What I Bought 3/4/2026 - Part 1

Last week was rainy, which beats snow. And I suppose we needed the rain. Far as I know we've been in drought conditions since August. For now, we leave February and January behind, and move on to books from March.

Batgirl #17, by Tate Brombal (writer), Takeshi Miyazawa (penciler/inker), Juan Castro (inker), Mike Spicer (colorist), Tom Napolitano (letterer) - Might want to clean that sword, Cass. It's giving off quite the miasma.

Cass is back in Gotham and headed to dinner with the Bat-fam. Dinner Tenji and Jaya aren't invited to, although Stephanie is eager to meet Cass' new brother. But Cass is going to miss that dinner, because her blood starts going nuts. As in, it is somehow outside out her body, whipping around and tangling her up. Miyazawa draws it such that the tendrils obscure parts of the voice balloons for whatever Stephanie is saying over the phone, which is a nice representation of how this is seizing Cass' attention, and cutting Cass off from them again.

Or Cass is cutting herself off, because she goes to Tenji and Jaya for help, unwilling to let her family see her like this. Learned all the wrong lessons from Batman, I see. This is related to Shiva's family, the ones her parents took her and her sister away from. According to Jaya, Cass shouldn't have these abilities without a ritual, but here we are.

The Wu family's moved into Gotham, but something's up, because the guy in charge gets shot in the back of the head, by his assistant. Man, there are so many betrayals in this book. Call it Backstab Monthly or something. But the guy isn't actually dead, instead there's a portal to the Spirit World inside his skull. I'm just saying now, I didn't read that mini-series where she got lost there and Constantine and some new character Alyssa Wu created had to rescue Cass.

It feels like Brombal is making a point about Cassandra needing to accept her family's history as part of herself, instead of hiding or ignore it. The blood/shadow tendrils literally tie her up the harder she tries to control or deny them, which seems pretty on the nose. And I just don't know if she really does, in a real world sense of that being a message.

Some people just need to get away from their families and stay away. Shiva's sins, or the Wu Clan's sins, are not Cass'. She isn't guilty just because she's descended from them, that whole notion doesn't fly with me. It's too similar to the genetic determinism shit that got her turned into a killer post-Infinite Crisis. "Your biological parents are killers, so even though you've hardly met one, and rejected the other, you'll become a killer, too." So I don't know, guess we'll see.

Nova: Centurion #5, by Jed MacKay (writer), Alvaro Lopez (artist), Mattia Iacono (color artist), Cory Petit (letterer) - I know it's just the perspective, but it looks like Nova's the only one of the two smart enough to know you need to aim at your opponent.

First things first: Where Della Fonte drew Peter Quill with a beard and a really stupid mustache, Lopez draws it as a beard and goatee. Which has the benefit of making Quill look less stupid, but also takes a little of the joy out of Richard ditching the Nova helmet and immediately punching him. They fight a bit, usual break-up stuff. "You betrayed me, all the other Novas are dead (again)." Same song and dance we've heard a million times.

Quill is there because he knows Nova stole all that mysterium. More critically, the Kree-Skrull War (still a dumb name for a crime syndicate) know it, too. If Rich hands it over to Quill, he can get them to take it back and call it good. But Cammi really needs the mysterium for medical treatment. As in, the mysterium is the medicine she takes to keep some freaky monster from overtaking her.

My first thought was, we're dealing with another thing from the Cancerverse, given all the mouths and teeth and appendages. But no, it's some sort of weird monster thing the Worldmind found scattered records of in its databases. There's a nice panel before the exposition starts, where Lopez draws the Worldmind's face within the star on Rich's helmet. 

There's no time to settle that, the Kree-Skrull War are here (to be eaten by the Cammi-monster.) Because that Eden Rixlo guy double-crossed Quill, who apparently never considered this possibility. So has Marvel decided to include the original Star-Lord stuff, Engelhart and Claremont and all that, and the movie shit, and the stuff Giffen did in the early-2000s in Quill's history? I feel like that isn't compatible. Original Recipe Star-Lord was pretty on the ball, minus Doug Moench writing him, while Movie Star-Lord is a fucking idiot I wouldn't trust to tie his own shoes.

Can Richard rescue Cammi from the thing that's swallowed her up? Can he get the crime syndicate off his back? Can he get Star-Lord to ditch that terrible facial hair? Will Eden Rixlo suffer hilarious comeuppance? We'll find out next month.

Random Back Issues #168 - Batgirl #34

Like Batman hasn't been felt up by someone trying the, "sorry, didn't see ya there," trick before.

We got a kid coloring while his dad peers nervously through the peephole at someone pounding on the door. Dad asks his son if he forgives him. Kid says sure. The next page is a crime scene with two chalk outlines. Another weeknight in Gotham City.

Batman's nosing around with his flashlight, but Batgirl's fixated on the coloring book and the kid's chalk outline. She wants to help solve the murders, but Batman tells her she's not ready to be a detective. Does he explain what she's lacking? Of course not.

Next morning at the docks, someone tries to sell electronics with nothing inside. The buyer, blind or not, doesn't appreciate this. As the seller is hauled off, blind guy - called Ving - gets a call the, 'big, blind, furry eagle has landed!' as we see Batman busting heads in the background. Not sure why you wouldn't just say "Batman's here!" at that point. Cassandra's in the holographic training room Oracle has, still thinking about the dead kid. She punches the wall until her hands bleed. Then she punches some more. 

Meanwhile, Ving's assembled all his people and their merch at some warehouse, where they'll lay low for a week or two. This is how they intend to move into Gotham, hide in a panic room any time Batman starts sniffing around? Doesn't seem like that would work, since nobody could count on doing business with them. If you've got hot merchandise, are you going to sit on it until these guys poke their heads back out? But maybe they figure there's so many stupid crooks in Gotham there'll always be someone to deal with.

Irrelevant, though, 'cause when Ving opens the massive safe, Batgirl's inside. Then she's outside the safe, beating the dog mess out of at least thirty guys, while Ving stumbles around. Directly into Batman, who welcomes him to Gotham. When Ving protests it's impossible for them to have known, Bats replies everything's impossible until somebody does it, something Ving said earlier when one of his guys commented that they said it's impossible to move into Gotham. Clearly the guy only heard part of the sentence, it was actually impossibly stupid to move into Gotham. Forget Batman, you choose a warehouse that's name starts with "Two" and then you're dead.

