Marvel Catch-Up #1: A-Force

So I decided to do this series alphabetically to avoid headaches. However, this means that I'm throwing part of the concept of the series out the window in my very first entry, because the truth is that I have been keeping up with A-Force all along. I love the characters, I love the creative team, and I think the book is delightful. So this won't be so much a "read along with Adhesiveslipper" thing as I'd like it to be; It's mostly going to be me evangelizing about how much I love this comic and you should too.

ANYWAY, now that I've wrecked my whole format, let's talk about A-Force.

A-Force, Volume 1

Things are going to get a bit weird for a minute, as A-Force is one of the few All-New, All-Different books to spin directly out of the barrage of miniseries launched in support of Secret Wars. It was first announced back before we had any details about what Jonathan Hickman had in store for us with the Secret Wars series, and all we got at first was the cover of the first issue and the fact that it was being cowritten by G. Willow Wilson and Marguerite Bennett. And let me tell you, I found both the writing team and the cover art VERY ENTICING.

ZOMG

That cover basically showed a bajillion badass ladies that we all know and love, many of them sporting incongruously outdated costumes, along with one Super Secret Mystery Character(!). When the early previews first hit, I mistook the Mystery Character for Tamara Devoux - a.k.a. Captain Universe - who looks VERY similar, but thankfully a group of nerds on a Heroclix messageboard corrected me on my grievous error and called me a few mean names for good measure! Thanks, Internet!

Suffice it to say, I was very excited about this whole concept. Wilson has won my admiration many times over with her comics work. An all-woman Avengers team appeals on the same level as the all-woman X-Men team Wilson briefly wrote about a few years back (though be warned that the first 17 issues of that series were instead written by noted sexually-harassing grossbag Brian Wood so I can't in good conscience recommend them).

What was this rad-looking, lady-filled comic even about, though!?

Well... That gets a little tricky. I promised myself I wouldn't get too bogged-down in Secret Wars stuff in these articles. So let's just say that the series was mostly about the complex politics of Doctor Doom's "Battleworld" and we can mostly leave it there. I don't mean to write the miniseries off like that, it was actually really fun. The story was full of great character moments, big action, and terrific dialogue. The first issue opened with the kind of GOSHDAMNED GIANT MONSTER FIGHT that is exactly what I want from my comic books, to be honest. It even had a Captain Marvel moment that will live in my heart forever...

BOOM, SON

...but at the end of the day it was mostly about how the residents of one Barony of Battleworld must never breach the boundaries of another Barony, lest they be cast beyond the Shield Wall by the Thor Corps of God Emperor Doom, blah blah et cetera et cetera. Personally I dug all that mega-detailed world-building, but it's not for everybody... so I'mma just skip over it.

For our purposes here, the important bits of the original A-Force miniseries were:

1. There was a superteam of badass ladies led by She-Hulk
2. The above-mentioned Mystery Character fell from the sky at one point.

"I'm... Batman."

The mysterious sparkly blue girl of mystery was eventually revealed to be a small universe, collapsed in upon itself during the destruction of the Marvel Multiverse and somehow given intelligence and sentience, though she remained childlike in manner. Okay, player. She was given the name "Singularity", and she became BFFs with Nico Minoru, and she helped A-Force along their convoluted adventure across Battleworld, and eventually she nobly sacrificed her own life to save her newfound friends. The end.

Now we can safely fast-forward to the comic I'm ACTUALLY here to talk about, lolz.

A-Force, Volume 2

So eventually Mr. Fantastic prevailed over Doctor Doom, the Secret Wars series ended, and we returned to good old Earth-616. An in-continuity A-Force series was launched, co-written by G. Willow Wilson and author/blogger/podcaster Kelly Thompson, who is rad but whom Wikipedia is apparently not yet hip to.

Full disclosure: I love this cover so much that it's currently the background image on my laptop.

The story opens with Singularity sort of just... poofing into existence somewhere in Earth's upper atmosphere, alongside the Alpha Flight space station that Captain Marvel is currently in charge of.

I felt this should have had a sound-effect, regardless of the physics of space. Maybe a POINK?

