I Read Comic Books discussion

Happy June, IRCB Friends! What are you reading this month? Any fun beach reads now that summer is here?

Tell us all about it!

As always, if you'd like to check out what the IRCB crew is reading, take a peek at the Top of My Pile posts over on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/ircbpodcast!

Currently reading Local Man #4 by Tim Seely and Tony Fleecs (creator of Stray Dogs). Series synopsis:

Once the star recruit of the media sensation super-team THIRD GEN JACK XAVER had it all. But when controversy sends CROSSJACK crawling back to his mom and dad's basement in the Midwest Jack struggles to fit into a world he left far behind. And then the bodies start piling up.

Ive been checking out several of the Dawn of DC new titles, unusual for me as I normally take a proceed-with-caution approach to superhero comics. I've just read too many over the decades and I'm pretty picky.
Here's a quick run-down - - - -
GREEN ARROW #1, #2 -- I'm surprised how much I like this. Williamson has all the family characters involved (but not together just yet) and Izaake's art has a classic look with some creative panel placement.
GREEN LANTERN #1 - - - I just didn't feel it, despite the optimism on display. Going to pass on this one.
TITANS #1 - - - As much as I've enjoyed the random issues of Taylor's run on NIGHTWING that I've read, this seems a bit flat in spite of an engaging plot and mystery. I may give Issue #2 a chance to win me over.
JUSTICE SOCIETY OF AMERICA #4 - - This doesn't have the Dawn of DC header, but it's the best superhero book from DC at present.
Various JSA teams from different timelines are being wiped out by Per Degaton, and the future Huntress is trying to figure out how to stop him and save what's left.

Last week's adventures in comics. I also finally went through all of my FCBD comics but I'll list those on their own.

Avengers Forever, Vol. 2: The Pillars★★★
The Omni-Avengers are gathering their troops in preparation for Aaron's big finale to his Avengers run. Each issue is a focus on a different Avenger in some other universe as they rise from the depths to claim their name. It's neat, but it also feels a little like treading water while we wait for the finale to happen.

Captain Carter: Woman Out of Time★★
Captain Carter wakes up in modern times and becomes a super hero in Britain. She works for STRIKE until she realizes something is wrong. As a writer, Jamie McKelvie makes a terrific artist.

Captain America: The Ghost Army★★
It was a weird choice to have Cap and Bucky go up against a Dr. Strange villain in World War II. Baron Mordo never seems threatening as he could have been anyone working on his machine to bring the dead back.

Spider-Man Invasion of the Spider-Slayers★★
This summer event when Marvel books went bi-weekly wasn't even that good back in the 90's. The Spider-Slayer is a weak villain. The subplot with Pete's parents ultimately gets pretty goofy later on and they already couldn't figure out what to go with MJ back then. Her subplot is she's so stressed out that Peter is going to die that she starts smoking.

Lazarus Planet: Revenge of the Gods★★★★
Like most things Wonder Woman related these days, completely pointless. I cannot wait until Tom King takes over and hopefully breathes new life into these books. Hera takes over as the Queen of the Greek Gods and teams up with the wizard Shazam. They've decided to rule mankind. On the other side is Wonder Woman and the Marvel family.

Valkyrie: Jane Foster, Vol. 1: The Sacred and The Profane★★★★
Spinning out of War of the Realms, Jane Foster is now the lone valkyrie. She's back on earth trying to find the right balance between being a super-hero and maintaining being a doctor. Aaron and Ewing keep the stories short which for some make the storytelling feel herky-jerky. I think it just feels a bit more old school and not so drawn out to fit a trade.

Valkyrie: Jane Foster, Vol. 2: At the End of All Things★★
I liked the first half of this quite a bit, but volume two couldn't keep the writer or artist around plus the pandemic. The series lost all of it's fun and just got bleak.

Robin, Vol. 3: Secrets and Shadows★★
In all honesty if you read the Shadow War crossover and then skip directly to Batman Vs. Robin you won't miss a thing.

Spider-Punk: Battle of the Banned★★★
Spider-Punk is back and headed on a road trip with his band. They tackle more fascists with the power of rock. It's fun stuff.

Teen Titans: Robin★★
Basically a 180 page training montage. Absolutely nothing happens in this book. Gar, Raven, Maxine, her mom, Damian and Dick Grayson hang out at the beach while hiding from Slade Wilson.

Batman and Son★★★★★
What a terrific beginning to Morrison's run. Teamed up with Andy Kubert, the book looks fantastic too. This is Damian's introduction. I'd forgotten how much of a psycho he is at the beginning, straight up murdering the bad guys before Batman can stop him.

Batman: The Black Glove★★★★★
I love the initial story about all of the international Batmen meeting on an island and getting murdered one by one like the Agatha Christie story "And Then There Were None".

Batman: R.I.P.★★★★★
Batman and The Black Glove confrontation finally happens and it's glorious. Morrison is so good at taking hokey concepts from old comics and using them to make something all together different and terrific.

Challenge of the Super Sons★★★
These Peter Tomasi Supersons stories are always worth a read. In this one, Damian and Jon have to secretly save all the members of the Justice League from a plan Vandal Savage and Felix Faust put together 500 years before.

House of El, Vol.2: The Enemy Delusion★★★★
I like how this dovetails perfectly with Superman's origins. It's about his future cousin, Sera, (not Supergirl) and Zahn the boy she's interested in from the other side of the tracks so to speak. He's part of the elite while she's a soldier.

House of El, Vol. 3: The Treacherous Hope★★★★
The plots of the last two books come to a head while Krypton marches to its impending doom. In the midst of this we see Superman's beginning. With some Romeo & Juliet type influences as well. Really well done for something I initially didn't think would be very interesting.

The Mighty Valkyries: All Hel Let Loose★★★
I really wish Marvel would just let Jason Aaron have his Jane Foster series. These miniseries are really difficult to follow along with as they keep changing names and they keep getting cut short.

