Demarcoa's Profile

While it starts a little slow and stilted, this was a phenomenal introduction to a new Batman. Loved the art style, too. Very engaging overall.

It is genuinely shocking how well this series is living up to its own hype so far. Some of Alfred's dialogue is a little silly, I found it hard to take the "Batman AF" line seriously, but this issue certainly has that Batman swagger down. This series is proof that the "go woke, go broke" crowd are talking out of their ass, too, I like Barbara in this and don't care what race she is. Martha being alive is super-interesting, too. Bad-ass action and I also really enjoyed Bruce's card game with his childhood friends - this world's Two-Face, Penguin, and Killer Croc. Very engaging series so far.

I like the idea of Alfred being this paramilitary guy with no prior association with Batman - that's unique and interesting - but so far a lot of the writing around his part in this story has been quite silly and is hard to take seriously, as is this Batmobile. The Batmobile feels like it would have been expensive for even Billionaire Bruce Wayne so why is it here? It just feels like the whole point of this Batman is that he has less to work with and so far he seems to still have a lot of resources set up already, and we're only just getting started. So far everything else has been working well for me, though. Art has been great from the start, and Snyder is building the foundations for a strong new take on Batman. Martha has been really well done so far and has a great scene with Bruce this issue. "I'm going to kiss you now so I don't slap you," stuck with me. Batman making a deal with Black Mask was good, too. I'm curious where the rest of the story arc goes and I like how everything does kind of tie back into The Zoo. Good title for the arc, it has layers.

The change in artist works well as we take a step back and look at this Batman's early days. It feels like more of what I wanted last issue, which is great. This issue did something a lot of other Batman stories seem to miss, and it really shows us how much Bruce's father meant to him. Young Bruce building a bridge with his father's guidance was great. That it had to be bat-themed was a little silly (this series never manages to avoid doing something that feels out of tone with the rest of the story each issue), but I still like what Snyder was going for overall.

Wow, love the art in this issue. It's a little heavy on narration and Snyder sure loves his own writing but Black Mask gets a great moment taking down Batman.

The opening flashback where Bruce has a nightmare that his mom was shot was really well done overall. There are a lot of really strong scenes throughout this comic, like Batman tossing a gang into the water but making sure they all get life jackets. Overall though this arc is a very Snyder script. Lots of cool ideas, lots of cool moments, maybe not the best ending, nor does it necessarily come together into the best thing in the world. Still, it is absolutely a fun new take on Batman. Loved the creepy epilogue, at least.

Still one of the best publications out there in the moment... somehow? God, this series is ever lasting proof you can't judge a book by it's cover. What should be a stupid series with a dumb present is smart, thrilling, and ever so interesting. BUY THESE COMICS.

Ugh.

Oh this is a very fun body-switcheroo between Wolverine and Spider-Gwen. I love them meeting each other in their different bodies and teaching one another how their powers work. It is simple body-switching story stuff, but it works. Tom Taylor wrote a very funny script for this annual. I kind of like how the whole thing was a bit of a misunderstanding with new character Red Hornet. Ending was a little abrupt but would has potential if Taylor ever brings Hornet back (but it doesn't seem like he ever did and as such it's a weirdly undeveloped idea)

Well, it's Old Man Logan but for Laura. The big twist is, so far, Laura's future is looking quite utopian at this point. It's not a bad read by any measure but this future doesn't feel as imaginative or out of left field as Old Man Logan. The art is nice and does its job really well, at least.

Awful lot of characters just standing around and talking for a three-part series people have been talking up... I'm a little surprised I haven't been enjoying myself as much as I usually do with Tom Taylor in this series and in general. It is fun seeing the cast in the future, and Doom has a great moment both in the writing and visually with his introduction in this story, but that's about it. I'm pretty ambivalent to the low-stakes-possible-timeline-death of Maria Hill.

Just one thing about Geek Retaliation's review - X-23 is Wolverine's clone, not daughter. Probably sounds more dumb then her being his daughter, but it is a good story just the same and I like the character. Personally I didn't care for this issue but hey, to each their own.

It's another one of the Onslaught comics. For one of the last ever Avengers books to be published under the original, decades-long run, I've never been a big fan of this comic. It's part of a larger narrative but not in a way I found particularly exciting for the Avengers. None of their characters stand out much and there's just a whole bunch of pointless dialogue as we go looking for Magneto for an issue. It serves so little purpose for the larger Onslaught event it can be skipped while Avengers fans are left with an issue that doesn't even really focus on the team in what could have been the last few chapters of their entire continuity as many are remade into Heroes Reborn.

I remember finding this a bit of a joke the first time I read it. The art and way the Avengers are drawn is ridiculous but it does have some good pages here and there. The dialogue isn't great, though - it's very over-the-top and all these characters feel a little off from what I would consider normal human behaviour (and appearances, for that matter). Characters like Hawkeye and Swordsman practically read like children. Not to mention the mountain of exposition constantly being dumped on us and the cringe-inducing sense of humour to it. Loki finds his way to Earth and Thor frozen in amber (surrounded by ice in Norway?) with Loki having a vague sense of the history of the 616 universe. I think it's weird how the comic starts with most of the team formed and the focus is kind of on Thor and Loki finding their way into this story. Loki especially spends so much of this issue basically giving a roll call for the Avengers and it feels quite silly. That does ultimately lead to Loki tricking Thor into fighting the Avengers with him, which is something vaguely interesting, to the comic's credit. Even though there are clear differences, it really doesn't feel all that different from the usual Avengers set-up. It feels like a bit of a wasted opportunity for a reboot. Overall, this book isn't quite as terrible as I remembered, and it definitely could have pivoted into something great, but it is absolutely coated in flaws.

I found some of this writing and art really hard to get through, and the novelty of the first issue has definitely worn off. I'm really not a fan of these characters thanks to such silly dialogue. Hawkeye feels like a renegade practically foaming at the mouth with edge in every single line of dialogue he's had in these first two issues so far. Thor feels over the top. And a lot of the other Avengers like Hellcat haven't really given much personality off at all so far. Kang kind of comes out of nowhere in this issue and disappears just as quickly. That's bad pacing.

This works a little better for me compared to last issue but Swordsman and Hawkeye still kind of read like children to me. It's really weird. It feels a little easy how the Avengers manage to so quickly overpower Kang after last issue's beatdown by him, though.

The Hulk makes his first big splash in the Heroes Reborn Avengers series. It's alright. The art has some good moments, but a lot of it and the writing can be pretty lame. Not exactly unheard of from these wacky comics. Ant-Man's costume just looks awful and this comic has series issues with how it depicts men and women. This point is pettier but even the lettering and text bubbles are really poorly done here. What's less petty is that these characters are often insufferably written. Swordsman sticks out like a sore thumb. The final clash between Captain America and Hulk looked and read awful.

Last issue Hulk battled some Avengers, now he battles Thor. The quality hasn't exactly improved much. The writing of this series feels quite childish under Liefeld. But the art does have this moment and it doesn't totally flub the Thor vs Hulk conflict.

I almost have to respect how immediately horny this comic is right off the bat, featuring the Fantastic Four half-naked out of the gate. It's not great, but it is a very Rob Liefeld take on reality and his interpretation of how people interact with each other. I do like how they worked the Hulk's emergence into this world into a crossover. I don't really love the art, either. That works with an early-era reboot of Marvel as something that should be a big deal in this world.

Loki hanging around the World Tree looked cool, at least. The depiction of women in this book kind of sucks, though. It's hard to get past, and to be fair, the men don't look much better. Dialogue is very awkward. These books feel too busy and cluttered. I do like the ending where a bunch of villains apparently attack at the behest of Scarlet Witch, and in spite of the flaws in writing, it is nice to have an issue where the characters get a little breathing room and we actually get something out of the experience for once in this series. Still, everything looks ugly as sin and it is not a great read overall.

Ugh, Kang is just not well used in this series. The battle with the Lethal Legion is pretty fun, at least. Simonson definitely brings a slight sense of improvement to this series, but it doesn't fix everything. Hellcat still has barely done anything in this series. Same with Ant-Man who has been trapped in the Vision for ages - his plot just feels stuck moving at a snails pace. These books just don't have enough energy for all these characters and haven't since day one. It is crazy the Avengers get attacked by a whole other villain team with the Masters of Evil in addition to the Lethal Legion. It's way to much to be good pacing.

Not gonna lie, the action could be very fun at times in this comic, but the dialogue often feels lame as hell. Iron Man feels like he is outright rambling instead of quipping at one point. Captain America showing up and literally glowing in the sunlight while lecturing the others about murder also felt a little on the nose. I kind of slept through the Loki and Ant-Man parts this time. These plot lines have series pacing issues with some moving way too fast and other stuff like Hank and the Vision feeling stuck in the mud for most of the series only to now rush through a fairly unsatisfying conclusion of sorts. A curious ending, at least.

It's pretty neat how the 616 Thor shows up in this issue and you can kind of just tell based on how he's acting that it's him. In spite of my qualms the Heroes Reborn Thor is meaningfully different enough that it was pretty obvious here, so that's something. I kind of like Loki's scheming this issue, too. It all feels pretty well-done, for once. I don't like how bored Reborn Thor is of Earth though. Are they not constantly being attacked by threats he finds surprisingly strong for Midgard? Sadly some of the action is clunkier than I would have preferred, to. Still, this felt like a big step in the right direction for this story and series. There were some really good parts to this book!

I kind of love how Loki goes on a little rampage at the start of this story, immediately betraying those he had tricked into working with him and then turning himself giant. It all felt very Loki and a big pay-off to the fact this villain has kind of been haunting this series since day one. The art has also significantly improved over the course of this arc. What happens to Hellcat this issue was quite interesting but her character feels severely underdeveloped and so the idea of it doesn't really pay-off at all. I also feel like Reborn Thor has had a complete personality shift since Old Thor showed up. It's quite jarring and makes one of them eventually dying at the end of this comic kind of fall flat to me.

I found the start a little awkward as it is essentially an epilogue for the last big Avengers story arc happening at the beginning of this one. Still, 616 Thor leading a funeral for Reborn Thor had some narrative weird to it at least. The writing still isn't great, though with lots of lines lacking any sense of subtlety. Lot's of awkward lines kind of brushing over Loki's recent rampage wiping out half the team, probably because we don't have time for any of this and have Galactus to worry about. It is neat how Doom travels back in time to try and undo the big loss in the last Fantastic Four issue. This comic has its moments in spite of some flaws. You can tell the writing is better compared to the Fantastic Four just by how differently Reed speaks to Susan in this issue. It's real improvement as their is actual warmth and love in the dialogue here unlike in the first part. But the story can get a little repetitive as for two issues in a row, the heroes are trying to stop the Heralds and their Galactus-devices. The only difference is Doom has travelled in time and is doing things a little differently. It's a neat idea, with an ending that hit a slightly different emotional chord in spite of having the same beats as the first part, but a lot of these choices make for a slow read as it very much is structured the same as Fantastic Four #12.

I was pretty sold on this when a certain someone shows up. Then the rest of the issue happened. Best Hickman Avengery comic I've read thus far. Not too sure about other people's ambivalence towards this. The character driven dialogue of this comic really knocks this out of the park for me.

My full recap/review of this can be found here https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-cCtoBCw6TI&list=UU9Anx3CRncARu-Utf_Yaf3A

My recap/review: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JREUPMhc90s&list=TLxS1MDHHqvqAt7XF-V0r7dL7T52gJBZmc

Full recap/review: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z4QNabMVMQQ&list=UU9Anx3CRncARu-Utf_Yaf3A

Whatever guys, I mostly liked it. My full recap/review here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AiXYoFrxuz8

Doctor Druid is such a weird character, and there's some very weird stuff going on in this story to accompany that, not the least of which is Druid's odd relationship with a much younger-looking and more conventionally attractive Kang Nebula. A decent chunk of this story is just flashback recapping Druid's history, which I suppose is helpful for a more obscure character like this. The story about them escaping from this time-bubble they were trapped in gets interesting visually at times, but the story felt quite silly on the whole to me. I did like Kang Nebula's sinister turn once they escaped. It feels like that just leads to a lot of exposition to fix something about Druid's story though. Lots of dialogue I didn't really enjoy results. It's not great but there's definitely something of value to this comic as well.

Full recap/review: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bIK0luVcy2U

Well polished and made on the whole.

It's nice to see the issues are started to get a bit more focused. Some pretty awesome stuff happened this issue too. :)

This Phalanx stuff kind of blows. They should be far more dangerous characters than they are given their nature and it just never comes across that way in these comics. I'm not a fan of the busy art style either. There's often way too much going on with the Phalanx visually and it doesn't look good at all. There's some decent content between Cable and Wolverine, at least. And the ending wasn't terrible, either.

This starts off pretty fun. I like the look of MODOK and Zemo as they face off against Cap and Cable. It is interesting seeing 616 characters like Cable and Loki already interacting with this reality. Seems like we're almost immediately giving up on the premise. While this comic is quite silly in a way only Liefeld can pull off, I had a decent time reading it. There's also a short epilogue to the mostly pointless Industrial Revolution story. The epilogue itself is a decent little moment for the Avengers, but boy was that crossover a nothing-burger.

Joe Bennett's art has a really style I enjoyed at the start of this issue. The writing of this story arc remains awkward, though, and it is especially awkward because each issue of Heroes Reunited is a timeline reset. With only Doom remembering what happens, things are starting to feel a little tedious, in spite of the novel idea of it all. Still, as the ending, this does enough different I was pretty invested in this comic overall. I found the ending a little unsatisfying and abrupt, though.

Fun, looking forward to seeing where this goes next.

I just might not like Daken very much, at least from this era. Certainly not as much as all the other characters in the comic seem to like him. The recap of Daken's story at the end was nice, at least.

