What I Bought 8/6/2026

With five books coming out last week, I was hoping for better luck than finding two, but by the time I made it back from a 2-day work trip, I really wasn't that inclined to care, versus just getting home and crashing out. So we got what we got.

Batgirl #22, by Tate Brombal (writer), Stephen Segovia (artist), Jason Paz (inker), Rain Beredo (colorist), Tom Napolitano (letterer) - I've long suspected Batgirl was no mere mortal, but I never would have imagined she was a bunch of flowers.

Cass is still inside her head, confronted by, I'm really not sure what the version of Forget-Me-Not in her head is. Post-hypnotic suggestion hallucination? Anyway, he wants her to recognize she killed his test subject, but when Cass is able to object, she realizes she's not actually the 8-year-old she appears to be. She can speak, which means she can understand words. Including what everybody was saying in those memories.

I mean, I guess? If we assume her memory is that good for things that happened over a decade ago, then I guess maybe she could retroactively piece things together now that she knows spoken language. I'm trying to envision myself as a child, hearing German, then replaying the conversation in my head a decade later with sufficient confidence I remembered words and sounds I didn't know well enough to now understand them.

Anyway, point being, she realizes she and the other girl, Victoria, became friends, despite the best efforts of their respective teachers. Cain couldn't beat empathy out of Cass, and Forget-Me-Not couldn't erase the actual person inside his "doll." Which is what got her killed, she went on a mission and her true self emerged at the wrong time.

Or maybe she didn't die. The body that started all this isn't Victoria, so Cass is holding out hope. And Forget-Me-Notm who was just hanging out in the basement to be confronted by the rest of the supporting cast, let's slip that someone paid him to do this. Is it a mysterious figure in a blue demon mask Jaya is working for? Well, maybe.

So maybe this is Brombal setting things up for the future, or it's their way of letting Cass confront her past and show how far beyond it she's gone. That she's grown to something more than Cain could ever have envisioned. Which ties back to something Bronze Tiger said late in her first ongoing, that Cain made her a weapon, but she made herself a hero. 

Marc Spector: Moon Knight #7, by Jed MacKay (writer), Devmalya Pramanik (artist), Rachelle Rosenberg (color artist), Cory Petit (letterer) -  I hope Marc doing a Wolverine pose doesn't mean we're going back to that stretch where he thought he was Wolverine, Spider-Man, or Captain America.

The Midnight Suns bust into the Mansion Ravenous and quickly come under attack from the dragon Ginnaar, now with a body made from the Mansion itself. Which means Blade's chainsaw is insufficient, despite his claim that everything he does is cool. Sounds like someone's buying into his own hype too much. Robbie driving his giant, burning muscle car through its chest doesn't work much better.

Stall tactics aren't going to get it done, so the drastic measure is - Daredevil?! Yes, with his radar sense and agility, the Man With No Fear dives in, avoiding the dragon's fire. Which is nails, because it's made from a house, so I guess fire would be counterproductive. Seriously though, I like that as a nod to Ginnaar's peculiar nature at the moment. Also, Pramanik and Rosenberg bust out the black-and-white line radar vision look for DD's dive, in panels radiating out from a red outline of DD's head. 

Anyway, Daredevil gets in close and wrenches out the sword that apparently still holds the dragon's sword. Which is a little odd to me. The Mansion couldn't release Ginnaar's soul from the sword? Or maybe it chose not to, to keep it in check. Follow orders, or lose access to a physical form. Whatever, dragon defeated, the Mansion emerges in Fairchild's body and Moon Knight - sells out the others. Offering them up to the mansion as pawns in exchange for his bunch. Not Clea, mind you, the man's not a complete imbecile. But Blade, DD, and Ghost Rider appear to be screwed.

The solicits for upcoming issues kind of ruined the surprise, but it's hard to see how this is a smart play, even if Marc is only pretending to be a backstabber. Which I'm not sure it is. If this is the end of Mackay's stint with the character, he could be setting him back to the guy none of the other cape community trust, albeit because he betrayed some of them to save his crew, rather than because he helped Khonshu conquer the world.

What I Bought 7/22/2026

What they told us a few months ago at work, if we didn't sign the agreement, we wouldn't have to use the AI, was not entirely true. We seem to have the option not to use it (for now), but still had to sign the agreement. And watch training videos, which were funny for how much they try to tap dance around the worthlessness of AI without actually saying so.

Use it for research, but make sure to verify what the answers it gives you. Why not just do the research myself then? Have it summarize e-mails or presentations, but double-check it didn't add anything just plain untrue. Don't put any proprietary or restricted information in there, because it could then share that information with anyone. If you use it, whatever you produced has to state that. So it's really just extra hassle across the board.

The video did end with a survey asking how often I expected to use AI for certain tasks. As, "when Hell is both empirically proven to exist, and then freezes over into a rainbow Popsicle," was not an option, I put "rarely, if ever" for each question. And the video responded, "That's OK. It's not for everyone!" No shit, tell that to the fools cramming it down our throats.

Moonstar #5, by Ashley Allen (writer), Edoardo Audino (artist), Arthur Hesli (color artist), Clayton Cowles (letterer) - Every time I look at this cover, I feel like Dani's head is not centered on her body. Is it the sword, the shoulder plate? Something makes it look like it's off-kilter. 

Final battle for all life on Earth. Though Kian's burning up what life he's got on spells strong enough to make some sort of difference, while Kyrion keeps trying to goad Dani into taking the sword from him. It's the only way to stop him, but then she'll have to feed it two souls. His and, well, there's only one other person around.

