What I Bought 9/2/2025 - Part 1

According to the post office's website, my comics order arrived in the town 30 minutes away on Friday afternoon. By 3:30 a.m. Saturday, it was in my town. 4 hours later, it was back in the town 30 minutes away, only to be shipped out again 3 hours after that, arriving back here near noon. Which was, of course, too late for it to go out with the mailman on Saturday. So they just arrived yesterday evening. I get slower delivery due to understaffing due to Trump administration budget bullshit, but that sequence is just bizarre.

Deadpool #15, by Cody Ziglar, Gerry Duggan, and Sanshiro Kasama (writers), Roge Antonio, Andrea Di Vito, Matteo Lolli, and Hikaru Uesugi (artists), Guru-eFX and Yen Nitro (color artists), Joe Sabino (letterer) - Almost none of those characters appear in this comic.

I found a variant cover copy for less than half-price, so what the hell. Might as well see how this ends. Ziglar and Antonio continue the battle between Deadpool & Daughters and Death Grip, who seems to have a much firmer grip on his life. Guy takes an arrow in the mouth, another in the eye, stabbed with the magic sword in the heart. None of it kills him. Because somehow he coated his heart with pieces of the Muramasa Blade.

Yes, a sword that cancels out healing factors is somehow helping someone not die. It's handwaved as some combination of the sword and Death Grip's own magic, so that's the best we're going to get. It is being chipped away, although Antonio draws it like Deadpool was able to expose the upper half of the heart with his stab, which seems like it oughta be enough. Anyway, Ellie is able to fire magic energy out of their magic sword to win a beam struggle against Death Grip, then she and Deadpool stab him again, and this time he dies. Though Deadpool and Taskmaster shoot him in the head a lot to make sure. 

We never do figure out what's up with the oddly intelligent "Water Cooler Rat," and I still don't entirely understand Death Grip's deal. He wants to learn from death, or teach others, by killing them? I dunno. Preston somehow never showed up to beat Wade's ass for letting his daughter - who is also Preston's daughter, adoptive parents matter! - do merc gigs. But Deadpool has time to feel bad about Eleanor helping him kill a guy. Which, by Deadpool's standards, is actually the best parenting he can manage short of not being in his kid's life at all.

As for the extra stories. Ziglar and Di Vito do a comedy bit about Doug letting Princess outside, then trying to corral her before she causes major property damage or death. It's fine. I'd probably like it more if Doug had personality or characterization beyond referring to himself as 'ya boy'. Hell, I initially typed his name as "Dave", which tells you how memorable he is.

Duggan and Lolli's story is about Deadpool being interrupted by a merc trying to kill him to collect a reward. Except Deadpool put the hit on himself, because he feels most alive when fighting people in the same line of work as himself? I don't know if Kurami is an entirely new character, or someone Duggan introduced in a different book and is trying to create buzz for her here, but credit for bringing a metal container full of acid to dissolve Deadpool with. But she also describes Deadpool as a "rich assassin", so I have no idea when this is taking place. The last time he was rich was right after Secret Wars, and he pissed all that money away founding the Avengers. He probably owes Taskmaster alone millions after all the talk about "field rate" in Ziglar's run.

Sanshiro Kasama and Hikaru Uesugi's story is a little taste of what the Deadpool manga they're doing is like, I guess? The funniest bit was that it starts at the end of the comic and reads right to left, and opens with a gag of Deadpool being stuck in the pages. When you turn the page, it reads like you tore him in half, and after turning another page, you finally find his legs sticking out. Well, I thought it was clever, at least. 

What I Bought 5/8/2025 - Part 1

I've eased off recently on playing video games and reading books. To focus on other things, but also because I've got Thursday posts done out to July 17th. Let's hear it for short games and easy-reading books!

It's Jeff! Jeff Week, by Kelly Thompson, Gurihiru and Gustavo Duarte - Jeff has mastered mystic portals. No one's snacks are safe!

You know by now what the deal is with the It's Jeff stuff. Thompson and Gurihiru do a lot of 1-2 pages stories about Jeff getting into hijinks with various heroes. Jeff is disappointed Kate Bishop won't take him on a trip with her, but wait! He snuck inside her suitcase. That must have surprised the security people. Jeff struggles to ice skate, but saves a dog who falls through thin ice.

Jeff steals Hulk's portal technology (which looks kind of like my Roku TV remote) and uses it to rampage through the kitchen, stealing everyone's food, until Hulk gets the idea of hiding Captain America's shield within a pizza. Good thing sharks constantly grow new teeth. It is, as usual very adorable.

Duarte is the writer/artist for the Jeff Week story, which takes up the last 15 pages, and seems to involve Marvel characters playing hot potato taking care of Jeff while Kate's in Japan. Mostly because Jeff eats all their food (X-Men), wakes them up after a long night fighting crime (Spider-Man), or encourages their dinosaur friend to cause property damage (Moon Girl). Duarte's Jeff is longer (especially in the tail) than Gurihiru's, and on the whole, has a lot more cat energy. He doesn't get flustered or spooked so much as he demands everyone else adjust to his needs.

Duarte tends to use fewer panels, and likes the eschew panel borders entirely. Hulk may be in charge of looking after Jeff, until Jeff contacts Lockjaw and the 'port away, and then there's a couple shots of Hulk's face and then one of him walking away whistling with no borders between them, just white space. The Gurihiru team ditch the borders for the final, punchline panel, but all the ones around it have their own borders and gutter space helping to delineate it.

Deadpool #14, by Cody Ziglar (writer), Roge Antonio (artist), Guru-eFX (color artist), Joe Sabino (letterer) - Wade, you're supposed to be shielding your daughter from this brutal violence. The audience is already inured to it. 

