If I'm actively wishing for a book to be canceled that cannot be a good sign.

It's a meandering mess of nonsense that makes me glad there are other Vampirella books being produced that I can go forward with because I'd be quite disappointed if this was the only one as it feels like it's intent is to turn people away from the character in favor of something 'intellectual" or other.

A world in which Hal Jordan doesn't get to become the Green Lantern is rife with possibilities, especially if nobody else becomes one either because Abin Sur arrives. Instead, we get something that's just a mess through and through when it comes to artwork and story execution as it's banal and cloying at best. Hal's a good character and I get that this is his cocky, young phase in his life, but even though he tries to go out big here, it does come across as what Carol says in that he's viewing it all as a way to escape rather than to do the right thing. It's hard to get behind him or his actions as well as the potential consequences of something like this if it was a mainline continuity. Hal's one of my favorite characters overall but this arc just showed us a bad side of him that didn' t do anyone any favors.

Okay, okay, not completely done. There's one more issue before the series goes into Future State that I'll begrudgingly pick up just to see if there's anything there worth hanging onto. But I suspect in a post-Future State world we're going to have Bendis writing the series when it picks up again and that will not have me coming back to it. As much hope as I had at the beginning, this is one of the worst writer/book pairings that I've seen in decades.

When I get to the credits at the end and see that it's Priest that wrote this, it all makes sense. I've struggled for the past year with their Vampirella series that has been a disaster and it's just clear that their style of writing simply doesn't click with my brain at all. I just can't follow the structure or intent, it's not overly wordy but it says a lot without saying anything and it becomes emptier with each word. I really love Mooneyham' artwork here as it captures things well with some great panels, especially when we get the formal Unknown Soldier moments, but by and large the artwork can't salvage the book as a whole even as much as I love it here.

I had hopes that this sequel series would smooth things out from the first series as it got underway but it seems intent on doubling down on bad things, executing it worse, and making me like the cast even less than I already was, which I wasn't quite sure was possible. It's a mess of a book that I can't look away from and from a mental health perspective frustrates me with what it perpetrates.

This second series for She Could Fly has felt a bit off the rails since the start. This one eases back into some more familiar storytelling but at the same time I've lost the plot so much I don't know what the goals of the characters are anymore. I like Luna a lot and seeing how she's dealing with all that she struggles with but there are some problematic messages sent here and she's making dangerous choices. Bill's story is just as dangers in a different way. I'm curious to see where his goes, as well as the results of the changes Luna is making, as there's potential for something either interesting or utterly disastrous.

With a lot of promise at the start, the book ends flat and convoluted. I really like the strange concepts that Kindlon comes up with but the execution after the foundational elements are a struggle from what I see, resulting in a lackluster ending. Simeone's artwork is pretty good and I like the color work here but when you have characters that have made little to no connections, even the best artist can struggle to make someone recognizable. I'm definitely still interested in projects that Kindlon will be working on as I can see how each work is a growing experience but I really hope the next one sticks the landing far better.

I went into this book expecting a jumping on point as it was billed as such, but the series feels like it has the weight of many years behind it. There is an appeal to that since it means there's a lot of material to work with for storylines, but it's a very inaccessible book in a big way, unlike most others that I've read that try to go this route since it's not as firmly entrenched in the familiar. I liken it to how I felt about the Legion book upon the relaunch as it was in a similar situation, running for several issues prior to the relaunch which just carried on as normal with a quick nod towards the bigger picture. What I came away with here is that if you weren't reading the book that ran through August before the relaunch, not much here is going to make sense. It has a certain potential with it as I liked the Suberranea area and some of what we get between Toby and Colleen, but the majority of it just felt like a jumbled and inaccessible mess.

I'm not dropping the series but I'm feeling very frustrated by both it and myself with the difficulties that come from the lettering work here. I know why it's done and it's always been a part of comics, and especially things from Vertigo, but it's been rare that I've found almost entire books unreadable because of it. There's good stuff in here and some gorgeous artwork so it's definitely worthwhile but those with a bit better eye toward handling the lettering will get more out of it.

Twenty or so beautiful pages of artwork, a few hints of what may be happening, some really problematic lettering choices. The Dreaming can't end soon enough.

While the book offers up some interesting ideas it also comes at a point where I've really struggled hard over the last few issues to even get past the lettering in the book in order to understand what's going on. We've had some great artwork throughout the run and this issue is no exception but it's also piling up close to that realm where so much is going on that it's all becoming noise at this point. There are pieces that I like but the flow of it as a whole simply leaves me anxious to see it done so I can close out this chapter of it and lament for the lack of Dreaming that will be in my life.

I had hoped to make it to the end of this arc before making a decision on whether to continue that it really says a lot that I'm giving up at this point. And this is after some very poor material in the previous run. I like Lara and I like the concept and potential of the property, but the comics just feel so weird and uneven that I can't tell where the problem really stems from. I'm sure these stories are working for someone but they're not working for me and I reached my limit on it early since this storyline after three issues has me disliking all the characters and not really finding much of an engaging story to dig into.

I like Mark Waid. I've read a lot of Mark Waid books over the years and have an affection for a number of his runs on various books. This series felt like one of the furthest things from a Mark Waid series and more of a series by committee that ended up just being a hodgepodge of stuff without any clear vision. Could it have been the unifying book to bring the various Gold Key characters together? Sure. It looks like that was one of the angles it wanted to work with. But after a very fun if awkward first issue, everything just came across as though the whole project was falling apart and it made less and less sense.

While I can still get the gist of what's being attempted here, it really falls flat in just about all ways. From artwork to dialogue and pacing, all of it kind of just hangs there without feeling like it knows how to come together or be compelling. Though there have been standalones and arcs that didn't do much for me previously within Sensation Comics, this is the first where it feels like an actual chore to read.

This was a hard and arduous arc to go through and it's pretty much in my mind the worst of the Sensation Comics run so far. It's certainly not going to knock me off of the series since there's so many opportunities for creative teams out there, but I'm really hoping that the editors become more judicious about what stories are told here because this one on top of all the other similar ones recently is turning this into a one-note series.

I continue to desperately hope for a solid Tomb Raider story. I thought we had some decent if not terribly exciting stories in the previous volume run of the property but after that ended we got an awkward alternate continuity storyline miniseries and then this one that hasn't clicked for me overall and is made worse by how the arc ended. The book is just a mess and I have no idea what could really work to salvage it outside of a wholesale reinvention. Something that I'll even admit I don't want to go through because it feels like every new storyline is trying to reinvent things. I'm curious to see where it goes next if only because they're going back to Cat for at least a moment, but I'm hard pressed to really stick it out much longer with this series, no matter how much I want it to work and be great.

Here's hoping the next volume of Tomb Raider works better. There were interesting moments with this series but I continue to find its reliance on the game story narratives to be a real problem for it as it just doesn't do anything for non-game readers and you feel like you're missing a whole lot of what's important or connected. Tamaki did the best with what she had but it just couldn't resonate, leaving me to simply enjoy Sevy's artwork while feeling the whole thing was a light and superficial work in a marketplace where a character like Lara should be blazing some truly new and exciting paths. The comics side of this property need to be untethered from the games and worked with some new angles.

The ability to reinvent comic characters is one of the best strengths of the industry and I'll still hold out for Barb to get another shot at it. The various relaunches have been haphazard at best and it really feels like there's no cohesive and strong plan, which is resulting in seemingly nothing sticking – when they should. Each of these characters and settings have a lot of potential but it's going to take a whole new approach to it. The team here did solid work in a technical sense with competent scripting and appealing artwork, but conceptually it just fell down before it even started because it wanted more of the same. This is a bring in folks from the outside job from here on out, perhaps a miniseries of alternate takes and re-imaginations to show the potential and let others play with it. But more of the same is not going to cut it.

The saving grace for the series continues to be the artwork.

I hate that Bettie Page comics went from one of the most interesting and fun series of the last few years, a property I was super surprised I got hooked on in a big way, to one that just made me not even want to finish reading the finale of the current series. While it looks great and has some fantastic design elements " and gorgeous covers as always " Pacheco's story simply didn't generate enthusiasm or interest and fell flat for a number of reasons. Hopefully, if she gets a second series to work with the character, we get something more interesting for one of the more interesting characters out there.

While I'm sure we'll see Khalid brought back at some point somewhere else as DC Comics tends to find new paths for characters that get lost along the way, this is a pretty disappointing ending for this series that started off with so much promise. Paul Levitz is one of my favorite writers going back to his work in the 70's and 80's and I got into much of what he did here. But the book became increasingly unfocused and unsure of itself and what it wanted to do that it's hard to tell if it's because of the writer and poor plotting of storylines or some sort of editorial mandate that just made it impossible to really connect well with the rest of the continuity. It's a loss for readers and a loss for DC that has me hopeful that someone else will figure out how to exploit all of this in an engaging way in the future.

While I've long liked the Abin Sur character, he's gotten a bit of a bump in the last few years and in particular from the movie this summer and this rendition is just unlikable. And I get it where that's part of the point, but it cuts a lot of the connection you can make to the character, which in turn keeps you from caring what happens to him and whether he achieves his goals. Nobody comes out of this book as a decent character or one that you would follow, which is not what I've found with the other books for the most part so far. The Corps hasn't changed much in this Flashpoint world, which definitely makes sense when you consider that they've had no real involvement with the planet so their path may have missed a lot of events because of that, but who they are as an organization isn't radically changed. I went into this book really curious to see what they'd do, but it left me very cold towards future issues.

Hal Jordan has some obvious changes to the origin, but it's more in the set dressing overall than in the real meat of the character. The shift of the war being what keeps him flying while being a cocky and annoying bastard is something fits in terms of updating it for this timeline, but it doesn't actually make it enjoyable. In fact, because there are realistically so little changes made to the origin, it's too much of a retread and not all that interesting. While other books with familiar characters haven't exhibited much in the way of deja vu, it's all we get here and it reminds us heavily of just how the tweaking of Hal's origins of the years have made him more and more of an ass in an attempt to portray him as reckless. Hopefully the next two issues will provide some real alterations to things and actually have fun with the ground in which it can play, but so far this one is leaving me thoroughly disenchanted.

With this series, Hal suffers the same problems that Barry did in Flash: Rebirth. He's just a bit of a jerk that's hard to connect with and the only reason we do on any level is because of years of knowledge of who he is elsewhere. There's not much to like or rally behind here with Hal, but he is showing some signs of growing up and that does help ease it a bit. But in the end, I still don't care for him and Carol doesn't come off well either. There's nobody worth liking here overall outside of Abin Sur himself, and that's not saying much considering he comes off as a bit of a jerk in his own miniseries. Considering how popular the Green Lantern books are in the mainline universe, they're being poorly executed and written here in the Flashpoint storyline.

Unsurprisingly, Flashpoint: Secret Seven delivered on the strange and weird with plenty of disjointed storytelling that made for a confusing and uninteresting read. I really like Milligan's works over the years and I love Shade as a character and Milligan's approach on it, but the structure of this episode and how everything is playing out is just poorly executed, making for a hard read. All the time spent at the Meta Hightable provides some information but it's all over the map that putting it together doesn't make much sense. When it deals with the Enchantress storyline, it's definitely more interesting but even that feels like we're being yanked around with how it wants to get to the story itself. There are kernels of an interesting story here, but its execution only serves to keep you away from reading more of it.

All that can really be said about the Secret Seven is that it shows just how awesome the Secret Six are even more and it served as a way to re familiarize people with the character of Shade before going into the relaunch. I've long been a fan of Shade and under Peter Milligan's hand as well as the original run he did pre-Vertigo was just trippy and surreal in a way that was exhilarating. This series is just a complete mess though with what it wants to do as it's never truly defined, brings in too much baggage and just never feels like it knew what it wanted to do. It's filled with sex, violence and characters that are hard pressed to be called heroes on their best day. It had its moments, some of them quite disturbing, but as a whole it's one of the weakest if not the weakest book of the event.

With this issue of Gotham Academy I am formally out. I'll probably revisit it in a year or two when the books are all on sale or something, but the monthly run is done for me as I've unsubscribed. I love the characters, the artwork, and the potential of it, but there are so many voices directing it here that it feels disjointed and without a clear direction – something that has plagued it since just before the Yearbook run in the first semester. It's unfortunate as DC Comics often does some great stuff in coming up with fringe characters that can hold their own and expand the shared universe in great ways as all of these characters have so much evolving ahead of them that it could be limitless. It really needs much better direction and a stronger voice with a paring down on the creative side to figure it all out.

Gotham Academy never recovered from the yearbook stint it did during the first series and this series just didn't come together well at all. The magic was lost along the way and could not be recreated, both in writing and artwork. And that just makes me sad as so much of that first series simply felt amazing in a way few main continuity books do in general and especially within the Gotham realm. I'll hold out hope that these characters get another shot at life but hopefully with a wholly different team at the helm and a more cohesive plan.

When a book is so overstuffed and complicated in a way to be so uninteresting that you won't even read it for free, you know you're lost on it. I may try skimming the other issues as they come up and potentially try with the next arc to get into it all again, but with this spinning out of No Justice and all its complications there that I haven't read, Justice League is just a mess.

Though King Tiger was never one of my favorites, I liked the backup material we had previously and the opening of this series felt like it was setting some decent if familiar foundations. As it progressed and it became this big world ending event, it just started coming across as weaker and weaker with what it was going since there wasn't time to really develop any of the characters and the threat was just too large. The end result is that the final issue is all about the action and some really cringe worthy moments from our title character that paints him in a fairly bad light as he just didn't think of most of what actually saves the day and kind of just lucks into it. While I wouldn't opt for a whole on reboot of the series, I'd certainly turn it over to a new team for any potential future miniseries.

I have no idea what to make of this book at this point. With the gap between the third and fourth installments making it even more difficult to connect things together and an unsolicited fifth issue that might not arrive into well into the first quarter next year, Mulan: Revelations is anything but a revelation. I've largely given up on story at this point and am simply enjoying Micah Kaneshiro's artwork. It has a great Brian Steelfreeze kind of vibe to it while being wholly its own that's just engaging to dig into and look at all the details. That can't sustain the book in terms of truly enjoying it and certainly not recommending it, but for fans of this style of artwork it's definitely a treat.

Power Girl hasn't exactly had the best run in its first six issues but there are things about it that keep drawing me back to it. The main stories involving the Ultra Humanite and then these displaced space girls keeps the series more on the lighter side of things with an element of darkness to it. Humanite at least had a good plan and this arc had some strangely violent instances happening as well as some creepy ways that guys keep hitting on Power Girl and leering at her. When it's just the girls though, either at work or when she's with Atlee, it's far more relaxed, fun and enjoyable as we get a look at their lives outside of superhero duties. While that may not be interesting to some, it's a side of the story I wish we saw more of since it enhances our connections to the characters in the big action scenes. Power Girl has its moments here but it can't save a very sloppy storyline overall.

With an interesting start to the arc, I'm really not sure what to make the turns here. It all feels so simple and formulaic after providing some interesting ideas to work with and a pairing of characters that could be examined in new ways. The story kind of just takes bad turns here with the animals, the doc and with Bonzo while adding weak men in black elements along the way tied to luthor. The saving grace really is the artwork as there's a lot to like here as I find Gugliotti's style and color palette to work really well and is exactly the kind of "non-standard" artwork I wanted and often got from this series that breathed new life into the characters. While I'm not hopeful for an ending that can rescue the storyline, because it really isn't served well here, I'm at least looking forward to more artwork that I can enjoy.

While this arc didn't thrill me overall and it's a weak way to close out the series, Sensation Comics has a whole has been a fantastic book. I got a lot of great wonder woman stories over the last year-plus that it ran, I discovered a great range of new writers and artists that are on my watch-list and I got to enjoy some very fun standalone material that took chances without having to be neck deep in character mythology or continuity. While I enjoyed a whole lot of shared universe books, I wish we had a few more like this every week for some other characters or anthology material in general as a digital-first release because the potential for excellence is most definitely there. A great series overall, with its ups and down to be sure, has now come to a close.

I really liked the first series in the beginning but it collapsed a bit under its own weight with too much put in too soon. There are interesting ideas in here still, especially with Luna and the issues she struggles with, but I'm feeling uncertain about the way it's being presented at this point, at least in terms of it feeling like it's landing right with the story being told. Cantwell's script may be losing me but I continue to enjoy what Morazzo brings to the page with the designs and the general flow of it, especially the look of everything with Clockovich and the brief bit we see of what's to come for Luna's grandmother.

I really liked some of the ideas that this series was playing with early on and the exploration of someone as troubled as Luna was in trying to find her way. It wasn't a smooth ride through the series because it was working with a number of ideas and characters, but i had grown to like a lot of them through the third issue – especially Bill and Verna since they weren't your standard comic characters – but everything ends up in such a strange and crazy place here that the end has left a sour taste in my mouth. Enough that if there is another run I'm unlikely to take a stab at it. There are neat ideas at play here and a lot of threads to tug on in the future but this ending that feels like it was a slapdash kind of piece really takes the momentum out of the whole thing.

With two more issues to go after this I'm still feeling fairly lost with what it's trying to accomplish. The series has some interesting things floating throughout it and I like Lights' design work with the characters and visuals for the world but it's not landing as a whole. Perhaps it'll work better when read in full but it also has to function in monthly installments and it really is struggling there. The interesting moments can't sustain it and instead just points out the weaknesses even more. Which just makes it all the more frustrating.

The end installment of Spider-Woman is one that has its moments, particularly from guest artist Natacha Bustos, but in the end it manages to turn me away from the book under the main team. The series had – and still has – the potential to do some fun things with Jess that takes her away from the world ending events and multiverse elements. But they swung far too far in the other direction and ended up scraping the bottom of the barrel and making Jess into someone that wouldn't step up for the big event without being shoved into action for the most part. Hopeless had some good dialogue for her early on and I enjoyed her adventures in the Spider-Verse, but once Hopeless got past that it felt listless. I'm definitely going to keep an eye out for Bustos though as she did a solid job here with layouts and the overall dynamic, especially with the Black Widow pages.

At this stage of the book I'm really getting the feeling that this book isn't for me. It's far too reminiscent of the same issues I had on the Chewbacca series in terms of story and what they view the intended audience as combined with artwork that just doesn't click for it. The three issue story is one that didn't answer anything, didn't really expand on the characters or clarify or detail anything useful about this time period and its design. It's a simple action space opera piece with the weakest of space opera elements. I'll be sticking around more because, yes, I am that kind of Star Wars sucker, but I'm in that rare mode where I'm hoping for a wholesale creative change.

The art is what's carrying the book at this point but even there it's losing out because it's focusing on a lot of characters that aren't Vampirella. Which I normally wouldn't have an issue with but the story is just so inane at this point that this is quickly becoming the least enjoyable Vampirella storyline that I've read in the last six years. Not everything can be great and I'm lucky in that she's appearing in a few other books that are working better. But I want better for the flagship title as opposed to" whatever this is.

A character like Vampirella has more than enough standing to play out like an old-school Vertigo book. There are depths to plumb and have been plumbed before, where it can work well. But the way that Priest's material comes off to me just feels so heavyhanded yet distant and without any spark of life to it that it practically reads in monotone to me. The result is something that's very much by the numbers but elevated by such beautiful artwork that deserves a far better story. I keep hoping for that moment where it'll all click and redeem itself but it's otherwise just been a fascinating slow wreck unfolding before me for far too many issues now.

While I really do like the artwork and how its presented because it's so not the norm in many ways, and I like the concept of Vinegar Teeth himself, Artie is just making this book a mess and the flow of the book makes it difficult to connect with. It moves too fast, is simply too busy, and doesn't feel like it really knows what kind of story it wants to tell, and that makes it a real struggle as a whole even if individual moments are fun and engaging.

I was going to drop the book with this issue but the fourth is the final one so we'll finish it out. Expectations are low at this point, however.

While Vinegar Teeth started off in an interesting way it ended up being a project that was just too much to take in visually, overwhelming everything else on top of what became loud and obnoxious characters almost across the board. Vinegar Teeth himself was somewhat sympathetic and mellower than others but the end result was a series that just left me frustrated and in the case of the third issue left me with a headache while trying to absorb it. It's an interesting work but one that just wasn't going to be for me overall in the end.

Stuff's happening. I'm not sure why. I'm not sure what relates. I don't see a hook to really hold me in a big way with it here outside of my own general interest in this kind of story, albeit one that I wish was told with a bit more meat and engagement with its readers on it. Sudzuka's artwork continues to be a draw as he has to deal with some interesting things in the present storyline but Ennis' scripting and layout of the story is leaving me more and more frustrated.

There continue to be interesting moments in A Walk Through Hell and some really disturbing things, such as what's under the little kid's coat from the cover, but it's not holding up well as a full on narrative. As a police procedural there's a lot of interesting things in the flashback side that's being explored and I'm enjoying pieces of that, coming from my enjoyment of shows like Mindhunter and a lot of UK murder mystery dramas. But the tension has been let out of this bag for a bit now and it's needing to do something significant in order to really engage me.

I like the ideas and artwork for it but the execution just isn't holding me here.

I know part of me is reading this just because I want to know what the gimmick of it all is and that kind of does a disservice to what Ennis is trying to do. But I'm struggling with what he's trying to do so I'm latching onto what works for me, which is waiting for that moment of discovery where it clicks while enjoying a lot of really good artwork from Sudzuka. I'm curious to see what changes Driscoll's presence will have on what's going on as there's some potential there to shake things up, which feels much-needed at this point.

I'm along for this ride as long as it goes on because I really want to get some answers to see if Ennis can tie it all together. I can see the big picture idea here easily enough with what I think it is but I also know not to entirely trust myself with his stories. There are some good bits here in exploring the agents' lives and issues, as well as the sidebar about identity and all, but it feels more soapbox-y than anything else. Sudzuka gets some good stuff to work with here as I love the detail of where Shaw and McGregor are in the warehouse but I also have a strange affection for their stakeout location with its starkness.

I really hope there are answers to all of this, and I kind of hope that there isn't too much more left to the run. I want to know what the point Ennis is trying to make and I'm invested enough in it to keep going, but it's sapping my will to continue with installments like this.

A Walk Through Hell continues to be a book that leaves me the most frustrated with it after reading it. There's always this sense of some progress to it but then it makes these swerves that has me unsure of where it's going and how much longer it's going. I like a lot of pieces of what we've gotten over the run and in this installment as well, but as a whole, it still feels like it's missing something to really bind it all together in a way that just makes it click and work. The parts just aren't adding up to a solid whole but at the same time I can't stop reading because I want some closure and finality to it all.

On some level, it still feels like Ennis is writing this to get his own demons out or just to engage in depravity and darkness because it sells on some level. There is appeal in it but when there's no real meat to what's going on, an empty string that's binding it all together so weakly, it feels forced. I continue to struggle with this book because it feels like it should have that magnificent hook that ties it all right and it makes sense as to what's going on. But the further I get the more I fear it's going to be a kind of wishy-washy nonsensical piece of pseudo-philosophizing that won't connect well and it's going to feel like a waste of time. Yet, I cannot look away…

I really hope the next issue is the last issue as I want some sort of closure to this book. I want to understand what's going on but it feels above my pay grade and I haven't gotten a clue. We've been treated to a lot of dark material and uncertainty, some interesting flashback stories to cement what's really going on in some regards, but it's also just a lot of murky material that hasn't gone as all out as it needs to. I've been curious and hopeful for something that will make all of this click but I really suspect it just won't happen at this point.

