The things I have seen

Here's what I've poured into the brain of late...

• The One I Love - Interesting premise of a married couple working through romantic struggles are recommended by their therapist to take a weekend away at a specific countryside villa. The couple find the the villa's guest house has a surprise in store for them, a surprise that at first seems positive but then turns darker, threatening their marriage and even their lives.
  
  The secret of the villa is never revealed - some suggestions of both magic and technology are suggested - and the rules of the game aren't always consistent making the twist a little less acceptable to me. The actors did a fine job with their parts, each changing their character just enough to fit well with the villa's secrets, but the film felt largely predictable and never paid up on its promise. Good, not great...
• Wet Hot American Summer - With the decidedly NSFW preview of Wet Hot American Summer: First Day of Camp making its appearance this week, I thought it time to give the original a try. I started by reading "The Ultimate Oral History of Wet Hot American Summer" from Details magazine and finding out some entertaining tidbits - particularly that the weather was awful for almost the entire shoot and that the cast often found nonsensical ways to move from one scene to the next (simply walking off piers, handing trophies off-screen). The movie, however, was a disappointment. It certainly has a cast with enough comedy chops to produce something glorious - and I'm still hopeful that the sequel can be glorious - but that promise never comes together to provide more than a few chucklesome moments. This is clearly the work of sketch comics who were learning to write beyond the sketches but hadn't yet found a way to write a complete film.

• Irredeemable vol 7 & 8 - Thankfully PLCH didn't pick up the last two volumes to finish collecting this series, especially since volume 9 collected only two frickin' issues. The story continues to get darker with every opportunity for hope ending with another few million people dead as the Plutonian (a Superman archetype) kills more people to definitively remind people not to mess with him. Don't spend as much time with this series as I did.
• Batgirl vol 5: Deadline - Meh...there are some redeeming qualities to this version of Batgirl: her reliance on family, her intelligence, her red hair. But the continuingly incestuous nature of her storylines (brother's a serial killer, ex-roommate is a secret agent trying to recruit Batgirl, a schoolmate being the Big Bad of this story arc) has become tiresome. The writers need to stop looking inward, trying to apparently tie the entire Gordon clan into one big Gordian knot. I'm hoping that Batgirl of Bensonhurst can redeem some of the good but clear the rest.

• Batman/Superman: Game Over - Eight issues collected from two series (Batman/Superman and World's Finest) and apparently drawn by a half dozen different artists makes for a very jumbled read, the constant art changes drawing a reader abruptly out of the story, which is sad because some of the stories are actually interesting reads. Batman and Superman are threatened by a Toyman-created video game augmented by Mongul's interference, Mongul's son appears to avenge his father's defeat, and Powergirl and Huntress (both from Earth 2, something that I thought wasn't going to exist in the New 52 universe) come to the Batman/Superman pair seeking help. Even more egregious than the use of frequent artist changes (sometimes even in the middle of a story arc) is the use of horizontal pagination for two issues. Seriously, they made me turn my whole comic 90 degrees sideways to read two of the issues - for no reason that I could understand. Meh...oh, and weirdly, I kind of like how Jai Lee draws his characters, but I cannot stand that he doesn't ever draw backgrounds. His people just float in smoggy/smokey/hazey multicolored clouds.

• Batman Beyond: 10,000 Clowns - Seriously, does every new supervillian have to be an estranged brother (or sister or ex-roommate or childhood friend) of the hero? Yeah, here the Big Bad is the hero's girlfriend's brother, but it's still too tightly wound for my tastes. I really like the Terry McGinnis version of Batman with Max and Bruce as his technological helpers. The television series was incredibly well made, and most of the comics I've read in this run have been as well. This volume, too is well written and drawn, but I do tire of the incestuous battles that all of the heroes seem to perpetually face.
• Wonder Woman: vol 3 Iron and vol 4 War - And yet, I dig the familial ties throughout this run of Wonder Woman. Here we have Diana winding her way through her Olympian family trying to recover and protect their newest member, baby Zeke, about whom a prophesy has vaguely foretold dire events to come for the Olympians. Diana is forced to ally herself with Olympians who may or may not be trustworthy - and whose allegiances seem to shift from moment to moment. The center - Wonder Woman, herself - always seems to hold, however, and that keeps her motley band together...barely. And now Wonder Woman has the power and responsibilities of the God of War imbuing her. Where do we go from here?

• Fantastic Four: Island of Death - Welcome to sunny - and deadly - Puerto Rico. This volume collects four stories of the FF in and around the island nation. In fact, the island's beauty and charm are so much at the forefront of the stories (and of the natives' words) that I'm curious whether this was produced in conjunction with the Puerto Rica board of tourism. In all, the stories and art are entertaining enough, though, that I don't really care. It's fluff, but it's fun fluff. Interesting, too, that the comic was also released in Spanish.
• Suicide Squad: Kicked in the Teeth - blech...just blech...nasty, nasty blech
• Harley Quinn: Hot in the City - I'm going to quote from Collected Edition's review of this volume to start...

  Conner and Palmiotti's Harley Quinn series is not uproariously funny, but it is entertaining and goofy. Most appealing about the book is its bizarre range -- ultra-violent battles with ludicrous assassins we maybe expect, but it's wondrously confusing when the audience suddenly finds themselves, in the midst of it all, with Harley watching a burlesque, competing in roller derby, or holding a rooftop party for the tenants of her new apartment building (a trick Palmiotti pulled in Superboy, too). To some extent the new Harley Quinn series doesn't know what it is, except that it's not superhero comics as usual, and that may be its biggest selling point.

  That's about right. It's fun but it isn't brilliant fun. The first issue, however, is well worth finding and reading as Harley destroys the fourth wall auditioning various artists for her first solo book, each artist getting a couple of pages to showcase how he or she (I didn't actually pay enough attention to see if there was actually a female artist included anywhere). The rest of the volume never lives up to that excellence, but at least it's a fun read.

• Batwoman: World's Finest - Here we get more gorgeous Batwoman artwork from JH Williams and a continuation of the previous two volumes' ever growing and tightening noose of conspiracy centered around the apparent crime organization Medusa - until we find that Medusa is The Medusa, the Gorgon, the sister of Greek mythology - which requires Batwoman to step up her game and team up with Wonder Woman, with whom she stands side by side, holding her own every red-booted step of the way. This is a fascinating Bat-family title in that is almost never overlaps with Batman, Robin, or even Batgirl, and I think that makes for a stronger character, one who doesn't need to be part of the Family in order to be successful. And there's the character-developing plot of her relationship with Maggie Sawyer as a well-written bonus. Check this one out, for certain.

