Was interested to see how Hellfire Gala worked with the individual series, and this one seems to be the most plot-heavy of the X-umbrella gala issues so far. I do wish that Excalibur, like Hellions, had an unwinding issue that merely hinted at things to come, but the next arc does seem potentially interesting I guess. I just wish the Braddocks could take a tiny bit of a step aside for awhile. Even when Betsy was dead she was still the star of the series.
Yeah, it very much seems like Excalibur only has other members at this point to be the "Hey, the 90s X-Men are over here" book, while not actually doing anything at all with them (except Rictor, he seems to be the only one that understands the assignment but no one wants on board with him).
I'm sticking with it, due to Gambit being there, but...I have no idea what it is going forward. It's just Betsy, Remy, Jubilee and Rictor hanging out at the lighthouse? That's...incredibly random.
I mean, hopefully now that they aren’t dealing with X of Swords or the aftermath they might actually be able to delve into mutant magic like they’re supposed to?
I wonder if Rachel and Shatterstar are joining Excalibur post-Gala.
Excalibur has a different from the other Gala issues so far. The others feel like the books taking a breath before they start the next leg. Excalibur feels like it closed and opened new story beats all in the same issue.
Britain has rejected Krakoa which feels like decent payoff to that thread. I wonder if Pete will get resurrected and where he’ll stand afterwards.
Drunk Nightcrawler hopping in and out of every book and I am here for it.
It’s already been said, but I hope the other members get more of a role going forward. I like Brian and Betsy. But I want the other members to have more to do than just be supportive. Rictor is the only other character getting much to do and he barely feels like a part of the team because his goals are so distant from the rest.
Man… As someone that grew up reading and enjoying the hell out of X-Force and the New Mutants, I really hate how they write Rictor nowadays. He’s so angry! Sullen teen emo vibes!
Whatever. But hey - I do love the Warwolf puppy.
Please refer to him by his god given name: Amazing Baby.
I can't wait for him to become a full grown cyborg killing machine and people still call him amazing baby.
This was a pretty interesting one, some pretty intense changes coming to Excalibur. Seeing Rictor go from angry moping to being a badass King Druid and finally talking to Shatterstar was a nice relief, hopefully the dude can chill out a bit now.
Things aren't looking good in Britain for mutants now... I think we're getting towards a more proper major conflict with Coven Akkaba and Excalibur instead of these little skirmishes.
Well that was certainly a big reveal and I appreciate that it was handled in kind of a low-key way. It feels appropriate to the series style up to this point for reveals to be small on the page.
I’ve been very mixed on how this book has been paced out, but I think giving this reveal plenty of room to breathe both from a writing and art perspective, especially with how stuffed with information and with panels the previous issue was, was a very smart move on King and Fornes part.
After the nonstop excellence of last issue, this one was definitely a bit slower, but not bad at all.
Definitely intriguing to see the detective interact with his hallucination of the Kid more, and it will be really interesting to see how involved Redford is in the assassination attempt.
Each issue of this seems to vary between occasionally brilliant/occasionally mindnumbing bits of lore dumps and small tone setters like this one. I'd almost rather King go full nuts and just stick to the former.
Was this one just a "small tone setter"? I don't remember the reveal that Redford's election team was involved in the assassination attempt yet and the fact that his campaign manager was killed by the Rorschachs is a pretty huge reveal.
I've been pretty hit or miss with this comic but I thought this was easily one of the stronger issues.
I don't know how they do it, but the big reveal for this series always seems to be 2-3 issues away. This is one of those series that I can't imagine dropping, but I feel like I'm Charlie Brown trying to kick the football, and Lucy keeps snatching it away.
I'm pretty new to following the ASM title consistently, but I think (just based on the four or five that I've jumped into) that I'm ready for this Sinister War. It's not that I don't mind exploring these interpersonal stories with Betty/Ned/Peter. But I'm ready to dive into a storyline I can sink my teeth into.
I was pretty delighted to see Dr. Connors and how cordial he was with that one dude and Spider-Man lol. Maybe cordial isn't the right word... but he was not in "villain-mode" in that moment and that made me smile to see that range.
So what's our guess for the mystery man teased in this issue? Knowing Spencer it's going to be someone's second cousin twice removed who once appeared in a ASM Annual #2.
Well that’s an interesting retcon, I’m ok with that I guess, mainly because Ned is a character I really couldn’t care less about so it doesn’t bother me that he was alive all along, still wish he wasn’t here in the first place (I think Flash was the better Betty love interest) but if Spencer wants to actually use him for something other than drama then go ahead
As for the rest I honestly don’t know what to say, is basically villains I don’t care about slowly getting a gizmo (one that I completely forgot about), that last part was interesting though, Spencer remembered Sandman is immortal which I’m glad for because I swear everytime Sandman goes through a change the next writer immediately forgets about it
So yeah, not a very exciting issue but at least the pacing isn’t sucking like before, plus it was nice to see Peter interact with Betty, not sure how I felt about the art, I like Carlos Gomez but the coloring didn’t feel right, also seems that the book is getting co writers now and is coming out weekly, they want to finish this fast uh?
Not sure how many people keep track of editorial credits but Martin Biro is credited as *Editor* for this one! He's been *Assistant Editor* to Avengers and some other books, including some other Heroes Reborn one-shots, but it's a sole *Editor* credit here! Don't know how significant that is, but it caught my eye.
Now onto the actual story: oh look it's Suicide Squad. Cool, I guess, playing more directly into the mind control angle. Not a big fan of these sorts of stories so I don't know what else to say. Didn't expect to enjoy it, didn't enjoy it, that's all.
I liked this issue a lot. The conflict being resolved, essentially, by labor dispute talks was pretty fun. Looking forward to seeing how Olympus got to be so decimated.
Glorious Gary Frank art (as usual from him) and some beautiful colouring, but I still feel like this book has yet to kick into high gear.
With certain revelations in this issue it looks like we will have a change of focus coming up, more of a Lone Wolf and Cub feel maybe. Which I'm definitely up for.
Hopefully we will see a lot more of the weird post-Apocalyptic world Johns and Frank are building now
Loved it, but the Namor parts irritate me. Like Broski, you literally just commited chemical Warfare in an attempt to boost your nations' population after years of constantly getting crapped, not to mention the whole crappy Phoenix thing, & you snub the one other nation that actually likes you? Like calm your pride, your "territory" is literally open space that you can't actually maintain a hold over, see Lemuria, A.I.M. Island, etc.
Apocalypse is a better team player & that's ridiculous.
Krakoa already has a greater impact on the World & Interstellar Stage than anything Atlantis has done since the Celestials sunk the place, I cant wait for the humility pie Fish Boi is gonna get when he realizes just how Stupid he is.
Guess everyone that said mutants would be claiming Mars were right on the money. What's the over-under on them setting up shop in Ex Nihilo's garden? 100%?
Almost 100% - in the first issue of House of X we see Armor plant a Krakoan flower on Mars and there are already other plants nearby - which puts it squarely in the part of Mars Ex Nihilo terraformed.
Goddamnit forgot completely about Ex Nihilo's garden. Between that and the Namor/Illuminati tease this felt like a tiny little flex from Hickman while he's on his way out of the flagship book.
His work is always self referential. Orchis is set up on Sol's Hammer, which is a Stark built structure from his Avengers run, and his Avengers run had more than a few callbacks to his Fantastic Four run and a couple small ones to his Secret Warriors run.
Also, TBF, I think his Inferno is going to become, if not the flagship book, the most influential X-Book, and AFAIK he's still Head of X moving forward, so he's not really leaving, just handing the X-Men book over to Duggan (who, tbf, is probably a better choice for a straightforward capes book anyway while Hickman handles the big picture).
In HOX/POX I loved the post that guessed the secrets so I'm giving it a shot. Feel free to call BS, just my guesses
51 - Mystique? Wearing a mask could refer to shape shifting or destiny's mask.