Jane Foster & The Mighty Thor★★★
Marvel is doing its best to make these Jane Foster books as hard as possible to read in the proper order by changing the title of each series. With this one you can't even search on 'valkyrie'. But this is still Jane Foster and Runa (cinematic valkyrie) acting as the last two Valkyries. Some shadowy person is gathering all of Asgard's enemies to unleash them all all at once. Runa defends Asgard from them while Jane Foster searches for a missing Thor.

The Hardy Agency - Volume 1 - The Vanished Perfume★★★
A European comic about a woman in 1950's Paris who starts up a detective agency after her husband goes missing. She's looking for a missing chemist from a perfume company who has designed something that may have other more lucrative capabilities.

Bootblack - Volume 1★★
There's an interesting story here. It just needs to be told linearly. There's no transition to time jumps just leaving you confused. It starts off with a soldier in World War II flashing back to when he used to shine shoes in New York as a kid. He's in love with a girl who thinks he's beneath her and doesn't do much to prove her wrong.

Reading Quirks: Weird Things that Bookish Nerds Do!★★★★
Little comics about the idiosyncrasies of bibliophiles. I loved these comic strips of going crazy over new book smells or how you're instantly attracted to another lover of books

Frank - The Story of a Forgotten Dictatorship★★
This is presented almost like a picture book. It's abstract to the point that it doesn't really get the point across that it's about the Franco who ruled Spain with an iron fist for decades.

The Passenger - Volume 1★★
Two young Newlyweds are caught in the middle when the husband is forced to drive around a mafia capo as he takes care of business. His pregnant wife is held somewhere unknown.

FCBD Reads. Yes it took me a couple of weeks to get to them.

TOM HOLLANDS FRIGHT NIGHT #1★★
It's mainly a retelling of the original film with a little stinger on the end to show they intend to extend the series. The art is terrible with huge cartoonish heads on much smaller bodies.

Red Sonja (2023-) #1★★★
A solid intro into a new Red Sonja series. Walter Geovani has worked on Red Sonja before and I like his art while Torunn Gronbekk branches out beyond Marvel. Red Sonja is cursed and goes on the run.

Conan #1 (2023) Free Comic Book★★★
Conan shifts over to Titan Comics with this little Conan entry for Free Comic Book Day. It's really little more than fluff. De La Torre has a classic look to his art that makes this look older than you'd expect.

Free Comic Book Day 2023: Uncanny Avengers #1★★★★
This one looks pretty promising. A human gets a hold of the Captain Krakoa suit and starts framing mutants presumably causing a New Uncanny Avengers team. There's also a little 4 pager from Jonathan Hickman and Valerio Schiti's new book G.O.D.S.

The Sacrificers #1★★★
Some kind of harsh fantasy world where a birdman father beats one of his children for some reason. There's also a ruling family of sunpeople in the other half of the story. Given that it's Remender it's probably going to be harsh and brutal.

Frank Frazetta's Frazettaverse FCBD #0★★★
I gotta say, this was way better than I expected. I hadn't even heard of Opus Comics, but it looks like they have some decent creators on these books. There's a Death Dealer story, a Mothman intro and then a shorter Dawn Attack. All three looked pretty decent.

Archie Horror Presents: The Cursed Library FCBD 2023★★
Unfortunately, Archie Comics offering for FCBD is terrible. It's not even all complete stories. It's excerpts from various one-shot horror comics they did. Just go buy those instead even though most of them are awful.

Free Comic Book Day 2023: The Umbrella Academy/The Witcher★★
Gabriel Ba writes and draws a not great comic set in the world of The Umbrella Academy for FCBD. I think Umbrella Academy is pretty incomprehensible unless you start at the beginning at this point. The Witcher story is fine. The art though is awful. It's a take on the fairytale of the Frog Prince.

Free Comic Book Day 2023: Fishflies★★★
This was a FCBD issue from Lemire. It's a new Image series. Kids in a small town are inundated by mayflies. There's also some adult running around with a gunshot wound. Not sure if it's the same kid and this is in the future or not. Lemire is just a guy whose stuff reads better in trade. At the moment I have no idea what is going on.

West of Sundown #1★★★★
Just read the the first issue as part of FCBD. This seems really cool. Seems like the Hammer films set in the Old West. This was not new. It's already in trade.

Gamerverse Spider-Man 2 #1 FCBD 2023★★★
Miles and Peter take down the Hood with some help from MJ. It's surprisingly self contained for a lead-in to the Spider-Man 2 video game coming out this fall.

Dawn of DC Primer Special Edition #1: 2023★★★★
The story in this was actually pretty good. Amanda Waller is back and this time she's sending out the villains to kill superheroes.

Dawn of DC Knight Terrors FCBD Special Edition #1: 2023★★
It looks like I won't be buying many DC comics this summer. July and August are going to have a bunch of miniseries with everyone fighting nightmares. This story was fine, but this type of dream story holds little interest to me.

Free Comic Book Day 2023: Spider-Man/Venom #1★★★
Spider-Man fights an ape with some of Osborn's tech. Then a flashback to the 40's for some new foe for Venom. And a little sneak peak into Hickman and Hitch's Ultimate Invasion this summer.

Batman and Robin, Volume 7: Robin Rises ★★★★
The Batman invades Apokolips to bring Damian back to life.


Daredevil by Frank Miller & Klaus Janson, Vol. 1 ★★★★★
It's great. I only wish I didn't read Man Without Fear first, because that's a better version of a few issues in here.


Fire Force Vol. 1 ★★★
If I was a teenage boy, I would love this series. But the excessive fan service makes this a guilty pleasure. Human will spontaneously explode, becoming monsters called infernals. The Fire Force are people with fire powers that kill the infernals and search for a cure.


Orient, Vol. 4★★★
About the same as Fire Force. Cool world building but generic.


Noragami: Stray God, Vol. 3★★★
This was better when I watched it as an anime. Yato is not as endearing a protagonist as I remember. Excited to revisit the stuff from season 2.