Dani keeps refusing, firing off her psychic arrows and using spells. Which are very colorful, so that's nice. Hesli uses them to break up the depressing, deep-red that drenches everything else. Dani insists evil's always part of life, and so is chaos, you just have to learn to embrace the opportunities it holds. Chaos that is, not evil. Although it's not like evil doesn't have opportunities, too. Then she picks up the cursed sword, determined to be the one at the wheel

Dani doesn't want the sword's power, so she won't give it but one soul, the one trapped inside. Which is what sustains the sword, so it'll break. And Dani figures that's OK, because she can guide all the other souls to wherever they're supposed to go, being a valkyrie an all. I'm not clear on if that's back to their bodies, or to the other side. Maybe both. Her parents are back up and living, but I assume some of those souls no longer have bodies to go back to. Also, the part of the sword that was speaking gets ejected as well, which doesn't entirely make sense to me. I need to go back and re-read how the sword works.

Day is saved, parents saved, Dani's going to help Kian and Yansa with some of their society's work for at least a little while, and then Beta Ray Bill shows up to say thanks for handling the whole, evil Norse sword thing. Too busy off snogging with Sif or something, Bill? Not Cyborg-Horse-Thor's best moment. Also, he's carrying a big sword instead of a hammer. It just looks wrong. Do not approve.

Marc Spector: Moon Knight #6, by Jed MacKay (writer), Devmalya Pramanik (artist), Rachelle Rosenberg (color artist), Cory Petit (letterer) - Marc likes to give himself a handicap, so he's going to try staking vampires with blunt instruments.

This is a "get the team together" issue. Clea does the old Secret Defenders bit where the cards tell you who you need, and Moonie goes out to get them. Blade's easy. All Marc has to do is mention "Midnight Suns" and Blade's in. Well, he also had to kill some vampires to get Blade's attention. Couple of nice bits by the Pramanik/Rosenberg team here. One panel from inside a vamp's mouth before Moon Knight decapitates it, and the page where Blade agrees to help is three panels where the frames of the windows in the skyscraper act as the panel borders, with a full moon reflected off them. And the last panel is Blade stepping out through the window as he says, "Now let's go."

I'm also trying to figure out why Rosenberg colors the interior of Blade's coat as just solid red. No shading, shadows, or gradation. Just a solid red wall, every time. Feels significant, but heck if I can figure out what it would mean.  

That was the easy pitch, sandwiched between two harder sells. Although Robbie Reyes really just needs a chance to vent about, I guess, how badly he got treated in Jason Aaron's Avengers' run? Saving everything and getting left behind? I don't know, I didn't read any of the comics mentioned in the editor's notes. Nice intro for Moon Knight, though, reflected in one of the side mirrors of Robbie's car as he approaches. Robbie's not interested in doing any more world saving, but Marc just wants to save the people who pass for family with him, and that's enough to get Robbie on board.

And then there's Daredevil. Really?! Matt's being his usual holier-than-thou self. "Oh, I feel so bad about that one person I killed, and you don't feel bad about anyone you killed, blah blah." Yeah Matt, but as someone's who's read plenty of your history can attest, feeling guilty has never stopped you from doing another similarly dumbshit thing later. Just ask all your exes. The ones that are still alive, at least. Still, Moon Knight sells DD on demonstrating good choices, since Matt says he's one bad choice away from becoming Moon Knight. Pramanik uses Moon Knight's heartbeat as the top panel border a few times, showing it spiking as Matt keeps talking shit.

Of course, as they go charging in, it appears Moon Knight and Clea aren't being upfront with their new partners. Surely that won't come back to bite them (literally, with Blade around.) 

What I Bought 6/3/2026 - Part 2

My coworkers are having a good laugh at my misery as Emergency Unit Chief (or "yuc" as my mom put it.) To be fair, I'm also laughing. If I didn't, I'd be miserable. So I vowed to lead with apathy and cruelty, and feigned disappointment when I got off a lengthy phone conversation and found everybody had left for lunch.

Although when one of my coworkers said it was a mutiny, I pointed out a mutiny is supposed to involve them throwing me out and taking command for themselves. What they did was just desertion.

Marc Spector: Moon Knight #5, by Jed MacKay (writer), Devmalya Pramanik (artist), Rachelle Rosenberg (color artist), Cory Petit (letterer) - The House has decided it will be the one bringing it down tonight.

Marc charges into the people-eating house with his dragon-sword. The house creates all kinds of greenish, half-formed ghosts or constructs or something. None of which have souls, to the sword's displeasure. All of which are capable of hurting Marc, to Marc's displeasure. Ginnaar swears if Marc gets him to the house's heart, it will drink up its soul, so Marc keeps going. And he finds the heart.

It's Achilles Fairchild, the Asgardian farmboy turned drug lord. Or, it's his body, being controlled by the house. Which explains the door he vanished through in the previous volume. It, and it says its name in The Mansion Ravenous, heard the Midnight Mission's death cries and came looking for the one responsible. Because they're of the same kind, but the Mission is just a child, and the Mansion's a full-grown adult.

Still, the monologuing lets Marc stab it in the heart. To no avail. Ginnaar decides the Mansion would be a better boss, because it can give it back its old form within those walls. It's a lovely image. The dragon, but its form is only partially real. So there are details - the teeth, the claws, some of the scales, but other parts are a swirl of this dull orange that just imposes itself on the page. Marc becomes this tiny white outline in the corner.

So, yeah, Marc's royally fucked, but they let him escape. Because he'll have to come back. With help. That they can also devour. He goes to Clea (since Strange is stuck in Asgard), and she's going to assemble a Midnight Sons, which Marc doesn't remember being a part of. I don't blame him, if Clea's referring to Damnation. I got hold of the complete collection last year. What a pile of shit. The Ewing-written stuff was OK, but the Donny Cates-written stuff was as bad as I'd expect. He wrote Moon Knight (in his "Mr. Knight" persona) as basically Deadpool. I'd blot that experience from my memory, too.

