What I Bought 3/25/2026

It was 90 here yesterday, but I will not turn on my air conditioning. Not yet. Plus, it's barely into the 50s today. Lousy Smarch weather. Here's two comics from this week.

Fantastic Four #9, by Ryan North (writer), Humberto Ramos (penciler), Victor Olazaba (inker), Edgar Delgado (colorist), Joe Caramagna (letterer) - 

The FF get their tails kicked by Evil Sue and run with their tails between their legs. Galactus gets left behind. Ha! Regular Sue tries to reason with Evil Sue, since fighting her isn't working. Talking doesn't work either. In fact, Evil Sue decides she ought to make another just like her, and Johnny barely manages to cut in before his sister gets the same brain surgery.

Oh, and Earth is being attacked by aliens of some sort. I don't know what they're supposed to be; Ramos just draws them as big purple things with sort-of grasshopper legs. Don't really think that should be such a serious problem just because the FF aren't around. The Avengers and the X-Men deal with aliens, too!

I have to wonder at Evil Sue's motives for wanting to make Regular Sue just like her. If she can do everything, if the rest of the FF are useless, if Galactus is no match for her, what does she need a duplicate for? I kind of hope this isn't a Killing Joke, where she wants to prove anyone that goes through this will end up acting like she does.

I'm toying with the possibility she wants to die, and figures another Sue like her is the only thing strong enough to do it. A death wish wouldn't really track with her notion that she no longer feels guilt, but unless Evil Sue has a very different educational background from Regular Sue, she's not a brain surgeon. How could she be sure she burned out the right part of her brain? She admits she's holding back, that she lets Sue hit her with some attacks to see if she'll go for the kill. She's playing with the rest of the team, just throwing things at them to keep them busy while she tests Regular Sue.

I guess that could just be villain ego. Get to the end and find out Evil Sue is just like Doom, she like monologue and show off too much.

Generation X-23 #2, by Jody Houser (writer), Jacopo Camagni (artist), Erick Arciniega (color artist), Ariana Maher (letterer) - Laura is this how you make friends?

All the teenagers with powers were kids being experimented on in the facility where they currently live. But, as the apparent leader, who calls himself X-Infinite, tells us, one of the test subjects got loose and released some kind of vapor that killed everyone. And X-Infinite is the only witness. Not suspect at all! 

The handful who didn't die stuck around and call it home. They tend to have several powers, as a result of being experimented on, and they all refer to themselves by their experiment numbers. X-73, X-92, and so on. More concerning, X-Infinite insists on referring to Laura as "X-23", despite her repeatedly saying her name is "Laura." Not concerning!

Scout participates in a little training exercise with the others - just enough to give us some general sense what their powers are - until X-73 suddenly starts generating heat. Or fire. Either way, he's not immune and despite Laura's encouragement - to the extent, 'You have to control it!' qualifies - he blows up. And when she wakes up, X-Infinite says she has to answer for his friend's death.

I don't feel like Houser is being particularly subtle that something isn't on the up-and-up with X-Infinite. On the other hand, he isn't wrong that maybe they're safer in this secure facility than accepting Laura's offer to join whatever mutant school is currently available. If they don't think of themselves as mutants, or even if they do but don't particularly want to get missed up in X-Men nonsense, that's their business. Laura doesn't need to be proselytizing. 

What I Bought 2/18/2026 - Part 1

I was, by process of elimination, thrown into this stupid work group last year, for people who lead without actually being in leadership positions. I have no business being there, no idea what I'm supposed to be bringing to it, or taking from it. Which is not a huge surprise, considering the guy who I'm positive came up with it uses idiotic phrases like, "people leaders." As in, "consult with your unit's people leaders." What is that phrase supposed to convey that just saying "leaders" wouldn't? We don't have any dogs or robots at my job!

I'd do my job a lot better if they'd just leave me to it. 

Fantastic Four #8, by Ryan North (writer), Humberto Ramos (penciler), Victor Olazaba (inker), Edgar Delgado (colorist), Joe Caramagna (letterer) - Sue is rocking a spiked outfit! Be on alert, but also get some popcorn in case she's finally ready to off Reed.

Most of this issue revolves around the notion that a universe is so vast, that you don't even need parallel universes for the same situations or people to occur more than once. So in another section of the 616-universe, there is another Earth-like planet, with homo sapiens-looking folks, including 4 exposed to cosmic rays who develop familiar powers. I mean, OK, seems a bit much to be that similar, but maybe it'll turn out to be another world of Skrulls convinced they're Earthlings.

But in this world, this Sue twigged to the fact her powers go beyond being invisible much sooner, and Reed encourages her to explore the full potential of what she can manipulate. Which seems to be pretty much anything. Magnetism, gravity, electromagnetic energy all that jazz.

Seems groovy, until this Sue has a nightmare of being besieged by enemies. And the fighting she does in her nightmare, translates to the real world. Her forcefields cut off this sorta-Earth from heat, and kills everyone. Except Johnny. There wasn't anyone else with heat powers on this sorta-Earth? Whatever, Sue hides in her guilt for a while, until she convinces Johnny to let her use his heat to perform a little brain surgery on herself.

Props to Ramos on that image, which will no doubt replace the whale in my nightmares. Now she doesn't feel bad about killing every human! Things went downhill from there, and the FF are about to find out just how downhill as they find a battered Galactus and the so-called "Invincible Woman."

Can you actually disable the portion of your brain that feels guilt or regret, but still feel joy, as this other Sue declares? Or is it just the absence of the pain, after weeks of dealing with it, translated by whatever's left of her brain as joy? And does that really mean she'd start going around, attacking people? Although it's a good beat Galactus tried eating her Earth, in which case the FF should really step aside and let this Sue finish Galactus off. Cosmic consonance, my ass.

What I Bought 1/21/2026

Similar to my 2024 watch-through of all the movies I owned, I decided to go through all my anime this year. Which has been fun. It had been at least a decade since the last time I watched Azumanga Daioh or Cowboy Bebop. I'm working through Desert Punk at the moment, which is mostly confirming my memory that buying Desert Punk was a mistake. 

