Donny Cates

I’ve managed to one-up last week’s edition of The Pull List! This week, the list is a whopping 27 issues deep – one more than last week. However, its also a tick worse, with an aggregate rating of 3.055 compared to 3.17.

What did I pull this week? I caught up with Birds of Prey, Flash, and Titans to add to my DC pull list, sampled four new number ones, and dropped a pair of weak books. Here’s what I reviewed in brief:

• DC Comics
  • Batgirl and The Birds of Prey (2016) #19
  • Detective Comics (2016) #974
  • The Flash (2016) #40
  • Sideways (2017) #1
  • Titans (2016) #20
  • Wonder Woman (2016) #40
• Image Comics
  • Dark Fang (2017) #4
  • Death of Love (2018) #1
  • Paradiso (2017) #3
  • Port of Earth (2017) #4
  • Sleepless (2018) #3
  • Slots (2017) #5
  • Twisted Romance (2018) #2
• Marvel Comics
  • Avengers (2017) #680
  • Cable (2017) #154
  • Captain America (2017) #698
  • Marvel Two-in-One (2018) #3
  • Old Man Logan (2016) #35
  • Weapon X (2017) #14
  • X-Men: Blue (2017) #21
• Smaller Publishers: Aftershock, Boom! Studios, Dark Horse, Dynamite, & Zenescope
  • Babyteeth (2017) #8, Aftershock Comics
  • Barbarella (2017) #3, Dynamite Entertainment
  • Black Sable (2017) #4, Zenescope Entertainment
  • Cold War (2018) #1, Aftershock Comics
  • Giants (2018) #3, Dark Horse
  • Judas (2017) #3, Boom! Studios
  • Xena (2018) #1, Dynamite Entertainment

Pick of the Pull

Big Two (Marvel/DC) Issue of the Week: The Flash (2016) #40, DC Comics

I have never before been so viscerally scared of Grodd. He is utterly terrifying here, and I was really concerned that we could be seeing the end of Flash at multiple points – and, in a way, we did.

Joshua Williamson is proving that he is one of the best writers in the business with this constantly thrumming plot that has been building non-stop rising action for 40 straight issues. While you could easily jump right one with every arc, each of them builds off of everything that came before. That means this run has notched itself as the third or fourth best extended Flash run of all time in under two years, and it shows no immediate signs of stopping.

Carmine Di Giandomenico continues to stun on artwork with vivid coloring from
Ivan Plascencia. This issue includes some of the most inventive action paneling I can think of reading in recent memory. The paneling of Avery catching the lighting rod is breathtaking.

An A+ book through and through, with a thrilling final moment.

Best Small-Pub Issue of the Week: Giants (2018) #3, Dark Horse Comics

There’s no denying the craft, power, and charm of Giants. For a third issue in a row The Valderrama Brothers. turn in a beautiful, action-packed comic full of heart.

We begin our story with Zedo, the boy left for dead who is now making a cavalier power-play to control the gangs of the underworld. Only a child could see things as so black and white, yet both in the last issue and here he is making vicious choices that he can’t take back.

In stark contrast, Gogi has found a group of other children who are necessarily tough but still enduringly kind. Their acceptance and willingness to give without asking anything in return is alien to Gogi. At first he resists it, then he resents it, but finally he understand that’s it’s easier to live openly then be on guard and full of distrust.

Gogi’s journey from underground child to hero in the wider wider stands in stark contrast to Zedo’s dark turn at the end of this issue. Neither boy can entirely blame fate, nor can he say that the choices were all his own. That makes Giants a powerful allegory for the role of environment on our lot in life.

We might not all be fighting giant monsters, but we’re frequently either the child who ran away or the child that was left behind. [Read more…] about The Pull List: Avengers, Death of Love, Detective Comics, The Flash, Paradiso, Sideways, & more!