This story was off to a rocky start but I do like how it ties into Aaron's Wolverine series at the moment. Knowing that stuff pays off well gives this arc a little weight already. Cool art, too. Daken still reads like an obnoxious character. The Mystique stuff felt mid with some pretty lame lines of dialogue between her and Daken, but I did like the ending a bit.

I've been pretty ambivalent to this arc so far but Demonic Wolverine vs. Mystique was quite well done. Not even sure what to make of all this, guess I'm curious what happens next!

This series is so horny. There is some fairly strong moments with the Fantastic Four in this issue, even if it all is spectacularly silly. It's quite clunky and slow, though. I think Daken feels like an out of place fanfic character in this phase of his life compared to the rest of the Marvel Universe sometimes. Still, i can appreciate good character work when I see it. And the art did have its moments this issue.

I liked the Madripoor setting and bringing in Tyger but the story felt like it was just spinning wheels after a while and kind of stalled out on me.

A pretty boring issue until Daken's inevitable betrayal. Even then I'm still pretty ambivalent.

The death fight Daken orchestrates is interesting. I wish we were given more time with these characters to give it the weight it deserves. The rest didn't feel earned. Daken is taking over Madripoor too easily and it makes Tyger feel weak.

Loved the art, but this issue is a little underwhelming after Collision's explosive start in the X-23 series. At least Gambit and X-23 have a lotof cool moments this issue. Daken still seems like a chump in his own series, which is funny because he was fine over on the X-23 side of things.

Checchetto's art continues to impress. The story is whatever but at least this issue is bloody and looks cool when X-23 and Daken are killing together. There's a certain haunting beauty to this that Wolverine comics could use more of.

Not great but serviceable for what it is intended to be, which is a jumping on point for new fans. There's some really iconic art in this issue at least.

A refreshingly brutal art and story, with a splash of humour and dread that mixed pretty well for me. I don't love the direction this LA stuff goes but it starts out okay here. Daken's entire time in LA is a little too referential for Hollywood, though.

I like the art which is very creative at times and how unapologetically gay it all is. It's still pretty lame, though I do applaud this series for taking a serious look at drug use in an interesting way. It's still trying just so unbelievably hard to be edgy, and that makes it hard to take this run that seriously.

Taskmaster confronts Daken and he somehow finagles that into "the perfect crime." Seems awfully convenient in my books. Seems like more 13-year-old-with-a-fanfic-character writing to me.

There's something about the way this series constantly talks up Daken's character that I find deeply underwhelming. Not a fan of the writing or the art in this issue. The writing especially leaves a lot to be desired. Daken quoting Pretty Woman is just so cringey. The whole heat drug thing doesn't add much to the story for me either. At least Moon Knight is kinda, sorta fun. I'll take what I can get with this series. Donna and Daken just kind of suck in comparison yet take up most of the issue's attention.

Huh. There's parts of this that were hard to get through just because I really wasn't connecting to the story, but I admit this thing won me over. Moon Knight proving more than a match for Daken really worked for me and I like Heat finally showing some real consequences. This series has only really worked for me when we can properly acknowledge just how pathetic Daken is being.

This arc has its moments but I still find the writing very childish. Referencing the Matrix movies in your first panel feels like an example of that. Are the constant movie references Daken making just because he's in LA now? There's a part of me that just hates this series and its vibes. Even the cool thing they do with the art and the heat drug just kind of leaves me disengaged when I do recognize the idea is quite interesting. This story was okay in spite of my reservations. Moon Knight is quite fun here even if he has the occasionally dorky line. Everyone kind of has dorky lines in this run so that's not a surprise. The ending is pretty strong, too. Not great, but it is something.

I groaned at this one. Serious content warning as this comic shows off a lot of self-harm. Decent action at least, but I don't love this art and there's a lot of groan-worthy lines in the writing.

I still find this incredibly lame and disengaging. Just painful writing, unbearable at times. For the Runaways being on the cover they're only introduced at the very end of the story...

More bad writing, but now with the Runaways. I don't like this artist on this run, either. It's neat to build on the Pride a little bit but it took us way too long to get to this point. At least Marcus Roston gets a cool moment as a villain.

A full-fledged superhero battle against Roston that falls a little flat for me. Roston is a very boring character in spite of being in a good chunk of this series.

The writing felt kind of childish and the art was just okay. It wasn't terrible but definitely wasn't great, either.

Big 13-year-old angst energy to this issue, but that's always kind of been Daken's vibe.

The art is kind of all over the place so far in this arc. Daken's writing kind of reminds me of some terminally online kid, not a supervillain. He makes some big speech about how dumb family is to Reed Richards, and Richards has nothing to say to contradict any of that? It just feels like every character has to be dumber than Daken because Daken is supposed to be cool, and winds up feeling like the least cool character in all of Marvel. It is hard to feel a lot of sympathy for the sudden news Daken is dying. His whole scheme was nothing really new under the sun of this series and a lot of it feels overly simplistic.

Some elements of this issue hit a little harder than the last two, but it's still an underwhelming story with a lot of writing that doesn't sit well with me. Not a satisfying ending at all but at least this issue does a decent job of showing Daken's self-loathing.

This was an odd but not terrible Daredevil read for sure. Mark Bagley is an amazing artist, I've always been a big fan. It is quite weird such as how the villain is keeping Spider-Man around like a pet dog. Daredevil's in a dark place at this point in the series and I think this annual handles that pretty well on the whole at the beginning, but very quickly devolves into standard superhero crossover fluff for the barely connected Atlantis Attacks event. At least Doctor Strange's appearance here was pretty consistently well done. I really like the part where Strange talks about Daredevil's pain and how he respects Matt too much to tamper with it. That was interesting. It very much feels like a Conway script and has his specific energy to the book, for good and for ill.

Gregory Wright does a good job portraying the horror only kind of hinted at in the previous chapter of Lifeform. The dialogue is just okay though, especially from the Lifeform itself. The bonus stories weren't very impressive, either, but it is neat how they were all connected to the Lifeform storyline and do add a bit to it's character - said character being George the man infected into the Lifeform creature.

I was not thrilled to see the return to Snakeroot being advertised for this comic as I did not enjoy Daredevil's first encounter with them. But, to this Annual's credit, it brings about their return at the start of this story with a bang and some gorgeous artwork depicting a resurrection ritual carried out by this evil group. I can't say I really cared when Snakeroot did all this though to revive some Z-Lister villain named Ghostmaker, even if that's just an excuse to bring Shang-Chi in for a fun team-up. And it is pretty fun, even with all the 90s cheese Renkewitz and the art team do a great job bringing this story to life. I do wish the action had a bit more thought put into it though as I kind of tuned those parts out a bit. Elektra's return and the armoured Daredevil era kind of remains underwhelming as always for the background status quo, though. Her and Matt kind of feel miserable here and the only reason this comic has a sense of joy is thanks to Shang-Chi along with the excellent use of colouring and character design. And that ending did nothing for me. I liked the back-up story way more, all about Black Widow and her meeting with Nick Fury. They talk about Matt Murdock's apparent death and I wish we got more follow-up on said death like this because it was really good. It's got some decent spy stuff too. This comic is a good showcase of what doesn't really work from this era as much as it shows off what did work.

Yeah, Daredevil pretending to be "Mike" Murdock, Matt's brother, to fool Karen, doesn't hold up at all. Mike is insufferable right out of the gate here. In some ways this makes me appreciate the shenanigans of the 90s a little better. Sadly it is a huge part of the issue and detracts from what could have been a fun dynamic around the romantic tension between Foggy, Matt, and Karen. I mean, kind of. Karen is also the employee of these two men and it does feel a little inappropriate, come to think of it. The aliens Matt fights are pretty superficial. There really isn't much to them and this isn't Stan Lee's best. I also found the art to just be so-so.

A pretty wild issue where Daredevil somehow uses plastics to make himself look exactly like Thor. The real Thor is here along with the questionable duo of Cobra and Mr. Hyde. There is a fight between Daredevil and Thor that is silly and fun, at least. But it just ends and we're left with some lacklustre stuff around Hyde and Cobra, who do kind of manage to beat Daredevil here. It alright. I'd probably be more enthusiastic were we not in the "Mike Murdock" era as Daredevil's Mike identity has some truly awful dialogue.

Daredevil continues his conflict with Hyde and Cobra, while having lost his powers and actually experiencing full blindness. It's pretty interesting as a concept but Hyde and Cobra aren't very fun villains here. The Mike Murdock sage reaches a new level of ridiculous as Foggy and Karen are now to believe Mike and Daredevil have also gone blind like Matt. Still, the Lee/Colan team is fun enough, and this is a good example of Silver Age cheese if there ever was one.

It's not the best ending to this already questionable Hyde/Cobra trilogy Stan Lee did. I'm not a fan of a story like this where the villains should win but lose simply because they stalled out on just finishing off Daredevil in some way. Visually, it's a great comic at least, as we get some great shots of the Hyde/Cobra duo capturing Daredevil and taking him to a scenic lighthouse. And, to it's credit, Daredevil's ultimate victory is pretty satisfying.

Oh boy. I'm not a fan of this "Mike Murdock" era, but he isn't quite as terrible as some of the earlier "Mike" issues. Foggy, Karen, and "Mike" all going to Montreal was silly but the writing wasn't terrible, either. The battle between Beetle and Daredevil was also underwhelming but they fight on a train which leads to a pretty good set piece. I don't have a lot of memories of seeing Daredevil fight outside of a city so that was pretty cool, too. Also, as Stan Lee actually points out in the comic, Gene Colan did some remarkable work. This comic is flawed but Lee's writing, in spite of all these flaws, is still very charming.

Beetle could have killed Daredevil in this issue and won, or at the very least unmasked him, as his own henchmen point out. Instead, he does that classic villain thing and messes up his own scheme thoroughly by trying to set up an exhibit at the Montreal Expo to try and make a big spectacle of Daredevil's defeat. It is disappointing, and definitely doesn't feel like this story needed to be two parts. A lot of the charm I felt in #33 is kind of absent from #34 and that makes and incredible difference, but it is present in stuff like how we learn the Beetle's origins in this comic. Gene Colan's art remains great, at least.

A pretty standard Silver Age affair where Daredevil is in Hollywood and battles the Stilt-Man. Not a lot to it, for good or ill. It's not very fun but the art from this era is reliable as always. Karen and Matt breaking up felt really rushed, even if it makes sense with her being in LA now.

I love how this opens with Daredevil receiving a summons in court while he is out on the street in costume. It's just the perfect set-up for this court-themed adventure with the villain Tribune posing as a judge. His defeat was abrupt and empty, like so many Silver Age stories of this era, but otherwise it was a pretty solid read. I feel Roy Thomas and Gene Colan did a great job with this one overall. This story also feels weirdly predictive of the Central Park Five case that would happen almost two decades after this comic was published. I think it was a bit ahead of its time.

This comic is charming as hell but Conway relies way too much on flashback as a storytelling device here. It would have just been better to structure the story a little differently, I think. It and some choices to have Matt maybe a little too bummed out over losing Karen Page makes this comic feel a bit clunky. Tagak the Leopard Lord was an alright antagonist of sorts for Daredevil. His powers feel fun enough, and his story makes him more distinct than the average villain. With a couple of tweaks, this comic could have been great. Gene Colan's art is fun enough.

The Zodiac Cartel feels like lame crossover fluff, which is all it really is. Art is fun but this just doesn't feel like a Daredevil comic.

This comic rather infuriatingly opens on a dream sequence. The rest of the issue is more classic Silver Age fun as the people of New York are suddenly struck blind. Mixed feelings about this one overall. At least it feels like the main story is pretty creative. It's the kind of thing that works thematically well for Daredevil's character in the most obvious way possible, but just because it is obvious, doesn't make it a bad story. It's really neat how other blind civilians Matt meets in this issue are able to take the lead and help out. The villains and ending are a little lacking, which seems to be an unfortunate trend with a lot of these early Daredevils.

Art is pretty fun at least and the storytelling is creative. It's not as racist as I thought it might have been but this issue still comes across as pretty dated thanks to its references and depiction of Latin America as kind of primitive and backwards. Foggy and Matt working together and the former trying to get over Karen Page was pretty well done, at least, and I do like some of the other characters they meet who are living in whatever fictional country this takes place in. That being said, El Condor has a very goofy looking costume and doesn't have much teeth as a villain.

The second El Condor issue isn't that much different or worse than the one before. The art is great and the writing is a little dated but still has its moments. I do wish these books were paced a little more briskly as they were a bit of a slow read, not helped by Daredevil fighting El Condor's goons for way too long in a fight I found entirely boring. I'm sure that drawn out fight is the exact reason the ending of all this feels rushed, too. Also, this issue felt a little worse in its dialogue than what I got out of #75, bordering on outright racism.

Love the comparisons Conway makes between Spider-Man and Daredevil at the start of this issue. There's some excellent dramatic irony here as Peter feels jealous of Daredevil's life, not knowing just how similar their current circumstances are. That being said, Mary Jane is blonde in this comic by mistake, which really feels out of place given her character and Peter is still freshly grieving Gwen. I can definitely see why some people might not love this comic as its pacing is way off. The character stuff at the beginning is great but means there's no room for the Namor content to really be fleshed out. It winds up being a pretty underwhelming team-up and I didn't really enjoy the battle between Spidey and Daredevil against Namor. It doesn't feel like it gets properly resolved, either. It winds up being a very clunky narrative overall and not one of the better Daredevil comics out there, to be sure. Maybe it's even one of the worst. I'm not a huge fan of how Conway is dealing with the current break-up between Karen Page and Matt Murdock, as that stuff feels very drawn out and like a soap opera.

There's lots of little things that charmed me about this comic. This is part of that era of Daredevil where Black Widow was such a huge part of the series she even shared the title, and it is fun to have her here working with Matt. I also liked how this is part of a time where Daredevil is operating out of San Francisco at a new job, and this issue has lots of little touches to showcase the change in scenery from NYC. It's a pretty fun read overall with the same ol' reliable art of the era. The Dark Messiah stuff is unremarkable but really doesn't feel like the focus of the issue anyways, and I much preferred the stuff where we were exploring Daredevil's new status quo, which luckily is what the comic feels most centred on.

