Dave's Capsules for May 2026

Items of Note (Strongly Recommended or otherwise worthy): Nothing this month.

In this installment: Godzilla (Kai-Sei Era) #1, Four Lives Remain, Monster Cats vol 1-3, Touring After the Apocalypse vol 7, Isekai Samurai vol 3, Go! Go! Loser Ranger! vol 17, The Great Cleric vol 13, Tank Chair vol 8, Nerd Inferno: the Essential Evan Dorkin, Shock City Punks, Galaxy as the World Falls Down.

"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.

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.

Getting flashbacks to
DC's Special Green Ink
gimmick.

Godzilla (Kai-Sei Era) #1: IDW - I got a PDF of this as part of the Kickstarter for IDW's Godzilla TTRPG (which is basically set in the world of this comic). This is a "Millennium Era" style of setting, wherein Godzilla first emerged in 1954 and some of the Showa Era stuff happened, but otherwise it's an alternate history. Rather than the Heisei Era's "G-Cells" plot device, they invoke something called Kai-Sei Energy to explain why the kaiju can do scientifically impossible things (like, say, exist, not to mention energy breath), but some humans can harness it as well. According to Wikizilla, Kai-Sei means Strange Energy. Anyway, the world is in a very Pacific Rim situation with walled coastal cities, but instead of building giant robots to fight kaiju they have cyborgs and psychics and other Kai-Sei users...well, a version of Jet Jaguar is present, but we only see him enlarge his hands this issue. Feels a lot like someone wanted to do a Neo-Knights story from the Marvel Transformers comics, but reskinned it as G-Force. Not particularly interested in reading more, but at least they provided this as a PDF and didn't make me install IDW's app to read it. Hardcopy cover price is $4.99.

Expected next month: Nancy Drew #3.

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.

Four Lives Remain: Viz Media - This is a collection of Tatsuya Endo's (Spy x Family) juvenilia, including his very first published work. Despite some touching up he was allowed to do to some of these, it's all very rough, as one might expect. This is one of the books I picked up at Yellow City Comicon in April but decided to save for this month. On the one hand, it can be interesting to see the seeds of a polished creator's work in their earlier material, and this book is definitely aimed at people who seek out such things. On the other hand, all four stories feel like pitches for continuing series that rightly did not get picked up. There's interesting ideas here and there in the mix, but a lot of "let's copy what's hot" drowning it out. Mildly recommended. $11.99/$15.99Cn/#8.99UK, rated Older Teen (hyperviolence)

Monster Cats vol 1-3: Seven Seas Entertainment - The first two volumes were the rest of my YC3 purchase, and vol 3 was still on the shelf at B&N so I grabbed that too. These are by Pandania, who did the Cthulhu Cat book I reviewed a few months back. A followup to his Yokai Cats series, this features cats who are monsters that aren't out of Japanese folklore (mostly Western or movie monsters, but also JRPG-style slimes). Full (if simple) color, these one-page gags are grouped by the monster cat in question. Volumes 2 and 3 introduce a few new monster cats but also add stuff for existing ones. The jokes range from "cats are just like that normally" to gags depending on the monstrous or magical nature of the monster cat, sometimes both with the same cat. For instance Dragon Cats steal your shiny stuff and hide it in their bed, which is a Normal Cat thing, but they also breathe fire, which is not. A handful of really funny jokes, but most of each volume is in "sensible chuckle" territory. A nice light read for people who like cute cat jokes. Recommended. $14.99/$18.99Cn each, rate Ages 10+ (a little cat-on-human violence here and there).

