Love this oral history of the new X-Men line
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Setting up my new office
This summer, my wife and I are buying a new car, buying a new house, moving to a new town, starting new jobs, and have a new baby!
Sapkowski introduces a wild framing device: figures from Arthurian legend try to reconstruct the legend of Geralt. Apparently, when Ciri passed through the Tower of the Swallow at the end of the last book, she entered the world of King Arthur. This elaborate framing sets up the story of Geralt & co--still looking for Ciri--on a detour in Toussaint.
pickI like what Soule is doing a lot, but I think there's diminishing returns in trying to fit new stories between TESB and RotJ. There's only so many times you can plausibly pit Luke against Vader.
Fun to see Luke with the yellow lightsaber. Soule connects the Rebels' search for Han to some of the events from the movie Solo. This volume is also part of the larger War of the Bounty Hunters crossover.
pickThere are several twists and turns in this whodunnit, but the action in the middle feels superfluous. Werneck's art is luminous but, unfortunately, Messina's art on issues 3-4 drops off.
The Scarlet Witch has been found dead after the Hellfire Gala and Magneto is the prime suspect! X-Factor gets to use their investigative skills, while some of the Avengers show up to retrieve Wanda's body.
pickTimeless kicks off the Generations trilogy (books 34-36 in the larger Drizzt saga). I enjoyed it a lot because the contrasting world views of Drizzt, Jarlaxle, and Zaknafein make for interesting ethical debates, which Salvatore loves to interweave with the fierce action scenes. You don't need to have read the previous 33 books to follow this one, but I'd recommend Homeland and The Pirate King.
Al Ewing's run S.W.O.R.D. continues as the team fights galactic threats and forges new alliances. This volume also includes the Cable: Reloaded one-shot, in which Rocket consults with Agent Brand for a crazy plan for Cable to execute as they fight Dormammu.
Storm and Doctor Doom having a chat on Mars.
pickThe Hellfire Gala is another turning point for the X-Men, as Krakoa expands its role on the world--and galactic--stage. My only complaint in the recent batch of X-books is not enough Nightcrawler!
Welcome to the Hellfire Gala, featuring the all-new X-Men line up, cameos by Doctor Doom and Captain America, and many Emma Frost costume changes!
Timeless operates in two timelines--Zaknafein's past adventures with Jarlaxle and his post-resurrection reunion with his son Drizzt and his companions. I haven't read all of the Drizzt novels and I'm following it pretty well. If you ever wondered why Jarlaxle is bald, the story is here!
so-soX-Factor combines solid character work with the thrill of investigation. Unfortunately, the last few issues compress a lot of stuff into a short space. Baldeon's art is strong.
pickThe Hellions are a pretty random team of X-Misfits, but Zeb Wells blends character development, action, and humor in a really compelling way. Mr. Sinister is such a fun character to write because he's always scheming and treating others as disposable instruments. Psylocke brings a lot of pathos to the team, as well as extremely badass fighting skills. Segovia's art is terrific.
pickI'm sad that this is the end of Duggan's Cable run, but it does wrap up the 12-issue story really well, integrating Cable's time traveling into the new Krakoan phase of X-Men.
It's very funny to refer to Professor X and Magneto as the "helmet bros."
Gerry Duggan and Phil Noto's Cable run remains incredibly fun. It balances humor, action, and character development. Young Cable is trying to stop his nemesis Strye, who has abducted mutant babies. If you like time travel paradoxes, you'll like this. Noto's art is really great, except that Domino is weirdly drawn differently than she is in X-Force.
This might be the weakest arc of Percy's X-Force run. It focuses on Kid Omega defeating his evil doppelganger. While the quality of the art on most of the X-books is consistently high, the art in this one is pretty bad.
Tynion draws on ideas from Grant Morrison's Batman RIP and The Dark Knight Rises, as the Joker seizes control of Wayne Enterprises--how, exactly, I'm not really sure--to wreak havoc on Gotham. With Alfred gone, Batman's best ally is . . . Harley Quinn. Jorge Jimenez is at the height of his powers and Tomeu Morey might be the best colorist in the biz.
pickGillen ramps up the action by having multiple undead King Arthurs battle for supremacy. I love the idea that Shakespeare is the greatest monster hunter of all time because he used plays to domesticate deadly stories.
Once & Future absolutely rules. Gillen, Mora, and Bonvillain are totally in sync. Gillen's writing is fast paced, Mora's character designs are intricate, and Bonvillain's colors are wonderfully bold. O&F perfectly balances action and horror. In this volume, the monsters and mythical figures proliferate, as Otherworld overtakes the UK.
pickIll Will is so chilling. Chaon is very good at channeling different voices for each character. He pays close attention to minute details, such as whether a teenage guy would know the name of a certain fabric. The story unfolds in two timelines from six people's perspectives.
