Dave's Capsules for March 2026

Archive of older reviews

Items of Note (Strongly Recommended or otherwise worthy): Nothing this month, another "lots of good, nothing GREAT" month. 

In this installment: The Fake Alchemist vol 1, Nancy Drew: the Secret of the Old Clock #1, Infini-T Force vol 6, Chainsaw Man vol 20, After God vol 9, Kaiju No. 8 vol 15, Magilumiere Magical Girls Inc. vol 12, Tank Chair vol 7, I'm In Love With The Villainess vol 10, The Fall of Ultraman #1 (of 1), Fantastic Four #7-8, Marvel Knights The World To Come #5 (of 6), Marc Spector Moon Knight #1, Gatchaman #15, Gatchaman Jinpei Henshin #1 (of 1), Thundarr the Barbarian #1, Peter Cannon Thunderbolt #3, Vampirella #9-11 (Legacy #684-686), Sonja Reborn #5 (of 6), Star Trek Lower Decks #15-16.

"Other Media" Capsules:

Things that are comics-related but not necessarily comics (i.e. comics-based movies like Iron Man or Hulk), or that aren't going to be available via comic shops (like comic pack-ins with DVDs) will go in this section when I have any to mention.  They may not be as timely as comic reviews, especially if I decide to review novels that take me a week or two (or ten) to get around to.

Nothing this month.  I did read Fluff vol 2 and 3, enjoyed them, but the only thing I have to add is that the "Im Ortons" running gag does get diegetically explained near the end of vol 3.

Expected next month: Dunno

Digital Comics:

I will not be reviewing ongoing webcomics in this column, sticking with collections that I'll get in hardcopy form.  eBook novels and streaming TV/movies will go above in Other Media.  This is for full comics read in digital form, either because that's how they come out, or because I tried it out on the LibraryPass app but either didn't care for it or wasn't able to get a hardcopy before the end of the month.  The heyday of ComiXology Originals is long gone, though, so there's not a lot of regular books I get digitally.

 

The Fake Alchemist vol 1: Yen Press - I feel like this was intended as a sort of satire of "reincarnated with cheat skills" isekai, as the title character's backstory kinda whips through the tropes (literally hit by a truck, reincarnated by an impatient and easily bored god, got to pick some cheat skills), but it's not a one-note gag title.  It does seem to be interested in exploring the ramifications of the protag's unusual choices, although he does have a pretty common "be decent to people in a world where that's not normal" trait from isekai.  Oh, and it's also definitely leaning into some of the bawdier implications of his situation, but stays on the suggestive side of that (there's one instance of a bare butt, otherwise nudity is blocked be convenient intervening objects and long hair).  A rather lot of this volume is dedicated to explaining how his cheat items work (to the extent he knows) and setting up all sorts of limitations and monkeys-paw situations around them...not only did he maybe not pick wisely, he was kinda ripped off anyway.  The main cheat item, and the reason for the title, is a notebook that lets him call up a perfect recipe for any alchemical process and get awesome results if he follows it exactly.  Some of its limitations are inherent, some are political (turns out making perfect items as an upstart gets other alchemists mad at you).  His other cheat item is a "save point" that in theory gives him a do-over if he gets killed, but it has so many downsides that it's a Chekov's Howitzer.  You know he's gonna have to use it at some point and find out how badly it actually goes.  Still, he and his comely and talented slave worker (see: bawdy, see also: treating people better than society expects) figure out some failsafes.  The plot sets up some long term goals, but mostly this volume is about figuring out ways to use his cheat notebook to make a lot of money without getting killed by angry alchemists.  Anyway, I'll probably read the next volume when it comes out on LibraryPass, but I didn't like it quite enough to want to pick up the physical book.  $13.00 in hardcopy, I'm guessing the rating is Older Teen or something along those lines (LibraryPass doesn't include the back covers).