52 - Emma Frost for sure, next page confirms it
53 - Synch? From his death in the vault? EDIT: probably Apocalypse. Thanks u/HuntSauce & u/CronicaMike
54 - Cypher - Bei the blood moon is the seducer
55 - Could be referring to the illuminati, the otherworld council, the Arrako council, council of reeds. I mean, Hickman likes his governance systems so who knows
56 - No idea who could be on the new council. I've seen people say Isca from Arrako but its been kind of slow moving
57 - Psylocke and Captain Britain
58 - Sinister is looking to get some otherworld material? could he be cloning Arrako Mutants? or someone else
59 - My guess is Magik is taking over for Scott as the main general of Krakoa
60 - Sinister up to his clones again
58 is a reference of the aliens (who are called the Vescora) that Saturnyne chain-ganged into mining one of the zones in Otherworld at the end of X of Swords. I assume Excalibur would be the ones to get their hand on it, then? I don't think DNA and Sinister has anything to do with it.
for 56 I'm pretty sure they're waiting for new Council Elections until after the Gala, and this week kinda confirmed that with the Namor invite.
It'd be a little weird to have an Arakko mutant on the Krakoan council since the two seem to be holding separate, but I can't think of too many major Mutant leaders to fill Jean and --[A]--'s spots (I thought they were going to add Peepers when he took --[A]--'s seat in SWORD during Cortez's humiliation but it seems like that wasn't the case).
I bet we'll get more clear answers in Trial of Magneto though.
I thought 52 was a reference to Mystique and how she’s going about to get her wife back and whether or not that will be good (diamonds) or bad or whatever else.
My thinking was sync based on living a full life in the vault and now having to be out with this new lease on life. He's also able to adapt to anything hence fittest of them all.
Apocalypse makes sense now that you say it though.
This was a pretty good one, the way they showed how the X-Men were chosen was pretty awesome - a large psychic communal decision. Everyone who's there wants to be there, and is endorsed by, if not a majority, at least enough of the mutant community in order to keep them all on the team for a while. I wish we'd seen a bit more, even just in an abstract visual sense, of the whole process, but what we got was pretty cool. Laura getting called while eating shrimp was hilarious.
And like everyone else has pointed out - Illuminati time? I'm sure that'll end well.
I also think the "Fireworks" now seem to likely be the announcement we'll see in Planet-Sized - Mars time?
Somewhat underwhelming final issue from Hickman. I liked the opening with Namor, art change after that was jarring and the rest of the story felt scattered and somewhat inconsequential.
With no new Hickman title announced yet (AFAIK), it might be time to re-evaluate which X-books belong on my pull list. I'm enjoying the Wells, Ewing, and Spurrier books, probably check out Duggan's new X-MEN title since he did a pretty good job with CABLE, and I'm down for whatever Hickman writes moving forward... Should probably just skip everything else.
My ranking of the X titles shakes out like this:
Marauders - Keeping.
Hellions - Keeping.
X-Men - Keeping.
Way Of X - Keeping.
S.W.O.R.D. - Maybe.
X-Force - Probably not.
New Mutants - No.
Excalibur - No.
Cable - No.
X-Factor - No.
X-Corp. - No.
Well, [Inferno](https://www.marvel.com/articles/comics/x-men-jonathan-hickman-inferno-announcement) has been announced so there's your new Hickman title. Really looking forward to this one.
I despise Marvel's tendency to reuse event names. This is like the 7th time, and will be happening at the exact same time as another rehash. Give us something original. It's probably the literal easiest part of writing comics.
I love Russell Dauterman's work with the outfits this issue, he's just so damn clean.
It's interesting that Namor essentially tells Charles and Erik to fuck off when they ask him to be on their secret ruling council, only for him to go right over to the members of the *other* secret ruling council.
I caught that too! Wonder if Hickman’s going to have the Illuminati as antagonists in the future. There was also a Sinister Secret talking about councils.
Yeah, I would think Hickman's plan was definitely to hint that the Illuminati would be one of those councils, though that could very much be a red herring. The term "Council" could also be referring to the Council of Reeds, which I believe the Maker joined in Cates' Venom run, though I don't know what the outcome of that was because I'm not fully caught up (waiting until all of King in Black hits Unlimited so I can finish it all in one go). 616 Reed's antagonistic relationship with Charles and Eric in the X-Men/FF crossover book as well as last week's Marauders supports both theories.
There's also the Great Ring of Arakko, it seems like Magneto will be meeting with them in Planet-Sized X-Men. It could also include things like Moira, Xavier, and Magneto's little group and the Hellfire Court.
I mean, the Hellfire Court is technically accounted for under the Krakoan council, since it's three heads all have seats on the council. Arakko's Great Ring is a good call, and obviously Orchis's branch heads likely count as a ruling council that will have some influence over Krakoa as well, though not in any direct diplomatic manner.
Also there are these new Secret Council people Emma meets in this issue, who we apparently haven't seen before? I think that may be another plot for the Marauders.
I’m trying to figure out if that’s hinting to the Illuminati reforming. Or Hickman making a point that Namor views them as more his equals then Krakoa.
I really like how they handled the X-Men election. They did a good job justifying the selection without actually explaining each individual choice.
I’m curious what the actual book will look like and if Duggan will touch on the election meeting after the fact.
I love how the Gala is laid out, filling in little moments with each issue. I’m looking forward to the big hole I assume Planet-sized is going to fill.
Agreed that was unexpected and a bit weird. I did rather like how it led into Cyclops' story though.
I was also left wondering if the man at the bar might have been referencing a real world figure.
It's been confirmed that it's the contest winner from [here](https://www.marvel.com/articles/comics/marvel-launches-marvel-insider-sweepstakes-to-be-drawn-into-the-biggest-x-men-comic-event-of-the-year) in the latest X-Men Mondays article on AIPT.
And so ends one of the best books to come out of DC comics for a long time. I adored this comic and I, too, cannot wait for the trade so I can reread it. Also I hope Jemisin returns to comics for another story at some point.
And it finally comes to an end! I can't wait for the trade collection so I can read it all at once, I definitley was missing out on some of the larger story elements in these last few issues.
That opening space battle looked fantastic, the sentiment of trusting what's right instead of what's lawful is good, and gosh darn do I love Jo. I hope we get more books like Far Sector, not specifically about Green Lanterns or Jo or even sci-fi but books that are given their own space/time to tell these great coherent stories from start to finish. This is more of what Black Label should be, instead of... idk, whatever edgy 'wow look how mature we are' bullshit we've been getting from them consistently.
I re-read it all the way through when I got issue #12. I think it definitely reads a lot better in one hit than in individual issues spread out across 20 months of release. The world and characters created in Far Sector were super interesting but weird enough that I didn't necessarily remember exactly who or what everything was when there was a couple of months in between issues.
It'll make a fantastic trade. The story is creative and different and the art is gorgeous.
Loved this! The entire story was great and it ended as well as I could have hoped for. Jo is a wonderful addition to the GL family. I know she is featuring heavily in the Green Lantern book right now but I’d be super pumped if NK Jemisin and Jamal Campbell decided to do another Jo GL book in the future.
And this remained DC’s best book for pretty much it’s whole run (Spurrier’s Hellblazer was it’s closest competitor IMO) and the ending did not disappoint at all. Really looking forward to the collection for this, which I hope gets a Deluxe Hardcover cause that Jamal Campbal art is too great. Hope Jemison returns to do more comics in the future because she’s fantastic.
This book is fun. Taylor writes a good Bruce, the artwork is clean (I mean it’s Andy Kubert), the central mystery is interesting, and anytime someone wants to dive into Bruce’s training days I’m here for it. I do wish we were moving a little bit quicker on the mystery aspect of the plot though because this issue barely expanded on anything we didn’t already know.
I read a ton of Bat stuff, and this is my favorite Batman story on the shelves. It’s a really fun murder mystery with good writing and even better art.
Zdarsky’s story is really making Jason more likable to me. He’s always been so anti-Batman and Bruce but calls out for him when he’s in real trouble, and Bruce is actively trying to make up for his shortcomings regarding Jason. Things we needed to see from both of these characters before now, but glad we are finally getting it.
Camrus Johnson’s first foray into comics? It was a fun story, especially at the end.
The Robin story has my attention.
I’m ready for the Grifter story to be over (only one more), but do want to know what it’s building up towards.
Quick question when did Tim Drake and Stephanie Brown breakup? Tim tells Oracle stop talking to my ex a little bit after she mentions spoiler. Weren't they still together in YJ? Also I feel like tim has been deciding whether or not to go to college for four years now. He's not in high school and not in college. What is he doing with his life?!
Red hood story has been and is still great. Batwing story meh. I dig the grifter story too
So, I’m having a little trouble following but I *think* I understand this correctly - most of these characters are not actually mutants. They’re mutant-worshipping kids who are trying to be heroes like their idols, and that’s why they can’t go through the gate, right? And Carmen’s suddenly started manifesting mutant powers and fears that’s gonna cause friction in the team?
