Sunday Splash Page #451

"Annual Cannon Fodder," in Black Cat Annual (2021) #1, by Jed MacKay (writer), Joey Vazquez (artist), Brian Reber (color artist), Ferran Delgado (letterer)

Despite the two volumes lasting only a combined 22 issues, MacKay's Black Cat run got two Annuals. I prefer the first, also by MacKay, Vazquez, and Reber, where Felicia gets Spider-Man to help her swipe $2 million - or is it 3? - from the Maggia by posing as a bride and groom from rival branches, who are supposed to enter a sealed room after the vows are exchanged, and fight to the death. That one-sentence description doesn't do it justice, but it didn't have a splash page, so I went with the other option.

Set after the conclusion of the arc with the Black Fox and the Gilded Saint, it's ostensibly tied into the thing about the Infinity Stones becoming people, or manifesting inside people, whatever. That's relegated (thankfully) to a few pages at the very end, where Nick Fury Jr. is chasing down someone hacking his database and runs afoul of Squadron Supreme Nighthawk.

Most of the comic involves Felicia and her guys trying to take a vacation, and Felicia getting press-ganged into helping the South Korean super-team Tiger Division (seen above), by White Fox injecting a small bomb in her neck. Look, we all want to be Amanda Waller, but it's just not likely you can be that complicated and cool. Good try, though.

The team's Superman, Taegukgi, is being mind-controlled. The crime family responsible vows to unleash him on Seoul if not named leaders of the country. Except the guy doing the controlling - who looks like he escaped from that South Park World of Warcraft episode - has no interest in that. He'd rather turn the country into a wasteland of corpses. Even if they stop him, break his hold, Taegukgi will be shattered by the realization someone used his body to commit such an atrocity.

Felicia cuts that short, along with Mongdal's life, via some sleight of hand. She also does it dramatically enough to annoy White Fox, which seems fair considering the lady stuck a bomb in her neck. It's a decent little done-in-one adventure.

Despite the fact they're relegated to getting their asses kicked by the mind-controlled Taegukgi while the Cat and Fox sneak in and find the source of the mind control, I was intrigued enough by the character designs and brief blurbs to buy the Tiger Division mini-series that came out across 2022 and 2023. That was a mistake. It focused exclusively on Taegukgi, rather than splitting the focus between characters and diving into their backstories and personalities a bit.

Random Back Issues #177 - Moon Knight #11

I've said this before in regards to this tool, but it bears repeating: If you have to keep calling yourself a super-villain, you aren't. 

We're into the late stages of Zodiac's big "super-villain" plan to make Moon Knight cut loose and be the violent psycho he thinks Marc is. He abducted Dr. Sterman, Marc's therapist, but Moon Knight, Tigra, and another of Sterman's patients, a guy named Rutherford Winner, are going in to get her. Marc instructs them, the only thing that matters is rescuing Sterman. If Zodiac escapes, so be it.

But Zodiac's not there. He left Jigsaw to play jailkeeper, who was happy to do it, since Moon Knight laid a whuppin' on him recently. Except Tigra and Moon Knight "clever girl" him, and Sterman has to stop Marc from beating Jigsaw to death.

At which point Zodiac, calls? Radios? It looks like he's got a phone, but nobody picked up a phone. Whatever, he's standing in front of the Midnight Mission (recently revived as a demonic house), and he's there to kill Reese. He is, unfortunately, smart enough to not enter the Mission, and Moon Knight's backup, Hunter's Moon, is a little chained up. Zodiac used all the money he stole from Steven Grant to hire an entire gang of weirdos as backup. I refuse to dignify them with the phrase "Zodiac Cartel." These goobers are entirely lacking in personality. But only 3 died! *mumble voice* when the odds were 12-against-1. *exuberant voice* 75% survival rate!

Either Reese comes out, or Zodiac will kill everyone in the neighborhood. Just kidding, he's going to kill everyone either way. *jazz hands* Super-villain! Moon Knight's in New Jersey, with no resources for quick travel. Well, there's one way: Like any born-again (and again, and again) type, just ask the parishioners of your mega-church for donations. Oh, wait, sorry, Marc asks his God. Sure, Marc and Khonshu aren't on good terms these days, but if Khonshu doesn't help, his good son will die.

Tigra's going along, but feels she's gotta confess to spying on him for the Avengers. Which Marc figured out a while ago. Between this and Civil War, Tigra doesn't seem to do great playing mole for Black Panther. For that matter, why does she even keep taking jobs from T'Challa? He's not her king. She's connected to some kind of tiger-spirit-god-thing, from what I vaguely remember of that 2nd Defenders mini-series Al Ewing wrote. It probably doesn't appreciate her taking orders from the Panther God's lackey.

Anyway, time's up at the Mission, so Reese steps outside. With Mr. Knight?! No, Moon Knight has not experienced some bizarre, Silver Age contrivance where all his identities can now occupy separate physical forms.

