What I Bought 5/4/2026 - Part 2

I got through Read or Die: The TV Series back in April on my anime rewatch. It was pretty good. I appreciate the silly sibling stuff between the Paper Sisters more than I remember in the past. Then Mr. Joker showed his face around episode 15, and it was ten episodes of me groaning, "Just shoot the fucker, stop listening to his bullshit!" But they never listen.

Generation X-23 #3, by Jody Houser (writer), Jacopo Camagni and Marco Renna (artists), Erick Arciniega (color artist), Ariana Maher (letterer) - So that foul-up where Laura got resurrected during the Krakoa era with a full adamantium skeleton, instead of just her claws, never got undone? Poor quality control.

The whole thing where the previous issue ended with X-Infinite saying Laura must be held responsible for two deaths is not really followed up on. Laura's alone in the infirmary, until some of those weird time shards show up, then vanish. So now Laura's got questions, and X-92's got a lead on answers. Which, predictably, point to X-Infinite, who is experimenting with some of Laura's skin that got scorched off.

As it turns out the kid's attempts to file reports that everything in the facility didn't work as well as they thought, Laura, Infinite and 92, escape. Infinite admits that, once the scientists figured out he was smarter than them, they made him help with their work. So all the other kids having multiple powers is his doing, and it's the old, a "Wolverine's healing factor could save them," bit. Well, at this point it's more like Laura's propensity for stabbing could save them. 

With the apparently abrupt passing of Jacopo Camagni, I don't know if Renna's going to be the regular artist on the book going forward. If so, I don't know if this issue is representative of their work. I would figure they were working under a time crunch, since they probably weren't expecting to draw 13 pages of this particular comic. Here, at least, Renna's style seems a little simpler than Camagni's. Faces and bodies are more basic shapes, fewer little details. Might simply not had enough time for as much shading, because I feel like that's a big difference between the two. There's more gradation and depth to Camagni's pages.

That said, Renna's art works perfectly well. The fight between Laura and X-Infinite is easy enough to follow. I'm not sure why one of the soldiers who attacked the facility is a giant, robotic crab-centipede-person, but it was a pretty impressive reveal. Got me to stop, blink, and wonder where the heck that thing came from.

Touched by a Demon #3, by Kristen Gudsnuk - As the city burns, one man tries to hide his eyes behind some strange wrapping paper.

Having concluded demons giving humans advice is not helpful, Frons takes the priest's recommendation of providing tools literally. So this week's client, Max, was given a chimp's paw, granting 5 wishes. Not a monkey's paw, mind you. No ironic comeuppance! But do I get a free frogurt with it? If you wish for one, I guess.

So after wishing for $10 million in an offshore account (the password to which he forgot), and an endless bag of weed and Adderall (which might have something to do with forgetting the password), Max starts messing around with people's free will. Making the girl he likes love him, making her kinks conform to his, for him to feel fulfilled. Stuff like that. But, as long as he doesn't try to make a sixth wish, he's fine.

Then he casually wished for them to not have to go into work and an earthquake knocked their office building - among other structures - down. I feel like Gudsnuk missed an easy joke there. When Max makes that wish, one of the chimp's fingers uncurls, and it isn't the middle one.

Despondent over another failure, Frons comes to the priest's church to aid in their relief efforts with a big sack of cash he. . .summoned from Hell, I think. Then he confronts Father Angelo, who he blames for giving him bad advice. Angelo either hasn't twigged to Frons being a demon, or is just jerking him around, but he claims to have found something that suggested fallen angels could be redeemed, and seems to be semi-related to Frons' idea of shattering souls to create something of pure evil. Except, you know, the flip side. Frankly, the idea of the soul as something you can chip pieces off of like some oversized ice cream cookie cake is maybe the part I'm having the most trouble with.

Oh, and the cop showed up at their office, looking into the disappearance of Wendy's family. And right as Frons' boss (Mammon) shows up. If somebody burned a roast I'm going to think I fell into an '80s sitcom. But no, in all seriousness, I'm really interested to see how Gudsnuk pulls this together with one issue to go. Interested and worried, since I actually like all these goofballs and I'm worried it's going to end badly for them. Especially Wendy, who did, you know, kill her asshole parents and her perpetually terminally ill older sister.

