A Descent into Dullness

Light week.
Lumberjanes #41: Written by Shannon Watters & Kat Leyh, Illustrated by Ayme Sotuyo, Colors by Maarta Laiho & Letters by Aubrey Aiese.  Jo builds a device to try and track the way time seems to be wonky at camp and everyone builds paper airplanes for science.

Saucer State #3: Writer Paul Cornell, Artist Ryan Kelly, Colorist Adam Guzowski & Lettering Simon Bowland.  Senator Dunfries morphs into a pseudo-Trump, the President's team goes to learn what all the military has on aliens and the Bluebird group reorganizes post alien arrival revelation.  Plus someone eats a fairy cake.

Astro CIty #45: Writer Kurt Busiek, Artist Brent E. Anderson, Lettering & design John Roshell & Jimmy Betancourt of Comicraft & Color art Peter Pantazis.  The 70s iteriation of Mr.Cakewalk/Jazzbaby/the Bouncing Beatnik/the Hopping Hippy/etc Glamorax and the probably origin of the Broken Man.

Heroines #2: Creator/script/art Ted Naifeh & Letters Taylor Esposito.  The female hero team goes on their first planned mission.  Which is basically a success despite killer robots, a villain in a patriotic banana hammock and someone getting shot.

Saga #44: Artist Fiona Staples, Writer Brian K. Vaughan & Lettering/design Fonografiks.  The freak-show result of human/centaur fucking.

Shutter #29: Writer Joe Keatinge, Artist Leila Del Duca, Colorist Owen Gieni & Letterer John Workman.  A montage of flash forwards showing glimpses of the next thirty years.

Lumberjanes #39: Written by Shannon Watters & Kat Leyh, Illustrated by Ayme Sotuyo, Colors by Maarta Laiho & Letters by Aubrey Aiese.  Trickster spirits can be such assholes.

Saucer State #2: Writer Paul Cornell, Artist Ryan Kelly, Colorist Adam Guzowski & Lettering Simon Bowland.  T-minus 1 year to "official" alien arrival.

Man that is a big stack of comics.  And thats even with missing like four of them.  Starting with the next Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Turtles in Time.  With the boys ending up joining a crew of conditional pirates to fight some bad pirates.  Bad pirates who have anarchronistic speed boats and laser pistols...

Samurai Jack pays a return visit to his friend Soule the Seer, who has an idea for a mystic ritual centered on Jack's ancestral blade that could return him to his home time.  But first giant scorpions and devil dogs...

Marko and Alana's marriage hits some rocky shoals in Saga, Prince Robot has a meeting with King Robot and Dengo the Robot Revolutionary looks into making use of the illegitimate theater...

The Wicked & the Divine introduces the triple-Goddess of the Morrigan/Badb/Gentle Annie to go with Lord of Darkness, Baphomet...

Malcolm Dragon continues to be a mutated more Savage Dragon as he cleans house on the Vicious Circle.  Plus a back-up story of Vanguard and Friends in Spaaaaaaace...

Tomas and his fellow surviving anti-alien friends discover the secret to making their anti-alien gun work in the Saviors.  You just have to be high when you shoot an alien shapeshifter with it...

Brubaker & Phillips latest noir comic is the Fade Out, a late 40s decadent Hollywoodland story...

Two weeks and two issues of Knights of the Dinner Table.  They must have rushed one out so they wouldn't get knocked behind schedule by GenCon like normal.  Mostly still focusing on the Sword of Death & Destruction in-party conflict at the Knight's table.  But that looks to be spreading out and affecting the other groups.  Mostly because of the betting on the outcome and attempts to handicap said outcome...

Dark Horse Presents launches again with a new format and new #1 issue.  The price drops down to $4.99 but the page count drops to 56 pages as well.  Of course part of that launch is a new Big Guy & Rusty the Boy Robot short, as well as starting a new arc of Resident Alien...

And in addition to the regular Conan the Avenger where Conan hunts for a dangerous witch and has a falling out with his Princess boss/lover; there is also Groo vs. Conan where the pair meet for the first time and team-up to hunt the marauding swordsman known as Groo...

Adventure Time has Marceline and Bubblegum get driver's licenses and introduces the psychic danger of the Mnemonoid.  And Adventure Time: Banana Guard Academy has academy commandant Captain Banana Guard looking to force all those non-banana recruits to quit, since he can't just kick them out.  So its kind of like the first Police Academy movie but without a guy who makes funny sound fx just with his mouth...

And finally I didn't realize until just now that the Bee & Puppycat comic is an anthology featuring various writers and artists.  Don't know how I missed that for three issues...

Astro City finishes up its Winged Victory arc with both a super-villain beat down and WV confronting her backers with their views on how to empower women.  I also like how she tells Karnazon he should stop trying to arch her, because he used to be a Big Thing kind of super-villain before he got obsessed with beating her...

Invincible has to team with Other Universe Robot and O.U. Mauler so that he can get back to his universe and stop Robot.  Their plan involves cloning, thus Mauler.  Invincible Universe continues with the upgraded threat of the Lizard League.  The former bottom tier group ends up requiring the entire Guardians of the Globe to be called in, which still might not be enough...