{7th longbox, 48th comic. Moon Knight (vol. 8) #11, by Jed MacKay (writer), Alessandro Cappuccio (artist), Rachelle Rosenber (color artist), Cory Petit (letterer)}

What I Bought 10/21/2026

I spent last Monday at the property where I was doing dirtwork last month. Turns out, trying to move 16 tons of rock from a field to a big erosion cut, one 5-gallon bucket at a time, is a bad idea. My dad says I have a tendency to get locked into doing things a particular way, and just trying to brute force it to success. He's right, but I barely qualified as ambulatory the next two days. So at least I suffer for my hubris, even if I learn nothing.

Marc Spector: Moon Knight #9, by Jed MacKay (writer), Devmalya Pramanik (artist), Rachelle Rosenberg (color artist), Cory Petit (letterer) - He just found out they installed a "No Moons" sign on the Midnight Sons clubhouse door.

Everyone is smashing away at the Mansion Ravenous, but none of it is vital damage. Clea senses something and marks the fault line in a page where Pramanik shapes each panel so they're increasingly pointed down, culminating in the panel where Marc hits the spot and breaks through to the "cornerstone" as he puts it. What Blade would call the "heart".

Pramanik and Rosenberg depict it as an immense pillar, black, shaded red around the edges. A mouth with ragged teeth barely visible and some glowing red eye in the center. We'll see what comes, but right now, it'd be a strong choice for the inevitable Splash Page entry on this series.

Despite Marc's best efforts, he's not having much success breaking it down, but Achilles Fairchild was freed by Clea's spell, and got a special glowy hammer, too. The two of them got to work like John Henry making a railroad tunnel, and the panel borders start to disintegrate. Fairchild tells Moon Knight to leave, he'll finish things. Because he knows he's dead either way, so he can kill an interdimensional predator, or get killed painfully by a pissed off Moon Knight. (Also, in the panel where he strikes the killing blow, his shadow is done up to look like Thor.)

So I was entirely wrong that either Magik or the Spot would rescue them. It's just the Midnight Mansion, which does occupy the same space as the Mansion Ravenous, so that makes sense. Seems silly to play so cagey with it then. The secret extra member is. . .just a regular member of the book's cast. Back in the world, Moon Knight lets Daredevil hit him until Matt gets tired of it, because Marc figures he deserves it.

Also, he's more concerned why he was abducted to be pumped for information about Frenchie. I had completely forgotten that was where this volume began. MacKay's been on this Mansion Ravenous thing for six months now. 

D'Orc #9, by Brett Bean (writer/artist), Frank William (colorist), Nate Piekos (letterer) - At least his weak spots are easy to see.

The Golem, named Olivine, is roaming frozen wastes looking for D'Orc. D'Orc sent the chicken off to see if he could find anything, but ends up captured by a necromancer. Didn't put up much of a fight. In this fictional world, studying necromancy actually makes you crazy. The longer you study, the crazier you get, and this guy, Count Daverus, has been at it for two lifetimes.

He asks D'Orc if he'd like to have a team-up. Soon his army of reanimated, mosaic corpses, will be ready to destroy everyone! D'Orc declines, after insulting Daverus for not having nipples and smelling badly. We've seen D'Orc nearly drowned in a bog and swallowed by a giant 3-headed pug, and he's been wearing the same outfit the entire time. Maybe he shouldn't be accusing others of being smelly, especially considering how often he bemoans being on his own.

Anyway, the Golem was already captured, on purpose. As part of a plan with Chicken. And so, D'Orc agrees to work with her to defeat Daverus. Oh, so you'll have team-ups with the lady made out of stone? I see how it is. As the Fresh Prince put it, another brother that just couldn't control his head. The other one. No, the other, other one. The ghost chicken one.

That's pretty much it. There's a lot of jibber-jabber that doesn't accomplish much. A flashback to how Olivine and Chicken made their plan - which involved Chicken's headless body being shoved inside one of the shuffling, reanimated corpses - but not much else. I do question that a reanimated corpse could get a stomachache from eating chicken that's still sort of alive, but decomposing. I shouldn't question it, because that way lies madness, but that's never stopped my brain before.

The designs of the "necroids" aren't anything too strange. Big, blue guys in loincloths with visible stitching. The giant eyes sown in, which Daverus uses to see what's going on, are a nice touch, though. Disturbing, but practical. 

Sunday Splash Page #450

"The Gilded Saint," in Black Cat (vol. 4) #5, by Jed MacKay (writer), Michael Dowling (artist), Brian Reber (colorist), Ferran Delgado (letterer)

So MacKay's first Black Cat series got canceled at 12 issues, because that's how Marvel does things. Then it was restarted almost immediately with a new #1. Because that's also how Marvel does things. The second go-round is not as strong. Despite having the culmination of the plot to rob the other-dimensional vault of the NYC Thieves' Guild, the book is mostly bogged down tying in to various larger events. 

The first 3 issues are a King in Black tie-in. While I enjoy Felicia dragging Eddie Brock as a loser and psychopath, and briefly wielding an Asgardian artifact of immense mystical power to shred stupid symbiote dragons, the heist part is of the storyline is fairly limited. Though the sight of Felicia riding a Goblin-glider with Dr. Strange's ghost-dog as a passenger, before diving into a writhing ball of symbiotes while wearing an Anti-Venom suit (because the symbiotes are acting as a prison for Strange) looked very cool.