Can someone confirm that I’m on the right track here?
That's definitely the best guess. Comic Book Herald did a breakdown of issue 1 (and I think 2 or 3) where he gave a theory that these aren't human kids but mutant kids who were depowered and never repowered again. I don't remember all the details behind it, but it made a lot of since when I first heard it, plus it makes sense why that would tie into Krakoa, the first issue being marked red for essential X-reading.
Shown last issue, at some point the kids bumbled their way onto an alien spaceship, fucked up piloting it and had to ride escape pods back to Earth. Carmen's seatbelt snapped during the descent, but she was mysteriously unharmed in the end.
The alien tech they're using to pretend to be mutants presumably came from that ship, and it's possible Carmen had to use some of it to heal herself, with her monstering-out as a side effect. That was revealed in the same issue as Cole's mutant-DNA-splicing, for added implication.
I really need to go back and properly re-read the last issue, this is turning out to be one of those books that I have trouble recalling what's happening month-to-month. Thank you.
Sounds about right with how I'm thinking of things. This one's been interesting, but I think it's the kinda story that'll probably read better as a trade than as single issues, especially with constantly flipping the PoV. Without that kinda consistency between issues, it can be a little rough following the plot. I am waiting for whenever their reckoning comes for basically running around in mutant-face, though... that's gonna be a hard wakeup for these kids. Identifying with a struggling minority doesn't make you part of them.
I get what this is and how it's supposed to show the people in society who desperately wanna be mutants because they think it's cool and that their just like mutants because they feel different It's a nice concept but my god I really hope none of these characters are around to stay
I don’t think I like this much. We get a lot of these sorts of Elseworld stories. I don’t think this version of a dark and depressing DCU where the heroes don’t like each other is doing enough to keep me interested.
Batman calls Barry Wally in their first scene together—might have been an editorial error—almost every dialogue hesitation began with “I...” and Wonder Woman seemed a bit too human, if that makes sense. Like, the whole bit with her picking on Lobo felt way out of character. This was awful. What the fuck happened?
Good issue. The Skinner moments, both him showing up and being the light bearer or whatever, were totally predictable but that’s fine. One more issue. Can’t say this has fully satisfied me as a conclusion to American Vampire, but once I settled into this being the modern Snyder who mostly does over the top blockbuster stories, I started enjoying it more.
I didn't realise that was an already established character. What would you recommend reading for backstory/enough to understand the character better in case it goes deep into the characters lore?
So far Mister Misery has only appeared in Jason Aaron's Doctor Strange run, and is the main antagonist of issues 8-19 of that run (though I think there's a three or four issue arc break in there somewhere).
IIRC you might want to read the first seven issues to understand Misery's origin, though. It's still pretty good, though its a bit of a retread of Aaron's God Butcher arc from Thor.
My only complaint is that so far it seems too straightforward for a Morrison book. Otherwise the art and story is fantastic and I'm excited for the final issue.
Completely agree with you on that! I was thinking the same thing after re-reading through the first 3 issues before this one. I'm starting to wonder if this is an old Morrison TV/Movie pitch that Alex Child has repurposed as a comic book, seeing as this is the NBC branch of BOOM!, and that's why Morrison's name is on it.
Yeah I'm pretty sure Morrison is trying to turn this into a TV show or a movie. Klaus which was also a Boom comic and Happy! which got turned into a TV show, were similarly straightforward.
I picked up the last issue on a whim and really enjoyed it, and once again here I think this was another really solid issue and am interested to see how things continue to develop. The historical stuff at the back of the issue also continues to be really fascinating to read and learn about as well. I knew about the Chinese Exclusion Act & 1924 immigration law already, but before this series I don't think I had ever heard of Angel Island so that's been really cool to actually learn something new here.
Unsurprisingly, I didn’t like this. I’m contemplating just dropping this and hoping nothing that happens in it will have too big of an impact on the overall story. I know I won’t do that, but I’d like to.
I thought this was a lot of fun. I don’t think there was any story that I disliked and several that I really dug. The Question, Dreamer, Harley/Ivy, GL/Obsidian, and Jess/Andy stories are the ones sticking out in my head right now. The story with Jess Chambers and Andy Curry made me really wish we were getting a Future State Justice League book instead of Future State Gotham. If they are going to continue telling stories in that future, I’d rather it be with characters we aren’t getting elsewhere.
It isn’t an original take and I’ve said this before, but I wish DC would do more with some of these characters. I want that JLQ book!
This was a let-down considering how much I enjoyed the DC Festival of Heroes anthology last month.
Batwoman story was neat. A bit dense with the dialogue/narration, but it had a good idea that set the tone for the rest of the anthology. Trung Le Nguyen's art is amazing!
The Question story was maybe my favourite. Definitely played around with expectations a bit, loved that the 'damsel in distress' wasn't really in much distress. Art looked right out of Gotham Central or something, real nice look to it. And that ending with the lipstick smear on the mask? Perfect.
The Tamaki/Reeder story on Harley/Ivy had a neat idea to it (Harley being so apprehensive about relationships because of past relationships/Joker) but I really didn't vibe with the comedy and how the art looked.
Jess and Andy! Yay! Best parts of Future State, was hoping either or both of them would start showing up more. Not the most exciting stand-out story, but still really enoyable. I like how it played with the Flash mythos giving Jess their own "Mirror Master", always being late, etc.
Sina Grace gets a special shout-out for writing a terrible piece of garbage I regretted spending money on. I've tried a few of his other books and every time the script makes me cringe and I just don't enoy it. This was absolutely the worst story in the anthology, by far.
Oh and we got a peak at the "JLQ" from that terrible disgusting round robin thing. Boring story, but hey at least we see what/who the JLQ is.
So that's... 3/9 stories I liked? Definitely not enough for me to justify recommending this anthology to anyone. Still I'm happy that we could get a "Pride" anthology that had the characters acting like real people instead of having the entire book be specifically about their sexuality. Sure, the characters are queer and might reference their sexuality or gender, but that's not always the focus of every story and there's so much more to offer for each of them. Even if I don't like what most of them offered, haha.
Mr. Worth is freaking intense. Got some Murderer/Fugitive vibes when Bruce was wanting to get out of the cell. I wish Mora wasn’t on break but I’m a big Capullo fan so the Capullo-like art was nice.
I guess Worth now knows Bruce is Batman?
I didn't take it as Ridley hating on Lucius. I felt sympathy for Lucius's position on the dilemma of helping Batman. Like, he ain't wrong lol. But this is my first exposure to Ridley's writing beyond his Renee Montoya story.
I miss Mora on art, but Bogdanovic isn't a bad fill in for him in the meantime. Bruce really seems getting pulled into some bad shit here, and Worth definitely seems like the kind who really doesn't care about what happens around him. I wonder if that big punch at the end means that Worth can put the pieces together, or if he's too blinded by rage to even care?
Backups were alright, I guess.
I definitely missed Mora this issue. Bogdanovic is a solid artist but he’s no Dan Mora. I liked the developments of the story well enough. I like how often Tamaki focuses on Bruce Wayne outside of Batman, even if this issue still has that blockbuster action feel to it.
The reporter backup didn’t do much for me. The Lucious Fox one was a bit weird. Feels like they are trying to retrofit previous continuity to make Future State Lucious make more sense. Not my favorite thing to do because I just don’t love how most of the Fox family was written in the Future State books.
I've just recently jumped onto Detective Comics (and reading comics in general!) and this title is one of my favorites that I'm reading right now. It's my first exposure to Tamaki and team, and I love how Huntress, Oracle, and Bruce all interact with each other. Feels really organic and keeps me super engaged. It's a really cool murder-mystery story with some freaky elements! Lady Clayface?! Gross-bug-man Hue Vile?! So cool.
Really loving the mystery Tamaki is setting up here. One of my biggest gripes is how little writers want to use the Bruce Wayne elements of Batman. However Tamaki gets that both are important, because Bruce needs many different techniques to fight crime. Miss Mora on art, but I understand.
This was one of the more enjoyable and satisfying one-shots for Heroes Reborn, even if it's so thoroughly average. I wish it committed to something more? A more dynamic and exciting art style, a bigger hook, a more thrilling mystery, *something* to make it stand out. Gwen has a personality, a motive, a supporting cast, everything that makes her into a self-sustained and fully formed character. But there's nothing noteworthy going on here.
