Comic Book Buy List

January 17th, 2023

Action Comics #1051: For some reason, this book sold out at The Great Escape. Maybe because there's a blurb on the cover that reads, "1st Super-Sized Issue!" That's pretty easily misperceived as "First Issue!" and that seems to be a selling point with many comic book buyers. At any rate, I put Action onto my pull list as soon as I was sure that Brian Michael Bendis was gone, so my copy was safely waiting for me. And? Well...I was really excited about the Warworld story arc, and let's just say that this is no Jack Kennedy...but, then again, we're just kicking off into a new story, and besides, it was at least okay with a little bit of interesting thrown in. If it had been my first Action Comics, I probably wouldn't have come back for a second issue, since things have to be Really Good for me to lay my money down these days...but since I've been on the Action train for some time now, I won't be dropping the book because of this issue, for sure. Another thing: DC has pumped up the page volume on this. We have 20 pages of the main story, 10 pages of a back-up story (still focused on Superman), and then another 10 pages of story featuring Power Girl and somebody else...with guest stars Nightwing and Beast Boy. And the only ads (7 pages plus 1 page of DC Spotlight) are in-house, which are not nearly as annoying as Twinkie ads. Of course it would be even better if they'd cram those ads at the end of the book the way that Image does. Oddly enough, the most interesting story was the Power Girl one. She's not a character I have much fondness for, but it looks like DC is re-engineering her a bit, giving her some Mind Powers in addition to the super strength and gigantic breast powers that were the previous focal points. 

Danger Street #2: I almost didn't pick this up because I thought the first issue was just so bad...but it's hard to resist the pull of a story that includes  Doctor Fate (or at least a piece of him), Starman, Metamorpho, Warlord, The Dingbats of Danger Street, Lady Cop, Atlas, and the Creeper. (Yes, this is a mash-up of First Issue Special characters.) So I picked up #2. And? Well...more characters: Darkseid, Highfather, DeSaad, The Green Team, Manhunter (the blue one), and mention of The Outsiders (a terrorist group). Which means we've now seen (or heard about) most of the FIRST ISSUE SPECIAL heroes.* I thought this issue was a little better than #1...it's mostly focused on how characters are dealing with the death of Dingbat member Good Looks. But I'd probably drop this book if I weren't so sentimental about the comic books of my youth.

* Oops. I was just paging through Issue #2 and saw that I'd missed spotting Code Name: Assassin guy in this issue. So I guess that means we've already seen all of the First Issue Special folks. Cool. Wish I still had my copies of those comic books, by the way. At least there's a collected edition out. And even better, it's available via hoopla. 

Saga #61: This is the first issue with a $3.99 price tag. Which is still a hell of a deal, and I appreciate Image and Brian K. Vaughn for keeping the book at $2.99 long after every once else had made the leap up. (But wow, just think: my $1 allowance back in the sixties bought the same number of comics that $32 would buy now.) ANYway...I am sorry to say that I haven't been enjoying this comic nearly as much since Marko died. I am pretty sure that I'll be sticking with it until the end anyway, but this issue threatens a Marko resurrection...and if that turns out to be so, I'm not sure that I can hang on. Resurrections are just cheats in my book. So we'll see how it goes next month, I suppose.

February 3rd, 2023

Lord of the Jungle #3: This actually came out last week, but there weren't any copies left on the stands. This week there was one. So I didn't get the cover I wanted, but at least I didn't miss out on the issue.  And you know, Dan Jurgens is doing something interesting enough to show up for. His story runs on two timelines: the "current" one, wherein Tarzan is a senior citizen (grey, but still awfully spry), and the past, when Tarzan first encounters human beings. The art isn't great, but it's not bad, either. It often reminds me of John Buscema, who seemed to me to be the epitome of the competent comic book artist. Nothing you'd want to frame, but not unpleasant, and certainly capable of clearly telling a story. Do I wish I had something more Neal Adamsy here? Of course. But I think I'll be buying this book for awhile, so that's something for a picky motherfucker like me.

February 10th, 2023

Static: Shadows of Dakota #1 (aka Season Two) Ah, Milestone is back. Static this week, and I believe we get Icon Vs. Hardware #1 next week. And on top of that, Milestone Compendium 2 just came out.