Messy and incoherent Moon Knight

Midnight Sun (Moon Knight, #2)
by Charlie Huston, David Finch (Illustrator), Mico Suayan (Illustrator)

⭐⭐

Rating: 1.5 out of 5.

Three months since the events of Vol. 1. Spidey pays a visit!

And in issue #2 we get to meet Captain America. I didn‘t recognize him at first and had to go back to the start of the chapter to make sure. Pretty ugly guy and not nice. But neither is Spector. It took me longer to get to this point than in volume 1. It felt very episodic and it wasn‘t terribly enamored with the artwork either.

The artwork of volume 1 was much better. Here it‘s messier, coarser and anatomically more over the top. I don‘t like the look of Marc Spector. Issue #9 was the point when I thought „Wow, this is really ugly!“

The plot didn‘t do it for me either. Well, there wasn‘t really much of a plot. By issue #10 I had lost interest and started some light skimming. Very disappointing after the fun and wackyness of the first volume. Besides David Finch we have several other illustrators that were not part of volume 1. Maybe that made the difference?

I took a break, then started issue #11. After the first few frames I started to skim heavily. I didn‘t like the artwork or the confusing plot. Skimmed past issue #12 and #13.

Annual 1 (the last issue) was not really my cup of tea either in terms of artwork, but it was well drawn. And this issue had a coherent story. Well, the beginning of a story. It didn‘t really get past the introduction.

So, after an excellent first volume this was a massive let-down and I will definitely not get the next volume. Disappointing.

Collects Moon Knight #7-13 & Moon Knight Annual #1.

Egypt, the Moon and Beyond… This is nuts!

Lunatic (Moon Knight, #1)
by Jeff Lemire, Greg Smallwood (Illustrator)

⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

Rating: 5 out of 5.

Yes, I‘ve seen the mini series on Disney+ in June 2022. This is what I wrote in my June Wrap-up: S1, Not bad, but a lot silly. ★★★½☆

And yes again, that‘s why I got this comic. Everybody seemed to read it after watching the TV adaptation. To be honest, my days of superheroes seem to be a thing of the past. So, uphill struggle! On the plus side, I am a Lemire fan. I loved the Descender/Ascender comics.

Ok then, let‘s start… in Egypt! Which is a location in the TV series as well. Excuse my ignorance, if fans of the series are rolling their eyes now, in case this is a doozy. Never read any of the comics before!

Then we go off on a weird tangent… Bertrand Crawley, anybody? *shrugs* 

Oh, hold on, we are in a hospital in the TV series as well, right? Here we start with it though.

What is real, Egypt or the hospital? Marc Spector doesn‘t know. We don‘t either. He seems to have been institutionalized since he was 12 years old… or maybe not? Time to find out, with a little help… or maybe it doesn‘t actually matter, what is real?

Good sense of humour, good pacing, likable characters, well plotted. 

Unexpected ending to issue #4! And then it really got wacky in issue #5! Wut? Cool 2-page spread! Nice artwork! Surprising change in style. And then again… and again… huh? Rollercoaster ride!

I really like the different technique used to portrait Konshu. Too bad I don‘t like the guy. I was gonna say Nice Finish! And then I was screwed again. What on Earth were they smoking when they did issue #5? The heck? I am so confused! That was bloody brilliant. Is there another volume? 

Collecting Moon Knight (2016-2017) Issues #1-5.

Top Ten Tuesday — Names In the Titles

Top Ten Tuesday was created by The Broke and the Bookish in June of 2010 and was moved to That Artsy Reader Girl in January of 2018. It was born of a love of lists, a love of books, and a desire to bring bookish friends together.

http://www.thatartsyreadergirl.com/top-ten-tuesday/

This week‘s topic / February 1: Books with Names/Character Names In the Titles

So, let‘s have a look at that TBR pile of owned books and what I can dig up… All the descriptions are from the book blurbs.

Wolverine & The X-Men by Jason Aaron, Vol. 1 by Jason Aaron (Text),  Chris Bachalo (Illustrations),  Duncan Rouleau (Illustrations),  Nick Bradshaw (Illustrations)  — Spinning directly out of X-Men: Schism, the X-Men are split in two.
In the oversized debut issue of the new ongoing flagship X-series, Wolverine takes one half of the X-Men back to Westchester to start over again with a new school, a new student body and a lot of surprises up his sleeve.

