2023 Comics in Review - Part 5

As the first Snowpocalypse of the year descends, we conclude this review of last year's books by ranking them through my entirely arbitrary and undefined criteria.

Favorite Ongoing Series (min. 6 issues):

1. Fantastic Four

2. Moon Knight

That's it, that's the list. There are only three other titles that even shipped 6 issues, and those were all mini-series. This is not a strong category. MacKay didn't seem to have nearly as much plot for this Black Spectre arc as he had issues to put it in, which is why I went with Fantastic Four, where Ryan North stuck to 1-2 issue stories, with an appropriate amount of stuff. I do like the Cappuccio/Rosenberg art team more than anything we got on FF, but I had five issues of that.

Favorite Mini-Series (at least 50% shipped in 2023):

1. Coda

2. Great British Bump-Off

3. Unstoppable Doom Patrol

There ended up being 15 mini-series that met the criteria, but I dismissed a half-dozen of those on the grounds I didn't like them enough to keep them. Of what remained, some books were weak in story (Clobberin' Time, Space Outlaws), others were weaker in art (Grit n Gears), and some were just OK (Ms. Marvel - The New Mutant.) Coda isn't not done, Spurrier and Bergara could still flub the ending, but it's felt like such a well-done book on the writing and art I gave it the edge of Great British Bump-Off, which suffers from my disinterest in cooking shows, and a lackluster mystery.

Favorite One-Shot:

1. Werewolf by Night

2. Impossible Jones Team-Up

3. Blood Run

Things like Sudden Death and Deadfellows, which only shipped one issue but ended with "To Be Continued," did not qualify. Which limited the field somewhat. Blood Run was ridiculous in a good way, but let Cardoselli go nuts, and Impossible Team-Up had its moments, but Werewolf by Night felt like the strongest entry overall.

Favorite Trade Paperback/Graphic Novel (anything purchased in 2023):

1. Mage and the Endless Unknown - SJ Miller

2. Star Power and the Lonely War - Michael Terracciano and Garth Graham

3. The Terrifics: The Tomorrow War - Gene Luen Yang, Stephen Segovia, Sergio Davila and a lot of other people

Bit of a mixed year for tpbs. Lotta swings and misses, lotta things that were OK, but not great. A few winners, though. Mage and the Endless Unknown was a largely silent book about a mage exploring the world, encountering some nice people but also a lot of horrors and gradually being ground down by the whole experience. Not cheerful, but the simplified, innocent looking figures make the lousy stuff they experience hit a little harder. The fourth Star Power volume likewise got rough with its main character, but avoided being a joyless slog through the difficulties of stopping a war. The Terrifics collection was just a lot of comics with some concepts either introduced or used I liked a lot.

Favorite Manga (anything purchased in 2023):

1. No Longer Allowed in Another World volume 1 - Hiroshi Noda & Takahiro Wakamatsu

2. The Boxer volume 3 - JH

3. Planetes volume 1 - Makoto Yukimura

I did better with the manga I tried this year (still a few whiffs, though.) No Longer Allowed in Another World consistently cracked me up, and I greatly identified with a protagonist who isn't really interested in the great conflict raging across the land he's been dumped into. Volume 3 of The Boxer was about the point I figured out JH was using the main character more as a way to examine what responses he brings out of the people he faces, as we see what someone who understands what he's facing will do to try and meet the challenge. I bought the second Planetes omnibus on sale at a bookstore that no longer exists, in a mall that barely does, years ago. So it was nice to see how things got to the point they did.

Favorite Writer:

1. Hiroshi Noda

2. Si Spurrier

3. John Allison

This one was hard. There weren't many writers I bought more than one thing from, and the ones I did (Jed MacKay, Si Spurrier) were hit-or-miss. It's hard to judge off just one thing. I went with Hiroshi Noda because not only does No Longer Allowed. . . make me laugh, I like the way he plays around with how different characters behave and why and what they're running from (while wondering when we'll see what "Sensei" is really running from.)

As for Spurrier, Uncanny Spider-Man may not have knocked my socks off, but Coda's been excellent. Especially in what the characters do and don't say to each other or themselves. And even if I wasn't impressed with the mystery aspect of Great British Bump-Off, Allison's writing is always clever and funny, and that'll carry it a fair distance with me.

Favorite Artist (min. 110 pages drawn in 2023):

1. Chris Burnham

2. Alessandro Cappuccio

3. Henry Ponciano

Cappucio's got a very sharp-edged, clean style that I can appreciate, especially with Rosenberg's colors over it, but he tends to skimp on the details as a result, and while I think part of it is about Moon Knight having tried to keep his life simple and with limited attachments, it does work against the book at times. It's hard to feel like Moon Knight's protecting anyone when the streets and buildings he moves through seem deserted. Burnham's characters are a lot squishier, messier, and there's stuff going on all around. Again, I think it fits this book as Cappuccio mostly does Moon Knight. Unstoppable Doom Patrol was also about all the characters as people and their lives, desires, all that jazz. Nobody's much paring their life down to just work there. Ponciano's on here as much for his color work, because I thought it was excellent and really brought the imagery to life.

If I removed the page limit, Matias Bergara and Max Sarin would probably be 1 & 2 in some order.

And with that, we're done. Regular blog features resume tomorrow.

2023 Comics in Review - Part 4

As with 2022, 8 artists drew 110 pages this year, although no one broke the 154 page mark. Alex Lins (the closest thing to a high point that Hellcat mini-series had) and Alessandro Cappuccio at 110 pages each (though Cappuccio would be higher if I'd found Moon Knight #25), and Paolo Villanelli (Captain Marvel: Dark Tempest) at 111 pages. Federico Sabbatini drew 120 pages on Moon Knight, and then the other 4 artists are within 6 pages of each other. Henry Ponciano (Fallen) at 134, and Chris Burnham (Unstoppable Doom Patrol) at 135. Nahuel SB (Grit n Gears) had 139 pages, which left him one shy of the leader for 2023, Iban Coello, with 140 pages on Fantastic Four.

Sgt. Rock vs. the Army of the Dead #5, 6: The wrap-up to the Bruce Cmpbell/Eduardo Risso mini-series sees Easy Company storm the targeted bunker, only to find an amped-up on steroids Undead Hitler! But that's no match for Rock's willingness to call in another bombing strike on his and Adolf's position. For some reason, in these issues Campbell gives Rock internal narration boxes, which he didn't do for the first 4 issues. No idea why he made that change.

Space Outlaws #1, 2: Written and drawn by Marco Fontanili, this is about a parasitic alien that escapes a Martian prison and flees to Earth (still in the Wild West), only to have what is essentially a Terminator sent after it. A book that's definitely more style than substance, but very stylish.

Sudden Death #1: Like Deadfellows, a first issue that hasn't, to date, received any follow-up. This one's about a man who's very nervous and unsure of himself, until he somehow comes back from the dead, completely uninjured, several hours after being hit by a car and becomes a celebrity. Of course there's a catch, though nobody knows it yet.

Tiger Division #3-5: While the title would suggest the mini-series is about the South Korean super-team, it's really just about Taegukgi, who is the flying brick on the team, and apparently spent a portion of his youth being a thief and running gambling rackets before getting superpowers and turning his life around.

High Point: I don't know, Dr. Doom showed up, pulled the rug out from under Taegukgi's childhood friend turned crime boss tycoon. That was an OK guest appearance.

Low Point: I covered it (repeatedly) while reviewing the issues, but I would have liked to learn more about the other characters, not just Taegukgi, but they're barely even in the book. Might as well be cardboard cutouts in the background.

Total Party Killer #1: I just reviewed this last week, but a young adventurer joins a party and finds it's not everything she hoped for, between the violence and general lack of compassion or camaraderie. But then there's a big twist on the last two pages that didn't do much for me.

Uncanny Spider-Man #1-5: Si Spurrier dresses Nightcrawler up as Spider-Man and has him avoid dealing with bigger problems to catch purse snatchers and flirt incorrigibly. That can't last, and it doesn't. Lee Garbett drew issues 1, 2, 4 and most of 5, Javier Pina drew issue 3, and Simone Buonfantino drew the remainder of issue 5.