Touring After the Apocalypse vol 7: Yen Press - Looks like Nessie wasn't the only genetically engineered cryptid created in the 2030s of this world, there's an area rife with tsuchinoko as well (just a background gag, no impact on the plot or the characters, so probably not a spoiler unless it's foreshadowing for later). Vol 6 ended with a cliffhanger of a fighter plane with a presumably human pilot (although we've seen AI-driven tanks before), and...Youko and Airi decide to stick to their planned route more or less rather than rushing to the airbase the jet came from (there's some Morse code signaling involved). So, more leisurely travel through the scenic ruins, interspersed with dreams of the past (one of which is solidly placed in 2038), but the jet fighter bit does finally get picked up in time for another cliffhanger. VERY leisurely pacing in this book. Also, a duckling imprints on Airi. Recommended. $13.00/$17.00Cn, rated Teen LNV (there's a hot spring scene, nothing salacious, no particular violence or naughty language this time).

All those dead Lotads,
the horror!

Isekai Samurai vol 3: Yen Press - The art has gotten noticeably sketchier and the proportions more chibi lately, aside from some of the full page portraits or splashes, making me suspect the artist is starting to have trouble keeping to deadlines. It's also possible that uncredited assistants are doing less of the grunt work, leaving the credited creator less time for the foregrounds...mangaka studio inner workings are fairly opaque to me. Anyway, a lot of the speculation I was engaged in last volume is rendered moot by the introduction of several more important characters and plot points, although I stand by the idea that if the series lasts long enough Ginko is going to find herself willingly or unwillingly reshaping the underpinnings of this world's society. She thinks she now knows Buddha's purpose in sending her to this world, and this early in the game she's almost definitely wrong. :) Not to say I'm right either, Buddha's reasoning is always his own...but let's just say Ginko probably reminds him more than a little of a certain stone monkey. In some ways I think the creator is still feeling out the story and the characters, and the occasionally inconsistent art can make things harder to follow, but I'm definitely still interested enough to keep reading. Recommended. $14.00/$18.50Cn, rated Older Teen LV (some foul-mouthed little girls this time, and there's a lot of violence and dismemberment and the like).

Go! Go! Loser Ranger! vol 17: Kodansha - There's a thing a lot of writers like to do, in which they cut between different characters and even different points in the timeline, in order to build tension or show connections between seemingly disparate events. When it's done in comics, it requires really solid visual storytelling, made more difficult the larger your cast is...and I don't think Negi Haruba is really up to it. His cast is too large and changes too frequently, and lately I can't get through a volume without having to keep paging back and forth to figure out what's going on. Maybe if he adopted Silver Age style captions like "Meanwhile, Green Senior Third So-and-so is down the hall" or whatever, it'd be clearer. He tries to distinguish the color-coded characters in B&W by giving everyone different hairstyles, but even with some truly bizarre stylings that doesn't always work, especially when half the cast seems to be intent on playing mindgames with the other half. Anyway, more of the secrets of the setting get dribbled out, with the promise of next volume being an extended flashback to how it all began. The "please stop trying to kill me while I'm trying to deliver exposition" running gag continues running, but unfortunately makes the narrative even more scattered than the scene-flickering storytelling. (At least when Priest gets aggressive about bouncing around, he tends to use captions so readers know the scene has changed, and it's not just a different camera angle on the same location.) There's some interesting stuff buried in there, but it's increasingly difficult to dredge it out of the art. Mildly recommended. $10.99/$14.99Cn, rated Older Teen 16+ (fantasy violence, although by this point chopping Fighter D into pieces is a known "he's fine" situation)

The Great Cleric vol 13: Kodansha - So far, Luciel has faced two main kinds of problem. Most have been purely local, the machinations of greedy people trying to perpetuate systems Luciel finds morally offensive, so he's been functionally fighting against society itself, but in the form of town-level threats. The other has been his long term project to free all the dragon souls, which is often pretty back-burnered. But during his work with the bee people of the forest, he gets an inkling of a wider-scale threat that may or may not be tied to his dragon quest. Still, it's only a inkling, and there's plenty of greedy jerks in Yenice who still need dealing with. Most of this volume is thus devoted to his long term plan to set Yenice up as a stronger community, prosperous and as free as he can help them become (the bee people were a key part of this plan, buthe finds he was also being manipulated into helping them by a powerful spirit...he's getting tired of being given quests by godlike beings). While he does use his overpowered healing magic a few times, as usual his main influence is due to his dedication to treating people as people and not as things. One almost forgets that in his old life he was an office worker...until it becomes VERY relevant at the final chapter of the volume. Broccoli Lion is balancing a lot of plot and character elements at this point, but I think they're doing a decent job of it. Recommended. $12.99/$17.99Cn, rated Older Teen 16+