Captain Marvel Earth's Mightiest Hero 2 ★★★★
I liked this one more than the first book. Filipe Andrade draws eyes bizarrely far apart, but it didn't bother me that much. The 2nd half is apart of the Infinity War event. I had no idea what was going on. Most of it is characters having self reflection so I didn't need to why the big space was happening.


Parasyte, Volume 2 ★★★★★
Really good 90s horror manga.


Witchcraft Works, Vol. 6 ★★★
The writing is much less of a mess, but still a little scatterbrained.


Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves: The Feast of the Moon ★★★
Cute little story, but you wouldn't know the characters unless you watched the movie.

Today's trip to my LCS.

Dark Knights of Steel #11
Immortal X-Men #12
Invincible Iron Man #7
X-Men #23
By the Horns: Dark Earth #9
Bishop: War College #5
Flash #800
Empire #1
X-Men: Mutant First Strike #1

Here's what the IRCB folks read this week for Episode 375 | Empathizing with Flesh Tornadoes

- Paul: Ephemera: A Memoir, Love and Rockets #13
- Kait: My Brother's Husband, Volume 1 and Volume 2, How to Understand Israel in 60 Days or Less
- Kate: Strange Adventures, Lo and Behold:

Check out the episode on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts to hear our thoughts on what we read! Or listen now at https://ircbpodcast.com/episodes/epis...

Last week's light graphic novel reads:

Zaroff ★★★
I'll just start by saying I don't know that we needed a sequel to "The Most Dangerous Game", (This is a sequel to the movie, not the original short story.) but if we are going to get one at least it's good.

Elma, a bear's life - Volume 1 - The Great Journey ★★★
A little girl who is being raised by a bear go on a big journey. The story is pretty slight but the illustrations are a delight.

Hedge Fund - Volume 1: Money Men ★★
It's interesting I guess. Movies have done this type of financial crisis type thing so much better while making it easier to follow. You probably need to actually work on Wall Street to follow some of this.

Last of the Atlases ★★★
I liked what I read of this but this volume was too short, maybe the length of an American comic. It's mainly about some gangsters running hidden poker machines in France. But it's also about some birds that aren't migrating.

Operation Copperhead Chapter 1 ★
A story about Peter Usinov and David Niven's time in World War II. The framing sequence set during Death on the Nile and just the storytelling in general made this hard to follow. It's also incredibly short even for a European comic. Harambat's terrible art also made this a chore to read.

Atom Agency - Volume 1 - The Begum's Jewels ★★★
I loved the pop art look of the book. The story though, relies on the detective agency fumbling around until things fall in their lap without much detective work or it relies on Dad's contacts from the war helping out.

The Battle, Vol. 1 ★★
There were so many characters in this with similar uniforms that it was really difficult to maintain who was who. I know it was one of Napoleon's main battles but it was extremely difficult to keep up with what was happening.

Glory Days (1. Chaos) ★★
Flits back and forth between three women in their twenties. One is depressed after breaking up with her boyfriend. The second incredibly stressed out about writing her dissertation. Finally, the third girl screwed her roommate's boyfriend and has been ostracized from her social circle.

The Midlife Crisis ★
This was very dated, originally written in 1996. It's about how all husbands leave their wives in their 40's (except I never did). The art style is terrible. It looks like caricatures from a comic strip. It's about how the wife gets through life after her husband leaves her but the storytelling is very disjointed.

Bob Marley in Comics! ★★★
A succinct look at Bob Marley's life. The comics are written by Gaet's while the text that sometimes appears between chapters is by Sophie Blitman. The text does provides a bit more depth to what you've already read.

The Undertaker, The Vagrant & The Assassin (Stern, #1) ★★★★
I quite liked this tale from the Old West about an undertaker in a frontier town in Kansas who no one really talks to. He becomes more involved with the town members when he autopsies the recent death of a drunk.

Welcome to the New World ★★★★
This began as a connected series of comic strips that appeared in the New York Times. It was later turned into a book with many more strips after winning the Pulitzer. It's about a real family of Syrian refugees who came to America the same day Trump won the election in 2016. That however is not the main focus. It's about the family itself and how they had to quickly acclimate to life in Connecticut. Learning English, sending the kids to school, finding a job so they could support themselves, etc.

Forbidden Harbor ★★★★
The story of a teenage boy who wakes up on a beach with no memory. He's taken on as part of the crew of a ship when he's discovered by its captain. There he travels from Asia back to England. Along the way he picks up all of the duties on the ship as if he's done them before. When he returns to Plymouth, he's taken in by three sisters who are trying to run an inn after their father was accused of treason and disappeared. He also meets a madame that he reads poetry to every day. It's a good story if a little long at 300 pages. Like a lot of European comics there is plenty of nudity and adult situations. It's all illustrated in gorgeous, highly detailed, black and white pencils.

X-Men '92: House of XCII ★★
This is a "What If?" story about what if the X-Men cartoon entered the Krakoan era back in the 90's. An interesting idea that really didn't go anywhere new.

Green Arrow: Stranded ★
A very quick read that adds virtually nothing to this YA version of Green Arrow's origin story. Nor does it at all make me think he'd become Green Arrow after reading this. Ollie is a kid on a hunting trip with his dad, his jerk of a business partner and his asshole son. They crashland while flying home and Ollie has to learn to shoot things in order to eat. That's pretty much the entire plot.

DC Pride 2023 #1 ★★
This year's group of Pride stories were some weak sauce. Even Grant Morrison's story didn't make a lot of sense but then again it's about a Green Lantern on an alternate earth and his Green Lantern book was terrible and didn't make any sense. Honestly what I liked best was the prose which I typically hate in comic books. But Phil Jimenez's foreword and the written tributes to Rachel Pollack's passing were the best parts of the book.

House of Slaughter Vol. 3: The Butcher's Return ★★★
The Boucher's find one of Jace's charges and he goes back to New Orleans to find him. Better than volume 2 but it's still moving too slowly for me at this point.