K-Pop Money Hunters

Nancy Drew: The Secret of the Old Clock #1: Patreon.com - With Adventure Finders over, Rod Espinosa has decided to start adapting the newly public-domain Nancy Drew stories.  No, not horror or porn or some other cheap exploitation, he's doing an earnest adaptation.  This first issue covers the events of the first three chapters of the original novel, and has a cover inspired by one of the classic book covers (not the original, but the one a lot of us GenX types saw as kids...which is not itself in the public domain, but this is a reference not a direct swipe).  The book has 20 chapters, but not all scenes are created equal, so the final product won't necessarily have seven issues.  One problem for me at the moment is that where possible dialogue is a direct lift from the source material, and good lord is some of that massively clunky.  In discussion on Patreon, Espinosa has said he might rework the dialogue later and upload revised issues (he did this a fair amount with Adventure Finders), but he's still figuring out the genre.  There might also be some revised art in the offing, as the setting look is all over the place, with some stuff clearly 1920s period but also some 2020s and a lot of stuff in between.  I get a similar vibe to Spy X Family, in that period-type stuff is sometimes ditched if it fits the plot or the gag, and there's not a huge effort to avoid occasional anachronisms.  Another issue with the source material is that it's a Mystery For Younger Readers, which means it takes almost no time at all to become really obvious what the titular secret is, even if you never read Nancy Drew stories before.  However, that's an inevitable issue when adapting this sort of story, particularly one a century old that may have been around when some of the cliches were still fresh.  Overall, a somewhat rough start, but I trust Espinosa to get his feet under him soon enough.  Mildly recommended.  Available at the $2 tier and above, all ages.

 

Expected next month: Probably more Nancy Drew.

Manga Collections:

Most of these are "tankobon" or collections of work serialized in a weekly or monthly publication, although some were written directly for the collection.  All of them have been translated from Japanese (or maybe Korean, although I don't think I'm reading any manhwa) into English.  Things with a manga aesthetic but done in English originally will go in one of the sections below as appropriate.

Infini-T Force vol 6: Mad Cave/Nakama Press - The front half finishes up the fight against Buraiking Boss, Casshan's archfoe, and delves into philosophical issues of what it means to be human versus a machine, and if grace can be extended to even the worst people should they be willing to accept it.  So, some deep stuff accompanied by explosions and warp gates and stuff.  Then it's back to a bit of personal life, and dealing with the revelation of who the main villain really is.  Of the four summoned heroes, at least three are functionally child soldiers who have grown older but in many ways never got to grow up, covering their emotional gaps with Grim Purpose.  Polimar seems to be the only one who got something like a normal childhood, but he's also the only one who never really got media past the original show, so he's more of a blank slate.  The various lieutenants of the Big Bad get the spotlight in the rest of the volume, clearing up that they're not in cahoots with the Dimension Cop Waldarians (IIRC they're based on Tekkaman's foes), but aren't above letting Emi and her friends deal with Waldarian troubles.  They're also emotionally stunted or damaged people, but in a wider variety of ways than the heroic quartet, so the inevitable hero/villain romance plotline (already set up in a previous volume) is sooooo toxic in so many ways that neither participant realizes yet.  The story is developing nicely beyond the nostalgia bait start.  Recommended.  $10.99/$14.99Cn, rated Teen 13+ (fantasy violence, death).

 

Chainsaw Man vol 20: Viz/Shonen Jump - So, in vol 19 the machinations of the Chainsaw Man Cult unleashed an unthinking (more so than usual) version of Chainsaw Man, giving the War Devil inside Asa an excuse to pull out all the stops fighting him.  This goes on for a bit until Chainsaw Man is pretty blown to pieces and the Aging Devil shows up to "save him."  As mindless as Chainsaw Man is at the moment, though, he recognizes a Monkey's Paw bargain when one is offered, and teams up with the War Devil to fight the Aging Devil.  Then things get weird and metaphysical, as tends to happen in this book.  Stuck in another reality without their devil powers, Denji, Asa, and the War Devil have time to actually think, and they hate it.  But Denji finally comes to an epiphany (a shallow and stupid epiphany, but hey, baby steps) and actually figures out a loophole in the trap, setting up...well, more gore and removed body parts and stuff, it's all pretty gross but that also tends to happen in this book.  Strangely, I don't think anyone actually dies on screen this volume, although a lot of people aren't going to live much longer the way things are going.  As usual, recommended if you're not bothered by excessive (and to some extent comedic) violence and viscera.  Like, there's a lot of intestines visible this volume.  $11.99/$15.99Cn/#8.99UK, rated Older Teen (for all the viscera and stuff, and a little bit of sex-related talk).

