Because I was a little lukewarm about the first issue of this series, now that the opening arc is closed I would like to acknowledge that this comic has absolutely won my heart. Simone & Marquez are both doing incredible work here and this is by far and away the best comic of the From the Ashes era.

(Also, I greatly appreciate the rejection of Kurt's sudden, unexplained turn to casual homicide during the Fall of X era) more

"No other skull can make this claim."

I sometimes take weeks to read an issue of this comic because I want to read it in the perfect moment. I don't just want to flip through and enjoy the story, I want to *marinate* in it. No other modern FF run can make this claim.

"But the world doesn't wait for us to ask before it inflicts horrors upon us. All we can do is spite it by surviving or die. What will it be, Cyclops?"

Sure did pick a day to drop that line.

Certainly the best thing about Wells's finale is the same thing as what was best about his run: the small character moments, like Tombstone's chat with Peter outside the courthouse that emphasizes the weaknesses of being a good man in a bad world. But the worst thing is what was worst about his run: the general lack of direction. The scenes with May are touching and well-wrought and could be a great capstone to a run that focused heavily on Aunt May — except that this isn't that run, it's been over a year since she's shown up in the pages of this book at all and she was hardly a regular before that.

Ultimately, Wells & JRJR simply tried to do more than they could handle with this series, and Nick Lowe failed to exercise the editorial wisdom to force them to kill a few darlings and focus their attention on the best stuff — with the result being a tangle of characters, plots and subplots that appear and disappear at random, rarely getting any meaningful resolution. As everyone else has already mentioned, most of the plots end in no identifiable change to the characters or their place in the world, with the only real movement forward in this issue is for Aunt May, a character who's barely been in the book. [EDIT: Also I misunderstood the ending and it doesn't even really move May forward, so I'm not sure why we're doing this story for a finale at all now.]

I won't damn this run outright. I think hate-reading comics is a waste of your one wild and precious life, and that reading a favorite character out of addiction alone is no better, so if I thought this run was irredeemable I'd have walked away long ago. I read it to the end because it kept drawing me back in every time I gave up on it, it was full of promise in its best moments: the Judgment Day and Blood Hunt issues or the best parts of the Tombstone plot, for instance. I absolutely believe there was a great run in there somewhere, if only they could have focused on it.

(As regards the prelude to 8 Deaths, obviously I can't judge a run on a three-page teaser but my first impression is that I'm going to have the opposite problem with the art that I had with this run: while JRJR's unreliable pencils were beautifully propped up by Menyz's gorgeous color work, it looks like next Mark Buckingham's wonderful draftsmanship will be muddied by murky-yet-overlit coloring that looks like it rose from the grave of the early oughts.) more

This issue bothers me.

I don't hate this run. I don't fundamentally dislike the plot points, either. I just wanted something more from this conclusion. The scene where Tombstone talks to Peter is great by itself. How quickly the entire plotline wrapped up is so odd to me. We just got two issues of a giant fight. Where is the editor?? I read Wells' letter in the back, and he claims that Nick Lowe was there for him constantly, and I just don't see it on the page. Editing mistakes are rampant in Lowe's tenure, and that's one thing. Fix it in the trade (As someone with the trades, they don't). I can abide by bad lettering and color mismatches. I can't abide by the fundamentals, as I see them, being thrown out or disregarded. Pacing is important, especially in this medium. You have to do a juggling act of making each issue satisfying on its own and as part of a larger arc. Lowe sometimes fails to do either. It's baffling. The plot line for an arc should justify its length. If you have to stretch it out with filler content, like a giant fight, maybe lower the issue count. If you are scrambling to exposit-vomit at the end of a book, maybe give it an extra issue. This arc and the final arc of Spencer's run are like complete opposites, it's insane. This arc is barely able to fill its pages, apparently, while hurrying through what plot it has, while that last Spencer arc spent every. single. page. trying to explain the cacophonous nightmare of retcons upon retcons. Where is the editor?? The same guy was ultimately in charge of producing both of these things and the only similarity is the rough, amateur pacing and structure. Nick Lowe is a senior editor. He should do better. I don't see this sort of roughness from editors until they're unceremoniously ripped from their books like Jordan White on X-Men, but Nick Lowe has sewn himself into the Spider-Man tapestry at this point, so what's the fucking deal?

I have other issues.

The Aunt May segment is almost good. The characterizations are there. Wells is competent. But for the love of god, would it have killed them to just have Peter tell her his identity? Every single moment felt as though it was leading there, only to have them pull back in the end. I just want to see real growth from these characters. Technically, Aunt May was worried and upset at Peter at the start of the run and now she's accepted him. Cool. That's technical growth. I'm real happy Pete gets to live in his lies more comfortably now. Whatever.

