New comics

New comics!

New Champion of Shazam 4

A total letdown after a promising first issue.  Doc Shaner’s art is nice, but not nearly enough to make this worth buying.

Fables 157

Another disappointing series.  This is one of those tv series reboots that isn’t nearly as good as the original, even with the original cast returning.

Nightwing 100

The Trinity of Superman, Wonder Woman, and Batman make Dick the leader of the JLA.  Okay…Not so sure about that, but I’ll wait and see where Tom Taylor takes this.  Dick also makes the decision to build a Titans HQ in Bludhaven.  

This is an anniversary issue with a bunch of unnecessary guest artists.  As far as I’m concerned, make it shorter with only Bruno Redondo.

New comics

New comics!

Fantastic Four: Full Circle

Alex Ross writes and draws this tribute to Stan Lee and Jack Kirby.  The art is amazing, the colors are all Sixties-psychadelic in the best way, and the story is completely forgettable.  Certainly not sad that I own this now, but I sure wish Ross would team up with a better writer in the future.

21 Bridges

21 Bridges

I watched this because the guys on The Ringer podcast raved about it.  I couldn’t tell if they were being serious about it or not, but I was in the market for an action movie, and it was really nice to see Chadwick Boseman on the screen again.

This movie gives off major Negotiator vibes; an outsider cop brought in to handle an internal police matter that ends up being a lot more complicated beyond the first glance.  Not bad at all, and Boseman is magnetic on the screen.  But there isn’t anything that elevates it above a decent two hours spent.

Regret watching: No

Would watch again: Yes

Would buy on DVD: No

Rating: Nice

New comics

Human Target 10

Christopher Chance uncovers the truth, that Ice helped to stage Guy’s murder.  Along the way, Tom King gives the readers a G’Nort character study and another great Guy Gardner one-punch.

Not as good as some of the other issues (A little G’Nort goes a long way), but this is still a great series.

Danger Street 1-2

A new Tom King series, with his Rorschach partner Jorge Fornes.  It’s got a couple of strikes against it: The New Gods, annoying clueless kids, annoying evil kids, and an annoying right-wing tv personality blowhard.  But it’s early, it’s Tom King, and he’s almost never steered me wrong before.

New comics

I’ve got a month’s worth of comics to catch up on, I haven’t had time to go to my LCS in ages.

Batman: Beyond the White Knight 7

The Bat-Family reconciles and teams up to fight Derek Powers.  Definite diminishing returns with the Murphyverse (that’s really what they’re calling it).  This isn’t bad or anything, but I wouldn’t be sad if this was the last one.

Fantastic Four 1, 3

I picked this up based off of some glowing iFanboy reviews, and it’s as good as advertised.  Writer Ryan North comes up with some great high concepts for each of these standalone issues.  The comic shop was out of issue 2, but should be getting it in on reorder.  I’ll stick with this for a little while.

Mary Jane and Black Cat 1

I really liked their previous team-up, but this one’s a tie-in with Dark Web, which is basically Inferno 2.  Pass, the first Inferno didn’t do much for me, and the interplay between the two women isn’t good enough for me to stick around.  Jed MacKay had a great run on Black Cat, but this is the end of the road for me.

That's so Doom.

DCeased: War of the Undead Gods 5

Mxyzptlk gets infected.  Kilowog and John Stewart die.  Spectre shows up to save the day, and things just got a lot less interesting.  I’ve never been a fan of his.

Nightwing 99

A not-bad, but rather forgettable issue.  Melinda renounces her Zucco parentage.  Tom Taylor alludes to some kind of mysterious inheritance for Dick.  No doubt things will get better again soon.

Dark Knights of Steel 9

Tom Taylor does a really nice job of escalating the war.  Then it turns out it’s the White Martians, and Alfred has been the Martian Manhunter all along.  The first twist isn’t really surprising, the second one is pretty awesome.

That's so Batman.

Gotham City: Year One 4

In the tradition of the best film noirs, Slam Bradley gets beat up by corrupt cops, has sex, then beats up some cops.  Tom King and Phil Hester have a sweet mood piece on their hands.

Love Everlasting 5

Things are cleared up a teensy-weensy bit.  Some lady named Penny Page reveals the meta nature of the series to protagonist Joan, as well as the ominous existence of Joan’s mother.  But other than that, it’s still pretty opaque.  Still fun, though.