 

After God vol 9: Viz/Viz Signature - Speaking of viscera.  Well, only a little this time, but not zero.  Anyway, Yakou (blind woman who can make invisible boxes) and Wauke (whose abilities are revealed this volume) make a move on the Anti-God Institute to protect their god Ahf-Azu by killing the two biggest dangers to gods in general: Waka/Alura and Tokinaga.  In other words, the apparent main characters in volume 1, who tended to get sidelined a lot by the story, but are clawing back into the limelight.  Yakou and Wauke have figured out that Tokinaga can roll back time and get do-overs, which somehow makes him a danger to the gods.  This turns out to be less useful once the enemy knows about it and you can't roll time back far enough to stop them from figuring it out...anything that seems to conveniently coincidental becomes a sign that it's not the original timeline.  An interesting fight and ethical debate ensues (when someone has nothing left but their ideals, not even their life, how do you convince them to give up?), and Nisroca starts to get more directly involved in matters.  Oh, and Orokapi the snake god has his own kinda stupid epiphany, but at least the designated doofuses are thinking for a change this month, eh?  Recommended.  $14.99/$19.99Cn/#10.99UK, rated Older Teen (monster stuff, mostly)

 

Kaiju No. 8 vol 15: Viz/Shonen Jump - No. 8 defeats No. 9, and that's where the story really begins, folks.  Yeah, it's Secret Origin time!  (Also, the usual flashback to flesh out the backgrounds and interactions of other characters, in this case Captain Narumi of First Division and Vice-Captain Hoshina, the top two close-combat experts in the defense force.)  While not completely spelled out, the mystery of how Kafka got Kaiju-ized is resolved, and we also get a look at how Japan defended itself against kaiju in the Old Days (Hoshina's background previously established that they've been a problem for centuries).  The new threat is a very old threat, one which has never been defeated, merely endured until it ran out of energy and returned to hibernation.  Kafka is offered a choice, but there's never really any doubt in his mind (or the reader's) which way he'll go.  As for which way this battle will go, that's hard to say without knowing if this is meant to be a closed series or an open one (and I'd rather not look it up and ruin the speculation).  I could easily see this becoming a stalemate with a rematch in the future.  But it could also be a decisive victory, with the story moving on to counting the cost...it's easy to live with the sort of choices Kafka has been making if there are still fights he's needed for, but what happens once there aren't?  Anyway, I'll be following along to see which way it goes.  Recommended.  $11.99/$15.99Cn/#8.99UK, rated Teen for monster violence (like, probably as much dismemberment as in Chainsaw Man, but none of it is human and it's a little less goopy).

 

The Daystar burnssss....

Magilumiere Magical Girls Inc. vol 12: Viz/Viz Signature - This volume covers chapters 97 though 105, and it's clear writer Sekka Iwata wanted to hit a Big Climax for chapter 100, but you kind of need to decide which climax is the biggest.  The super duper fight scene and final Big Reveal wrap up in chapter 97, and the "survive the aftermath" doesn't wrap up until chapter 101, but you could say that for Sakuragi (the initial Main Character) chapter 100 does end on them getting a Crowning Moment of Awesome that ties back into the reason she was able to become a magical girl in the first place.  In any case, the emotional climax of the arc was in vol 11, this is just followthrough and then rebuilding and recovery for chapters 101-105 (which simultaneously seems to not work as intended and get the intended results anyway, because this is a bunch of weirdos).  A good finish, but a bit of a cooldown after last volume.  Recommended.  $14.99/$19.99Cn/#10.99UK, rated Teen (fantasy violence, bikini scenes...no, Shigemoto does not wear a bikini).

