going to be victimized.  This is a new twist on the familiar narrative of denying mutants a future.  There's apparently going to be another Age of Apocalypse style event following the "X-Men Disassembled" arc, and Marvel fans, who complain about everything Marvel does these days (we're a long, lone way off from the old Marvel zombies days, which conveniently now exist in cinematic form), are complaining that Marvel is just piling event after event.  But I suspect there's method to this madness, and I'd like to keep tabs on it.

Reading Comics 223 "The DC Walmart 100-Page Giants, Month 5"

So I've continued buying DC's Walmart-exclusive (although someone...smuggled? them in, as I guess you should expect, to one of the comic cons I went to this fall) 100-page giants.  I've caught every issue of the Superman giants, most of the Batman, and started buying the Teen Titans giants again.  Haven't really gotten back into Justice League after the first issue.

World's Greatest Super-Heroes Holiday Special
The second holiday special, after the Halloween one, is Christmas-centric.  The lead, original story is from Scott Lobdell and features the Flash and his Rogues.  The real highlight of this particular giant is, however, is a reprint from two years ago, "Good Boy," a Batman Annual #1 reprint written by Tom King, his origin of Ace the Bathound, who starts out as a dog used by the Joker.  Batman brings him home, not knowing what else to do, and Alfred spends the next four months taming him, exhibiting his infinite Pennyworth patience.  The sequence, of course, ends on Christmas, with Batman noting wryly that Alfred didn't get him anything this year.  One of King's great characterizations has been Alfred; it'd be great for an extended look at some point, although if this is the closest we get it'll still rank among the highlights of the run.

The other highlight is from Superman #64, originally published in 1991, as you can tell a little less than a year before "Doomsday."  The writer is Dan Jurgens, but the artist is Butch Guice (as he was later known; here he's still known as Jackson Guice), who was later one of the key "triangle era" artists, best known for his Action Comics Eradicator "Reign of the Supermen" arc.  The Guice in this issue is wonderfully moody (even if the inking could be updated to freshen it up), full of shadows, a marked contrast to his later work and not the kind of art you typically associate with Superman.

There's also a Supergirl tale that's similar to Jurgens' tale about answering mail and humanity; a Harley Quinn; and a Green Lanterns, Rebirth era tale featuring Simon Baz and Jessica Cruz.  Honestly, when that run began I was hugely excited for Baz and Cruz to step into the spotlight, but over time I've grown tired of the storytelling that leaned so heavily on their core insecurities, which of course this tale does, too. 

Batman 100-Page Comic Giant #5
The lead is the third installment of Brian Michael Bendis and Nick Derington's all-new tale, which this issue finally reveals as featuring Vandal Savage as the big bad, after spotlighting an atypically muddled Riddler as Batman and eventually Green Arrow, too, trying to figure out his latest scheme.  Bendis is clearly having a ball (a lot of DC fans expected him to jump into writing Batman, not Superman, when his jump from Marvel was first announced), while Derington has helped keep things lively, too.  I was trying to remember where I knew Derington from, and figured out it was the Young Animal Doom Patrol, famously much-delayed in recent issues.  Hopefully his collaborating with Bendis means Derington is gaining DC's confidence as one of its elite artists.

As has appeared in previous issues, the three reprint comics that round out the Batman giants are the "Hush" arc, plus the New 52 Nightwing and Harley Quinn.  I was initially a fan of Kyle Higgins' Nightwing, but I find myself glossing over the material in the giants, and I have no real interest in Harley Quinn.  "Hush" remains brilliant, although in hindsight it certainly seems obvious that Jeph Loeb's fixation on the previously-nonexistent childhood pal of Bruce Wayne, Tommy Elliot, is a dead giveaway that he was the mystery villain all along.  The Jim Lee art equally remains spectacular.  Honestly I think Lee's DC work will become his lasting legacy.

Superman 100-Page Comic Giant #5
But I'm really here to once again gush over Tom King.  Like Bendis, he's now on the third installment of his giants tale, which features Superman's search for a little girl, and the increasingly desperate lengths he will go to in order to find her.

This issue features his most desperate moment so far in the tale.  It's a kind of update on the classic Superman/Muhammad Ali boxing match from the '70s, only this time it's not Ali he's fighting, but an alien named Mighto.  That cover image is from artist Andy Kubert, who unlike his brother Adam has stuck with DC since they jumped, like Bendis, unexpectedly from Marvel, ten years back.  Until now Andy had mostly been associated with Batman material, but he's proving equally adept, and perhaps, ideally suited, to Superman, and this issue, as it for King's tale, might be the highlight of his DC work to date.  It's really something you ought to go out of your way to track down and read for yourself.