Fury (2023) #1 ★★★
A solid 60th anniversary one shot about a new Scorpio. Ewing does a good job of weaving the story around both Nick Fury and Nick Fury Jr.

Bishop: War College ★★★
Bishop and Tempo get transported to another dimension where all of the X-Men are black. Meanwhile the mutants they are training have to stop the Fenris twins from breaching the pit. This was OK.

Lore Olympus: Volume Three ★★★
Not much happens in this but talking... and more talking... and more talking. The relationship between Hades and Persephone cools off as Minthe steps between them and Hades is trying to make it work.

Lore Olympus: Volume Four ★★★
This thing moves at a glacial pace. It all tends to be fan service. It's kind of the Twilight of comics.

Batman by Grant Morrison Omnibus: Volume One ★★★★★
Did a reread of this run when I discovered the library had this omnibus. It's terrific. If you haven't read Grant Morrison's Batman run you should. It only gets better from here.

Giant-Size X-Men ★★★★
Five loosely connected stories with some killer art, all by Hickman.

Superman & Robin Special (2022) #1 ★★★★
Even though Jon Kent's been ages up to 18, there's no reason the Super Sons can't still get together. Jon and Damien Wayne team up when something gets loose inside the Fortress of Solitude.

Carnage: Black, White & Blood ★★
Even though carnage is a character I care little about, these stories were surprisingly bad given the writers on at least half the stories are top notch.

Fantastic Four Anniversary Tribute (2021) #1 ★★★
For the Fantastic Four's 60th anniversary, artists tagteamed in to each redraw one page of Fantastic Four #1 and Fantastic Four Anniversary #3 where Reed and Sue get married. I thought this would be a chore to read as the comics from this era can be hard to get through but this wasn't half bad and it was cool to see all of these current artists draw 2 classic comics.

She-Hulk, Vol. 1: Jen, Again ★★★
She-Hulk resets with a new job as a lawyer again, this time working for Mallory Book. That doesn't go very far though as for at least these 5 issues there's no lawyering. Obscure Avenger Jack of Hearts shows up on Jen's doorstep with little idea of where he's been since he caused Jen's powers to go haywire and blew up in space. This comic gives new meaning to deconstruction. Almost nothing happens in this thing. Yet, it was still OK. There's just no advancing of any plots.

Here's what the IRCB folks read this week for Episode 376 | Stupid Questions, Stupid Answers

- Paul: Santos Sisters #4, Unstoppable Doom Patrol (2023-) #3 (Unstoppable Doom Patrol
- Brian: I Think I Turned My Childhood Friend Into a Girl Vol. 1
- Paloma: Star Wars: Doctor Aphra, Vol. 1: Aphra, Batman vs. Robin (2022-) #2

Check out the episode on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts to hear our thoughts on what we read! Or listen now at https://ircbpodcast.com/episodes/epis...

---

Re: Chad: I have added Welcome to the New World and Forbidden Harbor to my to-read list! I've been reading a lot of graphic nonfiction lately and Welcome to the New World sounds like it would complement some of that reading. I'm disappointed to hear about Lore Olympus. I need to read volumes 3 and 4 yet myself.

kaitlphere wrote: "I have added Welcome to the New World and Forbidden Harbor to my to-read list! I've been reading a lot of graphic nonfiction lately and Welcome to the New World sounds like it would complement some of that reading. I'm disappointed to hear about Lore Olympus. I need to read volumes 3 and 4 yet myself."

I hope you enjoy them. Welcome to the New World should definitely complement your nonfiction reads. Other people love Lore Olympus so maybe you'll enjoy it more than I did. It just feels like a story that's going nowhere to me given that it's based on mythology that is a few thousand years old and we all know how it goes. I found Plunderworld way more enjoyable than this. But it's sweet where this is full of conniving, awful, vapid people.

Today's trip to the LCS.

Void Rivals #1 <-- A new Robert Kirkman book. The clerk at the store said to read it right away before something in it gets spoiled so I'll see what that is.
Doctor Strange #4
X-Men Red #12
Wolverine #34
X-Cellent #4

kaitlphere wrote: "Here's what the IRCB folks read this week for Episode 375 | Empathizing with Flesh Tornadoes

- Paul: Ephemera: A Memoir, Love and Rockets #13
- Kait: [book:My Brot..."

I've read Ephemera. Beautiful artwork on the cover and that is what I fell for to buy it. The story was not completely convincing but ok.

Chad wrote: "kaitlphere wrote: "I have added Welcome to the New World and Forbidden Harbor to my to-read list! I've been reading a lot of graphic nonfiction lately and Welcome to the New World sounds like it wo..."

Funny that you liked Punderworld more than Lore Olympus. I have only read vol 1 of Lore Olympus, so maybe that is why I liked Lore better. I thought Punderworld had beautifull artwork, but was a bit soft...

I've read
- some issues of Giant Days
- four volumes of Fence, which was nothing really special.
- Lost Dogs - Jeff Lemire, this I thought was good. Sad but good.
- I started Sweet Tooth, almost finished vol 1
- Squire, and I didn't understand why it has such a high score on Goodreads...
- and a Dutch book De Kuil which didn't completely fulfill the expectations

I'm halfway through this anthology Adventures of Superman Vol. 2
It varies in quality, some awful, some readable, some interesting, like all anthologies.

Blue Beetle, Vol. 2: Blue Diamond ★
I just finished this, halfway through it goes down, down, down. But I still want to read the Threshold.

Teen Titans, Volume 4: Light and Dark ★★
I had really high hopes for this one with the arrival of Raven and Trigon, but it was a bust. And I heard it does not get any better at the last volume.

Little Moments of Love ★★★★
It was a surprise to see this on Storytel, and I decided to give it another shot. The first time I read this, I didn't really enjoy the art style but the second time through the jokes were more relatable and I did enjoy it more.

