Really great. I haven’t read Superman in ages but this larger entire Warworld arc is on everyone’s top ten lists, so here I am. I can see why. A ship crashes to earth with some kind of kryptonian refugees on it, at the same time a genesis crystal thingy galvanizes the world powers into vying for it. Causing a push-pull on Superman to figure out what’s going on with the refugees and if Warworld needs his help, while also dealing with the squabbles of world states. The juggling of which enemies use to their advantage.

It’s propulsive and fun. The artwork is stellar. There’s a lot going on and has a major focus on just Superman, which I liked. I think it could have gotten quite muddled otherwise. There are fantastically cool moments and heart warming ones, and it also even manages to setup the next arc. Albeit over a pretty protracted time. I’ll certainly pick up the next trade though, great stuff.

The latest volume seem to be making peoples top of the year lists, but I am not all that interested in it. A man goes home to Texas when his brother dies and regresses to who he was before he left. A shitheel drinker who drowned in anger and made piss poor decisions. Which he promptly does again, in a pretty predictable way. I guess if you haven’t ever read revenge stories, especially set in Texas, this might be interesting.

But if you have, as I have, it’s pretty stock, I’d say. Interesting that it continues beyond the logical end point. Perhaps the developments later on are outside of this pretty lacklustre arc. It would take someone really selling me on the next volume to pick it up. Do live the colour palette and art in general though.

1500 pages, probably the largest omnibus I’ve read, and own in one volume. I was pretty careful stretching the spine on this one. It’s a wonderful resource too. I actually tried to read this series before the omnibus was out and it was all but impossible. Not even comiXology had the trades or single issues, and scans were around, but were terrible. I think this omnibus actually touched up quite a bit, based on what I’d seen. It’s a gorgeous presentation.

As for the story, in so many pages, as you might imagine, it vacillates between being pretty exceptional—mostly when it’s centred on the Our young Tim’s growth from a regular skateboarding loaner child, to the eventuality purposed by the shady magic users that shepherd Tim on his way in the opening few issues of the book, which was penned by Gaiman as a mini series to introduce the character to the Sandman universe. He looks like Harry Potter, it must be said, and also has an owl (though, this owl was transformed out of a yo-yo). The similarities stop there. The story is much darker than Harry and is kind of a weird character. This must have been the Veritgo line, but who was into a child magician in that line of comics? It’s seems odd.

It probably was weird. Because after the miniseries it bounces around to a lot of different titles related peripherally to Tim, before finally settling down into the books of magic proper. And after that there’s some crossovers put into the volume too. As an omnibus it’s exceptional, as mentioned, just for collecting all of this stuff specific to Tim’s journey in one place. It must have been hell to get ahold of previously.

Taken as a larger, full story, like I said: it vacillates. When it’s not exceptional it’s still quite good. But does feel like it loses its way sometimes. It defaults a lot to the fae realm or Free Country and when it gets away from it, it seems like the writer is flying by the seat of their pants, really. Its unfocused and drawn out, and begins to be about Molly and Tim, only most of the time it doesn’t go anywhere and they’re teenagers, so it’s not that interesting, certainly not enough to be the central tension. And the last arc sees Tim take a roadtrip with someone else, again with Molly being in fae, yet again!

It’s a bit of a lacklustre final arc. I think this will be relegated to remaining on my wishlist, as this was. I got it for Christmas from my brother. It’s very cool as a gift, but I don’t think, based on this, I would spring for volume 2 (especially with these post-Covid prices being wildly expensive). But if I were to get it as a gift I’d be very happy to keep reading it and it’s mostly a value proposition with these huge chonkers that balk me.

Finally caught up with all the X-men and new mutants, pretty much. This alternate? New Mutants wasn’t nearly as good as Hickman, and I can see why it segues into one team writing it, which was an incredible, but short, run. This explains Karma, a character I didn’t know about but is featured in the last volume of the new mutants run I really like, but otherwise was pretty lacklustre. Didn’t like the art and the story was very bland.

A descent setup for what’s to come but doesn’t come close to the perfection the run obtains later. Pretty funny at times. Still very YA and a bit too silly. It’s wild that in 5 trades this run has 3 different authors.

One of those books that define why I read science fiction. The plot, where a signal is received, the decoding and speculation of which bounces around to many people, and around relatively a similar time an object impacts the moon, set the two, I would say, main protagonists on a collision course.

One is a guy named Jack, with wild pattern recognition skills, and who pioneers the way in which the signal is interpreted and proved—the other, Dana, the astronaut that is sent to explore the impact crater on the moon.