Fantastic Four #12, by Ryan North (writer), Pat Boutin (penciler), Serge LaPointe (inker), Edgar Delgado (colorist), Joe Caramagna (letterer) - Well, it's happened. Reed's finally acknowledged what an egotistical prick he is and declared himself Emperor.

The aliens that attacked while the FF were in space a few issues ago decide to take a different approach and conquer the planet in the past. The team tries traveling to the point of the change, but only Reed and Johnny are sent back before the others get erased. So it's the two of them, posing as Gauls, helping some Roman legions fight an alien spaceship.

Also, because the attack was sudden, everybody was in bed when the warning came. Which is how we learn Reed Richards wears pajamas that say "Mr. Fantastic" on them. I'm sure this comes as a great shock to all of you, Reed being such a modest guy. 

The aliens also have a superweapon charging that could wipe out all life on the planet if they decide that's the best remaining option. Reed and Johnny must beat the aliens, but not badly enough they opt to go scorched Earth. At least until figuring out a way to neutralize the weapon. Against an alien force that all the non-Fantastic Four heroes in New York apparently couldn't drive back.

But they manage all this by, OK, you've maybe seen articles about those weird metal dodecahedrons that are dated back to Roman history, and nobody's sure what they were for? Reed invented them, because a whole bunch of them intercepting the superweapon refracts its energy into some less harmful wavelength. I have no idea which wavelength. Maybe all the legionnaires got really tan that day. Or got skin cancer. Presumably they didn't become Hulks, or the U-Foes.

To minimize effects on the timeline, Johnny suggests the Romans not tell anybody how they needed 'two weirdos' to save them from strange invaders, because it would make the Empire look bad, and the general vows to crucify any of his men who talk about it. Which, and I agree with Johnny here, was not an idle threat. Johnny is, apparently, less successful getting them to melt down all the "prismatic refractors", but to be fair, nobody talked about them. Except now Sue has to explain to the Archaeological Society that the answer to yet another long-standing mystery is, "The FF did some shit while time traveling."

I kind of groaned when Reed showed the Legion what he needed them to build, because I could see the punchline, but Sue's exasperation made it work. Even if it does sort of fall under the same notion as aliens building the pyramids. Although aliens totally, definitely exist in the Marvel Universe, and have done a lot more mucking around on Earth than building pyramids, so maybe that's not a big deal.  

What I Bought 5/6/2026

Well, we've finished April books, so it's on to selections from May! I was able to get all three comics from last week I wanted, although it took looking in a different shop in another town I happened to be passing through on other business Friday to get the third.

Batgirl #19, by Tate Brombal (writer), Takeshi Miyazawa (penciler/inker), Juan Castro (inker), Mike Spicer (colorist), Tom Napolitano (letterer) - Looking at Batgirl charging into battle with a bunch of weapons made from her blood-shadows, all I can think is this power is a lot like having a symbiote, and my distaste for the whole concept becomes clear.

Cassandra fights her way up this big tower, from the inside and the outside, with the help of Tenji, Jaya, and Wu Lin She embraces the power at one point when it looks like her family is about to fall, but Miyazawa really draws it more like Cass just cut loose with her fighting abilities and that blood-shadow sword. She throws some regular old Batarangs, but I can't tell that she's making throwing stars or spears out of the blood.

Whatever, they make it to the top, she summons this Midnight Eye - basically a cloak, one of those broad rice-picking hats (festooned with streamers) and some glowing orange eyes - being her ancestor made the deal with. Even though he agrees she was cursed with this power being active without asking for or agreeing to it, he won't undo the situation. Because rules is rules and deals is deals and really, he's just a lazy bureaucrat.

Which is when Wu Lin makes his pitch, offering himself as a servant to handle things her and in the mortal realm, as well as offering up three living souls (Cass, Tenji, Jaya), in exchange for power. That, of course, is a deal the Midnight Eye is all about, so it looks like Cass and the other two got boned. Cass makes a speech that's half-apology to Tenji and Jaya, half her saying screw it to all this "family" that never did anything for her but place burdens on her.

Wu Lin returns, having dealt with the people that betrayed him in the mortal realm and declaring he's got to let these 3 living souls go, because otherwise things are out of balance. Sure, he's the one who offered them, but that was like 5 minutes ago! He's got an entirely different job now! I can at least appreciate the hustle there. And Midnight Eye agrees to remove the curse - as long as Batgirl agrees that someday she's going to work for him, or she gets cursed again. They return to Gotham, Cass introduces them all to her Bat-family, and that's that.

Does the fact Cassandra said family is what you make of it, which I've been yelling in these review posts for months, and that she chooses not to carry the burdens of this "family" that were never around or never accepted her mean she's going to let the Shiva issue go? Will Tenji stop bugging her about it? Their whole argument over whether to see if Shiva's soul was in the Spirit World and could be nudged into resurrection never really got finished. They just got busy with other stuff.

That's not even getting into the question of how rebirth works in this case. Presumably Shiva would be reborn as an infant, so it'd be years before she could even talk coherently with them. And is she going to have her past memories, or is she an entirely new person? If the latter, does it even matter? She's not Shiva at that point. Never been a fan of reincarnation, frankly. Feels like, with the way people want to play it that you have past memories and you're the same person, just in a new body, you probably stole that life away from someone new that could exist. Instead, it's just you, fucking things up a second time like you did the first time.

Marc Spector: Moon Knight #4, by Jed MacKay (writer), Devamalya Pramanik (artist), Rachelle Rosenberg (color artist), Cory Petit (letterer) - The first glance I got at this cover, I thought the moon was actually some new design for Marc's hood, or it was billowing in a way that made it look really big and I was not a fan. Then I took a closer look.

This issue is Marc learning from Dr. Sterman about what the rest of the cast got up to when he went missing two weeks ago. In short, they beat up a bunch of villains for answers. That didn't work. Hunter's Moon communed with Khonshu to look for Marc. That didn't work, either. MacKay provides no explanation for that.