Her own name blog!

Kerry Callen has a blog.

On the blog, she posts comic-book-related artwork like the animated cover above (and others)...

...parody comic artwork...

...a search for the best 'battle of the century'...

...modern recreations of classic comic covers, and a whole bunch more comic-y goodness.

Humble Bundle...a humble bargain

Go and buy the Humble Bundle right now.

For about twenty bucks, you can get the entire Locke and Key series (digital format, not print), one of the absolute best series in the past decade.

And that's only six of the more than sixteen collected editions (including Alan Moore's full Nemo series) that you'll get.

Seriously, go...buy...it...now.

And we go again...

What've you been reading?

Here's my answer...

• Batman: Zero Year - Secret City - Holy crap with the long title and subtitles...weak artwork, moderately interesting story about Bruce Wayne when he was first being Batman...fighting 'Red Hood' who he throws into a vat of Axis Chemicals in the finale...nothing revolutionary but probably something necessary to establish in the New 52 that this happened there, too...three out of five stars...
• Wolvering and the X-Men (vol 8) - interesting stories of the students at the Jean Grey School for mutants or weirdos or whatever with Wolvie as headmaster...they've written some new and intriguing baby X-Men of late...worth a read but certainly not required...three of five...

• Justice League (vol 5) Forever Heroes - Crime Syndicate (from Earth, I think, 3) come to the main title and the main Earth in the New 52...weirdly, this volume doesn't have a single appearance by Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman, or the rest of the actual Justice League...six issues without the main characters other than Cyborg who has to save the day...kind of a fascinating premise...I really do like the Crime Syndicate way more than I should...I'm curious to see where this is going...four of five...
• Adventures of Superman (vol 1-3) - bunch of short stories about Superman - some a full issue long, some only a few pages - most of which could have shown up at any time in the New 52 continuity...not every one is perfect, but a lot of them are of really high quality...four of five

• X-Men (vol 1-3) - this has to be the twentieth series titled X-Men, good lord...actually, I think it's only the fourth, but who's counting...most of these issues are of a team of all-female X-Men (Ororo, Rogue, Jubilee, Psylock, Rachel Grey, and a couple of others I don't know from before)...decently interesting stories including some inner-team conflict and some reborn lady villains (no idea who female heroes can only fight female villains - Lady Deathstrike, Madelyn Pryor, Selene, Arkea)...three out of five...
• Fables (vol 9) - I've read the whole series before, but I'm rereading them as I get the collected hardbacks...this one was a gift from the parents for m'birthday (don't know if I mentioned, forty)...war comes to Fables - and ends within this volume...great plan from the Fabletown Fables to take down the Empire via a series of surgical strikes...great writing...four of five stars

Quick hitters comics I've read

Superman/Batman (volume 2) by Jeph Loeb & Ed McGuiness - easily the best read of the month...outstanding time-travel/alternative worlds story of three villains from the League of Superheroes time frame kidnapping baby Batman & Superman...lots of callbacks to various old-school DC history and a creative cross-over with alternative/parody versions of the Ultimates from the Ultimate Marvel universe...I'd read it before, and it's still outstanding...and then there's Superman/Batman #26 which wasn't collected in the original, smaller collections...touching story of Robin reflecting on how much he misses his friend Superboy...story written by Jeph's son, Sam, and drawn by twenty-six different artists in tribute to Sam who passed away before it was published...also has a shorter story of a young man named Sam who was Clark Kent's friend before he passed away from cancer...heartbreaking, touching, brilliant...easily five out of five stars...

Black Widow: The Finely Woven Thread - Good art, interesting story of character redemption, cliched use of main character's acceptance of a stray cat to parallel her journey of acceptance in finding a home...four of five stars...

Superman/Wonder Woman: volume 1 Power Couple - pretty good read of two characters who are more new to the world than I'm used to them being and trying to find out how to have a private relationship when they're the two most powerful people on the planet...the cover, however, looks like soft core porn and embarrasses me to even have in my library stack...four out of five stars...

Wolverine and the X-Men: Death of Wolverine - Oddly, no actual death of Wolverine takes place in this issue, just lots of building up to Wolverine dying and the aftermath of Wolverine post-death. Feels very much like an ancillary part of a massive summer cross-over...three our of five stars...

Batman/Superman: volume 1 Cross World - moderately interesting story of Batman & Superman from New 52 Earth 1 meeting their counterparts from Earth 2. Fights and cooperation and then fights ensue. Horrible artwork from Jae Lee...every scene seems to take place in a fog bank where the characters are in perfect focus but they are against a blank background...three out of five stars

Batman Beyond 2.0: Justice Lords Beyond - revisiting of the revisiting of a story line from the Batman Beyond tv show showing what happened after the last time the Justice Lords appeared in the comic which showed what happened after the Justice Lords appeared in the tv series...hard to follow the fight scenes between characters from the two worlds because the differences in costumes are too subtle...three out of five stars

Justice League: volume 2 Villain's Journey - Jim Lee's art annoys me with everybody having far too many lines and always looking either asleep or angry with no middle ground...too much yelling when they should just be talking...interesting premise (man turns into villain when his family gets killed in a Justice League fight)...poor execution...threads leading to splitting off of Justice League and creation of Justice League of America...three out of five stars...

Justice League: volume 3 Throne of Atlantis - Ivan Reis artwork is a little better, but the characters are still always angry at each other and prone to fly off the handle at the smallest slight...seems poor characterization because they aren't getting any better as 'time' goes on...two stories here: Cheetah vs JL and Atlantis vs JL...neither are great...minor moments of relationship between Supes & WW are more interesting...three out of five stars

Justice League: volume 4 The Grid - here comes the cross-over fight with the Justice League Dark & Justice League of America...not interesting...seriously, these people seem to fight each other at the smallest little provocation...they're like children with superpowers...the infiltration from the Crime Syndicate on Earth 3, however, is more interesting...sadly most of that is coming in the next volume...three out of five stars...

Incredible Hulk: Past Perfect - boring, jumbled mess of a storyline when Bruce Banner had contracted cancer and was dying...but of course, gets saved - weirdly by the Leader. Lots of different characterizations of the Hulk - grey thug from the 50's, brainless green brute, smart green brute...two out of five stars

Ultimate Comics X-Men (vol 3) - some sort of war between mutants lead by Jean Grey and by Kitty Pryde including an apparently conscious, mutant seed...dumb...two out of five stars

Now, please

Marvel Studios and Charlie Wen, you are doing everything correctly, because I desperately want this to come out like yesterday.

