VIRTUAL Mount TBR Reading Challenge 2021 discussion

I’m hopeful I’ll go further than this, but we shall see.

#1 - The Steam Pump Jump by Jodi Taylor

A rather benign take from the annals of the rather disaster prone St. Mary’s Historical Research Society, a group that houses a secret time travel operation. This is less about observing the first operation of the earliest known steam engine and more about people awkwardly looking after each other. I was a bit at sea as this is from well along in the series, but it had amusing moments.

Audible Plus.

#2 - The Very First Damned Thing by Jodi Taylor

Chronologically the first of the St. Mary’s Historical Research Society stories, but published well along in the order. This covers the formation of this time-traveling bunch of lunatics after a devastating British Civil War, and is essentially a roll call and pile-up of vignettes. Series main character Max only shows up briefly.

Audible Plus.

#3 - The Battersea Barricades by Jodi Taylor

Another prequel story to the St. Mary’s Historical Research Society, this time telling the tale of three women who were caught up in the civil uprisings that plunged Britain into an anti-fascist Civil War. It’s here that it starts becoming a bit clearer that the history of Britain in the series isn’t quite the history of Britain as we know it.

A highly engaging and surprisingly taut story.

Audible Plus.

#4 - The Ten-Cent Plague: The Great Comic-Book Scare and How it Changed America by David Hadju

A history of the demonization and marginalization of comics in the 1940s and 1950s — it wasn’t just about Frederick Wertham’s falsified data and incendiary book Seduction of the Innocent: The Influence of Comic Books on Today's Youth but went deeper, leading to the destruction of lives, companies, and respect for the First Amendment. Quite an interesting read.

Audible Plus.

#5 -The Green Lantern: Season Two, Vol. 1by Grant Morrison, Liam Sharp, Xermanico, others

Skipping over the The Green Lantern: Blackstars #1 miniseries, this continuation of Morrison’s soft reboot of Green Lantern blasts off into the weird, with amazing art from Liam Sharp, who switches styles from issue to issue. The main problem is that Morrison keeps compressing the story, so that it tends to keep about a lot, and has difficulty cohering.

Read via DC Universe Infinite.

#6 - The Authority: Kev by Garth Ennis, Glenn Fabry

A downtrodden ex-SAS assassin working for a deep secret bureau of the English intelligence services s sent to assassinate the super powered Authority...which he does. At which point the truth vines out and he has to somehow fix this. Then he’s called back to join forces with the Authority to locate a missing alien before those seeking him blow up the Earth.

Crude, bloody, occasionally amusing and sometimes poignant.

Via DC Universe Infinite

#7 - X-Men Forever 2, Volume 1: Back in Action by Chris Claremont, Tom Grummett, etc

Claremont once again returning to the X-Men, but this time in a different corner of the Marvel Multiverse (Earth 161.) Beast, Wolverine and Tony Stark are dead, Xavier is imprisoned by the Shiar, and Burnout is killing mutants as they age and use their powers. The art is fine, but it feels as though Claremont is sometimes playing Mad Libs with the story, picking pieces from a jumbled up pile of his greatest hits.

Via Marvel Unlimited

#8 - Dawn of X Vol. 1
#9 - Dawn of X Vol. 2
#10 - Dawn of X Vol. 3
#11 - Dawn of X Vol. 4
#12 - Dawn of X Vol. 5 - all by Jonathan Hickman, Leinil Yu, Benjamin Percy and others

Jonathan Hickman’s reboot of the X-Men sees the mutants revived and living in their own nation on the living island of Krakoa. Power structures have changed, and it’s now as much about working with the political and social web of the world.

Unfortunately, this doesn’t stop Hickman from rolling in multiple Big Bads…frankly straining credulity. The various series vary wildly in quality, which makes for a rocky experience reading these books (which collect the books sequentially — Vol.1 has all the first issues, and so on.)

These are also quick reads, despite the multitude of text pages.

#13 - Dawn of X Vol. 6 by Jonathan Hickman, et al

More mutant shenanigans. The poor “Fallen Angels” ends here. For me the compelling storyline is the one in “Marauders”, prioritizing character over Hickman D&D campaign structure.

#14 - Dawn of X Vol. 7 by Jonathan Hickman, Gerry Dugan, et al

The linear collections jump the tracks here, as Wolverine begins, opening in media res as Logan comes to with his body shredded and his memory tattered, finding his strike team dead around him, seemingly at his claws. Elsewhere the Marauders team discover the murder of Kitty Pryde, the New Mutants in Shi’ar space continue their weird comedic adventure, and the X-Men on Krakoa wrestle with the ethics of their violent mutant restoration program.

As always, entirely variable.

Via Marvel Unlimited.

#15 - Dawn of X Vol. 8
#16 - Dawn of X Vol. 9
#17 - Dawn of X Vol. 10
#18 - Dawn of X Vol. 11 all by Jonathan Hickman and sundry co-conspirators

It seems like these books are getting more and more variable as they go on — I’ve not much use for Hellions, honestly, and barely more use for X-Force. Excalibur is increasingly incoherent.

#19 - Dawn of X Vol. 12
#20 - Dawn of X Vol. 13
#21 - Dawn of X Vol. 14
#22 - Dawn of X Vol. 15 by Jonathan Hickman and his dungeon crawling crew

And the trail grinds ever on, though X of Swords comes next, the first in-line event for this series (a couple of other events impinged from outside beforehand.)

#23 - Dawn of X Vol. 16
#24 - X of Swords all by Jonathan Hickman and his team of rogues, bards, druids, barbarians, clerics, wizards, warlocks, and fighters

And here we take a level in bad, despite some funny moments. X Of Swords is a 700+ page uphill slog that achieves absolutely nothing (one of the key points is tossed out shortly after the event ends.) As for the why of the story…apparently Opal Luna Saturnyne, Ominiversal Majestrix, wants to get shagged by former Captain Britain Brian Braddock.

The other collection gathers up a last few titles preceding the event.

Via Hoopla and Marvel Unlimited.

On to the next mountain.