I should note that I have literally no idea why there is a space station called "Alpha Flight", nor why Captain Marvel is in charge of it. This whole project is about me getting caught up with current comics, and apparently this is one of the things I missed.

Interestingly, the narration in this first storyarc is delivered by Singularity herself, who remains confused and childlike, despite her cosmic powers. I feel like that was a really solid move from a narrative perspective: I love the idea of having a point-of-view character standing out from an ensemble cast. It sort of hearkens back to Kitty Pryde's role in the early-80s X-Men, and gives us as the readers a way to observe all the superheroics from a slightly different angle than we're used to. We aren't put straight into the shoes of the unstoppable badass: We're instead identifying with the confused kid, watching things unfold with a mixture of awe and terror. It really pulls some of the MACHO out of a superhero comic, and I think that's so useful in so many ways. I am also growing really fond of Singularity as a character, and specifically as a Cosmic Marvel character. Her power-levels remain undefined (which I'm fine with; let's learn along with her), but as near as I can tell, she is a human-sized, teen-girl version of Eternity - one of Steve Ditko's coolest creations - which could place her VERY high on the power scale.

So... Upon her sudden arrival in the Core Marvel Universe, it's made clear that Singularity actually remembers the events of the first A-Force miniseries, which sets her apart from most current characters, as far as I know. She immediately uses her... cosmic senses, I guess? to seek out a familiar face, and pays the nearby Captain Marvel a visit.

"HUH?!" I enjoy a good interrobang.

Singularity is surprised to find that Captain Marvel does not recognize her, and begins to piece together that she's arrived on a different Earth after her "death" on Battleworld. As introductions are being made, another cosmic entity poofs into existence outside of the space station. This one is a large red dude made of antimatter, so it's pretty clear from the jump that he's evil. He immediately starts attacking the station, and his ranting makes it clear that he's after Singularity. Captain Marvel jumps out into space and engages in some serious face-punching, but Antimatter seems unaffected. It soon starts to seem like Singularity is the only one who can cause him pain, though it somehow also seems to involve draining her energy/life-essence/whatever. It's vague, but I appreciate that vagueness. Comics that over-explain everything lose something for me: It pulls me out of the story and plunks me down in a classroom.

Singularity, afraid, hijacks an escape-pod and launches herself towards the Earth. She again reaches out for signs of her former friends, and finds She-Hulk at her law office in New York City. She crash-lands her escape-pod and is first spotted by a couple of goofy hipsters that look QUITE A LOT like Matt Fraction and Kelly Sue DeConnick...

This is not a particularly serious comic.

Singularity quickly finds out that Antimatter abandoned his fight with Captain Marvel to chase after her. He continues his self-aggrandizing ranting, which is right and proper for a supervillain.

She flees to She-Hulk, who - despite the fact that she does not know Singularity and has very little idea what is happening - recognizes the threat and jumps into the fight without much questioning, because she's a goddamned superhero.

Medusa shows up shortly after with an army of Inhumans in tow, and joins the battle as well.

During a brief pause in the fighting, Singularity teleports herself, Medusa, and She-Hulk to Japan, where they crash the wedding of Nico Minoru's cousin. Antimatter quickly catches up with them, and Nico - obviously - joins the fight too.

There is a really sweet exchange at this point where Singularity expresses surprise that these women are willing to help her despite not sharing her feelings of familiarity, or even being from the same UNIVERSE as her, and She-Hulk states her feelings quite simply: Helping people is what we do.

I literally got misty at this panel. Shut up.

 

As a brief aside, this book has introduced the idea that Nico has been studying languages beyond English and Japanese to circumvent her can-only-cast-a-specific-spell-once-ever restriction. She casts a healing spell on herself in Estonian, explaining that she requires healing spells fairly frequently. This was a very brief moment, only a couple panels on the page, but I felt like it was a very clever idea and a potentially-huge change to the character.

The heroes receive a call from Captain Marvel, who conveniently suspects that a blast of "light energy" could hurt Antimatter. I say "conveniently" because it serves mostly as an excuse for them to once again teleport away and recruit the last member of their team: Dazzler.

