What I Read This Week

The holidays always make these posts so hard.  Good thing we're all caught up.  

Kull #3 -- The hidden threat to Kull's kingdom is revealed as he formally meets Brule the Spear-Slayer, a most remarkable Pict.  Strong S&S which does a good job of giving Kull and his timeline a unique "voice."

Black Lightning: Year One #1 -- Meet Jefferson Pierce, defender of those who can't defend themselves, on a mission to clean up the streets of Metropolis' Suicide Slum.  Oh, and he might become a superhero later.  Meter and Van Hammer detail the revised origin of one of DC's most underrated heroes in a very compelling beginning.

House of Mystery #9 -- Fig and her father try to figure out what the hell is going on, while Miranda's husband wants no part of Harry or Lady Anne.  Also, Cres apparently has something of an odd lovelife, historically.  A great comic book all around.

Sgt Rock: The Lost Battalion #3 -- With the Allies' armor unable to penetrate the Germans' perimeter, it is up to the 442nd to bust Rock and his men out.  More focused and easier to follow than last issue, with a nice cameo by the "Haunted Tank."

Invincible Iron Man #9 -- Gone missin'.  Again.  Marvel's sub service really slows down around the holidays.

Final Crisis Secret Files #1 -- Who is Libra and why has he become the herald of Darkseid on Earth?  See how this Justice League of America baddie from thirty years ago became a true force.  Final Crisis fans should definitely check this one out, but even regular JLA fans will enjoy it as well.

Justice Society of Amreica #22 -- The blowoff to the Gog Saga bows here, as well as tying up the story of the Superman of Earth-22.  Johns leaves it all on the table here -- perhaps too much, as there is a lot going on in not a lot of space.  Still, I liked it even if it could have been better.

STEEL WATCH
After resisting a strike from Gog last issue, Citizen Steel takes the god of the Third World off his feet with a few well-placed punches in the ankle.  Hell yeah!

The War That Time Forgot #8 -- Lt. Carson and the Viking Prince begin to realize that they may have a common enemy, while Col. Jape totally loses it.  No one cares one lick about this book but I have been enjoying it as a fun romp, which is exactly what this issue is.

Guardians of the Galaxy #8 -- The Guardians are still fractured, and each section has their own problems, including Peter Quill being trapped with "King" Blastaar in the Negative Zone!  Fun both as a prologue to War Of Kings as well as in it's own right, this book is simply non-stop.

Venom: Dark Origin #5 -- Retelling Amazing Spider-Man #300 with a few twists, Venom confronts Spider-Man directly for the first time.  Really feels like a throwback to about a decade ago when such Venom miniseries were common, and I mean that in a good way.

War Machine #1 -- James Rhodes is not happy.  In fact, one might say he is mad as hell.  But unlike the rest of us, James Rhodes has a suit of high tech armor, tons of weapons, and an orbiting satelite as a staging ground.  Rip roaring (and highly violent) debut, a perfect fit for the character.  Features some old school Iron Man callbacks as well, nice.

The Phantom #26 -- Guran tells the Walker children about the 13th Phantom battling slavers off the coast of Louisiana in late 18th century.  Neat done in one (something which the Phantom property is well-suited to), but somewhat similar to the last such issue (#20), which also featured art by Zeu and had an older Phantom having a high seas adventure.

Secret Invasion: War Of Kings -- Black Bolt, King of the Inhumans, wants revenge on the Skrulls who imprisoned him, and he is willing to go to any lengths to achieve it.  And after them: the Kree.  If you weren't interested in War of Kings, you will be after reading this insane one-shot.  (Also, check out the War Of Kings Saga freebie, which does a great job of recapping all you need to know to set up this issue as well as the other WOK titles.)

The Pick Of The Pile is Final Crisis Secret Files, which just barely edges out the SI:WOK one-shot.  Both were excellent, though, as were plenty of the comic books this week.

So what did YOU read this week?

Everybody's Linking For The Weekend

Rick gets us started with an howlingly cool letterhead.

Dixon sez: It's all done with Mirrors, at least on the Flash TV show.

G Kendall takes a look at how the Onslaught goofiness spread to the non-mutant books as well.

rob! shows us the Aquaman toy from The Brave And The Bold... as well as Black Manta!

Frank has a showcase of Overpower with the Martian Manhunter (woo!): Malleable Form, Alien Physique, Telepathic Probe, and Martian Strength!  

Weekly Dose Of Weird!

House of Mystery #191 -- Man, another sequel to Demonic Toys?  C'mon Charles Band, give us a break already!

I. (Introductory Story) -- Cain welcomes us to the House of Mystery, and tells some ungrateful brats an apparently unsatisfactory story.  When they demand he tell them another, he complies...