Deadpool, Deadpool, Princess, and Taskmaster fight Death Grip and his resurrected minions. Who promptly blow themselves up at their master's command. Guess they didn't teach him anything useful about what exists beyond death. For all the talk about Wade's reduced healing factor, being thrown backfirst into a stone pillar by an explosion slows him down for approximately 5 panels.

A couple of Death grip's minions, plus the portal guy Deadpool was trying to kill in issue 1, attack DP's HQ (a rapidly decaying basement by the looks of it), and Doug only escapes because "Water Cooler Rat" helps him. So I'm guessing there's something up with the rat?

Deadpool finally busts out the mystic sword, but Death Grip seems to be increasingly losing it, given how he struggles to say every other word. Not that it's affecting whatever language he uses for his spells, or that the sword can actually kill him. Despite being slashed with it several times, Death Grip shrugs it off and. . .rips his own chest open, showing an oddly-colored heart in a void, while more spectral arms emerge from his torso?

Boy, I imagine Ziglar has one hell of an explanation for all this planned for next month. Too bad Marvel's gonna stick inside an oversized, more expensive issue I won't buy for months, if ever.

What I Bought 4/12/2025

I am currently the unfortunate dope caught in between one of the people we regulate and the guy he stupidly agreed to let operate under his permit. And they're 3+ hours away, so I spent most of today on the road. Fortunately, last weekend I found two books from earlier this month over the weekend.

Moon Knight: Fist of Khonshu #7, by Jed MacKay (writer), Domenico Carbone (artist), Rachelle Rosenberg (color artist), Cory Petit (letterer) - Man, if Khonshu was pissed about Marc's showing against Fairchild a couple issues ago. . .

Moon Knight's decided their best place to start bringing down Fairchild's operation is by developing something that will let people stop taking Glitter without dying. For that they need a bio-chemist, specifically Hank Pym, who is apparently hiding in Sub-Atomica, but also keeping an eye on his daughter. So Marc takes 8-Ball's comment about how villains do things as a suggestion, and gets his squad to dress up as villains and attack Nadia van Dyne, attack the Unstoppable Wasp.

This actually works in drawing out Pym, which means Tigra gets to have a conversation with him. Meaning she yells at him, but I'm mostly here for the flashbacks where 8-Ball is getting excited about outfitting Reese and Hunter's Moon as villains. Especially Reese, who ends up as "The Chalk."

It's that thing Krusty explained to Sideshow Bob's brother. Nobody wants to see a person get hit by a pie that's begging for it. They want it to be someone with dignity; meaning someone who hates it. And MacKay consistently writes Reese as clearly thinking she's much more worldly and mature than everyone else in the book. Even in this issue, when Pym starts making excuses, Reese's contribution is, 'She sure has a type.' This from the lady who got herself turned into a vampire by some fucking yuppies, which I think disbars you from opining on other people's bad life decisions (and to be clear, Tigra dating Pym was a terrible idea, even setting aside the part where it was a Skrull infiltrator.)

In other words, Reese's misery at this entire experience makes her perfect for it. I was dying laughing all through the fight scene.

Deadpool #13, by Cody Ziglar (writer), Roge Antonio (artist), Guru-eFX (color artist), Joe Sabino (letterer) - That cover is way too busy.

Now that the crossover is safely concluded, the Deadpools want to find Death Grip, and they figure the guy who gave him the magic sword he killed Wade with is the one to ask. After a two-page Wolverine cameo, which establishes only that Solem had his own Muramasa Blade he gave to Death Grip (and which involves Deadpool wearing a parka and earmuffs in July for reasons that are not explained), they go confront Solem.

I was gonna call him "the Arakko guy," because I can't be driven to care about him, but it's too many words. Apparently he's a hedonist? Or something. Is that an established character trait? I thought all the Arakko folks cared about was fighting and killing, but this guy has a Pleasuredome and a Pleasuretorium, if the point wasn't being driven in quite heavily enough. He agrees to the old "beat me and I'll tell you," gambit. Because he's got Adamantium skin?

Well, whatever. Somehow, trying to kill Miles Morales got the Deadpools a different magic sword, so they cut Solem enough he gives them the info. And he writes it in his own blood, because Eleanor suggested it, which did make me chuckle. Ziglar lets her be more than a little shocked and freaked out by everything going on in the Pleasuredome, which actually seems to annoy Solem. It's a fairly decent bit of character interaction.

Next issue they face Death Grip, who has apparently started resurrecting people to learn what exists on the other side of death. Seems like there's enough people out there with that experience he could have just asked, rather than killing and reviving all his followers. Control freak.

What I Bought 2/5/2025 - Part 1

I bought some baby carrots last week with the idea I'd use them to cut down on my chip intake. When I'm in the mood for something with crunch, eat the carrots instead of walking down to the store and buying chips. In reality, it's played out that I think about wanting chips, remind myself of the carrots, and decide I'm not hungry after all.

Success!

Deadpool #10, by Cody Ziglar (writer), Roge Antonio (artist), Guru-eFX (color artist), Joe Sabino (letterer) - Synchronized bullet chopping is going to be the big new event in the Los Angeles Olympics. Assuming L.A. hasn't burned to the ground or fallen into the ocean before then.

Ellie and Deadpool are still adjusting to sharing a healing factor. Deadpool in particular was growing overly reliant on just tanking damage until he kills whoever he's fighting. When Taskmaster decides him beating their asses isn't producing fast enough results, he sends them after the goober with the big gun Ellie and Princess took down a few issues ago.

