Episodes

Monday Jul 22, 2019
Ooku vol. 15
Monday Jul 22, 2019
Monday Jul 22, 2019
You know, I think you’ve got to go all the way back to the reign of Yoshimune -- maybe Ieshige if you’re being generous -- to find a time when it felt like the good women and men of this series weren’t constantly behind the eightball. Since then it’s felt like things have steadily become worse for those in power who try to do the right thing for Japan and its people. They’re constantly being outmaneuvered by those who would seek to wield power for their own ends or are acting on their worst instincts. For a while it looked like Iesada would buck that trend, until poor planning on her side gave the “Barbarians Out” contingent the upper hand in the previous volume. But wait! We found out that she was pregnant with her lover/consort Taneatsu’s child at the end of the previous volume! Surely this was a sign of better things to come?
…
It’s become clear that one of the things that Fumi Yoshinaga wants to say in this series is that people who want society to change for the better have to be vigilant. If they waver for even a moment then the bad guys are going to overtake them. This is a lesson that I’ve been reminded of whenever I check the daily news and to see it reiterated here with even more melodrama does not help instill it further. For comparison’s sake: The second significant death in this volume makes a certain amount of sense given the amount of resentment the character had engendered. The first significant death, however, is just plain mean. We didn’t need something like that to remind us that the world can be a horrifically awful place sometimes, but we got it anyway. There are some good tidings afterwards to raise the reader’s spirits before Yoshinaga gives us the ending cliffhanger with a twist to let us know the bad guys are still scheming. Which means she’s sending us out on that bummer note to let us know that things are going to get better with the next volume.
Right?

Sunday Jul 21, 2019
Aliens: Dust to Dust
Sunday Jul 21, 2019
Sunday Jul 21, 2019
I wasn’t expecting to say that Gabriel Hardman, who helped give us the underwhelming “Star Wars: Legacy” sequel series, would give us a better “Aliens” series than James Stokoe, but here we are. “Dust to Dust” is a kid’s-eye view of a Xenomorph outbreak on a far-off colony planet. Young Maxon wakes up to chaos in the streets, a facehugger attached to his mother, and things only get worse for him from there.
Though the back of this volume says that this story mixes the horror of “Alien” with the action of “Aliens,” it really hews much closer to the latter than the former. “Dust to Dust” starts off as a horrific thrill ride and it doesn’t slow down until around two-thirds of the way in. That kind of relentless pacing does grow wearing after a bit, as does the fact that the series feels like an exercise in tormenting a little kid for most of its length. If that kind of stuff bothers you, then consider yourself warned.
None of this detracts from the fact that the action is skillfully executed by Hardmann who also delivers the straightforward story with a minimum of stupidity. Maxon winds up being an inherently sympathetic protagonist due to his age, and you wind up rooting for him to make it out alive after everything he winds up going through. Hardman, however, is smart enough to realize that even if the kid does make it out alive he’ll be living with this trauma for the rest of his life. This is solid work all around and a persuasive argument for me to give the creator another shot on his next project.