A Walk Through Hell had some interesting moments along the way and some weird twists while working with an intriguing setup that kept me coming back as I wanted to know more of what the real deal was. As we get to the real deal there's not much to it other than evil is here and evil is going to win and has been for quite some time. The interesting material doesn't quite make it worth it in the end as you can find this in other works but it's just so overly grim and hopeless that it left me with feelings of regret over the project after spending this much time with it. I knew it wasn't going to end well but this ending just feels pointless.

As much as I like the potential of Barb I'm frustrated by the stories we do get. The focus on her past is not a bad thing since this is a new launch but it's already entered that heavily decompressed realm tied to a story that just doesn't feel engaging after two installments worth of it. Barb at this younger age isn't exactly exciting or fun to watch either since we've barely gotten to really know her in the present. Everything feels like it's something that should be done in maybe four pages of mild montage style flashback material so we can get into the story in the present, or just have more of the two mixed together. There's only so much interest to be had in watching Barb get interrogated like this since we have no idea what the real motivation is at this point.

Honestly, the book doesn't really come across as accessible to new readers and there's so many moving parts that it's just overly dense and pointlessly complicated at times rather than being a good read. I like the detective work material, but the villain du jour was just awful and really felt like it was being written by someone completely on the outside of these things.

At this stage I'm sticking with the book primarily to see if we get Barbara back into more familiar settings, give her something resembling a life, and provide more foundations for her. The world trip is an idea that works for some books and characters, and this is one of them, but with it being a monthly series and without the strong narrative that it needs, it all just comes across as uninteresting as a whole. The small slivers of enjoyment are there, particularly in the artwork, but that can't carry the book for very long and I know my interest is waning more than I'd like at this stage.

Though I had reconnected well with the Rebirth special that got this project underway, the Beyond Burnside arc just did not work for me, no matter how much I tried to get into it. Goofy villains that should never be seen again, awkward as hell regional exploits that landed with a thud, a dullard in Kai, and a lead character that felt lost within her own book. I'm going to give the book a couple more issues to see how things are when she gets back home to see how she's handled there and what kind of stories are going to come from it, but this book is pretty much ready to be dropped and I hate that I feel like that as I want to enjoy this character so much.

Blackhawks has the trappings of the kind of book I'd like, going back to things like SHIELD, Checkmake and Sgt. Rock by being a solid military style black ops operation in a world that's become dominated by metahumans in the last few years. The opening issue has those trappings but it's execution and presentation is choppy and not altogether clear with what it's stated mission is. The characters aren't detailed much at this point which is a given, but they introduce a number of them and never really make it clear how they work as a unit. DC Comics has often worked with books of this nature and I have hopes that it can find its footing, but it's definitely one of the weakest of the launch books in its presentation and vision.

Bombshells is still a series that I'm excited to see what it's going to do and how but this is proving to be a rough start to the series and the arc, making me wonder just how it must be for those coming in blind by not reading the other one. There are fun moments, scenes, and dialogue to be had here and it's setting up so many other things that I have to hope that it all comes together well as an eight-part arc that this one is being billed as. Right now, however, it's just kind of a weird mess that's not clicking for me anywhere near as well as what preceded it.

I continue to be excited by the potential of this new series because the faith is earned after the original run, but I find myself now waiting more on what the next arc will be (and what characters may appear) than what's been set so far in these first three issues. There are fun moments here but I'm still of a mind that I'm not feeling a firm footing here and that's leaving me disconnected from what's going on. There's plenty to like in seeing these interpretations of the characters and Marguerite Sauvage's artwork as I always enjoy that, but I'm in a bit of a holding pattern right now to see if it can make me really invest in this initial arc.

Stuff happens. A lot of stuff happened previously. It's apparently making progress, but it's so mixed and convoluted on top of different art styles that it just feels like a mess. I'm hopeful for something sprawling here to all make sense at some point, but at the moment it's just a series of interesting pages with appealing artwork here and there and intriguing ideas being toyed with but not followed through on effectively. I continue to want to really be on board with this book and its ideas, but it's not making it easy. And not that it should. But it feels like it keeps setting up some high barriers with things that I should understand but haven't been exposed to and it penalizes me for not figuring it out. There's fantastic small moments here but it lacks a cohesiveness and vision to carry it through in the individual parts, making me feel like it would have been better off as an original graphic novel rather than a series of individual issues.

Like the last few issues, I really don't know what to make of all this. It has some beautiful and fantastic moments with its structure and design with the artwork and coloring, but then it gets all murky and impossible to figure out who or what is going on at the time. The larger narrative is fine and works well, is easy to understand, but when it gets down to the actual execution, dialogue and display of it, it feels like it's just a mess upon a mess with the best of intentions. The time spent in the late 70's period here is definitely a treat in its own way and it's fun seeing the twist of it all come into play with Klavus, but it's hard to really rally behind this in general with what it's doing.

I can understand easily how the book got greenlit, but as it progressed it just didn't know how to engage on an issue by issue basis and I suspect it won't hold up well in a full series reading either because of the chaotic aspect of the artwork, something that was neat at first but fell apart as it progressed. It's a fascinating series in some ways, but more of a fascination you have with a wreck that you can't pull your eyes away from.

The series is, quite simply, unfinished. I don't think it even ends at a solid chapter point where you can say, at least it told this particular tale. It ended, essentially, after the introductory chapter before getting to the first chapter. And as much as I was frustrated by the book at times in how well it was managing to present itself and its ideas, this just hits hard.

With the zero issue clocking in at five bucks, it doesn't do much here to feel compelling or engaging. It's like Brainiac(s) and Superman are having a tense afternoon tea as they talk about the reality of things, with Brainiac being the smart guy in the room and Superman just wanting to go home to presumably more interesting things. And I'm kind of in Superman's camp here. There's not a lot really going on here and we get a good chunk of time with wastelands and barren backgrounds while playing with some light philosophical ideas. The general idea of the series is one that's certainly fun since it plays to what I find used to be one of DC Comics' strengths in its multiverse. But it's executed in such a bland way here that it's practically turning me off from looking at the other books all that much, though I might pick and choose a couple. I can't imagine myself picking up any further prime Convergence issues if it's like this one though.

Doctor Fate is a series that I'll be sticking with through the Rebirth phase if only because of the solicitations and character it teases will be arriving. Right now, the series has felt like it's lost its way after an overly long and drawn out first arc and a second arc that feels like it's just meandering more than anything else. I really like the character of Khalid and all the new characters he's brought with him, but the time as Doctor Fate has increasingly felt unfocused, uninteresting, and just cartoonish in the wrong way. The talents here are strong as seen by those early issues but the pacing of the book and what it wants to do has hit a real slump.

As much as I wanted to be enthused by the potential of this series from the start and to see something come together for it, it's been a slog. The small moments of brilliance have kept me reading but the weight of it is just felt at the start here where it can't hold up against what the central event is going to be. It's just so cluttered and chaotic through much of it that it became unreadable to me, which made me glad for some of the storylines that were given a bit of space to deal with what's going on there. But at the same time so much of those stories come across as pretty pointless or fillerish now as the gaze turns as it does toward Superman finally face Doctor Manhattan.

I hate abandoning a book once I started it but I also know that when I reach a point where there's no real enjoyment left anymore it's best to move on. Earthdivers has a lot going for its concept and the two main arcs have had some great material, but the execution of it left me frustrated and wondering what the real intent with it all is. What it is that Graham Jones is trying to say with it all. If there's no greater meaning here and exploration, it just comes across as misery and continued failure. There are certainly successes in the two main arcs we've had so far but they pale next to what has gone done and aren't enough to rally around and to keep investing the time in, sadly.

At the end of the Flash: Rebirth run, I really find myself feeling like this whole series was completely unnecessary as was Barry's return to life. Watching the mess that some of the other speedster's lives have become in recent years, Wally in particular, has left me wishing that the rebirth would have been for him to get him grounded properly and to do something that fixes the mess that has been Bart since he's been all over the map. The Flash books have always had an edge of seriousness to it but Barry took it too far with this series and his change at the end isn't convincing. I found myself more interested in nearly every other character than Barry and that's a shame. Much of what helped to elevate him was his death and the way DC kept him out of everything for so long. Bringing him back is something will take a long time to change me from believing it was a mistake. Geoff Johns didn't do badly here, but this isn't the rebirth that Barry deserved or needed.

While not restoring my faith in the series, this issue essentially sucks just a little bit less in how its executed. Large and important sections are dropped and that skimming of events weakens the narrative overall. Abin still isn't a likeable character and his approach to his main mission and his assigned one to find the Entity could be handled a lot better, both on his end and by the Guardian's themselves. With some less than well done artwork in a few places and a jumpy plot, it's the concepts that have to hold you enough to enjoy it. It doesn't quite achieve that either though simply because it does push things towards the familiar again and because the characters just haven't come across well enough to make it interesting. It's all a little too pat and easy, especially when Sinestro starts talking about a prophecy called Flashpoint.

Lois Lane and the Resistance has a lot of potential to it but it continues to fail to capitalize on it. Having someone on the inside could be played well, both as how she handles her time with the Amazons and as a member of the resistance, but neither side gets treated well here. She herself isn't in the book all that much and is in pretty much supporting cast mode so there isn't a lot to offer. Grifter himself stands out well though and offers up a good group to work as the resistance and they'd certainly be fun to watch a bit more in action. But it's the Team 7 group that left me the most interested in seeing it explored. It's unfortunate that it works out like that because of the potential the book has, but at least there's some glimmers in here to enjoy.

This was a series that started off with an interesting viewpoint but didn't manage to hold onto it for long as it went down some more predictable and less interesting paths. I like Lois Lane as a character and having her as an involved participant of the war is a nice way to shake off some of the journalistic approaches that stymie her at times. But that didn't really factor in here and we instead had a fairly straightforward action story that didn't get a lot of its material really dealt with as the finale focused more on Brittania and Lane with a nice small dose of Hyde to flesh it all out. The series could have been a lot more, and could have gone more out of the box than it did, but it had its moments. Certainly not a bad spin, but the potential for something more is pretty obvious.

The second act of the Secret Seven series definitely works better than the first, but that's admittedly not saying a heck of a lot. I like the cast of characters being drawn into it as Shade was a favorite way, way back in the 90′s of mine and the use of Amethyst was a big plus as well. Abrakadabra has some really fun moments as well as he deals with his role in the book but overall it's another piece where things are shifting and moving, but it's unclear of why and why we should care in the larger context of the event itself. I like the characters and it has a trademark Milligan move at the end that's brutally displayed, but it's not one that's really drawing me in hard and demanding you come back, except to see if it does eventually make any sense.

Unlike some of the other one shots that worked well for me, this one left me feeling a bit odd about the whole experience. It has some very fun moments and I really liked the Cricket himself with the way his transformation really changed who he was inside as well, or at least brought it out in full, but there's such a poor execution to it all that it has me wondering when Mike Carlin really last wrote something. I had really enjoyed his work as an editor on the Superman titles way back in the day, but this one feels like someone who hadn't written in some time coming back in and forgetting some of how the form works. It's certainly not the worst thing I've read, as there is a lot to like after the first few pages, but it's just awkward scripting and pacing in general from start to finish.

I've had a difficult relationship with this incarnation of Ghost overall as it hasn't felt like it's really found its own identity. It looks like it's trying to do that now by unlocking something inside of Elisa and exposing her to the larger world out there, but it's hard to say if that's the right approach yet. I've long liked the basic idea of the character and the visual appeal of it all, but this volume of the character is one that hasn't clicked completely yet. A lot of that has come down to the opponents that she's faced, which haven't been engaging or interesting, and the supporting cast which has been helpful at times but that's about it. While it's not bad, it's not winning me completely and it sometimes feels like we already need a complete do-over to establish it in a better way.

It's a busy and packed starting point but it felt too overstuffed for me, making me want to skim instead of read the further I went on.

There are fun ideas here but they're ones that would be better suited to a standard single issue done tighter and with a better singular artistic vision to it. There are some appealing scenes and layouts to the book and I love the color work as it's definitely appealing, but everything is just so drawn out that I found myself not really becoming engaged with the artwork because the story kept making me want to find something to latch onto and flipping pages faster as I kept losing interest.

Unfortunately, this proves to be a jumping-off point for me pretty easily. The first reason is that the book doesn't come back until September as we get two issues spinning off into the Knight Terrors summer event, which totally smacks the progress of this book in the face completely. The other is that the backup story with John Stewart just doesn't grab me and that combined with liking Hal less and less with each panel means I'm not getting much out of the book. I do have a love of Green Lantern overall and I know Hal is a problematic character – always has been – but it just feels even worse in this instance and so many other things make the book feel like work more than anything else. There are a lot of neat bits but it's hard to feel like it's worth investing in when just two issues into it you find yourself caught up in a 45-series/90-book crossover event. I just don't have it in me for that kind of thing anymore.

Green Lantern: Lost Army comes across well here with Javier Pina stepping in for the artwork as he carries the style well and works the various scenes in space and on the ship in a good way, albeit with minimal detail since there really isn't a need for a lot. The variety of creatures he gets to illustrate definitely works well and his style certainly fits the book, making it a seamless transition for me. Unfortunately, the story itself really feels like it's clunking along more and more as it progresses. Or doesn't progress as the case may be, as we get the group thrust into another situation, now without their rings, where they're going to succeed because they're all also really good without them compared to the light bearers of this universe. I'm continuing to be hopeful that there's a real story and resolution to be had here, a point to all of it, but four issues in and I'm starting to lose that faith.

At this stage, Guardians of Infinity is starting to feel like a struggle. I like the premise and what the book can do and be about but it's very hit or miss – both in the main story and the backup stories. The main story here again provides some good ideas to work with but is minimal with execution and opts for the standard snark and action sequences. Yes, that's what Guardians is mostly about, but there's an opportunity here to really expand and do some fun stuff. The 1000 era team is just noise at this point since they're not going to get fleshed out much and we're just moving through the motions of action and discovery before resolution without any real meaning. I'm hopeful that it'll turn out better but I'm just plain wary. The backup story" the less said the better at this stage.

Harley Quinn continues to be a character that I like but that I struggle with. I do find her better in an ensemble and often in the various non-continuity series as her time in Bombshells and other projects have been regularly fun and interesting. Sebela has the start of a storyline off to a decent start here but I felt a bit disconnected from Harley from the start and couldn't quite get on the same page with her, even as I enjoyed some of the antics. The big win for me here was just a full book of great Mika Andolfo artwork. It simply looks fantastic and has such a sense of fun and energy about it that each panel was a treasure to take in with all of its detail and design. That alone made it worthwhile.

I like Harley Quinn as a character and have read her in a lot of books over the years but the drop-in I've done into this batch of issues just isn't clicking for me. There doesn't feel like there's a bigger focus at work and it's just kind of meandering and doing one-off bits that aren't interesting at all. Andolfo's artwork is great and I love her take on the title character and everyone else as well, but there's little here beyond that as it's filled with dark backgrounds and large shadowed rooms. This'll be a title I'll rotate out of interest and look for something else to get into instead.

There's been a lot of different stories told across this run so far and all have their place. This one goes for a kind of surreal dream-like aspect that just didn't connect for me all that much, unfortunately. I adore the artwork and the gags within it definitely have their place but there's not much here beyond that, which definitely makes me sad because Sauvage brings some really great stuff out in the artwork. I love the use of the red with the black and white as there are just neat moments and ways of getting in there with it that delight. It's a good bit of visual storytelling but it's light on actual story.

While I liked what we got with some of the multiversal aspects of some of these characters early on, what we're getting is an overload of it at this point for Sonja and Vampirella. And it's not working it in a way that really feels creative or just doing something really different, like the Archie crossover both of them jumped into. Hastings' script and work here is perfectly fine but after the Sonjaversal series and what I've read of Vampiverse so far, I've quickly become exhausted by it all. Pasquale Qualano's artwork is great here and I liked seeing the designs for the characters once again, but there's nothing that really speaks to me that says come back for more.

The first issue was a struggle for me in terms of the narrative as it's more interested in showing off the world it exists in than anything else.

I'm still in for a while with this book because I can see the potential of the book and the world it wants to explore but the flow of the book still has this feeling like it's part of an oversized first issue.

I'm still intending to stick with House of Whispers for its opening arc but it's still continuing to be a struggle. It's a book I want to like a lot and it has so many small pieces that do work that I wish it connected better as a whole for me. Hopkinson does give it a sense that things are actually progressing more clearly this time and we get more wonderful artwork from Stanton that delights, especially with Mr. Monday and all that happens with him and the others underwater. I'm hopeful that the arc does include the creation and formalization of the title of the series as I get a sense that how it presents itself at that point is going to be the deciding factor whether to continue to invest in this story.

And with this issue I've found myself canceling my subscription to this series. Perhaps it's the kind of book that will click better in trade form when a storyline can be read in full. Something about how it's put together here just keeps it from really working for me with the way it flows all over the place and with sudden turns that didn't connect or work for me. I really love the artwork and getting a new aspect of the Dreaming to explore but the book just feels unmoored to me and I'm unable to invest in it further.

Vampires have a tough road to deal with these days because of Twilight and that can make a book like this a bit harder to deal with, but this could be a book that might lay some solid groundwork and foundation for future events. I'm cautiously optimistic with it, but it'll take a few issues to really be sure.

Inhuman continues to be a frustrating series because it tantalizes with so many intriguing things but does it in such a condensed form that you really don't feel like you're invested in it. The sporadic nature of the releases aren't helping nor the artist changes, particularly when characters become flat out unrecognizable. This issue suffers doubly so because it's an AXIS tie-in and I have no real attention for that storyline. Between that and the Spider-Verse event that's heavily impacting Spider-man 2099 for me, I'm being reminded why I avoided superhero books in general for quite awhile. This series started off with a lot of promise, but it feels like it's hitting a lot of very short form stories at this point with no real significance or proper payoff, leaving me questioning how much longer I'll go on with it. I suspect it'll turn on a dime again soon enough and tantalize me with something else, but it's a frustrating near-addiction for this book.

Coming into this in the middle isn't always a bad thing, but there wasn't much here that really captivated me and said to invest in picking up the first and third parts. What made it harder was that even familiar characters were kind of unrecognizable here through the art design.

Ground Zero has a weak installment this time around coming after a couple of pretty solid issues that worked the action and character material, for what it is, well enough. There's no strong narrative throughout this issue and it means we're just bounding all over the place without anything to really keep us grounded and feeling a part of it all. The result is a kind of sloppy issue that should have more impact and meaning to it than it does and not even Derenick's usual solid artwork can salvage it overall.

Jackpot works a familiar feeling that you see with any number of heist movies or novels in how the opening chapter plays out and it does do it well enough. Fawke's scripting and pacing feels a little off with the quick back and forth early on and I really detested the large lettering used to introduce the team as it just made this seem even more like it's simply a storyboard for a movie. Failla's artwork is decent enough but some of the angles and fluidity of the action from scene to scene left me a little cool for the most part. It's the kind of book that likely has a solid concept behind it and a bigger plan to work with, but the opening installment doesn't provide enough of a hook in any of the main areas it needs to, from writing to artwork to actual plot itself. And with characters that I'm not feeling like I should engage with, it's a book that I'll check out down the line depending on how future issues are received.

The first issue of Jackpot was something that I struggled with but kind of hoped that it would all come together as it went along. While there are books where you sense it's worth the investment in figuring it out, Jackpot in its second installment ended up just being a bit more muddled and teasing without giving enough to really connect with. There are interesting ideas in here and the characters have potential but it comes across in such a haphazard way that it doesn't feel accessible at all. I'll probably revisit the book at some point simply because I have to believe that Fawkes has something bigger in play here based on his past works and I'll want to see more of Failla's artwork as he definitely has some very fun stuff in here.

I'm on board for the ride since weak starts can lead to great stories sometimes but I'm pretty wary. I like Ayala's writing in general with what I've seen elsewhere but there looks to be a steep learning curve in getting the right beats down for how to get things started here. I can see the potential for it but I'm still unsure of how Ayala and Lore are going to write the title character and that's probably the biggest component to get right.

James Bond doesn't change much overall from the first installment of this new series and that's unfortunate. I think we have all the right pieces for a good story from strong creative but something is missing in getting it to really hit right and move forward, lacking a clearer or more important throughline of a story. Bond gets more time here than he did in the first issue and that helps but he's still something of a cipher through this creative team outside of his being far more skilled than the rest. I like the way the trio are operating here and getting things done together since it's not seamless at all, which makes for some amusing frustration on Bond's part. Hopefully things get better the next time around or in the next arc.

The next issue brings on Erica D'urso for the artwork so I'm curious to see what they bring to the table and how it'll alter the view of the series. Ayala and Lore are starting up their next storyline with it as well but this opening three-part storyline didn't do much for me. It's just kind of there, you know? Nothing more than that. It has some good artwork and some good quips and moments along the way but it's a far from memorable storyline that drives you to wanting more of it.

With a lot of strong series/miniseries in the past couple of years, James Bond feels like it's fallen hard with this current series. There's nothing compelling about the story, the locations are decent but aren't being utilized that much, and there's a slowness to it that's not uncommon to a Bond tale but it's not backing it up with interesting enough characters and personalities to draw you in. I like the potential of the shorter arcs to tell the larger whole tale but so far this just isn't hitting the right marks.

Though this series frustrates me there are strong moments to be had in this installment. The story itself just hasn't clicked at all and I feel like we're going in circles with it. But when you break it into the individual scenes there's a lot to like. Brandy toying with Bond over the way he views art is amusing, even if I prefer the more suave version of Bond that's worldly. His fight with the bodyguard is some solid brawler work and I really enjoyed what we got out of Brandy and Nadya going up against each other. I just wish it was part of a better and more compelling storyline than what we have here.

There are fun moments, some enjoyable artwork, and some solid supporting character material here. Makson's story is too compressed to work well and needed to be a subplot over the run of several issues of other stories to be effective. I like the shorter story arcs in general but they either need to be seeded better or work with better concepts to execute in that space. Watanabe's the real winner here as he has some really fun material for most of the cast, though Batman – like the character material itself – is the weak link with how he looks.

It's solidly put together material but the foundations with the JLA really make it a rough read as team interactions are just awful. I'm struggling to like any of the characters because of how Batman is acting but also the way everyone else reacts. When we get away from that friction point things tend to play a bit better as we get to know the characters more but that doesn't survive the interaction point when it returns to the group. Andy MacDonald puts in a solidly strong turn in this issue with the layouts and designs and I keep getting a kind of Bane/Lex Luthor vibe from how the Kingbutcher looks that's kind of amusing. I'm curious where this arc will go, and for how long, but I keep wanting something more meaty from the series to sink my teeth into.

Justice League of America continues to be a mess of a book that really has me wondering if I'm cut out to read team books anymore. I like the cast and I generally like the artists that have been working on it. I've also liked the shorter arcs that we've had throughout as well. But it's just a weird mishmash of things that doesn't click or connect well and leaves me frustrated. Especially since this arc looks to be tackling some of the bigger things going on with the Rebirth era in how it's all been coming together and that just makes it more frustrating.