II. "No Strings Attached!" -- Gramps Miller is a kindly old tinkerer who lives on the outskirts of town, beloved by the local children for his ability to fix toys as well as his puppet show. One day, a Mr. Stone shows up at his door, offering him $25000 to sell his house.  Miller refuses, and Stone returns later holding the mortgage.  Forcing Miller into debtors' prison, Stone intends to sell the property for a fortune when the highway comes through.  Gramps dies in prison (the many letters from the town's children hidden from him by Stone), and the collective anguish from the dreams of the children rise up, animating the toys and puppets in the house, who string up Mr. Stone like a marionette.

III. "Cain's Game Room" -- Various mishaps and hijinks.

IV. "The Hanging Tree" -- In Salem, MA, the crone Hecubah is hanged from a Lover's Tree for Witchcraft, placing a death curse upon all who carve their initials into it.  Issac Irvington, descendant of the Salem settlers, stops a honeymooning couple from carving their name in the tree, raving about the curse.  The tourists laugh him off, then return later to finish the job.  Issac follows close behind, and chisels out their initials... creating a perfect pair of I's in the process, and being dragged to Hell by Hecubah for his troubles.

V. "Night Prowler" -- Fred and his wife hear a strange noise downstairs.  Thinking it is the prowler the police have spotted in the area, Fred grabs his shotgun and heads downstairs... but returns to bed, smiling, wishing his wife a Merry Christmas amid the sound of hoof-falls and jingle bells.

Overall Weird Rating: 1.5 (out 5).

Yes, this would have come out in December, as it is the March/April 1971 issue.  The stories themselves are well done but not the most creative I have ever read.  Still, there's some neat stuff in here, including the army of angry toys rendered by "Wild" Bill Draut.

Unbridled Capitalism: Killing Time

One of the real and tangible benefits of having a local comic book shop close to your work is that when you need to kill an hour, you can kill an hour surrounded by 4 Color goodness.  So when my wife needed me to wait a while before picking her up from work, well, that presents itself as a golden opportunity to do some discount bin diving!  Let's see what we were able to find!

Hawkman: One of the problems of being a Hawkman collector is that none of his series have ever sold all that well.  Which means that there is a substantially lower chance of finding his comics in discount bins.  Compare this to, say, a 90s Marvel mutant title (which I will get to in a bit).  Anyways, I did manage to find one issue, #15 from the second (Shadow War) volume.  The series only lasted a couple of issues past this issue, and by this point Tony Isabella was off the title, but hey, more Hawkman is more Hawkman!

The Flash: Now, the Scarlet Speedster is much easier to find in back issue bins.  I mean, that's one of the Flash's main traits, isn't it?  Sells good as a back issue?  Anywho, a little patience and a lot of digging yielded good results, as I was able to net some issues from Volume 2: #42, and #45-49.  Run, Wally, run!

Other Stuff: I mentioned "90's Marvel mutant title" up above, and one of my favorites from that period was X-Factor.  In fact, at the time, it was my favorite, even more than Excalibur, if you can believe it.  I pretty found the entire run from the debut of the new, Havok-lead team straight through the Phalanx Covenant storyline.  Now, despite G Kendall's best efforts to rekindle my nostalgia, I passed and only bought one issue (I sold these comics off once already, after all) -- #87, which, of course, is the classic "X-Aminations" issue.

Further oddness from my youth was found in Book Five of Alan Moore's throwback 1963 series.  This was another series that I had all of and had to sell off, much to my later regret.  Slowly but surely I am rebuilding it, and in the last few months have acquired 2/3rds of the six published issues.  Book Five features Horus, Lord Of Light for those curious.

All in all a well spent $9, if I don't say so myself.  Looking forward to digging in to all of these in coming months (and years, knowing the way I operate).

What Looks Good?

Well, the holidays are behind us for another year, which means its time for me to catch up on my Four Color purchases.  Sounds good to me.

Kull #3 -- Kull faces suspicion from his own people, but what of his ancient tribal enemies the Picts?  I have enjoyed the first two issues of this title and hope we see more than just this miniseries for the Exile from Atlantis.

Black Lightning: Year One #1 -- It's about time!  Jefferson Pierce survived the streets of Suicide Slum, but will The 100 survive the rage of Black Lightning?!

Haunted Tank #2 -- JEB Stuart finds himself in a very strange new battlefield.  I liked the first issue of this updated take on the classic property.

House of Mystery #9 -- Just what the heck is going on in the basement?!  I'm really curious!

Sgt Rock: The Lost Battalion #3 -- The cliffhanger from the last issue -- with the battalion surrounded on all sides by the Nazi's mountain troops -- is more than enough to get me excited for this comic.