What I Bought 3/25/2026

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

What I Bought 2/18/2026 - Part 2

The anime re-watch wrapped up Gundam Wing over the weekend. That was fun, since I hadn't watched it in at least 15 years. I forgot how quickly things would change. Maybe one episode spent letting us think Heero died after self-destructing his Gundam, a half-dozen episodes on Relena trying to run a pacifist nation she only learned she was the inheritor of like 15 episodes earlier. She surrenders to avoid more deaths, an episode later she's a figurehead queen. An episode or two after that, she's running things for real, only to lose that one episode after. Gundam creators got no time for decompression, clearly (consecutive recap episodes in the middle of the series aside.)

It's Jeff! Meets Daredevil, by Kelly Thompson and Gurihiru - Those might be the most pronounced horns I've ever seen on Daredevil.

It's another collection of brief Jeff stories by Thompson and Gurihiru. Contrary to my expectations, they aren't focused on Jeff working with Daredevil. Their interactions are limited to the first comic, appropriately titled "Daredevil did it," where DD knocks over a statue while pursuing some thief (complete with a big sack with a $ symbol on it, so you know they respect tradition.) Jeff was sitting on a bench eating lunch in front of it, so the cop that comes along arrests Jeff.

Fortunately, Gwenpool and Kate Bishop hire Matt Murdock, and Jeff is acquitted, while Daredevil is sentenced to the community service of picking up all those pieces of statue that have just been lying scattered around the park ever since? So if you always wanted to see Daredevil doing in that a reflective vest. . .you'll have to by the comic because I scanned a different image. Hah!

The remainder of the comic is Jeff in his usual hijinks, most of which involve food. Although he does get mad when he keeps losing a fighting game and hurls the TV through the Hulk's kitchen window, which I can both relate to and think is an unwise choice. There are consecutive strips where Gwen is trying to make Jeff take medicine for some skin rash he's got, but Jeff proves extremely capable at not swallowing the pills. Although all that could have been avoided if Gurihiru simply drew a picture of Jeff's stomach, allowing Gwen to slip through the gutters to drop the pills in there.

It's cute fluff, but that's fine with me.

Generation X-23 #1, by Jody Houser (writer), Jacopo Camagni (artist), Erick Arciniega (color artist), Ariana Maher (letterer) - Maybe it's the angle, but Gabby;s lower body looks majorly elongated relative to her upper body.

Laura and Gabby are protecting a random mutant girl from a bigoted mob. Bigoted, idiot mob, given at least one of them shouts, "Just little girls!" at two girls with very long, very sharp claws extending from the backs of their hands. I'm once again amazed every citizen of the Marvel Universe hasn't managed to accidentally kill themselves trying to gargle bleach instead of mouthwash.

In the middle of the fight, something weird starts happening. Something like stained glass pieces appear from thin air, and as they pass through people, they get switched to, I'm not sure. Gabby thinks she smelled a friend of hers from her days as a sex worker, Kiden, who had time manipulation powers. Except seeing Laura at one point as young girl in a frilly dress, while Gabby looked like some Rob Liefeld creation for a second (sleek, elongated helmet with glowing visor) seems like more of an "unlocking alternate realities," power.

But I never read NYX, so maybe this is how the power worked. Laura follows the scent, finds more of the stained glass, plus a machine with the same claw set-up and hair as her. Beyond that, someone who isn't Kiden, who was looking for Laura, because people are dying from experiments involving mutant DNA. The girl speaks in fragmented and cryptic sentences before aging like she drank from the wrong Grail. Laura tracks her scent to a too-normal looking building, she and Gabby break in, there are more of the robots, and then a bunch of teenagers who are very happy to see Laura.

It feels like Laura is going to assume the teens are victims, while I suspect they're the ones conducting the experiments in order to make themselves more powerful. Maybe Gabby will be more suspicious, maybe not. Houser keeps Gabby as very eager and chatty, while Laura looks after her but plays along in trading jabs occasionally. The way the relationship was written felt right, which is a good sign.

Camagni plays into the characters' personalities by having Gabby be very expressive with her body language and facial expressions, where Laura is more reserved. So Laura will study a "too-normal" building, and all we get are narrowed eyes, while Gabby will stand there with one finger tapping at her lip in a "thoughtful" posture. When Laura tracks the girl's scent back to said "too-normal" building, in a page of her riding a motorcycle through the city, Camagni layers on panels showing the girl's progress as Laura's following the trail to its source. 

Sunday Splash Page #320

 

"Vicissitudes," in Longshot Saves the Marvel Universe #1, by Christopher Hastings (writer), Jacopo Camagni (artist), Matt Milla (colorist), Joe Caramagna (letterer)

Released across two months in December 2013 and January 2014, Longshot Saves the Marvel Universe is probably one of the few stories since the original Nocenti/Adams mini-series that actually explores the ramifications of Longshot's powers, and the tightrope he would have to walk to use them.