Batgirl's waiting behind Ving, costume spattered with blood, and that's it for him. She wants to know who actually shot the kid. Batman squints at a hair he took from the crime scene and points at some guy that's already unconscious, then scrawls "DNA" on that poor schmuck's head in red marker as the cops arrive.

Cassandra's not satisfied, feeling they didn't do anything. Batman argues they caught the little boy's killer, and he'll face justice. Batgirl's response? 'Not enough.'  What about all the lives saved because these guys will be in jail? Still no. At which point Batman declares now she's ready to be a detective. I don't know, I feel like teaching her to read would be a helpful thing to tackle first. Also, Batman's a detective, and that didn't stop the murder from happening, which is what I think Batgirl really wants.

{2nd longbox, 112th comic. Batgirl (vol. 1) #34, by Kelley Puckett (writer), Daimon Scott (penciler), Robert Campanella (inker), Jason Wright (colorist), John Costanza (letterer)}

Saturday Splash Page #216

"What, This Again?" in Red Robin #10, by Christopher Yost (writer), Marcus To (penciler), Ray McCarthy (inker), Guy Major (colorist), Sal Cipriano (letterer)

In addition to the misery-fest DC made Tim Drake's life in the mid-2000s, wiping out basically any supporting cast he had, the character also had to deal with being squeezed out of any real niche. On the one hand, there's always a writer eager to introduce a new character to a hero's supporting cast of sidekicks. At the same time, the ones who came before never go away, so the roles they filled in the fictional universe never become vacant.

Grant Morrison brought in Damian Wayne, and the kid got to be Robin, despite pulling all manner of shit - decapitating a criminal, illegally imprisoning other criminals beneath Titans Tower - that would have gotten most of the previous sidekicks shitcanned. Let's hear it for nepotism!

But even when Bruce Wayne goes away, there's still Dick Grayson already standing in line to be Batman. Damian's Robin, Jason Todd's the designated black sheep. What's left for Tim Drake that differentiates him from all the rest? They gave him the codename Red Robin, which Jason actually brought back from his multiverse jaunt in the much-derided Countdown to Final Crisis.

This is the only issue of this series I bought, as it crossed over with Bryan Q. Miller's Batgirl, but there are so many threads I'm not really sure what the deal was. Tim seems to be opposing Ra's al Ghul, but maybe also dealing with the fact Hush is impersonating Bruce Wayne (currently lost in time thanks to Darkseid.) Vicki Vale is looking for Tim, for reasons I'm entirely unclear on. Tim is maybe involved with Lucius Fox's daughter? It seems like Yost was teasing Tim drifting into Paranoid Loner Asshole Batman territory - since Grayson is being Cheerful, Approachable Batman - but recognize this and pull back before it was too late.

This problem of what to do with Tim hasn't gotten any less pronounced in the 15 years since this series concluded. There's more Bat-adjacent characters than ever. They tried giving him an ongoing, that seemed to die fast. They gave him a boyfriend, albeit one with the name of one of his old private school roommates (but looking nothing like the character did when Pete Woods drew him.) No idea if that's still the case. I think the problem is, Tim's situated as the Detective Robin, but he works for Batman. Batman's already the detective (in theory, depending on the writer) in the Bat-family.

What I Bought 2/5/2026

I spent 4 days last week looking after Alex's cat. I took his advice and set his TV to some Youtube "cat tv" station full of birds and squirrels when I had to leave for a while, but the cat seemed equally interested in the NBA player podcasts I'd watch sometimes.

Batgirl #16, by Tate Brombal (writer), Takeshi Miyazawa (artist), Juan Castro (inker), Mike Spicer (colorist), Tom Napolitano (letterer) - Does Batgirl think she's learned to cut fire? Maybe.

Let's wrap this war up. Nyssa was unconcerned that the Unburied were infiltrating Samsara, because she wants them there to kill via machine gun towers, under the logic that the blue poppies grew from the corpses of the Unburied's ancestors, so that will definitely happen a second time if she can produce the corpses. And the Unburied wrecked her Lazarus Pit, so she's trying to avoid death.

Jaya takes out the towers, and apparently is not on Nyssa or the Unburied's side, but some third motive. Oy. Batgirl seems busier fighting her ghosts than anything else, but pulls it together enough to choose against vengeance. Rather than fight Kalden to the death for killing Shiva, she figures out the pressure point thing Jaya uses to make Nyssa able to feel stuff again. Which leaves Nyssa unable to continue fighting. And Batgirl freed Tenji, who was chained up for. . . reasons.

Was Nyssa thinking he'd work as bait for the Unburied? Was it supposed to distract Batgirl, or make her fight harder against the Unburied? I have absolutely no idea what Nyssa's end goal was there.

But Batgirl chose against vengeance, the Unburied get their home back, so I'm sure they'll just be all peace and love now, and definitely won't opt to hunt down Nyssa and anyone they think might strike against them. And Batgirl is maybe returning to Gotham with her half-brother and Jaya.

I assume Batgirl's able to use Jaya's pressure point stuff to heal Nyssa - though it's not like it does anything for her aging and dying problem - because she chose freeing Tenji over attacking Kalden, and this represents healing her past emotional wounds. It doesn't really feel like that significant of a choice - Cassandra Cain has chosen saving someone over beating someone else up plenty of times - and it also doesn't feel like it would resolve any of her issues with her mother, but here we are. 

Nova: Centurion #4, by Jed MacKay (writer), Matteo Della Fonte (artist), Mattia Iacono (color artist), Cory Petit (letterer) - OK, I understand Nova's presence, and the former Nova turned wannabe Han Solo behind him. What's with the two red circles? Are they suns?

Nova's trying to get a recharge, but the technician is giving him a lot of static about how disrespectful it is for an Earther to be wearing a Nova Corps uniform, now that the Corps is gone. So, did the Corps get rebuilt and then destroyed again some time between the end of Thanos Imperative and now? I generally understood Rich was still the only Nova all throughout the Krakoa era, so how has word of that still not gotten around?

But he gets his recharge, and his being able to handle that much juice convinces the guy he really is a Nova. Meanwhile, some doofus named Eden Rixlo steals Nova's ship while Rich is buying groceries. What a fucking terrible name, what idiot came up with "Eden Rixlo"? Really? Gerry Duggan? I would have put money this guy was created by Jeph Loeb in his Sam Alexander Nova book. Good thing I don't gamble.

