Shipping This Week! -- 05.06.22

Also: blah blah new Hellboy blah blah new Queen & Country (not by Rucka, but it's OK) blah blah NO INFINITELY CRISISES.

captain america
new avengers
batman: jekyll and hyde

It's a week designed to shame me, then. I will be furtively purchasing Rogue, House of M, and possibly Otherworld. Ultimate X-Men is on the list but I'm not particularly ashamed of that.

What's wrong w/ House of M, aside from the dreaded TAINT OF CROSSOVER CRISIS? Otherworld looks fantastic, but is really striking me as poncey cyberfantasy wank material. Depending on what happens in #4, I might be cutting bait.

Except for the first Age of Apocalypse, I've found most of Marvel's crossovers disappointing-- they're clearly sales events rather than character events. But I bought House of M #1 in spite of myself and was fairly intrigued.

I want so much to like Otherworld, as Jiminez is one of my favorite pencillers and a genuinely nice guy. He seems passionate about the material. But I'd expect less density of material from a more practiced writer. And, yeah, it's poncey cyberfantasy wank material, which is too far outside my sphere of interests to justify the purchase. So I feel guilty buying it and not buying it.

Since Madolan is buying the guilty pleasures and I'm reading Q&C in trades, I'm only left with...HELLBOI!

B-b-but the Mutant Massacre!

MIGNOLAAAAA!

Is the new Declassified good? I haven't even read the vol. 2, since I was not crazy about vol. 1. Crocker was so boring in that!

Declassified #1 was good! But then it was the first Q&C I'd ever heard, so I couldn't compare it to the Chace & cranky Crocker show.

uh, heard = read

Only the first issue of Vol. 2 ever came out, as far as I'm aware. I'm still waiting for the second two parts.

How do I get out of bed for Teen Titans and Black Panther and a stop-gap issue of Captain America?

One leg at a time?

We should hit the Comic Con circuit as vaudevillians...WE COULD CALL OURSELVES the VAUDE-VILLAINS!!!

Best idear eveh!!

(Though honestly I hope that I won't be able to go.)

I bought A COMIC[1] today! Imagine that.

[1] Hellboy

I was in a BOOKSTORE yesterday, and saw Hellboy pocket novels...and also GREEN LANTERN pocket novels...by Dennis O'Neill!!!

Batman Jekyll & Hyde #3 - Why does every Batman miniserie find it necessary to devote most of an issue to the Bruce's psychological issues?

Captain America #7 - Okay, so now we get what happened with Bucky more. Art not by Epting, sad.

House of M #2 - So we're in a parallel universe. We get it. If they actually do something with all the characters they've set up, fine. Otherwise a little more plot development would've been nice.

New Avengers #6 - Some stuff happens. Wolverine is in full on DANGEROUS mode. Some stuff is killed. Some things happen with Shield. Mediocore.

Black Panther #5: Pot boils over, with balls-out action at last. The Rhino's kind of cool, he throws a fridge at a fighter jet. I really, really like the art on this series, mostly, I suspect, due to Klaus Jansen's inks.

Captain America#7: Q: When is a fill-in issue not a fill-in issue? A: Julius Caesar! Nifty little psychodrama from Brubaker, with pleasant simple-lines art from some guy whose name sounds totally fake.

Teen Titans #20-something: Oooh, Art Thibert inks Mike McKone. Good stuff. I really like Art Thibert as an inker. There, I said it. Meanwhile, a bunch of characters I don't give a shit about beat up on Superman robots and Kenner® Action Figure Battle Armour Lex Luthor blasted Wonder Girl with a Kryptonite ray.

Hellboy: The Island #1 - kind of disappointing. Mostly set-up, long 2-page stretch that was just singing. A few confusing passages; too talky. But Part 2 looks tasty.

Dude, Hellboy is as much about atmosphere as it is about the right hand of doom cracking demonic jaws.

Not disappointing in the slightest. I'm gonna be sad when Mignola kisses the art job goodbye.

I went ahead and got Declassified III. Except for way too many swears, it was pretty good!