 

Tank Chair vol 7: Kodansha - Two main parts to this volume.  The fight against Uzu finishes up with a surprisingly low body count, people using their words instead of just their fists and blades.  I guess being blended with Sensei for three years gave Nagi more time to think about things, so despite being yet another emotionally stunted child soldier he's actually had some non-stupid epiphanies along the way.  He's still pretty emotionally stunted, though, as the back half's strip to an amusement park demonstrates.  Seriously, for someone who can sense murderous intent from half the city away, he's utterly incapable of sensing romantic intent.  Not that his potential girlfriend is any better at it, even with the help of her rather odd plural system (quadruplets share a single body for mystic plot device reasons, but Yuuri is in control by default unless she willingly relinquishes it).  The romantic obliviousness takes place in Gucheng Land, the Happiest...no, Goriest Place On Earth.  Well, our main cast members are quite happy, but they're all emotionally stunted assassins and one child raised by emotionally stunted assassins.  There's also a bit of the mysterious Order's slow burn plotline at the end, and we see what Sensei's been up to.  A fairly low overall body count for this series, although there is a little dismembering and an unknown number of people caught under a collapsing building (but it was already leaning badly, so anyone under it was Asking For It anyway).  Darkly amusing.  Recommended with the usual caveats about ultraviolence.  $13.99/$18.99Cn, rated Older Teen 16+ (ultraviolence, and a really awkward date).

 

I'm In Love With The Villainess vol 10: Seven Seas - Finally, something that doesn't lean on ultraviolence.  Well, there is an impending revolution, so maybe the ultraviolence will show up here this volume?  Turns out, yeah, if not because of the revolutionaries.  Rae, Claire, and Cardinal Lilly crack the case of the hidden corruption, but do so without having all the pieces, which results in an extended fight scene that is not healthy for the unnamed guards in the room, oops.  It's not exactly healthy for the status quo of the kingdom either, as all sorts of buried secrets have been dug up and some people are willing to go to pretty major lengths to rebury those secrets and anyone who knows 'em.  (Minor side complaint, several important characters are very hard to tell apart in the art, but it's only minor because a plot point is that they look similar...it's more a matter of scene-establishing.)  Still, for all the major sociopolitical implications of Rae's actions, it's looking more and more plausible that the world of the game itself has a will behind it, and an anger, because events that shouldn't even be remotely connected to Rae's tinkering move up in their timetable as if in response.  It's one thing for the conspiracies of nobles and revolutionaries to alter their plans as a reaction to Rae's activities, but the end of this volume goes WAY beyond that.  On a lighter note, in between the serious plot-advancement scenes, Rae continues to make an honest effort to be neither sex pest nor cad in her interactions with Claire and Lilly, continuing her redemption arc.  Recommended.  $13.99/$17.99Cn, rated Teen 13+ (violence, some innuendo, but less than usual).

 

Expected next month: Ichi the Witch vol 2, Kuma Kuma Kuma Bear vol 13, Wolf's Daughter vol 3, Infini-T Force vol 7, Cat + Crazy vol 3, The Great Cleric vol 13.  Touring After the Apocalypse vol 7 and Happy Kanako's Killer Life are slated to ship the last week of April, so will likely end up in the May reviews.  There's a couple titles I'm keeping an eye out and might pick up if they show up on the shelf and I like what I see when I flip through.

Other Trades:

Trade paperbacks, collections, graphic novels, whatever. If it's bigger than a "floppy" but not Manga, it goes here.  

None this month.

Expected next month: Nothing solid on my checklist.  Nerd Inferno is coming out, but I already own almost all the content in this Evan Dorkin omnibus.  I might have a crowdfunding fulfillment for something on the horizon, though.

Floppies:

No, I don't have any particular disdain for the monthlies, but they are floppy, yes? (And not all of them come out monthly, or on a regular schedule in general, so I can't just call this section "Monthlies" or even "Periodicals" as that implies a regular period.)

The Fall of Ultraman #1: Marvel - Apparently this is a one-shot, and not the start of another miniseries?  I guess maybe the license wasn't renewed, so they had to jam all the plot points into a last gasp or something.  I mean, some of this stuff looks like it'd have been interesting to see happen, rather than being narrated by a time-traveler.  Basically, it's narration and splash panels for the most part, laying out what I guess would've been the next several arcs and ending with the series's main Ultraman finally hitting the end of the road indicated back in the beginning.  Not so much "fall" as a failure so much as it's just reaching the time limit but succeeding in everything he had to before then.  This sort of thing is preferable to just leaving everything hanging, but as an actual thing to read it's in the same territory as reading a Marvel Universe entry.  Mildly recommended.  $4.99, rated Teen+ (fantasy violence, discussion of death).

