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81. Adventure Time Presents Marceline and the Scream Queens by Meredith Gran and various - This is an odd one where Marcelline has a touring show and there are various things happening. Holy crap, I forgot the whole thing. There's something about Princess Bubblegum and a whole plot that doubles as a metaphor for doubts of being an artist and all that. I'm not sure. Oh wow. I really do like Adventure Time but I think I've read too many graphic novels.
82. The Unbeatable Squirrel Girl: Squirrels Fall like Dominoes by Ryan North and Derek Charm(?) - Again we have to bow to Ryan North for making Squirrel Girl so amazing and making it seem so effortless. He makes it look easy to the point that you wonder why she wasn't a big star before recently (then you read what other writers have done with her and yep, you get it). In this installment Kraven ends up in court trying to defend himself from charges stemming from his entire career as a super villain. He runs off but it all kind of works out. No wait. He still runs off. But there are jokes about old printers which make me laugh. More computer science majors should write comic books - maybe not.
83.Saga Volume Five by Brian K. Vaughan & Fiona Staples - Everyone is scattered to the various places with Marko and Prince Robot IV in one spaceship, Hazel and her mother and grandmother at the mercy of one terrorist giving her to another terrorist, the assassins are looking to save the Will through use of dragons and the same thing. Anyhow the narrative is light but the deaths are sudden and the whole thing feels light and fluffy at first even though it's all pretty damn tragic. Simply because I get these books from the library, I am ok with the fact that there are only a few volumes left before the hiatus (ask me next year if I'm cool with that).
84.Deadpool's Secret Secret Wars by Cullen Bunn & Matteo Lolli - is there a superhero more 90s than Deadpool? I mean Preacher is way more 90s when it comes to the central question of "can we still be manly if we nominally support feminism?" coupled with the anything for a laugh/fuck political correctness stance (the comic dedicated an entire issue to two characters talking about how much they loved Bill Hicks). However, Deadpool was practically born out of the twin obsessions of 90s comics pushed together - hardcore badass heroes with tough guy stances and Generation X purposeful irony. Squirrel Girl and the Great Lakes Avengers were all in for the ironic "we're funny because our powers are stupid, GET IT?" line. Cable was the badass of badasses. Hell, they didn't even give him an origin story when he first showed up. He was just there being a tough guy. It was only later that they decided to make him a time traveling Nathan Summers because why not.
Anyhow 90s Deadpool being stuck in the most 80s Marvel storyline (DC was a lot more nuanced and weird with their Alan Moore/Frank Miller embrace) is something that shoiuld be good, but it kind of sucks. First off, Secret Wars was a weak story where superheroes fight in order to become toys for Marvel to market (in the collection of Secret Wars they don't even hide that) and nothing is really all that interesting in the book itself. So Deadpool going around making smartass comments - not terribly compelling. Because who cares? We know the story is stupid. Even when Dr Doom steals the Beyonder's power it is stupid. Deadpool telling us that it's stupid only makes it excruciating.
85.Tomie by Junji Ito (or No Escaping Tomie) - Just today I had a friend say that she was sick of stories about men killing women. I agree. And yet, holy fuck Junji Ito makes it work. At first you read this book and think "well I guess this is the early Junji Ito so he's learning" and it's strange to see Tomie in the first couple issues where she's more psychologically nasty than body horror. She makes people obsessed with her. They turn into monsters and they kill her. This is a very troubling topic since women are killed by men all the time, especially men claiming to be in love with them. Opera is pretty and can get away with it, but hard to do it in other points. Tomie is wicked in mocking these guys but it's still pretty disturbing.
But then the body horror kicks in when Tomie's dead body turns out to be a match for a sick girl. One kidney transplant and two pages later and Tomie is popping out of her stomach mostly fully formed. From then the Tomie driving men crazy bit is still there, but there's way more about how Tomie is multiplying. Tomie is killed and she comes back, but what happens if you cut her into pieces? Junji Ito has her in an apocalyptic mode where she's used as a plant. In one issue a peddler throws pieces of her into the water and she grows and eats swimmers in many forms. Her hair makes your hair look beautiful but it takes over.
