A Descent into Dullness

Two weeks of comics and three of them Conan comics.  Van Lente's Conan the Avenger where young-ish Conan continues to try and replace heart-ache and loss with blood-shed and cheap sex.  Then old man Conan finishes his tale of when middle-aged Conan retook his kingdom and married his second great love in King Conan.  And finally the match-up demanded by all begins with the first issue of Groo Vs. Conan.  With Aragones joined by Thomas Yeates, who I'm guessing does the non-cartoony Conan bits...

I like Fejzula's art on Veil.  The story doesn't really hold up as well sadly.  Especially when compared to Fatale, which has its big finale issue.  And traps are sprung and lives are ended and happy endings are in short supply...

Also up, more of Burbaker's burned spy Velvet where, among other moments, we see what moment led to her being moved to an administration position...

Prophet sort of finishes up with plenty of future weirdness and alien nightmare monsters.  And what looks to be the two "good" John Prophets joining forces for the upcoming Prophet Earth War mini-series...

Saga gives us a rampaging janitor, a drugged out actress, a pet walrus monster and Prince Robot learning of the murder of his wife and birth of his son...

Malcolm Dragon is held prisoner by the Freaks of the Danger Zone neighborhood in Savage Dragon.  While Dart II sends her Vicious Circle goons out hunting for him...

With Wonder Woman captured by the First Born, its all out war between his forces and the residents, old and new, divine and mortal, of Paradise Island...

Tom Taylor continues his quest for the Grail in the Unwritten: Apocalypse, gaining headway by playing with the story tropes for the setting.  While Pullman throws some obstacles in his way from differing story concepts...

Dead Boy Detectives has Crystal forcing Charles to meet with his living half-sister and learn more of his family...

Amidst all the fun of violent smugglers and pacifist Harkonen refugees, the Alien Legion's Force: Nomad see the return of Jugger Grimrod's ol' "pal" Pike.  Which is to say one of the many people with a grudge and a gun...

The dread Aku devises a new plan to put an end to Samurai Jack. Direct invasion of his brain in order to destroy his memories!

And finally more Turtles in Time: TMNT.  Currently, for given values of currently, the turtle brothers are in Feudal Japan.  Specifically at the moment of their (and their father's) previous incarnations.  Almost worth it alone for Mikey's joy at getting to hug his mom...

Didn't get to the shop today, but still a huge pile from the previous two weeks.  Starting with the Legend of Bold Riley by Leia Weathington (words) and Jonathon Dalton (drawings).  I recall having read some of the earlier issues of this online years back and meaning to get the collected print book for those.  Which, I see from the in-house ads, is still available.  The titular Riley is a wandering lesbian adventurer in a fantasy India setting...

Samurai Jack spends an issue wandering some crystalline caves and fighting a small army of his twisted mirror duplicates.  As wandering heroes are wont to do...

After Finn wrecks Anti-Ghost Princess' anti-ghost equipment and frees all her captured jerk ghosts in Adventure Time.  Leading Princess Bubblegum to come up with a plan to turn all the citizens of Candy Kingdom into ghosts to solve the ghost problem.  Probably not going to be her finest moment...

Wonder Woman works to convince her sisters to help her in the raising of godling Zeke.  While Hermes and Dio take a trip to the Underworld after seeing the Dead wandering the world...

The Dead Boy Detectives (and their new Living Celebrity Girl partner) use their contacts among the supernatural set to solve the Case of the Bisected Girl...

The latest the Unwritten: Apocalypse checks in with Pauly the Former Rabbit and Lord of Hell.  Who mostly wants to go back to being a Rabbit in a children's story...

Invincible has the start of Mark attempting to put a stop to Robot's plans for global domination.  Things don't begin well...

The main thing to take from this issue of Prophet is it has Dave Taylor doing all the art.  Normally you only see him doing colors.  Beyond that its more of the normal theme, far future scifi weird awesomeness...

New Saga!  Yay!  Opening with the vaginal birth of a baby royal Robot.  Plus bad acting!  Going to playgrounds!  No Lying Cat.  Boo!

Velvet spends most of its current issue flashbacking to 1956 and her spy marriage and 1946 for her spy training...

Southern Bastards gets some setting laid out as well as the likely main antagonist, Coach Boss...

