A Descent into Dullness

Another light week, with only three books. Starting with the next to last Avengers Academy. With Pym and Wolverine deciding to repair some bridges with a touch football game between the Academy kids and the Jean Grey School students...

Fatale checks in again briefly with Nick in the present. Though he's having a childhood flashback to the 70s during that. And then back to Jo and Miles and the Hollywood cultists...

And finally more Guarding the Globe, with the majority of the team doing disaster relief in Bangladesh. With the rest dealing with long-term Invici-verse bad guy Mauler and his Kuwaiti baby-factory...

Kenzerco gets a quick turn around putting out a new Knights of the Dinner Table. With the whole Gamer's Court mostly handled off-panel so that they can shift the story over to GaryCon. With the main focus being on the road trip to the con by a majority of the cast...

And Kirkman relaunches his Invincible companion book, Guarding the Globe. And as long as that means more super-strong French pug dogs I'm cool with that...

Savage Dragon wraps up its latest alien invasion story arc with some fallout with Dragon in space. Also Dragon being kind of a dick about shoving his agnosticism on his people. And also gets in a fight with Krull, Son of Dragon...

Dark Avengers is now in a four-way split, between the "good" Thunderbolts, the Dark Avenger T-bolts, the time-lost crew and the not-MegaCity Judge dudes...

I'm not really sure why the power removal thing in Avengers Acaemy doesn't work on magical item using people like Reptl and White Tiger, but does on Julie "empowered by Magic Space Pony" Powers...

Lastly I picked up the 1st issue of Lookouts a sort of Boy Scouts in D&D kind of thing. Its from the Penny Arcade guys and I liked the short bits they did with it back before I quit following their site...

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...

Ok lets get past the procrastination to look at this week's haul. Starting up with Marvel. First its Daredevil vs. the Banking Bureaucracy of Latveria! Then Dark Avengers goes back to the missing Thunderbolts who are going back, WAY BACK, in time to make a delivery and rescue a time traveler. Which totally won't bite them on the ass. And lastly Avengers Academy features one of the Phoenix Avatars and we learn how a boy's first giant, hunter-killer robot is like a girl assassin's first puppy...

Saga splits its time between our runaway family and a visit to a space brothel. Which is like a regular Bangkok brothel except full of weird scifi/alien stuff...

Glory has lots of demons, plus a flashback to Gloriana's childhood. Ross Cambell can certainly draw the hell out of Glory ripping apart demonic hordes can't he?

Then the original Wonder Woman and her wedding day in Hell to Hell. And maybe someone learns a lesson about the nature of love...

The Unwritten has Savoy and Madame Puppet-Lady discussing what's gone wrong in the world since the first story line's climatic meeting. Plus that Australian cop continues to try and infiltrate the Tommy Cult...

Two from Kaboom! this time around. Adventure Time has Finn & Jake competing for a cupcake and traveling around the world. With a back-up story written and drawn by Paul Pope. And in Snarked! the questing royal children and their companions manage to track down the missing king. Who doesn't seem to want to be rescued, 'cause he's a giant selfish ass...

Finally Dark Horse Presents, with a new "Ghost" tale written by Kelly Sue Deconnick and drawn by Phil Noto. Plus more of Arcudi's "Creep", McNeil's "Finder", Niles' "Criminal Macabre" and others...

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...

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...

The new Knights of the Dinner Table opens with some dream-madness that is supposedly caused by the "cursed" Die of Doom Sarah has in her possession. Then moves to check in briefly with the Hard8 crew as they take a break from their game to plan a way to turn the squatters they share office space with into some kind of slave labor pool. Which is just..ick. Seriously, not even a little cool. Then back to Muncie for a brief look in at Nitro's PeeWee gaming group and finishing with UT+2 and their further adventures in Bag World...

Avengers Academy is mostly just set-up for future plot lines and talking heads debating how to use super-powers to benefit society...

Next we have Prophet. Which is basically like someone dropped a bunch of acid and then read a bunch of old Heavy Metals while blasting Ronnie James Dio. In other other words, its an awesome trip and a half, with the titlur lead traveling with a caravan full of mutants across a post-apocalyptic wasteland full of the rusting hulks of giant weapons from the Final War...

I'm not even going to try and summarize the new Rasl. Just that its still full of dimension hopping and strange science and references to Nikolai Tesla...

And lastly another Dark Horse Presents. Strongest pieces this issue are the short "Lobster Johnson" tale, Richard Corben adapting Edgar Allen Poe's "the City in the Sea", a Paul Pope piece on the '69 moon landing and another taste of Brian Wood's upcoming "the Massive"...

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...

So the finale for Guarding the Globe finally came out. With a giant, non-resolving fight sequence. Where all the bad guys, who just killed like millions of Parisians, escape to go on doing villainy stuff. Which is honestly fairly odd given the lethality that can happen in other Kirkman supers books. I mean I'm pretty sure ol' scar-face from Invincible would be sending Invici-ReAnimen hit-squads after every bad guy involved...

Avengers Academy finally finishes up with being a "Fear Itself" tie-in with major shake-ups at the end as to location and cast-list. Though the end page leaves me wondering, are their new teen Thunderstrike and White Tiger characters?

Annihilators: Earthfall has a big hero vs. hero team fight with the galactic scope team being attacked by the Avengers. I especially like Gladiator and Ronan calling Cap and Tony on their provincialness and hypocrisy...

Daredevil continues to be gorgeous and exciting and fun. Especially note-worthy is the simple act horn-head uses to even the odds against a team of gun-toting mercs...

As the end of Scalped gets ever closer Sheriff Karnow keeps working at reinventing himself into the person he's always claimed to be. Plus more Shunka related angst. Poor, poor closeted angsty Shunka...

Last up is a new Knights of the Dinner Table. Decent advancement on both the actual Knights' and their game, as well as pushing ahead some of the stuff with Nitro and the kiddie HackLeague and the corporate goings on with Hard8. And bonus no terrible movie review column this month. Which is balanced by the book review guy writing up a gushing review of the "Twilight" series. Who notes it is especially useful for helping fathers to understand the mindset of their daughters...