Evy wrote: "I've read
- some issues of Giant Days
- four volumes of Fence, which was nothing really special.
- Lost Dogs - Jeff Lemire, this I thought was good. Sad but good.
- I started Sweet Tooth, almost..."

I thought I was the only one who didn't get the hype about Fence comic books. I waited for it to get better and for the coupling everyone talked about to happen but it never happened and now I'm afraid to read the fifth volume.

Ruta S. wrote: "Teen Titans, Volume 4: Light and Dark ★★
I had really high hopes for this one with the arrival of Raven and Trigon, but it was a bust. And I heard it does not get any better at the last volume."

That Scott Lobdell run is a dumpster fire. I recommend the original run by Wolfman and Perez and the Geoff Johns comic from the aughts. They are both really good. The New 52 runs are really confusing because they muck with continuity, wiping out the most famous run of Teen Titans from the 80s/90s.

Ruta S. wrote: "I thought I was the only one who didn't get the hype about Fence comic books. I waited for it to get better and for the coupling everyone talked about to happen but it never happened and now I'm afraid to read the fifth volume."

I don't get the Fence love either.

Ruta S. wrote: "Evy wrote: "I've read
- some issues of Giant Days
- four volumes of Fence, which was nothing really special.
- Lost Dogs - Jeff Lemire, this I thought was good. Sad but good.
- I started Sweet T..."

It was an easy read, but so predictable. I liked that it was about fencing, at least that was sort of 'new' to me.

Chad wrote: "Ruta S. wrote: "Teen Titans, Volume 4: Light and Dark ★★
I had really high hopes for this one with the arrival of Raven and Trigon, but it was a bust. And I heard it does not get any better at the ..."

I'm not very familiar with the DC universe before New 52, and the characters that didn't appear in any of the adaptations I've watched. And that's why I'm somewhat scared to start any series. Can the one you recommended be read on its own without reading additional serieses?

Ruta S. wrote: "Chad wrote: "Ruta S. wrote: "Teen Titans, Volume 4: Light and Dark ★★
I had really high hopes for this one with the arrival of Raven and Trigon, but it was a bust. And I heard it does not get any b..."

The Wolfman and Perez run from the 80's is the original run the cartoons are based off of.

The Geoff Johns run was with the next generation of heroes of the time so it has Tim Drake as Robin, Impulse, Cassie Sandsmark as Wonder Girl, Conner Kent as Superboy, etc with Cyborg and Beast Boy from the 80's version as mentors. It's Geoff Johns so it's easy enough to get right into without knowing their whole history.

Kings in Disguise A relatively early (late 1980s) example of long-form graphic storytelling. So, interesting in that way. Basically the story of a kid who runs away from a bad home and becomes a hobo during the Great Depression. Deals with life of hobos and homeless and labor issues. I learned some new queer history terms: a Jocker was an older hobo who trained and supposedly sexually groomed a younger guy, called a Preshun (or Prussian). (These were derogatory terms. Exactly what the real story of such people was, I don't know. But it was interesting to learn the terms. The main characters were accused of this, but it wasn't the case.) Very wordy, but interesting. There is a recent-ish sequel, but I'm in no hurry to read it.

The Incal: Psychoverse by Mark Russell. This does not feel at all like it was written by Mark Russell. It has none of his satirical wit. It is basically the same story as "Before the Incal". There seems to be no reason for this to exist except that a new Incal movie is in the works and maybe this is an introduction for Americans who don't want to read a work translated from French. Some of the weirdness may have been toned down from the original, but the story is basically the same, and still very weird.

Animal Castle Vol 1. English translation of a French sequel to Animal Farm. The pigs still live in the big house and walk on two legs; the dogs are still the enforcers, but the big boss is now a bull named Silvio. The political issue here is no longer Communism, but rather a story about how non-violent resistance, a la Ghandi, can be a way to face down a dictator. The resistors are non-violent, but those in charge are quite violent, so there are some quite 'graphic' images. Lovely, semi-realistic art.

2120 by George Wylesol is a sort of choose-your-own-adventure story. On each page you make a choice about which page to go to next. While the story and art seemed interesting and unsettling, I just wasn't looking for a point-and-click adventure in book form so I stopped reading quickly.

Sophie's World: A Graphic Novel About the History of Philosophy Vol I: From Socrates to Galileo. Exactly what it sounds like. A graphic version of the surprise hit novel. Volume 1 covers really old philosophers and has little new to say to me. But I look forward to the conclusion in Volume 2 which gets more 'meta' and has more modern philosophy.

Doom Patrol, Vol. 1: Brick by Brick. I was never in love with the original Doom Patrol, and this doesn't win me over either.

Last week's adventures in comics. Lots of Hoopla reads before they expire edition.

Batman: Urban Legends Vol. 5 ★★★
This collection of Bat-Fam stories was surprisingly good. There are 4 multipart stories in this one.

Damage Control: New Employee Handbook ★
I'd say Adam Goldberg needs to stick to writing TV shows but The Goldbergs which is "based" on his life is awful too. The premise is there's a new intern working at Damage Control that keeps screwing up and gets handed off to a new department each issue. It's not at all funny though even though it's trying very hard to be.

Lucky Luke - Saddles Up ★
Everything about this was bad. The art is terrible. I needed context clues from the story to realize one of the villains was a woman. The art was so goofy and poor I couldn't tell. The story is dumb. It's goofy wannabe slapstick about a cowboy trying to get the first bicycle across the Old West to San Francisco for a race.

Little Witches: Magic in Concord ★★
A reimagining of Little Women where they are witches. Most of the story beats are the same, the story just now includes magic and Laurie and his grandfather are now witchfinders.

The Black Mage ★
Oh my god, this was so terrible. I can't believe how on the nose this story about a racist world of magicians is. The people who liked it call it a parody but I think it's written in earnest. This is the kind of thing conservative hillbillies will hold up to make fun of because of how "woke" it is. It's about the St. Ivory school of magic that opens up its doors to its first token black student actually named Tom Token. He has a crow familiar named Jim. The headmaster actually wears clan robes and is named Lynch.

Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves: The Feast of the Moon ★★
A crummy prequel to the fun movie. Watch the movie first if you feel like making yourself read this one.

Cosmoknights, Vol. 1 ★★★★★
Ah! I'm mad at myself for waiting so long to read this. It's terrific. It's got knights in mech suits fighting over princesses to win their hands in marriage for their sponsors for all the wrong reasons. So you have this dichotomy of medieval knight battles in a sci-fi setting. Behind it all is this lesbian couple and their young friend trying to win each battle to secretly set the princesses free from the patriarchy.

Skyward, Vol. 1: My Low-G Life ★★★
20 years ago Earth lost most of its gravity while our main character was a baby. Now her father's a shut in and she just wants to travel the world. Meanwhile, the stereotypical bad guy wants thing to remain the same so he can continue to rake in the dough. Don't think about any of the actual physics behind this. It's all nonsense. Everyone on Earth would be dead if this happened. Once you get past that, you can allow yourself to enjoy the book.

The Girl and the Glim ★★★★
I didn't expect this to end just as it was getting started. Hopefully we'll see more because right now we have no answers, only questions. It's about a girl who moves to a new town and isn't fitting in. For some reason she can see this little electrical creature but no one else can. There's also a bunch of evil versions that seem to be feeding off emotions. So they begin to go after them even though everyone else thinks she's a weirdo.

Gotham Academy #1: Maps of Mystery ★★★
Reprints all of the Gotham Academy stories from backups and anthologies that have come out since Gotham Academy ended. They, of course, all revolve around Maps.

Distorted ★★
Reminds me of the TV show Heroes where a bunch of random people gain powers and the stories don't really connect for a very long time. It's the X-Men if there was very little story behind it and they were just shown using their powers in secret.

Radical: My Year with a Socialist Senator ★★★★
Don't let the title fool you. The book has very little to do with socialism. It's a year spent in the trenches with a freshman state senator from New York City. It's very much about the political process of getting legislation passed and just how incredibly difficult it is. I live in the NYC metro area and a subject that concerns everyone that lives there is gentrification and how incredibly high rent is. Elected in 2018, the Senator's main goal was to get rent reform bills passed before the current bills all expired in June of that year. Pretty much the entire book is about trying to get that passed as a whole.

Junkwraith ★
This is some kind of allegorical story about growing up and leaving the past behind, I think. The storytelling was so poor that I'm not really sure. The main character gets upset when the other ice skaters make fun of her and throw her ice skates away. This creates a "junkwraith" or ghost that will eventually steal her memories if she doesn't come to peace with it.

The Secret of Danger Point ★★★
A great comic for kids with a mystery angle. There's a supernatural element as well but it fit the story except for the ghost boyfriend at the end.

Boylon Heights ★★★
Some solid noir set in the deep South. There are a ton of racist remarks made in this so be forewarned. The detective is black in 50's era Mississippi. Pretty much every white person in this is a racist piece of $#!+.

Gods of Brutality ★★★
It's about a heavy metal singer who goes to Hell and prays to Odin and Zeus to save him so they send Thor and Hercules to Hell to bail him out. The four issues are the 3 of them fighting demons. It's like a 70's album cover come to life.

The Vampire Slayer, Vol. 1 ★★★
A good start to another universe set in Sunnydale. Your four main characters are there. The difference is that Willow and Giles screwed up and Willow is now the Slayer. And Xander is gay now (which if the show ever got rebooted would probably happen as well.)

The Vampire Slayer, Vol. 2 ★★★
This is fine. The dialogue is good and I like that the cast are all twenty-somethings with jobs now. This moves too slowly though. Part of it is Boom's dependence on collecting stories in 4 issue chunks even when the story is longer. I think this will probably read better digesting it all at once.

Third Wave 99 ★★★
A solid beginning hampered a bit by the 4 issue format. It's about a guy in Florida running a surf wear brand and running from his past. His past comes looking for him when they find out where he's at.

Nyx: Daddy’s Girl ★★★
Nyx attempts to merge her human and demon sides. Much better than I expected because I expected crap.

Vampiverse ★★★
Dynamite has already did this same story for Red Sonya. This one is done better though. It's your standard multiverse is in danger story. There's an evil Vampirella who is killing all the other Vampirellas in the multiverse.

Jennifer Blood: Bloodlines Vol. 1 ★★★
Jennifer Blood is back in Dynamite's attempt at the Punisher. This time she's hunting down all the criminals in a town full of criminals who turned rat and went into the Witness Protection Program.

Jennifer Blood, Volume Three: Neither Tarnished Nor Afraid ★★★
Jennifer went from revenge to straight up murdering people in this volume as she found she could no longer hide what was going on. The descent into madness was kind of interesting but the series seems to be going off the rails.

The Ninjettes ★★
Meh. Give this a pass. I'm glad Ewing became a much better writer after this. This sucked.

Today's trip to the LCS.

World's Finest #16
NIghtwing #105
X-Force #41
Titans #2
Ultimate Invasion #1
Incredible Hulk #1
Danny Ketch Ghost Rider #2
Avengers #2

Here's what the IRCB folks read this week for Episode 377 | Tiny Buff Children (ft. Kevvo + Z Class: Trix)

- Mike: Girl Juice, Vesper & Onion
- Danny: Night Fever, Captain America: Cold War, Captain America, Vol. 1: Castaway in Dimension Z, Book One and Book Two
- Kara: Walt Disney's Uncle Scrooge Vol. 26: "The Golden Nugget Boat"
- Kevvo: Ducks: Two Years in the Oil Sands, Gender Queer: A Memoir

Check out the episode on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts to hear our thoughts on what we read! Or listen now at https://ircbpodcast.com/episodes/epis...