I'm still not sure what to make of this book overall. There are neat moments and I'm glad that the focus isn't split between stories here with the Microverse and regular world as the regular world only gets some minor lip service here. The Microverse storyline has its moments and it's a great standout piece for Ryan but that's contrasted with some problematic material for Caitlin that's going to eat at her and make any potential relationship even more problematic. The book survives at this point with the promise of what Ray Palmer has been up to in this place and some pretty engaging and fun artwork from Ivan Reis. There's still a lot of potential with this series but it's reminding me of my frustration with team books in the modern era.

At the end of the second book I find myself uncertain about what's going on. It touches upon elements from the first, but the first made little enough impact with the story at hand that there doesn't feel like there's anything here to invest in either. And for an adventure book it really needs to have a sense of meaning to it so that it's more than a series of set pieces. The exposition itself even feels disconnected in a way as I'm still not sure what exactly is going on here beyond mystical ivory that makes people kill. It's certainly not demanding that new installments be read though. I'll be curious to see if it can tie things together by the end of it and whether it makes more sense as a full work rather than as single installments.

I have no real clue what the Legenderry material is all about, but I'd for some reason figured that a new miniseries set in the world might provide a little context to introduce new readers to it, which would them potentially draw them in to read the other materials as well. While I like the designs here and the costuming as the steampunk world has some really creative aspects to it, the story is a muddled mess that doesn't provide any context or really introduce us to anything. It's the kind of book that expects and demands that you know what's going on and just run right through it rather than being introduced to this particular world. I'd hoped, as a Vampirella fan, to get a look at her in a different setting, but it needed more for me to be able to make heads or tales of it. As it stands, it doesn't really endear me to trying anything further at all in the Legenderry world with how it plays out here.

I'm a fan of Levitz's writing and Francis Portela captures the busy, vibrant and detailed world of the future wonderfully here. But it's such a hard read, so inaccessible because it's dropping us into such an awkward place rather than a proper first issue, that it's near impossible to recommend unless you're able to get what came before. I'm in it for the long run and hope for the other issues to get released, but it's going to be the kind of book you have to work at.

I crave a successful Legion series and I had hoped that Bendis would be able to break the cycle a bit after what's come before and give it the things it needed. I do think that a lot of what's here does work and would work overall, but the introductions, executions, and chaos of it all just leaves it without the heart it needs. There's simply so much going on so fast and without any connection for the reader to invest in that you're left on the sidelines, simply flipping the pages and admiring the artwork. I'm hopeful that the next round of issues will start to smooth this out now that the opening story is done but if it doesn't then I'll be hoping for a new writing team to come on board.

I have no idea what to make of this book anymore. Not that it started at its best or anything, but it's gotten progressively problematic as more issues come out and a gap that didn't help. It's just a lot of bickering going on at this point with no sense of purpose as it tries to suss out the basics, which should have been set before starting and just gone forward with. I love the look of it and the character designs but the book is just incredibly hollow and revealing that more and more with each issue.

Honestly, bringing Rogol Zaar into the 31st-century was almost enough for me to not read this issue. It's basically beating a dead horse at this point and even if they go in the complete oppositive direction of the 21st storytelling, it's still just going to be hard to really connect with. Pile that on with Mordru and the Jon and Imra dating things alongside everything else and it's just very frustrating. I was glad to have a regular storytelling issue and one without much in the way of action so that it was dialogue and exploration of events. I desperately want a good Legion book but everything about this one has me wishing it would just be hand-waved away as someone's fever dream.

Like a lot of beginning aspects of a webcomic, there's a lot of issues to be had but you can also see a lot of potential. Looking For Group has that in the familiar yet twisted group that we have forming here and the way they mess with each other. There are problems in the pacing and how it reads in some ways, which will work better for some than others, but I'm curious to see how it grows and changes as it goes on and if it can find a better balance. The main backup story with artwork by Hawk is really cute and I definitely laughed at the simple comic strip humor of the final pages. But not being in the gaming world for many, many years, some of it just falls a bit flat – mostly because a lot of this is the same humor I read back in the 80's. It's got potential and I'm curious to see if it can grab hold of it.

Mirror's Edge: Exordium certainly hasn't grabbed me by the collar and demanded I follow it, but it's not a failure either. It's mostly just mediocre at the moment, which isn't exactly a great thing for a property that needs to be really dynamic. The flat colors of the book don't help either as that doesn't give it any life or lift. In a series like this there are things you want from the games and those elements are harder to translate here, though not impossible. We've seen some decent action sequences, but they needed to be stronger both in the amount of it and the color design of it combined with better camera angles. This is a series that really needs something inventive and creative in approach yet it's getting more middle of the road and familiar instead.

Mirror's Edge Exordium doesn't do too much here overall beyond set up the conflict for the final two installments that are likely to play out in a fairly predictable way – unfortunately. There are some really nice sequences to be had here, some less than subtle social/economic commentary, and some plainly obvious paths being laid out. It's done in a decent package overall as the artwork is solid if somewhat forgettable, though what draws me in are the backgrounds and the detail there. With just two more issues to go, I'm curious to see if any twists come into play with it or not, but it feels like the book has fallen down a fairly pedestrian path.

Mirror's Edge: Exordium has managed to bypass a lot of what could be interesting and intriguing material that could explore the world in a rich and detailed well. Social, political, economics oriented material may not seem like compelling works, but it can be done and done very well even within an action/adventure context. But in serving as little more than a basic setup for the upcoming game, the further that the series goes the less interesting the characters become as they have to hit certain beats in order to prepare for the storyline to come – one that I likely won't even hear about since I won't be playing it. This issue puts Faith in more bad positions and that doesn't do much to endear her to us or get us to sympathize. Mostly you just sigh at Faith's actions and choices, waiting for the inevitable bad results to happen.

Mirror's Edge: Exordium has had its moments, especially early on with some of its visuals, as it has an interesting world to present and a lot that it can say about corporatism, social aspects and more. But it doesn't really want to get into that since it's all about setting up Faith for the game and her true story there. What we get here is a decent enough setup but it doesn't actually make me like her or root for her, and in a lot of ways I don't even understand her because of the terrible choice she made that put her in this position. The book isn't bad overall but it's just drawn out and lacked the kind of tighter focus it needed. It really needed to exist on its own and not serve primarily as a primer for Faith of the game, but that was all it was going to be about and it didn't stretch enough from there to be more. Which is unfortunate as it had the potential.

The more that Monstro Mechanica has gone on the more it's disconnecting for me. The moments that have worked have been with Isabel and the creature itself as I want to know more of what's going on there and the meaning behind it all. Riaro, Da Vinci, the Medici, and much of the other material is just not clicking anywhere near as well and this issue turned out to be a bit of a struggle to get through since everything feels secondary to something that I can't even pin down as there's an uncertainty as to the intent of the story itself. I suspect time with Isabel and the Monstro Mechanica will pick up next time around and that'll help some but not with the fundamental problems.

This issue eased up on all of the problems I had but the crux of it was still there in that it doesn't have a solid enough or accessible enough foundation to latch onto and I'm not quite sure what story point it wants to make as a whole. The neat moments are simply outweighed by the problematic ones and that's just hard to get past.

Though we do get a few moments with Kamala and her friends and a little time with Nakia as well, there's a kind of light touch to so much of this that it feels like it wants to be an after school special but doesn't quite know what it is it wants to say. It's doing the whole Valentine's Day thing, but there's not that much to really latch onto here because the real characters that could connect with it don't spend much time together at all, removing the potential for the true fun to be had there. Instead, it turns more into a Loki and Ms. Marvel moment, which could have some good material to it, but it's the Loki doing the good thing as an Agent of Asgard, which doesn't really excite me much. Or at least, this interpretation of it doesn't excite me that much and is likely to keep me away from the actual book because of how it's presented. The book is still on a lifeline with me, but I'm waiting until we get to the next real storyline before I make any judgments.

Mulan Revelations moves right along and the main appeal for it with me at this point is the beautiful artwork. While I can figure out the basic details of it because it's working along a familiar plot I also find myself unable to find enough to engage with it in a deeper fashion because it plays the audience at a distance.

While I like the series overall with what it's doing and the kind of layering to it, there's some structural presentation pieces that leaves me feeling very out of sorts with the book each month. Some are easier to dig into and clear up than others, particularly when it focuses on Tao/Way in either past or present, but when it focuses on the other characters it seems to play it as though the reader is aware of a good deal of it already or has just read all of the prior issues just before reading the latest one. Which can work great in trade form, but it makes the book a hard read when new installments come out and you wonder why you're still reading it. It's not bad in the sense that a re-read or two reveals more and more, but there just feels like there's a high barrier to entry with the book that's getting higher with each installment because of the way the cast is becoming more and more complicated.

I won't say I had high hopes for this book, but I was cautiously optimistic because of the talent involved. I felt more like I was reading a fifth or sixth issue that was tying in to other events that I hadn't read rather than a first issue. What we do get here does largely work well, especially on a second read, but it's not a Hulk book at the moment but more of an X-men book.

With the kind of light and fun approach that Sensation Comics has taken so far, this issue plays things a little more seriously while still trying to have a touch of that. Diana's faith in her gods has never really been worn on her sleeve or anything, especially when dealing with the majority of her arcs and stories. When she has events involving the gods directly, it's a different beast then and even still it's never been a hugely big part of her. Focusing on it a bit more here, with her not denying them but downplaying them, puts her in a bad spot and it's uncertain how much of it is just spiteful gods or her own psychological stage playing tricks on her. The book just leaves me feeling a little wary of it for this particular arc because of the tools it's playing with, especially in comparison to the other ones so far.

This arc has not worked for me, though I did enjoy the brief fight with Cheetah that happens here as it's always fun when the villain thinks they're finally gaining an advantage, even if they're defeated relatively easily. The storyline is one that puts Diana in a bad place and tests her through her faith in her gods and herself and a lot of it just left me feeling like it was wanting. It's understandable to some degree when you get the trick of it all, but it just goes in a kind of weirdly dark place and throws around a lot of keywords with ease that are like triggers that I'm not sure what to make of it. After the variety we've had in the first few issues, this is the arc thta made me pull back my interest a bit, though I'm still game for more as not every installment is going to be a winner. This one certainly wasn't.

While we get some great artwork in general here in a more traditional style than Sensation Comics usually does, the story itself is one that just falls apart as it goes along and feels nonsensical. The pieces are here, but the bridging aspects to bind it are minimal at best and often missing, leaving you uncertain of what the story is until you reread it once or twice. While the story left me cool to say the least, I definitely liked Ryan Benjamin's art to see his take on Diana, which is complemented very well by the color design for it all. While I've been thoroughly enjoying Sensation Comics overall, there haven't been too many misses for me. But this one is definitely a swing and a miss unfortunately.

Sensation Comics has done a lot of these kinds of teaching moments along its run overall and the majority have been strong, creative and engaging. This is one of the few that just falls flat because of its approach, pacing and the lack of really making the villain of it anything more than a creeper. Of which far, far too many exist. But with the chance to tell a story in a two issue form like this, I had hoped for a bit more. Overall, this will be one of the less memorable stories of the series, though hopefully it'll have some impact on someone in a positive way, which is all you can hope for in the end.

While I get the basics of this arc as established here, I'm lost as to what they're really trying to accomplish with it. The artwork is solid and I like the visuals we get, from the simple party night streets of New York at Christmas to the universe writ large as Nyx talks about the gods. We also get some decent bits with Morota that gives enough of a view to understand what kind of country they're trying to present. There are ideas that could be interesting but it feels like it's going to fall back into some of the other recent arcs we've had about different countries that are struggling with strife and Diana's role in it. It's not a bad idea or concept, but it's feeling a bit shopworn already.

Considering how many projects AfterShock Comics puts out that I enjoy, I was bound to hit one that just falls very short for me. A lot of what's needed here is just a better introduction and primer for it as the access point is like a wall, and that's even for someone like me with a fraction of familiarity with it. Daughtery's script has some solid pieces to it throughout and D'Artagnan is well-presented here. Latina's artwork is quite good and I like the flow of it as it moves along and some of the creative design choices, but it's still trying to present a story that's making a lot of jumps to it.

In the end, Shaper was not what I thought it would be based on that first cover and promotional image. I liked a lot of the ideas in it, but it didn't come together in a way that felt engaging, particularly since it had to work such a larger story into a compressed format without the spacing it needed to really flesh things out.

Shoplifters Will Be Liquidated started on a real high with a couple of characters and a neat premise to explore. But the further that it's gone on the more characters it introduced and dangling plots that pull us all over the place as we go through what's happening there. Each cuts into the other and it's hard to really get behind some of the stories as there's not enough there to give it weight. I really love the artwork and the concepts are fascinating but the execution is just leaving me very frustrated, more so with each new installment.

As we get closer to the end I really find myself wishing I enjoyed this series more. It has a lot going for it but it's missing some key fundamentals that would really allow it to connect and work better, at least for me. I love the artwork and the surreal nature of this new world we enter and Lights has some great two-page layouts that definitely gives it a big cinematic view. And there are some great character moments such as En talking about her mother and I like the way Mitsuki is skirting the edges of what's really going on. But the whole thing just feels so ethereal and without weight because of the lack of clarity on En's original home and how it got there that this feels even more otherworldly and hard to connect with as we head into the finale.

Pretty and full of emotional weight but empty of substance is how I think of Skin & Earth at this point. There have been neat moments but it largely reminded me of a lot of what the 80's independent scene was like. Some intriguing talents getting into the medium with ideas that feel fresh with how they're presented but end up falling short, sometimes tremendously so, because of a lack of a solid enough structure. Perhaps this reads better as a single work, perhaps the songs from Lights recent release gives it more meaning, but the series as a whole and this book in particular is just a lot of sound and fury without the depth needed in the execution to pull it off.

Spaceman has a lot going for it and at a buck for the first issue (subsequent issues will be $2.99), it's definitely worth checking out to see if it's going to work for you. I got into the visuals of the book, from the character designs to the panel layouts as well as the gorgeous coloring used, but the narrative itself wasn't exactly a struggle, but it the more it progressed the more it pushed me away. It's the kind of book that you really want to like but ended up not clicking at all and almost became a chore since it felt so disconnected from things. There's a lot to like for fans of this creative team, but with it being something that they've said is definitely different from what they've done before, it could certainly be more of a challenge than they expect.

With some solid artwork as usual and some fun scripting in places with the humor and self aware aspects of Jess knowing who she is, the book has its moments with what it does in the travelogue and the weirdness of it all. But at the same time, knowing that the end of the world is around the corner, this is a very mundane and uninteresting way to run out the clock on the book since it doesn't feel like it's really doing anything. Perhaps the next installment will have a bit more to it in order to justify it, but what's going on here doesn't exactly excite or ensure that I put the new post-Secret Wars series on my pull list, especially a $4 a pop.

While I don't believe the intention was to run out the clock on this series to get to 75 issues, knowing a new team is taking over with that book and that we're going to get a different cast to work with since Han'll be out of the picture, this storyline just isn't delivering what's needed. Everything feels like it's just kind of hanging there and far too decompressed without enough meat in each installment to make it feel worthwhile. I like some aspects of what Pak is doing here and I'm still surprised how much I'm liking how Noto is illustrating it, but this is likely going to be the least memorable arc in the run for me.

The third Star Wars annual just didn't work for me with what it wanted to do and felt like an unmemorable side trip that won't add anything in the long run, from interesting worlds and characters to new nuance for our lead characters. Which is unfortunate because I like seeing what writers and artists bring to the franchise. Conceptually it has plenty that I like but the execution just didn't click and made me feel a bit of regret in shelling out the $5 for it.

This isn't a bad issue when you get down to it but rather one where the main story doesn't work for me. I know it's a way of bringing Bossk to the forefront since he's going to be tasked with going after Valance, but it's overlong and it's not all that exciting to watch him go through the Hunt itself. I would have preferred more time with some intrigue between Fortuna and the Banking Clan here and to dig into that and more time with the tension between Valance and Dengar that's pushed to the side too quickly. It does look good as expected with this solid art team on it, but the story just left me very cool and distant from most of it.

Coming into this storyline after it's been over and having read it elsewhere from other points of view is going to make this segment of the crossover amusing to read in the next couple of issues. This one does what it needs to in order to get things into place for it but there's not a lot of meat on the bones here. The flashback side has its moments but it's just kind of empty for part of it as it's mostly action and only gives us a small taste of what Valance was like at this point. The book generally seems to suffer from this need to be constantly in motion and moving which is keeping it from being able to spend time with its characters and let them breathe and exist. The action is good and the artwork is great but it needs something more.

The second of five issues for the Chewbacca series gives us the breakout, teases a bit of what Jaum's plan is (which isn't worth caring about) and provides for an easy cliffhanger with no meaning because we know Chewie's not dead. The general idea here isn't bad but this series really feels like it should have been an anthology of Chewie stories as standalone issues rather than something that may run over the course of five issues. It's decently and competently put together, but there's nothing exciting or engaging about it in the way that all of the other Star Wars books have been. Sadly, the Chewbacca series is the weakest of the books to date.

As we move through the halfway mark of the Chewbacca miniseries, I find myself counting down how much is left with a sense of wanting to get it over with and move on to other things. I love Chewie, but this series just brings out all the weaknesses while not working the strengths. Bad supporting cast, bad location, bad story idea, really solid artwork. It's not a mess or done poorly or executed in a bad way, but it has the hallmarks of simply being mediocre at best as a whole. And Chewie deserves more.

With one more issue left it's not hard to commit to following through on it. I really waffled up through the day before release whether to cancel the subscription to it or not, but I felt I owed myself to see it through to conclusion in hopes that it could find its way. While this issue is better than the last few it still has so many things that simply don't work well within the context of this universe that it just feels very out of place. After the strong series we've had so far since Marvel kicked off their run of books, I'll easily give this one a pass overall. But it's certainly not one that I'll find myself recommending, giving me the first caveat for these books in that arena.

As much as I like Chewbacca, I knew going into this series that it was going to be a struggle since there wasn't going to be a proper translation element to it. Duggan and Noto put things together wrell enough, but the script was just far too formulaic and you knew where things were going to go early on.

With this more kids-oriented series, it's one where you really do have to reorient yourself in how you view it and I'm totally fine with that. Duggan's artwork is appropriate for what it's doing here but it just lacks a certain something to really feel like Star Wars. but that's part of the problem with the sequel trilogy is that once you step away from certain First Order things or legacy stuff like X-Wings and the like, there isn't anything that really feels definitive to that time period. Castellucci's script works well enough with what it's trying to do but having grown up with reruns of so many stories and movies like this as a kid, it's not something that has aged well and I can feel here. Maybe it feels fresh to a kid but even there I have to wonder a bit.

Stories aimed at younger readers can always be challenging if you're not in that bracket and I'm glad that things are being made for them with a property I enjoy. Because you had a lot of similar things to this when I was a kid when the original film first came out in the years that followed. This story is pretty basic but it just does a few things that rubs me the wrong way in general and it made it harder to connect with. I do like seeing Chewie and Rey building a bond here and all, but beyond that there's not a lot to really latch onto.

I'm enjoying the big picture storyline but this repetitive aspect with the two issues out this week is incredibly frustrating and left a bad taste in my mouth. It has its moments and I'm amused by some of Soule's characterization of Fett that doesn't make him the ultra badass of the galaxy, but I spent too much of this seeing the same dialogue and scenes from a different book I had just finished to really enjoy it.

I wanted to like this book more than I did. I think it has some interesting ideas and world design behind it but the execution early on dropped us into it in a way that kept the whole setup from connecting. I loved the character of Winston and Raleigh really grew on me across it as we get more on him. But the story never gelled and we didn't have enough grounding in order for it to grow naturally, leaving it to come together in ways that just didn't make narrative sense. Everything wraps up neatly here even if I dislike the method through which it's done. I wouldn't be adverse to more since I've got a bit of a handle on the concept but I'm not finishing this up clamoring for more.

With some good artwork, we have a number of strong scenes here but it can't salvage a story that has felt as lost as I am since day one. The smaller interesting moments are just that and don't seem to have any larger impact. We've got the finale next and I have little faith in it being able to stick a landing that makes enough sense for it to have been worthwhile.

But, honestly, after six months, none of it resonates. I don't remember who any of these characters are anymore. It's nicely put together visually and I'm sure the story connects well enough when it'll eventually be read in trade, but with the problems I had in earlier issues, going into this one it just felt like a lot of sound and fury with no weight behind it. I had a lot of things I liked about this at the start and I was excited to see this team back together, but as it progressed very little of it worked for me and it just keep accelerating that way. There were simply too many things going against this book and that gap was a real knife in the back for it.

With a couple of pages of teases that have me hopeful that things are coming into focus, I'm still wary of where The Dreaming is going. I like what Wan is up to at this point by the end, assuming his position to play and all, and the end tease about what's really going on could be really interesting depending on what's going on. But Spurrier fills this with so much material that it feels like a slog to get through rather than interesting or intriguing as we dealt with all the other issues first. And that combined with the lettering style just makes me dread the book, which is not a good thing.

I enjoyed this series overall with its kind of awkward back and forth progress that it made and exploring the pasts of the characters creatively. It didn't feel like just a retread of the familiar like we'd seen before but it suffered heavily because of the delays between issues. The finale lacks the energy it needs to make sure you come back – undated at the moment, I believe – with the second arc but I'm hopeful that arc will be produced better and more timely. I'm mixed on whether to recommend it or not because of its incomplete nature and the uncertainty of what's to come and when it will.

With this being a miniseries I usually stick with it throughout the run because, well, that's how I'm wired. The next issue isn't the finale but the events of this one make it clear that the book isn't for me. I was intrigued by the opening issue and curious where it went with the second, but it's execution in both of those and what's happened in the third and fourth installments just aren't my jam. There's a lot going on here and some neat ideas but it's throwing so much so fast so as to keep you engaged with it that it doesn't feel like it's telling a coherent story but rather a series of things happening that are loosely connected. There's a lot of potential with what's here and I really like the designs and artwork but it's just not coming together well. Perhaps it'll read better in a collected form without breaks and as a whole.

I'll likely try the third issue just to make sure but this issue has nearly turned me away from the series, Aja's artwork and layouts are a big draw as I love how he puts together the aliens and Astra as well, but the story just doesn't feel like I can get a handle on this world and how it operates. I was definitely intrigued by the first issue but the second simply didn't cement anything that I could latch onto in a strong enough way here to carry it forward with.

I want to see Rex back to normal for a bit and how he handles it and what will get him back to his other "normal" mode and how that'll impact him. But I also want to have less action and more story material alongside some good character material to really grow this. And, admittedly, I'd like a stable art team as it feels like we've had too many for a book that's only six issues into its run.

I'm really kind of at a loss with this book at this point. It's still cheap enough that I don't mind reading a bit more in hopes that everything comes together but it simply feels like it's continuing to miss out on its potential entirely and instead just wants to be a whole lot of bursting through things without any real weight or meaning behind it.

I gave it eight issues but the problems only seemed to grow as it went along and the unfocused nature of the series simply didn't keep my attention. When a book I have a subscription to shifts from anticipated or neutral to dread, that's time to start jumping off it unless you can see how it might turn around in the short term. I didn't see any potential for that here unfortunately.

It's not bad but it's just so familiar that it left me feeling kind of ho hum about it all and questioning whether I'll come back when the series returns.

Tomb Raider offers up some good artwork and solid flow through layout and presentation from Phillip Sevy and the result is definitely good in that department. Unfortunately, Sevy doesn't have much in the way of compelling material to illustrate and the whole thing feels like the kind of book we get between bigger arcs and not as a kickoff to a new series. I'm not sure where it really fits in the scheme of things since I don't play the games – does it include the first volume stories or are all of those tossed in favor of new continuity? Based on past experience I'll be here for an arc or two in order to see how it flows after everyone gets used to it, but the start of this series is very underwhelming.