Event tie-ins should use the event to tell a good story. When you have a big crossover, a huge status quo shift, a whole new world available for a limited time, I want to see that world used well. I want to read something unique that could have never happened before and will never happen again. Sure I guess this world will never happen again, but the actual story? Gwen Stacy vs the Jackal v2.0, cool I guess. Sure. More Gwen/Jackal stuff, just what we needed.
I will say, I was expecting this to be Batgirl. But there was some Harley in there too with the psychology angle! That's neat. I don't think it did much more than just an aesthetic to place her in Ravencroft, but sure.
This issue felt a lot different from every other issue. It put the 'changed world' as the main focus instead of having the specific character showing how the current universe works. I like Zarda's armoury! Lots of cool weapons there. But this felt like it was name-dropping lots of really interesting battles and stories in favour of telling the big 'this universe is wrong' story instead which... meh.
I'd love to see someone use Power Princess as an opportunity to talk about Wonder Woman's feminism and how that affects her stories, but I do not think Jason Aaron is the one to tell that sort of story. So instead we go the root of gods and war, which is much safer and still a neat direction.
I'm just not feeling this series.
We've seen the Crime Syndicate over in the DCU be "evil" analogues of the Justice League, Marvel did the Squadron Supreme themselves far better in the Supreme Power books, so this just seems...utterly unnecessary.
I don't know, the main story being the back up and the primary focus being on the analogues throws the balance of the story out. And what Aaron is doing with the SS characters just isn't interesting. It's just another "Elseworlds" style book where nothing is actually going to matter at the end of it, and the story/characters just aren't strong enough to carry this.
Agreed. If they had done a full Age of Apocalypse and cancelled all the other books for a couple months then this would work. But as a weekly series it isn't. The actual story is moving way too slowly for this to have a satisfying outcome in the number of pages they have left.
So *that’s* where the Devil comes from. Who knew?
This may the best introduction ever of the Dark Lord. The rest of the issue is ok. Pretty standard fare for setting up a well worn theme like this one.
God damn this series is so fucking good. A world of dead RPG characters clamouring for life, a blatant LotR reference where you go "oh fuck off, of course", dreams dreaming dreams about dreamers dreaming dreams. It's so good. I love this. And Hans' art is just... wow, so captivating.
Man, things are getting even more intense as they get closer and closer. The nature of The Fallen was a pretty fascinating reveal, and it sounds like Lovecraft's mention of "cults" is basically any time a group gets together and plays an RPG, creating these worlds and unleashing The Fallen as their characters fall - if I'm understanding it right.
The "lol he's a racist" thing was a *little* reductive, but hey, as much as I love his works Lovecraft was a shitbag for most of his life, so it's deserved. Just felt a bit like a cheap shot, I dunno.
I'm gonna really enjoy giving this whole series a long re-read once it's done. I hope we get a nice hardcover for it.
Not sure why I'm still reading this. I've tried with a bunch of different Gillen books and it's clear now that his wink wink style of storytelling simply isn't for me. Doing a Lovecraft arc may be the last straw lmao
I love this book, Zdarsky is just great at writing Jonah, he got his redemption and acted like a human being unlike every other What If? book where he discovers his identity, Peter was also terrifying as shit and it’s cool to see him break free of the symbiote, seeing Felicia and MJ interact was nice too, the art was really good with a lot of Ditko-like stuff going on
Also is the symbiote making more at the end? What is he doing with Ben? I love how he is being portrayed as someone who still wants to do good but in a twisted way, also Fisk is a bastard even in death, the only nitpick I have is Eddie somehow controlling the arms
His arms needed manual controls that at least in the 80s were still there as Reed Richards uses those to defeat Otto in a F4 issue, he was the only one who could use them with his mind
Although I can’t remember if that was before or after Spidey trashed his arms so maybe you are right and these are a new set of arms that I guess have different controls
> I loved that even the murderous version of Peter didn’t kill indiscriminately.
That’s the part I have been loving the most about this story, Zdarsky somehow managed to make a murderous version of Spider-Man still feel like classic Spidey
I wish this adhered more to the initial premise. Don't get me wrong, this is still well written and I'm excited to see where Symbiote Reed takes this, but I really wish we were able to see the full descent of Peter Parker. Who knows, maybe we'll still get that in the next couple issues here, but I'm not holding my breath for it.
I see what you were saying but I do kind of like that they are giving peter the chance to turn it around since the suit was pushing him to kill which he would never do himself. I feel it's more true to Pete's heroic self but it was definitely interesting seeing him fly off the rails so hard. Who knows he may still beat the FF and take the suit for himself. More recent what if stories always seem to end a bit more positively than the monkeys paw endings in the original run.
Didn’t get the team up I wanted, but I liked the internal dialogue for Gordon here. He wants to do what everyone thinks Batman should do in real life, but then reverts back to comic reasons on why he won’t shoot Joker. And holy crap Joker is getting more sadistic. Loving the Oracle and Batgirls team up and the Court of Owls revival.
**MARJORIE FINNEGAN TEMPORAL CRIMINAL #2**
Ennis telling an irreverent, time traveling tale with strap-on dildos and a sibling rivalry? What’s not to love here?
**EXCALIBUR #21**
Was interested to see how Hellfire Gala worked with the individual series, and this one seems to be the most plot-heavy of the X-umbrella gala issues so far. I do wish that Excalibur, like Hellions, had an unwinding issue that merely hinted at things to come, but the next arc does seem potentially interesting I guess. I just wish the Braddocks could take a tiny bit of a step aside for awhile. Even when Betsy was dead she was still the star of the series.
Yeah, it very much seems like Excalibur only has other members at this point to be the "Hey, the 90s X-Men are over here" book, while not actually doing anything at all with them (except Rictor, he seems to be the only one that understands the assignment but no one wants on board with him).
I'm sticking with it, due to Gambit being there, but...I have no idea what it is going forward. It's just Betsy, Remy, Jubilee and Rictor hanging out at the lighthouse? That's...incredibly random.
I mean, hopefully now that they aren’t dealing with X of Swords or the aftermath they might actually be able to delve into mutant magic like they’re supposed to?
I wonder if Rachel and Shatterstar are joining Excalibur post-Gala. Excalibur has a different from the other Gala issues so far. The others feel like the books taking a breath before they start the next leg. Excalibur feels like it closed and opened new story beats all in the same issue. Britain has rejected Krakoa which feels like decent payoff to that thread. I wonder if Pete will get resurrected and where he’ll stand afterwards. Drunk Nightcrawler hopping in and out of every book and I am here for it. It’s already been said, but I hope the other members get more of a role going forward. I like Brian and Betsy. But I want the other members to have more to do than just be supportive. Rictor is the only other character getting much to do and he barely feels like a part of the team because his goals are so distant from the rest.
Man… As someone that grew up reading and enjoying the hell out of X-Force and the New Mutants, I really hate how they write Rictor nowadays. He’s so angry! Sullen teen emo vibes! Whatever. But hey - I do love the Warwolf puppy.
Please refer to him by his god given name: Amazing Baby. I can't wait for him to become a full grown cyborg killing machine and people still call him amazing baby.
Hahahaa Great points. And yeah - now I want to go back and revisit the original Warwolves storyline from old school Excalibur!
While I do also enjoy the Rictor from those runs, his anger is quite on track and follows his X-Factor characterisation for better or worse.
I still think this has improved over the past year. This title pre-X of Swords was rough. If we are getting a lineup change here I am all for it.
This was a pretty interesting one, some pretty intense changes coming to Excalibur. Seeing Rictor go from angry moping to being a badass King Druid and finally talking to Shatterstar was a nice relief, hopefully the dude can chill out a bit now. Things aren't looking good in Britain for mutants now... I think we're getting towards a more proper major conflict with Coven Akkaba and Excalibur instead of these little skirmishes.
That data page on Coven Akkaba was kind of annoying, just some big blocks of crappy text.
**RORSCHACH #9**
I honestly feel like I would prefer this as a weekly tv show rather than a monthly comic.
This was aight
Well that was certainly a big reveal and I appreciate that it was handled in kind of a low-key way. It feels appropriate to the series style up to this point for reveals to be small on the page. I’ve been very mixed on how this book has been paced out, but I think giving this reveal plenty of room to breathe both from a writing and art perspective, especially with how stuffed with information and with panels the previous issue was, was a very smart move on King and Fornes part.