High Point: Swashbuckling, wisecrack-attempting, charming Nightcrawler is my preferred version of the fuzzy elf, so that part was A-OK with me. I would have liked watching him contend with more Spider-Man enemies. Fight the Scorpion! Fight Hydro-Man! The various baggage - the magic sword, the little Bamf ghost - were not things I was terribly interested in, but Spurrier incorporated them without making a mess.

The retcon to Kurt's birth is something I'm indifferent to, so long as they aren't trying to pretend Mystique's not been a shit parent (also a shit person) her entire life.

Low Point: Spurrier's version of Silver Sable seemed too unprofessional. Vulture working for ORCHIS out of some (subliminally) stoked resentment over the mutants' immortality wasn't a bad idea, but the techno-organic virus is a bit out of his wheelhouse. Bring back one of the Symthes or something. Garbett's art was rougher, leaning heavier on thicker black lines, the further along the series got.

Unstoppable Doom Patrol #1-7: Spinning out of Lazarus Planet (which I didn't read), and briefly interrupted by that weird summer event about everyone falling asleep, this was the Doom Patrol as classic X-Men concept of finding people with strange or dangerous powers and giving them a safe place to live, while also training them to protect themselves and maybe others. Chris Burnham drew all of it except issue 4, which was drawn by David LaFuente.

High Point: The annoying corporate techbro in issue 5, who thinks he's going to "disrupt" Caulder's method of superpowers via catastrophe into something more marketable. And of course, he's not fazed by a complete failure, but he's got plenty of government funding, even without results.

Burnham's designs for the new characters were distinctive, even if most of them didn't really get enough time to distinguish themselves as characters. LaFuente's more exaggerated, cartoon-like art fit the tone of issue 4, the psychiatric evaluations were we see the character's perceptions of themselves, very well.

Culver not doing the tired bit of having Caulder be so bitter about being usurped that he undermines the team.

Low Point: Having Peacemaker (somehow placed in charge of hunting down the Doom Patrol) with his own, off-brand, Sentinels for the Doom Patrol to fight was maybe winking a little too hard at the X-Men comp. But no, the low point is the reveal at the end of issue 7, where we see that the team may, in future adventures, have to contend with the Batwoman Who Laughs. Ugh, the whole concept needs to be chucked in the deepest, hottest burning trashhole there is.

Werewolf by Night #1: A one-off about an unexpected team-up between Elsa Bloodstone and Jack Russell, each on separate trails to a crazed sorcerer trying to bring an otherworldly horror to Earth. Fran Galan keeps everything except Elsa in black-and-white until after the fighting's done, marking her as out-of-place in the conflict. Which is kind of an odd approach for a woman from a line of monster-hunters, but Derek Landy writes Elsa as more of a thrill-seeker than a hardened, caustic fighter, so it fits.

West Moon Chronicle #2, 3: This feels like the start of what is meant to be a bigger story, seeing as Maddy needs to get back to that other world and rescue her child, and that doesn't happen. The best they can manage is keeping the fox spirit from stealing the dragon's, life force, I think. Anyway, Joe Boccardo really draws the hell out of it. There's a great couple of pages about Maddy's entry to the other world, where her experiences are a border around a larger image of her bursting through the water to the other side.

West of Sundown #8-10: Turns out trusting businessmen working for a mysterious benefactor (who wants to experiment on people) is a bad idea. Who knew? Seeley and Campbell leave the door open for further stories down the line (possibly involving Dracula), but who knows if they'll ever exist.

High Point: The visions of what Griffin sees in issue 9 after Moreau "prepares" his mind for the new parts he's going to provide is nice. Jim Terry mostly doesn't get too weird, even when drawing someone with the head of a bear attached to their stomach, but it does make the time he cuts loose more effective.

The different ways in which they have Rosa use her abilities. For example, having her use her command of night creatures to make the different ones that comprise Anne's body separate. It's gruesome, but points for creativity.

Low Point: After establishing that Rosa's working with these businessmen because they'll bring in scum Dooley won't object to her feeding from, that issue is never really resolved. I mean, the businessmen are dead, and so presumably is their promised railroad and all the scofflaws that would follow.

Also, I was never clear on why Dooley and the others needed to drink peyote and go wandering through the desert just to find Moreau's train. Seemed really inefficient.

Wild Cosmos #1: Another first issue from Scout Comics, about a captain of a crew of salvagers who agrees to rescue someone from a planet in exchange for his last surviving crew member. Again, no further issues have arrived, but this felt so thinly plotted and paced and visually uninteresting I wouldn't buy the next issue anyway.

2023 Comics in Review - Part 3

Just like 2022, I bought comics from 13 different publishers in 2023. This time, 8 of the 13 each constituted less than 5% (Aftershock, Whatnot, Dynamite, Image, Vault, Boom!, Dark Horse, Mad Cave.) Scout was the only publisher besides Marvel to break 10%, with 12.6%, a drop from the 15% it managed in '22. It still did a lot better than 2022's #3 & 4 companies. Image and Vault both dropped to 3 books apiece this year (Vault would have done a little better if Lone ever showed up.)

In 2022, publishers #2-4 at least came close to equaling Marvel (54 to 51.) In 2023, even with publishers #2-5 (Red 5 and Blood Moon tied for 4th place), they're still behind Marvel 59 to 36. And early returns this year have not suggested that trend is likely to change. But maybe some books will catch my eye later in the spring.

Impossible Team-Up: Impossible Jones/Captain Lightning #1: A one-shot about semi-reformed thief Impossible Jones getting roped into guarding a mysterious rock from one of Karl Kesel's other creations, Section Zero. Captain Lightning not trusting Jones, and Jones knowing this and that he probably shouldn't trust her, adds a little tension to story, but it's overall an OK little one-shot.

It's Jeff! and It's Jeff!: The Jeffverse: They're technically both numbered as first issues, but it's all collections of Kelly Thompson and the Guruhiru team's online strips featuring Jeff the Landshark. Most of them are alternately adorable or hilarious as Jeff hangs out with either superheroes, various pets, or just random people. The latter usually terrified at first, but then more friendly once they figure out Jeff probably isn't going to bite their leg off at the knee. The Halloween costume strip in particular was pretty funny, both for how Jeff looks and how Kate Bishop and Gwenpool react.

Liquid Kill #1, 2: It was supposed about a group of lady soldiers invading an island to rescue their mentor, but the first issue focused on one member's backstory, and the second issue was more focused on the concierge at the party taking place on the island. Felt like I was wasting my time and money. Moral of the story, when all the company's solicitations focus more on who drew a given variant cover than anything about what's inside the book, it's a bad sign.

Mary Jane and Black Cat - Dark Web #2-5: I was not particularly interested in Dark Web, but it was Jed MacKay writing the Black Cat, so I figured it was worth a try. Felicia and Mary Jane get pulled into Limbo by Belasco, who wants them to steal his soulsword from an intense prison, or they won't be able to get home.

High Point: Vicenzo Carratu's design on the prison was cool. MJ and Felicia having actually become friends over the years is a development I'm in favor of.

I can't decide how I feel about Mary Jane having a slot machine-themed "H" dial. Is it crazy fun or crazy stupid? Might have helped if MacKay and Carratu hadn't gotten weirder with the powers she was pulling, akin to China Mieville's Dial H series. If you're gonna do it, do it BIG, or do it WEIRD.

Low Point: That much of the conflict stems from Black Cat's worry MJ's going to be mad Felicia's dating Peter Parker, as if MJ owns the guy. Especially after Amazing Spider-Man had spent months portraying MJ as wanting nothing to do with Peter.

The reframing of S'ym as some big, lovable lug that will deal honestly and fairly with a person, and is therefore a decent person to form an opposition to Maddy Pryor in Limbo. S'ym is a lying sack of crap that manipulated someone who thought they were just dreaming. He is not, "Ben Grimm, but Purple."

Midnight Western Theatre: Witch Trial #1, 2, 4: A prequel to the first mini-series, showing some of what happened to Ortensia after she survived the attempt to sacrifice her. Though the final issue isn't out yet, it's going to show how she got to the point of traveling and dealing with various mean beasties of the night. It's still Louis Southard writing, but Butch Mapa's taken over as artist from David Hahn.