Fantastic Four #7-8: Marvel - Okay, so Ryan North plays around here with a couple of concepts that I'm familiar with, but only get sketched out pretty quickly.  One is the "multiverse but all in the same universe" idea.  One of the consequences of the inflationary theory of the Big Bang (at some point soon after the beginning, the expansion of the universe shifted into overdrive for long enough to make things cosmologically "flat") is that there's an insanely large number of regions that are not causally connected.  In other words, they're too far away for light from them to have reached us in the entire age of the universe.  There's so many of these that statistically you're going to get functionally direct copies of everything in at least one of them.  Now, North doesn't use the usual inflationary model, instead there was a recent event in Marvel that triggered a similar expansion beyond the edge of the universe, but the principle is the same.  The other principle is the Boltzmann Brain, which also takes advantage of the vastness of everything to posit that given enough space and time, you could get a completely random assortment of atoms that was organized as a consciousness that hallucinated a reality to be in.  North tosses these two things together to create a Boltzmann Planet, a near-exact copy of Earth that arose in a very short time rather than being the result of a parallel 14 billion or so years.  All of this is just an excuse to have an alternate Earth that is still in the Earth-616 reality without needing to invoke Beyonders or the High Evolutionary or any other entity who'd distract from the main plot...it just happened because random stuff happens.  The upshot is a "What If Sue Storm learned how to vastly extend her powers before she was emotionally ready to handle it?" story that can immediately interact with 616.  And by interact, I mean threaten, as Galactus has had to send out an emergency call to the FF to help deal with the Invincible Woman (callback to the Invincible Man, an identity used by Sue's dad, modulo various retcons).  Meanwhile, the FF's cleverer foes realize that they've been called away and seek to do the family a mischief, so the B-plot is the kids (and Alicia) dealing with opportunistic old foes.  Anyway, one of the themes North has been bringing up every so often in this series and the previous numbering has been that, Ben Grimm aside, the FF are insanely dangerous and could kill everyone on Earth if they really wanted to.  (I think Maria Hill sells Ben short...he might not be able to do as much on his own, but he could definitely find a way to wipe out humanity, maybe be taunting Hulk enough.)  I can't really dismiss this as a lazy "What if a hero was evil?" story given all the build up, but I remain cautious.  Mildly recommended.  $3.99. rated Teen (not Teen+ despite some blood and a LOT of death, like more death than all the other books I read this month combined, INCLUDING CHAINSAW MAN AND TANK CHAIR, which to be fair had a lot less death than usual).

Marvel Knights The World To Come #5 (of 6): Marvel - Coming in to the endgame here, which in theory would set up a new sandbox for Quesada and others to play in, but I'm not seeing any indication that this will happen unless they're gonna wait a few months before even soliciting a followup.  Ah well.  I guess someone at Disney corporate has to nibble before it can get past what amounts to a pilot.  A few of the mysteries set up in earlier issues are resolved for the reader (e.g. who the Old General is, what's the deal with bottled water in Ross's camp).  This issue is more about getting plot moving than some of the previous ones, and has a similar feel to the Fall of Ultraman in that it's telling us about events rather than having them unfold on the page, and a lot of the places the story slows down to focus on events it's more in the service of amplifying and reinforcing things from previous issues (e.g. more of Ketema doing basically the same sort of thing as in #4).  The Professor MacGregor who wrote the text pieces in the backs of the issues does finally show up on the page and is recruited to write the True History, which is probably the most significant story beat IMO.  Mildly recommended.  $4.99, rated Teen+ (a fair amount of blood and implied death).

