Four-fifths of this volume can be described as “good.”  You get the same quality writing and art from Al Ewing and Joe Bennet, with Ryan Bodenheim doing solid work on the opening issue, as they move the story forward.  First by going backward with a look at the leader of Shadow Base, Gen. Reginald Fortean, […]

If “Dark Nights:  Metal” had one breakout character, it would be The Batman Who Laughs.  Not according to me, however. The idea of a Batman whose mind was infected, literally, by a toxin inside the Joker’s body which only emerged upon his death wasn’t the right kind of dumb for my tastes.  Seeing Batman and […]

Donny Cates and Geoff Shaw, together again on “Guardians of the Galaxy!”  It should’ve been a can’t-miss proposition after their work on “Thanos Wins.”  Yet Shaw only wound up drawing the issues in this volume and Cates wrapped things up after twelve issues.  I’m inclined to wonder “What went wrong?” under these circumstances, but another […]

In case anyone is keeping track of the “Actually” bit, vol. 16 was “War of the Realms.”) My biggest complaint with “War of the Realms” was that it was focused too much on spectacle.  There were lots of epic showdowns and conflicts on display, but it was lacking in smaller character moments to help flesh […]

This volume’s title is where the impossible happens, and it’s where the League has to go in order to stop Luthor from turning the multiverse towards Doom.  What do they find there? Why a perfect utopia where their future selves are more than happy to show them around and talk about how they pulled it […]

Above-the-Board Recommendation: Batman:  Last Knight on Earth HC It’s the future, and do you know where your Batman is?  Bruce Wayne doesn’t. He’s just woken up in Arkham Asylum without a sign that he’s ever been Batman.  The world outside Arkham appears to be all the worse off for it as the Earth of the […]

Above-the-Board Recommendation: Outer Darkness/Chew #1 (of 3) “Chew” is no stranger to odd crossovers, having already done one with supernatural rural noir “Revival.”  The catch this time is that the series is crossing over space, time, and genre to mash up in some way with creator John Layman’s current series “Outer Darkness.”  As to how […]

Above-the-Board Recommendation: X-Men:  Grand Design Omnibus The first three hundred issues of “X-Men” are unique among Marvel comics of that length in the sense that the majority of them were written by one person:  Chris Claremont. Even then there’s a lot of sprawl in his run and that’s even before you try to reconcile it […]

The last time I reviewed a volume of this title, I mentioned that Andrea Sorrentino’s art was what really made this series.  That continues to be true here in vol. 3 as we follow a couple of different plot threads there.  The first and longest of them involves one of the posse who went to […]