I LOVE COMICS 3000, Part Eighteen

 I’ve been numbering my entries, picking up where I left off with the 2,021 COMIC BOOK QUARANTINE ODYSSEY.  I’m curious to see how long it takes me to read that many comics. I want the results to be realistic so I’m not going to binge read unless I happen to be in the mood.  There isn’t a day that goes by that I don’t end up reading some comics, so we’ll see how long this takes. The journey began with the 1,000 Comics Challenge on approximately March 15, 2020.

#400  POWER RANGERS FREE COMIC BOOK DAY: THE ROAD TO RANGER SLAYER  (Boom, July 2020) Just to be clear, the Power Rangers have never appealed to me, but that’s okay. I do not think I am their target audience. Never watched the shows, never read the comics. Prior to reading this issue (because it’s free!) the longest amount of time I spent on Power Rangers was watching the movie trailer inside a theater (because I was, y’know, a captive audience). Just my luck then, that this issue doesn’t even take place within Power Ranger continuity. It’s an alternate tale of a universe where the Power Rangers fell, and Tommy Oliver became Lord Drakkon after stealing the power coins from every Ranger. It’s called the Coinless Universe (catchy). The story was decent. The art was decent. I wasn’t bored, but I’m not planning to return. TWO AND ONE-HALF STARS.

#401  TEENAGE MUTANT NINJA TURTLES: THE LAST RONIN ashcan preview (IDW June 2020) I read the original black & white TMNT comics by Eastman & Laird with my then teenage son, and enjoyed them. I stopped after that, when Archie Comics picked up the licensing and aimed at a younger market. No more edgy stories. I supposed they’ve gotten better since then. IDW seems to have pleased the faithful. For this new story, Eastman and Laird are back on story, with script by Tom Waltz. Eastman is providing layouts with finished pencils and inks by Andy Kuhn. This preview issue looks like it might be a good story, as much as I can tell from five pages. “In a future NYC, a lone surviving turtle goes on a seemingly hopeless mission to obtain justice for his fallen family and friends.” Interesting set-up. There certainly was a lot of discussion and excitement among the customers at Captain Blue Hen the day I picked this up. Lots of speculation about who the surviving turtle might be. I just might have to pick this one up, at least Issue #1. THREE AND ONE-HALF STARS.

   

I’m big fan of both crime and horror comics. Good stories in both genres seem to be in abundance for some time now. Fellow Fans: let’s support these books and let the publishers know we’re grateful. 

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402  DEVIL’S HIGHWAY #1 of 5 (AWA/Upshot, July 2020) Benjamin Percy is a horror novelist, so I’m expecting this story to take a dark and scary turn before it ends (as if it already hasn’t). Sharon’s father managed a highway diner in Wisconsin, a favorite of truckers, until the night he was murdered.

Tough as nails and possessing a mean streak to go along with her determination, Sharon aims to frequent the truck stops until she tracks down the killer. Victims exhibit strange, bloody ouroboros markings on their chests. This builds tension and suspense from start to finish. FOUR STARS.

#403  THAT TEXAS BLOOD #1 (Image, June 2020) This one is a little slower to get on track, and some readers may get impatient and drop it after this issue. That would be a shame, because I sense a deep tale brewing here with a dark humor potential (That second-to-last page made me snicker in a bad humor way, and now I feel guilty). If you wanted to create a sense of how law enforcement moves (slowly) in a sleepy small town in Texas, this makes its’ case quite well. I’m reminded of the movie NO COUNTRY FOR OLD MEN and have a feeling the graying Ambrose County sheriff is going to be challenged by things rapidly changing around him, and have to step up and show his mettle. I sense that the reoccurring campfire nightmare and the domestic dispute are but foreshadows of dark clouds moving in.

Worth watching. THREE AND ONE-HALF STARS.

