Talapas1

She’s currently tending bar in my cantina.

This one. And I love the Python Vipers a ton. Been slowly army building them.

My local collecting group did secret Santa this year and I got hooked up with some Joes, Ewoks, and a Flash Gordon accessory.

yeah that was one of the things that I remembered the most from it was how real (to child mind me) it looked. Have you watched the new TV series? I've been debating about grabbing the DVD set.

I've never seen the Return. I think I was under ten when I first saw it. I loved it then but have since watched it as an adult and while not as awesome as I remembered, it was pretty solid for a comic book based movie in that time.

1458-1476 Adventures in my pull box plus some additions. As I’ve already written about many of these series, I’ll just stick to a few highlights. The Cimmerian Frost Giants Daughter: This series is pretty awesome and I was pretty happy that they finally got to this story. Worth checking out if you are a fan of Conan. RWBY: Didn’t know much about this but it was okay. Very much a gamer/anime influenced fantasy story as one would expect from Rooster Teeth. Don’t know if I am going to go out of my way to find the next ones, but if I see them in a bargain bin, I’ll snag them. Spider-Man: End of the miniseries and leaves the future open for Ben Parker. Hopefully we can revisit this divergent timeline from time to time. Crossover: Interesting story from the mind of Cates. World where literal comic book characters enter the world of the living and how they are dealt with. Excited to read the next issue. Swamp Thing: I loved the (flawed) movie when I was a kid and this sent me back. This was the first time I’ve ever read the original run and now I really want to grab a decent condition run of the Wrightson stuff. Weird War Tales: I’ve always been fascinated with these books. I got a small stack from my cousins when I was a kid and was quickly a fan. I’m slowly collecting the whole series and reading them as I find them.

Hit up the cheap bin at a local shop and found some low end treasures. Not too bad for six bucks.

I thought Black Panther was a position? It opens the door for another character to take that mantle, be it Shuri or someone else. If it’s Shuri, sales of her first appearance have room to grow. Someone else, and we could have another potential new key.

I took that to mean that they won’t be recasting T’challa. It will likely mean another character will take up the mantle of the black panther.

Scored some cool additions and extras at a thrift store today. Super happy with the Big Mac!

1452-1457 Imaginary Fiends 1-6: my reading has slowed down this week as other hobbies and commitments have taken over. I did have time to read this series during a break the other day. I thought it was pretty interesting. Imaginary monsters, FBI, and a town with a secret. What not to enjoy? That being said, it was fine. Nothing that I’m gonna put on a recommended reading list anytime soon, but it was okay. Some really cool ideas were bogged down by other less cool threads that could’ve been better written. If you are an x-files/supernatural fan, you may enjoy it.

Hit up a shop I do t visit often and their back issues were buy 2 get one free. All priced at cover. I think I did okay.

Make sense as they are often an opportunity to throw work to creators who aren’t on a regular gig.

1411-1451 Probably not going to make 2k this year, but it will be close. I really put in some reading the past couple of days. Jessica Jones 1-18: I finally got around to reading Bendis’s final Marvel run and it was a blast. I was a fan of Alias when it first premiered so many years ago and this reminded me of the writing that really brought me into comic books as a young adult. So many beats in this book that really worked for me. Hopefully Bendis can come back at some point and write a future Danielle story. Batman White Knight 1-8: “White Knight” get it? SJW? Ha ha. “Clever” wordplay aside I enjoyed this Batman story. I’ve gotten to the point that these standalone stories for the Bat work best for me. They can use whatever part of the mythology they want and try to weave something new. In this case it was the Joker trying to save Gotham from the Bat. Now I want to read the next installments of the White Knight series. No Justice: 1-4: Justice League broke the universe in Death Metal and have to deal with the consequences of it in this mini. Amanda Waller is ridiculous as an action star and I find her much more intimidating as an administrator than an operative. Story was fine for what it was. It was nice getting some of the background for Justice League Odyssey. Brave and the Bold 138: Got the story for Mister Miracle. It was okay. I haven’t read a lot of these but Mister Miracle seemed to upstage Batman throughout the book. It just seemed odd. The situation was definitely a silly one too. But I’m not sad I read it as I’m trying to find most of Mister Miracle’s early appearances. Random Subscriptions and ect: For the most part, my comments previously stand. I grabbed the Spawn mainly due to the fact that a couple of the shops I frequent were listed on the cover. The Dark Multiverse stuff is still fun to me. Liked the Hush story better than the War Gods, but both were enjoyable. I’ll keep snagging them as they come out. Maestro is still good. I’ll be interested to see where they go with it in the finale next issue. That’s it for now. Looks like I have about 550 comics left to go. Wish me luck.