Cammi and Aalbort are on-board at the time of the theft, which is weird since Eden was apparently eyeing the ship the same time Nova was trying to get his recharge, which Cammi and the combat accountant were present for. Why wait? He could steal the ship, but not break in? Either way, there presence means this is a bad idea even if Nova didn't manage to get right on Rixlo's tail, including using the mines Rixlo drops as speed boosts (which was very cool) all the way to his destination.

But Nova did stay on his tail, and Cammi and Aalbort are in position to slit Eden's throat, as they arrive at some space station where Star-Lord is waiting. At least, the guy introduces himself as Star-Lord. 

Between the dumb hair and dumber mustache, and the stupid outfit that has what looks like backpack straps growing from the shoulders, it looks more like, I dunno, Andy Richter playing a cruise line captain. And he'd speak in some goofy accent. Something Scandinavian by way of Swedish Chef, maybe. At least the shoulder straps should make it easy for Nova to throw the Cruise-Lord into the airless vacuum.

What I Bought 1/23/2026

I had to run to the next town over on Friday to meet with Alex and hammer some things out before what will hopefully be the only Winter-geddon we get this year. It did give me the chance to stop at the store there and pick up a couple of comics from earlier in the month. Then it was back into my apartment, where I largely remained the rest of the weekend. Depending on the roads, I may not leave Monday either. I made the mistake of driving to work on the hilly, snow-covered roads of this town last winter, and I'm not sure my teeth can survive the experience again.

Babs: The Black Road South #1, by Garth Ennis (writer), Jacen Burrows (artist), Andy Troy (colorist), Rob Steen (letterer) - Great, Babs is swinging her sword in the wrong direction. The dragon's behind you!

Babs enters a gladiator battle for the specific purpose of killing a guy who smashed her sand castle when she was a child. But, having successfully completed that task, and with lots of people betting on her, she sticks around and takes out the entire "Matazax Hack-Pack," which includes a panda with a unicorn horn. Panda-corn? Pandicorn?

Eh, whatever. Point is, her friend Izzy bet on her and they made a lot of money. They splurge on a nice room, hit the tavern, and engage in medieval fantasy karaoke, about Red Sonja. Mostly about how horny "the Sonj" is, because nobody can beat her in a fight, so, you know, no nookie. This takes three pages, but the crowd gets into it (minus the lute-playing elf bemoaning how this isn't really music.) Burrows has a lot of fun with the crowd reactions, people gradually get more hyped until they're jumping off the stage and swinging from chandeliers. Plus, in some real Flintstones' shit, the microphones are little geckos with a funnel up their butts. It's a livin'.

After a little more fun, they wake up the next morning, hungover (and wearing each other's outfits), with no money. While they run around like idiots, we learn via flashback there's some set-up where you can invest in heroic quests, and get a share of the proceeds when the party returns. But they invested in a quest to Mordynn, which may or may not be a shithole. Either way, Babs is adamant she'd rather kiss the money good-bye than go back there. Too bad.

I can't decide if Ennis is going to take the route of Babs and Izzy constantly running into trouble on the Black Road, and never even catching up to the party, or they do catch up and get swept up in trying to keep the band of likely bungling idiots alive. I'm guessing the latter, if only because the merchant mentioned some 'balls-up' from a few years ago, which Babs is probably connected to. So she gets to see the end result of her handiwork.

Batgirl #15, by Tate Brombal (writer), Stephen Segovia (artist), Rain Beredo (colorist), Steve Wands (letterer) - Don't be fooled, there is very little that's calm in this issue.

Batgirl is having weird dreams about being betrayed and learning truths, then lashing out at Tenji. Jaya tries to tell her she has to stop feeling guilty about where she started, face her past, blah blah blah. I'm especially suspicious of the part where she talks about Shiva becoming "more" the day she abandoned her vengeance, which she defines as the day Cass was born. Wouldn't it be the day she agreed to fuck David Cain, the guy who killed her sister?

Also, the "more" Shiva became includes a person who kills a lot of people without batting an eye. Maybe it would have been better for her to stay "less."

While Batgirl confronts Nyssa about her complicity in the destruction of the monks who used to live there, Tenji goes snooping and runs into the big oaf of an Unburied in a cell. Guy is pretty calm, because his people know the underground, and they've been tunneling in. Batgirl's discussion with Nyssa gets nowhere, because apparently Cass can't read if Nyssa's lying or not, possibly due to the no emotions thing. So she's going to leave, but wants to say good-bye to Jaya first. Too bad Jaya is working for the Unburied. When Tenji warns Nyssa of the sneak attack, Nyssa says everything is going according to plan.

Brombal is spamming the hell out of the "surprise betrayal" button.Props to Segovia, who draws Jaya with this very open face. Huge, expressive eyes, always leaning towards people and offering comfort. It at least makes her look "innocent", so the betrayal should, in theory be a surprise. However, I'm not sure Brombal has completed the part of the deal where I have to care about most of these characters, especially with how many betrayals we're seeing. Also, now both sides are doing the, "you thought I lost, but it was part of my plan," shtick!

And what the hell does any of it have to do with Shiva, or Cass' connection to her mother?! I am fully onboard with Batgirl just leaving them to it and going home to Gotham. She's not getting anything out of this, especially since she couldn't trust any of what Jaya said, given her apparent true loyalties. Although there's still a part of expecting Shiva to turn up as leader the Unburied, and this is all part of some mindfuck to make Cass stronger.

What I Bought 12/3/2025 - Part 2

Thursday last week, my car wouldn't start. And I was supposed to meet my coworkers at one of our work vehicles at a specific time. Not being certain they'd check their office phones beforehand, I was left to bike to work. Which I've done before, but not when it's 15 degrees (-9 Celsius). And then there was still the mess of trying to get home, get a new battery, install the new battery, which resulted in my losing two hex nuts somewhere underneath the engine. Just an exhausting day.

Batgirl #14, by Tate Brombal (writer), Stephen Segovia (artist), Rain Beredo (colorist), Tom Napolitano (letterer) - Fighting ninjas under the stars with a woman you unsuccessfully tried to blow up once. How. . .inconvenient?