So, whatcha been reading, ChemGuy?

Birdman (or The Unexpected Virtue of Innocence) - I will readily admit that I didn't get it.

I went into Birdman excited and really wanting to get it. I'd heard that it was one of the best films of the year and that it was some sort of technical marvel - not that any of the hints and reviews that I'd done fair diligence to avoid made more than oblique reference to whatever the technical marvel was just saying that Birdman deserved high praise for its special effects.

I get most of the film, an aging former comic book movie star directs, produces, and stars in his own adaptation of a Raymond Carver play trying to redeem himself - for himself and for his reputation. I get the lack of cuts in the film - that's impressive, yeah. I get the impressive acting from all involved - Keaton, Stone, Norton, Galifianakis. I get the older actor trying to stay relevant in the internet age.

I don't get what the truth of the film was. (Spoilers: highlight at your own risk.) I saw things that clearly aren't real - flying, telekinesis, floating, voices from inside Keaton's head, fire raining down on the street, a giant bird landing on and destroying a building, Keaton shooting himself in the head on-stage and surviving. And I saw clear signs that those things weren't real - the taxi driver chasing Keaton into the theater for his fare, the street not really being destroyed from the bird attack, Keaton using his hands to toss his dressing room after using his 'telekinesis' to do the same. Then came the ending with Stone looking into the sky...with joy. Dead or not dead? Really a superhero or not? In a dream or in reality? What are we supposed to believe? (spoilers over)

I like to think I'm a sophisticated enough movie watcher that I can tolerate a little ambiguity, but for whatever reason, this ambiguity didn't sit well with me.

I don't get it.

Saga (vol 4) - The saga of Saga continues to roll along. The first three were spectacular. This one's a notch or two below those, but it's still good quality reading. Don't start here but do start from the beginning and get here.

American Vampire (vol 7) - I'd kind of forgotten that there was a thorough and over-arching plot here, but this volume is all plot, bringing Skinner Sweet back into the plot as he, Pearl, and the other remaining American Vampires find themselves being hunted by the Grey Trader, the first vampire, the devil. Here we see a the American Vampires tying into the greater vampire family tree, trying to save child vampires from the older clans from the Grey Trader.

Then the final, largely prose, story comes along and knocks it all out of the park. This is one of the better volumes of the series, but it would certainly be a tough one to step into without having read the rest of the series up to now.

It's another one to read...but from the beginning.

Amazing X-Men (vol 1 & 2) - Boring, not great...

Nightcrawler is dead but comes back to life. The X-Men find their way to heaven, hell, and purgatory in a quest to find their friend, a quest that they happened to find themselves on rather than one for which they went questing. Meh...

The second volume with the curse of the Wendigo (you turn into a Wendigo if you eat human flesh on Canadian soil) is a bit more impressive but not exactly spectacular, either. Meh again...

Superman: Red Son - This is probably the best read of the week. This Elseworlds tale posits what might have happened if Superman's rocket had landed on Earth twelve hours later (or earlier, who knows which), putting him in the Ukraine where he grew up believing in truth, justice, and the Soviet way.

Along the way of Superman's rise from poor kid on the collective farm to world leader sees the characters of Batman, Lex Luthor, Green Lantern, Wonder Woman, and most of the supporting characters in the Superman mythos. It's a brilliant rewriting of the entire story that becomes even more impressive as the tale wraps around to eat its own tail in the last page.

Great stuff...

The Superior Spider-Man (vol 6) - I'd been curious as to how the writers were going to wrap up the story of Otto Octavious living Peter Parker's life and residing inside Parker's head. Their choice - to have Otto realize that he couldn't possibly beat the Green Goblin as Octavious but rather must give himself back to Parker and allow himself to dissolve away. It all works very well here. Nice job, Dan Slott.

The Amazing Spider-Man (vol 1, 1.1, 2) - Dan Slott continues here with the recently restored Peter Parker trying to slip back into a life that has changed in some drastic ways thanks to Otto's running of it while the true office holder was out on other business. Turns out Peter likes some of the changes, and people are somewhat reluctant to hang out with the recently grouchy PP. Anna Marie, Otto's soon-to-be fiance, takes things surprisingly well. Well enough that I have to assume there's another shoe to drop somewhere along the way.

The return of a racked off Black Cat, a retelling of the Spider-Man origin with new 'villain', the introduction of a pending Spider-Verse, team-up with the new Ms Marvel, surprising return of the 'villain' from Peter's origin story...it all works really well. It's good to have the original back.

Teen Titans: Earth One (vol 1) - boring...I do appreciate that it's the Teen Titans without Robin but that otherwise it's pretty much the team that I know and love (Terra, Cyborg, Joseph Slade, Changling, Raven, and Starfire). I didn't appreciate that their origins all came from alien 'DNA' grafting. I won't be hunting down the second volume. Even the artwork from the Dodsons didn't do anything for me. Yes, it's cute to see alternative-reality versions of the storylines I know and love with tons of little nods for people who had read the original comics, but nostalgia doesn't mean greatness.

Thanos: Infinity Revelation - I don't know whether this is an example of synergy between the movie and print arms of the Marvel mega-megia empire or just coincidence, but Thanos is about the has his profile raised significantly with the coming Marvel Phase III films. (As always, go Charlie Wen)

The story is written to be epic in scope and to further the continuing rivalry between Thanos and Adam Warlock. I don't know the two characters' combined history, so it didn't have much impact on me. Meh...

Inhumans - The artwork is Jae Lee at his sloppiest barely looking in many cases like the gorgeous artwork he's produced in the past. The storyline revels in a horrible combination of 'I'm smarter than you' between Black Bolt and his jailed brother. Each tops the other by claiming he had known all along what the other's plan was and showing...telling us, really...how he had anticipating that exact move. Little too much of that for all of me. I do appreciate the somewhat creative way to get the Inhumans moved into hiding again.

Fantastic 4 (by James Robinson) - The only good thing I can say here is that I love the cover to the first volume (seen to the left). Nothing else is worth perusing.

Daytripper by Fabio Moon & Gabriel Ba - This one was fascinating and oddly, wasn't about super heroes. I know how rare it is for me to turn to the non-spandex stories, but I did, and I'm glad I did.

We get here a retelling of a dozen birthdays of the fictional Bras, the son a great author in Brazil. Bras's story is told through retellings of what might have been on each of his birthdays. Unluckily for Bras, he dies in the course of each retelling - though it appears that he doesn't die when Bras shows up the next issue as fine as frog's hair.

Great stuff here

The comics I've put into my brain

Here's what I've been reading...