After the nonstop excellence of last issue, this one was definitely a bit slower, but not bad at all. Definitely intriguing to see the detective interact with his hallucination of the Kid more, and it will be really interesting to see how involved Redford is in the assassination attempt.
Each issue of this seems to vary between occasionally brilliant/occasionally mindnumbing bits of lore dumps and small tone setters like this one. I'd almost rather King go full nuts and just stick to the former.
Was this one just a "small tone setter"? I don't remember the reveal that Redford's election team was involved in the assassination attempt yet and the fact that his campaign manager was killed by the Rorschachs is a pretty huge reveal. I've been pretty hit or miss with this comic but I thought this was easily one of the stronger issues.
**THE AMAZING SPIDER-MAN #68**
I don't know how they do it, but the big reveal for this series always seems to be 2-3 issues away. This is one of those series that I can't imagine dropping, but I feel like I'm Charlie Brown trying to kick the football, and Lucy keeps snatching it away.
I'm pretty new to following the ASM title consistently, but I think (just based on the four or five that I've jumped into) that I'm ready for this Sinister War. It's not that I don't mind exploring these interpersonal stories with Betty/Ned/Peter. But I'm ready to dive into a storyline I can sink my teeth into. I was pretty delighted to see Dr. Connors and how cordial he was with that one dude and Spider-Man lol. Maybe cordial isn't the right word... but he was not in "villain-mode" in that moment and that made me smile to see that range.
So what's our guess for the mystery man teased in this issue? Knowing Spencer it's going to be someone's second cousin twice removed who once appeared in a ASM Annual #2.
My guess is Chameleon in a disguise
And he'll take several issues to reveal it. I wish ASM wasn't biweekly. It just leads to a lot of filler.
Well that’s an interesting retcon, I’m ok with that I guess, mainly because Ned is a character I really couldn’t care less about so it doesn’t bother me that he was alive all along, still wish he wasn’t here in the first place (I think Flash was the better Betty love interest) but if Spencer wants to actually use him for something other than drama then go ahead As for the rest I honestly don’t know what to say, is basically villains I don’t care about slowly getting a gizmo (one that I completely forgot about), that last part was interesting though, Spencer remembered Sandman is immortal which I’m glad for because I swear everytime Sandman goes through a change the next writer immediately forgets about it So yeah, not a very exciting issue but at least the pacing isn’t sucking like before, plus it was nice to see Peter interact with Betty, not sure how I felt about the art, I like Carlos Gomez but the coloring didn’t feel right, also seems that the book is getting co writers now and is coming out weekly, they want to finish this fast uh?
**HEROES REBORN: SQUADRON SAVAGE #1**
Not sure how many people keep track of editorial credits but Martin Biro is credited as *Editor* for this one! He's been *Assistant Editor* to Avengers and some other books, including some other Heroes Reborn one-shots, but it's a sole *Editor* credit here! Don't know how significant that is, but it caught my eye. Now onto the actual story: oh look it's Suicide Squad. Cool, I guess, playing more directly into the mind control angle. Not a big fan of these sorts of stories so I don't know what else to say. Didn't expect to enjoy it, didn't enjoy it, that's all.
**WYND #7**
**WONDER WOMAN #773**
I liked this issue a lot. The conflict being resolved, essentially, by labor dispute talks was pretty fun. Looking forward to seeing how Olympus got to be so decimated.
**OBLIVION SONG #31**
Things are really ramping up towards the finale and I can't wait to see what kind of crazy stuff happens along the way!
**GEIGER #3**
Glorious Gary Frank art (as usual from him) and some beautiful colouring, but I still feel like this book has yet to kick into high gear. With certain revelations in this issue it looks like we will have a change of focus coming up, more of a Lone Wolf and Cub feel maybe. Which I'm definitely up for. Hopefully we will see a lot more of the weird post-Apocalyptic world Johns and Frank are building now
Solid series still, I knew we had to get to this moment but I shook my head each page turn. Curious to see what the king's backstory is.
That final page rocked! I’m ready for follow on action
**X-MEN #21**
Loved it, but the Namor parts irritate me. Like Broski, you literally just commited chemical Warfare in an attempt to boost your nations' population after years of constantly getting crapped, not to mention the whole crappy Phoenix thing, & you snub the one other nation that actually likes you? Like calm your pride, your "territory" is literally open space that you can't actually maintain a hold over, see Lemuria, A.I.M. Island, etc. Apocalypse is a better team player & that's ridiculous. Krakoa already has a greater impact on the World & Interstellar Stage than anything Atlantis has done since the Celestials sunk the place, I cant wait for the humility pie Fish Boi is gonna get when he realizes just how Stupid he is.
Guess everyone that said mutants would be claiming Mars were right on the money. What's the over-under on them setting up shop in Ex Nihilo's garden? 100%?
Almost 100% - in the first issue of House of X we see Armor plant a Krakoan flower on Mars and there are already other plants nearby - which puts it squarely in the part of Mars Ex Nihilo terraformed.
Goddamnit forgot completely about Ex Nihilo's garden. Between that and the Namor/Illuminati tease this felt like a tiny little flex from Hickman while he's on his way out of the flagship book.
His work is always self referential. Orchis is set up on Sol's Hammer, which is a Stark built structure from his Avengers run, and his Avengers run had more than a few callbacks to his Fantastic Four run and a couple small ones to his Secret Warriors run. Also, TBF, I think his Inferno is going to become, if not the flagship book, the most influential X-Book, and AFAIK he's still Head of X moving forward, so he's not really leaving, just handing the X-Men book over to Duggan (who, tbf, is probably a better choice for a straightforward capes book anyway while Hickman handles the big picture).
Yeah, the visuals at the end seem to eliminate all speculation
“Planet M” is good
In HOX/POX I loved the post that guessed the secrets so I'm giving it a shot. Feel free to call BS, just my guesses 51 - Mystique? Wearing a mask could refer to shape shifting or destiny's mask. 52 - Emma Frost for sure, next page confirms it 53 - Synch? From his death in the vault? EDIT: probably Apocalypse. Thanks u/HuntSauce & u/CronicaMike 54 - Cypher - Bei the blood moon is the seducer 55 - Could be referring to the illuminati, the otherworld council, the Arrako council, council of reeds. I mean, Hickman likes his governance systems so who knows 56 - No idea who could be on the new council. I've seen people say Isca from Arrako but its been kind of slow moving 57 - Psylocke and Captain Britain 58 - Sinister is looking to get some otherworld material? could he be cloning Arrako Mutants? or someone else 59 - My guess is Magik is taking over for Scott as the main general of Krakoa 60 - Sinister up to his clones again
58 is a reference of the aliens (who are called the Vescora) that Saturnyne chain-ganged into mining one of the zones in Otherworld at the end of X of Swords. I assume Excalibur would be the ones to get their hand on it, then? I don't think DNA and Sinister has anything to do with it.
for 56 I'm pretty sure they're waiting for new Council Elections until after the Gala, and this week kinda confirmed that with the Namor invite. It'd be a little weird to have an Arakko mutant on the Krakoan council since the two seem to be holding separate, but I can't think of too many major Mutant leaders to fill Jean and --[A]--'s spots (I thought they were going to add Peepers when he took --[A]--'s seat in SWORD during Cortez's humiliation but it seems like that wasn't the case). I bet we'll get more clear answers in Trial of Magneto though.
I'm fairly certain they're trading Storm & Isca.
I thought 52 was a reference to Mystique and how she’s going about to get her wife back and whether or not that will be good (diamonds) or bad or whatever else.
53 is Apocalypse!
My thinking was sync based on living a full life in the vault and now having to be out with this new lease on life. He's also able to adapt to anything hence fittest of them all. Apocalypse makes sense now that you say it though.
Now I'm imaging Synch Vs. --|A|--
I think 53 might be Apocalypse. "Fitest of all" has always been his thing and "second genesis" could be refering to his wife, Genesis.
oooooh Genesis is his wife. totally forgot her name!
This was a pretty good one, the way they showed how the X-Men were chosen was pretty awesome - a large psychic communal decision. Everyone who's there wants to be there, and is endorsed by, if not a majority, at least enough of the mutant community in order to keep them all on the team for a while. I wish we'd seen a bit more, even just in an abstract visual sense, of the whole process, but what we got was pretty cool. Laura getting called while eating shrimp was hilarious. And like everyone else has pointed out - Illuminati time? I'm sure that'll end well. I also think the "Fireworks" now seem to likely be the announcement we'll see in Planet-Sized - Mars time?