The Complete Angel Catbird by Margaret Atwood,  Johnnie Christmas (Illustrator),  Tamra Bonvillain (Illustrator) — Internationally best-selling and respected novelist Margaret Atwood and acclaimed artist Johnnie Christmas collaborate for one of the most highly anticipated comic book and literary events!

Updating Pritkin (Cassandra Palmer, #5.3) by Karen Chance — was originally done as the conclusion to a contest on the author’s blog. Only 10 pages long.

The Chronicle of Heloise & Grimple by Sean Gibson — A bard walks in on a dark elf dealing cards to a beholder, a mind flayer, a demon, a grouchy-looking wizard, and what is either a vampire or a really pale guy with an unfortunate widow’s peak….

Cross of St. George (Richard Bolitho, #24) by Alexander Kent,  Douglas Reeman — February 1813: As American privateers pick off British and Canadian ships in the wake of the War of 1812, Admiral Sir Richard Bolitho returns to Halifax to defend Crown property. In the cold waters off Nova Scotia, he fights fruitless skirmishes with men of the frontier, all the while longing for peace.

Brunelleschi’s Dome: The Story of the Great Cathedral in Florence by Ross King — Even in an age of soaring skyscrapers and cavernous sports stadiums, the cathedral of Santa Maria del Fiore in Florence still retains a rare power to astonish. Yet the elegance of the building belies the tremendous labour, technical ingenuity and bitter personal strife involved in its creation. 

Here’s Negan! by Robert Kirkman,  Charlie Adlard (Illustrator),  Cliff Rathburn (Illustrator),  Dave Stewart (Illustrator) — Who is Negan? Who was he before society broke down?

Yoko Tsuno: TWO-IN-ONE: Unterirdische Begegnung / Die Orgel des Teufels by Roger Leloup,  Harald Sachse (Translator) — French comic translated into German. Fantastic adventures in space and time! On her travels, the young Japanese Yoko Tsuno experiences numerous adventures with her friends. Using her cleverness — and if necessary also her martial arts — she solves very human mysteries, hunts down alien villains and sometimes averts galactic catastrophes.

Kill Shakespeare: Die komplette Serie by Conor McCreery,  Anthony Del Col — free audio from the German Audible. Shakespeare’s world-famous heroes and villains meet in the mystical realms of Illyria under completely new conditions – and so a very different story unfolds…

Umlac’s Legacy (Entangled Galaxy Book 2) by Jim Meeks-Johnson — When Lt. Jade Mahelona defeated the cyborg Umlac, she inherited his interstellar kingdom—and made herself a target. Her new subjects are two-ton blobs who know that if they hunt her down and kill her, they get to take her place. She takes refuge with the reclusive Elliquine who adopt her into their herd and use her as their liaison to other species.

Well, I have some very suspicious offerings on this list. Maybe I shouldn‘t be surprised that some of them have been stuck on my TBR pile of owned books for a long time.

What I am doing when I am not reading

Well, watching too much TV. I also try to keep updated with the James Webb Space Telescope. I am not having much luck with finding a decent livestream.

NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope has reached its deep-space destination, but it’ll be a while yet before the $10 billion observatory starts its science work.

On Monday (Jan. 24), Webb slipped into orbit around the Earth-sun Lagrange Point 2, a gravitationally stable spot in space about 930,000 miles (1.5 million kilometers) from our planet. The arrival ended a month-long journey for the highly anticipated observatory, but there are still a lot of boxes to tick before Webb gets down to business.

“We expect the first science images from JWST to come back in about five months,” Amber Straughn, the deputy project scientist for Webb science communications, said during a webcast Webb event on Monday.  

https://www.space.com/james-webb-space-telescope-l2-arrival-next-steps

Long wait ahead of us! In the meantime I finally watched Venom. I am only slightly behind. It was ok, maybe a bit on the too silly side. If you are looking for a bit of mindless entertainment, this might hit the spot.

It goes without saying that I watched the last season of The Expanse. Another one that was just ok. It was clear that they would not be able to wrap up the remaining books and Babylon‘s Ashes was a pretty good spot in the series to “stop”. It is debatable if including the teaser that is Strange Dogs was just mean and maybe confusing for those that have not read the books. Rumour has it that there might be movies covering the remaining books. We shall see.

And no sourdough bread baking this weekend. I am wearing my lazy hat for now.