With the focus of this issue largely on the Dark Messiah and his Disciples of Doom, Daredevil #98 becomes very hollow in terms of fun content. Matt's banter in this issue with the Disciples of Doom is annoying and the fighting isn't very good. Once again the more interesting stuff is in Daredevil's personal life. I like how his new partner went to the trouble of making a briefing for Matt in Braille. And Black Widow teaming up with Matt was pretty fun - there's a great part where she says she's going to fight the Messiah with or without Matt - and that makes sense, with her being an independent hero herself. There's stuff to like here, including some pretty creative visuals, but it is a little lacking with the whole Dark Messiah stuff is just so lame. The guy just... explodes at the end? And then Daredevil closes out the issue with a few terrible lines I hated. This is not Daredevil at its best, which is a shame, because with this fun status quo, Black Widow, and the creative team, I definitely would have expected a lot more out of this comic.

What a bizarre read. Daredevil gets in a fight with a random thug at the start of this issue and this has to be some of the worst banter I've seen with the character. Not only is it very silly and unrealistic, there's even a mild touch of dated ableism to it. Additionally the fight choreography isn't that great and I didn't find this comic that engaging or exciting. Eventually the fight with the goons ends and Daredevil has a very underwhelming encounter with returning villain The Ringmaster. I normally quite like Conway as a writer but this comic felt pretty bad on the whole, though Foggy and Matt at least have a solid conversation at some point which makes up for things a bit. I feel like the Ringmaster and the Circus of Crime were at least somewhat fun, too, especially since we actually get to see a bit of their show. However, their scheme is kind of silly, even by the standards of this time, and the comic basically just doesn't have much of a proper ending at all. At least the art is well done even if Conway doesn't give Don Heck much in terms of interesting stuff to draw. Additionally, there's some technical choices with how the art flows throughout the page that seem way off to me.

Daredevil calls it quits this issue in some character beats I felt were done fairly well even if it doesn't even last half of an issue. Then he gets pulled into this story with Death-Stalker and it's not much of a plot, nor is the battle any good at all, but it is big on style and that is something. Heather comes across as annoying and a poor man's Karen. I'm not a fan of what I've seen of her character so far.

You know, Daredevil is a lawyer. More comics should use a courtroom as a framing device like this one does. It just makes sense and it feels like we never get enough time with Matt in the courtroom in these comics. Sadly this isn't the first Daredevil comic to depict Latinx people in a dated way, this time in the form of the returning villain Matador. Wolfman's writing can get a little awkward here beyond that, too. At least Man-Bull was pretty fun.

A pretty goofy issue where villains Mr. Hyde and Cobra team up and Daredevil ultimately fights them on a jungle rooftop some rich guy made in Manhattan, I guess. Not some of Wolfman's best.

I feel like these comics are too simple for their era. At this point both Marvel and DC were more than capable of much more engaging content that made sense and had better character work than this. Daredevil #142 and 143 are as simple as hero vs. villain stuff can get, I feel. It is at least weird in that way only comics can be weird and a little fun at times, I guess, but I didn't find this story all that creative overall and the pacing is way off. At least this issue has some lawyer stuff unlike 142 and it's better than the Cobra/Hyde nonsense.

Openly made as a filler comic due to a missed deadline, this strange story starts off with Daredevil having to go into an unstable reactor. I'm not sure why the scientists on the scene aren't more qualified but it leads to some pretty creative art so I'll give the odd moment a pass for what we get out of it. The reactor's radiation gives Daredevil amnesia and winds up becoming a boxer. Eventually Matt gets his memory back and he fights a leopard in the dark. Comics are weird sometimes and this is a good example of that. It wasn't the best or most engaging book, but it definitely was creative and memorable, at least.

This has to be one of Nocenti's weaker if not weakest Daredevil script. It's cool Ditko is the guest artist here but it's not a very fun story. The Owl is featured in this issue and he's just not that fun at all. Neither is Daredevil, and fun is really all a silly story like this could ever hope to be.

Weird but fine, I guess. Pretty standard Daredevil vs. The Hand stuff coupled with the usual quirky Chichester writing.

There is cool art and cool moments peppered throughout this issue, but Chichester cannot make The Hand exciting for the life of him.

Way too overly wordy right out of the gate for a comic book. Especially one from the 90s that should be more deferential to the art, because the art is really nice. The Owl is presented in a somewhat sinister way, at least, and the comic does have some stylish moments as we see our characters living their lives in New York. Certainly not the worst Chichester comic I've read at this point.

This was a pretty fun and action packed issue. For a comic where the Owl and Daredevil are mostly just fighting each other, they do manage to still make Owl seem both sinister and tragic. While not perfect and I don't love all the art here, I'd say this was a solid issue on the whole.

This wound up being a pretty solid Owl story. It's still a Chichester book, but at least he made the villain quite interesting here.

Spider-Man and Daredevil team up to take on a new villain named the Surgeon General. She's a fun idea for a villain but Chichester just isn't that great at dialogue and this comic doesn't feel as fun as it should be. I do like the vibe of this being just another case for Murdock, Karen, and Daredevil - there's a certain day-in-the-life feel to this comic that works well with its traditional art style by McDaniel.

Having read quite a few Chichester Daredevils at this point, I was expecting another dud. But this was great. The second part of the Surgeon General story reveals the Surgeon to be an incredibly sinister and deadly villain. It was good stuff and on the whole this worked pretty well as a two-part superhero team-up story.

While not a terrible start to a nine-issue crossover arc between Daredevil, Punisher War Journal, and Nomad, this still isn't a great issue. Chichester is not a great Daredevil writer and even shows some weird attitudes towards body image in this particular comic. A pretty ugly affair overall which is a shame because it starts promising by showing off the Vegas setting and how Daredevil perceives the world.

Pretty solid for a Chichester book. Daredevil riding a show horse around Las Vegas battling the Hand is genuinely fun, and there's good little moments with the Punisher and Kingpin. Not a bad read at all. For a crossover I thought I was going to hate, I'm actually largely enjoying myself.

The Daredevil side of Dead Man's Hand spends a lot of time on all these criminals meeting and dividing up Kingpin's former empire. It's pretty well done even if it falls into the trap of Chichester's endless awkward dialogue and at some point loses me a bit in this issue. That's another problem with Chichester's writing in general - he seems to have trouble even communicating the basics of what he's trying to say with a story - bordering on the incoherent at times. He also really seems to struggle keeping the tone and pace feel consistent as the Punisher and Nomad stories start to cross over a bit more here. Finally, there's this whole thing where Baron von Strucker is resurrected by this virus and is scheming in the background, and not only does he look like Jim Carrey's Mask, but it feels deeply silly as a plotline and wildly out of place with everything else. Daredevil's parts are by far the weakest of an otherwise decent crossover, but it does have its moments.

This was alright. I assume the stuff with the Haitian demon is probably not the best example of cultural sensitivity, but it is a fun story and the visual of a demonic Daredevil is cool as hell.

Zombie Daredevil is pretty cool and is conveyed through the art really well. A big step up from the last issue creatively. The defeat of Calypso and restoration of Matt Murdock was a bit underwhelming, though.

The first half of the comic is just a very stressful and realistic situation where Daredevil is dealing with a building on fire. It's quite well done on the whole. The second half deals with the legal consequences of the fire, which works well in a Daredevil comic but Chichester is clumsy with his dialogue as always. Still, there are good moments here - like the firefighters smashing cars like they do in real life if they are blocking a fire hydrant, or when a photographer agrees to give Matt information in exchange for letting him film himself punching Daredevil. The second part is less endearing when Matt winds up punching him back, but it's kind of deserved.

The art was like this a bit in the last issue but really gets over-the-top edgy by this comic. The whole issue feels overly dark and grim, in that cheesy 13-year-old-edgelord kind of way. The dialogue was pretty awful and Daredevil interrogating a pyromaniac with fire was worse. Still, the actual investigation into the fires isn't terrible, but it is a little repetitive in its storytelling. I do appreciate how it elegantly requires both the Matt and Daredevil identities to solve. All told this might be one of Chichester's better Daredevil stories, as much as that is damning him with faint praise.

While not terrible, it wasn't a very exciting comic either. I notice Chichester stories tend to start out big before meandering for the rest of the issue, and this is a good example of that. Daredevil #314 starts with a somewhat interesting nightmare sequence, only to kind of get bogged down in setting up this new story with a classic Daredevil villain Mr. Fear and his daughter. There's some sinister ideas to the story, but it's not explored enough to really work that well.

This could have been fun and even is at times. The new Mr. Fear - his daughter who calls herself "Shock" unleashes the fears of New York citizens and Daredevil has to stop her and the resulting chaos. There's some good visuals accompanying this but the dialogue reads like Chichester is barely holding things together in telling a coherent story and, knowing how often he fails at that, it really does feel like the story just barely works for a reason - it just barely works on the whole and is rather underwhelming.

317 and 318, the grease issues, are clearly meant to be a little silly, and that does work in their favour. If the comics had a better writer this could have been a great story. I do love the sense of chaos around Daredevil as all these crooks scramble for a mother-lode of restaurant grease. Chichester is just such a tacky writer, though. A thug getting his clothes torn in a fight with Daredevil, only for an embarrassing tattoo to be revealed and so the thug and his friend run away, feels like an example of how Chichester can't quite deliver on the silly tone in a way that works. Humour is tricky and subjective so all I can really say is that the timing of these jokes just didn't work for me. A lot of this issue is like that. The story should be fun but Chichester's writing here makes it a little miserable for me and I kept finding myself distracted because the story wasn't really holding my attention after a while. Something this goofy shouldn't feel like that much of a slog.

The art is pretty creative but Chichester's stories feel like they are moments away from exploding into absolute gibberish on any given page. I find it so easy to just get lost in his stories. Not in a good way, but in a, "I'm not interested enough to make the effort of fully deciphering what is going on" kind of energy. I'm really not a fan of most of his Daredevil comics, it seems.

I've heard this arc described as messy and that's really the perfect word for it. It would be fun in theory to have this Daredevil story where he goes up against Silver Sable but Chichester just can't execute a good idea for the life of him. Art is great, though. Really it's only saving grace, and I do like how torn up Daredevil's suit gets in this issue - that's good set-up for what is to come.

At least Venom and the Daredevil-demon were fun in this one... kind of. I'm not entirely sure why they are here, but fun is fun. It's not terribly well written but it was somewhat coherent and actually enjoyable which is more than I can say of some other Chichester Daredevil books. Even Daredevil encountering the telepath he has been tracking down was actually executed decently. I also really like the logistics and premiere of Daredevil's armoured suit in these last two issues. That was done pretty well and McDaniel, in spite of Chichester's constant flubbing of the script, is a really cool artist. Colour me intrigued for the first time in this story arc, though I doubt the feeling will last.

Chichester gets into these habits of using the same words or phrases across multiple issues and it drives me a little crazy. These comics often feel like a chore to get through, outside of the random sporadic comic that kind of works like the last one. We're back to the grind again with a slow-moving, kind-of clumsy story that just barely almost works. But it doesn't work - most Chichester Daredevils read like a weird fever dream. McDaniel's art isn't even good in this one - it feels rushed and sloppy (outside of one black-and-white splash page that's simply jaw-dropping). Also intentionally having two unrelated characters named Eddie in your story is nuts. These little annoyances add up very quickly in these comics.

There's a lot of characters in this story. On the one hand, it feeds well into the chaotic nature of Daredevil trying to protect this telepath named Eddie. On the other hand, it feels like way too much, a little bloated, and extremely unfocused. The pacing on Fall from Grace as a whole is erratic and relentless in a frustrating way. And these last two comics have let me down in the art department, too. This issue features Venom a little bit and it is very underwhelming. I've seen this a couple of times now where Chichester just lets Daredevil talk a villain out of a fight with the silliest, flimsiest logic, and seeing it happen to Venom here was extremely lame. And it's a shame too, because this issue has a big bomb to drop - the press know that Matt Murdock is Daredevil. This really could have been one of the best Daredevil stories ever in better creative hands. As it stands, I think it's one of the worst.

Now Morbius is showing up in this thing?! What a train wreck. And THIS is the comic where Daredevil's identity gets put out in the world. It should be such a better and bigger moment and doesn't feel handled well at all. We barely spend any time on it at all because we have to deal with Eddite the telepath and now some sort of virus. It's so boring, but at least there's some good art again. Oh, and Elektra's back, because, just like the whole secret identity thing we also need to start getting really confusing and convoluted on that front too. Chichester is opening some bottles he is not prepared to deal with the consquences of at all and it feels like a complete mess.

What a stupidly and unnecessarily complicated plot this all was. It's interesting how Matt fakes his own death here to preserve the safety of the people he loves, but it isn't really the focus of this or the next arc and isn't given the weight a big moment like this deserves. The whole thing with Snakeroot is a complete waste of time. These characters suck so much and feel like generic comic book slop. Six issues of bloated plot and no emotional significance or weight to it. It's just bad writing, especially around Elektra's return. I don't know how else to describe it, I'd expect better writing out of a soap opera. I think calling Fall from Grace messy is putting it a little politely, now that I've finished it. McDaniel at least sneaks in a few nice pages to round of the ending though, saving this comic from my lowest possible ratings.

Not bad given the writer, era, and story arc. Matt Murdock fakes his death to preserve Daredevil's secret identity and protect those he love. The funeral is quite well done on the whole. Unfortunately, as we pivot to the larger story arc, the comic gets more unremarkable. This is the start of the story line "Tree of Knowledge" and though it kicks things off with a bang - showing off a dark status quo where Matt has even been pushed to start using a gun - things start to fall apart pretty quickly and everything is a mess by next issue.