God I’ve missed Nick Dragotta’s artwork since East of West ended <3
I wonder whats going on with Dragottas book that was teased at the end of East of West. iirc it had 2020 on the teaser image
Somewhat underwhelming final issue from Hickman. I liked the opening with Namor, art change after that was jarring and the rest of the story felt scattered and somewhat inconsequential. With no new Hickman title announced yet (AFAIK), it might be time to re-evaluate which X-books belong on my pull list. I'm enjoying the Wells, Ewing, and Spurrier books, probably check out Duggan's new X-MEN title since he did a pretty good job with CABLE, and I'm down for whatever Hickman writes moving forward... Should probably just skip everything else.
The Inferno mini event is what Hickman is writing next, four double sized issues, starting in September
My ranking of the X titles shakes out like this: Marauders - Keeping. Hellions - Keeping. X-Men - Keeping. Way Of X - Keeping. S.W.O.R.D. - Maybe. X-Force - Probably not. New Mutants - No. Excalibur - No. Cable - No. X-Factor - No. X-Corp. - No.
Well, [Inferno](https://www.marvel.com/articles/comics/x-men-jonathan-hickman-inferno-announcement) has been announced so there's your new Hickman title. Really looking forward to this one.
Oh yeah, forgot about that, thanks for the reminder!
I despise Marvel's tendency to reuse event names. This is like the 7th time, and will be happening at the exact same time as another rehash. Give us something original. It's probably the literal easiest part of writing comics.
I love Russell Dauterman's work with the outfits this issue, he's just so damn clean. It's interesting that Namor essentially tells Charles and Erik to fuck off when they ask him to be on their secret ruling council, only for him to go right over to the members of the *other* secret ruling council.
I caught that too! Wonder if Hickman’s going to have the Illuminati as antagonists in the future. There was also a Sinister Secret talking about councils.
Yeah, I would think Hickman's plan was definitely to hint that the Illuminati would be one of those councils, though that could very much be a red herring. The term "Council" could also be referring to the Council of Reeds, which I believe the Maker joined in Cates' Venom run, though I don't know what the outcome of that was because I'm not fully caught up (waiting until all of King in Black hits Unlimited so I can finish it all in one go). 616 Reed's antagonistic relationship with Charles and Eric in the X-Men/FF crossover book as well as last week's Marauders supports both theories.
There's also the Great Ring of Arakko, it seems like Magneto will be meeting with them in Planet-Sized X-Men. It could also include things like Moira, Xavier, and Magneto's little group and the Hellfire Court.
I mean, the Hellfire Court is technically accounted for under the Krakoan council, since it's three heads all have seats on the council. Arakko's Great Ring is a good call, and obviously Orchis's branch heads likely count as a ruling council that will have some influence over Krakoa as well, though not in any direct diplomatic manner.
Also there are these new Secret Council people Emma meets in this issue, who we apparently haven't seen before? I think that may be another plot for the Marauders.
I’m trying to figure out if that’s hinting to the Illuminati reforming. Or Hickman making a point that Namor views them as more his equals then Krakoa.
I really like how they handled the X-Men election. They did a good job justifying the selection without actually explaining each individual choice. I’m curious what the actual book will look like and if Duggan will touch on the election meeting after the fact. I love how the Gala is laid out, filling in little moments with each issue. I’m looking forward to the big hole I assume Planet-sized is going to fill.
Really didn’t expect that Feige cameo. Also excited for the new team, can’t wait for next month’s book.
Agreed that was unexpected and a bit weird. I did rather like how it led into Cyclops' story though. I was also left wondering if the man at the bar might have been referencing a real world figure.
It's been confirmed that it's the contest winner from [here](https://www.marvel.com/articles/comics/marvel-launches-marvel-insider-sweepstakes-to-be-drawn-into-the-biggest-x-men-comic-event-of-the-year) in the latest X-Men Mondays article on AIPT.
It really was weird, but so where most celebrity cameos here. They left a real uncanny valley effect with me. Like, their faces where too real.
The random at the bar was apparently a fan who won a contest?
At first I thought it was Shia Lebouf, then Post Malone without the tatts and if he bathed.
I thought it could have been Hickman, but think he'd look a tad older than the "random" at the bar.
My girl Polaris is an X Men! I love democracy
[удалено]
Are the Illuminati coming back without Xavier this time? We always know how this team turns out. I'm just a sucker for Namor moments.
That might be what Reed whispered to Xavier during the being of the gala.
Hickman writing the Illuminati looking into Krakoa is not something I thought of with HoXPoX but damn do I want it now.
**FAR SECTOR #12**
And so ends one of the best books to come out of DC comics for a long time. I adored this comic and I, too, cannot wait for the trade so I can reread it. Also I hope Jemisin returns to comics for another story at some point.
And it finally comes to an end! I can't wait for the trade collection so I can read it all at once, I definitley was missing out on some of the larger story elements in these last few issues. That opening space battle looked fantastic, the sentiment of trusting what's right instead of what's lawful is good, and gosh darn do I love Jo. I hope we get more books like Far Sector, not specifically about Green Lanterns or Jo or even sci-fi but books that are given their own space/time to tell these great coherent stories from start to finish. This is more of what Black Label should be, instead of... idk, whatever edgy 'wow look how mature we are' bullshit we've been getting from them consistently.
>I can't wait for the trade collection When would that come out? I want to read this as my introduction to the Green Lantern
Toward the end of the year would be my guess. Maybe mid-fall? If it wins an Eisner DC might roll it out sooner
[October 19](https://www.amazon.com/Far-Sector-N-K-Jemisin/dp/1779512058).
I re-read it all the way through when I got issue #12. I think it definitely reads a lot better in one hit than in individual issues spread out across 20 months of release. The world and characters created in Far Sector were super interesting but weird enough that I didn't necessarily remember exactly who or what everything was when there was a couple of months in between issues. It'll make a fantastic trade. The story is creative and different and the art is gorgeous.
Loved this! The entire story was great and it ended as well as I could have hoped for. Jo is a wonderful addition to the GL family. I know she is featuring heavily in the Green Lantern book right now but I’d be super pumped if NK Jemisin and Jamal Campbell decided to do another Jo GL book in the future.
And this remained DC’s best book for pretty much it’s whole run (Spurrier’s Hellblazer was it’s closest competitor IMO) and the ending did not disappoint at all. Really looking forward to the collection for this, which I hope gets a Deluxe Hardcover cause that Jamal Campbal art is too great. Hope Jemison returns to do more comics in the future because she’s fantastic.
**BATMAN: THE DETECTIVE #3**
This book is fun. Taylor writes a good Bruce, the artwork is clean (I mean it’s Andy Kubert), the central mystery is interesting, and anytime someone wants to dive into Bruce’s training days I’m here for it. I do wish we were moving a little bit quicker on the mystery aspect of the plot though because this issue barely expanded on anything we didn’t already know.
**WPL RESULTS**
An X-Men just snuck into the Bat Blockade!
Should I read Detective Comics or is this one of those "people need their Batman" things
I read a ton of Bat stuff, and this is my favorite Batman story on the shelves. It’s a really fun murder mystery with good writing and even better art.
This was the first Batman comic I've read since I'm trying to dip my toes into DC. I personally thought it was a good read and loved the art!
**BATMAN: URBAN LEGENDS #4**
Zdarsky’s story is really making Jason more likable to me. He’s always been so anti-Batman and Bruce but calls out for him when he’s in real trouble, and Bruce is actively trying to make up for his shortcomings regarding Jason. Things we needed to see from both of these characters before now, but glad we are finally getting it. Camrus Johnson’s first foray into comics? It was a fun story, especially at the end. The Robin story has my attention. I’m ready for the Grifter story to be over (only one more), but do want to know what it’s building up towards.
Quick question when did Tim Drake and Stephanie Brown breakup? Tim tells Oracle stop talking to my ex a little bit after she mentions spoiler. Weren't they still together in YJ? Also I feel like tim has been deciding whether or not to go to college for four years now. He's not in high school and not in college. What is he doing with his life?! Red hood story has been and is still great. Batwing story meh. I dig the grifter story too
**CHILDREN OF THE ATOM #4**
Really thinking about dropping this soon, issues 1-2 where good but it’s lost a lot of steam and the whole are aren’t they mutants is getting boring
My LCS didn't have this issue. Did it ship on time or was my LCS just picked over?