Marc Spector Moon Knight #1: Marvel - It's not quite a series of miniseries, but MacKay has had rather a lot of #1's while remaining the writer of the character.  Anyway, at the end of the previous series, Marc was kidnapped by enemies unknown.  Those enemies become known, as is their motivation and method.  For much of the issue, Marc is locked into a false life as an office drone in an attempt to get him to give up some information...sort of The Prisoner, but with more mind-altering drugs and a more concrete answer to "Who is Number One?"  A cute story-within-the-story has Marc hallucinating a sort of Moon Knight the Animated Series during his downtime, which is visually like Batman the Animated Series but much more violent.  Anyway, the Prisoner bit is unlikely to last very long (trying to mess with Marc Spector's mind rarely goes the way you want), but it seems more intended to set up an arc involving one of the few Moon Knight major players to not show up to the birthday party at the end of the previous series despite still (probably) being alive.  Recommended.  $4.99, rated Teen+ (at least one pool of blood).

Gatchaman #15: Mad Cave - So, big fight between the Gatchaman team and the new Nightbirds, who are outnumbered but have the advantage of not wanting to hold back.  A minion questions Berg Katse's choice to throw a huge amount of resources away just to set up this fight, and meets a predictable end because Nuanced Katse doesn't appear in the main series, just side stories.  The main series continues to be the weakest Gatchaman product from Mad Cave, it really feels like Humphries is just turning their high school fanfic into these stories.  Way too much reliance on Surprise New Characters, trope-heavy melodrama, and so forth.  Very mildly recommended.  $4.99, rated Teen (lots of violence).

Gatchaman: Jinpei Henshin: #1 (one-shot) - Whoog.  Tommy Lee Edwards usually puts out more interesting stories, but this was really just "Jinpei gets lucky and avoids a plot device, then needs to save everyone," without particularly delving into his character.  It doesn't help that the art is pretty bad.  Skippable.  $6.99, rated Teen (violence, a little light murdering).

Yes, he does say
"Demon Dogs!"

Thundarr the Barbarian: Dynamite - Dynamite is running mostly on a combination of Sexy Ladies Covered In Blood and Saturday Morning Cartoon Nostalgia.  This is mainly the second thing, although I suspect it's only a matter of time before Ariel gets covered in blood, since they're also doing the pretty common "show the violence that BS&P banned" thing.  To the extent that the original cartoon had continuity (there were a couple of sequel episodes), this comic seems to be set after the end of those episodes, although it also promises to delve into events before the first episode as well.  A big challenge that writer Jason Aaron faces is finding a way to make Thundarr more than just "Conan in Kamandi's world" riff, because just allowing a more realistic level of violence only makes him MORE like Conan.  What bits of possible backstory we're seeing also feel kinda Conan-like, to the point that they might be leaning hard on Ariel to be what makes this not just a Conan book (she doesn't get a lot of time on the page this issue because Thundarr is running a scam of sorts and pretending to be just some dude).  While the main cover by Michael Cho is a Kirby riff and at least one of the dozens of variant covers uses actual Kirby design sheets, the interior art by Baal does not try to copy the style at all, which is probably for the best.  An interesting start, but I have reservations for where this will go, so only mildly recommended.  $4.99, rate Teen (violence that BS&P banned).

Peter Cannon Thunderbolt #3: Dynamite - One of the small number of exceptions to the dichotomy mentioned above, although it is still a Nostalgia Title.  The origin arc wraps up as we get to see the "mass suicide" up close through a flashback and the real Peter Cannon takes his life back from the Hooded One.  The plot twist about the super-special martial arts move was perhaps a little on the nose, but a useful way to set this Peter Cannon apart from other versions, especially since he looks to be more at the Ozymandias end of things in some ways by the end of the arc.  (For those who don't already know, Ozymandias from Watchmen was a Peter Cannon pastiche, the story was originally going to use the newly-acquired Charlton heroes but editorial changed direction after the initial pitch.)  Recommended.  $4.99, rated Teen+ (martial arts violence, mass murder).

Vampirella #9-10: Dynamite - And now to the Sexy Ladies Covered In Blood (well Vampi prefers to drink it).  The Sexy LLM/Chaos God thing sort of wraps up in these two issues.  And by sort of, I mean they have a whole new set of problems in #11, but despite actually resolving one of the core conflicts, all the players are still at large and still have their motivations to continue with whatever they were doing already.  Other than mining some really early Vampirella lore, the arc seemed mainly a setup for bringing back a character who was killed off at the start of Priest's run and yet still manages to get a lot of screen time thanks to flashbacks, alternate timelines, dreams, and other weirdness.  The overall vibe I got was kinda muddled, though.  Mildly recommended.  $4.99, rated Teen+ (the covers alone qualify, but there's also blood here and there).

