I picked this up at the library in my continuing quest to read all things Angela. Another understellar performance by Bendis, who, despite beautiful art and a plethora of beautiful characters, fails to gather together a cohesive plot.

From reading, it seems like Bendis' solution for his already-stretched-thin plot is so throw more characters at it, and, unsurprisingly, this technique doesn't work at all. Adding Agent Venom (who is casual misogynist gross) and Captain Marvel (okay, I liked her) only adds further complication and shuttles the other shining guest stars to the side, leaving them and their characters unexplored. What began as a sci-fi space adventure somehow climaxes with a flat speech by Quill about how horrible his dad is. This speech is supposed to be so wonderful it incites a riot. After reading, I did not feel like punching the emperor more than I usually want to punch him, and I know Quill's backstory. Does the entire Empire know Quill's backstory? Without knowing the details of Quill's mom's death, the speech comes off as incomprehensible.

The Guardians' separation did give us a rare window into their own particular pits of angst, and the bonus issues about Groot, Flash, and Carol give us readers more time with them. The time we were supposed to get during the main GOTG comic. *facepalm* There's also a random EARTH, 3014 A.D. issue. Which is...cool, I guess? Because Yondu is there? IDK, man. Whaaaaaaatttteevvveeerrrrr.

All and all, read if you really like the main Guardians and want to see them in a B sci-fi movie plot. Angela, Flash Thompson, Yondu, and Carol Danvers have just cameos.

This book was tricky to find, but I eventually got my hands on a copy. It was... *shrugs* okay.

When I read Vol 1, I got the sense that this series was about your basic sci fi adventure in space. Nothing new or revolutionary's going to happen. With Angela (my precious lesbian angel) and Tony Stark (someone I'm admiring more and more these days) in the mix, I had higher hopes, but somehow there was even less spark. Besides well choreographed fights and good character dialog, nothing spectacular happened. Bendis' writing seemed scatterbrained, unfocused. While the characters were solid in and of themselves and their witty banter on point, crossover events yanked characters and plot around like mad with little pay off. I could tell that Bendis was trying to sow the seeds of subplots, but it came off as a mess. There was also a couple of very disturbing lines about people deserving to be slaves. And Angela's sex object outfit. So. Yeah.

There were two bright spots however, and for each there's a star. First, Angela & Gamora's friendship, which is the stuff of wonder, and Tony's joy at the space tech, which is ADORABLE. They made the volume for me. I'd honestly only recommend reading this series if you want to appreciate them.

This is another find from the library, as I continue to timeline hop around after loving the Wonder Woman movie.

And WOW, this blew me out of the park.

Gail Simone is legendary in comic book writing and now I know why. While Jodi Picoult showed Wonder Woman as human, here we have Wonder Woman as goddess, and while it makes her less relatable as a character, I'm definitely not complaining. Simone's language, character development, watertight plot, spot-on pacing, and epic, timeless themes deliver a gorgeous story to the lucky reader. If you only have time to read one volume of Wonder Woman make it this one. This is exactly what I was looking for.

This is the second omnibus of AVENGERS comics I've read, so I was more prepared for what I found. And I liked what I saw for the most part.

From the Sons of the Serpent's white supremacy (an obvious KKK parallel) and Arkon's global nuclear warmongering (Cold War parallel) to Van Lunt's corporation manipulation (parallel to, well, real life corporate tactics), H. Warren Craddock's witch hunt for illegal aliens (parallel to McCarthy's communist witch hunt AND the loud yam's ruthless deportations) and Red Wolf's mission to oust his tribe's oppressors (reminiscent again of real life developer tactics & the #noDAPL movement), Stan Lee and Roy Thomas are not remotely in the area of messing around. These are the Avengers I would love to love, who stand up for minorities and the disenfranchised. They fight the the upper class and even the government itself. This was a good read for this time and place.

However, being a product of its time also includes a hefty amount of unacceptable racism, misogyny, and homophobia. Clint Barton's nicknames sometimes reveled in homoerotic subtext, but more times reveled in blatant sexism towards his female colleagues and racism towards T'Challa. Clint also had a weird moment of homophobia where he thought Thor was coming on to him because Thor sAVED HIM FROM DYING. Thankfully, Thor was as weirded out as me. The Lady Liberators storyline had all the female superheroes suddenly turning into radical feminists who wanted to kill all men. It was dealt with very poorly, not to mention cringe-worthy and cliche.