The attack is kind of a mess, as everyone seems to have their own irons in the fire. Cass' attempt to kill Kalden is interrupted by Tenji, Kalden somehow unaware of all this when the art makes it look like Cass was already on the downward arc of her leap, sword drawn, when deflected. Then Cassandra veers off again, because she spots their shapeshifter ally trying to steal the holy seed pods of the blue poppies for Nyssa. Again, how shocking the al'Ghul was not open about her plans. Then Tenji spots something down a dark tunnel (we aren't shown what) that spooks him, but he gets spotted.

End result? Angel Breaker does manage to blow up a supply of the blue flowers, though I'm dubious it's all of them, and Cass cuts up the seed pods so Nysssa won't get those. But there's a mole in the ranks, and the Unburied still have some big plan they'll get to eventually.

Amid all this, Cassandra is being hounded by a vision of her mother. Encouraging her to take revenge, to abandon her brother when he's overwhelmed. And as they flee, with chaos on their heels and the folks just carving out an existence in this cave system, Shiva calls Cass a Destroyer. I would think Cass knows about hallucinations, but she keeps acting like this is actually Shiva. Getting surprised when she decides to respond, and Shiva's not around. So I don't know if this is guilt, or something one of the Unburied is doing to her.

If it is an attack, what's the goal? Wreck her confidence, drive her nuts, make her a truly lethal weapon Either way, she is definitely drawing a lot of blood with that sword of Shiva's, which is not encouraging.

Fantastic Four #6, by Ryan North (writer), Humberto Ramos (penciler), Victor Olazaba (inker), Edgar Delgado (colorist), Joe Caramagna (letterer) - Another day, another batch of tentacles swarming from a hole in the air.

As per the solicitation, aliens show up with a device to stop Earth's rotations, creating extreme environmental conditions they love. The Invisible Woman handles that in 6 pages by tricking them into retreating by making it look like she can do the same thing, easily, with her powers. This brings Maria Hill - 

BOOOOOOOOOOOOO!

Sorry about that, reflex. She has an offer for the FF to help build a new version of SHIELD, focused on helping people with superpowers figure out how to use them to make the world a better place. Which, as everyone in the conversation notes, sounds a lot less like SHIELD, and more like Hickman's "Future Foundation." Also, not clear on why the FF need any help to start that up again.

Around the dinner table, the FF for some reason debate whether to trust Maria Hill - BOOOOOOOOO! - who has never had an idea that actually worked or, for that matter, one that was worth a damn. Thankfully, the Wizard breaks into their lab, freeing us from Ryan North's attempts to get me to take M - that character seriously. Even having hacked all Reed's stuff, the Wizard barely lasts any longer than the aliens. Because he's a loser. Reed can't figure out how the Wizard could break his encryptions, as they're somehow based on cosmic background radiation to generate truly random numbers.

Yeah, man, I don't know. Might as well say a sorcerer generates the numbers. Point being, the radiation is somehow not random any longer, and there's a message in it. From Galactus. About Sue.

Not a great issue for Ben. He can't clobber the aliens' machine. Hill - BOOOOOOO! - dismisses him as the only member of the Four that couldn't end all life on the planet. Excuse you, the Thing could definitely punch a dormant super-volcano hard enough to make it erupt, causing a mass extinction event! And then he gets sucker-punched by the FF's old robot receptionist, which Ramos depicts as having knocked off a chunk of Ben's rocky hide. Based on where she punched him, I thought she's knocked off part of his jaw, but apparently not, so I have no idea where it came from. 

Random Back Issues #164 - Batgirl #63

New city, but Cassandra's managed to find another older redhead encouraging her to have fun. 

It's been a hot minute since we've looked at Cassandra Cain's first book (almost six years!) In the aftermath of the garbage fire that was War Games, Batgirl is operating in Bludhaven, and has been messing with the Penguin (who moved in after Blockbuster was killed, I think in the pages of Nightwing.) Enough so, Cobblepot approaches a quartet of shadowy figures - (Alexander) Luthor's Society of Super-Villains, because we're in the run-up to Infinite Crisis - about getting rid of her. Specifically, he asks Deathstroke if he wouldn't mind handling it, describing it as a 'feather in your cap.'

Let's maybe keep Deathstroke away from underage girls, shall we? 

In the meantime, Cassandra's completed a morning workout routine she's done since childhood, though she changed the ending to where she doesn't decapitate the final dummy. Heading out to get a coffee from the shop near her loft, she overhears Brenda, the owner, talking about how the Wayne Foundation got her a grant to help her keep her store, and she's hosting a big party to celebrate. Brenda invites Cass, who demurs, claiming she needs to work tonight.

After thanking Batman for helping Brenda, and being warned the Penguin is looking for new alliances (see above paragraph), Cass decides to attend the party. But what to wear? Cass hasn't been to a party before, minus that cruise Barbara took her on 20 issues ago where Cass encountered Superboy. She tries a dress skirt and jacket that make her look like a mid-40s real estate agent for some firm in a small Midwestern town, but correctly notes it's no good, and makes some modifications.

Brenda seems to like it, but Cassandra is more interested by the mosh pit, and possibly some boy she sees bouncing around. Party Time is interrupted by an explosion and fire at the neighbor's across the street and Batgirl is soon Kool-Aid-Manning through a wall - to find Deathstroke holding Mrs. Brauenstein by the throat, Mr. Brauenstein already dead at his feet.

Batgirl asks 'stroke to put the woman down, so he breaks her neck and drops her. The fight is on! This is what got me to hunt down that issue of Nightwing discussed in Sunday Splash Page. While it's more involved here, Deathstroke is played as being in control. Within the first page he's shot a hole in her cape, shot off one of the cowl's ears, and gotten her to dodge a shot that took out a pillar and dropped the ceiling on her. Batgirl's monologue describes his body's movements as like a choir. 'Many different voices. All at once. But singing too fast. Too loud. The message is lost. Until it's too late.'

Batgirl escapes before the house collapses, the chase moving to rooftops. Noting Slade's deliberately moving slow, she opts to change the game, passing up an chance to attack, instead vaulting him and running, to an old churchyard. Deathstroke tangles her legs with a net, but she's able to pin his sword between her legs and kick him in the chops, cutting herself free as he gets hold of the net. There's a bit of flipping around before things end up with Batgirl pointing Deathstroke's sword at his face. But he knows she won't kill. And that's fine, because this is really a test for his daughter Rose, aka the Ravager!

