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...

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...

Quick thoughts on comics from the 12th is easy enough, there weren't any.  No one put out any single issues that week I was willing to spend money on.  Oh well...

After that we'll start with some Invincible and the return of Angstrom Levy.  And his attack on Eve, who can't use her powers for fear of hurting her baby.  Creepy...

Wonder Woman is all big brawling.  With Lennox and Diana piling on their eldest sibling alongside Orion.  All happily drawn by Cliff Chiang again. Plus the Millwall Fight Song.  American sports teams should have club songs...

I am not a fan of extended dream quest storylines.  Especially if they don't actually change anything.  We'll see if the current arc for Conan the Barbarian avoids that pit...

The 25th issue of Dark Horse Presents has got some Buffy the Vampire Slayer and a Matt Fraction time travel short story and Andrew Vachss scifi in comic form and new  Trekker and Nexus and some other stuff.  Good stuff but I could wish for some more Finder, Resident Alien or Concrete...

This current week was a huge haul of double digit comics.  Starting with the Massive making a call on the flooded and abandoned NYC...

Then Tim Truman gives Conan and Zenobia a Meet Cute in King Conan.  Plus Conan punching a dude so hard his skull collapses...

Prophet is still very much Prophet with the far future scifi weirdness where even Troll can be cool and interesting...

Fatale is back to the modern story.  Though thats only long enough to set up for 90s flashback and a serial killer and Jo and a has been rock star/bank robber...

The latest Knights of the Dinner Table concentrates on the Knight's regular game and Crutch's Crime Nation game.  Both of which remind that Brian is both a player I wouldn't want to game with and also often a shitty friend...

The oversized 50th issue of the Unwritten is part of a cross-over with Fables.  Which lets me know I jumped off that book just in time...

More happily is a new Mouse Guard: Legends of the Guard anthology.  With a story by Stan "Usagi Yojimbo" Sakai in the first issue...

Young Avengers starts off its next arc with former YA-er Speed and former X-kid Prodigy punching the clock at a crummy entry level job together...

And Daredevil has his final confrontation with mastermind-class Bullseye.  I mean final until someone decides to use Bullseye and works out how to fix him from his current fucked up condition confrontation...

And we finish with Adventure Time, where Finn & Jake & Ice King finish off Ice King's dungeon and move on to one built by Marceline's dad...

This month's Dark Avengers has the gang still scattered and facing various crazy-pants versions of Thing, Dr. Strange and Iron Man.  While the pocket universe they're trapped in continues to collapse...

And Daredevil finally confronts the mysterious person behind much of his recent problems. A daredevil-ey ninja-ish man named Ikari.  I'm guessing he's related to when DD took over the Hand because of demons...

The lastest Adventure Time has that jerk-butt Magic Man crashing the Annual Princess Tea Party.  And then he steals Jake & Finn's voices when they confront him.  Cause he's a total jerk-butt...

Conan the Barbarian finds himself still alive and having his wounds treated inside the fortress.  And then he gets to meet Belit's father...

Wonder Woman gets tired of Orion's shenanigans, her Oldest Brother reaches an agreement with Neptune and Pluto and Youngest Brother gets a name...

Daredevil tries to take a day off while Foggy waits for his latest medical tests. But he's got to deal with an unknown group attempting to recreate the exact circumstances of the accident that blinded and empowered him...

Moonstone and Skaar are stuck dealing with crazypants Ben Grimm, while the rest of the Dark Avengers attempt to pass thru crazypants Spider-Man's territory...

Over on Saga Marko and his mom track down Izabel just in time to get off the hatching egg-planet. And for Marko's ex to piss off the gigantic baby space monster...

Wonder Woman spends some time with her brother War again, as the pair go off to try and get Zolo's demigod baby back from Hermes and Demeter. Plus the First Born dude fights a sea serpent/shark monster thing...

Adventure Time has Finn and Jake and Marceline sort of fighting an army of robots to get to the undead-ish hacker behind corrupting BMO's program. And a backup story with Finn and Jake beating a devil/ogre thing by Josh Lesnick. And another backup by Chris Schweizer where Finn becomes the Princess of Rad Hats...

Conan the Barbarian follows Belit into her desert homeland and then gets drafted into some army to attack some fortress. Where it looks like Belit is hanging out anyway. So Conan will probably be killing a bunch of dudes pretty soon...