King Conan fights a lady vampire in the Temple of Set.  And Conan the Avenger partners with his former witch-hunter opponent to battle some zombies...

And finally Dark Horse Presents, with the second half a "Usagi Yojimbo" story, as well as some Mike Mignola, Jaime Hernandez and Kel McDonald short pieces...

Been really slacking on these again.  Which does highlight how little DC/Marvel I'm buying as singles right now.  If I don't count Vertigo imprint books, its a single title from each right now.  Mainline DC just isn't putting out much I want to follow and Marvel's $4 per issue thing is becoming more and more of deal breaker.  Including on the title I'm still getting in singles, New Warriors.  I'm liking this relaunch.  The characters, Yost's dialogue, the High Evolutionary based initial arc.  All good.  But I still may switch to trade waiting like I'm doing on Superior Foes, Ghost Rider, She-Hulk and the Daredevil relaunch.  'Cause $4 for a 20 page book is bullshit...

At least from the Big Two.  I'm ok with that price point for twenty pages of transgender action/adventure for IDW's Samurai Jack.  Plus shinier paper.  Or even better, $4 for twenty-TWO pages like kaboom!'s Adventure Time and Adventure TIme: the Flip Side.  Four bucks for Finn & Jake mistaking a nucleur silo for a traditional dungeon?  Or teaming with LSP to try and rig a prom election to get a monkey to kidnap a lady painting?  I'm down with that...

Hunh, Wonder Woman is only twenty pages as well.  Didn't notice that happening.  Still its sticking at the three dollar price point.  Plus its more cross-title setting with DC, and WW mostly avoids the general ongoing DCU stuff...

The Unwritten gang continue to try and make their way across broken London while avoiding the constant war stories.  But they do find out that Pullman is behind the whole thing, all part of another plot by him to try and slay the Leviathan...

Charles and Edwin and Crystal manage to avoid damnation and death and such in Dead Boy Detectives.  And someone gets to burn down their school.  Sure it was accident.  Mostly an accident...

Knights of the Dinner Table sticks to concentrating on the ongoing return of the uber-sword story.  With Brian and Sara getting an offer from said mad sword...

I'm pretty sure I missed an issue of Pretty Deadly at some point here.  Because there is otherwise an awful big jump in the story before it reaches the climax of this first arc...

In Invincible Universe, the Lizard King learns a valuable lesson.  Just 'cause you alter a person's DNA to make them a reptile, doesn't necessarily mean an alignment change.  And then IU goes on hiatus.  Again.  Hopefully when it gets started again it will have the same title.  I'd say even money on whether or not that happens...

Fatale picks back up with Jo and Nick and soon enough everything is all obsession and murder and stolen magic eyeballs...

This issue of Prophet gives some back-story on plant person Hiyonhoiagn and his race the Kinnian.  Plus..well plus the normal hard to accurately and easily describe scifi weirdness...

I'm starting to wonder if Police Chief Higgens' drive to arrest Lobster Johnson is entirely in the cause of Law & Order...

King Conan returns to the sea in pursuit of the Heart of Ahriman, gets captured by slavers and meets some old friends amidst the rowers.  And just like that Amra the Lion is reborn...

Empowered: Internal Medicine is another one-shot.  With Warren teaming with Brandon Graham on this one.  Graham is pretty damn amazing drawing Emp and Ninjette doing super-surgery on an alien spaceship baby...

And another one-shot from Dark Horse, this time Beasts of Burden: Hunters & Gatherers.  With the animal guardians of Burden Hill facing off against an invisible giant lizard monster.    And ending with an alliance between the Crows and the Rats.  Who still have their Rat King...

And finally a new Dark Horse Presents.  The main things interest for my in this one would be the "Nexus" story, a Kel McDonald Revolutionary-era balloon crossing of the English channel and the monstery mystery story involving kids teamed with the ghost of Davey Jones...

A pair of heavy weeks, with fifteen titles between them.  Rat Queens is still a violent, drunken delight for my D&D playing heart.  With some more character backstory and heartache leading to the reveal of who hired the anti-adventurer assassins...

I'm liking the concept and set-up of Pretty Deadly and its Weird West setting.  But I'm having a hard time tracking all the varied characters and sub-plots.  Still its only issue two so hopefully things will get clearer...