High Point: I'm oddly amused that Ortensia simply named her horse, "Horse." It feels like it was done as a sullen teenage act of rebellion, but it somehow fits her no-nonsense approach as an adult, too. Everyone kicking the crap out of the Plague Doctor, who has clearly been playing his cards close to the vest for a long time, has a certain entertainment value.

I don't know if it's Mapa or series colorist Sean Peacock, but the art's very good at being ominous, or using a bit of suggestion for effect. Corson's demon form being a barely outlined glowing white shape of pointed edges, the massive green shadow where Ortensia's alleged future lurks.

Low Point: I feel as though issue 3 could either be something I really like, or that really frustrates me. So at the moment, I'm mostly annoyed I haven't gotten my hands on a copy yet.

Moon Knight #19-24, 26-30: Yeah, I never found a copy of #25 at a price I would pay. Basically this entire year is Moon Knight and Co. trying to figure out who is behind a series of wildly different schemes, and then trying to stop Black Spectre once they figure out he's the one. Alessandro Cappucio drew half the issues, and Federico Sabbatini drew the other half, with Rachelle Rosenberg on colors the whole way through.

High Point: I know he's supposed to be commander of a ship, but Commodore Danny Planet looks like a doorman. The visual of Moon Knight getting his ass kicked by a doorman in #19 is another of those things that amuses me.

Rosenberg normally keeps the colors sharply divided, but she blurred and smeared them as time was running out for Moon Knight in #30.

The "dream worlds" issue (#24), and the spotlight issue on Tigra (#22.) Nice to see her get some focus as a capable hero, even if having her date Marc Spector is a terrible idea (which MacKay also did nothing with, so he might as well not even have bothered.)

Low Point: I never need an appearance by Venom (#23), but I wasn't fond of issue 27, where Marc uses the creepy guy from the first issue's sweat to allow he and Hunter's Moon to enter Vibro's comatose mind for answers. That's a goofy enough concept to be cool, but Sabbatini could have done more with the look of the mindscape, and it wasn't much progress for the number of pages.

Ms. Marvel: The New Mutant #1-4: So, they killed Kamala Khan in Amazing Spider-Man, of all places. Then brought her back as a mutant with no mutation (yet), and she agrees to help the X-Men by attending a college run by ORCHIS, while trying to deal with this new revelation on top of everything else. Iman Vellani and Sabir Pirzada writing, Carlos Gomez and Adam Gorham as artist, although I never did figure out the breakdown of responsibilities between the latter, especially given the shift in art style from the dream sequences to the waking world.

High Point: Vellani and Pirzada capture the character's voice in her attempts to deal with all the different ways she's being pulled. The pressure she puts on herself, the questions about how being a mutant changes who she is. I mean, we saw all that when the character was first created and learned she was an Inhuman, but work with the hand dealt, eh? Likewise, the friendship between Kamala and Bruno, handled well. Kamala even helping the Omega Sentinel when she was trapped and damaged under rubble. Probably a bad idea in the longterm, but true to the character.

I'm sure we'll see movie-similar mutant powers eventually, but I appreciate those weren't the out for the battle against the Stark Sentinel in the last issue.

Low Point: Would have liked to see more about Kamala dealing with having died, especially with the fact none of her parents or most of her friends know anything about it. Some of the facial expressions were stiff and unnatural, trying too hard to look real and hitting that uncanny valley.

Nature's Labyrinth #3-6: The game of death continued and concluded, as the contestants and their surroundings ground each other down.

High Point: The bizarre nature of the arena. The shifting walls and floors, the smug animatronic guides. Bayleigh Underwood really makes it seem like a place a person would doubt their sanity after a short time visiting. It's a less lethal (and annoying) Murderworld, run by a trio of lunatics.

While I doubt these characters could sustain as much damage as they do before actually dying, the apparent goal is bloody violence, and Underwood fulfills that goal. People get sliced up, fingers bitten off, burnt, arms crushed. But everyone's trying to get something, whether it's money, fame or answers, and so everything it on the table for them. Whatever it takes.

Low Point: Thompson leaves several things unexplained or unanswered. The ambiguity is part of the point, I suppose, that J may never know if she was sent to shut this down, or sent to be killed by higher-ups that didn't like her snooping. But the constant allusions to what Naz did (which he insists he didn't), without ever actually telling us, got tedious.

Tomorrow, a lot of mini-series and scattered issues as we wrap up the remainder of the titles.

2023 Comics in Review - Part 2

I ended up at 119 new comics purchased in 2023, which down 20 from last year, but still 12 up from 2021. The total should have been higher, but there were a lot of things solicited that never showed (Black Jack Demon, Lone, an Impossible Jones one-shot), others that are running late (Space Outlaws, probably that Grit n Gears one-shot), and a couple things I either couldn't find or couldn't find at a price I would pay. Still, I'm about where I was in both 2016 and 2019. Maybe 10 books/month is my level.

Marvel went up slightly in total books (59, up from 54), but that translated to a big jump in percent (49.58, up from 38.85). DC held steady at 9 books, but still increased from 6.47% to 7.56%. It was the other publishers who took the hit, going from 76 comics down to 51. Even if all the things that didn't show had arrived, the total would still only be 60.

Fantastic Four #3-14: Ryan North did bring the team back together in issue 4, in the process explaining why they separated in the first place. After that, the book became a series of 1-2 issues stories about the 4 dealing with various weird problems with science and teamwork. Iban Coello drew 6 issues, including a double-sized issue #7 (which is also issue 700, because Marvel numbering nonsense.) Ivan Fiorelli drew 5 of the other issues, with the remainder being a more horror-themed issue drawn by Leandro Fernandez.

High Point: Issue 7, where Doom tries again and again to devise an outcome to the attack on New York that caused the team to split up that doesn't turn out worse than Richards. I do like how North writes Doom, even when he's playing him more straight than he did in Unbeatable Squirrel Girl.

T-rex Dr. Doom in issues 12 and 13. I honestly was not enthused for the "Dino-Earth" issues, but I ended up enjoying them fairly well, even if it doesn't feel like it makes a bit of sense if I pull at any threads. I had higher hopes for issue 10 (the aforementioned horror issue), and I was satisfied. Leandro Fernandez' people look strange even when we aren't looking at them through alien eyes, but for the period where we are looking at them through alien eyes, it's very effective playing at how disturbing the FF could seem to someone else.

Unlike some people (Zeb Wells), North didn't drag the mystery of why everyone was mad at the FF out for 2 years, getting it out of the way in just 4 issues.

Low Point: While I appreciate North not dragging the mystery out, I don't need another story where Reed unilaterally makes decisions that impact everyone without consulting them, but you can't be mad because he's sad about it, really! Also, issue 5, where the Salem Seven reverse their molecules and Reed reverses it by stretching 4th-dimensionally and spinning the entire team like a centrifuge? Yeah, that didn't make a lot of sense to me.

Great British Bump-Off #1-4: John Allison and Max Sarin team-up with a murder mystery (sort of) set in a British baking show. One of the contestants, who I think is a supporting cast member from one of Allison's other stories, vows to solve the mystery, as long as she can hang in the competition long enough.

High Point: I think I've said this most every year since I started reading Giant Days, but I love Sarin's art work. So expressive, so good at exaggeration for comedic effect, and to different levels. If all the story needs is for someone to look brilliantly, disgustingly cheerful, Sarin can do that easy. But if one of the judges need to be shifted into some shadowy, negative-space horror as she verbally dissects a contestant's cake, Sarin can do that, and it all works. None of it looks out of place or strained.

I don't watch cooking shows in general, let alone contests, but the different challenges and the contestants creations were pretty funny. The movie-themed cake, where the bus driver does an homage to Speed, while the nerd tries to sum up the first 3 phases of the MCU in one baked good, were pretty funny.

Low Point: It didn't feel like much of a mystery, in that I don't think Allison was really encouraging us to try and solve it alongside Shauna. So I was, much like the nerdy character, reduced to trying to play the odds on which trope Allison would use for the killers' motivation. Probably an issue of my expectations more than Allison's writing, but oh well.

