I started on Jason Aaron's Avengers... read the first 6 issues today from a lot of 22 I got. It's.. kinda bad.

I did like Aaron's Thor alot, but everything he is just taken to an insane extreme. And he kills off the Eternals... all of them... I'm surprised that was allowed, even in today's comics world where death is meaningless.

The story had all the hallmarks of everything that irks me about Modern comics... everything tries to be the BIGGEST OF ALL TIME. Just tell a good story. Anyone can almost destroy the universe and put the toys back in the box at the end. I'm done with that. Do something interesting enough for the next writer to care about!

There were some fun moments, but I really just don't like the 1000000 BC concept at all, the Avengers shouldn't be a force of nature, they're a team that game together for the moment and stayed for the good of the world.

It seems as though he's going with T'Challa as the leader, which at least is interesting. Once the team is actually a team maybe that could lead to some unique stuff. It seems his character to add to make his team special is Robbie Reyes. I know almost nothing about him... so far he reminds me of Sam Alexander, which is not great.

So C- for the first arc.

Incidently, it seems like ALOT of books were having new #1s in early 2018, I didn't realize.

Dog Man: Fetch 22
Dav Pilkey, 2019

More fun in this ninth Dog Man book – probably the last one I’ll end up reading for a while, since the local library doesn’t seem to have any more of them. I won’t bother going into a rundown of the plot, because, as usual, it goes all over the place, so there’s more mischief with Petey and his reprehensible dad, and more unlikely heroics from Dog Man and his pals. One part of the story involves a bunch of tadpoles who gain psychokinetic powers – as is wont to happen in these books – and come under the control of a disgruntled former kids show host known as the Fair Fairy who wants to get revenge on the station that fired her (Gassy Behemoth TV) and the rest of the world. The tadpoles eventually get turned around with the help of Lil’ Petey...

...who, as usual, is the real hero of the story, as he comes up with a rather complex and clever plan to set everything right.

That is one of the things I like best about the stories: the antagonists get taken down by clever, non-violent means, and Lil’ Petey in particular often shows them the error of their ways just by sincerely extending a hand of friendship. As I've been suggesting in my reviews for the preceding volumes, these are very much (excellent) books for little kids, but I think they really have an all ages appeal.

Where the Body Was by Ed Brubaker and Sean Phillips.  


I've been a fan of Brubaker and Phillips for a long time, every bit of 25 years at this point. I've purchased all of their original graphic novels since they've gone that route. Now I don't think that they've yet done anything that's the equal of Criminal or The Fade Out (the best of Reckless is close) they've been consistently good and I haven't disliked any of them (Night Fever was the closest to a let down).

Where the Body Was is a solid yarn that Brubaker calls a crime story that kind of turned in to a romance comic. Set in a single neighborhood (mostly on a couple of streets) in the mid-80s, it shows the lives of the residents over a few weeks that shed light on suburban drug use, adultery, burglaries, and a death that appears to be murder.

Brubaker is as good a crime writer as there has ever been in comics. And Phillips is the perfect accomplice with a style that works perfectly in a gritty setting. A very solid book by a team that ensure that I'll buy anything they produce.

Dog Man
Dav Pilkey, 2016

Did not realize that my local library had this one, the very first Dog Man book, as well – must have been checked out the entire time. This contains not only the origin of Dog Man (which is recounted in pretty much every book – as noted in my first review of these Dog Man books a few pages back). This one also explains the origin of the Dog Man books as well, i.e., the writer and artist team of Harold and George recount how they came up with the idea before Capt. Underpants, long ago when they were kindergarteners...

They even include an early ‘review’, i.e., an indignant letter from one of their teachers about a story (that's 'reprinted' in this volume):

And now that they’re mature, serious comics creators, they’ve decided to redo the Dog Man stories...

This one otherwise contains three stories, which are all quite fun, as usual, with Dog Man’s usual hi-jinks as he tries to do his best as a police officer, despite the chief’s misgivings.

I normally don't read modern comics anymore (as in the last decade or so), but every once in a while something comes along that I break down and decide to try. And today that was Superman Space Age. I like Superman, I like Allred, and I like period pieces, so a triple threat of sorts.

And...it wasn't really what I expected. Had to put it down part way through, hard to put into words why. I read a comment from someone elsewhere that said something to effect of "Mark Russell is describing the era as he saw it from movies", and that kind of sums it up for me. Didn't feel authentic, and I also couldn't really recognize the characters. I'll stick with Darwyn Cooke.

The art is nice though.

Gotcha, yeah, guess that's the case. It's interesting you mention Elseworlds, I'm such an avid fan of so much old school Elseworlds material I was probably looking for some of that in this book, but times change and I'm probably stuck in the past.

A completely different beast, but I still love the old Superman/Madman crossover Allred did back in the 90's. I was probably hooked more by the thought of Allred on Superman again than anything else (and the art certainly does not disappoint).

I haven't read those, but I highly suspect Slam is right and it's more his style of writing is not my cup of tea. Space Age seems to get overall good reviews from what I've seen.