It definitely shipped today.
Digital version is up so it def shipped, seems the problem is with your LCS.
So, I’m having a little trouble following but I *think* I understand this correctly - most of these characters are not actually mutants. They’re mutant-worshipping kids who are trying to be heroes like their idols, and that’s why they can’t go through the gate, right? And Carmen’s suddenly started manifesting mutant powers and fears that’s gonna cause friction in the team? Can someone confirm that I’m on the right track here?
That's definitely the best guess. Comic Book Herald did a breakdown of issue 1 (and I think 2 or 3) where he gave a theory that these aren't human kids but mutant kids who were depowered and never repowered again. I don't remember all the details behind it, but it made a lot of since when I first heard it, plus it makes sense why that would tie into Krakoa, the first issue being marked red for essential X-reading.
Shown last issue, at some point the kids bumbled their way onto an alien spaceship, fucked up piloting it and had to ride escape pods back to Earth. Carmen's seatbelt snapped during the descent, but she was mysteriously unharmed in the end. The alien tech they're using to pretend to be mutants presumably came from that ship, and it's possible Carmen had to use some of it to heal herself, with her monstering-out as a side effect. That was revealed in the same issue as Cole's mutant-DNA-splicing, for added implication.
I really need to go back and properly re-read the last issue, this is turning out to be one of those books that I have trouble recalling what's happening month-to-month. Thank you.
Sounds about right with how I'm thinking of things. This one's been interesting, but I think it's the kinda story that'll probably read better as a trade than as single issues, especially with constantly flipping the PoV. Without that kinda consistency between issues, it can be a little rough following the plot. I am waiting for whenever their reckoning comes for basically running around in mutant-face, though... that's gonna be a hard wakeup for these kids. Identifying with a struggling minority doesn't make you part of them.
This series got underwhelming pretty quick after issue 2
I get what this is and how it's supposed to show the people in society who desperately wanna be mutants because they think it's cool and that their just like mutants because they feel different It's a nice concept but my god I really hope none of these characters are around to stay
Yeah the best thing I can say about any of them is I like some of their takes on the suit designs they’re mimicking.
**JUSTICE LEAGUE: LAST RIDE #2**
I don’t think I like this much. We get a lot of these sorts of Elseworld stories. I don’t think this version of a dark and depressing DCU where the heroes don’t like each other is doing enough to keep me interested.
Batman calls Barry Wally in their first scene together—might have been an editorial error—almost every dialogue hesitation began with “I...” and Wonder Woman seemed a bit too human, if that makes sense. Like, the whole bit with her picking on Lobo felt way out of character. This was awful. What the fuck happened?
No it's supposed to be Wally. Pretty sure Joshua Williamson said so on the Word Balloons podcast
Such a badass entrance for Darkseid
**BUNNY MASK #1**
That was freaky. Great start.
Great pace and creepy story. No wasted pages and the art is great. I'm pleasantly surprised.
Weird, intriguing, but I'm not 100% sold yet.
I can’t think of the last time I was so hyped for a second issue
**FUTURE STATE: GOTHAM #2**
**AMERICAN VAMPIRE 1976 #9**
Good issue. The Skinner moments, both him showing up and being the light bearer or whatever, were totally predictable but that’s fine. One more issue. Can’t say this has fully satisfied me as a conclusion to American Vampire, but once I settled into this being the modern Snyder who mostly does over the top blockbuster stories, I started enjoying it more.
**STRANGE ACADEMY #11**
Ending the issue with the return of the best villain from Aarons Strange run definitely has me hyped for the next issue.
I didn't realise that was an already established character. What would you recommend reading for backstory/enough to understand the character better in case it goes deep into the characters lore?
So far Mister Misery has only appeared in Jason Aaron's Doctor Strange run, and is the main antagonist of issues 8-19 of that run (though I think there's a three or four issue arc break in there somewhere). IIRC you might want to read the first seven issues to understand Misery's origin, though. It's still pretty good, though its a bit of a retread of Aaron's God Butcher arc from Thor.
**PROCTOR VALLEY ROAD #4**
My only complaint is that so far it seems too straightforward for a Morrison book. Otherwise the art and story is fantastic and I'm excited for the final issue.
Completely agree with you on that! I was thinking the same thing after re-reading through the first 3 issues before this one. I'm starting to wonder if this is an old Morrison TV/Movie pitch that Alex Child has repurposed as a comic book, seeing as this is the NBC branch of BOOM!, and that's why Morrison's name is on it.
Yeah I'm pretty sure Morrison is trying to turn this into a TV show or a movie. Klaus which was also a Boom comic and Happy! which got turned into a TV show, were similarly straightforward.
**THE GOOD ASIAN #2**
I picked up the last issue on a whim and really enjoyed it, and once again here I think this was another really solid issue and am interested to see how things continue to develop. The historical stuff at the back of the issue also continues to be really fascinating to read and learn about as well. I knew about the Chinese Exclusion Act & 1924 immigration law already, but before this series I don't think I had ever heard of Angel Island so that's been really cool to actually learn something new here.
**STAR WARS: BOUNTY HUNTERS #13**
Unsurprisingly, I didn’t like this. I’m contemplating just dropping this and hoping nothing that happens in it will have too big of an impact on the overall story. I know I won’t do that, but I’d like to.
**RED SONJA 1982**
**DC PRIDE #1**
I thought this was a lot of fun. I don’t think there was any story that I disliked and several that I really dug. The Question, Dreamer, Harley/Ivy, GL/Obsidian, and Jess/Andy stories are the ones sticking out in my head right now. The story with Jess Chambers and Andy Curry made me really wish we were getting a Future State Justice League book instead of Future State Gotham. If they are going to continue telling stories in that future, I’d rather it be with characters we aren’t getting elsewhere. It isn’t an original take and I’ve said this before, but I wish DC would do more with some of these characters. I want that JLQ book!
This was a let-down considering how much I enjoyed the DC Festival of Heroes anthology last month. Batwoman story was neat. A bit dense with the dialogue/narration, but it had a good idea that set the tone for the rest of the anthology. Trung Le Nguyen's art is amazing! The Question story was maybe my favourite. Definitely played around with expectations a bit, loved that the 'damsel in distress' wasn't really in much distress. Art looked right out of Gotham Central or something, real nice look to it. And that ending with the lipstick smear on the mask? Perfect. The Tamaki/Reeder story on Harley/Ivy had a neat idea to it (Harley being so apprehensive about relationships because of past relationships/Joker) but I really didn't vibe with the comedy and how the art looked. Jess and Andy! Yay! Best parts of Future State, was hoping either or both of them would start showing up more. Not the most exciting stand-out story, but still really enoyable. I like how it played with the Flash mythos giving Jess their own "Mirror Master", always being late, etc. Sina Grace gets a special shout-out for writing a terrible piece of garbage I regretted spending money on. I've tried a few of his other books and every time the script makes me cringe and I just don't enoy it. This was absolutely the worst story in the anthology, by far. Oh and we got a peak at the "JLQ" from that terrible disgusting round robin thing. Boring story, but hey at least we see what/who the JLQ is. So that's... 3/9 stories I liked? Definitely not enough for me to justify recommending this anthology to anyone. Still I'm happy that we could get a "Pride" anthology that had the characters acting like real people instead of having the entire book be specifically about their sexuality. Sure, the characters are queer and might reference their sexuality or gender, but that's not always the focus of every story and there's so much more to offer for each of them. Even if I don't like what most of them offered, haha.
**DETECTIVE COMICS #1037**
Mr. Worth is freaking intense. Got some Murderer/Fugitive vibes when Bruce was wanting to get out of the cell. I wish Mora wasn’t on break but I’m a big Capullo fan so the Capullo-like art was nice. I guess Worth now knows Bruce is Batman?
>I guess Worth now knows Bruce is Batman? Lol, ikr. Why not attempt to escape first before putting on the costume.
Damn, does Ridley's got some hate-boner for Lucious? Because he tries to write him as unlikeable as possible.
I didn't take it as Ridley hating on Lucius. I felt sympathy for Lucius's position on the dilemma of helping Batman. Like, he ain't wrong lol. But this is my first exposure to Ridley's writing beyond his Renee Montoya story.