In this case, Longshot finds himself targeted by the In-Betweener - who Camagni draws in a nifty suit and a face like a harlequin mask, black on one side, white on the other - because his incredible luck is a threat to the universe. But, Longshot happens to be mixed up in trying to stop a robbery of a super-scientist (which went awry the moment Longshot wished he had some money to buy tacos, because that constitutes a selfish desire to use his powers) at that moment, and Reed Richards and Tony Stark are cruising past with a Cosmic Cube, and well, things go wonky.

Now SHIELD's run by a mysterious guy with a white theater mask, who is hunting all magic users as a threat to Order. Also a child's teddy bear, which has a peculiar reflection. Longshot ends up briefly teamed up with Dr. Strange, Scarlet Witch, Ghost Rider, and Deadpool. Sure, Deadpool's not technically magic, but he's certainly a threat to Order. Plus, the 4th wall breaking probably registers as weird. Dazzler, working for SHIELD(?) gets involved, because of course Longshot doesn't remember they dated. Superior Spider-Man shows up, too. Well, they can't all be winners.

Things get weirder and weirder as Chaos manifests and Longshot's powers are stretched further and further to pull his butt from the fire. He's under attack by vampire Wolverine and Cyborg Dracula! A taxi crashes and Blade somehow flies out of the trunk. That sort of thing. It gives Camagni the chance to draw a lot of goofy stuff. Iron Hulk. Giant Doombots. But that much improbability is kind of a bad thing.

Hastings writes Longshot initially as sort of breezily confident. He takes good things in stride, he takes weird things in stride. The cable guys turned out to be criminals, and the scientist has a hot daughter? Yeah, that'll happen to Longshot. He does recognize the risk of his powers, but sometimes all it takes is a momentary slip. He hadn't even fully committed to wanting some money so he could buy tacos and suddenly a wall is exploding and money is falling from the sky.

The longer the series goes, and the more Chaos and Order openly war against each other - with Order being very precise in their speaking, while Chaos is a total shit, saying things like, "On behalf of my butt, I order you to smooch my butt," -  the further the ramifications of Longshot's powers stretch.

Sure, it's wonderful that after those nice hairdressers gave Longshot a new look for free (because they thought he was hot, Hastings really plays up the idea that Longshot's hotness is an actual superpower) some big movie star just suddenly appeared outside their store and loved the look they gave him. What a lucky turn of events!

But it completely fucks the haircut place across the street, a couple who struggled for years to find some measure of success and now are going to have to sell their shop because all their business switched to the trendy place the movie star touted. Causality stretches a long way, and it's hard to avoid harming one person while helping another, unless you're really thoughtful about it. Which doesn't really seem like a strong point of Longshot's, thoughtfulness. What with all the memory wipes and whatnot. But maybe that's the only way it can work for him, he can't think about it, he just has to act. Thinking about what he's doing brings motives into it.

Sunday Splash Page #138

 

"Everyone Asks Wade that Eventually," in Deadpool Annual (2014), by Christopher Hastings (writer), Jacopo Camagni (artist), Matt Milla (colorist), Joe Sabino (letterer) 

Deadpool and Cable: Split-Second didn't have any splash pages, and honestly wasn't worth breaking format for, so we move on. One of Marvel's sporadic returns to the Annual format. I wonder if these sell better than if you just released them as a randomly titled Deadpool one-shot? This one came out during the Duggan/Posehn run, but as it references none of Deadpool's status quo, could probably have taken place any time since the Gail Simone run.

The gist of this one is the Chameleon is somehow tracking Spidey's every move, enacting a form of slow psychological torture on an increasingly exhausted and freaked out webslinger. He can't be sure anyone is who they say they are, and the threat never goes away entirely. On the plus side, no one can be like Deadpool but himself, so that's one bit of certainty. 

When Chameleon manages to tag Spidey with a sedative, Deadpool hides him in a broom closet and switches costumes, putting himself in the open to try and lure out Chameleon. And kill him. He does intend to remove Spidey's mask first, so everyone will know it wasn't Spider-Man who did it.

So most of the issue is Wade trying to be Spider-Man. Stopping a mugger, dealing with rude New Yorkers (who are more sour on Spidey than usual because we're just past the whole Superior Spider-Man fiasco), and stopping an animal-themed villain with a stupid plan. This is the comic where Deadpool, dressed as Spidey, declares Spider-Man a 'champion against dumb!'

This comic is entirely inessential to either character, but it knows that and is just funny.