Antonio uses some odd postures for Wade when he's moving. Less so for Eleanor, which I assume is meant to be her copying other people's moves, while her dad just does whatever he wants. He's also inconsistent about the blisters/sores/tumors? on Wade's face. For a while, I thought he was deliberately drawing fewer of them on the left side of Wade's face, but I think he just changes the amount depending on what angle he's drawing Wade from. With Wade only having access to half of a healing factor weaker than his usual, he probably ought to look worse now. The various cancers should be gaining the upper hand, or at least stressing his healing factor even further.

Also, ditch the '90s-style pixie boots. Not even Liefeld draws him wearing those anymore.

Anyway, confident that's enough practice, and in need of money, Deadpool agrees to a job killing Spider-Man (Miles Morales edition.) He didn't tell Eleanor that's what they'd be doing before they started, however, which seems likely to cause some issues. Especially with the fact Wade is trying to commit to being a good dad (I'm still wondering where Preston is in all this. She's not concerned her foster daughter just up and vanished?), and while Eleanor isn't sure what else she gave up in the deal to save her father's life.

That has potential. Ellie's only ever witnessed Deadpool killing people that could be broadly categorized as "bad guys." Flag-Smasher and his ULTIMATUM losers. And those were the types of jobs he was sticking to so far in this run. But that's not always how he operates. Wade Wilson does a lot of shitty things, and Eleanor may not have really faced that up to now. And if she backs away, the way Ziglar's set things up now, Wade's going to cling tighter, trying not to screw things up and fail to be there for her. It could also drive a wedge between her and Princess. I doubt the symbiote dog is going to be bothered about varying definitions of "good" and "bad". 

Moon Knight: Fist of Khonshu #4, by Jed MacKay (writer), Devmalya Pramanik (artist), Rachelle Rosenberg (color artist), Cory Petit (letterer) - Jostling a cop's doughnuts? That's a felony.

The drug dealer's dirty cop tries and fails to intimidate Dr. Sterman. At least someone's showing some spine, because Marc's sitting in that underground lair, sulking in his tent like a guy from Chile. Jake and Steven wants answers, in a sequence where Premanik draws the panels as mirroring each other in their shapes, interlocking or pushing against each other. Rosenberg colors Jake's panels heavily in red/pink, while Steven's are dominated by green. Marc's got that red-orange and black combo that I tend to associate with him burning something.

Vermin shows up, looking for a rematch after Marc set him running way back at the beginning of MacKay's run. Marc refuses to retreat from an enemy that is his own army. As he fights and is buried under bodies, Premanik has a page of a bunch of curving rows of panels, set against a negative space outline of Vermin, intercut by close-ups on Moon Knight's various personalities.

Marc fights his way through, but in doing so, rejects the notion he can have anyone around him. Premanik draws that like Marc's being torn apart from the crown of his head down, with a dozen little, irregular-shaped panels in the rip. I didn't include the entire page below, but enough to get the gist. So he's doing the Batman-style "I have to go it alone," thing now. Though I was wondering where Reese, Soldier and the rest were. Their faces got plastered on the news, too, so they likely aren't up top, just wandering around. But nobody showed during this entire battle. 

Whatever, Marc confronts the dirty cop in her apartment, considering killing her. But instead, he has her call the drug dealer, so Marc can challenge him to a one-on-one fight. Well, I'm sure a boxer-turned-drug lord will fight entirely on the up-and-up. Then again, Marc may rig the location of the fight with plastique to blow both of them up.

What I Bought 11/16/2024 - Part 2

While looking to see if the second season of The Invisible Man was available on any streaming services, last month, I found out the Roku Channel not only had that, but also Hardcastle & McCormick. Which was a nice surprise in a nostalgic way. I have vague memories - mostly of the car and the opening theme song - of watching it with my dad at some point. Unfortunately, they took it off the day after the election. Like, "Dumbest Asshole You Know Elected President - Again," wasn't enough bad news.

Deadpool #8, by Cody Ziglar and Alexis Quasarano (writers), Roge Antonio (artist), Guru-eFX (color artist), Joe Sabino (letterer) - I see Eleanor's developed her father's aversion to dodging.

A chunk of this issue is dedicated to Valentine explaining how their relationship with Wade ended. Essentially, they were taking merc jobs together, but Valentine started to miss research. So Wade took more merc jobs to pay the bills, while Valentine got wrapped up in their own work, and they drifted apart until Valentine just left. Seems like trying to explain to Wade they both need to pull back from work a little might have been the better option, but overall, that's much less disastrous than I expected.

That done, Ellie makes a pitch to Valentine to help resurrect Deadpool (whose corpse still isn't decomposing, and is currently chilling in a kiddie pool of half-melted ice cubes.) Valentine admits it sounds like magic's involved, but that's outside their expertise. Ellie is still banking on being able to figure out alchemy if she just watches enough online videos, which makes me wonder why Ziglar and Quasarano don't dust off Diablo, a character I know has figured out alchemy. Or maybe he's just doing magic he dresses up as alchemy? OK, I admit my grasp on Diablo's shtick is limited.

Whatever, Diablo's not here, but MODOK is! Yes, MODOK is using Big Pharma as a cover for whatever his latest schemes are. I guess the T.O.D.D.-bots should have been a clue, as are the administrative support people with lightsaber hands who try to kill Valentine for deciding to leave and help Ellie and Princess. The 'bots are dealt with, but MODOK may be a more complicated issue.

Part of me thinks Ellie's going to come to some kind of understanding with MODOK, if only because she can't keep charging headlong into everything. That didn't work for her dad, and he was a lot more accustomed to pain than she is. I guess I expect Ziglar and Quasarano to have her just sort of collapse at some point as the whole thing really hits her. But maybe not, if they're really bringing Wade back in a couple of months.