Dazzler has in the last couple years been turned into a brooding punk-rocker after some traumatic events in Uncanny X-Men, and we find her at a roller-derby match, competing as "Ali-STUN Blaire". I thought that was cute.

Dazzler joins up with her fellow superheroes, Antimatter appears again, their attack fails again, and they retreat back to Captain Marvel's space station.

Captain Marvel and her team of scientists(?) announces that they have found a way to defeat Antimatter, but it will also mean the destruction of Singularity. The members of the newly-formed supergroup all agree that that is not acceptable. They eventually build a super-scientific MacGuffin that will protect Singularity while blowin' up Antimatter, proceed to blow his ass up, and then they all go out for burgers.

In the final scenes, Dazzler opens up about her trauma to her teammates (I'm not going to dive too deeply into it because it's complicated X-Men stuff, but basically Mystique took her hostage for several months and drained her blood to synthesize special mutant-drugs), and then asks Nico to magic her up a new superhero costume. Which leads to one of Sister Grimm's most adorable spells ever:

SUPER. MAGIC. MAKEOVER.

Singularity then senses that Antimatter was NOT destroyed, and that sentient pieces of him have been scattered across the globe. The End? Nah, obviously not.

I really ought to mention that I'm well aware how quickly I've blown through the entire first storyarc, four issues long. I don't want you to feel like I am minimizing this comic, because I absolutely am not. I'm keeping things super-brief here for two big reasons. Reason One: I really think everyone should read this book, so I want to provide the barest possible summary of events. I don't want to spoil all of the clever plotting, quite-funny jokes, and brilliant dialogue. Reason Two: The story is simple, but without being simplistic. Despite the complexity of the story and the world it is taking place in, it all boils down to a team of superheroes being formed to fight a random-but-powerful baddie, which is a formula that Marvel has been using literally since the formation of the Avengers in the 1960s.

At issue #5, G. Willow Wilson has left the book, with Kelly Thompson becoming the sole author. Her writing has moved towards a third-person-omniscient narrative, as opposed to being filtered through the eyes of Singularity. The art also has taken a distinctly more cartoonish turn at the hands of Ben Caldwell.

I love Dazzler's straight-up "PEW PEW PEW" pose here.

At the beginning of the issue, Singularity has teleported the team to the location of some sort of rip in space/time. They are immediately greeted by the sight of THOR BATTLING A BIGASS DRAGON OVER OREGON.

There is also a very fun introductory panel for the characters:

They immediately join in the battle, because as She-Hulk says: "I wanna fight it. Hell, one that size has been on my bucket list for a while..."

I love the look of elation on She-Hulk's face as she is being chucked at a dragon's head.

After a sound thrashing, the dragon retreats, and they notice that the Thor they've teamed up with is not the Thor they were expecting...

...but is instead a HOLY CRAP DAZZLER THOR, a remnant of Battleworld's Thor Corps, who reveals that the dragon was actually an evil sorceress named The Countess... who seems to also be from Battleworld, but I'm not 100% on that because she was not in any of the miniseries that I read. If anybody feels like filling me in on that, it'd be rad.

The Countess

Dazzler obviously has some feelings about meeting a Thor version of herself. They all go out to get beer and pie together.

The Countess soon gains control of Nico's mind, and Nico uses her not-insignificant magical powers to put the rest of A-Force in peril. And that is where the latest issue's cliffhanger leaves us.

To put it bluntly, I am loving the hell out of this comic. I wholeheartedly recommend it, and I am really looking forward to future issues. I am a bit concerned that things will take a dark turn, as Brian Michael Bendis has recently killed off She-Hulk in the Civil War II series, but I have faith that Kelly Thompson can push past that Grimdark Garbage Crossover Shit and continue telling a fun, positive story about women and girls who kick ass.




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Marvel Catch-Up #0: The Introduction

Marvel Catch-Up #0.5: OMG SJWs!!!

