A Descent into Dullness

And this week sees the end of two series and the near finale of a third. The latter being G0dland which has only an epilogue issue left after the penultimate confrontation with the forces of entropy. With Adam Archer and Maxim merging into the cosmic ADAMAXIM!

Also ending with a big cosmic finale is iZombie, as Gwen the Zombie comes up with a way to stop the Chtulu-ian big bad that doesn't involve sacrificing everyone she cares about...

And Rasl finishes up, more quantumly than cosmically. Plus we get to find out, finally, what the hell Rasl actually means...

Courtney Crumrin and her new friend manage to escape from the Fairy Kingdom. But then they've got to deal with the community of witches and warlocks discovering much of Courtney's previous escapades...

Avengers Academy is closed down and that leaves many of the former students at loose ends. The perfect time for the Alchemist to return with another job offer...

And Daredevil takes some to look into Matt's head. Literally, in this case, with Hank Pym shrunk down and smashing Doom's nanobots in Daredevil's brain...

This week includes the pair of titles I would have got last week if it weren't for a Diamond screw-up. Which was a new Snarked which has the return of the Griffon and an attack on the heroes by a Bandersnatch. And the second-to-last Rasl. Which is more inter-dimensional chases and crazy, dangerous weird science. And some kissing...

iZombie keeps on moving closer to its apocalyptic finale. And every character seems to be getting involved with lots of back-story dangling threads being wrapped up. Mostly I'm just happy Roberson will get to finish the book despite his split from DC...

Avengers Academy wraps up their participatory portion of the Avengers vs. X-Men cross-over. With a few more digs from Gage about how silly using fights as conflict resolution from basically allies is. Also Hercules gets to show off his thespian skills...

So Thunderbolts is now Dark Avengers. I guess in the hopes of boosting the sales on the book a bit. Plus it the current team is basically Osborne's most recent Dark Avengers team. Only two of which I recognize from anything Skaar, Son of Hulk as Dark Hulk and Ragnarok the killer android/clone as Dark Thor...

And finally Paul Grist's Mudman returns with a an actual super-villain fight. Where we see that being able to turn into mud is not the best power against the guy who controls water...

Another big pull week. Starting with some more Fatale. With more spooky dudes, violent cops, murder and lots and lots of smoking...

And then Paul Grist talks about how he hopes his teen-super comic Mudman will be the financial success that Jack Staff never managed to be. Don't get wrong, its looking to be a very nice little quirky cape comic. But aside from having a much tighter and smaller cast from his previous quirky British cape book I don't see what will really make it jump out from the rest of the supers comics out there...

Like Invincible where Mark is no longer at risk of dying from the alien plague, but secret revelations about his family history may put the truce with the Viltrumites at risk anyway...

Savage Dragon has its own alien invasion going on, using the bad guys to Larsen's Vanguard character...

Daredevil is one of those .1 type issues. Meaning its partly jumping-on character and story background. Plus set up for a DD/Spider-Man/Punisher cross-over. Which means into two books I don't buy. Still Waid and this issue's artist Koi Pham deliver another gorgeous and sharply written bit...

Avengers Academy wraps up its Runaways guest spot with another super-brawl, this time during a visit to the Savage Land. And happily only involving a much more tightly focused cast list. Plus I don't actively hate the art. Its not great or anything, but still...

Man, has it really been FIFTEEN years since "Heroes Reborn" and Thunderbolts debuted? Fuck I'm old. Anyway this time around its classic original T-bolts vs. rogue time-tossed T-bolts...

And finally iZombie uses a past mission by Dead President Kennedy to give a taste of the coming doom. With guest artist Jim Rugg of Street Angel and Afrodisiac. Though I was sad to hear that this title will be coming to a close in another four issues...

A relatively light pull week, partly from me deciding to drop Static Shock a few issues of its cancellation. This and the Blue Beetle were probably the two nuDC titles I most wanted to go well, but both ended up being more than a bit of a mess...