As really only the classic "Doomsday" arc had done previously, the story is all about Superman's incredible endurance, his ability to absorb punishment.  This is superhero comics storytelling usually reserved for Spider-Man (which always seemed fairly beside the point to me, other than Marvel's penchant for tortured characters), and seems counterintuitive for someone like Superman, who's usually thought of as overpowered to the point where an artificial weakness (kryptonite) had to be invented along the way.  But Superman is best understood not by his powers but by his force of will, his humanity, and as such, King has rightly illustrated what putting him in a fight ought to look like.  He takes an incredible pounding, apparently past his ability to endure, and yet he refuses to stay down. 

When you think of DC going out on a limb with something like these Walmart giants, you don't really expect them to throw away exceptional material like this, much less have talent the caliber and prestige of Tom King, Brian Bendis or Andy Kubert.  And yet these are bold decisions that are truly paying off, as these guys are massively delivering, and this installment proves beyond any doubt that truly great material is making its way into the giants. 

Reprints include Green Lantern (the original Geoff Johns series), Superman/Batman (someone at DC no doubt finds it deliciously amusing to look back at President Luthor in the Trump era), and The Terrifics, which continues to prove, well, terrific.  I hope Jeff Lemire can keep it going for a long time.  It's at long last, perhaps, his DC breakthrough, and quite possibly Mister Terrific himself in his breakthrough moment.

Teen Titans 100-Page Comic Giant #5
Dan Jurgens, at his most generic, is about the level of what you'd expect from the idea of Walmart-exclusive storytelling.  This is not to say that Jurgens can't rise well above that perception, but he seems uninterested in what I've read, and why I haven't read all of the Teen Titans giants.

But the reprint material is well worth the price of admission.  Johns' Teen Titans is being serialized (last issue included the classic moment where Bart Allen officially reinvented himself as Kid Flash).  I'd never really read it before; this introductory arc is kind of funny in hindsight, as Johns is clearly presenting a version of his later Reverse-Flash as a villain merely attempting to make the hero better, an idea that reached its zenith in Flashpoint.  There's also Super Sons, which I likewise haven't previously had a lot of experience actually reading. I think Pete Tomasi is better suited to writing this than he was Superman.  And then there's Sideways, which on a superficial level was always interpreted as the New Age of Heroes DC version of Spider-Man, but honestly, like the New 52 Doctor Fate before it is kind of more the DC version of the Kamala Khan Ms. Marvel.  And in two more issues I'll finally get to read the first appearance of the Seven Soldiers of Victory in the series.  But I'll probably have to track down the annual separately to enjoy Morrison playing in that sandbox again...

Reading Comics 222 "Nightwing, Halloween ComicFest, Walmart 3-Pack Residuals"

Been lousy keeping up Thought Bubble Comics, I know, I know...

Halloween ComicFest 2018
Here's another free comics event, one I haven't really participated in as enthusiastically as, well, Free Comic Book Day, mostly because, well FCBD is a legit phenomenon and this isn't.  It's just an excuse for some free comics!  Not that there's a problem with that sort of thing, right?  Of course, participating publishers also have a kind of themed mandate with this one where they don't on FCBD.  As such, it was far harder, and conversely far easier, to make selections.  I ended up with just two, DC/Vertigo's John Constantine: Hellblazer special edition and Marvel's Thor: Road to War of the Realms.  I wasn't really interested in anything else (not even anything particularly relevant to snag for my three-year-old niece, alas), though I hemmed and hawed, because free comics, yo. 

Obviously DC was most interested in selling the Vertigo brand itself, and Constantine is as reliable a selling point, as signature an element, as Vertigo ever had, sort of the last crayon in the box by the end, absorbed into DC proper eventually but never really feeling at home there.  I mean, the whole concept was built for the original Vertigo mandate of the creepy fringe elements.  I never really got into the character, mostly because he seemed to be used mostly as an excuse, a vehicle, more than for whatever he specifically brought to the table, or that his fans were not particularly vocal about his selling points.  I mean, the concept, which became a Keanu Reeves movie at one point, and then a short-lived TV series and then featured player in another show.  This issue was written by Neil Gaiman, who does Neil Gaiman at his most vague.  What always made Gaiman's instincts work so well in the pages of Sandman was that it was always grounded in real human pathos.  There's an attempt made in the story, but Constantine is inherently uninterested in what's most interesting in Gaiman's best material.  And I'm not really much of a horror for horror's sake kind of reader.  So anyway, still haven't figured out the guy's appeal, or waiting for a writer like Lemire, in the pages of I, Vampire, to figure out how to draw him out of his shell.  What he needs is other characters to consistently react against. 

