Best Comic of the Week:
Beta Ray Bill #3 – Daniel Warren Johnson has Bill and his associates, including the newly ambulatory Skuttlebutt, navigating a lake of lava in an attempt to complete the quest that Odin has put them on. Johnson is doing an amazing job on this book. His art alone is enough to sell me on this title, but he’s really giving Bill’s character some depth, and making this an interesting, as well as visually stunning, read.
Quick Takes:
Abbott 1973 #5 – This latest series comes to a strong close, as Elena faces off against The Hunter, the Umbra that stole her girlfriend. This series, by Saladin Ahmed and Sami Kivelä, is very good. I especially like the way that they capture 1970s Detroit in it. I am hoping for a third Abbott series soon.
Alien #3 – I’m starting to really like this series, as Gabe finds some survivors on the space station, but also finds more xenomorphs than he’d hoped to. Salvador Larroca continues to be the right artist for this book, capturing the alien-ness of the aliens, but also the feel and look of the movies. I’m enjoying this first arc, but three issues in, don’t necessarily see a larger story taking shape.
Ascender #15 – Tim has returned, and it’s time to gain an understanding of where the little robot has been and what he’s been up to since the end of the Descender series. I don’t have a whole lot to say about this issue, which explores the mysteries of the universe, but I have to give Dustin Nguyen credit for always making this book so beautiful and alien. His work on Descender and Ascender has been amazing.
Black Panther #25 – Ta-Nehisi Coates brings his five year run with T’Challa to a close in this issue. So far as endings go, it’s a pretty good one, with Wakanda and its allies finishing their war with the intergalactic Wakandan empire, while the Goddess Bast has to decide her role in things. This second Coates run was much more dynamic than the first, which got a little bogged down in dialogue at times. I found this run was damaged by the year between issues, as the book was delayed a lot during the pandemic, but Coates, regular artist Daniel Acuña, and returning artist Brian Stelfreeze stuck the landing here. Coates brought a lot of new ideas to his Panther run, and I think that T’Challa is in a better place for it. I never liked Shuri before Coates came along, and now I think she’s a very cool character. I’m intrigued by the next Panther series, which will be written by John Ridley and drawn by Juann Cabal (who is amazing), so I’ll probably be checking it out. It’ll be interesting to see where other writers take T’Challa from here.
Department of Truth #9 – We get to learn a lot more about Hawk, and get a lengthy lecture about magic that feels like it wouldn’t be out of place in some older Invisibles or Hellblazer comics. This series takes me back to peak Vertigo a lot, and fills in the hole that was left when that line fizzled out. I like this series, and am interested in what James Tynion IV is doing with it, but at times, it feels a little anachronistic, which is odd considering it’s dealing with very current conspiracy theories. I do appreciate the levels of thought and planning that have gone into this book.
Dune: House Atreides #7 – This issue finally spends most of its time focusing on the Atreides family, with check-ins on Arrakis and Geidi Prime. The more I read this series, the more the original Dune novels come back to me. It’s been a long time since I’ve read them. I am enjoying this series, although I thought it would have more of a centralized plot, instead of just setting up the novels.
I Breathed A Body #5 – I’m a big fan of Zac Thompson’s work when he writes with Lonnie Nadler, but I find a lot of his solo writing doesn’t do it for me. I’m going to admit that I didn’t really get the last two issues of this miniseries, which is about social media, telephones, and fungal life. Body horror does not always attract me, and I kind of lost track of the plot somewhere here.
Manifest Destiny #43 – It’s been a long time since we’ve seen the Lewis and Clark expedition, and their mission is going worse than ever before. They’ve lost their boat, and are left struggling with limited supplies and their pirogue, which is not much help when they reach the Rocky Mountains, and find yet another arch. I’ve really enjoyed this book, and am excited to see how this final arc plays out. I think I can safely predict that by the end, there are only going to be a couple of characters left, the way they’re shedding them.
Miles Morales: Spider-Man #26 – Miles confronts his three clones, and of course things don’t go well. Miles’s original impulses are correct, but later, he makes a big mistake. I find the clones pretty interesting, at least Selim, the leader, who seems very knowledgeable and driven. There are a lot of questions that will still need to be answered, but I’m enjoying this arc.
New Mutants #18 – With this issue, it finally feels like Vita Ayala’s storyline is coming together. Karma is determined to remove her twin brother’s life force from her brain by going through the Crucible and getting resurrected (that will also give her back her leg, which I’m sure she’d be okay with. Honey Badger has come to realize that her friends are playing a dangerous game, listening to the Shadow King, who it looks like, has his hooks into one of the classic New Mutants. This issue felt better balanced than ay in this arc, although I’m still having a hard time with how Anole is being portrayed as so much younger and less mature than he has been before.
The Old Guard: Tales Through Time #2 – Kelly Sue DeConnic and Valentine DeLandro reunite to tell a story in this Old Guard anthology series! It gives me hope that maybe Bitch Planet will finish one day, although I guess that’s unlikely. It’s a good story set in Japan, and the second story, by Eric Trautmann and Mike Henderson, set in the Old West, is also good.