Tank Chair vol 8: Kodansha - When last we left Class A, they had found Sensei in his private sanctuary, something he swore no one else could leave alive. So, yeah, incoming slaughter-fest during which Sensei muses upon his past mistakes while not indicating he's figured out where to go from here. I mean, he might have some idea, but he doesn't really reveal it to Class A or the readers. (Mind you, if he'd definitely figured it out, he probably would've come out of the sanctuary on his own.) Anyway, "What's Up With Sensei?" is definitely the driving plot force now, with the remains of Class A dedicated to figuring out how he changed, while Nagi needs to find Sensei's Death Rock because he never actually recovered fully from being hit in the spine with it (as revealed a while back). In some ways he's better than at the start of the series, but in other ways not so great, and the Tank Chair Mk IX is in play now. (At some point he might have more chairs than Iron Man has armors.) Meanwhile, the Celestial Mansion subplot continues, and we get a brief glimpse of the world outside Guicheng Island (it's messed up too, if not a constant warzone). It's almost a running gag across multiple plotlines how characters wake up wondering why they're not dead...oh, there's some on-panel deaths this volume, it probably wouldn't be Tank Chair without at least a few, but there's a lot of teasing the Grim Reaper this time out. Recommended if you don't mind a lot of B&W gore. $13.99/$18.99Cn, rated Older Teen 16+ for lots of violence and maiming and bad pedagogy.

Expected next month: Easygoing Territory Defense vol 7 (the only May 26 release not to make it to the shelf locally), Chainsaw Man vol 21, Ichi the Witch vol 3, Infini-T Force vol 8, Magilumiere Magical Girls Inc. vol 13. There's a couple other things I have on my "check if it makes it to the shelf" list, but I prefer to not mention those unless I actually read 'em.

Other Trades:

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

Nerd Inferno: the Essential Evan Dorkin: Dark Horse - This is not the complete Evan Dorkin, of course, since a lot of his work isn't creator-owned. The first third is Milk & Cheese, the middle is most of his Dork! series, and the last third is the Eltingville Club. I've never cared for the Eltingville Club stories, and I found myself doing a lot of skimming of the new epilogue story catching up to the club 10 years later, as well as the North Side Comics Collective story which was basically a more pretentious indie comics version of Eltingville. I put a fair amount of effort into avoiding the sort of toxic fans featured in the Eltingville stories, and I don't care to read about them either. Still, this is a pretty big tome, and two thirds of it make for a worthwhile purchase even if I still have a lot of the original floppies. I don't recommend binging it, though, because there's a lot of venom in these pages and it's best taken in small doses. The print quality is good, on glossy stock and in color where needed (there's some cover galleries and special stories in full color). Recommended despite the Eltingville stuff. $34.99/$45.99Cn, no rating but a lot of violence and cussin' so figure "older teen" at least.

Yes, there's a mushroom
cloud. Don't worry,
Milo's using telepresence.