Tomb Raider in its previous ongoing series took a few issues for me to adjust to its style and what it's doing so I expect the same here, though this one is proving a bit more problematic. Sevy's artwork continues to be a draw with some solid layouts and action material, but that's not the big draw for me with a book like this. It's a combination of story, character, and the action which is given meaning by the first time. There's no real story to this installment beyond the chase so it's fairly superficial overall. Fun but empty.

At this stage of the series I can see myself getting to the end of this arc just to see what's going on with Sam, one of the few characters I like, and how it all wraps up. I'm curious to see if the Trinity side is made clearer along the way or if it all just connects better with a bit more time. With this issue we do get some useful pieces but it lacks something really cohesive to bring it all together. The draw is with what Sevy does with the action side as it's engaging and fun and leaves you wanting more of it since it's definitely working better than the actual story and plot points.

Tomb Raider at least moves along well here in the fact that it's almost all about the action and little beyond that, so it feels like it's moving forward. Of course, it's balanced with some awful moments where Sun Queen Sam chews a lot of scenery and just comes across as more comical than threatening or scary. I keep hoping for this book to click in some way but it never seems to be able to even though it's fully capable of telling some strong story material. Sevy's artwork is solid but that's really the only draw here and even that's stretching it.

With so many digital-first books in the last few months, even if a good chunk of them came from re-purposed Target/Walmart anthology books, DC Comics raised the bar on what to expect from projects like these. Truth & Justice doesn't hold up well when placed against the recent Injustice or DCeased books nor along with things like Challenge of the Super Sons. This feels more like some of what they were putting out five or six years ago where it needs more editing, formatting, and better planning on the front-end to deliver a better story. Yes, it's just a buck (and even less for Unlimited members), but this one just feels like a first draft before any serious tightening up to get it ready for the real thing.

Truth & Justice has a second issue that has a lot of the same problems as the first and I'm not much surprised by it. There are some decent moments to be had, and the visuals are pretty good for it, but it's just a confusing book until you read through and can then figure out what it's trying to do rather than have it structured properly. If even the first panel had simply started with “The Past” so we knew that it was a flashback/dream sequence it would have worked far, far better for reader comprehension. The saving grace here is the artwork but that can't save the book as a whole.

Truth & Justice is a title with potential but it started with a weak title and didn't have what it needed in order to go the distance. The script here was a bit clunky at the start and didn't go anywhere than expected places for the next two issues and was just kind of there. The artwork was the saving grace but that can go only so far when the story doesn't connect or feel like it's fleshed out properly. I'm all for a lot more Vixen stories but this particular incarnation of her didn't do much for me and felt like it didn't quite get what makes her who she is.

While I like Constantine a lot and especially his time either working with or playing against Papa Midnite, this three-part story just didn't click well. I like the idea behind it but it has such big jumps and doesn't flow as well as it should when it comes to revealing everything, especially with the second issue being almost all flashback. The artwork is pretty basic with some nice moments here and there but it's the kind of thing where I don't think this would fly with a lot of mainline books out of DC and that it shouldn't fly here.

Backstory and some action make up most of this installment of the series and it's kind of a lull in the arc. We get some minor expansion to the world that our cast lives in and getting more on who Slade is definitely is welcome overall. Kate Leth has a solid handle on the characters but the story itself is at a weak point at the moment as it's not terribly compelling at this stage. Luckily, Eman Casallos really makes this a treat to read with some really good layouts and smoothness to presentation combined with great character designs that just delight. He's got the look of this world nailed down perfectly.

As for why this series didn't work, everyone with an agenda or belief of another groups agenda is going to toss blame around. For me, it was just weak storytelling. I didn't mind the costume as changes to that are common for most long running properties and a break from the norm isn't a bad thing. But the opening storyline here simply didn't engage and I know that I was fairly well caught up in what the previous series was doing, so there was a bit of a jarring change from one to the other, though I was glad Kate Leth carried over the characters that were used and some of the concepts. Here's hoping that the next iteration of Vampirella works for people better as there's always great stories to tell with this character and her world. It just needs something better and more meaningful with what these characters need to do.

While I continue to wait to see if this twelve-issue storyline makes sense anytime soon and prove itself to be interesting, I'll admit to coming back for more because of the artwork. Gundu's work is pretty great here and I love his designs across the board. We get a good bit of time with Nyx as well and he's got a great look for her that has me wanting a whole lot more. I want to be enthusiastic about this series but Priest's story just hasn't found the target yet when it comes to me.

I've enjoyed a lot of Vampirella books the last few years and some of them have definitely tested the patience of readers with what they do. Priest's run has been the one that has tested me the most as it just doesn't seem to be coming together in an engaging way and each issue is simply frustrating. The saving grace of Gundu's artwork does go a long way toward easing that but it can't salvage the book entirely, no can a really nicely done cover. I'm hopeful that things really do take shape soon because it needs to start feeling like there's meaning to what's going on here.

While I was wary of there being so many Vampirella books out at once the pro of it is that if one of them isn't clicking for you, there are other possibilities there for you. I really like the artwork in this installment with our guest artist as it holds up well against the regular artist. And artwork can sustain interest in some books for a while, but not indefinitely. There are interesting moments to be had throughout the issue but as a storyline start it doesn't do itself any favors or sets things in motion in a way that feels natural and interesting. It's a very frustrating book after years of Vampirella books that worked a lot better.

I love Vampirella as a character and the kinds of material she can generate but not all of it is going to work all of the time. Priest's series has had some interesting moments from the start but nothing cohesive and coherent enough where you can really identify a story, which after eight issues isn't a great thing. The main draw for me continues to be the artist sand their creativity and that'll keep me coming back from more. The story is what it is and while there are interesting bits along the way they really can't sustain the whole.

I love Vampirella as a character and I've read so many interpretations of her over the past decade from so many different writers. Some have been great, some mediocre, others just weren't a great fit. For me, Priest falls into the not a great fit category but it's been a while since I had last seen how it was. So I wanted to give this one a chance once I got it started since it can be viewed as a fresh start story. But it's just so tied to the events of the main book, or at least feels that way, and it shifts all over the place as to when things happen that it didn't connect for me at all. What was a big plus for me was the artwork from Donny Hadiwidjaja as it has a lot of great things going for it with some good layouts and appealing character designs. I'm curious to see where their career takes them to based on this.

What we get here in the first setup issue for the six issue run makes it clear that it's definitely going for a simplified approach to storytelling, keeping in tune to what came before, rather than looking for a way to take it up a few notches and expand upon it in more interesting ways.

Voltron: From the Ashes does its character building material here and it's all well and good if not for the fact that I'm hard pressed to care about any of these characters. They're not presented badly or poorly, it's just that it still feels weird to do this leap forward and expand here when there's such a rich wealth of material to work with in the previous incarnation. At this stage the book still feels mostly about Jayce with the rest being his unwilling entourage that are trying to achieve their goals. We know bad stuff is coming, but there's a kind of laziness about the group because of the realities of the time that just makes it hard to really find them compelling or interesting.

In some ways this series is reminding me very much of my frustrations with the actual anime series, which in turn causes me to not be quite so critical of it. Voltron was never high end, deep or weighty with what it did. This book is trying to move it forward while keeping one foot too firmly placed in the past and there's a disconnect there. That we're three issues in, halfway through the book, and we haven't gotten the Voltron moving in present day is problematic. Particularly as the flashback side just isn't engaging. I'm certainly not trying to rewrite the book, but it's taking some really decompressed approaches to getting to where it needs to be, which in turn will make it a bit anticlimactic as it has an almost theatrical structure to it. Which it really shouldn't do.

Voltron: From the Ashes continues to underwhelm overall as it's just taking forever to cover some very basic ground. We're getting what's essentially one episode of the TV show spread across six issues, which is frustrating. Bunn's script is decent enough and it hits the right marks as it moves forward, but progress is slow and far too predictable without anything to really shake things up in an engaging way. Shepherd's artwork is solid enough throughout, but things feel like they're finally getting a bit of energy when it shifts to the various lions getting their chance at being used. With two more issues to go you can pretty much track out how the series is going to play out and I'm not really expecting any surprises, unfortunately.

Voltron continues to feel like a weird mess of series in what it's doing that it comes across as though it's going to run a dozen issue and then found out it was half, resulting in some weird compression but a desire to not remove favorite scenes. Bunn captures the characters in their basic personalities well and I like some of what Shepherd is going here, but there's a lot of odd layouts and designs that are just overlapping too much and with too many similar colors that leaves it a blended mess, particularly in the early part of the fight here. While Voltron has never been a huge favorite, I'm still trying to get a handle on what the real point of all this is as it's one hell of an awkward relaunch into new and original territory.

Voltron: From the Ashes is a mess of a series. It's caught between the past and the present and is written like a half thought out idea for the opening episode or two of a new kids TV series. It pays some homage to the past throughout the run yet these areas are just distracting and don't add anything. The new team didn't even get on board until past the halfway mark of the run and they weren't exactly an engaging bunch themselves. While I like Voltron in a general sense and have watched pretty much all of the original material over the years, From the Ashes is pretty much why I dislike Western attempts at building onto the franchise as they invariably miss why it works. There are decent touches here and there but I can't figure out who the real audience for this truly is.

I really liked this book when it started and it had some neat ideas in the middle that didn't flow as well as they could as we lost sight of Chuck a bit more and Fayola and her family weren't as cleanly introduced as they could be. I do like the action here as Matthew Dow Smith executes it well, but the story just falls apart quickly and there's not much to really connect with, especially with how it all unfolds at the end and shifts into an A-Team knockoff.

After eleven issues I certainly have a feel for what King is doing and I can't deny that, but I'm slowly coming to a place where I'm wondering if it's really for me. I've enjoyed aspects of the series so far but I also find myself frustrated by a lack of a clearer vision and something that's just a bit more accessible for new readers. This feels very inside-y in a way that I can't pin down easily and it's very frustrating even with the years of overall knowledge of the character I have and reading the fringe Gotham oriented books. The saving grace for me is Mikel Janin's artwork as he and June Chung provide for some really great pages and layouts here that capture a pretty fascinating feeling with both the big and small moments. I'm still around for a bit more but I find myself wondering if the exit will be coming sooner rather than later.

The first Batman annual of the new series is in the can and there's not that much to really recommend overall. There are a couple of decent if forgettable stories and a bunch of very forgettable stories and one that I couldn't even finish (the last one) because the whole thing just felt like too much by that point. The potential to do a lot of creative things with an annual is always there but going for what's essentially an anthology book that feels like half a step above a fan done production at times doesn't warrant the price tag. The Ace story is the best of them while having some classic new Neal Adams artwork just makes it all the more worthwhile for me.

Having really enjoyed the Bettie Page character across multiple series so far and some crossovers, I'm really feeling it that I'm not connecting to this one at all. I enjoy the tales of the character but the events here just aren't coming together well and I feel less and less invested with each issue. It just lacks something to really bind it together, something which the irregular publishing schedule doesn't help. Frederici's artwork is great and that makes it really easy to go through but it's just a superficial process at this point because the story that makes up the bulk of this issue doesn't feel like much of one but more of a series of catfights and on-set anger.

When the best part of the book is the couple of pages of epilogue material with Natasha and Isaiah, I'm not sure that says a lot for the book.

Bombshells: United feels like it's a bit tighter and more cohesive here, not quite as ethereal as it's felt over the first three issues. This issue works the distrust side of things while also setting up for a fight in the next installment that ought to be fun. This installment also introduced me to Marcel DiChiara's artwork and it's a good fit here. I'm not terribly keen on their take on the Bombshell version of Wonder Woman as she looks a little bit like an action figure in some scenes because of the angle, but by and large there's a lot to like here as they work the flow of this format well and the layouts make for a smooth read. The rest of the character designs worked well for me and it has me looking forward to what else may be coming.

The flow of the book still feels disjointed and clunky in some areas as it moves about either in a jumpy or too quick of a way but it makes up for that with some creative weirdness that I continue to find strangely appealing.

While Brilliant Trash doesn't claw its way back for me with this issue compared to the last couple, it does work better overall as it's feeling more focused and clear about what it is it wants to do. I liked what we had of Zhen in the past issues as her story worked but this one doesn't deal with her yet works better when it comes to Kennedy at the least. Cromwell's still kind of problematic as the foundations of the series that are somewhat superficial but there's an element of fun and some strong forward progress being made here that's capped off with an intriguing moment that has me wanting to see how it plays out.

Brilliant Trash concludes in a curious way without our main artist and pretty much none of the characters that populated the run. What's here is basically the epilogue to events and it, to me, serves more as a kind of launching point where it could go forward.

Throughout the bulk of this first issue I was coming away with a pretty impressed view of things and thinking that even with the wrestling angle, not a favorite of mine, that it could be a pretty good coming of age with some heroics elements mixed in kind of series.But it ends up going so over the top that it just took me out of the book completely and made it so that I didn't even want to finish it. It just goes into such awful territory that I doubt I'll go after the second issue to see if it can redeem itself. There's a good story to be had here and some great artwork, but the trappings brought in at the end just completely kills my interest in it unfortunately.

Captain Atom is the kind of lower grade superhero character that I grew to love years ago that just has a hell of a hard time making it to the big leagues. He's had his shots to be sure and lots of good stuff over the years (I loved his time in the bwahahaha era of the Justice League books) but there's something about him that just holds him back. The lack of a solid solo book for so long is one of those things that's added to it, so the chance to build up some new fans here is good. This isn't the best introduction to the character since it doesn't really get us into who he is at this point, but it has some good hooks that can let the character grow and be explored. I'm cautiously optimistic, but at the same time I have years of history where I've seen how hard it is to make this character work. He's not like others but there's plenty of potential here as we get some decent storytelling and really appealing artwork.

Ciudad kicks things off with a lot of action and works through it in a solid way without going overly big or unrealistic with what it does. In fact, it looks a lot like storyboards overall for a movie as the action tracks and it gives off the sense of the opening act of a film. That's both good and bad as we get some solid action to it and a good sense of space and movement, but it also comes across as weak as there's not enough to really hook you here. While it is a five part series and it has a beginning, middle and end to it with its entire run, the beginning doesn't offer anywhere near enough of a hook to really draw you in to wanting to read more of it, even with the talents involved.

At the halfway mark of the series, we get a little bit of a threat right at the end of the book that has Masodik now finding a new avenue through which to torment Vampirella, but it feels like little of note when you get down to it. With two full issues of stories being told with some connective tissue to hold it all together, the Dawn/Vampirella event has further underwhelmed here. And it's not helped by the lengthy delays between installments since that has it coming up alongside other anthology style works on top of Vampirella's main series, which has its own exploration of stories. There are decent ideas and material in here, the second story working the best for me, but there doesn't feel like there's any true forward momentum going on here.

With Bombshells moving on to some different material for the moment, what Bennett and Aneke present here is interesting enough but comes across as just a little too padded for my tastes. I don't think it did things well enough in setting up at the start with Frankie, Nadimah, and Qadir to really connect with them and what they're up to and the leaning into the old Indiana Jones stuff was just a little to blunt for my tastes, though amusing. Aneke captures the look of the place and time well as I really liked how she worked all three of these characters, but it was when it shifted to Faora and the different interpretations and the nod to her time in Moscow that it started to click better. This was probably one of the weaker installments overall in terms of getting something underway but it does serve up some very good bits for the larger picture.

There are a lot of things I enjoyed in Death Orb over the run but the final installment is one that left me feeling unsatisfied. Shark's presence and story just felt like it didn't add anything, everything involving Father and his plan felt unfinished and not fleshed out in a way that made it seem really important, and Rider's inability to get real closure here is problematic. There are a lot of characters moving about this issue but little of it really resonates. It's wonderfully illustrated, though, with some great layouts and a strong sense of action that hits very well. But that isn't enough to really salvage the story itself for me.

After really enjoying the Green Lantern revival, I was hopeful that Johns could pull off the most difficult of returns with Barry Allen coming back into continuity. Unfortunately, everything here takes the wrong tone where it's simply too depressing. Where it should be offering a lot of hope and happiness with Barry finding his place in things now that he's come out of the speed force, it's more about not wasting a moment when you could be fighting crime and dealing with the bad guys. It's a strange message for Barry to have when he in essence says spending time with friends and comrades is wasting time. The depressing story combined with Sciver's artwork which makes everyone look like they're clenched left me just as depressed afterward and wondering what went wrong with the Barry I used to know.

This part of the Flashpoint spinoff mini's lets Deathstroke and his quest to save his daughter lead things, but it also shows us a bit of what life on the seas is like and the dangers they face when they slide into the territorial waters of Atlantis. The crew that he has is amusing to watch as they have a good pirate feel with the addition of metahuman powers and seeing how they come together for the next mission to save Rose works well. But as interesting as it is, and it does flesh things out just a bit more about a world in which Aquaman reigns supreme, it doesn't feel as strongly connected to things until the end when it ties back into the main Flashpoint series. It has some good ideas in it and Deathstroke plays the part of an almost salty sea captain well, but it needs something extra to make it click better, which may come in the following issues. Still, any book that puts Clayface as a pirate earns some praise in my mind.

This Deathstroke book continues to be a guilty pleasure simply because the idea of metahuman pirates going around the open seas while having to contend with the Atlanteans is a surreal experience to watch. It plays the pirate side fairly well as you can expect from just a pair of issues and shows how quick a life can end. The characters are fun and though one of my favorites was lost, it did shuffle Sonar around to a new position and changes the dynamic of the group in general. The book does come across as mostly fluff as to be expected, it's hard to imagine it really having a significant impact on the core storyline in the main series, but I'm enjoying it for what it is and the fact that after it's over, there won't be another pirate style metahuman series.

Green Arrow Industries has some decent ideas to it and works with an idea that definitely makes sense in trying to take weapons that villains have created and to repurpose them for their own needs. While the whole military industrial complex angle makes it a scary notion, it's the kind of thing that can easily be expected to happen and someone like Ollie is the right kind of person under the wrong kind of circumstances. Though the second half of the book is a bit too much action and not enough of the character material. Ollie is a favorite, and this version of him has something to offer, but it's a disjointed one-shot with a lot of potential if it had the space to play with it.

Lois Lane and the Resistance has a more comic-booky feel to it because of the pacing, the lack of real depth overall and the artwork by Eddie Nunez. It's not bad artwork, but it doesn't fit the material well as it has more of a DC Universe animated video feel to it. And it also doesn't help that Lois wears the same outfit for something like six months worth of time in the story which doesn't say much for continuity and reality either as she lives on the island. I like the concept and what they want Lois to do and become, but it's not well executed here.

Project: Superman is a book that I wasn't sure what to make of in the first installment but came to like a lot in the second as we saw Kal's story more. With the third issue, it spends a mix of time between Kal and Sinclair but lacks a distinct and consistent voice to tell its tale, though Sinclair does largely dominate it. The quiet scenes are really good to see as Kal heads overseas and things hit him personally but the big action scenes are what makes the book at this point as we want to see some action, some real pounding going on and to see Sinclair and Kal duke it out. And we do get it, with consequences on ramifications on a couple of levels. It's just an uneven piece, largely dealing with multiple things that have to hit at a certain point with the Lois Lane miniseries and Flashpoint itself, so that undercuts part of it. But there are some fun ideas to be had in here.

Gotham Academy continues to hold a whole lot of potential but it remains a series where I really wish the creative side was whittled down, if all the cooks involved in the credits are actually fully participating, because it just feels like a mess. There are some interesting things here that have been teased at since early on with Olive's past and her family history and seeing it come out as it does here has its moments. I'm not exactly sure that they pulled it off well with Amy's introduction earlier in this Semester and how it played out because there were a lot of forced elements to it that kept people apart. The book looks decent and has a good flow to it as it pushes Olive further and further over the edge with the reveals that are made. I'm genuinely curious to see if they can pull it off here but am definitely hedging my bets based on recent experience.

While I've had fun at times with this miniseries as there's always something like when you spend time with Groo, Fray of the Gods has been more of a struggle than anything else and that's been problematic. I'm definitely glad that the creative team took some time to stretch things a bit and do something a bit different, and good gravy does Aragones deliver some hugely detailed and energetic – and engaging – pages throughout it with everything going on. The whole slave revolt alone is worth the price of admission. But I want more out of a Groo "story" than we got here as this one was just drawn out too much.

As much as I like what Conner and Palmiotti do in general, this one just didn't click for me and largely because it's a group of characters I know nothing about and have no interest in based on what I read here and that it comes across as a push to start a new book/team thing at a time when some of my favorite stuff is already being canceled. I really like the look of the book overall and Hardin has some good designs when it comes to Harley, especially under Angiolini's color design, but the core of it with the story just didn't connect.

I want to like Hawkgirl a lot more than I am but this iteration is proving hard to connect with. The material with Vepcula has potential to it but it's playing by very old and familiar rules in how it's unfolding when there's some good drama to work with when it comes to what she's after. Kendra herself has plenty to deal with and I've even warmed up to Galaxy a bit. But there's just so much going on and no time to breathe with any of it that it just feels more like hitting marks rather than telling story at times. Kendra being as disconnected from the world as she is isn't a bad plot point but it means you have to do more to make her engaging. And this just misses the opportunities, such as when she gets to connect with her wings in a new way. This needed a lot more depth and exploration since it's a big change for the character in this iteration.

There are some fun bits along the way that touches on how Kendra's forgotten or missed out on some of the right ways to be a superhero and that comes from interacting with the locals. The small sequence at the start when she deals with the Croc Bloc gang is light and fun and I appreciated the street-level element that we get. The stuff with Galaxy and Batman is fun and just acknowledging the Corgi delivers as it should. The book has all kinds of potential but it feels like it leans in an area that's just tiring and that the execution is keeping it from achieving what it needs to.

Making it past the halfway mark of the limited series means I'm in tor the full run but each issue just makes it more frustrating as it goes along. I haven't been able to connect with Galaxy at all as her story is almost like it's bolted onto Kendra's and Kendra's story hasn't had any real progress at all since the first issue. It's just a bit of a mess of things going on. This one manages to stand out with some good dialogue, great artwork, and guest appearances that helps a lot, but it also highlights the problematic areas even more because of how Vulpecula figures into the story with the two leads that just took me right out of it all.

Inhuman again throws a lot of stuff at us and it halfways feels like we're getting the cliffsnotes version of the series rather than the actual series. I really liked the time with Medusa, in her Madison Queen persona, as we feel like we're getting to see the real character at long last. But it's all done from the side without a deep look at her and what she's really saying. Reader and Iso's storyline is stock fight and flight material that doesn't really give us a lot to chew on and it just feels kind of schlocky in some ways that I can't quite put my finger on. Most of it just comes down to the fact that it's done in such a quick hit fashion without any depth or exploration to it that it's all just so superficial and that's keeping me from really connecting with it at this point anymore.

The same problem I've had for most of the run is still here and I know I need to just accept it. But it frustrates me so because there's a wealth of great character and story material between the panels to explore and that this rushed aspect just does a disservice to the work as a whole. The attack by Ennilux is pushed to the side for the time being here and a quick order rebuild of New Attilan is pretty much underway. I wonder what their version of Damage Control would be like? I'm still not interested in most of the NuHumans, though Nur is definitely growing on me, and I have zero interest in Iso and Reader because of how bad their storyline has been. The saving grace continues to be the Medusa and Black Bolt material, but even they're poorly served more often than not with clipped stories and development.