Truly awful art, convoluted storytelling, and other awkward moments made for a truly terrible reading experience on the whole. Matt is unnecessarily rude to an Avenger (an Black Knight is pretty crappy to him). There's an interesting story hiding under a cluttered mess of an execution - a ferry blows up so Daredevil and the Avengers each react, and it ultimately leads to Captain America and Daredevil teaming up by the end. It should feel like a fun story, but instead comes across as really sloppy overall and pretty hard to get through. I have to assume the rest of the arc is going to be similarly rough.

This is a neat premise for a comic where a guest creative team tells an interlude side story in the middle of the larger arc. Gregory Wright and Sergio Cariello do a much better job than the normal creative team... shocking so.

Shaky storytelling, but seeing Daredevil, Iron Fist, and Captain America team up was entertaining enough, I suppose. I like this art here a little better from some of McDaniel's other work I've seen so far in this series.

The art isn't terrible, but the writing and dialogue is just so bad. There's something so off-putting about how Chichester does conversational speech that I had a very tough time getting through this issue. McDaniel's art is becoming a saving grace and acquired taste in this messy and boring story arc. Gambit's cameo is another in a long line of superhero appearances during the Tree of Knowledge story, and I'm not against it. It makes sense a bunch of heroes would show up following a big ferry blowing up. Yet the bad writing makes these ideas feel half-baked and I even felt a bit of a misogynistic edge here that made this issue especially feel like a particularly bad comic overall because of it.

The writing is still dated and full of groaners that make for a very slow read overall but at least some of the plot points Chcichester has been teasing in Tree of Knowledge come to a head here. Mixed feelings on the art this issue. Some panels popped, others kind of looked ridiculous. Not great and pretty annoying how, after teasing this story as being five parts, this again leaves on a cliffhanger for a finale next issue.

Throughout Tree of Knowledge, Black Widow leads the authorities in basically declaring martial law in New York after the ferry blows up, and I've been waiting to see what is to come of this. And the answer is... well, something about the dangers of authorities developing technology in the name of security. There really are some good ideas here but it is amazing how bad the execution of it all is. This was a truly awful read. The art and storytelling is so clunky and feels very amateurish. This is so far from the Daredevil comics at their peak it hurts a bit. This story arc and this issue has its moments but boy are they few and far between, while it is easy to spot weaknesses in every corner of Chichester's writing here.

While refreshing after having read a buttload of Chichester's Daredevil, this storyline by Wright starts off with an issue that's just okay. I like Grindberg's art, but the writing still feels a little clunky and the whole comic just has a weird, ugly vibe as Daredevil gets involved with some of New York's most downtrodden and it doesn't seem to be written that sympathetically - some of them come across as basically feral. It's definitely not that bad, though. There's some good moments here as Daredevil does advocate for one innocent man the police are beating. And the story's villain, the King of the Sewers, gets a solid introduction. He seems real gross and Daredevil fighting him in the New York sewage is... something, alright.

This issue feels overly heavy on the dialogue for what should just be some grungy adventure in the sewers. It's like the Ninja Turtles with all the joy sucked out of the story along with a lot of weird conversations. I don't think I'm going to like this arc at all, at this rate. The King of Sewers slaps a guy with a rat - this story is already ridiculous and I'm two issues in. At least Grindberg's art is pretty cool and interesting - I just wish he wasn't given such an ugly story to draw. The last page he draws with Bushwacker is intense though. I wish it better reflected the mood of the larger story because the villain knocking out Daredevil in the rain looked great.

This comic opens up with an amazing fight between Bushwacker and Daredevil in the rain. With the rain blinding Murdock, and that making him impaired enough that Bushwacker thinks he can't be the real Daredevil, are among the great details and art showcased in this fight. The rest of the issue kind of sucks. It's overly reliant on text when there's some great art here the comic should be leaning more on, and that's especially disappointing to see in the 90s when there was such a focus on comic book art. Still, a pretty strong improvement over the last issue, with pretty much wall-to-wall action throughout.

I don't know a lot about Gregory Wright as a writer, but I'm not a huge fan with how he goes about this story arc. It just feels deeply off-kilter and all over the place in its tone and pacing. Last issue was a tight action thriller as Daredevil fights for his life in the rain, now homeless people are dressing up in torn up old costumes and Daredevil's fighting a Mayan tiger thing. This story is way too chaotic for my tastes. Worse, the whole bringing in of this Blackwulf character feels like way too much in a story already stuffed with crazy plot threads, and we're nearly at the end of the arc.

Randi seems like an underwhelming character in this new status quo for Daredevil. She's barely left an impression on me after a while now and this kind of seems it for her character. It really feels like they just didn't know what to do with Daredevil at this point in the 90s. So many of these comics seems to be spinning their wheels. I guess it is nice Daredevil has been trying to get two innocent people out of prison this whole arc. We desperately needed more of that kind of stuff from this era of Daredevil. But the way that and the King of the Sewers stuff is resolved is very anti-climactic.

I was a little worried when Chichester didn't even want his name put on these comics but they aren't as awful as I expect. It's very dark and gritty but not in an unbearable way so far. Matt Murdock's new identity as Jack Batlin is a little cringe, though. His stuff just feels like one cliche lumped onto another and his dialogue can often leave a lot to be desired with its repetitive and silly nature. Jubran's art is pretty cool at least.

The Kruel Saga continues with some occasionally cool art but the writing is still all over the place in quality. I wish the action were conveyed better, Jubran has a lot of potential but I don't really like how he draws Kruel, the villain of this arc. So far this is a pretty underwhelming story that's more silly than anything else. This Kruel guy is seeking revenge against a bunch of Daredevil characters, but the flashbacks are handled so clumsily and he looks so goofy it is very hard to take this story seriously at all. Ben Urich's wife being almost killed in front of him at least is done pretty well and has an appropriate amount of weight to it, preventing this comic from being totally terrible, at least. Karen Page has a story line I was skeptical of this arc about CSAM but so far it has been pretty interesting. I'm not totally hating this arc so far like some of Chichester's other nonsense.

This story arc reminds me of that Community episode, where a flashback reveals the cast had unknowingly met each other long before the events of the Pilot. It didn't work in that show any more than it does here - literally creating a plot hole in Karen Page's history in the process. There's also a bit of an anti-poverty bent to a lot of these 90s Daredevil comics I am not a fan of either. Also, this is two story arcs in a row where we have villains being gross in the sewers and it's hard to really engage with content like this. At least Chichester and Jubran do some interesting things with their storytelling here, so it isn't a total wash, though there are just about as many awkward moments that pull down the fun of the better content here. Why does Daredevil insist on drinking milk in a weird way after a fight this issue? I just want to know...

This story arc has been very hit-or-miss for me. Keith Pollard takes over art duties for these last two issues and I definitely like the quality and style of his art - at least at times. Kruel looks as goofy and terrible as ever, if not much worse. The story wasn't a complete nightmare this time. It's not the best, still full of cliche and awkward one-liners, but it definitely isn't Chichester's worst.

Ugh. Having Kingpin's goons dose everyone in the flashback so they didn't remember things in the present is such a tacky bit of writing. That sucks so much and is a terrible way to kick things off with the final issue of the Kruel saga and Chichester's time as the head of Daredevil. I was mostly okay with this story arc compared to Chichester's worst comics, but this was not a great way to wrap things up. Kingpin and Daredevil teaming up to take on Kruel is fun, at least, even if it wasn't handled well at all. We've spent an entire story arc as readers learning about Kruel, so having Kingpin also explain it to Daredevil is a waste of time. So many plot points just don't work with me, like Karen Page ultimately hiring on John Garrett - that's where all this CSAM stuff has been building to in this arc? And then I guess it is supposed to be a big deal that Daredevil and Kingpin ultimately defeat Kruel in a way that kills him. It hardly even feels like a murder, but I guess this is what causes Daredevil's unhinged breakdown next issue... What a miserable waste this all was...

This was insane. I really like Arvell Jones and Keith Pollard's art, but Ellis' writing is borderline incomprehensible. Matt Murdock dresses up in a lawyer's suit and beats up a bunch of cops. The NYPD deserve worse, but Matt's inner monologue during all of this literally makes no sense and in his suit he looks absolutely ridiculous. Maybe Warren Ellis always kind of sucked. This was violent, full of self-loathing on Daredevil's part, and obscenely edgy. It's in response to the preceding arc, but it is still a terrible way to follow-up on what happened there and was a real bummer of a read overall. And, also, knowing what happened in that arc, Matt is basically overreacting. He's been through so much worse so this behaviour feels completely out of character.

This comic is baffling and everything people like to make fun of around 90s superhero comics. It's so creepy the way Daredevil is smiling in this comic. I guess it is intentional? I don't know what is purposeful here because I found the writing pretty bad too. It's supposed to be Matt turning a new direction in life, being a little more optimistic and purposeful, but I think it's a very bad example of execution.

I was pleasantly surprised by this comic. Daredevil finds himself in conflict with Mastermind (or at least one of his daughters). He battles illusions of his worst foes all while dealing with a major falling out with Foggy after his partner learns of his Daredevil identity. Not bad and a big step up from the previous issue, even with McManus returning for art duties. My only qualm is that Mastermind is defeated rather abruptly, although I'm not sure you can expect much more out of a single, standalone issue.

An intriguing start to the last story arc of this volume but one that is executed very poorly. It's basically not a Daredevil comic, nor does it explain its premise very well, but Matt finds himself trapped in a deep cover identity he no longer remembers, and the SHIELD handler responsible for deprogramming dies. Or something along that line. It could have been cool if it were structured better.

Much better than the last issue especially structurally, but still not great. There's a really wholesome moment with Foggy that I liked a lot, at least.

It's fun having Foggy so directly involved in Matt's espionage adventure overseas. The arc got off to a rocky start with me but has had its moments so far. It's still just okay at best, though. Lobdell isn't exactly writing this story with finesse, often being overly clunky in his wording, not just in its style but also in the sheer volume of text he throws around sometimes like the worst of Daredevil writers. To his credit, he did put together a Kingpin moment in this issue that at least made me chuckle even as most of it didn't.

I loved the cover of this one. Otherwise it's a very clunky, slow, and repetitive end to Lobdell's arc in a way I didn't find all that satisfying, nor did I enjoy Cully Hamner's art that much. One that essentially closes out this iteration of the Daredevil series, which is interesting. Not great or even good, but interesting. And to its credit I did enjoy the idea of this Jason Bourne-style story for Daredevil. Here's to the brighter days that were in store for this character's storytelling.

Chichester has written some bad Daredevil comics, but this one is particularly incoherent and embarrassing. For the final issue of the first volume, this is bafflingly bad, the pacing feels off, and there's way too much dialogue in a way that does a huge disservice to the otherwise decent art. Considering Chichester seems to be one of the worst Daredevil writers, it says a lot that this is probably one of his worst Daredevil comics.

I love how much love Stan Lee shows for the series' new artist Wallace Wood. Not a lot of writers do that even to this day. The Matador is not a great Daredevil villain, though. Weirdly this isn't the most racist version of the character I've seen so that's something. I do also like how Matador isn't easily defeated and even racks up a couple of wins against Daredevil during this issue. And that directly leads to him being overconfident and cocky, which leads to his downfall. Matt at the law firm was pretty good - impressively so for a comic only five issues in and older than my parents. That being said there isn't any lawyer stuff here, Matt just takes Karen to a costume party. I'm not the biggest fan of Foggy and Matt employing and wooing Karen simultaneously like this, but the ultimate love square that forms between them, Karen, and Daredevil (and I guess even "Mike" later) is pretty creative. Overall, while flawed, there is stuff I do appreciate about Daredevil #5.

A decent comic where Matt Murdock battles the Hand and things are appropriately sinister. It's not the best comic, but not the worst - not even the worst Daredevil story I've seen written by Chichester.

What a bizarre plot for a story. And old man dies, and reveals a half a million dollars worth of grease was in his possession. And so a bunch of criminals get into a mad race to get it. The audacity of such a wild story in a Daredevil comic is pretty fun, but Chichester often seems to get these interesting ideas and totally flail when it comes to execution and some of the dialogue is unbelievably cringey or confusing. This is at least the trend less in action, and this issue does have at least some fun moments in it. I had fun watching all the villains showing up.

The art leaves a lot to be desired, but I do at least love the premise. We open this story on Maya Lopez at a concert where everyone is being infected by these strange sound waves that clearly involve the villain Klaw. So she rushes off to find and save Daredevil before he hears the music and gets infected. It really works well to showcase a blind and deaf person working together to solve a problem nicely. I do wish the art were better though. A lot of plot points around the sound wave creatures people are turning into isn't well showcased because the art is often light on the finer details here. I'm just not sure the art style matches this kind of story. That being said though, the stylish, almost dream-like quality of the art is often very beautiful to look at and overall this book just isn't that bad. I just feel a different artist could have made this story's plot beats and the spreading sound infection more impactful. Also, Klaw's defeat is sudden and anti-climactic. Not a great read overall.

I like the idea of this comic - a sort of flashback story told from Misty's perspective and showing her getting to know Daredevil in his early days. And it does very much look great - but I didn't get much if anything from the story.

I'm surprised at just how much I enjoyed the first issue of this arc. There's a lot of baggage from Ahmed's run at this point but this issue does a good job at showcasing Matt's current situation. Plus it has great art, and intriguing start to a larger story, and a nice reason for Daredevil to bring back his armoured suit. I just plain loved this.

Another solid issue with excellent art. People were down on this run and last arc in particular but so far I am enjoying it! I like how Ahmed explores Matt's vulnerabilities so far in Rites of Responsibilities. I think it's really well done. There's also a great scene where Matt is using his powers to track down a network of fungus, and the fungus reaches back out to him. This is a creepy and interesting story arc in spite of a couple of awkward lines.