Thomas and Nate head into Mexico to hook-up with an anti-alien cell in the Saviors.  The motley group has plans for testing a new weapon on the aliens running the cops and the cartels in their area.  Though Thomas is still pretty shy of joining any kind of resistance group...

Velvet travels to a covertly legendary masquerade in order to find a off-the-grid Russian former agent.  Who will hopefully provide her with more information to help her find how to clear herself...

So of the eight new-ish New Warriors, we've got Sun Girl and unnamed horn guy in the sewers defending Morlocks; Robbie & Vance leaving New Salem to check the Avengers database on the new bad guys; Kaine, Hummingbird and the new Atlantean girl having their initial Meet Cute/Misunderstanding Fight; and the new Kid Nova still a prisoner of the High Evolutionary...

Lobster Johnson works to solve his latest mystery while dealing with a more hostile than usual NYPD.  And Cindy, Lady Reporter attempts to dig into the past of the Lobster.  Mostly finding awesome if kind of useless stories about pirates and mountain men and cougar shapeshifters...

Rucka's latest, Veil, is interesting.  Though I'm hoping it moves away from being just a creepier version of Fatale's deadly but irresistible lady concept...

Finn, Jake and Marceline go about tracking down Princess Skyblade Harbinger in Adventure Time: the Flip Side as part of a plan to try and get Monkey Wizard back into the Princess Kidnapping game...

A decent enough scifi film, with a premise where all of northern Mexico is a quarantine zone because its full of giant space monsters. Which you mostly only get to see glimpses of in the darkness or the distance until right at the very end. The two main characters are a photo journalist and his boss' daughter that he's trying to get back to the U.S...

And mostly decent that is until you start thinking about things. Like why the only two ways back are either by ferry thru the Gulf of Mexico or by land thru the quarantine zone. Southern Mexico doesn't have airports?

A very big pull this week. Almost a dozen titles. Starting with the third issue of Saga. And Alana, Marko and baby Hazel have a meeting with the Horrors, the child ghosts of planet Cleave...

Glory begins to attempt and train young Riley in preparation for the coming danger. That doesn't go anywhere near as fast as they would like...

Over at Marvel, the Thunderbolts are confronted by a catastrophic Time Paradox. Which they work to solve in their normal way. No not with violence, but with a cunning and gigantic lie...

Daredevil finally finishes up the whole Omegadrive McGuffin story-arc. Though not before a forgotten player makes a move against Daredevil...

Sebastian Shaw is running loose at Avengers Academy, while loyalties are divided among the mutant students over the detaining of the GenHope kids...

Moving to DC, Hades and Wonder Woman prepare for a wedding, while other Olympians move around on the sidelines...

The Shade pauses for another Times Past story. This time Jill Thompson illustrates the Shade in start of the 20th century Paris and a meeting with one of his grandchildren and a violent rogue demon...

Saucer Country's cast expands across a broader spectrum of UFOlogist types. Plus creepy bunnies...

Dash and the newly freed Red Crow have a graveyard confrontation as the climax of Scalped draws ever closer. And it will be a wonder if anyone survives the way things are looking...

kaboom! latest Adventure Time has Finn and Jake cleaning up from the aftermath of the Magic Bag's destruction. And searching for a missing princess. Could the Ice King be involved in that? Cooooould be...

And finally Conan the Barbarian and Belit begin their plot to get revenge on the city of Argos. Sadly, Becky Cloonan isn't drawing this issue, but James Harren isn't a slouch in the art department...

Groom lake written by Chris Ryall, art by Ben Templesmith, letters by Robbie Robbins

Enter a world of murderous government conspiracy. Of horrifying experimentation. Where the black-suited agents of black booked agency trade America's rednecks for strange alien technologies. And where the future of the Earth is locked away in the genetic structure of Karl Bauer white trash slacker from Bumfuck, USA...

Groom Lake gives us a Truth that is Out There. Possibly a bit too far Out There...

X-Men: S.W.O.R.D: No Time to Breathe written by Kieron Gillen, pencils by Steven Sanders, Craig Yeung, colors by Matt Wilson, letters by Dave Lanphear

S.W.O.R.D. The Sentient World Observation and Response Department. The top-secret acronym agency of Marvel Earth, tasked with alien defense. Created, along with its commander the half-alien Abigail Brand during Joss Whedon's X-Men run. Originally meant to be the start of an ongoing series but then downgraded to a mini. Because people are stupid and I hate them...

In the wake of the latest Skrull invasion and the takeover of America's various acronym super-secret agencies by Norman "the Green Goblin" Osborn (don't ask) S.W.O.R.D. now has two commanders. Agent Brand and longtime government lackey Henry Gyrich. Who is plotting to take over. For the world's own good of course. In opposition? Well Brand. And her boyfriend, sometime X-Men and Avenger Hank "the Beast" McCoy. And one very melancholy little space dragon...

Kieron Gillen is probably the best thing to happen to the X-franchise since Grant Morrison. And this mini-series just helps reinforce why. I mean if nothing else for his use of Death's Head and the Adam X cameo...