Fantastic Four #7, by Ryan North (writer), Humberto Ramos (penciler), Victor Olazaba and JP Mayer (inkers), Edgar Delgado (colorist), Joe Caramagna (letterer) - Why have the sleeves of the outfit stop partway up the arm? Makes it look like the unstable molecules shrank in the washing machine.

The FF conclude they have to go see what's up with Galactus, that he sent this message. Which involves building a faster-than-light ship that Ramos draws as very 1950s flying saucer. But since they won't be bringing the kids or Alicia along, they need someone to look after them. So each member of the team picks someone to get a teleport bracelet that can bring them to the kids if there's trouble. And there is, from the Mad Thinker, who also decoded the message and decides to attack as soon as the FF depart.

It's definitely the more nuanced approach that Nicieza took with M.T. in the first volume of New Warriors, but reducing the Mad Thinker to a guy attacking kids with killer robots for revenge is really lame. If North established this is part of some larger goal, clearing the deck of an obstacle so he can get at resources Reed has, that would be one thing. But revenge is just so, petty, and lacking in any gain in knowledge.

But that's the plot we've got, so with the robots designed to counter anything the kids can manage, Franklin calls in the cavalry. We see Johnny ask Wyatt Wingfoot, and Sue asks Felicia (though she admits this would usually be a She-Hulk situation.) I'm assuming Ben asked Wolverine and Reed asked Carol Danvers? Can't really see it the other way around. And, because the Thinker predicted the FF would ask these 4 specific people, the quartet gets taken out in less than a page.

That pitiful showing is all to set up the big twist. This issue is narrated by the Thing, though he admits he only learned about the stuff with the Thinker after the fact. Throughout the issue, he makes reference to a lunch date he was worried about missing. As it turns out, it was with a bunch of third-rate villains that Ben has shown kindness to over the years, whether that's giving them a ride home instead of to the police station, or just not clobbering them.

So he made a request to look after his family, and they dogpile the Mad Thinker. The point is something about guys like the Thinker believing it's always one person alone, but it's really about the connections you make, but I'm left thinking how embarrassing it is for Wolverine and Captain Marvel that they got trounced by a guy who just lost to 8-Ball, the Melter (I think), Frog-Man, and some guy named Pulverizer. And 8-Ball's nominally a good guy now, can he even hang out at villain bars? For that matter, when did Frog-Man go bad? His dad was the crook!

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. 

Fantastic Four: First Steps (2025)

Alex had us watch Thunderbolts* as a precursor to this, due to the post-credits scene. I don't really think that was necessary, but it wasn't like T'bolts was a slog to watch, so why not? As for this, set in its own universe (and in the '60s) four years after the FF received their powers, they've become beloved heroes and celebrities. Now Sue (Vanessa Kirby) and Reed (Pedro Pascal) are expecting their first kid! Which is when the Silver Surfer (Julia Garner) shows up to tell Earth, Galactus will be coming to eat their planet soon.

So, I like the visual aesthetic of the movie, even if the '60s aren't an era I have some massive fondness for. It looks different, distinctive, from all the other Marvel stuff, and that's nice. Let the creative talent's styles and influences show through. (Also, I suspect Reed likes to write things out on a chalkboard anyway, but being in an era before ubiquitous computers means it's not that strange he's doing a lot of calculations by hand.) 

I like they dispensed with the origin, trusting us to understand enough from the TV show intro. I like that the team went into space to try and stop Galactus before he got close, and the whole faster-than-light chase, escape around the neutron star, sequence. It felt right for the Fantastic Four, not winning by overpowering their opponent, but outsmarting them and leveraging their group's individual skills (Ben's piloting, Johnny's adjusting to shooting in a wormhole.)

I was expecting Ben Grimm's voice to be gruffer, but Ebon Moss-Bachrach is also playing a Ben who seems content with his circumstances. He's not wandering rainy streets in a trenchcoat bemoaning his fate, and even tells Reed not to beat himself up about what happened. This version is in a much better headspace than any of the prior film versions, though maybe that's why it feels like he got the least focus. (The rock beard thing was freaky however, and I did not like it.)

A lot of the film is, naturally, focused on Reed and Sue, as new parents of a child that's going to be far more than they thought, and who might be able to save the world, if they're willing to give him up. Reed having to learn to deal with the uncertainty and unknowable parts of raising a tiny human. Sue, probably putting that experience at the UN to good use, keeping the others focused and working to some sort of solution. Don't let Reed get too far into the impossibilities of things, take the time to listen to Johnny when he thinks he's on to something, even if it isn't clear what.

(I sort of like Reed and Sue's big fight isn't because Reed actually suggests giving up Franklin to save the world, but because Sue can tell he's at least run the math on the idea before rejecting it, instead of just categorically concluding, "No way." Reed of course presents it as how his brain works, assessing potential threats and vectors, then trying to devise countermeasures.) 

But Johnny (Joseph Quinn) gets this whole thread about deciphering the Surfer's native language. Instead of just being a shallow attempt to more successfully flirt with the shiny alien, it's ultimately a way to understand her, to reach her, and maybe turn her to their side. Admittedly, turn her with guilt over all the worlds that died because she brought Galactus there, but they were already going far afield from the Surfer switching sides because the nobility or kindness of Earthlings touches their soul, so why not? Given that, it does feel like The Thing doesn't get much time.

Reed's initial solution on how to, if not defeat Galactus, at least escape him, caught me by complete surprise. I'm not sure how he was going to account for the loss of tides when the Moon presumably got left behind, but they were on a tight schedule. Certain corners had to be cut. I also wasn't expecting the film's take on Galactus' ship or how he devoured worlds. It was a little more Darkseid than I would have figured. Maybe that was just the giant, burning maw in the center of the drill. So I don't know if I loved it as visualization for Galactus' process, but it was definitely an effective visual. That whole part where Reed detects the Surfer within the alien world and then boom! Here's a massive ship tunneling out like a worm from an apple. It really depicts the scale at which this threat is operating and how different this is from Mole Man, or Red Ghost and the Super-Apes.