Invincible Iron Man #9 -- Tony Stark has gone from the top of the world to the bottom, and now he's got a psychopath by the name of Norman Osborn on his tail.  Eventually I hope to get back to more traditional Shellhead fare, but the setup for this plot was pretty good.

BONUS GAME!

Stuff I Probably Won't Get But Looks Neat:  
Justice League of America Geo-Force Action Figure -- Because, cmon, it's a Geo-Force action figure!  Geo-Force!  I kinda wish it was in his green and gold costume, but this is the classic (and now, modern) look.

Showcase Presents: Strange Adventures v.1 -- Mostly as something to mine for the weekly dose.  I am not familiar with any of the stories collected herein by my reckoning.

Outer Space Men OGN -- Check out the website here.  The Outer Space Men were an odd toyline from the 60s, which captivated my young brain when I discovered them some 18 years ago or so.  Just to see what the heck kind of story gets spun out of all these great toy designs sounds cool to me.

So what looks good to YOU?

For Thought: Back Issues

Found this article today at Newsarama:

Shop Of Ideas: No More Back Issues!

It's an interesting approach these guys have taken, completely eliminating the back issue stock of their shop.  I can see some benefits here as well as some drawbacks, but I am interested: what do you guys think?

Would you be happy if your LCS decided to up and liquidate all of it's back issues?  Or would you welcome the opportunity for new, perhaps lesser known stuff to take it's place?  

What do YOU think?

What I Read This Week

I'm still a week behind thanks to being out of town for New Comic Book Day last week, but I am getting caught up.  Sorry!

The Flash #247 -- This was your life, Wally West... hope you enjoyed it.  The series bows here as Wally West -- family man, friend, teammate, and Fastest Man Alive -- does everything in his power to save the person who means the most to him.  As far as a series blowoff goes, this is pretty lowkey (not as lowkey as, oh I don't know, not having the titular star appear in it like Marvel did with Iron Man!), but considering that Wally is not going anywhere any time soon I think that it is wholly appropriate.  Burnett offers a satisfactory roundup for Wally's adventures as the Flash, while the art by Carlo Barberi and Drew Geraci is uneven but otherwise nice.

Unknown Solider #3 -- The rebels attack the school looking for "wives," and the Soldier is taken hostage with them.  But after a forced march and witnessing the "enlightened" methods of justice of the Lord's Resistance Army, the strange voice in the Soldier's head returns, and all hell starts to break loose.  This title has really solidified itself as a different animal from just about any other title on the shelves today.  It is harsh and unblinking, and just a bit unsettling.  I'm not sure if I am going to continue with this title, because while I can see the quality staring back at me from its pages, I don't really enjoy reading it, at least not in this format.  The whole thing's a little too real I think for a monthly.  

Vigilante #1 -- There;s a new Vigilante in town, and he is using his own brutal brand of investigation to figure out what the mob families gain by attacking political candidates.  Wolfman's setup is decidedly old school, with a sort of 80s approach to the pacing and the storytelling as the new Vig ends up going undercover to learn more about mob he is fighting.  But as a whole the story falls apart, a situation not helped by Leonardi 's art, which doesn't always convey the story well.  I like the new Vigilante as a character but for now I am going to pass on this series.

Nova #20 -- There's a new Nova Corps in town, but Richard Rider is spending some time with his old crew -- the New Warriors.  That is, what is left of them.  Meanwhile, the newest Centurian, Richard's younger brother Robbie is finding himself well suited for his new line of work.  Kind of a quiet issue, although I like that a "quiet issue" of Nova still involves a group of centurians dealing with a rampaging Dragon Man.  Great fun and a worthwhile read for old New Warriors fans as well.

Captain America Theater of War: America First -- After World War II, a new spectre is rising to menace America, and it's name is Communism.  Luckily, Captain America still defends the Red, White, and Blue from all threats, and is on the case when saboteurs and enemy agents try to destroy the American way of life.  But who is this Captain America?  And can he be trusted when he is named as a traitor by a crusading Senator hell bent on rooting out all Red influence in America?  I'd never a single story with the Captain America of the 50s, but this over-sized actioner by Howard Chaykin really delivers on the promising of Commie Smashing.  But it also addresses what Captain America means to his country, the true threat of Communism in this era, and the motivations of men like McCarthy (here represented by a stand in) and how that relates to normal men and women.  Really fun one shot, just like the earlier Theater of War issue.  Also includes a couple of short reprints from Atlas' failed attempt at reviving Cap in the 50s from which this character is based.  These are not all that good, to be honest, but I have never seen any of the 50s Cap stuff before so it is welcome as a cultural oddity if nothing else.

The Pick Of The Pile was Theater of War.  I like Chaykin, I like historical stories, I like reprints of comics which I have never had a chance to see, and I like Commies getting smashed.  All in all a solid outing well worth reading.

So what did YOU read this week?