Grit n Gears #1-6: A automaton created to be a lawman, turned outlaw when zealots demand all automatons be killed, tries to keep himself, the daughter of his creator, and a bunch of ungrateful meatbags from being killed by another automaton lawman gone bad.

High Point: While writer Angel Fuentes never explains exactly how Screw Driver or Razorfist perceive music from the future, I did get a laugh at what it was Razorfist saw that drove him to decide humanity needed to go. It was just so unexpected.

At least a few people standing up to the bigoted, self-serving hypocrite of a preacher at the end was encouraging. Along similar lines, Maple's inflection and childlike nature feels like blatant manipulation to make the reader want Screw Driver to look after her, but damn it, it works! Screw Driver's halting, deadpan delivery makes some of the lines funnier than they would be otherwise. Not all of them are meant to be funny, but humor's tricky.

I like the design for the Apis, the mechanized insectile horse Screw Driver rides, and Nahuel SB's able to use Screw Driver's body language and movements to compensate for an inexpressive face, give him a comical, almost pathetic air in the early issues, when he's just on the run.

Low Point: Especially in the smaller panels, the Nahuel's coloring overwhelms their lines ad muddies up the art. I think issue 3, where Screw Driver goes through La Tortuga's group like a scythe, is meant to show he's not just a comical figure, but it threw me a bit, because I expected the bandit crew to be a bigger deal and then they were just, done.

Hellcat #1-5: Patsy Walker is dealing, or not dealing, with a lot of problems, including whether or not she murdered her new boyfriend. Sleepwalker's involved, of all characters, and Hellstrom's there, because he always is.

High Point: Alex Lins' art helps foreshadow the big change to Patsy at the end of issue 4 (which blessedly doesn't stick) in how they draw Patsy's costume. The gloves looking closer to the paws of a cat, with the claws growing out of them. The sash flicking and curling like a tail.

Um, Patsy's not married to Tony Stark? Look, this thing was straight garbage, it's slim pickings.

Low Point: I don't get what Cantwell was going for here. Patsy's mother's ghost is hanging around their old house. Patsy's always had something demonic in her that frightened her father away? She was actually kind of a scumbag in high school, but nobody would believe it?

The book ends on Patsy in a room at a mental hospital, muttering the same phrase over and over again. Except, still muttering the phrase, she throws on her costume and jumps out into the night. What the hell is that supposed to mean? A dangerously unstable person is running around in a costume? We've already got Deadpool for that. Patsy's internalized this as some truth, but now she's mopey and depressed? End result, Cantwell is firmly on my "avoid list" for writers.

Immortal Sergeant #1-3: The I Kill Giants team bring a story of a bitter, hateful, shithead cop who doesn't want to retire and wants to solve some unresolved murder, and is generally abusive to family. if his son, who Kelly writes as a pushover that gets berated by everyone, had actually punched the sergeant in the face when it was offered, I might have stuck around. But the cop was such a miserable shit, and was not getting enough pushback. I'm not paying money for the sensation of watching an asshole get away with it.

Kind of a rough ending there, but that's 2 days down. Tomorrow, more mini-series, mostly, plus the one other ongoing series I bought.

2023 Comics in Review - Part 1

Once again, it's time to review the last year in comics. Once again, I'm spending four day on all the different titles I bought, and saving all the listing and whatnot for the fifth day. Let's get cracking!

A Calculated Man #4: The last issue of a mini-series meant to conclude in 2022, but I assume all those financial problems Aftershock had/has played a role. The question of whether former mob accountant Jack Beans would manage to kill his former employers before they killed him and escape into the sunset is resolved. I found myself really annoyed by the conclusion, and I'll leave it at that.

A Haunting on Mars #1: The second issue should appear this month, but for now it's a hodge-podge group sent to the abandoned (and shoddily-built) Mars colony, allegedly to retrieve something valuable. Whether that's actually what writer Zach Chapman has planned remains to be seen.

Agent of W.O.R.L.D.E. #4: Another final issue of a mini-series, at least for now. It certainly feels like Deniz Camp has more he could do with the story. For where it ends, with Phillip as someone who sees no issue in casually ripping apart families so he can go home to his own, because he's a fundamentally damaged person from being in the grip of this mess of an agency, it fits, but it's certainly not uplifting.

Blood Run #1: One-shot by Evan Pozios and Stefano Cardoselli about a madcap Death Race situation, with a group of strange and unique racers. Mostly an opportunity for Cardoselli to draw weird stuff like a giant electric angler fish fighting a Grim Reaper, or evil garbage men chasing a sword-wielding redhead in a muscle car. On that count, a total success.

Captain Marvel - Dark Tempest #1-5: Ann Nocenti and Paolo Villanelli throw Carol Danvers onto an alien world with some disaffected teenagers, an anthropologist, and an A.I. creator and his robot. Danvers struggles to get the others to follow her lead, as her simultaneous take charge attitude and "if you don't like a situation, fix it" outlook don't find a receptive audience.

High Point: As always, Nocenti stuffs her books with stuff. The frustrated teens, the anthropologist excited to learn about another world. An antagonist angry that Earth uses their planet, but all disingenuous enough to say whatever she needs to gain an advantage. Goad Nitro's resentment, play at Carol's compassion, offer power to the others and encourage them to enjoy it.

Low Point: Five issues is not nearly enough time to explore all the stuff in this mini-series. Many elements are remarked upon, but not shown, expanded or resolved. There's no resolution to Earth companies dumping toxic materials on this alien world, or even an explanation how they do it. Villanelli also never gives us a visual reference for what the world looked before, so we can see how "ruined" it is. We're told the richer inhabitants of the world went underground, but we never see it. There's something going on with the A.I. gaining greater independence and goals of its own in issue 3, but it's abandoned in issue 5 when the bot has combined with its creator. Either Nocenti needed to get more issues to work with, or she needed to dial things back a bit.

Clobberin' Time #1-5: Steve Skroce writes and draws essentially a five-issue Marvel Two-in-One arc, where the Thing teams up with a different character each issue and keeps running into an angry person who blames superheroes for the destroyed future he comes from.

High Point: For a book that revolves around fighting, Skroce makes the Thing a bit easier to injure, to better play up the odds he's overcoming in these battles. The art can be graphic, but exaggerated enough it isn't too gory, if that makes sense. But he also plays up the Thing's power with some truly impressive punches. The Hulk team-up in issue 1, and the Dr. Doom team-up in issue 4 are the best, as Skroce seems to get the relationships between Grimm and those two very well. He draws out the humor of the Hulk and Thing trash-talking each other, or Doom egging on Ben when he needs it, while Ben remains unimpressed by Doom's whole shtick.

Low Point: I didn't love the earpiece that feeds Ben more diplomatic or cultured responses Skroce introduces in issue 2, though it ends up being relevant in the conclusion. Issue 3 with Dr. Strange felt like a missed opportunity. Didn't do enough with Ben mouthing off to big magic muckety-mucks or anything like that. Really, Strange gets the best lines.

Coda #1-4: Si Spurrier and Matias Bergara return to Coda sometime after the conclusion of the first series. Things are far enough past the cataclysm that people are starting to try and forge new paths, so there's a push-and-pull between the guy trying to drag people back to prophecies and ordained children, and the gnomads who believe their invention of essentially a gun is going to change everything.

High Point: Bergara's art is still fantastic. When the scene call for wide scope on a strange castle or landscape, he's got it. When it needs something quiet and sweet between Serka and Hum (rare that is), he's got it. When it needs some frankly horrifying, like Mildew using the out-of-her mind sprigmother to produce messengers and probably killing her in the process, Bergara's got it. 

That amid all that fighting for the future, Serka and Hum are just trying to move forward with their own lives, and having their own problems. The "don't-call-it-a-quest" in issue 4, which Serka hopes will both solve their problems and bring them closer together, instead only seems to drive the wedge deeper.

Low Point: Hasn't really been anything I was dissatisfied with so far. We'll see if they stick the landing this month.

Darkwing Duck #1-3: Much like I drift back to Street Fighter comics every so often, I drift back to Darkwing Duck whenever someone gives it a whirl. This attempt didn't do anything for me, though, so I dropped it after 3 issues. Credit to Amanda Deibert and Carlo Lauro, I think they captured the feel of the cartoon, but I suppose I was looking for them to do something more with it, and they didn't.