The stand outs for the most recent Dark Horse Presents would have to be a new "Finder" chapter, Shannon Wheeler's supers parody/prison story "Villain House" and "The Day the Saucers Came" written by Neil Gaiman and drawn by Paul Chadwick...

The main focus for the Knights of the Dinner Table is a mixer thrown by Patty at Hawg's. Mostly as an attempt to get a few people to sign up for Crutch's new gaming group...

From this week we have what looks to be not only the finale for the current volume of Courtney Crumrin. But for the series as a whole, with Courtney and her uncle concluding their problems with the Witch/Warlock community...

The second issue of Young Avengers has Billy & Teddy confronting the "person" masquerading as Teddy's mom. Which gets them grounded into a pocket dimension prison. Leading to a rescue by Kid Loki. Who makes them pay off his diner tab. And then a trip to Asgard. Where a new parental problem emerges...

The Unwritten has zombies vs. vampires vs. umm..creepy nun/puppet makers. Plus ghostly make-outs...

I'm not exactly why the Kapital's crew decide to smash up things on the oil rig/town. Or pretend to betray their captain. Or why the one dude maybe steals a nuclear Chinese submarine? But yeah thats all stuff from the Massive. Oh and someone has cancer!

And finally Prophet. Where the John Prophet clone army is preparing to retake Earth and the rest of the galaxy for humanity. Even if most of humanity isn't really very human of late. Except for the regressive savages living in the wilds of Earth...

Since this week had no shipment 'cause of Holidays, lets finally get around to last week's comics. Starting with Dark Horse Presents. The returning Dark Horse series this time around is "X", which was a gun-killing vigilante type from their Comic's Greatest World launch back in the 90s. Also some more "Resident Alien" and that Pokemon-parody "Gamma". Oh and a bit of "Mind Mgmt" by Matt Kindt, the regular series I keep seeing getting talked up...

And a happy surprise, in that I'd forgotten it was coming out this month, in a new Empowered one-shot. With Emp having to deal with sexy nanotech malware. The deadly danger of one of her teammates fapping material...

Daredevil finishes up with the whole Spot/Coyote thing. And then has a confrontation with Foggy over how easily his friend turned on him...

Saga sees Marko and Alana still spending time seperately with his parents. Plus a visit to when the two first met...

Brandon Graham's Multiple Warheads continues to be all full of crazy cool Brandon Graham-ness...

Marceline joins Finn & Jake for some video game fun in Adventure Time. Plus a Susan Strong back-up by Zack Giallongo...

The main focus for the Unwritten this time around is Tom in the Underworld, where he meets a pair of kids he's met before. Though thanks to all of them having drank from the Lethe, they don't recall one another...

And finally Wonder Woman goes looking for another of her siblings and ends up meeting Orion of New Genesis as well...

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...

Starting with the latest the Shade, with the titular anti-hero dealing with the alien/godlings he sort of unleashed on London. With cameos by a few of DC's UK supers. Also this issue has the drawn ads for the "Grimm" premiere which do not come off very well when opposite a page of Frazier Irving art. Nope they do not...

Wonder Woman has another confrontation with her Olympian relatives at the throne of Zeus and chooses preserving life over continued conflict. Or at least she tries to...

Over in Saga our fugitive family makes it to the Rocketship Forest. And Prince Robot IV has a brief conversation with the Will about an unfortunate shooting incident...

Fatale is still in the 1970s and all weird cults and junkie actors and secret graveyard ceremonies...

Daredevil and Waid are back, hot on the heels of last week's Alan Davis drawn and written annual. With a mostly flashback issue with art duties from Michael and Laura Allred...

ThunDark Avengers is still split between the time-tossed T-Bolts and the current Dark Avengers team. Though it looks like the two stories are getting linked closer together...

The former students of Avengers Academy, most de-powered continue to come to terms with jerkface Jeremy "Alchemist" Briggs and his plans for global change. Though X-23 appears to have settled on "I will gut him like a fish before I die of heavy metals poisoning"...

Saucer Country takes a story-break issue to look at an overview of UFO mythology and what it all might mean...

And finally Snarked! has our moderately brave heroes making plans to steal the Snark's treasure to restore their kingdom's treasury and then hopefully escape from the island. But first a return visit by the Cheshire Cat...

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...