1391-1410 My daughter spent the week in the hospital so I packed a few books with me while I’m staying with her. Stranger Things: Six: My kids checked this out from the library and told me I had to read it. Fun read with some backstory on their universe. If you are a fan of the show, this is worth adding to your list. Justice League Odessey: Pretty fun story featuring Cyborg, Jessica Cruz, Starfire, and Azrael. Space hijinks as they encounter a universe with some problematics dietys. Seekers of the Weird: Picked this series up in a lot as I had never heard of it and figured my kids my enjoy it. Fast paced five issue story that does a good job of world building and character introduction. Downside is that it at times really leaned into the Disney channel style dialogue. Still was a serviceable read. Deadpool versus Punisher: Two of the characters who were each overexposed during a different eras of marvel. This team-up was fun though. A pretty goofy, though dark at times story. Punisher discovering Pool’s reset button was a pretty funny running gag. This story was more fun than I expected. Worth the read if you are no into cartoon levels of deadly violence. Black Cat: found this in a fifty cent bin Wasn’t a bad read, but not anything to make me go out and hunt down the rest. Marvel Voices: loved this book While the different stories all had their strengths and weaknesses, I was glad to see Marvel doing something for Native American Month and showcasing their indigenous characters and creators. My goal is to hunt down the last Veregge variant I need, which is this issue .

1366-1390 Turtles haven’t been the only thing I’ve been reading this week. I hit some bargain bins over the previous weekend and dug into a few of those as well. Defenders- standard effort from Bendis. Nothing groundbreaking but it was an enjoyable read. Empire Uprising- I remember reading the original run a few years ago and it was pretty good. This one was fine. Unfortunately I need to find the last issue to finish the story. Heroic Age- I missed out on a lot of this stuff so I’m slowly trying to figure out where marvel went while I was gone. These were fun little anthology style reads. Not every story was a home run, but most of them were getting on base. Not bad for a couple bucks anyway. Hellboy: I liked this story of Hellboy’s first field mission. Going to need to see if I have the other parts of this series of if I have to hunt them down. Random DC stuff. Much like Marvel circa 2014-2020, my DC knowledge from that era has been lacking as well. The Shazam story was pretty good, but was a bit lost on some of the parts. Luckily I wasn’t completely in the dark due to having read Death Metal. Superman Rebirth was probably my favorite of the batch as it showed some growing pains for Superboy and the consequences of not being careful with his powers. that’s it for now. Got another small stack waiting for my attention tomorrow.

1200-1365 I finally got the last issue I needed to finish my TMNT IDW run and since I had this week off, have been diving into that universe. I read the whole main series, most of Universe, and a bunch of the minis and one shots. I'm missing a bunch of issues for some of the mini-series so I still have a bit to complete, but I figure 166 issues of green goodness is enough for the present. I really dug this series. It was just fun and the callbacks to many of the other iterations of the turtles were great. My 12 year old son actually started reading the series as I finished it and we have been having fun discussing our favorite parts and talking about turtles history. Honestly, it makes me want to dust off the old RPG and roll up some new characters. The series is great and while the minis aren't necessary to enjoy the story, they do add a lot of background. Definitely worth checking this saga out if you were ever a turtles fan. It makes me wish that any live action movie would actually use this source material rather than whatever Michael Bay decided to run with. Oh yeah, one thing that I found funny was anytime Baxter Stockman had dialogue, my mind heard it all in Giancarlo Esposito's voice. Don't know why it was happening, but it worked.

These are great! I have a few of the old boxes but haven’t gotten around to finding the sets for them.