Then 8-Ball rushes in, pointing that several buildings are being slowly swallowed by darkness, and nobody other than their crew notices. And the people who lived in those buildings are vanishing, too. The others are skeptical it has anything to do with Marc's disappearance, but this is happening on his turf, so they need to handle for him.

They never came back out, so Marc's going in after them. Bringing along his big, soul-stealing dragon sword. Pramanik and Rosenberg are stretching Marc's cape to Breyfogle Batman and/or Spawn levels of size. On one page, as Marc ventures into the Midnight Mission's basement to retrieve the sword, it's a spiraling staircase - both comics in this post feature that, one going up, the other going down - and the cape trails behind him, making a spiral panel border.

On the last page, as he ventures into this new, haunted building, the cape actually has some threads that seem to be fluttering loose of the cape. Which could either read as the cape is, as part of a holy uniform, more than just fabric and has paranormal properties, or that Marc is, as Sterman suggests, making a mistake marching in there when he's wounded. Coming apart at the seams, so to speak.

What I Bought 4/22/2026

I may be just about recovered from the Chicago trip. Of course, I have to go out for 2+ days next week for work. The annual spring inspection trip where my boss comes along. At least his presence saves me from having to talk to the operators, since he loves to do that.

Marc Spector: Moon Knight #3, by Jed MacKay (writer), Devmalya Pramanik (artist), Rachelle Rosenberg (color artist), Cory Petit (letterer) - Stegman kind of Kelly Jones'ed Moon Knight's outfit there.

It's Moon Knight versus Bushman in a fear gas addled bout, with Zodiac being the most annoying pro wrestling announcer you can imagine. Yes, worse than Jerry the King Lawler screaming about "puppies," or Michael Cole existing on a plane of reality where he can interact with the rest of us. Honestly, Zodiac's glee at the violence just makes me wish Arcade was in the book. There's a guy that knows how to put on a show.

Moon Knight's losing, Bushman hacking him up while doing a whole spiel about how he created Moon Knight, and that'll always be true. Bleeding badly, Marc gets a visit from Steven and Jake, looking more ghostly than normal (Rosenberg colors them a sort of Ghostbusters ectoplasm green), who tell Marc Bushman's handling the fear gas' effects by causing fear so he doesn't feel it.

So Marc turns it around. That, actually, he haunts Bushman. The guy Bushman killed, who came back and kept kicking his ass. Who cut his face off, all that jazz. Moonie starts carving into Bushman, while Zodiac sounds about ready to achieve orgasm, and then, stops. Because he won't kill for anyone, not Bushman, Khonshu, or Zodiac. He will, however, kill Zodiac. Don't get my hopes up, man. Also, turns out something's going on in the city, and that's why none of the supporting cast found Marc.

Moon Knight's explanation for why he'd kill Zodiac but not Bushman is clever enough, but I think it's simpler, or maybe more selfish, than Marc makes it seem. He just doesn't want to give Zodiac what he wants, and Zodiac wants him to kill Bushman. So he won't do it. Which I guess means Zodiac better hire someone to cheer on Moon Knight killing him when (if) we get to that point.

What I Bought 3/18/2026

I did, in fact find a lot of books at the sale last week. Reviews of those start next week! Plus three movies, which I won't get around to reviewing for months yet. Still have all the movies I got at Christmas, plus Pluto's actually let me back in to a limited extent without an account, so I'm trying to finish off the films I had on my watch list before they change their minds. Plus I'll visit my dad sometime in the next month so, that'll be more old movies to review.

Marc Spector: Moon Knight #2, by Jed MacKay (writer), Devmalya Pramanik (artist), Rachelle Rosenberg (color artist), Cory Petit (letterer) - Just another, ordinary, "getting the shit kicked out of him," day for Moon Knight.

Moon Knight and Zodiac are tearing through the Agence Byzantine guys, while Mr. Fear and Mr. Smith look on. Pramanik seems to be having a lot of fun with the layouts. One page that all the panels are of Moon Knight tearins through guys, the panels contained with the outline of his arm pulping a guy's face, with Rosenberg using bright red for the outline of the victim and the borders.

Fear's ready to get out of there, but Smith simply asks him to hand over a box with a set of sharpened dentures and starts telling a story of his childhood. And the reveal is, it's Bushman. You know, the guy whose face Marc cut off 20 years ago (our time.) I was under the impression he was dead but not no more he ain't.

Meanwhile, Marc's gone from pulping idiots in red outfits to trying to strangle Zodiac. Zodiac runs, still spouting nonsense about being determined to make Moon Knight all he can be. Then Bushman steps in, and before he can fight Moon Knight, Zodiac's found the control room, and pumps the room full of fear gas, encouraging Moon Knight to cut Bushman's face off - again. Well, that'd be rather trite, wouldn't it? Oh you fixed your face, I'll trash it again the same way. A little too Punisher and Jigsaw, innit it?

Actually, I'd wonder why Zodiac doesn't target Punisher, but I assume Frank's too straightforward and clinical in his killing for Zodiac to take an interest in him. Frank just shoots them or blows them up and goes on to the next. To the extent there's artistry, as Zodiac might define it, it lies in the sheer relentless attrition the Punisher inflicts.

Or Zodiac's really a punk that knows Frank would just blow his head off at first sight.

What I Bought 2/11/2026

Not satisfied with simply restricting access to certain channels, Pluto TV now requires me to register an account if I want to use it at all. Which, if it would spare me the commercials, I might consider a fair trade. But since I know that ain't happening, the prospect of giving them another avenue to annoy me is not worth it.

Plus, I'm the contrary sort who resents their trying to force me to play their game.