#404  ARCHANGEL 8 #3 of 5 (AWA/Upshot, July 2020) The religious references and images continue, but the players don’t act like their mission is heaven-sent. I’m going to hold onto my suspicion that these are just codenames for a more down-to-earth covert agency until the storyline gets less ambiguous and makes a definite statement to the contrary. In the meantime, I’m enjoying this as much as a good Punisher story, or Clint Eastwood’s The Man With No Name westerns. A major drug dealer has some pretty powerful and vicious people tasked with protecting him and likewise to take him down. A new agent of (?) is introduced this issue, a nasty female assassin. THREE AND ONE-HALF STARS.

#405  DAPHNE BYRNE #6  (DC/Hill House, September 2020) The final issue packs a gut-punch. There’s a reveal near the conclusion that I did not see coming, although I now realize it’s been building slowly throughout the prior issues. Horror in late 19th-century New York City as a cult working through a fake medium preys on a recently widowed mother and introverted daughter. Art by the fabulous Kelley Jones, who was made to draw horror comics (and Batman, please). The finale is so good it has elevated DAPHNE BYRNE to my favorite of the Hill House titles. FIVE STARS.

#406  LUDOCRATS #3  (Image, July 2020) Wackiness continues! A very funny fantasy world populated by pompous aristocrats and their strange minions. It’s hard to describe within a paragraph, so I’ll let His Excellency Pardius Haemoglandulum, Grand and Vexatious Ludocrat, Regent Warp-Czar of the West, and Seventy-ninth Eldritch Hyper-Pope tell you: “Reader, if I sound cryptic then it is because I am so very clever. But also it is because the reading of critical events contained within this journal, like the measure of the quantum waveform, cannot be gauged without being distorted. To precis is to reduce the reality, to summarize is to diminish in prelude, to abridge, encapsulate or outline risks a loss of intimacy with the truth which will, ultimately, deliver a sub-optimal narratological climax. I am sure you understand what I mean.”  FOUR STARS.

#407  FAMILY TREE #7 (Image, July 2020) If there can be an upside to a crisis, it’s that it helps brings families together. The dysfunctional family in this title bond together (I should say entwine) for a common purpose: survival. A cult tries to capture the family members who are evolving into trees, for what purpose is unknown. My favorite character is the formerly estranged

grandpa, who’s a real bad-ass.  FOUR STARS.

#408  THE IMMORTAL HULK #35 (Marvel, September 2020) Kind of an introspective issue where nothing major happens, but we learn much from the conversations. There’s a helpful text page to begin this that summarizes what the Leader has discovered: there are five aspects to Banner/Hulk. Two are in “Banner form” in Bruce and Joe Fixit. Three are in “Hulk form” in Devil Hulk, Savage Hulk, and The Green Scar. In his inner mind, Bruce has a conversation with Savage Hulk addressing him affectionately and getting an angry response: “If Hulk is ‘Big Guy’, then Banner has to be ‘Stupid Banner.’ Joe Fixit has a conversation with the winged creature now occupying Betty that ends in her leaving the group.

FOUR STARS.

#409  THE BATMAN’S GRAVE #8 of 12 (DC, September 2020)  Bryan Hitch’s art continues to wow me on this title. Some great text-free panels here. Batman finally confronts the culprit behind everything and barely escapes being blown up. DNA analysis reveals the person to be the son of The Good Thing Killer, a vigilante mob killer. Now he’s breaking a maniac out of Arkham Asylum. Motives still not entirely clear. I’m enjoying Warren Ellis’ story here, but it took eight issues to get to this point? Kind of slow and maybe padded a little too much. THREE AND ONE-HALF STARS.

#410  BILLIONAIRE ISLAND #2 (Ahoy Comics, June 2020) This is a tongue-in-cheek dig at the ultra-rich, who vacation at Billionaire Island’s tax-free nation status and anything goes for the right price. And inquiring journalists get locked away. This issue, the one-man task force after the top administrators works his way in disguise onto the island and creates havoc.  The first page is apparently unrelated to the rest of the story, as perhaps writer Mark Russell (Second Coming) wanted to get something off his chest. An illegal immigrant gardener spots a sexual predator (who looks like a recently disgraced comedian) and kicks his ass. It turns out to be a movie trailer for ALIEN VERSU PREDATOR starring Steven C. Gull (get it?) and Lewis Zikay (the kicked comedian). THREE AND ONE-HALF STARS.