A Descent into Dullness

Been really slacking on these again.  Which does highlight how little DC/Marvel I'm buying as singles right now.  If I don't count Vertigo imprint books, its a single title from each right now.  Mainline DC just isn't putting out much I want to follow and Marvel's $4 per issue thing is becoming more and more of deal breaker.  Including on the title I'm still getting in singles, New Warriors.  I'm liking this relaunch.  The characters, Yost's dialogue, the High Evolutionary based initial arc.  All good.  But I still may switch to trade waiting like I'm doing on Superior Foes, Ghost Rider, She-Hulk and the Daredevil relaunch.  'Cause $4 for a 20 page book is bullshit...

At least from the Big Two.  I'm ok with that price point for twenty pages of transgender action/adventure for IDW's Samurai Jack.  Plus shinier paper.  Or even better, $4 for twenty-TWO pages like kaboom!'s Adventure Time and Adventure TIme: the Flip Side.  Four bucks for Finn & Jake mistaking a nucleur silo for a traditional dungeon?  Or teaming with LSP to try and rig a prom election to get a monkey to kidnap a lady painting?  I'm down with that...

Hunh, Wonder Woman is only twenty pages as well.  Didn't notice that happening.  Still its sticking at the three dollar price point.  Plus its more cross-title setting with DC, and WW mostly avoids the general ongoing DCU stuff...

The Unwritten gang continue to try and make their way across broken London while avoiding the constant war stories.  But they do find out that Pullman is behind the whole thing, all part of another plot by him to try and slay the Leviathan...

Charles and Edwin and Crystal manage to avoid damnation and death and such in Dead Boy Detectives.  And someone gets to burn down their school.  Sure it was accident.  Mostly an accident...

Knights of the Dinner Table sticks to concentrating on the ongoing return of the uber-sword story.  With Brian and Sara getting an offer from said mad sword...

I'm pretty sure I missed an issue of Pretty Deadly at some point here.  Because there is otherwise an awful big jump in the story before it reaches the climax of this first arc...

In Invincible Universe, the Lizard King learns a valuable lesson.  Just 'cause you alter a person's DNA to make them a reptile, doesn't necessarily mean an alignment change.  And then IU goes on hiatus.  Again.  Hopefully when it gets started again it will have the same title.  I'd say even money on whether or not that happens...

Fatale picks back up with Jo and Nick and soon enough everything is all obsession and murder and stolen magic eyeballs...

This issue of Prophet gives some back-story on plant person Hiyonhoiagn and his race the Kinnian.  Plus..well plus the normal hard to accurately and easily describe scifi weirdness...

I'm starting to wonder if Police Chief Higgens' drive to arrest Lobster Johnson is entirely in the cause of Law & Order...

King Conan returns to the sea in pursuit of the Heart of Ahriman, gets captured by slavers and meets some old friends amidst the rowers.  And just like that Amra the Lion is reborn...

Empowered: Internal Medicine is another one-shot.  With Warren teaming with Brandon Graham on this one.  Graham is pretty damn amazing drawing Emp and Ninjette doing super-surgery on an alien spaceship baby...

And another one-shot from Dark Horse, this time Beasts of Burden: Hunters & Gatherers.  With the animal guardians of Burden Hill facing off against an invisible giant lizard monster.    And ending with an alliance between the Crows and the Rats.  Who still have their Rat King...

And finally a new Dark Horse Presents.  The main things interest for my in this one would be the "Nexus" story, a Kel McDonald Revolutionary-era balloon crossing of the English channel and the monstery mystery story involving kids teamed with the ghost of Davey Jones...

This issue of Knights of the Dinner Table has lots of Weird Pete. First he finishes up his gig as a temp player to run Dave's character as the UT+1 narrowly avoid total disaster while scouting the region where uber-sword Carvin' Marvin is at rest (though Brian still thinks he has a way to game things to his advantage). And then Pete is with his regular Black Hand group as they spend some time gaming at Newt's swanked out game room...

Astro City continues with the character assassination of Winged Victory, although she gets ongoing assistance from Samaratin and the Confessor (and the Confessor's army of Altar Boy agents)...

