July 11

Happy Friday to everyone. We had some big time storms last night. So much that my house had some leakage and water came in the basement. It nearly got to some of the short boxes of comics, but thankfully, I saw it in time to prevent anything more than a short box with a little damp bottom. I was able to switch the books to another that I had free and then I had to move all the boxes off the carpet to higher ground. Not an easy task and I am still not sure what will happen with them now. It could have been way worse than what happened though.

I went to Superman, the new James Gunn movie that kicked off the DCU at Warner Brothers. It was a tremendous film. It was a lot of fun with a version of Superman that we have not seen in awhile.

Books this week:

Superman Treasury 2025: Hero for All #1. Written by Dan Jurgens and art by Bruno Redondo. Scott Koblish did the variant cover C art. In honor of the new film, Superman gets his own Treasury Edition comic original story with a large scale invasion of the earth. After Superman is sidetracked and held captive, the heroes of earth struggle to defend the planet. I enjoyed this book quite a bit, even though it is difficult to find a bag and a board to fit it. Go see Superman in theaters when you have a chance.

Detective Comics #1098, 1097, 1096, 1094, 1090. Tom Taylor has drawn me into Detective Comics after reading the Nightwing books he wrote. Taylor is one of my top five writers currently writing and this is a great couple of issues with Harvey Bullock and Penguin having to work with Batman. The three earlier books were from the stories that were reprinted last week in the soft cover book I picked up. Tom Taylor is the man.

Wild Animals #1. Written by Ed Brisson and art and cover art by Andy Kuhn (Silver Medalist). This was my absolutely favorite book of the week. The new comic from Mad Cave, who have been doing such great work this last year or so, is just emotional, powerful and I could relate fully with the character. This is a personal tale of retribution and revenge and it goes in ways that I did not expect. Loved this book.

Archie Meets Jay and Silent Bob #1. Written by Kevin Smith and art by Fernando Ruiz. I picked up A & B cover and both had art done by Fernando Ruiz & Rosario “Tito” Pena. Archie Andrews gets a job at the Quick Stop and meets the cast of Clerks after Dante died (in Clerks 3). Archie then meets up with Jay and Silent Bob, the local drug dealers. Archie gets tickets for them all to go see Josie and the Pussycats. The book has that adult feel of a Kevin Smith movie as well as the silly fun of Archie. Weird and wild crossover event.

Planet Death #1. Written by Derek Kolstad and Robert Venditti with art by Tomas Giorello. Cover art by Tomas Giorello and Sunny Gho. Planet Death #0 was out in May as a preview of this new book from Bad Idea. This is full of action and excitement for a first issue.

Fantastic Four #1. “The Uncommon Era.” Written by Ryan North and art by Humberto Ramos. Mahmud Asrar did the gold foil variant. The Fantastic Four is trying to take advantage of the upcoming MCU film in a couple of weeks by restarting FF with a new number one. It is a fascinating story of time. How many families decide ahead of time what to do if they are lost in time? The FF does. I have become quite a fan of Ryan North over the last couple of years too.

Red Hulk #6. “Traitor” Written by Benjamin Pearcy and art by Geoff Shaw. Variant cover B (Retro Vision) art was done by Michael Allred and Laura Allred. I enjoyed this book, but as I was reading it, I thought to myself, why am I this confused. I thought Red Hulk was in Latveria. I after I finished reading, I checked CLZ and I was missing issue #5. I knew it felt confusing.

The UnChosen #1. Written, Art and cover art by David Marquez. This new Image book is like a fantasy adventure meets anime. There was a lot going on here and I will say that I did not love it. I do think it is interesting enough to give it another issue or so, but I expected to be grabbed more by this first issue than I was.

Ultimate Spider-Man: Incursion #2. Written by Deniz Camp & Cody Ziglar with art by Jonas Scharf. Sara Pichelli & Tamra Bonvillain did the cover art. Miles has arrived in the Ultimate universe and has teamed up with the Ultimates. They head to Wakanda in an attempt to find Miles’s baby sister who has also crossed over from 616. Cool final page of the book for sure.

Return to Skull Island #1. Written by Simon Furman and art by Christopher Jones. Cover art was done by Inityuk Lee. This apparently continues on from an animated series of the same title, btu I had never seen it before. I grabbed it because of Kong’s presence and a cool looking cover. I enjoyed the sotry quite a bit too and I did not find myself confused or lost because I had not seen the animated show.

Magik #7. “Beneath the Veil” Written by Ashley Allen and art by German Peralta. Pablo Villalobos did the cover art. Illyana is attempting to save Cal, who has been taken over by Liminal. Dani took them back to the Society of Eternal Dawn, which does not go as smoothly as it could have. Magik is not sure if there are any of them she could trust.

