Amazing Spider-Man - Going Big: And right at the start we hit one of my major weaknesses for 2019. Buying random one-shots and hoping they'll be good. The solicits for this really touted Erik Larsen working on Spider-Man again, but his contribution is one 10-page story mostly about the tail end of a fight between Spidey and Nightshade. The main story is by Gerry Conway, Mark Bagley, and three inkers about Spidey searching for MJ's niece and also finding a bunch of human traffickers in the process. It's not a bad story, but I'm glad I didn't buy this for full price.
Astro Hustle #1: I tried this outer space story of a guy becoming a pirate after being sentenced to death for stuff he might not have done? Urusla Decay's color work was the high point here, although Tom Reilly's art had a solid Alex Toth vibe to it I enjoyed. I wasn't sure if I'd buy the second issue, but the whole thing got canceled after some allegations came out against writer Jai Nitz, I think. So it was a moot point.
Atomic Robo - Dawn of the New Era #1-5: Brian Clevinger and Scott Wegener went a bit of a different direction for this mini-series. They set up a lot of plot threads - Bernard's adventures underground, Jenkins returning with warnings of the vampire dimension invading, the rest of Tesladyne learning Robo's been keeping ALAN in his secret lab - but nothing is really resolved by the end. Which suggests it's all building to something huge.High Points - My favorite part was Bernard wandering through magma tunnels, finding himself getting lost and increasingly freaked out, worrying that he isn't as recovered from his experiences in Hollow Earth as he hoped. The isolation and the increasing panic came through really well. The monologues Bernard has are very whistling through the graveyard. Wegener will focus in on him biting his lip, or getting this slight spaced out look as he tries to process something. Shannon Murphy will use the pink glow of the underground so that it looks like it's attacking him from all sides, or the shadows are pressing down on him.
Low Points - Hmm, Jenkins looking an awful lot like Cable? Maybe. I'm gonna have to see more of the new kids before I decide if I really like them or not.
Black Cat #1-7: Jed MacKay, Travel Foreman (mostly), and Brian Reber, have the Black Cat running around with a small crew, pulling a bunch of heists that are building towards an enormous heist of everything the New York Thieves' Guild takes as tribute/taxes, something. It's ended up involving robbing Dr. Strange and the Fantastic Four so far.High Point - In general, I really like how MacKay has taken advantage of the series being in the Marvel Universe to have Felicia steal from well-known locations, and for there to be complications because of that. Blastaar showing up while she's trying to pilfer a book from Reed Richards' library, for example. The date with Batroc was interesting. My favorite single moment or scene was Felicia using her bad luck powers to thwart every spell Xander the Merciless threw at her. The visual of a giant hammer turning into cupcakes right before it falls on her head was pretty great.
Low Point - Don't love most of the J. Scott Campbell covers. As the Sonny Ocampo character seems to have dropped out of the narrative at the moment, I'm a little surprised. I thought he was being set up to be a persistent thorn in her side. That could turn out differently in time, though.
Black Cat Annual #1: Set prior to the start of the ongoing, Felicia gets Spidey to help her rob a mafia family of $3,000,000 by agreeing to give 1 million to charity and 1 million to two poor lovers who were gonna have to fight to the death. And by telling him they only took 2 million to begin with. Jed MacKay wrote it, with Joey Vazquez drawing all the Felicia/Spidey parts, while Juan Gedeon drew the parts for Dr. Korpse, and Natacha Bustos drew Bruno's part of the heist. Which involved a submarine car and a HYDRA mask. It was a fun issue.
Bronze Age Boogie #1, 2: This was Stuart Moore trying to recreate some of the stuff he loved from the '70s, in one big package. So you have Martians, talking apes, barbarians, kung-fu, blaxploitation, drugs. All that stuff. Unfortunately for me, none of those are genres I am super into it. At least not all mashed together.
Coda #8-12: Si Spurrier and Matias Bergara wrapped up their post-apocalypse fantasy story. Hum wrecked things pretty spectacularly with Serka, and pretty much gave up. Couldn't manage that entirely though, in the face of what the Murkrone was going to do. Meanwhile, Serka's trying to rally what passes for possible resistance. There's a big fight, the day is saved, and then, things go on.High Point - The scene in the middle of the sandstorm in #8, when Hum tries to give Serka the potion and it looks like he's screwed everything up so badly. The way Bergara draws it as this brown swirling mass of sand and dirt, with the massive dark shapes appearing all of the sudden. Hum deciding either he does give a damn, or that there's no reason to go on, take your pick, and doing all he can to throw a wrench in the Murkrone's plans. In general, I love the color in this. The greens used for magic, how dark the purple of that mind-control potion gets.
Low Point - You could question Serka getting back together with Hum after the incredible fuck-up mentioned above, but I can sort of handwave it as the characters trying to find happiness where they can, and Hum having pulled his head out of his butt.
Deadpool #1: Kelly Thompson and Chris Bachalo have made Deadpool king of a community of monsters that set up shop on Staten Island. Deadpool really doesn't have anything better going on, so why not? But Elsa Bloodstone and Kraven the Hunter are both hanging around, so that's not likely to end well. Plus, Bachalo needed 6 inkers to get this issue done, and with issue 2 coming out this week, that's almost two months between them. Not encouraging.
Dial H for Hero #1-6: Two kids find an H-Dial and go on the road, trying to keep it out of the hands of past users who either want it for themselves, or to hand it over to the mysterious Mr. Thunderbolt. It was a six-issue mini-series, but then it expanded to 12 issues, and Humphries added three more types of H-Dials, corresponding to colors used in printing, and I found I didn't have the patience for that.High Point - Joe Quinones' ability to mimic various artists' styles for the different heroes, but keep everything coherent. That, plus it's always fun to see what kind of heroes they come up with for these stories. I don't think the creativity is quite up there with China Mieville's series, but '90s style Monster Truck was kind of clever. The part where Summer tries flying the Supermobile to Metropolis, only to get lost in Gotham and have Two-Face shooting at her got a chuckle from me.
Low Point - I didn't really need the story to expand to a larger scope, I guess. So once it turned into "Gotta collect 'em all!" or at least that's what it looked like it was doing, I just didn't care as much.
Domino #10: Gail Simone and at least four different artists handled the second half of a story where Domino was supposed to kill Longshot to prevent him from destroying everything. Instead, she and her friends went to Mojoworld with him to get him medical treatment. Then freed a bunch of sick, starving and enslaved people while they were there. It's kind of interesting in Domino choosing not to kill Longshot to avert an apocalypse ends up not only not backfiring, but helping a bunch of other people, but it's so rushed, and with all the different artist, kind of a mess.
That's it for Day 1. Tomorrow, a trio of mini-series, a couple of ongoings, and a one-shot.
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