Savage Dragon goes with a big ol' execution fake out.  Plus Dart II stabs a dude in his eyes.  With darts.  That explode.  Owey...

This time around Saga has romance and vomiting and journalism.  IN MAGIC SPAAAAAAACE...

The main focus for Knights of the Dinner Table seems to be setting up for another Crutch centric arc, though there is still more of the Knights ongoing (with Weird Pete sitting in for an absent Dave) as well as a Black Hands game...

If its not one crazy sibling (Strife or Hermes) Wonder Woman has to deal with, its another (Siracca, Milan or Cassandra)...

Samurai Jack fights some twins and gets another magic thread thingy.  I mean first he tries to be all reasonable but then its fight time.  Then rematch time after he loses the first fight...

Marceline and Princess Bubblegum race for a safe room as the pink goo continues to smother the Candy Kingdom.  Just as Finn & Jake arrive hoping to get help from the ladies in Adventure Time...

The Young Avengers basically call up their entire social network friends list of super humans to help them face Mother and her posse of exes plus all those screwed up alternate universe Thems she subverted.  And Leah lets Loki in on a secret...

Longshot Saves the Marvel Universe involves teaming up with magical themed heroes Scarlet Witch, Ghost Rider, Dr. Strange and Deadpool (look hes got a Fairy Wand ok) to assault the S.H.I.E.L.D. hellicarrier.  Now run by the Order half of the In-Betweener.  Also where his ex (not that he remembers) Dazzler works...

Daredevil gets healed by, fights and then teams up with the Legion of Monsters against a Son of the Serpent sort of wizard.  With Jason Copland filling in and trying to ape Chris Samnee's pencils...

itty bitty Hellboy and friends go to Heaven and meet aliens.  Or do they?

The Massive's post-apocalypse environmentalists get shown up by Norse whalers in long boats.  Though maybe the head whaler dude should have remembered that before becoming a peacenik enviro-activist, Callum Isreal was some kind of elite mercenary assassin thing...

Conan the Barbarian and Belit the Pirate Queen head into their final arc with "the Song of Belit".  I wish I knew how to do those accent things over her name...

Amidst the latest Dark Horse Presents is a Roman dragon fighter story by Fred Van Lente, a non-Usagi Stan Sakai anthromorphic animal tale and the last bit of the aging luchador vs. mutant vampires story...

Even for two weeks that is a big ol' stack of comics. Ok there are two issues of King Conan 'cause I missed last months. Which would be bad because it has Conan killing a giant crazy gorilla. Again. And the next issue has a forest witch with a pet wolf and eagle...

I've got like one trade I think of Baltazar & Franco's Tiny Titans. But, while cute and funny, their DC never fully clicked with me. Still I can't resist seeing what they do with Hellboy's cast in the non-shockingly cute and funny itty bitty Hellboy...

Just when you think the Massive is a normal post-apocalyptic story with a ex-mercenary turned environmentalist turned nuclear power Wood throws some mystic mystery act curve ball...

Oh Dark Horse Presents how did you know what I've always been wanting is Peter Bagge crafting a comic about Alexander Hamilton?

And no more lengthy drug trip dreams or wandering the desert. Back to Conan the Barbarian and Belit killing dudes in search of phat loots. In this case cultists in a spooooky mysterious village...

And Lobster Johnson ends up working with the Tongs to take down the deadly Japanese agent who has been killing their couriers and stealing their money. Money meant to aid the Chinese resistance to the Japanese seizure of Manchuria...

Adventure Time books and comics! I demand you stop giving me sad feels for creepy weirdo Ice King!

Daredevil and Silver Surfer, working together to track down intergalatic scofflaws...

Young Avengers needs more Leah. And less sad Billy in the rain...

More family squabbling on Wonder Woman with Diana and War and Orion piling onto the Firstborn...

Ugh. There are still TWO more stupid issues of this stupid Fables/the Unwritten cross-over. So tired of it already...

And finally we've got the 200th issue of Knights of the Dinner Table. With a few retro strips to go with the ongoing story of Crush's Crime Nation campaign. Plus more SnarfQuest back-up and a return of the Brothers Grinn and Fuzzy Knights...