This kitty is missing a decent narrative

Black Panther by Ta-Nehisi Coates, Vol. 2: Avengers of the New World
by Ta-Nehisi Coates,  Wilfredo Torres (Illustrator),  Jacen Burrows (Illustrator),  Adam Gorham (Illustrator),  Chris Sprouse (Illustrator),  Brian Stelfreeze (Cover Art),  Leonard Kirk (Artist) 

⭐⭐

Rating: 1.5 out of 5.

Woooshhh… that‘s the sound of the story going over my head. I didn‘t read Vol. 1, so that might be on me. The artwork is okay-ish, the story is mostly not there. DNF at 68 pages and 23%. I really can‘t see myself muddling through another 230 pages of this.

ECHO is back!

Some news by Rebecca Roanhorse. She is back at Marvel — I blogged about her participation in Indigenous Voices a few days ago…

Recommended reading: Trail of LIghtning, her first UF novel. Granted, I gave that one only three stars and did not read the sequel, but it was not bad. Her new book, Black Sun, was nominated for a ton of awards. I probably need to add it to my TBR pile…

I’m back at MARVEL and writing a new Phoenix-powered Echo series, art by Luca Maresca. First issue out in October! For more info: Echo Embraces The …

ECHO is back!

Indigenous tales

Marvel Voices: Indigenous Voices # 1
by Jeffrey Veregge

Three stories based on Marvel. In each very short story a well-known Marvel character shows up. In summary not a great offering. The last one stood out. It was difficult to get a good grip on this, as the stories were very short.

“Hugo, Nebula, and Locus-award winning Black/Ohkay Owingeh writer Rebecca Roanhorse and Tongva artist Weshoyot Alvitre tell an Echo tale like none you’ve heard before.“

Anatomically off and I’m not a fan of the colouring. The artwork is not a winner. The story was ok, but didn‘t do much for me either. ★★☆☆☆

“Geoscientist and Lipan Apache writer Darcie Little Badger joins acclaimed Whitefish Lake First Nation artist Kyle Charles for a Dani Moonstar story that’s out of this world!“

The artwork is better. I also preferred the story of a mutant teenager in trouble a lot more. This is X-Men, coming to the rescue… I liked Elatsoe by Darcie Little Badger, so it was nice to see that she delivers in a different medium. ★★★½☆

“And Bram Stoker-winning horror writer Stephen Graham Jones of the Blackfeet Nation teams up with Qalipu Mi’kmaq First Nation artist David Cutler to revisit one of the darkest spots of X-Men history!“

I didn‘t particularly like The Only Good Indians, so I had low expectations, when I read the author’s name. However, I immediately liked the artwork.

I liked this one. Good story, albeit with a reference that I‘m not getting. I recognize the Marvel character, but I am missing the backstory. Still, this one was good all around and the best of this collection. ★★★★☆

This read is part of my attempt to clear my TBR pile of owned books and my #ReadBIPOC2021 challenge (entry for June).

September Wrap-up

Towards the end of the year my reading always seems to go down. Not sure why. Anyhow, I just finished one audio and will post the review later. And I am about to start the next audio. I have one credit left with Audible and yet again I am contemplating to cancel my membership. Sometimes I enjoy listening to audio, but most of the time it feels more like a chore to sit and listen. My listening comprehension is not as good as my reading comprehension and I do have to make more of an effort to understand and follow the stories.

There are a few notable exceptions. One exception are the Peter Grant novels—not because they are fun, but because they are so excellently narrated. And the Expanse novels by Corey were a fun ride as audiobooks. So there is at least one more audiobook in my future, for that I would revive my Audible—the last Expanse novel, Leviathan Falls, to be published sometime in 2021…

So, what did I read in September?

Buddy reads:
– Mindtouch, ebook, ★★★★★, pastoral SF, non-sexual not-quite-romance, finding your place in the world… Another one of Hogarth‘s offerings in her Pelted Universe.
– Emerald Blaze (Hidden Legacy #5), ebook, ★★★★½, all the Ilona Andrews fans go „Yay“. Enough said.
– Sourdough (zombie), ebook, ★★★★☆, techy San Francisco and a mystical sourdough starter. This made me bake.
– The Bookish Life of Nina Hill, ebook, ★★★¾☆, solitude, books, family, trivia and romance.

Comics, aka my guilty pleasure:
– Captain America: Sam Wilson Vol. 1: Not My Captain America, ★★★☆☆, Sam Wilson takes over as Cap. And turns into a werewolf. The bad guy is Donald Trump in disguise.
– Pretty Deadly #1, ★☆☆☆☆, weirdWestern, allover the place, no plot.