Oh, I was down with this story so far, but now it just feels like we are ripping off the Last of Us, but in a really lame way. Also, the dialogue kind of suddenly takes a nosedive once the villain Lionsmane reveals himself. Not a good sign of what is to come, I fear. And after such a good start, too... I do like the ending where Daredevil shares a moment with Nyla at least. She seems like a consistently positive point in Matt's otherwise currently bleak life.

Not a bad issue, but there's weird quirks to this comic. I figured the Lionsmane stuff would come back due to the cover but no, the cover is basically just a bad representation of this issue. But, to be fair, this is a solid Taskmaster comic where the villain actually gets to be cool for a moment. That's something, and the art of these books are so great they make up for a lot of the weirdness of the story. And there's a lot of weirdness going on with Elektra and Nyla this issue. We just saw how happy Nyla and Matt were last issue, and now they're breaking up? Colour me skeptical.

I'm really surprised at how the Nyla relationship stuff went from great to bad so quickly. It kind of feels like we are rushing to just wrap up Ahmed's run as soon as possible all of the sudden and I'm not a fan. Elektra and Matt solving a murder was more interesting and even got a little gruesome. They even go to the Bar with No Name and battle one of the Wrecking Crew. It's fun stuff, but some of the writing was a little tacky (other parts were great at least).

The art is great, the writing... not as much. The Kingpin is back and the confrontation with him is pretty unhinged in the best way possible. It's a good fight, even if that dialogue leaves a lot to be desired. And the Kingpin kind of just wins and... leaves. It's a very disappointing story with some excellent art. And, at the very least, it leaves Daredevil and Elektra on a nice note. Not a great way for Ahmed to close out his run, though.

There's something very charming about seeing another story in Daredevil's early days. It's not overly sophisticated but its fun seeing him go up against some of his classic villains and working with Foggy and Karen during more innocent times. A pleasant read overall, even if the dialogue and narration can be a little silly at times, with Daredevil having a lot of lame quips in this story. Also, the whole thing kind of just breezes through one villain to the next without a lot of time to dwell on any of it, so it doesn't feel overly substantial. I still liked it more than I didn't, though. Matt and Foggy work a pretty cool case together and that's enough for me in a lot of ways, I just wished I liked the superhero stuff a little more and some of the character stuff was handled a little better. Our main characters are fun here but do feel a little off.

This art is alright. I don't remember liking Dark Reign that much when it came out but this issue has at least something to offer of substance, even if it isn't a lot.

Action wasn't great and the art is pretty weird in this issue. Kind of childish which is a shame because Daken working as a Dark Avenger should be an interesting political thriller. This is not an interesting political thriller.

Norman's kind of been a chump this story arc so it is nice for him to show some real teeth here. Really dumb and weird ending where the guys Daken and Norman have been setting up are saved by Daken, only for him to kill them anyways.

Romulus was such a wiener in the stories I'd seen him in outside of Evolution so it's nice to have him actually be intimidating in something again, even if that is limited. I quite like the art even if faces and perspective are weird at times, and the writing in this comic works overall in building up this confrontation between Daken, Wolverine, and Romulus. The ending of this issue fell a little flat for me, though. Feels like a forced confrontation between Daken and Logan just to end the issue on a moment.

Segovia's art really stands out compared to the Wolverine: Origins series in a generally good way (for this issue at least). It looks good but also some facial expressions and some of the action is a little iffy for my tastes. The writing is much more mid. The ending was weird. I thought Daken really got Romulus for a second and then he just... teleports away? Thanks to Logan? So strange, so anti-climactic on a few levels.

I was hoping for something a little deeper or even darker given that Logan just tore out Daken's wrist claws. This issue just showed how meaningless that all was as it barely has affected Daken's character and he still has his fist claws.

It's Daken vs. Frankencastle. It's pretty dumb but at least the fun kind of dumb... mostly. It doesn't help that Daken's character is just kind of miserable, even in a goofy crossover like this.

Art is inconsistent, but Logan's presence in the Daken vs. Franken-Castle story is much appreciated. It feels like the story is stalling out a bit with this issue, though.

There's some really cool art here with both Pierfederici and Paquette contributing to the issue. I love how this issue really takes its time and lets us soak in all the beautiful artwork and the majestic city landscape around Daken at this point. I just wish it wasn't all in the service of following Daken at his lamest.

A reasonably fun start to this crossover. Doesn't really feel like it would be any different than with the regular Logan, though.

Fun, but nothing exceptional either. Deadpool has like one good moment where he realizes why Logan wants to protect a new mutant named Maddie - both men don't want her to be turned into a weapon like they were.

A little iffy in quality. Not terrible, but this series seems to struggle with rising above mid-territory compared to other crossovers like this.

Still just alright. I liked the fun of Deadpool briefly having Wolverine's claws at the start of the issue but the rest of the comic is pretty boring until its ending. It does end on an interesting little note that does set up the finale in an interesting way. Logan suddenly wanting to leave Maddie behind just because she is dangerous doesn't feel right for the X-Men, though. It feels like a reason to force conflict between Deadpool and Logan.

It has some moments but also some dumb parts, too. Maddie was pretty fun in this last issue but Wade and Logan a little less so. I don't think I'd recommend this series.

I quite like the set-up - all the Logan-related characters are being locked into a cell together with Mystique. It's neat seeing the characters all in a dilemma together, but then it kind of just is used to set up the rest of the series, only to get bogged down by some Weapon X nonsense. It is not terribly satisfying. If anything, it kind of deflates my enthusiasm for the rest of the series quite severely.

Not Laura's best comic but considerably better than the first part of this Logan Legacy series. I like how she goes to Canada and meets a superhero that helps her get perspective on things. Art's a little weird for my tastes.

I didn't hate this. The art is very interesting and the story feels very Sabretooth. There's not a lot to it, though.

This easily stands out compared to the first few issues. I loved the art and this is a great little story for Lady Deathstrike.

Kind of confusing art and a weird story that I didn't find engaging or remotely related to Logan's life or death. It feels just like set-up for the Wolverines series.

I'm really not connecting with these new Weapon X characters or the artwork of this issue so far.

Still not enjoying this much. This feels like a knock-off team and it's weird to have the Weapon X label slapped on these characters because they really don't feel like they are carrying on Logan's legacy in any meaningful way.

I normally really like Soule as a writer but so far this miniseries continues to disappoint. Some of this writing feels pretty bad to me. Art isn't great either. I really don't think these characters compare well to the iconic design of some Wolverine mainstays, like Sabretooth. At least Creed gives this book a little more energy.

A decent end to a miniseries I found very underwhelming overall. This does sell me on Shogun but all the other characters are pretty meh.

All of the Watchmen, none of the substance. Revisiting this, I feel like I'm seeing story beats of a sequel that doesn't need to exist and never had to. The art's cool I suppose but it feels like Geoff Johns can't help but litter it with way too much dialogue and narration. The storytelling feels like a lot of mystery-box behaviour. Lots of vague hints at stuff to come that looking back on, I'm a lot less charitable towards. This just... doesn't work. The DC sensibilities are exactly what Watchmen was satirizing. What is the point of any of this?

I just am not convinced Johns can fully grapple with what he is doing here. This is Watchmen without subtlety or even really quite grasping what Watchmen was originally about. That especially feels relevant when we have two Joker rip-offs running around. Watchmen didn't need stuff like that because the superheroes were already nightmare people. The whole bank robbery scene was straight up cringe, and bringing back these characters at all just feels tired. I'm so over all of this, though I will admit I did like the reveal of the flashback and why Veidt is working with the clown couple. Veidt meeting Lex Luthor on the other hand... what are we even doing here?

I just can't seem to be drawn in by this. Probably something subjective, this is just not for me.

Earth 2 World's End #1 Review/Recap - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VbHGEshe8D4&list=TLxS1MDHHqvqAt7XF-V0r7dL7T52gJBZmc&index=3

I've been enjoying the scenes we've gotten so far of Onslaught manipulating Franklin. There's a nice, subtle, sinister edge to all those moments. I like the art in this book too, it's very bright and crisp in its character design. It's really weird how none of these series seem to have any direction to wrapping all these character arcs up. The Fantastic Four are being completely reset in a few issues and we're dealing with a love triangle between Johnny, Lyla the Skrull, and Laura Green. It's odd to me. No big deal, though. This comic has a lot of fun action to offer once Onslaught emerges and the stakes feel high with him so intent on seizing Franklin. It's intentionally creepy and quite well done. Onslaught's fake-out defeat was a little silly, though.

The Avengers team up with the Fantastic Four to take on Giganto and Namor. It's alright, I guess, but some moments feel a little tacky. It kind of reminds me of the early Ultimate comics, where we're going through the motions of redoing classic comic book moments with a modern flair, but not really changing a lot up much along the way. It's still more or less the same character dynamics that always existed between the Avengers, Fantastic Four, and Namor - but at least that dynamic is pretty fun between Captain America, Thor, and Namor. The Fantastic Four kind of take a bit of a back seat in a lot of their own series this issue - they kind of felt flat here. Still, it's a pretty fun story even if it isn't game-changing or anything. I do like how the conflict is largely resolved through communication.

There is something fun about these Heroes Reborn comics, but the dialogue isn't great. Really love the art, though. While the dialogue leaves something to be desired, the main plot is fun, having a Skrull talk about how the Silver Surfer is feared throughout the universe. I really like the design of Galactus and Doctor Doom, too. They aren't exactly original but they have little details that really enhance them. The back-up story sets up a short crossover between a few series called Industrial Revolution. It's alright, but the dialogue is still pretty tough to get through.

It's a big issue for the Heroes Reborn Universe as Galactus comes to this new Earth. There's some decent moments setting up Doctor Doom in opposition I quite liked, but some of the art is quite off - I didn't like how perspective was used in some shots as it cluttered up the Fantastic Four with the Heralds of Galactus. Similarly some of the action is also awkwardly conveyed visually. It's nice to have a story where the Power Cosmic is taken as a series threat, as it should be. The dialogue might be flat and over-abundant as the story goes on, but I'm a sucker for heroes coming together to face a big threat like this sometimes, and they even seemed to incorporate the most recent changes going on in the Avengers comics into this issue for god continuity. Plus, "We're a one-legged man in the butt-kicking contest," might just be Nick Fury's best line in all of Heroes Reborn. Hawkeye's character finally works for me, a first in this new continuity only achieved thanks to everything he's gone thorugh in the Avengers series. On the other hand, Reed's proposal to Susan felt rushed. Understandable given the situation but very weak from a character-building perspective. A pretty good but clearly imperfect start to this storyline overall. They clearly know Heroes Reborn is a walking corpse at this point and aren't afraid to start killing characters off. It's cool in making Galactus a real power and threat, but clearly not designed with the long-term in mind any more. Still, that leads to a pretty cool ending where Galactus wins. Cool issue overall.

Kind of feels like a missed opportunity to have given Logan a hammer. Isn't the Scarecrow a Batman villain? The art is pretty cool but there's not a ton to the story and it doesn't feel that big a part of the Fear Itself event.

These STRIKE guys make for pretty boring enemies on the whole and the whole issue felt very slow-moving. The art is still pretty cool, though. There's a good Wolverine action sequence in here but otherwise this was an awful read.

Very lame as both a tie-in and a standalone Wolverine story, overall.

Man, it is crazy how much more fun the Franken-Castle issues of this crossover are compared to the Dark Wolverine ones. What a difference a creative team makes. This was more intense action that's better paced and has slightly more endearing art. It's still a silly story but tonally it works with something like "Franken-Castle" which is just not that serious an idea to begin with. And a really great ending with Wolverine making a surprise appearance.

This was a very unevenly written crossover arc. Art is a little less impressive in this issue compared to the last Franken-Castle, but there are a few great pages. A lot of the positives are blunted by a very unsatisfying non-ending where everyone walks away from the big fight largely unscathed.

Amazing art, amazing crossover. Pitch perfect and a lot of fun without ever even hinting at overstaying its welcome.

They did two of these crossover comics and both are a lot of fun. I don't think I like Dark Designs quite as much as Heart of Darkness, but both are absolutely worth checking out.

This was a cool read. Very interesting to read now as a Canadian with Trump's annexation threats. Art and story did the job, though never reaching exceptional levels on either count.

It's the last gasp of an era I wasn't terribly keen on revisiting. Heroes Reborn dies here and Marvel marches on to going back to normal. I don't know if there's much point to having a series close out everything other than giving people closure, but that's not a bad thing. It kind of feels like Franklin Richards is just here to wash away all of Marvel's problems, though. His character is kind of annoying and I really don't like what he represents here. This is old news, obviously, but Franklin protecting everyone and bringing them back like this very much cheapens the sacrifices that went into beating Onslaught. Art is decent, at least. The book moves kind of slow but is moderately interesting, I suppose. I like when Man-Thing shows up. It kind of feels good shifting back into the 616 overall, it must have been fun for fans at the time. I do also like the ending where Franklin confronts his much younger and very much unaware Reborn parents.

I have mixed feelings on the art. It's a little cartoony and sometimes doesn't work at all for me, but some parts do feel very warm and Marvel. Some of Loki's dialogue reads less Old Worldly and more... grammatically incoherent? I don't know, it's a weird book with a very specific goal in mind and that mostly works but some of these lines just felt awful and the comic wasn't that fun to get through. The Celestials for all their power are kind of boring so far and don't feel like a great choice to insert into a story like this.

I'm pretty sure Reborn Tony was supposedly dead for years but whatever. At a certain point it feels like we're just getting Heroes Reborn over and done with. The Hulk vs Hulk fight looked kind of cool, at least. It's fun Spider-Man is there for it. Some of the writing is quite underwhelming though. Doom has a really cool entrance this issue, too.

