JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure: Part 1—Phantom Blood, Vol. 1 (Jononium, #1)

I’m reading that this part is not as bizarre as the series in general, and that maybe the beginning of the series isn’t the strongest. So let’s hold out hope. Because while it was a tiny bit unusual, I wouldn’t call this a “bizarre” adventure. I’ve probably had weirder family dinners.

Superman: Space Age

The ending on this one is good, interesting, but getting there means slogging through the well-trod beats of a DCU that is almost identical to the one we know.

The thing is, if you’re not familiar with DC storylines, this will be super confusing. If you’re moderately familiar, you’ll have read these stories before. So it’s a bit of a story without an audience.

This is Crisis 23254 in this Crisis of Infinite Storylines!

Crisis of Storyline 5656: I felt shades of Tom King in this, with the integration of the trolley problem and other things like that in the story. BUT they mostly didn’t feel fleshed out, they were kind of brought up and abandoned without all feeding into the same overall story or theme. I think that’s kind of the secret of what Tom King does, his stories have discrete sections that feed into a cohesive, larger theme.

Crisis of Storyline 89723: Superman was boring. Superman being boring is, I think, the challenge of writing Superman today. You have to make him not boring. OR, you can make him boring in a way that’s charming, that simplifies a complicated world and brings comfort, but having him just be boring is not my favorite.

Crisis of Storyline 4985: At the risk of sounding like I hated the politics at play, I was rolling my eyes at a lot of the, “Lois Lane has to work twice as hard at news BECAUSE SHE’S A WOMAN!” I don’t hate the idea, but it felt like…with so much going on in this book, it was an element that felt bolted on and didn’t serve the story. I think this could easily carry its own story, I also think it could have fed into the larger thematic narrative, but it just happens.

Crisis 09435: Bruce Wayne realizing he can do things as a billionaire is not the most original idea. In fact, at this point in my life, I would LOVE to read a story about Bruce Wayne attempting to get things done as a billionaire and struggling, meanwhile his Batman-ing is getting results. A story about a Bruce Wayne who doesn’t really want to do Batman shit but is finding that, despite what he would like, to be effective, would be a twist on the story we’re seeing a lot right now.

Crisis 409587: The ending, while clever and a twist, is one you couldn’t possibly see coming until it happens. The ending really comes into play in the final 10% or so of the book, and…this is hard to describe, but I like a surprise ending that FEELS like I should’ve been able to see it coming, or that had a lot of clues that would’ve, in theory, let me put it together. I never guess endings ahead of time, I just can’t or don’t think that way, but this ending holds out so long before ramping up that it doesn’t give the reader time to feel like they could have seen any portion of it coming.

I like a lot of Mark Russell’s work, I LOVE Mike Allred’s art and was really happy to see him take this on, and it makes me wish he would do a run on Swamp Thing.

This was just not a hit for me.

Nudes

author: Elle Nash
review:
I think what Elle Nash delivers that a lot of authors don’t is a very authentic version of the rural/suburban sort of trashy realism. If you grew up somewhere that is NOT a big city, you know these people, you’ve been friends with some of these people, you went to school with them, you wonder how they’re doing every so often, some of them post pictures of their kids and that’s a little scary, some of them are going through some big problems in public in a way that’s more than a little off-putting…

I think when writers from big cities and who come from that MFA writing background try to do this sort of thing, they never get it right. It always has that feel of like, I don’t know, a sitcom set in New York where the characters are scumbags but live in nice apartments and wear good sweaters. A lot of times if feels like the lowest class person those writers can imagine is basically the most successful person you know.

These are writers who will have a dinner scene at Cheesecake Factory to indicate how pathetic the characters are. “He didn’t even realize that taking his wife to Cheesecake Factory is pathetic!?”

I’m a non-secret Cheesecake Factory stan, by the way. We went there after our cat died, both of us were super sad and just kind of didn’t know what to do. We just ate there because it was open and there were lots of darker, more secluded booths, and that was kind of the vibe we both wanted. But also, Cheesecake Factory is fine, y’all. Nobody is pretending it’s the fanciest restaurant on earth, but if you grew up in a rural place, it may be the fanciest place in town.

