Gary Peterson > Recent Status Updates

How do you totally tank a Dr. Doom story? He writes himself! But Conway did it with an unreadably bad epic that was both boring and stupid. I hate all the characters! I hate this era of the book! Buckler's art looks like Sal Buscema with tons of trapezoid mouths. The Super Special will be an oasis I hope. Almost there....

Good stuff on NDEs and psychic phenomena upending evolutionary and materialist worldviews.

Jumped the shark with two-part Power Man and Enchantress yarn. Aimless plot with Lee overwriting inane dialogue to make sense of Heck's incompetent plotting. The Marvel Method does NOT work with Heck. Wally Wood inks are a plus, but the story was meandering and pointless. Lee knows it since he brings back Giant-Man and Wasp soon.

Disappointing thus far. Merely the rantings of a man stabbing in the dark. Too much scientific and mathematical gobbledygook! I mean pages of formulae. Ugh. His wife went Quaker which is basically UU (belief in God not required). Big print, short chapters, and only 185 pages, so this book will go quickly. Hope it improves, but with CS Lewis on the horizon my hopes are dimming....

The Yui story left me in tears. I'm such a crybaby! Credit Kawahara with writing characters one gets invested in--even an AI simulation! The Sasha orphanage scenes did drag for me, so the story wasn't perfect. The Thinker and Army internecine battles bored me too. I'm growing impatient as I grow older (and grumpier). Onward to the Red-Nosed Reindeer story that closes the book.

Gettin' good... Madge is definitely Marcia Wilkins--why doesn't Doug realize that? Emil Watkins obviously murdered (bruise behind ear), not an accidental death. The deadbeat dad is... young Stapleton or young Grace? Not sure yet but leaning towards Stapleton with sister Inez covering it up. Murder will out in the next 90 pages!

Wow, not even halfway through this behemoth. Hated the mocking Uri Geller and fawning Joan Baez portraits. Spillane's is fun even if likely fabricated. Cardinal Cody went on and on with nary a mention of Jesus? Brickhouse sports announcer full of insights, a lot like Cosell's. I like Greene until I don't... then I do again with the next one. He's a mercurial guy--really a kid as only in his 20s when writing these.

Two-part Swordsman and Mandarin yarn in 19 and 20 a little drug out but pretty good. Wally Wood inks helped get Heck's art up on its feet. Iron Man cameo--even if a false image--a bone tossed to fans missing the heavy hitters. Book is starting to show loss of momentum with this protracted two-parter.

Prince Tuftan intro'd in #4. I always liked this guy (and Dr Canus).

First two short stories were excellent. Silica the tamer and Lisbeth both appealing and sympathetically written. I almost quit on Lisbeth's but hung in and grew to love it... even cried at the end! Now starting Yui's story, which I enjoyed in the anime and certainly will here. Kawahara is a thousand times better writer than Omori. Glad I jettisoned my DanMachi LNs and am shifting focus to SAO and Accel World.

Three issues in and I'm lovin' it! Haven't read Kamandi since the 1980's readthrough, so it's all new yet familiar. Just wish DC included the letters pages. Ben Boxer and Renzi more intriguing to me than trigger-happy punk Kamandi. So many imaginative concepts, great art and lettering. FUN!

Read chapters 1-3 at Kugler when Cindy had her eyes operated on. I was hooked, even if it's a banal story of a corrupt roadhouse and gambling. ESG makes the reader care. In chapter 5 and sad letters of wayward daughter of an avenging father who gassed himself on accident. Tragic stuff. Giant leap forward from Perry's Shoplifter Shoe disaster, which I suspect was an anomaly.

Chugging along. Enjoyed the Commissar issue 18 a lot and have for decades. Good John Birchy yarn. Kooky Quartet doing fine, though Hawkeye's snark already old. Heck's art goes up and down. I'm hanging in through 202, so gird up the loins of your imagination!

Make it stop. It's SO BAD. Conway is running the book into the ground. Loathed the 1950s-bashing two-parter in 136-37. Young hippies...! The dredging up bottom-shelf villains like Miracle Man, and for a two-parter? 138-39 unreadable. Skimmed and winced my way through. Even Buscema's art is suffering. He knows these stories by a punk suck.

Ugh. #134-35 a low point in an already bottom shelf run of books. Gideon and Dragon Man add up to tedium and melodrama. Lameness. I'm reading only to get to better issues, which I fear won't appear until next Epic. Demystifying and disllusioning these mid-70's issues I hadn't read before. I missed nothing!

Book peaked a chapter or so ago. What more is there to say, Andy? I'm not even halfway through the darn thing! Worse, Andy's virtue signaling his libtard creds: lady pastors, interracial marriage. Long anecdotes creeping into narrative. Strong start may end in a DNF if I don't see a turnaround.

Enter 1973 and Gerry Conway, but... Thundra vs Thing in a dawn battle in a ballpark? And now Dragon Man returns next issue? Ugh. Glad Thomas' short n' sour tenure is behind us, but Conway's isn't getting off to the strongest start. The art is beautiful. Hanging in there...!

Just read #16, the Old Order Changeth! The classic era has passed; the Kooky Quartet era is dawning.

Appreciated the fun extended report on Howard Cosell, which did a lot to make up for awful Hefner puff piece. The Joe Dimaggio article was a good time capusle capturing Joe's first day as Mr Coffee pitchman, which I remember as a lad.

Proto-woke Roy Thomas' awful two-part Alpha Primitives uprising storyline has me wanting to quit--again!--but Gerry Conway is on the horizon, so I'm hanging in there. The art is beautiful. Too much romantic melodrama! Johnny got his red costume, and Roy retcons in how Johnny loved Golden Age Torch. Yeah, right.

What's most depressing is Stan's GREED. He, his wife, and MPD daughter were all profligate spenders. What an unhappy family! No better is megalomaniacal King Kirby, who comes across poorly as a glory hound and similarly money obsessed. Was it their being Depression-era kids or their Jewish heritages? I'm disillusioned and disenchanted with both men.