There's something about David's writing in this series that just kind of rubs me the wrong way. It's never bad but does often feel tacky and silly. Still, David at least gives service to a few of the character moments I liked from the Heroes Reborn era, like the bond between Doom, Tony, Reed, and Banner from their college days as the "Atomic Knights" of genius students. The art might be the best in the four part miniseries in this issue. We get a little moment where Thor is turned into a frog and it looks simply glorious. I still found it a little off at times but this was a decent send-off to the Heroes Reborn era... I guess.

I came for a story with Wolverine and the Hulk in it, not rambley, inane content about snakes. Art isn't great, either.

Loved the cover & nothing else. Any story that persistently fails to live up to the premise of its own story is no fun. It takes way too long for Logan and Bruce to do anything, let alone do something that would make for a worthwhile, memorable crossover. The Hulk basically just doesn't show up in this issue. Art is lousy, too.

This issue at least has some stuff happening, but it's still a terrible read. I feel like we are just now meeting our antagonist more than halfway through the story? And it's some guy named Shredder, who really feels like a Lady Deathstrike rip-off. Our main characters still barely feel like a presence in their own story, it's just Shredder looking kind of cool in some of his art.

Wolverine and the Hulk finally engage with each other and it is disappointing on every level. The story once again meanders about snakes before finally having Wolverine and the Hulk duke it out over a few flaccid, awful looking pages. This is some of the worst I've ever seen the Hulk looking. I can't think of anything unique this issue had to offer.

Not exceptional. It wraps up this series and launches us towards a new one. Not terribly satisfying nor do we get a lot of answers, but it was a good issue for the X-Men, I guess.

A nice start to the miniseries. A love the art from start to finish. RB Silva is just so talented. Logan has a great moment in a flashback heroically detonating a bomb since he's the only one that might survive it. The present day story is a little more mid so far but it has an interesting ending.

A significantly more mediocre issue compared to the first. The flashback story fakes us out with Logan stabbing Tony's empty armour, while in the present day, it seems like the whole Cage kid DNA thing is being brushed off pretty quickly.

Loved seeing all the Avengers in Stark armour. Silva remains the reliably best part of the series. Very much a "middle part" story taking us from points A to B, with the only really interesting part being the note this story ends on.

I find Tom Taylor's use of dialogue in this miniseries very jokey and not in a terribly fun way. Otherwise a very underwhelming issue. Not much of an ending at all and even the art while competent was nothing special.

I expected trash but didn't necessarily get trash. The story is kind of dumb but ends this issue on a bang and the art is pretty memorable.

Not very good, but serviceable, I guess. This whole Hunt for Wolverine line seems pretty pointless without any real pay-off to it.

Meh. Not a good end for Daken, but it's not really his end, is it?

Blech. A deeply underwhelming read and experience overall. Not much that hasn't been done before.

While a little rough around the edges, there's a lot to like here. My favourite element is the core idea of the series - some of Logan's closest friends take their part in the investigation into his body's disappearance. This one is all focused on Madripoor, and it's pretty well done. The best part is the art. Rogue reading the letter from Carol was really good, too. I also liked when Knockout called Rogue "Skunkyhead." The worst part is that we kind of jump in and out of flashbacks in a way that felt almost confusing. This felt a lot more fun than the other Hunt for Wolverine comics I've read so far.

I really love the art but the style does make it a little hard to tell who is who this issue. Not nearly as strong as the first issue but does have its moments.

Still very stylish art. It does feel like the series, while promising at the start, lacks purpose like the rest of Hunt for Wolverine.

Oh, this is how they bring back Betsy's original body? It's the right move but this was pretty anticlimactic and came out of nowhere. Art is still pretty good but the distinction between Psylocke's bodies isn't super clear here. Feels like this whole miniseries had nothing to do with Logan, either.

So far, every Hunt for Wolverine starts out promising only to go nowhere fast, so colour me entirely skeptical on this one. This one isn't even that promising, though, as I find it's Soule's brand of post-Wolverine death writing that didn't really work for me.

Cypher's addiction to the internet feels a little too simplistic for me. Doesn't feel like the character we know from other books, unless I'm really out of the loop about him from this era or something. This issue is a little stronger when it leans into the detective vibes a bit, but I know the story is really only going to tell us so much in the entire miniseries. Even with all that working against it, this comic does have its moments.

It was alright. I liked seeing Albert, even for a second, again, which is kind of funny cause Elsie Dee was never my favourite character but I can appreciate the reference just the same. I HATED the fake-out around Cypher's "death" last issue - that was the one moment the series had gotten my attention. Not a fan of this nonsense and the issue was pretty boring.

Earlier I complained the other Hunt for Wolverine stories started with a bang but go out on a whimper. This one is kind of the opposite, starting out pretty lame but ending on a strong note with art that finally caught my attention and some good moments setting up Wolverine's return. This whole Hunt for Wolverine event is entirely unnecessary but this issue had some great moments, at least. The Cypher stuff remains really weird and felt rushed.

A vast improvement over the first two Lifeform stories. This felt like a classic Hulk comic, even with him battling the army at the start. Peter David is just a great writer overall. I love how he lets George the Lifeform narrate this story - it adds valuable perspective to this weird-ass villain. Some of the other stories were a little lacklustre but the bulk of this Hulk did not make me sulk.

Featuring an idea that should be really exciting, this issue left me feeling very disappointed overall.

Not really a huge Secret Wars spoiler, unless you still find connect-the-dots a challenging activity. Great comic overall.

This was boring and weird. It was fun seeing Daredevil show up.

Not loving Nick Fury's dialogue here. It just makes him such a caricature. Everyone's bodies look really weird in this comic. I really enjoyed the scene where Iron Man convinces The Hulk to save everyone, though. That doesn't save it from being an odd, disjointed read.

I really don't love this art style. Iron Man and Thor look so weird, but it does a decent job at making the Mandarin seem otherworldly and intimidating. There's some really good character work between Thor and Tony at least. I like how they kind of are figuring each other out. The rest of the story is alright, as Tony is figuring out his new life as a superhero and Avenger. The ending where Happy is apparently killed by an evil Iron Man doesn't feel very original, though.

It's certainly different from the first two issues of this Galactus story, but not exactly much of an improvement. The art is pretty nice though. Very colourful and dynamic. There's some good character moments with the Hulk and Liz Ross, or with Tony, Pepper, and Happy, too. Even Doom has something going on here I found interesting. It still has that awkward Heroes Reborn writing to it but I did enjoy this one more than I didn't.

Couldn't even finish it. I'm bored. I'm out again.

It's basically just that idea from Buffy the Vampire Slayer, that I'm sure is also ripping something off to begin with, where Laura finds her life as Wolverine was some sort of hallucination and she's living a much more mundane life. The art is very creative, but the story isn't anything new or even that fun.

Not bad. I adored the art but the story was more or less exactly what I predicted. I found the writing around the Badoon left a lot to be desired.

Some pretty awkward art, to be honest. Jean's eyes aren't facing the same direction in one panel very early on and that might have put me off a bit. It's basically just a recap of Logan's life, and given the sheer enormity of continuity that entails, it doesn't seem like a bad thing to have it in one location. Nice ending and it did eventually suck me in to its narration of Logan's journey up to this point.

An okay story mostly focused on Logan's time serving during World War II. Art looked nice.

A decent read. The action was quite dumb and Logan battles a racist soldier which felt insubstantial, but at least there were some neat visuals and a whole atomic bomb.

An alright ending to the miniseries. I think I would can more if time were taken to get us invested in the characters here. As it stands, it was pretty to look at and made me feel nothing.

I didn't know anything about Magdalena going into this, but her character fits really well in a crossover with Daredevil. The art looks great, but the comic is a fairly standard and predictable story with some not-so-great choices in the writing. The demon they fight is fun enough as a villain and it leads to a fairly solid ending.

Fun but a little disappointing after the explosive issue 1.

Good. Really, really good.

It's fine, but not very memorable. And like everyone says a very quick read.

Wow.

A pretty solid issue where Logan visits the X-Mansion and Glob has a date. Very wholesome and even has a great twist, but gets bogged down in Logan talking with a doctor for most of the issue.

What a lovely little issue focused on Glob. Loved the art in this one, too, they put together some great pages.

I quite like this little story with Alpha Flight, Logan, and some creepy monsters. I found the art impressive and the character work really well done. The monster's just okay but the atmosphere of building up to it and finding an empty town where it's been was pretty good.

For a two-part story that had a pretty strong first part, Northern Flight ends on a pretty boring note overall.

This is... not overly entertaining. It's not bad, exactly, but it does feel boring. Nothing terribly interesting has happened thus far. Boring action and boring dialogue.

A decent but slightly poorly written start to the Lifeform storyline.

A somewhat baffling read with a dated sense of humour. It's kind of jaw-dropping but not always in a bad way. I really like the art of this book and do admire just how brutal some of the content is here. After reading a bunch of 90s books this is refreshing. There's a serial killer running around chopping off legs (or something) and the Punisher was fully ready to immolate Wolverine. I am here for it.

Oh boy, so it's people with dwarfism actually cutting off legs? I had fun last issue but this is... something else. Not even sure what to make of that, actually. I kind of get where the villain is coming from, even, what happened to him was insanely cruel. Some of the more dated elements in the writing really come to the fore here in a way that's impossible to ignore. This comic really feels like it is trying to be edgy and instead it is kind of just... lame. Childish and cartoony, even, though I admit aspects of this comic and art still make it at least a little fun. The Punisher runs over Wolverine with a steamroller at the end and I can appreciate good art when I see it.

A decent read. It's been a while since I've read a fun Dixon comic, so that was nice. I do enjoy the set-up of the Punisher coming in to this big crime meeting along with the other heroes in this crossover story, but it isn't the most impressive issue, either. For Dixon this writing felt just okay.

A solid read overall. I like how this comic fits in with some of the other stuff we've seen in Dead Man's Hand so far, and I really thought it was interesting reading the Punisher's thoughts on holding a baby after it having been many years since he had done such a thing. A great comic!

Though the Daredevil comics are messy, Nomad and Punisher War Journal deliver a fun time. Dead Man's Hand runs long at nine issues but thanks to Nicenza's Nomad and Dixon's work here, it's pretty entertaining and didn't feel like a long read. This issue was a fun ending to it all, even if it didn't really feel like a big ending we were building to, it was a solid enough wrap-up that matched the tone of the crossover.

Amazing black and white art throughout. Story 1 - Logan winds up in Korea doing Logan things. Story is... alright. A little slow and almost incomplete of an idea, but an interesting ending where Logan drowns a guy pretty brutally. Story 2 - A HYDRA agent has been stationed on an island for a year, killing anyone who approaches while HYDRA does whatever on a base hidden here. His latest target - Wolverine. Amazing premise and art. Really well executed overall. More stories should make Logan the antagonist like this. Story 3 - An interesting side to this anthology that was once supposed to be the start of a magazine. This is mostly prose with some art to accompany it. It follows up on the last story as Logan investigates the island the sniper was on. I like that idea, and Robin Furth's prose is a nice change of pace from more traditional comic book storytelling that works in an anthology piece like this. Yet it kind of doesn't draw on that stuff and Logan winds up fighting a spider creature. Meh. Story 4 - Art and writing by Ted McKeever. Very distinct type of storytelling as Logan is on yet another deserted island. Not a huge fan of this one. Logan fights a bunch of baboons and it doesn't look good while the writing feels minimal at best. Easily the worst of the four.

After all the Hunt for Wolverine stuff this focus on Soteria is no surprise, but I don't find them that interesting, either. The action was a bit of unhinged fun, at least, and Return of Wolverine starts us off with a bit of a bang. Outside of the action though I haven't found much depth in Soule's time with the Wolverine title.

For a five issue miniseries I absolutely would have preferred a more consistent art team. The shift to Shalvey is immediately jarring. This Persephone story already feels like a chore, including her faceless goons that are just clones of Wolverine villains. Still, Logan's heated claws and the way they depict him unlocking parts of himself in his own mind at least are faintly interesting. Throwing in another one-off romance like this feels repetitive and rushed. This series is trying to do too much, I feel.

Wait, so that was really Daken earlier? Now I'm getting a little confused about what Persephone is supposed to be. This issue has some moments, at least, but it's a weird mid-part, for sure.

We start off with an exposition dump, but at least it is an interesting exposition dump. Still, I can't help but feel this series is largely a waste of time. Persephone finally is at least somewhat interesting.

I feel this story is so poorly paced the ending was always going to inevitably feel rushed and truncated emotionally. The writing really feels overblown this issue. I didn't like this series much at all, but there are satisfying elements to the ending even if they are quite flawed.

Logan has had many adventures in the Savage Land before, but even then I feel this one manages to stand out visually and in its story telling. Refreshingly brutal, but maybe a little heavy on unnecessary narration. Shanna's bickering with Wolverine also felt weird.

Art is okay... but it's very Frank Cho, to a fault. I don't love this writing style either. A little silly and not in a fun way.

I don't mind sexuality in comics but these Frank Cho books are horny as hell. Some of it is very clunky and slow-moving - almost painful to get through. It's nice to have Amadeus Cho show up in a story like this especially the way he writes that native tribe... Why does Logan and Shanna feel like they are in a children's cartoon?

I'm not really enjoying these but it is competent art and writing, at least. It's practically pornographic at times, though, and given Cho's history I'm not too far off here. Not a huge fan of Cho's dialogue, either. It's a bit exhausting after a while. The giant gorilla fight, while brief, was the only bit of fun I got.

Love the opening here with the Hulk. A gorilla tries to bite his head off - that was great and I liked how he interacted with Amadeus and Wolverine too. Shanna looks particularly over-the-top in a few pages, though that pales in comparison to the real issue. This is a really, REALLY dumb ending with aliens and nothing to do with any of our characters.

I really like the idea of this series looking at Logan at different periods in his life and that one such arc focuses on his time with the Avengers. The creative team have a solid handle on this so far. Logan, Spider-Man, Elektra, and Kingpin are all really well done here.