Marc Spector: Moon Knight #1, by Jed MacKay (writer), Devmalya Pramanik (artist), Rachelle Rosenberg (color artist), Cory Petit (letterer) - Dr. Sterman should probably talk to Marc about sleeping with weapons.

Marc's kidnappers have him in a giant sound stage, Mr. Fear (looking like he stole Taskmaster's Udon Studios design mask, and one of Dr. Doom's cloaks) pumping him full of fear toxins while some large black man I don't recognize tries to break him down for Agence Byzantine. The big guy is going by "Mr. Smith," pretending to be Marc's boss at the company where Marc is mailroom guy, but that doesn't really help me i.d. him. He also seems like he's really enjoying humiliating Marc whether he's playing the scowling boss, or sitting in his control room full of monitors that wash everything in blue-white.

Marc delivers meaningless letters to members of the Agence, still wearing their read outfits, but with business suits over them, which Pramanik details in repetitive 9-panel grids. Rosenberg colors these pages a sort of dull, washed out yellow. has a room, where he eats dog food like cereal and stares at a non-functioning TV. But Marc sees a Moon Knight cartoon, with a broad-chested, smiling Moon Knight. He even sings a theme song as he goes about his day.

This isn't getting anyone anywhere, even as Mr. Fear ups the doses to dangerous levels, but then Zodiac breaks in to push Marc to find himself. Even brings him his mask and cloak (which Rosenberg colors as glowing) in a gift box. There's a nice page of interlocked crescents - claws? - of "Moon Knight" telling Marc what he needs to do, growing more terrifying in each panel, while the other side shows the Agence Byzantine guys rushing towards the room they're in. So it's Moon Knight (sorta) and Zodiac, teaming up to bust Marc out. Or just kill a bunch of guys.

At times like this, I wonder about Steven and Jake. Is the fear toxin keeping them incapacitated, too, or creating some kind of barrier where they can't supplant Marc as the part of the system in control? I would figure they'd be what's helping Marc resist, but I don't think that's what MacKay's going for, since he so rarely uses either of them. 

What I Bought 7/26/2025

Last summer, we usually only had 3-4 really shitty summer days in a row. Not this year. It's been a hot, humid, miserable mess - heat indexes over 100 - for 10 days straight now, with at least one more to go, maybe two. Like a damn steam room fell from the sky and squashed me, ala Wizard of Oz. Don't even want to try going outside for anything.

In other news, I really hoped my visit to the comic shop in the next town over would have netted a few more of the 8 books out so far this month, but no. Two books is what they had, so that's what we've got to work with for now.

Moon Knight: Fist of Khonshu #10, by Jed MacKay (writer), Devmalya Pramanik (artist), Rachelle Rosenberg (color artist), Cory Petit (letterer) - Out of the fog of the past, Moon Knight.

Moon Knight and his crew storm Fairchild's high-rise. Fairchild tries to get some mysterious person to give him a hand, but the person says no. Still, Fairchild brought in a group of guys who fought Moon Knight in the past - Zaran the Weapons Master, Killer Shrike, Cubist (who already beat up Moon Knight once in this run), the Jester, and Deadzone (who I only know from his Marvel Universe Series 4 trading card) - to help him out. 

So this is basically one big fight scene, as different characters square off. Moon Knight takes Deadzone, and at one point, Pramanik uses the way Deadzone's whips lash across the page to function as panel borders, which was an approach I really liked. Hunter's Moon gets Killer Shrike, because Tigra figures anyone still wearing a topknot is a creep, and she's not fighting a creep. Except then she ends up with Zaran, and he's got something similar, so, as she puts it, this is a pervert convention.

You'd think being a superhot cat-lady, almost every day would be a pervert convention for her. Either way, she beats up a guy who survives fighting Shang-Chi, so that's nice. MacKay and Pramanik even let her tank some damage to show off her superhuman toughness, which is not something Tigra gets to do much, I dig that.

8-Ball gets the Jester, who tries giving him grief about switching sides, but it's preferable to having Moon Knight cut your face off. Reese and Soldier find Cubist who - opts not to fight. He already got paid and there's Magnum P.I. episodes to stream. Can't argue with that, even if it's kind of an odd way to handle the guy you already had humiliate Moon Knight and Hunter's Moon once. I guess it does demonstrate Fairchild's muscle are just hired guns with no loyalty, whereas Moon Knight's a got a crew that's ride or die for him.

And it goes both ways, because Fairchild's using all the confusion to try and run. Moon Knight probably could have just dropped from the sky without warning and impaled the Asgardian with the possessed sword, but he had to make a show of it, and Fairchild runs through a door and escapes somehow. My guess is, the person he was talking to on the phone, who we see at the end of the issue, has their own Midnight Mission now, and keeps it moving around. But we'll see, eventually, I imagine.

Runaways #2, by Rainbow Rowell (writer), Elena Casagrande and Roberta Ingranata (artists), Dee Cunniffe (color artist), Travis Lanham (letterer) -  Remarkable that Chase returned from the future with facial hair straight out of the worst of the late-90s.

Chase is back - from the future! And he's kind of a dick! Swell. He does help drive off the Doombots, with some help from Gert with a car. What is Doom making these things out of? She didn't even hit it hard enough to trigger the airbag. One Doombot leaves to get reinforcements - what kind of Doombots are these, DOOM needs no reinforcing! - so the team flees back to Gert's old family home. What's left after the feds and the wildfires got done with it.

Chase is, as Future People do, being hostile and bossy while explaining nothing. He's harsh towards Gert because of whatever future things happened, not respecting their Doombot's bodily autonomy, yelling at Nico for not using magic (to be fair, he was in the future by the time she gave Karolina the Staff of One.) When Gert uses the time machine to return to their hideout the day before and grab the Pride's journals for possible ideas, Chase then blows up the time machine.