Excellent

• Hawkeye: L.A. Woman - Matt Fraction, Annie Wu, and Javier Pulido are rocking Hawkeye. The artwork is brilliant, the stories are quickly engaging. The book is outstanding. Here we don't even see Clint Barton after the first couple of pages in which Kate Bishop (a kind of Hawkeye Jr, Lady Hawkeye) tells Clint off and bugs off for the left coast where she resolutely refuses to take her father's financial support, hangs up her shingle for private detective work, and finds herself investigating a series of (not shockingly) interwoven cases, all of which were set into motion by Kate's past with Madame Masque. Definitely a series to start reading if you aren't already. Apparently these issues were interwoven in the regular series with Barton-specific issues. So said Matt Fraction, himself.
• What If by Randall Munroe - I firmly pledge myself to the cult of Randall. I've been reading his What If column online for a while now (not quite since the beginning but for a fair while) and dig his 'serious scientific answers to absurd hypothetical questions' as illustrated by xkcd-style stick figure drawings. Randall's particular style delves into the ridiculously and well educatedly scientific answers to the absurd questions asked by his readers. This book reprints the majority of columns he's published online and adds in a few new ones (particularly the outstanding-for-my-class 'What if you tried to build a periodic table made of brick-sized chunks of each corresponding element?' which doesn't seem to be available online, sadly) and a smattering of questions that he entertainingly rejects from the realm of the answered. Yes, most of the questions are available for free online, but there's enough new content and updates here and there (barely noticeable if Randall didn't necessarily point them out in the always entertaining footnotes) that the book is worth a buy. I will at least be copying/scanning the periodic table answer for future reading in chem class.
• Ms Marvel vol 1 -  The artwork's outstanding - and refreshing, reminiscent of Triplets of Belleville. The story's a blast and brilliantly representative of a a teenager trying to find her way. I can't speak to the teenager trying to find her way in a foreign land, but if Marvel can keep publishing this line - and we (not me, honestly) can keep buying enough of these issues to keep them being published - then we'll be doing some good. And it helps that the writers are telling a hell of a story along the way.
• Ultimate Comics Spider-Man Vol 5 - The cover of this volume is an homage to Amazing Spider-Man #50 in which Peter Parker hung up the Spider-Man costume in the first of many crises of conscience. Here Mile Morales goes through a similar crisis after his mother dies because of the actions that come to him because his Spider-Man identity. In the course of this volume, Gwen Stacey, Mary Jane Watson, Spider-Woman (Jessica Drew), Miles's friends, and even the Ultimates convince him to pick up the mantle again because he, of course, has great power so he must have great responsibilities. It could be a very hokey arc, but it works well in Bendis's hands, something that doesn't surprise me at this point. After Miles puts the costume back on, he helps Spider-Woman and the newly-introduced Cloak and Dagger to take down Roxxon, a facelessly-evil corporation that helped create the various heroes. Good stuff...don't

Pretty Good

• Uncanny X-Men: Vol 1 Revolution - Holy crap! The X-Men have split into different teams with different philosophies and missions! And each team has taken on a different visual identity with new costumes for everybody! It's moderately interesting, but it's ground that has been tread so many times that it's not remotely new - nor does it promise any sort of lasting change. Volume 2: Broken is decently better, and the artwork is really coming into its own and starting to impress me, particularly in the very first issue of the second collection, in which the team heads to Limbo to take on the dread Dormammu. Go, Chris Bachalo!
• Morning Glories (vol 1 -7) - Seriously, I read all seven so-far-published collected volumes of Morning Glories. I'd heard some good things about the series, and all seven were sitting right there on the shelf at the Sharonville PLCH branch. The story certainly begins interestingly enough with the soon-to-be-known-as Glories arriving to the exclusive, private, boarding school and finding that things there are a little more cut-throat and deadly than they would have been at any previous schools. From there we delve into time travel, Spy-vs-Spy crosses and double-crosses, deaths and resurrections, cyclical dealings that themselves lead into their own initiating events, and unexplained motives and origins.
  
  In all honesty, I found the first few volumes of the series absolutely fascinating and read them voraciously. Then the plot kept not explaining things - how people came back from the dead, the origins/identify/motives of the unseen Headmaster, where the heck things were going, how the titular Morning Glories Academy continued to exist as they picked off their students one by one - and I'm officially giving up now. My guess is that it's pretty interesting, but the writers are taking far too long to get to wherever they're going.
• Batman: Detective Comics vol 3 Mad - I'm of two minds here on one side, there's the interesting story arc of the Mad Hatter trying to recreate his one, perfect day as a young man and kidnapping half of Gotham to make it happen. It works. It's interesting. It gives Jervis Tech a much more interesting backstory than he's had before. It also works to give Jervis some 'super powers' via the various teas that he ingests/drinks/blows into Batman's face.
  
  The problem with this volume is that Batman falls in love, considers giving up being Batman, reveals his identify to another woman. She, of course, dies and ends up being bait to draw Batman into Tech's trap. And in the next issue, it's back to Batman of old with no romantic entanglements. Seriously, to how many women has Batman revealed his secret identity through the years?
• Batman And Robin vol 1-4 - This is the first time I can remember a Batman & Robin series actually being about Batman & Robin. Yeah, there have been series with that title before, and they've told stories that involved Batman & Robin, but they weren't about the relationship between Batman and - in this case, his son - Robin. It's an interesting turn to see Batman trying to be a father to Damien - both in his role as Batman and as Bruce Wayne, leading Damien to be a better man and a better Robin. Then Damien dies (in a different series, admittedly), and the series shifts with Batman trying to deal with his loss. It's actually really interesting and well written.

Fine

• Batman '66 -  meh...there's nothing particularly wrong with this volume - in fact, the artwork's pretty good and stylish and colorful, entirely truthful to the spirit of the original 1966 television show. There's also nothing particularly right about the series, either. The set pieces are far more elaborate than anything that the television show could ever manage, but that doesn't necessarily make for magically great stories. They're fine. They just don't interest me too much.
• Batman/Judge Dredd Collection - This is a collection of four stories, the first three of which see Judge Dredd crossing over into Gotham and dealing with Batman. (Weirdly, the last issue sees Dredd crossing over with Lobo, the most 90s of DC characters - no Batman to be found anywhere in that one.) The art style is interesting, very much unlike things seen in typical comic books and much more Vertigo, dark, sketchy. Kinda fun for a while, but the stories didn't interest me.