At this point in the story I figure I'll run to the end of the storyline and see what the setup for the next one is before I jump ship. VARGR has not been thrilling or exciting and it has an odd pace about it that really does reinforce that it's hard to tell stories of this nature in comic form. Even when they do excel when it comes to spy stories, there's a difficulty in it when done with the monthly/singles format. I'm still not sure what to make of this Bond and his personality and that just leaves me enjoying the action itself, especially since the locales have been bland, dark, and uninteresting.

The opening storyline for the James Bond ongoing series draws to a close and I'm really conflicted about it. I'll likely stick to it for the next arc to see if things come together a bit better now that some of the basics have been established, but I'm almost rooting for a rotating series to be put into play with different writer/artist combinations to deal with it. I'm a fan of Ellis to a good degree but so far he just feels like an ill fit for the book in capturing and exploring the character and situations, at least based on this first story. Masters definitely gets to go all out with the artwork here and that's the biggest selling point of the book since there's not much in the way of story to latch onto here.

I'm not exactly keen on the remainder of this arc but I want to see what comes after it to see if the series is still worth following so I'm going to be all-in for a few more issues. This issue just didn't work for me in more ways than I expected and it quickly became a chore to read. The scale of it has its moments but it never really connects right because it's just got a sense of too much too quickly without enough grounding to tie it together. Snyder has some good bits with dialogue and I'm endlessly interested in things related to the Source Wall, but that can't carry the issue. Jorge Jimenez brings a whole lot of life to the book and keeps it moving but it's struggling to find the throughline from the story itself since it's just action upon action upon action, even when they're just sitting around it feels tense.

Having not experienced this iteration of Lara before I found myself curious but not really feeling it after being so invested in the other version for the last couple of years. There are some fun moments throughout this miniseries and I suspect that it reads better when read in full. At the same time it feels like it's just falling into the usual traps of game related books in that it can do only so much and possibly has to be done by committee in such a way as to negate the option of really exploring something fun. The basic elements of the franchise are all here though and you can see how it would make for a fun, if weird, adaptation into other media as well. I'll keep looking for a really good vision of this character in the meantime.

I hate it when a book turns indecipherable. Something about Miskatonic just ended up in this place where it's become complex and filled with so many characters that I've lost track of the plot and can't reconnect with it. There are a lot of positives to be had with it, especially in the artwork and anything taking place in this time period with interesting characters like this, but it's been able to feel cohesive from issue to issue and the plot has left me unsure of who is who and what we're even doing anymore, especially with the green goo body remains.

Guest appearances, even when well done, can be rough on new series since they change the dynamic of what we were getting. Ms. Marvel certainly suffers from that with the addition of Wolverine for awhile, even with the positive things he does bring to the table. It's an easy connection to the Inhumans that's brought into focus, which will be exploited in a fun way to come, and we get Wolverine staking her out in a way that will raise eyebrows for other heroes that are likely to come across her. The book left me underwhelmed after how the first five drew me in, even with its quirks, and Jacob Wyatt didn't grab me too much with his style compared to what we started off with either. It didn't help that he had to deal with Wolverine's awful outfit either.

Ninjak does give us a decent backup story here as we see more of Colin's journey to who he becomes because of how his parents were at the time and that helps to ease some of the pain of this installment. That and a bit of time with Neville goes a long way towards that. Colin's time in the present is just poorly executed and makes him far less compelling than he was in previous installments. Sanguine herself isn't all that interesting either and with half an issue given over to her and some of that with her origin story it's just too simple and too compressed. After seriously enjoying the hell out of this book at the start of it, Ninjak falters pretty big here and has me wondering if it can pull off the arc it's in the midst of in a strong enough way.

Thankfully, there's only one installment to go so it's easy enough to see it through and how it all unfolds. This issue has way too much going on and that really made it had to engage with as it moves between too many characters and situations without enough time for much of it to really sink in. Combine that with the nature of this world it inhabits and the way it's hard to really get a handle on and it was definitely a struggle to get through this one.

With two more installments to go you can pretty much see how things are going to shake out at this point. The book does some decent things along the way here and time with Selina and Ivy is always welcome, but the two have been apart for some time so there's a disconnect as Ivy has wanted less and less to do with mankind for some time. There's a lot of interesting things to explore with that concept but we're too tied to the usual conventions of superhero/villain storytelling here. This is a book that I keep thinking would work better as Vertigo type story to really go all in with it as we see how Ivy wants to use her abilities and science to evolve to the next stage. There are good moments to be had here but it's a weak whole when combined with the uneven artwork due to so many talents involved in it.

I love Poison Ivy as a character and there's so much potential with her that this just feels like a misfire overall. It had some interesting ideas at the beginning but it's drawn out too much and it ended up feeling too by the numbers at the end here as everything is resolved neatly enough and likely never to be mentioned or referenced in the mainline books at all. Amy Chu set up some good ideas but just wasn't able to capitalize on them and the book suffered a good bit from the rotating cast of artists that really chipped away at a consistent look and tone, though they tried. Stories like this are ones that make me wish more for an Elseworlds style book or a Vertigo level book as a way to tell them so it can just get done in a stronger and more appealing way, but that's just not how it works. So, instead, we'll have a largely forgettable miniseries. Unfortunately.

The charms of Power Girl is what carries things here, especially with Amanda Conner's artwork, as the story really doesn't work well here. The arrival of the trio, the seemingly ill-fitting violence and the entire self destruct aspect of the ship doesn't come off well at all. The fun of the book is in the way Power Girl handles herself, with her serious intent to deal with the newly arrived crashed ship and the kind of wink and a grin to her face as she handles the interview and the first responders. When the book goes toward the light material, it seems like it's just right. When it tries to be serious, it can pull it off to some degree, but the story used here and the structure of it doesn't do it. There's a real mixed bag here overall but I don't think one outweighs the other. I'll remember the fun moments over the rest of it in the end. After the fun of the fourth issue, this one didn't do it for me all that much.

Predator: Hunters has a good concept to work with but ended up going with so much setup and character material in the first few issues that it pushed all the action to the last couple of issues. The location and its history certainly has a lot to work with but then using as much of this as flashback and exposition ended up making it all the harder to give the action the weight it needs. It's like the equivalent of the third act of an action movie being just a few minutes overall. I like the potential of this story but it was too compressed and spent too much time in the wrong areas for the amount of issues that it was allotted. Hopefully, the next Predator story will work better.

I'm not quite sure what to make of this book yet as it introduces a lot of things and I don't feel like I have a solid enough footing to really get it yet.

Relay continues to have interesting ideas but has another uneven issue where the execution leaves me feeling disconnected from it. This is how I felt for a lot of the first issue as well whereas the second one felt a bit more grounded in a kind of Outer Limits way that I could figure out. Here, it's kind of all over the map in some ways, making leaps that I can't make the connection with. Jad's narration has some good things to say and Clarke's artwork definitely gets to stretch here with how it's presented, but I'm in a camp where I feel like I'm missing the point because of how it's executed.

It's a solid presentation of an interesting world and situation as well as some fun time in space so I left mostly satisfied but with that underlying frustration over the whole largely release problem.

Fred Van Lente and Maurizio Rosenzweig put together a pretty intriguing book here, one that practically requires a couple of read throughs and re-reads when new issues come out in order to really connect all the dots. It's something that suffers a bit from the monthly format because of it. While the series faltered for me along the way in a couple of places, there are so many areas that I'd love to see explored more and more cohesively that I'm craving for this to continue in some form. The concept is an intriguing one and I'm glad that they worked with the Egyptian mythology and really had fun with it in all the flashback sequences. But when the book shifted to the present, it simply felt less compelling and really didn't feel like it knew what direction it wanted to take beyond the whole unlocking. Hopefully this isn't the last we'll see of the Resurrectionists and that they'll get a new life to further explore the potential here.

The general ideas of the book work well for me and I'm largely in agreement with it, but it's the story execution that leaves me wanting. With a single issues story there's obviously only so far you can go with things, but some of the real basics are missing here that keep you from even investing in it a little bit. The lack of an actionable reason for Circe to be doing what she's doing other than to get Diana's attention is weaker than weaker and that just makes the message that comes up during the fight all the more blunt. There's no story. There's just message. And perhaps that's part of what Sensation Comics is going for, especially with its all ages intent and the low price point. That's not a bad thing, but it does leave me hoping for a bit more story or a reworking to less standalone issues if they can't support story and message at the same time.

With a straightforward idea in general at play here, it's the execution that causes it to suffer. The back and forth leaves me less than enamored and not being sure who is who at times adds to it – especially since characters don't use names all that often. It's a decent enough story and it's one that you can see Diana definitely taking an interest in, with it bringing back someone she connected with in years past, but as is the case with a title like this, it's very light on really making you feel the connection because of the space and the execution. Duce handles the art chores well and we get a decent look in general, but it's standard fare stuff in a way, competent to be sure, but without its own personality. Which is more noticeable in a series like this where so many artists have done some really standout non-standard artwork and designs.

After two weird but interesting issues, this one feels like a misstep. I'm not sure what I'm supposed to take away from this one other than Nussbaum has now been taken by someone else after barely surviving his own encounter and what it'll bring us to remains to be seen. There are interesting moments here and there and great artwork in general but it lacks something to really latch onto with the main storyline that feels like it's carrying us through it.

To some degree, I'm not sure what to make of this. It has some of the good and bad of days of old and even at times feels like it's right out of the 60s with how it approaches executing the story. There's an appeal to that in trying to recapture that style with a character like this but it also feels like it just moves to things out of the blue and oddly enough. This was my first experience with Genis so that didn't make too much of an impact on me but I can appreciate the idea and the way he was both reticent to do this but also tempted. I really enjoyed the artwork, especially in the trip back in time, and just the general flow and feel that we always get from Ron Lim's take on the Silver Surfer and how he moves. I'm curious to see how the second installment goes but it'll have to really get me to keep going.

While I continue to enjoy the artwork, especially the future sequence with Genis-Vell, I'm frustrated by the book otherwise because it's falling into the cliches all too easily. I mean, it's going to happen on some level because of how stories are told, but at the same time it feels like if it had more actually going into the structure of it that it wouldn't feel so obvious and predictable. And that's what's hurting it. The interesting moments are mostly involving Thanos and the Surfer talking and what we get out of the future Surfer more so than the actual story being told. Too many simply setup pieces that contextually shouldn't happen with such power players regardless of what's actually going on.

While I'm enjoying the bulk of the Star Wars books in general and have gotten a kick out of a good portion of the Doctor Aphra run so far, this issue just left me feeling a bit cool as it's kind of drawn out and I'm not feeling a connection to most of these newer characters.

I really like Doctor Aphra. I thrilled to her role in the Darth Vader series and loved her role in the Rebel Jail arc in the main Star Wars series. And the first half of this arc teased some real potential before just kind of veering off in a direction that felt like it petered out. Perhaps it'll read better in full than in singles form down the line. The talent here continues to be top notch but the story just couldn't make it work. It's definitely worth it for the time we do get with Aphra to understand her more as well as some striking artwork, but it has me hopeful that the next arc can right the ship a bit better.

I'll give props to the use of acid to try and stop Vader but the reality is that there are so many ways to try and take him down but none have worked, largely due to his connection to the Force and how it's heightened his situational awareness on top of everything else. Qi'ra herself is given about two pages at the end and a bit of a cold but not unexpected or wrong approach earlier in what must be done in order to get the Fermata Cage to her. Farrus is a non-entity and the Archivist has only a few lines overall. So much of what we get here is just another fruitless attempt at taking down Vader and that's unfortunately something that is happening in too many of the Star Wars comics these day.

It's a good issue in that it works more character time and dialogue than some previous ones and the artwork is definitely age-appropriate while leaning slightly into the playful side, so it achieves its goals. But it still leaves me a bit frustrated overall that these characters with so much potential are still struggling to find a path that works.

The Poe Dameron series continues to be a struggle when it's a book I desperately want to like. The story isn't bad but it's also not selling things in a big or engaging way, which has me wondering if the Story Group from Lucasfilm are keeping things on a very tight leash here. I like that we're starting to flesh out the Black Squadron characters a bit because it'd be nice to remember their names more beyond the main three that I know and I'm excited to see what Grakkus has in store with what he might have in his little enclave. But beyond that, the book just isn't clicking for me with the artwork and that ends up dragging everything else down, which is unfortunate. I've loved Noto on other books but it's just not working in this realm for me.

While Rogue One in film form has its issues it's a film that worked very well for me and I thoroughly enjoyed the prequel novel, Catalyst. The comic form adaptation is something that really needed more space to do what it needed to do and it needed some expansions to help smooth over some of the issues, which we got in some of the early issues but almost nothing for this time around. The finale simply has far too much ground to cover and nowhere near enough space to do it which resulted in this stunted installment.

The Phase III storyline here has some interesting bits when it comes to the Occlusion Zone and how the Nihil are operating but it's also feeling just kind of off to me when it comes to the characters. We've had a lot of comics dealing with Jedi that aren't tied strongly to the Order itself and it's just a vibe that feels far too common overall and it's diluting the experience a bit to me. Revisiting Eridau is just kind of weird considering the future-history that it has and seeing so many happy times here knowing that this is where some favorite characters die in the future makes for some complicated feelings about it. Mostly, I just haven't latched onto the larger story that's being told in this phase through these comics so it feels a bit loose and ill-defined, which makes for a frustrating experience.

The series is one that's basically a simple space opera story that if you had changed one or two minor things, such as mentioning the force and maybe lightsabers under a different name, you'd basically get a story that could have been told since the 1940s in science fiction magazines. It's pretty by the numbers with pieces that don't feel like they add anything to it and in fact detract in my opinion. There's a potentially interesting cast of characters here but no time is given to develop them and not even much in the way of archetype material in order to make them being chased by dangerous aliens workable either. The whole thing just didn't come together right and left me curious if they could stick the landing thanks to the framing but ended up not doing so. I can forgive a whole lot when it comes to Star Wars, having read comics from it going back to 1978, but this definitely needed more grounding and character to work.

Something just felt off here and a lot of it comes to the flow of the action and it not connecting well for me even with a couple of read-throughs to ensure it wasn't just an "in the moment" problem. There are fuin bits with the fight itself and I do like Deadman so seeing him was definitely enjoyable if unexpected, combined with a flashback piece that felt like it was just a tad too long. With a lot of strong and fun issues prior to this I'll just chalk it up to a transitional piece in a way as we move forward with what's next but it was a bit disappointing.

While I'm not giving up on the title I'm finding myself a little more way of it. Opening issues can be crazy busy as you try to hit certain points, sometimes mandated points by editorial, and you hope things settle out a bit more from there. But it feels like we've got too many story points going on within a short period of time that are overlapping and nowhere near enough actual emotional fallout over the apparent death of Lois and everything else going on. Jimenez's artwork continues to be a big selling point but it's like the story, there's just so much going on and so many narrative shifts that the artwork feels jarring as it tries to move between them all. I'm hopeful for things to smooth and even out sooner rather than later with the book finding its voice because I'm not sure what that's supposed to be yet – or whose voice.

And with my three issue rule in effect, this is my last installment of Superwoman. This is a book I really wanted to like but was unable to find enough to really keep me around as it simply requires too much knowledge elsewhere and is hitting things at such a fast and chaotic pace that it left me feeling empty by the end of the issue. I like the concept but the execution simply left me flat. Jimenez has a lot he wants to do here and I'm definitely interested in the big picture but it lacks a strong human element to anchor it. This installment works out well with Emanuela Lupacchino stepping in for the artwork, an artist whose work I adore, and it provides a surprisingly good bit of continuity with the previous installments that I wasn't expect. Sadly, this book just didn't make it for me even as I really wanted it to because I'm totally intrigued by Lana in this role.

I liked a bunch of pieces across the first two issues and even liked the early stuff with Winston and Addison here, but Sympathy for No Devils continue to be a problematic book in that I really just don't get the whole structure and setup of how this world works. And that lack of understanding on my part makes it so that I can't understand how the dynamic works between the characters. Winston doesn't have a great run here as he gets abused pretty hard and it's easy to see that Crae isn't in for a good time either. I'm curious to see if this gets pulled together into something more cohesive.

Sympathy for No Devils is" a thing. I'm still not sure what the big picture goal is here and what they're trying to get to. I'm enjoying some of the character material, not all of it, and I'm definitely digging the artwork and what I've been able to grasp of the world design. But it hasn't pulled together into something that makes sense for me, though I'm looking forward to seeing how it all tries to tie it together in the next final issue.

I liked the concept as introduced in the first issue of this series but there are so many things working against this that I basically hope that it works better for anyone that picks it up in trade form or reads it one complete sitting. I had to look up to see if this was a title I had reviewed previously because of the length of the gap and then see how much came back as I got into it. It's got its moments and I enjoy the artwork, but some of the structure and pacing feels like it's hamstrung by coming to a close in the next installment and trying to find a way to do that. Simply not enough time to make it all work without leaving sizable gaps in establishing its world.

With a fairly standard setup here, there's not a lot to draw on to really establish itself as something that stands on its own. There's any number of fantasy novels that operate off of similar beginnings, though this book has the added plus of some pretty appealing artwork by Fritz Casas to work off of. Brownfield moves things along well enough with the story and the dialogue is handled well as it isn't too overdone or coming across as annoying for lack of a better word. But the greatest sin the book has is that it doesn't offer a strong enough hook to make you want to come back for more. While that's easier to do when you've got a couple of issues under your belt and the audience already intrigued, it's problematic with a first issue since you need to give folks a reason to come back. There's a tease here, but it's likely not enough for most unless they're simply strong fans of the genre.

I'm still not won over by this book but I am intrigued. This issue raises the stakes a bit and shows more of what Elizabeth is up to and the way of her reasoning, but it hasn't revealed the true why of it yet. And that's a plus because it makes her a character that you can get invested in but worried that there will be a flip or a trick along the way that can surprise you. There's a growing cast here that's being lightly fleshed out as we see more of their personalities and their own motivations being touched on. I'm enjoying the book but that's partially because it's not the norm and because I'm unsure of the lead character and how I'm supposed to feel about her. But I'm also waiting for more of the truth of the matter of the storyline to come out to see if I really want to invest in it for the long haul. I'm hopeful but still rather cautious here.

While I continue to enjoy the Titans in general and like elements of both of these stories, neither of them really hit a good mark or truly stuck the landing. The shorter stories are harder to do in general and that's definitely reflected here even though it's pared down in terms of cast size as much as it is. Raven's a good character but a hard one to really make carry the story and she's got lead in both of them. Gar doesn't fare much better here either. Pugh's artwork is something that I've known forever and it's solid here but I really didn't care for Gideon's take on Gar all that much either, which didnd't help.

Though the book is by no means back on track for me as the whole mushroom story just feels like something that's both uninteresting and not worth of a six-issue arc, this installment had a better flow about it and felt like it allowed us to connect better with Lara and her past – which includes her friends to some degree. The first half makes for a very solid visual work that explores the character while the second focuses on exploration in the present itself with some really good moments. It's hard to bring this aspect of the game to life without it feeling forced but this is an issue where Sevy feels like he's found his groove, or at least has better material to work with.

I still haven't connected with this story and know that I won't at this stage, so I'm reading for Lara herself and waiting to see what adventure is next. A lot of the appeal for me is what happens between the adventures and I'm curious to see what the fallout from this one is and what happens before the next adventure gets underway. The story concept in this arc isn't doing much for me but Tamaki has put together two issues of good action sequences that lets Sevy really shine and run with the book and making it interesting on a basic level. I just wish that the story felt cemented and grounded well, and interesting, so that I could enjoy Sevy's presentation even more.

Tomb Raider as a series is one that continues to confound me to some degree with what it does because it feels like it's capable of being so much more. Phillip Sevy does a lot of fun things with it when it comes to layouts and some of the overall presentations of movement and action, but the story side still simply feels weak. This one starts off decently enough since it's bringing us back to Sam, or at least the physical existence of Sam and whatever it is that has a hold on her, and there's the possibility of the larger story taking shape a bit more. But I keep wondering whether this is a book that really needs a larger scope and instead should just be focusing on smaller and more personal stories and adventures.

I'm still struggling with this book and there's definitely a frustration with it as we've had some good stories before. But it's working such a slow burn without anywhere near enough payoff that it becomes frustrating. Even worse, in a way, is that it continues to work on expanding the stories from the games that it becomes too insulated rather than breaking new ground and going in new directions. Tamaki handles this installment better than a lot of others as the pacing is solid, the dialogue is given room to breathe, and the concepts are at least a bit more interesting even if I have zero interest in Himiko and the supposed possession. Sevy's artwork is solid as it has been throughout and he gets a couple of really nice pieces in here, including a fun two-page spread, but it's his work in the quieter moments of dialogue such as the pub and the church that work the best.

Tomb Raider has a strong opening half and a weak back half and that makes the issue a mixed bag for me. Sevy continues to be the strong player here with some solid layouts and some really fun pieces, such as the imagined escape across the church rooftop as well as the actual underground escape, especially the final piece showing them climbing up into the residence. The supernatural side is very meh at best for me, though I like that Lara does her research even if it's so light and superficial that you kind of just gloss over aspects of it. I'm curious to see how far this arc will go overall and what it really wants to do, but this is a series that's still on the razor wire for me.

Zatanna's out of her element here and definitely panicking a bit about what's happening as it's not making a lot of less. She meets two people along the way but they only add to the weirdness without revealing anything, making the issue feel like it's just kind of limping along instead of telling an actual story. After an interesting first issue, this one doesn't hold the energy and can't carry it forward.

Vampirella is moving things forward here bit by bit with what it does but I keep feeling like we needed more time establishing Vampi in this area and connecting with the landscape more before going with such a public spectacle. Leth's handle on Vampirella seems pretty good and I like the addition of Juliette to things, but I want more Tristan and Coleridge and a little more darkness to things. The public side of what's going on can be done in some interesting ways and we've seen many interpretations of this character over the years, but Slade just isn't providing a strong enough opponent for Vampirella at this point or for the readers to really find engaging.

I love Vampirella but this is the first series in a long time that feels like at least half of it is actively working to make sure I don't enjoy it. It still feels listless and like it's trying to be more of a novel than a comic in how it's telling its tale. There are some really nice sequences and the book as a whole is beautifully illustrated and colored, making for a great visual experience. But I'm hard-pressed to find much to really enjoy beyond that or to remember between issues.

Though I've had fun with the first couple of issues of this series the third issue is a significant bump in the road that could be a decent sized pothole for many. It's just so full of exposition that's incredibly busy as it tries to convey so much through both word and art that it becomes a slog to get through. And that's the worst thing that it can do. The beginning and end of this issue has some fun and keeps things moving but I'm feeling even more disconnected from the villains side now and less interested in them in the big picture sense. Thankfully, the two leads make up for some of that and just watching them have fun with the mission, and bringing Max into the mix, keeps it enjoyable enough even if reduced over the first two installments.

While I had a decent bit of fun with the series at the start it didn't take long for the book to feel like a chore. Mangels definitely knows his lore for the shows and I suspect that it delivers very well for the fans who are far more immersed in it than I am. As a casual reader that's lightly familiar with both properties I found it to just be far too dense and with too many quick cuts along the way that kept it from connecting well.