So this came up in my Facebook "On This Day" thinger and I thought it was worth sharing here:

I had actually forgotten that the teaser images for All-New, All-Different Marvel caused a minor ruckus amongst the Angry Twitter Whiteboy crowd, who are ever-eager to label anything and everything an example of political correctness run amok. I'm glad I got the reminder, because that will provide a useful lens to view these comics through. Was it even an actual attempt to be more diverse at all? If it was, did it succeed in any meaningful way?

I had also forgotten about the fear at the time that Marvel/Disney was going to use the minor rebranding to further distance itself from properties whose film-rights belong to Fox, namely the X-Men. It was a fear I shared, to an extent (X-Tent?). It didn't turn out to be the case at all, really, but it's another useful reminder of the feelings people had about the fate of the Post-Secret Wars Marvel Universe at the time.

Oh and for the record: According to dudes on Twitter I am already officially a SJW, a Beta Male, a White Knight, a Try-Hard, and a badge-carrying officer of the PC Police. Just so we all know where we stand on this whole "diversity" thing!

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(Image Text, via Me-From-One-Year-Ago:

So wait, THESE are the teasers that have all the dorks freaking out about how the PC Police are diversifying their comics to death? Three black guys, a brown girl, and a VERY questionable Native American cliché (I mean I kind of like Red Wolf but the writers will have to be VERY careful)? Everybody screaming that they're "turning Wolverine into a woman" despite the fact that's clearly X-23 and she's clearly STANDING RIGHT NEXT TO not only Wolverine, but the Wolverine from noted sexist grossbag Mark Millar's relentlessly-bleak "Old Man Logan" story that these same dorks all looooved?

Honestly, I am reassured by these images. They still have mutants, they still have a Fantastic Four character (even if it looks like The Thing's joining the Guardians of the Galaxy?), and Karnak - one of my favorite characters - is apparently alive again.
Really guys, my literal biggest concern here is that Spider-Gwen gets a better name than "Spider-Gwen".

Marvel Catch-Up #0: The Introduction

Hi! So... I went away for another couple of years. I am not great at being consistent!

HOWEVER, I have a thing I want to write about! It's going to be a SERIES, even!

See, I usually pride myself as somebody who is mega up-to-date on superhero comics. But I have fallen almost a year behind on the stuff that Marvel is releasing! Suddenly Cap is in HYDRA, Civil War II is getting fired up, and my friends have questions for me that I can't answer! I KNOW, HOW EMBARRASSING!

The truth is, I got a little burnt out by Secret Wars. This is not to say I didn't enjoy Secret Wars, because I actually thought it was amazing. It capped off Jonathan Hickman's genuinely-epic multiverse-spanning storyline - that started wayyy back with his first issue of Fantastic Four in 2009 and then ran through FF, Avengers, and New Avengers over the next 6 years - in the perfect way. But it was also HUGE. There were eighty-bajillion tie-in miniseries that I still haven't finished making my way through. There were delays and shipping conflicts that led to new books being launched while, as far as anyone reading Secret Wars knew, there wasn't even a Marvel Universe for them to take place in. It all turned into a big, confusing, stressful mess for me, so when Marvel officially rolled out their All-New, All-Different Marvel relaunch...

...I got left behind. I ended up rereading John Ostrander's entire Suicide Squad run when I could have been catching up with Marvel (though that was worth it because god I love that comic). Image caught my attention with some new books. I started hanging out with DC a little bit. There were a few Marvel books that I kept up with - Howard the Duck, for example - but I've stayed away for the most part, and WITH NO GOOD REASON! A lot of the books Marvel was doing seemed REALLY FUN!

So here is my big idea: I want to get caught up on this stuff, and I want to bring y'all along for the ride. I know that many of my friends really like to follow along with their favorite characters, but don't necessarily have the time or inclination to read all the comics that come out. Well, I have time to read comics. I have time to write about comics. I even have a blog about comics, that mostly just sits around taking up space in the tubes of the internet. So I will read the comics, and write to you about those comics, on my blog about comics! I will call it...

...MARVEL CATCH-UP!

I was gonna make a logo to put there, based off the old Marvel Team-Up comics, but then I remembered that Marvel Team-Up had literally the most boring logo of all time.

Like, seriously? Nobody could do better than block letters? This comic ran for YEARS. Ugh. It's how I used to write band-names on my notebook when I was twelve.