Batgirl will handle that, but Deathstroke eventually uses Chemo to blow up Bludhaven and drugs Cassandra into taking over the League of Assassins (thanks Geoof Johns and Adam Beechen, you hacks!) But Deathstroke will also lose a fight to Green Arrow, so it's not all wine and roses for that creep.

{2nd longbox, 70th comic. Batgirl (vol. 1) #63, by Andersen Gabrych (writer), Ale Garza (penciller), Jesse Delperdang and Andrew Pepoy (inkers), Wildstorm FX (colorists), Pat Brosseau (letterer)}

What I Bought 11/5/2025

Last week dragged like an anchor, even worse than I suspected it would, coming off two vacation-shortened weeks. At least this week had a holiday in the middle of it, but now I've got a public meeting tomorrow. Will I, for once, resist the urge to try and offer information I think is helpful and just keep my mouth shut? We'll see!

Batgirl #13, by Tate Brombal (writer), Takeshi Miyazawa (artist), Juan Castro (inker), Mike Spicer (colorist), Tom Napolitano (letterer) - At least one of them is smart enough to cover their mouth before walking through a field of weird flowers.

It's the start of the assault on the Unburied, with flashbacks to how the different characters tried to prepare. Cass wanted to learn to heal, but won't let go of her past, so it's a no-go. Jade Tiger gets picked at by the shape-shifter in the crew about how he doesn't measure up to Cass. Nyssa and Angel Breaker discuss why they're bothering with this at all, which seems to boil down to Nyssa' daddy issues. She wants to accomplish what he didn't, as the forgotten daughter. Well, I can get behind spite as a motive.

They infiltrate easily enough, and then Cassandra gets distracted by some play about the history of the valley, which reveals that it wasn't just Ra's who attacked these people, Nyssa was involved, too. I'm shocked! Shocked! Well, not that shocked. More shocked Batgirl didn't recognize a lie or some dissembling when Nyssa was telling her little tale in the previous issue.

Then Batgirl starts having a panic attack when the play reenacts Shiva's death, but hey! Here's Kalden the Unseen as special guest! Rather than talk, or deal with emotions, Batgirl can just take revenge! Revenge: The source of, and solution to, all life's problems.

I really do wonder how long Brombal is going to drag this storyline out. It feels like there's a lot of going in circles, to no particular gain. Couldn't we have explored Cassandra's unresolved and messy issues with Shiva while doing other stuff?

Moon Knight: Fist of Khonshu #14, by Jed MacKay (writer), Domenico Carbone (artist), Rachelle Rosenberg (color artist), Cory Petit (letterer) -  Looks like Marc forgot his belt on tonight's patrol.

The guy summoning the ghosts is not a preexisting character I should have recognized. He's the strictly the guy that was a firefighter present at the Wrecker's rampage. Feeling the costumed types never notice the little people like him or the Wrecker's victims, he studied magic and did all this as a "voice to the powerless" thing. Which did involve putting together a costume of his own and giving himself the name "Executor," but he rationalizes that by arguing it's the only way to get them to notice him.

Does he want them to notice him, though? Is fighting Moon Knight and Scarlet Scarab really helping his scheme to take revenge? Assuming that's all it is any longer. He mentions it's hard to learn magic because even if you find texts, they were written by crazy people, as he reasons all magic users are a little insane. Which means he is now at least a little insane.

Don't love the costume, what I can see of it anyway. There's a dark robe with a hood and a rope belt. Sort of a big skull facemask, a little like one of Taskmaster's, but the jaw is uncovered. I'm not sure if it's feathers or living shadows around the fringes. Honestly, the whole thing is so dark, it just kind of becomes a blob of darkness. Black outer garments over grey shirt and pants. The fire ax is as his enchanted weapon or mystical focus is a nice touch. Nods to his fireman work, but also towards an executioner. 

He sets the ghosts of all the people Marc and Layla killed in their merc days on them, and goes after the Wrecker, who is getting yelled at by Reese. Which is probably not a smart move on her part. I think "Guy who fights Thor," trumps "vampire." But Executor arrives, and his plan was - to let all the angry ghosts possess the Wrecker. That doesn't seem likely to produce any results but more dead regular folks.

Which I guess will make this a case of him stewing in his own anger and pain and ultimately using these spirits rather than helping them or providing any peace or working to prevent there being more dead people. Like Marc initially using all his skills as a mercenary, where now he tries to help people. Maybe the Wrecker shouldn't be one of those people, but that'll be a lesson to grow on.

What I Bought 10/12/2025

I saw Serena Williams in a commercial for one of those weight-loss injection things. The notion she felt she needed to lose weight is not doing anything good for my self-image. (Though I remain unconvinced of the long-term viability of those injections. They seem like artificial appetite suppressants, and I know from experience your body adapts if you just cut way back on calories.)

Anyway, here's the one comic from this week I wanted. I haven't found Bronze Faces #5 anywhere yet, and I didn't want to order from the online shop just for Runaways #4, so hopefully I'll get to those two at some point.

Batgirl #12, by Tate Brombal (writer), Takeshi Miyazawa (penciler/inker), Juan Castro (inker), Mike Spicer (colorist), Tom Napolitano (letterer) -  It would be pretty freaky to look up and see the Bat-signal, and then Batgirl seemingly drops out of it directly onto your face.

Cassandra is traveling with her new half-brother and Jaya to see Nyssa Al'Ghul. She's trying to train up Tenji, while Jaya is teaching both of them about healing through chi and chakras and whatnot. That's not so bad. Cass is also having nightmares about killing, about Shiva demanding to be avenged, and when Oracle tries contacting her, Cass turns off the communicator. Not great signs.

Nyssa has some lair in a weird place inside a mountain in the Himalayas, which is supposedly open to anyone looking to heal. And she's not prepared to let the Unburied tear down her little fiefdom, so she'd like Cassandra's help. Tenji says no, heroes don't work with villains. Oh, wow, where do you even start with that? Bronze Tiger really ought to have shared a few stories from the Suicide Squad days with his kid.

Cass, however, is in. Especially since the plan is the same one Shiva proposed: Find the Unburied's supply of the special blue flowers, and destroy it. Great, let's get the fuck on with it then. Also, I know it's relevant to Nyssa and Cassandra's backstory, but I really wish Brombal would quit bringing up the post-Infinite Crisis "Evil Cass" stuff. Just leave it in the dumpster of my memory where it belongs.