What I Bought 9/18/2024

The last two days of this week have dragged. Not that the first three were anything spectacular, but I was, for better or worse, busy. Real "C" grade kind of week. Plus, there were 3 comics I was expecting out next week, but the solicits don't show any of them. Will I ever get to actually see an issue of Loop?!

Deadpool #6, by Cody Ziglar (writer), Roge Antonio (artist), Guru e-FX (colorist), Joe Sabino (letterer) - I see Wade's pissed off Radioactive Man.

Deadpool's healing factor remains missing in action, so he's down two limbs. Which means not is Deadpool now handling finding his new business jobs (Deadpool, in charge of something that requires organization and follow-through?), he's sending Ellie out in the field with Taskmaster and Princess. In her own outfit, but with non-lethal weaponry.

And for their first job, take out an ex-KGB weapons smuggler, who wears a mask that makes me think he's the Plunderer, that villain that likes to act like a pirate sometimes. But it's not him (I think.) For all her talk, Ellie's nervous if the stuttering and hesitation throughout the fight is anything to go by, but they make it work. With only a little bit of people being eaten alive! But their guns literally go "PewPewPew," so they deserve it.

Deadpool's very proud. Then Deadpool's very dead, because Death Grip is not dead. I still don't get this guy's deal. He does his magic thing to slice off Deadpool's other arm, then grabs him and, I'm not sure, magic-burns him from the inside out? Anyway, Deadpool's dead now, just when he thought he was getting his life together! For, what, the 14th time?

Assuming Antonio designed Ellie's outfit, it's solid. The jacket reminds me of early-'90s Avengers, or maybe the one Firestar rocked in the back half of New Warriors volume 1 (that might just be the Taskmaster emblem on the sleeve that reminds me of the Warriors having a logo/communicator in that spot.) The fight scene's illustrated well, good mix of wide panels and close-ups. Deadpool's face looks a odd. Softer than usual, maybe, like Antonio went light on the lines to emphasize Wade's oddly happy with the situation? Until he died, although once Preston tracked him down (and there's no way she's not noticing a dark-haired girl calling herself "Deadpool"), he'd have been in a lot of pain.

Dazzler #1, by Jason Loo (writer), Rafael Loureiro (artist), Java Tartaglia (color artist), Ariana Maher (letterer) - Yep, she's definitely singing.

Dazzler's on tour to promote her new album! And she's in the middle of culture wars, with your various conservative bigot types spewing the usual nonsense about her leading the youth down a - whatever, you're probably on social media more than me, you know the kind of stuff being said.

First concert, she's singing a song about dating Archangel, gets attacked by Scorpia, beats her mostly without using her powers offensively, per her manager and Domino's request. I have a hard time picturing Domino going along with that, even with the flashbacks showing her sparring with Dazzler to help hone her self-defense skills. "You can't worry about bad p.r. if you're dead," or something like that. Especially since she got a little casual with a light shield she made and some of the audience got hit with Scorpia's bad aim. Maybe if she just used a hard light shot they fight would have been over sooner.

I'm not entirely clear what she did to ultimately finish the fight. She makes a big light display that seems to surround Scorpia. Then Loureiro draws a panel of her pointing her glowing fingers towards us while singing "Bling! Wing! Ding!" as actual lyrics. Then Scorpia's unconscious on the ground. So, Dazzler did use her powers in an offense-minded way after all?

But Loo seems to be setting up a subplot where Dazzler's manager is trying really hard to downplay Dazzler being a mutant, seemingly for fear of commercial backlash. So, no using powers in an aggressive manner. Ask Allison's drummer, Shark-Girl, to wear an image inducer collar, which sure as heck looks like a power dampener more than the thing Nightcrawler used to wear. Lots of talk about "transcending barriers", and being "inviting and friendly as possible." You know, bullshit.

I don't know. Dazzler's a character I'm typically more interested in as part of an ensemble than a lead, so this was always going to be a bit of a hard sell, but it didn't set my world on fire. Maybe her being a singer is something that doesn't translate well to comics. Maybe it's that it feels like Loo's nodding hard in the direction of Taylor Swift, who I have no particular feeling about, beyond getting annoyed when drunk college girls would yell at Alex to play "Blank Space" again. 

I can probably afford to give it another issue, but it's on life support.

What I Bought 7/5/2024

My usual comic guy got shorted on his Marvel stuff last week, but I had to visit a different store to pick up a new longbox for Alex, and that guy had Deadpool, so let's take a look at one of the only comics I'm planning to buy this month.

Deadpool #4, by Cody Ziglar (writer), Roge Antonio (penciler), Eric Gapstur (penciler/inker), Jonas Trindade (inker), Guru-eFX (colorist), Joe Sabino (letterer) - Can't stop staring at Death Grip's swollen-looking lower lip.

Taskmaster puts Eleanor through her paces, where we see she can eventually figure out how to do acrobatic stuff by watching. The move she does when that happens doesn't entirely match the Spider-Man flip Taskmaster used on her two pages earlier, mostly because she kicks him in the back of the neck on the way down), but I don't know if that's her combining the stuff she's seen him do or something else.

I'm also not sure who's drawing which parts. The lines seem smoother is the first half of the book, fewer extraneous little lines, which makes me think that's Gapstur. There's also one panel where Wade's eyes turn into big hearts because he's so happy about how cool Ellie is that doesn't feel like something Antonio would do, based on the previous three issues.

And her healing abilities also let her build strength faster because she doesn't need to rest long between workouts, though Taskmaster doesn't think she can get super-strength out of it. That's a relief, I was worried Ziglar was going to go nuts with this idea, he said, insincerely.