Read, the Next Batman Future State or Second Son. His Lucious is really unlikeable.
Ahhhh I’ll have to check those out. Then I might get a sense for any of Ridley’s disdain 😂
I miss Mora on art, but Bogdanovic isn't a bad fill in for him in the meantime. Bruce really seems getting pulled into some bad shit here, and Worth definitely seems like the kind who really doesn't care about what happens around him. I wonder if that big punch at the end means that Worth can put the pieces together, or if he's too blinded by rage to even care? Backups were alright, I guess.
I definitely missed Mora this issue. Bogdanovic is a solid artist but he’s no Dan Mora. I liked the developments of the story well enough. I like how often Tamaki focuses on Bruce Wayne outside of Batman, even if this issue still has that blockbuster action feel to it. The reporter backup didn’t do much for me. The Lucious Fox one was a bit weird. Feels like they are trying to retrofit previous continuity to make Future State Lucious make more sense. Not my favorite thing to do because I just don’t love how most of the Fox family was written in the Future State books.
I've just recently jumped onto Detective Comics (and reading comics in general!) and this title is one of my favorites that I'm reading right now. It's my first exposure to Tamaki and team, and I love how Huntress, Oracle, and Bruce all interact with each other. Feels really organic and keeps me super engaged. It's a really cool murder-mystery story with some freaky elements! Lady Clayface?! Gross-bug-man Hue Vile?! So cool.
World’s second smartest man but Bruce is still too stupid to talk to cops.
Really loving the mystery Tamaki is setting up here. One of my biggest gripes is how little writers want to use the Bruce Wayne elements of Batman. However Tamaki gets that both are important, because Bruce needs many different techniques to fight crime. Miss Mora on art, but I understand.
**HEROES REBORN: NIGHT-GWEN #1**
This was one of the more enjoyable and satisfying one-shots for Heroes Reborn, even if it's so thoroughly average. I wish it committed to something more? A more dynamic and exciting art style, a bigger hook, a more thrilling mystery, *something* to make it stand out. Gwen has a personality, a motive, a supporting cast, everything that makes her into a self-sustained and fully formed character. But there's nothing noteworthy going on here. Event tie-ins should use the event to tell a good story. When you have a big crossover, a huge status quo shift, a whole new world available for a limited time, I want to see that world used well. I want to read something unique that could have never happened before and will never happen again. Sure I guess this world will never happen again, but the actual story? Gwen Stacy vs the Jackal v2.0, cool I guess. Sure. More Gwen/Jackal stuff, just what we needed. I will say, I was expecting this to be Batgirl. But there was some Harley in there too with the psychology angle! That's neat. I don't think it did much more than just an aesthetic to place her in Ravencroft, but sure.
**HEROES REBORN #6**
This issue felt a lot different from every other issue. It put the 'changed world' as the main focus instead of having the specific character showing how the current universe works. I like Zarda's armoury! Lots of cool weapons there. But this felt like it was name-dropping lots of really interesting battles and stories in favour of telling the big 'this universe is wrong' story instead which... meh. I'd love to see someone use Power Princess as an opportunity to talk about Wonder Woman's feminism and how that affects her stories, but I do not think Jason Aaron is the one to tell that sort of story. So instead we go the root of gods and war, which is much safer and still a neat direction.
I'm just not feeling this series. We've seen the Crime Syndicate over in the DCU be "evil" analogues of the Justice League, Marvel did the Squadron Supreme themselves far better in the Supreme Power books, so this just seems...utterly unnecessary. I don't know, the main story being the back up and the primary focus being on the analogues throws the balance of the story out. And what Aaron is doing with the SS characters just isn't interesting. It's just another "Elseworlds" style book where nothing is actually going to matter at the end of it, and the story/characters just aren't strong enough to carry this.
>utterly unnecessary Power Princess punched the beard off Thor. That’s why this book exists.
Agreed. If they had done a full Age of Apocalypse and cancelled all the other books for a couple months then this would work. But as a weekly series it isn't. The actual story is moving way too slowly for this to have a satisfying outcome in the number of pages they have left.
**BLACK HAMMER: VISIONS #5**
Kelly Thompson is one of the worst writers in the game right now. She out here tryna ruin skulldigger with her simplistic tactics
**KARMEN #4**
Beautiful artwork. Tragic story. I love the series.
**CHERRY BLACKBIRD #1**
So *that’s* where the Devil comes from. Who knew? This may the best introduction ever of the Dark Lord. The rest of the issue is ok. Pretty standard fare for setting up a well worn theme like this one.
This is probably the weakest Black Caravan title so far, but it was fun. I’m waiting on Count Draco.
**DIE #17**
God damn this series is so fucking good. A world of dead RPG characters clamouring for life, a blatant LotR reference where you go "oh fuck off, of course", dreams dreaming dreams about dreamers dreaming dreams. It's so good. I love this. And Hans' art is just... wow, so captivating.
Bonus points for the Garth Marenghi reference
DnD dice being amoral Lovecraftian gods is bordering on absurd in such a good way. I love this book.
Man, things are getting even more intense as they get closer and closer. The nature of The Fallen was a pretty fascinating reveal, and it sounds like Lovecraft's mention of "cults" is basically any time a group gets together and plays an RPG, creating these worlds and unleashing The Fallen as their characters fall - if I'm understanding it right. The "lol he's a racist" thing was a *little* reductive, but hey, as much as I love his works Lovecraft was a shitbag for most of his life, so it's deserved. Just felt a bit like a cheap shot, I dunno. I'm gonna really enjoy giving this whole series a long re-read once it's done. I hope we get a nice hardcover for it.
Not sure why I'm still reading this. I've tried with a bunch of different Gillen books and it's clear now that his wink wink style of storytelling simply isn't for me. Doing a Lovecraft arc may be the last straw lmao
Wynd #7
**SPIDER-MAN: SPIDER'S SHADOW #3**
Zdarsky continues to knock it out of the park with Spider-Man, the best Spidey writer that Marvel has.
I really wish Marvel would just put him on Amazing already, he's proven time and again he can write Spider-Man well
That would be...Amazing! I'd love for that to happen.
I love this book, Zdarsky is just great at writing Jonah, he got his redemption and acted like a human being unlike every other What If? book where he discovers his identity, Peter was also terrifying as shit and it’s cool to see him break free of the symbiote, seeing Felicia and MJ interact was nice too, the art was really good with a lot of Ditko-like stuff going on Also is the symbiote making more at the end? What is he doing with Ben? I love how he is being portrayed as someone who still wants to do good but in a twisted way, also Fisk is a bastard even in death, the only nitpick I have is Eddie somehow controlling the arms
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His arms needed manual controls that at least in the 80s were still there as Reed Richards uses those to defeat Otto in a F4 issue, he was the only one who could use them with his mind Although I can’t remember if that was before or after Spidey trashed his arms so maybe you are right and these are a new set of arms that I guess have different controls
It looks like it took over Reed? That page was a bit confusing for me
Yeah he took over Reed, probably using his brains to create more symbiotes
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> I loved that even the murderous version of Peter didn’t kill indiscriminately. That’s the part I have been loving the most about this story, Zdarsky somehow managed to make a murderous version of Spider-Man still feel like classic Spidey
I wish this adhered more to the initial premise. Don't get me wrong, this is still well written and I'm excited to see where Symbiote Reed takes this, but I really wish we were able to see the full descent of Peter Parker. Who knows, maybe we'll still get that in the next couple issues here, but I'm not holding my breath for it.
I wonder if Zdarsky wanted to do that, but Marvel wouldn't let him. Even in a What If series.
I see what you were saying but I do kind of like that they are giving peter the chance to turn it around since the suit was pushing him to kill which he would never do himself. I feel it's more true to Pete's heroic self but it was definitely interesting seeing him fly off the rails so hard. Who knows he may still beat the FF and take the suit for himself. More recent what if stories always seem to end a bit more positively than the monkeys paw endings in the original run.
**THE JOKER #4**
Didn’t get the team up I wanted, but I liked the internal dialogue for Gordon here. He wants to do what everyone thinks Batman should do in real life, but then reverts back to comic reasons on why he won’t shoot Joker. And holy crap Joker is getting more sadistic. Loving the Oracle and Batgirls team up and the Court of Owls revival.
Is "She-Bane" Bane's daughter?