What I Bought 11/12/2025

I read something recently that prompted me to try and create a master list of every movie I've watched, arranged by the year they came out. So far, that's just been me going back through the blog archives (I'm working backwards and finished 2008.) I forgot how many incredibly shitty movies I watched on Netflix in the late 2010s/early 2020s, but also how many movies I watched in the second half of 2011, when I was mostly at my dad's house and there wasn't much else to do. Also the swings between eras. 2011 and 2010, I watched a crapload of movies from the '70s and earlier, very little from the 2000s. 2008 and 2009, almost all stuff from the 2000s.

Fantastic Four #5, by Ryan North (writer), Humberto Ramos (penciler), Victor Olazaba (inker), Edgar Delgado (colorist), Joe Caramagna (letterer) - Like anybody would bother to steal HERBIE.

Ben, Reed and Johnny are off on fishing trip in the Negative Zone, and Sue and Alicia have scarcely even got to relax when Felicia Hardy is at the door, surrounded by cops and covered in blood, asking for help. Felicia was dropping things off in a safety deposit box, and when she stepped out of the vault, tripped over the corpse of the bank teller (a pleasant man named Teller.) The cameras there were down for repair, there's only one access, and that means passing 3 guards, but Felicia insists she is innocent. Sue, reluctantly, for Spider-Man's sake, agrees to help.

(Also, Felicia knows Spider-Man is currently in outer space, which I didn't think was common knowledge since Norman Osborn is running around dressed up as Spidey trying to fight crime.)

One of the guards is willing to talk, after work, but then she gets fired. Not for talking to Sue, but because the guards agree with Felicia, that she was only in the vault for five minutes. But the cameras upstairs, still functional, show 15 minutes passed before Felicia and the guards' brought their Keystone Kops routine upstairs. So they must have been in on it. Sue can't see the logic in all this, committing a heist for such a paltry return and getting caught in the process, but doesn't really want to believe the Black Cat's actually innocent.

Until the time discrepancy element, I figured size-changing. Sue got in easily enough with invisibility, but someone shrinking down seemed more probable (and might explain the limited haul, if they can only shrink so much mass.) As it turns out, the culprit was actually the camera repair guy, using a busted gun of Kang's he bought and repaired the best he could, i.e., enough so it would send people 10 minutes into the future. Teller was in a little restroom behind his desk and outside the radius of the weapon, so he had to drew the short straw of getting killed.  It's a little weird of a solution, but I can appreciate playing off the notion of how much weird crap gets left lying around for people to tinker with.

The big turn in the issue was Alicia convincing Sue she probably wasn't being entirely fair towards Felicia. I don't know if I buy Alicia's argument. Felicia had some bad hands dealt her, but also dealt herself some bad hands. Like asking the Kingpin to help her get powers. I'd agree that Sue has hardly interacted with the Black Cat enough to have an informed opinion, and maybe that's the key point. Both Alicia and Sue are basically going off what they're heard about her, and choosing to view that in a particular light.

End result, Sue encourages the now-vindicated Felicia to hang out with her and Alicia, and the three of them leave for Vegas the moment the guy's return from the fishing trip. It makes more sense than Sue inviting Emma Frost to her birthday party.

What I Bought 10/23/2025 - Part 2

I noticed a few weeks ago the Roku Channel brought Hardcastle & McCormick back, so I decided to binge watch it before they pulled it again. I did not remember them trying to use a different opening theme song the first half of Season 2. It was terrible, better suited for Family Ties or Growing Pains, some happy family sitcom shit.

Fantastic Four #4, by Ryan North (writer), Humberto Ramos (penciler), Victor Olazaba (inker), Edgar Delgado (colorist), Joe Caramagna (letterer) - I'm not at all clear what's going on with Johnny's flaming hand? Was he making bunny fingers, and that's what got Ben riled?

The FF have gotten themselves another dog. Except Alicia isn't so sure that's correct. When she touches "Jellybean", for just a moment, everything feels wrong. Then, nope, nevermind, it's a cute little dog. Of course it is!

Still, Alicia's unease leads her to ask Reed about how something could mentally convince others it was harmless-looking. Which leads Reed into a long spiel about the part of out brain that recognizes faces, but also makes us see faces in other things. And then he builds a machine to block that part of the brain, and their dog turns out to be the pink tentacle thing on the cover. Who is just one of an entire invasion, an invasion abruptly canceled once Reed projects the effect over the entire planet.

So North is back to the clever one-and-dones. About time. Ramos makes the alien suitably creepy-looking, though it's really some of Alicia's expressions that sell it. The almost rictus grin she gets as it winds around her arm, asserting that message in her head that she's touching a cute little dog. Like someone asked you what you thought of their latest piece of art, and you're trying to be polite while internally screaming.

Later, after Alicia's conversation with Reed, when the alien has put more focus into keeping her under control, you get a glimpse of her face when Reed turns on his device. The alien practically blankets her, and she's wearing this blank-faced smile, even as the others freak out. Ramos' face always look strange to me, so he and North might as well put that to good use.

Moon Knight: Fist of Khonshu #13, by Jed MacKay (writer), Domenico Carbone (artist), Rachelle Rosenberg (color artist), Cory Petit (letterer) -  The only cover the shop I stopped at had was a variant of Moon Knight being shocked or unnerved by what he was seeing in Marvel's new, "Red Band" Punisher book. Which is just silly. Marc may not be cutting dude's faces off these days, but he hasn't forgotten what it was like to do that.

Marc and Layla sit in on some sort of group therapy session where, among other things, a fireman describes coming across the Wrecker rampaging, killing, kicking Dr. Strange's ass. The Wrecker, when confronted with all this, pulls the, "I was possessed" card. New crowbar, yadda yadda. And he admits he's probably killed others, but why aren't any of those others haunting him? Only the ones from this specific rampage?

Which sends Marc and Layla looking for Dr. Strange, but he's off in Asgard, so will Clea do? Or maybe that should be, will Clea do something? She's not real interested in helping a murderer who hurt Stephen escape being haunted, but she'll help them see the world like magicians do.

Rosenberg keeps all the buildings and most of the people in plain black-and-white, but Marc and Layla are brightly colored, and there are all sorts of sprites, spirits, something around that are also colorful. Carbone draws them like a clay sculpture that as only halfway molded before the artist got distracted. A distinct limb or facial feature, but the rest a lump.