Still, Deadpool is not prepared to let Eleanor join him on missions, especially not when Death Grip sends a persona video advising Wade to either visit, or prepare to receive visitors. Never one to overlook the chance to ruin someone else's toilet, Deadpool and Taskmaster go to temple. The cannon fodder are, well, cannon fodder, but Death Grip does something that seems to remove Deadpool's healing factor, then cuts him across the chest.

It seems like, if you've incorporated a blade that nullifies healing factors, there's no need to do a specific move to remove said healing factor. Just cut the guy. But I don't really get this cult, either. The acolytes are hoping Deadpool will teach them his ways of being unkillable, but Death Grip is trying to kill him. If they see death as a gift, shouldn't they not want to learn how Deadpool is so hard to kill? Shouldn't they all see him as an abomination?

Maybe this'll make more sense if I read the whole arc after it wraps up next month.

What I Bought 6/14/2024

My boss is back from his, to be clear, deserved vacation, and I'm very happy. Because it means all the questions and requests he normally deals with stop getting funneled to me.

Deadpool #3, by Cody Ziglar (writer), Roge Antonio (artist), Guru-eFX (colorist), Joe Sabino (letterer) - In the merciless Mustard Yellow Wastes, one man hunts another.

Deadpool and Crossbones fight. Crossbones has a "holoshield" that deflects bullets, although it just looks like a bulky flak vest with his logo on it. If it's supposed to glow or project, nobody told the art team. It is less resistant to swords - sort of, Deadpool notes it takes a dozen stabs to get through, but we see him drawing blood right from the start - and then Crossbones uses some explosives. They are, I assume, strapped to him, but don't hurt at all, while Deadpool's lower half gets separated from the rest of him.

What I'm saying is, there's a lot of stuff where I don't feel the writer and artist are on the same page.

Right as Deadpool's about to get shot in the head, Ellie arrives with some sort of teleporter Power Glove she built from watching online videos and punches Crossbones in the face. And then Deadpool kicks Crossbones through the portal, which now leads to a swamp instead of Ellie's home in Arizona. Back at Deadpool's office, everybody talks. Taskmaster thinks the aspect of rapid healing Ellie got may also have made her a rapid learner? Be better off saying Agent Preston participated in SHIELD's "Take Your Daughter to Work Day," and Ellie poked into something she shouldn't.

It is nice to see that, at the outset, Ellie and Princess are getting along. I expected there to be a measure of jealousy between Deadpool's daughters. We'll see, when Deadpool's in trouble, if he shows more concern for Ellie if that changes things.

On the downside, Death Grip has tracked down, sigh, the Muramasa Blade. The thing Logan had made out of part of his soul that you don't heal after you get cut with it. And Death Grip used magic to break it into pieces. I guess it lets him attack with each piece from different directions. Still, am I never to be free of Daniel Way's terrible concepts?!

What I Bought 5/8/2024

I took a little driving trip Wednesday to run an errand and check out a few stores. Got the errand done easily enough, didn't find much of the stuff I was hoping to. But I did find two of this week's comics in a store I checked at random, so that's good.

Fantastic Four #20, by Ryan North (writer), Carlos Gomez (artist), Jesus Arbutov and Fer Sifuentes-Sujo (color artists), Joe Caramagna (letterer) - Crap, Reed's miniaturized HERBIE. At least Ben's got him under control. . .for now.

Ben and Johnny, independent of each other, get jobs at the same grocery store. Annoyed with each other, they each decide to win Employee of the Month. Johnny opts for cheesy flattery and shameless flirting, Ben by showing interest in the everyday lives of the customers. Sounds exhausting.

The first month ends in a tie, so the two keep it up into a second month, until some guy comes up wanting to writing a story poking fun at the Human Torch working a minimum wage job and living in a house with a large number of other people. Hey, that's environmentally friendly, or so I've been told by articles I've seen touting shared living spaces as the future! I mean, no thanks, I did my time on that shit, but if other people want to be close to their loved ones or total strangers, great. More elbow room for me, suckers!

Anyway, Ben comes to Johnny's defense, not that it stops the article from running, but the important thing is they care about each other, even as they fight like wet cats. Ben even compliments Johnny's mustache and implies Johnny would be an excellent exotic dancer. It makes sense in context.

So the story issue lives or dies on the bits North and Gomez get out of the framework, and it does pretty well. Ben and Johnny messing with each other is well-established, so it doesn't feel weird when they argue at dinner, or when Johnny annoys Ben by saying, "It's collaboratin' time!" Although the touch I like best is that Gomez draws the Thing with a regular pencil taped to his index finger. Presumably because it makes it easier to use than trying to hold it like most people would. (Gomez draws an excellent Thing. He avoids placing Ben's head too high up on his body, which is I think what Coello and Fiorelli did, which was why it looked like his head was barely connected to the rest of him sometimes.)

Now the book starts Blood Hunt tie-ins, so I guess I'll see it in later in the summer.

Deadpool #2, by Cody Ziglar (writer), Roge Antonio (artist), Guru-eFX (colorist), Joe Sabino (letterer) - Nice to see someone remember Taskmaster has a bow. Seems like you only ever see the sword and the shield these days.

Deadpool makes enough money killing people to afford to buy the place the guy he killed last issue owned to set up his new Mercs for Money operation. Understanding that he's lousy at organization, follow-through, details, budgeting. . .basically everything, Deadpool brings in Taskmaster for that, and Taskmaster brings in some guy from the previous run of Amazing Spider-Man (the one that ended with Ben Reilly as, whatever the hell he is now) as their IT guy. Taskmaster doesn't know much about Death Grip to justify wasting even the 3 or 4 panels spent on it, but they get a job protecting some loser at an "influencer-con", only to have Crossbones show up trying to kill. . .I think Deadpool? For Death Grip?

