November 3

It is Election Day! I voted early this morning as the rain pounded down. The polls opened in Iowa at 7 AM and I walked through the door and was the first voter of my district. It is important to do your duty at the ballot box.

This is the second Comic Cavalcade of the week this week. I wanted to write a post on my anniversary so I split the pile into halves. I have considered doing this more recently, but I am not sure I plan on doing this regularly. It is a “we’ll see” moment.

Comic of the Week

The Naked Truth #1

I got these books in the mail yesterday from the Kickstarter campaign that I supported. This one is signed by Keith Champagne and I got several other covers as well including an homage to Dark Knight Returns and Spider-Man #1 (Todd McFarlane).

It was a fun issue with a character whose super powers only activate when she is naked. I enjoyed this book and not just because of boobies.

Books This Week:

Absolute Batman #25. “Straw Man” Written by Scott Snyder with art by Nick Dragotta. Cover art was done by Nick Dragotta & Frank Martin. The 25th issue of Absolute Batman brings the Joker front and center and the other Batman villains, who were all like Bruce Wayne friends, are trying to stop Bruce from being Batman. There is a cool wrap-around cover on the book.

Batman-Bad Seeds: Sunrise #1. Written by Matt Fraction & G. Willow Wilson with art by Giuseppe Camuncoli & Cliff Rathburn. Cover art was done by Giuseppe Camuncoli, Cliff Rathburn and Tomeu Morey. The Bad Seeds storyline wrapped up in this issue, and I really enjoyed the conclusion. I found much of the middle of this arc to be a little wanting, but this finale was satisfying.

Batman-Bad Seeds: Gotham General #1. “Sine Qua Non” Written by Greg Rucka with art by Rosa Ekedal & Steve Lieber. Cover art was done by Rosa Ekedal. This felt like they threw HBO Max’s The Pitt into the middle of the Bad Seeds storyline. I did like this story better than some of the other crossover issues from the Bad Seeds arc.

Thor #802. “Fire From Heaven.” Written by Al Ewing with art by Pasqual Ferry. Cover art was done by Alex Ross. Sigurd Jarlson is falling. He is falling through the Sigurd Jarlson plummets wingless through the floating angel cities of Heven after falling from Hel. An angel flew by, but did not want to help Sigurd because she did not want Thor back alive. Some quick hammer action helped save Sigurd, and impressed the angel.

Dead Acre: Black Badge #4. Written by Cullen Bunn and art by Riley Brown. Cover art was done by Riley Brown & Fares Maese. This wrapped up this series. The murder mystery in Dead Acre and closes out the Hellmouth storyline. It does seem that there will be a second series featuring James Crowley.

Justice League Unlimited #24. “Superdeterminism” and “The Way Forward” Written by Mark Waid (1st) and Nicole Maines (2nd) with art by Dan Mora (1st) and Fico Ossio (2nd). Cover art was done by Dan Mora. The Justice League is working big time right now, and seeing these characters working together that you do not normally see.

X.XXXI #1. Written and cover art by Ken Mesnard with pencils by Gabe Pena. This was weird, because I grabbed this off the stands at In This Issue, and, when I looked at it, I saw ads inside the book from 2020. It wasn’t in CLZ (although it is there now) and Todd could not find it on eBay. The story was fine, but not much of anything special. Still was interesting.

Absolute Wonder Woman #25. “Heretic Part 3 of 5” Written by Kelly Thompson with art by Hayden Sherman. Cover art was done by Hayden Sherman & Jordie Bellaire. Diana and the Cheetah are facing off. It seems like all of the Absolute heroes main villains are old friends. I am not sure where this one is going, but Cheetah is truly bad ass.

Rocketeer: Infiltrator #4. Written by Gabriel Hardman and art and cover art by Dean Kotz. The movie and Nazi action finished up with the Rocketeer. This has been a fun series. I like the character of the Rocketeer, even though I have not purchased a lot of Rocketeer comics before. This might make me want to see other versions of the character moving forward.

Fort Psycho #3. Written by Matt Kindt with art and cover art by Brian Hurtt. “As bodies begin to pile up from unexplained attacks, Jason ventures deeper into the jungle and forms an alliance with an old friend who suggests their mission is a cover for something much bigger.” It is a cool cover to go with a fun series so far.

Spider-Man/Hulk: Fire and Brimstone #3. “Chapter Three: Abandon Hope” Written by Kevin Smith & Andy McElfresh with art by R.B. Silva. Cover art was done by R.B. Silva & Federico Blee. Well, this one has been up and down for me. Issue one was not my favorite and then I thought issue two was excellent. So now, issue three felt lackluster for me. I am not sure why it has been so inconsistent for me, but I wonder if next issue will rock.

The Big Shakedown #2. Written by Jordan Blum & Tim Seeley with art by Scott Koblish. Detective Ester Blanco is an interesting new character and goes through some awesome things during the second issue of this Dark Horse series. It feels as if big things are about to happen here.

Justice League: The Dark Realm Special #1. Written, drawn and cover art by Dan Mora. I knew practically nothing about the character Cadejos, who is the main focus of this book. I have to say that I enjoyed this book quite a bit and a big part was because of Cadejos. I also enjoyed the way the book handled the Big Three and fanboy Golden Frog. I found that to be a funny interaction.

The Punisher #9. “Big Guns, Part 4 of 4” Written by Benjamin Percy with art by Jose Luis Soares. Cover art was done by David Marquez & GURU-eFX. The crossover with Deadpool closes up in this issue and, they toss Bullseye into it as well. Some villain named Black Hole does not end well for him.

Other books this week: Conan the Barbarian #36, All In Saga: Darkseid vs. The World #1, Predator Versus Planet of the Apes #4, Tomb of Apocalypse #3 and Terminal #3-4.

Quick Hits: This week saw the release of Hello Darkness #26, with some of the most consistent horror comic stories that you are going to find. The two covers I grabbed were also great, one by regular Jenny Frison and the main cover was Rebeca Puebla. I am not sure how I felt of Gambit Gone #2. The art was just not something that appealed to me. Beast of Boriken #3 came out from Dark Horse. I found this one to be more compelling than the first couple of issues were. Innards #5 ended with a happy ending, which was sweet as could be. Bad Idea released Tankers vs. Ancient Aliens #5 this week. It is another book that I have not loved as much as I did early. Black Tower: The Raven Conspiracy #2 & #3 were read this week. #2 has been in a “too read” pile recently. AVX: Alien vs. X-Men #2 continued through the Marvel imprint, 20th Century Studios comics. Fixation #2 showed us more trouble on the movie set for the poor super fan. Bishop #5 wrapped up the future/past story with Bishop, kind of, ending on the same place where he was at the beginning.