Comic Books Comic Book • Page 468

The new Birds of Prey is great. I absolutely fucking hate the art in the most recent issue though.

the answer to the Ivy q is a spoiler for a great run. I recommend reading the run but answer is here: basically earlier in the run, Ivy beat Jason Woodrue and absorbed his remains. He’s regrown inside her

 

The fill-in art on BoP ruled tbh, but it shouldn’t have been in the first arc. They should’ve just waited longer before launching so the first 6 could all be Romero, and then have a fill-in. (The first issue had to have a note that it takes place after a then-upcoming issue of Green Arrow, lol.) But yeah, dope series.

And Poison Ivy is easily my second favorite Big 2 book I’m following after Immortal Thor. What a great series. Can’t believe my fav Pamela Isley has a solo book that’s gonna go past issue 20.

 

Poison Ivy, Moon Knight, and Doctor Strange are probably my favourite non X big two ongoings at the moment.

I unfortunately didn’t love McKay’s Avengers though which is a shame

 

I’m enjoying his Avengers, but it’s nowhere near the level of Doctor Strange and Moon Knight.

 

It would take a lot to get an Avengers book on my limited Big 2 monthly pull over various other options. But from what I’ve seen of it, Jedvengers is certainly more appealing than Aaronvengers, lol. My girl Wanda sure looks fabulous.

 

Starting the second book of Poison Ivy. I'd had a bunch of stuff preordered last year that I didn't end up actually reading right away. This series is super good

 

https://aiptcomics.com/2024/01/22/x-men-monday-peach-momoko-ultimate-x-men-2/

Oh my goodness, Peach Momoko’s Ultimate X-Men is gonna be so, so good. Cannot wait.

She specifically shouted out learning to work faster because it’s a monthly book, which leads me to hope she has a decent amount of continuous issues. Can’t imagine what all goes into writing, laying out, and then painting a full book of interiors at that rate.

 

Finished! I was kinda skeptical at first about where it was going in issue 10, but 11-12 were really good, I feel silly for doubting it

Oh! I've also been getting the floppies for Harley Black White and Redder, mostly alternative covers. Those were pretty fun little reads. Still need to get the sixth one, I didn't see it at my shop so I'm not sure if it's out yet?

 

Looks like issue six came out last month.

And yeah, the pacing of Ivy has been interesting. You can really tell it was approved as a 6-issue mini, extended to 12, and then upgraded to proper ongoing, imo. I’m so glad it’s still going strong. The arc in that second book did such a great job of critiquing the “natural” trends and culture of middle class women while being sympathetic to the women who get caught up in it. And, Janet-from-HR is great, lol.

 

I'm about halfway through Clementine book two. Having Tillie Walden write for the Walking Dead universe still feels like an odd choice but she's such a good storyteller that she makes it work somehow. Clem continues to be such a compelling character, it's nice to see her story is in good hands

 

Finished Clementine book two, bleak but also full of hope

Also finished Emily Carroll's Through the Woods. Was a third of the way through a few months ago but got distracted. A pretty quick read, but the artwork is beautiful and the stories are genuinely quite creepy.

Nice surprise to see in the author blurbs that Tillie Walden and Emily Carroll are both living with their respective "wife and cat(s)."

 

Started Tillie Walden's Alone in Space, the first section is The End of Summer in its entirety. The artwork is beautiful, especially the extremely detailed architecture, but the character designs all kinda blur together making the story a little hard to follow because everyone looks the same and it's not always super clear via dialogue what's going on. Thematically and stylistically though it's still all very distinctively a Tillie Walden work even at such an early point in her career.

 

Been posting a lot, sorry not sorry, I've been reading a lot and I'm excited about everything

Anyway I'm reading Alias vol 1 and it's really good, definitely gonna have to grab the rest soon

 

The rest of Alone in Space resonated with me a lot more than that first story did. There were two more long stories followed by a series of short comics. After reading so many of Tillie Walden's longform narratives it was interesting to go through all these little vignettes of her earlier work, follow along as her style developed

 

Just read Laura Dean Keeps Breaking Up With Me, really liked it, but I think I prefer stuff where Mariko and Jillian Tamaki work together

Also, reading the author blurb, apparently Mariko Tamaki has a girlfriend??? This is like my fifth book of hers and I had no idea she's also queer, like, in addition to being Asian, like me

 

Oh yeah, I did end up getting a hold of Harley Black White and Redder #6, apparently it was in my box at the store and I just didn't ask--for some reason it wasn't on display so I just assumed they didn't have it

 

Oh wow, I’m honestly surprised you didn’t know that, lol.

Still need to circle back around to Laura Dean. I’ve had it on my shelf for a minute now. Rosemary Valero-O'Connell draws real pretty.

 

Mondo is dropping a poster with Frank Quitely’s All Star Superman art tomorrow.

 

Continuing on with Monstress and DC Bombshells, these series are a little harder to jump back into after a long time because they're so dense, the former with its amount of lore and world building, and the latter with its ever multiplying list of characters. Monstress, the artwork is simply jaw dropping, it's a perfectly rendered dark fantasy setting. Bombshells puts characters together in unexpected oways, and each character has a cool little twist to their backstory. Batgirl Barbara Gourdon is literally a vampire!

Also getting the rest of Jessica Jones Alias, second volume was a nice little mystery with some fun cameos, still waiting for the rest to arrive

 

The density of Monstress is why I haven’t gotten too far in it, in spite of loving the creative team and respecting it a ton. Almost would prefer for the series to end so I could get all the trades and make it a more-or-less start-to-finish project, lol.

Reminds me that I need to get their second Night Eaters graphic novel! Forgot to get that after adoring the first one.

 

Been catching up on all the Fall of X books and so far they’ve all been good to great. I actually really like the choices they’ve made with Kamala to make her reveal feel less cheap, they’ve done a really good job having a wide variety of books that are all so clearly building up to one major event, and they’ve also done a really good job of bringing in the non-X heroes with Tony having an obvious major role, Cap leading his team, Realm and Uncanny Spider-Man bringing in Asgard & Spidey, and the parallel threats of Orchis and threat of Dominion give it a ton of weight . While this wasn’t the original Endgame for Hickman, the team have done a great job taking his building blocks into something really interesting and fun with very few low points. Only major negatives I have are I’m not a fan of Duggar’s characterization of Tony and the fill in art on Realm was awful.

 

Read a few comics tonight.

The Sacrificers 1 & 2
Hunger and Dusk 1 - 3
Kill Your Darlings 1 - 5
Deviant 1

All were quite good. But I was particularly impressed by Deviant.

 

The Deviant is so, so good.

 

The first issue was very well written. It’s still a little wild to see Tynion go from Scott Snyder’s creative writing student to…this. A real talent, that one.

 

Have you read Nice House on the Lake yet? I don’t read everything Tynion does, but that one was pretty special imo.

The Deviant feels like it’s scratching at something particularly raw. On the surface it seems like it’s gonna be a slash story, and that’s in there as the skeleton, but the emotional heart is this exploration of queerness generationally that’s… so deeply compelling. Can’t wait to see where it all ends up.