This installment is one that is carried more by the artwork than the stories themselves, which is unfortunate. Both Aneke and Sauvage have a really strong and distinctive look to their works here but the stories for them are weak and not terribly interesting overall. I can see the intent and purpose but the execution just falls short of achieving it. Shorter stories like this just aren't easy to do in general with the constraints but hopefully both get another shot at it and can hit the marks better.

I'm definitely feeling mixed on this book even though I know that all the table setting done at the start is for a purpose. It was just something that put me too much in the real world when I wasn't expecting it and was filled with stuff I hear too often already.

A Walk Through Hell has some interesting moments here and it definitely has me wondering where it's all going in classic Ennis fashion. But at the same time it frustrates a bit with some of the real world elements, which I'm not against including but it means it's not something I would have gone to look for directly because I get enough of it in the real world. Sudzuka's artwork is definitely strong here with what it does and there's a lot to like just in the weirdness of it all, that uncertainty as to why and how it's all happening. I'm definitely in for the full run but have mixed hopes as to how well the questions will be answered and whether I'll actually like those answers.

Though I'm still enjoying A-Force a good deal I'm also at that stage where it's feeling like this part of the act is weak as there are so few answers still. The action component of it is good and there's some good emotional moments as well as it hits the right beats but there's too many unknowns.

A-Force moves along well here in bringing parts of the story to conclusion and all we're left with for the next round is a whole lot of holding the forces of evil at bay as long as they can. There's plenty to like with it as several of the characters get to do a little speech material, such as Loki and Nico, and there's some decent if brief moments for Singularity as well with all her child-like ways in this world. The concept overall is one that I like, and I really like the characters and setting, but the execution has boiled it all down to something simple and something that you expected simply because Loki is Loki, no matter what.

This issue is a bit of a mixed bag but just watching Superboy-Prime go through the emotional spectrum is worth it.

As a Blackest Night tie-in, Adventure Comics is pretty decent here as it covers what it's like from the inside of someone who is controlled by one of the rings. After the events of the fifth issue of Blackest Night, we got a clearer picture of what's going with those that Nekron can control, so this one separates us from the main story for a bit to focus on just a couple of characters and only one that's been controlled. I've generally liked Conner Kent, he was my favorite during the Reign of the Superman arc way, way back, and this story works nicely overall, though it again highlights just how convoluted a character can get over the years, almost to the point where it's just plain silly and too easy to manipulate.

After the enjoyment I got out of the Aliens: Fire and Stone series, I was definitely keen on checking out more. This series seems like it's being released too soon though as it takes place after the events of the fourth Prometheus: Fire and Stone issue and that has me wondering how much this spoils that since I haven't read that yet. The combination of multiple alien races here definitely provides for some good material and action, but there's a disconnect for me since I have no real clue who Galgo and Francis are and there's no real exposition to clue us in to it all with why they're in the situation they're in.

Having Francis as our only human contact here isn't exactly the best thing as it's hard to like him and I'm not actively rooting for him to survive considering some of the actions he took back on LV-223. With this issue, it's more about Elden and the Predators for the most part as Francis tries to survive and find a way to push back against them to ensure his survival. Elden's just as bad as Francis in a lot of ways as he talks a whole lot and is just generally unlikable for different reasons, but he at least has a reason to be ticked about everything. Yet with what he's become, you'd hope that he'd find a more constructive way of moving forward beyond something so base as revenge itself.

While I enjoy pieces of this series overall, it's definitely the book that I'm struggling with the most. And a lot of that is simply due to Elden as he's just near impossible to take seriously. There's a lot of things going on here as each character basically has his own mini arc with an agenda and end goal and they cross paths often enough. You almost just want to blow up the ship to be done with it all in a way so that none of what they are or are becoming will get anywhere else. Galgo has the weakest part here, but that means he's likely going to have a bigger role for the finale. I'm definitely curious as to what will go on now that we have three races infected by the accelerant and what their different transformations will bring about, but all we're seeing so far is that it makes them crazy and crazy strong. A very bad combination.

If the point of this book was to send Elden off on his own journey out into the universe, then it accomplished it through a lot of carnage and chaos. And I'm not sure what the point would be of it all. The finale is basically an extended slugfest through four opponents with a few Xenomorphs on the side and it plays that well enough. But for me, there was no real investment here in any of the characters. Elden simply either was overconfident or a whiny child. Francis was in fear until he was freed but it lead to his death. The Predators were just looking for a good fight but were overpowered and lost in the end for different, meaningless, reasons. The only ones that make out good are the Xenomorphs since they're just patient killers waiting for their next opportunity. I suspect we'll see Elden again, but this doesn't make me enthused for that.

Amala's Blade doesn't break new ground here but it has a sense of fun about it that could be a bit infectious as it progresses. Amala's explored about as much as you'd expect from an issue like this but we get a few ideas of what defines her in the present and some of the troubles she's had in the past that has lead to this. With some good dialogue, an ease of banter and some fun quirks to the world that we see here with its pirates, steampunk and ghosts, it's all brought together with some fun artwork that gives it a bit of weight and is reminiscent of how I felt about some books years ago like Grimjack where it was presenting a bulkier and obviously less than clean world. With the team working on this, I can definitely see some potential if they work what they have here and give it a deeper world and expand the cast in the right way.

The Aquaman: Deep Dive series is definitely playing the field with its creative and that works for me so that it's not singularly focused. Exploring these characters and settings definitely helps to showcase the DC Universe and Aqualad definitely has a following considering all of his TV exposure to a younger audience years ago, making for a good hook here. The shorter stories are a little rougher but they provide good hooks and come with solid artwork, making them enjoyable short pieces to get into without feeling like it's drawing the whole thing out for what is a simple small tale. Definitely still enjoyable but the structure of t and the use of Aqualad does bring it down slightly compared to the first few issues.

Barb Wire is pretty much living up to expectations and I keep wishing it would be more than that. It's a book that I can certainly enjoy on a simplistic level but the potential to do so much more here makes it feel like a swing and a miss. But in a sense it didn't even step up to the right plate. The third installment drags out the Stormblud storyline just a bit more as Barb and the crew go to take him down but it ends up turning into a fair disaster as one might expect. There are some fun moments along the way, some decent action and also a lot of sadness that things are going as they are. Stormblud is by no means a sympathetic character but he's one you can definitely feel bad for as you realize there are some real issues here that goes beyond his excessive drinking and violence. But violence is what will solve it all of course.

Barb Wire has the potential for it to be so much more than it is and all I can see is a series that would have been written twenty years ago and wouldn't have been any different. There's a charm to that to be sure yet the series is one that really feels like it should have been given a much more creative facelift and approach. I've enjoyed aspects of the various Comics Greatest World characters coming back to life, but all of them seem to really lack anything in terms of a serious vision in order to take it to the next level as opposed to a mild upgrade at best – and a retread at worse. I like Barb Wire because there are a lot of things you can do with the character and the location. I doubt it'll exercise it in this incarnation though.

Frustrated as I was by the first arc, the creative team this time around feels like they've slowed things down a bit, gained a little more confidence and, in a way, are starting to tell their first real story. The right pieces have been here from the start but the execution just felt haphazard and it all ran too long. With this installment, it provides a nice tie, brings Barb into the larger world and tantalizes those of us that read the 90's books. Warner feels like he has a better handle on Barb's dialogue, especially her weary side in dealing with everyone, and not having to write Stormblud's tripe certainly helps overall. Olliffe and Nguyen also feel like there's a bit more confidence here in not having to illustrate things like Stormblud or just harborside exteriors and interiors. This has the potential for a bit of a turnaround and has me actually a bit more interested than I have been.

Barb Wire continues to frustrate me, though some of that comes from me wanting the book to be something that it's not (but should be). This issue brings us through more of Roman's transformation from when Barb first met him to how he is now that he's meddling in her life once again. Of course, learning that he's had involvement over the years has her feeling even more frustrated by him, especially since he's likely viewing what he's done as repaying a debt from when she let him go. The story as presented isn't bad, but I'm still not feeling any real reason to invest in it or the series as a whole " and that's not seven issues in. That doesn't speak too well of the book for me, though I'm hopeful that they can really find a way to take this book in a far more engaging direction both in story and character.

The strength of the Batgirl series is fully in its character and that continues to shine through here. The smaller moments are solid and the action has a great flow to it as we see how she has her ups and downs but never gives up. Albuquerque shines once again here with his presentation of the book as it has some great flow to it and I love the angles it plays with when it comes to her moving about in costume. Larson's script is capturing the right nature of Barbara herself and that clicks really well but the journey story just doesn't have enough meat on it from issue to issue, especially on a monthly basis, to really pull it together with in a strong way.

In general, I like what we get here as Arcudi has a good take on Batman overall outside of the way he attacks the guy since he's clearly nowhere near the kind of threat a mobster or anyone higher on the foodchain is. It just felt so over the top. But I like the investigative side, the nods toward the Carlisle name and what it means, and just the way it flows with the animals, conservation, and so forth. Ms. Carlisle herself is definitely interesting and I wonder if she's a part of the mainline stuff at all because I'd love to follow a series focusing just on the socialites, political intrigue, corporate stuff, an all that without any of the supervillain shenanigans.

With two short tales, we get a look at some decent Jason Todd material with a bit of Dick Grayson added for good measure. They're decent enough tales overall but struggle with the space that they have to be as coherent as they need to be at times. The first one shows its strength in the action while the second works best when it focuses on the detective work. Both are enjoyable enough once you get into the groove and come across well with the artwork and overall direction, though there are definitely areas where they could be tightened.

There's a whole lot of appeal to the book in the way it's written and especially with the way it's drawn as Williams really has a great look to all of this. The Batwoman costume is highly appealing when contrasted to the red hair and that gives us something very different from Batman himself and eve how Batgirl has been portrayed over the years. But at the same time, Williams loves double page spreads as we get eight of them here. Eight. There's still the same amount of information as it's more layout than big splash pages, but it just gives it a very different feeling, like you're going through it too quickly. And combined with how new-reader unfriendly it is, it doesn't make it feel like a good book to invest some time and money in.

Bequest is a lot of fun in general and I like the big picture feel of where things are going here and can definitely enjoy it. But at the same time I have a hard time really getting fully committed to it. It's more of a superficial enjoyment because it's fun and has a lot going on. That's not a bad thing at all but I wish it just was more accessible in a way I can't quite pin down. The artwork is great, the characters are fun, and the concept works. But for me, it's just a hair off and leaves me unsettled in trying to really connect with it.

With the postscript that has the creative talking about the origins a bit and that they have plenty more they'd like to tell in the future, I do like that this is a kind of trial balloon for more as I'd not be adverse to it – if it can spend a bit more time on character with non-action material. Seeley's got the ability easily to expand on this in so many ways that I'd easily be on board for more as long as it's not a repeat of what we just saw. I'm a huge fan of the four-issue run as it forces a certain kind of tightness on the creative, especially in scripting and character material, but it can be done and has been many times over the years so I'd love to see more of it. Bequest was fun and has plenty of potential but it just needs a certain shift-kick to get it to where it needs to be in my mind.

Vixens has a kind of awkward setup as it gets underway but the charms of Betty and Veronica are what will carry it forward. The guys don't come across too well here but it fits in with their nature in general as we've seen over the years and makes for some cute little moments as the girls realize how they have to step up. Cabrera's art style works well enough but part of me wishes for something more stylized and mature rather than a nod toward its older days and approach. Especially since the cover design hints a bit more at sexiness and style than we get in the book itself. I like Cabrera's stuff here and would dig it in a more mainline book for the characters but something about Vixens just has me wishing it had taken a different approach to the artwork.

The first issue of Beyonders feels more like a prologue installment to me, right down to that "Come with me if you want to live" line that Jake gets as a choice to make. We get a lot of deep diving on mysteries from ages ago that slows down our entry into the book which surfaces again later on but we also get an interesting character in our lead and a tease of someone that could play well against him at the very end. I like how quickly things get surreal in his life when he was just kind of coasting for so long and it'll be interesting to see if they work through him coping with that and the loss that he has now while getting introduced to the bigger world that he's about to be pulled into.

Getting back into this book after only reading the first one isn't exactly easy but it was a reminder that I really do need to check this series out in full. There's a really neat level of oppressive atmosphere about it and I love Kudranski's designs because they, combined with Major's color work, gives it a really intense kind of surreal feeling that tickles that fear sensor in your head just right. A lot of story points floated right over my head here as there isn't any sort of recap accessibility for new readers but what little I remember of the first issue and what I can figure out by supposition made this a fun enough experence where I want to learn more about it. Definitely a title to keep watch on and support if you're interested in this flavor of storytelling as the creative team is firing on all cylinders with this book.

While not the ending some may hope for, particularly since most reading it wouldn't want it to end at all, what we get here is an intriguing almost epilogue-like piece that sets up what can go next in this fairly open-ended series. I really dug pieces of the previous issue even without reading the bulk of what came before and it has me pretty intrigued with what Pruett might have done with it and the places Kudranski and Major could go in ratcheting up the tension and terror. Hopefully, the series in trade form continues to find an audience (and maybe even a nice deluxe season one hardcover?) that it can find a second shot at life down the line from this team. It definitely deserves attention just for being able to run as long as it has as a launch title from AfterShock and the faith put into it when we see publishers cancel a lot of books within the first few issues of sales.

I thoroughly enjoyed the first two issues of Blackest Night but with the Indigo Lanterns arriving here, the info dump we get and the language barrier and confusion doesn't help it all that much. Between that and the conversation that Barry and Hal have, it left me wanting to smack a few of them. The things that save the book though are the moments with Mera as she explains what happened and we see that she's smart enough to go to the Justice League headquarters to get more help and the dual Firestorm subplot. I liked what Jason and Gen brought to the table but I especially liked how the Black Lantern Firestorm played his cards with them, both in action and words. Still, this issue needed something more to it than what we got outside of the info dump and the lack of that has it slowing down instead of ramping up.

Just from the design and cover alone, I wanted to really like Blackout more than I did. What hampered it for me is that once again, we get a title that launched its story in Dark Horse Presents and continues on here without giving those who don't read DHP a clean enough start to feel like we're in on it. It's another title where you feel like you're a few pages behind or are missing from the book. There's a good bit going on and it has a pretty good story to work with based on what's here, albeit with characters that are barely one dimensional at this point, but it's a title that has a lot of potential that I'd love to see more of, if it can really develop it. The suit and its abilities itself are the draw at this stage of the game as it's hard to say if any of the characters will develop, but with a limited series run for it we at least potentially have the chance for a self contained story that can spin off from there.

While some of it was awkward in that opening issue, Blackout moves forward nicely here as things start to fall into place. It's not running on all cylinders and I wish it had the full issue to explore things, much as I wish King Tiger had a full issue to explore that storyline as well. The nature of the page breakdown does slow things down a bit but in the end we're getting a pair of interesting stories that have a lot of potential depending on how far they go and what they do. Scott Travers isn't the most engaging of characters yet since we've seen so little of who he is, more just him reacting to the acquisition of the suit and trying to get more information while being shot at. The clues are growing though and that helps. King Tiger similarly needs more about the title character, but we'll learn more as Milo spends time there and hopefully finds a way to be healed.

With the King Tiger moving its own events forward slightly with the demon inside being more forceful, we get a decent backup story that I still find myself wishing it had just gotten a standalone one-shot released instead. Blackout's story continues to feel a little haphazard in some ways because it felt like it didn't start us a good place and I'm still not on board with Scott as a character. But events are starting to come together a bit more for forming him and his use of the suit and that goes a good ways towards making him a bit more interesting by being proactive instead of reactive. The back and forth with Mechatronics has been a real problem point, but with him back there now and facing off against the big bads with just one more issue to go, the character should be decently cemented from there on out.

The final installment of Blackout and the King Tiger backup story brings both of them to a close, though both feel more like setups for what's to come. There's that sense that they're trial runs for something more, to see if there's interesting.

Blood Bowl is Blood Bowl. There aren't as many character moments here compared to the first issue that got us into a lot of the design of the world and that's pretty expected. What we get is a lot of action as we watch a practice match and the latest tournament game and it gets pretty rough and tumble with a few fumbles along the way. Kyme's script is solid enough but it gets a bit more wordy than I think it needs to with the banter but it's Jadson's artwork and overall layouts that keeps it fun and flowing, especially as you look to see what little quirks are in the mix with the chaos on the field. This is still definitely a limited appeal kind of book but it's pretty well done considering it's called Blood Bowl.

The end of the opening arc for Bombshells: United leaves me somewhat unsettled as to what this series wants to do. The previous run had arcs I didn't care for too much but United just hasn't clicked as a whole for this opening arc, leaving me hopeful that things shift in a way that I find more engaging in the next arc. Bennett delivers some good things here with what we get from Dawnstar and Donna and DiChiara has some decent moments throughout with the artwork even if I don't think it fits well overall. I'm definitely just glad to be done with this arc to see if the series is going to work for me with what comes next.

The book reads well and was certainly fun but the artwork just didn't cut it for me this time and made it less of an engaging and appealing experience overall as it didn't have that Bombshells signature feeling that most of the other artists have captured over the course of their work on it.

I certainly don't expect every issue to be non-stop revelations and advancements, but this one leaves me feeling a little uncertain about how far it wants to go with some things.

While I rather enjoyed the first two issues of the series, this one didn't capture me quite as strongly since it moved away from Cap and what he was going through. The action side is minimal overall, but I really enjoyed the culmination of Schmidt's story here as Himmler gets his hooks into him. Going back to Germany in 1934 and seeing how some of the pieces come together is pretty good but the short form nature of the book doesn't give it the room to breathe. Adding a little more context to the movie universe of the Marvel characters has been fun so far but this one takes us down an unexpected path based on what we saw in the previous issue. Of course, they can go only so far with it since they're dealing with setting up the movie a bit rather than telling a full on tale.

I'm still pretty conflicted about this book because of the path being taken and the seeming squandering of an opportunity to re-write the character and make him more integral in things. Captain Atom needs to be moved past what he is, but this just reaffirms it in a lot of ways while slightly softening him up a bit as well. It's a character that I still feel needs a redesign from the ground up to be more relevant, but we're not getting that here. I am interested in seeing where Krul may go, and Freddie William's artwork makes it a guaranteed read (though not same-day digital), but I can't help but to go through it and see all the opportunities lost here.

Clankillers has a lot of neat elements to it but I'm still having a hard time really engaging with it. I really dig Fusio's artwork as there's a kind of rough sensibility about it that definitely fits the time period and locations so that it's earthy and strong. The bones of the story are good and there are interesting characters to work with but it lacks a certain something to really pull it together from the first issue that had a lot of standard first issue problems. A recap at the start would probably have helped this one a bit as well. I'm definitely curious to see where it's all going to go and what dark things await…

The book also takes us to Souk station where the various heads of clans are meeting as a power battle is breaking out with who controls what and the jockeying of position to fill an empty position. It's not bad or anything but it's just kind of clunky with how it's introduced and the lack of real clarity to it, especially as a bridge from what we saw in the past to the present. I continue to like the big picture ideas here and the cast so far is decent enough, but it's struggling to come together into a compelling storyline because so little is being given to it as opposed to a lot of different plot threads to poke at.

Cyberforce isn't bad by any stretch but it just doesn't feel like it's achieving anything here that in a past life would have been handled over four or five pages or so.

Damage has a lot of potential and I have no doubts that the team here will be able to capitalize on it. The problem is that I don't think they did enough in the first issue to make you eager for the second issue unless you're just big into the artwork. For me, I'm of split mind based on this installment whether to wait for a trade of the first issue or try the book a bit more. The bit more has two factors to it in that it did not get my to hit the subscribe button so that I'd just get it automatically, but it did get me to preorder the second issue because it is priced at $2.99 and that's a buy-in price to try something a little longer if I think it has potential. I have faith in the creative team and want to support this New Age of Heroes initiative but this just needed more.

Dmage is by no means a bad book as I think it has the potential to be a pretty good book. But it faces the problem that most "brick" characters do in that they really need to be humanized and have a good supporting cast to work with. Damage is missing those elements right now and is focusing more on the solitary aspect of the character(s) as well as bringing in the guest star side with the Suicide Squad and then Wonder Woman at the end.

I have no idea what the real story going on is here and I'm curious to figure it out, though they're not making it a compelling case at the moment. The material with O'Connor is something that likely makes sense in the big picture but just doesn't work in the month by month small chapter material as it almost feels like it's padding things out. I love Hamilton's material in here because he handles the various aspects well from the street side to the flashbacks to the war as well as these new near-demonic like elements. There's still some real potential for an engaging story here but I'm struggling a bit waiting for a big hook to really sell it.

While the book is still faltering in a few ways, this installment works better as it's more about Dawn than the telling of stories to please Masodik. What we get here allows us to delve more into Dawn as a character, one that may be quite unfamiliar for Vampirella or Dynamite fans, and it comes across well here to draw interest to the larger story that exists for the character. Giving Darrian a chance to be involved as well was a welcome little treat. There's a few different things going on here and I can't help but to feel that this miniseries is a couple of issues too long in getting things done, but it feels like events are going to start picking up for several reasons. I'm cautiously optimistic about where it can go, but mostly I'm just glad to get a story that involves Dawn and Darrian rather than some fictional piece like we got the last few installments.

I really wanted to like this series more than I did and I'm not sure if I'm disappointed in it or myself. I grew up adoring Linsner's artwork yet what I see here feels like the style hasn't evolved or grown over the years and is what it was when I first discovered it some twenty-odd years ago. That's not necessarily bad, but I had hoped for something a little more. The series itself is one that I liked but it was difficult if only because there were several Vampirella miniseries and specials running that largely did the same kind of alternate story telling. Dawn provides the hook but even here she comes across as a weak player. In the end the book just feels like it ran an issue too long and didn't have enough to really say to make it compelling. I mostly enjoyed the individual tales but I kept looking for larger meaning where there was none in the end. So it's all a bit hollow here after all the time and waiting involved and invested.

This three-part arc worked well for me overall even if it falters at the end with the larger reveal. The first two parts added some fun stuff in looking at the home front and what's going on there to be dealt with while showing how the next generation is coming up to defend it as well. This issue adds some nice color to things overall and it expands what the girls are capable of and the concept of the Batgirls themselves. There's a lot to like here overall as a whole, though I'm also looking forward to getting back to some of the other storylines and seeing where the next phase of the larger war will be going – and who with.

Bombshells has been going on for quite a while now as we hit this issue of the largely weekly series and it's been fun and engaging throughout. While aspects of this arc didn't grab me overall and it felt a bit overly long in a few areas, it's been fun for the new introductions into this series from the mainline universe with the twists and turns of it all. But now we're going to move onto some other characters and situations, and hopefully more stories being blended from different areas of the world, but just getting to a new area and reconnecting with characters we haven't seen in awhile will be welcome. This is a solid ending, just one that took too long to get to.

The DC Super Hero Girls stuff works a good story with plenty of humor but without a frantic feeling about its pacing and style of humor. You get more of that with the Teen Titans Go storyline and can contrast the two easily. I far prefer the first so it makes it easier with this brief venture to know that I'm not picking up those digital books when they release for the Titans. But I'm beyond glad that they exist because they are an easy and well-done escalator property that will bring new fans to other projects down the line that they may not even realize at first. With this book, the real win is the first story with a shrinking the team bit that just makes me smile in seeing how it unfolds. Hopefully, we'll have more of this team in this form in the future.