The last three issues, "Infinity Score," are based around Felicia trying to steal or manipulate 3 people who essentially are Infinity Stones now, for a purpose she keeps hidden. The Stones being people is not an idea with much traction for me, and this was right after a terrible "Heroes Reborn" story - no, not the post-Onslaught one, a different terrible one - where reality got rewritten so the Squadron Supreme were the big heroes of the world. That version of Nighthawk is hounding Felicia, trying to get the Stones-people to make the world like that again, and thinks she'll go along with it, because they were a couple in that world. I would have been perfectly content if it was just Felicia running circles around Nick Fury Jr., but here was all this other crap.

I will add, that storyline outlasted this book, actually being wrapped up in Giant-Size Black Cat, which is just obnoxious.

C.F. Villa is artist for the majority of the book, but the issues he draws are the ones I just detailed in those two paragraphs, and I didn't want to highlight those stories. All that stuff about the glider and the ghost-dog, that was Villa. As well as Asgardian-magic-hyped Felicia shredding dragons with a swipe of her claws. His Felicia is very lithe and agile in motion, and that's where she seems to be most confident. It's when she has to stop that any insecurity or anxiety sets into her expressions or body language, which is a nice touch for someone who loves thieving for the excitement of it.

Michael Dowling draws the 3 issues that wrap up Fox's plan. Which is not to rob the vault, but meet with the Gilded Saint to bargain immortality for he and Felicia, with the deed to Manhattan (that Felicia swiped from Strange in the previous volume) as the chip on offer. Felicia, understandably, cannot let the idea of an entire city being dragged into a mystical, other-dimensional vault (that Dowling draws to look a bit like Mars, or maybe the redder parts of Arizona) stand. She fixes the problem, at the cost of Fox's life, and the enmity of her co-apprentice (and past lover) Tamara, as would play out in Iron Cat.

In general though, I find Dowling's work too flat and, for the actual human characters at least, too photo-realistic. Felicia always seems to be viewed through a gauzy filter, like an old movies where they smeared the lens with Vaseline. Stylistically, the look of Dowling's issues doesn't line up with any of the other artists on either volume.

The biggest development in this volume is Felicia and Odessa Drake actually starting up some sort of relationship. I wouldn't call it dating, and I'm not sure Felicia is entirely on solid ground with the Guild. Dealing with Fox cleared some debts, but I can't imagine she's going to play by their rules any more than she did before. Call them semi-antagonistic rivals with benefits?

At any rate, while Tom DeFalco had her in a relationship with a woman in Spider-Girl, I think this is the first, on-page relationship we see Felicia having with another woman in the main Marvel Universe (her past with Tamara is alluded to in these volumes, but not beyond a panel of them holding hands under a table while Black Fox yammers on about misdirection, and her showing up in a collage of Felicia's past lovers.)

This volume lasted 10 issues, so restarting the book and tying in to larger events did nothing to extend its lifespan. What a shock, he said, completely unsurprised. After this, MacKay wrote the aforementioned Giant-Size Black Cat, a one-shot team-up with Mary Jane, the aforementioned Iron Cat, a team-up mini-series with Mary Jane that was a tie in to Dark Web. That last one wasn't very good. Then there was (two-and-a-half years ago?! Cripes) a Jackpot and Black Cat mini-series written by Celeste Bronfman, about Felicia committing crimes on the orders of some AI threatening her girlfriend (not Odessa), and MJ trying to help with the knockoff H-Dial that Paul guy everyone hates built her. I didn't buy it past the first issue, but I read the girlfriend was behind the whole thing. Which doesn't make me feel I missed out, if it took 5 issues to get to that point.

Speaking of 5 issues, G. Willow Wilson is currently writing a Black Cat series I dropped after that amount of time. Wilson wrote Felicia as impulsive, which is fine. Also incompetent, which is not. The particular flavor of humor made it feel like a Harley Quinn pitch Wilson hadn't gotten to use. Since I dropped the book, it's had team-ups with Venom (Mary Jane edition), tie-ins to a symbiote-flavored Spider-event, and the recent solicits have teased stuff about Felicia being a mutant. Which is probably meant to be a clickbait fakeout, but also not the sort of idiocy I put past an increasingly desperate Marvel. None of it makes me regret dumping the book.

Sunday Splash Page #449

"Central Park Ninjas," in Black Cat (vol. 3) #1, by Jed MacKay (writer), Travel Foreman (artist), Brian Reber (color artist), Ferran Delgado (letterer)

Sometimes - too many times, frankly - I cover something in this series that I kept as long as I did specifically to do a Splash Page on it, and then it's excised. Or I sorta like it, but it's not going to force its way onto my list of all-time favorites. Today though, we're looking at a book I loved. Hooray!