      

Definitely not my Captain America.

Captain America: Sam Wilson Vol. 1: Not My Captain America
by Nick Spencer,  Daniel Acuña (Illustrator),  Paul Renaud (Illustrator) 

⭐⭐⭐

Rating: 3 out of 5.

A mix of different artists, letterers, inkers, whatever… my track record is not great with that concept. Usually it ticks me off that the artwork changes from chapter to chapter… Beware, my review is a somewhat spoilerish chapter recap.

Chapter 1
Captain America is on deck and approaching! On wings!

Artwork, meh. Oh, but I do like her:

Blaxploitation comes to mind. That‘s not necessarily a good thing, is it?
A political message this strong in a Marvel comic is rather unusual. Not bad.

Chapter 2
I don‘t really like where this plot is going. And I don’t like this Cap a lot. Should he really be this inept and clueless?

Chapter 3
Cap-Wolf? Now that is funny… the artwork has gone downhill though. And the previous artwork was not up there either. The ending was a bit silly, no?

Chapter 4
This is my kind of artwork! Better!

Wordy and heavy on social commentary. I am dying to find out who the whisperer is…

Still a wolf, btw. There has been some shedding, lol! My favourite so far. Definitely the best artwork and I like the story telling as well. 

However, bottom line, this Captain America is not really happening for me.

Chapter 5
Is this dude Donald Trump in a Super Villain Snake outfit? 

The political commentary keeps on giving with a heavy hand.
Much better artwork than the previous chapters. 

Chapter 6
Ok, that wrapped up the storyline quite nicely. If you don’t mind that the guys enabling the villains got off like that. Cap turning from inept to way too jaded? The whole stock exchange thing and that newscast part were pointless. 
And it was a bit lame, that Sam is just back to his old self like that. Is that like the closing sequence in Star Trek, where everybody is back to square one and happy?
Not sure if I like the new Falcon much either. 

Oh, and Diamondback needs a job and all she can come up with is exotic dancing? The women in this are just the same old clichée, aren‘t they? Would be nice to have female superheroes or villains for a change that are not defined by the size of their boobs and lack of clothing.

Ok, I‘ll stop now, before I talk myself into rating this down any further.

PS: Yes, my review is allover the place, just like this comic. I can‘t decide if I like it or not.

FiiiizzzzChunck!

Secret Invasion
by Brian Michael Bendis

⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

Rating: 5 out of 5.

This is not a well structured review, more of a stream-of-consciousness-commentary. Here we go…

I liked the direction the prologue was going and the artwork wasn’t bad either. Maybe a winner?

Chapter 1
It‘s Tony! 

This comic had me at Red Alert!And there is humour! Sarcasm! Who the heck are Simon, Carol and Bob? The Civil War thing isn‘t quite done with, is it? I like this story!

Artwork — some of the characters‘ proportions are a little off. Some very strange boobs. But mostly it‘s good. Very colourful. 

A little confusing there at the end…

Chapter 2
Some weird mirror verse scenario is going on… Spiderman is funny in both manifestations. Lots of fighting, bright colours, not a lot of talking or any annoying narration. FiiiizzzzChunck! Fun!

Chapter 3
An in-between chapter, connecting the dots… a little bit of Maria Hill and the helicarrier, a little bit of the bad guys, a little bit of the new Avengers…

Devastating revelation!

Chapter 4
I am confused. And why do the women always have to wear clothes that are barely there?

This would make a pretty good screenplay. But seriously, the weird boobs are distracting.

Sometimes I am not sure, which superhero I am looking at. So I am missing out on some of the fun. Just another dude with a chiselled chin in a cape…

Chapter 5
Nice page layouts! 

I am sorry, but this white dude as Nick Fury just looks wrong! Even if he started out looking like that in the original comics. Give me Samuel Jackson any day!

It feels a bit as if I‘ve accidentally stumbled into the set of Men in Black with all those alien impersonators.

Chapter 6, 7 & 8
Fighting! Lots of fighting! Resolution? Reunion? Drama! Yay! And oh no! Sadness! And oops! And no — you have got to be kidding! Well, that was bloody entertaining.

Alternative covers — some nice, some ok, not a bad offering.

I wouldn‘t mind reading the next volume. Tne next issue after this could be Secret Invasion: War of Kings — it‘s hard to tell.