A Descent into Dullness

Copperhead #13: Writer Jay Faerber, Artist Drew Moss, Colorist Ron Rily & Letterer Thomas Mauer.  More investigating into the death of the mayor.  Also Sheriff Bronson's escaped convict ex-husband looks for alternate transportation.

Future Quest #12: Story Jeff Parker, Art Evan "Doc" Shaner, Colors Veronica Gandini & Letters ALW's Dave Lanphear.  Strong ending for a meandering story.  Sadly I think this book worked more in theory than actual execution.
Bug! The Adventures of Forager #1: Storytellers Lee & Michael Allred, Colorist Laura Allred & Letterer Nate Piekos of Blambot.  New 4th World/Kirby inspired Young Animal-line book.  Very Madman feel to it.  I'm looking forward to seeing where this all goes.

Two weeks and three Adventure Time related books.  Adventure Time with Fionna & Cake has Fionna teaming with Flame Prince to rescue the stolen Fire Elementals from Ice Queen.  Then regular ol' Adventure Time has Finn & Jake teaming with Ice King on a dungeon crawl.  Where at one point they fight Ice Queen.  And finally the Adventure Time 2013 Annual which is an anthology book with lots of stuff.  Including what is the least creepy Lemongrab story ever, involving a picnic at the beach...

Daredevil finally figures out who is the mastermind behind much of his recent woes.  And its definitely not someone who the word mastermind normally gets applied to...

Young Avengers finishes up its first arc, with the group deciding to stay together as a team.  Though one that has to stay from New York for awhile because of parental issues...

And Dark Avengers comes to a close with the pocket universe ended and the A.I.M. cell taken care of.  And most of the team still together...

I hadn't planned on picking up the new King Conan mini-series.  Heck I wasn't even aware of it coming out.  I figure it was put in with the rest of my subs since I get the regular Conan book.  But who am I to turn down a Timothy Truman written story about how Conan and Zenobia met with ancient reincarnated necromancers?

Then a Lobster Johnson one-shot, "Satan Smells a Rat" with fake zombies and mad science organ theft...

The stand-outs for the most recent Dark Horse Presents would probably be the new "Trekker" series starting and the team-up of Sherlock Holmes and "Nexus"...

The most recent issue of the Massive takes a more in-depth look at Callum's past and what led to him leaving mercenary work for environmental activism...

And lastly the Unwritten.  Where after a conversation with Pullman, Tom works out a way to get everyone else out of Hell while continuing his journey to heart of the story.  Again...

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...

Keeping going with the 2nd issue of Clone. Which fills in the How of the cloning conspiracy, while ignoring the Why. Seriously, why would a government agency go to the vast expense of creating a huge number of clones, set up monitoring on them for decades and then do NOTHING with that? I'm still curious to see where it keeps going, but that is some weak back story building...

The Dark Avengers team of knock-offs plus Moonstone and Skaar are in some alternate Marvel U where all the main heroes are some kind of totalitarian gang bosses who have divided up New York between them...

Saucer Country has the Democratic debate and a bunch of discussion on conspiracies. All wrapped in a vague sense of unreality as usual...

Marceline and the Scream Queens finishes up as Marceline flips right the Hell out at their farewell concert and so Princess Bubblegum has to come back and set things right. Plus a back-up featuring a jerk centaur whose band is a rival to Marcy's...

Courtney Crumrin escapes from her uncle and Rawhead, but Calpurnia is taken back to the Council for trial. So Courtney goes looking for someone else she can hide with. Plus a fairly touching moment with Courtney's mom...

The Massive sees the Kapital docking at a free city state set on an abandoned oil rig. And the conflicting goals of the crew look to be coming more sharply into focus...

And also this week is Brian Wood's other Dark Horse book, Conan the Barbarian. Which has Conan making shore with the rest of the Tigress's crew half-dead with an unknown illness. And the still healthy Conan being urged to abandon Belit and the rest to save himself...

Lastly Knights of the Dinner Table is still at GaryCon. And the UT+1 can't seem to get their act together, getting stomped by the other teams. Though things look hopeful for the honor of Muncie as Nitro's Peewee player team kick-ass and take names in the tournament...

Two weeks worth of comics because..well because..um..because shut up thats why. Yeah, thats why...

Starting with some Courtney Crumrin, with Courtney and her teacher on the road and battling the hunters of the Council...

Then a one-shot return to Marvel's zombie Earth for Van Lente with Marvel Zombies Halloween. And a survivor story with a holiday appropriate guest spot...

Next Daredevil reveals the mastermind behind the whole Matt-is-crazypants plot. And while I can always appreciate a good D-level villain reinvents themselves tale I still am amazed that Daredevil figures out who it is without ever even thinking "vampire". 'Cause I totally would have gone with vampire...

the Dark Avengers face off against the returned full team of Thunderbolts. They don't come off so well. Especially as that includes a re-empowered Cain Marko...

Saucer Country is past the world/mythos building to get back to the focus on the joint presidential race/x-files investigation...

Decided to at least try out the new Sword of Sorcery title from DC, since Amethyst, Princess of Gemworld was always one of those off-genre bits of the DCU I've been curious about. Its a decent if somewhat stereotypical lost heir to the magical kingdom thing. Still its a hard sell at $4 for 20 pages with the "extra" value of a re-imagined Beowulf back-up story....

Wonder Woman begins its new big story arc with Diana and her allies, including a banished from Olympus Hera, looking for allies amidst Zeus other demi-divine children...

Glory and company set off from her base to begin searching for her little sister, Nanaja. Who is basically Glory with all the brakes taken off...

And then we've got Savage Dragon with more alien invasion aftermath for Malcom and Angel Dragon. Plus some more violent overreaction by the new Overlord...

Then its this week starting with the Unwritten. And Tommy goes on a walkabout back into the world's of fiction by after hearing the Australian whale origin myth of Kondili...

I also grabbed the A-Babies Vs. X-Babies one-shot. 'Cause Skottie Young and Gurihiru writing and drawing half the Marvel Universe as brawling babies is too adorable for words...

Over on Adventure Time Finn & Jake engage in multiple time trips and crazy Princess Bubblegum science-ings in order to get back to the status quo they started from...

The majority of the Knights of the Dinner Table cast is still at Garycon. Where we learn that Felicia Day is so magical she can even overcome Brian's near crippling shyness around women he's attracted too...

And then a doubleshot of Brandon Graham. First off with the scifi crazy awesomeness of Prophet. And then a different kind of scifi crazy with the return of his Multiple Warheads series. Which is totally crammed with visual puns and concepts, much like his King City. MW follows Sexica, former alien organ smuggler and her werewolf boyfriend Nikou as they go on a road trip in search of a new life and home...

After that Invincible wraps up the Flaxan/Robot/Monster Girl story. Relationships are rebuilt, secrets are revealed, secrets are kept, love is confessed and awkward sex is had. Not necessarily all by the same people...

And finally a new Dark Horse Presents. With "Finder" getting the main cover this time around. Plus a "Mr. Monster" story that features Munden's Bar...

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...

A light pull to finish off the month, with only three titles. Resident Alien finishes up its first arc and has the killer caught because they basically give up on avoiding getting caught. And it looks like the series will be heading back to Dark Horse Presents sometime in the future...

Prophet continues to be all far-future crazy awesome. Plus references to Die Hard, one of the few Liefeld character concepts that was decent all on its own merits...

And lasty Dark Avengers with the T-bolts now seemingly trapped just ahead of Marvel's present, while the Dark ThunderVengers continue on their mission. To rescue that guy from that terrible Omega Flight series from some Red Hulk bad guy...

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...