This Week in Comics

So many comics... so little time. My pull list June 18, 2025

I haven’t been able to write up any of the recent comics I’ve had pulled since getting back from the great Whimventure of 2025. I still have comics to read! I’ve tried to keep up but life and consequences from being gone has gotten in the way of me actually stopping to breathe for a moment. I’m going to have to make some tough choices to figure out how to not let this happen again. Adulting is a necessity of life, but it really sucks, especially when you are just reacting and in the words of my kindergarten teacher “His temper has been better controlled for one thing.” Something I’m finding harder and harder to do. I’ve started to become Mark Ruffalo’s version of the Hulk…

Part of it has to do with the world we live in right now - politics and society. Some of it has to do with other things beyond my control where I just try to live up to being an “Obliger" and make everyone happy while I’m… “Obligers meet outer expectations, but struggle to meet inner expectations. Of all the Tendencies, Obligers are the biggest group, and the ones whom people count on the most. They put a high value on meeting commitments to others, but may have trouble setting limits and meeting their commitments to themselves.” I don’t have time to do the things I want to do because I’m doing things for others… even when I’m doing things I like- it’s for someone else. Recently I was reminded that my help and feelings of obligation to a cause, are not always understood or appreciated. Förlåt - men glöm aldrig. It’s funny how so many times this happens… it must be me with a sign that says- “Desperate to be liked- can be treated like crap.” Hopefully, I won’t snap before then… “His temper is better controlled, His temper is better controlled, His temper is better controlled…”

Enough grumbling (because no one really cares about my grumbling) and onto how I’m going to do my Comic Reviews from now on. This week I’m changing it up and while I will list all the comics I picked up, I’m only going to review a few. Just know that if I picked it up I thought it was good enough to read. I might note if it wasn’t good as a heads up.

This Week’s Books:

• Superman Unlimited #2

• Titans #24

• Adventure Comics #210 Facsimile (First appearance of Krypto)

• Amazing Spider-Man #6 - Peter has a pretty good week… Please let this not start dealing with magic and Gods.

• Batman #160

• The Future is ****** #2

• Absolute Flash #4 - Still loving the Absolute Universe.

• Bug Wars #5

• Detective Comics #1098

• Flash Gordon #10

• Battle Beast #2 - We know how it ends, but how it begins has been fun.

• Krypto The Last Dog of Krypton #1

• Phantom Road #13

• Doom’s Division #4

• Jeff The Land Shark # 1

• Star Trek Omega #1 - Ends the current run of Defiant and Star Trek

• The Ultimates #13

What made the cut this week? Warning: there may be some spoilers in this new format.

Flash Gordon #10 - Mad Cave Studios W: Jeremy Adams A: Tom Derenick This series started with Flash destroying Mongo in order to save the Earth. Since then Zarkov has become a robot, Flash and Ming escaped prison and we learn about what happened to Mongo. It basically went from one planet to something like what was in the 80’s film as each kingdom floated around some kind of gravity well.

Flash goes to rescue Dale, only to discover that the Dale he rescues, isn’t his Dale, but one from another universe. So he’s off to rescue his Dale while the bad guys try to get him. Barin, Vultan, and the rest of his crew help him but in the end it seems Ming has decided to make his return and soon discovers…

I’m loving this take on Flash Gordon and how this isn’t just retelling the story but building on it. Yes, the character designs for many of the aliens are different than what Alex Raymond had created, but that’s OK. Ming doesn’t need to be a yellow human with a Fu Manchu beard in Chinese imperial robes- we’ve moved beyond those stereotypes.

Krypto The Last Dog of Krypton #1 - DC Comics W: Ryan North A: Mike Norton With the James Gunn’s upcoming Superman film almost here and everyone just gushing over the appearance of Krypto in the trailers of course DC had to do a comic telling his story. It’s great and I especially appreciate the lettering when it comes to conversations - the stuff a dog would recognize is highlighted, while the stuff we as readers need to understand is a little greyed out.

So in this first issue we learn how Krypto made it to Earth and who he first ran into… Wormholes are involved, so we have that whole timey wimpy thing going on.

The Future is ****** #2 - REKCAH Comics W: Fred Van Lente A: Ennio Bufi This series was brought to my attention by Mike who works with me at Comic Carnival. His day job is in IT and since I used to deal with Technology in a school setting I figured I’d try it out. In the first massive issue we got to see our team in action stopping some super-rich oligarch from hurting people because he could. and got a pretty good look at the world that we could end up with if things keep going in the depressing direction we are heading (but at least future generations may get Star Trek of it). Now we are learning the backstory of each member of the team, starting with Martina, who is an olympic level athlete.

Martina is in an abusive relationship… she married a hyper controlling (put expletive here) who has developed a way to control people by controlling their imbedded AR feed. Basically, if you don’t want to talk to someone- remove them from your feed. They could be standing next to you and you wouldn’t see them or hear them. A high tech version of closing your eyes and sticking your fingers in your ears while sayin “La La La I can’t hear you!” He’s proposing to use this to control prisoners. Allowing them out on the streets, but they can only interact with things that are approved by the state. He tests it out on Martina. The story starts with her attempting to hack it and the ramifications of that action. This is when Wheeler (team lead) arrives with a plan to rescue Martina and mess around with her husband’s plans.

The Comic has a game imbedded into it - Capture the Flag which I have not played around with - I’m just happy to have finished the first two issues..

Bug Wars #5 - Image Comics W: Jason Aaron A: Mahmud Asar Slade has made it into the Hanging Gardens of Wyrdweb the realm of the spiders- witches in this world. He’s just trying to save his brother and get home. He’s still trying to figure out about his dad an the amulet which gave them powers. Will he be able to escape the spiders and save his brother… All I can say is this is getting good and I don’t want to spoil it.

Ultimates #13 - Marvel Comics W: Deniz Camp A: Juan Frigeri After many failures and attempts to stop the Maker’s Council Tony Stark (Iron Lad) Tony tries something different and in the form of a letter to his father goes over what he’s doing. Using technology to help unite the world. It harkens back to the Champions when Kamala Khan basically said her generation had to be the heroes the world needed, since the adults weren’t doing anything helpful. As I am reminded “How do you eat a whale?” “One bite at time.” The bigger question is… will any of this work since the Maker’s Council has a mole in the Ultimates. The clock is ticking and time travel seems to be involved.

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My life has given me a lot, and in some cases I’m just a spoiled brat and I recognize that. Due to some life lessons learned over the past (soon to be) 60 years I adopted Förlåt - men glöm aldrig as my family motto. In the original Swedish (about 50% of my ancestors came from Sweden at some point in our history) Forgive- but never forget. Basically it’s my way to remind myself that it’s OK to forgive transgressions, but only an idiot lets it happen twice. I’ve been an idiot, but really don’t want to be one again. Frankly it looks a lot cooler on a bracelet than “WWJD” especially since most people who wore those are doing anything and everything that J wouldn’t do no matter what.