The Rek-Rap segment. I have nothing to say aside from this: Where is Gog? I don't recall Peter ever setting him free or giving him away. Gog is Peter's actual pet still? We haven't seen him since Spencer's run though. Where has he been all this time? Did Nick Lowe forget about Gog? That's much more interesting than keeping Rek-Rap in play.

The MJ segment was good. Again, Wells is a good writer. He's good with characters. As someone who is an adult, who has had relationships sour and change and morph, I found a lot of MJ and Peter's friendshipping here relatable. People grow and change, and it's really odd to say that here but it does work. Maybe now that MJ has explicitly told Peter thank you, those weirdos online will stop calling for people's heads. I doubt it though.

The Chasm story is meaningless to me. I don't really care that Ben was changed, or that he's a villain now. Maybe he'll show up and do something interesting next time.

The tease for Joe Kelly's run was mostly good. As noted in KittyNone's review, the coloring could use a lot of work. However, from the writing side of things, I actually really enjoyed Peter's monologue and how it showcased Peter's capability, something writers will often ignore or forget about. I like when Pete is treated like the science geek he is. I really didn't like his story in issue 50, but if Kelly is giving us something more like this with 8 Deaths, I'm glad for it. more

Absolute Wonder Woman does what I've been begging the main book to do. The problem with the main book is that Wonder Woman is treated as basically an alien. She doesn't really understand our world despite living in it for.... decades. She speaks weird and she's very, very incongruent in her actions. It's like Tom King has not yet threaded the needle on consistent characterization. He has these moments in his mind that may showcase aspects of her personality, but the connective tissue is lacking. So you get an overly stoic, frustrating character to read about.

Kelly Thompson is much, much better at characterization and dialogue, even if you feel she leans into the comedic side too often. She's also a woman, which I don't usually like to make a point of, because I think the idea that you have to be of a certain group to write that group effectively is really lazy, pandering and plain wrong. However, in this specific instance, I believe that it's really helping because Kelly Thompson doesn't have a cookie cutter archetype "othering" of a strong woman, fresh out of the Supergirl oven. She writes her characters with a lot more empathy than that, so this issue, we get that badass, strong Wonder Woman that she needs to be, but not at the expense of well-rounded characterization. All in the span of a single issue!

And I'm not saying Tom King hates women or characters, I am only saying that in the writing hierarchy of what's most important to him, characters come last. That's why theme and plot frequently and disjointedly stomp out the characters in favor of The Point. It's also why King is great on unknown, dead or indie characters. With Kelly Thompson, I can tell you from reading a ton of her work, characters come first. The plot might even suffer for the characters, if need be. That's what we need on Wonder Woman right now, because she's currently stuck in this archetypal hellscape crafted by the mediocre 2017 movie that couldn't even support itself in the 2020 sequel.

And I would be remiss if I didn't mention the art by Hayden Sherman. It's maybe not as clean as some other art, but it's bursting with personality, which is very important.

So far, it seems like the main line might just be pigeon-holed by the iron grip of editorial, if what comes out of the far more creative-focused line excels so effortlessly. more

Wasn't sure how I'd feel about a darker Wonder Woman (the phrase puts me in mind of the retconned and forgotten dreck of the New 52) but Kelly Thompson & Hayden Sherman were too good a team for me to pass by and let me tell you, they did not disappoint. Full of beauty and tenderness and defiant wisdom, this issue is a wonderful story about love making Hell into a home and I cannot wait for the next issue. more

The ending really was a whimper.

I don't think this is a bad issue, but I'm plagued with the knowledge that every creator involved here is capable of something better.

I don't hate this issue, clearly. I'm giving it a 7. But it's irksome. I could be *really* uncharitable and mean, and make my review one sentence: "Oh, look at Diana, so caught up in her lusty womanly wiles that she can't help her friends escape prison." It's irksome. I'm trying to be nice though.

Thankfully, the Dickens bot is gone and we get a much more enjoyable story this time around. I still think Diana is written... well, wrong. She's written like one of those poorly aged 90s "foreigners" that the Americans have to teach the ways of the west, most often seen in poorly aged 90s sitcoms. How does she not know what a steak is? Or hell, what a blooming onion is? She's lived in DC for how long? I live near DC, steaks and blooming onions are everywhere. On every street corner. You can't avoid it. It's the new opioid crisis, but this one makes you fat. That aside, the issue is fun. It has more of that charm that the backups tend to have, and I welcome that, for sure. more

This series is the best thing coming out of this universe, and unlike tradition, it's not because the rest of the Ultimate line is trash. Deniz Camp is fucking killing it.