Deadfellows #1: A guy coming out of a bad relationship moves into a new place. When he finds he can't reconnect with any of his old friends, he tries to kill himself, only to learn his place is haunted and the ghosts don't want another one hanging around. Seems like it's got potential to go a lot of ways, but there hasn't been a second issue in the 9+ months since this came out.

Deadpool #3, 4: Yeah, I just didn't dig Alyssa Wong giving Deadpool a symbiote. At all. The relationship with Valentine had some potential. The question of whether Wade can trust yet another person who seems to be messing with his body. Issue 3, the date at the zoo, was entertaining. Had some humor, which was nice. But again, the symbiote's there as an active presence.

Fallen #1-6: Set in the 1980s, with the gods having descended to an almost mortal state some time previously. But now someone's killing them, and the second to Zeus is a private detective named Casper who is trying to piece it together.

High Point: Henry Ponciano's colors. He uses blocks of solid colors, especially in the backgrounds, as a point of emphasis in scenes with the gods, and it works. Breaks up the muddier coloring when Casper's playing Sam Spade (or I guess Tom Magnum would be a more '80s appropriate reference.) Ringel having the different pantheons take different looks and approaches. The Greeks all bright power business suits (except Nemesis and her '80s aerobics outfit), the Norse as a biker gang. Hades saving a guy from walking in front of a car in issue 2 (because it wasn't that guy's time) was a nice brief scene, that the gods haven't come close to abandoning their old positions, even if they don't hold them any longer.

Low Point: Certain threads don't really line up. It's the drug Apollo and Loki are selling to mortals that brings Casper back in originally, but that's not connected to the god murders, which is what the story is actually about. So it kind of gets resolved offhand, without much involvement from Casper.

That's it for Day 1. Tomorrow, not nearly as many titles.

Year-End Entertainment Rundown

It's time for the Annual Excellence in Time-Consumption Awards! Oh, we've got a full ballot and lots of categories, so all victory speeches should refrain from lengthy digressions. Unless they're funny.

BOOKS

Quite a banner year for books, 36 in total, which is more than I've read at least since I started my current job. In a change from recent years, where I've run close to even between fiction and non-fiction, this year was tilted hard towards fiction, 25 books to 11.

A lot of the fiction, to be fair, were "what the hell, why not?" buys, and that's reflected in the fact that a lot of them were not very enjoyable. No shortage of candidates I'd be pleased to assign the label of worst. Still, as much as I might like to stamp the agonizing experience that was Shibumi with that tag, it has to go to Black Hat and The Beast God Forgot to Invent. If even my usual dogged insistence on seeing a book through to the end can't carry the day, then the book must have been lousy.

As far as best, the authors I either had past experience with or directly sought out didn't really come through for me. Mieville's The City & The City, or Marquez' Innocent Erendira weren't either author's strongest work. Fuentes The Death of Artemio Cruz was interesting to read for some of the stylistic flourishes, but I don't know I really liked the book, exactly. Riding the Rap was my first taste of Elmore Leonard, and was no really what I was expecting.

David Handler's The Runaway Man wasn't a bad little detective mystery. The mystery itself is nothing superb, but I enjoyed the style of the writing, so that carries a fair amount of water. Lower expectations playing a part, no doubt. But that seems like the fiction selections in general. Genre stuff executed to various degrees of competency. I really liked Pat Barker's Regeneration, however. Enough I asked for the second book as a Christmas gift (currently sitting second from the top in a stack I haven't yet touched.) I might add John Brummer's Total Eclipse to the list, if I wanted a third book.

With only 11 non-fiction books, it's a much easier field to narrow down. Worst is True Tales of the Prairies and Plains. The information provided is often surface level, the entries to short for any depth, and the writing style is like something from a composition textbook. Very blah. For a second choice, The Cardinals Way, as I knew most of the information already, and the subject matter was already a bit dated at the time of writing, and is only more so now.

As for best, it's a biographical year, apparently. Audie Murphy's To Hell and Back, first and foremost. It's very well-written; straightforward where it needs to be, but clever or funny when the situation calls for it. Nicholas Dawidoff's The Catcher was a Spy does an excellent job trying to tease apart the truth from the fictions Moe Berg threw up around himself, the love of of secrecy combined with the love of attention for his secrecy. And while I prefer Desert Solitaire, Edward Abbey's Beyond the Wall contains plenty of his trademark humor, irascibility, and affection for the American Southwest.

MOVIES

49 movies this year. A couple of those I probably watched late in '22, but they got reviewed in '23, so what the hell. Didn't watch as many things at my dad's this year, so fewer movies from before I was born than usual. More recent selections from Amazon or Netflix.

This is always tricky. I may have liked a movie, say Cocaine Bear. But did I like it enough for it to be a favorite, or did it merely exceed low expectations? If a low-scoring direct to Amazon horror movie that I expected very little from was bad, should that make it one of the worst films I saw, or should that go to something I expected better from?

No, Cocaine Bear is not one of my favorite films of the year.

There's a fair amount of stuff that just rolled off me without making an impact. I'd basically forgotten I'll Sleep When I'm Dead until I was scrolling through the reviews, and that was two months ago. Could say the same for The Passage or The Mule. Things where I see the title and a few things flash by, but out of sight, out of mind. Anyway, worst films.

Eden Log felt like it was better suited to be a game, where you could have the fun of guiding your amnesiac character through the challenges, rather than a passive viewing experience. Accident Man was a perfectly forgettable action flick that pissed me off with its conclusion, where the lead character experiences exactly what he's been doing to his victims for years and simply decides to continue doing it in a different town. One False Move felt like it wanted to be about something, but didn't pick a lane and go with it. Troll and The Black Demon were both the low-rated crap that couldn't even exceed my minimal expectations. At least I don't watch as many movies like that as I used to. The Hoodlum Saint's the opposite. I had hopes for it to be good, but it was a frustrating mess that let me down. I don't think it's in any way worse than Troll, but the fact it was bad bothers me more.

I'll go with Accident Man, for that ending, and The Black Demon. Troll at least had some sort of memorable set pieces.

Going the other direction, The Big Steal's one long chase scene, but it has some funny parts to it (mostly involving William Bendix), and some of the driving stunts were impressive, given the era. While all the rules of society were frustrating, watching the characters alternately use or attempt to navigate those rules in The Duelist was more engaging than I thought it would be. Let's Kill Ward's Wife was just funny. Of all the various big budget, big name stuff from the last few years I watched (like the last Bond flick or Bumblebee) the Dungeons and Dragons movie was easily my favorite. 

Waiting for the Barbarians was not a funny movie, or particularly uplifting, depending on how excited the audience was to see the British get slaughtered. But I kind of like how confined the movie is to the garrison, while all these people speak confidently about what they're going to do, or what they know about the nomads in the hills. The reality is not really a surprise, but it's more satisfying. I didn't have high hopes for Black Phone, given Alex's past success in picking horror films, but it turned out to be very tense, and I thought it used the weird phone in clever ways, while not making it too powerful.

Given the options, I'm going with The Duelist and Black Phone. A couple of very different period pieces, where in both cases I was hoping the main character would succeed, but dreading the worst.

MUSIC

To be clear, none of the music I got this year is new. I'd be surprised if any of these albums came out in the last 10 years. But the same is true for the majority of things in all these lists, so we roll with it.

What do we got? The Best of Count Basie's Big Band, and The Best of Duke Ellington. I continue to try and find some jazz or jazz-adjacent music I like as much as I think I should. Throw The Complete Greatest Hits - America into the compilation album category.

DJ Jazzy Jeff and the Fresh Prince's Homebase album. Apparently, when Will Smith says he don't got to cuss in his raps to sell records, he forgot about "You Saw My Blinker." The Chemical Brothers' Dig Your Own Hole. If every song were 2 minutes shorter, I'd like it better.