Then the big loud one of the Unburied, captured by Nyssa's crew at the beginning of the issue, busts loose, and Cass takes him down with Shiva's sword in one page. The small panels showing where she's cutting suggest she's not killing, but going hacky-slashy is probably a development to be concerned about. Still, it's nice to see her kicking some ass. Maybe she's settled on a course of action now, though it remains to be seen how she plans to go about getting her "justice."

What I Bought 9/5/2025

In a surprising turn of events, the local store had both of last week's comics I wanted. Maybe he's gotten things stabilized a bit. That'd be helpful.

Batgirl #11, by Tate Brombal (writer), Takeshi Miyazawa (artist), Mike Spicer (colorist), Tom Napolitano (letterer) - That cloud looks like. . .3 people about to get their butts kicked.

The lady with the scythe isn't there to fight Batgirl. She's part of that group that can turn their blood to a weapon, and since Shiva was descended from that line, Cass has the potential as well. So they want her to join them. Tenji, too, once she knows he's also Shiva's kid.

Of course, the offer is "join or die," and Cass kicked her in the face, so fight's on. Tenji stands up to his dad, determined to help, but when he almost immediately gets injured, Cass flips out and starts beating the crap out of blood lady. Bronze Tiger stops her, but Wu Lin won't take the hint and puts everything she's got left into basically a hail of blood needles. Only some of which Cass is able to keep from hitting Bronze Tiger's back, though he doesn't seem to bothered either way.

And then the third weirdo arrives. She was sent by Nyssa al Ghul, offering Cassandra an opportunity to team up with the League of Shadows, and her dad was the nice Shiva devotee who died very quickly several issues ago. So Cass agrees to come along, and Tenji's coming too, with his dad's blessing and some cool tiger claw gauntlet things. And maybe Bronze Tiger will stop hiding on a ranch and go out in the world to do some good? Maybe?

So, with this 3-issue arc in the books, what did it get us? Cass has a half-brother who looks up to her, but had an entirely different, sheltered upbringing. Which would seem to make him a liability in what's undoubtedly coming. Cass learned a little more about her mother, and is still trying to deal with the fact she's dead, or maybe the fact that Cass is bothered that Shiva's dead. If she is. I retain serious doubts on that score. And now Cassandra's returning to a place that was not a good part of her life, League of Assassins/Shadows-related nonsense from the ugly years of Johns and Beechen insisting that because her parents were evil killers, Cass would also therefore become a killer.

Nothing bad can come of that stroll down memory lane!

Moon Knight: Fist of Khonshu #12, by Jed MacKay (writer), Domenico Carbone (artist), Rachelle Rosenberg (color artist), Cory Petit (letterer) - Geez, what did Swamp Thing ever do to Moon Knight?

Marc's actually seeing his therapist! Yay! Because he has a problem. Well, at least he's seeking a second opinion. The Wrecker is being haunted, and seeing as he helped free Khonshu during Blood Hunt, which meant Marc could be resurrected, he figures he's owed a favor. Of course, Tigra and Hunter's Moon paid him, but as Marc notes, the Wrecker is the kind of guy to always expect a favor to be repaid in kind. Just like himself.

That seems to suggest the Wrecker is never going to consider the debt repaid, in which case maybe Marc ought to just sic Thor, sorry, Beta Ray Bill on the guy and call it a day. But he doesn't, so out comes the enchanted skeleton armor from that one Ellis/Shalvey story, and commence to ghost punchin'!

The ghosts prove resistant to punching, and in fact, get stronger as they're pissed off Wrecker found someone to defend him. Marc borrows the crowbar, and combining that with his outfit seems enough to start shredding the ghosts. At which point that Layla character from the TV show pops up, as whatever role she has as this Scarlet Scarab - I never finished the show, so hell if I know her deal - to advocate for Marc to get out of the way and let the ghosts take revenge on their killer.

It's kind of ridiculous that Marc seemingly never questioned why these ghosts were hounding the Wrecker, and only the Wrecker (he mentions he called the rest of the Wrecking Crew for back-up, and they couldn't see them.) But Marc doesn't typically ask that when someone comes into his place looking for help, so why start now? He wants to divest himself of the debt, he thinks this is the way to do it, let's get it over with.

Carbone and Rosenberg make the ghosts look like blurry, glowy-eyed rotting corpses. There aren't a lot of details to the spectres - the outline of their nose or a rib here and there - and a fair amount of what looks like lightning or electrical discharge around them. Certainly not like the ghosts in the earlier story, who Shalvey drew as basically fully formed '80s punks, just colored Slimer green. But this issue was mostly focused on the Wrecker being under attack. Now that we know why, maybe they'll become more distinct as we see their own backstories and reasons for wanting revenge. 

What I Bought 8/15/2025

I found out a few weeks ago the city arranges for a bunch of food trucks to get together in this one spot each Friday. I decided to use it as a way to try some different foods, except the pickings have been slim the last two weeks. I don't know if I got there too early in the afternoon, and some of the trucks don't show until later, if it was because of the miserable heat, or if the whole thing is winding down for the season and people are peeling off to other gigs. The weather's supposed to be much nicer this Friday, so I'm hoping for more options.

Batgirl #10, by Tate Brombal (writer), Takeshi Miyazawa (artist), Mike Spicer (color artist), Tom Napolitano (letterer) - An actual tiger would be more help to Cass than the boy has been so far.

So, we got Norbu the Untested here to end the line of Shiva. Except there's at least one more kid in that lineage than he expected. Not that it matters. If it was just Cassandra, Norbu is toast, in five moves. But Tenji's here, and he's less tested than Norbu, but not smart enough to stay out of the way. He gets injured, Bronze Tiger puts Norbu through the side of the barn. 

Which doesn't finish the fight, but puts it on pause long enough for Cass and Bronze Tiger to argue some more. Because Tenji knows the moves, but not how to use them. Because Bronze Tiger thought he could keep the kid sealed away from Cass' fate. Which is remarkably naive for a guy with his past, but I guess he's trying to make his son gentler than he is. And since Shiva apparently only came to visit on Tenji's birthday to spar with him, she wasn't much of an influence.

I still don't know when Bronze Tiger got the little stripe marks on his face. He either had the tiger-headdress, or he painted stripes on his face. These are like scars, or extremely faint tattoos. Not loving it as a look.