These bad moments were thankfully outweighed by the good ones, and I came off happier to have read it. My current favorite Avenger, Dane Whitman, aka the Black Knight, also featured in stories about Kang the Conquerer and the second battle with Arkon, where he had smexy smooch times with the Enchantress Amora. There's also a heaping of parallel, primordial, & pipsqueak world shenanigans and the Kree vs Skrull War. Overall, ESSENTIAL AVENGERS, VOL 4 seemed a solid installment in Avengers lore and good for any and all fans.

Book 3 is a beautiful, fantastic end to a beautiful, fantastic series. Literally everything I wanted to happen, happened. The art continued to be gorgeous. All the characters received the ends they earned. I'm just--this might be one of my favorite Marvel comic book series ever. That's how good it is, guys.

When My Lesbian Experience With Loneliness first came out, multiple friends recommended it to me because of the sections that deal with learning about sex through yaoi manga. I have read zero yaoi manga, but I have read and written a large amount of m/m fanfiction about other media (BBC Sherlock, Star Trek, and Marvel *cough* *cough*). Gay, bi, and queerplatonic romances between men were a stepping stone for me. The problems in that are a kettle of fish for another time, but they did draw me to this book and caused me to pick it up from the library.

What I found when I actually read My Lesbian Experience with Loneliness is not just a dissertation on why getting sex ed from m/m romance comics causes problems. It is that and a lot more. The "plot" of the memoir is simple: Kabi hires a full service sex worker for the afternoon as a step to becoming a more emotionally well adult. What led up to this encounter and the fallout add depth and context. Reminiscent of Alison Bechdel's Are You My Mother? and Fun Home, Nagata Kabi recounts her psychological struggles and grapples with their consequences.

Kabi's raw, honest look at herself is startling to witness. How her mental health affects her appearance, job prospects, and creative output feel all too real to me. Her earnest decisions to learn and do better: I make those too. I think my only complaint is it's quite short. I wanted to dwell certain places longer and dig more into the day-to-day reality of consciously changing behavior.

The intimacy of the subject, Kabi's earnest truthfulness, and the airy, whimsical art style all work to make the reader feel like Kabi's friend and wish her well. I'm definitely looking forward to the next volume. I heartily recommend this one to all the women who love women out there who have ever doubted themselves. We'll get through this.

I read MOON GIRL & DEVIL DINOSAUR out of order on accident, and even now having read Volume 1, I still got squicked out and couldn't give it 5 stars.

For those unfamiliar with my review of Volume 2, I was squicked by how young Lunella was. She's a 9 year old fighting crime, and the authors' accommodations for this (super strong buddy, patrolling only one street, the fact that's she's the smartest person in Marvel etc) didn't quite cut it for me. And Volume 1 didn't make these worries go away. We did get to hear more from her parents and see how oblivious they are to Lunella's smarts, but the fact that several prestigious school rejected Lunella seems ridiculous. I guess that's in-universe racism? Maybe? It's never confirmed and seems like a deux ex machina. There's also no clear reasoning Lunella starts fighting crime outside of dealing with dino shenanigans.

But maybe I'm not suspending my disbelief enough. I LOVE the concept of a black girl being the smartest person in the universe, and Lunella's smack downs of Amadeus Cho are priceless. I like how aware the comic is like how it compares Devil Dinosaur to Clifford the Big Red Dog. I love the playful art, the bright colors, the sense of constant movement. I feel for Lunella's struggle towards recognition and control of her own body.

So. Where does that leave me? I'll continue to read the series and support it on social media. I think an actual 9 year old would get a kick out of Lunella's story.

I picked up a copy of GUARDIANS OF THE GALAXY, VOL 1: COSMIC AVENGERS because this is the series I'm told leads to Angela, my precious space lesbian queen. What I got can be summed up in Rocket's repeated line of "Blam! Murdered you!"

While nothing super spectacular happened, reading GUARDIANS was a grand space romp and rollick. Lots of explosions, political intrigue, co-captains of the friendship ship, and badassery. Surprising exactly no one I'm sure, Meredith Quill (Peter Quill's mama, who reminds me of Star Trek TOS's Amanda in a less kind universe), Gamora, & Groot were my favorites, though Tony Stark & Rocket illicit cheers of delight too. Freja also makes an appearance, which tickled me pink all around.

Overall, I liked the series certainly, but I hope the liking continues to the next volume. Read this if you want a straight up superhero space adventure.