Under the "what the hell" category we have Fall Out Boy's From Under the Cork Tree and Avril Lavinge's Let It Go. The two CDs, purchased at the same library book sale where I picked up The Mule, cost $1 combined, so no harm, no foul. Although I saw a fanfic titled "Of All the Gin Joints" which they said was named after the Fall Out Boy song (as opposed to the line from Casablanca), and I about wept. Wayman Tisdale's In the Zone could go in the jazz appreciation category, but I bought it while visiting my friend in Florida because I was curious what sort of jazz a former NBA player would make.

The other 3 were albums purchased because of a particular song contained on it. I figure if you like one song on the album, you'll probably like others. M.I.A.'s Kala, Tech N9ne's Special Effects, and Spiral Beach (which is also the title of the album.)

Least favorite? Probably From Under the Cork Tree. It's the album with the fewest songs that made it into my MP3 player. Favorite? Special Effects. A lot of songs in the mix, but the thing that impressed me was it felt like they were trying to do something different with almost every song. Some felt a little country, some were kind of alternative rock, some were rapping as fast as humanly possible. They didn't all work for me, but respect for the attempt.

VIDEO GAMES

Welly, welly, well, look who's back? It's been five years since I included a video games section in this post, but with a new (to me) console comes new (to me) game reviews. So we've got Flow, Journey, Flower, Maneater, South Park: The Fractured But Whole, Rime, and Dishonored 2. I guess I can throw 7 Days to Die in there as something I tried then immediately discarded. Apparently resource management survival horror is not my genre.

Which makes it the easy choice for worst game! Nice how that works out. Maybe I can get a couple of bucks in store credit when I trade it in soon.

Well, best game then. Maneater is enjoyable, but quickly repetitive if played for more than an hour or so at a time. The controls on Flower were not always the best. Ditto Flow. I'd rather just use the joystick than be tilting the controller one way or the other. Rime was a pretty enough game, but the puzzles were a bit lacking for something that's gameplay seemed based on puzzles. Dishonored 2 had it's moments, but I probably got too frustrated with my inability to successfully play the way I wanted.

Which leaves Journey and South Park. It's juvenile, but South Park made me laugh the hardest I have all year, several times. And it did a better job incorporating the farting "super-powers" into the gameplay, compared to how Stick of Truth did with its "fart magic." So they actually improved things from the earlier game to the later one! As for Journey, it's a lovely game, and I think it knows exactly the experience it wants to be, and manages it. It feels like you're supposed to enjoy the scenery and enjoy flying and when it strays from those (as during the icy ascent of the mountain), it's a deliberate story choice that works.

2022 Comics in Review - Part 5

As always, these lists are only based on things I bought this year, and where specified, that includes things that weren't published in 2022, but that's when I bought them. Which is most of what I buy in tpbs or manga, anyway.

Favorite Ongoing Series (min. 6 issues):

1. Moon Knight

2. West of Sundown

3. Slumber

There weren't exactly a lot of options, the only other one being She-Hulk, which I dropped. I repeatedly questioned whether I was going to keep buying West of Sundown, which is why it comes in 2nd, even if Moon Knight can feel like a very slight read in individual issues. I'm not sure if the six issues of Slumber are all there's going to be (in which case it's a mini-series), or if it'll continue later (ongoing series, obviously). Since issue 6 ended with several unresolved threads, I opted to put it here.

Favorite Mini-Series (at least 50% shipped in 2022):

1. Grrl Scouts: Stone Ghost

2. The Rush

3. Blink

This was a tough category, with a lot of options, even with me questioning whether certain books qualify, like Slumber or She Bites. I mean, a mini-series about Sgt. Rock killing Nazi zombies couldn't crack the Top 3! As much as I liked Kaiju Score: Steal from Gods, it didn't have a chance. Ditto The Thing. Step By Bloody Step was one that did get serious consideration, mostly because it's such a good-looking book.

It had to be these 3, though. Christopher Sebela created such an unnerving setting, which Hayden Sherman and Nick Filardi drew so well, making it even more disorienting. The creatures and the peculiar mythology in The Rush were both so memorable. And nothing else I bought looked remotely like Grrl Scouts. Mahfood just drew all sorts of strange stuff, but held it together with a solid story. I was looking forward to the next issue of that book as soon as the last one ended.

Favorite One-Shot:

1. Mary Jane and the Black Cat

2. Impossible Jones - Naughty or Nice

3. Moon Knight Annual

The only other option would have been that Street Fighter comic, and I just didn't like it enough. As for the finalists, as enjoyable as Moon Knight fighting justifiably aggrieved werewolves is, it can't beat out sneaky lady thieves reluctantly doing good things. The Hood ending up devoured because he once again is not nearly as smart as he thinks, is both a perfect end for a character that got too much of a push, and gives Mary Jane and Black Cat the edge.

Favorite Trade Paperback/Graphic Novel (anything I bought in 2022):

1. Mister Invincible - Local Hero, by Pascal Jousselin

2. Carbon & Silicon by Mathieu Bablet

3. Thor and the Warriors Four, by Alex Zalben and Gurihiru

It was the kind of year where there were a lot of things I liked (and plenty I didn't), but few I was wildly enthusiastic about. This feels like a bit of a weird trio. Mister Invincible's a mostly lighthearted book exploring what an artist can do with a comic page. A lot of one page gags. Thor and the Warriors Four is the last of the all-ages Power Pack mini-series Marvel did in the 2000s, which seems like it should be lighthearted, considering the Powers team-up briefly with the Pet Avengers and Thor is turned into a baby. But it's also a story where Loki uses Julie Power's desperation to save their dying grandmother to seize control of Asgard. Both books are drawn in a simplified, open and expressive style, with bright colors.

Then you've got Carbon and Silicon, about a pair of artificial humans trying to survive as the world around them burns down multiple times across the centuries. The people in it are lumpy, awkward, sickly, often dying without pride or dignity as their bodies fail and society crumbles.

In summary, Calvin's brain is a land of contrasts.

Favorite Manga (anything purchased in 2022):

1. Ryuko vol. 2, by Eldo Yoshimizu

2. Steel Fist Riku vol. 2, by Jyutaroh Nishino

3. Akira Toriyama's Manga Theater, by Akira Toriyama (duh)

Cross Game volume 8 probably deserved more consideration than I gave it, but I kind of forgot it since it's sitting on the table waiting to be the next manga/tpb review, rather than in the box with all the others I bought in 2022. But I'll stick with this grouping. The Toriyama book is a collection of a lot of earlier work that didn't last terribly long for one reason or another (often because the readers hated it). It's interesting to see him growing as an artist, and the stories often focus more on comedy, which Toriyama's good at. It's just he's also real good at drawing fights.

The first volume of Steel Fist Riku found a good balance between quick stories designed to highlight both comedy and action, and longer threads that revealed more about the main characters. The second volume of Ryuko just got completely bonkers, between the shootouts in the upper levels of skyscrapers over who would control an ancient army, the freakin' CIA getting involved, people getting a motorcycle wheel in the face. All of it with Yoshimizu playing up contrast on these pages seemingly dripping with ink. Like with Grrl Scouts, nothing I bought looked like Ryuko, either.

Favorite Writer:

1. Mathieu Bablet

2. Si Spurrier

3. Jed MacKay

I bought enough stuff MacKay wrote, it seemed like he needed to be on here somewhere, but Spurrier had both The Rush and Step By Bloody Step to his credit, so that got him the #2 spot. As for Bablet, well, his art style is not one I would normally describe as my preference, but I love Carbon and Silicon, so his writing must have really done the trick for me.

Favorite Artist (min. 110 pages drawn this year):

1. Jim Mahfood

2. Matias Bergara

3. Hayden Sherman

Maybe it's not fair to restrict this to this year when I didn't do the same for the writers, but it felt like it would be more pronounced for certain artists to be judged on manga or back issues I bought they did that might span years of their careers, versus other people being judged entirely on one mini-series from this year. *shrugs* My blog, my arbitrary rules.

Anyway, Sherman came in behind Bergara because some of his pages were from Above Snakes, which didn't require him to be quite as creative with layouts, and so don't show off his skills nearly as much. Mahfood came in first because while most of his work is an extremely simplified style, it doesn't cost him on expression, and he can get detailed when he needs to.

And with that, we're done with 2022. Tomorrow, we're looking at some books from 2023, but now, I need to start organizing all this stuff into my larger collection.