Which, fair enough, provided Tenji survives the experience. Norbu pulls himself off the canvas, amps up with some of those blue petals, gets ready to unleash his ultimate attack - and get decapitated by the second of the "Swords." Fine, "Blue Blossom Omnistrike's" a dumb name, anyway. It probably would have been a totally lame ultimate attack.

Moon Knight; Fist of Khonshu #11, by Jed MacKay (writer), Domenico Carbone (artist), Rachelle Rosenberg (color artist), Clayton Cowles (letterer) - The cover suggests a much grimmer story than what we actually get, fyi.

It's Marc Spector's birthday, and you're getting a tour of his life from the perspective of his supporting cast. Meaning that we're seeing the entire issue through the eyes of a character that's unnamed for 60% of the comic. So the characters use the same sorts of language murder victims do in mysteries just before they expire. "Oh, it's you." "Sorry! Didn't see you there!" That sort of thing.

Admittedly, I couldn't figure out who was still alive from Marc's previous supporting casts that might bother to show up, so I was toying with the idea Marc had drawn back and let Jake or Steven take the reins. It would have been weird, but I could see some of the cast trying to speak with those guys about Marc. Get perspective from a man on the inside, so to speak.

But it's actually Diatrice, Marc and Marlene's kid, who we haven't seen since the Annual a couple years ago. And I would never have expected Marlene to let her daughter attend Marc's birthday party, especially when he was being hunted by the police for suspicion of being a drug lord two issues ago, but here we are. And then Zodiac tries to take Diatrice hostage, has a lot of blah blah about how being a dad's not what Moon Knight is, and Marlene blows Zodiac's head open with a shot gun.

OK, that's a lie, or maybe a wish. Neither Marlene or Zodiac are present, though I assume Marlene's around somewhere. No way she let her kid come here on her own. Whatever, Marc makes his new sword release the soul of the Midnight Mission, and so the crew have their base back. And Moon Knight actually got someone back that he lost! Only running a deficit of 50-to-1 now. Also, I figure Marc asking the Mission to be friends with Diatrice will factor in at some point in the future.

What I Bought 8/4/2025 - Part 4

I was traveling on the west side of the state last week for work. While I was at a gas station, I saw a quilt shop across the street. On the sign, beneath the name of the shop, was the tagline, "you screamed, he stopped." Read it, paused. Double-take. Spent a few seconds parsing the meaning. At least, I hope I parsed the meaning. There was only one that wasn't deeply concerning.

Batgirl #9, by Tate Brombal (writer), Takeshi Miyazawa (artist), Mike Spicer (colorist), Tom Napolitano (letterer) - "Batgirl Must Die"? Damn it, did DC switch editorial directions again?

Cassandra finds Bronze Tiger, living on a ranch in Montana. Cass makes the decision to arrive in full Batgirl attire, on a black stallion. Did she rent the horse dressed as Batgirl? Buy it? Did she steal the horse? The horse seems pretty OK with her, but maybe she offered it an apple. Part of Batman's teachings: always have snacks to gain the loyalty of local fauna.

Cass is there to find out about the "Jade Tiger", but as Bronze Tiger seems reluctant to talk, she starts jabbing at him. Verbally, for giving up, for hiding away, for not doing anything to help the world. His response is all his attempts to help made the world worse, so she starts jabbing at him, physically.

Which prompts a young man dressed in green to attack her. A brief fight, and the guy's revealed as Tenji Turner, the son of Bronze Tiger and Lady Shiva. So we're doing the "Surprise! Siblings!" plotline. I find it a little weird Bronze Tiger is trying to ignore the questions about the "Jade Tiger", but as soon as Tenji intervenes, he chooses to refer to him as "Jade Tiger" rather than "Tenji." If you don't want to reveal it, why use the codename she knows?

Tenji doesn't know much about either of his parents' past, certainly not the darker stuff, but he knows of Cassandra (but not that she's Batgirl, or what a Batgirl is, considering he asks if she's a 'cave ninja.') That'll have to wait, because another of the Unburied shows up, looking to kill Cassandra. And two more on their way. Which will at least give Cassandra an opportunity to put all this energy and urge to fight to good use.

Great British Bump-Off: Kill or Be Quilt #4, by John Allison (writer), Max Sarin (artist), Sammy Borras (color artist), Jim Campbell (letterer) - Shauna beating that pinata like it ruined her burgeoning romance with a self-absorbed boy. 

The war between quilt stores is settled with an all-night quilting face-off, which ends in disgrace for both teams, as the old lady declares both their efforts pitiful. 'I see both teams have chosen blind panic as their theme.'

Quilts have themes? I learn something every day.

The hatchet is buried, but the car arson and shop flooding remain unsolved. The shop owners have decided they don't care, insurance will cover it, and they'll cover the cost of Shauna's boat repairs. Shauna, on the other hand, must know who's responsible. Well, if she'd read Bryn's pamphlet, she'd have known, because his submission for poetry slam was in there, and it details the whole thing.

Hooray! I correctly deduced the culprit. Admittedly, I did so by judging off tropes and his general personality, but that's half of what Shauna does, and I pulled it off 3 issues earlier. Ha-ha! Point for Calvin, though Shauna, like a photo in one of those apps, is able to re-frame things so her attraction was actually her subconscious recognizing he was a hoodlum. That bit of mental buttressing complete, she's off to get the boat repaired and return to Tackleford. Bryn's left to be drawn into the pub dads' clique, the poor sod.

Either way, another Allison/Sarin adventure in the books. I know less about quilting than I do baking shows (or baking in general), but I might have enjoyed this more than the first Great British Bump-Off. Smaller cast made things easier to keep track of, and Shauna seemed to have more time to devolve into flights of whimsy and crushing despair for Max Sarin to depict marvelously. And since Shauna spent more time trying to be a double-agent for both sides, she wasn't doing as much investigating, which meant I didn't feel as bad for not being able to put together clues (because there weren't any, forensic evidence apparently not being much of a thing in the Allison oeuvre.)

What I Bought 6/6/2025

Of course, as soon as I mention wanting to review movies I've had for a while, I visit my dad for a weekend and we watch a bunch of new (to me) movies. Maybe I'll start in July. Today, one book from last week.

Batgirl #8, by Tate Brombal (writer), Isaac Goodhart (artist), Mike Spicer (colorist), Tom Napolitano (letterer) - It's like the words came to life, and bled all over the pages.