Death Orb has a quieter installment all around and one that feels a bit looser and undefined. While there's the push forward a lot of what we get is wrapping up events from before with Pilot now brought into the fold and calming down the action side. Everything is in place to move forward with new information and new people to work with and Rider's even more intent on finding his wife, which is no surprise. It's just not an issue that feels like it pushes us forward in a must-read kind of way, though I did find myself wanting more of Father's storyline to understand them as the villain proper as opposed to how little we really have so far. All in all, a fairly standard middle of a miniseries installment.

Death Orb still feels like it's a low investment kind of series because there's not a lot of rich character material to it and the story works a kind of superficial approach. But it's a really fun book with the way it unfolds and the artwork that gives it a real energy. Ferrier keeps it all moving even as the big bad thing is almost here and Aragorn's artwork is just exciting to watch play out with the layouts and all the details. I still dig the character designs the most and have a strange kind of admiration hitting in regards to Rider at this point that I can't explain.

I liked the kind of wonky nature of this series to a degree because the David character is just quirky enough to feel different. The use of Jo and Rachel clicked when they met in the previous issue and Amanda has her own fun by just being a kid, which means she's a lot like David. Phillips had some fun ideas going on here with the cult and how seeded into the structure of society that it was and that made for a lot of fun in the present. It looked good, had some good humor mixed into the serious situation, and the overarching storyline definitely tickles a particular fancy of mine.

Meh. It's pretty. I love the covers. The interiors are fun with interesting design work and a nice flow to it. The action and violence is okay for the most part but it's not backed up by anything meaningful in the story. It's mostly just concept and fluff that we get here defining things and it's" meh. We've seen Dynamite do the big crossover stuff well with the Swords thing a few years back that was heavy in story. This one is just a sidebar series to show off a lot of characters with great covers and fun action. But it requires more than that to really succeed. It's only skating by with the artwork being as strong as it is right now.

While a little potential has opened up again at the end of this issue for it to deliver some evil times ahead that will be fun to watch, the story itself is still one that just hasn't clicked and worked well from the start. The more well-known characters are better-handled here and have a better sense of presence while those that aren't, well, they're going through the motions and it just kind of exists. It looks great but that can carry it only so far when you get down to it. There are some really great visual moments to be had throughout this and it's totally worth it if you're an artwork junkie and really enjoy these characters, but it's just not a book with actual story to it.

I went into this issue thinking it was the last of the run and expecting a conclusion, so discovering that it's leading to another series or event book doesn't exactly wow me. This is a project that just needs to have a fork put in it because it's done. The concept in general isn't bad but the launch execution and opening issues were very rough and didn't do anything to really set the stage well. It's gotten a bit more fun since then as it just works the action and creativity from there but there's not much in the way of payoff beyond that. I'm still game to see where it's going to go but it really needs to start feeling a bit more weighty and meaningful in order to connect more.

I continue to be curious to see where this book goes as I like the overall tone of it as it tries to balance the needs of the present with the requirements of a character firmly rooted in the past. Roberson largely handles it well, though at times it feels like we should have two different miniseries so that each time period can really flex. Razek is definitely a solid choice for either time period as the artwork looks great and there's a certain sense of ruggedness about a lot of the cast that hits the sweet spot needed for it to feel authentic but not forced or out of place. My curiosity continues to be there, though my enthusiasm has dipped slightly for it.

This miniseries finishes out with the next installment and though they've built things up in terms of overall backstory through disconnected-but-not elements, I'm not sure what to expect since the opponent has essentially been offscreen the whole time. Unless it's secretly someone on Savage's team right in front of our eyes the whole time. In essence, the series has worked well to expose readers to different times and designs for Savage and his team and company and that works well for what it wants to do. The big picture story is weak though and that makes it hard to connect with in a stronger way. I like the characters and the concept and even the jumps in time that we get to explore all of them. But the central focus was lost very early on and not really recaptured before going into the next issue finale to make it feel like it clicks well.

Doc Savage is a character that could have a pretty fun renaissance if given the chance and a bit of a mainstream push – we're still holding out hope for that Shane Black movie working right – and this series shows the way you can work past and present into it well enough. I still stand by the idea that Doc works best in the past but Roberson and Rezak handled it well enough in the present even if they do seem to be almost too capable with their corporation and staffing. There are definitely some fun things in this series overall and I liked the mystery of Arachne as it went along but Weaver as the final villain just ended up falling short and wasn't as compelling as it could be. It'll be interesting to see what the next Doc series is like.

Doctor Fate is moving toward its conclusion and it's hitting up some mildly underwhelming material here as we get an otherdimensional story. Khalid's a character that I thoroughly enjoy but the absence of the supporting cast is frustrating as they, as a whole, made this a series worth reading with the cultural elements, the school and work pieces, and the relationships that were never explored enough in favor of overextended and convoluted action sequences and events. Putting that into a two-issue story with the first half here reinforces the missed opportunities of the series to really do something interesting with a character that has so much potential – both as Fate and as Khalid. I've enjoyed lots of this series overall but it's leaving me in a place where I want to go find my older runs of the previous incarnation to read and see Fate and crew in a more engaging way.

I've enjoyed the Doctor Spektor series so far because it feels unpredictable and is going in its own direction, but an issue like this just leaves me with my mouth open wondering what it is that I've missed. That could mean that in a couple of issues that this will either make perfect sense or I'll be even more lost. What we do get here is interesting and I can see it pulling together into a good narrative, but my mind is trying to connect it to what I know of the other revived properties and it's not making any sense there. That may just be my issue though. Spektor's side of the story here is confusing and unsettling in a lot of ways but I found myself enjoying what Abby was going through with the help she was getting and where that may lead, since it says a lot about her in how she handled it and who her guardian angel may turn out to be. If any of this is real, that is.

I'm still in for the whole run, though my level of regret seems to go up a bit as the series goes on. This installment is supposed to be the big and important one and it is because of Doctor Manhattan explaining away things but it feels like a superficial explanation that doesn't get into the nuts and bolts of it. There are too many times where I read something like this where it looks at big picture ideas and scale but only has experience in dealing with it in terms of comic books themselves. There's not enough meat or infrastructure here to support this year and that gives it a very threadbare feeling that doesn't please all that much.

I'm definitely interested in seeing what's next because the big-picture concept of this works well for me, but this chapter and the reading schedule I have for it didn't help. It's reinforcing that this is likely going to be better when read in full, especially when adding more complicated layers to it such as it does with Martin here. I wanted more time in the past with Tad to see how things were unfolding there but we definitely needed to see more of what's going on in the present with the old school and what Emily ran into. It continues to look great and the script itself is strong in how it handles the dialogue and pacing, it's just a matter of being a book that works better the more you have to read at once, especially early on.

Earthdivers as a concept and in its initial execution delivered exactly what I was looking for and it's got a lot of things going for it. But the execution in the previous issue and this one is just leaving me a bit cooler with it. It's probably more realistic in that there's less certainty about how to move forward and all that with such things, and human emotion coming into it as well, but it's just making clear that Tad was the last person who should have been sent on such a job. Even if it is a thing of history/time correcting itself as it can. The 2112 storyline is one that's worse off because it feels quite listless but I'm hopeful that it does all come together sooner than later.

With a sequel series coming later this year that shifts to a different time period, I'm admittedly curious about it but at the same time, I'm wary because it felt like this run squandered its premise so much. It didn't help that the future material wasn't clear enough to work most of the time, especially with the stretched-out schedule that the run had, making that whole side of it just not work at all. But everything we saw with Tad back in 1492 left you just wanting to throttle him some because of the way he was making everything worse with each new action. I'm still intrigued by the idea but the execution of this series faltered quickly after the second issue and has me wary about an expansion of it in a new era.

This issue again looks fantastic as Burchielli has a lot of great details and layouts here to make the whole thing work, especially with the color design from Lafuente. It's mostly done in darker periods and that makes for some great shades of blue to be utilized, and a lot of earthen tones, so there's plenty to enjoy with the artwork side of it all. The story is one that I'm quite interested in as well but the execution is keeping it from working for me. It's just too chaotic and without enough of a centered foundation to make it work. We know so little about Tawny overall and we're tossed from set piece to set piece with the story that it doesn't feel like it's meaningful. It's a great concept but it's just not being followed through as well as it needs to be.

Titles like this tend to fly a bit under the radar, but these are the books you give to people to get them into comics, to understand the dynamic of how to read them and the visual cues. Emily and the Strangers does it well and it has a lot of fun in doing it.

Emily and the Strangers is a pretty fun little series that does things in a way that makes you smile, laugh and enjoy the kind of classic comic book storytelling that you'd make sure your kids had while also being able to enjoy it yourself. There's a need to have titles like this out there because they're able to draw in people and be really accessible for new audiences, but also because it's necessary for the heavy consumers of comics to realize that it's not all "this" or "that' out there. I wish we had more books like this, though I do wish that this particular book had a bit more of a conclusion to it and not just a leaping point to the next miniseries. It's definitely got its charms though and other than feeling a little cut short by the ending, it's a delight.

I've definitely been intrigued by elements brought into the first two issues of the series but the execution has left me frustrated in trying to understand it all. I just don't feel like we've got the foundation we need in order to be a part of working through the story and understanding how it's unfolding and why these characters act as they do. It's a book that I really like the artwork and the ideas behind it but it's become harder and harder to connect with each new installment that comes out. Carolina's central focus helps and the flashback gives her a bit more but trying to piece it all together and throwing all kinds of unexpected stuff out of nowhere hampers the larger narrative.

I'm still on board with the core concept that launched the series but the book has left me unsure of what it is that it's trying to say at this point, if anything. The basics are all here and it's mostly that corporations suck, but that's been the stock in trade for science fiction going back to the 1940s so there isn't anything new there. The “twist” toward the end that Carolina runs into is one that has you questioning what we learned early on and how so much of all this has worked for as many years as it has and you have to imagine that it might not hold up to more intense scrutiny to figure it out. It's still fun in a kind of wonky anything-goes way – what with a vehicle that looks like the cyber truck spiraling across Mars – but it doesn't keep you engaged for the long haul.

This installment gives us two chapters of good looking Flash material that's weaker on story than I expected it to be. The short-form style is not an easy one to do so that shouldn't surprise me too much. The artwork looks great for both and we get some real variety here, which I hope these kinds of things experiment with more if it goes on for any length of time, and that more writers try their hand at this style as it's definitely a challenge. Both are good enough stories that I could see them fleshed out easily in a regular issue but they suffer in this form.

Barry's disconnected nature is what still makes it hard to sympathize with him. From the way he deals with Hal to how he keeps his family and those close to him at a distance, Barry doesn't feel like he belongs in the present. And this feeling, which we know that Johns will try to soften as time goes on, mirrors the feelings of many fans and he hopes to soften it with them as well. This issue does that just a touch, humanizing Barry a bit more with his origin flashback that's tweaked slightly, but he's still a fairly cold and almost calculating type. He leans more towards the science and lab side of life, looking at everything that way, which is what he was like before, but here it just feels much more prominent. Flash: Rebirth isn't going to be as smooth as the Green Lantern revival for a number of reasons, and this issue continues to show why.

The Flash: Rebirth series continues to paint Barry Allen in a bad way as someone you try to hang out with and do things with for awhile but eventually just start to ignore because he never gets back to you. There's a good deal of help being thrown his way this time around as people try to help him solve the problem he's going through, but he's resistant to them for the most part and then when things start to get rough, he bolts out on his own to rejoin the speed force to try and make things better. At the halfway point of the series, I like the overall idea of it but it continues to give me a character that I just can't sympathize with. I can understand him, but the way he handles himself and deals with everyone else just pushes me further away from wanting to read about him. Having an interesting story with an uninteresting character definitely makes this series difficult to enjoy.

With the way Wally has been put through the wringer (I still don't like his kids) and how Bart's run as the Flash proper was so awful, the Flash franchise feels like it's at its lowest ever, which makes me sad. This storyline isn't helping it at all.

Flash: Rebirth still confounds me with the why of it all. I know there's a lot of love for Barry Allen from a number of creators and fans out there, but it's been so long that bringing him back now still doesn't feel necessary.

With the conclusion of the summer event series, the final issue is definitely a bit of a mixed bag. While it looks great and has some solid moments to it, particularly the setting for why the timelines are being merged, it feels like it falls very short of what it needed to do with the way it deals with all the miniseries that were supposed to tie into it. I liked a lot of the event overall and the final moments here are definitely intriguing, the core series feels like it finished without reaching its potential and somewhat anticlimactic as well. I also particularly didn't care for the epilogue between Bruce and Barry with how that could rather surprisingly undermine a good part of what Bruce is all about. It's good in one way, but it largely comes across as a negative to me. Still, with what it's unleashed into the world, I'm pleased with it overall and liked the various key moments here.

The Abin Sur Green Lantern book is one that had a lot of potential but got caught up in a lot of other things that felt like it kept the flow from really working well. One way to reshape the way events happened on Earth is to remove the existence of the Green Lanterns as we know them and having Abin show up along the way, survive and move forward with a very different mission. I liked the potential of having Abin and Sinestro in the present time going through things, understanding more about their relationship over time and developing something. But that isn't where the series really went and it got sidetracked in a few different ways that were interesting but also underdeveloped. I liked the book overall and what it could offer, and it ended on a good note, but it's definitely a weaker series overall than what it could be.

When it comes to re-imagining villains as heroes, there's a lot of things you can do with it in how much of their personalities you change and their approach to justice. Some end up just being viewed as heroes while still doing the killing and that's where Citizen Cold generally lands. He's admired and lauded by the people who love it when he kills off another villain that's been threatening them. It earns him endorsements and attention, but there's only so much that he really wants to get in that area since he has his secrets. With the way he's taken down villains, it's not a surprise that some of the rogues are going to work together to end the threat and having that spearheaded by Mirror Master is expected, but the way he has to do it gives it a little extra flavor. This isn't a standout book, but it has a good feeling to it that left me smiling and enjoying it, even if the real identity reveal didn't mean anything to me.

Citizen Cold certainly isn't high art, but like the first issue I definitely found myself enjoying this one about just as much. The way he's almost obsessive about Iris is amusing and points to his personality and when combined with his confidence and the way he's just trying to make as much money as possible gives us an interesting character to watch that's in the public eye. He's basically pulling off a shell game here and has annoyed more than enough people with things that he hasn't been able to kill yet that it's all coming back home to roost. Cold has some potential to him and I'm curious to see how it will all unfold. Part of you just wants him to get the girl. Part of you just wants to see him totally iced.

Citizen Cold isn't exactly a book that had heavy ties to the main Flashpoint storyline, but I liked seeing Cold taking on the role of a hero of some sort and getting into it with the Rogues. Some were interesting like Mirror Master with what he had going on but others like Trickster had an amusing role and the Pied Piper comes into it strong here in a neat way as well. The book was, however, another notch that treated Wally West very poorly by killing him off brutally when something like that just continues to feel like it's insulting the fans over and over going into the relaunch. But even with that, I did enjoy it in a casual way but wish it had more to do with the overall storyline running in the main series.

The overall concept for this book is one that I really liked as a whole but it didn't have the time to really flesh things out as it could. It's the kind of series that could tell a really fun story over the course of a years worth of issues by deepening all of thei relationships and surviving the war itself. What we have here is fun though even if the third act comes across a bit weak in the end. It offers up a lot of potential and used the cast it had well, even if it did kill off several of them in relatively quick order. It does tie into the main storyline in the end though which is good, but it's the kind of thing that feels a little shoehorned in to make the connection stronger. I'd have preferred the book to end more on its own note, but it's a serviceable enough ending.

Similar to some other miniseries that have hit in the Flashpoint world, Frankenstein and the Creatures of the Unknown isn't the type of book that will light up the charts, but it shows us something different in the mainstream universe that we normally don't get. If it was tweaked a bit and had a Vertigo label slapped on it, it'd probably garner a whole lot more critical acclaim. But I like that it's cemented in the superhero world and will interact with them and be a part of everything that's going on here. Lemire's got some good stuff going on with the book, particularly with the Bride's sass and attitude, and it has me curious to see how things will work out with these characters when it's not working within a three issue window alongside a big event book. I likely wouldn't have paid attention to these characters before this, but now it's got me curious where they can go with it.

With the way Kid Flash Lost was so disconnected from the rest of Flashpoint as much of it took place in the future, there was a lot to like with the whole down the road ramifications. This one throws us back into the past in a fun but sad way and then just adds more sad weight to it throughout until Bart gets to be the hero. It's not a bad ending for the hero, but you hate to see him have to suffer in any way because of all he has been through. But the convoluted mess that is Bart Allen needed to be moved on with and hopefully something better for him will come down the line. Bart's a great character and one that deserved better overall and this series at least gave him some dignity throughout it and provided us with an outside view of events alongside Barry.

There is some exploration on the prison they're in, which definitely is amusing as it's the old dome piece we've seen since the 70"s, except now it's owned and operated by Oliver Queen. There isn't a lot of background on the whole piece overall through as the focus is mostly on Heatwave and what he has to go through prior to the perfect tool arriving in a mule for him to escape with. The prison side of it takes up most of the issue and it does work well as Heatwave has the whole thing figured out, which of course means that he's going to have some real problems along the way as things never go according to plan. Still, it's an interesting start and the book definitely makes him an interesting character to watch from a psychological standpoint.

With Flashpoint, I've largely been enjoying the changes that have been made to some of the main cast of characters, the Big Three and all, but I definitely liked that they took Superman out of the picture entirely. A world without Superman is not an original story, but it's definitely a good approach to take for this miniseries and summer event that's leading to big changes. The downside is that while we get a book with his name, it's not really about him but a more generic "superman" than anything else. The idea of creating super soldiers to defend the country is an old on and they don't stray from the formula here. It's not a bad book and it has some nods towards the larger storyline even if it takes place thirty years prior, but it's also a book that doesn't stand on its own merits because it follows the basic formula so closely. I liked it, but it needs a bigger hook that hopefully the next issue will provide.

Going in a completely different direction in a way from the first issue, Project Superman has a book filled with potential but also familiarity as we see a particular take on how the creation of a superhero using alien information would go. It's a somewhat standard origin story in a way that we've seen many times over the years with some fun little twists to it since it's operating on the Superman dynamic and draws from the mythos with some main changes to things. While I would have preferred a bit more time spent with both him and subject zero, I did like what was here even if it doesn't seem like it's really going to go anywhere significant. Kal's a cute character here with some real problems and the narration is done well enough here that you really need to pay attention to it unlike most other books.

Of all the Flashpoint books, The Outsider is one that had a whole lot of potential and definitely felt very different from everything else in the event that was being published. Michael Desai definitely has that enigmatic feeling about him that leaves you uncertain of whose side he really belongs to and there's a lot of appeal to that. But at the same time, he was a tenuous connection to the main Flashpoint storyline overall outside of a nugget at the start and what it leads into in the final issue of the event series. The Outsider has a lot of appeal but at the same time that disconnect both helped and hindered it. Watching the underworld and other aspects of this world unfold played out well while still dealing with big power players, such as Black Adam and the Martian Manhunter. But it never felt like it resonated with the larger world. There's plenty to like, but just enough to hold it back as well.

While the book has some issues in that it doesn't stand on its own as well as it should, it's the nature of the beast at this point because of how it has to connect things together with its brother book in Emperor Aquaman as well as delving into the core Flashpoint series itself. I liked this series a lot overall and the first two issues had a lot going for it, but the natural and expected falling off with the third weakens it overall. Bringing Diana to understanding is a key part of things but we also see her realization about how she's been had and that she still has to do her proper duty as an Amazon. And even worse, she has to see the truth about Arthur when they end up fighting but she's caused enough damage to him in killing Mera that nothing can turn him back. The two have simply gone too far to turn back and this issue has that sense of dread and inevitability.

I can see the basics of this well enough and how it's being put together as it feels like it leans into some of Tsuei's other works in a familiar enough way. It's just that I suspect that I have to give it a couple of issues to get a handle on the characters, as they're very light touches here, and the nature of this world. And the story, which is focusing on the trafficking side of things at least for now. The action plays well and I like the design aspects of it so I'm on board to see where it goes, but I'm hedging my bets a bit on this one until I see more. Tsuei has definitely surprised me before so I'm expecting the same here as it progresses.

While I'm still not a hundred percent sold on where this incarnation of G.I. Joe is going, I do like the whole thinning of the crowd bit that's being done. It was getting silly twenty-years ago when I was reading the books and watching the toys that were getting produced, but I understood the point of it and they did find some winners in the middle of it all. But it's also the kind of franchise that needs a purge once in awhile in order to get back to basics, so if these named Joe's that are getting offed are ones that have been around for some time, I can appreciate it more. I still think the book needs to clean things up a bit more in terms of getting certain parts of it in line with codenames and how they operate, as well as making it a bit more accessible to new readers who don't have all the history with it. It's an interesting jumping on point, but one that definitely has its challenges.

I do like the bit with get with Destro this time around as Zartan finds a way to get in touch with him and this whole thing feels like the interesting wildcard to the storyline so far. The rest of the book is solid but it's mostly just moving things along and slowly putting the pieces in place. Again, it's not bad or anything but it lacks a certain dynamism to it to make it feel like we're really moving forward. Pelletir's artwork is solid and does the job but Mooneyham was able to bring just a little something extra to it that's hadr to pin down so that even the workmanlike installments felt alive and buzzing. The curiosity to see how it all goes is still there but there's not muhc memorable to this issue.

I'm an old school big fan of G.I. Joe but the movie that came out soured me and nothing has been out there that I can see that really says it's a must-read or watch. It's a show and property that I felt had a lot of resonance when it came out, and for the age that I was, but it's a hard thing to "mature"-up in a way. I'd almost take it better if they had done away with the codenames and reworked it, but I know that's a lot of the appeal. Sadly, most of the more recent character names and those involved here just come across as plain goofy and that takes me out of the experience. I am interested in what's here though to see how the "civil war" goes, so I'm definitely in for a few books to see what's what. And that's more than G.I. Joe has been able to do in quite a few years with me.

With a nod towards Von Ghastly as well here, there are things going on but it doesn't feel like we're on the track to a really engaging story but rather just a standard story with no long term impact or goal. I want a sense of a plan here for the series rather than stories that feel a bit listless.

Gideon Falls presents us with that creeping unease about what's going to happen. We get two character introductions of note from very different places and dealing with very different things that leaves you wondering at the connection and how it will all come together. It's more about mood here than details, though there's a lot of dialogue that works very well to flesh out certain aspects of Wilfred that was surprisingly welcome. But in terms of story I'm just in that state of unease and uncertainty as to what it's about and whether I should come back for more. Lemire has certainly earned a lot of trust with his original works and Andrea Sorrentino has put together a fantastic looking book. But things just feel unevenly weighted right now and that has me feeling more cautious about it than I might be otherwise.

Gideon Falls plays out as something that I would find to be really intriguing if it was a late night premium cable series. I can envision the flow of it, the characters that inhabit it, and the way that the Black Barn and the red light around it would be quite chilling to say the least. As a comic, it's going to take some time to really warm up to as it's going for the slow unfolding of events, which makes sense for it, but it feels like it just needs a little more of a hook to really cement it for me.