The Thor issue was part of Jason Aaron's sprawling run, apparently somewhere near the beginning (third out of twelve volumes helpfully spelled out in the back pages).  What's most annoying about Thor as a character, to me, is that he's so often, certainly in Aaron's hands, entirely limited to Asgardian business.  It's like Aquaman only concerned with Atlantis court intrigue.  You need to remember that this is a character who will thrive best as a fish out of water, not forever thrust in alienating context.

Anyway...

Batman #57
Tom King's latest successful outrage magnet was hobbling Nightwing (more on that in a moment) in the midst of a mini-arc with the KGBeast.  I was perfectly okay with this for any number of reasons.  One is that he previously made a very early career mark with the Beast in the pages of his seminal Grayson: Futures End, which of course featured Nightwing, years before King wrote an issue of Batman.  Another is that this arc instantly further elevates the Beast's credibility by placing him, basically, at the same level as Bane, who in King's hands has finally reached his full "Knightfall" potential.  And as he has so often demonstrated, King used this moment for another excellent character study.

But let's move on to...

Nightwing # 50-51
Between Ben Percy and Scott Lobdell, this is the start of a bold new era for Dick Grayson.  Another bold new era.  This is a character who has defined bold new eras in DC. Fans like to slake their need for nerd outrage by claiming Dan DiDio has long had it ought for Nightwing, but...the results?  They kind of suggest the character has blossomed as never before under DiDio's watch.  Whether it was in the pages of the New 52 Nightwing, where he was consistently presented as relevant to Scott Snyder's Batman, which never happened in the long-running first Nightwing ongoing (which went on for a hundred and fifty issues, no less), or the bold new era of his exposed secret identity, which led to the spy adventures of Grayson, which by the way introduced readers to Tom King, the character has had it good.  For a character almost as old as DC itself, who went from a kid sidekick to growing up and claiming his own identity, who had his own team built around him, these have all been milestone events not just for Nightwing but DC and superhero comics in general.

So quit complaining already.

This time it's "merely" a story where he's temporarily forgotten all about having ever been Nightwing, Robin, any of that.  As if that's going to last.  In the meantime, there are going to be entirely new Dick Grayson stories.  That's always a good thing.  Too often, Nightwing stories are most worried about distinguishing him from Batman.  And just as often, a new creative team becomes obsessed with returning the character to his roots.  Somehow Kyle Higgins was the first one to do so as literally as taking him back to Haly's Circus. 

Which means letting him experience something that's not comparing him to Batman or harking back to some previous era (which is not to say material that's done this hasn't been very good) or setting him up in some new territory...This is, once again, a great time to be a fan of Nightwing.  That's the bottom line here, folks.  And Percy and Lobdell in these issues prove they're capable of making it interesting, and good reading. 

Walmart 3-Packs
Ah!  So I've continued reading the latest DC gifts to Wallyworld, the 100-page giants, and while I wish I'd been talking about the King and Bendis tales now unfolding in them here, it's always fun to revisit the 3-packs that still haven't sold out and were trotted out when the giants' display boxes went up.  So I started buying them again, of course, because someone has to...

Batman #1, 25, 34 - These are all from the New 52, and were fun to read.  I was never the biggest fan of Scott Snyder's much-acclaimed and -read run, but I appreciated what it was doing.  And the funny thing is, I always seem to enjoy reading it, too.  The twenty-fifth was a "Zero Year" issue, while the thirty-fourth was written by Gerry Duggan, who later took his talents to Marvel (where the state of its zombies is such that they have no idea Duggan is a great talent they ought to be appreciating).  It's a great issue.

Batman Eternal #1 - The start, all over again, of the weekly series that sort of allowed Snyder (and a host of collaborators) to play in the established sandbox a little more than he allowed himself in the main series.  I'm still surprised that there's so little appreciation for the results. 

Green Lantern Corps #34 - John Stewart is still trying to deal with the fact that he let a planet die in Cosmic Odyssey.  It's just one of those late-80s things that has a longer shelf life than necessary.  But it also gives Kyle Rayner-era villain Fatality more stories, and weaves into the complicated nature of the expanded spectrum.  Good GL mythology snapshot (for an issue with a "selfie variant cover," ironically or not).

Trinity of Sin: Pandora - Futures End
Pandora is that signature New 52 character who kind of helped lead the charge of disappointment for fans, who ultimately found her underwhelming despite a massive amount of hype.  But the funny thing is, and I'm pretty sure I've now read this issue through the acquisition of several copies enough times for it to finally sink in, that the fate of the New 52 era is spelled out, how it always seemed destined to lead to DC Rebirth.  Because as far as this issue is concerned, apparently that was always the purpose of Pandora.  Never mind how Geoff Johns later had Doctor Manhattan unceremoniously obliterate her, a kind of symbolic gesture on the whole New 52 era.  Or maybe even that was intentional.  Most fans are never going to care.  But Pandora deserves a better fate.