What I Bought 7/2/2016 - Part 2

Like I said Wednesday, I didn't find all the new comics I was looking for, Wynonna Earp #5 being the main whiff, but I found a few. So here's one comic that's four comics, which meant there are a lot of labels for this post. Times like this I regret my newfound interest in giving at least some of the creators post labels.

Deadpool #13, by Gerry Duggan, Charles Soule, David Walker (writers), Jacopo Camagni, Guillmero Sanna, Elmo Bondoc, Paco Diaz (artists), Veronica Gandini, Mat Lopes, Nolan Woodard, Israel Silva (colorists), Joe Sabino and Clayton Cowles (letterers) - Jesus Christ that's a lot of creators. Thank goodness there were no inkers involved.

Marvin Shirkley was an investment banker who made some bad choices with several criminal organizations' money, so now they want to kill him. Except they waste time fighting each other and he's able to enlist Deadpool's help, though only once he mentions Typhoid Mary is the chief muscle for the Russians. Wade is still peeved about that time Mary tricked him into thinking she was Siryn and had sex with him, which, I actually did not know about. At any rate, this desire for vengeance causes Wade to act imprudently and nearly get himself and marvin killed, so he takes his client to the D.A.'s office, and tries to get witness protection from Matt Murdock. Who refuses to help until Marvin produces a laptop he claims has all sorts of information on his clients (though Daredevil does appear to help briefly).

Except it wouldn't fit in Wade's wall safe, so he threw it in the trash. DD is having no truck with that, so Wade enlists Luke Cage and Iron Fist to help him root through a landfill for the computer. It turns up, so does Mary, she steals it, Marvin and Wade pursue, Daredevil shows up again, the laptop is retrieved, Wade chooses not to kill Mary, opting to maybe try and get her some psychological help instead, which confuses Daredevil. And then Murdock shows up to take possession of the diamonds Wade received as payment on the grounds they're stolen goods and evidence. All this is framed as Ben Urich trying to figure out how to sum it up in a story and ultimately giving up. Because Urich gets consistently shittier as a reporter the older he gets. Just like most sportswriters!

Luke and Danny felt superfluous to this whole thing. Maybe if Marvin's case had somehow been relevant to them, or they hadn't decided not to bother helping Wade and Marvin catch the escaping Mary, but they didn't serve much purpose other than padding things out with a lot of jokes about Luke's makeshift non-cursing. Much discussion of the difference in appropriate use of "icky-yucky" and "fiddle-faddle". Daredevil fit better, since it at least made some sense for an assistant district attorney to be involved in the problems of a guy who needs witness protection. Plus, Matt's whole sordid history with Typhoid Mary. Figured that would convince him to stick around longer.

Duggan brought out Mary having raped Wade in the past, something he hadn't brought up previously. He used both characters in Deadpool vs. Hawkeye, and while he alluded to some ugly history between them, he never said specifically what. But at least he did address it, and the fact Wade really wants to kill her over it (in large part because, until her deception was revealed, it convinced him he could be loved), but chooses not to actually fits well with his decision at the conclusion of the recent mess with Sabretooth. Moving past all these old grudges he kept dredging up. Granted, rape is more serious than Iron Fist saying he looked like a melted candle once, but still, it's a new approach he's taking, and he's actually trying to take steps to see she gets treatment. Maybe because he recognizes there's an innocent person in there, and he sees her as a victim of other forces the way he was, only it's other aspects of her own mind instead of sadistic scientists.

The art shifts widely from one part to another. There's no attempt to maintain a similar look or feel within the book, as they opted to focus on having the parts more closely resemble the book they're ostensibly part of. So the Daredevil "issue" features Sanna and Lopes trying to recreate the feel of the current Daredevil series, and sort of succeeding. Sanna doesn't commit to the heavy use of shadows as much as Garney does, based on what I've seen of that book, but it's within range, probably the most of the three parts, though I'm unfamiliar enough with the current Power Man and Iron Fist book to say how close Bondoc's style mirrors it. I don't think it's quite as loose or exaggerated (Luke isn't anywhere near as broad in the chest), but it mostly works.

On the two Deadpool parts, I think Camagni's is closer to the Hawthorne/Koblish styles than Diaz. Camagni's style lends itself more to the comedy aspects than Diaz' which seems to contain many more people gritting their teeth and with the serious musculature. I can't picture what the scene from Camagni's part where Mary sets Marvin's clothes on fire and he does a frantic dance out of them would have looked like with Diaz, but I doubt it would have been as funny.