Robin #2 – I think I’m officially onboard for Joshua Williamson’s Robin. Damian has gone to a secret island where assassins battle in a tournament to become a member of the League of Lazarus. We see some familiar characters, like Ravager and Connor Hawke, and get to enjoy Williamson’s portrayal of Damian. I’m enjoying the art, by Gleb Melnikov, and find myself excited to be enjoying some DC comics again.
Star Wars: Darth Vader #12 – This issue serves as a bridge between the last arc and the War of the Bounty Hunters event. It has Vader getting put back together after the last arc, and then thinking a lot about Han Solo. We see a little untold vignette where he almost caught the smuggler that also answers my life-long question of whether or not the Millennium Falcon is a one-off ship, or if there are others like it. This is a very nicely-drawn issue, thanks to Guiu Villanova, although a bit of a quick read.
Star Wars: Doctor Aphra #10 – Aphra wraps up her first mission for Domina Tagge, and is given another. Some of the connections to War of the Bounty Hunters look a little forced in some Star Wars series (by which I mean this one). This series is growing on me, but it’s taking a long time.
Strange Adventures #10 – We are finally closer to learning the mystery that has fueled this book from its start, as Mister Terrific pieces together all the information, and lets Alanna know what he’s figured out. As before, Tom King shifts the narrative from the present, where Earth’s war with the Pykkts is going very poorly, to the past, where we see Adam lead the people of Rann to victory against this superior force. I like how Tom King structures these series (this book belongs alongside Mister Miracle, Rorschach, and his Vision title at Marvel), and uses them to explore the main character while never really letting us inside their head. It’s a very good series.
Teen Titan Academy #3 – Like with Robin, I think I’ve read enough to convince me to stick with this latest version of the Teen Titans. I like how writer Tim Sheridan is balancing the original team, the latest iteration, and the students, managing to give many of them their own moments in an issue packed with an attack from the Suicide Squad, who are coming to kidnap Bolt. There’s a lot happening in this issue, including the continued mystery of Red X, and portents of doom from Raven. It’s a lot to juggle, but it is working, and I want more. I also really like how much more cohesive DC is starting to feel, with this lining up very well with what’s happening in the Squad’s own book, and setting up the new Lobo and Crush miniseries.
Two Moons #4 – Virgil finally gains some allies when more monsters disguised as Union soldiers come after him. As this series continues, I find myself enjoying it more and more. I like how John Arcudi is blending the Civil War with horror.
X-Men #20 – I’m not too sure where the X-books are headed, with the news that X-Men is about to be relaunched with Gerry Duggan writing it, but it looks like it has spurred Jonathan Hickman to clean up a few threads here. Mystique goes after Orchis again, attempting to stop the birth of Nimrod, in return for Destiny’s resurrection. Things don’t all go as planned, and we get to finally revisit a central idea of House of X and Powers of X. I’m always happy to see that there’s still a plan here, as sometimes, it doesn’t look like it. This was also a pretty exciting issue.
Comics I Would Have Bought if Comics Weren’t So Expensive:
Finder: Chase the Lady TP
Firefly #29
Mister Miracle: The Source of Freedom #1
Other History of the DC Universe #4
The Week in Music:
Sons of Kemet – Black to the Future – This album came at the perfect time. Sons of Kemet are an incredible dance/jazz band from London, made up of two drums, a tuba, and either a saxophone or clarinet, played by the legendary Shabaka Hutchings. This band reminds me of the heyday of Afrobeat, in that they take political ideas and black consciousness, and centre them in the middle of some very danceable party music. This is a serious album that also slaps. It’s unconventional, and feels very good. This album features some incredible guests (Moor Mother, Angel Bat Dawid, and Kojey Radical), but the show still belongs to Hutchings and tuba player Theon Cross. This is going to be on the best of the year list for sure.
Har Mar Superstar – Roseville – I feel a little odd about including this here. A couple of weeks after I preordered Har Mar’s new album, allegations were made against him for some pretty toxic behaviour directed towards women over the years. I don’t know if anyone who’s ever seen him perform live could be surprised by this – he portrays himself as a smarmy performer on stage, usually dancing shirtless or in his underwear (and always doing one song while performing a handstand). Har Mar’s part of the Minneapolis music scene, which in the wake of George Floyd’s death last summer, went through a brutal few months of revelations and accusations. Many of the artists from that city’s hip hop scene, who I admire the most, got taken down or forever tainted with guilt by association. Har Mar had appeared to be kept out of it – his social media showed him buying food for areas impacted by police violence and the uprisings, or driving around in his new job with USPS. And then the stories started coming out about him. And I forgot that I’d ordered this disc until I got a shipping notification. So, I’m struggling to separate Har Mar’s music from what we’ve learned about him. Because no matter what, Har Mar is one of the most perfect pop artists of all time. His songs are wonderful little confections, perfectly arranged. This album is really very good. I wish it wasn’t, because I don’t know how to feel about listening to it. I hope that he, his scene, and especially the women he victimized get whatever help or healing they need to do and be better.