Vampirella #11: Dynamite - Splitting this off from the previous two issues because it starts a new arc, even if the old arc is just sort of left dangling in some respects.  You know, if I had a nickel for every time Priest took a modern-day character and wrote a story where they rob a train in the Wild West days, I'd have at least two nickels, maybe three if you count the King Solomon's Frogs bit as distinct from the Thor issues it touches on.  Some time has passed since #10, so all the time-tossed characters have already gotten the "fitting in, sort of" process out of the way and can get right to the threat they landed in the midst of.  It involves vampires, of course, because Vampi just can't escape that aspect of her mother's legacy.  It also involves racism, because it's the Wild West and a lot of the romanticized "cowboy" stuff was basically Confederate soldiers running away from potential retribution and seeking new opportunities (read: slaves, de facto if not de jure) in the West.  White men owned all the stuff, non-whites and women did as much of the grunt work as the white men could push off onto them.  Or they died if they were inconvenient to the white men.  Lots of metaphorical bloodsuckers in real history, and when you toss in the literal bloodsuckers it doesn't exactly get better for the exploited people.  Significant subplot about the nature of existence and souls, given the characters involved.  Recommended.  $4.99, rated Teen+ (covers, plus some of the good ol' American Manifest Destiny genocide discussion).

Sonja Reborn #5 (of 6): Dynamite - After four issues of whinging (she's British, after all, so she's not whining) about not being Red Sonja, Maggie finally gets a metaphorical kick in the pants and realizes the mad or not, true or not, she has to at least act the part if there's any hope of salvaging anything from this crazy Hyperborean situation.  Just in time for the boss fight she is in no way ready to handle, of course.  Priest continues the juxtaposition of the petty (by comparison) pains and hazards of Maggie's old life with the much more dire situation that is Sonja's life, including just one more insult on the stack of reasons for Maggie to really hate Skye (if she didn't need Skye's help for there to be even a chance of rescue, I suspect she'd just leave her former boss in slavery...those two did NOT get along, even without the whole "the guy who was both of their bosses was sleeping with both of them and preparing to let them take the fall for his crimes" thing).  I continue to not care much for the art, Miracolo does decent demons which helps when they're on screen, but his people are kinda scratchy.  Mildly recommended.  $4.99, rated Teen+ (violence, blood, mass graves).

Star Trek Lower Decks #15-16: IDW - The middle bits of a 6 issue arc.  #15 is mostly about piling more mysteries onto the existing mysteries, although Boimler does get a chance to be at least slightly cool.  He still has to be a weenie, though, because this takes place some time during the existing shows rather than being set afterwards (I'd really rather see sequel comics now that the series has ended, but the terms of the license might not allow that).  #16 is basically a Search for Spock riff in that the Cerritos is too damaged to do a rescue mission and Captain Freeman has been told there's no one to rescue, so of course she has to steal a ship and do it anyway.  This one is a little too annoyingly sitcommy for my tastes, though.  Sheridan's writing isn't completely without merit, I did like some of the gags and there was a nice payoff on the Norman android subplot from #14, but for the most part his writing is around or below the bottom tier of the show's episodes.  Mildly recommended.  $4.99 each, no rating listed (a bit more innuendo than would be appropriate for All Ages, though).

Expected next time: Should be a skip month for floppies.

Dvandom, aka Dave Van Domelen, is an Associate Professor of Physical Science at Amarillo College, maintainer of one of the two longest-running Transformers fansites in existence (Ben Yee insists I was first, I'm not so sure), is getting annoyed with all the nosebleeds but that's still less blood than in this month's comics, is an occasional science advisor in fiction, and part of the development team for the upcoming City of Titans MMO.

 

"IT'S LIKE - LIKE MY LIFE ALTERNATES BETWEEN SEXY AND TERRIBLE!" - Denji, becoming genre-aware, Chainsaw Man vol 20