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The Pull List: Action Comics, Avengers, Eternity Girl, Infidel, Judas, Marvel Two-in-One, Vampironica, & more!

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The Pull List was slightly lighter this week than the past three, partially due to me not managing to pick up any additional ongoings from Marvel or DC. I made a heroic effort to catch all the way up with Doctor Strange, but fell an arc short.

This week’s comics felt a little ho-hum for me, with even typical standouts like Flash and Paradiso falling flat. However, it also brought not one but two near-perfect comics, plus one unexpectedly great debut.

Here’s The Pull List for the 14th of March, 2018. New adds to the pull list are marked with *; dropped titles are marked with #.

Artwork from Infidel #1 cover by Aaron Campbell & José Villarrubia

  • DC Comics
    • Action Comics (2016) #999
    • Batgirl and The Birds of Prey (2016) #20
    • Detective Comics (2016) #976
    • *Eternity Girl (2018) #1
    • The Flash (2016) #42
    • Mister Miracle (2017) #7
    • Sideways (2018) #2
    • Suicide Squad (2016) #37
    • Titans (2016) #21
    • Trinity (2016) #19
    • Wonder Woman (2016) #42
  • Image Comics
    • Bonehead (2018) #3
    • *#Dry County (2018) #1
    • *Infidel (2018) #1
    • Paradiso (2017) #4
    • #Sleepless (2017) #4
    • Slots (2017) #6
    • VS (2018) #2
  • Marvel Comics
    • All-New Wolverine (2016) #32
    • Astonishing X-Men (2017) #9
    • Avengers (2017) #684
    • Marvel Two-in-One (2018) #4
    • New Mutants – Dead Souls (2018) #1
    • Old Man Logan (2016) #36
    • Weapon X (2017) #15
    • X-Men: Blue (2017) #23
  • Smaller Publishers: Aftershock Comics, Archie Comics, Black Mask Studios, & Boom! Studios
    • Judas (2017) #4, Boom! Studios
    • *Come Into Me (2018) #1, Black Mask Studios
    • *Vampironica (2018) #1, Archie Comics
    • *Betrothed (2018) #1, Aftershock Comics

Before we begin, a reminder that 2.5 stars on my rating scale is an average comic book and my bell curve distribution peaks at 3/5 stars! Don’t freak out and assume a comic book is terrible because it has 2 stars. That means it’s just a hair below average (and there are a lot of those this week)

Picks of the Pull

Big Two (Marvel/DC) Pick of the Week:
Action Comics (2016) #999, DC Comics

Dan Jurgens leaves us with a truly perfect, contemplative issue of Superman that puts a wrap on his stellar Rebirth run but also addresses his writing from over 25 years ago, as beautifully rendered by artist Will Conrad and colorist Ivan Nunes.

In Metropolis, Lois is newly reunited with her estranged Army General father after saving him from execution in the last arc. It’s his first time meeting Jon (sort of), but General Lane isn’t in on the Superman secret, so he thinks Jon is a regular kid. That makes it even more tense as Lois and her father square off across the dinner table about the philosophy of Superman. Jon has never been exposed to this kind of hatred and xenophobia about his father before – which is also, by extension, aimed at him.

Meanwhile, Superman is in space dealing with a routine chore of breaking up an asteroid that will stray a bit too close to Earth for STAR Labs liking. Superman is thinking about fathers – General Lane, his own father Jor-El, as well as Zod – all of whom were tangled in the cross-time plot he just wrapped with Booster Gold.

Superman can see the errors in the ways of each of those parents and they in turn reflect his errors back upon him. Clark Kent is good-natured to a fault, but he’s not always right. General Lane isn’t entirely wrong about him – sometimes his absolute power corrupts him, both in how he metes out justice and in how he isn’t accustomed to apologizing for his actions.

As a result, Superman decides to put right two wrongs. One is with Hank Henshaw, the Cyborg Superman, who he currently has imprisoned in the Phantom Zone. The other, eventually is General Lane. [Read more…] about The Pull List: Action Comics, Avengers, Eternity Girl, Infidel, Judas, Marvel Two-in-One, Vampironica, & more!

This Week in X: All-New Wolverine #32, Astonishing X-Men #9, New Mutants – Dead Souls #1, Old Man Logan #36, Weapon X #15, & X-Men Blue #23

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It’s the eleventh week of new comics in 2018, and This Week in X has six new titles to review – so many that I mistakenly omitted one the first time I edited this video. I’ve never had to count as high as six before!

This week, I cover:

  • All-New Wolverine #32, a pleasant (if pandering) one-shot epilogue to “Orphans of X”
  • Astonishing X-Men #9, a dull middle chapter that does a lot of telling rather than showing
  • New Mutants – Dead Souls #1, a solid hit for lovers of every era of New Mutants
  • Old Man Logan #36, which flirts with some heavy themes before turning into a MacGuffin hunt
  • Weapon X #15, a surprisingly satisfying (and unsurprisingly bloody) tussle
  • X-Men Blue #23, far and away the best issue of this series and a return to form for Cullen Bunn

Learn more about how each of those series reached their current issues and hear which ones I’d recommend picking up.

The Pull List: Avengers, Death of Love, Detective Comics, The Flash, Paradiso, Sideways, & more!

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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!

