Steve's Comic Cleaning and Pressing Has Done it Again!

I've written a couple of times now about how great Steve's Comic Cleaning and Pressing is if you need your comics worked upon. Whether you plan to submit a book for grading or just want it to present better, Steve does fantastic work! The latest example of his skill would be my, "Omega Men," #3 which has returned from CGC as an exemplary 9.8. You can see my picture of it above and please know I am quite happy! I was hopeful the book might get a 9.6 but did worry about some waviness in the pages and how my eye often misses little concerns that CGC might notice. Steve's work made it so that the first appearance of Lobo scored the highest grade you generally see (it is almost unheard of for a comic to get a 9.9 or 10.0 outside of a small number of cases). I just want to thank Steve for his continued amazing work and plan to keep returning to him as a customer whenever I've got a comic I want to be worked on before it goes to get graded. Check his site out and don't hesitate to message him if you need pressing or cleaning!

"Strange Adventures," #1 Is a Strong and Ominous Start

Tom King is a writer who makes absolute masterpieces and big steaming piles of trash. He is incapable of doing something, "Just fine." It is either phenomenal or awful as Hell. Some of my favorite stuff of his (e.g. the things that aren't bad) are his 12-issue series (not all limited series he does, however, as, "Heroes in Crisis," shows). Give Tom King too many issues and he really trails off (his, "Batman," run he was kicked-off of), give him too few and the story will suffer ("Omega Men," almost didn't get 12 full issues and I just mentioned, "Heroes in Crisis"). That sweet spot of 12 issues has given us, "The Vision," and, "Mister Miracle," however, so when Tom King asks for 12 issues you give the man his damn 12 issues and get out of the way of King and his artistic collaborators. Speaking of art, King reunited with Mitch Gerads and brings in Doc Shaner to tell two sides of the same story. It has only just started, but I'm hooked.

Adam Strange is a human who found himself zapped to the planet of Rann and became a war hero there before returning to Earth. Is he a hero, however, or a war criminal? Could he have committed a recent murder on Earth that looks like it was his Ray gun? This is only the first issue so you know we're only going to get questions and zero answers yet, but that's alright. A first issue is about laying-down the pieces we'll be building off of and setting a tone. Thanks to King, Gerads, and Shaner, that is all done with gusto. Gerards illustrates scenes in the present that are filled with growing dread while the Shaner flashbacks have an almost silver age vibe of over-the-top theatrics (that may very well hide some dark secrets too).

"Strange Adventures," is off to a fantastic start and if I may spoil one little thing at the end of this issue (which solicitations have revealed as well), Mister Terrific will be showing-up too, which makes me happy. I always feel Misster Terrific is annoyingly underused in stories as such a snazzy character. Assuming King, Gerads, and Shaner keep this quality up I think we'll have another magnificent maxi-series to admire when this is all said and done.
5 out of 5 stars.

An Odd Rumor About Tom King and His Work on, "Batman," is Spreading

Update 5/23/19, 9:45 PM
It is official that King is off, "Batman," but will be working on other DC properties still, one of which may allow him to finish his big Batman tale. The first outlet to report this, Bleeding Cool, is quite pleased with itself, admittedly reasonably so.

Original Article
Assorted websites such as Bleeding Cool and Comics Beat have been talking about an apparent rumor that popular comic-writer Tom King is no longer going to be working on the, "Batman," comic as of issue #85. This is strange as outside of a few issues that tied-in to other events King has written the comic since its most recent relaunch (when, "Rebirth," started) and has indicated he has a 100+ issue master-plan that everything leads up to (and changes Batman forever...or until the next reboot).

Some people have said this relates to sales of, "Batman," dropping to a level that displeases DC/Warner Brothers, others claim it has something to do with King's idea to, "Change," Batman being one the company now is less in favor of having occur. Also, there are people who have stated this is all just a big silly rumor and nothing is changing, or at most maybe King is going to get his own separate series/mini-series to wrap things up while the main, "Batman," book goes in a new direction for one reason or another (there are always events to tie-in with.)

