What I Bought 6/1/2026 - Part 1

As we begin June, I now have the last four comics from May I was looking for. Busy couple of weeks, comicswise, for me. Four books out last week, and potentially six(!) this week. And then just 1 over the next two weeks combined. Having big weeks and empty weeks isn't weird, but May was pretty even throughout. 3-2-2-4 comics from the first week through the last.

So it goes. For today, a last issue and a first issue.

Spirit of the Shadows #5, by Nick Cagnetti (writer/artist/colorist), Daniel Ziegler (writer), Ferran Delgado (letterer) - The one Kirby monster is drooling all over poor Erik's leg. Gross man, he doesn't need marinating, just eat him!

Helena's about to kill Erik for good, per his wishes, but the spell that brought out all these ghosts brought back her sister. I note that while Elizabeth has a monster-hand in the Spirit Realm, as she's been there too long and was starting to turn, her ghost has regular human hands. She only remembers she had a sister, nothing about her, but is still horrified by what Helena is doing. So Helena relents, the spell ends, the ghosts go back where they were and Erik follows.

Which puts him in position to save Elizabeth from the angry father that had him killed in the first place, now basically a red, 4-legged monster, with an Arnim Zola face. Erik figures he'll be that way soon, too, but Elizabeth finds the last pages of his book and insists they take the carriage to the Judgement Hall. The last pages also reveal how Erik died at the start of the series. Katrina's ghost reached out to him, via some weird scepter and begged him to stop trying to bring her back. So he had the doc work out something to kill him for real.

So, the Realmkeepers, a couple of giants in robes and opera masks with their colors swapped. They also have lizard-looking guys dressed like the Nutcracker, but with no legs, for doormen/guards. Neat design choice by Cagnetti, he really let himself get bizarre with some of the creatures in this mini-series. The Realmkeepers start to review Erik's case, and he tells them to skip it. He's guilty, but Elizabeth's a good person, please let her into the Sacred Realm. This causes them to ponder their system of judgement, they let her in, and Erik gets a role as someone who roams the Spirit Realm, seeking others who might have been misjudged. He does get to accompany Elizabeth long enough to speak with Katrina, and then it's off to work. First person we see him protect - and it's strange Erik talked about remembering having powers in life, but we only see him use them in the Spirit Realm - the doctor that resurrected him in the first place.

So Erik accepts his loss and tries to make amends. I'm not really clear on why Elizabeth was sent to the Spirit Realm in the first place, and since her book is gone, presumably she doesn't know either (though she claims her memories are coming back.) The story ends with her ghost visiting Helena (now setting up shop in the mansion where Erik and the doc lived) and admitting she doesn't even remember this argument she had with Helena, which Helena blames for driving Elizabeth into the night.

Which is a little bit of an odd way to end. Not the idea that the disagreements we think are so important in life really aren't. But Cagnetti and Ziegler have Katrina says she wasn't even aware of it. I guess the point is it doesn't matter what they disagreed about, it wasn't what killed Katrina, and it didn't mean Helena needed to go around killing people and seeking vengeance. But something about framing that way is sticking in my craw. Maybe that it leaves open the possibility Katrina regains the memory later and changes her mind.

The Matron #1, by David Bowles and Drew Edwards (writers), Monica Gallagher (artist), Hary Saxon (color artist), Stephen Kok (letterer) - Great, now she's tracked blood all through John Byrne's Alpha Flight blizzard fight issue.

The issue shifts between February of 1975, and February of 2021. In 1975, Rozina Krenek was apparently a cannibalistic serial killer called The Matron, who killed people. Possibly only criminals, possibly only men. That's just going off what we've seen so far, plus a "FBI file" on a murder from the 1950s as some extra material.) One potential victim, who hadn't really been on board with robbery anyway, escaped and told the sheriff. Who Rozina seemed confident would look the other way, being a relative.

He didn't look the other way this time, for reasons presently unclear. There was a shootout, Rozina got lit on fire, she died, although she killed two or three cops first. The rest of the family except her granddaughter died too. The granddaughter works in a diner and still carried a grudge. Her granddaughter Roz is attending college and is friends with the great-granddaughter of the sheriff, to the displeasure of said grudge-holding grandma.

That's where we're at. There may be a supernatural element. The Matron's axe has some runes on it, and when she captures the reluctant robber a storm seems to have started from nowhere. When he escapes, she yells something at the sky that Kok puts in much larger, bolder letters, and the rain turns to snow. 

During the shootout, Rozina is still standing while on fire, only falling after the sheriff's last bullet bounces off the mask. Doesn't penetrate it, doesn't crack it break it, nothing like that. But if comes loose, and Rozina falls in a creek. Or maybe it's a moat. It seems very straight and very deep for as narrow as it appears.

Gallagher depicts Rozina's strength casually. She hauls the reluctant guy - old enough to have gone to 'Nam and returned, so we're not talking about a child here - out through the window of his truck with one hand. She cuts through both of a cop's legs with one swing. She's as tall or taller than anyone else and tends to dominate panels she's in, either taking up the foreground or looming over other characters. Roz is similarly tall, and has the same hair and facial structure, so that's either foreshadowing or just making clear the familial bloodline.