Anyway.

I’ve just gotten really tired of that fake-feeling attempt at writing characters from places other than New York or LA, and I’ve gotten tired of stories of people from those places as well, and boy it does end up limiting what you can read in terms of “literary fiction” a little more than you might think.

I’m not into the “the suburbs, now that’s REALLY scary” kind of thing that most people who don’t live in suburbs want to write about.

Good thing Elle Nash is around, eh?

Superman: Panic in the Sky

Up to now-ish I’ve been having a pretty good time with Superman and have been like, “Why did they kill this guy off? Things are going great!”

Then I read Panic in the sky.

Panic in the Sky would be a really good, bonkers crossover with Brainiac taking over Warworld and trying to crash it into Earth, but the problem is that there is SO MUCH going on and SO LITTLE to care about.

I wish I would write to DC and be like:

1. Nobody thinks Guy Gardener is awesome. He has red hair fashioned by the same barber as Moe from the Three Stooges. His last name is Gardener instead of, I don’t know, BloodAxe. He’s dressed like Pat Benatar becoming a Green Lantern. He’s not badass just because he says sassy things.

2. Why would you try and make a love story between Supergirl (who is just some weird shapeshifter blob woman) and a monster man gladiator guy? Both of them are pretty much blank slates as characters, why make them in love? What does that gain anyone?

3. Can we please stop with Gangbuster, who is just a lesser Batman who raided the Spaceballs costume department?

This guy is so boring. And the graphic design of his logo, clearly a throwaway design from the company that made DARE t-shirts in the 90’s, is terrible.

4. With all the flashbacks going on here, why don’t you give us a single flashback to Lex Luthor’s brain being in a cloned body and then pretending to be his own son? You don’t think that’s important information, but every other panel is someone going, “Gosh, I remember how you helped me out during that whole mess with the mole people or whatever, see issue #585.” Not one nod to this developing, insane, soap opera plot where Lex Luthor is also apparently affecting an Australian accent to throw everyone off the scent?

I’m not totally on the “Only thing to do now is kill him” train, but I can see why Superman fans, and especially non-fans of comics, would be pretty bored with the boy in blue at this point.

Vinland Saga Omnibus, Vol. 4

My favorite part of this book is that Thorkell is sad or angry every time there’s not a fight or he’s left out of a fight or someone says, “Looks like the war’s going to be over soon.” He just immediately gets pissed or sullen or has big feelings about not being able to chop heads off all day long.

Do you think Thorkell’s first name is Steve? Steve Thorkell? And the Urkels named their kid after a viking warrior?

I wouldn’t hate that addition to the Family Matters lore. Someone could probably hit the Family Matters wikipedia page and make that edit, and the chances someone would know it was wrong seem very low. And wouldn’t the person who knew for sure it WAS wrong have no real business on the Family Matters wikipedia page? Wouldn’t they know everything already?

That’s the thing, internet, wikipedia is supposed to be for us amateurs to just sort of work out what feels like the right ideas are. Since when did it become this legitimate house of facts? What is this, school?

Gannibal, Tome 1 (Gannibal, #1)

I think the me of 15 years ago could’ve probably eaten human flesh to survive in a that-or-death situation.

I think the me of today is a little bit older, and not at all wiser, just a little less willing to struggle that hard to survive. What, I’m gonna eat a guy so that I can survive an ordeal and then go back to WORK!? No thanks!

My Neighbor Totoro, 1988 – ★★★

The Catbus has tiny lil balls. This is the kind of attention to detail that wins awards for animation, damn it.

Also, the Catbus having tiny lil balls suggests that the Catbus is able to procreate with a female Catbus. OR a bus. OR a cat.

Probably the biggest plus of riding the Catbus is that the strong smell of cat pee can be assumed to be from the bus itself as opposed to another passenger.

Vinland Saga Omnibus, Vol. 3

I feel like, “Dying with your sword in your hand is the only way to get to Valhalla” is the Viking version of, “Working yourself until you’re retirement age and therefore no good to the company anymore, at which point you can live without working, provided you have made no mistakes and had no major misfortunes over the last 50 years.”