Javier Rodríguez

Dennis Hopeless has a good run chronicling the life of Jessica Drew, Spider-Woman.

The book starts poorly, as Drew is mired in a Spider-Verse crossover driven by Morlun and the Inheritors -- a multiverse saga I gladly skipped at the time. But even she is tired of all the cosmic superhero garbage and the book pivots to let her return to her private investigation career and become a street-level hero who gets involved in cases involving bank robberies, kidnapping, and domestic violence with the show more help of reporter Ben Urich and a reformed(-ish) super villain named Porcupine. Eventually, she becomes pregnant and the book really hits its stride as she copes with a baby bump while bumping bad guys onto their butts. Her childbirth is of course, appropriately ludicrous for a superhero, involving aliens and a black hole.

The Civil War II event makes an unwelcome intrusion, and toward the end an unnecessary romance is shoved into the book, but hey, it's all good as Hopeless leans into the amusing cringe of the relationship.

I regret I didn't get to this series earlier, but it's nice to have it all under one cover now (well, except for two issues that are part of a "Spider-Women" crossover sequence and collected separately).

FOR REFERENCE:

Originally published in single magazine form as Spider-Woman [2014-2015] #1-10 and Spider-Woman [2015-2017] #1-5, 8-17, with additional material from Amazing Spider-Man [2015-2018] #1. show less

Zatanna Zatara has never had much success in the general DC Universe, getting a string of specials and short-lived series (including a new one this year), but never managing to get higher than the B-list level of superheroes.

In the last few years though, she has starred in several Elseworlds-type stories directed at juvenile and teen audiences that I've mostly enjoyed: DC's Misfits of Magic, Zatanna and the House of Secrets, and Zatanna: The Jewel of Gravesend (the one misfire). And now here show more she is in a Black Label reimagining that is silly but pleasing.

I do have to wonder why this is Black Label, as it doesn't seem particularly mature or prestigious. This feels like a young adult title, with a whisper thin plot that seems secondary to the jaunty banter, lively (though sometimes awkward) art, and vibrant colors.

I don't know that any of this frothy concoction is necessary or nutritious, but I had fun drinking it up.

FOR REFERENCE:

Contains material originally published in single magazine form as Zatanna: Bring Down the House #1-5. show less

This is hugely amusing. I can't be the only one to really enjoy the new and improved egomaniacal and ruthless spiderman courtesy of doc oc. The rules are just fine, too. The Doc is in a life-and-death struggle for control of Peter's body, but he just doesn't know it yet. Sweet.

Visually stimulating, narratively limp.

It's always fun to look for influences/homages in current works. Tom King and Geoff Johns keep remixing Alan Moore's greatest hits from the 1980s, for instance, in their superhero books. And now it looks like this series is a retro wannabe for the 1990s Vertigo imprint, hoping to be shelved between Grant Morrison's Doom Patrol and Peter Milligan's Shade the Changing Man.

FBI agent John Jones is traumatized and losing his grip amid a wave of terrorist show more attacks in Middleton, USA. Is he in a mental health crisis, or is he a pawn in a telepathic alien civil war that has one side trying to invade while the other side uses him as a mental toehold to launch a resistance?

Do I care?

Nah.

It's too far removed from my favorite version of J'onn J'onzz to activate my goodwill and too much like a fever dream to be an enjoyable narrative on its own.

Nice pictures though. show less