Poor

• Batman: Detective Comics vol 2: Scare Tactics -  This is crap. Horribly violent, ridiculously and almost comedically angry Batman. Blech...
• Hulk: Dark Son - I could not be more tired of the entire Hulk family (Red Hulk, She-Hulk, Abomination, Skaar, Hiro-Kala, Lyra). Actually, it's the utterly inconsistent and whimful characterization of all of the characters that I'm tired of. Every character switches from angry to helpful to sad to rational to badonkers crazy and back again in the space of seemingly every couple of panels. I miss the Hulk that only wanted to be alone.

Texts from Superheroes

See, they're text conversations between superheroes (and villains)...It's funny, see?

A whole lot of comics and one crappy Lego book

Really good things I've read lately

• Flash: Rogues Revolution (vol 2) and Gorilla Warfare (vol 3) (new 52) - The relaunch of Flash is working really well. I dig the artwork; I dig the change of romantic interest from Iris Allen to Patty Spivot, a crime scene investigator and Barry Allen's professional equal. I dig the redesign of the Glider from stupid, golden skater to mostly intangible astral projection. I dig the idea of Speed Force as being a weird dimension.
  
  I really, really dig the artwork.
  
  Sadly I couldn't read the first volume as the library copy I checked out had a bunch of pages ripped out. Stupid teenagers

Good things I've read lately

• Action Comics: Superman and the Men of Steel (vol 1), Bulletproof (vol 2), and At the End of Days (vol 3) (new 52) - I haven't been a huge fan of Grant Morrison's writing, finding Batman (Black Glove, et al) and Final Crisis needlessly complicated, hard to follow, and difficult to understand. There are time-jumps a plenty, multidimensional villains, and attacks that aren't even remotely what they appear to be. These stories work only on the very, very long term, rewarding readers for paying attention to and remembering story breadcrumbs laid down years previously.
  
  Here, it actually kind of works. Admittedly, though, the three-volume storyline is far greater than the individual issue parts are on their own. In fact, at times, the individual issues were somewhat confusing, jumping from past to future, new 52 universe to an Earth-23's President Black Superman. In the end, though, Morrison actually brings things together to a satisfying wrap-up.
• Invincible Ultimate Collection Volume 9 -  Admittedly, there's a bit of save-the-world fatigue at this point in Invincible because the world has been nearly destroyed dozens and dozens of times, the Viltrumites have fought again and again, and Mark has been left for dead dozens of times.
  
  But it just keeps working.
  
  Every time I think the series's gone too far, I keep wanting to read more. The cliffhanger at the end of this volume - with Mark trapped in another dimension - has me biting my nails again. Nice job, Kirkman.
• Fairest: Of Men and Mice - Cinderella takes the series for a run here with something that certainly would have fit in tidely in the main series. In fact, much of the storyline ties in neatly to the building tension of the main series's impending wrap-up as we find in the end that a plot set into running by Brandish (now trying to redeem himself in Rose Red's army of hope) is nearly seen to fruition by an Leigh who ends this volume practically laughing maniacally and rubbing her hands together.
  
  The actual plot sees Cindy quelling an assassination attempt against her and Snow White, attempts involving hundreds of rat-human hybrids of varying levels of ratness and humanness (yes, humanness, shut up). The plotline wraps up neatly enough and isn't much more than an unnecessary sideline from the main series's continuing march toward the inevitable. Let's get back to the main tale, shall we?
• X-Men Legacy (vol 1-4) - This exploration of Legion (Prof X's son) mental illness and attempts to right his world and control his powers is surprisingly interesting. Definitely worth a try.

Passable things I've read lately

• How to Fake a Moon Landing -  I really wanted to like this one. It's a graphic novel/comic book/picture story that points out that science disbelievers are misguided. The book tackles moon landing disbelievers, autism-vaccine linkers, homeopath purveyors, and all sorts of other mistaken folks.
  
  I wanted to like it, but I just didn't. It's too one-note, too pedantic, lacking any subtlety whatsoever. Maybe younger readers might be more willing to read through this lack of subtlety, but I only made it through about half the book before I sent it back to PLCH.
• Batgirl: Knightfall Descends (vol 2) and Death of the Family (vol 3) (new 52) - First off, I was embarrassed to even pick up vol Knightfall Descends because of the horrible cover. Apparently the artist was trying to come up with a horrifically sexist cover showing off Batgirl's apparently massive quads and a spandex-covered view of the holiest of holies. I couldn't carry the comic around without covering it up with another book. Good lord, folks. (Check out the image to the right there...click to make it larger)
  
  The continued exploration of the after effects of Barbara Gordon's shooting and temporary paralysis at the hands of the Joker (in the still kind of in-continuity Killing Joke) is an interesting and likely necessary choice if they're going to keep Barbara Gordon's past in continuity. The girl Talon, continuing the Court of Owls crossover is happily passed by quickly. The weird, girl version of Jean-Paul Valley/Azrael named Knightfall here (referencing the broken-back storyline from the old 52) comes next...meh. The best part of the Batgirl series so far has been the search of Batgirl to find independence, finding her own apartment, making a new friend with her roommate. The villains here are forgettable.
  
  Then comes the crapfest that is Death of the Family. CRAPfest...the face ripped off and stapled back on Joker is a whole bunch of horrible ideas, as is the 'Joker wants to marry Batgirl'. Even worse is the introduction of Barbara's brother James, Jr as a horribly psychotic, disastrous badguy who knows Barbara is Batgirl. Bad, bad, bad idea and execution.
• Superman: Fury at World's End (new 52) - Meh...Superman and Wonder Woman hide their relationship from fellow heroes...the biggest threat (another Kryptonian but with super science ability and superpowers that Superman and Supergirl don't have) ever to Earth to the whole solar system EVER...zzzzz
  
  Yes, the sight of Clark Kent talking to Lois Lane while thinking about Wonder Woman followed immediately with Supergirl barging into Clark's apartment - which Lois dismisses as Clark doing 'blog interviews with comely cosplayers.'
  
  And the entertaining prison traps built around Lex Luthor - traps which only Superman can break through when he needs to talk to Luthor - are pretty fun.
  
  But the actual plotline isn't very interesting.

Awful things I've read lately

• Brick Flicks -  Good lord is this stupid. It's a collection of film photos or posters recreated in the medium of Lego. There is almost no Lego-related information - no discussion of the Lego techniques involved, a very few wordless photography building instructions (which alternate between ridiculously, pointlessly simplistic and ridiculously hard to follow due to the gigantic jumps made between steps), just a few paragraphs of tepid movie summaries with a cute closing sentence.

The latest in the media in my brain

Things I've read (mostly comic books) of late...

Really Good stuff...

