Admittedly, I am still in a bit of a fog after last week’s election here in the States. It’s over but in many ways it will never be over and certainly a lot of the damage done over the last four years will haunt us for generations to come. The shirt show that followed the election (and is still ongoing as I type this) was the kind of predictable bullshittery that I’ve come to expect from the current regime and I’m just so tired of it.
There’s going to be a lot of work to be done in the coming months and years. I’ll continue to vote as my filthy liberal agenda dictates just so I can peacefully write about comics in good conscience.
This week really feels like a Fifth Week and the only book of note I gave an Advance Alert last month, which seems like years ago. Regardless, you should check out Scarenthood because it was legitimately a lot of fun. Since there was nothing else I wanted to write about and I’ve got a whole page to fill, it’s once again time to pull back the curtain and reveal what was on my pull list this week.
These are the books I’m reading for fun, the stuff that gives me my weekly fix of escapism and the books I’ve been reading for literal decades. This week there was a pretty clear Marvel/DC split which is a rarity for me since I usually have a small press publisher somewhere in the mix.
DC
First up is DC with The Flash #765 and The Green Lantern #9. I’ve been keeping a close eye on The Flash with the arrival of new writer Kevin Shinick since the character is one of my all-time faves. I’ve previously written about how I will drop a book like a bad burrito if the new creative team doesn’t do it for me and with that in mind I am relieved to write that The Flash #763 (the first issue with the new creative team) was one of the best Flash stories I’ve read in years. It was a nice “bottle” issue and a great jumping on point for new readers with a classic Flash feel to the story.
As a rule, I tend not to read too far ahead for what’s coming down the pipeline in comics but DC has been making a lot of noise about the next event they have coming in January and February of next year. I’m hoping it doesn’t mess with things TOO terribly much.
Grant Morrison’s The Green Lantern has been a unique joy and full of Morrison’s brand of weirdness. As much as I rave about it I always undercut it with the caveat that it’s not for everyone. There are few creators out there that are having as much fun as Morrison has been having for the last thirty years and he’s managed to carve out a nice niche for himself.
Marvel
The cosmic scales have tipped ever so slightly in DC’s favor in recent months as I find myself going to them for my weekly superhero fix. Just last week I dropped yet another of Marvel’s flagship titles because it just wasn’t doing it for me anymore. It’s my personal opinion that a lot of the marquee Marvel titles are nothing but soft pitches for future MCU movies. I can’t necessarily hate on that either, personally if I was a hot shot Marvel creator and I had a good contract in place with the company I would be swinging for the fences with my comics work. Given how uncertain the comics industry is at the best of time there isn’t a creator out there that would turn down a nice payday for their work.
But I digress. The real hotness with Marvel right now is their X-books which are the most interesting they’ve been in years and to the the point I raised above they don’t feel like it’s something that could be easily adapted to film. Isn’t that just kind of the point of comics? Creativity without limits? The writer is only bound by what their willingness is to torture the penciler.
This week I picked up parts 14, 15, and 16 of the TWENTY-TWO PART X of Swords crossover. Initially, I had balked at having to pick up nearly two dozen comics to get a whole story (I’m not currently reading ALL the X-titles) but I happened to remember a certain teenager who bought double copies of a certain sealed bag X-crossover about 25 years ago.
Thus far, the crossover has been pretty good. I wouldn’t characterize it as “wildly uneven” but some issues are stronger than others and that’s not to say the “weak” issues are bad…they’re just different. I will say this, I haven’t had a single clue yet where this crossover is going to go or what things will look like when it’s done. X of Swords is taking some big sci-fi/fantasy/comic book swings and I’m digging it.