I have to admit, it's a little hard for me to feel bad for Gert, who is always so judgmental about other people's actions, but can say with a straight face they don't have time for ethics whenever she decides the situation is dire enough. She and Victor are never going to last, if only because he's going to get sick of her crushing his idealism, or she's going to get too frustrated with it. Maybe that's why he killed her originally? Couple fight?

So, Chase is a dick, Gert's sad and angry, Nico's angry and feeling useless, Molly's unconscious, Victor's damaged, and more Doombots will no doubt soon locate them. But Karolina's returned home just in time to find no one but Alex, cosplaying as Doc Justice. I forgot about that plot thread. Rowell's really trying to tie up all her loose ends, isn't she?

Casagrande is replaced as artist halfway through the issue by Ingranata. The latter's work is less detailed, with a heavier line. I feel like Ingranata minimizes some of the body type differences between the cast. Not a lot, but Gert seems to get abruptly taller and slimmer.

What I Bought 6/20/2025 - Part 1

I had to make a run out of town Friday, which I turned into a chance to check out some comic stores I'd never visited before. Didn't do great as far as back issues, but I did find 3 of the 6 comics from this month I wanted. 50% isn't so bad.

Moon Knight: Fist of Khonshu #9, by Jed MacKay (writer), Devmalya Pramanik (artist), Rachelle Rosenberg (color artist), Cory Petit (letterer) - Lot of covers of Moon Knight writhing on the ground lately.

Pym whips up a cure for addiction to the magic drug, but it's got to be tested. On someone other than the bent cop they're keeping prisoner, because if she dies, that's bad. If you say so. So Marc acts as guinea pig, meaning he has to get addicted first.

Most of the issue is Marc, either locked in a big steel chamber, or hallucinating he is, freaking out and punching at shadows of his various enemies over MacKay's stint as writer. Each of them tell Marc the same thing: He likes being hurt, so he gathers friends to him to give him someone to drive away when he needs to be hurt. Which is what Deadpool does, though with him, I think it's less about wanting to be hurt, and more about believing, on some level, he doesn't deserve to have friends. So he self-sabotages.

Pramanik and Rosenberg really go to town on this sequence. The images swirling and dissipating around Marc's fists as he tries to shut them up. In one panel, blood sprays off his knuckles because, as we see in the next panel, he actually punched the wall. Zodiac pops up, wearing a padlock on a chain around his neck, and Pramanik uses that for panel borders. There's a bit where, as Marc seizes, we get an extreme close-up of his eye rolling back on the left side of the page, as panels of him collapsing and staring up at all the hallucinations roll down the other side.

Anyway, the really nice twist of the knife MacKay adds in comes after Moon Knight's ridden out the cure and woken up. Hunter's Moon is there, and won't let Marc tell him what he saw in his "visions." When Marc mentions that maybe he didn't like what he saw, Badr almost laughs and asks why he thought he would? Fists of Khonshu are meant to suffer, and to make others suffer. It's a reaffirmation of his fears in just about the worst way. Most "fists" don't have anyone they care about to hurt - as far as we know, Badr didn't have anyone alive he cared about besides Khonshu before meeting Moon Knight's little band -  but Marc's different, and it makes everything worse for him. 

Runaways #1, by Rainbow Rowell (writer), Elena Casagrande (artist), Dee Cunniffe (color artist), Travis Lanham (letterer) - I thought Doombot would never stoop to public transportation. Are they the Loiterers now?

Doom is sending out Doombots to collect all his other Doombots. Which eventually brings Doombots to the Runaways' doorstep - Doombots - at a time - Doombots - when they're less equipped to handle that kind of problem than normal. Doombots! Karolina's still in space with Nico's staff, Chase is still (allegedly) in the future with Future Gert. Gib (the elder god that got left behind) is there, but he doesn't really recognize the difference between the metal men. Which leaves Molly, Victor and Old Lace, essentially, to fight off the Doombots. But then Chase pops up again in a burst of static, so that's, theoretically useful?

I think Rowell's going to have Nico explore some other way to access magic besides the Staff of One. Whether that does anything for Nico's sense that she can't handle all this responsibility is another matter, but if that's really Chase, and he's really back, then maybe she's no longer the sole legal adult in the group. Victor seems insistent on getting Doombot to take a different name. I guess because he feels it'll make Doombot more of its own individual, separate from its programming. Which is significant to Victor, since he wants to think his programming isn't going to make him kill superheroes for Ultron. Doombot doesn't much seem to care. I'm not sure how he reconciles the duality of knowing he's not Doom, but still thinking of himself as Doom, but he seems to make it work. 

Molly seems really concerned with things not changing. Probably because at this point, change means people leave, and she doesn't like that. Instead of one of her usual hates with the perky cat ears or whatever, Casagrande gives Molly a hat with droopy ears, plus the brim is slanted down. It doesn't really shadow her face - Casagrande's not going that dramatic - but it does add to Molly's depressed air.(Karolina probably should have figured out some way to keep in touch.)

And with Gib just sitting around most of the time, leaves Gert as the level-headed one trying to navigate through all this. Which is not really new, but Gert's extremely cynical brand of realism - like my own - is not best suited for herding this particular group of cats. 

What I Bought 5/23/2025

Well, I tried to get the 4 comics that came out last week. The shop in town was a bust, no big surprise. The one I like to try in the next town over was closed for the holiday weekend. Well, can't argue with people taking time off. The other store in that town had one of the books, so we work with what we've got.

Moon Knight: Fist of Khonshu #8, by Jed MacKay (writer), Devmalya Pramanik (artist), Rachelle Rosenberg (color artist), Cory Petit (letterer) - That's pretty graphic, but I'm sure Moon Knight won't actually get impaled.

