A Descent into Dullness

Haven't done a comics post in a couple weeks.  But a fairly Halloween-ish flavor pull.

Copperhead #15:Writer Jay Faerber, Artist Drew MOss, Colorist Ron Riley & Letterer Thomas Mauer.  Violent father, missing mom & space aliens!
Saga #48: Art by Fiona Staples, Written by Brian K. Vaughan & Letters & Design by Fonografiks.  Two boys in the woods at night hunting an invisible monster!
Southern Cross #13: Stroy Becky Cloonan, Art Andy Belanger, Letters Serge LaPointe & Colours Lee Loughridge.  Ghosts!  Also Alien Ghosts!

The Damned #5: Written by Cullen Bunn, Illustrated by Brian Hurtt, Colored by Bill Crabtree, Lettered by Crank!:  Demonic pacts!

Bug! the Adventures of Forager #2: Lee & Michael Allred Storytellers, Laura Allred Colorist & Nate Piekos of Blambot Letterer.  Bug Forager teams with the Losers, Sandman, Sandy and Blue Beetle to free Nanda Parbat.

the Unbeatable Squirrel Girl #21: Writer Ryan North, Artist Erica Henderson, Color Artist Rico Renzi & Letterer Travis Lanham.  Dorreen and Nancy go on vacation to the Negative Zone.  And the city is left in the protection of Chipmunk Hunk, Koi Boy and Brain Drain.

Bitch Planet Triple Feature: "Windows" Cheryl Lynn Eaton and Maria Frohlich.  "Without and Within" Andrew Aydin and Joanna Estep.  "The Invisible Woman" Conley Lyons and Craig Yeung, with colors by Marco D'Alfonso.  Three Bitch Planet penitentiary adjacent stories.
Copperhead #14: Writer Jay Faerber, Arist Drew Moss, Colorist Ron Riley & Letterer Thomas Mauer.   Sheriff Bronson vs. the Killer Worm Assassin!

The Damned #2: Written by Cullen Bunn, Illustrated by Brian Hurtt, Colored by Bill Crabtree & Lettered by Crank!  Big Al provides Eddie with a lesson while other interested parties gather around Pauly Bones and his mystery score.

Jem and the Holograms #26: Written by Kelly Thompson, Art by Gisele Lagace, Colors by M. Victoria Robado & Letters by Shawn Lee.  Final issue (though I guess there are some mini-series and the like planned)

Mirror #5: by Emma Rios and Hwei Lim.  So its everbody off the asteroid world by order of flashback alien thingy?  Anyway now all the thousands of humans and hundreds of animal hybrids are on a ship.  An even small enviroment.
The Wicked & the Divine #21: Writer Kieron Gillen, Artist Jamie McKelvie, Colourist Matthew Wilson, Letterer Clayton Cowles & Flatter Dee Cunniffe.  Ananke's secret plan revealed.  Which is murder the girl and fuck everyone because fuck you ya ungratefull stupid tossers!  Also Persephone/Laura, Baphomet/Nergal, the Morrigan and Dionysus throw down with Sakhmet, Baal and Woden's Valkyries.

Lumberjanes/Gotham Academy #2:  Written by Chynna Clugston Flores, Pencils by Rosemary Valero-O'Connell, Inks by Maddi Gonzalez, Colors by Whitney Cogar, Letters by Warren Montgomery.  The 'Janes and Gothamites regroup and plan on how to rescue Jen & Olive.  Meanwhile, the latter are trapped in the Lodge of the '80s.

Stumptown #10: Written by Greg Rucka, Illustrated by Justin Greenwood, Colored by Ryan Hill & Lettered by Crank! "The Case of the Night That Wouldn't End": Dex working a regular ol' spousal surveilance case, in this one-off to finish up volume three.

Stumptown #8: Written by Greg Rucka, illustrated by Justin Greenwood, colored by Ryan Hill & lettered by Crank! More coffee related shenanigans.  Kidnapping, tasering, lots of money!  All for a bitter bean used to make a foul swill.  Coffee!

The Unbeatable Squirrel Girl #1: Words by Ryan North, art by Erica Henderson, color art by Rico Renzi & lettering by VC's Clayton Cowles New Avenger Squirrel Girl takes her roommate Nancy to meet up with her parents.  And the secret history of Squirrel Girl is revealed!  Also a Hydra-programmed, alien-built cyborg from the 50s!

Power Up #4: Written by Kate Leth & art by Matt Cummings.  The latest foe is a friend possessed and so our heroes must defeat and free him without too much painful punching and stuff.
Adventure Time 2015 Spooooktacular #1: Written & illustrated by Hanna K.  Teen Marceline; punk rocker, vampire hunter, puppy dog owner.

Prez #5: Writer Mark Russell, pnciller Ben Caldwell, inker Mark Morales, colorist Jeremy Lawson & letterer Travis Lanham.  Prez goes on a world-apology tour.  War Beast seeks sanctuary with the church.  Boss Smiley and the Coalition of 1% Assholes continue assholing up the place.

Conan the Avenger #19: Writer Fred Van Lente, art by Brian Ching, colors by Michael Atiyeh & letters by Richard Starkings & Comicraft.  Enemies become allies as Conan goes against an ancient horror from outside of time/space.  So its, you know, a Tuesday.