• Afterlife with Archie: escape from Riverdale - I was shocked that this was actually really good. There's an impressive depth of characterization in the Archie gang's backstory here, setting up a number of impressively emotional moments as Riverdale is overrun by zombies created through an unfortunate Pet Sematary-style screw-up between Jughead and Sabrina the Teenage Witch. There could be a stronger ending, but they're aiming for an ongoing series here not for a neat, tidy wrap-up. Very much worth a read, good stuff.
• Fables: Camelot (vol 20) - We're headed toward the end, and I'm desperately sad about it. There are only two collections remaining after this one in the spectacular Fables series, and this one sets all the pieces into place for the climax. Rose Red and Snow, the two sisters who have been main characters issue one, are now pointed at odds with each other. Bigby is gone but working his way back. Even Gepetto is plotting to regain some of his old power. The new North Wind is marshaling her power for a pending battle between her mother and aunt. And the boys in the band return to the homelands with an idea, maybe the last idea of the series. This is going to be tough, but I'm happy I've been here the whole time.
• Young Avengers vol 1-3 - The entire series only lasted fifteen issues, so it wasn't that tough to read it in its entirety here in these three volumes. Nicely, these fifteen issues tell one coherent story, that of a teen superteam brought together to fight the interdimensional terror that they have accidentally summoned. It's a good reading of a pretty standard teen-team set of tropes (adults don't understand them; they're younger versions of adult heroes trying to live up to and throw off their legacies; they fall in and out of love with each other; they bring in other outcasts). Luckily it all works. Give this one a read - especially all the way to the series finale which is excellent but depends on knowing what's come before.

Decent stuff...

• Uncanny X-Men, vol 1 -  I like the idea of bringing back the Celestials as a plot point. I like the use of Sinister trying to take control of Celestial. It's a natural overreach from a most egotistical villain. What I didn't care for was the ending that consisted of Cyclops talking a lot to beings far more powerful than he...than all of the X-Men combined. Even the two single-issue stories worked well. Worth a check out but not perfect.
• Batman Beyond: Batgirl Beyond - Sadly, the titular Batgirl Beyond isn't a multi-issue arc. It's just one issue, but it's a pretty good issue...as are the rest of the issues here. See, Bruce Wayne is bringing some friends back into the Bat Family. Terry's girlfriend comes into the fold. Batgirl comes into the fold. The Metal Men come into the fold. Dick Grayson might be coming back into the fold. This one's owrth a read.
• Black Canary and Zatanna: Bloodspell - Nothing special here. The story's kind of entertaining (particularly the small moments of Zatanna bringing toy JLAers to life and the fight with the Key on the old JLA satellite.) The artwork, however, was poor. On balance, meh...

Bad stuff...

• Spider-Man: Torment - Yay, Todd McFarlane! Draw a million extra lines to make things seem serious and dark and unpleasant. See, Spider-Man's lighthearted. He jokes. He laughs. He quips. But here he doesn't do any of those things. He just suffers and broods. Dumb.
• Batman The Dark Knight: Knight Terrors - It's a poor rehash of the Arkham breakout from Knightsend. Apparently Bane's in charge of the whole thing...maybe...or maybe the White Rabbit (a new porn star Bat-villain) is in charge or maybe nobody is. Avoid this one.
• Superman: What Price Tomorrow - This one introduces new villains for Superman (dumb ones), concocts a conspiracy to defeat Superman (it doesn't, of course), sells of the Daily Planet to a faceless, evil corporation (without any justification of the evilness other than that it's a corporation). Bad stuff...avoid this, too...
• Guardians of the Galaxy: Cosmic Avengers -  Ah, corporate synergy. The movie Guardians of the Galaxy team wasn't ever together in total in the comic books. They were gathered from various incarnations of the team over the past few decades. Here, however, Marvel puts together the team from the movie, and it doesn't work. Avoid this one, as well.
• Earth 2: The Gathering - Look, it's dumb reimaginings of dumb reimaginings of the superheroes you care about. See, it's not the New 52 Superman (a lesser version of the Superman you care about), it's an alternate version of the New 52 Superman...and Batman...and Wonder Woman...and The Flash...and Hawkgirl...and Green Lantern (he's gay, but they kill his partner after one page)...and Solomon Grundy. It's like the plague.

Here's my next few years' plans

Big thanks to Comics Alliance for putting the next few years of superhero comic movies into a single infographic for me.

Big excitement for...

• Avengers 2 - first one was an absolute blast
• Batman v Superman - big pressure here from DC in trying to effectively launch their universe
• Lego Batman - The first Lego Movie was amazingly brilliant. I have no idea how they top it or even keep it up.
• Sandman - no clue how they're going to bring the series to the screen, but it's JGL, so I give him a chance

How the heck do they have things planned for the next six years?

The Marvel cinematic universe may be going downhill

The radar is open again

Media of which I have partaken of late...

Seconds by Bryan Lee O'Malley - O'Malley's follow-up to Scott Pilgrim takes a slightly older protagonist, Katie, still struggling with the fact that things in her life aren't working out exactly as she had planned.

In this case, the protagonist isn't, however, dwelling in a fantasy world as was Mr Pilgrim. Here Katie is a successful chef who is in the middle of putting together her first restaurant of her own while still trying to work at the titular Seconds as the head chef. As things don't go quite as planned at Seconds, Katie finds herself being visited by a house spirit that offers her a chance to change the day's events so that a friendly waitress won't be hurt by an accident in the kitchen. Katie takes advantage of the opportunity and then begins to spend every day living half a life, knowing that - in spite of the spirit's insistence that Katie only gets the singular second chance - she can cheat her way to redoing every single day.

Each morning, however, Katie wakes up in a world that has been changed in very unexpected ways. Her actions begin to have more and more drastic consequences: poisoning the house spirit; growing a second, evil house spirit; and changing her restaurant into something entirely not what she wanted.

O'Malley continues to mine the theme of revisionist history, of living in the now rather than in the past to great effect. This isn't the lengthy tale that Pilgrim is, but it's a far tighter story for that. It doesn't have the same emotional weight, but it's tighter, and it's still really good. Check it out.

Tucker & Dale vs Evil - See, most horror movies have the innocent (or trampy and drunk) college kids killed by the evil, murderous rednecks in the woods. This time, however, the rednecks are really nice people, unsure of themselves, just looking for a nice vacation home in the country, trying to help the nice neighbor kids.

When the kids misunderstand every single sentence from the eponymous Tucker and Dale, the kids end up killing themselves via accidents that continue to make Tucker and Dale look more and more sadistic.