Now I just have to decide if I want to read these comics in alphabetical order, or in what-do-I-feel-like-reading-next order. Or maybe I could take requests? I dunno.

Anyway, that is my idea.




But Adhesiveslipper, won't I have to read Secret Wars first? This was supposed to be a reboot of the entire Marvel Universe, wasn't it?

Nahhh. Marvel is too smart to reboot their whole universe. Mostly Secret Wars was just an excuse for Dr. Doom to be God for a while, and for writers and artists to do some fanciful miniseries set in the weird context of Dr. Doom's Battleworld. The only significant change is really that the "Ultimate" line of Marvel comics got cancelled, and a few important characters from there made the jump over to the main "Earth-616" Marvel Universe. So besides the fact that there are now two Spider-Men running around (Miles Morales and Peter Parker, if you're WAY behind), things are pretty much the same as they were before. If there's anything important from Secret Wars in a specific comic that bears mentioning, I'll fill you in. I'VE GOT YOUR BACKS, FRIENDS.

Ooooooooh...

So Comic Book Resources has released the variant covers for Mark Waid's upcoming Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. comic, and like... Ming-Na Wen versus the Marvel Universe is something I have VERY GOOD feelings about, you guys.

(Art by David Marquez & Frank Martin)

Something I Hate!

So here is something I truly hate seeing repeated in the narrative of superheroes:

"I love you, and that is why WE CAN NEVER, EVER, EVER BE TOGETHER."

It always is presented by the superhero character as somehow protecting the love-interest character (who is basically always female) from harm, but I always read it as an admission from the writers that they don't know how to write romance, and therefor know that if they allowed an actual romance to blossom it'd fall short and bore the audience and ruin the characters. It's like the writers themselves are trying to protect the love-interest character from all the horrible things they'd do to her (all of which would require a Trigger Warning) within the story to avoid having to actually write convincing dialogue for a couple.

It also always results in these situations where the male character is telling the female character - in effect - that her status as supporting cast is going to force her to be handy at all times for his unreasonable requests, emotional development/daddy issues, convoluted webs of lies, and occasional awkward makeouts, and that she just needs to deal with that because she is less important to the narrative. This happens in real life, and it is called abuse. I will be glad when it stops turning up in my comics/movies/shows/etc.

Felicity needs to find and hook up with Firestorm's Dad, is what I'm saying here.

Who is YOUR favorite FUNCTIONAL comic book couple???

lol

Marvel Reveals "Stomp Out Bullying" Variant Covers, I Have Opinions (AND FEELINGS!)

So a little under a year ago, Marvel announced that it would be teaming with STOMP Out Bullying (an organization with a weirdly violent name, I feel) to release 10 variant covers honoring National Bullying Prevention Month.

Now for some reason the number is down to 7 covers. It feels sort of surprising, especially since Amazing Spider-Man #7 was one of the comics cut from the campaign, and having been one of the most prominent bullied teens in all of pop culture, Spidey would seem to be the most obvious candidate? Ditto for All-New X-Men #33, a comic that is literally about teenagers being harassed by their peers (as well as persecuted by the law, hunted by aliens, and feared and hated by a world that doesn't understand mutantkind, obvs). The three comics that got the bump seem to be getting variant covers that advertise Hasbro's Marvel Legends action figure line* instead, which... I am a dude who fucking loves action figures and ESPECIALLY loves the Marvel Legends action figures, but like maybe choosing an ad over an anti-bullying campaign isn't a good look?

I mean I get it that there was probably a good reason (or a bad one, like artists not meeting deadlines or something) for the change, it just comes across badly to Average Joe Dork a.k.a. ME.