Maybe not nearly as on point as I found last issue, this one is still fun. Solid art style by Madureira.

It's a little rough and tumble. I don't like how they advertised Spider-Man at the start of this arc if he was barely going to be in it. But it's a fun story for Kingpin and not really anyone else.

Wow, the art looks so cool at this opening! It's Logan in space, which has a lot of potential to be a nice change of pace with this series. It's a bit of a weird one that doesn't explain itself much but it is unambiguously alien, visually interesting, and so far pretty fun.

Pretty fun space stuff. Not a lot of story but it looks great.

I love all the glitz and glamour of the sci-fi art, but this really kind of boils down to another telegraphed and kind of obvious clone story. I love the bleak ending, though.

I love the opening depicting Logan meeting a herd of elephants. The rest of the issue having him go up against poachers just plain works. It does kind of jump around a bit but I like the idea of how it ties to Madripoor. Curious to see how next issue goes.

It kind of feels like the story got out of scope here. This works as a concept where Logan is going against poacher. Once we're adding in the X-Men and elephant languages it loses me a bit. Still, that image of an elephant walking away along with the rest of her herd only in spirit was haunting.

Like the art, time period, and setting. It's Logan in prohibition times smuggling stuff in Canada, I found it quite unique and compelling. Wolverine's character is not very savage, though.

The boat voyage depicted on here could have been a good opportunity but isn't explored well in the art or the writing. A big step down from last issue.

We're stepping back up in quality with some really engaging, well-drawn violence. It's pretty good even if it goes on a little long for my tastes.

The quality of this story arc has kind of been all over the place, but I think I liked Wrath more than I didn't. There really are some beautiful pages here, but this issue in particular is dialogue-heavy. Once we get to the final fight with the crazy guy though, it is appropriately brutal. Wrath as a whole is probably worth the read even if it is rough around the edges.

It's a story of Logan in 1963. A perfectly fine standalone adventure. A little silly at times but not a bad read, either.

This is fun in that it has Wolverine and Jubilee together. The story itself is pretty boring - they get captured and showed an ideal fantasy while they are experimented on, then Logan breaks them out. But some of the art and even some elements of the writing make up for that, a bit. Other elements look and feel really tired or dated. Nothing special but not terrible either.

I am really digging the loose anthology structure of this series. Ruiz's art is great here. Writing was quite cliche, though it won me over, more or less. It's Wolverine vs. Al Capone at one point, so that was cool. Is Wolverine supposed to have metal claws here? That part was... well, whatever, we're having fun and I don't understand Logan's timeline at all anyways. Sabretooth was a welcome appearance.

A flashback story looking at Logan's time in World War I. I love the art and how Quinones visualizes this time period. Story is more mid.

This second issue is more of what I wanted out of a World War I Logan story. He's being Wolverine in the trenches and the art does a decent job living up to that idea. The story beyond the action is just so-so, though.

This issue opens up really strong visually and in the text, with Logan being hunted by people in the Canadian wilderness with drugs that can actually harm him. Very stunning art and a nice, quiet, dark, emotional and bloody issue to end the series on. It is a little weird and I had to check it was even standalone, the way it kind of just plops you into the middle of a story, but I had a great time reading this overall.

A pretty great ending to a very weird crossover story. A little awkward in the writing but it lives up to the power of the Silver Surfer and was pretty cool how the Lifeform is finally defeated.

Incredible art for the most part and a fun issue for the Surfer who battles against a maddened Thor. Thor's character work kind of stinks just because he is completely out of my mind but I can appreciate an epic space fight when I get one and even though the character work isn't great there are some banger lines in this comic and it does a good job at piquing my curiosity when it comes to what is happening with Thor and the Valkyrie he keeps hallucinating. Andy Smith's art is great but Sif's costume looks a little ridiculous here. Additionally, the ending kind of hit the formula of the first Blood and Thunder issue as this comic ends with yet another new challenger (Adam Warlock) appearing to challenge Thor. Let's hope this doesn't become a pattern for too long in this giant story arc.

There's some really lovely art in this book. The opening with Surfer and Adam outside of the Sanctum Sanctorum in the rain and then travelling through Doctor Strange's home was a truly beautiful series of pages with a lot of imaginative little moments as they stumble on portals and other magical events. It takes like ten pages to introduce Doctor Strange but I absolutely loved the ride. Once Stephen does show up, the momentum of the book sadly grinds to a halt as we have to slowly explain to him what we as a reader should already know about Thor. Still, the book has its moments.

It's Thanos vs Thor, and that's fun, but I feel like we deliberately skip pass a lot of the dialogue and even action in favour of Pip narrating a lot of the story. It's a little disappointing in spite of some exciting art here and there.

I mostly like the soft inks and loose design of the art, though facial expressions are pretty inconsistent. The writing leaves a lot more to be desired.

Oof. I didn't mind the first issue as much as this one. Art and writing made this less than fun to get through. There's a glimmer of joy from Spider-Man here but both heroes just look awful. I've never seen hair so poorly defined or inconsistent. It almost feels incomplete.

It's a cute ending but a little drawn out and not terribly engaging in getting us to that last moment. I do like that twist with Aunt May, though, it definitely adds something to the series.

That was one well of an opening. Some of the writing is quite silly but at least that kind of fits the tone of Spider-Man. It's a little sad to see how little has changed for these two characters, though. Love the bit where the two get flashes of each others memories, and the villain duo of Omega Red and Kraven felt like classic superhero team-up stuff. That ending took me by surprise, but in a good way. In a world with lots of secret spies and assassins, it does make sense that Peter's parents would be lost to somebody we know, be it Wolverine, Winter Soldier, Black Widow, or any number of other options.

A very raw and emotional comic for Peter Parker. Very strong art and writing overall. The writing in particular improves from last issue as we drop all the tacky jokey lines and deal with something serious.

Another really strong issue. The Savage Land is great and the writing does a good job showing Peter and Logan come to terms with everything they've just learned. The humour is back but I actually found it charming this time.

I liked the first few issues, but as focused shifts to this Dreadshadow villain, I'm a little less impressed. There's an interesting story here with Peter's parents and I feel like we are getting distracted away from that. I do like the ending with Theresa's surprise entrance, at least.

Well, after an arc kind of hyping him up, I found Dreadshadow's story quite underwhelming. The idea of Spider-Man saving a villain's life only for that villain to go on and harm someone else is interesting, but it feels like a lot to put the blame of the villain's actions on Peter. It could have been interesting but we dump the whole idea on this one single issue and it makes a lot of the past stuff again feel like a distraction from the deeper story about Peter and Theresa's parents. Even then, it feels like that issue was resolved way too easily. Also, I don't really understand how Logan was supposed to survive a Muramasa bullet. So dumb. At least the art is cool.

Full recap/review: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=77xXQ223zfM

Wow. This was awesome. A little rushed, but I don't even care. Too much to enjoy. I'm actually pretty excited for Spiderverse. I honestly have no idea why people have any sort of problem with this issue. So much awesome!

Fun!

I had a lot of fun reading this.

A competently made, seriously flawed issue.

Terrible comic, even for free. This is what is supposed to draw people in? The stories been done before, and to make things particularly disappointing, there are a few names attached to this thing that I really like. What a waste.

This is alright. As the first Thor comic of the 90s, this works pretty well as a sort of flashback issue going over key moments in Thor history up until this point. I like the art and writing more than I don't. The art especially does some cool stuff in this comic, but obviously it is nothing that new to the series since this is mostly a recap of existing content. I like the idea of a back-up story focused on Hogun, as it feels like these Thor characters never get enough time in the sun, but the story is pretty short and insubstantial.

This issue opens with some killer art. The Eric Masterson stuff is weird but this comic leans into its weirdness quite effectively. Though I found some of the dialogue and pacing of the story to be a bit clunky and even bloated. The Dark Dweller was an interesting villain in both writing and design. The back-up story with Fandrall felt a lot weaker. He just takes a guy to visit her mother? Weird.

I was skeptical going into this one after not having a great time with the previous issue. But this was sincerely fun when a mind-controlled Hercules attacks Thor. That's a good old-fashioned god-brawl and I'm here for it. The dialogue isn't great, though. Thor worrying about child-care in the middle of all of this feels out of place. I kind of started checking out when the High Evolutionary showed up. He's not a good thing for this series and things already seem to spiral out of control the moment he shows up. The Dark Dweller feels like an after-thought by the end of this issue.

I like the focus on Hercules' psychology at the start of the comic. I found the art pretty consistently impressive, too. The Eric Masterson human drama kind of feels out of place and like its come out of nowhere. It is odd focusing on his family when I don't feel we've really gotten to know them much nor do they strike me as overly interesting characters. That being said, Eric going through a custody battle does feel like a pretty interesting dilemma for a superhero. The Wrecking Crew break-out scene felt very... comic booky. They break out Wrecker only for the villain to reveal he could have escaped at any time, and they only do that to reveal the presence of Ulik. It just doesn't read as organic of a moment and then leads to the rest of the Crew to try and turn on Wrecker, only for him to reveal he was just kind of testing them. That's dumb, but at least Ulik teaching Wrecker new powers was an idea to drive the rest of the issue forward as Hercules is confronted by them while wrestling with trauma from their last encounter. Some of that dialogue is just so on the nose, though I did like Thor intentionally losing to help Hercules get his confidence back. That's a good moment. The back-up story with Sif was more middling in quality but I liked that art, too. Overall this issue isn't perfect but definitely felt worthy of a read.

I really like the opening with The Watcher. The art overall is very consistently cool, too. I still have mixed feelings around the status quo of Thor around this time, though. It's very comic booky with lots of moving parts, villains making moves, secret identities, and plenty of characters, but there's not a ton of fun to be had in these moments or much of substance going on. It seems to just be setting up the big story arc going forward, which is fine, I guess. Back-up story was an interesting look at Odin that implies his nature to be positively demonic. That's something.

Once again this issue has a strong opening, this time with Captain America. I like the art and the action too as Thor faces a space guy here. The Avengers show up in a fun way, too. The Odin back-up is great again, too. Really striking art and some good old-fashioned comic book fun as it appears Loki is posing as his adoptive father.

I still like the art but the main story is pretty meh here. The fight with the space gal drags on way too much. He's not that interesting for a supposed Celestial Slayer. It still feels like we're setting up the Black Galaxy stuff multiple issues in. The character stuff with Eric's kid is pretty well done, at least. Not much to the back-up story, either.

We finally get to the Black Galaxy in the Black Galaxy Saga, and it is at least fairly impressive. The High Evolutionary remains such a weird presence in this series. The art is alright and does have its moments but some of the colouring felt off with the High Evolutionary. Nobilus' story was interesting but underwhelming. The back-up story is interesting in that they keep teasing Ragnarok but feels somehow both rushed and dragged out across issues.

This opens to a bit of a snooze-fest as Thor battles Nobilus. I didn't much enjoy the writing or art here, but at least it draws on the Celestial Slayer form earlier. For a story arc named after the Black Galaxy we sure haven't explored the setting that much or focused the story on it at all. The dialogue especially feels like a bit of a drag. The confrontation with the Red Celestial does add something to the story and poses to really shake things up a bit. Back-up story was a pretty solid depiction of Ymir battling Asgardians.

For some pretty big cosmic stuff to happen this issue with the Celestials, I sure did find a lot of this underwhelming. Some of the art and dialogue felt pretty clunky and hard to follow. The actual birth of a Celestial that takes place here was at least very well done, though. It's everything around it that I didn't care for. At this point the back-up story is more interesting, with a full-blown battle between Surtur and Ymir happening.

I'm of very mixed feelings for this issue. I love how the back-up story collides with the main story, but it really showcases how cluttered and full of characters the main story has been. We spend a lot of time wrapping up the Black Galaxy stuff and it isn't terribly exciting as we say goodbye (for now) to the High Evolutionary and his weird creations. Once we get past all that nonsense, though, Thor fights some of his greatest enemies, the art is pretty solid, and we wind up with a relatively decent issue of Thor, I guess. A lot of it is full of exposition though, a lot of telling and not showing, leading to an experience that felt way too dialogue heavy. Plus the way that Thor defeats the villains with a giant sword didn't really work for me - it felt very rushed. Still, there are some solid moments and it feels like a real end to a chapter in Thor history. There's even a decent character moment with Eric and Thor.

I feel like Thor hasn't been to Asgard for a while, so it's nice to have him here for a big victory celebration after the Black Galaxy content. Hercules staying on Asgard while Thor plans to return to Earth feels a little abrupt but whatever, this series already has enough characters floating around. I like the Asgardian moments we get here like Sif being pursued by this Celtic guy. The Wrecking Crew returning actually had weight thanks to their power-up last time they showed up, that's something. This comic also introduces Code Blue, a police squad specifically designated with fighting superpowered threats. It's a neat idea, but a little out of place in a Thor comic. The back-up story with Earth Lord was... weird. Still I enjoyed this comic.

It is kind of funny looking back on these books these days as Thor's secret identity feels entirely unnecessary. Yet in spite of that I think this issue opens with a really touching, well-made set of scenes all about Eric Masterson returning home after a prolonged adventure to the Black Galaxy. I also liked how Excalibur is brought into the story investigating an earlier incident between Thor and the Juggernaut. Compared to other 90s Thor comics, this little story ark is doing pretty good so far, but the era's flaws are still very present. Throwing in Code Blue, the Wrecking Crew, the Enchantress, and Ulik on top of all this felt like a little too much, though. This series just cannot focus on a few good characters to save its life. It's fun I guess especially when Excalibur takes on the Wrecking Crew, only for the Wrecker to trick Excalibur into thinking Thor is the Juggernaut. That's a classic superhero vs. superhero kind of plot, but the art being inconsistent doesn't help with even that reading great.

I had fun last issue but now the action seems to have taken a bit of a dip in overall quality. Possibly because of how elaborate and drawn out it feels with several different factions all vying for attention this story arc. Like last issue, I found the art inconsistent, but when it is good, it is good.

