The first two issues are great. Luke and Jessica get to go on a date. They love each other, it's super cute, and you can see great character moments.

Then comes a Nick Fury story.

Fuck me. I hate this guy 90% of the time. He's boring as shit. Even worse he's the white Nick Fury, so he's even WORSE. yeah...i can say that. I'm white. Fuck white Nick Fury.

Anyway bunch of twisty turns, way too much talking about nothing, and mockingbird gets shot and then it all leads into Fear Itself event.

Not a great volume. Just two good issues, 4 meh.

I'll be honest I was unsure about this run. A couple of reasons.

1) It came right off Tom King's run, which is either loved or hated by many (I loved 75-80% of it). And King was SUPPOSED to have 100 issues but they cut him short at 85.

2) James Tynion IV is a very solid writer but he's also big into the indie scene now and worried he would get stretched to thin here.

3) James Was only supposed to be on till Issue 100. of course things changed, and the wildly successful Joker's War and Punchline character made DC decide to let Tynion continue his run. But that wasn't always the case and was worried this would be filler.

But soon after I finished around issue 2 or 3 I was sucked into Tynion twisty twisty detective feel storyline. This is a lot of twist and turns, a lot of backstabbing, a lot of setting up a old villain who might be a new villain, while also setting up Joker War, while feeling like this is the part 1 of that and yet still feeling self contained. Tynion is not new to juggling A LOT on his plate, but what he's getting better and better at is pacing and dialogue. Luckily, he strikes mostly gold here.

Batman starts off taking out Deathstroke and the rest of these Mercs. However, soon into doing this he realizes something is wrong. Someone is playing them all. The Designer? No not the singer. This is a villain who is trying to strike Batman behind his back while also taking care of Harley and Catwoman. Can Bruce juggle this all, while losing his dad-like figure (Alfred) just recently?

James does a ton of great work with Harley here. I for one am NOT a fan of her in comics for the most part. Maybe besides when Tom Taylor writes her. But Tynion does a great job of pushing her redemption arc along while giving her real character growth. I love Bruce struggle to prove he can save the people of this city while also mourning. The feel for Catwoman as she has to lie to the man she loves is great. All of this works well.

Also the art...fan-fucking-tastic. The fights are fast, brutal, and wonderful to view. I love everyone's design, the style it has it going, just makes everything look and run smooth. The way they design batman getting bruised and beaten up is so cool. I loved seeing that and felt his desperation.

I honestly REALLY enjoyed this arc. Sure the payoff is to be expected of who it is. I mean the next arc is incoming. And the first issue was just decent. But when it got going, I was 100% into it. I loved learning more about the mercs at the end of the volume too.

I highly recommend this for Batman fans who want a little something different from King's run. This is more traditional detective batman saving the day, but I had a blast reading it. A 4.5 out of 5.

More world building. Not that it is bad but feels very middle of the story. Got a nice look into apoc's wife and her life and why she is doing this. Now I'm ready for war.

A decent hardboil story of a man framed for murder. Nice twist being he's a comedian and so there's a good amount of solid humor. While the twist were easy to see coming it was still an enjoyable read thanks to Joe Hill's solid writing.

A dinner before the Mayhem begins!

With all the people who will soon murder each other meet for dinner we get some funny moments, heartfelt, and even some planning from our favorite x-men how to win the fight. The shocking ending, which I assume will result in some bad shit in the next issue, was exciting and got me ready for the main event.

Old man Hawkeye ends like it began, just a okay book.

It's not the art sucks, or Ethan Sacks is a bad writer, it's that the story was never going to do much "new" or 'exciting". Basically this is Hawkeye trying to finish up the rest of the tunderbolts who betrayed him and his team back in the day. That part is actually pretty exciting to see all the old avengers/tunderbolts get beaten. The way Thor dies is kind of stupid IMO since he's been through a lot worse but it worked for the shock level. The ending is also decent, having Kate do some badass shit.

But overall this is just an extension to Old Man logan and even ends close to when that begins. So everything you EXPECTED to happen...happens. Nothing too exciting but not horrible. Just decent. A 2.5 out of 5.

Goddamn it, this book really is horrifying.

It's not even the over the top blood and gore you might expect that usually gets people saying "Oh my this is horrifying" it's just the simple actions of one man.

So we ended the last volume on a cliffhanger. A friend just wanting to help his other friend survive but of course it isn't that easy. For each moment where we cheer that the heroes might come out of this, it gets darker and sicker. The backstory of the neckslasher is great, shows he was ALWAYS a piece of shit, and the ending was...well just fucked up as hell.

I need more of this but I'm reading as slow as possible because I don't want it to end. A 5 out of 5.

Batman No Man's lands is going into the second half and...it feels weird?

All the darker, more mature stories, seem to be thrown out this volume for more bombastic tales. The Robin stories are fun, goofy, and weird. Batman jumping on rooftops while talking to people only to eventually find BANE has returned. Should have known with Dixon writing that he would show up. I don't hate Dixon's writing but every freaking event he has Bane show himself. Then we also just get some one shots of stopping crime and a Batgirl special.

The Batgirl one is real good. And the Robin and Batman stories aren't bad but...just feels very of the mil. I mean they just feel like typical Batman stories instead of being in his home which is torn to shreds by the earthquake and people are trying to still regroup. The tone is just shifted way different from volume 1 and especially 2. I did like the one shot of batman and superman working together alot though.

Overall, this is decent. Some good moments but otherwise just typical crime fighting superhero comic without much of a punch. A 3 out of 5.

This was actually pretty damn good volume.

Shikamaru and Asuma along with a few other ninjas go to take on two of the members of the Akatsuki. This time they face off against a member who can't die and basically becomes a voodoo like doll to inflict pain on others. A fast paced volume with a lot of people on the verge of death the entire time. Naruto is also working on his super training and we might see results soon.

Overall emotional arc with a ton of payoff. Probably the best arc in this second half of naruto so far. A 4 out of 5.

A what if story basically. When hobgoblin becomes the new Dr. Strange and everything in Peter's life changes. Nothing really new or fresh and besides some good dialogue from David, neither the plot or art do much of anything. This is pretty much one of rhe most skippable comics ever.