It's not a horror classic, but it's a fun twist with likeable enough characters. Worth a look


Deadpool: Soul Hunter - Funny stuff from the merc with a mouth...

I particularly enjoyed the initial 'filler issue' that happened to lead directly into the second issue. Great use of the silver-age-style with Deadpool filling in for a drunken-no-more-until-Deadpool-comes-along Tony Stark in the Iron Man suit leading to trouble with a demon. Funny stuff...

All-New X-Men: Out of Their Depth & All-New X-Men: Here to Stay - I dig the concept of having the original X-Men, the teen mutants, show up in the present to find themselves terrifically changed - and in ways that horrify their younger selves. The idealism of youth coming up against the phenomenally hard truths of wizened age - especially when you're a comic book hero who sees just about everybody you care about die, change allegiances, nearly die, and fight each other all the times.

The dichotomy between young and old Scott Summers, the horror of young Jean Grey knowing that she will become the Phoenix and be killed, Hank McCoy seeing the blue mess that he will become...it all works really well.

Baseball Myths Debunked - This book doesn't. It's boring.

Punk Rock Jesus - and this one is dumb...don't read it. Read the same author's Joe the Barbarian instead...much better.

Sheezus by Lily Allen - I'll admit that I have a big soft spot for Lily Allen's first CD, Alright, Still. That is a brilliant, fun, witty bit of modern Brit pop, and encapsulation of an era, a rebirth of soul filtered through a very English sensibility. Her second disk, It's Not You, It's Me was a lot more polished and a lot less fun. I didn't dig the high-fashion turn that Allen was taking.

This third disk is somewhere in the middle, full of mocking - but with a bit too much bite and self-defensiveness at times. Not a bad disk at all, but not a great one, either. Worth a listen...





A Letter Home by Neil Young - ultimate in lo-fi...recorded in a straight-to-vinyl booth in Jack White's Nashville record store, Neil YOung has put out an album of covers, songs that he says influenced him. There's some pretty stuff here, but it's full of so many scratches, pops, hisses, and every other artifact of old that it's tough to listen to.

Here's the full album. Check out "Girl From the North Country" at 6:06 for the best track. (By the nature of the length of the disks the booth produces, the songs are no longer than about 3:00 each.)

Purging

Movies...

• The Purge - I'd heard that this movie was an interesting turn on a typical horror/torture movie. It wasn't. It was awful and boring and predictable and lazy. It's a home invasion movie that only has drama because of a series of stupid decisions by the protagonists. Stay away from this one.
• Dawn of the Planet of the Apes -Easily that finest film of the week - which could be very faint praise since the rest of the films were such crap. This is one to see on the big screen because the special effects are outstanding, creating more believable digital characters than we've ever seen before. Every ape is well on the happy side of the uncanny valley, showing very human emotion and communicating with each other marvelously. This is a film where the apes are clearly the main characters. The humans are the drivers of the film, but this isn't a film about the humans. This is a movie about how ape society continues to mature - often in negative ways, seeing the peace and harmony disappear as ephemerally as it sadly does in human society. Very enjoyable...not quite heart-wrenching, but certainly worth a watch. I would very much suggest seeing Rise of the Planet of the Apes first, though. This is a strong sequel (not a soft sequel like the next film).
• Somebody Up There Likes Me -Moderately interesting but not quite successful comedy showing a man's lack of maturation through two marriages, raising a child, his ex-wife dying. The part is played by the same actor throughout with no aging makeup at all, as though he wasn't maturing in the least. I guess that was supposed to be symbolic. It didn't work well. enough that I can recommend it.
• Drinking Buddies - Plot summary - two friends drink and flirt, but they're in separate relationships that aren't exactly movie-style true love...one relationship survives, the other doesn't...nothing comes from the flirting. I actually liked it more once I saw in the extras that the film was made without a script, that the lead actors (Anna Kendrick, Olivia Wilde, a couple of guys who were pretty much window dressing as far as I was concerned) had a plot outline but not a full script throughout the film. That explained the lack of snappy lines and witty comebacks and significant plot movement. It's not bad, but there's not much happening here.
• Kick-Ass 2 - This is an atrocious, offensive, hyper-violent film. The first graphic novel was interesting in its exploration of costumed heroes in a non-super-hero world. The first movie lost some of that by ignoring many of the rules that it set in place and just turning the non-super heroes far more super-powered. The second comic, then, took the story into a far darker, sicker, more disgusting place, and the second film follows right along.
  
  Don't watch this film. There's no happiness, nothing joyful or even remotely pleasant even. Yuck. It's not even stylish enough to merit a watch.

Comics...

• Daredevil (by Mark Waid) vol 4 & 5 - I begin to wonder if Daredevil hasn't been written into a corner. His identity is semi-public (a little more, a little less depending on the writer's needs of the moment). His love life is one big disaster. His professional life as an attorney is all but pointless since he's kind of a vigilante. I don't necessarily see how the plot can be rehabilitated, but Marvel continues to try, having rebooted Daredevil in 2011 and not again in 2014.
  
  The two volumes I read of late come from the 2012-13 period in which a paralyzed Bullseye strikes out at Daredevil through - get this - people that he loves. No, really, a superhero gets attacked by going after the people he loves. In Daredevil's case, he also gets attacked by Bullseye recreating this accident that gave Matt Murdock (Daredevil) his powers and sending a near-unbeatable assassin after him. Daredevil wins, of course, and stops just short of killing Bullseye along the way.
  
  Enjoyable enough read, but continuing a cycle that happens every couple of years to daredevil.
• Nemo: Heart of Ice and Nemo: Roses of Berlin by Alan Moore - Moore continues to mine the fictional-historical-literature landscape of League of Extraordinary Gentlemen in these two (the first two of three) tales focusing on Captain Nemo, a title that has been passed to the daughter of the original Nemo who was a major mover in the first volume of the League. Here we see the new, female Nemo retaking an antarctic expedition that left her father nearly mad (Heart of Ice) and rescuing her daughter and son-in-law from the clutches of World War II-era Germans (Roses of Berlin). Moore again brings in brilliant references to literature - many references I am sure that I missed in addition to the numerous ones that I did manage to catch. The antarctic expedition sees Nemo facing some of the Old Ones of Lovecraftian mythos chased by American hirelings after revenge for a deathless African queen. The same African queen returns to plague Nemo in Roses as Nemo must delve into a Murnau-inspired Berlin (not quite Nazi but just a street or two to the side, lead by Hynkle instead of Hitler.
  