The first of Jed MacKay's Black Cat books is a string of heists in service of an even greater heist. Felicia, with a two-person crew of Boris Korpse (tech support/safecracker) and Bruno Grainger (wheelman/muscle), plan to break into the vaults of the New York Branch of the Thieves Guild. No, not "T'ieves", this guild is run by the classy and intense Odessa Drake, not that swamp-rat LeBeau. The woman knows how to properly enunciate, thank you.

This is where some backstory that MacKay adds comes in. Felicia and Odessa are childhood friends, because their fathers both apprenticed under the Black Fox, as Felicia later would (another thing I'm pretty sure Mackay added to those characters' backstories.) The grand heist is Fox's swan song before retirement. It's a tricky job, because the vault is in another dimension, the only known access belonging to the Guild.

Unfortunately, neither Felicia or the Fox are in good graces with the Guild, not they'd hesitate to pull this if they were. Felicia hasn't paid her union dues, essentially, so Odessa is trying (violently) to bar her from work. As for the Fox, Odessa's issue with him is a little more personal.

The book lasted 12 issues, broken into 1 or 2-issue stories focused on different heists. Each heist is about getting something needed to break into the Guild vault. Use the ruined wreck of Xandar the Merciless to infiltrate the Sanctum Sanctorum for the original deed to Manhattan. Arrange an impromptu date with Johnny Storm to swipe a book of Phineas Randall's writings from Reed Richards' bookshelf. Head to Madripoor to steal the second of two paintings with instructions on how to find the right dimension from some guy named "Patch" of all things.

Of course, things never go according to plan. Xandar finds his Star-Stone in Strange's house, which makes him less a ruined wreck and more a Sorcerer Supreme-killing threat. Blastaar drops in from the Negative Zone. Patch is having issues with some little rich psycho. Hovering over it all is Odessa, determined to settle scores with the Fox and collar the Cat, with the raw numbers and resources to make it a viable threat.

MacKay writes Felicia as professional, in the sense she takes pride in being a thief, in following certain codes like watching out for her crew and making sure everyone gets a cut, in not letting anyone steal from her. Who worries whether she can actually keep all her promises to protect them. But she also loves being a thief. Loves the thrill, loves the excitement, loves getting into places no one was supposed to be able to get into and taking things no one was supposed to be able to take.

The last story involves Felicia posing as a tech-writer openly scornful of how Tony Stark refuses to exceed humanity by augmenting himself. That gets her in the front door, because nothing annoys an egoist like Stark like someone publicly disparaging him. She needs a key for an interdimensional lock, and has the specs, but he's got the forge. While Stark's distracted with an old threat she hired, she also makes herself a suit of special armor to pay Odessa a visit, and tangles with Iron Man while she's at it. As she puts it, you steal a sports car, you want to test drive it. You steal a war machine, you want to take it to war.

(As with many decisions made in the heat of the moment, this one backfires. The threat did not dissuade Odessa. If anything, she's more hot for Felicia than ever. And Felicia's ex-girlfriend later got the armor and came after her with it, see Sunday Splash Page #263.)

There's a lot of fun interplay between Felicia, Bruno and Boris. They have certain patterns and routines with each other, like taking turns on who gets to pick music during dinner, or arguing about movies. Boris is the zany one, the mad scientist who knows who Phineas Randall is and thinks Johnny Storm is a phony. Jim Hammond is the one, true Human Torch! Bruno's the loyal meathead, who loves Elvis - music, movies, doesn't matter - and takes a concerning amount of pride in being from Pittsburgh. I mean, what I saw in my one brief visit was nice enough, but at the end of the day, it's just a city.

There's also briefly Sonny Ocampo, ex-con-turned-security guard-turned-investigator for Odessa. Ocampo's determined to get Hardy for costing him his security gig, so Felicia naturally can't help messing with him. But she does advise him to get away from Odessa, and pays him for helping with the Blastaar thing. I thought Sonny was going to be more of a recurring thorn, but MacKay plays it as Odessa just wanting to pressure Felicia from different angles. If that one falters, there's always another.

Because it's a Marvel comic, it cycles through a lot of artists. Travel Foreman is the closest the book has to a regular, covering 6 of the first 7 issues. The heist of the first painting, the Sanctum heist, the FF heist, the issue that explains what Odessa's beef with the Black Fox is. Foreman's work is a lot cleaner than it was on Immortal Iron Fist. Cuts back on the shadows and the excessive cross-hatching, makes it less gritty and dirty. These are classy thieves after all, not some second-rate bunch of window smashers. A couple of times he abandons inking entirely, giving Felicia an almost ethereal look. I'd say it was meant to be when she's most in her element, something beyond a mere thief, but I don't think it's used that consistently.

The other 6 issues are split between Michael Dowling (1 issue), CF Villa (2 issues), Kris Anka (2 issues), and one that's split between Annie Wu and Dike Ruan. Dowling's is sort of an interregnum, where Felicia takes the night off for a date with Batroc, while the Fox is hounded by Odessa's ninjas. (I do wish Foreman, or whoever was responsible, had designed a look for the Guild's warriors not so much like The Hand.)