I mean, one Taskmaster's exposition panels actually shows Death Grip talking with Crossbones - about what we don't know, it's video footage from, somewhere - and then Crossbones shows up, which makes Taskmaster suspect set-up. Which I don't really get. They were hired by the influencer, because he thought there'd be an attempt on his life (or he thought they'd get him more notoriety.) But Deadpool was taking jobs that involved killing, not protecting. Why would anyone think that was going to draw him out?

Of more interest is the subplot with Ellie. She didn't hide the fact Deadpool gave her a phone to contact him, but she's annoyed he'd only come see her when she's in trouble. So she's figured out how to connect the GPS in one of Preston's LMD hands to the phone to find him. Which I thought meant Ziglar was changing her mutant power to some technomancer thing like Forge, especially after she said just watching a few online videos made it click for her. But she cuts herself and her hand heals in a couple of panels, so. . .it's still a change to her mutant power, but not as far off. I'm actually most surprised Preston is annoyed Deadpool wouldn't chat with her. I figured she was still kind of pissed at him from the end of Duggan's run.

Man, I hope Eleanor's not going to get herself in the crossfire and end up injured enough she combines with the symbiote dog. Although I could see a jealousy subplot that Wade has another "daughter" he does let hang around him all the time.

What I Bought 4/3/2024 - Part 2

I've been nosing around through stores with used PS4 games when I have the chance the last couple of months and man, how are used PS4 games still so friggin' expensive? One of the nice things about waiting until 2012 to buy that XBox 360 was that I could buy a crapload of games for less than $20, and in many cases less than $10. Not having much luck with that now.

Deadpool #1, by Cody Ziglar (writer), Roge Antonio (artist), Guru-eFX (colorist), Joe Sabino (letterer) - How did he throw all those grenades when he's already holding two weapons?

Deadpool is doing his usual bit of taking money to kill people. Whatever relationship he had with the Valentine person from Alyssa Wong's run apparently fell apart when Valentine figured out Wade is a dumpster fire, but Wade still has the symbiote that was growing inside him when I dropped that book. Except now it's a giant, red dog that Antonio draws with big, soulful, pupiless eyes. Which Wade calls "Princess", and that calls him "Papa." Giving Deadpool a child that is especially vulnerable to fire seems like a bad idea, unless you're a fan of child endangerment.

His other daughter, Eleanor, is still around, in that she's living with the Prestons in Arizona. Wade is wisely avoiding Preston, who would probably robot-body punch his jaw clean off, but he does visit Ellie to give her a phone with only his number, and he promises to always answer if she calls. I'm sure he won't break that promise at an inconvenient moment!

There's no indication of where Wade or Princess are living, so I assume we're back to Daniel Way-era "living in abandoned warehouses with a single chair made of C-4." Most of this issue is Wade and Princess chasing some French-Canadian named Henry. Why they're killing him is not explained - beyond they're being paid for it - which probably says a lot about Wade's mental state. We could also note Antonio has given Deadpool back the little grey-black booties he wore back in the early, Liefeld-drawn days. That doesn't feel like a good sign.

He has a device on his wrist that makes portals, so they have to chase him across a city, including a bit where they chase him back-and-forth down a two-page spread, and Wade expresses regret for the artist who has to draw it. Antonio makes it seem pretty easy, as they dive through one portal into the next panel and reverse course, then repeat.

Somehow, Henry stumbles into some monk guy who kills him, then tries to kill Wade, then doesn't die when Wade stabs him through the chest and escapes. And he's very excited about the fact Wade didn't die. Though the way Ziglar is writing Wade, he would probably be happy if they figure out how to fix that issue. He's jumping out of planes from 15,000 feet, without a parachute, and thinking that hitting the ground at 120 mph will feel good. Although Antonio draws the landing as Wade just stabbing a guy with his swords like he just jumped a fence, so it doesn't really match the dialogue. Have him land on a guy and liquefy both their bodies!

What I Bought 4/9/2022 - Part 1

Well, I almost got every comic I was looking for from last week. I knew the first issue of Lead City was going to be a longshot. I'll try again at the end of the month. In the meantime, here's the only two ongoing series I'm buying from Marvel right now.

Moon Knight #10, by Jed MacKay (writer), Alessandro Cappuccio (artist), Rachelle Rosenberg (color artist), Cory Petit (letterer) - There's got to be a better place to grip the gun than around the trigger. That's just not safe if you're trying to pull someone out.

Moon Knight's confrontation with the escaped mental patient, Rutherford Winner, is related in flashback as Moonie talks with Dr. Sterman, who is also Winner's doctor. The doctor seems rather unconcerned with Winner, dismissing him as a hopelessly damaged individual who can only be contained. Unlike Marc, she says, who contains himself, but perhaps, shouldn't?

At first I thought this was her trying to do what Zodiac wanted, possibly in the most ham-fisted, obvious way possible. I guess I should have paid more attention to the disinterested posture and expressions Cappuccio gives her. She looks bored, talking about Winner, only leaning towards Marc when she encourages him to stop holding back.

As it turns out, this Dr. Sterman is actually Waxman, a Clayface-looking shapeshifting killer. Moon Knight busts out some liquid nitrogen canisters (where's he getting this stuff if he's broke and on the outs with the Avengers?) to freeze him, then seals Waxman inside a steel ball. Cappuccio does all those panels of Waxman as these tight, narrow boxes, where Rosenberg has colored almost everything black and Waxman's just outlined in the green glow of the walkie-talkie.