Moon Knight wakes up in a void, bound in chains. His soul is trapped within Carver's sword, after she impaled him with it. Well hush my mouth. So Moonie gets a rundown on Carver's backstory, as well as the sword's. She was on a gig for Roxxon in Vanaheim, things were going bad, the sword made an offer, and she took it. Now she has to feed the sword souls, or it takes hers. Fairchild promised he could free her, but that's a lie.

Rosenberg uses a yellow-gold for the flashbacks to Carver's past, an unearthly color that makes a nice contrast to the stark black void Moon Knight's chained up in, but keeps the tone muddy enough that it's not shining fairy-tale world. For Carver, Vanaheim was an ugly, terrifying place of stuff she wasn't ready to deal with, least of all a sword forged by a mad dwarf who immediately killed a dragon with it.

The sword took the dragon's soul, and with it, its desire to hoard. Moon Knight calls on the dragon-sword to surrender, as we see he let Carver run him through. Because his soul is already claimed, and Khonshu's kind of a jealous bitch about this kind of thing. Pramanik had been using chains for panel borders as Moon Knight spoke with Ginnarr, but those are replaced with a wavy white border as Moon Knight breaks free and Khonshu forces his way into the conversation, the chains now appearing around Ginnarr instead.

Moon Knight talks the Bird-God out of killing the dragon, and now Moon Knight has a soul-stealing sword and Carver owes him for freeing her. I'm not sure the sword makes up for killing the Midnight Mission. Can't keep a coffee maker inside a cursed sword, or speak with travelers requiring help there. But if Pym comes through on the antidote for the drug, Moon Knight will have taken everything Fairchild's got, save his life. I guess the sword could come in handy for that.

What I Bought 2/12/2025

The snow we got this week was kind enough to fall on the day I had off. That's not sarcasm, I would rather it fall on a day I don't have to go anywhere. I can just sit and watch it, or take a leisurely stroll (or a brisk run, because I'm like that sometimes), rather than risk being on the road with people who don't know how to drive in crap weather.

Moon Knight: Fist of Khonshu #5, by Jed MacKay (writer), Devmalya Pramanik (artist), Rachelle Rosenberg (color artist), Cory Petit (letterer) - Are we letting Vermin be a fist of Khonshu now? Standards are dropping all over the place.

While Marc was fighting Vermins last issue, the rest of the cast were out trying to do the work. So he didn't send them away to run the risk of being caught, he was just being a sulky baby and they got tired of waiting for him to snap out of it.

Badr and Soldier tried to pay a visit to a woman with a sick kid, only for her husband to refuse the medicine because the news says they're bad guys. Tigra, Reese and 8-Ball were fighting a gang of Frankensteins that come around to cause trouble every year. Although it looks like the real fight is about to be between Tigra, who is ticked at Marc, and Reese, who can't stop putting her two cents' worth of psychoanalysis into everyone else's business. Kind of want to see Tigra haul off and bust her one in the chops.

By the time they get back to the underground lair, they find one Vermin (who looks like a white guy, did people forget Edward was black, or did that change at some point?) handcuffed to a pipe. Marc, meanwhile, is fighting the drug dealer. And it's interesting that, after he seemed at odds with Steven and Jake in the previous issue, they're all on board with this fight. Or maybe the other two just figure that if Marc's gonna do this, they want him to do it right.

Which he doesn't, because it turns out this Achilles dude is an Asgardian. And I guess Marc either doesn't get boosts in strength based on phases of the moon any longer, or that's not enough to cut the mustard here. Pramanik occasionally switches from basic rectangular panels to these arced panels that bend over or around one larger panel. I thought initially it was to signify a shift in the fight's momentum, like one style when Marc's got the upper hand, the other for Achilles, but I don't think that's the case.

It's more that it switches to curved panels when one of the voices in his head is putting in their two cents. So the perception of the fight is being filtered through their way of seeing it, maybe? The last time it gets used is when Khonshu's pointing out Marc hasn't paid enough attention, or done enough research on what he's fighting, and draws attention to the fact this big goon doesn't have any scars. I guess a gold tooth doesn't count.

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 9/11/2024 - Part 2

I happened to catch an episode of Columbo over the weekend, and he was making a peanut butter and raisin sandwich. I started eating those periodically back in elementary school, and I can't recall ever seeing anyone else do it. Now I'm wondering if Columbo gave me the notion.

Fantastic Four #25, by Ryan North (writer), Carlos Gomez (artist), Jesus Arbutov (color artist), Joe Caramagna (letterer) - Uh-oh, a planet of floating islands. Those platforming levels are always tricky.

Dr. Doom's erected a magical dome over Latveria. Naturally, the FF try to poke it and end up on an unfamiliar world full of intelligent, friendly aliens. Gomez draws the aliens as having a bit of the "big head and eyes" grey aliens, but on a long stalk neck, with multiple little noodle limbs and red spines sticking out of their backs (the purpose of which I was not clear on.)

The locals agree to let Reed use some resources to build a rocketship to get home (which looks very old-timey, even moreso than the original rocket Kirby drew them taking into space to get bombarded by cosmic rays.) Meanwhile, Johnny's hit it off with the liason, named (or translated to) Angelica of the Shore.

Everything's proceeding well until the clouds clear enough Reed can calculate their position by the stars. Turns out, they're still on Earth, but an Earth that was never hit by another planetary body, causing the formation of the Moon. Turns out the FF aren't the only ones who poked the dome. Reed can make his rocketship into a time machine and stop Doom's magic trick from doing this, but that means Angelica and her people won't exist, which is not OK with Johnny.

North continues to come up with clever bits of science to use as a basis for stories, but this is undercut by how easily Reed seems to solve these problems. Sure, he can make his rocketship into a time machine, too. Confronted with the problem, Reed builds a thing to solve the problem in about two panels. He's continuing one spiel throughout, so it's not like there's a timejump.