Villa handles the Stark heist, Anka the Madripoor excursion. Villa draws some really slick armor, while Anka provides Logan with facial expressions I would never have expected. He also makes Felicia's mask more like a couple of "C"s than I've ever seen anyone draw it. Doesn't really make sense as a design. On the other hand, he also draws Felicia a head taller than Logan, and when they decide to bankrupt Kade Kilgore's casino, he draws the hell out of Felicia in a little black dress. Much respect for that; almost went with a splash page of that, but figured it made more sense to go with Foreman, given their respective page counts for the series.

It was the other issue, #8, that might be my favorite. Annie Wu gets the dull, but more emotionally charged, part of the comic to draw, Felicia trying to convince her mother to take a cruise to Europe. So she's not around if Odessa gets really vicious. It's the only time we see Felicia's mother in the series, and it gets into the strain she feels with a daughter that followed her father's footsteps, right down to a mentor she doesn't like.

The fun part is Ruan's half, where Felicia and the Beetle break into Rand Industries to swipe schematics for the Randall Gate, and run afoul of Danny, his apprentice Pei, and her little dragon. Which leads to the Beetle getting smacked around by an aggressive kid who can turn her fist unto like a thing of iron, while Danny enjoys fighting someone not trying to steal his chi or cut off his hands. Even though Felicia gets what she came for, it was funny to see her thrown off her game by someone else having a good time interacting with her, and the comedy of her frustration and Janice's terror were played really well.

I think this book is as close as I'll ever get to exactly what I wanted from a Black Cat series. Even when the book restarts, with MacKay still as writer, it can't catch the same lightning in a bottle, though that may be due to factors outside his control. But we'll discuss that next week. 

What I Bought 6/17/2026

I've been using the TV to watch Youtube lately. Drawback, it doesn't have an ad blocker and, for some reason, over half the ads are for Iowa political races. I don't in live in Iowa. On the plus side, this means I have no stake, so I don't get depressed about what the candidates represent and what they chose to highlight as their positive qualities!

I only found one of the three books for this week. Which wasn't a surprise, but I could have used a pleasant surprise after a 3-day inspection trip in completely miserable weather. Also, i can't decide if it's a good or bad thing none of the stores around here ever have Chachu. Is it popular and constantly selling out, or did none of them order it? 

Marc Spector: Moon Knight #8, Jed MacKay (writer), Devmalya Pramanik (artist), Rachelle Rosenberg (color artist), Cory Petit (letterer) - Clea looks oddly happy on that cover. Should anyone be that pleased to be hanging out with Daredevil and Blade? She needs to get out more often.

A flashback reveals that during Marc's disastrous solo attempt to rescue his crew, the Mansion made him an offer. Bring it souls, and get his friends back. Hence, the double-cross on Blade, Rider, and DD. The Mansion, predictably, does not honor its terms, claiming it never specified how many souls he needed to deliver. But that's fine, because getting it to accept the three Midnight Sons leaves it vulnerable to the fact that terms refers to a ritual, not a team. Um, is that true? I never read all that '90s supernatural Marvel stuff.

That frees everyone. Marc's crew, the three he betrayed, and - well, we'll get to that. Tigra's very happy to see Marc. While it's not really in keeping with the tone of the rest of the issue, I do love that Pramanik drew Tigra's tail as wrapping around Marc and flicking excitedly.

The other Midnight Sons are somewhat less happy, though Blade puts it together the Mansion would have read their thoughts once they were taken, so it had to be genuine. I noted that when Marc is initially explaining, he's looking at his crew, and not, you know, the people he actually betrayed. Guess he can live with them being pissed - as long as they don't kill him - but not with Reese and the others hating him for doing something like that on their behalf.

The Mansion isn't dead, but Marc's got an army with him, courtesy of all the people the Mansion took, freed along with the costumed types. Clea pulls out some spell that gives everyone magic weapons. Daredevil got an axe, and is immediately testing its sharpness against his finger, what the heck, Matt? Tigra got a chainsaw, though, so Clea clearly knew who Marc would want to have the best toy. And now the Midnight Militia are ready to get to work.

Plus, there's still whoever is Marc's ace in the hole. Clea mentions a last ally who will help them escape. Which makes me a think teleporter, or portal creator. I kind of want it to be The Spot, but I figure magic is probably needed so, Illyana? Guess we'll see next month.

Saturday Splash Page #242

"Dark of the Moon," in Vengeance of the Moon Knight (vol. 2) #1, by Jed MacKay (writer), Alessandro Cappuccio (artist), Rachelle Rosenberg (color artist), Cory Petit (letterer)

The first volume of Vengeance of the Moon Knight - which I usually forget exists - came out in 2009, after volume 3 of Moon Knight. Which I bought for 11 issues, but retain only 1, which has no splash pages, and therefore did not get a Sunday Splash Page entry. This volume follows on from Jed MacKay's volume of Moon Knight, which I tagged as volume 8, and concluded with Marc Spector getting blown to bits.