The search leads to a house, and inside the house is the firefighter from the help group. I'm not sure if Marc was supposed to know him from somewhere else or what. Also, he says it took years of study to be able to command the dead, but the story being referenced was in a volume of Dr. Strange that started in 2019. Which yes, is 7 years ago for us, but with how Marvel time operates, it's not that long ago. Even if you figure Krakoa was hosting Hellfire Galas annually, Krakoa lasted maybe 3 years. So was this firefighter guy actually planning this long before the Wrecker's rampage, or should I just deal with the uncertainty of Marvel's timeline? 

What I Bought 9/17/2025

The local store had 1 of the 2 comics from this week. I take it as a win. In other news, I picked up another on-sale game off the Playstation Store, 890B. What a pile of crap. Walk slowly through a messy office (except on the one occasion the game lets you run because it's a timed thing), listening to stilted and unnatural dialogue. Your character keeps wondering why there's a head in his office. It's his office, shouldn't he know?

This game gives you an Achievement basically as soon as you take two steps, meaning it is what The Stanley Parable was mocking. I got to a point where to progress, I had to repair an electronic door lock via a series of well, you remember that game Snakes? You could play it on graphing calculators. Where you guide the increasingly long dark line through the gameplay area, picking up items without hitting the walls or your tail? It's that, seven times in a row before you can advance.

I did not advance, and for a game this bad, I'm going back to the old school. X-Play style, I give 890B, a 0 out of 5. Even for a buck-and-a-half, it was a waste of money, and this is as much of a review as it deserves.

Fantastic Four #3, by Ryan North (writer), Humberto Ramos (penciler), Victor Olazaba (inker), Edgar Delgado (colorist), Joe Caramagna (letterer) - Doom's reached critical mass.

The Time Sled reaches an earlier version of the FF chilling in Arizona, and Sue managed to use her forcefields to beat Braille into the hull explaining Doom's trick (and we see some earlier points in this whole "World Under Doom" where the heroes actually got the upper hand and Doom went back to an earlier point and countered it the next time.) They figure out where the machine Doom's using is hidden, in Antarctica, which provides time for a gag about Johnny ditching his winter gear (which Reed didn't make of unstable molecules) so he doesn't deprive whoever is around of seeing his pecs.

They try to smash the machine, it doesn't stay smashed. Doom shows up, looking kind of pudgy. Did he stuff a bunch of newspaper inside his armor for insulation? Sue and Ben try to fight him, while Reed and Johnny figure out a way around the machine being bound to time itself. Meaning, actually destroy the machine, destroy space-time. Johnny gets an idea, communicates it to Reed via Sue and fire made of hydrogen(?)

Basically, when things start to turn against Doom and he goes to load an earlier point in time, he just keeps getting the exact moment he's trying to escape. In this case, the Thing punching his iron mask off. Doom won't give up, so he keeps enduring the moment, trying to figure out a workaround, until his machine burns itself out. Which I guess circumvents the whole, "breaking time" thing. Ramos and North convey Doom's efforts through a page of the same panel, repeated again and again in increasing numbers on each row until you can't distinguish them any longer.

The thing is, Doom could just stop trying to avoid getting his mask punched off and keep fighting from that point. Deny the Accursed Four any taste of satisfaction over the indignity. But this is Doom, so he won't let it go, not even as a short-term slight he can avenge in the long-term. Although oddly enough, when North did a story a couple of years ago about Doom trying again and again to produce a better outcome via time travel, Doom eventually concluded he couldn't and stopped pursuing that thread.

Either way, no more do-overs, and I think North is finally done with tie-ins to the event and can get back to just doing the kind of stories he was doing earlier.

What I Bought 8/13/2025

Youtube has apparently implemented some new "AI" that, if it decides you're under 18, will automatically put your account under the age-restricted guidelines. And the only way to get that unlocked is by submitting your photo id or something similar. Which gives them your personal data to sell, or just as likely, lose the next time they get hacked. I imagine the "intelligence" is probably the same one that mysteriously decides some post I made on the blog 8 years ago just now has violated community guidelines.

This is a world of the dumbest hucksters inflicting their useless bullshit on the rest of us, non-stop.

Fantastic Four #2, by Ryan North (writer), Humberto Ramos (penciler), Victor Olazaba (inker) Edgar Delgado (colorist), Joe Caramagna (letterer) - Ben's under dinosaur attack, Sue's in a barren landscape, Johnny's surrounded by lava, Reed's. . .in a pleasant, grassy field. Ryan North is doing nothing to dispel my "Reed Richards is Gladstone Gander" theory.

Sue can't find the "Forever Stone", so she's trapped on an Earth with no water, and a Sun on the verge of cooking her if she can't find cover. Back in the Middle Ages, Reed figures that if Sue hasn't found him yet, it's because she can't find the stone, so he undertakes an elaborate and frankly ridiculous plan to create a worldwide map to guide her, even in the far future.

My main issue is, I don't get how the Stone survived 7 billion years without being pushed back into the mantle via tectonic drift and melted. But it didn't, and inside the Stone is a device that will call the Time Sled (which they named "ROSEBUD-1"), so Sue can rescue her family. Then it's back to 2025 to attack Doom just seconds after he flings them through time. They're doing it, they're going to win! Doom's going down, and Reed's explaining what they did and -

Having apparently taken inspiration from Hickman's retcon to Moira, Doom used magic to set up a way to rewind to an earlier point, where only he remembers how the FF beat him. So they can't beat him that way again. As it kicks in, Sue is able to send the Time Sled to their home in Arizona, at some point before this mess began, which is going to be relevant somehow.

On the one hand, Doom accusing someone else of showing off their intelligence is hilarious. On the other, the fact he keeps winning because Reed can't help explaining everything is hilarious. It's Syndrome's "You caught me monologuing!" line from The Incredibles, except it's the good guy getting caught. That said, North already did an issue where Doom keeps resetting time over and over in an attempt to produce a more favorable outcome (the issue where he tries to remove the need for Reed sending the kids, including Doom's godchild, and their home a year into the future to stop Annihilus.) He's got Sorcerer Supreme magic now, and I guess he thinks that'll make the difference, but obviously it's not. At some point, they're going to keep winning, and he's going to, do something.

