After a couple of years of buying from 13 different publishers, it was down to 10 this year. If certain things had shown up as solicited, it might have gotten to 12, but that's not how it worked out. With Diamond filing for bankruptcy, I wonder if the downward trend is going to reverse. Only 3 publishers - Marvel, Boom!, Mad Cave - got more than 5% of the total, and Marvel was the only one that broke 10%. And obviously, all the other publishers combined didn't come close to adding up to Marvel's total.
Jackpot and the Black Cat #1: Mary Jane's doing the superhero thing, but in trying to help the Black Cat (who is being blackmailed via app), ends up blackmailed herself. I figured the app had become sentient, which Fantastic Four had done literally two months earlier, so I didn't want to deal with that again, and didn't care enough to hang around and see if it was something different (I think it turned out Felicia's new girlfriend was the one behind it all.) But at least Celeste Bronfman and Emilio Laiso got a little more creative with MJ's powers than MacKay was during that lousy Dark Web tie-in.
Laura Kinney - Wolverine #1: We just reviewed this last week, but writer Erica Schultz seems to be having Laura Kinney respond to Krakoa's fall by trying to protect any mutants in the most ham-handed, counterproductive manners possible. Giada Belviso's art works better in the quieter scenes. Postures and proportions start to get weird during the action. Still, I'm curious to see how long Laura can keep just charging into problems and attacking everyone that tries to help.
Metamorpho - The Element Man #1: Only one issue to work from, but Al Ewing and Steve Lieber seem to going for the same vibe as the original Haney-written series, right down to the happenin' lingo and oddball villains. I'm far from the biggest Ewing fan, but if he can avoid turning this into another story about stories or myths or whatever, I'll probably hang around a bit.
Midnight Western Theatre - Witch Trial #3, 5: One of these issues actually shipped in '23, but I couldn't get it until 2024. Ortensia loses her adoptive mother figure at the same time she learns said mother figure had been keeping things from her all along. Ortensia decides to embrace her alleged destiny in a way where she's at lest setting the terms, although she still needs outside interference to actually get the bad guy. I don't know if Louis Southard will ever get the third mini-series published, or if Butch Mapa will be the artist if he does, but they make a good creative team.
High Point: Rachelle Rosenberg's color work is aces. She's helped keep a consistent feel to all these Moon Knight books Mackay's written, even as the artists keep changing. Domenico's art is at lot rounder, the lines less sharp than Cappuccio's, but the book still feels the same. On another note, he's not a major part of the book, but I like that 8-Ball sticks around. That Moon Knight didn't throw him out, but let's the guy stay and work. And 8-Ball is presumably smart enough to figure he gets beat up less this way.
Low Point: As always, MacKay's pacing is not something that really works with me. Stories seem to move very slowly, then accelerate suddenly all at once for the conclusion.
High Point: The different ways the members of the family had adjusted to the guy's death was interesting, at least in theory. The older daughter who tries to take over as protector, but doesn't get to be much of a kid. The younger brother who retreats into imagination. That kind of stuff.
Low Point: I don't feel like Finnegan's art was a good match for a series that needed things to look weird. It works on Calavera P.I., because even as a skeleton, Calavera basically acts and dresses like a human, and everyone else appears to be human. It sort of ignores the weird until it's relevant. But here, the weirdness seemed like a big part of the point, and while there were some panels that were ominous, on the whole it differentiate the weird stuff from the normal people caught in it.
High Point: Kamala fighting her own reanimated corpse, complete with the mutant (movie-esque) powers that haven't activated yet. And winning via essentially hugging her other self felt appropriate for someone who only occasionally wins with punching. That it turns out her powers are freaking out because the X-Men were so arrogant as to resurrect her with her powers, without considering the role the Terrigen Mists played in them. Excellent work, X-Morons! Great hustle!
Low Point: Issue 2, where Kamala gets roped into helping Lila Cheney rescue a bunch of her fans from Mojo, by making Ms. Marvel (pretending to be Lila's drummer) into a viral sensation. Except it seemed to have nothing to do with the rest of the mini-series - beyond maybe the notion she could only become as popular as she once was by being someone else entirely. Except it isn't like she was popular with her old friends, it was just a bunch of goobers watching Mojo TV that liked her.
I should have described this as the day where subtitles run amok. Anyway, tomorrow covers the entire back half of the alphabet.
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