The 2nd issue of Dead Boy Detectives is actually from January, but I managed to miss it then. Child of celebrity Crystal struggles to fit in at her new boarding school. Or the place that the titular leads were murdered. Which is part of what she is there to investigate...

In order to force Monkey Wizard to kidnap Princess Painting, Finn and Jake team with expert Princess kidnapper the Ice King in Adventure Time: the Flip Side. Which then involves a jewel heist. For reasons...

And a new Lobster Johnson mini, Lobster Johson: Get the Lobster. With the first issue having some berserk pro-wrestlers...

Invincible Universe has the wedding of Kid Thor and Knockout. And like nearly all super-human weddings it goes...less..than perfectly...

And a new arc of Fatale with Jo taking a more aggresive role and seeming to have a long-term plan that involves former writer Nicolas...

Only one book this week, balancing out the nine from last week.  That one to start the month is a Le Bruiser focused Invincible Universe.  Le Bruiser being the GotG's super-powered pug dog...

Starting off last week's pulls is the new D&Dish Rat Queens.  Which is basically one of those semi-humor What Happens When You Play D&D drunk things, just with an all female group.  Reminds me a bit of Skullkickers, except I actually find this one funny...

"Jane" over on Fatale continues to inspire and destroy the band that has taken her in.  And serial killer Wulf starts to study up on the secret world...

Two things sum up what makes Saga so wonderful this time around.  Someone pukes on the baby.  And Lying Cat + Slave Girl Sophie...

Mouse Guard: Legends of the Guard has a dragon hunt and mole friendship and the danger of too awesome hats.  Plus the cover is as amazing as always (it involves musicians and ghosts)...

The Dark Man is fucking stupid and boring and I refuse to say anything else about the Unwritten until this fucking cross-over ends...

The major event of this Young Avengers is less the cliffhanger at the end then three conversations with Mother at the beginning...

Any pull list that includes some new Empowered is a good week.  And the most recent one-shot, EMpowered: Nine Beers with Ninjette is pretty fucking fantastic.  Because its a Ninjette focused story.  Plus Warren's latest art partner, Takeshi Miyazawa, is both one of the best he's worked with and a perfect fit for a ninja story...

King Conan continues on his quest to retake his kingdom.  Along the way he bloodily destroys some dudes, rescues a noble damsel and finds some allies in a religious cult...

For some reason Dark Horse Presents decided to bring back the "Blood" by Neal Adams.  Its totally incomprehensible and also crazy ugly.  Maybe its the colorist Adams is working with.  On the other hand, while I'm not sure how interested I am in vampire overrun Earth of the Strain I am very interested in seeing more ex-luchador El Angel de Plata and his decision to strap silver crosses to his fists...

I wonder if what makes me really like this two-issue arc of Astro City is that the lead is a heroic call center employee...

Saga takes a look at how everyone who isn't Prince Robot is doing up to the point before the start of the last issue...

Amnesiac Jo in Fatale has the has been rock band that has taken her in on a slow burn of destruction.  Which could be argueably better than the morass of failure they were in before.  Plus how she once turned a kid into a future serial killer...

Invincible Universe opens with a brawl with mind controlled bank robbing gorillas and then moves to super-psychotic South Korean dictators...

Prophet is still very much Prophet.  At this point you're reading and being amazed or not...

Vicious jail brawl between Mako and Savage Dragon.  Plus Malcolm meets his girlfriends parents.  Things go well, in that super-villains don't attack during their dinner...

And finally Adventure Time: Candy Capers where Peppermint Butler teams up Marceline the Vampire and Treetrunks the Tiny Elephant to go out and solve mysteries.  Treetrunks is the maverick on the edge partner...

So the big thing for this week is the return of Astro City, this time around being put out by Vertigo.  In addition to some old faces (including a somewhat surprising call back) we get new characters like American Chibi, the Broken Man and Telseth of the Kvurri.  Also Busiek is still working with Brent Eric Anderson as his artist and Alex Ross on covers...

Also this week, another Empowered one-shot, "Animal Style".  Like the previous Warren only provides a few pages of art, with the majority of the issue, where Emp faces off against a gang of animal-themed power armor dudes robbing a super-car show, done by John Staton and Guru eFX on colors...