2022 Comics in Review - Part 4

Last year six artists drew 110 pages or more of the comics I bought, which was up from 5 in 2020, but well short of the 12 of 2019. 2022 didn't make it all the way up the 2019's level, but it did end up with 8 artists at that level.

Jorge Corona and Pere Perez just made it, with 110 pages each. Five of the artists were within 12 pages of each other, starting with Jim Terry at 143, then up through Jim Mahfood (146), Vanessa Carindali (147), Hayden Sherman (154), and Matias Bergara (155). Sherman's the only one whose pages are spread across more than one title (Above Snakes and Blink).

However, the leader for 2022 is Alessandro Cappuccio, with 180 pages on Moon Knight!

She-Hulk #1-6: After the book that was about Jennifer Walters dealing with the trauma of nearly being killed by Thanos, plus years of whatever Jason Aaron was doing with the character, Rainbow Rowell took the approach of synthesizing stuff from the earlier, more popular She-Hulk runs. Jennifer back working with some of the law firm cast from Dan Slott's run, living in an apartment the Wasp wasn't using. Roge Antonio was the artist initially, but after issues got delayed several months, Luca Maresca took over, although Rico Renzi's color work helped the book maintain a similar feel.

High Point: The best scene was when Jen calls Patsy Walker in issue 3, which confirms they're still friends, but also that Jen thinks Patsy dating Tony Stark is a bad idea. Smart woman, that Jennifer Walters.

I'm also generally cool with Jack of Hearts - not a fave, but certainly not someone I dislike - so Rowell bringing him back from the dead was A-OK by me. The "fight club" thing with She-Hulk and Titania had some possibilities.

Low Point: The pace is worse than glacial, and Rowell put so much focus on the mystery of why Jack was back and where his powers went, She-Hulk felt like a supporting character in what was ostensibly her book. Which really didn't do her actual supporting cast any favors. Mallory Book is suddenly entirely opposed to superhuman clients, and then an explanation is abruptly tossed out in like two pages in issue 6, with no real build.

But the awful pacing is mostly why I gave up.

Slumber #1-6: People are committing murders in their sleep and evidence points to a "dream eater" named Stetson being involved. When a cop named Finch tries to investigate, he wakes up having committed a murder. Tyler Burton Smith was the writer, with Vanessa Cardinali and Simon Robins are the art team.

High Point: I like the weird stuff Cardinali draws in the dreams, even if I think the book could have made more use of the peculiar rules and logic of dreams than it did in terms of layouts.

The "sin eater" aspect Smith sets up with Stetson's work. She removes people's nightmares by entering their dreams and killing the source, so that the client forgets. But Stetson doesn't forget, because now she's seen and encountered it as well, so the nightmare lives on in her mind. And that, plus the issues she won't deal with, and the lack of sleep, means it starts to bleed over into her waking life.

Low Point: It ends on several cliffhangers, and while I want to think it's going to come back at some point in the future, the mini-series also feels like a pitch for a Netflix show. Something about the limited nature of how they use the dream setting, and that Stetson's response to most things is a very simplistic, shoot and/or stab it with conventional weaponry.

Step by Bloody Step #1-4: The Coda team of Si Spurrier and Matias Bergara get back together for a 4-issue mini-series about an armored giant escorting a young girl across the world. The girl is not allowed to go back, or really to interact with anyone at all, which produces friction as she continues to age.

High Point: Bergara's art is fantastic again. His style is exaggerated, but able to do violence or grief, or quieter moments of sorrow equally well. Which is good, since there's no dialogue we can read in the entire mini-series, his art has to carry all the storytelling load.

My favorite issue is still the first, as it shifts back-and-forth between the giant's silent trek across these gorgeous landscapes, and brutal fight scenes as it defends the child from giant wolves or whatever other threats might appear. I compared it to an episode of Samurai Jack at the time, and I stick by it.

The fate of that general or prince or whatever he was in issue 4 was much appreciated.

Low Point: Nothing comes to mind, really. There were times I wouldn't have minded a little expository dialogue, but it's easy enough to follow what's happening. Especially once you've gotten to the end and a few things are explained.

Street Fighter Masters - Chun-Li #1: It was a one-shot about Chun-Li thinking she's put her quest to bring Bison to just behind her with his death, and realizing she might still have some unresolved anger issues. It was OK for a concept, although I was hoping for more fighting, and writer/artist Ryan Kinnaird's tendency to make every woman look like they're wearing heavy eyeliner and emphasize their butts got distracting.

Tales from the Dead Astronaut #3: The final issue of Jonathan Thompson and Jorge Luis Gabotto's short-story anthology book. The astronaut escapes the aliens that gave him flesh back, but he reverts to a skeleton and resumes drifting in space.

The Thing #3-6: Walter Mosley, Tom Reilly and Jordie Bellaire have Ben Grimm keeping getting dragged into brutal fights, with a highly intelligent kid and a mysterious and beautiful woman in his corner, though their allegiances are in question.

High Point: Reilly draws some great fight scenes, and Bellaire always shifts the color scheme to a solid red-orange for the most brutal panels, to really make the violence seem a little rougher. It blots out all the background details, reducing things to just Ben Grimm and whoever he's fighting.

That Mosley writes Ben as perceptive enough to know something bigger is going on here, even if he doesn't know what. But also that he writes Ben in a situation where his unwillingness to ever give up could actually be a flaw.

Low Point: That said, I don't know about the idea Ben's got anger issues that had, at the start of the mini-series, tanked his relationship with Alicia. I guess I can see the argument, Ben does get angry sometimes, but I don't know that I see him as having a problem with anger. Or maybe I just think he's justified in being angry.

Tiger Division #1, 2: A mini-series about a group of Korean super-heroes that showed up in a Black Cat Annual a couple of years back. I think I would have preferred the creative team (Emily Kim and Creees Lee) divide the focus more evenly between the characters, rather than just focusing on the backstory for the team's Superman character.

West Moon Chronicle #1: A guy returns home, trying to convince his dad to sell his house, but it turns out he's being played by a fox demon of some sort, and there's a bunch of other spirit stuff going on in the woods. The second issue's out, so hopefully I'll see it soon and have a few more answers.

West of Sundown #1-7: An Irish immigrant stuck fighting for the Confederates finds a woman who buried herself alive, and becomes her assistant. When the Frankenstein monster and a partner of his burn down their home in New York, they have to return to where she was born to save her life, and find a lot of creepy crap already having taken up home there.

High Point: That one panel of that decaying, possessed horse in issue 4. Man, that thing was hideous, but in a good way. It's supposed to be disturbing even to this cast, and it was. Well done, Jim Terry.

While I haven't loved the plots, I do love the friendship between Rosa and Dooley. Tim Seeley and Aaron Campbell write it as this complex mix of desires and hang-ups. Rosa is the one with all the power outwardly, but Dooley's companionship means so much to her that she will go without food because there's no one he would consider it acceptable for her to drink from. And Dooley cares about her, but can't shake the feeling he's being party to something awful sometimes. It feels like a real relationship, in that each of them is making compromises and gets frustrated about it, but they decide it's ultimately worth it. Or they have so far.

Low Point: I can't shake the feeling I'm supposed to understand the rules about Rosa's abilities or the properties of where she was born better than I do. Like Seeley and Campbell are operating by a particular concept of a vampire, but it's not one I'm familiar with.

Wolverine - Patch #1, 2: Like Ben Reilly: Spider-Man, another mini-series by an older writer (Larry Hama) set in a distinct period (the Patch/Madripoor set-up), although as Paul O'Brien noted, Hama's the Wolverine writer who ditched Madripoor about as fast as he could when he took over the book. End of the day, I didn't care enough to stick around. I liked the full-page splash of Wolverine falling out of a plane Andrea De Vito drew in issue 1, though.

X-Men Legends #3, 4: Speaking of books from older writers set in distinct times, here's Ann Nocenti picking up Longshot sometime after her first mini-series, but before he joins the X-Men. Mojo throws he, Kitty Pryde and Wolverine into a war movie, which Spiral subverts to express her own vision. Then the X-Men get mindwiped so there's no question of why they didn't recognize Longshot when he met them again. Mojo's a good stand-in for any number of obnoxious shitheads in our current world, but I don't totally follow what Nocenti's doing with Spiral talking about her plots "spiraling" in on themselves.