Final thoughts

Some thoughts:

• I started this on November 25, 2017.  My original math had this taking about seven years, so I clearly read faster than I first planned.

• Five years.  So that’s how long it takes to read my collection.  Three percent of my life for the last five years.  Not including the writing.

• I started with 11109 comics in my collection.  Ending with 11788.  Since I cut 1173 issues, I bought roughly 1852 comics in 5 years?  370 comics a year, 30 comics a month, 7 comics a week?  That sounds super high.  Though I guess I bought a bunch of trades in there too.

• The breakdown of ratings.  It’s reassuring to see that most of the comics in my collection are at least Nice.  There’d be something wrong if it were otherwise.  Note that this doesn’t include the ratings of the comics I cut.  And the Major Feels comics got equated with Pure Joy, which isn’t quite right.  (Transformers is objectively not a perfect comic…)

• 

• I don’t think I got any better as a writer from this.  If anything, my reviews got shorter and more perfunctory as time went along, certainly after my daughter was born.  But looking back at some of it, I’m still glad I did the review part of it.  It’s at least readable for me.  (And I’m really the only audience I care about for this.)

• I’ve still got a number of ongoing series that I haven’t reread.  I’ll probably review those as they finish up.

• I expect I’ll keep on reviewing new issues as I read them, as well as the odd movie/tv show here or there.

• I’m tempted to put all the Pure Joy/Really Good comics out on my shelves.  Now that I’ve confirmed what my actual favorite comics are.

• This was an amazing experience.  I stuck by my original plan of reading and writing every day.  I think I missed less than 10 days over the whole thing.  My love of comic books hasn’t wavered at all.  Indeed, it’s only reinforced my passion for this lifelong hobby of mine.  No regrets at all, I’m unduly proud of myself for doing this.  

• What’s next for me?  I’ve really been thinking about doing a little writing, maybe along the vein of Tom Beland’s True Story Swear to God strip.  I’ll give it a shot, at least.  Would need to find someone to draw it, though.  Maybe I’ll catch up on the shows and movies I’ve been putting off.  

• The only question left is: When do I do this again?  Maybe when I retire. 

Sandman

Sandman 74-75

Wow, finished this whole thing on the last day of the year.  The comics themselves are actually nothing special.  “The Wake” would have been a stronger ending for me, but I get why Neil Gaiman needed to end with “The Tempest.”  Also, I’ve had this closing image in my mind for quite some time, ever since the end of this project started coming into view:

Regret buying: No

Would buy again: Yes

Would read again: Yes

Rating: Nice

I'll write some final thoughts later today or tomorrow, but otherwise that's it for now!

Last two box summaries!

The stuff that’s still on the shelf:

Time spent reading: 43 hours, 22 minutes

Issues read: 304

Issues cut: 1

Highlights (Good or better): Cross Game; Black Widow 1-5; Nextwave 1-9, 11; Secret Avengers 20; Vision; Swing; Sunstone; Fine Print; Pedro and Me; Road Trip; Adventures of Barry Ween, Boy Genius; Saga 37-54; Lost Girls; Mary Jane and Black Cat: Beyond; Captain Marvel 27; Injustice: Year Zero; Injustice 2; DCeased; DCeased: A Good Day to Die; DCeased: Unkillables; DCeased: Hope at World’s End

Project Summary:

Time spent reading: 61 days, 7 hours, 10 minutes

Issues read: 12713

Issues cut: 1173

Vertigo Box 7

Time spent reading: 28 hours, 54 minutes

Issues read: 178

Issues cut: 0

Highlights (Good or better): Preacher 8-12, 18-24, 27-48, 50-52, 54-66; Preacher: Saint of Killers; Preacher: One Man’s War; Murder Mysteries; Stardust; Sandman 1, 3-4, 6, 8-9, 12-14, 17-18, 21-24, 26-28, 31, 38, 41-51, 53-54, 57-73; Sandman Special; Sandman: Dream Hunters; Sandman: Overture; Death: High Cost of Living

Project Summary:

Time spent reading: 62 days, 12 hours, 4 minutes

Issues read: 12891

Issues cut: 1173

Two other final stats:

Average read time per issue: 6.98 minutes

Percentage of issues cut: 9.1