Moon Knight says he will bury the ball in the foundations of a condo ('execution by gentrification') unless Waxman tells him where to find the doctor. Waxman does, and Marc buries him anyway. OK, then. Glad to see therapy is helping. That would seem like an indication Marc is doing exactly what Zodiac wanted. Trapping a potentially immortal serial killer in a box and letting him go insane certainly seems like not holding back. Is MacKay going to have Moon Knight show Zodiac exactly why it's a bad idea to encourage him to cut loose, and if so, is that going to be one last trap Zodiac has for him? It's hard to see Moon Knight taking prisoners or showing restraint at this point.

She-Hulk #3, by Rainbow Rowell (writer), Roge Antonio (artist), Rico Renzi (color artist), Joe Caramagna (letterer) - Last month I ended up with an X-Gwen variant, this month it's a Carnage variant. This is what happens when you wait until the weekend. You get stuck with whatever's left.

Jen gets to work trying to get some non-super-type clients. We don't see any progress on that front. She returns home with pizza for Jack and the two of them try to figure out what happened to him, and what about his origin can actually be proven. Which is apparently very little, since Jack has mostly relied on what other people told him. Hmm, I feel an "origin retcon" migraine coming on.

Jack still can't figure out where he was, what was happening, how he escaped or why he came to She-Hulk, though he thinks the last might be out of some guilt over that time he drained all her radiation. Everybody in the comic keeps saying that happened in Indiana, but I thought it was inside a secret biological weapons facility hidden in Mount Rushmore? It was Geoff Johns' Avengers run, the story where they figure out Red Skull made it to Secretary of Defense, right? I know, not critical, and I'm probably misremembering, but it keeps nagging at me.

They do figure out that Jack has barely any access to his powers. The way he describes it, the power is there, he just can get to it, but you have to wonder if it got drained out of him. The other thing I notice is Jack doesn't say what happened to his mother, only that she was an alien. So maybe Rowell is bringing her into the picture, trying to address her son's condition somehow. That wouldn't necessarily explain sending him to She-Hulk, though.

Rowell is still moving slowly, but she's taking pains to highlight different parts of Jennifer's past continuity that's been brought into play. For example, Mallory has apparently rebooted Andy, the Mad Thinker's Awesome Android as her assistant, the role he played in Slott's She-Hulk. Jennifer also calls Patsy Walker to see if she knows anything about Jack's history, so Rowell's also continuing that friendship, which I think Charles Soule established in his She-Hulk run. That could indicate Rowell's going for something more upbeat, or that She-Hulk's really going to need the support network. Or just that this is a version of She-Hulk willing to actually let other people help her.

I'm mostly just grateful Rowell writes She-Hulk as skeptical of Patsy dating Tony Stark as I am. Patsy Walker: Exhibiting terrible taste in men since, I dunno, 1952 or something!

Still, there probably needs to be more forward movement at some point. If only to give Roge Antonio something to draw other than people sitting and talking. Antonio is trying to keep it visually interesting by changing perspective or the characters' posture to reflect their emotional state. Jen spends most of her conversation with Jack resting comfortably back into the couch, leaning forward only when he's getting despondent, while Jack tends to hunch on himself.

What I Bought 3/4/2022 - Part 1

One thing I've never been any good at is getting over a mistake I make. Until I can see it's not going to cause more problems, it just lingers in my mind, sometimes even beyond. At this point, there's a particular mistake I'm going to be thinking about for at least another six weeks. Lovely. Here's some comics that were light on plot from two weeks ago.

Moon Knight #9, by Jed MacKay (writer), Alessandro Cappuccio (artist), Rachelle Rosenberg (color artist), Cory Petit (letterer) - Ha, ha, now Moon Knight is trapped within my 6th grade Trapper Keeper! Fine, it's a knock-off Trapper Keeper.

In this issue, Moon Knight deals with a haunted apartment building. More specifically, with one particular floor, one the building is not supposed to have. One that doesn't let people leave once they arrive. It does, however, throw Moon Knight out. Because his brain is too crazy to absorb. Marc gets some intel from Wong and goes back to make the haunted floor an offer/threat. And Moon Knight gets his Midnight Mission back, although the idea of encouraging people to step inside and ask for help seems, well. . . Like something a crazy guy would do.

It's funny (or sad) this is set after Moon Knight escapes from prison in that Devil's Reign one-shot I didn't buy, but this shipped first. Great work, Marvel. Anyway, it's a decent enough one-off story. Cappuccio mostly draws the House of Shadows as long hallways with peeling wallpaper and deep shadows. Although Cappuccio is always adding deep shadows. There's also skeletons. Lots of skeletons. Those are new. Haven't been many of those in the book up to now.

The more interesting long-term development is Dr. Sterman questioning whether Marc can actually help people at all. She mostly couches it in the old question of whether superheroes only attract more violence. Which, with Zodiac specifically trying to target Marc, has some validity. Although Marc's presence also brought in Hunter's Moon, so that's an extra person to protect the innocent. However, the part of the session we see ends with her questioning whether it's a good idea for Marc to be a superhero.

This is probably her trying to give Zodiac what he wants, to make Marc violent. Abandon this notion of helping people. But it's not unfair to question whether this is the best thing for Marc's mental state. Being Moon Knight, remaining tied to Khonshu in a sense. Throwing himself into these situations, hurting and being hurt.

She-Hulk #2, by Rainbow Rowell (writer), Roge Antonio (artist), Rico Renzi (color artist), Joe Caramagna (letterer) - The store only had the "X-Gwen" variant, so I get to see Gwen Stacy, if she dressed like Wolverine. At least she doesn't have body hair like Wolverine. Or maybe she does. The costume covers almost everything.

Most of the issue is Jen trying to figure out what happened to Jack of Hearts and why he's there. It doesn't go well. Jack knows he was trapped in a tube somewhere after his death, his energy being siphoned off, and he eventually got away, determined to find her. Why? he doesn't know. Who had him? No clue. Why? No clue.