Gideon Falls is that kind of series where it's still working through the "pilot" episode for me and hasn't quite hooked me hard just yet. As I said last issue, Lemire has earned the trust to keep going with it but it's not grabbing my interest like a number of other recent works of his. This issue expands things a bit more with the characters and some intriguing choices are being made, particularly with Dr. Xu. But it's still lacking that hook that I'm looking for to really nail my interest down and get me to the point of eagerly looking forward to more. I'm hoping that it'll show up sooner rather than later.

God Hates Astronauts is one of those absolutely weird books that are out there which can develop a good following. With a run already behind it that I haven't read myself, this book serves as a perfect jumping on point to see if it's something that you'll like or not. It's a series that if you do like it, you'll be head over heels about it because it just goes all out and enjoys the absurdity of it in a big way while building its own strong internal logic. If it's not up your alley, you'll probably cringe throughout it – if you even finish it. I do like the way it goes into such absurd territory and does it with such style and confidence, but there wasn't much here that commanded me to come back for more at the moment.

While this is the final chapter of the yearbook storyline itself it's not actually the end of it because they still have to get it back. That brings Robin back into play and it looks like it should be a right fun proper conclusion the next time around. Hopefully the present day will be the main focus as I'm now, after four issues, feeling a little burned out on the side stories and the gap filling. It's been an interesting arc with some real hit or miss stories within them but in the end it's the kind of mild risk that I'm glad they took because it brought in a lot of great talent to have some fun with and to do some creative things. Here's to getting the main storylines back on track, however.

While not my favorite arc of the series as a whole, I generally liked the Gotham Yearbook material – but wish it was spread out more throughout the series. This installment brings it to close with a nice touch in regards to Maps and Robin that should make you smile while Olive is just surprised by it all. The book is coming back in August with a one-shot story before a full new arc lands in September as part of the "second semester" billing. We'll definitely be back for a whole lot more.

Gotham Academy has a decent enough standalone story here but it's one that doesn't do anything really special or expand things in an interesting way. All of the characters within the Academy are ripe for exploration – including Hammer – but this wasn't the way to do it as it does come across as just killing time. Particularly since the main cast of kids in the Detectives Club just didn't feel like their usual selves. The book does feature some solid artwork from Jon Lam, Ace Attorney nods aside, and I wouldn't mind seeing more of him on the book at some point with better material to work with. There are some creative moments, that opening title splash page for instance, but mostly there's just not a lot to work with here.

With a couple of very solid issues at the start of the run and then going into less than interesting territory, I'm at a loss with Gotham Academy. It continues to be a book that I want to rave about like I did early on but it's hard to muster up the energy to do so. There are fun character moments in this issue as I expected, such as with Wayne and Pomeline's mother, and I continue to be intrigued by the use of certain villains to handle the place, but the lack of something that feels coherent for a storyline and strong pacing and exposition to bring it to life is really hindering things. It's still a visual treat, at least.

Gotham Academy in a lot of ways continues to just be "there" for me even amid the small moments that harken back to why I loved those first dozen or so issues of the original series so much. These are characters I want to spend more time with but they're also characters that I wish had more story worth being told to be involved with. This installment moves things a bit closer to the finale and dealing with Calamity, but it's more about place setting and getting the characters where they need to be rather than anything truly critical. The time with Cobblepot was decent but could have been so much more while the rest of it felt like they were treading water until they could reconnect the group.

With all the positives that I did find with this issue I'm still glad that it's ending with the next one. This one succeeds because of Maps and Damian – and that's hard to say considering I generally dislike Damian as a whole. The story has gotten so weirdly convoluted, the supporting cast reduced to even more minor roles, and the academy itself often just a weird footnote in events, that the thrill of the book has mostly disappeared. The characters are still a draw and even with Maps acting out of character there are still some really good flashes of fun to be had. This issue has more going for it than a lot of this semester overall but that's damning it with faint praise.

With this just being a six-issue run and part of the DC Universe service that I'm reading it on, it's an easy one to keep up with over the next few months. I like the cast of characters and to see where they stand, some of them a decade since I last saw them, has its appeal. I'm primarily curious about the big picture that's teased here and just wanting to see more of Killer Croc as he's a character I've liked with the way he's moved across the lines of being a villain. Orlando's script is fairly busy as there's a lot to introduce here and a lot of exposition style pieces to get things in place but it works well enough and will hopefully smooth out more as it progresses and the main event reveals itself. I like the curious cast of characters and getting to spend some time in Monstertown as well as Gotham is just where I like to see minor characters play within the DC world.

Great Pacific started off well for me with its first couple of issues, but as it's progressed it's faltered a lot in telling what feels like a coherent story that can move forward with what it wants to do. There are some good ideas within the book and its concept, but it's gone in strange directions that have left me wondering what the endgame is. You can see some of what Chas is doing, but some of reasons are unclear as are his intentions – and those that he's roped in to help. Some of the recent character additions haven't exactly instilled confidence either. But those moments of intrigue and surprise definitely keep me interested in where it's going, but the excitement level has certainly toned down a lot from how it all started.

There's plenty to like here in general with what it does and that's in two ways; the time from Hal a month prior and some of his community service elements serve the character well while the time with Sinestro sets up something of a threat that may not be a threat. Where it falters is anything with Carol, though that's mostly with Hal's view toward winning her back – or stealing her away, more properly. Of course, there's agency issues in that in it'll be Carol making the choice, but Hal's view and mindset on it is just pretty terrible and doesn't make him the kind of character you want to hang out with. You mostly just want to smack him into getting his head on straight and focusing on other things. But comics do as comics do and Hal and Carol are in each others orbits forever.

Green Lantern: Lost Army begins to pull things together a bit here and a good portion of that was just Saiz's artwork in making for a fun and engaging prison break sequence. Having a couple of more interesting characters around doesn't hurt either and I liked the weirdness in how the team comes together with items combined with Guy's costume due to his power usage. There's not a lot of story progression here and I'm not expecting any to happen either, but there was a lot more enjoyment out of this issue even if answers are still not forthcoming. The book looks to be turning towards one of the more difficult characters to work with the next time around and I imagine there might be an easy out in utilizing Mogo to help draw some of this to a close, but it's uncertain exactly what the plan really is here.

Though Green Lantern: Lost Army draws to a close here, this particular story is getting continued in January with Green Lantern Corps: Edge of Oblivion. I already feel like a fool for being interested in it after the way this series has messed with me, but DC Comics is at least looking to put some different talent on it and hopefully figure out a way to make it engaging. That book is being written by Tom Taylor with artwork from Ethan Van Sciver so my interest level is sadly raised more. This year has been a frustrating one with my experience with Cullen Bunn's works as I find that I like the concepts he wants to work with yet the execution is almost uniformly disastrous on the books I've picked up. I'm a long time fan of the Green Lantern world and looked at this standalone series as a way to re-engage with it after being away the past decade. I'm not heading into the mainline books at all, but I'll check out the next series in hopes that it can pull this together better.

Everything in Hawkgirl is competently done and it provides a lot of information but it doesn't feel like it sets us up well with our leading character. It's just so busy and packed with things that it's like the first episode of a show with a lot of CG that's trying to get all of its models built for the whole series at once. There's even a friendship reconnect that almost turns into a date of sorts in the mix as well. Readers get a feel for all the various parts of Kendra's life but we don't get to see Kendra actually living here all that much. There's no breather and that's before even talking about the pages involving the ostensible villain making their move out of sight. It's not bad but it's just familiar and doesn't do anything to really say exactly what it wants to be. It's every familiar setup piece laid out predictably so with solid artwork and layouts to carry it forward.

I liked The Heathens in concept and I liked Sami Kivela's artwork as they worked to bring in some very different time periods and characters together. It took an odd turn with the dead-space that Shih found herself in and that kind of slowed down the energy of the book. Splitting the team may be realistic when you get down to how something like this would really work but it also made the finale feel like we didn't need most of the cast and it should have just been focused in Shih herself. It has things that are definitely done well across the board and it has potential but there are simply some choices that left me feeling like it undercut itself. It may read better in collected form than weekly as well, which is a consideration for new readers going forward.

The back half of Ghost Moon isn't bad but it's also not something that really drove me to it in a big way. I liked the first half of the story with all the set up and the first blush introductions to what was going on in Kowloon, but the back half just felt like it was wrapped up too easily, that the action was just kind of a holding pattern at best, and that so much time with given to Thomas and his plans without it really amounting to anything than a standard power hungry guy that it simply didn't resonate. Churilla's artwork was definitely a nice change of pace with things as was the material with the other demons but it wasn't enough to really make it fully engaging.

That's where I sit with Hollow Heart at this point. Five issues in and it's been an interesting experience but it really needs to start saying what it wants to do and be about. It's had some neat moments, and I liked EL being brought into Mateo's home, but I'm unsure of where it wants to go and do at this point within the larger work. I like the narration stories and the artwork is really neat, especially with what EL is itself, but it feels like it still really needs a purpose.

Hollow Heart had a lot of interesting things to say along the way but as a whole I'm admittedly not sure what it is that it wants to get across. We get the tragic kind of ending here that works and I'm sure they could do more if they wanted to. Allor's script had a lot going for it in the individual issues with the narration and what it was trying to say there but at the end I'm not sure what the larger point was. Tucker's artwork has been solid throughout and the kind of surreal feeling that we get with El definitely worked in the book's favor.

One of the trends of the last few years in this modern social age is to bring it into comics in various ways. This one does it similar to a few others we've seen AfterShock put out in how it handles social media and incorporating it both in story and through visuals and it works well enough. But at the same time, like how Mylo becomes, it feels a little dull and uninteresting. It's not presented badly but we've seen it a bunch of times now and it doesn't do anything to enhance the story. At times, it even feels like shortcuts and cheats to move through parts of the story presentation. But I know that it's legitimate in how it's trying to present it so it's more just my own feeling toward it. I'm not sure I'll be back for more as the whole dogs and head thing just left a bad taste in my mouth even if it looks like it's going a different route outward the end here.

Though Inferno didn't live up to what I had hoped it would be, the book turned out to be a fun little diversion and one of the few miniseries that I actively kept up with. While there was a lot of material out there this is one that I felt like it had a solid enough team to make for some enjoyment and nostalgia. I didn't get too much on the nostalgia side but Hopeless and Garron put together a fun book issue after issue and delivered some very entertaining character material along with very amusing demon material. Garron's visuals definitely kept things moving well, especially with all the little things tucked into the first issue or two, and I was just glad to get his interpretation of both Darkchild and the Goblin Queen as I've always got a soft spot for these characters and what they represent. It's a fun book overall, though I still think it could have been something more, even within the confines of Secret Wars.

Inhuman went from being a strong series that had me craving new installments to now feeling like it comes out too frequently and is far too rushed. I like the concept and what it's trying to do in dealing with the fallout of the Terrigen bomb, but it's been so haphazard after its initial story arcs that it's making some big leaps without good bridgework to tie it all together. This issue, and the previous one, suffers even more because we're thrown into Ennilux as well as getting an AXIS tie-in with Medusa being subverted. Which isn't all that interesting to read because she had more than enough character depth and angles to work with already instead of going down this route of a caricature.

The main story is done well enough across the board and I liked the visuals for it as we got some great backgrounds when on the island and the color work definitely felt appropriately dark but vibrant in a way that clicked very well. I'm admittedly a bit burned out on Wonder Woman stories when it comes to the origin at this point but this one does present enough of an interesting angle to work with even if I don't think it connects well with the main series. The bonus story in this is a lot more fun and weirdly upbeat as a kind of connecting piece from the Harley Injustice series as it follows her minions as we see what they were up to after the gang was finished. Seeing them still getting together under their gang names like Terry and Larry and the like is fun and it worked as a nice little lead-in to this main series with how the Suicide Squad types came after her. I'd rather read about this group more than another Wonder Woman story.

For every step forward it seems like this book takes a step back. I really like what's going on with the main group as a whole in seeing actions put into play to stop what's going on and had hoped for more of that in the book, even if it was through Harley's point of view. The Gods Among Us series worked a pretty good balance across different viewpoints with the yearly arcs to capture the flavor and tone of a lot of things. We get some of that here but the Harley sequences, as well illustrated as they are, just slow everything down and simply feel repetitive at this point, making me cringe seeing her going through the same terrible motions and emotions again and again.

Once again, Injustice: Ground Zero isn't bad but it's also beating something of a dead horse. I know why they did it this way but I just don't think they really needed to do it and I don't think it's adding anything to the tone or story. This issue has some fun action setup pieces on Stryker's Island and I love the callbacks to the fourth year with the magical elements and the Tower of Fate as there's so much that can be used there still. But I'm just so done with Joker stories at this point and even more so with the Harley/Joker dynamic that it's just a drag on a series that has had some really fun installments so far.

Injustice can be a bit frustrating at times with what it's trying to accomplish as some material feels like it's being overdone while others too minimal when it needs more. This installment feels like that as the Harley material simply doesn't add anything and becomes a drag on the story, which is not what you want. I like the weirdness of the other material and the hodgepodge nature of it because it left me wanting more of it. The book definitely looks great, at least, as Sampere knows how to lay these pages out to make them dynamic while filling in some interesting backgrounds and angles to give it a bigger look that it needs considering the stature of some of these characters.

At this stage I feel like we're just killing time until the next series and the promise of this book has been lost because of it. It's easy to keep up with since it's a buck an issue digitally and there are fun moments each installment, making it an experience that I like to have every week. The secondary plot is the more interesting piece but it gets less time in favor of the problematic and repetitive main plot. This installment again has a good look about it thanks to Tom Derenick as he knows how this series operates and what it needs to achieve and that's something that he delivers with ease, making it a fun read just for that alone.

Injustice has a decent Alfred installment here on top of the other recent one and some solid bits and pieces over the run of the book itself. The flow of it works well and Marco Santucci's (debut?) artwork here is definitely solid and well done with everything feeling right. The book has always had its own look and while some artists stand out a bit more, others are more working the house style for the series. Santucci's layouts are what the book has worked with and the flow it keeps things moving and makes for a solid action sequence. Buccellato's script leans more towards the character side than anything else but it's well balanced with the action part that's looking to serve up some new motivations in this fight.

While by no means a bad installment, Injustice takes a bit of a breather here in essence to provide the reasoning for the motivations of what Ares is up to in this larger battle. This provides some new context and scale that works surprisingly well in establishing things for the character in a way that works for me. It doesn't make him someone you want to hang around with but you can at least understand it. Seeing how it all ties into what's going on with this fight between Superman and Batman and how the manipulations are feeding Ares even more is pretty solid, all of which leads to some really big chaos about to land on the doorstep of Themyscira. It's definitely going big with this series once again and I'm enjoying the heck out of it.

As much as I've enjoyed this series, bringing in Mister Mxyzptlk just makes me cringe in a big way and has me hoping he'll be escorted out sooner rather than later. There are some good fights here, even between him and Trigon, but I liked the smaller side of things with the one on one fights that develop and seeing Nightwing and Batman trying to figure out what Constantine's angle is even when he keeps saying there isn't one for anyone with what they're facing. Like the rest of the series, there's a lot going on here and plenty of action to move things forward, so it's a very fun read overall with what it does, but it also leaves you on that note that makes you think that the dynamic is going to change once again, as it seemingly does every issue, when we pick up again now that Swamp Thing has arrived.

Injustice doesn't actually do a whole lot here overall, but it sets the stage for the next couple of installments to bring it all to a conclusion. And it does that by knocking several of the characters out so we can focus on fewer of them overall. It moves quickly enough and it has some amusing bits of dialogue and interactions along the way and Pete Woods' artwork here certainly fits well enough within the overall design of the series. But in the end, it's just a throwdown between sides with some fun dialogue and a sense of wait and see with what's to come from Constantine and his plan.

I really don't know how to feel about this Bond series. It reminds me of the initial works that Dynamite put out where it has the right elements but it doesn't come together in a strong enough way to click and work. I liked a lot of the pieces but the throughline to it all just doesn't quite exist. I'll admit some of that is probably pandemic related so hopefully those that pick up the trades and the like will get more from it. Peeples' artwork throughout was great and I loved the addition of Keys while also enjoying some of what's pulled from one of the novels. The finale is one of the stronger parts of the storyline overall but that's partially because it's almost all forward momentum material.

Though I'm enjoying the storyline overall, the rotating artists aren't giving one any confidence about the project, unfortunately. Things happen, especially during the last two years, so you can definitely give space on it even without knowing why. The artwork for the first three issues come together well enough but this one just didn't hit in the right way and it made for a less compelling installment of the story, especially since it's a critical one. With a misstep in the storyline as well with Sarah, I'm just left hoping the finale can come back strong.

This series was a lot of fun overall as it delivered an interesting story pulling from recent events and giving it the kind of execution that you expected from it. The script kept things moving well without getting too bogged down in details that would slow things down and it captured the familiar “comics” Bond that we've gotten used to. The artwork side was good overall but I really dislike having three different artists on a five-issue series. Pontrelli did some solid stuff with what they had here but it was also the weakest overall even as it had the most to do with all of the action and demands because of it. Hopefully, things will be a bit more set and done before future series start their release.

In the end though, Jungle Girl is a continuation here and not exactly a jumping on point, which is fine, but it makes it a bit harder to get into things. The tone of the book is certainly intriguing and there's a lot of simple fun to be had here that makes me curious where it'll go now that aliens are thrown into the mix.

As much fun as I'm having with the series, Jungle Girl still feels a bit too superficial for me in a way. It's moving right along and has covered a decent bit of ground, but it feels too much like the old serials in that there's not enough meat to it. But mostly this season looks to be about the action and it's serving it up well as Jack Jadson knows how to make some pages look great with the layouts and overall presentation. The only thing that takes it down some is that the coloring is so dark and oppressive at times that it feels like a lot of his artwork is being lost to it instead of accented by it. Still, there's a lot to like and Jana certainly makes for some very fun scenes.

As is the case with a lot of mini series finales that have focused heavily on action over much else, that's what we get here. More action. It's definitely well done and seeing Jana flit about in her black skinsuit dealing with all manner of opponents works well. Jadson's artwork is a big draw, even with the coloring used on the book, and the series as a whole has had a kind of fun old school serialized aspect that played big and loose with things. This season was my first exposure to Jana overall with the Jungle Girl character and I'm certainly curious to see more of it.

This installment totally threw me for a loop with a segment involving Booster and Beetle, as well as a different Flash and Green Lantern, dealing with a Turtle-based Jimmy Olsen. Again, owing to not reading the previous incarnation, I had no idea these characters existed in this time frame along with Fire and Ice. It left me confused as hell, though I enjoyed the banter between the characters. Which pretty much sums up the series so far in general. It's silly and I like parts of it but I feel like I'm completely outside of the joke itself and looking in trying to figure it out. And it's a joke I desperately want to get, which makes it all the more frustrating. It continues to be a really detailed and beautiful book in the artwork and color design and the writing side totally has the vibe and tone down when it comes to the dialogue and banter. But it's like I'm missing a huge chunk of what makes it work.

I didn't exactly have high hopes for the end run of this series simply because anything that would have provided finality would have been hilariously abrupt and non-sensical all things considered. The only way it could be done would be with two pages of plain text that rushes through it all. So getting an installment of action on top of action with some interesting backstory is about all that can be done and they do it well. I dislike the little time jaunt that we get though and I wish we had a little more finality or clarity in some other areas, but the book was simply too big to be able to be closed out properly.

Justice League of America is a book that can definitely do some fun things and I'm hopeful for its potential but this first arc didn't do much for me. It was well-written overall in terms of characters and the flow of action, but the timeline felt weird and dealing with something extra dimensional like this right off the bat feels like a misstep when we needed something smaller and more personal to connect to these team members with. I'm likely to stick around for the next arc, especially as this one only ran four issues in what feels like a radical change from the usual six-issue arcs for trades. There's a lot to like here but it still has to come together in a strong way to really cement its position and its cast.

As an opening to a new arc, it's pretty busy and chaotic in the usual ways and I do wish there was a bit more background provided on Aegeus as that's one that I don't know much anything about. I'm definitely more interested in what Mount Justice will be like with the open policy in play and how that'll factor with the team and just some of the dynamics there if some of them live there as well. The Penn City arc should be a decent bit of fun and I'm enjoying the back and forth between Lobo and Batman, though it feels like there needs to be a real pecking order established sooner rather than later so we can get a bit better team dynamic. This issue is light on some characters, want more Ryan!, but it's putting some fun stuff out there once again.

The JLA book is one that still feels weird to me and I'm not sure how well it's coming together yet. I like the characters involved but the stories haven't grabbed me with what they have to deal with. This one does some good stuff in drawing in one of those that worked for Aegeus in order to beef up the base and that has a lot of potential. Frost looks to be the main focus for the next piece, however long that is, and I'm enjoying the focus on her and the other newer types like Ryan and Ray as it gives the book a little more uncertainty and room to grow compared to working with Lobo, Batman, or Dinah. I'm still simply not sold on this book in a big way but I'm curious still to see where it'll go.

With a new story arc coming up next it'll be interesting to see where they go with things but this was the kind of issue I want more of mixed into the series as a whole.

Eight issues in and I'm still not sure what to make of this series. It has some fun moments along the way and I'm thoroughly enjoying the non-standard arc lengths as that shakes things up a bit. But the team is not finding a gelling point or even the time to really work through that for the most part since it's hitting the action in each arc quickly, sometimes just dropping us into it like this issue, and then working the tensions more than anything else. Felipe Watanabe is the main star of this book for me as he does some really fun stuff, though that last page with Makson makes me cringe a bit, as it has a smooth and fun sense about it even while dealing with a lot of action and busy material. The story continues to be the problem alongside the characterization, particularly since most of these characters are not conflicting with stories being told about them in other books.

While King Tiger was never a favorite of mine from back in the day I really liked the backup feature we had previously and most of the first issue of this miniseries. As it's progressed, though, it feels like it's moved away from the interesting character pieces and potential for supernatural exploration to something more monster of the miniseries with a large threat in place. It's well illustrated, the dialogue flows well, and the overall pace of the book works. But it's not something that we haven't seen before far too many times. At a time when characters get a chance to truly be reinvented, King Tiger could have been brought to life in any number of ways. This works as a continuation of the past and perhaps there are enough fans for it. I'm curious as to how it ends, but I'm not feeling the book beyond that unless it opts for something really creative in the story department.

It's hard to say how this arc is going to go simply because we know so little, but Lara is Lara and that's the big takeaway here at the start. Having liked the previous series and wanting more, this feels like a decent progression overall and fans should find it mostly easy to change from one book to the other.

Lara Croft and the Frozen Omen moves along at a decent pace here and provides for some good stuff along the way to flesh out the story more. We get some good character moments for Lara and Carter and a lot of exposition once Grus is brought into it. His whole deal just feels weird and is played in an odd way, giving more credence to the whole unusual way those with wealth operate. The story is moving along and it ups the ante with the supernatural side here in a big way. It's really not clicking for me in that direction even though I like the whole exposition and view of things that we get between Lara and Grus. It's doing its thing and it's doing it competently and confidently to be sure, but it's not engaging me for the reasons mentioned.

While this series isn't engaging me quite as I had hoped as I'm still trying to adapt to its tone, I'm enjoying it well enough to see Lara in a different kind of adventure. Bechko and Atkins are doing a good job with it as it has a good series of reveals, some key moments that pop out well, and definitely a sense of anticipation that comes from it by the end. I'm definitely curious to see where it's going to go and just how far it'll go to do what it wants. There's a certain creepiness that's in this book that I like, but I'm still just not connecting with the tone of it all.