Z Class: Trix by Kevvo is live on Kickstarter until June 29. You can find it here: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/...

Last week's adventures in comic books.

Zombillenium Volume 1: Gretchen ★★★
An introduction to a monster theme park staffed by actual monsters.

The Kingdom of the Blind - Volume 1 - The Invisibles ★★
A story about the surveillance state in the near future that doesn't have much to say.

Kivu ★★★★★
The story is about a young brother and sister in a small village in the Congo. Their whole village is brutally murdered. Meanwhile a young employee of a Dutch multinational is sent there to find a new warlord to take over. Once he gets there and finds out what is really happening he decides to help. This book will absolutely wreck you.

Tosca Vol. 3 ★★★
The princess is still kidnapped with her father laying siege to Florence. He doesn't know where in the city she is though and won't commit to an attack in fear of harming her.

La Isabela (Jakob Kayne, #1) ★★★
This reminded me of Assassin's Creed. It's about a man and his brother who are the last hippocrats. They are memory eaters meaning that no one can remember their faces. The main character is sneaking into a besieged city to rescue a family before Sulieman can sack it.

Of Gods and Men: 1. The End of the Beginning ★★
While the artwork was quite good, you're thrown into the middle of a confusing story that's only somewhat explained by reading the one-page character sheets at the back. That's not how I want to read my comics.

Shelley 2. Mary Shelley ★★
This veers from historical fiction to Mary Shelley's other novel, The Last Man in the second half of the story and it's so off-putting. To go from a real world story to an end of the world scenario just doesn't make any sense.

Nhun the Huntress ★
I found this story of cave people a complete waste of time with terrible art.

Theatre of the Wind (Nanami #1) ★★
The Neverending Story for bored teenagers.

The Revenge of Count Skarbek (1. Two Golden Hands) ★★★
A painter returns after everyone thought he died 10 years before. Now he's out for revenge against those who wronged him. His plan is to get the men to implicate themselves during a trial.

Tokyo Underground (Otaku Blue, #1) ★★
A sociology student in Tokyo is investigating Otaku for her thesis. Otaku is some kind of fetish that girls dress in cosplay or something, it wasn't explained well at all. Her relationship with her boyfriend is also falling apart as he's filming a J-horror film. Then there's two police detectives investigating a series of murders where a different body part is cut off a young woman. This should be exciting but it's all very boring.

Noir ★★
A crime writer finds out his life isn't what he thinks it is and decides to take revenge. This heavily inked black and white artwork looks like it was put through a xerox machine a few times.

Snitches Anonymous - Mission 1 ★★★
Tom and his young friend get involved in investigating a burglary ring that Tom's father (who is a police captain) has been trying to solve for a while. Tom recognizes a kid in a photo as someone who goes to his school and the kids eventually figure out what's going on.

Yasmina and the Potato Eaters: Part 1 ★★★
The only thing Yasmina cares about is cooking vegetarian food, mainly for her father. He works at a pommes frites (french fry) restaurant but only eats Yasmina's masterpieces. She runs into trouble when the community gardens she gets her food from are taken over by a company that makes these strange addictive potatoes.

Yasmina and the Potato Eaters: Part 2 ★★
Part 2 of this story goes off the rails as the people who eat these potato chips begin to act like dogs, including Yasmina's father. It gets really goofy and you can see how much this is meant for kids as opposed to all ages.

John Life is Worth Fighting For ★★
This is a PSA to get your colon checked out at 50 because colon cancer strikes early. It reads like a PSA too.

Colored: The Unsung Life of Claudette Colvin ★★
This is a case where the original book this is based on works a lot better than the comic book translation. The story is about Claudette Colvin, a teenager who refused to give up her seat on a bus in Alabama in 1955 a few months before Rosa Parks did. The art is incredibly poor.

Aristophania 1. The Kingdom of Azur ★★★
Some very good art to go along with this story of 3 children growing up rough in the 19th century. There's some kind of magical element involved as well as this old woman tries to protect them from this man who seems to be invincible and both hangs out and eats rats.

Timo the Adventurer Book 1 ★★★
What's a boy to do when he's read every book in the village? Time to head out on your own to do some exploring. He documents all the odd creatures he meets in his notebook, describing each one. Younger readers will enjoy this a lot.

Spirou in Berlin ★★
Spirou and his friends get stuck in East Berlin (in the days right before the Wall came down) after voluntarily heading there when their friend disappears. I had a hard time following parts of this. It was really goofy at times too.

The Bugle Boy ★★
An old soldier wishes to find the bugle he lost in WWII. He heads north with his granddaughter where he buried it only to find a whole other thing going on with it. This was a strange story. Straight up goofy at times and not very interesting for a WWII story.

The Year of Loving Dangerously ★★
This was OK. I liked it more as a book about living in New York in the 80's than about this guy sleeping with different women every night because he couldn't afford a place to live after getting kicked out of Columbia.

The Man with the Monkey Face (Kid Noize #1) ★★★
Good art. The story was just OK. It's part of some concept album by an artist I've never heard of.

Irons 1. The Engineer ★★★★
I quite liked this mystery. It's about a engineer who investigates the bridge between Prince Edward Island and New Brunswick in Canada when it fails. It's a neat idea and the kind of thing you come up with when you have to drive on a crazy long bridge like that every day.

Buffy: The Lost Summer #1 ★★★★
A really boring Buffy comic about the Scooby gang headed to New Orleans to see Antiques Road show so Spike can secretly get his poetry back from when he was alive.

Nancy Drew Omnibus Vol. 1 ★★
Oh man, was this boring. I'm not sure if it was adapting actual Nancy Drew stories but that's kind of what it felt like by how wordy this was.

Gurvan: A Dream of Earth ★★★
Follows a man training to be a pilot in the midst of a war where they know nothing about the other side. It's just nonstop space battles with all the pilots being grown as clones. Then Gurvan begins to learn about the other side...

