Not even half a year ago I wrote about Diamond, a monopolistic comics distributor until Covid, and how they might have been a good monopoly. In case you don't pay attention to the comics industry, they recently declared bankruptcy. I suspected something might be wrong near the end of December when my comics guys weren't getting any shipments at all, or half-shipments, or they got massively shorted. It was no big surprise when the news hit the streets. As a result I did not get comics today. None were delivered. They might get them tomorrow. I'll check. But it seems like it's been a while since I did a comics roundup. Let's see what I've been reading . . .
BATTLE ACTION VOL 3: Ever since Ennis has been planning on moving back to Ireland, he's been getting involved in UK comics pretty deeply again, and he's making some odd choices (I'm looking at you, Hawk the Slayer), but Battle Action is not odd for him. I think his war stories are his personal passion. A lot of his other stuff goes off the rails, but his war stories are powerful, contained, and he colors in the lines on these. I'm not a fan of Johnny Red, and Ennis is doing that as a serial story for these new issues. But so far it's going pretty well.
THE BLOOD BROTHERS' MOTHER: Azzarello and Risso continue their vicious western. A lot of it looks like it might have been painted instead of illustrated. Risso is doing some of his best work here. Azzarello knows his westerns. I miss LOVELESS. That was a good one. This one's not as good, but I like it nonetheless.
THE CREEPING BELOW: A young woman hangs out with a Scandinavian black metal band in the woods and is murdered by them. She doesn't stay dead, naturally, so she's out for revenge. Azzarello doesn't do horror often, but this is great. It's no Moonshine, but it's pretty good.
GI JOE: Now that the four miniseries are over, the new GI Joe is starting to walk more than crawl. I prefer the original series that I read when I was a kid, but this is solid work. I like that they're really leaning into the madness of Cobra-La. I'm interested to see where it goes.
GI JOE: A REAL AMERICAN HERO: One of the books I read as a kid, continued after having a ton of time off. 'Nuff said.
THE GOON: I'm still a little surprised that this one is back. Eric Powell ended it pretty nicely a few years ago, but I'm glad the Goon and Frankie have returned. So has the Priest. How can you go wrong with a book that, on occasion, has one of their characters stabbing people's eyes out screaming, "Knife to the eye!"
HELLO DARKNESS: A horror anthology series. Some of the stories are good, some are bad. But every issue has a story from Garth Ennis at the back. It's the continuing tale of what happens when the world experiences a nuclear winter. A group of friends make a go of surviving it, but we're down to the last two by now. In the latest installment one of the guys who tried to storm their cabin and died is actually still alive, and he has a conversation with one of them to pass the time while he waits to die. Very interesting stuff.
JIMMY'S LITTLE BASTARDS: Aftershock might be bankrupt, themselves, but Previews still swears the final installment of Garth Ennis's story will be released. It's a shame they keep bumping it. First it was supposed to be out in November, then January, now August. We'll see what really happens.
JUPITER'S LEGACY: FINALE: This book is finally coming to an end. Too bad the Netflix show didn't work out. It was decent. In the finale, the heroes and villains are learning who and what are behind their superpowers, and what those beings have planned for humanity. Hint: It's not pretty.
LIFE: I love the fuck out of Life. Azzarello is doing some of his best work with this one. It's double-sided, like the old Ace double paperbacks. One side is PROS, for the professional criminals. The other side is CONS, for the convicts the criminals will have to face. The pros have arrived on an abandoned prison planet because there's supposed to be vast riches kept there. Except it's not abandoned, and the cons are willing to fight to the death against these attackers. Great fun.
THE MAGIC ORDER: This is probably my least favorite of the Millarworld books, so I probably won't miss it when this final story arc is over. But they're getting very weird with the finale, and I'm kinda digging it. Look at that cover!
NIGHT CLUB 2: This is a fun book, too. The idea is, a group of teenagers are turned into vampires, so they decide to use their powers to fight crime while they wear luchador masks. In the second series, one of them has fallen for the hot girl at school, and because he's now a star jock himself, he gets in with the popular kids. Unfortunately, he trusts the girl too much and turns her into a vampire. She turns the others into vampires, too, and they've decided to use their powers for evil, starting with killing Night Club . . . I still think Millar is probably upset because someone already took Bite Club.
SAGA: If you're into comics, and you're not reading this book, what the fuck is wrong with you?
THAT TEXAS BLOOD: It's on hiatus for now, but since the Enfield Gang Massacre is over, I'm hoping it will return soon.
TORPEDO 1972: It's weird to see Risso working without Azzarello on this one. It's about an old mob scumbag and his partner still out in the world, shooting and beating the shit out of people. He's an asshole, but he's kinda funny.
TRANSFORMERS: When Kirkman bought Transformers and GI Joe, I thought that was an odd decision for him. I'm glad he did, because he's putting out the best Transformers stories since IDW ended the Autobot/Decepticon war. IDW should have stopped making them then, but for some ungodly reason they continued and drove the property into the ground. It's good to see these characters in a new story. A good story. Although I'll have to get used to Megatron being a bad guy again. I really loved it when he put the Autobot symbol on his chest and tried to become a better person. The struggles he had when evil kept knocking at his door were phenomenal.
UNDERHEIST: This is a horror heist book. It's actually done, but it slipped past me and my comics guys. I just need to get the last two issues. It's a Lapham book, so it's very good. If you've never read Stray Bullets, give it a shot. It's the best comics crime being written by someone not named Azzarello or Brubaker.
VOID RIVALS: I did not expect to like this book. It started the Energon Universe, so I felt obligated to read it. It's surprisingly good. So far we've seen Transformers in this world and some of Cobra-La from GI Joe. It's pretty cool.
And that's it. What are you all reading?
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