Savage Dragon #208: Writer & artist Erik Larsen, letters by Chris Eliopoulos, colors by Nikos Koutsis & flats by Mike Toris.  Malcolm Dragon, Angel & Battle-Tank vs. Mr. Glum & Angel 2 in Dimension-X.
Shutter #16: Writer Joe Keatinge, artist Leila Del Duca, colorist Owen Gieni & letterer John Workman.  No Kate Kristopher, but lots of her family, friends and exes.  And lion-people.
The Fade Out #10: Writer Ed Brubaker, artist Sean Phillips & colors by Elizabeth Breitweiser.  The mystery of Val Sommer's murder begins to move towards closure in Hollywoodland's sordid underpinnings.
Island #4: Editors Brandon Graham & Emma Rios.  Contributors Roque Romero, Robin McConnell, Farel Dalrymple, Brandon Graham, Gael Bertrand & Addison Duke.  Stand-outs here being 60+ new pages of Dalrymple's Popgun War and another chapter of Graham's Multiple Warheads.

Knights of the Dinner Table #221: Jolly Blackburn EIC & creator.  Gary Jackson is still a petty dick.
Astro City #24: Writer Kurt Busiek, artist Brent Eric Anderson.  One of Jack-in-the-box's rogues is an evil snowglobe named Snowglobe.  Even in an issue about a talking gorilla ex-soldier who wants to just be a rock and roll drummer thats just splendid.
Prez #1: Writer Mark Russell, penciller Ben Caldwell, inker Mark Morales, colorist Jeremy Lawson & letterer Travis Lanham
Secret Six #3: Writer Gail Simone, artist Dale Eaglesham, colors Jason Wright & letters Travis Lanham.  That fucking bottom half ad annoys me more in every DC issue I see it in.
Giant Days #4: Written by John Allison, illustrated by Lissa Treiman, colors by Whitney Cogar, letters by Jim Cambell.  Daisy's 18th birthday!
Lumberjanes #15: Written by Noelle Stevenson & Shannon Watters, illustrated by Brooke Allen, colors by Maarta Laiho & letters by Aubrey Aiese.
Stumptown #6: Written by Greg Rucka, illustrated by Justin Greenwood, colored by Ryan HIll & letterd by Crank! Hard-core coffee nerds and their crazy expensive civet poop beans!
Groo Friends & Foes #6: by Sergio Aragones, wordsmith Mark Evanier, colorist Tom Luth & letterer Stan Sakai.  This time around its the Sage and his wisdom about bridge tolls.
Dark Horse Presents #11: by various and sundry.  Standout here is a John Arcudi written Abe Sapien short.
Southern Bastards #9: Jason Aaron writer, Jason Latour art & color & Jared K. Fletcher letters.
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Casey & April #1: Story by Mariko Tamaki, art by Iren Koh, colors by Paul Reinwand & letters by Shawn Lee.  Oh hey, new version of the Rat King.

For two weeks worth of books, not a very big pile. Starting with the new Astro City about an old lady who runs a roadside attraction/museum of damaged robots.  Of the super-villainous lackey variety...

Then another Princess Ugg, where-in our titular character explains why she's attempting to get thru a "civilized" finishing school.  And then tries to engage in diplomacy with her roommate/archenemy...

The latest Lobster Johnson, mini "Get the Lobster" finishes up with a blimp-board fight to the death...

Another print issue of the Legend of Bold Riley.  Where Riley meets an old lady who invites her to take shelter from a coming storm.  And then goes on a vision quest while looking at some hand-woven rugs.  Also why smoking something...

The second issue of Rocket Raccoon is mostly Rocket jail breaking with the aid of a smuggled in twig-Groot.  Still think the vengeful exes plot-line is dumb...

The New Warriors continue their rescue mission for Haechi and Sun Girl from the new Inhumans.  Except I guess their were two groups of renegade Inhumans?  And one was attempting to use the "recruiting" of Haechi to impress the other?  I think?

Invincible sees the birth of Mark & Eve's daughter as Robot continues his bid for world conquest.  And as part of that he makes the Viltrumites an offer...

And finally Shutter with Kate sitting down with her newly revealed little brother.  And having his age make her realize something new and upsetting about her father...

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...

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...

Saucer Country's big UFO bit this time around is providing a "realistic" explanation for Men in Black stories while having a bit of weirdness almost immediately counter to it...

The focus on the Massive this time is on former Tamil Tiger and mercenary Mag Nagendra and what the line is between piracy and salvage...

Conan the Barbarian and his pirate queen are back at sea. Where a moment of mercy for a castaway may end up costing them everything...

Marceline and the Scream Queens latest gig is a concert in Marceline's former home, the Nightosphere. And where Mar's drama looks to have finally gotten to be more than Bubblegum is willing to deal with...

Coutrney Crumrin and Calpurnia take temporary shelter with another outcast witch. But Uncle Al and the Council's other hunters are still close on them...

Its fun with the in-laws as Marko's parents continue their drop-in visit in Saga...

In addition to the regular hop skotch of back-story check-ins the current Invincible has a..um..family..er...

Ok look, Bulletproof aka "new" Invincible tells his fucked-up origin story which leads to an even more crazy fucked-up thing. And its followed by a sort of authorial character stand-in kind of explaining why...

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...