OK, that's all the comics, so tomorrow is where we compare them to each other based on my entirely arbitrary rankings and declare things the best of the year.

2022 Comics in Review - Part 3

The increase in the number of new comics was a little out of the ordinary, but one trend that wasn't was my buying from more publishers. In 2009, when I had 144 new comics, there were seven different publishers (and the year before, when there were also 144 new comics, it was only three publishers). In 2022, I ended up with comics from 13 different publishers, but half of those were at less than 5% of the total (Blood Moon, Source Point, Udon, Mad Cave, Dark Horse, Red 5, Oni Press.) Aftershock was just barely over 5% at 7 out of 139. So I don't know that it's the pie being split more equitably so much as it is more groups getting a tiny slice.

The end result is, even with Marvel being at its lowest share of the total of any year except 2020, it still added up to more than the next three publishers - Scout, Image, Vault - put together. 54 comics versus a combined 51 (21, 17, 13, respectively.) Although if a couple of comics had come out in December like they were supposed to, Scout would have set the new record for best total for a non-Marvel/DC publisher. 23 would have edged out Boom's 22 in 2018.

Locust - The Ballad of Men #1-4: The second half of Massimo Rosi and Alex Nieto's post-apocalyptic story about a man named Max trying to find a safe place. The book takes the same approach the previous mini-series did, splitting time between showing Max and Stella traveling together, and Max trying to catch up to the lunatic cult leader Ford to rescue Stella.

High Point: The switching between past and present does help to explain why Max is so intent of finding Stella, and Rosi uses it to introduce new elements in the present, before flashing back to show who they were in the past. The ending is sad, but Rosi and Nieto put in the work to where it feels earned.

Ford is an easily despicable villain. The kind of delusional that can easily excuse any terrible act he commits. On the rare occasions something goes against him, he can say it's because he sinned, but it's still others who have to be punished. Definitely someone to enjoy seeing killed.

Low Point: The coloring is still too murky, to the point it's not always easy to tell what's happening.

Lunar Room #2, 3: A werewolf somehow prevented from changing that teams up with a half-assed mage who promises to fix that. I thought Danny Lore was actually doing a good job fleshing out the characters, showing different sides of them in different ways, but I didn't really care about the plot, and couldn't shake the feeling this was going to be one of those stories with no one to really root for.

Mary Jane and Black Cat #1: OK, this is the one-shot by Jed MacKay and C.F. Villa where the Hood uses a still-recovering Peter Parker to force Felicia to find and recover his magic cloak. MJ happened to be in the hospital room when Parker Robbins showed up, so Felicia claims MJ as part of her crew to get her out. It's a very fun one-off that lets both character play to their strengths. Although I still call bullshit on MJ beating up the Shocker with a baseball bat. His suit absorbs concussive force, MacKay!

Mary Jane and Black Cat - Dark Web #1: This, however, is the first issue of a mini-series tying into Dark Web. Also by Jed MacKay, but with Vicenzo Carratu as artist. Felicia and MJ get sucked into Limbo by Belasco, who wants them to recover his Soulsword (spoiler for issue 2!) Also, Mary Jane has some slot machine-themed H-Dial for some reason.

Moon Knight #7-18: OK, another Jed MacKay book. man, all his stuff is squeezed into one stretch. Rachelle Rosenberg was the colorist all year, with Alessandro Cappuccio as penciler for 9 issues, and Federico Sabbatini for the other three. Moon Knight had to contend with Zodiac trying to tear away everything he's built in an attempt to bring out the killer. Then there was a problem with Marc keeping Steven and Jake stuffed away in his mind, and a vampire pyramid scheme dipshit.

High Point: Issue 8, where Marc's in prison due to some other event I ignored, so Hunter's Moon has to deal with the somehow returned Stained Glass Scarlet and turns it into a battle of stories, I liked that. Issues 14 and 15, which start with an argument between Marc, Steven and Jake while Moonie's getting his ass kicked, and turns to Steven and Jake reminding Marc how they bring something to the table that he needs. It was a nice demonstration of how each part of their system can work together, if Marc will let them.

Low Point: The vampire group plotline was interesting in theory, but Moon Knight ultimately dealt with them so easily, it felt like a lot of build-up for not much payoff. The point could be that with him being stronger with all parts of the system clicking, he could do the prep work to make it an easy win, but I still had a reaction of, "is that it?"

Moon Knight Annual #1: MacKay, Sabbatini and Rosenberg with a story where Werewolf by Night kidnaps Moonie and Marlene's daughter as part of a ritual to try and destroy the lycanthropic curse once and for all. Because the curse is Khonshu's fault. I would have figured it for Artemis, she's a moon god too, right? Suffice it to say, the curse is not broken.

Nature's Labyrinth #1, 2: A bunch of apparently awful people signed on for a cruise that's immediately become a "Most Dangerous Game" situation on a very strange island. Except the prey may be more dangerous to each other than the Jungle Jim looking jackass gunning for them. The main character appears to be an undercover CIA agent, but their cover's blown.

Rush #3-6: The last four issues of Si Spurrier, Nathan Gooden, Addison Duke and Hassan Otsmane-Elhaou's story about a woman trying to find out what happened to her son when he traveled to a remote spot in the Yukon seeking gold. Much weird shit happens.

High Point: Gooden and Duke create some freaking terrifying monsters. The bit at the end of issue 3 with the enormous elk the cries gold. Especially when it freaks out after Nettie bluntly tells it she doesn't want the gold. But my favorite is still the Pinkerton agent with the vortex for a face, The Pale. That's just a really cool design, even before you add in him riding around on a giant spider.

I also like the imagery of the gold literally getting under men's skin, and the way Spurrier writes it so they get gold, then spend it all celebrating, then go back looking for more. Caught in the cycle until it kills them. Just a bit more literally here than in most places.

Low Point: Nothing really.

Sgt. Rock vs. the Army of the Dead #1-4: The Nazis decide to reanimate the corpses of dead Nazis to make them fight against the Allies. Sgt. Rock and Easy Co are tasked to destroy the facilities and the doctor behind the project. Much undead Nazi killin' commences. Bruce Campbell and Eduardo Risso know what the people want.

High Point: The start of issue 2, where the regens are partying in a bar and start shooting each other so the beer pours out through holes in their guts. Campbell showing them still laughing and having a good time, with Risso drawing them with these wide, almost rictus grins on their faces, makes them creepier than if they were just mindless berserk monsters.

Low Point: It was good they got most of the exposition out of the way in the first issue, but it still made for a pretty slow beginning. And the plot is thin enough, the dialogue sparse enough, the book feels stretched at six issues. So far, it could be probably one issue shorter comfortably.

She Bites #1-3: Elsie's a vampire that happens to look like a little girl, so she hires a "babysitter" who can purchase cigs, booze, and take her to the mall without there being a lot of questions. She ends up with Brenda, who plans to use the money to travel to Scotland and throw herself off a cliff.

High Point: The way writer Hedwig Hale and artist Alberto Hernandez R. use Elsie and Brenda visiting the same convenience store (separately) to tell us about each character. Not just what they buy, or even why either of them are there. The way they walk through the place, the way others react to them, and they to those others.

Also, a profane little child who happens to be a vampire is just kind of funny to me. Although my favorite dialogue is from issue 2, once they get to the mall.

Elsie - What kind of maniac drives a Vespa in Pennsylvania?

Brenda: The poor kind who was tired of homeless dudes masturbating next to her on the bus.

Elsie: That's disgusting. I can't believe you took the bus.

Hey, I just reread it before I typed this and it still made me laugh, so it's gotta be gold! (Although I thought the British, and Europeans in general, were more appreciative of public transportation than us auto-loving Americans.)

Low Point: Granted that Elsie went to extremes to prompt the reaction, I'm not sure Brenda's epiphany on the value of life, including her own, wasn't a little too neat. But if there's ever any more of this, we'll see if it sticks in the face of adversity.

Just one-quarter more to go. Tomorrow's got one ongoing I dropped, another I keep considering dropping, and a few mini-series I liked a lot.