When I saw this book in the library, I was so, so excited. In DEATH: THE TIME OF YOUR LIFE not only do we have the Endless Death and Gaiman's unifying universe, but also we revisit the lesbian couple from A GAME OF YOU. It's been a couple years too, so we get to see them with their baby. And lemme tell you, reader, I was not disappointed on the whole.

The plot twisted; the plot turned. Characters of color and of different faiths were present and pretty awesome. The darkly whimsical art perfumed the reading with dreaming, even if dreams were not the focus of the book. Hazel's character deepened and I felt #blessed. My head spun afterwards, which is what it usually does after any SANDMAN comic, so you know this one is legit.

On a more literary level, Gaiman set up a lot of wonderful dichotomies with his use of setting (which impressed me even more because the page count is rather small). These dichotomies neatly intersected the characters' arcs: you have the the NYC queer punk scene fighting the burgeoning colossus that is the mainstream music culture; poor sectors of New York City versus Beverly Hills; images of life viewed from the distance of Death's realm's outskirts. I'm sure someone's written an essay on this somewhere, and if they haven't, here's a good topic for your English paper, buddy.

My one critique was with the ending. I don't want to spoil it, so [SPOILER WARNING for the rest of this paragraph]. In a A GAME OF YOU, the lone character of color, a black woman, and a white trans woman, who is one of the few trans women in the entire DC universe, are killed. This is super disappointing. I mean, the Cuckoo, the Big Bad of the story, gets to live, but the minorities don't? Plus, they die while protecting Barbie, a white straight woman. Barbie does deserve saving, but there's an uncomfortable harking back to antebellum USA South for me when a black character dies to save a nice white character. It's a subject best voiced by an actual person of color, so I'll stop there. In DEATH: THE TIME OF YOUR LIFE, this disappointing pattern continues, when a black man sacrifices his life to save that of Alvie and this two white mothers. Alvie's racial heritage is ambiguous: Hazel is his biological mother and his father, unknown. Alvie's drawn a shade of brown, so perhaps there's some subtext of "oh but the black man lives on in the next generation," but not much. I'm still uncomfortable. It's a good thing Hazel and Foxglove know how lucky they are. [END SPOILERS]

So yeah. A brilliant, fantastic read marred by Gaiman's choice of sacrificial lamb. Read, read, read and fall in love with all the other bits.

When I saw a copy of MOON GIRL AND DEVIL DINOSAUR in my local library's comic book section, I snatched it up so fast I didn't realize it was volume 2 instead of volume 1. I read vol 2 anyway, since I had it, but this out of order reading might have affected my rating. Going in, I really wanted to give all the MOON GIRL comics 5 stars. The importance of having a black girl as the smartest person in the Marvel Universe is so great that I want to promote it as much as I can. But then my own preferences got in the way, or maybe my age, or SOMETHING because...

Lunella is painfully, /PAINFULLY/ nine years old. And it's...a little heartbreaking, honestly.

Now, as an adult, I already have qualms about Marvel having 13 or under protags because that age crosses the line between "young adult warrior" and "child soldier" for me. The writers, Amy Reeder and Brandon Montclare, work hard to settle this nausea: Lunella is literally the smartest person on Earth; she has an older, more powerful companion in Devil Dinosaur; her enemies are either the same age or limited to the common day crooks of Yancy Street; Ms. Marvel (aka Kamala Khan aka one of my fav superbabes) gives Lunella a communicator so she can call for help.

These efforts go a long way to calm my stomach. In addition, the art is colorfully splendid, the storyline is well-paced, the action is silly and wonderful, the cameos make my heart flutter, and the humor is great. The pull-quote says it's an all-ages comic and they're not wrong. I think a third grader could probably read this and enjoy it.

But--here's my big but--while Lunella's intellect is off the charts, her emotional intelligence is so lacking that it set off all my alarm bells and parental instincts. She covers up her fright with arrogance, her vulnerability with an insistence on self-reliance, her self-doubt with correct test answers; her identity crisis with this weird fantasy that she has to be a superhero and fill all the tropes that comes with that (secret identity, solo fights, nemesis etc). She fights crime, when really, I think she just needs to show her parents her genius, talk to Ms. Marvel &, through her, Tony Stark about an accelerated program of study, and then go home and have milk & cookies in her lab. Basically, why, when Lunella starts getting bored in science class and figures out she's Inhuman, was her first reaction "oh, I must be a superhero now"?

Maybe the reason is in volume 1, and I hope to God that it's a good one, because this story is literally putting a nine year old in the line of fire. Setting all that aside though, it's a really good comic and worth a read.