A clueless philosophy teacher repeatedly makes a fool of himself in front of his colleagues, boss and students. A night class goes off the rails when the local fire chief takes it upon himself to punish the students for asking questions. A co-ed Buddhist retreat becomes a hotbed of sexual frustration for one man and his monkey.
Probably best known for his seminal 1980s Wolverine miniseries Weapon X over at Marvel, Barry Windsor-Smith is back with a new story... about the military hiring mad scientists... to secretly experiment on people… with disastrous results. Hmm. Well, I don’t want to say Barry Windsor-Smith is a one-trick pony but, from what I’ve read of him anyway, he’s 2 for 2!
I can tell you the premise of Crossover, Volume 1: Kids Love Chains (the subtitle is a quote by toymaker Todd McFarlane - no clue what it means, unless he’s being literal, in which case he’s as mad as he’s always seemed): comic book characters emerge in the “real” world and wreak havoc for no reason.
At the dawn of man, an alien monolith appears amidst the man-apes - and forever changes humanity’s destiny. 3 million years later, as the space age begins for mankind, another monolith is found - this time on the moon! - and appears to be transmitting to Japetus, one of Saturn’s moons. So the crew of the starship Discovery set out on their secret mission to locate the source. Will they discover the mystery of the monoliths, as well as make first contact with their creators, the aliens we might be calling… God? One thing’s for sure: nothing could go wrong with an artificial intelligence like HAL 9000 on board!
Mister Freeze is kidnapping ladies who look like his beloved frozen Nora in a new attempt to resurrect her - and he does! But she’s not as he remembered…
First Person Singular is the worst short story collection Haruki Murakami has put out yet! All of the stories are boring, unimaginative, and so unmemorable. I finished this yesterday and I’ve already forgotten over half of the stories here.
Harry returns from New York only to discover that he might have finally gotten his wish: a ride back to his alien homeworld! But what is Harry’s home now: the one in the stars or the one he’s built in the small town of Patience, Washington? With a government agent hot on his trail, he’ll have to decide soon because his ride’s here!
Tony’s having a midlife crisis, or something, so he sells up his shares in Stark Unlimited, buys a buncha fancy cars and starts Fast and Furious-ing it up in the streets of New York! But an old Avengers foe, Korvac, is back with a new dastardly plan to steal the lightning and become a cyborg Jebus, or something. Big Iron? Big whoop.
Joker’s warring on Gotham because he’s the Joker! He’s also got Bruce Wayne’s money this time! Derpy derp derp derppppp!
November, 1944, and, despite Germany’s inevitable defeat mere months away, the Nazis’ increasingly unhinged actions have led them to use their new ballistic missile, the V2, to daily shell London to kill as many civilians as possible in what they call “Operation Vengeance”. Wishing to remove the fear of randomly dying while sat in your own home, the British forces attempt to desperately pinpoint the hidden mobile launch sites in Holland for the RAF to bomb - but will the efforts of a small team of female mathematicians be up to the task?
Someone is abducting people in Bastion City - but who and why? Two estranged brothers find out their comatose sister is the next target of this mysterious creep and must unite to stop him!
With James Tynion tanking the main Batman title so consistently and thoroughly I thought Peter Tomasi would be doing at least a bit better with the other long-running Batman title, Detective Comics, but, amazingly, he’s managing to do as piss-poor of a job! Like the previous volume, this one has nothing to recommend it.
Fred Van Lente and Ryan Dunlavey, the creative team behind similarly edumacational comics Action Philosophers and The Comic Book History of Comics, are back with a new chin stroker: The Comic Book History of Animation - and it’s a cracking read!
In the dystopian future, engineer D-503 (because future people are numbers - individuals don’t matter, only the collective we are the Borg) is working on the rocketship Integral to spread the doctrine of Utopia’s Benefactor to the stars. But then he falls in love with I-330 - and love, imagination, anything that smacks of human nature, is punishable by death! What’s a supposedly-mindless drone to do?!
Part origin, part prequel-ish tale from before Joker became Batman’s legendary nemesis and Harleen Quinzel became Harley Quinn, maybe even alternate world story, Joker/Harley: Criminal Sanity sees Harley on the side of the Gotham City PD as they team up to stop the Joker’s art-influenced serial killings.
Edward St Aubyn’s latest novel Double Blind doesn’t really have a story per se, you’re just introduced to a group of compelling characters at interesting points in their lives and follow them for the duration of the book. It’s about human relationships and science and the pursuit of the next technological breakthrough but there’s no one main character or neat, self-contained storyline that could summarise the novel.