What I Bought 8/4/2025 - Part 3

I'm taking most of this week off. From work, I mean. Not the blog. Never the blog. The blog is life. The blog is everything. . .

Where was I? It's Fantastic Four and adjacent books day!

Fantastic Four #1, by Ryan North (writer), Humberto Ramos (artist), Victor Olazaba (color artist), Travis Lanham (letterer) - I got the Cliff Chiang variant. Same price as the regular cover, so why not?

The FF have their powers back and are taking the fight to Doom (still Emperor of the World, being carried down the boulevard on a throne by a bunch of Doombots.) Doom gets annoyed enough, he casts each member of the team through time, where they'll have to find certain crystals and stop horrible monsters from - no, wait, that was the TimeSplitters' games.

Johnny's over 500 million years into the past, with oxygen levels 20% of today's. Ben's under attack from dinosaurs. Lots of dinosaurs. Large ones, not a pack of velociraptors or something of the size you'd expect would team up to kill something his size. Ramos also sticks to the classic "scaly lizard" look. Not sure I've seen a comic artist that drew dinosaurs with feathers yet. Ramos does seem to have dialed back the "dislocated jaw" exaggerated anatomy I remember, which is nice. Maybe drawing characters less prone to acrobatics than Spider-Man got him to rein it in.

Reed's somewhere in Europe during the 1200s, and doesn't it just figure Reed gets sent to the time it would be easiest to survive. Even Doom is giving Accursed Richards the best hand. The team's plan seems to rest on some piece of rock they call the Forever Stone, some piece of rock that Reed's somehow kept track of its location throughout history. Each team member marks their time period and initial, and you can find them. if you have a time machine.

Too bad three-quarters of the team are in the past, and Sue's so far in the future the Sun's about to swallow the planet. The "forever" stone doesn't even seem to exist, let alone any way to get home. So everybody's going to die, most of them soon. Except Reed, who gets to live out his existence in the Middle Ages. Relatively speaking, everything's coming up roses for him. I assume the workaround is Alicia and the kids saw what happened, went to the Forever Stone in the present, and will mount a rescue of the ones they can find.

The Thing #3, by Tony Fleecs (writer), Justin Mason (artist), Alex Sinclair (color artist), Joe Caramagna (letterer) - I can't see Diamondback taking part in trying to kill the Thing, I don't care how big a bounty Kingpin put on him.

The warehouse exploded, but the missing girl, Sara, emerges unharmed, which is suspicious. No sign of Marty, but Ben's got to get the kid clear of Hammerhead and Bullseye, who tries throwing a license plate at the Thing at one point. At least Fleecs isn't going out of his way to make Bullseye look smart. 

Fisk puts a big bounty on the Thing's head, which brings us up to the point where the mini-series started. Sara needed to rest, so they take a breather on a rooftop. Too bad a big orange rock guy is pretty conspicuous, so Ben wakes up to find himself under attack by the Wrecking Crew!

Who he handles pretty easily. Not as easily as Bullseye, but it feels like Fleecs is writing is as though all the power is in Wrecker's crowbar. Which I know is magic, or enchanted, but he's pretty strong without it, I thought. He fights Thor, solo. Granted, he always loses, but it's not a cakewalk for ol' Goldilocks. The others aren't on the same level, but they aren't just regular guys. But I guess the point is that Ben's not going to hold back against guys who don't mind attacking him while he's trying to protect a kid, and that means they've got no chance.

Also feels like Mason went more cartoonish with his art in this issue, or maybe just looser with the pencils. Might be because the Thing spends most of the issue fighting, and that helps with the sense of movement and energy, or just the way the fight played out. The Thing swipes Wrecker's crowbar at one point, then clocks him in the face with it, and later throws it at the Crew as they run away and bonks Piledriver with it. The tone is a lot different from when he was trying to reason with Gladiator or Bullseye.

What I Bought 6/30/2025 - Part 1

With the 4th of July coming up, this is the last short work week I get for a couple of months. Unless I want to burn some leave. Which might not be a bad idea if I could get to a point I wasn't going to dread all the shit waiting when I returned.

Alright, jumping right into the remainder of last month's books, starting with two final issues.

Fantastic Four #33, by Ryan North (writer), Cory Smith (penciler), Wayne Faucher (inker), Jesus Arbutov (color artist), Joe Caramagna (letterer) - Reed's already the tallest character on the cover, but he's just gotta emphasize the point, doesn't he?

The FF build a time machine to go back to the creation of the universe, where there were a lot of cosmic rays, so Ben can get dosed and become the Thing again. Except it's an extremely hostile environment, and their powers are fading, and they need someone quick to control the ship. Which requires upgrading HERBIE to do the job, and he's happy to do it, even if the panel where he confirms it makes the FF and their kids all look vaguely sinister.

I assume it's just the layout of the panel, the extreme upward angle designed to make HERBIE the prominent focus while surrounded by all these taller characters, but it does look a bit like a scene from a horror film, where the clueless outsider accepts the offer of a place of honor at the big festival "dinner", and it turns out they're on the menu.

Anyway, they make it to the dawn of time, Ben gets dosed, but the ship falls apart too fast. With his upgrades, HERBIE's able to try and recalculate to just send himself and the FF back, sans ship, watch the energy levels fall too fast for that, and recalculate to send them back without him. Resulting in his getting torn apart in a storm of antimatter and heated plasma. But the upgrades were apparently enough for him to decide he loves the FF, which he takes to mean he's really alive. Which means he's really dying, but he's OK dying to help the FF.

I'm dubious, considering he was programmed to help them, but I guess the idea is the upgrades have made him sentient enough to make the conscious decision now. Either way, it worked. The FF are back home, everyone's got their powers again. Reed restores HERBIE to an earlier version, and he and Valeria discuss whether their going back to that time tipped the balance between matter and antimatter just enough towards the matter side for the universe to unspool as it did.

So, that's the end of that volume. Not a great last arc, just big loop, but that's event tie-ins for you. Mixed bag at best.

The Surgeon #6, by John Pence (writer), Omar Zaldivar (artist), Hedwin Zaldivar (color artist), Taylor Esposito (letterer) - Looks like it's time for some elective surgery. Hanover elects you to lose an eyeball.

