This Week In Comics August 13, 2025

A few books, and a trip to the fabled Dollar Bin!

I doodle on the boards we use to denote customers… I did this one recently Lunar Penguins hunting for Diamonds. Because this is where comics come from.

I work at my Local Comic Shop (Comic Carnival) usually three days a week. Saturdays You’ll find me in the back where I check in and organize the books that have arrived from Penguin, Lunar, and sometimes (rarely now) Diamond. On Mondays I work as part of the team who gets everyone’s pulls together. So if you have asked us to pull certain titles each week, I’m part of the team that does it. I don’t make mistakes- that’s the other guy 😉. On Wednesdays you’ll find me in a bunch of different places, behind the counter ringing up New Comic Book Day sales, but mostly restocking back issues or most recently in the Dollar Bins getting trying to get things organized. Dollar Bin books are those that have fallen out of favor, or just we have a whole lot of them in the back. Many might just fill the holes in your collection, the only way to find out is is to search through the bins. In my shop’s case its drawers that could be in some kind of order. The problem is… people actually look through them and don’t put them back where they found them. The other issue is sometimes the folks who work at the shop are tasked with refilling the bins, and just dump them wherever they might fit. Last week I started on the bins on Wednesday because there was nothing else I could do around the shop. One person was working on putting price tags and bagging the dollar books, and I was putting them away. I started with the A’s… I’m now working through the S’s. So many books not in the correct place… It’s like our educational system never taught the alphabet. As I go through these I’ve commented that it is sad the number of comics that hold a special place in my collection, are in the dollar bin.

The dollar bin at Comic Carnival. So many wonderful titles, so many quirky titles, so many wtf titles

I recall one time while wandering comic shops up and down the coast of California I was looking through a long box in hopes to fill my holes in the Wally West-Flash run. The shop was more a sports cards store, but carried comics and the poor guys there obviously didn’t know anything about comics. The long boxes were a mess no order to them. I never realized how orderly I can be until I’m confronted with a box of comics. Now I spend a lot of time trying to get things so people can find it. This can be difficult when you think of the “special way things are alphabetized. a quick example- if it is a title from Marvel with mutant in it… look for it under “X.” Storm? “X” Phoenix? “X” Emma Frost? “X” Makes sense doesn’t it?

Unfortunately, in the Dollar Bin I do end up finding comics that I vaguely remember owning at one point in time or ones that I scratch my head at not aware that artist or writer had made that comic. The silver lining is - they are only a dollar. So hopefully by next week I should be done or at least on the verge of tackling the X-Men which gives me pause and fills me with dread.

My Comics

This week I’ve gone back to add some things that I picked up- two titles from the dollar bin and a hardcover book that someone ordered and decided there had been a mistake and it wasn’t what they wanted.

• Action Comics # 1089 DC Comics W: Mark Waid A: Skylar Patridge We learn a bit more about Mr. Blake (he’s got a secret) and Superboy’s history in Smallville.

• Batman and Robin # 24 DC Comics W: Phillip Kennedy Johnson A: Miguel Mendonça, Carmine Di Giandomenico, Juni Ba

• The Future is ****** Rekcah Comics W: Fred Van Lente A: Ennio Bufi The team is still coming together as we learn about Sally and how she upset the whole subscription economy.

• Fantastic Four #2 LGY #728 Marvel Comics W: Ryan North A: Humberto Ramos

• Bug Wars #6 Image Comics W: Jason Aaron A: Mahmud Asrar

• Ultimate Spider-Man: Incursion #3 Marvel Comics W: Deniz Camp & Cody Ziglar A: Jonas Scharf It’s interesting to see the characters from Ultimate X-Men drawn by someone else.

• The UnChosen #2 Image Comics W & A: David Marquez Still learning about this world. Although it looks like there’s more to words than I knew.

• Batman: Gotham by Gaslight A League for Justice #2 DC Comics W: Andy Diggle A: Leandro Fernandez The League faces Luthor and his giant robot. Luthor may have ended up getting more than he had wished for.

• Pandora #1 Frank Miller Presents W: Frank Miller, Anthony Maranville & Chris Silvestri A: Emma Kubert (2023) Dollar bin find- Frank Miller made me pick it up, Emma Kubert’s art made me take a closer look- I knew it looked familiar! Emma also did Inkblot, a series I really enjoyed. Young teenage girl trying to escape her somewhat miserable life (so many teen age girls have not quite so perfect lives) Her adventurous spirit maybe just leads to bad things happening especially when you don’t listen to your grandfather - when he says “Don’t go there!” I may have to track down the rest of this 6 issue series.

• Airboy #1-4 Image Comics W: James Robinson A: Greg Hinkle (2015)

• Hellboy in Love Dark Horse Comics W: Mike Mignola & Christopher Golden A: Matt Smith (2023)

Bug Wars #6 Image Comics W: Jason Aaron A: Mahmud Asrar of those new the story you like reading the last page of a detective story first, dontcha? This is the final chapter of the first arc of this (hopefully ongoing) series. After returning to the house where his father met a gruesome end (bugs killed him) Slade has been shrunk down and transported into the world of his yard. He learned his father was a friend and champion of the insects and other “creepy crawlies” in the yard. Slade discovers his powers bestowed upon him by an amulet. He then discovers that the various groups of insects (and spiders) are going to war against his brother who has been tasked with mowing the lawn. There’s more to it, but if you want your kid to mow the lawn do NOT give them this series to read. So Slade has met up with the spirit of his dead father and must decide to train and become the guardian of the yard, or save his brother from a similar gruesome death that his father had.