I don't know what is happening or going to happen, and I haven't really read much of King's run on, "Batman," outside of some earlier issues and that decent, "The Button," cross-over between his book and, "The Flash," that set-up elements of the eternally-delayed, "Doomsday Clock." That said, I kind of chuckle at how this vaguely reminds me of years ago when King was doing, "Omega Men," for DC and while he had made it clear the plan was for it to be 12 issues it was at first cancelled and shortened to seven issues before enough outcry took place for DC to let it finish at its full dozen of issues (and go on to be highly-regarded as a great read). This is funny as while comic-book fans can sometimes be really mean to creators (especially with some awful so-called movements nowadays like Comicsgate) it is the fans who seem to have helped Tom King previously when his work was in danger of being affected by the higher-ups at DC/WB.

One can only wonder how much truth there is to this rumor of King being kicked-off/replaced on, "Batman," and if there will be enough outcry from people invested in the 80+ issues King has written to reverse any possible decisions DC has made--if this rumor has much truth to it, which we do not know (so yes, this whole article could be a moot point, so sue me). It probably won't be too long before this all is proven true, revealed to be false, or turns out to be a mixture of accurate scuttlebutt and imagined nonsense. In the meantime I wish Tom King the best as he is a very nice guy and has written some great stuff (and some things I've hated, but that's normal).

Reviews of Some DC Collections I Read Thanks to the Library

I Really do Love the Library

I've read some DC Comic Collections lately thanks to my library system carrying all the books I've heard are interesting but which I don't want to buy because my collection is getting too big for stuff that I might enjoy (plus I only have so much funds). I quit reading a lot of the DC books monthly before the latest, "Rebirth," re-launch but wanted to check some of the books out that I had either followed before dropping them (like, "Batman,") or which good things were being said about. With that established, here are some DC collections of comics I've read!

Justice League Volume 7: Darkseid War Part 1, Justice League Volume 8: Darkseid War Part 2, and Justice League: The Darkseid War: Power of the Gods

Yes, that last book's title  has a colon within a colon. It is odd, I know. Anyways, I mostly quit following the, "Justice League," comic after, "Forever Evil," and Lex Luthor figuring out how Bruce Wayne was Batman (not that impressive considering a kid, Tim Drake, has done it too, but whatever, I'll give Luthor the win). I guess that resulted in Luthor being allowed by Batman/blackmailing Batman onto the Justice League because here he is fighting against Darkseid and the Anti-Monitor AKA the secret bad-guy behind the villains of, "Forever Evil," fleeing their ruined home-world. Other heroes and villains pop-up such as Mister Miracle and a lady named Grail who is Wonder Woman's evil Amazon counterpart due to being born the same day (or something), but things don't actually get all that interesting until toward the end of Volume 7/Part 1 when a bunch of the Justice League members gain incredible powers in the process of killing Darkseid.

To name some changes: Batman finds his way onto the chair of Metron and gains near-infinite knowledge, the Flash gets the power of death (or something) and Superman seems to be basically the same in strength but now fully black-and-white in coloration and really pissed-off all the time. These alterations to our heroes is explored further in the double-colon, "Justice League: Darkseid War: Power of the Gods," which collects some one-shots that came out during the even chronicling what our heroes got up to during their time gifted with immense power although I only found the, "Batman," one particularly interesting with its focus on Batman causing a headache for the legal system due to his now capturing perpetrators because they can actually commit a crime. The Superman one wasn't too bad either with it hinting how even when vaguely-corrupted by the powers of Darkseid a hero like Superman has bits of humanity in him still.

Once Volume 8/Part 2 kicks in since the climax of Darkseid's violent defeat the story gets moving a lot more as the Anti-Monitor tries to destroy Earth and Justice League has to team-up with the Crime Syndicate (the evil heroes from that, "Forever Evil," event) and release them from prison in order to fight the Anti-Monitor whilst fighting their own new powers that are making them act weird. Wonder Woman is one of the few heroes not corrupted so a lot of Volume 8 involves her viewpoint and thinking about how she's possibly the only person staying sane as the whole team falls apart--a nice touch as outside of her solo-comics we don't see much of Wonder Woman's viewpoint in regards to when she is in a team-book.