Shock City Punks: Penguin House/Viking - This came out in April, but didn't hit local shelves and my online order took two weeks to arrive...I was starting to worry it had been completely lost and I'd have to try again. The first few pages set up the premise and very briefly summarize the previous volume in case someone finds this on the shelf and doesn't realize it's a sequel, lampshading how the Happily Ever After ending of the previous volume was not gonna last long. I'd say it doesn't last past the first chapter, but the first chapter is a flashback, so it makes it into the SECOND chapter. Sunny and Milo continue to be the protagonists (to the extent this setting supports having protagonists), but this is really the story of Becky Lazers, leader of the zombie shark-riding gang introduced as secondary antagonists in the first volume. Becky's zombie status is intricately tied to the von Shock family, of course, as are all strange things in town, but specifically to an exiled protege of grandpa von Shock (the evil one in the family, everyone else is just kinda confused by human ethics), Resurrection Jane. Becky has Plans, which require a non-zombie ally and/or patsy, and Milo gets to be that person. Sunny is a lot more down to do whatever, but is unsure she's human enough to work, plus there's more potential for conflict when it's cautious and well-behaved Milo needs to be convinced. Of course, Jane is more of a final chapter boss, so some new secondary antagonists in the form of the Sholder Brothers are provided. They're peers of Milo's father, who himself used to hang around with Becky (he avoided being zombied and passed his good sense and caution down to his son), so we get a more traditional if still weird generational conflict for this volume. Of course, "it's up to the kids to fix the problems of the previous generations" is a pretty normal theme for YA stories, perhaps the most normal thing about this book. Less normal is the fact that one of the kids is also one of the previous generation. Unlike the first volume, which did end on enough closure to purely stand alone, this volume is deliberately opening up the franchise to more volumes, which I look forwards to. (Hopefully the titles all start with "Shock City" so they at least get shelved together, unlike some YA OGN series I follow.) Recommended. $13.99/$18.99Cn, rated ages 8-12. I may be a tiny bit outside the target audience.

Galaxy: As the World Falls Down: DC - This is the direct sequel to the Dreamer OGN (artist from Dreamer, not from the first Galaxy), although a few other appearances in comics I didn't read get alluded to (if without "as seen in TITLE" editorial boxes). It continues to have that "could be in the mainstream comics, but could also be divorced from them pretty easily" feel of the previous two OGNs featuring Galaxy, and I'm fine with that. I largely avoid Marvel and DC anymore because of all the crossover crap, I'd rather get the look and feel of those universes without any "to be continued in Event Comic #53 of 124" crap. I did find it amusing that the artistic differences were explained by Galaxy actually looking slightly differently than during the first weeks after coming out. There are some retcons, of the "doesn't contradict anything but you'd think someone would've mentioned this before" variety, some of which may simply not have fit into the flow of the first Galaxy book. The threat level of the Vane is ramped way up, though, making one wonder how they could have been bargained with in the original backstory. And yes, the big conflict of this volume is that the Vane come to Earth, both to take Galaxy and to absorb Earth into their empire while they're at it. That, I think, is the main way in which the Galaxy/Dreamer books fit awkwardly into the mainstream DCU, you'd think such a potent threat would've come up on the JLA's radar before...IIRC, at least the Reach had some backstory explaining why they weren't already known at the time they showed up in the first Jaime Blue Beetle book. Anyway, this is all meta stuff, and more an argument for me continuing to avoid the DC mainstream than a condemnation of these books...I can easily just headcanon the stories so far as happening in an alternate timeline like the one where the JLA/RWBY crossovers happened. There's conflicts big and small in this volume, losses and wins in a good balance. The ending is a bit too bittersweet in an attempt to keep this from impacting the mainstream books, I can't explain why without it being a major spoiler, but let's just say anyone reading this should be able to figure out the hole in the plot device pretty easily. Maybe that'll get brought up in June's "Justice League: Dream Girls" weekly limited series. Mildly recommended. $16.99/$22.99Cn, rated Young Adult.

Expected next month: Maybe Punderworld vol 2 will actually come out and not get pushed back again?

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.)

Yes, this was a skip month. The only store locally that was participating in Comics Giveaway Day didn't have anything I was interested in.

Expected next time: Fantastic Four #10-12, Gatchaman #17-18, Gatchaman: Red Impulse #1-2, Marc Spector: Moon Knight #3-5, Thundarr the Barbarian #3-4, Vampirella #1-2 (688-689). I guess Lower Decks #18 was the final issue?

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), finally got to stop wearing the portable defibrillator, is an occasional science advisor in fiction, and part of the development team for the upcoming City of Titans MMO.

"THAT CHICK'S BONKERS!" "We are aware..." - Gurnica and Delacor, discussing Ginko in Isekai Samurai vol 3