The doctor is pursuing Little Bird, for stealing her horse and her sword. She gets duped and drugged by a seemingly helpful bartender (Zaldivar does a nice job shifting her from a kindly smiling old lady to a schemer across two panels), who intends to sell her to the Tunnel Rats.

Meanwhile, the First United Nations guys are getting ready to attack the Tunnel Rats, and the boss man isn't impressed with Little Bird's stunt. Neither is Hanover's horse, which is fighting non-stop, so Little Bird lets it go. Can't be dealing with that while pulling a stealth rescue/assault on the Tunnel Rats. The rescue goes well, although there's a weird panel as they're riding in an elevator where all the guys except the boss are laughing and acting kind of giddy. For a second, I thought they'd stumbled into a trap and were getting dosed with laughing gas or something, but I think they're just trying to ease the tension?

The rescue goes smoothly enough, until they get back to the surface, where the rest of their forces are fighting some of the Hot Animal Machines. Little Bird rescues a couple of prisoners, except it's the grandma and Hanover. The doctor proceeds to take a chunk out of Little Bird's neck (though it looks like Zaldivar just showed the same panel twice, but zoomed in and added some blood on the second one.) The Chief is oddly willing to let that go, especially considering Hanover promised to help with this raid and then bailed, but maybe he figures he's got bigger problems.

Her horse shows up, but as she rides off, Little Bird gets her in the hip with knife, which leaves her in pretty bad shape by the time she returns to the peaceful little fort. Where the guy she trained in medicine refuses to treat her, and the chief scientist guy basically says, "to hell with her." I guess because she didn't decide to stick around forever?

Well, maybe if Abner and the other guys had gotten back to the fort to treat the soldier dying of poisoned opium, instead of sitting around drinking with the First Nations guys while she was a prisoner, she'd be more kindly disposed. Just a lot of people making choices that seem strange in this last issue. Not the blacksmith, who takes the advice of how to treat her and builds a sort mobile brace to help her move after she gets better, he's been in her corner throughout. But then Hanover rides off, only to change her mind and apparently set up a little clinic just outside the fort's walls.

So I don't get what Pence was going for there. She thinks she owes them? She wants to prove she's not, 'biting every hand that tries to help'? Let's not forget, her original agreement with these folks was apparently written up while she was drunk as a skunk, and she fulfilled her side of the deal. Maybe she's tired of wandering, maybe she thinks they've got something going that's worth protecting, even if most of the people are assholes, I don't know. It feels like the situation where, if this were a FallOut game, I'd strongly consider destroying the town, but at bare minimum, I'd leave and not look back.

Overall, it was a fairly interesting mini-series. I don't know if Pence plans to return to it. It feels like he was laying out signs the world was changing. Certainly the Tunnel Rats had a much more advanced set-up than everyone else (though I guess they were using an underground missile complex.) I liked the touch of the First Nations crew, I think combining a Geiger counter with a tablet to look for wifi networks as a signal. I don't know what the wifi would be for; maybe they're leftover from the before times, but it was worth a chuckle.

What I Bought 6/2/2025 - Part 4

Alright, last of May's books. Theme of the day is Fantastic Four.

Fantastic Four #32, by Ryan North (writer), Cory Smith (penciler), Wayne Faucher and Oren Junior (inkers), Jesus Arbutov (color artist), Joe Caramagna (letterer) - Poor Valeria, only one who doesn't get to turn into green static.

The timeline's being re-written, but Sue protects the kids with force-fields. From a temporal re-write, after she's already been re-written herself? Sure, fine. Valeria's bubble fails last, and she finds herself in a different body, in a timeline with no FF. She finds her parents, and figures out where in that Twilight Zone episode with the kid sending people to the cornfield, except the kid is this universe's version of Franklin, who makes himself look like Galactus.

Basically, Franklin's bubble failed first so instead of merging with a pre-teen version of himself, he merged with an embryonic version of himself. His memories faded, the god-like powers didn't. When Galactus showed up and there was no FF, Reed and Sue had their baby get rid of Galactus. That doesn't seem to match, timing-wise, but I guess North is arguing with less Dr. Doom and travels to space, there was more time for marrying and baby-making.

The only two people left free of Franklin making everyone "nice" are Jean Grey and Namor. Do not ask how, it's dumb as hell. Like North was going for one of his Squirrel Girl jokes in a story entirely unsuited for it. Valeria thinks they can avoid all this if she can stay off Franklin's notice long enough to build a machine to project a thought back in time to herself in the Fantasti-car. Well how does that work if the timeline's rewritten? There is no Fantastic-car, because there was never an FF, because they never got hit by cosmic rays!

Ugh, whatever. It works, and so things are set up for them to fix this in the finale before the restart. 

The Thing #1, by Tony Fleecs (writer), Justin Mason (artist), Alex Sinclair (color artist), Joe Caramagna (letterer) - Definitely a lot of doofuses punching out of their weight class on that cover. The Grizzly? Sidewinder. Is that Jigsaw in the lower right? Man can't beat the Punisher, but he's gonna fuck with the Thing. 

An old acquaintance - not a friend, Ben is very clear on that - from Yancy Street asks for Ben's help finding his sister. Marty was a jerk to Ben as a kid, but Shelly was nice, so Ben agrees to help. Apparently people disappearing is happening a lot lately, and Marty knows a guy, who knows a guy that might know something about it.

Said guy turns out to be the Gladiator, who's in a bar in the morning looking very spaced out. As soon as they try talking, he starts yelling about monsters and people putting things inside him. And he's got super-strength, enough Ben can feel the hits, although Fleecs and mason make it pretty clear he's holding back. A lot of panels of Ben keeping his arms raised, palms out, still trying to reason with Gladiator and ask questions. Eventually he figures he's got as much as he's going to, and knocks Melvin out with one hit. But the only other patron is Turk - the Daredevil supporting cast guy - and he calls Kingpin. Which is how Ben's going to end up with a contract on his head.

Trying to get the Thing killed seems a bit much for Fisk. The FF are publicly-known and beloved heroes, not like those loner weirdos Spider-Man and Daredevil. But I get the feeling this is set at some amorphous period in the past (people are using rotary phones, plus HERBIE's around), so maybe Fisk is more cocky, or just less concerned with appearances at this point. Mason draws Fisk in the style I remember from well into the '90s. Big white suit jacket, yellow vest underneath, purple pants like he raided Banner's wardrobe.