It was a little odd seeing the Anti-Monitor--a being who can destroy all of reality--just slowly destroying Earth considering his immense powers, but it is addressed how he is a bit weaker from his fight with Darkseid and in some ways likes having the more, "Personal," touch of evaporating a single planet as opposed to doing damage on a massive scale--a weak explanation, but an explanation nonetheless. Plus, compared to how weird and confusing things start to get toward the end of Volume 8/Part 2 that's nothing. You see, the Superwoman of the Crime Syndicate is pregnant, and gives birth to a baby, that somehow is morphed into a full-grown Darkseid who is controlled by Wonder Woman's aforementioned evil fellow Amazon, Grail. So we've got the Justice League dealing with corrupted powers, the Crime Syndicate reappearing, as well as extra villains and heroes from various planets resulting in the last few chapters of this volume being a bit of a jumble of a ton of characters struggling to get, "Screen-time." The Justice League of course overcomes evil and saves the day, but it is really messy considering how many characters and plot-lines are fighting for attention. Still, overall this was decently-entertaining even if it was heavily flawed, so I would rate it as....
3 out of 5 stars.

Batman Volume 9: Bloom

The conclusion of Scott Snyder's immense run on, "Batman," and I think the only Nu52 book that kept the same writer from beginning to when it ended for, "Rebirth," starting-up. A whole bunch of things happened over Snyder's run from the introduction of the Court of Owls, to repeated appearances by the Joker, the late-series introduction of this, "Bloom," baddie, and towards the end Bruce Wayne was, "Cured," of the trauma of being Batman and quit doing it long enough for Jim Gordon to step-in and tackle the job for a bit. Don't worry though, before that could stick for too long Snyder essentially resets almost everything as Bruce Wayne becomes Batman again and the only meaningful alteration is how a young man named Duke Thomas joins-up to become a new bird-themed sidekick (Lark).

Also, we never learn the true identity of who this, "Bloom," person is because I guess the concept is how anyone could be a terrifying monster or a hero? I dunno. At least some of the time we get awesome art by Greg Capullo who also was with this run from the start but had the occasional fill-in artist. Snyder and Capullo gave us a, "Batman," comic that was at times ingenious, at other times terrible, but overall was a pretty good time, kind of like this concluding book. Not too bad of stuff.
3.5 out of 5 stars.


The Omega Men: The End is Here

This book won all sorts of critical awards and through the sheer protest of fans alone was kept from being cancelled early when the creators had said it was planned as a 12-issue epic and DC threatened to truncate that. Happily it kept going and then once collected shot-up the New York Times best-seller list, so hooray for critical reception turning into commercial success for once too!

"Omega Men," takes place in the DC Universe but in many ways works to be its own removed entity, focusing on a solar-system that has purposely kept itself removed from the affairs of the Universe--even the galaxies-spanning Green Lantern Corps. However, lantern Kyle Rayner comes to try and negotiate peace between warring groups and then things just get really depressing. Essentially this is a comic about how sometimes no matter how hard we want there to be a happy medium or a positive solution, sometimes shit just ends up being awful. It is a message I'm not sure I fully agree with, but kudos to writer Tom King for giving us a comic that eerily-mirrors much of the drama befalling nations today with our whole, "War on terror," except the twist in this case is that the terrorists are actually the good guys, maybe?

You see, even with the right-or-wrong ideas the comics covers, a whole lot of gray still exists and you as the reader are never sure exactly who to cheer for---the morality of everything is extremely murky. It is a really good read and one I would recommend you check-out via your library/borrowing from a friend/buying at a store or online. It's a fantastically good read.
5 out of  5 stars.

Thanks Again to the Library!

Thanks once more to my local county libraries! As a resident of Saint Louis County I actually can acquire a library card for the City libraries too (Saint Louis City counts as its own County), and have done so--some of the stuff I read for my post about manga was actually from the city. I plan to read more books via those libraries too and in the future bet I will be thanking both the County and City profusely as I keep making posts about the stuff I've read!