From there, the story just gets more interesting as it goes. Slowly diverging from what I would call, initially, a pretty fun possible first contact story (kind of like Contact, actually). The science is crunchy, but the information design is fantastic. The presentation of the book is the best I’ve probably ever consumed. I could liken it to something like The House of Leaves, because it’s mixed media and what is occurring in the fiction impacts the layout of the text in really fun and emergent ways. There’s numerous meta components that intrude. There’s fictitious scientific articles and reporting on what’s happening in the fiction being generated.

There’s so many types of layout and font, I’m absolutely certain it’s the most complex book I’ve seen on that front, including House of Leaves, which actually ends up being more-or-less child’s play, comparatively. The attention to detail is just incredible. Much like, say, The Blind Assassin, there’s also a classic scifi serial that’s disseminated, and used as a tense pacing mechanic, where it’s double column and layed out like a magazine. But the flow is never interrupted. It’s easy to actually consume and the meta context stuff, I found to be really fun and interesting. I’ve no clue if the science holds up, but for those parts of it that could be, it is presented credibly, via credible means, even in dialogue. This has by far the most compelling aspects of current technologies on conceptual space and augmented reality.

You could boil down my excitement for the consumption of the book to: It’s form meeting function without getting in the way of a classic science fiction story, but feels far more updated and current with science and the general intellect unit, in general. It’s a beautiful artifact of a book too. Even the hardcover has been customized itself, and the endpapers too, adding to the flavour. It’s just a staggering piece of work. And, best of all, it actually makes you think about humanity in a new, interesting light; it’s what science fiction so rarely do these days. It’s super saturated with same-similar ideas, and not feeling remotely updated for where we are headed as a species. Most of the time they don’t even acknowledge the difference between how we were as a people before and after the internet, which is contrived, to say the least. And that’s the starting point for a lot of science fiction. See the wildly popular Project Hail Mary of last year as an example. The difference in the quality of characters, themes, ideas, and execution is just night and day. This is absolutely a new all-time favourite of mine.

I wish I could give this a higher rating. It has some fantastic things going for it: the unique colour palette that differentiates perspectives, really cool art, and attention to detail. The panelling is idiosyncratic and interesting to look at.

However, the information design is really not well done. Pivotal aspects of the story are simply never codified. It tries to do world building by showing and not telling, but because the paneling is confusing and there is little to no text, to say the least, it becomes very muddled. It’s not just challenging to read, the pieces of the actual story are not actually present to assemble, even for a seasoned reader of comics and someone taking their time consuming it.

Far more of the story is divulged in the synopsis than in the actual pages, perhaps relying on it. But it’s not actually in the book at all. Not on the back or the interior. The editor did a really poor job with the developmental editing. There are no page numbers and I’m pretty sure the listed page count is wrong. It can’t be only 120 pages, to be honest, because it’s quite a lot thicker than a normal trade paperback.

Regardless, I managed to get the overall plot beats, so I’m not giving it a failing grade. Especially because I love the visual presentation. But it does feel like an amateurish auteur effort, rather than something with this many people attached to it. If it’s a starting point for the creator though, I’ll certainly check out what they do next. With better information design in the paneling and codifying the assumption of things they clearly thought were being communicated but weren’t, this could have been a much better comic than what it ended up being.

The series remains much less cerebral than the movies, but also fun and the change makes sense for this format. It clips along nicely, love the art, builds on the previous ones well. Cliffhanger was good. No complaints.

Looks like this will be another solid run. You’d think this kind of attempted revolution would have been mentioned in the historical timeline of things, but maybe they just cover it up after, or something? Still love the art, interesting stakes, still bombastic and not cerebral, but fun, which fits the format. I probably like that first run more so far, but it’s a pleasure to back in the world, rendered like this.

While this was fairly novel for a fantasy novel—I struggle to remember the last time the majority of a novel took place in a jail cell, for instance—and the world building being done via this Chant vocation: a person concerned primarily with stories and their function across kingdoms and lands, it still does feel quite static. The old man is conniving and there’s plenty of obstacles introduced at what feels like the right parts. I just can’t say it ever progressed from being interesting enough to keep reading, but not much more. I think I just prefer characters that are a lot more active, generally.

I’ll probably still read the second book, which I already own, as I did enjoy the ending and I didn’t find anything disagreeable. It’s great having a protagonist outside the normal archetypes and it was queer inclusive explicitly.