Which is sadly also where Avengers Academy seems to be going. Each issue since they moved to the West Coast keeps expanding the cast, this time adding in the Runaways. Which means between the original class, the new kids, the faculty, the "bad" corporate recruiter group and assorted guest stars this title is really losing its sense of focus. Still it was nice to see Molly and Klara squeeing over Tigra's kitten/Skrull baby. And Kalinara flirting with Julie Powers. Oh and Victor calling Hank grandpa...

iZombie actually seems to be working well with its currently expanded cast of immortals, shape shifters, monster hunters, government monster monster hunters, undead and everything else. Mostly by concentrating on the coming Elder God-Thing and associated apocalypse...

And finally a new Fatale. With more of the mysterious Josephine, crooked cop and terminally ill Walt Booker and married reporter Hank Raines...

And first comics shipment of the year. And a fairly large pull to start off. Begining with the next Villains for Hire as the criminal crews of the Purple Man and Misty Knight jockey for position...

Thunderbolts takes a bit of a pause with the time traveling to check in briefly with Luke Cage and the others as they work at rebuilding the Raft and hunting for the various escapees...

The faculty and new students of Avengers Academy may be in for then they can handle thanks to the psi-vampire and half-Dire Wratih Hybrid...

MOving away from Marvel's capes to DC, Stacic Shock has a kidnapping of one of Virgil's sisters along with shake-ups in organization of the criminal group he's facing...

iZombie gives us the back story of Zombie Lincoln, American Patriot under the pencils of guest artist J. Bone. Giving the book a much more cartoonish look this time around...

Rookie hero Mudman keeps going after the bank robbers who accidentally led to his own origin...

And finally a new series from Ed Brubaker and Sean Phillips. This time the two are mashing up noir and horror in Fatale. With something that looks to be working from the mysterious and deadly woman trope of noir stories...

Ok, lets get to this big ol' stack. Beginning with Marvel and Annihilators Earthfall. Where now our cosmic dudes and the Avengers are working together to try to stop Space-Church and the Magus. I still love Ronan talking smack to Cap. Though I wish the art was better. Like the stuff in the Rocket Raccoon vs. Mojo back-up...

And then more Captain America team-up with the "bad" Thunderbolts group working with Cap and Namor to rescue robot Human Torch from original Baron Zemo. Which somehow leads to Namor and Satanna sharing a sexy, sexy bath together...

Avengers Academy has Pym needing some help with energy analysis of Jocasta's murder. So of course he calls up the X-Men to get Magneto to do it. 'Cause he's a good guy again right now. Leading to fun family times with Pietro and Quicksilver's protege Finesse. And props to her for being ballsy enough to attack Mags with a pair of fuckin' batons. Not the smartest move, but high points for guts...

Away from Marvel to Image with a new supers book from Paul Grist (Kane and Jack Staff). Featuring a teen hero named Mud Man. Who looks to have mud powers, natch. Not much just yet, but I'm hopeful given Grist's previous work...

Also a new Invincible, where we go back to space and Allan the Alien and Oliver. Where Nolan briefs Allan on what happened with the last of Viltrumites and Earth...

And now DC. Starting with Wonder Woman, with Brian Azzarello shaking up the status quo of Diana's origin. One that shakes her basic belief in herself and her family...

I'm still not sure about everything on the revamped Blue Beetle. Except for the whole making La Dama actually a bad guy in attitude. She always seemed to soft in the original for someone who supposedly had a hard-core reputation...

And then the Shade isn't dead. Which, of course isn't much of a shock. But for now he's off on a quest to find out who hired Deathstroke and wants to try and make him dead...

On the Vertigo side the zombie mini-apocalypse is mostly over in iZombie. Though both the Dead Presidents and the Hunter group are still lurking about. So Gwen's trying to lay low hiding in her crypt. And Spot attempts to date a dude...

The Unwritten takes a look back into the past, with stops in China's giant destruction of knowledge, some Hearst paper political cartooning and a certain Mr. Guttenberg. All as part of Tommy's Dad's journals and the search for the conspiracy's origin...