Junji Ito is so fucking crazy. It's his earlier one but oh wow it's great.
82. The Unbeatable Squirrel Girl: Squirrels Fall like Dominoes by Ryan North and Derek Charm(?) - Again we have to bow to Ryan North for making Squirrel Girl so amazing and making it seem so effortless. He makes it look easy to the point that you wonder why she wasn't a big star before recently (then you read what other writers have done with her and yep, you get it). In this installment Kraven ends up in court trying to defend himself from charges stemming from his entire career as a super villain. He runs off but it all kind of works out. No wait. He still runs off. But there are jokes about old printers which make me laugh. More computer science majors should write comic books - maybe not.
83.Saga Volume Five by Brian K. Vaughan & Fiona Staples - Everyone is scattered to the various places with Marko and Prince Robot IV in one spaceship, Hazel and her mother and grandmother at the mercy of one terrorist giving her to another terrorist, the assassins are looking to save the Will through use of dragons and the same thing. Anyhow the narrative is light but the deaths are sudden and the whole thing feels light and fluffy at first even though it's all pretty damn tragic. Simply because I get these books from the library, I am ok with the fact that there are only a few volumes left before the hiatus (ask me next year if I'm cool with that).
84.Deadpool's Secret Secret Wars by Cullen Bunn & Matteo Lolli - is there a superhero more 90s than Deadpool? I mean Preacher is way more 90s when it comes to the central question of "can we still be manly if we nominally support feminism?" coupled with the anything for a laugh/fuck political correctness stance (the comic dedicated an entire issue to two characters talking about how much they loved Bill Hicks). However, Deadpool was practically born out of the twin obsessions of 90s comics pushed together - hardcore badass heroes with tough guy stances and Generation X purposeful irony. Squirrel Girl and the Great Lakes Avengers were all in for the ironic "we're funny because our powers are stupid, GET IT?" line. Cable was the badass of badasses. Hell, they didn't even give him an origin story when he first showed up. He was just there being a tough guy. It was only later that they decided to make him a time traveling Nathan Summers because why not.
Anyhow 90s Deadpool being stuck in the most 80s Marvel storyline (DC was a lot more nuanced and weird with their Alan Moore/Frank Miller embrace) is something that shoiuld be good, but it kind of sucks. First off, Secret Wars was a weak story where superheroes fight in order to become toys for Marvel to market (in the collection of Secret Wars they don't even hide that) and nothing is really all that interesting in the book itself. So Deadpool going around making smartass comments - not terribly compelling. Because who cares? We know the story is stupid. Even when Dr Doom steals the Beyonder's power it is stupid. Deadpool telling us that it's stupid only makes it excruciating.
85.Tomie by Junji Ito (or No Escaping Tomie) - Just today I had a friend say that she was sick of stories about men killing women. I agree. And yet, holy fuck Junji Ito makes it work. At first you read this book and think "well I guess this is the early Junji Ito so he's learning" and it's strange to see Tomie in the first couple issues where she's more psychologically nasty than body horror. She makes people obsessed with her. They turn into monsters and they kill her. This is a very troubling topic since women are killed by men all the time, especially men claiming to be in love with them. Opera is pretty and can get away with it, but hard to do it in other points. Tomie is wicked in mocking these guys but it's still pretty disturbing.
But then the body horror kicks in when Tomie's dead body turns out to be a match for a sick girl. One kidney transplant and two pages later and Tomie is popping out of her stomach mostly fully formed. From then the Tomie driving men crazy bit is still there, but there's way more about how Tomie is multiplying. Tomie is killed and she comes back, but what happens if you cut her into pieces? Junji Ito has her in an apocalyptic mode where she's used as a plant. In one issue a peddler throws pieces of her into the water and she grows and eats swimmers in many forms. Her hair makes your hair look beautiful but it takes over.
Junji Ito is so fucking crazy. It's his earlier one but oh wow it's great.
