Giant-Sized Weekly Haul #7

Lo! Children! We return on a hot summer’s night to our four color ritual, and welcome you back to the Weekly Haul! The locust song cuts through the fog  and into the windows of the swamp mansion as I type, and it’s nights like this that are best for sitting on the porch with a good comic, that is, if you’re not getting fresh at the local drive-in during Plan 9 From Outer Space. As you can see in the above picture, Mr. Kittycat Jackson is drunk already and in no mood for lengthy intros, so let’s see what’s in the stash this week, shall we?

As the busy weeks have gone by without a post, the comics have piled up, and I no longer know the order in which I acquired them, so we may have overlooked a few issues, and if anyone cared, I would apologize. Kull Eternal #1 was a better read than I expected with incredible artwork. Anything that opens with Snakemen eating people in front of a Pyramid in the middle of modern day Antarctica (possibly formerly Valusia?) has my vote. Bug! #2 delivered on Mike Allred interpreting more Kirby concepts as The Losers join The Sandman and Forrager in fighting Abominable Snowmen in Nanda Parbat during World War II, along with Non-Kirby guest star the golden-age Blue Beetle. This comic is essentially an extension of Allred’s Silver Surfur title, but that’s hardly an insult because they’re both amazing books. Go buy it with your stupid money, Dumdums.

HEADLOPPER returns in an oversized issue with a very psychedelic cover that I could not ignore, and not to be outdone, ‘Namwolf #3 sports a very Lysergic cover as well. Oh, We haven’t talked about ‘Namwolf yet, have we? I fought The urge to buy The first issue with it’s excellent cover on the grounds that my shelf space is shrinking by the week and I buy too many comics already. However, the insidiously brilliant marketing ploy of the second issue sporting a Mike Mignola cover of an American Werewolf eating a Nazi stormtrooper got my money. I went back and bought the first two issues. I even got  copies for our old pal Abernathy Buckner the old Prospector. Imagine the movie Teenwolf if it took place in the early 70’s and Michael J. Fox had been drafted into Vietnam, and the scene where his Dad explains the family curse came with an incredibly violent WWII werewolf flashback . Written by Fabian Rangel and drawn with brilliantly counterpoint cartoonishness by Logan Faerber, ‘Namwolf comes to you from Eric Powell’s Albatross press, a little upstart that has been publishing some of the best comics I’ve read all year, and you’d do well to check them out.

Joe Golem has returned with a new Miniseries The Outer Dark, which has been even better than the first series, The Ratcatcher. Brian Bendis’ new Defenders series is a shameless cash grab for the new Netflix series, and is fine, featuring some great art, but it certainly scratches an itch for me, featuring some of my favorite Marvel Characters. Marvel has also been putting out dollar reprints of Spiderman first issues, including Peter Parker: The Spectacular Spiderman #1, The Amazing Spiderman #1, and Amazing Fantasy #15. Spectacular was the only one new to me, but I’ve read the other two dozens of times, but couldn’t resist the dollar reprints, Steve Ditko gets my money every time. And now having read them, I’ll likely leave them on a table in some dentist’s office waiting room or train station bench, where some poor unsuspecting child might find them and learn to read the awesome way with Spiderman, Mwuahahaha! #swampghoul!

Batman #24 caught my attention with a cover featuring Batman asking Catwoman to Marry him, call me a romantic but I want to see these made up people get hitched. And I’ve followed the title almost accidentally since The Button crossover. I enjoy Michael Janin’s art, which has brought me two issues deep into the current “War of Jokes and Riddles” story arc, this series continues to pique my interest just enough to come back on an issue-to-issue basis. Batman Vs. Elmer Fudd. For real, I’m going to read it as soon as I’m done with this article. Cullen Bunn and Brian Hurt’s The Damned #2 does not disappoint, this is shaping up to be a series I really enjoy. Nick Fury, we haven’t talked about this yet, have we? I’m 4 issues deep now in this series featuring Nick Fury, Agent of S.H.I.E.L.D.’s son, Nick Fury, Agent of SHIELD. Nick Jr. spends this series being a good old fashioned super spy in the tradition of both classic James Bond movies and classic Kirby/ Steranko Nick Fury comics of the swinging’ ’60’s. This book is bright, pop-y, colorful, and violent, and cool as shit. I’m a big fan of it’s format of one-off episodic stories, one mission per issue, and there is always a ticking clock. Pure story.

Batman #26, what did I just say? They crank it out every other week and it’s Batman. The Visitor How & Why He Stayed is wrapping up and getting sad. And Chilling Tales of Sabrina returns after a year+ hiatus, I can hardly complain though, this Weekly feature has been a lot less than weekly, lately.

Last but certainly not least, was the impulse-buy of The Silver Age Justice League Vol. 2. Look how much Mr. Jackson loves this book, that bitter old drunk. I can’t say enough how much I love this. Gardener Fox and Mike Sekowsky weave perfect superhero narratives, featuring alien Trees, Robots, and The Evil origin of sorcerer Felix Faust, who I learned for the first time,  was set on his evil path because he was a big fan of Weird Tales Magazine and was convinced that Lovecraft’s Necronomicon was real. And he was right. No shit, that’s in Justice League of America #10, go buy it and see for yourself. And that’s all for tonight you God damned apple-face goons. I’d stay and chat, but I really want to read about this duel between Batman and Elmer Fudd.

Until next time, boo believers, have a gross summer.

-Grim Doin’s