Books: Lots O' Comics

[woodwardiocom]

Marvel Generations by Divers Hands

A collection of one-shots in which assorted legacy characters travel through time to bond with the previous holders of the mantle. Includes Wolverine, Thor, Captain America, Captain Marvel, Ms. Marvel, Spider-Man and others. Generally good, and they do some interesting spins on the concept. (E.g., Ironheart travels forward in time to meet Tony Stark, Sorcerer Supreme.) The most touching one was Wolverine (Laura)'s meeting with Wolverine (Logan), in which she gives some advice on family. Mildly recommended.

The Unbeatable Squirrel Girl, Moon Girl And Devil Dinosaur, The Unstoppable Wasp, and Ironheart by Divers Hands

Marvel is publishing a lot of comics starring young women these days (Ms. Marvel should also be on this list!), and most of them are pretty good! Ironheart is a little Bendis-y, and Moon Girl occasionally seems to lack focus, but I'm enjoying all of them.

Spider-Man/Red Sonja by Claremont, Byrne, Oeming, and Rubi

Back in the 1970s, an issue of Marvel Team-Up featured the She-Devil With A Sword being teleported to the present day, and teaming up with the Wall-Crawler to defeat the sorcerer Kulan Gath. It was fun, had some repercussions for the X-Men when Gath reformed New York into a dark fantasy world, and is collected in this volume. The bulk of the book, however, is the more recent five-issue miniseries which basically expands the same plot quite a bit, with many members of Spidey's supporting cast turned into fantasy monsters and heroes. Entertaining.

Wonder Woman/Conan by Gail Simone, Lopresti, Ruan, and Broome

Ah, Gail Simone, can you do wrong? In flashback we learn of young Conan's budding romance with a girl named Yanna from an all-woman island off the coast. In the present, he and an amnesiac Diana are thrown into the gladiatorial pits, chained together. They survive the fights, slavery on a pirate ship, and the hostile attention of the Corvidae before defeating evil in bloody combat. Recommended.

Future Echoes by Al Davison and Yen Quach

A ghost/time-travel love story, with intersectional diversity, published by my friend Alisa Kwitney. Recommended.

If It's For My Daughter, I'd Even Defeat A Demon Lord by Hota and Chirolu

A cute manga series set in a Dungeons & Dragons world, in which a doughty young hero adopts a demon girl he finds orphaned in the woods. Volume 1 is mostly setting up the premise, in which she charms everyone she comes in contact with. The problems of her ancestry will presumably be dealt with in future volumes...

Black Panther by Christopher Priest, et al

Priest's run on Black Panther was the first time the character had been written by a black man, and is considered one of the definitive eras for the character. Many of the elements of the recent movie come from this era. (And some have even been improved in translation.) While the title is a little chaotic (many stories are told in aggressively anachronic order), it's intensely good stuff.

Gotham City Garage by Kelly, Lanzing, et al

Following up on the success of DC's Bombshells alternate universe (setting modern DC heroines in WW2), Garage sets them in a dystopian future divided between the hyper-surveilled, drugged-into-complacency megacity of Gotham, and the wastelands around it, filled with girl biker gangs as the resistance. Frankly, my biggest complaint is that they didn't get anyone on the book who was seriously into motorcycles. The mechanical designs are a bit dull, and the cycles seem a bit of an afterthought. The core story is certainly interesting, and the revamped characters are cool. Mildly recommended.