Saturday Jul 20, 2019
Avengers by Jason Aaron vol. 2: World Tour
Saturday Jul 20, 2019
Saturday Jul 20, 2019
I was somewhat lukewarm on the first volume of Aaron’s “Avengers.” It was the kind of “Go Big” story that started the series off at full tilt, leaving you unsure where the series could go from there. Fortunately this second volume shows that the writer does have a plan for where he wants this series to go. The key words for that direction in this volume are “smaller” and “weirder” as it kicks off with an origin story for one of the “Avengers of 1,000,000 B.C.” before seguing into a nice, low-key downtime issue as the team gets to know each other inside their new headquarters inside a dead Celestial. This leads directly into a story about Namor and his new aquatic superhero team and their war against the surface, the introduction of the Squadron Supreme of America, and the establishment of the Agents of Wakanda.
None of these stories even attempts to match the opening arc’s balls-to-the-wall intensity and that turns out to be a good thing. Aaron makes it clear that he’s playing the long game here with lots of interesting setup for future storylines. This sense of planning elevates a quaint storyline like Namor’s as you recognize all the competing agendas which lie below its surface (pun intended). I also like the fact that he’s positioning the team as being generally successful in its agenda, with T’Challa giving it a leg up on operating intelligence thanks to his Agents, which makes the sinister plans occurring around them more interesting than frustrating to observe.
One thing that the first volume did better was artistic consistency. Ed McGuinness and Paco Medina worked well together to give the first volume a fittingly over-the-top look. McGuinness returns here, but only for parts of certain issues. He does solid work wherever he arrives, as do the likes of Sara Pichelli, David Marquez, and Cory Smith (with Adam Kubert, Frazer Irving, and Andrea Sorrentino pitching in on the anniversary issue). Their presences guarantee that this volume looks good, but at the cost of issue-to-issue stylistic consistency. Which is something that deserves to be fixed as the storytelling here deserves a more consistent artistic vision.

Friday Jul 19, 2019
Bitter Root vol. 1
Friday Jul 19, 2019
Friday Jul 19, 2019
The Sangeryes used to be the greatest family of monster hunters out there. They were able to combat and cure the Jinoo, the name given to people whose souls were corrupted by hate, without breaking a sweat. That was until a falling-out between family members sent the gunslinging Ford to the Deep South, turned the researcher Enoch into a pariah, and left Ma Etta, Blink, and Berg to hold down the fort in Harlem, with the latter training aspiring Jinoo hunter Cullen. Now an even greater threat is on the rise which might force the family into reconciliation. A new kind of infection is spreading through the streets of Harlem and beyond. An infection which turns people into vicious demons and the remaining Sangeryes are unable to cure. Even after it claims one of their own.
I’ve read first volumes where it feels like the creators decided to jump straight to the storyline where everything goes wrong for the main characters. Co-writers David Walker and Chuck Brown, along with artist Sandford Greene apparently decided to one-up those series by starting with what feels like the final storyline for this series. Everything about this first volume of “Bitter Root” feels like things are coming to a head as the stakes keep getting raised with each issue until the nature of the threat feels downright apocalyptic. I can appreciate the writers’ ambition in that regard, and Green provides some very stylish art, but the end result feels like kind of a mess. It’s really hard to care about this large cast as the creators clearly prioritized slam-bang action over characterizations that don’t feel rote and familiar. While I’m sure there will be a second volume to conclude the story at some point, what’s here leaves me feeling like it’d be for the best if that was it for the Sangeryes family.

Thursday Jul 18, 2019
Moonshine vol. 2
Thursday Jul 18, 2019
Thursday Jul 18, 2019
Apparently Brian Azzarello and Eduardo Risso decided not to take a mulligan with this series and returned for a second volume. I wasn’t really inclined to give it a shot after how the first volume turned out, but this one was on sale for 50% off so I figured I’d give it a shot. It begins with mobster turned runaway werewolf Lou Pirilo on a train which attracts some police attention at a stop. After getting into a fight with one of the officers, Pirilo winds up on a chain gang doing hard labor under the savage southern sun. Meanwhile, Pirilo’s boss is still trying to get his hands on the Appalachian hooch manufactured by the lycanthropic Holt family. He’s sent the old but crafty Senor Lago and devoutly Catholic hitman Cacciatore to try and seal the deal this time. Can the slickness of these cityfolk overcome the Holt’s hillbilly brutality? Absolutely, because they’ve got God on their side.
Two volumes in and I still find it hard to care about most of the characters or the overall direction of the series. Yet vol. 2 still winds up being a surprisingly readable experience nonetheless. That’s because even if Azzarello and Risso aren’t able to make the core story involving, they’re still able to create an engaging set of surface conflicts. Seeing Lago match wits with the remaining members of the Holt family is fun, and Pirilo’s antics with the chain gang turn out to be surprisingly engaging before the full moon rolls around. Do I feel like “Moonshine” has anything more to offer than seeing how the conflicts on the narrative’s surface play out? Not at this point, but I liked them enough to the point that I’ll probably give vol. 3 a shot whenever it comes around.

