A Descent into Dullness

Lots and lots of comics for the last three weeks.  With almost half just from this week.  Starting with the latest Dark Horse Presents, with a brand new Hellboy short story set during his Mexican wrestler years.  And a related comic with the final issue of itty bitty Hellboy and a pool party for Abe's sister Eve...

The Massive finishes up its anti-whaling mission with a death and a compromise.  And with the end drawing ever closer to his run on Conan the Barbarian has a great many deaths...

Adventure Time: Candy Capers finishes up as Peppermint Butler and Cinnamon Bun make a few final tries at providing the Candy kingdom with replacement heroes.  All leading to the conclusion that Princess Bubblegum is a bit of a science experiment obsessed jerk.  Which matches well with regular Adventure Time where she explains the origin of the Giant Creeping Gum Ooze to Marceline.  Plus bonus  gender-swap universe story that features an evil boy band vs. Marshall Lee's emo song stylings...

Astro City begins an arc revealing the origins of Winged Victory with guest stars the Samaritan and the Confessor.  Or three of the more obvious homage characters for the book...

Hinterkind has one pack of violent jerks taken down by another pack of violent crazies and with a third pack of violent jerks on the way...

Then doubling down on Marvel, cause two issues a month for titles is a thing for them.  We've got Longshot Saves the Marvel Universe with issue three having a vampire Wolverine, a werewolf Captain America and a mopey Magneto.  And then in the finale Longshot..er..saves the Universe.  And Young Avengers' final battle with Mother is won with teen boy kissing.  And then an epilogue slash dance party...

Daredevil's solution for the Sons of the Serpent problem seems to involve pirate radio and evil cult bible ransoming...

Moving on to Image.  Invincible Universe invades a prison as the Guardians go proactive.  Invincible has Monster Girl work on her issues with being a dead beat dad.  Velvet goes for a glide in her journey to find out who is framing her.  Saga shows that a violent confrontation can only get worse when you mix in a third party.  Pretty Deadly almost has a plot I can follow.  Prophet sort of doesn't but it does have two bigger than kaiju monsters brawling.  And  G0dland presents its long delayed, post-humanist final issue.  Space babies, talking mice and Kirby krackle may all be involved...

Samurai Jack's quest for the time travel threads leads him to what seems to be an idyllc village with a powerful warrior guardian.  But seems to be is hardly ever accurate for Jack...

And finally the second volume of Mouse Guard: Legends of the Guard draws to an end with new contributions from Bill Willingham and Brad Thomte, Jackson Sze and Justin Gerard and Cliff Monear...

Even for two weeks, this is a pretty big stack of books. Starting with some Marvel from this week and Daredevil and a start of a guest spot with the Legion of Monsters. Also the Young Avengers prepare to face-off against Mother, Leah, the League of Bitter Exes and the Horde of Bad Ideas to save Teddy and the universe...

The Rat Queens survive both their assassin and their random troll encounter. And gather up the few other adventurer survivors. And then of course engage in an unhealthy amount of drinking. Pretty Deadly is latest from Kelly Sue DeConnick and Emma Rios and is an interesting supernatural Western. Also new, the espionage-themed Velvet from Brubaker and Steve Epting. And finally the latest Invincible and a father/son arm-wrestling match. Plus the return of Battle Beast...

In addition to the new Adventure Time with the threat of a wave of pink ooze, also got a mini-comic serving as a prequel to the comic series. One where BMO attempts to become a perfect fighter...

Wonder Woman is summoned to a family meeting (of the family she doesn't like) to discuss her new role as the God of War. Which goes about as well as could be expected...

Another new book in Hinterkind, a supernatural post-apocalyptic comic from Ian Edginton and Francesco Trifogli. And the Unwritten/Fables finally comes to a close. I'm so glad to have the finale for a book I gave up on sidelining the story of the book I actually want to buy...

Brian Wood finishes up the "Black Stones" story on Conan the Barbarian with artist Paul Azaceta and a and Dave Stewart. Wood's next arc will be the last, bringing a close to the story of Conan and Belit. Which is why we've also got Conan and the People of the Black Circle by Fred Van Lente and Ariel Olivetti. I can't say I care for Olivetti's Conan, as he looks more like a smug, douchey pro athlete than a barbarian hero...

Also from Wood and Dark Horse is a new arc of the Massive with "Longship". With the titular ship and its crew going up against subsistence-level Viking whalers. And a last bit of Dark Horse with Dark Horse Presents where I can't believe they gave a whopping 13 pages over to Neal Adams' terrible "Blood" story...

And to finish up we've got Samurai Jack from IDW by Jim Zub and Andy Suriano, promising to finish up the story from the cartoon's abbreviated run...