This Week In X: Cable #154, Old Man Logan #35, Weapon X #14, & X-Men: Blue #21

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It’s the seventh week of new comics in 2018, and This Week in X brings the end of three arcs and the next chapter of a crossover.

Cable #154 ends the bad math of a time traveling Externals arc and the end of Ed Brisson’s run, but Brisson continues after the end of a strong Scarlet Samurai story in Old Man Logan #35.

Weapon X #14 ends it’s Nuke arc, which was maybe about Warpath all along?

Finally, X-Men Blue #21 brings us the second chapter of “Poison-X,” a deep space team-up with Eddie Brock as Venom by Cullen Bunn.

Plus, a must-buy collected edition: the New Mutants by Zeb Wells Complete Collection!

The Pull List, Jan. 31, 2018: Dark Ark, Detective Comics, Moon Knight, Reactor, The Realm, and more!

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My pull list keeps growing in size as I get caught up with more current comic books! I read 21 new comics released earlier this week on January 31 – and I would have read even more if I managed to catch up on my Superman reading in time for these reviews!

Here’s The Pull List for the week, as broken out by publisher (though they’re reviewed in alpha order, below).

  • Aftershock Comics: Dark Ark (2017) #5
  • Amigo Comics: Call of the Suicide Forest (2018)
  • Dark Horse Comics: Hungry Ghosts (2018) #1
  • DC Comics: Dark Nights: Metal #5, Detective Comics (2016) Annual 1, Milk Wars (2018) JLA/Doom Patrol Special, Mystik U (2018) #2, The Silencer (2018)
  • IDW Publishing: Dread Gods (2017) #3
  • Image Comics: Bonehead (2018) #2, God Complex: Dogma (2017) #4, The Realm (2017) #5, Void Trip (2017) #3
  • Marvel Comics: Avengers (2017) #678, All-New Wolverine (2016) #30, Captain Marvel (2017) #128, Jean Grey (2017) #11, Moon Knight (2017) #191, Old Man Logan (2016) #34, Phoenix Resurrection: The Return of Jean Grey (2018) #5
  • Vault Comics: Maxwell’s Demons (2017) #2, Reactor (2017) #2, Songs For The Dead (2018) #1

As you will discover below, I am not shy about giving low ratings to comic books. A lot of sites shy away from covering comics they think are weak or bad, but I think that does the fans and industry a disservice. We can’t only talk about comics that are brilliant or at least better-than-average – that signals a death of critical discourse!

I’m just as interested in the weak books as the strong ones, because they help set the standard of what’s great in comics and the tough reviews might still help those books find fans.

Enough chatter – let’s take a look at my top Big Two and Indie books of the week before getting to the full list.

Top Marvel/DC Comic of The Week

Detective Comics (2016) Annual 1, DC Comics

A stunningly good tragic origin story for Clayface with the best artwork I’ve ever seen from Eddie Barrows, which is really saying something because I always love Eddie Barrows.

This is the kind of comic book single issue you can hand to a brand new fan who only vaguely knows the Batman mythos. Tom King has been knocking out terrific one-offs like that on Batman, but this James Tynion story is different in that it delves into the core of an existing character instead of inventing a new plot.

My understanding is that this departs a bit from the established Clayface original, which we’ve seen several times in the past – so, I appreciate if some regular Bat-readers aren’t into getting more of it. However, considering the events of the recently concluded story arc in Detective, this feels like the perfect time to reestablish Basil’s origin.

Top Indie Comic of the Week

The Realm (2017) #5, Image Comics

4.5 starsThis comic is on fire!

The Realm has quickly become one of my favorite comics on the stands with its blend of post-apocalyptic terrain with fantastical monsters out of a Dungeons and Dragons campaign. This issue has a downright wild amount of siege action coming from every which direction, which puts the central quest on hold while our protagonists fight for their lives. (They aren’t all successful in that fight.)

There are major shades of Helms Deep here, with the goblins trying to breech the wall of a make-shift city. The action was frantic, but never hard to follow. It even revealed some new information about our characters in the midst of the chaos. There was some wonderful panelling to build tension to a fever pitch during the battering ram portion, but it also gave us several moments to reveal things about our cast…

…the ones that survive, anyhow.

And now, on to the other 19 comics I read that were released on January 31, 2018!

[Read more…] about The Pull List, Jan. 31, 2018: Dark Ark, Detective Comics, Moon Knight, Reactor, The Realm, and more!

This Week in X: Phoenix Resurrection: The Return of Jean Grey concludes, plus All-New Wolverine #30, Jean Grey #11, and Old Man Logan #34

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It’s the fifth week of new comics in 2018, and it’s a climactic week for the X-Men!

Tom Taylor and the stellar art team of Juan Cabal and Nolan Woodard wrap up the “Orphans of X” arc in All-New Wolverine #30. Jean Grey goes through an unexpected transformation in Jean Grey #11. Our aged Logan has a brief reunion with a lost love and then the plot lurches onward in Old Man Logan #34. And, finally Phoenix Resurrection: The Return of Jean Grey concludes with issue #5 and … you guessed it, the return of Jean Grey!

I was underwhelmed by the conclusions of both Jean Grey books, which felt much ado about nothing to me. It would have been more interesting to have Jean appear out of nowhere. I have a lot more to say about this on this week’s “This Week In X”!