Monday Jul 15, 2019
Jojo's Bizarre Adventure Part 4: Diamond is Unbreakable vol. 1
Monday Jul 15, 2019
Monday Jul 15, 2019
Our long national nightmare is over!
No, not that one.
I’m talking about how it’s been almost three years since we’ve had any new “Jojo’s” stories in print. The last volume of “Battle Tendency” came out in August 2016 and since then Viz has been dutifully reprinting the entirety of “Stardust Crusaders” in the now-standard expanded hardcover format. This was great for those who had been buying the series in this format. Those of us who had picked up the sixteen-volume softcover version that was released during the manga boom were either left to re-buy a story we had already read or wait it out until Viz made it to the next part. They finally have and now we can all bask in the gloriously ridiculous, over-the-top, and horror-infused action that makes “Jojo” so great.
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Sunday Jul 14, 2019
Star Wars: Doctor Aphra vol. 5 -- Worst Among Equals
Sunday Jul 14, 2019
Sunday Jul 14, 2019
The last time we saw the good Doctor things had become real dark. Like, mindwiping her girlfriend to believe that she had killed her in order to escape Darth Vader dark. In the end, Aprha’s efforts only served to get her out of the frying pan when it was revealed that her new alien friend was actually Doctor Cornelius Evazan -- who, if you’ll recall, has the death sentence in twelve different star systems. Having both Aphra and vengeful murder-droid Triple-Zero at his mercy, Evazan thought it would be hilarious to see how they’d manage after he implanted them with bombs that would self-destruct if the other died or wandered more than 20 meters away. That’s where we are when “Worst Among Equals” kicks off.
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Saturday Jul 13, 2019
Doctor Strange by Mark Waid vol. 2: Remittance
Saturday Jul 13, 2019
Saturday Jul 13, 2019
Vol. 1 of Waid’s run left off on an incredible cliffhanger which suggested that the Strange we had been following wasn’t actually the real one. The writer wastes no time in resolving this setup for the first arc of this volume and it turns out I had it wrong. In fact, what’s really going on here has roots in Waid’s first encounter with the doctor in the quite good miniseries “The Doctor Is Out.” It also leads to an encounter with one of his oldest foes and a reckoning with his new alien friend Kanna. This is a fast-paced storyline that zips through a lot of magical names and rules as it goes along, but Wait does a good job managing the twists and turns along the way. Javier Pina also provides some solid art with all the magical craziness he has to offer while Andres Guinaldo delivers capable, if not quite as inspired, work as well.
The second arc in this volume also involves one of Strange’s longtime foes, as well as one of his oldest allies. That would be the Ancient One, the mystic who taught the Doctor the magical arts, who has now come to him for instruction after his knowledge was stolen. The person behind this not only has ties to what happened to the doctor in the first volume, but also represents Waid’s attempt at establishing rules for how Strange’s magic works. It’s an interesting approach even if I get the feeling that this is a problem which will never be solved given all the talented writers which have taken a whack at it over the years. Still, the arc is great to look at thanks to the return of Jesus Saiz for the majority of it with Pina providing some more than able back-up work in the final issue.
Vol. 2 also contains some stories from the anniversary issue (the Doctor’s 400th) written by Waid with art from Butch Guice, Kevin Nowlan, and Daniel Acuna. The ones from Guice and Nowlan obviously look great, even if they’re a bit on the “too cute” side with the Doctor encountering a problem borne of bullying in the former and learning a lesson in humility from the Ancient one in the latter. It’s the Acuna-illustrated one which is the real winner as the artist’s style works great in a psychedelic setting as we find out what gives Nightmare nightmares and allows this satisfying volume to go out on a high note.