A while back, Thor stranded the Juggnaut on an asteroid. Now the villain has taken over an alien world and it is up to Odinson and Excalibur to stop him. It starts off pretty fun but it does feel like instead of focusing on a good thing we're also stuck spending time back on Earth with the Wrecking Crew and Code Blue. The first plot-line is distinctly more entertaining than the other stuff, even with Ghost Rider appearing in the Code Blue part of the story. And even then, the stuff between Juggernaut and Thor read a little clunky to me and it leads to yet another fight that feels drawn out in this story arc with some pretty lame backgrounds throughout the battle that completely lack any sense of detail. I do like how Thor is able to briefly drain Juggernaut's powers and almost defeat him, though. That felt pretty well done and satisfying in a way that made Thor's character seem wise.

Visually stunning but pretty simple and slow story-wise. Loki bargaining with Mephisto was extremely cool, at least, with some great foreshadowing to it and Frenz's art just continues to deliver. Some of the writing around Eric's family felt weird this issue and I feel the comic didn't have the time to give Ghost Rider the attention he deserved. I do like Loki taking the powers of the Wrecking Crew one by one, though. He's been getting some good build-up in these issues and is pretty fun in this issue overall.

I like this opening with Loki draining the Wrecker's powers. The writing and art of these comics post Black Galaxy have been pretty fun overall but I think this issue let me down a bit. Some of the story is a little clunky in its pacing, often making the book feel a little slow. I appreciate the character development - I wish this Eric character stuff were a bit more consistently developed, but constantly cutting back to Loki playing with the Wrecker got old to me. It feels like Eric's character is constantly ignored for long periods of time in the series and we still don't really get enough of it here. There's good stuff when he's trying to pull his life back together but almost immediately we're veering into a "Eric's son has been kidnapped plot." I wished I liked this more. The art is pretty damn cool. The Ulik fight was not. Powered up Loki was practically animalistic and I did enjoy that. It's nice to see a longstanding menace get some power in a way that's actually earned.

I'm always a bit of a sucker for some wintertime Christmassy art! I'll also take good character work for Eric Masterson, which I feel we get at the start of this issue. "Good character work" might be a little charitble but it certainly wasn't bad at least. Then Thor battles a muscled up version of the Grinch called the "Groonk." Honestly a fun choice for a Christmas comic, in my opinion. Versions of Max and Cindu Lou even show up! Groonk even has a pretty touching story when we get right down to it. I liked this a lot even if the story was simple at times (like Captain America's brief appearance didn't add much).

I've heard a lot about Blood and Thunder so am really curious about this arc. It starts out okay but I don't love Bruce Zick's art here. The backgrounds, costumes, and space itself can look amazing but facial expressions are way off. Ron Marz's writing is pretty fun, at least. Thor is going bananas and it is pretty fun seeing such a powerful superhero kind of losing it and fighting two close friends in Sif and Beta Ray Bill. There is some good action sequences and character work in there, and a beautiful splash page that might make this comic worth checking out all on its own. There's not a lot to the plot past that, though, and "madness" really only works so well as a writing trope these days, I feel. I'm not going to pretend I didn't have fun, though.

Now that we've set up this sprawling crossover story, Blood and Thunder plugs along with all its characters a little more freely. This Thor issue opening with the Infinity Watch is pretty interesting, so long as you've been reading all the parts of Blood and Thunder in the correct order. The art is alright but we are really jumping around different art styles across the four series involved with this crossover and that can be quite distracting. Once we get to Thor in space though, Wyman's work here is memorable and even a bit stunning. It's annoying how Thor has just been battling once character after another in this same random point in space, but at least it looked cool with Thor battling the Infinity Watch this issue. It's quite interesting how Valkyrie directly participates in this battle, too. There's a mystery here about her and I do find it compelling. Thor getting an Infinity Stone at the end of this is a hell of an ending to Thor #469 given that nobody could beat him as things were already.

I feel like the story has been spinning its wheels for the last few issues, but we finally have Thor empowered by the Infinity Stone rampaging in Asgard as promised. I quite like the art here. It's vivid with colour and dynamic in structure. The action of Thor bouncing up against the Infinity Guard again was a little underwhelming, though. There's a lot of movement in the art but the story felt kind of slow. Love the ending with Thanos, at least. Blood and Thunder has some good cliffhangers even if it is just dropping new characters into the story. It feels like a real escalation.

Pretty cool issue where Odin delves into the mind of Thor. Beautiful art and an interesting story. Wish it didn't take 12 issues for us to get there but I quite liked the father-son writing.

Roy Thomas' Thor has been pretty consistently underwhelming, unfortunately. This is pretty cringe dialogue and there's something just off about Thor working with such an obvious villain like this, helping create these "Godlings." It just doesn't really work as a plot of me and just starts piling on too many characters this issue. The art is phenomenal, at least, but at a certain point I just wanted this comic to end because the story just turns into a total mess by the end.

Thor shows off a new outfit in this issue and it is extremely 90s cheese. It makes me think he's wearing a giant dickie or bib. This issue is a lot like the other Thomas/Wyman comics - interesting but somewhat inconsistent and clumsy art, too many characters, too much going on. The flow between panels isn't great, either, and some of the dialogue feels unnecessary. The Destroyer shows up with a cool entrance and decent fight scene, so that's something.

The art around the Destroyer battle is really well done, and this issue feels slightly more focused than some of the other Roy Thomas Thor comics. The dialogue still doesn't really work for me, it's too wordy and slows the comic's action down. Once all the other characters in this series show up in the latter half things take a turn for the worse in terms of fun. At that point everything starts to really drag on, especially the stuff with the Destroyer who is defeated through really convoluted means I don't think paid off well at all.

I really like the art at the beginning as Thor reforges Mjolnir. The rest of the issue however is mostly dedicated to Thor, Odin, and Red Norvell yelling at each other about Donald Blake and Red becoming Thor. It's not very compelling and Red's dialogue is pretty cheesy. Things get worse as that conversation just leads to Odin dumping some exposition (but at least that comes with the return of some creative imagery and a somewhat interesting flashback). Then Thor and Red duke it out and it's not great. Still, this comic does have little moments that make it kind of a fun and quite a bit does happen here.

This has a decent start with Thor battling a fighter plane above Europe. I really liked the art for that and it hits that 90s sense of style quite well. The rest of the comic is much leader, with Thor and the High Evolutionary chatting while the latter's creations, the Godpack, watches on and provides commentary. The cast is way too cluttered for that sort of thing to work at all. Some of the dialogue is quite clunky while Thor comes across as quite childish. The art also loses its polish after the more focused and cleaner looking opening. One upside is quite a bit does go on in this comic for a single issue.

This era of Thor working with the High Evolutionary is cluttered with too many characters and devoid of enough fun to really be enjoyed. It's a bit of a shame. I like Roy Thomas normally. Art isn't very impressive, either, often not working for me well with the substandard writing. Thor's design here is awful, although a couple of panels stand out at showing Thor's expressions nicely. They do something fun in that Thor and the High Evolutionary are attacked by the same rock-people from Thor's first comic appearance, which happened 400 issues ago. I wish it was more of an enjoyable experience though, as the High Evolutionary's creations take up a lot of space in this comic for nothing gained. There's also way too much exposition in the later half of the comic after the rock people are defeated. Donald Blake being separate character from Thor and having him with Jane Foster and her kid adds to this feeling of bloat, but I guess we resolve that here. There's way too much going on in this comic for that moment to have any weight, though, and we end up overly focused on Thor and the Godpack fighting some High Evolutionary creation dude living in space and wearing only underwear. It'd dumb, extremely clunky, and way too drawn out thanks to this comic's supersized nature. Back-up story with Red Novell and Sif was just okay, kind of boring. There's another with the Warriors Three that's more fun as they battle a monster. It's a lot cuter than anything else in this mess.

This comic's story is very awkwardly structured. We jump back in time after spending way too long with a fight between Thor and Loki. The Godpack and High Evolutionary remain absolutely boring and are a big part of why these books feel overstuffed with characters. I also think the logic of Thor and Loki coming to blows after just making a deal together is very odd narratively. I don't love the art design's but Loki's armour has some potential and it leads to a neat dynamic where Thor can't just overpower him.

Sandu Florea's art really stands out in this issue compared to the comics that have come out around this time, in my opinion. Odin and the Asgardians worrying about Ragnarok was okay, but once again High Evolutionary and his full cast of characters are a real nuisance, adding little to the story. I still don't understand why Thor tolerates this guy as he really feels like a standard villain. And having Godpack, Animutants, New Men, and New Immortals is all obviously too much even though they are all obviously pretty much the same thing. I do like when Blitziana gets some of her old memories, at least. If she were only among a small number of characters that mattered in the High Evolutionary's circle of people, I feel this character could have had some narrative weight to her. Loki controlling War Machine, forcing the hero to attack Thor and Sif was more entertaining than not. It leads to a huge exposition dump but at least there are some cool visuals to back it up. The action itself varies in quality quite a bit though, and it feels like Sif gets forgotten about for a huge chunk of the comic. It's not the best comic in the world but it isn't the worst, either.

I generally like Wyman's art here but the story feels like the same old boring stuff from this era, coupled with a buttload of exposition. On the other hand, The Thing is pretty fun here being manipulated by Lorelei and Malekith, and it's nice to have a comic not dragged down by the Godpack and High Evolutionary. It feels like Eric Masterson is barely even a presence in these books, though.

I quite like the opening to this where Thor is stopping a bank robbery. This era seems lacking in little superhero moments like this to fill in his character a little more. Kurse jumping through the World Tree looked cool as hell, that felt very creative. It's quite the moment when he even overpowers Hela. All that momentum is immediately lost once the focus shifts back to Thor, but before then, it's quite the introduction for a villain in an arc like this. It doesn't seem like the rest of the arc will pay off, but this is a really fun start.

This comic opens with what I found to be some pretty bold artwork and quite the premise - it's Hel on Earth - various beings of Asgardian mythology who have appeared on Earth, and only Thor can stop them! I've struggled with a lot of Thor books from this era but this one was at least a little fun and felt a little closer to what I might expect out of a Thor comic. I found a lot of panels really ambitious and quite well done as they depict these giant monsters ravaging Earth. It's still not great, and still bogged down by Godpack nonsense, but it at least was a little entertaining.

This story arc is pretty fun compared to what I've read out of the Roy Thomas era. Probably because the Godpack characters aren't that involved. Beta Ray Bill some cool moments here and that's always a huge plus. Kurse also feels like a real menace. I'm having fun more than I'm not and this arc feels like a real event with so much going on with Earth's invasion. Thor agreeing to go to Hela felt a little forced but not out of the character of mythological storytelling in the real world, so I give it a bit of a pass.

The Hulk is here, and that matters with the way the art is popping this issue. It also makes for an interesting plot dynamic as Hulk goes to Hel to save Thor. It's pretty fun overall even if the writing isn't perfect, with some of Hela's lines feeling a bit awkward to me. The ending with Kurse didn't feel like it amounted to much, nor did the resolution of Thor's stay in Hel.

This is indeed a strange comic where Thor seems willing to overlook Enchantresses' continued villainy for the sake of a romantic relationship. It gets incredibly awkward at times as it is a huge plot point in the story once the two wake up in Central Park to find all magic in the world suddenly gone. The art is pretty inconsistent and the dialogue is okay at best, but there are some flaws in even the grammar. There's a really well done fight scene where a powerless Thor fights a gang of thugs, though.

This started alright but completely falls apart. Two wannabe superheroes attack Thor, thinking he's still without powers. It doesn't go very well for them. This was fun but definitely could have been done better. Things start to look sloppy very quickly and I don't like the art style here.

There's very weak connective tissue within this story arc, but these comics don't make sense alone, either. It's not a great read. Art remains all over the place in terms of quality. Dialogue and writing is worse. Thor gets hired by some rich people. Again it is a plot point that could be interesting but it is executed terribly and the rich characters are awful.

Last issue ended with an interesting twist where Odin got a hold of his old sword and everyone seemed to teleport somewhere primordial and changed clothes. This issue pays that off with a boring-ass battle and seemingly a trip into an alternate Asgard. It's alright. Deodato's art is at least something even if his depiction of humans is a little ridiculous. He's certainly a welcome addition to close out this series and the alternate Asgard is a welcome change of pace for the story arc, but I'm not convinced it will be enough to salvage this run.

Reading the issues leading up to this, I've been kind of worried about what this big anniversary comic is going to be like. Deodato's art makes it feel at least a little special and I'm curious what's going on with this devastated Asgard Thor finds himself in. I thought it was an alternate reality but now I'm not so sure. Either way this feels like a huge step up in quality compared to what came before it. It's not great but it is a lot better.

This story arc has interesting ideas but Messner-Loebs really fails to consistently deliver on them. It was so unclear what was going on with Asgard that the stakes of the story aren't really conveyed well. Even the purpose of that sword seems badly explained. I had hoped for better. It feels like the team went all out for the #500 and we've settled back into this malaise. It's so awkward and clunky and fails to do that essential comic book thing of flowing one panel into the next.

On the nose writing that is closing out the Thor series with one hand and doing Onslaught things with the other, kind of failing at both. This reads like a mess.

My full recap/review: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=37x_9YnGqlg&list=UU9Anx3CRncARu-Utf_Yaf3A

So, you'll spend this entire issue knowing exactly how it's going to end, but it still remains totally entertaining. This comic series has won me over, and it is a real shame to see Soule exit. Still, this was a fun ride, and I enjoyed it. Though I'm reluctant to continue reading unless the new writer can bring the same strong sense of characters and fun atmosphere as Soule has.

I've always liked Jimmy Hudson and so far this issue starts off the miniseries on pretty solid ground overall. It's nothing too significant but it works for me. Art is a bit mid-range for my tastes.