Scalped keeps racing to the end, with a couple players getting taken off the board. And Shunka and Dash moving to a confrontation...

And next up is a new Dark Horse Presents. The "Finder" story this time around is a ghost story. Plus a quirky little short piece from Fabio Moon. And a new "Beasts of Burden" story involving Midevil war dogs and a basilisk...

Dungeons & Dragons continues to examine the love lives of the dwarven folk. And how that involves hitting monsters with hammers. Kinky, kinky dwarven folk...

And happily a new Rasl. Not a huge amount of story this issue, but a lot of the life of Tesla. And I'm always up for more Tesla biography stuff...

Also the final issue of Comic Book Comics. Looking at the rise of the graphic novel, the arrival of the direct market and the boom and bust black & white and 90's speculator periods...

And finally a new Knights of the Dinner Table. Mostly Nitro and the PeeWees on the HackMaster front. With the Knights taking a break for a Halloween game of not-Call of Cthulu...

My shop got shorted on the new Casanova - Avaritia sadly. But they said they'd make sure to pull me one when it comes in later in the week so thats ok then. Did get one of the nuDC books, Static Shock. It has Virgil living in New York instead of Dakota. And being remotely mentored by Hardware which is cool. He also has two sisters and both parents which is definitely a change from the animated show. And I think one from the Milestone series. Its being written by Scott McDaniel, who I can't recall from anything else and John Rozum, whose excellent Xombi relaunch ended just last week...

iZombie continues on with Gwen's secret monsterism being exposed to her monster-hunter boyfriend. Plus the whole town under attack from brainless zombies. Another issue with damn near every character getting at least a little face time...

Over to Marvel, the Thunderbolts escapees find themselves somehow having traveled back in time. To WW2. Where they end up teamed with Captain America and Namor fighint Nazis. And I must say there are few things finer then seeing Namor shouting Imperius Rex while smashing Nazis...

Over on Heroes for Hire I still hate Kyle Hotz' art. But I love how Elektra explains her ability to sucker the Purple Man into thinking she was mind-controlled. "I'm a ninja". Like duh man...

Not much this week. The Metal Men collected one-shot I wanted had some kind of line wide defect so none of the comics shops were allowed to sell it. But I do have the finale for Cinderella: Fables are Forever, with the final showdown between Cindy and Dorothy. In a blimp. Above the Deadly Desert. Which is pretty nice. Plus Roberson manages to put in an explanation as to why Dorothy was so different in Jack of Fables...

In the new Darkwing Duck, Double D announces his mayoral campaign to the citizens of St. Canard. Just as new bad guy Cat-Tankerous goes on a building destroying rampage...

And lastly another Knights of the Dinner Table. A glimpse into the world of Peewee HackMaster, Brian engaging in some hard-core rules lawyering and a set of strips about the L.A. Raiders. Yeah, I wasn't expecting that one either...

iZombie: Dead to the World written by Chris Roberson, art by Michael Allred, colors by Laura Allred, letters by Todd Klein

Gwen's a brain-eating zombie. But not so much in the shambling around and attacking farm houses and malls kind of way. More in the working as a hipster gravedigger and hanging out with ghost girls and wereterriers and flirting with the new vampire hunter in town. Of course there is a new monster in town and he wants Gwen's help. But he's kind of a murderous vigilante mummy so she's not sure if she can trust him...

Chris Roberson creates Yet Another Urban Fantasy world, but he does it with style and wit and humor. And of course being backed by the art of Mike "Madman" Allred...

Only two titles this week. Cinderella: Fables are Forever and the Unwritten. Which have somewhat similar metafictional base themes. In the former, Cinderella flashes back to more previous encounters with Dorothy Gale while she and her companion are being transported to the elusive rogue agent. And in the latter Tommy is reunited with his companions just in time to help them go after a collection of his late father's belongings just before they're auctioned off...