40 years ago the Derleth went missing off the coast of Alaska with all hands. Except now, suddenly, a signal from the lost ship begins transmitting again! A mysterious businessman charters a shipping crew for a salvage mission to the wreck in the middle of nowhere. Could the crew still be alive - and, if not, what onboard is broadcasting the signal…?
Noah Van Sciver’s latest book, Please Don’t Step on My JNCO Jeans, is a small, short paperback of colour and black and white strips, some of which appeared in his local Ohio paper, Columbus Alive! And, like a lot of Noah’s books, this one is a really fun read.
Superboy joins the Legion of Super-Heroes in the 31st century to help them stop a baddie from using Aquaman’s trident to do something bad! Feeling r-worded? Then let’s talk about the Legion of Poopoo-heroes!
A Blink of the Screen collects Terry Pratchett’s short fiction and is divided into non-Discworld short stories (the first 200 pages) and Discworld short stories (the remaining 100 pages). And most of it isn’t very good unfortunately!
A crime family wiped out, a comedian murdered during a live stream and a trio of corpses dressed to look like the Red Hood, splayed across the grounds of Ace Chemicals - all appear to have been killed by the Joker at the same time. But that’s impossible - how could the Joker have been in three places at once? Unless there are three Jokers: a Criminal, a Comedian, and a Clown. Three vigilantes - Batman, Batgirl and Red Hood - hunt down Joker(s) across three chapters in Three Jokers.
I have a love/hate relationship with Bendis. He’s written some undeniably brilliant comics over the years (and continues to - see his latest Jinxworld stuff) but some of his worst books suffer from word diarrhea, and nowhere is it more evident than in his superhero team books. His Avengers was basically them sitting around drinking coffee and “bantering” (ie. a meaningless blur of contemporary - now outdated - references and unfunny jokes). Same thing with his All-New X-Men, which was overloaded with characters from the beginning and only had more crammed in as the series went on, and his Guardians of the Galaxy - entire books full of characters standing around wittering on endlessly about nothing.
We all have our reasons for reading the books we do. For me, I saw a video where the actress Gillian Jacobs talked about having read WG Sebald’s The Rings of Saturn and, because I’m madly in love with her, I decided there was no better reason than to pick it up! And I’d heard the author’s name for some time now and was curious to see what he was like.
Travis Dandro’s childhood memoir King of King Court is about his biological father, Dave, whose psychological problems lead him down a dark path of crime, addiction and hurting his family. It’s a compelling story that sees Dave’s behaviour get worse over time. When he can’t get his prescription painkillers he turns to heroin, then his relationships crumble, and his behaviour becomes more desperate to fund his habit - it’s a sad depiction of what drug abuse does to a person.
My latest review for Multiversity Comics went up today - it's the first issue of Resident Alien: Your Ride's Here: http://www.multiversitycomics.com/reviews/resident-alien-your-rides-here-1/
A Mexican drug cartel (pictured on the cover) is moving into Gotham - Birds of Prey decide to stop them for reasons! Riveting…
My latest review for Multiversity Comics went up today - it's the first part of Judge Dredd: Simply Normal: http://www.multiversitycomics.com/news-columns/multiver-city-one-2000-ad-prog-2207/
17 year old Natalie is becoming an adult. Before setting off to college, she attends a disastrous party and then finds herself increasingly isolated and fraught in her new surroundings. That is until she meets the mysterious Tony, another outcast at the school - but who is Tony really and what does she want with Natalie?
Ethan Reckless: former undercover FBI operative once posing as a ‘60s radical is now banished from the agency and, in 1981 Los Angeles when we catch up with him, he’s a surfer dude who owns a dilapidated movie house downtown. He’s also a secret gun-for-hire. And then an old flame tracks him down with a mission to kill for a fortune - but who’s playing who and what’s Ethan getting himself into?
SPOILERS
In the wake of nuclear annihilation, Wonder Woman wakes up from a centuries-long sleep in a contrivance pod, I mean a sleep pod, to find the world has changed quite a bit while she’s been napping! Dangers are everywhere as she leads the surviving humans to her old home, Themyscira for... Reasons - but is Paradise Island the refuge she believes it to be?
Lana and three of her fellow office workers embark on a team-building exercise in an escape room called The Masked Ball. But as they progress, the rooms become smaller and the dark becomes darker - and they realise that the clues are highly personalised, revealing shameful secrets about each of them. What is this escape room - and will they ever get out…?
My latest review for Multiversity Comics went up today - it's the one-shot Anderson, PSI Division: Early Warning: http://www.multiversitycomics.com/news-columns/multiver-city-one-2206/
SPOILERS!
Three Jokers became two… becomes one. Batman, Batgirl and Red Hood race to the dilapidated Monarch Theatre for the final act in Jokers’ insane plan, involving Joe Chill - the man who killed Bruce Wayne’s parents. There can be only one Joker - but which one?