With Khonshu imprisoned in Asgard, there's no bringing Marc back. So the rest of the cast - Reese, Soldier, Hunter's Moon, Tigra and 8-Ball - are trying to carry on the work of the Midnight Mission in his stead. Well, Tigra is really more intent on hunting down Black Spectre for killing Marc - though I'm pretty sure Zodiac took care of him - but in theory, they continue to protect those who travel at night and whatnot. Except, who's this guy in the palette-swapped outfit calling himself Moon Knight and beating the crap out of criminals?

The new guy's identity is the mystery of the first few issues. Once he demonstrated his powers in issue 2, I had him figured. I was even right about it, which was nice.

MacKay returns to the approach of inserting flashbacks of events between excerpts of conversations with Marc's psychiatrist, Dr. Sterman. Except it's a different character each issue. Reese in issue 1, Tigra in issue 2, Hunter's Moon in issue 4, and so on. A way to explore not only how each of them is handling Marc's death - Tigra, poorly, the others varying degrees of better - but what he meant to them.

(In the first issue, we see in flashback that, since Marc was Jewish and none of them knew what to do, Reese contacted Ben Grimm for help with the rites. Because Ben, as Mr. Knight mentioned at one point in MacKay's first volume, always sent Marc a card at Hanukkah. So Reese is trying to honor what she can of Marc's heritage. That was a nice little scene that I enjoyed.)

Then the book gets, should I say hijacked? Diverted maybe, into Blood Hunt tie-ins. Which, for those who can't keep track of Marvel's baker's dozen of events a year, was the one where someone hijacked all the Darkforce users' powers to blot out the sun worldwide, and vampires ran amok. Something to that effect. Vampires prey on night travelers, Fists of Khonshu are supposed to protect night travelers, one fist (Hunter's Moon) is apparently not enough, and so, they need Marc back. Which means freeing Khonshu. From Asgard jail. Well, shit, Loki escapes from there all the time. How hard can it be?

Alessandro Cappuccio draws the first 5 issues, and 7 in total. His work, with Rosenberg's colors, is much the same as it was in Moon Knight. Thin, sharp lines. Minimalist on the backgrounds, unless it was a particular setting like Sterman's office. New York City feels like a very sterile, empty place in Cappuccio's world. Rosenberg sticks to solid blocks of color for the surroundings, and leaves the shading for the characters. The world doesn't have much give in it, and the characters deal with that by closed themselves off in certain ways. Focused, in denial, deflecting with humor, diving into anger.

Devmalya Pramanik draws the other two issues, and is trying to find his footing with the characters. The designs are little rougher, proportions wonky at times, though some of that is Pramanik gets more creative with the perspectives and page layouts. But the characters are more detailed, a wider range of expressions that run towards exaggeration but don't go over the line, or at least not far over the line.

End result - and how they bust Khonshu out is clever, in the sense it makes me grin - Marc's alive again, vampires are defeated, and then he has to deal with the imposter. I guess because they're using his title and not Hunter's Moon's. That's where the volume ends, at 9 issues, and the next, which we might reach by year's end, begins. 

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 4/1/2026

I traveled to the KC area for work today, and for once, the weather wasn't crap. Typically - doesn't matter the time of year - I draw the short straw. Unseasonable snow, 50+ mph winds, heavy rains, always something. Results had to change eventually, I guess. Let's get into April's books.

Nova: Centurion #6, by Jed MacKay (writer), Alvaro Lopez (artist), Mattia Iacono (color artist), Cory Petit (letterer) - Going to try and shoot the most damage-resistant of the 3 first, huh? Bold strategy, Cotton, let's see if it works.

Last issue, so Nova's got to kill the alien parasite infecting Cammi. He was going to use all that stolen Mysterium, but the parasite crumpled up his ship and chucked it into space. So Rich uses the promise of the Nova Force to lure it inside entirely inside him, then unleashes said Nova Force and incinerates the thing. While making a speech about how he's not just a Nova, he's the entire Corps, and it can't beat all of them.

It is with disappointment I report that, when Lopez draws a page showing dozens of Novas, as representative of the legacy of the Corps that Richard is the inheritor of, he doesn't follow Brian Denham's lead and draw a blue Pikachu Nova. Tsk, tsk.

Anyway, parasite dead, Cammi saved (thank you for that, Jed MacKay.) The Kree-Skrull War are still barking threats, and Nova reminds them that is pretty stupid considering he could kill them both in an instant. Of course, now he needs a new ship and energy for the Worldmind, both of which require money. But he's got his combat accountant and Cammi, so he ought to be OK.

So, obviously things got rushed. We never really got much about Aalbort (the accountant), and MacKay clearly had more in mind for Star-Lord, since he makes sure to throw in a page about Quill regretting backstabbing Nova and how this time, he's going to do the right thing instead of the smart thing. I assume there was going to be more build up to Quill coming through for Nova in a key moment, especially since he doesn't really get to do anything other than be there in this circumstance. Rich and the Worldmind handle the parasite by themselves, the others are just an audience.
 