I honestly don't know much about STOMP Out Bullying as an organization, so um here's how they describe themselves:

STOMP Out Bullying™ focuses on reducing and preventing bullying, cyberbullying, sexting and other digital abuse, educating against homophobia, racism and hatred, decreasing school absenteeism, and deterring violence in schools, online and in communities across the country. It teaches effective solutions on how to respond to all forms of bullying. It educates kids and teens in school and online, provides help for those in need and at risk of suicide, raises awareness, conducts peer mentoring programs in schools, creates and distributes public service announcements by noted celebrities, and engages in social media campaigns. An additional focus educates parents on how to keep their children safe and responsible online.
In 2008, the organization created Blue Shirt Day® World Day of Bullying Prevention to signify the importance and bring awareness to the fight to stop bullying and cyberbullying. Taking place the first Monday of October – this year on October 6, 2014 – Blue Shirt Day® World Day of Bullying Prevention is designed as a sign of solidarity against bullying by having kids, teens and adults wear blue and make that the day that bullying prevention is heard around the world.

It's kind of weird that they trademarked the phrase blue shirt day. Also, sexting can be fun if it's consensual! I kid, of course: Bullying and cyber-bullying are extremely important issues and I definitely support any effort to raise awareness. I personally struggled with bullying as a child, and despite my parents' best genuine efforts, it was always an uphill battle for them to get any of the other adults in my life to even give half of a shit about what was going on with their children, in their schools, in their classrooms, on their playgrounds, etc. And as a white straight able-bodied cisgendered man, I can say with absolute certainty that whatever trauma I endured from childhood bullying, I still got off much lighter than a LOT of folks. So please don't take the joke-y tone of my writing to mean that I don't take the issue at hand seriously! I probably won't remember to wear a blue shirt though, and even if I do I might not leave the house anyway.

MOVING ALONG! The current list of comics with the anti-bullying variants is: Guardians of the Galaxy #20, by Stephanie Hans, Avengers #36 by Sean Chen, Inhuman #7 by John Tyler Christopher, Captain America #25 by Kalman Andrasofszky, Legendary Star-Lord #4 by Paul Renaud, and Rocket Raccoon #4 and Hulk #7, both by Pascal Campion. 

Marvel has so far revealed 5 of the 7 covers, so here are my Opinions!

Guardians of the Galaxy #7 - Stephanie Hans

This is a really sweet image and perfect for the campaign, but I can't help but feel like it's an odd fit for GAMORA: THE DEADLIEST WOMAN IN THE GALAXY. Like I mean she is a professional assassin - arguably the greatest assassin ever - and literally murders people without remorse. I understand that the GotG movie has given her a good standing with the kiddos, but in the Marvel Comics Universe she probably wouldn't even be hanging out on Earth? Also I sort of imagine her teaching that little kid the best ways to silently kill off all the other little kids and escape without being caught, and I'm pretty sure that's not what it's meant to inspire. I know I'm being way too literal here, I just think She-Hulk or Captain Marvel might have been a better fit for this cover, is all. Gorgeous art from Stephanie Hans, though. I wasn't really familiar with her work before this, but here is a link to her portfolio page because her art is fantastic! I hope she gets a lot more cover work from Marvel in the future.

Captain America #25 - Kalman Andrasofszky

Before I start making fun of this cover, I want to make it clear that I normally think Kalman Andrasofszky's cover work is great. I literally used one of his covers in my very last post as an example of a comic that I absolutely loved, so Kalman, if you somehow end up reading this: My teasing is all in good fun, and I hope that they bring back the X-23 solo series and that you can draw every single cover for it. That being said, this cover is silly. No kid has ever dressed like that in the history of this or any other universe. I mean what is even happening with that outfit? Facial piercings, a snap-back trucker cap with stickers and buttons on it, a pink polo shirt with a popped collar, dog tags, sagged drawers, slip-on kicks, a flannel around the waist, and a Livestrong bracelet? In fact, props to that kid for combining like 25 years of fashion into one outfit. To be fair, highwater track-pants and an ugly shirt is pretty standard for bullied nerds (speaking from experience here). Also I sort of hope Cap isn't about to punch that kid.

