Mike > Recent Status Updates

Holy shit I need to get back to Joe Hill. I’m maybe ten pages in and just tickled by the dialogue! Sarcastic east coast sensibility for the win

This is the only appearance of Jen Walters I could find in the Ultimates universe. Wanted to catch up on all her appearances throughout comics, in case they do callbacks in the She-Hulk TV series.

Well this is obvious GORGEOUS art. I can’t believe there isn’t more out there like this.

One thing this does better than other recent creative hand-offs: this current storyline *builds on* what was just bequeathed to us readers, rather than just ignoring it. The cycle of “Hulk’s in control” the. “Banner’s in control” and back is a little well-worn by now, but it still feels like a fun ride.

Great high concept with some depths to plumb ahead. I hear this book gets nuts without a plan, but I’m here for this ride (especially Ottley’s art, which I haven’t visited since…was it Chew?)

The double-sized issue could’ve been a momentous battle of wits and skills, but fit itself off prematurely so they could squeeze in a bunch of what reads like filler content? I mean, I’m sure the creators had their fun, but was any of that in service of readers?

Waid never fails to bring in some vicious insight into the characters he writes. Strange’s takedown by his latest travelling companion was brutal, and only because Waid understands Stephen so well.

The Bleeker issue was unusually amazing for a one-and-done.

Boy this starts off depressing, but I’m giving Waid his due to get the table-setting out of the way…

And I’m glad I did because zany space adventures is right up my alley. Not “Marvel Cosmic” space opera crap, but the kind of personal-hell-of-a-discombobulated-fish-out-of-water tale with an old friend? Fuck yeah.

Spoiler alert (if a weak sort): oh goodie, the once-a-decade killing of Spider-Man by Green Goblin. Yawn.

I keep waiting for it to be revealed that Osborn didn’t get Power from the mystical device, but Madness - and that everything since that moment in this event has been Osborn’s fantasy of how things should’ve worked out for him.

OMG this is hilarious. Spidey firmly confirms that the woman Osborn had imprisoned is actually his months-dead Aunt May, and Reed immediately informs Spidey that she has some irretrievable device in her brain that will kill her very soon.

I am so glad for the modern era of Spidey where Aunt May isn’t perennially on the brink of death. This one is like a parody of all that’s come before.

Wait, so Osborn senior was reborn and Harry Osborn is dead? For how long? By whose hand? Skipping over the entirety of the 90’s has left me with so many gaps in my supreme knowledge of Spider-Man

Wait, all this talk of May being alive - did MJ and Peter name their daughter May? Is Aunt May dead in this timeline? Did Osborn kidnap the elder or newborn May? So many Questions!

Kinda intrigued by the repeated mentions of MJ’s kid, in such hushed and sombre tones. Did she miscarry? Did the baby get born and then die? Was it abducted by aliens, then given up in exchange for galactic peace? (Like that isn’t a story at least once in Marvel’s history)

Norman Osborn co-owns the Bugle in this timeline? That’s almost as nuts as Mayor Kingpin in recent comics.

I’m sorry, how is Joe Robertson (a) explaining and (b) funding international excursions to find Spidey rogues, as the editor of a terrible newspaper?

Norman trucking with evil supernatural artefacts

MJ studying psychology?

Well at least Peter’s still snapping photos for the DB.

Yeah, I know a tragic ending where folks forget the adventures they had is all artsy and everything, but Jesus Jehoshaphat on a Jamaican Jerk Chicken Jaunt, that ending sucked. I seriously didn’t even understand the whole “you knew where this was headed the whole time” time-travel-coalescing bullshit.

Somehow I’ve tried to finish this volume four times and keep getting dragged down before I make any headway. I really thought momentum would carry me through the end - is this gonna be like my battle with volume 10 of Y: The Last Man? Still never read that one. Is this a BKV problem?

So…someone recommended this books as the opposite of Atlas Shrugged. With all the libertarian selfishness and grind/hustle/never-stop-evaluating-yourself culture going around, this sounds like exactly the kind of antipode I could use. https://www.quora.com/What-book-is-op...

Every once in a while the 80’s references come fast and hard, and I wonder just how exploitive Vaughan was - did he see the Stranger Things fandom and think, “I could buy me an Iroc with the money I could make off an 80’s-themed comic”?

The story really coming together now - Japho and Wari, double-0 Tiff, Erin clone, plus The Gang, all running around time and Cleveland to repair the foolishness and maybe not all die in the process.

Vaughan, Chiang and Wilson are making me jealous how they’re crafting some beautiful, readable sci-fi teen angst adventure hijinks. Why do they get to have all the fun?

Cute trick, sampling the lyrics to As Time Goes By for chapter openers.

Teasing us hard with the teen romance eh Brian? Like we gotta play the option with the NPCs another half-dozen times before the game rewards us with a little kissing or skin (spending on how long the publisher wants to spend in ratings negotiations)?

Fine dude, but you better come through - we’ve been waiting for that ginger to shut her mouth for a dozen issues already.