Fleecs seems to be going for something about the proper use of strength. That is doesn't exist just to throw things around and smash people weaker than you. Sue thinks Ben doubts himself and that's why he holds back, but it seems like the point is Ben knows exactly how strong he is, and is being deliberately careful. Like I said, he's mostly trying to restrain and reason with Potter to avoid unnecessary damage to the bar they're in, and tells the owner to contact him if there's any trouble getting the repairs paid for. Strength is supposed to help people, and sometimes that means punching someone's lights out, but not always, and not needlessly.

What I Bought 5/5/2025 - Part 3

Last week's day off gave me a chance to make a longer trip to take care of some business. The drive itself was miserable, because it poured rain all morning, but the actual business was no sweat, and then I had time to nose around a couple of stores. Found all of last week's books, which we'll get to later this week, and a couple of the digest collections of John Allison's Bad Machinery Oni Press released.

Today is still for April comics, however.

Fantastic Four #31, by Ryan North (writer), Cory Smith (penciler), Oren Junior (inker), Jesus Arbutov (color artist), Joe Caramagna (letterer) - Sue and Alternate-Universe Johnny choosing to settle things with a good old fashioned, "who can open their mouth wider" contest.

OK, at some point since Hickman's Secret Wars, it was established that if one member of the Fantastic Four loses their powers, they all start losing their powers. I know, I thought it was stupid, too, but the editorial box cites Marvel-Two-in-One, which I think means the series, was it Dan Slott and Jim Cheung did post-Secret Wars? Anyway, North's playing off something previously established rather than just making this shit up himself.

Johnny's powers cut out next, so Reed and Valeria (who is narrating the issue) devise a plan to build a multiverse-hopping device into the Fantasticar and go to another universe so Ben can be exposed to the cosmic rays that will bombard that universe's Fantastic Four. It doesn't work, probably because he's from a different universe. Vibrational frequency is off, or something, but North and Smith spend multiple pages on it, in what really feels like padding since we just keep getting small panels of different quartets getting the FF box set of powers.

Eventually Ben, without telling anyone else (though Valeria notices and says nothing) sets the coordinates for the past in their universe, and gets a dose of the same set of rays that transformed him originally. Which means his body, his, regular, human-sized body, somehow shields Reed's spaceship cockpit enough they don't get superpowers, thus wiping the FF from existence entirely.

Doom has to be laughing his ass off. Or at least chortling under his breath, if guffawing is too undignified. On the other hand, Doom may have to actually do something about it, since this would seem to doom the Earth to being eaten by Galactus. I don't know; it's not a great issue. I guess the point is desperate people make bad choices, but it feels really dumb.

The Surgeon #4, by John Pence (writer), Omar Zaldivar (artist), Eve Orozco (colorist), Taylor Esposito (letterer) - Looks like a bunch of people I'd have run over while playing Mad Max.

So the remaining marauders want the doc to take some of the (poisoned) opium first, to prove it's the real deal. Instead, it's a fight, and while Colonel Rogers is dying because he took a big slug from one of those poisoned bottles, he's still able to snipe enough guys Hanover can get inside the fort. Where she gives up a lot of blood in a transfusion to try and save Rogers' life.

There's one panel, I thought they'd buried Rogers or sealed him up in a wall, but left his face uncovered. I was trying to figure out what the hell part of a transfusion after taking poisoned dope that was, before I realized an earlier page showed him lying face down on a table or bed, and they'd just hacked some rough hole in it so he could breathe without turning his head. Look, this is a post-apocalypse, there's no telling how medical treatments have been twisted or confused.

Also, we're on our 3rd penciler in 4 issues. Zaldivar continues Yak's trend of making Hanover look younger. He tends to use a lot more hatch marks for the men, but abandons them entirely for the doc. I think the scars on her face are less prominently defined, too. Suppose there's always a chance that settling in one place reduces her stress and her past experiences aren't having such a hold on her, thus the scars fade. But I doubt it.

The rest of the Hot Animal Machines came to see what happened to their buddies, and find the opium vials. Which they take back to camp and enjoy. Hanover assembles the fort's forces to go try and finish the job, not realizing it's already done. Partially from the drugs, and partially from some guys from the First Nations United. They catch Hanover by complete surprise, and when she says so, the Chief replies, "Well. . .we were hiding. You're not supposed to see us when we hide!" I laughed. I can't tell if he's saying it to be funny, or like he's talking to an idiot.

Either way, Chief Long wants to talk to this doctor about whether she really gave out a bad box of drugs. So I figure Hanover's rep is going to be destroyed because she'll either take full blame for giving out bad painkillers, or the townspeople in the fort will say it was all her idea and hang her out to dry.

What I Bought 4/1/2025 - Part 3

Between last month's used book sale and Playstation's various deals for cheap, short games, I've got Thursday posts done all the way to the end of May already. It's nice. But I don't have anything for today yet, so let's get the reviews of these two books from March in the can!

Fantastic Four #30, by Ryan North (writer), Cory Smith (penciler), Oren Junior (inker), Jesus Arbutov (color artist), Joe Caramagna (letterer) - Yes, we all see the obvious joke about getting Ben's rocks off. Take it as given and let's move on.

In the main mini-series, Doom cured Ben Grimm of being the Thing, permanently. For real. No foolin'. We're serious this time. This issue is focused on Ben trying to come to grips with it, since he'd apparently stopped being mad at Reed and gotten comfortable this way.

Or maybe he just got comfortable being super-strong and tough, because when his attempt to stop he and Alicia from getting mugged in an alley ends up with him bleeding out a hole in his hand, and the mugger getting caught by a Doombot, Ben decides this can't stand. So he asks the Puppet Master to fix him. Not turn him into the Thing physically, but make him the guy in his head that he thinks the Thing is. Confident and happy and fun. That is not how I would describe the Thing over the vast majority of his 60+ years of existence, but I guess it's how he sees the situation now.