Continuing with Shiva's backstory, she and her sister (now going by Sandra and Carolyn Wu-San) are living in Detroit's Chinatown, earning a living winning 2-on-2 fights against all challengers. Which includes a young Ben Turner and Richard Drakunovski, aka Bronze Tiger and Richard Dragon.

The boys lose the fight, but gain a couple of friends. Well, one friend anyway. Sandra might be better described as an ally. Sandra's still intent on finding their uncle and killing him to avenge their parents, but Carolyn thinks using their skills to help people, like Richard and Ben, sounds like a good idea. So we get a couple pages of them fighting a giant, talking praying mantis, or bad guys on snowshoes and ice skates. Ben and Carolyn hit it off, but Richard's fumbling attempts with Sandra are rebuffed. Maybe not even "rebuffed", because I'm not sure she even realizes he's trying to ask her out.

Sandra's still driven by anger, and amid that, David Cain enters the picture, with an offer. Brombal writes Cain as, a) a guy who thinks of himself as a planner, and b) super-creepy. He's all "blah blah, holding your self back, blah blah in your sister's shadow, blah blah birth my perfect weapon blah blah." You know his deal. Loser shit. But to help his "plan" along, he killed Carolyn.

Which I do not think was previously established in canon and, if I'm right, is a weird direction for Brombal to go. Shiva conceived a child with the guy who killed her sister? The sister she's nearly deified in these journal entries? I mean, it got us Cass, so that's great from my perspective, but seems odd from hers. Why not just kill the guy and find someone else to make you a perfect weapon? Why assume he's the only one who could pull that off? Assuming that turns out to have anything to do with her thought process, but it sure as hell seems like it does.

What I Bought 5/8/2025 - Part 2

Today marks the last day people at my job get to work from home, thanks to our dickhead governor. I rarely took advantage of it, because I preferred to keep work at work and out of my home, but it was a real boon to several of my coworkers who have kids or pets or mobility issues.

Now, the new directive says people can still use alternative work locations on a "temporary" and "infrequent" basis, so I have been trying to convince my coworkers that short of a specific definition of those words, they could still work from home 1-2 days a week (infrequent). Do that for a few months (temporary), but then, darn, there are circumstances that mean you need to keep going for another few months (temporary). If circumstances keep colluding to make infrequent work from home necessary, well, what can you do?

I don't think our boss will care, and I'd rather my coworkers were happy and wanted to stay around (because I like most of them, and because if they leave it means even more work for me.) I guess we'll see if any of them take my suggestion and run with it.

Resurrection Man: Quantum Karma #2, by Ram V (writer), Anand RK and Jackson Guice (artists), Mike Spicer (colorist), Aditya Bidikar (letterer) - I feel as though the Ouroboros in the skull's eye doesn't bode well for Mitch fixing all this.

So, even though Kagawa was burned up like most of Rabaul when Mitch's power returned in 1945, that little bit of Mitch he ate is somehow keeping him alive. As a hideous, gooey pink corpse-thing, but he can still talk! All his speech balloons are wobbly-lined and the words colored red, so I imagine his voice is an awful thing to hear.

Meanwhile, Mitch (as Mark Seivers) is trying to get to safety, with another new power. He died in a trap of spikes and barbed wire, and now can project those things into and through objects via touch. I gotta say, Ram V is doing a much better job of making Mitch's new powers reflect his previous method of demise than I remember Abnett and Lanning doing. Most of the soldiers escaping with him are afraid, but one, Ashar Singh, extends an offer to Mitch to come home with him.

Mitch goes off alone instead, and the other escapees are found and killed by the Japanese Army shortly after. In the special place with all the gears, the other Mitch tells him that with his new power, he exists in all moments of his life simultaneously, and can go back to change them. Our Mitch doesn't see much point, but remembers how he met his wife, Alize, by the both of them taking a chance they normally wouldn't. So Mitch returns to when he hears the shooting. Still too late to save them, but in time for Ashar to ask him to deliver a letter to his family.

OK, if Mitch can return and change any moment in his life, why didn't he go back a few hours earlier and not head out alone? Then he could have been there to try and protect the escapees. For that matter, why not go back and avoid going to war and being taken prisoner entirely? OK, it doesn't seem like he's twigged to the cause of the problem, but you can't say, "he can step into any moment of his life and change it," and then ignore the obvious ones. Unless we aren't supposed to trust Other Mitch, since he's the one who nudges Our Mitch to make that particular change. Guess we'll see.

Batgirl #7, by Tate Brombal (writer), Isaac Goodhart (artist), Mike Spicer (colorist), Tom Napolitano (letterer) -  Superheroes ridin' a train, guess Batman's outta money again. Or it's a character-building exercise.

The entire issue is Cassandra riding a train, reading a book Shiva wrote of her life while listening to a recording Shiva made of the book (since she wasn't sure how well Cassandra can read.) Basically, Shiva (then Ming-Yue), and her sister Mei-Xing lived their early years on the run with their parents, for reasons the kids were not clear on. They were ambushed in the mountains, the kids fled and reached a monastery, while the parents died fighting.

Flash forward ten years, Shiva's studying martial arts, but doesn't do well controlling her temper or instinct to attack. She also idolizes her older sister. But after Shiva beats up a couple of thugs hassling an old lady (who may be selling blue flower petals clandestinely), the village comes under attack by the same guys that killed their parents. The leader of that group recognizes the girls, says a bunch of cryptic shit about "daughters born of forbidden love", then claims to be their uncle. He's also able to make weapons out of his own blood, which is just unsanitary. The lead monk buys the girls time to escape, they do, and that's where the issue leaves off.

I'm sticking with my theory Shiva's really the one behind the Unburied. One of her allies on the train in issue 4 was a guy who makes weapons and stuff from his blood. Which makes him current leader of the same group that attacked the village in this issue. Which, if the guy leading the Blood in this flashback is to be believed, means Shiva is also a part of that group by heredity. Which certainly makes the fact the current "Bloodmaster" got killed seem like either a bit of delayed revenge, or a clearing of an obstacle.

Goodhart's got a heavier line than Miyazawa, tends to soften and round the faces. But Cassandra's not fighting and the moment, and this is a younger Shiva we're seeing, not the hardened warrior of later years, so it works. And Goodhart makes good use of shadows to make the Blood leader seem more imposing (to the extent a scarred wall of muscle needs that), or to hint at what's boiling beneath the surface inside Shiva.