A new Knights of the Dinner Table, with the focus split between the regular gang's ongoing campaign (which looks to be moving into place for a big set-up to celebrate the magazine's upcoming 200th issue) and the now runaway hit of Crush's crime rpg campaign...

Invincible Universe has Chubacabre working on the whole making amends Step of his 12 Steps.  Here by visiting the family of Cast Iron, the Serbian hero who died saving him...

And finally Savage Dragon wraps up the whole Yellowthe Claw story arc, clearing off more of the super-powered cast to D.C. and the S.O.S. and a bloody return of Dart II...

Starting off with the final (hopefully temporarily) issue of Saucer Country. With at least one of the ufo mysteries partly solved. Though in an way that opens up more investigations. And with a new POTUS...

Adventure Time with Fionna & Cake opens with flavor text further explaining the situation with Fire Prince. But then moves in focus to Lumpy Space Prince. Which is much like original gender LSP stories, not the best...

Glory also wraps up. With a bit more of Glory's backstory and then a visit to the afterlife...

Angel departs Chicago in Savage Dragon while Dragon's people are slaughtered in space, the Claw rampages and her dad awaits his fate in prison...

So the noble Prince Robot in Saga literally has blue blood. Also you can watch dream flashbacks on his head-screen. Thats got to have lead to awkward moments...

Guarding the Globe is over, only to be replaced by Invincible Universe. Same creative team and a story picking up right after GtG's...

More endings, this time for Godzilla: Half-Century War. And the finale has a three-way battle between big G, Mecha-Godzilla (piloted by Murakami) and space-monsters King Ghidorah and Gigan...

And finishing up with Knights of the Dinner Table where the majority of the focus is split between the Ladies of Hack and Crush's rookie game. Where he's running the rarely seen Crime Nation: RPG...

Only two books this week, balancing seven from last week. Oh and that 1st issue of Brian Wood's Mara that came out Christmas week. Which is a sort of distopian cyberpunk-y thing. With constant wars and professional athletes being groomed from childhood on to be superstars. And then I guess some kind of supers thing is getting mixed in? The end is kind of confusing. I'll probably try at least one more issue...

Then lots of Image, even with my shop running out of Clone's 3rd issue. But a new arc for Fatale, going even further into the past with Jo and creepy cult and another doomed writer and police man...

Prophet visits Earth again. With a lady John Prophet encountering a Prophet-brother who has gone all atavist with a pack of feral humans. Though I didn't even notice until just now that this issue wasn't written by Brandon Graham, but by some dude named Simon Roy...

Savage Dragon is back on Earth, but is being jailed awaiting trial for the crimes committed by Emperor Zur...

Invincible continues fighting Dinosaurus as the rest of the world's heroes deal with the rising ocean levels...

Over on the spin-off Guarding the Globe Outrun confronts some of the stuff done while her body was possessed. And Set, the dude who decimated Paris, gets in a fight with his brother Toth in India...

Glory, her allies and her crazy sister assault her father's home. Where things go in an unexpected direction. Waffles are involved...

Godzilla: the Half-Century War reaches the 80s. And the A.M.F. deploys its newest weapon, MechaGodzilla. Just in time for an even greater and more alien threat to arrive...

We've also got the latest Adventure Time comic spin-off, AdventureTime with Fionna & Cake. Expanding on the gender swapped episode and written and drawn by Natasha Allegri who was behind said episode. Plus a back-up story involving stolen sweaters by Noelle Stevenson of the webcomic Nimona...

And lastly a new Knights of the Dinner Table. Where we get to see how the culture of payback at all costs effects all the gaming groups and their ability to compete at GaryCon...

Only a few books to start off the month. Starting with the finale for Avengers Academy. With everyone sort of graduating into being sort-of-Avengers instead of not-really-Avengers...

Guarding the Globe has a bad guy at a barbershop, the rebuilding of Paris and the main bad guy stealing some Atlantean magic doohickey. But the main focus is on an alien-invasion-of-one in the Mexican desert...

And finally Stumptown has Dex having fun confrontations with both her Down's brother, her friendly D.E.A. agent and her client's ex-girlfriend...

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...