I think this will be my last issue of the Poison Elves relaunch. Its not really bad, but its lacking the violent spark that Drew brought. Plus Luse and Bob is not a team-up I have any real interest in...

Davide Gianfelice is definitely a step up in art for Conan the Barbarian but the book itself seems to be spinning its wheels a bit at this point. I mean I'll see where this whole Belit and Conan go on a drug-fueled vision quest thing goes, but the book is on the bubble...

Wonder Woman on the other hand seems to be getting back into action, with Diana seeming more involved in her own book then she has since the Underworld Wedding arc. Also we find out that cyborg lady who has been hanging with the First Born is another of Zeus' bastards...

"Current" Jo is back for Fatale, though this issue is set during WW2 with her meeting Walter for the first time...

And lastly I grabbed Danielle Corsetto's big ol' Adventure Time: Playing With Fire one-shot. This is more like a short tpb than anything else. With a touching romantic story with Flame Princess and Jake and a Dragon-Witch and a dungeon maze...

Though I've also got the one title from last week, Saucer Country. Which hopefully isn't the final issue like I thought, since it ends on a bit of a cliffhanger involving the origin of the Naked Magic Couple...

Wonder Woman, War and Orion (the New God not the Olympian) continue on their Baby Rescue mission...

New Dark Horse Presents, but sadly no new "Finder" this issue. There is an alt-history story about Custer by Howard Chaykin. And a "Fish Police" story, except in some pre-historic setting. Oh and an interview with artist Geof Darrow...

Poor ol' Conan the Barbarian still having relationship problems. Even after following Belit to Shem. And artist Mirko Colak comes close to making me not miss Becky Cloonan on this book...

Between Foggy's cancer and seeing if his last relationship is salvagable, Daredevil hasn't had much time to dedicate to finding out who is screwing with his life. Which means that person mails a box of experimented on attack dogs to his his office...

The Dark Avengers may be getting closer to solving the mystery of Marvel Super Gang Fight World. Or maybe they're just getting close to falling afoul of one of the battling warlords...

Saga has a happy rescue and a sad death and some boning. And Alana has a filthy, filthy mouth...

Still in the picking up the pieces stage on Invincible from Dinosaurus' attempt at population control. Also I can't help but smile at how the major weakness for male Viltrumite's is love...

Adventure Time finishes up the crazy jerk A.I. thats taken over all the other robots story. Plus a second Princess Finn back-up story. With Ice King princess-napping Finn...

And finally decided to check-out the relaunch of Poison Elves. It picks up right where Drew left things before his death and then changes things up by having Luse move away from the Gather Up All My Buds Rescue Jace/Wisp plan...

Starting with Marvel we've got Dark Avengers. Where the newly repaired USAgent takes the lead of the titular Avengers' knock-offs, comes up with a bare bones plan to free Moonstone and Skaar and then rescue Reed Richards from King of the Monsters Ben Grimm before Sue, Queen of Atlantis drops the Atlantic Ocean onto Manhattan...

The new Kieron Gillen written Young Avengers is off to a pretty great start. Hell, he and artistic partner Jamie McKelvie actually get to show Wiccan and Hulkling kissing. PLUS Kid Loki and Marvel Boy. The Morrison created one...

Moving over to DC/Vertigo with Wonder Woman. Where the accidental super-hero fight gets stopped almost before it can begin. Also Zola and Hera go out drinking. AND Still Unnamed First Son of Zeus dude beats up some giant ice dudes..

Saucer Country has a story about faeries and how they may be connected with current UFOology stuff. Its a real pity this series is getting cancelled, so early in its run. Hopefully, Paul Cornell will find a way to do more with this, since there is no possible way for him to wrap this up in the few remaining issues...

The Unwritten is back to the "real" world. In that its a world where dyslexic Aussie cops team up with a vampire reporter to investigate a case of murder-by-zombie...

Stumptown ends its second volume, with the mystery of the stolen & returned guitar solved, some skinhead drug dealers busted and Dex even gets a bonus out of it...

Courtney Crumrin attempts to take refuge with the Lady of Goblin Town, but her uncle follows her even into that twilight realm...

The latest Adventure Time tricks you into thinking its going to be one of those damned Lumpy Space Princess centric episodes, but then its all about giant bunches of wizards. I personally want to find out more about Otter Magi...