(Which feels like it implies some still unresolved issues about his being the Thing in the first place, that he's either ignoring his extensive past of being angry/bitter/depressed, or retroactively re-framing it.)

Alicia catches on by dinner the first night (nice touch by Cory Smith to show one of the ghost dinosaurs Reed and Johnny released on Halloween browsing on a tree outside their house) and confronts her dad. Who says he molded a Ben Grimm model, but left it to Ben to decide what to do with it. Alicia assures Ben this isn't the way to go about things, there's some crying, some hugging, things of that nature. Also, I didn't realize Alicia used Puppet Master's own clay against him to make him give his blessing to her marrying Ben. That's not great, though I don't necessarily blame her for not trusting him (and neither does he, apparently.)

I guess this is the approach North is going to take for the remainder of the book's run. Doom does something in the main mini-series, the ongoing series dives into the cast's reactions to it. Is it gonna work? Eh, this issue was OK, but "Ben wants to be The Thing again because he thinks that's what Alicia needs," is especially well-worn ground by now.

The Surgeon #3, by John Pence (writer), Stan Yak (artist), Pinkk3r (colorist), Taylor Esposito (letterer) - What did he do, make that codpiece from the radiator of an old Buick?

The marauding hordes are inside the walls, what's left to do but fight? The surgeon's doing her part, but she has a little trouble with the wall of meat on the cover there. But the former soldier, Rogers, got to the armory, and with a rifle in his hands, it's the work of a couple of shots to put him down. Unfortunately, by this point, that's just a small skirmish in the battle, so Pence and Yak show what's going on elsewhere, the people of the fort fighting for their lives and homes with whatever skills that got. You got a blacksmith with a big hammer? Swing it. You know chemicals? Make some bombs.

(I was a little thrown that Pence has Hanover shout, 'Come at me, Bro!' during the fight. Not the confidence it shows, but the first two issues had given me a picture of her as the taciturn sort of badass, who quietly goes about their killing.)

The enemy withdraws, but doesn't leave entirely. Which means the locals are pinned inside their fort, with their livestock. Which, as Dr. Hanover notes, is a good way to get a lot of people sick from cholera or something worse. So the locals come up with the idea of having Hanover deliver a case of "opium" (actually warfarin, an anti-coagulant used as rodenticide) to the Hot Animal Machines, as a peace offering? Hanover notes that's kind of dirty, but agrees. Too bad the remaining members of the gang aren't complete idiots, and Hanover's relying on an increasingly strung-out Rogers to cover her with his rifle.

Yak is penciler/inker for this issue, and his style is rougher than Dolan's was. More cross-hatching and light sketch-like lines. Tends to save those details for close-up panels, and simplify things when he backs the P.O.V. away. The thinner lines also seem to make Hanover look younger. Not like a teen, but I'd say early 20s, at least. Face is smoother, lines around the eyes and mouth are gone or less noticeable most of the time. Dolan's art had me thinking she was at least in her 30s, if not early 40s. Didn't seem out of the question if she'd been wandering 15 years after getting out of med school.

What I Bought 2/26/2025

Beautiful 70-degree day, but I spent it all inside for a safety training. Interminable, not helped by the fact I usually take off early on Fridays. I don't think I've worked a full Friday in at least 18 months, and that was spent driving (back from a different training). Last full Friday in the office was probably 6.5 years ago.

February: always finding new ways to mess with me.

Fantastic Four #29, by Ryan North (writer), Cory Smith (penciler), Oren Junior (inker), Jesus Arbutov (color artist), Joe Caramagna (letterer) - Whose bright idea was it to shrink down to fight Doom? Hank Pym's? Well, that tracks.

Doom's running the world. Bummer. Sue is bummed, so Ben takes her to New York to hang out with She-Hulk. Talk inevitably turns to Doom, and so I learn that Doom's gotten popular support by inciting hatred against the people turned into vampires during Blood Hunt. Also that whatever is letting vampires go out in daylight was reducing the need for blood, but that's wearing off.

The heroes utterly fail to protect a couple of parents from a wannabe vampire slayer, which leaves them with two vamped, and increasingly hungry, kids to protect. Reed discovers a plant-based substitute for blood that you can make in your own kitchen! I'm disappointed Ryan North didn't include a recipe. Now what am I supposed to do the next time I lose too much blood throwing myself off cliffs? Seek professional medical treatment?

Sue feels a little better about being able to help people in at least some way, and that with vampires not needing blood, Doom won't be able to use them as a scapegoat. Which is wildly optimistic, given human nature. Now it'll be how nobody else can afford whatever the ingredients are because the damn vamps are buying it all up! Assuming people even bother to adjust the particular bullshit they base their stupidity on. And, indeed, the FF's neighbors are now rocking a yard full of Doom flags (although the symbol looks more like something I expect from the Covenant in Halo.)

Metamorpho the Element Man #3, by Al Ewing (writer), Steve Lieber (artist), Lee Loughridge (colorist), Ferran Delgado (letterer) - I feel like Lara Croft would have fit the vibe Java and Rex are rocking better than the Bride. Lara's British, she toes the archaeology/grave robbing line.

Rex is making a big production of leaving Sapphire, complete with packing his sailor suit(?) and Crocs (really, Rex?), only to get instantly sidetracked when Urania shows up looking for Java to take on a mission. Urania's got a line on Mad Mod (thanks to his lack of respect for clearly labeled food in the fridge), and it's a temple built by Vandal Savage. hence Java.

Anyway, Rex sneaks along, and after Java gets separated from them, has to find a way for he and Urania to get inside. Which Lieber draws as a giant maze, with a few larger chambers to showcase traps and sight gags and whatnot. Meanwhile, Java's having a conversation with Vandal Savage, which Ewing uses at first to highlight differences in their perspective. Java remains focused on the future, Savage, seems more beholden to his past.

Then it turns into a discussion of all the stuff that went on in The Terrifics - Stagg dying, Java being Doc Dread - and the fact Java apparently remembers none of this. I really hope Ewing's not planning to get really meta about this. The Orb of Ra as some representation of characters constantly being melted back down to their base elements and built back up in vaguely familiar forms. Or something.

Savage turns out to be an exploding robot, everybody escapes together, but now Stagg's gone and done something stupid again.