Frankly this coming of age story has been awesome. I’ve loved every issue even though I have issues with bugs. Slade becomes more confident and instants his abilities and learns who he can trust leading to this final battle. Wow. great story telling and amazing art make this one beautiful book that I highly recommend. If you can find the individual issues great, but it looks like a trade is coming out in September. I might even consider picking that up if there’s enough behind the scenes stuff in it. Then again, each issue had some amazing bits in it too.

Batman and Robin # 24 DC Comics W: Phillip Kennedy Johnson A: Miguel Mendonça, Carmine Di Giandomenico, Juni Ba We finally come to the end of the Memento storyline. Funny how when marvel does stuff with gods and magic I go off on how it just doesn’t fit with the character (Eight Deaths of Spider-Man or the current Anansi storyline in Miles Morales) but with Batman I can accept it. Maybe it’s because it’s not giving Batman any special powers, the bad guy just happens to be a demon. So Batman in previous issues asks for help from his more mystically aligned acquaintances. Again this arc has been going for a while, but it all comes to an end. We learn who Memento physically is - we know there’s a demon involved already and now we get into some mystical stuff, but again, it’s not Batman doing the spell casting it just sort of happens. The lords of order and chaos right things. In the end Gotham is safe from this ancient menace and Batman and Robin have regained some sense of trust between them.

Fantastic Four #2 LGY #728 Marvel Comics W: Ryan North A: Humberto Ramos For my return to Fantastic Four this was an interesting start. First of all I am a fan of Humberto Ramos’ art, I know there are those who may disagree, but with any artist everyone is entitled to their own opinion. When we last left our heroes Doctor Dom had banished them to different time periods with everyone having to survive. Reed, of course, had planned for such a contingency and this issue dealt with that plan hopefully working out (it’s Reed Richards, of course it works out). Here’s the part that made me want to write this issue up… the interplay between Doctor Doom and Reed Richards. Reed’s monologuing (Yes, heroes can monologue too) where we discover Doom’s joy in the fact that Since reed has to be the smartest guy in the room and be a teacher ends up making it more and more difficult for the FF. Doom listens to Reed explain how he was once again out smarted, and then turns around to plan his next move knowing exactly what failed the last time. Instead of having to spend days going over the plan, and figuring out what possibly could have been the glitch… Reed says- “You know, we did this and this to win, if only you had known about this little safety that I had ingeniously built into the world…” Now Victor Von Doom knows about it, so he can plan for it. 🙄

Airboy #1-4 Image Comics W: James Robinson A: Greg Hinkle (2015) I recall getting this pulled when it for came out 10 years ago. I wasn’t sure what to expect, but I knew I loved how James Robinson addressed Golden Age heroes and bringing them up to date. This series was not what I expected. Somehow the last issue didn’t get pulled for me (I thought it may not have been ordered due to the mature content of the first 3 issues) but I found it in the dollar bin and decided to go ahead and reread it now that I could find out how it all ends.

It seems that James Robinson has been asked to work his magic on Airboy and pulls in Greg Hinkle for the art. They meet to go over ideas (there aren’t any) and end up using legal and illegal substances to help them with ideas. This ends up with Airboy showing up and then things go from bad to worse, to worser. Ending up with James and Greg being a part of the whole adventure. Being Golden Age heroes, I’m not quite sure of all the players but I know the Nazis are the bad guys.

Issue 4- the Flying Dutchman explains, what was common sense in 2015, but sadly isn’t as clear in 2025. Art by Greg Hinkle

Hinkle’s art style is perfect for this story and the in jokes are great (“LXG is that code for a rocket?” “No. A bomb.”) Would I like to see what these two could actually do with the Airboy IP? Yes, but the commentary on the world of a comic book creator is priceless. One of those comics which isn’t for kids- Like I said before - Drug use and nudity is just the tip of the iceberg… but it still is great if you don’t take it too seriously.

Hellboy in Love Dark Horse Comics W: Mike Mignola & Christopher Golden A: Matt Smith (2023) You would think after all these years I would have read more Hellboy, Mike Mignola, or B.P.R.D. titles. Knowing I like cryptos, and weird stuff, you would think it would be a perfect match. The stars just never aligned. I liked Mignola’s art style which carried over into any in universe books, but besides the Helboy movie and a weird crossover (Batman/Hellboy/Starman written by James Robinson with art by Mike Mignola) that’s probably as far as I had gone into any thing.

So one day a guy comes into the shop and we pull this book that he had ordered, only to find out it wasn’t exactly what he had wanted. I know I was trying to stretch my knowledge of various comics so I dropped it behind my divider and figured I read it this week.

It’s the story of a ginger haired archeologist trying to get her findings to the British Museum, when goblins strike to steal her case and take it to whoever hired them. Fortunately the B.P.R.D. had sent Hellboy to keep on eye on things. Hijinks ensue and in the end, well the title says it all. Did I mention this takes place in the UK? That just ticks a few more boxes for me. Fortunately (in this volume at least) there is a happy ending of sorts - she’s not dead… yet. I guess I’d always figured Hellboy comics were more dark,, but then again look at the title. I guess I should consider doing some more research. darn!