Given the grim ads of the last few months. And the very death centric covers, the 100th issue of Invincible is more than a bit of a fake out...

Glory and her gang take a break to chill and check in with loved ones before preparing to face the apparently unstoppable Knight of Thule...

Amidst all the regular super-weird scifi awesomeness of Prophet is a sort-of cameo by Supreme. Making three somewhat unexpected eXtreme Studios characters showing up. Maybe next they'll have, I don't know, Brigade or Vogue...

The strips of the latest Knights of the Dinner Table are book-ended by the Knights to start, with a off his game Brian. And the Black Hands at the end, where poor Gordo's campaign setting is getting thoroughly trashed...

The Massive ends with a surprising supposed betrayal aboard the floating drilling rig/city state....

And finally the latest Dark Horse Presents with more "Finder", "X", that Pokemon parody, "Resident Alien", some supers thing by Michael Avon Oeming and other stories...

In the Unwritten Tommy searches the damaged world of fiction for a way into the Land of the Dead to find Lizzie. With the help of Baron VonMunchausen. So you know he's kind of fucked...

I'm not sure if I'm going to keep getting Sword of Sorcery. Maybe its just the constraints of 20 pages of story a month but the lead doesn't really seem to do much. And the "Beowulf" back-up is ok and the teasers of connections to regular DC are mildly interesting. But honestly I'd rather have 2 more pages of main story and spend a dollar less...

Wonder Woman makes peace with her new sister Siracca, we meet Zeus' first-born up in the arctic and more glimpses of New Gods...

So Dark Avengers finishes up the time-lost T-bolts. With the formerly wandering anti-heroes (plus Juggernaut) getting a chance to find a happy place thanks to the Nexus of Realities and their buddy, the Articulate Man-Thing...

Despite being all decapitated Daredevil still manages to outmaneuver Spot/Coyote...

Picked up the first issue of Clone from Image, by David Schulner and art by Juan Jose Ryp. Its got an interesting action/espionage/government conspiracy movie vibe to it. Enough so I'll probably give it a few more issues to see where its going...

Savage Dragon returns to Earth, just in time to help his kids take down the current Overlord. Maybe the cops will actually, I don't know, destroy the armor this time...

Glory and her sister have a friendly reunion involving fisticuffs and choking. Plus a glimpse of when Glory used to run around Paris fighting bad guys alongside Hemmingway, Gertrude Stein and Pablo Picasso...

In addition to a new "Finder" chapter, the latest Dark Horse Presents has "Captain Midnight" tale involving the Bermuda triangle, more Richard Corben illustrated Edgar Allen Poe, some kind of bizarre Pokemon parody, the start of some new "Resident Alien" and finally a nice slice-of-life short about vacationing on the Caspian Sea as a child...

Not so shockingly, using the crazy third rate Dark Avengers to steal alien technology looks like it will break the world. Marvel shadow cabinets are always so dumb...

So besides someone trying to make Matt all crazy, Daredevil and Foggy are trying to clear a nurse from a locked room murder mystery. One where the victim was drained of blood. And no one can think what happened. 'Cause seriously? I mean you people just had a everyone-fights-Dracula thing like last year. And you can't make any guesses as to the locked room/no blood thing?

Avengers Academy draws a close to its current arc, with one student crossing over a line and deals permanently with the bad guy...

The Unwritten goes back a bit in time, to before the start of the current main arc, but just after the end of the first story. Leading to Savoy and Tom taking a break...

The zero issue of Wonder Woman has teen Diana meeting up with nuDC Ares for the first time. And fighting the Minotaur. So given the whole Daddy Zeus reveal, one of her brothers tricks her into almost killing another sibling...

Godzilla: Half-Century War goes from jsut post WW2 Japan to '67 Vietnam. With Big G wandering far off from his normal stomping grounds. Plus that spiny armadillo looking giant monster...

Mignola & Arcudi drop a Lobster Johnson one-shot. With the vigilante going up against some Pre-Nazi German nationalists looking to drop a chemical weapon on New York...

The highlights of the latest Dark Horse Presents are the latest "Finder", as usual, and the Richard Corben/Edgar Allen Poe stuff. Oh and the Nate Cosby "Buddy Cops" bit...