Doctor Strange of Asgard #5. Written by Derek Landy with art by Carlos Magno. Geoff Shaw & Espen Grundetjern did the cover art. Stephen Strange has gone to Asgard to claim the mantel of Sorcerer Supreme of that dimension. He has faced several issues, including a murder mystery. He made it.

Laura Kinney: Wolverine #8. “Honor Bound.” Written by Erica Schultz and art by Giada Belviso. Elena Casagrande and Edgar Delgado did the cover art. Haymaker returned and Laura helped him to search for a young missing mutant.

Uncanny X-Men #17. “Murder Me, Mutina.” Written by Gail Simone and art by Luciano Vecchio. David Marquez & Matthew Wilson did the cover art (Gold Medalist). There is a new mutant in the spotlight. Her name is Mutina and she stars in the blockbuster movie, Murder Me Mutina. The X-Men are not pleased with the way the mutant community is being portrayed and they go to see Mutina. Fireworks come after that. This would have been my favorite book this week without Wild Animals #1. I love the concept of a big screen summer blockbuster being at the center of this story. Gail Simone has been excellent with this X-Men run. She was great at the beginning and I think she is only getting better.

Uncanny Valley #10. Written by Tony Fleecs and art and cover art by Dave Wachter. This fun comic that sees the combination of human story with cartoons comes to a close with this issue as Oliver takes his destiny and faces off with the First. Uncanny Valley has been creative and consistently entertaining. I like the originality of this series.

Trinity, Daughter of Wonder Woman #2. “A Corgi in the Family” Written by Tom King and art and cover art by Belen Ortega. I also picked up a variant cover B that is an homage to the “Death in the Family” iconic cover. This variant cover was done by Ben Oliver. In her pursuit of the missing Corgis, Trinity winds up with Jason Todd. They were really cute together as it was funny seeing them sitting uncomfortably on a couch. Trinity also wondered what would happen if she let it slip that Jason Todd was going to be killed.

Godzilla: Here There Be Aliens #2. Written by Frank Tieri and art by Angel Hernandez. Cover art was done by Fero Pe. This issue had alien creatures, a giant robot named Jet Jaguar, and Mechagodzilla. It just was missing Godzilla. This book is fun and sets up a future battle well.

Marvel Swimsuit Special: Friends, Foes & Rivals #1. Written by Tim Seeley & Tony Fleecs with art by Nick Bradshaw. Adam Hughes did the cover art. This is not just like the old days with the Marvel Swimsuit Specials. This told a story as well. Roxxon is using AI to show the superheroes off in their scanties, so the heroes decided to do their own instead. Silly book, but a lot of fun.

Batman: Dark Patterns #8. “Pareidolia Part 2” Written by Dan Watters and art and cover art by Hayden Sherman. This Dark Patterns book has been consistently engrossing so far and this new arch gives us something I am not sure I have seen before among Batman. Nice work showing us stories from Batman’s past.

Other books this week: Superior Avengers #4, The Power Fantasy #10, It’s Jeff: Infinity Paws #1, The Slasher’s Apprentice #3, Predator: Black, White & Blood #1, The Toxic Avenger #1, Transformers #22, and Life #5.

Quick Hits: Another book released this week to try and take advantage of the upcoming film is Fantastic Four: First Steps #1, which is the title of the film. This is a prequel and it was written in an interesting manner. I am really excited for the film. I picked up the Galactus popcorn bucket at Cinemark this week. It’s gorgeous. Absolute Superman #9 continues to be good. Again, Superman is in theater right now. The book from AWA that had a misprint and led to a recalling, They Choose Violence #1 came out with its corrected copy this week. Miles Morales: Spider-Man #35 (Bronze Medalist) continued their God War arc and I am not really liking it much. Cool cover though. FML #5 is back after several months. It is strange too because this cover, which is listed as cover A is not on my CLZ app. There is a different cover listed on CLZ as cover A. I did not understand why, but I did mark the cover A on the app as the one I have. The James Tynion IV short with Erica Slaughter wrapped up in Hello Darkness #12. That was my favorite in the anthology this month. Buried Long, Long Ago #3 kind of lost me last month, but this issue pulled me back in. Solid work on this one. Conan the Barbarian #22 from Titan Comics really does give me an old time Marvel feel. Todd made me buy Master of Kung Fu #60 this week as a back issue this week. I have always liked Shang Chi. Finally, Blood Type #2 is really a compelling vampire story. We get a lot of those right now, but this book with the main character Ada is different than we usually see.