Legendary Star-Lord #4 - Paul Renaud

This cover is well-drawn, and kind of funny, but it also is problematic to my nerd-brain. See, Star-Lord's origin story has been retconned, but originally HE was a bully. He was an astronaut who treated his coworkers like shit, and when he got rejected for the position of being the Star-Lord by "The Master of the Sun" he just stole all the gear and ran off to be Star-Lord anyways because he was a dick and he wanted to murder aliens. That was his whole origin story. I mean all that stuff has been tossed in the trash at this point (much to creator Steve Englehart's chagrin, I'm sure) and now Star-Lord is basically Andy Dwyer in Space, but it still feels like maybe Spider-Man would have been a better choice, biggest movie of the summer notwithstanding.

Rocket Raccoon #4 and Hulk #7 - Pascal Campion

 

Okay, I chose to end with these two, because there is no snark here: I legit LOVE both of these covers. Groot (the exiled Monarch of Planet X) and Rocky (the exiled Ranger of Halfworld) are both characters that totally understand alienation. And I mean alienation is basically 95% of Hulk's whole schtick... Like, his unofficial catch-phrase has always been "LEAVE HULK ALONE!" I also love that both these covers are taking characters known for extreme rage and violence and using them as nurturers and protectors. Superheroes on the whole spend way too much time solving problems via hitting and shooting, and I really feel like Pascal Campion has managed to push all that aside and show two much gentler images that are no less heroic. Genuinely lovely stuff, and a great reminder that standing up to bullies doesn't always mean learning karate or something. Sometimes compassion is way more powerful.

*I don't want to link to Hasbro's website because it divides their toys into "boy toys" and "girl toys" which I find deplorable. But also I still give them my money on the regular because superheroes. That could probably be another post entirely.

Opinions About Things: One Year Later

Yeah, remember when DC did the One Year Later event? God that pissed me off. It really interrupted a lot of the stories I was trying to follow, and with a nonsensical time-jump, no less!

So anyways I'm back. It's been a whole year since I updated this blog. Trying to follow all the comics all the time just turned into a major source of anxiety, to be honest. And not because they suck! Unlike a lot of comics bloggers, I really love most comics! It's just that there are way too many to read in one week, even for an unemployed dork like me!

But I still really DO have a lot of Opinions About Things. So while I doubt I'll be bringing back the weekly reviews, I do want to start writing about comics again. I have a lot to tell you!

There are some current books that are really amazing, like the almost-too-smart-for-its-own-good Ms. Marvel by G. Willow Wilson and Jacob Wyatt, a comic that is currently giving me ALL the emotions...

The NSFW time-stopping antics of Suzie and Jon in Sex Criminals by Matt Fraction and Chip Zdarsky...

All of the "Oh my God I can't believe they're actually making this comic! Did they do this just for me!?" feelings I get from Spider-Man 2099 by Peter David and Will Sliney...

And She-Hulk's glorious return to super-powered lawyering in her eponymous book by Charles Soule and Javier Pulido... which also features Hellcat, who is one of my favorite superheroes of ALL TIME.

There are also some comics, both ongoing and limited, that came out over the past year and really need some discussing. Like the COMPLETELY FUCKING BONKERS DC Universe Versus Masters of the Universe by Keith Giffen and Dexter Soy, wherein a fight between Superman and He-Man is treated with a grave and deadly seriousness which only serves to make it even more hilarious...

Or the final arc of Avengers Assemble, which was written by Kelly Sue DeConnick and Warren Ellis (two of my absolute favorite comics writers in the world!) and drawn by Matteo Buffagni, and starred the oft-overlooked Spider-Girl.

And then of course there are older things that I've only just read recently and NEED to talk about. Like X-Treme X-Men by Greg Pak and Paco Diaz. This was a comic where Dazzler led a motley team of dimensionally-displaced X-Men (including a gay Wolverine who got a magical golden adamantine skeleton from his lover, Hercules, and is probably one of my favorite new characters of the past 15 years) in a search for several Evil Xaviers scattered across the Multiverse...

And - of course - the 1970s majesty of Spidey Super Stories. Yes, I know that every fucking comics blog on the fucking planet talks about Spidey Super Stories, but you really fucking can't expect me to ignore a comic where Spider-Man teams up with Morgan Freeman on the regular, you guys.

So yeah. Lots of things to discuss!

I don't know for sure when my next post will be, but I am positive that it won't take me another year to write it!

I love you all. I hope you know that.