  The volume aren't essential, and they're not to the level of greatness of the first two League volumes, but they are more linear and almost easier to read because of that. Plus, O'Neill seems to absolutely revel in drawing the fantastical Berlin. Worth reading (after the first two Leagues)
• Captain America: Castaway in Dimension Z (Book 1) - I don't get it, man. Captain America is somehow transported to another dimension where Arnim Zola has set up a factory to create and subjugate mutants. The Cap escapes but only after having a Zola screen/virus implanted into his chest and having stolen one of Zola's human children, a baby boy that Cap then raises on his own. The volume ends with Cap ripping the Zola from his chest, leaving a gaping, one-foot-square hole.
  
  Skip it...even Romita Jr's artwork couldn't redeem this.
• Superior Spider-Man: Team Up - I dug the Superior Spider-Man era and haven't read to the end via collections. This shows an interesting series of team ups between Spider-Man (as inhabited by Doc Ock) and various members of the Marvel universe (the Fantastic Four, the X-Men, the Avengers, Daredevil, and others), all of whom react interestingly to this not-quite-Peter-Parker Spider-Man. It's fun to see the other heroes recognize that something isn't quite right but that things might be better or at least good enough. Worth a read.

Actual books...

• Oryx and Crake by Margaret Atwood - I'm relistening to this one as the start of the trilogy. I'd read the book a decade ago as part of a book club in Northside, and I enjoyed the book then. I did wonder at the time why the ending was so open-ended, so inconclusive, and now that I know it's the opener to a trilogy, I understand that better. Still a fun read of a world headed for - and already in, in fact - a biologically-brought-about apocalypse.
• MaddAddam by Margaret Atwood - Turns out this is the third book in the Oryx & Crake trilogy. I read it second, however, and it does being directly after the actions that conclude Oryx & Crake, so I would argue that reading it next does make some sense. As I've begun the other book in the trilogy (Year of the Flood), I did wonder why Atwood seemed to have jumped back to fill in some of the backstory of many of the Gods Gardeners characters from MaddAddam, but I might suggest reading MaddAddam just after reading Oryx. Much of the book is told in flashbacks as Zeb explains his past to Toby, but the device works well. Admittedly, there isn't a whole lot of present-time action going on, but there is a lot of lead-up. This is a 'how-did-they-get-there' volume, filling in the backstories of many of the characters that we met in Oryx and in Year of the Flood. Worth a read but only as part of the trilogy. It wouldn't stand on its own.

Looking back at Batman (1989)

I

I have noticed what I consider to be an annoying trend in celebrating pretty much every film's every five-year anniversary via news article posts of 'twenty-five facts you didn't know about StepMom (or whatever crappy movie)!'

Yes, I love Big Trouble in Little China, but I don't need Buzzfeed providing me with thirty-seven new facts about it (or about The Adventures of Buckaroo Bonzai) in honor of thirtieth anniversary just because your website is trying to get me to click through a few more times.

That being said, I have no problems with the recent celebrations of the twenty-fifth anniversary of Batman (1989). Whether it's Wired's argument that the tug of war between Tim Burton's and the studio's visions of the film made it fascinating or Comics Alliance's multi-part, week-long celebration of the film, I'm down with it all because - for me - Batman is where comic books hit the big screen.

Yeah, I remember Superman and even saw Superman II and III on the big screen, but I was eight when III dropped a Richard Pryor bomb into the middle of a comic book movie.

I was fourteen when Batman hit the screen. I was a teenager deep into my comic-book buying trend. Probably seventy-five cents of every dollar I got in allowance went to filling my next long box from the Great Escape whenever I could get my parents (or Wayne's, let's be honest) to drive me over there.

Batman was gorgeous and stylish, dark and colorful at the same time. It had Michael Keaton stumbling in trying to reveal his other side to Vicki Vale (a low spot in Keaton's portrayal). It had Prince's very-Prince'ish soundtrack (high point)...

MusicPlayOn - Let the music play on!

It mashed the origin of the Joker into Joe Chill's killing of Thomas and Martha Wayne (another low point). It gave us brilliant scenes like these...



Batman was THE movie of 1989. 1989 was the summer of Batman - not Batman but rather Batman. It wasn't the best movie of the year (that was either Field of Dreams or Born on the Fourth of July). It wasn't the biggest world-wide earner that year (Indiana Jones & the Last Crusade was that). It was, however, the biggest hype machine of the year, the movie that had been coming and Coming and COMING for a year. Batman was finally here!

It's far from a perfect film (Chris Sims even wrote, "This is a pretty good Tim Burton movie. It’s an awful Batman movie. It misunderstands basically every aspect of the character.") - and in a radically different direction, the Christopher Nolan/Christian Bale Batman films are much much better, but I do love it so. 

PS: Oh, and if you the chance, check out these two things...the video for Prince's "Partyman" song from the Batman soundtrack (sadly un-embedable because it's Prince)...and this synopsis of the plot of Batman based only on a listen to the soundtrack.

My musical radar

...more comic book radar, really...

Great stuff...

• Saga, vol 3 - This continues to be fascinating with wildly un-human characters doing incredibly human things. There're also two new plot lines - two reporters come hunting the Alana/Marko pairing, and Marko's mother perhaps finds a new love. Great stuff
• Locke and Key: Alpha and Omega - The series is done, finished, marvelously well wrapped up. I cried, admittedly, as key characters went away - one of whom does come back in the end. I can't imagine a more perfect wrap-up than Joe Hill manages here.
• Inside Llewyn Davis - It's a slow build to the marvelous close, but it's worth getting there. I do warn that it's slow getting there, very...very...very slow. Stick with it; it's worth it.
• Breaking Bad, season 1 - We finally got to...and through...the first season of Breaking Bad, and it was well worth the time and investment. Second season up next...

Decent stuff

• The World's End -fun set-up (former friends get back to their hometown to finish a long-past pub crawl only to find the town over-run by aliens...or robots...or something)...and occasionally fun to get there, but the finale is stupid...
• Prophet - hard to follow because the artwork is very hard to distinguish and because the plot is weirdly repetitive but unconnected (cloned John Prophets on wildly spread planets trying to get back together)...interesting ideas but not worth fighting through or hunting down another volume...
• Jazz by Queen - not a great album from a great group...way too disco-influenced
• FBP (Federal Bureau of Physics) - When the laws of physics are breaking down, there has to be a governmental agency to protect us...in fiction there does, anyway...interesting enough to give the second volume a check when it comes out

Bad stuff

• Dexter (comic) - This is an awful volume putting out a story with little of the feeling of the television show and using the realm of comics to make a far-grander (and far-less-human) story. To be avoided...