Jennifer Blood, Volume Four: The Trial of Jennifer Blood ★★★
Jennifer goes on the run with her kids, murdering people in convenience stores for cash along the way. She's completely off the deep end and at this point you just want to see her caught (or dead).

Jennifer Blood, Volume Five: Blood Legacy ★★★
Jennifer Blood has been sentenced to life in prison. I'm sure it'll only be a few issues until she gets out. Then there's some rich guys living "The Most Dangerous Game" that goes no where and a few issues where the legend of Jennifer Blood is an influence on people while she's at large.

The Sandman Universe: Dead Boy Detectives ★★★
The Dead Boy Detectives have migrated from London to Los Angeles. There they get involved with a bunch of Thai ghosts and legends and Thessaly is somehow involved.

Masks Volume 1 ★★★★
This was one of the first times Dynamite did their gather all the heroes together thing. You've got their big boys in The Shadow, Green Hornet and Zorro. Then you've got all their eminent domain characters they've gathered like Green Llama and the Black Terror along with many others.

The Adventures of Red Sonja, Volume 1 ★★★★
Even though she's wearing a metal bikini, I'm surprised how progressive Red Sonja's character was from the start. She wouldn't take gruff from anyone, male or female. She's constantly proving those who think women are the weaker sex wrong.

The Flash Vol. 18: The Search For Barry Allen ★★★
Mainly a bunch of Dark Crisis loose tie-in issues where all the speedsters go look for Barry. This also spoils something that happens in the annual which wasn't collected for some reason.

The Flash Vol. 19: One-Minute War ★★★
This was alright. It's about an alien civilization that can move at superspeed and takes over the Earth before anyone even knows it's happening. Only the speedsters can move fast enough to keep up. This is becoming less of a Flash book and more of a DC's speedsters book. Roger Cruz takes over as the main artist and the art isn't great.

Harley Quinn Vol. 3 : Verdict ★★★
The whole thing with Verdict wasn't very interesting. Part of it is Riley Rossmo's terrible art. It makes my eyes bleed.

Void Rivals #1 ★★★★
I had no idea what I was in for when I picked this up at my LCS last week. The clerk just told me I needed to pick it up. Loved the Enemy Mine type beginning with the two pilots from warring cultures stranded on an unpopulated planet. Then that reveal! Totally had me fooled.

yesterday I read the first volume of I hate Fairyland. Very entertaining, but also a lot of violence. I am glad I read it, but very much in doubt if I will continue the series...
Today I started Wayward, and I enjoy it a lot!

Kivu really sounds like something I would like to read.


Chad wrote: "Last week's adventures in comic books.

Zombillenium Volume 1: Gretchen ★★★
An introduction to a monster theme park staffed by actual monsters.

The Kingdom of the Blind - Volume 1 - The Invisibles..."

Evy wrote: "Kivu really sounds like something I would like to read.."

It should be available digitally from Europe Comics or you may be able to track down a physical copy since you're in Europe. It originally came out in 2018. The nice thing is that it's all in one volume.

Today's trip to the LCS.

Fables #159
Predator #4
Thor #35
X-Men: Before the Fall: The Heralds of Apocalypse
Alien #3

Chad wrote: "... Colored: The Unsung Life of Claudette Colvin ★★ ..."

I liked that one quite a bit more than you. I had never heard of her. I had always thought that Rosa Parks acted spontaneously, but this book shows Parks' protest was well planned, and Parks was a more sympathetic character to use in the media.

Ed wrote: "Chad wrote: "... Colored: The Unsung Life of Claudette Colvin ★★ ..."

I liked that one quite a bit more than you. I had never heard of her. I had always thought that Rosa Parks acted spontaneously..."

It was an interesting story but the art was so terrible. Everyone looked like little ants. I'll probably just go read the book it was based on instead.

Here's what the IRCB folks read this week for Episode 378 | Garfield Assertionists

- Mike: Time Before Time #24, In Hell We Fight #1, Incredible Hulk (2023-) #1
- Kara: Spider-Punk: Battle of the Banned, The Amazing Spider-Man, Vol. 3: Spider-Verse
- Zach: Dead Romans #1 through #4, Something Epic #1

Check out the episode on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts to hear our thoughts on what we read! Or listen now a https://ircbpodcast.com/episodes/epis...

---

I'm still in my reading binge of Attack on Titan. I finished volume 24 last night. This story has gone off the rails a few times. I'm mostly in it for the mystery of the titans and the character growth of the main few characters. I've liked most of it so far, but sometimes there's a full volume that's just politics and I'm not into those plotlines.

The Amazing Spider-Man, Vol. 3: Hobgoblin ★★★
After issues about the Hellfire & Judgement Day, the Hobgoblin is back. Romita's art improves, but if you didn't like it before, you won't like it here.


The Amazing Spider-Man, Vol. 4: Dark Web ★★★★
Silly and fun. Nice to see Ben Reilly come back.


Blue Lock 1 ★★★★
A sports manga with the twist that it's written like a Death game. 300 soccer prodigies are locked in a building to compete against each other, designed to cultivate that Michael Jordan mindset. When players lose, they are banned from professional soccer forever.


Noragami: Stray God, Vol. 5 ★★★★
Noragami is one my favorite anime from my teens, so I'm glad it got better. There is a lot of Japanese myth involved, mainly the seven lucky gods. Chapter 16 is around when it gets good.


Fire Force Vol. 3 ★
A lot of youtubers have recommended this, so I'm shocked at how bad the writing is. Like there's character whose gimmick is he keeps repeating one word when he speaks, and everyone points out how weird he is. That's the joke.


Orient Vol. 8 ★★★★
This turned out a lot better than Fire Force. Unfortunately, this is the last book available for free on the K-Manga app.


The Flash by Geoff Johns, Book One ★★★★
It's great. Angel Unzueta gives Barry such a huge chin.


Parasyte, Volume 6 ★★★★★
This is the best manga I've found on the K-Manga app. There's an anime updated for modern times as well that I've heard good things about.