Batgirl #18, by Tate Brombal (writer), Takeshi Miyazawa (penciler/inker), Juan Castro (inker), Mike Spicer (colorist), Tom Napolitano (letterer) - I bet the phosphorescent skeleton knows the best party spots in town.

Cass, Tenji and Jaya leap into the portal to Spirit World. Where they find the guy with a big old gunshot wound in the back of his head, minus the wound and saying he's been waiting for weeks. Turns out the Bloodmaster's father is trying to hijack his body to live again. Because apparently the tradeoff for the blood powers is you only live once. No reincarnation.

This is presented as something Cassandra should be very concerned about, though I can't tell that she is. She just wants the powers gone, but they have to talk to whoever granted the family these powers, and there's some angry lady with big teeth, that I guess Cass met in that Spirit World mini-series, waiting for her.

Cassandra is also, in between being trained to form the blood into weapons and stuff, arguing with Tenji about whether they should look for Shiva here and see if they can bring her back. Tenji wants to try, arguing they're supposed to honor their family in this world, while Cass brushes it off. So the same argument they've been having basically since Tenji was introduced, and I'm still on Cassandra's side.

There's just a sense of obligation Brombal's implying with all this, that Cass has to acknowledge a "family" that has never been there for her in any significant way, if she wants to progress, advance, whatever the hell it is she's actually supposed to do, that I think is horseshit. Family is what and who you make of it, and to be considered family by someone is, like respect, earned, not given. But, hey, Batman seems just about as irritated as me, so maybe the family Cassandra actually chose is going to step in and try to help.

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 3/4/2026 - Part 1

Last week was rainy, which beats snow. And I suppose we needed the rain. Far as I know we've been in drought conditions since August. For now, we leave February and January behind, and move on to books from March.

Batgirl #17, by Tate Brombal (writer), Takeshi Miyazawa (penciler/inker), Juan Castro (inker), Mike Spicer (colorist), Tom Napolitano (letterer) - Might want to clean that sword, Cass. It's giving off quite the miasma.

Cass is back in Gotham and headed to dinner with the Bat-fam. Dinner Tenji and Jaya aren't invited to, although Stephanie is eager to meet Cass' new brother. But Cass is going to miss that dinner, because her blood starts going nuts. As in, it is somehow outside out her body, whipping around and tangling her up. Miyazawa draws it such that the tendrils obscure parts of the voice balloons for whatever Stephanie is saying over the phone, which is a nice representation of how this is seizing Cass' attention, and cutting Cass off from them again.

Or Cass is cutting herself off, because she goes to Tenji and Jaya for help, unwilling to let her family see her like this. Learned all the wrong lessons from Batman, I see. This is related to Shiva's family, the ones her parents took her and her sister away from. According to Jaya, Cass shouldn't have these abilities without a ritual, but here we are.

The Wu family's moved into Gotham, but something's up, because the guy in charge gets shot in the back of the head, by his assistant. Man, there are so many betrayals in this book. Call it Backstab Monthly or something. But the guy isn't actually dead, instead there's a portal to the Spirit World inside his skull. I'm just saying now, I didn't read that mini-series where she got lost there and Constantine and some new character Alyssa Wu created had to rescue Cass.

It feels like Brombal is making a point about Cassandra needing to accept her family's history as part of herself, instead of hiding or ignore it. The blood/shadow tendrils literally tie her up the harder she tries to control or deny them, which seems pretty on the nose. And I just don't know if she really does, in a real world sense of that being a message.

Some people just need to get away from their families and stay away. Shiva's sins, or the Wu Clan's sins, are not Cass'. She isn't guilty just because she's descended from them, that whole notion doesn't fly with me. It's too similar to the genetic determinism shit that got her turned into a killer post-Infinite Crisis. "Your biological parents are killers, so even though you've hardly met one, and rejected the other, you'll become a killer, too." So I don't know, guess we'll see.

Nova: Centurion #5, by Jed MacKay (writer), Alvaro Lopez (artist), Mattia Iacono (color artist), Cory Petit (letterer) - I know it's just the perspective, but it looks like Nova's the only one of the two smart enough to know you need to aim at your opponent.

First things first: Where Della Fonte drew Peter Quill with a beard and a really stupid mustache, Lopez draws it as a beard and goatee. Which has the benefit of making Quill look less stupid, but also takes a little of the joy out of Richard ditching the Nova helmet and immediately punching him. They fight a bit, usual break-up stuff. "You betrayed me, all the other Novas are dead (again)." Same song and dance we've heard a million times.

Quill is there because he knows Nova stole all that mysterium. More critically, the Kree-Skrull War (still a dumb name for a crime syndicate) know it, too. If Rich hands it over to Quill, he can get them to take it back and call it good. But Cammi really needs the mysterium for medical treatment. As in, the mysterium is the medicine she takes to keep some freaky monster from overtaking her.

My first thought was, we're dealing with another thing from the Cancerverse, given all the mouths and teeth and appendages. But no, it's some sort of weird monster thing the Worldmind found scattered records of in its databases. There's a nice panel before the exposition starts, where Lopez draws the Worldmind's face within the star on Rich's helmet. 

