So this week was a bit lean when it came to titles but all in all some good things. I was actually able to spend part of yesterday catching up on some work in the Pit the Despair. Bagged and boarded a couple hundred back issues so I might be able to go back and read them in a decade or so. Mostly Justice Society and Golden Age heroes most people don’t care about. It was nice to catch up on some organization work. As always a bit of commentary then the reviews.
When I first started reading comics it was pretty much art first, story second. I liked to look at the pictures. I followed artists, not writers. I’d stop reading a comic when the artist switched. This was in the time of Frank Miller- Daredevil, John Byrne- X-Men and Fantastic Four, George Perez – Teen Titans, Walt Simonson – Thor, Bill Sienkiewicz – Moon Knight… you get the idea. I took a break from comics during the whole 90’s and when I returned (as a way to escape the stresses of grad school) I started focusing on art and story, in some cases story was more important than art. Maybe I had grown as an artist, maybe I’d matured as a reader, I don’t know. Now if you can’t tell I read a rather eclectic mix some with amazing art, some with amazing stories, most with a good mix of both. For this I thank the folks at my LCS (Local Comic Shop). I started stopping into Comic Carnival when it was on the way to my grad school classes which met on Tuesdays and Thursdays. I learned about the pull list when I kept missing some issues since new comics came out on Wednesdays. Over the next 30+ years things started to just show up in my stack. For those who don’t understand, most comic shops have a pull list for regular customers. the customer comes in is given a list of comics and basically, a couple months before the comic comes out orders it. When that issue comes out it is pulled. As the customer, I have already paid for it, but then after a while they get to know you and start pulling other things for you. I’d also get pulled aside and asked about things I didn’t mark on my list. “Bruce, you’ve always pulled Captain America, you didn’t this month…” I’d say I wasn’t interested in the way the story was going… then I’d be told, I had missed out on a super key issue that they’d sold out of and they’d try to get me a second printing… or it might be “OK, just checking.” The moral of this story… get to know your local shop, support them, they’re great people and they will take care of you.
Variant winner this week according to the CLZ Newsletter- Red Sonja #7 with 17 variants… although in the next line the mention Femme Force : Taylor Swift #1 had 18 variants… Ummm… why do you need that many? I didn’t need 25 Princess Diana purple Beanie Babies. Then again Quested had 9, Defiant and Power Pack each had 3. I received the “A” versions of each which means the one that everyone gets.
This Week’s Comics:
Star Trek Defiant Annual #1 – So what is an Annual? You’ve seen a few of these show up in my list. For the most part these are bigger issues. They can either start or finish a story line, or could be a one off story. In the case of Defiant this is a background story of Sela- you know Tasha Yar’s daughter who has played a villain over the course of a few Star Trek story lines. Here we get to see her come to grips with her mommy issues. It is basically starting off a new twist for the crew of the Defiant when they finally meet up.
Ministry of Compliance #2 – Issue number 1 was pulled for me, and I frankly kept meaning to pull issue number 2 but being me, forgot. This week I remembered. So the world is secretly being run by aliens (who look just like us) with various ministries in charge of various aspects. The Ministry of Compliance is the ministry in charge of keeping everyone in line. Right now, everything has fallen apart and there is a scramble to figure out what they should do next… I rarely will pull something from a comic, but I felt these three panels say a lot about the world we live in… Yes, comics do offer social commentary, and not just spandex.
Mech Cadets #5 – I was reading this back when it was Mech Cadet Yu and before Netflix turned it into a cartoon. The Earth has been attacked by aliens, we were rescued by giant robots that bond with their pilots. The Military Industrial complex doesn’t like being dependent of aliens so they build their own… Now aliens are back and those in power giving the orders aren’t listening to the people who know better. You think their hearts might be in the right place, but… so they are abandoning a unauthorized rescue attempt which could save the planet… gotta love egos.
Detective Comics #1081 – Is it real? Is it a fever dream? What are they putting Batman through this time, because it is so much fun to torture Batman. Last entry I said, I’m seriously thinking about dropping one of my Superman and Batman titles… In Batman, Bruce Wayne is getting beaten up by his own subconscious in the form of Zur-En-Arrh. In Detective he’s been hung and now is finding himself in some weird dreamscape… Where’s the giant penny? Where’s the giant typewriter? You know chum, this is getting to be a bit much for me.
Power Pack Into the Storm #1 – in an attempt to create an all ages comic decades ago Marvel created “Power Pack” a group of siblings who each got powers and saved the World from aliens. It was a cool comic, Louise Simonson did an amazing job. They’ve brought the team back and mixed them in with Franklin Richards of the Fantastic Four. This is a flashback to an early adventure and with it being issue #1 it is just setting up the pack trying to save an alien princess and their friend from evil aliens…
Quested Season 2 #1 – Fun D&D adventure… I won’t go into it, because the intro at the beginning of the issue goes over Season 1 better than I could. Let’s just say the band has broken apart, but they will get back together at some point…
The Flash #5 – Wally West the original Kid Flash, who took the Flash mantle when Barry Allen was “killed” during Crisis on Infinite Earths. Wally has been put through the wringer during all the various Crisis that DC comics decided they needed. He is back, with his wife and kids finally and trying to figure it all out. Last month he was wandering around a garden filled with statues trying to determine the meaning of life (42). This time around we are following his son Jai. Now as we know super powers are fickle, sometime heroes pass them along, sometimes, they don’t. In this case Jai’s sister got the super speed power and Jai… well he got a mixed bag, that includes things like super strength and some other weird things. In this issue Jai comes to grips with his powers, but also his destiny. Remember when you were a kid? I know for me at some point I had to let my parents down and let them know their idea (or what I thought their dream for me) wasn’t what I wanted. For me it was getting into a super elite private school and after the first week being asked if I was happy. I was honest (for probably the first time didn’t just say what I thought they wanted to hear) and said “No.” Like any kid, I figure I’d let them down, and I probably did, but they said “OK” and on Monday I was back at my old public school, with my friends. FYI- my old public school was one of the top schools in California, so I really wasn’t losing anything education wise, just I didn’t have to deal with ultra snobby kids. So Jai, after all this and thinking he’s going to let his dad down, tells him that he really isn’t into the whole superhero thing and then has to deal with the consequences. Basically one of those comics that focused more on character growth than action… which is OK.
Next week- same Bat-time. Same Bat-channel. Unless Bruce Wayne is dead (again) which means we’ll have to wait 3-8 months for him to return.