What Jack does figure out is, he's thirsty. For the first time in years. Hungry, too. So Jen gets him a lot of food, although Jack's apparently forgotten frozen food should be cooked first. Man's eating pizza rolls right out of the box. Also, Jen suggests they could get actual pizza, but there's a slice of it on a plate right in front of Jack. Also also, I think the turkey he ate part of was a tofurkey, because there's a hind quarter missing, but there's no bones visible.

Jack also doesn't want to contact the Avengers, because he's concerned Tony Stark will throw him back in an isolation chamber. Jen can't disagree with his assessment, so she lets him crash on her couch (he needs sleep now, too) and heads to work. Meanwhile, whoever Jack escaped from has a disturbing bulletin board full of stuff about She-Hulk. 

Darn, Jack comes back from the dead to be used as a patsy before Slott kills him off in that Reckoning War thing. Come on, we all know when they say someone's gonna die, and Jack's standing there with She-Hulk and 3/4 of the FF, whose number is up. Like I said, 75% of this comic was that one conversation between Jen and Jack. Rowell's not exactly setting a blistering pace here, though that's no surprise. 

I wouldn't say Antonio's doing a lot with all the space being afforded from the sparse dialogue. The body language on the characters is good, but the layouts are pretty straightforward and it's not as though the backgrounds are packed with details. It's mostly just two characters sitting on a couch talking. I can't remember whether Jack had the rat tail haircut Antonio gives him in the flashbacks or not. I mostly excised Geoff Johns' Avengers run from my collection. I mostly just remember Jack getting increasingly frustrated as his condition worsened and taking it out on Scott Lang.

What I Bought 1/20/2022 - Part 4

So when I put in an order at the online store I use for the stuff I missed this month, I forgot The Rush #3. I'd already checked two of the stores in the general area for it prior to that, so it might be a while before I get around to reviewing it. In the meantime, here's two more comics from two weeks ago.

Moon Knight #7, by Jed MacKay (writer), Federico Sabbatini (artist), Rachelle Rosenberg (color artist), Cory Petit (letterer) - Even for Moon Knight, picking a fight with half the Wrecking Crew is crazy.

Moon Knight is trying to find Zodiac, without much success, but 8-Ball points him to Manslaughter Marsdale, who wittingly or not, points him to "the Clown". Which clown? Obnoxio, the one from Circus of Crime? Can't really tell, because Zodiac already cut his head off and took it with him to meet Marc's psychiatrist. Got green hair and a green star over one eye, which I don't remember the Clown from Circus of Crime having. Also, while Tigra is helping Marc out, she's also really there because Black Panther has asked her to keep an eye on Marc. Booo, fuck off T'Challa, go back to ruling your own country through some "divine right by combat" bullshit.

Sabbatini's doing a pretty good job of aping Cappuccio's art here. Linework's a little looser, more jagged, but overall, the book looks largely the same. Although I suspect Rosenberg's color work helps there, too. The one issue is some of the staging in the panels is wonky. There's one, when they've caught up to 8-Ball, where Reese points to something spraypainted on the wall behind her and asks Marc what it is. But I honestly can't tell what it is, because Marc's arm is covering part of it from out perspective. Maybe that's intentional, though I'm not sure why that would be.

Also, MacKay has Moonie do the "imperil a guy until he snitches" bit. Only, unlike Batman dangling people off rooftops, he dangles 8-Ball over a car shredder. And this works, of course. I'm not surprised Moon Knight would try that; he's a brutal vigilante on a good day. Little disappointed it works, though. Be nice if writers would stop acting like that crap gets results all the time.

She-Hulk #1, by Rainbow Rowell (writer), Roge Antonio (artist), Rico Renzi (color artist), Joe Caramagna (letterer) - I think this cover is very plainly stating that all the Jason Aaron bullshit is off the board. Which is fine, since none of said bullshit seemed interesting to me. Guess it sucks if you were enjoying it.

Jennifer gets interrupted on her way to her new job by Titania, who just feels like fighting a bit. So they fight, but Jennifer lets a little too much slip about her current status, to the point Titania is confused and irritated about feeling bad for her. Jennifer gets the fight delayed for the time being so she can get to her new job, working for her old rival (from the Dan Slott run) Mallory Book. And the Wasp is going to let Jen live in the same apartment she loaned her in Sensational She-Hulk, which still has a bunch of her clothes.

Then Jack of Hearts shows up and passes out in her doorway.

So Rowell's trying to get back to excellent lawyer She-Hulk, and clothes horse She-Hulk, while not entirely discarding everything since, I guess when Thanos put her in a coma in Civil War II. She-Hulk's been away from this sort of life for a while, and she's trying to get back to it. How she plans to "reinvent" herself, I don't know. Reaching a sort of detente with Titania might be a start. Where they don't get along, but they aren't engaged in life-and-death fights all the time. Although that's more a sign of progress for Titania than She-Hulk.

In terms of Jennifer and She-Hulk, Antonio goes more towards her portrayal in the Dan Slott runs, with Rich Burchett or Juan Bobillo as artist, as opposed to John Byrne. Jennifer is portrayed in ways that make her look very small, even around Mallory. Heck, Janet van Dyne is only about 5-4, and she and Jennifer look to be the same height. And her body language shows her hunched over, arms pulled in close to her body. Antonio's She-Hulk is confident, unsurprisingly, and tall, but also more muscular than she was in Sensational She-Hulk, while not anywhere close to how she's looked in Avengers the last few years. Still emphasizes the idea that she's strong, that she's got a lot of power.

I do question Jennifer's feet not changing size when she's She-Hulk. She took her shoes off to fight (sensible), but was able to slip right into her heels without changing back to Jennifer.