There's no time to settle that, the Kree-Skrull War are here (to be eaten by the Cammi-monster.) Because that Eden Rixlo guy double-crossed Quill, who apparently never considered this possibility. So has Marvel decided to include the original Star-Lord stuff, Engelhart and Claremont and all that, and the movie shit, and the stuff Giffen did in the early-2000s in Quill's history? I feel like that isn't compatible. Original Recipe Star-Lord was pretty on the ball, minus Doug Moench writing him, while Movie Star-Lord is a fucking idiot I wouldn't trust to tie his own shoes.

Can Richard rescue Cammi from the thing that's swallowed her up? Can he get the crime syndicate off his back? Can he get Star-Lord to ditch that terrible facial hair? Will Eden Rixlo suffer hilarious comeuppance? We'll find out next month.

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 2/5/2026

I spent 4 days last week looking after Alex's cat. I took his advice and set his TV to some Youtube "cat tv" station full of birds and squirrels when I had to leave for a while, but the cat seemed equally interested in the NBA player podcasts I'd watch sometimes.

Batgirl #16, by Tate Brombal (writer), Takeshi Miyazawa (artist), Juan Castro (inker), Mike Spicer (colorist), Tom Napolitano (letterer) - Does Batgirl think she's learned to cut fire? Maybe.

Let's wrap this war up. Nyssa was unconcerned that the Unburied were infiltrating Samsara, because she wants them there to kill via machine gun towers, under the logic that the blue poppies grew from the corpses of the Unburied's ancestors, so that will definitely happen a second time if she can produce the corpses. And the Unburied wrecked her Lazarus Pit, so she's trying to avoid death.

Jaya takes out the towers, and apparently is not on Nyssa or the Unburied's side, but some third motive. Oy. Batgirl seems busier fighting her ghosts than anything else, but pulls it together enough to choose against vengeance. Rather than fight Kalden to the death for killing Shiva, she figures out the pressure point thing Jaya uses to make Nyssa able to feel stuff again. Which leaves Nyssa unable to continue fighting. And Batgirl freed Tenji, who was chained up for. . . reasons.

Was Nyssa thinking he'd work as bait for the Unburied? Was it supposed to distract Batgirl, or make her fight harder against the Unburied? I have absolutely no idea what Nyssa's end goal was there.

But Batgirl chose against vengeance, the Unburied get their home back, so I'm sure they'll just be all peace and love now, and definitely won't opt to hunt down Nyssa and anyone they think might strike against them. And Batgirl is maybe returning to Gotham with her half-brother and Jaya.

I assume Batgirl's able to use Jaya's pressure point stuff to heal Nyssa - though it's not like it does anything for her aging and dying problem - because she chose freeing Tenji over attacking Kalden, and this represents healing her past emotional wounds. It doesn't really feel like that significant of a choice - Cassandra Cain has chosen saving someone over beating someone else up plenty of times - and it also doesn't feel like it would resolve any of her issues with her mother, but here we are. 

Nova: Centurion #4, by Jed MacKay (writer), Matteo Della Fonte (artist), Mattia Iacono (color artist), Cory Petit (letterer) - OK, I understand Nova's presence, and the former Nova turned wannabe Han Solo behind him. What's with the two red circles? Are they suns?

Nova's trying to get a recharge, but the technician is giving him a lot of static about how disrespectful it is for an Earther to be wearing a Nova Corps uniform, now that the Corps is gone. So, did the Corps get rebuilt and then destroyed again some time between the end of Thanos Imperative and now? I generally understood Rich was still the only Nova all throughout the Krakoa era, so how has word of that still not gotten around?

But he gets his recharge, and his being able to handle that much juice convinces the guy he really is a Nova. Meanwhile, some doofus named Eden Rixlo steals Nova's ship while Rich is buying groceries. What a fucking terrible name, what idiot came up with "Eden Rixlo"? Really? Gerry Duggan? I would have put money this guy was created by Jeph Loeb in his Sam Alexander Nova book. Good thing I don't gamble.

Cammi and Aalbort are on-board at the time of the theft, which is weird since Eden was apparently eyeing the ship the same time Nova was trying to get his recharge, which Cammi and the combat accountant were present for. Why wait? He could steal the ship, but not break in? Either way, there presence means this is a bad idea even if Nova didn't manage to get right on Rixlo's tail, including using the mines Rixlo drops as speed boosts (which was very cool) all the way to his destination.

But Nova did stay on his tail, and Cammi and Aalbort are in position to slit Eden's throat, as they arrive at some space station where Star-Lord is waiting. At least, the guy introduces himself as Star-Lord. 

Between the dumb hair and dumber mustache, and the stupid outfit that has what looks like backpack straps growing from the shoulders, it looks more like, I dunno, Andy Richter playing a cruise line captain. And he'd speak in some goofy accent. Something Scandinavian by way of Swedish Chef, maybe. At least the shoulder straps should make it easy for Nova to throw the Cruise-Lord into the airless vacuum.