Welcome back, Donist World Denizens! For those of you new to our site, I’m Donist, and I am joined by Donist World CFO the Reverse Obie* (my friends’ Boston terrier whose fur recently swapped colors) and by our marketing director/administrative assistant/party planner/pumpkin-spice-is-nice Tulip (my dog, Reverse Obie’s sister). Happy birthday to me. Happy birthday to me. Happy birthday dear Donist. Happy birthday to me. Care to take a guess as to whose birthday it is? Yup, you guessed it, it’s mine. Once again, I have turned 29 years old. I think I’ve had like five, or ten, or twenty 29 year old birthdays, but who’s counting. Last night, Amy the intern (my wife), Tulip, and Reverse Obie and I celebrated with some fancy-pants sushi and a barrel-aged pumpkin ale from Bottle Logic which was kind of mind-blowing. All in all, it was a pretty dang good day…until I received a fraud alert that someone was trying to order $53 worth of food with my credit card number from a place called The Shake Shack in New York. <sigh> F_ those D_bags. Anyhow, I won’t let that stop me from living it up. So, take a breath, let your shoulders relax, grab a refreshing beer (or 15+ beer samples) and some tacos, sit back, and afterward check out some great comics. Thank you for reading!
*Obie, through his dabbling in arcane magics mixed with ancient corrupt business practices, has had not just the colors of his fur switched, but a complete overhaul of his work ethic as well…I think I’m kinda okay with the mishap.
***Possible Spoilers Below***
Friday Slice of Heaven
(Written by Jonathan Hickman, illustrated by Pepe Lara’s, colored by Marte Garcia, lettered by VC’s Clayton Cowles, designs by Tom Muller, published by Marvel Comics)
Dang, it feels like this event only just began and after reading this penultimate issue (the final issue of
House of X with this week’s final issue of
Powers of X being the conclusion of both that series and the event) I can already say I’m going to miss it. Hickman’s story has not only been compelling enough to make me buy a weekly comic but one that brought me back into the X-Men fold while making me want to continue along the journey for at least one or two of the many titles to come in the aftermath of whatever happens this Wednesday. And I CANNOT WAIT to be there for it all. Here, Xavier, with Magneto and Moira at his side, tells the world’s humans of the wondrous offerings he has for them…and the price humanity must pay to attain them. It’s not a great price, but it is a price none-the-less. We also see the first meeting of the Quiet Council of Krakoa, with all but one member—the mysterious “Red King”—in attendance, as they draw up their first laws and pass down their first judgment for a grievous crime. Then, the mutants celebrate. Not a single punch is thrown, not one mutant power is fired against another mutant or human. It is almost all talking and revelry and because of Hickman’s masterful pacing and characterizations, senseless brawling would have greatly diminished the impact of this issue. During Xavier’s address to the world, I could not help but mutter aloud “Oh my god, what?!” as I could not believe what was actually going down and that Xavier was the one actually leading the charge. I can’t remember the last time a Marvel comic has left me pondering the transpirings within its pages and, man, do I have questions: Who is the Red King? Why has Moira been so utterly quiet for the past few issues after being such a major component of the first quarter of the event? What happened in Moira’s 6th timeline? Why do we continue to not see Xavier’s face? Has Doug Ramsey somehow
infected Krakoa with technology? What about Krakoa’s sibling and the original Four Horsemen? I’m sure I will have other questions come to mind and ideas as to what has happened and what is going to happen as I go about the days leading up to new comic Wednesday, and that is where the true power of this series lies; it remains with you long after setting the book down. I can already imagine December’s
hardcover collection sitting upon my favorite shelf.
VERY HIGHLY RECOMMENDED!
(Written by Al Ewing; illustrated by Joe Bennett; inked by Ruy Jose, Belardino Brabo, Marc Deering, and Roberto Poggi; colored by Paul Mounts, published by Marvel Comics)
The Immortal Hulk is still my favorite current Marvel series. If you had told me I would be saying that a few years ago, I would have laughed in your face. “Ha ha ha, look at me, I’m laughing in your face!” In fact, a few years ago, I wasn’t buying
any Marvel comics. None. Now, I’m grooving with The Hulk, The X-Men, Venom, The Guardians of the Galaxy, The Silver Surfer and I am loving them all.
The Immortal Hulk is everything and more that Ewing promised before the first issue debuted: a supernatural, horror-tinged comic about a former “superhero.” This title is unnerving from one moment to the next as it embraces legitimate scares and even body horror as The Hulk combats General Fortean who has been fused into the body of The Abomination to form an acid-spewing, hands-for-a-face…well, Abomination. The fight is as brutal as it is disgusting as The Hulk tears away his melting flesh and flings the caustic bits at the hapless enemy soldiers. That said, this isn’t usually the type of thing I like or enjoy seeing despite my love of good horror, but Ewing perfectly fits these gross-out moments into various scenes and does not linger or go overboard on them. Something shocking happens. You gasp. The story moves on before you have time to dwell. And nothing gives these sequences more intensity than Bennett’s oh-so-gorgeous art. Not even four inkers—yes, I noticed variations in the slightly different look of the pages—can detract from the beauty (even during the more grotesque imagery) of his storytelling, designs, and character acting. One word of warning: When you get to the page with the credits, this is not the ending. You still have a few pages of disturbing visuals and moments leading into the next chapter of this amazing comic that I still cannot believe Marvel allowed to come into being. Thank goodness they did. You can and should catch up with the
four available trades or the
soon-to-be-released hardcover.
VERY HIGHLY RECOMMENDED!
(Written by Grant Morrison, illustrated by Liam Sharp, colored by Steve Oliff, lettered by Tom Orzechowski, published by DC Comics)
Yup. I’m not completely certain of what the hell is going on in this comic. I’m still really liking it, though. As far as I can tell, this “Qwa-Man” monstrosity is an anti-matter universe version of Hal Jordan and the only reason our Hal Jordan doesn’t explode upon contact with this adversary is because of his power ring’s shield. There’s an anti-matter, good guy Sinestro (who’s still kind of a dick), imposter Green Lanterns, and a giant guy roaming around killing alternate universe heroes…or something. Oh, then Hal Jordan gets rescued by the Blackstars but, unfortunately, Hal is dying because of his injuries and his only hope of survival is to embrace the wish of Controller Mu. Ummm, okay, sure. Sharp’s tremendous art continues to be the main draw of the comic, as the vast amount of detail in both foreground and background is stunning and reminds me of the best times of ’80s-era
Heavy Metal Magazine art. Anyhow, I’m still digging whatever is going on in this comic and will be there for the six-issue
Blackstars miniseries and for the second season of
The Green Lantern whenever it returns. If you are down with some truly senses-shattering art and a mind-bending story to boot, then you should pick up the first of
two hardcover collections and see if you can grock what is going on better than I do.
That’s all for this week, Denizens. I have a month of birthday festivities ahead of me and they simply will not wait. See you next time!
Friday Slice of Heaven, Slice into the Woods 10/4/2019
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