I guess there wasn't supposed to be any doubt they'd figure something out, so the real conflict was Johnny fighting with the others about how they can't get rid of Angelica's world to save their own. Then hie and Angelica having to sacrifice their happiness to make the solution stick. The internal narration boxes for this issue are Angelica's, which probably helps to plant their connection in the foreground and make this more than just another doomed relationship for Johnny Storm.

Vengeance of the Moon Knight #9, by Jed MacKay (writer), Devmalya Pramanik (artist), Rachelle Rosenberg (color artist), Cory Petit (letterer) - I bet moon-fire is cold.

Marc owes Khonshu a favor. Not for bringing him back to life, but for that time he got Marc and Tigra a shortcut so they could save Reese and Soldier from Zodiac. And the favor is to kill the false Moon Knight, the Shroud.

So he does, after a brief fight, albeit with a lot of panels as Pramanik and Rosenberg have one page of 16 panels, slanted and staggered, showing the main stretch of the fight, against the backdrop of a, I thought it was a crescent moon, but it's actually two crescent moons, one matching the symbol Shroud Knight wore, the other matching Marc Knight's. One shatters, the other remaining whole. Premanik's Moon Knight feels like more of a physical presence than Cappuccio's. Bigger, body less obscured by the cape, a lot of focus on his fists or legs, his instruments of pain.

Marc's talking in a very stilted manner, calling Shroud "Moon Knight", reminding him he disrespected a god, impressing on him that this is a fight for his life. Didn't impress it on him enough, as Marc brings Shroud Knight's costume to the villain bar and pins it on the wall as a message. Or two messages: a) he's back, b) the other guy is dead. That said, I don't believe for a second the Rhino is scared of Moon Knight. Come on, tell me McKay didn't actually tell Pramanik to put him in those pages. The Jester, the Shocker? Sure. The Spot? Guy probably wees himself around Moon Knight. The Rhino takes punches from the Hulk. Same with Piledriver, except replace "Hulk" with "Thor."

Anyway, Shroud's not dead. He was, but you know, Hunter's Moon is a doctor. Hearts stops, hearts restart. Easy-peasy, right? Khonshu's pissed, but Marc makes an argument it's a fitting symbolic sacrifice, and points out Khonshu can't strike at Reese or the others in retaliation, because he owes them for getting him out of Asgard Jail. And that's were the book ends. Khonshu's back, Marc's back, with an uneasy detente at best.

What I Bought 8/14/2024 - Part 2

Now that Blood Hunt's over, it's safe to return to a couple of books I steered clear of the last two months. One of them is getting canceled soon (only to be rebooted immediately, because Marvel), but oh well.

Fantastic Four #23, by Ryan North (writer), Carlos Gomez (artist), Jesus Arbutov (color artist), Joe Caramagna (letterer) - Hey, the FF found the world that produces the probe from Star Trek IV!

Sue and Johnny are taking Nikki and Jo on a shopping trip to New York. I guess Arizona doesn't have the right kind of salsa for their refined, East Coast palettes. Interrupting a fight between a couple of dudes and some vampires (who can all walk around in daylight now), the city comes under barrage by some invisible force.

It's happening across the world, as Reed figures out when it wrecks the device he was testing to see if it would detect magic once Doom inevitably starts throwing some around. The shape Gomez draws Reed's head when it gets hit is appropriately weird and goofy-looking. Since this issue is narrated by Johnny, he simplifies Reed's explanation to, "the Earth is being hit by subatomic particles moving incredibly fast, except they aren't harmlessly decaying on impact like normal."

The FF shrink to the "preonic" level, and find a black sphere. Someone's turned these particles into starships. Except, as it turns out, the aliens inside are all dying or dead. They do find one alive, and manage to translate that it wants to get off Earth. Yeah, you and every billionaire.

It's a decent little science mystery, the kind of thing the Fantastic Four are better suited for than the other superteams, so that's good. North is trying to incorporate the new status quo, because of course Reed would be concerned about Sorcerer Supreme Doom (and of course he'd be certain magic has to obey the laws of science as he knows them.)

Vengeance of the Moon Knight #8, by Jed MacKay (writer), Devmalya Pramanik (artist), Rachelle Rosenberg (color artist), Cory Petit (letterer) - See what happens when you let Khonshu loose? Giant Moon Knights, rampaging through the city.

The Midnight Mission has been sheltering people from vampires, and the vampires are ready to just blow the place up and be done with it. As Reese and Soldier make a last stand, the sun comes back, but it doesn't burn any vampires. Well, that's both cool and inconvenient for our heroes.

Oh, but Moon Knight's back, too. So they trounce a lot of vampires to spread the message to get lost, and Marc wants to continue his therapy sessions with Dr. Sterman, but first he's got to have a little chat with Khonshu, about what Old Bird Skull wants. And what Khonshu wants is the Shroud dead. 

Pramanik's art is a lot looser than Cappuccio's, tending to exaggerate hands or perspective to let one image or part of a character dominate a panel. So Moon Knight attacks a vampire, his legs are tiny things in one corner of the panel while his face and upper body command the rest. Pramanik's willingness to exaggerate sells the exhaustion of the characters. With Cappuccio, even when they're shocked or angry, the linework is stiff enough it feels restrained. Here, everything is looser, the emotions are bigger, Reese's hair is messier. She looks too tired to put any sort of calm facade.

Rosenberg's also keeping the colors less starkly defined. More blurring or mixing for the backgrounds. Especially when the sun comes out and the backgrounds are really just a mixture of overpowering yellows. Previously, even during daylight scenes, it felt as though light would be constrained to a narrow band of a specific shade, and that was it. Maybe all the characters are just too tired, or maybe it's a new day, where Marc doesn't feel like he's so constrained by his fears or the suspicions of others.