"No doubt this must happen to everyone at a certain age: You look up for a moment and you're not sure which life is real. You've split yourself into so many honeycombed parts that they barely notice each other--all of them pacing, concurrently, parallel streams of thought, and each one thinks of itself as me."
Like the film Memento, Ill Will is about crime, memory, and identity. Chaon shifts perspectives and skips around in time as he carefully unveils the story of a family destroyed by murder set against the backdrop of the "Satanic Panic" of the '80s.
pickA lot of Dark Nights Death Metal doesn't make a ton of sense, but Wonder Woman has a chainsaw, which is pretty rad. Snyder incorporates a bunch of stuff from across DC comics history, including putting the heroes and villains together to fight a greater evil.
Death Metal is the final event of Scott Snyder's Justice League run, which kicked off with Dark Nights Metal. Snyder once again collaborated with Greg Capullo, his partner in crime from all the way back during his original New 52 Batman run. Whereas in Snyder and Capullo's Black Label story Last Knight on Earth Wonder Woman was the skeptic and Batman was the optimist, in this story Batman is the pessimist and Wonder Woman is the more hopeful one.
Marvel by Design is an awesome coffee table book about the visual elements--lettering, panel layouts, font, logos, color schemes--in Marvel comics and marketing. It's a great primer on how comics are assembled, as well as an interesting case study of graphic design principles.
pickPercy is really good at conveying the sheer weight of Wolverine's trauma, acquired through decades of deadly missions. Adam Kubert's art makes great use of inset panels and negative space.
"Today is a victory over yourself of yesterday"
More misadventures from everyone's favorite X-Pirates. Kate and Emma get some payback from their semi-ally Sebastian Shaw. Stefano Caselli finds really inventive ways to show Kate using her phasing powers. The arc sets up the Hellfire Gala crossover event.
pickI had a great time strolling down a few of Marvel's many lanes with Doug Wolk. Most of the book is a daisy chain of brief comments on particular issues that Wolk has selected for their artistic, thematic, or commercial significance. This book is the ultimate sampler platter: a bit of history, a bit of art criticism, a bit of cultural context, and a taste of all the Marvel characters without nearly exhausting any single story.
"At the very end of the gigantic Marvel story, Reed [Richards] does exactly the same thing he did at its beginning, building a rocket and bringing his family on board with him. The first time he's trying to break free of the Earth, and this time he's trying to break free of the collapsing reality of his narrative."
In Timeless, Salvatore takes us back to the Underdark, to the City of Spiders, to Menzoberranzan. This prequel tells the story of Jarlaxle's early days as a mercenary and his friendship with Drizzt's father and master swordsman Zaknafein. Jarlaxle is one of Salvatore's most entertaining characters.
Join me and my colleague Dori Coblentz on Zoom as we chat about our books on Thursday May 12 at 1 pm eastern
Register here:
https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSf7iWDZ2g6woF6s-wueflgiNt6WlRfFeRgItm-F...
"And Mississippi's poll tax, the last one in America, was struck down by an appeals court ruling on April 8, 1966, four days before Fantastic Four #52 [Black Panther's debut] went on sale"
pickMaster and Apprentice is a great character study, though I wouldn't put it in my top ten favorite Star Wars novels. The secondary characters are good and the conclusion is satisfying, but the action is a bit sparse.
Wolk is really good at nuanced readings of comics, such as Master of Kung Fu (Shang-Chi), that contain narrative and artistic achievement alongside racist and sexist material.
Wolk read basically every Marvel comic from 1961 to 2017 and wrote this book for people unsure of where to start.
This book is a great companion to Yoda: Dark Rendezvous, which is about Yoda trying to bring Count Dooku back to the light. Gray parallels Qui-Gon's training of Obi-wan with Qui-Gon's own training under Dooku.
You ever order a book and when it comes it's waaaaay bigger than you expected?
so-soValkyrie teams up with Dr. Strange and is reunited with Thor. I like that they are writing more Jane foster stories, but after her role in War of the Realms, these comics feel about thin.
The audiobook has legit sound effects and the narrator does very good Liam Neeson and Ewan McGregor impressions.
pickJemisin blends classic sci-fi tropes with contemporary social issues, such as drug use, the gig economy, voter suppression, and police brutality. Jo Mullein is a fiery protagonist who DC should incorporate into its pantheon. Campbell's art is wildly good.
I can't overstate how cool Jamal Campbell's character designs are.
pickThis was my favorite Witcher book yet, though that's partly because you get more invested in the characters as the story progresses. This book is a really important transition for Ciri, as she survives on her own without Geralt or Yennifer and discovers new powers. Bonhart the bounty hunter is a great villain.
pickIssues 17-18 build to a riveting action sequence, as Maika/Zinn fight for their lives. Kippa is the real MVP and moral center of the story.