Oops, I made a clerical error and counted the Thunderbolts series twice. But with the new ones done, my current total is: 1199 Young Justice 1-20 This is the Bendis writing I was waiting for. I’ve always been a fan of his work, and thought his two strengths were crime noir, and youth superheroes. I never read previous iterations of Young Justice but did read their stories when they became the Teen Titans. This team was a favorite of mine for a while but I lost track of them after all the reboots, crisis, and whatnot. Bendis brought them back and brought some other interesting characters onto the team as well. Jinny Hex, Amethyst, Teen Lantern, and Naomi all brought some cool dynamics into the story. I’m bummed that issue 20 marked the current end of Bendis writing them, but here’s hoping he return at some point or that someone else can take the reins and continue what he started. Squadron Supreme I got lucky and scored this trade for five bucks and decided to move it up to the top of my pile. I’ve always wanted to read this as I heard it was a good read. Finally the opportunity arrived and I have to say that it lived up to expectations. Barring all the parts that were definitely relics of the time of the writing, this story really struck me with how I sympathized with both Superion’s and Nighthawk’s goals. Superion was actually making strides to creating a great society and in doing so, did strip some freedoms from the people who lived there, but at the same time, Nighthawk was willing to allow chaos to reign in order to allow the people the choice of creating a better world. It posed some interesting questions to me and I’m still wrestling with how I feel about the ending. One other thing that this story really engaged in was some of the dangers of these superpowers. The deaths and injuries of main players were surprising as I was so used to Marvel stories of this time period where main characters may be injured or killed, but it never seemed permanent. Indeed, there was an expectation that Tom Thumb or any of the others would return somehow, but it never happened. Overall, I loved Marvel’s take on the Justice League world and want to explore more of their world.

How was the American Vampire 1976? I thought about grabbing it

1155-1183 Read a bunch more this week, with some new trades I’ve recently acquired and some runs I grabbed from the dollar bins. Ice Cream Man- Had to check this out due to all the hype. Glad I did. It hit all the right buttons with me. I enjoy anthologies and this has a nice narrative tying the stories together. The art is great and the bright colors almost make it even more creepy. Venom vs Carnage: My first experience with art by Crain, and while it is interesting, it wasn’t something I really enjoyed. It was fine. The story was decent but overall, not a book I’ll be adding to the reread pile any time soon. Revival: I picked up issue 1 a few years back but never really followed up with it. I found issues 2-8 in a bargain bin and decided to snag them. I remember some hype around the title back when I picked up that first issue and after reading so far I can see why. It’s an interesting mix of a crime/religious/horror genre which is pretty well written. I’m on a quest to find the rest of the series now. Faithless: definitely not for kids. Lol. Interesting story about an artist who is slowly selling her soul to be admired and successful. Death or Glory: this story was both great and horrifying. There is a lot of ridiculous characters and situations overlying a story that is terrifying because it isn’t too far outside the realm of possibility. Time to scour the bins to complete this series too. Jenny Sparks: I thought I was pretty much done with the authority but I realized I had never read this mini. A couple issues were stronger than others but it was like running into old friends again. It was weird though seeing Midnighter and Apollo in this as they seemed slightly less adept as they do in the main series. Fun read and I’m glad I rescued it from the bins. Strange Adventures: this is the issue that got a bunch of people riled up. Honestly though, I enjoyed it and look forward to seeing where this story goes. Good Grief Savage Dragon! This was goofy and fun. I haven’t read Savage dragon regularly for almost a decade so some of the references and characters were unfamiliar, but the energy Erik Larson puts into his creation is admirable.

Nice score! Some cool books in there

You remember correctly. A friend in one of my collector groups shared a pic of one.

1149-1154 Wynd 1-5 Boom! Studios has been killing it recently. This is the third title from them that I’ve picked up in the past couple months and it was pretty awesome. It’s a fantastical story dealing with humans and their fear of the magical. Anyone who may be touched has to stay hidden. I won’t dice deeper into it so as not to spoil it. The art was very good and really matched the tone of the story. My only complaint is that it was a five issue arc and issue six won’t be out till late spring 2021. Definitely worth checking out if fantasy tales are your jam.

That would be great. I’ve seen a few complete figures other than crystar, but I’m patient. I know at some point I’ll find one